Book ' n / \/%fy$ ^ By bequest of&J* William Lukens Shoemaker POEMS. by SYDNEY DOBELL. ii BOSTON: TTCKNOR AND FIELDS. MDCCCLX. ■ M ,sfe» AUTHORS EDITION. CHIt W. L. Shoemakor J S »06 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANr. CONTENTS. Page Biographical Sketch vii LYRICS. How 's my Boy 13 Home, Wounded 14 A Nuptial Eve . . 23 Tommy 's Dead 25 " When the Rain is on the Roof" 28 Desolate ...... 35 The Market-Wife's Song 36 The Little Girl's Song 38 " He is Safe " ; 41 The Sodger's Lassie. . .;. ? 42 Lady Constance 45 Farewell 47 The Milkmaid's Song 51 The German Legion „ , 55 A Health to the Queen 57 Woe is Me 60 The Young Man's Song 61 Dead-Maid's-Pool 65 The Sailor's Return 71 The Widow's Lullaby 72 The Gaberlunzie's Walk 74 Liberty to M. le Diplomate 78 An Evening Dream 79 In War-time. A Psalm of the Heart 86 A Shower in War-time 91 In War-time. A Prayer of the Understanding 99 A Hero's Grave. , 101 In War-time. An Aspiration of the Spirit 106 The Mother's Lesson 110 Alone 118 IV CONTEXTS. Farewell 119 Sleeping and Waking . 121 " He Loves and he Rides Awav " . . 122 The Captain's Wife " 127 Grass from the Battle-field 130 Afloat and Ashore. 141 The Ghost's Return .143 Daft Jean 145 The Recruits' Ball 146 For Charity's Sake 148 Wind 149 The Botanist's Vision 150 The Orphan's Song 151 11 She Touches a Sad String of Soft Recall " 155 SONNETS ON THE WAR, AND OTHER POEMS. V Avenir 157 The Army Surgeon 158 The Wounded 158 The Wounded 159 Vox Populi 159 Czar Nicholas 160 Cavalry Charge at Balaclava 160 Home, in War-time 161 Warning 161 America 162 America 1 62 A Statesman 163 Poland. Italy. Hungary 163 Jerusalem 164 Austrian Alliance 164 Childless 165 The Common Grave 166 Esse et Posse 166 Good Night in War-time. To Alexander Smith 167 Crazed . 167 The Harps of Heaven 176 The Magyar's New-Year-Eve. [1859] 179 Isabel. ^1847] 182 To the Authoress of " Aurora Leigh" 184 The Convalescent to her Physician 184 Samuel Brown 185 To Professor and Mrs. J. S. Blackie 186 Epigram on the death of Edward Forbes 186 Epigram on a Portrait presented to J. Y. Simpson, M. I) 187 CONTENTS. V The Snowdrop in the Snow. 187 To a Cathedral Tower, on the Evening of the thirty- fifth Anniversary of Waterloo. . . 190 DRAMATIC POEMS. The Roman 193 Balder , 333 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Sydney Dobell was born April 5th, 1824. His father, John Dobell, was descended from a younger branch of an ancient Sussex family, notable as Cavaliers in the days of King Charles. This branch had maintained in comparative pov- erty, the intellectual tastes that distinguished the original stock, (vide " Transactions of the Sussex Archaeological Society,") and the names of several members figure in Allibone's Dictionary. The name Dobell is supposed to be of Armoric or- igin, like other British surnames ending in ** bell," and to signify " the Mouth of God." (Vide " The Critic," Anno 1858.) The family must have been long settled in Eng- land, for the arms now borne by them, and which were confirmed (not granted) by Camden in 1604, bear evident reference to the name as at present pronounced. John Dobell, who is author of a remarkable book entitled a Man unfit to govern Man," married Julietta Thompson, daughter of Samuel Thompson, well known in the earlier part of the present cen- tury as a leader of political reform in the city of London, and as the founder of a Christian Church intended to be on the primitive Scriptural model called " Freethinking Christians." (Yide " South- ey's Letters " and the early editions of u Evans's Sketch of Religious Denominations.") Vlll BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Sydney was the eldest son of this union. His early years were chiefly spent at Peckham, where his father, who carried on business in London as a wine merchant, had a country house, and where, at eight or nine years old, he began to write verses. In 1835, his father removed his business and family to Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. He and his wife had, strong convictions on the subject of education, and no one of their large family was sent to school, — the parents, with the assistance of masters, devoting themselves to the culture of their five sons and five daughters. When nearly twelve, Sydney entered his father's counting-house, in whi o h he was a clerk for about twelve years. In 1844, he married Emily Ford- ham, to whom he had been engaged at fifteen. She was daughter of George Fordham of Odsey House, in Cambridgeshire. The Fordhams are among the most ancient fam- ilies in that County. In 1848, when lodging at a small cottage on the side of Leckhampton Hill, a branch of the Cotswold range, Sydney Dobell began " The Roman." Dur- ing its composition he removed for a few months to the village of Hucclecote on the old Roman Road near Gloucester, the Via Irminia, and com- pleted it at Coxhorne House, in Charlton Kings, a beautiful valley of the Cotswolds, near Chelten- ham. This pleasant house he held for five years. During this time, by an arrangement with his father, he was released from constant attendance on business, and became a kind of sleeping partner. During this time also he went to Switzerland, and " Balder " was begun. At Coxhorne, and during a residence of some months in London, the greater part of it was written, and it was finished in 1853, at a lodging on the lovely hill of Amberley, at the top of the Cotswolds, above the valley of Nails- worth. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. IX On the completion of " Balder/' Mr. Dobell went to Edinburgh, to seek medical advice for his wife, who had been for years a severe sufferer. They remained in Scotland for more than three years, spending the winters in Edinburgh, and wandering over the Highlands in summer. Dur- ing this Scottish sojourn, " England in Time of War " was published, a collection of short poems, suggestive of those British homes, which had fur- nished the soldiers and sailors, who were fighting in the north and east. During this time also, Mr. Dobell joined his friend Alexander Smith, in a small volume. This little book entitled " Sonnets on the War," would have been more appropriately called " An Evening in War-time," as it evidently represented the interchange of thoughts and feelings on the engrossing topic of the day, that would naturally occur at those friendly meetings of the poets, which the introductory sonnets in which the book is dedicated to Mrs. Dobell by Mr. Smith, indicate to have been constantly taking place. Before leaving Edinburgh, Mr. Dobell delivered to a large and select audience of Edinburgh, Pro- fessors and other Sacans, a lecture " on the Nature of Poetry," which, according to the reports of those who heard it, was a masterpiece of philosophy and eloquence. The delivery of this lecture, when the lecturer was suffering from bronchitis, produced so serious an irritation of the chest, that his doctors ordered immediate change to a southern climate. He returned to England, and spent the next winter in the Isle of Wight. In the spring of 1858, he took Cleeve Tower, a small fort near the highest point (1150 feet) of his favorite Cotswold hills, where he now lives, over- looking an English landscape of eightv miles by fifty X BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Mr. DobelPs first book, " The Roman," was re- ceived with a unanimity of applause, which has perhaps never fallen to the lot of a poem by an unknown author. The Athenseum, in a forcible leader, proclaimed the appearance of a new poet, and the organs of almost every critical party took up the cry in a manner which is thus described by an angry din- sentient in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine. " The author of ' Balder' entered the rude arena of publicity through a triumphal arch erected in his honour by certain critics of weight and authority. Seldom has such an ovation been offered to any modern poetical aspirant. The most wrinkled judicial brows were smoothed into benignity — the most denunciating voices softened into welcome. The Coming Man had long been looked for from some sleepy hollow of Parnassus. Now he was come. In the author of 4 The Roman ' stood re- vealed the bard who was not only to grace, but to rule and form the age Old things were passed away. A new era had begun, and contemporary poets, some few of whom were held by the credu- lous world to be men of mark and likelihood, were promised, one and all, present eclipse and ultimate occultation in the far-reaching and absorbing shad- ow of this Autocrat of Rhymeland. One of the prophets, whose * smooth things ' had of course a rough side, went so far as to declare boldly that the poetry of Tennyson, and others of his class, ' would never descend to posterity, through lack of solidity, depth and embodiment. It was as the spray of a fountain, beautiful, but evanescent, or as the dew of the morning that could not last/ The dew of the morning ! That this stone-blind and graceless critic, should dare to hurl harsh judgments at poets whose songs were ' as the dew of the morning ! ' ' " Balder " had a very different reception from that of " The Roman." Partly perhaps from the pro- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XI founder nature of the subject and treatment, partly from the reasons suggested to Mr. Dobell in Char- lotte Bronte's well-known letter to him, and partly from a mistaken notion, in hasty critics, that the hero was held up for imitation, the book produced a critical storm. It had the distinction, said by his friends to be more valued by the author than any amount of popular praise, of being the object of violent attack in nearly every magazine and news- paper of the day. " England in Time of War" met with angry treatment from the newspaper critics, still warm with their attack on " Balder," but, like its prede- cessor, it won the earnest appreciation of a higher class of judges; and, unlike the previous more re- condite work, appealed powerfully to the sym- pathies of the people. Some of the Lyrics contained in it have been again and again read aloud, by tragedians and others, to great popular meetings (as at Glasgow, where three thousand persons assembled to hear Miss Aitkin read " The Evening Dream,") with enthusiastic recognition. Though by constitution and habit preeminently a thinker, Mr. DobelFs private life is sufficiently practical. An excellent man of business, an ex- pert rider and driver, accustomed to the gun, the rifle, the rod and the oar, he is singularly unlike the fancy portraits of a metaphysical poet in which his adverse critics indulge. And the charge of antichristian speculation, which has occasionally been brought against him by hasty readers of u Bal- der," is yet more curiously infelicitous. Mr. Dobell is neither a bigot nor an enthusiast ; but it is known to his friends that the great object of his life is the introduction, in due season, of a new and nobler organization of Christianity. LYRICS. [The Poems which follow were originally printed in 1856, in a volume entitled " England in Time of War."] HOW'S MY BOY? " Ho, Sailor of the sea ! How 's my boy — my boy ? " u What 's your boy's name, good wife, And in what good ship sailed he V " " My boy John — He that went to sea — What care I for the ship, sailor ? My boy *s my boy to me. " You come back from sea, And not know my John ? I might as well have asked some landsman Yonder down in the town. There 's not an ass in ail the parish But he knows my John. " How 's my boy — my boy ? And unless you let me know I'll swear you are no sailor, Blue jacket or no, Brass buttons or no, sailor, Anchor and crown or no ! Sure his ship was the ' Jolly Briton ' " — 14 LYRICS. " Speak low, woman, speak low ! " " And why should I speak low, sailor, About my own boy John V If I was loud as I am proud I 'd sing him over the town ! Why should I speak low, sailor ? " " That good ship went down." " How 's my boy — my boy ? What care I for the ship, sailor, I was never aboard her. Be she afloat or be she aground, Sinking or swimming, I '11 be bound, Her owners can afford her \ I say, how 's my John ? " u Every man on board went down, Every man aboard her." " How 's my boy — my boy ? What care I for the men, sailor ? I 'm not their mother — How 's my boy — my boy ? Tell me of him and no other ! How 's my boy — my boy V " HOME, WOUNDED. W'heel me into the sunshine, Wheel me into the shadow, There must be leaves on the woodbine, Is the king-cup crowned in the meadow ? Wheel me down to the meadow, Down to the little river, In sun or in shadow I shall not dazzle or shiver, HOME, WOUNDED. 15 I shall be happy anywhere, Every breath of the morning air Makes me throb and quiver. Stay wherever you will, By the mount or under the hill, Or down by the little river : Stay as long as you please, Give me only a bud from the trees, Or a blade of grass in morning dew, Or a cloudy violet clearing to blue, I could look on it forever. Wheel, wheel thro' the sunshine, Wheel, wheel thro* the shadow ; There must be odors round the pine, There must be balm of breathing kine, Somewhere down in the meadow. Must I choose ? Then anchor me there Beyond the beckoning poplars, where The larch is snooding her flowery hair With wreaths of morning shadow. Among the thicket hazels of the brake Perchance some nightingale doth shake His feathers, and the air is full of song; In those old days when I was young and strong. He used to sing on yonder garden tree, Beside the nursery. Ah, I remember how I loved to wake, And find him singing on the self-same bough (I know it even now) Where, since the flit of bat, In ceaseless voice he sat. Trying the spring night over, like a tune, Beneath the vernal moon ; And while I listed long, Day rose, and still he sang, And all his stanchless song, &•> 16 LYRICS, As something falling unaware, Fell out of the tall trees he sang among, Fell ringing down the ringing morn, and rang - Kang like a golden jewel down a golden stair. Is it too early ? I hope not. But wheel me to the ancient oak. On this side of the meadow ; Let me hear the raven's croak Loosened to an amorous note In the hollow shadow. Let me see the winter snake Thawing all his frozen rings On the bank where the wren sings. Let me hear the little bell, Where the red-wing, top-mast high, Looks toward the northern sky, And jangles his farewell. Let us rest by the ancient oak, And see his net of shadow, His net of barren shadow, Like those wrestlers' nets of old, Hold the winter dead and cold, Hoary winter, white and cold, While all is green in the meadow. And when you 've rested, brother mine, Take me over the meadow ; Take me along the level crown Of the bare and silent down, And stop by the ruined tower. On its green scarp, hy and by, I shall smell the flowering thyme, On its wall the wall-flower. In the tower there used to be A solitary tree. Take me there, for the dear sake Of those old days wherein I loved to lie And pull the melilote, HOME, WOUNDED. 