AFTER PARADISE 
 
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AFTER PARADISE 
 
 OR LEGENDS OF EXILE. 
 
AFTER PARADISE 
 
 OR LEGENDS OF EXILE 
 WITH OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT, EARL OF LYTTON 
 
 M 
 
 (OWEN MEREDITH) 
 
 AUTHOR'S EDITION 
 
 BOSTON 
 ESTES & LAURIAT 
 
 1887 
 
9* 
 
 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 The Titlark's Nest: A Parable 
 
 Legends of Exile 
 
 First Series : Man and Woman. 
 
 I. — The Legend of Poetry 
 
 II.— The Legend of Music 
 
 III. — The Legend of Love 
 
 IV. — The Legend of the Ideal 
 
 Second Series : Man and Beast. 
 I. — The Legend of the Elephant ... 
 
 II. — The Legend of the Ass 
 
 III. — The Legend of the Dead Lambs 
 
 IV. — The Legend of Eve's Jewels 
 
 V. — The Legend of Fable 
 
 L'ENVOI : AD .ESOPUM 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 *5 
 
 27 
 
 49 
 55 
 
 67 
 77 
 85 
 93 
 103 
 117 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 PAGE 
 125 
 
 Transformations : A Midsummer Night's Dream 
 
 North and South 134 
 
 Athens (1865) 135 
 
 ClNTRA (1868) ... 136 
 
 Sorrento Revisited (1885) J 4^ 
 
 Fragrance: A Spring Ballad 149 
 
 Lines written in Sleep 156 
 
 Prometheia: Freedom of Speech and Press, et oetera : 
 Part I 159 
 
 Part II 
 
 Part III 
 
 Part IV 
 A Sigh ... 
 Necromancy 
 
 Uriel : A Mystery 
 
 Scorn 
 
 Strangers : A Rhapsody ... 
 Allegro, Andante, Adagio 
 
 .. 166 
 
 •• 179 
 
 .. 184 
 
 .. 192 
 
 .. 192 
 
 •• 193 
 
 .. 206 
 
 .. 208 
 
 .. 226 
 
THE TITLARK'S NEST 
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
THE TITLARK'S NEST. 
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 " Introite, nam et huic deii sunt." 
 
 Apud Gellium. 
 
 Where o'er his azure birthplace still the smile 
 Of sweet Apollo kindles golden hours, 
 
 High on the white peak of a glittering isle 
 A ruin'd fane within a wild vine's bowers 
 
 Muffled its marble-pillar'd peristyle ; 
 
 As under curls, that clasp in frolic showers 
 
 A young queen's brow, her antique diadem's 
 
 Stern grandeur hides its immemorial gems. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 2. 
 
 The place was solitary, and the fane 
 
 Deserted save that where, in saucy scorn 
 
 Of desolation's impotent disdain, 
 
 The revelling leaves and buds and bunches born 
 
 From that wild vine along a roofless lane 
 
 Of mouldering marble columns roanvd, one morn 
 
 A titlark, by past grandeur unopprest, 
 
 Had boldly built her inconspicuous nest. 
 
 3- 
 
 And there where girt by priests and devotees 
 A god once gazed upon the suppliant throng, 
 
 Wild foliage waved by every wandering breeze 
 
 Now shelter'd one small bird ; to whose lone song, 
 
 Companioned by no choral minstrelsies, 
 An aged shepherd listened all day long. 
 
 Unlearn'd the listener and untaught the lay, 
 
 But blithe were both in their instinctive way. 
 
THE TITLARK'S NEST 
 
 4- 
 Thither once came a traveller who had read 
 
 Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, and had all 
 The terms of architecture in his head, 
 
 Apophyge, and plinth, and astragal. 
 He, from below, had in its leafy bed 
 
 Spied out the carcass of an antique wall, 
 Keen as, from heaven, the hovering condor spies 
 Where, in the pampas hid, a dead horse lies. 
 
 5- 
 
 " Pelasgian ? Nought doth old Pausanias say 
 
 About this ruin, and I find no plan 
 Or note of it in learned Caylus ; nay, 
 
 I doubt not it was miss'd by Winckelmann. 
 The prize is mine. No joke, this hot noon-day, 
 
 To climb yon hill ! But Science leads the van 
 Of Enterprise; and now's the chance to shame 
 The English Elgin's cheaply-purchased fame. 
 
6 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 6. 
 
 " Ho, you there, yonder in the bramble-bush ! " 
 The tired explorer to the shepherd cried, 
 
 "A drachma for thy guidance, friend I" But "Hush !" 
 The grey-hair'd herdsman of the hills replied. 
 
 Then, pointing upward to the leafage lush 
 
 That rippled round the ruin'd fane, with pride 
 
 He added " Hark, where yonder leaves are swinging, 
 
 The god's voice from his sanctuary singing ! " 
 
 7- 
 
 The traveller laugh'd. " 'Tis a cumica small, 
 
 The Orphea, I surmise, whose note we hear. 
 Her nest is haply in yon temple wall. 
 
 An earlier songstress she, and sings more clear, 
 Than her small northern cousin whom we call 
 
 Atricapilla Sylvia. But I fear, 
 My worthy friend, we must not deem divine 
 Each vagrant voice that issues from a shrine." 
 
THE TITLARK'S NEST 7 
 
 8. 
 "Yet," said the old man, with a pensive smile, 
 
 ' ; I heard my mother tell when I was young 
 (And she, Sir, was a daughter of this isle) 
 
 How everything that's here had once a tongue, 
 In the old times. Myself, too, many a while 
 
 Have heard the streamlets singing many a song, 
 And, tho' their language was unknown to me, 
 The reeds were moved by it, as I could see. 
 
 9- 
 
 " Sir, when I was a boy I pastured here 
 
 My father's goats which now, Sir, are mine own. 
 For he is underground this many a year, 
 
 But he had lived his life, and Heaven hath shown 
 Much goodness to us, and my children dear 
 
 Are all grown up ; and, musing here alone, 
 Oft have I wonder'd c Could this temple break 
 Long silence, in what language would it speak ? J 
 
8 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 10. 
 u Full sure was I that if it spoke to me, 
 
 Whate'er its language, I should understand. 
 Then, I was young : and now, tho' old I be, 
 
 When sweet in heaven above the silent land 
 That voice I hear, my soul feels glad and free, 
 
 And I am fain to bless the god's command, 
 With welcome prompt responding to the voice 
 He sends from heaven to bid my heart rejoice. 
 
 ii. 
 " Ah, not in vain its message have I heard ! 
 
 And, Sir, tho' it may be, as you aver, 
 The voice comes only from a little bird, 
 
 Whose name, indeed, I never heard of, Sir, 
 And tho' I doubt not aught by you averr'd, 
 
 For you, Sir, seem a learned traveller, 
 Yet still the temple that contains the song 
 A temple is, and doth to God belong. 
 
THE TITLARK'S NEST. 9 
 
 12. 
 
 " And haply to the little bird I hear 
 
 He may have said ' I am myself too high 
 
 For this poor man. Speak to him thou, speak clear, 
 And tell him, little bird, that he may lie 
 
 On consecrated ground and have no fear, 
 But listen to thy messages, and try 
 
 To understand.' And I have understood, 
 
 For when I listen, Sir, it does me good." 
 
 "Plumph!" said the traveller, "Worthy friend, live long 
 Ere yet thy children lay thee underground ! 
 
 Pasture thy goats in peace, and may the song 
 Of many a titlark make thee pleasant sound, 
 
 Warbled all day thy cottage eaves among. 
 
 Such simple songs where simple hearts abound 
 
 Fit place may find, but not in halls where hoar 
 
 Poseidon haply held high state of yore." 
 
io AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 14. 
 
 " Ay, Sir, it is but right," the old shepherd said, 
 " The little bird should to the god give place 
 
 Whenever he returns. But where is fled 
 
 The sacred Presence that once deign'd to grace 
 
 These lonesome haunts so long untenanted ? 
 Roam where you will, the sanctuaried space 
 
 Is vacant, voiceless, priestless, unpossest, 
 
 Save for the bird that in it builds her nest. 
 
 IS- 
 " Yet into this dead temple's heart hath flown 
 
 A voice of life, and this else-silent shrine 
 The bird whose nest is built in it hath known 
 
 How to make vocal. Thro' the trembling vine 
 Hark, the fresh carol ! Till to claim his own 
 
 The god returns in all his power divine, 
 Still unforbidden let me hail the strain 
 That haunts with living song the lifeless fane." 
 
LEGENDS OF EXILE. 
 
FIRST SERIES. 
 
 MAN AND WOMAN. 
 
 ' Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." 
 
 Psalm viii. 
 
I. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF POETRY. 
 
Adam and Eve, cast out of Paradise, 
 Wander'd along the wilderness forlorn, 
 Till all its unfamiliar sands and skies 
 Were one dim solitude without a bourne. 
 Then Eve, outwearied, sank upon the ground ; 
 And, where she fell, motionless she remain'd. 
 Adam had climb'd a little barren mound 
 A few steps farther. There he stood, and strain'd 
 His backward gaze to the forbidden bound 
 Of Eden. Still their banisht lord could see, 
 Though faint in fading light, the happy bowers 
 Where nevermore his fallen mate and he 
 Might roam or rest, renewing griefless hours : 
 And Adam groan'd. 
 
1 8 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Meanwhile, unheard, unview'd, 
 Jehovah's arm'd Archangel, from the gate 
 He had shut forever, adown the solitude 
 And darkness of that world all desolate 
 The footsteps of the fugitives pursued. 
 
 Sudden he stood by Adam's side, and said, 
 
 " Man, thou hast far to go. It is not good 
 
 To look behind thee. Forward turn thy head ! 
 
 Thither thy way lies." And the man replied 
 
 "I cannot." "What thou canst thou knowest not," 
 
 The Archangel answer'd, " for thou hast not tried. 
 
 But trial is henceforth Man's earthly lot, 
 
 And what he must he can do." Adam cried 
 
 " What must I ? " " Thou hast set aside God's word, 
 
 But canst not," said the Angel, " set aside 
 
 Necessity ; whose bidding, tho' abhorr'd, 
 
 Obey thou must." And i\dam ask'd in awe 
 
THE LEGEND OF POETRY. 19 
 
 " Is then Necessity another Lord ? " 
 
 The Angel answer'd " Tis another Law." 
 
 "Another Law! But me thy sweeping sword 
 
 Hath left not," Adam mutter'd, " hap what may, 
 
 Another Paradise to forfeit still. 
 
 What if that other Law I disobey ? " 
 
 "Thou canst not," sigh'd the Seraph, " for thy will 
 
 Hath lost its freedom, which was yesterday 
 
 A part of Paradise. For good or ill 
 
 Necessity controls it. Wretch, thou art 
 
 Weary already, and thou fain wouldst sleep, 
 
 Yet sleep thou dost not, tho' thine eyelids smart 
 
 With the unwilling vigil they must keep ; 
 
 'Tis thy necessity to think and wake. 
 
 To-morrow, thou wouldst wake and think. In vain! 
 
 Slumber unwill'd thy thoughts shall overtake, 
 
 And sleep thou shalt, tho' sleep thou wouldst not. Pain 
 
 Thou wouldst avoid, yet pain shall be thy lot. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Thou wouldst go forth — Necessity forbids, 
 
 Chains fast thy weakness to one hated spot. 
 
 And on thy shut wish locks her iron lids. 
 
 Thou wouldst know one thing, yet shalt know it not. 
 
 Thou wouldst be ignorant of another thing, 
 
 Yet canst not choose but know it. Unforgot 
 
 To thy reluctant memory shall cling 
 
 What thou wouldst fain forget, forgotten fleet 
 
 From foil'd remembrance on evasive wing 
 
 What thou wouldst fain remember. Change or cheat 
 
 Necessity, thou canst not." 
 
 Shuddering 
 Adam crouch'd low at the Archangel's feet, 
 And cried " Whate'er I must be, and whate'er 
 I can be, aid, O aid me, to forget 
 What I no longer may be ! Even this bare 
 Inhospitable wilderness might yet 
 
THE LEGEND OF POETRY. 21 
 
 To unremembering eyes seem all as fair 
 
 As Eden's self, nor should I more repine 
 
 Were I once more unable to compare." 
 
 " Poor wretch," the Angel said, " wouldst thou resign 
 
 All that remains to thee of Paradise ? " 
 
 f Of Paradise is anything still mine ? " 
 
 Sigh'd Adam, and the Angel answer'd " Yes, 
 
 The memory of it." " Thence," he groan'd, "' arise 
 
 My sharpest torments. I should suffer less 
 
 If I could cease to miss what I survive." 
 
 " Wouldst thou the gift, then, of forgetfulness ? " 
 
 The Seraph ask'd. And Adam cried, "Give! give!" 
 
 With looks uplift, that searched the deeps of heaven, 
 
 Silent the Angel stood, till, as it were, 
 
 In response from the source of glory given 
 
 To that seraphic gaze, which was a prayer, 
 
 Reorient thro' the rifted dark, and high 
 
22 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 O'er Eden, rose the dawn of such a day 
 
 As nevermore man's mourning eyes shall bless 
 
 With beauty that hath wither'd from his way, 
 
 And gladness that is gone beyond his guess. 
 
 The panting Paradise beneath it lay 
 
 Beatified in the divine caress 
 
 Of its effulgence ; and, with fervid sigh, 
 
 All Eden's folded labyrinths open'd wide 
 
 Abysm within abysm of loveliness. 
 
 Thither the Archangel pointed, and replied: 
 
 " Adam, once more look yonder ! Fix thine eye 
 
 Upon the guarded happiness denied 
 
 To the denial of its guardian law. 
 
 Contemplate thy lost Eden — the last time ! " 
 
 And Adam lifted up his face, and saw 
 
 Far off the bowery lawns and blissful streams 
 
 Of Eden, fair as in his sinless prime, 
 
THE LEGEND OF POETRY. 23 
 
 And fairer than to love forbidden seems 
 The long'd-for face whose lips in dreams requite 
 Adoring sighs that, save in passionate dreams, 
 Are disallow'd idolatries. Dark night 
 Elsewhere above the lifeless waste was spread, 
 As o'er a dead face the blindfolding pall. 
 " Seest thou thy sinless past ? " the Angel said. 
 And Adam moan'd, " All, all ! I see it all, 
 And know it mine no more I" 
 
 His helmed head, 
 As in obedience to some high command 
 Deliver'd to him by no audible word, 
 The Archangel bow'd. Then, with decisive hand. 
 He seized and drew his formidable sword. 
 Thro' night's black bosom burn'd the plunging brand ; 
 Two-edged fires, the lightnings of the Lord, 
 Flasht from its fervid blade, below, above, 
 And, where their brilliance thro' the darkness broke, 
 
24 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Clear from the zenith to the nadir clove 
 Man's sunder'd universe. Kx one dread stroke 
 The Archangelic sword had hewn in twain 
 The substance of Eternity. 
 
 There ran 
 
 The pang and shudder of a fierce surprise 
 
 Thro' Adam's soul \ and then he slept again 
 
 As he had slept before, when he (likewise 
 
 In twain divided — Man and Woman) began 
 
 His double being. 
 
 Upon the night-bound plain, 
 
 In two vast fragments, each a dim surmise, 
 
 Eternity had fallen — one part toward man, 
 
 The other part toward man's lost Paradise. 
 
 The light of Eden by its fall was crost, 
 
 And in its shadow vanisht — save one gleam 
 
 Of faintly-lingering glory that was lost 
 
 In Adam's slumber, and became — A Dream. 
 
THE LEGEND OF POETRY. 2 
 
 Adam had lost his memory by die stroke 
 
 Of that celestial sword's transfixing flame, 
 
 And so forgot his dream when he awoke. 
 
 Yet did its unrememberd secret claim 
 
 Release from dull oblivion's daily yoke 
 
 In moments rare. He knew not whence they came, 
 
 Nor was it in his power to reinvoke 
 
 Their coming : but at times thro' all his frame 
 
 He felt them, like an inward voice that spoke 
 
 Of things which have on earth no utter'd name ; 
 
 And sometimes like a sudden light they broke 
 
 Upon his darkest hours, and put to shame 
 
 His dull despondency, his fierce unrest, 
 
 His sordid toil, and miserable strife. 
 
 These rare brief moments Adam deem'd his best, 
 
 And call'd them all The Poetry of Life. 
 
li. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 
 
II. 
 
 In that dread instant when Eternity 
 Was by the Angel's sword asunder riven, 
 There sounded from the starry deep a cry 
 That shook the constellated poles of heaven : 
 
 " Elohim ! Elohim ! what hast thou done, 
 
 Whose sword hath hewn Eternity in twain ? 
 
 One part of it is now the Past, and one 
 
 The Future (phantoms both, exempt from pain 
 
 By lifeless unreality alone !) 
 
 And the pang'd Present, like an open wound, 
 
 Between them gapes, lest aught should close again 
 
 What thou hast cloven." 
 
30 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 To this poignant sound 
 The Seraph, leaning on his sword down-slanted, 
 Listen'd, and in compassion or disdain 
 Smiled gravely, as he murmur'd " It is well. 
 The Reign of Time begins, man's prayer is granted." 
 
 Then loud he call'd to the Abyss of Hell, 
 
 "Stunn'd rebels, rouse your swooning hosts, and rise, 
 
 Tho' thunder-smitten, from the Penal Pit ! 
 
 Time's ravageable realm wide open lies 
 
 For your invasion, and the spoils of it 
 
 To you no more Eternity denies. 
 
 Find in its painful fields your pasture fit, 
 
 Be every pulse of consciousness your prey. 
 
 And chase the panting moment as it flies ! " 
 
 Hell to the invocation answer'd " Yea ! " 
 
 And, pour'd in surge on surge of flame-pulsed cries, 
 
 The fervid rush of her Infernal Powers 
 
THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 3 1 
 
 Sounded like roaring fire, tho' sightless they 
 As midnight storms. 
 
 " Eternity is dead ! 
 And Time, the quivering corpse of it, is ours ! 
 And from Eternity's death-wound, 1 ' they said, 
 " Fast, fast, the life- drops fall — days, minutes, hours, 
 Drop after drop, with world on world, away — 
 Into the final nothingness at last ! 
 To-day sinks swooning into yesterday, 
 The future disappears into the past. 
 Eternity lies lost in what hath been 
 And is no more, or in what is not yet ; 
 For all the rest is but a sigh between 
 A hovering fear and a forlorn regret. 
 And every moment but begins in vain 
 A world that is with every moment ended ; 
 For broken is Eternity in twain, 
 And never shall Eternity be mended." 
 
