The Poems of
DIGBY MACKWORTH DOLBEN
edited
with a Memoir
by
ROBERT BRIDGES
Henry Frowde
Oxford University Press
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
ipii
The Poems copyright in the United States
by Robert Bridges.
MEMOIR
1HAD not visited Eton for many years, when
one day passing from the Fellows' Library
into the Gallery I caught sight of the portrait
of my school-friend Digby Dolben hanging just
without the door among our most distinguished
contemporaries. I was wholly arrested, and as
I stood gazing on it, my companion asked me if
I knew who it was. I was thinking that, beyond
a few whom I could name, I must be almost the
only person who would know. Far memories
of my boyhood were crowding freshly upon me :
he was standing again beside me in the eager
promise of his youth ; I could hear his voice ;
nothing of him was changed ; while I, wrapt
from him in a confused mist of time, was
wondering what he would think, could he know
that at this actual moment he would have been
dead thirty years, and that his memory would be
thus preserved and honoured in the beloved
school, where his delicate spirit had been so
strangely troubled.
a 2
iv
MEMOIR
This portrait-gallery of old Etonians is very
select ; preeminent distinction of birth or merit
may win you a place there, or again official con-
nection with the school, which rightly loves to
keep up an unbroken panorama of its teachers,
and to vivify its annals with the faces and figures
of the personalities who carried on its traditions.
But how came Dolben there ? It was because he
was a poet, — that I knew ; — and yet his poems
were not known ; they were jealously guarded
by his family and a few friends : indeed such of
his poems as could have come to the eyes of the
authorities who sanctioned this memorial would
not justify it. There was another reason ; and
the portrait bears its own credentials ; for though
you might not perhaps divine the poet in it, you
can see the saint, the soul rapt in contempla-
tion, the habit of stainless life, of devotion, of
enthusiasm for high ideals. Such a being must
have stood out conspicuously among his fellows;
the facts of his life would have been the ground
of the faith in his genius ; and when his early
death endeared and sanctified his memory, loving
grief would generously grant him the laurels
which he had never worn.
It falls now to me to tell his short story, and
to edit the poems which are his true and endur-
ing title to mortal fame.
MEMOIR
V
Digby Mackworth Dolben was born February
8, 1848, in Guernsey. His home was Finedon
Hall, in Northamptonshire. His father was
a Mackworth, his mother a Dolben. He was
the youngest of a family of three sons and a
daughter, who is now the only survivor. His
father, who inherited a strong protestant tradi-
tion, and had the reputation of maintaining it,
must have educated him from infancy in the
strictest religious creeds and motives : he sent
him also to a private school, Mr. Tabor's at.
Cheam, where religious instruction was made
much of. One of his fellow-pupils there has
publicly recorded his influence, and his efforts
to awaken in his schoolfellows the religious emo-
tion which, in his passionate regard of all things,
was to him, as it was to St. Francis, the only
meaning and the true poetry of life. Another
of them, Wentworth Beaumont Hankey, who
preceded him by one term at Eton, and to whom
he was much attached, has his own memoir.
Hankey was as worthy a companion as he could
ever have met with anywhere. Another, Robert
Bickersteth, whose friendship at both schools
was also loyal and admiring, remembers that the
first letter that he ever had from a school-friend
was one from Digby, generously congratulating
him on winning the prize for which they had
vi
MEMOIR
both competed. These two and other friendships
that he made at Cheam lasted him till his death.
It was in January 1862 that he passed on to
Eton, and, being billeted in the same Dame's
house as myself, was recommended to my care.
I was related through my mother with both
Dolbens and Mackworths, indeed my mother's
great-grandmother in the direct male line was
a Dolben, so that I myself am in some fractional
part a Dolben ; and the names of Dolben,
Mackworth, and Finedon were familiar to me
as far back as nursery days, when my mother
used to amuse us younger children with tales of
her own childhood. A merry, gamesome spirit
was not the least of her charms, and that she
had been so universal a favourite in her girlhood
may have been greatly due to the original pranks
with which she would enliven any society whose
dulness or gravity provoked her. Among the
various scenes of her fund of stories Finedon was
one. Her grandfather had once been rector of
the parish, and the family associations were con-
tinued by occasional visits to Hall or Rectory,
in days that seemed to the younger generation
to have been unusually supplied with a dignified
and long-lived aristocracy of generals, baronets
and divines, whose features were familiar to me
among the many miniatures, silhouettes and
ME M O I R
vii
other little portraits, mementos of personal
affection, that hung in my mother's rooms, and
in their eighteenth-century fashions, kindled our
imaginations of a strange and remote world.
A story which I well remember will exhibit
the keeping of these associations, — though I can-
not truly locate it at Finedon, — how my mother
espying one of these old-fashioned gentlemen
taking a nap by the open window of a garden-
room, drew his pigtail through to the outside,
and shut the sash down upon it. Her freak,
inspired by simple delight in the prospect of
the mighty anger and fuss that would ensue
when the hero awoke, was fully successful, and
the consequent disturbance went on rippling with
amusement in her memory for at least seventy-
five years. I should lack piety and humour if
I neglected this opportunity of according to the
absurdity a renewed lease of life.
I had never myself met any of his family until
Digby came to Eton, but our sisters were inti-
mate, and we could call each other cousin. As
I happened to be captain of the house, I was
able without inconvenience to discharge those
duties of elder relative which are so specially
obnoxious to Eton boys. I enrolled Dolben
among my fags, and looked after him.
Of the growth of our friendship during the
viii
MEMOIR
school-terms between his first arrival at Eton
and my leaving in July 1863 I could give a
more circumstantial account, if the records of
my memory were in any order of time, but they
are not ; and were I to attempt to make a con-
secutive tale of them, I should be consciously
constructing it on inferences open to all the
tricks of memory, especially that incalculable
delusion due to shift of knowledge and feeling.
Except for a few main facts I shall therefore
avoid giving to my narration of his school-life
any sequence ; and in questioning my recollec-
tions I am persuaded that most of them are of
the last six months. I shall reproduce then only
that part of the picture which I clearly see.
It might have been possible to correct the dis-
order of my memory had there been existing
letters of this early date to help me; but his
family kept none, nor, with a few exceptions, have
I been able to discover any beside those which
I myself preserved ; and they do not begin until
August 1863, when our separation gave rise to
a written correspondence. After that date these
letters will be the basis of my memoir.
Of our first meeting I have no recollection ;
but I remember him very well as a lower-boy in
his broad collar and jacket. He was tall, pale,
and of delicate appearance, and though his face
MEMOIR
ix
^as thoughtful and his features intellectual, he
would not at that time have been thought good-
looking. Indeed he was persistently teased by
the little boys for his appearance, his neglectful
dress, his abstracted manner, and his incapacity
for games at ball. Not that he was inactive ;
he had his own pony at home and was fond of
riding ; he also became a good swimmer and
delighted in open-air bathing; but his short
sight excluded him from the common school-
games; and though the dreaminess which it
gave to his expression came to be a character-
istic and genuine charm, it was, until it won
romantic interpretation, only an awkwardness.
He was a boy who evidently needed both pro-
tection and sympathy, and I could not have
talked to him without discovering the attraction
of our similar inclinations and outlook on life.
For, different as we were in physical tempera-
ment, different as boys could be, we were both of
us terribly serious, determined, and of artistic
bent, and had come through the same sort of
home-teaching to the same mental perplexity.
We satisfied our natural bias towards art by
poetry, but the magnitude of the religious
problems which we had been led up to face was
occupying our attention ; it involved both our
spiritual and practical interests in life. A
X'
MEMOIR
sectarian training had provided us with premises,
which, so long as they remained unquestioned,
were of overwhelming significance : they domir
nated everything : the logical situation was
appalling : the ordinary conventions of life were
to us merely absurd : we regarded the claim of
the church in the same way as Cardinal Newman
had elaborated it in his writings ; and we were
no doubt indirectly influenced by his views,
though I had never myself read any contro-
versial books, and had little taste for them,
We were in fact both of us Pusey-ites, and if
we reacted somewhat differently to the same
influences, yet neither of us at that time
doubted that our toga virilis would be the cas^
sock of a priest or the habit of a monk. How
I had first come to imbibe these notions I can-
not now perceive, unless, as I think, it was
the purely logical effect of Keble's 'Christian
Year', a book regarded in my family as good
poetry, and given to us on Sundays to learn
by heart. Dolben had lived under the in-
fluence of his mother's sister, his Aunt Annie^
an intellectual and charming lady (as described
to me) with strong ecclesiastical sympathies of
a mystical sort. Finedon was her home, and
she only left it to undertake the charitable care
of an invalid friend in Belgravia, where, when
MEMOIR
xi
Digby visited her, he had full opportunities of
seeing and hearing whatever there was of the
most extreme high-church ritual and doctrine.
There too he met with his cousin the Rev.
Euseby Cleaver, of S. Barnabas Church, who
must have been a stark ascetic : and with these
advantages, as he would have called them, he
was naturally far more advanced in the definition
and complications of orthodoxy than I could be,
especially as my temper was impatient of con-
troversy.
In a school of eight hundred we were of
course not the only high-church boys, and there
were some ten or twelve who, though we in no
sense formed a ' set were known to each other,
and united by a sort of freemasonry. Scattered
among the different forms and houses, and with
different recreations and tastes, we seldom met ;
and I could name only three or four with whom
I was on actual terms of friendship. Among
these, Vincent Stuckey Coles — lately Principal of
the Pusey House at Oxford — was preeminent for
his precocious theological bent and devotion to
the cause, — for that was one incidental aspect of
our common opinions ; he was indeed the recog-
nised authority, and our leader in so far as
universal esteem and confidence could give any
one such a position amongst us : and I no
xii
MEMOIR
sooner discovered Dolben's predilections than
I introduced him to Coles, who quickly became
much attached to him, and served him with
kind offices and sound advice on many occasions
when he sadly needed it. With such friends as
Coles, Hankey, Lionel Muirhead, Bickersteth
and Manning, he was well off, — he could not
have had more congenial companions ; but
without them he would have been miserably
isolated at Eton, for he had no common in-
terests of any kind with the average school-boy,
scarcely even the burning question of the quality
of the food provided to develop our various
potentialities. He seemed of a different species,
among the little ruffians a saint, among sportive
animals a distressful spirit. By what steps our
intimacy at first grew I cannot now tell. As
neither work nor play threw us together, I saw
but little of him during the day : he never
even in my last term accompanied me in my
frequent visits to S. George's Chapel, where it
was my custom to go on short after-fours and
sit in the north aisle or organ-loft, stealing out
at the end of the anthem in time to be not very
late for five o'clock school. Our meetings were
therefore generally after lock-up, when, if we
both had work to do, he would sometimes bring
his to my room, but more often I would go
MEMOIR
uninvited to sit with him. His room looked
over the Slough road, a small narrow room
with the door at the end of one long side,
and a window at the opposite diagonal corner.
Against the wall facing the window stood his
plain oaken bureau, at which he would sit with
his back to the window, while I occupied most
of the rest of the room at right angles to him.
The clearest picture that I have of him is thus
seated, with his hands linked behind his head,
tilting his chair backward as he deliberated his
careful utterances: or sometimes he would
balance it on one leg, and steady himself by
keeping the fingers of his outstretched arms
in touch with the walls. There was moreover
a hole in the boards of the floor, and if the
chair-leg went through and precipitated him on
to the carpet, that was a part of the performance
and gave him a kind of satisfaction. The
bureau-lid lay open before him as a desk, and in
the top drawer on the right he kept his poems.
His face whether grave or laughing was always
full of thought : he would sometimes throw
himself backward as if to escape from the stress
of it, or he would lean forward with meditative
earnestness and appear to concentrate his atten-
tion on the tallow dip, which in its brazen
saucer was the only illumination, feeding it
xiv.
MEMOIR
anxiously with grease from the point of the
snuffers, or snuffing it to the quick till he put it
out. When he spoke it was with a gentle voice
and slowly as if he pondered every word.
One evening I remember his exhibiting to me
how he escaped the necessity of going to the hair-
dresser, by burning his hair when it got too long.
It was then rather curly rough hair that stood
off from his head. He set it alight with the
candle in one hand, and when it flared up, he
put it out with the other, gravely recommending
the practice on the professional theory of sealing
the ends of the hair.^
1 Coles writes : ' My recollections of that room include
two scenes ; one described by Dolben, how standing— no
doubt in a dream — at the window with an inkpot in his
hand, he had begun to pour the ink into the road, when
he was startled by a remonstrance, " Boy, boy, what are
you doing ? " from Balston, whose hat was receiving the
stream. The other very characteristic. We had come
to know that there was such a thing as a " Retreat
though how to set about it rather puzzled us. We had
reduced our food, and had settled down to devotions con»-
sisting eminently of prayers for the soul of K. Henry VI,
but ** after four" our constancy broke down, and (could
Dolben have had a fag?) some one was sent for ices.*
[As to the first of these tales, the enormity of the con-
tretemps cannot be imagined by one who never knew the
beautiful Head-master. Dr. Balston was as sans reproehe
in dress as in everything else. If he had any blemish
it lurked somewhere in the obscurities of Greek syntax.
iThat Dolben emptied the dregs of his inkpot into the
M EM 0 1 R
XV
That one's memory should so faithfully have
retained so foolish an incident, while it neglec-
ted to record any one of our many talks, may
be easily explained, but it is none the less
annoying. We may very often have spoken on
religious matters, but when I try to recall those
evenings, it is only of poetry that I think, of
our equal enthusiasm for it, and mutual diver-
gence of taste : the conversations themselves
perished no doubt of sheer immaturity. I was
then reading Shakespeare for the first time, and
my imperfect understanding hindered neither
my enjoyment nor admiration. I also studied
Milton, and carried Keats in my pocket. But
Dolben, though I cannot remember that he
had any enthusiasm for Shakespeare, was more
widely read in poetry than I, as he was also more
Abreast with the taste of the day. Browning,
M" Browning, Tennyson and Ruskin were the
authors of whom he would talk ; and among
the poets he ranked Faber, a Romanized clergy-
man, of whose works I have nothing to say,
except that a maudlin hymn of his, when Digby
showed it me, provoked my disgust. I used to
road, and that Balston was passing is credible enough ;
but that the mess fell on to his hat is exaggeration. It
is impossible. Providence would never have allowed it.
R. B.]
xvi MEMOIR
think that he had written a good many hymns
in imitation of Faber, and that it was partly
my dislike of that sort of thing which made
him unwilling to show me his verses. My own
boyish muse was being silenced by my reading
of the great poets, and we were mutually coy of
exposing our secret productions, which were so
antipathetically bad. My last serious poem at
school was a sentimental imitation of Spenser,
and I remember his reading that. I was also
abhorrent towards Ruskin, for I thought him
affected, and was too ignorant of painting to
understand his sermonizing ; nor could I imagine
how another could presume to tell me what I
should like or dislike : and well as I loved some
of Tennyson's early lyrics, and had them by
heart, yet when I heard The Idylls of the Kmg
praised as if they were the final attainment of
all poetry, then I drew into my shell, contented
to think that I might be too stupid to under-
stand, but that I could never expect as good
a pleasure from following another's taste as I got
from my own. I remember how I submissively
concluded that it must be my own dulness
which prevented my admiring Tennyson as much
as William Johnson did, — and this no doubt
was a very proper conclusion ; and I yielded to
the vogue enough to choose from the Idylls my
MEMOIR
xvii
speech on the 4th of June, wherewith I indulged
the ears of his late majesty K. Edward VII on
the year of his marriage ; and I even purchased
as gifts to my friends the fashionable volumes
which I had never read through. As for
Browning, I had no leanings towards him ; but
when Digby read me extracts from Saul, I re-
sponded fairly well, and remember the novelty
of the impression to this day. Of Dolben's own
verse of this date no scrap remains. One
evening when I was sitting in his room and
moved to pull out the drawer where he kept
his poems, the usual protest was not made.
The drawer was empty ; and he told me that
he had burned them, every one. I was shocked,
and felt some remorse in thinking that it was
partly his dislike of my reading them that had
led him to destroy them ; and I always regretted
their destruction until the other day, when
having to consider all his poems in the order of
their composition, I realized for the first time
that there is nothing of merit dating so far back
even as a year after this holocaust. The poetry
began suddenly in 1865, when, after a few poems
of uncertain quality, the true vein was struck,
and yielded more and more richly till the end.^
^ Since writing the above, my correspondence has un-
expectedly recovered five of these burnt poems, preserved
b
xviii
MEMOIR
Our instinctive attitudes towards poetry were
very dissimilar, he regarded it from the emo-
tional, and I from the artistic side ; and he was
thus of a much intenser poetic temperament than
I, for when he began to write poetry he would
never have written on any subject that did not
deeply move him, nor would he attend to poetry
unless it expressed his own emotions; and I
should say that he liked poetry on account of
the power that it had of exciting his valued
emotions, and he may perhaps have recognised
it as the language of faith. What had led me
to poetry was the inexhaustible satisfaction of
form, the magic of speech, lying as it seemed
to me in the masterly control of the material :
it was an art which I hoped to learn. An in-
stinctive rightness was essential, but, given that,
I did not suppose that the poet's emotions were
in any way better than mine, nor mine than
another's : and, though I should not at that time
have put it in these words, I think that Dolben
imagined poetic form to be the naive outcome of
by a friend whom he had allowed to copy them. They
are altogether immature, but their discovery is useful in
sparing us any regret for their fellows. One of them is
given, in a note to poem 6, at the end of the volume,
because it strongly confirms what I have written con-
cerning the relation between the form and the sentiment
of his poems.
MEMOIR
xix
peculiar personal emotion ; just as one imagines
in nature the universal mind conquering matter
by the urgence of life, — as he himself describes it
in his * Core '
Poetry, the hand that wrings
(Bruised albeit at the strings)
Music from the soul of things.
There is a point in art where these two ways
merge and unite, but in apprenticehood they are
opposite approaches. The poem whence the
three lines are quoted, and others — for instance
17, 41, 46, and 49 — show complete mastery, but
in his earlier work, to press his own imagery,
the bruised fingers of the learner are often what
mars the music. And as he began by writing
' sentimental trash ' so he sometimes relapsed
into it. I do not wish to pretend that I was
myself in those days free from foolish senti-
mentality, yet he always showed his poems to
me as artistic not emotional efforts, and in so
far as I could be of any service to him, my
criticism was on the right side.
Any chronicle of Dolben''s doings must record
both folly and extravagance, and I should think
it very foolish to disguise the characteristics
which during his life were so apparent to his
friends. I know that it will seem to some that
b 2
XX
MEMOIR
the portrait might have been as well done
without so many realistic touches, and that the
phenomenal aspects are illustrated at the expense
of his inner life of high purpose and devotion ;
but the temper of his spirit cannot be mistaken;
it is amply expressed and has its own perma-
nent witness in the poems ; whereas the actual
outward appearances are exactly what, if I do
not give them, can never be known ; and it is
only the existence of truthful detail that can
refute the irresponsible hearsay, which by natural
selection of its spontaneous variations grows up
at last to a coherent falsehood, — like a portrait
by Macaulay. His imprudent behaviour too,
which invited such lamentable gossip as I have
heard, was merely the consequence of his indulg-
ing his actual feelings and conscientious opinions
in contempt of convention, and in spite of cir-
cumstances, — as is often the way with a genius.
If I have any hesitation, it is only where I do
not sufficiently remember the facts, the actual
conduct for instance which drew upon him the
displeasure of the authorities. That I have
forgotten so much is a proof that I cannot
have thought these particular religious offences
of great moment ; I will describe their nature
when their crisis occurred.
But of the most romantic of all his extrava-
MEMOIR
xxi
gancies, that idealization and adoration of his
school-friend, which long after they were parted
went on developing in his maturer poems, I have
a better memory. It was well known to me in
1863, indeed the burning of the poems may
have been due to the existence among them of
poems to ' Archie ' : for Dolben would have been
almost as reluctant to submit them to me as to
the eyes of their unwitting object. However
that was, I cannot surely remember how far I
understood the situation at the time, and it was
not until after his death that I knew the full
measure of his passionate attachment, as that
must be gauged by the evidence of all the poems.
He had however not shrunk from speaking
openly of it at that date to Coles, whose advice
in any spiritual dilemma he constantly sought or
playfully provoked, although, as may be seen in
his letters, he made a show of resenting it, and
would not, I believe, have sought it, if he had
not reserved to himself the liberty of pretending
to scorn it. He also sent his poems, as fast as
he wrote them, to his father, who read them,
bad and good, aloud to the family with genuine
pride and admiration : and that he took them
as he did, and that Digby could rely on his
doing so, shows, I think, that there was a very
great natural sympathy and emotional likeness
xxii
MEMOIR
between them, and that Digby may have been
conscious of inheriting the softness which was so
visible in his father's face. But, though not one
of us would ever have judged him by a common
standard, nor have sought to drag him down
from the imaginative heights where he lived above
us, yet he kept this one sentiment peculiarly apart,
and while we looked on it as a fugitive extrava-
gance, he was doing all that he could to rivet it
faster and deeper in his soul.
To understand this ideal affection one must
fully recognise that its object was not only alto-
gether worthy, but a person whom it was difficult
not to idolize, if one had any tendency that way.
Every one who knew Manning, whether as he
then was at school, or in manhood, or in his latest
years, or whether, as some did, they knew him
throughout his life, all without exception spoke
of him only in terms of love and admiration : nor
have I ever met with any one who knew him well,
who would admit that for combined grace, amia-
bility and beauty of person and character he had
an equal.
As a 'Pusey-ite' I knew him well, but less
intimately than did Coles : indeed our occasional
meetings had generally some musical motive.
I never accepted his invitation to stay with him
in the holidays ; but once, when we were both
M E MO I R
xxiii
in London, he introduced me to his family.
He attracted me personally as much as any one
whom I ever met ; but our lines and general
tastes were so differently cast that I looked for
no more of friendship than our chance juxta-
position occasioned. He was a little older and
taller than Digby, but practically his contem-
porary, with features of the uncharactered type
of beauty, the immanent innocence of Fra
Angelico's angels ; and to have fallen into the
company of one of those supersensuous beings
was a delightful privilege. He was of gentle
and perfect manners, and unusual accomplish-
ments ; and if not of intellectual power, yet of
great good sense, and with a rare combination of
extreme scrupulosity with strong will, — qualities
severely tested in a successful public service,
where, in positions of high trust and responsi-
bility, he acted firmly and wisely, but none the
less fretted himself to death with afterthought
and fear lest he should not have done well. That
was his idiosyncrasy. He was naturally simple
and modest, and — at least in his schooldays —
full of fun, and affectionately attached to Digby,
though he never to the last had any suspicion
that his friend was making an idol of him ; no
more than Beatrice had of her identification with
the Divine Wisdom.
xxiv
MEMOIR
Not that Dolben's idealization was at all
Dantesque: — he could never have symbolized
Christ as a Gryphon. He was readier to turn
symbols into flesh than flesh into symbols ; and
his sacramental ecstasies are of this colour. It
was his fervid realization of Christ's life on
earth, his love for Christ's human personality,
that was the heart and motive of his religious
devotion. Christ was his friend and his God ;
and his perpetual vision of the Man of Sorrows
calling him out from the world could not be so
vivid as this actual image of living grace that
made mortal existence beautiful. The human
face full of joy came up between him and the
shadowy divine Face, the ' great eyes deep with
ruth ' ; and this was the cause of his vain
scruples, as it is plainly exhibited in the
poems.
Of the exact day and hour when Dolben's Vita
nitova dawned there is no record, but already in
the summer of 63 the mutual friendship between
him and Manning was at its full height, and he
abeady perceived the vanity of it, foreseeing that
Manning was destined to go out into the world
with the certainty of admiration and distinction,
while he was pledged to renounce the world and
all its delights. The thought of complete sepa-
ration overclouded his present enjoyment : he
MEMOIR
XXV
even found excuses for making a rule of not
going to Manning's room ; and when it was
doubtful whether or no he should return to Eton,
he showed no anxiety to return, though it was
only on that condition that he could hope to
enjoy his friend's society; and when he did
return he recorded his indifference. Manning
was never at Finedon — nor did Digby ever visit
Manning's home. His affection was of the kind
that recognises its imaginative quality, and in
spite of attraction instinctively shuns the dis-
illusionment of actual intercourse. In absence it
could flourish unhindered, and under that con-
dition it flowered profusely. But in the summer
of 63 it was of full growth, nor was anything
ever added to it except in his imagination.
Meanwhile the responsible authorities had
agreed among themselves that Eton was an un-
suitable residence for Dolben. Both John Yonge,
his tutor, and Thomas Stevens, our Dominie,
were men of common-sense and protestant con-
victions, and they were both of them fully aware
of Dolben's disaffection. He crossed himself at
meals, and left his queer books about, and be-
haved generally so as to make himself and his
opinions a ridiculous wonder to the boys, although
not a word was ever said by any of them in my
hearing. Dom, as we called Mr. Stevens, had
XXVI
MEMOIR
spoken with me about him, but I have no recol-
lection of his conversations, except that once, in
his kind and urgent remonstrances with Digby,
he invoked the shade of his illustrious ancestor
the Archbishop. As for Yonge, who no doubt
consulted with Stevens, there was probably a
serious correspondence between him and Digby''s
father ; but again of this I know nothing, and
no record remains. I remember that one of
Digby's grievances was that Johnny Yonge, —
as we called him, though Digby with chilling
respect always styled him John, — made his pupils
read Paradise Lost for ' private business ' on
Sunday. Milton was to Digby as Luther to
a papist : and if Johnny Yonge had thought
to engage the pius vates as a surreptitious
ally, he must have been much disappointed,
for he only gave Dolben an occasion for ex-
hibiting his ecclesiastical contempt. It was my
surprise at his unreasonable attitude towards
Milton that has caused me to remember these
facts : I had been dazed by the magnificence of
the first book of Paradise Lost, and gave no
more heed to its theology then than I do now ;
and I tried to bring Digby over to my artistic
point of view. My lot was to spend an hour
before breakfast on Sunday considering Bp.
Wordsworth's notes on the Greek Testament ;
MEMOIR
xxvii
the importance of which was impressed on
us by the size and cost of his quarto volumes,
incomparably bigger than any other book that
we carried under our arm into school; and I
envied Digby a tutor like Johnny Yonge with
a sound taste in poetry : but I argued in vain.
