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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:20:39 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:20:39 -0700 |
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diff --git a/3168-h/3168-h.htm b/3168-h/3168-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ff93a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/3168-h/3168-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5375 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Poems of the Past and the Present | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/coverb.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems of the Past and the Present, by Thomas +Hardy</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Sisters</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Martin</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 24, 2015 [eBook #3168]<br> +[Most recently updated: September 2, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. “Wessex +Poems and Other Verses; Poems of the Past and the Present”</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF THE PAST AND THE +PRESENT ***</div> + + +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt="Book cover" title="Book cover" src="images/covers.jpg"> +</a></p> +<h1>POEMS OF THE PAST<br> +<span class="GutSmall">AND THE PRESENT</span></h1> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br> +THOMAS HARDY</p> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED<br> +ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON<br> +1919</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageiv"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. iv</span><span +class="GutSmall">COPYRIGHT</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">“<i>Wessex Poems</i>”: +<i>First Edition</i>, <i>Crown</i> 8vo, 1898. <i>New +Edition</i> 1903.<br> +<i>First Pocket Edition June</i> 1907. <i>Reprinted +January</i> 1909, 1913</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“<i>Poems</i>, <i>Past and +Present</i>”: <i>First edition</i> 1901 (dated 1902)<br> +<i>Second Edition</i> 1903. <i>First Pocket Edition +June</i> 1907<br> +<i>Reprinted January</i> 1908, 1913, 1918, 1919</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2><a name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xi</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>V.R. 1819–1901</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page231">231</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p>WAR POEMS—</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Embarcation</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page235">235</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Departure</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page237">237</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Colonel’s +Soliloquy</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page239">239</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Going of the Battery</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page242">242</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">At the War Office</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page245">245</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Christmas Ghost-Story</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page247">247</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Dead Drummer</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page249">249</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Wife in London</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page251">251</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Souls of the Slain</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page253">253</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Song of the Soldiers’ +Wives</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page260">260</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Sick God</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page263">263</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p>POEMS OF PILGRIMAGE—</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Genoa and the Mediterranean</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page269">269</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Shelley’s Skylark</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page272">272</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">In the Old Theatre, Fiesole</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page274">274</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Rome: on the Palatine</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page276">276</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> ,, <span class="smcap">Building a New +Street in the Ancient Quarter</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page278">278</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> ,, <span class="smcap">The Vatican: Sala +Delle Muse</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page280">280</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> ,, <span class="smcap">At the Pyramid of +Cestius</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page283">283</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Lausanne: In Gibbon’s Old +Garden</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page286">286</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Zermatt: To the Matterhorn</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page288">288</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Bridge of Lodi</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page290">290</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">On an Invitation to the United +States</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page295">295</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p><a name="pagexii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xii</span>MISCELLANEOUS POEMS—</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Mother Mourns</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page299">299</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p>“<span class="smcap">I said to +Love</span>”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page305">305</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Commonplace Day</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page307">307</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">At a Lunar Eclipse</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page310">310</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Lacking Sense</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page312">312</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">To Life</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page316">316</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Doom and She</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page318">318</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Problem</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page321">321</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Subalterns</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page323">323</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Sleep-worker</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page325">325</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Bullfinches</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page327">327</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">God-Forgotten</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page329">329</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Bedridden Peasant to an Unknowing +God</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page333">333</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">By the Earth’s Corpse</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page336">336</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Mute Opinion</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page339">339</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">To an Unborn Pauper Child</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page341">341</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">To Flowers from Italy in +Winter</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page344">344</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">On a Fine Morning</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page346">346</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">To Lizbie Browne</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page348">348</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Song of Hope</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page352">352</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Well-Beloved</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page354">354</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Her Reproach</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page358">358</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Inconsistent</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page360">360</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Broken Appointment</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page362">362</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p>“<span class="smcap">Between us +now</span>”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page364">364</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p>“<span class="smcap">How great my +Grief</span>”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page366">366</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p>“<span class="smcap">I need not go</span>”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page367">367</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Coquette, and After</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page369">369</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><a name="pagexiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xiii</span><span class="smcap">A Spot</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page371">371</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Long Plighted</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page373">373</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Widow</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page375">375</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">At a Hasty Wedding</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page378">378</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Dream-Follower</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page379">379</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">His Immortality</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page380">380</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The To-be-Forgotten</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page382">382</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Wives in the Sere</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page385">385</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Superseded</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page387">387</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">An August Midnight</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page389">389</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Caged Thrush Freed and Home +Again</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page391">391</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Birds at Winter Nightfall</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page393">393</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Puzzled Game-Birds</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page394">394</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Winter in Durnover Field</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page395">395</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Last Chrysanthemum</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page397">397</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Darkling Thrush</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page399">399</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Comet at Yalbury or +Yell’ham</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page402">402</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Mad Judy</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page403">403</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Wasted Illness</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page405">405</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Man</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page408">408</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Dame of Athelhall</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page412">412</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Seasons of her Year</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page416">416</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Milkmaid</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page418">418</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Levelled Churchyard</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page420">420</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Ruined Maid</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page422">422</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Respectable Burgher on “the +Higher Criticism”</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page425">425</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Architectural Masks</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page428">428</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Tenant-for-Life</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page430">430</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><a name="pagexiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xiv</span><span class="smcap">The King’s +Experiment</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page432">432</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Tree: an Old Man’s +Story</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page435">435</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Her Late Husband</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page439">439</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Self-Unseeing</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page441">441</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">De Profundis i.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page443">443</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">De Profundis ii.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page445">445</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">De Profundis iii.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page448">448</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Church-Builder</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page451">451</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Lost Pyx: a Mediæval +Legend</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page457">457</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Tess’s Lament</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page462">462</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Supplanter: A Tale</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page465">465</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p>IMITATIONS, <span +class="smcap">Etc</span>.—</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Sapphic Fragment</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page473">473</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Catullus: xxxi</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page474">474</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">After Schiller</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page476">476</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Song: From Heine</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page477">477</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">From Victor Hugo</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page479">479</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Cardinal Bembo’s Epitaph on +Raphael</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page480">480</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p>RETROSPECT—</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p>“I <span class="smcap">have Lived with +Shades</span>”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page483">483</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Memory and I</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page486">486</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p>ἈΓΝΩΣΤΩι ΘΕΩι.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page489">489</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +231</span>V.R. 1819–1901<br> +<span class="GutSmall">A REVERIE</span></h2> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Moments</span> the +mightiest pass uncalendared,<br> + And when the Absolute<br> + In backward Time outgave the deedful word<br> + Whereby all life is stirred:<br> +“Let one be born and throned whose mould shall +constitute<br> +The norm of every royal-reckoned attribute,”<br> + No mortal knew or heard.<br> + <a name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +232</span>But in due days the purposed Life outshone—<br> + Serene, sagacious, free;<br> + —Her waxing seasons bloomed with deeds well +done,<br> + And the world’s heart was +won . . .<br> +Yet may the deed of hers most bright in eyes to be<br> +Lie hid from ours—as in the All-One’s thought lay +she—<br> + Till ripening years have run.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sunday Night</span>,<br> + 27<i>th</i> +<i>January</i> 1901.</p> +<h2><a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 233</span>WAR +POEMS</h2> +<h3><a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +235</span>EMBARCATION<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>Southampton Docks</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">: </span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>October</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1899)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here</span>, where +Vespasian’s legions struck the sands,<br> +And Cerdic with his Saxons entered in,<br> +And Henry’s army leapt afloat to win<br> +Convincing triumphs over neighbour lands,</p> +<p class="poetry">Vaster battalions press for further strands,<br +> +To argue in the self-same bloody mode<br> +Which this late age of thought, and pact, and code,<br> +Still fails to mend.—Now deckward tramp the bands,<br> +<a name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 236</span>Yellow +as autumn leaves, alive as spring;<br> +And as each host draws out upon the sea<br> +Beyond which lies the tragical To-be,<br> +None dubious of the cause, none murmuring,</p> +<p class="poetry">Wives, sisters, parents, wave white hands and +smile,<br> +As if they knew not that they weep the while.</p> +<h3><a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +237</span>DEPARTURE<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>Southampton Docks</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">: </span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>October</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1899)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">While</span> the far +farewell music thins and fails,<br> +And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine—<br> +All smalling slowly to the gray sea line—<br> +And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,</p> +<p class="poetry">Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,<br +> +Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men<br> +To seeming words that ask and ask again:<br> +“How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels<br> +<a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>Must +your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,<br> +That are as puppets in a playing hand?—<br> +When shall the saner softer polities<br> +Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land,<br> +And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand<br> +Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?”</p> +<h3><a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 239</span>THE +COLONEL’S SOLILOQUY<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>Southampton Docks</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">: </span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>October</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1899)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">“<span class="smcap">The</span> quay +recedes. Hurrah! Ahead we go! . . .<br> +It’s true I’ve been accustomed now to home,<br> +And joints get rusty, and one’s limbs may grow<br> + More fit to rest than roam.</p> +<p class="poetry">“But I can stand as yet fair stress and +strain;<br> +There’s not a little steel beneath the rust;<br> +My years mount somewhat, but here’s to’t again!<br> + And if I fall, I must.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +240</span>“God knows that for myself I’ve scanty +care;<br> +Past scrimmages have proved as much to all;<br> +In Eastern lands and South I’ve had my share<br> + Both of the blade and ball.</p> +<p class="poetry">“And where those villains ripped me in +the flitch<br> +With their old iron in my early time,<br> +I’m apt at change of wind to feel a twitch,<br> + Or at a change of clime.