17 And look across the valley to the sky, And hear the joy that filled the warm wide hour Babble from the thrush's throat, As into a shining mere Rills some rillet trebling clear, And speaks the silent silver of the lake. There mid cloistering tree-roots, year by year, The hen-thrush sat, and he, her lief and dear, Among the boughs did make A ceaseless music of her married time, And all the ancient stones grew sweet to hear, And answered him in the unspoken rhyme Of gracious forms most musical That tremble on the wall And trim its age with airy fantasies That flicker in the sun, and hardly seem As if to be beheld were all, And only to our eyes They rise and fall, And fall and rise, Sink down like silence, or a-sudden stream As wind-blown on the wind as streams a wedding- chime. But you are wheeling me while I dream, And we 've almost reached the meadow ! You may wheel me fast thro' the sunshine, You may wheel me fast thro' the shadow, But wheel me slowly, brother mine, Thro' the green of the sappy meadow ; For the sun, these days have been so fine, Must have touched it over with celandine, And the southern hawthorn, I divine, Sheds a muffled shadow. There blows The first primrose, Under the bare bank roses : 2 18 There is but one, And the bank is brown, But soon the children will come down, The ringing children come singing down, To pick their Easter posies, And they'll spy it out, my beautiful, Among the bare brier-roses ; And when I sit here again alone, The bare brown bank will be blind and dull, Alas for Easter posies ! But when the din is over and gone, Like an eye that opens after pain, I shall see my pale flower shining again ; Like a fair star after a gust of rain I shall see my pale flower shining again ; Like a glow-worm after the rolling wain Hath shaken darkness down the lane I shall see my pale flower shining again ; And it will blow here for two months more, And it will blow here again next year, And the year past that, and the year beyond ; And thro' all the years till my years are o'er I shall always find it here. Shining across from the bank above, Shining up from the pond below, Ere a water-fly wimple the silent pond, Or the first green weed appear. And I shall sit here under the tree, And as each slow bud uncloses, I shall see it brighten and brighten to me, From among the leafing brier-roses. The leaning leafing roses, As at eve the leafing shadows grow, And the star of light and love Draweth near o'er her airy glades, Draweth near thro' her heavenly shades, As a maid thro' a myrtle grove. And the flowers will multiply, As the stars come blossoming over the sky, HOME, WOUNDED. 19 The bank will blossom, the waters blow, Till the sinking children hitherward hie To gather May-day posies ; And the bank will be bare wherever they go, As dawn, the primrose-girl, goes by, And alas for heaven's primroses ! Blare the trumpet, and boom the gun, But, oh, to sit here thus in the sun, To sit here, feeling my work is done, While the sands of life so golden run, And I watch the children's posies, ' And my idle heart is whispering, " Bring whatever the years may bring, The flowers will blossom, the birds will sing, And there '11 always be primroses." Looking before me here in the sun, I see the Aprils one after one, Primrosed Aprils one by one, Primrosed Aprils on and on, Till the floating prospect closes In golden glimmers that rise and rise, And perhaps are gleams of Paradise, And perhaps — too far for mortal eyes — New years of fresh primroses, Y"ears of earth's primroses, Springs to be, and springs for me Of distant dim primroses. My soul lies out like a basking hound, A hound that dreams and dozes ; Along my life my length I lay, I fill to-morrow and yesterday, I am warm with the suns that have long since set, I am warm with the summers that are not }*et, And like one who dreams and dozes Softly afloat on a sunny sea, Two worlds are whispering over me, 20 LYRICS. And there blows a wind of roses From the backward shore to the shore before, From the shore before to the backward shore, And like two clouds that meet and pour Each thro' each, till core in core A single self reposes, The nevermore with the evermore Above me mingles and closes ; As my soul lies out like the basking hound, And wherever it lies seems happy ground, And when, awakened by some sweet sound, A dreamy eye uncloses, I see a blooming world around, And I lie amid primroses — Years of sweet primroses, Springs of fresh primroses, Springs to be, and springs for me Of distant dim primroses. Oh to lie a-dream, a-dream, To feel I may dream and to know you deem My work is done for ever, And the palpitating fever That gains and loses, loses and gains, And beats the hurrying blood on the brunt of a thousand pains Cooled at once by that blood-let Upon the parapet ; And all the tedious tasked toil of the difficult long endeavour Solved and quit by no more fine Than these limbs of mine, Spanned and measured once for all By that right hand I lost, Bought up at so light a cost As one bloody fall On the soldier's bed, And three days on the ruined wall Among the thirstless dead. HOME, WOUNDED. 21 Oh to think my name is crost From 'duty's muster-roll ; That I may slumber tho' the clarion call, And live the joy of an embodied soul Free as a liberated ghost. Oh to feel a life of deed Was emptied out to feed That fire of pain that burned so brief a while — That fire from which I come, as the dead come Forth from the irreparable tomb, Or as a martyr on his funeral pile Heaps up the burdens other men do bear Thro' years of segregated care, And takes the total load Upon his shoulders broad, And steps from earth to God. Oh to think, thro' good or ill, Whatever I am you '11 love me still ; Oh to think, tho' dull I be, You that are so grand and free, You that are so bright and gay, W T ill pause to hear me when I will, As tho' my head were gray ; And tho' there 's little I can say, Each will look kind with honour while he hears. And to your loving ears My thoughts will halt with honourable scars, And when my dark voice stumbles with the weight Of what it doth relate (Like that blind comrade — blinded in the wars — Who bore the one-eyed brother that was lame), You '11 remember 't is the same That cried u Follow me," Upon a summer's day; And I shall understand with unshed tears This great reverence that I see, And bless the day — and Thee, Lord God of victory ! 22 LYRICS. And she, Perhaps oh even she May look as she looked when T knew her In those old days of childish sooth, Ere my boyhood dared to woo her. I will not seek nor sue her, For I' m neither fonder nor truer Than when she slighted my love-lorn youth, My giftless, graceless, guinealess truth, And I only lived to rue her. But I '11 never love another, And, in spite of her lovers and lands, She shall love me yet, my brother ! As a child that holds by his mother, While his mother speaks his praises, Holds with eager hands, And ruddy and silent stands In the ruddy and silent daisies, And hears her bless her boy, And lifts a wondering joy, So 1 11 not seek nor sue her, But I '11 leave my glory to woo her, And I'll stand like a child beside, And from behind the purple pride I '11 lift my eyes unto her, And I shall not be denied. And you will love her, brother dear, And perhaps next year you '11 bring me here All thro' the balmy April-tide, And she will trip like spring by my side, And be all the birds to my ear. And here all three we '11 sit in the sun, And see the Aprils one by one, Primrosed Aprils on and on, Till the floating prospect closes In golden glimmers that rise and rise, And perhaps, are gleams of Paradise, And perhaps, too far for mortal eyes, A NUPTIAL EVE. 23 New springs of fresh primroses, Springs of earth's primroses, Springs to be and springs for me, Of distant dim primroses. A NUPTIAL EVE. * Oh, happy, happy maid, • In the year of war and death She wears no sorrow ! By her face so young and fair, By the happy wreath That rules her happy hair, She might be a bride to-morrow ! She sits and sings within her moonlit bower, Her moonlit bower in rosy June, Yet ah, her bridal breath, Like fragrance from some sweet night-blowing flower, Moves from her moving lips in many a mournful tune ! She sings no song of love's despair, She sings no lover lowly laid, No fond peculiar grief Has ever touched or bud or leaf Of her unblighted spring. She sings because she needs must sing ; She sings the sorrow of the air Whereof her voice is made. That night in Britain howsoe'er On any chords the fingers strayed They gave the notes of care. A dim sad legend old Long since in some pale shade Of some far twilight told, 24 LYRICS. She knows not when or where, She sings, with trembling hand on trembling lute- strings laid : — The murmur of the mourning ghost That keeps the shadowy kine, " Oh, Keith of Ravelston* The sorrows of thy line ! " Ravelston, Ravelston, The merry path that leads Down the golden morning hill, And thro' the silver meads ; Ravelston, Ravelston, The stile beneath the tree, The maid that kept her mother's kine. The song that sang she ! She sang her song, she kept her kine, She sat beneath the thorn When Andrew Keith of Ravelston Rode thro' the Monday morn ; His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring, His belted jewels shine ! Oh, Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line ! Year after year, where Andrew came. Comes evening down the glade, And still there sits a moonshine ghost Where sat the sunshine maid. Her misty hair is faint and fair, She keeps the shadowy kine ; Oh, Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line ! tommy's dead. 25 I lay my hand upon the stile, The stile is lone and cold, The burnie that goes babbling by Says nought that can be told. Yet, stranger ! here, from year to year, She keeps her shadowy kine ; Oh, Keith of B-avelston, The sorrows of thy line ! Step out three steps, where Andrew stood — Why blanch thy cheeks for fear ? The ancient stile is not alone, Tis not the burn I hear ! She makes her immemorial moan, She keeps her shadowy kine ; Oh, Keith of Ravelston, The sorrows of thy line ! TOMMY'S DEAD. You may give over plough, boys, You may take the gear to the stead, All the sweat o' your brow, boys, Will never get beer and bread. The seed 's waste, I know, boys, There 's not a blade will grow, boys, 'T is cropped out, I trow, boys, And Tommy 's dead. Send the colt to fair, boys, He's going blind, as I said, My old eyes can't bear, boys, To see him in the shed ; The cow 's dry and spare, boys, 26 She 's neither here nor there, boys, I doubt she 's badly bred ; Stop the mill to-morn, boys, There '11 be no more corn, boys, Neither white nor red ; There 's no sign of grass, boys, You may sell the goat and the ass, boys, The land 's not what it was, boys, And the beasts must be fed : You may turn Peg away, boys, You may pay off old Ned, We 've had a dull day, boys, And Tommy 's dead. Move my chair on the floor, boys, Let me turn my head : She 's standing there in the door, boys, Your sister Winifred ! Take her away from me, boys, Your sister Winifred ! Move me round in my place, boys, Let me turn my head, Take her away from me, boys, As she lay on her death-bed, The bones of her thin face, boys, As she lay on her death-bed ! I don't know how it be, boys, When all 's done and said, But I see her looking at me, boys, Wherever I turn my head ; Out of the big oak-tree, boys, Out of the garden-bed, And the lily as pale as she, boys, And the rose that used to be red. There's something not right, boys, But 1 think it 's not in my head, I 've kept my precious sight, boys — The Lord be hallowed ! TOMMY 'S DEAD. 27 Outside and in The ground is cold to my tread, The hills are wizen .and thin, The sky is shrivelled and shred, The hedges down by the loan 1 can count them bone by bone, The leaves are open and spread But I see the teeth of the land, And hands like a dead man's hand, And the eyes of a dead man's head. There 's nothing but cinders and sand, The rat and the mouse have fed, And the summer's empty and cold ; Over valley and wold Wherever I turn my head There 's a mildew and a mould, The sun 's going out over head, And I 'm very old, And Tommy 's dead. What am I staying for, boys, You 're all born and bred, 'T is fifty years and more, boys, Since wife and I were wed, And she 's gone before, boys, And Tommy's dead. She was always sweet, boys, Upon his curly head, She knew she 'd never see 't, boys, And she stole off to bed ; I've been sitting up alone, boys, For he 'd come home, he said, But it 's time I was gone, boys, For Tommy 's dead. Put the shutters up, boys, Bring out the beer and bread, Make haste and sup, boys, 28 LYRICS. For my eyes are heavy as lead ; There 's something wrong i' the cup, boys, There 's something ill wi' the bread, I don 't care to sup, boys, And Tommy 's dead. I 'm not right, I doubt, boys, P ve such a sleepy head, I shall never more be stout, boys, You may carry me to bed. What are you about, boys, The prayers are all said, The fire 's raked out, boys, And Tommy Vdead. The stairs are too steep, boys, You may carry me to the head, The night's dark and deep, boys, Your mother 's long in bed, 'T is time to go to sleep, boys, And Tommy 's dead. I 'm not used to kiss, boys, You may shake my hand instead. All things go amiss, boys, You may lay me where she is, boys, And I '11 rest my old head : 'T is a poor world, this, boys, And Tommy 's dead. « WHEN THE RAIN IS ON THE ROOF.'' Lord, I am poor, and know not how to speak, But since Thou art so great, Thou needest not that I should speak to Thee well. All angels speak unto Thee well. " WHEN THE KAIN IS ON THE ROOF." 29 Lord, Thou hast all things : what Thou wilt is Thine. More gold and silver than the sun and moon ; All flocks and herds, all fish in every sea ; Mountains and valleys, cities and all farms ; Cots and all men, harvests and years of fruit. Is any king arrayed like Thee, who wearest A new robe every morning ? Who is crowned As Thou, who settest heaven upon Thy head ? But as for me — For me, if he be dead, I have but Thee ! Therefore, because Thou art my sole possession, I will not fear to speak to Thee who art mine, For who doth dread his own ? Lord, I am very sorrowful. I know That Thou delightest to do well ; to wipe Tears from all eyes ; to bind the broken-hearted ; To comfort them that mourn ; to give to them Beauty for ashes, and to garb with joy The naked soul of grief. And what so good But Thou that wilt canst do it? Which of all Thy works is less in wonder and in praise Than this poor heart's desire ? Give me, oh Lord, My heart's desire ! Wilt Thou refuse my prayer Who givest when no man asketh ? How great things, How unbesought, how difficult, how strange, Thou dost in daily pleasure ! Who is like Thee^ Oh Lord of Life and Death ? The year is dead ; It smouldered in its smoke to the white ash Of winter : but Thou breathest and the fire Is kindled, and Thy summer bounty burns. This is a marvel to me. Day is buried ; And where they laid him in the west I see The mounded mountains. Yet shall he come back ; Not like a ghost that rises from his grave. But in the east the palace gates will ope, And he comes forth out of the feast, and I 30 LYRICS. Behold him and the glory after him, Like to a messaged angel with wide arms Of rapture, all the honour in his eyes, And blushing with the King. In the dark hours Thou hast been busy with him : for he went Down westward, and he cometh from the east, Not as toil-stained from travel, tho' his course And journey in the secrets of the night Be far as earth and heaven. This is a sum Too hard for me, oh Lord ; I cannot do it. But Thou hast set it, and I know with Thee There is an answer. Man also, oh Lord, Is clear and whole before Thee. Well I know That the strong skein and tangle of our life Thou holdest by the end. The mother dieth — The mother dieth ere her time, and like A jewel in the cinders of a fire, The child endures. Also, the son is slain, And she who bore him shrieks not while the steel Doth hack her some-time vitals, and transfix The heart she throbbed with. How shall these things be ? Likewise, oh Lord, man that is born of woman, Who built him of her tenderness, and gave Her sighs to breathe him, and for all his bones — Poor trembler ! — hath no wherewithal more stern Than bowels of her pity, cometh forth Like a young lion from his den. Ere yet His teeth be fangled he hath greed of blood, And gambols for the slaughter : and being grown, Sudden, with terrible mane and mouthing thunder, Like a thing native to the wilderness He stretches toward the desert ; while his dam, As a poor dog that nursed the king of beasts, Strains at her sordid chain, and, with set ear, Hath yet a little longer, in the roar And backward echo of his windy flight, Him seen no more. This also is too hard — Too hard for me, oh Lord ! I cannot judge it. " WHEN THE RAIN IS ON THE ROOF." 31 Also the armies of him are as dust. A little while the storm and the great rain Beat him, and he abideth in his place, But the suns scorch on him, and all his sap And strength, whereby he held against the ground, Is spent ; as in the unwatched pot on the fire, When that which should have been the children's blood Scarce paints the hollow iron. Then Thou callest Thy wind. He passeth like the stowre and dust Of roads in summer. A brief while it casts A shadow, and beneath the passing cloud Things not to pass do follow to the hedge, Swift heaviness runs under with a show, And draws a train, and what was white is dark ; But at the hedge it falleth on the fields — It falleth on the greenness of