Sunday was altogether a field-day for Digby :
Sunday-questions gave him a grand opportunity
of airing his mediaeval notions ; and he must
have enjoyed exercising his malicious ingenuity
in dragging them in. He had plenty of humour
and wit, and was possessed with a spirit of mis-
chief as wanton as Shelley's. Quite apart from
any meaning or value which he may have at-
tached to the uncalled-for confession of his faith,
he would have indulged it merely for a natural
delight in whatever was unexpected or out of
place, and in the surprise and perplexity that
he knew it must cause. Our behaviour to the
Masters in those days was none of the best : we
found pleasure in provoking them by constant
petty annoyances. I look back with only regret
and shame to my share in it, and have welcomed
the gentler relations that now obtain. Our game
of being unmanageable had its time-honoured
forms and limits, but if any original fun could
be got out of mischievous contravention of rule,
the occasion was eagerly exploited. There were
xxviii
MEMOIR
naturally some whose character preserved their
manners from being contaminated by this local
folly ; and among these Coles was one, and Digby
should have been another ; he had however his
own way of making mischief, and the annoyance
that he purposely caused by his Sunday-ques-
tions was of a piece with the general fashion of
the place : his escapades too were of a like nature,
and owed a great part of their pleasure to their
being disapproved or forbidden ; if indeed he
did not, as I have often thought, take pleasure
in surprising and perplexing himself. Among
these things were more serious matters, which,
since I have no actual memory of them, I can
have thought of no importance at the time.
There was, as a matter of fact, an Anglican
Priory at Ascot, a Lodge of Jesuits at Old
Windsor, a Roman Catholic chapel at Slough,
and at Clewer a whole full-fledged high-church
establishment under Thomas Thellusson Carter,
a man of venerable aspect corresponding with
his ecclesiastical repute and saintly life. All
these institutions had attracted the pilgrim steps
of Digby, and to Clewer he had inveigled Man-
ning, though how it came to be known that
he went there I cannot guess. I fancy that he
sought Carter for confession. As for Ascot
Priory there is an amusing and authentic story,
MEMOIR
xxix
but that is of a later date. Johnny Yonge knew
about these things, and the crisis seems to have
arisen from his detecting Dolben in a stolen visit
to the Jesuits. Though the letters prove that I
knew all about this at the time, yet I had so
completely forgotten it that, had I trusted to
my memory, I might have sworn in court that
nothing of the sort ever happened within my
knowledge. The two friends however, who ac-
companied Dolben on that day, are both living
and remember every detail of their reception by
the Jesuits. It must in some way have come to
the ears of the authorities, and the result was a
decree that Dolben should leave Eton at Election
[July 30] 1863. It was probably due to his
father's anxiety, though his health may have been
made the ostensible motive, that he was absent
from school during the last weeks of the term.
He was in London on July 12th and on Saturday
the 13th he went thence to Finedon, and his
fate must have been determined on during this
absence from school, as he left behind him all
his books and chattels, which I packed up and
despatched after him. I was myself leaving at
Election, but I stayed on after term was over
in order to entertain my younger brother, who
came to spend a few days with me, in making
excursions on the river, and hearing the music
XXX
MEMOIR
at S. George's, where Dr. Elvey had allowed me
to compile the anthem-list for the week, so that
my brother, who was an enthusiastic musician,
might hear some of the earlier church music.
These facts will explain the letters which Digby
wrote to me at that time. The first is from
Finedon, probably dating August 1st.
I
[2 enclosures with
this letter.]
Dear Bridges
The me at her is far too hot for fires ^ or I 'would
sit in the ashes ^ or in any other suitable manner express
my penitence for not having uuritten to you Before, In-
deed it was not chargeable to lack of time ^ for my only
occupations are going to sleepy teaching dirty little boys^
and above all eating gooseberries !! The real reason
ivhy I have not written before^ is that I waited to
hear fir H from ^ as it is always pleas anteH to write
the second letter^ when all the news comes from one
side, j^* * * *] As you are going to Hay at 'Eton
till the 6^^ don't you think you could manage to come
to us for a few days on your way home. It would
be very convenient for you ^ and I should be very sorry
to mifs your visit. We shall not be going till about
the 1 2^^'. Home in anticipation is always delightful^
in reality a little bit dull^ after all the excitement of
the latter part of my Bay at Eton. I have had a very
kind letter from the ReSior. He advises me to wait^
MEMOIR
xxxi
etc, etc. My hooks ^ thanks I knoiv to your exertions ^
arrived quite safely some time ago. Tell Coles that I
by no means approve of his conversation uuith John^
my late lamented tutor : it ivas to say the leaB rather
covjardly.^ The poB is goings though I have much
more to say
ever yours ajfeBionately
D. Mackvjorth i>olben,
F lease write and tell me ivhether you can come.
After he had written the above, he must have
stuffed two enclosures into the envelope, in order,
I suppose, to save himself the trouble of detail-
ing facts. One is the letter which he says that
he has received from the Jesuit Rector. It is
so guarded in expression, that I have no tempta-
tion to violate its privacy. The other is a six-
page letter to him from Manning, dated Eton,
July 15th. Manning makes no allusion to
Dolben's leaving school, but narrates how he
had heard from me that I had visited Dolben
in London and found him in a 'melancholy
state with the fat poodle and the protestant
butler ; that he had himself been in town on
the Saturday and Sunday, and would have visited
Digby if I had not told him that he had already
1 Such expressions as this in Dolben's letters are
never unfriendly : it is the security of good feeling that
allows the liberties of speech.
xxxii
MEMOIR
left for Finedon. The letter is in a light jocu-
lar vein, and is mostly concerned with the
triumphant recapture of some of Digby's con-
traband books, which had been discovered in
Manning's room and confiscated by his Dame.
. . . ' She called me back after dinner to-day,
and asked me about the Romish Popish and
Idolatrous books. . . . Unhappy Mr. Carter
came in for his share of the row. . . . She settled
to her own satisfaction that you were very
probably a very good and religious boy, but
must be rather weak in the head to read such
trash as the Garden [of the Soul], insinuating
that I was ditto \ . . etc. The bright local colour
justifies these extracts. As for the Jesuit, I
believe that his letter was never answered.
I responded to Dolben's invitation, and went
for a few days to Finedon on my way north,
making my first acquaintance with his family,
and this is fixed in my memory. Of his father
I retain a very strong impression, but the por-
trait that I should draw would be unrecog-
nizable to those who knew him as an active
country-gentleman, to be found at Northamp-
ton or Wellingborough two or three days of
the week, engaged on county committees or
more local business. As he did not ride to the
Pytchley, he had such a reputation as a scholar
MEMOIR
xxxiii
will get in a hunting district : and he must have
devoted much of his leisure to his fine house
and to the beautiful garden which under his care
had grown up about it. What my incorrigible
boyhood saw was a dignified old gentleman —
as I then reckoned age — not out of key with my
maternal traditions of Finedon. His handsome
features showed a very tender and emotional
nature, under the control of habitual severity or
anxiety, while his gravity of voice and manner
emphasized that part of him with which I could
least sympathize. It was my fault, and perhaps
due to some prejudice, that we never passed
beyond the first courtesies.
Mrs. Dolben was a fine example of one of the
best types of English culture, the indigenous
grace of our country-houses, a nature whose in-
describable ease and compelling charm overrule
all contrarieties, and reconcile all differences,
with the adjusted and unquestioning instinct
that not chaos itself could have disconcerted or
disheartened ; such a paramount harmony of the
feminine qualities as makes men think women
their superiors. Besides these personal impres-
sions, the picture of the long gabled house in
the hot sunshine, the gay garden, the avenue
in the summer-night, the early rambles before
breakfast, the fruit and the flowers and the family-
c
xxxiv
MEMOIR
prayers are the abiding memories of my visit.
When I left, Digby asked me, I suspect at his
father's suggestion, to write them a commemora-
tive sonnet ; but I had lately outgrown my senti-
mental muse, and acquitted myself by putting
some comic rhymes together in the train. It is to
that which he refers in his next letter.
II
-}- Inf, Oct. S Laurentii. Di.
Dear Bridges
Many thanks for your letter ^ ive all admired the
sonnet. The rhymes 'were quite a la Broivning. I am
much distressed about 'what you say concerning Wales.
We go on Saturday, I 'will 'write again to you as soon
as 'we arrive at Penmanma'wr. We shall probably not
Hay there more than a month. Surely you might manage
to come for some part of that time 7 I have heard from
K» He does not tell me anything 1 cared to kno'w^ and
not a 'word about the ReBor^ luhom as yet I have not
'written to again. I am trying to convince my people
that Kuabon is on the 'whole the moH 'worth seeing
place in Wales, All ho'wever the guide-book says is
that ^ there is a fine marble monument of classic design
by Nollekins to Sir W. Somebody in the church ' there.
I have no time^ only 1 'wrote ^ 1 mean I only 'wrote ^ be-
cause I thought you 'would think it Hrange if I didn't
ans'wer your letter, ever yours affeBionately
D. Mack'worth Do I ben.
MEMOIR
XXXV
Digby wrote to me from Wales a letter describ-
ing the difficulty that his party of four had in
finding suitable lodgings.
Ill
I should have uoritten to you before^ but it is not
alivays easy to combine letter writing ivith travelling^
and ive have been travelling almoH without intermis-
sion since we left home^ wandering all over N. Wales
from hotel to hotel in search of lodgings * * [various
details, then] * to Bangor where we found rooms in an
Hotel very^ very dirty indeed. Here I saw Manning
and went for a long walk with him on the hills. Also
was introduced to his father j^* * *J The next day we
went on to Llanberis^ where again the Hotel-maBer
offered^ as before at Llanfair^ one small bed. However
we got rooms in a cottage in the village. Hence we
ascended Snowdon^ which I enjoyed more than I ca7i
say. At lafi we heard of a vacant cottage here at
Aber^ where we came yeBerday. Strangely enough
juB outside the gate we met Manning and his father
[again]. He is coming to spend the day here some time
this week. I do wish you would come here^ 1 am sure
you would enjoy the mountains so muck^ and to me a
companion would make it perfeB. [He then regrets that
bis friend should have met his family for the first time
under such unfavourable appearances ^ but this is very
silly '] Flease write to me soon [* * *]
ever yours ajfeBionately
+ D, M. Dolben,
c 2
xxxvi
MEMOIR
The next letter is from Finedon in Septem-
ber (?), it carries on the history of his return to
Eton.
IV
Dear Bridges
Many thanks for your letter ^uhich however had
been expeBed and hoped for a long time before it arrived.
Seriously Idouoish yowwouldvjritetome a little of tener.
It does not matter hovj short the letter may be^ or hovj
little there may be to say. As to your que Hi on s^ it has
been decided after much deliberationthat the College of
our B. Lady of Eton is the beH and moH suitable place
for me. Therefore I am about to return. I cannot tell
vjhether I am glad or sorry ^ it has taken me altogether
so much by surprise. My fat her went douun to Eton tod ay^
savj John^vjho ^vjos very glad 1 had overcome my silly
fancies ' etc. etc. Of course I shall be very discreet ^ and
generally unexceptionable (I hope) but^ alas^ vuho can
tell? The frailty of human nature is so great, Isn^t it?
My laH frailty ivas to go to see a Catholic chapel at
Bangor^ and as a lovj mafs uuas juB beginning^ can I
be blamed if I remained on my knees until it ivas con-
cluded? Ihave heard nothing from nor of Coles. Imill
write to you from Eton soon. I cannot hope to find the
house very pleasant^ and many things can never never
be as they have been, {however I have no wish to be
sentimental^ though I am afraid I have been) I should
like to see you ^ writing is of little use.
ever your ajfec friend
D, Mack worth Dolben.
[a P.S. about photographs omitted.]
MEMOIR
xxxvii
To complete the record of this year 1863,
with which it is convenient to make a period,
since no extant poem of Dolben's has so early a
date, he was during the Michaelmas term at
Eton, and I at Oxford. I had gone to Eton
one day to play in a football match against the
school ; the only letter that I have from him
during this term refers to that visit, its date is
Nov. 17th.
V
In FeB. S, Hugonis
Eton College,
My dear Bridges^
I really feel ashamed to 'write toyou^ considering
houj long ago I ought to have done so, I have beeiz
busy with Trials lately^ vjhich may in some small
degree go for an excuse. I cannot hope to take high
since I have been avjay so much?- I am very glad
you are coming down here again soon^ for I will con-
fess to have been a little disappointed in seeing so little
of you at your la ft visit. Another things though I
had been looking forward to your visit for weeks ^ and
thinking how much I should have to tell you^ when
^ This refers not only to the end of the summer term,
but also probably to absence at beginning of Michaelmas
term owing to his brother's death, mentioned later. At
least one letter to me must be missing.
xxxviii
MEMOIR
you uuere here 1 really could hardly think of ivhat to
talk about. It is Hrange, I may perhaps he excused
being in a rather dismal Hate of mind tonight^ for
* * * * [here a tale of how one of the young Puseyites
had got into disgrace, which, though the culprit was not
a friend of Digby's, had naturally distressed him.] * * *
i heard from Coles the other day : he is coming douun
here next Friday iveek. Has he come up to Oxford
yet ? I am going to be confirmed this time. John and
I get on 'very luell^ as I have quite given up ^ Catholic '
Sunday queHions^ etc. and do7it go near Old Windsor^
or even Cleuuer. I have no more time noixj. ever your
affec friend
D» Mackvjorth 'Dolben.
This was followed by a letter from home at
Christmas (VI.), in which he says that he has
been persuaded by his ^ S. Barnabas cousin,
{such a relation is a real treasure,) to join the
Confraternity/ of the Blefsed Sacramenf, and
he records a concert at Eton ' where Manning
played most heautifidly \ and then writes of his
recent confirmation thus. * * *
The chapel has been lighted ivith gas. It tuas
lighted for the fir B time the evening before the Con-
firmation : and the chapel ivas left open all the after-
noon. I and Coles spent some time there^ and the
effeBs of light and shade mere almoH more beauti-
ful than anything I have ever seen * * * I liked the
Bishop's charge very much. There was a little too
MEMOIR
xxxix
much ^morality' or ^ manly' Christianity in it * * not
exa&iy 'muscular' and by no means 'catholic'. Tou
mention Uddon get a print ofS Bernard (price is,)
and see the marvellous resemblance. Read ' Romola '
by George 'Eliot [as the authoress calls herself). Be en-
thusiastic about Savonarola^ I am. "Read also a nem
'Life of Savonarola ' juft come out. F lease vjrite to me
again soon^ a long letter, ever your ajfeEl^^
P. M. Dolben.
To Digby^s family, who were anxious about
his ' romanizing tendencies \ and to all his
friends, who were concerned in his welfare, his
conduct in this Michaelmas term was most
encouraging. In a contemporary letter Coles
wrote, 'Dolben dates his letter Eton College
'near Windsor (and Old Windsor, and Clewer
* and Slough), but I can't help thinking that he
' has been tied down to behave himself.' Indeed
he seemed to be quieting down. Another of
his friends, with whom he was then most inti-
mate, has described him as he was at that time
in these words, 'there was developing in him
'a profound sense of personal un worthiness,
' which I can only compare to what one reads
' of Santa Teresa, or Saint John of the Cross ;
' and I well remember the rigorous fasting with
' which he prepared himself for his Confirmation
'and first Communion.' His Anglican confir-
xl
MEMOIR
mation satisfied him, and he had exerted him-
self to make other boys in his Dame's house
attend seriously to their preparation, even assist-
ing them so far as to steal their breakfast-rolls
away from them, so that they might go to the
Chapel fasting : a ruse of single-hearted inten-
tion ; but he could see the humorous side of it,
and allow one or two of his friends to share his
amusement. And there are no signs of any
poems having been written since the holocaust
earlier in the year. His letters of this date are
on black-edged paper, in mourning for his eldest
brother, William Digby, who was in the navy,
and had been drowned in crossing the bar at
Lagos. The mother had felt her loss very
heavily, and it was arranged for her consolation
that the other brother, who was also in the navy,
should come home on leave. This is alluded to
in the following letter written from Finedon in
the Christmas vacation. The opening sentence
must refer to some question of mine concerning
his poetic silence.
VII
[Jan. 64.]
Dear Bridges
I cannot even excuse myself by the literary labours
you suggeH for not having ivritten to you I can only
say that your firH conjecture is right. Indeed I am
MEMOIR
xli
in too profound a Hate of vegetation to he capable of
much animal life at all. This then is my excuse.
Many thanks for your letter [****] Tou uuill be
glad to hear that my brother luho is in New Zealand
has got leave to come home. It ivill be a great com-
fort to my Mother. I knoiv absolutely nothing about
him. Having seen him for ^ weeks in % years. It is so
Grange and uncomfortable. I look anxiously in the
Births^ Marriages and Deaths for some news ofColes^
for I can get none in any other way. Have you heard
from him lately ? I think he muB be ill^ or else ....
Will you do me a great kindnefs? I hardly think so.
Merely to send me a copy of those verses of yours
called ^ Purely for my own gratifica-
tion. No one else shall see them if you had rather
not. [Then a request for a photograph to put into a new
album, which he describes.] I am to have an introduc-
tion to Brother Ignatius ^ of Clay don ! ! ! My S Bar-
^ [Communicated.] The Rev. Joseph Leycester Lyne
began the observance of the Rule of St. Benedict in the
Reformed Church of England, at Claydon in Suffolk, at
about 1860. He took the name of Ignatius, and presided
as Abbot over a small number of monks and nuns. Later
he removed to Llanthony in Wales, where a mediaeval
Benedictine Abbey had existed. He had been ordained
deacon for a curacy in the diocese of Exeter before he
began his monastery, but only received priest's orders
late in life from a Bishop who derived his consecration
from some Eastern source. Father Ignatius was a
preacher of remarkable eloquence. He received some
encouragement from Dr. Pusey, and for a short time
took a curacy at Margate under Archbishop Tait.
xlii
MEMOIR
nabas cousin knows him *well. When shall I see you
again? Tour visits to Eton are not satisfaBory^ would
that you would come to Fine don at EaBer.
your ever affeBlonate
D. Mackworth Del hen,
I remember that I sent him the verses. The
letters which he wrote to me in this Lent term
were destroyed by me because they referred to
a comic venture of my own, wherein my anony-
mity was essential: but I saved one of them
(VIII.)) probably on account of its opening sen-
tence —
' Never that I can remember have I laughed so
immoderately, or broken that part of S. BenedlSi's
rule to such a degree,'
This letter is in good spirits but offers nothing
to my purpose except this first reference to the
rule of S. Benedict, and a slight difference in the
manner of his handwriting, due, it is said, to his
imitation of Savonarola's script ; and this change
is noteworthy as confirming the date of his earliest
extant MS. poems ; for it was about this time,
or the end of Lent, that he returned to poetry.
This must, I think, have been partly occasioned
by his enthusiasm for the O. S. B. : as will
appear when the poems are examined. I have
MEMOIR
xliii
two letters from him during the Easter vaca-
tion, and the second contains an appeal to me
to follow him and join the Order : —
IX
Maunday Thursday
Finedon [64]
Dear Bridges
Don't you ivonder that I have the face ^ or rather
the handy to lurite to you ^ after the disgraceful njay in
vjhich I have hehaved 7 I do — l>ut however if I ever
am to write to you again I mufi write afrft letter.
My only excuse is that I have heenmiserahly unwell for
the last few weeks ^ and utterly lazy and ftupid. I am
very sorry that we could not come to your sister s wed-
ding. I should so have enjoyed seeing you, hut my
brother has just come home^ and is only going to flay a
few weeks. I have not seen him for three years and a
half I am more than ever interested ijt the "English
O.S.B. I have joined the iij Order ^ and am B*" Domi-
nic O. S. B. iijy under which name you are not to direct
to me, iVf Stevens was much astonished by receiving a
letter for me with B*" Dom, in the corner. He doubt-
less thought it personal. I will send the Rules in a few
days J and I trust that you will join the Order. [* * *]
The Father Superior begged me to come and spend
EaBer with them^but I am^ as you may suppose ^not let
to. I hope to see you early in next half and at Mid-
summer you must come to Finedon. Have you heard
that Bp Chapman gave us lectures on the Sacramental
xliv
MEMOIR
SyHem of the Church 7 Also that Manning played the
voluntary at SGeorges ? Also that JValford'^ hasmade
my acquaintance^ and uorites me letters commencing
' My dear Friend ' ? I have been reading Uddon's
sermons. They are moFi ujonderful^ and beautiful, I
long to hear and see him. To think tha the was curate
here for ever so long^ ivhen I luas too juvenile to ap-
preciate my advantages! I hope to come up to Oxford
at the end of next term. [* * *] V lease write soon ^ very
soon, [* * *]
ever your affec
D. Mackworth Dolben.
A few days after this came a long letter.
X
Dear Bridges
Many thanks for your letter, I do like long letters ^
and could have put up with it had yours been longer
than it was. Can you put up with a letter about the
O. S, B, ? I send you a copy of the Hi Order Rules. — I
do moH heartily wish that you would join it. [. . and
here follow four pages about the doings of Father Igna-
tius . . ^ Is it not marvellous ? Is it not glorious ? Is it
not miraculous?' .. and then a P. S. of interest.] ***
At times I almoH regret I went back to Eton. I have
been disappointed in so many ways — and my health
gets worse and worse in spite of Tonics^ beer^ wine
etc. etc. A quiet tutor near Oxford is what I should
See page c.
MEMOIR
xlv
like. Continual ^Haying out' is such waste of time.
Tell me if you know of such a man — a Uo DERATE Catho^
lie if possible. If 1 do not get better I certainly cannot
Bay at Eton, ^ Oh the bright suueet might have been,
bitter sweet as the smile of the Virgin Mother to the
penitent Magdalene.^
ever your affec
4- Dominic O.S.B. iij.
The envelope also enclosed a tract concerning
the English Order of S. Benedict. My interest
in that society was Digby's connection with it,
which I deplored : and, though I answered him
kindly, I do not think that to this day I have
ever read the little tract, and I fear that I did
not study the Rules with the attention that his
devotion in copying them out for me should
have ensured. I omitted from the last letter a
rhapsody on the joys of Heaven, transcribed
verbatim from a letter of Father Ignatius to
himself. That he could be affected by its com-
monplace rhetoric shows his simplicity of heart
and genuine feeling. Such words not only left
me cold, but even chilled me. It was difficult
to take Ignatius as a prophet in touch with
humanity; and I knew him only by a carte
de visite portrait with extravagant tonsure and
ostentatious crucifix. But Digby's father was.
xlvi
MEMOIR
no doubt, really distressed, and unwittingly sup-
porting his son's folly by the seriousness of his
opposition. As for Ignatius, he was, I suppose,
delighted to have caught a live Etonian, while
Digby, furnished with a correct habit, imagined
himself a mediaeval monk. A letter which Coles
has preserved is in order here.
XI
[Pen and ink
monogram of the Finedon Hall
Cross with PAX, etc.]
Dear Coles
It seems an age since I heard from you^ and 1 do
"want a I etter^ though I rather think you lurote last. But
then lhave nothing totell you^ and you have alt the In-
finite ' delights of Oxf or d\ I am not ivell enough to go
back to Eton yet ^ but lam afraid I muH go next iveek.
I don't knovj 10 hat you mean by any luork that I have
done pro Deo^ Ecclesld^ or anybody else [sic] at Eton.
I have done absolutely nothing^ nothing permanent.
I positively hate the place. It is full of mental temp-
tations that you knovj nothing of and you knouu It is
uuell nigh Impossible to attain to anything of the
Saintly Life there, I vjrote Walford as civil a letter
as I could^ and begged that he vjould shovj both my
letters on the subjeii to the Head MaBer, ItruB he
vjlll take no notice^ but as my father vol II go dovjn to
Eton vjlth me and see BalHon I expeSl there volll be
MEMOIR
xlvii
a hlovj-up, I took great pains uoith my letters to
and said nothing silly or rude, I sent Bridges the
Tract ^ A II for Jesus' and the Rules of iij Order'.
He seemed inclined to join it. I thought so at lea ft from
a letter I had from him the other day, * * * Why^
uuhy^ do you not join it ? [Then an exhortation, as to me,
to join, because the reBoration of the relipom life can
alone save the English Church. * * Then about the
printing of his ' Prodigal's Introit ' in the Union Review.
Then] I am finishing some more verses called ' The
VrodigaVs BenediBion^ ^ which I hope to send him [the
Editor 1] soon. [Then an appeal for subscriptions to the
Order, and renewed exhortation to join.] I am going hack
to Eton next Thursday ^ not to Bay therelong^ I expeB^
as I am hut little hetter. Will you tell me next time you
'Write of a nice tutor near Oxford
ever your loving friend
in JESU and S, Bene di 61
+ Dominic O.S.B, iij.
His letters are now for some months signed
Dominic ; and the brief life of this signature may
limit the duration of his first enthusiasm ; but
1 The Editor of the Union Rev. was the Rev. F. G. Lee,
a notoriously eccentric high-church clergyman, a Doctor
of Salamanca ! I think he did not print these immature
verses. The above letter is interesting as referring to
Dolben's quixotic attempt to get Dr. Balston to deplore
and amend the secular tone of the school. He must have
been aware of the ineffectual quality of his machinery.
He never spoke to me of this.
xlviii
MEMOIR
he remained faithful to the Order much longer
than this sign would show. His profession in
a religious society was, I think, the immediate
cause of his return to poetry, for towards the
end of this Lent, and during the Easter vaca-
tion, and the following weeks, there is a good
deal of verse to be dated, written under the im-
pulse of the monastic motive. Besides a few
lyrics (of which I will speak later) there are two
long poems in blank verse, amounting altogether
to some 400 lines. V^ery little of all these is
worthy to be printed with his better work, and
I have no doubt that I am acting as he would
have wished in suppressing as much as I do :
but the suppression makes an account of them
desirable, since they are evidence of his mental
condition at this time.
The first of them is divided into two sections,
called respectively ' The Prodigal's Introit and
'The Prodigal's Benediction'. These are the
meditations of a returned sinner before and after
his reconciliation in sacramental communion;
and the words, directly addressed to the Divine
Paternity, are the expression of a sincere feeling,
and must be interpreted to mean that he con-
sidered the dedication of himself in the Order
of S. Benedict as a return to a path that he
had forsaken. But into what far country had
MEMOIR
xlix
he wandered away ? By what riotous living had
he qualified himself as Prodigal Son ? The ex-
planation is unquestionable.
The early childish love for Christ, into which
he had devotedly poured his whole being, con-
tained necessarily all the sentiment, the poetry,
and the young passion of his rich endowments.
It was therefore inevitable that the strong human
affection suddenly grown up in his heart, and his
consequent recognition of a mortal ideal, should
appear to his piety as an infraction of his love
for Christ ; as indeed, owing to the heterogeneous
nature of that emotion, it actually was. This
is even explicitly stated by himself in the verses
' My love, and once again my love \ where he
begs his friend to measure the greatness of his
love for him by the fact that he had loved him
with the love which he had before devoted
wholly to Christ, and had thus for his sake lost
his love of Christ. — This then is the Prodigal's
sin, from which he now returns, — and he no
doubt fought the pain and difficulty of cutting
himself off from the natural attraction of human
affection by the external artifice of monkish
profession. The thought, as it was unhap-
pily conceived, is unsparingly and untruthfully
exaggerated : and the sacramental mysticism,
with its accessories of candles and incense, is
d
1
MEMOIR
in keeping with the self-imprisonment of the
thought. The verse is an undistinguished ex-
ample of the fashionable imitations of Tenny-
sonian fluency, no better than any of his for-
gotten imitators could write : a few selected
examples will suffice.
