summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorRoger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>2025-10-15 04:54:20 -0700
committerRoger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>2025-10-15 04:54:20 -0700
commit29c3b9868f016b6a274362bc670ad84eab94a759 (patch)
treec5db066c57f10ed5e0ae1005ef42f58cc69270e7
initial commit of ebook 18871HEADmain
Diffstat
-rw-r--r--.gitattributes3
-rw-r--r--18871-8.txt4675
-rw-r--r--18871-8.zipbin0 -> 66025 bytes
-rw-r--r--18871-h.zipbin0 -> 74579 bytes
-rw-r--r--18871-h/18871-h.htm4647
-rw-r--r--18871.txt4675
-rw-r--r--18871.zipbin0 -> 65970 bytes
-rw-r--r--LICENSE.txt11
-rw-r--r--README.md2
9 files changed, 14013 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/18871-8.txt b/18871-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3832c59
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18871-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4675 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Channel Passage and Other Poems, by
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Channel Passage and Other Poems
+ Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles
+ Swinburne--Vol VI
+
+Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18871]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Paul Murray, Lisa Reigel, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Greek words in this text have been transliterated
+and placed between +marks+. The word "Phoebus" was rendered with an oe
+ligature in the original.]
+
+
+
+
+A Channel Passage and other poems
+
+
+By
+
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+
+Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles
+Swinburne--Vol VI
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
+
+VOL. VI
+
+
+A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY: ASTROPHEL: A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER TALES
+
+
+
+
+SWINBURNE'S POETICAL WORKS
+
+
+ I. POEMS AND BALLADS (First Series).
+
+ II. SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE, AND SONGS OF TWO NATIONS.
+
+III. POEMS AND BALLADS (Second and Third Series), and SONGS OF THE
+ SPRINGTIDES.
+
+ IV. TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE, THE TALE OF BALEN, ATALANTA IN CALYDON,
+ ERECHTHEUS.
+
+ V. STUDIES IN SONG, A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS, SONNETS ON ENGLISH DRAMATIC
+ POETS, THE HEPTALOGIA, ETC.
+
+ VI. A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY, ASTROPHEL, A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS.
+
+
+LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
+
+
+
+
+A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY: ASTROPHEL: A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS
+
+
+By
+
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+
+1917
+
+LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
+
+
+_First printed_ (_Chatto_), 1904
+
+_Reprinted_ 1904, '09, '10, '12
+
+(_Heinemann_), 1917
+
+
+_London: William Heinemann_, 1917
+
+
+
+
+A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+A CHANNEL PASSAGE 279
+
+THE LAKE OF GAUBE 284
+
+THE PROMISE OF THE HAWTHORN 288
+
+HAWTHORN TIDE 289
+
+THE PASSING OF THE HAWTHORN 296
+
+TO A BABY KINSWOMAN 297
+
+THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 301
+
+A NEW YEAR'S EVE 321
+
+IN A ROSARY 324
+
+THE HIGH OAKS 326
+
+BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER 331
+
+MUSIC: AN ODE 334
+
+THE CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE NILE 336
+
+TRAFALGAR DAY 338
+
+CROMWELL'S STATUE 340
+
+A WORD FOR THE NAVY 342
+
+NORTHUMBERLAND 346
+
+STRATFORD-ON-AVON 349
+
+BURNS: AN ODE 350
+
+THE COMMONWEAL: A SONG FOR UNIONISTS 355
+
+THE QUESTION 359
+
+APOSTASY 363
+
+RUSSIA: AN ODE 366
+
+FOR GREECE AND CRETE 370
+
+DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO 372
+
+A NEW CENTURY 374
+
+AN EVENING AT VICHY 375
+
+TO GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS 378
+
+ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON 379
+
+IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI 382
+
+CARNOT 383
+
+AFTER THE VERDICT 384
+
+THE TRANSVAAL 385
+
+REVERSE 386
+
+THE TURNING OF THE TIDE 387
+
+ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL BENSON 388
+
+ASTRÆA VICTRIX 389
+
+THE FIRST OF JUNE 393
+
+A ROUNDEL FROM VILLON 395
+
+A ROUNDEL OF RABELAIS 396
+
+LUCIFER 397
+
+THE CENTENARY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS 398
+
+AT A DOG'S GRAVE 400
+
+THREE WEEKS OLD 402
+
+A CLASP OF HANDS 403
+
+PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS 405
+
+PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM 407
+
+PROLOGUE TO OLD FORTUNATUS 409
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE DUCHESS OF MALFY 411
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY 413
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART 415
+
+PROLOGUE TO A VERY WOMAN 417
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY 419
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN 421
+
+THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE 423
+
+CLEOPATRA 427
+
+DEDICATION 435
+
+
+
+
+A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS
+
+
+IN MEMORY
+
+OF
+
+WILLIAM MORRIS
+
+AND
+
+EDWARD BURNE JONES
+
+
+
+
+ A CHANNEL PASSAGE
+
+ 1855
+
+
+ Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn
+ shone,
+ Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun
+ was gone:
+ Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim
+ sweet hour
+ Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a
+ field in flower.
+ Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the
+ starbright air
+ Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea,
+ more fair.
+
+ Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish
+ awoke in the dark?
+ Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as
+ hounds that bark.
+ Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings
+ exalt the sky,
+ Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to
+ quicken and lighten and die.
+ Heaven's own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in
+ music and semblance in fire:
+ Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the
+ night's desire.
+
+ And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from
+ toils cast free:
+ And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the
+ soul of the sea.
+ All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death
+ for fraught:
+ And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or
+ things distraught.
+ And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on
+ the wind:
+ And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm
+ in the heart of Ind.
+ Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the
+ far fierce East,
+ Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar
+ with death for priest.
+ The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man
+ born free
+ Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and
+ the wrath of a tropic sea.
+ As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from
+ a backward fall,
+ The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a
+ sheer cliff's wall.
+ Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a
+ breath,
+ And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the
+ throat of death.
+ Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal
+ joy,
+ Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's
+ heart in a boy.
+ For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and
+ flamed, sublime
+ As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the
+ pulse of time.
+ The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light
+ overheard,
+ The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the
+ fire of a word,
+ In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of
+ the sea,
+ And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but
+ when heaven breathed free.
+ Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out
+ into light
+ From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that
+ were flowerlike and white.
+ The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that
+ laugh as they fade
+ From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in
+ the light they made.
+ Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous
+ tune,
+ Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast
+ smile of the moon.
+ The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams
+ may behold, and deep
+ As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the
+ soul through sleep.
+ All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it
+ yearns to know
+ Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above
+ and below.
+ The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong
+ sea's labour and rage,
+ Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the
+ soul to wage.
+ No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths
+ that the night made bare,
+ Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of
+ air--
+ Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its
+ reign and the sea's,
+ Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that
+ bows men's knees.
+ No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in
+ dreams
+ Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love
+ for a breath's length seems--
+ One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with
+ love that subsides
+ As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and
+ released the tides.
+ In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering,
+ assailed and withheld
+ As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is
+ thwarted and quelled.
+ As the glories of myriads of glowworms in lustrous grass on a
+ boundless lawn
+ Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a
+ light like dawn.
+ A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning
+ sea,
+ And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a
+ tune could be;
+ As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of
+ life or of sleep,
+ Audible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep:
+ Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember
+ awake:
+ Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs
+ in the live storm's wake,
+ In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud heart of
+ the labouring hour,
+ A harvest of stars by the storm's hand reaped, each fair as a
+ star-shaped flower.
+ And sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing of
+ tempest seemed
+ When the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory was gone as
+ a dream half dreamed.
+ The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a
+ miracle, died,
+ Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power
+ and of pride;
+ With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of
+ power upon earth,
+ As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a
+ new God's birth,
+ The might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness
+ fell:
+ And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of
+ heaven and of hell.
+ The waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, and were
+ wellnigh fain,
+ For the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and revelled in
+ labour, to cease from her pain.
+ And an end was made of it: only remembrance endures of the glad
+ loud strife;
+ And the sense that a rapture so royal may come not again in the
+ passage of life.
+
+
+
+
+ THE LAKE OF GAUBE
+
+
+ The sun is lord and god, sublime, serene,
+ And sovereign on the mountains: earth and air
+ Lie prone in passion, blind with bliss unseen
+ By force of sight and might of rapture, fair
+ As dreams that die and know not what they were.
+ The lawns, the gorges, and the peaks, are one
+ Glad glory, thrilled with sense of unison
+ In strong compulsive silence of the sun.
+
+ Flowers dense and keen as midnight stars aflame
+ And living things of light like flames in flower
+ That glance and flash as though no hand might tame
+ Lightnings whose life outshone their stormlit hour
+ And played and laughed on earth, with all their power
+ Gone, and with all their joy of life made long
+ And harmless as the lightning life of song,
+ Shine sweet like stars when darkness feels them strong.
+
+ The deep mild purple flaked with moonbright gold
+ That makes the scales seem flowers of hardened light,
+ The flamelike tongue, the feet that noon leaves cold,
+ The kindly trust in man, when once the sight
+ Grew less than strange, and faith bade fear take flight,
+ Outlive the little harmless life that shone
+ And gladdened eyes that loved it, and was gone
+ Ere love might fear that fear had looked thereon.
+
+ Fear held the bright thing hateful, even as fear,
+ Whose name is one with hate and horror, saith
+ That heaven, the dark deep heaven of water near,
+ Is deadly deep as hell and dark as death.
+ The rapturous plunge that quickens blood and breath
+ With pause more sweet than passion, ere they strive
+ To raise again the limbs that yet would dive
+ Deeper, should there have slain the soul alive.
+
+ As the bright salamander in fire of the noonshine exults and is
+ glad of his day,
+ The spirit that quickens my body rejoices to pass from the sunlight
+ away,
+ To pass from the glow of the mountainous flowerage, the high
+ multitudinous bloom,
+ Far down through the fathomless night of the water, the gladness of
+ silence and gloom.
+ Death-dark and delicious as death in the dream of a lover and
+ dreamer may be,
+ It clasps and encompasses body and soul with delight to be living
+ and free:
+ Free utterly now, though the freedom endure but the space of a
+ perilous breath,
+ And living, though girdled about with the darkness and coldness and
+ strangeness of death:
+ Each limb and each pulse of the body rejoicing, each nerve of the
+ spirit at rest,
+ All sense of the soul's life rapture, a passionate peace in its
+ blindness blest.
+ So plunges the downward swimmer, embraced of the water unfathomed
+ of man,
+ The darkness unplummeted, icier than seas in midwinter, for
+ blessing or ban;
+ And swiftly and sweetly, when strength and breath fall short, and
+ the dive is done,
+ Shoots up as a shaft from the dark depth shot, sped straight into
+ sight of the sun;
+ And sheer through the snow-soft water, more dark than the roof of
+ the pines above,
+ Strikes forth, and is glad as a bird whose flight is impelled and
+ sustained of love.
+ As a sea-mew's love of the sea-wind breasted and ridden for
+ rapture's sake
+ Is the love of his body and soul for the darkling delight of the
+ soundless lake:
+ As the silent speed of a dream too living to live for a thought's
+ space more
+ Is the flight of his limbs through the still strong chill of the
+ darkness from shore to shore.
+ Might life be as this is and death be as life that casts off time
+ as a robe,
+ The likeness of infinite heaven were a symbol revealed of the lake
+ of Gaube.
+
+ Whose thought has fathomed and measured
+ The darkness of life and of death,
+ The secret within them treasured,
+ The spirit that is not breath?
+ Whose vision has yet beholden
+ The splendour of death and of life?
+ Though sunset as dawn be golden,
+ Is the word of them peace, not strife?
+ Deep silence answers: the glory
+ We dream of may be but a dream,
+ And the sun of the soul wax hoary
+ As ashes that show not a gleam.
+ But well shall it be with us ever
+ Who drive through the darkness here,
+ If the soul that we live by never,
+ For aught that a lie saith, fear.
+
+
+
+
+ THE PROMISE OF THE HAWTHORN
+
+
+ Spring sleeps and stirs and trembles with desire
+ Pure as a babe's that nestles toward the breast.
+ The world, as yet an all unstricken lyre,
+ With all its chords alive and all at rest,
+ Feels not the sun's hand yet, but feels his breath
+ And yearns for love made perfect. Man and bird,
+ Thrilled through with hope of life that casts out death,
+ Wait with a rapturous patience till his word
+ Speak heaven, and flower by flower and tree by tree
+ Give back the silent strenuous utterance. Earth,
+ Alive awhile and joyful as the sea,
+ Laughs not aloud in joy too deep for mirth,
+ Presageful of perfection of delight,
+ Till all the unborn green buds be born in white.
+
+
+
+
+ HAWTHORN TIDE
+
+
+ I
+
+ Dawn is alive in the world, and the darkness of heaven and of earth
+ Subsides in the light of a smile more sweet than the loud noon's
+ mirth,
+ Spring lives as a babe lives, glad and divine as the sun, and
+ unsure
+ If aught so divine and so glad may be worshipped and loved and
+ endure.
+ A soft green glory suffuses the love-lit earth with delight,
+ And the face of the noon is fair as the face of the star-clothed
+ night.
+ Earth knows not and doubts not at heart of the glories again to be:
+ Sleep doubts not and dreams not how sweet shall the waking beyond
+ her be.
+ A whole white world of revival awaits May's whisper awhile,
+ Abides and exults in the bud as a soft hushed laugh in a smile.
+ As a maid's mouth laughing with love and subdued for the love's
+ sake, May
+ Shines and withholds for a little the word she revives to say.
+
+ When the clouds and the winds and the sunbeams are warring and
+ strengthening with joy that they live,
+ Spring, from reluctance enkindled to rapture, from slumber to
+ strife,
+ Stirs, and repents, and is winter, and weeps, and awakes as the
+ frosts forgive,
+ And the dark chill death of the woodland is troubled, and dies
+ into life.
+ And the honey of heaven, of the hives whence night feeds full on
+ the springtide's breath,
+ Fills fuller the lips of the lustrous air with delight in the
+ dawn:
+ Each blossom enkindling with love that is life and subsides with a
+ smile into death
+ Arises and lightens and sets as a star from her sphere withdrawn.
+ Not sleep, in the rapture of radiant dreams, when sundawn smiles on
+ the night,
+ Shows earth so sweet with a splendour and fragrance of life that
+ is love:
+ Each blade of the glad live grass, each bud that receives or
+ rejects the light,
+ Salutes and responds to the marvel of Maytime around and above.
+
+ Joy gives thanks for the sight and the savour of heaven, and is
+ humbled
+ With awe that exults in thanksgiving: the towers of the flowers
+ of the trees
+ Shine sweeter than snows that the hand of the season has melted and
+ crumbled,
+ And fair as the foam that is lesser of life than the loveliest of
+ these.
+ But the sense of a life more lustrous with joy and enkindled of
+ glory
+ Than man's was ever or may be, and briefer than joys most brief,
+ Bids man's heart bend and adore, be the man's head golden or hoary,
+ As it leapt but a breath's time since and saluted the flower and
+ the leaf.
+ The rapture that springs into love at the sight of the world's
+ exultation
+ Takes not a sense of rebuke from the sense of triumphant awe:
+ But the spirit that quickens the body fulfils it with mute
+ adoration,
+ And the knees would fain bow down as the eyes that rejoiced and
+ saw.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Fair and sublime as the face of the dawn is the splendour of May,
+ But the sky's and the sea's joy fades not as earth's pride passes
+ away.
+ Yet hardly the sun's first lightning or laughter of love on the sea
+ So humbles the heart into worship that knows not or doubts if it be
+ As the first full glory beholden again of the life new-born
+ That hails and applauds with inaudible music the season of morn.
+ A day's length since, and it was not: a night's length more, and
+ the sun
+ Salutes and enkindles a world of delight as a strange world won.
+ A new life answers and thrills to the kiss of the young strong
+ year,
+ And the glory we see is as music we hear not, and dream that we
+ hear.
+ From blossom to blossom the live tune kindles, from tree to tree,
+ And we know not indeed if we hear not the song of the life we see.
+
+ For the first blithe day that beholds it and worships and cherishes
+ cannot but sing
+ With a louder and lustier delight in the sun and the sunlit earth
+ Than the joy of the days that beheld but the soft green dawn of the
+ slow faint spring
+ Glad and afraid to be glad, and subdued in a shamefast mirth.
+ When the first bright knoll of the woodland world laughs out into
+ fragrant light,
+ The year's heart changes and quickens with sense of delight in
+ desire,
+ And the kindling desire is one with thanksgiving for utter fruition
+ of sight,
+ For sight and for sense of a world that the sun finds meet for
+ his lyre.
+ Music made of the morning that smites from the chords of the mute
+ world song
+ Trembles and quickens and lightens, unfelt, unbeholden, unheard,
+ From blossom on blossom that climbs and exults in the strength of
+ the sun grown strong,
+ And answers the word of the wind of the spring with the sun's own
+ word.
+
+ Hard on the skirt of the deep soft copses that spring refashions,
+ Triumphs and towers to the height of the crown of a wildwood tree
+ One royal hawthorn, sublime and serene as the joy that impassions
+ Awe that exults in thanksgiving for sight of the grace we see,
+ The grace that is given of a god that abides for a season,
+ mysterious
+ And merciful, fervent and fugitive, seen and unknown and adored:
+ His presence is felt in the light and the fragrance, elate and
+ imperious,
+ His laugh and his breath in the blossom are love's, the beloved
+ soul's lord.
+ For surely the soul if it loves is beloved of the god as a lover
+ Whose love is not all unaccepted, a worship not utterly vain:
+ So full, so deep is the joy that revives for the soul to recover
+ Yearly, beholden of hope and of memory in sunshine and rain.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Wonder and love stand silent, stricken at heart and stilled.
+ But yet is the cup of delight and of worship unpledged and
+ unfilled.
+ A handsbreadth hence leaps up, laughs out as an angel crowned,
+ A strong full fountain of flowers overflowing above and around.
+ The boughs and the blossoms in triumph salute with adoring mirth
+ The womb that bare them, the glad green mother, the sunbright
+ earth.
+ Downward sweeping, as song subsides into silence, none
+ May hear what sound is the word's they speak to the brooding sun.
+ None that hearken may hear: man may but pass and adore,
+ And humble his heart in thanksgiving for joy that is now no more.
+ And sudden, afront and ahead of him, joy is alive and aflame
+ On the shrine whose incense is given of the godhead, again the
+ same.
+
+ Pale and pure as a maiden secluded in secret and cherished with
+ fear,
+ One sweet glad hawthorn smiles as it shrinks under shelter,
+ screened
+ By two strong brethren whose bounteous blossom outsoars it, year
+ after year,
+ While earth still cleaves to the live spring's breast as a babe
+ unweaned.
+ Never was amaranth fairer in fields where heroes of old found rest,
+ Never was asphodel sweeter: but here they endure not long,
+ Though ever the sight that salutes them again and adores them
+ awhile is blest,
+ And the heart is a hymn, and the sense is a soul, and the soul is
+ a song.
+ Alone on a dyke's trenched edge, and afar from the blossoming
+ wildwood's verge,
+ Laughs and lightens a sister, triumphal in love-lit pride;
+ Clothed round with the sun, and inviolate: her blossoms exult as
+ the springtide surge,
+ When the wind and the dawn enkindle the snows of the shoreward
+ tide.
+
+ Hardly the worship of old that rejoiced as it knelt in the vision
+ Shown of the God new-born whose breath is the spirit of spring
+ Hailed ever with love more strong and defiant of death's derision
+ A joy more perfect than here we mourn for as May takes wing.
+ Time gives it and takes it again and restores it: the glory, the
+ wonder,
+ The triumph of lustrous blossom that makes of the steep sweet
+ bank
+ One visible marvel of music inaudible, over and under,
+ Attuned as in heaven, pass hence and return for the sun to thank.
+ The stars and the sun give thanks for the glory bestowed and
+ beholden,
+ For the gladness they give and rejoice in, the night and the dawn
+ and the day:
+ But nought they behold when the world is aflower and the season is
+ golden
+ Makes answer as meet and as sweet as the flower that itself is
+ May.
+
+
+
+
+ THE PASSING OF THE HAWTHORN
+
+
+ The coming of the hawthorn brings on earth
+ Heaven: all the spring speaks out in one sweet word,
+ And heaven grows gladder, knowing that earth has heard.
+ Ere half the flowers are jubilant in birth,
+ The splendour of the laughter of their mirth
+ Dazzles delight with wonder: man and bird
+ Rejoice and worship, stilled at heart and stirred
+ With rapture girt about with awe for girth.
+
+ The passing of the hawthorn takes away
+ Heaven: all the spring falls dumb, and all the soul
+ Sinks down in man for sorrow. Night and day
+ Forego the joy that made them one and whole.
+ The change that falls on every starry spray
+ Bids, flower by flower, the knell of springtime toll.
+
+
+
+
+ TO A BABY KINSWOMAN
+
+
+ Love, whose light thrills heaven and earth,
+ Smiles and weeps upon thy birth,
+ Child, whose mother's love-lit eyes
+ Watch thee but from Paradise.
+ Sweetest sight that earth can give,
+ Sweetest light of eyes that live,
+ Ours must needs, for hope withdrawn,
+ Hail with tears thy soft spring dawn.
+ Light of hope whose star hath set,
+ Light of love whose sun lives yet,
+ Holier, happier, heavenlier love
+ Breathes about thee, burns above,
+ Surely, sweet, than ours can be,
+ Shed from eyes we may not see,
+ Though thine own may see them shine
+ Night and day, perchance, on thine.
+ Sun and moon that lighten earth
+ Seem not fit to bless thy birth:
+ Scarce the very stars we know
+ Here seem bright enough to show
+ Whence in unimagined skies
+ Glows the vigil of such eyes.
+ Theirs whose heart is as a sea
+ Swoln with sorrowing love of thee
+ Fain would share with thine the sight
+ Seen alone of babes aright,
+ Watched of eyes more sweet than flowers
+ Sleeping or awake: but ours
+ Can but deem or dream or guess
+ Thee not wholly motherless.
+ Might they see or might they know
+ What nor faith nor hope may show,
+ We whose hearts yearn toward thee now
+ Then were blest and wise as thou.
+ Had we half thy knowledge,--had
+ Love such wisdom,--grief were glad,
+ Surely, lit by grace of thee;
+ Life were sweet as death may be.
+ Now the law that lies on men
+ Bids us mourn our dead: but then
+ Heaven and life and earth and death,
+ Quickened as by God's own breath,
+ All were turned from sorrow and strife:
+ Earth and death were heaven and life.
+ All too far are then and now
+ Sundered: none may be as thou.
+ Yet this grace is ours--a sign
+ Of that goodlier grace of thine,
+ Sweet, and thine alone--to see
+ Heaven, and heaven's own love, in thee.
+ Bless them, then, whose eyes caress
+ Thee, as only thou canst bless.
+ Comfort, faith, assurance, love,
+ Shine around us, brood above,
+ Fear grows hope, and hope grows wise,
+ Thrilled and lit by children's eyes.
+ Yet in ours the tears unshed,
+ Child, for hope that death leaves dead,
+ Needs must burn and tremble; thou
+ Knowest not, seest not, why nor how,
+ More than we know whence or why
+ Comes on babes that laugh and lie
+ Half asleep, in sweet-lipped scorn,
+ Light of smiles outlightening morn,
+ Whence enkindled as is earth
+ By the dawn's less radiant birth
+ All the body soft and sweet
+ Smiles on us from face to feet
+ When the rose-red hands would fain
+ Reach the rose-red feet in vain.
+ Eyes and hands that worship thee
+ Watch and tend, adore and see
+ All these heavenly sights, and give
+ Thanks to see and love and live.
+ Yet, of all that hold thee dear,
+ Sweet, the dearest smiles not here.
+ Thine alone is now the grace,
+ Haply, still to see her face;
+ Thine, thine only now the sight
+ Whence we dream thine own takes light.
+ Yet, though faith and hope live blind,
+ Yet they live in heart and mind
+ Strong and keen as truth may be:
+ Yet, though blind as grief were we
+ Inly for a weeping-while,
+ Sorrow's self before thy smile
+ Smiles and softens, knowing that yet,
+ Far from us though heaven be set,
+ Love, bowed down for thee to bless,
+ Dares not call thee motherless.
+
+ _May 1894._
+
+
+
+
+ THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
+
+
+ +es to pan de soi legô,+
+ +bômon aidesai dikas;+
+ +mêde nin+
+ +kerdos idôn atheô podi lax atisês;+
+ +poina gar epestai.+
+ +kyrion menei telos.+
+
+ ÆSCH. _Eum._ 538-544
+
+ +para to phôs idein.+
+
+ ÆSCH. _Cho._ 972
+
+
+
+
+ THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
+
+
+ I
+
+ Light and night, whose clouds and glories change and mingle and
+ divide,
+ Veil the truth whereof they witness, show the truth of things
+ they hide.
+ Through the darkness and the splendour of the centuries, loud or
+ dumb,
+ Shines and wanes and shines the spirit, lit with love of life to
+ come.
+ Man, the soul made flesh, that knows not death from life, and
+ fain would know,
+ Sees the face of time change colour as its tides recoil and flow.
+ All his hope and fear and faith and doubt, if aught at all they
+ be,
+ Live the life of clouds and sunbeams, born of heaven or earth or
+ sea.
+ All are buoyed and blown and brightened by their hour's evasive
+ breath:
+ All subside and quail and darken when their hour is done to
+ death.
+ Yet, ere faith, a wandering water, froze and curdled into creeds,
+ Earth, elate as heaven, adored the light that quickens dreams to
+ deeds.
+
+ Invisible: eye hath not seen it, and ear hath not heard as the
+ spirit hath heard
+ From the shrine that is lit not of sunlight or starlight the sound
+ of a limitless word.
+ And visible: none that hath eyes to behold what the spirit must
+ perish or see
+ Can choose but behold it and worship: a shrine that if light were
+ as darkness would be.
+ Of cloud and of change is the form of the fashion that man may
+ behold of it wrought:
+ Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where worship is none
+ but of thought.
+ No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of gladness or
+ sorrow may climb:
+ No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that guards it, and
+ hears not of time.
+ As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in passion of light
+ and of cloud,
+ So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with darkness
+ and light for a shroud.
+ And the winds and the clouds and the suns fall silent, and fade out
+ of hearing or sight,
+ And the shrine stands fast and is changed not, whose likeness was
+ changed as a cloud in the night.
+
+ All the storms of time, and wrath of many winds, may carve no
+ trace
+ On the viewless altar, though the veil bear many a name and face:
+ Many a live God's likeness woven, many a scripture dark with awe,
+ Bids the veil seem verier iron than the word of life's own law.
+ Till the might of change hath rent it with a rushing wind in
+ twain,
+ Stone or steel it seems, whereon the wrath of chance is wreaked
+ in vain:
+ Stone or steel, and all behind it or beyond its lifted sign
+ Cloud and vapour, no subsistence of a change-unstricken shrine.
+ God by god flits past in thunder, till his glories turn to
+ shades:
+ God to god bears wondering witness how his gospel flames and
+ fades.
+ More was each of these, while yet they were, than man their
+ servant seemed:
+ Dead are all of these, and man survives who made them while he
+ dreamed.
+
+ Yet haply or surely, if vision were surer than theirs who rejoiced
+ that they saw,
+ Man might not but see, through the darkness of godhead, the light
+ that is surety and law.
+ On the stone that the close-drawn cloud which veils it awhile makes
+ cloudlike stands
+ The word of the truth everlasting, unspoken of tongues and
+ unwritten of hands.
+ By the sunbeams and storms of the centuries engraven, and approved
+ of the soul as it reads,
+ It endures as a token dividing the light from the darkness of
+ dreams and of deeds.
+ The faces of gods on the face of it carven, or gleaming behind and
+ above,
+ Star-glorified Uranus, thunderous Jehovah, for terror or worship or
+ love,
+ Change, wither, and brighten as flowers that the wind of eternity
+ sheds upon time,
+ All radiant and transient and awful and mortal, and leave it
+ unmarred and sublime.
+ As the tides that return and recede are the fears and the hopes of
+ the centuries that roll,
+ Requenched and rekindled: but strong as the sun is the sense of it
+ shrined in the soul.
+
+
+ II
+
+ In the days when time was not, in the time when days were none,
+ Ere sorrow had life to lot, ere earth gave thanks for the sun,
+ Ere man in his darkness waking adored what the soul in him could,
+ And the manifold God of his making was manifest evil and good,
+ One law from the dim beginning abode and abides in the end,
+ In sight of him sorrowing and sinning with none but his faith for
+ friend.
+ Dark were the shadows around him, and darker the glories above,
+ Ere light from beyond them found him, and bade him for love's sake
+ love.
+ About him was darkness, and under and over him darkness: the night
+ That conceived him and bore him had thunder for utterance and
+ lightning for light.
+ The dust of death was the dust of the ways that the tribes of him
+ trod:
+ And he knew not if just or unjust were the might of the mystery of
+ God.
+ Strange horror and hope, strange faith and unfaith, were his boon
+ and his bane:
+ And the God of his trust was the wraith of the soul or the ghost of
+ it slain.
+ A curse was on death as on birth, and a Presence that shone as a
+ sword
+ Shed menace from heaven upon earth that beheld him, and hailed him
+ her Lord.
+ Sublime and triumphant as fire or as lightning, he kindled the
+ skies,
+ And withered with dread the desire that would look on the light of
+ his eyes.
+ Earth shuddered with worship, and knew not if hell were not hot in
+ her breath;
+ If birth were not sin, and the dew of the morning the sweat of her
+ death.
+ The watchwords of evil and good were unspoken of men and unheard:
+ They were shadows that willed as he would, that were made and
+ unmade by his word.
+ His word was darkness and light, and a wisdom that makes men mad
+ Sent blindness upon them for sight, that they saw but and heard as
+ he bade.
+ Cast forth and corrupt from the birth by the crime of creation,
+ they stood
+ Convicted of evil on earth by the grace of a God found good.
+ The grace that enkindled and quickened the darkness of hell with
+ flame
+ Bade man, though the soul in him sickened, obey, and give praise to
+ his name.
+ The still small voice of the spirit whose life is as plague's hot
+ breath
+ Bade man shed blood, and inherit the life of the kingdom of death.
+
+ "Bring now for blood-offering thy son to mine altar, and bind him
+ and slay,
+ That the sin of my bidding be done": and the soul in the slave
+ said, "Yea."
+ Yea, not nay, was the word: and the sacrifice offered withal
+ Was neither of beast nor of bird, but the soul of a man, God's
+ thrall.
+ And the word of his servant spoken was fire, and the light of a
+ sword,
+ When the bondage of Israel was broken, and Sinai shrank from the
+ Lord.
+ With splendour of slaughter and thunder of song as the sound of the
+ sea
+ Were the foes of him stricken in sunder and silenced as storms that
+ flee.
+ Terror and trust and the pride of the chosen, approved of his
+ choice,
+ Saw God in the whirlwind ride, and rejoiced as the winds rejoice.
+ Subdued and exalted and kindled and quenched by the sense of his
+ might,
+ Faith flamed and exulted and dwindled, and saw not, and clung to
+ the sight.
+ The wastes of the wilderness brightened and trembled with rapture
+ and dread
+ When the word of him thundered and lightened and spake through the
+ quick and the dead.
+ The chant of the prophetess, louder and loftier than tempest and
+ wave,
+ Rang triumph more ruthless and prouder than death, and profound as
+ the grave.
+ And sweet as the moon's word spoken in smiles that the blown clouds
+ mar
+ The psalmist's witness in token arose as the speech of a star.
+ Starlight supreme, and the tender desire of the moon, were as one
+ To rebuke with compassion the splendour and strength of the godlike
+ sun.
+ God softened and changed: and the word of his chosen, a fire at the
+ first,
+ Bade man, as a beast or a bird, now slake at the springs his
+ thirst.
+ The souls that were sealed unto death as the bones of the dead lie
+ sealed
+ Rose thrilled and redeemed by the breath of the dawn on the
+ flame-lit field.
+ The glories of darkness, cloven with music of thunder, shrank
+ As the web of the word was unwoven that spake, and the soul's tide
+ sank.
+ And the starshine of midnight that covered Arabia with light as a
+ robe
+ Waxed fiery with utterance that hovered and flamed through the
+ whirlwind on Job.
+ And prophet to prophet and vision to vision made answer sublime,
+ Till the valley of doom and decision was merged in the tides of
+ time.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Then, soft as the dews of night,
+ As the star of the sundawn bright,
+ As the heart of the sea's hymn deep,
+ And sweet as the balm of sleep,
+ Arose on the world a light
+ Too pure for the skies to keep.
+
+ With music sweeter and stranger than heaven had heard
+ When the dark east thrilled with light from a saviour's word
+ And a God grew man to endure as a man and abide
+ The doom of the will of the Lord of the loud world's tide,
+ Whom thunders utter, and tempest and darkness hide,
+ With larger light than flamed from the peak whereon
+ Prometheus, bound as the sun to the world's wheel, shone,
+ A presence passed and abode but on earth a span,
+ And love's own light as a river before him ran,
+ And the name of God for awhile upon earth was man.
+
+ O star that wast not and wast for the world a sun,
+ O light that was quenched of priests, and its work undone,
+ O Word that wast not as man's or as God's, if God
+ Be Lord but of hosts whose tread was as death's that trod
+ On souls that felt but his wrath as an unseen rod,
+ What word, what praise, what passion of hopeless prayer,
+ May now rise up to thee, loud as in years that were,
+ From years that gaze on the works of thy servants wrought
+ While strength was in them to satiate the lust of thought
+ That craved in thy name for blood as the quest it sought?
+
+ From the dark high places of Rome
+ Far over the westward foam
+ God's heaven and the sun saw swell
+ The fires of the high priest's hell,
+ And shrank as they curled and clomb
+ And revelled and ravaged and fell.
+
+
+ IV
+
+ Yet was not the work of thy word all withered with wasting flame
+ By the sons of the priests that had slain thee, whose evil was
+ wrought in thy name.
+ From the blood-sodden soil that was blasted with fires of the
+ Church and her creed
+ Sprang rarely but surely, by grace of thy spirit, a flower for a
+ weed.
+ Thy spirit, unfelt of thy priests who blasphemed thee, enthralled
+ and enticed
+ To deathward a child that was even as the child we behold in
+ Christ.
+ The Moors, they told her, beyond bright Spain and the strait brief
+ sea,
+ Dwelt blind in the light that for them was as darkness, and knew
+ not thee.
+ But the blood of the martyrs whose mission was witness for God,
+ they said,
+ Might raise to redemption the souls that were here, in the sun's
+ sight, dead.
+ And the child rose up in the night, when the stars were as friends
+ that smiled,
+ And sought her brother, and wakened the younger and tenderer child.
+ From the heaven of a child's glad sleep to the heaven of the sight
+ of her eyes
+ He woke, and brightened and hearkened, and kindled as stars that
+ rise.
+ And forth they fared together to die for the stranger's sake,
+ For the souls of the slayers that should slay them, and turn from
+ their sins, and wake.
+ And the light of the love that lit them awhile on a brief blind
+ quest
+ Shines yet on the tear-lit smile that salutes them, belated and
+ blest.
+
+ And the girl, full-grown to the stature of godhead in womanhood,
+ spake
+ The word that sweetens and lightens her creed for her great love's
+ sake.
+ From the godlike heart of Theresa the prayer above all prayers
+ heard,
+ The cry as of God made woman, a sweet blind wonderful word,
+ Sprang sudden as flame, and kindled the darkness of faith with
+ love,
+ And the hollow of hell from beneath shone, quickened of heaven from
+ above.
+ Yea, hell at her word grew heaven, as she prayed that if God
+ thought well
+ She there might stand in the gateway, that none might pass into
+ hell.
+ Not Hermes, guardian and guide, God, herald, and comforter, shed
+ Such lustre of hope from the life of his light on the night of the
+ dead.
+ Not Pallas, wiser and mightier in mercy than Rome's God shone,
+ Wore ever such raiment of love as the soul of a saint put on.
+ So blooms as a flower of the darkness a star of the midnight born,
+ Of the midnight's womb and the blackness of darkness, and flames
+ like morn.
+ Nor yet may the dawn extinguish or hide it, when churches and
+ creeds
+ Are withered and blasted with sunlight as poisonous and blossomless
+ weeds.
+ So springs and strives through the soil that the legions of
+ darkness have trod,
+ From the root that is man, from the soul in the body, the flower
+ that is God.
+
+
+ V
+
+ Ages and creeds that drift
+ Through change and cloud uplift
+ The soul that soars and seeks her sovereign shrine,
+ Her faith's veiled altar, there
+ To find, when praise and prayer
+ Fall baffled, if the darkness be divine.
+ Lights change and shift through star and sun:
+ Night, clothed with might of immemorial years, is one.
+
+ Day, born and slain of night,
+ Hath hardly life in sight
+ As she that bears and slays him and survives,
+ And gives us back for one
+ Cloud-thwarted fiery sun
+ The myriad mysteries of the lambent lives
+ Whose starry soundless music saith
+ That light and life wax perfect even through night and death.
+
+ In vain had darkness heard
+ Light speak the lustrous word
+ That cast out faith in all save truth and love:
+ In vain death's quickening rod
+ Bade man rise up as God,
+ Touched as with life unknown in heaven above:
+ Fear turned his light of love to fire
+ That wasted earth, yet might not slay the soul's desire.
+
+ Though death seem life, and night
+ Bid fear call darkness light,
+ Time, faith, and hope keep trust, through sorrow and shame,
+ Till Christ, by Paul cast out,
+ Return, and all the rout
+ Of raging slaves whose prayer defiles his name
+ Rush headlong to the deep, and die,
+ And leave no sign to say that faith once heard them lie.
+
+
+ VI
+
+ Since man, with a child's pride proud, and abashed as a child and
+ afraid,
+ Made God in his likeness, and bowed him to worship the Maker he
+ made,
+ No faith more dire hath enticed man's trust than the saint's whose
+ creed
+ Made Caiaphas one with Christ, that worms on the cross might feed.
+ Priests gazed upon God in the eyes of a babe new-born, and therein
+ Beheld not heaven, and the wise glad secret of love, but sin.
+ Accursed of heaven, and baptized with the baptism of hatred and
+ hell,
+ They spat on the name they despised and adored as a sign and a
+ spell.
+ "Lord Christ, thou art God, and a liar: they were children of
+ wrath, not of grace,
+ Unbaptized, unredeemed from the fire they were born for, who smiled
+ in thy face."
+ Of such is the kingdom--he said it--of heaven: and the heavenly
+ word
+ Shall live when religion is dead, and when falsehood is dumb shall
+ be heard.
+ And the message of James and of John was as Christ's and as love's
+ own call:
+ But wrath passed sentence thereon when Annas replied in Paul.
+ The dark old God who had slain him grew one with the Christ he
+ slew,
+ And poison was rank in the grain that with growth of his gospel
+ grew.
+ And the blackness of darkness brightened: and red in the heart of
+ the flame
+ Shone down, as a blessing that lightened, the curse of a new God's
+ name.
+ Through centuries of burning and trembling belief as a signal it
+ shone,
+ Till man, soul-sick of dissembling, bade fear and her frauds
+ begone.
+ God Cerberus yelps from his throats triune: but his day, which was
+ night,
+ Is quenched, with its stars and the notes of its night-birds, in
+ silence and light.
+ The flames of its fires and the psalms of their psalmists are
+ darkened and dumb:
+ Strong winter has withered the palms of his angels, and stricken
+ them numb.
+ God, father of lies, God, son of perdition, God, spirit of ill,
+ Thy will that for ages was done is undone as a dead God's will.
+ Not Mahomet's sword could slay thee, nor Borgia's or Calvin's
+ praise:
+ But the scales of the spirit that weigh thee are weighted with
+ truth, and it slays.
+ The song of the day of thy fury, when nature and death shall quail,
+ Rings now as the thunders of Jewry, the ghost of a dead world's
+ tale.
+ That day and its doom foreseen and foreshadowed on earth, when
+ thou,
+ Lord God, wast lord of the keen dark season, are sport for us now.
+ Thy claws were clipped and thy fangs plucked out by the hands that
+ slew
+ Men, lovers of man, whose pangs bore witness if truth were true.
+ Man crucified rose again from the sepulchre builded to be
+ No grave for the souls of the men who denied thee, but, Lord, for
+ thee.
+
+ When Bruno's spirit aspired from the flames that thy servants fed,
+ The spirit of faith was fired to consume thee and leave thee dead.
+ When the light of the sunlike eyes whence laughter lightened and
+ flamed
+ Bade France and the world be wise, faith saw thee naked and shamed.
+ When wisdom deeper and sweeter than Rabelais veiled and revealed
+ Found utterance diviner and meeter for truth whence anguish is
+ healed,
+ Whence fear and hate and belief in thee, fed by thy grace from
+ above,
+ Fall stricken, and utmost grief takes light from the lustre of
+ love,
+ When Shakespeare shone into birth, and the world he beheld grew
+ bright,
+ Thy kingdom was ended on earth, and the darkness it shed was light.
+ In him all truth and the glory thereof and the power and the pride,
+ The song of the soul and her story, bore witness that fear had
+ lied.
+ All hope, all wonder, all trust, all doubt that knows not of fear,
+ The love of the body, the lust of the spirit to see and to hear,
+ All womanhood, fairer than love could conceive or desire or adore,
+ All manhood, radiant above all heights that it held of yore,
+ Lived by the life of his breath, with the speech of his soul's will
+ spake,
+ And the light lit darkness to death whence never the dead shall
+ wake.
+ For the light that lived in the sound of the song of his speech was
+ one
+ With the light of the wisdom that found earth's tune in the song of
+ the sun;
+ His word with the word of the lord most high of us all on earth,
+ Whose soul was a lyre and a sword, whose death was a deathless
+ birth.
+ Him too we praise as we praise our own who as he stand strong;
+ Him, Æschylus, ancient of days, whose word is the perfect song.
+ When Caucasus showed to the sun and the sea what a God could
+ endure,
+ When wisdom and light were one, and the hands of the matricide
+ pure,
+ A song too subtle for psalmist or prophet of Jewry to know,
+ Elate and profound as the calmest or stormiest of waters that flow,
+ A word whose echoes were wonder and music of fears overcome,
+ Bade Sinai bow, and the thunder of godhead on Horeb be dumb.
+ The childless children of night, strong daughters of doom and
+ dread,
+ The thoughts and the fears that smite the soul, and its life lies
+ dead,
+ Stood still and were quelled by the sound of his word and the light
+ of his thought,
+ And the God that in man lay bound was unbound from the bonds he had
+ wrought.
+ Dark fear of a lord more dark than the dreams of his worshippers
+ knew
+ Fell dead, and the corpse lay stark in the sunlight of truth shown
+ true.
+
+
+ VII
+
+ Time, and truth his child, though terror set earth and heaven at
+ odds,
+ See the light of manhood rise on the twilight of the Gods.
+ Light is here for souls to see, though the stars of faith be dead:
+ All the sea that yearned and trembled receives the sun instead.
+ All the shadows on the spirit when fears and dreams were strong,
+ All perdition, all redemption, blind rain-stars watched so long,
+ Love whose root was fear, thanksgiving that cowered beneath the
+ rod,
+ Feel the light that heals and withers: night weeps upon her God.
+ All the names wherein the incarnate Lord lived his day and died
+ Fade from suns to stars, from stars into darkness undescried.
+
+ Christ the man lives yet, remembered of man as dreams that leave
+ Light on eyes that wake and know not if memory bid them grieve.
+ Fire sublime as lightning shines, and exults in thunder yet,
+ Where the battle wields the name and the sword of Mahomet.
+ Far above all wars and gospels, all ebb and flow of time,
+ Lives the soul that speaks in silence, and makes mute earth
+ sublime.
+ Still for her, though years and ages be blinded and bedinned,
+ Mazed with lightnings, crazed with thunders, life rides and guides
+ the wind.
+ Death may live or death may die, and the truth be light or night:
+ Not for gain of heaven may man put away the rule of right.
+
+
+
+
+ A NEW YEAR'S EVE
+
+ CHRISTINA ROSSETTI DIED DECEMBER 29, 1894
+
+
+ The stars are strong in the deeps of the lustrous night,
+ Cold and splendid as death if his dawn be bright;
+ Cold as the cast-off garb that is cold as clay,
+ Splendid and strong as a spirit intense as light.
+
+ A soul more sweet than the morning of new-born May
+ Has passed with the year that has passed from the world away.
+ A song more sweet than the morning's first-born song
+ Again will hymn not among us a new year's day.
+
+ Not here, not here shall the carol of joy grown strong
+ Ring rapture now, and uplift us, a spell-struck throng,
+ From dream to vision of life that the soul may see
+ By death's grace only, if death do its trust no wrong.
+
+ Scarce yet the days and the starry nights are three
+ Since here among us a spirit abode as we,
+ Girt round with life that is fettered in bonds of time,
+ And clasped with darkness about as is earth with sea.
+
+ And now, more high than the vision of souls may climb,
+ The soul whose song was as music of stars that chime,
+ Clothed round with life as of dawn and the mounting sun,
+ Sings, and we know not here of the song sublime.
+
+ No word is ours of it now that the songs are done
+ Whence here we drank of delight as in freedom won,
+ In deep deliverance given from the bonds we bore.
+ There is none to sing as she sang upon earth, not one.
+
+ We heard awhile: and for us who shall hear no more
+ The sound as of waves of light on a starry shore
+ Awhile bade brighten and yearn as a father's face
+ The face of death, divine as in days of yore.
+
+ The grey gloom quickened and quivered: the sunless place
+ Thrilled, and the silence deeper than time or space
+ Seemed now not all everlasting. Hope grew strong,
+ And love took comfort, given of the sweet song's grace.
+
+ Love that finds not on earth, where it finds but wrong,
+ Love that bears not the bondage of years in throng
+ Shone to show for her, higher than the years that mar,
+ The life she looked and longed for as love must long.
+
+ Who knows? We know not. Afar, if the dead be far,
+ Alive, if the dead be alive as the soul's works are,
+ The soul whose breath was among us a heavenward song
+ Sings, loves, and shines as it shines for us here a star.
+
+
+
+
+ IN A ROSARY
+
+
+ Through the low grey archway children's feet that pass
+ Quicken, glad to find the sweetest haunt of all.
+ Brightest wildflowers gleaming deep in lustiest grass,
+ Glorious weeds that glisten through the green sea's glass,
+ Match not now this marvel, born to fade and fall.
+
+ Roses like a rainbow wrought of roses rise
+ Right and left and forward, shining toward the sun.
+ Nay, the rainbow lit of sunshine droops and dies
+ Ere we dream it hallows earth and seas and skies;
+ Ere delight may dream it lives, its life is done.
+
+ Round the border hemmed with high deep hedges round
+ Go the children, peering over or between
+ Where the dense bright oval wall of box inwound,
+ Reared about the roses fast within it bound,
+ Gives them grace to glance at glories else unseen.
+
+ Flower outlightening flower and tree outflowering tree
+ Feed and fill the sense and spirit full with joy.
+ Nought awhile they know of outer earth and sea:
+ Here enough of joy it is to breathe and be:
+ Here the sense of life is one for girl and boy.
+
+ Heaven above them, bright as children's eyes or dreams,
+ Earth about them, sweet as glad soft sleep can show
+ Earth and sky and sea, a world that scarcely seems
+ Even in children's eyes less fair than life that gleams
+ Through the sleep that none but sinless eyes may know.
+
+ Near beneath, and near above, the terraced ways
+ Wind or stretch and bask or blink against the sun.
+ Hidden here from sight on soft or stormy days
+ Lies and laughs with love toward heaven, at silent gaze,
+ All the radiant rosary--all its flowers made one.
+
+ All the multitude of roses towering round
+ Dawn and noon and night behold as one full flower,
+ Fain of heaven and loved of heaven, curbed and crowned,
+ Raised and reared to make this plot of earthly ground
+ Heavenly, could but heaven endure on earth an hour.
+
+ Swept away, made nothing now for ever, dead,
+ Still the rosary lives and shines on memory, free
+ Now from fear of death or change as childhood, fled
+ Years on years before its last live leaves were shed:
+ None may mar it now, as none may stain the sea.
+
+
+
+
+ THE HIGH OAKS
+
+ BARKING HALL, JULY 19TH, 1896
+
+
+ Fourscore years and seven
+ Light and dew from heaven
+ Have fallen with dawn on these glad woods each day
+ Since here was born, even here,
+ A birth more bright and dear
+ Than ever a younger year
+ Hath seen or shall till all these pass away,
+ Even all the imperious pride of these,
+ The woodland ways majestic now with towers of trees.
+
+ Love itself hath nought
+ Touched of tenderest thought
+ With holiest hallowing of memorial grace
+ For memory, blind with bliss,
+ To love, to clasp, to kiss,
+ So sweetly strange as this,
+ The sense that here the sun first hailed her face,
+ A babe at Her glad mother's breast,
+ And here again beholds it more beloved and blest.
+
+ Love's own heart, a living
+ Spring of strong thanksgiving,
+ Can bid no strength of welling song find way
+ When all the soul would seek
+ One word for joy to speak,
+ And even its strength makes weak
+ The too strong yearning of the soul to say
+ What may not be conceived or said
+ While darkness makes division of the quick and dead.
+
+ Haply, where the sun
+ Wanes, and death is none,
+ The word known here of silence only, held
+ Too dear for speech to wrong,
+ May leap in living song
+ Forth, and the speech be strong
+ As here the silence whence it yearned and welled
+ From hearts whose utterance love sealed fast
+ Till death perchance might give it grace to live at last.
+
+ Here we have our earth
+ Yet, with all the mirth
+ Of all the summers since the world began,
+ All strengths of rest and strife
+ And love-lit love of life
+ Where death has birth to wife,
+ And where the sun speaks, and is heard of man:
+ Yea, half the sun's bright speech is heard,
+ And like the sea the soul of man gives back his word.
+
+ Earth's enkindled heart
+ Bears benignant part
+ In the ardent heaven's auroral pride of prime:
+ If ever home on earth
+ Were found of heaven's grace worth
+ So God-beloved a birth
+ As here makes bright the fostering face of time,
+ Here, heaven bears witness, might such grace
+ Fall fragrant as the dewfall on that brightening face.
