POSTHUMOUS 
 POEMS 4 4 * ' 
 ALGERNON CHARLES 
 SWINBURNE 
 
FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. 
 
 BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 pwtoon SCCL 
 
 Section /Q 0O<4- 
 
A 
 
THE POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF 
 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 
 POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
APR 12 1934 
 
 POSTHUMOUS 
 POEMS 
 
 By 
 
 Algernon Charles Swinburne 
 
 Edited by Edmund Gos§e, C.B. 
 and Thomas James Wise 
 
 NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
 MCMXVIII 
 
COPYRIGHT, 191 8, 
 By JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 
 Press of 
 
 J. J. Little & Ives Company 
 
 New York, U. S. A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE poems which, with the help of Mr. 
 Thos. J. Wise, I have endeavoured in the follow- 
 ing pages to present, as far as possible, in 
 chronological sequence, belong to the whole 
 range of Swinburne's career as an author. The 
 earliest wag composed in 1857, the latest is 
 dated 1907, and accordingly they cover, in their 
 rapid and fluctuating passage, exactly half a 
 century. Various circumstances, some of which 
 will presently be told, though the majority have 
 doubtless ceased to be discoverable, led to their 
 being suppressed or forgotten, but none of them 
 were destroyed by the poet, and of none of them 
 have we found any evidence that he wished for 
 their destruction. The only exception is the 
 unsuccessful prize poem of 1858. This, there 
 is reason to believe, Swinburne did wish, in the 
 exasperation of disappointment, to wipe out of 
 existence. But his father's care in concealing 
 this innocent from the massacre of his. son's 
 juvenile verses, was justified by the merit of so 
 remarkable a poem, which, on historical and 
 critical grounds alike, we have determined to 
 
 v 
 
PREFACE 
 
 restore. There passed into our hands also other 
 pieces which we have reason to believe the poet 
 wished to suppress, or on mature reflection 
 would have so wished. These we have not 
 printed. Our desire has been to be loyal to his 
 memory, and we are here giving to the world 
 nothing but what we believe that he would con- 
 sent to give if he could direct our conduct. 
 
 The principal exception to the chronological 
 arrangement adopted in this volume is the plac- 
 ing at the forefront of the book the eleven border 
 ballads which Mr. Wise was so fortunate as to 
 discover among the MSS. which he bought in 
 1909 from Watts-Dunton. 1 The rough drafts 
 of these ballads were found among MSS. of the 
 years 1862 and 1863, and the character of the 
 handwriting, as well as of the paper, leads us 
 to believe that they belong to this period. With 
 them were found several of the ballads published 
 at last in the Third Series of Poems and Ballads 
 (1889) but provisionally set up in type in 1877. 
 There is no doubt that Swinburne hesitated 
 long as to whether he should give to the public 
 any of his more primitive border ballads. At 
 an early age he had been attracted to this class 
 of poetry by the study of Scott's Border 
 Minstrelsy of 1 802-3, an examination of which 
 
 1 We owe the communication of a MS. of Wearieswa to 
 the kindness of Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell. 
 
 vi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 will show that it contains, then published for 
 the first time, all the ballads which most power- 
 fully affected Swinburne's imagination. "Kin- 
 mont Willie," "The Lament of the Border 
 Widow," "Johnnie of Braidislee," and a dozen 
 others which peculiarly attracted Swinburne 
 were unknown until Scott printed them in the 
 Border Minstrelsy. 
 
 But that invaluable miscellany also contained 
 a large number of "Imitations," towards which 
 Scott was only a little less lenient than had been 
 Percy and the other editors of the eighteenth 
 century. Both Leyden and Scott, who did so 
 much to enlarge and to ensure our knowledge 
 of ballad literature, continued to believe the true 
 border volkslied to be a thing too rough for 
 direct imitation. Modern ballads were defined 
 by Sir Walter Scott as "supposed capable of 
 uniting the vigorous numbers and wild fiction, 
 which occasionally charm us in the ancient 
 ballad, with a greater equality of versification, 
 and elegance of sentiment, than we can expect 
 to find in the works of a rude age." The con- 
 viction that the original ballads were barbarous 
 productions, without art or skill of any kind, but 
 agreeable only when polished and improved, 
 went so far and so late that even in 1859 Robert 
 Chambers, a ver^ thoughtful and practised critic 
 of their text, started the theory that all the 
 
 vii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 romantic Scottish ballads had enjoyed revision 
 by Elizabeth, Lady Wardlaw, about the year 
 1700. This was absurd, and the best critics 
 perceived the fascinating beauty of texts which 
 were manifestly antique. But still the notion 
 persisted that a "modern" ballad must be neater, 
 smoother and less savage than a genuine product 
 of the old Northumbrian border. 
 
 It is doubtless to this prejudice, which was 
 still universal sixty years ago, that we owe the 
 fact that Swinburne's best border ballads have 
 remained unpublished to this day. In 1862, 
 which is the date to which we attribute "Lord 
 Soulis" and "Lord Scales," Swinburne was in 
 the constant society of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 
 to whose judgment he appealed on every occa- 
 sion, and to whom all his poems were recited 
 directly they were composed. Rossetti himself 
 was greatly interested in resuscitating this form 
 of lyric, and in "Stratton Water" we have an 
 example of his success in composing an "imita- 
 tion" ballad of real merit. With this may be 
 compared Swinburne's own "We were ten maid- 
 ens in the green corn" and "Stand up, stand up, 
 thou Mary Janet" of the volume of 1866. In 
 these published ballads of Rossetti and Swin- 
 burne a great deal of the simplicity of the 
 originals is preserved, but there is a literary pre- 
 occupation, and something of what Sir Walter 
 
 viii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Scott meant by "elegance of sentiment." It 
 seems to be certain that the ballads of Swinburne 
 which we print in this collection, were regarded 
 by Rossetti, and probably by Morris also, as too 
 rough and bare for publication, and that only 
 such as possessed a pre-Raphaelite colouring or 
 costume were permitted to pass the ordeal. But 
 Swinburne persisted in his private conviction 
 that a kind of poetry much closer to the old 
 rievers' and freebooters' loosely-jointed and 
 rambling folk-poems might be attempted, and 
 he carefully preserved the ballads which we 
 have the privilege of publishing to-day. There 
 can be little doubt that in such rugged pieces 
 as "The Worm of Spindlestonheugh" and 
 "Duriesdyke," the aboriginal Northumbrian 
 accent is more closely reproduced than in any 
 other "imitation" border ballad. 
 
 With regard to Swinburne's unequalled skill 
 in reproducing the texture of style, a craft of 
 which he has left a wide range of examples, 
 Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell tells me that William 
 Morris, when he was dying, started making a 
 selection of border ballads, which he declared 
 were the finest poems in the English language, 
 to be printed at the Kelmscott Press. The 
 difficulties of gaps and various readings were too 
 great for Morris in his enfeebled condition, and 
 Mr. Cockerell suggested that the editing should 
 
 ix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 be handed over to Swinburne. "Oh, no!" 
 answered Morris, "that would never do. He 
 would be writing-in verses that no one would 
 be able to tell from the original stuff!" The 
 ballads we publish to-day will show the complete 
 justice of Morris's remark. 
 
 There is not much to be said with regard to 
 the individual ballads or their sources in history. 
 So far as can be discovered, no ancient ballad of 
 "Lord Soulis" exists, but the hero, in whose 
 legend Sir Walter Scott took a vivid interest, 
 was a historical personage. The family name 
 recurs frequently in the records of Scottish 
 charters granted during the fourteenth century, 
 and we are told that William, Lord Soulis, was 
 one of the most powerful barons in the south- 
 west of Scotland. He was of royal descent, and 
 in pursuance of his claim to the Scottish throne, 
 he conspired against Robert the Bruce. This 
 plot was discovered by the acuteness of Lady 
 Strathern. Lord Soulis was arrested at the head 
 of a troop at Berwick in 1320, and, his life being 
 spared by the King, his estates were forfeited 
 and he was secretly confined for the rest of his 
 years in the royal castle of Dumbarton. Prob- 
 ably owing to his disappearance, a legend grew 
 up that Lord Soulis had been ignominiously ex- 
 ecuted with the King's connivance, and it was 
 generally believed that he had been boiled to 
 
PREFACE 
 
 death within the Druid circle of Nine-Stone- 
 Rig, which overlooks and slopes down to the 
 Water of Hermitage. The cauldron in which 
 the unfortunate Soulis was said to have been 
 sodden was long exhibited to the credulous in 
 Liddesdale. 
 
 What foundation there may have been for 
 the popular belief that Lord Soulis was a wiz- 
 ard, and held communion with evil spirits, it is 
 now hopeless to conjecture. John Leyden 
 (1775-1811) put together all the rumours which 
 he could collect in the rambling poem of "Lord 
 Soulis" which he wrote about 1801, and which 
 Scott afterwards annotated. Leyden caught 
 something of the true ballad note, and he had 
 the advantage of being himself a borderer, the 
 descendant of small farmers long settled in 
 Teviotdale. 
 
 Swinburne's ballad follows Leyden's in no 
 respect, except in the indispensable particular of 
 the boiling of Lord Soulis as a wizard. The 
 three fair mays and the raiding of Eastness and 
 Westness appear to be Swinburne's invention, 
 but they follow exactly the ancient type of 
 border minstrelsy. Everything which regarded 
 the castle of Hermitage was romantically pre- 
 cious to this latest lover of Mary Queen of Scots. 
 
 What led Swinburne to the story of "Lord 
 Scales" it is not easy to conjecture. A barony 
 
 xi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 of Scales was founded in 1299, an ^ continued to 
 exist until 1460, when the seventh and last Lord 
 Scales, who had been a great enemy of the 
 common people and a supporter of Henry IV 
 against Jack Cade at home and the Normans 
 abroad, is said to have been murdered. The 
 barony then fell into abeyance. But these 
 Scaleses were a Herefordshire family, and had 
 no special border reputation. If Swinburne 
 intended to describe Robert, first Lord Scales, 
 that worthy, who died in 1305, had been most 
 active in France. The ballad of "Lord Scales" 
 has nothing to do with the universal poison- 
 ballad of Lord Randal. Nor has "Earl Robert" 
 any connection with the ballad-hero whose 
 mother poisons him because he has /married 
 Mary Florence against the mother's will. This 
 is an instance in which Swinburne has retold 
 a well-known ballad-legend ; there are four ver- 
 sions of the story in Motherwell, and they all 
 differ from Swinburne's. 
 
 But a special interest attaches to "The Worm 
 of Spindlestonheugh," where we find Swinburne 
 attempting to reconstruct the lost work of a real 
 Northumbrian minstrel. There is known to 
 have existed an authentic ballad of "The Laid- 
 ley Worm of Spindlestoneheugh." When 
 Hutchinson was writing his History of North- 
 umberland in 1768, a local clergyman, the Rev- 
 
 xii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 erend Robert Lamb, of Norham, communicated 
 to him a ballad with that title, which Hutchin- 
 son printed in 1776. It has long been admitted 
 that this was a forgery, although Lamb pre- 
 tended to have copied it "f rom an ancient manu- 
 script," and attributed it to an unknown 
 mediaeval poet, Duncan Frasier. But there have 
 been reported other ballads on the same subject, 
 and it is now generally admitted that there ex- 
 isted, and still survived near the end of the 
 eighteenth century, a genuine ancient ballad of 
 "The Worm of Spindlestoneheugh." It was, 
 moreover, the opinion of Professor Child that 
 Lamb must have woven into his forgery a good 
 many strands of the lost original. 
 
 Between these fragments and imitations, and 
 Swinburne's spirited poem, there is practically 
 no resemblance, except in the conventional 
 description of the Worm, or fire-drake, the 
 tradition of which seems to have been widely 
 diffused. In the genuine ballad of "The Hagg 
 Worm," we read — 
 
 "Word's gone east, and word's gone west, 
 And word's gane over the sea, — 
 There's a laidler worm in Spindlestoneheughs 
 Will destroy the North Countree." 
 
 The metamorphosis of a beautiful maiden 
 into a snake, dragon or "worm," the Schlangen- 
 jungfrau of Icelandic saga and Teutonic legend, 
 
 xiii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 is broadly disseminated. It is the subject of such 
 famous primitive ballads as "Kemp Owyne" (or 
 "Kempion") and "The Machrel of the Sea." 
 Swinburne is seen here in the act of composing, 
 on this familiar theme, a ballad in which no 
 modern or "elegant" touch should distract a 
 reader from believing that this was the genuine 
 poem which is known to have once existed in 
 connection with Bamborough Castle. The dis- 
 tinction between this design, and that which led 
 Swinburne to compose the more or less pre- 
 Raphaelite ballads of the volume of 1866, does 
 not require emphatic statement. 
 
 The Ode to Mazzini was found after Swin- 
 burne's death, in an old copy-book, from which 
 many leaves had already been torn, presumably 
 by himself. Perhaps the removal of these loos- 
 ened a page of the Ode to Mazzini, containing 
 the close of Strophe IV and the whole of Strophe 
 V, for these, unfortunately, have disappeared. 
 From this imperfect text Mr. T. J. Wise pri- 
 vately printed the Ode to Mazzini, in November 
 1909, in an edition of only twenty copies. In 
 1916, however, another copy of the MS. was 
 bequeathed by Miss Isabel Swinburne to the 
 British Museum, which, besides giving the miss- 
 ing strophes, supplied several minor corrections. 
 It had the appearance of being copied a good 
 deal later, perhaps in a moment of revived in- 
 
 xiv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 terest about i860. This second MS. has been 
 followed in the present text. 
 
 It may be well to point out that at the time 
 he wrote, and for long years to come, Swinburne 
 seems to have had no personal knowledge of 
 Mazzini. But he followed with ardent sym- 
 pathy the propaganda of the friends of Young 
 Italy in London, at the head of whose executive 
 council stood the inspiring name of Walter Sav- 
 age Landor. 
 
 The original MSS. contain no indication of 
 date, and the generally rhetorical character of 
 the poetry makes it at first sight impossible to 
 obtain any such term. But on a close examina- 
 tion, one point after another becomes luminous, 
 and we can at length, with almost perfect con- 
 fidence, date the composition of this ode within 
 a few months. The first salient observation 
 which the reader makes is concerned with 
 Strophe XVII, in which we learn that Poerio 
 was still a prisoner when it was written. But 
 Baron Carlo Poerio — whose case had been, in 
 1851, so eloquently brought before the English 
 public by Gladstone, in his letters to Lord 
 Aberdeen — was released from his prison on the 
 "foul wild rocks" of the island of Nisida in 
 December 1858. This fact was widely known 
 in England, and Swinburne would certainly 
 have learned it. Moreover, had the ode been 
 
 xv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 written subsequent to January 1858, it could not 
 but have contained some reference ta the at- 
 tempt of Orsini, which so greatly embarrassed 
 the action of Mazzini and rendered the policy 
 of Sardinia so difficult, besides thrilling Swin- 
 burne to the depths of his being. 
 
 Everything, on the other hand, points to 
 1857 as tne Y ear m which this ode was com- 
 posed. Strophe VII, with its strange reference 
 to the "priestly hunters," and the close of 
 Strophe IX, are intelligible only in reference to 
 Cavour's attempts to encourage the Papacy in 
 its efforts, half-hearted enough, to check the 
 violence of Austria and the guilt of Naples. In 
 this connection, the reader of to-day may be 
 surprised to find no acknowledgment of the 
 services of the great "regenerator of Italy." 
 But Swinburne, all through life, was unjust to 
 Cavour, because of his monarchical tendencies, 
 as were at that moment the leaders of "Young 
 Italy," with Mazzini himself at their head. 
 It is observable that the notion of the one 
 and indivisible Republic, which pervades and 
 animates Songs before Sunrise from beginning 
 to end, is not suggested in the Ode to Mazzini. 
 Swinburne had not yet accepted such an idea; 
 in 1857 his own boyish hopes were bounded, 
 as were the more adult desires of Mazzini, by 
 the frontiers of Italy. 
 
 xvi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The moment when the ode was written must 
 have been early in 1857. Sardinia was pro- 
 voking Austria to a violent act, so as to make 
 war inevitable: the house of Naples was filling 
 the cup of its iniquities; "out of a court alive 
 with creeping things" the stiletto of Agesilao 
 Milano had flashed on the 8th of December, 
 1856, but had failed to slay the detestable 
 Bomba, a disappointment obscurely referred to 
 in the latter part of Strophe XIII. On the 16th 
 of March, 1857, Vienna could bear no longer 
 the violent attacks of the Italian Press on 
 Austrian tyranny in Lombardy, and the 
 Ambassador withdrew from Turin. Mazzini 
 immediately left London, where he had resided 
 since he fled from Rome, and descended once 
 more upon Italy. He found that distraction 
 was rife among the friends of the Republic, and 
 that hope was dying out, "like a forgotten tale." 
 It was at this moment, almost without question, 
 that Sw T inburne composed his Ode to Mazzini, 
 in the hour of suspense. The careful reader will 
 not fail to observe that the poet has not yet 
 heard of any acts which Mazzini has performed 
 on the soil of Italy. Had the insurrections at 
 Genoa (June 1857) and Leghorn occurred, or 
 had the attack on Naples, led by Pisacane, Maz- 
 zini's friend, been made, the poet must have 
 celebrated them in his verse. 
 
 xvii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Everything, then, tends to show that Swin- 
 burne composed this ode in the Spring of 1857. 
 He was just twenty years of age, and this was, 
 with all its puerile shortcomings, the most 
 powerful and accomplished work which he had 
 written up to that time. We are, therefore, 
 met by the question: Why did he publish it 
 neither then, nor later? For this an answer is 
 readily forthcoming. In 1857 he had no means 
 of publishing anything, except the slight and 
 imitative verses which he presently contributed 
 to Undergraduate Papers. For that ephemeral 
 periodical, the Ode to Mazzini was eminently 
 unfitted. But the tide of history was running 
 fast, and the lyric visions of 1857 were soon left 
 high and dry on the shore of time. After the 
 diplomatic isolation of Austria in 1858, after the 
 war ending with the Peace of Villafranca in 
 July 1859, after the death of Bomba and the 
 capture of the Two Sicilies by Garibaldi in 
 i860, Swinburne's w T ild and vague aspirations 
 became hopelessly old-fashioned. The interest 
 of his ode was temporary, and its political 
 purpose had ceased to exist. 
 
 Another reason why, when Swinburne became 
 a prominent poet, he could not publish the Ode 
 to Mazzini, may be found in its form. It is an 
 irregular ode, of the Pindaresque sort, on the 
 model which was invented by Cowley, and 
 
 xviii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 constantly employed during the close of the 
 seventeenth century, but repudiated, in a bril- 
 liant and learned essay, by Congreve, as founded 
 on a total misconception of the laws of Pindar's 
 prosody. Later, Swinburne perceived the falsity 
 of the "Pindaresque" ode, and his mature poems 
 are types of disciplined evolution. There were 
 therefore reasons of various kinds, external and 
 internal, why the Ode to Mazzini, if not printed 
 soon after it was written, could not be printed 
 by Swinburne at all. 
 
 Of Swinburne's undergraduate poems some 
 other examples have been preserved, and will be 
 found in the ensuing pages. In 1857 trie sub- 
 ject given at Oxford for the Newdigate Prize 
 was "The Temple of Janus." Both John Nichol 
 and Swinburne were competitors, and each 
 declared that the other was sure to be successful. 
 It was, however, awarded to Philip Stanhope 
 Worsley of Corpus (1835- 1866), afterwards a 
 distinguished translator of Homer. Swinburne 
 and Nichol went to hear Worsley read his 
 poem at Commemoration, and the late Mr. 
 Pringle Nichol obliged me with this anecdote. 
 The two unsuccessful poets were not indis- 
 posed to be critical, when Nichol, hearing the 
 line — 
 
 "Stars in their courses fought the fight of Rome," 
 xix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 whispered to his companion, "That's fine"; 
 whereupon Swinburne snapped out, "Why, it's 
 in the Bible !" 
 
 No trace has been found of "The Temple of 
 Janus," but the following year Swinburne again 
 tried for the Newdigate. The subject given for 
 the Prize Poem, to be awarded in March 1858, 
 was "The Discovery of the North-West Pas- 
 sage." At this date, the loss of Franklin and 
 his companions was universally accepted, al- 
 though it was not until May 1859 that McClin- 
 tock discovered the memorandum proving the 
 death of Franklin to have taken place on the 
 nth of June, 1847. Swinburne's poem takes 
 for granted that the whole party died together, 
 but it is now known that the leader, by suc- 
 cumbing earlier, escaped the terrible sufferings 
 of those who survived him. Swinburne's verses 
 eloquently transcribe the general sentiment 
 which prevailed all over the world until the 
 return of the Fox in 1859. 
 
 In late years, Swinburne was never known to 
 make the slightest reference to the fact that he 
 had entered the lists again, and this time without 
 the support or rivalry of Nichol. His disap- 
 pointment at failure — for the prize was awarded 
 to a Mr. Francis Low Latham, of Brazenose 
 College — must have been acute. Lord Bryce 
 remembers that the Old Mortality were indig- 
 
 xx 
 
PREFACE 
 
 nant at Swinburne's not being the winner, from 
 which it seems likely that he read his poem to 
 the members of the club. He certainly read it 
 to Stubbs, who considered his success more than 
 probable. We cannot but be astonished that 
 the judges were not struck by the extraordinary 
 merits of the poem, by its melody, by its high 
 strain of feeling, by its patriotism and dignity. 
 No successful Newdigate, we may believe, has 
 ever excelled it in solid beauty since the founda- 
 tion of the prize. But it is possible that the 
 examiners did not even read it. By the will of 
 Sir Roger Newdigate, the only permissible 
 metre was the heroic couplet. Doubtless the 
 metre of Swinburne's poem was considered 
 irregular enough to make the poem ineligible. 
 
 Not very much requires to be said about the 
 miscellaneous pieces. The paraphrase of Dies 
 Irce is very early, not later, certainly, than 1857. 
 Possibly it was produced for the benefit of the 
 Warden of Radley during one of Swinburne's 
 visits to St. Peter's College. There exists a 
 careful prose translation of the Latin poem, 
 evidently of the same date, in Swinburne's hand- 
 writing. King Ban is a fragment from an at- 
 tempt to put the early chapters of the Morte 
 a" Arthur into blank verse. King Ban of Ben- 
 wick and King Bors of Gaul were, it will be 
 remembered, the two good kings who supported 
 
 xxi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Arthur and fought with him against Claudas 
 and the Eleven Bad Kings. It is interesting to 
 note that it was from precisely this section of 
 the Arthurian epic that Swinburne took, long 
 afterwards, The Tale of Balen. 
 
 "In the Twilight" was almost certainly writ- 
 ten in October 1867, when Victor Emmanuel, 
 acting under the advice of Ratazzi, had en- 
 deavoured to confine Garibaldi to his island. It 
 was probably rejected from Songs before Sun- 
 rise on account of its similarity of subject and 
 tone with "A Watch in the Night." 
 
 The greater part of the poems here published 
 were hidden, unknown to Watts-Dunton, at the 
 Pines. All round Swinburne's sitting-room 
 there were discovered after his death unsightly 
 rolls or parcels tied up in old newspaper, some 
 of them looking as if they had not been opened 
 for half a century. These parcels were found 
 to contain proofs, bills, letters, prospectuses and 
 every species of rubbish, together with occa- 
 sional MSS. in prose and verse. On reflection, 
 it became evident what they were. For many 
 years Swinburne was in the habit of allowing 
 miscellaneous material to gather on his table, 
 until a moment came when he could bear the 
 pressure of it no longer. He would then gather 
 everything up, tie the whole in the current 
 newspaper of the day, and then delicately place 
 
 xxii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 it on a shelf, where it never was again disturbed. 
 A fresh heap would then begin to grow, till 
 the day when the poet suddenly pounced upon 
 it, and doomed it to the recesses of another 
 newspaper. Through a great part of his life, 
 Swinburne seems to have carried out this curious 
 plan, and in earlier days, when he wandered 
 from lodging-house to lodging-house, he must 
 always have carried with him his carpet-bag of 
 newspaper parcels. 
 
 It took a very long time to sort out the 
 contents of these packages, and to examine and 
 verify the poems which seemed to be unfamiliar. 
 In this laborious and delightful work Mr. Wise 
 was kind enough to* associate me from the first, 
 since Watts-Dunton's interest in the matter had 
 become entirely a financial one. At last, in the 
 summer of 1913, we satisfied ourselves that no 
 more early poetry of a nature fitted for publica- 
 tion would turn up, and we began to arrange the 
 discovered pieces which are now at last given 
 to the public. 
 