'From the ^IntroH* .
' Thus by the loving touch
Of thy cool priestly hand restore to me
The weary years the greedy locust ate.
* * * *
That face I buffeted, and from those eyes
Lightnings will flash, those eyes I spat upon.
Ah no ! The fierceness of the noon-day blaze
Is paled by anguish, and the lightning's flash
Is quenched in streams of blood.' * * *
From the ^BenediHion
' Behold, Eternal Father, from Thy Throne
The salutary sacrifice complete.
* * * *
Peace, peace, the peace of God, that peace is here
And dwells for ever in these holy walls.
For here before the altar there is given
The peace I sought for long and wearily
Through all the peaceless world and never found,
Although I ransacked all its richest stores.
Dreaming the breath of poetry divine
Could heal my sin-sick soul, dreaming that art
Could rest these aching eyes, that Nature's voice.
Conscience, imagination, feeling, sense
Could help me.'
MEMOIR
li
The reading of these poems makes one see
why schoolmasters wish their boys to play
games, and one is forced to confess that writers,
whose books can lead a boy of 17 to think in
this vein of false fancies and affected senti-
mentality, are as poisonous as simple folk hold
them to be.
The second blank-verse poem is called Voca-
tion, and is also divided into two parts, the first,
' Vocation b. c' the second, * Vocation a. d.' ; and
there is a 'Sequel'. It would seem to have
been written later than 'The Prodigal', no
doubt at Eton during the summer term, the
Sequel latest of all ; and it is even more closely
interpretative of his religious dedication. ' Voca-
tion B.C.,' — the motive of which is to show how
a pagan might have had a mystical love of God,
analogous to a Christian's emotion, — is a strange
forecast of his own subsequent affinity with Greek
thought ; it begins thus
' I was a shepherd's son, my father Uved
In Delos, half way up the Cynthian height
Our cottage stood,'
and the pagan boy tells of his love for Nature,
and how, attracted to a shrine of Apollo, he
had intimations of divinity, and he argues
' If thus divinely fair
This image, carved in cold unfeeling stone
d 2
lii
MEMOIR
What must he be, the living god himself !
My whole soul longs to see him as he is
In all the glory of immortal youth,
Clothed in white samite.' i
then with Shelleyian use of a magic boat, he
makes voyage to Olympos, and after a vision of
heaven his rhapsody ends with this line,
' Soon very soon, Apollo, O my love ! '
the poem is concluded by a reflection of the nar-
rator ; and here is the meaning of the whole,
* Then was it all a waste that bright young life
And that long love an idle boyish dream ?
Or may it not have been that in that hour.
That bitter hour of most extreme despair.
The God of beauty came across the waste
Tingeing the frozen snow with Royal Blood,
That Brows crowned not with amaranth but with thorn
Bent over him,' etc., etc.
These verses were much admired by Mr.
Mackworth Dolben, and in them he received a
sign that his son was a poet. He was rightly
assured, but in the verses themselves, however
original or precocious they may have appeared,
there is nothing, except the poet's direct method,
and instinctive grasp of the matter : their very
smoothness, which was probably the imposing
quality, is of no artistic accomplishment ; and
'Vocation a.d.' though the subject is near to
1 It is strange to think of Cory copying out this.
MEMOIR
liii
him, and indeed the situation his very own, is
no better. This section begins thus,
' I hear Him call — His Voice comes unto me.
As if a breeze from that warm Eastern shore
Had blown across the desert waste of time,
And thawed the bands which this cold century
Had frozen round ray heart,' etc.
But the third section, the ' Sequel is stronger.
The argument here is in the soliloquy of a monk
who was tired of the cloister, and longed after
pagan joys. Now this represents Digby's own
situation in what he considered his hours of
' mental temptation which became, it may be
assumed, more and more frequent, and their
allurement stronger, as his school-books brought
him into contact with Greek poetry: and he
himself distinguished this poem above its fellows
by carefully revising it ; — there are four different
copies. Certain freaks of humour in the manner
of Browning damaged the earlier versions, but
these were gradually excluded, and other changes
made, until the whole took the form given below
on p. 4. The comparison of the beauty of Truth
to a vision of distant hills had full contemporary
appreciation.
Of the group of lyrical poems written between
Christmas 63 and July 64, the first in his MS.
book is Homo factiLS est, and it is printed the
liv
MEMOIR
first in this collection. This hymn has been
the most generally known of all the poems. It
was much admired by William Cory, who
copied it ^ and the whole of Vocation, with the
Sis licet felix, and some other early poems ;
and from his MS. his friends took other copies.
The second is a poem of nine stanzas, begin-
ning / love the river as it slides. It has no
poetic merit, and adds nothing to the better
poems.
The third is a poem of ten stanzas, called My
Treasury ; the first two stanzas are as follows,
I do not think, or ask or fear
What may the future be, —
Knowing that neither time nor change
Can wrest the past from me :
1 This was after Dolben's death, in the summer of
1868. Mrs. Cornish tells me how she then witnessed
Wm. Cory's enthusiasm, as he appeared at his pupil-
room doorway in the Christopher Yard, crowquill in
hand, and heard him say that the Homo factus est was
* better than Newman \ He especially admired the
S. Michael stanza,* and marvelled that it could have been
written by a schoolboy. Whether or no it be better
than Newman's verse, which is said to have been
esteemed by Cory, I should give it no more praise than
to say that it is probably the best thing that Dolben did
in this earlier manner learnt or copied from Faber and
Neale. Later with his ' Tell me the men ' he transcended
anything of the kind that was ever done by a modern
mediaevalist.
MEMOIR
Iv
That treasury of golden days
Those bright sweet hours that shine
Like stars amid a gloomy sky
Must be for ever mine.
at stanza 6 it continues thus
Like the islands of the Blessed
Where the sunbeams ever glow.
Where the winter never rages
And the wild winds never blow.
So stand those treasury-halls of mine.
* * * *
These verses are of no special excellence, —
the above quotation gives the best of them, —
but their sentiment is so unexpected, and so
unlike the picture which one might be led to
make of Dolben's mind, that they have a pecu-
liar interest : for he here deliberately states, in
almost prosaic terms, that his past experience of
human joys is the one solid pleasure of his life,
a memory which nothing can spoil or darken,
and he truthfully gives the lie to the false senti-
mentality of the lines quoted from Benediction
on p. 1. Now Dolben habitually lived in a world
of shifting and conflicting dreams and ideals, and
in his poetry he so very seldom allows himself to
appear to rest on what may be called the solid
satisfactions of life, that one is grateful for this
definite statement that they could and did appeal
Ivi
MEMOIR
to him in their full force and significance, and
that, in his many-sided nature, their stronghold
was unshaken. This stands out now and again
in the poems, especially in the well-known lines
to his mother, and in the many tender references
to his home-life and friendships, conspicuous
among the most original beauties : and if this
field of emotion is generally concealed by the
anguish or ecstasy of his mental conflict, it
should still always be assumed as the solid basis
of his character ; for beneath all his vagaries
it made him a reasonable and sympathetic com-
panion ; and indeed without it his bright and
playful humour could not have existed, for that
quality presupposes a wide grasp of humanity.
I should be inclined to think that it was pre-
cisely because these 'human-hearted' truths were
solid and unquestioned, that they did not appeal
to him in those days as subjects for poetry : with
his appreciation of Greek art they all won poetic
aspect, and appear therefore in the later poems.
In one of which (No. 40) he actually remembers
his old Treasury and inserts it by name. To
me, as may be seen, he preferred to show his
reasonable note, and would apologise for his
sentimentality.
The fourth lyric of 24 lines,
O Love, first love, comes gently through the wood.
MEMOIR
Ivii
reveals, especially in this initial line, the charm
which was to characterise his best work, but it is
poorly written and adds nothing to * Sis licet
felix I have no hesitation in suppressing it.
The fifth poem of this batch consists of
29 accentual hexameters^ called 'His sheaves
with him \ It is an ecclesiastical view of the
Last Judgment, and has some connection with
the O. S. B. as these lines from it will show :
' Then shall they ask and say " Who is this coming up
from the desert ?
And who are these that follow of eveiy nation and coimtry ,
Of every people and tongue from the uttermost ends of
the wide world ? "
Then shall the answer be, " This is Benedict, Father of
Martyrs,
Father of countless Saints, of Bishops, Confessors, and
Virgins.
etc. . . etc. . . and it ends thus,
See, he leads them on with songs of triimiph Eternal
Not to an earthly convent, but Shushan, the palace of
lilies.
There to behold the Beloved for ever and ever and ever.
The sixt and last of these poems is a transla-
^ I am told that this poem is somewhat closely imitated
from Dr. Neale's ' Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
Iviii
MEMOIR
tion of the hymn Amorem sensus. I have set it
in the book on account of the severity of its
style, which, as it is rare with him, forbids its
exclusion.
This digression on the early poems has been
no interruption of the memoir. It shows that
this period, up to the end of summer 1864, was
the apprenticeship of his poetry, and it gives an
unimpeachable account of his state of mind at
that time. There is evidence first of his simple
home-affections; secondly of his religious love
for Christ, which he had now thought to secure
by joining an Anglican monastic order ; thirdly
there is the idealization of his friend ; fourthly
the growing influence of Greek poetry and
thought. His subsequent history is the strife
of these elements, as shown in his poetry, itself
constituting a jifth element : for the full con-
sciousness of poetic power was now awakened
in him ; and this gave another aspect to all his
various moods, because he consciously used these
with artistic aim as poetic inspiration and mate-
rial ; and whatever mood of his own he chose
for poetic expression, he subordinates its actual
personal values to its most forcible representa-
tion, and for the sake of poetic effect, isolates it
and pushes it to its extreme. And the mood
thus heightened by indulgence must have re-
MEMOIR
lix
turned again with greater force upon him. Now,
although in description we may be compelled to
separate off emotions and moods, and to cata-
logue them under different heads, yet we know
that a human soul or character is not composed
in this way by mixing, and we do not expect
our artificial analysis to look like the real thing.
But in Dolben\s poetry the various elements are
much more easily perceived than their harmony ;
and his moods may be quite fairly considered to
be separate forces really at strife within him, as
his reason consciously indulged them one at a
time, and thus heightened their discordance to
a romantic pitch, which became recognised by
him as itself poetic, and obstinately valued for
the bitter-sweet of its irreconcilable antinomies.
The poems just mentioned are the chief record
of this summer term. His sister who went
down to Eton on the fourth of June with some
friends, found him ill with neuralgia, and spent
most of the day sitting with him in his room.
In July he got leave for the Harrow match,
but broke parole, and ran off to his favourite
I'riory at Ascot, where the ecclesiastical attrac-
tions happened to lie thick. He had probably
heard of his opportunity from his 'Superior',
Ignatius. He refers to this escapade in his
next letter, and I am able to give a nearly con-
Ix
MEMOIR
temporaneous record of it from one of Coles'
letters, in which he wrote to me,
' My Sunday at Eton was most charming.
' Dolben gave me a full account of his meeting
' with Father Ignatius and Dr. Pusey. It was at
' Ascot Priory near Windsor, where Miss Sellon
* has a convent. . . . Dolben slept in an outhouse
' with Ignatius, and was wakened by Dr. Pusey
' " thumping at the door [Brothers Ignatius
' and Dominic, he cried, I am waiting for you
'to celebrate the Holy Communion] He said
' offices with them & Miss Sellon. She gave him
' a solemn audience, sitting in her chair with her
'pastoral staff at her side — she is an ordained
' Abbess. — All this took place when he had leave
' for the Harrow match.'
To sleep in the outhouse of a nunnery when
you were supposed to be in Chesham Place, and
to be called in the morning by the great Dr. Pusey
himself 'thumping at the door', must have been
very satisfactory to the truant. I do not know
how the proceedings were actually condoned, —
Dr. Pusey may be wholly acquitted of com-
plicity. It was, I suppose, the occasion of his
admission into the ' Second Order of St. Bene-
dict', and it served, with similar excitements,
to make his conscience at ease in the Anglican
MEMOIR Ixi
fold. I have no letter from him before the
summer holidays, when, apparently in answer
to an invitation from me, he wrote thus
XII
Derivent House^ Fortinscale.
Kesivkk. [Aug. 64]
-{-Pax
Of your charity pray for the second order of our
B, Father S, BenediSf.
Dear Bridges
It has been 'very 'wrong of me not to have ivritten
to you for so long, lam very anxious to see you, I wish
we could manage — we are at Fortingscale^ near Kes-
wick^ in Cumberland, We go back to Fine don about the
beginning of September^ for one of my cousins'* wedding.
There is nothing that I should like better than to come to
Rochdale ^but I do not see howl can — these holidays —
that is to say they will not let me. Tou see my brother
being away^ they like to have me with them as much as
possible — you will under Hand, But could not come
to Fine don in September, My father and mother would
both be delighted — and you know my feelings on the
subject,
I have so much to tell you about a certaiji visit I paid
to Ascot Priory — where I met my Superior^ MifsSellon
and jyPusey^ with whom 1 spent two delightful days.
If you are not yet converted to the Father^ I flatter my-
Ixii
MEMOIR
self that I shall convert you. Do come if you possibly
ca?iy and write soon and let me knou^ though I dont
deserve it perhaps
ever yours ajfeBionately
+ BT Dominic O.S.B. ij.
I had hoped that Digby, being in Cumber-
land, would pay me a visit in Lancashire on
his way home. My journey to Northampton-
shire was a more serious matter, and we did not
meet, as the next letters show.
XIII
Flemings Hotel
Rossthivaite [Aug. 64]
Kesiuick.
Pax +
Of your charity pray for the order
of our B Father S BenediB,
Dear Bridges
I have ^waited all this time in hopes of moving
my ' stern parients ' resolution^ but they ivill not let me
come to Rochdale these holidays^ declaring that they
cannot spare me. I am very sorry ^ as I had so much
looked forviard to coming to see you^ but it cannot be
helped. Will you not then come to Finedon^ as really
ImuB see you some time this summer ? F lease let me know
at once y left your visit should clash with Coles\ who I
MEMOIR
Ixiii
hope is coming some time in September ! On ly^ only let me
apply that little sentence of yours {yjJoich I mould digeB
if 1 could) to yourself you must come '. 1 have so much
to tell you J and ask you^ and it seems years since I saw
you i [* * * *] ive shall be back on the iB^ do ivrite^
and tell me ivhen you uuill come by return of post
[though no one asked to ivrite in that manner ever
does) [Then the following quotation which he says is worth
all the reft of the Golden Legend put together^
^Alas the world is full of peril !
The path that runs through the fair eB meads ^
On the sunnieft side of the valley ^ leads
Into a region bleak and Bertie !
Alike in the highborn and the lowly
The will is feeble^ and passion Brong,
We cannot sever right from wrong:
Some falsehood mingles with all truth ;
Nor is it Brange the heart of youth
Should waver and comprehend but slowly
The things that are holy and unholy !
But in this sacred and calm retreat
We are all well and safely shielded
From winds that blow^ and waves that beat^
From the cold and rain and blighting heat^
To which the BrongeB hearts have yielded.
Here we Band as the virgins seven
For our CeleBial Bridegroom yearning :
Our hearts are lamps for ever burning
With a Beady and u?iwavering flame ^
Pointing upwards ever the same^
Steadily upwards towards the Heaven^
Ixiv
MEMOIR
I have copied these lines leH you should never have
noticed them. They are such a beautiful description of
the religious life,
ever your affec
Return ofpoft, -^Dominic O. S,B, ij,
I had gone to Wales, whence I wrote to him
as this reply shows.
XIV
Finedon Hall
[Sept. 3 64]
Dear Bridges
Many thanks for your letter. I quite see that I
could not have had an ansiver hy return ofpoft, I hope
you enjoyed Wales, Please thank Mr, O — very much
for me. I wish that I could have accepted his kind in-
vitation — But vjhat can I do? I am allowed to go
absolutely nowhere. Give my befl love to Coles and
Manning when you see them. It would have been so
delightful ifl could have come. [* * * *J As to your
coming to Finedon. We shall be delighted to see you
any day after the 8"". Tou must come for a week^
longer if you will, Tlea^e write soon and tell me what
day you will come. Are you not made happy by Tenny-
son^ s new volume ? It was worth all one*s long wait-
ing and expeBation indeed. Will you pardon a little
disquisition on the Assumption ?
[Here follows the disquisition of nearly 4 pages,
intending to persuade that the body of the Virgin Mary
had been taken up uncorrupted into Heaven ; and de-
MEMOIR
Ixv
fending himself from Mariolatry, which I possibly had
imputed to him.]
I do so look fovward to your coming. We ijoill go to
the old BenediEiine Abbey of Feterbro\ Tell Coles
that I am sorry he has not managed to come to Fine don ^
ujhich he either cannot or ujill not do
ever your ajfec
+ Dominic O. .J. B. ij
Tennyson's volume was Enoch Arden. I re-
member reading it, without all Digby's enthu-
siasm, in the hot sun on a treeless cricket-field
waiting for my innings.
I did not go to Finedon, and he returned to
Eton for the Michaelmas term, and finally left
the school at Xmas. I have no record of the
date of this term. His next letter implies in-
termediate correspondence : it was written from
London in December, probably on his way home.
XV
[Dec. 64
London]
My dear Bridges .
I do not know whether you have gone down yetj
but I send this to Oxford to be forwarded. If you really
wish me to come to Rochdale I think the only chance of
their letting me come would be for Al" Molesworth to
write to my Mother on the subjeB. Ida not [see'\ what
possible excuse there could then be for not letting me go.
e
Ixvi
MEMOIR
A miserable man has been found in Rutlandshire^
named Pritchard^ ofujhom the neiv Bishop of Peter ^
bro' (/) has a high opinion ^ but I shall do all I can not
to go to him. Coles says that perhaps Vrquhart
would take me^ but I am afraid he u^ould be too extreme
for my father. If I could get to Oxford I should not
much care who the tutor was, I am at present with F*"
Cleaver in Gower S\ but go home on Tuesday, Might
I come to you after Xmas, [here follows an account of
some of the ecclesiastical attractions of his cousin's con-
nection, with a discussion of the practicability of a scheme
to promote some kind of alliance between Churchmen at
the different public schools.]
ever your aff D. M, Dolben,
Do not call me JB*" Dominic, It is only Brothers
O. S, B, who should do so.
Eton had never agreed with Digby ; he was
constantly ailing, and it was judged that if he
was to be up to the standard of Balliol scholar-
ship, he must spend some months with a private
tutor. The difficulty of finding one who should
be acceptable to both father and son at once arose,
and at intervals recurred : but this was a piece
of bad luck, for the ' miserable man ' who was
first chosen soon won Digby's respect and affec-
tion : he was comfortable with him, and never
met with an unkinder mishap than when in the
following summer Mr. Pritchard was compelled
by severe illness to dismiss all his pupils.
MEMOIR
Ixvii
Digby's generic contempt would in his irre-
sponsible chat have been applied to any unknown
clergyman who had not ' catholic views But
before he went to Constantine Pritchard, he paid
me a visit at Oxford.
XVI
Finedon Hall [Feb. 65]
FeaH of the Furiji cation.
My dear "Bridges
I am really very sorry not to have 'written to you
for such an age. I can assure you that my holidays have
heen as dull as your vacation can possibly have been.
About Rochdale^ I was so much disappointed that I
could not make up my mind to write to you afterwards.
I had looked forward very much to making acquaint
tance with your (mu^i I use the word?) ^ people'^ and
mo ft of all your brother. Besides there is yourself with
whomi think I am only acquainted to a certain degree,
lam about to go to a moH dreary tutor ^ with grey hair^
situated in the midH of a vaB ploughed field with a
young wife^ one other pupil^ and endlefs Greek gram-
mar. But I have got leave firB to come up to Oxford
for a few days, A very ancient individual of the name
of Whit e^ living by herself is I believe to take me in.
If not could 1 sleep at Corpus or Balliol .? F lease let me
know this. I feel rather alarmed at the prospeB of my
visit in some respeBs. I think I shall come on Monday
week^but am not sure [* * *]. 1 think it muH be plea-
sant to be able {like Coles) to be continually jubilant over
e %
Ixviii
MEMOIR
the spread of Catholicity — yet sometimes I fee I so tired
of it ally luhich is uurong. Will M"" O be at Oxford
vjhen I come ? I have heard so much about him that I
njjant to judge for myself In conclusion let me a f sure
you that you are quite right ^ and that I never can be
offended {yjith you)
ever your affec^
D. M, Dolben.
Of this visit to Oxford I have but a hazy
remembrance. He came there to me at mv
invitation, that we might meet at last after all
our vain attempts, and also to see Oxford — now
the favourite ideal home of his more immediate
and practical hopes, — and to make personal ac-
quaintance with the friends of his friends, whom
he knew only by name. Manning was still at
Eton, Coles was at Boughrood with De Winton,
so that, except Muirhead, I was almost his only
intimate link with the place. That I have no
special impression of him as he then appeared
to me, after a separation of sixteen months,
shows that he had not changed much in the
interval; and we no doubt spent our time in
matters as familiar to me as they were new to
him. It was at this visit, and only then, that
he met Gerard Hopkins : but he must have
been a good deal with him, for Gerard conceived
a high admiration for him, and always spoke
MEMOIR
Ixix
of him afterwards with great affection. It was
understood that he would be coming up again
later in the term ; but he did not, and his next
letter to me was from Mr. Pritchard's, his pri-
vate tutor, at LufFenham ; whence his maturer
poems now begin to be dated, and where I had
addressed him letters at the beginning of the
Easter vacation, having heard nothing from him.
XVII
S. Luffenham ReBory
Leicefter. [Spring 65.]
My dear Bridges
It seems someuuhat odd^ that from a certain morn-
ing laB February^ ujhen I departed from C.C.C. Ox-
fordy until ye fterday afternoon^ I should neither have
seen anything ofy nor heard anything from you. I found
your letters aivaiting me here as I have been spending
the laH iveek in London ^ ivhere I luent to consult the
celebrated Bo^wman^ for the range of my vision^
never very long^ ivas getting so rapidly shorter ^ that I
began to be afraid that I should never see some plea-
sant things any more^ vjhich idea {though universally
laughed at) proved to be more possible than even I my-
self had believed. What I alivays thought merely
short-sight ivas something the matter ivith the eyes
themselves, Houever it is hoped that it may be
flopped. I tell you of these faBs {though certainly not
Ixx MEMOIR
^ circumstances of general intereft') fir ft ^ that you may
knoiu hoin nearly an EHahlishment^ uohich I ijuill not
more particularly mention ^missed havinga hlindprieft.
Secondly^ because this affair prevented my visit to Ox-
ford — for my chance of getting into Balliol is so very
smally that it ivas insisted that I should return at once
to this Bronghold of Greek grammar and Euclid, But
lam determined that nothing shall prevent my coming
to Rochdale this year^ probably in August. This sen-
tence^ please underHand^ refers to parental scruples^
not to my forcing the doors ofjy Molesvjorth^s Vicar-
age ^ as might at fir ft sight appear, I hope the long let-
ter ^ ivhich you could have vjritten but didn't^ is ftill
possible. — Ihatetohear the very name of Oxford now
there is no chance of my seeing it before the Autumn, —
but a large sheet ^ such as Coles^ monogrammed paper ^
filled with news of that town^ would be truly accept-
able. However London was charmino , S. Albans and
o
the Academy moH satisfactory^ not to speak of other
more worldly and less intellectual enjoyments. Will
Coles write to me^ or will he not ? Ask him,
ever y"' affec
D. Mackworth Do I ben.
In the above letter ' the Establishment which
he will not more particularly mention' is the
first allusion to a Brotherhood, or the scheme
of a Brotherhood, among himself and his friends;
and this, as will appear in other letters, was to
him a very real prospect. My memories of it
are conflicting, but I will put them together
MEMOIR
Ixxi
here. The essence of this brotherhood was, of
course, nothing more than the natural pro-
jection into the future of the present conditions
of friendship and religious conviction already
binding us together. In so far as it was in any
sense a deliberate scheme or plan, it no doubt
appealed with different force to each one of us.
It was, I suppose, the same sort of idea that
had grown up between Wm. Morris and his
friends, ten years earlier, at Oxford. For my-
self I can say that the only definite plan of the
kind which had seriously influenced me, was an
understanding between my younger brother and
myself that we would always live together ; and
such was our affection that I think now that
nothing but his early death could have pre-
vented its realization : and it is possible that
Digby found a promise of stability in this to
serve as a nucleus for his much wider projects.
Whether that were so or not, he had built up
with varying detail a very active and desirable
society, of which I might remember more had
I looked forward to it more confidently. He
was to decide everything, and I, who was to
be the head of the community, could never
of course disagree with him. These castles or
monasteries in the air were a source of pleasure
to him, and he would even choose their sites.
Ixxii
MEMOIR
For though it was plain there could be but one,
yet the charm of the future lies in its indefinite
possibilities, and there were at different times
a good many : Finedon Hall itself could not
escape. I remember very well, as we sat one day
chatting together in his little room at Stevens',
he began scheming how, like St. Gregory, he
would make a monastery of his father's house,
if ever it should fall into his possession. So
he would rejoice openly if any of the ' Brothers '
had prospects of wealth ; it added to the many
mansions of his ideal establishment. How far
others shared in these dreams I cannot say, but
there exists a pre-rafaelite painting made by one
of them of the ' Foundation of Eton College \
wherein, on a fair and flowery water-mead, the
attendant witnesses are the patron or name-
saints of some of the future brothers of this
society, for which Dolben had already invented
a title. He and Coles and I are all there, under
that disguise, with the orthodox habits and
emblems.
As for his eyesight, Bowman's treatment seems
to have been successful, for I do not think that
he ever had further need to consult him.
After this Lent term at Lnffenham, he went
again with his family to the lakes, whence his
next letter is dated. Gerard Hopkins whom I
MEMOIR
Ixxiii
had invited to Rochdale with him, repHed that
he could not come, adding, ' else nothing could
have been so delightful as to meet you and Coles
and Dolben [* *] I have written letters with-
out end to the latter without a whiff* of answer.'