+
+ Here, for mine and me,
+ All that eyes may see
+ Hath more than all the wide world else of good,
+ All nature else of fair:
+ Here as none otherwhere
+ Heaven is the circling air,
+ Heaven is the homestead, heaven the wold, the wood:
+ The fragrance with the shadow spread
+ From broadening wings of cedars breathes of dawn's bright bed.
+
+ Once a dawn rose here
+ More divine and dear,
+ Rose on a birth-bed brighter far than dawn's,
+ Whence all the summer grew
+ Sweet as when earth was new
+ And pure as Eden's dew:
+ And yet its light lives on these lustrous lawns,
+ Clings round these wildwood ways, and cleaves
+ To the aisles of shadow and sun that wind unweaves and weaves.
+
+ Thoughts that smile and weep,
+ Dreams that hallow sleep,
+ Brood in the branching shadows of the trees,
+ Tall trees at agelong rest
+ Wherein the centuries nest,
+ Whence, blest as these are blest,
+ We part, and part not from delight in these;
+ Whose comfort, sleeping as awake,
+ We bear about within us as when first it spake.
+
+ Comfort as of song
+ Grown with time more strong,
+ Made perfect and prophetic as the sea,
+ Whose message, when it lies
+ Far off our hungering eyes,
+ Within us prophesies
+ Of life not ours, yet ours as theirs may be
+ Whose souls far off us shine and sing
+ As ere they sprang back sunward, swift as fire might spring.
+
+ All this oldworld pleasance
+ Hails a hallowing presence,
+ And thrills with sense of more than summer near,
+ And lifts toward heaven more high
+ The song-surpassing cry
+ Of rapture that July
+ Lives, for her love who makes it loveliest here;
+ For joy that she who here first drew
+ The breath of life she gave me breathes it here anew.
+
+ Never birthday born
+ Highest in height of morn
+ Whereout the star looks forth that leads the sun
+ Shone higher in love's account,
+ Still seeing the mid noon mount
+ From the eager dayspring's fount
+ Each year more lustrous, each like all in one;
+ Whose light around us and above
+ We could not see so lovely save by grace of love.
+
+
+
+
+ BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER
+
+
+ Still the sovereign trees
+ Make the sundawn's breeze
+ More bright, more sweet, more heavenly than it rose,
+ As wind and sun fulfil
+ Their living rapture: still
+ Noon, dawn, and evening thrill
+ With radiant change the immeasurable repose
+ Wherewith the woodland wilds lie blest
+ And feel how storms and centuries rock them still to rest.
+
+ Still the love-lit place
+ Given of God such grace
+ That here was born on earth a birth divine
+ Gives thanks with all its flowers
+ Through all their lustrous hours,
+ From all its birds and bowers
+ Gives thanks that here they felt her sunset shine
+ Where once her sunrise laughed, and bade
+ The life of all the living things it lit be glad.
+
+ Soft as light and strong
+ Rises yet their song
+ And thrills with pride the cedar-crested lawn
+ And every brooding dove.
+ But she, beloved above
+ All utterance known of love,
+ Abides no more the change of night and dawn,
+ Beholds no more with earth-born eye
+ These woods that watched her waking here where all things die.
+
+ Not the light that shone
+ When she looked thereon
+ Shines on them or shall shine for ever here.
+ We know not, save when sleep
+ Slays death, who fain would keep
+ His mystery dense and deep,
+ Where shines the smile we held and hold so dear.
+ Dreams only, thrilled and filled with love,
+ Bring back its light ere dawn leave nought alive above.
+
+ Nought alive awake
+ Sees the strong dawn break
+ On all the dreams that dying night bade live.
+ Yet scarce the intolerant sense
+ Of day's harsh evidence
+ How came their word and whence
+ Strikes dumb the song of thanks it bids them give,
+ The joy that answers as it heard
+ And lightens as it saw the light that spake the word.
+
+ Night and sleep and dawn
+ Pass with dreams withdrawn:
+ But higher above them far than noon may climb
+ Love lives and turns to light
+ The deadly noon of night.
+ His fiery spirit of sight
+ Endures no curb of change or darkling time.
+ Even earth and transient things of earth
+ Even here to him bear witness not of death but birth.
+
+
+
+
+ MUSIC: AN ODE
+
+
+ I
+
+ Was it light that spake from the darkness, or music that shone
+ from the word,
+ When the night was enkindled with sound of the sun or the
+ first-born bird?
+ Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage of seasons that fall
+ and rise,
+ Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, and blinded with light
+ that dies,
+ Lived not surely till music spake, and the spirit of life was
+ heard.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be,
+ Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man, and the thrall was free.
+ Slave of nature and serf of time, the bondman of life and death,
+ Dumb with passionless patience that breathed but forlorn and
+ reluctant breath,
+ Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer, and communed aloud with
+ the sea.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Morning spake, and he heard: and the passionate silent noon
+ Kept for him not silence: and soft from the mounting moon
+ Fell the sound of her splendour, heard as dawn's in the breathless
+ night,
+ Not of men but of birds whose note bade man's soul quicken and leap
+ to light:
+ And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness of earth
+ were as chords in tune.
+
+
+
+
+ THE CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE NILE
+
+ AUGUST 1898
+
+ '_Horatio Nelson_--_Honor est a Nilo_'
+
+
+ A hundred years have lightened and have waned
+ Since ancient Nile by grace of Nelson gained
+ A glory higher in story now than time
+ Saw when his kings were gods that raged and reigned.
+
+ The day that left even England more sublime
+ And higher on heights that none but she may climb
+ Abides above all shock of change-born chance
+ Where hope and memory hear the stars keep chime.
+
+ The strong and sunbright lie whose name was France
+ Arose against the sun of truth, whose glance
+ Laughed large from the eyes of England, fierce as fire
+ Whence eyes wax blind that gaze on truth askance.
+
+ A name above all names of heroes, higher
+ Than song may sound or heart of man aspire,
+ Rings as the very voice that speaks the sea
+ To-day from all the sea's enkindling lyre.
+
+ The sound that bids the soul of silence be
+ Fire, and a rapturous music, speaks, and we
+ Hear what the sea's heart utters, wide and far:
+ "This was his day, and this day's light was he."
+
+ O sea, our sea that hadst him for thy star,
+ A hundred years that fall upon thee are
+ Even as a hundred flakes of rain or snow:
+ No storm of battle signs thee with a scar.
+
+ But never more may ship that sails thee show,
+ But never may the sun that loves thee know,
+ But never may thine England give thee more,
+ A man whose life and death shall praise thee so.
+
+ The Nile, the sea, the battle, and the shore,
+ Heard as we hear one word arise and soar,
+ Beheld one name above them tower and glow--
+ Nelson: a light that time bows down before.
+
+
+
+
+ TRAFALGAR DAY
+
+
+ Sea, that art ours as we are thine, whose name
+ Is one with England's even as light with flame,
+ Dost thou as we, thy chosen of all men, know
+ This day of days when death gave life to fame?
+
+ Dost thou not kindle above and thrill below
+ With rapturous record, with memorial glow,
+ Remembering this thy festal day of fight,
+ And all the joy it gave, and all the woe?
+
+ Never since day broke flowerlike forth of night
+ Broke such a dawn of battle. Death in sight
+ Made of the man whose life was like the sun
+ A man more godlike than the lord of light.
+
+ There is none like him, and there shall be none.
+ When England bears again as great a son,
+ He can but follow fame where Nelson led.
+ There is not and there cannot be but one.
+
+ As earth has but one England, crown and head
+ Of all her glories till the sun be dead,
+ Supreme in peace and war, supreme in song,
+ Supreme in freedom, since her rede was read,
+
+ Since first the soul that gave her speech grew strong
+ To help the right and heal the wild world's wrong,
+ So she hath but one royal Nelson, born
+ To reign on time above the years that throng.
+
+ The music of his name puts fear to scorn,
+ And thrills our twilight through with sense of morn:
+ As England was, how should not England be?
+ No tempest yet has left her banner torn.
+
+ No year has yet put out the day when he
+ Who lived and died to keep our kingship free
+ Wherever seas by warring winds are worn
+ Died, and was one with England and the sea.
+
+ _October 21, 1895._
+
+
+
+
+ CROMWELL'S STATUE[1]
+
+
+ What needs our Cromwell stone or bronze to say
+ His was the light that lit on England's way
+ The sundawn of her time-compelling power,
+ The noontide of her most imperial day?
+
+ His hand won back the sea for England's dower;
+ His footfall bade the Moor change heart and cower;
+ His word on Milton's tongue spake law to France
+ When Piedmont felt the she-wolf Rome devour.
+
+ From Cromwell's eyes the light of England's glance
+ Flashed, and bowed down the kings by grace of chance,
+ The priest-anointed princes; one alone
+ By grace of England held their hosts in trance.
+
+ The enthroned Republic from her kinglier throne
+ Spake, and her speech was Cromwell's. Earth has known
+ No lordlier presence. How should Cromwell stand
+ With kinglets and with queenlings hewn in stone?
+
+ Incarnate England in his warrior hand
+ Smote, and as fire devours the blackening brand
+ Made ashes of their strengths who wrought her wrong,
+ And turned the strongholds of her foes to sand.
+
+ His praise is in the sea's and Milton's song;
+ What praise could reach him from the weakling throng
+ That rules by leave of tongues whose praise is shame--
+ Him, who made England out of weakness strong?
+
+ There needs no clarion's blast of broad-blown fame
+ To bid the world bear witness whence he came
+ Who bade fierce Europe fawn at England's heel
+ And purged the plague of lineal rule with flame.
+
+ There needs no witness graven on stone or steel
+ For one whose work bids fame bow down and kneel;
+ Our man of men, whose time-commanding name
+ Speaks England, and proclaims her Commonweal.
+
+ _June 20, 1895._
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Refused by the party of reaction and disunion in the House
+of Commons on the 17th of June, 1895.]
+
+
+
+
+ A WORD FOR THE NAVY
+
+
+ I
+
+ Queen born of the sea, that hast borne her
+ The mightiest of seamen on earth,
+ Bright England, whose glories adorn her
+ And bid her rejoice in thy birth
+ As others made mothers
+ Rejoice in births sublime,
+ She names thee, she claims thee,
+ The lordliest child of time.
+
+
+ II
+
+ All hers is the praise of thy story,
+ All thine is the love of her choice
+ The light of her waves is thy glory,
+ The sound of thy soul is her voice.
+ They fear it who hear it
+ And love not truth nor thee:
+ They sicken, heart-stricken,
+ Who see and would not see.
+
+
+ III
+
+ The lords of thy fate, and thy keepers
+ Whose charge is the strength of thy ships,
+ If now they be dreamers and sleepers,
+ Or sluggards with lies at their lips,
+ Thy haters and traitors,
+ False friends or foes descried,
+ Might scatter and shatter
+ Too soon thy princely pride.
+
+
+ IV
+
+ Dark Muscovy, reptile in rancour,
+ Base Germany, blatant in guile,
+ Lay wait for thee riding at anchor
+ On waters that whisper and smile.
+ They deem thee or dream thee
+ Less living now than dead,
+ Deep sunken and drunken
+ With sleep whence fear has fled.
+
+
+ V
+
+ And what though thy song as thine action
+ Wax faint, and thy place be not known,
+ While faction is grappling with faction,
+ Twin curs with thy corpse for a bone?
+ They care not, who spare not
+ The noise of pens or throats;
+ Who bluster and muster
+ Blind ranks and bellowing votes.
+
+
+ VI
+
+ Let populace jangle with peerage
+ And ministers shuffle their mobs;
+ Mad pilots who reck not of steerage
+ Though tempest ahead of them throbs.
+ That throbbing and sobbing
+ Of wind and gradual wave
+ They hear not and fear not
+ Who guide thee toward thy grave.
+
+
+ VII
+
+ No clamour of cries or of parties
+ Is worth but a whisper from thee,
+ While only the trust of thy heart is
+ At one with the soul of the sea.
+ In justice her trust is
+ Whose time her tidestreams keep;
+ They sink not, they shrink not,
+ Time casts them not on sleep.
+
+
+ VIII
+
+ Sleep thou: for thy past was so royal,
+ Love hardly would bid thee take heed
+ Were Russia not faithful and loyal
+ Nor Germany guiltless of greed.
+ No nation, in station
+ Of story less than thou,
+ Re-risen from prison,
+ Can stand against thee now.
+
+
+ IX
+
+ Sleep on: is the time not a season
+ For strong men to slumber and sleep,
+ And wise men to palter with treason?
+ And that they sow tares, shall they reap?
+ The wages of ages
+ Wherein men smiled and slept,
+ Fame fails them, shame veils them,
+ Their record is not kept.
+
+
+ X
+
+ Nay, whence is it then that we know it,
+ What wages were theirs, and what fame?
+ Deep voices of prophet and poet
+ Bear record against them of shame.
+ Death, starker and darker
+ Than seals the graveyard grate,
+ Entombs them and dooms them
+ To darkness deep as fate.
+
+
+ XI
+
+ But thou, though the world should misdoubt thee,
+ Be strong as the seas at thy side;
+ Bind on but thine armour about thee,
+ That girds thee with power and with pride.
+ Where Drake stood, where Blake stood,
+ Where fame sees Nelson stand,
+ Stand thou too, and now too
+ Take thou thy fate in hand.
+
+
+ XII
+
+ At the gate of the sea, in the gateway,
+ They stood as the guards of thy gate;
+ Take now but thy strengths to thee straightway,
+ Though late, we will deem it not late.
+ Thy story, thy glory,
+ The very soul of thee,
+ It rose not, it grows not,
+ It comes not save by sea.
+
+
+
+
+ NORTHUMBERLAND
+
+
+ Between our eastward and our westward sea
+ The narrowing strand
+ Clasps close the noblest shore fame holds in fee
+ Even here where English birth seals all men free--
+ Northumberland.
+
+ The sea-mists meet across it when the snow
+ Clothes moor and fell,
+ And bid their true-born hearts who love it glow
+ For joy that none less nobly born may know
+ What love knows well.
+
+ The splendour and the strength of storm and fight
+ Sustain the song
+ That filled our fathers' hearts with joy to smite,
+ To live, to love, to lay down life that right
+ Might tread down wrong.
+
+ They warred, they sang, they triumphed, and they passed,
+ And left us glad
+ Here to be born, their sons, whose hearts hold fast
+ The proud old love no change can overcast,
+ No chance leave sad.
+
+ None save our northmen ever, none but we,
+ Met, pledged, or fought
+ Such foes and friends as Scotland and the sea
+ With heart so high and equal, strong in glee
+ And stern in thought.
+
+ Thought, fed from time's memorial springs with pride,
+ Made strong as fire
+ Their hearts who hurled the foe down Flodden side,
+ And hers who rode the waves none else durst ride--
+ None save her sire.
+
+ O land beloved, where nought of legend's dream
+ Outshines the truth,
+ Where Joyous Gard, closed round with clouds that gleam
+ For them that know thee not, can scarce but seem
+ Too sweet for sooth,
+
+ Thy sons forget not, nor shall fame forget,
+ The deed there done
+ Before the walls whose fabled fame is yet
+ A light too sweet and strong to rise and set
+ With moon and sun.
+
+ Song bright as flash of swords or oars that shine
+ Through fight or foam
+ Stirs yet the blood thou hast given thy sons like wine
+ To hail in each bright ballad hailed as thine
+ One heart, one home.
+
+ Our Collingwood, though Nelson be not ours,
+ By him shall stand
+ Immortal, till those waifs of oldworld hours,
+ Forgotten, leave uncrowned with bays and flowers
+ Northumberland.
+
+
+
+
+ STRATFORD-ON-AVON
+
+ JUNE 27, 1901
+
+
+ Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered,
+ Most royal and most loyal born of men,
+ Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared
+ Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken.
+ The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth,
+ Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than Rome,
+ Forgets not how of all on English earth
+ Their trust is holiest, there who have their home.
+ Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate
+ The commonweal whose empire sets men free
+ Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate
+ A soul was born as boundless as the sea.
+ If life, if love, if memory now be thine,
+ Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign.
+
+
+
+
+ BURNS: AN ODE
+
+
+ A fire of fierce and laughing light
+ That clove the shuddering heart of night
+ Leapt earthward, and the thunder's might
+ That pants and yearns
+ Made fitful music round its flight:
+ And earth saw Burns.
+
+ The joyous lightning found its voice
+ And bade the heart of wrath rejoice
+ And scorn uplift a song to voice
+ The imperial hate
+ That smote the God of base men's choice
+ At God's own gate.
+
+ Before the shrine of dawn, wherethrough
+ The lark rang rapture as she flew,
+ It flashed and fired the darkling dew:
+ And all that heard
+ With love or loathing hailed anew
+ A new day's word.
+
+ The servants of the lord of hell,
+ As though their lord had blessed them, fell
+ Foaming at mouth for fear, so well
+ They knew the lie
+ Wherewith they sought to scan and spell
+ The unsounded sky.
+
+ And Calvin, night's prophetic bird,
+ Out of his home in hell was heard
+ Shrieking; and all the fens were stirred
+ Whence plague is bred;
+ Can God endure the scoffer's word?
+ But God was dead.
+
+ The God they made them in despite
+ Of man and woman, love and light,
+ Strong sundawn and the starry night,
+ The lie supreme,
+ Shot through with song, stood forth to sight
+ A devil's dream.
+
+ And he that bent the lyric bow
+ And laid the lord of darkness low
+ And bade the fire of laughter glow
+ Across his grave,
+ And bade the tides above it flow,
+ Wave hurtling wave,
+
+ Shall he not win from latter days
+ More than his own could yield of praise?
+ Ay, could the sovereign singer's bays
+ Forsake his brow,
+ The warrior's, won on stormier ways,
+ Still clasp it now.
+
+ He loved, and sang of love: he laughed,
+ And bade the cup whereout he quaffed
+ Shine as a planet, fore and aft,
+ And left and right,
+ And keen as shoots the sun's first shaft
+ Against the night.
+
+ But love and wine were moon and sun
+ For many a fame long since undone,
+ And sorrow and joy have lost and won
+ By stormy turns
+ As many a singer's soul, if none
+ More bright than Burns.
+
+ And sweeter far in grief or mirth
+ Have songs as glad and sad of birth
+ Found voice to speak of wealth or dearth
+ In joy of life:
+ But never song took fire from earth
+ More strong for strife.
+
+ The daisy by his ploughshare cleft,
+ The lips of women loved and left,
+ The griefs and joys that weave the weft
+ Of human time,
+ With craftsman's cunning, keen and deft,
+ He carved in rhyme.
+
+ But Chaucer's daisy shines a star
+ Above his ploughshare's reach to mar,
+ And mightier vision gave Dunbar
+ More strenuous wing
+ To hear around all sins that are
+ Hell dance and sing.
+
+ And when such pride and power of trust
+ In song's high gift to arouse from dust
+ Death, and transfigure love or lust
+ Through smiles or tears
+ In golden speech that takes no rust
+ From cankering years,
+
+ As never spake but once in one
+ Strong star-crossed child of earth and sun,
+ Villon, made music such as none
+ May praise or blame,
+ A crown of starrier flower was won
+ Than Burns may claim.
+
+ But never, since bright earth was born
+ In rapture of the enkindling morn,
+ Might godlike wrath and sunlike scorn
+ That was and is
+ And shall be while false weeds are worn
+ Find word like his.
+
+ Above the rude and radiant earth
+ That heaves and glows from firth to firth
+ In vale and mountain, bright in dearth
+ And warm in wealth,
+ Which gave his fiery glory birth
+ By chance and stealth,
+
+ Above the storms of praise and blame
+ That blur with mist his lustrous name,
+ His thunderous laughter went and came,
+ And lives and flies;
+ The roar that follows on the flame
+ When lightning dies.
+
+ Earth, and the snow-dimmed heights of air,
+ And water winding soft and fair
+ Through still sweet places, bright and bare,
+ By bent and byre,
+ Taught him what hearts within them were:
+ But his was fire.
+
+
+
+
+ THE COMMONWEAL
+
+ A SONG FOR UNIONISTS
+
+
+ Men, whose fathers braved the world in arms against our isles in
+ union,
+ Men, whose brothers met rebellion face to face,
+ Show the hearts ye have, if worthy long descent and high communion,
+ Show the spirits, if unbroken, of your race.
+
+ What are these that howl and hiss across the strait of westward
+ water?
+ What is he who floods our ears with speech in flood?
+ See the long tongue lick the dripping hand that smokes and reeks of
+ slaughter!
+ See the man of words embrace the man of blood!
+
+ Hear the plea whereby the tonguester mocks and charms the gazing
+ gaper--
+ "We are they whose works are works of love and peace;
+ Till disunion bring forth union, what is union, sirs, but paper?
+ Break and rend it, then shall trust and strength increase."
+
+ Who would fear to trust a double-faced but single-hearted dreamer,
+ Pure of purpose, clean of hand, and clear of guile?
+ "Life is well-nigh spent," he sighs; "you call me shuffler,
+ trickster, schemer?
+ I am old--when young men yell at me, I smile."
+
+ Many a year that priceless light of life has trembled, we remember,
+ On the platform of extinction--unextinct;
+ Many a month has been for him the long year's last--life's calm
+ December:
+ Can it be that he who said so, saying so, winked?
+
+ No; the lust of life, the thirst for work and days with work to do
+ in,
+ Drove and drives him down the road of splendid shame;
+ All is well, if o'er the monument recording England's ruin
+ Time shall read, inscribed in triumph, Gladstone's name.
+
+ Thieves and murderers, hands yet red with blood and tongues yet
+ black with lies,
+ Clap and clamour--"Parnell spurs his Gladstone well!"
+ Truth, unscared and undeluded by their praise or blame, replies--
+ "Is the goal of fraud and bloodshed heaven or hell?"
+
+ Old men eloquent, who truckle to the traitors of the time,
+ Love not office--power is no desire of theirs:
+ What if yesterday their hearts recoiled from blood and fraud and
+ crime?
+ Conscience erred--an error which to-day repairs.
+
+ Conscience only now convinces them of strange though transient
+ error:
+ Only now they see how fair is treason's face;
+ See how true the falsehood, just the theft, and blameless is the
+ terror,
+ Which replaces just and blameless men in place.
+
+ Place and time decide the right and wrong of thought and word and
+ action;
+ Crime is black as hell, till virtue gain its vote;
+ Then--but ah, to think or say so smacks of fraud or smells of
+ faction!--
+ Mercy holds the door while Murder hacks the throat.
+
+ Murder? Treason? Theft? Poor brothers who succumb to such
+ temptations,
+ Shall we lay on you or take on us the blame?
+ Reason answers, and religion echoes round to wondering nations,
+ "Not with Ireland, but with England rests the shame."
+
+ Reason speaks through mild religion's organ, loud and long and
+ lusty--
+ Profit speaks through lips of patriots pure and true--
+ "English friends, whose trust we ask for, has not England found us
+ trusty?
+ Not for us we seek advancement, but for you.
+
+ "Far and near the world bears witness of our wisdom, courage,
+ honour;
+ Egypt knows if there our fame burns bright or dim.
+ Let but England trust as Gordon trusted, soon shall come upon her
+ Such deliverance as our daring brought on him.
+
+ "Far and wide the world rings record of our faith, our constant
+ dealing,
+ Love of country, truth to friends, contempt for foes.
+ Sign once more the bond of trust in us that here awaits but
+ sealing,
+ We will give yet more than all our record shows.
+
+ "Perfect ruin, shame eternal, everlasting degradation,
+ Freedom bought and sold, truth bound and treason free."
+ Yet an hour is here for answer; now, if here be yet a nation,
+ Answer, England, man by man from sea to sea!
+
+ _June 30, 1886._
+
+
+
+
+ THE QUESTION
+
+ 1887
+
+
+ Shall England consummate the crime
+ That binds the murderer's hand, and leaves
+ No surety for the trust of thieves?
+ Time pleads against it--truth and time--
+ And pity frowns and grieves.
+
+ The hoary henchman of the gang
+ Lifts hands that never dew nor rain
+ May cleanse from Gordon's blood again,
+ Appealing: pity's tenderest pang
+ Thrills his pure heart with pain.
+
+ Grand helmsman of the clamorous crew,
+ The good grey recreant quakes and weeps
+ To think that crime no longer creeps
+ Safe toward its end: that murderers too
+ May die when mercy sleeps.
+
+ While all the lives were innocent
+ That slaughter drank, and laughed with rage,
+ Bland virtue sighed, "A former age
+ Taught murder: souls long discontent
+ Can aught save blood assuage?
+
+ "You blame not Russian hands that smite
+ By fierce and secret ways the power
+ That leaves not life one chainless hour;
+ Have these than they less natural right
+ To claim life's natural dower?
+
+ "The dower that freedom brings the slave
+ She weds, is vengeance: why should we,
+ Whom equal laws acclaim as free,
+ Think shame, if men too blindly brave
+ Steal, murder, skulk, and flee?
+
+ "At kings they strike in Russia: there
+ Men take their life in hand who slay
+ Kings: these, that have not heart to lay
+ Hand save on girls whose ravaged hair
+ Is made the patriot's prey,
+
+ "These, whom the sight of old men slain
+ Makes bold to bid their children die,
+ Starved, if they hold not peace, nor lie,
+ Claim loftier praise: could others deign
+ To stand in shame so high?
+
+ "Could others deign to dare such deeds
+ As holiest Ireland hallows? Nay,
+ But justice then makes plain our way:
+ Be laws burnt up like burning weeds
+ That vex the face of day.
+
+ "Shall bloodmongers be held of us
+ Blood-guilty? Hands reached out for gold
+ Whereon blood rusts not yet, we hold
+ Bloodless and blameless: ever thus
+ Have good men held of old.
+
+ "Fair Freedom, fledged and imped with lies,
+ Takes flight by night where murder lurks,
+ And broods on murderous ways and works,
+ Yet seems not hideous in our eyes
+ As Austrians or as Turks.
+
+ "Be it ours to undo a woful past,
+ To bid the bells of concord chime,
+ To break the bonds of suffering crime,
+ Slack now, that some would make more fast:
+ Such teaching comes of time."
+
+ So pleads the gentlest heart that lives,
+ Whose pity, pitiless for all
+ Whom darkling terror holds in thrall,
+ Toward none save miscreants yearns, and gives
+ Alms of warm tears--and gall.
+
+ Hear, England, and obey: for he
+ Who claims thy trust again to-day
+ Is he who left thy sons a prey
+ To shame whence only death sets free:
+ Hear, England, and obey.
+
+ Thy spoils he gave to deck the Dutch;
+ Thy noblest pride, most pure, most brave,
+ To death forlorn and sure he gave;
+ Nor now requires he overmuch
+ Who bids thee dig thy grave.
+
+ Dig deep the grave of shame, wherein
+ Thy fame, thy commonweal, must lie;
+ Put thought of aught save terror by;
+ To strike and slay the slayer is sin;
+ And Murder must not die.
+
+ Bind fast the true man; loose the thief;
+ Shamed were the land, the laws accursed,
+ Were guilt, not innocence, amerced;
+ And dark the wrong and sore the grief,
+ Were tyrants too coerced.
+
+ The fiercest cowards that ever skulked,
+ The cowardliest hounds that ever lapped
+ Blood, if their horde be tracked and trapped,
+ And justice claim their lives for mulct,
+ Gnash teeth that flashed and snapped.
+
+ Bow down for fear, then, England: bow,
+ Lest worse befall thee yet; and swear
+ That nought save pity, conscience, care
+ For truth and mercy, moves thee now
+ To call foul falsehood fair.
+
+ So shalt thou live in shame, and hear
+ The lips of all men laugh thee dead;
+ The wide world's mockery round thy head
+ Shriek like a storm-wind: and a bier
+ Shall be thine honour's bed.
+
+
+
+
+ APOSTASY
+
+ _Et Judas m'a dit: Traître!_--VICTOR HUGO
+
+
+ I
+
+ Truths change with time, and terms with truth. To-day
+ A statesman worships union, and to-night
+ Disunion. Shame to have sinned against the light
+ Confounds not but impels his tongue to unsay
+ What yestereve he swore. Should fear make way
+ For treason? honour change her livery? fright
+ Clasp hands with interest? wrong pledge faith with right?
+ Religion, mercy, conscience, answer--Yea.
+
+ To veer is not to veer: when votes are weighed,
+ The numerous tongue approves him renegade
+ Who cannot change his banner: he that can
+ Sits crowned with wreaths of praise too pure to fade.
+ Truth smiles applause on treason's poisonous plan:
+ And Cleon is an honourable man.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Pure faith, fond hope, sweet love, with God for guide,
+ Move now the men whose blameless error cast
+ In prison (ah, but love condones the past!)
+ Their subject knaves that were--their lords that ride
+ Now laughing on their necks, and now bestride
+ Their vassal backs in triumph. Faith stands fast
+ Though fear haul down the flag that crowned her mast
+ And hope and love proclaim that truth has lied.
+
+ Turn, turn, and turn--so bids the still small voice,
+ The changeless voice of honour. He that stands
+ Where all his life he stood, with bribeless hands,
+ With tongue unhired to mourn, reprove, rejoice,
+ Curse, bless, forswear, and swear again, and lie,
+ Stands proven apostate in the apostate's eye.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Fraud shrinks from faith: at sight of swans, the raven
+ Chides blackness, and the snake recoils aghast
+ In fear of poison when a bird flies past.
+ Thersites brands Achilles as a craven;
+ The shoal fed full with shipwreck blames the haven
+ For murderous lust of lives devoured, and vast
+ Desire of doom whose feast is mercy's fast:
+ And Bacon sees the traitor's mark engraven
+ Full on the front of Essex. Grief and shame
+ Obscure the chaste and sunlike spirit of Oates
+ At thought of Russell's treason; and the name
+ Of Milton sickens with superb disgust
+ The heaving heart of Waller. Wisdom dotes,
+ If wisdom turns not tail and licks not dust.
+
+
+ IV
+
+ The sole sweet land found fit to wed the sea,
+ With reptile rebels at her heel of old,
+ Set hard her heel upon them, and controlled
+ The cowering poisonous peril. How should she
+ Cower, and resign her trust of empire? Free
+ As winds and waters live the loyal-souled
+ And true-born sons that love her: nay, the bold
+ Base knaves who curse her name have leave to be
+ The loud-tongued liars they are. For she, beyond
+ All woful years that bid men's hearts despond,
+ Sees yet the likeness of her ancient fame
+ Burn from the heavenward heights of history, hears
+ Not Leicester's name but Sidney's--faith's, not fear's--
+ Not Gladstone's now but only Gordon's name.
+
+
+
+
+ RUSSIA: AN ODE
+
+ 1890
+
+
+ I
+
+ Out of hell a word comes hissing, dark as doom,
+ Fierce as fire, and foul as plague-polluted gloom;
+ Out of hell wherein the sinless damned endure
+ More than ever sin conceived of pains impure;
+ More than ever ground men's living souls to dust;
+ Worse than madness ever dreamed of murderous lust.
+ Since the world's wail first went up from lands and seas
+ Ears have heard not, tongues have told not things like these.
+ Dante, led by love's and hate's accordant spell
+ Down the deepest and the loathliest ways of hell,
+ Where beyond the brook of blood the rain was fire,
+ Where the scalps were masked with dung more deep than mire,
+ Saw not, where the filth was foulest, and the night
+ Darkest, depths whose fiends could match the Muscovite.
+ Set beside this truth, his deadliest vision seems
+ Pale and pure and painless as a virgin's dreams.
+ Maidens dead beneath the clasping lash, and wives
+ Rent with deadlier pangs than death--for shame survives,
+ Naked, mad, starved, scourged, spurned, frozen, fallen, deflowered,
+ Souls and bodies as by fangs of beasts devoured,
+ Sounds that hell would hear not, sights no thought could shape,
+ Limbs that feel as flame the ravenous grasp of rape,
+ Filth of raging crime and shame that crime enjoys,
+ Age made one with youth in torture, girls with boys,
+ These, and worse if aught be worse than these things are,
+ Prove thee regent, Russia--praise thy mercy, Czar.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Sons of man, men born of women, may we dare
+ Say they sin who dare be slain and dare not spare?
+ They who take their lives in hand and smile on death,
+ Holding life as less than sleep's most fitful breath,
+ So their life perchance or death may serve and speed
+ Faith and hope, that die if dream become not deed?
+ Nought is death and nought is life and nought is fate
+ Save for souls that love has clothed with fire of hate.
+ These behold them, weigh them, prove them, find them nought,
+ Save by light of hope and fire of burning thought.
+ What though sun be less than storm where these aspire,
+ Dawn than lightning, song than thunder, light than fire?
+ Help is none in heaven: hope sees no gentler star:
+ Earth is hell, and hell bows down before the Czar.
+ All its monstrous, murderous, lecherous births acclaim
+ Him whose empire lives to match its fiery fame.
+ Nay, perchance at sight or sense of deeds here done,
+ Here where men may lift up eyes to greet the sun,
+ Hell recoils heart-stricken: horror worse than hell
+ Darkens earth and sickens heaven; life knows the spell,
+ Shudders, quails, and sinks--or, filled with fierier breath,
+ Rises red in arms devised of darkling death.
+ Pity mad with passion, anguish mad with shame,
+ Call aloud on justice by her darker name;
+ Love grows hate for love's sake; life takes death for guide.
+ Night hath none but one red star--Tyrannicide.
+
+
+ III
+
+ "God or man, be swift; hope sickens with delay:
+ Smite, and send him howling down his father's way!
+ Fall, O fire of heaven, and smite as fire from hell
+ Halls wherein men's torturers, crowned and cowering, dwell!
+ These that crouch and shrink and shudder, girt with power--
+ These that reign, and dare not trust one trembling hour--
+ These omnipotent, whom terror curbs and drives--
+ These whose life reflects in fear their victims' lives--
+ These whose breath sheds poison worse than plague's thick breath--
+ These whose reign is ruin, these whose word is death,
+ These whose will turns heaven to hell, and day to night,
+ These, if God's hand smite not, how shall man's not smite?"
+ So from hearts by horror withered as by fire
+ Surge the strains of unappeasable desire;
+ Sounds that bid the darkness lighten, lit for death;
+ Bid the lips whose breath was doom yield up their breath;
+ Down the way of Czars, awhile in vain deferred,
+ Bid the Second Alexander light the Third.
+ How for shame shall men rebuke them? how may we
+ Blame, whose fathers died, and slew, to leave us free?
+ We, though all the world cry out upon them, know,
+ Were our strife as theirs, we could not strike but so;
+ Could not cower, and could not kiss the hands that smite;
+ Could not meet them armed in sunlit battle's light.
+ Dark as fear and red as hate though morning rise,
+ Life it is that conquers; death it is that dies.
+
+
+
+
+ FOR GREECE AND CRETE
+
+
+ Storm and shame and fraud and darkness fill the nations full with
+ night:
+ Hope and fear whose eyes yearn eastward have but fire and sword in
+ sight:
+ One alone, whose name is one with glory, sees and seeks the light.
+
+ Hellas, mother of the spirit, sole supreme in war and peace,
+ Land of light, whose word remembered bids all fear and sorrow
+ cease,
+ Lives again, while freedom lightens eastward yet for sons of
+ Greece.
+
+ Greece, where only men whose manhood was as godhead ever trod,
+ Bears the blind world witness yet of light wherewith her feet are
+ shod:
+ Freedom, armed of Greece was always very man and very God.
+
+ Now the winds of old that filled her sails with triumph, when the
+ fleet
+ Bound for death from Asia fled before them stricken, wake to greet
+ Ships full-winged again for freedom toward the sacred shores of
+ Crete.
+
+ There was God born man, the song that spake of old time said: and
+ there
+ Man, made even as God by trust that shows him nought too dire to
+ dare,
+ Now may light again the beacon lit when those we worship were.
+
+ Sharp the concert wrought of discord shrills the tune of shame and
+ death,
+ Turk by Christian fenced and fostered, Mecca backed by Nazareth:
+ All the powerless powers, tongue-valiant, breathe but greed's or
+ terror's breath.
+
+ Though the tide that feels the west wind lift it wave by widening
+ wave
+ Wax not yet to height and fullness of the storm that smites to
+ save,
+ None shall bid the flood back seaward till no bar be left to brave.
+
+
+
+
+ DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO
+
+ (B.C. 280)
+
+ DONE INTO ENGLISH
+
+
+ I
+
+ Thee, the son of God most high,
+ Famed for harping song, will I
+ Proclaim, and the deathless oracular word
+ From the snow-topped rock that we gaze on heard,
+ Counsels of thy glorious giving
+ Manifest for all men living,
+ How thou madest the tripod of prophecy thine
+ Which the wrath of the dragon kept guard on, a shrine
+ Voiceless till thy shafts could smite
+ All his live coiled glittering might.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Ye that hold of right alone
+ All deep woods on Helicon,
+ Fair daughters of thunder-girt God, with your bright
+ White arms uplift as to lighten the light,
+ Come to chant your brother's praise,
+ Gold-haired Phoebus, loud in lays,
+ Even his, who afar up the twin-topped seat
+ Of the rock Parnassian whereon we meet
+ Risen with glorious Delphic maids
+ Seeks the soft spring-sweetened shades
+ Castalian, fain of the Delphian peak
+ Prophetic, sublime as the feet that seek.
+ Glorious Athens, highest of state,
+ Come, with praise and prayer elate,
+ O thou that art queen of the plain unscarred
+ That the warrior Tritonid hath alway in guard,
+ Where on many a sacred shrine
+ Young bulls' thigh-bones burn and shine
+ As the god that is fire overtakes them, and fast
+ The smoke of Arabia to heavenward is cast,
+ Scattering wide its balm: and shrill
+ Now with nimble notes that thrill
+ The flute strikes up for the song, and the harp of gold
+ Strikes up to the song sweet answer: and all behold,
+ All, aswarm as bees, give ear,
+ Who by birth hold Athens dear.
+
+
+
+
+ A NEW CENTURY
+
+
+ An age too great for thought of ours to scan,
+ A wave upon the sleepless sea of time
+ That sinks and sleeps for ever, ere the chime
+ Pass that salutes with blessing, not with ban,
+ The dark year dead, the bright year born for man,
+ Dies: all its days that watched man cower and climb,
+ Frail as the foam, and as the sun sublime,
+ Sleep sound as they that slept ere these began.
+
+ Our mother earth, whose ages none may tell,
+ Puts on no change: time bids not her wax pale
+ Or kindle, quenched or quickened, when the knell
+ Sounds, and we cry across the veering gale
+ Farewell--and midnight answers us, Farewell;
+ Hail--and the heaven of morning answers, Hail.
+
+
+
+
+ AN EVENING AT VICHY
+
+ SEPTEMBER 1896
+
+ WRITTEN ON THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF LORD LEIGHTON
+
+
+ A light has passed that never shall pass away,
+ A sun has set whose rays are unquelled of night.
+ The loyal grace, the courtesy bright as day,
+ The strong sweet radiant spirit of life and light
+ That shone and smiled and lightened on all men's sight,
+ The kindly life whose tune was the tune of May,
+ For us now dark, for love and for fame is bright.
+
+ Nay, not for us that live as the fen-fires live,
+ As stars that shoot and shudder with life and die,
+ Can death make dark that lustre of life, or give
+ The grievous gift of trust in oblivion's lie.
+ Days dear and far death touches, and draws them nigh,
+ And bids the grief that broods on their graves forgive
+ The day that seems to mock them as clouds that fly.
+
+ If life be life more faithful than shines on sleep
+ When dreams take wing and lighten and fade like flame,
+ Then haply death may be not a death so deep
+ That all things past are past for it wholly--fame,
+ Love, loving-kindness, seasons that went and came,
+ And left their light on life as a seal to keep
+ Winged memory fast and heedful of time's dead claim.
+
+ Death gives back life and light to the sunless years
+ Whose suns long sunken set not for ever. Time,
+ Blind, fierce, and deaf as tempest, relents, and hears
+ And sees how bright the days and how sweet their chime
+ Rang, shone, and passed in music that matched the clime
+ Wherein we met rejoicing--a joy that cheers
+ Sorrow, to see the night as the dawn sublime.
+
+ The days that were outlighten the days that are,
+ And eyes now darkened shine as the stars we see
+ And hear not sing, impassionate star to star,
+ As once we heard the music that haply he
+ Hears, high in heaven if ever a voice may be
+ The same in heaven, the same as on earth, afar
+ From pain and earth as heaven from the heaving sea.
+
+ A woman's voice, divine as a bird's by dawn
+ Kindled and stirred to sunward, arose and held
+ Our souls that heard, from earth as from sleep withdrawn,
+ And filled with light as stars, and as stars compelled
+ To move by might of music, elate while quelled,
+ Subdued by rapture, lit as a mountain lawn
+ By morning whence all heaven in the sunrise welled.
+
+ And her the shadow of death as a robe clasped round
+ Then: and as morning's music she passed away.
+ And he then with us, warrior and wanderer, crowned
+ With fame that shone from eastern on western day,
+ More strong, more kind, than praise or than grief might say,
+ Has passed now forth of shadow by sunlight bound,
+ Of night shot through with light that is frail as May.
+
+ May dies, and light grows darkness, and life grows death:
+ Hope fades and shrinks and falls as a changing leaf:
+ Remembrance, touched and kindled by love's live breath,
+ Shines, and subdues the shadow of time called grief,
+ The shade whose length of life is as life's date brief,
+ With joy that broods on the sunlight past, and saith
+ That thought and love hold sorrow and change in fief.
+
+ Sweet, glad, bright spirit, kind as the sun seems kind
+ When earth and sea rejoice in his gentler spell,
+ Thy face that was we see not; bereft and blind,
+ We see but yet, rejoicing to see, and dwell
+ Awhile in days that heard not the death-day's knell,
+ A light so bright that scarcely may sorrow find
+ One old sweet word that hails thee and mourns--Farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ TO GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS
+
+ ON THE EIGHTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH, FEBRUARY 23, 1897
+
+
+ High thought and hallowed love, by faith made one,
+ Begat and bare the sweet strong-hearted child,
+ Art, nursed of Nature; earth and sea and sun
+ Saw Nature then more godlike as she smiled.
+ Life smiled on death, and death on life: the Soul
+ Between them shone, and soared above their strife,
+ And left on Time's unclosed and starry scroll
+ A sign that quickened death to deathless life.
+ Peace rose like Hope, a patient queen, and bade
+ Hell's firstborn, Faith, abjure her creed and die;
+ And Love, by life and death made sad and glad,
+ Gave Conscience ease, and watched Good Will pass by.
+ All these make music now of one man's name,
+ Whose life and age are one with love and fame.
+
+
+
+
+ ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON
+
+
+ Kind, wise, and true as truth's own heart,
+ A soul that here
+ Chose and held fast the better part
+ And cast out fear,
+
+ Has left us ere we dreamed of death
+ For life so strong,
+ Clear as the sundawn's light and breath,
+ And sweet as song.
+
+ We see no more what here awhile
+ Shed light on men:
+ Has Landor seen that brave bright smile
+ Alive again?
+
+ If death and life and love be one
+ And hope no lie
+ And night no stronger than the sun,
+ These cannot die.
+
+ The father-spirit whence her soul
+ Took strength, and gave
+ Back love, is perfect yet and whole,
+ As hope might crave.
+
+ His word is living light and fire:
+ And hers shall live
+ By grace of all good gifts the sire
+ Gave power to give.
+
+ The sire and daughter, twain and one
+ In quest and goal,
+ Stand face to face beyond the sun,
+ And soul to soul.
+
+ Not we, who loved them well, may dream
+ What joy sublime
+ Is theirs, if dawn through darkness gleam,
+ And life through time.
+
+ Time seems but here the mask of death,
+ That falls and shows
+ A void where hope may draw not breath:
+ Night only knows.
+
+ Love knows not: all that love may keep
+ Glad memory gives:
+ The spirit of the days that sleep
+ Still wakes and lives.
+
+ But not the spirit's self, though song
+ Would lend it speech,
+ May touch the goal that hope might long
+ In vain to reach.
+
+ How dear that high true heart, how sweet
+ Those keen kind eyes,
+ Love knows, who knows how fiery fleet
+ Is life that flies.
+
+ If life there be that flies not, fair
+ The life must be
+ That thrills her sovereign spirit there
+ And sets it free.
+
+
+
+
+ IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI
+
+
+ Beloved above all nations, land adored,
+ Sovereign in spirit and charm, by song and sword,
+ Sovereign whose life is love, whose name is light,
+ Italia, queen that hast the sun for lord,
+
+ Bride that hast heaven for bridegroom, how should night
+ Veil or withhold from faith's and memory's sight
+ A man beloved and crowned of thee and fame,
+ Hide for an hour his name's memorial might?
+
+ Thy sons may never speak or hear the name
+ Saffi, and feel not love's regenerate flame
+ Thrill all the quickening heart with faith and pride
+ In one whose life makes death and life the same.
+
+ They die indeed whose souls before them died:
+ Not he, for whom death flung life's portal wide,
+ Who stands where Dante's soul in vision came,
+ In Dante's presence, by Mazzini's side.
+
+ _March 26, 1896._
+
+
+
+
+ CARNOT
+
+
+ Death, winged with fire of hate from deathless hell
+ Wherein the souls of anarchs hiss and die,
+ With stroke as dire has cloven a heart as high
+ As twice beyond the wide sea's westward swell
+ The living lust of death had power to quell
+ Through ministry of murderous hands whereby
+ Dark fate bade Lincoln's head and Garfield's lie
+ Low even as his who bids his France farewell.
+
+ France, now no heart that would not weep with thee
+ Loved ever faith or freedom. From thy hand
+ The staff of state is broken: hope, unmanned
+ With anguish, doubts if freedom's self be free.
+ The snake-souled anarch's fang strikes all the land
+ Cold, and all hearts unsundered by the sea.
+
+ _June 25, 1894._
+
+
+
+
+ AFTER THE VERDICT
+
+
+ France, cloven in twain by fire of hell and hate,
+ Shamed with the shame of men her meanest born,
+ Soldier and judge whose names, inscribed for scorn,
+ Stand vilest on the record writ of fate,
+ Lies yet not wholly vile who stood so great,
+ Sees yet not all her praise of old outworn.
+ Not yet is all her scroll of glory torn,
+ Or left for utter shame to desecrate.
+ High souls and constant hearts of faithful men
+ Sustain her perfect praise with tongue and pen
+ Indomitable as honour. Storms may toss
+ And soil her standard ere her bark win home:
+ But shame falls full upon the Christless cross
+ Whose brandmark signs the holy hounds of Rome.
+
+ _September 1899._
+
+
+
+
+ THE TRANSVAAL
+
+
+ Patience, long sick to death, is dead. Too long
+ Have sloth and doubt and treason bidden us be
+ What Cromwell's England was not, when the sea
+ To him bore witness given of Blake how strong
+ She stood, a commonweal that brooked no wrong
+ From foes less vile than men like wolves set free
+ Whose war is waged where none may fight or flee--
+ With women and with weanlings. Speech and song
+ Lack utterance now for loathing. Scarce we hear
+ Foul tongues that blacken God's dishonoured name
+ With prayers turned curses and with praise found shame
+ Defy the truth whose witness now draws near
+ To scourge these dogs, agape with jaws afoam,
+ Down out of life. Strike, England, and strike home.
+
+ _October 9, 1899._
+
+
+
+
+ REVERSE
+
+
+ The wave that breaks against a forward stroke
+ Beats not the swimmer back, but thrills him through
+ With joyous trust to win his way anew
+ Through stronger seas than first upon him broke
+ And triumphed. England's iron-tempered oak
+ Shrank not when Europe's might against her grew
+ Full, and her sun drank up her foes like dew,
+ And lion-like from sleep her strength awoke.
+
+ As bold in fight as bold in breach of trust
+ We find our foes, and wonder not to find,
+ Nor grudge them praise whom honour may not bind;
+ But loathing more intense than speaks disgust
+ Heaves England's heart, when scorn is bound to greet
+ Hunters and hounds whose tongues would lick their feet.
+
+ _November 1, 1899._
+
+
+
+
+ THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
+
+
+ Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate,
+ Smote England, now nineteen dark years ago,
+ As when the tide's full wrath in seaward flow
+ Smites and bears back the swimmer. Fraud and fate
+ Were leagued against her: fear was fain to prate
+ Of honour in dishonour, pride brought low,
+ And humbleness whence holiness must grow,
+ And greatness born of shame to be so great.
+
+ The winter day that withered hope and pride
+ Shines now triumphal on the turning tide
+ That sets once more our trust in freedom free,
+ That leaves a ruthless and a truthless foe
+ And all base hopes that hailed his cause laid low,
+ And England's name a light on land and sea.
+
+ _February 27, 1900._
+
+
+
+
+ ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL BENSON
+
+
+ Northumberland, so proud and sad to-day,
+ Weep and rejoice, our mother, whom no son
+ More glorious than this dead and deathless one
+ Brought ever fame whereon no time shall prey.
+ Nor heed we more than he what liars dare say
+ Of mercy's holiest duties left undone
+ Toward whelps and dams of murderous foes, whom none
+ Save we had spared or feared to starve and slay.
+
+ Alone as Milton and as Wordsworth found
+ And hailed their England, when from all around
+ Howled all the recreant hate of envious knaves,
+ Sublime she stands: while, stifled in the sound,
+ Each lie that falls from German boors and slaves
+ Falls but as filth dropt in the wandering waves.
+
+ _November 4, 1901._
+
+
+
+
+ ASTRÆA VICTRIX
+
+
+ England, elect of time,
+ By freedom sealed sublime,
+ And constant as the sun that saw thy dawn
+ Outshine upon the sea
+ His own in heaven, to be
+ A light that night nor day should see withdrawn,
+ If song may speak not now thy praise,
+ Fame writes it higher than song may soar or faith may gaze.
+
+ Dark months of months beheld
+ Hope thwarted, crossed, and quelled,
+ And heard the heartless hounds of hatred bay
+ Aloud against thee, glad
+ As now their souls are sad
+ Who see their hope in hatred pass away
+ And wither into shame and fear
+ And shudder down to darkness, loth to see or hear.