 There is a section of Swinburne's lyrical writ- 
 ing which has often been talked of, but will not 
 at present escape our guardianship. Once, in the 
 sixties, Jowett drove the poet home from a din- 
 ner, and some one asking the Master afterwards 
 how Swinburne had behaved, Jowett answered 
 with an indulgent smile, "O, he sang all the way, 
 
 xxiii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 — bad songs — very bad songs." The world is 
 growing less and less censorious, and more and 
 more willing to be amused. Perhaps a future 
 editor, perhaps even we ourselves, may one day 
 venture in this direction, but not yet. 
 
 Edmund Gosse. 
 
 May, igj7. 
 
 XXIV 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 MM 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 BORDER BALLADS: 
 
 LORD SOULIS 3 
 
 LORD SCALES 15 
 
 BURD MARGARET 23 
 
 THE WORM OF SPINDLESTONHEUGH 30 
 
 DURIESDYKE 40 
 
 WESTLANDWELL 44 
 
 EARL ROBERT 48 
 
 THE KING'S AE SON 52 
 
 LADY MAISIE'S BAIRN 54 
 
 WEARIESWA' 56 
 
 THE EARL OF MAR'S DAUGHTER .... 67 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS: 
 
 THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN . . • 75 
 
 THE CUP OF GOD'S WRATH 85 
 
 ECHO 87 
 
 DIES IR^ 89 
 
 autumn rondel 92 
 
 a carol for charity 93 
 
 a song for margaret midhurst . . . 94 
 
 love and sleep, i 98 
 
 love and sleep, ii 99 
 
 evening by the sea ioo 
 
 song for chastelard 102 
 
 king ban: a fragment 103 
 
 XXV 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 GIRLS 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS— continued: 
 
 THE WHITE MAID'S WOOING 
 
 LANDOR AT FLORENCE 
 
 "AH, FACE AND HANDS AND BODY BEAUTIFUL 
 
 GENTLE SPRING 
 
 CONSTANCE AND FREDERICK 
 
 POPE CELESTIN AND GIORDANO . 
 
 IN THE TWILIGHT .... 
 
 CHANSON DE FEVRLER 
 
 CHANSON D'AVRIL .... 
 
 THAW! A FRAGMENT .... 
 
 BALLAD OF THE FAIR HELMET-MAKER TO THE 
 
 OF joy: FROM VILLON . 
 RECOLLECTIONS .... 
 
 SAIREY GAMP'S ROUNDEL . 
 TO A LEEDS POET .... 
 
 "HIGH THOUGHT AND HALLOWED LOVE, BY 
 
 MADE ONE" .... 
 
 -&OLUS 
 
 TO JAMES MCNEIL WHISTLER 
 
 THE BALLADE OF TRUTHFUL CHARLES . 
 
 NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1889 
 
 THE CENTENARY OF SHELLEY 
 
 THE CONCERT OF EUROPE . 
 
 MEMORIAL ODE ON THE DEATH OF LECONTE DE LISLE 
 
 MEMORIAL VERSES ON THE DEATH OF KARL BLIND 
 
 ODETOMAZZINI 
 
 PARODIES: 
 
 disgust: a dramatic monologue 
 
 the ghost of it 
 
 FAITH 
 
 PAGE 
 
 108 
 IIO 
 III 
 112 
 
 113 
 I20 
 127 
 131 
 134 
 136 
 
 137 
 139 
 142 
 
 143 
 144 
 
 145 
 ISO 
 151 
 153 
 155 
 156 
 
 iS7 
 162 
 
 167 
 
 187 
 193 
 
 XXVI 
 
BORDER BALLADS 
 
LORD SOULIS 
 
 LORD SOULIS is a keen wizard, 
 
 A wizard mickle of lear: 
 Who cometh in bond of Lord Soulis, 
 
 Thereof he hath little cheer. 
 
 He has three braw castles to his hand, 
 
 That wizard mickle of age; 
 The first of Estness, the last of Westness, 
 
 The middle of Hermitage. 
 
 He has three fair mays into his hand, 
 
 The least is good to see; 
 The first is Annet, the second is Janet, 
 
 The third is Marjorie. 
 
 The firsten o' them has a gowden crown, 
 The neist has a gowden ring; 
 
 The third has sma' gowd her about, 
 She has a sweeter thing. 
 
 The firsten o' them has a rose her on, 
 
 The neist has a marigold; 
 The third of them has a better flower, 
 
 The best that springeth ower wold. 
 
 3 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 The kisses that are her mouth within, 
 There is no man knoweth of any one; 
 
 She is a pure maid of her body, 
 The best that standeth under sun. 
 
 And Estness was a bonny castle, 
 
 It stood upon a sea; 
 The green for Annet, the yellow for Janet, 
 
 The brown for Marjorie. 
 
 And Westness was a bonny castle, 
 
 It lay upon a lea; 
 Red wine for Annet, and white for Janet, 
 
 And water for Marjorie. 
 
 But Hermitage is a fair castle, 
 
 The fairest of the three; 
 Saft beds for Annet, silk sheets for Janet, 
 
 Nane sheets for Marjorie. 
 
 He made them a' by strong cunning, 
 
 That wizard great of hand; 
 The twain to fall at his life's ending, 
 
 The third alway to stand. 
 
 He made them a' by hell's cunning, 
 
 That wizard full of ill; 
 They burnt up Estness and cast down Westness, 
 
 But Hermitage standeth still. 
 
 4 
 
LORD SOULIS 
 
 There be twenty lords in that border, 
 Full twenty strong lords and three, 
 They have sworn an oath for Lord Soulis, 
 Weel wroken of him to be. 
 
 They have set a meeting at Emmethaugh, 
 
 And upon the Lilienshaw, 
 They will be wroken of Lord Soulis, 
 
 His body to hang and draw. 
 
 They have broken bread between them a' 
 At Ottershawe that's ower the lea, 
 
 They wad plunder Estness and harry Westness, 
 But Hermitage they let be. 
 
 They watered steeds by the wan Wellhaugh 
 
 Under the sweet leaves green; 
 Frae the Yethburn head to Christenbury, 
 
 To ride they were full keen. 
 
 When they were come to the Yethburn spait, 
 
 I wot their knees were wet; 
 When they were come to the Yethburn head, 
 
 There was no porter at tha yett. 
 
 When they had won to the Bloody-bush, 
 
 I wot their sides were sair: 
 Before they were well upon that border 
 
 They had mickle sorrow and care. 
 "O gin we were at the sweet Wellhaugh, 
 
 Under the merry leaves fair!" 
 
 5 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Before they were well on the other side 
 He set a sair cast them between — 
 
 "O gin we were by the Emmetburn 
 Under the little leaves green, 
 
 Between the birks and the Emmet water, 
 We had the better been." 
 
 When they came on that weary border, 
 He sent an ill thing them amang; 
 
 "We winna ride ower to Hermitage, 
 The wa's they are too Strang; 
 
 But we will ride to the low castles, 
 Though the ways be ill to gang." 
 
 Out then spak Burd Marjorie's lover, 
 
 He was a fair man of his face; 
 "Gin I may be wroken of Lord Soulis 
 
 I have sma' care of my place; 
 
 "Gin I may be wroken of Lord Soulis 
 
 I have sma' care of ony thing; 
 Of the wine for shedding, the sheets for 
 
 wedding, 
 
 The kirk for christening. 
 
 "I have sma' care of my sad body 
 
 Upon the ground to gang; 
 Gin I wist where I might be wroken of him 
 
 I wad give it to him Strang." 
 
 o 
 
LORD SOULIS 
 
 Out then spak may Janet's brother, 
 He was a stout knight and a keen; 
 
 "He has sent his devils us amang 
 To work us trouble and teen. 
 
 "Gin I wist where I might be wroken of him, 
 
 Betwixen dark and day, 
 I wad give baith my soul and body 
 
 To hell to fetch away." 
 
 Out then spak Burd Annet's father, 
 He was a good man full of age; 
 
 "Ye'll speir at Estness, ye'll speir at Westness, 
 But no at Hermitage." 
 
 They turned their horse-heads round about, 
 
 Rode low down by the sand; 
 And a' the way they went upon, 
 
 The devil went at their hand. 
 
 The first castle they came to, 
 
 It stood upon a sea; 
 The least worth chamber in a' that castle, 
 
 It was a' whalestooth and sandal-tree. 
 
 "O whatten a may is yonder may, 
 
 Sae fair to see upon?" 
 "O yonder is my daughter Annet, 
 
 Out of my ha's was gone." 
 
 7 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 "Gin ye'll come hither to me, Annet, 
 
 God's grace of me ye'se have." 
 "I wadna gang out, my auld fool father, 
 
 Gin ye were graithed in your grave." 
 
 "Give me three kisses, my daughter Annet, 
 
 Before my mouth is cold." 
 "I winna come forth for nae man's grey beard, 
 
 Till my bairn be a sennight old." 
 
 He turned his face against the sea, 
 
 His heart brak right atwain; 
 "The fire of hell for your body, Annet, 
 
 Ere ye behold me again." 
 
 "Pull off the green, and the goodly green, 
 
 Put on the black, the black, 
 For my father is ridden to Wearyland, 
 
 I doubt he'll never win back." 
 
 They turned their horse-heads round about, 
 
 Rode high upon a hill; 
 And a' the gate they gaed about, 
 
 The devil them garred gang ill. 
 
 The neister castle they came to, 
 
 It was hard upon the low champaign; 
 
 The least worth bower in a' that castle, 
 It was a' white siller and green stane. 
 
 8 
 
LORD SOULIS 
 
 "O whatten a may is yonder may 
 That is sae great of her body?" 
 
 "O yonder is my sister Janet, 
 Was stolen by night frae me. 
 
 "Gin ye'll come hither to me, Janet, 
 
 God's love of me ye'se hae." 
 "I wadna gang out for aye, brither, 
 
 Though ye were dead the day." 
 
 "O ye'll gang down to me, Janet, 
 For God's sweet mercy and mine; 
 
 For I have sought ye the lang lands ower, 
 These eight months wearing nine." 
 
 "I winna gang forth for nae brither, 
 Though his body should be lorn ; 
 
 I winna gang forth for nae man's face, 
 Till Lord Soulis' bairn be born." 
 
 He turned his face against the brigg, 
 His heart brak right in three; 
 
 "The sorrow of hell for you, Janet, 
 And the warld's sorrow for me." 
 
 "Take down the red, and the bonny red, 
 
 Set up the black, the black: 
 For my brother is ridden to Wearieswood, 
 
 I wot he'll never win back." 
 
 9 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 They turned their horse-heads round about, 
 
 Rode back a day and twain: 
 And a' the rivers they rode upon 
 The devil rode at their rein. 
 
 The third castle they came to, 
 It was the castle of Hermitage; 
 
 There is nae man may break the sides of it, 
 Though the stanes therein are great of age. 
 
 "O whatten a may is yonder may, 
 
 That looks like ony flower?" 
 "O yon is my very love, Marjorie, 
 
 Was borne out of my bower." 
 
 The bower Lady Marjorie was in, 
 It had neither white cloths nor red, 
 
 There were nae rushes to the bower floors, 
 And nae pillows to the bed. 
 
 u O will ye come down but a very little, 
 
 For God's sake or for me? 
 Or will ye kiss me a very little, 
 
 But six poor kisses and three?" 
 
 She's leaned hersell to that window, 
 
 For sorrow she couldna stand; 
 She's bound her body by that window, 
 
 With iron at her hand. 
 
 10 
 
LORD SOULIS 
 
 She's sworn by tree and by tree's leaf, 
 
 By aits and rye and corn, 
 "Gin ye hadna come the night," she says, 
 
 "I had been but dead the morn." 
 
 She's kissed him under the bower-bar 
 
 Nine goodly times and ten; 
 And forth is come that keen wizard 
 
 In the middest of his men. 
 
 And forth is come that foul wizard, 
 
 God give him a curse and care! 
 Says "the life is one time sweet to have 
 
 And the death is three times sair." 
 
 Forth is come that strong wizard, 
 
 God give him a heavy day! 
 Says "ye shall have joy of your leman's body 
 
 When April cometh after May." 
 
 Between the hill and the wan water 
 
 In fields that were full sweet, 
 There was riding and running together, 
 
 And many a man gat red-shod feet. 
 
 Between the wa's and the Hermitage water, 
 
 In ways that were waxen red 
 There was cleaving of caps and shearing of jack, 
 
 And many a good man was there dead. 
 
 ii 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 They have taken that strong wizard 
 
 To bind him by the hands: 
 The links of aim brast off his body 
 
 Like splints of bursten birken wands. 
 
 And they have taken that keen wizard 
 
 To bind him by the hause-bane; 
 The links of aim brast off his body 
 
 As blossom that is burst wi' rain. 
 
 And they have taken that foul wizard 
 
 To bind him by the feet: 
 The links of aim brast off his body 
 
 As berries that are burst with heat. 
 
 They have putten fire upon his flesh, 
 
 For nae fire wad it shrink: 
 They have casten his body in the wan well-head, 
 
 For nae water wad it sink. 
 
 Up then gat the fiend Borolallie, 
 
 Bade them "Give ower and let me: 
 
 Between warld's fire and warld's water 
 He gat a gift of me; 
 
 Till fire come out of wan water, 
 There's nane shall gar him dee." 
 
 "A rede, a rede, thou foul Borolallie, 
 
 A good rede out of hand; 
 Shall we be wroken of Lord Soulis 
 
 By water or by land? 
 
 12 
 
LORD SOULIS 
 
 Or shall we be wroken a grea* way off, 
 Or even whereas we stand?" 
 
 And up it spak him, foul Borolallie, 
 
 Between the tree and the leaf o' the tree; 
 
 "Ye maunna be wroken of Lord Soulis 
 By land neither by sea; 
 
 Between red fire and wan water 
 Weel wroken ye shall be." 
 
 And up it spak him, foul Borolallie, 
 Between Lord Soulis and them a' : 
 
 "Ye maunna be wroken of Lord Soulis 
 Betwixen house and ha'; 
 
 But ye maun take him to the Ninestane rigs 
 And take his life awa'." 
 
 They have taken him to the Ninestane rigs 
 
 His foul body to slay; 
 Between the whins and the whinstanes 
 
 He had a weary way. 
 
 They have taken him to the Ninestane rigs 
 
 His foul body to spill: 
 Between the green broom and the yellow 
 
 He gat a bitter ill. 
 
 They had a sair cast with his foul body, 
 There was nae man wist what to do; 
 
 "And O gin his body were weel sodden, 
 Weel sodden and suppit in broo!" 
 
 13 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 And out it spak him, foul Borolallie, 
 Says "whatten a coil's this coil? 
 
 Ye'll mak a fire on the Ninestane rigs, 
 For a pot thereon to 5011." 
 
 And out it spak him, foul Borolallie, 
 Says "whatten a din's this din? 
 
 Ye'll boil his body within the brass, 
 The brass to boil him in." 
 
 They boiled his body on the Ninestane rigs 
 
 That wizard mickle of lear; 
 They have sodden the bones of his body, 
 
 To be their better cheer. 
 
 They buried his bones on the Ninestane rigs 
 But the flesh was a' clean gane; 
 
 There was great joy in a' that border 
 That Lord Soulis was well slain. 
 
 H 
 
LORD SCALES 
 
 Lord Randal lay in low prison, 
 
 He looked against the wa'; 
 Gin the big wa' stanes were linen bands, 
 
 I'd win weel through them a'. 
 
 Lord Randal sat by a low lattice, 
 
 He looked against the sea; 
 Gin the foul bed straws were bonny ships, 
 
 I wot weel wad I be. 
 
 Lord Randal stood by a Strang window 
 
 He looked against his hand; 
 Gin my twa wrist chains were hempen threads, 
 
 I'd win weel to the sand. 
 
 Ye'll take the rings frae my fingers, 
 
 The silk knot frae my hair: 
 Ye'll gie them to the bonny knight 
 
 That cries on me sae sair. 
 
 Ye'll take the gowd bands frae my back, 
 
 The covers frae my bed: 
 Ye'll gie them to the Lord Randal, 
 
 To put beneath his head. 
 
 15 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Hae silk into your hands, Randal, 
 
 And gowd twine to your feet: 
 And braw pillows about your head 
 
 To keep your lang hair sweet. 
 
 For the rain rins through the rank bed straw, 
 
 And the wet drips in the wa' ; 
 And the wee red w T orms in this prison 
 
 Wad gar your gowd hair fa'. 
 
 I had liefer hae my ain twa hands, 
 
 And keep my body cold; 
 I had liefer hae my own twa feet 
 
 Than twa sic shoon of gold. 
 
 But I had liefer hae my lady's mouth 
 Than the silk and the siller bands; 
 
 But I had liefer hae her sweet body 
 Than a' the gow r d in land. 
 
 I had liefer kiss my lady dead 
 Than a live woman should kiss me: 
 
 I had liefer hae my lady dead 
 Than a fair woman's live body. 
 
 O ye'se hae twine o' gowd for hemp, 
 
 And twine o' silk for thread; 
 And ye shall hae her fair body, 
 
 But no' her body dead. 
 
 16 
 
LORD SCALES 
 
 She's loosed the knot upon his back, 
 
 The knot upon his throat: 
 She's clad him with a suit of samite, 
 
 And red silk to his coat. 
 
 She's washed him well wi' sweet waters, 
 
 Put spice into his hair; 
 She's set his feet in a narrow side chamber, 
 
 Upon a sideway stair. 
 
 He's ta'en him to her, Lady Helen, 
 
 Where she sat by a bed, 
 The least cloth upon her body, 
 
 It was of the noble red. 
 
 The insides of her bed curtains, 
 The gold was gone them through; 
 
 The outsides of her bed curtains, 
 They were full merry and blue. 
 
 The silk side of her bed pillows, 
 
 It was of the summer green; 
 The gold was bound in her gold hair, 
 
 That now should tell them twa between. 
 
 O came ye for my lord's land, 
 
 O for my lord's fee; 
 Or came ye for my lord's hate, 
 
 Or yet for the love of me? 
 
 17 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 O gin ye come like a land robber, 
 
 Full soon shall ye hang; 
 But gin ye come like a woman's lover, 
 
 Full sweetly ye shall gang. 
 
 O it was never for no hate, 
 
 For lord's love nor for fee: 
 But a' the weird that is me on 
 
 It was a' for your body. 
 
 Gin ye set nae scorn by me, Randal, 
 
 To dree a weird and a pain, 
 It's no Lord Scales my auld husband 
 
 That shall depart us twain. 
 
 Gin this be sooth of you, Randal, 
 That ye have good will to play; 
 
 It's no Lord Scales my auld husband 
 Shall be better of us twey. 
 
 For I hae reapers to the land, 
 
 And sailors to the sea; 
 And I hae maidens to my bower 
 
 That wait by three and three; 
 And it's no Lord Scales my auld husband 
 
 Shall part my will and me. 
 
 The first draw rapes upon the ship 
 Between the sea and the sea sand; 
 
 The neist they lie in the lang corn, 
 Wi' the reaphooks to their hand; 
 
 18 
 
LORD SCALES 
 
 And between the lang beds and the wa', 
 It's there the maidens stand. 
 
 She's had him to her bonnie bed, 
 
 She's laid it warm and wide; 
 He's clipped that lady by the middle waist, 
 
 And by the middle side. 
 
 There was neither light nor fire them by, 
 And they twain were set to sleep, 
 
 When she's turned her chin to the pillow side 
 Made her a space to weep. 
 
 He kissed her on her fair twa breasts, 
 
 And hard upon her chin; 
 He's kissed her by her white halse-bane 
 
 The little salt tears fell in. 
 
 The small tears fell about her face 
 
 Between her lips and his; 
 From side to side of her gold hair 
 
 Her face was full sad to kiss. 
 
 Lie down, lie down now, Lady Helen, 
 
 Lie still into my hand; 
 I wadna gie ane o' the pillow-beres 
 
 For ten measures of land, 
 
 Lie still into mine arms, Helen, 
 
 Betwixen sheet and sheet: 
 I wadna gie ane o' the cods of silk 
 
 For ten measures of wheat. 
 
 19 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Lie still into mine arms, Helen, 
 
 The gold side of the bed; 
 I wadna gie ane o' thy kaims o' lammer 
 
 For the gold on the queen's head. 
 
 It's I lie saft the night, Randal, 
 With my head against your face; 
 
 But gin ye had slept in my stables, 
 It had been the sweeter place. 
 
 It's I lie saft the night, Randal, 
 
 But ye'll lie hard the morn; 
 For I hear a mouse rin by the straw, 
 
 And a bird rin by the corn. 
 
 O whatten a bird is that, Helen, 
 
 I wad fain ken what it ails? 
 It's an auld bird and an ill, Randal, 
 
 Gin it be no Lord Scales. 
 
 Then in and came her auld husband, 
 
 I wot a fu' lean bird was he; 
 It's wake ye or sleep ye now, madame, 
 
 Ye'se gar mak room for me. 
 
 O are ye sick the night, Lord Scales, 
 
 In the head or else the side? 
 Or are ye fain to sleep, Lord Scales, 
 
 For the fear ye have to ride? 
 
 20 
 
LORD SCALES 
 
 Randal's taen out her girdle knife, 
 He's stricken him amang his een; 
 
 It was mair for the lady's love 
 
 Than it was for his proper teen. 
 
 Out came a' her bower maidens, 
 
 In their night smocks and night rails; 
 
 It was a' for sorrow of their lady, 
 It was naething for Lord Scales. 
 
 Out ca/ne a' her bower maidens, 
 In their sma' coats green and white; 
 
 With a red rose wrought for the left breast, 
 And a rose wrought for the right. 
 
 Lord Scales had on a goodly coat, 
 It was a' bound wi' steel thickly; 
 
 Lord Randal had but a little shirt 
 Between the wind and his body. 
 
 The first good straik Lord Randal strak, 
 The red blood sprang upon his face; 
 
 It was mair for his lady's love 
 Than it was for her lord's grace. 
 
 The neist good straik Lord Randal strak, 
 The bright blood sprang upon his nails; 
 
 It was mair for love of Lady Helen 
 Than pity of Lord Scales. 
 
 21 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Lord Scales he strak a fu' straight straik, 
 
 But Randal strak a sair; 
 Lord Scales had a little joy of it, 
 
 But Lady Helen had mair. 
 
 Gar set my ships into the sea 
 And my hooks into the corn ; 
 
 For gin I have lost a man the night, 
 I'll get a man the morn. 
 
 
 22 
 
BURD MARGARET 
 
 "O WHA will get me wheaten bread 
 
 And wha will get me wine? 
 And wha will build me a gold cradle 
 
 To rock this child of mine? 
 
 "There's nane will drink of bitter wine, 
 
 Nor eat of bitter bread ; 
 There's nane will ca' me a clean maiden 
 
 When my body is dead. 
 
 "Nae silk maun come upon my feet, 
 
 Nae gowd into my hair; 
 My brothers smite me on the mouth, 
 
 Where nae man shall kiss mair." 
 
 She held her hands in the wan water 
 
 Till the fingers were a' red; 
 Her face was like nae fair burd's face 
 
 That has her maidenhead. 
 
 She's streekit the water on her hair, 
 She's signed it owre her chin, 
 
 She's streekit the water on her lips 
 To let the draps gang in. 
 
 23 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 The tears ran through her fair sma' mouth; 
 
 The white bones small and thin 
 Were waxen sharper in her lang throat, 
 
 And in her wrist and chin. 
 
 "Gin my mither had wist o* this 
 
 When she was left wi' me^ 
 I wot these arms that are waxen lean 
 
 Had ne'er gaun round a man's body. 
 
 "Gin my mither had dreamed a dream 
 
 That sic a kail should fall on me, 
 She had bound me between her smock and her 
 
 kirtle 
 
 And cast me ower the sea. 
 
 "She had row'd me between her smock and her 
 
 kirtle, 
 
 Let me to swim or sink ; 
 And I had drunken o' the saut water 
 
 Instead of tears to drink. 
 
 "The bairn that is waxen me within, 
 
 It is waxen a pain to me; 
 But weel lie he and ever weel 
 
 That made my bairn's body. 
 
 "The white that was in my twa brows, 
 
 I wot it is waxen red ; 
 But weel lie he and ever weel 
 
 That had my maidenhead. 
 
 24 
 
BURD MARGARET 
 
 "O weel be to the fair red roses 
 
 Stood high against my chin; 
 But ill be to the good green leaves, 
 
 For they were half the sin. 
 
 "O weel be to the little bird 
 
 Sang low against my knee; 
 But ill be to my fause nourice, 
 
 She had sma' reck of me. 
 