XVIII
The TouriHs Hotel
RosHhivaite
Cumberland [ Aug 65]
My dear "Bridges
I repeatiJjith sorrow 'RosHhwaite Cumberland',
1 certainly ought to haveuuritten toyou^ but I have been
going about so much that I do not think I ever got your
laft letter. They mould not let me come to Rochdale
on my luay here^ but I may go luhen nve return^ but,
but that 'will be at the beginning of September. I
could come to you any day from the 8''' //// the 1 1}^, I
do hope this mill do for you, I should like to have
seen Coles for some things very much^ but it mas quite
impossible for me to come about his time, lam afraid
I remember something you said about going am ay in
September, but perhaps you may have changed^ and it
may be possible for me to come after all. perhaps if
you mould believe^ could rather knom^ hom very much
I have desired to come you mould try and make it
possible. I knom nothing about mhy or mhere you
are goings but could you not go firii and come back
aftermards? Infiead of going [erasure] I mean to say
Ixxiv
MEMOIR
now. I am so sorry that your "Br ads ham extraBs are
of no use to me, I cannot 'write a letter — having
travelled 9 hours yeHerday, But do ivrite and let
me knovj juB vjhether after all you can have me. A
servant has juB entered uuith Coles' letter, J ap-
pealed to my father in despair vjhen I got it vjhether
Rochdale luas very far off. He vjos juB going out^
but I think y I truBy I shall be able to write tomorrow
to say that I am coming in two or three days. It is
a great pity so much fuss is necessary^ and 'very absurd
yours with a bad headache
but hopefully
Love to Coles. D. M. D.
The ensuing letter does not exist ; but it must
have been shortly after this last that he paid his
first and only visit to Rochdale. In his delight-
ful companionship the few days passed quickly,
and as we were alone I had much talk with
him. I remember especially his modest surprise
and genuine pleasure at my enthusiastic praise
of his poetry, for he was not satisfied with his
own artistry, and did not expect me to be. But
there was more than promise in the beauty of
his best work. He told me about his life at
Luff*enham enough to give me a very favourable
idea of Mr. Pritchard, and a definite picture
of his personality which I retain to this day.
He had won Digby's esteem, and, when such
a relation was established, Digby's natural sym-
MEMOIR
Ixxv
pathies would reconcile him to the limitations
and inevitable commonplaces of a small country
circle. It was evident too that his tutor treated
him with great tenderness and skill : he met his
mediaevalism with courteous complaisance, and
never troubled him with displeasure or opposi-
tion ; but when occasion offered would gently
state his own attitude, and then, if Digby ac-
cepted the challenge, he would advance his
reasons. When it came to argument Digby con-
fessed to me that he found him unanswerable ;
and I saw that his dogmatic confidence had
received a shock. For minds nurtured from
childhood in unquestioning submission to a
system of religious dogma it is very difficult
to break sufficiently away from their position
to see the full bearing and breadth of the philo-
sophic objections ; and this step Pritchard had
led Digby to take. He now saw that his logical
position was indefensible, or, at least, that he
was not sufficiently armed to defend it. Some-
thing had to be shifted, and he did not know
what.
Now I rejoiced at this, for I had an uncon-
querable repugnance to the full-blown Roman
theology, whither, as I feared, Digby was drifting;
and in those talks with him I made also the
same step that he had made ; and if I might
Ixxvi
MEMOIR
not perceive the full significance at the time, yet
I know the very spot in the garden where we
were walking when I saw certain familiar ideas
in a new light. The exact tone seems to me to
be perfectly caught and fixed in the magical
simplicity of his half-suppressed utterance
Suppose it but a fancy that it groaned.
This dear Creation.
Looking back now to those days I see what a
disaster it was that at that moment Mr. Pritchard
was lying ill with pneumonia, and sending a
notice to Mr. Mackworth Dolben that he would
be unable to continue the tuition of his son.
That was the news in store for Digby when
he returned to Cumberland, and he immediately
wrote to my mother, who had meanwhile gone
into Suffolk, asking her if she would have any
objection to his joining my brother in Yorkshire,
if my brother's tutor would take him. The
question foresaw the objection, and my step-
father dictated a judicious reply, which my
mother sent to Digby, very kindly but firmly
pointing out that they feared his influence on
a somewhat predisposed character ; — she did not
wish her son to become a Papist. This letter,
until its true provenance was revealed, distressed
Digby, who was on affectionate natural terms
MEMOIR
Ixxvii
with my mother, and he made a bold effort to
turn it, with promises of discreet behaviour ; ^
but the objection could not be obviated by
assurances of intention, and the scheme was
abandoned, whether on the plea also of other
difficulties, which certainly existed, or only for
this one, I do not remember. Digby was thus
again searching the world for a tutor. He took
me into counsel, and his next letters are all con-
cerned with these affairs. If I give more of them
than their interest would seem to justify, it is
because, no other letters of his having been pre-
served, they provide the only actual contact now
attainable.
XIX
Governor s House
Keswick [Sept. 18 (?) 65]
My dear Bridges
Under the cir cum fiances I should like to call you
Father Robert^ as I write to you for a little af si fiance
and direBion^ such as it will one day he your duty to
afford me^ and which now I hope you will give me for
kindness sake. M"" Frit chard has been^ and is Bill^
so ill from a fresh attack of inflammation of the lungs ^
as to render it impossible for me to go back to him at
present, and as time is so import ant .y if I am ever to
1 Passages omitted from letters.
Ixxviii
MEMOIR
getintoBalllol^myfatherthinks it better that 1 should
go to another tutor. Of course the difficulty ivas to find
one in a sufficiently healthy and bracing locality . Then
it occurred to me that perhaps it be possible for M''
Walker to take me^ and the situation of Filey seemed
as if it 'would be so good for me. I inrote to M" Moles ^
ivorth asking her to tell me ivhether she thought I
should be able to go there^ and received the letter
lohich I send you. It is most kind, and I can quite
under Hand ho^ it is that she should think and feel as
she does. Neverthelefs it diHrefsed me considerably,
[* * * *] Moreover for the present I do ivish to live
as much as may be as a Catholic, and leave talking for
those ivho knoiv more — for the present. [* * * * j
Flease do not think that I consider myself a Martyr^
for my reasons for voishingto go to Filey voere entirely
selfish, I certainly do feel sometimes the vuant of some
one to sympathise 'with me and help me a little — for
my people look on such things as these almoB 'with
satis faBion — they muB sho'w me the great disadvan-
tage of 'extreme vie'ws\ hovoever ' Veritas eB magna'.
1 hope you 'will under Band diBinSily that I
think your mother {to 'whom I am moB grateful for her
great kindness to me) has done quite right according to
her vie'w of the subjeB. It is of course unpleasant^ but
that is no one's fault. I am not and cannot be sorry
for anything out'wardly Catholic 'which I have done^
though I do repent moB sincerely of going to R. C.
Chapels and services ^ 'when at Eton — but that is long
ago no'w. Still it is right that I should be punished
for it. And no'w I cannot tell 'whether you 'will think
'well to tell your mother 'what I have said^ as to pro-
MEMOIR
Ixxix
mis'mg etc, ... J only luishyou to do as you think 'will be
beH. but of course if it could be arranged for me to go
to "Filey 1 should be 'very glad. I am sorry to bother you
uuith such a long piece ofivork all about myself I send
you some verses^ as you ivere kind enough to ivish for
them. I send these particular ones partly because some-
thing you said at Rochdale reminded me of them. If
possible I hope you will lurite soon. Thanking you for
my 'very pleasant visit to Rochdale believe me
ever y' ajfec
D. M. D.
XX
Finedon Hall
[Sept. 65.]
(P. 5. ^ week ivith X .
X, ivill be very rich — ^nd so
shall theCanons and Brothers
of the Holy Name)
My dear Bridges.
Thank you for your letter^ which was very satvs-
faBory to me. I confess that^ though the letter I sent
you 1 was very kindly worded^ I did perceive a dijfer-
ence in it when comparing it in my mind with the other
letters of your mother — to my mother and myself not
only in sentiment but also in Byle and exprefsion — a
comparison not favourable to the document in your pos-
session, I could wish that I had written to you fir
for as you think I had better not go to W,^ all this
has been useless. But if you could find me a good tutor
both my father and I would be very grateful. He is
^ Dr. Molesworth's.
Ixxx
MEMOIR
fortunately of opinion that confidence may be placed in
your judgement — an idea 'which I quite coincided in.
I do not think that he ujould care uahat his ' vieius '
ivere^ provided he ivas really a good tutor. For myself
I should not like to go to a thorough proteHant — except
this I dont mind. Antagonism is all very uuell for a
time — and perhaps to Sirong-minded people may he a
real help, but I am utterly tired of it ^ and mould like a
man uho uoould let me alone. Moreover it is some-
iv hat sad to find oneself differing more and more en-
tirely from all one's relations in every religious thought
and feeling.
To go back to the tutor. The great point is that he
should be found at once. I go up to matriculate this
l^ovember year — so that 1 should be more than a year
vjith him. It certainly vjould not do to have one at
home. If he vjere near Oxford I should like it — or on
the sea. In Oxford ivould not do. If you could hear of
one and write back to me quickly it would be very kind.
The money vjould not matter — My father does not
mind £ zoo — and I suppose few tutors are much more.
If none can be found I perhaps may try going to De
Winton^s. but there seem reasons againft it — that
is^ one of his pupils (* * by name) I used to know very
well^ and do not wish to be with. And now my dear
Father R. it is entirely left to you^ and I feel it is a
natural Hate of things — a good omen for the future.
[* * *] /<? JJs on Friday so if you write after then
direa\there'\.
What do you mean about ^ crof ^ings \^ Do you think
1 I had probably suggested that this had been the
offence in Dr. Molesworth's eyes.
MEMOIR
Ixxxi
H luould be heH to give them up in proteHant society ?
Please let me knouo. I am uncertain. I hope you uuill
njrite soon. I heard from Coles the other day. He is
diHressed as to his father s living — thinks it mould be
ujrongfor him to take it. But as the Rev Gentleman
is in good healthy this seems an unnecessary anxiety for
the present. He will never do for us^ I think.^
ever your affec D, M. D.
PS Tour letter did me a great deal of good.
The next is in pencil on a scrap of paper.
XXI
My dear Bridges
One line to ask you to vurite to Finedon. My visit s^
are poBponed^ I being in bed in a dark room, fed on
grapes and tea. a sort of feverish attack. Please
write soon. Read this if you can and excuse it. ever
your affec D M D
XXII
Finedon Sept 30 [65[
My dear Bridges
Much again ft the advice of the DoSior^ and the
vjill of my Mot her ^ I have believed myself able to
vurtte a letter^ and have desired a large fire ^ and par-
tially dressed myself to sit by it. but after having been
1 This tilt at Coles' prudence is characteristic. He
remembers it to make retractation in a subsequent letter..
' us ' is of course the Brotherhood.
f
Ixxxii
MEMOIR
for a iveek in a dark room you muB not expeEt my ivhs
to he very hrilliant, I got your letter forivarded from
L. t/pjs afternoon, ujhy it did not come sooner I cannot
say. As to the tutors P sounds lue//. J think my
father uoill uorite, Perhaps after all De Winton 'will
he my fate. For my part N . sounds nice to me^ hut
if he cannot teach of course it ivould not do, I muff
thank you for having taken so much trouhle. At the
same time if you ivould uorite again giving a feiu more
particulars ahout N. uohich I could shouo to my fat her ^
I sh^ he glad. To tell you all ahout it — there are more
important things in this uoorld than getting into
alii ol even, and indeed there is a place into ivhich
ive hope to get some day — ivhich needs harder pre-
paration than Oxford^ and is uell vjorth all uue can
give it, Noiv to go doavn to Hereford^ and remain
there a year, ivith a tutor such as De Winton^ and a
companion at any rate not Catholic — vjithout a Con-,
fessor^ vjithout any means of more than monthly Com-
munion^ ivithout {muH I use it) any ' Catholic advan^
tages\ this may he a good ivay to get into Balliol^ hut
not^ I think ^ into Heaven, If I mere near Oxford all
this vjould he avoided.^ therefore if N and V hetvjeen
them could teach me^ I should prefer it to any one else.
I am surprised at your liking my U. R. verses. They
mere mritten more than a year ago. The ivant ofcon^
centration or anything like pomer is painful, [a passage
concerning a fellow-contributor to the U. R.] I send or
mill send you for I am not sure if I can mrite them
to-day) tmo little pieces of secular verse ^ seleBed {out
^ N. a high-church clergyman near Oxford.
MEMOIR
Ixxxiii
of a mass of religious and sentimental trash in rhyme
by me) by Jean Ingeloiv^ — 'which lady^ uuith ujhom
uje have picked up an acquaintance^ was kind enough
to look over my verses III in jufiice to her there ivas a
selection made beforehand — and these are to be printed
somewhere or other. Verse-ivriting is a vanity^ I think
— notwithstanding it is very kind of you to ask to see
more of mine, [* * an ecclesiastical paragraph These
sentiments if not original are really very orthodox.
What did Nihil I ask about me? F*" Ignatius^ I sup-
pose you know is better — but his life was despaired of
at one time . The Monastery is governed by an Etonian :
iV. . . now B** PlaciduSj is all in all to them now.
I do hope and think that his vocation will prove to be
a real one. In a few years perhaps the names of Monk
and Etonian may not seem so far apart as they do now.
Coles shall not be excluded from the MonaSiery {of
which you speak irreverently) but how and where
could Mifs be admitted? Her only hope would be
a Flatonic affeBion^ on the model of S Jerome and S
Vaula^ under the black habit of a Canoness O. S.N,
I wish you could get me a little money for the Monaftery
chapel at Norwich. It will really be disgraceful if the
work has to be ^ven up^ — now the walls are half"
built — and I think it would be a very good thing for
the Cause if it were finished by the time of the Congress ^
for all the clergy will afsuredly visit the Monks. Coles
has sent me £i, but nobody else thinks they have any-
thing which they could give. It is very odd. and my
1 Miss Ingelow's poems had at that time considerable
vogue. The notes of admiration just below are not,
I think, marks of modesty.
f 2
Ixxxiv
MEMOIR
otun resources are in a bad may. and the Rev Mother
Hilda writes touching letters to her dear B' Dominic^
and Dominic writes Slill more touching letters to
MotherHilda — Siatingthat he is her servant and her
brother, but no money comes of it. I wish you Would
write again direBly and say something favour able about
N. I want to do something for as he will also
have to leave M' Pritchard.
^ Shall we come out of it all^ some day^ as one does
from a tunnel?
Will it be all at once^ without our doing or asking^
We shall behold clear day^ and the trees and meadows
about us
And the faces of friends^ and the eyes we loved look-
ing at us —
Who knows? Who can say? It will not do to suppose it.''
These make up for the whole correspondence of Geor-
ginas and Marys^ and all the other trash contained in
Foems by A. H. C. But will it not do to suppose it?
ever your ajfec
D. M. D.
XXIII
Finedon Sunday
My dear Bridges
It has been so good of you to take so much trouble
about tutors for me. I really hope that I am to go to
M' N. My father went to see M' Findar fir ft who
was at Bath^ but he afterwards wrote to say that his
examining work was so ^eat that he could not take
me with proper conscience. If my father goes to see
M' N, I am afraid the caf wck will be fatal. I truH
MEMOIR
Ixxxv
he does not alivays vjear it, I should have written
to you before^ but that I have not been quite so well
again. Should I like this H. V. . ? It would be a
great objeHion if he turned out unpleasant. However
I am in for it now — my father writes tomorrow. One
more thing I muH ask you to find out {that is if I go to
Al' N.) whether he can take two more pupils^
and . 1 fancied that he was anxious to get as many
as he could, I am afraid that I muB not write any
more for my head^s sake. Thanking you again
ever y"" ajfec
D. M. D.
XXIV
Sunday [Nov. 65]
My dear "Bridges
My relatives being at Churchy having left me
nothing but Breviary^ ^^S-) beef-tea^ medecine^ and
thoughts^ I muH write to you with such pen and paper
as I can find, I cannot accuse myself of not remember-
ing your birthday'^j since 1 never heard of its date
until this morning when I received your letter — nor
can 1 wish you '■many happy returns of the day\
which is a cuBom I objeB to. but I do moH sincerely
wish you as ma?iy returns as may be well — saying
nothing of happiness, i " because the wishing neither
brings ity or keeps it away either, (which in i\ years
you have doubtlefs found out^ since I have in 1 7|) i'"*
1 Nor can I have reproached him. It was probably ray
telling him of my ' coming of age ' that provoked this
sad account of ' happiness '.
Ixxxvi
MEMOIR
became happy people are apt to forget something about
the prince of this 'world ^ and perhaps find It out too
late, adding only a hope that In four years I may
receive your blessing. Ton 'were very 'welcome to see
my verses^ though I certainly should not have selected
them to sho'w you. Did Coles or Hopkins give them you.
and why? F lease remember to tell me, I 'will read D
Pusey's book, I am glad + * * considered healthy^
but am much afraid left my father 'will not like ikf N.
even though the cassock may not appear^ other things
may prevent my going, ho'wever I hope for the belt,
lam getting 'well very slo'wly^ since you ask,
ever ajfec D. M, D.
[added]
I am afraid all hope is over^ for my father hasjuft
settled to call on D'" Lightfoot^ to enquire about M''
N, before seeing him.
These particular incommodities are not worth
sorting out. It is enough to say that Mr. N.,
who was recommended to me by a college tutor,
was certainly too high-church and probably not
a sufficiently good scholar to please Mr. Dolben.
Canon Liddon was hunting with me. What
strikes one most is the total want of communi-
cation between demand and supply. The Com-
mittee of Appointments was not founded in
Oxford until 1892, and now any conditions are
quickly suited. The result in Digby's case was
that a tutor was selected with whom he was so
MEMOIR
Ixxxvii
uncomfortable that he remained with him for
only one term. The next letter is from this new
tutor's residence in Lincolnshire. Its opening
sentences are paradoxical.
XXV
[undated, Nov 25 (?) 1865]
My dear Bridges.
I really have very little to say^ and feel more in^
dined to apologize forniritingnouothan for not having
ujritten before. 'But re ally luoant a letter from you, it
being a very long time since I heard. It is my fir ft
evening at
Vicarage
Unco In.
uuhich direSiion please soon make use of, I had dreaded
foolishly but inexpressibly going among these utter
Strangers^ and M' andM'" and the one other pupil
vjere continually presenting themselves to my mind in
all kinds of diHref sing forms. However the realities
might be ivorse^ though also Oh hovj much better.
Still I mean to be very contented. I have seldom had
a greater disappointment than my father's decision as
to M"" N. How to spend a year here I cannot think.
Pity me. I should not mind even being called ^ Poor
child' ^ It would be reasonable now. As to Oxford I
don^t expeSi ever to see it^ or anybody belonging to it^
till I matriculate — Lincoln Minfter is glorious — but
of all the miserable men that these laB days produce is
not the jocose verger the mofl revolting? What can be
Ixxxviii
MEMOIR
the reason that VroteHants build neu) Cathedrals as
they do in the Colonies! since they have absolutely no
use for them, I sauj Chapel after Chapel which are
never entered from one year' s end to another. I savj
the anointed Altar^Hones put as paving-^ ones near the
doors that all might tread on them : the ruins of shrines
innumerable in honour of Saints whose relics were
thrown away by order of Henry VIII, On the whole
a visit to an English Cathedralis not a pleasure. Little
S, Hughy the boy Martyr ^ Bill lies under the remains
of his shrine. Might we not in our MonaHery have a
shrine in honour of the boy Martyrs of the Churchy S.S.
Pancras^ William and Hugh 7 And the choriBers^
ablates and little monks should be taught to love them
as Catholic boys of all ages have done. I don't know
how I should get on but for the thought of the O.S.N.
I know J I cannot help feeling sure that it will not come
to nothing, I beg of your charity that you will write.
Tour letters always do me good. One must look on the
future^ and not back to the past
ever y* affec
D. M. D.
After this there is a gap of eight months in
the series of Dolben's letters to me. My younger
brother died in Feb. 1866, and among the
miscellaneous letters that I have kept I have
none that makes any reference to that event,
which plunged me into deep sorrow at the time,
and considerably altered the hopes and prospects
of my life. All letters written to me both
MEMOIR
Ixxxix
immediately before and for months after seem
to have shared the same fate, whatever it was ;
so that there is no actual written record of these
eight months ; and Dolben's history depends on
the recollection of friends who were with him at
that time, and on the dating of the poems, which
are now frequent and often full of beauty.
Dolben remained but one term with this tutor
in Lincolnshire, and after Easter, in spite of his
insuperable prejudice was sent to De Wintonat
Boughrood in Radnorshire. The event in a
manner justified his prejudice, for tutor and
pupil were too utterly incongruous to profit by
association. Henry De Winton was a firstrate
scholar and a good teacher, with such an active
habit of mind that a country living would have
been intolerable to him had he not contrived
opportunities for exercising his talent. He
therefore took as many pupils as he could
accommodate ; and if he was really happy only
with advanced and promising scholars, and
naturally grudged the wasteful expenditure of
his ability on pass-men, some of them felt the
distinction which he could not altogether dis-
guise. His pupils were treated as members of
his family, itself a small community, and all
testify to his kindness, to his skill and pains in
teaching, and to his enthusiasm for the best
xc
MEMOIR
classical literature. He was also a keen sports-
man. The present Provost of Eton, Dr. Warre,
who as an old pupil speaks of him with
gratitude and affection, and could equally enjoy
work and play, has, among many lively recollec-
tions of the river, one sporting story, which, told
in his own words, will give a picture of the place.
'One evening (says the Provost) we had seen
a big fish rising in the pool close by the house,
and De Winton said the time to catch him would
be in the morning just as it was getting light.
Next morning, about five o'clock, an indescribable
howling mixed itself with my dreams, and there
dawned upon my half-awakened mind a vision
of salmon, and the sound of a far-off cry Warre,
bring the gaff! Needless to say, I was out of
bed at once, and just as I was, barefooted in my
nightshirt, rushed out over the rocks to the
catch. It was a bitterly cold morning, cold
enough to prevent my ever forgetting our
triumph.' With such exhilarating incidents,
plenty of freedom, and no more severity than is
inseparable from grammatical study, the Rectory
must have been a model establishment of its
kind ; while the host's conventional orthodoxy
and perhaps rather irritable manner — for which
there is some evidence — were matters of no
moment. It is plain that to such a man Digby
MEMOIR
xci
must have seemed a most undesirable pupil ; for
his scholarship was not sufficiently advanced to
be of interest, while he was full of notions which
De Winton must have regarded as an unreason-
able annoyance and distraction. ' What is the
reAos of it all ? ^ he would murmur : ' The re'Aoj,
the reAo?, I ask. What is the reAo? ?' If the
disadvantages of their mutual incompatibility be
balanced, one side against the other, no one
would judge that De Winton had the best of
the bargain. In any case Dolben was glad to
escape from Lincolnshire, where he was actually
unhappy, and Boughrood was not far from
Llanthony, where his ' Father Ignatius ' was
established. The mixed society he met without
discomposure: as one of them testified very
happily in these words, 'Dolben was a really
good fellow, and took being laughed at by the
others ever so well.' It was in such surround-
ings that he wrote the most of his best poems.
To attend now to the evidence of these
poems : — while Dolben's mediaevalism remained
unshaken, and was alienating him more and
more from the Church of England, the progress
of his acquaintance with Greek thought was
building up in him a pagan ideal of beauty,
which, though it was mainly if not entirely
aesthetic and artistic, was conquering his mind :
xcii
MEMOIR
and he could keep these two ideals quite apart.
Some of the poems are in purely mediaeval
sentiment, others are purely pagan, untouched
by any Christian influence. Both ideals were
felt in their full force, and as his art developed
them separately in the poems their antagonism
became more active, and the victory, though
it was not at all times fully assured, lay with
Christianity. It thus followed most naturally, —
from the previous leaning of his ideas, and from
their present development, — that the earthly
ideal of his human afi^ection, which had at first
invaded the peace of his religious life, came
to be associated with his perfected pagan ideal,
and to be considered (at least for poetic pur-
poses) as pagan in essence, and therefore of the
nature of sin ; and so we find it in the poems
at one time revelled in as aesthetic paganism, at
another repudiated as spiritual disorder : and he
even goes so far as to implicate his friend in
these fantastic meshes, and, in a poem which in
places recalls the frenzied stanzas of Sir Eustace
Grey^ he exhorts his friend to Repent with him.
This must, no doubt, be taken for a somewhat
dramatic exhortation to adopt the religious
profession, as the only salvation in a world
where happiness was a snare of the Devil,^ yet,
' See letter XXIV.
MEMOIR
xciii
even so, the extravagance is inconceivable, and
except as poetic imagination it is insincere : for
not only were these religious exhortations to his
friend never intended for his eye or ear, — which
destroys their sincerity — but it is certain that
he had never ventured to show him even the
earlier sentimental verses written in his praise.
Manning had never any notion that Digby
indulged in all this trouble and passion on his
behalf, and after Digby 's death was among those
Avho were first to urge that the poems should be
published. He was not much of a judge of
poetry, but he was a firm and aflf'ectionate be-
liever in Dolben's genius ; he knew his early re-
ligious verses, and had been seriously influenced
by him to embrace the logical consequences of
his mediaeval creed. Though in ordinary society
he passed for a born artist, yet he had not the
artist's profound insight, and lacked apprecia-
tion of the severer excellences. His instinctive
taste, which was fine and cultivated, was for
the slighter forms of art, grace, brightness and
pleasant lucidity. He would never have under-
stood the absorbing devotion of Dolben's pas-
sion, on whatsoever it might be directed : the
strange strife of his friend's emotions would,
except as a note of genius, have had little
meaning for him. If these facts be considered.
xciv
MEMOIR
the poetry which Dolben wrote to describe those
emotions cannot escape the reproach of courting
misrepresentation. It is indefensible : but it
should be remembered that he would not himself
have defended it. He would over-indulge the
poetic sentiment of the moment, and afterwards
condemn the extravagance. He would often
laugh at himself (his sister wrote to me of him)
' as if he saw that his poetry had got out of
hand \ And the fault is really a failing in his
artistry. Just as a philosopher, when he has
chosen his premises will argue out his system
to conclusions altogether at variance with his
convictions, so an artist in developing his con-
ceptions may perplex his intention, and be led
into extravagant and unpremeditated positions.
When Dolben went to Boughrood he was just
eighteen years old, and I should say — though I
do not wish to anticipate the estimate of his
genius — that the poems which he now began to
produce will compare with, if they do not as I
believe excel, anything that was ever written by
any English poet at his age ; and the work is not
only of rare promise but occasionally of the rarest
attainment, and its beauties are original. If then
we find the perplexity of his ideas sometimes
leading him astray, this is nothing to wonder at,
and there is no place for reproach. The late
MEMOIR
xcv
poem ' Dum agonizatur "* is a full illustration of
his perplexities.
But of his Greek sympathies he showed little
or nothing to his comrades at Boughrood ; to
them he appeared as a monk, and there are only
such memories to record of him. Two of his
fellow-pupils have sent me their recollections of
him, and allow me to quote their own words.