+
+ Nought now they hear or see
+ That speaks or shows not thee
+ Triumphant; not as empires reared of yore,
+ The imperial commonweal
+ That bears thy sovereign seal
+ And signs thine orient as thy natural shore
+ Free, as no sons but thine may stand,
+ Steers lifeward ever, guided of thy pilot hand.
+
+ Fear, masked and veiled by fraud,
+ Found shameful time to applaud
+ Shame, and bow down thy banner towards the dust,
+ And call on godly shame
+ To desecrate thy name
+ And bid false penitence abjure thy trust:
+ Till England's heart took thought at last,
+ And felt her future kindle from her fiery past.
+
+ Then sprang the sunbright fire
+ High as the sun, and higher
+ Than strange men's eyes might watch it undismayed:
+ But winds athwart it blew
+ Storm, and the twilight grew
+ Darkness awhile, an unenduring shade:
+ And all base birds and beasts of night
+ Saw no more England now to fear, no loathsome light.
+
+ All knaves and slaves at heart
+ Who, knowing thee what thou art,
+ Abhor thee, seeing what none save here may see,
+ Strong freedom, taintless truth,
+ Supreme in ageless youth,
+ Howled all their hate and hope aloud at thee
+ While yet the wavering wind of strife
+ Bore hard against her sail whose freight is hope and life.
+
+ And now the quickening tide
+ That brings back power and pride
+ To faith and love whose ensign is thy name
+ Bears down the recreant lie
+ That doomed thy name to die,
+ Sons, friends, and foes behold thy star the same
+ As when it stood in heaven a sun
+ And Europe saw no glory left her sky save one.
+
+ And now, as then she saw,
+ She sees with shamefast awe
+ How all unlike all slaves and tyrants born
+ Where bondmen champ the bit
+ And anarchs foam and flit,
+ And day mocks day, and year puts year to scorn,
+ Our mother bore us, English men,
+ Ashamed of shame and strong in mercy, now as then.
+
+ We loosed not on these knaves
+ Their scourge-tormented slaves:
+ We held the hand that fain had risen to smite
+ The torturer fast, and made
+ Justice awhile afraid,
+ And righteousness forego her ruthless right:
+ We warred not even with these as they;
+ We bade not them they preyed on make of them their prey.
+
+ All murderous fraud that lurks
+ In hearts where hell's craft works
+ Fought, crawled, and slew in darkness: they that died
+ Dreamed not of foes too base
+ For scorn to grant them grace:
+ Men wounded, women, children at their side,
+ Had found what faith in fiends may live:
+ And yet we gave not back what righteous doom would give.
+
+ No false white flag that fawns
+ On faith till murder dawns
+ Blood-red from hell-black treason's heart of hate
+ Left ever shame's foul brand
+ Seared on an English hand:
+ And yet our pride vouchsafes them grace too great
+ For other pride to dream of: scorn
+ Strikes retribution silent as the stars at morn.
+
+ And now the living breath
+ Whose life puts death to death,
+ Freedom, whose name is England, stirs and thrills
+ The burning darkness through
+ Whence fraud and slavery grew,
+ We scarce may mourn our dead whose fame fulfils
+ The record where her foes have read
+ That earth shall see none like her born ere earth be dead.
+
+
+
+
+ THE FIRST OF JUNE
+
+
+ Peace and war are one in proof of England's deathless praise.
+ One divine day saw her foemen scattered on the sea
+ Far and fast as storm could speed: the same strong day of days
+ Sees the imperial commonweal set friends and foemen free.
+ Save where freedom reigns, whose name is England, fraud and fear
+ Grind and blind the face of men who look on her and lie:
+ Now may truth and pride in truth, whose seat of old was here,
+ See them shamed and stricken blind and dumb as worms that die.
+ Even before our hallowed hawthorn-blossom pass and cease,
+ Even as England shines and smiles at last upon the sun,
+ Comes the word that means for England more than passing peace,
+ Peace with honour, peace with pride in righteous work well done.
+ Crowned with flowers the first of all the world and all the year,
+ Peace, whose name is one with honour born of war, is here.
+
+
+
+
+ ROUNDEL
+
+ FROM THE FRENCH OF VILLON
+
+
+ Death, I would plead against thy wrong,
+ Who hast reft me of my love, my wife,
+ And art not satiate yet with strife,
+ But needs wilt hold me lingering long.
+ No strength since then has kept me strong:
+ But what could hurt thee in her life,
+ Death?
+
+ Twain we were, and our hearts one song,
+ One heart: if that be dead, thy knife
+ Hath cut me off alive from life,
+ Dead as the carver's figured throng,
+ Death!
+
+
+
+
+ A ROUNDEL OF RABELAIS
+
+
+ Theleme is afar on the waters, adrift and afar,
+ Afar and afloat on the waters that flicker and gleam,
+ And we feel but her fragrance and see but the shadows that mar
+ Theleme.
+
+ In the sun-coloured mists of the sunrise and sunset that steam
+ As incense from urns of the twilight, her portals ajar
+ Let pass as a shadow the light of the sound of a dream.
+
+ But the laughter that rings from her cloisters that know not a bar
+ So kindles delight in desire that the souls in us deem
+ He erred not, the seer who discerned on the seas as a star
+ Theleme.
+
+
+
+
+ LUCIFER
+
+ _Écrasez l'infâme._--VOLTAIRE
+
+ _Les prêtres ont raison de l'appeler Lucifer._--VICTOR HUGO
+
+
+ Voltaire, our England's lover, man divine
+ Beyond all Gods that ever fear adored
+ By right and might, by sceptre and by sword,
+ By godlike love of sunlike truth, made thine
+ Through godlike hate of falsehood's marshlight shine
+ And all the fume of creeds and deeds abhorred
+ Whose light was darkness, till the dawn-star soared,
+ Truth, reason, mercy, justice, keep thy shrine
+ Sacred in memory's temple, seeing that none
+ Of all souls born to strive before the sun
+ Loved ever good or hated evil more.
+ The snake that felt thy heel upon her head,
+ Night's first-born, writhes as though she were not dead,
+ But strikes not, stings not, slays not as before.
+
+
+
+
+ THE CENTENARY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS
+
+
+ Sound of trumpets blowing down the merriest winds of morn,
+ Flash of hurtless lightnings, laugh of thunders loud and glad,
+ Here should hail the summer day whereon a light was born
+ Whence the sun grew brighter, seeing the world less dark and sad.
+ Man of men by right divine of boyhood everlasting,
+ France incarnate, France immortal in her deathless boy,
+ Brighter birthday never shone than thine on earth, forecasting
+ More of strenuous mirth in manhood, more of manful joy.
+ Child of warriors, friend of warriors, Garibaldi's friend,
+ Even thy name is as the splendour of a sunbright sword:
+ While the boy's heart beats in man, thy fame shall find not end:
+ Time and dark oblivion bow before thee as their lord.
+ Youth acclaims thee gladdest of the gods that gild his days:
+ Age gives thanks for thee, and death lacks heart to quench thy
+ praise.
+
+
+
+
+ AT A DOG'S GRAVE
+
+
+ I
+
+ Good night, we say, when comes the time to win
+ The daily death divine that shuts up sight,
+ Sleep, that assures for all who dwell therein
+ Good night.
+
+ The shadow shed round those we love shines bright
+ As love's own face, when death, sleep's gentler twin,
+ From them divides us even as night from light.
+
+ Shall friends born lower in life, though pure of sin,
+ Though clothed with love and faith to usward plight,
+ Perish and pass unbidden of us, their kin,
+ Good night?
+
+
+ II
+
+ To die a dog's death once was held for shame.
+ Not all men so beloved and mourned shall lie
+ As many of these, whose time untimely came
+ To die.
+
+ His years were full: his years were joyous: why
+ Must love be sorrow, when his gracious name
+ Recalls his lovely life of limb and eye?
+
+ If aught of blameless life on earth may claim
+ Life higher than death, though death's dark wave rise high,
+ Such life as this among us never came
+ To die.
+
+
+ III
+
+ White violets, there by hands more sweet than they
+ Planted, shall sweeten April's flowerful air
+ About a grave that shows to night and day
+ White violets there.
+
+ A child's light hands, whose touch makes flowers more fair,
+ Keep fair as these for many a March and May
+ The light of days that are because they were.
+
+ It shall not like a blossom pass away;
+ It broods and brightens with the days that bear
+ Fresh fruits of love, but leave, as love might pray,
+ White violets there.
+
+
+
+
+ THREE WEEKS OLD
+
+
+ Three weeks since there was no such rose in being;
+ Now may eyes made dim with deep delight
+ See how fair it is, laugh with love, and seeing
+ Praise the chance that bids us bless the sight.
+
+ Three weeks old, and a very rose of roses,
+ Bright and sweet as love is sweet and bright.
+ Heaven and earth, till a man's life wanes and closes,
+ Show not life or love a lovelier sight.
+
+ Three weeks past have renewed the rosebright creature
+ Day by day with life, and night by night.
+ Love, though fain of its every faultless feature,
+ Finds not words to match the silent sight.
+
+
+
+
+ A CLASP OF HANDS
+
+
+ I
+
+ Soft, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers
+ That bask in heavenly heat
+ When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers,
+ Soft, small, and sweet.
+
+ A babe's hands open as to greet
+ The tender touch of ours
+ And mock with motion faint and fleet
+
+ The minutes of the new strange hours
+ That earth, not heaven, must mete;
+ Buds fragrant still from heaven's own bowers,
+ Soft, small, and sweet.
+
+
+ II
+
+ A velvet vice with springs of steel
+ That fasten in a trice
+ And clench the fingers fast that feel
+ A velvet vice--
+
+ What man would risk the danger twice,
+ Nor quake from head to heel?
+ Whom would not one such test suffice?
+
+ Well may we tremble as we kneel
+ In sight of Paradise,
+ If both a babe's closed fists conceal
+ A velvet vice.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Two flower-soft fists of conquering clutch,
+ Two creased and dimpled wrists,
+ That match, if mottled overmuch,
+ Two flower-soft fists--
+
+ What heart of man dare hold the lists
+ Against such odds and such
+ Sweet vantage as no strength resists?
+
+ Our strength is all a broken crutch,
+ Our eyes are dim with mists,
+ Our hearts are prisoners as we touch
+ Two flower-soft fists.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS
+
+
+ Light, as when dawn takes wing and smites the sea,
+ Smote England when his day bade Marlowe be.
+ No fire so keen had thrilled the clouds of time
+ Since Dante's breath made Italy sublime.
+ Earth, bright with flowers whose dew shone soft as tears,
+ Through Chaucer cast her charm on eyes and ears:
+ The lustrous laughter of the love-lit earth
+ Rang, leapt, and lightened in his might of mirth.
+ Deep moonlight, hallowing all the breathless air,
+ Made earth and heaven for Spenser faint and fair.
+ But song might bid not heaven and earth be one
+ Till Marlowe's voice gave warning of the sun.
+ Thought quailed and fluttered as a wounded bird
+ Till passion fledged the wing of Marlowe's word.
+ Faith born of fear bade hope and doubt be dumb
+ Till Marlowe's pride bade light or darkness come.
+ Then first our speech was thunder: then our song
+ Shot lightning through the clouds that wrought us wrong.
+ Blind fear, whose faith feeds hell with fire, became
+ A moth self-shrivelled in its own blind flame.
+ We heard, in tune with even our seas that roll,
+ The speech of storm, the thunders of the soul.
+ Men's passions, clothed with all the woes they wrought,
+ Shone through the fire of man's transfiguring thought.
+ The thirst of knowledge, quenchless at her springs,
+ Ambition, fire that clasps the thrones of kings,
+ Love, light that makes of life one lustrous hour,
+ And song, the soul's chief crown and throne of power,
+ The hungering heart of greed and ravenous hate,
+ Made music high as heaven and deep as fate.
+ Strange pity, scarce half scornful of her tear,
+ In Berkeley's vaults bowed down on Edward's bier.
+ But higher in forceful flight of song than all
+ The soul of man, its own imperious thrall,
+ Rose, when his royal spirit of fierce desire
+ Made life and death for man one flame of fire.
+ Incarnate man, fast bound as earth and sea,
+ Spake, when his pride would fain set Faustus free.
+ Eternal beauty, strong as day and night,
+ Shone, when his word bade Helen back to sight.
+ Fear, when he bowed the soul before her spell,
+ Thundered and lightened through the vaults of hell.
+ The music known of all men's tongues that sing,
+ When Marlowe sang, bade love make heaven of spring;
+ The music none but English tongues may make,
+ Our own sole song, spake first when Marlowe spake;
+ And on his grave, though there no stone may stand,
+ The flower it shows was laid by Shakespeare's hand.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM
+
+
+ Love dark as death and fierce as fire on wing
+ Sustains in sin the soul that feels it cling
+ Like flame whose tongues are serpents: hope and fear
+ Die when a love more dire than hate draws near,
+ And stings to death the heart it cleaves in twain,
+ And leaves in ashes all but fear and pain.
+ Our lustrous England rose to life and light
+ From Rome's and hell's immitigable night,
+ And music laughed and quickened from her breath,
+ When first her sons acclaimed Elizabeth.
+ Her soul became a lyre that all men heard
+ Who felt their souls give back her lyric word.
+ Yet now not all at once her perfect power
+ Spake: man's deep heart abode awhile its hour,
+ Abode its hour of utterance; not to wake
+ Till Marlowe's thought in thunderous music spake.
+ But yet not yet was passion's tragic breath
+ Thrilled through with sense of instant life and death,
+ Life actual even as theirs who watched the strife,
+ Death dark and keen and terrible as life.
+ Here first was truth in song made perfect: here
+ Woke first the war of love and hate and fear.
+ A man too vile for thought's or shame's control
+ Holds empire on a woman's loftier soul,
+ And withers it to wickedness: in vain
+ Shame quickens thought with penitential pain:
+ In vain dark chance's fitful providence
+ Withholds the crime, and chills the spirit of sense:
+ It wakes again in fire that burns away
+ Repentance, weak as night devoured of day.
+ Remorse, and ravenous thirst of sin and crime,
+ Rend and consume the soul in strife sublime,
+ And passion cries on pity till it hear
+ And tremble as with love that casts out fear.
+ Dark as the deed and doom he gave to fame
+ For ever lies the sovereign singer's name.
+ Sovereign and regent on the soul he lives
+ While thought gives thanks for aught remembrance gives,
+ And mystery sees the imperial shadow stand
+ By Marlowe's side alone at Shakespeare's hand.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO OLD FORTUNATUS
+
+
+ The golden bells of fairyland, that ring
+ Perpetual chime for childhood's flower-sweet spring,
+ Sang soft memorial music in his ear
+ Whose answering music shines about us here.
+ Soft laughter as of light that stirs the sea
+ With darkling sense of dawn ere dawn may be,
+ Kind sorrow, pity touched with gentler scorn,
+ Keen wit whose shafts were sunshafts of the morn,
+ Love winged with fancy, fancy thrilled with love,
+ An eagle's aim and ardour in a dove,
+ A man's delight and passion in a child,
+ Inform it as when first they wept and smiled.
+ Life, soiled and rent and ringed about with pain
+ Whose touch lent action less of spur than chain,
+ Left half the happiness his birth designed,
+ And half the power, unquenched in heart and mind.
+ Comrade and comforter, sublime in shame,
+ A poor man bound in prison whence he came
+ Poor, and took up the burden of his life
+ Smiling, and strong to strive with sorrow and strife,
+ He spake in England's ear the poor man's word,
+ Manful and mournful, deathless and unheard.
+ His kind great heart was fire, and love's own fire,
+ Compassion, strong as flesh may feel desire,
+ To enkindle pity and mercy toward a soul
+ Sunk down in shame too deep for shame's control.
+ His kind keen eye was light to lighten hope
+ Where no man else might see life's darkness ope
+ And pity's touch bring forth from evil good,
+ Sweet as forgiveness, strong as fatherhood.
+ Names higher than his outshine it and outsoar,
+ But none save one should memory cherish more:
+ Praise and thanksgiving crown the names above,
+ But him we give the gift he gave us, love.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE DUCHESS OF MALFY
+
+
+ When Shakespeare soared from life to death, above
+ All praise, all adoration, save of love,
+ As here on earth above all men he stood
+ That were or are or shall be--great, and good,
+ Past thank or thought of England or of man--
+ Light from the sunset quickened as it ran.
+ His word, who sang as never man may sing
+ And spake as never voice of man may ring,
+ Not fruitless fell, as seed on sterile ways,
+ But brought forth increase even to Shakespeare's praise.
+ Our skies were thrilled and filled, from sea to sea,
+ With stars outshining all their suns to be.
+ No later light of tragic song they knew
+ Like his whose lightning clove the sunset through.
+ Half Shakespeare's glory, when his hand sublime
+ Bade all the change of tragic life and time
+ Live, and outlive all date of quick and dead,
+ Fell, rested, and shall rest on Webster's head.
+ Round him the shadows cast on earth by light
+ Rose, changed, and shone, transfiguring death and night.
+ Where evil only crawled and hissed and slew
+ On ways where nought save shame and bloodshed grew,
+ He bade the loyal light of honour live,
+ And love, when stricken through the heart, forgive.
+ Deep down the midnight of the soul of sin
+ He lit the star of mercy throned therein.
+ High up the darkness of sublime despair
+ He set the sun of love to triumph there.
+ Things foul or frail his touch made strong and pure,
+ And bade things transient like to stars endure.
+ Terror, on wings whose flight made night in heaven,
+ Pity, with hands whence life took love for leaven,
+ Breathed round him music whence his mortal breath
+ Drew life that bade forgetfulness and death
+ Die: life that bids his light of fiery fame
+ Endure with England's, yea, with Shakespeare's name.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY
+
+
+ Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire
+ Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire,
+ Make bright and loud the terror of the night
+ Wherein the soul sees only wrath for light.
+ Wrath winged by love and sheathed by grief in steel
+ Sets on the front of crime death's withering seal.
+ The heaving horror of the storms of sin
+ Brings forth in fear the lightning hid therein,
+ And flashes back to darkness: truth, found pure
+ And perfect, asks not heaven if shame endure.
+ What life and death were his whose raging song
+ Bore heaven such witness of the wild world's wrong,
+ What hand was this that grasped such thunder, none
+ Knows: night and storm seclude him from the sun.
+ By daytime none discerns the fire of Mars:
+ Deep darkness bares to sight the sterner stars,
+ The lights whose dawn seems doomsday. None may tell
+ Whence rose a world so lit from heaven and hell.
+ Life-wasting love, hate born of raging lust,
+ Fierce retribution, fed with death's own dust
+ And sorrow's pampering poison, cross and meet,
+ And wind the world in passion's winding-sheet.
+ So, when dark faith in faith's dark ages heard
+ Falsehood, and drank the poison of the Word,
+ Two shades misshapen came to monstrous birth,
+ A father fiend in heaven, a thrall on earth:
+ Man, meanest born of beasts that press the sod,
+ And die: the vilest of his creatures, God.
+ A judge unjust, a slave that praised his name,
+ Made life and death one fire of sin and shame.
+ And thence reverberate even on Shakespeare's age
+ A light like darkness crossed his sunbright stage.
+ Music, sublime as storm or sorrow, sang
+ Before it: tempest like a harpstring rang.
+ The fiery shadow of a name unknown
+ Rose, and in song's high heaven abides alone.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART
+
+
+ The mightiest choir of song that memory hears
+ Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years.
+ Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies
+ That saw the sun-god Marlowe's opening eyes.
+ The morn's own music, answered of the sea,
+ Spake, when his living lips bade Shakespeare be,
+ And England, made by Shakespeare's quickening breath
+ Divine and deathless even till life be death,
+ Brought forth to time such godlike sons of men
+ That shamefaced love grows pride, and now seems then.
+ Shame that their day so shone, so sang, so died,
+ Remembering, finds remembrance one with pride.
+ That day was clouding toward a stormlit close
+ When Ford's red sphere upon the twilight rose.
+ Sublime with stars and sunset fire, the sky
+ Glowed as though day, nigh dead, should never die.
+ Sorrow supreme and strange as chance or doom
+ Shone, spake, and shuddered through the lustrous gloom.
+ Tears lit with love made all the darkening air
+ Bright as though death's dim sunrise thrilled it there
+ And life re-risen took comfort. Stern and still
+ As hours and years that change and anguish fill,
+ The strong secluded spirit, ere it woke,
+ Dwelt dumb till power possessed it, and it spoke.
+ Strange, calm, and sure as sense of beast or bird,
+ Came forth from night the thought that breathed the word;
+ That chilled and thrilled with passion-stricken breath
+ Halls where Calantha trod the dance of death.
+ A strength of soul too passionately pure
+ To change for aught that horror bids endure,
+ To quail and wail and weep faint life away
+ Ere sovereign sorrow smite, relent, and slay,
+ Sustained her silent, till her bridal bloom
+ Changed, smiled, and waned in rapture toward the tomb.
+ Terror twin-born with pity kissed and thrilled
+ The lips that Shakespeare's word or Webster's filled:
+ Here both, cast out, fell silent: pity shrank,
+ Rebuked, and terror, spirit-stricken, sank:
+ The soul assailed arose afar above
+ All reach of all but only death and love.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO A VERY WOMAN
+
+
+ Swift music made of passion's changeful power,
+ Sweet as the change that leaves the world in flower
+ When spring laughs winter down to deathward, rang
+ From grave and gracious lips that smiled and sang
+ When Massinger, too wise for kings to hear
+ And learn of him truth, wisdom, faith, or fear,
+ Gave all his gentler heart to love's light lore,
+ That grief might brood and scorn breed wrath no more.
+ Soft, bright, fierce, tender, fitful, truthful, sweet,
+ A shrine where faith and change might smile and meet,
+ A soul whose music could but shift its tune
+ As when the lustrous year turns May to June
+ And spring subsides in summer, so makes good
+ Its perfect claim to very womanhood.
+ The heart that hate of wrong made fire, the hand
+ Whose touch was fire as keen as shame's own brand
+ When fraud and treason, swift to smile and sting,
+ Crowned and discrowned a tyrant, knave or king,
+ False each and ravenous as the fitful sea,
+ Grew gently glad as love that fear sets free.
+ Like eddying ripples that the wind restrains,
+ The bright words whisper music ere it wanes.
+ Ere fades the sovereign sound of song that rang
+ As though the sun to match the sea's tune sang,
+ When noon from dawn took life and light, and time
+ Shone, seeing how Shakespeare made the world sublime,
+ Ere sinks the wind whose breath was heaven's and day's,
+ The sunset's witness gives the sundawn praise.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY
+
+
+ The wind that brings us from the springtide south
+ Strange music as from love's or life's own mouth
+ Blew hither, when the blast of battle ceased
+ That swept back southward Spanish prince and priest,
+ A sound more sweet than April's flower-sweet rain,
+ And bade bright England smile on pardoned Spain.
+ The land that cast out Philip and his God
+ Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod.
+ Even he whose name above all names on earth
+ Crowns England queen by grace of Shakespeare's birth
+ Might scarce have scorned to smile in God's wise down
+ And gild with praise from heaven an earthlier crown.
+ And he whose hand bade live down lengthening years
+ Quixote, a name lit up with smiles and tears,
+ Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies' life,
+ Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife.
+ Times change, and fame is fitful as the sea:
+ But sunset bids not darkness always be,
+ And still some light from Shakespeare and the sun
+ Burns back the cloud that masks not Middleton.
+ With strong swift strokes of love and wrath he drew
+ Shakespearean London's loud and lusty crew:
+ No plainer might the likeness rise and stand
+ When Hogarth took his living world in hand.
+ No surer then his fire-fledged shafts could hit,
+ Winged with as forceful and as faithful wit:
+ No truer a tragic depth and heat of heart
+ Glowed through the painter's than the poet's art.
+ He lit and hung in heaven the wan fierce moon
+ Whose glance kept time with witchcraft's air-struck tune:
+ He watched the doors where loveless love let in
+ The pageant hailed and crowned by death and sin:
+ He bared the souls where love, twin-born with hate,
+ Made wide the way for passion-fostered fate.
+ All English-hearted, all his heart arose
+ To scourge with scorn his England's cowering foes:
+ And Rome and Spain, who bade their scorner be
+ Their prisoner, left his heart as England's free.
+ Now give we all we may of all his due
+ To one long since thus tried and found thus true.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN
+
+
+ Sweet as the dewfall, splendid as the south,
+ Love touched with speech Boccaccio's golden mouth,
+ Joy thrilled and filled its utterance full with song,
+ And sorrow smiled on doom that wrought no wrong.
+ A starrier lustre of lordlier music rose
+ Beyond the sundering bar of seas and snows
+ When Chaucer's thought took life and light from his
+ And England's crown was one with Italy's.
+ Loftiest and last, by grace of Shakespeare's word,
+ Arose above their quiring spheres a third,
+ Arose, and flashed, and faltered: song's deep sky
+ Saw Shakespeare pass in light, in music die.
+ No light like his, no music, man might give
+ To bid the darkened sphere, left songless, live.
+ Soft though the sound of Fletcher's rose and rang
+ And lit the lunar darkness as it sang,
+ Below the singing stars the cloud-crossed moon
+ Gave back the sunken sun's a trembling tune.
+ As when at highest high tide the sovereign sea
+ Pauses, and patience doubts if passion be,
+ Till gradual ripples ebb, recede, recoil,
+ Shine, smile, and whisper, laughing as they toil,
+ Stark silence fell, at turn of fate's high tide,
+ Upon his broken song when Shakespeare died,
+ Till Fletcher's light sweet speech took heart to say
+ What evening, should it speak for morning, may.
+ And fourfold now the gradual glory shines
+ That shows once more in heaven two twinborn signs,
+ Two brethren stars whose light no cloud may fret,
+ No soul whereon their story dawns forget.
+
+
+
+
+ THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE
+
+
+ Let there be light, said Time: and England heard:
+ And manhood grew to godhead at the word.
+ No light had shone, since earth arose from sleep,
+ So far; no fire of thought had cloven so deep.
+ A day beyond all days bade life acclaim
+ Shakespeare: and man put on his crowning name.
+ All secrets once through darkling ages kept
+ Shone, sang, and smiled to think how long they slept.
+ Man rose past fear of lies whereon he trod:
+ And Dante's ghost saw hell devour his God.
+ Bright Marlowe, brave as winds that brave the sea
+ When sundawn bids their bliss in battle be,
+ Lit England first along the ways whereon
+ Song brighter far than sunlight soared and shone.
+ He died ere half his life had earned his right
+ To lighten time with song's triumphant light.
+ Hope shrank, and felt the stroke at heart: but one
+ She knew not rose, a man to match the sun.
+ And England's hope and time's and man's became
+ Joy, deep as music's heart and keen as flame.
+ Not long, for heaven on earth may live not long,
+ Light sang, and darkness died before the song.
+ He passed, the man above all men, whose breath
+ Transfigured life with speech that lightens death.
+ He passed: but yet for many a lustrous year
+ His light of song bade England shine and hear.
+ As plague and fire and faith in falsehood spread,
+ So from the man of men, divine and dead,
+ Contagious godhead, seen, unknown, and heard,
+ Fulfilled and quickened England; thought and word,
+ When men would fain set life to music, grew
+ More sweet than years which knew not Shakespeare knew.
+ The simplest soul that set itself to song
+ Sang, and may fear not time's or change's wrong.
+ The lightest eye that glanced on life could see
+ Through grief and joy the God that man might be.
+ All passion whence the living soul takes fire
+ Till death fulfil despair and quench desire,
+ All love that lightens through the cloud of chance,
+ All hate that lurks in hope and smites askance,
+ All holiness of sorrow, all divine
+ Pity, whose tears are stars that save and shine,
+ All sunbright strength of laughter like the sea's
+ When spring and autumn loose their lustrous breeze,
+ All sweet, all strange, all sad, all glorious things,
+ Lived on his lips, and hailed him king of kings.
+ All thought, all strife, all anguish, all delight,
+ Spake all he bade, and speak till day be night.
+ No soul that heard, no spirit that beheld,
+ Knew not the God that lured them and compelled.
+ On Beaumont's brow the sun arisen afar
+ Shed fire which lit through heaven the younger star
+ That sank before the sunset: one dark spring
+ Slew first the kinglike subject, then the king.
+ The glory left above their graves made strong
+ The heart of Fletcher, till the flower-sweet song
+ That Shakespeare culled from Chaucer's field, and died,
+ Found ending on his lips that smiled and sighed.
+ From Dekker's eyes the light of tear-touched mirth
+ Shone as from Shakespeare's, mingling heaven and earth.
+ Wild witchcraft's lure and England's love made one
+ With Shakespeare's heart the heart of Middleton.
+ Harsh, homely, true, and tragic, Rowley told
+ His heart's debt down in rough and radiant gold.
+ The skies that Tourneur's lightning clove and rent
+ Flamed through the clouds where Shakespeare's thunder went.
+ Wise Massinger bade kings be wise in vain
+ Ere war bade song, storm-stricken, cower and wane.
+ Kind Heywood, simple-souled and single-eyed,
+ Found voice for England's home-born praise and pride.
+ Strange grief, strange love, strange terror, bared the sword
+ That smote the soul by grace and will of Ford.
+ The stern grim strength of Chapman's thought found speech
+ Loud as when storm at ebb-tide rends the beach:
+ And all the honey brewed from flowers in May
+ Made sweet the lips and bright the dreams of Day.
+ But even as Shakespeare caught from Marlowe's word
+ Fire, so from his the thunder-bearing third,
+ Webster, took light and might whence none but he
+ Hath since made song that sounded so the sea
+ Whose waves are lives of men--whose tidestream rolls
+ From year to darkening year the freight of souls.
+ Alone above it, sweet, supreme, sublime,
+ Shakespeare attunes the jarring chords of time;
+ Alone of all whose doom is death and birth,
+ Shakespeare is lord of souls alive on earth.
+
+
+
+
+ CLEOPATRA
+
+ "Her beauty might outface the jealous hours,
+ Turn shame to love and pain to a tender sleep,
+ And the strong nerve of hate to sloth and tears;
+ Make spring rebellious in the sides of frost,
+ Thrust out lank winter with hot August growths,
+ Compel sweet blood into the husks of death,
+ And from strange beasts enforce harsh courtesy."
+
+ T. HAYMAN, _Fall of Antony_, 1655.
+
+
+
+
+ CLEOPATRA
+
+
+ I
+
+ Her mouth is fragrant as a vine,
+ A vine with birds in all its boughs;
+ Serpent and scarab for a sign
+ Between the beauty of her brows
+ And the amorous deep lids divine.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Her great curled hair makes luminous
+ Her cheeks, her lifted throat and chin
+ Shall she not have the hearts of us
+ To shatter, and the loves therein
+ To shred between her fingers thus?
+
+
+ III
+
+ Small ruined broken strays of light,
+ Pearl after pearl she shreds them through
+ Her long sweet sleepy fingers, white
+ As any pearl's heart veined with blue,
+ And soft as dew on a soft night.
+
+
+ IV
+
+ As if the very eyes of love
+ Shone through her shutting lids, and stole
+ The slow looks of a snake or dove;
+ As if her lips absorbed the whole
+ Of love, her soul the soul thereof.
+
+
+ V
+
+ Lost, all the lordly pearls that were
+ Wrung from the sea's heart, from the green
+ Coasts of the Indian gulf-river;
+ Lost, all the loves of the world--so keen
+ Towards this queen for love of her.
+
+
+ VI
+
+ You see against her throat the small
+ Sharp glittering shadows of them shake;
+ And through her hair the imperial
+ Curled likeness of the river snake,
+ Whose bite shall make an end of all.
+
+
+ VII
+
+ Through the scales sheathing him like wings,
+ Through hieroglyphs of gold and gem,
+ The strong sense of her beauty stings,
+ Like a keen pulse of love in them,
+ A running flame through all his rings.
+
+
+ VIII
+
+ Under those low large lids of hers
+ She hath the histories of all time;
+ The fruit of foliage-stricken years;
+ The old seasons with their heavy chime
+ That leaves its rhyme in the world's ears.
+
+
+ IX
+
+ She sees the hand of death made bare,
+ The ravelled riddle of the skies,
+ The faces faded that were fair,
+ The mouths made speechless that were wise,
+ The hollow eyes and dusty hair;
+
+
+ X
+
+ The shape and shadow of mystic things,
+ Things that fate fashions or forbids;
+ The staff of time-forgotten Kings
+ Whose name falls off the Pyramids,
+ Their coffin-lids and grave-clothings;
+
+
+ XI
+
+ Dank dregs, the scum of pool or clod,
+ God-spawn of lizard-footed clans,
+ And those dog-headed hulks that trod
+ Swart necks of the old Egyptians,
+ Raw draughts of man's beginning God;
+
+
+ XII
+
+ The poised hawk, quivering ere he smote,
+ With plume-like gems on breast and back;
+ The asps and water-worms afloat
+ Between the rush-flowers moist and slack;
+ The cat's warm black bright rising throat.
+
+
+ XIII
+
+ The purple days of drouth expand
+ Like a scroll opened out again;
+ The molten heaven drier than sand,
+ The hot red heaven without rain,
+ Sheds iron pain on the empty land.
+
+
+ XIV
+
+ All Egypt aches in the sun's sight;
+ The lips of men are harsh for drouth,
+ The fierce air leaves their cheeks burnt white,
+ Charred by the bitter blowing south,
+ Whose dusty mouth is sharp to bite.
+
+
+ XV
+
+ All this she dreams of, and her eyes
+ Are wrought after the sense hereof.
+ There is no heart in her for sighs;
+ The face of her is more than love--
+ A name above the Ptolemies.
+
+
+ XVI
+
+ Her great grave beauty covers her
+ As that sleek spoil beneath her feet
+ Clothed once the anointed soothsayer;
+ The hallowing is gone forth from it
+ Now, made unmeet for priests to wear.
+
+
+ XVII
+
+ She treads on gods and god-like things,
+ On fate and fear and life and death,
+ On hate that cleaves and love that clings,
+ All that is brought forth of man's breath
+ And perisheth with what it brings.
+
+
+ XVIII
+
+ She holds her future close, her lips
+ Hold fast the face of things to be;
+ Actium, and sound of war that dips
+ Down the blown valleys of the sea,
+ Far sails that flee, and storms of ships;
+
+
+ XIX
+
+ The laughing red sweet mouth of wine
+ At ending of life's festival;
+ That spice of cerecloths, and the fine
+ White bitter dust funereal
+ Sprinkled on all things for a sign;
+
+
+ XX
+
+ His face, who was and was not he,
+ In whom, alive, her life abode;
+ The end, when she gained heart to see
+ Those ways of death wherein she trod,
+ Goddess by god, with Antony.
+
+
+
+
+ DEDICATION
+
+
+
+
+ DEDICATION
+
+
+ The sea that is life everlasting
+ And death everlasting as life
+ Abides not a pilot's forecasting,
+ Foretells not of peace or of strife.
+ The might of the night that was hidden
+ Arises and darkens the day,
+ A glory rebuked and forbidden,
+ Time's crown, and his prey.
+
+ No sweeter, no kindlier, no fairer,
+ No lovelier a soul from its birth
+ Wore ever a brighter and rarer
+ Life's raiment for life upon earth
+ Than his who enkindled and cherished
+ Art's vestal and luminous flame,
+ That dies not when kingdoms have perished
+ In storm or in shame.
+
+ No braver, no trustier, no purer,
+ No stronger and clearer a soul
+ Bore witness more splendid and surer
+ For manhood found perfect and whole
+ Since man was a warrior and dreamer
+ Than his who in hatred of wrong
+ Would fain have arisen a redeemer
+ By sword or by song.
+
+ Twin brethren in spirit, immortal
+ As art and as love, which were one
+ For you from the birthday whose portal
+ First gave you to sight of the sun,
+ To-day nor to-night nor to-morrow
+ May bring you again from above,
+ Drawn down by the spell of the sorrow
+ Whose anguish is love.
+
+ No light rearising hereafter
+ Shall lighten us here as of old
+ When seasons were lustrous as laughter
+ Of waves that are snowshine and gold.
+ The dawn that imbues and enkindles
+ Life's fluctuant and fugitive sea
+ Dies down as the starshine that dwindles
+ And cares not to be.
+
+ Men, mightier than death which divides us,
+ Friends, dearer than sorrow can say,
+ The light that is darkness and hides us
+ Awhile from each other away
+ Abides but awhile and endures not,
+ We know, though the day be as night,
+ For souls that forgetfulness lures not
+ Till sleep be in sight.
+
+ The sleep that enfolds you, the slumber
+ Supreme and eternal on earth,
+ Whence ages of numberless number
+ Shall bring us not back into birth,
+ We know not indeed if it be not
+ What no man hath known if it be,
+ Life, quickened with light that we see not
+ If spirits may see.
+
+ The love that would see and would know it
+ Is even as the love of a child.
+ But the fire of the fame of the poet
+ Who gazed on the past, and it smiled,
+ But the light of the fame of the painter
+ Whose hand was as morning's in May,
+ Death bids not be darker or fainter,
+ Time casts not away.
+
+ We, left of them loveless and lonely,
+ Who lived in the light of their love,
+ Whose darkness desires it, we only,
+ Who see them afar and above,
+ So far, if we die not, above us,
+ So lately no dearer than near,
+ May know not of death if they love us,
+ Of night if they hear.
+
+ We, stricken and darkling and living,
+ Who loved them and love them, abide
+ A day, and the gift of its giving,
+ An hour, and the turn of its tide,
+ When twilight and midnight and morrow
+ Shall pass from the sight of the sun,
+ And death be forgotten, and sorrow
+ Discrowned and undone.
+
+ For us as for these will the breathless
+ Brief minute arise and pass by:
+ And if death be not utterly deathless,
+ If love do not utterly die,
+ From the life that is quenched as an ember
+ The soul that aspires as a flame
+ Can choose not but wholly remember
+ Love, lovelier than fame.
+
+ Though sure be the seal of their glory
+ And fairer no fame upon earth,
+ Though never a leaf shall grow hoary
+ Of the crowns that were given them at birth,
+ While time as a vassal doth duty
+ To names that he towers not above,
+ More perfect in price and in beauty
+ For ever is love.
+
+ The night is upon us, and anguish
+ Of longing that yearns for the dead.
+ But mourners that faint not or languish,
+ That veil not and bow not the head,
+ Take comfort to heart if a token
+ Be given them of comfort to be:
+ While darkness on earth is unbroken,
+ Light lives on the sea.
+
+
+PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE AND CO. LTD.
+
+LONDON, COLCHESTER AND ETON
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Channel Passage and Other Poems, by
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18871-8.txt or 18871-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+ http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/7/18871/
+
+Produced by Paul Murray, Lisa Reigel, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+ the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+ you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
+ owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+ has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+ Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
+ must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+ prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+ returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+ sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+ address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+ the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+ you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+ does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+ License. You must require such a user to return or
+ destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+ and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+ Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+ money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+ electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+ of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+ distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+ Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+ Chief Executive and Director
+ gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+ http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/18871-8.zip b/18871-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..09bb01e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18871-8.zip
Binary files differ
diff --git a/18871-h.zip b/18871-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5e62ab0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18871-h.zip
Binary files differ
diff --git a/18871-h/18871-h.htm b/18871-h/18871-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e6b9295
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18871-h/18871-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,4647 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+ "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+ <head>
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+ <title>
+ The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Channel Passage And Other Poems, by Algernon Charles Swinburne.
+ </title>
+ <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */
+<!--
+ p { margin-top: .75em;
+ text-align: justify;
+ margin-bottom: .75em;
+ }
+ h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+ text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+ clear: both;
+ }
+ hr { width: 33%;
+ margin-top: 2em;
+ margin-bottom: 2em;
+ margin-left: auto;
+ margin-right: auto;
+ clear: both;
+ }
+
+ table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;
+ margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;}
+
+ div.centered {text-align: center;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */
+ div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 2 */
+
+ td.tdright {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} /* aligning cell content to the right */
+ td.tdleft {text-align: left; vertical-align: top;} /* aligning cell content to the left */
+
+
+ body{margin-left: 10%;
+ margin-right: 10%;
+ }
+
+ .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+ /* visibility: hidden; */
+ position: absolute;
+ left: 92%;
+ font-size: smaller;
+ text-align: right;
+ } /* page numbers */
+
+ ins.greekcorr {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted #333;}
+
+ .mynote { background-color: #DDE; color: black; padding: 1em; margin-left: 5%;
+ margin-right: 5%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} /* colored box for notes at beginning of file */
+
+ .center {text-align: center;}
+ .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;}
+ .lowercase {text-transform:lowercase;}
+
+ .gap { margin-top: 4em; } /* adds white space on title page */
+ .biggap { margin-top: 6em; } /* adds white space on title page */
+
+ a { text-decoration: none; } /*turns off link underline*/
+
+ .footnotehead {margin-left: 5%; margin-top: 1em;}
+ .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;}
+ .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+ .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+ .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;}
+
+ .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
+ .poem br {display: none;}
+ .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+ .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 12em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i3 {display: block; margin-left: 3em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i5 {display: block; margin-left: 5em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i7 {display: block; margin-left: 7em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i9 {display: block; margin-left: 9em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ .poem span.i11 {display: block; margin-left: 11em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+ // -->
+ /* XML end ]]>*/
+ </style>
+ </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Channel Passage and Other Poems, by
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Channel Passage and Other Poems
+ Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles
+ Swinburne--Vol VI
+
+Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18871]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Paul Murray, Lisa Reigel, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class = "mynote">Transcriber's Note:<br /><br />
+Greek words that may not display correctly in all browsers are
+transliterated in the text using popups like this:
+<ins class="greekcorr" title="biblos">&#946;&#953;&#946;&#955;&#959;&#962;</ins>.
