iiiiiiiii 
 
 nnii 
 
 W All/rBR S. HIN"CHMA1V 
 
Book T. 7 -z -^" V f 
 
 Gopyrighi\N"_ 
 
 19 to 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSITS 
 
Copyright 1910 By 
 Walter S. Hinchman. 
 
 ©CIA275182 
 
AND 
 
 Other Verses 
 
 BY 
 
 Walter S. Hinchman 
 
 |TTTljT| 
 
 GROTON 
 
 AT THE GROTON SCHOOL PRESS 
 MCMX 
 
T S -^ ^\C 
 
To R.B.O. 
 
 There s one fellow that I wot of^ 
 WJio in full cay-eer of life 
 
 Still can dream of daring princes, 
 Still can bare his hunting-knife 
 
 When amid the purple forests 
 He beholds the lion ramp, 
 
 Or above the after-hatches 
 
 Hears the pirate-chieftain tramp. 
 
 He has zvon the golden apples, 
 He has climbed the outer cliff. 
 
 And beheld the Indian stalking 
 The ferocious hippogriff. 
 
 my brothers, if you only 
 
 Were with faith of children blest, 
 You wonld knoiu the sun arisen 
 Is siill rising far titer west; 
 
 And betiveen the morn and evening. 
 In the grayness of the day, 
 
 You would see the splendid colours 
 And the magic of your way! 
 
Of the verses In this book "The Winter War- 
 riors" has appeared in '*The Atlantic Monthly", 
 "Flammantia Moenia Mundi" in ''Poet Lore", and 
 "Marlowe" in "The New York Times Saturday- 
 Review". They are now reprinted with permission. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Tintagel i 
 
 They that go down to the Sea 5 
 
 Flammantia Moenia Mundi 15 
 
 The Palaces 20 
 
 The Legend of Ullswater 24 
 
 The Cuckoo of Borrowdale 28 
 
 Tilberthwaite Fell 33 
 
 The Dunes 34 
 
 Sea Girt 36 
 
 Song of the Viking Wind 37 
 
 The Winter Warriors ........ 40 
 
 Victory 42 
 
 Northern Lights 43 
 
 The Feet upon the Mountains 45 
 
 To a Meadowlark 47 
 
 If Roses had not faded » » . » » t . 50 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Cincinnatus 51 
 
 Milton 52 
 
 Marlowe 54 
 
 Goldsmith 55 
 
 Cor Cordium 56 
 
 Byron 57 
 
 The ^gean 59 
 
 Pietro's Cure 61 
 
 Translations : 
 
 The Ideals (Schiller) 71 
 
 Scenes from Maria Stuart (Schiller; . . 76 
 
 Scenes from Sappho (Grillparzer) ... 92 
 
 Niagara (Lenau) 100 
 
TINTAGEL 
 
TINTAGEL. 
 
 Below, the unseen, swinging, Cornish sea 
 Sounded afar, as when its distant murmur 
 Lives faintly in a shell. From out the fog 
 That wreathed fantastically about the rocks 
 And stretched white fingers in among the clefts 
 A single gull screamed once — a single break. 
 Above the eastern moors the waning moon 
 Cast her cold gleam ; caught in the spectral light, 
 Strange figures of the fog rose on the cliffs 
 And passed to nothingness, where vaguely huge, 
 Like some tall galleon lifting on the swell, 
 Tintagel peered gray through the drifting mist. 
 
 Long since, up there above the wind-vexed 
 seas. 
 Full in the splendour of a summer sun, 
 Flashing the jewelled magic of her dress, 
 
 I 
 
1 TINTAGEL 
 
 Sate Iseult, the imperious Cornish queen ; 
 And there below, where the full flood invades 
 The cave that of Tintagel forms an isle, 
 Her bark first grated on the Cornish strand, — 
 In those old times of dazed imaginings. 
 When all the sea-foam fashioned faery-flowers. 
 When she had not yet weened the sad result 
 Of those briglit hours with Tristram in the bark, 
 When, a proud Irish princess, cheerily 
 She challenged Mark to meet her at the marge. 
 Unhappy queen I Long years had gone when 
 came 
 Tristram, that ill-starred knight of Lyonnesse, 
 Tristram, than never fairer harped and sang, 
 Nor never sadder loved so hopelessly. 
 For hark ! those hurried steps upon the stair. 
 Clanking their message of a fierce delight. 
 Requite of ten 3^ears' unrewarded passion ; 
 See, see that last embrace, those fair white arms, 
 Those eager fingers, and that furious kiss ! 
 And see, behind, the coward Mark ! — and hear 
 That one wild scream when Tristram's spirit parts ! 
 
TINTAGEL i 
 
 II 
 
 Once yet again they rose, like ghosts of knights. 
 Those strange white figures of the fog that passed 
 To nothingness on horses made of mist. 
 Arthm- was there in his majestic age, 
 As he went forth to batde in the West ; 
 And after him rode armed the fairest flower 
 Of noble knights that e'er have splintered spears 
 Charging the ringing lists of Camelot. 
 So passed they on — Sir Gawaine and Beaumains ; 
 The Red Lawns Knight ; and Mordred, foul with 
 
 crime ; 
 Sir Kay, the seneschal ; Leodegrance ; 
 And his fair daughter, Guinevere the queen, 
 Casting a flower to list-scarred Launcelot ; 
 And, last of all, a triumph in his eyes, 
 Peerless and pure, Sir Galahad alone. 
 
 III. 
 
 Below, the unseen, swinging Cornish sea . . . 
 Softly a breeze blew from the western main, 
 And the fog vanished 'neath the rising moon. 
 
4 TINTAGEL 
 
 The billows, heaving to the westering wind, 
 Plashed louder on the pebbles, and the gulls, 
 A thousand startled simultaneously. 
 Screamed wildly from the cliffs. High, bare, and 
 
 black, 
 Out o-*^ the moonlit sea Tintagel stood. 
 Substantial, real — the work of Him who made 
 The void and from the void this earth and sea. 
 And fixed the firmament and fired the sun. 
 Or ever Arthur came these rocks upreared 
 Their battlements against this Cornish sea ; 
 Each year twelve moons shine on these desolate 
 
 moors ; 
 And gulls have ever wheeled about these cliffs. 
 Into this desolation came a race 
 And raised a kingdom proud, and passed — and 
 
 now 
 The same old God-built desolation reigns. 
 To-morrow's sun on high Tintagel's towers 
 Will show the ancient ruins — nothing more ; 
 And they in time will join the pageant pale 
 Of figures that fare ghostly through the fog. 
 
THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA. 
 
 "Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke 
 Sind herrlich, wie am ersten Tag!" 
 
 Goethe: Faust. 
 
 I 
 
 Four youths, accoutred all for going forth, 
 Stood at a gateway labelled ''Life." One leaned 
 In bright apparel by the wall and looked 
 Far out, as if he caught faint whisperings 
 And saw bright pastures in a distant land. 
 The next stood restless as a battle-horse 
 That hears the deep reverberance of war. 
 A third strode up and down, to go unready, 
 Yet lingering impatiently. The fourth, 
 Unheedful of the others, watched a bird 
 That soaring carolled at the sun. Anon 
 He whistled softly to himself, but ever 
 He followed fixedly the small bird's flight, 
 
 s 
 
6 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 
 
 *'Come !" cried the warrior, eager to set out. 
 ''Hold !" said the first. "What do you hope to see? 
 On what fair world rush you impetuous 
 With martial clangour? Fori see beyond 
 Not war, but meadows fresh, and down long val- 
 leys 
 The shepherds sitting in the beechen shade, 
 And meditating on their oaten reeds. 
 Dreamer, you cry. Alas ! Who turmoil seeks 
 Deeply shall drink tliereof . Things hideous 
 I may meet, but I'll not embrace the fiend ! 
 And hoping thus ( for it may be the fiend 
 Is shape but of our own substantial sin ), 
 I may chance but on pleasant ways and pass 
 To meads a-flower in sunshine without end." 
 
 "That were existence !" came reply :"to watch 
 In idle indolence the stream slip on, 
 To chant a silly ditty and forsooth 
 So sink into oblivion ! The world's 
 Great struggles summon. Let us fare and fight 
 Gloriously as the knights of olden days. 
 For honour, truth, and courtesy, — for love, 
 
THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 7 
 
 For all that ever fairly drew bright swords ; 
 
 — Fight, suffer, struggle ! Then we shall come 
 
 through." 
 *'A pest upon your visions !" quoth the third ; 
 ''So featly fashioned and so simply free 
 From the crreat breakincr burdens of the world — 
 The sin, the sorrow, and the suffering 
 Which none may pass through and remain quite 
 
 whole. 
 What shall be said for children fatherless? 
 What done for women lost in crime? What thought 
 Of all the bigotry and lies — not lies 
 Born of light words, but lies of lives — the mad 
 x\nd monstrous offspring of a cancerous mind? 
 At these we'll blithely snap our fingers — yes ! 
 And sit with shepherds idly squeaking pipes, 
 Or tilt against the phantoms of our brain. 
 Go forth, my friend, and make your silly songs, 
 x\nd, you, slay dragons by the forest-full. 
 At last there is but misery and death — 
 A struggle of despair, not victory. 
 Ahead I see only incompetence, 
 
8 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 
 
 Ceaseless confusion without any plan. 
 
 And I shall fail, I know, — and so shall you." 
 
 Then, after a brief pause, he turned him round 
 And thus addressed the watcher of the skies : 
 *'You, too, perhaps have some fair, easy scheme; 
 Come, tell the story that you see in stars." 
 
 *'You much mistake," quoth that one; *'why 
 should I, 
 Or why should 3^ou have visions, if they be 
 But fabrics of our fancy? Do you see 
 That bird? He merely soars and sings. Yet well 
 I know that God hath called us forth ; being men 
 We have the high chance of a life beyond : 
 Perhaps vv^e shall meet sorrow and despair ; 
 Perhaps fight tournaments with ancient kings ; 
 Perhaps join shepherds sitting in the shade : 
 Before us something beckons — but one great 
 Perhaps cheers all : we too may soar and sing." 
 
 II. 
 
 Three men, at sundown, in a cottage sat. 
 One, lingering near the threshold, on his white, 
 Long locks a flowery garland wore ; across 
 
THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 9 
 
 His shoulders broad was flung a goat-skin ; in 
 His hand a shepherd's crook. His old eyes gleamed 
 And silly laughter played about his mouth, 
 As in thin voice he piped this madrigal : 
 
 Come, clasp hands, and beat a measure ; 
 
 All your pastoral trophies bring ; 
 Decked with field and woodland treasure, 
 
 Hail great Pan, the shepherd's king ! 
 
 See the ancient race immortal 
 
 Down the deep Sicilian dell ; 
 Arethusa at the portal, 
 
 Garlanded with asphodel. 
 
 Hours again with Amaryllis, 
 And brave songs with Corydon, 
 
 Piping day-long love of Phyllis, 
 In the olive-shaded sun. 
 