 "O weel be to the fair red roses 
 
 Stood high against my face; 
 But ill be to the bonny rowan, 
 
 I wish it never grace." 
 
 Burd Margaret lay in the rank water-grass 
 
 By the fairest ford in Tyne; 
 And between the grass and the aspen leaf, 
 
 She saw their armour shine. 
 
 The first of them had fair Milan coats, 
 The second had but pikes and jacks; 
 
 The third had coats of fair scarlet, 
 And gold across their caps. 
 
 There were three and three wi' bits of steel, 
 And three and three wF siller fine, 
 
 And three and three wP bits of gold, 
 Was red as fair new wine. 
 
 25 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 "Whatten men be these that rin," she said, 
 "Or whatten men be these that ride? 
 
 Either ye be thieves f rae the north border, 
 Or men that look a bride." 
 
 "Gin I be rid frae the north border 
 And my braw bride won south, 
 
 I'll gar her clip me round the body 
 And kiss me on the mouth." 
 
 "I think ye be nae knight," she said, 
 
 "Nae knight that wons about; 
 There was never man but a devil 
 
 That had sae lang a snout. 
 
 "Gin I should kiss your mouth," she said. 
 
 "I wis I had kissed a loon; 
 I think ye be some clouted carter, 
 
 Albeit ye wear steel shoon." 
 
 "I am Lord Hugh of Burnieshaw, 
 Ye may weel ken the face o' me ; 
 
 And I wad hae back the bonnie lad bairn 
 That I left here wi' thee." 
 
 "Gin ye be Hughie of Burnieshaw, 
 As I trow a better may have been, 
 
 Tell me what words I said to you, 
 When the rowans were green." 
 
 26 
 
BURD MARGARET 
 
 "O first ye pu'd the green berry, 
 
 And syne ye pu'd the red ; 
 And the first word that ever ye spak 
 
 Was to complain your maidenhead. 
 
 "O first ye pu'd the red hollin, 
 
 And syne ye pu'd the green : 
 And the first word ye spak to me 
 
 Ye grat fu' sair between." 
 
 "Gin ye be Hughie of Burnieshaw, 
 As I think weel ye'll never be, 
 
 Here have ye back your bonny lad bairn, 
 That sair has troubled me." 
 
 She's caught her hand to his bridle-rein, 
 Held up her mouth to touch his chin; 
 
 "Ye garred me pu' the girdle straight 
 That the fair knave bairn was in." 
 
 "What needs ye flur and mock, Margaret? 
 
 What needs ye scorn at me? 
 Ye never gat harm of your fause brothers, 
 
 But ye gat aye the mair gude o' me." 
 
 He's put his hands to her body, 
 He's laid her thwart his selle; 
 
 And ye that hae gotten a bonny sitter 
 Gar keep the neist yoursell. 
 
 27 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Aye they rode weel, and aye better, 
 Until the moon was nigh to sheen; 
 
 And aye the tears ran in her breast, 
 And aye in the gold between. 
 
 "O whether is yon a cry of carlies, 
 
 Or men that cry on me?" 
 "Bide still, bide still now, Burd Margaret, 
 
 For ye hear naething but the sea." 
 
 "O whatten is yonder noise," she said, 
 "That I hear cry on us behind?" 
 
 "Haud ye by my sleeve now, Burd Margaret, 
 For ye hear naething but the wind." 
 
 Aye they rode weel, and aye better, 
 Until the moon was waxen weak; 
 
 And aye she laid her face to his, 
 And her tears ran by his cheek. 
 
 Aye when he kissed her bonny een, 
 
 I wot they grat fu' sair; 
 Aye when she laid her head to his, 
 
 I wot the tears ran through his hair. 
 
 Aye they rode slow, and aye slower, 
 Till the moon's time was a' done; 
 
 Between the road and the saddle 
 She thought to bear a son. 
 
 28 
 
BURD MARGARET 
 
 There she saw her first brother, 
 
 Stood back to a fair tree; 
 Said "Grace go with our bonny sister 
 
 To ride in sic a companie." 
 
 Said "Grace go with our bonnie sister, 
 
 To wear her gown aside; 
 It is not meet for a good woman 
 
 To set her girdle wide." 
 
 He's stricken the first across the neck, 
 
 Shorn clean his beard and hair; 
 "How haud ye weel, my fair brother, 
 
 Ye'se get of me nae mair." 
 
 He's cloven the second through the chin, 
 
 The third upon the knee; 
 "Now haud ye weel, my three brothers, 
 
 Ye'se get nae mair of me." 
 
 They set her in a fair bride-bed, 
 
 Full glad she was the morn ; 
 And between the silk and the braw geld claith, 
 
 The fair knave bairn was born. 
 
 29 
 
THE WORM OF SPINDLESTONHEUGH 
 
 Lady Helen sat in Spindlestonheugh 
 
 With gold across her hair; 
 For every plait was on her head, 
 
 I wot a gold piece was there. 
 
 Lady Helen sat in Spindlestonheugh 
 
 With gold across her head; 
 The green gown on her fair body 
 
 Was woven with gold thread. 
 
 Lady Helen sat in Spindlestonheugh 
 
 Wi' silk below her breast; 
 The best pearl in the queen's girdle 
 
 Was lesser than her least. 
 
 Lady Helen sat in Spindlestonheugh 
 
 With silk upon her feet; 
 The seams were sewn wi' cloth of scarlet 
 
 To keep them f rae the weet. 
 
 "O wha will keep the keys for me 
 
 Until the lord be hame? 
 Or wha will ca' his kye for me, 
 
 To see gin ony be lame?" 
 30 
 
THE WORM OF SPINDLESTONHEUGH 
 
 She hadna bided a month but three 
 
 With silk bands to her side, 
 When word is come to Lady Helen 
 
 To meet her father's ae new bride. 
 
 "Ye'll bring the owsen and the sheep to stall, 
 
 Ye'll bring the kye to stand; 
 Ye'll set the first key in my girdle, 
 
 The neist key at my hand." 
 
 "But gin he has wedded a witch woman 
 
 To work sic teen on me, 
 I'll come nae mair to Spindlestonheugh 
 
 Till green grow in a dry tree." 
 
 And she's done on her braw girdle, 
 
 Between the sun and moon; 
 And she's done on her kaims of gold, 
 
 Her gold gow T n and her shoon. 
 
 She's tied her hair in three witch knots, 
 
 I wot, abune her bonny een; 
 And for her hair and her body, 
 
 I wot she might have been a queen. 
 
 "I wish the sickle was in the rye, 
 And the rye was ower my head ; 
 
 And aye the next rose I shall gather, 
 I wish the white may be the red." 
 3i 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 She's tane the keys intil her hands 
 Between the red sun and the moon; 
 
 The rain ran down upon the grass, 
 And stained in her silk shoon. 
 
 She's tane the keys to her girdle-tie 
 Between the warm sun and the weet; 
 
 The rain that was between the grass and rye, 
 Ran down upon her feet. 
 
 "O whatten a burd is yonder burd 
 
 That shines about her head?" 
 "It is but Helen my ae daughter 
 
 Has clad hersell wi' red." 
 
 "O where gat she thae stones of price, 
 The warst might serve a queen?" 
 
 "It is but for the summer season 
 She's clad hersell wi' green." 
 
 Lady Helen knelt upon her knees, 
 She knelt upon her yellow hair; 
 
 "Hae back your keys, my dear father, 
 God give you weel to fare." 
 
 Lady Helen knelt into the dust, 
 
 She knelt upon the roadway stane; 
 
 "And God you keep, madame, my mither, 
 As I shall be your ain." 
 32 
 
THE WORM OF SPINDLESTONHEUGH 
 
 Out then spak the new-come bride, 
 I wot she spak wi' pain and care; 
 
 "O some hae gold to weave, Helen, 
 And some hae gold to wear." 
 
 Out then spak the witch-mother, 
 I wot she spak fu' little worth; 
 
 "Look where my saddle sits, Helen, 
 Ye'll stand against the saddle-girth." 
 
 She's tane the red kaims frae her hair, 
 
 The red shoon frae her feet; 
 She's set her face to the saddle-stirrup, 
 
 That nane should hear her greet. 
 
 And aye she ran, and weel she ran 
 
 Till her sides were waxen sair; 
 And the sun that was upon the ways 
 
 Had burnt her through her hair. 
 
 They hadna ridden a mile but three 
 
 When she was fain to bide ; 
 For the blood was come upon her feet 
 
 And the pain upon her side. 
 
 And whiles she ran, and whiles she grat, 
 
 In the warm sun and the cold, 
 Till they came to the bonny castle 
 
 Was bigged upon with gold. 
 
 33 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 "O see ye not thae towers, Helen, 
 
 Where ye gat meat and wine? 
 It's I maun ligg in the braw bride-chamber, 
 
 And ye maun ligg wi' swine. 
 
 "O see ye not thae halls, Helen, 
 
 Where ye gat silk to wear? 
 It's I shall hae the gold gowns on, 
 
 When your body is bare." 
 
 "O ye'll sit in the braw guest-chamber, 
 
 And ye'll drink white and red; 
 But ye'll gar them gie me the washing water, 
 
 The meats and the broken bread?" 
 
 "Ye'll get nae chine o' the broken loaves, 
 The white bread wi' the brown; 
 
 Ye'll drink of the rain and the puddle water 
 My maids shall cast ye down." 
 
 "O ye'll sit in the braw guest-chamber 
 Wi' the gowd braids on your hair; 
 
 But ye'll gie me a poor coat and a smock 
 For my body to wear? 
 
 "O I shall ligg i' the trodden straw, 
 
 And ye in a gold bride-bed; 
 But ye'll gie me a claith to hap my feet, 
 
 And a claith to hap my head?" 
 
 34 
 
THE WORM OF SPINDLESTONHEUGH 
 
 "Ye'll get no claith to hap you in, 
 
 Ye'll get no coats of me; 
 Ye'll get nae mair but a riven smock 
 
 To wear on your body." 
 
 And she's ate of the foul swine's meat 
 
 With her saft lips and fine; 
 She's put her mouth to the rank water, 
 
 Was poured amang the swine. 
 
 Never ae word spak Lady Helen, 
 
 Never ae word but twa; 
 "O gin my mither had hands to help, 
 
 I wad be weel holpen awa'." 
 
 Never ae word spak Lady Helen, 
 
 Never ae word but three ; 
 "O gin my mither had lips to kiss, 
 
 Sae weel she wad kiss me! 
 
 "She wad kiss me on my ravelled hair, 
 
 The foul cheek and the chin; 
 She wad kiss me on the weary mouth, 
 
 Where the rank water gaed in." 
 
 Out then came the witch mother: 
 
 "What ails ye now to greet? 
 Here's grass to hap ye dry, Helen, 
 
 And straw to hap ye sweet." 
 35 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 The rain fell frae her feet and hands, 
 
 Frae her lang hair and fine: 
 "What ails ye at the baked meats, Helen, 
 
 The brown wheat bread and the wine?" 
 
 She's turned her by the waist about, 
 
 She's turned her by the knee; 
 She's witched her body to a laidley worm, 
 
 A laidley worm to be. 
 
 "The red fruit shall grow in green river water, 
 
 And green grass in the wet sea, 
 Ere ye shall come to a fair woman, 
 
 A fair woman to be." 
 
 And she's garr'd bigg her seven swine-brows, 
 She's made them wide and lang; 
 
 She's tane the kail and the meal pocks 
 That the foul worm might feed amang. 
 
 Aye she roupit and aye she croupit 
 
 And aye she soupit the mair; 
 And for the breath of her laidley mouth 
 
 The sweet land stank fu' sair. 
 
 Word is come to Lady Helen's brother, 
 In God's town where he lay, 
 
 His father had gatten a braw new bride 
 And his sister was stown away. 
 
 36 
 
THE WORM OF SPINDLESTONHEUGH 
 
 Word is come to Lord Richard, 
 
 Where he was in God's land, 
 There were nine men out of the north 
 
 Would fain be to his hand. 
 
 "Whatten word is this, ye good sailors, 
 
 This word ye hae to me? 
 Gin it be a word of the good land, 
 
 A dear word it maun be." 
 
 "For nine mile out of Spindlestonheugh 
 A laidley worm to see; 
 It has the tongue of a maid-woman, 
 And a worm's foul body. 
 
 "For nine mile out of Spindlestonheugh 
 Of grass and rye there is nae routh; 
 
 There is sma' routh of the good red corn, 
 For the breath of her rank mouth." 
 
 "Whatten word is this, ye carlish caitives? 
 
 For this word ye hae to me, 
 There shall never meat come in my mouth 
 
 Till I be put to sea." 
 
 And he's garr'd bigg him a fu' fair ship, 
 He's biggit it a' of the rowan tree; 
 
 It was neither hasped wi' gowd nor aim, 
 To haud it frae the sea. 
 
 37 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 It was neither hasped wi' gowd nor aim, 
 
 Nor yet wi' siller wan; 
 But a' the wood it was biggit wi' 
 
 Was of the white rowan. 
 
 And they sailed lang, and they sailed sair, 
 And they drave ower to south ; 
 
 And a wind was in the ship's side, 
 And a wind in the ship's mouth. 
 
 And when he came by Spindlestonheugh 
 He's tane the vervein in his hand; 
 
 "Now God have heed of the fair ship, 
 For we must row to land." 
 
 "Have pity of us, O Lord Richard, 
 For we dare no further gang." 
 
 "Gin I may come by a goodly gallows, 
 The best of ye a' shall hang." 
 
 But when he saw the seven swine-trows, 
 He weened a sair thing to have seen; 
 
 And when he saw the laidley worm, 
 The tears brast ower in his een. 
 
 "O gin ye'll kiss my laidley mouth 
 
 For the love of God's body, 
 I winna do ye scaith, brother, 
 
 Though I be a foul thing to see." 
 
 38 
 
THE WORM OF SPINDLESTONHEUGH 
 
 He's put his mouth to her laidley mouth, 
 He's kissed her once and twice; 
 
 "I had liever lose God's dear body 
 Than kiss this foul worm thrice." 
 
 He's put his mouth to her laidley mouth, 
 
 He's kissed her kisses three; 
 The flesh fell f rae her laidley mouth 
 
 And frae her rank body; 
 And it was but his sister Helen 
 
 Stood at Lord Richard's knee. 
 
 She was clad all in the fair red samite, 
 
 Her mouth was red and fair; 
 There was nae burd in the good land 
 
 That had such yellow hair. 
 
 He's tane him to the witch mother 
 
 That sat by her bairn's bed; 
 The gold was gone in her grey hair, 
 
 Her face was heavy and red. 
 
 "O wae be wi' you, ye ill woman, 
 And the young bairn at your knee; 
 
 There's never a bairn shall die abed 
 That comes of your body." 
 
 "Now God you save, my fair brother, 
 For his dear body that was dead; 
 
 Now God you save and maiden Mary, 
 That kept me of her maidenhead." 
 39 
 
DURIESDYKE 
 
 The rain rains sair on Duriesdyke, 
 
 Both the winter through and the spring; 
 
 And she that will gang to get broom thereby 
 She shall get an ill thing. 
 
 The rain rains sair on Duriesdyke, 
 Both the winter and the summer day; 
 
 And he that will steek his sheep thereby 
 He shall go sadly away. 
 
 "Between Crossmuir and Duriesdyke 
 
 The fieldhead is full green; 
 The shaws are thick in the fair summer, 
 
 And three well-heads between. 
 
 "Flower of broom is a fair flower, 
 
 And heather is good to play." 
 O she went merry to Duriesdyke, 
 
 But she came heavy away. 
 
 "It's I have served you, Burd Maisry, 
 These three months through and mair; 
 
 And the little ae kiss I gat of you, 
 It pains me aye and sair. 
 
 4° 
 
DURIESDYKE 
 
 "This is the time of heather-blowing, 
 And that was syne in the spring; 
 
 And the little ae leaf comes aye to red, 
 And the corn to harvesting." 
 
 The first kiss there twa mouths had, 
 
 Sae fain she was to greet; 
 The neist kiss their twa mouths had, 
 
 I wot she laughed fu } sweet. 
 
 "Cover my head with a silken hood, 
 
 My feet with a yellow claith; 
 For to stain my body wi' the dyke-water, 
 
 God wot I were fu' laith." 
 
 He's happit her head about wi' silk, 
 
 Her feet with a gowden claith; 
 The red sendal that was of price, 
 
 He's laid between them baith. 
 
 The grass was low by Duriesdyke, 
 
 The high heather was red; 
 And between the grass and the high heather, 
 
 He's tane her maidenhead. 
 
 They did not kiss in a noble house, 
 
 Nor yet in a lordly bed; 
 But their mouths kissed in the high heather, 
 
 Between the green side and the red. 
 
 4i 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 "I have three sailing ships, Maisry, 
 
 For red wheat and for wine; 
 The maintopmast is a bonny mast, 
 
 Three furlongs off to shine. 
 
 "The foremast shines like new lammer, 
 
 The mizzenmast like steel: 
 Gin ye wad sail wi' me, Maisry, 
 
 The warst should carry ye weel." 
 
 "Gin I should sail wi' you, Lord John, 
 
 Out under the rocks red, 
 It's wha wad be my mither's bower-maiden 
 
 To hap saft her feet in bed? 
 
 "Gin I should sail wi' you, Lord John, 
 
 Out under the rocks white, 
 There's nane wad do her a very little ease 
 
 To hap her left and right." 
 
 It fell upon the midwinter, 
 
 She gat mickle scaith and blame; 
 
 She's bowed hersell by the white water 
 To see his ships come hame. 
 
 She's leaned hersell against the wind, 
 To see upon the middle tide; 
 
 The faem was fallen in the running wind, 
 The wind was fallen in the waves wide. 
 
 42 
 
DURIESDYKE 
 
 "There's nae moon by the white water 
 To do me ony good the day; 
 
 And but this wind a little slacken, 
 They shall have a sair seaway. 
 
 "O stir not for this nied, baby, 
 
 O stir not at my side; 
 Ye'll have the better birth, baby, 
 
 Gin ye wad but a little abide." 
 
 43 
 
WESTLAND WELL 
 
 Ye maun mak' me a scarlet gown, Lord John, 
 
 A scarlet gown to the knee; 
 It maun be sewn wi' a gowd needle, 
 
 To mak' fit wear to me. 
 
 It maun be sewn wi' a gowd needle, 
 
 And spun o' silk for thread; 
 And ye maun gie me a band of silk, 
 
 To tie upon my head. 
 And ye maun gie me a sheet of silk 
 
 To put into my bed. 
 
 O wha was't made ye proud, Janet, 
 
 Or ever ye were born? 
 There's nae gowd in the land, Janet, 
 
 Is redder than the corn. 
 
 O wha was't taught you words, Janet, 
 
 Or wha was't learned you pride? 
 There's mony a better face than yours 
 
 Would fain lie neist my side. 
 
 44 
 
WESTLAND WELL 
 
 haud your tongue, Lord John o' the Mains, 
 I doubt ye hae drunken wine; 
 
 There is not a maid that vvons in heaven 
 Wi' sic a face as mine. 
 
 Gin I were set in the high heaven, 
 And God's mother were set below, 
 
 1 wad be queen of the high heaven, 
 And she wad be let go. 
 
 When she cam in Lord John's bower, 
 
 She never had kissed man: 
 When she cam frae Lord John's bower 
 
 She was but his leman. 
 
 ye'll gar make me a bonny bed, 
 Ye'll make it warm and sweet, 
 
 Ye'll set a pillow to my head, mither, 
 And a pillow to my feet. 
 
 It fell about the middle May time 
 
 When the apple flowers wax red, 
 Her mither began to chide with her 
 
 She kept sae lang abed. 
 
 1 canna stand to walk, mither, 
 But I'm just like to die, 
 
 And wae be to your bonny bloodhound 
 That bit me by the knee. 
 
 45 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Yestreen my maids took off the sheet 
 
 To wash i' the Westland Well, 
 And lest the bonny web suld ravel, 
 
 I set a hand mysel. 
 
 We washed the blue thread and the brown, 
 The white thread and the black; 
 
 And sae cam ben your fause bloodhound, 
 And bit me in the back. 
 
 Sae sair it rent and bit, mither, 
 
 Sae sair it bit and clang, 
 And ever I hope in God, mither, 
 
 Ye'll gar that bloodhound hang. 
 
 What's this o't now, maiden Janet? 
 
 What's this o't now? quo' she; 
 There's nae such hound that bites women, 
 
 There's nae such langs to me. 
 
 Tell me now, Janet, she says, 
 
 And I winna gar ye lee, 
 Is this a hound's tooth or a child's shaping 
 
 That mars your straight body? 
 
 O where your cheek was red, Janet, 
 
 Your cheek is sick and wan; 
 And where your back was right and flat, 
 
 It bows like a loaden man. 
 
 4 6 
 
WESTLAND WELL 
 
 where your throat was round, Janet, 
 It's lean and loose by this; 
 
 And where your lip was sweet, Janet, 
 It's grown too thin to kiss. 
 
 The blood sprang in her cheek, fair Janet, 
 The blood sprang in her chin ; 
 
 1 doubt there's ane wad kiss me, mither, 
 Though I be sick and thin. 
 
 About the time of moon-rising 
 
 They set her saft in bed, 
 About the time of star-setting 
 
 They streekit her for dead. 
 
 O ill be in your meat, Lord John, 
 
 And ill be in your wine; 
 Gin the bairn be none of your getting, 
 
 I'm sure it's none of mine. 
 
 Ill be in your bed, Lord John, 
 
 And ill be in your way, 
 Gin ye had been hangit a year agone, 
 
 I had been the merrier May. 
 
 47 
 
EARL ROBERT 
 
 O SOME ride east and some ride north, 
 And some ride west and south; 
 
 But the ae best gate that ever I rade 
 Was 2l for her red mouth. 
 
 O some wear blue and bonny scarlet, 
 And some wear green and red; 
 
 And it's a' for love of her yellow hair 
 I'll wear but golden thread. 
 
 Gin this be Annie of Waterswa' 
 
 That gars ye speak sae hie, 
 There's nae man of your name, Earl Robert, 
 
 Shall get her fair body. 
 
 then he came by Waterswa', 
 The rain was sair and Strang; 
 
 Fair Annie sat in a bower-window, 
 And her gold hair was grown lang. 
 
 Gin I might swim to ye, Robert, 
 
 I wad never spare for gloves or gown; 
 
 1 wad never spare for the cold water, 
 But I have sore fear to drown. 
 
 4 8 
 
EARL ROBERT 
 
 Now God thee hold, thou fair Annie, 
 
 The wa's are hard to leap; 
 The water is ill to swim, Annie, 
 
 And the brigg is ill to keep. 
 
 Gin I should open to ye, Robert, 
 
 I wis it were open shame: 
 It were great pity of me, Robert, 
 
 For I gang but sick and lame. 
 
 twice I cuttit the silk string through 
 That was upon my back; 
 
 And twice I cuttit the gown away 
 That wadn'a haud me slack. 
 
 It's ill wi' me the night, Robert, 
 
 It's weel wi' my leman; 
 For the wine that comes in my fingers, 
 
 I spill it on my han' ; 
 And the meat that's in my very mouth, 
 
 I wot it feeds a man. 
 
 Gin I may win to ye, Annie, 
 I think ye'll keep me weel. 
 
 1 were the liefer of you, Robert, 
 But for the doors of shut steel. 1 
 
 1 In the Manuscript this stanza has been lightly struck 
 through with a pen. Probably the author intended to delete 
 it.— [Eds.] 
 
 49 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Gin I may win to ye, Annie, 
 
 The tane o' us should weel fare. 
 
 There's three men keep the ways, Robert, 
 Between the gate and the water-stair. 
 
 I wot the night there's deep water, 
 
 Runs red upon the brim: 
 It's full between the wa's, Annie, 
 
 This were but ill to swim. 
 
 There's rain the night in Carrilees, 
 
 I wot the rain is rank; 
 There be twa fathoms of Strang water 
 
 Between it bank and bank. 
 
 But he's rid out through Carrilees' brow, 
 
 I wot, baith wet and wan; 
 Annie lay in her chamber-window, 
 
 She was a glad woman. 
 
 Between the gate and the water-stair 
 He made him room to stand; 
 
 The wet ran f rae his knees and feet, 
 It ran upon his hand. 
 
 And he's won through to her chamber, 
 He's kissed her neist the chin: 
 
 "O gin ye'll keep me out, Annie, 
 Is there ony will take me in?" 
 
 50 
 
EARL ROBERT 
 
 Up then gat her auld father, 
 
 Between the wall and her bed feet; 
 
 "Is there ony breath in your lips, Earl Robert, 
 To gar a dead mouth smell sweet?" 
 