+Position your mouse over the line to see the transliteration.<br /></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1 style="margin-top: 3em;">A Channel Passage and Other Poems</h1>
+
+
+<h4 style="margin-top: 6em;">By</h4>
+
+<h2>Algernon Charles Swinburne</h2>
+
+
+<h4 style="margin-top: 6em;">TAKEN FROM<br /></h4>
+
+<h3 style="margin-bottom: 3em;">THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE&mdash;Vol VI</h3>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3 style="margin-top: 3em;">THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE</h3>
+
+<h5>VOL. VI</h5>
+
+<h4 style="margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em;">A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY: ASTROPHEL: A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER TALES</h4>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SWINBURNE'S POETICAL WORKS</h2>
+
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="8" summary="works">
+<tr>
+ <td class="tdright">I.</td>
+ <td class="tdleft"><span class="smcap">Poems and Ballads</span> (First Series).<br /></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="tdright">II.</td>
+ <td class="tdleft"><span class="smcap">Songs before Sunrise</span>, and <span class="smcap">Songs of Two Nations</span>.<br /></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="tdright">III.</td>
+ <td class="tdleft"><span class="smcap">Poems and Ballads</span> (Second and Third Series), and <span class="smcap">Songs of The Springtides</span>.<br /></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="tdright">IV.</td>
+ <td class="tdleft"><span class="smcap">Tristram of Lyonesse, The Tale of Balen, Atalanta in Calydon, Erechtheus.<br /></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="tdright">V.</td>
+ <td class="tdleft"><span class="smcap">Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc.<br /></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="tdright">VI.</td>
+ <td class="tdleft"><span class="smcap">A Midsummer Holiday, Astrophel, A Channel Passage and Other Poems.<br /></span></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<h4>LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN</h4>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1 style="margin-top: 4em">A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY: ASTROPHEL: A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS</h1>
+
+<h3 style="margin-top: 3em">By</h3>
+
+<h2>Algernon Charles Swinburne</h2>
+
+
+<h4 style="margin-top: 3em">1917</h4>
+
+<p class="gap center">LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN</p>
+
+
+<p class="center biggap"><i>First printed</i> (<i>Chatto</i>), 1904<br />
+
+<i>Reprinted</i> 1904, '09, '10, '12<br />
+
+(<i>Heinemann</i>), 1917</p>
+
+
+<p class="center gap"><i>London: William Heinemann</i>, 1917</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table width="80%" cellpadding="3" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr>
+ <td>&nbsp;</td>
+ <td class="tdright">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">A Channel Passage</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Lake of Gaube</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Promise of the Hawthorn</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Hawthorn Tide</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_289">289</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Passing of the Hawthorn</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_296">296</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">To a Baby Kinswoman</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Altar of Righteousness</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">A New Year's Eve</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">In a Rosary</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The High Oaks</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Barking Hall: A Year After</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Music: an Ode</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_334">334</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Centenary of the Battle of the Nile</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_336">336</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Trafalgar Day</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_338">338</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Cromwell's Statue</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_340">340</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">A Word for the Navy</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_342">342</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Northumberland</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Stratford-on-Avon</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_349">349</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Burns: an Ode</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_350">350</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Commonweal: a Song for Unionists</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_355">355</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Question</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Apostasy</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_363">363</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Russia: an Ode</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_366">366</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">For Greece and Crete</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_370">370</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Delphic Hymn to Apollo</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_372">372</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">A New Century</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_374">374</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">An Evening at Vichy</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_375">375</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">To George Frederick Watts</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_378">378</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">On the Death of Mrs. Lynn Linton</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_379">379</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">In Memory of Aurelio Saffi</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_382">382</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Carnot</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_383">383</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span><span class="smcap">After the Verdict</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_384">384</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Transvaal</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_385">385</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Reverse</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_386">386</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Turning of the Tide</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_387">387</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">On the Death of Colonel Benson</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_388">388</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Astr&aelig;a Victrix</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_389">389</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The First of June</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_393">393</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">A Roundel from Villon</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_395">395</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">A Roundel of Rabelais</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_396">396</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Lucifer</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_397">397</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Centenary of Alexandre Dumas</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_398">398</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">At a Dog's Grave</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_400">400</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Three Weeks Old</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_402">402</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">A Clasp of Hands</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_403">403</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Prologue to Doctor Faustus</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_405">405</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Prologue to Arden of Feversham</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_407">407</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Prologue to Old Fortunatus</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_409">409</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Prologue to The Duchess of Malfy</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_411">411</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Prologue to The Revenger's Tragedy</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_413">413</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Prologue to The Broken Heart</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_415">415</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Prologue to A Very Woman</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_417">417</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Prologue to The Spanish Gipsy</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_419">419</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Prologue to The Two Noble Kinsmen</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_421">421</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Afterglow of Shakespeare</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_423">423</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Cleopatra</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_427">427</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Dedication</span></td>
+ <td class="tdright"><a href="#Page_435">435</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A CHANNEL PASSAGE</h2>
+
+<h4>AND OTHER POEMS</h4>
+
+<p><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h4>IN MEMORY</h4>
+
+<h5>OF</h5>
+
+<h3>WILLIAM MORRIS</h3>
+
+<h5>AND</h5>
+
+<h3>EDWARD BURNE JONES</h3>
+
+<p><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A CHANNEL PASSAGE</h2>
+
+<h4>1855</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the starbright air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten and die.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span><span class="i0">Heaven's own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in music and semblance in fire:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night's desire.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things distraught.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart of Ind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar with death for priest.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man born free<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and the wrath of a tropic sea.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer cliff's wall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the throat of death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span><span class="i0">Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's heart in a boy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and flamed, sublime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the pulse of time.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light overheard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the fire of a word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but when heaven breathed free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out into light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that were flowerlike and white.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in the light they made.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may behold, and deep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the soul through sleep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it yearns to know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above and below.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span><span class="i0">The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong sea's labour and rage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the night made bare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of air&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its reign and the sea's,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that bows men's knees.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in dreams<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love for a breath's length seems&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with love that subsides<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and released the tides.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering, assailed and withheld<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is thwarted and quelled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the glories of myriads of glowworms in lustrous grass on a boundless lawn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a light like dawn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a tune could be;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of life or of sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span><span class="i0">Audible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember awake:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs in the live storm's wake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud heart of the labouring hour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A harvest of stars by the storm's hand reaped, each fair as a star-shaped flower.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing of tempest seemed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory was gone as a dream half dreamed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a miracle, died,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power and of pride;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of power upon earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a new God's birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness fell:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of heaven and of hell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, and were wellnigh fain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and revelled in labour, to cease from her pain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And an end was made of it: only remembrance endures of the glad loud strife;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the sense that a rapture so royal may come not again in the passage of life.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE LAKE OF GAUBE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sun is lord and god, sublime, serene,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And sovereign on the mountains: earth and air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lie prone in passion, blind with bliss unseen<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By force of sight and might of rapture, fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As dreams that die and know not what they were.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lawns, the gorges, and the peaks, are one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glad glory, thrilled with sense of unison<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In strong compulsive silence of the sun.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Flowers dense and keen as midnight stars aflame<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And living things of light like flames in flower<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That glance and flash as though no hand might tame<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Lightnings whose life outshone their stormlit hour<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And played and laughed on earth, with all their power<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gone, and with all their joy of life made long<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And harmless as the lightning life of song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shine sweet like stars when darkness feels them strong.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The deep mild purple flaked with moonbright gold<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That makes the scales seem flowers of hardened light,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span><span class="i0">The flamelike tongue, the feet that noon leaves cold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The kindly trust in man, when once the sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Grew less than strange, and faith bade fear take flight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Outlive the little harmless life that shone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gladdened eyes that loved it, and was gone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere love might fear that fear had looked thereon.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fear held the bright thing hateful, even as fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose name is one with hate and horror, saith<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That heaven, the dark deep heaven of water near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is deadly deep as hell and dark as death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The rapturous plunge that quickens blood and breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With pause more sweet than passion, ere they strive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To raise again the limbs that yet would dive<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deeper, should there have slain the soul alive.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As the bright salamander in fire of the noonshine exults and is glad of his day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The spirit that quickens my body rejoices to pass from the sunlight away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To pass from the glow of the mountainous flowerage, the high multitudinous bloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far down through the fathomless night of the water, the gladness of silence and gloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Death-dark and delicious as death in the dream of a lover and dreamer may be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It clasps and encompasses body and soul with delight to be living and free:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Free utterly now, though the freedom endure but the space of a perilous breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And living, though girdled about with the darkness and coldness and strangeness of death:<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span><span class="i0">Each limb and each pulse of the body rejoicing, each nerve of the spirit at rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All sense of the soul's life rapture, a passionate peace in its blindness blest.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So plunges the downward swimmer, embraced of the water unfathomed of man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The darkness unplummeted, icier than seas in midwinter, for blessing or ban;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And swiftly and sweetly, when strength and breath fall short, and the dive is done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shoots up as a shaft from the dark depth shot, sped straight into sight of the sun;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sheer through the snow-soft water, more dark than the roof of the pines above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strikes forth, and is glad as a bird whose flight is impelled and sustained of love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a sea-mew's love of the sea-wind breasted and ridden for rapture's sake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is the love of his body and soul for the darkling delight of the soundless lake:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the silent speed of a dream too living to live for a thought's space more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is the flight of his limbs through the still strong chill of the darkness from shore to shore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might life be as this is and death be as life that casts off time as a robe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The likeness of infinite heaven were a symbol revealed of the lake of Gaube.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Whose thought has fathomed and measured<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The darkness of life and of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The secret within them treasured,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The spirit that is not breath?<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span><span class="i2">Whose vision has yet beholden<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The splendour of death and of life?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though sunset as dawn be golden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Is the word of them peace, not strife?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Deep silence answers: the glory<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">We dream of may be but a dream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the sun of the soul wax hoary<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">As ashes that show not a gleam.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But well shall it be with us ever<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Who drive through the darkness here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">If the soul that we live by never,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">For aught that a lie saith, fear.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE PROMISE OF THE HAWTHORN</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Spring sleeps and stirs and trembles with desire<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Pure as a babe's that nestles toward the breast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The world, as yet an all unstricken lyre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With all its chords alive and all at rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feels not the sun's hand yet, but feels his breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And yearns for love made perfect. Man and bird,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thrilled through with hope of life that casts out death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Wait with a rapturous patience till his word<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Speak heaven, and flower by flower and tree by tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Give back the silent strenuous utterance. Earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alive awhile and joyful as the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Laughs not aloud in joy too deep for mirth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Presageful of perfection of delight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till all the unborn green buds be born in white.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+<h2>HAWTHORN TIDE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dawn is alive in the world, and the darkness of heaven and of earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Subsides in the light of a smile more sweet than the loud noon's mirth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spring lives as a babe lives, glad and divine as the sun, and unsure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If aught so divine and so glad may be worshipped and loved and endure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A soft green glory suffuses the love-lit earth with delight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the face of the noon is fair as the face of the star-clothed night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth knows not and doubts not at heart of the glories again to be:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sleep doubts not and dreams not how sweet shall the waking beyond her be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A whole white world of revival awaits May's whisper awhile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Abides and exults in the bud as a soft hushed laugh in a smile.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a maid's mouth laughing with love and subdued for the love's sake, May<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shines and withholds for a little the word she revives to say.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span><span class="i0">When the clouds and the winds and the sunbeams are warring and strengthening with joy that they live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Spring, from reluctance enkindled to rapture, from slumber to strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stirs, and repents, and is winter, and weeps, and awakes as the frosts forgive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the dark chill death of the woodland is troubled, and dies into life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the honey of heaven, of the hives whence night feeds full on the springtide's breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Fills fuller the lips of the lustrous air with delight in the dawn:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each blossom enkindling with love that is life and subsides with a smile into death<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Arises and lightens and sets as a star from her sphere withdrawn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not sleep, in the rapture of radiant dreams, when sundawn smiles on the night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shows earth so sweet with a splendour and fragrance of life that is love:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Each blade of the glad live grass, each bud that receives or rejects the light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Salutes and responds to the marvel of Maytime around and above.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Joy gives thanks for the sight and the savour of heaven, and is humbled<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With awe that exults in thanksgiving: the towers of the flowers of the trees<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shine sweeter than snows that the hand of the season has melted and crumbled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And fair as the foam that is lesser of life than the loveliest of these.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span><span class="i0">But the sense of a life more lustrous with joy and enkindled of glory<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than man's was ever or may be, and briefer than joys most brief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bids man's heart bend and adore, be the man's head golden or hoary,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As it leapt but a breath's time since and saluted the flower and the leaf.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rapture that springs into love at the sight of the world's exultation<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Takes not a sense of rebuke from the sense of triumphant awe:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the spirit that quickens the body fulfils it with mute adoration,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the knees would fain bow down as the eyes that rejoiced and saw.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fair and sublime as the face of the dawn is the splendour of May,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the sky's and the sea's joy fades not as earth's pride passes away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet hardly the sun's first lightning or laughter of love on the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So humbles the heart into worship that knows not or doubts if it be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the first full glory beholden again of the life new-born<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That hails and applauds with inaudible music the season of morn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A day's length since, and it was not: a night's length more, and the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Salutes and enkindles a world of delight as a strange world won.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span><span class="i0">A new life answers and thrills to the kiss of the young strong year,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the glory we see is as music we hear not, and dream that we hear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From blossom to blossom the live tune kindles, from tree to tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we know not indeed if we hear not the song of the life we see.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For the first blithe day that beholds it and worships and cherishes cannot but sing<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With a louder and lustier delight in the sun and the sunlit earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than the joy of the days that beheld but the soft green dawn of the slow faint spring<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Glad and afraid to be glad, and subdued in a shamefast mirth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the first bright knoll of the woodland world laughs out into fragrant light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The year's heart changes and quickens with sense of delight in desire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the kindling desire is one with thanksgiving for utter fruition of sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For sight and for sense of a world that the sun finds meet for his lyre.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Music made of the morning that smites from the chords of the mute world song<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Trembles and quickens and lightens, unfelt, unbeholden, unheard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From blossom on blossom that climbs and exults in the strength of the sun grown strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And answers the word of the wind of the spring with the sun's own word.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span><span class="i0">Hard on the skirt of the deep soft copses that spring refashions,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Triumphs and towers to the height of the crown of a wildwood tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One royal hawthorn, sublime and serene as the joy that impassions<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Awe that exults in thanksgiving for sight of the grace we see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The grace that is given of a god that abides for a season, mysterious<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And merciful, fervent and fugitive, seen and unknown and adored:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His presence is felt in the light and the fragrance, elate and imperious,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His laugh and his breath in the blossom are love's, the beloved soul's lord.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For surely the soul if it loves is beloved of the god as a lover<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose love is not all unaccepted, a worship not utterly vain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So full, so deep is the joy that revives for the soul to recover<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yearly, beholden of hope and of memory in sunshine and rain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10" style="margin-top: 2em;">III<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Wonder and love stand silent, stricken at heart and stilled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But yet is the cup of delight and of worship unpledged and unfilled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A handsbreadth hence leaps up, laughs out as an angel crowned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A strong full fountain of flowers overflowing above and around.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span><span class="i0">The boughs and the blossoms in triumph salute with adoring mirth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The womb that bare them, the glad green mother, the sunbright earth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Downward sweeping, as song subsides into silence, none<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May hear what sound is the word's they speak to the brooding sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">None that hearken may hear: man may but pass and adore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And humble his heart in thanksgiving for joy that is now no more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sudden, afront and ahead of him, joy is alive and aflame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the shrine whose incense is given of the godhead, again the same.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Pale and pure as a maiden secluded in secret and cherished with fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">One sweet glad hawthorn smiles as it shrinks under shelter, screened<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By two strong brethren whose bounteous blossom outsoars it, year after year,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">While earth still cleaves to the live spring's breast as a babe unweaned.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never was amaranth fairer in fields where heroes of old found rest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Never was asphodel sweeter: but here they endure not long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though ever the sight that salutes them again and adores them awhile is blest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the heart is a hymn, and the sense is a soul, and the soul is a song.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span><span class="i0">Alone on a dyke's trenched edge, and afar from the blossoming wildwood's verge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Laughs and lightens a sister, triumphal in love-lit pride;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clothed round with the sun, and inviolate: her blossoms exult as the springtide surge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When the wind and the dawn enkindle the snows of the shoreward tide.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hardly the worship of old that rejoiced as it knelt in the vision<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shown of the God new-born whose breath is the spirit of spring<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hailed ever with love more strong and defiant of death's derision<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A joy more perfect than here we mourn for as May takes wing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Time gives it and takes it again and restores it: the glory, the wonder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The triumph of lustrous blossom that makes of the steep sweet bank<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One visible marvel of music inaudible, over and under,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Attuned as in heaven, pass hence and return for the sun to thank.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stars and the sun give thanks for the glory bestowed and beholden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For the gladness they give and rejoice in, the night and the dawn and the day:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But nought they behold when the world is aflower and the season is golden<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Makes answer as meet and as sweet as the flower that itself is May.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE PASSING OF THE HAWTHORN</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The coming of the hawthorn brings on earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Heaven: all the spring speaks out in one sweet word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And heaven grows gladder, knowing that earth has heard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere half the flowers are jubilant in birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The splendour of the laughter of their mirth<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Dazzles delight with wonder: man and bird<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Rejoice and worship, stilled at heart and stirred<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With rapture girt about with awe for girth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The passing of the hawthorn takes away<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Heaven: all the spring falls dumb, and all the soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sinks down in man for sorrow. Night and day<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Forego the joy that made them one and whole.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The change that falls on every starry spray<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Bids, flower by flower, the knell of springtime toll.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p>
+<h2>TO A BABY KINSWOMAN</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love, whose light thrills heaven and earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smiles and weeps upon thy birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Child, whose mother's love-lit eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watch thee but from Paradise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweetest sight that earth can give,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweetest light of eyes that live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ours must needs, for hope withdrawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hail with tears thy soft spring dawn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light of hope whose star hath set,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light of love whose sun lives yet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Holier, happier, heavenlier love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breathes about thee, burns above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Surely, sweet, than ours can be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shed from eyes we may not see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though thine own may see them shine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Night and day, perchance, on thine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sun and moon that lighten earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seem not fit to bless thy birth:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scarce the very stars we know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here seem bright enough to show<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence in unimagined skies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glows the vigil of such eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Theirs whose heart is as a sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swoln with sorrowing love of thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fain would share with thine the sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seen alone of babes aright,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span><span class="i0">Watched of eyes more sweet than flowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sleeping or awake: but ours<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can but deem or dream or guess<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thee not wholly motherless.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might they see or might they know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What nor faith nor hope may show,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We whose hearts yearn toward thee now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then were blest and wise as thou.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had we half thy knowledge,&mdash;had<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love such wisdom,&mdash;grief were glad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Surely, lit by grace of thee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life were sweet as death may be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now the law that lies on men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bids us mourn our dead: but then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heaven and life and earth and death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quickened as by God's own breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All were turned from sorrow and strife:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth and death were heaven and life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All too far are then and now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sundered: none may be as thou.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet this grace is ours&mdash;a sign<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that goodlier grace of thine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet, and thine alone&mdash;to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heaven, and heaven's own love, in thee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bless them, then, whose eyes caress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thee, as only thou canst bless.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Comfort, faith, assurance, love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shine around us, brood above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fear grows hope, and hope grows wise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thrilled and lit by children's eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet in ours the tears unshed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Child, for hope that death leaves dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Needs must burn and tremble; thou<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knowest not, seest not, why nor how,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span><span class="i0">More than we know whence or why<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Comes on babes that laugh and lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Half asleep, in sweet-lipped scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light of smiles outlightening morn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence enkindled as is earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the dawn's less radiant birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All the body soft and sweet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smiles on us from face to feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the rose-red hands would fain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reach the rose-red feet in vain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eyes and hands that worship thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watch and tend, adore and see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All these heavenly sights, and give<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thanks to see and love and live.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, of all that hold thee dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet, the dearest smiles not here.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thine alone is now the grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Haply, still to see her face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thine, thine only now the sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence we dream thine own takes light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, though faith and hope live blind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet they live in heart and mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strong and keen as truth may be:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, though blind as grief were we<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Inly for a weeping-while,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sorrow's self before thy smile<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smiles and softens, knowing that yet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far from us though heaven be set,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love, bowed down for thee to bless,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dares not call thee motherless.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>May 1894.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span><span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="es to pan de soi leg&ocirc;">&#7952;&#987; &#964;&#8056; &#964;&#8118;&#957; &#948;&#8051; &#963;&#959;&#953; &#955;&#8051;&#947;&#969;</ins>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="b&ocirc;mon aidesai dikas;">&#946;&#969;&#956;&#8056;&#957; &#945;&#7988;&#948;&#949;&#963;&#945;&#953; &#948;&#8055;&#954;&#945;&#962;·</ins><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="m&ecirc;de nin">&#956;&#951;&#948;&#8051; &#957;&#953;&#957;</ins><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="kerdos id&ocirc;n athe&ocirc; podi lax atis&ecirc;s;">&#954;&#8051;&#961;&#948;&#959;&#962; &#7984;&#948;&#8060;&#957; &#7936;&#952;&#8051;&#8179; &#960;&#959;&#948;&#8054; &#955;&#8048;&#958; &#7936;&#964;&#8055;&#963;&#8131;&#962;·</ins><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="poina gar epestai">&#960;&#959;&#953;&#957;&#8048; &#947;&#8048;&#961; &#7952;&#960;&#8051;&#963;&#964;&#945;&#953;</ins>.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="kyrion menei telos">&#954;&#8059;&#961;&#953;&#959;&#957; &#956;&#8051;&#957;&#949;&#953; &#964;&#8051;&#955;&#959;&#962;</ins>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p style="margin-left: 30%"><span class="smcap">&AElig;sch.</span> <i>Eum.</i> 538-544</p>
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="para to ph&ocirc;s idein">&#960;&#8049;&#961;&#945; &#964;&#8056; &#966;&#8182;&#962; &#7984;&#948;&#949;&#8150;&#957;</ins>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 30%"><span class="smcap">&AElig;sch.</span> <i>Cho.</i> 972</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Light and night, whose clouds and glories change and mingle and divide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Veil the truth whereof they witness, show the truth of things they hide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through the darkness and the splendour of the centuries, loud or dumb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shines and wanes and shines the spirit, lit with love of life to come.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Man, the soul made flesh, that knows not death from life, and fain would know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sees the face of time change colour as its tides recoil and flow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">All his hope and fear and faith and doubt, if aught at all they be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Live the life of clouds and sunbeams, born of heaven or earth or sea.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">All are buoyed and blown and brightened by their hour's evasive breath:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">All subside and quail and darken when their hour is done to death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Yet, ere faith, a wandering water, froze and curdled into creeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Earth, elate as heaven, adored the light that quickens dreams to deeds.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span><span class="i0">Invisible: eye hath not seen it, and ear hath not heard as the spirit hath heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the shrine that is lit not of sunlight or starlight the sound of a limitless word.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And visible: none that hath eyes to behold what the spirit must perish or see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can choose but behold it and worship: a shrine that if light were as darkness would be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of cloud and of change is the form of the fashion that man may behold of it wrought:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where worship is none but of thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of gladness or sorrow may climb:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that guards it, and hears not of time.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in passion of light and of cloud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with darkness and light for a shroud.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the winds and the clouds and the suns fall silent, and fade out of hearing or sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the shrine stands fast and is changed not, whose likeness was changed as a cloud in the night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">All the storms of time, and wrath of many winds, may carve no trace<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On the viewless altar, though the veil bear many a name and face:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Many a live God's likeness woven, many a scripture dark with awe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Bids the veil seem verier iron than the word of life's own law.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span><span class="i1">Till the might of change hath rent it with a rushing wind in twain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Stone or steel it seems, whereon the wrath of chance is wreaked in vain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Stone or steel, and all behind it or beyond its lifted sign<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Cloud and vapour, no subsistence of a change-unstricken shrine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">God by god flits past in thunder, till his glories turn to shades:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">God to god bears wondering witness how his gospel flames and fades.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More was each of these, while yet they were, than man their servant seemed:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Dead are all of these, and man survives who made them while he dreamed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet haply or surely, if vision were surer than theirs who rejoiced that they saw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man might not but see, through the darkness of godhead, the light that is surety and law.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the stone that the close-drawn cloud which veils it awhile makes cloudlike stands<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The word of the truth everlasting, unspoken of tongues and unwritten of hands.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the sunbeams and storms of the centuries engraven, and approved of the soul as it reads,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It endures as a token dividing the light from the darkness of dreams and of deeds.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The faces of gods on the face of it carven, or gleaming behind and above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Star-glorified Uranus, thunderous Jehovah, for terror or worship or love,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span><span class="i0">Change, wither, and brighten as flowers that the wind of eternity sheds upon time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All radiant and transient and awful and mortal, and leave it unmarred and sublime.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the tides that return and recede are the fears and the hopes of the centuries that roll,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Requenched and rekindled: but strong as the sun is the sense of it shrined in the soul.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In the days when time was not, in the time when days were none,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere sorrow had life to lot, ere earth gave thanks for the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere man in his darkness waking adored what the soul in him could,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the manifold God of his making was manifest evil and good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One law from the dim beginning abode and abides in the end,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In sight of him sorrowing and sinning with none but his faith for friend.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dark were the shadows around him, and darker the glories above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere light from beyond them found him, and bade him for love's sake love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About him was darkness, and under and over him darkness: the night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That conceived him and bore him had thunder for utterance and lightning for light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dust of death was the dust of the ways that the tribes of him trod:<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span><span class="i0">And he knew not if just or unjust were the might of the mystery of God.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange horror and hope, strange faith and unfaith, were his boon and his bane:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the God of his trust was the wraith of the soul or the ghost of it slain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A curse was on death as on birth, and a Presence that shone as a sword<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shed menace from heaven upon earth that beheld him, and hailed him her Lord.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sublime and triumphant as fire or as lightning, he kindled the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And withered with dread the desire that would look on the light of his eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth shuddered with worship, and knew not if hell were not hot in her breath;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If birth were not sin, and the dew of the morning the sweat of her death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The watchwords of evil and good were unspoken of men and unheard:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They were shadows that willed as he would, that were made and unmade by his word.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His word was darkness and light, and a wisdom that makes men mad<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sent blindness upon them for sight, that they saw but and heard as he bade.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cast forth and corrupt from the birth by the crime of creation, they stood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Convicted of evil on earth by the grace of a God found good.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The grace that enkindled and quickened the darkness of hell with flame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bade man, though the soul in him sickened, obey, and give praise to his name.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span><span class="i0">The still small voice of the spirit whose life is as plague's hot breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bade man shed blood, and inherit the life of the kingdom of death.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Bring now for blood-offering thy son to mine altar, and bind him and slay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the sin of my bidding be done": and the soul in the slave said, "Yea."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yea, not nay, was the word: and the sacrifice offered withal<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was neither of beast nor of bird, but the soul of a man, God's thrall.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the word of his servant spoken was fire, and the light of a sword,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the bondage of Israel was broken, and Sinai shrank from the Lord.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With splendour of slaughter and thunder of song as the sound of the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were the foes of him stricken in sunder and silenced as storms that flee.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Terror and trust and the pride of the chosen, approved of his choice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saw God in the whirlwind ride, and rejoiced as the winds rejoice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Subdued and exalted and kindled and quenched by the sense of his might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faith flamed and exulted and dwindled, and saw not, and clung to the sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wastes of the wilderness brightened and trembled with rapture and dread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the word of him thundered and lightened and spake through the quick and the dead.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span><span class="i0">The chant of the prophetess, louder and loftier than tempest and wave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rang triumph more ruthless and prouder than death, and profound as the grave.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sweet as the moon's word spoken in smiles that the blown clouds mar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The psalmist's witness in token arose as the speech of a star.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Starlight supreme, and the tender desire of the moon, were as one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To rebuke with compassion the splendour and strength of the godlike sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God softened and changed: and the word of his chosen, a fire at the first,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bade man, as a beast or a bird, now slake at the springs his thirst.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The souls that were sealed unto death as the bones of the dead lie sealed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose thrilled and redeemed by the breath of the dawn on the flame-lit field.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glories of darkness, cloven with music of thunder, shrank<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the web of the word was unwoven that spake, and the soul's tide sank.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the starshine of midnight that covered Arabia with light as a robe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Waxed fiery with utterance that hovered and flamed through the whirlwind on Job.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And prophet to prophet and vision to vision made answer sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the valley of doom and decision was merged in the tides of time.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span><span class="i8" style="margin-top: 2em;">III<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">Then, soft as the dews of night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">As the star of the sundawn bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">As the heart of the sea's hymn deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And sweet as the balm of sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Arose on the world a light<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Too pure for the skies to keep.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With music sweeter and stranger than heaven had heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the dark east thrilled with light from a saviour's word<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a God grew man to endure as a man and abide<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The doom of the will of the Lord of the loud world's tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom thunders utter, and tempest and darkness hide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With larger light than flamed from the peak whereon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prometheus, bound as the sun to the world's wheel, shone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A presence passed and abode but on earth a span,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And love's own light as a river before him ran,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the name of God for awhile upon earth was man.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O star that wast not and wast for the world a sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O light that was quenched of priests, and its work undone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O Word that wast not as man's or as God's, if God<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be Lord but of hosts whose tread was as death's that trod<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On souls that felt but his wrath as an unseen rod,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span><span class="i0">What word, what praise, what passion of hopeless prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May now rise up to thee, loud as in years that were,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From years that gaze on the works of thy servants wrought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While strength was in them to satiate the lust of thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That craved in thy name for blood as the quest it sought?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i3">From the dark high places of Rome<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Far over the westward foam<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">God's heaven and the sun saw swell<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The fires of the high priest's hell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And shrank as they curled and clomb<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And revelled and ravaged and fell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12" style="margin-top: 2em;">IV<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet was not the work of thy word all withered with wasting flame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By the sons of the priests that had slain thee, whose evil was wrought in thy name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the blood-sodden soil that was blasted with fires of the Church and her creed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sprang rarely but surely, by grace of thy spirit, a flower for a weed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy spirit, unfelt of thy priests who blasphemed thee, enthralled and enticed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To deathward a child that was even as the child we behold in Christ.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Moors, they told her, beyond bright Spain and the strait brief sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dwelt blind in the light that for them was as darkness, and knew not thee.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span><span class="i0">But the blood of the martyrs whose mission was witness for God, they said,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might raise to redemption the souls that were here, in the sun's sight, dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the child rose up in the night, when the stars were as friends that smiled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sought her brother, and wakened the younger and tenderer child.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the heaven of a child's glad sleep to the heaven of the sight of her eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He woke, and brightened and hearkened, and kindled as stars that rise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And forth they fared together to die for the stranger's sake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the souls of the slayers that should slay them, and turn from their sins, and wake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the light of the love that lit them awhile on a brief blind quest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shines yet on the tear-lit smile that salutes them, belated and blest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the girl, full-grown to the stature of godhead in womanhood, spake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The word that sweetens and lightens her creed for her great love's sake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the godlike heart of Theresa the prayer above all prayers heard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cry as of God made woman, a sweet blind wonderful word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sprang sudden as flame, and kindled the darkness of faith with love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the hollow of hell from beneath shone, quickened of heaven from above.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span><span class="i0">Yea, hell at her word grew heaven, as she prayed that if God thought well<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She there might stand in the gateway, that none might pass into hell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not Hermes, guardian and guide, God, herald, and comforter, shed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such lustre of hope from the life of his light on the night of the dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not Pallas, wiser and mightier in mercy than Rome's God shone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wore ever such raiment of love as the soul of a saint put on.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So blooms as a flower of the darkness a star of the midnight born,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the midnight's womb and the blackness of darkness, and flames like morn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor yet may the dawn extinguish or hide it, when churches and creeds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are withered and blasted with sunlight as poisonous and blossomless weeds.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So springs and strives through the soil that the legions of darkness have trod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the root that is man, from the soul in the body, the flower that is God.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i11" style="margin-top: 2em;">V<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">Ages and creeds that drift<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Through change and cloud uplift<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The soul that soars and seeks her sovereign shrine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Her faith's veiled altar, there<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">To find, when praise and prayer<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fall baffled, if the darkness be divine.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span><span class="i3">Lights change and shift through star and sun:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Night, clothed with might of immemorial years, is one.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">Day, born and slain of night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Hath hardly life in sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As she that bears and slays him and survives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">And gives us back for one<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Cloud-thwarted fiery sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The myriad mysteries of the lambent lives<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Whose starry soundless music saith<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That light and life wax perfect even through night and death.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">In vain had darkness heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Light speak the lustrous word<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That cast out faith in all save truth and love:<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">In vain death's quickening rod<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Bade man rise up as God,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Touched as with life unknown in heaven above:<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Fear turned his light of love to fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That wasted earth, yet might not slay the soul's desire.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5">Though death seem life, and night<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Bid fear call darkness light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Time, faith, and hope keep trust, through sorrow and shame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Till Christ, by Paul cast out,<br /></span>
+<span class="i5">Return, and all the rout<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of raging slaves whose prayer defiles his name<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Rush headlong to the deep, and die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leave no sign to say that faith once heard them lie.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span><span class="i12" style="margin-top: 2em;">VI<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Since man, with a child's pride proud, and abashed as a child and afraid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made God in his likeness, and bowed him to worship the Maker he made,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No faith more dire hath enticed man's trust than the saint's whose creed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made Caiaphas one with Christ, that worms on the cross might feed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Priests gazed upon God in the eyes of a babe new-born, and therein<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beheld not heaven, and the wise glad secret of love, but sin.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Accursed of heaven, and baptized with the baptism of hatred and hell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They spat on the name they despised and adored as a sign and a spell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Lord Christ, thou art God, and a liar: they were children of wrath, not of grace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unbaptized, unredeemed from the fire they were born for, who smiled in thy face."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of such is the kingdom&mdash;he said it&mdash;of heaven: and the heavenly word<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall live when religion is dead, and when falsehood is dumb shall be heard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the message of James and of John was as Christ's and as love's own call:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But wrath passed sentence thereon when Annas replied in Paul.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dark old God who had slain him grew one with the Christ he slew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And poison was rank in the grain that with growth of his gospel grew.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span><span class="i0">And the blackness of darkness brightened: and red in the heart of the flame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shone down, as a blessing that lightened, the curse of a new God's name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through centuries of burning and trembling belief as a signal it shone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till man, soul-sick of dissembling, bade fear and her frauds begone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God Cerberus yelps from his throats triune: but his day, which was night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is quenched, with its stars and the notes of its night-birds, in silence and light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The flames of its fires and the psalms of their psalmists are darkened and dumb:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strong winter has withered the palms of his angels, and stricken them numb.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God, father of lies, God, son of perdition, God, spirit of ill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy will that for ages was done is undone as a dead God's will.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not Mahomet's sword could slay thee, nor Borgia's or Calvin's praise:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the scales of the spirit that weigh thee are weighted with truth, and it slays.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The song of the day of thy fury, when nature and death shall quail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rings now as the thunders of Jewry, the ghost of a dead world's tale.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That day and its doom foreseen and foreshadowed on earth, when thou,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lord God, wast lord of the keen dark season, are sport for us now.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy claws were clipped and thy fangs plucked out by the hands that slew<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span><span class="i0">Men, lovers of man, whose pangs bore witness if truth were true.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man crucified rose again from the sepulchre builded to be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No grave for the souls of the men who denied thee, but, Lord, for thee.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When Bruno's spirit aspired from the flames that thy servants fed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The spirit of faith was fired to consume thee and leave thee dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the light of the sunlike eyes whence laughter lightened and flamed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bade France and the world be wise, faith saw thee naked and shamed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When wisdom deeper and sweeter than Rabelais veiled and revealed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Found utterance diviner and meeter for truth whence anguish is healed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence fear and hate and belief in thee, fed by thy grace from above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fall stricken, and utmost grief takes light from the lustre of love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Shakespeare shone into birth, and the world he beheld grew bright,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy kingdom was ended on earth, and the darkness it shed was light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In him all truth and the glory thereof and the power and the pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The song of the soul and her story, bore witness that fear had lied.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All hope, all wonder, all trust, all doubt that knows not of fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The love of the body, the lust of the spirit to see and to hear,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span><span class="i0">All womanhood, fairer than love could conceive or desire or adore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All manhood, radiant above all heights that it held of yore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lived by the life of his breath, with the speech of his soul's will spake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the light lit darkness to death whence never the dead shall wake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For the light that lived in the sound of the song of his speech was one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the light of the wisdom that found earth's tune in the song of the sun;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His word with the word of the lord most high of us all on earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose soul was a lyre and a sword, whose death was a deathless birth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Him too we praise as we praise our own who as he stand strong;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Him, &AElig;schylus, ancient of days, whose word is the perfect song.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Caucasus showed to the sun and the sea what a God could endure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When wisdom and light were one, and the hands of the matricide pure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A song too subtle for psalmist or prophet of Jewry to know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Elate and profound as the calmest or stormiest of waters that flow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A word whose echoes were wonder and music of fears overcome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bade Sinai bow, and the thunder of godhead on Horeb be dumb.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The childless children of night, strong daughters of doom and dread,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span><span class="i0">The thoughts and the fears that smite the soul, and its life lies dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stood still and were quelled by the sound of his word and the light of his thought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the God that in man lay bound was unbound from the bonds he had wrought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dark fear of a lord more dark than the dreams of his worshippers knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fell dead, and the corpse lay stark in the sunlight of truth shown true.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12" style="margin-top: 2em;">VII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Time, and truth his child, though terror set earth and heaven at odds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See the light of manhood rise on the twilight of the Gods.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light is here for souls to see, though the stars of faith be dead:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All the sea that yearned and trembled receives the sun instead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All the shadows on the spirit when fears and dreams were strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All perdition, all redemption, blind rain-stars watched so long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love whose root was fear, thanksgiving that cowered beneath the rod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feel the light that heals and withers: night weeps upon her God.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All the names wherein the incarnate Lord lived his day and died<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fade from suns to stars, from stars into darkness undescried.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span><span class="i0">Christ the man lives yet, remembered of man as dreams that leave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light on eyes that wake and know not if memory bid them grieve.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fire sublime as lightning shines, and exults in thunder yet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the battle wields the name and the sword of Mahomet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far above all wars and gospels, all ebb and flow of time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lives the soul that speaks in silence, and makes mute earth sublime.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still for her, though years and ages be blinded and bedinned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mazed with lightnings, crazed with thunders, life rides and guides the wind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Death may live or death may die, and the truth be light or night:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not for gain of heaven may man put away the rule of right.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A NEW YEAR'S EVE</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Christina Rossetti died December 29, 1894</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The stars are strong in the deeps of the lustrous night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cold and splendid as death if his dawn be bright;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Cold as the cast-off garb that is cold as clay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Splendid and strong as a spirit intense as light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A soul more sweet than the morning of new-born May<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has passed with the year that has passed from the world away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A song more sweet than the morning's first-born song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Again will hymn not among us a new year's day.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not here, not here shall the carol of joy grown strong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ring rapture now, and uplift us, a spell-struck throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From dream to vision of life that the soul may see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By death's grace only, if death do its trust no wrong.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Scarce yet the days and the starry nights are three<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since here among us a spirit abode as we,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Girt round with life that is fettered in bonds of time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And clasped with darkness about as is earth with sea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span><span class="i0">And now, more high than the vision of souls may climb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soul whose song was as music of stars that chime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Clothed round with life as of dawn and the mounting sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sings, and we know not here of the song sublime.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No word is ours of it now that the songs are done<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence here we drank of delight as in freedom won,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In deep deliverance given from the bonds we bore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is none to sing as she sang upon earth, not one.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We heard awhile: and for us who shall hear no more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sound as of waves of light on a starry shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Awhile bade brighten and yearn as a father's face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The face of death, divine as in days of yore.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The grey gloom quickened and quivered: the sunless place<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thrilled, and the silence deeper than time or space<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Seemed now not all everlasting. Hope grew strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And love took comfort, given of the sweet song's grace.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love that finds not on earth, where it finds but wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love that bears not the bondage of years in throng<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shone to show for her, higher than the years that mar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The life she looked and longed for as love must long.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span><span class="i0">Who knows? We know not. Afar, if the dead be far,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alive, if the dead be alive as the soul's works are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The soul whose breath was among us a heavenward song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sings, loves, and shines as it shines for us here a star.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p>
+<h2>IN A ROSARY</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Through the low grey archway children's feet that pass<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quicken, glad to find the sweetest haunt of all.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brightest wildflowers gleaming deep in lustiest grass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glorious weeds that glisten through the green sea's glass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Match not now this marvel, born to fade and fall.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Roses like a rainbow wrought of roses rise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Right and left and forward, shining toward the sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nay, the rainbow lit of sunshine droops and dies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere we dream it hallows earth and seas and skies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere delight may dream it lives, its life is done.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Round the border hemmed with high deep hedges round<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Go the children, peering over or between<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the dense bright oval wall of box inwound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reared about the roses fast within it bound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gives them grace to glance at glories else unseen.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Flower outlightening flower and tree outflowering tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feed and fill the sense and spirit full with joy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nought awhile they know of outer earth and sea:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here enough of joy it is to breathe and be:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here the sense of life is one for girl and boy.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span><span class="i0">Heaven above them, bright as children's eyes or dreams,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth about them, sweet as glad soft sleep can show<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth and sky and sea, a world that scarcely seems<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even in children's eyes less fair than life that gleams<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the sleep that none but sinless eyes may know.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Near beneath, and near above, the terraced ways<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wind or stretch and bask or blink against the sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hidden here from sight on soft or stormy days<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lies and laughs with love toward heaven, at silent gaze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All the radiant rosary&mdash;all its flowers made one.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All the multitude of roses towering round<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dawn and noon and night behold as one full flower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fain of heaven and loved of heaven, curbed and crowned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Raised and reared to make this plot of earthly ground<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heavenly, could but heaven endure on earth an hour.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Swept away, made nothing now for ever, dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still the rosary lives and shines on memory, free<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now from fear of death or change as childhood, fled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Years on years before its last live leaves were shed:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">None may mar it now, as none may stain the sea.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE HIGH OAKS</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Barking Hall, July 19th, 1896</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Fourscore years and seven<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Light and dew from heaven<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Have fallen with dawn on these glad woods each day<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Since here was born, even here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">A birth more bright and dear<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Than ever a younger year<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hath seen or shall till all these pass away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Even all the imperious pride of these,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The woodland ways majestic now with towers of trees.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Love itself hath nought<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Touched of tenderest thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With holiest hallowing of memorial grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For memory, blind with bliss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To love, to clasp, to kiss,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">So sweetly strange as this,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The sense that here the sun first hailed her face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A babe at Her glad mother's breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And here again beholds it more beloved and blest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span><span class="i4">Love's own heart, a living<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Spring of strong thanksgiving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Can bid no strength of welling song find way<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">When all the soul would seek<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">One word for joy to speak,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And even its strength makes weak<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The too strong yearning of the soul to say<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What may not be conceived or said<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While darkness makes division of the quick and dead.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Haply, where the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Wanes, and death is none,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The word known here of silence only, held<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Too dear for speech to wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">May leap in living song<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Forth, and the speech be strong<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As here the silence whence it yearned and welled<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From hearts whose utterance love sealed fast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till death perchance might give it grace to live at last.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Here we have our earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Yet, with all the mirth<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of all the summers since the world began,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All strengths of rest and strife<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And love-lit love of life<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Where death has birth to wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And where the sun speaks, and is heard of man:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yea, half the sun's bright speech is heard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And like the sea the soul of man gives back his word.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Earth's enkindled heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Bears benignant part<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the ardent heaven's auroral pride of prime:<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span><span class="i4">If ever home on earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Were found of heaven's grace worth<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">So God-beloved a birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As here makes bright the fostering face of time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Here, heaven bears witness, might such grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fall fragrant as the dewfall on that brightening face.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Here, for mine and me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All that eyes may see<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hath more than all the wide world else of good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All nature else of fair:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Here as none otherwhere<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Heaven is the circling air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Heaven is the homestead, heaven the wold, the wood:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The fragrance with the shadow spread<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From broadening wings of cedars breathes of dawn's bright bed.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Once a dawn rose here<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">More divine and dear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Rose on a birth-bed brighter far than dawn's,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Whence all the summer grew<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Sweet as when earth was new<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And pure as Eden's dew:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And yet its light lives on these lustrous lawns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clings round these wildwood ways, and cleaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the aisles of shadow and sun that wind unweaves and weaves.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Thoughts that smile and weep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Dreams that hallow sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Brood in the branching shadows of the trees,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span><span class="i4">Tall trees at agelong rest<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Wherein the centuries nest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Whence, blest as these are blest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">We part, and part not from delight in these;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose comfort, sleeping as awake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We bear about within us as when first it spake.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Comfort as of song<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Grown with time more strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Made perfect and prophetic as the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Whose message, when it lies<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Far off our hungering eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Within us prophesies<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of life not ours, yet ours as theirs may be<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose souls far off us shine and sing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As ere they sprang back sunward, swift as fire might spring.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">All this oldworld pleasance<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Hails a hallowing presence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And thrills with sense of more than summer near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And lifts toward heaven more high<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The song-surpassing cry<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Of rapture that July<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Lives, for her love who makes it loveliest here;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For joy that she who here first drew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The breath of life she gave me breathes it here anew.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Never birthday born<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Highest in height of morn<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whereout the star looks forth that leads the sun<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span><span class="i4">Shone higher in love's account,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Still seeing the mid noon mount<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">From the eager dayspring's fount<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Each year more lustrous, each like all in one;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose light around us and above<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We could not see so lovely save by grace of love.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p>
+<h2>BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Still the sovereign trees<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Make the sundawn's breeze<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More bright, more sweet, more heavenly than it rose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">As wind and sun fulfil<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Their living rapture: still<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Noon, dawn, and evening thrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With radiant change the immeasurable repose<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wherewith the woodland wilds lie blest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And feel how storms and centuries rock them still to rest.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Still the love-lit place<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Given of God such grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That here was born on earth a birth divine<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Gives thanks with all its flowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Through all their lustrous hours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">From all its birds and bowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Gives thanks that here they felt her sunset shine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where once her sunrise laughed, and bade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The life of all the living things it lit be glad.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Soft as light and strong<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Rises yet their song<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And thrills with pride the cedar-crested lawn<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span><span class="i4">And every brooding dove.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But she, beloved above<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">All utterance known of love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Abides no more the change of night and dawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beholds no more with earth-born eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These woods that watched her waking here where all things die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Not the light that shone<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">When she looked thereon<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shines on them or shall shine for ever here.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">We know not, save when sleep<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Slays death, who fain would keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">His mystery dense and deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Where shines the smile we held and hold so dear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dreams only, thrilled and filled with love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bring back its light ere dawn leave nought alive above.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Nought alive awake<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Sees the strong dawn break<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On all the dreams that dying night bade live.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Yet scarce the intolerant sense<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Of day's harsh evidence<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">How came their word and whence<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Strikes dumb the song of thanks it bids them give,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The joy that answers as it heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lightens as it saw the light that spake the word.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Night and sleep and dawn<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Pass with dreams withdrawn:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But higher above them far than noon may climb<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span><span class="i4">Love lives and turns to light<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The deadly noon of night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">His fiery spirit of sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Endures no curb of change or darkling time.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Even earth and transient things of earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even here to him bear witness not of death but birth.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>
+<h2>MUSIC: AN ODE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Was it light that spake from the darkness, or music that shone from the word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When the night was enkindled with sound of the sun or the first-born bird?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage of seasons that fall and rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, and blinded with light that dies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lived not surely till music spake, and the spirit of life was heard.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man, and the thrall was free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slave of nature and serf of time, the bondman of life and death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dumb with passionless patience that breathed but forlorn and reluctant breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer, and communed aloud with the sea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span><span class="i12" style="margin-top: 2em;">III<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">Morning spake, and he heard: and the passionate silent noon<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Kept for him not silence: and soft from the mounting moon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fell the sound of her splendour, heard as dawn's in the breathless night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not of men but of birds whose note bade man's soul quicken and leap to light:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness of earth were as chords in tune.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE NILE</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">August</span> 1898</h4>
+
+<h4>'<i>Horatio Nelson&mdash;Honor est a Nilo</i>'</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A hundred years have lightened and have waned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since ancient Nile by grace of Nelson gained<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A glory higher in story now than time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saw when his kings were gods that raged and reigned.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The day that left even England more sublime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And higher on heights that none but she may climb<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Abides above all shock of change-born chance<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where hope and memory hear the stars keep chime.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The strong and sunbright lie whose name was France<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arose against the sun of truth, whose glance<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Laughed large from the eyes of England, fierce as fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence eyes wax blind that gaze on truth askance.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A name above all names of heroes, higher<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than song may sound or heart of man aspire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Rings as the very voice that speaks the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To-day from all the sea's enkindling lyre.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span><span class="i0">The sound that bids the soul of silence be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fire, and a rapturous music, speaks, and we<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hear what the sea's heart utters, wide and far:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"This was his day, and this day's light was he."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O sea, our sea that hadst him for thy star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A hundred years that fall upon thee are<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Even as a hundred flakes of rain or snow:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No storm of battle signs thee with a scar.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But never more may ship that sails thee show,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But never may the sun that loves thee know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But never may thine England give thee more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A man whose life and death shall praise thee so.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Nile, the sea, the battle, and the shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heard as we hear one word arise and soar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Beheld one name above them tower and glow&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nelson: a light that time bows down before.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>
+<h2>TRAFALGAR DAY</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sea, that art ours as we are thine, whose name<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is one with England's even as light with flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Dost thou as we, thy chosen of all men, know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This day of days when death gave life to fame?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dost thou not kindle above and thrill below<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With rapturous record, with memorial glow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Remembering this thy festal day of fight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the joy it gave, and all the woe?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Never since day broke flowerlike forth of night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Broke such a dawn of battle. Death in sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Made of the man whose life was like the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A man more godlike than the lord of light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There is none like him, and there shall be none.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When England bears again as great a son,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">He can but follow fame where Nelson led.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is not and there cannot be but one.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As earth has but one England, crown and head<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all her glories till the sun be dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Supreme in peace and war, supreme in song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Supreme in freedom, since her rede was read,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span><span class="i0">Since first the soul that gave her speech grew strong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To help the right and heal the wild world's wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">So she hath but one royal Nelson, born<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To reign on time above the years that throng.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The music of his name puts fear to scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thrills our twilight through with sense of morn:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As England was, how should not England be?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No tempest yet has left her banner torn.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No year has yet put out the day when he<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who lived and died to keep our kingship free<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Wherever seas by warring winds are worn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Died, and was one with England and the sea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>October 21, 1895.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CROMWELL'S STATUE<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What needs our Cromwell stone or bronze to say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His was the light that lit on England's way<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The sundawn of her time-compelling power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The noontide of her most imperial day?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His hand won back the sea for England's dower;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His footfall bade the Moor change heart and cower;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">His word on Milton's tongue spake law to France<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Piedmont felt the she-wolf Rome devour.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From Cromwell's eyes the light of England's glance<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flashed, and bowed down the kings by grace of chance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The priest-anointed princes; one alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By grace of England held their hosts in trance.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The enthroned Republic from her kinglier throne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spake, and her speech was Cromwell's. Earth has known<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">No lordlier presence. How should Cromwell stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With kinglets and with queenlings hewn in stone?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span><span class="i0">Incarnate England in his warrior hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smote, and as fire devours the blackening brand<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Made ashes of their strengths who wrought her wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And turned the strongholds of her foes to sand.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His praise is in the sea's and Milton's song;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What praise could reach him from the weakling throng<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That rules by leave of tongues whose praise is shame&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Him, who made England out of weakness strong?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There needs no clarion's blast of broad-blown fame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bid the world bear witness whence he came<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who bade fierce Europe fawn at England's heel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And purged the plague of lineal rule with flame.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There needs no witness graven on stone or steel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For one whose work bids fame bow down and kneel;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Our man of men, whose time-commanding name<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Speaks England, and proclaims her Commonweal.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>June 20, 1895.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<div class="footnotehead">FOOTNOTE:</div>
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Refused by the party of reaction and disunion in the House of
+Commons on the 17th of June, 1895.</p></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A WORD FOR THE NAVY</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Queen born of the sea, that hast borne her<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The mightiest of seamen on earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright England, whose glories adorn her<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And bid her rejoice in thy birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As others made mothers<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Rejoice in births sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She names thee, she claims thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The lordliest child of time.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All hers is the praise of thy story,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">All thine is the love of her choice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The light of her waves is thy glory,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The sound of thy soul is her voice.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They fear it who hear it<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And love not truth nor thee:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They sicken, heart-stricken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Who see and would not see.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">III<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The lords of thy fate, and thy keepers<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose charge is the strength of thy ships,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If now they be dreamers and sleepers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Or sluggards with lies at their lips,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span><span class="i2">Thy haters and traitors,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">False friends or foes descried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Might scatter and shatter<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Too soon thy princely pride.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">IV<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dark Muscovy, reptile in rancour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Base Germany, blatant in guile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lay wait for thee riding at anchor<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On waters that whisper and smile.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They deem thee or dream thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Less living now than dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Deep sunken and drunken<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">With sleep whence fear has fled.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">V<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And what though thy song as thine action<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Wax faint, and thy place be not known,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While faction is grappling with faction,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Twin curs with thy corpse for a bone?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They care not, who spare not<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The noise of pens or throats;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who bluster and muster<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Blind ranks and bellowing votes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">VI<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let populace jangle with peerage<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And ministers shuffle their mobs;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mad pilots who reck not of steerage<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Though tempest ahead of them throbs.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That throbbing and sobbing<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Of wind and gradual wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They hear not and fear not<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Who guide thee toward thy grave.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span><span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">VII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No clamour of cries or of parties<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is worth but a whisper from thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While only the trust of thy heart is<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">At one with the soul of the sea.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In justice her trust is<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Whose time her tidestreams keep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They sink not, they shrink not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Time casts them not on sleep.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">VIII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sleep thou: for thy past was so royal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Love hardly would bid thee take heed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were Russia not faithful and loyal<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Nor Germany guiltless of greed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No nation, in station<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Of story less than thou,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Re-risen from prison,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Can stand against thee now.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">IX<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sleep on: is the time not a season<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For strong men to slumber and sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wise men to palter with treason?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And that they sow tares, shall they reap?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The wages of ages<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Wherein men smiled and slept,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fame fails them, shame veils them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Their record is not kept.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span><span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">X<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nay, whence is it then that we know it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What wages were theirs, and what fame?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep voices of prophet and poet<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Bear record against them of shame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Death, starker and darker<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Than seals the graveyard grate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Entombs them and dooms them<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">To darkness deep as fate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">XI<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But thou, though the world should misdoubt thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Be strong as the seas at thy side;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bind on but thine armour about thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That girds thee with power and with pride.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where Drake stood, where Blake stood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Where fame sees Nelson stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stand thou too, and now too<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Take thou thy fate in hand.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">XII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">At the gate of the sea, in the gateway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They stood as the guards of thy gate;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take now but thy strengths to thee straightway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Though late, we will deem it not late.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy story, thy glory,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The very soul of thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It rose not, it grows not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">It comes not save by sea.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p>
+<h2>NORTHUMBERLAND</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Between our eastward and our westward sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The narrowing strand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clasps close the noblest shore fame holds in fee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even here where English birth seals all men free&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Northumberland.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sea-mists meet across it when the snow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clothes moor and fell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bid their true-born hearts who love it glow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For joy that none less nobly born may know<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What love knows well.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The splendour and the strength of storm and fight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sustain the song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That filled our fathers' hearts with joy to smite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To live, to love, to lay down life that right<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Might tread down wrong.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They warred, they sang, they triumphed, and they passed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And left us glad<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here to be born, their sons, whose hearts hold fast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The proud old love no change can overcast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No chance leave sad.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span><span class="i0">None save our northmen ever, none but we,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Met, pledged, or fought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such foes and friends as Scotland and the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With heart so high and equal, strong in glee<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And stern in thought.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thought, fed from time's memorial springs with pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Made strong as fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their hearts who hurled the foe down Flodden side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hers who rode the waves none else durst ride&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">None save her sire.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O land beloved, where nought of legend's dream<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Outshines the truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Joyous Gard, closed round with clouds that gleam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For them that know thee not, can scarce but seem<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Too sweet for sooth,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thy sons forget not, nor shall fame forget,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The deed there done<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the walls whose fabled fame is yet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A light too sweet and strong to rise and set<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With moon and sun.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Song bright as flash of swords or oars that shine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through fight or foam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stirs yet the blood thou hast given thy sons like wine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hail in each bright ballad hailed as thine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">One heart, one home.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span><span class="i0">Our Collingwood, though Nelson be not ours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By him shall stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Immortal, till those waifs of oldworld hours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forgotten, leave uncrowned with bays and flowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Northumberland.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p>
+<h2>STRATFORD-ON-AVON</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">June</span> 27, 1901</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Most royal and most loyal born of men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than Rome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forgets not how of all on English earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their trust is holiest, there who have their home.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The commonweal whose empire sets men free<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A soul was born as boundless as the sea.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">If life, if love, if memory now be thine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+<h2>BURNS: AN ODE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A fire of fierce and laughing light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That clove the shuddering heart of night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leapt earthward, and the thunder's might<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That pants and yearns<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made fitful music round its flight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And earth saw Burns.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The joyous lightning found its voice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bade the heart of wrath rejoice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scorn uplift a song to voice<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The imperial hate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That smote the God of base men's choice<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">At God's own gate.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Before the shrine of dawn, wherethrough<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lark rang rapture as she flew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It flashed and fired the darkling dew:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And all that heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With love or loathing hailed anew<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A new day's word.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span><span class="i0">The servants of the lord of hell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As though their lord had blessed them, fell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Foaming at mouth for fear, so well<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They knew the lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherewith they sought to scan and spell<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The unsounded sky.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And Calvin, night's prophetic bird,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of his home in hell was heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shrieking; and all the fens were stirred<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whence plague is bred;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can God endure the scoffer's word?<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But God was dead.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The God they made them in despite<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of man and woman, love and light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strong sundawn and the starry night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The lie supreme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shot through with song, stood forth to sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A devil's dream.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And he that bent the lyric bow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And laid the lord of darkness low<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bade the fire of laughter glow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Across his grave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bade the tides above it flow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wave hurtling wave,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Shall he not win from latter days<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More than his own could yield of praise?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ay, could the sovereign singer's bays<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Forsake his brow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The warrior's, won on stormier ways,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Still clasp it now.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span><span class="i0">He loved, and sang of love: he laughed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bade the cup whereout he quaffed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shine as a planet, fore and aft,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And left and right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And keen as shoots the sun's first shaft<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Against the night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But love and wine were moon and sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For many a fame long since undone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sorrow and joy have lost and won<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By stormy turns<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As many a singer's soul, if none<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">More bright than Burns.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And sweeter far in grief or mirth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have songs as glad and sad of birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Found voice to speak of wealth or dearth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In joy of life:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But never song took fire from earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">More strong for strife.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The daisy by his ploughshare cleft,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lips of women loved and left,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The griefs and joys that weave the weft<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of human time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With craftsman's cunning, keen and deft,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He carved in rhyme.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But Chaucer's daisy shines a star<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Above his ploughshare's reach to mar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mightier vision gave Dunbar<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">More strenuous wing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To hear around all sins that are<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hell dance and sing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span><span class="i0">And when such pride and power of trust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In song's high gift to arouse from dust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Death, and transfigure love or lust<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through smiles or tears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In golden speech that takes no rust<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From cankering years,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As never spake but once in one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strong star-crossed child of earth and sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Villon, made music such as none<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">May praise or blame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A crown of starrier flower was won<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Than Burns may claim.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But never, since bright earth was born<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In rapture of the enkindling morn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might godlike wrath and sunlike scorn<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That was and is<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shall be while false weeds are worn<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Find word like his.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Above the rude and radiant earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That heaves and glows from firth to firth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In vale and mountain, bright in dearth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And warm in wealth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which gave his fiery glory birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By chance and stealth,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Above the storms of praise and blame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That blur with mist his lustrous name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His thunderous laughter went and came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And lives and flies;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The roar that follows on the flame<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When lightning dies.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span><span class="i0">Earth, and the snow-dimmed heights of air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And water winding soft and fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through still sweet places, bright and bare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By bent and byre,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Taught him what hearts within them were:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But his was fire.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE COMMONWEAL</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Song for Unionists</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Men, whose fathers braved the world in arms against our isles in union,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Men, whose brothers met rebellion face to face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Show the hearts ye have, if worthy long descent and high communion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Show the spirits, if unbroken, of your race.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What are these that howl and hiss across the strait of westward water?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What is he who floods our ears with speech in flood?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See the long tongue lick the dripping hand that smokes and reeks of slaughter!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">See the man of words embrace the man of blood!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hear the plea whereby the tonguester mocks and charms the gazing gaper&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">"We are they whose works are works of love and peace;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till disunion bring forth union, what is union, sirs, but paper?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Break and rend it, then shall trust and strength increase."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span><span class="i0">Who would fear to trust a double-faced but single-hearted dreamer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Pure of purpose, clean of hand, and clear of guile?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Life is well-nigh spent," he sighs; "you call me shuffler, trickster, schemer?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I am old&mdash;when young men yell at me, I smile."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Many a year that priceless light of life has trembled, we remember,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On the platform of extinction&mdash;unextinct;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Many a month has been for him the long year's last&mdash;life's calm December:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Can it be that he who said so, saying so, winked?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No; the lust of life, the thirst for work and days with work to do in,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Drove and drives him down the road of splendid shame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All is well, if o'er the monument recording England's ruin<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Time shall read, inscribed in triumph, Gladstone's name.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thieves and murderers, hands yet red with blood and tongues yet black with lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Clap and clamour&mdash;"Parnell spurs his Gladstone well!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Truth, unscared and undeluded by their praise or blame, replies&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">"Is the goal of fraud and bloodshed heaven or hell?"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Old men eloquent, who truckle to the traitors of the time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Love not office&mdash;power is no desire of theirs:<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span><span class="i0">What if yesterday their hearts recoiled from blood and fraud and crime?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Conscience erred&mdash;an error which to-day repairs.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Conscience only now convinces them of strange though transient error:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Only now they see how fair is treason's face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See how true the falsehood, just the theft, and blameless is the terror,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Which replaces just and blameless men in place.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Place and time decide the right and wrong of thought and word and action;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Crime is black as hell, till virtue gain its vote;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then&mdash;but ah, to think or say so smacks of fraud or smells of faction!&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Mercy holds the door while Murder hacks the throat.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Murder? Treason? Theft? Poor brothers who succumb to such temptations,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall we lay on you or take on us the blame?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reason answers, and religion echoes round to wondering nations,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">"Not with Ireland, but with England rests the shame."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Reason speaks through mild religion's organ, loud and long and lusty&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Profit speaks through lips of patriots pure and true&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"English friends, whose trust we ask for, has not England found us trusty?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Not for us we seek advancement, but for you.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span><span class="i0">"Far and near the world bears witness of our wisdom, courage, honour;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Egypt knows if there our fame burns bright or dim.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let but England trust as Gordon trusted, soon shall come upon her<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Such deliverance as our daring brought on him.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Far and wide the world rings record of our faith, our constant dealing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Love of country, truth to friends, contempt for foes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sign once more the bond of trust in us that here awaits but sealing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">We will give yet more than all our record shows.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Perfect ruin, shame eternal, everlasting degradation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Freedom bought and sold, truth bound and treason free."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet an hour is here for answer; now, if here be yet a nation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Answer, England, man by man from sea to sea!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>June 30, 1886.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE QUESTION</h2>