</p> +<p class="poetry">“And what my mirror shows me in the +morning<br> +Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom;<br> +My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses scorning,<br> + Have just a touch of rheum . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">“Now sounds ‘The Girl I’ve +left behind me,’—Ah,<br> +The years, the ardours, wakened by that tune!<br> +Time was when, with the crowd’s farewell +‘Hurrah!’<br> + ’Twould lift me to the moon.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +241</span>“But now it’s late to leave behind me +one<br> +Who if, poor soul, her man goes underground,<br> +Will not recover as she might have done<br> + In days when hopes abound.</p> +<p class="poetry">“She’s waving from the wharfside, +palely grieving,<br> +As down we draw . . . Her tears make little show,<br> +Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving<br> + Some twenty years ago.</p> +<p class="poetry">“I pray those left at home will care for +her!<br> +I shall come back; I have before; though when<br> +The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother,<br> + Things may not be as then.”</p> +<h3><a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 242</span>THE +GOING OF THE BATTERY<br> +<span class="GutSmall">WIVES’ LAMENT</span><br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>November</i></span><span class="GutSmall"> 2, +1899)</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">O <span class="smcap">it</span> was sad enough, +weak enough, mad enough—<br> +Light in their loving as soldiers can be—<br> +First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing them<br> +Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page243"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 243</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">—Rain came down drenchingly; but we +unblenchingly<br> +Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire,<br> +They stepping steadily—only too readily!—<br> +Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">Great guns were gleaming there, living things +seeming there,<br> +Cloaked in their tar-cloths, upmouthed to the night;<br> +Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe,<br> +Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">Gas-glimmers drearily, blearily, eerily<br> +Lit our pale faces outstretched for one kiss,<br> +While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them<br> +Not to court perils that honour could miss.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page244"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 244</span>V</p> +<p class="poetry">Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded these +eyes of ours,<br> +When at last moved away under the arch<br> +All we loved. Aid for them each woman prayed for +them,<br> +Treading back slowly the track of their march.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">Someone said: “Nevermore will they come: +evermore<br> +Are they now lost to us.” O it was wrong!<br> +Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their +ways,<br> +Bear them through safely, in brief time or long.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">—Yet, voices haunting us, daunting us, +taunting us,<br> +Hint in the night-time when life beats are low<br> +Other and graver things . . . Hold we to braver things,<br> +Wait we, in trust, what Time’s fulness shall show.</p> +<h3><a name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 245</span>AT +THE WAR OFFICE, LONDON<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span class="GutSmall"><i>Affixing +the Lists of Killed and Wounded</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">: </span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>December</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1899)</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Last</span> year I called +this world of gain-givings<br> +The darkest thinkable, and questioned sadly<br> +If my own land could heave its pulse less gladly,<br> +So charged it seemed with circumstance whence springs<br> + The tragedy of things.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page246"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 246</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet at that censured time no heart was rent<br +> +Or feature blanched of parent, wife, or daughter<br> +By hourly blazoned sheets of listed slaughter;<br> +Death waited Nature’s wont; Peace smiled unshent<br> + From Ind to Occident.</p> +<h3><a name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 247</span>A +CHRISTMAS GHOST-STORY</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">South</span> of the Line, +inland from far Durban,<br> +A mouldering soldier lies—your countryman.<br> +Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,<br> +And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans<br> +Nightly to clear Canopus: “I would know<br> +By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law<br> +Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,<br> +Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?<br> +<a name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 248</span>And what +of logic or of truth appears<br> +In tacking ‘Anno Domini’ to the years?<br> +Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,<br> +But tarries yet the Cause for which He died.”</p> +<p><i>Christmas-eve</i>, 1899.</p> +<h3><a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 249</span>THE +DEAD DRUMMER</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">They</span> throw in +Drummer Hodge, to rest<br> + Uncoffined—just as found:<br> +His landmark is a kopje-crest<br> + That breaks the veldt around;<br> +And foreign constellations west<br> + Each night above his mound.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page250"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 250</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">Young Hodge the Drummer never knew—<br> + Fresh from his Wessex home—<br> +The meaning of the broad Karoo,<br> + The Bush, the dusty loam,<br> +And why uprose to nightly view<br> + Strange stars amid the gloam.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet portion of that unknown plain<br> + Will Hodge for ever be;<br> +His homely Northern breast and brain<br> + Grow up a Southern tree.<br> +And strange-eyed constellations reign<br> + His stars eternally.</p> +<h3><a name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 251</span>A +WIFE IN LONDON<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>December</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1899)</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">I</span><br +> +<span class="GutSmall">THE TRAGEDY</span></p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">She</span> sits in the +tawny vapour<br> + That the City lanes have +uprolled,<br> + Behind whose webby fold on fold<br +> +Like a waning taper<br> + The street-lamp glimmers cold.</p> +<p class="poetry">A messenger’s knock cracks smartly,<br> + Flashed news is in her hand<br> + Of meaning it dazes to +understand<br> +<a name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 252</span>Though +shaped so shortly:<br> + <i>He—has fallen—in the far South +Land</i> . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">II</span><br +> +<span class="GutSmall">THE IRONY</span></p> +<p class="poetry">’Tis the morrow; the fog hangs +thicker,<br> + The postman nears and goes:<br> + A letter is brought whose lines +disclose<br> +By the firelight flicker<br> + His hand, whom the worm now knows:</p> +<p class="poetry">Fresh—firm—penned in highest +feather—<br> + Page-full of his hoped return,<br +> + And of home-planned jaunts by +brake and burn<br> +In the summer weather,<br> + And of new love that they would learn.</p> +<h3><a name="page253"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 253</span>THE +SOULS OF THE SLAIN</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> The thick lids of Night +closed upon me<br> + Alone at the Bill<br> + Of the Isle by the Race <a +name="citation253"></a><a href="#footnote253" +class="citation">[253]</a>—<br> + Many-caverned, bald, wrinkled of face—<br> +And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me<br> + To brood and be still.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page254"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 254</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry"> No wind fanned the flats of +the ocean,<br> + Or promontory sides,<br> + Or the ooze by the strand,<br> + Or the bent-bearded slope of the land,<br> +Whose base took its rest amid everlong motion<br> + Of criss-crossing tides.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry"> Soon from out of the +Southward seemed nearing<br> + A whirr, as of wings<br> + Waved by mighty-vanned flies,<br +> + Or by night-moths of measureless size,<br> +And in softness and smoothness well-nigh beyond hearing<br> + Of corporal things.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry"> And they bore to the bluff, +and alighted—<br> + A dim-discerned train<br> + Of sprites without mould,<br> + Frameless souls none might touch or might +hold—<br> +<a name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 255</span>On the +ledge by the turreted lantern, farsighted<br> + By men of the main.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry"> And I heard them say +“Home!” and I knew them<br> + For souls of the felled<br> + On the earth’s nether +bord<br> + Under Capricorn, whither they’d warred,<br> +And I neared in my awe, and gave heedfulness to them<br> + With breathings inheld.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry"> Then, it seemed, there +approached from the northward<br> + A senior soul-flame<br> + Of the like filmy hue:<br> + And he met them and spake: “Is it you,<br> +O my men?” Said they, “Aye! We bear +homeward and hearthward<br> + To list to our fame!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page256"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 256</span>VII</p> +<p class="poetry"> “I’ve flown there +before you,” he said then:<br> + “Your households are +well;<br> + But—your kin linger less<br +> + On your glory arid war-mightiness<br> +Than on dearer things.”—“Dearer?” cried +these from the dead then,<br> + “Of what do they +tell?”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VIII</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Some mothers muse +sadly, and murmur<br> + Your doings as boys—<br> + Recall the quaint ways<br> + Of your babyhood’s innocent days.<br> +Some pray that, ere dying, your faith had grown firmer,<br> + And higher your joys.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry"> “A father broods: +‘Would I had set him<br> + To some humble trade,<br> + And so slacked his high fire,<br +> + And his passionate martial desire;<br> +<a name="page257"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 257</span>Had told +him no stories to woo him and whet him<br> + To this due crusade!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry"> “And, General, how hold +out our sweethearts,<br> + Sworn loyal as doves?”<br> + —“Many mourn; many +think<br> + It is not unattractive to prink<br> +Them in sables for heroes. Some fickle and fleet +hearts<br> + Have found them new +loves.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XI</p> +<p class="poetry"> “And our wives?” +quoth another resignedly,<br> + “Dwell they on our +deeds?”<br> + —“Deeds of home; that +live yet<br> + Fresh as new—deeds of fondness or fret;<br> +Ancient words that were kindly expressed or unkindly,<br> + These, these have their +heeds.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page258"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 258</span>XII</p> +<p class="poetry"> —“Alas! then it +seems that our glory<br> + Weighs less in their thought<br> + Than our old homely acts,<br> + And the long-ago commonplace facts<br> +Of our lives—held by us as scarce part of our story,<br> + And rated as nought!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIII</p> +<p class="poetry"> Then bitterly some: +“Was it wise now<br> + To raise the tomb-door<br> + For such knowledge? +Away!”<br> + But the rest: “Fame we prized till to-day;<br +> +Yet that hearts keep us green for old kindness we prize now<br> + A thousand times more!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIV</p> +<p class="poetry"> Thus speaking, the trooped +apparitions<br> + Began to disband<br> + And resolve them in two:<br> + Those whose record was lovely and true<br> +<a name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 259</span>Bore to +northward for home: those of bitter traditions<br> + Again left the land,</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XV</p> +<p class="poetry"> And, towering to seaward in +legions,<br> + They paused at a spot<br> + Overbending the Race—<br> + That engulphing, ghast, sinister place—<br> +Whither headlong they plunged, to the fathomless regions<br> + Of myriads forgot.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XVI</p> +<p class="poetry"> And the spirits of those who +were homing<br> + Passed on, rushingly,<br> + Like the Pentecost Wind;<br> + And the whirr of their wayfaring thinned<br> +And surceased on the sky, and but left in the gloaming<br> + Sea-mutterings and me.</p> +<p><i>December</i> 1899.</p> +<h3><a name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 260</span>SONG +OF THE SOLDIERS’ WIVES</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">At</span> last! In +sight of home again,<br> + Of home again;<br> +No more to range and roam again<br> + As at that bygone time?<br> +No more to go away from us<br> + And stay from us?—<br> +Dawn, hold not long the day from us,<br> + But quicken it to prime!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page261"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 261</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">Now all the town shall ring to them,<br> + Shall ring to them,<br> +And we who love them cling to them<br> + And clasp them joyfully;<br> +And cry, “O much we’ll do for you<br> + Anew for you,<br> +Dear Loves!—aye, draw and hew for you,<br> + Come back from oversea.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">Some told us we should meet no more,<br> + Should meet no more;<br> +Should wait, and wish, but greet no more<br> + Your faces round our fires;<br> +That, in a while, uncharily<br> + And drearily<br> +Men gave their lives—even wearily,<br> + Like those whom living tires.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page262"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 262</span>IV</p> +<p class="poetry">And now you are nearing home again,<br> + Dears, home again;<br> +No more, may be, to roam again<br> + As at that bygone time,<br> +Which took you far away from us<br> + To stay from us;<br> +Dawn, hold not long the day from us,<br> + But quicken it to prime!</p> +<h3><a name="page263"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 263</span>THE +SICK GOD</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> <span class="smcap">In</span> +days when men had joy of war,<br> +A God of Battles sped each mortal jar;<br> + The peoples pledged him heart and hand,<br> + From Israel’s land to isles afar.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry"> His crimson form, with clang +and chime,<br> +Flashed on each murk and murderous meeting-time,<br> + <a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +264</span>And kings invoked, for rape and raid,<br> + His fearsome aid in rune and rhyme.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry"> On bruise and blood-hole, +scar and seam,<br> +On blade and bolt, he flung his fulgid beam:<br> + His haloes rayed the very gore,<br> + And corpses wore his glory-gleam.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry"> Often an early King or +Queen,<br> +And storied hero onward, knew his sheen;<br> + ’Twas glimpsed by Wolfe, by Ney anon,<br> + And Nelson on his blue demesne.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry"> But new light spread. +That god’s gold nimb<br> +And blazon have waned dimmer and more dim;<br> + Even his flushed form begins to fade,<br> + Till but a shade is left of him.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page265"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 265</span>VI</p> +<p class="poetry"> That modern meditation +broke<br> +His spell, that penmen’s pleadings dealt a stroke,<br> + Say some; and some that crimes too dire<br> + Did much to mire his crimson cloak.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry"> Yea, seeds of crescive +sympathy<br> +Were sown by those more excellent than he,<br> + Long known, though long contemned till +then—<br> + The gods of men in amity.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VIII</p> +<p class="poetry"> Souls have grown seers, and +thought out-brings<br> +The mournful many-sidedness of things<br> + With foes as friends, enfeebling ires<br> + And fury-fires by gaingivings!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry"> He scarce impassions +champions now;<br> +They do and dare, but tensely—pale of brow;<br> + <a name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +266</span>And would they fain uplift the arm<br> + Of that faint form they know not how.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry"> Yet wars arise, though zest +grows cold;<br> +Wherefore, at whiles, as ’twere in ancient mould<br> + He looms, bepatched with paint and lath;<br> + But never hath he seemed the old!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XI</p> +<p class="poetry"> Let men rejoice, let men +deplore.<br> +The lurid Deity of heretofore<br> + Succumbs to one of saner nod;<br> + The Battle-god is god no more.</p> +<h2><a name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +267</span>POEMS OF PILGRIMAGE</h2> +<h3><a name="page269"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +269</span>GENOA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(March, 1887)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"> O <span +class="smcap">epic-famed</span>, god-haunted Central Sea,<br> + Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee<br> +When from Torino’s track I saw thy face first flash on +me.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page270"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 270</span>And multimarbled Genova the +Proud,<br> + Gleam all unconscious how, wide-lipped, +up-browed,<br> +I first beheld thee clad—not as the Beauty but the +Dowd.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Out from a deep-delved way my +vision lit<br> + On housebacks pink, green, ochreous—where a +slit<br> +Shoreward ’twixt row and row revealed the classic blue +through it.</p> +<p class="poetry"> And thereacross waved +fishwives’ high-hung smocks,<br> + Chrome kerchiefs, scarlet hose, darned +underfrocks;<br> +Since when too oft my dreams of thee, O Queen, that frippery +mocks:</p> +<p class="poetry"> Whereat I grieve, Superba! . +. . Afterhours<br> + Within Palazzo Doria’s orange bowers<br> +Went far to mend these marrings of thy soul-subliming powers.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page271"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 271</span>But, Queen, such squalid undress +none should see,<br> + Those dream-endangering eyewounds no more be<br> +Where lovers first behold thy form in pilgrimage to thee.</p> +<h3><a name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +272</span>SHELLEY’S SKYLARK<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span class="GutSmall"><i>The +neighbourhood of Leghorn</i></span><span class="GutSmall">: +</span><span class="GutSmall"><i>March</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">, 1887)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Somewhere</span> afield +here something lies<br> +In Earth’s oblivious eyeless trust<br> +That moved a poet to prophecies—<br> +A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust</p> +<p class="poetry">The dust of the lark that Shelley heard,<br> +And made immortal through times to be;—<br> +Though it only lived like another bird,<br> +And knew not its immortality.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page273"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +273</span>Lived its meek life; then, one day, fell—<br> +A little ball of feather and bone;<br> +And how it perished, when piped farewell,<br> +And where it wastes, are alike unknown.</p> +<p class="poetry">Maybe it rests in the loam I view,<br> +Maybe it throbs in a myrtle’s green,<br> +Maybe it sleeps in the coming hue<br> +Of a grape on the slopes of yon inland scene.</p> +<p class="poetry">Go find it, faeries, go and find<br> +That tiny pinch of priceless dust,<br> +And bring a casket silver-lined,<br> +And framed of gold that gems encrust;</p> +<p class="poetry">And we will lay it safe therein,<br> +And consecrate it to endless time;<br> +For it inspired a bard to win<br> +Ecstatic heights in thought and rhyme.</p> +<h3><a name="page274"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 274</span>IN +THE OLD THEATRE, FIESOLE<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>April</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1887)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">traced</span> the Circus +whose gray stones incline<br> +Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin,<br> +Till came a child who showed an ancient coin<br> +That bore the image of a Constantine.</p> +<p class="poetry">She lightly passed; nor did she once opine<br +> +How, better than all books, she had raised for me<br> +<a name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 275</span>In swift +perspective Europe’s history<br> +Through the vast years of Cæsar’s sceptred line.