 He's tane her by the gold girdle, 
 
 He's garr'd it break atwain; 
 There's nae room here for Earl Robert, 
 
 The ways are sae fou' o' rain. 
 
 He's tane a keen sword in his hand, 
 
 He's set him to the wa'; 
 And the very heart's blood of Earl Robert, 
 
 I wot he's garr'd it fa'. 
 
 Out then spak she, fair Annie, 
 
 At the bed's foot where she lay; 
 "There's a time for you the night, father, 
 
 And a time for us the day. 
 
 "O gin ye dig na deep, father, 
 
 I wot ye maun dig wide ; 
 And set my lord to the nether hand, 
 
 And my bairn to the green side. 
 
 "Ye'll set my head to his foot, father, 
 
 That he be neist the sun; 
 For a' that was between us twa, 
 
 I think it's a' weel done." 
 
 5i 
 
THE KING'S AE SON 
 
 Quo' the bracken-bush to the wan well-head, 
 "O whatten a man is this man dead?" 
 
 "O this is the King's ae son," quo' she, 
 "That lies here dead upon my knee." 
 
 "What will ye do wi' the King's ae son?" 
 "The little fishes shall feed him on." 
 
 "What will ye strew for his body's bed?" 
 "Green stanes aneath his head," 
 
 "What will ye gie for his body's grace?" 
 "Green leaves abune his face." 
 
 "What will ye do wi' the rings on his hand?" 
 "Hide them ower wi' stane and sand." 
 
 "What will ye do wi' the gowd in his hair?" 
 "Hide it ower wi' rushes fair." 
 
 "What shall he have when the hill-winds blow?" 
 "Cauld rain and routh of snow." 
 
 "What shall he get when the birds fly in?" 
 "Death for sorrow, and sorrow for sin." 
 
 52 
 
THE KING'S AE SON 
 
 "What shall come to his father, the King?" 
 "Long life and a heavy thing." 
 
 "What shall come to his mother, the Queen?" 
 "Grey hairs and a bitter teen." 
 
 "What to his leman, that garr'd him be slain?" 
 "Hell's pit and hell's pain." 
 
 S3 
 
LADY MAISIE'S BAIRN 
 
 "GlN ye winna cease for the pity of him, 
 
 cease for the pity of me; 
 
 There was never bairn born of a woman 
 Between the sea-wind and the sea, 
 
 There was never bairn born of a woman 
 That was born so bitterly." 
 
 The ship drove hard upon the wind, 
 
 1 wot it drove full mightily; 
 
 But the fair gold sides upon the ship 
 They were bursten with the sea. 
 
 "O I am sae fain for you, Lord John, 
 
 Gin ye be no sae fain; 
 How shall I bear wi' my body, 
 
 It is sae full of pain? 
 
 "O I am sae fain of your body, 
 
 Ye are no sae fain of me;" 
 But the sails are riven wi' the wind 
 
 And the sides are full of sea. 
 
 O when she saw the sails riven, 
 The sair pain bowed her back; 
 
 But when she saw the sides bursten, 
 I wot her very heart brak. 
 
 54 
 
LADY MAISIE'S BAIRN 
 
 The wind waxed in the sea between, 
 The rain waxed in the land; 
 
 Lord John was happed wi' saut sea-faem, 
 Lady Maisie wi' sea-sand; 
 
 And the little bairn between them twa 
 That was to her right hand. 
 
 The rain rains sair on Duriesdyke 
 
 To the land side and the sea ; 
 There was never bairn born of a woman 
 
 That was born mair bitterly. 
 
 55 
 
WEARIESWA' 
 
 THE wind wears ower the Wearieswa' 
 
 To the right and the left hand; 
 The wind wears ower by the Wearieswa' 
 
 And under by the sea-sand. 
 
 Every bolt in Wearieswa' 
 
 Wi' siller was it sparred; 
 Every gate in Wearieswa' 
 
 Wi' red gold was it barred. 
 
 Every window in Wearieswa' 
 
 It was hasped in nickal keen; 
 Every bower in Wearieswa' 
 
 It was set wi' rushes clean. 
 
 There wonneth a woman in the Wearieswa', 
 
 A strong spell is her upon; 
 He that shall kiss her mouth for love 
 
 Of his life he is fordone. 
 
 There is nae man made of a woman 
 
 As the grass grows and the corn, 
 But gin he have kissed that lady's mouth 
 
 Of his lips he is forlorn. 
 
 56 
 
WEARIESWA' 
 
 Lord Robert is ridden to the Wearieswa' 
 Between the low ling and the heather hie; 
 
 A wind was comen out of Wearieswa* 
 Between the hielands and the sea. 
 
 O whatten a wind is this weary wind 
 
 A weary wind to me? 
 It's neither a scart o' the mill-water, 
 
 Nor yet a wind o' the sea. 
 
 Lady Janet looked ower by a little window, 
 
 She was fain of any man ; 
 For the lack of love that was her in 
 
 All her body was wan. 
 
 She's laid her chin out ower the wa' stanes, 
 
 All her body was weak; 
 The tears fell over in her face wan, 
 
 Betwixen mouth and cheek. 
 
 Gin I kissed that lady on her lips 
 
 The better man would I be; 
 Gin I kissed that lady on her hands twain 
 
 'Twere pain of my body. 
 
 O gin ye should kiss my weary hands 
 
 Your teen would be fu' sair; 
 And gin ye should kiss my heavy mouth . 
 
 Your teen wad be mickle mair. 
 
 57 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 But ye'll gae down to yon wan water-side, 
 Gar make a ship of ashen tree; 
 
 And ye maun sail by seven ways 
 Between the f aem and the green sea. 
 
 The first water ye'll sail upon 
 
 Men call itWearieswyte; 
 Whoso cometh to that water 
 
 He shall have little delight. 
 
 The neist water ye'll sail upon 
 
 Men call it Wearieswan ; 
 Whoso cometh to that water 
 
 He is nae sicker man. 
 
 The neist water ye'll sail upon 
 
 Men call it Weariesway; 
 Whoso cometh to that water 
 
 He wins the better away. 
 
 The neist water ye'll sail upon 
 
 Men call it Wearieswoe; 
 Whoso cometh to that water 
 
 He shall neither stand nor go. 
 
 The neist water ye'll sail upon 
 
 Men call it Weariesween ; 
 Whoso cometh to that water 
 
 Of his body he shall have teen. 
 
 58 
 
WEARIESWA' 
 
 The neist water ye'll sail upon 
 
 Men call it Weariesyett; 
 Whoso cometh to that water 
 
 An ill wonning he shall get. 
 
 The last water ye'll sail upon 
 
 Men call it Wearieshead; 
 Whoso cometh to that water 
 
 It were better for him to be dead. 
 
 And gin the sair sea scathe you not 
 
 Nor the sea-worms in the sea, 
 This weary weird that is me upon 
 
 Ye shall take off from me. 
 
 And gin the water win you not upon 
 Ye shall have good harbouring, 
 
 When ye come back to Wearieswa', 
 About the fair birk flowering. 
 
 And ye maun be yoursell alane 
 
 And I with a' my men, 
 And ye maun stand low down them amang 
 
 To see if I shall you ken. 
 
 Gin the wan water win me not upon 
 Between the sea-banks and the sea, 
 
 Then I'll come back for your sake, Janet, — 
 A token I'll hae wi' me. 
 
 59 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 But how shall ye be seen, Hynd Robert, 
 
 how shall ye be known, 
 Amang so mony gentlemen 
 
 That wear the gold alone? 
 
 O where they wear the goodly bright gold 
 
 1 shall wear yellow and black; 
 
 And a little green hood behind my hair 
 To hang down at my back. 
 
 But how shall ye be kent, Janet, 
 
 Or how shall ye be seen, 
 Amang so many goodly ladies 
 
 That ye maun gang between? 
 
 O where they wear a ring, Robert, 
 
 I shall wear two and three, 
 And a girdle with a fair white stane, 
 
 And by that ye shall ken me. 
 
 And where they wear but yellow lammer, 
 
 I shall wear siller sheen; 
 And where they gang like a queen's handmaids, 
 
 I shall gang like a queen. 
 
 A kell o' gowd abune my head 
 
 And a band abune my eebree, 
 And in every o' them a jewel stone 
 
 My witness for to be; 
 
 60 
 
WEARIESWA' 
 
 And half my kirtle of red sendal 
 
 To hang down at my knee; 
 And half my kirtle of brown sendal 
 
 That shall be wrought to me. 
 And the shoon on my feet of yellow samite 
 
 And by that ye shall me see. 
 
 He's made him a ship o' the goodly ash 
 
 The sides thereof were wan ; 
 The first water he sailed upon 
 
 He was the heavier man. 
 
 A' the oars were wrought of gold 
 
 And a' the sails of red ; 
 The last water he sailed upon 
 
 He seemed he was but dead. 
 
 But he's won back to Wearieswa* 
 
 That was hard on a great sea; 
 His hair was fu' of the wan sea-water 
 
 And he halted of his knee. 
 
 Between the sea and the sea-banks 
 
 He's let his bonny ship stand ; 
 His clothes were fu' of the wan rain-water 
 
 And he halted of his hand. 
 
 O I will draw to me a weed, 
 
 A weed baith poor and low, 
 And I will gang before my lady's face, 
 
 To see if she will me know. 
 
 61 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 And he has drawn to him a weed 
 A weed of yellow and black; 
 
 But there was nae hood behind his hair 
 To hang down at his back. 
 
 The first gate that he came to 
 It was little for his delight; 
 
 The knappies that were that gate upon 
 They were hewn of siller white. 
 
 The last gate that he came by 
 
 It was little for his ease; 
 Before he had well won ower it, 
 
 The blood ran frae his knees. 
 
 The neist gate that he came by 
 His comfort was waxen cold; 
 
 Every bolt that gate within 
 It was carven of red gold. 
 
 And he's gane up to the high chamber, 
 He's found that lady there, 
 
 The red sendal on her body, 
 And the red gold in her hair. 
 
 And as he stood low and very low 
 
 Amang thae goodly men ; 
 He stood amang them hoodless, 
 
 There was nae man did him ken. 
 
 62 
 
WEARIESWA' 
 
 And she spied him weel and very weel 
 
 Gin she might his body see; 
 O wha is yon gangs hoodless, 
 
 For my love it mauna be. 
 
 And she sought weel and very weel 
 
 Gin she might him behold; 
 She was mair fair of his fair body 
 
 Than the rain is of the mould. 
 
 And a' the men that were her before 
 They were red and nothing wan; 
 
 And when she saw his goodly face, 
 She weened it was another man. 
 
 And when she looked his face upon, 
 
 It was wan and nothing red, 
 And a' his hair was riven wi' rain 
 
 That rained upon his head. 
 
 ye'll take out yon hoodless man, 
 That hirples on the marl ; 
 
 1 thought it were my love, Hynd Robert, 
 It is but a hireman carl. 
 
 And ye'll take out yon gangrel fellow 
 
 That hirples on the clay; 
 I thought it were my love, Hynd Robert, 
 
 That hae been lang away. 
 
 63 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 He's taen him down to yon wan water-stand, 
 
 The tears fell ower his een; 
 Before he was weel in his goodly ship 
 
 The wind began to ween. 
 
 He's turned his face to the fair leeland, 
 
 He was right fu' o' care; 
 Before he was weel upon the sea, 
 
 The water was waxen sair. 
 
 Ye'll cast me in the heavy water 
 
 That is both green and black, 
 And ye'll bind my feet with a twine of silk; 
 
 Pray for the storms to slack. 
 
 Ye'll cast me in the weary water 
 
 That is both green and grey, 
 And ye'll bind my arms upon my back; 
 
 Pray for the rains to stay. 
 
 And they've cast over his fair body 
 
 In the water that was sae white ; 
 And they drove over before the wind 
 
 A day's space and a night. 
 
 The first wave that cam nigh the ship 
 
 It smote her in the side; 
 And ever alas! quo' the ae first man, 
 
 "This water is ill to bide!" 
 
 64 
 
WEARIESWA' 
 
 The neist wave that cam nigh the ship, 
 
 It smote her in the head; 
 "Haul round, haul round," quo' the eldest man, 
 
 "This water maun be our deid!" 
 
 And they spied ower the wan sea wide 
 
 To see gin ony help might be; 
 And there they saw him, Hynd Robert, 
 
 That fleeted upright in the sea. 
 
 And they spied out upon the sea, 
 
 It was a weary water and wan ; 
 And there they saw him, Hynd Robert 
 
 That fleeted as a living man. 
 
 "O whatten a weird is this, Hynd Robert, 
 
 That is of your body, 
 To fleet out ower in the easterin' wind 
 
 That thraws upon the sea?" 
 
 The wind shall blaw in the wan water, 
 
 It shall never slack for me, 
 Till ye bring my lady to yon sea-sand, 
 
 Cast her body in the sea. 
 
 The wind shall thraw in the wild water; 
 
 I wot it shall never bide, 
 Till ye bring that lady to your sea-banks, 
 
 Cast her body ower the ship's side. 
 
 65 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 They've had that lady to yon sea-banks 
 And ower by yon heather hie; 
 
 They bound her hands before her face, 
 Cast her body in the sea. 
 
 66 
 
THE EARL OF MAR'S DAUGHTER 
 
 [It is doubtful whether this ballad has any right to be in- 
 cluded among the original works of Swinburne, but it gives 
 interesting evidence of the activity of his mind and of his 
 attitude to the old poetry of the Border. The MS. was 
 found with those of several other ballads, most of them pub- 
 lished in the Third Series of Poems and Ballads ( 1889), and 
 was probably written in 1862 or 1863. At first sight it 
 seems like an attempt to re-compose from memory the well- 
 known ballad of "Earl Mar's Daughter," which was origi- 
 nally published in 1828 by Peter Buchan in his Ancient Bal- 
 lads and Songs of the North of Scotland. The story is ex- 
 actly identical, and the diction sometimes very close; for 
 instance, the AUingham-Buchan version begins : — 
 
 "It was intill a pleasant time. 
 Upon a simmer's day, 
 The noble Earl Mars daughter 
 Went forth to sport and play. 
 
 And as she playd and sported 
 
 Below a green aik tree, 
 There she saw a sprightly doo 
 
 Set on a branch sae hie," 
 
 and so forth. But what a closer study of the MS. shows is 
 that Swinburne, conscious of much that is vulgar and mod- 
 ern in Buchan's version, was setting himself the task of re- 
 composing the ballad in language more severely archaic. 
 This was actually done, to some extent, by William Ailing- 
 ham in the Ballad Book of 1864, and it is possible that Al- 
 lingham's partial success induced Swinburne to lay aside his 
 project. He was, however, far ahead of his time in perceiv- 
 ing that a loose roughness of texture was essential to the 
 
 67 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 original form of every genuine Border ballad, and an exami- 
 nation of the MS. of the "Earl of Mar's Daughter" shows, 
 by its innumerable alterations and reconsiderations of the 
 text, that Swinburne laboured with the utmost courage and 
 assiduity to recover the primitive diction and to remove 
 what some one has called "the plague of marketable neat- 
 ness" which disfigures the usual recast of a romantic ballad. 
 Unfortunately, he did not in this case pursue his task to its 
 conclusion. — E. G.] 
 
 It was intill a goodly time, 
 
 The first morning in May, 
 The bonny Earl of Mar's daughter 
 
 Went forth hersell to play. 
 
 She's tane her to the bonny birkenshaw 
 
 Amang the fair green leaves; 
 There she saw a bonny doo 
 
 Sat on the leaf o' the tree. 
 
 "O Coo-me-doo, my love sae true, 
 
 Gin ye'll come down to me, 
 I'll gie ye a cage of good red gowd 
 
 For a cage of greenshaw tree. 
 
 "Gowden hingers roun' your cage, 
 
 And siller roun' your wa', 
 I'll gar ye shine as bonny a bird 
 
 As the bonniest ower them a'." 
 
 She hadna weel these words spoken, 
 
 Nor yet she hadna said, 
 Till Coo-me-doo flew frae the leaves 
 
 And lighted on her head. 
 68 
 
THE EARL OF MAR'S DAUGHTER 
 
 And she's tane hame this bonny bird, 
 Brought him to bower and ha'; 
 
 She's garred him shine the bonniest bird 
 That was out ower them a'. 
 
 When day was gane and night was come 
 In ae chamber they were that tide; 
 
 And there she saw a goodly young man 
 Stood straight up at her side. 
 
 "How cam ye in my bower-chamber, 
 
 For sair it marvels me, 
 For the bolts are made o' the good red gowd 
 
 And the door-shafts of a good tree." 
 
 "O haud your tongue now, May Janet, 
 And of your talking let me be; 
 
 Mind ye not on your turtle-doo 
 That ye brought hame wi' ye?" 
 
 "O whatten a man are ye," she said, 
 
 "Fu' sair this marvels me; 
 I doubt ye are some keen warlock 
 
 That wons out ower the sea. 
 
 "O come ye here for ills?" she says, 
 
 "Or come ye for my good? 
 I doubt ye are some strong warlock 
 
 That wons out ower the flood." 
 
 6 9 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 "My mither is lady of strange landis 
 
 Stand far out ower the sea; 
 She witched me to a birdie's shape 
 
 For the love of your body. 
 
 "My mither is queen of the witch-landis 
 Lie baith to north and south; 
 
 She witched me to a birdie's body 
 For the love of your goodly mouth. 
 
 "She can well of witches' work, 
 She maketh baith mirth and meen; 
 
 She witched me to a little bird's body 
 For the love of your twa grey een. 
 
 "It was a' for your yellow hair 
 
 That I cam ower the sea; 
 And it was a' for your bonny mouth 
 
 I took sic weird on me." 
 
 "O Coo-me-doo, my love sae true, 
 
 Nae mair frae me ye'se gae. 
 The stanes shall fleet on the wan waters 
 
 Before we twain be twey. 
 
 "O Coo-me-doo, my love sae true, 
 
 It's time we were abed." 
 "O weel for you, my ain sweet thing, 
 
 It's be as ye have said." 
 70 
 
 
THE EARL OF MAR'S DAUGHTER 
 
 Then he's dwelt in her bower-chamber 
 
 Fu' sax lang years and ane, 
 And seven fair sons she's borne to him, 
 
 Fairer was there never nane. 
 
 The first bairn she's borne to him 
 
 He's tane him ower the sea; 
 He's gien it to his auld mither, 
 
 Bade well nourished it should be. 
 
 The seventh bairn she's borne to him, 
 
 He's tane him frae his make; 
 He's gien it to his auld mither, 
 
 Bade nourice it for his sake. 
 
 And he's dwelt in her bower-chamber 
 
 Fu' six years thro' and three, 
 Till there is comen an auld grey knight 
 
 Her wed-lord for to be ; 
 She had nae will to his gowden gifts 
 
 Nor wad she to his fee. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Out then spak the bonny bird, 
 
 He heard what they did say; 
 Says: "Wae's be to you, ye auld grey man, 
 
 For it's time I were away." 
 
 Then Coo-me-doo took flight and flew 
 
 He flew out ower the sea; 
 He's lighted by his mither's castle-ha' 
 
 On a tower of gold fu' hie. 
 
 71 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 
 
 "The unfriendly elements 
 Forget thee utterly — 
 
 Where, for a monument upon thy bones. 
 And e'er-remaining lamps, the belching whale 
 And humming water must overwhelm thy corpse; 
 Lying with simple shells/' — Pericles. 
 
 As one who having dreamed all night of death 
 Puts out a hand to feel the sleeping face 
 Next his, and wonders that the lips have breath — 
 So we, for years not touching on their trace, 
 Marvelled at news of those we counted dead, 
 "For now the strong snows in some iron place 
 Have covered them ; their end shall not be said 
 Till all the hidden parts of time be plain 
 And all the writing of all years be read." 
 So men spake sadly; and their speech was vain, 
 For here the end stands clear, and men at ease 
 May gather the sharp fruit of that past pain 
 Out in some barren creek of the cold seas, 
 Where the slow shapes of the grey water-weed 
 Freeze midway as the languid inlets freeze. 
 
 75 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 II 
 
 This is the end. There is no nobler word 
 In the large writing and scored marge of time 
 Than such endurance is. Ear hath not heard 
 Nor hath eye seen in the world's bounded clime 
 The patience of their life, as the sharp years 
 And the slow months wrought out their rounded 
 
 rhyme 
 No man made count of those keen hopes and 
 
 fears, 
 Which were such labour to them, it may be; 
 That strong sweet will whereto pain ministers 
 And sharpest time doth service patiently. 
 Wrought without praise or failed without a 
 
 name, 
 Those gulfs and inlets of the channelled sea 
 Hide half the witness that should fill with fame 
 Our common air in England, and the breath 
 That speech of them should kindle to keen flame 
 Flags in the midway record of their death. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Is this the end? is praise so light a thing 
 
 As rumour unto rumour tendereth 
 
 And time wears out of care and thanksgiving? 
 
 Then praise and shame have narrow difference, 
 
 7 6 
 
THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 
 
 If either fly with so displumed wing 
 That chance and time and this imprisoned sense 
 Can maim or measure the spanned flight of it 
 By the ruled blanks of their experience, 
 Then only Fortune hath the scroll and writ 
 Of all good deeds our memory lives upon; 
 And the slack judgment of her barren wit 
 Appoints the award of all things that are done. 
 
 IV 
 
 The perfect choice and rarest of all good 
 Abides not in broad air or public sun; 
 Being spoken of, it is not understood; 
 Being shown, it has no beauty to be loved; 
 And the slow pulse of each man's daily blood 
 For joy thereat is not more quickly moved; 
 Itself has knowledge of itself, and is 
 By its own witness measured and approved; 
 Yea, even well pleased to be otherwise; 
 Nor wear the raiment of a good repute 
 Nor have the record of large memories. 
 Close leaves combine above the covered fruit; 
 Earth, that gives much, holds back her costliest; 
 And in blind night sap comes into the root; 
 Things known are good but hidden things are 
 
 best. 
 Therefore, albeit we know good deeds of these, 
 
 77 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Let no man deem he knows their worthiest. 
 He who hath found the measure of the seas, 
 And the wind's ways hath ruled and limited, 
 And knows the print of their wild passages, 
 The same may speak the praise of these men 
 
 dead. 
 And having heard him we may surely know 
 There is no more to say than he hath said 
 And as his witness is the thing was so. 
 
 V 
 
 What praise shall England give these men her 
 
 friends? 
 For while the bays and the large channels flow, 
 In the broad sea between the iron ends 
 Of the poised world where no safe sail may be, 
 And for white miles the hard ice never blends 
 With the chill washing edges of dull sea — 
 And while to praise her green and girdled land 
 Shall be the same as to praise Liberty — 
 So long the record of these men shall stand, 
 Because they chose not life but rather death, 
 Each side being weighed with a most equal hand, 
 Because the gift they had of English breath 
 They did give back to England for her sake, 
 Like those dead seamen of Elizabeth 
 And those w T ho wrought with Nelson or with 
 
 Blake 
 78 
 
THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 
 
 To do great England service their lives long — 
 High honour shall they have; their deeds shall 
 
 make 
 Their spoken names sound sweeter than all song. 
 This England hath not made a better man, 
 More steadfast, or more wholly pure of wrong 
 Since the large book of English praise began. 
 For out of his great heart and reverence, 
 And finding love too large for life to span, 
 He gave up life, that she might gather thence 
 The increase of the seasons and their praise. 
 Therefore his name shall be her evidence, 
 And wheresoever tongue or thought gainsays 
 Our land the witness of her ancient worth 
 She may make answer to the later days 
 That she was chosen also for this birth, 
 And take all honour to herself and laud, 
 Because such men are made out of her earth. 
 Yea, wheresoever her report is broad, 
 This new thing also shall be said of her 
 That hearing it, hate may not stand unawed — 
 That Franklin was her friend and minister; 
 So shall the alien tongue forego its blame, 
 And for his love shall hold her lovelier 
 And for his worth more worthy; so his fame 
 Shall be the shield and strength of her defence, 
 Since where he was can be not any shame. 
 
 79 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 VI 
 
 These things that are and shall abide from hence 
 
 It may be that he sees them now, being dead. 
 
