LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap. Copyris^ht No..,IaE. Shelf 1:^.0 I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. HARVEST-TIDE HARVEST-TIDE A BOOK OF VERSES By sir lewis MORRIS, Knt., M. A. M NEW YORK T. Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 1901 CoPYiixGHT, lUOO, BY T. Y. Chowell & Co. HHH12 Llbpeipy of Conffpaw Two Copies Received DEC 15 1900 Copyright artry SECOND COPY (Mlvanid to OKDEK OiVISiON DEC Q8 1000 •(9ct Composition and electrotype plates by D. B. Updike The Merrymount Press, Boston PREFACE The rvriter is reminded hy the date on the title-page that he is no longer a writer of the nineteenth century alone. Possibly this should lead him to undertake not to trespass again upon the indulge7ice of readers whose good-will he has had to . acknowledge repeatedly for ahnost a whole generation' Bid ii is perhaps too early even now to announce his definite ' retirement from the literary field. In any case, conscious as he is of his limitations, and knowing well that contemporary criti- cism of verse, favoiirable or otherwise, is seldom of much value towards fixing its permanent position, he can recall 7vith satisfaction that he has th?-oughout endeavoured to follow the honoured traditions of English poetry. Nor is he conscious of ever having written a line withoid believing then that he had some- thing to say which demanded expression, w which he could wish unwritten now. Penbryn, January 1st, 1901. CONTENTS To Venus, the Evening Star page 1 The CoxMing of the Muse 3 Le Vent de L' Esprit 6 Remember 8 A New Orphic Hyjin 9 On a Flock of Birds Flying Southward by Night 12 For a School Magazine 14 Faith 17 Between the Mountains and the Sea 18 Ah ! WAS IT I ? 24 The Earth's Easter-Tide 26 TEDIUM VlT^ 27 The March op Man 29 The Freeing op Crete 43 Christmas, 1898 47 Christmas, 1899 49 On an Empty House 52 Life-Music 65 In Memory op Two Friends 57 On a Sculptor who Died Young 61 Ver non Semper Viret 62 On a Memorial Organ 64 vii CONTENTS page The Diamond Jubilee 05 Renewal 70 Terra Domus 71 A Georgian Romance 72 Whither? 95 By Towy-Side 98 Pilgrims 101 An Old Poet 103 In Praise of Night 105 On an Old Statesman 106 On a Young Statesman 109 Lydstep Caa'erns 111 Lux IN Tenebris 115 On the Thames Embankment 116 In Praise op December Evenings 120 The Union of Hearts 122 Sir Galahad 127 A Carol 129 At the Popular Concerts 131 Shine Clear, Shine Bright 133 In Memoriam 134 Dark Rays 137 For Britain. A Soldier's Song. December 1899 138 From Dawn to Eve 142 CONTENTS PAGE On a Birthday 143 A Fragment 140 Armed Peace 148 The Fortunes of Britain 151 In Another Album 155 Apologia 157 Sherborne 160 Rhyme^ the Consoler 165 A Vision 167 HARVEST-TIDE A BOOK OF VERSES TO VENUS, THE EVENING STAR Pure orb serene that sliinest still Tho' youth be fled and Spring-time done, And dreary Autumn, dark and chill, Obscure our brief days' waning sun. Oh Love, oh radiant Star ! Shine forth, and all is peace and light, Tho' the sun sink and with him life ! Hide, and the deadly gloom of night Descends, with hate, and wrong, and strife. Oh Love, oh radiant Star ! Not thine the glare of garish noon. Nor fever-heats of wild desire. Nor craters of the ghostly moon Silvered with dead phosphoric fire, Oh Love, oh i-adiant Star ! 1 HARVEST-TIDE But glowing, pure, with primrose flame, Steadfast as virgin-glances are, Thro' life's swift seasons still the same Light thou our heavenward pathway far. Oh Love, oh radiant Star ! THE COMING OF THE MUSE The shy Muse, rarely seen, at times Floats down yet will not stay, But hides her unembodied rhymes Far, far away. From out the blank unpeopled page There shines no vision fair And on the poet's noble rage Broods cold despair. In vain to toil, in vain to strive. Efforts and vows are naught : No favouring impulse comes to drive The lagging thought. Then sudden, 'mid the darkling chill, Dead hope and strivings vain, A ghostly radiance seems to fill His heart and brain. Far off and thin, translucent, white, His straining eyeballs trace, 3 HARVEST-TIDE Half-hidden, a phantom of delight, A sweet veiled face. And straight, 't is Life, 't is Youth, 't is Spring Tliat comes his toil to cheer ; Blithe Fancy spreads a joyous wing — ''The Muse is here." O'er foam-flowered wave, o'er snow-clad hill. She floats, or vernal grove ; His happy eyes warm tear-drops fill Of Faith and Love. Now from the Sunset beckons she, Now from the Dawn's clear rose, And sadly now, now joyously. Sings as she goes ; Now through the thick life-laden air. Along the city street. Fleeting, she draws divinely fair. His faithful feet ; Now o'er the Palace, now the Jail, Lives gilded, lives undone, 4 THE COMING OF THE MUSE Lives laughter-lit^ or those that wail^ She hovers on ; And with her takes the poet's mind, And heart and soul and will ; Where'er she leads, a wandering wind. He follows, follows still ! LE VENT DE L'ESPRIT The wind that sighs before the dawn Chases the gloom of night. The curtains of the East are drawn And suddenly — 'tis light. A faint breath wakes the slumbering seas. Peaks, plains, and forests dim, The brave birds 'mid the rustling trees Raise a glad morning hymn. And all the waiting world around Adores the coming sun. New warmth and life, new cheerful sound. New destinies begun. So on the old familiar earth. As on the faintest star, Where'er a new life comes to birth The Spirit's breathings are. Thro' the soul's dim recesses dark They move ere yet 'tis day, 6 LE VENT DE L'ESPRIT And she even as the faithful lark Awaking-, soars away. They blow, they stir the voiceless deep With winds of fruitful strife, And from the chills of Death and Sleep Draw warmth and liffht and life. REMEMBER The swift hours fleet, the brief days steal the years. There seems scant space for laughter or for tears — Remember ! The seasons press, Spring hastens. Summer flies, A flash, and Autumn fades in wintry skies — Remember ! This truth alone, upon your soul keep graven. Beyond the imminent deep, there lies a haven For ever ! Whither, unchecked by life's impatient surges A Power, a Hand, a Voice eternal urges For ever ! There, comes not Time nor Change but Peace and Rest, And blessed Contemplation of the Best — Remember ! A NEW ORPHIC HYMN The stars, the skies, the peaks, the deeps of the fatliom- less seas. Immanent is He in all, yet higher and deeper than these. The heart, and the mind, and the soul, the thoughts and the yearnings of man, Of His essence are one and all, and yet define it who can? The love of the Right, tho' cast down, the hate of vic- torious 111, All are sparks from the central fire of a boundless beneficent will. Oh, mystical secret of Nature, great Universe unde- fined. Ye are part of the infinite work of a mighty ineffable Mind. Beyond your limitless Space, before your measureless Time Ere Life or Death began was this changeless essence sublime. 9 HARVEST-TIDE In the core of eternal calm He dwelletli unmoved and alone 'Mid the Universe He has made^ as a monarch upon his throne. And the self-same inscrutable Power which fashioned the sun and the star Is Lord of the feeble strength of the humblest creatures that are. The weak things that float or creep for their little life of a day The weak souls that falter and faiut^ as feeble and futile as they ; The malefic invisible atoms unmarked by man's pur- blind eye That beleaguer our House of Life^ and compass us till we die ; All these are parts of Him^ the indivisible One, Who supports and illumines the many. Creation's Pil- lar and Sun ! Yea, and far in the depths of Being, too dark for a mortal brain. Lurk His secrets of Evil and Wrong, His creatures of Death and of Pain. 10 A NEW ORPHIC HYMN By a viewless Necessity chained, a determinate Impetus drives To a hidden invisible goal the freightage of numberless lives. The waste, and the pain, and the wrong, the abysmal mysteries dim, Come not of themselves alone, but are seed and issue of Him. And man's spirit that spends and is spent in mystical questionings. Oh, the depths of the fathomless deep, oh, the riddle and secret of things. And the voice through the darkness heard, and the onrush of winnowing wings ! 11 ON A FLOCK OF BIRDS FLYING SOUTH- WARD BY NIGHT Above the silent fields and slumbering town, Fly onward fearless wanderers^ swiftly fly ! Speed fast, speed far, nor ever settle down, Unmarked upon the starless midnight sky. Save where white breasts reflect the city's light. And from your rushing, pulsing squadrons high Comes a faint ghostly cry. Alas ! for the sweet summer past and done. Again the cruel frozen north-wind blows. Fly southward, southward still pursue the sun Where by warm waves the crowned palm-ti-ee grows. Leave care and toil and fret and murky air To us, who with the ever-darkening day. Chained fast must bear to stay. Fly on, fly fast, till with the tardy light A second Summer wakes the purple sea. And Winter flies, defeated with the night. Then gliding earthward, slowly, wearily. By some hushed Afric forest-depths profound, 12 ON A FLOCK OF BIRDS Or windless glare of some surf-beaten strand Greet the old Southern land. But oh ! forget not 'neath that fuller sun, Our Northern Summer's shy reluctant grace The white-robed Spring ere primrose-tide is done. Blithe June or ruddy Autumn's sunburnt face. The flowery depths, the golden waves of wheat. The symphonies of faithful wedded song Piped gladly all day long. Here is your home and ours, where the young brood Were born, and essayed first their callow wings. Here, where laborious summers gained their food. And homely love despised all outer things. Here is full life, not there, though flower and fruit Unfailing spring, and weal be yours and i-est. The North still holds the nest. Here will we stay content, whose lot is cast Far in the wintry North, for hearth and home. And ye, too, when the frozen blasts are past. Again to this our well-loved land shall come. April shall come again, and bring with her New wholesome toils, and ye with northward wing Shall speed to meet the Spring. 13 FOR A SCHOOL MAGAZINE Blithe boyhood ! shall a jaded Muse, A world-worn brain. The tribute of a song refuse Besought again ? Long since to my own school I gave A humble lay, Mixt memories now gay, now grave. Of work and play. The reverend courts, the Minster gray. The curfew bell. Still though dim years have passed away, Remembered well. The panting chase, the flying ball. The tented plain, Tlie plunge 'neath the warm wave recall Dead youth again. The happy task, that sweetened rest The soul afire. The thirst to know, the unsated zest. For something higher. 14 FOR A SCHOOL MAGAZINE The wonder of discovered lore And wisdom old. Poet and sage with new-found store. Words, thoughts of gold. Visions of far-off precious things Shy hopes of fame. Ambition, spreading soaring wings. Love's nascent flame. Ah me ! how far they seem, and yet So strangely nigh. Age might its slower limbs forget Its dimmer eye. Again the liopeful youthful heart Tlirobs high and fast. Again the joy, sometimes the smart Of the dead past. Not only in old fanes and hearts. But ever new. Young schools, young lives with varied arts The Muse pursue. Pass on, swift generations pass Undaunted on, 15 HARVEST-TIDE Each year spreads swifter wings, alas ! Till all are gone. Soon gay youth, lost in manhood's prime. Shall fleet away. Recruit, refresh the waste of Time By healthful play ! Bethink ye that the needed rest. The happier toil. To him alone are fully blest Who knows no soil. Nor let your faithful thought forget That work or rest. Him profit most whose soul is set To gain the best. 16 FAITH Oh Faith, that through our feeble youth, Our faltering footsteps didst sustain. With glimpses of receding Truth, Now seen and now withdrawn again ; But always faint and white and far As stars in summer midnights are. Not Faith thou wert, if throughly clear. Thou shon'st upon us, ever bright. If thou like knowledge, steadfast, near, Wert bathed in all-pei-vading Light, And with high noon of perfect Day, Illumin'dst our unerring way. Not Faith thou wert ! Ah, shine not bright. But as of old, o'erclouded still ; Let no broad noontides blind our sight ; With dawn, with eve, our spirits fill ; Not all thy hidden rays reveal — To know is lower than to feel. 17 BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS AND THE SEA (November 9, 1897) In murky gloom, in petulant rain. Thick-swathed our sordid London lay, White mists obscured the midland plain Thro' all the drear November day. But with swift eve, the sinking sun Smote the Welsh hills, and suddenly Behold the reign of winter done, Once more the blue, unclouded sky. And with the dawn the impatient light Streams through the darkened cells of sleep, Till lo ! full noontide broadening bright. Brings azure sky and sapphire deep. Oh joy, how beautiful a way. My happy fate prepares for me. Who journey on this perfect day. Between the mountains and the sea. * * * * We leave behind the grey old town. The castle's flawless circuit tall, 18 BETWEEN THE MOITNTAINS AND THE SEA Thin turrets like a mural crown, Decking broad tower and frowning wall. The faint pyramidal peaks of Lleyn Rise sheer from out the encircling sea. The palaced groves of Anglesey Light the salt stream which flows between. Moel and the great twin brethren high, Eryri, king of upper air. Soar on the clear autumnal sky, ' Mid thronging Titans everywhere. Unveiled from base to summit all Show russet fern and golden wood ; Bare steep, and slvyward-climbiug wall ; The fall that lights the solitude ; The rock-fenced fields, the wandering sheep Climbing the mountain's perilous brow. And sheltered by the quarried steep. Village and chapel far below. And see ! a dark procession come. Slow on the sunlit highway sped. Which bears to his eternal home, With hymns, some village worthy dead. 19 HARVEST-TIDE And every word that you shall hear. And all the sorrowful measures sung. Breathe the old Cymric spirit dear. Clothed in the old undying tongue. Turn from the mountains to the sea. The dark blue sea, where on the skies. Faint as a phantom isle might be. The hallowed heights of Bardsey rise. The calm sea ripples on the sand, The oft-vext deeps are lulled to rest, A soft breeze breathing from the land Dispels in mist each fairy crest. Long miles upon the giddy verge The swift train labours on its way. The white gulls swoop ; from surge to surge Tlie dusky cormorants dive and play. Tlie stone-roofed, massive homesteads grey, The stacks by close-bound ropes confined. Tell of the coming wintry day Which wings with snow the whirling wind. * * -x- * 20 BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS AND THE SEA The hills recede, till, lo ! again. Perched high in air a tiny town. And stern above the lonely plain Harlech's unshattered ramparts frown. And then, once more, a rival band Of giant mountains close the view, Cader, Arrenig, Aran stand Serrated, huge, against the blue. Last, thy sweet vale, Dolgelly ! Where Is any fairer.^ Oak-crowned isle. Blue river, mounting woodsides fair. The golden haze, the unchanging smile. Not Como, nor Lugano hold Sei'ener azure depths diyine. Nor treasure of autumnal gold. Nor guardian summits great as thine. * * * * Again a widespread estuary, And on the lone bird-haunted strand. The white-winged squadrons circling free, Tlie land-locked pools, the ribbed sea-sand. Fair Mawddach's charm returns again. Sweet wandering Dovey dost thou pour 21 HARVEST-TIDE A lovelier tribute to tlie main, Than glides by Barmouth's sandy shore? Nay, nay ! I fear to award the crown Of natural beauty ; both are fair. Here the tall hills seem gentler grown. Here, richer meads, and softer air. Then comes once more the level plain. The sandy dunes, the half-hid blue. The sea-beat towns which woo the main. The academic towers which grew Swift as the Caliph's palace fair. On the loud verge ; the chosen home Of those wlio hold the things that were, Less than the glory that shall come And then by labouring gradients slow. Past park and hall, till ere the night Obscures the hills, and settles low On the loved vale ; my straining siglit Welcomes the homely scene ; thy steep Grongar, long sacred to the Muse ; Broad Towy winding to the deep ; Langunnor, with thy reverend yews. BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS AND THE SEA Here, though 't is Life's November, still Are homely joys, and sunlit days, Blest memories haunt each modest hill. And « ake the yearning soul to praise. 