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diff --git a/old/55178-0.txt b/old/55178-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fb9d00c..0000000 --- a/old/55178-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6542 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poetical Works of Robert Bridges (Volume 2), by -Robert Bridges - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Poetical Works of Robert Bridges (Volume 2) - -Author: Robert Bridges - -Release Date: July 23, 2017 [EBook #55178] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BRIDGES *** - - - - -Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Les Galloway and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - POETICAL WORKS - - of - - ROBERT BRIDGES - - Volume II - - [Illustration] - - London - Smith, Elder & Co - 15 Waterloo Place - 1898 - - - - - OXFORD: HORACE HART - PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY - - - - -_POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BRIDGES_ - - -_VOLUME THE SECOND CONTAINING_ - - _SHORTER POEMS_ _p._ 5 - - _NEW POEMS_ 209 - - _NOTES_ 291 - - _INDEX OF FIRST LINES_ 295 - - - - -LIST OF PREVIOUS EDITIONS - - -_SHORTER POEMS._ - - 1. _Bks. I-IV. Clarendon Press. Geo. Bell & Sons, Oct. 1890. - Reprinted, Nov. 1890, 1891, 1894._ - - 2. _Bks. I-V. Private Press of H. Daniel. Oxford, 1894._ - - 3. _Do._ _do._ _Clarendon Press. George Bell & Sons, 1896._ - - 4. _Cheap issue of 3. 1899. Reprinted, 1899._ - - -_NEW POEMS._ - - _Collected here for the first time._ - - * * * * * - -_For account of earlier issues of first four books of Shorter Poems, -and of some of the poems contained in the New Poems, see notes at end -of this volume._ - - - - - THE - SHORTER - POEMS - - IN FOUR BOOKS - - - - - SHORTER POEMS - - - BOOK I - - - DEDICATED TO - - H. E. W. - - - - -BOOK I - - -I - -ELEGY - - - Clear and gentle stream! - Known and loved so long - That hast heard the song, - And the idle dream - Of my boyish day; - While I once again - Down thy margin stray, - In the selfsame strain - Still my voice is spent, - With my old lament - And my idle dream, - Clear and gentle stream! - - Where my old seat was - Here again I sit, - Where the long boughs knit - Over stream and grass - A translucent eaves: - Where back eddies play - Shipwreck with the leaves, - And the proud swans stray, - Sailing one by one - Out of stream and sun, - And the fish lie cool - In their chosen pool. - - Many an afternoon - Of the summer day - Dreaming here I lay; - And I know how soon, - Idly at its hour, - First the deep bell hums - From the minster tower, - And then evening comes, - Creeping up the glade, - With her lengthening shade, - And the tardy boon, - Of her brightening moon. - - Clear and gentle stream! - Ere again I go - Where thou dost not flow, - Well does it beseem - Thee to hear again - Once my youthful song, - That familiar strain - Silent now so long: - Be as I content - With my old lament - And my idle dream, - Clear and gentle stream. - - - - -2 - -ELEGY - - - The wood is bare: a river-mist is steeping - The trees that winter’s chill of life bereaves: - Only their stiffened boughs break silence, weeping - Over their fallen leaves; - - That lie upon the dank earth brown and rotten, - Miry and matted in the soaking wet: - Forgotten with the spring, that is forgotten - By them that can forget. - - Yet it was here we walked when ferns were springing, - And through the mossy bank shot bud and blade:— - Here found in summer, when the birds were singing, - A green and pleasant shade. - - ’Twas here we loved in sunnier days and greener; - And now, in this disconsolate decay, - I come to see her where I most have seen her, - And touch the happier day. - - For on this path, at every turn and corner, - The fancy of her figure on me falls: - Yet walks she with the slow step of a mourner, - Nor hears my voice that calls. - - So through my heart there winds a track of feeling, - A path of memory, that is all her own: - Whereto her phantom beauty ever stealing - Haunts the sad spot alone. - - About her steps the trunks are bare, the branches - Drip heavy tears upon her downcast head; - And bleed unseen wounds that no sun staunches, - For the year’s sun is dead. - - And dead leaves wrap the fruits that summer planted: - And birds that love the South have taken wing. - The wanderer, loitering o’er the scene enchanted, - Weeps, and despairs of spring. - - - - -3 - - - Poor withered rose and dry, - Skeleton of a rose, - Risen to testify - To love’s sad close: - - Treasured for love’s sweet sake, - That of joy past - Thou might’st again awake - Memory at last. - - Yet is thy perfume sweet; - Thy petals red - Yet tell of summer heat, - And the gay bed: - - Yet, yet recall the glow - Of the gazing sun, - When at thy bush we two - Joined hands in one. - - But, rose, thou hast not seen, - Thou hast not wept - The change that passed between, - Whilst thou hast slept. - - To me thou seemest yet - The dead dream’s thrall: - While I live and forget - Dream, truth and all. - - Thou art more fresh than I, - Rose, sweet and red: - Salt on my pale cheeks lie - The tears I shed. - - - - -4 - -THE CLIFF-TOP - - - The cliff-top has a carpet - Of lilac, gold and green: - The blue sky bounds the ocean - The white clouds scud between. - - A flock of gulls are wheeling - And wailing round my seat; - Above my head the heaven, - The sea beneath my feet. - - - THE OCEAN. - - Were I a cloud I’d gather - My skirts up in the air, - And fly I well know whither, - And rest I well know where. - - As pointed the star surely, - The legend tells of old, - Where the wise kings might offer - Myrrh, frankincense, and gold; - - Above the house I’d hover - Where dwells my love, and wait - Till haply I might spy her - Throw back the garden-gate. - - There in the summer evening - I would bedeck the moon; - I would float down and screen her - From the sun’s rays at noon; - - And if her flowers should languish, - Or wither in the drought, - Upon her tall white lilies - I’d pour my heart’s blood out: - - So if she wore one only, - And shook not out the rain, - Were I a cloud, O cloudlet, - I had not lived in vain. - - [_A cloud speaks._ - - - A CLOUD. - - But were I thou, O ocean, - I would not chafe and fret - As thou, because a limit - To thy desires is set. - - I would be blue, and gentle, - Patient, and calm, and see - If my smiles might not tempt her, - My love, to come to me. - - I’d make my depths transparent, - And still, that she should lean - O’er the boat’s edge to ponder - The sights that swam between. - - I would command strange creatures, - Of bright hue and quick fin, - To stir the water near her, - And tempt her bare arm in. - - I’d teach her spend the summer - With me: and I can tell, - That, were I thou, O ocean, - My love should love me well. - - - * * * * * - - But on the mad cloud scudded, - The breeze it blew so stiff; - And the sad ocean bellowed, - And pounded at the cliff. - - - - -5 - - - I heard a linnet courting - His lady in the spring: - His mates were idly sporting, - Nor stayed to hear him sing - His song of love.— - I fear my speech distorting - His tender love. - - The phrases of his pleading - Were full of young delight; - And she that gave him heeding - Interpreted aright - His gay, sweet notes,— - So sadly marred in the reading,— - His tender notes. - - And when he ceased, the hearer - Awaited the refrain, - Till swiftly perching nearer - He sang his song again, - His pretty song:— - Would that my verse spake clearer - His tender song! - - Ye happy, airy creatures! - That in the merry spring - Think not of what misfeatures - Or cares the year may bring; - But unto love - Resign your simple natures, - To tender love. - - - - -6 - - - Dear lady, when thou frownest, - And my true love despisest, - And all thy vows disownest - That sealed my venture wisest; - I think thy pride’s displeasure - Neglects a matchless treasure - Exceeding price and measure. - - But when again thou smilest, - And love for love returnest, - And fear with joy beguilest, - And takest truth in earnest; - Then, though I sheer adore thee, - The sum of my love for thee - Seems poor, scant, and unworthy. - - - - -7 - - - I will not let thee go. - Ends all our month-long love in this? - Can it be summed up so, - Quit in a single kiss? - I will not let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - If thy words’ breath could scare thy deeds, - As the soft south can blow - And toss the feathered seeds, - Then might I let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - Had not the great sun seen, I might; - Or were he reckoned slow - To bring the false to light, - Then might I let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - The stars that crowd the summer skies - Have watched us so below - With all their million eyes, - I dare not let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - Have we not chid the changeful moon, - Now rising late, and now - Because she set too soon, - And shall I let thee go? - - I will not let thee go. - Have not the young flowers been content, - Plucked ere their buds could blow, - To seal our sacrament? - I cannot let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - I hold thee by too many bands: - Thou sayest farewell, and lo! - I have thee by the hands, - And will not let thee go. - - - - -8 - - - I found to-day out walking - The flower my love loves best. - What, when I stooped to pluck it, - Could dare my hand arrest? - - Was it a snake lay curling - About the root’s thick crown? - Or did some hidden bramble - Tear my hand reaching down? - - There was no snake uncurling, - And no thorn wounded me; - ’Twas my heart checked me, sighing - She is beyond the sea. - - - - -9 - - - A poppy grows upon the shore, - Bursts her twin cup in summer late: - Her leaves are glaucous-green and hoar, - Her petals yellow, delicate. - - Oft to her cousins turns her thought, - In wonder if they care that she - Is fed with spray for dew, and caught - By every gale that sweeps the sea. - - She has no lovers like the red, - That dances with the noble corn: - Her blossoms on the waves are shed, - Where she stands shivering and forlorn. - - - - -10 - - - Sometimes when my lady sits by me - My rapture’s so great, that I tear - My mind from the thought that she’s nigh me, - And strive to forget that she’s there. - And sometimes when she is away - Her absence so sorely does try me, - That I shut to my eyes, and assay - To think she is there sitting by me. - - - - -11 - - - Long are the hours the sun is above, - But when evening comes I go home to my love. - - I’m away the daylight hours and more, - Yet she comes not down to open the door. - - She does not meet me upon the stair,— - She sits in my chamber and waits for me there. - - As I enter the room she does not move: - I always walk straight up to my love; - - And she lets me take my wonted place - At her side, and gaze in her dear dear face. - - There as I sit, from her head thrown back - Her hair falls straight in a shadow black. - - Aching and hot as my tired eyes be, - She is all that I wish to see. - - And in my wearied and toil-dinned ear, - She says all things that I wish to hear. - - Dusky and duskier grows the room, - Yet I see her best in the darker gloom. - - When the winter eves are early and cold, - The firelight hours are a dream of gold. - - And so I sit here night by night, - In rest and enjoyment of love’s delight. - - But a knock at the door, a step on the stair - Will startle, alas, my love from her chair. - - If a stranger comes she will not stay: - At the first alarm she is off and away. - - And he wonders, my guest, usurping her throne, - That I sit so much by myself alone. - - - - -12 - - - Who has not walked upon the shore, - And who does not the morning know, - The day the angry gale is o’er, - The hour the wind has ceased to blow? - - The horses of the strong south-west - Are pastured round his tropic tent, - Careless how long the ocean’s breast - Sob on and sigh for passion spent. - - The frightened birds, that fled inland - To house in rock and tower and tree, - Are gathering on the peaceful strand, - To tempt again the sunny sea; - - Whereon the timid ships steal out - And laugh to find their foe asleep, - That lately scattered them about, - And drave them to the fold like sheep. - - The snow-white clouds he northward chased - Break into phalanx, line, and band: - All one way to the south they haste, - The south, their pleasant fatherland. - - From distant hills their shadows creep, - Arrive in turn and mount the lea, - And flit across the downs, and leap - Sheer off the cliff upon the sea; - - And sail and sail far out of sight. - But still I watch their fleecy trains, - That piling all the south with light, - Dapple in France the fertile plains. - - - - -13 - - - I made another song, - In likeness of my love: - And sang it all day long, - Around, beneath, above; - I told my secret out, - That none might be in doubt. - - I sang it to the sky, - That veiled his face to hear - How far her azure eye - Outdoes his splendid sphere; - But at her eyelids’ name - His white clouds fled for shame. - - I told it to the trees, - And to the flowers confest, - And said not one of these - Is like my lily drest; - Nor spathe nor petal dared - Vie with her body bared. - - I shouted to the sea, - That set his waves a-prance; - Her floating hair is free, - Free are her feet to dance; - And for thy wrath, I swear - Her frown is more to fear. - - And as in happy mood - I walked and sang alone, - At eve beside the wood - I met my love, my own: - And sang to her the song - I had sung all day long. - - - - -14 - -ELEGY - -ON A LADY, WHOM GRIEF FOR THE DEATH OF HER -BETROTHED KILLED - - - Assemble, all ye maidens, at the door, - And all ye loves, assemble; far and wide - Proclaim the bridal, that proclaimed before - Has been deferred to this late eventide: - For on this night the bride, - The days of her betrothal over, - Leaves the parental hearth for evermore; - To-night the bride goes forth to meet her lover. - - Reach down the wedding vesture, that has lain - Yet all unvisited, the silken gown: - Bring out the bracelets, and the golden chain - Her dearer friends provided: sere and brown - Bring out the festal crown, - And set it on her forehead lightly: - Though it be withered, twine no wreath again; - This only is the crown she can wear rightly. - - Cloke her in ermine, for the night is cold, - And wrap her warmly, for the night is long, - In pious hands the flaming torches hold, - While her attendants, chosen from among - Her faithful virgin throng, - May lay her in her cedar litter, - Decking her coverlet with sprigs of gold, - Roses, and lilies white that best befit her. - - Sound flute and tabor, that the bridal be - Not without music, nor with these alone; - But let the viol lead the melody, - With lesser intervals, and plaintive moan - Of sinking semitone; - And, all in choir, the virgin voices - Rest not from singing in skilled harmony - The song that aye the bridegroom’s ear rejoices. - - Let the priests go before, arrayed in white, - And let the dark-stoled minstrels follow slow, - Next they that bear her, honoured on this night, - And then the maidens, in a double row, - Each singing soft and low, - And each on high a torch upstaying: - Unto her lover lead her forth with light, - With music, and with singing, and with praying. - - ’Twas at this sheltering hour he nightly came, - And found her trusty window open wide, - And knew the signal of the timorous flame, - That long the restless curtain would not hide - Her form that stood beside; - As scarce she dared to be delighted, - Listening to that sweet tale, that is no shame - To faithful lovers, that their hearts have plighted. - - But now for many days the dewy grass - Has shown no markings of his feet at morn: - And watching she has seen no shadow pass - The moonlit walk, and heard no music borne - Upon her ear forlorn. - In vain has she looked out to greet him; - He has not come, he will not come, alas! - So let us bear her out where she must meet him. - - Now to the river bank the priests are come: - The bark is ready to receive its freight: - Let some prepare her place therein, and some - Embark the litter with its slender weight: - The rest stand by in state, - And sing her a safe passage over; - While she is oared across to her new home, - Into the arms of her expectant lover. - - And thou, O lover, that art on the watch, - Where, on the banks of the forgetful streams, - The pale indifferent ghosts wander, and snatch - The sweeter moments of their broken dreams,— - Thou, when the torchlight gleams, - When thou shalt see the slow procession, - And when thine ears the fitful music catch, - Rejoice, for thou art near to thy possession. - - - - -15 - -RONDEAU - - - His poisoned shafts, that fresh he dips - In juice of plants that no bee sips, - He takes, and with his bow renown’d - Goes out upon his hunting ground, - Hanging his quiver at his hips. - - He draws them one by one, and clips - Their heads between his finger-tips, - And looses with a twanging sound - His poisoned shafts. - - But if a maiden with her lips - Suck from the wound the blood that drips, - And drink the poison from the wound, - The simple remedy is found - That of their deadly terror strips - His poisoned shafts. - - - - -16 - -TRIOLET - - - When first we met we did not guess - That Love would prove so hard a master; - Of more than common friendliness - When first we met we did not guess. - Who could foretell this sore distress, - This irretrievable disaster - When first we met?