32 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 This sullen poean waked, where'er it went 
 
 Around the rolling world, responsive sounds 
 
 Of wrath and pain ; as if all passions pent 
 
 In some titanic soul had burst the bounds 
 
 Of individuality, and blent 
 
 Their personal essence with the mindless might 
 
 Of universal forces. First, there came 
 
 Ominous suspirations, tremours slight 
 
 Of sleepy terror, from the shuddering pores 
 
 And joints and sockets of earth's giant frame ; 
 
 Anon, Behemoth, bellowing, with fierce roars 
 
 Shook all his chains. The mountains, rack'd and 
 
 pang'd 
 By earthquake, thunder'd from their fiery cores ; 
 From smitten crag to crag the cataracts clang'd ; 
 The sharp rain hiss'd ; the ocean howl'd ; the shores 
 Shriek'd ; and the woods tumultously twang'd 
 Their wailing harps. But what was felt and heard 
 
THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 33 
 
 Thro' all that uproar's dissonant hurricane 
 
 Was not the inarticulate noise alone 
 
 Of winds and waves and woods and mountains stirr'd 
 
 To screaming storm \ there was a mystic strain 
 
 Of spiritual agony, a tone 
 
 Of conscious torment, mingled with the train 
 
 Of those unconscious sounds, — the personal moan 
 
 Of some invisible being's passionate pain. 
 
 Wild as the roar of an uprooted world 
 
 Wrench'd from its orbit, round the Dream of Man 
 
 This swarm of demon discords roll'd and swirPd. 
 
 Thro' Adam's slumber, as it hurtled by, 
 
 Its sounds were scatter'd ; and his dream began 
 
 Dimly to shape beneath his sleep-shut eye 
 
 Weird wavering images that were, or seem'd, 
 
 The echoes of those sounds made visible. 
 
 So that to Adam's soul the dream he dream'd 
 
 D 
 
34 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Was even as if on some vast curtain fell 
 Troops of stupendous shadows in the glare 
 Shed o'er it from a mighty furnace, lit 
 Behind the back of one who, to his chair 
 Fast chain'd, with wistful eyes peruses it, 
 Wondering what sort of unseen beings are those 
 Whose phantoms thro' the glory come and go : 
 For of them nothing more the watcher knows 
 Than the huge shadows they, in passing, throw 
 Athwart the lurid curtain • nor whence flows 
 The light those shadows darken, doth he know.* 
 
 Still smiled the Seraph. Slow, in circuit wide, 
 Around the sphere of Adam's dream he drew 
 
 The solemn splendours of his sword, and cried 
 
 " Thus far, no farther ! " The Infernal Crew 
 
 In vain to storm that aery circle tried, 
 
 * Plato. — Republic. Book vii. 
 
THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 35 
 
 And round it hoarse their grovelling hubbub grew, 
 
 Reluctantly beginning to subside 
 
 In sullen howls and stifled bellowings. 
 
 Then cried the Angel, " Waken, also, you 
 
 That slumber in the silence of sweet things, 
 
 Voices of Consolation ! and pursue 
 
 From hour to hour with your fond welcomings 
 
 That promise fair the fleeting hours renew ! 
 
 Come hither from the hidden heavens that are 
 
 Your homes on earth ! Come, with the south winds, 
 
 hither 
 
 From rosy kingdoms of the Vesper Star ! 
 
 Come, with the sunrise, from the golden ether ! 
 
 Come with the cushat's goodnight coo, from bowers 
 
 Bathed in the tender dews of eventide, 
 
 Or with the hymn that to the matin hours 
 
 The laverock sings in glory unespied ! 
 
 D 2 
 
36 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Ripple light music of the restless breeze 
 
 Thro' murmurous haunts of sylvan oracles, 
 
 And loose the secrets lisp'd by summer seas 
 
 Into the husht pink ears of blushing shells ! 
 
 Come, with remember'd sounds of warbling stream, 
 
 And whispering bough, from woodland cloisters ! 
 
 Come, 
 Consolers ! Enter here, and let the Dream 
 That Man is dreaming be henceforth your home ! " 
 
 To this appeal the answer linger'd long, 
 And not a sound upon the darkness stirr'd 
 Save the faint moanings of the Demon Throng. 
 But a strange note, not theirs, at length was heard, 
 A single timorous note of distant song, 
 Like the first chirrup of a callow bird. 
 Then, one by one, from here and there, arose 
 Clear in the far-off stillness of the night 
 
THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 37 
 
 (As from the bosom of the twilight grows 
 
 Star after star) a multitude of light 
 
 But thrilling tones, a choral harmony 
 
 Of silvery voices in symphonious scale ; 
 
 Whose heavenward anthem peaPd from sky to sky, 
 
 As " Hail ! " they sang, " Benignant Elohim, hail ! 
 
 The living soul of dead Eternity 
 
 Thy rescuing sword hath free'd. From its dark prison 
 
 Released at last, on pinions glorious 
 
 Behold, that radiant Spirit is now arisen ! 
 
 And hark, how sweet the song it sings to us ! 
 
 How sweet the song, how fair the face ! for fled 
 
 The hovering frown ere while its aspect wore, 
 
 And lo, the frigid features of the dead 
 
 Are flusht with spiritual life ! No more 
 
 Those eyes are cold, no more those lips are dumb, 
 
 And * Fear no more,' they sing, ' to gaze on me ! 
 
 Ye call'd me Fate when I was frozen numb 
 
38 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 In the cold silence of Eternity, 
 
 And then ye fear'd me : but my living home 
 
 Henceforth is in the hearts of all who live. 
 
 Fear me no more, then, for to you I come 
 
 With an eternal gift that shall survive 
 
 Fate's despot rule o'er Time's brief horoscope : 
 
 Eternity is still the gift I give 
 
 To all who trust me, and my name is Hope/'' 
 
 And " Ave ! ave ! " sang the Voices. " Thee 
 YVe welcome, holy Hope, that from afar 
 Dost bring the promise of sweet things to be, 
 Forever sweeter than all things that are ! 
 Born flying, thy fair flight thou canst not stop, 
 But into the sad hearts it leaves behind 
 Thou dost, in passing, from thy pinions drop 
 One spotless plume that, cherisht, keeps in mind 
 The dear remembrance of its passage. We, 
 
THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 39 
 
 What can we give thee in return for this ? 
 
 Take at their best, to save them, take with thee 
 
 Our sweetest joys, our holiest hours ; whose bliss, 
 
 To thy far kingdom borne away, shall be 
 
 Better and brighter, holier still, and higher ! 
 
 Take also, Spirit of Eternity, 
 
 What Time made ours, to make it thine — Desire ! " 
 
 Closer and clearer the sweet Voices grew, 
 
 Borne floating on their own song's rhythmic stream, 
 
 Flutter'd round Adam's slumber, downward flew, 
 
 And settled in the bosom of his dream. 
 
 " Rest there, Consolers ! " the Archangel said, 
 
 " And you, Disturbers, strive as you have striven. 
 
 And thou — dream on, poor Dreamer!" 
 
 Then he spread 
 His spacious pinions, and return'd to heaven. 
 
4Q AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Out of the depths of Adam's dream, and clear 
 All round it, those Consoling Voices pour'd 
 Pure strains of silver sound, that fill'd the sphere 
 Traced by the circuit of the Angel's sword. 
 The Demon Powers, resentful, roused again 
 Their turbulent cohorts to the overthrow 
 Of this melodious bulwark, but in vain ; 
 For there Hell's surges broke, and hoarse below 
 Roll'd in tumultuary undertones 
 Their weltering waves of passion and of pain, 
 Goaded and groaning, as the smit sea groans 
 When the storm's lash is on its livid mane. 
 
 Those sounds were heard in Heaven ; and, down the 
 
 light 
 Of all the listening stars, celestial streams 
 Of song flow'd, mingling with the troubled flight 
 Of their fierce tones — as, while the torrent screams, 
 
THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 41 
 
 The calm moon, shining thro' a cloudless night, 
 Belts his tost bosom with her tranquil beams. 
 
 And all these Voices, with the sounds that were 
 Their instrumental slaves, — the Voices sweet 
 Of Man's Consolers, hymning praise and prayer, 
 The Voices of the Passions of the Pit, 
 Earth's dread disturbers, clarions of despair, 
 And the pure Voices of the Stars— contending 
 With one another, pour'd the importunate tide 
 Of their sonorous strife, in strains ascending 
 Beyond the visible spheres, to where it sigh'd 
 About the elemental boundary wall 
 Which never, to the other unseen side, 
 The swarming senses that man's soul enthral 
 May overpass. For shrouded there, serene 
 And irresponsive to the strife of all 
 The worlds of passion and of sense— unseen, 
 
42 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Unheard — He dwells, Who is, and wills, and knows. 
 And there, its clamour calm'd, its vehement play 
 Of contradictions quench'd in the repose 
 Of a sublime accord whose spacious sway 
 Husht its wild course to an harmonious close, 
 Slowly the sounding tumult died away. 
 
 So, when all storms are spent, and Ocean's sleep 
 
 Leviathan's loud voice invades no more, 
 
 The wearied winds into the silent deep 
 
 Drop the last echoes of his dying roar, 
 
 And fold their heavy wings, and faintly creep 
 
 To rest on some lone island's desert shore ; 
 
 Where the huge billows in low waves subside, 
 
 And the low waves in rippling shallows cease, 
 
 While the lull'd halcyon on the slumbrous tide 
 
 Broods, and the breathing stillness whispers " Peace!" 
 
 * Ht Hr ' * * * 
 
THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 43 
 
 When Adam waked, the sounds that in his dream 
 
 Dream-woven forms had worn still haunted him. 
 
 Not only to have heard them did he seem, 
 
 But even to have seen them, in a dim 
 
 Indefinite world that of life's earthly scheme 
 
 The phantom protoplast appear'd. For there 
 
 Some bliss beyond possession was the prize 
 
 Relentless wrestlers strove to seize or share ; 
 
 And o'er a battle-field of boundless size 
 
 Hope and Desire with Terror and Despair, 
 
 And Love and Faith with Hate and Doubt, contended ; 
 
 Importunately rolling to and fro, 
 
 In restless contradiction never ended, 
 
 A Yes reverberated by a No. 
 
 Infinite longing, infinite resistance, 
 
 Infinite turmoil ! gaining now, now losing, 
 
 And then again with passionate persistance 
 
 Speeding the clamorous chase thro' vast, confusing, 
 
44 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Inextricable mazes ; but still ever, 
 Beyond the strife of discords and the cry 
 Of conflict, with inveterate endeavour, 
 Tending towards a far off harmony. 
 
 And music was the name the dreamer gave 
 
 To that dream-world's mysterious sounds. In vain, 
 
 However, for long years did Adam crave 
 
 To hear, in this world, that world's sounds again. 
 
 And everywhere on earth he sought to find 
 
 Or fashion images that might express 
 
 The echoes of them lingering in his mind, 
 
 But nought resembled their mysteriousness. 
 
 His sons grew up. Memorial words they wrote 
 On sun-dried river-reeds in cunning rhymes, 
 Or graved them on the rocks, that men might note 
 Who went before them in the after times. 
 
THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 45 
 
 He praised their scripture, but he shook his head. 
 
 fi The higher language still lies out of reach, 
 
 And sweet your rhymes, my sons ; but, ah ! " he said 
 
 " They are not music, only sweeter speech." 
 
 His sons took clay, and kneaded it with skill 
 
 Into the images of beasts, and men, 
 
 And gods. But " Music," Adam murmur'd still 
 
 " In form alone I find not." Colour then 
 
 To form they added — colour squeezed and ground 
 
 From herbs and earths — and pictures rich they wrought 
 
 Of man, his doings, and the world around. 
 
 But not in these was found what Adam sought. 
 
 " Things seen and known," he said, "they mimic well, 
 
 But all things known and seen are, I surmise, 
 
 Themselves but pictures of invisible, 
 
 Or echoes of unheard, infinities. 
 
 Definite are words, forms, and colours, each : 
 
 Music alone is infinite." 
 
46 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 And none 
 Of Adam's offspring understood that speech, 
 Save Jubal only. Jubal was the son 
 Of Lamech, whose progenitor was Cain. 
 His life's ancestral consciousness of death 
 Stretch'd each sensation to a finer strain ; 
 Into his listening ear earth's lightest breath 
 An infinite mystery breathed ; in every sound 
 That mystery sent a message to his soul ; 
 Nor could he rest till definite means he found 
 Its messengers to summon and control. 
 And what he sought by wistful ways unnumberd, 
 Searching, at last he found in things where long 
 Had Music on the breast of Silence slumber'd, 
 Waiting his summons to awake and throng 
 The bronzen tubes he wrought with stops and vents, 
 Or shells with silver lute-strings overlaid. 
 
THE LEGEND OF MUSIC. 47 
 
 When Jubal play'd upon these instruments 
 A visionary transport, as he play'd, 
 Rose in each listener and reveal'd to him 
 The beauty and the bliss of Paradise, 
 The songs and splendours of the Seraphim. 
 
 Albeit these transports from a mere device 
 Of wind-blown pipes in order ranged arose, 
 Or strings that, smitten, render'd response sharp. 
 
 And Jubal was the father of all those 
 Whose hand is on the organ and the harp. 
 
III. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF LOVE. 
 
III. 
 
 Eve had heard all, but nothing had she seen : 
 For, ere the Archangel's sword was drawn, dividing 
 The oneness of Eternity, between 
 The gates of Eden fraudulently gliding, 
 Athwart the wilderness the Snake slid near. 
 And, where beneath the weight of one day's ill 
 Fallen she lay, into the woman's ear 
 He whisper'd, " Look not ! utter not ! lie still ! " 
 Eve heard, and at his bidding still she lay, 
 Nor look'd, nor utter'd. 
 
 In the woman's eyes 
 Thus linger'd a reflection of what they 
 
 E 2 
 
52 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Last look'd on ere she closed them — Paradise. 
 For all the Archangel's weapon shore away 
 From Man's perception was what lay before 
 The gaze of Adam when that sword's sharp ray 
 (Rending his cloven consciousness in twain) 
 Parted the Present from the Past. But o'er 
 The loveliness that in their looks had lain 
 When last on Eden from afar she gazed, 
 The lids of Eve were fallen ere (for bane 
 Or blessing) Adam's granted prayer erased 
 For ever from the records of his brain 
 Each memory of Paradise, 
 
 And there, 
 In Eve's shut eyes whate'er on earth is left 
 Of Eden — faint reflections of it, fair 
 Fallacious phantoms of a bliss bereft 
 Of all reality — escaped the stroke 
 
THE LEGEND OF LOVE. 53 
 
 That from remembrance all the rest dispelPd. 
 So Adam in Eve's eyes, when he awoke, 
 Vague semblances of Paradise beheld ; 
 And that lost gleam of Eden's light that still 
 Dreamlike and dim in his own being dwelt 
 Responded to them with a mystic thrill, 
 Tho' Adam understood not what he felt. 
 
 And still Eve's daughters in their looks retain 
 Those mirror'd mockeries their mother's eyes 
 Bequeath'd them, tho' the Paradise they feign 
 Is now a long-forbidden Paradise. 
 Reveal'd in Woman's gaze Man seems to see 
 The wisht-for Eden he hath lost. He deems 
 That Eden still in Woman's self must be, 
 And he would fain re-enter it. His dreams 
 Are kindled, by the mystic light that lies 
 In these sweet looks, to fervid wish fulness ; 
 
54 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 And, missing what he ne'er hath known, he sighs 
 For what, itself, is but a sigh — the bliss 
 Which there he seeks, and there is lost again. 
 
 No more, O nevermore, those steps of his, 
 Whose progress is but a progressive pain, 
 The Paradise they seek may reach and rove ! 
 Yet still the search is sweet, albeit in vain ; 
 It lasts for ever, and men call it Love. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE IDEAL. 
 
IV. 
 
 When, at the archangelic bidding (blest 
 
 With one brief vision of his happy past 
 
 In all the lost delights of Eden drest) 
 
 Adam on Paradise had look'd his last, 
 
 There every form of loveliness beloved 
 
 Whose beauty, dear to his adoring eye, 
 
 Had breathed delight thro' all the haunts of yore, 
 
 And clothed in gladness all the days gone by, 
 
 The man beheld, save one. 
 
 For Eve no more 
 Among the abandon'd bowers of Eden moved. 
 Eden was Eveless. 
 
5S AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Thus, Man's memory 
 Of Woman as in Paradise she was 
 The archangelic sword had not transfixt. 
 This memory made in Adam's mind, alas, 
 A visionary image, vaguely mixt 
 With that stray glimpse of Eden's light that fell 
 Into his slumber, and became a dream, 
 The dream of Adam's life. And there, too well 
 Remember'd, with her beauty's phantom gleam 
 Mocking him, moved the Eve of Paradise ; 
 Immeasurably fairer than the Eve 
 That walk'd by Adam's side with sullen sighs 
 And faded cheek — condemn'd, like him, to grieve 
 And to grow old ; like him, to brave the 
 
 bleakness 
 Of life's long desert ; and, with him, to share 
 The weight of many a burden, borne in meekness 
 Or borne in bitterness, still hard to bear ; 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE IDEAL. 59 
 
 An earthly woman, with a woman's weakness, 
 A woman's faults. 
 
 That phantom, faultless fair, 
 (The unforgotten Eve of Paradise, 
 Beautiful as he first beheld her there, 
 Ere any tear had dimm'd her glorious eyes) 
 Long after Paradise itself had been 
 By him forgotten, haunted Adam's gaze. 
 And Adam made comparison between 
 The faithful partner of his faultful days, 
 Who stray 'd, and sinn'd, and suffer'd by his side, 
 And that imagined woman. With a sigh, 
 Her unattainable beauty, when he died, 
 Adam bequeath'd to his posterity, 
 Who call'd it The Ideal. 
 
 And Mankind 
 Still cherish it, and still it cheats them all. 
 For, with the Ideal Woman in his mind, 
 
60 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Fair as she was in Eden ere the Fall, 
 Still each doth discontentedly compare 
 The sad associate of his earthly lot ; 
 And still the Earthly Woman seems less fair 
 Than her ideal image unforgot. 
 
 And Adam slept and dream'd and waked again 
 From day to day, from age to age. Apace 
 Time trod his self- repeating path. To Men 
 Man grew, and Adam became Adam's Race. 
 
