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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:17:19 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:17:19 -0700 |
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diff --git a/1568-h/1568-h.htm b/1568-h/1568-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ce5efa --- /dev/null +++ b/1568-h/1568-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6467 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Poems, by William Ernest Henley</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Poems, by William Ernest Henley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Poems + + +Author: William Ernest Henley + + + +Release Date: February 27, 2015 [eBook #1568] +[This file was first posted on August 23, 1998] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1907 David Nutt edition by Diarmuid +Pigott with some additional material and proofing by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Bust of William Ernest Henley" +title= +"Bust of William Ernest Henley" + src="images/fps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>POEMS</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>By</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center">WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<blockquote><p><i>The summer’s flower is to the summer +sweet</i>,<br /> +<i>Though to itself it only live and die</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">SHAKESPEARE</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Tenth Impression</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br /> +<i>Published by DAVID NUTT</i><br /> +at the Sign of the Phœnix<br /> +<span class="smcap">in Long Acre</span><br /> +1907</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +iv</span><i>First Edition printed January</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1898</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Second Edition printed March</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1898</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Third Edition printed September</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1898</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Fourth Edition printed January</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1900</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Fifth Edition printed December</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1901</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Sixth Impression printed August</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1903</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Seventh Impression printed February</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1904</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Eighth Impression printed May</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1905</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Ninth Impresion printed April</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1906</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Tenth Impression printed Nov.</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1907</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">Edinburgh: T. and A. <span +class="smcap">Constable</span>, Printers to His Majesty</p> +<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. v</span><i>TO MY +WIFE</i></h2> +<p class="poetry"><i>Take</i>, <i>dear</i>, <i>my little sheaf of +songs</i>,<br /> + <i>For</i>, <i>old or new</i>,<br /> +<i>All that is good in them belongs</i><br /> + <i>Only to you</i>;</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>And</i>, <i>singing as when all was +young</i>,<br /> + <i>They will recall</i><br /> +<i>Those others</i>, <i>lived but left unsung</i>—<br /> + <i>The bent of all</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">W. E. H</p> +<p><span class="smcap">April</span> 1888<br /> + <span +class="smcap">September</span> 1897.</p> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span><i>ADVERTISEMENT</i></h2> +<p><i>My friend and publisher</i>, <i>Mr. Alfred Nutt</i>, +<i>asks me to introduce this re-issue of old work in a new +shape</i>. <i>At his request</i>, <i>then</i>, <i>I have to +say that nearly all the numbers contained in the present volume +are reprinted from</i> ‘<i>A Book of Verses</i>’ +(1888) <i>and</i> ‘<i>London Voluntaries</i>’ +(1892–3). <i>From the first of these I have removed +some copies of verse which seemed to me scarce worth keeping</i>; +<i>and I have recovered for it certain others from those +publications which had made room for them</i>. <i>I have +corrected where I could</i>, <i>added such dates as I might</i>, +<i>and</i>, <i>by re-arrangement and revision</i>, <i>done my +best to give my book</i>, <i>such as it is</i>, <i>its final +form</i>. <i>If any be displeased by the result</i>, <i>I +can but submit that my verses are my own</i>, <i>and that this is +how I would have them read</i>.</p> +<p><i>The work of revision has reminded me that</i>, <i>small as +is this book of mine</i>, <i>it is all in the matter of verse +that I have to show for the years between</i> 1872 <i>and</i> +1897. <i>A principal reason is that</i>, <i>after spending +the better part of my life in the pursuit of poetry</i>, <i>I +found myself</i> (<i>about</i> 1877) <i>so utterly unmarketable +that I had to own myself beaten in art</i>, <i>and to addict +myself to journalism for the next ten years</i>. <i>Came +the production by my old friend</i>, <i>Mr. H. B. Donkin</i>, +<i>in his little collection of</i> +‘<i>Voluntaries</i>’ (1888), <i>compiled for that +East-End Hospital to which he has devoted so much time and energy +and skill</i>, <i>of those unrhyming rhythms in which I had tried +to quintessentialize</i>, <i>as</i> (<i>I believe</i>) <i>one +scarce can do in rhyme</i>, <i>my impressions of the Old +Edinburgh Infirmary</i>. <i>They had long </i><a +name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. viii</span><i>since +been rejected by every editor of standing in London—I had +well-nigh said in the world</i>; <i>but as soon as Mr. Nutt had +read them</i>, <i>he entreated me to look for more</i>. +<i>I did as I was told</i>; <i>old dusty sheaves were dragged to +light</i>; <i>the work of selection and correction was begun</i>; +<i>I burned much</i>; <i>I found that</i>, <i>after all</i>, +<i>the lyrical instinct had slept—not died</i>; <i>I +ventured</i> (<i>in brief</i>) ‘<i>A Book of +Verses</i>.’ <i>It was received with so much interest +that I took heart once more</i>, <i>and wrote the numbers +presently reprinted from</i> ‘<i>The National +Observer</i>’ <i>in the collection first</i> (1892) +<i>called</i> ‘<i>The Song of the Sword</i>’ <i>and +afterwards</i> (1893), ‘<i>London +voluntaries</i>.’ <i>If I have said nothing +since</i>, <i>it is that I have nothing to say which is not</i>, +<i>as yet</i>, <i>too personal—too personal and too a +afflicting—for utterance</i>.</p> +<p><i>For the matter of my book</i>, <i>it is there to speak for +itself</i>:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<i>Here’s a sigh to those who love +me</i><br /> +<i>And a smile to those who hate</i>.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p><i>I refer to it for the simple pleasure of reflecting that it +has made me many friends and some enemies</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>W. E. H.</i></p> +<p><i>Muswell Hill</i>, 4<i>th</i> <i>September</i> 1897.</p> +<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +ix</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p style="text-align: center">IN HOSPITAL</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">I.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Enter Patient</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">II.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Waiting</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page4">4</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">III.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Interior</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page5">5</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">IV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Before</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page6">6</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">V.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Operation</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page7">7</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">VI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>After</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">VII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Vigil</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page10">10</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">VIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Staff-Nurse: Old Style</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page13">13</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">IX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Lady Probationer</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">X.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Staff-Nurse: New Style</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Clinical</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Etching</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Casualty</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page21">21</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XIV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Ave, Caeser!</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>‘The Chief’</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page24">24</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XVI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>House-Surgeon</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page25">25</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XVII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Interlude</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page26">26</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XVIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Children: Private Ward</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page28">28</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XIX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Srcubber</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Visitor</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page30">30</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Romance</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page31">31</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Pastoral</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page33">33</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Music</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page35">35</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><a name="pagex"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. x</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXIV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Suicide</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page37">37</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Apparition</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXVI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Anterotics</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXVII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Nocturn</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXVIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Discharged</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">Envoy</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page44">44</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">The Song of the +Sword</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">Arabian Nights’ +Entertainments</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page57">57</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p style="text-align: +center">BRIC-À-BRAC</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Ballade of the Toyokuni Colour-Print</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page79">79</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Ballade of Youth and Age</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page81">81</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Ballade of Midsummer Days and Nights</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page83">83</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Ballade of Dead Actors</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page85">85</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Ballade Made in the Hot Weather</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page87">87</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Ballade of Truisms</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page89">89</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Double Ballade of Life and Death</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page91">91</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Double Ballade of the Nothingness of +Things</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page94">94</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>At Queensferry</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page98">98</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Orientale</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page99">99</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>In Fisherrow</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page100">100</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Back-View</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page101">101</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><i>Croquis</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page102">102</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Attadale, West Highlands</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page103">103</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>From a Window in Princes Street</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>In the Dials</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page105">105</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>The gods are dead</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page106">106</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Let us be drunk</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>When you are old</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page108">108</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>Beside the idle summer sea</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page109">109</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><a name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xi</span>The ways of Death are soothing and serene</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page110">110</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>We shall surely die</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page111">111</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>What is to come</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page112">112</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p style="text-align: center">ECHOES</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">I.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>To my mother</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">II.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Life is bitter</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page117">117</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">III.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>O, gather me the rose</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page118">118</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">IV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Out of the night that covers me</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">V.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>I am the Reaper</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page120">120</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">VI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Praise the generous gods</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page122">122</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">VII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Fill a glass with golden wine</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page123">123</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">VIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>We’ll go no more a-roving</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page124">124</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">IX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Madam Life’s a piece in bloom</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page126">126</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">X.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The sea is full of wandering foam</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page127">127</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Thick is the darkness</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page128">128</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>To me at my fifth-floor window</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page129">129</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Bring her again, O western wind</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page130">130</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XIV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The wan sun westers, faint and slow</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page131">131</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>There is a wheel inside my head</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page133">133</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XVI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>While the west is paling</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page134">134</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XVII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The sands are alive with sunshine</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page135">135</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XVIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The nightingale has a lyre of gold</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page136">136</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XIX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Your heart has trembled to my tongue</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page137">137</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The surges gushed and sounded</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page138">138</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>We flash across the level</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page139">139</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The West a glimmering lake of light</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page140">140</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The skies are strown with stars</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page142">142</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXIV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The full sea rolls and thunders</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page143">143</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>In the year that’s come and gone</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page144">144</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXVI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>In the placid summer midnight</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page146">146</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXVII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>She sauntered by the swinging seas</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page148">148</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><a name="pagexii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xii</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXVIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Blithe dreams arise to greet us</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page149">149</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXIX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>A child</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page152">152</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Kate-A-Whimsies, John-a-Dreams</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page154">154</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXXI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>O, have you blessed, behind the stars</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page155">155</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXXII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>O, Falmouth is a fine town</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page156">156</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXXIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The ways are green</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page158">158</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXXIV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Life in her creaking shoes</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page169">169</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXXV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>A late lark twitters from the quiet skies</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page161">161</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXXVI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>I gave my heart to a woman</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page163">163</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXXVII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Or ever the knightly years were gone</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page164">164</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXXVIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>On the way to Kew</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page166">166</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXXIX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The past was goodly once</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page168">168</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XL.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The spring, my dear</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page169">169</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XLI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The Spirit of Wine</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page170">170</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XLII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>A Wink from Hesper</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XLIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Friends. . . old friends</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page173">173</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XLIV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>If it should come to be</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page175">175</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XLV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>From the brake the Nightingale</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page179">179</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XLVI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>In the waste hour</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page178">178</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XLVII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Crosses and troubles</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page181">181</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p style="text-align: center">LONDON +VOLUNTARIES</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">I.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>Grave</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page185">185</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">II.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>Andante con Moto</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page187">187</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">III.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>Scherzando</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page192">192</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">IV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>Largo e Mesto</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page186">186</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">V.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p><i>Allegro Maëstoso</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page200">200</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p style="text-align: center">RHYMES AND +RHYTHMS</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">Prologue</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page207">207</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">I.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page209">209</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">II.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>We are the Choice of the Will</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page211">211</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><a name="pagexiii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. xiii</span><span +class="GutSmall">III.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>A desolate shore</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page214">214</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">IV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>It came with the threat of a waning moon</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page216">216</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">V.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Why, my heart, do we love her so?</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page217">217</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">VI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>One with the ruined sunset</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page218">218</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">VII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>There’s a regret</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page219">219</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">VIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Time and the Earth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page221">221</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">IX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>As like the Woman as you can</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page223">223</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">X.