—We did not guess - That Love would prove so hard a master. - - - - -17 - -TRIOLET - - - All women born are so perverse - No man need boast their love possessing. - If nought seem better, nothing’s worse: - All women born are so perverse. - From Adam’s wife, that proved a curse - Though God had made her for a blessing, - All women born are so perverse - No man need boast their love possessing. - - - - - SHORTER POEMS - - BOOK II - - - TO - - THE MEMORY OF - - G. M. H. - - - - -BOOK II - - -1 - - - MUSE. - - Will Love again awake, - That lies asleep so long? - - - POET. - - O hush! ye tongues that shake - The drowsy night with song. - - - MUSE. - - It is a lady fair - Whom once he deigned to praise, - That at the door doth dare - Her sad complaint to raise. - - - POET. - - She must be fair of face, - As bold of heart she seems, - If she would match her grace - With the delight of dreams. - - - MUSE. - - Her beauty would surprise - Gazers on Autumn eves, - Who watched the broad moon rise - Upon the scattered sheaves. - - - POET. - - O sweet must be the voice - He shall descend to hear, - Who doth in Heaven rejoice - His most enchanted ear. - - - MUSE. - - The smile, that rests to play - Upon her lip, foretells - What musical array - Tricks her sweet syllables. - - - POET. - - And yet her smiles have danced - In vain, if her discourse - Win not the soul entranced - In divine intercourse. - - - MUSE. - - She will encounter all - This trial without shame, - Her eyes men Beauty call, - And Wisdom is her name. - - - POET. - - Throw back the portals then, - Ye guards, your watch that keep, - Love will awake again - That lay so long asleep. - - - - -2 - -A PASSER-BY - - - Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, - Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West, - That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding, - Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest? - Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest, - When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling, - Wilt thóu glíde on the blue Pacific, or rest - In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling. - - I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest, - Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air: - I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest, - And anchor queen of the strange shipping there, - Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare: - Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capped, grandest - Peak, that is over the feathery palms more fair - Than thou, so upright, so stately, and still thou standest. - - And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless, - I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine - That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless, - Thy port assured in a happier land than mine. - But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine, - As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding, - From the proud nostril curve of a prow’s line - In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding. - - - - -3 - -LATE SPRING EVENING - - - I saw the Virgin-mother clad in green, - Walking the sprinkled meadows at sundown; - While yet the moon’s cold flame was hung between - The day and night, above the dusky town: - I saw her brighter than the Western gold, - Whereto she faced in splendour to behold. - - Her dress was greener than the tenderest leaf - That trembled in the sunset glare aglow: - Herself more delicate than is the brief, - Pink apple-blossom, that May showers lay low, - And more delicious than’s the earliest streak - The blushing rose shows of her crimson cheek. - - As if to match the sight that so did please, - A music entered, making passion fain: - Three nightingales sat singing in the trees, - And praised the Goddess for the fallen rain; - Which yet their unseen motions did arouse, - Or parting Zephyrs shook out from the boughs. - - And o’er the treetops, scattered in mid air, - The exhausted clouds, laden with crimson light - Floated, or seemed to sleep; and, highest there, - One planet broke the lingering ranks of night; - Daring day’s company, so he might spy - The Virgin-queen once with his watchful eye. - - And when I saw her, then I worshipped her, - And said,—O bounteous Spring, O beauteous Spring, - Mother of all my years, thou who dost stir - My heart to adore thee and my tongue to sing, - Flower of my fruit, of my heart’s blood the fire, - Of all my satisfaction the desire! - - How art thou every year more beautiful, - Younger for all the winters thou hast cast: - And I, for all my love grows, grow more dull, - Decaying with each season overpast! - In vain to teach him love must man employ thee, - The more he learns the less he can enjoy thee. - - - - -4 - -WOOING - - - I know not how I came, - New on my knightly journey, - To win the fairest dame - That graced my maiden tourney. - - Chivalry’s lovely prize - With all men’s gaze upon her, - Why did she free her eyes - On me, to do me honour? - - Ah! ne’er had I my mind - With such high hope delighted, - Had she not first inclined, - And with her eyes invited. - - But never doubt I knew, - Having their glance to cheer me, - Until the day joy grew - Too great, too sure, too near me. - - When hope a fear became, - And passion, grown too tender, - Now trembled at the shame - Of a despised surrender; - - And where my love at first - Saw kindness in her smiling, - I read her pride, and cursed - The arts of her beguiling. - - Till winning less than won, - And liker wooed than wooing, - Too late I turned undone - Away from my undoing; - - And stood beside the door, - Whereto she followed, making - My hard leave-taking more - Hard by her sweet leave-taking. - - Her speech would have betrayed - Her thought, had mine been colder: - Her eyes distress had made - A lesser lover bolder. - - But no! Fond heart, distrust, - Cried Wisdom, and consider: - Go free, since go thou must;— - And so farewell I bid her. - - And brisk upon my way - I smote the stroke to sever, - And should have lost that day - My life’s delight for ever: - - But when I saw her start - And turn aside and tremble;— - Ah! she was true, her heart - I knew did not dissemble. - - - - -5 - - - There is a hill beside the silver Thames, - Shady with birch and beech and odorous pine: - And brilliant underfoot with thousand gems - Steeply the thickets to his floods decline. - Straight trees in every place - Their thick tops interlace, - And pendant branches trail their foliage fine - Upon his watery face. - - Swift from the sweltering pasturage he flows: - His stream, alert to seek the pleasant shade, - Pictures his gentle purpose, as he goes - Straight to the caverned pool his toil has made. - His winter floods lay bare - The stout roots in the air: - His summer streams are cool, when they have played - Among their fibrous hair. - - A rushy island guards the sacred bower, - And hides it from the meadow, where in peace - The lazy cows wrench many a scented flower, - Robbing the golden market of the bees: - And laden barges float - By banks of myosote; - And scented flag and golden flower-de-lys - Delay the loitering boat. - - And on this side the island, where the pool - Eddies away, are tangled mass on mass - The water-weeds, that net the fishes cool, - And scarce allow a narrow stream to pass; - Where spreading crowfoot mars - The drowning nenuphars, - Waving the tassels of her silken grass - Below her silver stars. - - But in the purple pool there nothing grows, - Not the white water-lily spoked with gold; - Though best she loves the hollows, and well knows - On quiet streams her broad shields to unfold: - Yet should her roots but try - Within these deeps to lie, - Not her long reaching stalk could ever hold - Her waxen head so high. - - Sometimes an angler comes, and drops his hook - Within its hidden depths, and ’gainst a tree - Leaning his rod, reads in some pleasant book, - Forgetting soon his pride of fishery; - And dreams, or falls asleep, - While curious fishes peep - About his nibbled bait, or scornfully - Dart off and rise and leap. - - And sometimes a slow figure ’neath the trees, - In ancient-fashioned smock, with tottering care - Upon a staff propping his weary knees, - May by the pathway of the forest fare: - As from a buried day - Across the mind will stray - Some perishing mute shadow,—and unaware - He passeth on his way. - - Else, he that wishes solitude is safe, - Whether he bathe at morning in the stream: - Or lead his love there when the hot hours chafe - The meadows, busy with a blurring steam; - Or watch, as fades the light, - The gibbous moon grow bright, - Until her magic rays dance in a dream, - And glorify the night. - - Where is this bower beside the silver Thames? - O pool and flowery thickets, hear my vow! - O trees of freshest foliage and straight stems, - No sharer of my secret I allow: - Lest ere I come the while - Strange feet your shades defile; - Or lest the burly oarsman turn his prow - Within your guardian isle. - - - - -6 - -A WATER-PARTY - - - Let us, as by this verdant bank we float, - Search down the marge to find some shady pool - Where we may rest awhile and moor our boat, - And bathe our tired limbs in the waters cool. - Beneath the noonday sun, - Swiftly, O river, run! - - Here is a mirror for Narcissus, see! - I cannot sound it, plumbing with my oar. - Lay the stern in beneath this bowering tree! - Now, stepping on this stump, we are ashore. - Guard, Hamadryades, - Our clothes laid by your trees! - - How the birds warble in the woods! I pick - The waxen lilies, diving to the root. - But swim not far in the stream, the weeds grow thick, - And hot on the bare head the sunbeams shoot. - Until our sport be done, - O merry birds, sing on! - - If but to-night the sky be clear, the moon - Will serve us well, for she is near the full. - We shall row safely home; only too soon,— - So pleasant ’tis, whether we float or pull. - To guide us through the night, - O summer moon, shine bright! - - - - -7 - -THE DOWNS - - - O bold majestic downs, smooth, fair and lonely; - O still solitude, only matched in the skies: - Perilous in steep places, - Soft in the level races, - Where sweeping in phantom silence the cloudland flies; - With lovely undulation of fall and rise; - Entrenched with thickets thorned, - By delicate miniature dainty flowers adorned! - - I climb your crown, and lo! a sight surprising - Of sea in front uprising, steep and wide: - And scattered ships ascending - To heaven, lost in the blending - Of distant blues, where water and sky divide, - Urging their engines against wind and tide, - And all so small and slow - They seem to be wearily pointing the way they would go. - - The accumulated murmur of soft plashing, - Of waves on rocks dashing and searching the sands, - Takes my ear, in the veering - Baffled wind, as rearing - Upright at the cliff, to the gullies and rifts he stands; - And his conquering surges scour out over the lands; - While again at the foot of the downs - He masses his strength to recover the topmost crowns. - - - - -8 - -SPRING - -ODE I - -INVITATION TO THE COUNTRY - - - Again with pleasant green - Has Spring renewed the wood, - And where the bare trunks stood - Are leafy arbours seen; - And back on budding boughs - Come birds, to court and pair, - Whose rival amorous vows - Amaze the scented air. - - The freshets are unbound, - And leaping from the hill, - Their mossy banks refill - With streams of light and sound: - And scattered down the meads, - From hour to hour unfold - A thousand buds and beads - In stars and cups of gold. - - Now hear, and see, and note, - The farms are all astir, - And every labourer - Has doffed his winter coat; - And how with specks of white - They dot the brown hillside, - Or jaunt and sing outright - As by their teams they stride. - - They sing to feel the Sun - Regain his wanton strength; - To know the year at length - Rewards their labour done; - To see the rootless stake - They set bare in the ground, - Burst into leaf, and shake - Its grateful scent around. - - Ah now an evil lot - Is his, who toils for gain, - Where crowded chimneys stain - The heavens his choice forgot; - ’Tis on the blighted trees - That deck his garden dim, - And in the tainted breeze, - That sweet spring comes to him. - - Far sooner I would choose - The life of brutes that bask, - Than set myself a task, - Which inborn powers refuse: - And rather far enjoy - The body, than invent - A duty, to destroy - The ease which nature sent; - - And country life I praise, - And lead, because I find - The philosophic mind - Can take no middle ways; - She will not leave her love - To mix with men, her art - Is all to strive above - The crowd, or stand apart. - - Thrice happy he, the rare - Prometheus, who can play - With hidden things, and lay - New realms of nature bare; - Whose venturous step has trod - Hell underfoot, and won - A crown from man and God - For all that he has done.— - - That highest gift of all, - Since crabbèd fate did flood - My heart with sluggish blood, - I look not mine to call; - But, like a truant freed, - Fly to the woods, and claim - A pleasure for the deed - Of my inglorious name: - - And am content, denied - The best, in choosing right; - For Nature can delight - Fancies unoccupied - With ecstasies so sweet - As none can even guess, - Who walk not with the feet - Of joy in idleness. - - Then leave your joyless ways, - My friend, my joys to see. - The day you come shall be - The choice of chosen days: - You shall be lost, and learn - New being, and forget - The world, till your return - Shall bring your first regret. - - - - -9 - -SPRING - -ODE II - -REPLY - - - Behold! the radiant Spring, - In splendour decked anew, - Down from her heaven of blue - Returns on sunlit wing: - The zephyrs of her train - In fleecy clouds disport, - And birds to greet her reign - Summon their silvan court. - - And here in street and square - The prisoned trees contest - Her favour with the best, - To robe themselves full fair: - And forth their buds provoke, - Forgetting winter brown, - And all the mire and smoke - That wrapped the dingy town. - - Now he that loves indeed - His pleasure must awake, - Lest any pleasure take - Its flight, and he not heed; - For of his few short years - Another now invites - His hungry soul, and cheers - His life with new delights. - - And who loves Nature more - Than he, whose painful art - Has taught and skilled his heart - To read her skill and lore? - Whose spirit leaps more high, - Plucking the pale primrose, - Than his whose feet must fly - The pasture where it grows? - - One long in city pent - Forgets, or must complain: - But think not I can stain - My heaven with discontent; - Nor wallow with that sad, - Backsliding herd, who cry - That Truth must make man bad, - And pleasure is a lie. - - Rather while Reason lives - To mark me from the beast, - I’ll teach her serve at least - To heal the wound she gives: - Nor need she strain her powers - Beyond a common flight, - To make the passing hours - Happy from morn till night. - - Since health our toil rewards, - And strength is labour’s prize, - I hate not, nor despise - The work my lot accords; - Nor fret with fears unkind - The tender joys, that bless - My hard-won peace of mind, - In hours of idleness. - - Then what charm company - Can give, know I,—if wine - Go round, or throats combine - To set dumb music free. - Or deep in wintertide - When winds without make moan, - I love my own fireside - Not least when most alone. - - Then oft I turn the page - In which our country’s name, - Spoiling the Greek of fame, - Shall sound in every age: - Or some Terentian play - Renew, whose excellent - Adjusted folds betray - How once Menander went. - - Or if grave study suit - The yet unwearied brain, - Plato can teach again, - And Socrates dispute; - Till fancy in a dream - Confront their souls with mine, - Crowning the mind supreme, - And her delights divine. - - While pleasure yet can be - Pleasant, and fancy sweet, - I bid all care retreat - From my philosophy; - Which, when I come to try - Your simpler life, will find, - I doubt not, joys to vie - With those I leave behind. - - - - -10 - -ELEGY - -AMONG THE TOMBS - - - Sad, sombre place, beneath whose antique yews - I come, unquiet sorrows to control; - Amid thy silent mossgrown graves to muse - With my neglected solitary soul; - And to poetic sadness care confide, - Trusting sweet Melancholy for my guide: - - They will not ask why in thy shades I stray, - Among the tombs finding my rare delight, - Beneath the sun at indolent noonday, - Or in the windy moon-enchanted night, - Who have once reined in their steeds at any shrine, - And given them water from the well divine.— - - The orchards are all ripened, and the sun - Spots the deserted gleanings with decay; - The seeds are perfected: his work is done, - And Autumn lingers but to outsmile the May; - Bidding his tinted leaves glide, bidding clear - Unto clear skies the birds applaud the year. - - Lo, here I sit, and to the world I call, - The world my solemn fancy leaves behind, - Come! pass within the inviolable wall, - Come pride, come pleasure, come distracted mind; - Within the fated refuge, hither, turn, - And learn your wisdom ere ’tis late to learn. - - Come with me now, and taste the fount of tears; - For many eyes have sanctified this spot, - Where grief’s unbroken lineage endears - The charm untimely Folly injures not, - And slays the intruding thoughts, that overleap - The simple fence its holiness doth keep. - - Read the worn names of the forgotten dead, - Their pompous legends will no smile awake; - Even the vainglorious title o’er the head - Wins its pride pardon for its sorrow’s sake; - And carven Loves scorn not their dusty prize, - Though fallen so far from tender sympathies. - - Here where a mother laid her only son, - Here where a lover left his bride, below - The treasured names their own are added on - To those whom they have followed long ago: - Sealing the record of the tears they shed, - That ’where their treasure there their hearts are fled.’ - - Grandfather, father, son, and then again - Child, grandchild, and great-grandchild laid beneath, - Numbered in turn among the sons of men, - And gathered each one in his turn to death: - While he that occupies their house and name - To-day,—to-morrow too their grave shall claim. - - And where are all their spirits? Ah! could we tell - The manner of our being when we die, - And see beyond the scene we know so well - The country that so much obscured doth lie! - With brightest visions our fond hopes repair, - Or crown our melancholy with despair; - - From death, still death, still would a comfort come: - Since of this world the essential joy must fall - In all distributed, in each thing some, - In nothing all, and all complete in all; - Till pleasure, ageing to her full increase, - Puts on perfection, and is throned in peace. - - Yea, sweetest peace, unsought-for, undesired, - Loathed and misnamed, ’tis thee I worship here: - Though in most black habiliments attired, - Thou art sweet peace, and thee I cannot fear. - Nay, were my last hope quenched, I here would sit - And praise the annihilation of the pit. - - Nor quickly disenchanted will my feet - Back to the busy town return, but yet - Linger, ere I my loving friends would greet, - Or touch their hands, or share without regret - The warmth of that kind hearth, whose sacred ties - Only shall dim with tears my dying eyes. - - - - -11 - -DEJECTION - - - Wherefore to-night so full of care, - My soul, revolving hopeless strife, - Pointing at hindrance, and the bare - Painful escapes of fitful life? - - Shaping the doom that may befall - By precedent of terror past: - By love dishonoured, and the call - Of friendship slighted at the last? - - By treasured names, the little store - That memory out of wreck could save - Of loving hearts, that gone before - Call their old comrade to the grave? - - O soul, be patient: thou shalt find - A little matter mend all this; - Some strain of music to thy mind, - Some praise for skill not spent amiss. - - Again shall pleasure overflow - Thy cup with sweetness, thou shalt taste - Nothing but sweetness, and shalt grow - Half sad for sweetness run to waste. - - O happy life! I hear thee sing, - O rare delight of mortal stuff! - I praise my days for all they bring, - Yet are they only not enough. - - - - -12 - -MORNING HYMN - - - O golden Sun, whose ray - My path illumineth: - Light of the circling day, - Whose night is birth and death: - - That dost not stint the prime - Of wise and strong, nor stay - The changeful ordering time, - That brings their sure decay: - - Though thou, the central sphere, - Dost seem to turn around - Thy creature world, and near - As father fond art found; - - Thereon, as from above - To shine, and make rejoice - With beauty, life, and love, - The garden of thy choice, - - To dress the jocund Spring - With bounteous promise gay - Of hotter months, that bring - The full perfected day; - - To touch with richest gold - The ripe fruit, ere it fall; - And smile through cloud and cold - On Winter’s funeral. - - Now with resplendent flood - Gladden my waking eyes, - And stir my slothful blood - To joyous enterprise. - - Arise, arise, as when - At first God said LIGHT BE! - That He might make us men - With eyes His light to see. - - Scatter the clouds that hide - The face of heaven, and show - Where sweet Peace doth abide, - Where Truth and Beauty grow. - - Awaken, cheer, adorn, - Invite, inspire, assure - The joys that praise thy morn, - The toil thy noons mature: - - And soothe the eve of day, - That darkens back to death; - O golden Sun, whose ray - Our path illumineth! - - - - -13 - - - I have loved flowers that fade, - Within whose magic tents - Rich hues have marriage made - With sweet unmemoried scents: - A honeymoon delight,— - A joy of love at sight, - That ages in an hour:— - My song be like a flower! - - I have loved airs, that die - Before their charm is writ - Along a liquid sky - Trembling to welcome it. - Notes, that with pulse of fire - Proclaim the spirit’s desire, - Then die, and are nowhere:— - My song be like an air! - - Die, song, die like a breath, - And wither as a bloom: - Fear not a flowery death, - Dread not an airy tomb! - Fly with delight, fly hence! - ’Twas thine love’s tender sense - To feast; now on thy bier - Beauty shall shed a tear. - - - - - SHORTER POEMS - - BOOK III - - - TO - - R. W. D. - - - - -BOOK III - - -1 - - - O my vague desires! - Ye lambent flames of the soul, her offspring fires: - That are my soul herself in pangs sublime - Rising and flying to heaven before her time: - - What doth tempt you forth - To drown in the south or shiver in the frosty north? - What seek ye or find ye in your random flying, - Ever soaring aloft, soaring and dying? - - Joy, the joy of flight! - They hide in the sun, they flare and dance in the night; - Gone up, gone out of sight: and ever again - Follow fresh tongues of fire, fresh pangs of pain. - - Ah! they burn my soul, - The fires, devour my soul that once was whole: - She is scattered in fiery phantoms day by day, - But whither, whither? ay whither? away, away! - - Could I but control - These vague desires, these leaping flames of the soul: - Could I but quench the fire: ah! could I stay - My soul that flieth, alas, and dieth away! - - - - -2 - -LONDON SNOW - - - When men were all asleep the snow came flying, - In large white flakes falling on the city brown, - Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, - Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town; - Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing; - Lazily and incessantly floating down and down: - Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing; - Hiding difference, making unevenness even, - Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing. - All night it fell, and when full inches seven - It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness, - The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven; - And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness - Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare: - The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness; - The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air; - No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling, - And the busy morning cries came thin and spare. - Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling, - They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze - Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing; - Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees; - Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder, - ’O look at the trees!’ they cried, ’O look at the trees!’ - With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder, - Following along the white deserted way, - A country company long dispersed asunder: - When now already the sun, in pale display - Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below - His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day. - For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; - And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, - Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: - But even for them awhile no cares encumber - Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, - The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber - At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the - charm they have broken. - - - - -3 - -THE VOICE OF NATURE - - - I stand on the cliff and watch the veiled sun paling - A silver field afar in the mournful sea, - The scourge of the surf, and plaintive gulls sailing - At ease on the gale that smites the shuddering lea: - Whose smile severe and chaste - June never hath stirred to vanity, nor age defaced. - In lofty thought strive, O spirit, for ever: - In courage and strength pursue thine own endeavour. - - Ah! if it were only for thee, thou restless ocean - Of waves that follow and roar, the sweep of the tides; - Wer’t only for thee, impetuous wind, whose motion - Precipitate all o’errides, and turns, nor abides: - For you sad birds and fair, - Or only for thee, bleak cliff, erect in the air; - Then well could I read wisdom in every feature, - O well should I understand the voice of Nature. - - But far away, I think, in the Thames valley, - The silent river glides by flowery banks: - And birds sing sweetly in branches that arch an alley - Of cloistered trees, moss-grown in their ancient ranks: - Where if a light air stray, - ’Tis laden with hum of bees and scent of may. - Love and peace be thine, O spirit, for ever: - Serve thy sweet desire: despise endeavour. - - And if it were only for thee, entrancèd river, - That scarce dost rock the lily on her airy stem, - Or stir a wave to murmur, or a rush to quiver; - Wer’t but for the woods, and summer asleep in them: - For you my bowers green, - My hedges of rose and woodbine, with walks between, - Then well could I read wisdom in every feature, - O well should I understand the voice of Nature. - - - - -4 - -ON A DEAD CHILD - - - Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, - With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! - Though cold and stark and bare, - The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. - - Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;—alas! no longer - To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be - Thy father’s pride;—ah, he - Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger. - - To me, as I move thee now in the last duty, - Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond; - Startling my fancy fond - With a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty. - - Thy hand clasps, as ’twas wont, my finger, and holds it: - But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff; - Yet feels to my hand as if - ’Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it. - - So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing,— - Go lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed!— - Propping thy wise, sad head, - Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing. - - So quiet! doth the change content thee?—Death, - whither hath he taken thee? - To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this? - The vision of which I miss, - Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee and awaken thee? - - Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail us - To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark, - Unwilling, alone we embark, - And the things we have seen and have known and - have heard of, fail us. - - - - -5 - -THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS MISTRESS - - - Because thou canst not see, - Because thou canst not know - The black and hopeless woe - That hath encompassed me: - Because, should I confess - The thought of my despair, - My words would wound thee less - Than swords can hurt the air: - - Because with thee I seem - As one invited near - To taste the faery cheer - Of spirits in a dream; - Of whom he knoweth nought - Save that they vie to make - All motion, voice and thought - A pleasure for his sake: - - Therefore more sweet and strange - Has been the mystery - Of thy long love to me, - That doth not quit, nor change, - Nor tax my solemn heart, - That kisseth in a gloom, - Knowing not who thou art - That givest, nor to whom. - - Therefore the tender touch - Is more; more dear the smile: - And thy light words beguile - My wisdom overmuch: - And O with swiftness fly - The fancies of my song - To happy worlds, where I - Still in thy love belong. - - - - -6 - - - Haste on, my joys! your treasure lies - In swift, unceasing flight. - O haste: for while your beauty flies - I seize your full delight. - Lo! I have seen the scented flower, - Whose tender stems I cull, - For her brief date and meted hour - Appear more beautiful. - - O youth, O strength, O most divine - For that so short ye prove; - Were but your rare gifts longer mine, - Ye scarce would win my love. - Nay, life itself the heart would spurn, - Did once the days restore - The days, that once enjoyed return, - Return—ah! nevermore. - - - - -7 - -INDOLENCE - - - We left the city when the summer day - Had verged already on its hot decline, - And charmed Indolence in languor lay - In her gay gardens, ’neath her towers divine: - ’Farewell,’ we said, ’dear city of youth and dream!’ - And in our boat we stepped and took the stream. - - All through that idle afternoon we strayed - Upon our proposed travel well begun, - As loitering by the woodland’s dreamy shade, - Past shallow islets floating in the sun, - Or searching down the banks for rarer flowers - We lingered out the pleasurable hours. - - Till when that loveliest came, which mowers home - Turns from their longest labour, as we steered - Along a straitened channel flecked with foam, - We lost our landscape wide, and slowly neared - An ancient bridge, that like a blind wall lay - Low on its buried vaults to block the way. - - Then soon the narrow tunnels broader showed, - Where with its arches three it sucked the mass - Of water, that in swirl thereunder flowed, - Or stood piled at the piers waiting to pass; - And pulling for the middle span, we drew - The tender blades aboard and floated through. - - But past the bridge what change we found below! - The stream, that all day long had laughed and played - Betwixt the happy shires, ran dark and slow, - And with its easy flood no murmur made: - And weeds spread on its surface, and about - The stagnant margin reared their stout heads out. - - Upon the left high elms, with giant wood - Skirting the water-meadows, interwove - Their slumbrous crowns, o’ershadowing where they stood - The floor and heavy pillars of the grove: - And in the shade, through reeds and sedges dank, - A footpath led along the moated bank. - - Across, all down the right, an old brick wall, - Above and o’er the channel, red did lean; - Here buttressed up, and bulging there to fall, - Tufted with grass and plants and lichen green; - And crumbling to the flood, which at its base - Slid gently nor disturbed its mirrored face. - - Sheer on the wall the houses rose, their backs - All windowless, neglected and awry, - With tottering coins, and crooked chimney stacks; - And here and there an unused door, set high - Above the fragments of its mouldering stair, - With rail and broken step led out on air. - - Beyond, deserted wharfs and vacant sheds, - With empty boats and barges moored along, - And rafts half-sunken, fringed with weedy shreds, - And sodden beams, once soaked to season strong. - No sight of man, nor sight of life, no stroke, - No voice the somnolence and silence broke. - - Then I who rowed leant on my oar, whose drip - Fell without sparkle, and I rowed no more; - And he that steered moved neither hand nor lip, - But turned his wondering eye from shore to shore; - And our trim boat let her swift motion die, - Between the dim reflections floating by. - - - - -8 - - - I praise the tender flower, - That on a mournful day - Bloomed in my garden bower - And made the winter gay. - Its loveliness contented - My heart tormented. - - I praise the gentle maid - Whose happy voice and smile - To confidence betrayed - My doleful heart awhile: - And gave my spirit deploring - Fresh wings for soaring. - - The maid for very fear - Of love I durst not tell: - The rose could never hear, - Though I bespake her well: - So in my song I bind them - For all to find them. - - - - -9 - - - A winter’s night with the snow about: - ’Twas silent within and cold without: - Both father and mother to bed were gone: - The son sat yet by the fire alone. - - He gazed on the fire, and dreamed again - Of one that was now no more among men: - As still he sat and never aware - How close was the spirit beside his chair. - - Nay, sad were his thoughts, for he wept and said - Ah, woe for the dead! ah, woe for the dead! - How heavy the earth lies now on her breast, - The lips that I kissed, and the hand I pressed. - - The spirit he saw not, he could not hear - The comforting word she spake in his ear: - His heart in the grave with her mouldering clay - No welcome gave—and she fled away. - - - - -10 - - - My bed and pillow are cold, - My heart is faint with dread, - The air hath an odour of mould, - I dream I lie with the dead: - I cannot move, - O come to me, love, - Or else I am dead. - - The feet I hear on the floor - Tread heavily overhead: - O Love, come down to the door, - Come, Love, come, ere I be dead: - Make shine thy light, - O Love, in the night; - Or else I am dead. - - - - -11 - - - O thou unfaithful, still as ever dearest, - That in thy beauty to my eyes appearest, - In fancy rising now to re-awaken - My love unshaken; - - All thou’st forgotten, but no change can free thee, - No hate unmake thee; as thou wert I see thee, - And am contented, eye from fond eye meeting - Its ample greeting. - - O thou my star of stars, among things wholly - Devoted, sacred, dim and melancholy, - The only joy of all the joys I cherished - That hast not perished, - - Why now on others squand’rest thou the treasure, - That to be jealous of is still my pleasure: - As still I dream ’tis me whom thou invitest, - Me thou delightest? - - But day by day my joy hath feebler being, - The fading picture tires my painful seeing, - And faery fancy leaves her habitation - To desolation. - - Of two things open left for lovers parted - ’Twas thine to scorn the past and go lighthearted: - But I would ever dream I still possess it, - And thus caress it. - - - - -12 - - - Thou didst delight my eyes: - Yet who am I? nor first - Nor last nor best, that durst - Once dream of thee for prize; - Nor this the only time - Thou shalt set love to rhyme. - - Thou didst delight my ear: - Ah! little praise; thy voice - Makes other hearts rejoice, - Makes all ears glad that hear; - And short my joy: but yet, - O song, do not forget. - - For what wert thou to me? - How shall I say? The moon, - That poured her midnight noon - Upon his wrecking sea;— - A sail, that for a day - Has cheered the castaway. - - - - -13 - - - Joy, sweetest lifeborn joy, where dost thou dwell? - Upon the formless moments of our being - Flitting, to mock the ear that heareth well, - To escape the trainèd eye that strains in seeing, - Dost thou fly with us whither we are fleeing; - Or home in our creations, to withstand - Blackwingèd death, that slays the making hand? - - The making mind, that must untimely perish - Amidst its work which time may not destroy, - The beauteous forms which man shall love to cherish, - The glorious songs that combat earth’s annoy? - Thou dost dwell here, I know, divinest Joy: - But they who build thy towers fair and strong, - Of all that toil, feel most of care and wrong. - - Sense is so tender, O and hope so high, - That common pleasures mock their hope and sense; - And swifter than doth lightning from the sky - The ecstasy they pine for flashes hence, - Leaving the darkness and the woe immense, - Wherewith it seems no thread of life was woven, - Nor doth the track remain where once ’twas cloven. - - And heaven and all the stable elements - That guard God’s purpose mock us, though the mind - Be spent in searching: for his old intents - We see were never for our joy designed: - They shine as doth the bright sun on the blind, - Or like his pensioned stars, that hymn above - His praise, but not toward us, that God is Love. - - For who so well hath wooed the maiden hours - As quite to have won the worth of their rich show, - To rob the night of mystery, or the flowers - Of their sweet delicacy ere they go? - Nay, even the dear occasion when we know, - We miss the joy, and on the gliding day - The special glories float and pass away. - - Only life’s common plod: still to repair - The body and the thing which perisheth: - The soil, the smutch, the toil and ache and wear, - The grinding enginry of blood and breath, - Pain’s random darts, the heartless spade of death; - All is but grief, and heavily we call - On the last terror for the end of all. - - Then comes the happy moment: not a stir - In any tree, no portent in the sky: - The morn doth neither hasten nor defer, - The morrow hath no name to call it by, - But life and joy are one,—we know not why,— - As though our very blood long breathless lain - Had tasted of the breath of God again. - - And having tasted it I speak of it, - And praise him thinking how I trembled then - When his touch strengthened me, as now I sit - In wonder, reaching out beyond my ken, - Reaching to turn the day back, and my pen - Urging to tell a tale which told would seem - The witless phantasy of them that dream. - - But O most blessèd truth, for truth thou art, - Abide thou with me till my life shall end. - Divinity hath surely touched my heart; - I have possessed more joy than earth can lend: - I may attain what time shall never spend. - Only let not my duller days destroy - The memory of thy witness and my joy. - - - - -14 - - - The full moon her cloudless skies - Turneth her face, I think, on me; - And from the hour when she doth rise - Till when she sets, none else will see. - - One only other ray she hath, - That makes an angle close with mine, - And glancing down its happy path - Upon another spot doth shine. - - But that ray too is sent to me, - For where it lights there dwells my heart: - And if I were where I would be, - Both rays would shine, love, where thou art. - - - - -15 - - - Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake! - The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break, - It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake - The o’ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake! - - She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee; - Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee, - Already they watch the path thy feet shall take: - Awake, O heart, to be loved, awake, awake! - - And if thou tarry her,—if this could be,— - She cometh herself, O heart, to be loved, to thee; - For thee would unashamèd herself forsake: - Awake to be loved, my heart, awake, awake! - - Awake, the land is scattered with light, and see, - Uncanopied sleep is flying from field and tree: - And blossoming boughs of April in laughter shake; - Awake, O heart, to be loved, awake, awake! - - Lo all things wake and tarry and look for thee: - She looketh and saith, ’O sun, now bring him to me. - Come more adored, O adored, for his coming’s sake, - And awake my heart to be loved: awake, awake!’ - - - - -16 - -SONG - - - I love my lady’s eyes - Above the beauties rare - She most is wont to prize, - Above her sunny hair, - And all that face to face - Her glass repeats of grace. - - For those are still the same - To her and all that see: - But oh! her eyes will flame - When they do look on me: - And so above the rest - I love her eyes the best. - - Now say, [_Say, O say! saith the music_] who likes my song?— - I knew you by your eyes, - That rest on nothing long, - And have forgot surprise; - And stray [_Stray, O stray! saith the music_] as mine will stray, - The while my love’s away. - - - - -17 - - - Since thou, O fondest and truest, - Hast loved me best and longest, - And now with trust the strongest - The joy of my heart renewest; - - Since thou art dearer and dearer - While other hearts grow colder, - And ever, as love is older, - More lovingly drawest nearer: - - Since now I see in the measure - Of all my giving and taking, - Thou wert my hand in the making, - The sense and soul of my pleasure; - - The good I have ne’er repaid thee - In heaven I pray be recorded, - And all thy love rewarded - By God, thy master that made thee. - - - - -18 - - - The evening darkens over. - After a day so bright - The windcapt waves discover - That wild will be the night. - There’s sound of distant thunder. - - The latest sea-birds hover - Along the cliff’s sheer height; - As in the memory wander - Last flutterings of delight, - White wings lost on the white. - - There’s not a ship in sight; - And as the sun goes under - Thick clouds conspire to cover - The moon that should rise yonder. - Thou art alone, fond lover. - - - - -19 - - - O youth whose hope is high, - Who dost to Truth aspire, - Whether thou live or die, - O look not back nor tire. - - Thou that art bold to fly - Through tempest, flood and fire, - Nor dost not shrink to try - Thy heart in torments dire: - - If thou canst Death defy, - If thy Faith is entire, - Press onward, for thine eye - Shall see thy heart’s desire. - - Beauty and love are nigh, - And with their deathless quire - Soon shall thine eager cry - Be numbered and expire. - - - - - SHORTER POEMS - - BOOK IV - - - TO - - L. B. C. L. M. - - - - -BOOK IV - - -1 - - - I love all beauteous things, - I seek and adore them; - God hath no better praise, - And man in his hasty days - Is honoured for them. - - I too will something make - And joy in the making; - Altho’ to-morrow it seem - Like the empty words of a dream - Remembered on waking. - - - - -2 - - - My spirit sang all day - O my joy. - Nothing my tongue could say, - Only My joy! - - My heart an echo caught— - O my joy— - And spake, Tell me thy thought, - Hide not thy joy. - - My eyes gan peer around,— - O my joy— - What beauty hast thou found? - Shew us thy joy. - - My jealous ears grew whist;— - O my joy— - Music from heaven is’t, - Sent for our joy? - - She also came and heard; - O my joy, - What, said she, is this word? - What is thy joy? - - And I replied, O see, - O my joy, - ’Tis thee, I cried, ’tis thee: - Thou art my joy. - - - - -3 - - - The upper skies are palest blue - Mottled with pearl and fretted snow: - With tattered fleece of inky hue - Close overhead the stormclouds go. - - Their shadows fly along the hill - And o’er the crest mount one by one: - The whitened planking of the mill - Is now in shade and now in sun. - - - - -4 - - - The clouds have left the sky, - The wind hath left the sea, - The half-moon up on high - Shrinketh her face of dree. - - She lightens on the comb - Of leaden waves, that roar - And thrust their hurried foam - Up on the dusky shore. - - Behind the western bars - The shrouded day retreats, - And unperceived the stars - Steal to their sovran seats. - - And whiter grows the foam, - The small moon lightens more; - And as I turn me home, - My shadow walks before. - - - - -5 - -LAST WEEK OF FEBRUARY, 1890 - - - Hark to the merry birds, hark how they sing! - Although ’tis not yet spring - And keen the air; - Hale Winter, half resigning ere he go, - Doth to his heiress shew - His kingdom fair. - - In patient russet is his forest spread, - All bright with bramble red, - With beechen moss - And holly sheen: the oak silver and stark - Sunneth his aged bark - And wrinkled boss. - - But neath the ruin of the withered brake - Primroses now awake - From nursing shades: - The crumpled carpet of the dry leaves brown - Avails not to keep down - The hyacinth blades. - - The hazel hath put forth his tassels ruffed; - The willow’s flossy tuft - Hath slipped him free: - The rose amid her ransacked orange hips - Braggeth the tender tips - Of bowers to be. - - A black rook stirs the branches here and there, - Foraging to repair - His broken home: - And hark, on the ash-boughs! Never thrush did sing - Louder in praise of spring, - When spring is come. - - - - -6 - -APRIL, 1885 - - - Wanton with long delay the gay spring leaping cometh; - The blackthorn starreth now his bough on the eve of May: - All day in the sweet box-tree the bee for pleasure hummeth: - The cuckoo sends afloat his note on the air all day. - - Now dewy nights again and rain in gentle shower - At root of tree and flower have quenched the winter’s drouth: - On high the hot sun smiles, and banks of cloud up-tower - In bulging heads that crowd for miles the dazzling south. - - - - -7 - - - Gáy Róbin is seen no more: - He is gone with the snow, - For winter is o’er - And Robin will go. - In need he was fed, and now he is fled - Away to his secret nest. - No more will he stand - Begging for crumbs, - No longer he comes - Beseeching our hand - And showing his breast - At window and door:— - Gay Robin is seen no more. - - Blithe Robin is heard no more: - He gave us his song - When summer was o’er - And winter was long: - He sang for his bread and now he is fled - Away to his secret nest. - And there in the green - Early and late - Alone to his mate - He pipeth unseen - And swelleth his breast; - For us it is o’er:— - Blithe Robin is heard no more. - - - - -8 - - - Spring goeth all in white, - Crowned with milk-white may: - In fleecy flocks of light - O’er heaven the white clouds stray: - - White butterflies in the air; - White daisies prank the ground: - The cherry and hoary pear - Scatter their snow around. - - - - -9 - - - My eyes for beauty pine, - My soul for Goddës grace: - No other care nor hope is mine; - To heaven I turn my face. - - One splendour thence is shed - From all the stars above: - ’Tis namèd when God’s name is said, - ’Tis Love, ’tis heavenly Love. - - And every gentle heart, - That burns with true desire, - Is lit from eyes that mirror part - Of that celestial fire. - - - - -10 - - - O Love, my muse, how was’t for me - Among the best to dare, - In thy high courts that bowed the knee - With sacrifice and prayer? - - Their mighty offerings at thy shrine - Shamed me, who nothing bore: - Their suits were mockeries of mine, - I sued for so much more. - - Full many I met that crowned with bay - In triumph home returned, - And many a master on the way - Proud of the prize I scorned. - - I wished no garland on my head - Nor treasure in my hand; - My gift the longing that me led, - My prayer thy high command, - - My love, my muse; and when I spake - Thou mad’st me thine that day, - And more than hundred hearts could take - Gav’st me to bear away. - - - - -11 - - - Love on my heart from heaven fell, - Soft as the dew on flowers of spring, - Sweet as the hidden drops that swell - Their honey-throated chalicing. - - Now never from him do I part, - Hosanna evermore I cry: - I taste his savour in my heart, - And bid all praise him as do I. - - Without him noughtsoever is, - Nor was afore, nor e’er shall be: - Nor any other joy than his - Wish I for mine to comfort me. - - - - -12 - - - The hill pines were sighing, - O’ercast and chill was the day: - A mist in the valley lying - Blotted the pleasant May. - - But deep in the glen’s bosom - Summer slept in the fire - Of the odorous gorse-blossom - And the hot scent of the brier. - - A ribald cuckoo clamoured, - And out of the copse the stroke - Of the iron axe that hammered - The iron heart of the oak. - - Anon a sound appalling, - As a hundred years of pride - Crashed, in the silence falling: - And the shadowy pine-trees sighed. - - - - -13 - -THE WINDMILL - - - The green corn waving in the dale, - The ripe grass waving on the hill: - I lean across the paddock pale - And gaze upon the giddy mill. - - Its hurtling sails a mighty sweep - Cut thro’ the air: with rushing sound - Each strikes in fury down the steep, - Rattles, and whirls in chase around. - - Beside his sacks the miller stands - On high within the open door: - A book and pencil in his hands, - His grist and meal he reckoneth o’er. - - His tireless merry slave the wind - Is busy with his work to-day: - From whencesoe’er, he comes to grind; - He hath a will and knows the way. - - He gives the creaking sails a spin, - The circling millstones faster flee, - The shuddering timbers groan within, - And down the shoot the meal runs free. - - The miller giveth him no thanks, - And doth not much his work o’erlook: - He stands beside the sacks, and ranks - The figures in his dusty book. - - - - -14 - - - When June is come, then all the day - I’ll sit with my love in the scented hay: - And watch the sunshot palaces high, - That the white clouds build in the breezy sky. - - She singeth, and I do make her a song, - And read sweet poems the whole day long: - Unseen as we lie in our haybuilt home. - O life is delight when June is come. - - - - -15 - - - The pinks along my garden walks - Have all shot forth their summer stalks, - Thronging their buds ’mong tulips hot, - And blue forget-me-not. - - Their dazzling snows forth-bursting soon - Will lade the idle breath of June: - And waken thro’ the fragrant night - To steal the pale moonlight. - - The nightingale at end of May - Lingers each year for their display; - Till when he sees their blossoms blown, - He knows the spring is flown. - - June’s birth they greet, and when their bloom - Dislustres, withering on his tomb, - Then summer hath a shortening day; - And steps slow to decay. - - - - -16 - - - Fire of heaven, whose starry arrow - Pierces the veil of timeless night: - Molten spheres, whose tempests narrow - Their floods to a beam of gentle light, - To charm with a moon-ray quenched from fire - The land of delight, the land of desire! - - Smile of love, a flower planted, - Sprung in the garden of joy that art: - Eyes that shine with a glow enchanted, - Whose spreading fires encircle my heart, - And warm with a noon-ray drenched in fire - My land of delight, my land of desire! - - - - -17 - - - The idle life I lead - Is like a pleasant sleep, - Wherein I rest and heed - The dreams that by me sweep. - - And still of all my dreams - In turn so swiftly past, - Each in its fancy seems - A nobler than the last. - - And every eve I say, - Noting my step in bliss, - That I have known no day - In all my life like this. - - - - -18 - - - Angel spirits of sleep, - White-robed, with silver hair, - In your meadows fair, - Where the willows weep, - And the sad moonbeam - On the gliding stream - Writes her scattered dream: - - Angel spirits of sleep, - Dancing to the weir - In the hollow roar - Of its waters deep; - Know ye how men say - That ye haunt no more - Isle and grassy shore - With your moonlit play; - White-robed spirits of sleep, - All the summer night - Threading dances light? - - - - -19 - -ANNIVERSARY - - - What is sweeter than new-mown hay, - Fresher than winds o’er-sea that blow, - Innocent above children’s play, - Fairer and purer than winter snow, - Frolic as are the morns of May? - —If it should be what best I know! - - What is richer than thoughts that stray - From reading of poems that smoothly flow? - What is solemn like the delay - Of concords linked in a music slow - Dying thro’ vaulted aisles away? - —If it should be what best I know! - - What gives faith to me when I pray, - Setteth my heart with joy aglow, - Filleth my song with fancies gay, - Maketh the heaven to which I go, - The gladness of earth that lasteth for aye? - —If it should be what best I know! - - But tell me thou—’twas on this day - That first we loved five years ago— - If ’tis a thing that I can say, - Though it must be what best we know. - - - - -20 - - - The summer trees are tempest-torn, - The hills are wrapped in a mantle wide - Of folding rain by the mad wind borne - Across the country side. - - His scourge of fury is lashing down - The delicate-rankèd golden corn, - That never more shall rear its crown - And curtsey to the morn. - - There shews no care in heaven to save - Man’s pitiful patience, or provide - A season for the season’s slave, - Whose trust hath toiled and died. - - So my proud spirit in me is sad, - A wreck of fairer fields to mourn, - The ruin of golden hopes she had, - My delicate-rankèd corn. - - - - -21 - - - The birds that sing on autumn eves - Among the golden-tinted leaves, - Are but the few that true remain - Of budding May’s rejoicing train. - - Like autumn flowers that brave the frost, - And make their show when hope is lost, - These ’mong the fruits and mellow scent - Mourn not the high-sunned summer spent. - - Their notes thro’ all the jocund spring - Were mixed in merry musicking: - They sang for love the whole day long, - But now their love is all for song. - - Now each hath perfected his lay - To praise the year that hastes away: - They sit on boughs apart, and vie - In single songs and rich reply: - - And oft as in the copse I hear - These anthems of the dying year, - The passions, once her peace that stole, - With flattering love my heart console. - - - - -22 - - - When my love was away, - Full three days were not sped, - I caught my fancy astray - Thinking if she were dead, - - And I alone, alone: - It seemed in my misery - In all the world was none - Ever so lone as I. - - I wept; but it did not shame - Nor comfort my heart: away - I rode as I might, and came - To my love at close of day. - - The sight of her stilled my fears, - My fairest-hearted love: - And yet in her eyes were tears: - Which when I questioned of, - - O now thou art come, she cried, - ’Tis fled: but I thought to-day - I never could here abide, - If thou wert longer away. - - - - -23 - - - The storm is over, the land hushes to rest: - The tyrannous wind, its strength fordone, - Is fallen back in the west - To couch with the sinking sun. - The last clouds fare - With fainting speed, and their thin streamers fly - In melting drifts of the sky. - Already the birds in the air - Appear again; the rooks return to their haunt, - And one by one, - Proclaiming aloud their care, - Renew their peaceful chant. - - Torn and shattered the trees their branches again reset, - They trim afresh the fair - Few green and golden leaves withheld the storm, - And awhile will be handsome yet. - To-morrow’s sun shall caress - Their remnant of loveliness: - In quiet days for a time - Sad Autumn lingering warm - Shall humour their faded prime. - - But ah! the leaves of summer that lie on the ground! - What havoc! The laughing timbrels of June, - That curtained the birds’ cradles, and screened their song, - That sheltered the cooing doves at noon, - Of airy fans the delicate throng,— - Torn and scattered around: - Far out afield they lie, - In the watery furrows die, - In grassy pools of the flood they sink and drown, - Green-golden, orange, vermilion, golden and brown, - The high year’s flaunting crown - Shattered and trampled down. - - The day is done: the tired land looks for night: - She prays to the night to keep - In peace her nerves of delight: - While silver mist upstealeth silently, - And the broad cloud-driving moon in the clear sky - Lifts o’er the firs her shining shield, - And in her tranquil light - Sleep falls on forest and field. - Sée! sléep hath fallen: the trees are asleep: - The night is come. The land is wrapt in sleep. - - - - -24 - - - Ye thrilled me once, ye mournful strains, - Ye anthems of plaintive woe, - My spirit was sad when I was young; - Ah sorrowful long-ago! - But since I have found the beauty of joy - I have done with proud dismay: - For howsoe’er man hug his care - The best of his art is gay. - - And yet if voices of fancy’s choir - Again in mine ear awake - Your old lament, ’tis dear to me still, - Nor all for memory’s sake: - ’Tis like the dirge of sorrow dead, - Whose tears are wiped away; - Or drops of the shower when rain is o’er, - That jewel the brightened day. - - - - -25 - - - Say who is this with silvered hair, - So pale and worn and thin, - Who passeth here, and passeth there, - And looketh out and in? - - That useth not our garb nor tongue, - And knoweth things untold: - Who teacheth pleasure to the young, - And wisdom to the old? - - No toil he maketh his by day, - No home his own by night; - But wheresoe’er he take his way, - He killeth our delight. - - Since he is come there’s nothing wise - Nor fair in man or child, - Unless his deep divining eyes - Have looked on it and smiled. - - Whence came he hither all alone - Among our folk to spy? - There’s nought that we can call our own, - Till he shall hap to die. - - And I would dig his grave full deep - Beneath the churchyard yew, - Lest thence his wizard eyes might peep - To mark the things we do. - - - - -26 - - - Crown Winter with green, - And give him good drink - To physic his spleen - Or ever he think. - - His mouth to the bowl, - His feet to the fire; - And let him, good soul, - No comfort desire. - - So merry he be, - I bid him abide: - And merry be we - This good Yuletide. - - - - -27 - - - The snow lies sprinkled on the beach, - And whitens all the marshy lea: - The sad gulls wail adown the gale, - The day is dark and black the sea. - Shorn of their crests the blighted waves - With driven foam the offing fleck: - The ebb is low and barely laves - The red rust of the giant wreck. - - On such a stony, breaking beach - My childhood chanced and chose to be: - ’Twas here I played, and musing made - My friend the melancholy sea. - He from his dim enchanted caves - With shuddering roar and onrush wild - Fell down in sacrificial waves - At feet of his exulting child. - - Unto a spirit too light for fear - His wrath was mirth, his wail was glee:— - My heart is now too fixed to bow - Tho’ all his tempests howl at me: - For to the gain life’s summer saves, - My solemn joy’s increasing store, - The tossing of his mournful waves - Makes sweetest music evermore. - - - - -28 - - - My spirit kisseth