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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:54:20 -0700 |
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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">βιβλος</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—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> </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">Astræa 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—<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—<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,—had<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love such wisdom,—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—a sign<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of that goodlier grace of thine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweet, and thine alone—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 legô">ἐϛ τὸ τᾶν δέ σοι λέγω</ins>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="bômon aidesai dikas;">βωμὸν αἴδεσαι δίκας·</ins><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="mêde nin">μηδέ νιν</ins><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="kerdos idôn atheô podi lax atisês;">κέρδος ἰδὼν ἀθέῳ ποδὶ λὰξ ἀτίσῃς·</ins><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="poina gar epestai">ποινὰ γὰρ ἐπέσται</ins>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><ins class="greekcorr" title="kyrion menei telos">κύριον μένει τέλος</ins>.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p style="margin-left: 30%"><span class="smcap">Æsch.</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 phôs idein">πάρα τὸ φῶς ἰδεῖν</ins>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p style="margin-left: 30%"><span class="smcap">Æsch.</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—he said it—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, Æschylus, 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—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—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—<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—<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—<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—<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—<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—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—unextinct;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Many a month has been for him the long year's last—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—"Parnell spurs his Gladstone well!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth, unscared and undeluded by their praise or blame, replies—<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—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—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—but ah, to think or say so smacks of fraud or smells of faction!—<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—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Profit speaks through lips of patriots pure and true—<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—truth and time—<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—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: Traître!</i>—<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—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—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—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—faith's, not fear's—<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—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—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—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—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—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These that reign, and dare not trust one trembling hour—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These omnipotent, whom terror curbs and drives—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These whose life reflects in fear their victims' lives—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These whose breath sheds poison worse than plague's thick breath—<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 Phœbus, 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—and midnight answers us, Farewell;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hail—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—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—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—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—<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>ASTRÆA 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>Écrasez l'infâme.</i>—<span class="smcap">Voltaire</span></h4> + +<h4><i>Les prêtres ont raison de l'appeler Lucifer.</i>—<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—<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—<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—great, and good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Past thank or thought of England or of man—<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—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—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—<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. 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