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Midsummer midnight skies</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page225">225</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Gulls in an aery morrice</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page227">227</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Some starlit garden grey with dew</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page228">228</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Under a stagnant sky</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page229">229</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XIV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Fresh from his fastnesses</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page231">231</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>You played and sang a snatch of song</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page233">233</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XVI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Space and dread and the dark</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page234">234</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XVII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Crook</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page236">236</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XVIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>When you wake in your crib</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page239">239</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XIX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>O, Time and Change</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page242">242</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XX.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>The shadow of Dawn</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page243">243</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXI.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>When the wind storms by with a shout</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page244">244</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Trees and the menace of night</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page245">245</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXIII.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Here they trysted, here they strayed</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page247">247</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXIV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>Not to the staring Day</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page249">249</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">XXV.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p>What have I done for you</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page251">251</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">Epilogue</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page256">256</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>IN +HOSPITAL</h2> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center"><a +name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span><i>On ne +saurait dire à quel point un homme</i>, <i>seul dans +son</i><br /> +<i>lit et malade</i>, <i>devient personnel</i>.—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">Balzac</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span><span +class="GutSmall">I</span><br /> +ENTER PATIENT</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> morning mists +still haunt the stony street;<br /> +The northern summer air is shrill and cold;<br /> +And lo, the Hospital, grey, quiet, old,<br /> +Where Life and Death like friendly chafferers meet.<br /> +Thro’ the loud spaciousness and draughty gloom<br /> +A small, strange child—so agèd yet so +young!—<br /> +Her little arm besplinted and beslung,<br /> +Precedes me gravely to the waiting-room.<br /> +I limp behind, my confidence all gone.<br /> +The grey-haired soldier-porter waves me on,<br /> +And on I crawl, and still my spirits fail:<br /> +A tragic meanness seems so to environ<br /> +These corridors and stairs of stone and iron,<br /> +Cold, naked, clean—half-workhouse and half-jail.</p> +<h3><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span><span +class="GutSmall">II</span><br /> +WAITING</h3> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">square</span>, squat room +(a cellar on promotion),<br /> + Drab to the soul, drab to the very daylight;<br /> + Plasters astray in unnatural-looking tinware;<br /> + Scissors and lint and apothecary’s jars.</p> +<p class="poetry">Here, on a bench a skeleton would writhe +from,<br /> + Angry and sore, I wait to be admitted:<br /> + Wait till my heart is lead upon my stomach,<br /> + While at their ease two dressers do their +chores.</p> +<p class="poetry">One has a probe—it feels to me a +crowbar.<br /> + A small boy sniffs and shudders after bluestone.<br +/> + A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers.<br /> + Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame.</p> +<h3><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span><span +class="GutSmall">III</span><br /> +INTERIOR</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">The</span> gaunt brown walls<br /> +Look infinite in their decent meanness.<br /> +There is nothing of home in the noisy kettle,<br /> + The fulsome fire.</p> +<p class="poetry"> The +atmosphere<br /> +Suggests the trail of a ghostly druggist.<br /> +Dressings and lint on the long, lean table—<br /> + Whom are they for?</p> +<p class="poetry"> The +patients yawn,<br /> +Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin.<br /> +A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles.<br /> + It’s grim and strange.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Far +footfalls clank.<br /> +The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged.<br /> +My neighbour chokes in the clutch of chloral . . .<br /> + O, a gruesome world!</p> +<h3><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span><span +class="GutSmall">IV</span><br /> +BEFORE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Behold</span> me +waiting—waiting for the knife.<br /> +A little while, and at a leap I storm<br /> +The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform,<br /> +The drunken dark, the little death-in-life.<br /> +The gods are good to me: I have no wife,<br /> +No innocent child, to think of as I near<br /> +The fateful minute; nothing all-too dear<br /> +Unmans me for my bout of passive strife.<br /> +Yet am I tremulous and a trifle sick,<br /> +And, face to face with chance, I shrink a little:<br /> +My hopes are strong, my will is something weak.<br /> +Here comes the basket? Thank you. I am ready.<br /> +But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle:<br /> +You carry Cæsar and his fortunes—steady!</p> +<h3><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span><span +class="GutSmall">V</span><br /> +OPERATION</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">You</span> are carried in a +basket,<br /> + Like a carcase from the shambles,<br /> + To the theatre, a cockpit<br /> + Where they stretch you on a table.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then they bid you close your eyelids,<br /> + And they mask you with a napkin,<br /> + And the anæsthetic reaches<br /> + Hot and subtle through your being.</p> +<p class="poetry">And you gasp and reel and shudder<br /> + In a rushing, swaying rapture,<br /> + While the voices at your elbow<br /> + Fade—receding—fainter—farther.</p> +<p class="poetry">Lights about you shower and tumble,<br /> + And your blood seems crystallising—<br /> + Edged and vibrant, yet within you<br /> + Racked and hurried back and forward.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +8</span>Then the lights grow fast and furious,<br /> + And you hear a noise of waters,<br /> + And you wrestle, blind and dizzy,<br /> + In an agony of effort,</p> +<p class="poetry">Till a sudden lull accepts you,<br /> + And you sound an utter darkness . . .<br /> + And awaken . . . with a struggle . . .<br /> + On a hushed, attentive audience.</p> +<h3><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span><span +class="GutSmall">VI</span><br /> +AFTER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Like</span> as a flamelet +blanketed in smoke,<br /> +So through the anæsthetic shows my life;<br /> +So flashes and so fades my thought, at strife<br /> +With the strong stupor that I heave and choke<br /> +And sicken at, it is so foully sweet.<br /> +Faces look strange from space—and disappear.<br /> +Far voices, sudden loud, offend my ear—<br /> +And hush as sudden. Then my senses fleet:<br /> +All were a blank, save for this dull, new pain<br /> +That grinds my leg and foot; and brokenly<br /> +Time and the place glimpse on to me again;<br /> +And, unsurprised, out of uncertainty,<br /> +I wake—relapsing—somewhat faint and fain,<br /> +To an immense, complacent dreamery.</p> +<h3><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span><span +class="GutSmall">VII</span><br /> +VIGIL</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Lived</span> on one’s +back, <br /> +In the long hours of repose,<br /> +Life is a practical nightmare—<br /> +Hideous asleep or awake.</p> +<p class="poetry">Shoulders and loins<br /> +Ache - - - !<br /> +Ache, and the mattress,<br /> +Run into boulders and hummocks,<br /> +Glows like a kiln, while the bedclothes—<br /> +Tumbling, importunate, daft—<br /> +Ramble and roll, and the gas,<br /> +Screwed to its lowermost,<br /> +An inevitable atom of light,<br /> +Haunts, and a stertorous sleeper<br /> +Snores me to hate and despair.</p> +<p class="poetry">All the old time<br /> +Surges malignant before me;<br /> +<a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>Old +voices, old kisses, old songs<br /> +Blossom derisive about me;<br /> +While the new days<br /> +Pass me in endless procession:<br /> +A pageant of shadows<br /> +Silently, leeringly wending<br /> +On . . . and still on . . . still on!</p> +<p class="poetry">Far in the stillness a cat<br /> +Languishes loudly. A cinder<br /> +Falls, and the shadows<br /> +Lurch to the leap of the flame. The next man to me<br /> +Turns with a moan; and the snorer,<br /> +The drug like a rope at his throat,<br /> +Gasps, gurgles, snorts himself free, as the night-nurse,<br /> +Noiseless and strange,<br /> +Her bull’s eye half-lanterned in apron,<br /> +(Whispering me, ‘Are ye no sleepin’ yet?’),<br +/> +Passes, list-slippered and peering,<br /> +Round . . . and is gone.</p> +<p class="poetry">Sleep comes at last—<br /> +Sleep full of dreams and misgivings—<br /> +<a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>Broken +with brutal and sordid<br /> +Voices and sounds that impose on me,<br /> +Ere I can wake to it,<br /> +The unnatural, intolerable day.</p> +<h3><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span><span +class="GutSmall">VIII</span><br /> +STAFF-NURSE: OLD STYLE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> greater masters +of the commonplace,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Rembrandt</span> and good <span +class="smcap">Sir Walter</span>—only these<br /> +Could paint her all to you: experienced ease<br /> +And antique liveliness and ponderous grace;<br /> +The sweet old roses of her sunken face;<br /> +The depth and malice of her sly, grey eyes;<br /> +The broad Scots tongue that flatters, scolds, defies;<br /> +The thick Scots wit that fells you like a mace.<br /> +These thirty years has she been nursing here,<br /> +Some of them under <span class="smcap">Syme</span>, her hero +still.<br /> +Much is she worth, and even more is made of her.<br /> +Patients and students hold her very dear.<br /> +The doctors love her, tease her, use her skill.<br /> +They say ‘The Chief’ himself is half-afraid of +her.</p> +<h3><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span><span +class="GutSmall">IX</span><br /> +LADY-PROBATIONER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Some</span> three, or five, +or seven, and thirty years;<br /> +A Roman nose; a dimpling double-chin;<br /> +Dark eyes and shy that, ignorant of sin,<br /> +Are yet acquainted, it would seem, with tears;<br /> +A comely shape; a slim, high-coloured hand,<br /> +Graced, rather oddly, with a signet ring;<br /> +A bashful air, becoming everything;<br /> +A well-bred silence always at command.<br /> +Her plain print gown, prim cap, and bright steel chain<br /> +Look out of place on her, and I remain<br /> +Absorbed in her, as in a pleasant mystery.<br /> +Quick, skilful, quiet, soft in speech and touch . . .<br /> +‘Do you like nursing?’ ‘Yes, Sir, very +much.’<br /> +Somehow, I rather think she has a history.</p> +<h3><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span><span +class="GutSmall">X</span><br /> +STAFF-NURSE: NEW STYLE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Blue-eyed</span> and bright +of face but waning fast<br /> +Into the sere of virginal decay,<br /> +I view her as she enters, day by day,<br /> +As a sweet sunset almost overpast.<br /> +Kindly and calm, patrician to the last,<br /> +Superbly falls her gown of sober gray,<br /> +And on her chignon’s elegant array<br /> +The plainest cap is somehow touched with caste.<br /> +She talks <span class="smcap">Beethoven</span>; frowns +disapprobation<br /> +At <span class="smcap">Balzac’s</span> name, sighs it at +‘poor <span class="smcap">George +Sand’s</span>’;<br /> +Knows that she has exceeding pretty hands;<br /> +Speaks Latin with a right accentuation;<br /> +And gives at need (as one who understands)<br /> +Draught, counsel, diagnosis, exhortation.</p> +<h3><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span><span +class="GutSmall">XI</span><br /> +CLINICAL</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Hist</span>? . . .<br /> +Through the corridor’s echoes,<br /> +Louder and nearer<br /> +Comes a great shuffling of feet.<br /> +Quick, every one of you,<br /> +Strighten your quilts, and be decent!<br /> +Here’s the Professor.</p> +<p class="poetry">In he comes first<br /> +With the bright look we know,<br /> +From the broad, white brows the kind eyes<br /> +Soothing yet nerving you. Here at his elbow,<br /> +White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse,<br /> +Towel on arm and her inkstand<br /> +Fretful with quills.<br /> +Here in the ruck, anyhow,<br /> +<a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>Surging +along,<br /> +Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs—<br /> +Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles—<br /> +Hustles the Class! And they ring themselves<br /> +Round the first bed, where the Chief<br /> +(His dressers and clerks at attention),<br /> +Bends in inspection already.</p> +<p class="poetry">So shows the ring<br /> +Seen from behind round a conjurer<br /> +Doing his pitch in the street.<br /> +High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones,<br +/> +Round, square, and angular, serry and shove;<br /> +While from within a voice,<br /> +Gravely and weightily fluent,<br /> +Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly<br /> +(Look at the stress of the shoulders!)<br /> +Out of a quiver of silence,<br /> +Over the hiss of the spray,<br /> +Comes a low cry, and the sound<br /> +Of breath quick intaken through teeth<br /> +Clenched in resolve. And the Master<br /> +Breaks from the crowd, and goes,<br /> +Wiping his hands,<br /> +<a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>To the +next bed, with his pupils<br /> +Flocking and whispering behind him.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now one can see.<br /> +Case Number One<br /> +Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes<br /> +Stripped up, and showing his foot<br /> +(Alas for God’s Image!)<br /> +Swaddled in wet, white lint<br /> +Brilliantly hideous with red.</p> +<h3><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span><span +class="GutSmall">XII</span><br /> +ETCHING</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Two</span> and thirty is +the ploughman.<br /> +He’s a man of gallant inches,<br /> +And his hair is close and curly,<br /> + And his beard;<br /> +But his face is wan and sunken,<br /> +And his eyes are large and brilliant,<br /> +And his shoulder-blades are sharp,<br /> + And his knees.</p> +<p class="poetry">He is weak of wits, religious,<br /> +Full of sentiment and yearning,<br /> +Gentle, faded—with a cough<br /> + And a snore.<br /> +When his wife (who was a widow,<br /> +And is many years his elder)<br /> +Fails to write, and that is always,<br /> + He desponds.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>Let his melancholy wander,<br /> +And he’ll tell you pretty stories<br /> +Of the women that have wooed him<br /> + Long ago;<br /> +Or he’ll sing of bonnie lasses<br /> +Keeping sheep among the heather,<br /> +With a crackling, hackling click<br /> + In his voice.</p> +<h3><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span><span +class="GutSmall">XIII</span><br /> +CASUALTY</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">As</span> with varnish red +and glistening<br /> + Dripped his hair; his feet looked rigid;<br /> + Raised, he settled stiffly sideways:<br /> + You could see his hurts were spinal.</p> +<p class="poetry">He had fallen from an engine,<br /> + And been dragged along the metals.<br /> + It was hopeless, and they knew it;<br /> + So they covered him, and left him.</p> +<p class="poetry">As he lay, by fits half sentient,<br /> + Inarticulately moaning,<br /> + With his stockinged soles protruded<br /> + Stark and awkward from the blankets,</p> +<p class="poetry">To his bed there came a woman,<br /> + Stood and looked and sighed a little,<br /> + And departed without speaking,<br /> + As himself a few hours after.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>I was told it was his sweetheart.<br /> + They were on the eve of marriage.<br /> + She was quiet as a statue,<br /> + But her lip was grey and writhen.</p> +<h3><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span><span +class="GutSmall">XIV</span><br /> +AVE CAESER!</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">From</span> the +winter’s grey despair,<br /> +From the summer’s golden languor,<br /> +Death, the lover of Life,<br /> +Frees us for ever.</p> +<p class="poetry">Inevitable, silent, unseen,<br /> +Everywhere always,<br /> +Shadow by night and as light in the day,<br /> +Signs she at last to her chosen;<br /> +And, as she waves them forth,<br /> +Sorrow and Joy<br /> +Lay by their looks and their voices,<br /> +Set down their hopes, and are made<br /> +One in the dim Forever.</p> +<p class="poetry">Into the winter’s grey delight,<br /> +Into the summer’s golden dream,<br /> +Holy and high and impartial,<br /> +Death, the mother of Life,<br /> +Mingles all men for ever.</p> +<h3><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span><span +class="GutSmall">XV</span><br /> +‘THE CHIEF’</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">His</span> brow spreads +large and placid, and his eye<br /> +Is deep and bright, with steady looks that still.<br /> +Soft lines of tranquil thought his face fulfill—<br /> +His face at once benign and proud and shy.<br /> +If envy scout, if ignorance deny,<br /> +His faultless patience, his unyielding will,<br /> +Beautiful gentleness and splendid skill,<br /> +Innumerable gratitudes reply.<br /> +His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties,<br /> +And seems in all his patients to compel<br /> +Such love and faith as failure cannot quell.<br /> +We hold him for another Herakles,<br /> +Battling with custom, prejudice, disease,<br /> +As once the son of Zeus with Death and Hell.</p> +<h3><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span><span +class="GutSmall">XVI</span><br /> +HOUSE-SURGEON</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Exceeding</span> tall, but +built so well his height<br /> +Half-disappears in flow of chest and limb;<br /> +Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim;<br /> +Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hearted; always bright<br /> +And always punctual—morning, noon, and night;<br /> +Bland as a Jesuit, sober as a hymn;<br /> +Humorous, and yet without a touch of whim;<br /> +Gentle and amiable, yet full of fight.<br /> +His piety, though fresh and true in strain,<br /> +Has not yet whitewashed up his common mood<br /> +To the dead blank of his particular Schism.<br /> +Sweet, unaggressive, tolerant, most humane,<br /> +Wild artists like his kindly elderhood,<br /> +And cultivate his mild Philistinism.</p> +<h3><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span><span +class="GutSmall">XVII</span><br /> +INTERLUDE</h3> +<p class="poetry">O, <span class="smcap">the</span> fun, the fun +and frolic<br /> + That <i>The Wind that Shakes the Barley</i><br /> + Scatters through a penny-whistle<br /> + Tickled with artistic fingers!</p> +<p class="poetry">Kate the scrubber (forty summers,<br /> + Stout but sportive) treads a measure,<br /> + Grinning, in herself a ballet,<br /> + Fixed as fate upon her audience.</p> +<p class="poetry">Stumps are shaking, crutch-supported;<br /> + Splinted fingers tap the rhythm;<br /> + And a head all helmed with plasters<br /> + Wags a measured approbation.</p> +<p class="poetry">Of their mattress-life oblivious,<br /> + All the patients, brisk and cheerful,<br /> + Are encouraging the dancer,<br /> + And applauding the musician.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>Dim the gas-lights in the output<br /> + Of so many ardent smokers,<br /> + Full of shadow lurch the corners,<br /> + And the doctor peeps and passes.</p> +<p class="poetry">There are, maybe, some suspicions<br /> + Of an alcoholic presence . . .<br /> + ‘Tak’ a sup of this, my wumman!’ . +. .<br /> + New Year comes but once a twelvemonth.</p> +<h3><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span><span +class="GutSmall">XVIII</span><br /> +CHILDREN: PRIVATE WARD</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here</span> in this dim, +dull, double-bedded room,<br /> +I play the father to a brace of boys,<br /> +Ailing but apt for every sort of noise,<br /> +Bedfast but brilliant yet with health and bloom.<br /> +Roden, the Irishman, is ‘sieven past,’<br /> +Blue-eyed, snub-nosed, chubby, and fair of face.<br /> +Willie’s but six, and seems to like the place,<br /> +A cheerful little collier to the last.<br /> +They eat, and laugh, and sing, and fight, all day;<br /> +All night they sleep like dormice. See them play<br /> +At Operations:—Roden, the Professor,<br /> +Saws, lectures, takes the artery up, and ties;<br /> +Willie, self-chloroformed, with half-shut eyes,<br /> +Holding the limb and moaning—Case and Dresser.</p> +<h3><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span><span +class="GutSmall">XIX</span><br /> +SCRUBBER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">She’s</span> tall and +gaunt, and in her hard, sad face<br /> +With flashes of the old fun’s animation<br /> +There lowers the fixed and peevish resignation<br /> +Bred of a past where troubles came apace.<br /> +She tells me that her husband, ere he died,<br /> +Saw seven of their children pass away,<br /> +And never knew the little lass at play<br /> +Out on the green, in whom he’s deified.<br /> +Her kin dispersed, her friends forgot and gone,<br /> +All simple faith her honest Irish mind,<br /> +Scolding her spoiled young saint, she labours on:<br /> +Telling her dreams, taking her patients’ part,<br /> +Trailing her coat sometimes: and you shall find<br /> +No rougher, quainter speech, nor kinder heart.</p> +<h3><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span><span +class="GutSmall">XX</span><br /> +VISITOR</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Her</span> little face is +like a walnut shell<br /> +With wrinkling lines; her soft, white hair adorns<br /> +Her withered brows in quaint, straight curls, like horns;<br /> +And all about her clings an old, sweet smell.<br /> +Prim is her gown and quakerlike her shawl.<br /> +Well might her bonnets have been born on her.<br /> +Can you conceive a Fairy Godmother<br /> +The subject of a strong religious call?<br /> +In snow or shine, from bed to bed she runs,<br /> +All twinkling smiles and texts and pious tales,<br /> +Her mittened hands, that ever give or pray,<br /> +Bearing a sheaf of tracts, a bag of buns:<br /> +A wee old maid that sweeps the Bridegroom’s way,<br /> +Strong in a cheerful trust that never fails.</p> +<h3><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXI</span><br /> +ROMANCE</h3> +<p class="poetry">‘<span class="smcap">Talk</span> of +pluck!’ pursued the Sailor,<br /> + Set at euchre on his elbow,<br /> + ‘I was on the wharf at Charleston,<br /> + Just ashore from off the runner.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘It was grey and dirty weather,<br /> + And I heard a drum go rolling,<br /> + Rub-a-dubbing in the distance,<br /> + Awful dour-like and defiant.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘In and out among the cotton,<br /> + Mud, and chains, and stores, and anchors,<br /> + Tramped a squad of battered scarecrows—<br /> + Poor old Dixie’s bottom dollar!</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Some had shoes, but all had rifles,<br +/> + Them that wasn’t bald was beardless,<br /> + And the drum was rolling <i>Dixie</i>,<br /> + And they stepped to it like men, sir!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +32</span>‘Rags and tatters, belts and bayonets,<br /> + On they swung, the drum a-rolling,<br /> + Mum and sour. It looked like fighting,<br /> + And they meant it too, by thunder!’</p> +<h3><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXII</span><br /> +PASTORAL</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">It’s</span> the +Spring.<br /> +Earth has conceived, and her bosom,<br /> +Teeming with summer, is glad.</p> +<p class="poetry">Vistas of change and adventure,<br /> +Thro’ the green land<br /> +The grey roads go beckoning and winding,<br /> +Peopled with wains, and melodious<br /> +With harness-bells jangling:<br /> +Jangling and twangling rough rhythms<br /> +To the slow march of the stately, great horses<br /> +Whistled and shouted along.</p> +<p class="poetry">White fleets of cloud,<br /> +Argosies heavy with fruitfulness,<br /> +Sail the blue peacefully. Green flame the hedgerows.<br /> +Blackbirds are bugling, and white in wet winds<br /> +Sway the tall poplars.<br /> +<a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>Pageants +of colour and fragrance,<br /> +Pass the sweet meadows, and viewless<br /> +Walks the mild spirit of May,<br /> +Visibly blessing the world.</p> +<p class="poetry">O, the brilliance of blossoming orchards!<br /> +O, the savour and thrill of the woods,<br /> +When their leafage is stirred<br /> +By the flight of the Angel of Rain!<br /> +Loud lows the steer; in the fallows<br /> +Rooks are alert; and the brooks<br /> +Gurgle and tinkle and trill. Thro’ the gloamings,<br +/> +Under the rare, shy stars,<br /> +Boy and girl wander,<br /> +Dreaming in darkness and dew.</p> +<p class="poetry">It’s the Spring.<br /> +A sprightliness feeble and squalid<br /> +Wakes in the ward, and I sicken,<br /> +Impotent, winter at heart.