thine, - My spirit embraceth thee: - I feel thy being twine - Her graces over me, - - In the life-kindling fold - Of God’s breath; where on high, - In furthest space untold - Like a lost world I lie: - - And o’er my dreaming plains - Lightens, most pale and fair, - A moon that never wanes; - Or more, if I compare, - - Like what the shepherd sees - On late mid-winter dawns, - When thro’ the branchèd trees, - O’er the white-frosted lawns, - - The huge unclouded sun, - Surprising the world whist, - Is all uprisen thereon, - Golden with melting mist. - - - - -29 - - - Ariel, O,—my angel, my own,— - Whither away then art thou flown - Beyond my spirit’s dominion? - That makest my heart run over with rhyme, - Renewing at will my youth for a time, - My servant, my pretty minion. - - Now indeed I have cause to mourn, - Now thou returnest scorn for scorn: - Leave me not to my folly: - For when thou art with me is none so gay - As I, and none when thou’rt away - Was ever so melancholy. - - - - -30 - -LAUS DEO - - - Let praise devote thy work, and skill employ - Thy whole mind, and thy heart be lost in joy. - Well-doing bringeth pride, this constant thought - Humility, that thy best done is nought. - Man doeth nothing well, be it great or small, - Save to praise God; but that hath savèd all: - For God requires no more than thou hast done, - And takes thy work to bless it for his own. - - - - - SHORTER POEMS - - BOOK V - - - TO - - M. G. K. - - - - -BOOK V - - -1 - -THE WINNOWERS - - - Betwixt two billows of the downs - The little hamlet lies, - And nothing sees but the bald crowns - Of the hills, and the blue skies. - - Clustering beneath the long descent - And grey slopes of the wold, - The red roofs nestle, oversprent - With lichen yellow as gold. - - We found it in the mid-day sun - Basking, what time of year - The thrush his singing has begun, - Ere the first leaves appear. - - High from his load a woodman pitched - His faggots on the stack: - Knee-deep in straw the cattle twitched - Sweet hay from crib and rack: - - And from the barn hard by was borne - A steady muffled din, - By which we knew that threshèd corn - Was winnowing, and went in. - - The sunbeams on the motey air - Streamed through the open door, - And on the brown arms moving bare, - And the grain upon the floor. - - One turns the crank, one stoops to feed - The hopper, lest it lack, - One in the bushel scoops the seed, - One stands to hold the sack. - - We watched the good grain rattle down, - And the awns fly in the draught; - To see us both so pensive grown - The honest labourers laughed: - - Merry they were, because the wheat - Was clean and plump and good, - Pleasant to hand and eye, and meet - For market and for food. - - It chanced we from the city were, - And had not gat us free - In spirit from the store and stir - Of its immensity: - - But here we found ourselves again. - Where humble harvests bring - After much toil but little grain, - ’Tis merry winnowing. - - - - -2 - -THE AFFLICTION OF RICHARD - - - Love not too much. But how, - When thou hast made me such, - And dost thy gifts bestow, - How can I love too much? - Though I must fear to lose, - And drown my joy in care, - With all its thorns I choose - The path of love and prayer. - - Though thou, I know not why, - Didst kill my childish trust, - That breach with toil did I - Repair, because I must: - And spite of frighting schemes, - With which the fiends of Hell - Blaspheme thee in my dreams, - So far I have hoped well. - - But what the heavenly key, - What marvel in me wrought - Shall quite exculpate thee, - I have no shadow of thought. - What am I that complain? - The love, from which began - My question sad and vain, - Justifies thee to man. - - - - -3 - - - Since to be loved endures, - To love is wise: - Earth hath no good but yours, - Brave, joyful eyes: - - Earth hath no sin but thine, - Dull eye of scorn: - O’er thee the sun doth pine - And angels mourn. - - - - -4 - -THE GARDEN IN SEPTEMBER - - - Now thin mists temper the slow-ripening beams - Of the September sun: his golden gleams - On gaudy flowers shine, that prank the rows - Of high-grown hollyhocks, and all tall shows - That Autumn flaunteth in his bushy bowers; - Where tomtits, hanging from the drooping heads - Of giant sunflowers, peck the nutty seeds; - And in the feathery aster bees on wing - Seize and set free the honied flowers, - Till thousand stars leap with their visiting: - While ever across the path mazily flit, - Unpiloted in the sun, - The dreamy butterflies - With dazzling colours powdered and soft glooms, - White, black and crimson stripes, and peacock eyes, - Or on chance flowers sit, - With idle effort plundering one by one - The nectaries of deepest-throated blooms. - - With gentle flaws the western breeze - Into the garden saileth, - Scarce here and there stirring the single trees, - For his sharpness he vaileth: - So long a comrade of the bearded corn, - Now from the stubbles whence the shocks are borne, - O’er dewy lawns he turns to stray, - As mindful of the kisses and soft play - Wherewith he enamoured the light-hearted May, - Ere he deserted her; - Lover of fragrance, and too late repents; - Nor more of heavy hyacinth now may drink, - Nor spicy pink, - Nor summer’s rose, nor garnered lavender, - But the few lingering scents - Of streakèd pea, and gillyflower, and stocks - Of courtly purple, and aromatic phlox. - - And at all times to hear are drowsy tones - Of dizzy flies, and humming drones, - With sudden flap of pigeon wings in the sky, - Or the wild cry - Of thirsty rooks, that scour ascare - The distant blue, to watering as they fare - With creaking pinions, or—on business bent, - If aught their ancient polity displease,— - Come gathering to their colony, and there - Settling in ragged parliament, - Some stormy council hold in the high trees. - - - - -5 - - - So sweet love seemed that April morn, - When first we kissed beside the thorn, - So strangely sweet, it was not strange - We thought that love could never change. - - But I can tell—let truth be told— - That love will change in growing old; - Though day by day is nought to see, - So delicate his motions be. - - And in the end ’twill come to pass - Quite to forget what once he was, - Nor even in fancy to recall - The pleasure that was all in all. - - His little spring, that sweet we found, - So deep in summer floods is drowned, - I wonder, bathed in joy complete, - How love so young could be so sweet. - - - - -6 - -LARKS - - - What voice of gladness, hark! - In heaven is ringing? - From the sad fields the lark - Is upward winging. - - High through the mournful mist that blots our day - Their songs betray them soaring in the grey. - See them! Nay, they - In sunlight swim; above the furthest stain - Of cloud attain; their hearts in music rain - Upon the plain. - - Sweet birds, far out of sight - Your songs of pleasure - Dome us with joy as bright - As heaven’s best azure. - - - - -7 - -THE PALM WILLOW - - - See, whirling snow sprinkles the starvèd fields, - The birds have stayed to sing; - No covert yet their fairy harbour yields. - When cometh Spring? - Ah! in their tiny throats what songs unborn - Are quenched each morn. - - The lenten lilies, through the frost that push, - Their yellow heads withhold: - The woodland willow stands a lonely bush - Of nebulous gold; - There the Spring-goddess cowers in faint attire - Of frightened fire. - - - - -8 - -ASIAN BIRDS - - - In this May-month, by grace - of heaven, things shoot apace. - The waiting multitude - of fair boughs in the wood, - How few days have arrayed - their beauty in green shade - - What have I seen or heard? - it was the yellow bird - Sang in the tree: he flew - a flame against the blue; - Upward he flashed. Again, - hark! ’tis his heavenly strain. - - Another! Hush! Behold, - many, like boats of gold, - From waving branch to branch - their airy bodies launch. - What music is like this, - where each note is a kiss? - - The golden willows lift - their boughs the sun to sift: - Their sprays they droop to screen - the sky with veils of green, - A floating cage of song, - where feathered lovers throng. - - How the delicious notes - come bubbling from their throats! - Full and sweet how they are shed - like round pearls from a thread! - The motions of their flight - are wishes of delight. - - Hearing their song I trace - the secret of their grace. - Ah, could I this fair time - so fashion into rhyme, - The poem that I sing - would be the voice of spring. - - - - -9 - -JANUARY - - - Cold is the winter day, misty and dark: - The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent; - And patches of thin snow outlying, mark - The landscape with a drear disfigurement. - - The trees their mournful branches lift aloft: - The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust, - With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft; - The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust. - - No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill - And chatters mockingly; the newborn lambs - Within their strawbuilt fold beneath the hill - Answer with plaintive cry their bleating dams. - - Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring, - Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies: - My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing, - Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise. - - And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold - To praise for wintry works not understood, - Who all the worlds and ages doth behold, - Evil and good as one, and all as good. - - - - -10 - -A ROBIN - - - Flame-throated robin on the topmost bough - Of the leafless oak, what singest thou? - Hark! he telleth how— - ’Spring is coming now; Spring is coming now. - - Now ruddy are the elm-tops against the blue sky, - The pale larch donneth her jewelry; - Red fir and black fir sigh, - And I am lamenting the year gone by. - - The bushes where I nested are all cut down, - They are felling the tall trees one by one, - And my mate is dead and gone, - In the winter she died and left me lone. - - She lay in the thicket where I fear to go; - For when the March-winds after the snow - The leaves away did blow, - She was not there, and my heart is woe: - - And sad is my song, when I begin to sing, - As I sit in the sunshine this merry spring: - Like a withered leaf I cling - To the white oak-bough, while the wood doth ring. - - Spring is coming now, the sun again is gay; - Each day like a last spring’s happy day.’— - Thus sang he; then from his spray - He saw me listening and flew away. - - - - -11 - - - I never shall love the snow again - Since Maurice died: - With corniced drift it blocked the lane, - And sheeted in a desolate plain - The country side. - - The trees with silvery rime bedight - Their branches bare. - By day no sun appeared; by night - The hidden moon shed thievish light - In the misty air. - - We fed the birds that flew around - In flocks to be fed: - No shelter in holly or brake they found. - The speckled thrush on the frozen ground - Lay frozen and dead. - - We skated on stream and pond; we cut - The crinching snow - To Doric temple or Arctic hut; - We laughed and sang at nightfall, shut - By the fireside glow. - - Yet grudged we our keen delights before - Maurice should come. - We said, In-door or out-of-door - We shall love life for a month or more, - When he is home. - - They brought him home; ’twas two days late - For Christmas day: - Wrapped in white, in solemn state, - A flower in his hand, all still and straight - Our Maurice lay. - - And two days ere the year outgave - We laid him low. - The best of us truly were not brave, - When we laid Maurice down in his grave - Under the snow. - - - - -12 - -NIGHTINGALES - - - Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, - And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom - Ye learn your song: - Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, - Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air - Bloom the year long! - - Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: - Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams, - A throe of the heart, - Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, - No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound, - For all our art. - - Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men - We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then, - As night is withdrawn - From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, - Dream, while the innumerable choir of day - Welcome the dawn. - - - - -13 - - - A song of my heart, as the sun peered o’er the sea, - Was born at morning to me: - And out of my treasure-house it chose - A melody, that arose - - Of all fair sounds that I love, remembered together - In one; and I knew not whether - From waves of rustling wheat it was, - Recoveringly that pass: - - Or a hum of bees in the queenly robes of the lime: - Or a descant in pairing time - Of warbling birds: or watery bells - Of rivulets in the hills: - - Or whether on blazing downs a high lark’s hymn - Alone in the azure dim: - Or a sough of pines, when the midnight wold - Is solitary and cold: - - Or a lapping river-ripple all day chiding - The bow of my wherry gliding - Down Thames, between his flowery shores - Re-echoing to the oars: - - Or anthem notes, wherever in archèd quires - The unheeded music twires, - And, centuries by, to the stony shade - Flies following and to fade: - - Or a homely prattle of children’s voices gay - ’Mong garden joys at play: - Or a sundown chaunting of solemn rooks: - Or memory of my books, - - Which hold the words that poets in many a tongue - To the irksome world have sung: - Or the voice, my happy lover, of thee - Now separated from me. - - A ruby of fire in the burning sleep of my brain - Long hid my thought had lain, - Forgotten dreams of a thousand days - Ingathering to its rays, - - The light of life in darkness tempering long; - Till now a perfect song, - A jewel of jewels it leapt above - To the coronal of my love. - - - - -14 - -FOUNDER’S DAY. A SECULAR ODE ON THE NINTH JUBILEE OF ETON COLLEGE - - - Christ and his Mother, heavenly maid, - Mary, in whose fair name was laid - Eton’s corner, bless our youth - With truth, and purity, mother of truth! - - - O ye, ’neath breezy skies of June, - By silver Thames’s lulling tune, - In shade of willow or oak, who try - The golden gates of poesy; - - Or on the tabled sward all day - Match your strength in England’s play, - Scholars of Henry, giving grace - To toil and force in game or race; - - Exceed the prayer and keep the fame - Of him, the sorrowful king, who came - Here in his realm a realm to found, - Where he might stand for ever crowned. - - - Or whether with naked bodies flashing - Ye plunge in the lashing weir; or dashing - The oars of cedar skiffs, ye strain - Round the rushes and home again;— - - Or what pursuit soe’er it be - That makes your mingled presence free, - When by the schoolgate ’neath the limes - Ye muster waiting the lazy chimes; - - May Peace, that conquereth sin and death, - Temper for you her sword of faith; - Crown with honour the loving eyes, - And touch with mirth the mouth of the wise. - - Here is eternal spring: for you - The very stars of heaven are new; - And aged Fame again is born, - Fresh as a peeping flower of morn. - - For you shall Shakespeare’s scene unroll, - Mozart shall steal your ravished soul, - Homer his bardic hymn rehearse, - Virgil recite his maiden verse. - - Now learn, love, have, do, be the best; - Each in one thing excel the rest: - Strive; and hold fast this truth of heaven— - To him that hath shall more be given. - - - Slow on your dial the shadows creep, - So many hours for food and sleep, - So many hours till study tire, - So many hours for heart’s desire. - - These suns and moons shall memory save, - Mirrors bright for her magic cave; - Wherein may steadfast eyes behold - A self that groweth never old. - - O in such prime enjoy your lot, - And when ye leave regret it not; - With wishing gifts in festal state - Pass ye the angel-sworded gate. - - - Then to the world let shine your light, - Children in play be lions in fight, - And match with red immortal deeds - The victory that made ring the meads: - - Or by firm wisdom save your land - From giddy head and grasping hand: - IMPROVE THE BEST; so shall your sons - Better what ye have bettered once. - - Send them here to the court of grace - Bearing your name to fill your place: - Ye in their time shall live again - The happy dream of Henry’s reign: - - - And on his day your steps be bent - Where, saint and king, crowned with content, - He biddeth a prayer to bless his youth - With truth, and purity, mother of truth. - - - - -15 - - - The north wind came up yesternight - With the new year’s full moon, - And rising as she gained her height, - Grew to a tempest soon. - Yet found he not on heaven’s face - A task of cloud to clear; - There was no speck that he might chase - Off the blue hemisphere, - Nor vapour from the land to drive: - The frost-bound country held - Nought motionable or alive, - That ’gainst his wrath rebelled. - There scarce was hanging in the wood - A shrivelled leaf to reave; - No bud had burst its swathing hood - That he could rend or grieve: - Only the tall tree-skeletons, - Where they were shadowed all, - Wavered a little on the stones, - And on the white church-wall. - - —Like as an artist in his mood, - Who reckons all as nought, - So he may quickly paint his nude, - Unutterable thought: - So Nature in a frenzied hour - By day or night will show - Dim indications of the power, - That doometh man to woe. - Ah, many have my visions been, - And some I know full well: - I would that all that I have seen - Were fit for speech to tell.