 And it may be that when the smitten sense 
 
 Began to pause, and pain was quieted, 
 
 And labour almost kissed the lips of peace, 
 
 And sound and sight of usual things had fled 
 
 From the most patient face of his decease, 
 
 He saw them also then ; we cannot say, 
 
 But surely when the pained breath found ease 
 
 And put the heaviness of life away, 
 
 Such things as these were not estranged from 
 
 him. 
 The soul, grown too rebellious to stay, 
 This shameful body where all things are dim, 
 Abode awhile in them and was made glad 
 In its blind pause upon the middle rim 
 Between the new life and the life it had, 
 This noble England that must hold him dear 
 Always, and always in his name keep sad 
 Her histories, and embalm with costly fear 
 And with rare hope and with a royal pride 
 Her memories of him that honoured her, 
 Was this not worth the pain wherein he died? 
 And in that lordly praise and large account 
 Was not his ample spirit satisfied? 
 He who slakes thirst at some uncleaner fount 
 Shall thirst again; but he shall win full ease 
 Who finds pure wells far up the painful mount. 
 
 80 
 
THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 
 
 VII 
 
 For the laborious time went hard with these 
 Among the thousand colours and gaunt shapes 
 Of the strong ice cloven with breach of seas, 
 Where the waste sullen shadow of steep capes 
 Narrows across the cloudy-coloured brine, 
 And by strong jets the angered foam escapes; 
 And a sad touch of sun scores the sea-line 
 Right at the middle motion of the noon 
 And then fades sharply back, and the cliffs shine 
 Fierce with keen snows against a kindled moon 
 In the hard purple of the bitter sky, 
 And thro' some rift as tho' an axe had hewn 
 Two spars of crag athwart alternately. 
 Flares the loose light of that large Boreal day 
 Down half the sudden heaven, and with a cry 
 Sick sleep is shaken from the soul away 
 And men leap up to see and have delight 
 For the sharp flame and strength of its white ray 
 From east to west burning upon the night; 
 And cliff and berg take fire from it, and stand 
 Like things distinct in customary sight, 
 And all the northern foam and frost, and all 
 The wild ice lying large to either hand; 
 And like the broken stones of some strange wall 
 Built to be girdle to the utmost earth, 
 Brow-bound with snows and made imperial, 
 Lean crags with coloured ice for crown and girth 
 
 81 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Stand midway with those iron seas in face 
 Far up the straitened shallows of the firth. 
 
 VIII 
 
 So winter-bound in such disastrous place, 
 Doubtless the time seemed heavier and more 
 
 hard 
 Than elsewhere in all scope and range of space, 
 Doubtless the backward thought and broad 
 
 regard 
 Was bitter to their souls, remembering 
 How in soft England the warm lands were 
 
 starred 
 With gracious flowers in the green tfront of 
 
 spring, 
 And all the branches' tender over-growth, 
 Where the quick birds took sudden heart to 
 
 sing; 
 And how the meadows in their sweet May sloth 
 Grew thick with grass as soft as song or sleep ; 
 So, looking back, their hearts grew sere and 
 
 loath 
 And their chafed pulses felt the blood to creep 
 More vexed and painfully; yea and this too 
 Possessed perchance their eyes with thirst to 
 
 weep 
 More than green fields or the May weather's 
 
 blue — 
 82 
 
THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 
 
 Mere recollection of all dearer things. 
 Slight words they used to say, slight work to do, 
 When every day was more than many springs, 
 And the strong April moved at heart, and made 
 Sweet mock at fortune and the seat of kings; 
 The naked sea and the bare lengths of land 
 And all the years that fade and grow and fade 
 Were pleasant years for them to live upon, 
 And time's gold raiment was not rent nor frayed ; 
 But now they know not if such things be done, 
 Nor how the old ways and old places fare, 
 Nor whether there be change in the glad sun, 
 Defect and loss in all the fragrant air, 
 New feet are in the waymarks of their feet, 
 The bitter savour of remembered sweet 
 No doubt did touch their lips in some sharp 
 
 guise, 
 No doubt the pain of thought and fever-heat 
 Put passion in the patience of their eyes. 
 
 IX 
 
 Yet in the edge and keenest nerve of pain, — 
 For such no comfort ever wholly dies, — 
 And as hurt patience healed and grew again, 
 This knowledge came, that neither land nor life 
 Nor all soft things whereof the will is fain 
 Nor love of friends nor wedded faith of wife 
 
 83 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Nor all of these nor any among these 
 Make a man's best, but rather loss and strife, 
 Failure, endurance, and high scorn of ease, 
 Love strong as death and valour strong as love; 
 Therefore among the winter-wasted seas, 
 No flaw being found upon them to reprove, — 
 These whom God's grace, calling them one by 
 
 one, 
 In unknown ways did patiently remove, 
 To have new heaven and earth, new air and 
 
 sun, — 
 These chose the best, therefore their name 
 
 shall be 
 Part of all noble things that shall be done, 
 Part of the royal record of the sea. 
 
 1858. 
 
 84 
 
THE CUP OF GOD'S WRATH 
 
 DRINK deep and spare not: it is great and wide; 
 
 The corners of it are made thick with gold; 
 
 The wine of it was trodden out of old 
 In the wine-press of Egypt, where man's pride 
 Was in his purple raiment sewn and dyed, 
 
 And he grew lusty in God's sight, and bold. 
 
 The grapes of it were never bought or sold. 
 God's anger hath made red its throat and side; 
 Choice of quaint spices hath he mixed therein, 
 
 And poisoned honey of a bitter juice, 
 Under that heavy lid where it hath been 
 
 Covered like oil within a little cruise: 
 What man hath will to wet his lips between, 
 
 The wine is poured and trodden for his use. 
 
 II 
 
 As one mows down to burn dead grass and weeds 
 Wherein the corn was choked and overgrown, 
 So in Time's hand hath Change the sickle 
 
 mown 
 
 An overgrowth of evil days and deeds; 
 
 85 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 And, as in meadows where the strong flame feeds, 
 The land is waste and eaten to the bone 
 In fields of dust with ashes overblown 
 
 To where the river trembles in its reeds, 
 
 So are the churches and broad halls burnt up; 
 The priests and princes gathered into sheaves 
 And bound for burning; such a fire begins 
 The melting of gold pieces and gold sins, 
 111 treasure-traffic, the market-place of thieves, 
 
 For whose sake God shall pour out all his cup. 
 
 Oxford. 
 
 86 
 
ECHO 
 
 IN the dusk of starlit hours 
 
 Thro' the woodland's dewy maze 
 Scattering music, scattering flowers 
 
 Down the glimmering forest ways, 
 O'er the smooth moss-paven level, 
 
 Past the mountain's windy brow, 
 Come the Nymphs in crowded revel, 
 
 Calling, Echo, Echo! where art thou? 
 
 By the far and misty glimmer 
 
 Of these pale Lethean lakes, 
 Whose dusk waves in twilight shimmer 
 
 When the faint Sun on them breaks, 
 Where no sorrowing thoughts appal thee, 
 
 Hast thou sought a place of sleep 
 Heeding not how loud we call thee — 
 
 Echo, Echo! — thro' the woodlands deep? 
 
 We have sought thee till the Hours, 
 
 Slow^ darkening to the west, 
 Left thee turning funeral flowers 
 
 In some haunt of dreary rest, 
 Where the cloud of dewy tresses 
 
 On thy wan and downcast brow 
 Like a weight of sorrow presses; 
 
 Call aloud, Echo! Echo! where art thou? 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 In the soft green summer-meadows 
 
 Where the silent streams are flowing 
 In the happy woodland shadows 
 
 Where the softest winds are blowing, 
 Where amid their heaped flowers 
 
 Children call thee soft and low, 
 In the hush of golden hours 
 
 Singing, Echo, Echo! where art thou? 
 
 When the wind-vext earth returneth 
 
 To the light of stormless days, 
 And the wide noon-splendour burneth 
 
 On the lustrous ocean-ways, 
 Still thou sittest weeping lowly 
 
 In the dim heart of the brakes, 
 In the silence wide and holy — 
 
 Echo, Echo ! — which the deep wood makes. 
 
 Echo, Echo! we are weary 
 
 And the forest-path is long, 
 And the brightest glades are dreary 
 
 If unwaken'd by thy song. 
 Hark! her voice afar is singing — 
 
 O our sister, where art thou? 
 All the joyous words are ringing; 
 
 Be with us, Echo! Echo! hear us now. 
 
 Oxford. 
 
 88 
 
DIES IR#) 
 
 Day of wrath, the years are keeping, 
 When the world shall rise from sleeping, 
 With a clamour of great weeping I 
 
 Earth shall fear and tremble greatly 
 
 To behold the advent stately 
 
 Of the Judge that judgeth straitly. 
 
 And the trumpet's fierce impatience 
 Scatter strange reverberations 
 Thro' the graves of buried nations. 
 
 Death and Nature will stand stricken 
 When the hollow bones shall quicken 
 And the air with weeping thicken. 
 
 When the Creature, sorrow-smitten, 
 Rises where the Judge is sitting 
 And beholds the doom-book written. 
 
 For, that so his wrath be slaked, 
 All things sleeping shall be waked. 
 All things hidden shall be naked. 
 
 8 9 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 When the just are troubled for thee, 
 Who shall plead for me before thee, 
 Who shall stand up to implore thee? 
 
 Lest my great sin overthrow me, 
 Let thy mercy, quickened thro' me, 
 As a fountain overflow me! 
 
 For my sake thy soul was moved; 
 For my sake thy name reproved, 
 Lose me not whom thou hast loved! 
 
 Yea, when shame and pain were sorest, 
 For my love the cross thou borest, 
 For my love the thorn-plait worest. 
 
 By that pain that overbore thee, 
 By those tears thou weptest for me, 
 Leave me strength to stand before thee. 
 
 For the heart within me yearneth, 
 And for sin my whole face burneth; 
 Spare me when thy day returneth. 
 
 By the Magdalen forgiven, 
 
 By the thief made pure for heaven, 
 
 Even to me thy hope was given. 
 
 Tho' great shame be heavy on me, 
 Grant thou, Lord, whose mercy won me, 
 That hell take not hold upon me. 
 
 90 
 
DIES IRJE 
 
 Thou whom I have loved solely, 
 Thou whom I have loved wholly, 
 Leave me place among the holy! 
 
 When thy sharp wrath burns like fire, 
 With the chosen of thy desire, 
 Call me to the crowned choir! 
 
 Prayer, like flame with ashes blending, 
 From my crushed heart burns ascending; 
 Have thou care for my last ending. 
 
 Oxford. 
 
 91 
 
AUTUMN RONDEL 
 
 FROM spring to fall the year makes merry 
 With days to days that chant and call : 
 With hopes to crown and fears to bury 
 With crowns of flowers and flowers for pall, 
 With bloom and song and bird and berry 
 That fill the months with festival 
 From spring to fall. 
 
 Who knows if ever skies were dreary 
 With shower and cloud and waterfall? 
 While yet the world's good heart is cheery, 
 Who knows if rains will ever brawl? 
 The storm thinks long, the winds wax weary, 
 Till winter comes to wind up all 
 From spring to fall. 
 
 92 
 
A CAROL FOR CHARITY 
 
 Winter, friend of health and wealth, 
 Hailed of goodly girls and boys, 
 
 Slays the poor by strength and stealth, 
 Makes their lives his lifeless toys. 
 
 One boy goes galloping over the moorland, 
 Wild with delight of the sunshine and speed, 
 
 Blithe as a bird on his bleak bright foreland, 
 Glad as the wind or his own glad steed. 
 
 One, with darkness and toil fast bound, 
 
 Bound in riisery and iron fast, 
 Drags his nakedness underground, 
 
 Sees the mine as the world at last. 
 
 Winter, lord of laughing Yule, 
 Winter, weeping on his dead, 
 
 Bids us ease his iron rule, 
 
 Bids us bring his poor men bread. 
 
 93 
 
A SONG FOR MARGARET MIDHURST 
 
 God send the sea sorrow 
 
 And all men that sail thorough. 
 
 God give the wild sea woe, 
 And all ships that therein go. 
 
 My love went out with dawn's light; 
 He went down ere it was night. 
 
 God give no live man good 
 That sails over the sea's flood. 
 
 God give all live men teen 
 That sail over the waves green. 
 
 God send for my love's sake 
 All their lovers' hearts break. 
 
 Many sails went over sea; 
 One took my heart from me. 
 
 All they, saving one, 
 
 Came in landward under the sun. 
 
 Many sails stood in from sea; 
 One twinned my heart and me. 
 94 
 
A SONG FOR MARGARET MIDHURST 
 
 Waves white and waves black, 
 One sail they sent not back. 
 
 Many maidens laughed that tide; 
 I fell down and sore sighed. 
 
 Many mouths I saw kiss; 
 
 No man kissed there mine, I wis. 
 
 Many gat there brooch and glove; 
 I gat but loss of love. 
 
 I rose and sighed sore; 
 
 I set my face from the shore. 
 
 On my fingers fair gold rings, 
 In my heart bitter things. 
 
 In mine hair combs of pride, 
 I stood up and sore sighed. 
 
 I looked out over sea; 
 
 Never a man's eye looked to me. 
 
 I cried out over the tide; 
 
 Never a man's mouth on me cried. 
 
 I came there a goodly thing; 
 I was full wan ere evening. 
 
 I came there fresh and red; 
 I came thence like one dead. 
 
 I came there glad and lief; 
 I came thence with heart's grief. 
 95 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 God give all men grief, I say, 
 That sail over the seas grey. 
 
 I laid my head to the sea-stone; 
 I made my bed there alone. 
 
 I made my bed into the sand, 
 Betwixen sea and green land. 
 
 Betwixen land and green sea 
 Sorrows and sorrows fell on me. 
 
 In yellow sea-sand washen well, 
 Weary watches on me fell. 
 
 There all a night I lay: 
 I would I had died ere day. 
 
 There in the young light 
 
 I looked over the waves white. 
 
 There all a day I stood 
 Looking over the sea's flood. 
 
 I saw waves black and green, 
 But no man's sail between. 
 
 I saw waves blue and white, 
 But no sails under the light. 
 
 There was no wind passed me by, 
 But I was like to die. 
 
 I sought long and I sought sore, 
 And aye my tears fell more. 
 
 9 6 
 
A SONG FOR MARGARET MIDHURST 
 
 I found sorrow and much pain, 
 But not my lover again. 
 
 God gave me a green bed 
 And no pillow to my head. 
 
 God gave me brief life's breath 
 And a good sleep after death. 
 
 97 
 

 LOVE AND SLEEP 
 
 Let me forget a little space, 
 
 O love, let love forget! 
 
 Or, if love will not let, 
 Blind thou with hair and hands his eyes and 
 
 face ; 
 
 Blind him and bind him, memory, tho' he fret, 
 And weep, and shift his place. 
 
 Thou seest how well the old loves sleep, 
 
 Each in a small sweet bed, 
 
 With flowers at foot and head, 
 Made out of griefs not grown enough to weep, 
 
 And joys so young their lips are hardly red, 
 And their hearts hardly leap. 
 
 Watch lest they wake, sweet Memory; set 
 
 A seal upon thy breath, 
 
 As one that sorroweth; 
 And hide thine eyes, and thou too shalt forget; 
 
 And sleep shall lead love by the hand to death, 
 And life be quiet yet. 
 
 9 8 
 
LOVE AND SLEEP 
 
 II 
 
 Hide thine eyes for all their light, 
 Lest they come to weep ; 
 
 Who shall say if day or night 
 Be the best for sleep? 
 
 If by day they wake, 
 
 Sorrow surely shall they see; 
 And for sorrow's sake 
 
 Joyless all their joy shall be. 
 
 Sun shall set and moon shall rise 
 
 Till the end of years, 
 But by night were never eyes 
 
 Watched and shed not tears. 
 
 Look not forth to find 
 
 Where thou never shalt find rest, 
 Lest thine eyes wax blind, 
 
 Love is good, but sleep is best. 
 
 99 
 
EVENING BY THE SEA 
 
 It was between the night and day, 
 The trees looked weary — one by one 
 
 Against the west they seemed to sway, 
 And yet were steady. The sad sun 
 
 In a sick doubt of colour lay 
 Across the water's belt of dun. 
 
 On the weak wind scarce flakes of foam 
 There floated, hardly borne at all 
 
 From the rent edge of water — some 
 Between slack gusts the wind let fall, 
 
 The white brine could not overcome 
 That pale grass on the southern wall. 
 
 That evening one could always hear 
 The sharp hiss of the shingle, rent 
 
 As each wave settled heavier, 
 The same rough way. This noise was 
 
 blent 
 With many sounds that hurt the air 
 As the salt sea-wind came and went. 
 
 The wind wailed once and was not. Then 
 The white sea touching its salt edge 
 ioo 
 
EVENING BY THE SEA 
 
 Dropped in a slow low sigh: again 
 The ripples deepened to the ledge, 
 
 Across the beach from marsh and fen 
 Came a faint smell of rotten sedge. 
 
 Like a hurt thing that will not die 
 The sea lay moaning; waifs of weed 
 
 Strove thro' the water painfully 
 Or lay flat, like drenched hair indeed, 
 
 Rolled over with the pebbles, nigh 
 Low places where the rock-fish feed. 
 
 101 
 
SONG FOR CHASTELARD 
 
 THOUGH ye be never so fair a May 
 As Queen Marie that is so sweet, 
 
 I am so bounden in love's way 
 I may not go upon my feet. 
 
 Though ye be never so true a thing 
 As Saint Marie that is so clean, 
 
 Yet I am so taken in your loving 
 I wis ye be the better queen. 
 
 Though I be never so good in face 
 As Absalom that was called fair, 
 
 Give me so much of your least grace 
 As I may kiss your neck and hair. 
 
 Though I be never so wise a king 
 As Solomon that woned out south, 
 
 Do so much for me, good sweeting, 
 As I may kiss upon your mouth. 
 
 102 
 
KING BAN 
 
 A FRAGMENT 
 
 THESE three held flight upon the leaning lands 
 At undern, past the skirt of misty camps 
 Sewn thick from Benwick to the outer march — 
 King Ban, and, riding wrist by wrist, Ellayne, 
 And caught up (with ihis coloured swathing- 
 
 bands 
 Across her arm, a hindrance in the reins, 
 A bauble slipt between the bridle-ties, 
 The three months' trouble that was Launcelot. 
 For Claudas leant upon the land, and smote 
 This way and that way, as a pestilence 
 Moves with vague patience in the unclean heat 
 This way and that way; so the Gaulish war 
 Smote, moving in the marches. Then King Ban 
 Shut in one girdled waist of narrow stones 
 His gold and all his men, and set on them 
 A name, the name of perfect men at need, 
 And over them a seneschal, the man 
 Most inward and entailed upon his soul, 
 That next his will and in his pulses moved 
 As the close blood and purpose of his heart, 
 And laid the place between his hands, and rode 
 
 103 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 North to the wild rims of distempered sea 
 That, crossed to Logres, his face might look 
 
 red [sic] 
 The face of Arthur, and therein light blood 
 Even to the eyes and to the circled hair 
 For shame of failure in so near a need, 
 Failure in service of so near a man. 
 Because that time King Arthur would not ride, 
 But lay and let his hands weaken to white 
 Among the stray gold of a lady's head. 
 His hands unwedded: neither could bring help 
 To Ban that helped to rend his land for him 
 From the steel wrist of spoilers, but the time 
 A sleep like yellow mould had overgrown, 
 A pleasure sweet and sick as marsh-flowers. 
 Therefore about his marches rode King Ban 
 With eyes that fell between his hands to count 
 The golden inches of the saddle-rim, 
 Strange with rare stones; and in his face there 
 
 rose 
 A doubt that burnt it with red pain and fear 
 All over it, and plucked upon his heart, 
 The old weak heart that loss had eaten through, 
 Remembering how the seneschal went back 
 At coming out from Claudas in his tent; 
 And how they bound together, chin by chin, 
 Whispered and wagged, and made lean room for 
 
 words, 
 And a sharp mutter fed the ears of them. 
 
 104 
 
KING BAN 
 
 And he went in and set no thought thereon 
 To waste ; fear had not heart to fear indeed, 
 The king being old, since any fear in such 
 Is as a wound upon the fleshly sense 
 That drains a parcel of his time thereout, 
 Therefore he would not fear that as it fell 
 This thing should fall. For Claudas the keen 
 
 thief 
 For some thin rounds and wretched stamps of 
 
 gold 
 Had bought the tower and men and seneschal, 
 Body and breath and blood, yea, soul and shame. 
 They knew not this, at halt upon a hill. 
 Only surmise was dull upon the sense 
 And thin conjecture sickened in the speech; 
 So they fell silent, riding in the hills. 
 There on a little terrace the good king 
 Reined, and looked out. Far back the white 
 
 lands lay; 
 The wind went in them like a broken man, 
 Lamely; the mist had set a bitter lip 
 To the rimmed river, and the moon burnt blank. 
 But outward from the castle of King Ban 
 There blew a sound of trouble, and there clomb 
 A fire that thrust an arm across the air, 
 Shook a rent skirt of dragging flame, and 
 
 blanched 
 The grey flats to such cruel white as shone 
 Iron against the shadow of the sky 
 
 105 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Blurred out with its blind stars; for as the sea 
 Gathers to lengthen a bleached edge of foam 
 Whole weights of windy water, and the green 
 Brine flares and hisses as the heap makes up, 
 Till the gaunt wave writhes, trying to breathe, 
 Then turns, and all the whited rims of steel 
 Lean over, and the hollowed round roars in 
 And smites the pebble forward in the mud, 
 And grinds the shingle in cool whirls of white, 
 Clashed through and crossed with blank assault 
 
 of foam, 
 Filled with hard thunder and drenched dregs of 
 
 sand — 
 So leant and leapt the many-mouthed fire, 
 So curled upon the walls, dipt, crawled, smote, 
 
 clung, 
 Caught like a beast that catches on the flesh, 
 Waxed hoar with sick default, shivered across, 
 Choked out, a snake unfed. 
 
 Thereat King Ban 
 Trembled for pain in all his blood, and death 
 Under the heart caught him and made his breath 
 Wince, as a worm does, wounded in the head; 
 And fear began upon his flesh, and shook 
 The chaste and inly sufferance of it 
 Almost to ruin; a small fire and keen 
 Eating in muscle and nerve and hinge of joint 
 Perilous way; so bitter was the blow 
 Made on his sense by treason and sharp loss. 
 
 1 06 
 
KING BAN 
 
 Then he fell weeping tears, with blood in them, 
 Like that red sweat that stained Gethsemane 
 With witness, when the deadly kiss had put 
 Shame on the mouth of Judas; and he cried, 
 Crying on God, and made out words and said: 
 Fair lord, sweet lord, most pleasant to all men, 
 To me so pleasant in clean days of mine 
 That now are rained upon with heavy rain, 
 Soiled with grey grime and with the dusty years, 
 Because in all those tourneys and hot things 
 I had to do with, in all riding times 
 And noise of work, and on smooth holidays 
 Sitting to see the smiting of hard spears, 
 And spur-smiting of steeds and wrath of men, 
 And gracious measure of the rounded game, 
 I held you in true honour and kept white 
 The hands of my allegiance as a maid's, 
 Being whole of faith and perfect in the will. 
 Therefore I pray you, O God marvellous, 
 See me how I am stricken among men, 
 And how the lip I fed with plenteousness 
 And cooled with wine of liberal courtesy 
 Turns a snake's life to poison me and clings — 
 
 107 
 
THE WHITE MAID'S WOOING 
 
 "How will you woo her, 
 This white maid of thine? 
 
 With breaking of wastel, 
 Or pouring of wine?" 
 
 Not with pouring of cups 
 Or with breaking of bread; 
 
 But with wood that is cloven, 
 And wine that is red. 
 
 With rings will I woo her, 
 With chains will I wed ; 
 
 With ships that are broken, 
 With blood that is shed. 
 
 Not with gold for a ring, 
 Nor w r ith kisses on lips, 
 
 But with slaying of sailors 
 And breaking of ships. 
 
 "And how will you tame her, 
 This mad maid of thine? 
 
 With kisses for seal, 
 
 Or with gold for a sign?'' 
 108 
 
THE WHITE MAID'S WOOING 
 
 With a bit for the mouth, 
 And a ring for the hand; 
 
 With a neck-chain of foam, 
 Or a waist-chain of sand. 
 
 With the wind for a seal, 
 And the sun for a oign; 
 
 And so I will wed her, 
 This white wife of mine. 
 
 109 
 
LANDOR AT FLORENCE 
 
 The stateliest singing mouth that speaks our 
 
 tongue, 
 
 The lordliest, and the brow of loftiest leaf 
 
 Worn after the great fashion close and brief, 
 Sounds and shines yet; to whom all braids 
 
 belong 
 Of plaited laurel that no weathers wrong, 
 
 All increase of the spring and of the sheaf, 
 
 All high delight and godliness of grief, 
 All bloom and fume of summer and of song. 
 The years are of his household; Fate and Fame 
 
 Observe him; and the things of pestilence 
 Die out of fear, that could not die of shame, 
 
 Before his heel he set on their offence: 
 Time's hand shall hoard the gold of such a name 
 
 When death has blown the dust of base men 
 
 thence. 
 