</p> +<h3><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXIII</span><br /> +MUSIC</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Down</span> the quiet +eve,<br /> +Thro’ my window with the sunset<br /> +Pipes to me a distant organ<br /> +Foolish ditties;</p> +<p class="poetry">And, as when you change<br /> +Pictures in a magic lantern,<br /> +Books, beds, bottles, floor, and ceiling<br /> +Fade and vanish,</p> +<p class="poetry">And I’m well once more . . .<br /> +August flares adust and torrid,<br /> +But my heart is full of April<br /> +Sap and sweetness.</p> +<p class="poetry">In the quiet eve<br /> +I am loitering, longing, dreaming . . .<br /> +Dreaming, and a distant organ<br /> +Pipes me ditties.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +36</span>I can see the shop,<br /> +I can smell the sprinkled pavement,<br /> +Where she serves—her chestnut chignon<br /> +Thrills my senses!</p> +<p class="poetry">O, the sight and scent,<br /> +Wistful eve and perfumed pavement!<br /> +In the distance pipes an organ . . .<br /> +The sensation</p> +<p class="poetry">Comes to me anew, <br /> +And my spirit for a moment<br /> +Thro’ the music breathes the blessèd<br /> +Airs of London.</p> +<h3><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXIV</span><br /> +SUICIDE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Staring</span> corpselike +at the ceiling,<br /> + See his harsh, unrazored features,<br /> + Ghastly brown against the pillow,<br /> + And his throat—so strangely bandaged!</p> +<p class="poetry">Lack of work and lack of victuals,<br /> + A debauch of smuggled whisky,<br /> + And his children in the workhouse<br /> + Made the world so black a riddle</p> +<p class="poetry">That he plunged for a solution;<br /> + And, although his knife was edgeless,<br /> + He was sinking fast towards one,<br /> + When they came, and found, and saved him.</p> +<p class="poetry">Stupid now with shame and sorrow,<br /> + In the night I hear him sobbing.<br /> + But sometimes he talks a little.<br /> + He has told me all his troubles.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>In his broad face, tanned and bloodless,<br /> + White and wild his eyeballs glisten;<br /> + And his smile, occult and tragic,<br /> + Yet so slavish, makes you shudder!</p> +<h3><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXV</span><br /> +APPARITION</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Thin-legged</span>, +thin-chested, slight unspeakably,<br /> +Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face—<br /> +Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race,<br /> +Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea,<br /> +The brown eyes radiant with vivacity—<br /> +There shines a brilliant and romantic grace,<br /> +A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace<br /> +Of passion and impudence and energy.<br /> +Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck,<br /> +Most vain, most generous, sternly critical,<br /> +Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist:<br /> +A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck,<br /> +Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all,<br /> +And something of the Shorter-Catechist.</p> +<h3><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXVI</span><br /> +ANTEROTICS</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Laughs</span> the happy +April morn<br /> + Thro’ my grimy, little window,<br /> + And a shaft of sunshine pushes<br /> + Thro’ the shadows in the square.</p> +<p class="poetry">Dogs are tracing thro’ the grass,<br /> + Crows are cawing round the chimneys,<br /> + In and out among the washing<br /> + Goes the West at hide-and-seek.</p> +<p class="poetry">Loud and cheerful clangs the bell.<br /> + Here the nurses troop to breakfast.<br /> + Handsome, ugly, all are women . . .<br /> + O, the Spring—the Spring—the Spring!</p> +<h3><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXVII</span><br /> +NOCTURN</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">At</span> the barren heart +of midnight,<br /> + When the shadow shuts and opens<br /> + As the loud flames pulse and flutter,<br /> + I can hear a cistern leaking.</p> +<p class="poetry">Dripping, dropping, in a rhythm,<br /> + Rough, unequal, half-melodious,<br /> + Like the measures aped from nature<br /> + In the infancy of music;</p> +<p class="poetry">Like the buzzing of an insect,<br /> + Still, irrational, persistent . . .<br /> + I must listen, listen, listen<br /> + In a passion of attention;</p> +<p class="poetry">Till it taps upon my heartstrings,<br /> + And my very life goes dripping,<br /> + Dropping, dripping, drip-drip-dropping,<br /> + In the drip-drop of the cistern.</p> +<h3><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span><span +class="GutSmall">XXVIII</span><br /> +DISCHARGED</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Carry</span> me out<br /> +Into the wind and the sunshine,<br /> +Into the beautiful world.</p> +<p class="poetry">O, the wonder, the spell of the streets!<br /> +The stature and strength of the horses,<br /> +The rustle and echo of footfalls,<br /> +The flat roar and rattle of wheels!<br /> +A swift tram floats huge on us . . .<br /> +It’s a dream?<br /> +The smell of the mud in my nostrils<br /> +Blows brave—like a breath of the sea!</p> +<p class="poetry">As of old,<br /> +Ambulant, undulant drapery,<br /> +Vaguery and strangely provocative,<br /> +Fluttersd and beckons. O, yonder—<br /> +Is it?—the gleam of a stocking!<br /> +Sudden, a spire<br /> +<a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>Wedged in +the mist! O, the houses,<br /> +The long lines of lofty, grey houses,<br /> +Cross-hatched with shadow and light!<br /> +These are the streets . . .<br /> +Each is an avenue leading<br /> +Whither I will!</p> +<p class="poetry">Free . . . !<br /> +Dizzy, hysterical, faint,<br /> +I sit, and the carriage rolls on with me<br /> +Into the wonderful world.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">The Old Infirmary</span>, <span +class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>, 1873–75</p> +<h2><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +44</span>ENVOY<br /> +<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Charles Baxter</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Do</span> you remember<br +/> +That afternoon—that Sunday afternoon!—<br /> +When, as the kirks were ringing in,<br /> +And the grey city teemed<br /> +With Sabbath feelings and aspects,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Lewis</span>—our <span +class="smcap">Lewis</span> then,<br /> +Now the whole world’s—and you,<br /> +Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came,<br /> +Laden with <span class="smcap">Balzacs</span><br /> +(Big, yellow books, quite impudently French),<br /> +The first of many times<br /> +To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay<br /> +So long, so many centuries—<br /> +Or years is it!—ago?</p> +<p class="poetry">Dear <span class="smcap">Charles</span>, since +then<br /> +We have been friends, <span class="smcap">Lewis</span> and you +and I,<br /> +(How good it sounds, ‘<span class="smcap">Lewis</span> and +you and I!’):<br /> +Such friends, I like to think,<br /> +<a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>That in us +three, <span class="smcap">Lewis</span> and me and you,<br /> +Is something of that gallant dream<br /> +Which old <span class="smcap">Dumas</span>—the generous, +the humane,<br /> +The seven-and-seventy times to be forgiven!—<br /> +Dreamed for a blessing to the race,<br /> +The immortal <i>Musketeers</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">Our <span class="smcap">Athos</span> +rests—the wise, the kind,<br /> +The liberal and august, his fault atoned,<br /> +Rests in the crowded yard<br /> +There at the west of Princes Street. We three—<br /> +You, I, and <span class="smcap">Lewis</span>!—still +afoot,<br /> +Are still together, and our lives,<br /> +In chime so long, may keep<br /> +(God bless the thought!)<br /> +Unjangled till the end.</p> +<p style="text-align: right" class="poetry">W. E. H.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Chiswick</span>, <i>March</i> 1888</p> +<h2><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>THE +SONG<br /> +OF THE SWORD</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">(<i>To</i> Rudyard Kipling)</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1890</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span><i>The Sword</i><br /> +<i>Singing</i>—<br /> +<i>The voice of the Sword from the heart of the Sword</i><br /> +<i>Clanging imperious</i><br /> +<i>Forth from Time’s battlements</i><br /> +<i>His ancient and triumphing Song</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">In the beginning,<br /> +Ere God inspired Himself<br /> +Into the clay thing<br /> +Thumbed to His image,<br /> +The vacant, the naked shell<br /> +Soon to be Man:<br /> +Thoughtful He pondered it,<br /> +Prone there and impotent,<br /> +<a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>Fragile, +inviting<br /> +Attack and discomfiture;<br /> +Then, with a smile—<br /> +As He heard in the Thunder<br /> +That laughed over Eden<br /> +The voice of the Trumpet,<br /> +The iron Beneficence,<br /> +Calling his dooms<br /> +To the Winds of the world—<br /> +Stooping, He drew<br /> +On the sand with His finger<br /> +A shape for a sign<br /> +Of his way to the eyes<br /> +That in wonder should waken,<br /> +For a proof of His will<br /> +To the breaking intelligence.<br /> +That was the birth of me:<br /> +I am the Sword.</p> +<p class="poetry">Bleak and lean, grey and cruel,<br /> +Short-hilted, long shafted,<br /> +I froze into steel;<br /> +And the blood of my elder,<br /> +His hand on the hafts of me,<br /> +Sprang like a wave<br /> +<a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>In the +wind, as the sense<br /> +Of his strength grew to ecstasy;<br /> +Glowed like a coal<br /> +In the throat of the furnace;<br /> +As he knew me and named me<br /> +The War-Thing, the Comrade,<br /> +Father of honour<br /> +And giver of kingship,<br /> +The fame-smith, the song-master,<br /> +Bringer of women<br /> +On fire at his hands<br /> +For the pride of fulfilment,<br /> +<i>Priest</i> (saith the Lord)<br /> +<i>Of his marriage with victory</i><br /> +Ho! then, the Trumpet,<br /> +Handmaid of heroes,<br /> +Calling the peers<br /> +To the place of espousals!<br /> +Ho! then, the splendour<br /> +And glare of my ministry,<br /> +Clothing the earth<br /> +With a livery of lightnings!<br /> +Ho! then, the music<br /> +Of battles in onset,<br /> +And ruining armours,<br /> +<a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>And +God’s gift returning<br /> +In fury to God!<br /> +Thrilling and keen<br /> +As the song of the winter stars,<br /> +Ho! then, the sound<br /> +Of my voice, the implacable<br /> +Angel of Destiny!—<br /> +I am the Sword.</p> +<p class="poetry">Heroes, my children,<br /> +Follow, O, follow me!<br /> +Follow, exulting<br /> +In the great light that breaks<br /> +From the sacred Companionship!<br /> +Thrust through the fatuous,<br /> +Thrust through the fungous brood,<br /> +Spawned in my shadow<br /> +And gross with my gift!<br /> +Thrust through, and hearken<br /> +O, hark, to the Trumpet,<br /> +The Virgin of Battles,<br /> +Calling, still calling you<br /> +Into the Presence,<br /> +Sons of the Judgment,<br /> +Pure wafts of the Will!<br /> +<a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>Edged to +annihilate,<br /> +Hilted with government,<br /> +Follow, O, follow me,<br /> +Till the waste places<br /> +All the grey globe over<br /> +Ooze, as the honeycomb<br /> +Drips, with the sweetness<br /> +Distilled of my strength,<br /> +And, teeming in peace<br /> +Through the wrath of my coming,<br /> +They give back in beauty<br /> +The dread and the anguish<br /> +They had of me visitant!<br /> +Follow, O follow, then,<br /> +Heroes, my harvesters!<br /> +Where the tall grain is ripe<br /> +Thrust in your sickles!<br /> +Stripped and adust<br /> +In a stubble of empire,<br /> +Scything and binding<br /> +The full sheaves of sovranty:<br /> +Thus, O, thus gloriously,<br /> +Shall you fulfil yourselves!<br /> +Thus, O, thus mightily,<br /> +Show yourselves sons of mine—<br /> +<a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>Yea, and +win grace of me:<br /> +I am the Sword!</p> +<p class="poetry">I am the feast-maker:<br /> +Hark, through a noise<br /> +Of the screaming of eagles,<br /> +Hark how the Trumpet,<br /> +The mistress of mistresses,<br /> +Calls, silver-throated<br /> +And stern, where the tables<br /> +Are spread, and the meal<br /> +Of the Lord is in hand!<br /> +Driving the darkness,<br /> +Even as the banners<br /> +And spears of the Morning;<br /> +Sifting the nations,<br /> +The slag from the metal,<br /> +The waste and the weak<br /> +From the fit and the strong;<br /> +Fighting the brute,<br /> +The abysmal Fecundity;<br /> +Checking the gross,<br /> +Multitudinous blunders,<br /> +The groping, the purblind<br /> +<a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>Excesses +in service<br /> +Of the Womb universal,<br /> +The absolute drudge;<br /> +Firing the charactry<br /> +Carved on the World,<br /> +The miraculous gem<br /> +In the seal-ring that burns<br /> +On the hand of the Master—<br /> +Yea! and authority<br /> +Flames through the dim,<br /> +Unappeasable Grisliness<br /> +Prone down the nethermost<br /> +Chasms of the Void!—<br /> +Clear singing, clean slicing;<br /> +Sweet spoken, soft finishing;<br /> +Making death beautiful,<br /> +Life but a coin<br /> +To be staked in the pastime<br /> +Whose playing is more<br /> +Than the transfer of being;<br /> +Arch-anarch, chief builder,<br /> +Prince and evangelist,<br /> +I am the Will of God:<br /> +I am the Sword.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +56</span><i>The Sword</i><br /> +<i>Singing</i>—<br /> +<i>The voice of the Sword from the heart of the Sword</i><br /> +<i>Clanging majestical</i>,<br /> +<i>As from the starry-staired</i><br /> +<i>Courts of the primal Supremacy</i>,<br /> +<i>His high</i>, <i>irresistible song</i>.</p> +<h2><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>ARABIAN NIGHTS’<br /> +ENTERTAINMENTS</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">(<i>To</i> Elizabeth Robins +Pennell)</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1893</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center"><a +name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>‘O mes +chères <i>Mille et Une +Nuits</i>!’—<i>Fantasio</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Once</span> on a time<br /> +There was a little boy: a master-mage<br /> +By virtue of a Book<br /> +Of magic—O, so magical it filled<br /> +His life with visionary pomps<br /> +Processional! And Powers<br /> +Passed with him where he passed. And Thrones<br /> +And Dominations, glaived and plumed and mailed,<br /> +Thronged in the criss-cross streets,<br /> +The palaces pell-mell with playing-fields,<br /> +Domes, cloisters, dungeons, caverns, tents, arcades,<br /> +Of the unseen, silent City, in his soul<br /> +Pavilioned jealously, and hid<br /> +As in the dusk, profound,<br /> +Green stillnesses of some enchanted mere.—</p> +<p class="poetry">I shut mine eyes . . . And lo!<br /> +A flickering snatch of memory that floats<br /> +<a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>Upon the +face of a pool of darkness five<br /> +And thirty dead years deep,<br /> +Antic in girlish broideries<br /> +And skirts and silly shoes with straps<br /> +And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks<br /> +Plain in the shadow of a church<br /> +(St. Michael’s: in whose brazen call<br /> +To curfew his first wails of wrath were whelmed),<br /> +Sedate for all his haste<br /> +To be at home; and, nestled in his arm,<br /> +Inciting still to quiet and solitude,<br /> +Boarded in sober drab,<br /> +With small, square, agitating cuts<br /> +Let in a-top of the double-columned, close,<br /> +Quakerlike print, a Book! . . .<br /> +What but that blessed brief<br /> +Of what is gallantest and best<br /> +In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance?<br /> +The Book of rocs,<br /> +Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris,<br /> +Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and calendars,<br /> +And ghouls, and genies—O, so huge<br /> +They might have overed the tall Minster Tower<br /> +Hands down, as schoolboys take a post!<br /> +In truth, the Book of Camaralzaman,<br /> +<a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>Schemselnihar and Sindbad, Scheherezade<br /> +The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour,<br /> +Cairo and Serendib and Candahar,<br /> +And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk—<br /> +Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms—<br +/> +Of Kaf! . . . That centre of miracles,<br /> +The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights!</p> +<p class="poetry">Old friends I had a-many—kindly and +grim<br /> +Familiars, cronies quaint<br /> +And goblin! Never a Wood but housed<br /> +Some morrice of dainty dapperlings. No Brook<br /> +But had his nunnery<br /> +Of green-haired, silvry-curving sprites,<br /> +To cabin in his grots, and pace<br /> +His lilied margents. Every lone Hillside<br /> +Might open upon Elf-Land. Every Stalk<br /> +That curled about a Bean-stick was of the breed<br /> +Of that live ladder by whose delicate rungs<br /> +You climbed beyond the clouds, and found<br /> +The Farm-House where the Ogre, gorged<br /> +And drowsy, from his great oak chair,<br /> +Among the flitches and pewters at the fire,<br /> +Called for his Faëry Harp. And in it flew,<br /> +<a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>And, +perching on the kitchen table, sang<br /> +Jocund and jubilant, with a sound<br /> +Of those gay, golden-vowered madrigals<br /> +The shy thrush at mid-May<br /> +Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn;<br /> +Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still,<br /> +In old-world woodlands rapt with an old-world spring,<br /> +For Pan’s own whistle, savage and rich and lewd,<br /> +And mocked him call for call!</p> +<p +class="poetry"> I +could not pass<br /> +The half-door where the cobbler sat in view<br /> +Nor figure me the wizen Leprechaun,<br /> +In square-cut, faded reds and buckle-shoes,<br /> +Bent at his work in the hedge-side, and know<br /> +Just how he tapped his brogue, and twitched<br /> +His wax-end this and that way, both with wrists<br /> +And elbows. In the rich June fields,<br /> +Where the ripe clover drew the bees,<br /> +And the tall quakers trembled, and the West Wind<br /> +Lolled his half-holiday away<br /> +Beside me lolling and lounging through my own,<br /> +<a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>’Twas good to follow the Miller’s Youngest +Son<br /> +On his white horse along the leafy lanes;<br /> +For at his stirrup linked and ran,<br /> +Not cynical and trapesing, as he loped<br /> +From wall to wall above the espaliers,<br /> +But in the bravest tops<br /> +That market-town, a town of tops, could show:<br /> +Bold, subtle, adventurous, his tail<br /> +A banner flaunted in disdain<br /> +Of human stratagems and shifts:<br /> +King over All the Catlands, present and past<br /> +And future, that moustached<br /> +Artificer of fortunes, Puss-in-Boots!<br /> +Or Bluebeard’s Closet, with its plenishing<br /> +Of meat-hooks, sawdust, blood,<br /> +And wives that hung like fresh-dressed carcases—<br /> +Odd-fangled, most a butcher’s, part<br /> +A faëry chamber hazily seen<br /> +And hazily figured—on dark afternoons<br /> +And windy nights was visiting of the best.<br /> +Then, too, the pelt of hoofs<br /> +Out in the roaring darkness told<br /> +Of Herne the Hunter in his antlered helm<br /> +Galloping, as with despatches from the Pit,<br /> +Between his hell-born Hounds.<br /> +<a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>And Rip +Van Winkle . . . often I lurked to hear,<br /> +Outside the long, low timbered, tarry wall,<br /> +The mutter and rumble of the trolling bowls<br /> +Down the lean plank, before they fluttered the pins;<br /> +For, listening, I could help him play<br /> +His wonderful game,<br /> +In those blue, booming hills, with Mariners<br /> +Refreshed from kegs not coopered in this our world.</p> +<p class="poetry">But what were these so near,<br /> +So neighbourly fancies to the spell that brought<br /> +The run of Ali Baba’s Cave<br /> +Just for the saying ‘Open Sesame,’<br /> +With gold to measure, peck by peck,<br /> +In round, brown wooden stoups<br /> +You borrowed at the chandler’s? . . . Or one time<br /> +Made you Aladdin’s friend at school,<br /> +Free of his Garden of Jewels, Ring and Lamp<br /> +In perfect trim? . . . Or Ladies, fair<br /> +For all the embrowning scars in their white breasts<br /> +Went labouring under some dread ordinance,<br /> +Which made them whip, and bitterly cry the while,<br /> +Strange Curs that cried as they,<br /> +Till there was never a Black Bitch of all<br /> +<a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>Your +consorting but might have gone<br /> +Spell-driven miserably for crimes<br /> +Done in the pride of womanhood and desire . . .<br /> +Or at the ghostliest altitudes of night,<br /> +While you lay wondering and acold,<br /> +Your sense was fearfully purged; and soon<br /> +Queen Labé, abominable and dear,<br /> +Rose from your side, opened the Box of Doom,<br /> +Scattered the yellow powder (which I saw<br /> +Like sulphur at the Docks in bulk),<br /> +And muttered certain words you could not hear;<br /> +And there! a living stream,<br /> +The brook you bathed in, with its weeds and flags<br /> +And cresses, glittered and sang<br /> +Out of the hearthrug over the nakedness,<br /> +Fair-scrubbed and decent, of your bedroom floor! . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">I was—how many a time!—<br /> +That Second Calendar, Son of a King,<br /> +On whom ’twas vehemently enjoined,<br /> +Pausing at one mysterious door,<br /> +To pry no closer, but content his soul<br /> +With his kind Forty. Yet I could not rest<br /> +For idleness and ungovernable Fate.<br /> +<a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>And the +Black Horse, which fed on sesame<br /> +(That wonder-working word!),<br /> +Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans,<br /> +And soaring, soaring on<br /> +From air to air, came charging to the ground<br /> +Sheer, like a lark from the midsummer clouds,<br /> +And, shaking me out of the saddle, where I sprawled<br /> +Flicked at me with his tail,<br /> +And left me blinded, miserable, distraught<br /> +(Even as I was in deed,<br /> +When doctors came, and odious things were done<br /> +On my poor tortured eyes<br /> +With lancets; or some evil acid stung<br /> +And wrung them like hot sand,<br /> +And desperately from room to room<br /> +Fumble I must my dark, disconsolate way),<br /> +To get to Bagdad how I might. But there<br /> +I met with Merry Ladies. O you three—<br /> +Safie, Amine, Zobëidé—when my heart<br /> +Forgets you all shall be forgot!<br /> +And so we supped, we and the rest,<br /> +On wine and roasted lamb, rose-water, dates,<br /> +Almonds, pistachios, citrons. And Haroun<br /> +Laughed out of his lordly beard<br /> +<a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>On Giaffar +and Mesrour (<i>I</i> knew the Three<br /> +For all their Mossoul habits). And outside<br /> +The Tigris, flowing swift<br /> +Like Severn bend for bend, twinkled and gleamed<br /> +With broken and wavering shapes of stranger stars;<br /> +The vast, blue night<br /> +Was murmurous with peris’ plumes<br /> +And the leathern wings of genies; words of power<br /> +Were whispering; and old fishermen,<br /> +Casting their nets with prayer, might draw to shore<br /> +Dead loveliness: or a prodigy in scales<br /> +Worth in the Caliph’s Kitchen pieces of gold:<br /> +Or copper vessels, stopped with lead,<br /> +Wherein some Squire of Eblis watched and railed,<br /> +In durance under potent charactry<br /> +Graven by the seal of Solomon the King . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">Then, as the Book was glassed<br /> +In Life as in some olden mirror’s quaint,<br /> +Bewildering angles, so would Life<br /> +Flash light on light back on the Book; and both<br /> +Were changed. Once in a house decayed<br /> +From better days, harbouring an errant show<br /> +(For all its stories of dry-rot<br /> +<a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>Were +filled with gruesome visitants in wax,<br /> +Inhuman, hushed, ghastly with Painted Eyes),<br /> +I wandered; and no living soul<br /> +Was nearer than the pay-box; and I stared<br /> +Upon them staring—staring. Till at last,<br /> +Three sets of rafters from the streets,<br /> +I strayed upon a mildewed, rat-run room,<br /> +With the two Dancers, horrible and obscene,<br /> +Guarding the door: and there, in a bedroom-set,<br /> +Behind a fence of faded crimson cords,<br /> +With an aspect of frills<br /> +And dimities and dishonoured privacy<br /> +That made you hanker and hesitate to look,<br /> +A Woman with her litter of Babes—all slain,<br /> +All in their nightgowns, all with Painted Eyes<br /> +Staring—still staring; so that I turned and ran<br /> +As for my neck, but in the street<br /> +Took breath. The same, it seemed,<br /> +And yet not all the same, I was to find,<br /> +As I went up! For afterwards,<br /> +Whenas I went my round alone—<br /> +All day alone—in long, stern, silent streets,<br /> +Where I might stretch my hand and take<br /> +Whatever I would: still there were Shapes of Stone,<br /> +<a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>Motionless, lifelike, frightening—for the Wrath<br +/> +Had smitten them; but they watched,<br /> +This by her melons and figs, that by his rings<br /> +And chains and watches, with the hideous gaze,<br /> +The Painted Eyes insufferable,<br /> +Now, of those grisly images; and I<br /> +Pursued my best-belovéd quest,<br /> +Thrilled with a novel and delicious fear.<br /> +So the night fell—with never a lamplighter;<br /> +And through the Palace of the King<br /> +I groped among the echoes, and I felt<br /> +That they were there,<br /> +Dreadfully there, the Painted staring Eyes,<br /> +Hall after hall . . . Till lo! from far<br /> +A Voice! And in a little while<br /> +Two tapers burning! And the Voice,<br /> +Heard in the wondrous Word of God, was—whose?<br /> +Whose but Zobëidé’s,<br /> +The lady of my heart, like me<br /> +A True Believer, and like me<br /> +An outcast thousands of leagues beyond the pale! . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">Or, sailing to the Isles<br /> +Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall<br /> +A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew<br /> +<a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>Swiftly . +. . and grew. Tearing their beards,<br /> +The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship,<br /> +Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad,<br /> +Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman’s hand,<br /> +And, turning broadside on,<br /> +As the most iron would, was haled and sucked<br /> +Nearer, and nearer yet;<br /> +And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps<br /> +Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now<br /> +That swallowed sea and sky; and then,<br /> +Anchors and nails and bolts<br /> +Flew screaming out of her, and with clang on clang,<br /> +A noise of fifty stithies, caught at the sides<br /> +Of the Magnetic Mountain; and she lay,<br /> +A broken bundle of firewood, strown piecemeal<br /> +About the waters; and her crew<br /> +Passed shrieking, one by one; and I was left<br /> +To drown. All the long night I swam;<br /> +But in the morning, O, the smiling coast<br /> +Tufted with date-trees, meadowlike,<br /> +Skirted with shelving sands! And a great wave<br /> +Cast me ashore; and I was saved alive.