 Then, when Hesperus is gliding 
 
 Down the soft Sicilian sky. 
 And Diana's hunt is riding 
 
 Over -^tna white and high 
 
10 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 
 
 Shepherds by the water sitting, 
 
 Flocks all huddled in the dales, 
 Make we madrigals befitting 
 
 Meliboeus' sweetest tales. 
 
 Come, clasp hands, and beat a measure ; 
 
 All your pastoral trophies bring ; 
 Decked with field and woodland treasure. 
 
 Hail great Pan, the shepherd's king ! 
 
 Another sat before a dying fire, 
 A warrior doubled with his weight of years. 
 Scarred was his face, seamed with the suns and 
 
 swords 
 Of battle on the open plain ; and yet. 
 For all his feebleness, his manner bore 
 The tokens of tried valour, and his eye. 
 Dimmed with long service under scorching skies, 
 Still flashed forth spirit unsubdued ; and when 
 At times he spoke, in his deep voice there rang 
 The tone of one had stormed a breach and won ; 
 And as he sang, his notes swelled lustily : 
 
THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA ii 
 
 Oh, a song at night by the camp-fire light, 
 
 And the thunderous guns at dawn ! 
 Then the labor of men in a close-gripped fight. 
 And the oaths and prayers of zeal and fright, 
 Charge, charge ! and the victory won ! 
 Charge home ! and the victory won ! 
 
 Then our flag set high in the breeze to fly, 
 
 While the chosen spirit slips 
 From the tortured body of him that is slain ; — 
 And I take horse through the night again, - 
 
 Heigh-ho ! and my lady's lips ! 
 
 A kiss of my lady's lips ! 
 
 Beside him, only nearer to the fire. 
 There crouched a shivering, eyeless, bald old man, 
 Toothless and speechless, racked with long disease, 
 A pestilent presence, cursed by life aud death ; — 
 No song nor even any whine had he. 
 
 At last there came a stranger unto them 
 And told them of that other wayfarer, 
 Their comrade setting forth in untried youth. 
 <*He spoke," the stranger said, * 'of your young talk, 
 
12 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 
 
 Your concrete visions of this earthly life. 
 
 <And they shall find them,' was his word; ^thrice 
 
 bitter 
 The lot of him who rears in fantasy 
 A splendid palace for his own reward ; 
 Or him who counts the spoils of victory 
 And like a swimmer spent inglorious dies ; 
 And bitter alike the lot of him who builds 
 A hovel for his fancied misery.' 
 
 **And now I see that he has spoken truth. 
 Here is one sings and passes to his grave ; 
 And here one worn with fruitless errantry ; 
 And here one sick with his own misery. 
 And what else have ye ? Ye have sought and found 
 But that brave traveller who has not returned, — 
 He too lived blithely with the swains and sang, 
 He too fought tournaments with ancient kings. 
 And day-long battles on the plains of war ; 
 Honour and fame and love were given him ; 
 And, he, too, met with sorrow ; ay, he fell — 
 And was an outcast from his fellow-men. 
 But ever listening to his hymning heart, 
 
THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 1 3 
 
 And of a purpose infinite and strong, 
 Like a great river that must meet the sea, 
 He passed the harbor mouth and joined the flood. 
 <*For once I stood upon the shore and heard 
 The deep-sea song he sings with others there,— 
 ' No mountain brook-song of his dawning days, 
 Nor yet the murmuring of the summer noon 
 Soft from the river flooding the lush reeds, 
 But something final, melodies as strong 
 As the Homeric breakers on the beach. 
 And when I heard that music, swift and slow. 
 Speaking of sorrow infinite, and joy. 
 Calm and confusion, failure and success. 
 And life that shall endure — oh, then I knew 
 That noble souls triumphantly arrive. 
 
 "While I thus stood, the sun broke from the 
 sea. 
 Trailing with fire his glistering chariot-wheels. 
 And in his thunder-march took up the song — 
 Sea, sky, and wind in one full harmony I 
 From that great, multitudinous chant there clings 
 One little measure in my memory, 
 
14 THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA 
 
 Which cheers my steps and feeds the sacred fire 
 Which keeps the immortal temple bright within : 
 'Whatever the pine-tree shall whisper, 
 Or the cloud-rack tell of the sky, 
 Whatever the surges shall thunder, 
 Or the white-winged sea-gulls cry, 
 
 Whatever the river shall murmur 
 From under its golden bars. 
 And the laughter light of the sunshine, 
 And the silent song of the stars, — 
 
 Therein is the melody matchless 
 That thrills in the spirit of man, 
 Therein is the harmony faultless 
 Of the Maker's infinite plan.' " 
 
FLAMMANTIA MOENIA MUNDI. 
 
 You may remember how we stood alone, 
 And silent watched from a high eastern hill 
 The autumn setting sun, bright as the fires 
 That burn along the elm-arched ways of fall. 
 In front stood one small isle of dark green pines, 
 Down by the river smoked an evening fire, 
 And on the hill beyond a cottage perched 
 And jutted dark against the western light. 
 Far, far beyond, in blue that seemed to fade, 
 Yet ever changed to gold or ere it died. 
 The mountains silent stood against the deep. 
 Ranging eternal toward an endless west. 
 
 We speechless stood — forever thus to gaze ; 
 One common thought was ours, one keen desire 
 To sing, like angels in their melody. 
 Those mountain peaks against that glowing sky ; 
 A single word for that ethereal blue ! 
 15 
 
i6 FLAMMANTIA MOENIA MUNDl. 
 
 Nay, a mere whispered thought — a look — a 
 
 gesture — 
 Immortal aspiration to express 
 That master workman at his final task. 
 We thought perchance of young Orestes then, 
 How he and Pylades stood on the shore, 
 And gazing at the open, beating sea, 
 How one oft swung his spangle-hilted sword 
 Till future deeds took shape and clustered round 
 
 them. 
 As star on star springs countless from the night. 
 
 And then perhaps a hint of all the pain, 
 Inexorable fate, impersonal. 
 
 Of those snake-locks and of that hideous laughter, 
 The graceless sisters heralding a Hell. 
 And all our aspiration infinite 
 
 Shrank as the dark drew on. With deeds unwrought, 
 With all that fair faith run to lees, we left. 
 
 Another time together stood we two 
 Upon the chapel's skyward-pointing tower 
 Under a winter's moon. The night was cold 
 And clear ; across the glistering snow the hills 
 
FLAMMANTIA MOENIA MUNDI. 15 
 
 Rose white and far, beyond the shadow-land, 
 Like ghosts against tlie night. Perhaps we had 
 Acrain brave thoughts, perhaps we dreamed once 
 
 more. 
 Under that moon-cold sky, of things too far 
 To fashion, and we prayed, in that pure air. 
 Faintly to shadow forth the deathless soul 
 Which nature showed us two at that midnight ; 
 As who should say, 'Come then, 'tis fashioned thus ; 
 Behold you but this single masterpiece. 
 What ! would your aspiration breathe and be, 
 And then brook bonds of earthly fearfulness ; 
 Wish bravely and then meet defeat, and thus, 
 
 Failing at every nev/ desire, so end, — 
 
 Complacent in eternal apathy?' 
 
 The thought of that lost sunset, of that night 
 
 When, heart and head, we drank eternity, 
 
 Brings Marlowe's ' broken branch ' to memory : 
 
 How, being human, we must e'er aspire ; 
 
 How, being human, we can ne'er attain. 
 
 One craftily contrives his handiwork ; 
 
 Another plies with fingers marvelous : 
 
i8 FLAMMANTIA MOENIA MUNDI 
 
 A silver strand, a bit of beaten brass, 
 A golden goblet brimmed with burning wine, 
 A song sung softly on a summer's eve — 
 The shadow of a glory just to be — 
 But none hath builded final, quite complete, 
 Nor can build, nature's deathless masterpiece. 
 And yet — that sunset and that moonlight 
 pure, 
 The inspiration and the dream, the trace 
 That in our memories survives, were more 
 Than fond bright baubles for a child's caprice. 
 Perchance the thought, the mere wish to express, 
 Is art in kind as much as finished form ; 
 The shadow strikes, and be it ne'er so faintly — 
 If only in a flickering glimpse of sun — 
 In shape and manner its original. 
 They say, 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came* ; 
 Well, then, put slug-horn to your lips and blow ! 
 Not feebly, courting limitations passed, 
 But blow a brave blast, as you would come through ! 
 For in that shadow's shadow, in that touch 
 Which tentative shapes all we seek to know, 
 
FLAMMANTIA MOENIA MUNDI 19 
 
 There lurks a breath of something infinite, 
 A faint first flash of immortality, 
 Prophetic of divinity to be. 
 
THE PALACES. 
 
 Anacon, the shepherd youth, 
 Dreamed upon the hill ; 
 
 Idle, for he had no sheep ; 
 Idle — had no will ; 
 
 Saw the purple headlands rise, 
 
 Palaces untold. 
 And a fleet of purple sails 
 
 On a sea of gold. 
 
 Milo, freedman of the town, 
 
 Trafficker in wares 
 Bought from Persian princesses, 
 
 Man of great affairs, 
 
 Milo found the shepherd youth 
 
 Idle *neath a tree. 
 Mocked him for his idleness. 
 
 Mocked his reverie, 
 20 
 
THE PALACES 21 
 
 Pointed to the busy town, 
 
 Loud with human life, 
 Urged him leave his fruitless dreams, 
 
 Join in manly strife. 
 
 Anacon, the shepherd youth. 
 
 Only closed his eyes. 
 Murmured that the town would die 
 
 As a tempest dies. 
 
 Leave behind a straggling rack, 
 
 Then a silent space, 
 While through ages stars and moon 
 
 Desolation trace. 
 
 <^But my palaces will live ; 
 
 They are ever fair !" — 
 Answered Milo : **Like yon cloud 
 
 Will your palace flare, 
 
 *'Turn and twist and tumble down. 
 
 Cool to sombre gray : 
 Insubstantial as a dream, 
 
 Phantom of a day." 
 
22 THE PALACES 
 
 Anacon, the shepherd youth, 
 
 Only closed his eyes ; 
 Said : **A peacock's painted plumes 
 
 Are my homilies." 
 
 With the night there broke the storm 
 
 On the little town ; 
 And the levin-lighted fires 
 
 Ravaged up and down , 
 
 Raged the flaming streets along, 
 Scorched the sea-washed shores, 
 
 Wrecked for Milo all his pride. 
 Burned him ships and stores. 
 
 And when later on the hill 
 
 Men and women stood, 
 Wailing for their treasurt^s lost, 
 
 Life and livelihood, 
 
 Anacon beheld a cloud 
 
 Purple on the dawn ; 
 Smiling mused the shepherd lud • 
 
 <* Villages are gone : 
 
THE PALACES 23 
 
 But my palaces, that pass, 
 
 Phoenix-fashion rise, 
 And each morn and evening here, 
 At whatever time of year, 
 Princesses forever young 
 Walk the golden glades among 
 
 Of my paradise.'* 
 Milo saw the shepherd lad 
 
 Happy 'midst the grief ; 
 Struck him dying to the earth, 
 
 Found a dear relief. 
 
