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diff --git a/old/pmgm310.txt b/old/pmgm310.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b7bd1b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pmgm310.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8310 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext of Poems, by George Meredith, Volume 3 +#5 in our series by George Meredith + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Poems by George Meredith--Volume 3 + + + + +A STAVE OF ROVING TIM +(ADDRESSED TO CERTAIN FRIENDLY TRAMPS.) + + + +I + +The wind is East, the wind is West, +Blows in and out of haven; +The wind that blows is the wind that's best, +And croak, my jolly raven! +If here awhile we jigged and laughed, +The like we will do yonder; +For he's the man who masters a craft, +And light as a lord can wander. +So, foot the measure, Roving Tim, +And croak, my jolly raven! +The wind according to its whim +Is in and out of haven. + +II + +You live in rows of snug abodes, +With gold, maybe, for counting; +And mine's the beck of the rainy roads +Against the sun a-mounting. +I take the day as it behaves, +Nor shiver when 'tis airy; +But comes a breeze, all you are on waves, +Sick chickens o' Mother Carey! +So, now for next, cries Roving Tim, +And croak, my jolly raven! +The wind according to its whim +Is in and out of haven. + +III + +Sweet lass, you screw a lovely leer, +To make a man consider. +If you were up with the auctioneer, +I'd be a handsome bidder. +But wedlock clips the rover's wing; +She tricks him fly to spider; +And when we get to fights in the Ring, +It's trumps when you play outsider. +So, wrench and split, cries Roving Tim, +And croak, my jolly raven! +The wind according to its whim +Is in and out of haven. + +IV + +Along my winding way I know +A shady dell that's winking; +The very corner for Self and Co +To do a world of thinking. +And shall I this? and shall I that? +Till Nature answers, ne'ther! +Strike match and light your pipe in your hat, +Rejoicing in sound shoe-leather! +So lead along, cries Roving Tim, +And croak, my jolly raven! +The wind according to its whim +Is in and out of haven. + +V + +A cunning hand 'll hand you bread, +With freedom for your capers. +I'm not so sure of a cunning head; +It steers to pits or vapours. +But as for Life, we'll bear in sight +The lesson Nature teaches; +Regard it in a sailoring light, +And treat it like thirsty leeches. +So, fly your jib, cries Roving Tim, +And top your boom, old raven! +The wind according to its whim +Is in and out of haven. + +VI + +She'll take, to please her dame and dad, +The shopman nicely shaven. +She'll learn to think o' the marching lad +When perchers show they're craven. +You say the shopman piles a heap, +While I perhaps am fasting; +And bless your wits, it haunts him in sleep, +His tin-kettle chance of lasting! +So hail the road, cries Roving Tim, +And hail the rain, old raven! +The wind according to its whim +Is in and out of haven. + +VII + +He's half a wife, yon pecker bill; +A book and likewise preacher. +With any soul, in a game of skill, +He'll prove your over-reacher. +The reason is, his brains are bent +On doing things right single. +You'd wish for them when pitching your tent +At night in a whirly dingle! +So, off we go, cries Roving Tim, +And on we go, old raven! +The wind according to its whim +Is in and out of haven. + +VIII + +Lord, no, man's lot is not for bliss; +To call it woe is blindness: +It'll here a kick, and it's there a kiss, +And here and there a kindness. +He starts a hare and calls her joy; +He runs her down to sorrow: +The dogs within him bother the boy, +But 'tis a new day to-morrow. +So, I at helm, cries Roving Tim, +And you at bow, old raven! +The wind according to its whim +Is in and out of haven. + + + +JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE + + + +I + +A revelation came on Jane, +The widow of a labouring swain: +And first her body trembled sharp, +Then all the woman was a harp +With winds along the strings; she heard, +Though there was neither tone nor word. + +II + +For past our hearing was the air, +Beyond our speaking what it bare, +And she within herself had sight +Of heaven at work to cleanse outright, +To make of her a mansion fit +For angel hosts inside to sit. + +III + +They entered, and forthwith entranced, +Her body braced, her members danced; +Surprisingly the woman leapt; +And countenance composed she kept: +As gossip neighbours in the lane +Declared, who saw and pitied Jane. + +IV + +These knew she had been reading books, +The which was witnessed by her looks +Of late: she had a mania +For mad folk in America, +And said for sure they led the way, +But meat and beer were meant to stay. + +V + +That she had visited a fair, +Had seen a gauzy lady there, +Alive with tricks on legs alone, +As good as wings, was also known: +And longwhiles in a sullen mood, +Before her jumping, Jane would brood. + +VI + +A good knee's height, they say, she sprang; +Her arms and feet like those who hang: +As if afire the body sped, +And neither pair contributed. +She jumped in silence: she was thought +A corpse to resurrection caught. + +VII + +The villagers were mostly dazed; +They jeered, they wondered, and they praised. +'Twas guessed by some she was inspired, +And some would have it she had hired +An engine in her petticoats, +To turn their wits and win their votes. + +VIII + +Her first was Winny Earnes, a kind +Of woman not to dance inclined; +But she went up, entirely won, +Ere Jump-to-glory Jane had done; +And once a vixen wild for speech, +She found the better way to preach. + +IX + +No long time after, Jane was seen +Directing jumps at Daddy Green; +And that old man, to watch her fly, +Had eyebrows made of arches high; +Till homeward he likewise did hop, +Oft calling on himself to stop! + +X + +It was a scene when man and maid, +Abandoning all other trade, +And careless of the call to meals, +Went jumping at the woman's heels. +By dozens they were counted soon, +Without a sound to tell their tune. + +XI + +Along the roads they came, and crossed +The fields, and o'er the hills were lost, +And in the evening reappeared; +Then short like hobbled horses reared, +And down upon the grass they plumped: +Alone their Jane to glory jumped. + +XII + +At morn they rose, to see her spring +All going as an engine thing; +And lighter than the gossamer +She led the bobbers following her, +Past old acquaintances, and where +They made the stranger stupid stare. + +XIII + +When turnips were a filling crop, +In scorn they jumped a butcher's shop: +Or, spite of threats to flog and souse, +They jumped for shame a public-house: +And much their legs were seized with rage +If passing by the vicarage. + +XIV + +The tightness of a hempen rope +Their bodies got; but laundry soap +Not handsomer can rub the skin +For token of the washed within. +Occasionally coughers cast +A leg aloft and coughed their last. + +XV + +The weaker maids and some old men, +Requiring rafters for the pen +On rainy nights, were those who fell. +The rest were quite a miracle, +Refreshed as you may search all round +On Club-feast days and cry, Not found! + +XVI + +For these poor innocents, that slept +Against the sky, soft women wept: +For never did they any theft; +'Twas known when they their camping left, +And jumped the cold out of their rags; +In spirit rich as money-bags. + +XVII + +They jumped the question, jumped reply; +And whether to insist, deny, +Reprove, persuade, they jumped in ranks +Or singly, straight the arms to flanks, +And straight the legs, with just a knee +For bending in a mild degree. + +XVIII + +The villagers might call them mad; +An endless holiday they had, +Of pleasure in a serious work: +They taught by leaps where perils lurk, +And with the lambkins practised sports +For 'scaping Satan's pounds and quarts. + +XIX + +It really seemed on certain days, +When they bobbed up their Lord to praise, +And bobbing up they caught the glance +Of light, our secret is to dance, +And hold the tongue from hindering peace; +To dance out preacher and police. + +XX + +Those flies of boys disturbed them sore +On Sundays and when daylight wore: +With withies cut from hedge or copse, +They treated them as whipping-tops, +And flung big stones with cruel aim; +Yet all the flock jumped on the same. + +XXI + +For what could persecution do +To worry such a blessed crew, +On whom it was as wind to fire, +Which set them always jumping higher? +The parson and the lawyer tried, +By meek persistency defied. + +XXII + +But if they bore, they could pursue +As well, and this the Bishop too; +When inner warnings proved him plain +The chase for Jump-to-glory Jane. +She knew it by his being sent +To bless the feasting in the tent. + +XXIII + +Not less than fifty years on end, +The Squire had been the Bishop's friend: +And his poor tenants, harmless ones, +With souls to save! fed not on buns, +But angry meats: she took her place +Outside to show the way to grace. + +XXIV + +In apron suit the Bishop stood; +The crowding people kindly viewed. +A gaunt grey woman he saw rise +On air, with most beseeching eyes: +And evident as light in dark +It was, she set to him for mark. + +XXV + +Her highest leap had come: with ease +She jumped to reach the Bishop's knees: +Compressing tight her arms and lips, +She sought to jump the Bishop's hips: +Her aim flew at his apron-band, +That he might see and understand. + +XXVI + +The mild inquiry of his gaze +Was altered to a peaked amaze, +At sight of thirty in ascent, +To gain his notice clearly bent: +And greatly Jane at heart was vexed +By his ploughed look of mind perplexed. + +XXVII + +In jumps that said, Beware the pit! +More eloquent than speaking it - +That said, Avoid the boiled, the roast; +The heated nose on face of ghost, +Which comes of drinking: up and o'er +The flesh with me! did Jane implore. + +XXVIII + +She jumped him high as huntsmen go +Across the gate; she jumped him low, +To coax him to begin and feel +His infant steps returning, peel +His mortal pride, exposing fruit, +And off with hat and apron suit. + +XXIX + +We need much patience, well she knew, +And out and out, and through and through, +When we would gentlefolk address, +However we may seek to bless: +At times they hide them like the beasts +From sacred beams; and mostly priests. + +XXX + +He gave no sign of making bare, +Nor she of faintness or despair. +Inflamed with hope that she might win, +If she but coaxed him to begin, +She used all arts for making fain; +The mother with her babe was Jane. + +XXXI + +Now stamped the Squire, and knowing not +Her business, waved her from the spot. +Encircled by the men of might, +The head of Jane, like flickering light, +As in a charger, they beheld +Ere she was from the park expelled. + +XXXII + +Her grief, in jumps of earthly weight, +Did Jane around communicate: +For that the moment when began +The holy but mistaken man, +In view of light, to take his lift, +They cut him from her charm adrift! + +XXXIII + +And he was lost: a banished face +For ever from the ways of grace, +Unless pinched hard by dreams in fright. +They saw the Bishop's wavering sprite +Within her look, at come and go, +Long after he had caused her woe. + +XXXIV + +Her greying eyes (until she sank +At Fredsham on the wayside bank, +Like cinder heaps that whitened lie +From coals that shot the flame to sky) +Had glassy vacancies, which yearned +For one in memory discerned. + +XXXV + +May those who ply the tongue that cheats, +And those who rush to beer and meats, +And those whose mean ambition aims +At palaces and titled names, +Depart in such a cheerful strain +As did our Jump-to-glory Jane! + +XXXVI + +Her end was beautiful: one sigh. +She jumped a foot when it was nigh. +A lily in a linen clout +She looked when they had laid her out. +It is a lily-light she bears +For England up the ladder-stairs. + + + +THE RIDDLE FOR MEN + + + +I + +This Riddle rede or die, +Says History since our Flood, +To warn her sons of power:- +It can be truth, it can be lie; +Be parasite to twist awry; +The drouthy vampire for your blood; +The fountain of the silver flower; +A brand, a lure, a web, a crest; +Supple of wax or tempered steel; +The spur to honour, snake in nest: +'Tis as you will with it to deal; +To wear upon the breast, +Or trample under heel. + +II + +And rede you not aright, +Says Nature, still in red +Shall History's tale be writ! +For solely thus you lead to light +The trailing chapters she must write, +And pass my fiery test of dead +Or living through the furnace-pit: +Dislinked from who the softer hold +In grip of brute, and brute remain: +Of whom the woeful tale is told, +How for one short Sultanic reign, +Their bodies lapse to mould, +Their souls behowl the plain. + + + +THE SAGE ENAMOURED AND THE HONEST LADY + + + +I + +One fairest of the ripe unwedded left +Her shadow on the Sage's path; he found, +By common signs, that she had done a theft. +He could have made the sovereign heights resound +With questions of the wherefore of her state: +He on far other but an hour before +Intent. And was it man, or was it mate, +That she disdained? or was there haply more? + +About her mouth a placid humour slipped +The dimple, as you see smooth lakes at eve +Spread melting rings where late a swallow dipped. +The surface was attentive to receive, +The secret underneath enfolded fast. +She had the step of the unconquered, brave, +Not arrogant; and if the vessel's mast +Waved liberty, no challenge did it wave. +Her eyes were the sweet world desired of souls, +With something of a wavering line unspelt. +They hold the look whose tenderness condoles +For what the sister in the look has dealt +Of fatal beyond healing; and her tones +A woman's honeyed amorous outvied, +As when in a dropped viol the wood-throb moans +Among the sobbing strings, that plain and chide +Like infants for themselves, less deep to thrill +Than those rich mother-notes for them breathed round. +Those voices are not magic of the will +To strike love's wound, but of love's wound give sound, +Conveying it; the yearnings, pains and dreams. +They waft to the moist tropics after storm, +When out of passion spent thick incense steams, +And jewel-belted clouds the wreck transform. + +Was never hand on brush or lyre to paint +Her gracious manners, where the nuptial ring +Of melody clasped motion in restraint: +The reed-blade with the breeze thereof may sing. +With such endowments armed was she and decked +To make her spoken thoughts eclipse her kind; +Surpassing many a giant intellect, +The marvel of that cradled infant mind. +It clenched the tiny fist, it curled the toe; +Cherubic laughed, enticed, dispensed, absorbed; +And promised in fair feminine to grow +A Sage's match and mate, more heavenly orbed. + +II + +Across his path the spouseless Lady cast +Her shadow, and the man that thing became. +His youth uprising called his age the Past. +This was the strong grey head of laurelled name, +And in his bosom an inverted Sage +Mistook for light of morn the light which sank. +But who while veins run blood shall know the page +Succeeding ere we turn upon our blank? +Comes Beauty with her tale of moon and cloud, +Her silvered rims of mystery pointing in +To hollows of the half-veiled unavowed, +Where beats her secret life, grey heads will spin +Quick as the young, and spell those hieroglyphs +Of phosphorescent dusk, devoutly bent; +They drink a cup to whirl on dizzier cliffs +For their shamed fall, which asks, why was she sent! +Why, and of whom, and whence; and tell they truth, +The legends of her mission to beguile? + +Hard likeness to the toilful apes of youth +He bore at times, and tempted the sly smile; +And not on her soft lips was it descried. +She stepped her way benevolently grave: +Nor sign that Beauty fed her worm of pride, +By tossing victim to the courtier knave, +Let peep, nor of the naughty pride gave sign. +Rather 'twas humbleness in being pursued, +As pilgrim to the temple of a shrine. +Had he not wits to pierce the mask he wooed? +All wisdom's armoury this man could wield; +And if the cynic in the Sage it pleased +Traverse her woman's curtain and poor shield, +For new example of a world diseased; +Showing her shrineless, not a temple, bare; +A curtain ripped to tatters by the blast; +Yet she most surely to this man stood fair: +He worshipped like the young enthusiast, +Named simpleton or poet. Did he read +Right through, and with the voice she held reserved +Amid her vacant ruins jointly plead? + +Compassion for the man thus noble nerved +The pity for herself she felt in him, +To wreak a deed of sacrifice, and save; +At least, be worthy. That our soul may swim, +We sink our heart down bubbling under wave. +It bubbles till it drops among the wrecks. +But, ah! confession of a woman's breast: +She eminent, she honoured of her sex! +Truth speaks, and takes the spots of the confessed, +To veil them. None of women, save their vile, +Plays traitor to an army in the field. +The cries most vindicating most defile. +How shall a cause to Nature be appealed, +When, under pressure of their common foe, +Her sisters shun the Mother and disown, +On pain of his intolerable crow +Above the fiction, built for him, o'erthrown? +Irrational he is, irrational +Must they be, though not Reason's light shall wane +In them with ever Nature at close call, +Behind the fiction torturing to sustain; +Who hear her in the milk, and sometimes make +A tongueless answer, shivered on a sigh: +Whereat men dread their lofty structure's quake +Once more, and in their hosts for tocsin ply +The crazy roar of peril, leonine +For injured majesty. That sigh of dames +Is rare and soon suppressed. Not they combine +To shake the structure sheltering them, which tames +Their lustier if not wilder: fixed are they, +In elegancy scarce denoting ease; +And do they breathe, it is not to betray +The martyr in the caryatides. +Yet here and there along the graceful row +Is one who fetches breath from deeps, who deems, +Moved by a desperate craving, their old foe +May yield a trustier friend than woman seems, +And aid to bear the sculptured floral weight +Massed upon heads not utterly of stone: +May stamp endurance by expounding fate. +She turned to him, and, This you seek is gone; +Look in, she said, as pants the furnace, brief, +Frost-white. She gave his hearing sight to view +The silent chamber of a brown curled leaf: +Thing that had throbbed ere shot black lightning through. +No further sign of heart could he discern: +The picture of her speech was winter sky; +A headless figure folding a cleft urn, +Where tears once at the overflow were dry. + +III + +So spake she her first utterance on the rack. +It softened torment, in the funeral hues +Round wan Romance at ebb, but drove her back +To listen to herself, herself accuse +Harshly as Love's imperial cause allowed. +She meant to grovel, and her lover praised +So high o'er the condemnatory crowd, +That she perforce a fellow phoenix blazed. + +The picture was of hand fast joined to hand, +Both pushed from angry skies, their grasp more pledged +Under the threatened flash of a bright brand +At arm's length up, for severing action edged. +Why, then Love's Court of Honour contemplate; +And two drowned shorecasts, who, for the life esteemed +Above their lost, invoke an advocate +In Passion's purity, thereby redeemed. + +Redeemed, uplifted, glimmering on a throne, +The woman stricken by an arrow falls. +His advocate she can be, not her own, +If, Traitress to thy sex! one sister calls. +Have we such scenes of drapery's mournfulness +On Beauty's revelations, witched we plant, +Over the fair shape humbled to confess, +An angel's buckler, with loud choiric chant. + +IV + +No knightly sword to serve, nor harp of bard, +The lady's hand in her physician's knew. +She had not hoped for them as her award, +When zig-zag on the tongue electric flew +Her charge of counter-motives, none impure: +But muteness whipped her skin. She could have said, +Her free confession was to work his cure, +Show proofs for why she could not love or wed. +Were they not shown? His muteness shook in thrall +Her body on the verge of that black pit +Sheer from the treacherous confessional, +Demanding further, while perusing it. + +Slave is the open mouth beneath the closed. +She sank; she snatched at colours; they were peel +Of fruit past savour, in derision rosed. +For the dark downward then her soul did reel. +A press of hideous impulse urged to speak: +A novel dread of man enchained her dumb. +She felt the silence thicken, heard it shriek, +Heard Life subsiding on the eternal hum: +Welcome to women, when, between man's laws +And Nature's thirsts, they, soul from body torn, +Give suck at breast to a celestial cause, +Named by the mouth infernal, and forsworn. +Nathless her forehead twitched a sad content, +To think the cure so manifest, so frail +Her charm remaining. Was the curtain's rent +Too wide? he but a man of that herd male? +She saw him as that herd of the forked head +Butting the woman harrowed on her knees, +Clothed only in life's last devouring red. +Confession at her fearful instant sees +Judicial Silence write the devil fact +In letters of the skeleton: at once, +Swayed on the supplication of her act, +The rabble reading, roaring to denounce, +She joins. No longer colouring, with skips +At tangles, picture that for eyes in tears +Might swim the sequence, she addressed her lips +To do the scaffold's office at his ears. + +Into the bitter judgement of that herd +On women, she, deeming it present, fell. +Her frenzy of abasement hugged the word +They stone with, and so pile their citadel +To launch at outcasts the foul levin bolt. +As had he flung it, in her breast it burned. +Face and reflect it did her hot revolt +From hardness, to the writhing rebel turned; +Because the golden buckler was withheld, +She to herself applies the powder-spark, +For joy of one wild demon burst ere quelled, +Perishing to astound the tyrant Dark. + +She had the Scriptural word so scored on brain, +It rang through air to sky, and rocked a world +That danced down shades the scarlet dance profane; +Most women! see! by the man's view dustward hurled, +Impenitent, submissive, torn in two. +They sink upon their nature, the unnamed, +And sops of nourishment may get some few, +In place of understanding, scourged and shamed. + +Barely have seasoned women understood +The great Irrational, who thunders power, +Drives Nature to her primitive wild wood, +And courts her in the covert's dewy hour; +Returning to his fortress nigh night's end, +With execration of her daughters' lures. +They help him the proud fortress to defend, +Nor see what front it wears, what life immures, +The murder it commits; nor that its base +Is shifty as a huckster's opening deal +For bargain under smoothest market face, +While Gentleness bids frigid Justice feel, +Justice protests that Reason is her seat; +Elect Convenience, as Reason masked, +Hears calmly cramped Humanity entreat; +Until a sentient world is overtasked, +And rouses Reason's fountain-self: she calls +On Nature; Nature answers: Share your guilt +In common when contention cracks the walls +Of the big house which not on me is built. + +The Lady said as much as breath will bear; +To happier sisters inconceivable: +Contemptible to veterans of the fair, +Who show for a convolving pearly shell, +A treasure of the shore, their written book. +As much as woman's breath will bear and live +Shaped she to words beneath a knotted look, +That held as if for grain the summing sieve. +Her judge now brightened without pause, as wakes +Our homely daylight after dread of spells. +Lips sugared to let loose the little snakes +Of slimy lustres ringing elfin bells +About a story of the naked flesh, +Intending but to put some garment on, +Should learn, that in the subject they enmesh, +A traitor lurks and will be known anon. +Delusion heating pricks the torpid doubt, +Stationed for index down an ancient track: +And ware of it was he while she poured out +A broken moon on forest-waters black. + +Though past the stage where midway men are skilled +To scan their senses wriggling under plough, +When yet to the charmed seed of speech distilled, +Their hearts are fallow, he, and witless how, +Loathing, had yielded, like bruised limb to leech, +Not handsomely; but now beholding bleed +Soul of the woman in her prostrate speech, +The valour of that rawness he could read. +Thence flashed it, as the crimson currents ran +From senses up to thoughts, how she had read +Maternally the warm remainder man +Beneath his crust, and Nature's pity shed, +In shedding dearer than heart's blood to light +His vision of the path mild Wisdom walks. +Therewith he could espy Confession's fright; +Her need of him: these flowers grow on stalks; +They suck from soil, and have their urgencies +Beside and with the lovely face mid leaves. +Veins of divergencies, convergencies, +Our botanist in womankind perceives; +And if he hugs no wound, the man can prize +That splendid consummation and sure proof +Of more than heart in her, who might despise, +Who drowns herself, for pity up aloof +To soar and be like Nature's pity: she +Instinctive of what virtue in young days +Had served him for his pilot-star on sea, +To trouble him in haven. Thus his gaze +Came out of rust, and more than the schooled tongue +Was gifted to encourage and assure. +He gave her of the deep well she had sprung; +And name it gratitude, the word is poor. +But name it gratitude, is aught as rare +From sex to sex? And let it have survived +Their conflict, comes the peace between the pair, +Unknown to thousands husbanded and wived: +Unknown to Passion, generous for prey: +Unknown to Love, too blissful in a truce. +Their tenderest of self did each one slay; +His cloak of dignity, her fleur de luce; +Her lily flower, and his abolla cloak, +Things living, slew they, and no artery bled. +A moment of some sacrificial smoke +They passed, and were the dearer for their dead. + +He learnt how much we gain who make no claims. +A nightcap on his flicker of grey fire +Was thought of her sharp shudder in the flames, +Confessing; and its conjured image dire, +Of love, the torrent on the valley dashed; +The whirlwind swathing tremulous peaks; young force, +Visioned to hold corrected and abashed +Our senile emulous; which rolls its course +Proud to the shattering end; with these few last +Hot quintessential drops of bryony juice, +Squeezed out in anguish: all of that once vast! +And still, though having skin for man's abuse, +Though no more glorying in the beauteous wreath +Shot skyward from a blood at passionate jet, +Repenting but in words, that stand as teeth +Between the vivid lips; a vassal set; +And numb, of formal value. Are we true +In nature, never natural thing repents; +Albeit receiving punishment for due, +Among the group of this world's penitents; +Albeit remorsefully regretting, oft +Cravenly, while the scourge no shudder spares. + +Our world believes it stabler if the soft +Are whipped to show the face repentance wears. +Then hear it, in a moan of atheist gloom, +Deplore the weedy growth of hypocrites; +Count Nature devilish, and accept for doom +The chasm between our passions and our wits! + +Affecting lunar whiteness, patent snows, +It trembles at betrayal of a sore. +Hers is the glacier-conscience, to expose +Impurities for clearness at the core. + +She to her hungered thundering in breast, +YE SHALL NOT STARVE, not feebly designates +The world repressing as a life repressed, +Judged by the wasted martyrs it creates. +How Sin, amid the shades Cimmerian, +Repents, she points for sight: and she avers, +The hoofed half-angel in the Puritan +Nigh reads her when no brutish wrath deters. + +Sin against immaturity, the sin +Of ravenous excess, what deed divides +Man from vitality; these bleed within; +Bleed in the crippled relic that abides. +Perpetually they bleed; a limb is lost, +A piece of life, the very spirit maimed. +But culprit who the law of man has crossed +With Nature's dubiously within is blamed; +Despite our cry at cutting of the whip, +Our shiver in the night when numbers frown, +We but bewail a broken fellowship, +A sting, an isolation, a fall'n crown. + +Abject of sinners is that sensitive, +The flesh, amenable to stripes, miscalled +Incorrigible: such title do we give +To the poor shrinking stuff wherewith we are walled; +And, taking it for Nature, place in ban +Our Mother, as a Power wanton-willed, +The shame and baffler of the soul of man, +The recreant, reptilious. Do thou build +Thy mind on her foundations in earth's bed; +Behold man's mind the child of her keen rod, +For teaching how the wits and passions wed +To rear that temple of the credible God; +Sacred the letters of her laws, and plain, +Will shine, to guide thy feet and hold thee firm: +Then, as a pathway through a field of grain, +Man's laws appear the blind progressive worm, +That moves by touch, and thrust of linking rings +The which to endow with vision, lift from mud +To level of their nature's aims and springs, +Must those, the twain beside our vital flood, +Now on opposing banks, the twain at strife +(Whom the so rosy ferryman invites +To junction, and mid-channel over Life, +Unmasked to the ghostly, much asunder smites) +Instruct in deeper than Convenience, +In higher than the harvest of a year. +Only the rooted knowledge to high sense +Of heavenly can mount, and feel the spur +For fruitfullest advancement, eye a mark +Beyond the path with grain on either hand, +Help to the steering of our social Ark +Over the barbarous waters unto land. + +For us the double conscience and its war, +The serving of two masters, false to both, +Until those twain, who spring the root and are +The knowledge in division, plight a troth +Of equal hands: nor longer circulate +A pious token for their current coin, +To growl at the exchange; they, mate and mate, +Fair feminine and masculine shall join +Upon an upper plane, still common mould, +Where stamped religion and reflective pace +A statelier measure, and the hoop of gold +Rounds to horizon for their soul's embrace. +Then shall those noblest of the earth and sun +Inmix unlike to waves on savage sea. +But not till Nature's laws and man's are one, +Can marriage of the man and woman be. + +V + +He passed her through the sermon's dull defile. +Down under billowy vapour-gorges heaved +The city and the vale and mountain-pile. +She felt strange push of shuttle-threads that weaved. + +A new land in an old beneath her lay; +And forth to meet it did her spirit rush, +As bride who without shame has come to say, +Husband, in his dear face that caused her blush. + +A natural woman's heart, not more than clad +By station and bright raiment, gathers heat +From nakedness in trusted hands: she had +The joy of those who feel the world's heart beat, +After long doubt of it as fire or ice; +Because one man had helped her to breathe free; +Surprised to faith in something of a price +Past the old charity in chivalry:- +Our first wild step to right the loaded scales +Displaying women shamefully outweighed. +The wisdom of humaneness best avails +For serving justice till that fraud is brayed. +Her buried body fed the life she drank. +And not another stripping of her wound! +The startled thought on black delirium sank, +While with her gentle surgeon she communed, +And woman's prospect of the yoke repelled. +Her buried body gave her flowers and food; +The peace, the homely skies, the springs that welled; +Love, the large love that folds the multitude. +Soul's chastity in honesty, and this +With beauty, made the dower to men refused. +And little do they know the prize they miss; +Which is their happy fortune! Thus he mused + +For him, the cynic in the Sage had play +A hazy moment, by a breath dispersed; +To think, of all alive most wedded they, +Whom time disjoined! He needed her quick thirst +For renovated earth: on earth she gazed, +With humble aim to foot beside the wise. +Lo, where the eyelashes of night are raised +Yet lowly over morning's pure grey eyes. + + + +'LOVE IS WINGED FOR TWO' + + + +Love is winged for two, +In the worst he weathers, +When their hearts are tied; +But if they divide, +O too true! +Cracks a globe, and feathers, feathers, +Feathers all the ground bestrew. + +I was breast of morning sea, +Rosy plume on forest dun, +I the laugh in rainy fleeces, +While with me +She made one. +Now must we pick up our pieces, +For that then so winged were we. + + + +'ASK, IS LOVE DIVINE' + + + +Ask, is Love divine, +Voices all are, ay. +Question for the sign, +There's a common sigh. +Would we, through our years, +Love forego, +Quit of scars and tears? +Ah, but no, no, no! + + + +'JOY IS FLEET' + + + +Joy is fleet, +Sorrow slow. +Love, so sweet, +Sorrow will sow. +Love, that has flown +Ere day's decline, +Love to have known, +Sorrow, be mine! + + + +THE LESSON OF GRIEF + + + +Not ere the bitter herb we taste, +Which ages thought of happy times, +To plant us in a weeping waste, +Rings with our fellows this one heart +Accordant chimes. + +When I had shed my glad year's leaf, +I did believe I stood alone, +Till that great company of Grief +Taught me to know this craving heart +For not my own. + + + +WIND ON THE LYRE + + + +That was the chirp of Ariel +You heard, as overhead it flew, +The farther going more to dwell, +And wing our green to wed our blue; +But whether note of joy or knell, +Not his own Father-singer knew; +Nor yet can any mortal tell, +Save only how it shivers through; +The breast of us a sounded shell, +The blood of us a lighted dew. + + + +THE YOUTHFUL QUEST + + + +His Lady queen of woods to meet, +He wanders day and night: +The leaves have whisperings discreet, +The mossy ways invite. + +Across a lustrous ring of space, +By covert hoods and caves, +Is promise of her secret face +In film that onward waves. + +For darkness is the light astrain, +Astrain for light the dark. +A grey moth down a larches' lane +Unwinds a ghostly spark. + +Her lamp he sees, and young desire +Is fed while cloaked she flies. +She quivers shot of violet fire +To ash at look of eyes. + + + +THE EMPTY PURSE--A SERMON TO OUR LATER PRODIGAL SON + + + +Thou, run to the dry on this wayside bank, +Too plainly of all the propellers bereft! +Quenched youth, and is that thy purse? +Even such limp slough as the snake has left +Slack to the gale upon spikes of whin, +For cast-off coat of a life gone blank, +In its frame of a grin at the seeker, is thine; +And thine to crave and to curse +The sweet thing once within. +Accuse him: some devil committed the theft, +Which leaves of the portly a skin, +No more; of the weighty a whine. + +Pursue him: and first, to be sure of his track, +Over devious ways that have led to this, +In the stream's consecutive line, +Let memory lead thee back +To where waves Morning her fleur-de-lys, +Unflushed at the front of the roseate door +Unopened yet: never shadow there +Of a Tartarus lighted by Dis +For souls whose cry is, alack! +An ivory cradle rocks, apeep +Through his eyelashes' laugh, a breathing pearl. +There the young chief of the animals wore +A likeness to heavenly hosts, unaware +Of his love of himself; with the hours at leap. +In a dingle away from a rutted highroad, +Around him the earliest throstle and merle, +Our human smile between milk and sleep, +Effervescent of Nature he crowed. +Fair was that season; furl over furl +The banners of blossom; a dancing floor +This earth; very angels the clouds; and fair +Thou on the tablets of forehead and breast: +Careless, a centre of vigilant care. +Thy mother kisses an infant curl. +The room of the toys was a boundless nest, +A kingdom the field of the games, +Till entered the craving for more, +And the worshipped small body