<br /> +So, giving thanks to God, I dried my clothes,<br /> +And, faring inland, in a desert place<br /> +<a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>I stumbled +on an iron ring—<br /> +The fellow of fifty built into the Quays:<br /> +When, scenting a trap-door,<br /> +I dug, and dug; until my biggest blade<br /> +Stuck into wood. And then,<br /> +The flight of smooth-hewn, easy-falling stairs,<br /> +Sunk in the naked rock! The cool, clean vault,<br /> +So neat with niche on niche it might have been<br /> +Our beer-cellar but for the rows<br /> +Of brazen urns (like monstrous chemist’s jars)<br /> +Full to the wide, squat throats<br /> +With gold-dust, but a-top<br /> +A layer of pickled-walnut-looking things<br /> +I knew for olives! And far, O, far away,<br /> +The Princess of China languished! Far away<br /> +Was marriage, with a Vizier and a Chief<br /> +Of Eunuchs and the privilege<br /> +Of going out at night<br /> +To play—unkenned, majestical, secure—<br /> +Where the old, brown, friendly river shaped<br /> +Like Tigris shore for shore! Haply a Ghoul<br /> +Sat in the churchyard under a frightened moon,<br /> +A thighbone in his fist, and glared<br /> +At supper with a Lady: she who took<br /> +Her rice with tweezers grain by grain.<br /> +<a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>Or you +might stumble—there by the iron gates<br /> +Of the Pump Room—underneath the limes—<br /> +Upon Bedreddin in his shirt and drawers,<br /> +Just as the civil Genie laid him down.<br /> +Or those red-curtained panes,<br /> +Whence a tame cornet tenored it throatily<br /> +Of beer-pots and spittoons and new long pipes,<br /> +Might turn a caravansery’s, wherein<br /> +You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk,<br /> +And that fair Persian, bathed in tears,<br /> +You’d not have given away<br /> +For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous<br /> +You had that dark and disleaved afternoon<br /> +Escaped on a roc’s claw,<br /> +Disguised like Sindbad—but in Christmas beef!<br /> +And all the blissful while<br /> +The schoolboy satchel at your hip<br /> +Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze<br /> +Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn<br /> +From over Caspian: yea, the Chief Jewellers<br /> +Of Tartary and the bazaars,<br /> +Seething with traffic, of enormous Ind.—</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus cried, thus called aloud, to the child +heart<br /> +The magian East: thus the child eyes<br /> +<a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>Spelled +out the wizard message by the light<br /> +Of the sober, workaday hours<br /> +They saw, week in week out, pass, and still pass<br /> +In the sleepy Minster City, folded kind<br /> +In ancient Severn’s arm,<br /> +Amongst her water-meadows and her docks,<br /> +Whose floating populace of ships—<br /> +Galliots and luggers, light-heeled brigantines,<br /> +Bluff barques and rake-hell fore-and-afters—brought<br /> +To her very doorsteps and geraniums<br /> +The scents of the World’s End; the calls<br /> +That may not be gainsaid to rise and ride<br /> +Like fire on some high errand of the race;<br /> +The irresistible appeals<br /> +For comradeship that sound<br /> +Steadily from the irresistible sea.<br /> +Thus the East laughed and whispered, and the tale,<br /> +Telling itself anew<br /> +In terms of living, labouring life,<br /> +Took on the colours, busked it in the wear<br /> +Of life that lived and laboured; and Romance,<br /> +The Angel-Playmate, raining down<br /> +His golden influences<br /> +On all I saw, and all I dreamed and did,<br /> +<a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>Walked +with me arm in arm,<br /> +Or left me, as one bediademed with straws<br /> +And bits of glass, to gladden at my heart<br /> +Who had the gift to seek and feel and find<br /> +His fiery-hearted presence everywhere.<br /> +Even so dear Hesper, bringer of all good things,<br /> +Sends the same silver dews<br /> +Of happiness down her dim, delighted skies<br /> +On some poor collier-hamlet—(mound on mound<br /> +Of sifted squalor; here a soot-throated stalk<br /> +Sullenly smoking over a row<br /> +Of flat-faced hovels; black in the gritty air<br /> +A web of rails and wheels and beams; with strings<br /> +Of hurtling, tipping trams)—<br /> +As on the amorous nightingales<br /> +And roses of Shíraz, or the walls and towers<br /> +Of Samarcand—the Ineffable—whence you espy<br /> +The splendour of Ginnistan’s embattled spears,<br /> +Like listed lightnings.<br /> + + +Samarcand!<br /> +That name of names! That star-vaned belvedere<br /> +Builded against the Chambers of the South!<br /> +That outpost on the Infinite!<br /> + + +And behold!<br /> +Questing therefrom, you knew not what wild tide<br /> +<a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>Might +overtake you: for one fringe,<br /> +One suburb, is stablished on firm earth; but one<br /> +Floats founded vague<br /> +In lubberlands delectable—isles of palm<br /> +And lotus, fortunate mains, far-shimmering seas,<br /> +The promise of wistful hills—<br /> +The shining, shifting Sovranties of Dream.</p> +<h2><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +77</span>BRIC-À-BRAC</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">1877–1888</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center"><a +name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>‘<i>The +tune of the time</i>.’—<span +class="smcap">Hamlet</span>, <i>concerning</i> <span +class="smcap">Osric</span></p> +</blockquote> +<h3><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +79</span>BALLADE OF A TOYOKUNI COLOUR-PRINT</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>To</i> W. A.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Was</span> I a Samurai +renowned,<br /> +Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow?<br /> +A histrion angular and profound?<br /> +A priest? a porter?—Child, although<br /> +I have forgotten clean, I know<br /> +That in the shade of Fujisan,<br /> +What time the cherry-orchards blow,<br /> +I loved you once in old Japan.</p> +<p class="poetry">As here you loiter, flowing-gowned<br /> +And hugely sashed, with pins a-row<br /> +Your quaint head as with flamelets crowned,<br /> +Demure, inviting—even so,<br /> +When merry maids in Miyako<br /> +To feel the sweet o’ the year began,<br /> +And green gardens to overflow,<br /> +I loved you once in old Japan.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +80</span>Clear shine the hills; the rice-fields round<br /> +Two cranes are circling; sleepy and slow,<br /> +A blue canal the lake’s blue bound<br /> +Breaks at the bamboo bridge; and lo!<br /> +Touched with the sundown’s spirit and glow,<br /> +I see you turn, with flirted fan,<br /> +Against the plum-tree’s bloomy snow . . .<br /> +I loved you once in old Japan!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Envoy</i></p> +<p class="poetry">Dear, ’twas a dozen lives ago;<br /> +But that I was a lucky man<br /> +The Toyokuni here will show:<br /> +I loved you—once—in old Japan.</p> +<h3><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +81</span>BALLADE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(DOUBLE REFRAIN)</span><br /> +OF YOUTH AND AGE</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">I. +M.</span><br /> +Thomas Edward Brown<br /> +(1829–1896)</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Spring</span> at her height +on a morn at prime,<br /> +Sails that laugh from a flying squall,<br /> +Pomp of harmony, rapture of rhyme—<br /> +Youth is the sign of them, one and all.<br /> +Winter sunsets and leaves that fall,<br /> +An empty flagon, a folded page,<br /> +A tumble-down wheel, a tattered ball—<br /> +These are a type of the world of Age.</p> +<p class="poetry">Bells that clash in a gaudy chime,<br /> +Swords that clatter in onsets tall,<br /> +The words that ring and the fames that climb—<br /> +Youth is the sign of them, one and all.<br /> +Hymnals old in a dusty stall,<br /> +A bald, blind bird in a crazy cage,<br /> +The scene of a faded festival—<br /> +These are a type of the world of Age.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +82</span>Hours that strut as the heirs of time,<br /> +Deeds whose rumour’s a clarion-call,<br /> +Songs where the singers their souls sublime—<br /> +Youth is the sign of them, one and all.<br /> +A staff that rests in a nook of wall,<br /> +A reeling battle, a rusted gage,<br /> +The chant of a nearing funeral—<br /> +These are a type of the world of Age.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Envoy</i></p> +<p class="poetry">Struggle and turmoil, revel and brawl—<br +/> +Youth is the sign of them, one and all.<br /> +A smouldering hearth and a silent stage—<br /> +These are a type of the world of Age.</p> +<h3><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>BALLADE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(DOUBLE REFRAIN)</span><br /> +OF MIDSUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>To</i> W. H.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">With</span> a ripple of +leaves and a tinkle of streams<br /> +The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,<br /> +And the winds are one with the clouds and beams—<br /> +Midsummer days! Midsummer days!<br /> +The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,<br /> +While the West from a rapture of sunset rights,<br /> +Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise—<br /> +Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!</p> +<p class="poetry">The wood’s green heart is a nest of +dreams,<br /> +The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,<br /> +The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams—<br /> +Midsummer days! Midsummer days!<br /> +In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,<br /> +All secret shadows and mystic lights,<br /> +Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze—<br /> +Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +84</span>There’s a music of bells from the trampling +teams,<br /> +Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,<br /> +The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams—<br /> +Midsummer days! Midsummer days!<br /> +A soul from the honeysuckle strays,<br /> +And the nightingale as from prophet heights<br /> +Sings to the Earth of her million Mays—<br /> +Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Envoy</i></p> +<p class="poetry">And it’s O, for my dear and the charm +that stays—<br /> +Midsummer days! Midsummer days!<br /> +It’s O, for my Love and the dark that plights—<br /> +Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!</p> +<h3><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>BALLADE<br /> +OF DEAD ACTORS</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">I. +M.</span><br /> +Edward John Henley<br /> +(1861–1898)</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Where</span> are the +passions they essayed,<br /> +And where the tears they made to flow?<br /> +Where the wild humours they portrayed<br /> +For laughing worlds to see and know?<br /> +Othello’s wrath and Juliet’s woe?<br /> +Sir Peter’s whims and Timon’s gall?<br /> +And Millamant and Romeo?<br /> +Into the night go one and all.</p> +<p class="poetry">Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed?<br /> +The plumes, the armours—friend and foe?<br /> +The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,<br /> +The mantles glittering to and fro?<br /> +The pomp, the pride, the royal show?<br /> +The cries of war and festival?<br /> +The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?<br /> +Into the night go one and all.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +86</span>The curtain falls, the play is played:<br /> +The Beggar packs beside the Beau;<br /> +The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid;<br /> +The Thunder huddles with the Snow.<br /> +Where are the revellers high and low?<br /> +The clashing swords? The lover’s call?<br /> +The dancers gleaming row on row?<br /> +Into the night go one and all.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Envoy</i></p> +<p class="poetry"> Prince, in one common +overthrow<br /> +The Hero tumbles with the Thrall:<br /> +As dust that drives, as straws that blow,<br /> +Into the night go one and all.</p> +<h3><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>BALLADE<br /> +MADE IN THE HOT WEATHER</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>To</i> C. M.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Fountains</span> that frisk +and sprinkle<br /> +The moss they overspill;<br /> +Pools that the breezes crinkle;<br /> +The wheel beside the mill,<br /> +With its wet, weedy frill;<br /> +Wind-shadows in the wheat;<br /> +A water-cart in the street;<br /> +The fringe of foam that girds<br /> +An islet’s ferneries;<br /> +A green sky’s minor thirds—<br /> +To live, I think of these!</p> +<p class="poetry">Of ice and glass the tinkle,<br /> +Pellucid, silver-shrill;<br /> +Peaches without a wrinkle;<br /> +Cherries and snow at will,<br /> +From china bowls that fill<br /> +The senses with a sweet<br /> +<a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +88</span>Incuriousness of heat;<br /> +A melon’s dripping sherds;<br /> +Cream-clotted strawberries;<br /> +Dusk dairies set with curds—<br /> +To live, I think of these!</p> +<p class="poetry">Vale-lily and periwinkle;<br /> +Wet stone-crop on the sill;<br /> +The look of leaves a-twinkle<br /> +With windlets clear and still;<br /> +The feel of a forest rill<br /> +That wimples fresh and fleet<br /> +About one’s naked feet;<br /> +The muzzles of drinking herds;<br /> +Lush flags and bulrushes;<br /> +The chirp of rain-bound birds—<br /> +To live, I think of these!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Envoy</i></p> +<p class="poetry">Dark aisles, new packs of cards,<br /> +Mermaidens’ tails, cool swards,<br /> +Dawn dews and starlit seas,<br /> +White marbles, whiter words—<br /> +To live, I think of these!</p> +<h3><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>BALLADE OF TRUISMS</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Gold</span> or silver, +every day,<br /> + Dies to gray.<br +/> +There are knots in every skein.<br /> +Hours of work and hours of play<br /> + Fade away<br /> +Into one immense Inane.<br /> +Shadow and substance, chaff and grain,<br /> + Are as vain<br +/> +As the foam or as the spray.<br /> +Life goes crooning, faint and fain,<br /> + One refrain:<br +/> +‘If it could be always May!’</p> +<p class="poetry">Though the earth be green and gay,<br /> + Though, they +say,<br /> +Man the cup of heaven may drain;<br /> +Though, his little world to sway,<br /> + He display<br /> +Hoard on hoard of pith and brain:<br /> +Autumn brings a mist and rain<br /> + That +constrain<br /> +<a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>Him and +his to know decay,<br /> +Where undimmed the lights that wane<br /> + Would remain,<br +/> +If it could be always May.</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Yea</i>, alas, must turn to <i>Nay</i>,<br +/> + Flesh to +clay.<br /> +Chance and Time are ever twain.<br /> +Men may scoff, and men may pray,<br /> + But they pay<br +/> +Every pleasure with a pain.<br /> +Life may soar, and Fortune deign<br /> + To explain<br /> +Where her prizes hide and stay;<br /> +But we lack the lusty train<br /> + We should +gain,<br /> +If it could be always May.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Envoy</i></p> +<p class="poetry">Time, the pedagogue, his cane<br /> + Might retain,<br +/> +But his charges all would stray<br /> +Truanting in every lane—<br /> + Jack with +Jane—<br /> +If it could be always May.</p> +<h3><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>DOUBLE +BALLADE<br /> +OF LIFE AND FATE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Fools</span> may pine, and +sots may swill,<br /> +Cynics gibe, and prophets rail,<br /> +Moralists may scourge and drill,<br /> +Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail.<br /> +Let them whine, or threat, or wail!<br /> +Till the touch of Circumstance<br /> +Down to darkness sink the scale,<br /> +Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.</p> +<p class="poetry">What if skies be wan and chill?<br /> +What if winds be harsh and stale?<br /> +Presently the east will thrill,<br /> +And the sad and shrunken sail,<br /> +Bellying with a kindly gale,<br /> +Bear you sunwards, while your chance<br /> +Sends you back the hopeful hail:—<br /> +‘Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.’</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +92</span>Idle shot or coming bill,<br /> +Hapless love or broken bail,<br /> +Gulp it (never chew your pill!),<br /> +And, if Burgundy should fail,<br /> +Try the humbler pot of ale!<br /> +Over all is heaven’s expanse.<br /> +Gold’s to find among the shale.<br /> +Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.</p> +<p class="poetry">Dull Sir Joskin sleeps his fill,<br /> +Good Sir Galahad seeks the Grail,<br /> +Proud Sir Pertinax flaunts his frill,<br /> +Hard Sir Æger dints his mail;<br /> +And the while by hill and dale<br /> +Tristram’s braveries gleam and glance,<br /> +And his blithe horn tells its tale:—<br /> +‘Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.’</p> +<p class="poetry">Araminta’s grand and shrill,<br /> +Delia’s passionate and frail,<br /> +Doris drives an earnest quill,<br /> +Athanasia takes the veil:<br /> +Wiser Phyllis o’er her pail,<br /> +At the heart of all romance<br /> +<a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>Reading, +sings to Strephon’s flail:—<br /> +‘Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.’</p> +<p class="poetry">Every Jack must have his Jill<br /> +(Even Johnson had his Thrale!):<br /> +Forward, couples—with a will!<br /> +This, the world, is not a jail.<br /> +Hear the music, sprat and whale!<br /> +Hands across, retire, advance!<br /> +Though the doomsman’s on your trail,<br /> +Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Envoy</i></p> +<p class="poetry">Boys and girls, at slug and snail<br /> +And their kindred look askance.<br /> +Pay your footing on the nail:<br /> +Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.</p> +<h3><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>DOUBLE +BALLADE<br /> +OF THE NOTHINGNESS OF THINGS</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> big teetotum +twirls,<br /> +And epochs wax and wane<br /> +As chance subsides or swirls;<br /> +But of the loss and gain<br /> +The sum is always plain.<br /> +Read on the mighty pall,<br /> +The weed of funeral<br /> +That covers praise and blame,<br /> +The —isms and the —anities,<br /> +Magnificence and shame:—<br /> +‘O Vanity of Vanities!’</p> +<p class="poetry">The Fates are subtile girls!<br /> +They give us chaff for grain.<br /> +And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,<br /> +Like bolted death, disdain<br /> +At all that heart and brain<br /> +Conceive, or great or small,<br /> +<a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>Upon this +earthly ball.<br /> +Would you be knight and dame?<br /> +Or woo the sweet humanities?<br /> +Or illustrate a name?<br /> +O Vanity of Vanities!</p> +<p class="poetry">We sound the sea for pearls,<br /> +Or drown them in a drain;<br /> +We flute it with the merles,<br /> +Or tug and sweat and strain;<br /> +We grovel, or we reign;<br /> +We saunter, or we brawl;<br /> +We answer, or we call;<br /> +We search the stars for Fame,<br /> +Or sink her subterranities;<br /> +The legend’s still the same:—<br /> +‘O Vanity of Vanities!’</p> +<p class="poetry">Here at the wine one birls,<br /> +There some one clanks a chain.<br /> +The flag that this man furls<br /> +That man to float is fain.<br /> +Pleasure gives place to pain:<br /> +These in the kennel crawl,<br /> +<a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>While +others take the wall.<br /> +<i>She</i> has a glorious aim,<br /> +<i>He</i> lives for the inanities.<br /> +What comes of every claim?<br /> +O Vanity of Vanities!</p> +<p class="poetry">Alike are clods and earls.<br /> +For sot, and seer, and swain,<br /> +For emperors and for churls,<br /> +For antidote and bane,<br /> +There is but one refrain:<br /> +But one for king and thrall,<br /> +For David and for Saul,<br /> +For fleet of foot and lame,<br /> +For pieties and profanities,<br /> +The picture and the frame:—<br /> +‘O Vanity of Vanities!’</p> +<p class="poetry">Life is a smoke that curls—<br /> +Curls in a flickering skein,<br /> +That winds and whisks and whirls<br /> +A figment thin and vain,<br /> +Into the vast Inane.<br /> +One end for hut and hall!<br /> +<a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>One end +for cell and stall!<br /> +Burned in one common flame<br /> +Are wisdoms and insanities.<br /> +For this alone we came:—<br /> +‘O Vanity of Vanities!’</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Envoy</i></p> +<p class="poetry">Prince, pride must have a fall.<br /> +What is the worth of all<br /> +Your state’s supreme urbanities?<br /> +Bad at the best’s the game.<br /> +Well might the Sage exclaim:—<br /> +‘O Vanity of Vanities!’</p> +<h3><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>AT +QUEENSFERRY</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>To</i> W. G. S.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> blackbird sang, +the skies were clear and clean<br /> +We bowled along a road that curved a spine<br /> +Superbly sinuous and serpentine<br /> +Thro’ silent symphonies of summer green.<br /> +Sudden the Forth came on us—sad of mien,<br /> +No cloud to colour it, no breeze to line:<br /> +A sheet of dark, dull glass, without a sign<br /> +Of life or death, two spits of sand between.<br /> +Water and sky merged blank in mist together,<br /> +The Fort loomed spectral, and the Guardship’s spars<br /> +Traced vague, black shadows on the shimmery glaze:<br /> +We felt the dim, strange years, the grey, strange weather,<br /> +The still, strange land, unvexed of sun or stars,<br /> +Where Lancelot rides clanking thro’ the haze.</p> +<h3><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>ORIENTALE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">She’s</span> an +enchanting little Israelite,<br /> +A world of hidden dimples!—Dusky-eyed,<br /> +A starry-glancing daughter of the Bride,<br /> +With hair escaped from some Arabian Night,<br /> +Her lip is red, her cheek is golden-white,<br /> +Her nose a scimitar; and, set aside<br /> +The bamboo hat she cocks with so much pride,<br /> +Her dress a dream of daintiness and delight.<br /> +And when she passes with the dreadful boys<br /> +And romping girls, the cockneys loud and crude,<br /> +My thought, to the Minories tied yet moved to range<br /> +The Land o’ the Sun, commingles with the noise<br /> +Of magian drums and scents of sandalwood<br /> +A touch Sidonian—modern—taking—strange!</p> +<h3><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>IN +FISHERROW</h3> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">hard</span> north-easter +fifty winters long<br /> +Has bronzed and shrivelled sere her face and neck;<br /> +Her locks are wild and grey, her teeth a wreck;<br /> +Her foot is vast, her bowed leg spare and strong.<br /> +A wide blue cloak, a squat and sturdy throng<br /> +Of curt blue coats, a mutch without a speck,<br /> +A white vest broidered black, her person deck,<br /> +Nor seems their picked, stern, old-world quaintness wrong.<br /> +Her great creel forehead-slung, she wanders nigh,<br /> +Easing the heavy strap with gnarled, brown fingers,<br /> +The spirit of traffic watchful in her eye,<br /> +Ever and anon imploring you to buy,<br /> +As looking down the street she onward lingers,<br /> +Reproachful, with a strange and doleful cry.</p> +<h3><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>BACK-VIEW</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>To</i> D. F.</p> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">watched</span> you +saunter down the sand:<br /> +Serene and large, the golden weather<br /> +Flowed radiant round your peacock feather,<br /> +And glistered from your jewelled hand.<br /> +Your tawny hair, turned strand on strand<br /> +And bound with blue ribands together,<br /> +Streaked the rough tartan, green like heather,<br /> +That round your lissome shoulder spanned.<br /> +Your grace was quick my sense to seize:<br /> +The quaint looped hat, the twisted tresses,<br /> +The close-drawn scarf, and under these<br /> +The flowing, flapping draperies—<br /> +My thought an outline still caresses,<br /> +Enchanting, comic, Japanese!</p> +<h3><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +102</span>CROLUIS</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>To</i> G. W.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> beach was +crowded. Pausing now and then,<br /> +He groped and fiddled doggedly along,<br /> +His worn face glaring on the thoughtless throng<br /> +The stony peevishness of sightless men.<br /> +He seemed scarce older than his clothes. Again,<br /> +Grotesquing thinly many an old sweet song,<br /> +So cracked his fiddle, his hand so frail and wrong,<br /> +You hardly could distinguish one in ten.<br /> +He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand,<br /> +And, grasping wearily his bread-winner,<br /> +Stared dim towards the blue immensity,<br /> +Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand.<br /> +He may have slept: he did not speak nor stir:<br /> +His gesture spoke a vast despondency.</p> +<h3><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>ATTADALE WEST HIGHLANDS</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>To</i> A. J.</p> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">black</span> and glassy +float, opaque and still,<br /> +The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep,<br /> +Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep<br /> +The calm grey skies; the solemn spurs of hill;<br /> +Heather, and corn, and wisps of loitering haze;<br /> +The wee white cots, black-hatted, plumed with smoke;<br /> +The braes beyond—and when the ripple awoke,<br /> +They wavered with the jarred and wavering glaze.<br /> +The air was hushed and dreamy. Evermore<br /> +A noise of running water whispered near.<br /> +A straggling crow called high and thin. A bird<br /> +Trilled from the birch-leaves. Round the shingled shore,<br +/> +Yellow with weed, there wandered, vague and clear,<br /> +Strange vowels, mysterious gutturals, idly heard.</p> +<h3><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>FROM +A WINDOW IN PRINCES STREET</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>To</i> M. M. M‘B.</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Above</span> the Crags that +fade and gloom<br /> +Starts the bare knee of Arthur’s Seat;<br /> +Ridged high against the evening bloom,<br /> +The Old Town rises, street on street;<br /> +With lamps bejewelled, straight ahead,<br /> +Like rampired walls the houses lean,<br /> +All spired and domed and turreted,<br /> +Sheer to the valley’s darkling green;<br /> +Ranged in mysterious disarray,<br /> +The Castle, menacing and austere,<br /> +Looms through the lingering last of day;<br /> +And in the silver dusk you hear,<br /> +Reverberated from crag and scar,<br /> +Bold bugles blowing points of war.