The first, to whom poem 37 was addressed,
writes thus, —
' Dolben was in my division at Eton, but we were not
much thrown together till we were fellow pupils at
Boughrood. When he came there the Rectory was very
full, with five pupils as well as a large family of children,
so that he was lodged in the village of Llyswen, the other
side of the Wye, and consequently was rather outside our
life. In September of that year I went back early to
work for matriculation at Balliol, and we two were alone
together reading for the same purpose. I remember his
rebuking me for wanting to read the Odyssey with him
after dinner : he said that even Monks did not work after
dinner. . . . He was greatly taken up with Father Ignatius
at that time, and his ideal of life was monastic. He was
most amusing about his distaste for going into society,
and the feeling of despair which came on him when the
carriage drew up at a house where he had to go to a
ball. We walked a great deal together, and his talks
were always of the religious hfe, and the associations he
looked to form at Oxford. . . . He was most regular at our
early bathing in the river a few yards from the house :
which cannot, I think, have been good for him. ... I went
into residence at Oxford in October, and I do not think
xcvi
MEMOIR
that I ever saw him again. . . . There remains with me a
vivid recollection of a pale serious man, rather than boy,
of pure and blameless life, looking forward intently to
devoting himself to a religious life. He often spoke of
one of his friends ( ) to me : and I believe he had an
ardent admiration for Manning. Some lines of his that
I had referred, I think, to Manning.'
The other, writing to a friend of mine, has
the same picture.
' My recollections of Mackworth Dolben are of a young
monk of mediaeval times. ... In appearance he was tall
and slight, with a complexion of transparent pallor. He
had good features, and fine dark melancholy eyes. Do
you remember Dore's picture of a young monk sitting in
chapel among a lot of older men, & gazing sadly into
vacancy ? he was rather like that. Also Clifford's picture
of Father Damien before he left for the leper settlement
in Hawaii reminds me of him. . . . He had arranged the
upper part of a bureau in his room with crucifix and
candles and vases of flowers, & used to pray there after
donning his monastic habit. His religion seemed to me
a passion, and I was much affected at times by his fervour.
. . . One day we took a holiday and rode sixteen miles over
the Black Mountains to Llanthony Abbey, he dressed in
the full habit of a Benedictine Monk, and I riding by his
side in ordinary costume. You can imagine the sensation
he created passing through the Welsh villages. ... I think
he found me more in sympathy than the other pupils, and
we became good friends ; though I don't think he was
intimate with any of us ; but he used to write to me from
time to time till he died ; and I always preserve an affec-
tionate remembrance of his gentle and kindly nature. I
think of him as a young saint so soon called to his rest.'
MEMOIR
xcvii
In the summer of 1866, on his way home from
his tutor in Wales, he paid a clandestine visit to
Birmingham. Of this he tells in a later letter.
Meanwhile in August of that year Gerard
Hopkins came to me at Rochdale, and stayed,
I think, some weeks. We read Herodotus to-
gether. He was so punctilious about the text,
and so enjoyed loitering over the difficulties that
I foresaw we should never get through, and
broke off from him to go my own way. He had
not read more than half of the nine books when
he went in for ' Greats ' ; this did not however
prevent his success, and my tutor. Professor
Wilson, who was one of the examiners, told me
that * for form ' he was by far the best man in
the first class. 'Form'' was an all -pervading
esoteric cliche of that hour. Gerard and I had
schemed for Dolben to join us at Rochdale, but
the following undated scrap from him records
the monotony of the situation.
XXVI
Finedon Hall
H'tgham Ferrers
Dear Bridges [Aug 16. 66.]
I have matted all this time hoping to give you an
ansvuer to your mo ft kind invitation, hut now I do
inrite lam sorry that it is only to say that it is all hut
certain that 1 am not to come. My father is anxious
g
xcviii
MEMOIR
that I should read re^larly . This is the reason^ and I
am obliged to do so if I am ever to get into Balliol in
the spring, I shall probably come up in the Autumn for
the scholarship. Tou cannot imagine ^ and if I told you ^
you would not believe either hoiv much I hoped or hoiv
much Iivas disappointed. I cannot miss another poH^ but
I will write this evening and send a letter tomorrow,
ever your ajfec
D. M, D.
The next that I have, written a month later,
rather implies that the promised letter was never
written. He had gone with his family to
Malvern.
XXVII
Harrow Cottage [Sept P* (?) 66]
Welf Malvern.
My dear Bridges
I am quite aware that I have been inexcusably
rude^ to say nothing of ingratitude^ in not having
written to you before. Tou muH forgive me because
there is really no reason why you should — which goes
some way. At any rate you muH know that neither
are my pleasures so various nor my chances of seeing
my friends so many^ but that I would have given a
month atleaH of ordinary existence for a week at Roch'
dale. The fact is that my father likes me to be with
him all the time that I am at home — and now we are
here it is quite impossible that I should come. Malvern
being intended to ^set me up\ which no place succeeds
in doingj — something unknown obBinately persisting
MEMOIR
xcix
in keeping doivn. I do hope though that you ivill be
persuaded to come to Finedon at ChriHmas^ It being
already about a year since I saw you. Rememberingthe
iveek I spent at Rochdale lafi year I think that I am
somewhat unfortunate^ therefore 1 am entitled to pity^
and Finedon to your consideration. Is it not so? , .
. . .^I return to De Winton' sin a fortnight and shall not
come up to Oxford till January for matriculation^ as I
am absolutely unable to work hard^ even if I wished to
do so, I was in Birmingham on my way home from
Wales and made acquaintance with our Third Order
B" there. They are exceedingly nice^ and might be
called^ earnest young men* Of^^ ^^SS^^ ^^^^
unpleasant persons) — for their quiet earneftness is a
very remarkable contrail to the noisiness of the BriHol
B". My habit and bare feet created some astonishment
in the choir at S. Albans — but on the whole I made
great friends with the clergy etc. — One of the priefls
gave me his blessing in the sacriHy after service in a
very kind manner. F' Pollock has been a true friend to
our Order ^ and the greater part of his choir are B" of
our order. I visited the Oratory. Newman was away ^
but F*" Ryder was moB civil, and not at all contemp-
tuous. Tou have probably heard that the Father Sup'
has been ftayingwiththe Archbishop, and that the Abp
has promised to sanBion his new conHitution etc. Also
that the Bp of London has removed the inhibition, and
given his ^special consent* to his preaching at S.
Michael' sShoreditch. I saw F' Basil there when I was
in London. Father is with him. In great hafie
everyr affec
D. M. D.
g2
c
MEMOIR
He did not tell his family of this visit to Bir-
mingham, and it may have been the unconscious
lessening of confidence that made his father keep
him so close. ('Father' in the last letter is
Ignatius.) There was a fear lest he might run
off some day and be irrevocably received into
the Roman Communion by Cardinal Newman.
And he plainly had contemplated an interview
with Newman on this occasion. But his visit
was ostensibly to his Anglican brothers of the
O. S. B. The link with the Oratory was the
presence in Birmingham of Mr. Walford, who as
one of the junior masters at Eton had first made
Dolben's acquaintance there in 1864, and had
since Romanized. As a schoolmaster he had
found himself as much out of place at Eton as
Dolben was. He had a truer vocation for the
religious life, and was thus a great admirer of
Dolben there, and encouraged him in his religious
leanings : and on one occasion at least they had
said offices together. But Dolben, though grate-
ful for his sympathy, had never made a friend of
him ; and the notion that at this later date he
had any influence in drawing Dolben to the
Roman communion is, I think, a mistake. Very
shortly after this Gerard Hopkins, who was now
a Roman Catholic and had been on a visit to
Cardinal Newman at the Oratory, wrote to me
MEMOIR
ci
as follows. [Sept. 24 — 66] ' Walford believed
that Dolben had been mobbed in Birmingham.
He went in his habit without sandals barefoot.
I do not know whether it is more funny or
affecting to think of.'
This was, so far as I know, Digby's only visit
to Birmingham ; Hopkins was at that time fre-
quently at the Oratory, and he never heard of
any other. But he was present at a Candlemas
service in 1867 somewhere with Walford, who
gave Coles a circumstantial account of his
meeting with him on that occasion.
This letter from Malvern is the last that I
have, and whether Dolben ever wrote to me
again I cannot say. There is much the same
gap in Coles' recollection, dating with him from
a visit that he paid to Dolben in the summer.
Coles, who had also been De Winton's pupil
and was a welcome visitor at Boughrood, went
there in July or August of 66 especially to see
Dolben, and he remembers finding him living
apart in the small house across the river among
cornfields, where the landrails craked a cease-
less accompaniment to their long talks, as he sat
with him of an evening. Digby would try to
detain Coles beyond the hour when he was
strictly expected by his host to return to head-
quarters. He was then still conciliated with the
cii
MEMOIR
Anglican church, and would dress himself in his
monk's habit and prowl about the country at
night : and he made on one occasion a long
excursion to a neighbouring parish in order to
extort absolution from the Vicar, who, to his
disgust, would not incur the unusual responsi-
bility of hearing the confession of a minor.
Digby told Coles that he thought it high time
he was out of his ' stat. pup, "*
It was probably in the Michaelmas term that
he began seriously to consider the practical step
of Romanizing ; and, if so, that would fully ac-
count for his silence ; indeed the difficulty of
explaining, apart from the knowledge that I
should be uncongenial, would have prevented his
writing ; for only active sympathy could over-
come his dislike of letter- writing : and it must
have been in the winter (66-67) that he told his
father that he intended to join the Roman com-
munion. His father, in his distress, said words
which widened the breach between them : but
he exacted a promise from his son that he would
not be received until he should have left Oxford,
hoping that something might yet arise to prevent
the disaster. Dolben never told me of this treaty.
On May 1 he came up to Oxford to matricu-
late. He was in weak health and actually fainted
in the examination on the next day, and was thus
MEMOIR
ciii
thrown out. He lodged at the Randolph Hotel,
and must have left at once after his failure.
Neither Hopkins nor I knew of his visit at the
time : he had told no one but Coles ; and the
chance coincidence of date with a short-lived
diary of his old friend alone preserved the facts.
Coles was distressed by his talk : he found him
in the dilemma depicted in the contemporary
poems. His father, disappointed in the plans for
Balliol, entered his name at Ch: Ch:, and Digby
approved of the change of programme. It was
also decided that he should leave De Winton's,
and Mr. Pritchard being now re-established in
health agreed to receive him again. His sister
tells me that Digby surprised his father by re-
questing what seemed a somewhat excessive al-
lowance of money in the event of his going to
Ch: Ch:, intending apparently to live at the Uni-
versity, if he went there, in a style very different
from his old negligent way of life. Lastly, after
his death, there was found among his papers the
beginning of a letter to his father asking to be
absolved of his promise not to be baptized, in
case of any dangerous accident or illness. This
was not dated, but was almost certainly written
at Mr. Pritchard\s after his arriving there on
June 15th. Thirteen days later he was drowned
when bathing in the river Welland, two miles
civ
MEMOIR
away from South Luffenham Rectory. I make
the following extracts from the little memoir of
his last days that Mr. Pritchard wrote at the
time, and sent to the family at Finedon. Mr.
Pritchard was one of the wisest and kindest of
Digby's friends ; and, as he knew him well, his
evidence is valuable apart from its being the
only picture of Dolben during those last days.
FROM MR. PRITCHARD'S MEMORANDUM.
" Dear Digby Mackworth Dolben came to us on Satur-
day, June 15 1867, it being intended that he should stay
here during the summer and read preparatory to going
to Oxford in October. We both had looked forward
with the greatest pleasure to his return, having become
so much attached to him when he was here two years
ago. Once or twice we had seen him since, but only for
a passing visit. We had sent the carriage to the train
for him earlier in the day, but he had not come, and we
had given up expecting him, when we heard a ring at
10 o'clock at night. He was received very gladly, and
with a good deal of laughing, in which he joined, as we
were accustomed to say that he generally missed his
train, and came at unexpected hours. He had grown
a good deal since he was here : he was very pale, and to
a stranger might have looked in ill health, but I do not
think his appearance expressed this.
* * *
On Monday we talked over his reading. He told me
what he had been doing lately. His box of books was
brought up and unpacked, and we found room in the
MEMOIR
cv
drawingroom shelves for his books of poetry etc. We
dined at half-past one or two. he generally read on
until nearly that time, sitting in the same room with me,
as his own room was not ready, * * * If he had read
enough he used to construe before dinner : if not, in the
afternoon. He seemed to wish to lose no time, and to
do thoroughly what he had to do * * * Before dinner
I used sometimes to ask him to go into the garden for
air and exercise. . . He would begin a game of croquet,
or walk about and talk to Alice, or to the children.
* ♦ *
The younger children used to come in for a few minutes
each to say their Latin to me. I asked him if it disturbed
him, and he said Oh ! no. as if he Uked it. And I could
see that he was sometimes much amused by their questions
or remarks. He was always gentle and kind with chil-
dren ; perhaps a little reserved towards them, but his
manner expressed tenderness. While reading, myself,
in the same room I used sometimes to talk to him, as
I could count on his being interested, and on his quick-
ness of apprehension * * *
Our life was very even and uneventful during this
fortnight. He seemed quite happy ; much more so than
when here before, though then he was not unhappy.
But now there was a continual play of mind, as if he was
at peace, and had leisure for such enjoyments as his
studies and books and conversation gave him. He knew
and felt that we all loved him. His playfulness in con-
versation and quiet perception of humour were great* * * *
In the evenings he sometimes played chess, which he
was learning, or read poetry. On Sunday evenings he
read Paschal, and seemed pleased with the extreme
beauty of the language.
♦ * ♦
[When] they had all gone upstairs to bed, Dolben used
cvi
MEMOIR
to sit on a box at the top of the stairs, outside his room,
with quite a levee round him, amusing them, and I some-
times heard their laughter downstairs,
* * *
He did not strike me as looking forward with any
particular interest to his Oxford life. He said that he
thought he should like Ch : Ch : better than Balliol ; but
that he had been much annoyed at not getting into the
latter. He did not tell me — what was the case— that he
had been so ill that he had fainted the same day.
I have never known any one of his age, — perhaps none
at all — whom it was such a pleasure to converse with and
teach. On his own subjects of poetry and knowledge of
art his mind was far in advance of mine * * * But on
general topics, history, philosophy, classics etc, I felt
that he was interested in gaining ideas. His Latin
writing was rather drudgery to him * ♦ he took much
pains with it. * * his appreciation of classical poetry was
very great. Sophocles was not, I think, his favourite
author, but he spoke of the great beauty of the descrip-
tions in the CEdipus Coloneus. The last piece he construed
to me was the speech of Ajax taking leave of the world
before his death. On my asking him whether it was not
beautiful, he said "very beautiful" emphatically. I re-
marked that one could have been content if the play had
ended there. He said ' yes and then added with a
smile * In the Persae, which I read with you when I was
here before, there were some scores of lines at the end,
with little but aiai in them.'
These were the last words I heard him say in a lesson ;
I rather think the last I heard him speak."
This was on Friday, June S8th, and after he
had read the speech of Ajax, he went, late in
MEMOIR
cvii
the afternoon to bathe with Mr. Pritchard's son
Walter. The boy could not swim, but had
learned to float on his back. Digby was a good
swimmer. They had bathed together before,
and there was so little thought of danger that no
apprehension was felt when they did not return.
Mr. Pritchard's memorandum tells the story as
it came to be known to him, with all the terror,
confusion and distress of the moment. What
happened was that when they were bathing Digby
took the boy on his back and swam across the
river with him- Returning in the same fashion
he suddenly sank within a few yards of the bank
to which he was swimming. The boy, who was
the only witness, had the presence of mind to
turn on his back and keep himself afloat, and
shout to some reapers in the riverside meadows.
They did not at once take alarm, but on the
boy's persistently calling they ran to the bank
and got him out with difficulty and delay : the
water was deep, and none of them could venture
in. Digby's body was not found until some hours
after. He was buried under the altar at Finedon
on July 6th.
* * *
It was the year of the French Exhibition, and
I was just starting for Paris, engaged, much
against my natural inclinations, in an eight-oared
cviii
MEMOIR
race on the Seine. The incongruity of these con-
secutive paragraphs is sufficient. I was spared,
it is true, the distress of witnessing the incon-
solable grief of his home, but it was an added
distress not to be able to take one's share in it,
and to be absent from the last scene. I did
not however at the time feel any of the remorse
which, since I came to know the history of his
last months, I have never been able quite to
shake off, the regret, I mean, that I had for eight
months allowed myself almost to lose sight of
him. It seems that he hid from me the growing
motive of his silence : and I cannot now deter-
mine how I interpreted his conduct. He was so
irregular a correspondent that his silence, if he
did not write, would have suggested nothing :
and he had plenty of other friends for whose
sake he might well have been neglecting me.
Again, his coming up to Oxford had been so
constantly imminent, that the expectation of it
made other considerations insignificant. I was
myself, it is true, drifting fast away from our old
religious sympathies in a different direction from
him, but I had not even at the time of his death
made any change that could have affected our
correspondence ; and I should have looked in
him for a similar effect from the same course of
philosophical study.
MEMOIR
cix
The last poems, found in his desk and written
presumably during the last weeks of his life tell
all that is known. For final words I will let
Gerard Hopkins speak. He wrote to me in
August 1867 as follows.
' I heard of Dolben's death the day I returned
' from Paris by a letter from which had been
* a week waiting for me. B * * * has since written
'me a few more particulars. I have kept the
* beginning of a letter to you a long time by me
* but to no purpose so far as being more ready to
' write goes. There is very little I have to say.
'I looked forward to meeting Dolben and his
* being a Catholic more than to anything. At the
' same time from never having met him but once
' I find it difficult to realise his death or feel as
' if it were anything to me. You know there
' can very seldom have happened the loss of so
* much beauty (in body and mind and life) and
* of the promise of still more as there has been
' in his case — seldom, I mean, in the whole world,
' for the conditions not easily come together.
' At the same time he had gone on in a way wh.
' was wholly and unhappily irrational. I want
' to know whether his family think of gathering
' and publishing, or at least printing, his poetry.
' Perhaps you will like to hear what D"^ Newman
' says. " Yes, we heard all about Dolben. The
cx
MEMOIR
' account was very pleasant. He had not given
' up the idea of being a Catholic, but he thought
' he had lived on excitement, and felt he must
' give himself time before he could know whether
' he was in earnest or not. This does not seem
' to me a wrong frame of mind. He was up to
'his death carefiil in his devotional exercises.
*I never saw him." Some day I hope to see
' Finedon and the place where he was drowned
' too. Can you tell me where he was buried ? —
' at Finedon, was it not ? If you have letters from
' him will you let me see them some day ? "*
No one ever wrote words with more critical
deliberation than Gerard Hopkins, and I am
glad to have preserved the letter which he then
wrote, having met Dolben but once, for it must
give some idea of the grief which his more inti-
mate friends suffered at his death ; some measure
too of the shock to their hopes, since it records
the full appreciation which his genius received
from them during his life. This was, no doubt,
chiefly due to the great charm of his personality,
for his character was transparent ; nor did the
strange spontaneous beauty and significance, that
invested the actions of his life, desert him in the
circumstances of his death. It was beautiful
and strange that, after all his unceasing mental
perplexity, he should die unconsciously, — for he
MEMOIR
cxi
must have fainted in the water, — without pain,
in one of his rare moments of healthy bodily
enjoyment : and premature as his end was, and
the stroke of it unlooked for, and apparently
sudden, yet his last poems show him waiting
and expectant, and his last action had all the
dignity and fitness of artistic preparation.
My story of the accidents of his life can give
no picture of his charm ; his perpetual humour
and light merriment are what will least appear :
though I may hope that the truthfulness of the
story reveals more than I can myself perceive.
As he went his way enthusiastically pursuing
his imaginations, all intercourse with him was
delightful, and all my remembrance of him is
happy.
R. B.
Chilswell, Jan. 1911.
POEMS
I
HOMO PECTUS EST
COME to me, Beloved,
Babe of Bethlehem ;
Lay aside Thy Sceptre
And Thy Diadem.
Come to me. Beloved ;
Light and healing bring ;
Hide my sin and sorrow
Underneath Thy wing.
Bid all fear and doubting
From my soul depart,
As I feel the beating
Of Thy Human Heart.
Look upon me sweetly
With Thy Human Eyes ;
With Thy Human Finger
Point me to the skies.
B
2
POEMS
Safe from earthly scandal
My poor spirit hide
In the utter stillness
Of Thy wounded Side.
Guide me, ever guide me,
With Thy pierced Hand,
Till I reach the borders
Of the pleasant land.
Then, my own Beloved,
Take me home to rest ;
Whisper words of comfort ;
Lay me on Thy Breast.
Show me not the Glory
Round about Thy Throne ;
Show me not the flashes
Of Thy jewelled Crown.
Hide me from the pity
Of the Angels' Band,
Who ever sing Thy praises.
And before Thee stand.
Hide me from the glances
Of the Seraphin, —
They, so pure and spotless,
I, so stained with sin.
POEMS
Hide me from S. Michael
With his flaming sword : —
Thou can'st understand me,
O my Human Lord !
Jesu, my Beloved,
Come to me alone ;
In Thy sweet embraces
Make me all Thine own.
By the quiet waters.
Sweetest Jesu, lead ;
'Mid the virgin lilies,
Purest Jesu, feed.
Only Thee, Beloved,
Only Thee, I seek.
Thou, the Man Christ Jesus,
Strength in flesh made weak.
B 2
POEMS
X
FROM THE CLOISTER
Brother ferome seated in the clolHer
OTO have wandered in the days that were,
Through the sweet groves of green Aca-
deme —
Or, shrouded in a night of olive boughs.
Have watched their starry clusters overhead
Twinkle and quiver in the perfumed breeze —
That breeze which softly wafted from afar,
Mingled with rustling leaves andfountain's splash,
The boyish laughter and the paean songs ;
Or, couched among the beds of pale-pink thyme
That fringe Cephissus with his purple pools,
Have idly listened while low voices sang
Of all those ancient victories of love.
That never weary and that never die, —
POEMS
B
Of Sappho's leap, Leander's nightly swim,
Of wandering Echo, and the Trojan maid
For whom all ages shed their pit3ring tears ; —
Or that fair legend, dearest of them all.
That tells us how the hyacinth was born ;
Or to have mingled in the eager crowd
That questioning circled some philosopher,
Young eyes that glistened and young cheeks
that glowed
For love of Truth, the great, Indefinite —
Truth beautiful as are the distant hills
Veiled in soft purple, crags whereon is found
No tender plant in the uncreviced rock.
But clinging lichen, and black shrivelled moss; —
So should day pass, till, from the western skies,
Behind the marble shrines and palaces,
The big sun sunk, reddening the Aegean Sea.
So should life pass, as flows the clear-brown
stream
And scarcely moves the water-lily's leaves.
This sluggish life is like some dead caneil,
Dull, measured, muddy, washing flowerless banks.
O sunny Athens, home of life and love,
Free joyous life that I may never live,
Warm glowing love that I may never know, —
Home of Apollo, god of poetry.
Dear bright-haired god, in whom I half believe,
6
POEMS
Come to me as thou cam'st to Semele,
Trailing across the hills thy saffron robe,
And catch me heavenward, wrapt in golden
mists.
I weary of this squalid holiness,
I weary of these hot black draperies,
I weary of the incense-thickened air,
The chiming of the inevitable bells.
My boyhood — hurried over, but once gone
For ever mourned, — return for one short hour ;
Friends of past days, light up these cloister
walls
With your bright presences and starry eyes.
And make the cold grey vaulting ring again
With tinkling laughter. — Ah ! they come, they
come:
I shut my eyes and fancy that I hear
The sun-lit ripples kiss the willow-boughs. . . .
So soon forgotten that all lovely things
Which this vile earth affords — trees, mountains,
streams,
The regal faces, and the godlike eyes
We see, — the tender voices that we hear.
Are but mere shadows ? — the reality
A cloud- veiled Face, a voice that 's lost in air,
Or drowned in music more intelligible ?
From every carven niche the stony Saints
POEMS
Stretch out their wasted hands in mute reproach,
And from the Crucifix the great wan Christ
Shows me His thorny Crown and gaping
Wounds.
Then hark ! I hear from many a lonely grave,
From blood-stained sands of amphitheatres,
From loathsome dungeon, and from blackened
stake
They cry, the Martyrs cry, ' Behold the M an ! '
Is there ho place in all the universe
To hide me in ? no little island girt
With waves, to drown the echo of that cry :
* Behold the Man, the Man of Calvary ! '
Brother "Francis^ crossing the cloiHer^ sings
As pants the hart for forest-streams
When wandering wearily
Across the burning desert sand,
So pant I, Lord, for Thee !
Sweetest Jesu ! Thou art He
To whom my soul aspires ;
Sweetest Jesu, Thou art He,
Whom my whole heart desires.
8
POEMS
To love Thee, Oh the ecstasy,
The rapture, and the joy !
All earthly loves shall pass away,
All earthly pleasures cloy ;
But whoso loves the Son of God
Of Love shall never tire ;
But through and through shall burn and glow
With Love's undying Fire.
He enters the chapel.
POEMS
9
3
AMOREM SENSUS
Translation
AUTHOR of pardon, Jesu Christ,
xXExtend Thy love to us, and deign
To show Thy mercy upon us,
And cleanse our hearts from every stain.
Most tender and most gracious Lord,
Thou knowest whereof man is made ;
Thou knowest whereunto he falls.
If thou withdraw thy saving aid.
My every thought to Thee is clear.
My inmost soul unveiled to Thee ; —
Disperse and drive away the dreams
Of worldliness and vanity.
We wander exiled here below,
Through this sad vale of sin and strife ;
O lead us to the Holy Mount,
The home of everlasting Life.
10
POEMS
Thou Who for us becamest poor,
Thou Who for us wast crucified,
Wash out the past in that dear Stream
That floweth from Thy pierced Side.
Thrice blessed Love that satisfies
Its thirst in Thee, 0 Fount of Grace :
Thrice blessed eyes that through all time
Shall see Thy Glory face to face.
Thy Glory, Lord, surpasses thought,
And yet Thy Love is infinite ; —
That Love to taste, that Glory see,
My heart to Thee has winged her flight.
POEMS
U
Sis licet felix ubicunque mavis
Et memor noilri . . . vivM
ON river banks my love was born,
And cradled 'neath a budding thorn,
Whose flowers never more shall kiss
Lips half so sweet and red as his.
Beneath him lily-islands spread
With broad cool leaves a floating bed :
Around, to meet his opening eyes,
The ripples danced in glad surprise.
I found him there when spring was new,
When winds were soft and skies were blue ;
I marvelled not, although he drew
My whole soul to him, for I knew
That he was born to be my king,
And I was only born to sing
With faded lips and feeble lays
His love and beauty all my days.
Therefore I pushed the flowers aside
And humbly knelt me by his side.