 Thus the village flaring died. 
 
 Thus too Anacon ; 
 Milo, trafficker in wares, 
 
 Now is also gone. 
 But each morn and evening there 
 (Now unseen, but not less fair) 
 Where the palaces of dream 
 
 Phoenix-fashion rise, 
 Princesses forever young 
 Walk the golden glades among 
 
 Of a sunlit paradise. 
 
THE LEGEND OF ULLSWATER. 
 
 I 
 
 *'Oif, whither away, Sir Eglamore, 
 In tliC gleam of tlie w^inter moon?" 
 
 ''To Our Lady's chapel by Ullswater, 
 That I may pray one boon." 
 
 He has kissed fair Emma and ridden forth 
 
 Ey Lyulph's Tower old, 
 Through Go wb arrow Park, w^iere Air a Force 
 
 Comes down through caverns cold. 
 
 Loud, loud laughs then Sir Eglamore ; 
 
 *'To Our Lady i' sooth !" cries he. 
 Loud curses then Sir Eglamore ; 
 
 ^''By the Holy Rood !" swears he, 
 24 
 
THE LEGEND OF ULLSWATER 25 
 
 **Ask heaven's grace of the devil's face ! 
 
 'Twere a merry jest, my faith ! 
 An I make not children fatherless, 
 
 May I come home a v^raith ! 
 
 <*Ha ha !" laughs the Knight v/ilh hand on hilt, 
 
 As he rides the chapel b}^ ; 
 <*My good right arm is strength enow; 
 
 — Yon door is for them that die." 
 
 II 
 
 In Gowbarrow Hall fair Emma sits 
 
 And she waiteth patiently, 
 But her needle-work lias slipped her hand — 
 
 '*Alackfor my love !" sa3^s she. 
 
 One night in the winter cold there comes 
 
 A rider through the park ; 
 Fair Emma has run to the window wide 
 (Oh, her heart is hot in her panting side !) 
 
 And has strained into the dark. 
 
26 THE LEGEND OF ULLSWATER 
 
 **Sir Eglamore at last ! " cries she, 
 
 "With his honour fairly won — " 
 Alas ! 'tis only a messager, 
 
 And his message briefly done. 
 
 He has galloped away in the frozen dark, 
 
 But ever Emma hears 
 The beat of galloping hoofs that come, 
 
 Comegalloping through the years. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Afar in the Scottish borderland 
 
 Arises Sir Eglamore. 
 **Enough of slaughter and sin," thinks he ; 
 '*rvc a love at home in my Lake Countree ; 
 
 I'll back to Lyulph's shore." 
 
 He has ridden from Carlisle city forth, 
 By Hesket Heath he has gone, 
 
 And ever he muses as on he rides 
 Of the evil he has done. 
 
THE LEGEND OF ULLSWATER 27 
 
 **And oh, if fair Emma another lord 
 
 Has ta'en in place of me ! 
 Woe wordi the knock at Gowbarrow door 
 
 When I hear his minstrelsy !" 
 
 He has come to roaring Aira Force 
 
 And paused there for drink ; — 
 Alas I what sees he in the dark? 
 A fair maid's body white and stark, 
 
 Awash below the brink. 
 He has caught fair Emma into his arms, 
 
 He has kissed her cheek and chin, 
 He has looked upon her wide, blue eyes, 
 He has cried her name to the naked skies, 
 
 — But her voice he may not win. 
 
 IV 
 
 Slow walks to the chapel by the lake 
 
 In hermit's hood and shoon 
 Sir Eglamore — of Our Lady^s grace 
 
 To pray at last one boon, 
 
THE CUCKOO OF BORROWDALE. 
 
 They tell a strange story in old Borrowdale 
 That you may believe or not as you choose, — 
 Such a fanciful, odd, impossible tale 
 That I, even credulous I, refuse 
 To believe it. But then, whatever you think. 
 They aver that the story they tell is true ; 
 And, what is still more, by the river's brink 
 There's a proof — an old wall — that they show to 
 you. 
 One Spring — it was marvelous fair that day, 
 For the snow-drop was springing and robin was sing- 
 ing, 
 But loudest of all from twig and spray 
 Was the double note of the cuckoo ringing — 
 One Spring at the doors when their work was done 
 The farmer-folk sat in the first warm sun. 
 And old Michael said, as he sipped his tea, 
 
 Z3 
 
THE CUCKOO OF BORROWDALE 29 
 
 "Ell, John, it's brave here under the sky 
 To be sitting thus? It's great pity that we 
 Can't alw.^3^s do so." And John, he said,*'Ay." 
 And the goodwife she turned from her spinning- 
 wheel ; 
 ♦'There's something," she said, ♦♦in the air I feel 
 Makes it better to live when the sun is bright 
 And the snows are melting on Scawfell height." 
 And so they gathered and talked it o'er : 
 One said that his crops were better for Spring, 
 Another complained of his minished store, — 
 And, brief, they agreed in this one thing, — 
 That they wanted nothing but endless Spring. 
 '♦For the winter's so cold !" croaked one old crone ; 
 '♦And so long!" croaked the next; and ♦'Ou, ay," 
 
 said John. 
 Thus it came that the good folk decided they'd try 
 To change the seasons — and you or I, 
 If we'd lived through a Borrowdale winter cold 
 And seen the poor sheep in the snow-bound fold 
 And the folk half starved — we'd understand why. 
 Yet it wasn't the why but the how that they 
 
30 THE CUCKOO OF BORROWDALE 
 
 Racked their poor brains to discover when 
 They gathered upon that springtime day 
 At the cottage door of the farmer. Then, 
 All of a sudden, a strange form rose 
 As a pike peering over a hillside shows 
 When you climb to the pass. *»It's easy enough I" 
 Said the stranger in voice and in garments rough. 
 ** Don't you hear the cuckoo blithely sing 
 When the first green buds burst in the vale ? 
 Don't you know that he always comes with Spring 
 Down here by the beck in Borrowdale ? 
 To-day when I came over Styhead Pass, 
 As I waved good-bye to my little lass, 
 By wild Wastwater I heard them sing — 
 Lassie and cuckoo — and that was Spring! 
 But up on the pass there was ice and snow. 
 And the tarn was frozen, and no song stirred 
 The treeless mountains ; — and so I know 
 That the Spring you have when you have the bird. 
 Shut your valley tight, build a wall across 
 Where the beck flows out through the Borrowdale 
 Jaws; 
 
THE CUCKOO OF BORROWDALE 31 
 
 Keep the bird in the valley, and ever you 
 Shall have Spring and the song of the blithe 
 
 cuckoo." 
 The stranger was done. **To be sure !" cried they, 
 ** 'Tis the cuckoo that brings and guards the Spring ! 
 When he's gone the Summer flies fast away, 
 And Autumn flies too, and Winter is king. 
 We'll build us a wall at the Borrowdale Jaws, 
 For to South and to East and the West across 
 Are mountains that make us a rampart high. 
 We'll build us a wall !" And John said, "Ou, ay." 
 
 Now whether the farmer folk had Spring 
 Through the whole twelve months I cannot say ; 
 But to prove that they builded the wall they bring 
 To your notice a fragment grim and grey 
 That stands where the beck flows out of the vale 
 And becomes a river in Derwent-dale. 
 In the teeth of the Borrowdale Jaws it stands, 
 And they say it was builded by human hands. 
 
 But whatever became of the rest of the wall 
 Is as hard to catch as a waterfall. 
 One says that the valley was flooded with water 
 
32 THE CUCKOO OF BORROWDALE 
 
 And the cuckoo flew with the farmer's daughter. 
 Another avers that the wall gave way 
 With the full-fed becks of a rainy day. 
 A third says the farmers were smitten down 
 With pity for keeping from Keswick town 
 The Spring and the cuckoo, and so they made 
 A breach in the wall that enclosed the glade ; 
 *'For 'twere selfish," said they, *'the whole year 
 
 through 
 To keep from our brothers the blithe cuckoo." 
 But the person who thus would solve the thing 
 Must think more of man than he thinks of Spring. 
 Yet the rock stands there, at any rate, 
 And guards like a sentinel stern the vale, 
 Where the silver beck in Springtide spate 
 Chatters adown bright Borrowdale. 
 And if you go there in sunny Spring 
 Perchance you shall hear the cuckoo sing. 
 
TILBERTHWAITE FELL. 
 
 The moon is down, the stars shine clear, 
 
 The valley sleepeth still ; 
 The trumpets of the night sound here, 
 
 High on the windy hill. 
 
 The dalesmen in the hamlet know 
 
 God's silence and His care ; 
 But of His mighty music ... oh ! 
 
 Forever unaware ! 
 
 33 
 
THE DUNES. 
 
 These are the shores and these the wind-scarred 
 
 dunes 
 Of that far western land of magic promise 
 Which lured the sturdy sailors of the East 
 To peril their frail pinnaces in hope 
 Of "more beyond", trusting in God, and fain 
 To win great honour for their Virgin Queen. 
 But here they touched not ; w^arned by the long line 
 Of gleaming breakers, veered they north or south. 
 Found harbours, settled, reared a mighty folk; 
 And that same people, spreading through the years, 
 First built great cities — markets of the world ; 
 Then, hating the vast fabric of their hands, 
 They fled along the coasts to cool their hearts, 
 Grown feverish with the panic of their toil ; 
 But centuries of ingrained lust for show, 
 Sordid desire of magnificence, 
 
 34 
 
THE DUNES 35 
 
 Attended, turned their hands again to work, 
 Sat by their ears and whispered as they slept, — 
 In short, they builded only as they knew. 
 
 Thus, stranger, wondering at our peopled shores. 
 More desolate than when the sea and sand 
 And dunes in ancient desolation stretched, 
 Thus are our hands of thistles full and thorns. 
 Yet still untouched, still magic as of yore, 
 When Hudson coasted northward or when Drake 
 Looked landward from the tossing Pelican, 
 One little space remains. The train-sped world 
 Counts Sea Girt but a line of tents and trees ; 
 Yet there be those who know and love the dunes. 
 The routed cedars and the embattled pines. 
 The long brown beaches and the unspoiled sea ; 
 For here they know that Nature, still unchecked, 
 Hath wrought through ages wondrously, hath blest 
 With calm this Paradise ; that here the sea. 
 The same sea sailed by Drake and Frobisher, 
 Still carries in its bosom ample cheer 
 For those who cheer will have, and for the sad 
 Such presage of an elemental power 
 That grief grows temporal and forgets itself. 
 
SEA GIRT. 
 