had aims. +A good little idol, as records attest, +When they tell of him lightly appeased in a scream +By sweets and caresses: he gave but sign +That the heir of a purse-plumped dominant race, +Accustomed to plenty, not dumb would pine. +Almost magician, his earliest dream +Was lord of the unpossessed +For a look; himself and his chase, +As on puffs of a wind at whirl, +Made one in the wink of a gleam. +She kisses a locket curl, +She conjures to vision a cherub face, +When her butterfly counted his day +All meadow and flowers, mishap +Derided, and taken for play +The fling of an urchin's cap. +When her butterfly showed him an eaglet born, +For preying too heedlessly bred, +What a heart clapped in thee then! +With what fuller colours of morn! +And high to the uttermost heavens it flew, +Swift as on poet's pen. +It flew to be wedded, to wed +The mystery scented around: +Issue of flower and dew, +Issue of light and sound: +Thinner than either; a thread +Spun of the dream they threw +To kindle, allure, evade. +It ran the sea-wave, the garden's dance, +To the forest's dark heart down a dappled glade; +Led on by a perishing glance, +By a twinkle's eternal waylaid. +Woman, the name was, when she took form; +Sheaf of the wonders of life. She fled, +Close imaged; she neared, far seen. How she made +Palpitate earth of the living and dead! +Did she not show thee the world designed +Solely for loveliness? Nested warm, +The day was the morrow in flight. And for thee, +She muted the discords, tuned, refined; +Drowned sharp edges beneath her cloak. +Eye of the waters, and throb of the tree, +Sliding on radiance, winging from shade, +With her witch-whisper o'er ruins, in reeds, +She sang low the song of her promise delayed; +Beckoned and died, as a finger of smoke +Astream over woodland. And was not she +History's heroines white on storm? +Remember her summons to valorous deeds. +Shone she a lure of the honey-bag swarm, +Most was her beam on the knightly: she led +For the honours of manhood more than the prize; +Waved her magnetical yoke +Whither the warrior bled, +Ere to the bower of sighs. +And shy of her secrets she was; under deeps +Plunged at the breath of a thirst that woke +The dream in the cave where the Dreaded sleeps. + +Away over heaven the young heart flew, +And caught many lustres, till some one said +(Or was it the thought into hearing grew?), +NOT THOU AS COMMONER MEN! +Thy stature puffed and it swayed, +It stiffened to royal-erect; +A brassy trumpet brayed; +A whirling seized thy head; +The vision of beauty was flecked. +Note well the how and the when, +The thing that prompted and sped. +Thereanon the keen passions clapped wing, +Fixed eye, and the world was prey. +No simple world of thy greenblade Spring, +Nor world of thy flowerful prime +On the topmost Orient peak +Above a yet vaporous day. +Flesh was it, breast to beak: +A four-walled windowless world without ray, +Only darkening jets on a river of slime, +Where harsh over music as woodland jay, +A voice chants, Woe to the weak! +And along an insatiate feast, +Women and men are one +In the cup transforming to beast. +Magian worship they paid to their sun, +Lord of the Purse! Behold him climb. +Stalked ever such figure of fun +For monarch in great-grin pantomime? +See now the heart dwindle, the frame distend; +The soul to its anchorite cavern retreat, +From a life that reeks of the rotted end; +While he--is he pictureable? replete, +Gourd-like swells of the rank of the soil, +Hollow, more hollow at core. +And for him did the hundreds toil +Despised; in the cold and heat, +This image ridiculous bore +On their shoulders for morsels of meat! + +Gross, with the fumes of incense full, +With parasites tickled, with slaves begirt, +He strutted, a cock, he bellowed, a bull, +He rolled him, a dog, in dirt. +And dog, bull, cook, was he, fanged, horned, plumed; +Original man, as philosophers vouch; +Carnivorous, cannibal; length-long exhumed, +Frightfully living and armed to devour; +The primitive weapons of prey in his pouch; +The bait, the line and the hook: +To feed on his fellows intent. +God of the Danae shower, +He had but to follow his bent. +He battened on fowl not safely hutched, +On sheep astray from the crook; +A lure for the foolish in fold: +To carrion turning what flesh he touched. +And O the grace of his air, +As he at the goblet sips, +A centre of girdles loosed, +With their grisly label, Sold! +Credulous hears the fidelity swear, +Which has roving eyes over yielded lips: +To-morrow will fancy himself the seduced, +The stuck in a treacherous slough, +Because of his faith in a purchased pair, +False to a vinous vow. + +In his glory of banquet strip him bare, +And what is the creature we view? +Our pursy Apollo Apollyon's tool; +A small one, still of the crew +By serpent Apollyon blest: +His plea in apology, blindfold Fool. +A fool surcharged, propelled, unwarned; +Not viler, you hear him protest: +Of a popular countenance not incorrect. +But deeds are the picture in essence, deeds +Paint him the hooved and homed, +Despite the poor pother he pleads, +And his look of a nation's elect. +We have him, our quarry confessed! +And scan him: the features inspect +Of that bestial multiform: cry, +Corroborate I, O Samian Sage! +The book of thy wisdom, proved +On me, its last hieroglyph page, +Alive in the horned and hooved? +Thou! will he make reply. + +Thus has the plenary purse +Done often: to do will engage +Anew upon all of thy like, or worse. +And now is thy deepest regret +To be man, clean rescued from beast: +From the grip of the Sorcerer, Gold, +Celestially released. + +But now from his cavernous hold, +Free may thy soul be set, +As a child of the Death and the Life, to learn, +Refreshed by some bodily sweat, +The meaning of either in turn, +What issue may come of the two:- +A morn beyond mornings, beyond all reach +Of emotional arms at the stretch to enfold: +A firmament passing our visible blue. +To those having nought to reflect it, 'tis nought; +To those who are misty, 'tis mist on the beach +From the billow withdrawing; to those who see +Earth, our mother, in thought, +Her spirit it is, our key. + +Ay, the Life and the Death are her words to us here, +Of one significance, pricking the blind. +This is thy gain now the surface is clear: +To read with a soul in the mirror of mind +Is man's chief lesson.--Thou smilest! I preach! +Acid smiling, my friend, reveals +Abysses within; frigid preaching a street +Paved unconcernedly smooth +For the lecturer straight on his heels, +Up and down a policeman's beat; +Bearing tonics not labelled to soothe. +Thou hast a disgust of the sermon in rhyme. +It is not attractive in being too chaste. +The popular tale of adventure and crime +Would equally sicken an overdone taste. +So, then, onward. Philosophy, thoughtless to soothe, +Lifts, if thou wilt, or there leaves thee supine. + +Thy condition, good sooth, has no seeming of sweet; +It walks our first crags, it is flint for the tooth, +For the thirsts of our nature brine. +But manful has met it, manful will meet. +And think of thy privilege: supple with youth, +To have sight of the headlong swine, +Once fouling thee, jumping the dips! +As the coin of thy purse poured out: +An animal's holiday past: +And free of them thou, to begin a new bout; +To start a fresh hunt on a resolute blast: +No more an imp-ridden to bournes of eclipse: +Having knowledge to spur thee, a gift to compare; +Rubbing shoulder to shoulder, as only the book +Of the world can be read, by necessity urged. +For witness, what blinkers are they who look +From the state of the prince or the millionnaire! +They see but the fish they attract, +The hungers on them converged; +And never the thought in the shell of the act, +Nor ever life's fangless mirth. +But first, that the poisonous of thee be purged, +Go into thyself, strike Earth. +She is there, she is felt in a blow struck hard. +Thou findest a pugilist countering quick, +Cunning at drives where thy shutters are barred; +Not, after the studied professional trick, +Blue-sealing; she brightens the sight. Strike Earth, +Antaeus, young giant, whom fortune trips! +And thou com'st on a saving fact, +To nourish thy planted worth. + +Be it clay, flint, mud, or the rubble of chips, +Thy roots have grasp in the stern-exact: +The redemption of sinners deluded! the last +Dry handful, that bruises and saves. +To the common big heart are we bound right fast, +When our Mother admonishing nips +At the nakedness bare of a clout, +And we crave what the commonest craves. + +This wealth was a fortress-wall, +Under which grew our grim little beast-god stout; +Self-worshipped, the foe, in division from all; +With crowds of illogical Christians, no doubt; +Till the rescuing earthquake cracked. +Thus are we man made firm; +Made warm by the numbers compact. +We follow no longer a trumpet-snout, +At a trot where the hog is tracked, +Nor wriggle the way of the worm. + +Thou wilt spare us the cynical pout +At humanity: sign of a nature bechurled. +No stenchy anathemas cast +Upon Providence, women, the world. +Distinguish thy tempers and trim thy wits. +The purchased are things of the mart, not classed +Among resonant types that have freely grown. + +Thy knowledge of women might be surpassed: +As any sad dog's of sweet flesh when he quits +The wayside wandering bone! +No revilings of comrades as ingrates: thee +The tempter, misleader, and criminal (screened +By laws yet barbarous) own. + +If some one performed Fiend's deputy, +He was for awhile the Fiend. +Still, nursing a passion to speak, +As the punch-bowl does, in the moral vein, +When the ladle has finished its leak, +And the vessel is loquent of nature's inane, +Hie where the demagogues roar +Like a Phalaris bull, with the victim's force: +Hurrah to their jolly attack +On a City that smokes of the Plain; +A city of sin's death-dyes, +Holding revel of worms in a corse; +A city of malady sore, +Over-ripe for the big doom's crack: +A city of hymnical snore; +Connubial truths and lies +Demanding an instant divorce, +Clean as the bright from the black. +It were well for thy system to sermonize. +There are giants to slay, and they call for their Jack. + +Then up stand thou in the midst: +Thy good grain out of thee thresh, +Hand upon heart: relate +What things thou legally didst +For the Archseducer of flesh. +Omitting the murmurs of women and fate, +Confess thee an instrument armed +To be snare of our wanton, our weak, +Of all by the sensual charmed. +For once shall repentance be done by the tongue: +Speak, though execrate, speak +A word on grandmotherly Laws +Giving rivers of gold to our young, +In the days of their hungers impure; +To furnish them beak and claws, +And make them a banquet's lure. + +Thou the example, saved +Miraculously by this poor skin! +Thereat let the Purse be waved: +The snake-slough sick of the snaky sin: +A devil, if devil as devil behaved +Ever, thou knowest, look thou but in, +Where he shivers, a culprit fettered and shaved; +O a bird stripped of feather, a fish clipped of fin! + +And commend for a washing the torrents of wrath, +Which hurl at the foe of the dearest men prize +Rough-rolling boulders and froth. +Gigantical enginery they can command, +For the crushing of enemies not of great size: +But hold to thy desperate stand. +Men's right of bequeathing their all to their own +(With little regard for the creatures they squeezed); +Their mill and mill-water and nether mill-stone +Tied fast to their infant; lo, this is the last +Of their hungers, by prudent devices appeased. +The law they decree is their ultimate slave; +Wherein we perceive old Voracity glassed. +It works from their dust, and it reeks of their grave. +Point them to greener, though Journals be guns; +To brotherly fields under fatherly skies; +Where the savage still primitive learns of a debt +He has owed since he drummed on his belly for war; +And how for his giving, the more will he get; +For trusting his fellows, leave friends round his sons: +Till they see, with the gape of a startled surprise, +Their adored tyrant-monster a brute to abhor, +The sun of their system a father of flies! + +So, for such good hope, take their scourge unashamed; +'Tis the portion of them who civilize, +Who speak the word novel and true: +How the brutish antique of our springs may be tamed, +Without loss of the strength that should push us to flower; +How the God of old time will act Satan of new, +If we keep him not straight at the higher God aimed; +For whose habitation within us we scour +This house of our life; where our bitterest pains +Are those to eject the Infernal, who heaps +Mire on the soul. Take stripes or chains; +Grip at thy standard reviled. +And what if our body be dashed from the steeps? +Our spoken in protest remains. +A young generation reaps. + +The young generation! ah, there is the child +Of our souls down the Ages! to bleed for it, proof +That souls we have, with our senses filed, +Our shuttles at thread of the woof. +May it be braver than ours, +To encounter the rattle of hostile bolts, +To look on the rising of Stranger Powers. +May it know how the mind in expansion revolts +From a nursery Past with dead letters aloof, +And the piping to stupor of Precedents shun, +In a field where the forefather print of the hoof +Is not yet overgrassed by the watering hours, +And should prompt us to Change, as to promise of sun, +Till brain-rule splendidly towers. +For that large light we have laboured and tramped +Thorough forests and bogland, still to perceive +Our animate morning stamped +With the lines of a sombre eve. + +A timorous thing ran the innocent hind, +When the wolf was the hypocrite fang under hood, +The snake a lithe lurker up sleeve, +And the lion effulgently ramped. +Then our forefather hoof did its work in the wood, +By right of the better in kind. +But now will it breed yon bestial brood +Three-fold thrice over, if bent to bind, +As the healthy in chains with the sick, +Unto despot usage our issuing mind. +It signifies battle or death's dull knell. +Precedents icily written on high +Challenge the Tentatives hot to rebel. +Our Mother, who speeds her bloomful quick +For the march, reads which the impediment well. +She smiles when of sapience is their boast. +O loose of the tug between blood run dry +And blood running flame may our offspring run! +May brain democratic be king of the host! +Less then shall the volumes of History tell +Of the stop in progression, the slip in relapse, +That counts us a sand-slack inch hard won +Beneath an oppressive incumbent perhaps. + +Let the senile lords in a parchment sky, +And the generous turbulents drunken of morn, +Their battle of instincts put by, +A moment examine this field: +On a Roman street cast thoughtful eye, +Along to the mounts from the bog-forest weald. +It merits a glance at our history's maps, +To see across Britain's old shaggy unshorn, +Through the Parties in strife internecine, foot +The ruler's close-reckoned direct to the mark. +From the head ran the vanquisher's orderly route, +In the stride of his forts through the tangle and dark. +From the head runs the paved firm way for advance, +And we shoulder, we wrangle! The light on us shed +Shows dense beetle blackness in swarm, lurid Chance, +The Goddess of gamblers, above. From the head, +Then when it worked for the birth of a star +Fraternal with heaven's in beauty and ray, +Sprang the Acropolis. Ask what crown +Comes of our tides of the blood at war, +For men to bequeath generations down! +And ask what thou wast when the Purse was brimmed: +What high-bounding ball for the Gods at play: +A Conservative youth! who the cream-bowl skimmed, +Desiring affairs to be left as they are. + +So, thou takest Youth's natural place in the fray, +As a Tentative, combating Peace, +Our lullaby word for decay. - +There will come an immediate decree +In thy mind for the opposite party's decease, +If he bends not an instant knee. +Expunge it: extinguishing counts poor gain. +And accept a mild word of police:- +Be mannerly, measured; refrain +From the puffings of him of the bagpipe cheeks. +Our political, even as the merchant main, +A temperate gale requires +For the ship that haven seeks; +Neither God of the winds nor his bellowsy squires. + +Then observe the antagonist, con +His reasons for rocking the lullaby word. +You stand on a different stage of the stairs. +He fought certain battles, yon senile lord. +In the strength of thee, feel his bequest to his heirs. +We are now on his inches of ground hard won, +For a perch to a flight o'er his resting fence. + +Does it knock too hard at thy head if I say, +That Time is both father and son? +Tough lesson, when senses are floods over sense! - +Discern the paternal of Now +As the Then of thy present tense. +You may pull as you will either way, +You can never be other than one. +So, be filial. Giants to slay +Demand knowing eyes in their Jack. + +There are those whom we push from the path with respect. +Bow to that elder, though seeing him bow +To the backward as well, for a thunderous back +Upon thee. In his day he was not all wrong. +Unto some foundered zenith he strove, and was wrecked. +He scrambled to shore with a worship of shore. +The Future he sees as the slippery murk; +The Past as his doctrinal library lore. +He stands now the rock to the wave's wild wash. +Yet thy lumpish antagonist once did work +Heroical, one of our strong. +His gold to retain and his dross reject, +Engage him, but humour, not aiming to quash. +Detest the dead squat of the Turk, +And suffice it to move him along. +Drink of faith in the brains a full draught +Before the oration: beware +Lest rhetoric moonily waft +Whither horrid activities snare. +Rhetoric, juice for the mob +Despising more luminous grape, +Oft at its fount has it laughed +In the cataracts rolling for rape +Of a Reason left single to sob! + +'Tis known how the permanent never is writ +In blood of the passions: mercurial they, +Shifty their issue: stir not that pit +To the game our brutes best play. + +But with rhetoric loose, can we check man's brute? +Assemblies of men on their legs invoke +Excitement for wholesome diversion: there shoot +Electrical sparks between their dry thatch +And thy waved torch, more to kindle than light. +'Tis instant between you: the trick of a catch +(To match a Batrachian croak) +Will thump them a frenzy or fun in their veins. +Then may it be rather the well-worn joke +Thou repeatest, to stop conflagration, and write +Penance for rhetoric. Strange will it seem, +When thou readest that form of thy homage to brains! + +For the secret why demagogues fail, +Though they carry hot mobs to the red extreme, +And knock out or knock in the nail +(We will rank them as flatly sincere, +Devoutly detesting a wrong, +Engines o'ercharged with our human steam), +Question thee, seething amid the throng. +And ask, whether Wisdom is born of blood-heat; +Or of other than Wisdom comes victory here; - +Aught more than the banquet and roundelay, +That is closed with a terrible terminal wail, +A retributive black ding-dong? +And ask of thyself: This furious Yea +Of a speech I thump to repeat, +In the cause I would have prevail, +For seed of a nourishing wheat, +IS IT ACCEPTED OF SONG? +Does it sound to the mind through the ear, +Right sober, pure sane? has it disciplined feet? +Thou wilt find it a test severe; +Unerring whatever the theme. +Rings it for Reason a melody clear, +We have bidden old Chaos retreat; +We have called on Creation to hear; +All forces that make us are one full stream. +Simple islander! thus may the spirit in verse, +Showing its practical value and weight, +Pipe to thee clear from the Empty Purse, +Lead thee aloft to that high estate. - +The test is conclusive, I deem: +It embraces or mortally bites. +We have then the key-note for debate: +A Senate that sits on the heights +Over discords, to shape and amend. + +And no singer is needed to serve +The musical God, my friend. +Needs only his law on a sensible nerve: +A law that to Measure invites, +Forbidding the passions contend. +Is it accepted of Song? +And if then the blunt answer be Nay, +Dislink thee sharp from the ramping horde, +Slaves of the Goddess of hoar-old sway, +The Queen of delirious rites, +Queen of those issueless mobs, that rend +For frenzy the strings of a fruitful accord, +Pursuing insensate, seething in throng, +Their wild idea to its ashen end. +Off to their Phrygia, shriek and gong, +Shorn from their fellows, behold them wend! + +But thou, should the answer ring Ay, +Hast warrant of seed for thy word: +The musical God is nigh +To inspirit and temper, tune it, and steer +Through the shoals: is it worthy of Song, +There are souls all woman to hear, +Woman to bear and renew. +For he is the Master of Measure, and weighs, +Broad as the arms of his blue, +Fine as the web of his rays, +Justice, whose voice is a melody clear, +The one sure life for the numbered long, +From him are the brutal and vain, +The vile, the excessive, out-thrust: +He points to the God on the upmost throne: +He is the saver of grain, +The sifter of spirit from dust. +He, Harmony, tells how to Measure pertain +The virilities: Measure alone +Has votaries rich in the male: +Fathers embracing no cloud, +Sowing no harvestless main: +Alike by the flesh and the spirit endowed +To create, to perpetuate; woo, win, wed; +Send progeny streaming, have earth for their own, +Over-run the insensates, disperse with a puff +Simulacra, though solid they sail, +And seem such imperial stuff: +Yes, the living divide off the dead. + +Then thou with thy furies outgrown, +Not as Cybele's beast will thy head lash tail +So praeter-determinedly thermonous, +Nor thy cause be an Attis far fled. +Thou under stress of the strife +Shalt hear for sustainment supreme +The cry of the conscience of Life: +KEEP THE YOUNG GENERATIONS IN HAIL, +AND BEQUEATH THEM NO TUMBLED HOUSE! + +There hast thou the sacred theme, +Therein the inveterate spur, +Of the Innermost. See her one blink +In vision past eyeballs. Not thee +She cares for, but us. Follow her. +Follow her, and thou wilt not sink. +With thy soul the Life espouse: +This Life of the visible, audible, ring +With thy love tight about; and no death will be; +The name be an empty thing, +And woe a forgotten old trick: +And battle will come as a challenge to drink; +As a warrior's wound each transient sting. +She leads to the Uppermost link by link; +Exacts but vision, desires not vows. +Above us the singular number to see; +The plural warm round us; ourself in the thick, +A dot or a stop: that is our task; +Her lesson in figured arithmetic, +For the letters of Life behind its mask; +Her flower-like look under fearful brows. + +As for thy special case, O my friend, one must think +Massilia's victim, who held the carouse +For the length of a carnival year, +Knew worse: but the wretch had his opening choice. +For thee, by our law, no alternatives were: +Thy fall was assured ere thou camest to a voice. +He cancelled the ravaging Plague, +With the roll of his fat off the cliff. +Do thou with thy lean as the weapon of ink, +Though they call thee an angler who fishes the vague +And catches the not too pink, +Attack one as murderous, knowing thy cause +Is the cause of community. Iterate, +Iterate, iterate, harp on the trite: +Our preacher to win is the supple in stiff: +Yet always in measure, with bearing polite: +The manner of one that would expiate +His share in grandmotherly Laws, +Which do the dark thing to destroy, +Under aspect of water so guilelessly white +For the general use, by the devils befouled. + +Enough, poor prodigal boy! +Thou hast listened with patience; another had howled. +Repentance is proved, forgiveness is earned. +And 'tis bony: denied thee thy succulent half +Of the parable's blessing, to swineherd returned: +A Sermon thy slice of the Scriptural calf! +By my faith, there is feasting to come, +Not the less, when our Earth we have seen +Beneath and on surface, her deeds and designs: +Who gives us the man-loving Nazarene, +The martyrs, the poets, the corn and the vines. +By my faith in the head, she has wonders in loom; +Revelations, delights. I can hear a faint crow +Of the cock of fresh mornings, far, far, yet distinct; +As down the new shafting of mines, +A cry of the metally gnome. +When our Earth we have seen, and have linked +With the home of the Spirit to whom we unfold, +Imprisoned humanity open will throw +Its fortress gates, and the rivers of gold +For the congregate friendliness flow. +Then the meaning of Earth in her children behold: +Glad eyes, frank hands, and a fellowship real: +And laughter on lips, as the birds' outburst +At the flooding of light. No robbery then +The feast, nor a robber's abode the home, +For a furnished model of our first den! +Nor Life as a stationed wheel; +Nor History written in blood or in foam, +For vendetta of Parties in cursing accursed. +The God in the conscience of multitudes feel, +And we feel deep to Earth at her heart, +We have her communion with men, +New ground, new skies for appeal. +Yield into harness thy best and thy worst; +Away on the trot of thy servitude start, +Through the rigours and joys and sustainments of air. +If courage should falter, 'tis wholesome to kneel. +Remember that well, for the secret with some, +Who pray for no gift, but have cleansing in prayer, +And free from impurities tower-like stand. +I promise not more, save that feasting will come +To a mind and a body no longer inversed: +The sense of large charity over the land, +Earth's wheaten of wisdom dispensed in the rough, +And a bell ringing thanks for a sustenance meal +Through the active machine: lean fare, +But it carries a sparkle! And now enough, +And part we as comrades part, +To meet again never or some day or soon. + +Our season of drought is reminder rude:- +No later than yesternoon, +I looked on the horse of a cart, +By the wayside water-trough. +How at every draught of his bride of thirst +His nostrils widened! The sight was good: +Food for us, food, such as first +Drew our thoughts to earth's lowly for food. + + + +TO THE COMIC SPIRIT + + + +Sword of Common Sense! - +Our surest gift: the sacred chain +Of man to man: firm earth for trust +In structures vowed to permanence:- +Thou guardian issue of the harvest brain! +Implacable perforce of just; +With that good treasure in defence, +Which is our gold crushed out of joy and pain +Since first men planted foot and hand was king: +Bright, nimble of the marrow-nerve +To wield thy double edge, retort +Or hold the deadlier reserve, +And through thy victim's weapon sting: +Thine is the service, thine the sport +This shifty heart of ours to hunt +Across its webs and round the many a ring +Where fox it is, or snake, or mingled seeds +Occasion heats to shape, or the poor smoke +Struck from a puff-ball, or the troughster's grunt; - +Once lion of our desert's trodden weeds; +And but for thy straight finger at the yoke, +Again to be the lordly paw, +Naming his appetites his needs, +Behind a decorative cloak: +Thou, of the highest, the unwritten Law +We read upon that building's architrave +In the mind's firmament, by men upraised +With sweat of blood when they had quitted cave +For fellowship, and rearward looked amazed, +Where the prime motive gapes a lurid jaw, +Thou, soul of wakened heads, art armed to warn, +Restrain, lest we backslide on whence we sprang, +Scarce better than our dwarf beginning shoot, +Of every gathered pearl and blossom shorn; +Through thee, in novel wiles to win disguise, +Seen are the pits of the disruptor, seen +His rebel agitation at our root: +Thou hast him out of hawking eyes; +Nor ever morning of the clang +Young Echo sped on hill from horn +In forest blown when scent was keen +Off earthy dews besprinkling blades +Of covert grass more merrily rang +The yelp of chase down alleys green, +Forth of the headlong-pouring glades, +Over the dappled fallows wild away, +Than thy fine unaccented scorn +At sight of man's old secret brute, +Devout for pasture on his prey, +Advancing, yawning to devour; +With step of deer, with voice of flute, +Haply with visage of the lily flower. + +Let the cock crow and ruddy morn +His handmaiden appear! Youth claims his hour. +The generously ludicrous +Espouses it. But see we sons of day, +Off whom Life leans for guidance in our fight, +Accept the throb for lord of us; +For lord, for the main central light +That gives direction, not the eclipse; +Or dost thou look where niggard Age, +Demanding reverence for wrinkles, whips +A tumbled top to grind a wolf's worn tooth; - +Hoar despot on our final stage, +In dotage of a stunted Youth; - +Or it may be some venerable sage, +Not having thee awake in him, compact +Of wisdom else, the breast's old tempter trips; +Or see we ceremonial state, +Robing the gilded beast, exact +Abjection, while the crackskull name of Fate +Is used to stamp and hallow printed fact; +A cruel corner lengthens up thy lips; +These are thy game wherever men engage: +These and, majestic in a borrowed shape, +The major and the minor potentate, +Creative of their various ape; - +The tiptoe mortals triumphing to write +Upon a perishable page +An inch above their fellows' height; - +The criers of foregone wisdom, who impose +Its slough on live conditions, much for the greed +Of our first hungry figure wide agape; - +Call up thy hounds of laughter to their run. +These, that would have men still of men be foes, +Eternal fox to prowl and pike to feed; +Would keep our life the whirly pool +Of turbid stuff dishonouring History; +The herd the drover's herd, the fool the fool, +Ourself our slavish self's infernal sun: +These are the children of the heart untaught +By thy quick founts to beat abroad, by thee +Untamed to tone its passions under thought, +The rich humaneness reading in thy fun. +Of them a world of coltish heels for school +We have; a world with driving wrecks bestrewn. + +'Tis written of the Gods of human mould, +Those Nectar Gods, of glorious stature hewn +To quicken hymns, that they did hear, incensed, +Satiric comments overbold, +From one whose part was by decree +The jester's; but they boiled to feel him bite. +Better for them had they with Reason fenced +Or smiled corrected! They in the great Gods' might +Their prober crushed, as fingers flea. +Crumbled Olympus when the sovereign sire +His fatal kick to Momus gave, albeit +Men could behold the sacred Mount aspire, +The Satirist pass by on limping feet. +Those Gods who saw the ejected laugh alight +Below had then their last of airy glee; +They in the cup sought Laughter's drowned sprite, +Fed to dire fatness off uncurbed conceit. +Eyes under saw them waddle on their Mount, +And drew them down; to flattest earth they rolled. +This know we veritable. O Sage of Mirth! +Can it be true, the story men recount +Of the fall'n plight of the great Gods on earth? +How they being deathless, though of human mould, +With human cravings, undecaying frames, +Must labour for subsistence; are a band +Whom a loose-cheeked, wide-lipped gay cripple leads +At haunts of holiday on summer sand: +And lightly he will hint to one that heeds +Names in pained designation of them, names +Ensphered on blue skies and on black, which twirl +Our hearing madly from our seeing dazed, +Add Bacchus unto both; and he entreats +(His baby dimples in maternal chaps +Running wild labyrinths of line and curl) +Compassion for his masterful Trombone, +Whose thunder is the brass of how he blazed +Of old: for him of the mountain-muscle feats, +Who guts a drum to fetch a snappish groan: +For his fierce bugler horning onset, whom +A truncheon-battered helmet caps . . . +The creature is of earnest mien +To plead a sorrow darker than the tomb. +His Harp and Triangle, in tone subdued, +He names; they are a rayless red and white; +The dawn-hued libertine, the gibbous prude. +And, if we recognize his Tambourine, +He asks; exhausted names her: she has become +A globe in cupolas; the blowziest queen +Of overflowing dome on dome; +Redundancy contending with the tight, +Leaping the dam! He fondly calls, his girl, +The buxom tripper with the goblet-smile, +Refreshful. O but now his brows are dun, +Bunched are his lips, as when distilling guile, +To drop his venomous: the Dame of dames, +Flower of the world, that honey one, +She of the earthly rose in the sea-pearl, +To whom the world ran ocean for her kiss; +He names her, as a worshipper he names, +And indicates with a contemptuous thumb. +The lady meanwhile lures the mob, alike +Ogles the bursters of the horn and drum. +Curtain her close! her open arms +Have suckers for beholders: she to this? +For that she could not, save in fury, hear +A sharp corrective utterance flick +Her idle manners, for the laugh to strike +Beauty so breeding beauty, without peer +Above the snows, among the flowers? She reaps +This mouldy garner of the fatal kick? +Gross with the sacrifice of Circe-swarms, +Astarte of vile sweets that slay, malign, +From Greek resplendent to Phoenician foul, +The trader in attractions sinks, all brine +To thoughts of taste; is 't love?--bark, dog! hoot, owl! +And she is blushless: ancient worship weeps. +Suicide Graces dangle down the charms +Sprawling like gourds on outer garden-heaps. +She stands in her unholy oily leer +A statue losing feature, weather-sick +Mid draggled creepers of twined ivy sere. +The curtain cried for magnifies to see! - +We cannot quench our one corrupting glance: +The vision of the rumour will not flee. +Doth the Boy own such Mother?