</p> +<p class="poetry">For in my distant plot of English loam<br> +’Twas but to delve, and straightway there to find<br> +Coins of like impress. As with one half blind<br> +Whom common simples cure, her act flashed home<br> +In that mute moment to my opened mind<br> +The power, the pride, the reach of perished Rome.</p> +<h3><a name="page276"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +276</span>ROME: ON THE PALATINE<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>April</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1887)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">We</span> walked where +Victor Jove was shrined awhile,<br> +And passed to Livia’s rich red mural show,<br> +Whence, thridding cave and Criptoportico,<br> +We gained Caligula’s dissolving pile.</p> +<p class="poetry">And each ranked ruin tended to beguile<br> +The outer sense, and shape itself as though<br> +<a name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 277</span>It wore +its marble hues, its pristine glow<br> +Of scenic frieze and pompous peristyle.</p> +<p class="poetry">When lo, swift hands, on strings nigh +over-head,<br> +Began to melodize a waltz by Strauss:<br> +It stirred me as I stood, in Cæsar’s house,<br> +Raised the old routs Imperial lyres had led,</p> +<p class="poetry">And blended pulsing life with lives long +done,<br> +Till Time seemed fiction, Past and Present one.</p> +<h3><a name="page278"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +278</span>ROME<br> +<span class="GutSmall">BUILDING A NEW STREET IN THE ANCIENT +QUARTER</span><br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>April</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1887)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">These</span> numbered +cliffs and gnarls of masonry<br> +Outskeleton Time’s central city, Rome;<br> +Whereof each arch, entablature, and dome<br> +Lies bare in all its gaunt anatomy.</p> +<p class="poetry">And cracking frieze and rotten metope<br> +Express, as though they were an open tome<br> +<a name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +279</span>Top-lined with caustic monitory gnome;<br> +“Dunces, Learn here to spell Humanity!”</p> +<p class="poetry">And yet within these ruins’ very shade<br +> +The singing workmen shape and set and join<br> +Their frail new mansion’s stuccoed cove and quoin<br> +With no apparent sense that years abrade,<br> +Though each rent wall their feeble works invade<br> +Once shamed all such in power of pier and groin.</p> +<h3><a name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +280</span>ROME<br> +<span class="GutSmall">THE VATICAN—SALA DELLE +MUSE</span><br> +<span class="GutSmall">(1887)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">sat</span> in the +Muses’ Hall at the mid of the day,<br> +And it seemed to grow still, and the people to pass away,<br> +And the chiselled shapes to combine in a haze of sun,<br> +Till beside a Carrara column there gleamed forth One.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +281</span>She was nor this nor that of those beings divine,<br> +But each and the whole—an essence of all the Nine;<br> +With tentative foot she neared to my halting-place,<br> +A pensive smile on her sweet, small, marvellous face.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Regarded so long, we render thee +sad?” said she.<br> +“Not you,” sighed I, “but my own +inconstancy!<br> +I worship each and each; in the morning one,<br> +And then, alas! another at sink of sun.</p> +<p class="poetry">“To-day my soul clasps Form; but where is +my troth<br> +Of yesternight with Tune: can one cleave to both?”<br> +—“Be not perturbed,” said she. +“Though apart in fame,<br> +As I and my sisters are one, those, too, are the same.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +282</span>—“But my loves go further—to Story, +and Dance, and Hymn,<br> +The lover of all in a sun-sweep is fool to whim—<br> +Is swayed like a river-weed as the ripples run!”<br> +—“Nay, wight, thou sway’st not. These are +but phases of one;</p> +<p class="poetry">“And that one is I; and I am projected +from thee,<br> +One that out of thy brain and heart thou causest to be—<br +> +Extern to thee nothing. Grieve not, nor thyself becall,<br +> +Woo where thou wilt; and rejoice thou canst love at +all!”</p> +<h3><a name="page283"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +283</span>ROME<br> +<span class="GutSmall">AT THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS</span><br> +<span class="GutSmall">NEAR THE GRAVES OF SHELLEY AND +KEATS</span><br> +<span class="GutSmall">(1887)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Who</span>, then, was Cestius,<br> + And what is he to me?—<br> +Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous<br> + One thought alone brings he.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page284"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 284</span>I can +recall no word<br> + Of anything he did;<br> +For me he is a man who died and was interred<br> + To leave a pyramid</p> +<p class="poetry"> Whose +purpose was exprest<br> + Not with its first design,<br> +Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest<br> + Two countrymen of mine.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Cestius in +life, maybe,<br> + Slew, breathed out threatening;<br +> +I know not. This I know: in death all silently<br> + He does a kindlier thing,</p> +<p class="poetry"> In +beckoning pilgrim feet<br> + With marble finger high<br> +To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street,<br> + Those matchless singers lie . . +.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page285"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 285</span>—Say, +then, he lived and died<br> + That stones which bear his name<br +> +Should mark, through Time, where two immortal Shades abide;<br> + It is an ample fame.</p> +<h3><a name="page286"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +286</span>LAUSANNE<br> +<span class="GutSmall">IN GIBBON’S OLD GARDEN: 11–12 +P.M.</span><br> +<span class="GutSmall"><i>June</i></span><span class="GutSmall"> +27, 1897</span></h3> +<p>(<i>The</i> 110<i>th</i> <i>anniversary of the completion of +the</i> “<i>Decline and Fall</i>” <i>at the same hour +and place</i>)</p> +<p class="poetry"> A <span +class="smcap">spirit</span> seems to pass,<br> + Formal in pose, but grave and grand withal:<br> + He contemplates a volume stout and tall,<br> +And far lamps fleck him through the thin acacias.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page287"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 287</span>Anon the +book is closed,<br> + With “It is finished!” And at the +alley’s end<br> + He turns, and soon on me his glances bend;<br> +And, as from earth, comes speech—small, muted, yet +composed.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “How +fares the Truth now?—Ill?<br> + —Do pens but slily further her advance?<br> + May one not speed her but in phrase askance?<br> +Do scribes aver the Comic to be Reverend still?</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “Still +rule those minds on earth<br> + At whom sage Milton’s wormwood words were +hurled:<br> + ‘<i>Truth like a bastard comes into the +world</i><br> +<i>Never without ill-fame to him who gives her +birth</i>’?”</p> +<h3><a name="page288"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +288</span>ZERMATT<br> +<span class="GutSmall">TO THE MATTERHORN</span><br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>June</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">-</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>July</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1897)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Thirty-two</span> years +since, up against the sun,<br> +Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,<br> +Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,<br> +And four lives paid for what the seven had won.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page289"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +289</span>They were the first by whom the deed was done,<br> +And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight<br> +To that day’s tragic feat of manly might,<br> +As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon<br +> +Thou watch’dst each night the planets lift and lower;<br> +Thou gleam’dst to Joshua’s pausing sun and moon,<br +> +And brav’dst the tokening sky when Cæsar’s +power<br> +Approached its bloody end: yea, saw’st that Noon<br> +When darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.</p> +<h3><a name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 290</span>THE +BRIDGE OF LODI <a name="citation290"></a><a href="#footnote290" +class="citation">[290]</a><br> +<span class="GutSmall">(</span><span +class="GutSmall"><i>Spring</i></span><span class="GutSmall">, +1887)</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> of tender mind +and body<br> + I was moved by minstrelsy,<br> +And that strain “The Bridge of Lodi”<br> + Brought a strange delight to me.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page291"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 291</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">In the battle-breathing jingle<br> + Of its forward-footing tune<br> +I could see the armies mingle,<br> + And the columns cleft and hewn</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">On that far-famed spot by Lodi<br> + Where Napoleon clove his way<br> +To his fame, when like a god he<br> + Bent the nations to his sway.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">Hence the tune came capering to me<br> + While I traced the Rhone and Po;<br> +Nor could Milan’s Marvel woo me<br> + From the spot englamoured so.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">And to-day, sunlit and smiling,<br> + Here I stand upon the scene,<br> +With its saffron walls, dun tiling,<br> + And its meads of maiden green,</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page292"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 292</span>VI</p> +<p class="poetry">Even as when the trackway thundered<br> + With the charge of grenadiers,<br> +And the blood of forty hundred<br> + Splashed its parapets and piers . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">Any ancient crone I’d toady<br> + Like a lass in young-eyed prime,<br> +Could she tell some tale of Lodi<br> + At that moving mighty time.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">So, I ask the wives of Lodi<br> + For traditions of that day;<br> +But alas! not anybody<br> + Seems to know of such a fray.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry">And they heed but transitory<br> + Marketings in cheese and meat,<br> +Till I judge that Lodi’s story<br> + Is extinct in Lodi’s street.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page293"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 293</span>X</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet while here and there they thrid them<br> + In their zest to sell and buy,<br> +Let me sit me down amid them<br> + And behold those thousands die . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XI</p> +<p class="poetry">—Not a creature cares in Lodi<br> + How Napoleon swept each arch,<br> +Or where up and downward trod he,<br> + Or for his memorial March!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XII</p> +<p class="poetry">So that wherefore should I be here,<br> + Watching Adda lip the lea,<br> +When the whole romance to see here<br> + Is the dream I bring with me?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIII</p> +<p class="poetry">And why sing “The Bridge of +Lodi”<br> + As I sit thereon and swing,<br> +When none shows by smile or nod he<br> + Guesses why or what I sing? . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page294"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 294</span>XIV</p> +<p class="poetry">Since all Lodi, low and head ones,<br> + Seem to pass that story by,<br> +It may be the Lodi-bred ones<br> + Rate it truly, and not I.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XV</p> +<p class="poetry">Once engrossing Bridge of Lodi,<br> + Is thy claim to glory gone?<br> +Must I pipe a palinody,<br> + Or be silent thereupon?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XVI</p> +<p class="poetry">And if here, from strand to steeple,<br> + Be no stone to fame the fight,<br> +Must I say the Lodi people<br> + Are but viewing crime aright?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XVII</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay; I’ll sing “The Bridge of +Lodi”—<br> + That long-loved, romantic thing,<br> +Though none show by smile or nod he<br> + Guesses why and what I sing!</p> +<h3><a name="page295"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 295</span>ON +AN INVITATION TO THE UNITED STATES</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">My</span> ardours for +emprize nigh lost<br> +Since Life has bared its bones to me,<br> +I shrink to seek a modern coast<br> +Whose riper times have yet to be;<br> +Where the new regions claim them free<br> +From that long drip of human tears<br> +Which peoples old in tragedy<br> +Have left upon the centuried years.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page296"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 296</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">For, wonning in these ancient lands,<br> +Enchased and lettered as a tomb,<br> +And scored with prints of perished hands,<br> +And chronicled with dates of doom,<br> +Though my own Being bear no bloom<br> +I trace the lives such scenes enshrine,<br> +Give past exemplars present room,<br> +And their experience count as mine.</p> +<h2><a name="page297"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +297</span>MISCELLANEOUS POEMS</h2> +<h3><a name="page299"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 299</span>THE +MOTHER MOURNS</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> +mid-autumn’s moan shook the night-time,<br> + And sedges were horny,<br> +And summer’s green wonderwork faltered<br> + On leaze and in lane,</p> +<p class="poetry">I fared Yell’ham-Firs way, where dimly<br +> + Came wheeling around me<br> +Those phantoms obscure and insistent<br> + That shadows unchain.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page300"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +300</span>Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me<br> + A low lamentation,<br> +As ’twere of a tree-god disheartened,<br> + Perplexed, or in pain.</p> +<p class="poetry">And, heeding, it awed me to gather<br> + That Nature herself there<br> +Was breathing in aërie accents,<br> + With dirgeful refrain,</p> +<p class="poetry">Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late +days,<br> + Had grieved her by holding<br> +Her ancient high fame of perfection<br> + In doubt and disdain . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">—“I had not proposed me a +Creature<br> + (She soughed) so excelling<br> +All else of my kingdom in compass<br> + And brightness of brain</p> +<p class="poetry">“As to read my defects with a +god-glance,<br> + Uncover each vestige<br> +Of old inadvertence, annunciate<br> + Each flaw and each stain!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page301"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +301</span>“My purpose went not to develop<br> + Such insight in Earthland;<br> +Such potent appraisements affront me,<br> + And sadden my reign!</p> +<p class="poetry">“Why loosened I olden control here<br> + To mechanize skywards,<br> +Undeeming great scope could outshape in<br> + A globe of such grain?</p> +<p class="poetry">“Man’s mountings of mind-sight I +checked not,<br> + Till range of his vision<br> +Has topped my intent, and found blemish<br> + Throughout my domain.</p> +<p class="poetry">“He holds as inept his own +soul-shell—<br> + My deftest achievement—<br> +Contemns me for fitful inventions<br> + Ill-timed and inane:</p> +<p class="poetry">“No more sees my sun as a Sanct-shape,<br +> + My moon as the Night-queen,<br> +My stars as august and sublime ones<br> + That influences rain:</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +302</span>“Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching,<br> + Immoral my story,<br> +My love-lights a lure, that my species<br> + May gather and gain.</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘Give me,’ he has said, +‘but the matter<br> + And means the gods lot her,<br> +My brain could evolve a creation<br> + More seemly, more sane.’</p> +<p class="poetry">—“If ever a naughtiness seized +me<br> + To woo adulation<br> +From creatures more keen than those crude ones<br> + That first formed my train—</p> +<p class="poetry">“If inly a moment I murmured,<br> + ‘The simple praise sweetly,<br> +But sweetlier the sage’—and did rashly<br> + Man’s vision unrein,</p> +<p class="poetry">“I rue it! . . . His guileless +forerunners,<br> + Whose brains I could blandish,<br> +<a name="page303"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 303</span>To +measure the deeps of my mysteries<br> + Applied them in vain.</p> +<p class="poetry">“From them my waste aimings and futile<br +> + I subtly could cover;<br> +‘Every best thing,’ said they, ‘to best +purpose<br> + Her powers preordain.’—</p> +<p class="poetry">“No more such! . . . My species are +dwindling,<br> + My forests grow barren,<br> +My popinjays fail from their tappings,<br> + My larks from their strain.</p> +<p class="poetry">“My leopardine beauties are rarer,<br> + My tusky ones vanish,<br> +My children have aped mine own slaughters<br> + To quicken my wane.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Let me grow, then, but mildews and +mandrakes,<br> + And slimy distortions,<br> +Let nevermore things good and lovely<br> + To me appertain;</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page304"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +304</span>“For Reason is rank in my temples,<br> + And Vision unruly,<br> +And chivalrous laud of my cunning<br> + Is heard not again!”</p> +<h3><a name="page305"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +305</span>“I SAID TO LOVE”</h3> +<p class="poetry"> I <span +class="smcap">said</span> to Love,<br> +“It is not now as in old days<br> +When men adored thee and thy ways<br> + All else above;<br> +Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One<br> +Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,”<br> + I said to Love.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page306"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 306</span>I said to +him,<br> +“We now know more of thee than then;<br> +We were but weak in judgment when,<br> + With hearts abrim,<br> +We clamoured thee that thou would’st please<br> +Inflict on us thine agonies,”<br> + I said to him.</p> +<p class="poetry"> I said to +Love,<br> +“Thou art not young, thou art not fair,<br> +No faery darts, no cherub air,<br> + Nor swan, nor dove<br> +Are thine; but features pitiless,<br> +And iron daggers of distress,”<br> + I said to Love.</p> +<p +class="poetry"> “Depart +then, Love! . . .<br> +—Man’s race shall end, dost threaten thou?<br> +The age to come the man of now<br> + Know nothing of?—<br> +We fear not such a threat from thee;<br> +We are too old in apathy!<br> +<i>Mankind shall cease</i>.—So let it be,”<br> + I said to Love.</p> +<h3><a name="page307"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 307</span>A +COMMONPLACE DAY</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">The</span> day is turning ghost,<br> +And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively,<br> + To join the anonymous host<br> +Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe,<br> + To one of like degree.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page308"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 308</span>I part the fire-gnawed logs,<br> +Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends<br +> + Upon the shining dogs;<br> +Further and further from the nooks the twilight’s stride +extends,<br> + And beamless black impends.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Nothing of tiniest worth<br +> +Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or +praise,<br> + Since the pale corpse-like birth<br> +Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays—<br> + Dullest of dull-hued Days!</p> +<p class="poetry"> Wanly upon the panes<br> +The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; +and yet<br> + Here, while Day’s presence wanes,<br> +And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set,<br> + He wakens my regret.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page309"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 309</span>Regret—though nothing dear<br +> +That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his prime,<br> + Or bloomed elsewhere than here,<br> +To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime,<br> + Or mark him out in Time . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"> —Yet, maybe, in some +soul,<br> +In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose,<br> + Or some intent upstole<br> +Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows<br> + The world’s amendment flows;</p> +<p class="poetry"> But which, benumbed at +birth<br> +By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be<br> + Embodied on the earth;<br> +And undervoicings of this loss to man’s futurity<br> + May wake regret in me.</p> +<h3><a name="page310"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 310</span>AT A +LUNAR ECLIPSE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Thy</span> shadow, Earth, +from Pole to Central Sea,<br> +Now steals along upon the Moon’s meek shine<br> +In even monochrome and curving line<br> +Of imperturbable serenity.