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diff --git a/old/pmweh10.txt b/old/pmweh10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d86798 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pmweh10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5502 @@ +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Poems, by William Ernest Henley* +#2 in our series by Henley + +Also see: +Plays of Wm.E. Henley and Stevenson [RLS #34][tpohsxxx.xxx] 719 + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was donated by Diarmuid Pigott <diarmuid@merriweb.com.au> +with some additional material and proofing by David Price, +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +Poems by William Ernest Henley + + + + +Contents: + +Dedication +Advertisement +In Hospital + Preface + Enter Patient + Waiting + Interior + Before + Operation + After + Vigil + Staff-Nurse: Old Style + Lady Probationer + Staff-Nurse: New Style + Clinical + Etching + Casualty + Ave, Caeser! + 'The Chief' + House-Surgeon + Interlude + Children: Private Ward + Srcubber + Visitor + Romance + Pastoral + Music + Suicide + Apparition + Anterotics + Nocturn + Discharged +Envoy +The Song of the Sword +Arabian Nights' Entertainments +Bric-e-Brac + Ballade of the Toyokuni Colour-Print + Ballade of Youth and Age + Ballade of Midsummer Days and Nights + Ballade of Dead Actors + Ballade Made in the Hot Weather + Ballade of Truisms + Double Ballade of Life and Death + Double Ballade of the Nothingness of Things + At Queensferry + Orientale + In Fisherrow + Back-View + Croquis + Attadale, West Highlands + From a Window in Princes Street + In the Dials + The gods are dead + Let us be drunk + When you are old + Beside the idle summer sea + The ways of Death are soothing and serene + We shall surely die + What is to come +Echos + Preface + To my mother + Life is bitter + O, gather me the rose + Out of the night that covers me + I am the Reaper + Praise the generous gods + Fill a glass with golden wine + We'll go no more a-roving + Madam Life's a piece in bloom + The sea is full of wandering foam + Thick is the darkness + To me at my fifth-floor window + Bring her again, O western wind + The wan sun westers, faint and slow + There is a wheel inside my head + While the west is paling + The sands are alive with sunshine + The nightingale has a lyre of gold + Your heart has trembled to my tongue + The surges gushed and sounded + We flash across the level + The West a glimmering lake of light + The skies are strown with stars + The full sea rolls and thunders + In the year that's come and gone + In the placid summer midnight + She sauntered by the swinging seas + Blithe dreams arise to greet us + A child + Kate-A-Whimsies, John-a-Dreams + O, have you blessed, behind the stars + O, Falmouth is a fine town + The ways are green + Life in her creaking shoes + A late lark twitters from the quiet skies + I gave my heart to a woman + Or ever the knightly years were gone + On the way to Kew + The past was goodly once + The spring, my dear + The Spirit of Wine + A Wink from Hesper + Friends. . . old friends + If it should come to be + From the brake the Nightingale + In the waste hour + Crosses and troubles +London Voluntaries + Grave + Andante con Moto + Scherzando + Largo e Mesto + Allegro Maestoso +Rhymes and Rhyhms + Prologue + Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade + We are the Choice of the Will + A desolate shore + It came with the threat of a waning moon + Why, my heart, do we love her so? + One with the ruined sunset + There's a regret + Time and the Earth + As like the Woman as you can + Midsummer midnight skies + Gulls in an aery morrice + Some starlit garden grey with dew + Under a stagnant sky + Fresh from his fastnesses + You played and sang a snatch of song + Space and dread and the dark + Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Crook + When you wake in your crib + O, Time and Change + The shadow of Dawn + When the wind storms by with a shout + Trees and the menace of night + Here they trysted, here they strayed + Not to the staring Day + What have I done for you + Epilogue + + + +DEDICATION--TO MY WIFE + + + +Take, dear, my little sheaf of songs, +For, old or new, +All that is good in them belongs +Only to you; + +And, singing as when all was young, +They will recall +Those others, lived but left unsung - +The bent of all. +W. E. H +APRIL 1888 +SEPTEMBER 1897. + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + + + +My friend and publisher, Mr. Alfred Nutt, asks me to introduce this +re-issue of old work in a new shape. At his request, then, I have +to say that nearly all the numbers contained in the present volume +are reprinted from 'A Book of Verses' (1888) and 'London +Voluntaries' (1892-3). From the first of these I have removed some +copies of verse which seemed to me scarce worth keeping; and I have +recovered for it certain others from those publications which had +made room for them. I have corrected where I could, added such +dates as I might, and, by re-arrangement and revision, done my best +to give my book, such as it is, its final form. If any be +displeased by the result, I can but submit that my verses are my +own, and that this is how I would have them read. + +The work of revision has reminded me that, small as is this book of +mine, it is all in the matter of verse that I have to show for the +years between 1872 and 1897. A principal reason is that, after +spending the better part of my life in the pursuit of poetry, I +found myself (about 1877) so utterly unmarketable that I had to own +myself beaten in art, and to addict myself to journalism for the +next ten years. Came the production by my old friend, Mr. H. B. +Donkin, in his little collection of 'Voluntaries' (1888), compiled +for that East-End Hospital to which he has devoted so much time and +energy and skill, of those unrhyming rhythms in which I had tried to +quintessentialize, as (I believe) one scarce can do in rhyme, my +impressions of the Old Edinburgh Infirmary. They had long since +been rejected by every editor of standing in London--I had well-nigh +said in the world; but as soon as Mr. Nutt had read them, he +entreated me to look for more. I did as I was told; old dusty +sheaves were dragged to light; the work of selection and correction +was begun; I burned much; I found that, after all, the lyrical +instinct had slept--not died; I ventured (in brief) 'A Book of +Verses.' It was received with so much interest that I took heart +once more, and wrote the numbers presently reprinted from 'The +National Observer' in the collection first (1892) called 'The Song +of the Sword' and afterwards (1893), 'London voluntaries.' If I +have said nothing since, it is that I have nothing to say which is +not, as yet, too personal--too personal and too a afflicting--for +utterance. + +For the matter of my book, it is there to speak for itself:- + + +'Here's a sigh to those who love me +And a smile to those who hate.' + + +I refer to it for the simple pleasure of reflecting that it has made +me many friends and some enemies. + +W. E. H. + +Muswell Hill, 4th September 1897. + + + + +IN HOSPITAL + + + + +On ne saurait dire e quel point un homme, +seul dans son lit et malade, devient personnel. - + +BALZAC + + + +I--ENTER PATIENT + + + +The morning mists still haunt the stony street; +The northern summer air is shrill and cold; +And lo, the Hospital, grey, quiet, old, +Where Life and Death like friendly chafferers meet. +Thro' the loud spaciousness and draughty gloom +A small, strange child--so aged yet so young! - +Her little arm besplinted and beslung, +Precedes me gravely to the waiting-room. +I limp behind, my confidence all gone. +The grey-haired soldier-porter waves me on, +And on I crawl, and still my spirits fail: +A tragic meanness seems so to environ +These corridors and stairs of stone and iron, +Cold, naked, clean--half-workhouse and half-jail. + + + +II--WAITING + + + +A square, squat room (a cellar on promotion), +Drab to the soul, drab to the very daylight; +Plasters astray in unnatural-looking tinware; +Scissors and lint and apothecary's jars. + +Here, on a bench a skeleton would writhe from, +Angry and sore, I wait to be admitted: +Wait till my heart is lead upon my stomach, +While at their ease two dressers do their chores. + +One has a probe--it feels to me a crowbar. +A small boy sniffs and shudders after bluestone. +A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers. +Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame. + + + +III--INTERIOR + + + +The gaunt brown walls +Look infinite in their decent meanness. +There is nothing of home in the noisy kettle, +The fulsome fire. + +The atmosphere +Suggests the trail of a ghostly druggist. +Dressings and lint on the long, lean table - +Whom are they for? + +The patients yawn, +Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin. +A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles. +It's grim and strange. + +Far footfalls clank. +The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged. +My neighbour chokes in the clutch of chloral . . . +O, a gruesome world! + + + +IV--BEFORE + + + +Behold me waiting--waiting for the knife. +A little while, and at a leap I storm +The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform, +The drunken dark, the little death-in-life. +The gods are good to me: I have no wife, +No innocent child, to think of as I near +The fateful minute; nothing all-too dear +Unmans me for my bout of passive strife. +Yet am I tremulous and a trifle sick, +And, face to face with chance, I shrink a little: +My hopes are strong, my will is something weak. +Here comes the basket? Thank you. I am ready. +But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle: +You carry Caesar and his fortunes--steady! + + + +V--OPERATION + + + +You are carried in a basket, +Like a carcase from the shambles, +To the theatre, a cockpit +Where they stretch you on a table. + +Then they bid you close your eyelids, +And they mask you with a napkin, +And the anaesthetic reaches +Hot and subtle through your being. + +And you gasp and reel and shudder +In a rushing, swaying rapture, +While the voices at your elbow +Fade--receding--fainter--farther. + +Lights about you shower and tumble, +And your blood seems crystallising - +Edged and vibrant, yet within you +Racked and hurried back and forward. + +Then the lights grow fast and furious, +And you hear a noise of waters, +And you wrestle, blind and dizzy, +In an agony of effort, + +Till a sudden lull accepts you, +And you sound an utter darkness . . . +And awaken . . . with a struggle . . . +On a hushed, attentive audience. + + + +VI--AFTER + + + +Like as a flamelet blanketed in smoke, +So through the anaesthetic shows my life; +So flashes and so fades my thought, at strife +With the strong stupor that I heave and choke +And sicken at, it is so foully sweet. +Faces look strange from space--and disappear. +Far voices, sudden loud, offend my ear - +And hush as sudden. Then my senses fleet: +All were a blank, save for this dull, new pain +That grinds my leg and foot; and brokenly +Time and the place glimpse on to me again; +And, unsurprised, out of uncertainty, +I wake--relapsing--somewhat faint and fain, +To an immense, complacent dreamery. + + + +VII--VIGIL + + + +Lived on one's back, +In the long hours of repose, +Life is a practical nightmare - +Hideous asleep or awake. + +Shoulders and loins +Ache--- -! +Ache, and the mattress, +Run into boulders and hummocks, +Glows like a kiln, while the bedclothes - +Tumbling, importunate, daft - +Ramble and roll, and the gas, +Screwed to its lowermost, +An inevitable atom of light, +Haunts, and a stertorous sleeper +Snores me to hate and despair. + +All the old time +Surges malignant before me; +Old voices, old kisses, old songs +Blossom derisive about me; +While the new days +Pass me in endless procession: +A pageant of shadows +Silently, leeringly wending +On . . . and still on . . . still on! + +Far in the stillness a cat +Languishes loudly. A cinder +Falls, and the shadows +Lurch to the leap of the flame. The next man to me +Turns with a moan; and the snorer, +The drug like a rope at his throat, +Gasps, gurgles, snorts himself free, as the night-nurse, +Noiseless and strange, +Her bull's eye half-lanterned in apron, +(Whispering me, 'Are ye no sleepin' yet?'), +Passes, list-slippered and peering, +Round . . . and is gone. + +Sleep comes at last - +Sleep full of dreams and misgivings - +Broken with brutal and sordid +Voices and sounds that impose on me, +Ere I can wake to it, +The unnatural, intolerable day. + + + +VIII--STAFF-NURSE: OLD STYLE + + + +The greater masters of the commonplace, +REMBRANDT and good SIR WALTER--only these +Could paint her all to you: experienced ease +And antique liveliness and ponderous grace; +The sweet old roses of her sunken face; +The depth and malice of her sly, grey eyes; +The broad Scots tongue that flatters, scolds, defies; +The thick Scots wit that fells you like a mace. +These thirty years has she been nursing here, +Some of them under SYME , her hero still. +Much is she worth, and even more is made of her. +Patients and students hold her very dear. +The doctors love her, tease her, use her skill. +They say 'The Chief' himself is half-afraid of her. + + + +IX--LADY-PROBATIONER + + + +Some three, or five, or seven, and thirty years; +A Roman nose; a dimpling double-chin; +Dark eyes and shy that, ignorant of sin, +Are yet acquainted, it would seem, with tears; +A comely shape; a slim, high-coloured hand, +Graced, rather oddly, with a signet ring; +A bashful air, becoming everything; +A well-bred silence always at command. +Her plain print gown, prim cap, and bright steel chain +Look out of place on her, and I remain +Absorbed in her, as in a pleasant mystery. +Quick, skilful, quiet, soft in speech and touch . . . +'Do you like nursing?' 'Yes, Sir, very much.' +Somehow, I rather think she has a history. + + + +X--STAFF-NURSE: NEW STYLE + + + +Blue-eyed and bright of face but waning fast +Into the sere of virginal decay, +I view her as she enters, day by day, +As a sweet sunset almost overpast. +Kindly and calm, patrician to the last, +Superbly falls her gown of sober gray, +And on her chignon's elegant array +The plainest cap is somehow touched with caste. +She talks BEETHOVEN; frowns disapprobation +At BALZAC'S name, sighs it at 'poor GEORGE SAND'S'; +Knows that she has exceeding pretty hands; +Speaks Latin with a right accentuation; +And gives at need (as one who understands) +Draught, counsel, diagnosis, exhortation. + + + +XI--CLINICAL + + + +Hist? . . . +Through the corridor's echoes, +Louder and nearer +Comes a great shuffling of feet. +Quick, every one of you, +Strighten your quilts, and be decent! +Here's the Professor. + +In he comes first +With the bright look we know, +From the broad, white brows the kind eyes +Soothing yet nerving you. Here at his elbow, +White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse, +Towel on arm and her inkstand +Fretful with quills. +Here in the ruck, anyhow, +Surging along, +Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs - +Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles - +Hustles the Class! And they ring themselves +Round the first bed, where the Chief +(His dressers and clerks at attention), +Bends in inspection already. + +So shows the ring +Seen from behind round a conjurer +Doing his pitch in the street. +High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones, +Round, square, and angular, serry and shove; +While from within a voice, +Gravely and weightily fluent, +Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly +(Look at the stress of the shoulders!) +Out of a quiver of silence, +Over the hiss of the spray, +Comes a low cry, and the sound +Of breath quick intaken through teeth +Clenched in resolve. And the Master +Breaks from the crowd, and goes, +Wiping his hands, +To the next bed, with his pupils +Flocking and whispering behind him. + +Now one can see. +Case Number One +Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes +Stripped up, and showing his foot +(Alas for God's Image!) +Swaddled in wet, white lint +Brilliantly hideous with red. + + + +XII--ETCHING + + + +Two and thirty is the ploughman. +He's a man of gallant inches, +And his hair is close and curly, +And his beard; +But his face is wan and sunken, +And his eyes are large and brilliant, +And his shoulder-blades are sharp, +And his knees. + +He is weak of wits, religious, +Full of sentiment and yearning, +Gentle, faded--with a cough +And a snore. +When his wife (who was a widow, +And is many years his elder) +Fails to write, and that is always, +He desponds. + +Let his melancholy wander, +And he'll tell you pretty stories +Of the women that have wooed him +Long ago; +Or he'll sing of bonnie lasses +Keeping sheep among the heather, +With a crackling, hackling click +In his voice. + + + +XIII--CASUALTY + + + +As with varnish red and glistening +Dripped his hair; his feet looked rigid; +Raised, he settled stiffly sideways: +You could see his hurts were spinal. + +He had fallen from an engine, +And been dragged along the metals. +It was hopeless, and they knew it; +So they covered him, and left him. + +As he lay, by fits half sentient, +Inarticulately moaning, +With his stockinged soles protruded +Stark and awkward from the blankets, + +To his bed there came a woman, +Stood and looked and sighed a little, +And departed without speaking, +As himself a few hours after. + +I was told it was his sweetheart. +They were on the eve of marriage. +She was quiet as a statue, +But her lip was grey and writhen. + + + +XIV--AVE CAESER! + + + +From the winter's grey despair, +From the summer's golden languor, +Death, the lover of Life, +Frees us for ever. + +Inevitable, silent, unseen, +Everywhere always, +Shadow