--shoot his dart +To bring her, countless as the crested deeps, +Her subjects of the uncorrected heart? +False is that vision, shrieks the devotee; +Incredible, we echo; and anew +Like a far growling lightning-cloud it leaps. +Low humourist this leader seems; perchance +Pitched from his University career, +Adept at classic fooling. Yet of mould +Human those Gods were: deathless too: +On high they not as meditatives paced: +Prodigiously they did the deeds of flesh: +Descending, they would touch the lowest here: +And she, that lighted form of blue and gold, +Whom the seas gave, all earth, all earth embraced; +Exulting in the great hauls of her mesh; +Desired and hated, desperately dear; +Most human of them was. No more pursue! +Enough that the black story can be told. +It preaches to the eminently placed: +For whom disastrous wreckage is nigh due, +Paints omen. Truly they our throbber had; +The passions plumping, passions playing leech, +Cunning to trick us for the day's good cheer. +Our uncorrected human heart will swell +To notions monstrous, doings mad +As billows on a foam-lashed beach; +Borne on the tides of alternating heats, +Will drug the brain, will doom the soul as well; +Call the closed mouth of that harsh final Power +To speak in judgement: Nemesis, the fell: +Of those bright Gods assembled, offspring sour; +The last surviving on the upper seats; +As with men Reason when their hearts rebel. + +Ah, what a fruitless breeder is this heart, +Full of the mingled seeds, each eating each. +Not wiser of our mark than at the start, +It surges like the wrath-faced father Sea +To countering winds; a force blind-eyed, +On endless rounds of aimless reach; +Emotion for the source of pride, +The grounds of faith in fixity +Above our flesh; its cravings urging speech, +Inspiring prayer; by turns a lump +Swung on a time-piece, and by turns +A quivering energy to jump +For seats angelical: it shrinks, it yearns, +Loves, loathes; is flame or cinders; lastly cloud +Capping a sullen crater: and mankind +We see cloud-capped, an army of the dark, +Because of thy straight leadership declined; +At heels of this or that delusive spark: +Now when the multitudinous races press +Elbow to elbow hourly more, +A thickened host; when now we hear aloud +Life for the very life implore +A signal of a visioned mark; +Light of the mind, the mind's discourse, +The rational in graciousness, +Thee by acknowledgement enthroned, +To tame and lead that blind-eyed force +In harmony of harness with the crowd, +For payment of their dues; as yet disowned, +Save where some dutiful lone creature, vowed +To holy work, deems it the heart's intent; +Or where a silken circle views it cowled, +The seeming figure of concordance, bent +On satiating tyrant lust +Or barren fits of sentiment. + +Thou wilt not have our paths befouled +By simulation; are we vile to view, +The heavens shall see us clean of our own dust, +Beneath thy breezy flitting wing: +They make their mirror upon faces true; +And where they win reflection, lucid heave +The under tides of this hot heart seen through. +Beneficently wilt thou clip +All oversteppings of the plumed, +The puffed, and bid the masker strip, +And into the crowned windbag thrust, +Tearing the mortal from the vital thing, +A lightning o'er the half-illumed, +Who to base brute-dominion cleave, +Yet mark effects, and shun the flash, +Till their drowsed wits a beam conceive, +To spy a wound without a gash, +The magic in a turn of wrist, +And how are wedded heart and head regaled +When Wit o'er Folly blows the mort, +And their high note of union spreads +Wide from the timely word with conquest charged; +Victorious laughter, of no loud report, +If heard; derision as divinely veiled +As terrible Immortals in rose-mist, +Given to the vision of arrested men: +Whereat they feel within them weave +Community its closer threads, +And are to our fraternal state enlarged; +Like warm fresh blood is their enlivened ken: +They learn that thou art not of alien sort, +Speaking the tongue by vipers hissed, +Or of the frosty heights unsealed, +Or of the vain who simple speech distort, +Or of the vapours pointing on to nought +Along cold skies; though sharp and high thy pitch; +As when sole homeward the belated treads, +And hears aloft a clamour wailed, +That once had seemed the broomstick witch +Horridly violating cloud for drought: +He, from the rub of minds dispersing fears, +Hears migrants marshalling their midnight train; +Homeliest order in black sky appears, +Not less than in the lighted village steads. +So do those half-illumed wax clear to share +A cry that is our common voice; the note +Of fellowship upon a loftier plane, +Above embattled castle-wall and moat; +And toning drops as from pure heaven it sheds. +So thou for washing a phantasmal air, +For thy sweet singing keynote of the wise, +Laughter--the joy of Reason seeing fade +Obstruction into Earth's renewing beds, +Beneath the stroke of her good servant's blade - +Thenceforth art as their earth-star hailed; +Gain of the years, conjunction's prize. +The greater heart in thy appeal to heads +They see, thou Captain of our civil Fort! +By more elusive savages assailed +On each ascending stage; untired +Both inner foe and outer to cut short, +And blow to chaff pretenders void of grist: +Showing old tiger's claws, old crocodile's +Yard-grin of eager grinders, slim to sight, +Like forms in running water, oft when smiles, +When pearly tears, when fluent lips delight: +But never with the slayer's malice fired: +As little as informs an infant's fist +Clenched at the sneeze! Thou wouldst but have us be +Good sons of mother soil, whereby to grow +Branching on fairer skies, one stately tree; +Broad of the tilth for flowering at the Court: +Which is the tree bound fast to wave its tress; +Of strength controlled sheer beauty to bestow. +Ambrosial heights of possible acquist, +Where souls of men with soul of man consort, +And all look higher to new loveliness +Begotten of the look: thy mark is there; +While on our temporal ground alive, +Rightly though fearfully thou wieldest sword +Of finer temper now a numbered learn +That they resisting thee themselves resist; +And not thy bigger joy to smite and drive, +Prompt the dense herd to butt, and set the snare +Witching them into pitfalls for hoarse shouts. +More now, and hourly more, and of the Lord +Thou lead'st to, doth this rebel heart discern, +When pinched ascetic and red sensualist +Alternately recurrent freeze or burn, +And of its old religions it has doubts. +It fears thee less when thou hast shown it bare; +Less hates, part understands, nor much resents, +When the prized objects it has raised for prayer, +For fitful prayer;--repentance dreading fire, +Impelled by aches; the blindness which repents +Like the poor trampled worm that writhes in mire; - +Are sounded by thee, and thou darest probe +Old institutions and establishments, +Once fortresses against the floods of sin, +For what their worth; and questioningly prod +For why they stand upon a racing globe, +Impeding blocks, less useful than the clod; +Their angel out of them, a demon in. + +This half-enlightened heart, still doomed to fret, +To hurl at vanities, to drift in shame +Of gain or loss, bewailing the sure rod, +Shall of predestination wed thee yet. +Something it gathers of what things should drop +At entrance on new times; of how thrice broad +The world of minds communicative; how +A straggling Nature classed in school, and scored +With stripes admonishing, may yield to plough +Fruitfullest furrows, nor for waxing tame +Be feeble on an Earth whose gentler crop +Is its most living, in the mind that steers, +By Reason led, her way of tree and flame, +Beyond the genuflexions and the tears; +Upon an Earth that cannot stop, +Where upward is the visible aim, +And ever we espy the greater God, +For simple pointing at a good adored: +Proof of the closer neighbourhood. Head on, +Sword of the many, light of the few! untwist +Or cut our tangles till fair space is won +Beyond a briared wood of austere brow, +Believed of discord by thy timely word +At intervals refreshing life: for thou +Art verify Keeper of the Muse's Key; +Thyself no vacant melodist; +On lower land elective even as she; +Holding, as she, all dissonance abhorred; +Advising to her measured steps in flow; +And teaching how for being subjected free +Past thought of freedom we may come to know +The music of the meaning of Accord. + + + +YOUTH IN MEMORY + + + +Days, when the ball of our vision +Had eagles that flew unabashed to sun; +When the grasp on the bow was decision, +And arrow and hand and eye were one; +When the Pleasures, like waves to a swimmer, +Came heaving for rapture ahead! - +Invoke them, they dwindle, they glimmer +As lights over mounds of the dead. + +Behold the winged Olympus, off the mead, +With thunder of wide pinions, lightning speed, +Wafting the shepherd-boy through ether clear, +To bear the golden nectar-cup. +So flies desire at view of its delight, +When the young heart is tiptoe perched on sight. +We meanwhile who in hues of the sick year +The Spring-time paint to prick us for our lost, +Mount but the fatal half way up - +Whereon shut eyes! This is decreed, +For Age that would to youthful heavens ascend, +By passion for the arms' possession tossed, +It falls the way of sighs and hath their end; +A spark gone out to more sepulchral night. +Good if the arrowy eagle of the height +Be then the little bird that hops to feed. + +Lame falls the cry to kindle days +Of radiant orb and daring gaze. +It does but clank our mortal chain. +For Earth reads through her felon old +The many-numbered of her fold, +Who forward tottering backward strain, +And would be thieves of treasure spent, +With their grey season soured. +She could write out their history in their thirst +To have again the much devoured, +And be the bud at burst; +In honey fancy join the flow, +Where Youth swims on as once they went, +All choiric for spontaneous glee +Of active eager lungs and thews; +They now bared roots beside the river bent; +Whose privilege themselves to see; +Their place in yonder tideway know; +The current glass peruse; +The depths intently sound; +And sapped by each returning flood +Accept for monitory nourishment +Those worn roped features under crust of mud, +Reflected in the silvery smooth around: +Not less the branching and high singing tree, +A home of nests, a landmark and a tent, +Until their hour for losing hold on ground. +Even such good harvest of the things that flee +Earth offers her subjected, and they choose +Rather of Bacchic Youth one beam to drink, +And warm slow marrow with the sensual wink. +So block they at her source the Mother of the Muse. + +Who cheerfully the little bird becomes, +Without a fall, and pipes for peck at crumbs, +May have her dolings to the lightest touch; +As where some cripple muses by his crutch, +Unwitting that the spirit in him sings: +'When I had legs, then had I wings, +As good as any born of eggs, +To feed on all aerial things, +When I had legs!' +And if not to embrace he sighs, +She gives him breath of Youth awhile, +Perspective of a breezy mile, +Companionable hedgeways, lifting skies; +Scenes where his nested dreams upon their hoard +Brooded, or up to empyrean soared: +Enough to link him with a dotted line. +But cravings for an eagle's flight, +To top white peaks and serve wild wine +Among the rosy undecayed, +Bring only flash of shade +From her full throbbing breast of day in night. +By what they crave are they betrayed: +And cavernous is that young dragon's jaw, +Crimson for all the fiery reptile saw +In time now coveted, for teeth to flay, +Once more consume, were Life recurrent May. +They to their moment of drawn breath, +Which is the life that makes the death, +The death that makes ethereal life would bind: +The death that breeds the spectre do they find. +Darkness is wedded and the waste regrets +Beating as dead leaves on a fitful gust, +By souls no longer dowered to climb +Beneath their pack of dust, +Whom envy of a lustrous prime, +Eclipsed while yet invoked, besets, +And dooms to sink and water sable flowers, +That never gladdened eye or loaded bee. +Strain we the arms for Memory's hours, +We are the seized Persephone. +Responsive never to the soft desire +For one prized tune is this our chord of life. +'Tis clipped to deadness with a wanton knife, +In wishes that for ecstasies aspire. +Yet have we glad companionship of Youth, +Elysian meadows for the mind, +Dare we to face deeds done, and in our tomb +Filled with the parti-coloured bloom +Of loved and hated, grasp all human truth +Sowed by us down the mazy paths behind. +To feel that heaven must we that hell sound through: +Whence comes a line of continuity, +That brings our middle station into view, +Between those poles; a novel Earth we see, +In likeness of us, made of banned and blest; +The sower's bed, but not the reaper's rest: +An Earth alive with meanings, wherein meet +Buried, and breathing, and to be. +Then of the junction of the three, +Even as a heart in brain, full sweet +May sense of soul, the sum of music, beat. + +Only the soul can walk the dusty track +Where hangs our flowering under vapours black, +And bear to see how these pervade, obscure, +Quench recollection of a spacious pure. +They take phantasmal forms, divide, convolve, +Hard at each other point and gape, +Horrible ghosts! in agony dissolve, +To reappear with one they drape +For criminal, and, Father! shrieking name, +Who such distorted issue did beget. +Accept them, them and him, though hiss thy sweat +Off brow on breast, whose furnace flame +Has eaten, and old Self consumes. +Out of the purification will they leap, +Thee renovating while new light illumes +The dusky web of evil, known as pain, +That heavily up healthward mounts the steep; +Our fleshly road to beacon-fire of brain: +Midway the tameless oceanic brute +Below, whose heave is topped with foam for fruit, +And the fair heaven reflecting inner peace +On righteous warfare, that asks not to cease. + +Forth of such passage through black fire we win +Clear hearing of the simple lute, +Whereon, and not on other, Memory plays +For them who can in quietness receive +Her restorative airs: a ditty thin +As note of hedgerow bird in ear of eve, +Or wave at ebb, the shallow catching rays +On a transparent sheet, where curves a glass +To truer heavens than when the breaker neighs +Loud at the plunge for bubbly wreck in roar. +Solidity and bulk and martial brass, +Once tyrants of the senses, faintly score +A mark on pebbled sand or fluid slime, +While present in the spirit, vital there, +Are things that seemed the phantoms of their time; +Eternal as the recurrent cloud, as air +Imperative, refreshful as dawn-dew. +Some evanescent hand on vapour scrawled +Historic of the soul, and heats anew +Its coloured lines where deeds of flesh stand bald. +True of the man, and of mankind 'tis true, +Did we stout battle with the Shade, Despair, +Our cowardice, it blooms; or haply warred +Against the primal beast in us, and flung; +Or cleaving mists of Sorrow, left it starred +Above self-pity slain: or it was Prayer +First taken for Life's cleanser; or the tongue +Spake for the world against this heart; or rings +Old laughter, from the founts of wisdom sprung; +Or clap of wing of joy, that was a throb +From breast of Earth, and did no creature rob: +These quickening live. But deepest at her springs, +Most filial, is an eye to love her young. +And had we it, to see with it, alive +Is our lost garden, flower, bird and hive. +Blood of her blood, aim of her aim, are then +The green-robed and grey-crested sons of men: +She tributary to her aged restores +The living in the dead; she will inspire +Faith homelier than on the Yonder shores, +Abhorring these as mire, +Uncertain steps, in dimness gropes, +With mortal tremours pricking hopes, +And, by the final Bacchic of the lusts +Propelled, the Bacchic of the spirit trusts: +A fervour drunk from mystic hierophants; +Not utterly misled, though blindly led, +Led round fermenting eddies. Faith she plants +In her own firmness as our midway road: +Which rightly Youth has read, though blindly read; +Her essence reading in her toothsome goad; +Spur of bright dreams experience disenchants. +But love we well the young, her road midway +The darknesses runs consecrated clay. +Despite our feeble hold on this green home, +And the vast outer strangeness void of dome, +Shall we be with them, of them, taught to feel, +Up to the moment of our prostrate fall, +The life they deem voluptuously real +Is more than empty echo of a call, +Or shadow of a shade, or swing of tides; +As brooding upon age, when veins congeal, +Grey palsy nods to think. With us for guides, +Another step above the animal, +To views in Alpine thought are they helped on. +Good if so far we live in them when gone! + +And there the arrowy eagle of the height +Becomes the little bird that hops to feed, +Glad of a crumb, for tempered appetite +To make it wholesome blood and fruitful seed. +Then Memory strikes on no slack string, +Nor sectional will varied Life appear: +Perforce of soul discerned in mind, we hear +Earth with her Onward chime, with Winter Spring. +And ours the mellow note, while sharing joys +No more subjecting mortals who have learnt +To build for happiness on equipoise, +The Pleasures read in sparks of substance burnt; +Know in our seasons an integral wheel, +That rolls us to a mark may yet be willed. +This, the truistic rubbish under heel +Of all the world, we peck at and are filled. + + + +PENETRATION AND TRUST + + + +I + +Sleek as a lizard at round of a stone, +The look of her heart slipped out and in. +Sweet on her lord her soft eyes shone, +As innocents clear of a shade of sin. + +II + +He laid a finger under her chin, +His arm for her girdle at waist was thrown: +Now, what will happen and who will win, +With me in the fight and my lady lone? + +III + +He clasped her, clasping a shape of stone; +Was fire on her eyes till they let him in. +Her breast to a God of the daybeams shone, +And never a corner for serpent sin. + +IV + +Tranced she stood, with a chattering chin; +Her shrunken form at his feet was thrown: +At home to the death my lord shall win, +When it is no tyrant who leaves me lone! + + + +NIGHT OF FROST IN MAY + + + +With splendour of a silver day, +A frosted night had opened May: +And on that plumed and armoured night, +As one close temple hove our wood, +Its border leafage virgin white. +Remote down air an owl hallooed. +The black twig dropped without a twirl; +The bud in jewelled grasp was nipped; +The brown leaf cracked a scorching curl; +A crystal off the green leaf slipped. +Across the tracks of rimy tan, +Some busy thread at whiles would shoot; +A limping minnow-rillet ran, +To hang upon an icy foot. + +In this shrill hush of quietude, +The ear conceived a severing cry. +Almost it let the sound elude, +When chuckles three, a warble shy, +From hazels of the garden came, +Near by the crimson-windowed farm. +They laid the trance on breath and frame, +A prelude of the passion-charm. + +Then soon was heard, not sooner heard +Than answered, doubled, trebled, more, +Voice of an Eden in the bird +Renewing with his pipe of four +The sob: a troubled Eden, rich +In throb of heart: unnumbered throats +Flung upward at a fountain's pitch, +The fervour of the four long notes, +That on the fountain's pool subside, +Exult and ruffle and upspring: +Endless the crossing multiplied +Of silver and of golden string. +There chimed a bubbled underbrew +With witch-wild spray of vocal dew. + +It seemed a single harper swept +Our wild wood's inner chords and waked +A spirit that for yearning ached +Ere men desired and joyed or wept. +Or now a legion ravishing +Musician rivals did unite +In love of sweetness high to sing +The subtle song that rivals light; +From breast of earth to breast of sky: +And they were secret, they were nigh: +A hand the magic might disperse; +The magic swung my universe. + +Yet sharpened breath forbade to dream, +Where all was visionary gleam; +Where Seasons, as with cymbals, clashed; +And feelings, passing joy and woe, +Churned, gurgled, spouted, interflashed, +Nor either was the one we know: +Nor pregnant of the heart contained +In us were they, that griefless plained, +That plaining soared; and through the heart +Struck to one note the wide apart:- +A passion surgent from despair; +A paining bliss in fervid cold; +Off the last vital edge of air, +Leap heavenward of the lofty-souled, +For rapture of a wine of tears; +As had a star among the spheres +Caught up our earth to some mid-height +Of double life to ear and sight, +She giving voice to thought that shines +Keen-brilliant of her deepest mines; +While steely drips the rillet clinked, +And hoar with crust the cowslip swelled. + +Then was the lyre of earth beheld, +Then heard by me: it holds me linked; +Across the years to dead-ebb shores +I stand on, my blood-thrill restores. +But would I conjure into me +Those issue notes, I must review +What serious breath the woodland drew; +The low throb of expectancy; +How the white mother-muteness pressed +On leaf and meadow-herb; how shook, +Nigh speech of mouth, the sparkle-crest +Seen spinning on the bracken-crook. + + + +THE TEACHING OF THE NUDE + + + +I + +A satyr spied a Goddess in her bath, +Unseen of her attendant nymphs; none knew. +Forthwith the creature to his fellows drew, +And looking backward on the curtained path, +He strove to tell; he could but heave a breast +Too full, and point to mouth, with failing leers: +Vainly he danced for speech, he giggled tears, +Made as if torn in two, as if tight pressed, +As if cast prone; then fetching whimpered tunes +For words, flung heel and set his hairy flight +Through forest-hollows, over rocky height. +The green leaves buried him three rounds of moons. +A senatorial Satyr named what herb +Had hurried him outrunning reason's curb. + +II + +'Tis told how when that hieaway unchecked +To dell returned, he seemed of tempered mood: +Even as the valley of the torrent rude, +The torrent now a brook, the valley wrecked. +In him, to hale him high or hurl aheap, +Goddess and Goatfoot hourly wrestled sore; +Hourly the immortal prevailing more: +Till one hot noon saw Meliboeus peep +From thicket-sprays to where his full-blown dame, +In circle by the lusty friskers gripped, +Laughed the showered rose-leaves while her limbs were stripped. +She beckoned to our Satyr, and he came. +Then twirled she mounds of ripeness, wreath of arms. +His hoof kicked up the clothing for such charms. + + + +BREATH OF THE BRIAR + + + +I + +O briar-scents, on yon wet wing +Of warm South-west wind brushing by, +You mind me of the sweetest thing +That ever mingled frank and shy: +When she and I, by love enticed, +Beneath the orchard-apples met, +In equal halves a ripe one sliced, +And smelt the juices ere we ate. + +II + +That apple of the briar-scent, +Among our lost in Britain now, +Was green of rind, and redolent +Of sweetness as a milking cow. +The briar gives it back, well nigh +The damsel with her teeth on it; +Her twinkle between frank and shy, +My thirst to bite where she had bit. + + + +EMPEDOCLES + + + +I + +He leaped. With none to hinder, +Of Aetna's fiery scoriae +In the next vomit-shower, made he +A more peculiar cinder. +And this great Doctor, can it be, +He left no saner recipe +For men at issue with despair? +Admiring, even his poet owns, +While noting his fine lyric tones, +The last of him was heels in air! + +II + +Comes Reverence, her features +Amazed to see high Wisdom hear, +With glimmer of a faunish leer, +One mock her pride of creatures. +Shall such sad incident degrade +A stature casting sunniest shade? +O Reverence! let Reason swim; +Each life its critic deed reveals; +And him reads Reason at his heels, +If heels in air the last of him! + + + +ENGLAND BEFORE THE STORM + + + +I + +The day that is the night of days, +With cannon-fire for sun ablaze +We spy from any billow's lift; +And England still this tidal drift! +Would she to sainted forethought vow +A space before the thunders flood, +That martyr of its hour might now +Spare her the tears of blood. + +II + +Asleep upon her ancient deeds, +She hugs the vision plethora breeds, +And counts her manifold increase +Of treasure in the fruits of peace. +What curse on earth's improvident, +When the dread trumpet shatters rest, +Is wreaked, she knows, yet smiles content +As cradle rocked from breast. + +III + +She, impious to the Lord of Hosts, +The valour of her offspring boasts, +Mindless that now on land and main +His heeded prayer is active brain. +No more great heart may guard the home, +Save eyed and armed and skilled to cleave +Yon swallower wave with shroud of foam, +We see not distant heave. + +IV + +They stand to be her sacrifice, +The sons this mother flings like dice, +To face the odds and brave the Fates; +As in those days of starry dates, +When cannon cannon's counterblast +Awakened, muzzle muzzle bowled, +And high in swathe of smoke the mast +Its fighting rag outrolled. + +1891. + + + +TARDY SPRING + + + +Now the North wind ceases, +The warm South-west awakes; +Swift fly the fleeces, +Thick the blossom-flakes. + +Now hill to hill has made the stride, +And distance waves the without end: +Now in the breast a door flings wide; +Our farthest smiles, our next is friend. +And song of England's rush of flowers +Is this full breeze with mellow stops, +That spins the lark for shine, for showers; +He drinks his hurried flight, and drops. +The stir in memory seem these things, +Which out of moistened turf and clay +Astrain for light push patient rings, +Or leap to find the waterway. +'Tis equal to a wonder done, +Whatever simple lives renew +Their tricks beneath the father sun, +As though they caught a broken clue; +So hard was earth an eyewink back: +But now the common life has come, +The blotting cloud a dappled pack, +The grasses one vast underhum. +A City clothed in snow and soot, +With lamps for day in ghostly rows, +Breaks to the scene of hosts afoot, +The river that reflective flows: +And there did fog down crypts of street +Play spectre upon eye and mouth:- +Their faces are a glass to greet +This magic of the whirl for South. +A burly joy each creature swells +With sound of its own hungry quest; +Earth has to fill her empty wells, +And speed the service of the nest; +The phantom of the snow-wreath melt, +That haunts the farmer's look abroad, +Who sees what tomb a white night built, +Where flocks now bleat and sprouts the clod. +For iron Winter held her firm; +Across her sky he laid his hand; +And bird he starved, he stiffened worm; +A sightless heaven, a shaven land. +Her shivering Spring feigned fast asleep, +The bitten buds dared not unfold: +We raced on roads and ice to keep +Thought of the girl we love from cold. + +But now the North wind ceases, +The warm South-west awakes, +The heavens are out in fleeces, +And earth's green banner shakes. + + + +THE LABOURER + + + +For a Heracles in his fighting ire there is never the glory that +follows +When ashen he lies and the poets arise to sing of the work he has +done. +But to vision alive under shallows of sight, lo, the Labourer's +crown is Apollo's, +While stands he yet in his grime and sweat--to wrestle for fruits of +the Sun. + +Can an enemy wither his cheer? Not you, ye fair yellow-flowering +ladies, +Who join with your lords to jar the chords of a bosom heroic, and +clog. +'Tis the faltering friend, an inanimate land, may drag a great soul +to their Hades, +And plunge him far from a beam of star till he hears the deep bay of +the Dog. + +Apparition is then of a monster-task, in a policy carving new +fashions: +The winninger course than the rule of force, and the springs lured +to run in a stream: +He would bend tough oak, he would stiffen the reed, point Reason to +swallow the passions, +Bid Britons awake two steps to take where one is a trouble extreme! + +Not the less is he nerved with the Labourer's resolute hope: that +by him shall be written, +To honour his race, this deed of grace, for the weak from the strong +made just: +That her sons over seas in a rally of praise may behold a thrice +vitalised Britain, +Ashine with the light of the doing of right: at the gates of the +Future in trust. + + + +FORESIGHT AND PATIENCE + + + +Sprung of the father blood, the mother brain, +Are they who point our pathway and sustain. +They rarely meet; one soars, one walks retired. +When they do meet, it is our earth inspired. + +To see Life's formless offspring and subdue +Desire of times unripe, we have these two, +Whose union is right reason: join they hands, +The world shall know itself and where it stands; +What cowering angel and what upright beast +Make man, behold, nor count the low the least, +Nor less the stars have round it than its flowers. +When these two meet, a point of time is ours. + +As in a land of waterfalls, that flow +Smooth for the leap on their great voice below, +Some eddies near the brink borne swift along +Will capture hearing with the liquid song, +So, while the headlong world's imperious force +Resounded under, heard I these discourse. + +First words, where down my woodland walk she led, +To her blind sister Patience, Foresight said: + +- Your faith in me appals, to shake my own, +When still I find you in this mire alone. + +- The few steps taken at a funeral pace +By men had slain me but for those you trace. + +- Look I once back, a broken pinion I: +Black as the rebel angels rained from sky! + +- Needs must you drink of me while here you live, +And make me rich in feeling I can give. + +- A brave To-be is dawn upon my brow: +Yet must I read my sister for the How. +My daisy better knows her God of beams +Than doth an eagle that to mount him seems. +She hath the secret never fieriest reach +Of wing shall master till men hear her teach. + +- Liker the clod flaked by the driving plough, +My semblance when I have you not as now. +The quiet creatures who escape mishap +Bear likeness to pure growths of the green sap: +A picture of the settled peace desired +By cowards shunning strife or strivers tired. +I listen at their breasts: is there no jar +Of wrestlings and of stranglings, dead they are, +And such a picture as the piercing mind +Ranks beneath vegetation. Not resigned +Are my true pupils while the world is brute. +What edict of the stronger keeps me mute, +Stronger impels the motion of my heart. +I am not Resignation's counterpart. +If that I teach, 'tis little the dry word, +Content, but how to savour hope deferred. +We come of earth, and rich of earth may be; +Soon carrion if very earth are we! + +The coursing veins, the constant breath, the use +Of sleep, declare that strife allows short truce; +Unless we clasp decay, accept defeat, +And pass despised; 'a-cold for lack of heat,' +Like other corpses, but without death's plea. + +- My sister calls for battle; is it she? + +- Rather a world of pressing men in arms, +Than stagnant, where the sensual piper charms +Each drowsy malady and coiling vice +With dreams of ease whereof the soul pays price! +No home is here for peace while evil breeds, +While error governs, none; and must the seeds +You sow, you that for long have reaped disdain, +Lie barren at the doorway of the brain, +Let stout contention drive deep furrows, blood +Moisten, and make new channels of its flood! + +- My sober little maid, when we meet first, +Drinks of me ever with an eager thirst. +So can I not of her till circumstance +Drugs cravings. Here we see how men advance +A doubtful foot, but circle if much stirred, +Like dead weeds on whipped waters. Shout the word +Prompting their hungers, and they grandly march, +As to band-music under Victory's arch. +Thus was it, and thus is it; save that then +The beauty of frank animals had men. + +- Observe them, and down rearward for a term, +Gaze to the primal twistings of the worm. +Thence look this way, across the fields that show +Men's early form of speech for Yes and No. + +My sister a bruised infant's utterance had; +And issuing stronger, to mankind 'twas mad. +I knew my home where I had choice to feel +The toad beneath a harrow or a heel. + +- Speak of this Age. + +- When you it shall discern +Bright as you are, to me the Age will turn. + +- For neither of us has it any care; +Its learning is through Science to despair. + +- Despair lies down and grovels, grapples not +With evil, casts the burden of its lot. +This Age climbs earth. + +-To challenge heaven. + +- Not less +The lower deeps. It laughs at Happiness! +That know I, though the echoes of it wail, +For one step upward on the crags you scale. +Brave is the Age wherein the word will rust, +Which means our soul asleep or body's lust, +Until from warmth of many breasts, that beat +A temperate common music, sunlike heat +The happiness not predatory sheds! + +- But your fierce Yes and No of butting heads +Now rages to outdo a horny Past. +Shades of a wild Destroyer on the vast +Are thrown by every novel light upraised. +The world's whole round smokes ominously, amazed +And trembling as its pregnant Aetna swells. +Combustibles on hot combustibles +Run piling, for one spark to roll in fire +The mountain-torrent of infernal ire +And leave the track of devils where men built. +Perceptive of a doom, the sinner's guilt +Confesses in a cry for help shrill loud, +If drops the chillness of a passing cloud, +To conscience, reason, human love; in vain: +None save they but the souls which them contain. +No extramural God, the God within +Alone gives aid to city charged with sin. +A world that for the spur of fool and knave +Sweats in its laboratory what shall save? +But men who ply their wits in such a school +Must pray the mercy of the knave and fool. + +- Much have I studied hard Necessity! +To know her Wisdom's mother, and that we +May deem the harshness of her later cries +In labour a sure goad to prick the wise, +If men among the warnings which convulse +Can gravely dread without the craven's pulse. +Long ere the rising of this age of ours, +The knave and fool were stamped as monstrous Powers. +Of human lusts and lassitudes they spring, +And are as lasting as the parent thing. +Yet numbering locust hosts, bent they to drill, +They might o'ermatch and have mankind at will. +Behold such army gathering; ours the spur, +No scattered foe to face, but Lucifer. +Not fool or knave is now the enemy +O'ershadowing men, 'tis Folly, Knavery! +A sea; nor stays that sea the bastioned beach. +Now must the brother soul alive in each +His traitorous individual devildom +Hold subject lest the grand destruction come. +Dimly men see it menacing apace +To overthrow, perchance uproot, the race. +Within, without, they are a field of tares: +Fruitfuller for them when the contest squares, +And wherefore warrior service they must yield, +Shines visible as life on either field. +That is my comfort, following shock on shock, +Which sets faith quaking on their firmest rock. +Since with his weapons, all the arms of Night, +Frail men have challenged Lucifer to fight, +Have matched in hostile ranks, enrolled, erect, +The human and Satanic intellect, +Determined for their uses to control +What forces on the earth and under roll, +Their granite rock runs igneous; now they stand +Pledged to the heavens for safety of their land. +They cannot learn save grossly, gross that are: +Through fear they learn whose aid is good in war. + +- My sister, as I read them in my glass, +Their field of tares they take for pasture grass. +How waken them that have not any bent +Save browsing--the concrete indifferent! +Friend Lucifer supplies them solid stuff: +They fear not for the race when full the trough. +They have much fear of giving up the ghost; +And these are of mankind the unnumbered host. + +- If I could see with you, and did not faint +In beating wing, the future I would paint. +Those massed indifferents will learn to quake: +Now meanwhile is another mass awake, +Once denser than the grunters of the sty. +If I could see with you! Could I but fly! + +- The length of days that you with them have housed, +An outcast else, approves their cause espoused. + +- O true, they have a cause, and woe for us, +While still they have a cause too piteous! +Yet, happy for us when, their cause defined, +They walk no longer with a stumbler blind, +And quicken in the virtue of their cause, +To think me a poor mouther of old saws! +I wait the issue of a battling Age; +The toilers with your 'troughsters' now engage; +Instructing them, through their acutest sense, +How close the dangers of indifference! +Already have my people shown their worth, +More love they light, which folds the love of Earth. +That love to love of labour leads: thence love +Of humankind--earth's incense flung above. + +- Admit some other features: Faithless, mean; +Encased in matter; vowed to Gods obscene; +Contemptuous of the impalpable, it swells +On Doubt; for pastime swallows miracles; +And if I bid it face what I observe, +Declares me hoodwinked by my optic nerve! + +- Oft has your prophet, for reward of toil, +Seen nests of seeming cockatrices coil: +Disowned them as the unholiest of Time, +Which were his offspring, born of flame on slime. +Nor him, their sire, have known the filial fry: +As little as Time's earliest knew the sky. +Perchance among them shoots a lustrous flame +At intervals, in proof of whom they came. +To strengthen our foundations is the task +Of this tough Age; not in your beams to bask, +Though, lighted by your beams, down mining caves +The rock it blasts, the hoarded foulness braves. +My sister sees no round beyond her mood; +To hawk this Age has dressed her head in hood. +Out of the course of ancient ruts and grooves, +It moves: O much for me to say it moves! +About his AEthiop Highlands Nile is Nile, +Though not the stream of the paternal smile: +And where his tide of nourishment he drives, +An Abyssinian wantonness revives. +Calm as his lotus-leaf to-day he swims; +He is the yellow crops, the rounded limbs, +The Past yet