23 AH! WAS IT I? Ah ! was it I, who loved to spend, The long laborious Autumn day, Till the slow twilight neai-ed its end. Content to chase, to wound, to slay ; Who watched unmoved the victims die? Ah ! was it I ? And was it I, who flushed with pride. And insolence of swelling years, Faith's simple teachings would deride, Taking no heed for saintly tears. Who scorned the upward path to try? Ah! was it I? And was it I who saw the Light Fade at high noon and leave behind Dark spectres of a haunted night. Sick fancies of a clouded mind. Deep sloughs of sense, lusts of the eye? Ah ! was it I ? Yet was it I whom from life's dawn. Some ray of a diviner Sun, 2i AH! WAS IT I? Some heavenly music far withdrawn. Compassed till perilous youth was done, Some soaring angel-fancies high? Ah ! was it I ? And was it I whose riper age Knew all the earlier visions fade. Dull silence quench youth's nobler rage, Blank solitudes myself had made, Hope, laughter, sinking to a sigh? Ah! was it I? Ay! it was I — the pitiless child, Tlie unfaithful youth, the man who saw W^ith brain mature, and heart grown mild. The silent, sad, unbending Law ! From change to change Life's seasons fly. Ay ! it was I ! 25 THE EARTH'S EASTER-TIDE Sing and rejoice Soul of the world sing on ! Sing and be glad to-day ! Thy Spring is come at length, thy winter gone, Vanished and chased away. Rise in white robes, leaving the tomb, the dead. Behold the living Sun calls to thee overhead. Let the glad Earth her bosom deck with flowers, A bride with pure, calm eyes, Let the still sea reflect the cloudless skies. To-day deep joy is ours. The Spring-tide of the Soul at last is born. Our Hope is risen, is risen, this is our Easter morn. Exult, oh heart. Rejoice, oh Soul, rejoice. Thy Hope is risen to-day. Let all things living lift a cheerful voice. Thy Hope is risen to-day. No more Death bounds our lives with hopeless pain, Our Sun is risen indeed ! He lives and reigns again ! 26 TEDIUM YITJE Weary of life ! Ah ! wherefore live If Age and Suffering rack the frame, If Pleasure holds no gain to give. If Honours pall and with them Fame ; If Riches fly and Love be gone. Nor ray of sunshine gild the gloom, AlTiy linger miserably on Why longer cheat the open tomb? But Pain may cease and Time bring Health, And rising Hope expel Despair, Again the golden glow of wealtli May rout the gathered clouds of care. Not these, the pains which breed disgust Of living, but the ingratitude. Of child or friend, the shattered trust. The links once broken ne'er renewed. 'ITie Faith once living drowned and dead. Too long on life's dark waters tost, llie glory dimmed, the vision fled, llie inner voices mute and lost. 27 HARVEST-TIDE These leave us, lonely, desolate. Bankrupt of hope, and love, and friend. With nothing from the wreck of Fate But one dull longing- for tlie End. 28 THE MARCH OF MAN Man that is born of a Woman the pride and the shame of Creation ; Man that soars upward to Heaven^ and sinks to the nethermost Hell; Man that is lower than the brute and yet higher in rank than the Angels ; Man with vile lusts that dishonour, and yearnings that soar to the skies ; ITiat can die for tlie Truth— ^ ay, in torture; that wal- lows in sensual pleasures ; And is drowned in fathomless sloughs and abysses of shameful desire ; Tliat is full of compassion and pity and ruth for his suffering brethren ; That robs and tortures and slays, destroying the image of God. Dark riddle unsolved, dumb Sphinx, with a twofold nature eternal That speaks no word though the ages fleet by on in- visible wings Unaltered, though diverse in faith and in race, for good or for evil ; 29 HARVEST-TIDE High in knowledge, buried in ignorance, always un- changeably, Man. Thee I sing and thine is the Hymn that I essay with accents unworthy Thy high glory, thy deep disgrace, the crown of the world and its shame ! Ah ! God, through what aeons unnumbered Man was, while the fires of Creation Burned fierce, and the earth and the sea still seethed in a tropical haze. Monstrous growths in the ooze or the jungle, or cleav- ing the ill-defined aether Mailed dreadfully, rending talons, fangs horrible, cav- ernous jaws ! What power was it strengthened his arm in a world of rapine and slaughter.'' What steeled his spirit undaunted midst terrors by night and by day.^ Wliat else than the force which compelled those isolate units together As never the brute was drawn, for mutual solace and aid. Long ages of suffering were thine, unarmed 'mid a monstrous creation, 80 THE MARCH OF MAN Hidden deep in the caves of tlie rocks^ by the fear of thy ravening foes, Till the sure blight came with the years on that primal order gigantic. And the mailed monsters dwindled and failed from the temperate ocean and earth. Then fighting for food, men with men, while the sIovf- fashioned flint-heads prima?val That had pierced thro' the mastodon's mail, were red- dened with fratricide blood. Till at last the faint language of signs, in a dumb world vacant of reason Grew slowly through age-long degrees, to the ulti- mate wonder of speech. Yet amid all the bloodshed and terror, the famine and nakedness always Were the Father's and Mother's love, and the innocent smile of the child. Oh ages, known only to God ! Oh dim generations for- gotten ! Of like nature were ye with our own, of like passions, glory and shame. Thus through ages and ages of Time marched the long successions unending, The hunter, the fisher waxed skilful through sad genera- tions of men, ' 81 HARVEST-TIDE Step by step came new powers and new arts, and o'er all the Creation dominion, And man graved on tlie mastodon's tusk the first faint beginnings of Art. Fire came from the Sun, or the storm-cloud, and with it the forging of metals ; No more the savage tears raw, the blood-stained flesh of his prey. But with hatchet of bronze levels slowly the broad- leaved trees of the forest, And builds liim a hut to escape from the sun, and the snow and tlie rain. ITien sews him a garment of skins to ward off the rigour of winter. And the hearth gives comfort and liglit through the dark and desolate hours ; The husbandman tills the eartli with rude shares of newly forged iron. And sows with each coming of Spring hoarded trea- sures of life-bearing grain ; Silent ages ! but always the gains of the long Past har- vested safely, Gathered little by little, at length, brought the triumpli of conquering Man ! 32 THE MARCH OF MAN And last^ through a rift in the clouds, like the blessed Sun seen and then hidden. There dawns on Man's upturned vision some broken image of God ; Obscured by vague terrors as yet, bloody rites and foul superstitions. Yet holding within it the power to raise up the man from the brute. Then after long seons of pain, step by step, the savage ascending, Tlie scattered huts, grew to the village, and then to the wall-circled town, Strong towers with rampart and moat, the hut giving place to the palace. Halls of marble, long colonnades, and ceilings fretted with gold, The pride of the races that lived, their forgotten his- tories vanished. The gains of the Empires unsung, whose speech and whose records are dead. Ere the black-bearded kings from their chariots pur- sued the pitiful thousands, Or transfixed the lion or pard with shafts from the merciless bow ; Or who by the mystical Nile, grave, priest-like. Lords of the Bondsmen, 33 HARVEST-TIDE Swayed through long-drawn dynasties dim the voice- less bewildering years ; Those whose name and whose fame together have per- ished, older than legend, Whose ruins, the sand or the forest conceals in its silence profound. Perished ! gone, clean forgotten of men but surely re- peating for ever Man's story of life and endeavour, and conquest, and failure, and death. Age upon age passed away, and the graven records unfading Were carved no more on the rocks, but writ on the tablets of mind ; Tlie glory of Greece shone forth, the sage, tlie hero, the poet. The lips of Wisdom were touched with a new-born sweetness and fire, Tlie painter, the sculptor revered the perfect half- divine body, And saw through the veil of the flesh, the immanent Godhead displayed. The Godlike was clothed with life by the voice of the sage, of the minstrel, 34 THE MARCH OF MAN Half-divine show the heroes immortal who fought in the fabulous Troy. Ohj fair blossom of Man's young summer, oh, glory and radiance departed, Oh white lily springing from mire, too foul for the sav- age to-day ! Then, the blossom of Beauty past, from strong roots far reaching ascended A gnarled tree of secular strength, the o'ershadowing greatness of Rome ; Not Beauty, but Law with Might, Titanic, disciplined, fearless, Wearing down the pride of the Strong, but sparing the cast-down and weak. Beneath that strong Law universal, man faded, and manacled Freedom, Grew faint, and withered and sank 'neath the blight of a cankering peace. Till law fell, trampled down in the dust by the feet of the tyrannous Cspsars, And only a phantom remained of the power, and the glory of old, And in deep sloughs of sense and of blood, unredeemed by the Beauty of Hellas, J35 HARVEST-TIDE Sank the nig'ged manhood and stern of the legions that conquered the world. And not even the new-born Dawn, proclaiming its heav- enly message Which shone forth from dying Judaea could pierce through the gathering gloom. The West paused long on its march, the weary Orient slumbered, No ears had Mankind to hear the Word that was sent for their Peace. Then there rushed from the ends of the Earth, liorde on horde, invincible, awful, On the shame of a moribund world, the unnumbered avengers of blood. And the heart of the giant was pierced and the shat- tered idol fell earthward. And the prisoners of Time were set free, and Mankind delivered from Rome. Then ages on ages of blood that cleansed the dark stains of Man's story. And again the weary world woke in the light of a long- deferred day. And the hope of the Race sheltered safe, in the sacred hush of the Cloister, 36 THE MARCH OF MAN Keeping some faint glimmer alight in a world whereof Darkness was King. And each century added its rays, till at length from slumber awaking. The mighty West leapt to its feet, and again was Hu- manity free ; A new breath breathed on the Race and the swift gen- erations sped onward. Adding each some laborious gift to the sum of the gains of the whole. Still the long processions speed onward, and still each man in his station. Brings his loyal oblation of work to lay on the altar of Good, Busy toilers of wider view, a great army of seekers de- voted. O'er all the wide kingdom of knowledge spread tireless and thirsting to know ; Weigh the Sun and the Stars in the scales, scan the uttermost heaven and discover The long-locked wandering star whose vast orbit brings it again ; Can predict its return ages hence though no eye now living shall see it, 37 HARVEST-TIDE And conjecture on faint far j^lauets the work of intelli- gent hands ; Who with re-inforced vision explore the iu\'isihle hid- den Creation, The death-dealing germs of Disease, the secrets of Life and of Death ; ^V'ho imprison and guide at their pleasure the nameless force of the lightning, Till it conquers the darkness of Nighty or whirls them o'er sea and o'er laud, ^^'ho shall make them a way through the air leaving cloud and tempest beneath them. Till the ends of the earth are linked fast in a holy communion of Peace ; Who shall learn by the power of just laws to raise up the down-trodden thousands. Till Nature's unequal gifts are redressed by the wisdom of men. Bring new fire, oh Promethean Science ! rise higher, oh glorified Manhood ! Till thou gain to full knowledge at last of the infinite purpose of God . But can this be the cave-man of old, the naked savage primaeval. Hiding deep in the depths of the rocks from the winged Lizard's pitiless jaw? THE MARCH OF i\L\N "Wondrous gain ! but broken too oft by reversals and degenerations. Not always the secular inarch lay onward and upward to Light, ITie old Empires faded and sank leaving naught but some ruins Cyclopic Buried deep in the sands, or o'ergrovvn in the twilight of tropical woods. The Temples, the altars are gone, the tall carven col- umns lie prostrate, Gods and men lie buried together; dumb histories, glory, and shame, All are gone, and the peasant who delves 'mid tlie shapeless mounds starts to discover Deep hidden, the gold and the gems of the ghosts of a sepulchred Past. Still over the populous East, crude beliefs, thin phi- losophies, changeless From the first beginnings of Time, clog millions of wandering feet. And the naked savage obscene, fetish-ridden, unrea- soning, brute-like Gibbers still with faint jargons of speech through the limitless wastes of the South. Shall we hold with more credulous souls the faith in a purpose Eternal, HARVEST-TIDE Marching on without haste or delay to the final tri- umph of Good ? Yea^ the great Scheme fulfils itself always, though slowly with long intermissions, A\ ave on wave of the inflowing tide seems at times to ebb back to the sea ; Where to-day are the wonders of Painting, the breath- ing Marbles immortal. The floreate capitals carven, the vaulted, vaporous aisles? The skill of the craftsmen \\ho reared the huge bulk of structures colossal, The lost Arts, and triumphs of Knowledge, the hidden Arcana of Faith ? A great silence swallows them all, they have perished, and no man remembers. And the gains of the Past are re-won after ages of tra- vail and tears. Man that cowered long time in the caves, scant in numbers, feeble, forgotten. Is the crown and summit ot things, and has filled and governs the world. But not yet can he govern his soul ; gross desires, mean ideals, enslave him ; 40 THE MARCH OF iMAN Not wherefore he came nor whence, not whither he goeth he knows. Life's swift fleeting seasons perplex him, youth passes, dull age creeps upon him. Few are blest, while the multitudes labour through brief lives and fortunes forlorn. To the grave from the cradle they bear, the unsatisfied dim generations. Toil and suffering, hunger and cold, scant pleasure and undeserved pain. The shadow of fratricide war, broods deep o'er the shuddering peoples, And the round world rolls on through cycles of sorrow, and bloodshed, and pain. Nay oh man, though vainly it seem, still aspire, struggle onward and upward ! In the Future live, not the Past, trample down the inherited brute! Rise from sensual deeps, rise upward. He who made thee knows to what purpose, Spurn aside, one by one, with the years, the sordid rags of the Past. Give ear to the clear voice calling with mystical accents unceasing, 41 HARVEST-TIDE That bids tliee aspire and ascend in the faith of an ul- timate Good. Not for thee are the problems perplext of the methods and ends of the Maker, Turn with steadfast unwavering gaze to the Light of the half-discerned Sun ; Tread down in the mire of dead years the reproach of the travailing ages, Raise the wandering savage alike, and the waifs of the sin-laden streets ; The ruffian, the wanton, the thief, the bondsmen of Pleasure or Mammon, Wasting weariful lives in the chase of ignoble profit- less ends. Last of all make the Demon of War put oif his false halo of Glory, And a league of Bretliren conspire for the final triumph of Peace, Till the calm voice of Justice shall droAvn the cries of tumultuous Passion, And the criminal shrink from himself at the clear call of Godhead within ; Then, O Man that art born of a Woman, the crown, not the shame of Creation, Be thou filled with the glory of God, as the waters cover the Deep ! ^ 42 THE FREEING OF CRETE At length, at last, at last, 'Ilie weary suffering years are past Baffled the tigerish Turk slinks from his bleeding prey. At last, O hapless Isle at last. Thy mother draws thee closer to her breast, Thee, who long ages this auspicious day Awaitedst, but in vain. Done is at length, thy age-long pain. And thou at last at rest. Strange are the ironies of Time and Fate, And dark the pathway of the Eternal feet. For lo, it was but yesterday that we, We whose hearts yearned to set the captive free. Knowing the story of thy misery AV^aited the Hellenic victories in vain. Ah me ! it was a time of pain For us, who from our earliest boyish years, With thee were nourished at one mother's breast! — Her brave sons, fearless dashed their lives in vain. Against the foemen's strong o'ermastering line. By alien hirelings drilled for victory. Oh wasted harvest fields of Thessaly, 43 HARVEST-TIDE On which divine Olympus looking, saw The brute invader trampling Right and Law, And weak defenders dying but in vain ! Ah me ! it was a time of tears. Blank disappointment sinking to despair. Almost our sad eyes seemed to see The loathly Ottoman once more again Befoul the city of the violet-crown ; Loud shrieks of outrage on the affrighted air. Column again and temple crashing down. Barbarian vengeance wreaked on all things fair. Ah me ! it was a time of pain and tears. But now, but now, though scarce a year has gone, To her high goal our Hellas marches on. The jealous Powers their mutual hates forget. And suddenly from failure, from defeat. She springs unconquered yet. From clouds and darkness beams her rising sun, A miracle, a miracle is done ! In full accord the o'ermastering navies ride, To work the will of Europe side by side, And Peace accomplishes what War denied — The net is broken and the captive free ! The sufferings of the dead unhappy Past, The wrongs, the tyrannies are fled at last. 44 THE FREEING OF CRETE "Begone!" the banded Admirals cried, "Begone!' And without stroke of sword or flash of gun The Oppressor slunk away, his rule of Evil done. Therefore we sing to-day "Te Deum" for the victory of Peace; O Power of Good at last make Wrong to cease ! We, whose brave sons have died, and not in vain. In treacherous massacre, with torture slain, To free our Hellas ; we, Wliose England is the mother of all the Free, We praise thee, and we pray. Deliver soon the shining Company That stud the purple of the iEgean sea; The land of Philip's conquering son; The rock-built islet of the blind old man King of all Singers still ; fair regions long. Shrined in our English Poet's generous song, Where long unchecked the spoiler loved to slay. And rob and ravish, as he would to-day. Bind in close union all who love to speak The sacred accents of the Greek, Till at the last the victory won, Hellas regains her children one by one ! Deliver all, dread Power, and set them free From the foul Turk's decrepit tyranny. 45 HARVEST-TIDE And ye^ O new-born freemen brave. Put off the ignoble vices of the slave. Forget the faults which long oppression breeds, The feuds, the jealousies of warring creeds. Be love your guide, not hate, Not for yourselves take heed but for the State, Forget the Past, till a pervading Peace Shall bind you fast to Greece. Then ye, oh, triple peaks of virgin snow, Which on the Marring strifes and woes below, Looked down unmoved through the sad centuries Ere Homer sang, no more again shall see The secular misery ; The hamlet flaring from the smoke's black shroud. The huddled flocks, and herds, the afi'righted crowd; But smile upon the untroubled, peaceful plain. Where labour reaps its due; the untrampled grain. The unrifled olive, and the laden vine; On corn and oil and wine. And on the rippling breadths of purple sea. Lit by white wings of many an argosy. In the great Peace and Concord that shall be. 46 CHRISTMAS, 1898 Another Century dies, In war and blood and pain. Our longing streaming eyes Look forth for Peace in vain. For Christ the myriads fall Butchered by Turk or Kurd Comes there no end? Is all The hope of men in vain ? Comes not the Lord again O'er all the Earth to reign, As spake the Word ? Slow are God's judgments, slow. To Man's impatient thought. Slow-paced the Ages grow. In vain the goal is sought Armed to the teeth to-day The jealous peoples stand. Worse blight than of decay, Worse burden than of war The fleets and legions are ; Dumb terror spreading far O'er sea and land ! 47 HARVEST-TIDE 'T is nigh two thousand years. Since came the Prince of Peace, Return Tliou, calm our fears. Make strife and war to cease ; Thick clouds to-day of doubt. Obscure our faithful sight. Shine, Blessed Sun, shine out. The stoi'ms of Passion still. Again, oh hidden will. The wintry Earth fulfil With Peace and Light ! 48 CHRISTMAS, 1899 "Morituri te salutant!" The din of the battlefield dies. The shouts of the foemen are still. No more from the deep-trenched hill The murderous battle-bolt flies. Here, alone 'mid the silent slain. Alone with no comforter nigh. Too feeble for fear or for pain, 'Neath strange stars in the pitiless sky, I make ready to die. Here soon with the dawn's dim light. Or maybe in the lantern-lit dark. They will find me stretched cold and stark, A soldier who died in the night. Is it I who lie helpless here, I, Who this morning went pulsing with life To drink the delight of the strife.^ I, whose life ebbs away as I lie. Making ready to die.'' 'T is Christmas-tide over the Earth, And thro' all our dear England to-night, 49 HARVEST-TIDE Hearths glow ruddy and hearts young and old are light For joy of that marvellous birth. Ah ! if only some vision might come Of the dear ones my eyes caiuiot see ! If some token of love might be wafted to me From the silent lips in the well-loved home. Ere my time comes to die ! Heaven ! What is this comforting hand \\^lich touches my fast-closing eyes. This Presence which opens a door in the skies. Where all my beloved stand? See, see 't is my mother's kind face ! Smiling grave 'neath her silvery hair. And my dearest love bending beside her chair ! And my children's careless innocent grace, AU are here, as I lie. They are joyous, dear children, at play, With the spoils of the old Christmas tree. Heaven keep them from hurt and calamity free, Till their sunny locks are grey. My brave boy has his sword and his gun. Like the soldier he wearies to be. Can I wish for him more when his life is done 50 CHRISTMAS, 1899 Than to fall for our Eiiglaud, if ueed shall be. And die happy like me? Thank Heaven for the vision ! My heart Beats high for a moment still, As when we charged swift up this death-dealing hill, Each man striving to do his part. I am troubled no longer, but lie Happy, thinking of hearth and of home, I rejoice that my dear ones were given to come, I grow faint, 'tis the end, I am ready to die, O beloved, O England, good-bye! 51 ON AN EMPTY HOUSE A STATELY house I passed to-day, Familiar when the world was gay. How the years fleeting take our lives ! Nought of that joyous Past survives. Blind casements, railings red with rust, Dumb doorways choked with leaves and dust, And see the staring placard cold — ■ "Tliis noble mansion to be sold." Nigh thirty years have passed away Since each year passing bloomed in May ; Nigh thirty years, since side by side. The youthful bridegroom and his bride Passed careless through that lofty door, Wliere now their feet shall come no more. All splendours that to wealth belong Were theirs of feast and dance and song. The gliding lamps that choked the street, The thunder of high-stepping feet ; The lights, the liveried crowd without, Tlie wafted strains, the linkmen's shout; 52 ON AN EMPTY HOUSE The jewelled throng that scaled the stair; The star-decked Great, the white-robed Fair; And when the whirling town grew still, Grey on the sunny oak-crowned hill. The gabled grange, amid the fern ; Last, ere the sere leaves ceased to burn The swallow-flights to chase the sun ; Spring blossoms, bright ere Yule was done, And by the purple waters calm. The palace gleaming thro' the palm. Nigh thirty happy tranquil years, Child-voices, homely hopes and fears ; Young girls, springing sweet and good From infancy to maidenhood. Soon joyous bridals, year by year Unbroken welfare, scarce a tear, Only the bright home stiller grown When half the nestling brood had flown. Last, ere chill age o'ertook them, then. Such is the lot of mortal men. The pitiless call too early come. To break the tranquil hush of home, The fair wife summoned first, then he, 53 HARVEST-TIDE The sad sire fading gradually. And so the end ; the nest grown cold , The orphaned lives I know not where ; Blind casements^ dust^, and everywlicre. Dim on the dense autumnal air. Time's epitaph on Rank and Gold — ''This noble mansion to be sold." 54 LIFE-MUSIC Sound, jocund strains ; on pipe and viol sound. Young voices sing ; Wreathe every door with snow-white garlands round. For lo ! 't is Spring ! Winter has passed with its sad funeral train, And hope revives again. Blow high, blow loud upon the wreathed horn, Sound joy-bells deep ! Greeu-kirtled summer walks through vines and corn, The fenced fields sleep ; The first flowers fade, the green fruits swell, and yet Fruition brings regret. Lift joyous harvest-music mellow notes With merry tunes ! Raise thankful paeans loud from manly throats. Trumpets, bassoons! Autumn has left red fruits and garnered gold. With dawns and twilights cold. Yet cease not from the use of solemn song. When the streams freeze ; 55 HARVEST-TIDE For dark brief days and rayless nights and long^ For leafless trees ! Each season should its proper music bring, Sweet as the songs of Spring. 56 IN MEMORY OF TWO FRIENDS I GWALCHMAI Again the oft-renewed request, With time more frequent, to rehearse In some brief page of halting verse The praise of Cymry gone to rest. Thou good grey head, wliose long life spread O'er all this fateful century, Now thou hast joined the faithful dead, I bring a wreath of praise for thee. In many a thronged pavilion fair Thy thin bent form, these eyes have seen, Tliy medalled breast, thy silvery hair. Thy clear, calm gaze, thy brow serene. Oft have I marked thy accents weak Amid the hushed, attentive throng. In volleying swift EiTglynion speak What time they chaired the Bard of Song. Thyself an oft-crowned Bard, whose Muse To th' old alliterate measures sweet 57 HARVf:ST-TIDE Her voice inspired^ did ne'er refuse. But lightlier tripped for fettered feet. Nor thus alone, but long time stirred The passionate, yearning Cymric heart To choose the higher, better part By preaching of the Eternal W^ord. So may it be till time is done ! Two Powers for Good of differing name; There are, in noble aim the same — God's Preacher and His Bard are one. Dear silent Bard, of kindred blood, AVith mine, from Mona's wind-swept shore, I praise thy song, thy work for good, 'T is only here thou sing'st no more. II T. Ll. T. Good Friend, whose heart, whose Muse refined, Were to our Isis faithful yet, I praise thee with a willing mind Ere the world hastens to forget. Thou as befits our tuneful race Wert touched in youth with Bardic fire, 58 IN MEMORY OF TWO FRIENDS The Cymric melody and grace Thy young ambition did inspire. Long since in thy successful song The Toiler's praise thou didst rehearse. Winning by sympathetic vei'se The plaudits of the lettered throng. Fair gift by work's unchanging round Thro' all thy later years represt ; Thou hidd'st, by lifelong fetters bound, The fire scarce kindled in thy breast. And better thus maybe to bear Duty's dull burden to the end, The Teacher's crown of work to wear That in each Learner gains a friend. Beside life's duteous liturgies What profits rank or wealth or name .'' A brighter lustre shines on these Than on the pinnacles of Fame. Far better to have won the love By faithful work, of old and young. Than the admiring throng to move By song as sweet as Bard has sung. 59 HARVEST-TIDE So I who knew thee well and long, I whose sole gift it is to sing, To these memorial pages bring This votive wreath of musing song. 60 ON A SCULPTOR WHO DIED YOUNG J. MILO GRIFFITH ( Obiit. September 1897 ) Art smiled on him, but one unchanging frown For all his days would churlish Fortune keep ; Too soon we deemed he laid life's burden down. Nay ! for He giveth His beloved sleep ! 61 VER NON SEMPER VI RET Oh the blithe spring weaves a maze of flowers till come the glad Midsummer hours When the sun is shining, shining, Dawn and Sunset in the skies ; Yet tho' song and youth are everywhere, upon the joy- ous lightsome air, A cold voice sighs. ''There shall come a fated end of all, ere Autumn's leaves have ceased to fall. And thro' all the sleeping woods there sounds no trill of waking bird. And a great hush steals away the joys of youth and all its merry noise. And song-tide dies." Silent yet tolling, tolling deep, like wizard voices heard in sleep. The strange sound eddies ceaseless, like a whirlpool round the soul. There is silence all-pervading ; voiceless echoes sinking, fading While the still deeps roll. 62 VER NON SEMPER VIRET And anon a ghostly pealing, on the poppied senses stealing, Life's high, soaring accents hushing, to an undertone of pain ; Soar, oh Love-strains high and higher, like a fountain, like a fire, Youth is not in vain. Drown the dismal, deathlike measure, in loud canticles of pleasure, Joy of youth, and joy of living, let your blithest songs be sung. For though Age with Death conspire, to-day the sun mounts high and higher. And the world is young. 63 ON A MEMORIAL ORGAN His life made music sweeter far than sound, Here would we keep some echoes that were his. Who, with the choir invisible around. Now hearkens to the Eternal Harmonies. 