 The Race of Adam, by his granted prayer 
 Born as it was oblivious of life's source, 
 Went onward, lighted only here and there 
 And now and then, along its eyeless course, 
 By visionary flashes brief and rare 
 Of unexplain'd remembrance, that appear' d 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE IDEAL. 61 
 
 Vague prescience. For the goal whereto Man goes 
 Is his recover'd starting-point — tho', rear'd 
 In a profound forgetfulness, he knows 
 No longer whence or whither winds the track 
 His steps have entered, and so lives like those 
 Who, dreaming, dream not that sleep leads at last 
 To waking, that to wake is to come back, 
 And that what seems the Future is the Past. 
 
 But round that Ghost of Human Loveliness 
 
 Which over Human Life's unlovely way 
 
 Hover'd afar, evading the caress 
 
 It still invoked, the reminiscent ray 
 
 Of Eden's glory (lost in Adam's Dream 
 
 And mingled with his soul) so shone and glow'd, 
 
 That on Man's spirit the reflected gleam 
 
 Of its divine effulgence oft bestow'd 
 
 A supersensuous potency of sight, 
 
62 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Piercing, without an effort of his will, 
 
 The Universal Veil that dims the light 
 
 Of Universal Truth. A teeming thrill 
 
 Of recognition thro' his senses ran 
 
 From things that power reveal'd to him : and he 
 
 To Nature cried, " Behold thy missing plan ! 
 
 For is not this what thou hast tried to be ? " 
 
 Whereto, from all her conscious deeps, to Man 
 
 Nature responded, " Yes ! " 
 
 In toil and pain 
 At other times, by other ways, Man's wits 
 Search after knowledge, but can ne'er attain 
 The flying point that on before him flits. 
 For he is as a voyager in vain 
 Sailing towards horizons that recede 
 From phantom frontier lines of sky and main, 
 With furtive motion measured by the speed 
 Of their pursuer. But wherever shines 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE IDEAL. 63 
 
 That sudden ray of reminiscence rare, 
 
 There, and there only, the convergent lines 
 
 Of the orb'd Universe shut fast, and there 
 
 Man's knowledge rests, untravell'd, at the goal. 
 
 P'or, be it ne'er so trivial, ne'er so mean, 
 
 The one becomes the All, the part the Whole, 
 
 When, thro' them both, what each conceal'd is seen. 
 
 And age by age, man after man essaying 
 
 To fo for endless worship and delight, 
 
 In shrines of permanence for ever staying, 
 
 These gleams of truth for ever taking flight, 
 
 Men fashion'd forth new forms of Time and Space, 
 
 Idealising both. The work they wrought 
 
 In Space was Beauty, and in Time 'twas Grace. 
 
 These two ideals everywhere they sought \ 
 
 But the ideal human form and face 
 
 Were still the fairest, still the loveliest. 
 
64 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 And still thro' human action, human thought, 
 And most of all thro' human love, men's quest 
 With fondest fervour roams to find the sphere 
 Of that Ideal World wherein the part 
 Includes the Whole, the one the All. For there 
 Men are to Man transformed, and life to Art. 
 
SECOND SERIES. 
 
 MAN AND BEAST. 
 
 " Thou hast put all things under his feet : all sheep and oxen, 
 yea, and the beasts of the field." 
 
 Psalm viii. 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE ELEPHANT, 
 
 F 2 
 

 I. 
 
 One day when Adam, as he dug the ground, 
 Lifted his forehead to wipe off the sweat 
 That dript upon his labour, gazing round 
 He saw (and at that sight his fear was great) 
 A mountain moving toward him. 
 
 Sore afraid, 
 Adam fell prostrate and began to pray. 
 For every time that Adam fear'd he pray'd, 
 And every thing he fear'd he worshipt. Grey 
 And great, this formidable mountain made 
 
70 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Gravely along the plain its gradual way, 
 Till over Adam hover'd its huge shade. 
 Then, in a language lost for ever and aye, 
 The Mountain to the Man, reproachful, said — 
 "Dost thou not know me, Adam?" 
 
 "Mountain, nay, 7 
 The Man replied, "nor did I ever see 
 A mountain move, as thou dost. Yesterday 
 I met a mountain, but 'twas unlike thee, 
 Far larger, and it lay athwart my track, 
 Nor moved altho' I bent to it my knee, 
 So on I pass'd over the mountain's back. 
 AYas that a sin ? So many sins there be ! 
 And art thou come to punish it, alack, 
 By marching on mine own back over me ?" 
 
 " Adam,*' the Mountain answered him, " arise ! 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE ELEPHANT. 71 
 
 Not at my feet thy place is. Whence this dread ? 
 
 Alas, when we were still in Paradise 
 
 Fast friends were we." But Adam hung his head, 
 
 And mutter'd, " Friends ? I know not what that is. 
 
 Why dost thou persecute me, and pursue ? 
 
 Is Paradise a wilderness like this ? 
 
 I know it not, and thee I never knew." 
 
 " Well didst thou know me once, when we were there," 
 
 The Mountain answer'd, " nor canst thou deny 
 
 'Twas thou who gavest me the name I bear." 
 
 But Adam, crouching, cried, "It was not I! 
 
 I never gave thee anything at all. 
 
 What wouldst thou? worship? sacrifice? roots? grain? 
 
 Take, and begone ! Mountain, my store is small." 
 
 And sullenly the savage turn'd again 
 To the hard labour of his daily lot. 
 
72 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 By this the pitying Elephant perceived 
 
 That Adam in the desert had forgot 
 
 His happier birthplace. The good beast was grieved ; 
 
 And "Those,' 7 he said, "whom thou rememb'rest not 
 
 Remember thee. We could not live bereaved 
 
 Of thy loved presence, and from end to end 
 
 Of Eden sought thee. When thou didst not come 
 
 We mourn'd thee, missing our great human friend, 
 
 And wondering what withheld him from his home. 
 
 I think the fervour of our fond distress 
 
 Melted the battlements of Paradise. 
 
 They fell, and forth into the wilderness 
 
 W T e came to find thee. For who else is wise 
 
 As thou art? and we hold thee great above 
 
 Our greatest. Why hast thou forsaken us 
 
 For this drear desert ? Was not Eden best ? 
 
 Unsweet the region thou hast chosen thus ! 
 
 Yet less forlorn than loss of human love 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE ELEPHANT. 
 
 Hath left the bowers by love in Eden blest. 
 So where thou dwellest shall our dwelling be, 
 Since joy from Eden went when thou wert gone, 
 And where thou goest we will go with thee. 
 To tell thee this the others sent me on." 
 
 Adam look'd up alarnrd, and trembling cried, 
 " What others ? Then I am indeed undone ! 
 More Elephants like thee?" The beast replied, 
 " Alas, hast thou forgotten everyone 
 Of thine old followers, the blithe beasts that were 
 Thy folk in Paradise ? which for thy sake 
 We have abandon'd, and are come to share 
 Thy labour, and near thine our lodging make. 
 For Man completes us all, whatever we be, 
 And to his service faithfully we pledge 
 Our several forces. Leaves unto the tree 
 They garment, feathers to the wing they fledge, 
 
74 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Wings to the bird they bear, and hands to thee, 
 Belong not more than we for Man were made. 
 So if thou sufferest we will suffer too, 
 And if thou toilest we thy toil will aid, 
 And we will be thy loving servants true, 
 And thou shalt be our master." 
 
 Adam said 
 Nothing. A mist that, melting, turn'd to dew 
 Was in his eyes. He could not speak a word. 
 That wretched savage grovelling in the dust, 
 W 7 hose rebel will had disobey'd the Lord, 
 Whose coward heart had lost both love and trust, 
 Whose dull despair had from his blinded eye 
 Effaced the Past, and to the Present left 
 Nothing but degradation utterly 
 Of nobler reminiscences bereft, 
 What could he answer ? 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE ELEPHANT. 75 
 
 Nothing did he say ; 
 But sank down silent on the desert earth, 
 And, sinking, flung the rough-hewn flint away, 
 Wherewith he had been digging its hard dearth. 
 Then closer to the gentle beast he crept, 
 And hid his face between Ins hands, and wept. 
 
II. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE ASS. 
 
II. 
 
 The Elephant then lifted up on high 
 
 His waving trunk, and trumpeted a clear 
 
 Sonorous summons. With responsive cry 
 
 To that glad signal, all the beasts drew near, 
 
 And stood round Adam who was weeping still. 
 
 Not one faint word of welcome did he say ; 
 
 But all to comfort him. employ'd their skill, 
 
 And each beast gave him some good gift. For they, 
 
 When forth from Paradise they went to find 
 
 Its unforgotten lord, had brought away 
 
80 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 As many of the treasures left behind 
 By Man as each could carry. 
 
 So that day 
 (Thanks to the beasts, who had preserved them) he 
 Some precious fragments of himself at length 
 Recover'd, and became in some degree 
 Human again. Proud consciousness of strength 
 The Lion gave him. Honesty of heart 
 The Dog. A vigilance that's never dull 
 The Lynx bestow'd. The Beaver brought him art, 
 The Eagle aspiration. Tenderness 
 The Dove contributed, the Elephant 
 Benign sagacity, the Fox address. 
 He gain'd a sturdy courage from the Bull : 
 And, all combining to supply Man's want, 
 Each beast and bird in tribute bountiful, 
 Gave Adam something he had lacked before. 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE ASS. 81 
 
 He took whate'er they gave him, and began, 
 As gift by gift he gather'd up the store, 
 Slowly to feel himself once more a man. 
 
 One beast there was who let the others pass, 
 
 Each with his tributary offering, 
 
 Before him, patiently. It was the Ass. 
 
 And when his turn came some good gift to bring, 
 
 He seem'd to look for something in the grass, 
 
 But did not offer Adam anything. 
 
 Caressingly, like an importunate child, 
 Adam approach'd the Ass, whose shaggy head 
 He fondled. " Gentle are thy looks and mild, 
 Hast thou not brought me any gift ? " he said. 
 The Ass replied, " My gift is all unfit 
 To offer thee." Adam was vext, and frown'd. 
 The Ass resumed " I am ashamed of it, 
 
82 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Although in Paradise this gift I found. 
 No other beast to take it had a mind, 
 And if I had not pick'd it from the ground 
 I think it would have there been left behind." 
 
 The Man heard this not wholly without shame ; 
 But still he answer'd from a greedy heart, 
 "No matter ! give it to me, all the same." 
 
 Then said the Ass, " If of a mind thou art 
 To share with me mine all, I do but claim 
 To keep a portion of it. Choose thy part " 
 And in two parts he portion'd it. But those 
 Two parts appear'd unequal. With the zest 
 Of selfishness, Man, naturally, chose 
 The biggest, thinking it must be the best. 
 
 But Adam, as his wont it was, chose wrono: 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE ASS. S3 
 
 For what the Ass (with a prophetic sense 
 
 Perchance of his own need of it ere long) 
 
 Had saved from Eden was Benevolence. 
 
 When thus partition'd between Man and Beast, 
 
 Benevolence its primal beauty lost ; 
 
 And Adam's portion proved to be the least 
 
 Benignant, tho' he fancied it the most. 
 
 This fraction of Benevolence began, 
 
 When mingled with Man's character, alas, 
 
 To be Stupidity ; and, scorn'd by Man, 
 
 Tis Patience that has rested with the Ass. 
 
 G 2 
 
III. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF THE DEAD LAMBS. 
 
III. 
 
 Death, tho' already in the world, as yet 
 Had only tried his timorous tooth to whet 
 On grass and leaves. But he began to grow 
 Greedier, greater, and resolved to know 
 The taste of stronger food than such light fare. 
 To feed on human flesh he did not dare, 
 Till many a meaner meal had slowly given 
 The young destroyer strength to vanquish even 
 His restless rival in destruction, Man. 
 Meanwhile, on lesser victims he began 
 To test his power : and in a cold Spring night 
 
88 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Two weanling Lambs first perish'd from his bite. 
 The bleatings of their dam at break of day 
 Drew to the spot where her dead Lambkins lay 
 The other beasts. They, understanding not, 
 In wistful silence round that fatal spot 
 Stood eyeing the dead Lambs with looks forlorn. 
 
 Adam, who w r as upon the march that morn, 
 
 Missing his bodyguard, turn'd back to see 
 
 What they were doing ; and there also he 
 
 Saw the two frozen Lambkins lying dead, 
 
 But understood not. At the last he said, 
 
 " Since the Lambs cannot move, methinks 'twere best 
 
 That I should carry them." 
 
 So on his breast 
 He laid their little bodies, and again 
 Set forward, follow'd o'er the frosty plain 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE DEAD LAMBS. 8< 
 
 By his bewilder'd flocks. And in dismay 
 They held their peace. That was a silent day. 
 At night he laid the dead Lambs on the grass. 
 That night still colder than the other was, 
 And when the morning broke there were two more 
 Dead Lambs to carry. Adam took the four, 
 And in his arms he bore them, no great way, 
 Till eventide. That was a sorrowful day. 
 
 But, ere the next, two other Lambkins died, 
 Frost-bitten in the dark. Then Adam tried 
 To carry them, all six. But the poor Sheep 
 Said, " Nay, we thank thee, Adam. Let them 
 
 sleep ! 
 Thou canst not carry them. 'Tis all in vain. 
 We fear our Lambkins will not wake again. 
 And, if they wake, they could not walk — for see, 
 Their little legs are stiffen'd. Let them be ! " 
 
90 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 So Adam left the Lambs. And all the Herd 
 Follow'd him sorrowing, and not a word 
 Was spoken. Never until then had they 
 Their own forsaken. That was the worst day. 
 
 Eve said to Adam, as they went along, 
 " Adam, last night the cold was bitter strong. 
 Warm fleeces to keep out the freezing wind 
 Have those six Lambkins thou hast left behind ; 
 But they will never need them any more. 
 Go, fetch them here ! and I will make, before 
 This day be done, stout garments for us both, 
 Lest we, too, wake no more." Said Adam, loth 
 To do her bidding, " Why dost thou suppose 
 Our Lambs will nevermore have need of those 
 Warm fleeces ? They are sleeping." But Eve said, 
 " They are not sleeping, Adam. They are dead." 
 " Dead ? What is that ? " " I know not. But I know 
 
THE LEGEND OF THE DEAD LAMBS. 91 
 
 That they no more can feel the north wind blow, 
 
 Nor the sun burn. They cannot hear the bleat 
 
 Of their own mothers, cannot suffer heat 
 
 Or cold, or thirst or hunger, weariness 
 
 Or want, again." "How dost thou know all this ? " 
 
 Ask'd Adam. And Eve whisper'd in his ear, 
 
 " The Serpent told me." " Is the Serpent here ? 
 
 If here he be, why hath he," Adam cried, 
 
 " No good gift brought me ? " Adam's wife replied, 
 
 " The best of gifts, if rightly understood, 
 
 He brings thee, and that gift is counsel good. 
 
 The Serpent is a prudent beast ; and right ! 
 
 For we were miserably cold last night, 
 
 And may to-night be colder; and hard by 
 
 Those dead Lambs in their woolly fleeces lie, 
 
 Yet need them not as we do. They are dead. 
 
 Go, fetch them hither ! " 
 
92 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Adam shook his head. 
 But went. 
 
 Next morning, to the beasts" surprise. 
 Adam and Eve appear'd before their eyes 
 In woollen fleeces warmly garmented. 
 And all the beasts to one another said, 
 " How wonderful is Man, who can make wool 
 As good as Sheep's wool, and more beautiful ! " ? 
 
 Only the Fox, who snift and grinn'd, had guess'd 
 Man's unacknowledged theft : and to the rest 
 He sneer d, " How wonderful is Woman's whim ! 
 See, Adam's wife hath made a sheep of him ! " 
 
IV. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF EVE'S JEWELS. 
 
IV. 
 
 From that day forth Eve eyed with tenderness 
 The Serpent, to whose craft she owed her dress. 
 But " More," he whisper'd in her ear one day, 
 " Thou still mayst owe me, if it please thee. Say, 
 Wouldst thou be fair ? " 
 
 The woman smiled, " Behold me ! 
 Am I not fair already ? " " Who hath told thee 
 That thou art fair ? " the Serpent ask'd. Again 
 Eve smiled, and answer'd, " Adam." " Ah, but 
 when ? " 
 
96 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 He ask'd. And, this time sighing as she smiled, 
 
 She said, " Before the birth of our first child." 
 
 " I thought so," said the Serpent. " Long ago !" 
 
 Eve's eyes grew tearful. She replied, " I know 
 
 It was but yesterday I chanced to trace 
 
 Reflected in a mountain pool the face 
 
 That he had praised • and I was satisfied 
 
 That certainly, unless the water lied, 
 
 Adam was right." " Was right," the Serpent said, 
 
 " So was last summer sweet." " Doth beauty fade ? " 
 
 Eve murmur'd. " Ay, with youth," said he. " And 
 
 thou 
 Canst make me young again ? " " Not that. But how, 
 When young no more, to make thee fair again 
 I know a way." " What way?" said Eve. " Explain ! " 
 " It is," he answer'd, " by adorning thee." 
 " And what wouldst thou adorn me with ?" said she. 
 " Myself ! " he whisper'd. 
 
y 
 
 THE LEGEND OF EVE'S JEWELS. 97 
 
 Then the Serpent rolPd 
 His ruby-colour'd rings and coils of gold 
 Around the form of Eve : her neck enlaced, 
 And was a necklace ; girt her pliant waist, 
 And was a girdle ; with elastic bound 
 Above her knee his wistful clasp en wound, 
 And was a garter ; with repeated twist 
 Of twinkling chain entwined her tender wrist, 
 And was a bracelet. Last of all, her brow 
 He crown'd, and cried, " Man's Queen, I hail thee 
 now ! " 
 
 Eve blusht. The sense of some new sexual power 
 
 Unknown to all her being till that hour, 
 
 Within it kindled a superb surprise. 
 
 Back, with half-open'd lips and half-shut eyes, 
 
 She lean'd to its rich load her jewell'd head. 
 
 And at her ear again the Serpent said, 
 
9§ AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 " By the bright blaze of thine adornment, see 
 
 What in the years to come thy sex shall be ! 
 
 Mere female animal, much weaker than 
 
 The male its master, not the Queen of Man, 
 
 Scarce even his mate, that sex was born ; but more 
 
 Than it was born shall it become. Such store 
 
 Doth in it lurk of secret subtilty, 
 
 Such seed of complex life, as by-and-by 
 
 Shall grow into full Woman ; and, when grown, 
 
 The Woman shall avenge, tho' she disown,' 
 
 The Female, her forgotten ancestress. 
 
 Mother of both, my glittering caress 
 
 Now wakes beneath thy bosom's kindled snow 
 
 Whole worlds of Womanhood in embryo ! 
 