+
+<h4>1887</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Shall England consummate the crime<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That binds the murderer's hand, and leaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">No surety for the trust of thieves?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Time pleads against it&mdash;truth and time&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And pity frowns and grieves.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The hoary henchman of the gang<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Lifts hands that never dew nor rain<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">May cleanse from Gordon's blood again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Appealing: pity's tenderest pang<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thrills his pure heart with pain.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Grand helmsman of the clamorous crew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The good grey recreant quakes and weeps<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To think that crime no longer creeps<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Safe toward its end: that murderers too<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">May die when mercy sleeps.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">While all the lives were innocent<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That slaughter drank, and laughed with rage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Bland virtue sighed, "A former age<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Taught murder: souls long discontent<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Can aught save blood assuage?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span><span class="i0">"You blame not Russian hands that smite<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By fierce and secret ways the power<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That leaves not life one chainless hour;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have these than they less natural right<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To claim life's natural dower?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The dower that freedom brings the slave<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">She weds, is vengeance: why should we,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whom equal laws acclaim as free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Think shame, if men too blindly brave<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Steal, murder, skulk, and flee?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"At kings they strike in Russia: there<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Men take their life in hand who slay<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Kings: these, that have not heart to lay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hand save on girls whose ravaged hair<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is made the patriot's prey,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"These, whom the sight of old men slain<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Makes bold to bid their children die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Starved, if they hold not peace, nor lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Claim loftier praise: could others deign<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To stand in shame so high?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Could others deign to dare such deeds<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As holiest Ireland hallows? Nay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But justice then makes plain our way:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be laws burnt up like burning weeds<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That vex the face of day.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Shall bloodmongers be held of us<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Blood-guilty? Hands reached out for gold<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whereon blood rusts not yet, we hold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bloodless and blameless: ever thus<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Have good men held of old.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span><span class="i0">"Fair Freedom, fledged and imped with lies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Takes flight by night where murder lurks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And broods on murderous ways and works,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet seems not hideous in our eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As Austrians or as Turks.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Be it ours to undo a woful past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To bid the bells of concord chime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To break the bonds of suffering crime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slack now, that some would make more fast:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Such teaching comes of time."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So pleads the gentlest heart that lives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose pity, pitiless for all<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whom darkling terror holds in thrall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Toward none save miscreants yearns, and gives<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Alms of warm tears&mdash;and gall.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hear, England, and obey: for he<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who claims thy trust again to-day<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is he who left thy sons a prey<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To shame whence only death sets free:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hear, England, and obey.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thy spoils he gave to deck the Dutch;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thy noblest pride, most pure, most brave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To death forlorn and sure he gave;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor now requires he overmuch<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who bids thee dig thy grave.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dig deep the grave of shame, wherein<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thy fame, thy commonweal, must lie;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Put thought of aught save terror by;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To strike and slay the slayer is sin;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And Murder must not die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span><span class="i0">Bind fast the true man; loose the thief;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shamed were the land, the laws accursed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Were guilt, not innocence, amerced;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dark the wrong and sore the grief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Were tyrants too coerced.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The fiercest cowards that ever skulked,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The cowardliest hounds that ever lapped<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Blood, if their horde be tracked and trapped,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And justice claim their lives for mulct,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Gnash teeth that flashed and snapped.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bow down for fear, then, England: bow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Lest worse befall thee yet; and swear<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That nought save pity, conscience, care<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For truth and mercy, moves thee now<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To call foul falsehood fair.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So shalt thou live in shame, and hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The lips of all men laugh thee dead;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The wide world's mockery round thy head<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shriek like a storm-wind: and a bier<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall be thine honour's bed.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p>
+<h2>APOSTASY</h2>
+
+<h4><i>Et Judas m'a dit: Tra&icirc;tre!</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Victor Hugo</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Truths change with time, and terms with truth. To-day<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A statesman worships union, and to-night<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Disunion. Shame to have sinned against the light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Confounds not but impels his tongue to unsay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What yestereve he swore. Should fear make way<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For treason? honour change her livery? fright<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Clasp hands with interest? wrong pledge faith with right?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Religion, mercy, conscience, answer&mdash;Yea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To veer is not to veer: when votes are weighed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The numerous tongue approves him renegade<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who cannot change his banner: he that can<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sits crowned with wreaths of praise too pure to fade.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Truth smiles applause on treason's poisonous plan:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And Cleon is an honourable man.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Pure faith, fond hope, sweet love, with God for guide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Move now the men whose blameless error cast<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In prison (ah, but love condones the past!)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their subject knaves that were&mdash;their lords that ride<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span><span class="i0">Now laughing on their necks, and now bestride<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their vassal backs in triumph. Faith stands fast<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though fear haul down the flag that crowned her mast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hope and love proclaim that truth has lied.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Turn, turn, and turn&mdash;so bids the still small voice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The changeless voice of honour. He that stands<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where all his life he stood, with bribeless hands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With tongue unhired to mourn, reprove, rejoice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Curse, bless, forswear, and swear again, and lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stands proven apostate in the apostate's eye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9" style="margin-top: 2em;">III<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fraud shrinks from faith: at sight of swans, the raven<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Chides blackness, and the snake recoils aghast<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In fear of poison when a bird flies past.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thersites brands Achilles as a craven;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The shoal fed full with shipwreck blames the haven<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For murderous lust of lives devoured, and vast<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Desire of doom whose feast is mercy's fast:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Bacon sees the traitor's mark engraven<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full on the front of Essex. Grief and shame<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Obscure the chaste and sunlike spirit of Oates<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At thought of Russell's treason; and the name<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Milton sickens with superb disgust<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The heaving heart of Waller. Wisdom dotes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If wisdom turns not tail and licks not dust.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9" style="margin-top: 2em;">IV<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sole sweet land found fit to wed the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With reptile rebels at her heel of old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Set hard her heel upon them, and controlled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cowering poisonous peril. How should she<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span><span class="i0">Cower, and resign her trust of empire? Free<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As winds and waters live the loyal-souled<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And true-born sons that love her: nay, the bold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Base knaves who curse her name have leave to be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The loud-tongued liars they are. For she, beyond<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All woful years that bid men's hearts despond,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sees yet the likeness of her ancient fame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burn from the heavenward heights of history, hears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not Leicester's name but Sidney's&mdash;faith's, not fear's&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not Gladstone's now but only Gordon's name.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p>
+<h2>RUSSIA: AN ODE</h2>
+
+<h4>1890</h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Out of hell a word comes hissing, dark as doom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fierce as fire, and foul as plague-polluted gloom;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of hell wherein the sinless damned endure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More than ever sin conceived of pains impure;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More than ever ground men's living souls to dust;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Worse than madness ever dreamed of murderous lust.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since the world's wail first went up from lands and seas<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ears have heard not, tongues have told not things like these.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dante, led by love's and hate's accordant spell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down the deepest and the loathliest ways of hell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where beyond the brook of blood the rain was fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the scalps were masked with dung more deep than mire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saw not, where the filth was foulest, and the night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Darkest, depths whose fiends could match the Muscovite.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Set beside this truth, his deadliest vision seems<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pale and pure and painless as a virgin's dreams.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span><span class="i0">Maidens dead beneath the clasping lash, and wives<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rent with deadlier pangs than death&mdash;for shame survives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Naked, mad, starved, scourged, spurned, frozen, fallen, deflowered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Souls and bodies as by fangs of beasts devoured,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sounds that hell would hear not, sights no thought could shape,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Limbs that feel as flame the ravenous grasp of rape,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Filth of raging crime and shame that crime enjoys,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Age made one with youth in torture, girls with boys,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These, and worse if aught be worse than these things are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prove thee regent, Russia&mdash;praise thy mercy, Czar.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sons of man, men born of women, may we dare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Say they sin who dare be slain and dare not spare?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They who take their lives in hand and smile on death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Holding life as less than sleep's most fitful breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So their life perchance or death may serve and speed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faith and hope, that die if dream become not deed?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nought is death and nought is life and nought is fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save for souls that love has clothed with fire of hate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These behold them, weigh them, prove them, find them nought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save by light of hope and fire of burning thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What though sun be less than storm where these aspire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dawn than lightning, song than thunder, light than fire?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Help is none in heaven: hope sees no gentler star:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth is hell, and hell bows down before the Czar.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span><span class="i0">All its monstrous, murderous, lecherous births acclaim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Him whose empire lives to match its fiery fame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nay, perchance at sight or sense of deeds here done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here where men may lift up eyes to greet the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hell recoils heart-stricken: horror worse than hell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Darkens earth and sickens heaven; life knows the spell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shudders, quails, and sinks&mdash;or, filled with fierier breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rises red in arms devised of darkling death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pity mad with passion, anguish mad with shame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Call aloud on justice by her darker name;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love grows hate for love's sake; life takes death for guide.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Night hath none but one red star&mdash;Tyrannicide.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8" style="margin-top: 2em;">III<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"God or man, be swift; hope sickens with delay:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smite, and send him howling down his father's way!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fall, O fire of heaven, and smite as fire from hell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Halls wherein men's torturers, crowned and cowering, dwell!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These that crouch and shrink and shudder, girt with power&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These that reign, and dare not trust one trembling hour&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These omnipotent, whom terror curbs and drives&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These whose life reflects in fear their victims' lives&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These whose breath sheds poison worse than plague's thick breath&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These whose reign is ruin, these whose word is death,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span><span class="i0">These whose will turns heaven to hell, and day to night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These, if God's hand smite not, how shall man's not smite?"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So from hearts by horror withered as by fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Surge the strains of unappeasable desire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sounds that bid the darkness lighten, lit for death;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bid the lips whose breath was doom yield up their breath;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down the way of Czars, awhile in vain deferred,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bid the Second Alexander light the Third.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How for shame shall men rebuke them? how may we<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blame, whose fathers died, and slew, to leave us free?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We, though all the world cry out upon them, know,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were our strife as theirs, we could not strike but so;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could not cower, and could not kiss the hands that smite;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could not meet them armed in sunlit battle's light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dark as fear and red as hate though morning rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life it is that conquers; death it is that dies.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p>
+<h2>FOR GREECE AND CRETE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Storm and shame and fraud and darkness fill the nations full with night:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hope and fear whose eyes yearn eastward have but fire and sword in sight:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One alone, whose name is one with glory, sees and seeks the light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hellas, mother of the spirit, sole supreme in war and peace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Land of light, whose word remembered bids all fear and sorrow cease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lives again, while freedom lightens eastward yet for sons of Greece.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Greece, where only men whose manhood was as godhead ever trod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bears the blind world witness yet of light wherewith her feet are shod:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Freedom, armed of Greece was always very man and very God.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span><span class="i0">Now the winds of old that filled her sails with triumph, when the fleet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bound for death from Asia fled before them stricken, wake to greet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ships full-winged again for freedom toward the sacred shores of Crete.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There was God born man, the song that spake of old time said: and there<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man, made even as God by trust that shows him nought too dire to dare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now may light again the beacon lit when those we worship were.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sharp the concert wrought of discord shrills the tune of shame and death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turk by Christian fenced and fostered, Mecca backed by Nazareth:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All the powerless powers, tongue-valiant, breathe but greed's or terror's breath.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Though the tide that feels the west wind lift it wave by widening wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wax not yet to height and fullness of the storm that smites to save,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">None shall bid the flood back seaward till no bar be left to brave.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p>
+<h2>DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO</h2>
+
+<h4>(<span class="smcap lowercase">B.C.</span> 280)</h4>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Done into English</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Thee, the son of God most high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Famed for harping song, will I<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Proclaim, and the deathless oracular word<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the snow-topped rock that we gaze on heard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Counsels of thy glorious giving<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Manifest for all men living,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How thou madest the tripod of prophecy thine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which the wrath of the dragon kept guard on, a shrine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Voiceless till thy shafts could smite<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All his live coiled glittering might.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Ye that hold of right alone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All deep woods on Helicon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fair daughters of thunder-girt God, with your bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">White arms uplift as to lighten the light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Come to chant your brother's praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Gold-haired Ph&oelig;bus, loud in lays,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even his, who afar up the twin-topped seat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the rock Parnassian whereon we meet<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span><span class="i2">Risen with glorious Delphic maids<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Seeks the soft spring-sweetened shades<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Castalian, fain of the Delphian peak<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prophetic, sublime as the feet that seek.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Glorious Athens, highest of state,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Come, with praise and prayer elate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O thou that art queen of the plain unscarred<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That the warrior Tritonid hath alway in guard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where on many a sacred shrine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Young bulls' thigh-bones burn and shine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As the god that is fire overtakes them, and fast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The smoke of Arabia to heavenward is cast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Scattering wide its balm: and shrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now with nimble notes that thrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The flute strikes up for the song, and the harp of gold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strikes up to the song sweet answer: and all behold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">All, aswarm as bees, give ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who by birth hold Athens dear.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A NEW CENTURY</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">An age too great for thought of ours to scan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A wave upon the sleepless sea of time<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That sinks and sleeps for ever, ere the chime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pass that salutes with blessing, not with ban,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dark year dead, the bright year born for man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Dies: all its days that watched man cower and climb,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Frail as the foam, and as the sun sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sleep sound as they that slept ere these began.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Our mother earth, whose ages none may tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Puts on no change: time bids not her wax pale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or kindle, quenched or quickened, when the knell<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sounds, and we cry across the veering gale<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Farewell&mdash;and midnight answers us, Farewell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hail&mdash;and the heaven of morning answers, Hail.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p>
+<h2>AN EVENING AT VICHY</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">September</span> 1896</h4>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Written on the news of the death of Lord Leighton</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A light has passed that never shall pass away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A sun has set whose rays are unquelled of night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The loyal grace, the courtesy bright as day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The strong sweet radiant spirit of life and light<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That shone and smiled and lightened on all men's sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The kindly life whose tune was the tune of May,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For us now dark, for love and for fame is bright.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nay, not for us that live as the fen-fires live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As stars that shoot and shudder with life and die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can death make dark that lustre of life, or give<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The grievous gift of trust in oblivion's lie.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Days dear and far death touches, and draws them nigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bids the grief that broods on their graves forgive<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The day that seems to mock them as clouds that fly.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If life be life more faithful than shines on sleep<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When dreams take wing and lighten and fade like flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then haply death may be not a death so deep<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span><span class="i1">That all things past are past for it wholly&mdash;fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Love, loving-kindness, seasons that went and came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And left their light on life as a seal to keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Winged memory fast and heedful of time's dead claim.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Death gives back life and light to the sunless years<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose suns long sunken set not for ever. Time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blind, fierce, and deaf as tempest, relents, and hears<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And sees how bright the days and how sweet their chime<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Rang, shone, and passed in music that matched the clime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherein we met rejoicing&mdash;a joy that cheers<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sorrow, to see the night as the dawn sublime.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The days that were outlighten the days that are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And eyes now darkened shine as the stars we see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hear not sing, impassionate star to star,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As once we heard the music that haply he<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hears, high in heaven if ever a voice may be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The same in heaven, the same as on earth, afar<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From pain and earth as heaven from the heaving sea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A woman's voice, divine as a bird's by dawn<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Kindled and stirred to sunward, arose and held<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our souls that heard, from earth as from sleep withdrawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And filled with light as stars, and as stars compelled<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To move by might of music, elate while quelled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Subdued by rapture, lit as a mountain lawn<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By morning whence all heaven in the sunrise welled.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span><span class="i0">And her the shadow of death as a robe clasped round<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Then: and as morning's music she passed away.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he then with us, warrior and wanderer, crowned<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With fame that shone from eastern on western day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More strong, more kind, than praise or than grief might say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has passed now forth of shadow by sunlight bound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of night shot through with light that is frail as May.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">May dies, and light grows darkness, and life grows death:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hope fades and shrinks and falls as a changing leaf:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remembrance, touched and kindled by love's live breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shines, and subdues the shadow of time called grief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The shade whose length of life is as life's date brief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With joy that broods on the sunlight past, and saith<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That thought and love hold sorrow and change in fief.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sweet, glad, bright spirit, kind as the sun seems kind<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">When earth and sea rejoice in his gentler spell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy face that was we see not; bereft and blind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">We see but yet, rejoicing to see, and dwell<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Awhile in days that heard not the death-day's knell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A light so bright that scarcely may sorrow find<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">One old sweet word that hails thee and mourns&mdash;Farewell.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p>
+<h2>TO GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">On the Eightieth Anniversary of his Birth,<br />
+February 23, 1897</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">High thought and hallowed love, by faith made one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Begat and bare the sweet strong-hearted child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Art, nursed of Nature; earth and sea and sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Saw Nature then more godlike as she smiled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life smiled on death, and death on life: the Soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Between them shone, and soared above their strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And left on Time's unclosed and starry scroll<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A sign that quickened death to deathless life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Peace rose like Hope, a patient queen, and bade<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hell's firstborn, Faith, abjure her creed and die;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Love, by life and death made sad and glad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Gave Conscience ease, and watched Good Will pass by.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All these make music now of one man's name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose life and age are one with love and fame.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p>
+<h2>ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Kind, wise, and true as truth's own heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A soul that here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chose and held fast the better part<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And cast out fear,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Has left us ere we dreamed of death<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For life so strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clear as the sundawn's light and breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sweet as song.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We see no more what here awhile<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shed light on men:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has Landor seen that brave bright smile<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alive again?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">If death and life and love be one<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And hope no lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And night no stronger than the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">These cannot die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The father-spirit whence her soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Took strength, and gave<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back love, is perfect yet and whole,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As hope might crave.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span><span class="i0">His word is living light and fire:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And hers shall live<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By grace of all good gifts the sire<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Gave power to give.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sire and daughter, twain and one<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In quest and goal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stand face to face beyond the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And soul to soul.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not we, who loved them well, may dream<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What joy sublime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is theirs, if dawn through darkness gleam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And life through time.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Time seems but here the mask of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That falls and shows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A void where hope may draw not breath:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Night only knows.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love knows not: all that love may keep<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Glad memory gives:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The spirit of the days that sleep<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Still wakes and lives.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But not the spirit's self, though song<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Would lend it speech,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May touch the goal that hope might long<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In vain to reach.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">How dear that high true heart, how sweet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Those keen kind eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love knows, who knows how fiery fleet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is life that flies.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span><span class="i0">If life there be that flies not, fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The life must be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That thrills her sovereign spirit there<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sets it free.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p>
+<h2>IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beloved above all nations, land adored,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sovereign in spirit and charm, by song and sword,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sovereign whose life is love, whose name is light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Italia, queen that hast the sun for lord,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bride that hast heaven for bridegroom, how should night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Veil or withhold from faith's and memory's sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A man beloved and crowned of thee and fame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hide for an hour his name's memorial might?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thy sons may never speak or hear the name<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saffi, and feel not love's regenerate flame<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Thrill all the quickening heart with faith and pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In one whose life makes death and life the same.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They die indeed whose souls before them died:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not he, for whom death flung life's portal wide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who stands where Dante's soul in vision came,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Dante's presence, by Mazzini's side.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>March 26, 1896.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CARNOT</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Death, winged with fire of hate from deathless hell<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Wherein the souls of anarchs hiss and die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With stroke as dire has cloven a heart as high<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As twice beyond the wide sea's westward swell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The living lust of death had power to quell<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through ministry of murderous hands whereby<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Dark fate bade Lincoln's head and Garfield's lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Low even as his who bids his France farewell.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">France, now no heart that would not weep with thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Loved ever faith or freedom. From thy hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The staff of state is broken: hope, unmanned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With anguish, doubts if freedom's self be free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The snake-souled anarch's fang strikes all the land<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cold, and all hearts unsundered by the sea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>June 25, 1894.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p>
+<h2>AFTER THE VERDICT</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">France, cloven in twain by fire of hell and hate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shamed with the shame of men her meanest born,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Soldier and judge whose names, inscribed for scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stand vilest on the record writ of fate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lies yet not wholly vile who stood so great,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sees yet not all her praise of old outworn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Not yet is all her scroll of glory torn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or left for utter shame to desecrate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High souls and constant hearts of faithful men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sustain her perfect praise with tongue and pen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indomitable as honour. Storms may toss<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And soil her standard ere her bark win home:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But shame falls full upon the Christless cross<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose brandmark signs the holy hounds of Rome.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>September 1899.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE TRANSVAAL</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Patience, long sick to death, is dead. Too long<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Have sloth and doubt and treason bidden us be<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What Cromwell's England was not, when the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To him bore witness given of Blake how strong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She stood, a commonweal that brooked no wrong<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">From foes less vile than men like wolves set free<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose war is waged where none may fight or flee&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With women and with weanlings. Speech and song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lack utterance now for loathing. Scarce we hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Foul tongues that blacken God's dishonoured name<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With prayers turned curses and with praise found shame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Defy the truth whose witness now draws near<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To scourge these dogs, agape with jaws afoam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Down out of life. Strike, England, and strike home.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>October 9, 1899.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p>
+<h2>REVERSE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The wave that breaks against a forward stroke<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Beats not the swimmer back, but thrills him through<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With joyous trust to win his way anew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through stronger seas than first upon him broke<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And triumphed. England's iron-tempered oak<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shrank not when Europe's might against her grew<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Full, and her sun drank up her foes like dew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lion-like from sleep her strength awoke.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As bold in fight as bold in breach of trust<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">We find our foes, and wonder not to find,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Nor grudge them praise whom honour may not bind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But loathing more intense than speaks disgust<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Heaves England's heart, when scorn is bound to greet<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hunters and hounds whose tongues would lick their feet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>November 1, 1899.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE TURNING OF THE TIDE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Smote England, now nineteen dark years ago,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As when the tide's full wrath in seaward flow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smites and bears back the swimmer. Fraud and fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were leagued against her: fear was fain to prate<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of honour in dishonour, pride brought low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And humbleness whence holiness must grow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And greatness born of shame to be so great.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The winter day that withered hope and pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shines now triumphal on the turning tide<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That sets once more our trust in freedom free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That leaves a ruthless and a truthless foe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all base hopes that hailed his cause laid low,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And England's name a light on land and sea.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>February 27, 1900.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p>
+<h2>ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL BENSON</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Northumberland, so proud and sad to-day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Weep and rejoice, our mother, whom no son<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More glorious than this dead and deathless one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought ever fame whereon no time shall prey.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor heed we more than he what liars dare say<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of mercy's holiest duties left undone<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Toward whelps and dams of murderous foes, whom none<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save we had spared or feared to starve and slay.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Alone as Milton and as Wordsworth found<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hailed their England, when from all around<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Howled all the recreant hate of envious knaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sublime she stands: while, stifled in the sound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Each lie that falls from German boors and slaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Falls but as filth dropt in the wandering waves.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>November 4, 1901.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p>
+<h2>ASTR&AElig;A VICTRIX</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">England, elect of time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">By freedom sealed sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And constant as the sun that saw thy dawn<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Outshine upon the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">His own in heaven, to be<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A light that night nor day should see withdrawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">If song may speak not now thy praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fame writes it higher than song may soar or faith may gaze.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Dark months of months beheld<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Hope thwarted, crossed, and quelled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And heard the heartless hounds of hatred bay<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Aloud against thee, glad<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">As now their souls are sad<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who see their hope in hatred pass away<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And wither into shame and fear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shudder down to darkness, loth to see or hear.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Nought now they hear or see<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That speaks or shows not thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Triumphant; not as empires reared of yore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The imperial commonweal<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That bears thy sovereign seal<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span><span class="i2">And signs thine orient as thy natural shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Free, as no sons but thine may stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Steers lifeward ever, guided of thy pilot hand.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Fear, masked and veiled by fraud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Found shameful time to applaud<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shame, and bow down thy banner towards the dust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And call on godly shame<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To desecrate thy name<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And bid false penitence abjure thy trust:<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Till England's heart took thought at last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And felt her future kindle from her fiery past.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">Then sprang the sunbright fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">High as the sun, and higher<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Than strange men's eyes might watch it undismayed:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But winds athwart it blew<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Storm, and the twilight grew<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Darkness awhile, an unenduring shade:<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And all base birds and beasts of night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saw no more England now to fear, no loathsome light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">All knaves and slaves at heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Who, knowing thee what thou art,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Abhor thee, seeing what none save here may see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Strong freedom, taintless truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Supreme in ageless youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Howled all their hate and hope aloud at thee<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">While yet the wavering wind of strife<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bore hard against her sail whose freight is hope and life.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span><span class="i4">And now the quickening tide<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That brings back power and pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To faith and love whose ensign is thy name<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Bears down the recreant lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That doomed thy name to die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sons, friends, and foes behold thy star the same<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">As when it stood in heaven a sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Europe saw no glory left her sky save one.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">And now, as then she saw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">She sees with shamefast awe<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How all unlike all slaves and tyrants born<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Where bondmen champ the bit<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And anarchs foam and flit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And day mocks day, and year puts year to scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Our mother bore us, English men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ashamed of shame and strong in mercy, now as then.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">We loosed not on these knaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Their scourge-tormented slaves:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We held the hand that fain had risen to smite<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The torturer fast, and made<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Justice awhile afraid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And righteousness forego her ruthless right:<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">We warred not even with these as they;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We bade not them they preyed on make of them their prey.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">All murderous fraud that lurks<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In hearts where hell's craft works<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fought, crawled, and slew in darkness: they that died<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Dreamed not of foes too base<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For scorn to grant them grace:<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span><span class="i2">Men wounded, women, children at their side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Had found what faith in fiends may live:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And yet we gave not back what righteous doom would give.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">No false white flag that fawns<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">On faith till murder dawns<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blood-red from hell-black treason's heart of hate<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Left ever shame's foul brand<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Seared on an English hand:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And yet our pride vouchsafes them grace too great<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">For other pride to dream of: scorn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strikes retribution silent as the stars at morn.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">And now the living breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Whose life puts death to death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Freedom, whose name is England, stirs and thrills<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The burning darkness through<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Whence fraud and slavery grew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We scarce may mourn our dead whose fame fulfils<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">The record where her foes have read<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That earth shall see none like her born ere earth be dead.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE FIRST OF JUNE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Peace and war are one in proof of England's deathless praise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">One divine day saw her foemen scattered on the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far and fast as storm could speed: the same strong day of days<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sees the imperial commonweal set friends and foemen free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save where freedom reigns, whose name is England, fraud and fear<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Grind and blind the face of men who look on her and lie:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now may truth and pride in truth, whose seat of old was here,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">See them shamed and stricken blind and dumb as worms that die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even before our hallowed hawthorn-blossom pass and cease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Even as England shines and smiles at last upon the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span><span class="i0">Comes the word that means for England more than passing peace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Peace with honour, peace with pride in righteous work well done.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crowned with flowers the first of all the world and all the year,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Peace, whose name is one with honour born of war, is here.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p>
+<h2>ROUNDEL</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">From the French of Villon</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Death, I would plead against thy wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who hast reft me of my love, my wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And art not satiate yet with strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But needs wilt hold me lingering long.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No strength since then has kept me strong:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But what could hurt thee in her life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Death?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Twain we were, and our hearts one song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">One heart: if that be dead, thy knife<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hath cut me off alive from life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dead as the carver's figured throng,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Death!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A ROUNDEL OF RABELAIS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Theleme is afar on the waters, adrift and afar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Afar and afloat on the waters that flicker and gleam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And we feel but her fragrance and see but the shadows that mar<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Theleme.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In the sun-coloured mists of the sunrise and sunset that steam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As incense from urns of the twilight, her portals ajar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let pass as a shadow the light of the sound of a dream.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But the laughter that rings from her cloisters that know not a bar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So kindles delight in desire that the souls in us deem<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He erred not, the seer who discerned on the seas as a star<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Theleme.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p>
+<h2>LUCIFER</h2>
+
+<h4><i>&Eacute;crasez l'inf&acirc;me.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Voltaire</span></h4>
+
+<h4><i>Les pr&ecirc;tres ont raison de l'appeler Lucifer.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Victor Hugo</span></h4>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Voltaire, our England's lover, man divine<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Beyond all Gods that ever fear adored<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By right and might, by sceptre and by sword,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By godlike love of sunlike truth, made thine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through godlike hate of falsehood's marshlight shine<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And all the fume of creeds and deeds abhorred<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose light was darkness, till the dawn-star soared,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Truth, reason, mercy, justice, keep thy shrine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sacred in memory's temple, seeing that none<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of all souls born to strive before the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Loved ever good or hated evil more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The snake that felt thy heel upon her head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Night's first-born, writhes as though she were not dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But strikes not, stings not, slays not as before.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE CENTENARY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sound of trumpets blowing down the merriest winds of morn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Flash of hurtless lightnings, laugh of thunders loud and glad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here should hail the summer day whereon a light was born<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whence the sun grew brighter, seeing the world less dark and sad.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man of men by right divine of boyhood everlasting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">France incarnate, France immortal in her deathless boy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brighter birthday never shone than thine on earth, forecasting<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">More of strenuous mirth in manhood, more of manful joy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Child of warriors, friend of warriors, Garibaldi's friend,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Even thy name is as the splendour of a sunbright sword:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the boy's heart beats in man, thy fame shall find not end:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Time and dark oblivion bow before thee as their lord.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span><span class="i0">Youth acclaims thee gladdest of the gods that gild his days:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Age gives thanks for thee, and death lacks heart to quench thy praise.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span></p>
+<h2>AT A DOG'S GRAVE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Good night, we say, when comes the time to win<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The daily death divine that shuts up sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sleep, that assures for all who dwell therein<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Good night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The shadow shed round those we love shines bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As love's own face, when death, sleep's gentler twin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From them divides us even as night from light.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Shall friends born lower in life, though pure of sin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though clothed with love and faith to usward plight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perish and pass unbidden of us, their kin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Good night?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">To die a dog's death once was held for shame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not all men so beloved and mourned shall lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As many of these, whose time untimely came<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His years were full: his years were joyous: why<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must love be sorrow, when his gracious name<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Recalls his lovely life of limb and eye?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span><span class="i0">If aught of blameless life on earth may claim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life higher than death, though death's dark wave rise high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such life as this among us never came<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">To die.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8" style="margin-top: 2em;">III<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">White violets, there by hands more sweet than they<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Planted, shall sweeten April's flowerful air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">About a grave that shows to night and day<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">White violets there.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A child's light hands, whose touch makes flowers more fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Keep fair as these for many a March and May<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The light of days that are because they were.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It shall not like a blossom pass away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It broods and brightens with the days that bear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fresh fruits of love, but leave, as love might pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">White violets there.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THREE WEEKS OLD</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Three weeks since there was no such rose in being;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Now may eyes made dim with deep delight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See how fair it is, laugh with love, and seeing<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Praise the chance that bids us bless the sight.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Three weeks old, and a very rose of roses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Bright and sweet as love is sweet and bright.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heaven and earth, till a man's life wanes and closes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Show not life or love a lovelier sight.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Three weeks past have renewed the rosebright creature<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Day by day with life, and night by night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love, though fain of its every faultless feature,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Finds not words to match the silent sight.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A CLASP OF HANDS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Soft, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That bask in heavenly heat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Soft, small, and sweet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A babe's hands open as to greet<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The tender touch of ours<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mock with motion faint and fleet<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The minutes of the new strange hours<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That earth, not heaven, must mete;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Buds fragrant still from heaven's own bowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Soft, small, and sweet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A velvet vice with springs of steel<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That fasten in a trice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And clench the fingers fast that feel<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A velvet vice&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What man would risk the danger twice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nor quake from head to heel?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom would not one such test suffice?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span><span class="i0">Well may we tremble as we kneel<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In sight of Paradise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If both a babe's closed fists conceal<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A velvet vice.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7" style="margin-top: 2em;">III<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Two flower-soft fists of conquering clutch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Two creased and dimpled wrists,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That match, if mottled overmuch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Two flower-soft fists&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What heart of man dare hold the lists<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Against such odds and such<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet vantage as no strength resists?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Our strength is all a broken crutch,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our eyes are dim with mists,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our hearts are prisoners as we touch<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Two flower-soft fists.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Light, as when dawn takes wing and smites the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smote England when his day bade Marlowe be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No fire so keen had thrilled the clouds of time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since Dante's breath made Italy sublime.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Earth, bright with flowers whose dew shone soft as tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through Chaucer cast her charm on eyes and ears:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lustrous laughter of the love-lit earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rang, leapt, and lightened in his might of mirth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep moonlight, hallowing all the breathless air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made earth and heaven for Spenser faint and fair.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But song might bid not heaven and earth be one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till Marlowe's voice gave warning of the sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thought quailed and fluttered as a wounded bird<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till passion fledged the wing of Marlowe's word.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Faith born of fear bade hope and doubt be dumb<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till Marlowe's pride bade light or darkness come.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then first our speech was thunder: then our song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shot lightning through the clouds that wrought us wrong.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blind fear, whose faith feeds hell with fire, became<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A moth self-shrivelled in its own blind flame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We heard, in tune with even our seas that roll,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The speech of storm, the thunders of the soul.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span><span class="i0">Men's passions, clothed with all the woes they wrought,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shone through the fire of man's transfiguring thought.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thirst of knowledge, quenchless at her springs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ambition, fire that clasps the thrones of kings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love, light that makes of life one lustrous hour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And song, the soul's chief crown and throne of power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hungering heart of greed and ravenous hate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made music high as heaven and deep as fate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange pity, scarce half scornful of her tear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In Berkeley's vaults bowed down on Edward's bier.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But higher in forceful flight of song than all<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soul of man, its own imperious thrall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose, when his royal spirit of fierce desire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made life and death for man one flame of fire.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Incarnate man, fast bound as earth and sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spake, when his pride would fain set Faustus free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eternal beauty, strong as day and night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shone, when his word bade Helen back to sight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fear, when he bowed the soul before her spell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thundered and lightened through the vaults of hell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The music known of all men's tongues that sing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Marlowe sang, bade love make heaven of spring;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The music none but English tongues may make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our own sole song, spake first when Marlowe spake;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And on his grave, though there no stone may stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The flower it shows was laid by Shakespeare's hand.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love dark as death and fierce as fire on wing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sustains in sin the soul that feels it cling<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like flame whose tongues are serpents: hope and fear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Die when a love more dire than hate draws near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And stings to death the heart it cleaves in twain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And leaves in ashes all but fear and pain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our lustrous England rose to life and light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Rome's and hell's immitigable night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And music laughed and quickened from her breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When first her sons acclaimed Elizabeth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her soul became a lyre that all men heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who felt their souls give back her lyric word.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet now not all at once her perfect power<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spake: man's deep heart abode awhile its hour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Abode its hour of utterance; not to wake<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till Marlowe's thought in thunderous music spake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But yet not yet was passion's tragic breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thrilled through with sense of instant life and death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life actual even as theirs who watched the strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Death dark and keen and terrible as life.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here first was truth in song made perfect: here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Woke first the war of love and hate and fear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A man too vile for thought's or shame's control<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Holds empire on a woman's loftier soul,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span><span class="i0">And withers it to wickedness: in vain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shame quickens thought with penitential pain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In vain dark chance's fitful providence<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Withholds the crime, and chills the spirit of sense:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It wakes again in fire that burns away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Repentance, weak as night devoured of day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remorse, and ravenous thirst of sin and crime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rend and consume the soul in strife sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And passion cries on pity till it hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tremble as with love that casts out fear.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dark as the deed and doom he gave to fame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For ever lies the sovereign singer's name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sovereign and regent on the soul he lives<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While thought gives thanks for aught remembrance gives,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And mystery sees the imperial shadow stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By Marlowe's side alone at Shakespeare's hand.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PROLOGUE TO OLD FORTUNATUS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The golden bells of fairyland, that ring<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perpetual chime for childhood's flower-sweet spring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sang soft memorial music in his ear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose answering music shines about us here.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soft laughter as of light that stirs the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With darkling sense of dawn ere dawn may be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kind sorrow, pity touched with gentler scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Keen wit whose shafts were sunshafts of the morn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love winged with fancy, fancy thrilled with love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An eagle's aim and ardour in a dove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A man's delight and passion in a child,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Inform it as when first they wept and smiled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life, soiled and rent and ringed about with pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose touch lent action less of spur than chain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Left half the happiness his birth designed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And half the power, unquenched in heart and mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Comrade and comforter, sublime in shame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A poor man bound in prison whence he came<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Poor, and took up the burden of his life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smiling, and strong to strive with sorrow and strife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He spake in England's ear the poor man's word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Manful and mournful, deathless and unheard.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His kind great heart was fire, and love's own fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Compassion, strong as flesh may feel desire,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span><span class="i0">To enkindle pity and mercy toward a soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sunk down in shame too deep for shame's control.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His kind keen eye was light to lighten hope<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where no man else might see life's darkness ope<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pity's touch bring forth from evil good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet as forgiveness, strong as fatherhood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Names higher than his outshine it and outsoar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But none save one should memory cherish more:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Praise and thanksgiving crown the names above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But him we give the gift he gave us, love.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PROLOGUE TO THE DUCHESS OF MALFY</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When Shakespeare soared from life to death, above<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All praise, all adoration, save of love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As here on earth above all men he stood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That were or are or shall be&mdash;great, and good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Past thank or thought of England or of man&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light from the sunset quickened as it ran.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His word, who sang as never man may sing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spake as never voice of man may ring,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not fruitless fell, as seed on sterile ways,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But brought forth increase even to Shakespeare's praise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our skies were thrilled and filled, from sea to sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With stars outshining all their suns to be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No later light of tragic song they knew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like his whose lightning clove the sunset through.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Half Shakespeare's glory, when his hand sublime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bade all the change of tragic life and time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Live, and outlive all date of quick and dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fell, rested, and shall rest on Webster's head.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Round him the shadows cast on earth by light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose, changed, and shone, transfiguring death and night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where evil only crawled and hissed and slew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On ways where nought save shame and bloodshed grew,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span><span class="i0">He bade the loyal light of honour live,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And love, when stricken through the heart, forgive.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep down the midnight of the soul of sin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He lit the star of mercy throned therein.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High up the darkness of sublime despair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He set the sun of love to triumph there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Things foul or frail his touch made strong and pure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bade things transient like to stars endure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Terror, on wings whose flight made night in heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pity, with hands whence life took love for leaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breathed round him music whence his mortal breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Drew life that bade forgetfulness and death<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Die: life that bids his light of fiery fame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Endure with England's, yea, with Shakespeare's name.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PROLOGUE TO THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make bright and loud the terror of the night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherein the soul sees only wrath for light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wrath winged by love and sheathed by grief in steel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sets on the front of crime death's withering seal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heaving horror of the storms of sin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brings forth in fear the lightning hid therein,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And flashes back to darkness: truth, found pure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And perfect, asks not heaven if shame endure.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What life and death were his whose raging song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bore heaven such witness of the wild world's wrong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What hand was this that grasped such thunder, none<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knows: night and storm seclude him from the sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By daytime none discerns the fire of Mars:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep darkness bares to sight the sterner stars,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lights whose dawn seems doomsday. None may tell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence rose a world so lit from heaven and hell.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life-wasting love, hate born of raging lust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fierce retribution, fed with death's own dust<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sorrow's pampering poison, cross and meet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wind the world in passion's winding-sheet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So, when dark faith in faith's dark ages heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Falsehood, and drank the poison of the Word,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span><span class="i0">Two shades misshapen came to monstrous birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A father fiend in heaven, a thrall on earth:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man, meanest born of beasts that press the sod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And die: the vilest of his creatures, God.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A judge unjust, a slave that praised his name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made life and death one fire of sin and shame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thence reverberate even on Shakespeare's age<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A light like darkness crossed his sunbright stage.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Music, sublime as storm or sorrow, sang<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before it: tempest like a harpstring rang.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fiery shadow of a name unknown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose, and in song's high heaven abides alone.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The mightiest choir of song that memory hears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That saw the sun-god Marlowe's opening eyes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The morn's own music, answered of the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spake, when his living lips bade Shakespeare be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And England, made by Shakespeare's quickening breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Divine and deathless even till life be death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought forth to time such godlike sons of men<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That shamefaced love grows pride, and now seems then.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shame that their day so shone, so sang, so died,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remembering, finds remembrance one with pride.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That day was clouding toward a stormlit close<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Ford's red sphere upon the twilight rose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sublime with stars and sunset fire, the sky<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glowed as though day, nigh dead, should never die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sorrow supreme and strange as chance or doom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shone, spake, and shuddered through the lustrous gloom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tears lit with love made all the darkening air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright as though death's dim sunrise thrilled it there<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And life re-risen took comfort. Stern and still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As hours and years that change and anguish fill,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span><span class="i0">The strong secluded spirit, ere it woke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dwelt dumb till power possessed it, and it spoke.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange, calm, and sure as sense of beast or bird,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came forth from night the thought that breathed the word;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That chilled and thrilled with passion-stricken breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Halls where Calantha trod the dance of death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A strength of soul too passionately pure<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To change for aught that horror bids endure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To quail and wail and weep faint life away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere sovereign sorrow smite, relent, and slay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sustained her silent, till her bridal bloom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Changed, smiled, and waned in rapture toward the tomb.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Terror twin-born with pity kissed and thrilled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lips that Shakespeare's word or Webster's filled:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here both, cast out, fell silent: pity shrank,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rebuked, and terror, spirit-stricken, sank:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The soul assailed arose afar above<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All reach of all but only death and love.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PROLOGUE TO A VERY WOMAN</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Swift music made of passion's changeful power,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet as the change that leaves the world in flower<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When spring laughs winter down to deathward, rang<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From grave and gracious lips that smiled and sang<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Massinger, too wise for kings to hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And learn of him truth, wisdom, faith, or fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave all his gentler heart to love's light lore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That grief might brood and scorn breed wrath no more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soft, bright, fierce, tender, fitful, truthful, sweet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A shrine where faith and change might smile and meet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A soul whose music could but shift its tune<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As when the lustrous year turns May to June<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spring subsides in summer, so makes good<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its perfect claim to very womanhood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heart that hate of wrong made fire, the hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose touch was fire as keen as shame's own brand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When fraud and treason, swift to smile and sting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crowned and discrowned a tyrant, knave or king,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">False each and ravenous as the fitful sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grew gently glad as love that fear sets free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like eddying ripples that the wind restrains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bright words whisper music ere it wanes.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span><span class="i0">Ere fades the sovereign sound of song that rang<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As though the sun to match the sea's tune sang,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When noon from dawn took life and light, and time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shone, seeing how Shakespeare made the world sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere sinks the wind whose breath was heaven's and day's,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sunset's witness gives the sundawn praise.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The wind that brings us from the springtide south<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange music as from love's or life's own mouth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blew hither, when the blast of battle ceased<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That swept back southward Spanish prince and priest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sound more sweet than April's flower-sweet rain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bade bright England smile on pardoned Spain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The land that cast out Philip and his God<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even he whose name above all names on earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crowns England queen by grace of Shakespeare's birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Might scarce have scorned to smile in God's wise down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gild with praise from heaven an earthlier crown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he whose hand bade live down lengthening years<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quixote, a name lit up with smiles and tears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies' life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Times change, and fame is fitful as the sea:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But sunset bids not darkness always be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still some light from Shakespeare and the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burns back the cloud that masks not Middleton.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With strong swift strokes of love and wrath he drew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shakespearean London's loud and lusty crew:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No plainer might the likeness rise and stand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Hogarth took his living world in hand.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span><span class="i0">No surer then his fire-fledged shafts could hit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Winged with as forceful and as faithful wit:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No truer a tragic depth and heat of heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glowed through the painter's than the poet's art.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He lit and hung in heaven the wan fierce moon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose glance kept time with witchcraft's air-struck tune:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He watched the doors where loveless love let in<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The pageant hailed and crowned by death and sin:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He bared the souls where love, twin-born with hate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made wide the way for passion-fostered fate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All English-hearted, all his heart arose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To scourge with scorn his England's cowering foes:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Rome and Spain, who bade their scorner be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their prisoner, left his heart as England's free.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now give we all we may of all his due<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To one long since thus tried and found thus true.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PROLOGUE TO THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sweet as the dewfall, splendid as the south,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love touched with speech Boccaccio's golden mouth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joy thrilled and filled its utterance full with song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sorrow smiled on doom that wrought no wrong.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A starrier lustre of lordlier music rose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beyond the sundering bar of seas and snows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When Chaucer's thought took life and light from his<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And England's crown was one with Italy's.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Loftiest and last, by grace of Shakespeare's word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arose above their quiring spheres a third,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arose, and flashed, and faltered: song's deep sky<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saw Shakespeare pass in light, in music die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No light like his, no music, man might give<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bid the darkened sphere, left songless, live.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soft though the sound of Fletcher's rose and rang<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lit the lunar darkness as it sang,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Below the singing stars the cloud-crossed moon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gave back the sunken sun's a trembling tune.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As when at highest high tide the sovereign sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pauses, and patience doubts if passion be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till gradual ripples ebb, recede, recoil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shine, smile, and whisper, laughing as they toil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stark silence fell, at turn of fate's high tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon his broken song when Shakespeare died,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span><span class="i0">Till Fletcher's light sweet speech took heart to say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What evening, should it speak for morning, may.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fourfold now the gradual glory shines<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That shows once more in heaven two twinborn signs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two brethren stars whose light no cloud may fret,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No soul whereon their story dawns forget.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Let there be light, said Time: and England heard:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And manhood grew to godhead at the word.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No light had shone, since earth arose from sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So far; no fire of thought had cloven so deep.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A day beyond all days bade life acclaim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shakespeare: and man put on his crowning name.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All secrets once through darkling ages kept<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shone, sang, and smiled to think how long they slept.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man rose past fear of lies whereon he trod:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Dante's ghost saw hell devour his God.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright Marlowe, brave as winds that brave the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When sundawn bids their bliss in battle be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lit England first along the ways whereon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Song brighter far than sunlight soared and shone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He died ere half his life had earned his right<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lighten time with song's triumphant light.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hope shrank, and felt the stroke at heart: but one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She knew not rose, a man to match the sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And England's hope and time's and man's became<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joy, deep as music's heart and keen as flame.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not long, for heaven on earth may live not long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light sang, and darkness died before the song.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He passed, the man above all men, whose breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Transfigured life with speech that lightens death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He passed: but yet for many a lustrous year<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His light of song bade England shine and hear.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span><span class="i0">As plague and fire and faith in falsehood spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So from the man of men, divine and dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Contagious godhead, seen, unknown, and heard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fulfilled and quickened England; thought and word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When men would fain set life to music, grew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More sweet than years which knew not Shakespeare knew.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The simplest soul that set itself to song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sang, and may fear not time's or change's wrong.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The lightest eye that glanced on life could see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through grief and joy the God that man might be.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All passion whence the living soul takes fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till death fulfil despair and quench desire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All love that lightens through the cloud of chance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All hate that lurks in hope and smites askance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All holiness of sorrow, all divine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pity, whose tears are stars that save and shine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All sunbright strength of laughter like the sea's<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When spring and autumn loose their lustrous breeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All sweet, all strange, all sad, all glorious things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lived on his lips, and hailed him king of kings.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All thought, all strife, all anguish, all delight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spake all he bade, and speak till day be night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No soul that heard, no spirit that beheld,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Knew not the God that lured them and compelled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Beaumont's brow the sun arisen afar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shed fire which lit through heaven the younger star<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sank before the sunset: one dark spring<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Slew first the kinglike subject, then the king.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The glory left above their graves made strong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The heart of Fletcher, till the flower-sweet song<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That Shakespeare culled from Chaucer's field, and died,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Found ending on his lips that smiled and sighed.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span><span class="i0">From Dekker's eyes the light of tear-touched mirth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shone as from Shakespeare's, mingling heaven and earth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wild witchcraft's lure and England's love made one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Shakespeare's heart the heart of Middleton.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Harsh, homely, true, and tragic, Rowley told<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His heart's debt down in rough and radiant gold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The skies that Tourneur's lightning clove and rent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flamed through the clouds where Shakespeare's thunder went.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wise Massinger bade kings be wise in vain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere war bade song, storm-stricken, cower and wane.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kind Heywood, simple-souled and single-eyed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Found voice for England's home-born praise and pride.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strange grief, strange love, strange terror, bared the sword<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That smote the soul by grace and will of Ford.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stern grim strength of Chapman's thought found speech<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Loud as when storm at ebb-tide rends the beach:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the honey brewed from flowers in May<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made sweet the lips and bright the dreams of Day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But even as Shakespeare caught from Marlowe's word<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fire, so from his the thunder-bearing third,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Webster, took light and might whence none but he<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hath since made song that sounded so the sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose waves are lives of men&mdash;whose tidestream rolls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From year to darkening year the freight of souls.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alone above it, sweet, supreme, sublime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shakespeare attunes the jarring chords of time;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alone of all whose doom is death and birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shakespeare is lord of souls alive on earth.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426"></a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CLEOPATRA</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span><span class="i0">"Her beauty might outface the jealous hours,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turn shame to love and pain to a tender sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the strong nerve of hate to sloth and tears;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make spring rebellious in the sides of frost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thrust out lank winter with hot August growths,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Compel sweet blood into the husks of death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And from strange beasts enforce harsh courtesy."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p style="margin-left: 25%"><span class="smcap">T. Hayman</span>, <i>Fall of Antony</i>, 1655.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CLEOPATRA</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">I<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her mouth is fragrant as a vine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A vine with birds in all its boughs;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Serpent and scarab for a sign<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Between the beauty of her brows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the amorous deep lids divine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">II<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her great curled hair makes luminous<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Her cheeks, her lifted throat and chin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall she not have the hearts of us<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To shatter, and the loves therein<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To shred between her fingers thus?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">III<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Small ruined broken strays of light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Pearl after pearl she shreds them through<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her long sweet sleepy fingers, white<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As any pearl's heart veined with blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And soft as dew on a soft night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span><span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">IV<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As if the very eyes of love<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shone through her shutting lids, and stole<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The slow looks of a snake or dove;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As if her lips absorbed the whole<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of love, her soul the soul thereof.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">V<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Lost, all the lordly pearls that were<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Wrung from the sea's heart, from the green<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Coasts of the Indian gulf-river;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Lost, all the loves of the world&mdash;so keen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Towards this queen for love of her.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">VI<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">You see against her throat the small<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sharp glittering shadows of them shake;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And through her hair the imperial<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Curled likeness of the river snake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose bite shall make an end of all.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">VII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Through the scales sheathing him like wings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Through hieroglyphs of gold and gem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The strong sense of her beauty stings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like a keen pulse of love in them,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A running flame through all his rings.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span><span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">VIII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Under those low large lids of hers<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">She hath the histories of all time;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fruit of foliage-stricken years;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The old seasons with their heavy chime<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That leaves its rhyme in the world's ears.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">IX<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She sees the hand of death made bare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The ravelled riddle of the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The faces faded that were fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The mouths made speechless that were wise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hollow eyes and dusty hair;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">X<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The shape and shadow of mystic things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Things that fate fashions or forbids;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The staff of time-forgotten Kings<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose name falls off the Pyramids,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their coffin-lids and grave-clothings;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XI<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dank dregs, the scum of pool or clod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">God-spawn of lizard-footed clans,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And those dog-headed hulks that trod<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Swart necks of the old Egyptians,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Raw draughts of man's beginning God;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span><span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The poised hawk, quivering ere he smote,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With plume-like gems on breast and back;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The asps and water-worms afloat<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Between the rush-flowers moist and slack;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cat's warm black bright rising throat.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XIII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The purple days of drouth expand<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Like a scroll opened out again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The molten heaven drier than sand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The hot red heaven without rain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sheds iron pain on the empty land.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XIV<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All Egypt aches in the sun's sight;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The lips of men are harsh for drouth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fierce air leaves their cheeks burnt white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Charred by the bitter blowing south,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose dusty mouth is sharp to bite.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XV<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All this she dreams of, and her eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Are wrought after the sense hereof.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no heart in her for sighs;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The face of her is more than love&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A name above the Ptolemies.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span><span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XVI<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Her great grave beauty covers her<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As that sleek spoil beneath her feet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clothed once the anointed soothsayer;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The hallowing is gone forth from it<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, made unmeet for priests to wear.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XVII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She treads on gods and god-like things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On fate and fear and life and death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On hate that cleaves and love that clings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">All that is brought forth of man's breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And perisheth with what it brings.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XVIII<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">She holds her future close, her lips<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Hold fast the face of things to be;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Actium, and sound of war that dips<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Down the blown valleys of the sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Far sails that flee, and storms of ships;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XIX<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The laughing red sweet mouth of wine<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">At ending of life's festival;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That spice of cerecloths, and the fine<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">White bitter dust funereal<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sprinkled on all things for a sign;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span><span class="i5" style="margin-top: 2em;">XX<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His face, who was and was not he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In whom, alive, her life abode;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The end, when she gained heart to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Those ways of death wherein she trod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Goddess by god, with Antony.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p>
+<h2>DEDICATION</h2>
+
+<p><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436"></a></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span></p>
+<h2>DEDICATION</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem" style="margin-top: 2em;"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sea that is life everlasting<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And death everlasting as life<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Abides not a pilot's forecasting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Foretells not of peace or of strife.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The might of the night that was hidden<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Arises and darkens the day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A glory rebuked and forbidden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Time's crown, and his prey.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No sweeter, no kindlier, no fairer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">No lovelier a soul from its birth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wore ever a brighter and rarer<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Life's raiment for life upon earth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than his who enkindled and cherished<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Art's vestal and luminous flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That dies not when kingdoms have perished<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In storm or in shame.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No braver, no trustier, no purer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">No stronger and clearer a soul<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bore witness more splendid and surer<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For manhood found perfect and whole<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since man was a warrior and dreamer<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than his who in hatred of wrong<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would fain have arisen a redeemer<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By sword or by song.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span><span class="i0">Twin brethren in spirit, immortal<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As art and as love, which were one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For you from the birthday whose portal<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">First gave you to sight of the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To-day nor to-night nor to-morrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">May bring you again from above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Drawn down by the spell of the sorrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose anguish is love.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No light rearising hereafter<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall lighten us here as of old<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When seasons were lustrous as laughter<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of waves that are snowshine and gold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dawn that imbues and enkindles<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Life's fluctuant and fugitive sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dies down as the starshine that dwindles<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And cares not to be.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Men, mightier than death which divides us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Friends, dearer than sorrow can say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The light that is darkness and hides us<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Awhile from each other away<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Abides but awhile and endures not,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">We know, though the day be as night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For souls that forgetfulness lures not<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Till sleep be in sight.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sleep that enfolds you, the slumber<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Supreme and eternal on earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence ages of numberless number<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall bring us not back into birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We know not indeed if it be not<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">What no man hath known if it be,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life, quickened with light that we see not<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">If spirits may see.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span><span class="i0">The love that would see and would know it<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is even as the love of a child.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the fire of the fame of the poet<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who gazed on the past, and it smiled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the light of the fame of the painter<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose hand was as morning's in May,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Death bids not be darker or fainter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Time casts not away.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We, left of them loveless and lonely,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who lived in the light of their love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose darkness desires it, we only,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who see them afar and above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So far, if we die not, above us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">So lately no dearer than near,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May know not of death if they love us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of night if they hear.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We, stricken and darkling and living,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Who loved them and love them, abide<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A day, and the gift of its giving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">An hour, and the turn of its tide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When twilight and midnight and morrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall pass from the sight of the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And death be forgotten, and sorrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Discrowned and undone.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For us as for these will the breathless<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Brief minute arise and pass by:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And if death be not utterly deathless,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">If love do not utterly die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the life that is quenched as an ember<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The soul that aspires as a flame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Can choose not but wholly remember<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Love, lovelier than fame.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span><span class="i0">Though sure be the seal of their glory<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And fairer no fame upon earth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though never a leaf shall grow hoary<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of the crowns that were given them at birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While time as a vassal doth duty<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To names that he towers not above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More perfect in price and in beauty<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For ever is love.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The night is upon us, and anguish<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of longing that yearns for the dead.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But mourners that faint not or languish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That veil not and bow not the head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take comfort to heart if a token<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Be given them of comfort to be:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While darkness on earth is unbroken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Light lives on the sea.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="center biggap">PRINTED BY</p>
+<p class="center">SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE AND CO. LTD.</p>
+<p class="center">LONDON, COLCHESTER AND ETON</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Channel Passage and Other Poems, by
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18871-h.htm or 18871-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+ http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/7/18871/
+
+Produced by Paul Murray, Lisa Reigel, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+ the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+ you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
+ owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+ has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+ Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
+ must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+ prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+ returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+ sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+ address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+ the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+ you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+ does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+ License. You must require such a user to return or
+ destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+ and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+ Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+ money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+ electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+ of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+ distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+ Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+ Chief Executive and Director
+ gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+ http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/18871.txt b/18871.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9863e2f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18871.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4675 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Channel Passage and Other Poems, by
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Channel Passage and Other Poems
+ Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles
+ Swinburne--Vol VI
+
+Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18871]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Paul Murray, Lisa Reigel, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Greek words in this text have been transliterated
+and placed between +marks+. The word "Phoebus" was rendered with an oe
+ligature in the original.]