64 THE DIAMOND JUBILEE AN ODE ( June 20, 1897 ) Rejoice, give thanks for all the centuries. Since first our little island's crescent story, A feeble radiance woke the waning skies. To shine in full-orbed glory. Twelve centuries ago our Britain rose. Girt round by watchful foes. And did prevail at last — such power in valour lies, Such force the brain, the arm of Freedom fires. Such lofty thought her soul inspires. Hers were the faults the virtues of the strong. The passionate love of Right, tlie burning liate of Wrong, Warped sometimes by her too imperious will. To thoughts, to deeds of ill. But hearing still through all the voice of Fate, Proclaim, "Thou shalt be great!" Mixed is the journey of a nation's life, Through frowning mountain-pass and flowery plain. Through peaceful halcyon days, rude storms of cruel strife, 65 HARVEST-TIDE Brief pleasure, longer pain. But not in vain has our dear Britain been. Oh gracious Island Queen, Mother of freemen ! over all the earth, Tliy Empire-children come to birth. Vast continents are thine or sprung from thee, Brave island-fortress of the storm-A'ext sea ! The giant commonwealths which sway the ^Vest, Were nourished at thy breast ; The fair-grown sisters of the Austral main That hold the South in fee. Are thine, and love thy laws and speak thy tongue ; The dusky millions of thy fabulous East, Dim Empires older than the dawn of Time — niy crescent realm on Afric's peopled shore, Tlie white man's grave no more ; Ruled by just laws, and learning to grow free, Rejoice by thy Britannic Peace increased. Thy praise is by a myriad voices sung ; Thou treadst alone thy onward path sublime : Thou hast not been in vain ! Great Empire, those who come to-day from far. Seeking some symbol of our common love. Know through their souls. Imperial pulses move. Following as did the Magi once, the Star 66 THE DIAMOND JUBILEE Of this new birth of Time^ this happy reign ! Ne'er in our Crowned Republic's story yet^ Of all that men remember or forget. This strange, this precious thing has been : No reign of threescore years of King or Queen. Our annals hold — till in this waning age. Time's finger writes it on the storied page. This is the golden link which binds in one All British hearts beneath the circling Sun, And this the Star which draws all, far and near, This aged life and dear ! iVli, honoured thin-drawn life ! wlio long hast borne, From that far June, when with the earliest morn The young maid woke with tears, And innocent childish fears. The heavy burden of the Imperial Crown, Thy young, thy aged temples pressing down ; Who threescore years throned in the nation's heart, Of all its joys and sorrows, barest part. Sharing thy people's humbler hopes and fears, And oft directing through a mist of tears Our difficult way, — so fragile yet so strong! Thou seemest to our eyes Our own embodied Britain, old yet young ; Not the rude Britain of her arrogant youth, 07 HARVEST-TIDE But loving peace_, and filled with gentle rutli^ The Britain, her undying bards have sung. Our lives are bound with thine, our hopes with thee. Thy subjects all, and loyal lovers, we Come from the North, the South, the East, the West ; From the acclaiming lands beyond the foam. Seeking their ancient unforgotten home. Differing in race and tongue, and creed and name — Senators, soldiers, rulers great in fame, Thy proud Proconsuls come ; Down lanes of life the slow processions stream, Barbaric gold and sunlit pennons gleam. While all the glittering palace-balconies. Are animate with bright patrician eyes — And from our mighty mother, and the hum Of labour-teeming towns, from mine and loom, And the blurred forge's mingled glow and gloom. Throngs the unnumbered league-long crowd. Waiting with yearning hearts and plaudits loud. To see along the fluttering flower-hung street. With trumpet-blare and measured martial feet, Down clear perspectives of the sunlit ways Tlie jewelled pageant pass to prayer and praise. For blessings that ha\'e been, and peace, and length of days. G8 THE DIAMOND JUBILEE This pomp makes History. Long years to be, \\Tien all our brave Victorian company Beyond the circuits of the stars has gouBj The echoes of this memorable day. Not wholly dumb, nor fled away. Shall still go widening, widening on. Till Britain with new fires of Union glow. Not as the Roman, triumphing o^ yore — Tlie slave, the doomed, behind, the conqueror, before — Our peaceful pageants show ; W^Tiereto each daughter-state or subject-race. Brings its own native pride and grace. For Union 't is our severed people's cry. For Peace each neighbour-realm, each proud ally ! Princes and Peoples join alike to pay. Due reverence to a Woman's blameless sway, A.nd bless with heart and voice this fair auspicious day. 69 RENEWAL Draw near, draw near. Oil blithe and glad New Year, Haste, haste our weary souls to cheer. Draw swiftly near. Bidding farewell to pain and fear, And sullen Winter's frown, and ready tear, Briglit hopes and far horizons clear. Draw near, draw near. Let agewom Wisdom hide her wrinkled front severe. Wake wake again Beneath the genial rain. Pathetic vernal fancies vain^ Come Spring again. Weave the old flowery chain Round Youth's strong pulse and throbbing brain. While Love and Hope remain. And Life is mixt of Joy and pain. Blossom again ! Trip by swift, nimble Hours, with Summer in your train ! 70 TERRA DOMUS Above the deep-set valley The mountain-ranges rise ; Above the clouded summits. The boundless skies. Beyond the crested surges. Broad plains of ocean are. Beyond the dim horizons The evening star. Beyond, above the limits Of toil and pain and strife. Gleams like a fitful beacon, The blessed life. Beyond Earth's quick mutations. Bright hopes and glooms of fear — Ah ! but high heaven afi'rights us. Our home is here ! 71 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE (a.d. 1900) ''Think you that after nineteen centuries Since shone our Hope on earthy there come to-day No tragedies;, no dread abysmal deeps Of sin, like those of old, the accursed house Of Atreus, or the fratricides of Thebes, Or those the shame of mediaeval Rome, The Borgias, or the Cenci, or the rest? Nay, nay, the same infernal forces still Assault men's shuddering souls; amid the glare Of all our vaunted gains dark growths obscene Tower high as then — hot passion quenclied in blood - Lust, incest, fratricide, — these vex us still. As erst in Thebes or Rome, no fabled tales Are ours, but, dreadful fact, murders as fierce And deadly as of old ; the Church may preach Her sacred message ; the philosopher. All brain, but little heart, may boast in vain Mind's victories ; for still Tartarean fires Rage close beneath the surface scarce concealed. And whoso stumbles, burns. Deliver us O Power of Good, for 'tis a hopeless world !" 72 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE These dark thoughts held me, as I mused perplext, This very spring, reading the dreadful tale. The morning's broadsheet* brought, and seemed to gaze. On the blue waters of the Euxine sea. By bright Odessa, while a fettered crew Of convicts whom the inexorable Law Banished to far Saghalien shambled by Dragging their chains ; vile faces, seared and marred. Doomed for long painful years to fruitless toil Deep in the sunless mine, till youth and hope Lay dead, and only some poor wreck remained Of what long since was man — all, young and old, Chained each to each, in convict garb, all sign Of rank and gentle breeding sunk and lost In fellowship of crime. Tlie wretches filed To where the black side of the impatient ship Swallowed them one by one. But as they passed In pitiful procession to their fate One my eye noted, tall, who walked alone In bloom of manhood, proud with steadfast eyes. Whom not the shameful garb, nor clanking chain, Nor manacled hands, nor vile companionship Could quite disguise or mar. Seeing him pass * See the Daily News, February 15, 1900. 73 HARVEST-TIDE I seemed to ask the wardei* of his name. But that he knew not, nor his rank, but only That he was called "Prince Ivan." Then I seemed To question the lost wretch, and hear him tell In gentle tones this dreadful tale of wrong. "WHiat, would you know what brings me here.'' Good friend. For in your eyes I see a pitying gleam, 'T were better not to hear it, for, God wot. Sometimes I wonder if 't was I indeed Who sinned, or if some dread necessity Worked through me, as the sculptor's hand which moulds White marble, or the painter's who draws forth Dark fancies from the canvas, till behold ! A fiend, not man. I do not seek to hide My wickedness, but sometimes am perplexed To know by what gradations swift or slow What I was once was changed to what I am. I well remember how I read in youth The tales of ancient crime, nor ever dreamt That e'er they miglit be mine; but now I go To pay its penalty, a felon, lost. Degraded from my rank, doomed for long years To slave without reward or hope; to miss 74 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE All things that make life sweet — though nought indeed Could sweeten mine — yet to live hopeless on Without the power to end it. I was born Amid the Georgian snows^ of an old race, And puissant, ere the wily Russian stole Our land and freedom from us ; a chaste youth I spent among our mountains. My good sire Died first, and then my mother. My dear brother^ Filling my father's place and rank, remained Unwedded, keeping sole the ancestral state Of our old home ; but me a boy as yet He tended like a father, till the time When to our Northern City of the Snows I went to gain such knowledge as became My rank and birth. Dear brother, who didst lavish Thy love and care on me ; in that blest sphere WTiere now thou art, freed from this load of life, Forgive me if thou canst my dreadful wrong, Or if thou fail, forget it ! The swift years Fled by and left me man, and brought with them Such gains of knowledge as my studious youth Untouched, or but a little by grosser sense Or careless pleasures of the idle great. 75 HARVEST-TIDE Prized above all. 'Mid those gay crowds I kept Dear memories of the old ancestral halls, The high Caucasian peaks, the snow-fed streams. Long left but unforgotten, the brisk air Breathed 'mid the trackless pinewoods of my home. All these preserved my youth and kept it pure. Till last, treading the paths of sober love I wooed the daughter of a noble house And won her, and I thought I loved her well, — Ah me ! that I had known what 't was to love ! — Not with blind passion, but with tempered glow Of modei-ate fervour, such as lights and warms Thousands of happier souls who live calm lives In uneventful wedlock till the end. Nor dream that they are loveless. Ere we reached The goal of marriage, since the unfailing use Of noble houses when their scions wed Divides tlie ancestral lands, I, with what joy ! Forsook the noisy city for a while For my dear native hills. My brother wrote To bid me welcome. He, too, now was wed 'To a wife the pearl of women, beautiful As Venus' self, as soon my eyes should see.' 'Come,' he said, 'brother, all I wish for you Is that your wife be true and fair as mine.' 76 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE And then I left the murky city and sped Swiftly across the interminable plains To the dear hills. Ah me ! 't is three brief years. No more, but since that day what tilings have been — All dead ! and by whose fault? All dead ! but I, WTio come once more to meet the summer sun. Banished, degraded, chained, whom all men shun. Doomed to a death in life, far worse than death, A monster and accurst. But when I gained the well-remembered hills. No warning voice proclaimed what things should be. The weird old towers, the old familiar fields Showed nought of new, since I a budding youth Left, who returned a man. There seemed no change In any save in me, if there indeed. Seeing that the old loved scenes, the eager air. Stripped from me all the dusty past, and clothed My life with a new boyhood. At the gate My brother waited with a warm embrace Of welcome. Tlie brief winters which had passed Since last we met had left scant trace on him ; Only a broader brow, a form which showed More stalwart than before ; the past was dead. The past was gone, and I a boy again, O'erjoyed with all I saw. 77 HARVEST-TIDE And then I raised My eyes, and of a sudden knew my doom ! For there within the entrance stood revealed Tlie woman of my dreams. Of stately mien As 't were a Goddess ; the dark lustrous eyes Of Georgia, the divine Caucasian charm Which makes our women, fairer, comelier far Than all the world can match. On the sweet lips A smile of welcome for the stranger made My heart throb high ; something I seemed to gain, I never knew before, as if my life Had found its complement, the half the gods Of fable kept when half was given. Deep awe Chilled me as who at midnight calls his name And sees the answering spirit of himself; Or as the hapless hunter when he spied The Goddess disarrayed ; while from her eyes Shot a swift answering gleam, half joy, half pain, Proving a mutual wound. I found no word Of greeting, when my brother's kindly voice Made known to me my sister. — 'Sister,' said he.'' — Ah, nearer, dearer far tlian any tie Of common blood. Yet fenced by equal bars From honourable love. What need to tell 78 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE The dreadful tale? The hidden fatal fire Repressed in vain, tho' by no word declared. Nor guilty save in thought, grew every day Stronger and dreadfuller. Day after day I dallied with my fetters, knowing well That safety lay in flight ; until at last I lost the wish to fly. Tlien one sad night. Despite our wills, despite our shrinking hearts. The fire long smouldering leapt in sudden flame, Scorning restraint, and mounting terribly. Consumed the bars of honour, duty, faith. And left our lives in ashes. When 't was done And the long struggle ceased, we knew some ghost Of happiness, though haunted by the dread Of imminent ill. Ah me ! when I recall Those guilty days, compared with what should come, They show like heavenly glimpses ; yet were they The cause of all. Day after day the thought Of what discovery brought with it, mixed sweet With bitter, hardly as I think the sense Of wickedness oppressed us, we had found Some poisonous anodyne to blunt the qualm 79 HARVEST-TIDE Of conscience^ and despite our constant fear Not less 't was sweet to sin. This is the bribe Tlie Tempter offers, this the fatal net He spreads for souls, and damns them, and I durst not Break it, nor would, though now the fleeting weeks Flew onward to my marriage ; and my bride Who should be soon, wrote lovingly and fain Would hasten my return ; but still I found False pretexts. '^It was difficult to divide Our patrimony, though 1 longed to end it And call her mine,' but went not. At the last. My brother, too possest by noble trust For base suspicion, thinking I was loth To leave our ancient home, sent messengers Unknown to us, bidding them welcome her To her brothex''s home, and she, deluded soul, Came willingly. Love calling, to her doom. But when we knew that she would come, such dread Of what should be possessed us, that we knew. As by some sudden lightning flash revealed. The black abysses round. Bid her not come. We durst not, that were damning proof indeed Of guilt, yet if she came, she brought with her Discovery of our wrong ; the woman's wit Swifter than man's slow brain, reads at a glance 80 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE The secrets of the hearty and there remained Veiigeauce^ disgrace, the severance of the bonds WTiich now grew more than life — ay, ay, indeed. These things should be but dreadfuller by far Tlian any we had dreamt of. Yet some gleam Of hopeless hope sustained. As we deceived My brother, so perhaps should Fortune aid. We might deceive her too ; and so with dread Vexing us day and night, we did await Our doom and hers. Ah me ! the fatal day WTien at the last she came, I hurried forth To greet her, but the deep o'ermastering sense Of some calamity she could not name Oppressed her, and the lying welcome died Upon my lips as in my eyes she read A love estranged, and ghrank from my embrace. Shuddering she knew not why. We strove in vain, I and the partner of my sin, to feign The welcome which we felt not, and I saw. Half pitying, how pale she seemed, grown sick With hope deferred, and how the unbidden tears Sprang to her eyes, as to my noble brother She turned, while he with half-paternal words Would comfort her, thinking the deep fatigue 81 HARVEST-TIDE Of her long weary journey from the North Had sapped her strength. Poor souls, I pitied them Whose fate drew now so near, though scarce as yet I knew what must be. At the little feast Of welcome that we made, a little while She seemed to shake from her the load of care "^riiat first oppressed. We thought our secret yet Lay hidden, and grew hopeful to escape The eyes of jealous love, and so the days Slipped by, and we grew careless, and I feigned To love her still, as still I think she loved. Ah ! fools to hope to escape the searching gaze Of love's clear eyes. For tho' we strove to hide Our wrong, one hapless day a furtive glance Surprised, in one brief instant with a flash Discovered all. That night a letter came : 'I know your secret, I will go. I pray you Ere 't is too late, repent you of your wrong. Make what excuse you will to your good brother To-morrow I will go, nor see you more.' Then in one moment the impassable net Our sin had spread around us stood revealed. And the deep pit of hell which yawned before us, Inevitable. When I strove to feign Excuses to my brother, his great wrath 82 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE Spurned them, and suddenly he seemed to know The dreadful truth, and love deceived, and faith Abused, worked such a tempest in his soul As broke in frenzy. His false wife he drove Instantly from his side, myself he stung With fierce reproach, but since I was his brother He spared my life. Our poor unhappy dupe. Who yet betrayed us not, with pitying words He comforted, but bade us from his sight. Till he should fix our sentence ; but his pride Of noble birth and blameless life unstained Constrained him to keep silence. Tliat same night I stole to where she was. Without a word We knew our doom, and the one only way Of safety, though it led through blood and death. And how the first transgression from the right Leads on by crooked paths, till when the day Is fading, lo ! the inevitable pit. Fronting the desperate feet; no turning back, Nor outlet, but through black depths worse than death ! Hardly a word we spoke ; our purpose showed Too clear for speech. I carried in my belt A dagger, as our Georgian use enjoins. And she, my bane, and yet my love, my joy, 83 HARVEST-TIDE Poiuted to it, and witli hei* little hand Tried its keen edge, and motioned toward the doors Here, where my brother slept, there, wliere our guest, With such a dreadful smile as leaves a man A devil. But I dared not do the thing. And whispered, ^Not my brotlier.' But she signed 'Both; it were useless else.' And as I shrank With tottering limbs, '^Quick; I will come with you.' And seized the light, and noiseless gained the door Wliere lay the Prince asleep. One stab, one groan. And all was done. Then silently we went To where our poor dupe lay. One stab again And all was done, and we were free to reap The fruit of crime; free, said I.'' — nay, but bound With heavier chains than these. But when 't was done One peril still remained. 