by night and as light in the day, +Signs she at last to her chosen; +And, as she waves them forth, +Sorrow and Joy +Lay by their looks and their voices, +Set down their hopes, and are made +One in the dim Forever. + +Into the winter's grey delight, +Into the summer's golden dream, +Holy and high and impartial, +Death, the mother of Life, +Mingles all men for ever. + + + +XV--'THE CHIEF' + + + +His brow spreads large and placid, and his eye +Is deep and bright, with steady looks that still. +Soft lines of tranquil thought his face fulfill - +His face at once benign and proud and shy. +If envy scout, if ignorance deny, +His faultless patience, his unyielding will, +Beautiful gentleness and splendid skill, +Innumerable gratitudes reply. +His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties, +And seems in all his patients to compel +Such love and faith as failure cannot quell. +We hold him for another Herakles, +Battling with custom, prejudice, disease, +As once the son of Zeus with Death and Hell. + + + +XVI--HOUSE-SURGEON + + + +Exceeding tall, but built so well his height +Half-disappears in flow of chest and limb; +Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim; +Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hearted; always bright +And always punctual--morning, noon, and night; +Bland as a Jesuit, sober as a hymn; +Humorous, and yet without a touch of whim; +Gentle and amiable, yet full of fight. +His piety, though fresh and true in strain, +Has not yet whitewashed up his common mood +To the dead blank of his particular Schism. +Sweet, unaggressive, tolerant, most humane, +Wild artists like his kindly elderhood, +And cultivate his mild Philistinism. + + + +XVII--INTERLUDE + + + +O, the fun, the fun and frolic +That The Wind that Shakes the Barley +Scatters through a penny-whistle +Tickled with artistic fingers! + +Kate the scrubber (forty summers, +Stout but sportive) treads a measure, +Grinning, in herself a ballet, +Fixed as fate upon her audience. + +Stumps are shaking, crutch-supported; +Splinted fingers tap the rhythm; +And a head all helmed with plasters +Wags a measured approbation. + +Of their mattress-life oblivious, +All the patients, brisk and cheerful, +Are encouraging the dancer, +And applauding the musician. + +Dim the gas-lights in the output +Of so many ardent smokers, +Full of shadow lurch the corners, +And the doctor peeps and passes. + +There are, maybe, some suspicions +Of an alcoholic presence . . . +'Tak' a sup of this, my wumman!' . . . +New Year comes but once a twelvemonth. + + + +XVIII--CHILDREN: PRIVATE WARD + + + +Here in this dim, dull, double-bedded room, +I play the father to a brace of boys, +Ailing but apt for every sort of noise, +Bedfast but brilliant yet with health and bloom. +Roden, the Irishman, is 'sieven past,' +Blue-eyed, snub-nosed, chubby, and fair of face. +Willie's but six, and seems to like the place, +A cheerful little collier to the last. +They eat, and laugh, and sing, and fight, all day; +All night they sleep like dormice. See them play +At Operations:- Roden, the Professor, +Saws, lectures, takes the artery up, and ties; +Willie, self-chloroformed, with half-shut eyes, +Holding the limb and moaning--Case and Dresser. + + + +XVIIII--SCRUBBER + + + +She's tall and gaunt, and in her hard, sad face +With flashes of the old fun's animation +There lowers the fixed and peevish resignation +Bred of a past where troubles came apace. +She tells me that her husband, ere he died, +Saw seven of their children pass away, +And never knew the little lass at play +Out on the green, in whom he's deified. +Her kin dispersed, her friends forgot and gone, +All simple faith her honest Irish mind, +Scolding her spoiled young saint, she labours on: +Telling her dreams, taking her patients' part, +Trailing her coat sometimes: and you shall find +No rougher, quainter speech, nor kinder heart. + + + +XX--VISITOR + + + +Her little face is like a walnut shell +With wrinkling lines; her soft, white hair adorns +Her withered brows in quaint, straight curls, like horns; +And all about her clings an old, sweet smell. +Prim is her gown and quakerlike her shawl. +Well might her bonnets have been born on her. +Can you conceive a Fairy Godmother +The subject of a strong religious call? +In snow or shine, from bed to bed she runs, +All twinkling smiles and texts and pious tales, +Her mittened hands, that ever give or pray, +Bearing a sheaf of tracts, a bag of buns: +A wee old maid that sweeps the Bridegroom's way, +Strong in a cheerful trust that never fails. + + + +XXI--ROMANCE + + + +'Talk of pluck!' pursued the Sailor, +Set at euchre on his elbow, +'I was on the wharf at Charleston, +Just ashore from off the runner. + +'It was grey and dirty weather, +And I heard a drum go rolling, +Rub-a-dubbing in the distance, +Awful dour-like and defiant. + +'In and out among the cotton, +Mud, and chains, and stores, and anchors, +Tramped a squad of battered scarecrows - +Poor old Dixie's bottom dollar! + +'Some had shoes, but all had rifles, +Them that wasn't bald was beardless, +And the drum was rolling Dixie, +And they stepped to it like men, sir! + +'Rags and tatters, belts and bayonets, +On they swung, the drum a-rolling, +Mum and sour. It looked like fighting, +And they meant it too, by thunder!' + + + +XXII--PASTORAL + + + +It's the Spring. +Earth has conceived, and her bosom, +Teeming with summer, is glad. + +Vistas of change and adventure, +Thro' the green land +The grey roads go beckoning and winding, +Peopled with wains, and melodious +With harness-bells jangling: +Jangling and twangling rough rhythms +To the slow march of the stately, great horses +Whistled and shouted along. + +White fleets of cloud, +Argosies heavy with fruitfulness, +Sail the blue peacefully. Green flame the hedgerows. +Blackbirds are bugling, and white in wet winds +Sway the tall poplars. +Pageants of colour and fragrance, +Pass the sweet meadows, and viewless +Walks the mild spirit of May, +Visibly blessing the world. + +O, the brilliance of blossoming orchards! +O, the savour and thrill of the woods, +When their leafage is stirred +By the flight of the Angel of Rain! +Loud lows the steer; in the fallows +Rooks are alert; and the brooks +Gurgle and tinkle and trill. Thro' the gloamings, +Under the rare, shy stars, +Boy and girl wander, +Dreaming in darkness and dew. + +It's the Spring. +A sprightliness feeble and squalid +Wakes in the ward, and I sicken, +Impotent, winter at heart. + + + +XXIII--MUSIC + + + +Down the quiet eve, +Thro' my window with the sunset +Pipes to me a distant organ +Foolish ditties; + +And, as when you change +Pictures in a magic lantern, +Books, beds, bottles, floor, and ceiling +Fade and vanish, + +And I'm well once more . . . +August flares adust and torrid, +But my heart is full of April +Sap and sweetness. + +In the quiet eve +I am loitering, longing, dreaming . . . +Dreaming, and a distant organ +Pipes me ditties. + +I can see the shop, +I can smell the sprinkled pavement, +Where she serves--her chestnut chignon +Thrills my senses! + +O, the sight and scent, +Wistful eve and perfumed pavement! +In the distance pipes an organ . . . +The sensation + +Comes to me anew, +And my spirit for a moment +Thro' the music breathes the blessed +Airs of London. + + + +XXIV--SUICIDE + + + +Staring corpselike at the ceiling, +See his harsh, unrazored features, +Ghastly brown against the pillow, +And his throat--so strangely bandaged! + +Lack of work and lack of victuals, +A debauch of smuggled whisky, +And his children in the workhouse +Made the world so black a riddle + +That he plunged for a solution; +And, although his knife was edgeless, +He was sinking fast towards one, +When they came, and found, and saved him. + +Stupid now with shame and sorrow, +In the night I hear him sobbing. +But sometimes he talks a little. +He has told me all his troubles. + +In his broad face, tanned and bloodless, +White and wild his eyeballs glisten; +And his smile, occult and tragic, +Yet so slavish, makes you shudder! + + + +XXV--APPARITION + + + +Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably, +Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face - +Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, +Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea, +The brown eyes radiant with vivacity - +There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, +A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace +Of passion and impudence and energy. +Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, +Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, +Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist: +A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, +Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, +And something of the Shorter-Catechist. + + + +XXVI--ANTEROTICS + + + +Laughs the happy April morn +Thro' my grimy, little window, +And a shaft of sunshine pushes +Thro' the shadows in the square. + +Dogs are tracing thro' the grass, +Crows are cawing round the chimneys, +In and out among the washing +Goes the West at hide-and-seek. + +Loud and cheerful clangs the bell. +Here the nurses troop to breakfast. +Handsome, ugly, all are women . . . +O, the Spring--the Spring--the Spring! + + + +XXVII--NOCTURN + + + +At the barren heart of midnight, +When the shadow shuts and opens +As the loud flames pulse and flutter, +I can hear a cistern leaking. + +Dripping, dropping, in a rhythm, +Rough, unequal, half-melodious, +Like the measures aped from nature +In the infancy of music; + +Like the buzzing of an insect, +Still, irrational, persistent . . . +I must listen, listen, listen +In a passion of attention; + +Till it taps upon my heartstrings, +And my very life goes dripping, +Dropping, dripping, drip-drip-dropping, +In the drip-drop of the cistern. + + + +XXVIII--DISCHARGED + + + +Carry me out +Into the wind and the sunshine, +Into the beautiful world. + +O, the wonder, the spell of the streets! +The stature and strength of the horses, +The rustle and echo of footfalls, +The flat roar and rattle of wheels! +A swift tram floats huge on us . . . +It's a dream? +The smell of the mud in my nostrils +Blows brave--like a breath of the sea! + +As of old, +Ambulant, undulant drapery, +Vaguery and strangely provocative, +Fluttersd and beckons. O, yonder - +Is it?--the gleam of a stocking! +Sudden, a spire +Wedged in the mist! O, the houses, +The long lines of lofty, grey houses, +Cross-hatched with shadow and light! +These are the streets . . . +Each is an avenue leading +Whither I will! + +Free . . . ! +Dizzy, hysterical, faint, +I sit, and the carriage rolls on with me +Into the wonderful world. + +THE OLD INFIRMARY, EDINBURGH, 1873-75 + + + +ENVOY--TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + +Do you remember +That afternoon--that Sunday afternoon! - +When, as the kirks were ringing in, +And the grey city teemed +With Sabbath feelings and aspects, +LEWIS--our LEWIS then, +Now the whole world's--and you, +Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came, +Laden with BALZACS +(Big, yellow books, quite impudently French), +The first of many times +To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay +So long, so many centuries - +Or years is it!--ago? + +Dear CHARLES, since then +We have been friends, LEWIS and you and I, +(How good it sounds, 'LEWIS and you and I!'): +Such friends, I like to think, +That in us three, LEWIS and me and you, +Is something of that gallant dream +Which old DUMAS--the generous, the humane, +The seven-and-seventy times to be forgiven! - +Dreamed for a blessing to the race, +The immortal Musketeers. + +Our ATHOS rests--the wise, the kind, +The liberal and august, his fault atoned, +Rests in the crowded yard +There at the west of Princes Street. We three - +You, I, and LEWIS!--still afoot, +Are still together, and our lives, +In chime so long, may keep +(God bless the thought!) +Unjangled till the end. + +W. E. H. + +CHISWICK, March 1888 + + + +THE SONG OF THE SWORD--TO RUDYARD KIPLING + + + +The Sword +Singing - +The voice of the Sword from the heart of the Sword +Clanging imperious +Forth from Time's battlements +His ancient and triumphing Song. + +In the beginning, +Ere God inspired Himself +Into the clay thing +Thumbed to His image, +The vacant, the naked shell +Soon to be Man: +Thoughtful He pondered it, +Prone there and impotent, +Fragile, inviting +Attack and discomfiture; +Then, with a smile - +As He heard in the Thunder +That laughed over Eden +The voice of the Trumpet, +The iron Beneficence, +Calling his dooms +To the Winds of the world - +Stooping, He drew +On the sand with His finger +A shape for a sign +Of his way to the eyes +That in wonder should waken, +For a proof of His will +To the breaking intelligence. +That was the birth of me: +I am the Sword. + +Bleak and lean, grey and cruel, +Short-hilted, long shafted, +I froze into steel; +And the blood of my elder, +His hand on the hafts of me, +Sprang like a wave +In the wind, as the sense +Of his strength grew to ecstasy; +Glowed like a coal +In the throat of the furnace; +As he knew me and named me +The War-Thing, the Comrade, +Father of honour +And giver of kingship, +The fame-smith, the song-master, +Bringer of women +On fire at his hands +For the pride of fulfilment, +PRIEST (saith the Lord) +OF HIS MARRIAGE WITH VICTORY +Ho! then, the Trumpet, +Handmaid of heroes, +Calling the peers +To the place of espousals! +Ho! then, the splendour +And glare of my ministry, +Clothing the earth +With a livery of lightnings! +Ho! then, the music +Of battles in onset, +And ruining armours, +And God's gift returning +In fury to God! +Thrilling and keen +As the song of the winter stars, +Ho! then, the sound +Of my voice, the implacable +Angel of Destiny! - +I am the Sword. + +Heroes, my children, +Follow, O, follow me! +Follow, exulting +In the great light that breaks +From the sacred Companionship! +Thrust through the fatuous, +Thrust through the fungous brood, +Spawned in my shadow +And gross with my gift! +Thrust through, and hearken +O, hark, to the Trumpet, +The Virgin of Battles, +Calling, still calling you +Into the Presence, +Sons of the Judgment, +Pure wafts of the Will! +Edged to annihilate, +Hilted with government, +Follow, O, follow me, +Till the waste places +All the grey globe over +Ooze, as the honeycomb +Drips, with the sweetness +Distilled of my strength, +And, teeming in peace +Through the wrath of my coming, +They give back in beauty +The dread and the anguish +They had of me visitant! +Follow, O follow, then, +Heroes, my harvesters! +Where the tall grain is ripe +Thrust in your sickles! +Stripped and adust +In a stubble of empire, +Scything and binding +The full sheaves of sovranty: +Thus, O, thus gloriously, +Shall you fulfil yourselves! +Thus, O, thus mightily, +Show yourselves sons of mine - +Yea, and win grace of me: +I am the Sword! + +I am the feast-maker: +Hark, through a noise +Of the screaming of eagles, +Hark how the Trumpet, +The mistress of mistresses, +Calls, silver-throated +And stern, where the tables +Are spread, and the meal +Of the Lord is in hand! +Driving the darkness, +Even as the banners +And spears of the Morning; +Sifting the nations, +The slag from the metal, +The waste and the weak +From the fit and the strong; +Fighting the brute, +The abysmal Fecundity; +Checking the gross, +Multitudinous blunders, +The groping, the purblind +Excesses in service +Of the Womb universal, +The absolute drudge; +Firing the charactry +Carved on the World, +The miraculous gem +In the seal-ring that burns +On the hand of the Master - +Yea! and authority +Flames through the dim, +Unappeasable Grisliness +Prone down the nethermost +Chasms of the Void! - +Clear singing, clean slicing; +Sweet spoken, soft finishing; +Making death beautiful, +Life but a coin +To be staked in the pastime +Whose playing is more +Than the transfer of being; +Arch-anarch, chief builder, +Prince and evangelist, +I am the Will of God: +I am the Sword. + +The Sword +Singing - +The voice of the Sword from the heart of the Sword +Clanging majestical, +As from the starry-staired +Courts of the primal Supremacy, +His high, irresistible song. + + + +ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS -To Elizabeth Robins Pennell + + + +'O mes cheres Mille et Une Nuits!'