— - - And by the churchyard as I came, - It seemed my spirit passed - Into a land that hath no name, - Grey, melancholy and vast; - Where nothing comes: but Memory, - The widowed queen of Death, - Reigns, and with fixed, sepulchral eye - All slumber banisheth. - - Each grain of writhen dust, that drapes - That sickly, staring shore, - Its old chaotic change of shapes - Remembers evermore. - And ghosts of cities long decayed, - And ruined shrines of Fate - Gather the paths, that Time hath made - Foolish and desolate. - Nor winter there hath hope of spring, - Nor the pale night of day, - Since the old king with scorpion sting - Hath done himself away. - - * * * * * - - The morn was calm; the wind’s last breath - Had fal’n: in solemn hush - The golden moon went down beneath - The dawning’s crimson flush. - - - - -16 - -NORTH WIND IN OCTOBER - - - In the golden glade the chestnuts are fallen all; - From the sered boughs of the oak the acorns fall: - The beech scatters her ruddy fire; - The lime hath stripped to the cold, - And standeth naked above her yellow attire: - The larch thinneth her spire - To lay the ways of the wood with cloth of gold. - - Out of the golden-green and white - Of the brake the fir-trees stand upright - In the forest of flame, and wave aloft - To the blue of heaven their blue-green tuftings soft. - - But swiftly in shuddering gloom the splendours fail, - As the harrying North-wind beareth - A cloud of skirmishing hail - The grievèd woodland to smite: - In a hurricane through the trees he teareth, - Raking the boughs and the leaves rending, - And whistleth to the descending - Blows of his icy flail. - Gold and snow he mixeth in spite, - And whirleth afar; as away on his winnowing flight - He passeth, and all again for awhile is bright. - - - - -17 - -FIRST SPRING MORNING - -A CHILD’S POEM - - - Look! Look! the spring is come: - O feel the gentle air, - That wanders thro’ the boughs to burst - The thick buds everywhere! - The birds are glad to see - The high unclouded sun: - Winter is fled away, they sing, - The gay time is begun. - - Adown the meadows green - Let us go dance and play, - And look for violets in the lane, - And ramble far away - To gather primroses, - That in the woodland grow, - And hunt for oxlips, or if yet - The blades of bluebells show: - - There the old woodman gruff - Hath half the coppice cut, - And weaves the hurdles all day long - Beside his willow hut. - We’ll steal on him, and then - Startle him, all with glee - Singing our song of winter fled - And summer soon to be. - - - - -18 - -A VILLAGER - - - There was no lad handsomer than Willie was - The day that he came to father’s house: - There was none had an eye as soft an’ blue - As Willie’s was, when he came to woo. - - To a labouring life though bound thee be, - An’ I on my father’s ground live free, - I’ll take thee, I said, for thy manly grace, - Thy gentle voice an’ thy loving face. - - ’Tis forty years now since we were wed: - We are ailing an’ grey needs not to be said: - But Willie’s eye is as blue an’ soft - As the day when he wooed me in father’s croft. - - Yet changed am I in body an’ mind, - For Willie to me has ne’er been kind: - Merrily drinking an’ singing with the men - He ’ud come home late six nights o’ the se’n. - - An’ since the children be grown an’ gone - He ’as shunned the house an’ left me lone: - An’ less an’ less he brings me in - Of the little he now has strength to win. - - The roof lets through the wind an’ the wet, - An’ master won’t mend it with us in’s debt: - An’ all looks every day more worn, - An’ the best of my gowns be shabby an’ torn. - - No wonder if words hav’ a-grown to blows; - That matters not while nobody knows: - For love him I shall to the end of life, - An’ be, as I swore, his own true wife. - - An’ when I am gone, he’ll turn, an’ see - His folly an’ wrong, an’ be sorry for me: - An’ come to me there in the land o’ bliss - To give me the love I looked for in this. - - - - -19 - - - Weep not to-day: why should this sadness be? - Learn in present fears - To o’ermaster those tears - That unhindered conquer thee. - - Think on thy past valour, thy future praise: - Up, sad heart, nor faint - In ungracious complaint, - Or a prayer for better days. - - Daily thy life shortens, the grave’s dark peace - Draweth surely nigh, - When good-night is good-bye; - For the sleeping shall not cease. - - Fight, to be found fighting: nor far away - Deem, nor strange thy doom. - Like this sorrow ’twill come, - And the day will be to-day. - - - - - NEW - - POEMS - - - - -NEW POEMS - - -ECLOGUE I - -THE MONTHS - - -_BASIL AND EDWARD_ - - Man hath with man on earth no holier bond - Than that the Muse weaves with her dreamy thread: - Nor e’er was such transcendent love more fond - Than that which Edward unto Basil led, - Wandering alone across the woody shires - To hear the living voice of that wide heart, - To see the eyes that read the world’s desires, - And touch the hand that wrote the roving rhyme. - Diverse their lots as distant were their homes, - And since that early meeting, jealous Time - Knitting their loves had held their lives apart. - - But now again were these fine lovers met - And sat together on a rocky hill - Looking upon the vales of Somerset, - Where the far sea gleam’d o’er the bosky combes, - Satisfying their spirits the livelong day - With various mirth and revelation due - And delicate intimacy of delight, - As there in happy indolence they lay - And drank the sun, while round the breezy height - Beneath their feet rabbit and listless ewe - Nibbled the scented herb and grass at will. - - Much talked they at their ease; and at the last - Spoke Edward thus, ’'Twas on this very hill - This time of the year,—but now twelve years are past,— - That you provoked in verse my younger skill - To praise the months against your rival song; - And ere the sun had westered ten degrees - Our rhyme had brought him thro’ the Zodiac. - Have you remembered?’—Basil answer’d back, - ’Guest of my solace, how could I forget? - Years fly as months that seem’d in youth so long. - The precious life that, like indifferent gold - Is disregarded in its worth to hold - Some jewel of love that God therein would set, - It passeth and is gone.’—’And yet not all’ - Edward replied: ’The passion as I please - Of that past day I can to-day recall; - And if but you, as I, remember yet - Your part thereof, and will again rehearse, - For half an hour we may old Time outwit.’ - And Basil said, ’Alas for my poor verse! - What happy memory of it still endures - Will thank your love: I have forgotten it. - Speak you my stanzas, I will ransom yours. - Begin you then as I that day began, - And I will follow as your answers ran.’ - - -JANUARY - - _ED._ The moon that mounts the sun’s deserted way, - Turns the long winter night to a silver day; - But setteth golden in face of the solemn sight - Of her lord arising upon a world of white. - - -FEBRUARY - - _BA._ I have in my heart a vision of spring begun - In a sheltering wood, that feels the kiss of the sun: - And a thrush adoreth the melting day that dies - In clouds of purple afloat upon saffron skies. - - -MARCH - - _ED._ Now carol the birds at dawn, and some new lay - Announceth a homecome voyager every-day. - Beneath the tufted sallows the streamlet thrills - With the leaping trout and the gleam of the daffodils. - - -APRIL - - _BA._ Then laugheth the year; with flowers the meads are bright; - The bursting branches are tipped with flames of light: - The landscape is light; the dark clouds flee above, - And the shades of the land are a blue that is deep as love. - - -MAY - - _ED._ But if you have seen a village all red and old - In cherry-orchards a-sprinkle with white and gold, - By a hawthorn seated, or a witchelm flowering high, - A gay breeze making riot in the waving rye! - - -JUNE - - _BA._ Then night retires from heaven; the high - winds go - A-sailing in cloud-pavilions of cavern’d snow. - O June, sweet Philomel sang thy cradle-lay; - In rosy revel thy spirit shall pass away. - - -JULY - - _ED._ Heavy is the green of the fields, heavy the trees - With foliage hang, drowsy the hum of bees - In the thundrous air: the crowded scents lie low: - Thro’ tangle of weeds the river runneth slow. - - -AUGUST - - _BA._ A reaper with dusty shoon and hat of straw - On the yellow field, his scythe in his armës braw: - Beneath the tall grey trees resting at noon - From sweat and swink with scythe and dusty shoon. - - -SEPTEMBER - - _ED._ Earth’s flaunting flower of passion fadeth fair - To ripening fruit in sunlit veils of the air, - As the art of man makes wisdom to glorify - The beauty and love of life born else to die. - - -OCTOBER - - _BA._ On frosty morns with the woods aflame, down, down - The golden spoils fall thick from the chestnut crown. - May Autumn in tranquil glory her riches spend, - With mellow apples her orchard-branches bend. - - -NOVEMBER - - _ED._ Sad mists have hid the sun, the land is forlorn: - The plough is afield, the hunter windeth his horn. - Dame Prudence looketh well to her winter stores, - And many a wise man finds his pleasure indoors. - - -DECEMBER - - _BA._ I pray thee don thy jerkin of olden time, - Bring us good ice, and silver the trees with rime; - And I will good cheer, good music and wine bestow, - When the Christmas guest comes galoping over the snow. - - - Thus they in verse alternate sang the year - For rabbit shy and listless ewe to hear, - Among the grey rocks on the mountain green - Beneath the sky in fair and pastoral scene, - Like those Sicilian swains, whose doric tongue - After two thousand years is ever young,— - _Sweet the pine’s murmur, and, shepherd, sweet thy pipe_,— - Or that which gentle Virgil, yet unripe, - Of Tityrus sang under the spreading beech - And gave to rustic clowns immortal speech, - By rocky fountain or on flowery mead - Bidding their idle flocks at will to feed, - While they, retreated to some bosky glade, - Together told their loves, and as they played - Sang what sweet thing soe’er the poet feigned: - But these were men when good Victoria reigned, - Poets themselves, who without shepherd gear - Each of his native fancy sang the year. - - - - -ECLOGUE II - -GIOVANNI DUPRÈ - - -_LAWRENCE AND RICHARD_ - - - _LAWRENCE_ - - Look down the river—against the western sky— - The Ponte Santa Trinità—what throng - Slowly trails o’er with waving banners high, - With foot and horse! Surely they bear along - The spoil of one whom Florence honoureth: - And hark! the drum, the trumpeting dismay, - The wail of the triumphal march of death. - - - _RICHARD_ - - ’Twill be the funeral of Giovánn Duprè - Wending to Santa Croce. Let us go - And see what relic of old splendour cheers - The dying ritual. - - - _LAWRENCE_ - - They esteem him well - To lay his bones with Michael Angelo. - Who might he be? - - - _RICHARD_ - - He too a sculptor, one - Who left a work long to resist the years. - - - _LAWRENCE_ - - You make me question further. - - - _RICHARD_ - - I can tell - All as we walk. A poor woodcarver’s son, - Prenticed to cut his father’s rude designs - (We have it from himself), maker of shrines, - In his mean workshop in Siena dreamed; - And saw as gods the artists of the earth, - And long’d to stand on their immortal shore, - And be as they, who in his vision gleam’d, - Dowering the world with grace for evermore. - So, taxing rest and leisure to one aim, - The boy of single will and inbred skill - Rose step by step to academic fame. - - - _LAWRENCE_ - - Do I not know him then? His figures fill - The tympana o’er Santa Croce’s gate; - In the museum too, his Cain, that stands - A left-handed discobolos.... - - - _RICHARD_ - - So great - His vogue, that elder art of classic worth - Went to the wall to give his statues room; - And last—his country’s praise could do no more— - He cut the stone that honoured good Cavour. - - - _LAWRENCE_ - - I have seen the things. - - - _RICHARD_ - - He, finding in his hands - His life-desire possest, fell not in gloom, - Nor froth’d in vanity: his Sabbath earn’d - He look’d to spend in meditative rest: - So laying chisel by, he took a pen - To tell his story to his countrymen, - And prove (he did it) that the flower of all, - Rarest to attain, is in the power of all. - - - _LAWRENCE_ - - Yet nought he ever made, that I have learn’d, - In wood or stone deserved, nay not his best, - The Greek or Tuscan name for beautiful. - ’Twas level with its praise, had force to pull - Favour from fashion. - - - _RICHARD_ - - Yet he made one thing - Worthy of the lily city in her spring; - For while in vain the forms of beauty he aped, - A perfect spirit in himself he shaped; - And all his lifetime doing less than well - Where he profess’d nor doubted to excel, - Now, where he had no scholarship, but drew - His art from love, ’twas better than he knew: - And when he sat to write, lo! by him stood - The heavenly Muse, who smiles on all things good; - And for his truth’s sake, for his stainless mind, - His homely love and faith, she now grew kind, - And changed the crown, that from the folk he got, - For her green laurel, and he knew it not. - - - _LAWRENCE_ - - Ah! Love of Beauty! This man then mistook - Ambition for her? - - - _RICHARD_ - - In simplicity - Erring he kept his truth; and in his book - The statue of his grace is fair to see. - - - _LAWRENCE_ - - Then buried with their great he well may be. - - - _RICHARD_ - - And number’d with the saints, not among them - Who painted saints. Join we his requiem. - - - - -ECLOGUE III - -FOURTH OF JUNE AT ETON - - -_RICHARD AND GODFREY_ - - - _RICHARD_ - - Beneath the wattled bank the eddies swarm - In wandering dimples o’er the shady pool: - The same their chase as when I was at school; - The same the music, where in shallows warm - The current, sunder’d by the bushy isles, - Returns to join the main, and struggles free - Above the willows, gurgling thro’ the piles: - Nothing is changed, and yet how changed are we! - —What can bring Godfrey to the Muses’ bower? - - - _GODFREY_ - - What but brings you? The festal day of the year; - To live in boyish memories for an hour; - See and be seen: tho’ you come seldom here. - - - _RICHARD_ - - Dread of the pang it was, fear to behold - What once was all myself, that kept me away. - - - _GODFREY_ - - You miss new pleasures coveting the old. - - - _RICHARD_ - - They need have prudence, who in courage lack; - ’Twas that I might go on I looked not back. - - - _GODFREY_ - - Of all our company he, who, we say, - Fruited the laughing flower of liberty! - - - _RICHARD_ - - Ah! had I my desire, so should it be. - - - _GODFREY_ - - Nay, but I know this melancholy mood: - ’Twas your poetic fancy when a boy. - - - _RICHARD_ - - For Fancy cannot live on real food: - In youth she will despise familiar joy - To dwell in mournful shades; as they grow real, - Then buildeth she of joy her far ideal. - - - _GODFREY_ - - And so perverteth all. This stream to me - Sings, and in sunny ripples lingeringly - The water saith ’Ah me! where have I lept? - Into what garden of life? what banks are these, - What secret lawns, what ancient towers and trees? - Where the young sons of heav’n, with shouts of play - Or low delighted speech, welcome the day, - As if the poetry of the earth had slept - To wake in ecstasy. O stay me! alas! - Stay me, ye happy isles, ere that I pass - Without a memory on my sullen course - By the black city to the tossing seas!’ - - - _RICHARD_ - - So might this old oak say ’My heart is sere; - With greater effort every year I force - My stubborn leafage: soon my branch will crack, - And I shall fall or perish in the wrack: - And here another tree its crown will rear, - And see for centuries the boys at play: - And ’neath its boughs, on some fine holiday, - Old men shall prate as these.’ Come see the game. - - - _GODFREY_ - - Yes, if you will. ’Tis all one picture fair. - - - _RICHARD_ - - Made in a mirror, and who looketh there - Must see himself. Is not a dream the same? - - - _GODFREY_ - - _Life is a dream._ - - - _RICHARD_ - - And you, who say it, seem - Dreaming to speak to a phantom in a dream. - - - - -4 - -ELEGY - -THE SUMMER-HOUSE ON THE MOUND - - - How well my eyes remember the dim path! - My homeing heart no happier playground hath. - I need not close my lids but it appears - Through the bewilderment of forty years - To tempt my feet, my childish feet, between - Its leafy walls, beneath its arching green; - Fairer than dream of sleep, than Hope more fair - Leading to dreamless sleep her sister Care. - - There grew two fellow limes, two rising trees, - Shadowing the lawn, the summer haunt of bees, - Whose stems, engraved with many a russet scar - From the spear-hurlings of our mimic war, - Pillar’d the portico to that wide walk, - A mossy terrace of the native chalk - Fashion’d, that led thro’ the dark shades around - Straight to the wooden temple on the mound. - There live the memories of my early days, - There still with childish heart my spirit plays; - Yea, terror-stricken by the fiend despair - When she hath fled me, I have found her there; - And there ’tis ever noon, and glad suns bring - Alternate days of summer and of spring, - With childish thought, and childish faces bright, - And all unknown save but the hour’s delight. - - High on the mound the ivied arbour stood, - A dome of straw upheld on rustic wood: - Hidden in fern the steps of the ascent, - Whereby unto the southern front we went, - And from the dark plantation climbing free, - Over a valley look’d out on the sea. - That sea is ever bright and blue, the sky - Serene and blue, and ever white ships lie - High on the horizon steadfast in full sail, - Or nearer in the roads pass within hail - Of naked brigs and barques that windbound ride - At their taut cables heading to the tide. - - There many an hour I have sat to watch; nay, now - The brazen disk is cold against my brow, - And in my sight a circle of the sea - Enlarged to swiftness, where the salt waves flee, - And ships in stately motion pass so near - That what I see is speaking to my ear: - I hear the waves dash and the tackle strain, - The canvas flap, the rattle of the chain - That runs out thro’ the hawse, the clank of the wind - Winding the rusty cable inch by inch, - Till half I wonder if they have no care, - Those sailors, that my glass is brought to bear - On all their doings, if I vex them not - On every petty task of their rough lot - Prying and spying, searching every craft - From painted truck to gunnel, fore and aft,— - Thro’ idle Sundays as I have watch’d them lean - Long hours upon the rail, or neath its screen - Prone on the deck to lie outstretch’d at length, - Sunk in renewal of their wearied strength. - - But what a feast of joy to me, if some - Fast-sailing frigate to the Channel come - Back’d here her topsail, or brought gently up - Let from her bow the splashing anchor drop, - By faint contrary wind stay’d in her cruise, - The _Phaethon_ or dancing _Arethuse_, - Or some immense three-decker of the line, - Romantic as the tale of Troy divine; - Ere yet our iron age had doom’d to fall - The towering freeboard of the wooden wall, - And for the engines of a mightier Mars - Clipp’d their wide wings, and dock’d their soaring spars. - The gale that in their tackle sang, the wave - That neath their gilded galleries dasht so brave - Lost then their merriment, nor look to play - With the heavy-hearted monsters of to-day. - - One noon in March upon that anchoring ground - Came Napier’s fleet unto the Baltic bound: - Cloudless the sky and calm and blue the sea, - As round Saint Margaret’s cliff mysteriously, - Those murderous queens walking in Sabbath sleep - Glided in line upon the windless deep: - For in those days was first seen low and black - Beside the full-rigg’d mast the strange smoke-stack, - And neath their stern revolv’d the twisted fan. - Many I knew as soon as I might scan, - The heavy _Royal George_, the _Acre_ bright, - The _Hogue_ and _Ajax_, and could name aright - Others that I remember now no more; - But chief, her blue flag flying at the fore, - With fighting guns a hundred thirty and one, - The Admiral ship _The Duke of Wellington_, - Whereon sail’d George, who in her gig had flown - The silken ensign by our sisters sewn. - The iron Duke himself,—whose soldier fame - To England’s proudest ship had given her name, - And whose white hairs in this my earliest scene - Had scarce more honour’d than accustom’d been,— - Was two years since to his last haven past: - I had seen his castle-flag to fall half-mast - One morn as I sat looking on the