</p> +<p class="poetry">How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry<br> +With the torn troubled form I know as thine,<br> +<a name="page311"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 311</span>That +profile, placid as a brow divine,<br> +With continents of moil and misery?</p> +<p class="poetry">And can immense Mortality but throw<br> +So small a shade, and Heaven’s high human scheme<br> +Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?</p> +<p class="poetry">Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,<br +> +Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,<br> +Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?</p> +<h3><a name="page312"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 312</span>THE +LACKING SENSE</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">Scene</span>.—<i>A sad-coloured +landscape</i>, <i>Waddon Vale</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">“O <span class="smcap">Time</span>, +whence comes the Mother’s moody look amid her labours,<br +> + As of one who all unwittingly has wounded where she +loves?<br> + Why weaves she not her world-webs to according lutes +and tabors,<br> +With nevermore this too remorseful air upon her face,<br> + As of angel fallen from +grace?”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page313"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 313</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">—“Her look is but her story: +construe not its symbols keenly:<br> + In her wonderworks yea surely has she wounded where +she loves.<br> + The sense of ills misdealt for blisses blanks the +mien most queenly,<br> +Self-smitings kill self-joys; and everywhere beneath the sun<br +> + Such deeds her hands have +done.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">—“And how explains thy Ancient Mind +her crimes upon her creatures,<br> + These fallings from her fair beginnings, woundings +where she loves,<br> + Into her would-be perfect motions, modes, effects, +and features<br> +Admitting cramps, black humours, wan decay, and baleful +blights,<br> + Distress into delights?”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page314"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 314</span>IV</p> +<p class="poetry">—“Ah! know’st thou not her +secret yet, her vainly veiled deficience,<br> + Whence it comes that all unwittingly she wounds the +lives she loves?<br> + That sightless are those orbs of hers?—which +bar to her omniscience<br> +Brings those fearful unfulfilments, that red ravage through her +zones<br> + Whereat all creation groans.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">“She whispers it in each pathetic +strenuous slow endeavour,<br> + When in mothering she unwittingly sets wounds on +what she loves;<br> + Yet her primal doom pursues her, faultful, fatal is +she ever;<br> +Though so deft and nigh to vision is her facile finger-touch<br +> + That the seers marvel much.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page315"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 315</span>VI</p> +<p class="poetry">“Deal, then, her groping skill no scorn, +no note of malediction;<br> + Not long on thee will press the hand that hurts the +lives it loves;<br> + And while she dares dead-reckoning on, in darkness +of affliction,<br> +Assist her where thy creaturely dependence can or may,<br> + For thou art of her +clay.”</p> +<h3><a name="page316"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 316</span>TO +LIFE</h3> +<p class="poetry"> O <span +class="smcap">life</span> with the sad seared face,<br> + I weary of seeing thee,<br> +And thy draggled cloak, and thy hobbling pace,<br> + And thy too-forced pleasantry!</p> +<p class="poetry"> I know what thou +would’st tell<br> + Of Death, Time, Destiny—<br +> +I have known it long, and know, too, well<br> + What it all means for me.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page317"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 317</span>But canst thou not array<br> + Thyself in rare disguise,<br> +And feign like truth, for one mad day,<br> + That Earth is Paradise?</p> +<p class="poetry"> I’ll tune me to the +mood,<br> + And mumm with thee till eve;<br> +And maybe what as interlude<br> + I feign, I shall believe!</p> +<h3><a name="page318"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 318</span>DOOM +AND SHE</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">There</span> dwells a mighty pair—<br> + Slow, statuesque, intense—<br> + Amid the vague Immense:<br> +None can their chronicle declare,<br> + Nor why they be, nor whence.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page319"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 319</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry"> Mother of all things made,<br +> + Matchless in artistry,<br> + Unlit with sight is she.—<br> +And though her ever well-obeyed<br> + Vacant of feeling he.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry"> The Matron mildly +asks—<br> + A throb in every word—<br> + “Our clay-made creatures, lord,<br> +How fare they in their mortal tasks<br> + Upon Earth’s bounded bord?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry"> “The fate of those I +bear,<br> + Dear lord, pray turn and view,<br> + And notify me true;<br> +Shapings that eyelessly I dare<br> + Maybe I would undo.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Sometimes from lairs +of life<br> + Methinks I catch a groan,<br> + Or multitudinous moan,<br> +<a name="page320"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 320</span>As +though I had schemed a world of strife,<br> + Working by touch alone.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry"> “World-weaver!” +he replies,<br> + “I scan all thy domain;<br> + But since nor joy nor pain<br> +Doth my clear substance recognize,<br> + I read thy realms in vain.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry"> “World-weaver! what +<i>is</i> Grief?<br> + And what are Right, and Wrong,<br> + And Feeling, that belong<br> +To creatures all who owe thee fief?<br> + What worse is Weak than Strong?” . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VIII</p> +<p class="poetry"> —Unlightened, curious, +meek,<br> + She broods in sad surmise . . .<br> + —Some say they have heard her sighs<br> +On Alpine height or Polar peak<br> + When the night tempests rise.</p> +<h3><a name="page321"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 321</span>THE +PROBLEM</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Shall</span> we conceal the Case, or tell +it—<br> + We who believe the evidence?<br> + Here and there the watch-towers knell it<br> + With a sullen significance,<br> +Heard of the few who hearken intently and carry an eagerly +upstrained sense.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page322"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 322</span>Hearts that are happiest hold not by +it;<br> + Better we let, then, the old view +reign;<br> + Since there is peace in it, why decry it?<br> + Since there is comfort, why +disdain?<br> +Note not the pigment the while that the painting determines +humanity’s joy and pain!</p> +<h3><a name="page323"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 323</span>THE +SUBALTERNS</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">“<span class="smcap">Poor</span> +wanderer,” said the leaden sky,<br> + “I fain would lighten thee,<br> +But there be laws in force on high<br> + Which say it must not be.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">—“I would not freeze thee, shorn +one,” cried<br> + The North, “knew I but how<br> +<a name="page324"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 324</span>To warm +my breath, to slack my stride;<br> + But I am ruled as thou.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">—“To-morrow I attack thee, +wight,”<br> + Said Sickness. “Yet I swear<br> +I bear thy little ark no spite,<br> + But am bid enter there.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">—“Come hither, Son,” I heard +Death say;<br> + “I did not will a grave<br> +Should end thy pilgrimage to-day,<br> + But I, too, am a slave!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">We smiled upon each other then,<br> + And life to me wore less<br> +That fell contour it wore ere when<br> + They owned their passiveness.</p> +<h3><a name="page325"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 325</span>THE +SLEEP-WORKER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> wilt thou wake, +O Mother, wake and see—<br> +As one who, held in trance, has laboured long<br> +By vacant rote and prepossession strong—<br> +The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly;</p> +<p class="poetry">Wherein have place, unrealized by thee,<br> +Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong,<br> +Strange orchestras of victim-shriek and song,<br> +And curious blends of ache and ecstasy?—</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page326"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +326</span>Should that morn come, and show thy opened eyes<br> +All that Life’s palpitating tissues feel,<br> +How wilt thou bear thyself in thy surprise?—</p> +<p class="poetry">Wilt thou destroy, in one wild shock of +shame,<br> +Thy whole high heaving firmamental frame,<br> +Or patiently adjust, amend, and heal?</p> +<h3><a name="page327"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 327</span>THE +BULLFINCHES</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Brother</span> Bulleys, let us sing<br> + From the dawn till evening!—<br> +For we know not that we go not<br> + When the day’s pale pinions fold<br> + Unto those who sang of old.</p> +<p class="poetry"> When I flew to Blackmoor +Vale,<br> + Whence the green-gowned faeries hail,<br> +Roosting near them I could hear them<br> + Speak of queenly Nature’s ways,<br> + Means, and moods,—well known to fays.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page328"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 328</span>All we creatures, nigh and far<br> + (Said they there), the Mother’s are:<br> +Yet she never shows endeavour<br> + To protect from warrings wild<br> + Bird or beast she calls her child.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Busy in her handsome house<br +> + Known as Space, she falls a-drowse;<br> +Yet, in seeming, works on dreaming,<br> + While beneath her groping hands<br> + Fiends make havoc in her bands.</p> +<p class="poetry"> How her hussif’ry +succeeds<br> + She unknows or she unheeds,<br> +All things making for Death’s taking!<br> + —So the green-gowned faeries say<br> + Living over Blackmoor way.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Come then, brethren, let us +sing,<br> + From the dawn till evening!—<br> +For we know not that we go not<br> + When the day’s pale pinions fold<br> + Unto those who sang of old.</p> +<h3><a name="page329"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +329</span>GOD-FORGOTTEN</h3> +<p class="poetry"> I <span +class="smcap">towered</span> far, and lo! I stood within<br +> + The presence of the Lord Most High,<br> +Sent thither by the sons of earth, to win<br> + Some answer to their cry.</p> +<p class="poetry"> —“The Earth, +say’st thou? The Human race?<br> + By Me created? Sad its lot?<br> +Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:<br> + Such world I fashioned +not.”—</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page330"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 330</span>—“O Lord, forgive me +when I say<br> + Thou spak’st the word, and mad’st it +all.”—<br> +“The Earth of men—let me bethink me . . . Yea!<br> + I dimly do recall</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Some tiny sphere I +built long back<br> + (Mid millions of such shapes of mine)<br> +So named . . . It perished, surely—not a wrack<br> + Remaining, or a sign?</p> +<p class="poetry"> “It lost my interest +from the first,<br> + My aims therefor succeeding ill;<br> +Haply it died of doing as it durst?”—<br> + “Lord, it existeth +still.”—</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Dark, then, its +life! For not a cry<br> + Of aught it bears do I now hear;<br> +Of its own act the threads were snapt whereby<br> + Its plaints had reached mine +ear.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “It used to ask for +gifts of good,<br> + Till came its severance self-entailed,<br> +<a name="page331"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 331</span>When +sudden silence on that side ensued,<br> + And has till now prevailed.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “All other orbs have +kept in touch;<br> + Their voicings reach me speedily:<br> +Thy people took upon them overmuch<br> + In sundering them from me!</p> +<p class="poetry"> “And it is +strange—though sad enough—<br> + Earth’s race should think that one whose +call<br> +Frames, daily, shining spheres of flawless stuff<br> + Must heed their tainted ball! . . +.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “But say’st thou +’tis by pangs distraught,<br> + And strife, and silent suffering?—<br> +Deep grieved am I that injury should be wrought<br> + Even on so poor a thing!</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Thou should’st +have learnt that <i>Not to Mend</i><br> + For Me could mean but <i>Not to Know</i>:<br> +Hence, Messengers! and straightway put an end<br> + To what men undergo.” . . +.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page332"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 332</span>Homing at dawn, I thought to see<br +> + One of the Messengers standing by.<br> +—Oh, childish thought! . . . Yet oft it comes to me<br> + When trouble hovers nigh.</p> +<h3><a name="page333"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 333</span>THE +BEDRIDDEN PEASANT<br> +<span class="GutSmall">TO AN UNKNOWING GOD</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Much</span> wonder +I—here long low-laid—<br> + That this dead wall should be<br> +Betwixt the Maker and the made,<br> + Between Thyself and me!</p> +<p class="poetry">For, say one puts a child to nurse,<br> + He eyes it now and then<br> +To know if better ’tis, or worse,<br> + And if it mourn, and when.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page334"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +334</span>But Thou, Lord, giv’st us men our clay<br> + In helpless bondage thus<br> +To Time and Chance, and seem’st straightway<br> + To think no more of us!</p> +<p class="poetry">That some disaster cleft Thy scheme<br> + And tore us wide apart,<br> +So that no cry can cross, I deem;<br> + For Thou art mild of heart,</p> +<p class="poetry">And would’st not shape and shut us in<br +> + Where voice can not he heard:<br> +’Tis plain Thou meant’st that we should win<br> + Thy succour by a word.</p> +<p class="poetry">Might but Thy sense flash down the skies<br> + Like man’s from clime to clime,<br> +Thou would’st not let me agonize<br> + Through my remaining time;</p> +<p class="poetry">But, seeing how much Thy creatures +bear—<br> + Lame, starved, or maimed, or blind—<br> +Thou’dst heal the ills with quickest care<br> + Of me and all my kind.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page335"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +335</span>Then, since Thou mak’st not these things be,<br +> + But these things dost not know,<br> +I’ll praise Thee as were shown to me<br> + The mercies Thou would’st show!</p> +<h3 class="x-ebookmaker-important"><a name="page336"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 336</span>BY +THE EARTH’S CORPSE</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> “O <span +class="smcap">Lord</span>, why grievest Thou?—<br> + Since Life has ceased to be<br> + Upon this globe, now cold<br> + As lunar land and sea,<br> +And humankind, and fowl, and fur<br> + Are gone eternally,<br> +All is the same to Thee as ere<br> + They knew mortality.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page337"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 337</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">“O Time,” replied the Lord,<br> + “Thou read’st me ill, I ween;<br> +Were all <i>the same</i>, I should not grieve<br> + At that late earthly scene,<br> +Now blestly past—though planned by me<br> + With interest close and keen!—<br> +Nay, nay: things now are <i>not</i> the same<br> + As they have earlier been.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Written indelibly<br +> + On my eternal mind<br> + Are all the wrongs endured<br> + By Earth’s poor patient kind,<br> +Which my too oft unconscious hand<br> + Let enter undesigned.<br> +No god can cancel deeds foredone,<br> + Or thy old coils unwind!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry"> “As when, in +Noë’s days,<br> + I whelmed the plains with sea,<br> + <a name="page338"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +338</span>So at this last, when flesh<br> + And herb but fossils be,<br> +And, all extinct, their piteous dust<br> + Revolves obliviously,<br> +That I made Earth, and life, and man,<br> + It still repenteth me!”</p> +<h3><a name="page339"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 339</span>MUTE +OPINION</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">traversed</span> a +dominion<br> +Whose spokesmen spake out strong<br> +Their purpose and opinion<br> +Through pulpit, press, and song.<br> +I scarce had means to note there<br> +A large-eyed few, and dumb,<br> +Who thought not as those thought there<br> +That stirred the heat and hum.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page340"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 340</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">When, grown a Shade, beholding<br> +That land in lifetime trode,<br> +To learn if its unfolding<br> +Fulfilled its clamoured code,<br> +I saw, in web unbroken,<br> +Its history outwrought<br> +Not as the loud had spoken,<br> +But as the mute had thought.</p> +<h3><a name="page341"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 341</span>TO +AN UNBORN PAUPER CHILD</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Breathe</span> not, hid Heart: cease silently,<br +> + And though thy birth-hour beckons thee,<br> + Sleep the long sleep:<br> + The Doomsters heap<br> + Travails and teens around us here,<br> +And Time-wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page342"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 342</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry"> Hark, how the peoples surge +and sigh,<br> + And laughters fail, and greetings die:<br> + Hopes dwindle; yea,<br> + Faiths waste away,<br> + Affections and enthusiasms numb;<br> +Thou canst not mend these things if thou dost come.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry"> Had I the ear of +wombèd souls<br> + Ere their terrestrial chart unrolls,<br> + And thou wert free<br> + To cease, or be,<br> + Then would I tell thee all I know,<br> +And put it to thee: Wilt thou take Life so?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry"> Vain vow! No hint of +mine may hence<br> + To theeward fly: to thy locked sense<br> + Explain none can<br> + Life’s pending plan:<br> + Thou wilt thy ignorant entry make<br> +Though skies spout fire and blood and nations quake.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page343"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 343</span>V</p> +<p class="poetry"> Fain would I, dear, find some +shut plot<br> + Of earth’s wide wold for thee, where not<br> + One tear, one qualm,<br> + Should break the calm.<br> + But I am weak as thou and bare;<br> +No man can change the common lot to rare.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry"> Must come and bide. And +such are we—<br> + Unreasoning, sanguine, visionary—<br> + That I can hope<br> + Health, love, friends, scope<br> + In full for thee; can dream thou’lt find<br> +Joys seldom yet attained by humankind!</p> +<h3><a name="page344"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 344</span>TO +FLOWERS FROM ITALY IN WINTER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Sunned</span> in the South, +and here to-day;<br> + —If all organic things<br> +Be sentient, Flowers, as some men say,<br> + What are your ponderings?</p> +<p class="poetry">How can you stay, nor vanish quite<br> + From this bleak spot of thorn,<br> +And birch, and fir, and frozen white<br> + Expanse of the forlorn?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page345"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +345</span>Frail luckless exiles hither brought!<br> + Your dust will not regain<br> +Old sunny haunts of Classic thought<br> + When you shall waste and wane;</p> +<p class="poetry">But mix with alien earth, be lit<br> + With frigid Boreal flame,<br> +And not a sign remain in it<br> + To tell men whence you came.</p> +<h3><a name="page346"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 346</span>ON A +FINE MORNING</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Whence</span> comes +Solace?—Not from seeing<br> +What is doing, suffering, being,<br> +Not from noting Life’s conditions,<br> +Nor from heeding Time’s monitions;<br> + But in cleaving to the Dream,<br> + And in gazing at the gleam<br> + Whereby gray things golden seem.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page347"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 347</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus do I this heyday, holding<br> +Shadows but as lights unfolding,<br> +As no specious show this moment<br> +With its irisèd embowment;<br> + But as nothing other than<br> + Part of a benignant plan;<br> + Proof that earth was made for man.