+
+
+
+
+A Channel Passage and other poems
+
+
+By
+
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+
+Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles
+Swinburne--Vol VI
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
+
+VOL. VI
+
+
+A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY: ASTROPHEL: A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER TALES
+
+
+
+
+SWINBURNE'S POETICAL WORKS
+
+
+ I. POEMS AND BALLADS (First Series).
+
+ II. SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE, AND SONGS OF TWO NATIONS.
+
+III. POEMS AND BALLADS (Second and Third Series), and SONGS OF THE
+ SPRINGTIDES.
+
+ IV. TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE, THE TALE OF BALEN, ATALANTA IN CALYDON,
+ ERECHTHEUS.
+
+ V. STUDIES IN SONG, A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS, SONNETS ON ENGLISH DRAMATIC
+ POETS, THE HEPTALOGIA, ETC.
+
+ VI. A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY, ASTROPHEL, A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS.
+
+
+LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
+
+
+
+
+A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY: ASTROPHEL: A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS
+
+
+By
+
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+
+1917
+
+LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
+
+
+_First printed_ (_Chatto_), 1904
+
+_Reprinted_ 1904, '09, '10, '12
+
+(_Heinemann_), 1917
+
+
+_London: William Heinemann_, 1917
+
+
+
+
+A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+A CHANNEL PASSAGE 279
+
+THE LAKE OF GAUBE 284
+
+THE PROMISE OF THE HAWTHORN 288
+
+HAWTHORN TIDE 289
+
+THE PASSING OF THE HAWTHORN 296
+
+TO A BABY KINSWOMAN 297
+
+THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 301
+
+A NEW YEAR'S EVE 321
+
+IN A ROSARY 324
+
+THE HIGH OAKS 326
+
+BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER 331
+
+MUSIC: AN ODE 334
+
+THE CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE NILE 336
+
+TRAFALGAR DAY 338
+
+CROMWELL'S STATUE 340
+
+A WORD FOR THE NAVY 342
+
+NORTHUMBERLAND 346
+
+STRATFORD-ON-AVON 349
+
+BURNS: AN ODE 350
+
+THE COMMONWEAL: A SONG FOR UNIONISTS 355
+
+THE QUESTION 359
+
+APOSTASY 363
+
+RUSSIA: AN ODE 366
+
+FOR GREECE AND CRETE 370
+
+DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO 372
+
+A NEW CENTURY 374
+
+AN EVENING AT VICHY 375
+
+TO GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS 378
+
+ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON 379
+
+IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI 382
+
+CARNOT 383
+
+AFTER THE VERDICT 384
+
+THE TRANSVAAL 385
+
+REVERSE 386
+
+THE TURNING OF THE TIDE 387
+
+ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL BENSON 388
+
+ASTRAEA VICTRIX 389
+
+THE FIRST OF JUNE 393
+
+A ROUNDEL FROM VILLON 395
+
+A ROUNDEL OF RABELAIS 396
+
+LUCIFER 397
+
+THE CENTENARY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS 398
+
+AT A DOG'S GRAVE 400
+
+THREE WEEKS OLD 402
+
+A CLASP OF HANDS 403
+
+PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS 405
+
+PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM 407
+
+PROLOGUE TO OLD FORTUNATUS 409
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE DUCHESS OF MALFY 411
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY 413
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART 415
+
+PROLOGUE TO A VERY WOMAN 417
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY 419
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN 421
+
+THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE 423
+
+CLEOPATRA 427
+
+DEDICATION 435
+
+
+
+
+A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS
+
+
+IN MEMORY
+
+OF
+
+WILLIAM MORRIS
+
+AND
+
+EDWARD BURNE JONES
+
+
+
+
+ A CHANNEL PASSAGE
+
+ 1855
+
+
+ Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn
+ shone,
+ Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun
+ was gone:
+ Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim
+ sweet hour
+ Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a
+ field in flower.
+ Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the
+ starbright air
+ Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea,
+ more fair.
+
+ Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish
+ awoke in the dark?
+ Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as
+ hounds that bark.
+ Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings
+ exalt the sky,
+ Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to
+ quicken and lighten and die.
+ Heaven's own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in
+ music and semblance in fire:
+ Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the
+ night's desire.
+
+ And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from
+ toils cast free:
+ And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the
+ soul of the sea.
+ All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death
+ for fraught:
+ And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or
+ things distraught.
+ And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on
+ the wind:
+ And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm
+ in the heart of Ind.
+ Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the
+ far fierce East,
+ Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar
+ with death for priest.
+ The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man
+ born free
+ Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and
+ the wrath of a tropic sea.
+ As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from
+ a backward fall,
+ The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a
+ sheer cliff's wall.
+ Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a
+ breath,
+ And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the
+ throat of death.
+ Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal
+ joy,
+ Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's
+ heart in a boy.
+ For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and
+ flamed, sublime
+ As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the
+ pulse of time.
+ The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light
+ overheard,
+ The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the
+ fire of a word,
+ In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of
+ the sea,
+ And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but
+ when heaven breathed free.
+ Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out
+ into light
+ From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that
+ were flowerlike and white.
+ The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that
+ laugh as they fade
+ From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in
+ the light they made.
+ Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous
+ tune,
+ Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast
+ smile of the moon.
+ The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams
+ may behold, and deep
+ As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the
+ soul through sleep.
+ All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it
+ yearns to know
+ Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above
+ and below.
+ The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong
+ sea's labour and rage,
+ Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the
+ soul to wage.
+ No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths
+ that the night made bare,
+ Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of
+ air--
+ Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its
+ reign and the sea's,
+ Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that
+ bows men's knees.
+ No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in
+ dreams
+ Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love
+ for a breath's length seems--
+ One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with
+ love that subsides
+ As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and
+ released the tides.
+ In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering,
+ assailed and withheld
+ As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is
+ thwarted and quelled.
+ As the glories of myriads of glowworms in lustrous grass on a
+ boundless lawn
+ Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a
+ light like dawn.
+ A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning
+ sea,
+ And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a
+ tune could be;
+ As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of
+ life or of sleep,
+ Audible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep:
+ Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember
+ awake:
+ Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs
+ in the live storm's wake,
+ In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud heart of
+ the labouring hour,
+ A harvest of stars by the storm's hand reaped, each fair as a
+ star-shaped flower.
+ And sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing of
+ tempest seemed
+ When the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory was gone as
+ a dream half dreamed.
+ The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a
+ miracle, died,
+ Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power
+ and of pride;
+ With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of
+ power upon earth,
+ As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a
+ new God's birth,
+ The might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness
+ fell:
+ And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of
+ heaven and of hell.
+ The waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, and were
+ wellnigh fain,
+ For the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and revelled in
+ labour, to cease from her pain.
+ And an end was made of it: only remembrance endures of the glad
+ loud strife;
+ And the sense that a rapture so royal may come not again in the
+ passage of life.
+
+
+
+
+ THE LAKE OF GAUBE
+
+
+ The sun is lord and god, sublime, serene,
+ And sovereign on the mountains: earth and air
+ Lie prone in passion, blind with bliss unseen
+ By force of sight and might of rapture, fair
+ As dreams that die and know not what they were.
+ The lawns, the gorges, and the peaks, are one
+ Glad glory, thrilled with sense of unison
+ In strong compulsive silence of the sun.
+
+ Flowers dense and keen as midnight stars aflame
+ And living things of light like flames in flower
+ That glance and flash as though no hand might tame
+ Lightnings whose life outshone their stormlit hour
+ And played and laughed on earth, with all their power
+ Gone, and with all their joy of life made long
+ And harmless as the lightning life of song,
+ Shine sweet like stars when darkness feels them strong.
+
+ The deep mild purple flaked with moonbright gold
+ That makes the scales seem flowers of hardened light,
+ The flamelike tongue, the feet that noon leaves cold,
+ The kindly trust in man, when once the sight
+ Grew less than strange, and faith bade fear take flight,
+ Outlive the little harmless life that shone
+ And gladdened eyes that loved it, and was gone
+ Ere love might fear that fear had looked thereon.
+
+ Fear held the bright thing hateful, even as fear,
+ Whose name is one with hate and horror, saith
+ That heaven, the dark deep heaven of water near,
+ Is deadly deep as hell and dark as death.
+ The rapturous plunge that quickens blood and breath
+ With pause more sweet than passion, ere they strive
+ To raise again the limbs that yet would dive
+ Deeper, should there have slain the soul alive.
+
+ As the bright salamander in fire of the noonshine exults and is
+ glad of his day,
+ The spirit that quickens my body rejoices to pass from the sunlight
+ away,
+ To pass from the glow of the mountainous flowerage, the high
+ multitudinous bloom,
+ Far down through the fathomless night of the water, the gladness of
+ silence and gloom.
+ Death-dark and delicious as death in the dream of a lover and
+ dreamer may be,
+ It clasps and encompasses body and soul with delight to be living
+ and free:
+ Free utterly now, though the freedom endure but the space of a
+ perilous breath,
+ And living, though girdled about with the darkness and coldness and
+ strangeness of death:
+ Each limb and each pulse of the body rejoicing, each nerve of the
+ spirit at rest,
+ All sense of the soul's life rapture, a passionate peace in its
+ blindness blest.
+ So plunges the downward swimmer, embraced of the water unfathomed
+ of man,
+ The darkness unplummeted, icier than seas in midwinter, for
+ blessing or ban;
+ And swiftly and sweetly, when strength and breath fall short, and
+ the dive is done,
+ Shoots up as a shaft from the dark depth shot, sped straight into
+ sight of the sun;
+ And sheer through the snow-soft water, more dark than the roof of
+ the pines above,
+ Strikes forth, and is glad as a bird whose flight is impelled and
+ sustained of love.
+ As a sea-mew's love of the sea-wind breasted and ridden for
+ rapture's sake
+ Is the love of his body and soul for the darkling delight of the
+ soundless lake:
+ As the silent speed of a dream too living to live for a thought's
+ space more
+ Is the flight of his limbs through the still strong chill of the
+ darkness from shore to shore.
+ Might life be as this is and death be as life that casts off time
+ as a robe,
+ The likeness of infinite heaven were a symbol revealed of the lake
+ of Gaube.
+
+ Whose thought has fathomed and measured
+ The darkness of life and of death,
+ The secret within them treasured,
+ The spirit that is not breath?
+ Whose vision has yet beholden
+ The splendour of death and of life?
+ Though sunset as dawn be golden,
+ Is the word of them peace, not strife?
+ Deep silence answers: the glory
+ We dream of may be but a dream,
+ And the sun of the soul wax hoary
+ As ashes that show not a gleam.
+ But well shall it be with us ever
+ Who drive through the darkness here,
+ If the soul that we live by never,
+ For aught that a lie saith, fear.
+
+
+
+
+ THE PROMISE OF THE HAWTHORN
+
+
+ Spring sleeps and stirs and trembles with desire
+ Pure as a babe's that nestles toward the breast.
+ The world, as yet an all unstricken lyre,
+ With all its chords alive and all at rest,
+ Feels not the sun's hand yet, but feels his breath
+ And yearns for love made perfect. Man and bird,
+ Thrilled through with hope of life that casts out death,
+ Wait with a rapturous patience till his word
+ Speak heaven, and flower by flower and tree by tree
+ Give back the silent strenuous utterance. Earth,
+ Alive awhile and joyful as the sea,
+ Laughs not aloud in joy too deep for mirth,
+ Presageful of perfection of delight,
+ Till all the unborn green buds be born in white.
+
+
+
+
+ HAWTHORN TIDE
+
+
+ I
+
+ Dawn is alive in the world, and the darkness of heaven and of earth
+ Subsides in the light of a smile more sweet than the loud noon's
+ mirth,
+ Spring lives as a babe lives, glad and divine as the sun, and
+ unsure
+ If aught so divine and so glad may be worshipped and loved and
+ endure.
+ A soft green glory suffuses the love-lit earth with delight,
+ And the face of the noon is fair as the face of the star-clothed
+ night.
+ Earth knows not and doubts not at heart of the glories again to be:
+ Sleep doubts not and dreams not how sweet shall the waking beyond
+ her be.
+ A whole white world of revival awaits May's whisper awhile,
+ Abides and exults in the bud as a soft hushed laugh in a smile.
+ As a maid's mouth laughing with love and subdued for the love's
+ sake, May
+ Shines and withholds for a little the word she revives to say.
+
+ When the clouds and the winds and the sunbeams are warring and
+ strengthening with joy that they live,
+ Spring, from reluctance enkindled to rapture, from slumber to
+ strife,
+ Stirs, and repents, and is winter, and weeps, and awakes as the
+ frosts forgive,
+ And the dark chill death of the woodland is troubled, and dies
+ into life.
+ And the honey of heaven, of the hives whence night feeds full on
+ the springtide's breath,
+ Fills fuller the lips of the lustrous air with delight in the
+ dawn:
+ Each blossom enkindling with love that is life and subsides with a
+ smile into death
+ Arises and lightens and sets as a star from her sphere withdrawn.
+ Not sleep, in the rapture of radiant dreams, when sundawn smiles on
+ the night,
+ Shows earth so sweet with a splendour and fragrance of life that
+ is love:
+ Each blade of the glad live grass, each bud that receives or
+ rejects the light,
+ Salutes and responds to the marvel of Maytime around and above.
+
+ Joy gives thanks for the sight and the savour of heaven, and is
+ humbled
+ With awe that exults in thanksgiving: the towers of the flowers
+ of the trees
+ Shine sweeter than snows that the hand of the season has melted and
+ crumbled,
+ And fair as the foam that is lesser of life than the loveliest of
+ these.
+ But the sense of a life more lustrous with joy and enkindled of
+ glory
+ Than man's was ever or may be, and briefer than joys most brief,
+ Bids man's heart bend and adore, be the man's head golden or hoary,
+ As it leapt but a breath's time since and saluted the flower and
+ the leaf.
+ The rapture that springs into love at the sight of the world's
+ exultation
+ Takes not a sense of rebuke from the sense of triumphant awe:
+ But the spirit that quickens the body fulfils it with mute
+ adoration,
+ And the knees would fain bow down as the eyes that rejoiced and
+ saw.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Fair and sublime as the face of the dawn is the splendour of May,
+ But the sky's and the sea's joy fades not as earth's pride passes
+ away.
+ Yet hardly the sun's first lightning or laughter of love on the sea
+ So humbles the heart into worship that knows not or doubts if it be
+ As the first full glory beholden again of the life new-born
+ That hails and applauds with inaudible music the season of morn.
+ A day's length since, and it was not: a night's length more, and
+ the sun
+ Salutes and enkindles a world of delight as a strange world won.
+ A new life answers and thrills to the kiss of the young strong
+ year,
+ And the glory we see is as music we hear not, and dream that we
+ hear.
+ From blossom to blossom the live tune kindles, from tree to tree,
+ And we know not indeed if we hear not the song of the life we see.
+
+ For the first blithe day that beholds it and worships and cherishes
+ cannot but sing
+ With a louder and lustier delight in the sun and the sunlit earth
+ Than the joy of the days that beheld but the soft green dawn of the
+ slow faint spring
+ Glad and afraid to be glad, and subdued in a shamefast mirth.
+ When the first bright knoll of the woodland world laughs out into
+ fragrant light,
+ The year's heart changes and quickens with sense of delight in
+ desire,
+ And the kindling desire is one with thanksgiving for utter fruition
+ of sight,
+ For sight and for sense of a world that the sun finds meet for
+ his lyre.
+ Music made of the morning that smites from the chords of the mute
+ world song
+ Trembles and quickens and lightens, unfelt, unbeholden, unheard,
+ From blossom on blossom that climbs and exults in the strength of
+ the sun grown strong,
+ And answers the word of the wind of the spring with the sun's own
+ word.
+
+ Hard on the skirt of the deep soft copses that spring refashions,
+ Triumphs and towers to the height of the crown of a wildwood tree
+ One royal hawthorn, sublime and serene as the joy that impassions
+ Awe that exults in thanksgiving for sight of the grace we see,
+ The grace that is given of a god that abides for a season,
+ mysterious
+ And merciful, fervent and fugitive, seen and unknown and adored:
+ His presence is felt in the light and the fragrance, elate and
+ imperious,
+ His laugh and his breath in the blossom are love's, the beloved
+ soul's lord.
+ For surely the soul if it loves is beloved of the god as a lover
+ Whose love is not all unaccepted, a worship not utterly vain:
+ So full, so deep is the joy that revives for the soul to recover
+ Yearly, beholden of hope and of memory in sunshine and rain.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Wonder and love stand silent, stricken at heart and stilled.
+ But yet is the cup of delight and of worship unpledged and
+ unfilled.
+ A handsbreadth hence leaps up, laughs out as an angel crowned,
+ A strong full fountain of flowers overflowing above and around.
+ The boughs and the blossoms in triumph salute with adoring mirth
+ The womb that bare them, the glad green mother, the sunbright
+ earth.
+ Downward sweeping, as song subsides into silence, none
+ May hear what sound is the word's they speak to the brooding sun.
+ None that hearken may hear: man may but pass and adore,
+ And humble his heart in thanksgiving for joy that is now no more.
+ And sudden, afront and ahead of him, joy is alive and aflame
+ On the shrine whose incense is given of the godhead, again the
+ same.
+
+ Pale and pure as a maiden secluded in secret and cherished with
+ fear,
+ One sweet glad hawthorn smiles as it shrinks under shelter,
+ screened
+ By two strong brethren whose bounteous blossom outsoars it, year
+ after year,
+ While earth still cleaves to the live spring's breast as a babe
+ unweaned.
+ Never was amaranth fairer in fields where heroes of old found rest,
+ Never was asphodel sweeter: but here they endure not long,
+ Though ever the sight that salutes them again and adores them
+ awhile is blest,
+ And the heart is a hymn, and the sense is a soul, and the soul is
+ a song.
+ Alone on a dyke's trenched edge, and afar from the blossoming
+ wildwood's verge,
+ Laughs and lightens a sister, triumphal in love-lit pride;
+ Clothed round with the sun, and inviolate: her blossoms exult as
+ the springtide surge,
+ When the wind and the dawn enkindle the snows of the shoreward
+ tide.
+
+ Hardly the worship of old that rejoiced as it knelt in the vision
+ Shown of the God new-born whose breath is the spirit of spring
+ Hailed ever with love more strong and defiant of death's derision
+ A joy more perfect than here we mourn for as May takes wing.
+ Time gives it and takes it again and restores it: the glory, the
+ wonder,
+ The triumph of lustrous blossom that makes of the steep sweet
+ bank
+ One visible marvel of music inaudible, over and under,
+ Attuned as in heaven, pass hence and return for the sun to thank.
+ The stars and the sun give thanks for the glory bestowed and
+ beholden,
+ For the gladness they give and rejoice in, the night and the dawn
+ and the day:
+ But nought they behold when the world is aflower and the season is
+ golden
+ Makes answer as meet and as sweet as the flower that itself is
+ May.
+
+
+
+
+ THE PASSING OF THE HAWTHORN
+
+
+ The coming of the hawthorn brings on earth
+ Heaven: all the spring speaks out in one sweet word,
+ And heaven grows gladder, knowing that earth has heard.
+ Ere half the flowers are jubilant in birth,
+ The splendour of the laughter of their mirth
+ Dazzles delight with wonder: man and bird
+ Rejoice and worship, stilled at heart and stirred
+ With rapture girt about with awe for girth.
+
+ The passing of the hawthorn takes away
+ Heaven: all the spring falls dumb, and all the soul
+ Sinks down in man for sorrow. Night and day
+ Forego the joy that made them one and whole.
+ The change that falls on every starry spray
+ Bids, flower by flower, the knell of springtime toll.
+
+
+
+
+ TO A BABY KINSWOMAN
+
+
+ Love, whose light thrills heaven and earth,
+ Smiles and weeps upon thy birth,
+ Child, whose mother's love-lit eyes
+ Watch thee but from Paradise.
+ Sweetest sight that earth can give,
+ Sweetest light of eyes that live,
+ Ours must needs, for hope withdrawn,
+ Hail with tears thy soft spring dawn.
+ Light of hope whose star hath set,
+ Light of love whose sun lives yet,
+ Holier, happier, heavenlier love
+ Breathes about thee, burns above,
+ Surely, sweet, than ours can be,
+ Shed from eyes we may not see,
+ Though thine own may see them shine
+ Night and day, perchance, on thine.
+ Sun and moon that lighten earth
+ Seem not fit to bless thy birth:
+ Scarce the very stars we know
+ Here seem bright enough to show
+ Whence in unimagined skies
+ Glows the vigil of such eyes.
+ Theirs whose heart is as a sea
+ Swoln with sorrowing love of thee
+ Fain would share with thine the sight
+ Seen alone of babes aright,
+ Watched of eyes more sweet than flowers
+ Sleeping or awake: but ours
+ Can but deem or dream or guess
+ Thee not wholly motherless.
+ Might they see or might they know
+ What nor faith nor hope may show,
+ We whose hearts yearn toward thee now
+ Then were blest and wise as thou.
+ Had we half thy knowledge,--had
+ Love such wisdom,--grief were glad,
+ Surely, lit by grace of thee;
+ Life were sweet as death may be.
+ Now the law that lies on men
+ Bids us mourn our dead: but then
+ Heaven and life and earth and death,
+ Quickened as by God's own breath,
+ All were turned from sorrow and strife:
+ Earth and death were heaven and life.
+ All too far are then and now
+ Sundered: none may be as thou.
+ Yet this grace is ours--a sign
+ Of that goodlier grace of thine,
+ Sweet, and thine alone--to see
+ Heaven, and heaven's own love, in thee.
+ Bless them, then, whose eyes caress
+ Thee, as only thou canst bless.
+ Comfort, faith, assurance, love,
+ Shine around us, brood above,
+ Fear grows hope, and hope grows wise,
+ Thrilled and lit by children's eyes.
+ Yet in ours the tears unshed,
+ Child, for hope that death leaves dead,
+ Needs must burn and tremble; thou
+ Knowest not, seest not, why nor how,
+ More than we know whence or why
+ Comes on babes that laugh and lie
+ Half asleep, in sweet-lipped scorn,
+ Light of smiles outlightening morn,
+ Whence enkindled as is earth
+ By the dawn's less radiant birth
+ All the body soft and sweet
+ Smiles on us from face to feet
+ When the rose-red hands would fain
+ Reach the rose-red feet in vain.
+ Eyes and hands that worship thee
+ Watch and tend, adore and see
+ All these heavenly sights, and give
+ Thanks to see and love and live.
+ Yet, of all that hold thee dear,
+ Sweet, the dearest smiles not here.
+ Thine alone is now the grace,
+ Haply, still to see her face;
+ Thine, thine only now the sight
+ Whence we dream thine own takes light.
+ Yet, though faith and hope live blind,
+ Yet they live in heart and mind
+ Strong and keen as truth may be:
+ Yet, though blind as grief were we
+ Inly for a weeping-while,
+ Sorrow's self before thy smile
+ Smiles and softens, knowing that yet,
+ Far from us though heaven be set,
+ Love, bowed down for thee to bless,
+ Dares not call thee motherless.
+
+ _May 1894._
+
+
+
+
+ THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
+
+
+ +es to pan de soi lego,+
+ +bomon aidesai dikas;+
+ +mede nin+
+ +kerdos idon atheo podi lax atises;+
+ +poina gar epestai.+
+ +kyrion menei telos.+
+
+ AESCH. _Eum._ 538-544
+
+ +para to phos idein.+
+
+ AESCH. _Cho._ 972
+
+
+
+
+ THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
+
+
+ I
+
+ Light and night, whose clouds and glories change and mingle and
+ divide,
+ Veil the truth whereof they witness, show the truth of things
+ they hide.
+ Through the darkness and the splendour of the centuries, loud or
+ dumb,
+ Shines and wanes and shines the spirit, lit with love of life to
+ come.
+ Man, the soul made flesh, that knows not death from life, and
+ fain would know,
+ Sees the face of time change colour as its tides recoil and flow.
+ All his hope and fear and faith and doubt, if aught at all they
+ be,
+ Live the life of clouds and sunbeams, born of heaven or earth or
+ sea.
+ All are buoyed and blown and brightened by their hour's evasive
+ breath:
+ All subside and quail and darken when their hour is done to
+ death.
+ Yet, ere faith, a wandering water, froze and curdled into creeds,
+ Earth, elate as heaven, adored the light that quickens dreams to
+ deeds.
+
+ Invisible: eye hath not seen it, and ear hath not heard as the
+ spirit hath heard
+ From the shrine that is lit not of sunlight or starlight the sound
+ of a limitless word.
+ And visible: none that hath eyes to behold what the spirit must
+ perish or see
+ Can choose but behold it and worship: a shrine that if light were
+ as darkness would be.
+ Of cloud and of change is the form of the fashion that man may
+ behold of it wrought:
+ Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where worship is none
+ but of thought.
+ No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of gladness or
+ sorrow may climb:
+ No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that guards it, and
+ hears not of time.
+ As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in passion of light
+ and of cloud,
+ So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with darkness
+ and light for a shroud.
+ And the winds and the clouds and the suns fall silent, and fade out
+ of hearing or sight,
+ And the shrine stands fast and is changed not, whose likeness was
+ changed as a cloud in the night.
+
+ All the storms of time, and wrath of many winds, may carve no
+ trace
+ On the viewless altar, though the veil bear many a name and face:
+ Many a live God's likeness woven, many a scripture dark with awe,
+ Bids the veil seem verier iron than the word of life's own law.
+ Till the might of change hath rent it with a rushing wind in
+ twain,
+ Stone or steel it seems, whereon the wrath of chance is wreaked
+ in vain:
+ Stone or steel, and all behind it or beyond its lifted sign
+ Cloud and vapour, no subsistence of a change-unstricken shrine.
+ God by god flits past in thunder, till his glories turn to
+ shades:
+ God to god bears wondering witness how his gospel flames and
+ fades.
+ More was each of these, while yet they were, than man their
+ servant seemed:
+ Dead are all of these, and man survives who made them while he
+ dreamed.
+
+ Yet haply or surely, if vision were surer than theirs who rejoiced
+ that they saw,
+ Man might not but see, through the darkness of godhead, the light
+ that is surety and law.
+ On the stone that the close-drawn cloud which veils it awhile makes
+ cloudlike stands
+ The word of the truth everlasting, unspoken of tongues and
+ unwritten of hands.
+ By the sunbeams and storms of the centuries engraven, and approved
+ of the soul as it reads,
+ It endures as a token dividing the light from the darkness of
+ dreams and of deeds.
+ The faces of gods on the face of it carven, or gleaming behind and
+ above,
+ Star-glorified Uranus, thunderous Jehovah, for terror or worship or
+ love,
+ Change, wither, and brighten as flowers that the wind of eternity
+ sheds upon time,
+ All radiant and transient and awful and mortal, and leave it
+ unmarred and sublime.
+ As the tides that return and recede are the fears and the hopes of
+ the centuries that roll,
+ Requenched and rekindled: but strong as the sun is the sense of it
+ shrined in the soul.
+
+
+ II
+
+ In the days when time was not, in the time when days were none,
+ Ere sorrow had life to lot, ere earth gave thanks for the sun,
+ Ere man in his darkness waking adored what the soul in him could,
+ And the manifold God of his making was manifest evil and good,
+ One law from the dim beginning abode and abides in the end,
+ In sight of him sorrowing and sinning with none but his faith for
+ friend.
+ Dark were the shadows around him, and darker the glories above,
+ Ere light from beyond them found him, and bade him for love's sake
+ love.
+ About him was darkness, and under and over him darkness: the night
+ That conceived him and bore him had thunder for utterance and
+ lightning for light.
+ The dust of death was the dust of the ways that the tribes of him
+ trod:
+ And he knew not if just or unjust were the might of the mystery of
+ God.
+ Strange horror and hope, strange faith and unfaith, were his boon
+ and his bane:
+ And the God of his trust was the wraith of the soul or the ghost of
+ it slain.
+ A curse was on death as on birth, and a Presence that shone as a
+ sword
+ Shed menace from heaven upon earth that beheld him, and hailed him
+ her Lord.
+ Sublime and triumphant as fire or as lightning, he kindled the
+ skies,
+ And withered with dread the desire that would look on the light of
+ his eyes.
+ Earth shuddered with worship, and knew not if hell were not hot in
+ her breath;
+ If birth were not sin, and the dew of the morning the sweat of her
+ death.
+ The watchwords of evil and good were unspoken of men and unheard:
+ They were shadows that willed as he would, that were made and
+ unmade by his word.
+ His word was darkness and light, and a wisdom that makes men mad
+ Sent blindness upon them for sight, that they saw but and heard as
+ he bade.
+ Cast forth and corrupt from the birth by the crime of creation,
+ they stood
+ Convicted of evil on earth by the grace of a God found good.
+ The grace that enkindled and quickened the darkness of hell with
+ flame
+ Bade man, though the soul in him sickened, obey, and give praise to
+ his name.
+ The still small voice of the spirit whose life is as plague's hot
+ breath
+ Bade man shed blood, and inherit the life of the kingdom of death.
+
+ "Bring now for blood-offering thy son to mine altar, and bind him
+ and slay,
+ That the sin of my bidding be done": and the soul in the slave
+ said, "Yea."
+ Yea, not nay, was the word: and the sacrifice offered withal
+ Was neither of beast nor of bird, but the soul of a man, God's
+ thrall.
+ And the word of his servant spoken was fire, and the light of a
+ sword,
+ When the bondage of Israel was broken, and Sinai shrank from the
+ Lord.
+ With splendour of slaughter and thunder of song as the sound of the
+ sea
+ Were the foes of him stricken in sunder and silenced as storms that
+ flee.
+ Terror and trust and the pride of the chosen, approved of his
+ choice,
+ Saw God in the whirlwind ride, and rejoiced as the winds rejoice.
+ Subdued and exalted and kindled and quenched by the sense of his
+ might,
+ Faith flamed and exulted and dwindled, and saw not, and clung to
+ the sight.
+ The wastes of the wilderness brightened and trembled with rapture
+ and dread
+ When the word of him thundered and lightened and spake through the
+ quick and the dead.
+ The chant of the prophetess, louder and loftier than tempest and
+ wave,
+ Rang triumph more ruthless and prouder than death, and profound as
+ the grave.
+ And sweet as the moon's word spoken in smiles that the blown clouds
+ mar
+ The psalmist's witness in token arose as the speech of a star.
+ Starlight supreme, and the tender desire of the moon, were as one
+ To rebuke with compassion the splendour and strength of the godlike
+ sun.
+ God softened and changed: and the word of his chosen, a fire at the
+ first,
+ Bade man, as a beast or a bird, now slake at the springs his
+ thirst.
+ The souls that were sealed unto death as the bones of the dead lie
+ sealed
+ Rose thrilled and redeemed by the breath of the dawn on the
+ flame-lit field.
+ The glories of darkness, cloven with music of thunder, shrank
+ As the web of the word was unwoven that spake, and the soul's tide
+ sank.
+ And the starshine of midnight that covered Arabia with light as a
+ robe
+ Waxed fiery with utterance that hovered and flamed through the
+ whirlwind on Job.
+ And prophet to prophet and vision to vision made answer sublime,
+ Till the valley of doom and decision was merged in the tides of
+ time.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Then, soft as the dews of night,
+ As the star of the sundawn bright,
+ As the heart of the sea's hymn deep,
+ And sweet as the balm of sleep,
+ Arose on the world a light
+ Too pure for the skies to keep.
+
+ With music sweeter and stranger than heaven had heard
+ When the dark east thrilled with light from a saviour's word
+ And a God grew man to endure as a man and abide
+ The doom of the will of the Lord of the loud world's tide,
+ Whom thunders utter, and tempest and darkness hide,
+ With larger light than flamed from the peak whereon
+ Prometheus, bound as the sun to the world's wheel, shone,
+ A presence passed and abode but on earth a span,
+ And love's own light as a river before him ran,
+ And the name of God for awhile upon earth was man.
+
+ O star that wast not and wast for the world a sun,
+ O light that was quenched of priests, and its work undone,
+ O Word that wast not as man's or as God's, if God
+ Be Lord but of hosts whose tread was as death's that trod
+ On souls that felt but his wrath as an unseen rod,
+ What word, what praise, what passion of hopeless prayer,
+ May now rise up to thee, loud as in years that were,
+ From years that gaze on the works of thy servants wrought
+ While strength was in them to satiate the lust of thought
+ That craved in thy name for blood as the quest it sought?
+
+ From the dark high places of Rome
+ Far over the westward foam
+ God's heaven and the sun saw swell
+ The fires of the high priest's hell,
+ And shrank as they curled and clomb
+ And revelled and ravaged and fell.
+
+
+ IV
+
+ Yet was not the work of thy word all withered with wasting flame
+ By the sons of the priests that had slain thee, whose evil was
+ wrought in thy name.
+ From the blood-sodden soil that was blasted with fires of the
+ Church and her creed
+ Sprang rarely but surely, by grace of thy spirit, a flower for a
+ weed.
+ Thy spirit, unfelt of thy priests who blasphemed thee, enthralled
+ and enticed
+ To deathward a child that was even as the child we behold in
+ Christ.
+ The Moors, they told her, beyond bright Spain and the strait brief
+ sea,
+ Dwelt blind in the light that for them was as darkness, and knew
+ not thee.
+ But the blood of the martyrs whose mission was witness for God,
+ they said,
+ Might raise to redemption the souls that were here, in the sun's
+ sight, dead.
+ And the child rose up in the night, when the stars were as friends
+ that smiled,
+ And sought her brother, and wakened the younger and tenderer child.
+ From the heaven of a child's glad sleep to the heaven of the sight
+ of her eyes
+ He woke, and brightened and hearkened, and kindled as stars that
+ rise.
+ And forth they fared together to die for the stranger's sake,
+ For the souls of the slayers that should slay them, and turn from
+ their sins, and wake.
+ And the light of the love that lit them awhile on a brief blind
+ quest
+ Shines yet on the tear-lit smile that salutes them, belated and
+ blest.
+
+ And the girl, full-grown to the stature of godhead in womanhood,
+ spake
+ The word that sweetens and lightens her creed for her great love's
+ sake.
+ From the godlike heart of Theresa the prayer above all prayers
+ heard,
+ The cry as of God made woman, a sweet blind wonderful word,
+ Sprang sudden as flame, and kindled the darkness of faith with
+ love,
+ And the hollow of hell from beneath shone, quickened of heaven from
+ above.
+ Yea, hell at her word grew heaven, as she prayed that if God
+ thought well
+ She there might stand in the gateway, that none might pass into
+ hell.
+ Not Hermes, guardian and guide, God, herald, and comforter, shed
+ Such lustre of hope from the life of his light on the night of the
+ dead.
+ Not Pallas, wiser and mightier in mercy than Rome's God shone,
+ Wore ever such raiment of love as the soul of a saint put on.
+ So blooms as a flower of the darkness a star of the midnight born,
+ Of the midnight's womb and the blackness of darkness, and flames
+ like morn.
+ Nor yet may the dawn extinguish or hide it, when churches and
+ creeds
+ Are withered and blasted with sunlight as poisonous and blossomless
+ weeds.
+ So springs and strives through the soil that the legions of
+ darkness have trod,
+ From the root that is man, from the soul in the body, the flower
+ that is God.
+
+
+ V
+
+ Ages and creeds that drift
+ Through change and cloud uplift
+ The soul that soars and seeks her sovereign shrine,
+ Her faith's veiled altar, there
+ To find, when praise and prayer
+ Fall baffled, if the darkness be divine.
+ Lights change and shift through star and sun:
+ Night, clothed with might of immemorial years, is one.
+
+ Day, born and slain of night,
+ Hath hardly life in sight
+ As she that bears and slays him and survives,
+ And gives us back for one
+ Cloud-thwarted fiery sun
+ The myriad mysteries of the lambent lives
+ Whose starry soundless music saith
+ That light and life wax perfect even through night and death.
+
+ In vain had darkness heard
+ Light speak the lustrous word
+ That cast out faith in all save truth and love:
+ In vain death's quickening rod
+ Bade man rise up as God,
+ Touched as with life unknown in heaven above:
+ Fear turned his light of love to fire
+ That wasted earth, yet might not slay the soul's desire.
+
+ Though death seem life, and night
+ Bid fear call darkness light,
+ Time, faith, and hope keep trust, through sorrow and shame,
+ Till Christ, by Paul cast out,
+ Return, and all the rout
+ Of raging slaves whose prayer defiles his name
+ Rush headlong to the deep, and die,
+ And leave no sign to say that faith once heard them lie.
+
+
+ VI
+
+ Since man, with a child's pride proud, and abashed as a child and
+ afraid,
+ Made God in his likeness, and bowed him to worship the Maker he
+ made,
+ No faith more dire hath enticed man's trust than the saint's whose
+ creed
+ Made Caiaphas one with Christ, that worms on the cross might feed.
+ Priests gazed upon God in the eyes of a babe new-born, and therein
+ Beheld not heaven, and the wise glad secret of love, but sin.
+ Accursed of heaven, and baptized with the baptism of hatred and
+ hell,
+ They spat on the name they despised and adored as a sign and a
+ spell.
+ "Lord Christ, thou art God, and a liar: they were children of
+ wrath, not of grace,
+ Unbaptized, unredeemed from the fire they were born for, who smiled
+ in thy face."
+ Of such is the kingdom--he said it--of heaven: and the heavenly
+ word
+ Shall live when religion is dead, and when falsehood is dumb shall
+ be heard.
+ And the message of James and of John was as Christ's and as love's
+ own call:
+ But wrath passed sentence thereon when Annas replied in Paul.
+ The dark old God who had slain him grew one with the Christ he
+ slew,
+ And poison was rank in the grain that with growth of his gospel
+ grew.
+ And the blackness of darkness brightened: and red in the heart of
+ the flame
+ Shone down, as a blessing that lightened, the curse of a new God's
+ name.
+ Through centuries of burning and trembling belief as a signal it
+ shone,
+ Till man, soul-sick of dissembling, bade fear and her frauds
+ begone.
+ God Cerberus yelps from his throats triune: but his day, which was
+ night,
+ Is quenched, with its stars and the notes of its night-birds, in
+ silence and light.