 Lie long among the sand-dunes, 
 On waves of grasses tossed, 
 And coast by cedar islands, 
 In bay-bush fragrance lost ; 
 
 Lie long and hearken trul}^, 
 That through the changing 3^ear 
 The song of summer surges 
 May waken in your ear ; 
 
 That afternoons of August, 
 The blue of sea and sky, 
 And white of bar-spent combers 
 May slumber in your eye. 
 
 36 
 
THE SONG OF THE VIKING WIND. 
 
 Here where the foam on my breath is blown, 
 
 Here where the spindrift stings, 
 Where my song is a pledge of the blasted hedge, 
 
 Where only the beach grass clings. 
 Here is my right that I guard with might. 
 
 The fief that is mine to hold. 
 The fretted sand with the seal of my hand, 
 
 The fief that was mine of old. 
 
 Afar in the mid-sea meadows I rise, 
 
 Men call me the Viking wind, 
 And I race with a cloud to serve as shroud 
 
 Of my heathen host behind. 
 All things that come from an inland home, 
 
 The oak and the stricken pine. 
 The cedar and bay and the holly gay, 
 
 Turn tail and crouch like kine, 
 
 37 
 
38 THE SONG OF THE VIKING WIND 
 
 And to gardens fair that man rears with care 
 
 On my marches of the mist, 
 In one black night I bring my bhght, 
 
 My scourge that none resist. 
 Only the flowers of my ocean bowers 
 
 I grant the grace to grow, — 
 From every mound of my furrowed ground 
 
 My spume-white blossoms blow. 
 
 The seed is sown and the flowers are blown 
 
 With the same stroke of my hand ; — 
 Oh, gay bedight in garlands white 
 
 I ride into my land ! 
 All up and down from town to town 
 
 I ride the beaches bare, 
 And carve m}^ runes on the desert dunes, 
 
 To mark my proper share. 
 
 He who would dwell among my hosts 
 
 Must knov/ no roof but cloud ; 
 He wdio would dare vAtli me to fare 
 
 INIust ride my coursers proud 5 
 
THE SONG OF THE VIKING WIND 39 
 
 Must ride them right through the winter night 
 
 Across the untracked seas ; 
 Must with them ride the beaches wide 
 
 When spray-drenched forelocks freeze. 
 
 And when the summer wind blows soft 
 
 From cedar and from pine, 
 And lazy combers gleam at night 
 
 In one long liquid line, 
 A jealous eye is watching nigh 
 
 To guard my desert dunes, 
 And a northeast hand shall come to land 
 
 To carve my Viking runes. 
 
THE WINTER WARRIORS. 
 
 This road we ride forever, 
 The winds are up to-night, 
 
 The clouds are black and scattered. 
 The moon is keen and white. 
 
 Come, winds of winter, striding 
 Adown the mountain side, 
 
 In frozen, clanging armour 
 Your sworded warriors ride. 
 
 Come, heralding your storm-king, 
 In raiment spangled, white, 
 
 Who tries our hearts and sinews, 
 Who calls us forth to fight. 
 
 Come, bring the five-month winter. 
 Of boisterous days and snow, 
 
 Of silent, trackless forests, 
 And fir-trees bended low ; 
 40 
 
THE WINTER WARRIORS 41 
 
 Of nights when all the heavens 
 Are dashed with splendid stars, 
 
 When Northern Lights in ancient fights 
 Clash flaming on the scaurs. 
 
 See, see the winter warriors, 
 
 That spur in squalls of white. 
 With lance in rest and plume on crest, 
 
 All charging through the night ! 
 
 The stars are in my pulses, 
 
 And white the wind-swept snow ! 
 
 Strike spur and slacken bridle — 
 We'll ride forever so ! 
 
VICTORY. 
 
 Riding, riding endlessly, 
 Through the eastern sky. 
 
 Clouds that, routed by the wind, 
 Flags forsake and fly ! 
 
 Hosts along the eastern hills 
 
 In disorder throng ; 
 See the fires of victory ! 
 
 Hear the triumph song ! 
 
 Mountains purple, as the sun 
 Sinks behind their height, — 
 
 Silently the stars prick out 
 In the windy night. 
 
 42 
 
NORTHERN LIGHTS. 
 
 So you wonder, my child, what those fires may 
 mean? 
 
 What those faint and trembling fingers are ? 
 In what dim land hangs that curtain green, 
 With its fringes and tassels and ghostly sheen? 
 
 And why does it always look so far? 
 
 Time was when those lights burned a brighter red, 
 
 And loud was the shock of ax and spear. 
 When the hills were strown with heroes dead, 
 And Valkyries swooped as the battle bled. 
 And Valhalla's doors swung wide and clear. 
 
 Now faint are the fires and old our eyes. 
 
 And we hear no sound of the ringing blow ; 
 And only the ghosts of the Gods arise 
 And fight by night in the northern skies, 
 ■ — For Ragnarok was years ago. 
 
 43 
 
44 NORTHERN LIGHTS 
 
 You smile, my child, as you would say, 
 
 **Will they fight no more, those heroes slain? 
 Will those fires not brighter burn by day, 
 When Odin gathers his host for fray, — 
 Comes never a Ragnarok again?" 
 
 ************ 
 
 For each his fight and for each his fall ; 
 
 For each his struggle with staves and rods ; 
 And for each the clear Valkyrie call. 
 And the flash of Valhalla's high-roofed hall 
 
 — For each his Twilight of the Gods ! 
 
THE FEET UPON THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 O WILD north wind, will you never have rest, 
 That buds may blossom and grass grow green? 
 Will your ice-mailed ranks never cease their quest, 
 Never sheathe their blade with its edge so keen ? 
 
 Must we struggle ever and never attain, 
 Meet ever a foe and never a friend ? 
 Shall we strive for a final rest in vain, 
 Never stop to sing at the very end? 
 
 Look well, old foe, to your armour now. 
 For there comes a friend with the splendid dawn ; 
 He bears no lance but the light on his brow. 
 And his manner is mild as the light-foot fawn. 
 
 Look well, old foe, for you dare not stand 
 'Gainst him and his joyous company ; 
 Your shafts are shattered and sunk your hand. 
 Your banners are struck and your armies flee. 
 
 45 
 
46 THE FEET UPON THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 To-morrow or ever the sun be set 
 We shall gather our spoils and bless our friend; 
 Take heart and stand to the struggle yet, — 
 We shall stop to sing at the very end. 
 
TO A MEADOWLARK 
 
 Across the brown fields chilled with winds of March 
 Thy song thrills clear — clear joy that swells to 
 pain. 
 Song-sparrows herald dp.y from elm and larch, 
 
 And robins chatter punctually again ; 
 But thou, unseen, the colour of the ground. 
 Unmarked by loungers of the garden lawn, 
 Still singest matins for my pleasure — hark ! 
 Was e'er joy so profound? 
 
 Can it swell so to sadness? Bringeth dawn 
 A memory of some sorrow to tlie lark? 
 
 Long time have old bards sung the wild sea-gull, 
 Crying and flying by the scourging sea, 
 
 But such a changeless wail must grief annul ; 
 For unmixed grief a kind of joy can be. 
 
 47 
 
48 TO A MEADOWLAkK 
 
 Nay, rather is there passion in the swan, 
 Regretful of a graceful life so soon 
 
 To ebb ; yet even he may dream a part 
 As graceful as that gone ; — 
 
 From woe to woe in melody to swoon 
 Were not a misery to an aching heart. 
 
 But thou, sweet lark, hast no monotony, 
 
 No single note as harsh as grinding seas ; 
 Nor, like the dying swan, a melody 
 
 To send to present pain a swift surcease. 
 Nor art thou, like the tawny nightingale, 
 
 Or like her swallow-sister, cruelly wed. 
 Or like the Halycon on the hushed main, 
 Immortal in a tale ; 
 
 In rime is Philomel transfigured. 
 
 And swallow-sister Procne lives again. 
 
 Oh, tell us, meadowlark, if tale there be. 
 
 What joy thou knewest and what wrong was 
 done, 
 
 That thus with human wail thy melody 
 
 Should swell against so warm, so glad a sun ! 
 
TO A ?.IEADOWLAPav 
 
 49 
 
 Alt^oiicuin, Huron, Iroquois, or Sioux, 
 
 Wlial part was tliine, what passion, what fate 
 drear? 
 Did 3^oung braves steal through forests dark 
 for thee? 
 Or dost thou thus renew 
 
 Thy song to indicate the changing year? 
 Wert thou some Indian Queen — or art thou here 
 But to recall the day's uncertainty? 
 
IF ROSES HAD NOT FADED. 
 
 If roses had not faded, 
 
 And frosts had never come, 
 We had been gay together, 
 Like bees in August heather, — 
 One had not now been dumb. 
 
 Not yet we miss our play-mate ; 
 
 But when the May is come, 
 And lads are gay together 
 In blithest blossom-weather, — 
 
 Oh, then shall we be dumb ! 
 
 And birds that silent sorrow, 
 And bees that never hum. 
 
 Had always gay paraded, — 
 
 If roses had not faded, 
 And frosts had never come. 
 50 
 
CINCINNATUS. 
 
 He stands there in the furrow, 
 That ancient Roman lord — 
 
 When lo ! His cloak is purple, 
 And in his hand a sword. 
 
 He triumphs in his purple ; 
 
 The world is his for play — 
 "I choose my farm and furrow; 
 
 My work is done to-day." 
 
 51 
 
MILTON IN OLD AGE. 
 
 Yet lived he like a prophet whom no blow 
 
 Of adverse fate nor ruin of the right 
 Could force his star-sent service to forego: 
 
 Though lost his cause, though sealed his mor- 
 tal sight, 
 
 Though that fair temple Vy'lncli he strove to raise, 
 Temple of Trufn a.id Lilj:;rt\' and Song, 
 
 Scattered in ruins lav, and toilsome days 
 
 Died unrcmembercl ])v the heedless throng. 
 
 The fickle and the insolent and bold. 
 The revellers who called a puppet king 
 
 And in the streets broached butts of vintafi^c old 
 And rang the bells and cheered the crowned 
 Thini.<-. 
 
MILTON IN OLD AGE. 53 
 
 Yet ;it his door he sate, defeated, blind, 
 And saw Satanic randenioinum rise. 
 
 And read the fatal error of mankind, 
 
 Shut out by flaming sword from Paradise. 
 
 Thus sate he, grim recorder of man's sin, 
 Black-suited prophet in his poverty, 
 
 Oh, careless London ! Flagrant with the din 
 Of riot and light-hearted blasphemy ! 
 
MARLOWE 
 
 Thou didst behold the master-builder sun 
 
 Fashion cloud-palaces in faery-lands ; 
 And thou didst hear the flood-tide breakers run, 
 
 Crashing their choruses on glittering sands. 
 Thy voice, Kit Marlowe, had their majesty, 
 
 Their splendour, and their thunder, and their 
 charge ; 
 And songs of stars and sunrise were in thee. 
 