</p> +<p><i>February</i> 1899.</p> +<h3><a name="page348"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 348</span>TO +LIZBIE BROWNE</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Dear</span> Lizbie +Browne,<br> +Where are you now?<br> +In sun, in rain?—<br> +Or is your brow<br> +Past joy, past pain,<br> +Dear Lizbie Browne?</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page349"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 349</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">Sweet Lizbie Browne<br> +How you could smile,<br> +How you could sing!—<br> +How archly wile<br> +In glance-giving,<br> +Sweet Lizbie Browne!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">And, Lizbie Browne,<br> +Who else had hair<br> +Bay-red as yours,<br> +Or flesh so fair<br> +Bred out of doors,<br> +Sweet Lizbie Browne?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">When, Lizbie Browne,<br> +You had just begun<br> +To be endeared<br> +By stealth to one,<br> +You disappeared<br> +My Lizbie Browne!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page350"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 350</span>V</p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, Lizbie Browne,<br> +So swift your life,<br> +And mine so slow,<br> +You were a wife<br> +Ere I could show<br> +Love, Lizbie Browne.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">Still, Lizbie Browne,<br> +You won, they said,<br> +The best of men<br> +When you were wed . . .<br> +Where went you then,<br> +O Lizbie Browne?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">Dear Lizbie Browne,<br> +I should have thought,<br> +“Girls ripen fast,”<br> +And coaxed and caught<br> +You ere you passed,<br> +Dear Lizbie Browne!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page351"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 351</span>VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">But, Lizbie Browne,<br> +I let you slip;<br> +Shaped not a sign;<br> +Touched never your lip<br> +With lip of mine,<br> +Lost Lizbie Browne!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry">So, Lizbie Browne,<br> +When on a day<br> +Men speak of me<br> +As not, you’ll say,<br> +“And who was he?”—<br> +Yes, Lizbie Browne!</p> +<h3><a name="page352"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 352</span>SONG +OF HOPE</h3> +<p class="poetry">O <span class="smcap">sweet</span> +To-morrow!—<br> + After to-day<br> + There will away<br> +This sense of sorrow.<br> +Then let us borrow<br> +Hope, for a gleaming<br> +Soon will be streaming,<br> + Dimmed by no gray—<br> + No gray!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page353"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +353</span>While the winds wing us<br> + Sighs from The Gone,<br> + Nearer to dawn<br> +Minute-beats bring us;<br> +When there will sing us<br> +Larks of a glory<br> +Waiting our story<br> + Further anon—<br> + Anon!</p> +<p class="poetry">Doff the black token,<br> + Don the red shoon,<br> + Right and retune<br> +Viol-strings broken;<br> +Null the words spoken<br> +In speeches of rueing,<br> +The night cloud is hueing,<br> + To-morrow shines soon—<br> + Shines soon!</p> +<h3><a name="page354"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 354</span>THE +WELL-BELOVED</h3> +<p class="poetry">I wayed by star and planet shine<br> + Towards the dear one’s home<br> +At Kingsbere, there to make her mine<br> + When the next sun upclomb.</p> +<p class="poetry">I edged the ancient hill and wood<br> + Beside the Ikling Way,<br> +Nigh where the Pagan temple stood<br> + In the world’s earlier day.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page355"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +355</span>And as I quick and quicker walked<br> + On gravel and on green,<br> +I sang to sky, and tree, or talked<br> + Of her I called my queen.</p> +<p class="poetry">—“O faultless is her dainty +form,<br> + And luminous her mind;<br> +She is the God-created norm<br> + Of perfect womankind!”</p> +<p class="poetry">A shape whereon one star-blink gleamed<br> + Glode softly by my side,<br> +A woman’s; and her motion seemed<br> + The motion of my bride.</p> +<p class="poetry">And yet methought she’d drawn +erstwhile<br> + Adown the ancient leaze,<br> +Where once were pile and peristyle<br> + For men’s idolatries.</p> +<p class="poetry">—“O maiden lithe and lone, what +may<br> + Thy name and lineage be,<br> +Who so resemblest by this ray<br> + My darling?—Art thou she?”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page356"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +356</span>The Shape: “Thy bride remains within<br> + Her father’s grange and grove.”<br> +—“Thou speakest rightly,” I broke in,<br> + “Thou art not she I love.”</p> +<p class="poetry">—“Nay: though thy bride remains +inside<br> + Her father’s walls,” said she,<br> +“The one most dear is with thee here,<br> + For thou dost love but me.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then I: “But she, my only choice,<br> + Is now at Kingsbere Grove?”<br> +Again her soft mysterious voice:<br> + “I am thy only Love.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus still she vouched, and still I said,<br> + “O sprite, that cannot be!” . . .<br> +It was as if my bosom bled,<br> + So much she troubled me.</p> +<p class="poetry">The sprite resumed: “Thou hast +transferred<br> + To her dull form awhile<br> +My beauty, fame, and deed, and word,<br> + My gestures and my smile.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page357"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +357</span>“O fatuous man, this truth infer,<br> + Brides are not what they seem;<br> +Thou lovest what thou dreamest her;<br> + I am thy very dream!”</p> +<p class="poetry">—“O then,” I answered +miserably,<br> + Speaking as scarce I knew,<br> +“My loved one, I must wed with thee<br> + If what thou say’st be true!”</p> +<p class="poetry">She, proudly, thinning in the gloom:<br> + “Though, since troth-plight began,<br> +I’ve ever stood as bride to groom,<br> + I wed no mortal man!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Thereat she vanished by the Cross<br> + That, entering Kingsbere town,<br> +The two long lanes form, near the fosse<br> + Below the faneless Down.</p> +<p class="poetry">—When I arrived and met my bride,<br> + Her look was pinched and thin,<br> +As if her soul had shrunk and died,<br> + And left a waste within.</p> +<h3><a name="page358"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 358</span>HER +REPROACH</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Con</span> the dead page as +’twere live love: press on!<br> +Cold wisdom’s words will ease thy track for thee;<br> +Aye, go; cast off sweet ways, and leave me wan<br> +To biting blasts that are intent on me.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page359"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +359</span>But if thy object Fame’s far summits be,<br> +Whose inclines many a skeleton o’erlies<br> +That missed both dream and substance, stop and see<br> +How absence wears these cheeks and dims these eyes!</p> +<p class="poetry">It surely is far sweeter and more wise<br> +To water love, than toil to leave anon<br> +A name whose glory-gleam will but advise<br> +Invidious minds to quench it with their own,</p> +<p class="poetry">And over which the kindliest will but stay<br +> +A moment, musing, “He, too, had his day!”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Westbourne Park Villas</span>,<br> + 1867.</p> +<h3><a name="page360"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 360</span>THE +INCONSISTENT</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">say</span>, “She +was as good as fair,”<br> + When standing by her mound;<br> +“Such passing sweetness,” I declare,<br> + “No longer treads the ground.”<br> +I say, “What living Love can catch<br> + Her bloom and bonhomie,<br> +And what in newer maidens match<br> + Her olden warmth to me!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page361"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +361</span>—There stands within yon vestry-nook<br> + Where bonded lovers sign,<br> +Her name upon a faded book<br> + With one that is not mine.<br> +To him she breathed the tender vow<br> + She once had breathed to me,<br> +But yet I say, “O love, even now<br> + Would I had died for thee!”</p> +<h3><a name="page362"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 362</span>A +BROKEN APPOINTMENT</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">You</span> did not come,<br> +And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.—<br> +Yet less for loss of your dear presence there<br> +Than that I thus found lacking in your make<br> +That high compassion which can overbear<br> +Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake<br> +Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,<br> + You did not come.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page363"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 363</span>You love +not me,<br> +And love alone can lend you loyalty;<br> +—I know and knew it. But, unto the store<br> +Of human deeds divine in all but name,<br> +Was it not worth a little hour or more<br> +To add yet this: Once, you, a woman, came<br> +To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be<br> + You love not me?</p> +<h3><a name="page364"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +364</span>“BETWEEN US NOW”</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Between</span> us now and +here—<br> + Two thrown together<br> +Who are not wont to wear<br> + Life’s flushest feather—<br> +Who see the scenes slide past,<br> +The daytimes dimming fast,<br> +Let there be truth at last,<br> + Even if despair.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page365"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +365</span>So thoroughly and long<br> + Have you now known me,<br> +So real in faith and strong<br> + Have I now shown me,<br> +That nothing needs disguise<br> +Further in any wise,<br> +Or asks or justifies<br> + A guarded tongue.</p> +<p class="poetry">Face unto face, then, say,<br> + Eyes mine own meeting,<br> +Is your heart far away,<br> + Or with mine beating?<br> +When false things are brought low,<br> +And swift things have grown slow,<br> +Feigning like froth shall go,<br> + Faith be for aye.</p> +<h3><a name="page366"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +366</span>“HOW GREAT MY GRIEF”<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(TRIOLET)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">How</span> great my grief, +my joys how few,<br> +Since first it was my fate to know thee!<br> +—Have the slow years not brought to view<br> +How great my grief, my joys how few,<br> +Nor memory shaped old times anew,<br> + Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee<br> +How great my grief, my joys how few,<br> + Since first it was my fate to know thee?</p> +<h3><a name="page367"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +367</span>“I NEED NOT GO”</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">need</span> not go<br> +Through sleet and snow<br> +To where I know<br> +She waits for me;<br> +She will wait me there<br> +Till I find it fair,<br> +And have time to spare<br> +From company.</p> +<p class="poetry">When I’ve overgot<br> +The world somewhat,<br> +When things cost not<br> +Such stress and strain,<br> +<a name="page368"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 368</span>Is soon +enough<br> +By cypress sough<br> +To tell my Love<br> +I am come again.</p> +<p class="poetry">And if some day,<br> +When none cries nay,<br> +I still delay<br> +To seek her side,<br> +(Though ample measure<br> +Of fitting leisure<br> +Await my pleasure)<br> +She will riot chide.</p> +<p class="poetry">What—not upbraid me<br> +That I delayed me,<br> +Nor ask what stayed me<br> +So long? Ah, no!—<br> +New cares may claim me,<br> +New loves inflame me,<br> +She will not blame me,<br> +But suffer it so.</p> +<h3><a name="page369"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 369</span>THE +COQUETTE, AND AFTER<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(TRIOLETS)</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">For</span> long the cruel +wish I knew<br> +That your free heart should ache for me<br> +While mine should bear no ache for you;<br> +For, long—the cruel wish!—I knew<br> +How men can feel, and craved to view<br> +My triumph—fated not to be<br> +For long! . . . The cruel wish I knew<br> +That your free heart should ache for me!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page370"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 370</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">At last one pays the penalty—<br> +The woman—women always do.<br> +My farce, I found, was tragedy<br> +At last!—One pays the penalty<br> +With interest when one, fancy-free,<br> +Learns love, learns shame . . . Of sinners two<br> +At last <i>one</i> pays the penalty—<br> +The woman—women always do!</p> +<h3><a name="page371"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 371</span>A +SPOT</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span class="smcap">In</span> +years defaced and lost,<br> + Two sat here, transport-tossed,<br> + Lit by a living love<br> +The wilted world knew nothing of:<br> + Scared momently<br> + By gaingivings,<br> + Then hoping things<br> + That could not be.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page372"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 372</span>Of love and us no trace<br> + Abides upon the place;<br> + The sun and shadows wheel,<br> +Season and season sereward steal;<br> + Foul days and fair<br> + Here, too, prevail,<br> + And gust and gale<br> + As everywhere.</p> +<p class="poetry"> But lonely shepherd souls<br +> + Who bask amid these knolls<br> + May catch a faery sound<br> +On sleepy noontides from the ground:<br> + “O not again<br> + Till Earth outwears<br> + Shall love like theirs<br> + Suffuse this glen!”</p> +<h3><a name="page373"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 373</span>LONG +PLIGHTED</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Is</span> it worth while, dear, now,<br> +To call for bells, and sally forth arrayed<br> +For marriage-rites—discussed, decried, delayed<br> + So many +years?</p> +<p class="poetry"> Is it worth +while, dear, now,<br> +To stir desire for old fond purposings,<br> +By feints that Time still serves for dallyings,<br> + Though quittance +nears?</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page374"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 374</span>Is it worth +while, dear, when<br> +The day being so far spent, so low the sun,<br> +The undone thing will soon be as the done,<br> + And smiles as tears?</p> +<p class="poetry"> Is it worth +while, dear, when<br> +Our cheeks are worn, our early brown is gray;<br> +When, meet or part we, none says yea or nay,<br> + Or heeds, or cares?</p> +<p class="poetry"> Is it worth +while, dear, since<br> +We still can climb old Yell’ham’s wooded mounds<br> +Together, as each season steals its rounds<br> + And disappears?</p> +<p class="poetry"> Is it worth +while, dear, since<br> +As mates in Mellstock churchyard we can lie,<br> +Till the last crash of all things low and high<br> + Shall end the spheres?</p> +<h3><a name="page375"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 375</span>THE +WIDOW</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">By</span> Mellstock Lodge +and Avenue<br> + Towards her door I went,<br> +And sunset on her window-panes<br> + Reflected our intent.</p> +<p class="poetry">The creeper on the gable nigh<br> + Was fired to more than red<br> +And when I came to halt thereby<br> + “Bright as my joy!” I said.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page376"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +376</span>Of late days it had been her aim<br> + To meet me in the hall;<br> +Now at my footsteps no one came;<br> + And no one to my call.</p> +<p class="poetry">Again I knocked; and tardily<br> + An inner step was heard,<br> +And I was shown her presence then<br> + With scarce an answering word.</p> +<p class="poetry">She met me, and but barely took<br> + My proffered warm embrace;<br> +Preoccupation weighed her look,<br> + And hardened her sweet face.</p> +<p class="poetry">“To-morrow—could you—would +you call?<br> + Make brief your present stay?<br> +My child is ill—my one, my all!—<br> + And can’t be left to-day.”</p> +<p class="poetry">And then she turns, and gives commands<br> + As I were out of sound,<br> +Or were no more to her and hers<br> + Than any neighbour round . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page377"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +377</span>—As maid I wooed her; but one came<br> + And coaxed her heart away,<br> +And when in time he wedded her<br> + I deemed her gone for aye.</p> +<p class="poetry">He won, I lost her; and my loss<br> + I bore I know not how;<br> +But I do think I suffered then<br> + Less wretchedness than now.</p> +<p class="poetry">For Time, in taking him, had oped<br> + An unexpected door<br> +Of bliss for me, which grew to seem<br> + Far surer than before . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">Her word is steadfast, and I know<br> + That plighted firm are we:<br> +But she has caught new love-calls since<br> + She smiled as maid on me!</p> +<h3><a name="page378"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 378</span>AT A +HASTY WEDDING<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(TRIOLET)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">If</span> hours be years +the twain are blest,<br> +For now they solace swift desire<br> +By bonds of every bond the best,<br> +If hours be years. The twain are blest<br> +Do eastern stars slope never west,<br> +Nor pallid ashes follow fire:<br> +If hours be years the twain are blest,<br> +For now they solace swift desire.</p> +<h3><a name="page379"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 379</span>THE +DREAM-FOLLOWER</h3> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">dream</span> of mine flew +over the mead<br> + To the halls where my old Love reigns;<br> +And it drew me on to follow its lead:<br> + And I stood at her window-panes;</p> +<p class="poetry">And I saw but a thing of flesh and bone<br> + Speeding on to its cleft in the clay;<br> +And my dream was scared, and expired on a moan,<br> + And I whitely hastened away.</p> +<h3><a name="page380"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 380</span>HIS +IMMORTALITY</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> I <span +class="smcap">saw</span> a dead man’s finer part<br> +Shining within each faithful heart<br> +Of those bereft. Then said I: “This must be<br> + His immortality.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry"> I looked there as the seasons +wore,<br> +And still his soul continuously upbore<br> +Its life in theirs. But less its shine excelled<br> + Than when I first beheld.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page381"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 381</span>III</p> +<p class="poetry"> His fellow-yearsmen passed, +and then<br> +In later hearts I looked for him again;<br> +And found him—shrunk, alas! into a thin<br> + And spectral mannikin.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry"> Lastly I ask—now old +and chill—<br> +If aught of him remain unperished still;<br> +And find, in me alone, a feeble spark,<br> + Dying amid the dark.</p> +<p><i>February</i> 1899.</p> +<h3><a name="page382"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 382</span>THE +TO-BE-FORGOTTEN</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"> I <span +class="smcap">heard</span> a small sad sound,<br> +And stood awhile amid the tombs around:<br> +“Wherefore, old friends,” said I, “are ye +distrest,<br> + Now, screened from life’s unrest?”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page383"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 383</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry"> —“O not at being +here;<br> +But that our future second death is drear;<br> +When, with the living, memory of us numbs,<br> + And blank oblivion comes!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Those who our +grandsires be<br> +Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;<br> +Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descry<br> + With keenest backward eye.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry"> “They bide as quite +forgot;<br> +They are as men who have existed not;<br> +Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;<br> + It is the second death.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry"> “We here, as yet, each +day<br> +Are blest with dear recall; as yet, alway<br> +In some soul hold a loved continuance<br> + Of shape and voice and glance.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page384"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 384</span>VI</p> +<p class="poetry"> “But what has been will +be—<br> +First memory, then oblivion’s turbid sea;<br> +Like men foregone, shall we merge into those<br> + Whose story no one knows.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry"> “For which of us could +hope<br> +To show in life that world-awakening scope<br> +Granted the few whose memory none lets die,<br> + But all men magnify?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VIII</p> +<p class="poetry"> “We were but +Fortune’s sport;<br> +Things true, things lovely, things of good report<br> +We neither shunned nor sought . . . We see our bourne,<br> + And seeing it we mourn.”