And then I stooped, and whispered—* Come,
* O Long-desired, to your Home ;
* How much desired none can know,
12
POEMS
* But those who wander to and fro
* Through unknown groups and careless faces^
' And seek in vain for friendship's graces,
' Until the earth's rich beauties seem
' The bitter mockery of a dream :
' Nor shall they wake, nor shall they see
' This life's most sweet reality,
' Until before them there arise
' A loving, answering pair of eyes. —
' So had I wandered, till you came ;
' Spring, summer, autumn were the same ;
' For winter ever held the skies
* Clouded with earth's sad mysteries ;
' And on my heart the chilly hand
* Of grief I could not understand.
' Those looks, those words of scorn I felt, —
' Never was frost so hard to melt : —
* Yet, as from gardens far below,
* Sweet breezes through a sick room blow,
' So from the Future that should be,
' Faint hopes were always wafted me ;
* Till all my heart and soul were full
' Of longing undefinable.
* You came — you came.
' No lilies can I offer you,
' Nor gentian, nor violets blue :
' The only flower that I own
' Is, was and shall be, yours alone, —
POEMS
* A flower of such a glowing red
* It seems as if each leaf had bled.'
He took my flower ; I saw it pressed
With loving care against his breast.
But on that robe it left a stain,
Which never shall come out again.
He heeded not, but clasped my hand
And led me through enchanted land.
On we went — the flowers springing.
Turtle- voices ever singing ;
On we went — I understood
Lake and mountain, rock and wood,
Hidden meanings, hidden duties.
Hidden loves, and hidden beauties ;
On we went — the ceaseless chorus
Of all nature chanted o'er us ;
On we went — the scented breeze
From the bright Hesperian seas
Striking ever on our faces,
Bringing from those blessed places
A foretaste of the spirit's rest
Among the Islands of the blest ;
Till the griefs of life's old story
Faded in a mist of glory.
Came there with that glorious vision
Throbbing notes of songs Elysian,
Echoing now as deep and loud
As the thunder in the cloud ;
14
POEMS
Then again the music sank
Soft as ripples on the bank ;
And the angels, as they passed,
Whispered to me * Loved at last.'
Gone — gone — O never nevermore.
Standing upon the willowy shore,
Shall it be mine to watch his face
Uplifted westward, all ablaze
With sunset glory, and his eyes
Catching the splendour of the skies,
Then softly downward turned on mine.
As stars in turbid waters shine.
I cannot think, I cannot weep, —
But as one walking in his sleep,
I wander back through well-known ways,
As once with him through summer days.
Again I see the rushes shiver,
And lines on dying sunlight quiver
Across the waters cold and brown,
O'er which our boat glides slowly down.
Again, again I see him stand
With red June roses in his hand ;
Again, again within those walls
We loved so well, the sunlight falls
From blazoned windows on his head.
In streams of purple and of red.
Gone — gone. —
POEMS
15
So take my flowers, dear river Thames,
And snap, oh snap the lily stems.
I throw my heart among those flowers
You gave to me in boyish hours :
Spare it and them nor storm nor mire ;
But sink them lower, toss them higher,
I care not, — for I know that pain
Alone can purify their stain.
So only, only may I win
Some pardon for my youthful sin, —
Vain hopes, false peace, untrustful fears,
Three wasted, dreamy, happy years ; —
So only may I stand with him.
When suns have sunk and moons grown dim,
And see him shining in the light
Of the new Heaven's sunless white.
Beloved, take my little song :
The river, as he rolls along.
Will sing it clearer far than I ;
And possibly your memory,
When looking back on what has been,
Will tell you what these verses mean.
POEMS
s
A SEA SONG
IN the days before the high tide
Swept away the towers of sand
Built with so much care and labour
By the children of the land,
Pale, upon the pallid beaches.
Thirsting, on the thirsty sands,
Ever cried I to the Distance,
Ever seaward spread my hands.
See, they come, they come, the ripples.
Singing, singing fast and low,
Meet the longing of the sea-shores.
Clasp them, kiss them once, and go,
^ Stay, sweet Ocean, satisfying
All desires into rest — '
Not a word the Ocean answered.
Rolling sunward down the west.
Then I wept : ' Oh, who will give me
To behold the stable sea.
On whose tideless shores for ever
Sounds of many waters be ? '
POEMS
17
6
GOOD NIGHT
THE sun has set.
The western light
And after that
The starlit night
Still tell of Him,
Who, far away,
Is Lord of night
As well as day.
Now do you wonder.
Dear, that I
Wished you ' Good night ^
And not * Good-bye ?
c
18
POEMS
7
A POEM WITHOUT A NAME
I
SURELY before the time my Sun has set :
The evening had not come, it was but noon,
The gladness passed from all my Pleasant Land ;
And, through the night that knows nor star nor
moon,
Among clean souls who all but Heaven forget,
Alone remembering I wander on.
They sing of triumph, and a Mighty Hand
Locked fast in theirs through sorrow's Mystery ;
They sing of glimpses of another Land,
Whose purples gleam through all their agony.
But I — I did not choose like them, I chose
The summer roses, and the red, red wine,
The juice of earth's wild grapes, to drink with
those
Whose glories yet thro' saddest memories shine.
I will not tell of them, of him who came ;
I will not tell you what men call my land.
They speak half-choked in fogs of scorn and sin.
POEMS
19
I turn from all their pitiless human din
To voices that can feel and understand.
O ever-laughing rivers, sing his name
To all your lilies ; — tell it out, O chime,
In hourly four-fold voices ; — western breeze
Among the avenues of scented lime
Murmur it softly to the summer night ; —
O sunlight, water, music, flowers and trees.
Heart-beats of nature's infinite delight,
Love him for ever, all things beautiful !
A little while it was he stayed with me.
And taught me knowledge sweet and wonderful.
And satisfied my soul with poetry :
But soon, too soon, there sounded from above
Innumerable clapping of white hands.
And countless laughing voices sang of love,
And called my friend away to other lands.
Well — I am very glad they were so fair,
For whom the lightening east and morning skies ;
For me the sunset of his golden hair.
Fading among the hills of Paradise.
Weed-grown is all my garden of delight ; —
Most tired, most cold without the Eden-gate,
With eyes still good for ache, tho' not for sight.
Among the briers and thorns I weep and wait.
Now first I catch the meaning of a strife,
A great soul-battle fought for death or life.
Nearing me come the rumours of a war,
c 2
20
POEMS
And blood and dust sweep cloudy from afar,
And, surging round, the sobbing of the sea
Choked with the weepings of humanity.
Alas ! no armour have I fashioned me,
And, having lived on honey in the past,
Have gained no strength. From the un fathomed
sea
I draw no food, for all the nets I cast.
I am not strong enough to fight beneath,
I am not clean enough to mount above ;
Oh let me dream, although to dream is death,
Beside the hills where last I saw my Love.
POEMS
21
8
IN THE GARDEN
THERE is a garden, which I think He loves
Who loveth all things fair ;
And once the Master of the flowers came
To teach love-lessons there.
He touched my eyes, and in the open sun
They walked, the Holy Dead,
Trailing their washen robes across the turf.
An aureole round each head.
One said, with wisdom in his infant eyes, —
' The world I never knew ;
* But, love the Holy Child of Bethlehem,
' And He will love you too.'
One said — ' The victory is hard to win,
' But love shall conquer death.
' The world is sweet, but He is sweeter far,
'The Boy of Nazareth.'
n
POEMS
One said — ' My life was twilight from the first ;
' But on my Calvary,
' Beside my cross, another Cross was raised
' In utter love for me.'
One said — 'The wine-vat it was hard to tread,
' It stained my weary feet ;
' But One from Bozra trod with me in love,
' And made my vintage sweet.'
One said — ' My human loves were pure and fair,
' He would not have them cease ;
' But, knit to His, I bore them in my heart
' Into the land of peace.'
One came, who in the groves of Paradise
Had latest cut his palm ;
He only said — ' The floods lift up their voice,
' But love can make them calm.'
I heard a step — I had been long alone,
I thought they might have missed me —
It was my mother coming o'er the grass ;
I turned — and so she kissed me.
POEMS
9
AFTER READING AESCHTLVS
1WILL not sing my little puny songs.
It is more blessed for the rippling pool '
To be absorbed in the great ocean-wave
Than even to kiss the sea-weeds on its breast.
Therefore in passiveness I will lie still,
And let the multitudinous music of the Greek
Pass into me, till I am musical.
POEMS
lO
AFTEJ( READING HOMER
HAPPY the man, who on the mountain-side
Bending o'er fern and flowers his basket
mis:
Yet he will never know the outline-power,
The awful Whole of the Eternal Hills.
So some there are, who never feel the strength
In thy blind eyes, majestic and complete,
Which conquers those, who motionlessly sit,
O dear divine old Giant, at thy feet.
POEMS
25
II
THERE was one who walked in shadow,
There was one who walked in light :
But once their way together lay,
Where sun and shade unite,
In the meadow of the lotus,
In the meadow of the rose.
Where fair with youth and clear with truth
The Living River flows.
Scarcely summer stillness breaking,
Questions, answers, soft and low —
The words they said, the vows they made.
None but the willows know.
Both have passed away for ever
From the meadow and the stream ;
Past their waking, past their breaking
The sweetness of that dream.
POEMS
One along the dusty highway
Toiling counts the weary hours.
And one among its shining throng
The world has crowned with flowers.
Sometimes perhaps amid the gardens.
Where the noble have their part,
Though noon 's overhead, a dew-drop 's shed
Into a lily's heart.
Tliis I know, till one heart reaches
Labour's sum, the restful grave,
Will still be seen the willow-green,
And heard the rippling M^ave.
POEMS
IX
What is good for a bootless bene ?
The Falconer to the lady said.
FROM the great Poet's lips I thought to take
Some drops of honey for my parched mouth,
And draw from out his depths of purple lake
Some rill to murmur Peace thro' summer
drouth.
Hail, sweet sad story ! Noble lady, hail ! —
Who, sorrowing wisely, sorrowed not in vain,,
When Love and Death did strive, but Love
prevail
To turn thy loss to Everlasting gain.
But what of Love, whose crown is not of bay,
Whose yellow locks with asphodel are twined ?
And what of him, who in the battle-day
Dare not look forward, for the foes behind ?
POEMS
13
GOOD FRIDAY
WAS it a dream — the outline of that Face,
Which seemed to lighten from the Holy
Place,
Meeting all want, fulfilling all desire ?
A dream — the music of that Voice most sweet,
Which seemed to rise above the chanting choir ?
A dream — the treadings of those wounded Feet,
Pacing about the Altar still and slow ?
Illusion — all I thought to love and know ?
Strong SoiTow- wrestler of Mount Calvary,
Speak through the blackness of Thine Agony,
Say, have I ever known Thee ? answer me !
Speak, Merciful and Mighty, lifted up
To draw those to Thee who have power to will
The roseate Baptism, and the bitter Cup,
The Royal Graces of the Cross-crowned Hill.
Terrible Golgotha — among the bones
Which whiten thee, as thick as splintered stones
Where headlong rocks have crushed themselves
away,
I stumble on — Is it too dark to pray ?
POEMS
ANACREONTIC
ON the tender myrtle-branches,
In the meadow lotus -grassed,
While the wearied sunlight softly
To the Happy Islands passed, —
Reddest lips the reddest vintage
Of the bright Aegean quaffing.
There I saw them lie, the evening
Hazes rippled with their laughing.
Round them boys, with hair as golden
As Queen Cytherea's own is.
Sang to lyres wreathed with ivy
Of the beautiful Adonis —
(Of Adonis the Desired,
He has perished on the mountain,)
While their voices, rising, falling.
As the murmur of a fountain.
Glittered upwards at the mention
Of his beauty unavailing ;
Scattered into rainbowed teardrops
To the at 6.L of the wailing.
POEMS
IS
1SAID to my heart, — ' I am tired,
Am tired of loving in vain ;
Since the beauty of the Desired
Shall not be unveiled again/
So we laid our Longing to rest,
To sleep through the endless hours.
And called to a breeze of the west
To kiss the acacia flowers ;
To kiss them until they break
And hide him beneath their bloom,
That our Longing for Love's sweet sake
Be shrouded fair in the tomb.
But the Memories arose in light.
From meadow and wharf and wave,
And sang through the gathering night.
As we turned to leave the grave.
POEMS
Of Longing they sang, son of Love,
Love patient as earth beneath.
As the heavens immortal above,
And mightier than time or death.
They sang till they woke him at morn
Arisen he stood by my bed,
In his face the glory of dawn.
The gold and purple and red.
He is mine thro' the depth of pain,
Is mine through the length of ways
But a death awaits him again.
In the Triumph of Patient Days.
32
POEMS
16
STRANGE, all-absorbing Love, who gatherest
Unto Thy glowing all my pleasant dew,
Then delicately my garden waterest.
Drawing the old, to pour it back anew :
In the dim glitter of the dawning hours
' Not so,' I said, ' but still these drops of light,
' Heart-shrined among the petals of my flowers,
' Shall hold the memory of the starry night
' So fresh, no need of showers shall there be.' —
Ah, senseless gardener ! must it come to pass
That neath the glaring noon thou shouldest see
Thine earth become as iron, His heavens as brass ?
Nay rather, O my Sun, I will be wise.
Believe in Love which may not yet be seen.
Yield Thee my earth-drops, call Thee from the
skies.
In soft return, to keep my bedding green.
So when the bells at Vesper-tide shall sound,
And the dead ocean o'er my garden flows,
Upon the Golden Altar may be found
Some scarlet berries and a Christmas rose.
POEMS
17
FROM SAPPHO
THOU liest dead,— lie on : of thee
No sweet remembrances shall be,
Who never plucked Pierian rose.
Who never chanced on Anteros.
Unknown, unnoticed, there below
Through Aides' houses shalt thou go
Alone, — for never a flitting ghost
Shall find in thee a lover lost.
POEMS
i8
Osculo oris sui osculetur me,
CHRIST, for whose only Love I keep me clean
Among the palaces of Babylon,
I would not Thou should'st reckon me with them
Who miserly would count each golden stone
That flags the street of Thy Jerusalem —
Who, having touched and tasted, heard and
seen,
Half-drunken yet from earthly revelries.
Would wipe with flower- wreathed hair Thy
bleeding Feet,
Jostling about Thee but to stay the heat
Of pale parched lips in Thy cool chalices.
' Our cups are emptiness — how long ? how long
' Before that Thou wilt pour us of Thy wine,
'Thy sweet new wine, that we may thirst no
more ?
* Our lamps are darkness, — open day of Thine,
* Surely is light to spare behind that door.
Where God is Sun, and Saints a starry throng.'
POEMS
35
But I, how little profit were to me
Tho' mine the twelve foundations of the skies,
With this green world of love an age below : —
The soft remembrance of those human eyes
Would pale the everlasting jewel-glow ;
And o'er the perfect passionless minstrelsy
A voice would sound the decachords above,
Deadening the music of the Living Land —
Thou madest, Thou knowest, Thou wilt under-
stand.
And stay me with the Apples of Thy love.
My Christ, remember that betrothal day ;
Blessed he He that cometh was the song :
Glad as the Hebrew boys who cried Hosanna,
O'er hearts thick- strewn as palms they passed
along.
To reap in might the fields of heavenly manna —
These were the bridesmen in their white array.
Soon hearts and eyes were lifted up to Thee :
Deep in dim glories of the Sanctuary,
Between the thunderous Alleluia-praise,
Through incense-hazes that encompassed Thee,
I saw the priestly hands Thyself upraise —
Heaven sank to earth — earth leapt to heaven
for me.
D 2
36
POEMS
Rise, Peter, rise ; He standeth on the shore,
The thrice-denied of Pilate's Judgement Hall :
His hand is o'er the shingle lest thou fall ;
He wipes thy bitter tears for evermore.
' Lovest thou ? ' My beloved, answer me,
Of Thine all-knowledge show me only this —
Tarrieth the answer ? Lo, the House of Bread ;
Lo, God and man made one in Mary's kiss
Bending in rapture o'er the manger bed.
I with the holy kings will go and see.
POEMS
37
19
ON THE PICTURE OF AN ANGEL BT
ERA ANGELICO
PRESS each on each, sweet wings, and roof
me in
Some closed cell to hold my weariness,
Desired — as from unshadowed plains to win
The palmy gloaming of the oases :
Glad wings, that floated ere the suns arose
Down pillared lines of ever-fruited trees.
Where thro^ the many-gladed leafage flows
The uncreated noon of Paradise :
Soft wings, in contemplation oftentime
Stretched on the ocean-depths that drown
desire,
Where lightening tides in never-falling chime
Ring round the angel isles in glass and fire :
S8
POEMS
From meadow-lands that sleep beyond the stars,
From lilied woods and waves the blessed see,
Pass, bird of God, ah pass the golden bars.
And in thy fair compassion pity me.
O for the garden city of the Flower,
Of jewelled Italy the chosen gem,
Where angels and Giotto dreamed a tower
In beauty as of New Jerusalem :
For there, when roseate as a winged cloud
Upon the saiFron of the paling east —
A glowing pillar in the House of God —
That tower was born, the Very Loveliest,
Then shaking wings, and voices then that sang.
Passed up and down the chased jasper wall.
And through the crystal traceries outrang.
As when from deep to deep the seraphs call.
O for the valley slopes which Arno cleaves
With arrowy heads of gold unceasingly.
Parting the twilight of the grey-green leaves
As shafted sungleam on a rain-cloud sky :
For there, more white than mists of bloom above
When sunset kindles Luni's vineyard height,
Strange Presences have paced the olive grove,
And dazed the cypress cloister into light.
POEMS
39
But not for me the angel-haunted South :
I spread my hands across the unlovely plain,
I faint for beauty in the daily drouth
Of beauty, as the fields for August rain.
Yet hope is mine against some Eastern dawn,
Not in a vision but reality.
To see thy wings, and in thine arms upborne,
To rest me in a fairer Italy.
POEMS
RE^^ESTS
1 ASKED for Peace—
My sins arose,
And bound me close,
I could not find release.
I asked for Truth —
My doubts came in,
And with their din
They wearied all my youth.
I asked for Love —
My lovers failed,
And griefs assailed
Around, beneath, above.
I asked for Thee —
And Thou didst come
To take me home
Within Thy Heart to be.
POEMS
41
XI
BEAUTIFUL, oh beautiful—
In all the mountain passes
The plenteous dowers of April showers,
Which every spring amasses,
To bring about thro"* summer drought
The blossoming of the grasses.
Beautiful, oh beautiful —
The April of the ages.
Which sweetly brought its showers of thought
To poets and to sages.
Now stored away our thirst to stay
In ever-dewy pages.
POEMS
THE ETERNAL CALVARY
The clouded hill attend thou Slill^
And htm that went within.
A. Clough.
NOT so indeed shall be our creed,—
The Man whom we rely on
Has brought us thro' from old to new,
From Sinai to Zion.
For us He scaled the hill of myrrh.
The summits of His Passion,
And is set down upon the throne
Of infinite Compassion.
He passed within the cloud that veiled
The Mount of our Salvation,
In utter darkness swallowed up
Until the Consummation.
The clouds are burst, the shades dispersed ;
Descending from above
With wounded hands our Prophet stands,
And bears the Law of Love.
POEMS
Receive it then, believe it then,
As childlike spirits can ;
Receive, believe, and thou shalt live,
And thou shalt Love, O man !
Not so indeed shall be our creed, —
To wait a new commission.
As if again revealed to men
Could be the heavenly Vision ;
The priceless thing He died to bring
From out the veil, to miss.
While Host and Cup are lifted up
On countless Calvarys.
' Among the dead,' an angel said,
' Seek not the living Christ.'
The type is done, the real begun.
Behold the Eucharist !
The curse is spent, the veil is rent,
And face to face we meet Him,
With chanting choirs and incense fires
On every altar greet Him.
Receive it then, believe it then,
As childlike spirits can ;
Receive, believe, and thou shalt live,
And thou shalt Love, O man !
POEMS
X5
WE hurry on, nor passing note
The rounded hedges white with May ;
For golden clouds before us float
To lead our dazzled sight astray.
We say, ' they shall indeed be sweet
' The summer days that are to be ' —
The ages murmur at our feet
The everlasting mystery.
We seek for Love to make our own.
But clasp him not for all our care
Of outspread arms ; we gain alone
The flicker of his yellow hair
Caught now and then through glancing vine,
How rare, how fair, we dare not tell ;
We know those sunny locks entwine
With ruddy-fruited asphodel.
A little life, a little love,
Young men rejoicing in their youth,
A doubtful twilight from above,
A glimpse of Beauty and of Truth, —
And then, no doubt, spring-loveliness
Expressed in hawthorns white and red.
The sprouting of the meadow grass.
But churchyard weeds about our head.
POEMS
45
24
THE PILGRIM AND THE KNIGHT
HERE in the flats that encompass the hills
called Beautiful, lying,
O Beloved, behold a Pilgrim who fain would be
sleeping.
Did not at times the snows that diadem summits
above him
Break on his dreams, and scatter the slumberous
mists from his eyelids.
Flashing the consciousness back, by weariness
half overpowered.
Of journeying unfulfilled and feet that have
toiled but attained not.
Then, in a sudden trance, (as the man whose
eyes were opened
But for a little while, then closed to night
everlasting,)
High on the slopes of the terraced hills a goodly
procession :
White are the horses and white are the plumes
and white are the vestures.
White is the heaven above with pearls that the
dawning is scattering.
46
POEMS
White beneath the flowerless fields that are
hedged with the snowdrift.
These are the Knights of the Lord, who fight
with the Beast and the Prophet.
Ho for the Knight that rides in the splendour
of opening manhood,
Calm as Michael, when, out from the Beatifical
Vision,
Bearing the might of the Lord, he passed to
conquer the Dragon.
Yet, in those passionless eyes, if hitherward
turned for a moment.
Might not some memory waken of him whom
he loved in the Distance,
Ere from Holy Land the voice of the trumpet
had sounded —
'O Beloved' — Enough; the words unechoed, un-
answered.
Fade with the vision away on the slopes of the
Beautiful Mountains.
Yet — remember me. Thou Captain of Israel's
Knighthood,
Thou to John made known in the Revelation of
Patmos.
POEMS
47
BREFI TEMPORE MAGNUM PERFECIT
OPUS
WAS not in shady cloister that God set
X His chosen one,
But in the van of battle and the streets of
Babylon :
There he in patience served the days of his
captivity,
Until the King made known to him the City of
the Free.
There One who watched in Salem once beside
the Treasury,
And reckoned up the riches of the widow's
penury,
Received the offering of him who counted not
the cost,
But burnt his soul and body in a living holocaust.
1
48
POEMS
His life was in the Sanctuary and like a fountain
sealed ;
He to the Master's eyes alone its height and
depth revealed ;
Of that which every motion spoke he seldom
told in word,
But on his face was written up the secret of the
Lord.
Through many fiery places in innocence he
trod;
We almost saw beside him one like the Son
of God :
Where'er he went a perfume about his presence
hung.
As tho' within that shrine of flesh a mystic
censer swung.
We never heard him laugh aloud, we know
he often wept :
We think the Bridegroom sometimes stood be-
side him as he slept,
And set upon those virgin lips the signet of
His love.
That any other touch but His they never should
approve.
POEMS 49
He grew in grace and stature, he felt and under-
stood
The stirring of the passions and the movement of
the blood,
And clung with deepening tenderness about the
wounded Feet,
And nestled in the Master's Breast with rapture
new and sweet.
He stayed till seventeen Aprils here had budded
into May,
Along the pleasant hedgerows that he knew not
far away :
But scarcely seventeen summers yet the lily-beds
had blown,
Before the angels carried him to gardens of their
own.
II
They set the window open as the sun was going
down :
Beneath went on the hurry and roar of London
town.
But in the narrow room above the rush of life
was done,
In silence, once for ever, the victory was won.
£
50
POEMS
He came, the Strong, the Terrible, whose face
the strongest fear,
(O world, behold thy Spoiler spoiled, the
Stronger Man is here)
He came, the Loved, the Loveliest, whose Face
the Saints desire.
To be his Fellow-pilgrim thro' the water and the
fire.
Henceforth no more beneath the veils. Viaticum
no more.
But Rest and Consummation upon the other
Shore.
The bell was ringing Complin, the night began
to fall ;
They laid him in the ashes and waited for the
call.
'Come up, come up from Lebanon,"* he heard
the Bridegroom say,
• Come up, my Love, my sister, for the shadows
flee away.'
And as upon his face they caught the breaking
of that morn
They spread his arms to fashion the Cross that
he had borne.
POEMS m
A smile, a whispered * Jesus then the fulness
of the day :
Made perfect in a little while his spirit passed
away ;
And leaning on the Bridegroom's arm he scaled
the golden stair
Through all the baffled legions of the powers of
the air.
Beneath the secret Altar now he tarrieth the End.
From earth he hears the pleadings of holy Mass
ascend,
From heaven the voice of Jesus, Who bids the
angels haste
To gather in the chosen to the Marriage and the
Feast.
£ 2
POEMS
x6
A PRAYER
FROM falsehood and error,
From darkness and terror,
From all that is evil,
From the power of the devil,
From the fire and the doom.
From the judgement to come —
Sweet Jesu, deliver
Thy servants for ever.
POEMS
5d
X7
THE LILT
ONCE, on the river banks we knew,
A child, who laughing ran to choose
A lily there, essayed to tread
The lawn of leaves that outward spread
To where the very fairest blew.
And slipped from love and life and light,
Into the shiny depth beneath ;
While through the tangle and the ooze
Up bubbled all his little breath.
Above, the lilies calmly white
Were floating still at eventide,
When, as it chanced, a boat went down
Returning to the royal town,
Wherein a noble lady lay
Among the cushions dreamily,
Who leant above the gilded side
And plucked the flower carelessly.
And wore it at the ball that night.
54
POEMS
X8
A LETTER
MY Love, and once again my Love,
And then no more until the end,
Until the waters cease to move.
Until we rest within the Ark,
And all is light which now is dark,
And loves can never more descend.
And yet — and yet be just to me
At least for manhood ; for the whole
Love-current of a human soul.
Though bent and rolled through fruitless ways,
Tho' marred with slime and choked with weed,
(Long lost the silver ripple-song.
Long past the sprouting water-mead,)
Is something awful, broad and strong.
Remember that this utterly,
With all its waves of passion, set
To you y that all the water store,
No second April shall restore.
POEMS
55
Was so to broken cisterns poured,
And lost, or else long since had met
The ocean-love of Christ the Lord.
My Brother, hear me ; for the Name
Which is as fire in my bones
Has burned away the former shame ;
Held I my peace, the very stones
Would cry against me ; hear me then.
Who will not bid you hear again.
Hear what I saw, and why I fled,
And how I lost and how I won,
I, who between the quick and dead,
Once chose corruption for my own.