'T was all in vain Should we not hide the deed ! She bade me wake An ancient serving-man, who from a boy Had served my house : him, with what lie I know not Of sudden passion and revenged oiFence, I did persuade, so that he should conceal That which was done, and with me bear the dead To burial, and, since 't was their fitting end, 84 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE Should lay them side by side. At dead of night None seeing us, we laid them in the mould Beneath the trees, and with the morning feigned A story of their flight. In our wild hills Such things are frequent, overwhelming gusts Of furious passion, chilled and quenched in blood. And none would doubt the story. So we dwelt, I and the partner of my guilt, secure In the old house ; and all men pitied us, Wlio by one stroke of pitiless fortune lost She the dear husband of her love, and I My destined bride. Fain had we ended there The tale of black offence, but still remained One damning witness. The poor serving-man Who knew our innocent victims had not fled And where they lay, held o'er our heads a sword Suspended by a hair. How could we rest ^\Tiile this man lived? Sure 'twas a little thing If we who sinned so deeply sinned once more.'' What was a poor serf's life that we should spare it Who had shed noble blood.'' And so it came That ere a little month had staled our wrong The poor soul died. So sudden was his end Men talked of poison, but since none could trace What enemy was his, they asked no more. 85 HARVEST-TIDE 'T was but a nine days' wonder, but perchance He knew some perilous secret of the Great. Then seemed we safe indeed, and lived awhile In decent seeming grief within the walls Which now were mine ; but (as 't was noised abroad,) The losses we deplored, the empty halls Filled with the haunting Past, the corridors Echoing at night the sounds of ghostly feet. Troubled our peace. No more the ancient home She loved, nor I, but loathed it. Most of all We loathed to pass those dreadful doors which hid A double murder. Therefore, as the heir Of the Prince, if dead he were, or as his steward Till his return, if still he walked the earth. To a rich neighbour I demised his lands And old ancestral towers. Then we sped forth, I and my widowed sister, in feigned grief But secret joy, seeking to hide ourselves From prying eyes, as natural law ordains The afflicted should, and separate awhile. By different roads, our name and rank concealed. At length we came together and were wed By some poor priest, and lived a peaceful life For three brief years, tranquil, sometimes and calm As from a blameless Past, but ofttimes stirred 86 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE By sudden storms. All ! dark uupityiiig- Fate^ Which kept our lives asunder, lives that sought Each other, but in vain, till Love was sin. And sin bred crime. Far in the frozen North, In a grey castle 'mid wolf-haunted pines. We made our home. Three little years we spent Together, — 'twas not long for us who bought Our gain so dear, — nor was it peace indeed. We knew, but rather conscience drugged asleep. Starting with sudden fears — a nightmare dream. From which we woke with staring eyes and lips That syllabled murder — for between our souls, Clinging together, rose the ghostly slain, Tlie strong man, the weak woman, the poor serf. All dead and by our hands. And yet I think We were not all unhappy. Time can wither. Not Hope alone but holds an anodyne To blunt the tooth of conscience. Not remorse, But dread and coward fears, o'ershadowing all. Blighted our lives, till long security Brought scarce disturbed content; — 'twas little gain For two souls damned for ever. Till at last. When the sad Past grew dim, a horrible dread 87 HARVEST-TIDE Rose with a flaming sword and drave us forth From that poor guilty Eden. For we read 'How the new Lord of our lost home commanded That they should delve hard by^ some little dyke. And when 't was done, behold two skeletons Lay side by side. And tho' 't was no strange matter In our wild Caucasus of passionate feuds, Wliere blood flows fast as water, here was proof Of dreadfuUer than wont. For when they raised The poor remains ; upon the finger-bone Of the taller shone an emerald sigziet-ring. Which all men knew, and 'twas the Prince my brother's. Who never left his home, but lay beneath His old ancestral trees, and by his side A woman's slenderer form. What mind could doubt It was the missing girl, whose flight they mourned For three long years .-^ Nay, nay, she had not fled. No secret tale of shame was buried with them Wlio lay there thus at rest. The dead girl's honour Showed stainless now, and her great kinsfolk's pride Saved from reproach. They mingling grief with joy, — Grief she was dead, joy she was pure, — made oath To avenge her, and the sleuth-hounds of the law. Already loosed upon her murderers' track, 88 A GEORGIAN ROMAN'CE Quested, as yet in vain. WTiere had they gone, The false wife and her blood-stained paramour? They should be trapped, since still on Russian soil Doubtless they lurked in hiding.' When I read These damning words, fain had we turned to fly. But whither.'' since the guarded frontier rose A wall of brass before us. So we stayed. In hopeless hope that haply the great peril Might pass us by, as, trembling in each limb. The hapless quarry, waiting, hears the cry Of the hot chase grow louder, nearer still. And scai-cely dares to breathe. And for long months Our silent trackless forests and deep snows Baffled the hunters, till, though pale and worn By long suspense, my guilty love and I Thought once more we were safe. Then one grim day Last autumn, when the southward-flying sun Had gone, and taken life and hope with it, There as we sat within the ruddy glow Of the piled hearth, cheering the solitude. Two guilty loving hearts, while all around The tokens of our ill-got wealth relieved The gloom without, sweet flowers and gems of price Rich hangings, and the golden light which keeps 89 HARVEST-TIDE Perpetual June amid the sunless gloom Of Yule^ our summons came. Sudden the door Swung open, and upon the warmth and light Of luxury a dank and deadly chill As from an open grave. A rattle of arms. And quick, the stern-eyed officers of law Stood round us, and we knew the end was come, — The end of guilty dalliance, — the end Of long anxieties. For it was Death That knocked, and Vengeance, and the Powers of Hell. And then they severed us, without a word. Only one long last kiss, and locked her fast A prisoner in our chamber in the tower. She had no power to speak, nor chance to doif Her gems of price, but like a Queen she went To her doom, for such it was. Great God ! how fair She showed, as, flushed with some strange counterfeit Of innocence, and eyes that blazed like fire With proud contempt, she put from her the hands That would have hindered. As she reached the stair She turned and looked on me, and in her gaze I read a mute farewell, while at my belt Her eyes seemed seeking something, and I knew Once more what 't was they sought. But neither blade Nor arm was there. Then I saw fade and die 90 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE The fury from her eyes^ and in its stead. Writ legibly for love's keen gaze to see, A dreadful purpose, offspring of despair. Then with their pitiless skill, till night was near. In that luxurious room, where late we sat Alone, with none to mark us, deep content Soothing each sense, they plied their torturing art Of question ; an inextricable net They wound around us mesh by mesh, while I, Like a poor bird caught in the fowler's toils. Was powerless to escape. Fain had I bade them Forbear and I would tell them all, such horror Of that sad tale, retold in icy words. Possessed me ; but remembering who it was Who shared my guilt, hopeless I wandered on. Tightening the noose around our lives, but still Denying all. Tlien, when some mocking gleam Of hope relieved despair, what shriek assailed My agonised ears? what body flashed and fell Past the tall windows from the height above With a dull crash on the new-fallen snows. Staining them red .'' Ah me ! I knew too well. I saw death in her eyes when up the stair Silent she swept. Then, not with grief, but joy 91 HARVEST-TIDE That she was safe from men, her fate fulfilled. And I need lie no longer, '^See,' I cried, 'She is dead. You shall know all. We two together Did those dark deeds. 'T was Love that urged us on. Not that of spouse or bride or brother, but Love That bui'ns our lives with fire. Now she has gone. Beyond the reach of vengeance on the earth Let me go too. We did it, we together. None else ; we stabbed them in their dreamless sleep ; They did not cry, nor suffer much, I think ; 'T was a swift blow. And one there was beside Who bare them forth to burial. Listen to me ! I poisoned him, because we dared not trust .Our dreadful secret with him. That is all. I do not wish to live. Respect, I pray you. That mangled corpse, for she was innocent In the law's eye and noble. Ye who live In bonds of happy love for wife and child. Pity us if you can. I do give thanks To all the Powers that rule and mar our lives. No child of ours shall know its parents' shame. Deal with me as you will.' But my wrecked life They spared, since I was noble. Ah ! the farce Of rank and false nobility which gilds 92 A GEORGIAN ROMANCE So oft the ignoble brow ; but in this place All men are equal, as they are in Hell, And I shall spend my manhood in the depths Of the dark mine, nor put aside the load Of misery till manhood wanes, and age Blunts the desire to live. Say, was it she — My love, who was a wife tender and true Till the sad day we met ; who had no thought For any but her lord, but lived bright years Of faithful wedlock— she, who bade me slay Her love and mine together? Was it I, The blameless student, whose calm eye disdained The spell of venal beauty — I, whose thought Dwelt ever on the heights, and daily walked In converse with the mighty dead of Time, With Plato and with Socrates, and him Who took all knowledge for his own, and him The Saint of the old East, and Him whose Voice The round world hears, but heeds not, and the choir Of Saints and Sages blest ; I, whose soft heart Sickened at blood and pain ; who did this wrong? Or do men bear twin natures, one of Heaven And one of Hell? Or is it that to-day. Despite the gains of Time, the Word Divine, The counsels of Perfection, with their law 93 HARVEST-TIDE Of Mercy to all things ; and Purity And Justice^ still a vengeful Ate' drives Our lives to ruin^ and a cruel Fate, Unpitying and resistless as of old. Turns men to devils? Let me meet my fate; I care not what shall come. If I should die, 'T were well ; or should I live, perchance long years May dim the dreadful Past, and leave my age Cleansed by retributive pain. At least I lose The haunting fear, the cold voice threatening doom. Nor yet am wholly damned." These things I heard. And, musing as I went, I knew again The old voice heard before, "There is an end Of Wrong and Death and Hell." 94 WHITHER ? Tread down oh Man, beneath thy feet, the brute, Not that the sinless, innocent brute which still Goes on its way unshamed, undoubting, mute. Obedient to the pre-ordained will. But that which deep within your nature lurks Unseen, nay scarce suspected ; tooth and claw- Red with the stain of age-long time, and works Beneath the dull unpitying primal law. Put off the curse of war, the shame of strife Make thou the hates, the miseries to cease. But yet forget not that the flower of life May wither in the windless glai'e of Peace. The Heaven our souls desire is more than rest. Act is our Law, our Joy, our highest meed ; By work and that alone our souls are blest And whoso gains it, he is blest indeed. Remember thou of how great dignity Is he who sees life whole and sees it one 95 HARVEST-TIDE Who knows the Past, and what the world shall be, Full grown when its long pupilage is done. Put off the satyr with his carnal leer Put off alike the tiger and the ape Keep justice, love, and reasonable fear Immortal Spirit clothed in mortal shape ! Put off alike the worldling and the saint. The aims, too thin, all earthy, grovelling things The curse of greed, the aspirations faint For heights too cold and far, for flagging wings. Put off the ascetic, shun the sensual sty. Scorn not our dual Nature, nor let Pride Exchange for fruitful earth the barren sky. Since Earth and Heaven are here and side by side. Let Woman be the equal mate of Man, And let the love of all the race inspire With deeper glow than earthly passion can A soul that kindles with diviner fire. Fulfilled with calm beneficent liturgies Keep thy undaunted soul, content to sleep, 96 WHITHER? If such thy Fate^ for ever, or to rise When the Voice calling wakes thy slumbers deep ; The Voice Divine which sounds from soul to soul, Tlie Voice which still from Youth to Age doth call, Unceasing though the earth forget to roll, And all her wandering sisters swerve and fall. 97 BY TOWY-SIDE OiV these fair meads, through half a summer-day Beside the blue-eyed river-deeps I lie, There comes no sound to chase my dreams away. Nor veil to hide the clear reflected sky, The low hills smile around on either hand. And up the vale the solemn mountains stand. No change for half a changeful century. Fair river, hast thou known, since I, a boy. Would haste of summer noons to plunge in thee, Snatching unmarked a dear forbidden joy ; Nor shall a thousand centuries passing trace One wrinkle on thy smooth unageing face. Sweet wandering Towy, sinuous, silvery, Glide on by town and tower, unchanging glide. Pursue thy path of beauty to the sea. Till thy flow weds the salt inrushing tide ! Thus rolled of old thy undiscovered flood, When the new world was born in pain and blood. Within thy depths, ere man had come to birth. Dread mailed forms with gory jaws would lurk, 98 BY TOWY-SIDE Tlie ravening monstrous shapes which swayed the earth, Ere Nature framed her last consummate work ; Thou sawest within thy ooze huge Saurians lie. And wide-winged spoilers hurtling thro' the sky. And then for age on age, when Man arose. The gibbering savage mirrored in thy deep ; Red wars, oppressions, hatreds, countless woes, Rude hearts that broke, while Mercy seemed asleep, While thou, thro' those dim generations gone Unchanged, unruffled, flow'dst serenely on. And then thro' all our fateful history. Long