</p> +<h3><a name="page385"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +385</span>WIVES IN THE SERE</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Never</span> a careworn +wife but shows,<br> + If a joy suffuse her,<br> +Something beautiful to those<br> + Patient to peruse her,<br> +Some one charm the world unknows<br> + Precious to a muser,<br> +Haply what, ere years were foes,<br> + Moved her mate to choose her.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page386"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 386</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">But, be it a hint of rose<br> + That an instant hues her,<br> +Or some early light or pose<br> + Wherewith thought renews her—<br> +Seen by him at full, ere woes<br> + Practised to abuse her—<br> +Sparely comes it, swiftly goes,<br> + Time again subdues her.</p> +<h3><a name="page387"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 387</span>THE +SUPERSEDED</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">As</span> newer comers +crowd the fore,<br> + We drop behind.<br> +—We who have laboured long and sore<br> + Times out of mind,<br> +And keen are yet, must not regret<br> + To drop behind.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page388"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 388</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet there are of us some who grieve<br> + To go behind;<br> +Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believe<br> + Their fires declined,<br> +And know none cares, remembers, spares<br> + Who go behind.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">’Tis not that we have unforetold<br> + The drop behind;<br> +We feel the new must oust the old<br> + In every kind;<br> +But yet we think, must we, must <i>we</i>,<br> + Too, drop behind?</p> +<h3><a name="page389"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 389</span>AN +AUGUST MIDNIGHT</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">A <span class="smcap">shaded</span> lamp and a +waving blind,<br> +And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:<br> +On this scene enter—winged, horned, and spined—<br> +A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;<br> +While ’mid my page there idly stands<br> +A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page390"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 390</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus meet we five, in this still place,<br> +At this point of time, at this point in space.<br> +—My guests parade my new-penned ink,<br> +Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.<br> +“God’s humblest, they!” I muse. Yet +why?<br> +They know Earth-secrets that know not I.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Max Gate</span>, 1899.</p> +<h3><a name="page391"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 391</span>THE +CAGED THRUSH FREED AND HOME AGAIN<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(VILLANELLE)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">“<span class="smcap">Men</span> know but +little more than we,<br> +Who count us least of things terrene,<br> +How happy days are made to be!</p> +<p class="poetry">“Of such strange tidings what think +ye,<br> +O birds in brown that peck and preen?<br> +Men know but little more than we!</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page392"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +392</span>“When I was borne from yonder tree<br> +In bonds to them, I hoped to glean<br> +How happy days are made to be,</p> +<p class="poetry">“And want and wailing turned to glee;<br +> +Alas, despite their mighty mien<br> +Men know but little more than we!</p> +<p class="poetry">“They cannot change the Frost’s +decree,<br> +They cannot keep the skies serene;<br> +How happy days are made to be</p> +<p class="poetry">“Eludes great Man’s sagacity<br> +No less than ours, O tribes in treen!<br> +Men know but little more than we<br> +How happy days are made to be.”</p> +<h3><a name="page393"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +393</span>BIRDS AT WINTER NIGHTFALL<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(TRIOLET)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Around</span> the house the +flakes fly faster,<br> +And all the berries now are gone<br> +From holly and cotoneaster<br> +Around the house. The flakes fly!—faster<br> +Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster<br> +We used to see upon the lawn<br> +Around the house. The flakes fly faster,<br> +And all the berries now are gone!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Max Gate</span>.</p> +<h3><a name="page394"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 394</span>THE +PUZZLED GAME-BIRDS<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(TRIOLET)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">They</span> are not those +who used to feed us<br> +When we were young—they cannot be—<br> +These shapes that now bereave and bleed us?<br> +They are not those who used to feed us,—<br> +For would they not fair terms concede us?<br> +—If hearts can house such treachery<br> +They are not those who used to feed us<br> +When we were young—they cannot be!</p> +<h3><a name="page395"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +395</span>WINTER IN DURNOVER FIELD</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">Scene</span>.—A wide stretch of +fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and frozen to iron +hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, and +wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: +sky a dull grey.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">(TRIOLET)</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Rook</i>.—Throughout the field I find +no grain;<br> + The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!<br> +<i>Starling</i>.—Aye: patient pecking now is vain<br> + Throughout the field, I find . . .<br> +<i>Rook</i>.—No grain!<br> +<a name="page396"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +396</span><i>Pigeon</i>.—Nor will be, comrade, till it +rain,<br> + Or genial thawings loose the lorn land<br> + Throughout the field.<br> +<i>Rook</i>.—I find no grain:<br> + The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!</p> +<h3><a name="page397"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 397</span>THE +LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Why</span> should this +flower delay so long<br> + To show its tremulous plumes?<br> +Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,<br> + When flowers are in their tombs.</p> +<p class="poetry">Through the slow summer, when the sun<br> + Called to each frond and whorl<br> +That all he could for flowers was being done,<br> + Why did it not uncurl?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page398"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +398</span>It must have felt that fervid call<br> + Although it took no heed,<br> +Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,<br> + And saps all retrocede.</p> +<p class="poetry">Too late its beauty, lonely thing,<br> + The season’s shine is spent,<br> +Nothing remains for it but shivering<br> + In tempests turbulent.</p> +<p class="poetry">Had it a reason for delay,<br> + Dreaming in witlessness<br> +That for a bloom so delicately gay<br> + Winter would stay its stress?</p> +<p class="poetry">—I talk as if the thing were born<br> + With sense to work its mind;<br> +Yet it is but one mask of many worn<br> + By the Great Face behind.</p> +<h3><a name="page399"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 399</span>THE +DARKLING THRUSH</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">leant</span> upon a +coppice gate<br> + When Frost was spectre-gray,<br> +And Winter’s dregs made desolate<br> + The weakening eye of day.<br> +The tangled bine-stems scored the sky<br> + Like strings from broken lyres,<br> +And all mankind that haunted nigh<br> + Had sought their household fires.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page400"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +400</span>The land’s sharp features seemed to be<br> + The Century’s corpse outleant,<br> +His crypt the cloudy canopy,<br> + The wind his death-lament.<br> +The ancient pulse of germ and birth<br> + Was shrunken hard and dry,<br> +And every spirit upon earth<br> + Seemed fervourless as I.</p> +<p class="poetry">At once a voice outburst among<br> + The bleak twigs overhead<br> +In a full-hearted evensong<br> + Of joy illimited;<br> +An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,<br> + In blast-beruffled plume,<br> +Had chosen thus to fling his soul<br> + Upon the growing gloom.</p> +<p class="poetry">So little cause for carollings<br> + Of such ecstatic sound<br> +Was written on terrestrial things<br> + Afar or nigh around,<br> +<a name="page401"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 401</span>That I +could think there trembled through<br> + His happy good-night air<br> +Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew<br> + And I was unaware.</p> +<p><i>December</i> 1900.</p> +<h3><a name="page402"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 402</span>THE +COMET AT YALBURY OR YELL’HAM</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">It</span> bends far over +Yell’ham Plain,<br> + And we, from Yell’ham Height,<br> +Stand and regard its fiery train,<br> + So soon to swim from sight.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">II</p> +<p class="poetry">It will return long years hence, when<br> + As now its strange swift shine<br> +Will fall on Yell’ham; but not then<br> + On that sweet form of thine.</p> +<h3><a name="page403"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 403</span>MAD +JUDY</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> the hamlet +hailed a birth<br> + Judy used to cry:<br> +When she heard our christening mirth<br> + She would kneel and sigh.<br> +She was crazed, we knew, and we<br> +Humoured her infirmity.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page404"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +404</span>When the daughters and the sons<br> + Gathered them to wed,<br> +And we like-intending ones<br> + Danced till dawn was red,<br> +She would rock and mutter, “More<br> +Comers to this stony shore!”</p> +<p class="poetry">When old Headsman Death laid hands<br> + On a babe or twain,<br> +She would feast, and by her brands<br> + Sing her songs again.<br> +What she liked we let her do,<br> +Judy was insane, we knew.</p> +<h3><a name="page405"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 405</span>A +WASTED ILLNESS</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Through</span> vaults of pain,<br> +Enribbed and wrought with groins of ghastliness,<br> +I passed, and garish spectres moved my brain<br> + To dire distress.</p> +<p class="poetry"> And +hammerings,<br> +And quakes, and shoots, and stifling hotness, blent<br> +With webby waxing things and waning things<br> + As on I went.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a +name="page406"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +406</span>“Where lies the end<br> +To this foul way?” I asked with weakening breath.<br> +Thereon ahead I saw a door extend—<br> + The door to death.</p> +<p class="poetry"> It loomed +more clear:<br> +“At last!” I cried. “The all-delivering +door!”<br> +And then, I knew not how, it grew less near<br> + Than theretofore.</p> +<p class="poetry"> And back +slid I<br> +Along the galleries by which I came,<br> +And tediously the day returned, and sky,<br> + And life—the same.</p> +<p class="poetry"> And all was +well:<br> +Old circumstance resumed its former show,<br> +And on my head the dews of comfort fell<br> + As ere my woe.</p> +<p class="poetry"> I roam +anew,<br> +Scarce conscious of my late distress . . . And yet<br> +<a name="page407"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 407</span>Those +backward steps through pain I cannot view<br> + Without regret.</p> +<p class="poetry"> For that +dire train<br> +Of waxing shapes and waning, passed before,<br> +And those grim aisles, must be traversed again<br> + To reach that door.</p> +<h3><a name="page408"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 408</span>A +MAN<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(IN MEMORY OF H. OF M.)</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">In</span> Casterbridge +there stood a noble pile,<br> +Wrought with pilaster, bay, and balustrade<br> +In tactful times when shrewd Eliza swayed.—<br> + On burgher, squire, and clown<br +> +It smiled the long street down for near a mile</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page409"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 409</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">But evil days beset that domicile;<br> +The stately beauties of its roof and wall<br> +Passed into sordid hands. Condemned to fall<br> + Were cornice, quoin, and cove,<br +> +And all that art had wove in antique style.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">Among the hired dismantlers entered there<br> +One till the moment of his task untold.<br> +When charged therewith he gazed, and answered bold:<br> + “Be needy I or no,<br> +I will not help lay low a house so fair!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">“Hunger is hard. But since the +terms be such—<br> +No wage, or labour stained with the disgrace<br> +<a name="page410"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 410</span>Of +wrecking what our age cannot replace<br> + To save its tasteless +soul—<br> +I’ll do without your dole. Life is not +much!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">Dismissed with sneers he backed his tools and +went,<br> +And wandered workless; for it seemed unwise<br> +To close with one who dared to criticize<br> + And carp on points of taste:<br> +To work where they were placed rude men were meant.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">Years whiled. He aged, sank, sickened, +and was not:<br> +And it was said, “A man intractable<br> +And curst is gone.” None sighed to hear his knell,<br +> + None sought his +churchyard-place;<br> +His name, his rugged face, were soon forgot.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page411"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 411</span>VII</p> +<p class="poetry">The stones of that fair hall lie far and +wide,<br> +And but a few recall its ancient mould;<br> +Yet when I pass the spot I long to hold<br> + As truth what fancy saith:<br> +“His protest lives where deathless things abide!”</p> +<h3><a name="page412"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 412</span>THE +DAME OF ATHELHALL</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">“<span class="smcap">Soul</span>! +Shall I see thy face,” she said,<br> + “In one brief hour?<br> +And away with thee from a loveless bed<br> +To a far-off sun, to a vine-wrapt bower,<br> +And be thine own unseparated,<br> + And challenge the world’s white +glower?”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page413"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 413</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">She quickened her feet, and met him where<br> + They had predesigned:<br> +And they clasped, and mounted, and cleft the air<br> +Upon whirling wheels; till the will to bind<br> +Her life with his made the moments there<br> + Efface the years behind.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">Miles slid, and the sight of the port upgrew<br +> + As they sped on;<br> +When slipping its bond the bracelet flew<br> +From her fondled arm. Replaced anon,<br> +Its cameo of the abjured one drew<br> + Her musings thereupon.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">The gaud with his image once had been<br> + A gift from him:<br> +And so it was that its carving keen<br> +Refurbished memories wearing dim,<br> +Which set in her soul a throe of teen,<br> + And a tear on her lashes’ brim.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page414"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 414</span>V</p> +<p class="poetry">“I may not go!” she at length +upspake,<br> + “Thoughts call me back—<br> +I would still lose all for your dear, dear sake;<br> +My heart is thine, friend! But my track<br> +I home to Athelhall must take<br> + To hinder household wrack!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">He appealed. But they parted, weak and +wan:<br> + And he left the shore;<br> +His ship diminished, was low, was gone;<br> +And she heard in the waves as the daytide wore,<br> +And read in the leer of the sun that shone,<br> + That they parted for evermore.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">She homed as she came, at the dip of eve<br> + On Athel Coomb<br> +Regaining the Hall she had sworn to leave . . .<br> +The house was soundless as a tomb,<br> +And she entered her chamber, there to grieve<br> + Lone, kneeling, in the gloom.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page415"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 415</span>VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">From the lawn without rose her husband’s +voice<br> + To one his friend:<br> +“Another her Love, another my choice,<br> +Her going is good. Our conditions mend;<br> +In a change of mates we shall both rejoice;<br> + I hoped that it thus might end!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry">“A quick divorce; she will make him +hers,<br> + And I wed mine.<br> +So Time rights all things in long, long years—<br> +Or rather she, by her bold design!<br> +I admire a woman no balk deters:<br> + She has blessed my life, in fine.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry">“I shall build new rooms for my new true +bride,<br> + Let the bygone be:<br> +By now, no doubt, she has crossed the tide<br> +With the man to her mind. Far happier she<br> +In some warm vineland by his side<br> + Than ever she was with me.”</p> +<h3><a name="page416"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 416</span>THE +SEASONS OF HER YEAR</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Winter</span> is white on +turf and tree,<br> + And birds are fled;<br> +But summer songsters pipe to me,<br> + And petals spread,<br> +For what I dreamt of secretly<br> + His lips have said!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page417"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 417</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">O ’tis a fine May morn, they say,<br> + And blooms have blown;<br> +But wild and wintry is my day,<br> + My birds make moan;<br> +For he who vowed leaves me to pay<br> + Alone—alone!</p> +<h3><a name="page418"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 418</span>THE +MILKMAID</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Under</span> a daisied bank<br> +There stands a rich red ruminating cow,<br> + And hard against her flank<br> +A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow.</p> +<p class="poetry"> The flowery river-ooze<br> +Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail;<br> + Few pilgrims but would choose<br> +The peace of such a life in such a vale.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page419"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 419</span>The maid breathes words—to +vent,<br> +It seems, her sense of Nature’s scenery,<br> + Of whose life, sentiment,<br> +And essence, very part itself is she.</p> +<p class="poetry"> She bends a glance of +pain,<br> +And, at a moment, lets escape a tear;<br> + Is it that passing train,<br> +Whose alien whirr offends her country ear?—</p> +<p class="poetry"> Nay! Phyllis does not +dwell<br> +On visual and familiar things like these;<br> + What moves her is the spell<br> +Of inner themes and inner poetries:</p> +<p class="poetry"> Could but by Sunday morn<br +> +Her gay new gown come, meads might dry to dun,<br> + Trains shriek till ears were torn,<br> +If Fred would not prefer that Other One.</p> +<h3><a name="page420"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 420</span>THE +LEVELLED CHURCHYARD</h3> +<p class="poetry">“O <span class="smcap">passenger</span>, +pray list and catch<br> + Our sighs and piteous groans,<br> +Half stifled in this jumbled patch<br> + Of wrenched memorial stones!</p> +<p class="poetry">“We late-lamented, resting here,<br> + Are mixed to human jam,<br> +And each to each exclaims in fear,<br> + ‘I know not which I am!’</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page421"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +421</span>“The wicked people have annexed<br> + The verses on the good;<br> +A roaring drunkard sports the text<br> + Teetotal Tommy should!</p> +<p class="poetry">“Where we are huddled none can trace,<br +> + And if our names remain,<br> +They pave some path or p-ing place<br> + Where we have never lain!</p> +<p class="poetry">“There’s not a modest maiden elf<br +> + But dreads the final Trumpet,<br> +Lest half of her should rise herself,<br> + And half some local strumpet!</p> +<p class="poetry">“From restorations of Thy fane,<br> + From smoothings of Thy sward,<br> +From zealous Churchmen’s pick and plane<br> + Deliver us O Lord! Amen!”</p> +<p>1882.</p> +<h3><a name="page422"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 422</span>THE +RUINED MAID</h3> +<p class="poetry">“O ’Melia, my dear, this does +everything crown!<br> +Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?<br> +And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?”—<br +> +“O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said +she.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page423"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +423</span>—“You left us in tatters, without shoes or +socks,<br> +Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;<br> +And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers +three!”