flowing, the fair time that fills; +Breath of all mouths and grist of many mills. +To-morrow, warning none with tempest-showers, +He is the vast Insensate who devours +His golden promise over leagues of seed, +Then sits in a smooth lake upon the deed. +The races which on barbarous force begin +Inherit onward of their origin, +And cancelled blessings will the current length +Reveal till they know need of shaping strength. +'Tis not in men to recognize the need +Before they clash in hosts, in hosts they bleed. +Then may sharp suffering their nature grind; +Of rabble passions grow the chieftain Mind. +Yet mark where still broad Nile boasts thousands fed, +For tens up the safe mountains at his head. +Few would be fed, not far his course prolong, +Save for the troublous blood which makes him strong. +- That rings of truth! More do your people thrive; +Your Many are more merrily alive +Than erewhile when I gloried in the page +Of radiant singer and anointed sage. +Greece was my lamp: burnt out for lack of oil; +Rome, Python Rome, prey of its robber spoil! +All structures built upon a narrow space +Must fall, from having not your hosts for base. +O thrice must one be you, to see them shift +Along their desert flats, here dash, there drift; +With faith, that of privations and spilt blood, +Comes Reason armed to clear or bank the flood! +And thrice must one be you, to wait release +From duress in the swamp of their increase. +At which oppressive scene, beyond arrest, +A darkness not with stars of heaven dressed +Philosophers behold; desponding view +Your Many nourished, starved my brilliant few; +Then flinging heels, as charioteers the reins, +Dive down the fumy AEtna of their brains. +Belated vessels on a rising sea, +They seem: they pass! + +- But not Philosophy! + +- Ay, be we faithful to ourselves: despise +Nought but the coward in us! That way lies +The wisdom making passage through our slough. +Am I not heard, my head to Earth shall bow; +Like her, shall wait to see, and seeing wait. +Philosophy is Life's one match for Fate. +That photosphere of our high fountain One, +Our spirit's Lord and Reason's fostering sun, +Philosophy, shall light us in the shade, +Warm in the frost, make Good our aim and aid. +Companioned by the sweetest, ay renewed, +Unconquerable, whose aim for aid is Good! +Advantage to the Many: that we name +God's voice; have there the surety in our aim. +This thought unto my sister do I owe, +And irony and satire off me throw. +They crack a childish whip, drive puny herds, +Where numbers crave their sustenance in words. +Now let the perils thicken: clearer seen, +Your Chieftain Mind mounts over them serene. +Who never yet of scattered lamps was born +To speed a world, a marching world to warn, +But sunward from the vivid Many springs, +Counts conquest but a step, and through disaster sings. + + + +THE WARNING + + + +We have seen mighty men ballooning high, +And in another moment bump the ground. +He falls; and in his measurement is found +To count some inches o'er the common fry. +'Twas not enough to send him climbing sky, +Yet 'twas enough above his fellows crowned, +Had he less panted. Let his faithful hound +Bark at detractors. He may walk or lie. +Concerns it most ourselves, who with our gas - +This little Isle's insatiable greed +For Continents--filled to inflation burst. +So do ripe nations into squalor pass, +When, driven as herds by their old private thirst, +They scorn the brain's wild search for virtuous light. + + + +OUTSIDE THE CROWD + + + +To sit on History in an easy chair, +Still rivalling the wild hordes by whom 'twas writ! +Sure, this beseems a race of laggard wit, +Unwarned by those plain letters scrawled on air. +If more than hands' and armsful be our share, +Snatch we for substance we see vapours flit. +Have we not heard derision infinite +When old men play the youth to chase the snare? +Let us be belted athletes, matched for foes, +Or stand aloof, the great Benevolent, +The Lord of Lands no Robber-birds annex, +Where Justice holds the scales with pure intent; +Armed to support her sword;--lest we compose +That Chapter for the historic word on Wrecks. + + + +TRAFALGAR DAY + + + +He leads: we hear our Seaman's call +In the roll of battles won; +For he is Britain's Admiral +Till setting of her sun. + +When Britain's life was in her ships, +He kept the sea as his own right; +And saved us from more fell eclipse +Than drops on day from blackest night. +Again his battle spat the flame! +Again his victory flag men saw! +At sound of Nelson's chieftain name, +A deeper breath did Freedom draw. + +Each trusty captain knew his part: +They served as men, not marshalled kine: +The pulses they of his great heart, +With heads to work his main design. +Their Nelson's word, to beat the foe, +And spare the fall'n, before them shone. +Good was the hour of blow for blow, +And clear their course while they fought on. + +Behold the Envied vanward sweep! - +A day in mourning weeds adored! +Then Victory was wrought to weep; +Then sorrow crowned with laurel soared. + +A breezeless flag above a shroud +All Britain was when wind and wave, +To make her, passing human, proud, +Brought his last gift from o'er the grave! + +Uprose the soul of him a star +On that brave day of Ocean days: +It rolled the smoke from Trafalger +To darken Austerlitz ablaze. +Are we the men of old, its light +Will point us under every sky +The path he took; and must we fight, +Our Nelson be our battle-cry! + +He leads: we hear our Seaman's call +In the roll of battles won; +For he is Britain's Admiral +Till setting of her sun. + + + +THE REVOLUTION + + + +I + +Not yet had History's Aetna smoked the skies, +And low the Gallic Giantess lay enchained, +While overhead in ordered set and rise +Her kingly crowns immutably defiled; +Effulgent on funereal piled +Across the vacant heavens, and distrained +Her body, mutely, even as earth, to bear; +Despoiled the tomb of hope, her mouth of air. + +II + +Through marching scores of winters racked she lay, +Beneath a hoar-frost's brilliant crust, +Whereon the jewelled flies that drained +Her breasts disported in a glistering spray; +She, the land's fount of fruits, enclosed with dust; +By good and evil angels fed, sustained +In part to curse, in part to pray, +Sucking the dubious rumours, till men saw +The throbs of her charged heart before the Just, +So worn the harrowed surface had become: +And still they deemed the dance above was Law, +Amort all passion in a rebel dumb. + +III + +Then, on the unanticipated day, +Earth heaved, and rose a veinous mound +To roar of the underfloods; and off it sprang, +Ravishing as red wine in woman's form, +A splendid Maenad, she of the delirious laugh, +Her body twisted flames with the smoke-cap crowned; +She of the Bacchic foot; the challenger to the fray, +Bewitchment for the embrace; who sang, who sang +Intoxication to her swarm, +Revolved them, hair, voice, feet, in her carmagnole, +As with a stroke she snapped the Royal staff, +Dealt the awaited blow on gilt decay +(O ripeness of the time! O Retribution sure, +If but our vital lamp illume us to endure!) +And, like a glad releasing of her soul, +Sent the word Liberty up to meet the midway blue, +Her bridegroom in descent to her; and they joined, +In the face of men they joined: attest it true, +The million witnesses, that she, +For ages lying beside the mole, +Was on the unanticipated miracle day +Upraised to midway heaven and, as to her goal, +Enfolded, ere the Immaculate knew +What Lucifer of the Mint had coined +His bride's adulterate currency +Of burning love corrupt of an infuriate hate; +She worthy, she unworthy; that one day his mate: +His mate for that one day of the unwritten deed. +Read backward on the hoar-frost's brilliant crust; +Beneath it read. +Athirst to kiss, athirst to slay, she stood, +A radiance fringed with grim affright; +For them that hungered, she was nourishing food, +For those who sparkled, Night. +Read in her heart, and how before the Just +Her doings, her misdoings, plead. + +IV + +Down on her leap for him the young Angelical broke +To husband a resurgent France: +From whom, with her dethroning stroke, +Dishonour passed; the dalliance, +That is occasion's yea or nay, +In issues for the soul to pay, +Discarded; and the cleft 'twixt deed and word, +The sinuous lie which warbles the sweet bird, +Wherein we see old Darkness peer, +Cold Dissolution beck, she had flung hence; +And hence the talons and the beak of prey; +Hence all the lures to silken swine +Thronging the troughs of indolence; +With every sleek convolvement serpentine; +The pride in elfin arts to veil an evil leer, +And bid a goatfoot trip it like a fay. +He clasped in this revived, uprisen France, +A valorous dame, of countenance +The lightning's upon cloud: unlit as yet +On brows and lips the lurid shine +Of seas in the night-wind's whirl; unstirred +Her pouch of the centuries' injuries compressed; +The shriek that tore the world as yet unheard: +Earth's animate full flower she looked, intense +For worship, wholly given him, fair +Adoring or desiring; in her bright jet, +Earth's crystal spring to sky: Earth's warrior Best +To win Heaven's Pure up that midway +We vision for new ground, where sense +And spirit are one for the further flight; breast-bare, +Bare-limbed; nor graceless gleamed her disarray +In scorn of the seductive insincere, +But martially nude for hot Bellona's play, +And amorous of the loftiest in her view. + +V + +She sprang from dust to drink of earth's cool dew, +The breath of swaying grasses share, +Mankind embrace, their weaklings rear, +At wrestle with the tyrannic strong; +Her forehead clear to her mate, virgin anew, +As immortals may be in the mortal sphere. +Read through her launching heart, who had lain long +With Earth and heard till it became her own +Our good Great Mother's eve and matin song: +The humming burden of Earth's toil to feed +Her creatures all, her task to speed their growth, +Her aim to lead them up her pathways, shown +Between the Pains and Pleasures; warned of both, +Of either aided on their hard ascent. +Now when she looked, with love's benign delight +After great ecstasy, along the plains, +What foulest impregnation of her sight +Transformed the scene to multitudinous troops +Of human sketches, quaver-figures, bent, +As were they winter sedges, broken hoops, +Dry udder, vineless poles, worm-eaten posts, +With features like the flowers defaced by deluge rains? +Recked she that some perverting devil had limned +Earth's proudest to spout scorn of the Maker's hand, +Who could a day behold these deathly hosts, +And see, decked, graced, and delicately trimmed, +A ribanded and gemmed elected few, +Sanctioned, of milk and honey starve the land:- +Like melody in flesh, its pleasant game +Olympianwise perform, cloak but the shame: +Beautiful statures; hideous, +By Christian contrast; pranked with golden chains, +And flexile where is manhood straight; +Mortuaries where warm should beat +The brotherhood that keeps blood sweet: +Who dared in cantique impious +Proclaim the Just, to whom was due +Cathedral gratitude in the pomp of state, +For that on those lean outcasts hung the sucker Pains, +On these elect the swelling Pleasures grew. +Surely a devil's land when that meant death for each! +Fresh from the breast of Earth, not thus, +With all the body's life to plump the leech, +Is Nature's way, she knew. The abominable scene +Spat at the skies; and through her veins, +To cloud celestially sown, +Ran venom of what nourishment +Her dark sustainer subterrene +Supplied her, stretched supine on the rack, +Alive in the shrewd nerves, the seething brains, +Under derisive revels, prone +As one clamped fast, with the interminable senseless blent. + +VI + +Now was her face white waves in the tempest's sharp flame-blink; +Her skies shot black. +Now was it visioned infamy to drink +Of earth's cool dew, and through the vines +Frolic in pearly laughter with her young, +Watching the healthful, natural, happy signs +Where hands of lads and maids like tendrils clung, +After their sly shy ventures from the leaf, +And promised bunches. Now it seemed +The world was one malarious mire, +Crying for purification: chief +This land of France. It seemed +A duteous desire +To drink of life's hot flood, and the crimson streamed. + +VII + +She drank what makes man demon at the draught. +Her skies lowered black, +Her lover flew, +There swept a shudder over men. +Her heavenly lover fled her, and she laughed, +For laughter was her spirit's weapon then. +The Infernal rose uncalled, he with his crew. + +VIII + +As mighty thews burst manacles, she went mad: +Her heart a flaring torch usurped her wits. +Such enemies of her next-drawn breath she had! +To tread her down in her live grave beneath +Their dancing floor sunned blind by the Royal wreath, +They ringed her steps with crafty prison pits. +Without they girdled her, made nest within. +There ramped the lion, here entrailed the snake. +They forced the cup to her lips when she drank blood; +Believing it, in the mother's mind at strain, +In the mother's fears, and in young Liberty's wail +Alarmed, for her encompassed children's sake, +The sole sure way to save her priceless bud. +Wherewith, when power had gifted her to prevail, +Vengeance appeared as logically akin. +Insanely rational they; she rationally insane; +And in compute of sin, was hers the appealing sin. + +IX + +Amid the plash of scarlet mud +Stained at the mouth, drunk with our common air, +Not lack of love was her defect; +The Fury mourned and raged and bled for France +Breathing from exultation to despair +At every wild-winged hope struck by mischance +Soaring at each faint gleam o'er her abyss. +Heard still, to be heard while France shall stand erect, +The frontier march she piped her sons, for where +Her crouching outer enemy camped, +Attendant on the deadlier inner's hiss. +She piped her sons the frontier march, the wine +Of martial music, History's cherished tune; +And they, the saintliest labourers that aye +Dropped sweat on soil for bread, took arms and tramped; +High-breasted to match men or elements, +Or Fortune, harsh schoolmistress with the undrilled: +War's ragged pupils; many a wavering line, +Torn from the dear fat soil of champaigns hopefully tilled, +Torn from the motherly bowl, the homely spoon, +To jest at famine, ply +The novel scythe, and stand to it on the field; +Lie in the furrows, rain-clouds for their tents; +Fronting the red artillery straighten spine; +Buckle the shiver at sight of comrades strewn; +Over an empty platter affect the merrily filled; +Die, if the multiple hazards around said die; +Downward measure a foeman mightily sized; +Laugh at the legs that would run for a life despised; +Lyrical on into death's red roaring jaw-gape, steeled +Gaily to take of the foe his lesson, and give reply. +Cheerful apprentices, they shall be masters soon! + +X + +Lo, where hurricane flocks of the North-wind rattle their thunder +Loud through a night, and at dawn comes change to the great South- +west, +Hounds are the hounded in clouds, waves, forests, inverted the race: +Lo, in the day's young beams the colossal invading pursuers +Burst upon rocks and were foam; +Ridged up a torrent crest; +Crumbled to ruin, still gazing a glacial wonder; +Turned shamed feet toe to heel on their track at a panic pace. +Yesterday's clarion cock scudded hen of the invalid comb; +They, the triumphant tonant towering upper, were under; +They, violators of home, dared hope an inviolate home; +They that had stood for the stroke were the vigorous hewers; +Quick as the trick of the wrist with the rapier, they the pursuers. +Heavens and men amazed heard the arrogant crying for grace; +Saw the once hearth-reek rabble the scourge of an army dispieced; +Saw such a shift of the hunt as when Titan Olympus clomb. +Fly! was the sportsman's word; and the note of the quarry rang, +Chase! + +XI + +Banners from South, from East, +Sheaves of pale banners drooping hole and shred; +The captive brides of valour, Sabine Wives +Plucked from the foeman's blushful bed, +For glorious muted battle-tongues +Of deeds along the horizon's red, +At cost of unreluctant lives; +Her toilful heroes homeward poured, +To give their fevered mother air of the lungs. +She breathed, and in the breathing craved. +Environed as she was, at bay, +Safety she kissed on her drawn sword, +And waved for victory, for fresh victory waved: +She craved for victory as her daily bread; +For victory as her daily banquet raved. + +XII + +Now had her glut of vengeance left her grey +Of blood, who in her entrails fiercely tore +To clutch and squeeze her snakes; herself the more +Devitalizing: red washer Auroral ray; +Desired if but to paint her pallid hue. +The passion for that young horizon red, +Which dowered her with the flags, the blazing fame, +Like dotage of the past-meridian dame +For some bright Sungod adolescent, swelled +Insatiate, to the voracious grew, +The glutton's inward raveners bred; +Till she, mankind's most dreaded, most abhorred, +Witless in her demands on Fortune, asked, +As by the weaving Fates impelled, +To have the thing most loathed, the iron lord, +Controller and chastiser, under Victory masked. + +XIII + +Banners from East, from South, +She hugged him in them, feared the scourge they meant, +Yet blindly hugged, and hungering built his throne. +So may you see the village innocent, +With curtsey of shut lids and open mouth, +In act to beg for sweets expect a loathly stone: +See furthermore the Just in his measures weigh +Her sufferings and her sins, dispense her meed. +False to her bridegroom lord of the miracle day, +She fell: from his ethereal home observed +Through love, grown alien love, not moved to plead +Against the season's fruit for deadly Seed, +But marking how she had aimed, and where she swerved, +Why suffered, with a sad consenting thought. +Nor would he shun her sullen look, nor monstrous hold +The doer of the monstrous; she aroused, +She, the long tortured, suddenly freed, distraught, +More strongly the divine in him than when +Joy of her as she sprang from mould +Drew him the midway heavens adown +To clasp her in his arms espoused +Before the sight of wondering men, +And put upon the day a deathless crown. +The veins and arteries of her, fold in fold, +His alien love laid open, to divide +The martyred creature from her crimes; he knew +What cowardice in her valour could reside; +What strength her weakness covered; what abased +Sublimity so illumining, and what raised +This wallower in old slime to noblest heights, +Up to the union on the midway blue:- +Day that the celestial grave Recorder hangs +Among dark History's nocturnal lights, +With vivid beams indicative to the quick +Of all who have felt the vaulted body's pangs +Beneath a mind in hopeless soaring sick. +She had forgot how, long enslaved, she yearned +To the one helping hand above; +Forgot her faith in the Great Undiscerned, +Whereof she sprang aloft to her Angelical love +That day: and he, the bright day's husband, still with love, +Though alien, though to an upper seat retired, +Behold a wrangling heart, as 'twere her soul +On eddies of wild waters cast; +In wilderness division; fired +For domination, freedom, lust, +The Pleasures; lo, a witch's snaky bowl +Set at her lips; the blood-drinker's madness fast +Upon her; and therewith mistrust, +Most of herself: a mouth of guile. +Compassionately could he smile, +To hear the mouth disclaiming God, +And clamouring for the Just! +Her thousand impulses, like torches, coursed +City and field; and pushed abroad +O'er hungry waves to thirsty sands, +Flaring at further; she had grown to be +The headless with the fearful hands; +To slaughter, else to suicide, enforced. +But he, remembering how his love began, +And of what creature, pitied when was plain +Another measure of captivity: +The need for strap and rod; +The penitential prayers again; +Again the bitter bowing down to dust; +The burden on the flesh for who disclaims the God, +The answer when is call upon the Just. +Whence her lost virtue had found refuge strode +Her master, saying, 'I only; I who can!' +And echoed round her army, now her chain. +So learns the nation, closing Anarch's reign, +That she had been in travail of a Man. + + + +NAPOLEON + + + +I + +Cannon his name, +Cannon his voice, he came. +Who heard of him heard shaken hills, +An earth at quake, to quiet stamped; +Who looked on him beheld the will of wills, +The driver of wild flocks where lions ramped: +Beheld War's liveries flee him, like lumped grass +Nid-nod to ground beneath the cuffing storm; +While laurelled over his Imperial form, +Forth from her bearded tube of lacquey brass, +Reverberant notes and long blew volant Fame. +Incarnate Victory, Power manifest, +Infernal or God-given to mankind, +On the quenched volcano's cusp did he take stand, +A conquering army's height above the land, +Which calls that army offspring of its breast, +And sees it mid the starry camps enshrined; +His eye the cannon's flame, +The cannon's cave his mind. + +II + +To weld the nation in a name of dread, +And scatter carrion flies off wounds unhealed, +The Necessitated came, as comes from out +Electric ebon lightning's javelin-head, +Threatening agitation in the revealed +Founts of our being; terrible with doubt, +With radiance restorative. At one stride +Athwart the Law he stood for sovereign sway. +That Soliform made featureless beside +His brilliancy who neighboured: vapour they; +Vapour what postured statues barred his tread. +On high in amphitheatre field on field, +Italian, Egyptian, Austrian, +Far heard and of the carnage discord clear, +Bells of his escalading triumphs pealed +In crashes on a choral chant severe, +Heraldic of the authentic Charlemagne, +Globe, sceptre, sword, to enfold, to rule, to smite, +Make unity of the mass, +Coherent or refractory, by his might. + +Forth from her bearded tube of lacquey brass, +Fame blew, and tuned the jangles, bent the knees +Rebellious or submissive; his decrees +Were thunder in those heavens and compelled: +Such as disordered earth, eclipsed of stars, +Endures for sign of Order's calm return, +Whereunto she is vowed; and his wreckage-spars, +His harried ships, old riotous Ocean lifts alight, +Subdued to splendour in his delirant churn. +Glory suffused the accordant, quelled, +By magic of high sovereignty, revolt: +And he, the reader of men, himself unread; +The name of hope, the name of dread; +Bloom of the coming years or blight; +An arm to hurl the bolt +With aim Olympian; bore +Likeness to Godhead. Whither his flashes hied +Hosts fell; what he constructed held rock-fast. +So did earth's abjects deem of him that built and clove. +Torch on imagination, beams he cast, +Whereat they hailed him deified: +If less than an eagle-speeding Jove, than Vulcan more. +Or it might be a Vulcan-Jove, +Europe for smithy, Europe's floor +Lurid with sparks in evanescent showers, +Loud echo-clap of hammers at all hours, +Our skies the reflex of its furnace blast. + +III + +On him the long enchained, released +For bride of the miracle day up the midway blue; +She from her heavenly lover fallen to serve for feast +Of rancours and raw hungers; she, the untrue, +Yet pitiable, not despicable, gazed. +Fawning, her body bent, she gazed +With eyes the moonstone portals to her heart: +Eyes magnifying through hysteric tears +This apparition, ghostly for belief; +Demoniac or divine, but sole +Over earth's mightiest written Chief; +Earth's chosen, crowned, unchallengeable upstart: +The trumpet word to awake, transform, renew; +The arbiter of circumstance; +High above limitations, as the spheres. +Nor ever had heroical Romance, +Never ensanguined History's lengthened scroll, +Shown fulminant to shoot the levin dart +Terrific as this man, by whom upraised, +Aggrandized and begemmed, she outstripped her peers; +Like midnight's levying brazier-beacon blazed +Defiant to the world, a rally for her sons, +Day of the darkness; this man's mate; by him, +Cannon his name, +Rescued from vivisectionist and knave, +Her body's dominators and her shame; +By him with the rivers of ranked battalions, brave +Past mortal, girt: a march of swords and guns +Incessant; his proved warriors; loaded dice +He flung on the crested board, where chilly Fears +Behold the Reaper's ground, Death sitting grim, +Awatch for his predestined ones, +Mid shrieks and torrent-hooves; but these, +Inebriate of his inevitable device, +Hail it their hero's wood of lustrous laurel-trees, +Blossom and fruit of fresh Hesperides, +The boiling life-blood in their cheers. +Unequalled since the world was man they pour +A spiky girdle round her; these, her sons, +His cataracts at smooth holiday, soon to roar +Obstruction shattered at his will or whim: +Kind to her ear as quiring Cherubim, +And trampling earth like scornful mastodons. + +IV + +The flood that swept her to be slave +Adoring, under thought of being his mate, +These were, and unto the visibly unexcelled, +As much of heart as abjects can she gave, +Or what of heart the body bears for freight +When Majesty apparent overawes; +By the flash of his ascending deeds upheld, +Which let not feminine pride in him have pause +To question where the nobler pride rebelled. +She read the hieroglyphic on his brow, +Felt his firm hand to wield the giant's mace; +Herself whirled upward in an eagle's claws, +Past recollection of her earthly place; +And if cold Reason pressed her, called him Fate; +Offering abashed the servile woman's vow. +Delirium was her virtue when the look +At fettered wrists and violated laws +Faith in a rectitude Supernal shook, +Till worship of him shone as her last rational state, +The slave's apology for gemmed disgrace. +Far in her mind that leap from earth to the ghost +Midway on high; or felt as a troubled pool; +Or as a broken sleep that hunts a dream half lost, +Arrested and rebuked by the common school +Of daily things for truancy. She could rejoice +To know with wakeful eyeballs Violence +Her crowned possessor, and, on every sense +Incumbent, Fact, Imperial Fact, her choice, +In scorn of barren visions, aims at a glassy void. +Who sprang for Liberty once, found slavery sweet; +And Tyranny, on alert subservience buoyed, +Spurred a blood-mare immeasureably fleet +To shoot the transient leagues in a passing wink, +Prompt for the glorious bound at the fanged abyss's brink. +Scarce felt she that she bled when battle scored +On riddled flags the further conjured line; +From off the meteor gleam of his waved sword +Reflected bright in permanence: she bled +As the Bacchante spills her challengeing wine +With whirl o' the cup before the kiss to lip; +And bade drudge History in his footprints tread, +For pride of sword-strokes o'er slow penmanship: +Each step of his a volume: his sharp word +The shower of steel and lead +Or pastoral sunshine. + +V + +Persistent through the brazen chorus round +His thunderous footsteps on the foeman's ground, +A broken carol of wild notes was heard, +As when an ailing infant wails a dream. +Strange in familiarity it rang: +And now along the dark blue vault might seem +Winged migratories having but heaven for home, +Now the lone sea-bird's cry down shocks of foam, +Beneath a ruthless paw the captive's pang. + +It sang the gift that comes from God +To mind of man as air to lung. +So through her days of under sod +Her faith unto her heart had sung, +Like bedded seed by frozen clod, +With view of wide-armed heaven and buds at burst, +And midway up, Earth's fluttering little lyre. +Even for a glimpse, for even a hope in chained desire +The vision of it watered thirst. + +VI + +But whom those errant moans accused +As Liberty's murderous mother, cried accursed, +France blew to deafness: for a space she mused; +She smoothed a startled look, and sought, +From treasuries of the adoring slave, +Her surest way to strangle thought; +Picturing her dread lord decree advance +Into the enemy's land; artillery, bayonet, lance; +His ordering fingers point the dial's to time their ranks: +Himself the black storm-cloud, the tempest's bayonet-glaive. +Like foam-heads of a loosened freshet bursting banks, +By mount and fort they thread to swamp the sluggard plains. +Shines his gold-laurel sun, or cloak connivent rains. +They press to where the hosts in line and square throng mute; +He watchful of their form, the Audacious, the Astute; +Eagle to grip the field; to work his craftiest, fox. +From his brief signal, straight the stroke of the leveller falls; +From him those opal puffs, those arcs with the clouded balls: +He waves and the voluble scene is a quagmire shifting blocks; +They clash, they are knotted, and now 'tis the deed of the axe on +the log; +Here away moves a spiky woodland, and yon away sweep +Rivers of horse torrent-mad to the shock, and the heap over heap +Right through the troughed black lines turned to bunches or shreds, +or a fog +Rolling off sunlight's arrows. Not mightier Phoebus in ire, +Nor deadlier Jove's avengeing right hand, than he of the brain +Keen at an enemy's mind to encircle and pierce and constrain, +Muffling his own for a fate-charged blow very Gods may admire. +Sure to behold are his eagles on high where the conflict raged. +Rightly, then, should France worship, and deafen the disaccord +Of those who dare withstand an irresistible sword +To thwart his predestined subjection of Europe. Let them submit! +She said it aloud, and heard in her breast, as a singer caged, +With the beat of wings at bars, Earth's fluttering little lyre. +No more at midway heaven, but liker midway to the pit: +Not singing the spirally upward of rapture, the downward of pain +Rather, the drop sheer downward from pressure of merciless weight. + +Her strangled thought got breath, with her worship held debate; +To yield and sink, yet eye askant the mark she had missed. +Over the black-blue rollers of that broad Westerly main, +Steady to sky, the light of Liberty glowed +In a flaming pillar, that cast on the troubled waters a road +For Europe to cross, and see the thing lost subsist. +For there 'twas a shepherd led his people, no butcher of sheep; +Firmly there the banner he first upreared +Stands to rally; and nourishing grain do his children reap +From a father beloved in life, in his death revered. +Contemplating him and his work, shall a skyward glance +Clearer sight of our dreamed and abandoned obtain; +Nay, but as if seen in station above the Republic, France +Had view of her one-day's heavenly lover again; +Saw him amid the bright host looking down on her; knew she had +erred, +Knew him her judge, knew yonder the spirit preferred; +Yonder the base of the summit she strove that day to ascend, +Ere cannon mastered her soul, and all dreams had end. + +VII + +Soon felt she in her shivered frame +A bodeful drain of blood illume +Her wits with frosty fire to read +The dazzling wizard who would have her bleed +On fruitless marsh and snows of spectral gloom +For victory that was victory scarce in name. +Husky his clarions laboured, and her sighs +O'er slaughtered sons were heavier than the prize; +Recalling how he stood by Frederic's tomb, +With Frederic's country underfoot and spurned: +There meditated; till her hope might guess, +Albeit his constant star prescribe success, +The savage strife would sink, the civil aim +To head a mannered world breathe zephyrous +Of morning after storm; whereunto she yearned; +And Labour's lovely peace, and Beauty's courtly bloom, +The mind in strenuous tasks hilarious. +At such great height, where hero hero topped, +Right sanely should the Grand Ascendant think +No further leaps at the fanged abyss's brink +True Genius takes: be battle's dice-box dropped! + +She watched his desert features, hung to hear +The honey words desired, and veiled her face; +Hearing the Seaman's name recur +Wrathfully, thick with a meaning worse +Than call to the march: for that inveterate Purse +Could kindle the extinct, inform a vacant place, +Conjure a heart into the trebly felled. +It squeezed the globe, insufferably swelled +To feed insurgent Europe: rear and van +Were haunted by the amphibious curse; +Here flesh, there phantom, livelier after rout: +The Seaman piping aye to the rightabout, +Distracted Europe's Master, puffed remote +Those Indies of the swift Macedonian, +Whereon would Europe's Master somewhiles doat, +In dreamings on a docile universe +Beneath an immarcessible Charlemagne. + +Nor marvel France should veil a seer's face, +And call on darkness as a blest retreat. +Magnanimously could her iron Emperor +Confront submission: hostile stirred to heat +All his vast enginery, allowed no halt +Up withered avenues of waste-blood war, +To the pitiless red mounts of fire afume, +As 'twere the world's arteries opened! Woe the race! +Ask wherefore Fortune's vile caprice should balk +His panther spring across the foaming salt, +From martial sands to the cliffs of pallid chalk! +There is no answer: seed of black defeat +She then did sow, and France nigh unto death foredoom. +See since that Seaman's epicycle sprite +Engirdle, lure and goad him to the chase +Along drear leagues of crimson spotting white +With mother's tears of France, that he may meet +Behind suborned battalions, ranked as wheat +Where peeps the weedy poppy, him of the sea; +Earth's power to baffle Ocean's power resume; +Victorious army crown o'er Victory's fleet; +And bearing low that Seaman upon knee, +Stay the vexed question of supremacy, +Obnoxious in the vault by Frederic's tomb. + +VIII + +Poured streams of Europe's veins the flood +Full Rhine or Danube rolls off morning-tide +Through shadowed reaches into crimson-dyed: +And Rhine and Danube knew her gush of blood +Down the plucked roots the deepest in her breast. +He tossed her cordials, from his laurels pressed. +She drank for dryness thirstily, praised his gifts. +The blooded frame a powerful draught uplifts +Writhed the devotedness her voice rang wide +In cries ecstatic, as of the martyr-Blest, +Their spirits issuing forth of bodies racked, +And crazy chuckles, with life's tears at feud; +While near her heart the sunken sentinel +Called Critic marked, and dumb in awe reviewed +This torture, this anointed, this untracked +To mortal source, this alien of his kind; +Creator, slayer, conjuror, Solon-Mars, +The cataract of the abyss, the star of stars; +Whose arts to lay the senses under spell +Aroused an insurrectionary mind. + +IX + +He, did he love her? France was his weapon, shrewd +At edge, a wind in onset: he loved well +His tempered weapon, with the which he hewed +Clean to the ground impediments, or hacked, +Sure of the blade that served the great man-miracle. +He raised her, robed her, gemmed her for his bride, +Did but her blood in blindness given exact. +Her blood she gave, was blind to him as guide: +She quivered at his word, and at his touch +Was hound or steed for any mark he espied. +He loved her more than little, less than much. +The fair subservient of Imperial Fact +Next to his consanguineous was placed +In ranked esteem; above the diurnal meal, +Vexatious carnal appetites above, +Above his hoards, while she Imperial Fact embraced, +And rose but at command from under heel. +The love devolvent, the ascension love, +Receptive or profuse, were fires he lacked, +Whose marrow had expelled their wasteful sparks; +Whose mind, the vast machine of endless haste, +Took up but solids for its glowing seal. +The hungry love, that fish-like creatures feel, +Impelled for prize of hooks, for prey of sharks, +His night's first quarter sicklied to distaste, +In warm enjoyment barely might distract. +A head that held an Europe half devoured +Taste in the blood's conceit of pleasure soured. +Nought save his rounding aim, the means he plied, +Death for his cause, to