the grass ; The grass between its verdure takes it in, And no man heedeth. Surely, oh Lord God, If he has gone down from me, if my child Nowhere in any lands that see the sun Maketh the sunshine pleasant, if the earth Hath smoothed o'er him as waters o'er a stone, Yet is he farther from Thee than the day After its setting ? Shalt Thou not, oh Lord, Be busy with him in the under dark, And give him journey thro' the secret night, As far as earth and heaven ? Aye, tho' Thou slay me Yet will I trust in Thee, and in his flesh Shall he see God ! But, Lord, tho' I am sure That Thou canst raise the dead, oh what has he To do with death ? Our days of pilgrimage Are three-score years and ten ; why should he die ? Lord, this is grievous, that the heathen rage, And because they imagined a vain thing, That thou shouldst send the just man that feared Thee, To smite it from their hands. Lord, who are they, 32 LYKICS. That this my suckling lamb is their burnt-offering ? That with my staff, oh Lord, their fire is kindled, My ploughshare Thou dost beat into Thy sword, The blood Thou givest them to drink is mine ? Let it be far from Thee to do to mine What if I did it to mine own, Thy curse Avengeth. Do I take the children's bread And give it to the dogs V Do I rebuke So widely that the aimless lash conies down On innocent and guilty ? Do I lift The hand of goodness by the elbowed arm And break it on the evil ? Not so. Not so. Lord, what advantageth it to be God If Thou do less than I ? Have mercy on me ! Deal not with me according to mine anger ! Thou knowest if I lift my voice against Thee, 'T is but as he who in his fierce despair Dasheth his head against the dungeon-stone, Sure that but one can suffer. Yet, oh Lord, If Thou hast heard — if my loud passion reached Thine awful ear — and yet, I think, oh Father, I did not rage, but my most little anger Borne in the strong arms of my mighty love Seemed of the other's stature — oh, good Lord, Bear witness now against me. Let me see And taste that Thou art good. Thou who art slow To wrath, oh pause upon my quick offence, And show me mortal ! Thou whose strength is made Perfect in weakness, ah, be strong in me, For I am weak indeed ! How weak, oh Lord, Thou knowest who hast seen the unlifted sin Lie on the guilty tongue that strove in vain To speak it. Call my madness from the tombs ! Let the dumb fiend confess Thee ! If I sinned In silence, if I looked the fool i' the face And answered to his heart, " There is no God," Now in mine hour stretch forth Thy hand, oh Lord, " WHEN THE KAIN IS ON THE ROOF." 33 And let me be ashamed. As when in sleep I dream, and in the horror of my dream Fall to the empty place below the world Where no man is : no light, no life, no help, No hope ! And all the marrow in my bones Leaps in me, and I rend the night with fear ! And he who lieth near me thro' the dark Stretcheth an unseen hand, and all is well. Tho' Thou shouldst give me all my heart's desire, What is it in Thine eyes ? Give me, oh God, My heart's desire ! my heart's desire, oh God ! As a young bird doth bend before its mother, Bendeth and crieth to its feeding mother, So bend I for that good thing before Thee. It trembleth on the rock with many cries, It bendeth with its breast upon the rock, And worships in the hunger of its heart, I tremble on the rock with many cries, I. bend my beating breast against the rock, And worship in the hunger of my heart. Give me that good thing ere I die, my God ! Give me that very good thing ! Thou standest, Lord, By all things, as one standeth after harvest By the threshed corn, and, when the crowding fowl Beseech him, being a man and seeing as men, Hath pity on their cry, respecting not The great and little barley, but at will Dipping one hand into the golden store Straweth alike ; nevertheless to them Whose eyes are near their meat and do esteem By conscience of their bellies, grain and grain Is stint or riches. Let if, oh my God, Be far from Thee to measure out Thy gifts Smaller and larger, or to say to me Who am so poor and lean with the long fast Of such a dreary dearth — to me whose joy Is not as Thine — whose human heart is nearer To its own good than Thou who art in heaven — 3 34 LYRICS. 41 Not this but this : " to me who if I took All that these arms could compass, all pressed down And running over that this heart could hold, All that in dreams I covet when the soul Sees not the further bound of what it craves, Might filch my mortal infinite from Thine And leave Thee nothing less. Give me, oh Lord, My heart's desire ! It profiteth Thee nought Being withheld; being given, where is that aught It doth not profit me ? Wilt Thou deny That which to Thee is nothing, but to me All things ? Not so. Not so. If I were God And Thou Have mercy on me ! oh Lord ! Lord ! ******* Lord, I am weeping. As Thou wilt, oh Lord, Do with him as Thou wilt ; but oh, my Gocl, Let him come back to die ! Let not the fowls O' the air defile the body of my child, My own fair child that when he was a babe I lift up in my arms and gave to Thee ! Let not his garment, Lord, be vilely parted, Nor the fine linen which these hands have spun Fall to the stranger's lot ! Shall the wild bird — That would have pilfered of the ox — this year Disdain the pens and stalls ? Shall her blind young, That on the fleck and moult of brutish beasts Had been too happy, sleep in cloth of gold Whereof each thread is to this beating heart As a peculiar darling ? Lo, the flies Hum o'er him ! Lo, a feather from the crow Falls in his parted lips ! Lo, his dead eyes See not the raven ! Lo, the worm, the worm Creeps from his festering horse ! My God ! my God! ******* Oh Lord, Thou doest well. I am content. DESOLATE. 35 If Thou have need of him he shall not stay. But as one calleth to a servant, saying " At such a time be with me," so, oh Lord, Call him to Thee ! Oh bid him not in haste Straight whence he standeth. Let him lay aside The soiled tools of labor. Let him wash His hands of blood. Let him array himself Meet for his Lord, pure from the sweat and fume Of corporal travail ! Lord, if he must die, Let him die here. Oh take him where Thou gavest ! And even as once I held him in my womb Till all things were fulfilled, and he came forth, So, oh Lord, let me hold him in my grave Till the time come, and Thou, who settest when The hinds shall calve, ordain a better birth ; And as I looked and saw my son, and wept For joy, I look again and see my son, And weep again for joy of him and Thee ! DESOLATE. From the sad eaves the drip-drop of the rain ! The water washing at the latchel door ; A slow step plashing by upon the moor ; A single bleat far from the famished fold ; The clicking of an embered hearth and cold; The rainy Robin tic-tac at the pane. " So as it is with thee Is it with me, So as it is and it used not to be, With thee used not to be, Nor me." So singeth Robin on the willow tree, The rainy Robin tic-tac at the pane. 36 LYKICS. Here in this breast all day The fire is dim and low, Within I care not to stay, Without I care not to go. A sadness ever sings Of unforgotten things, And the bird of love is patting at the pane ; But the wintry water deepens at the door, And a step is plashing by upon the moor Into the dark upon the darkening moor, 'And alas, alas, the drip-drop of the rain ! THE MARKET-WIFE'S SONG* The butter an' the cheese weel stowit they be, I sit on the hen-coop the eggs on my knee, The lang kail jigs as we jog owre the rigs, The gray mare's tail it wags wi' the kail, The warm simmer sky is blue aboon a', An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld wheels twa. I sit on the coop, I look straight before, But my heart it is awa' the braid ocean owre, I see the bluidy fiel' where my ain bonny chieP, My wee bairn o' a', gaed to fight or to fa', An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld wheels twa. * In several of the Scottish songs of this volume, the author wishes, notwithstanding whatever couleur locale they may pos- sess, to he understood as speaking ratiier for a class than a local- ity. As most of the English provincial dialects are poetically objec ionable, and are modifications of tongues which exist more purely in the " Lallans " of Scotland, it seemed to him that when expressing the general peasant life of the empire he might employ the central truth of that noble Doric, which is at once rustic and dignified, heroic and vernacular. THE MARKET-WIFE'S SONG. 37 I see the gran' toun o' the- big forrin' loun, I hear the cannon soun', I see the reek aboon ; It may be lang John let tin' aff his gun, It may be the mist — your mither disna wist — It may be the kirk, it may be the ha', An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld wheels twa. An' I ken the Black Sea, ayont the rock o' dool, Like a muckle blot o' ink in a buik fra' the schule, An' Jock ! it gars me min' o' your buikies lang syne, An' mindin' o' it a' the tears begin to fa', An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld wheels twa. Then a bull roars fra' the scaur, ilka rock 's a bull agen, An' I hear the trump o' war, an' the carse is fu' o' men, Up an' doun the morn I ken the bugle horn, Ilka birdie sma' is a neein' cannon ba', An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld wheels twa. Guid Heavens ! the Eussian host ! We maun e'en gie up for lost ! Gin ye gain the battle hae ye countit a' the cost ? Ye may win a gran' name, but wad wee Jock come hame ? Dinna fecht, dinna fecht ! there's room for us a', An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld wheels twa. In vain, in vain, in vain ! They are marchin' near and far ! Wi' swords an" wi' slings an' wi' instruments o' war ! Oh, day sae dark an' sair ! ilka man seven feet an' mair ! 38 LYRICS. I bow my head an' say, " Gin the Lord wad smite them a' ! " An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld wheels twa. Then forth fra' their ban' there steps an armed man, His tairge at his breast an' his claymore in his han', His gowd pow glitters fine an' his shadow fa's behin', I think o' great Goliath as he stan's before them a', An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld Avheels twa. To meet the Philistine leaps a laddie fra' our line, Oh, my heart ! oh, my heart ! 'tis that wee lad o' mine ! I start to my legs — an' doun fa' the eggs — The cocks an' hens a' they cackle an' they ca', An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld wheels twa. Oh, Jock, my Hielan' lad — oh, Jock, my Hielan' lad, Never till I saw thee that moment was I glad ! Aye sooner sud thou dee before thy mither's ee' Than a man o' the clan sud'hae stept out but thee ! An' sae I cry to God — while the hens cackle a', An' whiddie, whuddie, whaddie, gang the auld wheels twa. THE LITTLE GIRL'S SONG. Do not mind my crying, Papa, I am not crying for pain. Do not mind my shaking, Papa, I am not shaking with fear ; THE LITTLE GIRL'S SONG. 39 Tho' the wild wild wind is hideous to hear, And I see the snow and the rain. When will you come back again, Papa, Papa ? Somebody else that you love, Papa, Somebody else that you dearly love Is weary, like me, because you 're away. Sometimes I see her lips tremble and move, And I seem to know what they 're going to say ; And every day, and all the long day, I long to cry, " Oh Mama, Mama, When will Papa come back again ? " But before I can say it I see the pain Creeping up on her white white cheek, As the sweet sad sunshine creeps up the white wall, And then I am sorry, and fear to speak ; And slowly the pain goes out of her cheek, As the sad sweet sunshine goes from the wall. Oh, I wish I were grown up wise and tall. That I might throw my arms round her neck And say, u Dear Mama, oh, what is it all That I see and see and do not see In your white white face all the livelong day ? " But she hides her grief from a child like me. When will you come back again, Papa, Papa ? Where were you going, Papa, Papa ? All this long while have you been on the sea V When she looks as if she saw far away, Is she thinking of you, and what does she see ? Are the white sails blowing, And the blue men rowing, And are you standing on the high deck Where we saw you stand till the ship grew gray, And we watched and watched till the ship was a speck, 40 LYKICS. And the dark came first to you, far away V I wish I could see what she can see, But she hides her grief from a child like me. When will you come back again, Papa, Papa? Don't you remember, Papa, Papa, How we used to sit by the fire, all three, And she told me tales while I sat on her knee, And heard the winter winds roar down the street, And knock like men at the window pane ; And the louder they roared, oh, it seemed more sweet To be warm and warm as we used to be, Sitting at night by the fire, all three. When will you come back again, Papa, Papa ? Papa, I like to sit by the fire ; Why does she sit far away in the cold ? If I had but somebody wise and old, That every day I might cry and say, " Is she changed, do you think, or do I forget ? Was she always as white as she is to-day ? Did she never carry her head up higher ? " Papa, Papa, if I could but know ! Do you think her voice was always so low V Did I always see what I seem to see When I wake up at night and her pillow is wet ? You used to say her hair it was gold — It looks like silver to me. But still she tells the same tale that she told, She sings the same songs when I sit on her knee. And the house goes on as it went long ago, When we lived together, all three. Sometimes my heart seems to sink, Papa, And I feel as if I could be happy no more. Is she changed, do you think, Papa, Or did I dream she was brighter before V " HE IS SAFE." 41 She makes me remember my snowdrop, Papa, That I forgot in thinking of you, The sweetest snowdrop that ever I knew ! But I put it out of the sun and the rain ; It was green and white when I put it away, It had one sweet bell and green leaves four ; It was green and white when I found it that day, It had one pale bell and green leaves four, But I was not glad of it any more. Was it changed, do you think, Papa, Or did I 'dream it was brighter before ? Do not mind my crying, Papa, I am not crying for pain. Do not mind my shaking, Papa, I am not shaking for fear ; Tho' the wild wild wind is hideous to hear, And I see the snow and the rain. When will you come back again, Papa, Papa ? "HE IS SAFE." " And it shall come to pass at eventide There shall be light." Lord, it hath come to pass. As one day to the world so now to me Thine advent. My dark eve is white as noon ; My year so sour and green is gold and red ; Mine eyes have seen Thy Goodness. All is done. All things bespeak an end. I am come near The crown o' this steep earth. My feet still stand Cold in the western shadow, but my brow Lives in the living light. The toil is o'er, Surely " He giveth His beloved Rest." 42 LYRICS. I feel two worlds : one ends and one begins. Methinks I dwell in both ; being much here, But more hereafter : even as when the nurse Doth give the babe into the mother's arms, And she who hath not quite resigned, and she Who hath not all received, support in twain The single burden ; ne'ertheless the babe Already tastes its mother. Lord, I come. Thy signs are in me. " He shall wipe away All tears : " Thou see'st my tears are wiped away. " There shall be no more pain : " Lord, it is done, Here there is no more pain. u The sun no more Shall be their light by day : " even so, Lord, I need no light of sun or moon ! My heart Is as a lamp of jasper, crystal-clear, Dark when Thy light is out, but lit with Thee The sun may be a suckling at this breast, And milk a nobler glory. Lord, I know Mine hour. This painful world, that was of thorns, Is roses. Like a fragrance thro' my soul I breathe a balm of slumber. Let me sleep. Bring me my easy pillows, Margery. I am asleep ; this oak is soft : all things Are rest : I sink as into bliss. Oh Lord, Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace. THE SODGER'S LASSIE. A' the toun is to the doun Pum' o' the blaeberrie. Ab 's gane, Rab 's gane, Aggie 's gane, Maggie 's gane, A' the toun is to the doun, An 's left the house to wae and me. THE SODGER'S LASSIE. 