+ The flames of its fires and the psalms of their psalmists are
+ darkened and dumb:
+ Strong winter has withered the palms of his angels, and stricken
+ them numb.
+ God, father of lies, God, son of perdition, God, spirit of ill,
+ Thy will that for ages was done is undone as a dead God's will.
+ Not Mahomet's sword could slay thee, nor Borgia's or Calvin's
+ praise:
+ But the scales of the spirit that weigh thee are weighted with
+ truth, and it slays.
+ The song of the day of thy fury, when nature and death shall quail,
+ Rings now as the thunders of Jewry, the ghost of a dead world's
+ tale.
+ That day and its doom foreseen and foreshadowed on earth, when
+ thou,
+ Lord God, wast lord of the keen dark season, are sport for us now.
+ Thy claws were clipped and thy fangs plucked out by the hands that
+ slew
+ Men, lovers of man, whose pangs bore witness if truth were true.
+ Man crucified rose again from the sepulchre builded to be
+ No grave for the souls of the men who denied thee, but, Lord, for
+ thee.
+
+ When Bruno's spirit aspired from the flames that thy servants fed,
+ The spirit of faith was fired to consume thee and leave thee dead.
+ When the light of the sunlike eyes whence laughter lightened and
+ flamed
+ Bade France and the world be wise, faith saw thee naked and shamed.
+ When wisdom deeper and sweeter than Rabelais veiled and revealed
+ Found utterance diviner and meeter for truth whence anguish is
+ healed,
+ Whence fear and hate and belief in thee, fed by thy grace from
+ above,
+ Fall stricken, and utmost grief takes light from the lustre of
+ love,
+ When Shakespeare shone into birth, and the world he beheld grew
+ bright,
+ Thy kingdom was ended on earth, and the darkness it shed was light.
+ In him all truth and the glory thereof and the power and the pride,
+ The song of the soul and her story, bore witness that fear had
+ lied.
+ All hope, all wonder, all trust, all doubt that knows not of fear,
+ The love of the body, the lust of the spirit to see and to hear,
+ All womanhood, fairer than love could conceive or desire or adore,
+ All manhood, radiant above all heights that it held of yore,
+ Lived by the life of his breath, with the speech of his soul's will
+ spake,
+ And the light lit darkness to death whence never the dead shall
+ wake.
+ For the light that lived in the sound of the song of his speech was
+ one
+ With the light of the wisdom that found earth's tune in the song of
+ the sun;
+ His word with the word of the lord most high of us all on earth,
+ Whose soul was a lyre and a sword, whose death was a deathless
+ birth.
+ Him too we praise as we praise our own who as he stand strong;
+ Him, AEschylus, ancient of days, whose word is the perfect song.
+ When Caucasus showed to the sun and the sea what a God could
+ endure,
+ When wisdom and light were one, and the hands of the matricide
+ pure,
+ A song too subtle for psalmist or prophet of Jewry to know,
+ Elate and profound as the calmest or stormiest of waters that flow,
+ A word whose echoes were wonder and music of fears overcome,
+ Bade Sinai bow, and the thunder of godhead on Horeb be dumb.
+ The childless children of night, strong daughters of doom and
+ dread,
+ The thoughts and the fears that smite the soul, and its life lies
+ dead,
+ Stood still and were quelled by the sound of his word and the light
+ of his thought,
+ And the God that in man lay bound was unbound from the bonds he had
+ wrought.
+ Dark fear of a lord more dark than the dreams of his worshippers
+ knew
+ Fell dead, and the corpse lay stark in the sunlight of truth shown
+ true.
+
+
+ VII
+
+ Time, and truth his child, though terror set earth and heaven at
+ odds,
+ See the light of manhood rise on the twilight of the Gods.
+ Light is here for souls to see, though the stars of faith be dead:
+ All the sea that yearned and trembled receives the sun instead.
+ All the shadows on the spirit when fears and dreams were strong,
+ All perdition, all redemption, blind rain-stars watched so long,
+ Love whose root was fear, thanksgiving that cowered beneath the
+ rod,
+ Feel the light that heals and withers: night weeps upon her God.
+ All the names wherein the incarnate Lord lived his day and died
+ Fade from suns to stars, from stars into darkness undescried.
+
+ Christ the man lives yet, remembered of man as dreams that leave
+ Light on eyes that wake and know not if memory bid them grieve.
+ Fire sublime as lightning shines, and exults in thunder yet,
+ Where the battle wields the name and the sword of Mahomet.
+ Far above all wars and gospels, all ebb and flow of time,
+ Lives the soul that speaks in silence, and makes mute earth
+ sublime.
+ Still for her, though years and ages be blinded and bedinned,
+ Mazed with lightnings, crazed with thunders, life rides and guides
+ the wind.
+ Death may live or death may die, and the truth be light or night:
+ Not for gain of heaven may man put away the rule of right.
+
+
+
+
+ A NEW YEAR'S EVE
+
+ CHRISTINA ROSSETTI DIED DECEMBER 29, 1894
+
+
+ The stars are strong in the deeps of the lustrous night,
+ Cold and splendid as death if his dawn be bright;
+ Cold as the cast-off garb that is cold as clay,
+ Splendid and strong as a spirit intense as light.
+
+ A soul more sweet than the morning of new-born May
+ Has passed with the year that has passed from the world away.
+ A song more sweet than the morning's first-born song
+ Again will hymn not among us a new year's day.
+
+ Not here, not here shall the carol of joy grown strong
+ Ring rapture now, and uplift us, a spell-struck throng,
+ From dream to vision of life that the soul may see
+ By death's grace only, if death do its trust no wrong.
+
+ Scarce yet the days and the starry nights are three
+ Since here among us a spirit abode as we,
+ Girt round with life that is fettered in bonds of time,
+ And clasped with darkness about as is earth with sea.
+
+ And now, more high than the vision of souls may climb,
+ The soul whose song was as music of stars that chime,
+ Clothed round with life as of dawn and the mounting sun,
+ Sings, and we know not here of the song sublime.
+
+ No word is ours of it now that the songs are done
+ Whence here we drank of delight as in freedom won,
+ In deep deliverance given from the bonds we bore.
+ There is none to sing as she sang upon earth, not one.
+
+ We heard awhile: and for us who shall hear no more
+ The sound as of waves of light on a starry shore
+ Awhile bade brighten and yearn as a father's face
+ The face of death, divine as in days of yore.
+
+ The grey gloom quickened and quivered: the sunless place
+ Thrilled, and the silence deeper than time or space
+ Seemed now not all everlasting. Hope grew strong,
+ And love took comfort, given of the sweet song's grace.
+
+ Love that finds not on earth, where it finds but wrong,
+ Love that bears not the bondage of years in throng
+ Shone to show for her, higher than the years that mar,
+ The life she looked and longed for as love must long.
+
+ Who knows? We know not. Afar, if the dead be far,
+ Alive, if the dead be alive as the soul's works are,
+ The soul whose breath was among us a heavenward song
+ Sings, loves, and shines as it shines for us here a star.
+
+
+
+
+ IN A ROSARY
+
+
+ Through the low grey archway children's feet that pass
+ Quicken, glad to find the sweetest haunt of all.
+ Brightest wildflowers gleaming deep in lustiest grass,
+ Glorious weeds that glisten through the green sea's glass,
+ Match not now this marvel, born to fade and fall.
+
+ Roses like a rainbow wrought of roses rise
+ Right and left and forward, shining toward the sun.
+ Nay, the rainbow lit of sunshine droops and dies
+ Ere we dream it hallows earth and seas and skies;
+ Ere delight may dream it lives, its life is done.
+
+ Round the border hemmed with high deep hedges round
+ Go the children, peering over or between
+ Where the dense bright oval wall of box inwound,
+ Reared about the roses fast within it bound,
+ Gives them grace to glance at glories else unseen.
+
+ Flower outlightening flower and tree outflowering tree
+ Feed and fill the sense and spirit full with joy.
+ Nought awhile they know of outer earth and sea:
+ Here enough of joy it is to breathe and be:
+ Here the sense of life is one for girl and boy.
+
+ Heaven above them, bright as children's eyes or dreams,
+ Earth about them, sweet as glad soft sleep can show
+ Earth and sky and sea, a world that scarcely seems
+ Even in children's eyes less fair than life that gleams
+ Through the sleep that none but sinless eyes may know.
+
+ Near beneath, and near above, the terraced ways
+ Wind or stretch and bask or blink against the sun.
+ Hidden here from sight on soft or stormy days
+ Lies and laughs with love toward heaven, at silent gaze,
+ All the radiant rosary--all its flowers made one.
+
+ All the multitude of roses towering round
+ Dawn and noon and night behold as one full flower,
+ Fain of heaven and loved of heaven, curbed and crowned,
+ Raised and reared to make this plot of earthly ground
+ Heavenly, could but heaven endure on earth an hour.
+
+ Swept away, made nothing now for ever, dead,
+ Still the rosary lives and shines on memory, free
+ Now from fear of death or change as childhood, fled
+ Years on years before its last live leaves were shed:
+ None may mar it now, as none may stain the sea.
+
+
+
+
+ THE HIGH OAKS
+
+ BARKING HALL, JULY 19TH, 1896
+
+
+ Fourscore years and seven
+ Light and dew from heaven
+ Have fallen with dawn on these glad woods each day
+ Since here was born, even here,
+ A birth more bright and dear
+ Than ever a younger year
+ Hath seen or shall till all these pass away,
+ Even all the imperious pride of these,
+ The woodland ways majestic now with towers of trees.
+
+ Love itself hath nought
+ Touched of tenderest thought
+ With holiest hallowing of memorial grace
+ For memory, blind with bliss,
+ To love, to clasp, to kiss,
+ So sweetly strange as this,
+ The sense that here the sun first hailed her face,
+ A babe at Her glad mother's breast,
+ And here again beholds it more beloved and blest.
+
+ Love's own heart, a living
+ Spring of strong thanksgiving,
+ Can bid no strength of welling song find way
+ When all the soul would seek
+ One word for joy to speak,
+ And even its strength makes weak
+ The too strong yearning of the soul to say
+ What may not be conceived or said
+ While darkness makes division of the quick and dead.
+
+ Haply, where the sun
+ Wanes, and death is none,
+ The word known here of silence only, held
+ Too dear for speech to wrong,
+ May leap in living song
+ Forth, and the speech be strong
+ As here the silence whence it yearned and welled
+ From hearts whose utterance love sealed fast
+ Till death perchance might give it grace to live at last.
+
+ Here we have our earth
+ Yet, with all the mirth
+ Of all the summers since the world began,
+ All strengths of rest and strife
+ And love-lit love of life
+ Where death has birth to wife,
+ And where the sun speaks, and is heard of man:
+ Yea, half the sun's bright speech is heard,
+ And like the sea the soul of man gives back his word.
+
+ Earth's enkindled heart
+ Bears benignant part
+ In the ardent heaven's auroral pride of prime:
+ If ever home on earth
+ Were found of heaven's grace worth
+ So God-beloved a birth
+ As here makes bright the fostering face of time,
+ Here, heaven bears witness, might such grace
+ Fall fragrant as the dewfall on that brightening face.
+
+ Here, for mine and me,
+ All that eyes may see
+ Hath more than all the wide world else of good,
+ All nature else of fair:
+ Here as none otherwhere
+ Heaven is the circling air,
+ Heaven is the homestead, heaven the wold, the wood:
+ The fragrance with the shadow spread
+ From broadening wings of cedars breathes of dawn's bright bed.
+
+ Once a dawn rose here
+ More divine and dear,
+ Rose on a birth-bed brighter far than dawn's,
+ Whence all the summer grew
+ Sweet as when earth was new
+ And pure as Eden's dew:
+ And yet its light lives on these lustrous lawns,
+ Clings round these wildwood ways, and cleaves
+ To the aisles of shadow and sun that wind unweaves and weaves.
+
+ Thoughts that smile and weep,
+ Dreams that hallow sleep,
+ Brood in the branching shadows of the trees,
+ Tall trees at agelong rest
+ Wherein the centuries nest,
+ Whence, blest as these are blest,
+ We part, and part not from delight in these;
+ Whose comfort, sleeping as awake,
+ We bear about within us as when first it spake.
+
+ Comfort as of song
+ Grown with time more strong,
+ Made perfect and prophetic as the sea,
+ Whose message, when it lies
+ Far off our hungering eyes,
+ Within us prophesies
+ Of life not ours, yet ours as theirs may be
+ Whose souls far off us shine and sing
+ As ere they sprang back sunward, swift as fire might spring.
+
+ All this oldworld pleasance
+ Hails a hallowing presence,
+ And thrills with sense of more than summer near,
+ And lifts toward heaven more high
+ The song-surpassing cry
+ Of rapture that July
+ Lives, for her love who makes it loveliest here;
+ For joy that she who here first drew
+ The breath of life she gave me breathes it here anew.
+
+ Never birthday born
+ Highest in height of morn
+ Whereout the star looks forth that leads the sun
+ Shone higher in love's account,
+ Still seeing the mid noon mount
+ From the eager dayspring's fount
+ Each year more lustrous, each like all in one;
+ Whose light around us and above
+ We could not see so lovely save by grace of love.
+
+
+
+
+ BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER
+
+
+ Still the sovereign trees
+ Make the sundawn's breeze
+ More bright, more sweet, more heavenly than it rose,
+ As wind and sun fulfil
+ Their living rapture: still
+ Noon, dawn, and evening thrill
+ With radiant change the immeasurable repose
+ Wherewith the woodland wilds lie blest
+ And feel how storms and centuries rock them still to rest.
+
+ Still the love-lit place
+ Given of God such grace
+ That here was born on earth a birth divine
+ Gives thanks with all its flowers
+ Through all their lustrous hours,
+ From all its birds and bowers
+ Gives thanks that here they felt her sunset shine
+ Where once her sunrise laughed, and bade
+ The life of all the living things it lit be glad.
+
+ Soft as light and strong
+ Rises yet their song
+ And thrills with pride the cedar-crested lawn
+ And every brooding dove.
+ But she, beloved above
+ All utterance known of love,
+ Abides no more the change of night and dawn,
+ Beholds no more with earth-born eye
+ These woods that watched her waking here where all things die.
+
+ Not the light that shone
+ When she looked thereon
+ Shines on them or shall shine for ever here.
+ We know not, save when sleep
+ Slays death, who fain would keep
+ His mystery dense and deep,
+ Where shines the smile we held and hold so dear.
+ Dreams only, thrilled and filled with love,
+ Bring back its light ere dawn leave nought alive above.
+
+ Nought alive awake
+ Sees the strong dawn break
+ On all the dreams that dying night bade live.
+ Yet scarce the intolerant sense
+ Of day's harsh evidence
+ How came their word and whence
+ Strikes dumb the song of thanks it bids them give,
+ The joy that answers as it heard
+ And lightens as it saw the light that spake the word.
+
+ Night and sleep and dawn
+ Pass with dreams withdrawn:
+ But higher above them far than noon may climb
+ Love lives and turns to light
+ The deadly noon of night.
+ His fiery spirit of sight
+ Endures no curb of change or darkling time.
+ Even earth and transient things of earth
+ Even here to him bear witness not of death but birth.
+
+
+
+
+ MUSIC: AN ODE
+
+
+ I
+
+ Was it light that spake from the darkness, or music that shone
+ from the word,
+ When the night was enkindled with sound of the sun or the
+ first-born bird?
+ Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage of seasons that fall
+ and rise,
+ Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, and blinded with light
+ that dies,
+ Lived not surely till music spake, and the spirit of life was
+ heard.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be,
+ Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man, and the thrall was free.
+ Slave of nature and serf of time, the bondman of life and death,
+ Dumb with passionless patience that breathed but forlorn and
+ reluctant breath,
+ Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer, and communed aloud with
+ the sea.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Morning spake, and he heard: and the passionate silent noon
+ Kept for him not silence: and soft from the mounting moon
+ Fell the sound of her splendour, heard as dawn's in the breathless
+ night,
+ Not of men but of birds whose note bade man's soul quicken and leap
+ to light:
+ And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness of earth
+ were as chords in tune.
+
+
+
+
+ THE CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE NILE
+
+ AUGUST 1898
+
+ '_Horatio Nelson_--_Honor est a Nilo_'
+
+
+ A hundred years have lightened and have waned
+ Since ancient Nile by grace of Nelson gained
+ A glory higher in story now than time
+ Saw when his kings were gods that raged and reigned.
+
+ The day that left even England more sublime
+ And higher on heights that none but she may climb
+ Abides above all shock of change-born chance
+ Where hope and memory hear the stars keep chime.
+
+ The strong and sunbright lie whose name was France
+ Arose against the sun of truth, whose glance
+ Laughed large from the eyes of England, fierce as fire
+ Whence eyes wax blind that gaze on truth askance.
+
+ A name above all names of heroes, higher
+ Than song may sound or heart of man aspire,
+ Rings as the very voice that speaks the sea
+ To-day from all the sea's enkindling lyre.
+
+ The sound that bids the soul of silence be
+ Fire, and a rapturous music, speaks, and we
+ Hear what the sea's heart utters, wide and far:
+ "This was his day, and this day's light was he."
+
+ O sea, our sea that hadst him for thy star,
+ A hundred years that fall upon thee are
+ Even as a hundred flakes of rain or snow:
+ No storm of battle signs thee with a scar.
+
+ But never more may ship that sails thee show,
+ But never may the sun that loves thee know,
+ But never may thine England give thee more,
+ A man whose life and death shall praise thee so.
+
+ The Nile, the sea, the battle, and the shore,
+ Heard as we hear one word arise and soar,
+ Beheld one name above them tower and glow--
+ Nelson: a light that time bows down before.
+
+
+
+
+ TRAFALGAR DAY
+
+
+ Sea, that art ours as we are thine, whose name
+ Is one with England's even as light with flame,
+ Dost thou as we, thy chosen of all men, know
+ This day of days when death gave life to fame?
+
+ Dost thou not kindle above and thrill below
+ With rapturous record, with memorial glow,
+ Remembering this thy festal day of fight,
+ And all the joy it gave, and all the woe?
+
+ Never since day broke flowerlike forth of night
+ Broke such a dawn of battle. Death in sight
+ Made of the man whose life was like the sun
+ A man more godlike than the lord of light.
+
+ There is none like him, and there shall be none.
+ When England bears again as great a son,
+ He can but follow fame where Nelson led.
+ There is not and there cannot be but one.
+
+ As earth has but one England, crown and head
+ Of all her glories till the sun be dead,
+ Supreme in peace and war, supreme in song,
+ Supreme in freedom, since her rede was read,
+
+ Since first the soul that gave her speech grew strong
+ To help the right and heal the wild world's wrong,
+ So she hath but one royal Nelson, born
+ To reign on time above the years that throng.
+
+ The music of his name puts fear to scorn,
+ And thrills our twilight through with sense of morn:
+ As England was, how should not England be?
+ No tempest yet has left her banner torn.
+
+ No year has yet put out the day when he
+ Who lived and died to keep our kingship free
+ Wherever seas by warring winds are worn
+ Died, and was one with England and the sea.
+
+ _October 21, 1895._
+
+
+
+
+ CROMWELL'S STATUE[1]
+
+
+ What needs our Cromwell stone or bronze to say
+ His was the light that lit on England's way
+ The sundawn of her time-compelling power,
+ The noontide of her most imperial day?
+
+ His hand won back the sea for England's dower;
+ His footfall bade the Moor change heart and cower;
+ His word on Milton's tongue spake law to France
+ When Piedmont felt the she-wolf Rome devour.
+
+ From Cromwell's eyes the light of England's glance
+ Flashed, and bowed down the kings by grace of chance,
+ The priest-anointed princes; one alone
+ By grace of England held their hosts in trance.
+
+ The enthroned Republic from her kinglier throne
+ Spake, and her speech was Cromwell's. Earth has known
+ No lordlier presence. How should Cromwell stand
+ With kinglets and with queenlings hewn in stone?
+
+ Incarnate England in his warrior hand
+ Smote, and as fire devours the blackening brand
+ Made ashes of their strengths who wrought her wrong,
+ And turned the strongholds of her foes to sand.
+
+ His praise is in the sea's and Milton's song;
+ What praise could reach him from the weakling throng
+ That rules by leave of tongues whose praise is shame--
+ Him, who made England out of weakness strong?
+
+ There needs no clarion's blast of broad-blown fame
+ To bid the world bear witness whence he came
+ Who bade fierce Europe fawn at England's heel
+ And purged the plague of lineal rule with flame.
+
+ There needs no witness graven on stone or steel
+ For one whose work bids fame bow down and kneel;
+ Our man of men, whose time-commanding name
+ Speaks England, and proclaims her Commonweal.
+
+ _June 20, 1895._
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Refused by the party of reaction and disunion in the House
+of Commons on the 17th of June, 1895.]
+
+
+
+
+ A WORD FOR THE NAVY
+
+
+ I
+
+ Queen born of the sea, that hast borne her
+ The mightiest of seamen on earth,
+ Bright England, whose glories adorn her
+ And bid her rejoice in thy birth
+ As others made mothers
+ Rejoice in births sublime,
+ She names thee, she claims thee,
+ The lordliest child of time.
+
+
+ II
+
+ All hers is the praise of thy story,
+ All thine is the love of her choice
+ The light of her waves is thy glory,
+ The sound of thy soul is her voice.
+ They fear it who hear it
+ And love not truth nor thee:
+ They sicken, heart-stricken,
+ Who see and would not see.
+
+
+ III
+
+ The lords of thy fate, and thy keepers
+ Whose charge is the strength of thy ships,
+ If now they be dreamers and sleepers,
+ Or sluggards with lies at their lips,
+ Thy haters and traitors,
+ False friends or foes descried,
+ Might scatter and shatter
+ Too soon thy princely pride.
+
+
+ IV
+
+ Dark Muscovy, reptile in rancour,
+ Base Germany, blatant in guile,
+ Lay wait for thee riding at anchor
+ On waters that whisper and smile.
+ They deem thee or dream thee
+ Less living now than dead,
+ Deep sunken and drunken
+ With sleep whence fear has fled.
+
+
+ V
+
+ And what though thy song as thine action
+ Wax faint, and thy place be not known,
+ While faction is grappling with faction,
+ Twin curs with thy corpse for a bone?
+ They care not, who spare not
+ The noise of pens or throats;
+ Who bluster and muster
+ Blind ranks and bellowing votes.
+
+
+ VI
+
+ Let populace jangle with peerage
+ And ministers shuffle their mobs;
+ Mad pilots who reck not of steerage
+ Though tempest ahead of them throbs.
+ That throbbing and sobbing
+ Of wind and gradual wave
+ They hear not and fear not
+ Who guide thee toward thy grave.
+
+
+ VII
+
+ No clamour of cries or of parties
+ Is worth but a whisper from thee,
+ While only the trust of thy heart is
+ At one with the soul of the sea.
+ In justice her trust is
+ Whose time her tidestreams keep;
+ They sink not, they shrink not,
+ Time casts them not on sleep.
+
+
+ VIII
+
+ Sleep thou: for thy past was so royal,
+ Love hardly would bid thee take heed
+ Were Russia not faithful and loyal
+ Nor Germany guiltless of greed.
+ No nation, in station
+ Of story less than thou,
+ Re-risen from prison,
+ Can stand against thee now.
+
+
+ IX
+
+ Sleep on: is the time not a season
+ For strong men to slumber and sleep,
+ And wise men to palter with treason?
+ And that they sow tares, shall they reap?
+ The wages of ages
+ Wherein men smiled and slept,
+ Fame fails them, shame veils them,
+ Their record is not kept.
+
+
+ X
+
+ Nay, whence is it then that we know it,
+ What wages were theirs, and what fame?
+ Deep voices of prophet and poet
+ Bear record against them of shame.
+ Death, starker and darker
+ Than seals the graveyard grate,
+ Entombs them and dooms them
+ To darkness deep as fate.
+
+
+ XI
+
+ But thou, though the world should misdoubt thee,
+ Be strong as the seas at thy side;
+ Bind on but thine armour about thee,
+ That girds thee with power and with pride.
+ Where Drake stood, where Blake stood,
+ Where fame sees Nelson stand,
+ Stand thou too, and now too
+ Take thou thy fate in hand.
+
+
+ XII
+
+ At the gate of the sea, in the gateway,
+ They stood as the guards of thy gate;
+ Take now but thy strengths to thee straightway,
+ Though late, we will deem it not late.
+ Thy story, thy glory,
+ The very soul of thee,
+ It rose not, it grows not,
+ It comes not save by sea.
+
+
+
+
+ NORTHUMBERLAND
+
+
+ Between our eastward and our westward sea
+ The narrowing strand
+ Clasps close the noblest shore fame holds in fee
+ Even here where English birth seals all men free--
+ Northumberland.
+
+ The sea-mists meet across it when the snow
+ Clothes moor and fell,
+ And bid their true-born hearts who love it glow
+ For joy that none less nobly born may know
+ What love knows well.
+
+ The splendour and the strength of storm and fight
+ Sustain the song
+ That filled our fathers' hearts with joy to smite,
+ To live, to love, to lay down life that right
+ Might tread down wrong.
+
+ They warred, they sang, they triumphed, and they passed,
+ And left us glad
+ Here to be born, their sons, whose hearts hold fast
+ The proud old love no change can overcast,
+ No chance leave sad.
+
+ None save our northmen ever, none but we,
+ Met, pledged, or fought
+ Such foes and friends as Scotland and the sea
+ With heart so high and equal, strong in glee
+ And stern in thought.
+
+ Thought, fed from time's memorial springs with pride,
+ Made strong as fire
+ Their hearts who hurled the foe down Flodden side,
+ And hers who rode the waves none else durst ride--
+ None save her sire.
+
+ O land beloved, where nought of legend's dream
+ Outshines the truth,
+ Where Joyous Gard, closed round with clouds that gleam
+ For them that know thee not, can scarce but seem
+ Too sweet for sooth,
+
+ Thy sons forget not, nor shall fame forget,
+ The deed there done
+ Before the walls whose fabled fame is yet
+ A light too sweet and strong to rise and set
+ With moon and sun.
+
+ Song bright as flash of swords or oars that shine
+ Through fight or foam
+ Stirs yet the blood thou hast given thy sons like wine
+ To hail in each bright ballad hailed as thine
+ One heart, one home.
+
+ Our Collingwood, though Nelson be not ours,
+ By him shall stand
+ Immortal, till those waifs of oldworld hours,
+ Forgotten, leave uncrowned with bays and flowers
+ Northumberland.
+
+
+
+
+ STRATFORD-ON-AVON
+
+ JUNE 27, 1901
+
+
+ Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered,
+ Most royal and most loyal born of men,
+ Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared
+ Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken.
+ The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth,
+ Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than Rome,
+ Forgets not how of all on English earth
+ Their trust is holiest, there who have their home.
+ Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate
+ The commonweal whose empire sets men free
+ Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate
+ A soul was born as boundless as the sea.
+ If life, if love, if memory now be thine,
+ Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign.
+
+
+
+
+ BURNS: AN ODE
+
+
+ A fire of fierce and laughing light
+ That clove the shuddering heart of night
+ Leapt earthward, and the thunder's might
+ That pants and yearns
+ Made fitful music round its flight:
+ And earth saw Burns.
+
+ The joyous lightning found its voice
+ And bade the heart of wrath rejoice
+ And scorn uplift a song to voice
+ The imperial hate
+ That smote the God of base men's choice
+ At God's own gate.
+
+ Before the shrine of dawn, wherethrough
+ The lark rang rapture as she flew,
+ It flashed and fired the darkling dew:
+ And all that heard
+ With love or loathing hailed anew
+ A new day's word.
+
+ The servants of the lord of hell,
+ As though their lord had blessed them, fell
+ Foaming at mouth for fear, so well
+ They knew the lie
+ Wherewith they sought to scan and spell
+ The unsounded sky.
+
+ And Calvin, night's prophetic bird,
+ Out of his home in hell was heard
+ Shrieking; and all the fens were stirred
+ Whence plague is bred;
+ Can God endure the scoffer's word?
+ But God was dead.
+
+ The God they made them in despite
+ Of man and woman, love and light,
+ Strong sundawn and the starry night,
+ The lie supreme,
+ Shot through with song, stood forth to sight
+ A devil's dream.
+
+ And he that bent the lyric bow
+ And laid the lord of darkness low
+ And bade the fire of laughter glow
+ Across his grave,
+ And bade the tides above it flow,
+ Wave hurtling wave,
+
+ Shall he not win from latter days
+ More than his own could yield of praise?
+ Ay, could the sovereign singer's bays
+ Forsake his brow,
+ The warrior's, won on stormier ways,
+ Still clasp it now.
+
+ He loved, and sang of love: he laughed,
+ And bade the cup whereout he quaffed
+ Shine as a planet, fore and aft,
+ And left and right,
+ And keen as shoots the sun's first shaft
+ Against the night.
+
+ But love and wine were moon and sun
+ For many a fame long since undone,
+ And sorrow and joy have lost and won
+ By stormy turns
+ As many a singer's soul, if none
+ More bright than Burns.
+
+ And sweeter far in grief or mirth
+ Have songs as glad and sad of birth
+ Found voice to speak of wealth or dearth
+ In joy of life:
+ But never song took fire from earth
+ More strong for strife.
+
+ The daisy by his ploughshare cleft,
+ The lips of women loved and left,
+ The griefs and joys that weave the weft
+ Of human time,
+ With craftsman's cunning, keen and deft,
+ He carved in rhyme.
+
+ But Chaucer's daisy shines a star
+ Above his ploughshare's reach to mar,
+ And mightier vision gave Dunbar
+ More strenuous wing
+ To hear around all sins that are
+ Hell dance and sing.
+
+ And when such pride and power of trust
+ In song's high gift to arouse from dust
+ Death, and transfigure love or lust
+ Through smiles or tears
+ In golden speech that takes no rust
+ From cankering years,
+
+ As never spake but once in one
+ Strong star-crossed child of earth and sun,
+ Villon, made music such as none
+ May praise or blame,
+ A crown of starrier flower was won
+ Than Burns may claim.
+
+ But never, since bright earth was born
+ In rapture of the enkindling morn,
+ Might godlike wrath and sunlike scorn
+ That was and is
+ And shall be while false weeds are worn
+ Find word like his.
+
+ Above the rude and radiant earth
+ That heaves and glows from firth to firth
+ In vale and mountain, bright in dearth
+ And warm in wealth,
+ Which gave his fiery glory birth
+ By chance and stealth,
+
+ Above the storms of praise and blame
+ That blur with mist his lustrous name,
+ His thunderous laughter went and came,
+ And lives and flies;
+ The roar that follows on the flame
+ When lightning dies.
+
+ Earth, and the snow-dimmed heights of air,
+ And water winding soft and fair
+ Through still sweet places, bright and bare,
+ By bent and byre,
+ Taught him what hearts within them were:
+ But his was fire.
+
+
+
+
+ THE COMMONWEAL
+
+ A SONG FOR UNIONISTS
+
+
+ Men, whose fathers braved the world in arms against our isles in
+ union,
+ Men, whose brothers met rebellion face to face,
+ Show the hearts ye have, if worthy long descent and high communion,
+ Show the spirits, if unbroken, of your race.
+
+ What are these that howl and hiss across the strait of westward
+ water?
+ What is he who floods our ears with speech in flood?
+ See the long tongue lick the dripping hand that smokes and reeks of
+ slaughter!
+ See the man of words embrace the man of blood!
+
+ Hear the plea whereby the tonguester mocks and charms the gazing
+ gaper--
+ "We are they whose works are works of love and peace;
+ Till disunion bring forth union, what is union, sirs, but paper?
+ Break and rend it, then shall trust and strength increase."
+
+ Who would fear to trust a double-faced but single-hearted dreamer,
+ Pure of purpose, clean of hand, and clear of guile?
+ "Life is well-nigh spent," he sighs; "you call me shuffler,
+ trickster, schemer?
+ I am old--when young men yell at me, I smile."
+
+ Many a year that priceless light of life has trembled, we remember,
+ On the platform of extinction--unextinct;
+ Many a month has been for him the long year's last--life's calm
+ December:
+ Can it be that he who said so, saying so, winked?
+
+ No; the lust of life, the thirst for work and days with work to do
+ in,
+ Drove and drives him down the road of splendid shame;
+ All is well, if o'er the monument recording England's ruin
+ Time shall read, inscribed in triumph, Gladstone's name.
+
+ Thieves and murderers, hands yet red with blood and tongues yet
+ black with lies,
+ Clap and clamour--"Parnell spurs his Gladstone well!"
+ Truth, unscared and undeluded by their praise or blame, replies--
+ "Is the goal of fraud and bloodshed heaven or hell?"
+
+ Old men eloquent, who truckle to the traitors of the time,
+ Love not office--power is no desire of theirs:
+ What if yesterday their hearts recoiled from blood and fraud and
+ crime?
+ Conscience erred--an error which to-day repairs.
+
+ Conscience only now convinces them of strange though transient
+ error:
+ Only now they see how fair is treason's face;
+ See how true the falsehood, just the theft, and blameless is the
+ terror,
+ Which replaces just and blameless men in place.
+
+ Place and time decide the right and wrong of thought and word and
+ action;
+ Crime is black as hell, till virtue gain its vote;
+ Then--but ah, to think or say so smacks of fraud or smells of
+ faction!--
+ Mercy holds the door while Murder hacks the throat.
+
+ Murder? Treason? Theft? Poor brothers who succumb to such
+ temptations,
+ Shall we lay on you or take on us the blame?
+ Reason answers, and religion echoes round to wondering nations,
+ "Not with Ireland, but with England rests the shame."
+
+ Reason speaks through mild religion's organ, loud and long and
+ lusty--
+ Profit speaks through lips of patriots pure and true--
+ "English friends, whose trust we ask for, has not England found us
+ trusty?
+ Not for us we seek advancement, but for you.
+
+ "Far and near the world bears witness of our wisdom, courage,
+ honour;
+ Egypt knows if there our fame burns bright or dim.
+ Let but England trust as Gordon trusted, soon shall come upon her
+ Such deliverance as our daring brought on him.
+
+ "Far and wide the world rings record of our faith, our constant
+ dealing,
+ Love of country, truth to friends, contempt for foes.
+ Sign once more the bond of trust in us that here awaits but
+ sealing,
+ We will give yet more than all our record shows.
+
+ "Perfect ruin, shame eternal, everlasting degradation,
+ Freedom bought and sold, truth bound and treason free."
+ Yet an hour is here for answer; now, if here be yet a nation,
+ Answer, England, man by man from sea to sea!
+
+ _June 30, 1886._
+
+
+
+
+ THE QUESTION
+
+ 1887
+
+
+ Shall England consummate the crime
+ That binds the murderer's hand, and leaves
+ No surety for the trust of thieves?
+ Time pleads against it--truth and time--
+ And pity frowns and grieves.
+
+ The hoary henchman of the gang
+ Lifts hands that never dew nor rain
+ May cleanse from Gordon's blood again,
+ Appealing: pity's tenderest pang
+ Thrills his pure heart with pain.
+
+ Grand helmsman of the clamorous crew,
+ The good grey recreant quakes and weeps
+ To think that crime no longer creeps
+ Safe toward its end: that murderers too
+ May die when mercy sleeps.
+
+ While all the lives were innocent
+ That slaughter drank, and laughed with rage,
+ Bland virtue sighed, "A former age
+ Taught murder: souls long discontent
+ Can aught save blood assuage?
+
+ "You blame not Russian hands that smite
+ By fierce and secret ways the power
+ That leaves not life one chainless hour;
+ Have these than they less natural right
+ To claim life's natural dower?
+
+ "The dower that freedom brings the slave
+ She weds, is vengeance: why should we,
+ Whom equal laws acclaim as free,
+ Think shame, if men too blindly brave
+ Steal, murder, skulk, and flee?
+
+ "At kings they strike in Russia: there
+ Men take their life in hand who slay
+ Kings: these, that have not heart to lay
+ Hand save on girls whose ravaged hair
+ Is made the patriot's prey,
+
+ "These, whom the sight of old men slain
+ Makes bold to bid their children die,
+ Starved, if they hold not peace, nor lie,
+ Claim loftier praise: could others deign
+ To stand in shame so high?
+
+ "Could others deign to dare such deeds
+ As holiest Ireland hallows? Nay,
+ But justice then makes plain our way:
+ Be laws burnt up like burning weeds
+ That vex the face of day.
+
+ "Shall bloodmongers be held of us
+ Blood-guilty? Hands reached out for gold
+ Whereon blood rusts not yet, we hold
+ Bloodless and blameless: ever thus
+ Have good men held of old.
+
+ "Fair Freedom, fledged and imped with lies,
+ Takes flight by night where murder lurks,
+ And broods on murderous ways and works,
+ Yet seems not hideous in our eyes
+ As Austrians or as Turks.
+
+ "Be it ours to undo a woful past,
+ To bid the bells of concord chime,
+ To break the bonds of suffering crime,
+ Slack now, that some would make more fast:
+ Such teaching comes of time."
+
+ So pleads the gentlest heart that lives,
+ Whose pity, pitiless for all
+ Whom darkling terror holds in thrall,
+ Toward none save miscreants yearns, and gives
+ Alms of warm tears--and gall.
+
+ Hear, England, and obey: for he
+ Who claims thy trust again to-day
+ Is he who left thy sons a prey
+ To shame whence only death sets free:
+ Hear, England, and obey.
+
+ Thy spoils he gave to deck the Dutch;
+ Thy noblest pride, most pure, most brave,
+ To death forlorn and sure he gave;
+ Nor now requires he overmuch
+ Who bids thee dig thy grave.
+
+ Dig deep the grave of shame, wherein
+ Thy fame, thy commonweal, must lie;
+ Put thought of aught save terror by;
+ To strike and slay the slayer is sin;
+ And Murder must not die.
+
+ Bind fast the true man; loose the thief;
+ Shamed were the land, the laws accursed,
+ Were guilt, not innocence, amerced;
+ And dark the wrong and sore the grief,
+ Were tyrants too coerced.
+
+ The fiercest cowards that ever skulked,
+ The cowardliest hounds that ever lapped
+ Blood, if their horde be tracked and trapped,
+ And justice claim their lives for mulct,
+ Gnash teeth that flashed and snapped.
+
+ Bow down for fear, then, England: bow,
+ Lest worse befall thee yet; and swear
+ That nought save pity, conscience, care
+ For truth and mercy, moves thee now
+ To call foul falsehood fair.
+
+ So shalt thou live in shame, and hear
+ The lips of all men laugh thee dead;
+ The wide world's mockery round thy head
+ Shriek like a storm-wind: and a bier
+ Shall be thine honour's bed.
+
+
+
+
+ APOSTASY
+
+ _Et Judas m'a dit: Traitre!_--VICTOR HUGO
+
+
+ I
+
+ Truths change with time, and terms with truth. To-day
+ A statesman worships union, and to-night
+ Disunion. Shame to have sinned against the light
+ Confounds not but impels his tongue to unsay
+ What yestereve he swore. Should fear make way
+ For treason? honour change her livery? fright
+ Clasp hands with interest? wrong pledge faith with right?
+ Religion, mercy, conscience, answer--Yea.
+
+ To veer is not to veer: when votes are weighed,
+ The numerous tongue approves him renegade
+ Who cannot change his banner: he that can
+ Sits crowned with wreaths of praise too pure to fade.
+ Truth smiles applause on treason's poisonous plan:
+ And Cleon is an honourable man.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Pure faith, fond hope, sweet love, with God for guide,
+ Move now the men whose blameless error cast
+ In prison (ah, but love condones the past!)
+ Their subject knaves that were--their lords that ride
+ Now laughing on their necks, and now bestride
+ Their vassal backs in triumph. Faith stands fast
+ Though fear haul down the flag that crowned her mast
+ And hope and love proclaim that truth has lied.
+
+ Turn, turn, and turn--so bids the still small voice,
+ The changeless voice of honour. He that stands
+ Where all his life he stood, with bribeless hands,
+ With tongue unhired to mourn, reprove, rejoice,
+ Curse, bless, forswear, and swear again, and lie,
+ Stands proven apostate in the apostate's eye.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Fraud shrinks from faith: at sight of swans, the raven
+ Chides blackness, and the snake recoils aghast
+ In fear of poison when a bird flies past.
+ Thersites brands Achilles as a craven;
+ The shoal fed full with shipwreck blames the haven
+ For murderous lust of lives devoured, and vast
+ Desire of doom whose feast is mercy's fast:
+ And Bacon sees the traitor's mark engraven
+ Full on the front of Essex. Grief and shame
+ Obscure the chaste and sunlike spirit of Oates
+ At thought of Russell's treason; and the name
+ Of Milton sickens with superb disgust
+ The heaving heart of Waller. Wisdom dotes,
+ If wisdom turns not tail and licks not dust.
+
+
+ IV
+
+ The sole sweet land found fit to wed the sea,
+ With reptile rebels at her heel of old,
+ Set hard her heel upon them, and controlled
+ The cowering poisonous peril. How should she
+ Cower, and resign her trust of empire? Free
+ As winds and waters live the loyal-souled
+ And true-born sons that love her: nay, the bold
+ Base knaves who curse her name have leave to be
+ The loud-tongued liars they are. For she, beyond
+ All woful years that bid men's hearts despond,
+ Sees yet the likeness of her ancient fame
+ Burn from the heavenward heights of history, hears
+ Not Leicester's name but Sidney's--faith's, not fear's--
+ Not Gladstone's now but only Gordon's name.
+
+
+
+
+ RUSSIA: AN ODE
+
+ 1890
+
+
+ I
+
+ Out of hell a word comes hissing, dark as doom,
+ Fierce as fire, and foul as plague-polluted gloom;
+ Out of hell wherein the sinless damned endure
+ More than ever sin conceived of pains impure;
+ More than ever ground men's living souls to dust;
+ Worse than madness ever dreamed of murderous lust.
+ Since the world's wail first went up from lands and seas
+ Ears have heard not, tongues have told not things like these.
+ Dante, led by love's and hate's accordant spell
+ Down the deepest and the loathliest ways of hell,
+ Where beyond the brook of blood the rain was fire,
+ Where the scalps were masked with dung more deep than mire,
+ Saw not, where the filth was foulest, and the night
+ Darkest, depths whose fiends could match the Muscovite.
+ Set beside this truth, his deadliest vision seems
+ Pale and pure and painless as a virgin's dreams.
+ Maidens dead beneath the clasping lash, and wives
+ Rent with deadlier pangs than death--for shame survives,
+ Naked, mad, starved, scourged, spurned, frozen, fallen, deflowered,
+ Souls and bodies as by fangs of beasts devoured,
+ Sounds that hell would hear not, sights no thought could shape,
+ Limbs that feel as flame the ravenous grasp of rape,
+ Filth of raging crime and shame that crime enjoys,
+ Age made one with youth in torture, girls with boys,
+ These, and worse if aught be worse than these things are,
+ Prove thee regent, Russia--praise thy mercy, Czar.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Sons of man, men born of women, may we dare
+ Say they sin who dare be slain and dare not spare?
+ They who take their lives in hand and smile on death,
+ Holding life as less than sleep's most fitful breath,
+ So their life perchance or death may serve and speed
+ Faith and hope, that die if dream become not deed?
+ Nought is death and nought is life and nought is fate
+ Save for souls that love has clothed with fire of hate.
+ These behold them, weigh them, prove them, find them nought,
+ Save by light of hope and fire of burning thought.
+ What though sun be less than storm where these aspire,
+ Dawn than lightning, song than thunder, light than fire?
+ Help is none in heaven: hope sees no gentler star:
+ Earth is hell, and hell bows down before the Czar.
+ All its monstrous, murderous, lecherous births acclaim
+ Him whose empire lives to match its fiery fame.
+ Nay, perchance at sight or sense of deeds here done,
+ Here where men may lift up eyes to greet the sun,
+ Hell recoils heart-stricken: horror worse than hell
+ Darkens earth and sickens heaven; life knows the spell,
+ Shudders, quails, and sinks--or, filled with fierier breath,
+ Rises red in arms devised of darkling death.
+ Pity mad with passion, anguish mad with shame,
+ Call aloud on justice by her darker name;
+ Love grows hate for love's sake; life takes death for guide.
+ Night hath none but one red star--Tyrannicide.
+
+
+ III
+
+ "God or man, be swift; hope sickens with delay:
+ Smite, and send him howling down his father's way!
+ Fall, O fire of heaven, and smite as fire from hell
+ Halls wherein men's torturers, crowned and cowering, dwell!
+ These that crouch and shrink and shudder, girt with power--
+ These that reign, and dare not trust one trembling hour--
+ These omnipotent, whom terror curbs and drives--
+ These whose life reflects in fear their victims' lives--
+ These whose breath sheds poison worse than plague's thick breath--
+ These whose reign is ruin, these whose word is death,
+ These whose will turns heaven to hell, and day to night,
+ These, if God's hand smite not, how shall man's not smite?"
+ So from hearts by horror withered as by fire
+ Surge the strains of unappeasable desire;
+ Sounds that bid the darkness lighten, lit for death;
+ Bid the lips whose breath was doom yield up their breath;
+ Down the way of Czars, awhile in vain deferred,
+ Bid the Second Alexander light the Third.
+ How for shame shall men rebuke them? how may we
+ Blame, whose fathers died, and slew, to leave us free?
+ We, though all the world cry out upon them, know,
+ Were our strife as theirs, we could not strike but so;
+ Could not cower, and could not kiss the hands that smite;
+ Could not meet them armed in sunlit battle's light.
+ Dark as fear and red as hate though morning rise,
+ Life it is that conquers; death it is that dies.
+
+
+
+
+ FOR GREECE AND CRETE
+
+
+ Storm and shame and fraud and darkness fill the nations full with
+ night:
+ Hope and fear whose eyes yearn eastward have but fire and sword in
+ sight:
+ One alone, whose name is one with glory, sees and seeks the light.
+
+ Hellas, mother of the spirit, sole supreme in war and peace,
+ Land of light, whose word remembered bids all fear and sorrow
+ cease,
+ Lives again, while freedom lightens eastward yet for sons of
+ Greece.
+
+ Greece, where only men whose manhood was as godhead ever trod,
+ Bears the blind world witness yet of light wherewith her feet are
+ shod:
+ Freedom, armed of Greece was always very man and very God.
+
+ Now the winds of old that filled her sails with triumph, when the
+ fleet
+ Bound for death from Asia fled before them stricken, wake to greet
+ Ships full-winged again for freedom toward the sacred shores of
+ Crete.
+
+ There was God born man, the song that spake of old time said: and
+ there
+ Man, made even as God by trust that shows him nought too dire to
+ dare,
+ Now may light again the beacon lit when those we worship were.
+
+ Sharp the concert wrought of discord shrills the tune of shame and
+ death,
+ Turk by Christian fenced and fostered, Mecca backed by Nazareth:
+ All the powerless powers, tongue-valiant, breathe but greed's or
+ terror's breath.
+
+ Though the tide that feels the west wind lift it wave by widening
+ wave
+ Wax not yet to height and fullness of the storm that smites to
+ save,
+ None shall bid the flood back seaward till no bar be left to brave.
+
+
+
+
+ DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO
+
+ (B.C. 280)
+
+ DONE INTO ENGLISH
+
+
+ I
+
+ Thee, the son of God most high,
+ Famed for harping song, will I
+ Proclaim, and the deathless oracular word
+ From the snow-topped rock that we gaze on heard,
+ Counsels of thy glorious giving
+ Manifest for all men living,
+ How thou madest the tripod of prophecy thine
+ Which the wrath of the dragon kept guard on, a shrine
+ Voiceless till thy shafts could smite
+ All his live coiled glittering might.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Ye that hold of right alone
+ All deep woods on Helicon,
+ Fair daughters of thunder-girt God, with your bright
+ White arms uplift as to lighten the light,
+ Come to chant your brother's praise,
+ Gold-haired Phoebus, loud in lays,
+ Even his, who afar up the twin-topped seat
+ Of the rock Parnassian whereon we meet
+ Risen with glorious Delphic maids
+ Seeks the soft spring-sweetened shades
+ Castalian, fain of the Delphian peak
+ Prophetic, sublime as the feet that seek.
+ Glorious Athens, highest of state,
+ Come, with praise and prayer elate,
+ O thou that art queen of the plain unscarred
+ That the warrior Tritonid hath alway in guard,
+ Where on many a sacred shrine
+ Young bulls' thigh-bones burn and shine
+ As the god that is fire overtakes them, and fast
+ The smoke of Arabia to heavenward is cast,
+ Scattering wide its balm: and shrill
+ Now with nimble notes that thrill
+ The flute strikes up for the song, and the harp of gold
+ Strikes up to the song sweet answer: and all behold,
+ All, aswarm as bees, give ear,
+ Who by birth hold Athens dear.
+
+
+
+
+ A NEW CENTURY
+
+
+ An age too great for thought of ours to scan,
+ A wave upon the sleepless sea of time
+ That sinks and sleeps for ever, ere the chime
+ Pass that salutes with blessing, not with ban,
+ The dark year dead, the bright year born for man,
+ Dies: all its days that watched man cower and climb,
+ Frail as the foam, and as the sun sublime,
+ Sleep sound as they that slept ere these began.
+
+ Our mother earth, whose ages none may tell,
+ Puts on no change: time bids not her wax pale
+ Or kindle, quenched or quickened, when the knell
+ Sounds, and we cry across the veering gale
+ Farewell--and midnight answers us, Farewell;
+ Hail--and the heaven of morning answers, Hail.
+
+
+
+
+ AN EVENING AT VICHY
+
+ SEPTEMBER 1896
+
+ WRITTEN ON THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF LORD LEIGHTON
+
+
+ A light has passed that never shall pass away,
+ A sun has set whose rays are unquelled of night.
+ The loyal grace, the courtesy bright as day,
+ The strong sweet radiant spirit of life and light
+ That shone and smiled and lightened on all men's sight,
+ The kindly life whose tune was the tune of May,
+ For us now dark, for love and for fame is bright.
+
+ Nay, not for us that live as the fen-fires live,
+ As stars that shoot and shudder with life and die,
+ Can death make dark that lustre of life, or give
+ The grievous gift of trust in oblivion's lie.