centuries of war and cruel strife : Our Wales o'erborne, our Britain free and great ; Our old race rising with renascent life; — Still from thy cold hill-fountains didst thou come To seek as we the Deep which is our home. Men come, men pass, but thou flow'st seaward still. Brute Nature, thou immortal art alone ! Tlie sea, the stream, the plain, the heavenward hill Built high with ramparts of eternal stone ; We who have life and breath, we faint, we die, Ye only view unmoved the unchanging sky. L.o* C. HARVEST-TIDE Yon towns and towers shall fall ; the land lie hare Or choked with forests dense ; and on thy shore The flocks, the herds, the bathers come no more, None there shall be to mark that thou art fair. Only the lone hills shall encompass thee, Thy comrades blind and dumb while Time shall be. Thou shalt glide still, fair stream, uncaring on. Till sea shall be no more, nor earth nor sky. Till all the hapless race of men be gone, And some dread fire shall burn thy fountains dry. Thou in thy changing flow unchanging art. As is the unchanging changeful human heart. Glide on, O silent stream : I would a tongue Were thine, to chant the mysteries of Time ! By one weak voice thou shalt not pass unsung, Glide to Life's sea continual, sublime. Thou shalt not pass away unrhymed so long As men have ears to hear a humble song. 100 PILGRIMS Slowly against the gradual slope^ Following the morning gleam of hope, With feeble forces slow. Our childish footsteps go ; From flower to flower we stray. To cheer our upward way. Till the day draws to noon. And our life's year to June. And then while Springtide cheers us still, We press with Youtli's impatient feet High thoughts and fancies sweet. Against the cloud-wrapt hill. Higher we mount, and higher. Beneath the tyrannous sun Which, till the day is done. Burns with unsparing fire. Love whispers flutter in tlie breeze. Love rests within the grateful shade. Safe hid 'neath secular trees. Our summer home is made. 101 HARVEST-TIDE A little, little while The enchanted noon-tides smile. Till o'er the summits far. Behold the evening star. And then our failing feet again Slope down to the forsaken plain, No more the snows, the skies, Dazzle our weary eyes. But dewy twilights deep. And light and warmth of home, Where, ere the nightfall come. Love giveth rest and sleep. Oh, sacred Love, still at my Nide, My feeble faltering footsteps guide. Oh blessed Pi-esence still. Upon Life's rugged hill. Let thy protecting arm Save us from hurt and harm. Guide Thou us, lest we stray Far from Thy perfect way. 102 AN OLD POET My hand, my pen, lie still. My voice is dumb. No more, unsought, at will Bi-ight visions come ; No more on faery meads. The light forms dance. Nor borne by winged steeds Speeds swift Romance Along the rugged road, With toiling paces slow. Bent by Time's heavy load. The dull feet go. The clear Dawns now shall grow For younger eyes, I mark no more the glow On sunset skies ; Fearless across the foam The gay barks fleet. But mine no more may roam. Since rest grows sweet, Toil brings its fitting meed The haven's rest ; 103 HARVEST-TIDE Toil has its joys indeed, But this is best. Let younger footsteps soar To snows untrod, I strive, I climb no more, Musing with God. Through the closed gates of home Unheeded, half-forgot. Fainter the memories come Of what is not. Tlie Past shows like a dream. The Present hurries fast ; Courage ! Life's seaward stream Flows calm at last ! 104 IN PRAISE OF NIGHT No breath of moi'iiiug wakes The languid dreaming night ; Nor through the thick leaves breaks A gleam of light. But on the brooding calm, And ghostly silence deep, Is shed a dreamy balm Of Rest and Sleep. Then sudden, thro' the trees, Listening, unstirred around, Flutters a fairy breeze With whispering sound. And straightway from the throat Of some half-waking bird. One hesitating note. Dawn's earliest word. And then the tranquil night. Faints in the garish ray. — Loud song, and broader light, Alas ! 't is Day. 105 ON AN OLD STATESMAN Night falls, nor yet we may discern the Dawn ; The sick Age dies, and with it takes the Great, Like perfect music trembling to its close. Or some full river smoothing to its end. Tliou art gone from us, O friend, O precious life that so long served the State ; Thou art gone from us, and fled. To join the undying dead ! Dead ! nay, to lie so long breathing reluctant breath. With fainting forces is not Life but Death ; But at the last to 'scape Earth's toil and strife, Tliat is not Deatli but Life ! Tliat is not Death ! and thou, thou art not dead. Strong soul, beloved head. The' hidden in some secret sphere afar, Some faint, undreamt-of star. In God's mysterious infinite air. Hidden we know not how, we ask not where ! There is no Death, but only change To some new higher birth and strange ; Tliere is no Death, but thou, thou livest still, 106 ON AN OLD STATESMAN Brave soul, undaunted will. Thou silvery tongue, thou old man eloquent. Stout patriot, hater of triumphant wrong. Who ever didst despise the ignobly strong ; For threescore years to guide our Britain sent. There is no Death, nor will we mourn to-day. Only our prayers we send to speed thee on tliy way. But oh ! if fair faint memories of the Earth As is our hope, breathe thro' thy newer life. Forget not thou, in that thy higher birth. The dear dead Past, thy noble emulous strife. The victories of Peace, the friendless weak For whom thy swift tongue ever burned to speak. Forget not thou our well-loved land, nor yet Tlie wider Bi-itain of our hope forget. Nor those who on the sad Armenian plain — As late on earth thou knewest with bitter pain — The Moslem fiend, dishonours, tortures, slays ; Nay, in the pauses of the eternal Psalm Ceasing a little, while from praise Of Him who is ''^most sure in all His ways," Wrapt in a holy calm, Plead thou and intercede For all weak sunken lives that here on earth do pine! 107 HARVEST-TIDE Plead thou, that War's black curse may quickly cease In all-pervading Peace, And speed, if any voice once mortal can, The onward March of Man. 108 ON A YOUNG STATESMAN IN MEMORIAM: THOMAS ELLIS Bala, April 11, 1899 Here in this place of Peace we make his grave. Tranquil, alone, Only Llyn Tegid sobs with constant wave, llie low winds moan. Here as the silent mountains stand around Salem, the blest, Comes no faint murmur of contentious sound To break his rest. For this was he whom happy, favouring Fate, In manhood's bloom. Called to high service of the grateful State, And then — the Tomb. Child of the people, ever proud to keep The ancient tongue, The stern strong Faith, the bardic measures deep. The old hymns sung. 109 HARVEST-TIDE The Tiller's lot he knew, borne down, distrest. With none to teach, Tlie God-sent gifts by ignorance represt Fired his swift speech. Blossom and fruit of that new Dawn of gold, lliat happier Spring, Whither our Wales, with lofty hope grown bold Spreads her glad wing. Ah ! deem it not that he was called from toil. To rest too soon, Escaping from life's sad years' blight and soil. While yet 't was June. Whatever is is best. His will be done. We dare not weep ; Not all His work is wrought beneath the Sun Who giveth sleep. Sing, sing in faith your hymns ! Give thanks ! Rejoice \ "Ac yn ei fedd." Let the dead hear his country's grateful \'oice, '^'^Duw rho dy hedd." 110 LYDSTEP CAVERNS Here in these fretted caverns whence the sea Ebbs only once in all the circling year. Fresh from the deep I lie, and dreamily Await the refluent current stealing near. Not yet the furtive wavelets lip the shore. Not yet Life's too brief interlude is o'er. A child might play, where late the embattled deep Hurled serried squadrons on the rock-fanged shore, Where now the creaming filmy shallows creep, White-horsed battalions dashed with ceaseless roar, Stirred by no breath, the tiny rock-pools lie Glassing in calm the blue September sky. The shy sea bares her guarded treasures here. Her delicate bosom open to the light. Unclothed I lie, where never foot comes near, Unshamed as 't were in watches of the night. Fine as a maiden veil of thinnest lawn. From the white strand the creamy vesture drawn. Here in the cool recesses of the cave. The' sweet to lie, to dream, 't were doom to sleep, 111 HARVEST-TIDE Lest sudden some impatient crested wave. High-horsed, unbitted from the outer deep, Shut fast the gate of life, and choked the breath. And left me prisoned in the vaults of death. To-day the many-hued anemone. Waving expands within the rock-pools green. And swift transparent creatures of the sea Dart through the feathery sea-fronds, scarcely seen. Here all to-day is peaceful calm and still. Here where in storm the thundering breakers fill. Here where the charging ocean-squadi'ons rave, And seethe and shatter on the sounding shore. And smite this high-arched roof, and wave on wave Fall baffled backward, with despairing roar. Or fling against the sheer cliffs overhead. And sow these vaults with wreckage and the dead ; Now all is still. Yet ere to-day is done. Where now these fairy runnels thread the sand Five fathoms deep, the swelling tides shall run Round the blind cave, and swallow rock and strand, And this discovered breast on which I lie Shall clothe itself again with mystery. 112 LYDSTEP CAVERNS Here through the rayless darkness of to-night, Great fishes^, fiery-eyed, with ravening jaw. Hungering will sail, and gorge, and rend, and bite. Obedient to the pitiless primal law. And black eels, slimy, sinuous, haste to tear The hapless swimmer drowned and drifting there. And from their secret hollows in the deep. Mailed things obscene, hooked claw and waving horn Where now I lie, will thronging dart and ci-eep To batten on the violate limbs forlorn, Great devil-fish with strangling arms will cling, And sting-rays flap and slide on impish wing. And then again the ebbing tide will spurn The dank, dead thing which lived and thought to-day Or haply whirl it when its forces turn To the lone plains of ocean, leagues away. Sunk in its rayless depths for evermore. Or flung dishonoured on some alien shore. So full is Nature of unrest and change. So wasteful of her work, so deaf, so blind. So careful of her brute decretals strange, So careless of the empery of mind. 113 HARVEST-TIDE To her the hearts that burn, the souls that soar. Are as her humblest weed and nothing more. Yet like the soul in this, her fullest tide Ebbs furthest, and her inmost deeps lays bare ! Turn refluent wave and swiftly deepening hide^ These haunted rare-revealed abysses fair. There is a calm more perilous than strife. Better the droughts, the steeps, the glare of life ! 114 LUX IN TENEBRIS Ah ! what is life ? A flickeriug fii-e That on the black vault feebly burns, A force which struggles to aspire. Then sudden, quenclied to earth returns. And what is Truth? Our striving eyes Pursue in vain the fleeting light ; Beyond the darkling hills it flies And ere we gain them, lo ! the Night. And what is Knowledge, but a gleam, A little light, a puny spark, A phantasy, a ghost, a dream, Wliich only glimmers in the dark.'' The low sun sinks, the night is here. Life, Truth, and Knowledge fade and die ; But from the illimitable sphere. New suns unnumbered light the sky. 115 ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT ( August 1897 ) In the hush of the midsummer night The roar of the City grew still. There shivered a breeze thro' the sentinel trees, Like a thin ghost fleeing the light. Then the Dawn came up di-eary and chill. And not another sign of life might be But the black river rolling seaward sullenly. But, there by the parapet side. Oh ! what is that pitiful throng Stretched supine, drowned deep in the waters of sleep, Dotting the riverside pavement wide. Like sere leaves down the vistas long ; That sum of hopeless, homeless misery Fringing the sullen river labouring to the sea.'' At times from Dome and from Tower, High minster and abbey gray. Falls the solemn swell of the echoing bell With its knell of the world's dark hour. With its hope of the heavenly Day ; 116 ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT But not a sound reaches those hapless ears Drugged deep by drink and weariness and tears. With no rest for the weary head. The stern city's outcasts lie. Ruined lives brief and long, the feeble, the strong. With the granite their only bed, Sad comrades in misery ; And the mouldering obelisk rears it wedge sublime As erst by the old Nile in the infancy of Time. Ah ! beneficent magic of sleep. Fair country of dreams thrice blest, Wliere old hearts grow young and old love songs are sung, Where the tired eyes forget to weep. ^Vhere the stiffened limbs loosen in rest. And folly, failure, wantonness, nay, crime. Seem cleansed in those still depths, and all the stains of time. There they dream till the aching limb. Wakes the sleeper to life's dull pain. And the hoarse croak of Death chokes the labouring breath And the dulled senses, happily dim, 117 HARVEST-TIDE Seem barbed with new anguish again ; And still no happier sight or sound may be Than the black river labouring sullen to the sea. But to one poor wanderer there Comes the trampling of measured feet, And the harsh command, which constrains him to stand In the dark lantern's blinding glare With a heart that forgets to beat ; Not thus his long dead mother woke her son When work and bread were his and the brief night was done. "Move on!" rings the short, sharp word, But where shall the wanderer go, With no share from birth in the niggardly earth. More homeless than beast or tlian bird? Whither carry his burden of woe.^ Yet the Law speaks, and he must needs obey. And hopeless fare alone upon his desperate way. Then he sprang with a bitter cry From his lair on the cold, hard stone, Stood a moment upright in the Dawn's drear light. Then, bidding his comrades "Good-bye," Leapt into the depths with a groan, 118 ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT A plunge, a sound, and that wrecked life is gone, While the black leaden river rolls unheeding on. Only a wanderer's life. One of myriads who linger behind. Crushed to earth, trampled down by the merciless town. And its cruel struggle and strife. Not the less to a questioning mind These sad tales preach the solemn mystery Of Life, and Fate, and Death, and the dark swallowing Sea. 119 IN PRAISE OF DECEMBER EVENINGS Slow on the waning landscape creeps the night, On hill and plain the gathering shadows fall. Till, last, soft darkness like a velvet pall. Veils all the fading fields and blinds the sight ; Then from the hidden hamlets here and there. From hillside cot, or stately mansion fair. Clear through the frosty, or the milder air. Twinkles home's beacon-light. Dear, swift December evenings, homelier far Than are June's perfumed twilights, warm and still, Her saffron skies, and primrose evening star. Her golden sunsets on the purple hill. Her sports upon the green, her village boys Chasing the bounding ball with merry noise. Her dreaming lovers' visionary joys Which fill young spirits still. Thine is a sober loveliness, denied To those glad twilights of triumphant June, When all the flower-lit fields are glorified. And Love and Youth move to a joyous tune ; 120 IN PRAISE OF DECEMBER EVENINGS Too strongs too fast, the impetuous pulses come. Too restless for the calm content of home, Too far afield the impatient fancies roam In Life's young Summer-tide. But thou, in solemn robes of sombre grey. The wayward, wandering fancy dost recall. Thy star-sprent mantle hides the dying day. Gently thy kindly, brooding shadows fall ; By June's rich voice Love's melodies are sung, The glad, the blithe unreason of the young; Thine the low tranquil tones, the silvery tongue Which calms and comforts all. Fall, swift December evening, not with snow. Rude blast, or drenching i-ain, but clear and fine, With breathless calm, or West-wind whispering low. Till Yule-tide brings again its hope divine ! Summer is gone, with anxious hopes and fears ; Life's tranquil, wintry joys, its precious tears. The lamp that lights, the hearth which warms and cheers. Are all, are only, thine ! 