I saw, where heaven's arches meet,
One stand in awfulness alone,
With folded robe and gleaming feet
And eyes that looked not up nor down.
It was the archangel, drawing breath
To blow for life, to blow for death.
The glow and soft reality
Of love and life grew cold and grey.
And died before the Eternity
That compasseth the Judgement day.
I said, * My sin is full and ended ' ;
While down the garden that we tended.
As in a heavy dream, I turned
Thro' lilied glades that once were sweet.
Trampling the buds that kissed my feet,
56
POEMS
Until the sword above me burned.
My hair was shrivelled to my head,
My heart as ashes scorched, and dead
As his who ere its beating died.
The life imprisoned in my brain
Burst to my eyes in throbs of pain.
And all their tender springs were dried.
For miles and miles the wilds I trod.
Drunk with the angry wine of God ;
Until the nets of anguish broke.
Until the prisoner found release.
I mused awhile in quietness
Upon that strangest liberty :
Then other fires intolerably
Were kindled in me — and I spoke ;
And so attained the hidden Peace,
The land of Wells beyond the fire.
The Face of loveliness unmarred.
The Consummation of desire.
O vesper-light ! O night thick-starred !
O five-fold springs, that upward burst
And radiate from Calvary
To stay the weary nations'* thirst.
And hide a world's impurity ! —
How one drew near with soiled feet.
Through all the Marah overflow.
And how the waters were made sweet
That night Thou knowest, — only Thou.
P O EMS
57
Repent with me, for judgement waits.
Repent with me, for Jesus hung
Three hours upon the nails for you.
Rise, bid the angels sing anew
At every one of Sion's gates
The song which then for me they sung.
POEMS
X9
THE ANNUNCIATION
ON the silent ages breaking
Comes the sweet Annunciation :
The eternal Ave waking,
Changes Eva''s condemnation.
How at Nazareth the Archangel
Hailed the dear predestined maiden
Read from out the Great Evangel
We, the sin and sorrow-laden.
For to-day the Church rejoices
In the angelic salutation.
And to-day ten thousand voices
Hail the Mother of salvation.
Hail, amid the shades descending
Round our humble oratory !
Hail, amid the light unending
Of the beatific Glory !
POEMS
59
Hail, in city Galilean
To the maid of lowly station !
Hail, in city empyrean
To the Queen of all creation !
Hail, O Mother of compassion !
Hail, O Mother of fair love !
Hail, our Lady of the Passion !
Hail beneath and hail above !
Where she stands, our mother Mary,
In her human majesty,
Nearest to the sanctuary
Of the awful Trinity.
May she prove once more a Mother,
Plead that He, her dearest Son,
Who through her became our Brother,
Would His sinful brethren own.
With the Father and the Spirit,
Son of Mary, Thee we praise ;
By Thine Incarnation's merit
Turn on us a Brother's face !
Amen.
60
POEMS
30
SISTER DEATH
MY sister Death ! I pray thee come to me
Of thy sweet charity,
And be my nurse but for a little while ;
I will indeed lie still,
And not detain thee long, when once is spread.
Beneath the yew, my bed :
I will not ask for lilies or for roses ;
But when the evening closes,
Just take from any brook a single knot
Of pale Forget-me-not,
And lay them in my hand, until I wake.
For his dear sake ;
(For should he ever pass and by me stand.
He yet might understand — )
Then heal the passion and the fever
With one cool kiss, for ever.
POEMS 61
31
CAVE OF SOMNUS
Translation
"EAR the Cimmerian land, deep-caverned,
lies
A hollow mount, the home of sluggish Sleep ;
Where never ray from morn or evening skies
Can enter, but where blackening vapours creep,
And doubtful gloom unbroken sway doth keep.
There never crested bird evokes the dawn,
Nor watchful dogs disturb the silence deep.
Nor wandering beast, nor forest tempest-torn,
Nor harsher sound of human passions born.
Mute quiet reigns ; — but from the lowest cave
A spring Lethean rising evermore
Pours through the murmuring rocks a slumber-
ous wave.
The plenteous poppy blossoms at the door.
And countless herbs, of night the drowsy store.
POEMS
3^
DIANAE MUNUSCULUM
After Catullus
HEAR the choir of boy and maid,
Mighty child of mightiest Jove,
Thou whom royal mother laid
In the Delian olive grove —
That thou mightest be the lady
Of all woods that bud in spring,
Of all glades remote and shady,
Of all rivers echoing.
Thou wert cradled mid the seas.
Guarded was thine infant state
With the glistening Cyclades,
With the wave inviolate —
That thou mightest be the warden
Of all holy loves and pure,
When, as in a fenced garden.
Chaste affections bloom secure.
Hear the choir of boy and maid.
Mighty child of mightiest Jove :
Take the wreath before thee laid,
Take the incense of our love.
POEMS
33
ANACREONTIC
Translation
DRINK, in the glory of youth ;
love, crowned with roses of summer
So be it only with me
be mad, be wise as thou listest.
34-
FROM MARTIAL
Translation
IN vain you count his virtues up.
His soberness commend ;
I like a steady servant,
But not a steady friend.
POEMS
3r
POPPIES
IILIES, lilies not for me,
-iiFlowers of the pure and saintly —
I have seen in holy places
Where the incense rises faintly,
And the priest the chalice raises,
Lilies in the altar vases,
Not for me.
Leave mitouched each garden tree,
Kings and queens of flower-land.
When the summer evening closes,
Lovers may-be hand in hand
There will seek for crimson roses.
There will bind their wreaths and posies
Merrily.
POEMS
65
From the corn-fields where we met
Pluck me poppies white and red ;
Bind them round my weary brain.
Strew them on my narrow bed,
Numbing all the ache and pain. —
I shall sleep nor wake again.
But forget.
F
66
POEMS
^6
BErOND
BEYOND the calumny and wrong,
Beyond the clamour and the throng.
Beyond the praise and triumph-song
He passed.
Beyond the scandal and the doubt,
The fear within, the fight without,
The turmoil and the battle- shout
He sleeps.
The world for him was not so sweet
That he should grieve to stay his feet
Where youth and manhood's highways meet.
And die.
For every child a mother's breast,
For every bird a guarded nest ;
For him alone was found no rest
But this.
POEMS
Beneath the flight of happy hours,
Beneath the withering of the flowers
In folds of peace more sure than ours
He lies.
A night no glaring dawn shall break,
A sleep no cruel voice shall wake,
An heritage that none can take
Are his.
F 2
POEMS
37
TO
1SAID — ' Tis very late we meet ;
' A guest long since has filled each seat
' About my hearth ; yet rest
' A little while beside the door ;
' Although the east shall glow no more,
' Some light is in the west,
' And gathers round the wayside inn,
' Whence all the mountain paths begin :
' Pause, ere you onward go,
' And sing, while gazing up the height,
' The guarded valley of delight
' We both have left below.'
Was it not somewhat thus, my friend ? —
But now your rest has reached its end,
And upwards you must strive.
Ah now I thank you that you stayed.
That you so royally repaid
All that I had to give.
POEMS
69
For the sweet temperance of your youth,
Unconscious chivalry and truth,
And simple courtesies ;
A soul as clear as southern lake,
Yet strong as any cliffs that break
The might of northern seas ;
For these I loved you well, — and yet
Could neither you nor I forget.
But spent we soberly
The autumn days, that lay between
The skirts of glory that had been,
Of glory that should be.
Unlike the month of snowy flowers,
Unlike my ApriPs rainbowed showers,
My consummate July
Those autumn days ; and yet they wept
Tears soft not sad, for all they kept
Of summer's greenery.
We loved the tarn with rocky shore,
We loved to tread the windy moor.
And many a berried lane ;
But most where, swollen with rains and rills,
The waters of a hundred hills
Go hurrying down the plain ;
70
POEMS
Where plenteous apples wax and fall.
And stud o'er many a leafy hall
The vaults with fiery gems :
But often through their golden gleams
Flowed-in the river of my dreams,
The lilied river Thames.
Then on another arm I leant,
And then once more with him I went
Thro' field and wharf and town ;
And love caught up the flying hours,
And eyes that were not calm as yours
Were imaged in my own.
A grave good-bye I bid you now ;
Not lightly, but as those who know
Fair hospitality.
O loyal heart, be loyal still,
And happy, happy where you will.
And sometimes think of me.
POEMS
38
PRO CASTTTATE
VIRGIN bom of Virgin,
To Thy shelter take me :
Purest, holiest Jesu,
Chaste and holy make me.
Wisdom, power and beauty,
These are not for me ;
Give me, give me only
Perfect Chastity.
By Thy Flagellation,
Flesh immaculate —
By Thine endless glory,
Manhood consummate —
By Thy Mother Mary,
By Thine Angel-host,
By the Monks and Maidens
Who have loved Thee most,
POEMS
Keep my flesh and spirit,
Eyes and ears and speech,
Taste and touch and feeling.
Sanctify them each.
Through the fiery furnace
Walk, O Love, beside me ;
In the provocation
From the tempter hide me.
When they come about me.
Dreams of earthly passion.
Drive O drive them from me,
Of Thy sweet compassion :
For to feed beside Thee
With the Virgin choir.
In the vale of lilies,
Is my one desire.
Not for might and glory
Do I ask above.
Seeking of Thee only
Love and love and love.
POEMS
39
FLOWERS FOR THE ALTAR
TELL us, tell us, holy shepherds.
What at Bethlehem you saw. —
* Very God of Very God
* Asleep amid the straw.'
Tell us, tell us, all ye faithful.
What this morning came to pass
At the awful elevation
In the Canon of the Mass. —
* Very God of Very God,
* By whom the worlds were made,
* In silence and in helplessness
' Upon the altar laid.'
Tell us, tell us, wondrous Jesu,
AVhat has drawn Thee from above
To the manger and the altar. —
All the silence answers — Love.
I
74
POEMS
II
Through the roaring streets of London
Thou art passing, hidden Lord,
Uncreated, Consubstantial,
In the seventh heaven adored.
As of old the ever- Virgin
Through unconscious Bethlehem
Bore Thee, not in glad procession.
Jewelled robe and diadem ;
Not in pomp and not in power.
Onward to Nativity,
Shrined but in the tabernacle
Of her sweet Virginity.
Still Thou goest by in silence,
Still the world cannot receive,
Still the poor and weak and weary
Only, worship and believe.
POEMS
75
40
A POEM WITHOUT A NAME
II
I pray you this my song to take
Not scornfully^ for Boyhood's sake ;
It is the laH^ until the day
When your kind eyes shall hid me say
Take^ Archie^ not of mine hut me^
And he mine only Voetry*
THE PAST
METHOUGHT the sun in terror made
his bed,
The gentle stars in angry lightning fell,
And shuddering winds thro' all the woodland
fled,
Pulling in every tree a passing bell.
That night, on all the glory and the grace
There rolled a numbing mist, and wrapped from
sight
The greening fields of my delightsome land,
Mildewing every tender bud to blight, —
As the grey change overspreads a dying face —
76
POEMS
Till, corpse-like, stretched beneath a pall of skies,
Earth stared at heaven with open sightless eyes ;
Then in the hush went forth the soul of life,
Drawn through the darkness by a gleaming hand :
The strength of agony awoke, and strove
Awhile for mastery to hold it back.
But comet-like, beyond the laws of love,
Branding the blackness with a fiery track
It passed to space ; and, wearied of the strife,
In the great after calm, I passed to sleep.
Did they not call ambrosial the night
And holy once ? when (from the feet of God
Set on the height where circles round and full
The rainbow of perfection) starry troops
Came floating, aureoled in dreamy light,
And gracious dews distilling, as they trod
The poppied plains of slumber. — Ah too dull
My sense, such visions for my aid to call,
My sleep too dry with fever, for the fall
Of those strange dews, which quicken withered
hopes.
THE PRESENT
And yet why strive to syllable my loss
In chilly metaphors of night and sleep ?
Leap in, O Love, O Flame divine, yea leap
Upon them, shrivel them like paper ; so,
In that refining fire, the encircling dross
Of words shall melt away ; then will I keep,
POEMS
77
Stored in a silent Treasury I know,
The pure reality, that in the spring —
The resurrection of all loveliness —
For me a star shall pierce the eastern cloud,
And western breezes bear the tender rain ;
For me a crocus flower shall burst its shroud.
My Love, my buried Love, shall rise again.
Blow, winds, and make the fields a wilderness ;
Roar, hurrying rivers to the weary sea ;
Fall, cruel veils of snow, as desolate
As human hearts, when passion fires have burnt
To greyest ash ; — I shall nor hear nor see.
Within that Treasure-house of mine I wait,
I wait, with Eros glowing at my side ;
From him, the mighty artist, I have learned
How memories to brushes may be tied ;
And tho' I moistened all my paints with tears,
Yet on my walls as joyous imagery,
With golden hopes inframed, now appears
As e'er of old was dreamed to vivify
Ionian porticoes, when Greece was young,
And wreathed with glancing vine Anacreon sung.
Here, on the granite headland he is set.
Like Michael in his triumph, and the waves
In wild desire have tossed about his feet
Their choicest pearls ; — and, here, he softly laves
Limbs delicate, where beechen boughs arc wet
With jewelled drops and all is young and sweet; —
78
POEMS
And here, a stranded lily on the beach,
My Hylas, coronalled with curly gold.
He lies beyond the water's longing reach
Him once again essaying to enfold ; —
Here, face uplifted to the twinkling sky
He walks, like Agathon the vastly-loved,
Till with the dear Athenian I cry,
' My Star of stars, would I might heaven be,
Night-long, with many eyes, to gaze on thee I ' —
And here, like Hyacinthus, as he moved
Among the flowers, ere flower-like he sank
Too soon to fade on green Eurotas' bank.
But it is profanation now to speak
Of thoughtless Hellene boys, or to compare
The majesty and spiritual grace
Of that design which consummates the whole.
It is himself, as I have watched him, where
The mighty organ's great Teutonic soul
Passed into him and lightened in his face,
And throbbed in every nerve and fired his cheek.
See, Love, I sing not of thee now alone,
But am become a painter all thine own.
THE FUTURE
Ah now in truth how shall we, can we meet ?
Or wilt thou come to me through careless eyes,
Loveliest 'mid the unlovely, in the street ?
Or will thy voice be there, to harmonize
POEMS
79
The clanging and the clamour, where beneath
The panting engines draw their burning breath?
Or shall I have to seek thee in a throng
Of noble comrades round thee ? — have to pass
The low luxurious laugh, or merry song.
The piled golden fruit, and flashing glass ?
I care not much ; however it may be,
Eyes, ears and heart will compass only thee.
Yet could I choose, then surely would I fix
On that half-light, whose very name is sweet,
The gloaming, when the sun and moonbeams
mix,
And light and darkness on each other rest
Like lovers' lips, uncertain, tremulous ;
And the All-mother's heart is loth to beat
And break their union : then, I think, 'twere
best
To find thee pacing 'neath the sprouting boughs
Of lime, alone — for so I saw thee first.
When scarce my rose's crimson life had burst
In blushes, from its calix to the sun.
Alone — throughout my love has been apart ;
When seen, then misconceived so utterly,
I liken it (forgive the vanity)
To those vermilion shades since light begun
Existing, but which Turner only drew,
While pointing critics had their little say,
And all the world cried out, of course they knew
80
POEMS
Much better than the sun, could tell the way
To colour him and his by proper rules,
And Claude was great, great, great in all the
schools
As once Ephesian Dian. — Matters it
To him, or you, or me ? While truth is truth.
And love is love, you'll answer — Not a whit.
FOR EVER
Enough, the yearning is unsatisfied,
Resolved again into a plea for faith.
Believe the true elixir is within,
Although I sought to draw from that full tide
Some crystal drops of evidence, to win
A little vapour only — yet believe,
Believe the essence of a perfect love
Is there, and worthy. Not a tinge of shame
My words can colour. Of thiyie own receive,
Yes, of thy very being. It shall prove
Indeed a poem, though without a name.
POEMS
81
4-1
THE SHRINE
THERE is a shrine whose golden gate
Was opened by the Hand of God ;
It stands serene, inviolate,
Though millions have its pavement trod ;
As fresh, as when the first sunrise
Awoke the lark in Paradise.
Tis compassed with the dust and toil
Of common days, yet should there fall
A single speck, a single soil
Upon the whiteness of its wall.
The angels' tears in tender rain
Would make the temple theirs again.
Without, the world is tired and old.
But, once within the enchanted door.
The mists of time are backward rolled,
And creeds and ages are no more ;
But all the human-hearted meet
In one communion vast and sweet.
6
82
POEMS
I enter — all is simply fair,
Nor incense-clouds, nor carven throne ;
But in the fragrant morning air
A gentle lady sits alone ;
My mother— ah ! whom should I see
Within, save ever only thee ?
POEMS
4X
(1)
ONE night I dreamt that in a gleaming hall
You played, and overhead the air was sweet
With waving kerchiefs ; then a sudden fall
Of flowers ; and jewels clashed about your feet.
Around you glittering forms, a starry ring.
In echo sang of youth and golden ease :
You leant to me a moment, crying — ' Sing,
* If, as you say, you love me, sing with these/ —
In vain my lips were opened, for my throat
Was choked somewhence, my tongue was sore
and dry,
And in my soul alone the answering note ;
Till, in a piercing discord, one shrill cry,
As of a hunted creature, from me broke.
You laughed, and in great bitterness I woke.
G 2
84
POEMS
(2)
1 THANK thee, Love, that thou hast over-
thrown
The tyranny of Self ; I would not now
Even in desire, possess thee mine alone
In land-locked anchorage : nay rather go,
Ride the high seas, the fruitless human seas,
Where white-winged ships are set for barren
shores.
Though freighted all, those lovely argosies.
And laden with a wealth of rarest stores.
Go, draw them after thee, and lead them on
With thine own music, to the ideal west.
Where, in the youth of ages, vaguely shone
The term of all, the Islands of the Blest.
I too dare steer, for once-loved haven's sake,
My tiny skiff along thy glorious wake.
POEMS
85
(3)
A BOYISH friendship! No, respond the
chimes,
The years of chimes fulfilled since we parted,
Since ' au revoir "* you said among the limes,
And passed away in silence tender-hearted.
I hold it cleared by time that not of heat,
Or sudden passion my great Love was born :
I hold that years the calumny defeat
That it would fade as freshness off the morn.
That it was fathered not by mean desire
Of eye and ear, doth cruel distance prove. —
My life is cleft to steps that lift it higher.
And with my growing manhood grows my Love.
Then come and tread the fruits of disconnection
To the sweet vintage of your own perfection.
86
POEMS
(4)
OCOME, my king, and fill the palaces
Where sceptred Loss too long hath held her
state,
With courts of Joyaunce, and a laughing breeze
Of voices. — If thou wiliest, come ; — I wait
Unquestioning, no servant, but thy slave.
I plead no merit, and no claim for wages.
Nor that sweet favour which my sovereign gave
In other days, of his own grace : but pages
Are privileged to linger at the door
With longing eyes, while nobles kiss the hand
Of him the noblest, though elect no more
To touch the train, or at the throne to stand.
But come, content me with the lowest place,
So be it that I see thy royal face.
POEMS
87
4-3
DUM AGONIZATUR ANIMA^ ORENT
ASSISTENTES
Think^ kind Jesu^ my salvation
Caused Thy 'wondrous Incarnation^
"Leave me not to reprobation.
Faint and iveary Thou hast sought me^
On the Cross of anguish bought me ;
Shall such grace be vainly brought me ?
BEHOLD me will-less, witless in the night ;
With hands that feel the illimitable dark
I walk, untouched, untouching ; every face
Is senseless as a mask, save when I cry
* O little children turn away your eyes.' —
This for the day ; but when the hush is spread
Wherein Thou givest Thy beloved sleep,
I call Thee to my witness — though I sin,
I suffer : I confess, do all we can
Thou art not mocked, nor dost Thou mock at us.
Who laughs to scorn, the anger of a babe ?
Or who despises infants, if they play
At build ing houses ? so we storm and toil,
88
POEMS
And squander all our passion and our thought.
And Thou regardest not ; for on us lies
The weight of everlasting nothingness.
War with the angels ; neither war nor peace
With us, who flutter willing to our doom,
And need no sword to drive from Paradise.
See, I believe more fully than the Saint
Who trod the waters in the might of love.
See, I believe, and own him for the fool
Who saith * there is no God and therefore sins»
Believe — what profit in it ? I have loved : —
Ay, once I strained and stretched thro' haze of
doubt,
If haply I might catch with passionate hand
The garment-hem of Thee : I half believed.
But wholly loved; once (Thou rememberest)
prayed,
* I love Thee, love Thee ; only give me light.
And I will follow Thee where'er Thou goest.'
' I will ' I said and knew not ; now I know
And will not, cannot will.
What ? Is a way cleft thro' the stony floors.
And dost Thou stand Thyself above the stair,
In Thine old sweetness and benignity.
Spreading Thy wounded hands, and saying 'Son,
Thou sinnest, I have suffered. Mount and see
The fulness of my Passion : though these steps
POEMS 89
Be hard to flesh and blood, remember this,
That along all intolerable paths
The benediction of my feet hath passed.
To gentleness so inexpressible.
To love so far beyond imagining
I answer not ; but in my soul fill up
The faint conception of the artist monk.
Who soared with Paul into the seventh heaven,
But could not paint the anger of the Lamb.
I seem to lie for ever in some porch, [dirge.
While down the nave there creeps the awfiil
And writhes about the pillars — whispering
The uttermost extremity of man :
Till the low music ceases ; and a scream
Breaks shuddering from the choir, ' Let me not
Be burnt in fires undying.' * * *
* * * •
And some are there unscathed of flame or sword.
Yet on their brows the seal of suffering,
And in their hands the rose of martyrdom,
(Have pity upon me, ye that were my friends)
With arms about each other, — aureoles
That mingle into one triumphant star ;
A fount of wonder in their pensive eyes.
Sprung from the thought that pain is consum-
mate —
90
POEMS
' To him that overcometh — half forgotten
The victory, so long the battle was,
Begun when manhood was a thing to be :
Not as they send the boyish sailor out,
A father's lingering hand amid his hair,
A mother's kisses warm upon his cheek.
And in his heart the unspoken consciousness
That though upon his grave no gentle fingers
Shall set the crocus, yet in the old home
There shall be aye a murmur of the sea,
A fair remembrance and a tender pride.
Not so for these the dawn of battle rose.
So one by one the knights were panoplied.
But now they enter in where never voice
Of clamorous Babylon shall vex them more,
To Syon the undivided, to the peace.
The given peace earth neither makes nor mars.
Beyond the angels, and the angels' Queen,
Beyond the avenues of saints, where rests,
Deep in the Beatifical Idea,
The sum of peace, the Human Heart of God.
Sfc 5jc 5jc jjc jjc ^ 5{C
Ah ! whose is that red rose that only lies
Unclaimed * *
POEMS
91
Five knots of snowdrops on the garden bank
Beneath the hill — how satisfied they seem
Against the barren hedge, wherein by this
The pleasant saps and juices are astir
To work the greening snowdrops do not see.
I leaning from my window am in doubt
If summer brings a flower so loveable,
Of such a meditative restfulness
As this, with all her roses and carnations.
The morning hardly stirs their noiseless bells ;
Yet could I fancy that they whispered * Home \
For all things gentle all things beautiful
I hold, my mother, for a part of thee.
As watered grass beyond the glaring street,
As drop of evening on a fighting field,
As convent bells that chime for complin-tide
Heard in the gas-light of the theatre.
So unto me the image of a face,
A certain face that all the angels know.
Bright are the diadems of all pure loves.
But none so bright as that whereon are set
The mingled names of Father and of Mother.
Dear are true friends, and sweet is gratitude
For grateful deeds ; but what the sum of all
To that perennial love we hardly thank
92
POEMS
More than the sun for shining while 'tis day,.
Or at the dusk the cheerful candlelight ?
How wholly fair is all without my soul,
The evershifting lights upon the hills,
The eastern flush upon the beechen stems.
And the green network of ascending paths
Wherein again the spring shall bid us ride,
With all the blood aglow along our veins,
And every mountain be ' delectable
And every plain a pleasant land of Beulah.
Suppose it but a fancy that it groaned.
This dear creation, — rather let it sing
In an exuberance and excess of gladness.
* Jfc * * ^ :ic *
Suppose a kindly mother-influence .
And sin alone a transitory fever,
For which in some mysterious Avilon
Beyond the years, some consummate Hereafter,
A fount of healing springs for all alike.
* * * sic
No, Love ! Love ! Love ! Thou knowest that I
cannot,
I cannot live without Thee. Yet this way —
POEMS
93
Is there no other road to Calvary
Than the one way of sorrows ? * *
*******
I thought I lay at home and watched the glow
The ruddy fire-light cast about my bed ;
Upon me undefinable the sense
Of something dreadful, till I slept and dreamed.
The Dream.
I stood amid the lights that never die,
The only stars the dawning passes by,
Beneath the whisper of the central dome
That holds and hides the mystic heart of Rome.
But in mine eyes the light of other times,
And in mine ears the sound of English chimes ;
I smelled again the freshness of the morn.
The primal incense of the daisied lawn.
* * * *
* * * *
* * * I said
* And have I come so very far indeed ? '
The everlasting murmur echoes * Far
As from green earth is set the furthest star
Men have not named. A journey none retrace
Is thine, and steps the seas could not efface."*
94
POEMS
' How cold and pitiless is the voice of Truth,"*
I cried ; 'Ah ! who will give me my lost youth ?
Ah ! who restore the years the locust ate,
Hard to remember, harder to forget ? '
A multitude of voices sweet and grave,
A long procession up the sounding nave.
' The Lion of the tribe of Judah, He
Has conquered, but in Wounds and Agony.
The ensign of His triumph is the Rood,
His royal robe is purple, but with Blood.
And we who follow in His Martyr-train
Have access only thro"* the courts of pain.
Yet on the Via dolorosa He
Precedes us in His sweet humanity.
A Man shall be a covert from the heat,
Whereon in vain the sandy noon shall beat :
A Man shall be a perfect summer sun,
When all the western lights are paled and gone.
A Man shall be a Father, Brother, Spouse,
A land, a city and perpetual House :
A Man shall lift us to the Angels' shore :
A Man shall be our God for evermore.'
POEMS
95
Christ, God, or rather Jesu, it is true,
True the old story of Gethsemane.
Remember then the unfathomed agony
That touched upon the caverns of despair.
Whence never diver hath regained the sun. —
Thou knowest, but I know not ; save me then
From beating the impenetrable rock.
By that Thine hour of weakness be my Strength,
And I will follow Thee where'er Thou goest.
96
POEMS
44
A SONG OF EIGHTEEN
STRAIN them, O winds, the sails of the years,
Outspread on the mystic sea ;
Faster and faster, for laughter or tears,
O bear my story to me !
Waft it, O Love, on thy purple wings.