43 Heigho the blaeberrie ! Wha '11 liae a blaeberrie ? Ah, to min , o' auld lang syne, Puin' o' the blaeberrie ! Sodger Tarn, he cam an' cam, Puin' o' the blaeberrie ; Still I went, an* still I bent, Puin' o' the blaeberrie. Berries high, an' berries low, Heigho the blaeberrie ! Tarn maun come where berries grow, Puin o' the blaeberrie. Heigho the blaeberrie ! Wha '11 hae a blaeberrie ? Ah, to min' o' auld lang syne, Puin' o' the blaeberrie ! Never ance I looked at Tarn, Heigho the blaeberrie ! Weel I kent him when he cam, Puin' o' the blaeberrie. Baith our faces to the groun*, Puin' o' the blaeberrie, Tam cam near without a soan', Heigho the blaeberrie ! Wow ! but we were near, I ween, Puin' o' the blaeberrie. ! A' the air was warm between, Heigho the blaeberrie ! Could a lassie think o' ill, Puin' o' the blaeberrie ? Berries e'en grow where they will, Heigho the blaeberrie ! 44 Berries here, an' berries there, Heigh o the blaeberrie ! I was kissed or I was ware. Puin' o' the blaeberrie. Wha wad fash wi' ane anither Puin' o' the blaeberrie ? Berries whiles will grow thegither, Heigho the blaeberrie ! I was kissed or I could speer, Heigho the blaeberrie ! Hech ! that folk sud come sae near, A' to pu' a blaeberrie ! While I grat an chid forbye, Heigho the blaeberrie ! Doun we sat — I ken na why — A' amang the blaeberrie. Heigho the blaeberrie ! Wha '11 hae a blaeberrie ? Oh, to min' o' auld lang syne, A' amang the blaeberrie ! Sidelong Tarn he cam an' cam A' amang the blaeberrie. Wha' could tell he meant na fair ? AVeel I ken I chid him sair, But that day we gaed na mair Puin' o' the blaeberrie ! Heigho the blaeberrie ! Wha '11 hae a blaeberrie ? Oh, to min' o' auld lang syne, Doun amang the blaeberrie ! LADY CONSTANCE. 45 LADY CONSTANCE. My Love, my Lord, I think the toil of glorious day is done. I see thee leaning on thy jewelled sword, And a light-hearted child of France Is dancing to thee in the suri, And thus he carols in his dance. " Oh, a gallant sans peur Is the merry chasseur, With his fanfaron horn and his rifle ping-pang ! And his grand havresack Of gold on his back, His pistol cric-crao ! And his sword cling-clang ! " Oh, to see him blythe and gay From some hot and bloody day, Come to dance the night away till the bugle blows 4 au rang ', With a wheel and a whirl And a wheeling waltzing girl, And his bow, ' place aux dames ! ' and his oath ' feu et sang ! ' And his hop and his fling Till his gold and silver ring To the clatter and the clash of his sword cling- clang ! " But hark, Thro' the dark, Up goes the well-known shout ! The drums beat the turn out ! Cut short your courting, Monsieur P Amant ! Saddle ! mount ! march ! trot ! 46 LYRICS. Down comes the storm of shot, The foe is at the charge ! En avant ! " His jolly havresack Of gold is on his back, Hear his pistol cric-crac ! hear his rifle ping- pang ! " Vive F Empereur ! And where 's the Chasseur ? " He 's in Among the din Steel to steel cling-clang ! " And thou within the doorway of thy tent Leanest at ease with careless brow unbent, Watching the dancer in as pleased a dream, As if he were a gnat F the evening gleam, And thou and I were sitting side by side Within the happy bower Where oft at this same hour We watched them the sweet year I was a bride. My Love, my Lord, Leaning so grandly on thy jewelled sword, Is there no thought of home to whisper thee, None can relieve the weary guard 1 keep, None wave the flag of breathing truce for me, Nor sound the hours to slumber or to weep ? Once in a moon the bugle breaks thy rest, I count my days by trumpets and alarms : Thou liest down in thy warcloak and art blest, While I, who cannot sleep but in thine arms, Wage night and day fresh fields unknown to fame, Arm, marshal, march, charge, fight, fall, faint and die, Know all a soldier can endure but shame, And every chance of warfare but to fly. FAR E WELL. 47 I do not murmur at my destiny : It can but go with love, with whom it came, And love is like the sun — his light is sweet, And sweet his shadow — welcome both to me ! Better forever to endure that hurt Which thou canst taste but once than once to lie At ease when thou hast anguish. Better I Be often sad when thou^art gay than gay One moment of thy sorrow. Tho' I pray Too oft I shall win nothing of the sky But my unfilled desire and thy desert Can take it and still lack. Oh, might I stay At the shut gates of heaven ! that so I meet Each issuing fate, and cling about his feet And melt the dreadful purpose of his eye, And not one power pass unimpleaded by Whose bolt mi^ht be for thee ! Aye, love is sweet In shine or shade ! But love hath jealousy, That knowing but so little thinks so much ! And I am jealous of thee even with such A fatal knowledge. For I wot too well In the set season that I cannot tell Death will be near thee. This thought doth deflour All innocence from time. I dare not say u Not now," but for the instant cull the hour, And for the hour reap all the doubtful day, And for the day the year : and so, forlorn, From morn till night, from startled night till morn, Like a blind slave I bear thine heavy ill Till thy time comes to take it : come when 't will The broken slave will bend beneath it still. FAREWELL. Can I see thee stand On the looming land ? 48 Dost thou wave with thy white hand Farewell, farewell ? I could think that thou art near, Thy sweet voice is in mine ear, Farewell, farewell ! While I listen, all things seem Singing in a singing dream, Farewell, farewell ! Echoing in an echoing dream, Farewell, farewell ! Yon boat upon the sea, It floats 'twixt thee and me, I see the boatman listless lie ; He cannot hear the cry That in mine ears doth ring Farewell, farewell ! Doth it pass him o'er and o'er, Heard upon the shore behind, Farewell, farewell ! Heard upon the ship before, Farewell, farewell ! Like an arrow that can dart Viewless thro' the viewless wind, Plain on the quivering string, And plain in the victim's heart V Are there voices in the sky, Farewell, farewell? Am I mocked by the bright air, Farewell, farewell ? The empty air that everywhere Silvers back the sung reply, Farewell, farewell ! While to and fro the tremulous accents fly, Farewell, farewell ! Now shown, now shy, Farewell, farewell ! Now song, now sigh, FAREWELL. 49 Farewell, farewell ! Toy with the grasping heart that deems them nigh, Come like blown bells in sudden wind and high, Or far on furthest verge in lingering echoes die, Farewell, farewell ! Farewell, farewell, farewell ! Oh, Love ! what strange dumb Fate Hath broken into voice to see us hope ? Surely we part to meet again ? Like one struck blind, I grope In vain, in vain ; I cannot hold a single sense to tell The meaning of this melancholy bell, Farewell, farewell ! I touch them with my thought, and small and great They join the swaying swell, Farewell, farewell ! Farewell, farewell, farewell ! Aye, when I felt thee falling On this heaving breast — Aye, when I felt thee prest Nearer, nearer, nearer, Dearer, dearer, dearer — Aye, while I saw thy face, In that long last embrace, The first, the last, the best — Aye, while I held thee heart to heart, My soul had pushed off from the shore. And we were far apart ; I heard her calling, calling, From the sea of nevermore Farewell, farewell ! Fainter, fainter, like a bell Rung from some receding ship, Farewell, farewell ! The far and further knell Did hardly reach my lip, 4 50 LYRICS. Farewell, farewell ! Farewell, farewell, farewell ! Away, you omens vain ! Away, away ! What ! will you not be driven ? My heart is trembling to your augury. Hence ! Like a flight of seabirds at a gun, A thousand ways they scatter back to heaven, Wheel lessening out of sight, and swoop again as one ! Farewell, farewell ! Farewell, farewell, farewell ! Oh, Love ! what fatal spell Is winding winding round me to this singing ? What hands unseen are flinging The tightening mesh that I can feel too well ? What viewless wings are winging The syren music of this passing bell ? Farewell, farewell ! Farewell, farewell, farewell ! Arouse my heart ! arouse ! This is the sea : I strike these wooden walls : The sailors come and go at my command : I lift this cable with my hand : I loose it and it falls : Arouse ! she is not lost, Thou art not plighted to a moonlight ghost But to a living spouse. Arouse ! we only part to meet again ! Oh thou moody main, Are thy mermaid cells a-ringing ? Are thy mermaid sisters singing ? The saddest shell of every cell Ringing still, and ringing Farewell, farewell ! To the sinking sighing singing, To the floating flying singing, THE MILKMAID'S SONG. 51 To the deepening dying singing, In the swell, Farewell, farewell ! And the failing wailing ringing, The reaming dreaming ringing Of fainter shell in deeper cell, To the sunken sunken singing, Farewell, farewell ! Farewell, farewell ! Farewell, farewell, farewell ! THE MILKMAID'S SONG. Turn, turn, for my cheeks they burn, Turn by the dale, my Harry ! Fill pail, fill pail, He has turned by the dale, And there by the style waits Harry. Fill fill, Fill pail, fill, For there by the style waits Harry ! The world may go round, the world may stand still, But I can milk and marrv, Fillpail, I can milk and marry. Wheugh, wheugh ! Oh, if we two Stood down there now by the water, I know who 'd carry me over the ford As brave as a soldier, as proud as a lord, Tho' I don't live over the water. Wheugh, wheugh ! he 's whistling thro', He 's whistling " the farmer's daughter." Give down, give down, 52 LYRICS. My crumpled brown ! He shall not take the road to the town, For I '11 meet him beyond the water- Give down, give down, My crumpled brown ! And send me to my Harry. The folk o' towns May have silken gowns, But I can milk and marry, Fillpail, I can milk and marry. Wheugh, wheugh ! he has whistled thro', He has whistled thro' the water. Fill, fill, with a will, a will, For he 's whistled thro' the water, And he 's whistling down The way to the town, And it 's not " the farmer's daughter ! " Churr, churr ! goes the cockchafer, The sun sets over the water, Churr, churr ! goes the cockchafer, I 'm too late for my Harry ! And, oh, if he goes a-soldiering. The cows they may low, the bells they may ring, But I '11 neither milk nor marry, Fillpail, Neither milk nor marry. My brow beats on thy flank, Fillpail, Give down, good wench, give down ! I know the primrose bank, Fillpail, Between him and the town. Give down, good wench, give down, Fillpail, And he shall not reach the town ! Strain, strain ! he 's whistling again, He 's nearer by half a mile. More, more ! Oh, never before Were you such a weary while ! THE MILKMAID'S SONG. 53 Fill, fill ! he 's crossed the hill, I can see him down by the style, He 's passed the hay, he 's coming this way, He 's coming to me, my Harry ! Give silken gowns to the folk o' towns, He 's coming to me, my Harry ! There 's not so grand a dame in the land, That she walks to-night with Harry ! Come late, come soon, come sun, come moon, Oh, I can milk and marry, Fillpail, I can milk and marry. Wheugh, wheugh ! he has whistled thro', My Harry ! my lad ! my lover ! Set the sun and fall the dew, Heigho, merry world, what 's to do That you 're smiling over and over ? Up on the hill and down in the dale, And along the tree-tops over the vale Shining over and over, Low in the grass and high on the bough, Shining over and over, Oh, world, have you ever a lover ? You were so dull and cold just now, Oh, world, have you ever a lover ? I could not see a leaf on the tree,' And now I could count them, one, two, three, Count them over and over, Leaf from leaf like lips apart, Like lips apart for a lover. And the hill-side beats with my beating heart, And the apple-tree blushes all over, And the May bough touched me and made me start, And the wind breathes warm like a lover. Pull, pull ! and the pail is full, And milking 's done and over. Who would not sit here under the tree ? 54 LYRICS. What a fair fair thing 's a green field to see ! Brim, brim, to the rim, ah me ! I have set my pail on the daisies ! It seems so light — can the sun be set ? The dews must be heavy, my cheeks are wet, I could cry to have hurt the daisies ! Harry is near, Harry is near, My heart 's as sick as if he were here, My lips are burning, my cheeks are wet, He has n't uttered a word as yet, But the air 's astir with his praises My Harry ! The air's astir with your praises. He has scaled the rock by the pixy's stone, He 's among the kingcups — he picks me one, I love the grass that I tread upon When I go to my Harry ! He has jumped the brook, he has climbed the knowe, There 's never a taster foot I know, But still he seems to tarry. Oh, Harry ! oh, Harry ! my love, my pride, My heart is leaping, my arms are wide ! Roll up, roll up, you dull hill-side, Roll up, and bring my Harry ! They may talk of glory over the sea, But Harry 's alive, and Harry 's for me, My love, my lad, my Harry ! Come spring, come winter, come sun, come snow, What cares Dolly, whether or no, While I can milk and marry ? Right or wrong, and wrong or right, Quarrel who quarrel, and fight who fight, But I '11 bring my pail home every night To love, and home, and Harry ! We 'li drink our can, we '11 eat our cake, There's beer in the barrel, there-'s bread in the bake. THE GERMAN LEGION. 55 The world may sleep, the world may wake, But I shall milk and marry, And marry, I shall milk and marry. THE GERMAN LEGION. In the cot beside the water, In the white cot by the water, The white cot by the white water, There they laid the German maid. There they wound her, singing round her, Deftly wound her, singing round her, Softly wound her, singing round her, In a shroud like a cloud. And they decked her as they wound her, With a wreath of leaves they bound her, Lornest leaves they scattered round her, Singing grief with every leaf Singing grief with every leaf, Sadder grief with sadder leaf, Sweeter leaf with sweeter grief, So 't was sung in a dark tongue. Like a latter lily lying, O'er whom falling leaves are sighing, And autumn vapors crying, Pale and cold on misty mould, So I saw her sweet and lowly, Shining shining pale and holy, Thro' the dim woe slowly slowly, Said and sung in that dark tongue. 66 LYRICS. Such an awe her beauty lent her, While they sung I dared not enter That charmed ring where she was centre, But I stood with stirring blood Till the song fell like a billow, And I saw them leave her pillow, And go forth to the far willow, For the wreath of virgin death. And I stood beside her pillow, While they plucked the distant willow And my heart rose like a billow As I said to the pale dead — " Oh, thou most fair and sweet virginity, Of whom this heart that beats for thee doth know Nor name nor story, that these limbs can be For no man evermore, that thou must go Cold to the cold, and that no eye shall see That which thine unsolved womanhood doth owe Of the incommunicable mystery Shakes me with tears. I could kneel down by thee And o'er thy chill unmarnageable rest Cry, ' Thou who shalt no more at all be prest To any heart, one moment come to this ! And feel me weeping with thy want of bliss, And all the unpraised beauties of thy breast — Thy breast which never shall a lover kiss ! ' ' Then I slowly left her pillow, For they came back with the willow, And my heart sinks as a billow Doth implore towards the shore, As I see the crown they weave her, And I know that I must leave her. And I feel that I could grieve her Sad and sore for evermore. A HEALTH TO THE QUEEN. 57 And again they sang around her, In a richer robe they wound her, With the willow wreath they bound her, And the loud song like a cloud Of golden obscuration, With the strange tongue of her nation, Filled the house of lamentation, Till she lay in melody, Like a latter lily lying, O'er whom falling leaves are sighing, And the autumn vapors crying, In a dream of evening gleam. And I saw her sweet and lowly, Shining shining pale and holy, Thro' the dim woe slowly slowly Said and sung in a dark tongue. In the cot beside the water, The white cot by the white water, English cot by English water That shall see the German sea. A HEALTH TO THE QUEEN. While the thistle bears Spears, And the shamrock is green, And the English rose Blows, A health to the Queen ! A health to the Queen, a health to the Queen ! 58 LYRICS. Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen ! The thistle bears spears round its blossom, Round its blossom the shamrock is green, The rose grows and glows round the rose in its bosom, We stand sword in hand round the Queen ! Our glory is green round the Queen ! We close round the rose, round the Queen ! The Queen, boys, the Queen ! a health to the Queen ! Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen ! Last post I 'd a note from that old aunt of mine, 'T was meant for a hook, but she called it a line ; She says, I don't know why we 're going to fight, She 's sure I don't know — and I 'm sure she 's quite right ; She swears I haven't looked at one sole protocol ; Tantara ! tantara ! I have n't, 'pon my soul ! Soho, blow trumpeter, Trumpeter, trumpeter ! Soho, blow trumpeter, onward 's the cry ! Fall, tyrants, fall — the devil care why ! A health to the Queen, a health to the Queen ! Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen ! My granny came down — " pour vous voir, mon barbare," She brought in her pocket a map — du Tartare — Drawn up, so she vowed, " par un homme ah ! si bon ! " With a plan for campaigning old Hal, en haut ton. With here you may trick him, and here you may prick him, And here — if you do it en roi — you may lick him. A HEALTH TO THE QUEEN. 50 But there he is sacred, and yonder — oh, la ! He 's as dear a sweet soul as your late grandpapa ! Soho, blow trumpeter, Trumpeter, trumpeter ! Blow the charge, trumpeter, blare, boy, blare ! Fall, tyrants, fall — the devil care where ! A health to the Queen, a health to the Queen ! Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen ! My cousin, the Yankee, last night did his best . To prove u the Czar — bless you 's — no worse than the rest." We wheeled the decanters out on to the lawn, And he argued — and spat — in a circle till dawn. Quoth I, " If the game 's half as thick as you say, The more need for hounds, lad ! Hunt 's up ! Hark a way ! " Soho, blow trumpeter ! Trumpeter, trumpeter ! Tally ho, trumpeter, over the ditch — Over the ditch, boys, the broad ditch at Dover ! Hands slack, boys, heels back, boys, Yohoicks ! we 're well over ! Soho, blow trumpeter ! blow us to cover ! Blow, boy, blow, Berlin, or Moscow, Schoenbrun, or Rome, So Reynard 's at home, The devil care which ! Hark, Evans ! hark, Campbell ! hark, Cathcart ! — Halloo ! Heyday, harkaway ! good men and true ! Harkaway to the brook, You won't land in clover ! Leap and look ! High and dry ! Tantivy, full cry 60 LYRICS. Full cry up the hill ! Hurrah, and it 's over ! A burst and a kill. While the thistle bears Spears, And the shamrock is green, And the English rose Blows, A health to the Queen ! A health to the Queen, a health to the Queen ! Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys, A health to the Queen ! The Queen, boys, the Queen ! the Queen, boys, the Queen ! Full ciy, high and dry, boys, A health to the Queen ! WOE IS ME. Far in the cradling sky, Dawn opes his baby eye, Then I awake and cry, Woe is me ! Morn, the young hunter gay, Chases the shadows gray, Then I go forth and say, Woe is me ! s Noon ! drunk with oil and wine, Tho' not a grief is thine, Yet shalt thou shake with mine ! Woe is me ! Eve kneeleth sad and calm, Bearing the martyr's palm ; THE YOUNG MAN'S SONG. 61 I shriek above her psalm, Woe is me ! Night, hid in her black hair From eyes she cannot dare, Lies loud with fierce despair ; Then I sit silent where She cries from her dark lair Woe is me ! THE YOUNG MAN'S SONG. At last the curse has run its date ! The heavens grow clear above, And on the purple plains of Hate, We '11 build the throne of Love ! One great heroic reign divine, Shall mock the elysian isles, And Love in arms shall only shine Less fair than Love in smiles ! Old Clio burn thine ancient scroll, The scroll of Rome and Greece ! Our war shall be a parable On all the texts of peace, And saints look down, with eyes of praise, Where on our modern field The new Samaritan forelays The wrongs that other healed ! What virtue is beyond our prize ? What deed beneath yon sun More Godlike than the prodigies We mortal men have done ? 02 LYKICS. We wearied of the lagging steed, The dove had not a quill To fledge the imaginable speed Of our wild shaft of will ; " Ah, could each word be winged with wind, And speech be swift as sight ! " We cursed the long arms of that blind Dumb herald on the height, Dark struggling with a mystery He daily hid in shades, As a ghost steams up on the eye, Begins a Fate and fades. " If, like a man, dull space could hear ! If, like a man, obey ! " We seized this earthly hemisphere, This senseless skull of clay. We drew from Heaven a breath of flame, And thro' the lifeless whole Did breathe it till the orb became One brain of burning soul. As he o'er whom a tyrant reigns, It waits our sovran word, And thinks along the living veins The lightnings of its lord ! What Force can meet our matchless might ? What Power is not our slave V We bound the angel of the light, We scourged him in a cave. And when we saw the prisoner pine For his immortal land, We wrung a ransom, half divine, From that celestial hand THE YOUNG MAN'S SONG. " 63 Whose skill the heavy chain subdued, And all a captive's woe Did tame to such a tempered good As mortal eyes can know. Who comes, who comes, o'er mountains laid, Yales lifted, straightened ways ? 'T is he ! the mightier horse we made To serve our nobler days ! But now, unheard, I saw afar His cloud of windy mane, Now, level as a blazing star, He thunders thro' the plain ! The life he needs, the food he loves, This cold earth bears no more ; He fodders on the eternal groves That heard the dragons roar, Strong with the feast he roars and runs. And, in his maw unfurled, Evolves the folded fires of suns That lit a grander world ! Yon bird, the swiftest in the sky, Before him sprang, but he Has passed her as a wind goes by A struggle! in the sea. With forward beak and forward blows She slides back from his side ; While ever as the monster goes, With needless power and pride, Disdainful from his fiery jaws He snorts his vital heat, And, easy as his shadow, draws, Long-drawn, the living street. 64 LYRICS. He 7 s gone ! Metftinks that over him, Like Curtius in the abyss, I see great gulphs close rim to rim, And Past and Future kiss ! Oh, Man ! as from the flood sublime Some alp rose calm and slow, So from the exhaling floods of time I see thy stature grow. Long since thy royal brow, uncrowned, Allegiant nature saw, Long since thine eye of empire frowned The heavenly thrones to awe ; And now the monarch's breast apart Divides the sinking spray, Fit dome for such gigantic heart As warms so vast a sway. Far o'er the watery wilds I see Thy great right-arm upsurge, Thy right-hand, armed with victory, Is sunburst on the verge ! Arise, arise ! oh, sword ! and sweep One universal morn ! Another throe, thou laboring Deep, And all the god is born ! So sang a youth of glorious blood. Below, the wind-hawk shook her wings, And lower, in its kingdom, stood A tower of ancient kings. Above, the autumn sky was blue, Far round the golden world was fair, And, gun by gun, the ramparts blew A battle on the air. dead-maid's-pool. 65 DEAD-MAID'S-POOL. Oh water, water — water deep and still, In this hollow of the hill, Thou helenge well o'er which the long reeds lean, Here a stream and there a stream, And thou so still, between, Thro' thy coloured dream, Thro' the drowned face Of this lone leafy place, Down, down, so deep and chill, I see the pebbles gleam ! Ash-tree, ash-tree, Bending o'er the well, Why there thou bendest, Kind hearts can tell. 'Tis that the pool is deep, 'T is that — a single leap, And the pool closes : And in the solitude Of this wild mountain wood, None, none, would hear her cry, From this bank where she stood To that peak in the sky Where the cloud dozes. Ash-tree, ash-tree, That art so sweet and good, If any creeping thing Among the summer games in the wild roses Fall from its airy swing, (While all its pigmy kind Watch from some imminent rose-leaf half un- curled) — I know thou hast it full in mind (While yet the drowning minim lives, 5 66 LYRICS. And blots the shining water where it strives), To touch it with a finger soft and kind, As when the gentle sun, ere day is hot, Feels for a little shadow in a grot, And gives it to the shades behind the world. And oh ! if some poor fool Should seek the fatal pool, Thine arms — ah, yes ! I know For this thou watchest days, and months, and years, For this dost bend beside The lone and lorn well-side, The guardian angel of the doom below, Content if, once an age, thy helping hand May lift repentant madness to the land : Content to hear the cry Of living love from lips that would have died : To seem awhile endowed With all thy limbs did save, And in that voice they drew out of the grave, To feel thy dumb desire for once released aloud, And all thy muffled century Repaid in one wild hour of sobs, and smiles, and tears. Aye, aye, I envy thee. Pitiful ash-tree ! Water, water — water deep and still, In the hollow of the hill, Water, water, well I wot, Thro' the weary hours, Well I wot thee lying there, As fair as false, as false as fair. The crows they fly o'er, The small birds flit about, The stream it ripples in, the stream it ripples out, But what eye ever knew A rinkle wimple thee ? dead-maid's-pool. 67 And what eye shall see A rinkle wimple thee Evermore ? Thro' thy gauds and mocks, All thy thin enchantment thro' — The green delusion of thy bowers, The cold flush of thy feigned flowers, All the treacherous state Of fair things small and great, That are and are not, Well I wot thee shining there, As fair as false, as false as fair. Thro' the liquid rocks, Thro' the watery trees, Thro' the grass that never grew, Thro' a face God never made, Thro' the frequent gain and loss Of the cold cold shine and shade, Thro' the subtle fern and moss, Thro' the humless, hiveless bees, Round the ghosts of buds asleep, Thro' the disembodied rose, Waving, waving in the deep, Where never wind blows, I look down, and see far down, In clear depths that do nothing hide, Green in green, and brown in brown, The long fish turn and glide ! Ash-tree, ash-tree, Bending o'er the water — Ash-tree, ash-tree, Hadst thou a daughter ? Ash-tree, ash-tree, let me draw near, Ash-tree, ash-tree, a word in thine ear ! Thou art wizen and white, ash-tree ; Other trees have gone on, 68 LYKICS. Have gathered and grown, Have bourgeoned and borne : Thou hast wasted and worn. Thy knots are all eyes ; Every knot a dumb eye, That has seen a sight And heard a cry. Thy leaves are dry: The summer has not gone by, But they 're withered and dead, Like locks round a head That is bald with a secret sin, That is scorched by a hell within. Thy skin Is withered and wan, Like a guilty man : It was thin, Aye, silken and thin, It is houghed And ploughed, Like a murderer's skin. Thou hast no shoots nor wands, All thy arms turn to the deep, All thy twigs are crooked, Twined and twisted, Fingered and fisted Like one who had looked On wringing hands Till his hands were wrung in his sleep. Pardon my doubt of thee, What is this In the very groove Of thy right arm ? There is not a snake • So yellow and red, dead-maid's-pool. 69 There is not a toad So sappy and dread ! It doth not move, It doth not hiss — Ash-tree — for God's sake — Hast thou known What hath not been said, And the summer sun Cannot keep it warm, And the living wood Cannot shut it down ! And it grows out of thee, And will be told, Bloody as blood, And yellow as gold ! Ash -tree, ash-tree, That once wert so green ! Ash- tree, ash-tree ! What hast thou seen ? Was I a mother — nay or aye ? Am I childless — aye nor nay ? Ash-tree, ash-tree, Bending o'er the water ! Ash-tree, ash-tree, Give me my daughter ! Curse the water, Curse thee, Ash-tree, Bending o'er the water ! Leaf on the tree, Flower on the stem, Curse thee, And curse them! Trunk and shoot, Herb and weed, Bud and fruit, Blossom and seed, Above and below, 70 LYRICS. About and about, Inside and out, Grown and to grow, Curse you all, Great and small, That cannot give back my daughter ! But if there were any, Among so many, Any small thing that did lie sweet for her, Any newt or marish-worm that, shrinking Under the pillow of the water weed, Left her a cleaner bed, Any least leaves that fell with little plashes, And sinking, sinking, Sank soft and slow, and settled on her lashes And did what was so meet for her, Them I do % not curse. See, see up the glen, The evening sun agen ! It falls upon the water, It falls upon the grass, Thro' the birches, thro' the firs, Thro' the alders, catching gold, Thro' the bracken and the briar, Goes the evening fire To the bush-linnet's nest. There between us and the west, Dost thou see the angels pass ? Thro' the air, with streaming hair, The golden angels pass ? Hold, hold ! for mercy, hold ! I know thee ! ah, I know thee ! I know thou wilt not pass me so — The gray old woman is ready to go. Call me to thee, call me to thee, My daughter ! oh, my daughter ! THE SAILOR'S RETURN. 71 THE SAILOR'S RETURN. This morn I lay a-dreaming, This morn, this merry morn, When the cock crew shrill from over the bill, I heard a bugle horn. And thro' the dream I was dreaming, There sighed the sigh of the sea, And thro' the dream I was dreaming, This voice came singing to me. " High over the breakers, Low under the lee, Sing ho The billow, And the lash of the rolling sea I " Boat, boat, to the billow, Boat, boat, to the lee! Love on thy pillow, Art thou dreaming of me ? " Billow, billow, breaking, Land us low on the lee ! For sleeping or waking, Sweet love, I am coming to thee ! " High, high, o'er the breakers, Low, low, on the lee, Sinor ho ! The billow That brings me back to thee ! " 72 THE WIDOW'S LULLABY. She droops like a dew-dropping lily, " Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! Whisht whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie!" The snri comes up from the lea, As he who will never come more Came up that first day to her door, When the ship furled her sails by the shore, And the spring leaves were green on the tree. But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, " Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! Whisht whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Wil- lie ! " The sun goes down in the sea, As he who will never go more Went down that last day from her door, When the ship set her sails from the shore, And the dead leaves were sere on the tree. But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, " Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! Whisht whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Wil- lie ! " The year comes glad o'er the lea, As he who will never come more, Never, ah never ! Came up that first day to her door, When the ship furled her sails by the shore, And the spring leaves were green on the tree. Never, ah never ! He who will come a^ain, never ! THE WIDOW'S LULLABY. 