121 THE UNIOiX OF HEARTS AN ODE The Spaniard has fallen ! has fallen ! Give thanks and rejoice, Great West, with a consonant voice ; The Spaniard has fallen, the blight of the ages has fled. And for ever the rule of the priest and the monk lies dead Upon the Philippine and Cuban shore. By the Pacific and the Carib sea The savage Spanish soldier comes no more. The isles once more are free. No more the down-trod peoples cry in vain, In long-unheeded pain ; They are free, they are free once more, after rebellious years Of misery and tears. Famine, Oppression, Torture, Murder, long Stalked through the land, and all the hosts of Wrong, But now the black night spent, the reign of Evil done. High in the unwonted skies a miracle appears. And from the West ascends the fair unhoped-for Sun. 122 THE UNION OF HEARTS Thrice happy are the eyes which mark Amid the unbroken dark, A feeble, struggling ray, Tlie first precursor of approaching day, We who live now, midst crash of shot and shell. And wreck, and blood, and fire as fierce as hell, Discern a wonder to renew the Earth, New-mailed to-day a Titan comes to birth. Born late in Time, the Empire of the Free, Lording the West, co-heiress of the Sea, By whose strong arm and stronger thought and word Shall all mankind be stirred ; A might which joined with England's shall increase The happier doom of Man, the victories of Peace. Strong were our brave forefathers bold, Wlio fought the stubborn Don before, On many a perilous sea and tropic shore. In those adventurous days of old ; Who chased his towering galleons one by one From sea to storm-tossed sea, from shoal to rock. Till that great tempest blew fierce with resistless shock. And God accomplished what their hands began. Laud we the dauntless sailors, whose rude might Saved Europe and the world from the long curse Of the priests' crooked ways, and worse, 123 HARVEST-TIDE The Ignorance lie loves as bats the night. Not yet a century has fled since he. Champion of every European sea, P'ought in his little ship of English oak With those proud banded fleets, and broke Not Spain alone, but spurned the tyrant's yoke Which menaced all the trembling world ; and kept Inviolate our motherland, who bore The mighty empire we acclaim to-day — Our daughter who shall keep Dominion o'er the deep WTien we and all our power have passed away. Laud we our watchful sires who never slept, But kept alive, undimmed, by land and sea A beacon fire, the Freeman's sovereignty. Laud them, but never let our thought forget Tlie fresh wounds bleeding yet ; Tlie brave knights-errant who by land and sea, 'Mid pestilence and misery, 'Neath blinding suns, and glai-e, hunger and thirst. Sought only who should face the foeman first. Mown down by shot and shell, yet climbing still Against those grinning casemates on the hill ; For hours untended 'neath a tropic sky. Left hopeless in the pitiless glare to die. 124 THE UNION OF HEARTS Young lives for whom till then. Life's primrose way Lay smiling uneventful day by day. Sons worthy of their sires, who willing gave Wealth, health, love, life itself to free the slave. But those for home and country fought, while they For alien sufferings flung their lives away. And praise those strong new Paladins of to-day Who keep alive our glorious story still. The dauntless seamen who with patient skill ^V^aiting on daring, drove the hapless prey To wreck and ruin, while the unerring stroke, Of giant bolts the steel-mailed cruisers broke. Scatheless themselves, and yet whose pitiful hand Succoured the vanquished. Worthy sons are they Of Drake or Nelson, or that gallant band Those later heroes of their own loved land, ^Vho bore for all to mai*k, the chivalry And daring of the Sea. Nor shall a generous people yet Their eulogy forget VV^ho fought a hopeless fight and fought it well ; The humble lives which in the blazing hold Half-naked, bleeding, dreadful to behold, Braved the dread doom of fire, 125 HARVEST-TIDE Who lately from the leaguered harbour weut With lace and cross and warlike ornament To death as to a feast. Stout hearts and undismayed ! Not to the free alone, but to the slave 'T is given to be brave. Nor lastly shall our souls forget The mighty silent sister, whose strong fleets Stud each discovered sea. Whose warm heart after age-long discords beats Oh, sister land in harmony with thee ! But for her watchful squadrons who can tell What stress of sordid jealousies befell, What hindering force of harm. The glorious work of thy avenging arm .'' 'T was England's might secured thy work to thee ! Kinsman to kin allied, freeman to free. Together oh, great sisters, ever keep. Together rule the highway of the Deep, Together sound the knell of tyranny. Swear a great oath that Thought and Man are free ! Together raise a beacon from afar. The Light of Equity too strong for War, Together let your tranquil realms increase. Till all the future of mankind is Peace ! 126 SIR GALAHAD Let others sing with earthy lays Of women fair or brown ; Not such the Goddess that I praise As worthy of a crown. A snowy neck, a sparkling eye. Red lips and rippling hair. Not these the charms for which I sigh. Not these adorn my fair. Let those who will, with crapulous mirth. Exalt the praise of wine ; I hold their joys of little worth, Not such a worship mine. To the enfranchised soul and thought The sordid gains of sense And mean delights are less than nought Compared with innocence. But let me chase from vale to hill My visionary Love ; Pursuing ever, baffled still. Yet beckoned from above. 127 HARVEST-TIDE From youth to age, from life to death. This dream my soul shall keep Till with my last expiring breath I wake at length from sleep. 128 A CAROL Dark are the days, the nights are long, Blithe Summer's joys are done, Yet in our hearts we keep the Sun, And raise a cheerful song. Bare is the world, or deep in snow. Yet are our souls aglow. What spell is this, what still mysterious voice. That calls "Rejoice! Rejoice!" It is, that on the weary earth With every dying year A great hope dawns, a glorious birth. Returns our souls to cheer. Again, again, the Eternal Child, The Virgin-Mother mild. Ring, joy-bells, ring, clear through the frosty air. Ring gladness everywhere. Sound, gracious as that hea\'enly word Of old in Bethlehem, By night of wondering shepherds heard. When angels spake with them. 129 HARVEST-TIDE ''Peace, peace on earth to faithful men," This be our strain as then. To-day, to-day let all rejoice indeed, Whate'er their form of creed. Peace be and joy ! Ay, though it seem To world-worn eyes and ears Across dark g-ulphs of strife and tears. Only a heavenly dream. Divine, divine our souls shall hold Those precious words of old. Goodwill and peace to men — the halt, the blind. The poor, nay, all mankind. Therefore we raise our cheerful song, A strain of solemn mirth. Our hope is clear, our faith is strong, In a regenerate Earth. No doubt shall come our eyes to dim. Or check our faithful voice, To Peace on Earth, we raise our Christmas hymn, Whose burden is "Rejoice." 130 AT THE POPULAR CONCERTS ( 1868-98 ) Silent with listening soul I hear. Strains hushed for many a noisy year, The passionate chords which wake the tear, Tlie sweet old love-songs dear. The dreams of youth surround me still, Thin thronging ghosts the benches fill, The old hopes glow, the old fears chill. Dead aspirations thrill. A little graver, or more gray. Though thirty years have fled away. Scarce changed, the same musicians play Tlie self-same themes to-day. How swift Time fleets, yet here how slow. How scant the visible changes show. New hopes inspire, new empires grow. Yet still the master's bow With magic wakes the slumbering string; Glad tears, the slow bass gains to bring; 131 HARVEST-TIDE Tlie silvery, swift sonatas ring, High soaring voices sing. 'T is I am changed, yet ah ! not cold. Oh, precious tones and strains of old, Still round Life's warring discord fold Linked harmonies of gold. 132 SHINE CLEAR, SHINE BRIGHT Shine clear, shine bright, celestial wells of light, And pierce the mists that bound our earthly sight, Dispel, disperse night's gathered shades away. Till the dawn broadens into perfect day. Sound pure, sound clear, upon the listening ear. High faultless accents of the starry sphere ; Silence earth's warring cries of doubt and pain. And wake the primal harmonies again. Calm blessed hands unfelt, rebellious sense. With the cool vestal touch of innocence. Beam on us still, invisible gaze serene. And lift our minds where long our hearts have been. Thus only shall our purged spii'its rise Thro' sight and touch and hearing to the skies. Thus, only our enfranchised souls pursue Some ghost, some note, some vesture of the True. 138 IN MEMORIAM WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE Ay, tliou hast gained the end Of long and glorious strife. Consoled by love and friend. Thrice blessed life ! If all the immortal die What gain hath life to give, If all the immortal live Death brings no sigh ! Oh, long life lit with praise For Duty nobly done, High aims, laborious days. And the crown won ! Why should we mourn and weep That thou dost toil no more? At length God gi\'es thee sleep. Thy labours o'er i The crying of the weak Called not to thee in vain ; Thy swift tongue burned to speak Relief to pain. 134 IN MEMORIAM The liglitning of thy scorn No wrong might long defy, Thy ruth for lives forlorn, Tliy piercing eye. Good Knight ! no soil of wrong Thy spotless shield might stain ; Thy keen sword served thee long. And not in vain. Oh, high impetuous soul. That, mounting to the Light, Spurned'st the dull world's control To gain the Right. 'Mid strife the Century dies — Massacre, Famine, War; The noise of groans and sighs Is borne afar. Tlie monstrous cannon roar, Tlie earth, the air, are torn, 'Mid thunderings evermore Time's Dawns are born ! But thou no more art here. But watchest far away. Calm in some peaceful sphere. The Eternal Day. 13.5 HARVEST-TIDE Oh^ thou who long didst guide Our Britain's loyal will. Invisible at her side Aid thou her still ! Oh, aged life and blest. Wearing thy duteous years. Enter thou on thy rest; We shed no tears ! Wear thou thy labours to thy country given, Thy eloquent tongue, thy keen untiring brain. Thy changeless love of Man, thy trust in Heaven, Thy crown of Pain. 136 DARK RAYS Through the abysses unsuspected roll Dark orbs unnoted by the bodily eye Yet visible to the soul. The labouring ages wane and die. Low burns and lower life's expiring sun, Man's history is done. Yet tho' no eye detect the rayless star Shed from those unimagined regions far. Blind influences are. Yea, though it fail to shine. Some dark, invisible light. Some secret force malefic or divine Pierces the encircling night. Not only 'neath high noon's unclouded sky Our onward march is spent. But with us on our dim uulighted way. Mysterious guides are sent ; Dark powers unseen for good or ill, Direct, mislead, oppress man's hesitating will. 137 FOR BRITAIN A SOLDIER'S SONG ( December 1899 ) Oh, our Britain is a noble realm, as all the nations know. She fought the Don, the Gaul, the Russ, and brought their boastings low ; She rules the stormy main, she holds full half the earth in fee. And where her glorious banner flies, there every man is free. Chorus — Then cheer for noble Britain all, with one ! two ! three ! Triumphant ever shall she be, o'er land and over sea ; The sword and gun were never forged could make our Mother rue. While stalwart arms and loyal hearts are to their Country true. Maybe the crafty Muscovite would bring her greatness down. Maybe the Dutchman grudges her her greatness and i-enown ; 138 FOR BRITAIN Our friends across the herring--pond grow spiteful now and then. So ironclad let her navies be, and hearts of oak her men. Chorus — Then cheer for noble Britain all, with one ! two ! three ! Triumphant ever shall she be, by land and over sea ; The sword and gun were never forged could make our Mother rue, WTiile stalwart arms and loyal hearts are to their Country true. Ay, never fear for Britain, let the plotters work their will, Let them skulk in treacherous ambush, belching fire from rock and hill ; Though her generals may blunder, though her bravest sons are slain. Though her best blood flows like water, and the sacri- fice seems vain — Chorus — Still cheer for noble Britain, and ere yet your tears are shed. Tend the wounded, feed the children, who have lost for you their bread ; 139 HARVEST-TIDE Never doubt our final triumph, we will rout them, never fear, When we bolt them from their rat-holes, to the open, fair and clear. Let us set our teeth together, till the bloody task is done, Never doubt our final triumph — we will make the Burghers run. Lance, bayonet, and sabre we will make the rebels feel, Krupp himself can forge no truer than our home-made Bi'itish steel. Chorus — Then cheer for noble Britain all, with one ! two ! three ! Triumphant ever shall she be, by land and over sea ; The sword and gun were never forged could make our Mother rue. While stalwart arms and loyal hearts are to their Country true. March together! all are comrades, peer and peasant, knit in one. North, South, East, West, by common bonds, till all the peril 's done, 140 FOR BRITAIN Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Colonial, with our England's power and pride. One Queen, one Realm, one People, and Columbia at our side. Chorus — Tlien cheer for noble Britain all, with one ! two ! three ! Triumphant ever shall she be, by land and over sea. The sword and gun were never forged could make our Mother rue, WTiile stalwart arms and loyal hearts are to their Country true. 141 FROM DAWN TO EVE The swift dawn groweth, The frail flower bloweth. Solemn Eve brings her shades. The sweet blossom fades ; This is the secret of the ancient Eai-th, This is the primal mystery of birth. Full noon rides on high, Through the shadowless sky. Black clouds gather round, Fanged with fire big with sound ; This is the tale of Life, portentous, strange, Chequered with pain, the sport of Time and Change. The fountain upspringeth, The strong pinion wingeth. The weak waters sink down. And the tired bird has flown ; This is in brief the tale of the breathing of breath. This is the sum of man's story from Birth unto Death. 142 ON A BIRTHDAY ( May 24, 1899 ) Fourscore long years, fourscore ! Maiden and wife and mother, pure and white, A blameless life lived in thy people's sight, What would our longing more? Fourscore blest years to-day. Lived on a giddy height, yet not borne down By the great burden of the Imperial crown. In solitary sway. All the long perilous years That thou hast ruled, always thy people's Queen, Loyal to Law and Freedom hast thou been Through joy alike and tears. Throned in thy nation's heart Tlie despot's crooked ways thou could'st not know ; To watch the broadening tide of freedom grow. This was thy selfless part. Always thy people's pain, Thy tender woman's heart with pity stirred ; 143 HARVEST-TIDE Thy generous hand, thy gracious royal word, Were never sought in vain. Upon thy widowed throne. Seated apart from all in lonely state. Alone, thou didst confront thy regal fate, Unaided and alone. Nay ! for thy royal heart Thy people's love sustained ; blest memories still Of too brief happiness thy soul could fill And nerve thee for thy part. Sustained, supported still In that deep solitude which hems the great A feeble hand to guide the helm of state, But an Imperial will. And ranged around thy throne Children and children's children, puissant, sti-ong. His oifspring even as thine, a sceptred throng; Nay, thou wast not alone ! Of pageantries of state Patient, the hills, the seas thou boldest dear, A crowned Republican, simple, austere. Contented to be great. 