 A penal law controls Man's fallen state. 
 
 It's name is Progress : and, to stimulate 
 
 That progress to its destin'd goal, Decay, 
 
 Woman, with growing power, shall all the way 
 
THE LEGEND OF EVE'S JEWELS. 99 
 
 Its course accompany — from happiness 
 
 And ignorance to knowledge and distress ; 
 
 From careless impulse to contrived device ; 
 
 From spontaneity to artifice ; 
 
 From simple to sophisticated life ; 
 
 From faith to doubt, and from repose to strife. 
 
 Whilst, still as Progress doth its prey pursue, 
 
 The weaker shall the stronger-born subdue, 
 
 Man subjugating first those monsters grim 
 
 Whose strength is more than his ; then, Woman him : 
 
 Tho' he born weaker than most beasts, and she 
 
 Born weaker even than man's own weakness, be. 
 
 So shall the Feminine Force that set him on 
 
 Still keep him going till his course be done. 
 
 Far hath he yet to travel his long way, 
 
 But thou hast started him. And on the day 
 
 He lost that Paradise he ne'er had won, 
 
 Here was his progress, thanks to thee, begun. 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 That was Man's first step forward. I perceive 
 
 He (thanks again to thee) is on the eve 
 
 Of yet another. Good advice to him 
 
 Thou gavest, whence he got his winter trim, 
 
 So warm and stout. But at that fleecy coat 
 
 The beasts, his unprogressive friends, I note, 
 
 Begin to look suspiciously askance. 
 
 And thence do I predict his next advance. 
 
 'Twixt Man and Beast the inevitable strife 
 
 Must needs enforce 'twixt Man and Man a life 
 
 More artificial. And therefrom shall rise 
 
 The Future Woman ; form' d to civilize, 
 
 Corrupt, and ruin, raise, and overthrow 
 
 Cycles of social types that all shall owe 
 
 To her creative and destructive sway 
 
 Their beauty's blossom, and their strength's decay. 
 
 Behold, then, in thyself the primal source 
 
 Of Human Progress, and its latest force ! 
 
THE LEGEND OF EVE'S JEWELS. 101 
 
 For, since from thee shall thy fair daughters, Eve, 
 
 A subtler sex than all thy sons receive, 
 
 Their beauty shall complete what thine began, 
 
 Thou crown a Queen Mother of the Queens of Man !" 
 
V. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF FABLE. 
 
V. 
 
 With many a plume and tuft of brilliant dye, 
 And blushing berries twined in belt and tress, 
 Eve on her clothing had begun to try 
 What ornament could add to usefulness 
 From day to day. But, as the days went by, 
 The more she prized her borrow'd charms, the less 
 She loved their owners who, approving not 
 Those pilfer'd splendours, with resentful eye 
 Beheld them all. For out the secret got, 
 How from the bodies of the dead were torn 
 The garments Eve and Adam gloried in : 
 
106 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 And to the beasts, who were as they were born. 
 It seem'd a scandal and a sort of sin 
 That their own wool and fur should thus be worn 
 By limbs not theirs. " Let each defend his skin !" 
 They said to one another. 
 
 In those days 
 There was a little animal Eve yet 
 Loved passing well ; for it had pleasant ways, 
 Was smooth, and soft, and sleek, and seem'd to set 
 A grateful store on her capricious praise. 
 Curl'd in her lap 'twould nestle without fear, 
 And let her stroke its back and bosom white, 
 Until to Eve this beast became so dear 
 That in its confidence she took delight. 
 But, when the Herd discover'd that her dress 
 Was stolen from their plunder'd kith and kin, 
 Eve's little favourite fear'd each fresh caress 
 Her hand bestow'd on it, and felt within 
 
THE LEGEND OF FABLE. 107 
 
 Its frighten'd heart a sharp mistrustfulness, 
 
 For " If she took a fancy to my skin ? " 
 
 The creature mused. And ever from that date 
 
 Its thoughts and looks were all alert to find 
 
 Some means whereby it might escape the fate 
 
 Whose horrid prospect hover'd vague behind 
 
 Eve's fondling fingers. Once, when peering round, 
 
 Inquisitively careful to explore 
 
 All nooks and corners till such means were found, 
 
 It spied a heap of fish-bones on the floor. 
 
 Then, from Eve's lap down-sliding to the ground, 
 
 It roll'd itself among them o'er and o'er 
 
 Till it became a Porcupine. And " How 
 
 To guard my skin,'*' it chuckled, " nevermore 
 
 Need I henceforth take any pains, for now 
 
 My skin it is that will henceforth guard me ! " 
 
 So in this unapproachable condition 
 
108 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Secure it lived : for its security 
 
 Was even the same as Man's was — Arm'd Suspicion. 
 
 Suspicion everywhere ! No peace could be 
 
 On earth henceforth. To war suspicion led. 
 
 Long ages is it since that war began, 
 
 And seas of blood have been on both sides shed, 
 
 Yet still it lasts. In servitude to Man 
 
 Some captived beasts survive. The Dog is one. 
 
 But, just because the Dog to Man is true, 
 
 From his approach his former comrades run, 
 
 Deeming him traitor to their cause. Some few 
 
 (The fiercest and the savagest alone) 
 
 An intermittent and unequal strife 
 
 Around their dens in desert lands pursue, 
 
 And they and Man are enemies for life. 
 
 Nor they and Man alone : for, confidence 
 
 Once gone, the beasts upon each other prey'd 
 
THE LEGEND CF FABLE. 109 
 
 Like beasts, without the plausible pretence 
 Of good intentions by Man's nature made 
 For his bad doings in the grim campaign 
 'Twixt him and them. This so revolted her, 
 That Justice from the world-wide battle-plain 
 Fled blushing. Pity's flight was tardier : 
 But, after lingering long in vain appeal 
 From heart to heart, she follow'd Justice too, 
 Where only bloodstains left behind reveal 
 The paths whereby she fled from mortal view. 
 
 And they, the gentle Beasts of Paradise 
 That were Man's once familiar intimates, 
 Far from the menace of his murderous eyes 
 Whither, O whither are they gone ? The gates 
 Of Paradise are shut for ever, and there 
 No refuge for Man's victims, nor for him, 
 Remains on earth. But. from the bowers that were 
 
no AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 With Eden lost, the pitying Seraphim 
 Sow'd in the waste one seed. A forest fair 
 Sprang from it — giant trees of lusty limb, 
 Long vaults of bloom and verdure never bare, 
 Where forms, half-bird half-blossom, flash and swim 
 From bough to bough, and, husht in windless air, 
 Soft shadows flutter from the whisperous wings 
 Of half-awaken'd dreams ; while all things there 
 Seem slowly turning into other things, 
 As, down the bowery hollows to the brim 
 Of immemorial seas, melodious springs 
 From undiscoverable sources bear 
 Primeval secrets. 
 
 Deep into the dim 
 But deathless shelter of that blest repair 
 Those gentle beasts departed, and became 
 Forthwith imperishably fabulous. 
 
THE LEGEND OF FABLE. 
 
 For History, that doth so loud proclaim 
 
 And with such curiosity discuss 
 
 Man's perishable life and course unstable, 
 
 Of them and theirs knows nothing, and the name 
 
 Of their unfading Forest Home is Fable. 
 
 Far off, and ever farther off from us, 
 That Forest and the dwellers in it seem, 
 As far and farther on we travel fast, 
 And more and more like a remember'd dream 
 Becomes the glimmering wonder of the Past. 
 But, o'er a winged and four-footed folk 
 Whose unsophisticated nature yields 
 Spontaneous service to her even yoke, 
 There Justice reigns revered ; there Pity shields 
 An else defenceless flock ; and there do they 
 Their joint tribunal hold, where every cause 
 That in this human world hath gone astray, 
 
ii2 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 And honest trial miss'd, by lovelier laws 
 Than ours is welcomed to impartial test, 
 All cases pleaded, be they what they may, 
 All rights establish'd, and all wrongs redress'd. 
 How far away it seems, how far away ! 
 
 Yet one step only from the trodden track 
 That to its daily pilgrims, every one, 
 Appears to be the very zodiac 
 The universe itself is travelling on, 
 Let any man but turn aside, and lo ! 
 Around whatever path he chance to pace 
 With steps unconscious of the way they go 
 Far-reaching Fable's million-branch'd embrace 
 Doth its unfathomable influence throw. 
 
 To him who tells these tales such chance befell 
 Once on a time : and in that Forest old 
 
THE LEGEND OF FABLE. 
 
 (Tho' how he enter'd it he cannot tell) 
 
 With one whose face he may no more behold 
 
 Or there or here, he was beguiled to dwell 
 
 Full many a month. But few of his own kind, 
 
 Among the folk who there safe dwelling have, 
 
 To greet him or to guide him did he find. 
 
 Of these, the wisest was a Phrygian slave, 
 
 The holiest Assisi's tender Saint. 
 
 Phcedrus upon the borders of the land 
 
 Sat listening ; and to him came echoes faint 
 
 From voices far within. His careful hand 
 
 On tablets smooth deliberately wrote 
 
 In unimpulsive verse, correctly plann'd, 
 
 All that thus reach'd him from a source remote. 
 
 But there, without restraint, from place to place 
 
 And led by none, tho' followed by a band 
 
 Of Loves and Graces whose light steps kept pace 
 
 With his inimitably varied lay, 
 
114 AFTER PARADISE. 
 
 Free-footed went the witty Fabulist 
 
 Of social France. And there our English Gay, 
 
 Methodically playful, neither miss'd 
 
 Nor much advanced his unadventurous way. 
 
 Howbeit along that dim and vast domain 
 
 From the discourse of any one of these 
 
 Scant guidance did its last explorer gain. 
 
 There were so many more instructors ! Trees, 
 
 Rocks, rivers, rainbows, clouds, dews, wind, and rain, 
 
 No less than birds and beasts, that live at ease 
 
 An unmolested life by hill and plain 
 
 Throughout its vocal realms (where all that is 
 
 Is all alive) have tongues, and talk as well 
 
 As men or books ; nor do they take amiss 
 
 The questions ask'd them, nor refuse to tell 
 
 Their secrets to the souls that, lingering there, 
 
 Have learn'd their language. 
 
THE LEGEND OF FABLE. 115 
 
 What this listener heard,. 
 There lingering long, he may not here declare. 
 But many a tale to him by beast and bird 
 In Fable Land imparted (if time spare 
 The life of any purpose long deferr'd, 
 Or to postponed occasion, when 'tis won, 
 Recall an errant will's disbanded powers) 
 Fain would he tell beneath the lingering sun 
 Of months unborn, that hide midsummer hours 
 Whose golden gossamers have not yet spun 
 Their shininsr clues to still-unblossom'd bowers. 
 
 1 2 
 
L'ENVOI. 
 
AD iESOPUM. 
 
 i. 
 
 Say, ^sop, wast thou born a slave, 
 
 Who dost so freely speak ? 
 Thy thoughts so upright and so brave ! 
 
 Thy back so bent and weak ? 
 So ugly and so coarse thy face ? 
 And, in thy fancies all, such grace ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Did thy rude comrades play thee pranks. 
 
 Thy master beat thee sore, 
 Yet live to own with grateful thanks 
 
 Thy wit had saved his store ? 
 How fail'd such wit thyself to save 
 From an unjust and cruel grave ? 
 
i: ENVOI. 
 
 Hadst thou, indeed, a stammering tongue, 
 
 Splay foot and limping walk, 
 Whose children are so fair and strong ? 
 
 Didst thou with Solon talk ? 
 And didst thou sup with Croesus too 
 At Sardian feasts ? Is all that true ? 
 
 Vain questions ! Not to us nor thee, 
 Dear Sage, it matters now 
 
 If true or false the stories be 
 Of what thou wast : for thou 
 
 Art what we are : and all thou art 
 
 We all receive, and all impart. 
 
AD MSOPUM. 121 
 
 Of thee, who knewst the world so well, 
 Not much the world hath known : 
 
 Thy voice to us doth only tell 
 Our secrets, not thine own : 
 
 But thou before us everywhere 
 
 Hast been, and still we find thee there, 
 
 Great Sire of Fable ! Age to age 
 Extends, from north to south 
 
 From east to west, thine heritage, 
 That grows from mouth to mouth. 
 
 And, with its growth still growing thus, 
 
 Thou art thyself grown fabulous. 
 
POEMS. 
 
TRANSFORMATIONS. 
 (a midsummer night's dream.) 
 
 I. 
 " Here at last alone, 
 
 You and I together ! 
 
 All the night our own, 
 
 And the warm June weather ! 
 
 Not a soul in sight ! 
 
 AYhat we will, we may. 
 
 Nothing is by night 
 
 As it was by day. 
 
 Look around you ! See, 
 
 All things change themselves. 
 
 Blossom, bower, and tree 
 
 Turn to Fays and Elves ; 
 
 Trivial things and common 
 
126 POEMS. 
 
 Into rare things rising. 
 Why should man and woman 
 Be less enterprising? 
 Fashion's formal creatures 
 We till now have been, 
 With prim-pattern'd features 
 And a borrowed mien. 
 Now the mask is broken, 
 Now the fetters fall, 
 Wishes long unspoken 
 Now are all in all ! 
 Wondrous transformation 
 Now, for you and me, 
 Waits our invocation. 
 Say, what shall we be ? " 
 
 2. 
 
 What vou will," said She. 
 
TRANSFORM,! TIONS. 127 
 
 3- 
 
 " Look, then, and listen ! For you must be waiting, 
 
 Behind a high grating, 
 
 The sound of my signal. Along the wild land 
 
 I have gallop'd full speed on my coal-black steed 
 
 To free my love from my foemairs hand, 
 
 And lo ! in the moonlight alert I stand 
 
 Close under the castle wall. 
 
 Look out, I am here ! 
 
 Leap down, nor fear ! 
 
 For into my rescuing arms you fall, 
 
 Safe and free. They are round you, see ! 
 
 One saddle must serve us, so cling to me well, 
 
 And away, and away, thro' the night we flee ! 
 
 But hark ! 'Tis the clang of the 'larum bell. 
 
 Our pursuers awake. For dear life's sake 
 
 Cling to me closer, and closer still ! 
 
 And speed, speed, my coal-black steed ! 
 
128 POEMS. 
 
 They are hurrying after us over the hill. 
 But clear'd is the river, and cross'd is the heath, 
 Deep into the sheltering woods we dart, 
 And O what a ride ! for I feel your breath, 
 And how hot it burns ! and I hear your heart, 
 And how loud it beats ! as I laugh ' We part 
 No more, come life come death ! ; " 
 
 4- 
 " No, no/' 
 
 She siglrd, " not so ! 
 Too fiercely fleets your coal-black steed, 
 And pleasure faints in passion's speed, 
 And the bliss that lingers the best must be," 
 Siglvd She. 
 
 5- 
 " Listen, then, and look, once more ! 
 We are sailing round a southern island. 
 
TRAXSFORMA TIONS. 1 29 
 
 Fragrant breathes the dusky shore, 
 Folded under many a moonlit highland. 
 Fragrant breathes the dusky shore, 
 And where dips the languid oar 
 Wavelets dimple flash and darkle, 
 Odours wander, fireflies sparkle : 
 Thro' them all our bark is gliding, 
 Gliding softly, gliding slowly : 
 Not a cloud their sweetness hiding, 
 All the heavens are husht and holy : 
 Midnight's panting pulse uncertain 
 Faintly fans the heaving curtain 
 O'er the silken-pillow'd seat 
 Where you lie with slipper'd feet. 
 Tresses loosed, and zone unbound ; 
 While, my ribbon'd lute unslinging, 
 I, your troubadour, beside you, 
 O'er its chords, that trembling sound, 
 
130 POEMS. 
 
 Pour the song my soul is singing : 
 List, and let its music guide you, 
 Till the goal of dreams be found ! ;; 
 
 6. 
 " Ah, stay so ! " 
 She murmur'd low, 
 " Song and stream forever flow ! 
 And, if this be dreaming, never 
 Let me wake, but dream for ever, 
 Dreaming thus, if dream it be ! " 
 Then He : 
 
 7- 
 " As night's magic blends together 
 Moonbeams, starbeams, odours, dews, 
 In a hush of happy weather, 
 Earth and heaven to interfuse ; 
 So my song draws softly down 
 
TRANSFORMA TIONS. 
 
 All your soul into mine own, 
 
 Bounteous gift on gift bestowing : 
 
 First, that heaven, your face ; and then 
 
 Heaven's divinest stars, those eyes 
 
 Under dewy lashes glowing ; 
 
 Last, those lips, whose smile caresses 
 
 All their breath beatifies ; 
 
 And the fragrance o'er me flowing 
 
 From those downward-shaken tresses, 
 
 Whose delicious wildernesses 
 
 Hide such haunts of happy sighs ! " 
 
 " Rise, ah rise ! " 
 
 Faint She whisper'd. " Flold me fast ! 
 
 For away the fixt earth flies, 
 
 And I know not where we are. 
 
 What is coming ? What is past ? 
 
 K 2 
 
132 POEMS. 
 
 Bursting, flashing, fleeting, see, 
 Swiftly star succeeds to star 
 Till .... in what new world are we ? " 
 " Love's," said He. 
 
 9- 
 
 iC Song and lute the spell obeying, 
 Cease in silence sweeter, stronger, 
 Than song-singing or lute-playing : 
 And, entranced, I know no longer 
 Whither are my senses straying : 
 But I feel my spirit blending 
 With the bliss of thine, and ending 
 Tremulously lost in thee ! " 
 
 10. 
 " Hush ! " sigh'd She, 
 " Lest this dream, if dream alone 
 
TRANSFORMA TIONS. 1 33 
 
 And no more than dream it be, 
 By a breath should be undone. 
 
 For ah," She sigh'd, 
 
 " I and thou, what are we now? " 
 And He replied, 
 " Thou art I, and I am thou, 
 And we are one ! " 
 
134 POEMS. 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH, 
 
 i. 
 
 Far in the southern night she sleeps ; 
 
 And there the heavens are husht, and there, 
 Low murmuring from the moonlit deeps, 
 
 Faint music lulls the dreamful air. 
 Xo tears on her soft lashes hang, 
 
 On her calm lips no kisses glow. 
 
 The throb, the passion, and the pang 
 
 Are over now. 
 
 But I ? From this full-peopled north, 
 Whose midnight roar around me stirs, 
 
 How wildly still my heart goes forth 
 To haunt that silent home of hers ! 
 
 There night by night, with no release, 
 These sleepless eyes the vision see, 
 
 And all its visionary peace 
 
 But maddens me. 
 
i3S 
 
 ATHENS. 
 (1865.) 
 