sea, - When thus all England’s grief came first to me, - Who hold my childhood favour’d that I knew - So well the face that won at Waterloo. - - But now ’tis other wars, and other men;— - The year that Napier sail’d, my years were ten— - Yea, and new homes and loves my heart hath found: - A priest has there usurped the ivied mound, - The bell that call’d to horse calls now to prayers, - And silent nuns tread the familiar stairs. - Within the peach-clad walls that old outlaw, - The Roman wolf, scratches with privy paw. - - - - -5 - - - O Love, I complain, - Complain of thee often, - Because thou dost soften - My being to pain: - - Thou makest me fear - The mind that createth, - That loves not nor hateth - In justice austere; - - Who, ere he make one, - With millions toyeth, - And lightly destroyeth - Whatever is begun. - - An’ wer’t not for thee, - My glorious passion, - My heart I could fashion - To sternness, as he. - - But thee, Love, he made - Lest man should defy him, - Connive and outvie him, - And not be afraid: - - Nay, thee, Love, he gave - His terrors to cover, - And turn to a lover - His insolent slave. - - - - -6 - -THE SOUTH WIND - - - The south wind rose at dusk of the winter day, - The warm breath of the western sea - Circling wrapp’d the isle with his cloke of cloud, - And it now reach’d even to me, at dusk of the day, - And moan’d in the branches aloud: - While here and there, in patches of dark space, - A star shone forth from its heavenly place, - As a spark that is borne in the smoky chase; - And, looking up, there fell on my face— - Could it be drops of rain - Soft as the wind, that fell on my face? - Gossamers light as threads of the summer dawn, - Suck’d by the sun from midmost calms of the main, - From groves of coral islands secretly drawn, - O’er half the round of earth to be driven, - Now to fall on my face - In silky skeins spun from the mists of heaven. - - Who art thou, in wind and darkness and soft rain - Thyself that robest, that bendest in sighing pines - To whisper thy truth? that usest for signs - A hurried glimpse of the moon, the glance of a star - In the rifted sky? - Who art thou, that with thee I - Woo and am wooed? - That robing thyself in darkness and soft rain - Choosest my chosen solitude, - Coming so far - To tell thy secret again, - As a mother her child, in her folding arm - Of a winter night by a flickering fire, - Telleth the same tale o’er and o’er - With gentle voice, and I never tire, - So imperceptibly changeth the charm, - As Love on buried ecstasy buildeth his tower, - —Like as the stem that beareth the flower - By trembling is knit to power;— - Ah! long ago - In thy first rapture I renounced my lot, - The vanity, the despondency and the woe, - And seeking thee to know - Well was’t for me, and evermore - I am thine, I know not what. - - For me thou seekest ever, me wondering a day - In the eternal alternations, me - Free for a stolen moment of chance - To dream a beautiful dream - In the everlasting dance - Of speechless worlds, the unsearchable scheme, - To me thou findest the way, - Me and whomsoe’er - I have found my dream to share - Still with thy charm encircling; even to-night - To me and my love in darkness and soft rain - Under the sighing pines thou comest again, - And staying our speech with mystery of delight, - Of the kiss that I give a wonder thou makest, - And the kiss that I take thou takest. - - - - -7 - - - I climb the mossy bank of the glade: - My love awaiteth me in the shade. - - She holdeth a book that she never heedeth: - In Goddës work her spirit readeth. - - She is all to me, and I to her: - When we embrace, the stars confer. - - O my love, from beyond the sky - I am calling thy heart, and who but I? - - - Fresh as love is the breeze of June, - In the dappled shade of the summer noon. - - Catullus, throwing his heart away, - Gave fewer kisses every day. - - Heracleitus, spending his youth - In search of wisdom, had less of truth. - - Flame of fire was the poet’s desire: - The thinker found that life was fire. - - - O my love! my song is done: - My kiss hath both their fires in one. - - - - -8 - - - To my love I whisper, and say - Knowest thou why I love thee?—Nay: - Nay, she saith; O tell me again.— - - When in her ear the secret I tell, - She smileth with joy incredible— - - Ha! she is vain—O Nay— - Then tell us!—Nay, O nay. - - - But this is in my heart, - That Love is Nature’s perfect art, - And man hath got his fancy hence, - To clothe his thought in forms of sense. - - - Fair are thy works, O man, and fair - Thy dreams of soul in garments rare, - Beautiful past compare, - Yea, godlike when thou hast the skill - To steal a stir of the heavenly thrill: - - But O, have care, have care! - ’Tis envious even to dare: - And many a fiend is watching well - To flush thy reed with the fire of hell. - - - - -9 - - - My delight and thy delight - Walking, like two angels white, - In the gardens of the night: - - My desire and thy desire - Twining to a tongue of fire, - Leaping live, and laughing higher; - - Thro’ the everlasting strife - In the mystery of life. - - - Love, from whom the world begun - Hath the secret of the sun. - - Love can tell, and love alone, - Whence the million stars were strewn, - Why each atom knows its own, - How, in spite of woe and death, - Gay is life, and sweet is breath: - - This he taught us, this we knew, - Happy in his science true, - Hand in hand as we stood - Neath the shadows of the wood, - Heart to heart as we lay - In the dawning of the day. - - - - -10 - -SEPTUAGESIMA - - - Now all the windows with frost are blinded, - As punctual day with greedy smile - Lifts like a Cyclops evil-minded - His ruddy eyeball over the isle. - - In an hour ’tis paled, in an hour ascended - A dazzling light in the cloudless grey. - Steel is the ice; the snow unblended - Is trod to dust on the white highway. - - The lambkins frisk; the shepherd is melting - Drink for the ewes with a fire of straw: - The red flames leap at the wild air pelting - Bitterly thro’ the leafless shaw. - - Around, from many a village steeple - The sabbath-bells hum over the snow: - I give a blessing to parson and people - Across the fields as away I go. - - Over the hills and over the meadows - Gay is my way till day be done: - Blue as the heaven are all the shadows, - And every light is gold in the sun. - - - - -11 - - - The sea keeps not the Sabbath day, - His waves come rolling evermore; - His noisy toil grindeth the shore, - And all the cliff is drencht with spray. - - Here as we sit, my love and I, - Under the pine upon the hill, - The sadness of the clouded sky, - The bitter wind, the gloomy roar, - The seamew’s melancholy cry - With loving fancy suit but ill. - - We talk of moons and cooling suns, - Of geologic time and tide, - The eternal sluggards that abide - While our fair love so swiftly runs, - - Of nature that doth half consent - That man should guess her dreary scheme - Lest he should live too well content - In his fair house of mirth and dream: - - Whose labour irks his ageing heart, - His heart that wearies of desire, - Being so fugitive a part - Of what so slowly must expire. - - She in her agelong toil and care - Persistent, wearies not nor stays, - Mocking alike hope and despair. - - —Ah, but she too can mock our praise, - Enchanted on her brighter days, - - Days, that the thought of grief refuse, - Days that are one with human art, - Worthy of the Virgilian muse, - Fit for the gaiety of Mozart. - - - - -12 - - - Riding adown the country lanes - One day in spring, - Heavy at heart with all the pains - Of man’s imagining:— - - The mist was not yet melted quite - Into the sky: - The small round sun was dazzling white, - The merry larks sang high: - - The grassy northern slopes were laid - In sparkling dew, - Out of the slow-retreating shade - Turning from sleep anew: - - Deep in the sunny vale a burn - Ran with the lane, - O’erhung with ivy, moss and fern - It laughed in joyful strain: - - And primroses shot long and lush - Their cluster’d cream: - Robin and wren and amorous thrush - Carol’d above the stream: - - The stillness of the lenten air - Call’d into sound - The motions of all life that were - In field and farm around: - - So fair it was, so sweet and bright, - The jocund Spring - Awoke in me the old delight - Of man’s imagining, - - Riding adown the country lanes: - The larks sang high.— - O heart! for all thy griefs and pains - Thou shalt be loth to die. - - - - -13 - -PATER FILIO - - - Sense with keenest edge unusèd, - Yet unsteel’d by scathing fire; - Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd - On the ways of dark desire; - Sweetest hope that lookest smiling - O’er the wilderness defiling! - - Why such beauty, to be blighted - By the swarm of foul destruction? - Why such innocence delighted, - When sin stalks to thy seduction? - All the litanies e’er chaunted - Shall not keep thy faith undaunted. - - I have pray’d the sainted Morning - To unclasp her hands to hold thee; - From resignful Eve’s adorning - Stol’n a robe of peace to enfold thee; - With all charms of man’s contriving - Arm’d thee for thy lonely striving. - - Me too once unthinking Nature, - —Whence Love’s timeless mockery took me,— - Fashion’d so divine a creature, - Yea, and like a beast forsook me. - I forgave, but tell the measure - Of her crime in thee, my treasure. - - - - -14 - -NOVEMBER - - - The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled - Are half the birds, and mists lie low, and the sun - Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed; - The short days pass unwelcomed one by one. - - Out by the ricks the mantled engine stands - Crestfallen, deserted,—for now all hands - Are told to the plough,—and ere it is dawn appear - The teams following and crossing far and near, - As hour by hour they broaden the brown bands - Of the striped fields; and behind them firk and prance - The heavy rooks, and daws grey-pated dance: - As awhile, surmounting a crest, in sharp outline - (A miniature of toil, a gem’s design,) - They are pictured, horses and men, or now near by - Above the lane they shout lifting the share, - By the trim hedgerow bloom’d with purple air; - Where, under the thorns, dead leaves in huddle lie - Packed by the gales of Autumn, and in and out - The small wrens glide - With a happy note of cheer, - And yellow amorets flutter above and about, - Gay, familiar in fear. - - And now, if the night shall be cold, across the sky - Linnets and twites, in small flocks helter-skelter, - All the afternoon to the gardens fly, - From thistle-pastures hurrying to gain the shelter - Of American rhododendron or cherry-laurel: - And here and there, near chilly setting of sun, - In an isolated tree a congregation - Of starlings chatter and chide, - Thickset as summer leaves, in garrulous quarrel: - Suddenly they hush as one,— - The tree top springs,— - And off, with a whirr of wings, - They fly by the score - To the holly-thicket, and there with myriads more - Dispute for the roosts; and from the unseen nation - A babel of tongues, like running water unceasing, - Makes live the wood, the flocking cries increasing, - Wrangling discordantly, incessantly, - While falls the night on them self-occupied; - The long dark night, that lengthens slow, - Deepening with Winter to starve grass and tree, - And soon to bury in snow - The Earth, that, sleeping ’neath her frozen stole, - Shall dream a dream crept from the sunless pole - Of how her end shall be. - - - - -15 - -WINTER NIGHTFALL - - - The day begins to droop,— - Its course is done: - But nothing tells the place - Of the setting sun. - - The hazy darkness deepens, - And up the lane - You may hear, but cannot see, - The homing wain. - - An engine pants and hums - In the farm hard by: - Its lowering smoke is lost - In the lowering sky. - - The soaking branches drip, - And all night through - The dropping will not cease - In the avenue. - - A tall man there in the house - Must keep his chair: - He knows he will never again - Breathe the spring air: - - His heart is worn with work; - He is giddy and sick - If he rise to go as far - As the nearest rick: - - He thinks of his morn of life, - His hale, strong years; - And braves as he may the night - Of darkness and tears. - - - - -16 - - - Since we loved,—(the earth that shook - As we kissed, fresh beauty took)— - Love hath been as poets paint, - Life as heaven is to a saint; - - All my joys my hope excel, - All my work hath prosper’d well, - All my songs have happy been, - O my love, my life, my queen. - - - - -17 - - - When Death to either shall come,— - I pray it be first to me,— - Be happy as ever at home, - If so, as I wish, it be. - - Possess thy heart, my own; - And sing to the child on thy knee, - Or read to thyself alone - The songs that I made for thee. - - - - -18 - -WISHES - - - I wish’d to sing thy grace, but nought - Found upon earth that could compare: - Some day, maybe, in heaven, I thought,— - If I should win the welcome there,— - - There might I make thee many a song: - But now it is enough to say - I ne’er have done our life the wrong - Of wishing for a happier day. - - - - -19 - -A LOVE LYRIC - - - Why art thou sad, my dearest? - What terror is it thou fearest, - Braver who art than I - The fiend to defy? - - Why art thou sad, my dearest? - And why in tears appearest, - Closer than I that wert - At hiding thy hurt? - - Why art thou sad, my dearest, - Since now my voice thou hearest? - Who with a kiss restore - Thy valour of yore. - - - - -20 - -ΕΡΟΣΕΡΟΣ - - - Why hast thou nothing in thy face? - Thou idol of the human race, - Thou tyrant of the human heart, - The flower of lovely youth that art; - Yea, and that standest in thy youth - An image of eternal Truth, - With thy exuberant flesh so fair, - That only Pheidias might compare, - Ere from his chaste marmoreal form - Time had decayed the colours warm; - Like to his gods in thy proud dress - Thy starry sheen of nakedness. - - Surely thy body is thy mind, - For in thy face is nought to find, - Only thy soft unchristen’d smile, - That shadows neither love nor guile, - But shameless will and power immense, - In secret sensuous innocence. - - O king of joy, what is thy thought? - I dream thou knowest it is nought, - And wouldst in darkness come, but thou - Makest the light where’er thou go. - Ah yet no victim of thy grace, - None who e’er long’d for thy embrace, - Hath cared to look upon thy face. - - - - -21 - -THE FAIR BRASS - - - An effigy of brass - Trodden by careless feet - Of worshippers that pass, - Beautiful and complete, - - Lieth in the sombre aisle - Of this old church unwreckt, - And still from modern style - Shielded by kind neglect. - - It shows a warrior arm’d: - Across his iron breast - His hands by death are charmed - To leave his sword at rest, - - Wherewith he led his men - O’ersea, and smote to hell - The astonisht Saracen, - Nor doubted he did well. - - Would wé could teach our sons - His trust in face of doom, - Or give our bravest ones - A comparable tomb: - - Such as to look on shrives - The heart of half its care; - So in each line survives - The spirit that made it fair; - - So fair the characters, - With which the dusty scroll, - That tells his title, stirs - A requiem for his soul. - - Yet dearer far to me, - And brave as he are they, - Who fight by land and sea - For England at this day; - - Whose vile memorials, - In mournful marbles gilt, - Deface the beauteous walls - By growing glory built: - - Heirs of our antique shrines, - Sires of our future fame, - Whose starry honour shines - In many a noble name - - Across the deathful days, - Link’d in the brotherhood - That loves our country’s praise, - And lives for heavenly good. - - - - -22 - -THE DUTEOUS HEART - - - Spirit of grace and beauty, - Whom men so much miscall; - Maidenly, modest duty, - I cry thee fair befal! - - Pity for them that shun thee, - Sorrow for them that hate, - Glory, hath any won thee - To dwell in high estate! - - But rather thou delightest - To walk in humble ways, - Keeping thy favour brightest - Uncrown’d by foolish praise; - - In such retirement dwelling, - Where, hath the worldling been, - He straight returneth telling - Of sights that he hath seen, - - Of simple men and truest - Faces of girl and boy; - The souls whom thou enduest - With gentle peace and joy. - - Fair from my song befal thee, - Spirit of beauty and grace! - Men that so much miscall thee - Have never seen thy face. - - - - -23 - -THE IDLE FLOWERS - - - I have sown upon the fields - Eyebright and Pimpernel, - And Pansy and Poppy-seed - Ripen’d and scatter’d well, - - And silver Lady-smock - The meads with light to fill, - Cowslip and Buttercup, - Daisy and Daffodil; - - King-cup and Fleur-de-lys - Upon the marsh to meet - With Comfrey, Watermint, - Loose-strife and Meadowsweet; - - And all along the stream - My care hath not forgot - Crowfoot’s white galaxy - And love’s Forget-me-not: - - And where high grasses wave - Shall great Moon-daisies blink, - With Rattle and Sorrel sharp - And Robin’s ragged pink. - - Thick on the woodland floor - Gay company shall be, - Primrose and Hyacinth - And frail Anemone, - - Perennial Strawberry-bloom, - Woodsorrel’s pencilled veil, - Dishevel’d Willow-weed - And Orchis purple and pale, - - Bugle, that blushes blue, - And Woodruff’s snowy gem, - Proud Foxglove’s finger-bells - And Spurge with milky stem. - - High on the downs so bare, - Where thou dost love to climb, - Pink Thrift and Milkwort are, - Lotus and scented Thyme; - - And in the shady lanes - Bold Arum’s hood of green, - Herb Robert, Violet, - Starwort and Celandine; - - And by the dusty road - Bedstraw and Mullein tall, - With red Valerian - And Toadflax on the wall, - - Yarrow and Chicory, - That hath for hue no like, - Silene and Mallow mild - And Agrimony’s spike, - - Blue-eyed Veronicas - And grey-faced Scabious - And downy Silverweed - And striped Convolvulus: - - Harebell shall haunt the banks, - And thro’ the hedgerow peer - Withwind and Snapdragon - And Nightshade’s flower of fear. - - And where men never sow, - Have I my Thistles set, - Ragwort and stiff Wormwood - And straggling Mignonette, - - Bugloss and Burdock rank - And prickly Teasel high, - With Umbels yellow and white, - That come to kexes dry. - - Pale Chlora shalt thou find, - Sun-loving Centaury, - Cranesbill and Sinjunwort, - Cinquefoil and Betony: - - Shock-headed Dandelion, - That drank the fire of the sun - Hawkweed and Marigold, - Cornflower and Campion. - - Let Oak and Ash grow strong, - Let Beech her branches spread; - Let Grass and Barley throng - And waving Wheat for bread; - - Be share and sickle bright - To labour at all hours; - For thee and thy delight - I have made the idle flowers. - - But now ’tis Winter, child, - And bitter northwinds blow, - The ways are wet and wild, - The land is laid in snow. - - - - -24 - -DUNSTONE HILL - - - A cottage built of native stone - Stands on the mountain-moor alone, - High from man’s dwelling on the wide - And solitary mountain-side, - - The purple mountain-side, where all - The dewy night the meteors fall, - And the pale stars musically set - To the watery bells of the rivulet, - - And all day long, purple and dun, - The vast moors stretch beneath the sun, - The wide wind passeth fresh and hale, - And whirring grouse and blackcock sail. - - Ah, heavenly Peace, where dost thou dwell? - Surely ’twas here thou hadst a cell, - Till flaming Love, wandering astray - With fury and blood, drove thee away.