 Thy thoughts were mighty and thy accents large. 
 For throucch thee have we marched with Tambur- 
 laine, 
 
 Shouting subjection to proud Indian kings; 
 And, spite of all th}^ failure to attain 
 
 Thy far-seen goal, thou send'st us word of things 
 Victorious, priceless, were it only this : 
 
 *'To ride in triumph through Persepolis 1" 
 54 
 
ON VISITING GOLDSMITH'S GRAVE. 
 
 (temple court, London) 
 
 Nor flaunted by a tribute verse, nor yet 
 Trumpeted by an abbey's towers tall, 
 Ungloried by a solemn festival, 
 *'Poor Poll," thou liest here, thy grave unvvet 
 By tears of hast'ning passers, who forget 
 Thy wit and gentleness. On whom shall fall 
 Thy garments gay? What notice shall recall 
 To thee our love, to thee our endless debt? 
 Yet thou hast cause for solace in thy sleep ; 
 In yonder Abbey, sepulchred in state, 
 Where hordes of vandals visitation keep, 
 Johnson and Garrick side by side do lie. 
 Thy requiem is played at heaven' s gate ; 
 Thy vault is, day and night, the open sky. 
 
 55 
 
COR COP.DIUM. 
 
 Shelley, thy cry eternal speaks to those 
 
 Who know thy beacon, sliining steadfastly, 
 
 Tiiou who didst tend the lamp of liberty j 
 
 To martyrdom, triumphant at the close. 
 
 Yet how shall faithless wayfarers propose 
 
 Th}^ flight to follow, win the victory. 
 
 When thy Promethean coursers, whirlwind-free, 
 
 Bore thee tlirough tempests, over untracked snows? 
 
 For thy keen spirit, famished for the goal, 
 
 Outran the body, lived as joyously 
 
 As thine ovv^n *Cloud' and 'Westwind', caught the 
 
 fire 
 That burns beyond our vision, fed thy soul 
 On everlasting streams ; immortally 
 Thy fingers sweep acros.s the star-strung lyre. 
 
 56 
 
BYRON. 
 
 So splendid, FO tiiumpiiant, so sincere ! 
 
 So luckless, inelnncholic, insincere ! 
 
 Some men have found tliee stronrj, a Viking soul, 
 
 And some have called dice poser, a!id yet more 
 
 Have searclied tlie scandals of thy fervid life 
 
 — To llnd tlice worse or better than tliemselves ; 
 
 (Don Juan coukl have told them that before). 
 
 What matter if they find some villany? 
 
 A skeleton perforce will smell of earth. 
 
 What matter if tliey trumpet thy brave deeds? 
 
 Greece won her freedom without aid of diee. 
 
 Ay, even while tliey delve and strive to bring 
 
 Thee back in all thy splendor or thy shame, 
 
 Thy featuies fade, thy form, less palpable, 
 
 Melts with thy little story in the past. 
 
 Yet still endures thy name. None yet hath been 
 
 57 
 
5S BYRON 
 
 From whom such mighty torrents have poured 
 
 forth, 
 Such unchecked currents, cataracts of song, 
 Like Alpine rivers fed eternally. 
 And, like them, loud, tempestuous, fearing not 
 To take the perilous leap — and thus to catch 
 The sunshine in the spray, or, far below, 
 Fretting Tartarean caverns for escape, 
 To thunder subterranean harmonies ; 
 And knowing like them, as by strong instinct, 
 Their distant destiny, the far-off sea. 
 Where all their fellow-voyagers gone before 
 Are singing in harmonious multitude. 
 When long forgotten are thy miseries, 
 When all thy pomps are passed from mindsof men, 
 When history can scarce grope back to thee 
 And spell thy story in the dust of death, 
 — Then still, O B3Ton, will men know thy name, 
 Not for this scandal or that subterfuge. 
 Not for this triumph or that turpitude. 
 But for the flooded fulness of thy song, 
 The oceanic volume of thy verse. 
 
THE y^GEAN. 
 
 "Und an cicm Ufer steh' ich lanf!:e Tape, 
 
 Das Land der Griechen mit der Seele suchcnd." 
 
 Goethe: Iphigenie. 
 
 Do you remember how we pushed our prow 
 Past sudden headlands to a magic sea? 
 
 Stood Goethe l^y the hehii, and in the bow 
 Stood Schiller with his face towards Arcady ! 
 
 And hot Eichstrasse vanished like a mist, 
 And Volkersweg Ionian furrows grew, 
 
 And we were sailing, sailing ere we wist 
 
 Past Cretan mountains white against the blue. 
 
 Shall you forget that cypress grove we found, 
 Whence Iphigeneia yearned for her far home? 
 
 Or those majestic Lesbian cliffs, ringed round 
 With what clear sky, with what ^gean foam ! 
 
 59 
 
6o THE .EGEAN 
 
 And shall I not again Vv'ilh you embark 
 Beneath that spirit-sail we found so swift, 
 
 Brave crested coml^crs of the outer dark, 
 Until we r^lide into the calm and drift — 
 
 Drift where the islands gleam across the sea, 
 V/here flash Pentclic temples in the dawn. 
 
 Where Gods of Greece desreiid for you and me 
 Olympic slope and bright Peneian lawn? 
 
PIETRO'S CURE. 
 
 You smile compassion, do you? So you think 
 We old men,having nothing great to come, 
 Must needs look back and, looking back, must see 
 The silly pleasures and the poignant sorrows 
 That youth sees in its moment's retrospect? 
 My friend,if manhood brings what manhood may. 
 No fifty years of woe can cast a gloom 
 On one victorious mom.ent of strong love. 
 If that be not, or if that never was. 
 There is no ripe philosophy of age. 
 No Christian miracle, no grave-bound spell, 
 To <-five man heart to face eternity. 
 You wonder w^hy I pause? 
 Ah, thus much have I often told to men 
 Who stopped a moment from their hastening 
 To speak with old Pietro by the gale ; 
 But more— just how I know^ and why I know, 
 
 6i 
 
62 PIETRO'S CURE 
 
 Or, knowing, why I linger here forlorn, 
 
 Or — well, my friend, sometimes to talk of things, 
 
 To show to wondering eyes a beating heart. 
 
 To eyes that never dreamed 3^011 had a heart. 
 
 Is harder than to mumble senile saws, 
 
 To be just old Pietro by the gate. 
 
 But sit here on the bench. I will tell you ; 
 
 For you have told me frankh^ of your sorrows — 
 
 And no doubt the}^ are real ; — I will tell you 
 
 How^ years ago the miracle was wrought 
 
 That made the whole ^vorld — but there, I prate : 
 
 The w^orld, forsooth, already hath forgot, 
 
 Ay, never knew the whole ; just now and then 
 
 Some fancier of old tales wags his beard 
 
 And winks and hints at old Pietro's cure — 
 
 As if the gossip knew or understood ! 
 
 But you shall hear — sit down — the folk are gone, 
 
 And only those tall cypresses that slope 
 
 In strictest silence down to Arno's flood — 
 
 A.nd you — shall hear the story of my cure. 
 
 What's that you said they told you ? ancient 
 drugs ? 
 
HETRO'S CURE 63 
 
 Strange potent herbs I bought from blue-nosed hags? 
 
 Ay, some said sorcery. Ha ! sorcery ! 
 
 Jesu, they calledjhee charlatan as well ! 
 
 Did you ever think, my friend, how strange it is 
 
 That men, who live by love, ay, cure by love, 
 
 Should doubt a stronger love than theirs, should hate 
 
 And mock another for his love ? 
 
 What's that? 
 You are afraid I do forget my tale ? 
 Nay, I shall to it ; — only think, 'tis hard 
 To know just how to tell in ordered words 
 What I have never told, to tell a youth 
 What I have never breathed to one but God. 
 Hark ! So it has happened : she was very low ; — 
 She? Oh, she was my Francesca, later 
 My wife — dead thirty years — 
 
 See that slim path between the cypress stems ? 
 It bends to the right and leads along the Arno. 
 We used to walk there in the setting sun; 
 And afterwards with young Francesco, too, — 
 She wanted him called Pietro, after me, 
 But I insisted on Francesco, after her ; 
 
64 PIETRO'S CURE 
 
 He toddled widi us — oh, those sunlit days ! 
 Sometimes I tried to thread that wa}' alone, 
 When they were gone ; but no, 'tis better done 
 To sit here in the gate and gaze and dream, 
 To walk there in my fancy, when a slope 
 Means sport, not scant}^ breath and tottering knees. 
 At times a lover and his lady pass this w^ay 
 And take that path, and so I bless them both ; 
 And when the}' laughingly return at eve, 
 The light, the old dear light, in either's eyes, 
 I bless them once again. "Good eve, Pietro !" 
 I tldnk they understand : — God bless them all ! 
 
 But to my tale : Francesca, she v/as lovv^ ; 
 Lay da3's with eyes unopened, breathed no sound. 
 They called plu'sicians in — long beards, long 
 
 w^ords, — 
 And nothing came of it. "Not dead," they said ; 
 "Ilor pulse tells that : but there's no malady 
 To fiX on ; — nothing can be done but w^ait." 
 And so they waited, and Francesca sank, 
 A shadow^ wdth a shadow's fainting heart. 
 Her father — he was old — well, never mind — 
 
PIETRO'S CURE 65 
 
 He wrung his hands and offered argosies 
 
 If they would work the cure. They shook their 
 
 beards 
 And said that nothing could be done but wait. 
 At length one day Francesca made a sound, 
 So faint they heard it only as an echo. 
 What said she? Was't *'Pietro?" Once again! 
 **Pietro" breathed she — nothing more. They waited, 
 Listened, curs'd fools, an hour, to make more sfire, 
 Instead of sending swiftly for the man ! 
 What, that young dreaming fool ! Pietro? He 
 That dangled lover-wise with empty purse 
 Till fair PVancesca bade him hold his peace, 
 She loved him not? Yea, it was I, my friend; 
 I was that dreaming fool I For know, I had 
 Paid court, paid honorable court to her ; 
 God knows I worshiped her — a magic lady I 
 But she — ah, she was very young and, well, 
 Perhaps a little proud — a very little — 
 And cast me off. And as for her rich father, — 
 Lord, he was stricken dumb when she now called. 
 Despair at last o'ercame reluctant pride ; 
 
66 PIETRO'S CURE 
 
 The doctors said 'twas folly, but he sent, 
 Sent 'gainst his own will and the doctors' will, 
 To fetch the cringing pauper whom he scorned. 
 I came, my brain awhirl, my heart on fire. 
 "She ,calls *Pietro',"said they; **we have tried 
 The gardener Pietro and her kinsman, 
 Pietro Baldcschini,but alas ! 
 