 The burnt-out heart of Hellas here behold ! 
 
 Quench'd fire-pit of the quick explosive Past, 
 Thought's highest crater — all its fervours cold, 
 Ashes and dust at last ! 
 
 And what Hellenic light is living now 
 
 To gild, not Greece, but other lands, is given : 
 Not where the splendour sank, the after-glow 
 Of sunset stays in heaven. 
 
 But loud o'er Grecian ruins still the lark 
 Doth, as of old, Hyperion's glory hail, 
 And from Hymettus, in the moonlight, hark 
 
 The exuberant nightingale ! 
 
136 POEMS. 
 
 CINTRA. 
 
 (1868.) 
 
 1. 
 
 In the brake are creaking 
 
 The tufted canes, 
 And the wind is streaking 
 With fugitive stains 
 A welkin haunted by hovering rains. 
 
 2. 
 Low lemon-boughs under 
 
 My garden wall, 
 In the Quinta yonder, 
 By fits let fall 
 Here an emerald leaf, there a pale gold ball, 
 
C INTRA. 
 
 3- 
 
 On the black earth, studded 
 With droplets bright 
 
 From the fruit trees, budded, 
 Some pink, some white, 
 And now overflooded with watery light. 
 
 4- 
 
 For the sun, thro' a chasm 
 Of the colourless air, 
 
 With a jubilant spasm 
 
 From his broken lair 
 Upleaps and stands, for a moment, bare ! 
 
 5- 
 
 But a breath bewilders 
 
 The wavering weather ; 
 
138 POEMS, 
 
 And those sky-builders 
 That put together 
 The vaporous walls of the cloud-bound ether 
 
 From the mountains hasten 
 In pale displeasure 
 
 To mortice and fasten 
 
 The bright embrasure, 
 Shutting behind it day's innermost azure. 
 
 On the bleak blue rim 
 Of the lonesome lea, 
 
 Shapeless and dim 
 
 As far things at sea, 
 Mafra yon nebulous clump must be ! 
 
C INTRA. 139 
 
 8. 
 
 Across the red furrows 
 
 To where in the sides 
 Of the hills he burrows 
 
 (As a reptile hides) 
 The many-legg'd, long-back'd, aqueduct strides. 
 
 9- 
 
 Just over the pines, 
 
 As from tapers snuff'd, 
 A thin smoke twines 
 
 Till its course is luff'd 
 At the edge of the cliff, by the breeze rebuff'd; 
 
 Whence, downward turning 
 A dubious haze, 
 
i 4 o POEMS. 
 
 (From the charcoal-burning) 
 It strays, delays, 
 And departs by a dozen different ways. 
 
 The chestnuts shiver. 
 
 The olive trees 
 Recoil and quiver, 
 
 Stung by the breeze, 
 Like sleepers awaked by a swarm of bees. 
 
 12. 
 
 Down glimmering lanes 
 The grey oxen go ; 
 And the grumbling wains 
 They drag onward slow 
 Wail, as they wind in a woeful row, 
 
C INTRA. 141 
 
 13- 
 
 With fruits and casks 
 
 To the seaside land, 
 Where Colares basks 
 In a glory bland, 
 And from gardens o'erhanging the scented sand 
 
 14. 
 
 Great aloes glisten 
 
 And roses dangle. 
 But listen ! listen ! 
 
 The mule-bells jangle, 
 Rounding the rock-hewn path's sharp angle. 
 
 As their chime dies out 
 
 The dim woods among, 
 
142 POEMS. 
 
 With the ghostly shout 
 And the distant song 
 Of the muleteers that have pass'd along, 
 
 1 6. 
 
 From behind the hill 
 
 Whence comes that roar, 
 Up the road so still 
 
 But a minute before ? 
 Tis a message arrived from the grieved sea shore. 
 
 And, tho' close it seems, 
 
 Yet from far away 
 It is come, as in dreams 
 
 The announcements they 
 To the souls that can understand convev. 
 
C INTRA. 143 
 
 18. 
 
 For whenever you hear, 
 
 As you hear it now, 
 That sound so clear, 
 
 You may surely know 
 Foul weather's at hand, tho' no wind should blow. 
 
 19. 
 
 But the cork wood is sighing, 
 
 It cannot find rest ; 
 And the raven, flying 
 
 Around his black nest, 
 Hath signall'd the storm to the Sierra's crest. 
 
 20. 
 
 Plaintive and sullen, 
 Penalva moans ; 
 
144 POEMS. 
 
 The torrents are swollen ; 
 The granite bones 
 Of Cruzalta crackle with split pine cones ; 
 
 21. 
 
 Roused and uproarious 
 The huge oaks yell 
 Till the ghost of Honorius 
 Is scared from his cell, 
 Where not even a ghost could in quietude dwell; 
 
 22. 
 
 For the woods all round 
 
 Its cork-clad walls 
 Are storm'd by the sound 
 
 Of the waterfalls 
 That have shattered their mountain pedestals. 
 
C INTRA. 145 
 
 I 2 3- 
 
 On the topmost shelf 
 
 Of the Pena, fast 
 As the rock itself, 
 
 In a cluster vast 
 
 Stood castle and keep but a moment past ; 
 
 24. 
 
 Now, in what to the sight 
 
 Is but empty air, 
 They are v ..nisht quite, 
 
 And the sharp peak, bare 
 As a shaven chin, is upslanted there. 
 
 25- 
 
 Can a film of cloud, 
 
 Like the fiat of Fate, 
 
 L 
 
146 POEMS. 
 
 In its sightless shroud 
 Thus obliterate 
 The ponderous mass of a pile so great ? 
 
 26. 
 
 'Twas a fact, yet a breath 
 
 Has that fact dispell'd. 
 So truth, underneath 
 A cloud compell'd 
 To hide her head, is no more beheld. 
 
 27. 
 
 The achievement of years, 
 By a minute effaced, 
 Departs, disappears, 
 And is all replaced 
 By a cold blank colourless empty waste. 
 
C INTRA. 147 
 
 28. 
 
 All forms, alas, 
 
 That remain or flee 
 As the winds that pass 
 
 May their choice decree, 
 Stand faster far than have stood by me 
 
 29. 
 
 The man I served, 
 
 And the woman I loved. 
 
 But what if they swerved 
 
 As their faith was proved, 
 When a mountain can be by a mist removed ? 
 
 i. 2 
 
, 4 8 POEMS. 
 
 SORRENTO REVISITED. 
 
 (,885.) 
 
 On the lizarded wall and the gold-orb'd tree 
 Spring's splendour again is shining ; 
 
 But the glow of its gladness awakes in me 
 Only a vast repining. 
 
 To Sorrento, asleep on the soft blue breast 
 Of the sea that she loves, and dreaming, 
 
 Lone Capri uplifts an ethereal crest 
 In the luminous azure gleaming. 
 
 And the Sirens are singing again from the shore. 
 
 Tis the song that they sang to Ulysses; 
 But the sound of a song that is sung no more 
 
 My soul in their music misses. 
 
149 
 
 FRAGRANCE. 
 (a spring ballad.) 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 TO 
 
 Here Spring with her gifts is come. 
 
 She hath given white buds to the hedge, 
 To the wandering swallow a home, 
 
 And a rose to your window ledge. 
 In return for the gifts she gave 
 
 A gift for herself she sought, 
 And I, of the best I have, 
 
 Gave to her a single thought. 
 That thought was a thought of you, 
 
 Spring laid it the leaves among, 
 There fed it on light and dew, 
 
 And return'd it to me in a song. 
 So the twice-given gift, as to me 
 
 Spring brought it, to you I bring : 
 For this song is the child of three, 
 
 Us two, and our playmate, Spring. 
 
150 POEMS. 
 
 BALLAD. 
 
 I. 
 
 The soul of all the souls that have become 
 Sweet odours, I am Fragrance from afar. 
 Deep hid in Beauty's bosom was my home, 
 And known to me her inmost mysteries are. 
 
 2. 
 
 I know the secret of the Rose. She blushes, 
 
 I know the reason why. 
 
 A hopeless passion in her heart she hushes 
 
 For the bright Beetle-Fly. 
 
 He was a bold and brilliant cavalier : 
 
 He woo'd her in the love-time of the year 
 
 A livelong summer day : 
 
 He woo'd her, and he won her : then betray'd her. 
 
 And, breaking all the vows that he had made her, 
 
 Upon a sky-built sunbeam sail'd away. 
 
FRAGRANCE. 151 
 
 3- 
 Then the Rose wisht for wings to follow him, 
 But all her wishings were of no avail. 
 What she could do, she did. In pilgrim trim 
 From bower to bower she wander' d down the dale, 
 And climb'd and climb'd, and peep'd into the dim 
 Nest of the Nightingale. 
 
 4- 
 The Nightingale beheld her, and averr'd 
 That she was fairest of the fair. He said, 
 " Fair crimson- winged creature, be a bird ! 
 And I with thee, and none but thee, will wed." 
 His amorous song the Rose resentful heard, 
 And shook her head. 
 
 5- 
 
 Into that amorous song there slid a tear. 
 
 The Rose was weeping, sad at heart was she. 
 
152 POEMS. 
 
 But still the Nightingale with song sincere 
 
 Sang to her in the twilight from the tree. 
 
 " O wert thou but a bird ! thou art so dear, 
 
 Thee would I mate with, and wed none but thee ! " 
 
 " Nay," sigh'd the Rose, " I seek mine absent fere, 
 
 A lover bold and born of high degree, 
 
 My heart is sad because he is not here, 
 
 Sir Scarabaeus he ! " 
 
 6. 
 
 The Evening Wind .pass'd by, and heard her boast, 
 
 And to the Rose he whisper'd, laughing low, 
 
 " Poor Rose, thine absent lover thou hast lost, 
 
 For he is faithless, and forsaken thou ! 
 
 I met him on my travels at the Court 
 
 Of Queen Spiraea of Ulmaria. 
 
 The Meadow Queen is she, and all amort 
 
 Sir Scarabaeus, for her sake, that day 
 
FRAGRANCE, 153 
 
 Had sworn to break a lance. The tilt was short, 
 I left him lying wounded in the dust, 
 And only know that, by the last report, 
 Thy gallant had received a mortal thrust. 
 Now all the common flowers that far and wide 
 Have envied thee because thou art so fair 
 Are laughing at thee. But whate'er betide, 
 Come thou with me, and I will bring thee where 
 Thou yet mayst find him in his fallen pride." 
 The poor Rose hung her head, and, in despair, 
 " Had I but wings !" she sigh'd, 
 " Had I but wings ! " 
 
 7- 
 With laughter light again, 
 " Thou hast them," that perfidious Wind replied, 
 "And I will show thee how to use them." Then 
 He breathed upon the Rose, and, undenied, 
 
154 POEMS. 
 
 Pluckt from her one by one her petals fair ; 
 But, soon dissatisfied 
 
 With his sweet theft, along the thankless air 
 He tost the stolen petals here and there, 
 And off he hied. 
 
 Me for himself he would have kept. But I 
 Beheld thee, as the Evening Wind went by 
 Bearing me with him. To the Wind I said 
 "Wait for me ! " and I slid into thy soul. 
 When the Wind miss'd me he believed me dead, 
 And so went on without me to his goal, 
 Which he shall never reach, for every hour 
 It changes. 
 
 From that moment I became 
 The inmate of thy thoughts. I have the power 
 To perfume all the paths they haunt. My name 
 
FRAGRANCE. 155 
 
 Another's lips must teach thine own to spell. 
 
 Untold I leave it, lest the Evening Star 
 
 Should guess it in thine eyes. With thee to dwell, 
 
 And thine to be for ever, from afar 
 
 I come with secrets laden, I can tell 
 
 To none but thee. So sweet my whispers are, 
 
 That with their fragrance fill'd is every thought 
 
 That I have breathed on. Maiden pure and fair, 
 
 A paradise of perfumes I have brought 
 
 That thy sweet soul may breathe in sweetest air. 
 
 Ah, keep it ! The Soul's Fragrance lost, can aught 
 
 That loss repair? 
 
156 POEMS. 
 
 LINES* 
 
 COMPOSED IN SLEEP. 
 
 This is the place. Here flourish'd Wicked Deeds 
 And wither'd, in a world without a name, 
 Buried ere ours was born. Fierce troops of Crimes 
 Weapon'd and crown'd, athwart a desert land 
 Of wasted loveliness, to reach this place 
 Travell'd in pomp : here settled, and here died, 
 
 * These lines are the result of a slumber, not induced by any 
 narcotic, from which the writer awoke under an extraordinarily 
 vivid impression that he had composed in his sleep a poem of 
 considerable length. Of the purport of the poem he retained 
 only a vague and shadowy notion ; but more than a hundred lines 
 of it were lingering (as it seemed to him) so distinctly in his re- 
 collection that he hastened to write them down. His memory 
 however (or the illusion which had usurped the function of 
 memory) suddenly and completely failed him at the point where 
 this fragment breaks off. He has never been able to complete 
 it ; and it is printed here, without alteration, as a psychological* 
 curiosity. 
 
LINES. J 57 
 
 Grown old and weak : and, dying left behind 
 
 No chronicle upon the bare rock graven 
 
 Of what they were or what they did. The lives 
 
 They cramm'd with evil, all their wicked loves, 
 
 Their wicked hates, Death and slow Time have turn'd 
 
 Into a sly grey silent ghostliness, 
 
 A stealthy-footed Fear, that prowls for prey, 
 
 Creeps on the wretch who wanders here unwarn'd, 
 
 Catches him, with long fingers, by the head, 
 
 Nor lets him go till all his mind is gone. 
 
 This was their city's tower'd acropolis, 
 This sprawling hoop of roofless ruin huge 
 Whose heart is hollowness. These broken ribs 
 Of crumbled stone and mounds of rippling grass 
 Were walls whose builders, when those walls were 
 
 built, 
 Kings put to death, that none the plan might tell 
 
158 POEMS. 
 
 Of secret chambers cruelly contrived 
 
 For lust and murder : and therein were born 
 
 Abominable pleasures. Round them now 
 
 Rank ivy rustles with the revelry 
 
 Of spangled reptiles. Down in a dry well 
 
 There hath been dwelling for three thousand years 
 
 An old white newt, whiter than leprosy. 
 
 He only knows the long-forgotten names 
 
 Of those strong scarlet blossoms on the brink 
 
 That once were Sins. ***** 
 
159 
 
 PROMETHEIA. 
 
 (freedom of speech and press, et cetera.) 
 
 Mephistopheles (ad spectatores) 
 
 " Am ende hangen wir doch ab 
 Von creaturen die wir machten." — 
 Faust. — Second Part. (Birth of the Homunculus. ) 
 
 PART I. 
 
 "God of the Gods, and Lord of Heaven ! Since now 
 
 Repentant Power rejects not Reason's use, 
 
 Here on the Path of Progress stay not thou 
 
 Thy steps by me w 7 ell-counseird ! ?J (Thus to Zeus 
 
 Prometheus spake.) " From Earth's primordial womb 
 
 Mute to the birth her progeny are brought. 
 
 « 
 
 To death they go, as into life they come, 
 Condemned to suffer all and utter nought. 
 Read in the language of their longing eyes 
 The passionate petition of the dumb, 
 
i6o POEMS. 
 
 And grant the long'd-for gift, mere life denies, 
 A voice to Will, to Feeling, and to Thought ! " 
 
 But Zeus, mistrustful, murmur'd " To what end ? " 
 
 " No end of ends," he answer'd, " and in each 
 
 A fresh beginning ! for with better fraught 
 
 Is every best, as world on world ascend, 
 
 In ceaseless self-upliftings, life's immense 
 
 Capacities of growth. Voice leads to speech, 
 
 Speech to intelligence, intelligence 
 
 To liberty, and liberty " .... " To what ? " 
 
 Zeus interrupted. " Ever out of reach 
 
 Thy thoughts run on, and all thy language still 
 
 Sounds revolutionary." " Still ! why not ? " 
 
 Prometheus laugh'd. " We share the imputed crime. 
 
 From revolutionary fountains flow 
 
 Fresh streams of force : and, tho' enthroned sublime 
 
 On spoiPd Olympus, what thyself wert thou 
 
 Without the Revolution, Son of Time ? " 
 
PROMETHEIA. 161 
 
 " Titan," the God, with darkening aspect, sigh'd, 
 
 " It was to ravish, not retain, a throne 
 
 That on the Revolution we relied ; 
 
 Wherein thy services have every one 
 
 Been well requited." "Ay," Prometheus cried, 
 
 " Witness Mount Caucasus ! " " What's done is done." 
 
 Zeus answer'd. " Not till thou hadst turn'd our foe 
 
 And filch'd our fire, did we retaliate thus. 
 
 But witness also thou, that (long ago 
 
 Recall'd with recompense from Caucasus) 
 
 Thee hath our later friendship favoured so, 
 
 That thine is now copartnership with us 
 
 In all our own Olympian empery, 
 
 By thy weird wisdom guided. Why discuss 
 
 The unalterable past ? Nor thou nor I 
 
 Fresh conflict crave. This much concede." " I do," 
 
 Prometheus mutter'd, " and the reason why 
 
 Full well, Fate-driven Thunderer, I know ! 
 
 M 
 
1 62 POEMS. 
 
 For thy reluctant power perforce obeys 
 
 The strict compulsions of Necessity." 
 
 " Her iron yoke," replied the God, " she lays 
 
 On Gods and Titans both, and none can close, 
 
 None ope, her hidden hand. Forget the days 
 
 That disunited us, nor indispose 
 
 A confidence that fain would rest assured 
 
 Rather in him sage Themis loves to praise, 
 
 Than in the perjured Titan who abjured 
 
 The cause of his own kindred." " And for whose, 
 
 Ungrateful God?" " Nay, my Prometheus, mine 
 
 The cause, I know, for which thou didst change sides." 
 
 " Not thine," the indignant Titan cried, '"not thine ! 
 
 Nor thine nor thee, Monarch of Parricides 
 
 From Sire to Son, I sought ! In god or worm 
 
 I care not where the sign of it I see, 
 
 But let me find, beneath the poorest germ, 
 
 Some promise of improvement, that to free 
 
PROMETHEIA. 163 
 
 A hinder'd progress to a higher term 
 Needs all the aid a Titan can afford, 
 And mine shall not be wanting to confirm 
 The effort that aspires to overcome !" 
 
 Zeus, shaking his sheaved thunders at the word, 
 
 Exclainrd, " Inveterately venturesome ! 
 