 1864. 
 
 no 
 
SONNET 
 
 Ah, face and hands and body beautiful, 
 
 Fair tender body, for my body's sake 
 
 Are you made faultless without stain or break. 
 Locks close as weed in river-water cool, 
 A purer throat and softer than white wool, 
 
 Eyes where sleep always seems about to wake. 
 
 No dead man's flesh but feels the strong sweet 
 
 ache, 
 And that sharp amorous watch the years annul, 
 If his grave's grass have felt you anywhere. 
 
 Rain and the summer shadow of the rain 
 Are not so gentle to the generous year 
 
 As your soft rapid kisses are to men, 
 Felt here about my face, yea here and here, 
 
 Caught on my lips and thrown you back 
 
 again. 
 
 in 
 
GENTLE SPRING 
 
 WRITTEN FOR A PICTURE BY FREDERICK SANDYS 
 
 O VIRGIN Mother! of gentle days and nights, 
 Spring of fresh buds and spring of soft delights, 
 Come, with lips kissed of many an amorous 
 
 hour, 
 Come, with hands heavy from the fervent flower, 
 The fleet first flower that feels the wind and 
 
 sighs, 
 The tenderer leaf that draws the sun and dies; 
 Light butterflies like flowers alive in the air 
 Circling and crowning thy delicious hair, 
 And many a fruitful flower and floral fruit 
 Born of thy breath and fragrant from thy foot. 
 Thee, Mother, all things born desire, and thee 
 Earth and the fruitless hollows of the sea 
 Praise, and thy tender winds of ungrown wing 
 Fill heaven with murmurs of the sudden spring. 
 
 1865. 
 
 112 
 
CONSTANCE AND FREDERICK 
 
 Fred. Why should it hurt you that he goes 
 
 to Rome? 
 Now I am glad ; I can sit close to you, 
 Feel my hand put away and lost in yours, 
 And the sweet smell of your long knotted hair 
 Laid on my face and mouth ; can kiss you too 
 And not be smitten; that is good for me. 
 
 Con. Poor child, I love you; yea, keep close 
 
 by me 
 So am I safe. Ah ! yet no woman here 
 Would pity; keep you closer to me, boy I 
 Fred. Is not this well? now I can touch your 
 
 sleeve, 
 Count over the thick rings and fair round stones 
 About your neck and forehead, and on mine 
 Lay down the soft palm of your smooth long 
 
 hand; 
 If I were as my father I would reach 
 Both hands up — so — to bow your head quite 
 
 down, 
 Pulled by the hair each side, till I could touch 
 The rows of gracious pearl that part your hair. 
 Then I would kiss you, your lips would move to 
 
 cry 
 
 ii3 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 And I would make them quiet; ah! but now 
 I cannot reach your lips — not so! alas, 
 And then they shiver and curl sideways, see, 
 And your eyes cry too. 
 
 Con. There — sit gravelier now! 
 
 Nay, child, you twist my finger in the ring. 
 
 Fred. I wonder if God means to leave us so? 
 If he forget us, and my father die, 
 How well that were for you! dear mother, 
 
 think 
 How we would praise him! 
 
 Con. Child, no words of it, 
 
 Let us forget him. Come, I'll spoil a tale, 
 With idle remembrance. There was a king once 
 Lived where the trees are great and green, with 
 
 leaves 
 The white midwinter keeps alive; there grew 
 All red fruit and all flowers full of gold 
 In the broad low grasses: from the poppy-root 
 Came lilies, and from lily-stems there clomb 
 Tall roses, with close petals, and the stalk 
 Was heavy gold, solid and smooth, the wind 
 Was full of soft rain gathered in the dusk 
 That fell with no clouds near; so this king 
 Grew past a child. 
 
 Fred. Taller than I? so tall? 
 
 Con. Ay, where the sun divides the olive- 
 shade; 
 
 And on his head Rise, here are men, I think. 
 
 114 
 
CONSTANCE AND FREDERICK 
 
 Enter Massimo and Lucrezia. 
 
 Mas. What do these here? Hrsh! now, 
 
 Madam, I pray you, 
 Though we put on some outer show of man, 
 Think us no more than beast: What certainty 
 
 is there 
 Or in our faces, in our brows' mould, or 
 In the clear shape and colour of our speech, 
 Sets this word man upon us? We, as you, 
 Are the king's ware, his good necessities; 
 (I'll teach you shortly what this babble means, 
 Fear we not there) good chattels of his use 
 For one to handle; I beseech you, let not 
 The outside of our speech condemn us ; else 
 Had we kept mouth shut ever. 
 
 Con. My fair lord, 
 
 I know not what ungracious day of mine 
 Hath given you tongue against me. 
 
 Fred. What says he, mother? 
 
 May I not kill him? tho' he speaks so high, 
 This is no father: I may kill him then? 
 
 Con. Hush, boy! this insolence has changed 
 
 you. Sir, 
 I pray you let me understand; you said 
 (I think) and there was a secret in your speech 
 I must unriddle. Lady Lucrezia, 
 What madness hurts our friend? he speaks awry 
 With a most broken action. 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Fred. Speak, sir: I 
 
 Stand for my mother. 
 
 Mas. So you have set him words 
 
 To work out, to spell over, each as loud 
 As any threat the mouth makes like a blow? 
 Ay, must his father praise him too? 
 
 Luc. My lord, 
 
 It seems that change can make the face of hope 
 Grey as his own thin hair; I loved you well, 
 Put honour on you, which you seemed to wear 
 With natural apprehension and keen grace 
 Past blame of any, over praise of me: 
 Now either my hurt sense is sick to death, 
 Or I conceive such meaning in your talk 
 As makes me faint with shame; I would fain be 
 
 angry; 
 But shame has left me bare of even will 
 To seem so angry, and to say this out 
 With your set eyes so fast upon my face 
 Grows like shame to me. 
 
 Mas. Nathless I believe 
 
 Since you shook hands with shame's last mes- 
 senger 
 And felt her hand's mark hot long your cheek, 
 Some years have made it whiter. 
 
 Luc. Pardon me! 
 
 I know not, Madam, what he speaks. 
 
 Mas. Nor you? 
 
 I spoke to Tancred's kinswoman, the queen 
 
 116 
 
CONSTANCE AND FREDERICK 
 
 Who wears the blood of holy centuries 
 
 In her fair palms and forehead; their blue 
 
 curves 
 Royally written ; nay this boy's soft lip 
 So red and fair by that imperial sign, 
 By your most gracious warrant; else I'll say 
 The name you had was bastarded, and you 
 Some wicked season's error. 
 
 Luc. Are you mad? 
 
 See, her mouth trembles, tears drop over it, 
 Her brows move: now, be silent! 
 
 Mas. Then I'll end! 
 
 I held this lady so past service, yea 
 Past man's approval or the keenest feet 
 Of his obedience: You're my kinswoman, 
 And the dear honour that I have of you 
 Hath borne some witness; now for her, I'll say 
 I would forget you, and unclothe my soul 
 Of its strong reverence and opinion 
 That makes you to me as the music is 
 To the dead eithern there, as the live smell 
 To some quick flower midways the lily-row. 
 So I hold you — well, I'd forget all this 
 To serve her; that was Lady Constance here, 
 When she was no mere German ornament 
 Scrawled broad with some gold flourishes at top 
 Above some Austrian document to prove 
 Our lord a liar, some stale letter, says 
 To be just fingered by Pope Celestin 
 
 117 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Before he tears it, tears her name and all, 
 No witness of that devil's assurance made 
 Between our masters, that strong bond that holds 
 Treason each side — no empress of this mould, 
 But just the lady we had just to serve, 
 Live by or die for — oh, not when she bade 
 But when God thought she might have need of 
 
 him 
 Tancred's own blood, the king's own very flesh 
 Made for our sakes so beautiful and weak 
 That we might even help God by serving her — 
 The maiden face more gracious than was need 
 To keep it perfect — yea, more love in the lip 
 Than what sufficed us to accredit her 
 As only Constance, more repose i' the eyes 
 Than had alone constrained her worship out — 
 For certes no man ever wondered much 
 Why she wants worship! (to complete her, say) 
 And what were love's work? yea, thus verily 
 God wrought her with good cunning; and our 
 
 part 
 Was to be patient — some day this might end, 
 She might pray God to find us room, suppose — 
 So many as we were, and such poor blood 
 As this might wash her floored palace clean — 
 I talk that old way! See how pale she is, 
 Her eyes more narrow, and with shallow lights 
 Filling them, broken hints of purposes, 
 How pain has worn the golden secret out 
 
 118 
 
CONSTANCE AND FREDERICK 
 
 Some strange grand language wrote upon her 
 
 face. 
 All this more wasted than a flame tiiat fails 
 On sick lamp lit at daybreak — more rebuked, 
 Chastened and beaten by the imperious time, 
 Than my words last year spoken! 
 
 Con. Oh, not so: 
 Not the soul — let the body wear so thin 
 Each feature shows of it by this 
 
 Mas. I said 
 
 No man's change that we are ruled by does much 
 
 harm, 
 God overlines it, shall not the queen live? 
 But this so new and bitter thing to taste 
 That poisons me — this curse that changes her — 
 I saw not ever. 
 
 Con. This — 
 
 Mas. That you should turn 
 
 A woman none of those men pay to find 
 The costliness of such a golden sin 
 As loves by hire and loves not — no such thing 
 Would praise or pity, would despise or hate — 
 A shame familiar on the pander's lip, 
 Smiled out by courtiers from their slippery mouth, 
 Laughed over, chattered over by the page 
 A groom might spit on — handled, breathed upon 
 By the spent breath in his mid office worn 
 As garb and badge of his necessity 
 On one permitted shoulder, by this king . .., . 
 
 119 
 
POPE CELESTIN AND GIORDANO 
 
 Gio. These matters are but shadows of the 
 
 truth, 
 Mean indications ; time will shew, my lord, 
 Our wrong lies deeper. 
 
 Cel. Proofs — ay, proofs you say — 
 
 Let me see that, sir: I'll believe your proof: 
 What must I do? what stirs you up to give 
 This dead dissension teeth to bite again? 
 And I am old; my body is no wall 
 For you to shoot behind at emperors: 
 Ay, the keen spirit eats the flesh like fire, 
 It's mere slow poison, this my dignity, 
 Consumes me; ah, you're just a man, my Count, 
 Cannot conceive how God's will overcomes, 
 How the Church bears one's very soul to hold 
 And stoops the shoulders; then, we're set to 
 
 pray 
 Save you your souls, gather you fruit of prayer, 
 Not whet you fresh blades when blood mars the 
 
 old: 
 Ah, what must we do? 
 
 Gio. But, your Holiness 
 
 Imagines not we seek your wrong in this : 
 
 120 
 
POPE CELESTIN AND GIORDANO 
 
 Our words are meant to save God's Church and 
 
 you 
 From this man's red and insolent hands, put 
 
 forth 
 To pluck you out of kingdom, set you up 
 But as a dead thing, as a monument 
 That boys may spit at. Sir, if you speak of peace, 
 Best cover up the face of you and weep 
 Till he be here: it may be he will say 
 "Throw me that hoar scalp to the dogs," or else 
 "Nay, find him some low cell not overbroad 
 And slip the chain's knot close enough to press 
 The lean old wrist and elbow:" this may be. 
 Cel. This! Oh, God help me, but how cold 
 
 it gets ! 
 Why — but I think, by Venus, it's no spring 
 But winter comes to pinch us by the chin. 
 — Are not we vicar of the Son of God? 
 Are not we lord of you and him? Ha, see 
 How the flames twinkle when my hand goes up! 
 The fingers are but lank as sprays of wood 
 In the late snow-time, eh, or blades embrowned 
 On some lean field this bitter March — see, 
 
 Count, 
 This grey hair comes on all! ay, well I know 
 The blessed tonsure came on it before — 
 Ay, thin scalp, said you! yea, but, sir, no Count 
 Keeps always dark hair, not so thick as yours, 
 God help it! 
 
 121 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Gio. I beseech your Holiness 
 
 Even by the sweet blood of your Lord the Christ, 
 Believe me this is perilous to say: 
 You talk of things that either you must kill 
 Or they will smite you on the sacred face, 
 Discredit you, despoil the chosen gold 
 On the dear bosom of this mother Church, 
 Uncover 
 
 Cel. Ah, sir, tell me not of these! 
 
 An old man — ere the blessed knife had shorn 
 One black top curl, I might have answered you; 
 I was too young — eh well, suppose men talk, 
 What matter? there's a lie in each man's mouth. 
 Yea "dixi" said God's blessed Psalmist once 
 "Dixi," that's where the choir breaks out full 
 
 breath, 
 Makes half the sweet smoke ripple graciously, 
 Praising God's mother in delicious wise. 
 Ah, sir, be very tender of such words; 
 The trampled flesh is like a hurt snake's head 
 Most quick to peer up sharply — ah, sir, then 
 It stings the blood thro', verily! 
 
 Gio. My lord — 
 
 Cel. Ay, then begins to stir and strike and 
 
 more 
 God keep us — worries as with angry teeth, 
 This sensual serpent of the evil flesh, 
 With its bruised head alive and such keen eyes 
 And such a large mouth with lean lips astir. 
 
 122 
 
POPE CELESTIN AND GIORDANO 
 
 Ah, sir, be very tender of the flesh' 
 
 Gold said you, gold? there was hair once she had 
 
 Most like a Byzant painter makes 
 
 For some saint's face — alas, the hair she had 
 
 Which now red worms have eaten to the roots! 
 
 Ah, flesh is weaker than a rich man's breath, 
 
 An old man's hand with fingers shut like these — 
 
 The mouth she had which years ago black 
 
 earth 
 Filled to the lips that used to kiss me once, 
 Which Mary pardon! so shall I too die 
 And have my body eaten of cold worms 
 As Herod — so Christ pardon me the sin! 
 Gold said you, on her bosom? ah, she wore 
 An armlet of thin gold, and on her neck 
 There was a plait she had of threaded yellow 
 
 silk— 
 And all this has been done with many years, 
 And will not come again. I grow so old, 
 So old and sick, alas the evil flesh! 
 
 Gio. I told your Holiness of Henry's aim, 
 His aim assured and evident, to seize 
 The Church lands and the Church's wealth, if 
 
 you 
 Confirm not, sir, his tyrannous dignity 
 By the mere seal of strong permission: think 
 I do beseech you by Queen Mary's might, 
 What shame, what utter peril there should be 
 If this thing fall! That henceforth one may say 
 
 123 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Trust in the Church and trust, and find no 
 
 place 
 Where truth makes head against the violent 
 
 world — 
 If you do this : yea, men will violate 
 Things hidden with securest insolence; 
 So that between the slayer's bearded mouth 
 And the chaste lip of reverence there will be 
 Even such communion as the traitor's kiss, 
 A present lie for ever. 
 
 Cel. Ay, woe's me, 
 
 A lie to say — a very bitter lie 
 To take upon the tongue we pray withal. 
 Alas, sir, while God keeps us scant of grace, 
 The body and the body's frail thin sense 
 Is liable to most dangerous attributes, 
 Is vulnerable to any sword of sins, 
 To any craft of Satan's; we should think 
 We are made of most frail body and weak soul 
 Mere tools for diabolic usages, 
 For ministration of man's enemy 
 Whom God confound! nathless it hath been kept 
 I say, sir, there be men have seldom sinned 
 Since the pure vow made clean their fleshly lips : 
 To God ascribe the praise, my son, not me; 
 Yea, be it written for me in God's book 
 What have I done — whereof I take but blame 
 Seeing there is no profit in me, none, 
 Nor in my service: verily I think 
 
 124 
 
POPE CELESTIN AND GIORDANO 
 
 The keeper of God's house is more than I, 
 Who have but served him these hoar eighty 
 
 years 
 With barren service. 
 
 Gio. (Ay, past help of mine!) 
 
 I pray you then, my lord, that of your grace 
 I may speak with the Cardinal Orsino 
 As in your name; he loves me well, there's none 
 Of more swift judgment and deliberate act, 
 Nor who serves justice better. 
 
 Cel. Yea, my lord, 
 
 You shall have letters to the cardinal; 
 A good man, who hath slain the flesh of sin — 
 A good man, certainly no son of Christ 
 Hath done more service, is more ripe for grace. 
 He hath looked seldom on the evil thing 
 To hunger for it in the bond of lust 
 Or violence of the keen iniquitous will: 
 I'll send him letters — yea, a man of grace, 
 A pillar fairly carven of wrought stone 
 All builded without hammer, clean and fair 
 To do God honour, and accredit us 
 The builder of him: for his judgment, sir, 
 That shall you test, but all grow old in time. 
 Ay, soon or late God fashions us anew 
 By some good patterns ; so shall all get made 
 Fit to be welded stone by shapen stone 
 Into the marvellous Jerusalem wall 
 That shall be builded. A good man, I said, 
 
 125 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 But somewhat older than he was, meseems, 
 That shall you notice; let him not suspect 
 That I misdoubt him, sir; he hath been wise 
 Fulfilled of grace and wisdom: but our time 
 Is as a day — as half a day with God : 
 Yea, as a watch that passeth in the night 
 And is not honoured. Come, sir, you shall go 
 I pray God prosper you, and overcome 
 The evil of your body, by his grace. 
 Also the Cardinal, that he may speak 
 Things worthy, which shall worthily be heard 
 For without wisdom are we as the grass 
 Which the sun withers: yea, our sojourn here 
 Is as a watch that passeth in the night. 
 
 126 
 
IN THE TWILIGHT 
 
 Lord, is it daytime or night? 
 
 Failure, Lord, or success? 
 Speak to us, answer us, thou : 
 Surely the light of thy brow 
 Gave us, giveth us, light, 
 Dark be the season or bright, 
 
 Strong to support or suppress. 
 
 Thou, with eyes to the east, 
 
 Beautiful, vigilant eyes; 
 Father, Comforter, Chief, 
 Joy be it with us or grief, 
 Season of funeral or feast, 
 Careful of thine, of thy least, 
 
 Careful who lives and who dies. 
 
 Soul and Spirit of all, 
 
 Keeping the watch of the world, 
 All through the night-watches, there 
 Gazing through turbulent air 
 Standest; how shall we fall? 
 What should afflict or appal, 
 Though the streamers of storm be un- 
 furled? 
 
 127 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 All the noise of the night, 
 
 All the thunder of things, 
 All the terrors be hurled 
 Of the blind brute-force of the world, 
 All the weight of the fight, 
 All men's violent might, 
 
 All the confluence of Kings; 
 
 Rouse all earth against us, 
 
 Hurl all heaven against thee? 
 
 Though it be thus, though it were, 
 
 Speak to us, if thou be there, 
 
 Save, tho' indeed it be thus 
 
 Then that the dolorous 
 
 Stream sweeps off to the sea. 
 
 Lift up heads that are hidden, 
 
 Strengthen hearts that are faint; 
 Lighten on eyes that are blind 
 To the poor of thy kind, 
 Courage their lives over-ridden, 
 Smitten how sorely and chidden 
 Sharply with reins of restraint. 
 
 Peace, it may be he will say, 
 
 Somewhat, if yet ye will hear 
 Some great word of a chief 
 Ask not of joy, neither grief, 
 128 
 
IN THE TWILIGHT 
 
 Ask nothing more of the day, 
 Not whether night be away, 
 Not whether comfort be near. 
 
 Seek not after a token ; 
 
 Ask not what of the night, 
 Nor what the end of it brings : 
 Seek after none of these things. 
 What though nothing were spoken, 
 Nothing, though all we were broken, 
 
 Shewn as seen of the light? 
 
 What if the morning awake 
 
 Never of us to be seen? 
 Yet, if we die, if we live, 
 That which we have will we give, 
 That which is with us we take, 
 Borne in our hands for her sake 
 
 Who shall be and is and hath been. 
 
 She though we die we shall find 
 Surely, though far she be fled, 
 Nay, if we find not at last, 
 We, though we die and go past, 
 Yet shall we leave her behind, 
 Leave to the sons of our kind 
 Men that come after us dead. 
 
 These shall say of us then; 
 "Freedom they had not as we, 
 129 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Yet were none of them slaves; 
 Free they lie in their graves, 
 Our fathers, the ancient of men, 
 Souls that awake not again 
 Free, as we living w r ere free." 
 
 Then, if remembrance remain, 
 Shall we not seeing have said 
 
 Out of the place where we lie 
 
 Hearing, rejoice and reply; 
 
 Men of a world without stain 
 
 Sons of men that in vain 
 Lie not for love of you dead. 
 
 1867. 
 
 130 
 
CHANSON DE FfiVRIER 
 
 TRESSONS ma guirlande 
 
 D'ix et de cypres, 
 Bien belle est la lande, 
 
 Bien verts sont les pres. 
 
 Faites-moi ma biere, 
 
 Mettez-m'y ce soir: 
 Bien triste est la terre, 
 
 Le tombeau bien noir. 
 
 Qu'il aille aimer Rose; 
 
 L'amour lui sied bien; 
 Elle a toute chose, 
 
 Et moi je n'ai rien. 
 
 Des nattes de soie 
 
 Qu'on rehausse en tour; 
 Des yeux pleins de joie 
 
 Et vides d'amour. 
 
 Quand son cou se cambre, 
 Tous ses grands cheveux 
 
 Cousus d'or et d'ambre 
 Tombent sur ses yeux. 
 
 131 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 De l'Eure a la Sambre, 
 
 On ne vit jamais 
 Si beaux cheveux d'ambre, 
 
 Si beaux yeux de jais. 
 
 Je n'ai rien a dire; 
 
 J'ai garde ma foi. 
 Sa bouche sait rire; 
 
 Je sais pleurer, moi. 
 
 La lune etait belle; 
 
 Mais le jour a lui. 
 Que nous voulait-elle 
 
 Quand j'etais a lui? 
 
 Vous verrez eclose, 
 
 Quand mai le veut bien, 
 Vous verrez la rose, 
 
 Je ne verrai rien. 
 
 Les jours ou Ton cueille 
 
 L'hyacinthe au pre, 
 Et la chevrefeuille, 
 
 Moi je dormirai. 
 
 Que dit la colombe? 
 
 Vivez, aimez-vous: 
 Bien douce est la tombe, 
 
 Le gazon bien doux. 
 132 
 
CHANSON DE FfiVRIER 
 
 Mais quand l'hirondelle 
 
 Chante aux champs de mai 
 
 Va, lui dira-t-elle, 
 Tu fus bien aime. 
 
 133 
 
CHANSON D'AVRIL 
 
 TRESSEZ ma couronne 
 
 Des fleurs de roseau. 
 Tu me dis: Sois bonne, 
 
 Je te dis: Sois beau. 
 
 Ecoute: tu m'aimes, 
 
 La belle aux beaux yeux; 
 
 Allons par nous-memes, 
 Allons deux a deux. 1 
 
 Nous irons, ma chere, 
 
 Au fond du verger: 
 Tu seras bergere, 
 
 Je serai berger. 
 
 Tais-toi done, mignonne, 
 
 II faut s'apaiser 
 Quand on est si bonne, 
 
 Si bonne a baiser. 
 
 1 This line must be a slip. "Allons deux a deux" suggests 
 a procession of couples, not a single pair. The couplet is 
 perhaps the least French in the poem. — [E. G.] 
 
 134 
 
CHANSON D'AVRIL 
 
 La roseau qui penche 
 
 Est moins doux, moins frais; 
 Moins belle, moins blanche, 
 
 La rose des pres. 
 
 Que dit l'hirondelle? 
 
 Le jour va perir: 
 Aimons-nous, ma belle, 
 
 Avant de mourir. 
 
 Aimons-nous, ma mie: 
 
 Viens, ecoute, vois; 
 Songe que la vie 
 
 Ne vient qu'une fois. 
 
 Veux-tu que je meure, 
 Vraiment, sans amour? 
 
 Nous vivons une heure 
 Nous mourrons un jour. 
 
 *3S 
 
THAW 
 
 A FRAGMENT 
 
 THIS winter's white is no more strong than snow 
 Against the red of spring in buds and beams, 
 In sun and shoot refilled with fluent fire 
 And heart of lusty labour and large life. 
 Already the lean hoar-frost is deflowered 
 Of half its breathless blossom of thin leaves 
 Wrought false on glass, and that glass not so 
 
 frail ; 
 Already the split ice yearns, and now the thaw 
 Begins on every river and unsealed well ; 
 The snow shudders against the sun, the hills 
 Warm them with morning. What shall noon 
 
 do next? 
 1871. 
 