The dawn is breaking to pass :
Strike it, O Life, from thy deeper strings.
And drown the music that was.
Yet lovely the tremulous haze
That curtained the dreamful afar.
Thro' the which some face, like a star,
Would lighten, too sudden for praise.
And white were our loves on their way
As morn on the hills of the south ;
The kisses that rounded their mouth
As fresh as the grasses in May.
They passed ; but the silvery pain
Of our tears was easily told, —
For the day but an hour was old.
At noon we should meet them again.
POEMS
97
Weary am I of ideal and of mist,
The shroud of life that is dead ; —
And, as the passionate sculptor who kissed
The lips of marble to red,
Ask I a breath that is part of my ovrny
Yet drawn from a soul more sweet ; —
Or, as the shaft that upsoareth alone
Undiademed, incomplete,
Claim I the glory predestined to me
In the Mother Builder's will.
Portion and place in the Temple to be
Till the age her times fulfil.
POEMS
4r
LAST WORDS
From the Italian
I, LIVING, drew thee from the vale
Parnassus' height to climb with me.
I, dying, bid thee turn, and scale
Alone the hill of Calvary.
POEMS
46
A SONG
THE world is young today :
Forget the gods are old,
Forget the years of gold
When all the months were May.
A little flower of Love
Is ours, without a root,
Without the end of fruit.
Yet — take the scent thereof.
There may be hope above,
There may be rest beneath ;
We see them not, but Death
Is palpable — and Love.
H 2
POEMS
4-7
ENOUGH
WHEN all my words were said,
When all my songs were sung,
I thought to pass among
The unforgotten dead,
A Queen of ruth to reign
With her, who gathereth tears
From all the lands and years.
The Lesbian maid of pain ;
That lovers, when they wove,
The double myrtle-wreath,
Should sigh with mingled breath
Beneath the wings of Love :
*How piteous were her wrongs.
Her words were falling dew.
All pleasant verse she knew.
But not the Song of songs."
Yet now, O Love, that you
Have kissed my forehead, I
Have sung indeed, can die.
And be forgotten too.
POEMS
101
4-8
O, a moon face
In a shadouuy place,
IEAN over me — ah so, — let fall
-i About my face and neck the shroud
Thatjthrills me as a thunder-cloud
Full of strange lights, electrical.
Sweet moon, with pain and passion wan.
Rain from thy loneliness of light
The primal kisses of the night
Upon a new Endymion ;
The boy who, wrapped from moil and moan,
With cheeks for ever round and fair,
Is dreaming of the nights that were
When lips immortal touched his own.
I marked an old man yesterday.
His body many-fingered grief
Distorted as a frozen leaf ;
He fell, and cursed the rosy way.
O better than a century
Of heavy years that trail the feet.
More full of being, more complete
A stroke of time with youth and thee.
102 POEMS
4-9
HE WOULD HAVE HIS LADY SING
SING me the men ere this
Who, to the gate that is
A cloven pearl uprapt,
The big white bars between
With dying eyes have seen
The sea of jasper, lapt
About with crystal sheen ;
And all the far pleasance
Where linked Angels dance.
With scarlet wings that fall
Magnifical, or spread
Most sweetly over-head,
In fashion musical,
Of cadenced lutes instead.
Sing me the town they saw
Withouten fleck or flaw,
POEMS
Aflame, more fine than glass
Of fair Abbayes the boast,
More glad than wax of cost
Doth make at Candlemas
The Lifting of the Host :
Where many Knights and Dames,
With new and wondrous names,
One great Laudate Psalm
Go singing down the street ; —
Tis peace upon their feet.
In hand 'tis pilgrim palm
Of Goddes Land so sweet : —
Where Mother Mary walks
In silver lily stalks,
Star-tired, moon-bedight ;
Where Cecily is seen.
With Dorothy in green.
And Magdalen all white.
The maidens of the Queen.
Sing on — the Steps untrod.
The Temple that is God,
Where incense doth ascend.
Where mount the cries and tears
Of all the dolorous years.
With moan that ladies send
Of durance and sore fears : —
104
POEMS
And Him who sitteth there,
The Christ of purple hair,
And great eyes deep with ruth,
Who is of all things fair
That shall be, or that were,
The sum, and very truth.
Then add a little prayer.
That since all these be so.
Our Liege, who doth us know,
Would fend from Sathanas,
And bring us, of His grace.
To that His joyous place :
So we the Doom may pass,
And see Him in the Face.
POEMS
SO
CORE
WHERE in dawnward Sicily
Gentle rivers wed the sea,
Bitter life was given me.
Gods that are most desolate
For their loveliness and state
Being made the mock of fate,
Mingling wine with ruddy fire
And the passion of the lyre,
Filled my veins with all desire.
Twain the robes they fashioned me,
Dainty, delicate to see.
Girt about with mockery :
Dowers twain for me they planned.
Holding in their other hand
All my times, an hour's sand ; —
106
POEMS
Love, the mystic rose of life,
Grafted with a sanguine knife
On the thorns of sin and strife ;
Poetry, the hand that wrings
(Bruised albeit at the strings)
Music from the soul of things.
But to either gift a mate
Added they in subtle hate —
This the trick they learned of Fate
Shame, to draw the tender blood
From the palm of maidenhood,
Leaving it a yellow rod ;
Weariness of all that is,
Tired sorrow, tired bliss, —
Nothing is more sore than this.
Therefore turn thy eyes on me,
O Thou Praise of Sicily,
Honey-sweet Persephone,
Who, beyond all ban and bale.
With supreme compassion pale,
Spreadest quiet for a veil.
POEMS
In the soft Catanian hills.
Gleaming by the gleaming rills
Yet are blown thy daffodils ;
See, I bear them as is meet,
Lay them on thy pallid feet,
Where in marble thou art sweet.
Hear the story of my wrong.
Thou to whom all perished song
And departed loves belong.
Even as the maiden grass,
Recreating all that pass,
Mine exceeding beauty was.
Men, who heard me singing, said
* Bays are heavy on thy head ;
* Take a myrtle leaf instead \
* How shall Eros' call be still —
Ever answered I — * until
* Anteros the song fulfil ? "*
Once at vesper-tide I sat
In a bower of pomegranate.
Where it was my use to wait,
POEMS
Till the hour of phantasies
Bade my soul's desire arise
Veiled, against the blinded skies :
But unveiled he came to me.
With the passion of the sea.
That night, by the scarlet tree.
Lightly from the boat he leapt ;
Snowy surge the shingle swept ;
Whiter were his feet that stepped
Up the jewelled beach ; — and on
As a pillared flame he shone,
Clear, and glad to look upon.
Was he one whom years alloy,
Or the god of ageless joy,
Dionysos, or a boy ?
Never was such hair, I wist,
Lighted as a water-mist.
In the noons of amethyst ; —
Eyes, of colour only seen
AVhere the far waves' palest green
Faints into the azure sheen.
POEMS
109
There his eyes were full on me
With the passion of the sea,
That night, by the scarlet tree.
* Lily of the amber west,
' Whither over ocean's breast
* Suns and heroes drop to rest,
' From the morning lands I come,
' Laughing through the laughing foam,
' Seeking Love in Vesper's home.
* Sudden as the falling star,
' Winged as the victor car,
' Nears the doom to blight and mar.
' Full desire, and faint delight,
' Words that leap, and lips that bite
* With the panther lithe and light, —
' These — while blushes bud and blow,
' While life's purple torrents flow —
' If we know not, shall we know ?
* Are they hid beyond the hours ?
' Shall they feed on lotus-flowers ?
' Warm us in the sunless bowers ?
110
POEMS
' Thou art beautiful, and I
' Beautiful ; I know not why,
' Save to love before we die.'
But a day — a year is sped
Since these words were sung or said,
Since he loved me — he is dead.
POEMS
FAR above the shaken trees,
In the pale blue palaces,
Laugh the high gods at their ease :
We with tossed incense woo them.
We with all abasement sue them.
But shall never climb unto them,
Nor see their faces.
Sweet my sister, Queen of Hades,
Where the quiet and the shade is,
Of the cruel deathless ladies
Thou art pitiful alone.
Unto thee I make my moan.
Who the ways of earth hast known
And her green places.
Feed me with thy lotus-flowers.
Lay me in thy sunless bowers.
Whither shall the heavy hours
Never trail their hated feet,
Making bitter all things sweet ;
Nevermore shall creep to meet
The perished dead.
POEMS
There mid shades innumerable,
There in meads of asphodel,
Sleeping ever, sleeping well,
They who toiled and who aspired,
They, the lovely and desired,
With the nations of the tired
Have made their bed.
There is neither fast nor feast,
None is greatest, none is least ;
Times and orders all have ceased.
There the bay- leaf is not seen ;
Clean is foul and foul is clean ;
Shame and glory, these have been
But shall not be.
When we pass away in fire.
What is found beyond the pyre ?
Sleep, the end of all desire.
Lo, for this the heroes fought ;
This the gem the merchant bought.
This the seal of laboured thought
And subtilty.
POEMS
113
UNTO the central height of purple Rome, —
The crown of martyrdom.
Set as a heart within the passionate plain
Of triumph and of pain,
Where common roses in their blow and bud
Speak empire and show blood —
From colourless flowers and from breasts that
burn,
Mother ! to thee we turn.
The phantom light before thee flees and faints,
O City of the Saints !
In whom, with palms and wounds, there tarrieth
The unconquerable faith ;
Where, as on Carmel, our Elijah stands
Above the faithless lands ;
But conscious of earth's evening, not of them.
Lifts toward Jerusalem,
Where is the altar of High Sacrifice,
His full prophetic eyes. . . .
I
114
POEMS
METHOUGHT, through many years and
lands,
I sped along an arrowy flood,
That leapt and lapt my face and hands,
I knew not were it fire or blood.
I saw no sun in any place ;
A ghastly glow about me spread,
Unlike the light of nights and days,
From out the depth where writhe the dead.
I passed — their fleshless arms uprose
To draw me to the depths beneath :
My eyes forgot the power to close.
As other men''s, in sleep or death.
I saw the end of every sin ;
I weighed the profit and the cost ;
I felt Eternity begin.
And all the ages of the lost.
POEMS
The Crucifix was on my breast ;
I pressed the nails against my side ;
And unto Him, Who knew no rest
For thirty years, I turned and cried :
' Sweet Lord ! I say not, give me ease ;
Do what Thou wilt, Thou doest good ;
And all Thy saints went up to peace,
In crowns of fire or robes of blood."
I 2
NOTES
NOTES ON THE POEMS
There exist original MSS. of all the poems in this
volume with exception of numbers 46, 48, and 50. These
three are edited from copies.
The writing is plain, so that there is never any doubt
about a word. The punctuation is so careless as to be
generally worthless. There are commas and full-stops,
but these are often misplaced, and all kinds of pauses are
frequently indicated by a dash. My rule in punctuation
has been to observe the original where possible, — inter-
preting the dashes, where they merely disfigure the text,
in the simplest manner : but in those cases where an
ambiguity in the grammar or the concatenation of clauses
would be resolved by systematic punctuation, I have left
it unresolved, if there was any uncertainty as to which of
two constructions was intended. Examples of this are
p. 46, the fourth and fifth verses from the end, which have
their original stopping ; and the second stanza of Core,
p. 105.
There is a free use of initial capitals in the MS. While it
is easy to write small unpretending capitals, the translation
of them into type often disfigures the text. But, though
I see no advantage in this, I have respected the MS. and
retained most of the capitals. Dolben's practice however
was not consistent, and I have found precedent in it some-
what to reduce their number. He also commonly wrote
Oh for the vocative 0. I have in some places altered this
to the usual form. I have hyphened more words than he
did, but the unusual hyphens are his own, e. g. pale-pink,
p. 4. And I have occasionally indented a line to mark a
new section in poems written without a break. I have
NOTES
119
now enumerated all the grammatical liberties that I have
taken. The poems are printed in the order of an existing
MS. collection, which is approximately chronological,
since it was originally made by transcribing the poems as
he sent them to his family : and though a few of the poems
are manifestly out of order, the exact dates of others are
too uncertain to make an accurate sequence possible. I
give what is known of their dates in the notes. The poems
are printed word for word, except for the change of one
word on p. 84, and the omission of some Unes from the
unfinished poem No. 43. These alterations are described
in the notes to those poems. Wherever there is more than
one version of the same poem, I have (with the exception
of one line in No. 2) always chosen the latest version,
since that is invariably the best : but I should add that
considerate emendation is generally the main evidence of
its being the later version.
My poetical judgement, jealous for Dolben's poetical
reputation, would have led me to exclude some of the
poems here given, e. g. 25, 29, 34. Their presence may
be some assurance that nothing good has been omitted.
Of the earlier immature poems an account is given in the
Memoir : of the later poems all are given but three very
unworthy pieces, two of which are comic. The following
notes on the several poems are as few and as short as the
conditions allow.
1. This and the three following poems were written at
School dating 1864.
2. An account of the three blank-verse pieces called
* Vocation of which this is the last, will be found in the
Memoir, pp. xlviii seq. — when I wrote that, I knew only
the first draft of this poem {From the Cloister), which was
originally styled ' Sequel to Vocation ' ; and in deciding
to print this and not the other two, I was unaware that
Dolben himself had distinguished it above the others by
120
NOTES
a careful revision. It turned out that there were three or
four copies of it, showing different readings ; and that the
latest of these had been overlooked, probably because
it was shorter than the others. But it is no doubt his
ultimate revision : and it is so well amended that, when
I substituted it for the older version, I had to alter my
critical description, which was already typed in the proofs
of the Memoir. And since Dolben in his revision discarded
the old title, this separates it from the other two sections,
and in some measure impHes that he had discarded them.
I have printed this latest version, except in one hne, where
I have retained his original
But clinging lichen and black shrivelled moss.
The revision transposes clinging and shrivelled : manifestly
because shrivelled does not describe moss. But the emenda-
tion is not satisfactory, so that I agreed to his sister's desire
that the familiar old line should be kept in this place.
On p. 6 the last nine lines are punctuated in the MS. by
the question being made at forgotten, thus : willow-boughs.
So soon forgotten ? I have removed the quether to the end
of the sentence and repeated it there.
3. I give the original Latin hymn. In this as in his other
translations it may be seen that his method is poetical.
Amorem sensus erige
ad te, largitor veniae,
ut fias Clemens cordibus
purgatis inde sordibus.
Benigne multum, Domine,
Tu lapsum scis in homine,
infirma est materia,
versamur in miseria.
Causa tibi sit agnita,
nulla mens est incognita ;
aufer a nobis omnia
fallentis mundi somnia.
NOTES
Dives pauper efFectus es,
pro nobis crucifixus es ;
lavans a tuo latere
nos munda vita vetere.
Externi hue advenimus,
in exilio gemiraus,
tu portus es et patria,
due nos ad vitae atria.
Felix, qui sitit caritas
te fontem vitae Veritas,
beati valde oculi
te speculantis populi.
Grandis est tibi gloria
tuae laudis memoria,
quam sine fine celebrant,
qui cor ab imis elevant.
From Mone I, p. 97, who notes 'Amoris sensum ware
besser
5. This and the following 13 poems, i. e. Nos. 5-18, were
written after he left school, and nearly all at Luffenhara
in 1865.
6. Under this poem, which is dated Dee. 1864, Dolben
has written ' Impromptu, written at a railway-station at
night '. It was in London. Among the earliest poems
spoken of in the Memoir, p. xvii, as being recovered from
the ' holocaust the following exists.
Goodnight, dear — , and not goodbye, I say.
All must be night to me while you're away :
Yet ever in this present night of sorrow
Memory will point to me a bright tomorrow.
Whether or no he remembered his burnt poem, this is an
example of his art. The actual emotion was years old, and
had already taken form, but the poetic suggestion was
consciously or unconsciously awaiting a worthier artistic
NOTES
expression. I print the old lines here because, while they
may serve as a specimen of his earliest schoolboy verses,
they confirm the account which I give of his artistic habit.
There is another example in the note to No. 43.
7. The other poem with this title is No. 40. Though they
are numbered I and II, I have left them in their chrono-
logical order among the rest.
8. His father asked him one day to write a poem on the
garden of Finedon Hall, and this was the result.
10. The second hne is, I think, his later correction of the
variant
' His basket with fruit ferns and flowers fills '.
11. In the original MS. the punctuation of the 4th stanza
shows only a comma after waking and a full-stop at dream.
There is a little speck on the paper above the comma which
is most like the upper part of a semicolon. The grammar
is uncertain, and I give it as an example.
14. Date is Summer 1865, at the lakes. There are two
or three copies, in which the last 6 Hues differ. The text
given seems the ultimate revision. I have not found any
Greek original for these lines, though the difficulty in ex-
pressing the thought suggests translation. The word desired
makes its three syllables out of the double vowel sound in
the second syllable, as Tennyson pronounced, and would
have written it, desierd, not desired.
15. There are two versions of this. The differences are
few and unimportant, chiefly affecting the penultimate
stanza.
17. Dated summer 1865. The original is
KarOavoiaa Keiaeai irora kuiv fivafiocrvva ffeOev
ecaer ovre tot' out' vOTepov ov yap TrfSexets PpoSuv
TU)v eK Ilteptas, dA\' d<pdvr)i Krjv ^A'i'da dofxois
(poiTaacis 7re5' dp-avpuv veKvoov (fcireiTOTapi^va.
NOTES
123
18. Of this poem there are 4 copies slightly differing. I
take that which I believe to be the latest. Dolben was not
satisfied with the poem, and took much pains to amend it.
It was, I beUeve, published in a periodical.
19. This poem and 29 (which is out of place) and prob-
ably 20and21, were written during the Lincolnshire period.
stanza 3, 1. 3. never-falling, sic, but unhyphened in MS.
stanza 10, 1. 2. A description of the Lincolnshire
landscape. Memoir, p. Ixxxvii.
22. Here begins a series of poems all written in 1866,
and mostly at Boughrood. This parody of Clough may be
taken as a tribute atoning in some measure for the harsh
judgement in his letter on p. Ixxxiv.
23. Stanza 2, 1. 8. Ruddy-fruited asphodel. I cannot
explain this epithet.
24. 11. 20, 21. There is no quether in the MS. I have
left the punctuation as I found it, not perceiving what was
intended.
25. This is one of the poems which I would willingly have
omitted : and I could not print it without protest.
28. This poem illustrates very clearly much that I have
written in the Memoir. In line 6 ' And loves can nevermore
descend ' is the simplest statement of his own experience.
His love had descended from Christ to a man, which in
the next life would be impossible. ' The love-current of a
human soul ' (line 9) should be devoted to God. In lines 15
and following, ' Remember this ' etc. , he here begs his
friend to measure the greatness of his love for him by the
fact that he loved him with the same love-current which he
had before devoted to Christ ; and had thus, for his sake,
lost his love of Christ.— Going on, he narrates a vision or
ecstasy, in which he returns to Christ, and his earthly love
then appears as bitterness ; and he concludes by inviting
his friend to devote himself to Christ.
NOTES
29. This poem is of the same date as 19.
31. The Latin lines are as follows :
Est prope Cimmerios longo spelunca recessu,
Mons cavus, ignavi domus et penetralia Sorani :
Quo nunquam radiis oriens, mediusve, cadensve
Phoebus adire potest. Nebulae caligine mixtae
Exhalantur humo, dubiaeq: crepuscula lucis.
Non vigil ales ibi cristati cantibus oris
Evocat auroram : nee voce silentia rurapunt
SoUicitive canes, canibusve sagacior anser.
Non fera, non pecudes, non raoti flamine rami,
Humanaeve sonum reddunt convicia linguae.
Muta quies habitat ; saxo tamen exit ab imo
Rivus aquae Lethes : per quem cum murmure labens
Invitat somnos crepitantibus unda lapillis.
Ante fores antri fecunda papavera florent,
Innimieraeq: herbae : quarum de lacte soporem
Nox legit, et spargit per opacas humida terras.
Ov. Met. xi. 592 seq.
32. The original, Catullus xxxiv, is as follows. Only
the first 3 stanzas are followed.
Dianae sumus in fide
Puellae et pueri integri :
Dianam pueri integri
Puellaeque canamus.
O Latonia, maximi
Magna progenies lovis,
Quam mater prope Deliam
Deposivit olivam,
Montium domina ut fores
Silvarumque virentium
Saltuumque reconditorum
Amniumque sonantum.
It is interesting that this translation and No. 17 should
NOTES
125
have been written by a boy who was unable to pass his
entrance examination at Balliol college.
33. The original is an anonymous scholion cited by
Athenaeus xv. 695. D. I owe this reference to my friend
J. W. Mackail.
^vv HOI itivf, cvvrjfia,
avvepa, (xvaTe<pavr](p6p(i,
'Svv not fuuvofiivq) ixaivfo,
Gvv aaxppovi acocppovd.
34. The original is Martial xii. 30.
Siccus, sobrius est Aper, quid ad me ?
Servum sic ego laudo, non amicum.
36. This poem dates Autumn 1866 : and the following
poems are in place.
37. This is the poem alluded to in Memoir p. xcv.
40. The title makes this poem a sequel to No. 7. A few
lines before its third section (The Future) on p. 78, it passes
from its poetic form into an epistolary address and gradu-
ally sinking falls very low in the unfortunate passage about
Turner, which must be traced to Ruskin. The only date
which it bears is however Dec. 1866.
41. *The Shrine', which is dated Oct. 1866, has been
printed in various collections. There is on the back of the
MS. , an epigram that has escaped the collection. I give it
here.
MAXIMIAN
An unashamed tyrant in every vice —
An abject slave in cringing cowardice —
Child, in all things save in simplicity —
Brute, save in irresponsibility —
Believer but in sense and taste and touch —
My God, and can it be Thou diedst for such ?
126
NOTES
42. Second sonnet, p. 84, line T. The MS. has
' Though freighted all with lovely argosies.'
As I cannot make sense of this I have printed those for
loithy and inserted a comma ; not as a possible correction
but to remove an obstacle to the reader.
In the third sonnet, p. 85, in the last line To is the
MS. reading.
43. Here begin the poems of 1867.
This poem was never completed, and the original MS.
has several lacunae which are represented in the text by
asterisks. The dots in the text represent omissions which,
considering the imperfect state of the poem, I thought
myself justified in adding to the original lacunae. The
reason for these omissions will be understood if poem 40 be
remembered. It seems as if, when writing these blank-
verse poems, Dolben unconsciously fell back into the
earlier manner of his old blank- verse poems, which are de-
scribed in the Memoir (pp. 1 and seq.). They show a ten-
dency to deteriorate under the influence of the earlier
associations, and I would willingly have omitted a good
part of the end of No. 40. I had however no justification :
but in this case the unfinished condition of the poem in-
vited the omission of the worser parts, which greatly de-
tracted from the dignity and beauty of the whole. Though
the excluded passages were condemned wholly on artistic
grounds, it may be noted that they contain some verses of
an ecclesiastical tone, which might have been welcome to
sectarian curiosity : and it might be supposed that I had
omitted them for that reason. But the two things natur-
ally coincide : it is exactly where he falls into this vein that
he faUs from poetry. I have not omitted a word which I
would willingly have printed, nor a word which I could not
have persuaded him to delete.
On p. 94 is this couplet :
Ah ! who restore the years the locust ate.
Hard to remember, harder to forget ?
NOTES
127
On the fiftieth page of the Memoir the original of these lines
will be found. It is another instance of an old expression
being worked upon (as described in note to poem 6) ; and
also I think it is a further indication that he had discarded
the Vocation poems.
45. There is no one mentioned in the memoir to whom
this can have been addressed. It is a rather improved
version of the epitaph which Chiabrera wrote for his own
tomb in San Giacomo at Savona. Dolben found it no
doubt in Father Faber's books where it is used as a motto
in its original sense.
Amico, io vivendo cercava conforto
Nel monte Parnasso :
Tu, meglio consigliato, cercalo
Nel Calvario.
49. This poem is dated May 1867, which locates it at
Finedon. But for it his Greek lyrics would have indis-
putably outdone the Christian. This master-piece some-
what restores the balance. The flush of its sincerity carries
the fanciful mediaevalism without a trace of affectation. In
stanza 4, last line, the word Hol^/ has got into the text of the
copies in the place of GoddeSy which is in my copy, and
(whether original or due to recension) altogether preferable.
50. I had not the original MS. of this for collation, and
have avoided determining ambiguous constructions by
punctuation. In stanza 10 tired is tierd not tired.
31. This and the two following poems were found in his
desk after his death. In the last line of this poem the MS.
has * And suhtility '. But the word is intended for a tri-
syllable, to be pronounced subtle-ty^ so that I have cor-
rected the spelling to avoid error.
128
NOTES TO THE MEMOIR
p. V. Dolben had other font-names, but as he invariably
suppressed them I have followed his own use.
xviii. I was eleven years of age in the lower school in
the division called Sense when I first read Ovid ; and
some elegiacs of his opened my eyes to poetry.
xxviii. Coles tells me that ' as a matter of fact there was
not a Roman-catholic chapel at Slough I must leave this
matter of local history open.
XXX. The letters. I have printed almost every scrap that
I have, because they are the only actual relics, and afford
a picture which would be weakened by selection.
ex. Except it were Walford, I do not know from whom
Newman can have * heard of ' Dolben in the sense impHed:
and since, in my opinion, his kindly words do not show
accurate knowledge, this fact was of weight with me in
balancing the evidence of Walford's influence over Dolben.
If they two had been intimate together, then Newman
would have been better informed ; whereas his words are
like the practised utterance of one who, accustomed to
have admirers hanging on his speech, is skilful in formu-
lating what will satisfy without offence. Coles tells me
that, wishing to know whether Dolben had acted under
Newman's advice, and being anxious to learn any facts,
he wrote a letter of enquiry to the Cardinal : but that
Newman, either mistaking his meaning, or perhaps be-
cause he had no real information to give, replied most
courteously by discussing the question concerning which
he imagined a friend would be most likely to wish for in-
formation, namely whether, since Dolben had not been
received into the Roman communion, his soul could be
saved. This clerkly opinion is lost.
129
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
The dra\ving of the Curfew Tower, which was made by
George Howard, the late Earl of Carlisle, my contemporary
at Eton, shows it as it was before its restoration. His
lamented death while this book was being put together,
leaves rae to record his kindness in wishing to associate
himself with these reminiscences of our schooltime. This
picture, which Lionel Muirhead saw him painting, re-
cords both his boyish skill in draughtsmanship, and the
aspect of the castle as we were accustomed to see it, and
brings the date of the memoir before the eye : for a
few years later the appearances were utterly changed to
their present condition. George Howard did not know
Dolben, but his devotion to serious art and his affection
towards his old school assured his interest in this book.
Of the two portraits of Dolben I have not been able to
establish the dates. The tradition is that they were both
done at the same time before he left Eton. They are
from the firm of Hills and Saunders.
K
OXFORD : HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
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