</p> +<h3><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>IN +THE DIALS</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">To</span> <i>Garryowen</i> +upon an organ ground<br /> +Two girls are jigging. Riotously they trip,<br /> +With eyes aflame, quick bosoms, hand on hip,<br /> +As in the tumult of a witches’ round.<br /> +Youngsters and youngsters round them prance and bound.<br /> +Two solemn babes twirl ponderously, and skip.<br /> +The artist’s teeth gleam from his bearded lip.<br /> +High from the kennel howls a tortured hound.<br /> +The music reels and hurtles, and the night<br /> +Is full of stinks and cries; a naphtha-light<br /> +Flares from a barrow; battered and obtused<br /> +With vices, wrinkles, life and work and rags,<br /> +Each with her inch of clay, two loitering hags<br /> +Look on dispassionate—critical—something +’mused.</p> +<h3><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>THE +GODS ARE DEAD</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> gods are +dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows?<br /> +Living at least in Lemprière undeleted,<br /> +The wise, the fair, the awful, the jocose,<br /> +Are one and all, I like to think, retreated<br /> +In some still land of lilacs and the rose.</p> +<p class="poetry">Once higeh they sat, and high o’er +earthly shows<br /> +With sacrificial dance and song were greeted.<br /> +Once . . . long ago. But now, the story goes,<br /> + + +The gods are dead.</p> +<p class="poetry">It must be true. The world, a world of +prose,<br /> +Full-crammed with facts, in science swathed and sheeted,<br /> +Nods in a stertorous after-dinner doze!<br /> +Plangent and sad, in every wind that blows<br /> +Who will may hear the sorry words repeated:—<br /> + + +‘The Gods are Dead!’</p> +<h3><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +107</span><i>To</i> F. W.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Let</span> us be drunk, and +for a while forget,<br /> +Forget, and, ceasing even from regret,<br /> +Live without reason and despite of rhyme,<br /> +As in a dream preposterous and sublime,<br /> +Where place and hour and means for once are met.</p> +<p class="poetry">Where is the use of effort? Love and +debt<br /> +And disappointment have us in a net.<br /> +Let us break out, and taste the morning prime . . .<br /> + + +Let us be drunk.</p> +<p class="poetry">In vain our little hour we strut and fret,<br +/> +And mouth our wretched parts as for a bet:<br /> +We cannot please the tragicaster Time.<br /> +To gain the crystal sphere, the silver dime,<br /> +Where Sympathy sits dimpling on us yet,<br /> + + +Let us be drunk!</p> +<h3><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>WHEN +YOU ARE OLD</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> you are old, +and I am passed away—<br /> +Passed, and your face, your golden face, is gray—<br /> +I think, whate’er the end, this dream of mine,<br /> +Comforting you, a friendly star will shine<br /> +Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray.</p> +<p class="poetry">So may it be: that so dead Yesterday,<br /> +No sad-eyed ghost but generous and gay,<br /> +May serve you memories like almighty wine,<br /> + + +When you are old!</p> +<p class="poetry">Dear Heart, it shall be so. Under the +sway<br /> +Of death the past’s enormous disarray<br /> +Lies hushed and dark. Yet though there come no sign,<br /> +Live on well pleased: immortal and divine<br /> +Love shall still tend you, as God’s angels may,<br /> + + +When you are old.</p> +<h3><a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +109</span>BESIDE THE IDLE SUMMER SEA</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Beside</span> the idle +summer sea<br /> +And in the vacant summer days,<br /> +Light Love came fluting down the ways,<br /> +Where you were loitering with me.</p> +<p class="poetry">Who has not welcomed, even as we,<br /> +That jocund minstrel and his lays<br /> +Beside the idle summer sea<br /> +And in the vacant summer days?</p> +<p class="poetry">We listened, we were fancy-free;<br /> +And lo! in terror and amaze<br /> +We stood alone—alone at gaze<br /> +With an implacable memory<br /> +Beside the idle summer sea.</p> +<h3><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>I. +M.<br /> +R. G. C. B.<br /> +1878</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> ways of Death +are soothing and serene,<br /> +And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.<br /> +From camp and church, the fireside and the street,<br /> +She beckons forth—and strife and song have been.</p> +<p class="poetry">A summer night descending cool and green<br /> +And dark on daytime’s dust and stress and heat,<br /> +The ways of Death are soothing and serene,<br /> +And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.</p> +<p class="poetry">O glad and sorrowful, with triumphant mien<br +/> +And radiant faces look upon, and greet<br /> +This last of all your lovers, and to meet<br /> +Her kiss, the Comforter’s, your spirit lean . . .<br /> +The ways of Death are soothing and serene.</p> +<h3><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>WE +SHALL SURELY DIE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> shall surely +die:<br /> +Must we needs grow old?<br /> +Grow old and cold,<br /> +And we know not why?</p> +<p class="poetry">O, the By-and-By,<br /> +And the tale that’s told!<br /> +We shall surely die:<br /> +Must we needs grow old?</p> +<p class="poetry">Grow old and sigh,<br /> +Grudge and withhold,<br /> +Resent and scold? . . .<br /> +Not you and I?<br /> +We shall surely die!</p> +<h3><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>WHAT +IS TO COME</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">What</span> is to come we +know not. But we know<br /> +That what has been was good—was good to show,<br /> +Better to hide, and best of all to bear.<br /> +We are the masters of the days that were:<br /> +We have lived, we have loved, we have suffered . . . even so.</p> +<p class="poetry">Shall we not take the ebb who had the flow?<br +/> +Life was our friend. Now, if it be our foe—<br /> +Dear, though it spoil and break us!—need we care<br /> + + +What is to come?</p> +<p class="poetry">Let the great winds their worst and wildest +blow,<br /> +Or the gold weather round us mellow slow:<br /> +We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare<br /> +And we can conquer, though we may not share<br /> +In the rich quiet of the afterglow<br /> + + +What is to come.</p> +<h2><a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +113</span>ECHOES</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">1872–1889</p> +<p style="text-align: center" class="poetry"><a +name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span><i>Aquí está encerrada el alma del +licenciado Pedro Garcías</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right" class="poetry"><span +class="smcap">Gil Blas</span> <i>AU LECTEUR</i>.</p> +<h3><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +115</span><span class="GutSmall">I</span><br /> +TO MY MOTHER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Chiming</span> a dream by +the way<br /> + With ocean’s rapture and roar,<br /> +I met a maiden to-day<br /> + Walking alone on the shore:<br /> +Walking in maiden wise,<br /> + Modest and kind and fair,<br /> +The freshness of spring in her eyes<br /> + And the fulness of spring in her hair.</p> +<p class="poetry">Cloud-shadow and scudding sun-burst<br /> + Were swift on the floor of the sea,<br /> +And a mad wind was romping its worst,<br /> + But what was their magic to me?<br /> +Or the charm of the midsummer skies?<br /> + I only saw she was there,<br /> +A dream of the sea in her eyes<br /> + And the kiss of the sea in her hair.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +116</span>I watched her vanish in space;<br /> + She came where I walked no more;<br /> +But something had passed of her grace<br /> + To the spell of the wave and the shore;<br /> +And now, as the glad stars rise,<br /> + She comes to me, rosy and rare,<br /> +The delight of the wind in her eyes<br /> + And the hand of the wind in her hair.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1872</p> +<h3><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +117</span><span class="GutSmall">II</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Life</span> is +bitter. All the faces of the years,<br /> +Young and old, are grey with travail and with tears.<br /> + Must we only wake to toil, to tire, to weep?<br /> +In the sun, among the leaves, upon the flowers,<br /> +Slumber stills to dreamy death the heavy hours . . .<br /> + + +Let me sleep.</p> +<p class="poetry">Riches won but mock the old, unable years;<br +/> +Fame’s a pearl that hides beneath a sea of tears;<br /> + Love must wither, or must live alone and weep.<br /> +In the sunshine, through the leaves, across the flowers,<br /> +While we slumber, death approaches though the hours! . . .<br /> + + +Let me sleep.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1872</p> +<h3><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span><span class="GutSmall">III</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">O, <span class="smcap">gather</span> me the +rose, the rose,<br /> + While yet in flower we find it,<br /> +For summer smiles, but summer goes,<br /> + And winter waits behind it!</p> +<p class="poetry">For with the dream foregone, foregone,<br /> + The deed forborne for ever,<br /> +The worm, regret, will canker on,<br /> + And Time will turn him never.</p> +<p class="poetry">So well it were to love, my love,<br /> + And cheat of any laughter<br /> +The fate beneath us and above,<br /> + The dark before and after.</p> +<p class="poetry">The myrtle and the rose, the rose,<br /> + The sunshine and the swallow,<br /> +The dream that comes, the wish that goes,<br /> + The memories that follow!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1874</p> +<h3><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +119</span><span class="GutSmall">IV</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">I. M.</span><br /> +R. T. HAMILTON BRUCE<br /> +(1846–1899)</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Out</span> of the night +that covers me,<br /> + Black as the Pit from pole to pole,<br /> +I thank whatever gods may be<br /> + For my unconquerable soul.</p> +<p class="poetry">In the fell clutch of circumstance<br /> + I have not winced nor cried aloud.<br /> +Under the bludgeonings of chance<br /> + My head is bloody, but unbowed.</p> +<p class="poetry">Beyond this place of wrath and tears<br /> + Looms but the Horror of the shade,<br /> +And yet the menace of the years<br /> + Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.</p> +<p class="poetry">It matters not how strait the gate,<br /> + How charged with punishments the scroll,<br /> +I am the master of my fate:<br /> + I am the captain of my soul.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +120</span><span class="GutSmall">V</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">am</span> the Reaper.<br +/> +All things with heedful hook<br /> +Silent I gather.<br /> +Pale roses touched with the spring,<br /> +Tall corn in summer,<br /> +Fruits rich with autumn, and frail winter blossoms—<br /> +Reaping, still reaping—<br /> +All things with heedful hook<br /> +Timely I gather.</p> +<p class="poetry">I am the Sower.<br /> +All the unbodied life<br /> +Runs through my seed-sheet.<br /> +Atom with atom wed,<br /> +Each quickening the other,<br /> +Fall through my hands, ever changing, still changeless<br /> +<a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>Ceaselessly sowing,<br /> +Life, incorruptible life,<br /> +Flows from my seed-sheet.</p> +<p class="poetry">Maker and breaker,<br /> +I am the ebb and the flood,<br /> +Here and Hereafter.<br /> +Sped through the tangle and coil<br /> +Of infinite nature,<br /> +Viewless and soundless I fashion all being.<br /> +Taker and giver,<br /> +I am the womb and the grave,<br /> +The Now and the Ever.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +122</span><span class="GutSmall">VI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Praise</span> the generous +gods for giving<br /> + In a world of wrath and strife<br /> +With a little time for living,<br /> + Unto all the joy of life.</p> +<p class="poetry">At whatever source we drink it,<br /> + Art or love or faith or wine,<br /> +In whatever terms we think it,<br /> + It is common and divine.</p> +<p class="poetry">Praise the high gods, for in giving<br /> + This to man, and this alone,<br /> +They have made his chance of living<br /> + Shine the equal of their own.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +123</span><span class="GutSmall">VII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Fill</span> a glass with +golden wine,<br /> + And the while your lips are wet<br /> +Set their perfume unto mine,<br /> + And forget,<br +/> +Every kiss we take and give<br /> +Leaves us less of life to live.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet again! Your whim and mine<br /> + In a happy while have met.<br /> +All your sweets to me resign,<br /> + Nor regret<br /> +That we press with every breath,<br /> +Sighed or singing, nearer death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +124</span><span class="GutSmall">VIII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We’ll</span> go no +more a-roving by the light of the moon.<br /> +November glooms are barren beside the dusk of June.<br /> +The summer flowers are faded, the summer thoughts are sere.<br /> +We’ll go no more a-roving, lest worse befall, my dear.</p> +<p class="poetry">We’ll go no more a-roving by the light of +the moon.<br /> +The song we sang rings hollow, and heavy runs the tune.<br /> +Glad ways and words remembered would shame the wretched year.<br +/> +We’ll go no more a-roving, nor dream we did, my dear.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +125</span>We’ll go no more a-roving by the light of the +moon.<br /> +If yet we walk together, we need not shun the noon.<br /> +No sweet thing left to savour, no sad thing left to fear,<br /> +We’ll go no more a-roving, but weep at home, my dear.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span><span class="GutSmall">IX</span><br /> +<i>To</i> W. R.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Madam</span> Life’s a +piece in bloom<br /> + Death goes dogging everywhere:<br /> +She’s the tenant of the room,<br /> + He’s the ruffian on the stair.</p> +<p class="poetry">You shall see her as a friend,<br /> + You shall bilk him once and twice;<br /> +But he’ll trap you in the end,<br /> + And he’ll stick you for her price.</p> +<p class="poetry">With his kneebones at your chest,<br /> + And his knuckles in your throat,<br /> +You would reason—plead—protest!<br /> + Clutching at her petticoat;</p> +<p class="poetry">But she’s heard it all before,<br /> + Well she knows you’ve had your fun,<br /> +Gingerly she gains the door,<br /> + And your little job is done.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1877</p> +<h3><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +127</span><span class="GutSmall">X</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> sea is full of +wandering foam,<br /> + The sky of driving cloud;<br /> +My restless thoughts among them roam . . .<br /> + The night is dark and loud.</p> +<p class="poetry">Where are the hours that came to me<br /> + So beautiful and bright?<br /> +A wild wind shakes the wilder sea . . .<br /> + O, dark and loud’s the night!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +128</span><span class="GutSmall">XI</span><br /> +<i>To</i> W. R.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Thick</span> is the +darkness—<br /> + Sunward, O, sunward!<br /> +Rough is the highway—<br /> + Onward, still onward!</p> +<p class="poetry">Dawn harbours surely<br /> + East of the shadows.<br /> +Facing us somewhere<br /> + Spread the sweet meadows.</p> +<p class="poetry">Upward and forward!<br /> + Time will restore us:<br /> +Light is above us,<br /> + Rest is before us.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +129</span><span class="GutSmall">XII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">To</span> me at my +fifth-floor window<br /> + The chimney-pots in rows<br /> +Are sets of pipes pandean<br /> + For every wind that blows;</p> +<p class="poetry">And the smoke that whirls and eddies<br /> + In a thousand times and keys<br /> +Is really a visible music<br /> + Set to my reveries.</p> +<p class="poetry">O monstrous pipes, melodious<br /> + With fitful tune and dream,<br /> +The clouds are your only audience,<br /> + Her thought is your only theme!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +130</span><span class="GutSmall">XIII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Bring</span> her again, O +western wind,<br /> + Over the western sea:<br /> +Gentle and good and fair and kind,<br /> + Bring her again to me!</p> +<p class="poetry">Not that her fancy holds me dear,<br /> + Not that a hope may be:<br /> +Only that I may know her near,<br /> + Wind of the western sea.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +131</span><span class="GutSmall">XIV</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> wan sun westers, +faint and slow;<br /> +The eastern distance glimmers gray;<br /> +An eerie haze comes creeping low<br /> +Across the little, lonely bay;<br /> +And from the sky-line far away<br /> +About the quiet heaven are spread<br /> +Mysterious hints of dying day,<br /> +Thin, delicate dreams of green and red.</p> +<p class="poetry">And weak, reluctant surges lap<br /> +And rustle round and down the strand.<br /> +No other sound . . . If it should hap,<br /> +The ship that sails from fairy-land!<br /> +The silken shrouds with spells are manned,<br /> +The hull is magically scrolled,<br /> +The squat mast lives, and in the sand<br /> +The gold prow-griffin claws a hold.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>It steals to seaward silently;<br /> +Strange fish-folk follow thro’ the gloom;<br /> +Great wings flap overhead; I see<br /> +The Castle of the Drowsy Doom<br /> +Vague thro’ the changeless twilight loom,<br /> +Enchanted, hushed. And ever there<br /> +She slumbers in eternal bloom,<br /> +Her cushions hid with golden hair.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +133</span><span class="GutSmall">XV</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There</span> is a wheel +inside my head<br /> + Of wantonness and wine,<br /> + An old, cracked fiddle is begging +without,<br /> +But the wind with scents of the sea is fed,<br /> + And the sun seems glad to shine.</p> +<p class="poetry">The sun and the wind are akin to you,<br /> + As you are akin to June.<br /> + But the fiddle! . . . It giggles +and twitters about,<br /> +And, love and laughter! who gave him the cue?—<br /> + He’s playing your favourite tune.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +134</span><span class="GutSmall">XVI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">While</span> the west is +paling<br /> + Starshine is begun.<br /> +While the dusk is failing<br /> + Glimmers up the sun.</p> +<p class="poetry">So, till darkness cover<br /> + Life’s retreating gleam,<br /> +Lover follows lover,<br /> + Dream succeeds to dream.</p> +<p class="poetry">Stoop to my endeavour,<br /> + O my love, and be<br /> +Only and for ever<br /> + Sun and stars to me.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +135</span><span class="GutSmall">XVII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> sands are alive +with sunshine,<br /> + The bathers lounge and throng,<br /> +And out in the bay a bugle<br /> + Is lilting a gallant song.</p> +<p class="poetry">The clouds go racing eastward,<br /> + The blithe wind cannot rest,<br /> +And a shard on the shingle flashes<br /> + Like the shining soul of a jest;</p> +<p class="poetry">While children romp in the surges,<br /> + And sweethearts wander free,<br /> +And the Firth as with laughter dimples . . .<br /> + I would it were deep over me!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1875</p> +<h3><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span><span class="GutSmall">XVIII</span><br /> +<i>To</i> A. D.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> nightingale has +a lyre of gold,<br /> + The lark’s is a clarion-call,<br /> +And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,<br /> + But I love him best of all.</p> +<p class="poetry">For his song is all of the joy of life,<br /> + And we in the mad, spring weather,<br /> +We two have listened till he sang<br /> + Our hearts and lips together.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span><span class="GutSmall">XIX</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Your</span> heart has +trembled to my tongue,<br /> + Your hands in mine have lain,<br /> +Your thought to me has leaned and clung,<br /> + + +Again and yet again,<br /> + + +My dear,<br /> + + +Again and yet again.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now die the dream, or come the wife,<br /> + The past is not in vain,<br /> +For wholly as it was your life<br /> + + +Can never be again,<br /> + + +My dear,<br /> + + +Can never be again.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span><span class="GutSmall">XX</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> surges gushed +and sounded,<br /> + The blue was the blue of June,<br /> +And low above the brightening east<br /> + Floated a shred of moon.</p> +<p class="poetry">The woods were black and solemn,<br /> + The night winds large and free,<br /> +And in your thought a blessing seemed<br /> + To fall on land and sea.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1877</p> +<h3><a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +139</span><span class="GutSmall">XXI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> flash across the +level.<br /> + We thunder thro’ the bridges.<br /> +We bicker down the cuttings.<br /> + We sway along the ridges.</p> +<p class="poetry">A rush of streaming hedges,<br /> + Of jostling lights and shadows,<br /> +Of hurtling, hurrying stations,<br /> + Of racing woods and meadows.</p> +<p class="poetry">We charge the tunnels headlong—<br /> + The blackness roars and shatters.<br /> +We crash between embankments—<br /> + The open spins and scatters.</p> +<p class="poetry">We shake off the miles like water,<br /> + We might carry a royal ransom;<br /> +And I think of her waiting, waiting,<br /> + And long for a common hansom.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +140</span><span class="GutSmall">XXII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> West a +glimmering lake of light,<br /> + A dream of pearly weather,<br /> +The first of stars is burning white—<br /> + The star we watch together.<br /> +Is April dead? The unresting year<br /> + Will shape us our September,<br /> +And April’s work is done, my dear—<br /> + Do you not remember?</p> +<p class="poetry">O gracious eve! O happy star,<br /> + Still-flashing, glowing, sinking!—<br /> +Who lives of lovers near or far<br /> + So glad as I in thinking?<br /> +The gallant world is warm and green,<br /> + For May fulfils November.<br /> +When lights and leaves and loves have been,<br /> + Sweet, will you remember?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +141</span>O star benignant and serene,<br /> + I take the good to-morrow,<br /> +That fills from verge to verge my dream,<br /> + With all its joy and sorrow!<br /> +The old, sweet spell is unforgot<br /> + That turns to June December;<br /> +And, tho’ the world remembered not,<br /> + Love, we would remember.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +142</span><span class="GutSmall">XXIII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> skies are strown +with stars,<br /> + The streets are fresh with dew<br /> +A thin moon drifts to westward,<br /> +The night is hushed and cheerful.<br /> + My thought is quick with you.</p> +<p class="poetry">Near windows gleam and laugh,<br /> + And far away a train<br /> +Clanks glowing through the stillness:<br /> +A great content’s in all things,<br /> + And life is not in vain.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1877</p> +<h3><a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +143</span><span class="GutSmall">XXIV</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> full sea rolls +and thunders<br /> + In glory and in glee.<br /> +O, bury me not in the senseless earth<br /> + But in the living sea!</p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, bury me where it surges<br /> + A thousand miles from shore,<br /> +And in its brotherly unrest<br /> + I’ll range for evermore.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +144</span><span class="GutSmall">XXV</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> the year +that’s come and gone, love, his flying feather<br /> +Stooping slowly, gave us heart, and bade us walk together.<br /> +In the year that’s coming on, though many a troth be +broken,<br /> +We at least will not forget aught that love hath spoken.</p> +<p class="poetry">In the year that’s come and gone, dear, +we wove a tether<br /> +All of gracious words and thoughts, binding two together.<br /> +In the year that’s coming on with its wealth of roses<br /> +We shall weave it stronger, yet, ere the circle closes.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +145</span>In the year that’s come and gone, in the golden +weather,<br /> +Sweet, my sweet, we swore to keep the watch of life together.<br +/> +In the year that’s coming on, rich in joy and sorrow,<br /> +We shall light our lamp, and wait life’s mysterious +morrow.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1877</p> +<h3><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span><span class="GutSmall">XXVI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> the placid summer +midnight,<br /> + Under the drowsy sky,<br /> +I seem to hear in the stillness<br /> + The moths go glimmering by.</p> +<p class="poetry">One by one from the windows<br /> + The lights have all been sped.<br /> +Never a blind looks conscious—<br /> + The street is asleep in bed!</p> +<p class="poetry">But I come where a living casement<br /> + Laughs luminous and wide;<br /> +I hear the song of a piano<br /> + Break in a sparkling tide;</p> +<p class="poetry">And I feel, in the waltz that frolics<br /> + And warbles swift and clear,<br /> +A sudden sense of shelter<br /> + And friendliness and cheer . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +147</span>A sense of tinkling glasses,<br /> + Of love and laughter and light—<br /> +The piano stops, and the window<br /> + Stares blank out into the night.</p> +<p class="poetry">The blind goes out, and I wander<br /> + To the old, unfriendly sea,<br /> +The lonelier for the memory<br /> + That walks like a ghost with me.</p> +<h3><a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +148</span><span class="GutSmall">XXVII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">She</span> sauntered by the +swinging seas,<br /> + A jewel glittered at her ear,<br /> +And, teasing her along, the breeze<br /> + Brought many a rounded grace more near.</p> +<p class="poetry">So passing, one with wave and beam,<br /> + She left for memory to caress<br /> +A laughing thought, a golden gleam,<br /> + A hint of hidden loveliness.