73 But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, "Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! Whisht whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Wil- lie!" The year goes sad to the sea, As he who will never go more For ever went down from her door, Ever, for ever ! When the ship set her sails by the shore, And the dead leaves were sere on the tree. Ever, for ever ! For ever went down from her door. But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, " Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! Whisht whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Wil- lie ! " A gun, and a flash, and a gun, The ship lies again where she lay ! High and low, low and high, in the sun, There 's a boat, a boat on the bay ! High and low, low and high, in the sun, All as she saw it that day, When he came who shall never come more, And the ship furled her sails by the shore. But she droops like a dew-dropping lily, " Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! Whisht whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, bov Willie ! " All as she saw it that day, With a gun, and a flash, and a gun, The ship lies again where she lay, And they run, and they ride, and they run, Merry, merry, merry, down the merry highway, To the boat, high and low in the sun. 74 LYRICS. Nearer and nearer she hears the rolling drum, Clearer and clearer she hears the cry, f* They come," Far and near runs the cheer to her ear once so dear, Merry, merry, merry, up the merry highway, As it ran when he came that day And said, " Wilt thou be my dearie ? Oh, wilt thou be my dearie ? My boat is dry in the bay, And I '11 love till thou be weary ! " And she could not say him nay, For his bonny eyes o' blue, And never was true-love so true, To never so kind a dearie, As he who will never love more, When the ship furls her sails by the shore. Then she shakes like a wind-stricken lily, " Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie ! Whisht whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie ! " THE GABERLUNZIE'S WALK. The Laird is dead, the laird is dead, An' dead is cousin John, His henchmen ten, an' his sax merrie men, Forbye the steward's son. An' his ain guid gray that he strode sae gay When hunt was up an' on, An' the win' blew fair, an' the grews pu'd sair, An' dawn was on Maol-don, An' the skeigh steeds neigh'd, an' the slot-hounds bay'd, An' up gaed the mornin' sun. THE GABERLUNZIE'S WALK. 75 An' awa' gaed the deer wi! the merrie men's cheer, Awa' owre the auld Maol-don, An' awa' wi' a shout ran the rabble an' the rout, An' awa' rode cousin John, Wi' his horn, his horn, thro' the merry merry morn, His hunter's horn sae shrill ! An' 't was " Ho, heigho, hereawa', Heareawa', hereawa' ! Ho, heigho, hereawa' ! " A' roun' the hill ! Walie ! walie ! they 're a' gane dead, A' owre the seas an' awa' The laird an' his men, the sax an' the ten, They gaed to fight an' to fa'. An' walie, an' wae, an' hech ! the weary day ! The laird is dead an' a' ! A' in ae grave by the margent o' the wave Thegither they lay doun, Sax feet deep, where dead men sleep, A' i' the faeman's grun'. Foremost i' the van, wi' his bagpipes i' his han', The steward's ae braw son, An' next the young laird — gin the guid Lord had spared ! — A' as he led them on, Wi' his bonnie brow bare an' his lang fair hair, An' his bluidy braid-sword drawn ; An' hard by his chief, that in life was sae lief, In death cam cousin John, Wi' his horn, his horn, thro' the merry merry morn, His hunter's horn sae shrill When 't was " Ho, heigho, hereawa', Hereawa', hereawa' ! Ho, heigho, hereawa' ! " A' roun' the hill ! 76 LYRICS. Gin ony uphauld the young Laird lies cauld, An' cauld lies cousin John, Sax feet deep, as dead men sleep, A* i' the faeman's gran', A' in ae grave by the margent o' the wave, Where doun they lay that day, Wi' the henchmen ten, an' the sax merrie men, Ask the gaberlunzie gray. Step an' step, step an' step, gaed the gaberlunzie gray, Faint an' lame, wi' empty wame, he hirples on his way. Step an' step, step an step, an' owre the hill maun he, His head is bent, his pipe is brent, he has na a bawbee. Step an' step, step an' step, he totters thro' the mirk, He hears the fox amang the cocks, the houlet by the kirk. Step an' step, step an' step, an' as he climbs the hill The auld auld moon is gaun doun ; the nicht grows cauld an' still, The breathin' kye aroun' him lie, the ingle-light is gane, He wakes the yowes amang the knowes, an' still he gangs his lane. His slow steps rouse the blethrin' grouse, the pee- wit fa's an' squeals, The nicht-goat bleats amang the peats, an' still he speils an' speils, Step an' step, step an' step, an' up the craigie stark, An' mony a stane ane after ane gangs snirtlin' doun the dark. Step an' step, step an' step, that gaberlunzie gray, THE GABERLUNZIE'S WALK. 7 7 A' win's seem tint far far ahint as he gangs on his way. He hears the burn amang the fern, he hears the stoatie cheep, He hears the rustle, an' flit an' fussle, as the kae shifts her roost in her sleep. Step an' step, step an step, he gangs wi' troubled breath, He feels the silence a' aboon, he feels the warl' beneath ; Wheet an' wheet about his feet the startit mousie ran, An' as he gaes his riskin' claes aye gar him start an' stan' ; An' as he. stan's wi' knotted han's an' leans his chitterin' head, He hears the sod his steps have trod a-tirlin' to his tread ; An' crisp foot-fa', an' sibblin' sma' o' stealthy cony crappin', An' click o' bat aboon his hat, like fairy fingers snappin', An' ilka yird that ticked an' stirred, where swairdie there is nae, As elfin shools the tittlin' mools gar'd rinkle doun the brae ; An' safter soun' alang the groun' the grass-taps thro' and thro', Gin owre the fiel's the wee bit chiel's were dealin' out the dew. Step an' step, step an' step, an' hech ! his freezin' bluid ! He gaes into the silence as ane gaes into a wood. The mair the height, mair still the nicht, an' faster did he gang, Step an' step, an' then a step, an' he listens hard an' lang ! He listens twice, he listens thrice, but why he disna ken ; 78 LYRICS. His caulcl skin skeared, an' clipped his beard ; he stops an' lists agen. There 's somethin' creepin' thro' his banes, there 's somethin' stirs his hair : 'Tis mair than use, he canna choose, he listens ten times mair ! He pits his pack fra his auld back, he sits him on a stane, His eyelids fa', he gapes his jaw, an' harks wi' might an' main, The mair he list the mair uprist his gray-locks wi' affright, Till ilka hair that he might wear was stiff an' stark upright. His sick heart stops, the low moon drops, the nicht is eerie chill ! Wi' sudden shout the dead cry out, like hunters at a kill, Full cry, full cry, the win's sweep by, a horn a horn is shrill ! An' 't is " Ho, heigho, hereawa', Hereawa', hereawa' ! Ho, heigho, hereawa' ! " A' roun' the hill ! LIBERTY TO M. LE DIPLOMATE. Thou fool who treatest with the sword, and not With the strong arm that wields it ! Thou insane Who seest the dew-drops on the lion's mane, But dost forget the lion ! Oh thou sot, Hugging thy drunken dream ! Thou idiot Who makest a covenant against the rain With autumn leaves ! Thou atheist who dost chain This miserable body that can rot, And thinkest it Me ! Fool ! for the swordless arm AN EVENING DUE AM. 79 Shall strike thee dead. Madman, the lion wakes, And with one shake is dry. Sot, the day breaks Shall sober even thee. Idiot, one storm And thou art bare. Atheist, the corse is thine, But lo, the unfettered soul immortal and' divine ! AN EVENING DREAM. 1 'm leaning where you loved to lean in eventides of old, The sun has sunk an hour ago behind the treeless wold, In this old oriel that we loved how oft I sit forlorn, Gazing, gazing, up the vale of green and waving corn. The summer corn is in the ear, thou knowest what I see Up the long wide valley, and from seldom tree to tree, The serried corn, the serried corn, the green and serried corn, From the golden morn till night, from the moony night till morn. I love it, morning, noon, and night, in sunshine and in rain, For being here it seems to say, " The lost come back again." And being here as . green and fair as those old fields we knew, It says, " The lost when they come back, come back unchanged and true." But more than at the shout of morn, or in the sleep of noon, Smiling with a smiling star, or wan beneath a wasted moon, I love it, soldier-brother ! at this weird dim hour, for then 80 LYRICS. The serried ears are swords and spears, and the fields are fields of men. Rank on rank in faultless phalanx stern and still I can discern, Phalanx after faultless phalanx in dumb armies still and stern ; Army on army, host on host, till the bannered nations stand, As the dead may stand for judgment silent on the o'er-peopled land. Not a bayonet stirs : down sinks the awful twilight, dern and dun, On an age that waits its leader, on a world that Avaits the sun. Then your dog — I know his voice — cries from out the court-yard nigh, And my love too well interprets all that long and mournful cry ! In my passion that thou art not, lo ! I see thee as thou art, And the pitying fancy brings thee to assuage the anguished heart. " Oh my brother!" and my bosom's throb of wel- come at the word. Claps a hundred thousand hands, and all my legions hail thee lord. And the vast unmotioned myriads, front to front, as at a breath, Live and move to martial music, down the devious dance of death. Ah, thou smilest, scornful brother, at a maiden's dream of war ! And thou shakest back thy locks as if — a glow- worm for thy star — I dubbed thee with a blade of grass, by earthlight, in a fairy ring, Knight o' the garter o' Queen Mab, or lord in waiting to her king. AN EVENING DREAM. 81 Brother, in thy plumed pride of tented field and turretted tower, Smiling brother, scornful brother, darest thou watch with me one hour ? Even now some fate is near, for 1 shake and know not why, And a wider sight is orbing, orbing, on my moist- ened eye, And I feel a thousand fluttering^ round my souPs still vacant field, Like the ravens and the vultures o'er a carnage yet unkilled. Hist ! I see the stir of glamour far upon the twilight wold, Hist ! I see the vision rising ! List ! and as I speak behold ! These dull mists are mists of morning, and behind yon eastern hill, The hot sun abides my bidding : he shall melt them when I will. All the night that now is past, the foe hath laboured for the day, Creeping thro' the stealthy dark, like a tiger to his prey. " Throw this window wider ! Strain thine eyes along the dusky vale ! Art thou cold with horror? Has thy bearded cheek grown pale ? 'T is the total Russian host, flooding up the solemn plain, Secret as a silent sea, mighty as a moving main ! Oh, my country ! is there none to rouse thee to the rolling sight ? Oh thou gallant sentinel who hast watched so oft so well, must thou sleep this only night ? So hath the shepherd lain on a rock above a plain, Nor beheld the flood that swelled from some em- bowelled mount of woe, Waveless, foamless, sure and slow, 82 LYRICS. Silent o'er the vale below, Till nigher still and niglier comes the seeth of fields on fire, And the thrash of falling trees, and the steam of rivers dry,- And before the burning flood the wild things of the wood Skulk and scream, and fight, and fall, and flee, and fly. A gun ! and then a gun ! I' the far and early sun Dost thou see by yonder tree a fleeting red- ness rise, As if, one after one, ten poppies red had blown, And shed in a blinking of the eyes ? They have started from their rest with a bayonet at each breast, Those watchers of the west who shall never watch again ! 'T is nought to die, but oh, God's pity on the woe Of dying hearts that know they die in vain ! Beyond yon backward height that meets their dy- ing sight, A thousand tents are white, and a slumbering army lies. " Brown Bess/' the sergeant cries, as he loads her while he dies, " Let this devil's deluge reach them, and the good old cause is lost." He dies upon the word, but his signal gun is heard, Yon ambush green is stirred, yon labouring leaves are tost, And a sudden sabre waves, and like dead from opened graves, A hundred men stand up to meet a host. Dumb as death, with bated breath, Calm upstand that fearless band, And the dear old native land, like a dream of sudden sleep, AN EVENING DllEAM. 83 Passes by each manly eye that is fixed so stern and dry On the tide of battle rolling up the steep. They hold their silent ground, I can hear each fatal sound Upon that summer mound which the morning sunshine warms, The word so brief and shrill that rules them like a will, The sough of moving limbs, and the clank and ring of arms. " Fire ! " and round that green knoll the sudden war-clouds roll, And from the tyrant's ranks so fierce an an- sw'ring blast Of whirling death came back that the green trees turned to black, And dropped their leaves in winter as it passed. A moment on each side the surging smoke is wide, Between the fields are green, and around the hills are loud, But a shout breaks out, and lo ! they have rushed upon the foe, As the living lightning leaps from cloud to cloud. Fire and flash, smoke and crash, The fogs of battle close o'er friends and foes, and they are gone ! Alas, thou bright-eyed boy ! alas, thou mother's joy ! With thy long hair so fair, that didst so bravely lead them on ! I faint with pain and fear. Ah, heaven ! what do I hear ? A trumpet-note so near ? What are these that race like hunters at a chase ? Who are these that run a thousand men as one ? What are these that crash the trees far in the wav- ing rear ? 84 LYRICS. Fight on, thou young hero ! there 's help upon the way ! The light horse are coming, the great guns are coming, The Highlanders are coming ; — good God give us the day ! Hurrah for the brave and the leal ! Hurrah for the strong and the true ! Hurrah for the helmets of steel ! Hurrah for the bonnets o' blue ! A run and a cheer, the Highlanders are here ! a gallop and a cheer, the light horse are here ! A rattle and a cheer, the great guns are here ! With a cheer they wheel round and face the foe! As the troopers wheel about, their long swords are out, With a trumpet and a shout, in they go ! Like a yawning ocean green, the huge host gulphs them in, But high o'er the rolling of the flood, Their sabres you may see like lights upon the sea When the red sun is going down in blood. Again, again, again ! And the lights are on the wane ! Ah, Christ ! I see them sink, light by light, As the gleams go one by one when the great sun is down, And the sea rocks in foam beneath the night. Aye, the great sun is low, and the waves of battle flow O'er his honoured head ; but, oh, we mourn not he is down, For to-morrow he shall rise to fill his country's eyes, As he sails up the skies of renown ! Ye may yell, but ye shall groan ! Ye shall buy them bone for bone ! Now, tyrant, hold thine own ! blare the trumpet, peal the drum ! AN EVENING DREAM. 85 From yonder hill-side dark, the storm is on you ! Hark! Swift as lightning, loud as thunder, down they come ! As on some Scottish shore, with mountains frown- ing o'er, The sudden tempests roar from the glen, And roll the tumbling sea in billows to the lee, Came the charge of the gallant Highlandmen ! And as one beholds the sea tho' the wind he can- not see, . But by the waves that flee knows its might, So I tracked the Highland blast by the sudden tide that past O'er the wild and rolling vast of the fight. Yes, glory be to God ! they have stemmed the fore- most flood ! I lay me on the sod and breathe again ! In the precious moments won, the bugle call has gone To the tents where it never rang in vain, And lo, the landscape wide is red from side to side, And all the might of England loads the plain ! Like a hot and bloody dawn, across the horizon drawn, While the host of darkness holds the misty vale, As glowing and as grand our bannered legions stand, And England's flag unfolds upon the gale ! At that great sign unfurled, as morn moves o'er the world When God lifts His standard of light, With a tumult and a voice, and a rushing mighty noise, Our long line moves forward to the fight. Clarion and clarion defying, Sounding, resounding, replying, 86 LYRICS. Trumpets braying, pipers playing, chargers neigh ing, Near and far The- to and fro storm of the never-done hurrahing, Thro' the bright weather banner arid feather rising and falling, bugle and fife Calling, recalling — for death or for life — Our host moved on to the war, While England, England, England, England, Eng- land ! Was blown from line to line near and far, And like the morning sea, our bayonets you might see, Come beaming, gleaming, streaming, Streaming, gleaming, beaming, Beaming, gleaming, streaming, to the war. Clarion and clarion defying, Sounding, resounding, replying, Trumpets braying, pipers playing, chargers neigh- ing, Near and far The to and fro storm of the never-done hurrahing, Thro' the bright weather, banner and feather rising and falling, bugle and fife Calling, recalling — for death or for life — Our Ions line moved forward to the war. IN WAR-TIME. A PSALM OF THE HEART. Scourge us as Thou wilt, oh Lord God of Hosts ; Deal with us, Lord, according to our transgres- sions ; But give us Victory ! Victory, victory ! oh, Lord, victory ! Oh, Lord, victory ! Lord, Lord, Victory ! A PSALM OF THE HEART. 