 Whom should the upstart overcome ? Not me ? ' ; 
 
 " And why not thee," Prometheus cried, " new lord 
 
 Of a usurpt dominion ? Why not thee, 
 
 Thee and thy kindred all, whose starry home 
 
 To Kronos once belong'd, if its endeavour 
 
 Of higher worth than thine and theirs should be ? 
 
 Kronides, never have I flatter'd, never 
 
 Deceived thee, or betray'd ! Forget not thou 
 
 That in the Race of Uranus for ever 
 
 Power hath been lost and won by overthrow. 
 
 Unoverthrown, wouldst thou preserve it, dare 
 
 To rule without oppression ! Fearless now, 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 POEMS, 
 
 Fling the lone scepter of a world-wide care 
 Into the lap of Freedom ! Safest thus 
 Shall its supremacy remain, for there 
 Rebellion breathes not. Flad not Kronos pent 
 Our Giant Brotherhood in Tartarus, 
 His might have been (thy treason to prevent) 
 The hundred-handed help he lack'd of us. 
 Confide in Liberty, the friend of all, 
 And live by all befriended ! With her, grow 
 From growth to growth, in a perpetual 
 Increase of growing greatness ! So shalt thou, 
 Still onward borne with all that's onward going, 
 Be never by-gone, never out of date ! 
 Tis at the price of ever greater growing 
 Eternity is granted to the great." 
 
 Zeus answer'd with an indecisive sigh. 
 " Prophet," he said, " who, in the hoary Past 
 
PROMETHEIA. 165 
 
 Where the old Gods and the old Ages lie, 
 
 Sole of thy kindred didst the hour forecast 
 
 Which thou alone survivest, prophecy 
 
 (If still the gift of prophecy thou hast) 
 
 What destiny for me, should I deny 
 
 The gift thou cravest, is reserved by Fate ? " 
 
 "The sadness of immense satiety," 
 
 Prometheus murmur'd. " Pause and meditate ! " 
 
 He added. '* I, the Spokesman of the Dumb, 
 
 Am also Seer of the Unseen." " But what," 
 
 Zeus sigh'd again, " will they next crave, to whom 
 
 The voice to crave it hath been granted ? " " That 
 
 Shall they themselves inform thee by and by," 
 
 Exclaim'd the surly Giant, and thereat 
 
 His shoulders huge he shrugg'd. 
 
 Without reply 
 Zeus mused awhile ; but, spying Eros pass 
 Full-quiver'd for a chase of sweeter cry 
 
1 66 POEMS. 
 
 Than Cynthia leads along the moonlit grass, 
 When, thro' the rustling grove and glimpsing sky. 
 Thin shadows, fast pursued by shadows, flee, 
 The God, impatient, glanced at Earth's mute mass 
 Then waved an acquiescent hand, as he 
 Turn'd from the Titan with a faint " Alas, 
 Prometheus, thou art compromising me ! " 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Leaving in haste the Olympian Council Hall, 
 
 The apostate Titan down to Earth convey'd 
 
 The grudged concession wrung from Zeus. There, all 
 
 In conclave multitudinous array'd, 
 
 His clients he together cali'd (from man 
 
 In fair Apollo's faultless image made, 
 
 To man's close copy, made on the same plan, 
 
 The flat-faced ape) and all the bars undid 
 
PROMETHEIA. 167 
 
 Which had till then lock'd mercifully fast 
 The innumerable voices that, unchid, 
 Now into riotous utterance rush'd at last. 
 
 This done, preferring to appreciate 
 
 The concert from a distance, he return'd 
 
 To the Olympians — in whose looks irate 
 
 A relisht indignation he discern'd. 
 
 The Gods and Goddesses, the Demigods 
 
 And Demigoddesses, all demi-nude, 
 
 (As Classic Art's correctest periods 
 
 Prescribed to each the appropriate attitude) 
 
 Were listening, with more wonder than delight, 
 
 To the new noisiness of earthly things. 
 
 For quick and thick each animal appetite 
 
 Throbb'd into sudden sound from the loud strings 
 
 Of throats in thousands loosed ; and left and right 
 
 Chirrupings, crowings, howlings, bellowings, 
 
 And barkings — bass and treble of mingled mirth 
 
1 68 POEMS. 
 
 And pain — were now profusely vomited 
 In vehement hubbub from the vocal Earth. 
 
 Meanwhile, as with sloped shoulder, shuffling tread 
 
 Evasive, mien morose, and furtive eye, 
 
 Thro' Heaven's bright groups the burly Titan sped, 
 
 Their comments were not complimentary. 
 
 " Please to explain," resentful Here said, 
 
 " This new caprice, or stop that peacock's cry ! 
 
 My bird will be a byword and a scoff 
 
 If this continues ! " " Ah, Fair Majesty, 
 
 This new caprice is an old debt paid off," 
 
 Prometheus answer'd. " Fops in pomp array 'd 
 
 Must now reveal what's in them, to the ear, 
 
 Who, to the eye, have heretofore display'd 
 
 Only what's on them. But have thou no fear, 
 
 Thy favourite makes an admirable show — 
 
 From one so beautiful exact no more !" 
 
 Eos complain'd of the cock's clamorous crow, 
 
PROMETHEIA. 169 
 
 Superfluously sounded o'er and o'er. 
 
 " Prometheus might at least," she said, "for me 
 
 Have managed to contrive a less absurd 
 
 And indiscreetly strepitant minstrelsy 
 
 Than the loud shriek of that ridiculous bird ! " 
 
 " Sweet Cousin, thine indulgence," he replied, 
 
 " For the cicala's strains (I grant that these 
 
 Have not as yet been duly deified) 
 
 Leaves to less plaintive notes small chance to please 
 
 An ear compassionately prejudiced. 
 
 Sleep sounder, and wake later ! What hath drawn 
 
 Thy blushing charms, untimely thus enticed, 
 
 O rosy-finger'd Daughter of the Dawn, 
 
 From that soft couch Love's self were fain to lie on ? 
 
 Is it the memory of Cephalus, 
 
 Or else the expectation of Orion ? " 
 
 With jests sarcastic curtly answering thus 
 
170 POEMS. 
 
 The just reproaches of the Gods, that great 
 
 Ungainly Titan strode from spot to spot, 
 
 Superbly heedless of the scorn and hate 
 
 His course provoked. Olympus loved him not, 
 
 Despite his ancient birth and lineage high ; 
 
 And even the new-made Deities, whose past 
 
 Was but of yesterday, with sidelong eye 
 
 Look'd on him as a god of lower caste. 
 
 The restless spirit that from his peers in Heaven 
 
 Ever aloof the unquiet Giant held 
 
 Had to his strenuous Titanism given 
 
 A tone incongruously coarse. Impell'd 
 
 By unintelligible vehemence, 
 
 His uncouth grandeur grieved the fluent grace 
 
 Of the Olympian Quiet with intense 
 
 Abrupt explosive ardours ; as apace 
 
 On its swift course, all rough with rocks and roots, 
 
 And fiercely fluttering with volcanic fire, 
 
PR0METHE1A. 171 
 
 Some ravaged morsel of a mountain shoots 
 Across the cloven crystal of a lake 
 In whose clear depths stars and still clouds admire 
 The lucid forms their own reflections take. 
 
 Sole, Aphrodite (she, that Fairest Fair, 
 
 Whose sacred sweetness from its rancorous tooth 
 
 The Titan's biting wit was pleased to spare, 
 
 - — She for whose solitary sake, in truth, 
 
 The sullen menace of his face at whiles 
 
 A fond mysterious fervour unavow'd 
 
 Made soft and luminous with hovering smiles, 
 
 Like summer lightnings thro' a sleeping cloud) 
 
 Sole, Aphrodite found a curious charm 
 
 In this grim God-born Mocker of the Gods ; 
 
 And, waving to Prometheus her white arm, 
 
 She beckon'd him with amicable nods. 
 
 Submissive to her signal he drew near, 
 
 And with a questioning gaze the Goddess eyed. 
 
172 POEMS. 
 
 " Titan, well done ! " she whisper'd in his ear ; 
 
 " What long on Earth I miss'd thou hast supplied. 
 
 I love the lion's roar, the ring-dove's coo : 
 
 By both alike love's needs are well express'd : 
 
 The amorous bull's deep bellowing charms me too. 
 
 But why hast thou withheld the last and best 
 
 Of all thy gifts from those who, tho' but few, 
 
 Most claim on thy solicitude possess'd ? " 
 
 Prometheus, by astonishment tongue-tied, 
 
 An interrogatory eyebrow raised. 
 
 " Those larks and nightingales that yonder hide," 
 
 The Goddess answer'd as on Earth she gazed, 
 
 " Inaudible and invisible to all ! 
 
 Darkling they haunt the shadows round them furl'd, 
 
 Silent amidst the universal brawl 
 
 And babble of the emancipated world. 
 
 Yet heaven is husht to hear their minstrelsy : 
 
 For these the moon and stars are not too sweet, 
 
PRO ME TIIEIA. 1 73 
 
 For those the sun himself is not too high : 
 
 And shall they have no listeners ? Hearts that beat 
 
 With base emotions find ignoble voice, 
 
 Wrath, and Unreason, and Vulgarity 
 
 Speak loud. Stupidity and Spite rejoice 
 
 In utterance unrestricted. Say, then, why 
 
 (Where Folly's fife with Envy's clarion vies) 
 
 Must these alone, the darlings of the Spring, 
 
 Whose souls are fill'd with lyric ecstacies, 
 
 Unheard, or even if heard unheeded, sing ? " 
 
 The Titan's eye, with a soul-searching glare, 
 
 Sounded the secret dwelling undescried 
 
 In those small bosoms. " And what seest thou there?" 
 
 The Goddess ask'd him. Sighing he replied 
 
 " What I should have foreseen ! " " But what is that ? " 
 
 Full on the glorious beauty of her face 
 
 Prometheus gazed. " O Goddess, ask not what ! 
 
174 POEMS. 
 
 Thou who, supreme in beauty and in grace, 
 
 Art by adoring worlds proclaim'd divine, 
 
 What kindred could thy confident godhood trace 
 
 In a shy loveliness so unlike thine ? 
 
 A loveliness of its own self afraid, 
 
 A Bastard Beauty, fearing to be seen, 
 
 Yet fainting to be loved, that seeks the shade ! " 
 
 The Goddess laugh'd " What doth my Titan mean ? 
 
 What bastard is he speaking of? " And he, 
 
 " Ay, 'tis a Beauty bastard-born, and not 
 
 Authentically certified to be, 
 
 A Beauty surreptitiously begot 
 
 From Heaven's embrace of Earth, and breathing, see, 
 
 Between them both in secrecy and shame 
 
 An unacknowledged life !" " But what," said she, 
 
 Is this poor Heaven-born Earth-child's luckless name?" 
 
 " Its name," Prometheus sigh'd, " is Poesy." 
 
 "A woman?" "No." "A* man, then?" " Ah, still less!" 
 
PROMETHEIA. 175 
 
 The glorious sexual Goddess blush'd outright, 
 " Is Hermes, then, a father ? " " Nay, my guess 
 " Divines not Hermes." "Zeus, then ? am I right?" 
 "I doubt ..." " If there's a doubt, 'tis Zeus! Suppress 
 The father's name, however. Well we know 
 The mother is the love tale's text, of course, 
 The father but the pretext. Name the mother ! " 
 "But thou wouldst not believe me ..." "Worse 
 
 and worse ! 
 'Tis Here, then ? " " Not Here." " There's no other 
 Of whom the thing's incredible — unless 
 Perchance 'tis Pallas ? " " No alas, not she ! " 
 " And why alas ? " With keen suggestiveness, 
 For sole reply the Titan glowingly 
 Gazed on the Goddess, till she blush'd again, 
 " Matchless impertinent ! " But he, unmoved, 
 " Goddess, I warn'd thee that thou wouldst not deign 
 To give me credit . . . " " For such pert unproved 
 
1 76 POEMS. 
 
 Assertion ? Fie, to say it to my face ! " 
 
 " But I said nothing." "And yet all implied. 
 
 What next, I wonder ! " " Queen of every grace 
 
 And all that's beautiful," Prometheus cried, 
 
 " Tell me thy parents ! " " Known to all are they, 
 
 Zeus and Dione, both of them divine." 
 
 " They ! " cried the Titan, " they thy parents ? Nay, 
 
 Great and dear Goddess, beauty such as thine 
 
 Had nobler birth ! Those stupid Gods are not 
 
 The true begetters of a deity 
 
 Above their own. J Twas otherwise begot. 
 
 Slid from the starry bosom of the sky, 
 
 A single drop of sacred ichor pure, 
 
 The mystic blood of Uranus, contain'd 
 
 In one bright bead thy whole progeniture : 
 
 Hid in the heart of Ocean it remained 
 
 Till there it brought thy wondrous self to birth : 
 
 And, even so, one glimpse of Heaven unstain'd, 
 
PROMETHEIA. 17 7 
 
 That fell reflected in a glance from Earth 
 
 To Heaven uplifted, this new Beauty bore — 
 
 Which bath no sex, no mother, and no sire, 
 
 No kin on Earth, no home in Heaven — nay more, 
 
 'Tis neither man nor woman, but the soul, 
 
 Of the wide world's unsatisfied desire. 
 
 And thro 5 the universe, without a goal, 
 
 Its hungering heart must wander high and higher. 
 
 Till from the Gods it gain (as I, for those 
 
 Poor mortals yonder, snatch'd from Zeus his fire) 
 
 The immortality they dread to lose." 
 
 " But this new Beauty, do those bosoms small 
 Enshrine it ? " ask'd the Goddess. " Ah, subdued," 
 Prometheus murmur'd bitterly, " by all 
 The vulgar voices of the multitude 
 That loves its own monopoly of noise, 
 No homage hath the homeless one on Earth ! 
 And vainly its unanswer'd song employs 
 
 N 
 
i;S POEMS. 
 
 The gift I gave. In darkness and in dearth, 
 
 By noise and glare engirt, unheard it sings, 
 
 Unseen it stirs. For this, from Zeus I craved, 
 
 What he denies me still, the gift of wings — 
 
 For birds — birds only — that in some sweet bird 
 
 Life's sweetest voice, from Earth's loud hubbub saved, 
 
 Might soar in song to Heaven, and there be heard. 
 
 Never while man breathes mortal breath shall he, 
 
 The Earthborn, hand or foot from Earth withdraw : 
 
 For there uplifted must his kingdom be 
 
 By agelong labour. Language, there, and Law 
 
 Hath he to found ; create, for social power 
 
 And spacious trade, the Senate and the Mart ; 
 
 Establish Science in her starry tower, 
 
 x\nd mint the glowing miracles of Art. 
 
 Such is the task by me for man design'd ! 
 
 But ever, as on Earth his task he plies, 
 
 Higher than foot and hand must heart and mind, 
 
PROMETHETA. 179 
 
 Uplifted o'er the earthly labour, rise. 
 
 Let mind and heart, then, heavenward pathways find 
 
 Upon the wings of every bird that flies, 
 
 While hand and foot stay fast to Earth confined ; 
 
 Lest Earth should haply lose her fairest prize, 
 
 The hand of man : whose fingers five shall bind 
 
 Together all that his five wits' rejoice 
 
 To wrench from Time's tenacious treasuries, 
 
 As, guided onward by a winged voice, 
 
 Earth's wingless lord to his high future hies ! " 
 
 PART III. 
 
 The Titan quiver'd. Strenuous tremours ran 
 Thro' his huge limbs, rocking their heaviness 
 Like wind-rack'd oaks ; and his deep eyes began 
 To glow with a prophetic passion. "Yes ! 
 And then," he murmur'd, " then the Race of Man 
 
 N 2 
 
180 POEMS. 
 
 (Taught by that winged voice) perchance may guess 
 
 The giant purpose, the stupendous plan 
 
 That, brooding o'er its cloudy cradle, I 
 
 Have for the infant fashion'd. Changeless Gods, 
 
 What profits you your immortality ? 
 
 Thro' endless self-repeating periods 
 
 To be the same for ever, is to be 
 
 For ever lacking life's divinest gift, 
 
 The faculty of growth. No inch can ye 
 
 Your future o'er your present selves uplift. 
 
 What good in such prolong'd ineptitude ? 
 
 But to be ever growing young again, 
 
 From age to age eternally renew'd 
 
 With breath new-born, and ardour to attain 
 
 Goals ever new, by courses never done, 
 
 — This gift, to gods ungiven, or given in vain, 
 
 My forethought hath reserved for man alone ! 
 
 Death was the blind condition jealous Zeus, 
 
PROMETHEIA. 181 
 
 To balk my purpose, on mankind imposed, 
 
 But Death my purpose serves : for Death renews 
 
 Man's youth, whose course old age might else have 
 
 closed. 
 Unprescient God, 'tis well thou couldst not guess 
 That to these hands the fetter forged by thee 
 Gave all required by their inventiveness 
 To shape the sword that cuts each fetter free ! 
 Mankind must die ! The fiat forth is gone. 
 Die ? When I heard that word of doom proclaim'd, 
 More self-restraint I needed to suppress 
 A shout of joy, than when my strangled groan 
 Burst not the bitten lips its anguish shamed, 
 And not a cry revealed the dumb distress 
 Of my Caucasian martyrdom. By Death 
 The Race of Man shall be from age to age 
 Replenisht with the perdurable breath 
 Of endless birth, and vigour to engage 
 
1 82 POEMS. 
 
 In ventures new. Death's sickle, as it reaps 
 The old grain, to the young the soil restores, 
 And still the harvest springs, and the soil keeps 
 Still fresh for growth its disencumber'd pores. 
 A man is dead, long live Mankind ! from soul 
 To soul each life's acquest triumphantly 
 Passes in sure succession. Ages roll, 
 And in a hundred ages (what care I 
 How many births as many deaths succeed ?) 
 Man's Race, enrich'd a hundredfold thereby, 
 Remains as young as ever. Oft with heed 
 Have I the Ocean watch'd, and watch'd the shore. 
 The sand, rejected by the wave's wild shock, 
 Gathers in heaps and, growing more and more, 
 And high and higher, hardens till at last 
 The wave returning breaks upon a rock, 
 And is itself rejected. Tost and cast 
 By Time's recurrent waves, son after sire, 
 
PROMETHEIA. 183 
 
 From death to death, like that sea-driven sand, 
 Grains of Humanity, with past on past 
 Your greatening future pile, and high and higher, 
 Based on each others' buried shoulders, stand ! " 
 
 " What art thou muttering ? " Aphrodite said. 
 " Mysterious dreamer, dost thou meditate 
 The Gods' destruction ? " High his shaggy head 
 The Titan lifted, and replied elate, 
 " Not thine, Anadyomene, not thine ! 
 Passion's imperishable autocrat, 
 Thee only of the Gods I deem divine, 
 And permanent is thy sweet power as Fate. 
 Receive mine oath, and aid me ! " 
 
 "How? In what?'* 
 " Inspire in Zeus the wish to be a bird 
 That he may woo a mortal." 
 