 136 
 
BALLAD OF THE FAIR HELMET- 
 MAKER TO THE GIRLS OF JOY 
 
 FROM VILLON 
 
 Now think hereof, fair Gloveress, 
 That wast my scholar constantly, 
 
 And you too, Blanche the Cobbleress, 
 'Tis time to walk now warily, 
 Take right and left; I pray you, see 
 
 Ye spare no man in any place; 
 For old girls keep no currency, 
 
 No more than coin cried down for base. 
 
 And you, my dainty Flesheress, 
 
 So light in dance of heel and knee, 
 And Winifred the Weaveress, 
 
 Despise not low your master free; 
 
 Ye too must shut up shop, all ye 
 When ye wax old and bleak of face; 
 
 Of no more use than old priests be, 
 No more than coin cried down for base. 
 
 Take heed too, Joan the Hatteress, 
 That no fiend lime your liberty; 
 
 No more, fair Kate, the Spurrieress, 
 Bid men go hang or pack to sea; 
 *37 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 For whoso lacks her beauty, she 
 
 Gets scorn of them, and no good grace, 
 
 Foul age takes no man's love for fee, 
 No more than coin cried down for base. 
 
 Girls, hearken and give heed to me, 
 Why thus I wail and weep my case 
 
 'Tis that I find no remedy, 
 
 No more than coin cried down for base. 
 
 1872. 
 
 138 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 YEARS have sped from us under the sun 
 Through blossom and snow-tides twenty-one, 
 Since first your hand as a friend's was mine, 
 In a season whose days are yet honey and wine 
 To the pale close lips of Remembrance, shed 
 By the cupbearer Love for desire of the dead: 
 And the weeds I send you may half seem flowers 
 In eyes that were lit by the light of its hours. 
 For the life (if at all there be life) in them grew 
 From the sun then risen on a young day's dew, 
 When ever in August holiday times 
 I rode or swam through a rapture of rhymes, 
 Over heather and crag, and by scaur and by 
 
 stream, 
 Clothed with delight by the might of a dream, 
 With the sweet sharp wind blown hard through 
 
 my hair, 
 On eyes enkindled and head made bare, 
 Reining my rhymes into royal order 
 Through honied leagues of the northland 
 
 border; 
 Or loosened a song to seal for me 
 A kiss on the clamorous mouth of the sea. 
 
 139 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 So swarmed and sprang, as a covey they start, 
 The song-birds hatched of a hot glad heart, 
 With notes too shrill and a windy joy 
 Fluttering and firing the brain of a boy, 
 With far keen echoes of painless pain 
 Beating their wings on his heart and his brain, 
 Till a life's whole reach, were it brief, were it 
 
 long, 
 Seemed but a field to be sown with song. 
 
 The snow-time is melted, the flower-time is fled, 
 That were one to me then for the joys they shed. 
 Joys in garland and sorrows in sheaf, 
 Rose-red pleasure and gold-eared grief, 
 Reared of the rays of a mid-noon sky, 
 I have gathered and housed them, worn and put 
 
 by, 
 
 These wild-weed waifs with a wan green bloom 
 Found in the grass of that old year's tomb, 
 Touched by the gleam of it, soiled with its 
 
 dust, 
 I well could leave in the green grave's trust, 
 Lightly could leave in the light wind's care 
 Were all thoughts dead of the dead life there. 
 But if some note of its old glad sound 
 In your ear should ring as a dream's rebound, 
 As a song, that sleep in his ear keeps yet, 
 Tho' the senses and soul rewaking forget. 
 
 140 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 To none so fitly the sprays I send 
 
 Could come as at hail of the hand of a friend. 
 
 1878. 
 
 It is evident that "Recollections" was addressed to W. B. 
 Scott, and was intended as the Dedication to Poems and 
 Ballads: Second Series, 1878, but was held back when Swin- 
 burne recollected his promise to dedicate that volume to 
 Richard Burton. Poems and Ballads: Third Series, 1889, 
 was inscribed to Scott in a poem which contains two lines 
 that occur in "Recollections." — [E. G.] 
 
 141 
 
SAIREY GAMPS ROUNDEL 
 
 A BABY'S thumb, the little duck's, 
 Is fitter food than crust or crumb, 
 In baby's mouth' when baby sucks 
 
 A baby's thumb. 
 It gives delight to all and some 
 Who wish the child the best of lucks 
 That ever to a child may come. 
 
 Its mien is pleasanter than Puck's, 
 Its air triumphant, placid, dumb, 
 Benignant, bland, when baby sucks 
 
 A baby's thumb. 
 
 Note. — In sending this roundel to his sister Isabel, on the 
 19th of February, 1883, Swinburne accompanied it with a 
 note, of which only a fragment is preserved: — 
 
 "My dearest Abba, 
 
 "The preceding burst of lyric song, in Sairey's very 
 best handwriting, was composed by that lady a day or two 
 ago while dredging, and wrote down faithful before break- 
 fast; which she do hope it may give satigef action to Mrs. 
 Harris — whose 'Eavenly dispogicion is well-beknown — and 
 her family circle." 
 
 I42 
 
TO A LEEDS POET 
 
 (J. W. INCHBOLD) 
 
 If far beyond the shadow of the sleep 
 A place there be for souls without a stain; 
 
 Where peace is perfect and delight more deep 
 Than seas or skies that change and shine again, 
 
 There, none of all unsullied souls that live 
 May hold a surer station, none may lend 
 
 More light to Hope or Memory's lamp, nor give 
 More joys than Thine to those that called 
 
 Thee Friend. 
 1888. 
 
 i'43 
 
SONNET 
 
 High thought and hallowed love, by faith made 
 
 one, 
 
 Begat and bare the sweet strong-hearted child, 
 Art, nursed of nature: earth and sea and sun 
 
 Saw nature then more godlike as she smiled. 
 Life smiled on death, and death on life: the soul 
 
 Between them shone, and soared above their 
 
 strife, 
 And left on time's unclosed and starry scroll 
 
 A sign that quickened death to deathless life. 
 
 Peace rose like Hope, a patient queen, and bade 
 Hell's first-born Faith abjure her creed and 
 
 die, 
 And Love, by life and death made sad and glad, 
 Gave Conscience ease, and watched Good 
 
 Will pass by. 
 All these make music now of one man's name 
 Whose life and age are one with love and fame. 
 
 144 
 
^OLUS 
 
 LORD of days and nights that hear thy word of 
 
 wintry warning, 
 Wind, whose feet are set on ways that none 
 
 may tread, 
 Change the nest wherein thy wings are fledged 
 
 for flight by morning, 
 Change the harbour whence at dawn thy sails 
 
 are spread. 
 
 Not the dawn, ere yet the imprisoning night has 
 
 half released her, 
 More desires the sun's full face of cheer, than 
 
 we, 
 Well as yet we love the strength of the iron- 
 
 tongued north-easter, 
 Yearn for wind to meet us as we front the sea. 
 
 All thy ways are good, O wind, and all the world 
 
 should fester, 
 Were thy fourfold godhead quenched, or 
 
 stilled thy strife: 
 Yet the waves and we desire too long the deep 
 
 south-wester, 
 Whence the waters quicken shoreward, 
 
 clothed with life. 
 H5 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Yet the field not made for ploughing save of 
 
 keels nor harrowing 
 Save of storm-winds lies unbrightened by thy 
 
 breath : 
 Banded broad with ruddy samphire glow the 
 
 seabanks narrowing 
 Westward, while the sea gleams chill and still 
 
 as death. 
 
 Sharp and strange from inland sounds thy bit- 
 ter note of battle, 
 Blown between grim skies and waters sullen- 
 
 souled, 
 Till the baffled seas bear back, rocks roar and 
 
 shingles rattle, 
 Vexed and angered and anhungered and 
 
 acold. 
 
 Change thy note, and give the waves their will, 
 
 and all the measure, 
 Full and perfect, of the music of their might, 
 Let it fill the bays with thunderous notes and 
 
 throbs of pleasure, 
 Shake the shores with passion, sound at once 
 
 and smite. 
 
 Sweet are even the mild low notes of wind and 
 
 sea, but sweeter 
 Sounds the song whose choral wrath or raging 
 
 rhyme 
 146 
 
AEOLUS 
 
 Bids the shelving shoals keep tune with storm's 
 
 imperious metre, 
 Bids the rocks and reefs respond in rapturous 
 
 chime. 
 
 Sweet the lisp and lulling whisper and luxurious 
 
 laughter, 
 Soft as love or sleep, of waves whereon the sun 
 Dreams, and dreams not of the darkling hours 
 
 before nor after, 
 Winged with cloud whose wrath shall bid 
 
 love's day be done. 
 
 Yet shall darkness bring the awakening sea a 
 
 lordlier lover, 
 Clothed with strength more amorous and 
 
 more strenuous will, 
 Whence her heart of hearts shall kindle and her 
 
 soul recover 
 Sense of love too keen to lie for love's sake 
 
 still. 
 
 Let thy strong south-western music sound, and 
 
 bid the billows 
 Brighten, proud and glad to feel thy scourge 
 
 and kiss 
 Sting and soothe and sway them, bowed as aspens 
 
 bend or willows, 
 Yet resurgent still in breathless rage of bliss. 
 
 H7 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 All to-day the slow sleek ripples hardly bear up 
 
 shoreward, 
 Charged with sighs more light than laughter, 
 
 faint and fair, 
 Like a woodland lake's weak wavelets lightly 
 
 lingering forward, 
 Soft and listless as the slumber-stricken air. 
 
 Be the sunshine bared or veiled, the sky superb 
 
 or shrouded, 
 Still the waters, lax and languid, chafed and 
 
 foiled, 
 Keen and thwarted, pale and patient, clothed 
 
 with fire or clouded, 
 Vex their heart in vain, or sleep like serpents 
 
 coiled. 
 
 Thee they look for, blind and baffled, wan with 
 
 wrath and weary, 
 Blown for ever back by winds that rock the 
 
 bird: 
 Winds that seamews breast subdue the sea, and 
 
 bid the dreary 
 Waves be weak as hearts made sick with hope 
 
 deferred. 
 
 Let thy clarion sound from westward, let the 
 
 south bear token 
 How the glories of thy godhead sound and 
 
 shine: 
 148 
 
jEOLUS 
 
 Bid the land rejoice to see the land-wind's broad 
 
 wings broken, 
 Bid the sea take comfort, bid the world be 
 
 thine. 
 
 Half the world abhors thee beating back the sea, 
 
 and blackening 
 Heaven with fierce and woful change of fluc- 
 tuant form: 
 All the world acclaims the shifting sail again, 
 
 and slackening 
 Cloud by cloud the close-reefed cordage of 
 
 the storm. 
 
 Sweeter fields and brighter woods and lordlier 
 
 hills than waken 
 Here at sunrise never hailed the sun and thee: 
 Turn thee then, and give them comfort, shed 
 
 like rain and shaken 
 Far a foam that laughs and leaps along the 
 
 sea. 
 
 149 
 
TO JAMES McNEIL WHISTLER 
 
 Fly away, butterfly, back to Japan, 
 Tempt not a pinch at the hand of a man, 
 
 And strive not to sting ere you die away. 
 So pert and so painted, so proud and so pretty, 
 To brush the bright down from your wings were 
 
 a pity — 
 
 Fly away, butterfly, fly away! 
 
 1888. 
 
 150 
 
THE BALLADE OF TRUTHFUL 
 CHARLES 
 
 Charles Stuart, the crownless king whose 
 
 hand 
 
 Sways Erin's sceptre, — so they sing, 
 The bards of holy Liarland — 
 
 Can give his tongue such scope and swing, 
 
 So smooth of speech, so sure of sting, 
 That all who feel its touch must dread it: 
 
 But now we hear it witnessing — 
 "I meant to cheat you when I said it." 
 
 Base England felt his vocal brand 
 
 Burn on her blushless brow, and cling 
 
 Like fire: though grave and calm and bland, 
 His voice could touch so deep a string, 
 That souls more pure than flowers in spring 
 
 Were moved to follow where he led; it 
 Rang out so true : we hear it ring — 
 
 "I meant to cheat you when I said it." 
 
 Convinced, appalled, confused, unmanned, 
 We see, splashed black with mud they fling, 
 
 Parnells and Pigotts lie or stand; 
 We see their faith, how pure a thing, 
 
 151 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Their cause, how past all challenging; 
 We read their creed, as Gladsniff read it 
 
 And worshipped. Then a word takes wing- 
 "I meant to cheat you when I said it." 
 
 Prince of pure patriots, "blameless king," 
 Is this conducive to your credit? 
 
 No shift, no plea but this to bring? 
 "I meant to cheat you when I said it" 
 
 152 
 
NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1889 
 
 No Englishman will need to be reminded of the date on 
 which Westminster Abbey was honoured by the funeral of 
 Robert Browning. — A.C.S. 
 
 All the west, whereon the sunset sealed the dead 
 
 year's glorious grave 
 Fast with seals of light and fire and cloud 
 
 that light and fire illume, 
 Glows at heart and kindles earth and heaven 
 with joyous blush and bloom 
 Warm and wide as life, and glad of death which 
 
 only slays to save. 
 As a tide-reconquered sea-rock lies aflush with 
 
 the influent wave, 
 Lies the light aflush with darkness, lapped 
 
 about with lustrous gloom, 
 Even as life with death, and time with fame, 
 and memory with the tomb 
 Where a dead man hath for vassals Fame the 
 
 serf and Time the slave. 
 Far from earth as heaven, the steadfast light 
 
 withdrawn, superb, suspense, 
 Burns in dumb divine expansion of illimitable 
 
 flower: 
 
 153 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Moonrise whets the shadows' edges keen as noon- 
 tide : hence and thence 
 Glows the presence from us passing, shines 
 and passes not the power. 
 Souls arise whose word remembered is as spirit 
 
 within the sense: 
 All the hours are theirs of all the seasons: 
 death has but his hour. 
 
 154 
 
THE CENTENARY OF SHELLEY 
 
 Now a hundred years agone among us came 
 Down from some diviner sphere of purer flame, 
 Clothed in flesh to suffer, maimed of wings to 
 
 soar, 
 One whom hate once hailed as now love hails 
 
 by name, 
 Chosen of love as chosen of hatred. Now no 
 
 more 
 Ear of man may hear or heart of man deplore 
 Aught of dissonance or doubt that mars the 
 
 strain 
 Raised at last of love where love sat mute of 
 
 yore. 
 Fame is less than love, and loss is more than 
 
 gain, 
 When the sweetest souls and strongest, fallen in 
 
 fight, 
 Slain and stricken as it seemed in base men's 
 
 sight, 
 Rise and lighten on the graves of foeman slain, 
 Clothed about with love of all men as with light, 
 Suns that set not, stars that know not day from 
 
 night. 
 1892. 
 
 155 
 
THE CONCERT OF EUROPE 
 
 Sharp the concert wrought of discord shrills 
 
 the tune of shame and death, 
 Turk by Christian fenced and fostered, Mecca 
 
 backed by Nazareth: 
 All the powerless powers, tongue-valiant, 
 breathe but greed's or terror's breath. 
 
 Though the tide that feels the west wind lift it, 
 
 wave by widening wave, 
 Wax not yet to height and fullness of the storm 
 
 that smites to save, 
 None shall bid the flood back seaward till no 
 
 bar be left to brave. 
 March ist, 1897. 
 
 156 
 
MEMORIAL ODE ON THE 
 DEATH OF LECONTE DE LISLE 
 
 On the first of June 1885, the greatest poet of the nine- 
 teenth century was borne to his rest amid the lamentations 
 and the applause of his countrymen, and of all to whom 
 either the example of a noble life or the triumph of a genius 
 inaccessible and unapproachable seemed worthy of honour 
 and regard. Many earnest and cordial and admirable words 
 of tribute and thanksgiving and farewell were uttered over 
 the hearse of Victor Hugo ; none more memorable than those 
 in which a great poet became the spokesman of all his kind 
 in honour of the greatest of them all. Short and simple as 
 was the speech of M. Leconte de Lisle, none of the longer 
 and more elaborate orations was more genuinely eloquent, 
 more seriously valuable, than the admirably terse and apt 
 expression of gratitude and reverence with which he bade 
 "farewell and hail" in the name of all surviving poets to their 
 beloved and beneficent master. Nor could a fitter and a 
 worthier spokesman have been imagined or desired by the 
 most exacting or the most ambitious devotion or design. — 
 A.C.S. 
 
 Beside the lordliest grave in all the world, 
 A singer crowned with golden years and fame 
 
 Spake words more sweet than wreaths of incense 
 
 curled, 
 That bade an elder yet and mightier name 
 
 157 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Hail, for whose love the wings of time were 
 
 furled, 
 And death that heard it died of deadlier 
 
 shame. 
 
 Our father and lord of all the sons of song, 
 Hugo, supreme on earth, had risen above 
 
 Earth, as the sun soars noonward: grief and 
 
 wrong 
 Had yielded up their part in him to love; 
 
 And one man's word came forth upon the throng 
 Brief as the brooding music of the dove. 
 
 And he now too, the praiser as the praised, 
 Being silent, speaks for ever. He, whose word 
 
 Reverberate made the gloom whereon he gazed 
 Radiant with sound whose song in his we 
 
 heard, 
 
 Stands far from us as they whose souls he raised 
 Again, and darkness carolled like a bird. 
 
 II 
 
 Golden eastern waters rocked the cradle where 
 
 he slept 
 Songless, crowned with bays to be of sovereign 
 
 song, 
 Breathed upon with balm and calm of bounteous 
 
 seas that kept 
 Secret all the blessing of his birthright, strong, 
 
 158 
 
MEMORIAL ODE 
 
 Soft, severe, and sweet as dawn when first it 
 
 laughed and leapt 
 Forth of heaven, and clove the clouds that 
 
 wrought it wrong. 
 
 Calm and proud and patient even as light that 
 
 bides its hour 
 All night long till night wax weary, shone 
 
 the soul 
 Crowned and girt with light, sublime in peace 
 
 and sure in power, 
 Sunlike, over tidal years and changes ; whole, 
 Full, serene, superb as time that kindles fruit 
 
 from flower, 
 Lord alike of waves that rest and waves that 
 
 roll. 
 
 Sunlight round the soft Virgilian meads where 
 
 sunbeams sleep 
 Lulled not overlong a spirit of strength to 
 
 strive 
 Right against the winds that stormier times 
 
 heard strain and sweep 
 Round the rocks whereon man crucified alive 
 Man, and bade the soul of manhood cower and 
 
 chant and weep, 
 Strong in vain to soar and seek, to delve and 
 
 dive. 
 159 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 III 
 
 Time and change and death made music as of 
 
 life and strife and doom 
 When his lyric spell bade ope the graves of 
 
 ages dead as dust. 
 Cain, a shadow like a sunrise clad in fire whose 
 
 light was gloom, 
 Towered above the deepening deluge, crying 
 
 on justice held unjust, 
 Whence his giant sons should find the world 
 their throne become their tomb, 
 And a wider world of waters hide the strong- 
 holds of their trust. 
 
 Soiled with desert sand and lit with fire of wrath 
 
 from heaven, the seer 
 Spake for Naboth slain the sentence of the 
 
 judgment of the Lord: 
 Age on ruining age and year as rolling thunder 
 
 crashed on year 
 Down the measures of the mighty song that 
 
 glittered like a sword: 
 Truth and legend strange and fierce as truth or 
 
 dreams of faith and fear 
 Made their lightnings one to crown it, flashed 
 from stormy chord to chord. 
 1 60 
 
MEMORIAL ODE 
 
 Now the lyre whose lord's wise mastery gave its 
 
 notes reverberate skill 
 Whence to give again the grace of golden 
 gifts or hands long dead, 
 Now the deep clear soul that all the lore of time 
 
 could scarce fulfil, 
 Now the sovereign voice that spake it, now 
 the radiant eye that read, 
 Seem to sleep as sleeps the indomitable imper- 
 ishable will 
 Here, that haply lives and sleeps not, though 
 its word on earth be said. 
 
 1894. 
 
 161 
 

 MEMORIAL VERSES ON THE DEATH 
 OF KARL BLIND 
 
 ACROSS the wide-wing' d years 
 
 Whose sound no hearkener hears 
 Passing in thunder of reverberate flight, 
 
 Nor any seer may see 
 
 What fruit of them shall be, 
 Shines from the death-struck past a living light, 
 
 And music breathed of memory's breath 
 Attunes the darkling silence born of earthly 
 
 death. 
 
 Through all the thunderous time, 
 Now silent and sublime, 
 When Right in hopeless hope waged war on 
 
 Wrong, 
 His head shone high, his hand 
 Grasped as a burning brand 
 The sword of faith which weakness makes more 
 
 strong, 
 And they for whom it shines hold fast 
 The trust that Time bequeaths for truth to 
 
 assure at last. 
 162 
 
MEMORIAL VERSES 
 
 Not prison, not the breath 
 
 Of doom denouncing death, 
 Could make the manhood in him burn less high 
 
 For one breath's space than when 
 
 It shone for following men, 
 A sign to show how man might live or die 
 
 With freedom in triumphant sight, 
 And hope elate above all fluctuant chance of 
 
 fight. 
 
 The German fame of old, 
 
 By Roman hands inscrolled 
 As bright beyond all nations else borne down, 
 
 Shone round his banished head, 
 
 As round the deathless dead 
 With light bequeathed of one coequal crown: 
 
 And now that his and theirs are one 
 No time shall see the setting of that sovereign 
 
 sun. 
 
 All this must all time know 
 
 While memories ebb and flow 
 Till out of blind forgetfulness is born 
 
 Fame deathless as the day, 
 
 When none may think to say 
 Her light is less than noon and even and morn: 
 
 When glories forged in hell-fire fade, 
 And warrior empires wither in the waste they 
 
 made. 
 163 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 When all a forger's fame 
 
 Is shrivelled up in shame; 
 When all imperial notes of praise and prayer 
 
 And hoarse thanksgiving raised 
 
 To the abject God they praised 
 For murderous mercies are but poisonous air; 
 
 When Bismarck and his William lie 
 Low even as he they warred on — damned too 
 
 deep to die. 
 
 For how should history bid 
 
 Their names go free, lie hid, 
 Stand scathless of her Tacitean brand? 
 
 From them forgetfulness, 
 
 Too bright a boon to bless 
 Crime deep as hell, withholds her healing hand; 
 
 But while their fame was fresh and rank 
 The old light of German glory here nor sank 
 
 nor shrank. 
 
 Here, where all wrongs find aid, 
 
 Where all foul strengths are stayed, 
 Where empire means not evil, here was one 
 
 Whose glance, whose smile, whose voice 
 
 Bade all their souls rejoice 
 Who hailed in sight of English sea and sun 
 
 A head sublime as theirs who died 
 For England ere her praise was Freedom's 
 
 crowning pride. 
 164 
 
MEMORIAL VERSES 
 
 Not even his head shone higher, 
 
 Whose only loftiest lyre 
 Were meet to hail faith pure and proud as his: 
 
 A pride all praise must wrong 
 
 Less high than soared the song 
 Wherein the light that was and was not is: 
 
 The lyric light whence Milton lit 
 The darkness of the darkling days that knew 
 
 not it. 
 
 Less high my praise may soar: 
 
 But when it lives no more 
 Silent and fervent in the secret heart 
 
 That holds for all time fast 
 
 The sense of time long past, 
 No sense of life will then therein have part. 
 
 No thought may speak, no words enshrine, 
 My thanks to him who gave Mazzini's hand to 
 
 mine. 
 
 Our glorious century gone 
 
 Beheld no head that shone 
 More clear across the storm, above the foam, 
 
 More steadfast in the fight 
 
 Of warring night and light, 
 True to the truth whose star leads heroes home, 
 
 Than his who, loving all things free, 
 Loved as with English passion of delight our 
 
 sea. 
 
 165 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 The joy of glorious age 
 
 To greet the sea's glad rage 
 With answering rapture as of bird or boy, 
 
 When sundawn thrilled the foam 
 
 And bade the sea's flock home, 
 Crowned all a foiled heroic life with joy 
 
 Bright as the light of living flame, 
 That glows, a deathless gloriole, round his 
 
 deathless name. 
 
 1907. 
 
 166 
 
ODE TO MAZZINI 
 
 I 
 
 A VOICE comes from the far unsleeping years, 
 An echo from the rayless verge of time, 
 Harsh, with the gathered weight of kingly 
 
 crime, 
 Whose soul is stained with blood and bloodlike 
 
 tears, 
 And hearts made hard and blind with endless 
 
 pain, 
 And eyes too dim to bear 
 The light of the free air, 
 And hands no longer restless in the wonted 
 
 chain, 
 And valiant lives worn out 
 By silence and the doubt 
 That comes with hope found weaponless and 
 
 vain; 
 All these cry out to thee, 
 As thou to Liberty, 
 All, looking up to thee, take heart and life again. 
 