87 Lift Thy wrath up from the day of battle, And set it on the weight of other days ! Draw Thy strength from us for many days, So Thou be with us on the day of battle, And give us victory. Victory, victory ! oh, Lord, victory ! Oh, Lord, victory ! Lord, Lord, victory ! Let the strong arm be as the flag o' the river, The withered flag that flappeth o'er the river, When all the flood is dried out of the river ; Let the brave heart be as a drunkard's bosom, When the thick fume is frozen in the bosom, And the bare sin lies shivering ini the bosom ; Let the bold eye be sick and crazed with mid- night, Strained and cracked with aching days of mid- night, Swarmed and foul with creeping shapes of mid- night ; So Thou return upon the day of battle, So we be strong upon the day of battle, Be drunk with Thee upon the day of battle, So Thou shine o'er us in the day of battle, Shine in the faces of our enemies, Hot in the faces of our enemies, Hot o'er the battle and the victory. Victory, victory ! oh, Lord, victory ! Oh, Lord, victory ! Lord, Lord, victory ! Shame us not, oh Lord, before the wicked ! In our hidden places let Thy wrath Afflict us ; in the secret of our sin Convince us ; be the bones within our flesh Marrowed with fire, and all the strings of life JStrung to the twang of torture ; let the stench 8$ LYRICS. Of our own strength torment us ; the desire Of our own glorious image in the sea Consume us; shake the darkness like a tree, And fill the night with mischiefs, — blights and dwales, Weevils, and rots, and cankers ! But, oh Lord, Humble us not upon the day of battle, Hide not Thy face upon the day of battle, Let it shine o'er us on the day of battle, Shine in the faces of our enemies, Hot in the faces of our enemies, Hot o'er the battle and the victory ! Victory, victory ! oh, Lord, victory ! Oh, Lord, victory ! Lord, Lord, victory ! Tho* Thou shouldst glorify us above measure, Yet will we not forget that Thou art God I Honour our land, on Lord ! honour our land ! Be Thou her armour in the day of battle, Whereon the sword of man shall strike in vain ! For Thou canst find the place and leave no scar, Sting of bee, nor fairy-spot nor mole, Yet kill the germ within the core of life. Oh lead her in the glory of her beauty, So that the nations wonder at her beauty ! For Thou canst take her beauty by the heart And throw the spout of sorrow from the fountain, The flood of sorrow thro' the veins of joy. Let her soul look out of her eyes of glory, Lighten, oh Lord, from awful eyes of glory ! For Thou canst touch the soul upon its throne, The fortressed soul upon its guarded throne, Nor scorch the sweet air of the populous splendour That comes and goes about a leprous king. A PSALM OF THE HEART. 89 Therefore fear not to bless us, oh Lord God ! And give us victory ! Victory, victory ! oh, Lord, victory ! Oh, Lord, victory ! Lord, Lord, victory ! Sight of home, if Thou wilt; kiss of love, If Thou wilt ; children at the knees of peace, If Thou wilt ; parents weeping in the door Of welcome, if Thou wilt ; but victory, Victory, victory ! oh, Lord, victory ! Oh, Lord, victory ! Lord, Lord, victory ! Pangs if Thou wilt, oh Lord ! Death if Thou wilt ! Labour and famine, frost and fire and storm, Silent plague, and hurricane of battle, The field-grave, and the wolf-grave, and the sea ! But victory, victory ! oh, Lord, victory ! Oh, Lord, victory ! Lord, Lord, victory ! Consider, Lord, the oppressions of the oppressor, And give us victory ! The tyrant sitteth on his golden throne In palaces of silver, to his gates The meeting winds blow good from all the world. Who hath undone the mountain where he locks His treasure ? In the armoury of hell Which engine is not his ? His name infects The air of every zone, and to each tongue From Hecla to the Ganges adds a word , That kills all terms of pride. His servants sit In empires round his empire ; and outspread As land beneath the water, oh, my God, His kingdoms bear the half of all Thy stars ! Who hath out-told his princes ? Who hath summed His captains ?. From the number of his hosts He should forget a nation and not lack ! Therefore, oh Lord God, give us victory ! 90 LYRICS. The serf is in bis hut ; the unsacred sire Who can beget no honour. Lo his mate Dim thro' the reeking garlic — she whose womb Doth shape his ignorant shame, and whose young slave In some far field thickens a knouted hide For baser generations. Their dull eyes Are choked with feudal welfare ; their rank limbs Steam in the stye of plenty; their rude tongues, That fill the belly from the common trough, Discharge in gobbets of as gross a speech That other maw the heart. Nor doth the boor Refuse his owner's chattel tho' she breed The rich man's increase, nor doth she disdain The joyless usage of such limbs as toil Yoked with the nobler ox, and take as mute A beast's infliction ; at her stolid side The girl that shall be such a thing as she, Suckles the babe she would not, with the milk A bondmaid owes her master. Lord, Thou seest ! Therefore, oh Lord God, give us victory ! The captive straineth at the dungeon-grate. Behold, oh Lord, the secret of the rock, The dungeon, and the captive, and the chain ! Tho' it be hidden under forest leaves, Tho' it be on the mountains among clouds, Tho' they point to it as a crag o' the hill, And say concerning it that the wind waileth, Thou knowest the inner secret and the sin ! I see his white face at the dungeon bars, As snow between the bars of winter trees. He sinketh down upon the dungeon stones, His white face making light within the dungeon, The clasped whiteness of his praying hands Flickering a little light within the dungeon. And thro' the darkness, thro' the cavern darkness, Like to a runnel in a savage wood, Sweet thro' the horror of the hollow dark He sings the song of home in the strange land. A SHOWER IN WAR-TIME. 91 How long, oh Lord of thunder V Victory ! Lord God of vengeance, give us victory ! Victory, victory ! oh, Lord, victory ! Oh, Lord, victory ! Lord, Lord, victory ! A SHOWER IN WAR-TIME. Rain, rain, sweet warm rain, On the wood and on the plain ! Rain, rain, warm and sweet, Summer wood lush leafy and loud, With note of a throat that ripples and rings, Sad sole sweet from her central seat, Bubbling and trilling, Filling, filling, filling The shady space of the green dim place With an odour of melody, Till all the noon is thrilling, And the great wood hangs in the balmy day Like a cloud with an angel in the cloud, And singing because she sings ! In the sheltering wood, At that hour I stood ; I saw that in that hour Great round drops, clear round drops, Grew on every leaf and flower, And its hue so fairly took And faintly, that each tinted elf Trembled with a rarer self, Even as if its beauty shook With passion to a tenderer look. Rain, rain, sweet warm rain, On the wood and on the plain ! Rain, rain, warm and sweet, 92 LYRICS. Summer wood lush leafy and loud, With note of a throat that ripples and rings, Sad sole sweet from her central seat, Bubbling and trilling, Filling, filling, filling The shady space of the green dim place With an odour of melody, Till all the noon is thrilling, And the great wood hangs in the balmy day, Like a cloud with an angel in the cloud, And singing because she sings ! Then out of the sweet warm weather There came a little wind sighing, sighing : Came to the wood sighing, and sighing went in, Sighed thro' the green grass, and o'er the leaves brown , Sighed to the dingle, and, sighing, lay down, While all the flowers whispered together. Then came swift winds after her who was flying, Swift bright winds with a jocund din, Sought her in vain, her boscage was so good, And spread like baffled revellers thro' the wood. Then, from bough, and leaf, and bell, The great round drops, the clear round drops, In fitful cadence drooped and fell — Drooped and fell as if some wanton air Were more apparent here and there, Sphered on a favourite flower in dewy kiss, Grew heavy with delight and dropped with bliss. Rain, rain, sweet warm rain, On the wood and on the plain ; Rain, rain, still and sweet, For the winds have hushed again, And the nightingale is still, Sleeping in her central seat. Rain, rain, summer rain, Silent as the summer heat. A SHOWER IN WAR-TIME. 93 Doth it fall, or doth it rise ? Is it incense from the hill, Or bounty from the skies ? Or is the face of earth that lies Languid, looking up on high, To the face of Heaven so nigh That their balmy breathings meet ? Rain, rain, summer rain, On the wood and on the plain : Rain, rain, rain, until The tall wet trees no more athirst, As each chalice green doth fill, See the pigmy nations nurst Round their distant feet, and throw The nectar to the herbs below. The droughty herbs, without a sound, Drink it ere it reach the ground. Rain, rain, sweet warm rain, On the wood and on the plain, And round me like a dropping well, The great round drops they fell and fell. I say not War is good or ill ; Perchance they may slay, if they will, Who killing love, and loving kill. I do not join yon captive's din ; Some man among us without sin Perhaps may rightly lock him in. I do not grant the Tyrant's plea ; The slaves potential to be free Already are the Powers that be. Whether our bloodsheds flow or cease, I know that as the years increase, The flower of all is human peace. 94 LYJtICS. " The Flower." Vertumnus hath repute O'er Flora ; yet methinks the fruit But alter ego of the root ; And that which serves our deshly need, Subserves the blossom that doth feed The soul which is the life indeed. Nor well he deems who deems the rose Is for the roseberry, nor knows The roseberry is for the rose. And Autumn's garnered treasury, But prudent Nature's guarantee That Summer evermore shall be, And yearly, once a year, complete That top and culmen exquisite Whereto the slanting seasons meet. Whether our bloodsheds flow or cease, I know that, as the years increase, The flower of ail is human peace. " The Flower." Yet whether shall we sow A blossom or a seed ? I know The flower will rot, the seed will grow. By this the rain had ceased, and I went forth From that Dodona green of oak and beech. But ere my steps could reach The hamlet, I beheld along the verge A flight of fleeing cloudlets that did urge Unequal speed, as when a herd is driven By the recurring pulse of shoutings loud. I saw ; but held the omen of no worth. For by the footway not a darnel stirred, And still the noon slept on, nor even a bird Moved the dull air ; but, at each silent hand, A SHOWER IN WAR-TIME. 95 Upon the steaming land The hare lay basking, and the budded wheat Hung slumberous heads of sleep. Then I was 'ware that a great northern cloud Moved slowly to the centre of the heaven. His white head was so high That the great blue fell round him like the wide And ermined robe of kings. He sat in pride Lonely and cold ; but methought when he spied From that severe inhospitable height The distant dear delight, The melting world with summer at her side, His pale brow mellowed with a mournful light, And like a marble god he wept his stony tears. The loyal clouds that sit about his feet, All in their courtier kinds, Do weep to see him weep. After the priceless drops the sycophant winds Leap headlong down, and chase, and swirl, and sweep Beneath the royal grief that scarce may reach the ground. To see their whirling zeal, Unlikely things that in the kennel lie Begin to wheel and wheel ; The wild tarantula will spreads far and nigh, And spinning straws go spiral to the sky, And leaves long dead leap up and dance their ghastly round. And so it happened in the street 'Neath a broad eave I stood and mused again, And all the arrows of the driving rain Were tipped with slanting sleet. I mused beneath the straw pent of the bricked And sodded cot, with damp moss mouldered o'er, 96 LYRICS. The bristled thatch gleamed with a carcanet, And from the inner eaves the reeking wet Dripped ; dropping more And more, as more the sappy roof was sapped, And wept a mirkier wash that splashed and clapped The plain-stones, dribbling to the flooded door. A plopping pool of droppings stood before, Worn by a weeping age in rock of easy grain. O'erhead, hard by, a pointed beam o'erlapped, And from its jewelled tip The slipping slipping drip Did whip the fillipped pool whose hopping plashes ticked. Let one or thousands loose or bind, That land 's enslaved whose sovran mind Collides the conscience of mankind. And free — whoever holds the rood — Where Might in Right, and Power in Good, Flow each in each, like life in blood. The age has broken from his kings ! Stop him ! Behold his feet have wings. Upon his back the hero springs. Tho' Jack's horse run away with Jack, Who knows, while Jack keeps on his back, If Jack rule him or he rule Jack ? Cuckoo takes the mud away ! True the sun doth shine all day ; Cuckoo takes the mud away. Who sneers at heirloom rank ? God knows Each man that lives, each flower that blows. There may be lords — and a blue rose. A SHOWER IN WAR-TIME. 97 Even to the sod whereon you prate This land is ours. Do you debate How we shall manage our estate ? Norman, War granted you your lease : The very countersign of Peace Shows the first Lessor can release. Therefore altho' you cannot guide, Be wise ; and spare the almighty pride Of that mild monster that you ride. If England's head and heart were one, Where is that good beneath the sun Her noble hands should leave undone ! Small unit, hast thou hardiness To bid mankind to battle ? Yes. The worm will rout them, and is less. The world assaults ? Nor fight nor fly. Stand in some steadfast truth, and eye The stubborn siege grow old and die. My army is mankind. My foe The very meanest truth I know. Shall I come back a conqueror ? No. Wouldst light ? See Phosphor shines confest, Turn thy broad back upon the west ; Stand firm. The world will do the rest. Stand firm. Unless thy strength can climb Yon alp, and from that height sublime See, ere we see, the advancing time. Act for to-day ? Friend, this " to-day " Washed Adam's feet and streams away Far into yon eternity. 7 98 LYRICS. Build as men steer, by chart and pole ; Care for each stone as each were sole, Yet lay it conscious of the whole. Sow with the signs. The wise man heeds The seasons. Capricornus feeds Upon the sluggard's winter seeds. Each enterprise, or small or great, Hath its own touchhole ; watch and wait, Find that and fire the loaded fate. Do in few acts whate'er thou dost ; Let thy foe play to his own cost, Who moves the oftenest errs the most. Choose arms from Nature's armouries, Plagues, conflagrations, storms and seas, For God is surety for all these. Our town is threatened by a bear, We Ve manned the thresholds far and near, Fools ! send five men to kill the bear. Do good to him that hates thee. Good, Still good. By physic or by food ? By letting or by stanching blood ? Do as thou wouldst be done by. See What it were well he did to thee, He pure as thou, thou foul as he. Lovest thou not Peace ? Aye, moralist, Both Peace and thee. Yet well I wist They who shut Janus did slay Christ. A PRAYER OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 99 IN WAR-TIME. A PRAYER OF THE UNDERSTANDING. Lo, thi^is night. Hast thou, oh sun, refused Thy countenance, or is thy golden arm Shortened, or from thy shining place in heaven Art thou put down and lost ? Neither hast thou Refused thy constant face, nor is thine arm Shortened, nor from thy principality Art thou deposed, oh sun. Ours, ours, the sin, The sorrow. From thy steadfast noon we turned Into the eastern shade — and this is night. Yet so revolves the axle of the world, And by that brief aversion wheels us round To morn, and rolls us on the larger paths Of annual duty. Thou observant moon, That dancest round the seasonable earth As David round the ark, but half thy ring Is process, yet, complete, the circular whole Promotes thee, and expedes thy right advance, And all thy great desire of summer signs. And thou, oh sun, our centre, who thyself Art satellite, and, conscious of the far Archelion, in obedience of free will And native duty, as the good man walks Among the children's faces, with thine house About thee, least and greatest, first ajid last, Makest of the blue eternal holiday Thy glad perambulation ; and thou, far Archelion, feudatory still, of one Not sovran nor in fee of paramount power ; Moons round your worlds, worlds round your suns, suns round Such satraps as in orderly degree tore. 100 LYRICS. Confess a lordlier regent and pervade A vaster cycle — ye, so moved, commoved, Revolving and convolving, turn the heavens Upon the pivot of that summary star, Centre of all we know : and thou, oh star, Centre of all we know, chief crown of crowns, Who art the one in all, the all in one, And seest the ordered whole — nought uninvolved But all involved to one direct result Of multiform volution — in one pomp One power, one tune, one time, upon one path Move with thee moving, Thou, amid thy host Marchest — ah whither ? Oh God, before Whom We marshal thus Thy legioned works to take The secret of Thy counsel, and array Congress and progress, and, with multitude As conquerors and to conquer, in consent Of universal law, approach Thy bound, Thine immemorial bound, and at Thy face Heaven and earth flee away ; oh Thou Lord God, Whether, oh absolute existence, Thou The Maker, makest, and this fair we see Be but the mote and dust of that unseen Unsought unsearchable ; or whether Thou Whose goings forth are from of old, around Thy going in mere effluence without care Breathest creation out into the cold Beyond Thee, and, within Thine ambient breath, So walkest everlasting as we walk The unportioned snows ; or whether, meditating Eternity, self-centred, self-fulfilled, Self-continent, Thou thinkest and we live, A little while forgettest and we fade, Rememberest and we are, and this bright vision Wherein we move, nay all our total sum And story, be to Thee as to a man When in the drop and rising of a lid Lo the swift rack and fashion of a dream, A hero's grave. 