1 84 POEMS. 
 
 Letting fall 
 Sweet lids o'er sunny eyes as this she heard, 
 The Goddess smiled, and answer'd " Is that all ? " 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Pretentious patrons of mankind, what pranks 
 However monstrous has your pride disdain'd 
 For pushing forward its own purpose ? Thanks 
 To your activity, what tears have stain'd 
 The trophies of man's progress ! What a sea 
 Of blood, to float your cockle-boats, been shed ! 
 Your fellow man from prejudice to free, 
 Your fellow man's incorrigible head 
 Have you chopp'd off with philanthropic glee, 
 By basketfuls, benign Philanthropists ! 
 And, promising a better life instead, 
 
PROMETHEIA. 185 
 
 This life have you, evangelising Priests, 
 With penance fill'd ! Your famed philosophies, 
 By way of throwing light on what men find 
 Compassionately dark, burn out their eyes, 
 Vaunting Philosophers ! In vain mankind 
 For refuge from its benefactors sighs. 
 
 His purposes humane the Titan's mind 
 
 Found less inhuman means to realise. 
 
 He merely made a god ridiculous. 
 
 When Zeus had, for the sake of Ganymede, 
 
 Assumed an eagle's form, succumbing thus 
 
 To Aphrodite's influence, thro' that deed 
 
 The Son of Asia and Iapetus 
 
 His end attain'd. For how thenceforth could Zeus 
 
 (Plagued by the importunate solicitings 
 
 Of such a crafty counsellor) refuse 
 
 Even to the meanest bird a pair of wings ? 
 
i86 POEMS. 
 
 Promiscuous benefits can rarely claim 
 
 A better origin. To elevate 
 
 One favourite, lest it should incur the blame 
 
 Of personal preference in affairs of State, 
 
 Some dozen mediocrities as high 
 
 The Crown must needs advance. If, still irate, 
 
 The Public Voice protests, to brave its cry 
 
 There are at least thirteen instead of one : 
 
 The wrong, moreover, that is done thereby 
 
 To no one in particular is done : 
 
 Tis but a general calamity, 
 
 And that is an indignity to none. 
 
 Yet vast and irremediable was 
 
 The failure of Prometheus. From the day 
 
 He universalised the voice, alas, 
 
 Whilst every vulgar brute could say his say, 
 
 To souls refined and delicate remain'd 
 
PROMETHEIA. 187 
 
 No refuge from the hubbub all around 
 
 But their own silence : and such souls refrain'd 
 
 (Dumfounded quite by a disgust profound) 
 
 From audible utterance. The loquacious zest 
 
 Of Earth's coarse crowd had in the finer few 
 
 Life's highest note unknowingly suppress'd. 
 
 That was the Titan's first mistake. A new 
 
 And worse one he fell into, in his quest 
 
 Of means to mend it : for he did but brew 
 
 A base resentment in the human breast 
 
 By giving wings to birds. Man's envy drew 
 
 Between the smallest sparrow and himself 
 
 Comparisons, from one grudged point of view, 
 
 Displeasing to the self-conceited elf. 
 
 A third mistake Prometheus might have then 
 
 Committed, and from Zeus in some weak mood 
 
 The envied gift of wings for envious men 
 
 Perchance obtain'd, had Man's Ingratitude 
 
1 88 POEMS. 
 
 Not prematurely ended his career. 
 
 Mortals, and mortals to a man agreed 
 
 In censuring all attempts to interfere 
 
 With their mortality, men first decreed 
 
 The Abolition of the Gods : and here, 
 
 Prometheus held their sacrilegious deed 
 
 Was justifiable, altho' severe : 
 
 But men no sooner from the Gods were freed, 
 
 Than of a Titan's aid so sure they were 
 
 Their godless freedom had no further need, 
 
 That they forthwith proclaim'd it everywhere 
 
 Mankind's Titanic Patron had become 
 
 To man no more than an enormous myth ; 
 
 The monstrous trance of dreaming Heathendom, 
 
 Not to be any longer trusted with 
 
 Traditional influence on the human mind. 
 
 Thus, having fail'd to benefit the few, 
 
 And by the ungrateful multitude malign'd, 
 
PROMETHEIA. 189 
 
 A sad self-exile, seeking to eschew 
 
 The sight of his own failure in mankind, 
 
 Prometheus from man's fatuous world withdrew. 
 
 But first to his lame brother he resign'd 
 His slighted scepter. Epimetheus sought 
 To avenge Prometheus, and rebuke men's blind 
 Ingratitude for gifts that cost them nought. 
 Strict penalties to granted prayers he join'd, 
 And punish'd with a knowledge dearly bought 
 The pride that had disdainfully declined 
 Gratuitous instruction. Afterthought 
 Succeeded Forethought as the Ruling Power 
 Of Progress, and the Race of Man was taught 
 A painful prudence by Pandora's dower 
 Of ever unanticipated woes 
 From wishes born. 
 
190 POEMS. 
 
 The formidable place 
 Of his first martyrdom Prometheus chose 
 For his last refuge from a thankless race. 
 There, wandering far and farther out of sight, 
 Along waste ways indefinite as those 
 Traced by the shadows travelling in the flight 
 Of silent clouds o'er solitary snows, 
 " Rash Race of Suicides ! " he mused in scorn, 
 " You to your own precocious appetite 
 Have fall'n a prey : your future yet unborn 
 You have devour'd : and, fumbled ere unfurl'd, 
 Broken is all its promise in the bud ! 
 No more can I redeem you from a world 
 Where Genius, bringing fire, found only mud 
 YVherefrom to make an image of itself. 
 Ah, what to you is left for which to live, 
 To toil, to suffer ? Perishable pelf, 
 Lust without love, coarse pleasures that contrive 
 
PROMETHEIA. 191 
 
 Their own defeat, and joy that never stays ! 
 What with those aspirations will you do, 
 Which should have been as pinions to upraise 
 Humanity above the Gods ? Pursue 
 The trivial tenour of your thankless days 
 From things desired to things possest in vain, 
 But there my gifts can aid you not, I know ! 
 Alas, and what will now be their worse pain, 
 In whom those gifts their glowing poesies 
 With aching pangs commingle ? Woe to you, 
 Poor children of my frustrate enterprise ! 
 Poets, can you be silent ? " 
 
 That austere 
 And somber martyr's reminiscent eye 
 Survey'd the snow-ribb'd crags around him there, 
 And the lost Titan murmur'd, with a sigh 
 Soon frozen in their freezing atmosphere, 
 " If not .... well, learn to suffer, even as I ! " 
 
192 POEMS. 
 
 A SIGH. 
 
 The Passion and the pain of yore 
 Slow time hath still'd in vain, 
 
 Since all that I can feel no more 
 I yearn to feel again. 
 
 NECROMANCY. 
 
 Why didst thou let me deem thee lost for years, 
 
 Youth of my heart ? And, now that I have shed 
 O'er thy false grave long-since-forgotten tears, 
 
 And put away my mourning for the dead, 
 And learn'd to live without thee half content, 
 
 What brings thee back alive, tho' in disguise ? 
 For thou, with this fair stranger's beauty blent, 
 
 Art smiling on me thro' another's eyes. 
 
193 
 
 URIEL. 
 
 (a mystery.) 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 To you, the dead and gone, bright-eyed Desires 
 Whose beauty lights no more my dwindled day, 
 Here, sitting lone beside forsaken fires, 
 I dedicate this lay. 
 
 I heard a Voice by night, that call'd to me 
 " Uriel ! Uriel ! " 
 
 The night was dark, and nothing could I see, 
 Yet knew I by the Voice that it was She 
 Whom my soul loves so well 
 That when She calls Her follower I must be, 
 
 Whether She call from Heaven or from Hell. 
 
 o 
 
194 POEMS. 
 
 2. 
 
 Then to the Voice " What is thy will ? " said I. 
 But for sole response thro* the darkness fell, 
 Repeated with the same importunate cry, 
 Mine own name only, " Uriel ! Uriel ! " 
 I could not sleep nor rest upon my bed, 
 So I rose up, and thro' the husht house pass 7 d 
 With steps unlighted (for my lamp was dead) 
 Out on the heath. 
 
 That Voice flew onward fast, 
 Still calling, and still onward after it 
 I follow'd, far outsped : for there, beneath 
 The moonless heaven, not even a marsh-fire lit 
 Nights fearful sameness ; and athwart the heath, 
 Not fast and free as flew the Voice that led, 
 Hut halting oft, my steps went stumblingly. 
 
URIEL. 195 
 
 Each footstep, as it fell, recoil'd with dread 
 
 From what it toucht ; and, tho' I could not see, 
 
 I felt that, where I trod, the plain was spread 
 
 With corpses. Heap'd so thick they seem'd to be, 
 
 That I, at every moment, fear'd to tread 
 
 Upon a dead man's face. Yet, undeterr'd, 
 
 My feet obey'd a will not mine, whose spell 
 
 Their course constrain'd. For still that Voice I heard, 
 
 And still the Voice call'd " Uriel ! Uriel ! " 
 
 At last a livid light began to grow 
 
 Low down in heaven. It was the moon that, pent 
 
 Behind a slowly crumbling cloud till now, 
 
 Athwart thin flakes of worn-out vapour sent 
 
 A filmy gleam. And I could see thereby 
 
 The corpses that lay litter'd on the heath. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 POEMS. 
 
 Each white up-slanted face and unshut eye 
 
 Was staring at me with the stare of death : 
 
 Harness'd in rusty mail from head to heel 
 
 Was each dead body : and each dead right hand 
 
 Grasp'd by the hilt a blade of bloodstain'd steel, 
 
 But broken was each blade. And, while I scann'd 
 
 Those dead men's faces, I began to feel 
 
 A sadness which I could not understand : 
 
 But unto me it seem'd that I had seen, 
 
 And known, and loved them, somewhere, long ago : 
 
 Tho' when, or where, and all that was between 
 
 That time and this (if what perplex'd me so 
 
 With mimic memories had indeed once been) 
 
 I knew no longer. On this fatal plain 
 
 Vast battle must have once been waged, so keen 
 
 That none was spared by the relentless foe 
 
 For unmolested burial of the slain. 
 
URIEL, 197 
 
 5- 
 And, as I gazed upon them, wondering why 
 These unrememberable faces seem'd 
 Mysteriously familiar to mine eye, 
 The cloudy light that on their corselets gleam'd 
 Grew clearer, and a sound began to swell 
 Moaning along the heath : the swarthy sky 
 Was scourged by a strong wind : the moonlight streamed, 
 Flooding the land : and on the dead men fell 
 Its frigid splendour. Then stark upright rose 
 Each dead man, shouting " Uriel ! Uriel ! " 
 And in the windy air aloft all those 
 Arm'd corpses waved their shatter 'd swords. 
 
 6. 
 
 I cried, 
 "What are ye? and what name is it you bear? 
 Corpses or ghosts ? Is Life with Death allied, 
 
198 POEMS, 
 
 To breed new horrors in this hideous lair 
 Of Desolation ?" And they all replied 
 " Thine is our name, for thine our Legions were, 
 And thine would still be, if thou hadst not died. 
 But corpse or ghost thou art thyself, and how 
 Should we thy death survive ? It is not well 
 When the dead do not know the dead, nor know 
 The date of their own death-day, Uriel ! 
 Our leader bold in many a fight wast thou, 
 And we fought bravely. But thy foes and ours 
 Were strongest. And the strife is over now, 
 And we be all dead men. And those tall towers 
 We built are fallen, all our banners torn, 
 All our swords broken, all our strong watch fires 
 Quencht, and in death have we been left forlorn 
 Of sepulture, tho' sons of princely sires, 
 Born to find burial fair with saints and kings, 
 Where, over trophied tombs, the taper shines 
 
URIEL. 199 
 
 On tablets rich with votive offerings, 
 
 And priestly perfumes soothe memorial shrines. 
 
 And that is why we cannot find repose 
 
 In the bare quiet of unburied death ; 
 
 But ever, when at night the wild wind blows 
 
 Upon the barren bosom of this heath, 
 
 Our dead flesh tingles, and revives, and glows 
 
 With the brief passion of a borrow'd breath, 
 
 Breathed by the wind : and on as the wind goes 
 
 Go with the wind we must, where'er that be, 
 
 A lonesome pilgrimage along the night, 
 
 Till the wind falls again, and with it we. 
 
 Farewell ! " 
 
 The wild wind swept them from my sight 
 Even as they spake, and all the heath was bare. 
 Sighingly the wind ceased. The night was still. 
 
200 POEMS. 
 
 The dead were gone. Only the moonlight there 
 Upon the empty heath lay clear and chill. 
 Then I remember'd long-forgotten things, 
 And all my loss. I could no farther fare 
 Along that haunted heath ; for my heart's strings 
 Were aching, gnaw'd by an immense despair. 
 Flat on the spot where last they stood I fell, 
 And clutch'd the wither'd fern, as one that clings 
 Fast to a grave where all he loved lies dead, 
 And wept, and wept, and wept. 
 
 " Rise Uriel," 
 The Voice I knew still call'd, "and follow me ! " 
 But I could only weep, so vast a well 
 Of tears within me flow'd. At last I said 
 " What heart or hope have I to follow thee ? 
 Are not the Legions lost, that at thy call 
 To mine own overthrow and theirs I led ? 
 For I have seen again their faces all, 
 And death was all I saw there.'' " Let them be ! " 
 
URIEL. 201 
 
 The Voice replied. ' ; The dead shall live again 
 When we have reach'd the goal whereto I go, 
 And there shalt thou rejoin them. Nor till then 
 Canst thou thyself return to life, for thou 
 Thyself art also fall'n among the slain. 
 But look upon me, faithless one, and know 
 That I am life in death, and joy in pain, 
 And light in darkness." 
 
 8 
 
 I look'd up, and saw, 
 In glory that was not of mere moon light, 
 (Glory that nll'd me with a great glad awe) 
 Shining above me, Her my soul loves well, 
 Like a white Angel And along the night 
 Her voice still call'd me " Uriel ! Uriel ! " 
 Again I folbw'd. And it seenrd that days 
 And nights, and weeks, and months, and years went by, 
 
202 POEMS. 
 
 As on we went by never-ending ways 
 ThrcV worlds and worlds. And ever was mine eye 
 Fixt on that beckoning Form with faithful gaze. 
 And seasons little cared for — shine or shade, 
 Or heat or cold — pursued us. Many a Spring, 
 And many a Summer, many an Autumn, stay'd 
 My panting path, and round me strove to fling 
 Their fervid arms, and many a Winter made 
 His frozen fingers meet and fiercely cling 
 In lean embrace that long my course delay'd, 
 And Pain and Pleasure both essay'd to wring 
 My purpose from me. But still, sore afraid 
 Lest I should lose my Guide by tarrying, 
 Forward I press'd whenever the Voice said 
 " Uriel : Uriel ! linger not ! " 
 
 9- 
 
 At last 
 
 We reach'd what seem'd the end of a dead world. 
 
URIEL. 
 
 Wall'd round it was by mountains bare and vast, 
 And thro' them one thin perilous pathway curl'd 
 Into an unknown land of ice and snow, 
 Where nothing lived, nor aught was left to freeze 
 But frost. There was a heap of bones below ; 
 Above, a flock of vultures. Under these, 
 Hard by a stream that long had ceased to flow, 
 A miserable, squalid, lean old man, 
 Nursing a broken harp upon his knees, 
 Sat in the frozen pass. His eyes were wan, 
 But full of spiteful looks. She my soul loved, 
 Fair as a skyward Seraph on the wing, 
 Before rne up that perilous pathway moved, 
 Calling me from above, and beckoning. 
 But he that sat before the pass began 
 To twang his harp, which had but one shrill string 
 (Whose notes like icy needles thro' me ran) 
 And with a crack'd and creaking voice to sing 
 
204 POEMS. 
 
 " fool, infatuated fool, forbear ! 
 For yonder is the Land of Ice and Snow, 
 And She is dead that beckoneth to thee there, 
 And dead forever are the dead I know." 
 
 Whilst thus that lean old man, with eyes aglare, 
 Sang to his broken harp's one string below, 
 The vultures scream'd above in the bleak air 
 " Dead are the dead forever ! " 
 
 10. 
 
 " What art thou, 
 Malignant wretch?" I cried. The old man said 
 
 " I am the Ancient Porter of this Pass, 
 
 Beyond which lies the Land of Ice and Snow. 
 
 And all the dwellers in that land are dead, 
 
 And dead forever are the dead I know. 
 
 And this, my harp — I know not when, alas ! 
 
 But all its strings were broken long ago, 
 
URIEL. 205 
 
 Save one, which time makes tough. The others were 
 Of sweeter tone, but this sounds more intense. 
 And, for my name, some say it is Despair, 
 And others say it is Experience." 
 
 Thereat he laugh'd, and shook his sordid rags, 
 And his wan eyes with sullen malice gleanvd. 
 And loud again, upon the icy crags, 
 In that bleak air above, the vultures scream'd. 
 
2o6 POEMS. 
 
 SCORN 
 
 Dim on its slighted altar died 
 
 The sacred fire no victim fed : 
 The god, who craved a gift denied, 
 His own dread image seized instead : 
 And headlong he hurl'd it the flames among, 
 
 Thus choosing rather self-immolation 
 Than a form that in vain to a faithless throng 
 From his shrine appeal'd for a grudged oblation. 
 The flames around it wreathed : 
 
 The image was consumed, 
 And into ashes fell. 
 
 The god upon them breathed, 
 Their fading spark relumed, 
 And utter'd this oracle : — 
 
SCORN. 207 
 
 2. 
 " Go, dust wherein my power hath dwelt, 
 
 Avenge on man a wrong divine, 
 And the proud pain a god hath felt 
 In some poor human soul enshrine ! " 
 The roused ashes arose and went forth on the wind : 
 
 The divinity hid in them, high and low 
 Hovering, sought where its force might find 
 Means to greaten, and grow, and glow. 
 A soul it found at last, 
 
 A great soul wrong'd by fame, 
 A grandeur grown forlorn : 
 
 Into that soul it past 
 Burningly, and became 
 
 Wrong'd Grandeur's angel, Scorn. 
 
208 POEMS. 
 
 STRANGERS. 
 