him could point appeal. +His mistress was the thing of uses tried. +Frigid the netting smile on whom he wooed, +But on his Policy his eye was lewd. +That sharp long zig-zag into distance brooked +No foot across; a shade his ire provoked. +The blunder or the cruelty of a deed +His Policy imperative could plead. +He deemed nought other precious, nor knew he +Legitimate outside his Policy. +Men's lives and works were due, from their birth's date, +To the State's shield and sword, himself the State. +He thought for them in mass, as Titan may; +For their pronounced well-being bade obey; +O'er each obstructive thicket thunderclapped, +And straight their easy road to market mapped. +Watched Argus to survey the huge preserves +He held or coveted; Mars was armed alert +At sign of motion; yet his brows were murk, +His gorge would surge, to see the butcher's work, +The Reaper's field; a sensitive in nerves. +He rode not over men to do them hurt. +As one who claimed to have for paramour +Earth's fairest form, he dealt the cancelling blow; +Impassioned, still impersonal; to ensure +Possession; free of rivals, not their foe. + +The common Tyrant's frenzies, rancour, spites, +He knew as little as men's claim on rights. +A kindness for old servants, early friends, +Was constant in him while they served his ends; +And if irascible, 'twas the moment's reek +From fires diverted by some gusty freak. +His Policy the act which breeds the act +Prevised, in issues accurately summed +From reckonings of men's tempers, terrors, needs:- +That universal army, which he leads +Who builds Imperial on Imperious Fact. +Within his hot brain's hammering workshop hummed +A thousand furious wheels at whirr, untired +As Nature in her reproductive throes; +And did they grate, he spake, and cannon fired: +The cause being aye the incendiary foes +Proved by prostration culpable. His dispense +Of Justice made his active conscience; +His passive was of ceaseless labour formed. +So found this Tyrant sanction and repose; +Humanly just, inhumanly unwarmed. +Preventive fencings with the foul intent +Occult, by him observed and foiled betimes, +Let fool historians chronicle as crimes. +His blows were dealt to clear the way he went: +Too busy sword and mind for needless blows. +The mighty bird of sky minutest grains +On ground perceived; in heaven but rays or rains; +In humankind diversities of masks, +For rule of men the choice of bait or goads. +The statesman steered the despot to large tasks; +The despot drove the statesman on short roads. +For Order's cause he laboured, as inclined +A soldier's training and his Euclid mind. +His army unto men he could present +As model of the perfect instrument. +That creature, woman, was the sofa soft, +When warriors their dusty armour doffed, +And read their manuals for the making truce +With rosy frailties framed to reproduce. +He farmed his land, distillingly alive +For the utmost extract he might have and hive, +Wherewith to marshal force; and in like scheme, +Benign shone Hymen's torch on young love's dream. +Thus to be strong was he beneficent; +A fount of earth, likewise a firmament. + +The disputant in words his eye dismayed: +Opinions blocked his passage. Rent +Were Councils with a gesture; brayed +By hoarse camp-phrase what argument +Dared interpose to waken spleen +In him whose vision grasped the unseen, +Whose counsellor was the ready blade, +Whose argument the cannonade. +He loathed his land's divergent parties, loth +To grant them speech, they were such idle troops; +The friable and the grumous, dizzards both. +Men were good sticks his mastery wrought from hoops; +Some serviceable, none credible on oath. +The silly preference they nursed to die +In beds he scorned, and led where they should lie. +If magic made them pliable for his use, +Magician he could be by planned surprise. +For do they see the deuce in human guise, +As men's acknowledged head appears the deuce, +And they will toil with devilish craft and zeal. +Among them certain vagrant wits that had +Ideas buzzed; they were the feebly mad; +Pursuers of a film they hailed ideal; +But could be dangerous fire-flies for a brain +Subdued by fact, still amorous of the inane. +With a breath he blew them out, to beat their wings +The way of such transfeminated things, +And France had sense of vacancy in Light. + +That is the soul's dead darkness, making clutch +Wild hands for aid at muscles within touch; +Adding to slavery's chain the stringent twist; +Even when it brings close surety that aright +She reads her Tyrant through his golden mist; +Perceives him fast to a harsher Tyrant bound; +Self-ridden, self-hunted, captive of his aim; +Material grandeur's ape, the Infernal's hound; +Enormous, with no infinite around; +No starred deep sky, no Muse, or lame +The dusty pattering pinions, +The voice as through the brazen tube of Fame. + +X + +Hugest of engines, a much limited man, +She saw the Lustrous, her great lord, appear +Through that smoked glass her last privation brought +To point her critic eye and spur her thought: +A heart but to propel Leviathan; +A spirit that breathed but in earth's atmosphere. +Amid the plumed and sceptred ones +Irradiatingly Jovian, +The mountain tower capped by the floating cloud; +A nursery screamer where dialectics ruled: +Mannerless, graceless, laughterless, unlike +Herself in all, yet with such power to strike, +That she the various features she could scan +Dared not to sum, though seeing: and befooled +By power which beamed omnipotent, she bowed, +Subservient as roused echo round his guns. +Invulnerable Prince of Myrmidons, +He sparkled, by no sage Athene schooled. +Partly she read her riddle, stricken and pained; +But irony, her spirit's tongue, restrained. +The Critic, last of vital in the proud +Enslaved, when most detectively endowed, +Admired how irony's venom off him ran, +Like rain-drops down a statue cast in bronze: +Whereby of her keen rapier disarmed, +Again her chant of eulogy began, +Protesting, but with slavish senses charmed. + +Her warrior, chief among the valorous great +In arms he was, dispelling shades of blame, +With radiance palpable in fruit and weight. +Heard she reproach, his victories blared response; +His victories bent the Critic to acclaim, +As with fresh blows upon a ringing sconce. +Or heard she from scarred ranks of jolly growls +His veterans dwarf their reverence and, like owls, +Laugh in the pitch of discord, to exalt +Their idol for some genial trick or fault, +She, too, became his marching veteran. +Again she took her breath from them who bore +His eagles through the tawny roar, +And murmured at a peaceful state, +That bred the title charlatan, +As missile from the mouth of hate, +For one the daemon fierily filled and hurled, +Cannon his name, +Shattering against a barrier world; +Her supreme player of man's primaeval game. + +The daemon filled him, and he filled her sons; +Strung them to stature over human height, +As march the standards down the smoky fight; +Her cherubim, her towering mastodons! +Directed vault or breach, break through +Earth's toughest, seasons, elements, tame; +Dash at the bulk the sharpened few; +Count death the smallest of their debts: +Show that the will to do +Is masculine and begets! + +These princes unto him the mother owed; +These jewels of manhood that rich hand bestowed. +What wonder, though with wits awake +To read her riddle, for these her offspring's sake; - +And she, before high heaven adulteress, +The lost to honour, in his glory clothed, +Else naked, shamed in sight of men, self-loathed; - +That she should quench her thought, nor worship less +Than ere she bled on sands or snows and knew +The slave's alternative, to worship or to rue! + +XI + +Bright from the shell of that much limited man, +Her hero, like the falchion out of sheath, +Like soul that quits the tumbled body, soared: +And France, impulsive, nuptial with his plan, +Albeit the Critic fretting her, adored +Once more. Exultingly her heart went forth, +Submissive to his mind and mood, +The way of those pent-eyebrows North; +For now was he to win the wreath +Surpassing sunniest in camp or Court; +Next, as the blessed harvest after years of blight, +Sit, the Great Emperor, to be known the Good! + +Now had the Seaman's volvent sprite, +Lean from the chase that barked his contraband, +A beggared applicant at every port, +To strew the profitless deeps and rot beneath, +Slung northward, for a hunted beast's retort +On sovereign power; there his final stand, +Among the perjured Scythian's shaggy horde, +The hydrocephalic aerolite +Had taken; flashing thence repellent teeth, +Though Europe's Master Europe's Rebel banned +To be earth's outcast, ocean's lord and sport. + +Unmoved might seem the Master's taunted sword. +Northward his dusky legions nightly slipped, +As on the map of that all-provident head; +He luting Peace the while, like morning's cock +The quiet day to round the hours for bed; +No pastoral shepherd sweeter to his flock. +Then Europe first beheld her Titan stripped. +To what vast length of limb and mounds of thews, +How trained to scale the eminences, pluck +The hazards for new footing, how compel +Those timely incidents by men named luck, +Through forethought that defied the Fates to choose, +Her grovelling admiration had not yet +Imagined of the great man-miracle; +And France recounted with her comic smile +Duplicities of Court and Cabinet, +The silky female of his male in guile, +Wherewith her two-faced Master could amuse +A dupe he charmed in sunny beams to bask, +Before his feint for camisado struck +The lightning moment of the cast-off mask. + +Splendours of earth repeating heaven's at set +Of sun down mountain cloud in masses arched; +Since Asia upon Europe marched, +Unmatched the copious multitudes; unknown +To Gallia's over-runner, Rome's inveterate foe, +Such hosts; all one machine for overthrow, +Coruscant from the Master's hand, compact +As reasoned thoughts in the Master's head; were shown +Yon lightning moment when his acme might +Blazed o'er the stream that cuts the sandy tract +Borussian from Sarmatia's famished flat; +The century's flower; and off its pinnacled throne, +Rayed servitude on Europe's ball of sight. + +XII + +Behind the Northern curtain-folds he passed. +There heard hushed France her muffled heart beat fast +Against the hollow ear-drum, where she sat +In expectation's darkness, until cracked +The straining curtain-seams: a scaly light +Was ghost above an army under shroud. +Imperious on Imperial Fact +Incestuously the incredible begat. +His veterans and auxiliaries, +The trained, the trustful, sanguine, proud, +Princely, scarce numerable to recite, - +Titanic of all Titan tragedies! - +That Northern curtain took them, as the seas +Gulp the great ships to give back shipmen white. + +Alive in marble, she conceived in soul, +With barren eyes and mouth, the mother's loss; +The bolt from her abandoned heaven sped; +The snowy army rolling knoll on knoll +Beyond horizon, under no blest Cross: +By the vulture dotted and engarlanded. + +Was it a necromancer lured +To weave his tense betraying spell? +A Titan whom our God endured +Till he of his foul hungers fell, +By all his craft and labour scourged? +A deluge Europe's liberated wave, +Paean to sky, leapt over that vast grave. +Its shadow-points against her sacred land converged. +And him, her yoke-fellow, her black lord, her fate, +In doubt, in fevered hope, in chills of hate, +That tore her old credulity to strips, +Then pressed the auspicious relics on her lips, +His withered slave for foregone miracles urged. +And he, whom now his ominous halo's round, +A three parts blank decrescent sickle, crowned, +Prodigious in catastrophe, could wear +The realm of Darkness with its Prince's air; +Assume in mien the resolute pretence +To satiate an hungered confidence, +Proved criminal by the sceptic seen to cower +Beside the generous face of that frail flower. + +XIII + +Desire and terror then had each of each: +His crown and sword were staked on the magic stroke; +Her blood she gave as one who loved her leech; +And both did barter under union's cloak. +An union in hot fever and fierce need +Of either's aid, distrust in trust did breed. +Their traffic instincts hooded their live wits +To issues. Never human fortune throve +On such alliance. Viewed by fits, +From Vulcan's forge a hovering Jove +Evolved. The slave he dragged the Tyrant drove. +Her awe of him his dread of her invoked: +His nature with her shivering faith ran yoked. +What wisdom counselled, Policy declined; +All perils dared he save the step behind. +Ahead his grand initiative becked: +One spark of radiance blurred, his orb was wrecked. +Stripped to the despot upstart, for success +He raged to clothe a perilous nakedness. +He would not fall, while falling; would not be taught, +While learning; would not relax his grasp on aught +He held in hand, while losing it; pressed advance, +Pricked for her lees the veins of wasted France; +Who, had he stayed to husband her, had spun +The strength he taxed unripened for his throw, +In vengeful casts calamitous, +On fields where palsying Pyrrhic laurels grow, +The luminous the ruinous. +An incalescent scorpion, +And fierier for the mounded cirque +That narrowed at him thick and murk, +This gambler with his genius +Flung lives in angry volleys, bloody lightnings, flung +His fortunes to the hosts he stung, +With victories clipped his eagle's wings. +By the hands that built him up was he undone: +By the star aloft, which was his ram's-head will +Within; by the toppling throne the soldier won; +By the yeasty ferment of what once had been, +To cloud a rational mind for present things; +By his own force, the suicide in his mill. +Needs never God of Vengeance intervene +When giants their last lesson have to learn. +Fighting against an end he could discern, +The chivalry whereof he had none +He called from his worn slave's abundant springs: +Not deigning spousally entreat +That ever blinded by his martial skill, +But harsh to have her worship counted out +In human coin, her vital rivers drained, +Her infant forests felled, commanded die +The decade thousand deaths for his Imperial seat, +Where throning he her faith in him maintained; +Bound Reason to believe delayed defeat +Was triumph; and what strength in her remained +To head against the ultimate foreseen rout, +Insensate taxed; of his impenitent will, +Servant and sycophant: without ally, +In Python's coils, the Master Craftsman still; +The smiter, panther springer, trapper sly, +The deadly wrestler at the crucial bout, +The penetrant, the tonant, tower of towers, +Striking from black disaster starry showers. +Her supreme player of man's primaeval game, +He won his harnessed victim's rapturous shout, +When every move was mortal to her frame, +Her prayer to life that stricken he might lie, +She to exchange his laurels for earth's flowers. + +The innumerable whelmed him, and he fell: +A vessel in mid-ocean under storm. +Ere ceased the lullaby of his passing bell, +He sprang to sight, in human form +Revealed, from no celestial aids: +The shades enclosed him, and he fired the shades. + +Cannon his name, +Cannon his voice, he came. +The fount of miracles from drought-dust arose, +Amazing even on his Imperial stage, +Where marvels lightened through the alternate hours +And winged o'er human earth's heroical shone. +Into the press of cumulative foes, +Across the friendly fields of smoke and rage, +A broken structure bore his furious powers; +The man no more, the Warrior Chief the same; +Match for all rivals; in himself but flame +Of an outworn lamp, to illumine nought anon. +Yet loud as when he first showed War's effete +Their Schoolman off his eagre mounted high, +And summoned to subject who dared compete, +The cannon in the name Napoleon +Discoursed of sulphur earth to curtained sky. +So through a tropic day a regnant sun, +Where armies of assailant vapours thronged, +His glory's trappings laid on them: comes night, +Enwraps him in a bosom quick of heat +From his anterior splendours, and shall seem +Day instant, Day's own lord in the furnace gleam, +The virulent quiver on ravished eyes prolonged, +When severed darkness, all flaminical bright, +Slips vivid eagles linked in rapid flight; +Which bring at whiles the lionly far roar, +As wrestled he with manacles and gags, +To speed across a cowering world once more, +Superb in ordered floods, his lordly flags. +His name on silence thundered, on the obscure +Lightened; it haunted morn and even-song: +Earth of her prodigy's extinction long, +With shudderings and with thrillings, hung unsure. + +Snapped was the chord that made the resonant bow, +In France, abased and like a shrunken corse; +Amid the weakest weak, the lowest low, +From the highest fallen, stagnant off her source; +Condemned to hear the nations' hostile mirth; +See curtained heavens, and smell a sulphurous earth; +Which told how evermore shall tyrant Force +Beget the greater for its overthrow. +The song of Liberty in her hearing spoke +A foreign tongue; Earth's fluttering little lyre +Unlike, but like the raven's ravening croak. +Not till her breath of being could aspire +Anew, this loved and scourged of Angels found +Our common brotherhood in sight and sound: +When mellow rang the name Napoleon, +And dim aloft her young Angelical waved. +Between ethereal and gross to choose, +She swung; her soul desired, her senses craved. +They pricked her dreams, while oft her skies were dun +Behind o'ershadowing foemen: on a tide +They drew the nature having need of pride +Among her fellows for its vital dues: +He seen like some rare treasure-galleon, +Hull down, with masts against the Western hues. + + + +FRANCE--DECEMBER 1870 + + + +I + +We look for her that sunlike stood +Upon the forehead of our day, +An orb of nations, radiating food +For body and for mind alway. +Where is the Shape of glad array; +The nervous hands, the front of steel, +The clarion tongue? Where is the bold proud face? +We see a vacant place; +We hear an iron heel. + +II + +O she that made the brave appeal +For manhood when our time was dark, +And from our fetters drove the spark +Which was as lightning to reveal +New seasons, with the swifter play +Of pulses, and benigner day; +She that divinely shook the dead +From living man; that stretched ahead +Her resolute forefinger straight, +And marched toward the gloomy gate +Of earth's Untried, gave note, and in +The good name of Humanity +Called forth the daring vision! she, +She likewise half corrupt of sin, +Angel and Wanton! can it be? +Her star has foundered in eclipse, +The shriek of madness on her lips; +Shreds of her, and no more, we see. +There is horrible convulsion, smothered din, +As of one that in a grave-cloth struggles to be free. + +III + +Look not for spreading boughs +On the riven forest tree. +Look down where deep in blood and mire +Black thunder plants his feet and ploughs +The soil for ruin: that is France: +Still thrilling like a lyre, +Amazed to shivering discord from a fall +Sudden as that the lurid hosts recall +Who met in heaven the irreparable mischance. +O that is France! +The brilliant eyes to kindle bliss, +The shrewd quick lips to laugh and kiss, +Breasts that a sighing world inspire, +And laughter-dimpled countenance +Where soul and senses caught desire! + +IV + +Ever invoking fire from heaven, the fire +Has grasped her, unconsumable, but framed +For all the ecstasies of suffering dire. +Mother of Pride, her sanctuary shamed: +Mother of Delicacy, and made a mark +For outrage: Mother of Luxury, stripped stark: +Mother of Heroes, bondsmen: thro' the rains, +Across her boundaries, lo the league-long chains! +Fond Mother of her martial youth; they pass, +Are spectres in her sight, are mown as grass! +Mother of Honour, and dishonoured: Mother +Of Glory, she condemned to crown with bays +Her victor, and be fountain of his praise. +Is there another curse? There is another: +Compassionate her madness: is she not +Mother of Reason? she that sees them mown +Like grass, her young ones! Yea, in the low groan +And under the fixed thunder of this hour +Which holds the animate world in one foul blot +Tranced circumambient while relentless Power +Beaks at her heart and claws her limbs down-thrown, +She, with the plungeing lightnings overshot, +With madness for an armour against pain, +With milkless breasts for little ones athirst, +And round her all her noblest dying in vain, +Mother of Reason is she, trebly cursed, +To feel, to see, to justify the blow; +Chamber to chamber of her sequent brain +Gives answer of the cause of her great woe, +Inexorably echoing thro' the vaults, +''Tis thus they reap in blood, in blood who sow: +'This is the sum of self-absolved faults.' +Doubt not that thro' her grief, with sight supreme, +Thro' her delirium and despair's last dream, +Thro' pride, thro' bright illusion and the brood +Bewildering of her various Motherhood, +The high strong light within her, tho' she bleeds, +Traces the letters of returned misdeeds. +She sees what seed long sown, ripened of late, +Bears this fierce crop; and she discerns her fate +From origin to agony, and on +As far as the wave washes long and wan +Off one disastrous impulse: for of waves +Our life is, and our deeds are pregnant graves +Blown rolling to the sunset from the dawn. + +V + +Ah, what a dawn of splendour, when her sowers +Went forth and bent the necks of populations +And of their terrors and humiliations +Wove her the starry wreath that earthward lowers +Now in the figure of a burning yoke! +Her legions traversed North and South and East, +Of triumph they enjoyed the glutton's feast: +They grafted the green sprig, they lopped the oak. +They caught by the beard the tempests, by the scalp +The icy precipices, and clove sheer through +The heart of horror of the pinnacled Alp, +Emerging not as men whom mortals knew. +They were the earthquake and the hurricane, +The lightnings and the locusts, plagues of blight, +Plagues of the revel: they were Deluge rain, +And dreaded Conflagration; lawless Might. +Death writes a reeling line along the snows, +Where under frozen mists they may be tracked, +Who men and elements provoked to foes, +And Gods: they were of god and beast compact: +Abhorred of all. Yet, how they sucked the teats +Of Carnage, thirsty issue of their dam, +Whose eagles, angrier than their oriflamme, +Flushed the vext earth with blood, green earth forgets. +The gay young generations mask her grief; +Where bled her children hangs the loaded sheaf. +Forgetful is green earth; the Gods alone +Remember everlastingly: they strike +Remorselessly, and ever like for like. +By their great memories the Gods are known. + +VI + +They are with her now, and in her ears, and known. +'Tis they that cast her to the dust for Strength, +Their slave, to feed on her fair body's length, +That once the sweetest and the proudest shone; +Scoring for hideous dismemberment +Her limbs, as were the anguish-taking breath +Gone out of her in the insufferable descent +From her high chieftainship; as were she death, +Who hears a voice of justice, feels the knife +Of torture, drinks all ignominy of life. +They are with her, and the painful Gods might weep, +If ever rain of tears came out of heaven +To flatter Weakness and bid conscience sleep, +Viewing the woe of this Immortal, driven +For the soul's life to drain the maddening cup +Of her own children's blood implacably: +Unsparing even as they to furrow up +The yellow land to likeness of a sea: +The bountiful fair land of vine and grain, +Of wit and grace and ardour, and strong roots, +Fruits perishable, imperishable fruits; +Furrowed to likeness of the dim grey main +Behind the black obliterating cyclone. + +VII + +Behold, the Gods are with her, and are known. +Whom they abandon misery persecutes +No more: them half-eyed apathy may loan +The happiness of pitiable brutes. +Whom the just Gods abandon have no light, +No ruthless light of introspective eyes +That in the midst of misery scrutinize +The heart and its iniquities outright. +They rest, they smile and rest; have earned perchance +Of ancient service quiet for a term; +Quiet of old men dropping to the worm; +And so goes out the soul. But not of France. +She cries for grief, and to the Gods she cries, +For fearfully their loosened hands chastize, +And icily they watch the rod's caress +Ravage her flesh from scourges merciless, +But she, inveterate of brain, discerns +That Pity has as little place as Joy +Among their roll of gifts; for Strength she yearns. +For Strength, her idol once, too long her toy. +Lo, Strength is of the plain root-Virtues born: +Strength shall ye gain by service, prove in scorn, +Train by endurance, by devotion shape. +Strength is not won by miracle or rape. +It is the offspring of the modest years, +The gift of sire to son, thro' those firm laws +Which we name Gods; which are the righteous cause, +The cause of man, and manhood's ministers. +Could France accept the fables of her priests, +Who blest her banners in this game of beasts, +And now bid hope that heaven will intercede +To violate its laws in her sore need, +She would find comfort in their opiates: +Mother of Reason! can she cheat the Fates? +Would she, the champion of the open mind, +The Omnipotent's prime gift--the gift of growth - +Consent even for a night-time to be blind, +And sink her soul on the delusive sloth, +For fruits ethereal and material, both, +In peril of her place among mankind? +The Mother of the many Laughters might +Call one poor shade of laughter in the light +Of her unwavering lamp to mark what things +The world puts faith in, careless of the truth: +What silly puppet-bodies danced on strings, +Attached by credence, we appear in sooth, +Demanding intercession, direct aid, +When the whole tragic tale hangs on a broken blade! + +She swung the sword for centuries; in a day +It slipped her, like a stream cut off from source. +She struck a feeble hand, and tried to pray, +Clamoured of treachery, and had recourse +To drunken outcries in her dream that Force +Needed but hear her shouting to obey. +Was she not formed to conquer? The bright plumes +Of crested vanity shed graceful nods: +Transcendent in her foundries, Arts and looms, +Had France to fear the vengeance of the Gods? +Her faith was on her battle-roll of names +Sheathed in the records of old war; with dance +And song she thrilled her warriors and her dames, +Embracing her Dishonour: gave him France +From head to foot, France present and to come, +So she might hear the trumpet and the drum - +Bellona and Bacchante! rushing forth +On yon stout marching Schoolmen of the North. + +Inveterate of brain, well knows she why +Strength failed her, faithful to himself the first: +Her dream is done, and she can read the sky, +And she can take into her heart the worst +Calamity to drug the shameful thought +Of days that made her as the man she served +A name of terror, but a thing unnerved: +Buying the trickster, by the trickster bought, +She for dominion, he to patch a throne. + +VIII + +Henceforth of her the Gods are known, +Open to them her breast is laid. +Inveterate of brain, heart-valiant, +Never did fairer creature pant +Before the altar and the blade! + +IX + +Swift fall the blows, and men upbraid, +And friends give echo blunt and cold, +The echo of the forest to the axe. +Within her are the fires that wax +For resurrection from the mould. + +X + +She snatched at heaven's flame of old, +And kindled nations: she was weak: +Frail sister of her heroic prototype, +The Man; for sacrifice unripe, +She too must fill a Vulture's beak. +Deride the vanquished, and acclaim +The conqueror, who stains her fame, +Still the Gods love her, for that of high aim +Is this good France, the bleeding thing they stripe. + +XI + +She shall rise worthier of her prototype +Thro' her abasement deep; the pain that runs +From nerve to nerve some victory achieves. +They lie like circle-strewn soaked Autumn-leaves +Which stain the forest scarlet, her fair sons! +And of their death her life is: of their blood +From many streams now urging to a flood, +No more divided, France shall rise afresh. +Of them she learns the lesson of the flesh:- +The lesson writ in red since first Time ran, +A hunter hunting down the beast in man: +That till the chasing out of its last vice, +The flesh was fashioned but for sacrifice. + +Immortal Mother of a mortal host! +Thou suffering of the wounds that will not slay, +Wounds that bring death but take not life away! - +Stand fast and hearken while thy victors boast: +Hearken, and loathe that music evermore. +Slip loose thy garments woven of pride and shame: +The torture lurks in them, with them the blame +Shall pass to leave thee purer than before. +Undo thy jewels, thinking whence they came, +For what, and of the abominable name +Of her who in imperial beauty wore. + +O Mother of a fated fleeting host +Conceived in the past days of sin, and born +Heirs of disease and arrogance and scorn, +Surrender, yield the weight of thy great ghost, +Like wings on air, to what the heavens proclaim +With trumpets from the multitudinous mounds +Where peace has filled the hearing of thy sons: +Albeit a pang of dissolution rounds +Each new discernment of the undying ones, +Do thou stoop to these graves here scattered wide +Along thy fields, as sunless billows roll; +These ashes have the lesson for the soul. +'Die to thy Vanity, and strain thy Pride, +Strip off thy Luxury: that thou may'st live, +Die to thyself,' they say, 'as we have died +From dear existence and the foe forgive, +Nor pray for aught save in our little space +To warn good seed to greet the fair earth's face.' +O Mother! take their counsel, and so shall +The broader world breathe in on this thy home, +Light clear for thee the counter-changing dome, +Strength give thee, like an ocean's vast expanse +Off mountain cliffs, the generations all, +Not whirling in their narrow rings of foam, +But as a river forward. Soaring France! +Now is Humanity on trial in thee: +Now may'st thou gather humankind in fee: +Now prove that Reason is a quenchless scroll; +Make of calamity thine aureole, +And bleeding head us thro' the troubles of the sea. + + + +ALSACE-LORRAINE + + + +I + +The sister Hours in circles linked, +Daughters of men, of men the mates, +Are gone on flow with the day that winked, +With the night that spanned at golden gates. +Mothers, they leave us, quickening seed; +They bear us grain or flower or weed, +As we have sown; is nought extinct +For them we fill to be our Fates. +Life of the breath is but the loan; +Passing death what we have sown. + +Pearly are they till the pale inherited stain +Deepens in us, and the mirrors they form on their flow +Darken to feature and nature: a volumed chain, +Sequent of issue, in various eddies they show. +Theirs is the Book of the River of Life, to read +Leaf by leaf by reapers of long-sown seed: +There doth our shoot up to light from a spiriting sane +Stand as a tree whereon numberless clusters grow: +Legible there how the heart, with its one false move +Cast Eurydice pallor on all we love. + +Our fervid heart has filled that Book in chief; +Our fitful heart a wild reflection views; +Our craving heart of passion suckling grief +Disowns the author's work it must peruse; +Inconscient in its leap to wreak the deed, +A round of harvests red from crimson seed, +It marks the current Hours show leaf by leaf, +And rails at Destiny; nor traces clues; +Though sometimes it may think what novel light +Will strike their faces when the mind shall write. + +II + +Succourful daughters of men are the rosed and starred +Revolving Twelves in their fluent germinal rings, +Despite the burden to chasten, abase, depose. +Fallen on France, as the sweep of scythe over sward, +They breathed in her ear their voice of the crystal springs, +That run from a twilight rise, from a twilight close, +Through alternate beams and glooms, rejoicingly young. +Only to Earth's best loved, at the breathless turns +Where Life in fold of the Shadow reclines unstrung, +And a ghostly lamp of their moment's union burns, +Will such pure notes from the fountain-head be sung. + +Voice of Earth's very soul to the soul she would see renewed: +A song that sought no tears, that laid not a touch on the breast +Sobbing aswoon and, like last foxgloves' bells upon ferns +In sandy alleys of woodland silence, shedding to bare. +Daughters of Earth and men, they piped of her natural brood; +Her patient helpful four-feet; wings on the flit or in nest; +Paws at our old-world task to scoop a defensive lair; +Snouts at hunt through the scented grasses; enhavened scuts +Flashing escape under show of a laugh nigh the mossed burrow-mouth. +Sack-like droop bronze pears on the nailed branch-frontage of huts, +To greet those wedded toilers from acres where sweat is a shower. +Snake, cicada, lizard, on lavender slopes up South, +Pant for joy of a sunlight driving the fielders to bower. +Sharpened in silver by one chance breeze is the olive's grey; +A royal-mantle floats, a red fritillary hies; +The bee, for whom no flower of garden or wild has nay, +Noises, heard if but named, so hot is the trade he plies. +Processions beneath green arches of herbage, the long colonnades; +Laboured mounds that a foot or a wanton stick may subvert; +Homely are they for a lowly look on bedewed grass-blades, +On citied fir-droppings, on twisted wreaths of the worm in dirt. +Does nought so loosen our sight from the despot heart, to receive +Balm of a sound Earth's primary heart at its active beat: +The motive, yet servant, of energy; simple as morn and eve; +Treasureless, fetterless; free of the bonds of a great conceit: +Unwounded even by cruel blows on a body that writhes; +Nor whimpering under misfortune; elusive of obstacles; prompt +To quit any threatened familiar domain seen doomed by the scythes; +Its day's hard business done, the score to the good accompt. +Creatures of forest and mead, Earth's essays in being, all kinds +Bound by the navel-knot to the Mother, never astray, +They in the ear upon ground will pour their intuitive minds, +Cut man's tangles for Earth's first broad rectilinear way: +Admonishing loftier reaches, the rich adventurous shoots, +Pushes of tentative curves, embryonic upwreathings in air; +Not always the sprouts of Earth's root-Laws preserving her brutes; +Oft but our primitive hungers licentious in fine and fair. + +Yet the like aerial growths may chance be the delicate sprays, +Infant of Earth's most urgent in sap, her fierier zeal +For entry on Life's upper fields: and soul thus flourishing pays +The martyr's penance, mark for brutish in man to heel. + +Her, from a nerveless well among stagnant pools of the dry, +Through her good aim at divine, shall commune with Earth remake; +Fraternal unto sororial, her, where abashed she may lie, +Divinest of man shall clasp; a world out of darkness awake, +As it were with the Resurrection's eyelids uplifted, to see +Honour in shame, in substance the spirit, in that dry fount +Jets of the songful ascending silvery-bright water-tree +Spout, with our Earth's unbaffled resurgent desire for the mount, +Though broken at intervals, clipped, and barren in seeming it be. +For this at our nature arises rejuvenescent from Earth, +However respersive the blow and nigh on infernal the fall, +The chastisement drawn down on us merited: are we of worth +Amid our satanic excrescences, this, for the less than a call, +Will Earth reprime, man cherish; the God who is in us and round, +Consenting, the God there seen. Impiety speaks despair; +Religion the virtue of serving as things of the furrowy ground, +Debtors for breath while breath with our fellows in service we +share. +Not such of the crowned discrowned +Can Earth or