144 ON A BIRTHDAY Oh, aged thin-drawn life, Wliose golden thread binds fast the world in peace, Not yet, not yet, may thy worn forces cease To bar the gates of strife ! Thy grandsire flung away A people's loyal love thro' stubborn pride ; Re-knit to-day the kinsmen side by side. Acclaim thy gentle sway. No higher glory thine Than this, the best achievement of thy life, ITiat sister peoples spurning hate and strife For peace and love combine ! Fourscore such years, fourscore ! No greater gift than this high Heaven can send ; Front thou unfearing. Mother ! Sovereign ! Friend ! What still it holds in store ! 145 A FRAGMENT Then rose a shout. As of a people long-time mute, which found A sudden voice and with it power. The cry Blending in one loud roar, the unnumbered sum Of petty dissonant lives, laughter and tears. Rage, terror, 2)leasure, triumph ; mingled, blent In one consentient utterance ; burst a flood In thunder down the echoing colonnades And dim recesses of the storied shrines, Where dwelt the elder gods ; big with high dooms And presages of Fate. Then, ere it fell. The clamour like a bickering thunder rolled Afield beyond the city gates, and woke The silent river loitering to the sea, Till the shy sea-mews wailed. Last on the hills Untrodden, dim, which hung 'tween plain and sky, Mounting it smote, and on her eyrie roused The watchful, nesting eagle, till she raised Her half-closed eyelids ; the light-footed fox Pricked a keen ear ; all birds and beasts of prey, Seeking their meat in silence in the night. Paused from the quest a moment at the shock 146 A FRy\.GMENT Of that strange formless roar. Auou it died^ Swallowed in silence ; and the loneliness Of that still listening world grew terrible, As is the ghostly rush of worlds which wheel For ever through the ages dumb and dead ; Yet no voice came. But what had been, had been. 147 ARMED PEACE ( January 1899 ) The hopes of Humanity fly, the doubts and the terrors remain. Knowledge droops and the Churches sig-h, and the world is girdled with pain, Tlie shadow of War broods deep, alike over mainland and sea, And men's eyes stare vacant of sleep for thought of the evils to be. Man sickens as under a curse, and only his burdens increase. Scarce are War's dread calamities worse, than the blight of an Armed Peace, Deflowered is his innocent youth, brought low is the Pride of the Race, With its wings that would soar to the Truth, fallen earthward in deep disgrace. The young men sober and chaste, strong sires of tlie ages to come. On the stews or the tavern waste the tempez'ate virtues of home. 148 ARMED PEACE The maidens their destined wives, in pure wedlock and motherhood sweet, Pine uuwedded, unsought, and alone, or dishonour the sin-befouled street. Allured and engrossed by the cost of the engines of slaughter and pain, Half the fruits of Science are lost, spent on deadly de- vices in vain. Overburdened, fettered and bound, faint, despairing, ill-housed and ill-fed. The workers lie crushed to the ground in a bitter striving for bread ; In kennels obscene they are pent, where hardly a hound should dw ell. While the wealth that might free them is spent on a nightmare of imminent hell. Scarce a pittance is left men to spare for the needs of the pitiful throng. Who assail them with impotent prayer in vain, tho' the suffrage be strong. Nor succour to give to the old, the feeble^ the outcasts forlorn. Who in nakedness, hunger, and cold curse God that they ever were born. 149 HARVEST-TIDE Nor clear A'oice of learning to rouse the slumbering spirit and brain, Nor Homes of Compassion to house the sad sum of in- curable pain. For Moloch cries loud for his dead, with a thunderous roar, and his shrine Craves the flesh of the peoples for bread, and the blood of their slaughter for wine. 150 THE FORTUNES OF BRITAIN ( April 1898 ) My Britain, they cavil and sneer, And bid thee take heed to thy ways, Forgetting, oh, Motherland dear. Thy secular praise ! How wherever thy proud banner flew Freedom followed, with order and right. And thy sails lit the limitless blue Like pillars of Light ! Nay, my England, thou wilt not forget. Thou the mother and home of the free, Tlie bounds by thy Destiny set 'Twixt the nations and thee. Not thine, the mad folly to boast, ^\lth the braggart delighting in war ; But to guard thy inviolate coast, And thy children afar. No need for their warning is thine Lest thou fall from vainglory and pride ; Oh, mother of men, half-divine. Bearing sway far and wide ! 151 HARVEST-TIDE Tliough the frost of the Muscovite chain The nomads Rome never might tame ; Tliough childless France crackle in vain Like a thorn-brake aflame. With no worthier message to guide The peoples wlio bow to her rod. Than crowned Wantonness, Faith thrust aside, And denial of God ; The stiff German's mechanical drill Dash to ruin the hopes of the South, Till men hear with a wondering chill The harsh words of his mouth ; Till Armenia, till Hellas again Are swept by the Mussulman flood. And the loathly Turk triumphs in vain ; Through torture and blood. None of these know to build up the State Reared to Heaven on the rock of the Free, Nor dare the Imperial Fate Which is given to thee ; No offspring of theii's over sea Shall replenish the wastes of the earth. No empire in days that shall be Of their loins, come to birth ; They shall pass, while the world marching on 152 THE FORTUNES OF BRITAIN Takes no heed for their fugitive name, But though their brief puissance is gone, Shall remember thy fame. Thine, oh mother, it is, thine alone. The hearts of thy lieges to move. To raise up the myriads who groan To Freedom through love ! From the North to the South thou shalt sway, Thou shalt sway from the East to the ^Vest, From the Dawn to the setting of Day, Thy rule be confest. So long as thou workest for Man Through Freedom and Justice and Peace, Let thy enemies strive as they can. Still thou shalt increase. Yet not long shall thy Empire endure. If thy wandering footsteps have trod Crooked pathways, o'ershadowed, obscure, Far from Light and from God ; Thy strong fleets and armies shall fail, Thou shalt fade from the knowledge of men ; But march onward, be bold and prevail, God helping, till then. 153 HARVEST-TIDE Not on armies or fleets let thy might : Be built, oh dear Motherland sweet, But always toward Mercy and Right Set thy labouring feet. Who in these things rejoiceth ; her pride Is the pride of the Faithful and Just, And her name shall be glorified When all else is dust. 154 IN ANOTHER ALBUM Flit softly Muse, nor dread too much tliy fate, O'er this fair cloistered pleasaunce of the great ; Ah me ! through many a close-locked shrine of yore. Thy young wings flew where now they come no more. Here amid gathered stores of every art, Essay once more to do thy courtly part. See, of thy kinsfolk, on the storied wall, The taper neck on which the axe should fall ; Hard by, her daughter too, the maiden Queen, Who broke the tyrannous Spaniard's pride, is seen Here with the painter's art, rich ceilings glow. And nymph and goddess light the scene below; Unfading tapestries enrich the stair. And tlie dead grandame still is young and fair ; The old East brings the Persian's subtle grace. The lattice which reveals, not hides the face. The potter's fictile hand, the goldsmith's skill. In costly ranks the ordered chambers fill ; All precious things, which make existence sweet. And dull the tramp of Time's advancing feet. 155 HARVEST-TIDE Flow gently ink, nor with rude blot deface The page a Queenly hand has deigned to grace, Crown, Muse, thy head with flowers discreetly gay. For Springtide summons, and the hour is May. 156 APOLOGIA Be failure mine, not fame ; Let not the ignorant, applauding crowd With coarse Ilosannas loud, Worse than the carping critic's venal blame, Flout my dishonoured name. I alone know the goal I strove to win. How strait the gate, how few may enter in. How high the white peaks loom upon the skies, Too far, too fair, too faint for mortal eyes. Brief is our road, evil and few our days. Spare them the insult of unworthy praise ! Let the conspiring throng Laud the obscure, the inarticulate line, WTiich, wilfully defrauding sense and song. Drags its dull length along. Or those whose doggrel Muse delights to teach Treasures of gutter-speech. Such praise be never mine ! Too great, too deep the reverence I owe To those whose pious hands were first to sow The little seed by Fate decreed to grow, 157 HARVEST-TIDE To the sweet roses of our English tongue. The immortal, honeyed measures sung, The lucid radiance fine ; Not the dipt speech, the dark mock-mysteries Shall ever charm like these. Such praise be never mine ! But let me still regard with straining sight The perilous steep, the yet unconquered height. Let me a little higher than the plain. Admire, aspire, faint, and recede again. Advancing, failing, still Not far above the sights and sounds of life. The humble hearts of men, the toil, the strife. Let me unmarked admire The cloud-wrapt heights, the dark gloom dealing fire. For should I gain even for a moment's space To see the young Apollo face to face. Pressing my feet against the sacred hill. What gain were it to feel Life hid no worthy secret to reveal. No thick-veiled heights beyond ; And I, knowing how weak my voice and brain. Should feel not joy, but an immense despond. And for the chequered victories that were. Only a blank despair? 158 APOLOGIA Therefore I seek not praise. But with my lot am well content, If only, when my days are done, Somewhere beneath the aspect of the sun, Haply some grateful, humbler soul shall say : "Not on himself he spent What modest gift was his, nor on wise brains and strong, But to the toiling, unregarded crowd Of souls, by Time and Labour bent and bowed, For solace of their daily bui'den, vowed His litany of Song." 159 SHERBORNE AN ODE Sung on its SoOth Anniversary April 20, 1900 I 'T IS fifty years since last we met to keep our festal day, And many are gone, and some are here, tho' wrinkled now and grey The long dim past grows clearer as we meet, and not in vain Recall the fleeting days of youth and turn to boys again ! Our years increase, our blood runs slow, we hasten to gi-ow old, But never shall our souls forget, till heart and hand are cold ; Tlie old school, the dear school, where we were boys together ; The old days, the dear days of life's young April weather. AVhen the future filled with gleams of gold the musing boyish eye. And all the world seemed at our feet, and hope- ful hearts beat high ! 160 SHERBORNE II Many have since by East and West found glory or a tomb. Some toiled for God and country 'mid the city's stifling gloom, Some midst wrangling of the Forum, or dull chaffer- ing of the Mart, Have slaved for children and for home, contented with their part ; Their years increased, their limbs moved slow, they hastened to grow old, But never did their souls forget, till heart and hand were cold ; The old school, the dear school, where we were boys together ; The old days, the dear days of life's young April weather. When the future filled with gleams of gold the musing boyish eye, And all the world seemed at our feet, and hope- ful hearts beat high ! 161 HARVEST-TIDE III Grey are our heads but still there come bright lads with sunny hair, The gay throngs wake the cloistered courts where once their grandsires vvere, Youth, like a red rose, lights the shade with gleams of rising day ; Dear Lord ! guide Tliou their footsteps while they tread life's perilous way. Increase their years, make strong their limbs, prepare them to grow old. But never let their souls forget, till heart and hand are cold ; The old school, the dear school, where we were boys together ; The old days, the dear days of life's young April weather. When the future filled with gleams of gold the musing boyish eye. And all the world seemed at our feet, and hope- ful hearts beat high ! 162 SHERBORNE We are strangers when we visit now the scenes we loved before, The playfields and the river where we raced and plunged of yore ; Youth blossoms, and shall blossom still when centuries have gone, And young lives, to-day undreamt of, shall press tire- less, fearless, on ; Their years shall grow, their limbs move slow, and they in turn grow old. But never may their souls forget, till heart and hand are cold ; The old school, the dear school, where they were boys together ; The old days, the dear days of life's young April weather. Wlien the future filled with gleams of gold the musing boyish eye. And all the world seemed at their feet, and hope- ful hearts beat higrh ! 163 HARVEST-TIDE V Let us band ourselves together, sons of Sherborne, young and old. Let us swear it by the Minster, while the curfew bell is tolled ; Come good or evil fortune, bright successes, dreary days. For the old school which nourished us we thrill with love and praise. Our years increase, our blood runs slow, we hasten to grow old. But never shall our souls forget, till heart and hand are cold ; The old school, the dear school, where we were boys together ; The old days, the dear days of life's young April weather. VlTien the future filled with gleams of gold the musing boyish eye, And all the world seemed at our feet, and hope- ful hearts beat high ! 164 RHYME, THE CONSOLER The injuries of Time, The treacherous years. Fate's pitiless march sublime. Life's hopes and fears. Defeats, calamities; Their lives scant power in Man, to master such as these. There is no comfort left In rite or spell. For lives of love bereft. Or loved too well. Long, self-inflicted grief, Alas ! Time brings for such nor solace nor relief. The princely gains of Tliought, Knowledge the Queen, No remedy have brought For what has been, Nor healing balm impart ; The philosophic brain soothes not the stricken heart. But who with steadfast mind And musing eye, 1G5 HARVEST-TIDE To eitlier fate resigned. Questions not why, For him, not all in vain Rhyme brings with honeyed tones an anodyne to pain. 166 A VISION Oh^ wonder ! oh, transport ! Oh ecstacy ! that fills the purged sight With beams of golden light. And is this then the old familiar Earth, Or a new sphere gained by a second birth? As waking from my cloistered slumbers deep, I spurn the caves of sleep. Oh, wonder surpassing ! A hundred suns for one, with constant light. Awake the ethereal air and banish Night ; Sleep shrinks abashed, and Sleep's half-sister Death, Nor Time disturbs, nor Age, nor failing breath. While high ineffable rhythms roll around Harmonious waves of sound. Oh, glory ! oh, rapture ! For lo ! the troubles and the toils are past. Done are the chequered years of Earth at last. The wandering footsteps on the unlighted way ; Here the new Dawn ushers unfailing Day. Oh calm effulgence from a cloudless sky ! Spirit! is this to die? 167 HARVEST-TIDE Oh, marvel ! oli^ glory ! For see once more the lost are here again Unchanged in aught, yet purged of earthly stain ; And lo ! the saints, the sages, a white throng Chanting with accents clear the Eternal song. Martyrs of Truth who bare in every age The World's despite and rage. Oh, vision enchanting ! Here there is work for all ; dutiful, blest Sweeter and higher far than idle rest. Work that exalts the man above the brute ; Laborious days that never fail of fruit ; Forces that faint not ; brains that never tire ; Souls that aspire ! aspire ! Oh, wonder amazing ! Lo ! 't is the self-same world, tho' seeming strange By some ineffable change, And such transforming radiance grown divine As never on the sad old Earth might shine. And hark, the long hushed tones of homely love. And lo ! the clear calm eyes which looked above. Yea, here or leagues beyond the farthest sun Nor life, nor love are done ! 168 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: April 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 Illlfl LIBRARY OF CONGRESS III iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii III mil II I iiiiiiiiiiiiii 014 526 089 9