--Fantasio. + +Once on a time +There was a little boy: a master-mage +By virtue of a Book +Of magic--O, so magical it filled +His life with visionary pomps +Processional! And Powers +Passed with him where he passed. And Thrones +And Dominations, glaived and plumed and mailed, +Thronged in the criss-cross streets, +The palaces pell-mell with playing-fields, +Domes, cloisters, dungeons, caverns, tents, arcades, +Of the unseen, silent City, in his soul +Pavilioned jealously, and hid +As in the dusk, profound, +Green stillnesses of some enchanted mere. - + +I shut mine eyes . . . And lo! +A flickering snatch of memory that floats +Upon the face of a pool of darkness five +And thirty dead years deep, +Antic in girlish broideries +And skirts and silly shoes with straps +And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks +Plain in the shadow of a church +(St. Michael's: in whose brazen call +To curfew his first wails of wrath were whelmed), +Sedate for all his haste +To be at home; and, nestled in his arm, +Inciting still to quiet and solitude, +Boarded in sober drab, +With small, square, agitating cuts +Let in a-top of the double-columned, close, +Quakerlike print, a Book! . . . +What but that blessed brief +Of what is gallantest and best +In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance? +The Book of rocs, +Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris, +Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and calendars, +And ghouls, and genies--O, so huge +They might have overed the tall Minster Tower +Hands down, as schoolboys take a post! +In truth, the Book of Camaralzaman, +Schemselnihar and Sindbad, Scheherezade +The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour, +Cairo and Serendib and Candahar, +And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk - +Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms - +Of Kaf! . . . That centre of miracles, +The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights! + +Old friends I had a-many--kindly and grim +Familiars, cronies quaint +And goblin! Never a Wood but housed +Some morrice of dainty dapperlings. No Brook +But had his nunnery +Of green-haired, silvry-curving sprites, +To cabin in his grots, and pace +His lilied margents. Every lone Hillside +Might open upon Elf-Land. Every Stalk +That curled about a Bean-stick was of the breed +Of that live ladder by whose delicate rungs +You climbed beyond the clouds, and found +The Farm-House where the Ogre, gorged +And drowsy, from his great oak chair, +Among the flitches and pewters at the fire, +Called for his Faery Harp. And in it flew, +And, perching on the kitchen table, sang +Jocund and jubilant, with a sound +Of those gay, golden-vowered madrigals +The shy thrush at mid-May +Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn; +Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still, +In old-world woodlands rapt with an old-world spring, +For Pan's own whistle, savage and rich and lewd, +And mocked him call for call! + +I could not pass +The half-door where the cobbler sat in view +Nor figure me the wizen Leprechaun, +In square-cut, faded reds and buckle-shoes, +Bent at his work in the hedge-side, and know +Just how he tapped his brogue, and twitched +His wax-end this and that way, both with wrists +And elbows. In the rich June fields, +Where the ripe clover drew the bees, +And the tall quakers trembled, and the West Wind +Lolled his half-holiday away +Beside me lolling and lounging through my own, +'Twas good to follow the Miller's Youngest Son +On his white horse along the leafy lanes; +For at his stirrup linked and ran, +Not cynical and trapesing, as he loped +From wall to wall above the espaliers, +But in the bravest tops +That market-town, a town of tops, could show: +Bold, subtle, adventurous, his tail +A banner flaunted in disdain +Of human stratagems and shifts: +King over All the Catlands, present and past +And future, that moustached +Artificer of fortunes, Puss-in-Boots! +Or Bluebeard's Closet, with its plenishing +Of meat-hooks, sawdust, blood, +And wives that hung like fresh-dressed carcases - +Odd-fangled, most a butcher's, part +A faery chamber hazily seen +And hazily figured--on dark afternoons +And windy nights was visiting of the best. +Then, too, the pelt of hoofs +Out in the roaring darkness told +Of Herne the Hunter in his antlered helm +Galloping, as with despatches from the Pit, +Between his hell-born Hounds. +And Rip Van Winkle . . . often I lurked to hear, +Outside the long, low timbered, tarry wall, +The mutter and rumble of the trolling bowls +Down the lean plank, before they fluttered the pins; +For, listening, I could help him play +His wonderful game, +In those blue, booming hills, with Mariners +Refreshed from kegs not coopered in this our world. + +But what were these so near, +So neighbourly fancies to the spell that brought +The run of Ali Baba's Cave +Just for the saying 'Open Sesame,' +With gold to measure, peck by peck, +In round, brown wooden stoups +You borrowed at the chandler's? . . . Or one time +Made you Aladdin's friend at school, +Free of his Garden of Jewels, Ring and Lamp +In perfect trim? . . . Or Ladies, fair +For all the embrowning scars in their white breasts +Went labouring under some dread ordinance, +Which made them whip, and bitterly cry the while, +Strange Curs that cried as they, +Till there was never a Black Bitch of all +Your consorting but might have gone +Spell-driven miserably for crimes +Done in the pride of womanhood and desire . . . +Or at the ghostliest altitudes of night, +While you lay wondering and acold, +Your sense was fearfully purged; and soon +Queen Labe, abominable and dear, +Rose from your side, opened the Box of Doom, +Scattered the yellow powder (which I saw +Like sulphur at the Docks in bulk), +And muttered certain words you could not hear; +And there! a living stream, +The brook you bathed in, with its weeds and flags +And cresses, glittered and sang +Out of the hearthrug over the nakedness, +Fair-scrubbed and decent, of your bedroom floor! . . . + +I was--how many a time! - +That Second Calendar, Son of a King, +On whom 'twas vehemently enjoined, +Pausing at one mysterious door, +To pry no closer, but content his soul +With his kind Forty. Yet I could not rest +For idleness and ungovernable Fate. +And the Black Horse, which fed on sesame +(That wonder-working word!), +Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans, +And soaring, soaring on +From air to air, came charging to the ground +Sheer, like a lark from the midsummer clouds, +And, shaking me out of the saddle, where I sprawled +Flicked at me with his tail, +And left me blinded, miserable, distraught +(Even as I was in deed, +When doctors came, and odious things were done +On my poor tortured eyes +With lancets; or some evil acid stung +And wrung them like hot sand, +And desperately from room to room +Fumble I must my dark, disconsolate way), +To get to Bagdad how I might. But there +I met with Merry Ladies. O you three - +Safie, Amine, Zobeide--when my heart +Forgets you all shall be forgot! +And so we supped, we and the rest, +On wine and roasted lamb, rose-water, dates, +Almonds, pistachios, citrons. And Haroun +Laughed out of his lordly beard +On Giaffar and Mesrour (I knew the Three +For all their Mossoul habits). And outside +The Tigris, flowing swift +Like Severn bend for bend, twinkled and gleamed +With broken and wavering shapes of stranger stars; +The vast, blue night +Was murmurous with peris' plumes +And the leathern wings of genies; words of power +Were whispering; and old fishermen, +Casting their nets with prayer, might draw to shore +Dead loveliness: or a prodigy in scales +Worth in the Caliph's Kitchen pieces of gold: +Or copper vessels, stopped with lead, +Wherein some Squire of Eblis watched and railed, +In durance under potent charactry +Graven by the seal of Solomon the King . . . + +Then, as the Book was glassed +In Life as in some olden mirror's quaint, +Bewildering angles, so would Life +Flash light on light back on the Book; and both +Were changed. Once in a house decayed +From better days, harbouring an errant show +(For all its stories of dry-rot +Were filled with gruesome visitants in wax, +Inhuman, hushed, ghastly with Painted Eyes), +I wandered; and no living soul +Was nearer than the pay-box; and I stared +Upon them staring--staring. Till at last, +Three sets of rafters from the streets, +I strayed upon a mildewed, rat-run room, +With the two Dancers, horrible and obscene, +Guarding the door: and there, in a bedroom-set, +Behind a fence of faded crimson cords, +With an aspect of frills +And dimities and dishonoured privacy +That made you hanker and hesitate to look, +A Woman with her litter of Babes--all slain, +All in their nightgowns, all with Painted Eyes +Staring--still staring; so that I turned and ran +As for my neck, but in the street +Took breath. The same, it seemed, +And yet not all the same, I was to find, +As I went up! For afterwards, +Whenas I went my round alone - +All day alone--in long, stern, silent streets, +Where I might stretch my hand and take +Whatever I would: still there were Shapes of Stone, +Motionless, lifelike, frightening--for the Wrath +Had smitten them; but they watched, +This by her melons and figs, that by his rings +And chains and watches, with the hideous gaze, +The Painted Eyes insufferable, +Now, of those grisly images; and I +Pursued my best-beloved quest, +Thrilled with a novel and delicious fear. +So the night fell--with never a lamplighter; +And through the Palace of the King +I groped among the echoes, and I felt +That they were there, +Dreadfully there, the Painted staring Eyes, +Hall after hall . . . Till lo! from far +A Voice! And in a little while +Two tapers burning! And the Voice, +Heard in the wondrous Word of God, was--whose? +Whose but Zobeide's, +The lady of my heart, like me +A True Believer, and like me +An outcast thousands of leagues beyond the pale! . . . + +Or, sailing to the Isles +Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall +A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew +Swiftly . . . and grew. Tearing their beards, +The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship, +Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad, +Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand, +And, turning broadside on, +As the most iron would, was haled and sucked +Nearer, and nearer yet; +And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps +Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now +That swallowed sea and sky; and then, +Anchors and nails and bolts +Flew screaming out of her, and with clang on clang, +A noise of fifty stithies, caught at the sides +Of the Magnetic Mountain; and she lay, +A broken bundle of firewood, strown piecemeal +About the waters; and her crew +Passed shrieking, one by one; and I was left +To drown. All the long night I swam; +But in the morning, O, the smiling coast +Tufted with date-trees, meadowlike, +Skirted with shelving sands! And a great wave +Cast me ashore; and I was saved alive. +So, giving thanks to God, I dried my clothes, +And, faring inland, in a desert place +I stumbled on an iron ring - +The fellow of fifty built into the Quays: +When, scenting a trap-door, +I dug, and dug; until my biggest blade +Stuck into wood. And then, +The flight of smooth-hewn, easy-falling stairs, +Sunk in the naked rock! The cool, clean vault, +So neat with niche on niche it might have been +Our beer-cellar but for the rows +Of brazen urns (like monstrous chemist's jars) +Full to the wide, squat throats +With gold-dust, but a-top +A layer of pickled-walnut-looking things +I knew for olives! And far, O, far away, +The Princess of China languished! Far away +Was marriage, with a Vizier and a Chief +Of Eunuchs and the privilege +Of going out at night +To play--unkenned, majestical, secure - +Where the old, brown, friendly river shaped +Like Tigris shore for shore! Haply a Ghoul +Sat in the churchyard under a frightened moon, +A thighbone in his fist, and glared +At supper with a Lady: she who took +Her rice with tweezers grain by grain. +Or you might stumble--there by the iron gates +Of the Pump Room--underneath the limes - +Upon Bedreddin in his shirt and drawers, +Just as the civil Genie laid him down. +Or those red-curtained panes, +Whence a tame cornet tenored it throatily +Of beer-pots and spittoons and new long pipes, +Might turn a caravansery's, wherein +You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk, +And that fair Persian, bathed in tears, +You'd not have given away +For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous +You had that dark and disleaved afternoon +Escaped on a roc's claw, +Disguised like Sindbad--but in Christmas beef! +And all the blissful while +The schoolboy satchel at your hip +Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze +Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn +From over Caspian: yea, the Chief Jewellers +Of Tartary and the bazaars, +Seething with traffic, of enormous Ind. - + +Thus cried, thus called aloud, to the child heart +The magian East: thus the child eyes +Spelled out the wizard message by the light +Of the sober, workaday hours +They saw, week in week out, pass, and still pass +In the sleepy Minster City, folded kind +In ancient Severn's arm, +Amongst her water-meadows and her docks, +Whose floating populace of ships - +Galliots and luggers, light-heeled brigantines, +Bluff barques and rake-hell fore-and-afters--brought +To her very doorsteps and geraniums +The scents of the World's End; the calls +That may not be gainsaid to rise and ride +Like fire on some high errand of the race; +The irresistible appeals +For comradeship that sound +Steadily from the irresistible sea. +Thus the East laughed and whispered, and the tale, +Telling itself anew +In terms of living, labouring life, +Took on the colours, busked it in the wear +Of life that lived and laboured; and Romance, +The Angel-Playmate, raining down +His golden influences +On all I saw, and all I dreamed and did, +Walked with me arm in arm, +Or left me, as one bediademed with straws +And bits of glass, to gladden at my heart +Who had the gift to seek and feel and find +His fiery-hearted presence everywhere. +Even so dear Hesper, bringer of all good things, +Sends the same silver dews +Of happiness down her dim, delighted skies +On some poor collier-hamlet--(mound on mound +Of sifted squalor; here a soot-throated stalk +Sullenly smoking over a row +Of flat-faced hovels; black in the gritty air +A web of rails and wheels and beams; with strings +Of hurtling, tipping trams) - +As on the amorous nightingales +And roses of Shiraz, or the walls and towers +Of Samarcand--the Ineffable--whence you espy +The splendour of Ginnistan's embattled spears, +Like listed lightnings. +Samarcand! +That name of names! That star-vaned belvedere +Builded against the Chambers of the South! +That outpost on the Infinite! +And behold! +Questing therefrom, you knew not what wild tide +Might overtake you: for one fringe, +One suburb, is stablished on firm earth; but one +Floats founded vague +In lubberlands delectable--isles of palm +And lotus, fortunate mains, far-shimmering seas, +The promise of wistful hills - +The shining, shifting Sovranties of Dream. + + + + +BRIC-A-BRAC + + + + +'The tune of the time.'--HAMLET, concerning OSRIC + + + +BALLADE OF A TOYOKUNI COLOUR-PRINT--To W. A. + + + +Was I a Samurai renowned, +Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow? +A histrion angular and profound? +A priest? a porter?--Child, although +I have forgotten clean, I know +That in the shade of Fujisan, +What time the cherry-orchards blow, +I loved you once in old Japan. + +As here you loiter, flowing-gowned +And hugely sashed, with pins a-row +Your quaint head as with flamelets crowned, +Demure, inviting--even so, +When merry maids in Miyako +To feel the sweet o' the year began, +And green gardens to overflow, +I loved you once in old Japan. + +Clear shine the hills; the rice-fields round +Two cranes are circling; sleepy and slow, +A blue canal the lake's blue bound +Breaks at the bamboo bridge; and lo! +Touched with the sundown's spirit and glow, +I see you turn, with flirted fan, +Against the plum-tree's bloomy snow . . . +I loved you once in old Japan! + +Envoy + +Dear, 'twas a dozen lives ago; +But that I was a lucky man +The Toyokuni here will show: +I loved you--once--in old Japan. + + + +BALLADE (DOUBLE REFRAIN) OF YOUTH AND AGE--I. M. Thomas Edward Brown +(1829-1896) + + + +Spring at her height on a morn at prime, +Sails that laugh from a flying squall, +Pomp of harmony, rapture of rhyme - +Youth is the sign of them, one and all. +Winter sunsets and leaves that fall, +An empty flagon, a folded page, +A tumble-down wheel, a tattered ball - +These are a type of the world of Age. + +Bells that clash in a gaudy chime, +Swords that clatter in onsets tall, +The words that ring and the fames that climb - +Youth is the sign of them, one and all. +Hymnals old in a dusty stall, +A bald, blind bird in a crazy cage, +The scene of a faded festival - +These are a type of the world of Age. + +Hours that strut as the heirs of time, +Deeds whose rumour's a clarion-call, +Songs where the singers their souls sublime - +Youth is the sign of them, one and all. +A staff that rests in a nook of wall, +A reeling battle, a rusted gage, +The chant of a nearing funeral - +These are a type of the world of Age. + +Envoy + +Struggle and turmoil, revel and brawl - +Youth is the sign of them, one and all. +A smouldering hearth and a silent stage - +These are a type of the world of Age. + + + +BALLADE (DOUBLE REFRAIN) OF MIDSUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS--To W. H. + + + +With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams +The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise, +And the winds are one with the clouds and beams - +Midsummer days! Midsummer days! +The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze, +While the West from a rapture of sunset rights, +Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise - +Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! + +The wood's green heart is a nest of dreams, +The lush grass thickens and springs and sways, +The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams - +Midsummer days! Midsummer days! +In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways, +All secret shadows and mystic lights, +Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze - +Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! + +There's a music of bells from the trampling teams, +Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze, +The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams - +Midsummer days! Midsummer days! +A soul from the honeysuckle strays, +And the nightingale as from prophet heights +Sings to the Earth of her million Mays - +Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! + +Envoy + +And it's O, for my dear and the charm that stays - +Midsummer days! Midsummer days! +It's O, for my Love and the dark that plights - +Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! + + + +BALLADE OF DEAD ACTORS--I. M. Edward John Henley (1861-1898) + + + +Where are the passions they essayed, +And where the tears they made to flow? +Where the wild humours they portrayed +For laughing