 (a rhapsody.) 
 
 Children are born, about whose lucid brows 
 The blue veins, visibly meandering, stream 
 Transparent : children in w T hose wistful eyes 
 Are looks like lost dumb creatures in a crowd, 
 That roam, and search, and find not what they seek. 
 These children are life's aliens. The wise nurse 
 Shakes her head, murmuring " They will not live ! " 
 A piteous prophecy, yet best for them 
 The death that, pitifully premature, 
 Remits the pitiless penalty of birth ; 
 Letting the lost ones steal away unhurt, 
 Because unnoticed, from a world not theirs. 
 
 Strangers and star-born strayaways forlorn, 
 
STRANGERS. 209 
 
 Who come so careless of the outlandish wealth 
 You carry with you, dropping as you go 
 Treasures beyond the reach of Orient Kings, 
 What seek you here where your unvalued gifts 
 Shall leave you beggars for an alms denied ? 
 Earth yields not their equivalent. No field 
 So profitless but some poor price it hath ; 
 A spurious picture or a spavin'd horse 
 May find in time their willing purchasers ; 
 But never for its worth shall you exchange 
 A soul's unmarketable opulence. 
 And when at last, of those who (unenrich'd 
 By your impovrishment) the gift forget, 
 Your thirst and hunger crave a broken crust, 
 A drop of water from the wayside well, 
 Stripes shall correct such importunities. 
 
 Linger not ! live not ! give not ! Hide your gifts, 
 Ungiven, deeper than Remembrance digs 
 
210 POEMS. 
 
 Among the haunted ruins she explores 
 
 For riches lost. And if abrupt mischance 
 
 Their buried store reveal, without a blush 
 
 Disown it, for a lie may sometimes save 
 
 A miser's life. The truth would serve as well, 
 
 Were truth not unbelievable ; for, stored 
 
 In coin not current here and gems unprized, 
 
 Your treasures are worth nothing to the wretch 
 
 They tempt to make them, by a murder, his. 
 
 But this the assassins know not, and ill-arnrd, 
 
 Ill-arm'd and worse than weaponless, are you ! 
 
 To whose inefficacious grasp was given 
 
 In solemn mockery the seraphic sword 
 
 That only archangelic hands can hold. 
 
 Your own have clutclvd it by the burning blade, 
 
 And, when you wield it, 'tis yourselves you wound. 
 ****** 
 ****** 
 * * * * * * 
 
STRANGERS. 211 
 
 You that have Feeling, think you to have all ? 
 
 Poor fools, and you have absolutely nought ! 
 
 In reckonings of this world's arithmetic 
 
 Everything else is something by itself, 
 
 Feeling alone is nothing. Could you add 
 
 That nothing to what counts for anything, 
 
 Forthwith a tenfold potency perchance 
 
 The unreckonable zero might bestow 
 
 Upon the reckoned unit. But what boots 
 
 A value so vicarious ? 
 
 Yours the spell 
 
 Whose all-transfigurating sorceries 
 
 Convert the dust man grovels in to gold ; 
 
 Robing the pauper royal in the pomp 
 
 Of princely exultations, changing night 
 
 To morning, death to life, the wilderness 
 
 To paradise ; beatifying pain, 
 
 Cleansing impurity, and strewing thick 
 
 p 2 
 
212 rOEMS. 
 
 The gulphs of Hell with starry gleams of Heaven. 
 
 But use it not ! Unsanction'd miracles 
 
 Are sentenced sins. Writ large for all to read, 
 
 About the world's street corners Reason posts 
 
 " Beware of the Miraculous ! " Whereto 
 
 Prudence appends, the placard to complete, 
 
 " Miracles are forbidden ! " Use it not, 
 
 Your gift unblest ! Lo, Virtue's High Priest comes, 
 
 Calls the Sanhedrim's long-phylacteried train, 
 
 Consults the scriptured scrolls, within them finds 
 
 No warrant for the wonders you perform, 
 
 And them and you doth anathematise. 
 
 Linger not ! live not ! give not ! All your gifts 
 
 Shall turn to stones and scourges in the hands 
 
 That crave them, and to live is to be lost. 
 
 ****** 
 ***** * 
 
 ***** * 
 
STRANGERS. 213 
 
 Thou starry snowflake, whose still flight transforms 
 
 The frozen crystal's constellated crown 
 
 To an ethereal feather, seek not here, 
 
 Celestial stranger, seek not here on earth, 
 
 Where Purity were nameless but for thee, 
 
 The warmth that wastes, the fervours that defile ! 
 
 Upon our wither'd branches hang not thou 
 
 Thy votive wreaths, nor our bleak paths invest 
 
 With thy pale presence ! Vainly dost thou cling 
 
 About our fasten'd casements, vainly spread 
 
 So close beside our doors thy spotless couch. 
 
 Behind them dwells Ingratitude. The voice 
 
 That welcomed thine arrival will anon 
 
 Resent thy lingering, and exclaim " Enough ! " 
 
 Trust not the looks that smile, the lips that sigh, 
 
 " I love thee !" For to-day those words mean "Come!" 
 
 To-morrow " Go ! " Men's words are numberless, 
 
 And yet in man's speech only the same word 
 
214 POEMS. 
 
 Means " No ' ? to-morrow that meant " Yes " to-day. 
 
 Linger not, live not, give not, you forlorn 
 (lift-laden strangers ! With your gifts ungiven, 
 And so at least undesecrated, die ! 
 
 What fills with such invincibility 
 
 The frail seed striving thro' the stubborn soil ? 
 
 The sun so long one herbless spot caress'd, 
 
 That in the darkling germ beneath it stirr'd 
 
 A tender trouble, and that trouble seem'd 
 
 A promise. " Can it be, the Sun himself 
 
 Hath sought me ? He so glorious, he so great, 
 
 And I so dark, so insignificant ! 
 
 I tear Sun, with all the strength thy love reveal'd, 
 
 Responding to thy summons, I am here ! " 
 
STRANGERS. 215 
 
 And the rich life of granaried Lybia glows 
 Revelling already in a single grain. 
 
 Doth the Sun answer, " Little one, too much 
 
 Thou hast responded, now respond no more " ? 
 
 No, for throughout the illimitable heights 
 
 And deeps of boundless Being, to attain 
 
 It scarce suffices, at the most and best, 
 
 To tend beyond the unattainable, 
 
 And too much love is still not love enough. 
 
 The Sun may set, but all his rising wrought 
 
 To life's enraptured consciousness remains. 
 
 The Sun disowns not, even when he deserts, 
 
 What he put forth his fervours to evoke. 
 
 Man's love alone its doing disavows, 
 
 And makes denial of its dearest deed. 
 
 ****** 
 ****** 
 ****** 
 
216 POEMS. 
 
 Beneath a dead bird's long-uncared-for cage, 
 
 That hangs forgotten in the cloister'd court 
 
 Of some lone uninhabitable house, 
 
 From the chink'd pavement slowly creeping comes 
 
 A thin weak stem that opens like a heart, 
 
 And puts forth tenderly two tiny hands 
 
 Of benediction to that cage forlorn, 
 
 Then dies, as tho' its little life had done 
 
 AH it was born to do. The flint-set earth 
 
 Requites the dead bird's gift — one casual seed, 
 
 And from her stony breast a blossom blows. 
 
 But, pouring forth Uranian star-seed, strew 
 Incipient heavens thro' all the hollowness 
 Of human gratitude for gifts divine, 
 And nothing from the sowing of such seed 
 
 Shall blossom but the bitterness of death. 
 
 ****** 
 
 ****** 
 ****** 
 
STRANGERS. 217 
 
 O that the throbbing orb of this throng'd world, 
 
 The sun-led seasons, the revolving years, 
 
 Day with his glory, night with all her stars, 
 
 The present, and the future, and the past, 
 
 And earth, and heaven, should but a bauble be ! 
 
 The unvalued gift of an extravagant soul, 
 
 Given undemanded, broken by a breath, 
 
 The sport of one exorbitant desire, 
 
 The easy spoil of one minute mischance, 
 
 And all for nothing ! What ? the unheedful flint 
 
 Spares room to house the blossom that requites 
 
 A chance seed fallen from a dead bird's cage, 
 
 And nothing, nothing, in the long long years, 
 
 That bring to other losses soon or late 
 
 The loss of loss remember'd, shall arise ? 
 
 Nothing, not even a penitential tear, 
 
 A fleeting sigh, a momentary smile, 
 
 The benediction of a passing thought 
 
2i8 POEMS. 
 
 Of pitiful remembrance — to repay 
 
 The quite-forgotten gift of too much love ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 ****** 
 
 ****** 
 
 All other loss comparison avails 
 
 To lessen, and all other ills worse ill 
 
 May mitigate. Defeated monarchs find 
 
 Cold comfort left in Caesar's legions lost : 
 
 The ruin'd merchant in the bankrupt State : 
 
 The bedless beggar in the bed-rid lord. 
 
 The sight of Niobe dries many tears, 
 
 And by the side of open graves are graves 
 
 Long seal'd, like old wounds cicatrised by time. 
 
 But this is an immitigable ill, 
 
 A lastingly incomparable loss, 
 
 A forfeiture of refuge that exiles 
 
 Its victim even from the lonest lodge . 
 
STRANGERS. 219 
 
 Where Misery's leprous outcasts may at least 
 Commiserate each other. The excess 
 Of one o'erweening moment hath ursurpt 
 The whole dominion of eternity ; 
 Yet even the usurpation was a fraud, 
 For what seem'd all was nothing ; and its dupes, 
 Who mourn that moment's loss, have with it lost 
 The right to say that it was ever theirs. 
 
 Sceptic, approach and, into this abysm 
 Of torment gazing, tremblingly believe ! 
 Behold in Hell the soul's appalling proof 
 Of her dread immortality ! What else 
 Could for a moment undestroy'd endure 
 The least of such annihilating pangs ? 
 Transmute them into corporal sufferings. Hurl 
 
220 POEMS. 
 
 Their victim from the visionary top 
 
 Of some sky'd tower, and on its flinted base 
 
 Shatter his crumpled carcass : if the heart 
 
 Still beats, lay bare each lacerated nerve 
 
 And sear with scorching steel the sensitive flesh : 
 
 Or lift the bleeding ruins of the wretch, 
 
 Lay them in down, bandage with cruel care 
 
 The broken limbs, and nurse to life again 
 
 Their swooning anguish : then from eyes that burn 
 
 Chase slumber, and to lips that parch deny 
 
 Release from thirst. It boots not ! Flesh and blood 
 
 Death to his painless sanctuary takes, 
 
 And life's material mechanism stops. 
 
 The first pang is the last. But all these pangs 
 
 (And add to these what worse, if worse there be, 
 
 The torturer's teeming art hath yet devised) 
 
 Attain not the tenth part of those endured 
 
 Without cessation by the soul that loves, 
 
STRANGERS. 221 
 
 When love is only suffering. What escape, 
 What refuge, from self-torment hath the soul ? 
 Or what for love is left unoverthrown 
 By love's own overthrow ? 
 
 The growth of love, 
 Outgrowing the wide girdle of the world, 
 Hath in itself absorb'd sun, moon, and stars, 
 Life, Death, and Thought's illimitable realm, 
 Leaving in Time no moment, and in Space 
 No point, its omnipresence kindles not 
 To palpitant incandescence — and what then ? 
 A word, nay not so much, a breath unbreathed, 
 A look, and all this universe of love, 
 Cramm'd with the curse of Tantalus, becomes 
 A pitiless infinitude of fierce 
 Importunate impossibilities, 
 Where nothing is but what may never be. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 Fond wretch, with those insatiable eyes, 
 
 Among the ruins of a world destroy'd 
 
 What art thou seeking ? Its destroyer ? Look ! 
 
 He stands before thee. iVnd thou knowst him not. 
 
 The traitor of thy perisht universe 
 
 Hath perisht with it. Nay, that world and he, 
 
 Whose creature and creator was thyself, 
 
 Save in thyself existed not. Away, 
 
 Disown'd survivor of what never was ! 
 
 ****** if 
 
 There is a sigh that hath no audible sound, 
 And, like a ghost that hath no visible form, 
 Breathing unheard thro' solitudes unseen, 
 
STRANGERS. 223 
 
 Its presence haunts the Desert of the Heart. 
 
 Fata Morgana ! Fair Enchantress, Queen 
 
 Of all that ever-quivering quietness, 
 
 There dost thou dreaming dwell, and there create 
 
 Those fervid desolations of delight, 
 
 Where dwell with thee the joys that never were ! 
 
 And, when in darkness fades the phantom scene, 
 The wizard stars that nightly trembling light 
 That undiscover'd loneliness are looks 
 From eyes that love no longer. All the winds 
 That whisper there are breaths of broken vows 
 And perjured promises. The pale mirage 
 That haunts the simmering hyaline above 
 Is all the work of ghosts, and its bright wastes 
 Teem with fantastic specters of the swoons 
 Of prostrate passions, hopes become despairs, 
 And dreams of bliss unblest. In that weird sky 
 
224 POEMS, 
 
 There is no peace, but a perpetual trance 
 
 Of torturous ecstasy. Vext multitudes 
 
 Of frantic apparitions mingle there, 
 
 And part, and vanish, waving vaporous arms 
 
 Of supplication — to each other lured, 
 
 And by each other pantingly repulsed. 
 
 The goblin picture of a passionate world 
 
 Painted on nothingness ! And all the sands, 
 
 Heaved by the sultry sighings of the heart 
 
 Of this unquietable solitude, 
 
 Are waves that everlastingly roll on 
 
 O'er wrecks deep-sunken in a shoreless sea 
 
 Whose bed is vast oblivion. Out of sight, 
 
 Into that sea's abysmal bosom pour'd, 
 
 Flow all desires unsatisfied, all pains 
 
 Unpitied, all affections unfulfill'd, 
 
 And sighs, and tears, and smiles misunderstood. 
 
 There all the adventurous argosies that sail'd 
 
STRANGERS. 225 
 
 In search of undiscover'd worlds, reduced 
 
 To undiscoverable wrecks, remain. 
 
 And there perchance, at last, no more estranged 
 
 From all around them, since not stranger they 
 
 Than all things else, where all things else are strange, 
 
 In that wide strangeness unrejected rest 
 
 The world's rejected strangers — loves unloved, 
 
 And lives unlived, and longings unappeased. 
 
226 POEMS. 
 
 ALLEGRO, ANDANTE, ADAGIO. 
 
 i. 
 
 A Sage had thro' the world fared far and wide : 
 And what had made on him the most impression, 
 Friends ask'd him : to whose question he replied 
 By this confession : 
 
 2. 
 
 " A traveller, whom it was my chance to meet 
 Departing and arriving. For this man 
 Mounted upon a fiery steed and fleet 
 His way began ; 
 
 3- 
 And yet more eager even than his horse 
 
 The man himself. With whip, and spur, and cry 
 
 So fast he urged it on its rapid course 
 
 That by and by 
 
ALLEGRO, ANDANTE, ADAGIO. 
 
 The horse, crer-ridden, on the road expired. 
 To go afoot its rider was constraint ; 
 But now the man, although himself untired, 
 From haste refrain'd ; 
 
 5- 
 
 And, turning neither to the left nor right, 
 He with deliberate stride began to wend 
 Right onward, resolute to reach ere night 
 His journey's end. 
 
 # 
 
 A peasant proffer'd him an ass for sale : 
 That mode of travelling seem'd not to his mind : 
 Scornful he scann'd the beast from head to tail — 
 Twas lame and blind : 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 POEMS. 
 
 7- 
 But, since no better means remain'd, he bought 
 And mounted it. The ass at a snail's pace 
 Jogg'd onward awkwardly, not caring aught 
 Tor speed or grace : 
 
 8. 
 
 Yet, all ungoaded, ere the day was done 
 It brought the traveller to his place of rest. 
 'Twas there I met him, when the sinking sun 
 Was in the west. 
 
 9- 
 
 Mean was the hostel, but of wide resort. 
 
 He ask'd me how 'twas named, then sigh'd 'Already ?' 
 
 As tho' to him the journey seem'd too short, 
 
 The pace too steady. 
 
ALLEGRO, ANDANTE, ADAGIO. 229 
 
 10. 
 
 Whereat I marvell'd that a man who show'd 
 Such haste at starting, and arrived so late, 
 Should sigh to quit the sorry beast he rode, 
 When reach'd the gate." 
 
 11. 
 
 The listeners, when this trivial tale they heard, 
 Found nothing in it to impress their mind : 
 For such things happen daily, they averr'd, 
 To all mankind. 
 
 12. 
 
 " And for that reason, and because you say 
 That such things happen in the common range 
 Of every man's experience every day, 
 I find it strange," 
 
230 POEMS. 
 
 14. 
 
 The Sage replied, " Upon his journey bound, 
 That traveller started on a steed all fire 
 And mettle ; yet too slow its pace he found 
 For his desire ; 
 
 IS- 
 
 And when, no longer by his courser carried 
 In headlong haste, but free to pause or stray, 
 He might have sometimes turn'd aside, or tarried 
 To admire the way, 
 
 16. 
 
 Less haste was not more leisure : the man still 
 Kept the main road, nor paused to pluck a flower, 
 Or snatch a solace from the wayside rill, 
 The woodland bower ; 
 
ALLEGRO, ANDANTE, ADAGIO. 
 
 17. 
 
 Desiring only ere the day was done 
 
 To reach, tho' with diminisht speed at best, 
 
 By pertinaciously still plodding on, 
 
 His destined rest : 
 
 Yet when his sole means left were those combining 
 The sloth and weakness of a grizzled ass, 
 He found the pace too swift, and sigtfd, repining, 
 ' So soon ? Alas ! ' " 
 
 19. 
 
 " Your traveller was a fool," the listeners cried, 
 " But what of that? 'Tis nothing strange or new/' 
 " My traveller was a man," the Sage replied, 
 " Like all of you.' ; 
 
232 ALLEGRO, ANDAK'TE, ADAGLO. 
 
 20. 
 " For some of you are riding," said the Sage, 
 " A swift horse, your still swifter spirits spurn : 
 And some an ass : some walk. Youth, Manhood, Age, 
 Each in its turn, 
 
 21. 
 
 Are but the means that bring man, slow or fast, 
 Whither he grieves to be. The slowest pace 
 He finds the swiftest, as he nears at last 
 His resting place. 
 
 22. 
 And only one of all the things I've seen 
 More moves my wonder than this traveller's lot." 
 "And what is that?" they ask'd. " Yourselves, 
 
 I ween, 
 Who wonder not." 
 
 THE END.