—<br> +“Yes: that’s how we dress when we’re +ruined,” said she.</p> +<p class="poetry">—“At home in the barton you said +‘thee’ and ‘thou,’<br> +And ‘thik oon,’ and ‘theäs oon,’ and +‘t’other’; but now<br> +Your talking quite fits ’ee for high +compa-ny!”—<br> +“Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,” said +she.</p> +<p class="poetry">—“Your hands were like paws then, +your face blue and bleak,<br> +But now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek,<br> +And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!”—<br> +“We never do work when we’re ruined,” said +she.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page424"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +424</span>—“You used to call home-life a hag-ridden +dream,<br> +And you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you +seem<br> +To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!”—<br> +“True. There’s an advantage in ruin,” +said she.</p> +<p class="poetry">—“I wish I had feathers, a fine +sweeping gown,<br> +And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!”—<br +> +“My dear—a raw country girl, such as you be,<br> +Isn’t equal to that. You ain’t ruined,” +said she.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Westbourne Park Villas</span>, 1866.</p> +<h3><a name="page425"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 425</span>THE +RESPECTABLE BURGHER<br> +<span class="GutSmall">ON “THE HIGHER +CRITICISM”</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Since</span> Reverend +Doctors now declare<br> +That clerks and people must prepare<br> +To doubt if Adam ever were;<br> +To hold the flood a local scare;<br> +To argue, though the stolid stare,<br> +That everything had happened ere<br> +The prophets to its happening sware;<br> +That David was no giant-slayer,<br> +Nor one to call a God-obeyer<br> +<a name="page426"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 426</span>In +certain details we could spare,<br> +But rather was a debonair<br> +Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player:<br> +That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair,<br> +And gave the Church no thought whate’er;<br> +That Esther with her royal wear,<br> +And Mordecai, the son of Jair,<br> +And Joshua’s triumphs, Job’s despair,<br> +And Balaam’s ass’s bitter blare;<br> +Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace-flare,<br> +And Daniel and the den affair,<br> +And other stories rich and rare,<br> +Were writ to make old doctrine wear<br> +Something of a romantic air:<br> +That the Nain widow’s only heir,<br> +And Lazarus with cadaverous glare<br> +(As done in oils by Piombo’s care)<br> +Did not return from Sheol’s lair:<br> +That Jael set a fiendish snare,<br> +That Pontius Pilate acted square,<br> +That never a sword cut Malchus’ ear<br> +And (but for shame I must forbear)<br> +That — — did not reappear! . . .<br> +<a name="page427"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +427</span>—Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair,<br> +All churchgoing will I forswear,<br> +And sit on Sundays in my chair,<br> +And read that moderate man Voltaire.</p> +<h3><a name="page428"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +428</span>ARCHITECTURAL MASKS</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There</span> is a house +with ivied walls,<br> +And mullioned windows worn and old,<br> +And the long dwellers in those halls<br> +Have souls that know but sordid calls,<br> + And daily dote on gold.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page429"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 429</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">In blazing brick and plated show<br> +Not far away a “villa” gleams,<br> +And here a family few may know,<br> +With book and pencil, viol and bow,<br> + Lead inner lives of dreams.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">The philosophic passers say,<br> +“See that old mansion mossed and fair,<br> +Poetic souls therein are they:<br> +And O that gaudy box! Away,<br> + You vulgar people there.”</p> +<h3><a name="page430"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 430</span>THE +TENANT-FOR-LIFE</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> sun said, +watching my watering-pot<br> + “Some morn you’ll pass away;<br> +These flowers and plants I parch up hot—<br> + Who’ll water them that day?</p> +<p class="poetry">“Those banks and beds whose shape your +eye<br> + Has planned in line so true,<br> +New hands will change, unreasoning why<br> + Such shape seemed best to you.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page431"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +431</span>“Within your house will strangers sit,<br> + And wonder how first it came;<br> +They’ll talk of their schemes for improving it,<br> + And will not mention your name.</p> +<p class="poetry">“They’ll care not how, or when, or +at what<br> + You sighed, laughed, suffered here,<br> +Though you feel more in an hour of the spot<br> + Than they will feel in a year</p> +<p class="poetry">“As I look on at you here, now,<br> + Shall I look on at these;<br> +But as to our old times, avow<br> + No knowledge—hold my peace! . . .</p> +<p class="poetry">“O friend, it matters not, I say;<br> + Bethink ye, I have shined<br> +On nobler ones than you, and they<br> + Are dead men out of mind!”</p> +<h3><a name="page432"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 432</span>THE +KING’S EXPERIMENT</h3> +<p class="poetry"> <span class="smcap">It</span> +was a wet wan hour in spring,<br> +And Nature met King Doom beside a lane,<br> +Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading<br> + The Mother’s smiling +reign.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “Why warbles he that +skies are fair<br> +And coombs alight,” she cried, “and fallows gay,<br +> +When I have placed no sunshine in the air<br> + Or glow on earth +to-day?”</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page433"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 433</span>“’Tis in the comedy of +things<br> +That such should be,” returned the one of Doom;<br> +“Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings,<br> + And he shall call them +gloom.”</p> +<p class="poetry"> She gave the word: the sun +outbroke,<br> +All Froomside shone, the hedgebirds raised a song;<br> +And later Hodge, upon the midday stroke,<br> + Returned the lane along,</p> +<p class="poetry"> Low murmuring: “O this +bitter scene,<br> +And thrice accurst horizon hung with gloom!<br> +How deadly like this sky, these fields, these treen,<br> + To trappings of the +tomb!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> The Beldame then: “The +fool and blind!<br> +Such mad perverseness who may apprehend?”—<br> +<a name="page434"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +434</span>“Nay; there’s no madness in it; thou shalt +find<br> + Thy law there,” said her +friend.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “When Hodge went forth +’twas to his Love,<br> +To make her, ere this eve, his wedded prize,<br> +And Earth, despite the heaviness above,<br> + Was bright as Paradise.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “But I sent on my +messenger,<br> +With cunning arrows poisonous and keen,<br> +To take forthwith her laughing life from her,<br> + And dull her little een,</p> +<p class="poetry"> “And white her cheek, +and still her breath,<br> +Ere her too buoyant Hodge had reached her side;<br> +So, when he came, he clasped her but in death,<br> + And never as his bride.</p> +<p class="poetry"> “And there’s the +humour, as I said;<br> +Thy dreary dawn he saw as gleaming gold,<br> +And in thy glistening green and radiant red<br> + Funereal gloom and +cold.”</p> +<h3><a name="page435"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 435</span>THE +TREE<br> +<span class="GutSmall">AN OLD MAN’S STORY</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">Its roots are bristling in the air<br> +Like some mad Earth-god’s spiny hair;<br> +The loud south-wester’s swell and yell<br> +Smote it at midnight, and it fell.<br> + Thus ends the tree<br> + Where Some One sat with me.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page436"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 436</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">Its boughs, which none but darers trod,<br> +A child may step on from the sod,<br> +And twigs that earliest met the dawn<br> +Are lit the last upon the lawn.<br> + Cart off the tree<br> + Beneath whose trunk sat we!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">Yes, there we sat: she cooed content,<br> +And bats ringed round, and daylight went;<br> +The gnarl, our seat, is wrenched and sunk,<br> +Prone that queer pocket in the trunk<br> + Where lay the key<br> + To her pale mystery.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">“Years back, within this pocket-hole<br +> +I found, my Love, a hurried scrawl<br> +Meant not for me,” at length said I;<br> +“I glanced thereat, and let it lie:<br> + The words were three—<br> + ‘<i>Beloved</i>, <i>I agree</i>.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page437"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 437</span>V</p> +<p class="poetry">“Who placed it here; to what request<br +> +It gave assent, I never guessed.<br> +Some prayer of some hot heart, no doubt,<br> +To some coy maiden hereabout,<br> + Just as, maybe,<br> + With you, Sweet Heart, and me.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">She waited, till with quickened breath<br> +She spoke, as one who banisheth<br> +Reserves that lovecraft heeds so well,<br> +To ease some mighty wish to tell:<br> + “’Twas I,” said she,<br> + “Who wrote thus clinchingly.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">“My lover’s wife—aye, +wife!—knew nought<br> +Of what we felt, and bore, and thought . . .<br> +He’d said: ‘<i>I wed with thee or die</i>:<br> +<i>She stands between</i>, ’<i>tis true</i>. <i>But +why</i>?<br> + <i>Do thou agree</i>,<br> + <i>And—she shalt cease to be</i>.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page438"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 438</span>VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">“How I held back, how love supreme<br> +Involved me madly in his scheme<br> +Why should I say? . . . I wrote assent<br> +(You found it hid) to his intent . . .<br> + She—<i>died</i> . . . But he<br> + Came not to wed with me.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry">“O shrink not, Love!—Had these eyes +seen<br> +But once thine own, such had not been!<br> +But we were strangers . . . Thus the plot<br> +Cleared passion’s path.—Why came he not<br> + To wed with me? . . .<br> + He wived the gibbet-tree.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry">—Under that oak of heretofore<br> +Sat Sweetheart mine with me no more:<br> +By many a Fiord, and Strom, and Fleuve<br> +Have I since wandered . . . Soon, for love,<br> + Distraught went she—<br> + ’Twas said for love of me.</p> +<h3><a name="page439"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 439</span>HER +LATE HUSBAND<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(KING’S-HINTOCK, +182–.)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry">“No—not where I shall make my +own;<br> + But dig his grave just by<br> +The woman’s with the initialed stone—<br> + As near as he can lie—<br> +After whose death he seemed to ail,<br> + Though none considered why.</p> +<p class="poetry">“And when I also claim a nook,<br> + And your feet tread me in,<br> +Bestow me, under my old name,<br> + Among my kith and kin,<br> +<a name="page440"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 440</span>That +strangers gazing may not dream<br> + I did a husband win.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Widow, your wish shall be obeyed;<br> + Though, thought I, certainly<br> +You’d lay him where your folk are laid,<br> + And your grave, too, will be,<br> +As custom hath it; you to right,<br> + And on the left hand he.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Aye, sexton; such the Hintock rule,<br +> + And none has said it nay;<br> +But now it haps a native here<br> + Eschews that ancient way . . .<br> +And it may be, some Christmas night,<br> + When angels walk, they’ll say:</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘O strange interment! +Civilized lands<br> + Afford few types thereof;<br> +Here is a man who takes his rest<br> + Beside his very Love,<br> +Beside the one who was his wife<br> + In our sight up above!’”</p> +<h3><a name="page441"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 441</span>THE +SELF-UNSEEING</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here</span> is the ancient +floor,<br> +Footworn and hollowed and thin,<br> +Here was the former door<br> +Where the dead feet walked in.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page442"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +442</span>She sat here in her chair,<br> +Smiling into the fire;<br> +He who played stood there,<br> +Bowing it higher and higher.</p> +<p class="poetry">Childlike, I danced in a dream;<br> +Blessings emblazoned that day<br> +Everything glowed with a gleam;<br> +Yet we were looking away!</p> +<h3><a name="page443"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 443</span>DE +PROFUNDIS</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<blockquote><p>“Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor +meum.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right">—<i>Ps.</i> ci</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="poetry"> <span +class="smcap">Wintertime</span> nighs;<br> +But my bereavement-pain<br> +It cannot bring again:<br> + Twice no one dies.</p> +<p class="poetry"> <a name="page444"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 444</span>Flower-petals flee;<br> +But, since it once hath been,<br> +No more that severing scene<br> + Can harrow me.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Birds faint in dread:<br> +I shall not lose old strength<br> +In the lone frost’s black length:<br> + Strength long since fled!</p> +<p class="poetry"> Leaves freeze to dun;<br> +But friends can not turn cold<br> +This season as of old<br> + For him with none.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Tempests may scath;<br> +But love can not make smart<br> +Again this year his heart<br> + Who no heart hath.</p> +<p class="poetry"> Black is night’s +cope;<br> +But death will not appal<br> +One who, past doubtings all,<br> + Waits in unhope.</p> +<h4><a name="page445"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +445</span>II</h4> +<blockquote><p>“Considerabam ad dexteram, et videbam; et +non erat qui cognosceret me . . . Non est qui requirat animam +meam.”—<i>Ps.</i> cxli.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">When</span> the +clouds’ swoln bosoms echo back the shouts of the many and +strong<br> +That things are all as they best may be, save a few to be right +ere long,<br> +<a name="page446"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 446</span>And my +eyes have not the vision in them to discern what to these is so +clear,<br> +The blot seems straightway in me alone; one better he were not +here.</p> +<p class="poetry">The stout upstanders say, All’s well with +us: ruers have nought to rue!<br> +And what the potent say so oft, can it fail to be somewhat +true?<br> +Breezily go they, breezily come; their dust smokes around their +career,<br> +Till I think I am one horn out of due time, who has no calling +here.</p> +<p class="poetry">Their dawns bring lusty joys, it seems; their +eves exultance sweet;<br> +Our times are blessed times, they cry: Life shapes it as is most +meet,<br> +And nothing is much the matter; there are many smiles to a +tear;<br> +Then what is the matter is I, I say. Why should such an one +be here? . . .</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page447"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +447</span>Let him to whose ears the low-voiced Best seems stilled +by the clash of the First,<br> +Who holds that if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full +look at the Worst,<br> +Who feels that delight is a delicate growth cramped by +crookedness, custom, and fear,<br> +Get him up and be gone as one shaped awry; he disturbs the order +here.</p> +<p>1895–96.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page448"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 448</span>III</p> +<blockquote><p>“Heu mihi, quia incolatus meus prolongatus +est! Habitavi cum habitantibus Cedar; multum incola fuit +aninia mea.”—<i>Ps.</i> cxix.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">There</span> have been +times when I well might have passed and the ending have +come—<br> +Points in my path when the dark might have stolen on me, artless, +unrueing—<br> +<a name="page449"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 449</span>Ere I +had learnt that the world was a welter of futile doing:<br> +Such had been times when I well might have passed, and the ending +have come!</p> +<p class="poetry">Say, on the noon when the half-sunny hours told +that April was nigh,<br> +And I upgathered and cast forth the snow from the +crocus-border,<br> +Fashioned and furbished the soil into a summer-seeming order,<br +> +Glowing in gladsome faith that I quickened the year thereby.</p> +<p class="poetry">Or on that loneliest of eves when afar and +benighted we stood,<br> +She who upheld me and I, in the midmost of Egdon together,<br> +Confident I in her watching and ward through the blackening +heather,<br> +Deeming her matchless in might and with measureless scope +endued.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page450"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +450</span>Or on that winter-wild night when, reclined by the +chimney-nook quoin,<br> +Slowly a drowse overgat me, the smallest and feeblest of folk +there,<br> +Weak from my baptism of pain; when at times and anon I awoke +there—<br> +Heard of a world wheeling on, with no listing or longing to +join.</p> +<p class="poetry">Even then! while unweeting that vision could +vex or that knowledge could numb,<br> +That sweets to the mouth in the belly are bitter, and tart, and +untoward,<br> +Then, on some dim-coloured scene should my briefly raised curtain +have lowered,<br> +Then might the Voice that is law have said “Cease!” +and the ending have come.</p> +<p>1896.</p> +<h3><a name="page451"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 451</span>THE +CHURCH-BUILDER</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">The</span> church flings +forth a battled shade<br> + Over the moon-blanched sward;<br> +The church; my gift; whereto I paid<br> + My all in hand and hoard:<br> + Lavished my gains<br> + With stintless pains<br> + To glorify the Lord.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page452"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 452</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">I squared the broad foundations in<br> + Of ashlared masonry;<br> +I moulded mullions thick and thin,<br> + Hewed fillet and ogee;<br> + I circleted<br> + Each sculptured head<br> + With nimb and canopy.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">I called in many a craftsmaster<br> + To fix emblazoned glass,<br> +To figure Cross and Sepulchre<br> + On dossal, boss, and brass.<br> + My gold all spent,<br> + My jewels went<br> + To gem the cups of Mass.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">I borrowed deep to carve the screen<br> + And raise the ivoried Rood;<br> +I parted with my small demesne<br> + To make my owings good.<br> + <a name="page453"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 453</span>Heir-looms unpriced<br> + I sacrificed,<br> + Until debt-free I stood.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">So closed the task. “Deathless the +Creed<br> + Here substanced!” said my soul:<br> +“I heard me bidden to this deed,<br> + And straight obeyed the call.<br> + Illume this fane,<br> + That not in vain<br> + I build it, Lord of all!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">But, as it chanced me, then and there<br> + Did dire misfortunes burst;<br> +My home went waste for lack of care,<br> + My sons rebelled and curst;<br> + Till I confessed<br> + That aims the best<br> + Were looking like the worst.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page454"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 454</span>VII</p> +<p class="poetry">Enkindled by my votive work<br> + No burning faith I find;<br> +The deeper thinkers sneer and smirk,<br> + And give my toil no mind;<br> + From nod and wink<br> + I read they think<br> + That I am fool and blind.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">My gift to God seems futile, quite;<br> + The world moves as erstwhile;<br> +And powerful wrong on feeble right<br> + Tramples in olden style.<br> + My faith burns down,<br> + I see no crown;<br> + But Cares, and Griefs, and Guile.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry">So now, the remedy? Yea, this:<br> + I gently swing the door<br> +<a name="page455"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 455</span>Here, of +my fane—no soul to wis—<br> + And cross the patterned floor<br> + To the rood-screen<br> + That stands between<br> + The nave and inner chore.