worlds to see and know? +Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe? +Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall? +And Millamant and Romeo? +Into the night go one and all. + +Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed? +The plumes, the armours--friend and foe? +The cloth of gold, the rare brocade, +The mantles glittering to and fro? +The pomp, the pride, the royal show? +The cries of war and festival? +The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow? +Into the night go one and all. + +The curtain falls, the play is played: +The Beggar packs beside the Beau; +The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid; +The Thunder huddles with the Snow. +Where are the revellers high and low? +The clashing swords? The lover's call? +The dancers gleaming row on row? +Into the night go one and all. + +Envoy + +Prince, in one common overthrow +The Hero tumbles with the Thrall: +As dust that drives, as straws that blow, +Into the night go one and all. + + + +BALLADE MADE IN THE HOT WEATHER--To C. M. + + + +Fountains that frisk and sprinkle +The moss they overspill; +Pools that the breezes crinkle; +The wheel beside the mill, +With its wet, weedy frill; +Wind-shadows in the wheat; +A water-cart in the street; +The fringe of foam that girds +An islet's ferneries; +A green sky's minor thirds - +To live, I think of these! + +Of ice and glass the tinkle, +Pellucid, silver-shrill; +Peaches without a wrinkle; +Cherries and snow at will, +From china bowls that fill +The senses with a sweet +Incuriousness of heat; +A melon's dripping sherds; +Cream-clotted strawberries; +Dusk dairies set with curds - +To live, I think of these! + +Vale-lily and periwinkle; +Wet stone-crop on the sill; +The look of leaves a-twinkle +With windlets clear and still; +The feel of a forest rill +That wimples fresh and fleet +About one's naked feet; +The muzzles of drinking herds; +Lush flags and bulrushes; +The chirp of rain-bound birds - +To live, I think of these! + +Envoy + +Dark aisles, new packs of cards, +Mermaidens' tails, cool swards, +Dawn dews and starlit seas, +White marbles, whiter words - +To live, I think of these! + + + +BALLADE OF TRUISMS + + + +Gold or silver, every day, +Dies to gray. +There are knots in every skein. +Hours of work and hours of play +Fade away +Into one immense Inane. +Shadow and substance, chaff and grain, +Are as vain +As the foam or as the spray. +Life goes crooning, faint and fain, +One refrain: +'If it could be always May!' + +Though the earth be green and gay, +Though, they say, +Man the cup of heaven may drain; +Though, his little world to sway, +He display +Hoard on hoard of pith and brain: +Autumn brings a mist and rain +That constrain + +Him and his to know decay, +Where undimmed the lights that wane +Would remain, +If it could be always May. + +YEA, alas, must turn to NAY, +Flesh to clay. +Chance and Time are ever twain. +Men may scoff, and men may pray, +But they pay +Every pleasure with a pain. +Life may soar, and Fortune deign +To explain +Where her prizes hide and stay; +But we lack the lusty train +We should gain, +If it could be always May. + +Envoy + +Time, the pedagogue, his cane +Might retain, +But his charges all would stray +Truanting in every lane - +Jack with Jane - +If it could be always May. + + + +DOUBLE BALLADE OF LIFE AND FATE + + + +Fools may pine, and sots may swill, +Cynics gibe, and prophets rail, +Moralists may scourge and drill, +Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail. +Let them whine, or threat, or wail! +Till the touch of Circumstance +Down to darkness sink the scale, +Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance. + +What if skies be wan and chill? +What if winds be harsh and stale? +Presently the east will thrill, +And the sad and shrunken sail, +Bellying with a kindly gale, +Bear you sunwards, while your chance +Sends you back the hopeful hail:- +'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.' + +Idle shot or coming bill, +Hapless love or broken bail, +Gulp it (never chew your pill!), +And, if Burgundy should fail, +Try the humbler pot of ale! +Over all is heaven's expanse. +Gold's to find among the shale. +Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance. + +Dull Sir Joskin sleeps his fill, +Good Sir Galahad seeks the Grail, +Proud Sir Pertinax flaunts his frill, +Hard Sir AEger dints his mail; +And the while by hill and dale +Tristram's braveries gleam and glance, +And his blithe horn tells its tale:- +'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.' + +Araminta's grand and shrill, +Delia's passionate and frail, +Doris drives an earnest quill, +Athanasia takes the veil: +Wiser Phyllis o'er her pail, +At the heart of all romance +Reading, sings to Strephon's flail:- +'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.' + +Every Jack must have his Jill +(Even Johnson had his Thrale!): +Forward, couples--with a will! +This, the world, is not a jail. +Hear the music, sprat and whale! +Hands across, retire, advance! +Though the doomsman's on your trail, +Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance. + +Envoy + +Boys and girls, at slug and snail +And their kindred look askance. +Pay your footing on the nail: +Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance. + + + +DOUBLE BALLADE OF THE NOTHINGNESS OF THINGS + + + +The big teetotum twirls, +And epochs wax and wane +As chance subsides or swirls; +But of the loss and gain +The sum is always plain. +Read on the mighty pall, +The weed of funeral +That covers praise and blame, +The -isms and the -anities, +Magnificence and shame:- +'O Vanity of Vanities!' + +The Fates are subtile girls! +They give us chaff for grain. +And Time, the Thunderer, hurls, +Like bolted death, disdain +At all that heart and brain +Conceive, or great or small, +Upon this earthly ball. +Would you be knight and dame? +Or woo the sweet humanities? +Or illustrate a name? +O Vanity of Vanities! + +We sound the sea for pearls, +Or drown them in a drain; +We flute it with the merles, +Or tug and sweat and strain; +We grovel, or we reign; +We saunter, or we brawl; +We answer, or we call; +We search the stars for Fame, +Or sink her subterranities; +The legend's still the same:- +'O Vanity of Vanities!' + +Here at the wine one birls, +There some one clanks a chain. +The flag that this man furls +That man to float is fain. +Pleasure gives place to pain: +These in the kennel crawl, +While others take the wall. +SHE has a glorious aim, +HE lives for the inanities. +What comes of every claim? +O Vanity of Vanities! + +Alike are clods and earls. +For sot, and seer, and swain, +For emperors and for churls, +For antidote and bane, +There is but one refrain: +But one for king and thrall, +For David and for Saul, +For fleet of foot and lame, +For pieties and profanities, +The picture and the frame:- +'O Vanity of Vanities!' + +Life is a smoke that curls - +Curls in a flickering skein, +That winds and whisks and whirls +A figment thin and vain, +Into the vast Inane. +One end for hut and hall! +One end for cell and stall! +Burned in one common flame +Are wisdoms and insanities. +For this alone we came:- +'O Vanity of Vanities!' + +Envoy + +Prince, pride must have a fall. +What is the worth of all +Your state's supreme urbanities? +Bad at the best's the game. +Well might the Sage exclaim:- +'O Vanity of Vanities!' + + + +AT QUEENSFERRY--To W. G. S. + + + +The blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean +We bowled along a road that curved a spine +Superbly sinuous and serpentine +Thro' silent symphonies of summer green. +Sudden the Forth came on us--sad of mien, +No cloud to colour it, no breeze to line: +A sheet of dark, dull glass, without a sign +Of life or death, two spits of sand between. +Water and sky merged blank in mist together, +The Fort loomed spectral, and the Guardship's spars +Traced vague, black shadows on the shimmery glaze: +We felt the dim, strange years, the grey, strange weather, +The still, strange land, unvexed of sun or stars, +Where Lancelot rides clanking thro' the haze. + + + +ORIENTALE + + + +She's an enchanting little Israelite, +A world of hidden dimples!--Dusky-eyed, +A starry-glancing daughter of the Bride, +With hair escaped from some Arabian Night, +Her lip is red, her cheek is golden-white, +Her nose a scimitar; and, set aside +The bamboo hat she cocks with so much pride, +Her dress a dream of daintiness and delight. +And when she passes with the dreadful boys +And romping girls, the cockneys loud and crude, +My thought, to the Minories tied yet moved to range +The Land o' the Sun, commingles with the noise +Of magian drums and scents of sandalwood +A touch Sidonian--modern--taking--strange! + + + +IN FISHERROW + + + +A hard north-easter fifty winters long +Has bronzed and shrivelled sere her face and neck; +Her locks are wild and grey, her teeth a wreck; +Her foot is vast, her bowed leg spare and strong. +A wide blue cloak, a squat and sturdy throng +Of curt blue coats, a mutch without a speck, +A white vest broidered black, her person deck, +Nor seems their picked, stern, old-world quaintness wrong. +Her great creel forehead-slung, she wanders nigh, +Easing the heavy strap with gnarled, brown fingers, +The spirit of traffic watchful in her eye, +Ever and anon imploring you to buy, +As looking down the street she onward lingers, +Reproachful, with a strange and doleful cry. + + + +BACK-VIEW--To D. F. + + + +I watched you saunter down the sand: +Serene and large, the golden weather +Flowed radiant round your peacock feather, +And glistered from your jewelled hand. +Your tawny hair, turned strand on strand +And bound with blue ribands together, +Streaked the rough tartan, green like heather, +That round your lissome shoulder spanned. +Your grace was quick my sense to seize: +The quaint looped hat, the twisted tresses, +The close-drawn scarf, and under these +The flowing, flapping draperies - +My thought an outline still caresses, +Enchanting, comic, Japanese! + + + +CROLUIS--To G. W. + + + +The beach was crowded. Pausing now and then, +He groped and fiddled doggedly along, +His worn face glaring on the thoughtless throng +The stony peevishness of sightless men. +He seemed scarce older than his clothes. Again, +Grotesquing thinly many an old sweet song, +So cracked his fiddle, his hand so frail and wrong, +You hardly could distinguish one in ten. +He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand, +And, grasping wearily his bread-winner, +Stared dim towards the blue immensity, +Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand. +He may have slept: he did not speak nor stir: +His gesture spoke a vast despondency. + + + +ATTADALE WEST HIGHLANDS--To A. J. + + + +A black and glassy float, opaque and still, +The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep, +Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep +The calm grey skies; the solemn spurs of hill; +Heather, and corn, and wisps of loitering haze; +The wee white cots, black-hatted, plumed with smoke; +The braes beyond--and when the ripple awoke, +They wavered with the jarred and wavering glaze. +The air was hushed and dreamy. Evermore +A noise of running water whispered near. +A straggling crow called high and thin. A bird +Trilled from the birch-leaves. Round the shingled shore, +Yellow with weed, there wandered, vague and clear, +Strange vowels, mysterious gutturals, idly heard. + + + +FROM A WINDOW IN PRINCES STREET--To M. M. M'B. + + + +Above the Crags that fade and gloom +Starts the bare knee of Arthur's Seat; +Ridged high against the evening bloom, +The Old Town rises, street on street; +With lamps bejewelled, straight ahead, +Like rampired walls the houses lean, +All spired and domed and turreted, +Sheer to the valley's darkling green; +Ranged in mysterious disarray, +The Castle, menacing and austere, +Looms through the lingering last of day; +And in the silver dusk you hear, +Reverberated from crag and scar, +Bold bugles blowing points of war. + + + +IN THE DIALS + + + +To GARRYOWEN upon an organ ground +Two girls are jigging. Riotously they trip, +With eyes aflame, quick bosoms, hand on hip, +As in the tumult of a witches' round. +Youngsters and youngsters round them prance and bound. +Two solemn babes twirl ponderously, and skip. +The artist's teeth gleam from his bearded lip. +High from the kennel howls a tortured hound. +The music reels and hurtles, and the night +Is full of stinks and cries; a naphtha-light +Flares from a barrow; battered and obtused +With vices, wrinkles, life and work and rags, +Each with her inch of clay, two loitering hags +Look on dispassionate--critical--something 'mused. + + +*** + + +The gods are dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows? +Living at least in Lempriere undeleted, +The wise, the fair, the awful, the jocose, +Are one and all, I like to think, retreated +In some still land of lilacs and the rose. + +Once high they sat, and high o'er earthly shows +With sacrificial dance and song were greeted. +Once . . . long ago. But now, the story goes, +The gods are dead. + +It must be true. The world, a world of prose, +Full-crammed with facts, in science swathed and sheeted, +Nods in a stertorous after-dinner doze! +Plangent and sad, in every wind that blows +Who will may hear the sorry words repeated:- +'The Gods are Dead!' + + + +To F. W. + + + +Let us be drunk, and for a while forget, +Forget, and, ceasing even from regret, +Live without reason and despite of rhyme, +As in a dream preposterous and sublime, +Where place and hour and means for once are met. + +Where is the use of effort? Love and debt +And disappointment have us in a net. +Let us break out, and taste the morning prime . . . +Let us be drunk. + +In vain our little hour we strut and fret, +And mouth our wretched parts as for a bet: +We cannot please the tragicaster Time. +To gain the crystal sphere, the silver dime, +Where Sympathy sits dimpling on us yet, +Let us be drunk! + + + +*** + + + +When you are old, and I am passed away - +Passed, and your face, your golden face, is gray - +I think, whate'er the end, this dream of mine, +Comforting you, a friendly star will shine +Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray. + +So may it be: that so dead Yesterday, +No sad-eyed ghost but generous and gay, +May serve you memories like almighty wine, +When you are old! + +Dear Heart, it shall be so. Under the sway +Of death the past's enormous disarray +Lies hushed and dark. Yet though there come no sign, +Live on well pleased: immortal and divine +Love shall still tend you, as God's angels may, +When you are old. + + + +*** + + + +Beside the idle summer sea +And in the vacant summer days, +Light Love came fluting down the ways, +Where you were loitering with me. + +Who has not welcomed, even as we, +That jocund minstrel and his lays +Beside the idle summer sea +And in the vacant summer days? + +We listened, we were fancy-free; +And lo! in terror and amaze +We stood alone--alone at gaze +With an implacable memory +Beside the idle summer sea. + + + +I. M. R. G. C. B. 1878 + + + +The ways of Death are soothing and serene, +And all the words of Death are grave and sweet. +From camp and church, the fireside and the street, +She beckons forth--and strife and song have been. + +A summer night descending cool and green +And dark on daytime's dust and stress and heat, +The ways of Death are soothing and serene, +And all the words of Death are grave and sweet. + +O glad and sorrowful, with triumphant mien +And radiant faces look upon, and greet +This last of all your lovers, and to meet +Her kiss, the Comforter's, your spirit lean . . . +The ways of Death are soothing and serene. + + + +*** + + + +We shall surely die: +Must we needs grow old? +Grow old and cold, +And we know not why? + +O, the By-and-By, +And the tale that's told! +We shall surely die: +Must we needs grow old? + +Grow old and sigh, +Grudge and withhold, +Resent and scold? . . . +Not you and I? +We shall surely die! + + + +*** + + + +What is to come we know not. But we know +That what has been was good--was good to show, +Better to hide, and best of all to bear. +We are the masters of the days that were: +We have lived, we have loved, we have suffered . . . even so. + +Shall we not take the ebb who had the flow? +Life was our friend. Now, if it be our foe - +Dear, though it spoil and break us!