 She know^s them not, nor us. — Oh, go gently, — 
 A little fright may kill her. Yet it seems 
 There is no other cure save find the man 
 She names — the only word she speaks. And then, 
 As if to show that wisdom sprang from beards. 
 There was a deal of parley — how to go ; 
 What possible contagion she might have ; 
 How Orverus (who ever heard of him ! ) 
 How in some chapter of some book he told 
 The story of some lady once in Venice, 
 Who, faint in the same way, cooed out a name — 
 The name of a gondolier (here they all laugh), 
 Who, being fetched, proved that he was her love, 
 And wrought a wondrous cure ; how then this cr.;:e, 
 Since I had been cast otf , could not apply, — 
 
PIETRO'S CURE 67 
 
 With much dissection of 1113' poverty, 
 
 And how, except for this one circumstance, 
 
 Her lack of love for me, the cases were 
 
 Identical, — or might be ; — I know not 
 
 What else those doctors might have found in their 
 
 beards ! 
 *<My God !" I cried ; **what prattle ! Let me go !" 
 And brushed them all aside (the father there 
 Gaping astonishment to see the fool, 
 The dreaming, weak-eyed fool, become a man). 
 I strode into the room. No, not on guess ; 
 I knew what then was needed ; she, poor girl, 
 Was stifled by them all. How I this knew, 
 And how I further knew she loved poor me, — 
 Nay, that was God, my friend. Have you remarked 
 How much men think that God might do, could do, 
 And then — the miracle come to prove their 
 
 thoughts — 
 They puff with pride at their own omnipotence? 
 They did it all I Well, I did nothing, sir ; 
 Twas God that loved us both and worked the cure. 
 I went into the room and softly spake, 
 
68 PIETRO'S CURE 
 
 And leaned above her face, and took her hand. 
 
 Ah, God, what hours of anguish that day through ! 
 
 But once, towards deepening afternoon, she spoke. 
 
 I could not make it out, but when she spoke 
 
 I felt the pulse move in her little hand. 
 
 From time to time, like evil-omened birds, 
 
 Her father and the doctors flitted in. 
 
 But always stopped and, chattering, left again 
 
 When I but waved them back. I know not why; 
 
 Until that hour no mortal ever turned 
 
 One step aside for me ; but somehow then 
 
 God chose me to command. 
 
 Well, in the night 
 She spoke again, still faintly, but I heard. 
 *'Pietro," said she several times, and ah ! 
 I knew well v/hat she meant. *'Yes, yes," I cried ; 
 **Forever!" and wlien the morning broke she said 
 In tears : "I knew you would forgive me, love ; 
 I could not die before I knew you would." 
 "But you shall live," I whispered. 
 
 Nay, my friend, 
 There is no more than that. Long days, long weeks 
 
PIETRO'S CURE 69 
 
 I watched her gather strength ; she would not suffer 
 
 That I should leave till she was stronjr a^ain. 
 
 At length, with such love in our hearts, we married. 
 
 Her father? Oh, he offered thanks and gold, 
 
 And stammered nonsense when to his outcry 
 
 Against our marrying, Francesca said : 
 
 ''Father, there is no question ; I am his." 
 
 Ah, yes, we married, and after us he sent 
 
 A limping benediction. Then those days ! 
 
 Those glorious sunlit days ! 
 
 The tale went round, 
 And presently a poor wretch begged of me 
 To cure her child of fever, thought that I 
 Knew subtle arts above mere medicine. 
 Of course I tried — vainglorious fool I was ! 
 I tried without success ; and then they snarled, 
 "A charlatan !" 
 
 But when my dear wife died, 
 I called the doctors in ; I knew full well 
 That love had cured her of a malady 
 Which needed love for cure, but could not now. 
 The other day a man stopped here— he'd heard—- 
 
70 PIETRO'S CURE 
 
 And prated nonsense in the name of Christ, 
 And then went on to show how **mind" was **love. 
 Bah ! Do you not suppose, if that were so, 
 I should have saved Francesca? Do you think 
 I loved her less as time went on ? 
 
 See there ! 
 There come two lovers, just as she and I. 
 Buona sera, senora. — Eh? What's that? 
 Ay, you shall always find Pietro here. 
 
THE IDEALS. 
 
 {Schiller.) h, 
 
 So wilt thou faithless from me sever, 
 
 With all thy gracious fantasy, 
 With all thy sufferings, joys, forever, 
 
 With all,— irrevocable flee? 
 Can nothing stay thee in thy speed, 
 
 O golden time of life for me? 
 In vain ! Thy hurrying billows lead 
 
 Down to the deep, eternal sea. 
 
 O'er-clouded is the gladdening sun 
 
 That brightened brave the paths of youth ; 
 
 To lees the bright ideals are run 
 
 That swelled the drunken heart with Truth. 
 
 And gone, too, is Credulity 
 
 In Being— child of every dream, 
 
 A prey to rough Reality, — 
 
 Fair failh that did so god-like seem. 
 
 71 
 
*]2 THE IDEALS 
 
 As once with longing imploration 
 
 Pygmalion embraced the stone, 
 And in cold marble adoration 
 
 Inspired from his hot self alone, 
 So threw I me with loving arms 
 
 Round Nature firm in youthful quest. 
 Till she berran to breathe, to warm 
 
 Her old songs in the poet's breast. 
 
 And, sharing thus my pulsing flame, 
 
 E'en dumb things found a living speech, 
 Returned the kiss of love again, 
 
 And could my ringing heartstrings reach. 
 The tree, the rose lived then for me, 
 
 The brooklet sang in silverfall ; 
 The soulless even felt a glee. 
 
 The echo of my life in all. 
 
 There swelled with over-powering passion 
 My narrow breast in world-wide bound. 
 
 To step out into life, to fashion 
 
 In work and word, in scene and sound 1 
 
THE IDEALS 73 
 
 How great this world was shadowed forth 
 
 So long the bud hid it within ! 
 How little is the blossom worth ! 
 
 This little, ah, how small and thin ! 
 
 How sprang he, winged with spirit bold, 
 
 Enraptured by his dream of joy, 
 Nor reined yet by a sorrow old, 
 
 In life's gay course the happy boy ! 
 E'en to the palest stars existant 
 
 Raised him the flight of prophecy ; 
 Naught was too high and naught too distant 
 
 For her wings of felicity. 
 
 I low lightly was he borne along ! 
 
 What was too hard for happy him ! 
 Before life's load the airy throng, 
 
 How danced they in their joyous whim ! 
 Love with its sugar-sweet reward, 
 
 Good Fortune with its wreath of gold. 
 And Glory w^th its crown all starred. 
 
 And Truth in sunshine as of old ! 
 
74 THE IDEALS 
 
 Yet with the way half overcome 
 
 Were lost companion and brother ; 
 They faithless turned their steps towards home ; 
 
 One vanished — yielded then another. 
 Light-footed Joy had flown away, 
 
 Unquenched remained the thirst of youth ; 
 Dark storms of doubt began to play 
 
 About the sunshine of the Truth. 
 
 I saw high Honour's holy wreath 
 
 Unsanctified o'er common eyes ; 
 Ah ! all too soon the Springtime's breath, 
 
 The fair age of our loving, flies ! 
 And then it grew death-still and dimmer, 
 
 Forsaken on the rocky steep. 
 And Hope cast scarce a fleeting glimmer 
 
 On gloomy paths beneath my feet. 
 
 From all this company of careless, 
 
 Who waiteth loving till I come? 
 Who standeth by me ever fearless 
 
 And f olloweth to the darksome home ? 
 
THE IDEALS 75 
 
 O thou who for all suffering carest, 
 The tender hand of Friendship sound, 
 
 Who, loving, all life's burdens sharest, — 
 Thou whom I early sought and found I 
 
 And thou who weddest at her altars, 
 
 Who stillest, too, the soul's annoys, — 
 Brave Industry, that never falters, 
 
 That slowly works but ne'er destroys ; 
 That to the eternal structure laj^eth 
 
 But grain of sand for grain of sand. 
 Yet of Time's debt as surely payeth 
 
 Days, minutes, years, with canc'lling hand 
 
SCENES FROM *'MARY STUART" 
 
 (^ScJiillcr^ 
 
 Part of Act 1, Scene 7. 
 Burleigh. Mary. 
 
 Burleigh : That you hrive forged 
 
 Conspiracies to undermine our faith, 
 That you have stirred up all the kings of Europe 
 'Gainst England to make war — 
 
 Mary: And if I had? 
 
 I have not done it — but suppose I had ? 
 My lord, they keep me here a prisoner 
 Against the law of nations. Not with the sword 
 Came I into this land, but as a suppliant, 
 Demanding holy hospitality, 
 Cast myself trustingly in the embrace 
 Of a blood-related queen. And then mere force 
 Hath rudely seized me, hath prepared me chains 
 
 76 
 
MARY STUART ^^ 
 
 Where I protection hoped. Speak on, I say ! 
 
 Am I in conscience bound to aid this state? 
 
 Do I towards England any duties owe? 
 
 The sacred right of self-defence js mine 
 
 When I strive 'gainst these bonds, pl}^ might 'gainst 
 
 might, 
 And every country in this part of the world 
 To my protection rouse and set astir. 
 Whatever fair and knightly is in war, 
 That may I exercise in self-defense. 
 Murder alone, the secret bloody deed, 
 INIy pride as well as conscience doth forbid ; 
 Murder would soil nie and dishonour me. 
 Dishonour, say I, — in no sort condemn, 
 Nor yet subject me to a verdict here ; 
 For the issue now between this realm and me 
 Is not of right; 'tis solely one of power. 
 
 Burleigh (^significantly) : Call not ujjon the 
 fearful right of povv'cr. 
 My lady ! It is unkind to prisoners. 
 
 Mary : I am the weak one, she the powerful. 
 Well, let her use her strength to murder me, 
 
78 MARY STUART 
 
 Make me a sacrifice for her own safety ! 
 But let her then confess that she hath used 
 Nought but her power, not justice of the law, 
 Not borrowed from the law the guilty sword 
 With which she rids herself of a hated foe ; 
 And let her not clothe in a sacred garb 
 The brute audacity of mere rude strength, — 
 May no such jugglery deceive the world ! 
 Murder perhaps she can — she cannot judge me I 
 Let her have done with seeking to unite 
 The fruits of crime and holiness of virtue, — 
 And what she is — that let her dare to seem ! 
 
 {Exit) 
 
MARY STUART 
 
 /.•V, 
 
 Act III, Scene 4. 
 
 A park. 
 
 Mary Stuart, Hanna Kennedy {her at- 
 tendant), Vavi.^t {her keeper), Shrews- 
 bury {her former keeper). To them Eliza- 
 beth, Leicester, and train. 
 
 Elizabeth: {To Leicester) What is the resi- 
 dence named? 
 Leicester: Fotheringay. 
 
 Elizabeth : {to Shrewsbury) Send our hunt- 
 followers ahead to London. 
 The people press too hotly in the streets ; 
 We'll seek protection in this quiet park. 
 
 ( Shrewsbury dismisses the followers. Eliza- 
 beth fixes Mary with her eye as she speaks to 
 Leicester.) 
 
 79 
 
So MARY STUART 
 
 My good folk love too much. Immeasurable, 
 Idolatrous are the signals of their joy ; 
 Thus one doth honour to a god, not man. 
 