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +149</span><span class="GutSmall">XXVIII</span><br /> +<i>To</i> S. C.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Blithe</span> dreams arise +to greet us,<br /> + And life feels clean and new,<br /> +For the old love comes to meet us<br /> + In the dawning and the dew.<br /> +O’erblown with sunny shadows,<br /> + O’ersped with winds at play,<br /> +The woodlands and the meadows<br /> + Are keeping holiday.<br /> +Wild foals are scampering, neighing,<br /> + Brave merles their hautboys blow:<br /> +Come! let us go a-maying<br /> + As in the Long-Ago.</p> +<p class="poetry">Here we but peak and dwindle:<br /> + The clank of chain and crane,<br /> +The whir of crank and spindle<br /> + Bewilder heart and brain;<br /> +<a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>The ends +of our endeavour<br /> + Are merely wealth and fame,<br /> +Yet in the still Forever<br /> + We’re one and all the same;<br /> +Delaying, still delaying,<br /> + We watch the fading west:<br /> +Come! let us go a-maying,<br /> + Nor fear to take the best.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet beautiful and spacious<br /> + The wise, old world appears.<br /> +Yet frank and fair and gracious<br /> + Outlaugh the jocund years.<br /> +Our arguments disputing,<br /> + The universal Pan<br /> +Still wanders fluting—fluting—<br /> + Fluting to maid and man.<br /> +Our weary well-a-waying<br /> + His music cannot still:<br /> +Come! let us go a-maying,<br /> + And pipe with him our fill.</p> +<p class="poetry">When wanton winds are flowing<br /> + Among the gladdening glass;<br /> +<a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 151</span>Where +hawthorn brakes are blowing,<br /> + And meadow perfumes pass;<br /> +Where morning’s grace is greenest,<br /> + And fullest noon’s of pride;<br /> +Where sunset spreads serenest,<br /> + And sacred night’s most wide;<br /> +Where nests are swaying, swaying,<br /> + And spring’s fresh voices call,<br /> +Come! let us go a-maying,<br /> + And bless the God of all!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1878</p> +<h3><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +152</span><span class="GutSmall">XXIX</span><br /> +<i>To</i> R. L. S.</h3> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">child</span>,<br /> +Curious and innocent,<br /> +Slips from his Nurse, and rejoicing<br /> +Loses himself in the Fair.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thro’ the jostle and din<br /> +Wandering, he revels,<br /> +Dreaming, desiring, possessing;<br /> +Till, of a sudden<br /> +Tired and afraid, he beholds<br /> +The sordid assemblage<br /> +Just as it is; and he runs<br /> +With a sob to his Nurse<br /> +(Lighting at last on him),<br /> +And in her motherly bosom<br /> +Cries him to sleep.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +153</span>Thus thro’ the World,<br /> +Seeing and feeling and knowing,<br /> +Goes Man: till at last,<br /> +Tired of experience, he turns<br /> +To the friendly and comforting breast<br /> +Of the old nurse, Death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +154</span><span class="GutSmall">XXX</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Kate-a-Whimsies</span>, +John-a-Dreams,<br /> + Still debating, still delay,<br /> +And the world’s a ghost that gleams—<br /> + Wavers—vanishes away!</p> +<p class="poetry">We must live while live we can;<br /> + We should love while love we may.<br /> +Dread in women, doubt in man . . .<br /> + So the Infinite runs away.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +155</span><span class="GutSmall">XXXI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">O, <span class="smcap">have</span> you blessed, +behind the stars,<br /> + The blue sheen in the skies,<br /> +When June the roses round her calls?—<br /> +Then do you know the light that falls<br /> + From her belovèd eyes.</p> +<p class="poetry">And have you felt the sense of peace<br /> + That morning meadows give?—<br /> +Then do you know the spirit of grace,<br /> +The angel abiding in her face,<br /> + Who makes it good to live.</p> +<p class="poetry">She shines before me, hope and dream,<br /> + So fair, so still, so wise,<br /> +That, winning her, I seem to win<br /> +Out of the dust and drive and din<br /> + A nook of Paradise.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1877</p> +<h3><a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +156</span><span class="GutSmall">XXXII</span><br /> +<i>To</i> D. H.</h3> +<p class="poetry">O, <span class="smcap">Falmouth</span> is a +fine town with ships in the bay,<br /> +And I wish from my heart it’s there I was to-day;<br /> +I wish from my heart I was far away from here,<br /> +Sitting in my parlour and talking to my dear.<br /> + For it’s home, dearie, +home—it’s home I want to be.<br /> + Our topsails are hoisted, and +we’ll away to sea.<br /> + O, the oak and the ash and the +bonnie birken tree<br /> + They’re all growing green in +the old countrie.</p> +<p class="poetry">In Baltimore a-walking a lady I did meet<br /> +With her babe on her arm, as she came down the street;<br /> +And I thought how I sailed, and the cradle standing ready<br /> +For the pretty little babe that has never seen its daddie.<br /> + And it’s home, dearie, home +. . .</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span>O, if it be a lass, she shall wear a golden ring;<br /> +And if it be a lad, he shall fight for his king:<br /> +With his dirk and his hat and his little jacket blue<br /> +He shall walk the quarter-deck as his daddie used to do.<br /> + And it’s home, dearie, home +. . .</p> +<p class="poetry">O, there’s a wind a-blowing, a-blowing +from the west,<br /> +And that of all the winds is the one I like the best,<br /> +For it blows at our backs, and it shakes our pennon free,<br /> +And it soon will blow us home to the old countrie.<br /> + For it’s home, dearie, +home—it’s home I want to be.<br /> + Our topsails are hoisted, and +we’ll away to sea.<br /> + O, the oak and the ash and the +bonnie birken tree<br /> + They’re all growing green in +the old countrie.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1878</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">Note</span>.—The burthen and the third stanza +are old.</p> +<h3><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +158</span><span class="GutSmall">XXXIII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> ways are green +with the gladdening sheen<br /> + Of the young year’s fairest daughter.<br /> +O, the shadows that fleet o’er the springing wheat!<br /> + O, the magic of running water!<br /> +The spirit of spring is in every thing,<br /> + The banners of spring are streaming,<br /> +We march to a tune from the fifes of June,<br /> + And life’s a dream worth dreaming.</p> +<p class="poetry">It’s all very well to sit and spell<br /> + At the lesson there’s no gainsaying;<br /> +But what the deuce are wont and use<br /> + When the whole mad world’s a-maying?<br /> +When the meadow glows, and the orchard snows,<br /> + And the air’s with love-motes teeming,<br /> +When fancies break, and the senses wake,<br /> + O, life’s a dream worth dreaming!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +159</span>What Nature has writ with her lusty wit<br /> + Is worded so wisely and kindly<br /> +That whoever has dipped in her manuscript<br /> + Must up and follow her blindly.<br /> +Now the summer prime is her blithest rhyme<br /> + In the being and the seeming,<br /> +And they that have heard the overword<br /> + Know life’s a dream worth dreaming.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1878</p> +<h3><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +160</span><span class="GutSmall">XXXIV</span><br /> +<i>To</i> K. de M.</h3> +<blockquote><p><i>Love blows as the wind blows</i>,<br /> +<i>Love blows into the heart</i>.—<span class="smcap">Nile +Boat-Song</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Life</span> in her creaking +shoes<br /> +Goes, and more formal grows,<br /> +A round of calls and cues:<br /> +Love blows as the wind blows.<br /> +Blows! . . . in the quiet close<br /> +As in the roaring mart,<br /> +By ways no mortal knows<br /> +Love blows into the heart.</p> +<p class="poetry">The stars some cadence use,<br /> +Forthright the river flows,<br /> +In order fall the dews,<br /> +Love blows as the wind blows:<br /> +Blows! . . . and what reckoning shows<br /> +The courses of his chart?<br /> +A spirit that comes and goes,<br /> +Love blows into the heart.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1878</p> +<h3><a name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +161</span><span class="GutSmall">XXXV</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">I. M.</span><br /> +MARGARITÆ SORORI<br /> +(1886)</h3> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">late</span> lark twitters +from the quiet skies;<br /> +And from the west,<br /> +Where the sun, his day’s work ended,<br /> +Lingers as in content,<br /> +There falls on the old, grey city<br /> +An influence luminous and serene,<br /> +A shining peace.</p> +<p class="poetry">The smoke ascends<br /> +In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires<br /> +Shine, and are changed. In the valley<br /> +Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,<br /> +Closing his benediction,<br /> +<a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 162</span>Sinks, +and the darkening air<br /> +Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night—<br /> +Night with her train of stars<br /> +And her great gift of sleep.</p> +<p class="poetry">So be my passing!<br /> +My task accomplished and the long day done,<br /> +My wages taken, and in my heart<br /> +Some late lark singing,<br /> +Let me be gathered to the quiet west,<br /> +The sundown splendid and serene,<br /> +Death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1876</p> +<h3><a name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +163</span><span class="GutSmall">XXXVI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">gave</span> my heart to a +woman—<br /> + I gave it her, branch and root.<br /> +She bruised, she wrung, she tortured,<br /> + She cast it under foot.</p> +<p class="poetry">Under her feet she cast it,<br /> + She trampled it where it fell,<br /> +She broke it all to pieces,<br /> + And each was a clot of hell.</p> +<p class="poetry">There in the rain and the sunshine<br /> + They lay and smouldered long;<br /> +And each, when again she viewed them,<br /> + Had turned to a living song.</p> +<h3><a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +164</span><span class="GutSmall">XXXVII</span><br /> +<i>To</i> W. A.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Or</span> ever the knightly +years were gone<br /> + With the old world to the grave,<br /> +I was a King in Babylon<br /> + And you were a Christian Slave.</p> +<p class="poetry">I saw, I took, I cast you by,<br /> + I bent and broke your pride.<br /> +You loved me well, or I heard them lie,<br /> + But your longing was denied.<br /> +Surely I knew that by and by<br /> + You cursed your gods and died.</p> +<p class="poetry">And a myriad suns have set and shone<br /> + Since then upon the grave<br /> +Decreed by the King in Babylon<br /> + To her that had been his Slave.</p> +<p class="poetry">The pride I trampled is now my scathe,<br /> + For it tramples me again.<br /> +<a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 165</span>The old +resentment lasts like death,<br /> + For you love, yet you refrain.<br /> +I break my heart on your hard unfaith,<br /> + And I break my heart in vain.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet not for an hour do I wish undone<br /> + The deed beyond the grave,<br /> +When I was a King in Babylon<br /> + And you were a Virgin Slave.</p> +<h3><a name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +166</span><span class="GutSmall">XXXVIII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">On</span> the way to +Kew,<br /> +By the river old and gray,<br /> +Where in the Long Ago<br /> +We laughed and loitered so,<br /> +I met a ghost to-day,<br /> +A ghost that told of you—<br /> +A ghost of low replies<br /> +And sweet, inscrutable eyes<br /> +Coming up from Richmond<br /> +As you used to do.</p> +<p class="poetry">By the river old and gray,<br /> +The enchanted Long Ago<br /> +Murmured and smiled anew.<br /> +On the way to Kew,<br /> +March had the laugh of May,<br /> +The bare boughs looked aglow,<br /> +And old, immortal words<br /> +Sang in my breast like birds,<br /> +Coming up from Richmond<br /> +As I used with you.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +167</span>With the life of Long Ago<br /> +Lived my thought of you.<br /> +By the river old and gray<br /> +Flowing his appointed way<br /> +As I watched I knew<br /> +What is so good to know—<br /> +Not in vain, not in vain,<br /> +Shall I look for you again<br /> +Coming up from Richmond<br /> +On the way to Kew.</p> +<h3><a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +168</span><span class="GutSmall">XXXIX</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> Past was goodly +once, and yet, when all is said,<br /> +The best of it we know is that it’s done and dead.</p> +<p class="poetry">Dwindled and faded quite, perished beyond +recall,<br /> +Nothing is left at last of what one time was all.</p> +<p class="poetry">Coming back like a ghost, staring and lingering +on,<br /> +Never a word it speaks but proves it dead and gone.</p> +<p class="poetry">Duty and work and joy—these things it +cannot give;<br /> +And the Present is life, and life is good to live.</p> +<p class="poetry">Let it lie where it fell, far from the living +sun,<br /> +The Past that, goodly once, is gone and dead and done.</p> +<h3><a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +169</span><span class="GutSmall">XL</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> spring, my +dear,<br /> +Is no longer spring.<br /> +Does the blackbird sing<br /> +What he sang last year?<br /> +Are the skies the old<br /> +Immemorial blue?<br /> +Or am I, or are you,<br /> +Grown cold?</p> +<p class="poetry">Though life be change,<br /> +It is hard to bear<br /> +When the old sweet air<br /> +Sounds forced and strange.<br /> +To be out of tune,<br /> +Plain You and I . . .<br /> +It were better to die,<br /> +And soon!</p> +<h3><a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +170</span><span class="GutSmall">XLVI</span><br /> +<i>To</i> R. A. M. S.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><i>The Spirit of Wine</i><br /> +<i>Sang in my glass</i>, <i>and I listened</i><br /> +<i>With love to his odorous music</i>,<br /> +<i>His flushed and magnificent song</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">—‘I am health, I am heart, I am +life!<br /> +For I give for the asking<br /> +The fire of my father, the Sun,<br /> +And the strength of my mother, the Earth.<br /> +Inspiration in essence,<br /> +I am wisdom and wit to the wise,<br /> +His visible muse to the poet,<br /> +The soul of desire to the lover,<br /> +The genius of laughter to all.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Come, lean on me, ye that are weary!<br +/> +Rise, ye faint-hearted and doubting!<br /> +Haste, ye that lag by the way!<br /> +I am Pride, the consoler;<br /> +<a name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>Valour +and Hope are my henchmen;<br /> +I am the Angel of Rest.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘I am life, I am wealth, I am fame:<br /> +For I captain an army<br /> +Of shining and generous dreams;<br /> +And mine, too, all mine, are the keys<br /> +Of that secret spiritual shrine,<br /> +Where, his work-a-day soul put by,<br /> +Shut in with his saint of saints—<br /> +With his radiant and conquering self—<br /> +Man worships, and talks, and is glad.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Come, sit with me, ye that are +lovely,<br /> +Ye that are paid with disdain,<br /> +Ye that are chained and would soar!<br /> +I am beauty and love;<br /> +I am friendship, the comforter;<br /> +I am that which forgives and forgets.’—</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>The Spirit of Wine</i><br /> +<i>Sang in my heart</i>, <i>and I triumphed</i><br /> +<i>In the savour and scent of his music</i>,<br /> +<i>His magnetic and mastering song</i>.</p> +<h3><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span><span class="GutSmall">XLII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">wink</span> from Hesper, +falling<br /> + Fast in the wintry sky,<br /> +Comes through the even blue,<br /> +Dear, like a word from you . . .<br /> + Is it good-bye?</p> +<p class="poetry">Across the miles between us<br /> + I send you sigh for sigh.<br /> +Good-night, sweet friend, good-night:<br /> +Till life and all take flight,<br /> + Never good-bye.</p> +<h3><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +173</span><span class="GutSmall">XLII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Friends</span> . . . old +friends . . .<br /> +One sees how it ends.<br /> +A woman looks<br /> +Or a man tells lies,<br /> +And the pleasant brooks<br /> +And the quiet skies,<br /> +Ruined with brawling<br /> +And caterwauling,<br /> +Enchant no more<br /> +As they did before.<br /> +And so it ends<br /> +With friends.</p> +<p class="poetry">Friends . . . old friends . . .<br /> +And what if it ends?<br /> +Shall we dare to shirk<br /> +What we live to learn?<br /> +It has done its work,<br /> +It has served its turn;<br /> +And, forgive and forget<br /> +Or hanker and fret,<br /> +<a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>We can +be no more<br /> +As we were before.<br /> +When it ends, it ends<br /> +With friends.</p> +<p class="poetry">Friends . . . old friends . . .<br /> +So it breaks, so it ends.<br /> +There let it rest!<br /> +It has fought and won,<br /> +And is still the best<br /> +That either has done.<br /> +Each as he stands<br /> +The work of its hands,<br /> +Which shall be more<br /> +As he was before? . . .<br /> +What is it ends<br /> +With friends?</p> +<h3><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +175</span><span class="GutSmall">XLIV</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">If</span> it should come to +be,<br /> +This proof of you and me,<br /> + This type and sign<br /> +Of hours that smiled and shone,<br /> +And yet seemed dead and gone<br /> + As old-world wine:</p> +<p class="poetry">Of Them Within the Gate<br /> +Ask we no richer fate,<br /> + No boon above,<br /> +For girl child or for boy,<br /> +My gift of life and joy,<br /> + Your gift of love.</p> +<h3><a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +176</span><span class="GutSmall">XLV</span><br /> +<i>To</i> W. B.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">From</span> the brake the +Nightingale<br /> + Sings exulting to the Rose;<br /> +Though he sees her waxing pale<br /> + In her passionate repose,<br /> +While she triumphs waxing frail,<br /> + Fading even while she glows;<br /> + Though he +knows<br /> + How it +goes—<br /> +Knows of last year’s Nightingale<br /> + Dead with last year’s Rose.</p> +<p class="poetry">Wise the enamoured Nightingale,<br /> + Wise the well-belovèd Rose!<br /> +Love and life shall still prevail,<br /> + Nor the silence at the close<br /> +Break the magic of the tale<br /> + In the telling, though it shows—<br /> + <a +name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span>Who but +knows<br /> + How it +goes!—<br /> +Life a last year’s Nightingale,<br /> + Love a last year’s Rose.</p> +<h3><a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +178</span><span class="GutSmall">XLVI</span><br /> +MATRI DILECTISSIMÆ<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">I. M.</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> the waste hour<br +/> +Between to-day and yesterday<br /> +We watched, while on my arm—<br /> +Living flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone—<br /> +Dabbled in sweat the sacred head<br /> +Lay uncomplaining, still, contemptuous, strange:<br /> +Till the dear face turned dead,<br /> +And to a sound of lamentation<br /> +The good, heroic soul with all its wealth—<br /> +Its sixty years of love and sacrifice,<br /> +Suffering and passionate faith—was reabsorbed<br /> +In the inexorable Peace,<br /> +And life was changed to us for evermore.</p> +<p class="poetry">Was nothing left of her but tears<br /> +Like blood-drops from the heart?<br /> +<a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>Nought +save remorse<br /> +For duty unfulfilled, justice undone,<br /> +And charity ignored? Nothing but love,<br /> +Forgiveness, reconcilement, where in truth,<br /> +But for this passing<br /> +Into the unimaginable abyss<br /> +These things had never been?</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, there were we,<br /> +Her five strong sons!<br /> +To her Death came—the great Deliverer came!—<br /> +As equal comes to equal, throne to throne.<br /> +She was a mother of men.</p> +<p class="poetry">The stars shine as of old. The unchanging +River,<br /> +Bent on his errand of immortal law,<br /> +Works his appointed way<br /> +To the immemorial sea.<br /> +And the brave truth comes overwhelmingly home:—<br /> +That she in us yet works and shines,<br /> +Lives and fulfils herself,<br /> +Unending as the river and the stars.</p> +<p class="poetry">Dearest, live on<br /> +In such an immortality<br /> +<a name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>As we +thy sons,<br /> +Born of thy body and nursed<br /> +At those wild, faithful breasts,<br /> +Can give—of generous thoughts,<br /> +And honourable words, and deeds<br /> +That make men half in love with fate!<br /> +Live on, O brave and true,<br /> +In us thy children, in ours whose life is thine—<br /> +Our best and theirs! What is that best but thee—<br +/> +Thee, and thy gift to us, to pass<br /> +Like light along the infinite of space<br /> +To the immitigable end?</p> +<p class="poetry">Between the river and the stars,<br /> +O royal and radiant soul,<br /> +Thou dost return, thine influences return<br /> +Upon thy children as in life, and death<br /> +Turns stingless! What is Death<br /> +But Life in act? How should the Unteeming Grave<br /> +Be victor over thee,<br /> +Mother, a mother of men?</p> +<h3><a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +181</span><span class="GutSmall">XLVII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Crosses</span> and troubles +a-many have proved me.<br /> +One or two women (God bless them!) have loved me.<br /> +I have worked and dreamed, and I’ve talked at will.<br /> +Of art and drink I have had my fill.<br /> +I’ve comforted here, and I’ve succoured there.<br /> +I’ve faced my foes, and I’ve backed my friends.<br /> +I’ve blundered, and sometimes made amends.<br /> +I have prayed for light, and I’ve known despair.<br /> +Now I look before, as I look behind,<br /> +Come storm, come shine, whatever befall,<br /> +With a grateful heart and a constant mind,<br /> +For the end I know is the best of all.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1888–1889</p> +<h2><a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +183</span>LONDON VOLUNTARIES</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">(<i>To</i> Charles Whibley)</p> +<p style="text-align: right">1890–1892</p> +<h3><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +185</span><span class="GutSmall">I</span><br /> +<i>Grave</i></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">St. Margaret’s</span> +bells,<br /> +Quiring their innocent, old-world canticles,<br /> +Sing in the storied air,<br /> +All rosy-and-golden, as with memories<br /> +Of woods at evensong, and sands and seas<br /> +Disconsolate for that the night is nigh.<br /> +O, the low, lingering lights! The large last gleam<br /> +(Hark! how those brazen choristers cry and call!)<br /> +Touching these solemn ancientries, and there,<br /> +The silent River ranging tide-mark high<br /> +And the callow, grey-faced Hospital,<br /> +With the strange glimmer and glamour of a dream!<br /> +The Sabbath peace is in the slumbrous trees,<br /> +And from the wistful, the fast-widowing sky<br /> +(Hark! how those plangent comforters call and cry!)<br /> +Falls as in August plots late roseleaves fall.<br /> +The sober Sabbath stir—<br /> +<a name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +186</span>Leisurely voices, desultory feet!—<br /> +Comes from the dry, dust-coloured street,<br /> +Where in their summer frocks the girls go by,<br /> +And sweethearts lean and loiter and confer,<br /> +Just as they did an hundred years ago,<br /> +Just as an hundred years to come they will:—<br /> +When you and I, Dear Love, lie lost and low,<br /> +And sweet-throats none our welkin shall fulfil,<br /> +Nor any sunset fade serene and slow;<br /> +But, being dead, we shall not grieve to die.</p> +<h3><a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +187</span><span class="GutSmall">II</span><br /> +<i>Andante con moto</i></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Forth</span> from the dust +and din,<br /> +The crush, the heat, the many-spotted glare,<br /> +The odour and sense of life and lust aflare,<br /> +The wrangle and jangle of unrests,<br /> +Let us take horse, Dear Heart, take horse and win—<br /> +As from swart August to the green lap of May—<br /> +To quietness and the fresh and fragrant breasts<br /> +Of the still, delicious night, not yet aware<br /> +In any of her innumerable nests<br /> +Of that first sudden plash of dawn,<br /> +Clear, sapphirine, luminous, large,<br /> +Which tells that soon the flowing springs of day<br /> +In deep and ever deeper eddies drawn<br /> +Forward and up, in wider and wider way,<br /> +Shall float the sands, and brim the shores,<br /> +<a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>On this +our lith of the World, as round it roars<br /> +And spins into the outlook of the Sun<br /> +(The Lord’s first gift, the Lord’s especial +charge),<br /> +With light, with living light, from marge to marge<br /> +Until the course He set and staked be run.</p> +<p class="poetry">Through street and square, through square and +street,<br /> +Each with his home-grown quality of dark<br /> +And violated silence, loud and fleet,<br /> +Waylaid by a merry ghost at every lamp,<br /> +The hansom wheels and plunges. Hark, O, hark,<br /> +Sweet, how the old mare’s bit and chain<br /> +Ring back a rough refrain<br /> +Upon the marked and cheerful tramp<br /> +Of her four shoes! Here is the Park,<br /> +And O, the languid midsummer wafts adust,<br /> +The tired midsummer blooms!<br /> +O, the mysterious distances, the glooms<br /> +Romantic, the august<br /> +And solemn shapes! At night this City of Trees<br /> +Turns to a tryst of vague and strange<br /> +And monstrous Majesties,<br /> +<a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>Let +loose from some dim underworld to range<br /> +These terrene vistas till their twilight sets:<br /> +When, dispossessed of wonderfulness, they stand<br /> +Beggared and common, plain to all the land<br /> +For stooks of leaves! And lo! the Wizard Hour,<br /> +His silent, shining sorcery winged with power!<br /> +Still, still the streets, between their carcanets<br /> +Of linking gold, are avenues of sleep.<br /> +But see how gable ends and parapets<br /> +In gradual beauty and significance<br /> +Emerge! And did you hear<br /> +That little twitter-and-cheep,<br /> +Breaking inordinately loud and clear<br /> +On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere?<br /> +’Tis a first nest at matins! And behold<br /> +A rakehell cat—how furtive and acold!<br /> +A spent witch homing from some infamous dance—<br /> +Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade<br /> +Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade!<br /> +And now! a little wind and shy,<br /> +The smell of ships (that earnest of romance),<br /> +A sense of space and water, and thereby<br /> +A lamplit bridge ouching the troubled sky,<br /> +And look, O, look! a tangle of silver gleams<br /> +<a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 190</span>And +dusky lights, our River and all his dreams,<br /> +His dreams that never save in our deaths can die.</p> +<p class="poetry">What miracle is happening in the air,<br /> +Charging the very texture of the gray<br /> +With something luminous and rare?<br /> +The night goes out like an ill-parcelled fire,<br /> +And, as one lights a candle, it is day.<br /> +The extinguisher, that perks it like a spire<br /> +On the little formal church, is not yet green<br /> +Across the water: but the house-tops nigher,<br /> +The corner-lines, the chimneys—look how clean,<br /> +How new, how naked! See the batch of boats,<br /> +Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam!<br /> +And those are barges that were goblin floats,<br /> +Black, hag-steered, fraught with devilry and dream!<br /> +And in the piles the water frolics clear,<br /> +The ripples into loose rings wander and flee,<br /> +And we—we can behold that could but hear<br /> +The ancient River singing as he goes,<br /> +New-mailed in morning, to the ancient Sea.<br /> +The gas burns lank and jaded in its glass:<br /> +The old Ruffian soon shall yawn himself awake,<br /> +<a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 191</span>And +light his pipe, and shoulder his tools, and take<br /> +His hobnailed way to work!</p> +<p +class="poetry"> Let +us too pass—<br /> +Pass ere the sun leaps and your shadow shows—<br /> +Through these long, blindfold rows<br /> +Of casements staring blind to right and left,<br /> +Each with his gaze turned inward on some piece<br /> +Of life in death’s own likeness—Life bereft<br /> +Of living looks as by the Great Release—<br /> +Pass to an exquisite night’s more exquisite close!</p> +<p class="poetry">Reach upon reach of burial—so they +feel,<br /> +These colonies of dreams! And as we steal<br /> +Homeward together, but for the buxom breeze,<br /> +Fitfully frolicking to heel<br /> +With news of dawn-drenched woods and tumbling seas,<br /> +We might—thus awed, thus lonely that we are—<br /> +Be wandering some dispeopled star,<br /> +Some world of memories and unbroken graves,<br /> +So broods the abounding Silence near and far:<br /> +Till even your footfall craves<br /> +Forgiveness of the majesty it braves.</p> +<h3><a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +192</span><span class="GutSmall">III</span><br /> +<i>Scherzando</i></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Down</span> through the +ancient Strand<br /> +The spirit of October, mild and boon<br /> +And sauntering, takes his way<br /> +This golden end of afternoon,<br /> +As though the corn stood yellow in all the land,<br /> +And the ripe apples dropped to the harvest-moon.</p> +<p class="poetry">Lo! the round sun, half-down the western +slope—<br /> +Seen as along an unglazed telescope—<br /> +Lingers and lolls, loth to be done with day:<br /> +Gifting the long, lean, lanky street<br /> +And its abounding confluences of being<br /> +With aspects generous and bland;<br /> +Making a thousand harnesses to shine<br /> +As with new ore from some enchanted mine,<br /> +And every horse’s coat so full of sheen<br /> +<a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 193</span>He looks +new-tailored, and every ’bus feels clean,<br /> +And never a hansom but is worth the feeing;<br /> +And every jeweller within the pale<br /> +Offers a real Arabian Night for sale;<br /> +And even the roar<br /> +Of the strong streams of toil, that pause and pour<br /> +Eastward and westward, sounds suffused—<br /> +Seems as it were bemused<br /> +And blurred, and like the speech<br /> +Of lazy seas on a lotus-haunted beach—<br /> +With this enchanted lustrousness,<br /> +This mellow magic, that (as a man’s caress<br /> +Brings back to some faded face, beloved before,<br /> +A heavenly shadow of the grace it wore<br /> +Ere the poor eyes were minded to beseech)<br /> +Old things transfigures, and you hail and bless<br /> +Their looks of long-lapsed loveliness once more:<br /> +Till Clement’s, angular and cold and staid,<br /> +Gleams forth in glamour’s very stuffs arrayed;<br /> +And Bride’s, her aëry, unsubstantial charm<br /> +Through flight on flight of springing, soaring stone<br /> +Grown flushed and warm,<br /> +Laughs into life full-mooded and fresh-blown;<br /> +And the high majesty of Paul’s<br /> +Uplifts a voice of living light, and calls—<br /> +<a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 194</span>Calls to +his millions to behold and see<br /> +How goodly this his London Town can be!</p> +<p class="poetry">For earth and sky and air<br /> +Are golden everywhere,<br /> +And golden with a gold so suave and fine<br /> +The looking on it lifts the heart like wine.<br /> +Trafalgar Square<br /> +(The fountains volleying golden glaze)<br /> +Shines like an angel-market. High aloft<br /> +Over his couchant Lions, in a haze<br /> +Shimmering and bland and soft,<br /> +A dust of chrysoprase,<br /> +Our Sailor takes the golden gaze<br /> +Of the saluting sun, and flames superb,<br /> +As once he flamed it on his ocean round.<br /> +The dingy dreariness of the picture-place,<br /> +Turned very nearly bright,<br /> +Takes on a luminous transiency of grace,<br /> +And shows no more a scandal to the ground.<br /> +The very blind man pottering on the kerb,<br /> +Among the posies and the ostrich feathers<br /> +And the rude voices touched with all the weathers<br /> +Of the long, varying year,<br /> +Shares in the universal alms of light.<br /> +<a name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 195</span>The +windows, with their fleeting, flickering fires,<br /> +The height and spread of frontage shining sheer,<br /> +The quiring signs, the rejoicing roofs and spires—<br /> +’Tis El Dorado—El Dorado plain,<br /> +The Golden City! And when a girl goes by,<br /> +Look! as she turns her glancing head,<br /> +A call of gold is floated from her ear!<br /> +Golden, all golden! In a golden glory,<br /> +Long-lapsing down a golden coasted sky,<br /> +The day, not dies but, seems<br /> +Dispersed in wafts and drifts of gold, and shed<br /> +Upon a past of golden song and story<br /> +And memories of gold and golden dreams.</p> +<h3><a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +196</span><span class="GutSmall">IV</span><br /> +<i>Largo e mesto</i></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Out</span> of the poisonous +East,<br /> +Over a continent of blight,<br /> +Like a maleficent Influence released<br /> +From the most squalid cellarage of hell,<br /> +The Wind-Fiend, the abominable—<br /> +The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light—<br /> +Comes slouching, sullen and obscene,<br /> +Hard on the skirts of the embittered night;<br /> +And in a cloud unclean<br /> +Of excremental humours, roused to strife<br /> +By the operation of some ruinous change,<br /> +Wherever his evil mandate run and range,<br /> +Into a dire intensity of life,<br /> +A craftsman at his bench, he settles down<br /> +To the grim job of throttling London Town.</p> +<p class="poetry">So, by a jealous lightlessness beset<br /> +That might have oppressed the dragons of old time<br /> +<a name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +197</span>Crunching and groping in the abysmal slime,<br /> +A cave of cut-throat thoughts and villainous dreams,<br /> +Hag-rid and crying with cold and dirt and wet,<br /> +The afflicted City, prone from mark to mark<br /> +In shameful occultation, seems<br /> +A nightmare labyrinthine, dim and drifting,<br /> +With wavering gulfs and antic heights, and shifting,<br /> +Rent in the stuff of a material dark,<br /> +Wherein the lamplight, scattered and sick and pale,<br /> +Shows like the leper’s living blotch of bale:<br /> +Uncoiling monstrous into street on street<br /> +Paven with perils, teeming with mischance,<br /> +Where man and beast go blindfold and in dread,<br /> +Working with oaths and threats and faltering feet<br /> +Somewhither in the hideousness ahead;<br /> +Working through wicked airs and deadly dews<br /> +That make the laden robber grin askance<br /> +At the good places in his black romance,<br /> +And the poor, loitering harlot rather choose<br /> +Go pinched and pined to bed<br /> +Than lurk and shiver and curse her wretched way<br /> +From arch to arch, scouting some threepenny prey.</p> +<p class="poetry">Forgot his dawns and far-flushed afterglows,<br +/> +His green garlands and windy eyots forgot,<br /> +<a name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 198</span>The old +Father-River flows,<br /> +His watchfires cores of menace in the gloom,<br /> +As he came oozing from the Pit, and bore,<br /> +Sunk in his filthily transfigured sides,<br /> +Shoals of dishonoured dead to tumble and rot<br /> +In the squalor of the universal shore:<br /> +His voices sounding through the gruesome air<br /> +As from the Ferry where the Boat of Doom<br /> +With her blaspheming cargo reels and rides:<br /> +The while his children, the brave ships,<br /> +No more adventurous and fair,<br /> +Nor tripping it light of heel as home-bound brides,<br /> +But infamously enchanted,<br /> +Huddle together in the foul eclipse,<br /> +Or feel their course by inches desperately,<br /> +As through a tangle of alleys murder-haunted,<br /> +From sinister reach to reach out—out—to sea.</p> +<p class="poetry">And Death the while—<br /> +Death with his well-worn, lean, professional smile,<br /> +Death in his threadbare working trim—<br /> +Comes to your bedside, unannounced and bland,<br /> +And with expert, inevitable hand<br /> +Feels at your windpipe, fingers you in the lung,<br /> +<a name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 199</span>Or +flicks the clot well into the labouring heart:<br /> +Thus signifying unto old and young,<br /> +However hard of mouth or wild of whim,<br /> +’Tis time—’tis time by his ancient +watch—to part<br /> +From books and women and talk and drink and art.<br /> +And you go humbly after him<br /> +To a mean suburban lodging: on the way<br /> +To what or where<br /> +Not Death, who is old and very wise, can say:<br /> +And you—how should you care<br /> +So long as, unreclaimed of hell,<br /> +The Wind-Fiend, the insufferable,<br /> +Thus vicious and thus patient, sits him down<br /> +To the black job of burking London Town?</p> +<h3><a name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +200</span><span class="GutSmall">V</span><br /> +<i>Allegro maëstoso</i></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Spring</span> winds that +blow<br /> +As over leagues of myrtle-blooms and may;<br /> +Bevies of spring clouds trooping slow,<br /> +Like matrons heavy bosomed and aglow<br /> +With the mild and placid pride of increase! Nay,<br /> +What makes this insolent and comely stream<br /> +Of appetence, this freshet of desire<br /> +(Milk from the wild breasts of the wilful Day!),<br /> +Down Piccadilly dance and murmur and gleam<br /> +In genial wave on wave and gyre on gyre?<br /> +Why does that nymph unparalleled splash and churn<br /> +The wealth of her enchanted urn<br /> +Till, over-billowing all between<br /> +Her cheerful margents, grey and living green,<br /> +It floats and wanders, glittering and fleeing,<br /> +An estuary of the joy of being?<br /> +Why should the lovely leafage of the Park<br /> +Touch to an ecstasy the act of seeing?<br /> +<a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +201</span>—Sure, sure my paramour, my Bride of Brides,<br +/> +Lingering and flushed, mysteriously abides<br /> +In some dim, eye-proof angle of odorous dark,<br /> +Some smiling nook of green-and-golden shade,<br /> +In the divine conviction robed and crowned<br /> +The globe fulfils his immemorial round<br /> +But as the marrying-place of all things made!</p> +<p class="poetry">There is no man, this deifying day,<br /> +But feels the primal blessing in his blood.<br /> +There is no woman but disdains—<br /> +The sacred impulse of the May<br /> +Brightening like sex made sunshine through her veins—<br /> +To vail the ensigns of her womanhood.<br /> +None but, rejoicing, flaunts them as she goes,<br /> +Bounteous in looks of her delicious best,<br /> +On her inviolable quest:<br /> +These with their hopes, with their sweet secrets those,<br /> +But all desirable and frankly fair,<br /> +As each were keeping some most prosperous tryst,<br /> +And in the knowledge went imparadised!<br /> +For look! a magical influence everywhere,<br /> +Look how the liberal and transfiguring air<br /> +<a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>Washes +this inn of memorable meetings,<br /> +This centre of ravishments and gracious greetings,<br /> +Till, through its jocund loveliness of length<br /> +A tidal-race of lust from shore to shore,<br /> +A brimming reach of beauty met with strength,<br /> +It shines and sounds like some miraculous dream,<br /> +Some vision multitudinous and agleam,<br /> +Of happiness as it shall be evermore!</p> +<p class="poetry">Praise God for giving<br /> +Through this His messenger among the days<br /> +His word the life He gave is thrice-worth living!<br /> +For Pan, the bountiful, imperious Pan—<br /> +Not dead, not dead, as impotent dreamers feigned,<br /> +But the gay genius of a million Mays<br /> +Renewing his beneficent endeavour!—<br /> +Still reigns and triumphs, as he hath triumphed and reigned<br /> +Since in the dim blue dawn of time<br /> +The universal ebb-and-flow began,<br /> +To sound his ancient music, and prevails,<br /> +By the persuasion of his mighty rhyme,<br /> +Here in this radiant and immortal street<br /> +Lavishly and omnipotently as ever<br /> +In the open hills, the undissembling dales,<br /> +<a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 203</span>The +laughing-places of the juvenile earth.<br /> +For lo! the wills of man and woman meet,<br /> +Meet and are moved, each unto each endeared,<br /> +As once in Eden’s prodigal bowers befell,<br /> +To share his shameless, elemental mirth<br /> +In one great act of faith: while deep and strong,<br /> +Incomparably nerved and cheered,<br /> +The enormous heart of London joys to beat<br /> +To the measures of his rough, majestic song;<br /> +The lewd, perennial, overmastering spell<br /> +That keeps the rolling universe ensphered,<br /> +And life, and all for which life lives to long,<br /> +Wanton and wondrous and for ever well.</p> +<h2><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +205</span>RHYMES AND RHYTHMS</h2> +<p style="text-align: right">1889–1892</p> +<h3><a name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +207</span><i>PROLOGUE</i></h3> +<p class="poetry"><i>Something is dead</i> . . .<br /> +<i>The grace of sunset solitudes</i>, <i>the march</i><br /> +<i>Of the solitary moon</i>, <i>the pomp and power</i><br /> +<i>Of round on round of shining soldier-stars</i><br /> +<i>Patrolling space</i>, <i>the bounties of the sun</i>—<br +/> +<i>Sovran</i>, <i>tremendous</i>, <i>unimaginable</i>—<br +/> +<i>The multitudinous friendliness of the sea</i>,<br /> +<i>Possess no more—no more</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Something is dead</i> . . .<br /> +<i>The Autumn rain-rot deeper and wider soaks</i><br /> +<i>And spreads</i>, <i>the burden of Winter heavier +weighs</i>,<br /> +<i>His melancholy close and closer yet</i><br /> +<i>Cleaves</i>, <i>and those incantations of the Spring</i><br /> +<i>That made the heart a centre of miracles</i><br /> +<i>Grow formal</i>, <i>and the wonder-working bours</i><br /> +<i>Arise no more—no more</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Something is dead</i> . . .<br /> +<i>’Tis time to creep in close about the fire</i><br /> +<a name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 208</span><i>And +tell grey tales of what we were</i>, <i>and dream</i><br /> +<i>Old dreams and faded</i>, <i>and as we may rejoice</i><br /> +<i>In the young life that round us leaps and laughs</i>,<br /> +<i>A fountain in the sunshine</i>, <i>in the pride</i><br /> +<i>Of God’s best gift that to us twain returns</i>,<br /> +<i>Dear Heart</i>, <i>no more—no more</i>.</p> +<h3><a name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +209</span><span class="GutSmall">I</span><br /> +<i>To</i> H. B. M. W.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Where</span> forlorn +sunsets flare and fade<br /> + On desolate sea and lonely sand,<br /> +Out of the silence and the shade<br /> + What is the voice of strange command<br /> +Calling you still, as friend calls friend<br /> + With love that cannot brook delay,<br /> +To rise and follow the ways that wend<br /> + Over the hills and far away?</p> +<p class="poetry">Hark in the city, street on street<br /> + A roaring reach of death and life,<br /> +Of vortices that clash and fleet<br /> + And ruin in appointed strife,<br /> +Hark to it calling, calling clear,<br /> + Calling until you cannot stay<br /> +From dearer things than your own most dear<br /> + Over the hills and far away.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +210</span>Out of the sound of the ebb-and-flow,<br /> + Out of the sight of lamp and star,<br /> +It calls you where the good winds blow,<br /> + And the unchanging meadows are:<br /> +From faded hopes and hopes agleam,<br /> + It calls you, calls you night and day<br /> +Beyond the dark into the dream<br /> + Over the hills and far away</p> +<h3><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span><span class="GutSmall">II</span><br /> +<i>To</i> R. F. B.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> are the Choice of +the Will: God, when He gave the word<br /> +That called us into line, set in our hand a sword;</p> +<p class="poetry">Set us a sword to wield none else could lift +and draw,<br /> +And bade us forth to the sound of the trumpet of the Law.</p> +<p class="poetry">East and west and north, wherever the battle +grew,<br /> +As men to a feast we fared, the work of the Will to do.</p> +<p class="poetry">Bent upon vast beginnings, bidding anarchy +cease—<br /> +(Had we hacked it to the Pit, we had left it a place of +peace!)—</p> +<p class="poetry">Marching, building, sailing, pillar of cloud or +fire,<br /> +Sons of the Will, we fought the fight of the Will, our sire.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +212</span>Road was never so rough that we left its purpose +dark;<br /> +Stark was ever the sea, but our ships were yet more stark;</p> +<p class="poetry">We tracked the winds of the world to the steps +of their very thrones;<br /> +The secret parts of the world were salted with our bones;</p> +<p class="poetry">Till now the name of names, England, the name +of might,<br /> +Flames from the austral fires to the bounds of the boreal +night;</p> +<p class="poetry">And the call of her morning drum goes in a +girdle of sound,<br /> +Like the voice of the sun in song, the great globe round and +round;</p> +<p class="poetry">And the shadow of her flag, when it shouts to +the mother-breeze,<br /> +Floats from shore to shore of the universal seas;</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +213</span>And the loneliest death is fair with a memory of her +flowers,<br /> +And the end of the road to Hell with the sense of her dews and +showers!</p> +<p class="poetry">Who says that we shall pass, or the fame of us +fade and die,<br /> +While the living stars fulfil their round in the living sky?</p> +<p class="poetry">For the sire lives in his sons, and they pay +their father’s debt,<br /> +And the Lion has left a whelp wherever his claw was set;</p> +<p class="poetry">And the Lion in his whelps, his whelps that +none shall brave,<br /> +Is but less strong than Time and the great, all-whelming +Grave.</p> +<h3><a name="page214"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +214</span><span class="GutSmall">III</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">desolate</span> shore,<br +/> +The sinister seduction of the Moon,<br /> +The menace of the irreclaimable Sea.</p> +<p class="poetry">Flaunting, tawdry and grim,<br /> +From cloud to cloud along her beat,<br /> +Leering her battered and inveterate leer,<br /> +She signals where he prowls in the dark alone,<br /> +Her horrible old man,<br /> +Mumbling old oaths and warming<br /> +His villainous old bones with villainous talk—<br /> +The secrets of their grisly housekeeping<br /> +Since they went out upon the pad<br /> +In the first twilight of self-conscious Time:<br /> +Growling, hideous and hoarse,<br /> +Tales of unnumbered Ships,<br /> +Goodly and strong, Companions of the Advance,<br /> +In some vile alley of the night<br /> +<a name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 215</span>Waylaid +and bludgeoned—<br /> +Dead.</p> +<p class="poetry">Deep cellared in primeval ooze,<br /> +Ruined, dishonoured, spoiled,<br /> +They lie where the lean water-worm<br /> +Crawls free of their secrets, and their broken sides<br /> +Bulge with the slime of life. Thus they abide,<br /> +Thus fouled and desecrate,<br /> +The summons of the Trumpet, and the while<br /> +These Twain, their murderers,<br /> +Unravined, imperturbable, unsubdued,<br /> +Hang at the heels of their children—She aloft<br /> +As in the shining streets,<br /> +He as in ambush at some accomplice door.</p> +<p class="poetry">The stalwart Ships,<br /> +The beautiful and bold adventurers!<br /> +Stationed out yonder in the isle,<br /> +The tall Policeman,<br /> +Flashing his bull’s-eye, as he peers<br /> +About him in the ancient vacancy,<br /> +Tells them this way is safety—this way home.</p> +<h3><a name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +216</span><span class="GutSmall">IV</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">It</span> came with the +threat of a waning moon<br /> + And the wail of an ebbing tide,<br /> +But many a woman has lived for less,<br /> + And many a man has died;<br /> +For life upon life took hold and passed,<br /> + Strong in a fate set free,<br /> +Out of the deep into the dark<br /> + On for the years to be.</p> +<p class="poetry">Between the gloom of a waning moon<br /> + And the song of an ebbing tide,<br /> +Chance upon chance of love and death<br /> + Took wing for the world so wide.<br /> +O, leaf out of leaf is the way of the land,<br /> + Wave out of wave of the sea<br /> +And who shall reckon what lives may live<br /> + In the life that we bade to be?</p> +<h3><a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span><span class="GutSmall">V</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Why</span>, my heart, do we +love her so?<br /> + (Geraldine, Geraldine!)<br /> +Why does the great sea ebb and flow?—<br /> + Why does the round world spin?<br /> +Geraldine, Geraldine,<br /> + Bid me my life renew:<br /> +What is it worth unless I win,<br /> + Love—love and you?</p> +<p class="poetry">Why, my heart, when we speak her name<br /> + (Geraldine, Geraldine!)<br /> +Throbs the word like a flinging flame?—<br /> + Why does the Spring begin?<br /> +Geraldine, Geraldine,<br /> + Bid me indeed to be:<br /> +Open your heart, and take us in,<br /> + Love—love and me.</p> +<h3><a name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +218</span><span class="GutSmall">VI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">One</span> with the ruined +sunset,<br /> + The strange forsaken sands,<br /> +What is it waits, and wanders,<br /> + And signs with desparate hands?</p> +<p class="poetry">What is it calls in the twilight—<br /> + Calls as its chance were vain?<br /> +The cry of a gull sent seaward<br /> + Or the voice of an ancient pain?</p> +<p class="poetry">The red ghost of the sunset,<br /> + It walks them as its own,<br /> +These dreary and desolate reaches . . .<br /> + But O, that it walked alone!</p> +<h3><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +219</span><span class="GutSmall">VII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There’s</span> a +regret<br /> +So grinding, so immitigably sad,<br /> +Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad . . .<br /> +Do you not know it yet?</p> +<p class="poetry">For deeds undone<br /> +Rankle and snarl and hunger for their due,<br /> +Till there seems naught so despicable as you<br /> +In all the grin o’ the sun.</p> +<p class="poetry">Like an old shoe<br /> +The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie<br /> +About the beach of Time, till by and by<br /> +Death, that derides you too—</p> +<p class="poetry">Death, as he goes<br /> +His ragman’s round, espies you, where you stray,<br /> +With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way;<br /> +And then—and then, who knows</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +220</span>But the kind Grave<br /> +Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm,<br /> +In that black bridewell working out his term,<br /> +Hanker and grope and crave?</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Poor fool that might—<br /> +That might, yet would not, dared not, let this be,<br /> +Think of it, here and thus made over to me<br /> +In the implacable night!’</p> +<p class="poetry">And writhing, fain<br /> +And like a triumphing lover, he shall take<br /> +His fill where no high memory lives to make<br /> +His obscene victory vain.</p> +<h3><a name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +221</span><span class="GutSmall">VIII</span><br /> +<i>To</i> A. J. H.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Time</span> and the +Earth—<br /> +The old Father and Mother—<br /> +Their teeming accomplished,<br /> +Their purpose fulfilled,<br /> +Close with a smile<br /> +For a moment of kindness,<br /> +Ere for the winter<br /> +They settle to sleep.</p> +<p class="poetry">Failing yet gracious,<br /> +Slow pacing, soon homing,<br /> +A patriarch that strolls<br /> +Through the tents of his children,<br /> +The Sun, as he journeys<br /> +His round on the lower<br /> +Ascents of the blue,<br /> +Washes the roofs<br /> +<a name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 222</span>And the +hillsides with clarity;<br /> +Charms the dark pools<br /> +Till they break into pictures;<br /> +Scatters magnificent<br /> +Alms to the beggar trees;<br /> +Touches the mist-folk,<br /> +That crowd to his escort,<br /> +Into translucencies<br /> +Radiant and ravishing:<br /> +As with the visible<br /> +Spirit of Summer<br /> +Gloriously vaporised,<br /> +Visioned in gold!</p> +<p class="poetry">Love, though the fallen leaf<br /> +Mark, and the fleeting light<br /> +And the loud, loitering<br /> +Footfall of darkness<br /> +Sign to the heart<br /> +Of the passage of destiny,<br /> +Here is the ghost<br /> +Of a summer that lived for us,<br /> +Here is a promise<br /> +Of summers to be.</p> +<h3><a name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +223</span><span class="GutSmall">IX</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">‘<span class="smcap">As</span> like the +Woman as you can’—<br /> + (<i>Thus the New Adam was beguiled</i>)—<br /> +‘So shall you touch the Perfect Man’—<br /> + (<i>God in the Garden heard and smiled</i>).