--need we care +What is to come? + +Let the great winds their worst and wildest blow, +Or the gold weather round us mellow slow: +We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare +And we can conquer, though we may not share +In the rich quiet of the afterglow +What is to come. + + + + +ECHOES + + + + +Aqui este encerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro Garcias +Gil Blas AU LECTEUR + + + +I--TO MY MOTHER + + + +Chiming a dream by the way +With ocean's rapture and roar, +I met a maiden to-day +Walking alone on the shore: +Walking in maiden wise, +Modest and kind and fair, +The freshness of spring in her eyes +And the fulness of spring in her hair. + +Cloud-shadow and scudding sun-burst +Were swift on the floor of the sea, +And a mad wind was romping its worst, +But what was their magic to me? +Or the charm of the midsummer skies? +I only saw she was there, +A dream of the sea in her eyes +And the kiss of the sea in her hair. + +I watched her vanish in space; +She came where I walked no more; +But something had passed of her grace +To the spell of the wave and the shore; +And now, as the glad stars rise, +She comes to me, rosy and rare, +The delight of the wind in her eyes +And the hand of the wind in her hair. + +1872 + + + +II + + + +Life is bitter. All the faces of the years, +Young and old, are grey with travail and with tears. +Must we only wake to toil, to tire, to weep? +In the sun, among the leaves, upon the flowers, +Slumber stills to dreamy death the heavy hours . . . +Let me sleep. + +Riches won but mock the old, unable years; +Fame's a pearl that hides beneath a sea of tears; +Love must wither, or must live alone and weep. +In the sunshine, through the leaves, across the flowers, +While we slumber, death approaches though the hours! . . . +Let me sleep. + +1872 + + + +III + + + +O, gather me the rose, the rose, +While yet in flower we find it, +For summer smiles, but summer goes, +And winter waits behind it! + +For with the dream foregone, foregone, +The deed forborne for ever, +The worm, regret, will canker on, +And Time will turn him never. + +So well it were to love, my love, +And cheat of any laughter +The fate beneath us and above, +The dark before and after. + +The myrtle and the rose, the rose, +The sunshine and the swallow, +The dream that comes, the wish that goes, +The memories that follow! + +1874 + + + +IV--I. M. To R. T. HAMILTON BRUCE (1846-1899) + + + +Out of the night that covers me, +Black as the Pit from pole to pole, +I thank whatever gods may be +For my unconquerable soul. + +In the fell clutch of circumstance +I have not winced nor cried aloud. +Under the bludgeonings of chance +My head is bloody, but unbowed. + +Beyond this place of wrath and tears +Looms but the Horror of the shade, +And yet the menace of the years +Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. + +It matters not how strait the gate, +How charged with punishments the scroll, +I am the master of my fate: +I am the captain of my soul. + +1875 + + + +V + + + +I am the Reaper. +All things with heedful hook +Silent I gather. +Pale roses touched with the spring, +Tall corn in summer, +Fruits rich with autumn, and frail winter blossoms - +Reaping, still reaping - +All things with heedful hook +Timely I gather. + +I am the Sower. +All the unbodied life +Runs through my seed-sheet. +Atom with atom wed, +Each quickening the other, +Fall through my hands, ever changing, still changeless +Ceaselessly sowing, +Life, incorruptible life, +Flows from my seed-sheet. + +Maker and breaker, +I am the ebb and the flood, +Here and Hereafter. +Sped through the tangle and coil +Of infinite nature, +Viewless and soundless I fashion all being. +Taker and giver, +I am the womb and the grave, +The Now and the Ever. + +1875 + + + +VI + + + +Praise the generous gods for giving +In a world of wrath and strife +With a little time for living, +Unto all the joy of life. + +At whatever source we drink it, +Art or love or faith or wine, +In whatever terms we think it, +It is common and divine. + +Praise the high gods, for in giving +This to man, and this alone, +They have made his chance of living +Shine the equal of their own. + +1875 + + + +VII + + + +Fill a glass with golden wine, +And the while your lips are wet +Set their perfume unto mine, +And forget, +Every kiss we take and give +Leaves us less of life to live. + +Yet again! Your whim and mine +In a happy while have met. +All your sweets to me resign, +Nor regret +That we press with every breath, +Sighed or singing, nearer death. + +1875 + + + +VIII + + + +We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon. +November glooms are barren beside the dusk of June. +The summer flowers are faded, the summer thoughts are sere. +We'll go no more a-roving, lest worse befall, my dear. + +We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon. +The song we sang rings hollow, and heavy runs the tune. +Glad ways and words remembered would shame the wretched year. +We'll go no more a-roving, nor dream we did, my dear. + +We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon. +If yet we walk together, we need not shun the noon. +No sweet thing left to savour, no sad thing left to fear, +We'll go no more a-roving, but weep at home, my dear. + +1875 + + + +IX--To W. R. + + + +Madam Life's a piece in bloom +Death goes dogging everywhere: +She's the tenant of the room, +He's the ruffian on the stair. + +You shall see her as a friend, +You shall bilk him once and twice; +But he'll trap you in the end, +And he'll stick you for her price. + +With his kneebones at your chest, +And his knuckles in your throat, +You would reason--plead--protest! +Clutching at her petticoat; + +But she's heard it all before, +Well she knows you've had your fun, +Gingerly she gains the door, +And your little job is done. + +1877 + + + +X + + + +The sea is full of wandering foam, +The sky of driving cloud; +My restless thoughts among them roam . . . +The night is dark and loud. + +Where are the hours that came to me +So beautiful and bright? +A wild wind shakes the wilder sea . . . +O, dark and loud's the night! + +1876 + + + +XI--To W. R. + + + +Thick is the darkness - +Sunward, O, sunward! +Rough is the highway - +Onward, still onward! + +Dawn harbours surely +East of the shadows. +Facing us somewhere +Spread the sweet meadows. + +Upward and forward! +Time will restore us: +Light is above us, +Rest is before us. + +1876 + + + +XII + + + +To me at my fifth-floor window +The chimney-pots in rows +Are sets of pipes pandean +For every wind that blows; + +And the smoke that whirls and eddies +In a thousand times and keys +Is really a visible music +Set to my reveries. + +O monstrous pipes, melodious +With fitful tune and dream, +The clouds are your only audience, +Her thought is your only theme! + +1875 + + + +XIII + + + +Bring her again, O western wind, +Over the western sea: +Gentle and good and fair and kind, +Bring her again to me! + +Not that her fancy holds me dear, +Not that a hope may be: +Only that I may know her near, +Wind of the western sea. + +1875 + + + +XIV + + + +The wan sun westers, faint and slow; +The eastern distance glimmers gray; +An eerie haze comes creeping low +Across the little, lonely bay; +And from the sky-line far away +About the quiet heaven are spread +Mysterious hints of dying day, +Thin, delicate dreams of green and red. + +And weak, reluctant surges lap +And rustle round and down the strand. +No other sound . . . If it should hap, +The ship that sails from fairy-land! +The silken shrouds with spells are manned, +The hull is magically scrolled, +The squat mast lives, and in the sand +The gold prow-griffin claws a hold. + +It steals to seaward silently; +Strange fish-folk follow thro' the gloom; +Great wings flap overhead; I see +The Castle of the Drowsy Doom +Vague thro' the changeless twilight loom, +Enchanted, hushed. And ever there +She slumbers in eternal bloom, +Her cushions hid with golden hair. + +1875 + + + +XV + + + +There is a wheel inside my head +Of wantonness and wine, +An old, cracked fiddle is begging without, +But the wind with scents of the sea is fed, +And the sun seems glad to shine. + +The sun and the wind are akin to you, +As you are akin to June. +But the fiddle! . . . It giggles and twitters about, +And, love and laughter! who gave him the cue? - +He's playing your favourite tune. + +1875 + + + +XVI + + + +While the west is paling +Starshine is begun. +While the dusk is failing +Glimmers up the sun. + +So, till darkness cover +Life's retreating gleam, +Lover follows lover, +Dream succeeds to dream. + +Stoop to my endeavour, +O my love, and be +Only and for ever +Sun and stars to me. + +1876 + + + +XVII + + + +The sands are alive with sunshine, +The bathers lounge and throng, +And out in the bay a bugle +Is lilting a gallant song. + +The clouds go racing eastward, +The blithe wind cannot rest, +And a shard on the shingle flashes +Like the shining soul of a jest; + +While children romp in the surges, +And sweethearts wander free, +And the Firth as with laughter dimples . . . +I would it were deep over me! + +1875 + + + +XVIII--To A. D. + + + +The nightingale has a lyre of gold, +The lark's is a clarion-call, +And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute, +But I love him best of all. + +For his song is all of the joy of life, +And we in the mad, spring weather, +We two have listened till he sang +Our hearts and lips together. + +1876 + + + +XIX + + + +Your heart has trembled to my tongue, +Your hands in mine have lain, +Your thought to me has leaned and clung, +Again and yet again, +My dear, +Again and yet again. + +Now die the dream, or come the wife, +The past is not in vain, +For wholly as it was your life +Can never be again, +My dear, +Can never be again. + +1876 + + + +XX + + + +The surges gushed and sounded, +The blue was the blue of June, +And low above the brightening east +Floated a shred of moon. + +The woods were black and solemn, +The night winds large and free, +And in your thought a blessing seemed +To fall on land and sea. + +1877 + + + +XXI + + + +We flash across the level. +We thunder thro' the bridges. +We bicker down the cuttings. +We sway along the ridges. + +A rush of streaming hedges, +Of jostling lights and shadows, +Of hurtling, hurrying stations, +Of racing woods and meadows. + +We charge the tunnels headlong - +The blackness roars and shatters. +We crash between embankments - +The open spins and scatters. + +We shake off the miles like water, +We might carry a royal ransom; +And I think of her waiting, waiting, +And long for a common hansom. + +1876 + + + +XXII + + + +The West a glimmering lake of light, +A dream of pearly weather, +The first of stars is burning white - +The star we watch together. +Is April dead? The unresting year +Will shape us our September, +And April's work is done, my dear - +Do you not remember? + +O gracious eve! O happy star, +Still-flashing, glowing, sinking! - +Who lives of lovers near or far +So glad as I in thinking? +The gallant world is warm and green, +For May fulfils November. +When lights and leaves and loves have been, +Sweet, will you remember? + +O star benignant and serene, +I take the good to-morrow, +That fills from verge to verge my dream, +With all its joy and sorrow! +The old, sweet spell is unforgot +That turns to June December; +And, tho' the world remembered not, +Love, we would remember. + +1876 + + + +XXIII + + + +The skies are strown with stars, +The streets are fresh with dew +A thin moon drifts to westward, +The night is hushed and cheerful. +My thought is quick with you. + +Near windows gleam and laugh, +And far away a train +Clanks glowing through the stillness: +A great content's in all things, +And life is not in vain. + +1877 + + + +XXIV + + + +The full sea rolls and thunders +In glory and in glee. +O, bury me not in the senseless earth +But in the living sea! + +Ay, bury me where it surges +A thousand miles from shore, +And in its brotherly unrest +I'll range for evermore. + +1876 + + + +XXV + + + +In the year that's come and gone, love, his flying feather +Stooping slowly, gave us heart, and bade us walk together. +In the year that's coming on, though many a troth be broken, +We at least will not forget aught that love hath spoken. + +In the year that's come and gone, dear, we wove a tether +All of gracious words and thoughts, binding two together. +In the year that's coming on with its wealth of roses +We shall weave it stronger, yet, ere the circle closes. + +In the year that's come and gone, in the golden weather, +Sweet, my sweet, we swore to keep the watch of life together. +In the year that's coming on, rich in joy and sorrow, +We shall light our lamp, and wait life's mysterious morrow. + +1877 + + + +XXVI + + + +In the placid summer midnight, +Under the drowsy sky, +I seem to hear in the stillness +The moths go glimmering by. + +One by one from the windows +The lights have all been sped. +Never a blind looks conscious - +The street is asleep in bed! + +But I come where a living casement +Laughs luminous and wide; +I hear the song of a piano +Break in a sparkling tide; + +And I feel, in the waltz that frolics +And warbles swift and clear, +A sudden sense of shelter +And friendliness and cheer . . . + +A sense of tinkling glasses, +Of love and laughter and light - +The piano stops, and the window +Stares blank out into the night. + +The blind goes out, and I wander +To the old, unfriendly sea, +The lonelier for the memory +That walks like a ghost with me. + + + +XXVII + + + +She sauntered by the swinging seas, +A jewel glittered at her ear, +And, teasing her along, the breeze +Brought many a rounded grace more near. + +So passing, one with wave and beam, +She left for memory to caress +A laughing thought, a golden gleam, +A hint of hidden loveliness. + +1876 + + + +XXVIII--To S. C. + + + +Blithe dreams arise to greet us, +And life feels clean and new, +For the old love comes to meet us +In the dawning and the dew. +O'erblown with sunny shadows, +O'ersped with winds at play, +The woodlands and the meadows +Are keeping holiday. +Wild foals are scampering, neighing, +Brave merles their hautboys blow: +Come! let us go a-maying +As in the Long-Ago. + +Here we but peak and dwindle: +The clank of chain and crane, +The whir of crank and spindle +Bewilder heart and brain; +The ends of our endeavour +Are merely wealth and fame, +Yet in the still Forever +We're one and all the same; +Delaying, still delaying, +We watch the fading west: +Come! let us go a-maying, +Nor fear to take the best. + +Yet beautiful and spacious +The wise, old world appears. +Yet frank and fair and gracious +Outlaugh the jocund years. +Our arguments disputing, +The universal Pan +Still wanders fluting--fluting - +Fluting to maid and man. +Our weary well-a-waying +His music cannot still: +Come! let us go a-maying, +And pipe with him our fill. + +When wanton winds are flowing +Among the gladdening glass; +Where hawthorn brakes are blowing, +And meadow perfumes pass; +Where morning's grace is greenest, +And fullest noon's of pride; +Where sunset spreads serenest, +And sacred night's most wide; +Where nests are swaying, swaying, +And spring's fresh voices call, +Come! let us go a-maying, +And bless the God of all! + +1878 + + + +XXIX--To R. L. S. + + + +A child, +Curious and innocent, +Slips from his Nurse, and rejoicing +Loses himself in the Fair. + +Thro' the jostle and din +Wandering, he revels, +Dreaming, desiring, possessing; +Till, of a sudden +Tired and afraid, he beholds +The sordid assemblage +Just as it is; and he runs +With a sob to his Nurse +(Lighting at last on him), +And in her motherly bosom +Cries him to sleep. + +Thus thro' the World, +Seeing and feeling and knowing, +Goes Man: till at last, +Tired of experience, he turns +To the friendly and comforting breast +Of the old nurse, Death. + +1876 + + + +XXX + + + +Kate-a-Whimsies, John-a-Dreams, +Still debating, still delay, +And the world's a ghost that gleams - +Wavers--vanishes away! + +We must live while live we can; +We should love while love we may. +Dread in women, doubt in man . . . +So the Infinite runs away. + +1876 + + + +XXXI + + + +O, have you blessed, behind the stars, +The blue sheen in the skies, +When June the roses round her calls? - +Then do you know the light that falls +From her beloved eyes. + +And have you felt the sense of peace +That morning meadows give? - +Then do you know the spirit of grace, +The angel abiding in her face, +Who makes it good to live. + +She shines before me, hope and dream, +So fair, so still, so wise, +That, winning her, I seem to win +Out of the dust and drive and din +A nook of Paradise. + +1877 + + + +XXXII--To D. H. + + + +O, Falmouth is a fine town with ships in the bay, +And I wish from my heart it's there I was to-day; +I wish from my heart I was far away from here, +Sitting in my parlour and talking to my dear. +For it's home, dearie, home--it's home I want to be. +Our topsails are hoisted, and we'll away to sea. +O, the oak and the ash and the bonnie birken tree +They're all growing green in the old countrie. + +In Baltimore a-walking a lady I did meet +With her babe on her arm, as she came down the street; +And I thought how I sailed, and the cradle standing ready +For the pretty little babe that has never seen its daddie. +And it's home, dearie, home . . . + +O, if it be a lass, she shall wear a golden ring; +And if it be a lad, he shall fight for his king: +With his dirk and his hat and his little jacket blue +He shall walk the quarter-deck as his daddie used to do. +And it's home, dearie, home . . . + +O, there's a wind a-blowing, a-blowing from the west, +And that of all the winds is the one I like the best, +For it blows at our backs, and it shakes our pennon free, +And it soon will blow us home to the old countrie. +For it's home, dearie, home--it's home I want to be. +Our topsails are hoisted, and we'll away to sea. +O, the oak and the ash and the bonnie birken tree +They're all growing green in the old countrie. + +1878 + +NOTE: The burthen and the third stanza are old. + + + +XXXIII + + + +The ways are green with the gladdening sheen +Of the young year's fairest daughter. +O, the shadows that fleet o'er the springing wheat! +O, the magic of running water! +The spirit of spring is in every thing, +The banners of spring are streaming, +We march to a tune from the fifes of June, +And life's a dream worth dreaming. + +It's all very well to sit and spell +At the lesson there's no gainsaying; +But what the deuce are wont and use +When the whole mad world's a-maying? +When the meadow glows, and the orchard snows, +And the air's with love-motes teeming, +When fancies break, and the senses wake, +O, life's a dream worth dreaming! + +What Nature has writ with her lusty wit +Is worded so wisely and kindly +That whoever has dipped in her manuscript +Must up and follow her blindly. +Now the summer prime is her blithest rhyme +In the being and the seeming, +And they that have heard the overword +Know life's a dream worth dreaming. + +1878 + + + +XXXIV--To K. de M. + + + +Love blows as the wind blows, +Love blows into the heart. +- Nile Boat-Song + + +Life in her creaking shoes +Goes, and more formal grows, +A round of calls and cues: +Love blows as the wind blows. +Blows! . . . in the quiet close +As in the roaring mart, +By ways no mortal knows +Love blows into the heart. + +The stars some cadence use, +Forthright the river flows, +In order fall the dews, +Love blows as the wind blows: +Blows! . . . and what reckoning shows +The courses of his chart? +A spirit that comes and goes, +Love blows into the heart. + +1878 + + + +XXXV--I. M.