 Mary : {^ivJio during the last few moments has 
 leaned half-fainting on her companion ^draivs herself 
 uf), and her eye meets the opeit gaze of Elizabeth. She 
 shudders and throivs herself again upon her compan- 
 ion s breast.') 
 O God ! No heart speaks from those lineaments ! 
 
 Elizabeth : Who is the lady? 
 (^All are silent.) 
 
 Leicester: Thou art at Fotheringay, my 
 queen. 
 
 Elizabeth : {surprised and astonished^ glajices 
 darkly at Leicester.) 
 Who hath done this thing to me? Lord Leicester ! 
 
 Leicester: It hath happened, my gracious 
 queen ; — and now, 
 Since heaven hath guided hitherwards thy steps, 
 Let thy magnanimous mercy conquer all. 
 
 Shrewsbury : Oh, be persuaded! Cast thy 
 eye, my queen, 
 
MARY STUART 8i 
 
 Upon this miserable one, who here 
 Is perishing before thy glance ! 
 
 (Alary draws herself together and starts to go 
 towards Elizabeth^ btit^ shuddering^ stops half-way; 
 her gestures express violent emotion.') 
 
 Elizabeth : How, my lords? 
 
 Who told me of one bowed in humbleness? 
 I find her proud, in no respect subdued. 
 
 Mary : So be ! I will subject myself again ; 
 Hence, fainting pride of my nobility ! 
 I will forget my rank and what I suffered ; 
 I will cast down myself before her, she 
 Who so great contumely hath thrust upon me. 
 
 (She turns towards the queen) 
 Heaven hath favoured thee, my sister ! Crowned 
 Thy happy head with the wreath of victory ; 
 I make my prayer to that which set thee up ! 
 
 (^S he falls down before her) 
 Yet, sister, be thou now great-hearted too ! 
 Do not permit this shame ! Reach me thy hand, 
 Stretch me thy royal hand and raise me up, 
 From this disgraceful posture raise me up ! 
 
82 MARY STUART 
 
 Elizabeth : {Steppiftg back) Thou art in 
 thy true place, my Lady Stuart ! 
 And gratefully I praise the grace of God, 
 Which hath not willed that I should grovel so 
 Before thy feet as thou before mine now. 
 
 Mary : (^with rising- emotion)Consider how 
 mortality doth change ! 
 Av, there are Gods that humble arrogance ! 
 Oh ! honour, fear them, — they who terribly 
 Flung me thus at thy feet. Honour in me, 
 For these strange witnesses, honour in me 
 Thyself ! Oh, do not desecrate, disgrace 
 The Tudor blood which courses through my veins, 
 Throucrh mine as well as thine. — O God in heaven ! 
 Stand not so stiff and unapproachable. 
 Like to a rocky cliff some shipwrecked soul 
 Strives, vainly struggling, to take hold upon. 
 My all — my life, my fate — hangs on my words, 
 On my tears' power ; oh, but disclose thy heart, 
 That I may touch it with my words, my tears. 
 When thou so look'st at me with ice-cold gaze, 
 
MARY STUART 83 
 
 My shuddering heart is dumb, my tears are 
 
 stopped, 
 And in my bosom a cold horror chains 
 The words of imploration I would speak. 
 
 Elizabeth: {cold and stern) My Lady Stuart, 
 what hast thou to say ? 
 Thou hast desired to speak with me. The queen, 
 The much-insulted, I forget, in order 
 To do the pious duty of a sister. 
 To offer thee the comfort of my glance. 
 My motive is but magnanimity, 
 And I expose myself to censure just 
 When I so condescend — for thou well knowest 
 That thou hast wished to have them murder me. 
 Mary: Oh, how shall I begin, how wisely 
 speak, 
 That all my words may win, not wound, thy heart ! 
 O God, grant my speech strength, deprive it of 
 Each netde that might sting ! Yet I cannot 
 Speak truly in my own behalf without 
 Accusing thee — and that I do not wish. 
 Ay, thou hast treated me unrighteously, 
 
84 MARY STUART 
 
 For I am a queen as well as thou — yet thou 
 
 Hast held me like a common prisoner. 
 
 I came to thee a suppliant, and thou, 
 
 Mocking the laws of hospitality, 
 
 The sacred right of nations, shuttest me 
 
 In dungeon walls ; my friends, even my servants, 
 
 Are cruelly torn from me ; I am exposed 
 
 To ignominious want ; they lead me forth 
 
 Before a shameful court. — No more of that ! 
 
 Oblivion cover what cruelty I endured ! 
 
 — See, I will call it all a dispensation, 
 Thou art not guilty any more than I ; 
 An evil spirit rose from the abyss, 
 Enkindling in our hearts the bitter hate 
 Which severed us already in our youth ; 
 It grew with us, and evil persons fanned 
 
 The wretched flames ; mad-visioned zealots armed 
 Their uninvoked hands with sword and dirk, — 
 This is the fate accurst of kings and queens : 
 That they, divided, rend the world with hate. 
 And thus unfetter furies of dissension. 
 
 — No longer now a stranger stands between us ; 
 
MARY STUART 85 
 
 {Afproachcs confidingly and with flattering tone) 
 We stand now face to face. Speak, sister, speak ! 
 Name me my guilt, that I may render thee 
 The fullest satisfaction. Oh, that thou 
 Hadst granted me a hearing in those days 
 When I so eagerly sought out thy eye I 
 It had not come to this ; in this sad place 
 This hapless meeting had not come to pass. 
 
 Elizabeth : My good star hath protected me 
 from that. 
 From pressing the adder to my heart. Accuse 
 Not fate, accuse thy own black heart, the wald 
 Ambition of thy house. Between us two 
 Had nothing hostile happened when thy uncle, 
 The proud, imperious priest, whose insolent hand 
 Is stretched for every crown, declared the feud, 
 Bewitched thee to adopt my coat-of-arms, 
 To take my royal title to thyself, 
 To go to war with me for life and death. 
 Whom did he not arouse against my throne? 
 The tongues of priests, the swords of nations ; ay, 
 And the fearful weapons of fanatic zeal ! 
 
86 MARY STUART 
 
 Here even, in the peace of mine own realm, 
 He fanned the flame of insurrection ! — 
 But God is on my side, and the proud priest 
 Doth not yet hold the field. The blow was meant 
 To strike my head — but now 'tis thine that falls ! 
 Mary : I stand in the hand of God. Thou wilt 
 not thus 
 
 Cruelly presoime upon thy power, wilt not — 
 
 Elizabeth : Nay, who shall hinder me? Thy 
 uncle set 
 
 Ensample to the kings of all the world 
 
 How one makes amity with enemies. 
 
 May St. Bartholomew be my school, too ! 
 
 What is the bond of blood to me, or what 
 
 The right of nations? Bonds of all my pledges 
 
 Thy church dissevers, for it sanctifies 
 
 Disloyalty and regicide ; I practice 
 
 Only that which thine own priests teach. More, too, 
 
 What pledge would give me surety for thee 
 
 If I should generously loose thy bonds ? 
 
 With what lock shall I guard thy precious faith^ 
 
 What lock St Peter's key cannot unspring ? 
 
MARY STUART 87 
 
 Power is the single surety I have ; 
 
 No league can be made with the serpent's brood. 
 
 Mary : Oh, that is thy suspicion sinister ! 
 Thou hast treated me as a foe and stranger. 
 Hadst thou but named me, as I had the right, 
 Thy heiress, gratitude and love had saved 
 Thy relative a faithful friend to *.hee. 
 
 Elizabeth : Out yonder, Lady Stuart, are 
 thy friends ; 
 Thy dwelling is the papacy ; the monk, 
 He is thy brother ; — what, name thee my heir ! 
 Oh, treacherous trick ! That thou, a sly Armida, 
 Might'st still mislead my folk before mine eyes, 
 Entangle in thy nets of wantonness 
 My kingdom's noble youth — that everything 
 Might turn towards thee, the new-arising sun, 
 While I — 
 
 Mary : Rule on in peace. I do renounce 
 Whatever claim I have upon this realm. 
 Ah ! my spirit's wings are crippled ; now no more 
 Doth greatness lure me on. Thou hast attained it; 
 And I am but the shade of what I was. 
 
88 MARY STUART 
 
 In ignominious imprisonment 
 
 My courage hath been broken. Thou hast done 
 
 The worst, thou hast destroyed me in my bloom ! 
 
 — Now make an end, my sister ! Speak it now, 
 
 The word for the sake of which thou hast come here. 
 
 For ne'er will I believe that thou hast come 
 
 Cruelly to flout thy victim. Speak but this ; 
 
 Say : "Mary, thou art free ! My might thou knowest ; 
 
 Learn now to value my great-heartedness." 
 
 Say it, and I will then accept my life, 
 
 My life and freedom, as a gift from thee. 
 
 One word undoth all that hath ever been. 
 
 For that I wait — let me not wait too long ! 
 
 Woe, woe to thee if thou speak not that word ! 
 
 For if thou goest not beneficent, 
 
 Not noble, as a God might go, — O sister ! 
 
 Not for this whole rich island, nay, nor 3'et 
 
 For every land encircled by the sea. 
 
 Would I before thee stand as thou dost stand ! 
 
 Elizabeth : So thou acknowledgest defeat at 
 last? 
 Are thy complots all over with ? Is there 
 
MARY STUART 89 
 
 Still no assassin on the way? Will none 
 Still dare a sorry knighthood in thy cause? 
 Ay, Lady Mary, those things all are past ; 
 No more shalt thou mislead my folk from me. 
 The world hath other cares — no one desires 
 To be thy — ihy fourth husband, for thou killest 
 Thy suitors as thy husbands I 
 
 Mary : {starting angrily) Sister ! Sister ! 
 
 O God ! God ! grant me some self control ! 
 
 Elizabeth: {observing her for a long time 
 with a look of proud disdaiii) So these. Lord Lei- 
 cester, are the famous charms 
 Which none unsmitten see, compared to which 
 No other woman dares to vaunt herself ! 
 Forsooth ! The fame was cheap to win ; it costs 
 Nothing to be the beauty all men prize — 
 Except to be the common prize of all ! 
 
 Mary : That is too much ! 
 
 "EiAZK^^TYL '.{laughing scornfully) Show now 
 thy own true face ; 
 We have beheld till now only the mask ! 
 
 Mary(/2(?^ wtth anger, yet with noble dignity) 
 
90 MARY STUART 
 
 If in the human frailty of youth 
 
 I sinned, if might misled me, I at least 
 
 Did not keep secret, hidden, what I did ! 
 
 With royal candour I have scorned to give 
 
 A false appearance to my deeds of sin ! 
 
 The v^orld hath heard the w^orst, and I can say 
 
 That I am better than my reputation ! 
 
 But woe to thee, if men should draw away 
 
 The cloak of honor from thy deeds, the veil 
 
 With which thou, hypocrite, dost hid thy sins, 
 
 The savage passion of thy stolen loves ! 
 