<br /> +‘Your father perished with his day:<br /> + ‘A clot of passions fierce and blind,<br /> +‘He fought, he hacked, he crushed his way:<br /> + ‘Your muscles, Child, must be of mind.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘The Brute that lurks and irks within,<br +/> + ‘How, till you have him gagged and bound,<br +/> +‘Escape the foullest form of Sin?’<br /> + (<i>God in the Garden laughed and frowned</i>).<br +/> +‘So vile, so rank, the bestial mood<br /> + ‘In which the race is bid to be,<br /> +‘It wrecks the Rarer Womanhood:<br /> + ‘Live, therefore, you, for Purity!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +224</span>‘Take for your mate no gallant croup,<br /> + ‘No girl all grace and natural will:<br /> +‘To work her mission were to stoop,<br /> + ‘Maybe to lapse, from Well to Ill.<br /> +‘Choose one of whom your grosser make’—<br /> + (<i>God in the Garden laughed +outright</i>)—<br /> +‘The true refining touch may take,<br /> + ‘Till both attain to Life’s last +height.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘There, equal, purged of soul and +sense.<br /> + ‘Beneficent, high-thinking, just,<br /> +‘Beyond the appeal of Violence,<br /> + ‘Incapable of common Lust,<br /> +‘In mental Marriage still prevail’—<br /> + (<i>God in the Garden hid His face</i>)—<br /> +‘Till you achieve that Female-Male<br /> + ‘In Which shall culminate the race.’</p> +<h3><a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +225</span><span class="GutSmall">X</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Midsummer</span> midnight +skies,<br /> +Midsummer midnight influences and airs,<br /> +The shining, sensitive silver of the sea<br /> +Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn;<br /> +And all so solemnly still I seem to hear<br /> +The breathing of Life and Death,<br /> +The secular Accomplices,<br /> +Renewing the visible miracle of the world.</p> +<p class="poetry">The wistful stars<br /> +Shine like good memories. The young morning wind<br /> +Blows full of unforgotten hours<br /> +As over a region of roses. Life and Death<br /> +Sound on—sound on . . . And the night magical,<br /> +Troubled yet comforting, thrills<br /> +As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart<br /> +Of the wood’s dark wonderment<br /> +Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks<br /> +With exquisite visitants:<br /> +<a name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 226</span>Words +fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires<br /> +With living looks intolerable, regrets<br /> +Whose voice comes as the voice of an only child<br /> +Heard from the grave: shapes of a Might-Have-Been—<br /> +Beautiful, miserable, distraught—<br /> +The Law no man may baffle denied and slew.</p> +<p class="poetry">The spell-bound ships stand as at gaze<br /> +To let the marvel by. The grey road glooms . . .<br /> +Glimmers . . . goes out . . . and there, O, there where it +fades,<br /> +What grace, what glamour, what wild will,<br /> +Transfigure the shadows? Whose,<br /> +Heart of my heart, Soul of my soul, but yours?</p> +<p class="poetry">Ghosts—ghosts—the sapphirine air<br +/> +Teems with them even to the gleaming ends<br /> +Of the wild day-spring! Ghosts,<br /> +Everywhere—everywhere—till I and you<br /> +At last—dear love, at last!—<br /> +Are in the dreaming, even as Life and Death,<br /> +Twin-ministers of the unoriginal Will.</p> +<h3><a name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +227</span><span class="GutSmall">XI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Gulls</span> in an +aëry morrice<br /> + Gleam and vanish and gleam . . .<br /> +The full sea, sleepily basking,<br /> + Dreams under skies of dream.</p> +<p class="poetry">Gulls in an aëry morrice<br /> + Circle and swoop and close . . .<br /> +Fuller and ever fuller<br /> + The rose of the morning blows.</p> +<p class="poetry">Gulls, in an aëry morrice<br /> + Frolicking, float and fade . . .<br /> +O, the way of a bird in the sunshine,<br /> + The way of a man with a maid!</p> +<h3><a name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +228</span><span class="GutSmall">XII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Some</span> starlit garden +grey with dew,<br /> +Some chamber flushed with wine and fire,<br /> +What matters where, so I and you<br /> + Are worthy our desire?</p> +<p class="poetry">Behind, a past that scolds and jeers<br /> +For ungirt loins and lamps unlit;<br /> +In front, the unmanageable years,<br /> + The trap upon the Pit;</p> +<p class="poetry">Think on the shame of dreams for deeds,<br /> +The scandal of unnatural strife,<br /> +The slur upon immortal needs,<br /> + The treason done to life:</p> +<p class="poetry">Arise! no more a living lie,<br /> +And with me quicken and control<br /> +Some memory that shall magnify<br /> + The universal Soul.</p> +<h3><a name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +229</span><span class="GutSmall">XIII</span><br /> +<i>To</i> James McNeill Whistler</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Under</span> a stagnant +sky,<br /> +Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom,<br /> +The River, jaded and forlorn,<br /> +Welters and wanders wearily—wretchedly—on;<br /> +Yet in and out among the ribs<br /> +Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles<br /> +Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls,<br /> +Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories,<br /> +Lingers to babble to a broken tune<br /> +(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!)<br /> +So melancholy a soliloquy<br /> +It sounds as it might tell<br /> +The secret of the unending grief-in-grain,<br /> +The terror of Time and Change and Death,<br /> +That wastes this floating, transitory world.</p> +<p class="poetry">What of the incantation<br /> +That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore<br /> +<a name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 230</span>To take +and wear the night<br /> +Like a material majesty?<br /> +That touched the shafts of wavering fire<br /> +About this miserable welter and wash—<br /> +(River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!)—<br /> +Into long, shining signals from the panes<br /> +Of an enchanted pleasure-house,<br /> +Where life and life might live life lost in life<br /> +For ever and evermore?</p> +<p class="poetry">O Death! O Change! O Time!<br /> +Without you, O, the insuperable eyes<br /> +Of these poor Might-Have-Beens,<br /> +These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!</p> +<h3><a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +231</span><span class="GutSmall">XIV</span><br /> +<i>To</i> J. A. C.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Fresh</span> from his +fastnesses<br /> +Wholesome and spacious,<br /> +The North Wind, the mad huntsman,<br /> +Halloas on his white hounds<br /> +Over the grey, roaring<br /> +Reaches and ridges,<br /> +The forest of ocean,<br /> +The chace of the world.<br /> +Hark to the peal<br /> +Of the pack in full cry,<br /> +As he thongs them before him,<br /> +Swarming voluminous,<br /> +Weltering, wide-wallowing,<br /> +Till in a ruining<br /> +Chaos of energy,<br /> +<a name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 232</span>Hurled +on their quarry,<br /> +They crash into foam!</p> +<p class="poetry">Old Indefatigable,<br /> +Time’s right-hand man, the sea<br /> +Laughs as in joy<br /> +From his millions of wrinkles:<br /> +Laughs that his destiny,<br /> +Great with the greatness<br /> +Of triumphing order,<br /> +Shows as a dwarf<br /> +By the strength of his heart<br /> +And the might of his hands.</p> +<p class="poetry">Master of masters,<br /> +O maker of heroes,<br /> +Thunder the brave,<br /> +Irresistible message:—<br /> +‘Life is worth Living<br /> +Through every grain of it,<br /> +From the foundations<br /> +To the last edge<br /> +Of the cornerstone, death.’</p> +<h3><a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +233</span><span class="GutSmall">XV</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">You</span> played and sang +a snatch of song,<br /> + A song that all-too well we knew;<br /> +But whither had flown the ancient wrong;<br /> + And was it really I and you?<br /> +O, since the end of life’s to live<br /> + And pay in pence the common debt,<br /> +What should it cost us to forgive<br /> + Whose daily task is to forget?</p> +<p class="poetry">You babbled in the well-known voice—<br +/> + Not new, not new the words you said.<br /> +You touched me off that famous poise,<br /> + That old effect, of neck and head.<br /> +Dear, was it really you and I?<br /> + In truth the riddle’s ill to read,<br /> +So many are the deaths we die<br /> + Before we can be dead indeed.</p> +<h3><a name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +234</span><span class="GutSmall">XVI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Space</span> and dread and +the dark—<br /> +Over a livid stretch of sky<br /> +Cloud-monsters crawling, like a funeral train<br /> +Of huge, primeval presences<br /> +Stooping beneath the weight<br /> +Of some enormous, rudimentary grief;<br /> +While in the haunting loneliness<br /> +The far sea waits and wanders with a sound<br /> +As of the trailing skirts of Destiny,<br /> +Passing unseen<br /> +To some immitigable end<br /> +With her grey henchman, Death.</p> +<p class="poetry">What larve, what spectre is this<br /> +Thrilling the wilderness to life<br /> +As with the bodily shape of Fear?<br /> +What but a desperate sense,<br /> +A strong foreboding of those dim<br /> +Interminable continents, forlorn<br /> +<a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 235</span>And +many-silenced, in a dusk<br /> +Inviolable utterly, and dead<br /> +As the poor dead it huddles and swarms and styes<br /> +In hugger-mugger through eternity?</p> +<p class="poetry">Life—life—let there be life!<br /> +Better a thousand times the roaring hours<br /> +When wave and wind,<br /> +Like the Arch-Murderer in flight<br /> +From the Avenger at his heel,<br /> +Storm through the desolate fastnesses<br /> +And wild waste places of the world!</p> +<p class="poetry">Life—give me life until the end,<br /> +That at the very top of being,<br /> +The battle-spirit shouting in my blood,<br /> +Out of the reddest hell of the fight<br /> +I may be snatched and flung<br /> +Into the everlasting lull,<br /> +The immortal, incommunicable dream.</p> +<h3><a name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +236</span><span class="GutSmall">XVII</span><br /> +CARMEN PATIBULARE<br /> +<i>To</i> H. S.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Tree</span>, Old Tree of +the Triple Crook<br /> + And the rope of the Black Election,<br /> +’Tis the faith of the Fool that a race you rule<br /> + Can never achieve perfection:<br /> +So ‘It’s O, for the time of the new Sublime<br /> + And the better than human way,<br /> +When the Rat (poor beast) shall come to his own<br /> + And the Wolf shall have his day!’</p> +<p class="poetry">For Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Beam<br /> + And the power of provocation,<br /> +You have cockered the Brute with your dreadful fruit<br /> + Till your fruit is mere stupration:<br /> +<a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 237</span>And +‘It’s how should we rise to be pure and wise,<br /> + And how can we choose but fall,<br /> +So long as the Hangman makes us dread,<br /> + And the Noose floats free for all?’</p> +<p class="poetry">So Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Coign<br /> + And the trick there’s no recalling,<br /> +They will haggle and hew till they hack you through<br /> + And at last they lay you sprawling:<br /> +When ‘Hey! for the hour of the race in flower<br /> + And the long good-bye to sin!’<br /> +And for the lack the fires of Hell gone out<br /> + Of the fuel to keep them in!’</p> +<p class="poetry">But Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Bough<br /> + And the ghastly Dreams that tend you,<br /> +Your growth began with the life of Man,<br /> + And only his death can end you.<br /> +They may tug in line at your hempen twine,<br /> + They may flourish with axe and saw;<br /> +But your taproot drinks of the Sacred Springs<br /> + In the living rock of Law.</p> +<p class="poetry">And Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Fork,<br /> + When the spent sun reels and blunders<br /> +<a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>Down a +welkin lit with the flare of the Pit<br /> + As it seethes in spate and thunders,<br /> +Stern on the glare of the tortured air<br /> + Your lines august shall gloom,<br /> +And your master-beam be the last thing whelmed<br /> + In the ruining roar of Doom.</p> +<h3><a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +239</span><span class="GutSmall">XVIII</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">I. M.</span><br /> +MARGARET EMMA HENLEY<br /> +(1888–1894)</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> you wake in +your crib,<br /> +You, an inch of experience—<br /> +Vaulted about<br /> +With the wonder of darkness;<br /> +Wailing and striving<br /> +To reach from your feebleness<br /> +Something you feel<br /> +Will be good to and cherish you,<br /> +Something you know<br /> +And can rest upon blindly:<br /> +O, then a hand<br /> +(Your mother’s, your mother’s!)<br /> +By the fall of its fingers<br /> +All knowledge, all power to you,<br /> +Out of the dreary,<br /> +Discouraging strangenesses<br /> +Comes to and masters you,<br /> +<a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 240</span>Takes +you, and lovingly<br /> +Woos you and soothes you<br /> +Back, as you cling to it,<br /> +Back to some comforting<br /> +Corner of sleep.</p> +<p class="poetry">So you wake in your bed,<br /> +Having lived, having loved;<br /> +But the shadows are there,<br /> +And the world and its kingdoms<br /> +Incredibly faded;<br /> +And you group through the Terror<br /> +Above you and under<br /> +For the light, for the warmth,<br /> +The assurance of life;<br /> +But the blasts are ice-born,<br /> +And your heart is nigh burst<br /> +With the weight of the gloom<br /> +And the stress of your strangled<br /> +And desperate endeavour:<br /> +Sudden a hand—<br /> +Mother, O Mother!—<br /> +God at His best to you,<br /> +Out of the roaring,<br /> +Impossible silences,<br /> +<a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 241</span>Falls on +and urges you,<br /> +Mightily, tenderly,<br /> +Forth, as you clutch at it,<br /> +Forth to the infinite<br /> +Peace of the Grave.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>October</i> 1891</p> +<h3><a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +242</span><span class="GutSmall">XIX</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">I. M.</span><br /> +R. L. S.<br /> +(1850–1894)</h3> +<p class="poetry">O, <span class="smcap">Time</span> and Change, +they range and range<br /> + From sunshine round to thunder!—<br /> +They glance and go as the great winds blow,<br /> + And the best of our dreams drive under:<br /> +For Time and Change estrange, estrange—<br /> + And, now they have looked and seen us,<br /> +O, we that were dear, we are all-too near<br /> + With the thick of the world between us.</p> +<p class="poetry">O, Death and Time, they chime and chime<br /> + Like bells at sunset falling!—<br /> +They end the song, they right the wrong,<br /> + They set the old echoes calling:<br /> +For Death and Time bring on the prime<br /> + Of God’s own chosen weather,<br /> +And we lie in the peace of the Great Release<br /> + As once in the grass together.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>February</i> 1891</p> +<h3><a name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +243</span><span class="GutSmall">XX</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> shadow of +Dawn;<br /> +Stillness and stars and over-mastering dreams<br /> +Of Life and Death and Sleep;<br /> +Heard over gleaming flats, the old, unchanging sound<br /> +Of the old, unchanging Sea.</p> +<p class="poetry">My soul and yours—<br /> +O, hand in hand let us fare forth, two ghosts,<br /> +Into the ghostliness,<br /> +The infinite and abounding solitudes,<br /> +Beyond—O, beyond!—beyond . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">Here in the porch<br /> +Upon the multitudinous silences<br /> +Of the kingdoms of the grave,<br /> +We twain are you and I—two ghosts Omnipotence<br /> +Can touch no more . . . no more!</p> +<h3><a name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +244</span><span class="GutSmall">XXI</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> the wind storms +by with a shout, and the stern sea-caves<br /> +Rejoice in the tramp and the roar of onsetting waves,<br /> +Then, then, it comes home to the heart that the top of life<br /> +Is the passion that burns the blood in the act of +strife—<br /> +Till you pity the dead down there in their quiet graves.</p> +<p class="poetry">But to drowse with the fen behind and the fog +before,<br /> +When the rain-rot spreads and a tame sea mumbles the shore,<br /> +Not to adventure, none to fight, no right and no wrong,<br /> +Sons of the Sword heart-sick for a stave of your sire’s old +song—<br /> +O, you envy the blesséd death that can live no more!</p> +<h3><a name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +245</span><span class="GutSmall">XXII</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Trees</span> and the menace +of night;<br /> +Then a long, lonely, leaden mere<br /> +Backed by a desolate fell,<br /> +As by a spectral battlement; and then,<br /> +Low-brooding, interpenetrating all,<br /> +A vast, gray, listless, inexpressive sky,<br /> +So beggared, so incredibly bereft<br /> +Of starlight and the song of racing worlds,<br /> +It might have bellied down upon the Void<br /> +Where as in terror Light was beginning to be.</p> +<p class="poetry">Hist! In the trees fulfilled of night<br +/> +(Night and the wretchedness of the sky)<br /> +Is it the hurry of the rain?<br /> +Or the noise of a drive of the Dead,<br /> +Streaming before the irresistible Will<br /> +<a name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 246</span>Through +the strange dusk of this, the Debateable Land<br /> +Between their place and ours?</p> +<p class="poetry">Like the forgetfulness<br /> +Of the work-a-day world made visible,<br /> +A mist falls from the melancholy sky.<br /> +A messenger from some lost and loving soul,<br /> +Hopeless, far wandered, dazed<br /> +Here in the provinces of life,<br /> +A great white moth fades miserably past.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thro’ the trees in the strange dead +night,<br /> +Under the vast dead sky,<br /> +Forgetting and forgot, a drift of Dead<br /> +Sets to the mystic mere, the phantom fell,<br /> +And the unimagined vastitudes beyond.</p> +<h3><a name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +247</span><span class="GutSmall">XXIII</span><br /> +<i>To</i> P. A. G.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here</span> they trysted, +here they strayed,<br /> + In the leafage dewy and boon,<br /> +Many a man and many a maid,<br /> + And the morn was merry June.<br /> +‘Death is fleet, Life is sweet,’<br /> + Sang the blackbird in the may;<br /> +And the hour with flying feet,<br /> + While they dreamed, was yesterday.</p> +<p class="poetry">Many a maid and many a man<br /> + Found the leafage close and boon;<br /> +Many a destiny began—<br /> + O, the morn was merry June!<br /> +Dead and gone, dead and gone,<br /> + (Hark the blackbird in the may!),<br /> +Life and Death went hurrying on,<br /> + Cheek on cheek—and where were they?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +248</span>Dust on dust engendering dust<br /> + In the leafage fresh and boon,<br /> +Man and maid fulfil their trust—<br /> + Still the morn turns merry June.<br /> +Mother Life, Father Death<br /> + (O, the blackbird in the may!),<br /> +Each the other’s breath for breath,<br /> + Fleet the times of the world away.</p> +<h3><a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +249</span><span class="GutSmall">XXIV</span><br /> +<i>To</i> A. C.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Not</span> to the staring +Day,<br /> +For all the importunate questionings he pursues<br /> +In his big, violent voice,<br /> +Shall those mild things of bulk and multitude,<br /> +The Trees—God’s sentinels<br /> +Over His gift of live, life-giving air,<br /> +Yield of their huge, unutterable selves.<br /> +Midsummer-manifold, each one<br /> +Voluminous, a labyrinth of life,<br /> +They keep their greenest musings, and the dim dreams<br /> +That haunt their leafier privacies,<br /> +Dissembled, baffling the random gapeseed still<br /> +With blank full-faces, or the innocent guile<br /> +Of laughter flickering back from shine to shade,<br /> +And disappearances of homing birds,<br /> +<a name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 250</span>And +frolicsome freaks<br /> +Of little boughs that frisk with little boughs.</p> +<p class="poetry">But at the word<br /> +Of the ancient, sacerdotal Night,<br /> +Night of the many secrets, whose effect—<br /> +Transfiguring, hierophantic, dread—<br /> +Themselves alone may fully apprehend,<br /> +They tremble and are changed.<br /> +In each, the uncouth individual soul<br /> +Looms forth and glooms<br /> +Essential, and, their bodily presences<br /> +Touched with inordinate significance,<br /> +Wearing the darkness like the livery<br /> +Of some mysterious and tremendous guild,<br /> +They brood—they menace—they appal;<br /> +Or the anguish of prophecy tears them, and they wring<br /> +Wild hands of warning in the face<br /> +Of some inevitable advance of the doom;<br /> +Or, each to the other bending, beckoning, signing<br /> +As in some monstrous market-place,<br /> +They pass the news, these Gossips of the Prime,<br /> +In that old speech their forefathers<br /> +Learned on the lawns of Eden, ere they heard<br /> +<a name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 251</span>The +troubled voice of Eve<br /> +Naming the wondering folk of Paradise.</p> +<p class="poetry">Your sense is sealed, or you should hear them +tell<br /> +The tale of their dim life, with all<br /> +Its compost of experience: how the Sun<br /> +Spreads them their daily feast,<br /> +Sumptuous, of light, firing them as with wine;<br /> +Of the old Moon’s fitful solicitude<br /> +And those mild messages the Stars<br /> +Descend in silver silences and dews;<br /> +Or what the sweet-breathing West,<br /> +Wanton with wading in the swirl of the wheat,<br /> +Said, and their leafage laughed;<br /> +And how the wet-winged Angel of the Rain<br /> +Came whispering . . . whispering; and the gifts of the +Year—<br /> +The sting of the stirring sap<br /> +Under the wizardry of the young-eyed Spring,<br /> +Their summer amplitudes of pomp,<br /> +Their rich autumnal melancholy, and the shrill,<br /> +Embittered housewifery<br /> +Of the lean Winter: all such things,<br /> +And with them all the goodness of the Master,<br /> +<a name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 252</span>Whose +right hand blesses with increase and life,<br /> +Whose left hand honours with decay and death.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus under the constraint of Night<br /> +These gross and simple creatures,<br /> +Each in his scores of rings, which rings are years,<br /> +A servant of the Will!<br /> +And God, the Craftsman, as He walks<br /> +The floor of His workshop, hearkens, full of cheer<br /> +In thus accomplishing<br /> +The aims of His miraculous artistry.</p> +<h3><a name="page253"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +253</span><span class="GutSmall">XXV</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">What</span> have I done for +you,<br /> + England, my England?<br /> +What is there I would not do,<br /> + England, my own?<br /> +With your glorious eyes austere,<br /> +As the Lord were walking near,<br /> +Whispering terrible things and dear<br /> + As the Song on your bugles +blown,<br /> + + +England—<br /> + Round the world on your bugles +blown!</p> +<p class="poetry">Where shall the watchful Sun,<br /> + England, my England,<br /> +Match the master-work you’ve done,<br /> + England, my own?<br /> +When shall he rejoice agen<br /> +Such a breed of mighty men<br /> +As come forward, one to ten,<br /> + To the Song on your bugles +blown,<br /> + + +England—<br /> + Down the years on your bugles +blown?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +254</span>Ever the faith endures,<br /> + England, my England:—<br /> +‘Take and break us: we are yours,<br /> + ‘England, my own!<br /> +‘Life is good, and joy runs high<br /> +‘Between English earth and sky:<br /> +‘Death is death; but we shall die<br /> + ‘To the Song on your bugles +blown,<br /> + + +‘England—<br /> + ‘To the stars on your bugles +blown!</p> +<p class="poetry">They call you proud and hard,<br /> + England, my England:<br /> +You with worlds to watch and ward,<br /> + England, my own!<br /> +You whose mailed hand keeps the keys<br /> +Of such teeming destinies<br /> +You could know nor dread nor ease<br /> + Were the Song on your bugles +blown,<br /> + + +England,<br /> + Round the Pit on your bugles +blown!</p> +<p class="poetry">Mother of Ships whose might,<br /> + England, my England,<br /> +<a name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 255</span>Is the +fierce old Sea’s delight,<br /> + England, my own,<br /> +Chosen daughter of the Lord,<br /> +Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient sword,<br /> +There’s the menace of the Word<br /> + In the Song on your bugles +blown,<br /> + + +England—<br /> + Out of heaven on your bugles +blown!</p> +<h3><a name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +256</span><i>EPILOGUE</i></h3> +<p class="poetry"><i>These</i>, <i>to you now</i>, <i>O</i>, +<i>more than ever now</i>—<br /> +<i>Now that the Ancient Enemy</i><br /> +<i>Has passed</i>, <i>and we</i>, <i>we two that are one</i>, +<i>have seen</i><br /> +<i>A piece of perfect Life</i><br /> +<i>Turn to so ravishing a shape of Death</i><br /> +<i>The Arch-Discomforter might well have smiled</i><br /> +<i>In pity and pride</i>,<br /> +<i>Even as he bore his lovely and innocent spoil</i><br /> +<i>From those home-kingdoms he left desolate</i>!</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Poor windlestraws</i><br /> +<i>On the great</i>, <i>sullen</i>, <i>roaring pool of +Time</i><br /> +<i>And Chance and Change</i>, <i>I know</i>!<br /> +<i>But they are yours</i>, <i>as I am</i>, <i>till we +attain</i><br /> +<i>That end for which me make</i>, <i>we two that are one</i>:<br +/> +<i>A little</i>, <i>exquisite Ghost</i><br /> +<i>Between us</i>, <i>smiling with the serenest eyes</i><br /> +<i>Seen in this world</i>, <i>and calling</i>, <i>calling +still</i><br /> +<i>In that clear voice whose infinite subtleties</i><br /> +<i>Of sweetness</i>, <i>thrilling back across the grave</i>,<br +/> +<i>Break the poor heart to hear</i>:—<br /> + + +‘Come, Dadsie, come!<br /> +Mama, how long—how long!’</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>July</i> 1897.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1568-h.htm or 1568-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/6/1568 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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