+ Days dear and far death touches, and draws them nigh,
+ And bids the grief that broods on their graves forgive
+ The day that seems to mock them as clouds that fly.
+
+ If life be life more faithful than shines on sleep
+ When dreams take wing and lighten and fade like flame,
+ Then haply death may be not a death so deep
+ That all things past are past for it wholly--fame,
+ Love, loving-kindness, seasons that went and came,
+ And left their light on life as a seal to keep
+ Winged memory fast and heedful of time's dead claim.
+
+ Death gives back life and light to the sunless years
+ Whose suns long sunken set not for ever. Time,
+ Blind, fierce, and deaf as tempest, relents, and hears
+ And sees how bright the days and how sweet their chime
+ Rang, shone, and passed in music that matched the clime
+ Wherein we met rejoicing--a joy that cheers
+ Sorrow, to see the night as the dawn sublime.
+
+ The days that were outlighten the days that are,
+ And eyes now darkened shine as the stars we see
+ And hear not sing, impassionate star to star,
+ As once we heard the music that haply he
+ Hears, high in heaven if ever a voice may be
+ The same in heaven, the same as on earth, afar
+ From pain and earth as heaven from the heaving sea.
+
+ A woman's voice, divine as a bird's by dawn
+ Kindled and stirred to sunward, arose and held
+ Our souls that heard, from earth as from sleep withdrawn,
+ And filled with light as stars, and as stars compelled
+ To move by might of music, elate while quelled,
+ Subdued by rapture, lit as a mountain lawn
+ By morning whence all heaven in the sunrise welled.
+
+ And her the shadow of death as a robe clasped round
+ Then: and as morning's music she passed away.
+ And he then with us, warrior and wanderer, crowned
+ With fame that shone from eastern on western day,
+ More strong, more kind, than praise or than grief might say,
+ Has passed now forth of shadow by sunlight bound,
+ Of night shot through with light that is frail as May.
+
+ May dies, and light grows darkness, and life grows death:
+ Hope fades and shrinks and falls as a changing leaf:
+ Remembrance, touched and kindled by love's live breath,
+ Shines, and subdues the shadow of time called grief,
+ The shade whose length of life is as life's date brief,
+ With joy that broods on the sunlight past, and saith
+ That thought and love hold sorrow and change in fief.
+
+ Sweet, glad, bright spirit, kind as the sun seems kind
+ When earth and sea rejoice in his gentler spell,
+ Thy face that was we see not; bereft and blind,
+ We see but yet, rejoicing to see, and dwell
+ Awhile in days that heard not the death-day's knell,
+ A light so bright that scarcely may sorrow find
+ One old sweet word that hails thee and mourns--Farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ TO GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS
+
+ ON THE EIGHTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH, FEBRUARY 23, 1897
+
+
+ High thought and hallowed love, by faith made one,
+ Begat and bare the sweet strong-hearted child,
+ Art, nursed of Nature; earth and sea and sun
+ Saw Nature then more godlike as she smiled.
+ Life smiled on death, and death on life: the Soul
+ Between them shone, and soared above their strife,
+ And left on Time's unclosed and starry scroll
+ A sign that quickened death to deathless life.
+ Peace rose like Hope, a patient queen, and bade
+ Hell's firstborn, Faith, abjure her creed and die;
+ And Love, by life and death made sad and glad,
+ Gave Conscience ease, and watched Good Will pass by.
+ All these make music now of one man's name,
+ Whose life and age are one with love and fame.
+
+
+
+
+ ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON
+
+
+ Kind, wise, and true as truth's own heart,
+ A soul that here
+ Chose and held fast the better part
+ And cast out fear,
+
+ Has left us ere we dreamed of death
+ For life so strong,
+ Clear as the sundawn's light and breath,
+ And sweet as song.
+
+ We see no more what here awhile
+ Shed light on men:
+ Has Landor seen that brave bright smile
+ Alive again?
+
+ If death and life and love be one
+ And hope no lie
+ And night no stronger than the sun,
+ These cannot die.
+
+ The father-spirit whence her soul
+ Took strength, and gave
+ Back love, is perfect yet and whole,
+ As hope might crave.
+
+ His word is living light and fire:
+ And hers shall live
+ By grace of all good gifts the sire
+ Gave power to give.
+
+ The sire and daughter, twain and one
+ In quest and goal,
+ Stand face to face beyond the sun,
+ And soul to soul.
+
+ Not we, who loved them well, may dream
+ What joy sublime
+ Is theirs, if dawn through darkness gleam,
+ And life through time.
+
+ Time seems but here the mask of death,
+ That falls and shows
+ A void where hope may draw not breath:
+ Night only knows.
+
+ Love knows not: all that love may keep
+ Glad memory gives:
+ The spirit of the days that sleep
+ Still wakes and lives.
+
+ But not the spirit's self, though song
+ Would lend it speech,
+ May touch the goal that hope might long
+ In vain to reach.
+
+ How dear that high true heart, how sweet
+ Those keen kind eyes,
+ Love knows, who knows how fiery fleet
+ Is life that flies.
+
+ If life there be that flies not, fair
+ The life must be
+ That thrills her sovereign spirit there
+ And sets it free.
+
+
+
+
+ IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI
+
+
+ Beloved above all nations, land adored,
+ Sovereign in spirit and charm, by song and sword,
+ Sovereign whose life is love, whose name is light,
+ Italia, queen that hast the sun for lord,
+
+ Bride that hast heaven for bridegroom, how should night
+ Veil or withhold from faith's and memory's sight
+ A man beloved and crowned of thee and fame,
+ Hide for an hour his name's memorial might?
+
+ Thy sons may never speak or hear the name
+ Saffi, and feel not love's regenerate flame
+ Thrill all the quickening heart with faith and pride
+ In one whose life makes death and life the same.
+
+ They die indeed whose souls before them died:
+ Not he, for whom death flung life's portal wide,
+ Who stands where Dante's soul in vision came,
+ In Dante's presence, by Mazzini's side.
+
+ _March 26, 1896._
+
+
+
+
+ CARNOT
+
+
+ Death, winged with fire of hate from deathless hell
+ Wherein the souls of anarchs hiss and die,
+ With stroke as dire has cloven a heart as high
+ As twice beyond the wide sea's westward swell
+ The living lust of death had power to quell
+ Through ministry of murderous hands whereby
+ Dark fate bade Lincoln's head and Garfield's lie
+ Low even as his who bids his France farewell.
+
+ France, now no heart that would not weep with thee
+ Loved ever faith or freedom. From thy hand
+ The staff of state is broken: hope, unmanned
+ With anguish, doubts if freedom's self be free.
+ The snake-souled anarch's fang strikes all the land
+ Cold, and all hearts unsundered by the sea.
+
+ _June 25, 1894._
+
+
+
+
+ AFTER THE VERDICT
+
+
+ France, cloven in twain by fire of hell and hate,
+ Shamed with the shame of men her meanest born,
+ Soldier and judge whose names, inscribed for scorn,
+ Stand vilest on the record writ of fate,
+ Lies yet not wholly vile who stood so great,
+ Sees yet not all her praise of old outworn.
+ Not yet is all her scroll of glory torn,
+ Or left for utter shame to desecrate.
+ High souls and constant hearts of faithful men
+ Sustain her perfect praise with tongue and pen
+ Indomitable as honour. Storms may toss
+ And soil her standard ere her bark win home:
+ But shame falls full upon the Christless cross
+ Whose brandmark signs the holy hounds of Rome.
+
+ _September 1899._
+
+
+
+
+ THE TRANSVAAL
+
+
+ Patience, long sick to death, is dead. Too long
+ Have sloth and doubt and treason bidden us be
+ What Cromwell's England was not, when the sea
+ To him bore witness given of Blake how strong
+ She stood, a commonweal that brooked no wrong
+ From foes less vile than men like wolves set free
+ Whose war is waged where none may fight or flee--
+ With women and with weanlings. Speech and song
+ Lack utterance now for loathing. Scarce we hear
+ Foul tongues that blacken God's dishonoured name
+ With prayers turned curses and with praise found shame
+ Defy the truth whose witness now draws near
+ To scourge these dogs, agape with jaws afoam,
+ Down out of life. Strike, England, and strike home.
+
+ _October 9, 1899._
+
+
+
+
+ REVERSE
+
+
+ The wave that breaks against a forward stroke
+ Beats not the swimmer back, but thrills him through
+ With joyous trust to win his way anew
+ Through stronger seas than first upon him broke
+ And triumphed. England's iron-tempered oak
+ Shrank not when Europe's might against her grew
+ Full, and her sun drank up her foes like dew,
+ And lion-like from sleep her strength awoke.
+
+ As bold in fight as bold in breach of trust
+ We find our foes, and wonder not to find,
+ Nor grudge them praise whom honour may not bind;
+ But loathing more intense than speaks disgust
+ Heaves England's heart, when scorn is bound to greet
+ Hunters and hounds whose tongues would lick their feet.
+
+ _November 1, 1899._
+
+
+
+
+ THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
+
+
+ Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate,
+ Smote England, now nineteen dark years ago,
+ As when the tide's full wrath in seaward flow
+ Smites and bears back the swimmer. Fraud and fate
+ Were leagued against her: fear was fain to prate
+ Of honour in dishonour, pride brought low,
+ And humbleness whence holiness must grow,
+ And greatness born of shame to be so great.
+
+ The winter day that withered hope and pride
+ Shines now triumphal on the turning tide
+ That sets once more our trust in freedom free,
+ That leaves a ruthless and a truthless foe
+ And all base hopes that hailed his cause laid low,
+ And England's name a light on land and sea.
+
+ _February 27, 1900._
+
+
+
+
+ ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL BENSON
+
+
+ Northumberland, so proud and sad to-day,
+ Weep and rejoice, our mother, whom no son
+ More glorious than this dead and deathless one
+ Brought ever fame whereon no time shall prey.
+ Nor heed we more than he what liars dare say
+ Of mercy's holiest duties left undone
+ Toward whelps and dams of murderous foes, whom none
+ Save we had spared or feared to starve and slay.
+
+ Alone as Milton and as Wordsworth found
+ And hailed their England, when from all around
+ Howled all the recreant hate of envious knaves,
+ Sublime she stands: while, stifled in the sound,
+ Each lie that falls from German boors and slaves
+ Falls but as filth dropt in the wandering waves.
+
+ _November 4, 1901._
+
+
+
+
+ ASTRAEA VICTRIX
+
+
+ England, elect of time,
+ By freedom sealed sublime,
+ And constant as the sun that saw thy dawn
+ Outshine upon the sea
+ His own in heaven, to be
+ A light that night nor day should see withdrawn,
+ If song may speak not now thy praise,
+ Fame writes it higher than song may soar or faith may gaze.
+
+ Dark months of months beheld
+ Hope thwarted, crossed, and quelled,
+ And heard the heartless hounds of hatred bay
+ Aloud against thee, glad
+ As now their souls are sad
+ Who see their hope in hatred pass away
+ And wither into shame and fear
+ And shudder down to darkness, loth to see or hear.
+
+ Nought now they hear or see
+ That speaks or shows not thee
+ Triumphant; not as empires reared of yore,
+ The imperial commonweal
+ That bears thy sovereign seal
+ And signs thine orient as thy natural shore
+ Free, as no sons but thine may stand,
+ Steers lifeward ever, guided of thy pilot hand.
+
+ Fear, masked and veiled by fraud,
+ Found shameful time to applaud
+ Shame, and bow down thy banner towards the dust,
+ And call on godly shame
+ To desecrate thy name
+ And bid false penitence abjure thy trust:
+ Till England's heart took thought at last,
+ And felt her future kindle from her fiery past.
+
+ Then sprang the sunbright fire
+ High as the sun, and higher
+ Than strange men's eyes might watch it undismayed:
+ But winds athwart it blew
+ Storm, and the twilight grew
+ Darkness awhile, an unenduring shade:
+ And all base birds and beasts of night
+ Saw no more England now to fear, no loathsome light.
+
+ All knaves and slaves at heart
+ Who, knowing thee what thou art,
+ Abhor thee, seeing what none save here may see,
+ Strong freedom, taintless truth,
+ Supreme in ageless youth,
+ Howled all their hate and hope aloud at thee
+ While yet the wavering wind of strife
+ Bore hard against her sail whose freight is hope and life.
+
+ And now the quickening tide
+ That brings back power and pride
+ To faith and love whose ensign is thy name
+ Bears down the recreant lie
+ That doomed thy name to die,
+ Sons, friends, and foes behold thy star the same
+ As when it stood in heaven a sun
+ And Europe saw no glory left her sky save one.
+
+ And now, as then she saw,
+ She sees with shamefast awe
+ How all unlike all slaves and tyrants born
+ Where bondmen champ the bit
+ And anarchs foam and flit,
+ And day mocks day, and year puts year to scorn,
+ Our mother bore us, English men,
+ Ashamed of shame and strong in mercy, now as then.
+
+ We loosed not on these knaves
+ Their scourge-tormented slaves:
+ We held the hand that fain had risen to smite
+ The torturer fast, and made
+ Justice awhile afraid,
+ And righteousness forego her ruthless right:
+ We warred not even with these as they;
+ We bade not them they preyed on make of them their prey.
+
+ All murderous fraud that lurks
+ In hearts where hell's craft works
+ Fought, crawled, and slew in darkness: they that died
+ Dreamed not of foes too base
+ For scorn to grant them grace:
+ Men wounded, women, children at their side,
+ Had found what faith in fiends may live:
+ And yet we gave not back what righteous doom would give.
+
+ No false white flag that fawns
+ On faith till murder dawns
+ Blood-red from hell-black treason's heart of hate
+ Left ever shame's foul brand
+ Seared on an English hand:
+ And yet our pride vouchsafes them grace too great
+ For other pride to dream of: scorn
+ Strikes retribution silent as the stars at morn.
+
+ And now the living breath
+ Whose life puts death to death,
+ Freedom, whose name is England, stirs and thrills
+ The burning darkness through
+ Whence fraud and slavery grew,
+ We scarce may mourn our dead whose fame fulfils
+ The record where her foes have read
+ That earth shall see none like her born ere earth be dead.
+
+
+
+
+ THE FIRST OF JUNE
+
+
+ Peace and war are one in proof of England's deathless praise.
+ One divine day saw her foemen scattered on the sea
+ Far and fast as storm could speed: the same strong day of days
+ Sees the imperial commonweal set friends and foemen free.
+ Save where freedom reigns, whose name is England, fraud and fear
+ Grind and blind the face of men who look on her and lie:
+ Now may truth and pride in truth, whose seat of old was here,
+ See them shamed and stricken blind and dumb as worms that die.
+ Even before our hallowed hawthorn-blossom pass and cease,
+ Even as England shines and smiles at last upon the sun,
+ Comes the word that means for England more than passing peace,
+ Peace with honour, peace with pride in righteous work well done.
+ Crowned with flowers the first of all the world and all the year,
+ Peace, whose name is one with honour born of war, is here.
+
+
+
+
+ ROUNDEL
+
+ FROM THE FRENCH OF VILLON
+
+
+ Death, I would plead against thy wrong,
+ Who hast reft me of my love, my wife,
+ And art not satiate yet with strife,
+ But needs wilt hold me lingering long.
+ No strength since then has kept me strong:
+ But what could hurt thee in her life,
+ Death?
+
+ Twain we were, and our hearts one song,
+ One heart: if that be dead, thy knife
+ Hath cut me off alive from life,
+ Dead as the carver's figured throng,
+ Death!
+
+
+
+
+ A ROUNDEL OF RABELAIS
+
+
+ Theleme is afar on the waters, adrift and afar,
+ Afar and afloat on the waters that flicker and gleam,
+ And we feel but her fragrance and see but the shadows that mar
+ Theleme.
+
+ In the sun-coloured mists of the sunrise and sunset that steam
+ As incense from urns of the twilight, her portals ajar
+ Let pass as a shadow the light of the sound of a dream.
+
+ But the laughter that rings from her cloisters that know not a bar
+ So kindles delight in desire that the souls in us deem
+ He erred not, the seer who discerned on the seas as a star
+ Theleme.
+
+
+
+
+ LUCIFER
+
+ _Ecrasez l'infame._--VOLTAIRE
+
+ _Les pretres ont raison de l'appeler Lucifer._--VICTOR HUGO
+
+
+ Voltaire, our England's lover, man divine
+ Beyond all Gods that ever fear adored
+ By right and might, by sceptre and by sword,
+ By godlike love of sunlike truth, made thine
+ Through godlike hate of falsehood's marshlight shine
+ And all the fume of creeds and deeds abhorred
+ Whose light was darkness, till the dawn-star soared,
+ Truth, reason, mercy, justice, keep thy shrine
+ Sacred in memory's temple, seeing that none
+ Of all souls born to strive before the sun
+ Loved ever good or hated evil more.
+ The snake that felt thy heel upon her head,
+ Night's first-born, writhes as though she were not dead,
+ But strikes not, stings not, slays not as before.
+
+
+
+
+ THE CENTENARY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS
+
+
+ Sound of trumpets blowing down the merriest winds of morn,
+ Flash of hurtless lightnings, laugh of thunders loud and glad,
+ Here should hail the summer day whereon a light was born
+ Whence the sun grew brighter, seeing the world less dark and sad.
+ Man of men by right divine of boyhood everlasting,
+ France incarnate, France immortal in her deathless boy,
+ Brighter birthday never shone than thine on earth, forecasting
+ More of strenuous mirth in manhood, more of manful joy.
+ Child of warriors, friend of warriors, Garibaldi's friend,
+ Even thy name is as the splendour of a sunbright sword:
+ While the boy's heart beats in man, thy fame shall find not end:
+ Time and dark oblivion bow before thee as their lord.
+ Youth acclaims thee gladdest of the gods that gild his days:
+ Age gives thanks for thee, and death lacks heart to quench thy
+ praise.
+
+
+
+
+ AT A DOG'S GRAVE
+
+
+ I
+
+ Good night, we say, when comes the time to win
+ The daily death divine that shuts up sight,
+ Sleep, that assures for all who dwell therein
+ Good night.
+
+ The shadow shed round those we love shines bright
+ As love's own face, when death, sleep's gentler twin,
+ From them divides us even as night from light.
+
+ Shall friends born lower in life, though pure of sin,
+ Though clothed with love and faith to usward plight,
+ Perish and pass unbidden of us, their kin,
+ Good night?
+
+
+ II
+
+ To die a dog's death once was held for shame.
+ Not all men so beloved and mourned shall lie
+ As many of these, whose time untimely came
+ To die.
+
+ His years were full: his years were joyous: why
+ Must love be sorrow, when his gracious name
+ Recalls his lovely life of limb and eye?
+
+ If aught of blameless life on earth may claim
+ Life higher than death, though death's dark wave rise high,
+ Such life as this among us never came
+ To die.
+
+
+ III
+
+ White violets, there by hands more sweet than they
+ Planted, shall sweeten April's flowerful air
+ About a grave that shows to night and day
+ White violets there.
+
+ A child's light hands, whose touch makes flowers more fair,
+ Keep fair as these for many a March and May
+ The light of days that are because they were.
+
+ It shall not like a blossom pass away;
+ It broods and brightens with the days that bear
+ Fresh fruits of love, but leave, as love might pray,
+ White violets there.
+
+
+
+
+ THREE WEEKS OLD
+
+
+ Three weeks since there was no such rose in being;
+ Now may eyes made dim with deep delight
+ See how fair it is, laugh with love, and seeing
+ Praise the chance that bids us bless the sight.
+
+ Three weeks old, and a very rose of roses,
+ Bright and sweet as love is sweet and bright.
+ Heaven and earth, till a man's life wanes and closes,
+ Show not life or love a lovelier sight.
+
+ Three weeks past have renewed the rosebright creature
+ Day by day with life, and night by night.
+ Love, though fain of its every faultless feature,
+ Finds not words to match the silent sight.
+
+
+
+
+ A CLASP OF HANDS
+
+
+ I
+
+ Soft, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers
+ That bask in heavenly heat
+ When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers,
+ Soft, small, and sweet.
+
+ A babe's hands open as to greet
+ The tender touch of ours
+ And mock with motion faint and fleet
+
+ The minutes of the new strange hours
+ That earth, not heaven, must mete;
+ Buds fragrant still from heaven's own bowers,
+ Soft, small, and sweet.
+
+
+ II
+
+ A velvet vice with springs of steel
+ That fasten in a trice
+ And clench the fingers fast that feel
+ A velvet vice--
+
+ What man would risk the danger twice,
+ Nor quake from head to heel?
+ Whom would not one such test suffice?
+
+ Well may we tremble as we kneel
+ In sight of Paradise,
+ If both a babe's closed fists conceal
+ A velvet vice.
+
+
+ III
+
+ Two flower-soft fists of conquering clutch,
+ Two creased and dimpled wrists,
+ That match, if mottled overmuch,
+ Two flower-soft fists--
+
+ What heart of man dare hold the lists
+ Against such odds and such
+ Sweet vantage as no strength resists?
+
+ Our strength is all a broken crutch,
+ Our eyes are dim with mists,
+ Our hearts are prisoners as we touch
+ Two flower-soft fists.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS
+
+
+ Light, as when dawn takes wing and smites the sea,
+ Smote England when his day bade Marlowe be.
+ No fire so keen had thrilled the clouds of time
+ Since Dante's breath made Italy sublime.
+ Earth, bright with flowers whose dew shone soft as tears,
+ Through Chaucer cast her charm on eyes and ears:
+ The lustrous laughter of the love-lit earth
+ Rang, leapt, and lightened in his might of mirth.
+ Deep moonlight, hallowing all the breathless air,
+ Made earth and heaven for Spenser faint and fair.
+ But song might bid not heaven and earth be one
+ Till Marlowe's voice gave warning of the sun.
+ Thought quailed and fluttered as a wounded bird
+ Till passion fledged the wing of Marlowe's word.
+ Faith born of fear bade hope and doubt be dumb
+ Till Marlowe's pride bade light or darkness come.
+ Then first our speech was thunder: then our song
+ Shot lightning through the clouds that wrought us wrong.
+ Blind fear, whose faith feeds hell with fire, became
+ A moth self-shrivelled in its own blind flame.
+ We heard, in tune with even our seas that roll,
+ The speech of storm, the thunders of the soul.
+ Men's passions, clothed with all the woes they wrought,
+ Shone through the fire of man's transfiguring thought.
+ The thirst of knowledge, quenchless at her springs,
+ Ambition, fire that clasps the thrones of kings,
+ Love, light that makes of life one lustrous hour,
+ And song, the soul's chief crown and throne of power,
+ The hungering heart of greed and ravenous hate,
+ Made music high as heaven and deep as fate.
+ Strange pity, scarce half scornful of her tear,
+ In Berkeley's vaults bowed down on Edward's bier.
+ But higher in forceful flight of song than all
+ The soul of man, its own imperious thrall,
+ Rose, when his royal spirit of fierce desire
+ Made life and death for man one flame of fire.
+ Incarnate man, fast bound as earth and sea,
+ Spake, when his pride would fain set Faustus free.
+ Eternal beauty, strong as day and night,
+ Shone, when his word bade Helen back to sight.
+ Fear, when he bowed the soul before her spell,
+ Thundered and lightened through the vaults of hell.
+ The music known of all men's tongues that sing,
+ When Marlowe sang, bade love make heaven of spring;
+ The music none but English tongues may make,
+ Our own sole song, spake first when Marlowe spake;
+ And on his grave, though there no stone may stand,
+ The flower it shows was laid by Shakespeare's hand.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM
+
+
+ Love dark as death and fierce as fire on wing
+ Sustains in sin the soul that feels it cling
+ Like flame whose tongues are serpents: hope and fear
+ Die when a love more dire than hate draws near,
+ And stings to death the heart it cleaves in twain,
+ And leaves in ashes all but fear and pain.
+ Our lustrous England rose to life and light
+ From Rome's and hell's immitigable night,
+ And music laughed and quickened from her breath,
+ When first her sons acclaimed Elizabeth.
+ Her soul became a lyre that all men heard
+ Who felt their souls give back her lyric word.
+ Yet now not all at once her perfect power
+ Spake: man's deep heart abode awhile its hour,
+ Abode its hour of utterance; not to wake
+ Till Marlowe's thought in thunderous music spake.
+ But yet not yet was passion's tragic breath
+ Thrilled through with sense of instant life and death,
+ Life actual even as theirs who watched the strife,
+ Death dark and keen and terrible as life.
+ Here first was truth in song made perfect: here
+ Woke first the war of love and hate and fear.
+ A man too vile for thought's or shame's control
+ Holds empire on a woman's loftier soul,
+ And withers it to wickedness: in vain
+ Shame quickens thought with penitential pain:
+ In vain dark chance's fitful providence
+ Withholds the crime, and chills the spirit of sense:
+ It wakes again in fire that burns away
+ Repentance, weak as night devoured of day.
+ Remorse, and ravenous thirst of sin and crime,
+ Rend and consume the soul in strife sublime,
+ And passion cries on pity till it hear
+ And tremble as with love that casts out fear.
+ Dark as the deed and doom he gave to fame
+ For ever lies the sovereign singer's name.
+ Sovereign and regent on the soul he lives
+ While thought gives thanks for aught remembrance gives,
+ And mystery sees the imperial shadow stand
+ By Marlowe's side alone at Shakespeare's hand.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO OLD FORTUNATUS
+
+
+ The golden bells of fairyland, that ring
+ Perpetual chime for childhood's flower-sweet spring,
+ Sang soft memorial music in his ear
+ Whose answering music shines about us here.
+ Soft laughter as of light that stirs the sea
+ With darkling sense of dawn ere dawn may be,
+ Kind sorrow, pity touched with gentler scorn,
+ Keen wit whose shafts were sunshafts of the morn,
+ Love winged with fancy, fancy thrilled with love,
+ An eagle's aim and ardour in a dove,
+ A man's delight and passion in a child,
+ Inform it as when first they wept and smiled.
+ Life, soiled and rent and ringed about with pain
+ Whose touch lent action less of spur than chain,
+ Left half the happiness his birth designed,
+ And half the power, unquenched in heart and mind.
+ Comrade and comforter, sublime in shame,
+ A poor man bound in prison whence he came
+ Poor, and took up the burden of his life
+ Smiling, and strong to strive with sorrow and strife,
+ He spake in England's ear the poor man's word,
+ Manful and mournful, deathless and unheard.
+ His kind great heart was fire, and love's own fire,
+ Compassion, strong as flesh may feel desire,
+ To enkindle pity and mercy toward a soul
+ Sunk down in shame too deep for shame's control.
+ His kind keen eye was light to lighten hope
+ Where no man else might see life's darkness ope
+ And pity's touch bring forth from evil good,
+ Sweet as forgiveness, strong as fatherhood.
+ Names higher than his outshine it and outsoar,
+ But none save one should memory cherish more:
+ Praise and thanksgiving crown the names above,
+ But him we give the gift he gave us, love.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE DUCHESS OF MALFY
+
+
+ When Shakespeare soared from life to death, above
+ All praise, all adoration, save of love,
+ As here on earth above all men he stood
+ That were or are or shall be--great, and good,
+ Past thank or thought of England or of man--
+ Light from the sunset quickened as it ran.
+ His word, who sang as never man may sing
+ And spake as never voice of man may ring,
+ Not fruitless fell, as seed on sterile ways,
+ But brought forth increase even to Shakespeare's praise.
+ Our skies were thrilled and filled, from sea to sea,
+ With stars outshining all their suns to be.
+ No later light of tragic song they knew
+ Like his whose lightning clove the sunset through.
+ Half Shakespeare's glory, when his hand sublime
+ Bade all the change of tragic life and time
+ Live, and outlive all date of quick and dead,
+ Fell, rested, and shall rest on Webster's head.
+ Round him the shadows cast on earth by light
+ Rose, changed, and shone, transfiguring death and night.
+ Where evil only crawled and hissed and slew
+ On ways where nought save shame and bloodshed grew,
+ He bade the loyal light of honour live,
+ And love, when stricken through the heart, forgive.
+ Deep down the midnight of the soul of sin
+ He lit the star of mercy throned therein.
+ High up the darkness of sublime despair
+ He set the sun of love to triumph there.
+ Things foul or frail his touch made strong and pure,
+ And bade things transient like to stars endure.
+ Terror, on wings whose flight made night in heaven,
+ Pity, with hands whence life took love for leaven,
+ Breathed round him music whence his mortal breath
+ Drew life that bade forgetfulness and death
+ Die: life that bids his light of fiery fame
+ Endure with England's, yea, with Shakespeare's name.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY
+
+
+ Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire
+ Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire,
+ Make bright and loud the terror of the night
+ Wherein the soul sees only wrath for light.
+ Wrath winged by love and sheathed by grief in steel
+ Sets on the front of crime death's withering seal.
+ The heaving horror of the storms of sin
+ Brings forth in fear the lightning hid therein,
+ And flashes back to darkness: truth, found pure
+ And perfect, asks not heaven if shame endure.
+ What life and death were his whose raging song
+ Bore heaven such witness of the wild world's wrong,
+ What hand was this that grasped such thunder, none
+ Knows: night and storm seclude him from the sun.
+ By daytime none discerns the fire of Mars:
+ Deep darkness bares to sight the sterner stars,
+ The lights whose dawn seems doomsday. None may tell
+ Whence rose a world so lit from heaven and hell.
+ Life-wasting love, hate born of raging lust,
+ Fierce retribution, fed with death's own dust
+ And sorrow's pampering poison, cross and meet,
+ And wind the world in passion's winding-sheet.
+ So, when dark faith in faith's dark ages heard
+ Falsehood, and drank the poison of the Word,
+ Two shades misshapen came to monstrous birth,
+ A father fiend in heaven, a thrall on earth:
+ Man, meanest born of beasts that press the sod,
+ And die: the vilest of his creatures, God.
+ A judge unjust, a slave that praised his name,
+ Made life and death one fire of sin and shame.
+ And thence reverberate even on Shakespeare's age
+ A light like darkness crossed his sunbright stage.
+ Music, sublime as storm or sorrow, sang
+ Before it: tempest like a harpstring rang.
+ The fiery shadow of a name unknown
+ Rose, and in song's high heaven abides alone.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART
+
+
+ The mightiest choir of song that memory hears
+ Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years.
+ Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies
+ That saw the sun-god Marlowe's opening eyes.
+ The morn's own music, answered of the sea,
+ Spake, when his living lips bade Shakespeare be,
+ And England, made by Shakespeare's quickening breath
+ Divine and deathless even till life be death,
+ Brought forth to time such godlike sons of men
+ That shamefaced love grows pride, and now seems then.
+ Shame that their day so shone, so sang, so died,
+ Remembering, finds remembrance one with pride.
+ That day was clouding toward a stormlit close
+ When Ford's red sphere upon the twilight rose.
+ Sublime with stars and sunset fire, the sky
+ Glowed as though day, nigh dead, should never die.
+ Sorrow supreme and strange as chance or doom
+ Shone, spake, and shuddered through the lustrous gloom.
+ Tears lit with love made all the darkening air
+ Bright as though death's dim sunrise thrilled it there
+ And life re-risen took comfort. Stern and still
+ As hours and years that change and anguish fill,
+ The strong secluded spirit, ere it woke,
+ Dwelt dumb till power possessed it, and it spoke.
+ Strange, calm, and sure as sense of beast or bird,
+ Came forth from night the thought that breathed the word;
+ That chilled and thrilled with passion-stricken breath
+ Halls where Calantha trod the dance of death.
+ A strength of soul too passionately pure
+ To change for aught that horror bids endure,
+ To quail and wail and weep faint life away
+ Ere sovereign sorrow smite, relent, and slay,
+ Sustained her silent, till her bridal bloom
+ Changed, smiled, and waned in rapture toward the tomb.
+ Terror twin-born with pity kissed and thrilled
+ The lips that Shakespeare's word or Webster's filled:
+ Here both, cast out, fell silent: pity shrank,
+ Rebuked, and terror, spirit-stricken, sank:
+ The soul assailed arose afar above
+ All reach of all but only death and love.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO A VERY WOMAN
+
+
+ Swift music made of passion's changeful power,
+ Sweet as the change that leaves the world in flower
+ When spring laughs winter down to deathward, rang
+ From grave and gracious lips that smiled and sang
+ When Massinger, too wise for kings to hear
+ And learn of him truth, wisdom, faith, or fear,
+ Gave all his gentler heart to love's light lore,
+ That grief might brood and scorn breed wrath no more.
+ Soft, bright, fierce, tender, fitful, truthful, sweet,
+ A shrine where faith and change might smile and meet,
+ A soul whose music could but shift its tune
+ As when the lustrous year turns May to June
+ And spring subsides in summer, so makes good
+ Its perfect claim to very womanhood.
+ The heart that hate of wrong made fire, the hand
+ Whose touch was fire as keen as shame's own brand
+ When fraud and treason, swift to smile and sting,
+ Crowned and discrowned a tyrant, knave or king,
+ False each and ravenous as the fitful sea,
+ Grew gently glad as love that fear sets free.
+ Like eddying ripples that the wind restrains,
+ The bright words whisper music ere it wanes.
+ Ere fades the sovereign sound of song that rang
+ As though the sun to match the sea's tune sang,
+ When noon from dawn took life and light, and time
+ Shone, seeing how Shakespeare made the world sublime,
+ Ere sinks the wind whose breath was heaven's and day's,
+ The sunset's witness gives the sundawn praise.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY
+
+
+ The wind that brings us from the springtide south
+ Strange music as from love's or life's own mouth
+ Blew hither, when the blast of battle ceased
+ That swept back southward Spanish prince and priest,
+ A sound more sweet than April's flower-sweet rain,
+ And bade bright England smile on pardoned Spain.
+ The land that cast out Philip and his God
+ Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod.
+ Even he whose name above all names on earth
+ Crowns England queen by grace of Shakespeare's birth
+ Might scarce have scorned to smile in God's wise down
+ And gild with praise from heaven an earthlier crown.
+ And he whose hand bade live down lengthening years
+ Quixote, a name lit up with smiles and tears,
+ Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies' life,
+ Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife.
+ Times change, and fame is fitful as the sea:
+ But sunset bids not darkness always be,
+ And still some light from Shakespeare and the sun
+ Burns back the cloud that masks not Middleton.
+ With strong swift strokes of love and wrath he drew
+ Shakespearean London's loud and lusty crew:
+ No plainer might the likeness rise and stand
+ When Hogarth took his living world in hand.
+ No surer then his fire-fledged shafts could hit,
+ Winged with as forceful and as faithful wit:
+ No truer a tragic depth and heat of heart
+ Glowed through the painter's than the poet's art.
+ He lit and hung in heaven the wan fierce moon
+ Whose glance kept time with witchcraft's air-struck tune:
+ He watched the doors where loveless love let in
+ The pageant hailed and crowned by death and sin:
+ He bared the souls where love, twin-born with hate,
+ Made wide the way for passion-fostered fate.
+ All English-hearted, all his heart arose
+ To scourge with scorn his England's cowering foes:
+ And Rome and Spain, who bade their scorner be
+ Their prisoner, left his heart as England's free.
+ Now give we all we may of all his due
+ To one long since thus tried and found thus true.
+
+
+
+
+ PROLOGUE TO THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN
+
+
+ Sweet as the dewfall, splendid as the south,
+ Love touched with speech Boccaccio's golden mouth,
+ Joy thrilled and filled its utterance full with song,
+ And sorrow smiled on doom that wrought no wrong.
+ A starrier lustre of lordlier music rose
+ Beyond the sundering bar of seas and snows
+ When Chaucer's thought took life and light from his
+ And England's crown was one with Italy's.
+ Loftiest and last, by grace of Shakespeare's word,
+ Arose above their quiring spheres a third,
+ Arose, and flashed, and faltered: song's deep sky
+ Saw Shakespeare pass in light, in music die.
+ No light like his, no music, man might give
+ To bid the darkened sphere, left songless, live.
+ Soft though the sound of Fletcher's rose and rang
+ And lit the lunar darkness as it sang,
+ Below the singing stars the cloud-crossed moon
+ Gave back the sunken sun's a trembling tune.
+ As when at highest high tide the sovereign sea
+ Pauses, and patience doubts if passion be,
+ Till gradual ripples ebb, recede, recoil,
+ Shine, smile, and whisper, laughing as they toil,
+ Stark silence fell, at turn of fate's high tide,
+ Upon his broken song when Shakespeare died,
+ Till Fletcher's light sweet speech took heart to say
+ What evening, should it speak for morning, may.
+ And fourfold now the gradual glory shines
+ That shows once more in heaven two twinborn signs,
+ Two brethren stars whose light no cloud may fret,
+ No soul whereon their story dawns forget.
+
+
+
+
+ THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE
+
+
+ Let there be light, said Time: and England heard:
+ And manhood grew to godhead at the word.
+ No light had shone, since earth arose from sleep,
+ So far; no fire of thought had cloven so deep.
+ A day beyond all days bade life acclaim
+ Shakespeare: and man put on his crowning name.
+ All secrets once through darkling ages kept
+ Shone, sang, and smiled to think how long they slept.
+ Man rose past fear of lies whereon he trod:
+ And Dante's ghost saw hell devour his God.
+ Bright Marlowe, brave as winds that brave the sea
+ When sundawn bids their bliss in battle be,
+ Lit England first along the ways whereon
+ Song brighter far than sunlight soared and shone.
+ He died ere half his life had earned his right
+ To lighten time with song's triumphant light.
+ Hope shrank, and felt the stroke at heart: but one
+ She knew not rose, a man to match the sun.
+ And England's hope and time's and man's became
+ Joy, deep as music's heart and keen as flame.
+ Not long, for heaven on earth may live not long,
+ Light sang, and darkness died before the song.
+ He passed, the man above all men, whose breath
+ Transfigured life with speech that lightens death.
+ He passed: but yet for many a lustrous year
+ His light of song bade England shine and hear.
+ As plague and fire and faith in falsehood spread,
+ So from the man of men, divine and dead,
+ Contagious godhead, seen, unknown, and heard,
+ Fulfilled and quickened England; thought and word,
+ When men would fain set life to music, grew
+ More sweet than years which knew not Shakespeare knew.
+ The simplest soul that set itself to song
+ Sang, and may fear not time's or change's wrong.
+ The lightest eye that glanced on life could see
+ Through grief and joy the God that man might be.
+ All passion whence the living soul takes fire
+ Till death fulfil despair and quench desire,
+ All love that lightens through the cloud of chance,
+ All hate that lurks in hope and smites askance,
+ All holiness of sorrow, all divine
+ Pity, whose tears are stars that save and shine,
+ All sunbright strength of laughter like the sea's
+ When spring and autumn loose their lustrous breeze,
+ All sweet, all strange, all sad, all glorious things,
+ Lived on his lips, and hailed him king of kings.
+ All thought, all strife, all anguish, all delight,
+ Spake all he bade, and speak till day be night.
+ No soul that heard, no spirit that beheld,
+ Knew not the God that lured them and compelled.
+ On Beaumont's brow the sun arisen afar
+ Shed fire which lit through heaven the younger star
+ That sank before the sunset: one dark spring
+ Slew first the kinglike subject, then the king.
+ The glory left above their graves made strong
+ The heart of Fletcher, till the flower-sweet song
+ That Shakespeare culled from Chaucer's field, and died,
+ Found ending on his lips that smiled and sighed.
+ From Dekker's eyes the light of tear-touched mirth
+ Shone as from Shakespeare's, mingling heaven and earth.
+ Wild witchcraft's lure and England's love made one
+ With Shakespeare's heart the heart of Middleton.
+ Harsh, homely, true, and tragic, Rowley told
+ His heart's debt down in rough and radiant gold.
+ The skies that Tourneur's lightning clove and rent
+ Flamed through the clouds where Shakespeare's thunder went.
+ Wise Massinger bade kings be wise in vain
+ Ere war bade song, storm-stricken, cower and wane.
+ Kind Heywood, simple-souled and single-eyed,
+ Found voice for England's home-born praise and pride.
+ Strange grief, strange love, strange terror, bared the sword
+ That smote the soul by grace and will of Ford.
+ The stern grim strength of Chapman's thought found speech
+ Loud as when storm at ebb-tide rends the beach:
+ And all the honey brewed from flowers in May
+ Made sweet the lips and bright the dreams of Day.
+ But even as Shakespeare caught from Marlowe's word
+ Fire, so from his the thunder-bearing third,
+ Webster, took light and might whence none but he
+ Hath since made song that sounded so the sea
+ Whose waves are lives of men--whose tidestream rolls
+ From year to darkening year the freight of souls.
+ Alone above it, sweet, supreme, sublime,
+ Shakespeare attunes the jarring chords of time;
+ Alone of all whose doom is death and birth,
+ Shakespeare is lord of souls alive on earth.
+
+
+
+
+ CLEOPATRA
+
+ "Her beauty might outface the jealous hours,
+ Turn shame to love and pain to a tender sleep,
+ And the strong nerve of hate to sloth and tears;
+ Make spring rebellious in the sides of frost,
+ Thrust out lank winter with hot August growths,
+ Compel sweet blood into the husks of death,
+ And from strange beasts enforce harsh courtesy."
+
+ T. HAYMAN, _Fall of Antony_, 1655.
+
+
+
+
+ CLEOPATRA
+
+
+ I
+
+ Her mouth is fragrant as a vine,
+ A vine with birds in all its boughs;
+ Serpent and scarab for a sign
+ Between the beauty of her brows
+ And the amorous deep lids divine.
+
+
+ II
+
+ Her great curled hair makes luminous
+ Her cheeks, her lifted throat and chin
+ Shall she not have the hearts of us
+ To shatter, and the loves therein
+ To shred between her fingers thus?
+
+
+ III
+
+ Small ruined broken strays of light,
+ Pearl after pearl she shreds them through
+ Her long sweet sleepy fingers, white
+ As any pearl's heart veined with blue,
+ And soft as dew on a soft night.
+
+
+ IV
+
+ As if the very eyes of love
+ Shone through her shutting lids, and stole
+ The slow looks of a snake or dove;
+ As if her lips absorbed the whole
+ Of love, her soul the soul thereof.
+
+
+ V
+
+ Lost, all the lordly pearls that were
+ Wrung from the sea's heart, from the green
+ Coasts of the Indian gulf-river;
+ Lost, all the loves of the world--so keen
+ Towards this queen for love of her.
+
+
+ VI
+
+ You see against her throat the small
+ Sharp glittering shadows of them shake;
+ And through her hair the imperial
+ Curled likeness of the river snake,
+ Whose bite shall make an end of all.
+
+
+ VII
+
+ Through the scales sheathing him like wings,
+ Through hieroglyphs of gold and gem,
+ The strong sense of her beauty stings,
+ Like a keen pulse of love in them,
+ A running flame through all his rings.
+
+
+ VIII
+
+ Under those low large lids of hers
+ She hath the histories of all time;
+ The fruit of foliage-stricken years;
+ The old seasons with their heavy chime
+ That leaves its rhyme in the world's ears.
+
+
+ IX
+
+ She sees the hand of death made bare,
+ The ravelled riddle of the skies,
+ The faces faded that were fair,
+ The mouths made speechless that were wise,
+ The hollow eyes and dusty hair;
+
+
+ X
+
+ The shape and shadow of mystic things,
+ Things that fate fashions or forbids;
+ The staff of time-forgotten Kings
+ Whose name falls off the Pyramids,
+ Their coffin-lids and grave-clothings;
+
+
+ XI
+
+ Dank dregs, the scum of pool or clod,
+ God-spawn of lizard-footed clans,
+ And those dog-headed hulks that trod
+ Swart necks of the old Egyptians,
+ Raw draughts of man's beginning God;
+
+
+ XII
+
+ The poised hawk, quivering ere he smote,
+ With plume-like gems on breast and back;
+ The asps and water-worms afloat
+ Between the rush-flowers moist and slack;
+ The cat's warm black bright rising throat.
+
+
+ XIII
+
+ The purple days of drouth expand
+ Like a scroll opened out again;
+ The molten heaven drier than sand,
+ The hot red heaven without rain,
+ Sheds iron pain on the empty land.
+
+
+ XIV
+
+ All Egypt aches in the sun's sight;
+ The lips of men are harsh for drouth,
+ The fierce air leaves their cheeks burnt white,
+ Charred by the bitter blowing south,
+ Whose dusty mouth is sharp to bite.
+
+
+ XV
+
+ All this she dreams of, and her eyes
+ Are wrought after the sense hereof.
+ There is no heart in her for sighs;
+ The face of her is more than love--
+ A name above the Ptolemies.
+
+
+ XVI
+
+ Her great grave beauty covers her
+ As that sleek spoil beneath her feet
+ Clothed once the anointed soothsayer;
+ The hallowing is gone forth from it
+ Now, made unmeet for priests to wear.
+
+
+ XVII
+
+ She treads on gods and god-like things,
+ On fate and fear and life and death,
+ On hate that cleaves and love that clings,
+ All that is brought forth of man's breath
+ And perisheth with what it brings.
+
+
+ XVIII
+
+ She holds her future close, her lips
+ Hold fast the face of things to be;
+ Actium, and sound of war that dips
+ Down the blown valleys of the sea,
+ Far sails that flee, and storms of ships;
+
+
+ XIX
+
+ The laughing red sweet mouth of wine
+ At ending of life's festival;
+ That spice of cerecloths, and the fine
+ White bitter dust funereal
+ Sprinkled on all things for a sign;
+
+
+ XX
+
+ His face, who was and was not he,
+ In whom, alive, her life abode;
+ The end, when she gained heart to see
+ Those ways of death wherein she trod,
+ Goddess by god, with Antony.
+
+
+
+
+ DEDICATION
+
+
+
+
+ DEDICATION
+
+
+ The sea that is life everlasting
+ And death everlasting as life
+ Abides not a pilot's forecasting,
+ Foretells not of peace or of strife.
+ The might of the night that was hidden
+ Arises and darkens the day,
+ A glory rebuked and forbidden,
+ Time's crown, and his prey.
+
+ No sweeter, no kindlier, no fairer,
+ No lovelier a soul from its birth
+ Wore ever a brighter and rarer
+ Life's raiment for life upon earth
+ Than his who enkindled and cherished
+ Art's vestal and luminous flame,
+ That dies not when kingdoms have perished
+ In storm or in shame.
+
+ No braver, no trustier, no purer,
+ No stronger and clearer a soul
+ Bore witness more splendid and surer
+ For manhood found perfect and whole
+ Since man was a warrior and dreamer
+ Than his who in hatred of wrong
+ Would fain have arisen a redeemer
+ By sword or by song.
+
+ Twin brethren in spirit, immortal
+ As art and as love, which were one
+ For you from the birthday whose portal
+ First gave you to sight of the sun,
+ To-day nor to-night nor to-morrow
+ May bring you again from above,
+ Drawn down by the spell of the sorrow
+ Whose anguish is love.
+
+ No light rearising hereafter
+ Shall lighten us here as of old
+ When seasons were lustrous as laughter
+ Of waves that are snowshine and gold.
+ The dawn that imbues and enkindles
+ Life's fluctuant and fugitive sea
+ Dies down as the starshine that dwindles
+ And cares not to be.
+
+ Men, mightier than death which divides us,
+ Friends, dearer than sorrow can say,
+ The light that is darkness and hides us
+ Awhile from each other away
+ Abides but awhile and endures not,
+ We know, though the day be as night,
+ For souls that forgetfulness lures not
+ Till sleep be in sight.
+
+ The sleep that enfolds you, the slumber
+ Supreme and eternal on earth,
+ Whence ages of numberless number
+ Shall bring us not back into birth,
+ We know not indeed if it be not
+ What no man hath known if it be,
+ Life, quickened with light that we see not
+ If spirits may see.
+
+ The love that would see and would know it
+ Is even as the love of a child.
+ But the fire of the fame of the poet
+ Who gazed on the past, and it smiled,
+ But the light of the fame of the painter
+ Whose hand was as morning's in May,
+ Death bids not be darker or fainter,
+ Time casts not away.
+
+ We, left of them loveless and lonely,
+ Who lived in the light of their love,
+ Whose darkness desires it, we only,
+ Who see them afar and above,
+ So far, if we die not, above us,
+ So lately no dearer than near,
+ May know not of death if they love us,
+ Of night if they hear.
+
+ We, stricken and darkling and living,
+ Who loved them and love them, abide
+ A day, and the gift of its giving,
+ An hour, and the turn of its tide,
+ When twilight and midnight and morrow
+ Shall pass from the sight of the sun,
+ And death be forgotten, and sorrow
+ Discrowned and undone.
+
+ For us as for these will the breathless
+ Brief minute arise and pass by:
+ And if death be not utterly deathless,
+ If love do not utterly die,
+ From the life that is quenched as an ember
+ The soul that aspires as a flame
+ Can choose not but wholly remember
+ Love, lovelier than fame.
+
+ Though sure be the seal of their glory
+ And fairer no fame upon earth,
+ Though never a leaf shall grow hoary
+ Of the crowns that were given them at birth,
+ While time as a vassal doth duty
+ To names that he towers not above,
+ More perfect in price and in beauty
+ For ever is love.
+
+ The night is upon us, and anguish
+ Of longing that yearns for the dead.
+ But mourners that faint not or languish,
+ That veil not and bow not the head,
+ Take comfort to heart if a token
+ Be given them of comfort to be:
+ While darkness on earth is unbroken,
+ Light lives on the sea.
+
+
+PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE AND CO. LTD.
+
+LONDON, COLCHESTER AND ETON
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Channel Passage and Other Poems, by
+Algernon Charles Swinburne
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18871.txt or 18871.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+ http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/7/18871/
+
+Produced by Paul Murray, Lisa Reigel, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+ the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+ you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
+ owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+ has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+ Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
+ must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+ prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+ returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+ sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+ address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+ the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+ you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+ does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+ License. You must require such a user to return or
+ destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+ and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+ Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+ money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+ electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+ of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+ distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+ Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+ Chief Executive and Director
+ gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+ http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/18871.zip b/18871.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7df36fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18871.zip
Binary files differ
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2c246fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #18871 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18871)
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-03-08 10:12:56 +0000