--MARGARITAE SORORI (1886) + + + +A late lark twitters from the quiet skies; +And from the west, +Where the sun, his day's work ended, +Lingers as in content, +There falls on the old, grey city +An influence luminous and serene, +A shining peace. + +The smoke ascends +In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires +Shine, and are changed. In the valley +Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun, +Closing his benediction, +Sinks, and the darkening air +Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night - +Night with her train of stars +And her great gift of sleep. + +So be my passing! +My task accomplished and the long day done, +My wages taken, and in my heart +Some late lark singing, +Let me be gathered to the quiet west, +The sundown splendid and serene, +Death. + +1876 + + + +XXXVI + + + +I gave my heart to a woman - +I gave it her, branch and root. +She bruised, she wrung, she tortured, +She cast it under foot. + +Under her feet she cast it, +She trampled it where it fell, +She broke it all to pieces, +And each was a clot of hell. + +There in the rain and the sunshine +They lay and smouldered long; +And each, when again she viewed them, +Had turned to a living song. + + + +XXXVII--To W. A. + + + +Or ever the knightly years were gone +With the old world to the grave, +I was a King in Babylon +And you were a Christian Slave. + +I saw, I took, I cast you by, +I bent and broke your pride. +You loved me well, or I heard them lie, +But your longing was denied. +Surely I knew that by and by +You cursed your gods and died. + +And a myriad suns have set and shone +Since then upon the grave +Decreed by the King in Babylon +To her that had been his Slave. + +The pride I trampled is now my scathe, +For it tramples me again. +The old resentment lasts like death, +For you love, yet you refrain. +I break my heart on your hard unfaith, +And I break my heart in vain. + +Yet not for an hour do I wish undone +The deed beyond the grave, +When I was a King in Babylon +And you were a Virgin Slave. + + + +XXXVIII + + + +On the way to Kew, +By the river old and gray, +Where in the Long Ago +We laughed and loitered so, +I met a ghost to-day, +A ghost that told of you - +A ghost of low replies +And sweet, inscrutable eyes +Coming up from Richmond +As you used to do. + +By the river old and gray, +The enchanted Long Ago +Murmured and smiled anew. +On the way to Kew, +March had the laugh of May, +The bare boughs looked aglow, +And old, immortal words +Sang in my breast like birds, +Coming up from Richmond +As I used with you. + +With the life of Long Ago +Lived my thought of you. +By the river old and gray +Flowing his appointed way +As I watched I knew +What is so good to know - +Not in vain, not in vain, +Shall I look for you again +Coming up from Richmond +On the way to Kew. + + + +XXXIX + + + +The Past was goodly once, and yet, when all is said, +The best of it we know is that it's done and dead. + +Dwindled and faded quite, perished beyond recall, +Nothing is left at last of what one time was all. + +Coming back like a ghost, staring and lingering on, +Never a word it speaks but proves it dead and gone. + +Duty and work and joy--these things it cannot give; +And the Present is life, and life is good to live. + +Let it lie where it fell, far from the living sun, +The Past that, goodly once, is gone and dead and done. + + + +XL + + + +The spring, my dear, +Is no longer spring. +Does the blackbird sing +What he sang last year? +Are the skies the old +Immemorial blue? +Or am I, or are you, +Grown cold? + +Though life be change, +It is hard to bear +When the old sweet air +Sounds forced and strange. +To be out of tune, +Plain You and I . . . +It were better to die, +And soon! + + + +XLVI--To R. A. M. S. + + + +The Spirit of Wine +Sang in my glass, and I listened +With love to his odorous music, +His flushed and magnificent song. + +- 'I am health, I am heart, I am life! +For I give for the asking +The fire of my father, the Sun, +And the strength of my mother, the Earth. +Inspiration in essence, +I am wisdom and wit to the wise, +His visible muse to the poet, +The soul of desire to the lover, +The genius of laughter to all. + +'Come, lean on me, ye that are weary! +Rise, ye faint-hearted and doubting! +Haste, ye that lag by the way! +I am Pride, the consoler; +Valour and Hope are my henchmen; +I am the Angel of Rest. + +'I am life, I am wealth, I am fame: +For I captain an army +Of shining and generous dreams; +And mine, too, all mine, are the keys +Of that secret spiritual shrine, +Where, his work-a-day soul put by, +Shut in with his saint of saints - +With his radiant and conquering self - +Man worships, and talks, and is glad. + +'Come, sit with me, ye that are lovely, +Ye that are paid with disdain, +Ye that are chained and would soar! +I am beauty and love; +I am friendship, the comforter; +I am that which forgives and forgets.' - + +The Spirit of Wine +Sang in my heart, and I triumphed +In the savour and scent of his music, +His magnetic and mastering song. + + + +XLII + + + +A wink from Hesper, falling +Fast in the wintry sky, +Comes through the even blue, +Dear, like a word from you . . . +Is it good-bye? + +Across the miles between us +I send you sigh for sigh. +Good-night, sweet friend, good-night: +Till life and all take flight, +Never good-bye. + + + +XLII + + + +Friends . . . old friends . . . +One sees how it ends. +A woman looks +Or a man tells lies, +And the pleasant brooks +And the quiet skies, +Ruined with brawling +And caterwauling, +Enchant no more +As they did before. +And so it ends +With friends. + +Friends . . . old friends . . . +And what if it ends? +Shall we dare to shirk +What we live to learn? +It has done its work, +It has served its turn; +And, forgive and forget +Or hanker and fret, +We can be no more +As we were before. +When it ends, it ends +With friends. + +Friends . . . old friends . . . +So it breaks, so it ends. +There let it rest! +It has fought and won, +And is still the best +That either has done. +Each as he stands +The work of its hands, +Which shall be more +As he was before? . . . +What is it ends +With friends? + + + +XLIV + + + +If it should come to be, +This proof of you and me, +This type and sign +Of hours that smiled and shone, +And yet seemed dead and gone +As old-world wine: + +Of Them Within the Gate +Ask we no richer fate, +No boon above, +For girl child or for boy, +My gift of life and joy, +Your gift of love. + + + +XLV--To W. B. + + + +From the brake the Nightingale +Sings exulting to the Rose; +Though he sees her waxing pale +In her passionate repose, +While she triumphs waxing frail, +Fading even while she glows; +Though he knows +How it goes - +Knows of last year's Nightingale +Dead with last year's Rose. + +Wise the enamoured Nightingale, +Wise the well-beloved Rose! +Love and life shall still prevail, +Nor the silence at the close +Break the magic of the tale +In the telling, though it shows - +Who but knows +How it goes! - +Life a last year's Nightingale, +Love a last year's Rose. + + + +XLVI--MATRI DILECTISSIMAE--I.M. + + + +In the waste hour +Between to-day and yesterday +We watched, while on my arm - +Living flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone - +Dabbled in sweat the sacred head +Lay uncomplaining, still, contemptuous, strange: +Till the dear face turned dead, +And to a sound of lamentation +The good, heroic soul with all its wealth - +Its sixty years of love and sacrifice, +Suffering and passionate faith--was reabsorbed +In the inexorable Peace, +And life was changed to us for evermore. + +Was nothing left of her but tears +Like blood-drops from the heart? +Nought save remorse +For duty unfulfilled, justice undone, +And charity ignored? Nothing but love, +Forgiveness, reconcilement, where in truth, +But for this passing +Into the unimaginable abyss +These things had never been? + +Nay, there were we, +Her five strong sons! +To her Death came--the great Deliverer came! - +As equal comes to equal, throne to throne. +She was a mother of men. + +The stars shine as of old. The unchanging River, +Bent on his errand of immortal law, +Works his appointed way +To the immemorial sea. +And the brave truth comes overwhelmingly home:- +That she in us yet works and shines, +Lives and fulfils herself, +Unending as the river and the stars. + +Dearest, live on +In such an immortality +As we thy sons, +Born of thy body and nursed +At those wild, faithful breasts, +Can give--of generous thoughts, +And honourable words, and deeds +That make men half in love with fate! +Live on, O brave and true, +In us thy children, in ours whose life is thine - +Our best and theirs! What is that best but thee - +Thee, and thy gift to us, to pass +Like light along the infinite of space +To the immitigable end? + +Between the river and the stars, +O royal and radiant soul, +Thou dost return, thine influences return +Upon thy children as in life, and death +Turns stingless! What is Death +But Life in act? How should the Unteeming Grave +Be victor over thee, +Mother, a mother of men? + + + +XLVII + + + +Crosses and troubles a-many have proved me. +One or two women (God bless them!) have loved me. +I have worked and dreamed, and I've talked at will. +Of art and drink I have had my fill. +I've comforted here, and I've succoured there. +I've faced my foes, and I've backed my friends. +I've blundered, and sometimes made amends. +I have prayed for light, and I've known despair. +Now I look before, as I look behind, +Come storm, come shine, whatever befall, +With a grateful heart and a constant mind, +For the end I know is the best of all. + +1888-1889 + + + + +LONDON VOLUNTARIES--To Charles Whibley + + + + +I--GRAVE + + + +St. Margaret's bells, +Quiring their innocent, old-world canticles, +Sing in the storied air, +All rosy-and-golden, as with memories +Of woods at evensong, and sands and seas +Disconsolate for that the night is nigh. +O, the low, lingering lights! The large last gleam +(Hark! how those brazen choristers cry and call!) +Touching these solemn ancientries, and there, +The silent River ranging tide-mark high +And the callow, grey-faced Hospital, +With the strange glimmer and glamour of a dream! +The Sabbath peace is in the slumbrous trees, +And from the wistful, the fast-widowing sky +(Hark! how those plangent comforters call and cry!) +Falls as in August plots late roseleaves fall. +The sober Sabbath stir - +Leisurely voices, desultory feet! - +Comes from the dry, dust-coloured street, +Where in their summer frocks the girls go by, +And sweethearts lean and loiter and confer, +Just as they did an hundred years ago, +Just as an hundred years to come they will:- +When you and I, Dear Love, lie lost and low, +And sweet-throats none our welkin shall fulfil, +Nor any sunset fade serene and slow; +But, being dead, we shall not grieve to die. + + + +II--ANDANTE CON MOTO + + + +Forth from the dust and din, +The crush, the heat, the many-spotted glare, +The odour and sense of life and lust aflare, +The wrangle and jangle of unrests, +Let us take horse, Dear Heart, take horse and win - +As from swart August to the green lap of May - +To quietness and the fresh and fragrant breasts +Of the still, delicious night, not yet aware +In any of her innumerable nests +Of that first sudden plash of dawn, +Clear, sapphirine, luminous, large, +Which tells that soon the flowing springs of day +In deep and ever deeper eddies drawn +Forward and up, in wider and wider way, +Shall float the sands, and brim the shores, +On this our lith of the World, as round it roars +And spins into the outlook of the Sun +(The Lord's first gift, the Lord's especial charge), +With light, with living light, from marge to marge +Until the course He set and staked be run. + +Through street and square, through square and street, +Each with his home-grown quality of dark +And violated silence, loud and fleet, +Waylaid by a merry ghost at every lamp, +The hansom wheels and plunges. Hark, O, hark, +Sweet, how the old mare's bit and chain +Ring back a rough refrain +Upon the marked and cheerful tramp +Of her four shoes! Here is the Park, +And O, the languid midsummer wafts adust, +The tired midsummer blooms! +O, the mysterious distances, the glooms +Romantic, the august +And solemn shapes! At night this City of Trees +Turns to a tryst of vague and strange +And monstrous Majesties, +Let loose from some dim underworld to range +These terrene vistas till their twilight sets: +When, dispossessed of wonderfulness, they stand +Beggared and common, plain to all the land +For stooks of leaves! And lo! the Wizard Hour, +His silent, shining sorcery winged with power! +Still, still the streets, between their carcanets +Of linking gold, are avenues of sleep. +But see how gable ends and parapets +In gradual beauty and significance +Emerge! And did you hear +That little twitter-and-cheep, +Breaking inordinately loud and clear +On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere? +'Tis a first nest at matins! And behold +A rakehell cat--how furtive and acold! +A spent witch homing from some infamous dance - +Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade +Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade! +And now! a little wind and shy, +The smell of ships (that earnest of romance), +A sense of space and water, and thereby +A lamplit bridge ouching the troubled sky, +And look, O, look! a tangle of silver gleams +And dusky lights, our River and all his dreams, +His dreams that never save in our deaths can die. + +What miracle is happening in the air, +Charging the very texture of the gray +With something luminous and rare? +The night goes out like an ill-parcelled fire, +And, as one lights a candle, it is day. +The extinguisher, that perks it like a spire +On the little formal church, is not yet green +Across the water: but the house-tops nigher, +The corner-lines, the chimneys--look how clean, +How new, how naked! See the batch of boats, +Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam! +And those are barges that were goblin floats, +Black, hag-steered, fraught with devilry and dream! +And in the piles the water frolics clear, +The ripples into loose rings wander and flee, +And we--we can behold that could but hear +The ancient River singing as he goes, +New-mailed in morning, to the ancient Sea. +The gas burns lank and jaded in its glass: +The old Ruffian soon shall yawn himself awake, +And light his pipe, and shoulder his tools, and take +His hobnailed way to work! + +Let us too pass - +Pass ere the sun leaps and your shadow shows - +Through these long, blindfold rows +Of casements staring blind to right and left, +Each with his gaze turned inward on some piece +Of life in death's own likeness--Life bereft +Of living looks as by the Great Release - +Pass to an exquisite night's more exquisite close! + +Reach upon reach of burial--so they feel, +These colonies of dreams! And as we steal +Homeward together, but for the buxom breeze, +Fitfully frolicking to heel +With news of dawn-drenched woods and tumbling seas, +We might--thus awed, thus lonely that we are - +Be wandering some dispeopled star, +Some world of memories and unbroken graves, +So broods the abounding Silence near and far: +Till even your footfall craves +Forgiveness of the majesty it braves. + + + +III--SCHERZANDO + + + +Down through the ancient Strand +The spirit of October, mild and boon +And sauntering, takes his way +This golden end of afternoon, +As though the corn stood yellow in all the land, +And the ripe apples dropped to the harvest-moon. + +Lo! the round sun, half-down the western slope - +Seen as along an unglazed telescope - +Lingers and lolls, loth to be done with day: +Gifting the long, lean, lanky street +And its abounding confluences of being +With aspects generous and bland; +Making a thousand harnesses to shine +As with new ore from some enchanted mine, +And every horse's coat so full of sheen +He looks new-tailored, and every 'bus feels clean, +And never a hansom but is worth the feeing; +And every jeweller within the pale +Offers a real Arabian Night for sale; +And even the roar +Of the strong streams of toil, that pause and pour +Eastward and westward, sounds suffused - +Seems as it were bemused +And blurred, and like the speech +Of lazy seas on a lotus-haunted beach - +With this enchanted lustrousness, +This mellow magic, that (as a man's caress +Brings back to some faded face, beloved before, +A heavenly shadow of the grace it wore +Ere the poor eyes were minded to beseech) +Old things transfigures, and you hail and bless +Their looks of long-lapsed loveliness once more: +Till Clement's, angular and cold and staid, +Gleams forth in glamour's very stuffs arrayed; +And Bride's, her aery, unsubstantial charm +Through flight on flight of springing, soaring stone +Grown flushed and warm, +Laughs into life full-mooded and fresh-blown; +And the high majesty of Paul's +Uplifts a voice of living light, and calls - +Calls to his millions to behold and see +How goodly this his London Town can be! + +For earth and sky and air +Are golden everywhere, +And golden with a gold so suave and fine +The looking on it lifts the heart like wine. +Trafalgar Square +(The fountains volleying golden glaze) +Shines like an angel-market. High aloft +Over his couchant Lions, in a haze +Shimmering and bland and soft, +A dust of chrysoprase, +Our Sailor takes the golden gaze +Of the saluting sun, and flames superb, +As once he flamed it on his ocean round. +The dingy dreariness of the picture-place, +Turned