 No heritage of chastity hast thou 
 
 From Anne Boleyn ; 'tis everywhere well known 
 
 What virtue brought thy mother to the block ! 
 
 Shrew^sbury : (^Stepping between the two 
 queens) 
 O God of heaven ! Must it go so far ! 
 Is this thy self-control and thy submission, 
 Lady Mary? 
 
 Mary : My self-control ! I have 
 Endured what any human being could ! 
 Away, lamb-hearted calm ! To heaven fly, 
 
MARY STUART 91 
 
 Poor, suffering patience ! Burst thy bonds at last, 
 Burst from thy cavern, long-suppressed hate I 
 And thou, who gave the angered basilisk 
 His murderous glance, give arrows to my tongue ! 
 Shrewsbury: Oh, she's beside herself! For- 
 give her rage. 
 Forgive her, much provoked I 
 
 Leicester: {in g7'eat agitation ^ seeking to 
 lead ElizabetJi away) 
 
 Listen no more ! 
 Oh, come away, come from this wretched place I 
 Mary : A bastard hath profaned the English 
 throne ! 
 The noble British folk hath been deceived 
 By a cunning sorceress ! If right did rule. 
 Then tJiou would'st lie in dust— for I am King ! 
 
 (^Elizabeth goes off quickly^ the lords follow her 
 in great confusion.) 
 
SCENES FROM GRILLPARZER'S SAPPHO 
 
 The tragedy of the play is expressed in the lines 
 (Act Vy scene 3.) : 
 
 *'For mortal never yet returned unscathed 
 Who once hath sat at table with the Gods."* 
 Sappho, after her immortal song^ falls in love 
 with Phaon, whom she for a time inspires with a 
 nobleness not Jiis own. Soon^ however ^ he leaves her 
 for Mel i tta, a slave-girl; and Sappho, after a strug- 
 glcy realizes her tragic fate and, at the end of the play j 
 takes her famous leap from the cliff. Rhamnes is a 
 chief slave ^ 'Eucuaris a slave-girl. At the beginning 
 of Act V, Scene 4^ 'R.nA.isiN^s upbraids Vhao^ before 
 Melitta a7id citize?is of Mytilene for the injury to 
 Sappho's /2/V, thougJi Jie does not know how prophetic 
 his words are of the immediate catastrophe. 
 
 *"Man steigt nicht ungestraft vom Gbttermahle 
 Heruntcr in den Kreis der Stcrblichen.*' 
 
 9a 
 
SAPPHO 93 
 
 And who art Uiou 
 Rhamnes : 
 
 That thou may'st set thy wisdom in the scales 
 In which mankind its chosen children weighs? 
 Thatthou should'st dare to speak where Greece has 
 
 spoken ? 
 Dim-sighted, wanton fool ! Deem'st thou her worth- 
 
 less 
 Because thou hast no measure of her worth? 
 Callest thou the jewel blind because thine eye is . 
 That she loved thee, that out of filthy dust 
 She raised the thankless serpent to herself, 
 Which now with poisonous fang lays bare her heart, 
 That she on thee her riches riclaly squandered, 
 On thee who hath no sense for such great treasure, 
 That is the single spot in all her life ; 
 E'en jealousy can charge no other fault. 
 Speak not ! Thy spite itself, in which thou now 
 Swell'st proud towards her, belongeth not to thee ; 
 How hadst thou, out of thy despised baseness, 
 Thou most forgotten of the most forgotten, _ 
 
 How hadst thou dared .to speak 'gainst Greece s 
 jewel? 
 
§4 SAPPHO 
 
 That she once looked on thee gave thee the pride 
 With which thou boldly now look'st down on her. 
 
 Phaon : I may not strive indeed with her 
 famed song. 
 
 Rhamnes : Thou may'st not? Ah, indeed! 
 As if thou couldest ! 
 High on the stars hath she enrolled her name, 
 With diamond letters hath enrolled her name. 
 And only with the stars will it die out. 
 In distant ages and among strange men, 
 When long have fallen these our rotten frames, 
 And when our graves themselves no longer are, 
 Will Sappho's song sound from the lips of men. 
 Will still live on her name — and with it thine ! 
 Yes, thine I Be proud of immortality 
 Thy wanton crime against her life brings thee. 
 In unknown lands, in future generations. 
 When unborn centuries have staggered down 
 Into the grave of time, will it ring forth 
 From every mouth : Sappho was this one called 
 Who sang this song, and Phaon he who killed her ! 
 
 Melitta : O Phaon I 
 
SAPPHO 95 
 
 Phaon: Peace! Peace! 
 
 Poor 
 Rhamnes : 
 
 comforter ! 
 
 Dost thou bid peace with an unpeaceful voice. 
 
 May this Melitta trembling know thy cruiie,- 
 
 That one revenge shall Sappho have at least ! 
 
 -Thou may'st not strive with her in glorious song . 
 
 And in what other field may'st strive with her. 
 
 Dost dare to doubt that in her heart is that 
 
 Which for its very life must thank her heart. 
 
 Look round about thee ! There is no one here 
 
 For whom she has not kindly done, who bears 
 
 Not in himself, in house and field, estate, 
 
 And in his household, marks of her rich kindness, 
 
 No single one, whose heart has not beat higher 
 
 When he could count himself a citizen 
 
 Of Mytilene, and a friend of Sappho. 
 
 But ask that trembling thing there at thy side. 
 
 Companion, it appears, of deed, not guilt. 
 
 How such a mistress hath rewarded her. 
 
 What other thing had this slave thee to offer? _ _ 
 
 When she so pleased thee, it was Sappho's spirit, 
 
96 SAPPHO 
 
 Was Sappho's spirit, gentle, motherly, 
 
 Which in her deeds so strongly called to thee. 
 
 Oh, press upon thy brow ! Thou striv'st in vain ; 
 
 Thou never canst blot out the memory ! 
 
 And what think'st thou to do ? Or where to flee ? 
 
 No sanctuary for thee on this earth ! 
 
 For in the pious breast of every man 
 
 A foe arises to the foe of Sappho. 
 
 Before thee will thy reputation run, 
 
 Crying aloud into the ear of man ; 
 
 Here Sappho's murderer ! Here the Gods' own foe ! 
 
 And outlawed shalt thou wander through the land 
 
 With her to whom thou ruin gav'st for shield. 
 
 No Greek with thee his hospitable house 
 
 Will share, no God grant entrance to the temple ; 
 
 And shrieking shalt thou flee from altar-steps 
 
 When banished, sacrilegious, by the priest ; 
 
 And if thou fleest, then will the Eumenid,* 
 
 The grisly, black avenger of the shades, 
 
 Shake snaky locks behind thee and before 
 
 And in th}^ ears screech shrilly Sappho's name. 
 
 Until the grave thou diggest swallows tliee. 
 
 ■^Singular number in Grillparzer: ^^die grause Eumenide,^'* 
 
SAPPHO 
 
 Act V, Scene V. 
 
 EucHARis. The others as i?t Scene IV, 
 
 EucHARis : I followed at a distance 
 
 To the long high hall and, hidden safely there, 
 I watched her every turn with sharpest eye. 
 There stood she, leaning by a column's base. 
 Gazing far dowai across the wide ^gean, 
 Which foaming thundered on the rocky shores. 
 Speechless and motionless she stood up there. 
 With staring eyes and with a death-pale cheek, 
 Among the marble statues, like to them. 
 But sometimes started she and seized a flower 
 Or gold or jewels — and whate'er she reached, 
 That flung she down into the splendid sea 
 And followed with a wistful eye the cast. 
 
 91 
 
98 SAPPHO 
 
 I am about to draw more close when strikes 
 
 A sound that shakes her to her very heart ; 
 
 The lyre it is, hung high upon the pillar, 
 
 Wherein the sea air plays a melody. 
 
 Gasping she glances up and startles back 
 
 As from the touch of higher, unseen power ; 
 
 Her eyes are fixed, staring on the lyre. 
 
 Her death-pale features flush again to life, 
 
 And a strange smiling plays about her mouth ; 
 
 Now open, too, the firmly closed lips 
 
 And speak forth words of terror-striking sound, 
 
 From Sappho's mouth, 3'et never Sappho's words : 
 
 *Callest thou me, O friend upon the wall ? 
 
 Oil well, I understand thee, friend ; thou warnest 
 
 Of ancient times long flowed away — God bless thee !' 
 
 — How then she reached the wall and how the lyre, 
 
 High on the wall, I know not well to say. 
 
 For like a lightning stroke all flashed me by. 
 
 Now look I once again ; she holds the lyre 
 
 And presses it against her storm-tossed breast, 
 
 Which snatches breath so loud that I can hear. 
 
 The victor's wreath, then, the Olympian, 
 
SAPPHO 
 
 That hung upon the altar of her house, 
 
 She winds about her head and throws the cloak 
 
 Of glowing purple on her glowing shoulders. 
 
 Who saw her now, the first time saw her now, 
 
 Standing upon the high steps of the altar. 
 
 The lyre in her hand, her face exalted. 
 
 Exalted all her splendid, luminous form, 
 
 Light of transfiguration on her brow, 
 
 He would have called her an immortal one. 
 
 And sunk in prayer upon his trembling knees. 
 
 99 
 
 Soon after ^ Sappho appears^ richly dressed and car- 
 rying her lyre. After a longy passionate appeal to the 
 Godsy she turns to Phaon ^«^Melitta, blesses them, 
 calls again to the Gods^ and then leaps into the sea. 
 Rhamnes makes the last speech of the play : 
 Wilted the laurel and dead the music of stringed 
 
 instruments ! 
 Her home was not upon this mortal earth ; 
 
 (with uplifted hands) 
 She hath returned to mingle with her kind. 
 
NIAGARA 
 
 (^Lenau) 
 
 Clear and as the youth-time gaily 
 And as murmuring sweet sound, 
 Slips the stream Niagara onward 
 By the forest's verdant bound ; 
 
 Slips along in gentle flowing, 
 So that yet the forest's pride 
 And the stars of silent night-time 
 Find reflection in its tide. 
 
 Ay, so softly glide the billows 
 That unbroken, clear as fact, 
 Strikes upon the ear the thunder 
 Of the distant cataract. 
 
 lOO 
 
NIAGARA loi 
 
 When the waters gently flowing 
 Nearer to the torrent gleam, 
 Suddenly wild premonitions 
 Of its fall possess the stream. 
 
 Careless of the earth and heaven, 
 On it hurries in mad train, 
 Shatters all the fair reflection 
 Which it bore so passing fain ; 
 
 Plunge and shoot the water-courses, 
 Thunder on in mad career, 
 As if torn along by passion 
 To the drop so great, so sheer. 
 
 What the traveller far hath hearkened, 
 The great river's thunder bound. 
 Hears he not when nearer coming, 
 Since so loud the torrent's sound. 
 
 And thus vainly may one listen 
 Who comes close upon a fall ; 
 Yet the prophet in the distance 
 Heard the future's trumpet-call. 
 
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