humanity spare; +Such not the God let die. + +III + +Eastward of Paris morn is high; +And darkness on that Eastward side +The heart of France beholds: a thorn +Is in her frame where shines the morn: +A rigid wave usurps her sky, +With eagle crest and eagle-eyed +To scan what wormy wrinkles hint +Her forces gathering: she the thrown +From station, lopped of an arm, astounded, lone, +Reading late History as a foul misprint: +Imperial, Angelical, +At strife commingled in her frame convulsed; +Shame of her broken sword, a ravening gall; +Pain of the limb where once her warm blood pulsed; +These tortures to distract her underneath +Her whelmed Aurora's shade. But in that space +When lay she dumb beside her trampled wreath, +Like an unburied body mid the tombs, +Feeling against her heart life's bitter probe +For life, she saw how children of her race, +The many sober sons and daughters, plied, +By cottage lamplight through the water-globe, +By simmering stew-pots, by the serious looms, +Afield, in factories, with the birds astir, +Their nimble feet and fingers; not denied +Refreshful chatter, laughter, galliard songs. +So like Earth's indestructible they were, +That wrestling with its anguish rose her pride, +To feel where in each breast the thought of her, +On whom the circle Hours laid leaded thongs, +Was constant; spoken sometimes in low tone +At lip or in a fluttered look, +A shortened breath: and they were her loved own; +Nor ever did they waste their strength with tears, +For pity of the weeper, nor rebuke, +Though mainly they were charged to pay her debt, +The Mother having conscience in arrears; +Ready to gush the flood of vain regret, +Else hearken to her weaponed children's moan +Of stifled rage invoking vengeance: hell's, +If heaven should fail the counter-wave that swells +In blood and brain for retribution swift. +Those helped not: wings to her soul were these who yet +Could welcome day for labour, night for rest, +Enrich her treasury, built of cheerful thrift, +Of honest heart, beyond all miracles; +And likened to Earth's humblest were Earth's best. + +IV + +Brooding on her deep fall, the many strings +Which formed her nature set a thought on Kings, +As aids that might the low-laid cripple lift; +And one among them hummed devoutly leal, +While passed the sighing breeze along her breast. +Of Kings by the festive vanquishers rammed down +Her gorge since fell the Chief, she knew their crown; +Upon her through long seasons was its grasp, +For neither soul's nor body's weal; +As much bestows the robber wasp, +That in the hanging apple makes a meal, +And carves a face of abscess where was fruit +Ripe ruddy. They would blot +Her radiant leap above the slopes acute, +Of summit to celestial; impute +The wanton's aim to her divinest shot; +Bid her walk History backward over gaps; +Abhor the day of Phrygian caps; +Abjure her guerdon, execrate herself; +The Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, Guelph, +Admire repentant; reverently prostrate +Her person unto the belly-god; of whom +Is inward plenty and external bloom; +Enough of pomp and state +And carnival to quench +The breast's desires of an intemperate wench, +The head's ideas beyond legitimate. + +She flung them: she was France: nor with far frown +Her lover from the embrace of her refrained: +But in her voice an interwoven wire, +The exultation of her gross renown, +Struck deafness at her heavens, and they waned +Over a look ill-gifted to aspire. +Wherefore, as an abandonment, irate, +The intemperate summoned up her trumpet days, +Her treasure-galleon's wondrous freight. +The cannon-name she sang and shrieked; transferred +Her soul's allegiance; o'er the Tyrant slurred, +Tranced with the zeal of her first fawning gaze, +To clasp his trophy flags and hail him Saint. + +V + +She hailed him Saint: +And her Jeanne unsainted, foully sung! +The virgin who conceived a France when funeral glooms +Across a land aquake with sharp disseverance hung: +Conceived, and under stress of battle brought her forth; +Crowned her in purification of feud and foeman's taint; +Taught her to feel her blood her being, know her worth, +Have joy of unity: the Jeanne bescreeched, bescoffed, +Who flamed to ashes, flew up wreaths of faggot fumes; +Through centuries a star in vapour-folds aloft. + +For her people to hail her Saint, +Were no lifting of her, Earth's gem, +Earth's chosen, Earth's throb on divine: +In the ranks of the starred she is one, +While man has thought on our line: +No lifting of her, but for them, +Breath of the mountain, beam of the sun +Through mist, out of swamp-fires' lures release, +Youth on the forehead, the rough right way +Seen to be footed: for them the heart's peace, +By the mind's war won for a permanent miracle day. + +Her arms below her sword-hilt crossed, +The heart of that high-hallowed Jeanne +Into the furnace-pit she tossed +Before her body knew the flame, +And sucked its essence: warmth for righteous work, +An undivided power to speed her aim. +She had no self but France: the sainted man +No France but self. Him warrior and clerk, +Free of his iron clutch; and him her young, +In whirled imagination mastodonized; +And him her penmen, him her poets; all +For the visioned treasure-galleon astrain; +Sent zenithward on bass and treble tongue, +Till solely through his glory France was prized. +She who had her Jeanne; +The child of her industrious; +Earth's truest, earth's pure fount from the main; +And she who had her one day's mate, +In the soul's view illustrious +Past blazonry, her Immaculate, +Those hours of slavish Empire would recall; +Thrill to the rattling anchor-chain +She heard upon a day in 'I who can'; +Start to the softened, tremulous bugle-blare +Of that Caesarean Italian +Across the storied fields of trampled grain, +As to a Vercingetorix of old Gaul +Blowing the rally against a Caesar's reign. +Her soul's protesting sobs she drowned to swear +Fidelity unto the sainted man, +Whose nimbus was her crown; and be again +The foreigner in Europe, known of none, +None knowing; sight to dazzle, voice to stun. +Rearward she stepped, with thirst for Europe's van; +The dream she nursed a snare, +The flag she bore a pall. + +VI + +In Nature is no rearward step allowed. +Hard on the rock Reality do we dash +To be shattered, if the material dream propels. +The worship to departed splendour vowed +Conjured a simulacrum, wove her lash, +For the slow measure timed her peal of bells. + +Thereof was the cannon-name a mockery round her hills; +For the will of wills, +Its flaccid ape, +Weak as the final echo off a giant's bawl: +Napoleon for disdain, +His banner steeped in crape. +Thereof the barrier of Alsace-Lorraine; +The frozen billow crested to its fall; +Dismemberment; disfigurement; +Her history blotted; her proud mantle rent; +And ever that one word to reperuse, +With eyes behind a veil of fiery dews; +Knelling the spot where Gallic soil defiled +Showed her sons' valour as a frenzied child +In arms of the mailed man. +Word that her mind must bear, her heart put under ban, +Lest burst it: unto her eyes a ghost, +Incredible though manifest: a scene +Stamped with her new Saint's name: and all his host +A wattled flock the foeman's dogs between! + +VII + +Mark where a credible ghost pulls bridle to view that bare +Corpse of a field still reddening cloud, and alive in its throes +Beneath her Purgatorial Saint's evocative stare: +Brand on his name, the gulf of his glory, his Legend's close. +A lustreless Phosphor heading for daybeam Night's dead-born, +His underworld eyeballs grip the cast of the land for a fray +Expugnant; swift up the heights, with the Victor's instinctive scorn +Of the trapped below, he rides; he beholds, and a two-fold grey, +Even as the misty sun growing moon that a frost enrings, +Is shroud on the shrouded; he knows him there in the helmeted ranks. +The golden eagles flap lame wings, +The black double-headed are round their flanks. +He is there in midst of the pupils he harried to brains awake, trod +into union; lo, +These are his Epic's tutored Dardans, yon that Rhapsode's Achaeans +to know. +Nor is aught of an equipollent conflict seen, nor the weaker's +flashed device; +Headless is offered a breast to beaks deliberate, formal, assured, +precise. +Ruled by the mathematician's hand, they solve their problem, as on a +slate. +This is the ground foremarked, and the day; their leader modestly +hazarded date. +His helmeted ranks might be draggers of pools or reapers of plains +for the warrior's guile +Displayed; they haul, they rend, as in some orderly office +mercantile. +And a timed artillery speaks full-mouthed on a stuttering feeble +reduced to nought. +Can it be France, an army of France, tricked, netted, convulsive, +all writhen caught? +Arterial blood of an army's heart outpoured the Grey Observer sees: +A forest of France in thunder comes, like a landslide hurled off her +Pyrenees. +Torrent and forest ramp, roll, sling on for a charge against iron, +reason, Fate; +It is gapped through the mass midway, bare ribs and dust ere the +helmeted feel its weight. +So the blue billow white-plumed is plunged upon shingle to screaming +withdrawal, but snatched, +Waved is the laurel eternal yielded by Death o'er the waste of brave +men outmatched. +The France of the fury was there, the thing he had wielded, whose +honour was dearer than life; +The Prussia despised, the harried, the trodden, was here; his pupil, +the scholar in strife. + +He hated to heel, in a spasm of will, +From sleep or debate, a mannikin squire +With head of a merlin hawk and quill +Acrow on an ear. At him rained fire +From a blast of eyeballs hotter than speech, +To say what a deadly poison stuffed +The France here laid in her bloody ditch, +Through the Legend passing human puffed. + +Credible ghost of the field which from him descends, +Each dark anniversary day will its father return, +Haling his shadow to spy where the Legend ends, +That penman trumpeter's part in the wreck discern. + +There, with the cup it presents at her lips, she stands, +France, with her future staked on the word it may pledge. +The vengeance urged of desire a reserve countermands; +The patience clasped totters hard on the precipice edge. +Lopped of an arm, mother love for her own springs quick, +To curdle the milk in her breasts for the young they feed, +At thought of her single hand, and the lost so nigh. +Mother love for her own, who raised her when she lay sick +Nigh death, and would in like fountains fruitlessly bleed, +Withholds the fling of her heart on the further die. + +Of love is wisdom. Is it great love, then wise +Will our wild heart be, though whipped unto madness more +By its mentor's counselling voice than thoughtfully reined. +Desire of the wave for the shore, +Passion for one last agony under skies, +To make her heavens remorseful, she restrained + +VIII + +On her lost arm love bade her look; +On her one hand to meditate; +The tumult of her blood abate; +Disaster face, derision brook: +Forbade the page of her Historic Muse, +Until her demon his last hold forsook, +And smoothly, with no countenance of hate, +Her conqueror she could scan to measure. Thence +The strange new Winter stream of ruling sense, +Cold, comfortless, but braced to disabuse, +Ran through the mind of this most lowly laid; +From the top billow of victorious War, +Down in the flagless troughs at ebb and flow; +A wreck; her past, her future, both in shade. +She read the things that are; +Reality unaccepted read +For sign of the distraught, and took her blow +To brain; herself read through; +Wherefore her predatory Glory paid +Napoleon ransom knew. +Her nature's many strings hot gusts did jar +Against the note of reason uttered low, +Ere passionate with duty she might wed, +Compel the bride's embrace of her stern groom, +Joined at an altar liker to the tomb, +Nest of the Furies their first nuptial bed, +They not the less were mated and proclaimed +The rational their issue. Then she rose. + +See how the rush of southern Springtide glows +Oceanic in the chariot-wheel's ascent, +Illuminated with one breath. The maimed, +Tom, tortured, winter-visaged, suddenly +Had stature; to the world's wonderment, +Fair features, grace of mien, nor least +The comic dimples round her April mouth, +Sprung of her intimate humanity. +She stood before mankind the very South +Rapt out of frost to flowery drapery; +Unshadowed save when somewhiles she looked East. + +IX + +Let but the rational prevail, +Our footing is on ground though all else fail: +Our kiss of Earth is then a plight +To walk within her Laws and have her light. +Choice of the life or death lies in ourselves; +There is no fate but when unreason lours. +This Land the cheerful toiler delves, +The thinker brightens with fine wit, +The lovelier grace as lyric flowers, +Those rosed and starred revolving Twelves +Shall nurse for effort infinite +While leashed to brain the heart of France the Fair +Beats tempered music and its lead subserves. +Washed from her eyes the Napoleonic glare, +Divinely raised by that in her divine, +Not the clear sight of Earth's blunt actual swerves +When her lost look, as on a wave of wine, +Rolls Eastward, and the mother-flag descries +Caress with folds and curves +The fortress over Rhine, +Beneath the one tall spire. +Despite her brooding thought, her nightlong sighs, +Her anguish in desire, +She sees, above the brutish paw +Alert on her still quivering limb - +As little in past time she saw, +Nor when dispieced as prey, +As victrix when abhorred - +A Grand Germania, stout on soil; +Audacious up the ethereal dim; +The forest's Infant; the strong hand for toil; +The patient brain in twilights when astray; +Shrewdest of heads to foil and counterfoil; +The sceptic and devout; the potent sword; +With will and armed to help in hewing way +For Europe's march; and of the most golden chord +Of the Heliconian lyre +Excellent mistress. Yea, she sees, and can admire; +Still seeing in what walks the Gallia leads; +And with what shield upon Alsace-Lorraine +Her wary sister's doubtful look misreads +A mother's throbs for her lost: so loved: so near: +Magnetic. Hard the course for her to steer, +The leap against the sharpened spikes restrain. +For the belted Overshadower hard the course, +On whom devolves the spirit's touchstone, Force: +Which is the strenuous arm, to strike inclined, +That too much adamantine makes the mind; +Forgets it coin of Nature's rich Exchange; +Contracts horizons within present sight: +Amalekite to-day, across its range +Indisputable; to-morrow Simeonite. + +X + +The mother who gave birth to Jeanne; +Who to her young Angelical sprang; +Who lay with Earth and heard the notes she sang, +And heard her truest sing them; she may reach +Heights yet unknown of nations; haply teach +A thirsting world to learn 'tis 'she who can.' + +She that in History's Heliaea pleads +The nation flowering conscience o'er the beast; +With heart expurged of rancour, tame of greeds; +With the winged mind from fang and claw released; - +Will such a land be seen? It will be seen; - +Shall stand adjudged our foremost and Earth's Queen. +Acknowledgement that she of God proceeds +The invisible makes visible, as his priest, +To her is yielded by a world reclaimed. +And stands she mutilated, fancy-shamed, +Yet strong in arms, yet strong in self-control, +Known valiant, her maternal throbs repressed, +Discarding vengeance, Giant with a soul; - +My faith in her when she lay low +Was fountain; now as wave at flow +Beneath the lights, my faith in God is best; - +On France has come the test +Of what she holds within +Responsive to Life's deeper springs. +She above the nations blest +In fruitful and in liveliest, +In all that servant earth to heavenly bidding brings, +The devotee of Glory, she may win +Glory despoiling none, enrich her kind, +Illume her land, and take the royal seat +Unto the strong self-conqueror assigned. +But ah, when speaks a loaded breath the double name, +Humanity's old Foeman winks agrin. +Her constant Angel eyes her heart's quick beat, +The thrill of shadow coursing through her frame. +Like wind among the ranks of amber wheat. +Our Europe, vowed to unity or torn, +Observes her face, as shepherds note the morn, +And in a ruddy beacon mark an end +That for the flock in their grave hearing rings. +Specked overhead the imminent vulture wings +At poise, one fatal movement indiscreet, +Sprung from the Aetna passions' mad revolts, +Draws down; the midnight hovers to descend; +And dire as Indian noons of ulcer heat +Anticipating tempest and the bolts, +Hangs curtained terrors round her next day's door, +Death's emblems for the breast of Europe flings; +The breast that waits a spark to fire her store. +Shall, then, the great vitality, France, +Signal the backward step once more; +Again a Goddess Fortune trace +Amid the Deities, and pledge to chance +One whom we never could replace? +Now may she tune her nature's many strings +To noble harmony, be seen, be known. + +It was the foreign France, the unruly, feared; +Little for all her witcheries endeared; +Theatrical of arrogance, a sprite +With gaseous vapours overblown, +In her conceit of power ensphered, +Foredoomed to violate and atone; +Her the grim conqueror's iron might +Avengeing clutched, distrusting rent; +Not that sharp intellect with fire endowed +To cleave our webs, run lightnings through our cloud; +Not virtual France, the France benevolent, +The chivalrous, the many-stringed, sublime +At intervals, and oft in sweetest chime; +Though perilously instrument, +A breast for any having godlike gleam. +This France could no antagonist disesteem, +To spurn at heel and confiscate her brood. +Albeit a waverer between heart and mind, +And laurels won from sky or plucked from blood, +Which wither all the wreath when intertwined, +This cherishable France she may redeem. +Beloved of Earth, her heart should feel at length +How much unto Earth's offspring it doth owe. +Obstructions are for levelling, have we strength; +'Tis poverty of soul conceived a foe. +Rejected be the wrath that keeps unhealed +Her panting wound; to higher Courts appealed +The wrongs discerned of higher: Europe waits: +She chooses God or gambles with the Fates. +Shines the new Helen in Alsace-Lorraine, +A darker river severs Rhine and Rhone, +Is heard a deadlier Epic of the twain; +We see a Paris burn +Or France Napoleon. + +For yet he breathes whom less her heart forswears +While trembles its desire to thwart her mind: +The Tyrant lives in Victory's return. +What figure with recurrent footstep fares +Around those memoried tracks of scarlet mud, +To sow her future from an ashen urn +By lantern-light, as dragons' teeth are sown? +Of bleeding pride the piercing seer is blind. +But, cleared her eyes of that ensanguined scud +Distorting her true features, to be shown +Benignly luminous, one who bears +Humanity at breast, and she might learn +How surely the excelling generous find +Renouncement is possession. Sure +As light enkindles light when heavenly earthly mates, +The flame of pure immits the flame of pure, +Magnanimous magnanimous creates. +So to majestic beauty stricken rears +Hard-visaged rock against the risen glow; +And men are in the secret with the spheres, +Whose glory is celestially to bestow. + +Now nation looks to nation, that may live +Their common nurseling, like the torrent's flower, +Shaken by foul Destruction's fast-piled heap. +On France is laid the proud initiative +Of sacrifice in one self-mastering hour, +Whereby more than her lost one will she reap; +Perchance the very lost regain, +To count it less than her superb reward. +Our Europe, where is debtor each to each, +Pass measure of excess, and war is Cain, +Fraternal from the Seaman's beach, +From answering Rhine in grand accord, +From Neva beneath Northern cloud, +And from our Transatlantic Europe loud, +Will hail the rare example for their theme; +Give response, as rich foliage to the breeze; +In their entrusted nurseling know them one: +Like a brave vessel under press of steam, +Abreast the winds and tides, on angry seas, +Plucked by the heavens forlorn of present sun, +Will drive through darkness, and, with faith supreme, +Have sight of haven and the crowded quays. + + + +THE CAGEING OF ARES + + + +[Iliad, v. V. 385--Dedicated to the Council at The Hague.] + +How big of breast our Mother Gaea laughed +At sight of her boy Giants on the leap +Each over other as they neighboured home, +Fronting the day's descent across green slopes, +And up fired mountain crags their shadows danced. +Close with them in their fun, she scarce could guess, +Though these two billowy urchins reeked of craft, +It signalled some adventurous master-trick +To set Olympians buzzing in debate, +Lest it might be their godhead undermined, +The Tyranny menaced. Ephialtes high +On shoulders of his brother Otos waved +For the bull-bellowings given to grand good news, +Compact, complexioned in his gleeful roar +While Otos aped the prisoner's wrists and knees, +With doleful sniffs between recurrent howls; +Till Gaea's lap receiving them, they stretched, +And both upon her bosom shaken to speech, +Burst the hot story out of throats of both, +Like rocky head-founts, baffling in their glut +The hurried spout. And as when drifting storm +Disburdened loses clasp of here and yon +A peak, a forest mound, a valley's gleam +Of grass and the river's crooks and snaky coils, +Signification marvellous she caught, +Through gurglings of triumphant jollity, +Which now engulphed and now gave eye; at last +Subsided, and the serious naked deed, +With mountain-cloud of laughter banked around, +Stood in her sight confirmed: she could believe +That these, her sprouts of promise, her most prized, +These two made up of lion, bear and fox, +Her sportive, suckling mammoths, her young joy, +Still by the reckoning infants among men, +Had done the deed to strike the Titan host +In envy dumb, in envious heart elate: +These two combining strength and craft had snared, +Enmeshed, bound fast with thongs, discreetly caged +The blood-shedder, the terrible Lord of War; +Destroyer, ravager, superb in plumes; +The barren furrower of anointed fields; +The scarlet heel in towns, foul smoke to sky, +Her hated enemy, too long her scourge: +Great Ares. And they gagged his trumpet mouth +When they had seized on his implacable spear, +Hugged him to reedy helplessness despite +His godlike fury startled from amaze. +For he had eyed them nearing him in play, +The giant cubs, who gambolled and who snarled, +Unheeding his fell presence, by the mount +Ossa, beside a brushwood cavern; there +On Earth's original fisticuffs they called +For ease of sharp dispute: whereat the God, +Approving, deemed that sometime trained to arms, +Good servitors of Ares they would be, +And ply the pointed spear to dominate +Their rebel restless fellows, villain brood +Vowed to defy Immortals. So it chanced +Amusedly he watched them, and as one +The lusty twain were on him and they had him. +Breath to us, Powers of air, for laughter loud! +Cock of Olympus he, superb in plumes! +Bound like a wheaten sheaf by those two babes! +Because they knew our Mother Gaea loathed him, +Knew him the famine, pestilence and waste; +A desolating fire to blind the sight +With splendour built of fruitful things in ashes; +The gory chariot-wheel on cries for justice; +Her deepest planted and her liveliest voice, +Heard from the babe as from the broken crone. +Behold him in his vessel of bronze encased, +And tumbled down the cave. But rather look - +Ah, that the woman tattler had not sought, +Of all the Gods to let her secret fly, +Hermes, after the thirteen songful months! +Prompting the Dexterous to work his arts, +And shatter earth's delirious holiday, +Then first, as where the fountain runs a stream, +Resolving to composure on its throbs. +But see her in the Seasons through that year; +That one glad year and the fair opening month. +Had never our Great Mother such sweet face! +War with her, gentle war with her, each day +Her sons and daughters urged; at eve were flung, +On the morrow stood to challenge; in their strength +Renewed, indomitable; whereof they won, +From hourly wrestlings up to shut of lids, +Her ready secret: the abounding life +Returned for valiant labour: she and they +Defeated and victorious turn by turn; +By loss enriched, by overthrow restored. +Exchange of powers of this conflict came; +Defacement none, nor ever squandered force. +Is battle nature's mandate, here it reigned, +As music unto the hand that smote the strings; +And she the rosier from their showery brows, +They fruitful from her ploughed and harrowed breast. +Back to the primal rational of those +Who suck the teats of milky earth, and clasp +Stability in hatred of the insane, +Man stepped; with wits less fearful to pronounce +The mortal mind's concept of earth's divorced +Above; those beautiful, those masterful, +Those lawless. High they sit, and if descend, +Descend to reap, not sowing. Is it just? +Earth in her happy children asked that word, +Whereto within their breast was her reply. +Those beautiful, those masterful, those lawless, +Enjoy the life prolonged, outleap the years; +Yet they ('twas the Great Mother's voice inspired +The audacious thought), they, glorious over dust, +Outleap not her; disrooted from her soar, +To meet the certain fate of earth's divorced, +And clap lame wings across a wintry haze, +Up to the farthest bourne: immortal still, +Thenceforth innocuous; lovelier than when ruled +The Tyranny. This her voice within them told, +When softly the Great Mother chid her sons +Not of the giant brood, who did create +Those lawless Gods, first offspring of our brain +Set moving by an abject blood, that waked +To wanton under elements more benign, +And planted aliens on Olympian heights; - +Imagination's cradle poesy +Become a monstrous pressure upon men; - +Foes of good Gaea; until dispossessed +By light from her, born of the love of her, +Their lordship the illumined brain rejects +For earth's beneficent, the sons of Law, +Her other name. So spake she in their heart, +Among the wheat-blades proud of stalk; beneath +Young vine-leaves pushing timid fingers forth, +Confidently to cling. And when brown corn +Swayed armied ranks with softened cricket song, +With gold necks bent for any zephyr's kiss; +When vine-roots daily down a rubble soil +Drank fire of heaven athirst to swell the grape; +When swelled the grape, and in it held a ray, +Rich issue of the embrace of heaven and earth; +The very eye of passion drowsed by excess, +And yet a burning lion for the spring; +Then in that time of general cherishment, +Sweet breathing balm and flutes by cool wood-side, +He the harsh rouser of ire being absent, caged, +Then did good Gaea's children gratefully +Lift hymns to Gods they judged, but praised for peace, +Delightful Peace, that answers Reason's call +Harmoniously and images her Law; +Reflects, and though short-lived as then, revives, +In memories made present on the brain +By natural yearnings, all the happy scenes; +The picture of an earth allied to heaven; +Between them the known smile behind black masks; +Rightly their various moods interpreted; +And frolic because toilful children borne +With larger comprehension of Earth's aim +At loftier, clearer, sweeter, by their aid. + + + +THE NIGHT-WALK + + + +Awakes for me and leaps from shroud +All radiantly the moon's own night +Of folded showers in streamer cloud; +Our shadows down the highway white +Or deep in woodland woven-boughed, +With yon and yon a stem alight. + +I see marauder runagates +Across us shoot their dusky wink; +I hear the parliament of chats +In haws beside the river's brink; +And drops the vole off alder-banks, +To push his arrow through the stream. +These busy people had our thanks +For tickling sight and sound, but theme +They were not more than breath we drew +Delighted with our world's embrace: +The moss-root smell where beeches grew, +And watered grass in breezy space; +The silken heights, of ghostly bloom +Among their folds, by distance draped. +'Twas Youth, rapacious to consume, +That cried to have its chaos shaped: +Absorbing, little noting, still +Enriched, and thinking it bestowed; +With wistful looks on each far hill +For something hidden, something owed. +Unto his mantled sister, Day +Had given the secret things we sought +And she was grave and saintly gay; +At times she fluttered, spoke her thought; +She flew on it, then folded wings, +In meditation passing lone, +To breathe around the secret things, +Which have no word, and yet are known; +Of thirst for them are known, as air +Is health in blood: we gained enough +By this to feel it honest fare; +Impalpable, not barren, stuff. + +A pride of legs in motion kept +Our spirits to their task meanwhile, +And what was deepest dreaming slept: +The posts that named the swallowed mile; +Beside the straight canal the hut +Abandoned; near the river's source +Its infant chirp; the shortest cut; +The roadway missed; were our discourse; +At times dear poets, whom some view +Transcendent or subdued evoked +To speak the memorable, the true, +The luminous as a moon uncloaked; +For proof that there, among earth's dumb, +A soul had passed and said our best. +Or it might be we chimed on some +Historic favourite's astral crest, +With part to reverence in its gleam, +And part to rivalry the shout: +So royal, unuttered, is youth's dream +Of power within to strike without. +But most the silences were sweet, +Like mothers' breasts, to bid it feel +It lived in such divine conceit +As envies aught we stamp for real. + +To either then an untold tale +Was Life, and author, hero, we. +The chapters holding peaks to scale, +Or depths to fathom, made our glee; +For we were armed of inner fires, +Unbled in us the ripe desires; +And passion rolled a quiet sea, +Whereon was Love the phantom sail. + + + +AT THE CLOSE + + + +To Thee, dear God of Mercy, both appeal, +Who straightway sound the call to arms. Thou know'st; +And that black spot in each embattled host, +Spring of the blood-stream, later wilt reveal. +Now is it red artillery and white steel; +Till on a day will ring the victor's boast, +That 'tis Thy chosen towers uppermost, +Where Thy rejected grovels under heel. +So in all times of man's descent insane +To brute, did strength and craft combining strike, +Even as a God of Armies, his fell blow. +But at the close he entered Thy domain, +Dear God of Mercy, and if lion-like +He tore the fall'n, the Eternal was his Foe. + + + +A GARDEN IDYL + + + +With sagest craft Arachne worked +Her web, and at a corner lurked, +Awaiting what should plump her soon, +To case it in the death-cocoon. +Sagaciously her home she chose +For visits that would never close; +Inside my chalet-porch her feast +Plucked all the winds but chill North-east. + +The finished structure, bar on bar, +Had snatched from light to form a star, +And struck on sight, when quick with dews, +Like music of the very Muse. +Great artists pass our single sense; +We hear in seeing, strung to tense; +Then haply marvel, groan mayhap, +To think such beauty means a trap. +But Nature's genius, even man's +At best, is practical in plans; +Subservient to the needy thought, +However rare the weapon wrought. +As long as Nature holds it good +To urge her creatures' quest for food +Will beauty stamp the just intent +Of weapons upon service bent. +For beauty is a flower of roots +Embedded lower than our boots; +Out of the primal strata springs, +And shows for crown of useful things + +Arachne's dream of prey to size +Aspired; so she could nigh despise +The puny specks the breezes round +Supplied, and let them shake unwound; +Assured of her fat fly to come; +Perhaps a blue, the spider's plum; +Who takes the fatal odds in fight, +And gives repast an appetite, +By plunging, whizzing, till his wings +Are webbed, and in the lists he swings, +A shrouded lump, for her to see +Her banquet in her victory. + +This matron of the unnumbered threads, +One day of dandelions' heads +Distributing their gray perruques +Up every gust, I watched with looks +Discreet beside the chalet-door; +And gracefully a light wind bore, +Direct upon my webster's wall, +A monster in the form of ball; +The mildest captive ever snared, +That neither struggled nor despaired, +On half the net invading hung, +And plain as in her mother tongue, +While low the weaver cursed her lures, +Remarked, "You have me; I am yours." + +Thrice magnified, in phantom shape, +Her dream of size she saw, agape. +Midway the vast round-raying beard +A desiccated midge appeared; +Whose body pricked the name of meal, +Whose hair had growth in earth's unreal; +Provocative of dread and wrath, +Contempt and horror, in one froth, +Inextricable, insensible, +His poison presence there would dwell, +Declaring him her dream fulfilled, +A catch to compliment the skilled; +And she reduced to beaky skin, +Disgraceful among kith and kin + +Against her corner, humped and aged, +Arachne wrinkled, past enraged, +Beyond disgust or hope in guile. +Ridiculously volatile +He seemed to her last spark of mind; +And that in pallid ash declined +Beneath the blow by knowledge dealt, +Wherein throughout her frame she felt +That he, the light wind's libertine, +Without a scoff, without a grin, +And mannered like the courtly few, +Who merely danced when light winds blew, +Impervious to beak and claws, +Tradition's ruinous Whitebeard was; +Of whom, as actors in old scenes, +Had grannam weavers warned their weans, +With word, that less than feather-weight, +He smote the web like bolt of Fate. + +This muted drama, hour by hour, +I watched amid a world in flower, +Ere yet Autumnal threads had laid +Their gray-blue o'er the grass's blade, +And still along the garden-run +The blindworm stretched him, drunk of sun. +Arachne crouched unmoved; perchance +Her visitor performed a dance; +She puckered thinner; he the same +As when on that light wind he came. + +Next day was told what deeds of night +Were done; the web had vanished quite; +With it the strange opposing pair; +And listless waved on vacant air, +For her adieu to heart's content, +A solitary filament. + + + +A READING OF LIFE--THE VITAL CHOICE + + + +I + +Or shall we run with Artemis +Or yield the breast to Aphrodite? +Both are mighty; +Both give bliss; +Each can torture if divided; +Each claims worship undivided, +In her wake would have us wallow. + +II + +Youth must offer on bent knees +Homage unto one or other; +Earth, the mother, +This decrees; +And unto the pallid Scyther +Either points us shun we either +Shun or too devoutly follow. + + + +A READING OF LIFE--WITH THE HUNTRESS + + + +Through the water-eye of night, +Midway between eve and dawn, +See the chase, the rout, the flight +In deep forest; oread, faun, +Goat-foot, antlers laid on neck; +Ravenous all the line for speed. +See yon wavy sparkle beck +Sign of the Virgin Lady's lead. +Down her course a serpent star +Coils and shatters at her heels; +Peals the horn exulting, peals +Plaintive, is it near or far. +Huntress, arrowy to pursue, +In and out of woody glen, +Under cliffs that tear the blue, +Over torrent, over fen, +She and forest, where she skims +Feathery, darken and relume: +Those are her white-lightning limbs +Cleaving loads of leafy gloom. +Mountains hear her and call back, +Shrewd with night: a frosty wail +Distant: her the emerald vale +Folds, and wonders in her track. +Now her retinue is lean, +Many rearward; streams the chase +Eager forth of covert; seen +One hot tide the rapturous race. +Quiver-charged and crescent-crowned, +Up on a flash the lighted mound +Leaps she, bow to shoulder, shaft +Strung to barb with archer's craft, +Legs like plaited lyre-chords, feet +Songs to see, past pitch of sweet. +Fearful swiftness they outrun, +Shaggy