very nearly bright, +Takes on a luminous transiency of grace, +And shows no more a scandal to the ground. +The very blind man pottering on the kerb, +Among the posies and the ostrich feathers +And the rude voices touched with all the weathers +Of the long, varying year, +Shares in the universal alms of light. +The windows, with their fleeting, flickering fires, +The height and spread of frontage shining sheer, +The quiring signs, the rejoicing roofs and spires - +'Tis El Dorado--El Dorado plain, +The Golden City! And when a girl goes by, +Look! as she turns her glancing head, +A call of gold is floated from her ear! +Golden, all golden! In a golden glory, +Long-lapsing down a golden coasted sky, +The day, not dies but, seems +Dispersed in wafts and drifts of gold, and shed +Upon a past of golden song and story +And memories of gold and golden dreams. + + + +IV--LARGO E MESTO + + + +Out of the poisonous East, +Over a continent of blight, +Like a maleficent Influence released +From the most squalid cellarage of hell, +The Wind-Fiend, the abominable - +The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light - +Comes slouching, sullen and obscene, +Hard on the skirts of the embittered night; +And in a cloud unclean +Of excremental humours, roused to strife +By the operation of some ruinous change, +Wherever his evil mandate run and range, +Into a dire intensity of life, +A craftsman at his bench, he settles down +To the grim job of throttling London Town. + +So, by a jealous lightlessness beset +That might have oppressed the dragons of old time +Crunching and groping in the abysmal slime, +A cave of cut-throat thoughts and villainous dreams, +Hag-rid and crying with cold and dirt and wet, +The afflicted City, prone from mark to mark +In shameful occultation, seems +A nightmare labyrinthine, dim and drifting, +With wavering gulfs and antic heights, and shifting, +Rent in the stuff of a material dark, +Wherein the lamplight, scattered and sick and pale, +Shows like the leper's living blotch of bale: +Uncoiling monstrous into street on street +Paven with perils, teeming with mischance, +Where man and beast go blindfold and in dread, +Working with oaths and threats and faltering feet +Somewhither in the hideousness ahead; +Working through wicked airs and deadly dews +That make the laden robber grin askance +At the good places in his black romance, +And the poor, loitering harlot rather choose +Go pinched and pined to bed +Than lurk and shiver and curse her wretched way +From arch to arch, scouting some threepenny prey. + +Forgot his dawns and far-flushed afterglows, +His green garlands and windy eyots forgot, +The old Father-River flows, +His watchfires cores of menace in the gloom, +As he came oozing from the Pit, and bore, +Sunk in his filthily transfigured sides, +Shoals of dishonoured dead to tumble and rot +In the squalor of the universal shore: +His voices sounding through the gruesome air +As from the Ferry where the Boat of Doom +With her blaspheming cargo reels and rides: +The while his children, the brave ships, +No more adventurous and fair, +Nor tripping it light of heel as home-bound brides, +But infamously enchanted, +Huddle together in the foul eclipse, +Or feel their course by inches desperately, +As through a tangle of alleys murder-haunted, +From sinister reach to reach out--out--to sea. + +And Death the while - +Death with his well-worn, lean, professional smile, +Death in his threadbare working trim - +Comes to your bedside, unannounced and bland, +And with expert, inevitable hand +Feels at your windpipe, fingers you in the lung, +Or flicks the clot well into the labouring heart: +Thus signifying unto old and young, +However hard of mouth or wild of whim, +'Tis time--'tis time by his ancient watch--to part +From books and women and talk and drink and art. +And you go humbly after him +To a mean suburban lodging: on the way +To what or where +Not Death, who is old and very wise, can say: +And you--how should you care +So long as, unreclaimed of hell, +The Wind-Fiend, the insufferable, +Thus vicious and thus patient, sits him down +To the black job of burking London Town? + + + +V--ALLEGRO MAESTOSO + + + +Spring winds that blow +As over leagues of myrtle-blooms and may; +Bevies of spring clouds trooping slow, +Like matrons heavy bosomed and aglow +With the mild and placid pride of increase! Nay, +What makes this insolent and comely stream +Of appetence, this freshet of desire +(Milk from the wild breasts of the wilful Day!), +Down Piccadilly dance and murmur and gleam +In genial wave on wave and gyre on gyre? +Why does that nymph unparalleled splash and churn +The wealth of her enchanted urn +Till, over-billowing all between +Her cheerful margents, grey and living green, +It floats and wanders, glittering and fleeing, +An estuary of the joy of being? +Why should the lovely leafage of the Park +Touch to an ecstasy the act of seeing? +- Sure, sure my paramour, my Bride of Brides, +Lingering and flushed, mysteriously abides +In some dim, eye-proof angle of odorous dark, +Some smiling nook of green-and-golden shade, +In the divine conviction robed and crowned +The globe fulfils his immemorial round +But as the marrying-place of all things made! + +There is no man, this deifying day, +But feels the primal blessing in his blood. +There is no woman but disdains - +The sacred impulse of the May +Brightening like sex made sunshine through her veins - +To vail the ensigns of her womanhood. +None but, rejoicing, flaunts them as she goes, +Bounteous in looks of her delicious best, +On her inviolable quest: +These with their hopes, with their sweet secrets those, +But all desirable and frankly fair, +As each were keeping some most prosperous tryst, +And in the knowledge went imparadised! +For look! a magical influence everywhere, +Look how the liberal and transfiguring air +Washes this inn of memorable meetings, +This centre of ravishments and gracious greetings, +Till, through its jocund loveliness of length +A tidal-race of lust from shore to shore, +A brimming reach of beauty met with strength, +It shines and sounds like some miraculous dream, +Some vision multitudinous and agleam, +Of happiness as it shall be evermore! + +Praise God for giving +Through this His messenger among the days +His word the life He gave is thrice-worth living! +For Pan, the bountiful, imperious Pan - +Not dead, not dead, as impotent dreamers feigned, +But the gay genius of a million Mays +Renewing his beneficent endeavour! - +Still reigns and triumphs, as he hath triumphed and reigned +Since in the dim blue dawn of time +The universal ebb-and-flow began, +To sound his ancient music, and prevails, +By the persuasion of his mighty rhyme, +Here in this radiant and immortal street +Lavishly and omnipotently as ever +In the open hills, the undissembling dales, +The laughing-places of the juvenile earth. +For lo! the wills of man and woman meet, +Meet and are moved, each unto each endeared, +As once in Eden's prodigal bowers befell, +To share his shameless, elemental mirth +In one great act of faith: while deep and strong, +Incomparably nerved and cheered, +The enormous heart of London joys to beat +To the measures of his rough, majestic song; +The lewd, perennial, overmastering spell +That keeps the rolling universe ensphered, +And life, and all for which life lives to long, +Wanton and wondrous and for ever well. + + + + +RHYMES AND RHYTHMS + + + + +PROLOGUE + + + +Something is dead . . . +The grace of sunset solitudes, the march +Of the solitary moon, the pomp and power +Of round on round of shining soldier-stars +Patrolling space, the bounties of the sun - +Sovran, tremendous, unimaginable - +The multitudinous friendliness of the sea, +Possess no more--no more. + +Something is dead . . . +The Autumn rain-rot deeper and wider soaks +And spreads, the burden of Winter heavier weighs, +His melancholy close and closer yet +Cleaves, and those incantations of the Spring +That made the heart a centre of miracles +Grow formal, and the wonder-working bours +Arise no more--no more. + +Something is dead . . . +'Tis time to creep in close about the fire +And tell grey tales of what we were, and dream +Old dreams and faded, and as we may rejoice +In the young life that round us leaps and laughs, +A fountain in the sunshine, in the pride +Of God's best gift that to us twain returns, +Dear Heart, no more--no more. + + + +I + + + +Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade +On desolate sea and lonely sand, +Out of the silence and the shade +What is the voice of strange command +Calling you still, as friend calls friend +With love that cannot brook delay, +To rise and follow the ways that wend +Over the hills and far away? + +Hark in the city, street on street +A roaring reach of death and life, +Of vortices that clash and fleet +And ruin in appointed strife, +Hark to it calling, calling clear, +Calling until you cannot stay +From dearer things than your own most dear +Over the hills and far away. + +Out of the sound of the ebb-and-flow, +Out of the sight of lamp and star, +It calls you where the good winds blow, +And the unchanging meadows are: +From faded hopes and hopes agleam, +It calls you, calls you night and day +Beyond the dark into the dream +Over the hills and far away + + + +II--To R. F. B. + + + +We are the Choice of the Will: God, when He gave the word +That called us into line, set in our hand a sword; + +Set us a sword to wield none else could lift and draw, +And bade us forth to the sound of the trumpet of the Law. + +East and west and north, wherever the battle grew, +As men to a feast we fared, the work of the Will to do. + +Bent upon vast beginnings, bidding anarchy cease - +(Had we hacked it to the Pit, we had left it a place of peace!) - + +Marching, building, sailing, pillar of cloud or fire, +Sons of the Will, we fought the fight of the Will, our sire. + +Road was never so rough that we left its purpose dark; +Stark was ever the sea, but our ships were yet more stark; + +We tracked the winds of the world to the steps of their very +thrones; +The secret parts of the world were salted with our bones; + +Till now the name of names, England, the name of might, +Flames from the austral fires to the bounds of the boreal night; + +And the call of her morning drum goes in a girdle of sound, +Like the voice of the sun in song, the great globe round and round; + +And the shadow of her flag, when it shouts to the mother-breeze, +Floats from shore to shore of the universal seas; + +And the loneliest death is fair with a memory of her flowers, +And the end of the road to Hell with the sense of her dews and +showers! + +Who says that we shall pass, or the fame of us fade and die, +While the living stars fulfil their round in the living sky? + +For the sire lives in his sons, and they pay their father's debt, +And the Lion has left a whelp wherever his claw was set; + +And the Lion in his whelps, his whelps that none shall brave, +Is but less strong than Time and the great, all-whelming Grave. + + + +III + + + +A desolate shore, +The sinister seduction of the Moon, +The menace of the irreclaimable Sea. + +Flaunting, tawdry and grim, +From cloud to cloud along her beat, +Leering her battered and inveterate leer, +She signals where he prowls in the dark alone, +Her horrible old man, +Mumbling old oaths and warming +His villainous old bones with villainous talk - +The secrets of their grisly housekeeping +Since they went out upon the pad +In the first twilight of self-conscious Time: +Growling, hideous and hoarse, +Tales of unnumbered Ships, +Goodly and strong, Companions of the Advance, +In some vile alley of the night +Waylaid and bludgeoned - +Dead. + +Deep cellared in primeval ooze, +Ruined, dishonoured, spoiled, +They lie where the lean water-worm +Crawls free of their secrets, and their broken sides +Bulge with the slime of life. Thus they abide, +Thus fouled and desecrate, +The summons of the Trumpet, and the while +These Twain, their murderers, +Unravined, imperturbable, unsubdued, +Hang at the heels of their children--She aloft +As in the shining streets, +He as in ambush at some accomplice door. + +The stalwart Ships, +The beautiful and bold adventurers! +Stationed out yonder in the isle, +The tall Policeman, +Flashing his bull's-eye, as he peers +About him in the ancient vacancy, +Tells them this way is safety--this way home. + + + +IV + + + +It came with the threat of a waning moon +And the wail of an ebbing tide, +But many a woman has lived for less, +And many a man has died; +For life upon life took hold and passed, +Strong in a fate set free, +Out of the deep into the dark +On for the years to be. + +Between the gloom of a waning moon +And the song of an ebbing tide, +Chance upon chance of love and death +Took wing for the world so wide. +O, leaf out of leaf is the way of the land, +Wave out of wave of the sea +And who shall reckon what lives may live +In the life that we bade to be? + + + +V + + + +Why, my heart, do we love her so? +(Geraldine, Geraldine!) +Why does the great sea ebb and flow? - +Why does the round world spin? +Geraldine, Geraldine, +Bid me my life renew: +What is it worth unless I win, +Love--love and you? + +Why, my heart, when we speak her name +(Geraldine, Geraldine!) +Throbs the word like a flinging flame? - +Why does the Spring begin? +Geraldine, Geraldine, +Bid me indeed to be: +Open your heart, and take us in, +Love--love and me. + + + +VI + + + +One with the ruined sunset, +The strange forsaken sands, +What is it waits, and wanders, +And signs with desparate hands? + +What is it calls in the twilight - +Calls as its chance were vain? +The cry of a gull sent seaward +Or the voice of an ancient pain? + +The red ghost of the sunset, +It walks them as its own, +These dreary and desolate reaches . . . +But O, that it walked alone! + + + +VII + + + +There's a regret +So grinding, so immitigably sad, +Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad . . . +Do you not know it yet? + +For deeds undone +Rankle and snarl and hunger for their due, +Till there seems naught so despicable as you +In all the grin o' the sun. + +Like an old shoe +The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie +About the beach of Time, till by and by +Death, that derides you too - + +Death, as he goes +His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray, +With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way; +And then--and then, who knows + +But the kind Grave +Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm, +In that black bridewell working out his term, +Hanker and grope and crave? + +'Poor fool that might - +That might, yet would not, dared not, let this be, +Think of it, here and thus made over to me +In the implacable night!' + +And writhing, fain +And like a triumphing lover, he shall take +His fill where no high memory lives to make +His obscene victory vain. + + + +VIII--To A. J. H. + + + +Time and the Earth - +The old Father and Mother - +Their teeming accomplished, +Their purpose fulfilled, +Close with a smile +For a moment of kindness, +Ere for the winter +They settle to sleep. + +Failing yet gracious, +Slow pacing, soon homing, +A patriarch that strolls +Through the tents of his children, +The Sun, as he journeys +His round on the lower +Ascents of the blue, +Washes the roofs +And the hillsides with clarity; +Charms the dark pools +Till they break into pictures; +Scatters magnificent +Alms to the beggar trees; +Touches the mist-folk, +That crowd to his escort, +Into translucencies +Radiant and ravishing: +As with the visible +Spirit of Summer +Gloriously vaporised, +Visioned in gold! + +Love, though the fallen leaf +Mark, and the fleeting light +And the loud, loitering +Footfall of darkness +Sign to the heart +Of the passage of destiny, +Here is the ghost +Of a summer that lived for us, +Here is a promise +Of summers to be. + + + +IX + + + +'As like the Woman as you can' - +(Thus the New Adam was beguiled) - +'So shall you touch the Perfect Man' - +(God in the Garden heard and smiled). +'Your father perished with his day: +'A clot of passions fierce and blind, +'He fought, he hacked, he crushed his way: +'Your muscles, Child, must be of mind. + +'The Brute that lurks and irks within, +'How, till you have him gagged and bound, +'Escape the foullest form of Sin?' +(God in the Garden laughed and frowned). +'So vile, so rank, the bestial mood +'In which the race is bid to be, +'It wrecks the Rarer Womanhood: +'Live, therefore, you, for Purity! + +'Take for your mate no gallant croup, +'No girl all grace and natural will: +'To work her mission were to stoop, +'Maybe to lapse, from Well to Ill. +'Choose one of whom your grosser make' - +(God in the Garden laughed outright) - +'The true refining touch may take, +'Till both attain to Life's last height. + +'There, equal, purged of soul and sense. +'Beneficent, high-thinking, just, +'Beyond the appeal of Violence, +'Incapable of common Lust, +'In mental Marriage still prevail' - +(God in the Garden hid His face) - +'Till you achieve that Female-Male +'In Which shall culminate the race.' + + + +X + + + +Midsummer midnight skies, +Midsummer midnight influences and airs, +The shining, sensitive silver of the sea +Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn; +And all so solemnly still I seem to hear +The breathing of Life and Death, +The secular Accomplices, +Renewing the visible miracle of the world. + +The wistful stars +Shine like good memories. The young morning wind +Blows full of unforgotten hours +As over a region of roses. Life and Death +Sound on--sound on . . . And the night magical, +Troubled yet comforting, thrills +As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart +Of the wood's dark wonderment +Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks +With exquisite visitants: +Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires +With living looks intolerable, regrets +Whose voice comes as the voice of an only child +Heard from the grave: shapes of a Might-Have-Been - +Beautiful, miserable, distraught - +The Law no man may baffle denied and slew. + +The spell-bound ships stand as at gaze +To let the marvel by. The grey road glooms . . . +Glimmers . . . goes out . . . and there, O, there where it fades, +What grace, what glamour, what wild will, +Transfigure the shadows? Whose, +Heart of my heart, Soul of my soul, but yours? + +Ghosts--ghosts--the sapphirine air +Teems with them even to the gleaming ends +Of the wild day-spring! Ghosts, +Everywhere--everywhere--till I and you +At last--dear love, at last! - +Are in the dreaming, even as Life and Death, +Twin-ministers of the unoriginal Will. + + + +XI + + + +Gulls in an aery morrice +Gleam and vanish and gleam . . . +The full sea, sleepily basking, +Dreams under skies of dream. + +Gulls in an aery morrice +Circle and swoop and close . . . +Fuller and ever fuller +The rose of the morning blows. + +Gulls, in an aery morrice +Frolicking, float and fade . . . +O, the way of a bird in the sunshine, +The way of a man with a maid! + + + +XII + + + +Some starlit garden grey with dew, +Some chamber flushed with wine and fire, +What matters where, so I and you +Are worthy our desire? + +Behind, a past that scolds and jeers +For ungirt loins and lamps unlit; +In front, the unmanageable years, +The trap upon the Pit; + +Think on the shame of dreams for deeds, +The scandal of unnatural strife, +The slur upon immortal needs, +The treason done to life: + +Arise! no more a living lie, +And with me quicken and control +Some memory that shall magnify +The universal Soul. + + + +XIII--To James McNeill Whistler + + + +Under a stagnant sky, +Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom, +The River, jaded and forlorn, +Welters and wanders wearily--wretchedly--on; +Yet in and out among the ribs +Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles +Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls, +Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories, +Lingers to babble to a broken tune +(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!) +So melancholy a soliloquy +It sounds as it might tell +The secret of the unending grief-in-grain, +The terror of Time and Change and Death, +That wastes this floating, transitory world. + +What of the incantation +That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore +To take and wear the night +Like a material majesty? +That touched the shafts of wavering fire +About this miserable welter and wash - +(River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!) - +Into long, shining signals from the panes +Of an enchanted pleasure-house, +Where life and life might live life lost in life +For ever and evermore? + +O Death! O Change! O Time! +Without you, O, the insuperable eyes +Of these poor Might-Have-Beens, +These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays! + + + +XIV--To J. A. C. + + + +Fresh from his fastnesses +Wholesome and spacious, +The North Wind, the mad huntsman, +Halloas on his white hounds +Over the grey, roaring +Reaches and ridges, +The forest of ocean, +The chace of the world. +Hark to the peal +Of the pack in full cry, +As he thongs them before him, +Swarming voluminous, +Weltering, wide-wallowing, +Till in a ruining +Chaos of energy, +Hurled on their quarry, +They crash into foam! + +Old Indefatigable, +Time's right-hand man, the sea +Laughs as in joy +From his millions of wrinkles: +Laughs that his destiny, +Great with the greatness +Of triumphing order, +Shows as a dwarf +By the strength of his heart +And the might of his hands. + +Master of masters, +O maker of heroes, +Thunder the brave, +Irresistible message:- +'Life is worth Living +Through every grain of it, +From the foundations +To the last edge +Of the cornerstone, death.' + + + +XV + + + +You played and sang a snatch of song, +A song that all-too well we knew; +But whither had flown the ancient wrong; +And was it really I and you? +O, since the end of life's to live +And pay in pence the common debt, +What should it cost us to forgive +Whose daily task is to forget? + +You babbled in the well-known voice - +Not new, not new the words you said. +You touched me off that famous poise, +That old effect, of neck and head. +Dear, was it really you and I? +In truth the riddle's ill to read, +So many are the deaths we die +Before we can be dead indeed. + + + +XVI + + + +Space and dread and the dark - +Over a livid stretch of sky +Cloud-monsters crawling, like a funeral train +Of huge, primeval presences +Stooping beneath the weight +Of some enormous, rudimentary grief; +While in the haunting loneliness +The far sea waits and wanders with a sound +As of the trailing skirts of Destiny, +Passing unseen +To some immitigable end +With her grey henchman, Death. + +What larve, what spectre is this +Thrilling the wilderness to life +As with the bodily shape of Fear? +What but a desperate sense, +A strong foreboding of those dim +Interminable continents, forlorn +And many-silenced, in a dusk +Inviolable utterly, and dead +As the poor dead it huddles and swarms and styes +In hugger-mugger through eternity? + +Life--life--let there be life! +Better a thousand times the roaring hours +When wave and wind, +Like the Arch-Murderer in flight +From the Avenger at his heel, +Storm through the desolate fastnesses +And wild waste places of the world! + +Life--give me life until the end, +That at the very top of being, +The battle-spirit shouting in my blood, +Out of the reddest hell of the fight +I may be snatched and flung +Into the everlasting lull, +The immortal, incommunicable dream. + + + +XVII--CARMEN PATIBULARE--To H. S. + + + +Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Crook +And the rope of the Black Election, +'Tis the faith of the Fool that a race you rule +Can never achieve perfection: +So 'It's O, for the time of the new Sublime +And the better than human way, +When the Rat (poor beast) shall come to his own +And the Wolf shall have his day!' + +For Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Beam +And the power of provocation, +You have cockered the Brute with your dreadful fruit +Till your fruit is mere stupration: +And 'It's how should we rise to be pure and wise, +And how can we choose but fall, +So long as the Hangman makes us dread, +And the Noose floats free for all?' + +So Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Coign +And the trick there's no recalling, +They will haggle and hew till they hack you through +And at last they lay you sprawling: +When 'Hey! for the hour of the race in flower +And the long good-bye to sin!' +And for the lack the fires of Hell gone out +Of the fuel to keep them in!' + +But Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Bough +And the ghastly Dreams that tend you, +Your growth began with the life of Man, +And only his death can end you. +They may tug in line at your hempen twine, +They may flourish with axe and saw; +But your taproot drinks of the Sacred Springs +In the living rock of Law. + +And Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Fork, +When the spent sun reels and blunders +Down a welkin lit with the flare of the Pit +As it seethes in spate and thunders, +Stern on the glare of the tortured air +Your lines august shall gloom, +And your master-beam be the last thing whelmed +In the ruining roar of Doom. + + + +XVIII--I. M.--MARGARET EMMA HENLEY (1888-1894) + + + +When you wake in your crib, +You, an inch of experience - +Vaulted about +With the wonder of darkness; +Wailing and striving +To reach from your feebleness +Something you feel +Will be good to and cherish you, +Something you know +And can rest upon blindly: +O, then a hand +(Your mother's, your mother's!) +By the fall of its fingers +All knowledge, all power to you, +Out of the dreary, +Discouraging strangenesses +Comes to and masters you, +Takes you, and lovingly +Woos you and soothes you +Back, as you cling to it, +Back to some comforting +Corner of sleep. + +So you wake in your bed, +Having lived, having loved; +But the shadows are there, +And the world and its kingdoms +Incredibly faded; +And you group through the Terror +Above you and under +For the light, for the warmth, +The assurance of life; +But the blasts are ice-born, +And your heart is nigh burst +With the weight of the gloom +And the stress of your strangled +And desperate endeavour: +Sudden a hand - +Mother, O Mother! - +God at His best to you, +Out of the roaring, +Impossible silences, +Falls on and urges you, +Mightily, tenderly, +Forth, as you clutch at it, +Forth to the infinite +Peace of the Grave. + +October 1891 + + + +XIX--I. M.--R. L. S. (1850-1894) + + + +O, Time and Change, they range and range +From sunshine round to thunder! - +They glance and go as the great winds blow, +And the best of our dreams drive under: +For Time and Change estrange, estrange - +And, now they have looked and seen us, +O, we that were dear, we are all-too near +With the thick of the world between us. + +O, Death and Time, they chime and chime +Like bells at sunset falling! - +They end the song, they right the wrong, +They set the old echoes calling: +For Death and Time bring on the prime +Of God's own chosen weather, +And we lie in the peace of the Great Release +As once in the grass together. + +February 1891 + + + +XX + + + +The shadow of Dawn; +Stillness and stars and over-mastering dreams +Of Life and Death and Sleep; +Heard over gleaming flats, the old, unchanging sound +Of the old, unchanging Sea. + +My soul and yours - +O, hand in hand let us fare forth, two ghosts, +Into the ghostliness, +The infinite and abounding solitudes, +Beyond--O, beyond!--beyond . . . + +Here in the porch +Upon the multitudinous silences +Of the kingdoms of the grave, +We twain are you and I--two ghosts Omnipotence +Can touch no more . . . no more! + + + +XXI + + + +When the wind storms by with a shout, and the stern sea-caves +Rejoice in the tramp and the roar of onsetting waves, +Then, then, it comes home to the heart that the top of life +Is the passion that burns the blood in the act of strife - +Till you pity the dead down there in their quiet graves. + +But to drowse with the fen behind and the fog before, +When the rain-rot spreads and a tame sea mumbles the shore, +Not to adventure, none to fight, no right and no wrong, +Sons of the Sword heart-sick for a stave of your sire's old song - +O, you envy the blessed death that can live no more! + + + +XXII + + + +Trees and the menace of night; +Then a long, lonely, leaden mere +Backed by a desolate fell, +As by a spectral battlement; and then, +Low-brooding, interpenetrating all, +A vast, gray, listless, inexpressive sky, +So beggared, so incredibly bereft +Of starlight and the song of racing worlds, +It might have bellied down upon the Void +Where as in terror Light was beginning to be. + +Hist! In the trees fulfilled of night +(Night and the wretchedness of the sky) +Is it the hurry of the rain? +Or the noise of a drive of the Dead, +Streaming before the irresistible Will +Through the strange dusk of this, the Debateable Land +Between their place and ours? + +Like the forgetfulness +Of the work-a-day world made visible, +A mist falls from the melancholy sky. +A messenger from some lost and loving soul, +Hopeless, far wandered, dazed +Here in the provinces of life, +A great white moth fades miserably past. + +Thro' the trees in the strange dead night, +Under the vast dead sky, +Forgetting and forgot, a drift of Dead +Sets to the mystic mere, the phantom fell, +And the unimagined vastitudes beyond. + + + +XXIII--To P. A. G. + + + +Here they trysted, here they strayed, +In the leafage dewy and boon, +Many a man and many a maid, +And the morn was merry June. +'Death is fleet, Life is sweet,' +Sang the blackbird in the may; +And the hour with flying feet, +While they dreamed, was yesterday. + +Many a maid and many a man +Found the leafage close and boon; +Many a destiny began - +O, the morn was merry June! +Dead and gone, dead and gone, +(Hark the blackbird in the may!), +Life and Death went hurrying on, +Cheek on cheek--and where were they? + +Dust on dust engendering dust +In the leafage fresh and boon, +Man and maid fulfil their trust - +Still the morn turns merry June. +Mother Life, Father Death +(O, the blackbird in the may!), +Each the other's breath for breath, +Fleet the times of the world away. + + + +XXIV--To A. C. + + + +Not to the staring Day, +For all the importunate questionings he pursues +In his big, violent voice, +Shall those mild things of bulk and multitude, +The Trees--God's sentinels +Over His gift of live, life-giving air, +Yield of their huge, unutterable selves. +Midsummer-manifold, each one +Voluminous, a labyrinth of life, +They keep their greenest musings, and the dim dreams +That haunt their leafier privacies, +Dissembled, baffling the random gapeseed still +With blank full-faces, or the innocent guile +Of laughter flickering back from shine to shade, +And disappearances of homing birds, +And frolicsome freaks +Of little boughs that frisk with little boughs. + +But at the word +Of the ancient, sacerdotal Night, +Night of the many secrets, whose effect - +Transfiguring, hierophantic, dread - +Themselves alone may fully apprehend, +They tremble and are changed. +In each, the uncouth individual soul +Looms forth and glooms +Essential, and, their bodily presences +Touched with inordinate significance, +Wearing the darkness like the livery +Of some mysterious and tremendous guild, +They brood--they menace--they appal; +Or the anguish of prophecy tears them, and they wring +Wild hands of warning in the face +Of some inevitable advance of the doom; +Or, each to the other bending, beckoning, signing +As in some monstrous market-place, +They pass the news, these Gossips of the Prime, +In that old speech their forefathers +Learned on the lawns of Eden, ere they heard +The troubled voice of Eve +Naming the wondering folk of Paradise. + +Your sense is sealed, or you should hear them tell +The tale of their dim life, with all +Its compost of experience: how the Sun +Spreads them their daily feast, +Sumptuous, of light, firing them as with wine; +Of the old Moon's fitful solicitude +And those mild messages the Stars +Descend in silver silences and dews; +Or what the sweet-breathing West, +Wanton with wading in the swirl of the wheat, +Said, and their leafage laughed; +And how the wet-winged Angel of the Rain +Came whispering . . . whispering; and the gifts of the Year - +The sting of the stirring sap +Under the wizardry of the young-eyed Spring, +Their summer amplitudes of pomp, +Their rich autumnal melancholy, and the shrill, +Embittered housewifery +Of the lean Winter: all such things, +And with them all the goodness of the Master, +Whose right hand blesses with increase and life, +Whose left hand honours with decay and death. + +Thus under the constraint of Night +These gross and simple creatures, +Each in his scores of rings, which rings are years, +A servant of the Will! +And God, the Craftsman, as He walks +The floor of His workshop, hearkens, full of cheer +In thus accomplishing +The aims of His miraculous artistry. + + + +XXV + + + +What have I done for you, +England, my England? +What is there I would not do, +England, my own? +With your glorious eyes austere, +As the Lord were walking near, +Whispering terrible things and dear +As the Song on your bugles blown, +England - +Round the world on your bugles blown! + +Where shall the watchful Sun, +England, my England, +Match the master-work you've done, +England, my own? +When shall he rejoice agen +Such a breed of mighty men +As come forward, one to ten, +To the Song on your bugles blown, +England - +Down the years on your bugles blown? + +Ever the faith endures, +England, my England:- +'Take and break us: we are yours, +'England, my own! +'Life is good, and joy runs high +'Between English earth and sky: +'Death is death; but we shall die +'To the Song on your bugles blown, +'England - +'To the stars on your bugles blown! + +They call you proud and hard, +England, my England: +You with worlds to watch and ward, +England, my own! +You whose mailed hand keeps the keys +Of such teeming destinies +You could know nor dread nor ease +Were the Song on your bugles blown, +England, +Round the Pit on your bugles blown! + +Mother of Ships whose might, +England, my England, +Is the fierce old Sea's delight, +England, my own, +Chosen daughter of the Lord, +Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient sword, +There's the menace of the Word +In the Song on your bugles blown, +England - +Out of heaven on your bugles blown! + + + +EPILOGUE + + + +These, to you now, O, more than ever now - +Now that the Ancient Enemy +Has passed, and we, we two that are one, have seen +A piece of perfect Life +Turn to so ravishing a shape of Death +The Arch-Discomforter might well have smiled +In pity and pride, +Even as he bore his lovely and innocent spoil +From those home-kingdoms he left desolate! + +Poor windlestraws +On the great, sullen, roaring pool of Time +And Chance and Change, I know! +But they are yours, as I am, till we attain +That end for which me make, we two that are one: +A little, exquisite Ghost +Between us, smiling with the serenest eyes +Seen in this world, and calling, calling still +In that clear voice whose infinite subtleties +Of sweetness, thrilling back across the grave, +Break the poor heart to hear: - +'Come, Dadsie, come! +Mama, how long--how long!' + +July 1897. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Poems, by William Ernest Henley + diff --git a/old/pmweh10.zip b/old/pmweh10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..02a470f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pmweh10.zip |