 II 
 
 Too long the world has waited. Year on year 
 Has died in voiceless fear 
 
 i6 7 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Since tyranny began the silent ill, 
 
 And Slaughter satiates yet her ravenous will. 
 
 Surely the time is near — 
 
 The dawn grows wide and clear; 
 And fiercer beams than pave the steps of day 
 
 Pierce all the brightening air 
 
 And in some nightly lair 
 The keen white lightning hungers for his prey, 
 
 Against his chain the growing thunder yearns 
 
 With hot swift pulses all the silence burns, 
 And the earth hears, and maddens with delay. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Dost thou not hear, thro' the hushed heart of 
 
 night, 
 The voices wailing for thy help, thy sight, 
 
 The souls, that call their lord? 
 
 "We want the voice, the sword, 
 We want the hand to strike, the love to share 
 
 The weight we cannot bear; 
 The soul to point our way, the heart to do and 
 
 dare. 
 
 We want the unblinded eye, 
 
 The spirit pure and high, 
 And consecrated by enduring care: 
 
 For now we dare not meet 
 
 The memories of the past; 
 
 1 68 
 
ODE TO MAZZINI 
 
 They wound us with their glories bright and 
 
 fleet, 
 
 The fame that would not last, 
 
 The hopes that were too sweet; 
 
 A voice of lamentation 
 Shakes the high places of the throned nation, 
 The crownless nation sitting wan and bare 
 
 Upon the royal seat." 
 
 IV 1 
 
 Too long the world has waited. Day by day 
 The noiseless feet of murder pass and stain 
 Palace and prison, street and loveliest plain, 
 1 In the MS., Stanza IV originally began as follows — 
 
 "Too long the world has waited. Day by day 
 Fresh murders ease the thirst of widening sway : 
 And still their blood who lie without a shroud 
 
 Left to the wild bleak air, 
 
 As they were slaughter'd there, 
 Cries from the desolate Apennine aloud. 
 
 Father and children lain 
 
 A white bleak pile of slain, 
 Left to the sunlight and the freezing rain. 
 
 Thro' blood-polluted halls 
 
 Still the king-serpent sprawls 
 His shiny way athwart the floors defiled; 
 
 From that foul nest of sin 
 
 His soul sits cowering in 
 Still creeps and stings his anger blind and wild. 
 
 Still from that loathsome lair," etc. 
 
 Swinburne evidently cancelled these lines., as being too violent 
 to represent anything that was happening in 1857. 
 
 169 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 And the slow life of freedom bleeds away. 
 
 Still bleached in sun and rain, 
 
 Lie the forgotten slain 
 On bleak slopes of the dismal mountain-range. 
 
 Still the wide eagle-wings 
 
 Brood o'er the sleep of Kings, 
 Whose purples shake not in the wind of change. 
 
 Still our lost land is beautiful in vain, 
 
 Where priests and kings defile with blood and 
 
 lies 
 
 The glory of the inviolable skies; 
 
 Still from that loathsome lair 
 
 Where crawls the sickening air, 
 Heavy with poison, stagnant as despair, 
 Where soul and body moulder in one chain 
 
 Of inward-living pain: 
 From wasted lives, and hopes proved unavail- 
 ing; 
 
 In utterance harsh and strange, 
 
 With many a fitful change, 
 
 In laughter and in tears, 
 
 In triumph and in fears, 
 The voice of earth goes heavenward for revenge: 
 And all the children of her dying year 
 
 Fill up the unbroken strains 
 From priestly tongues that scathe with lies and 
 
 vailing 
 
 The Bourbons' murderous dotard, sick of 
 
 blood, 
 170 
 
 
ODE TO MAZZINI 
 
 To the "How-long" of stricken spirits, wailing 
 Before the throne of God. 
 
 Austria! The voice is deepening in thine ears 
 And art thou still asleep, 
 Drunken with blood and tears! 
 A murderer's rest should hardly be so deep 
 Till comes the calm unbroken by the years, 
 And those, whose life crawls on thro' dying 
 
 shame, 
 A thing made up of lies and fears, more vile 
 Than aught that lives and bears a hateful 
 
 name 
 For the crowned serpent, skilled in many a wile, 
 Charmed with the venomous honey of its guile 
 The guards until they slept, 
 And only fawned and crept 
 Till Fortune gave it leave to sting and smile! 
 Have not the winds of Heaven and the free 
 
 waves 
 A voice to bear the curses of thy slaves 
 
 And the loud hatred of the world! O thou 
 Upon whose shameless brow 
 The crown is as a brand, 
 The sceptre trembles in thy trothless hand, 
 Shrinks not thy soul before the shame it braves, 
 The gathered anger of a patient land, 
 
 171 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 The loathing scorn that hardly bears to name 
 
 thee? 
 By all the lies that cannot shame thee, 
 By all the memories thou must bear 
 In hushed unspeakable despair; 
 By the Past that follows thee, 
 By the Future that shall be 
 We curse thee by the freedom living still, 
 We curse thee by the hopes thou canst not kill, 
 We curse thee in the name of the wronged earth 
 That gave thy treasons birth. 
 
 VI 
 
 Out of a court alive with creeping things 
 A stench has risen to thicken and pollute 
 The inviolate air of heaven that clad of 
 
 yore 
 Our Italy with light, because these Kings 
 Gather like wasps about the tainted fruit, 
 And eat their venomous way into its core, 
 And soil with hateful hands its golden hue; 
 
 Till on the dead branch clings 
 A festering horror blown with poison-dew; 
 Then laugh "So Freedom loses her last name 
 And Italy is shamed with our shame !" 
 For blindness holds them still 
 And lust of craving will: 
 A mist is on their souls who cannot see 
 
 172 
 
 
ODE TO MAZZINI 
 
 The ominous light, nor hear the fateful 
 
 sounds; 
 Who know not of the glory that shall be, 
 And was, ere Austria loosed her winged 
 
 hounds 
 These double-beak'd and bloody-plumaged 
 
 things, 
 Whose shadow is the hiding-place of kings. 
 
 VII 
 
 Behold, even they whose shade is black around, 
 Whose names make dumb the nations in their 
 
 hate, 
 Tremble to other tyrants; Naples bows 
 Aghast, and Austria cowers like a scourged 
 
 hound 
 Before the priestly hunters: 'tis their fate, 
 Whose fear is as a brand-mark on men's 
 
 brows, 
 Themselves to shrink beneath a fiercer dread; 
 The might of ancient error 
 Round royal spirits folds its shroud of terror, 
 And at a name the imperial soul is dead. 
 Rome! as from thee the primal curse came forth 
 
 So comes the retribution : 
 As the flushed murderers of the ravening north 
 
 Crouch for thine absolution. 
 Exalt thyself, that love or fear of thee 
 
 173 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Hath shamed thine Austrian bondsmen, and 
 
 their shame 
 Avenges the vext spirits of the free, 
 
 Repays the trustless lips, the bloody hands, 
 
 And all the sin that makes the Austrian name 
 A bye-word among liars — fit to be 
 
 Thy herald, Rome, among the wasted lands! 
 
 VIII 
 
 For wheresoe'er thou lookest, death is there, 
 And a slow curse that stains the sacred air: 
 Such as must hound Italia till she learn 
 Whereon to lean the weight of reverent 
 
 trust 
 
 Learn to see God within her, and not bare 
 
 Her glories to the ravenous eyes of lust; 
 
 Vain of dishonour that proclaims her fair. 
 
 Such insolence of listless pride must earn 
 
 The scourge of Austria — till mischance in 
 
 turn 
 Defile her eagles with fresh blood and dust. 
 
 For tho' the faint heart burn 
 In silence: yet a sullen flame is there 
 Which yet may leap into the sunless air 
 And gather in the embrace of its wide wings 
 The shining spoil of kings. 
 
 IX 
 
 But now the curse lies heavy. Where art thou, 
 Our Italy, among all these laid low 
 
 174 
 
ODE TO MAZZINI 
 
 Too powerless or too desperate to speak — 
 Thou, robed in purple for a priestly show, 
 
 Thou, buffeted and stricken, blind and weak! 
 Doth not remembrance light thine utter woe? 
 Thine eyes beyond this Calvary look, altho' 
 Brute-handed Austria smite thee on the cheek 
 And her thorns pierce thy forehead, white 
 
 and meek; 
 In lurid mist half-strangled sunbeams pine, 
 Yet purer than the flame of tainted altars; 
 And tho' thy weak hope falters, 
 It clings not to the desecrated shrine. 
 
 Tho' thy blank eyes look wanly thro' dull tears, 
 
 And thy weak soul is heavy with blind fears, 
 
 Yet art thou greater than thy sorrow is, 
 
 Yet is thy spirit nobler than of yore, 
 
 Knowing the keys thy reverence used to kiss 
 
 Were forged for emperors to bow down 
 
 before, 
 Not for free men to worship : So that Faith, 
 Blind portress of the gate which opens death, 
 Shall never prate of Freedom any more; 
 For on a priest's tongue such a word is strange, 
 And when they laud who did but now revile, 
 Shall we believe? Rome's lying lips defile 
 The graves of heroes, giving us in change 
 
 Enough of Saints and Bourbons. Dare ye now 
 Receive her who speaks pleasant words and 
 
 bland 
 
 175 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 And stretches out the blessing of her hand 
 While the pure blood of freemen stains her 
 
 brow? 
 
 O dream not of such reconcilement! Be 
 At least in spirit free 
 
 When the great sunrise floods your glorious land. 
 
 X 
 
 For yet the dawn is lingering white and far, 
 
 And dim its guiding star; 
 There is a sorrow in the speechless air, 
 And in the sunlight a dull painful glare; 
 
 The winds, that fold around 
 
 That soft enchanted ground 
 Their wings of music, sadden into song; 
 
 The holy stars await 
 
 Some dawn of glimmering fate 
 In silence — but the time of pain seems long, 
 
 But here no comfort stills 
 This sorrow that o'erclouds the purple hills. 
 
 XI 
 
 The sun is bright, and fair the foamless sea; 
 The winds are loud with light and liberty: 
 
 But when shall these be free? 
 These hearts that beat thro' stifled pain, these 
 
 eyes 
 Strained thro' dim prison-air toward the free 
 
 skies : 
 When shall their light arise? 
 176 
 
 _: _ ' 
 
ODE TO MAZZINI 
 
 XII 
 
 Thou! whose best name on earth 
 Is Love — whose fairest birth 
 The freedom of the fair world thou hast made; 
 Whose light in Heaven is life, 
 Whose rest above our strife — 
 Whose bright sky overvaults earth's barren 
 
 shade; 
 Who hearest all ere this weak prayer can rise, 
 
 Before whose viewless eyes 
 Unrolled and far the starry future lies; 
 Behold what men have done, 
 What is beneath thy sun — 
 What stains the sceptred hand, sin lifts to thee 
 
 In prayer-like mockery — 
 What binds the heart Thou madest to be free. 
 Since we are blind, give light — 
 Since we are feeble, smite — 
 How long shall man be scornful in thy sight, 
 "Fear not — He cares not, or He does not see?" 
 
 XIII 
 
 We keep our trust tho' all things fail us — 
 
 Tho' Time nor baffled Hope avail us, 
 We keep our faith — God liveth and is love. 
 
 Not one groan rises there 
 
 Tho' choked in dungeon air 
 But He has heard it though no thunders move — 
 
 And though no help is here, 
 177 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 No royal oath, no Austrian lie, 
 But echoes in the listening sky; 
 We know not, yet perchance His wide reply 
 
 is near. 
 Ah, let no sloth delay, 
 No discord mar its way, 
 Keep wide the entrance for that Hope divine; 
 Truth never wanted swords, 
 Since with his swordlike words 
 Savonarola smote the Florentine. 
 Even here she is not weaponless, but waits 
 Silent at the palace gates, 
 Her wide eyes kindling eastward to the far sun- 
 shine. 
 When out of Naples came a tortured voice: 
 Whereat the whole earth shuddered, and 
 
 forbade 
 The murderous smile on lying lips to fade; 
 The murderous heart in silence to rejoice; 
 She also smiled — no royal smile — as knowing 
 Some stains of sloth washed by the blood then 
 
 flowing; 
 Their lives went out in darkness — not in 
 
 vain; 
 Earth cannot hear, and sink to bloodless rest 
 
 again. 
 And if indeed her waking strength shall 
 
 prove 
 
 i 7 8 
 
 
ODE TO MAZZINI 
 
 Worthy the dreams that passing lit her 
 
 sleep, 
 Who then shall lift such eyes of triumph, who 
 Respond with echoes of a louder love 
 Than Cromwell's England? let fresh praise 
 
 renew 
 The wan brow's withered laurels with its dew, 
 And one triumphal peace the crowned earth 
 
 shall keep. 
 
 XIV 
 
 As one who dreaming on some cloud-white peak 
 Hears the loud wind sail past him far and 
 
 free, 
 And the faint music of the misty sea, 
 Listening till all his life reels blind and weak; 
 So discrowned Italy 
 With the world's hope in her hands 
 
 Ever yearning to get free, 
 Silent between the past and future stands. 
 Dim grows the past, and dull, 
 All that was beautiful, 
 As scattered stars drawn down the moonless 
 
 night: 
 And the blind eyes of Scorn 
 Are smitten by strange morn, 
 And many-throned treason wastes before its 
 
 might : 
 179 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 And every sunless cave 
 
 And time-forgotten grave 
 Is pierced with one intolerable light. 
 
 Not one can Falsehood save 
 
 Of all the crowns she gave, 
 But the dead years renew their old delight. 
 
 The worshipped evil wanes 
 
 Through all its godless fanes, 
 And falters from its long imperial height, 
 
 As the last altar-flame 
 Dies with a glorious nation's dying shame. 
 
 XV 
 
 And when that final triumph-time shall be, 
 
 Whose memory shall be kept 
 
 First of the souls that slept 
 In death ere light was on their Italy? 
 
 Or which of men more dear than thee 
 
 To equal-thoughted liberty, 
 Whom here on earth such reverence meets. 
 Such love from Heaven's pure children greets 
 
 As few dare win among the free! 
 
 Such honour ever follows thee 
 In peril, banishment, and blame, 
 And all the loud blind world calls shame, 
 Lives, and shall live, thy glorious name, 
 Tho' death, that scorns the robed slave, 
 Embrace thee, and a chainless grave. 
 
 1 80 
 
ODE TO MAZZINI 
 
 While thou livest, there is one 
 
 Free in soul beneath the sun : 
 And thine out-laboured heart shall be 
 In death more honoured — not more free. 
 
 XVI 
 
 And men despond around thee; and thy name 
 The tyrant smiles at, and his priests look 
 
 pale; 
 And weariness of empty-throated fame, 
 And men who live and fear all things but shame, 
 Comes on thee; and the weight of aimless 
 
 years 
 Whose light is dim with tears : 
 
 And hope dies out like a forgotten tale. 
 O brother, crowned among men — O chief 
 
 In glory as in grief! 
 O throned by sorrow over time and fate 
 
 And the blind strength of hate! 
 From soul to answering soul 
 
 The thunder-echoes roll, 
 And truth grows out of suffering still and great. 
 To have done well is victory, — to be true 
 Is truest guerdon, though blind hands undo 
 
 The work begun too late. 
 God gives to each man power by toil to earn 
 
 An undishonoured grave: 
 The praise that lives on every name in turn 
 He leaves the laurelled slave. 
 181 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 We die, but freedom dies not like the power 
 That changes with the many-sided hour. 
 Though trampled under the brute hoofs of 
 
 crime, 
 
 She sees thro' tears and blood, 
 Above the stars and in the night of time, 
 
 The sleepless watch of God; 
 Past fear and pain and errors wide and strange 
 The veiPd years leading wingless-footed 
 
 Change; 
 
 Endure, and they shall give 
 Truth and the law whereby men work and live. 
 
 XVII 
 
 From Ischia to the loneliest Apennine 
 
 Time's awful voice is blown; 
 
 And from her clouded throne 
 Freedom looks out and knows herself divine. 
 
 From walls that keep in shame 
 
 Poerio's martyr-name, 
 From wild rocks foul with children's blood, it 
 
 rings; 
 
 Their murderers gaze aghast 
 
 Through all the hideous past, 
 And fate is heavy on the souls of kings. 
 
 No more their hateful sway 
 
 Pollutes the equal day, 
 Nor stricken truth pales under its wide wings, 
 
 182 
 
ODE TO MAZZINI 
 
 Even when the awakened people speaks in 
 
 wrath, 
 
 Wrong shall not answer wrong with blind 
 
 impatience; 
 The bloody slime upon that royal path 
 
 Makes slippery standing for the feet of 
 
 nations. 
 Our freedom's bridal robe no wrong shall stain, 
 
 No lie shall taint her speech: 
 But equal knowledge shall be born of pain, 
 
 And wisdom shaping each. 
 True leaders shall be with us, nobler laws 
 Shall guide us calmly to the final Cause: 
 
 And thou, earth's crownless queen, 
 
 No more shalt wail unseen, 
 But front the weary ages without pain: 
 
 Time shall bring back for thee 
 
 The hopes that lead the free, 
 And thy name fill the charmed world again. 
 
 The shame that stains thy brow 
 Shall not for ever mark thee to fresh fears: 
 For in the far light of the buried years 
 
 Shines the undarkened future that shall be 
 
 A dawn o'er sunless ages. Hearest thou, 
 Italia? tho' deaf sloth hath sealed thine ears, 
 The world has heard thy children — and God 
 
 hears. 
 
 183 
 

PARODIES 
 
DISGUST: 
 
 A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE 1 
 
 A woman and her husband, having been converted from 
 free thought to Calvinism, and being utterly miserable in 
 consequence, resolve to end themselves by poison. The man 
 dies, but the woman is rescued by application of the stomach- 
 pump. — [A. C. S.] 
 
 PILLS? talk to me of your pills? Well, that, I 
 
 must say, is cool. 
 Can't bring my old man round? he was always 
 
 a stubborn old fool. 
 If I hadn't taken precautions — a warning to all 
 
 that wive— 
 He might not have been dead, and I might not 
 
 have been alive. 
 
 II 
 
 You would like to know, if I please, how it was 
 
 that our troubles began? 
 You see, we were brought up Agnostics, I and 
 
 my poor old man. 
 
 1 A parody of Tennyson's Despair. 
 
 187 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 And we got some idea of selection and evolution, 
 
 you know — 
 Professor Huxley's doing — where does he expect 
 
 to go! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Well, then came trouble on trouble on trouble — 
 
 I may say, a peck — 
 And his cousin was wanted one day on the 
 
 charge of forging a cheque — 
 And his puppy died of the mange — my parrot 
 
 choked on its perch. 
 This was the consequence was it, of not going 
 
 weekly to church? 
 
 IV 
 
 So we felt that the best if not only thing that 
 
 remained to be done 
 On an earth everlastingly moving about a per- 
 petual sun, 
 Where worms breed worms to be eaten of worms 
 
 that have eaten their betters — 
 And reviewers are barely civil — and people get 
 
 spiteful letters — 
 And a famous man is forgot ere the minute 
 
 hand can tick nine — 
 Was to send in our P. P. C, and purchase a 
 
 packet of strychnine. 
 1 88 
 

 DISGUST 
 
 V 
 
 Nay — but first we thought it was rational — only 
 
 fair — 
 To give both parties a hearing — and went to 
 
 the meeting-house there, 
 At the curve of the street that runs from the 
 
 Stag to the old Blue Lion. 
 "Little Zion" they call it— a deal more "little" 
 
 than "Zion." 
 VI 
 And the preacher preached from the text, 
 
 "Come out of her." Hadn't we come? 
 And we thought of the shepherd in Pickwick — 
 
 and fancied a flavour of rum 
 Balmily borne on the wind of his words — and 
 
 my man said, "Well, 
 Let's get out of this, my dear — for his text has 
 
 a brimstone smell." 
 VII 
 So we went, O God, out of chapel — and gazed, 
 
 ah God, at the sea. 
 And I said nothing to him. And he said noth- 
 ing to me. 
 VIII 
 And there, you see, was an end of it all. It was 
 
 obvious, in fact, 
 That, whether or not you believe in the doctrine 
 
 taught in a tract, 
 189 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Life was not in the least worth living. Because, 
 
 don't you see? 
 Nothing that can't be, can, and what must be, 
 
 must. Q. E. D. 
 And the infinitesimal sources of Infinite Uni- 
 
 deality 
 Curve in to the central abyss of a sort of a queer 
 
 Personality 
 Whose refraction is felt in the nebulae strewn in 
 
 the pathway of Mars 
 Like the parings of nails Ionian — clippings and 
 
 snippings of stars — 
 Shavings of suns that revolve and evolve and 
 
 involve and at times 
 Give a sweet astronomical twang to remarkably 
 
 hobbling rhymes. 
 
 IX 
 
 And the sea curved in with a moan — and we 
 
 thought how once — before 
 We fell out with those atheist lecturers — once, 
 
 ah, once and no more, 
 We read together, while midnight blazed like 
 
 the Yankee flag, 
 A reverend gentleman's work — the Conversion 
 
 of Colonel Quagg. 
 And out of its pages we gathered this lesson of 
 
 doctrine pure — 
 190 
 
DISGUST 
 
 Zephaniah Stockdolloger's gospel — a word that 
 
 deserves to endure 
 Infinite millions on millions of infinite TEons to 
 
 come — 
 "Vocation," says he, "is vocation, and duty duty. 
 
 Some." 
 
 And duty, said I, distinctly points out — and 
 
 vocation, said he, 
 Demands as distinctly — that I should kill you, 
 
 and that you should kill me. 
 The reason is obvious — we cannot exist without 
 
 creeds — who can? 
 So we went to the chemist's — a highly respect- 
 able church-going man — 
 And bought two packets of poison. You 
 
 wouldn't have done so? — Wait. 
 It's evident, Providence is not with you, ma'am, 
 
 the same thing as Fate. 
 Unconscious cerebration educes God from a fog, 
 But spell God backwards, what then? Give it 
 
 up? the answer is, dog. 
 (I don't exactly see how this last verse is to scan, 
 But that's a consideration I leave to the secular 
 
 man.) 
 
 191 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 XI 
 
 I meant of course to go with him — as far as I 
 
 pleased — but first 
 To see how my old man liked it — I thought 
 
 perhaps he might burst. 
 I didn't wish it — but still it's a blessed release 
 
 for a wife — 
 And he saw that I thought so — and grinned in 
 
 derision — and threatened my life 
 If I made wry faces — and so I took just a sip — 
 
 and he — 
 Well — you know how it ended — he didn't get 
 
 over me. 
 
 XII 
 
 Terrible, isn't it? Still, on reflection, it might 
 
 have been worse. 
 He might haye been the unhappy survivor, and 
 
 followed my hearse. 
 "Never do it again ?" Why certainly not. You 
 
 don't 
 Suppose I should think of it, surely? But any- 
 how — there — I won't 
 
 192 
 
THE GHOST OF IT 1 
 
 IN my poems, with ravishing rapture, 
 
 Storm strikes me, and strokes me, and stings; 
 
 But I'm scarcely the bird you might capture 
 Out of doors in the thick of such things. 
 
 I prefer to be well out of harm's way, 
 When tempest makes tremble the tree, 
 
 And the wind with armipotent arm-sway 
 Makes soap of the sea. 
 
 Hanging hard on the rent rags of others 
 
 Who before me did better, I try 
 To believe them my sisters and brothers, 
 
 Though I know what a low lot am I. 
 Truth dawns on time's resonant ruin 
 
 Frank, fulminant, fragrant and free, 
 And apparently this is the doing 
 Of wind on the sea. 
 
 1 This parody of a chorus in By the North Sea, was writ- 
 ten in 1880, and was originally intended to occupy a position 
 in Heptalogia, published in that year. It was, however, ul- 
 timately discarded in favour of Nephelidia. 
 
 193 
 
POSTHUMOUS POEMS 
 
 Fame flutters in front of pretension 
 Whose flag-staff is flagrantly fine, 
 
 And it cannot be needful to mention 
 That such beyond question is mine. 
 
 It's plain as a newspaper leader 
 That a rhymester who scribbles like me 
 
 May feel perfectly sure that his reader 
 Is sick of the sea. 1 
 
 1 Upon the reverse of one of the leaves of the Manuscript 
 of By the North Sea Swinburne has written these last four 
 lines and headed them "The Ghost of it." 
 
 194