wildness, grey or dun, +Challenge, charge of tusks elude: +Theirs the dance to tame the rude; +Beast, and beast in manhood tame, +Follow we their silver flame. +Pride of flesh from bondage free, +Reaping vigour of its waste, +Marks her servitors, and she +Sanctifies the unembraced. +Nought of perilous she reeks; +Valour clothes her open breast; +Sweet beyond the thrill of sex; +Hallowed by the sex confessed. +Huntress arrowy to pursue, +Colder she than sunless dew, +She, that breath of upper air; +Ay, but never lyrist sang, +Draught of Bacchus never sprang +Blood the bliss of Gods to share, +High o'er sweep of eagle wings, +Like the run with her, when rings +Clear her rally, and her dart, +In the forest's cavern heart, +Tells of her victorious aim. +Then is pause and chatter, cheer, +Laughter at some satyr lame, +Looks upon the fallen deer, +Measuring his noble crest; +Here a favourite in her train, +Foremost mid her nymphs, caressed; +All applauded. Shall she reign +Worshipped? O to be with her there! +She, that breath of nimble air, +Lifts the breast to giant power. +Maid and man, and man and maid, +Who each other would devour +Elsewhere, by the chase betrayed, +There are comrades, led by her, +Maid-preserver, man-maker. + + + +A READING OF LIFE--WITH THE PERSUADER + + + +Who murmurs, hither, hither: who +Where nought is audible so fills the ear? +Where nought is visible can make appear +A veil with eyes that waver through, +Like twilight's pledge of blessed night to come, +Or day most golden? All unseen and dumb, +She breathes, she moves, inviting flees, +Is lost, and leaves the thrilled desire +To clasp and strike a slackened lyre, +Till over smiles of hyacinth seas, +Flame in a crystal vessel sails +Beneath a dome of jewelled spray, +For land that drops the rosy day +On nights of throbbing nightingales. + +Landward did the wonder flit, +Or heart's desire of her, all earth in it. +We saw the heavens fling down their rose; +On rapturous waves we saw her glide; +The pearly sea-shell half enclose; +The shoal of sea-nymphs flush the tide; +And we, afire to kiss her feet, no more +Behold than tracks along a startled shore, +With brightened edges of dark leaves that feign +An ambush hoped, as heartless night remain. + +More closely, warmly: hither, hither! she, +The very she called forth by ripened blood +For its next breath of being, murmurs; she, +Allurement; she, fulfilment; she, +The stream within us urged to flood; +Man's cry, earth's answer, heaven's consent; O she, +Maid, woman and divinity; +Our over-earthly, inner-earthly mate +Unmated; she, our hunger and our fruit +Untasted; she our written fate +Unread; Life's flowering, Life's root: +Unread, divined; unseen, beheld; +The evanescent, ever-present she, +Great Nature's stern necessity +In radiance clothed, to softness quelled; +With a sword's edge of sweetness keen to take +Our breath for bliss, our hearts for fulness break. + +The murmur hushes down, the veil is rent. +Man's cry, earth's answer, heaven's consent, +Her form is given to pardoned sight, +And lets our mortal eyes receive +The sovereign loveliness of celestial white; +Adored by them who solitarily pace, +In dusk of the underworld's perpetual eve, +The paths among the meadow asphodel, +Remembering. Never there her face +Is planetary; reddens to shore sea-shell +Around such whiteness the enamoured air +Of noon that clothes her, never there. +Daughter of light, the joyful light, +She stands unveiled to nuptial sight, +Sweet in her disregard of aid +Divine to conquer or persuade. +A fountain jets from moss; a flower +Bends gently where her sunset tresses shower. +By guerdon of her brilliance may be seen +With eyelids unabashed the passion's Queen. + +Shorn of attendant Graces she can use +Her natural snares to make her will supreme. +A simple nymph it is, inclined to muse +Before the leader foot shall dip in stream: +One arm at curve along a rounded thigh; +Her firm new breasts each pointing its own way +A knee half bent to shade its fellow shy, +Where innocence, not nature, signals nay. +The bud of fresh virginity awaits +The wooer, and all roseate will she burst: +She touches on the hour of happy mates; +Still is she unaware she wakens thirst. + +And while commanding blissful sight believe +It holds her as a body strained to breast, +Down on the underworld's perpetual eve +She plunges the possessor dispossessed; +And bids believe that image, heaving warm, +Is lost to float like torch-smoke after flame; +The phantom any breeze blows out of form; +A thirst's delusion, a defeated aim. + +The rapture shed the torture weaves; +The direst blow on human heart she deals: +The pain to know the seen deceives; +Nought true but what insufferably feels. +And stabs of her delicious note, +That is as heavenly light to hearing, heard +Through shelter leaves, the laughter from her throat, +We answer as the midnight's morning's bird. + +She laughs, she wakens gleeful cries; +In her delicious laughter part revealed; +Yet mother is she more of moans and sighs, +For longings unappeased and wounds unhealed. +Yet would she bless, it is her task to bless: +Yon folded couples, passing under shade, +Are her rich harvest; bidden caress, caress, +Consume the fruit in bloom; not disobeyed. +We dolorous complainers had a dream, +Wrought on the vacant air from inner fire, +We saw stand bare of her celestial beam +The glorious Goddess, and we dared desire. + +Thereat are shown reproachful eyes, and lips +Of upward curl to meanings half obscure; +And glancing where a wood-nymph lightly skips +She nods: at once that creature wears her lure. +Blush of our being between birth and death: +Sob of our ripened blood for its next breath: +Her wily semblance nought of her denies; +Seems it the Goddess runs, the Goddess hies, +The generous Goddess yields. And she can arm +Her dwarfed and twisted with her secret charm; +Benevolent as Earth to feed her own. +Fully shall they be fed, if they beseech. +But scorn she has for them that walk alone; +Blanched men, starved women, whom no arts can pleach. +The men as chief of criminals she disdains, +And holds the reason in perceptive thought. +More pitiable, like rivers lacking rains, +Kissing cold stones, the women shrink for drought. +Those faceless discords, out of nature strayed, +Rank of the putrefaction ere decayed, +In impious singles bear the thorny wreaths: +Their lives are where harmonious Pleasure breathes +For couples crowned with flowers that burn in dew. +Comes there a tremor of night's forest horn +Across her garden from the insaner crew, +She darkens to malignity of scorn. +A shiver courses through her garden-grounds: +Grunt of the tusky boar, the baying hounds, +The hunter's shouts, are heard afar, and bring +Dead on her heart her crimsoned flower of Spring. +These, the irreverent of Life's design, +Division between natural and divine +Would cast; these vaunting barrenness for best, +In veins of gathered strength Life's tide arrest; +And these because the roses flood their cheeks, +Vow them in nature wise as when Love speaks. +With them is war; and well the Goddess knows +What undermines the race who mount the rose; +How the ripe moment, lodged in slumberous hours, +Enkindled by persuasion overpowers: +Why weak as are her frailer trailing weeds, +The strong when Beauty gleams o'er Nature's needs, +And timely guile unguarded finds them lie. +They who her sway withstand a sea defy, +At every point of juncture must be proof; +Nor look for mercy from the incessant surge +Her forces mixed of craft and passion urge +For the one whelming wave to spring aloof. +She, tenderness, is pitiless to them +Resisting in her godhead nature's truth. +No flower their face shall be, but writhen stem; +Their youth a frost, their age the dirge for youth. +These miserably disinclined, +The lamentably unembraced, +Insult the Pleasures Earth designed +To people and beflower the waste. +Wherefore the Pleasures pass them by: +For death they live, in life they die. + +Her head the Goddess from them turns, +As from grey mounds of ashes in bronze urns. +She views her quivering couples unconsoled, +And of her beauty mirror they become, +Like orchard blossoms, apple, pear and plum, +Free of the cloud, beneath the flood of gold. +Crowned with wreaths that burn in dew, +Her couples whirl, sun-satiated, +Athirst for shade, they sigh, they wed, +They play the music made of two: +Oldest of earth, earth's youngest till earth's end: +Cunninger than the numbered strings, +For melodies, for harmonies, +For mastered discords, and the things +Not vocable, whose mysteries +Are inmost Love's, Life's reach of Life extend. + +Is it an anguish overflowing shame +And the tongue's pudency confides to her, +With eyes of embers, breath of incense myrrh, +The woman's marrow in some dear youth's name, +Then is the Goddess tenderness +Maternal, and she has a sister's tones +Benign to soothe intemperate distress, +Divide despair from hope, and sighs from moans. +Her gentleness imparts exhaling ease +To those of her milk-bearer votaries +As warm of bosom-earth as she; of the source +Direct; erratic but in heart's excess; +Being mortal and ill-matched for Love's great force; +Like green leaves caught with flames by his impress. +And pray they under skies less overcast, +That swiftly may her star of eve descend, +Her lustrous morning star fly not too fast, +To lengthen blissful night will she befriend. + +Unfailing her reply to woman's voice +In supplication instant. Is it man's, +She hears, approves his words, her garden scans, +And him: the flowers are various, he has choice. +Perchance his wound is deep; she listens long; +Enjoys what music fills the plaintive song; +And marks how he, who would be hawk at poise +Above the bird, his plaintive song enjoys. + +She reads him when his humbled manhood weeps +To her invoked: distraction is implored. +A smile, and he is up on godlike leaps +Above, with his bright Goddess owned the adored. +His tales of her declare she condescends; +Can share his fires, not always goads and rends: +Moreover, quits a throne, and must enclose +A queenlier gem than woman's wayside rose. +She bends, he quickens; she breathes low, he springs +Enraptured; low she laughs, his woes disperse; +Aloud she laughs and sweeps his varied strings. +'Tis taught him how for touch of mournful verse +Rarely the music made of two ascends, +And Beauty's Queen some other way is won. +Or it may solve the riddle, that she lends +Herself to all, and yields herself to none, +Save heavenliest: though claims by men are raised +In hot assurance under shade of doubt: +And numerous are the images bepraised +As Beauty's Queen, should passion head the rout. + +Be sure the ruddy hue is Love's: to woo +Love's Fountain we must mount the ruddy hue. +That is her garden's precept, seen where shines +Her blood-flower, and its unsought neighbour pines. +Daughter of light, the joyful light, +She bids her couples face full East, +Reflecting radiance, even when from her feast +Their outstretched arms brown deserts disunite, +The lion-haunted thickets hold apart. +In love the ruddy hue declares great heart; +High confidence in her whose aid is lent +To lovers lifting the tuned instrument, +Not one of rippled strings and funeral tone. +And doth the man pursue a tightened zone, +Then be it as the Laurel God he runs, +Confirmed to win, with countenance the Sun's. + +Should pity bless the tremulous voice of woe +He lifts for pity, limp his offspring show. +For him requiring woman's arts to please +Infantile tastes with babe reluctances, +No race of giants! In the woman's veins +Persuasion ripely runs, through hers the pains. +Her choice of him, should kind occasion nod, +Aspiring blends the Titan with the God; +Yet unto dwarf and mortal, she, submiss +In her high Lady's mandate, yields the kiss; +And is it needed that Love's daintier brute +Be snared as hunter, she will tempt pursuit. +She is great Nature's ever intimate +In breast, and doth as ready handmaid wait, +Until perverted by her senseless male, +She plays the winding snake, the shrinking snail, +The flying deer, all tricks of evil fame, +Elusive to allure, since he grew tame. + +Hence has the Goddess, Nature's earliest Power, +And greatest and most present, with her dower +Of the transcendent beauty, gained repute +For meditated guile. She laughs to hear +A charge her garden's labyrinths scarce confute, +Her garden's histories tell of to all near. +Let it be said, But less upon her guile +Doth she rely for her immortal smile. +Still let the rumour spread, and terror screens +To push her conquests by the simplest means. +While man abjures not lustihead, nor swerves +From earth's good labours, Beauty's Queen he serves. + +Her spacious garden and her garden's grant +She offers in reward for handsome cheer: +Choice of the nymphs whose looks will slant +The secret down a dewy leer +Of corner eyelids into haze: +Many a fair Aphrosyne +Like flower-bell to honey-bee: +And here they flicker round the maze +Bewildering him in heart and head: +And here they wear the close demure, +With subtle peeps to reassure: +Others parade where love has bled, +And of its crimson weave their mesh: +Others to snap of fingers leap, +As bearing breast with love asleep. +These are her laughters in the flesh. +Or would she fit a warrior mood, +She lights her seeming unsubdued, +And indicates the fortress-key. +Or is it heart for heart that craves, +She flecks along a run of waves +The one to promise deeper sea. + +Bands of her limpid primitives, +Or patterned in the curious braid, +Are the blest man's; and whatsoever he gives, +For what he gives is he repaid. +Good is it if by him 'tis held +He wins the fairest ever welled +From Nature's founts: she whispers it: Even I +Not fairer! and forbids him to deny, +Else little is he lover. Those he clasps, +Intent as tempest, worshipful as prayer, - +And be they doves or be they asps, - +Must seem to him the sovereignty fair; +Else counts he soon among life's wholly tamed. +Him whom from utter savage she reclaimed, +Half savage must he stay, would he be crowned +The lover. Else, past ripeness, deathward bound, +He reasons; and the totterer Earth detests, +Love shuns, grim logic screws in grasp, is he. +Doth man divide divine Necessity +From Joy, between the Queen of Beauty's breasts +A sword is driven; for those most glorious twain +Present her; armed to bless and to constrain. +Of this he perishes; not she, the throned +On rocks that spout their springs to the sacred mounts. +A loftier Reason out of deeper founts +Earth's chosen Goddess bears: by none disowned +While red blood runs to swell the pulse, she boasts, +And Beauty, like her star, descends the sky; +Earth's answer, heaven's consent unto man's cry, +Uplifted by the innumerable hosts. + +Quickened of Nature's eye and ear, +When the wild sap at high tide smites +Within us; or benignly clear +To vision; or as the iris lights +On fluctuant waters; she is ours +Till set of man: the dreamed, the seen; +Flushing the world with odorous flowers: +A soft compulsion on terrene +By heavenly: and the world is hers +While hunger after Beauty spurs. + +So is it sung in any space +She fills, with laugh at shallow laws +Forbidding love's devised embrace, +The music Beauty from it draws. + + + +A READING OF LIFE--THE TEST OF MANHOOD + + + +Like a flood river whirled at rocky banks, +An army issues out of wilderness, +With battle plucking round its ragged flanks; +Obstruction in the van; insane excess +Oft at the heart; yet hard the onward stress +Unto more spacious, where move ordered ranks, +And rise hushed temples built of shapely stone, +The work of hands not pledged to grind or slay. +They gave our earth a dress of flesh on bone; +A tongue to speak with answering heaven gave they. +Then was the gracious birth of man's new day; +Divided from the haunted night it shone. + +That quiet dawn was Reverence; whereof sprang +Ethereal Beauty in full morningtide. +Another sun had risen to clasp his bride: +It was another earth unto him sang. + +Came Reverence from the Huntress on her heights? +From the Persuader came it, in those vales +Whereunto she melodiously invites, +Her troops of eager servitors regales? +Not far those two great Powers of Nature speed +Disciple steps on earth when sole they lead; +Nor either points for us the way of flame. +From him predestined mightier it came; +His task to hold them both in breast, and yield +Their dues to each, and of their war be field. + +The foes that in repulsion never ceased, +Must he, who once has been the goodly beast +Of one or other, at whose beck he ran, +Constrain to make him serviceable man; +Offending neither, nor the natural claim +Each pressed, denying, for his true man's name. + +Ah, what a sweat of anguish in that strife +To hold them fast conjoined within him still; +Submissive to his will +Along the road of life! +And marvel not he wavered if at whiles +The forward step met frowns, the backward smiles. +For Pleasure witched him her sweet cup to drain; +Repentance offered ecstasy in pain. +Delicious licence called it Nature's cry; +Ascetic rigours crushed the fleshly sigh; +A tread on shingle timed his lame advance +Flung as the die of Bacchanalian Chance, +He of the troubled marching army leaned +On godhead visible, on godhead screened; +The radiant roseate, the curtained white; +Yet sharp his battle strained through day, through night. + +He drank of fictions, till celestial aid +Might seem accorded when he fawned and prayed; +Sagely the generous Giver circumspect, +To choose for grants the egregious, his elect; +And ever that imagined succour slew +The soul of brotherhood whence Reverence drew. + +In fellowship religion has its founts: +The solitary his own God reveres: +Ascend no sacred Mounts +Our hungers or our fears. +As only for the numbers Nature's care +Is shown, and she the personal nothing heeds, +So to Divinity the spring of prayer +From brotherhood the one way upward leads. +Like the sustaining air +Are both for flowers and weeds. +But he who claims in spirit to be flower, +Will find them both an air that doth devour. + +Whereby he smelt his treason, who implored +External gifts bestowed but on the sword; +Beheld himself, with less and less disguise, +Through those blood-cataracts which dimmed his eyes, +His army's foe, condemned to strive and fail; +See a black adversary's ghost prevail; +Never, though triumphs hailed him, hope to win +While still the conflict tore his breast within. + +Out of that agony, misread for those +Imprisoned Powers warring unappeased, +The ghost of his black adversary rose, +To smother light, shut heaven, show earth diseased. +And long with him was wrestling ere emerged +A mind to read in him the reflex shade +Of its fierce torment; this way, that way urged; +By craven compromises hourly swayed. + +Crouched as a nestling, still its wings untried, +The man's mind opened under weight of cloud. +To penetrate the dark was it endowed; +Stood day before a vision shooting wide. +Whereat the spectral enemy lost form; +The traversed wilderness exposed its track. +He felt the far advance in looking back; +Thence trust in his foot forward through the storm. + +Under the low-browed tempest's eye of ire, +That ere it lightened smote a coward heart, +Earth nerved her chastened son to hail athwart +All ventures perilous his shrouded Sire; +A stranger still, religiously divined; +Not yet with understanding read aright. +But when the mind, the cherishable mind, +The multitude's grave shepherd, took full flight, +Himself as mirror raised among his kind, +He saw, and first of brotherhood had sight: +Knew that his force to fly, his will to see, +His heart enlarged beyond its ribbed domain, +Had come of many a grip in mastery, +Which held conjoined the hostile rival twain, +And of his bosom made him lord, to keep +The starry roof of his unruffled frame +Awake to earth, to heaven, and plumb the deep +Below, above, aye with a wistful aim. + +The mastering mind in him, by tempests blown, +By traitor inmates baited, upward burned; +Perforce of growth, the Master mind discerned, +The Great Unseen, nowise the Dark Unknown. +To whom unwittingly did he aspire +In wilderness, where bitter was his need: +To whom in blindness, as an earthy seed +For light and air, he struck through crimson mire. +But not ere he upheld a forehead lamp, +And viewed an army, once the seeming doomed, +All choral in its fruitful garden camp, +The spiritual the palpable illumed. + +This gift of penetration and embrace, +His prize from tidal battles lost or won, +Reveals the scheme to animate his race: +How that it is a warfare but begun; +Unending; with no Power to interpose; +No prayer, save for strength to keep his ground, +Heard of the Highest; never battle's close, +The victory complete and victor crowned: +Nor solace in defeat, save from that sense +Of strength well spent, which is the strength renewed. +In manhood must he find his competence; +In his clear mind the spiritual food: +God being there while he his fight maintains; +Throughout his mind the Master Mind being there, +While he rejects the suicide despair; +Accepts the spur of explicable pains; +Obedient to Nature, not her slave: +Her lord, if to her rigid laws he bows; +Her dust, if with his conscience he plays knave, +And bids the Passions on the Pleasures browse:- +Whence Evil in a world unread before; +That mystery to simple springs resolved. +His God the Known, diviner to adore, +Shows Nature's savage riddles kindly solved. +Inconscient, insensitive, she reigns +In iron laws, though rapturous fair her face. +Back to the primal brute shall he retrace +His path, doth he permit to force her chains +A soft Persuader coursing through his veins, +An icy Huntress stringing to the chase: +What one the flash disdains; +What one so gives it grace. + +But is he rightly manful in her eyes, +A splendid bloodless knight to gain the skies, +A blood-hot son of Earth by all her signs, +Desireing and desireable he shines; +As peaches, that have caught the sun's uprise +And kissed warm gold till noonday, even as vines. +Earth fills him with her juices, without fear +That she will cast him drunken down the steeps. +All woman is she to this man most dear; +He sows for bread, and she in spirit reaps: +She conscient, she sensitive, in him; +With him enwound, his brave ambition hers: +By him humaner made; by his keen spurs +Pricked to race past the pride in giant limb, +Her crazy adoration of big thews, +Proud in her primal sons, when crags they hurled, +Were thunder spitting lightnings on the world +In daily deeds, and she their evening Muse. + +This man, this hero, works not to destroy; +This godlike--as the rock in ocean stands; - +He of the myriad eyes, the myriad hands +Creative; in his edifice has joy. +How strength may serve for purity is shown +When he himself can scourge to make it clean. +Withal his pitch of pride would not disown +A sober world that walks the balanced mean +Between its tempters, rarely overthrown: +And such at times his army's march has been. + +Near is he to great Nature in the thought +Each changing Season intimately saith, +That nought save apparition knows the death; +To the God-lighted mind of man 'tis nought. +She counts not loss a word of any weight; +It may befal his passions and his greeds +To lose their treasures, like the vein that bleeds, +But life gone breathless will she reinstate. + +Close on the heart of Earth his bosom beats, +When he the mandate lodged in it obeys, +Alive to breast a future wrapped in haze, +Strike camp, and onward, like the wind's cloud-fleets. +Unresting she, unresting he, from change +To change, as rain of cloud, as fruit of rain; +She feels her blood-tree throbbing in her grain, +Yet skyward branched, with loftier mark and range. + +No miracle the sprout of wheat from clod, +She knows, nor growth of man in grisly brute; +But he, the flower at head and soil at root, +Is miracle, guides he the brute to God. +And that way seems he bound; that way the road, +With his dark-lantern mind, unled, alone, +Wearifully through forest-tracts unsown, +He travels, urged by some internal goad. + +Dares he behold the thing he is, what thing +He would become is in his mind its child; +Astir, demanding birth to light and wing; +For battle prompt, by pleasure unbeguiled. +So moves he forth in faith, if he has made +His mind God's temple, dedicate to truth. +Earth's nourishing delights, no more gainsaid, +He tastes, as doth the bridegroom rich in youth. +Then knows he Love, that beckons and controls; +The star of sky upon his footway cast; +Then match in him who holds his tempters fast, +The body's love and mind's, whereof the soul's. +Then Earth her man for woman finds at last, +To speed the pair unto her goal of goals. + +Or is't the widowed's dream of her new mate? +Seen has she virulent days of heat in flood; +The sly Persuader snaky in his blood; +With her the barren Huntress alternate; +His rough refractory off on kicking heels +To rear; the man dragged rearward, shamed, amazed; +And as a torrent stream where cattle grazed, +His tumbled world. What, then, the faith she feels? +May not his aspect, like her own so fair +Reflexively, the central force belie, +And he, the once wild ocean storming sky, +Be rebel at the core? What hope is there? + +'Tis that in each recovery he preserves, +Between his upper and his nether wit, +Sense of his march ahead, more brightly lit; +He less the shaken thing of lusts and nerves; +With such a grasp upon his brute as tells +Of wisdom from that vile relapsing spun. +A Sun goes down in wasted fire, a Sun +Resplendent springs, to faith refreshed compels. + + + +THE HUELESS LOVE + + + +Unto that love must we through fire attain, +Which those two held as breath of common air; +The hands of whom were given in bond elsewhere; +Whom Honour was untroubled to restrain. + +Midway the road of our life's term they met, +And one another knew without surprise; +Nor cared that beauty stood in mutual eyes; +Nor at their tardy meeting nursed regret. + +To them it was revealed how they had found +The kindred nature and the needed mind; +The mate by long conspiracy designed; +The flower to plant in sanctuary ground. + +Avowed in vigilant solicitude +For either, what most lived within each breast +They let be seen: yet every human test +Demanding righteousness approved them good. + +She leaned on a strong arm, and little feared +Abandonment to help if heaved or sank +Her heart at intervals while Love looked blank, +Life rosier were she but less revered. + +An arm that never shook did not obscure +Her woman's intuition of the bliss - +Their tempter's moment o'er the black abyss, +Across the narrow plank--he could abjure. + +Then came a day that clipped for him the thread, +And their first touch of lips, as he lay cold, +Was all of earthly in their love untold, +Beyond all earthly known to them who wed. + +So has there come the gust at South-west flung +By sudden volt on eves of freezing mist, +When sister snowflake sister snowdrop kissed, +And one passed out, and one the bell-head hung. + + + +UNION IN DISSEVERANCE + + + +Sunset worn to its last vermilion he; +She that star overhead in slow descent: +That white star with the front of angel she; +He undone in his rays of glory spent + +Halo, fair as the bow-shot at his rise, +He casts round her, and knows his hour of rest +Incomplete, were the light for which he dies, +Less like joy of the dove that wings to nest. + +Lustrous momently, near on earth she sinks; +Life's full throb over breathless and abased: +Yet stand they, though impalpable the links, +One, more one than the bridally embraced. + + + +SONG IN THE SONGLESS + + + +They have no song, the sedges dry, +And still they sing. +It is within my breast they sing, +As I pass by. +Within my breast they touch a string, +They wake a sigh. +There is but sound of sedges dry; +In me they sing. + + + +THE BURDEN OF STRENGTH + + + +If that thou hast the gift of strength, then know +Thy part is to uplift the trodden low; +Else in a giant's grasp until the end +A hopeless wrestler shall thy soul contend. + + + +THE MAIN REGRET + + + +[Written for the Charing Cross Album] + +I + +Seen, too clear and historic within us, our sins of omission +Frown when the Autumn days strike us all ruthlessly bare. +They of our mortal diseases find never healing physician; +Errors they of the soul, past the one hope to repair. + +II + +Sunshine might we have been unto seed under soil, or have scattered +Seed to ascendant suns brighter than any that shone. +Even the limp-legged beggar a sick desperado has flattered +Back to a half-sloughed life cheered by the mere human tone. + + + +ALTERNATION + + + +Between the fountain and the rill +I passed, and saw the mighty will +To leap at sky; the careless run, +As earth would lead her little son. + +Beneath them throbs an urgent well, +That here is play, and there is war. +I know not which had most to tell +Of whence we spring and what we are. + + + +FOREST HISTORY + + + +I + +Beneath the vans of doom did men pass in. +Heroic who came out; for round them hung +A wavering phantom's red volcano tongue, +With league-long lizard tail and fishy fin: + +II + +Old Earth's original Dragon; there retired +To his last fastness; overthrown by few. +Him a laborious thrust of roadway slew. +Then man to play devorant straight was fired. + +III + +More intimate became the forest fear +While pillared darkness hatched malicious life +At either elbow, wolf or gnome or knife +And wary slid the glance from ear to ear. + +IV + +In chillness, like a clouded lantern-ray, +The forest's heart of fog on mossed morass, +On purple pool and silky cotton-grass, +Revealed where lured the swallower byway. + +V + +Dead outlook, flattened back with hard rebound +Off walls of distance, left each mounted height. +It seemed a giant hag-fiend, churning spite +Of humble human being, held the ground. + +VI + +Through friendless wastes, through treacherous woodland, slow +The feet sustained by track of feet pursued +Pained steps, and found the common brotherhood +By sign of Heaven indifferent, Nature foe. + +VII + +Anon a mason's work amazed the sight, +And long-frocked men, called Brothers, there abode. +They pointed up, bowed head, and dug and sowed; +Whereof was shelter, loaf, and warm firelight. + +VIII + +What words they taught were nails to scratch the head. +Benignant works explained the chanting brood. +Their monastery lit black solitude, +As one might think a star that heavenward led. + +IX + +Uprose a fairer nest for weary feet, +Like some gold flower nightly inward curled, +Where gentle maidens fled a roaring world, +Or played with it, and had their white retreat. + +X + +Into big books of metal clasps they pored. +They governed, even as men; they welcomed lays. +The treasures women are whose aim is praise, +Was shown in them: the Garden half restored. + +XI + +A deluge billow scoured the land off seas, +With widened jaws, and slaughter was its foam. +For food, for clothing, ambush, refuge, home, +The lesser savage offered bogs and trees. + +XII + +Whence reverence round grey-haired story grew: +And inmost spots of ancient horror shone +As temples under beams of trials bygone; +For in them sang brave times with God in view. + +XIII + +Till now trim homesteads bordered spaces green, +Like night's first little stars through clearing showers. +Was rumoured how a castle's falcon towers +The wilderness commanded with fierce mien. + +XIV + +Therein a serious Baron stuck his lance; +For minstrel songs a beauteous Dame would pout. +Gay knights and sombre, felon or devout, +Pricked onward, bound for their unsung romance. + +XV + +It might be that two errant lords across +The block of each came edged, and at sharp cry +They charged forthwith, the better man to try. +One rode his way, one couched on quiet moss. + +XVI + +Perchance a lady sweet, whose lord lay slain, +The robbers into gruesome durance drew. +Swift should her hero come, like lightning's blue! +She prayed for him, as crackling drought for rain. + +XVII + +As we, that ere the worst her hero haps, +Of Angels guided, nigh that loathly den: +A toady cave beside an ague fen, +Where long forlorn the lone dog whines and yaps. + +XVIII + +By daylight now the forest fear could read +Itself, and at new wonders chuckling went. +Straight for the roebuck's neck the bowman spent +A dart that laughed at distance and at speed. + +XIX + +Right loud the bugle's hallali elate +Rang forth of merry dingles round the tors; +And deftest hand was he from foreign wars, +But soon he hailed the home-bred yeoman mate. + +XX + +Before the blackbird pecked the turf they woke; +At dawn the deer's wet nostrils blew their last. +To forest, haunt of runs and prime repast, +With paying blows, the yokel strained his yoke. + +XXI + +The city urchin mooned on forest air, +On grassy sweeps and flying arrows, thick +As swallows o'er smooth streams, and sighed him sick +For thinking that his dearer home was there. + +XXII + +Familiar, still unseized, the forest sprang +An old-world echo, like no mortal thing. +The hunter's horn might wind a jocund ring, +But held in ear it had a chilly clang. + +XXIII + +Some shadow lurked aloof of ancient time; +Some warning haunted any sound prolonged, +As though the leagues of woodland held them wronged +To hear an axe and see a township climb. + +XXIV + +The forest's erewhile emperor at eve +Had voice when lowered heavens drummed for gales. +At midnight a small people danced the dales, +So thin that they might dwindle through a sieve + +XXV + +Ringed mushrooms told of them, and in their throats, +Old wives that gathered herbs and knew too much. +The pensioned forester beside his crutch, +Struck showers from embers at those bodeful notes. + +XXVI + +Came then the one, all ear, all eye, all heart; +Devourer, and insensibly devoured; +In whom the city over forest flowered, +The forest wreathed the city's drama-mart. + +XXVII + +There found he in new form that Dragon old, +From tangled solitudes expelled; and taught +How blindly each its antidote besought; +For either's breath the needs of either told. + +XXVIII + +Now deep in woods, with song no sermon's drone, +He showed what charm the human concourse works: +Amid the press of men, what virtue lurks +Where bubble sacred wells of wildness lone. + +XXIX + +Our conquest these: if haply we retain +The reverence that ne'er will overrun +Due boundaries of realms from Nature won, +Nor let the poet's awe in rapture wane. + + + +THE INVECTIVE OF ACHILLES--Iliad, i. 149 + + + +"Heigh me! brazen of front, thou glutton for plunder, how can one, +Servant here to thy mandates, heed thee among our Achaians, +Either the mission hie on or stoutly do fight with the foemen? +I, not hither I fared on account of the spear-armed Trojans, +Pledged to the combat; they unto me have in nowise a harm done; +Never have they, of a truth, come lifting my horses or oxen; +Never in deep-soiled Phthia, the nurser of heroes, my harvests +Ravaged, they; for between us is numbered full many a darksome +Mountain, ay, therewith too the stretch of the windy sea-waters. +O hugely shameless! thee did we follow to hearten thee, justice +Pluck from the Dardans for him, Menelaos, thee too, thou dog-eyed! +Whereof little thy thought is, nought whatever thou reckest. +Worse, it is thou whose threat 'tis to ravish my prize from me, +portion +Won with much labour, the which my gift from the sons of Achaia. +Never, in sooth, have I known my prize equal thine when Achaians +Gave some flourishing populous Trojan town up to pillage. +Nay, sure, mine were the hands did most in the storm of the combat, +Yet when came peradventure share of the booty amongst us, +Bigger