— - - Far down across the valley deep - The town is hid in smoky sleep, - At moonless nightfall wakening slow - Upon the dark with lurid glow: - - Beyond, afar the widening view - Merges into the soften’d blue, - Cornfield and forest, hill and stream, - Fair England in her pastoral dream. - - To one who looketh from this hill - Life seems asleep, all is so still: - Nought passeth save the travelling shade - Of clouds on high that float and fade: - - Nor since this landscape saw the sun - Might other motion o’er it run, - Till to man’s scheming heart it came - To make a steed of steel and flame. - - Him may you mark in every vale - Moving beneath his fleecy trail, - And tell whene’er the motions die - Where every town and hamlet lie. - - He gives the distance life to-day, - Rushing upon his level’d way - From man’s abode to man’s abode, - And mocks the Roman’s vaunted road, - - Which o’er the moor purple and dun - Still wanders white beneath the sun, - Deserted now of men and lone - Save for this cot of native stone. - - There ever by the whiten’d wall - Standeth a maiden fair and tall, - And all day long in vacant dream - Watcheth afar the flying steam. - - - - -25 - -SCREAMING TARN - - - The saddest place that e’er I saw - Is the deep tarn above the inn - That crowns the mountain-road, whereby - One southward bound his way must win. - - Sunk on the table of the ridge - From its deep shores is nought to see: - The unresting wind lashes and chills - Its shivering ripples ceaselessly. - - Three sides ’tis banked with stones aslant, - And down the fourth the rushes grow, - And yellow sedge fringing the edge - With lengthen’d image all arow. - - ’Tis square and black, and on its face - When noon is still, the mirror’d sky - Looks dark and further from the earth - Than when you gaze at it on high. - - At mid of night, if one be there, - —So say the people of the hill— - A fearful shriek of death is heard, - One sudden scream both loud and shrill. - - And some have seen on stilly nights, - And when the moon was clear and round, - Bubbles which to the surface swam - And burst as if they held the sound.— - - ’Twas in the days ere hapless Charles - Losing his crown had lost his head, - This tale is told of him who kept - The inn upon the watershed: - - He was a lowbred ruin’d man - Whom lawless times set free from fear: - One evening to his house there rode - A young and gentle cavalier. - - With curling hair and linen fair - And jewel-hilted sword he went; - The horse he rode he had ridden far, - And he was with his journey spent. - - He asked a lodging for the night, - His valise from his steed unbound, - He let none bear it but himself - And set it by him on the ground. - - ’Here’s gold or jewels,’ thought the host, - ’That’s carrying south to find the king.’ - He chattered many a loyal word, - And scraps of royal airs gan sing. - - His guest thereat grew more at ease - And o’er his wine he gave a toast, - But little ate, and to his room - Carried his sack behind the host. - - ’Now rest you well,’ the host he said, - But of his wish the word fell wide; - Nor did he now forget his son - Who fell in fight by Cromwell’s side. - - Revenge and poverty have brought - Full gentler heart than his to crime; - And he was one by nature rude, - Born to foul deeds at any time. - - With unshod feet at dead of night - In stealth he to the guest-room crept, - Lantern and dagger in his hand, - And stabbed his victim while he slept. - - But as he struck a scream there came, - A fearful scream so loud and shrill: - He whelm’d the face with pillows o’er, - And lean’d till all had long been still. - - Then to the face the flame he held - To see there should no life remain:— - When lo! his brutal heart was quell’d: - ’Twas a fair woman he had slain. - - The tan upon her face was paint, - The manly hair was torn away, - Soft was the breast that he had pierced; - Beautiful in her death she lay. - - His was no heart to faint at crime, - Tho’ half he wished the deed undone. - He pulled the valise from the bed - To find what booty he had won. - - He cut the straps, and pushed within - His murderous fingers to their theft. - A deathly sweat came o’er his brow, - He had no sense nor meaning left. - - He touched not gold, it was not cold, - It was not hard, it felt like flesh. - He drew out by the curling hair - A young man’s head, and murder’d fresh; - - A young man’s head, cut by the neck. - But what was dreader still to see, - Her whom he had slain he saw again, - The twain were like as like can be. - - Brother and sister if they were, - Both in one shroud they now were wound,— - Across his back and down the stair, - Out of the house without a sound. - - He made his way unto the tarn, - The night was dark and still and dank; - The ripple chuckling neath the boat - Laughed as he drew it to the bank. - - Upon the bottom of the boat - He laid his burden flat and low, - And on them laid the square sandstones - That round about the margin go. - - Stone upon stone he weigh’d them down, - Until the boat would hold no more; - The freeboard now was scarce an inch: - He stripp’d his clothes and push’d from shore. - - All naked to the middle pool - He swam behind in the dark night; - And there he let the water in - And sank his terror out of sight. - - He swam ashore, and donn’d his dress, - And scraped his bloody fingers clean; - Ran home and on his victim’s steed - Mounted, and never more was seen. - - But to a comrade ere he died - He told his story guess’d of none: - So from his lips the crime returned - To haunt the spot where it was done. - - - - -26 - -THE ISLE OF ACHILLES - -(FROM THE GREEK) - - Τὸν φίλτατόν σοι παῖδ’ ἐμοί τ’, Ἀχιλλέα - ὄψει δόμους ναίοντα νησιωτικοὺς - Λευκὴν κατ’ ἀκτὴν ἐντὸς Εὐξείνου πόρου. - - Eur. And. 1250. - - - Voyaging northwards by the western strand - Of the Euxine sea we came to where the land - Sinks low in salt morass and wooded plain: - Here mighty Ister pushes to the main, - Forking his turbid flood in channels three - To plough the sands with which he chokes the sea. - - Against his middle arm, not many a mile - In the offing of black water is the isle - Named of Achilles, or as Leukê known, - Which tender Thetis, counselling alone - With her wise sire beneath the ocean-wave, - Unto her child’s departed spirit gave, - Where he might still his love and fame enjoy, - Through the vain Danaan cause fordone at Troy. - Thither Achilles passed, and long fulfill’d - His earthly lot, as the high gods had will’d, - Far from the rivalries of men, from strife, - From arms, from woman’s love and toil of life. - Now of his lone abode I will unfold - What there I saw, or was by others told. - - There is in truth a temple on the isle; - Therein a wooden statue of rude style - And workmanship antique with helm of lead: - Else all is desert, uninhabited; - Only a few goats browse the wind-swept rocks, - And oft the stragglers of their starving flocks - Are caught and sacrificed by whomsoe’er, - Whoever of chance or purpose hither fare: - About the fence lie strewn their bleaching bones. - - But in the temple jewels and precious stones, - Upheapt with golden rings and vials lie, - Thankofferings to Achilles, and thereby, - Written or scratch’d upon the walls in view, - Inscriptions, with the givers’ names thereto, - Some in Romaic character, some Greek, - As each man in the tongue that he might speak - Wrote verse of praise, or prayer for good to come, - To Achilles most, but to Patroclus some; - For those who strongly would Achilles move - Approach him by the pathway of his love. - - Thousands of birds frequent the sheltering shrine, - The dippers and the swimmers of the brine, - Sea-mew and gull and diving cormorant, - Fishers that on the high cliff make their haunt - Sheer inaccessible, and sun themselves - Huddled arow upon the narrow shelves:— - And surely no like wonder ere hath been - As that such birds should keep the temple clean; - But thus they do: at earliest dawn of day - They flock to sea and in the waters play, - And when they well have wet their plumage light, - Back to the sanctuary they take flight - Splashing the walls and columns with fresh brine, - Till all the stone doth fairly drip and shine, - When off again they skim asea for more - And soon returning sprinkle steps and floor, - And sweep all cleanly with their wide-spread wings. - - From other men I have learnt further things. - If any of free purpose, thus they tell, - Sail’d hither to consult the oracle,— - For oracle there was,—they sacrificed - Such victims as they brought, if such sufficed, - And some they slew, some to the god set free: - But they who driven from their course at sea - Chanced on the isle, took of the goats thereon - And pray’d Achilles to accept his own. - Then made they a gift, and when they had offer’d once, - If to their question there was no response, - They added to the gift and asked again; - Yea twice and more, until the god should deign - Answer to give, their offering they renew’d; - Whereby great riches to the shrine ensued. - And when both sacrifice and gifts were made - They worship’d at the shrine, and as they pray’d - Sailors aver that often hath been seen - A man like to a god, of warrior mien, - A beauteous form of figure swift and strong; - Down on his shoulders his light hair hung long - And his full armour was enchast with gold: - While some, who with their eyes might nought behold, - Say that with music strange the air was stir’d; - And some there are, who have both seen and heard: - And if a man wish to be favour’d more, - He need but spend one night upon the shore; - To him in sleep Achilles will appear - And lead him to his tent, and with good cheer - Show him all friendliness that men desire; - Patroclus pours the wine, and he his lyre - Takes from the pole and plays the strains thereon - Which Cheiron taught him first on Pelion. - - These things I tell as they were told to me, - Nor do I question but it well may be: - For sure I am that, if man ever was, - Achilles was a hero, both because - Of his high birth and beauty, his country’s call, - His valour of soul, his early death withal, - For Homer’s praise, the crown of human art; - And that above all praise he had at heart - A gentler passion in her sovran sway, - And when his love died threw his life away. - - - - -27 - -AN ANNIVERSARY - - - _HE_ - - Bright, my belovèd, be thy day, - This eve of Summer’s fall: - And Autumn mass his flowers gay - To crown thy festival! - - - _SHE_ - - I care not if the morn be bright, - Living in thy love-rays: - No flower I need for my delight, - Being crownèd with thy praise. - - - _HE_ - - O many years and joyfully - This sun to thee return; - Ever all men speak well of thee, - Nor any angel mourn! - - - _SHE_ - - For length of life I would not pray, - If thy life were to seek; - Nor ask what men and angels say - But when of thee they speak. - - - _HE_ - - Arise! The sky hath heard my song, - The flowers o’erhear thy praise; - And little loves are waking long - To wish thee happy days. - - - - -28 - -REGINA CARA - -JUBILEE-SONG, FOR MUSIC, 1897 - - - Hark! The world is full of thy praise, - England’s Queen of many days; - Who, knowing how to rule the free, - Hast given a crown to monarchy. - - Honour, Truth and growing Peace - Follow Britannia’s wide increase, - And Nature yield her strength unknown - To the wisdom born beneath thy throne! - - In wisdom and love firm is thy fame: - Enemies bow to revere thy name: - The world shall never tire to tell - Praise of the queen that reignèd well. - - O FELIX ANIMA, DOMINA PRAECLARA, - AMORE SEMPER CORONABERE - REGINA CARA. - - - - - NOTES - - - - -NOTE - - -The poems contained in Book I are my final selection from a volume -published in 1873. Those of Book II are from a pamphlet published in -1879. Some of all these are in places corrected. Book III is made up of -poems from a pamphlet published in 1880; to which are added others of -about the same date. Some of these have already appeared in a volume -printed for me by my friend the Rev. C. H. Daniel, in 1884. No. 6 was -written to a tune by Dr. Howard. No. 19 is a pretty close translation -of a poem by Théophile Gautier, which is itself a translation from -the English by Thomas Moore in _The Epicurean_. All the poems in Book -IV are now printed for the first time. No. 9 is a translation from a -madrigal by Michael Angelo (No. VIII in _Guasti_). It is from my Comedy -’The Humours of the Court,’ in which also No. 16 occurs. No. 11 is -from a Sicilian nona rima stanza, the first poem in Trucchi’s _Poesie -Italiane inedite_. No. 3 is but the initial fragment of a poem which -took another shape. - - 1890. - - -NOTE TO FOURTH EDITION - -Book V was printed by Mr. Daniel in 1893 and published -contemporaneously with an American edition, according to the -requirements of the international copyright law. In passing the proofs -of this edition I have altered the first line of No. 10: which being -actually descriptive of a robin’s song, now appears as such. It was -first printed ’Pink-throated linnet.’ I have also written ’and’ for -’or’ in two lines of V. 17, and amended I. 5. - - 1894. - - -NOTE TO PRESENT VOLUME - -In revising my ’shorter poems’ for this edition I have corrected a -few misprints which seem to have run through the earlier editions; -and, though I have refrained from the vanity of trying to improve old -work which has been so often printed, I have amended one or two lines -which seemed peculiarly bad. I hope that the ’new poems’ which I have -gathered to fill this second volume up to the size of the first, may -be found in some respects better than the old. Eclogues 2 and 3 have -already appeared in the _Cornhill Magazine_, and the poems numbered -severally 6, 14, 15 and 21, in Mr. Elkin Mathews’ _Shilling Garland_, -No. II. 1896. The rest are printed here for the first time: they are of -various dates, some of them were written this year for this volume. - - R. B., Sept. 1899. - - - - - INDEX - - - - -INDEX OF FIRST LINES - - - PAGE - A cottage built of native stone 272 - - Again with pleasant green 61 - - All women born 40 - - An effigy of brass 262 - - Angel spirits of sleep 145 - - A poppy grows upon the shore 26 - - Ariel, O,—my angel, my own 165 - - A song of my heart 191 - - Assemble, all ye maidens 34 - - Awake, my heart, to be loved 113 - - A winter’s night with the snow about 101 - - - Beautiful must be the mountains 189 - - Because thou canst not see 93 - - Behold! the radiant Spring 66 - - Beneath the wattled bank 223 - - Betwixt two billows 169 - - Bright, my belovèd, be thy day 287 - - - Christ and his Mother 194 - - Clear and gentle stream 9 - - Cold is the winter day 183 - - Crown Winter with green 160 - - - Dear lady, when thou frownest 22 - - - Fire of heaven, whose starry arrow 143 - - Flame-throated robin 185 - - - Gay Robin is seen no more 131 - - - Hark! the world is full 289 - - Hark to the merry birds 128 - - Haste on, my joys 95 - - His poisoned shafts 38 - - How well my eyes 227 - - - I climb the mossy bank 237 - - I found to-day out walking 25 - - I have loved flowers that fade 80 - - I have sown upon the fields 267 - - I heard a linnet courting 20 - - I know not how I came 50 - - I love all beauteous things 123 - - I love my lady’s eyes 115 - - I made another song 32 - - I never shall love the snow again 187 - - In the golden glade 201 - - In this May-month 181 - - I praise the tender flower 99 - - I saw the Virgin-mother 48 - - I stand on the cliff 89 - - I will not let thee go 23 - - I wish’d to sing thy grace 258 - - - Joy, sweetest lifeborn joy 108 - - - Let praise devote thy work 160 - - Let us, as by this verdant bank 57 - - Long are the hours the sun is above 28 - - Look down the river 218 - - Look! look! the spring is come 203 - - Love not too much 172 - - Love on my heart from heaven fell 137 - - - Man hath with man 211 - - My bed and pillow are cold 103 - - My delight and thy delight 241 - - My eyes for beauty pine 134 - - My spirit kisseth thine 163 - - My spirit sang all day 124 - - - Now all the windows 243 - - Now thin mists temper 175 - - - O bold majestic downs 59 - - O golden Sun, whose ray 77 - - O Love, I complain 232 - - O Love, my muse 135 - - O my vague desires 85 - - O thou unfaithful 104 - - O youth whose hope is high 119 - - - Perfect little body 91 - - Poor withered rose 14 - - - Riding adown the country lanes 247 - - - Sad, sombre place 71 - - Say who is this with silvered hair 158 - - See, whirling snow 180 - - Sense with keenest edge unusèd 249 - - Since thou, O fondest and truest 117 - - Since to be loved endures 174 - - Since we loved 256 - - Sometimes when my lady sits by me 27 - - So sweet love seemed 178 - - Spirit of grace and beauty 265 - - Spring goeth all in white 133 - - - The birds that sing on autumn eves 150 - - The cliff-top has a carpet 16 - - The clouds have left the sky 127 - - The day begins to droop 254 - - The evening darkens over 118 - - The full moon from her cloudless skies 112 - - The green corn waving in the dale 139 - - The hill pines were sighing 138 - - The idle life I lead 144 - - The lonely season 251 - - The north wind came up 198 - - The pinks along my garden walks 142 - - The saddest place 275 - - The south wind rose 234 - - There is a hill 53 - - There was no lad handsomer 205 - - The sea keeps not 245 - - The snow lies sprinkled on the beach 161 - - The storm is over 154 - - The summer trees are tempest-torn 149 - - The upper skies are palest blue 126 - - The wood is bare 12 - - Thou didst delight my eyes 106 - - To my love I whisper 239 - - - Voyaging northwards 282 - - - Wanton with long delay 130 - - Weep not to-day 207 - - We left the city when the summer day 96 - - What is sweeter than new-mown hay 147 - - What voice of gladness 179 - - When Death to either shall come 257 - - When first we met 39 - - When June is come 141 - - When men were all asleep 87 - - When my love was away 152 - - Wherefore to-night so full of care 75 - - Whither, O splendid ship 46 - - Who has not walked upon the shore 30 - - Why art thou sad 259 - - Why hast thou nothing 260 - - Will Love again awake 43 - - - Ye thrilled me once 157 - - - * * * * * - - -Transcriber's Notes - -Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations -in hyphenation, spelling, accents and punctuation remain unchanged -except where in conflict with the index. - -Italics are represented thus _italic_. - -There are many small decorative illustrations within the book. These -have not been indicated - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poetical Works of Robert Bridges -(Volume 2), by Robert Bridges - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BRIDGES *** - -***** This file should be named 55178-0.txt or 55178-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/1/7/55178/ - -Produced by Larry B. 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