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry">The rich red windows dim the moon,<br> + But little light need I;<br> +I mount the prie-dieu, lately hewn<br> + From woods of rarest dye;<br> + Then from below<br> + My garment, so,<br> + I draw this cord, and tie</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XI</p> +<p class="poetry">One end thereof around the beam<br> + Midway ’twixt Cross and truss:<br> +I noose the nethermost extreme,<br> + And in ten seconds thus<br> + I journey hence—<br> + To that land whence<br> + No rumour reaches us.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page456"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 456</span>XII</p> +<p class="poetry">Well: Here at morn they’ll light on +one<br> + Dangling in mockery<br> +Of what he spent his substance on<br> + Blindly and uselessly! . . .<br> + “He might,” +they’ll say,<br> + “Have built, some way.<br> + A cheaper gallows-tree!”</p> +<h3><a name="page457"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 457</span>THE +LOST PYX<br> +<span class="GutSmall">A MEDIÆVAL LEGEND</span> <a +name="citation457"></a><a href="#footnote457" +class="citation">[457]</a></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Some</span> say the spot is +banned; that the pillar Cross-and-Hand<br> + Attests to a deed of hell;<br> +But of else than of bale is the mystic tale<br> + That ancient Vale-folk tell.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page458"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +458</span>Ere Cernel’s Abbey ceased hereabout there dwelt a +priest,<br> + (In later life sub-prior<br> +Of the brotherhood there, whose bones are now bare<br> + In the field that was Cernel choir).</p> +<p class="poetry">One night in his cell at the foot of yon +dell<br> + The priest heard a frequent cry:<br> +“Go, father, in haste to the cot on the waste,<br> + And shrive a man waiting to die.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Said the priest in a shout to the caller +without,<br> + “The night howls, the tree-trunks bow;<br> +One may barely by day track so rugged a way,<br> + And can I then do so now?”</p> +<p class="poetry">No further word from the dark was heard,<br> + And the priest moved never a limb;<br> +And he slept and dreamed; till a Visage seemed<br> + To frown from Heaven at him.</p> +<p class="poetry">In a sweat he arose; and the storm shrieked +shrill,<br> + And smote as in savage joy;<br> +<a name="page459"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 459</span>While +High-Stoy trees twanged to Bubb-Down Hill,<br> + And Bubb-Down to High-Stoy.</p> +<p class="poetry">There seemed not a holy thing in hail,<br> + Nor shape of light or love,<br> +From the Abbey north of Blackmore Vale<br> + To the Abbey south thereof.</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet he plodded thence through the dark +immense,<br> + And with many a stumbling stride<br> +Through copse and briar climbed nigh and nigher<br> + To the cot and the sick man’s side.</p> +<p class="poetry">When he would have unslung the Vessels +uphung<br> + To his arm in the steep ascent,<br> +He made loud moan: the Pyx was gone<br> + Of the Blessed Sacrament.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then in dolorous dread he beat his head:<br> + “No earthly prize or pelf<br> +Is the thing I’ve lost in tempest tossed,<br> + But the Body of Christ Himself!”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page460"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +460</span>He thought of the Visage his dream revealed,<br> + And turned towards whence he came,<br> +Hands groping the ground along foot-track and field,<br> + And head in a heat of shame.</p> +<p class="poetry">Till here on the hill, betwixt vill and +vill,<br> + He noted a clear straight ray<br> +Stretching down from the sky to a spot hard by,<br> + Which shone with the light of day.</p> +<p class="poetry">And gathered around the illumined ground<br> + Were common beasts and rare,<br> +All kneeling at gaze, and in pause profound<br> + Attent on an object there.</p> +<p class="poetry">’Twas the Pyx, unharmed ’mid the +circling rows<br> + Of Blackmore’s hairy throng,<br> +Whereof were oxen, sheep, and does,<br> + And hares from the brakes among;</p> +<p class="poetry">And badgers grey, and conies keen,<br> + And squirrels of the tree,<br> +And many a member seldom seen<br> + Of Nature’s family.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page461"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +461</span>The ireful winds that scoured and swept<br> + Through coppice, clump, and dell,<br> +Within that holy circle slept<br> + Calm as in hermit’s cell.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then the priest bent likewise to the sod<br> + And thanked the Lord of Love,<br> +And Blessed Mary, Mother of God,<br> + And all the saints above.</p> +<p class="poetry">And turning straight with his priceless +freight,<br> + He reached the dying one,<br> +Whose passing sprite had been stayed for the rite<br> + Without which bliss hath none.</p> +<p class="poetry">And when by grace the priest won place,<br> + And served the Abbey well,<br> +He reared this stone to mark where shone<br> + That midnight miracle.</p> +<h3><a name="page462"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +462</span>TESS’S LAMENT</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">would</span> that folk +forgot me quite,<br> + Forgot me +quite!<br> +I would that I could shrink from sight,<br> + And no more see the sun.<br> +Would it were time to say farewell,<br> +To claim my nook, to need my knell,<br> +Time for them all to stand and tell<br> + Of my day’s work as done.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page463"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 463</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! dairy where I lived so long,<br> + I lived so +long;<br> +Where I would rise up stanch and strong,<br> + And lie down hopefully.<br> +’Twas there within the chimney-seat<br> +He watched me to the clock’s slow beat—<br> +Loved me, and learnt to call me sweet,<br> + And whispered words to me.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">And now he’s gone; and now he’s +gone; . . .<br> + And now he’s gone!<br> +The flowers we potted p’rhaps are thrown<br> + To rot upon the farm.<br> +And where we had our supper-fire<br> +May now grow nettle, dock, and briar,<br> +And all the place be mould and mire<br> + So cozy once and warm.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">And it was I who did it all,<br> + Who did it +all;<br> +’Twas I who made the blow to fall<br> + <a name="page464"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +464</span>On him who thought no guile.<br> +Well, it is finished—past, and he<br> +Has left me to my misery,<br> +And I must take my Cross on me<br> + For wronging him awhile.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">How gay we looked that day we wed,<br> + That day we wed!<br> +“May joy be with ye!” all o’m said<br> + A standing by the durn.<br> +I wonder what they say o’s now,<br> +And if they know my lot; and how<br> +She feels who milks my favourite cow,<br> + And takes my place at churn!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">It wears me out to think of it,<br> + To think of it;<br> +I cannot bear my fate as writ,<br> + I’d have my life unbe;<br> +Would turn my memory to a blot,<br> +Make every relic of me rot,<br> +My doings be as they were not,<br> + And what they’ve brought to me!</p> +<h3><a name="page465"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 465</span>THE +SUPPLANTER<br> +<span class="GutSmall">A TALE</span></h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">He</span> bends his +travel-tarnished feet<br> + To where she wastes in clay:<br> +From day-dawn until eve he fares<br> + Along the wintry way;<br> +From day-dawn until eve repairs<br> + Unto her mound to pray.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page466"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 466</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">“Are these the gravestone shapes that +meet<br> + My forward-straining view?<br> +Or forms that cross a window-blind<br> + In circle, knot, and queue:<br> +Gay forms, that cross and whirl and wind<br> + To music throbbing through?”—</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">“The Keeper of the Field of Tombs<br> + Dwells by its gateway-pier;<br> +He celebrates with feast and dance<br> + His daughter’s twentieth year:<br> +He celebrates with wine of France<br> + The birthday of his dear.”—</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">“The gates are shut when evening +glooms:<br> + Lay down your wreath, sad wight;<br> +To-morrow is a time more fit<br> + For placing flowers aright:<br> +The morning is the time for it;<br> + Come, wake with us to-night!”—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page467"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 467</span>V</p> +<p class="poetry">He grounds his wreath, and enters in,<br> + And sits, and shares their cheer.—<br> +“I fain would foot with you, young man,<br> + Before all others here;<br> +I fain would foot it for a span<br> + With such a cavalier!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VI</p> +<p class="poetry">She coaxes, clasps, nor fails to win<br> + His first-unwilling hand:<br> +The merry music strikes its staves,<br> + The dancers quickly band;<br> +And with the damsel of the graves<br> + He duly takes his stand.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">VII</p> +<p class="poetry">“You dance divinely, stranger swain,<br +> + Such grace I’ve never known.<br> +O longer stay! Breathe not adieu<br> + And leave me here alone!<br> +O longer stay: to her be true<br> + Whose heart is all your own!”—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page468"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 468</span>VIII</p> +<p class="poetry">“I mark a phantom through the pane,<br> + That beckons in despair,<br> +Its mouth all drawn with heavy moan—<br> + Her to whom once I sware!”—<br> +“Nay; ’tis the lately carven stone<br> + Of some strange girl laid there!”—</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IX</p> +<p class="poetry">“I see white flowers upon the floor<br> + Betrodden to a clot;<br> +My wreath were they?”—“Nay; love me much,<br> + Swear you’ll forget me not!<br> +’Twas but a wreath! Full many such<br> + Are brought here and forgot.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * * * *</p> +<p style="text-align: center">X</p> +<p class="poetry">The watches of the night grow hoar,<br> + He rises ere the sun;<br> +“Now could I kill thee here!” he says,<br> + “For winning me from one<br> +Who ever in her living days<br> + Was pure as cloistered nun!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page469"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 469</span>XI</p> +<p class="poetry">She cowers, and he takes his track<br> + Afar for many a mile,<br> +For evermore to be apart<br> + From her who could beguile<br> +His senses by her burning heart,<br> + And win his love awhile.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XII</p> +<p class="poetry">A year: and he is travelling back<br> + To her who wastes in clay;<br> +From day-dawn until eve he fares<br> + Along the wintry way,<br> +From day-dawn until eve repairs<br> + Unto her mound to pray.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIII</p> +<p class="poetry">And there he sets him to fulfil<br> + His frustrate first intent:<br> +And lay upon her bed, at last,<br> + The offering earlier meant:<br> +When, on his stooping figure, ghast<br> + And haggard eyes are bent.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XIV</p> +<p class="poetry">“O surely for a little while<br> + You can be kind to me!<br> +For do you love her, do you hate,<br> + She knows not—cares not she:<br> +Only the living feel the weight<br> + Of loveless misery!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">XV</p> +<p class="poetry">“I own my sin; I’ve paid its +cost,<br> + Being outcast, shamed, and bare:<br> +I give you daily my whole heart,<br> + Your babe my tender care,<br> +I pour you prayers; and aye to part<br> + Is more than I can bear!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page470"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 470</span>XVI</p> +<p class="poetry">He turns—unpitying, passion-tossed;<br> + “I know you not!” he cries,<br> +“Nor know your child. I knew this maid,<br> + But she’s in Paradise!”<br> +And swiftly in the winter shade<br> + He breaks from her and flies.</p> +<h2><a name="page471"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +471</span>IMITATIONS, ETC.</h2> +<h3><a name="page473"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +473</span>SAPPHIC FRAGMENT</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Thou shalt +be—Nothing.”—<span class="smcap">Omar +Khayyám</span>.</p> +<p>“Tombless, with no remembrance.”—W. <span +class="smcap">Shakespeare</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Dead</span> shalt thou lie; +and nought<br> + Be told of thee or thought,<br> +For thou hast plucked not of the Muses’ tree:<br> + And even in Hades’ halls<br> + Amidst thy fellow-thralls<br> +No friendly shade thy shade shall company!</p> +<h3><a name="page474"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +474</span>CATULLUS: XXXI<br> +<span class="GutSmall">(After passing Sirmione, April +1887.)</span></h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Sirmio</span>, thou dearest +dear of strands<br> +That Neptune strokes in lake and sea,<br> +With what high joy from stranger lands<br> +Doth thy old friend set foot on thee!<br> +Yea, barely seems it true to me<br> +That no Bithynia holds me now,<br> +But calmly and assuringly<br> +Around me stretchest homely Thou.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page475"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +475</span>Is there a scene more sweet than when<br> +Our clinging cares are undercast,<br> +And, worn by alien moils and men,<br> +The long untrodden sill repassed,<br> +We press the pined for couch at last,<br> +And find a full repayment there?<br> +Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast,<br> +And art, mine own unrivalled Fair!</p> +<h3><a name="page476"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +476</span>AFTER SCHILLER</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Knight</span>, a true +sister-love<br> + This heart retains;<br> +Ask me no other love,<br> + That way lie pains!</p> +<p class="poetry">Calm must I view thee come,<br> + Calm see thee go;<br> +Tale-telling tears of thine<br> + I must not know!</p> +<h3><a name="page477"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 477</span>SONG +FROM HEINE</h3> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">scanned</span> her +picture dreaming,<br> + Till each dear line and hue<br> +Was imaged, to my seeming,<br> + As if it lived anew.</p> +<p class="poetry">Her lips began to borrow<br> + Their former wondrous smile;<br> +<a name="page478"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 478</span>Her fair +eyes, faint with sorrow,<br> + Grew sparkling as erstwhile.</p> +<p class="poetry">Such tears as often ran not<br> + Ran then, my love, for thee;<br> +And O, believe I cannot<br> + That thou are lost to me!</p> +<h3><a name="page479"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 479</span>FROM +VICTOR HUGO</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Child</span>, were I king, +I’d yield my royal rule,<br> + My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,<br> +My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,<br> +My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,<br> + For a glance from you!</p> +<p class="poetry">Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving +airs,<br> + Angels, the demons abject under me,<br> +Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,<br> +Time, space, all would I give—aye, upper spheres,<br> + For a kiss from thee!</p> +<h3><a name="page480"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +480</span>CARDINAL BEMBO’S EPITAPH ON RAPHAEL</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Here’s</span> one in +whom Nature feared—faint at such vying—<br> +Eclipse while he lived, and decease at his dying.</p> +<h2><a name="page481"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +481</span>RETROSPECT</h2> +<h3><a name="page483"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +483</span>“I HAVE LIVED WITH SHADES”</h3> +<p style="text-align: center">I</p> +<p class="poetry">I <span class="smcap">have</span> lived with +shades so long,<br> +And talked to them so oft,<br> +Since forth from cot and croft<br> +I went mankind among,<br> + That sometimes they<br> + In their dim style<br> + Will pause awhile<br> + To hear my say;</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page484"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 484</span>II</p> +<p class="poetry">And take me by the hand,<br> +And lead me through their rooms<br> +In the To-be, where Dooms<br> +Half-wove and shapeless stand:<br> + And show from there<br> + The dwindled dust<br> + And rot and rust<br> + Of things that were.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">III</p> +<p class="poetry">“Now turn,” spake they to me<br> +One day: “Look whence we came,<br> +And signify his name<br> +Who gazes thence at thee.”—<br> + —“Nor name nor race<br> + Know I, or can,”<br> + I said, “Of man<br> + So commonplace.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IV</p> +<p class="poetry">“He moves me not at all;<br> +I note no ray or jot<br> +<a name="page485"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 485</span>Of +rareness in his lot,<br> +Or star exceptional.<br> + Into the dim<br> + Dead throngs around<br> + He’ll sink, nor sound<br> + Be left of him.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">V</p> +<p class="poetry">“Yet,” said they, “his frail +speech,<br> +Hath accents pitched like thine—<br> +Thy mould and his define<br> +A likeness each to each—<br> + But go! Deep pain<br> + Alas, would be<br> + His name to thee,<br> + And told in vain!”</p> +<p><i>Feb.</i> 2, 1899.</p> +<h3><a name="page486"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +486</span>MEMORY AND I</h3> +<p class="poetry">“O <span class="smcap">memory</span>, +where is now my youth,<br> +Who used to say that life was truth?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“I saw him in a crumbled cot<br> + Beneath a tottering tree;<br> +That he as phantom lingers there<br> + Is only known to me.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page487"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +487</span>“O Memory, where is now my joy,<br> +Who lived with me in sweet employ?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“I saw him in gaunt gardens lone,<br> + Where laughter used to be;<br> +That he as phantom wanders there<br> + Is known to none but me.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“O Memory, where is now my hope,<br> +Who charged with deeds my skill and scope?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“I saw her in a tomb of tomes,<br> + Where dreams are wont to be;<br> +That she as spectre haunteth there<br> + Is only known to me.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“O Memory, where is now my faith,<br> +One time a champion, now a wraith?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“I saw her in a ravaged aisle,<br> + Bowed down on bended knee;<br> +That her poor ghost outflickers there<br> + Is known to none but me.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page488"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +488</span>“O Memory, where is now my love,<br> +That rayed me as a god above?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“I saw him by an ageing shape<br> + Where beauty used to be;<br> +That his fond phantom lingers there<br> + Is only known to me.”</p> +<h3><a name="page489"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +489</span>ἈΓΝΩΣΤΩι ΘΕΩι.</h3> +<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Long</span> have I framed +weak phantasies of Thee,<br> + O Willer masked and dumb!<br> + Who makest Life become,—<br> +As though by labouring all-unknowingly,<br> + Like one whom reveries numb.</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page490"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +490</span>How much of consciousness informs Thy will<br> + Thy biddings, as if blind,<br> + Of death-inducing kind,<br> +Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill<br> + But moments in Thy mind.</p> +<p class="poetry">Perhaps Thy ancient rote-restricted ways<br> + Thy ripening rule transcends;<br> + That listless effort tends<br> +To grow percipient with advance of days,<br> + And with percipience mends.</p> +<p class="poetry">For, in unwonted purlieus, far and nigh,<br> + At whiles or short or long,<br> + May be discerned a wrong<br> +Dying as of self-slaughter; whereat I<br> + Would raise my voice in song.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote253"></a><a href="#citation253" +class="footnote">[253]</a> The “Race” is the +turbulent sea-area off the Bill of Portland, where contrary tides +meet.</p> +<p><a name="footnote290"></a><a href="#citation290" +class="footnote">[290]</a> Pronounce +“Loddy.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote457"></a><a href="#citation457" +class="footnote">[457]</a> On a lonely table-land above the +Vale of Blackmore, between High-Stoy and Bubb-Down hills, and +commanding in clear weather views that extend from the English to +the Bristol Channel, stands a pillar, apparently mediæval, +called Cross-and-Hand or Christ-in-Hand. Among other +stories of its origin a local tradition preserves the one here +given.</p> + + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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