to thee went the prize, while I some small blessed thing bore +Off to the ships, my share of reward for my toil in the bloodshed! +So now go I to Phthia, for better by much it beseems me +Homeward go with my beaked ships now, and I hold not in prospect, +I being outraged, thou mayst gather here plunder and wealth-store." + + + +THE INVECTIVE OF ACHILLES--Iliad, i. 225 + + + +"Bibber besotted, with scowl of a cur, having heart of a deer, thou! +Never to join to thy warriors armed for the press of the conflict, +Never for ambush forth with the princeliest sons of Achaia +Dared thy soul, for to thee that thing would have looked as a death- +stroke. +Sooth, more easy it seems, down the lengthened array of Achaians, +Snatch at the prize of the one whose voice has been lifted against +thee. +Ravening king of the folk, for that thou hast thy rule over abjects; +Else, son of Atreus, now were this outrage on me thy last one. +Nay, but I tell thee, and I do swear a big oath on it likewise: +Yea, by the sceptre here, and it surely bears branches and leaf-buds +Never again, since first it was lopped from its trunk on the +mountains, +No more sprouting; for round it all clean has the sharp metal +clipped off +Leaves and the bark; ay, verify now do the sons of Achaia, +Guardian hands of the counsels of Zeus, pronouncing the judgement, +Hold it aloft; so now unto thee shall the oath have its portent; +Loud will the cry for Achilles burst from the sons of Achaia +Throughout the army, and thou chafe powerless, though in an anguish, +How to give succour when vast crops down under man-slaying Hector +Tumble expiring; and thou deep in thee shalt tear at thy heart- +strings, +Rage-wrung, thou, that in nought thou didst honour the flower of +Achaians." + + + +MARSHALLING OF THE ACHAIANS--Iliad, ii 455 + + + +Like as a terrible fire feeds fast on a forest enormous, +Up on a mountain height, and the blaze of it radiates round far, +So on the bright blest arms of the host in their march did the +splendour +Gleam wide round through the circle of air right up to the sky- +vault. +They, now, as when swarm thick in the air multitudinous winged +flocks, +Be it of geese or of cranes or the long-necked troops of the wild- +swans, +Off that Asian mead, by the flow of the waters of Kaistros; +Hither and yon fly they, and rejoicing in pride of their pinions, +Clamour, shaped to their ranks, and the mead all about them +resoundeth; +So those numerous tribes from their ships and their shelterings +poured forth +On that plain of Scamander, and horrible rumbled beneath them +Earth to the quick-paced feet of the men and the tramp of the horse- +hooves. +Stopped they then on the fair-flower'd field of Scamander, their +thousands +Many as leaves and the blossoms born of the flowerful season. +Even as countless hot-pressed flies in their multitudes traverse, +Clouds of them, under some herdsman's wonning, where then are the +milk-pails +Also, full of their milk, in the bountiful season of spring-time; +Even so thickly the long-haired sons of Achaia the plain held, +Prompt for the dash at the Trojan host, with the passion to crush +them. +Those, likewise, as the goatherds, eyeing their vast flocks of +goats, know +Easily one from the other when all get mixed o'er the pasture, +So did the chieftains rank them here there in their places for +onslaught, +Hard on the push of the fray; and among them King Agamemnon, +He, for his eyes and his head, as when Zeus glows glad in his +thunder, +He with the girdle of Ares, he with the breast of Poseidon. + + + +AGAMEMNON IN THE FIGHT--Iliad, xi, 148 + + + +These, then, he left, and away where ranks were now clashing the +thickest, +Onward rushed, and with him rushed all of the bright-greaved +Achaians. +Foot then footmen slew, that were flying from direful compulsion, +Horse at the horsemen (up from off under them mounted the dust- +cloud, +Up off the plain, raised up cloud-thick by the thundering horse- +hooves) +Hewed with the sword's sharp edge; and so meanwhile Lord Agamemnon +Followed, chasing and slaughtering aye, on-urgeing the Argives. + +Now, as when fire voracious catches the unclipped wood-land, +This way bears it and that the great whirl of the wind, and the +scrubwood +Stretches uptorn, flung forward alength by the fire's fury rageing, +So beneath Atreides Agamemnon heads of the scattered +Trojans fell; and in numbers amany the horses, neck-stiffened, +Rattled their vacant cars down the roadway gaps of the war-field, +Missing the blameless charioteers, but, for these, they were +outstretched +Flat upon earth, far dearer to vultures than to their home-mates. + + + +PARIS AND DIOMEDES--Iliad, xi, 378 + + + +So he, with a clear shout of laughter, +Forth of his ambush leapt, and he vaunted him, uttering thiswise: +"Hit thou art! not in vain flew the shaft; how by rights it had +pierced thee +Into the undermost gut, therewith to have rived thee of life-breath! +Following that had the Trojans plucked a new breath from their +direst, +They all frighted of thee, as the goats bleat in flight from a +lion." +Then unto him untroubled made answer stout Diomedes: +"Bow-puller, jiber, thy bow for thy glorying, spyer at virgins! +If that thou dared'st face me here out in the open with weapons, +Nothing then would avail thee thy bow and thy thick shot of arrows. +Now thou plumest thee vainly because of a graze of my footsole; +Reck I as were that stroke from a woman or some pettish infant. +Aye flies blunted the dart of the man that's emasculate, +noughtworth! +Otherwise hits, forth flying from me, and but strikes it the +slightest, +My keen shaft, and it numbers a man of the dead fallen straightway. +Torn, troth, then are the cheeks of the wife of that man fallen +slaughtered, +Orphans his babes, full surely he reddens the earth with his blood- +drops, +Rotting, round him the birds, more numerous they than the women." + + + +HYPNOS ON IDA--Iliad, xiv, 283 + + + +They then to fountain-abundant Ida, mother of wild beasts, +Came, and they first left ocean to fare over mainland at Lektos, +Where underneath of their feet waved loftiest growths of the +woodland. +There hung Hypnos fast, ere the vision of Zeus was observant, +Mounted upon a tall pine-tree, tallest of pines that on Ida +Lustily spring off soil for the shoot up aloft into aether. +There did he sit well-cloaked by the wide-branched pine for +concealment, +That loud bird, in his form like, that perched high up in the +mountains, +Chalkis is named by the Gods, but of mortals known as Kymindis. + + + +CLASH IN ARMS OF THE ACHAIANS AND TROJANS--Iliad, xvii, 426 + + + +Not the sea-wave so bellows abroad when it bursts upon shingle, +Whipped from the sea's deeps up by the terrible blast of the +Northwind; +Nay, nor is ever the roar of the fierce fire's rush so arousing, +Down along mountain-glades, when it surges to kindle a woodland; +Nay, nor so tonant thunders the stress of the gale in the oak-trees' +Foliage-tresses high, when it rages to raveing its utmost; +As rose then stupendous the Trojan's cry and Achaians', +Dread upshouting as one when together they clashed in the conflict. + + + +THE HORSES OF ACHILLES--Iliad, xvii, 426 + + + +So now the horses of Aiakides, off wide of the war-ground, +Wept, since first they were ware of their charioteer overthrown +there, +Cast down low in the whirl of the dust under man-slaying Hector. +Sooth, meanwhile, then did Automedon, brave son of Diores, +Oft, on the one hand, urge them with flicks of the swift whip, and +oft, too, +Coax entreatingly, hurriedly; whiles did he angrily threaten. +Vainly, for these would not to the ships, to the Hellespont +spacious, +Backward turn, nor be whipped to the battle among the Achaians. +Nay, as a pillar remains immovable, fixed on the tombstone, +Haply, of some dead man or it may be a woman there-under; +Even like hard stood they there attached to the glorious war-car, +Earthward bowed with their heads; and of them so lamenting incessant +Ran the hot teardrops downward on to the earth from their eyelids, +Mourning their charioteer; all their lustrous manes dusty-clotted, +Right side and left of the yoke-ring tossed, to the breadth of the +yoke-bow. +Now when the issue of Kronos beheld that sorrow, his head shook +Pitying them for their grief, these words then he spake in his +bosom; +"Why, ye hapless, gave we to Peleus you, to a mortal +Master; ye that are ageless both, ye both of you deathless! +Was it that ye among men most wretched should come to have heart- +grief? +'Tis most true, than the race of these men is there wretcheder +nowhere +Aught over earth's range found that is gifted with breath and has +movement." + + + +THE MARES OF THE CAMARGUE--From the 'Mireio' of Mistral + + + +A hundred mares, all white! their manes +Like mace-reed of the marshy plains +Thick-tufted, wavy, free o' the shears: +And when the fiery squadron rears +Bursting at speed, each mane appears +Even as the white scarf of a fay +Floating upon their necks along the heavens away. + +O race of humankind, take shame! +For never yet a hand could tame, +Nor bitter spur that rips the flanks subdue +The mares of the Camargue. I have known, +By treason snared, some captives shown; +Expatriate from their native Rhone, +Led off, their saline pastures far from view: + +And on a day, with prompt rebound, +They have flung their riders to the ground, +And at a single gallop, scouring free, +Wide-nostril'd to the wind, twice ten +Of long marsh-leagues devour'd, and then, +Back to the Vacares again, +After ten years of slavery just to breathe salt sea + +For of this savage race unbent, +The ocean is the element. +Of old escaped from Neptune's car, full sure, +Still with the white foam fleck'd are they, +And when the sea puffs black from grey, +And ships part cables, loudly neigh +The stallions of Camargue, all joyful in the roar; + +And keen as a whip they lash and crack +Their tails that drag the dust, and back +Scratch up the earth, and feel, entering their flesh, where he, +The God, drives deep his trident teeth, +Who in one horror, above, beneath, +Bids storm and watery deluge seethe, +And shatters to their depths the abysses of the sea. + +Cant. iv. + + + +'ATKINS' + + + +Yonder's the man with his life in his hand, +Legs on the march for whatever the land, +Or to the slaughter, or to the maiming, +Getting the dole of a dog for pay. +Laurels he clasps in the words 'duty done,' +England his heart under every sun:- +Exquisite humour! that gives him a naming +Base to the ear as an ass's bray. + + + +THE VOYAGE OF THE 'OPHIR' + + + +Men of our race, we send you one +Round whom Victoria's holy name +Is halo from the sunken sun +Of her grand Summer's day aflame. +The heart of your loved Motherland, +To them she loves as her own blood, +This Flower of Ocean bears in hand, +Assured of gift as good. + +Forth for our Southern shores the fleet +Which crowns a nation's wisdom steams, +That there may Briton Briton greet, +And stamp as fact Imperial dreams. +Across the globe, from sea to sea, +The long smoke-pennon trails above, +Writes over sky how wise will be +The Power that trusts to love. + +A love that springs from heart and brain +In union gives for ripest fruit +The concord Kings and States in vain +Have sought, who played the lofty brute, +And fondly deeming they possessed, +On force relied, and found it break: +That truth once scored on Britain's breast +Now keeps her mind awake. + +Australian, Canadian, +To tone old veins with streams of youth, +Our trust be on the best in man +Henceforth, and we shall prove that truth. +Prove to a world of brows down-bent +That in the Britain thus endowed, +Imperial means beneficent, +And strength to service vowed. + + + +THE CRISIS + + + +Spirit of Russia, now has come +The day when thou canst not be dumb. +Around thee foams the torrent tide, +Above thee its fell fountain, Pride. +The senseless rock awaits thy word +To crumble; shall it be unheard? +Already, like a tempest-sun, +That shoots the flare and shuts to dun, +Thy land 'twixt flame and darkness heaves, +Showing the blade wherewith Fate cleaves, +If mortals in high courage fail +At the one breath before the gale. +Those rulers in all forms of lust, +Who trod thy children down to dust +On the red Sunday, know right well +What word for them thy voice would spell, +What quick perdition for them weave, +Did they in such a voice believe. +Not thine to raise the avenger's shriek, +Nor turn to them a Tolstoi cheek; +Nor menace him, the waverer still, +Man of much heart and little will, +The criminal of his high seat, +Whose plea of Guiltless judges it. +For him thy voice shall bring to hand +Salvation, and to thy torn land, +Seen on the breakers. Now has come +The day when thou canst not be dumb, +Spirit of Russia:- those who bind +Thy limbs and iron-cap thy mind, +Take thee for quaking flesh, misdoubt +That thou art of the rabble rout +Which cries and flees, with whimpering lip, +From reckless gun and brutal whip; +But he who has at heart the deeds +Of thy heroic offspring reads +In them a soul; not given to shrink +From peril on the abyss's brink; +With never dread of murderous power; +With view beyond the crimson hour; +Neither an instinct-driven might, +Nor visionary erudite; +A soul; that art thou. It remains +For thee to stay thy children's veins, +The countertides of hate arrest, +Give to thy sons a breathing breast, +And Him resembling, in His sight, +Say to thy land, Let there be Light. + + + +OCTOBER 21, 1905 + + + +The hundred years have passed, and he +Whose name appeased a nation's fears, +As with a hand laid over sea; +To thunder through the foeman's ears +Defeat before his blast of fire; +Lives in the immortality +That poets dream and noblest souls desire. + +Never did nation's need evoke +Hero like him for aid, the while +A Continent was cannon-smoke +Or peace in slavery: this one Isle +Reflecting Nature: this one man +Her sea-hound and her mortal stroke, +With war-worn body aye in battle's van. + +And do we love him well, as well +As he his country, we may greet, +With hand on steel, our passing bell +Nigh on the swing, for prelude sweet +To the music heard when his last breath +Hung on its ebb beside the knell, +And VICTORY in his ear sang gracious Death. + +Ah, day of glory! day of tears! +Day of a people bowed as one! +Behold across those hundred years +The lion flash of gun at gun: +Our bitter pride; our love bereaved; +What pall of cloud o'ercame our sun +That day, to bear his wreath, the end achieved. + +Joy that no more with murder's frown +The ancient rivals bark apart. +Now Nelson to brave France is shown +A hero after her own heart: +And he now scanning that quick race, +To whom through life his glove was thrown, +Would know a sister spirit to embrace. + + + +THE CENTENARY OF GARIBALDI + + + +We who have seen Italia in the throes, +Half risen but to be hurled to ground, and now +Like a ripe field of wheat where once drove plough +All bounteous as she is fair, we think of those +Who blew the breath of life into her frame: +Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi: Three: +Her Brain, her Soul, her Sword; and set her free +From ruinous discords, with one lustrous aim. + +That aim, albeit they were of minds diverse, +Conjoined them, not to strive without surcease; +For them could be no babblement of peace +While lay their country under Slavery's curse. + +The set of torn Italia's glorious day +Was ever sunrise in each filial breast. +Of eagle beaks by righteousness unblest +They felt her pulsing body made the prey. + +Wherefore they struck, and had to count their dead. +With bitter smile of resolution nerved +To try new issues, holding faith unswerved, +Promise they gathered from the rich blood shed. + +In them Italia, visible to us then +As living, rose; for proof that huge brute Force +Has never being from celestial source, +And is the lord of cravens, not of men. + +Now breaking up the crust of temporal strife, +Who reads their acts enshrined in History, sees +That Tyrants were the Revolutionaries, +The Rebels men heart-vowed to hallowed life. + +Pure as the Archangel's cleaving Darkness thro', +The Sword he sees, the keen unwearied Sword, +A single blade against a circling horde, +And aye for Freedom and the trampled few. + +The cry of Liberty from dungeon cell, +From exile, was his God's command to smite, +As for a swim in sea he joined the fight, +With radiant face, full sure that he did well. + +Behold a warrior dealing mortal strokes, +Whose nature was a child's: amid his foes +A wary trickster: at the battle's close, +No gentler friend this leopard dashed with fox. + +Down the long roll of History will run +The story of these deeds, and speed his race +Beneath defeat more hotly to embrace +The noble cause and trust to another sun. + +And lo, that sun is in Italia's skies +This day, by grace of his good sword in part. +It beckons her to keep a warrior heart +For guard of beauty, all too sweet a prize. + +Earth gave him: blessed be the Earth that gave. +Earth's Master crowned his honest work on earth: +Proudly Italia names his place of birth: +The bosom of Humanity his grave. + + + +THE WILD ROSE + + + +High climbs June's wild rose, +Her bush all blooms in a swarm; +And swift from the bud she blows, +In a day when the wooer is warm; +Frank to receive and give, +Her bosom is open to bee and sun: +Pride she has none, +Nor shame she knows; +Happy to live. + +Unlike those of the garden nigh, +Her queenly sisters enthroned by art; +Loosening petals one by one +To the fiery Passion's dart +Superbly shy. +For them in some glory of hair, +Or nest of the heaving mounds to lie, +Or path of the bride bestrew. +Ever are they the theme for song. +But nought of that is her share. +Hardly from wayfarers tramping along, +A glance they care not to renew. + +And she at a word of the claims of kin +Shrinks to the level of roads and meads: +She is only a plain princess of the weeds, +As an outcast witless of sin: +Much disregarded, save by the few +Who love her, that has not a spot of deceit, +No promise of sweet beyond sweet, +Often descending to sour. +On any fair breast she would die in an hour. +Praises she scarce could bear, +Were any wild poet to praise. +Her aim is to rise into light and air. +One of the darlings of Earth, no more, +And little it seems in the dusty ways, +Unless to the grasses nodding beneath; +The bird clapping wings to soar, +The clouds of an evetide's wreath. + + + +THE CALL + + + +Under what spell are we debased +By fears for our inviolate Isle, +Whose record is of dangers faced +And flung to heel with even smile? +Is it a vaster force, a subtler guile? + +They say Exercitus designs +To match the famed Salsipotent +Where on her sceptre she reclines; +Awake: but were a slumber sent +By guilty gods, more fell his foul intent. + +The subtler web, the vaster foe, +Well may we meet when drilled for deeds: +But in these days of wealth at flow, +A word of breezy warning breeds +The pained responses seen in lakeside reeds. + +We fain would stand contemplative, +All innocent as meadow grass; +In human goodness fain believe, +Believe a cloud is formed to pass; +Its shadows chase with draughts of hippocras. + +Others have gone; the way they went +Sweet sunny now, and safe our nest. +Humanity, enlightenment, +Against the warning hum protest: +Let the world hear that we know what is best. + +So do the beatific speak; +Yet have they ears, and eyes as well; +And if not with a paler cheek, +They feel the shivers in them dwell, +That something of a dubious future tell. + +For huge possessions render slack +The power we need to hold them fast; +Save when a quickened heart shall make +Our people one, to meet what blast +May blow from temporal heavens overcast. + +Our people one! Nor they with strength +Dependent on a single arm: +Alert, and braced the whole land's length, +Rejoicing in their manhood's charm +For friend or foe; to succour, not to harm. + +Has ever weakness won esteem? +Or counts it as a prized ally? +They who have read in History deem +It ranks among the slavish fry, +Whose claim to live justiciary Fates deny. + +It can not be declared we are +A nation till from end to end +The land can show such front to war +As bids a crouching foe expend +His ire in air, and preferably be friend. + +We dreading him, we do him wrong; +For fears discolour, fears invite. +Like him, our task is to be strong; +Unlike him, claiming not by might +To snatch an envied treasure as a right. + +So may a stouter brotherhood +At home be signalled over sea +For righteous, and be understood, +Nay, welcomed, when 'tis shown that we +All duties have embraced in being free. + +This Britain slumbering, she is rich; +Lies placid as a cradled child; +At times with an uneasy twitch, +That tells of dreams unduly wild. +Shall she be with a foreign drug defiled? + +The grandeur of her deeds recall; +Look on her face so kindly fair: +This Britain! and were she to fall, +Mankind would breathe a harsher air, +The nations miss a light of leading rare. + + + +ON COMO + + + +A rainless darkness drew o'er the lake +As we lay in our boat with oars unshipped. +It seemed neither cloud nor water awake, +And forth of the low black curtain slipped +Thunderless lightning. Scoff no more +At angels imagined in downward flight +For the daughters of earth as fabled of yore: +Here was beauty might well invite +Dark heavens to gleam with the fire of a sun +Resurgent; here the exchanged embrace +Worthy of heaven and earth made one. + +And witness it, ye of the privileged space, +Said the flash; and the mountains, as from an abyss +For quivering seconds leaped up to attest +That given, received, renewed was the kiss; +The lips to lips and the breast to breast; +All in a glory of ecstasy, swift +As an eagle at prey, and pure as the prayer +Of an infant bidden joined hands uplift +To be guarded through darkness by spirits of air, +Ere setting the sails of sleep till day. +Slowly the low cloud swung, and far +It panted along its mirrored way; +Above loose threads one sanctioning star, +The wonder of what had been witnessed, sealed, +And with me still as in crystal glassed +Are the depths alight, the heavens revealed, +Where on to the Alps the muteness passed. + + + +MILTON--DECEMBER 9, 1608: DECEMBER 9, 1908 + + + +What splendour of imperial station man, +The Tree of Life, may reach when, rooted fast, +His branching stem points way to upper air +And skyward still aspires, we see in him +Who sang for us the Archangelical host, +Made Morning, by old Darkness urged to the abyss; +A voice that down three centuries onward rolls; +Onward will roll while lives our English tongue, +In the devout of music unsurpassed +Since Piety won Heaven's ear on Israel's harp. + +The face of Earth, the soul of Earth, her charm, +Her dread austerity; the quavering fate +Of mortals with blind hope by passion swayed, +His mind embraced, the while on trodden soil, +Defender of the Commonwealth, he joined +Our temporal fray, whereof is vital fruit, +And, choosing armoury of the Scholar, stood +Beside his peers to raise the voice for Freedom: +Nor has fair Liberty a champion armed +To meet on heights or plains the Sophister +Throughout the ages, equal to this man, +Whose spirit breathed high Heaven, and drew thence +The ethereal sword to smite. + +Were England sunk +Beneath the shifting tides, her heart, her brain, +The smile she wears, the faith she holds, her best, +Would live full-toned in the grand delivery +Of his cathedral speech: an utterance +Almost divine, and such as Hellespont, +Crashing its breakers under Ida's frown, +Inspired: yet worthier he, whose instrument +Was by comparison the coarse reed-pipe; +Whereof have come the marvellous harmonies, +Which, with his lofty theme, of infinite range, +Abash, entrance, exalt. + +We need him now, +This latest Age in repetition cries: +For Belial, the adroit, is in our midst; +Mammon, more swoln to squeeze the slavish sweat +From hopeless toil: and overshadowingly +(Aggrandized, monstrous in his grinning mask +Of hypocritical Peace,) inveterate Moloch +Remains the great example. + +Homage to him +His debtor band, innumerable as waves +Running all golden from an eastern sun, +Joyfully render, in deep reverence +Subscribe, and as they speak their Milton's name, +Rays of his glory on their foreheads bear. + + + +IRELAND + + + +Fire in her ashes Ireland feels +And in her veins a glow of heat. +To her the lost old time, appeals +For resurrection, good to greet: +Not as a shape with spectral eyes, +But humanly maternal, young +In all that quickens pride, and wise +To speak the best her bards have sung. + +You read her as a land distraught, +Where bitterest rebel passions seethe. +Look with a core of heart in thought, +For so is known the truth beneath. +She came to you a loathing bride, +And it has been no happy bed. +Believe in her as friend, allied +By bonds as close as those who wed. + +Her speech is held for hatred's cry; +Her silence tells of treason hid: +Were it her aim to burst the tie, +She sees what iron laws forbid. +Excess of heart obscures from view +A head as keen as yours to count. +Trust her, that she may prove her true +In links whereof is love the fount. + +May she not call herself her own? +That is her cry, and thence her spits +Of fury, thence her graceless tone +At justice given in bits and bits. +The limbs once raw with gnawing chains +Will fret at silken when God's beams +Of Freedom beckon o'er the plains +From mounts that show it more than dreams. + +She, generous, craves your generous dole; +That will not rouse the crack of doom. +It ends the blundering past control +Simply to give her elbow-room. +Her offspring feels they are a race, +To be a nation is their claim; +Yet stronger bound in your embrace +Than when the tie was but a name. + +A nation she, and formed to charm, +With heart for heart and hands all round. +No longer England's broken arm, +Would England know where strength is found. +And strength to-day is England's need; +To-morrow it may be for both +Salvation: heed the portents, heed +The warnings; free the mind from sloth. + +Too long the pair have danced in mud, +With no advance from sun to sun. +Ah, what a bounding course of blood +Has England with an Ireland one! +Behold yon shadow cross the downs, +And off away to yeasty seas. +Lightly will fly old rancour's frowns +When solid with high heart stand these. + + + +THE YEARS HAD WORN THEIR SEASONS' BELT + + + +The years had worn their seasons' belt, +From bud to rosy prime, +Since Nellie by the larch-pole knelt +And helped the hop to climb. + +Most diligent of teachers then, +But now with all to learn, +She breathed beyond a thought of men, +Though formed to make men burn. + +She dwelt where 'twixt low-beaten thorns +Two mill-blades, like a snail, +Enormous, with inquiring horns, +Looked down on half the vale. + +You know the grey of dew on grass +Ere with the young sun fired, +And you know well the thirst one has +For the coming and desired. + +Quick in our ring she leapt, and gave +Her hand to left, to right. +No claim on her had any, save +To feed the joy of sight. + +For man and maid a laughing word +She tossed, in notes as clear +As when the February bird +Sings out that Spring is near. + +Of what befell behind that scone, +Let none who knows reveal. +In ballad days she might have been +A heroine rousing steel. + +On us did she bestow the hour, +And fixed it firm in thought; +Her spirit like a meadow flower +That gives, and asks for nought. + +She seemed to make the sunlight stay +And show her in its pride. +O she was fair as a beech in May +With the sun on the yonder side. + +There was more life than breath can give, +In the looks in her fair form; +For little can we say we live +Until the heart is warm. + + + +FRAGMENTS + + + +Open horizons round, +O mounting mind, to scenes unsung, +Wherein shall walk a lusty Time: +Our Earth is young; +Of measure without bound; +Infinite are the heights to climb, +The depths to sound. + + +A wilding little stubble flower +The sickle scorned which cut for wheat, +Such was our hope in that dark hour +When nought save uses held the street, +And daily pleasures, daily needs, +With barren vision, looked ahead. +And still the same result of seeds +Gave likeness 'twixt the live and dead. + + +From labours through the night, outworn, +Above the hills the front of morn +We see, whose eyes to heights are raised, +And the world's wise may deem us crazed. +While yet her lord lies under seas, +She takes us as the wind the trees' +Delighted leafage; all in song +We mount to her, to her belong. + + +This love of nature, that allures to take +Irregularity for harmony +Of larger scope than our hard measures make, +Cherish it as thy school for when on thee +The ills of life descend. + + + +IL Y A CENT ANS + + + +That march of the funereal Past behold; +How Glory sat on Bondage for its throne; +How men, like dazzled insects, through the mould +Still worked their way, and bled to keep their own. + +We know them, as they strove and wrought and yearned; +Their hopes, their fears; what page of Life they wist: +At whiles their vision upon us was turned, +Baffled by shapes limmed loosely on thick mist. + +Beneath the fortress bulk of Power they bent +Blunt heads, adoring or in shackled hate, +All save the rebel hymned him; and it meant +A world submitting to incarnate Fate. + +From this he drew fresh appetite for sway, +And of it fell: whereat was chorus raised, +How surely shall a mad ambition pay +Dues to Humanity, erewhile amazed. + +'Twas dreamed by some the deluge would ensue, +So trembling was the tension long constrained; +A spirit of faith was in the chosen few, +That steps to the millennium had been gained. + +But mainly the rich business of the hour, +Their sight, made blind by urgency of blood, +Embraced; and facts, the passing sweet or sour, +To them were solid things that nought withstood. + +Their facts are going headlong on the tides, +Like commas on a line of History's page; +Nor that which once they took for Truth abides, +Save in the form of youth enlarged from age. + +Meantime give ear to woodland notes around, +Look on our Earth full-breasted to our sun: +So was it when their poets heard the sound, +Beheld the scene: in them our days are one. + +What figures will be shown the century hence? +What lands intact? We do but know that Power +From piety divorced, though seen immense, +Shall sink on envy of the humblest flower. + +Our cry for cradled Peace, while men are still +The three-parts brute which smothers the divine, +Heaven answers: Guard it with forethoughtful will, +Or buy it; all your gains from War resign. + +A land, not indefensibly alarmed, +May see, unwarned by hint of friendly gods, +Between a hermit crab at all points armed, +And one without a shell, decisive odds. + + + +YOUTH IN AGE + + + +Once I was part of the music I heard +On the boughs or sweet between earth and sky, +For joy of the beating of wings on high +My heart shot into the breast of the bird. + +I hear it now and I see it fly, +And a life in wrinkles again is stirred, +My heart shoots into the breast of the bird, +As it will for sheer love till the last long sigh. + + + +TO A FRIEND LOST (TOM TAYLOR) + + + +When I remember, friend, whom lost I call, +Because a man beloved is taken hence, +The tender humour and the fire of sense +In your good eyes; how full of heart for all, +And chiefly for the weaker by the wall, +You bore that lamp of sane benevolence; +Then see I round you Death his shadows dense +Divide, and at your feet his emblems fall. +For surely are you one with the white host, +Spirits, whose memory is our vital air, +Through the great love of Earth they had: lo, these, +Like beams that throw the path on tossing seas, +Can bid us feel we keep them in the ghost, +Partakers of a strife they joyed to share. + + + +M. M. + + + +Who call her Mother and who calls her Wife +Look on her grave and see not Death but Life. + + + +THE LADY C. M. + + + +To them that knew her, there is vital flame +In these the simple letters of her name. +To them that knew her not, be it but said, +So strong a spirit is not of the dead. + + + +ON THE TOMBSTONE OF +JAMES CHRISTOPHER WILSON +(d. APRIL 11, 1884) +IN HEADLEY CHURCHYARD, SURREY + + + +Thou our beloved and light of Earth hast crossed +The sea of darkness to the yonder shore. +There dost thou shine a light transferred, not lost, +Through love to kindle in our souls the more. + + + +GORDON OF KHARTOUM + + + +Of men he would have raised to light he fell: +In soul he conquered with those nerveless hands. +His country's pride and her abasement knell +The Man of England circled by the sands. + + + +J. C. M. + + + +A fountain of our sweetest, quick to spring +In fellowship abounding, here subsides: +And never passage of a cloud on wing +To gladden blue forgets him; near he hides. + + + +THE EMPEROR FREDERICK OF OUR TIME + + + +With Alfred and St. Louis he doth win +Grander than crowned head's mortuary dome: +His gentle heroic manhood enters in +The ever-flowering common heart for home. + + + +ISLET THE DACHS + + + +Our Islet out of Helgoland, dismissed +From his quaint tenement, quits hates and loves. +There lived with us a wagging humourist +In that hound's arch dwarf-legged on boxing-gloves. + + + +ON HEARING THE NEWS FROM VENICE +(THE DEATH OF ROBERT BROWNING) + + + +Now dumb is he who waked the world to speak, +And voiceless hangs the world beside his bier. +Our words are sobs, our cry of praise a tear: +We are the smitten mortal, we the weak. +We see a spirit on Earth's loftiest peak +Shine, and wing hence the way he makes more clear: +See a great Tree of Life that never sere +Dropped leaf for aught that age or storms might wreak. +Such ending is not Death: such living shows +What wide illumination brightness sheds +From one big heart, to conquer man's old foes: +The coward, and the tyrant, and the force +Of all those weedy monsters raising heads +When Song is murk from springs of turbid source. + +December 13, 1889. + + + +HAWARDEN + + + +When comes the lighted day for men to read +Life's meaning, with the work before their hands +Till this good gift of breath from debt is freed, +Earth will not hear her children's wailful bands +Deplore the chieftain fall'n in sob and dirge; +Nor they look where is darkness, but on high. +The sun that dropped down our horizon's verge +Illumes his labours through the travelled sky, +Now seen in sum, most glorious; and 'tis known +By what our warrior wrought we hold him fast. +A splendid image built of man has flown; +His deeds inspired of God outstep a Past. +Ours the great privilege to have had one +Among us who celestial tasks has done. + + + +AT THE FUNERAL +FEBRUARY 2, 1901 + + + +Her sacred body bear: the tenement +Of that strong soul now ranked with God's Elect +Her heart upon her people's heart she spent; +Hence is she Royalty's lodestar to direct. + +The peace is hers, of whom all lands have praised +Majestic virtues ere her day unseen. +Aloft the name of Womanhood she raised, +And gave new readings to the Title, Queen. + + + +ANGELA BURDETT-COUTTS + + + +Long with us, now she leaves us; she has rest +Beneath our sacred sod: +A woman vowed to Good, whom all attest, +The daylight gift of God. + + + +THE YEAR'S SHEDDINGS + + + +The varied colours are a fitful heap: +They pass in constant service though they sleep; +The self gone out of them, therewith the pain: +Read that, who still to spell our earth remain. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Poems, by George Meredith, Volume 3 + diff --git a/old/pmgm310.zip b/old/pmgm310.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f101a39 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pmgm310.zip |