101 No more ; oh Thou inscrutable, whose ways Are not as ours, whose form we know not, voice Hear not, true work behold not, mystery Conceive not, who — as thunder shakes the world And rings a silver bell — hast sometime moved The tongue of man, but in Thy proper speech Wearest a human language on a word As limpets on a rock, who, as Eternal, Omnipotential, Infinite, Allwise, In measure of Thine operation hast No prime or term, in subject as. in scheme No final end, in eidol as in act Nought but the perfect God ; oh Thou Supreme, Inaudible, Invisible, Unknown, Thy will be done. A HERO'S GRAVE. O'er our evening fire the smoke is like a pall, And funeral banners hang about the arches of the hall, In the gable end I see a catafalque aloof, And night is drawn up like a curtain to the girders of the roof. Thou knowest why we silent sit, and why our eyes are dim, Sing us such proud sorrow as we may hear for him. Reach me the old harp that hangs between the flags he won, I will sing what once I heard beside the grave of such a son. My son, my son, A father's eyes are looking on thy grave, Dry eyes that look on this green mound and see 102 LYRICS. The low weed blossom and the long grass wave, Without a single tear to them or thee, My son, my son. Why should I weep ? The grass is grass, the weeds Are weeds. The emmet hath done thus ere now. I tear a ieaf ; the green blood that it bleeds Is cold. What have I here ? Where, where, art thou, My son, my son ? On which tall trembler shall the old man lean ? Which chill leaf shall lap o'er him when he lies On that bed where in visions I have seen Thy filial love ? or, when thy father dies, Tissue a fingered thorn to close his childless eyes ? Aye, where art thou ? Men, tell me of a fame Walking the wondering nations ; and they say, When thro' the shouting people thy great name Goes like a chief upon a battle-day, They shake the heavens with glory. Well-away ! As some poor hound that thro' thronged street and square Pursues his loved lost lord, and fond and fast Seeks what he feels to be but feels not where, Tracks the dear feet to some closed door at last, And lies him down and lornest looks doth cast, So I, thro' all the long tumultuous days, Tracing thy footstep on the human sands, O'er the signed deserts and the vocal ways Pursue thee, faithful, thro' the echoing lands, Wearing a wandering staff with trembling hands : Thro' echoing lands that ring with victory, And answer for the living with the dead, a hero's grave. 103 And give me marble when I ask for bread, And give me glory when I ask for thee — It was not glory I nursed on my knee. And now, one stride behind thee r and too late, Yet true to all that reason cannot kill, I stand before the inexorable gate And see thy latest footstep on the sill, And know thou canst not come but watch and wait thee still. " Old man ! " ■ — Ah, darest thou ? yet thy look is kind, Didst thou, too, love him ? " Thou grey-headed sire, Seest thou this path which from that grave doth wind Far thro' those western uplands higher and higher, Till, like a thread, it burns in the great fire " Of sunset ? The wild sea and desert meet Eastward by yon unnavigable strand, Then wherefore hath the flow of human feet Left this dry runnel of memorial sand Meandering thro' the summer of the land ? " See where the long immeasurable snake, Between dim hall and hamlet, tower and shed, Mountain and mountain, precipice and lake, Lies forth unfinished to this final head, This green dead mound of the unfading dead ! " Do they then come to weep thee ? Do they kiss Thy relics ? Art thou then as wholly gone As some old buried saint ? My son, my son, Ah, could I mourn thee so ! Such tears were bliss ! " Old man, thev do not mourn who weep at graves like this." " 104 LYRICS. They do not mourn ? What ! hath the insolent foe Found out my child's last bed ? Who, who, are they That come and go about him ? I cry, u Who ? " I am his father — I ; — I cry " Who ? " u Aye Grey trembler, I will tell thee who are they. " The slave who, having grown up strong and stark To the set season, feels at length he wears Bonds that will break, and thro' the slavish dark Shines with the light of liberated years, And still in chains doth weep a freeman's tears. " The patriot, while the un ebbed force that hurled His tyrant throbs within his bursting veins, And, on the ruins of a hundred reigns, That ancient heaven of brass, so long unfurled, Falls with a crash of fame that fills the world, And thro' the clangour lo the unwonted strains Of peace, and, in the new sweet heavens upcurled, The sudden incense of a thousand plains. " Youth whom some mighty flash from heaven hath turned In his dark highway, and who runs forth, shod With flame, into the wilderness untrod, And as he runs his heart of flint is burned, And in that glass he sees the face of God, And falls upon his knees — and morn is all abroad. " Age who hath heard amid his cloistered ground The cheer of youth, and steps from echoing aisles, And at a sight the great blood with a bound Melts his brow's winter, which the free sun smiles To jewels, and he stands a young man crowned With glittering years among a young world shout- ing round. A hero's grave. 105 " Girls that do blush and tremble with delight On the St. John's eve of their maidenhood ; When the unsummered woman in her blood Glows through the Parian maid, and at the sight The flushing virgin weeps and feels herself too bright. " He who first feels the world-old destiny, The shaft of gold that strikes the poet still, And slowly in its victim melts away, Who knows his wounds will heal but when they kill, And drop by vital drop doth bleed his golden ill. " All whom the ever-passing mysteries Have rapt above the region of our race, And, blinded by the glory and the grace Break from the ecstatic sphere — as he who dies In darkness, and in heaven's own light doth rise, Dazed with the untried glory of the place Looks up and sees some well-remembered face, And thro' the invulnerable angels flies To that dear human breast and hides his dazzled eyes. " All who, like the sun-ripened seed that springs And bourgeons in the suri, do hold profound An antenatal stature, which the round Of the dull continent flesh hath cribbed and wound Into this kernelled man ; but having found Such soil as grew them, burst in blossomings Not native here, or, from the hallowed ground, Tower their slow height, and spread, like shelter- ing wings, Those boughs wherein the bird of omen sings High as the palms of heaven, while to the sound Lo kingdoms jocund in the sacred bound Till the world's summer fills her moon, and brings The final fruit which is the feast and fate of kings. 106 LYRICS. " And darest thou mourn ? Thy bones are left behind, But where art thou, Anchises ? Dost thou see Him who once bare the slow paternity, Foot-burnt o'er stony Troy V So, thou, reclined Goest thro' the falling years. Here, here where we Two stand, lies deep the flesh thou hast so pined To clasp, and shalt clasp never. Verily, Love and the worm are often of one mind ! God save them from election ! Pity thee ? True he lifts not thy load, but he hath signed And at his beck a nation rose up free ; Thy wounds his living love may never bind, But at the dead man's touch posterity Is healed. To thee, thou poor, and halt, and blind, He is a staff" no more : but times to be Lean on his monumental memory As the moon on a mountain. Thou shalt find A silent home, a cheerless hearth : but he Shall be a fire which the enkindling wind, Blowing for ever from eternity, Fans till its universal blaze hath shined The yule of thankful ages. Pity thee ? A son is lost to thine infirmity ; Poor fool, what then ? A son thou hast resigned To give a father to the virtues of mankind." IN WAR-TIME. AN ASPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT. Lord Jesus, as a little child, Upon some high ascension day When a great people goes to pay Allegiance, and the tumult wild AN ASPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT. 107 Roars by its thousand streets, and fills The billowy nation on the plain, As roar into the heaving main A thousand torrents from the hills, Caught in the current of the throng Is drawn beneath the closing crowd, And, drowning in the human flood, Is whirled in its dark depths along ; And low under the ruthless feet, Or high as to the awful knees Of giants that he partly sees, Blinded with fear and faint with heat, Mindless of all but what doth seem, And shut-out from the upper light, Maddens within a monstrous night Of limbs that crush him like a dream ; And when his strength no more can stand, And while he sinks in his last swound, Is lifted from the deadly ground, And led by a resistless hand, And thro' the opening agony Goes on and knows not where, beside The mastery of his guardian guide, Goes on, and knows not where nor why, Till, when the sky no more is hid, Between the rocking heads he sees A mount that rises by degrees Above them like a pyramid, And on the summit of the mount A vacant throne, and round the throne Bright-vestured princes, zone by zone, In circles that he cannot count, 108 LYRICS. And feels, at length, a slanting way, And labours by his guardian good Till forth, as from a lessening wood, They step into the dazzling day, And from the mount he sees below The marvel of the marshalled plain, And what was tumult is a reign, And, as he climbs, the princes know His guide, and fall about his feet, Before his face the courtiers fall, And lo ! it is the Lord of all, And on his throne he takes his seat ; And, while strong fears transfix the boy, The mighty people far and near Throw up upon the eye and ear The flash and thunder of their joy, And, round the royal flag unfurled, In sequent love and circling awe The legions lead their living law, And what was Chaos is a World : So, Lord, Thou seest this mortal me, Deep in Titanic days that press Incessant from unknown access To issues that I cannot see. Caught in the current stern and strong I sink beneath the closing crowd, And drowning in the awful flood Am whirled in its dark depths along, Struggling with shows so thronged and thrust On these wide eyes which bruise and burn, And flash with half-seen sights, or turn To that worse darkness thick with dust, AN ASPIRATION OF THE SPIRIT. 109 That mindful of but what doth seem, And hopeless of the upper light, I madden in a monstrous night Of shapes that crush me like a dream. Then when my strength no more can stand, And while I sink in my last swound, Lo ! I am lifted from the ground, And led by a resistless hand ; And thro' the opening agony Go on and know not where, beside The mastery of my guardian guide, Go on, and know not where or why ; . Nor, tho' I cannot see Thy brow, Distrust the hand I feel so dear, Nor question how Thou wert so near, Nor ask Thee whither goest Thou, Nor whence Thy footsteps first began. Whence, Lord, Thou knowest : whither, Lord, Thou knowest : how Thou knowest. Oh Word That can be touched, oh Spoken Man, Enough, enough, if Thou wilt lead, To know Thou knowest : enough to know That darkling at Thy side I go, And this strong hand is Thine indeed. Yet by that side, unspent, untrod, Oh let me, clinging still to Thee, Between the swaying wonders see The throne upon the mount of God. And — tho' they close before mine eye, And all my course is choked and shut — Feel Time grow steeper under foot, And know the final height is nigh. 110 LYKICS. And as one sees, thro' cambered straits Of forests, on his forward way, Horizons green of coloured day, Oh let me thro' the crowding Fates Behold the light of skies unseen, • Till on that sudden Capitol I step forth to the sight of all That is, and shall be, and hath been, And Thou, oh King, shalt take Thine own Triumphant ; and," Thy place fulfilled, The flaw of Nature shall be healed, And joyous round Thy central throne I see the vocal ages roll, And all the human universe Like some great symphony rehearse The order of its perfect whole ; And seek in vain where once I fell, Nor know the anarchy I knew In those congenial motions due Of this great work where all is well, And smile, with dazzled wisdom dumb, — Remembering all I said and sung — That man asks more of mortal tongue Than skill to say, " Thy kingdom come." THE MOTHER'S LESSON. Come hither an' sit on my knee, Willie, Come hither an' sit on my knee, An' list while I tell how your brave brither fell, FechthV for vou an' for me : THE MOTHER'S LESSON. Ill Fechtin' for you an' for me, Willie, Wi' his guid sword in his han\ Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man ! Ye min' o' your ain brither dear, Willie, Ye min' o' your ain brither dear, How he pettled ye aye wi' his pliskies an' play, An' was aye sae cantie o' cheer : Aye sae cantie o' cheer, Willie, As he steppit sae tall an' sae gran'. Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. D' ye min' when the bull had ye doun, Willie, D' ye min' when the bull had ye doun ? D' ye min' wha grippit ye fra the big bull, D' ye min' o' his muckle red woun' ? D' ye min' o' his muckle red woun', Willie, D' ye min' how the bluid doun ran ? Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. D' ye min' when we a' wanted bread, Willie, The year when we a' wanted bread ? How he smiled when he saw the het parritch an' a', An' gaed cauld an' toom to his bed : Gaed awa' toom to his bed, Willie, For the love o' wee Willie an' Nan ? Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man ! Next simmer was bright but an' ben, Willie, Next simmer was bright but an' ben, When there cam a gran' cry like a win' Strang an' high By loch, an' mountain, an' glen : By loch, an' mountain, an' glen, Willie, The cry o' a far forrin Ian', 112 LYRICS. An' up loupit ilka brave man, Willie, Up loupit ilka brave man. For the voice cam saying, " Wha '11 gang ? " Willie, The voice cam saying, " Wha '11 gang To fecht owre the sea that the slave may be free, An' the weak be safe fra' the Strang ? " The weak be safe fra' the Strang, Willie ; Rab looked on Willie an' Nan, An' hech, but he was a brave man, Willie, Hech, but he was a brave man ! I kent by his een he was gaun, Willie, I kent by his een he was gaun, An' he rose like a chief: twice we spak in our grief — " Dinna gang ! " " My mither, I maun ! " When he said, u My mither, I maun," Willie, I gied him his sword to his han'. Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man ! An' sae it happened afar, Willie, Sae it happened afar, In the dead midnight there rose a great fecht, An' Rab was first i' the war ; First i' the haur o' the war, Willie, Wi' his guid sword in his han' ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man ! An' there cam' a dark wicked lord, Willie, There cam' a dark wicked lord, An' oh my guid God ! on my bauld bairn he rode, An' smote him wi' his sword : Smote him wi' his sword, Willie, But Rab had his guid sword in han' ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man ! THE MOTHER'S LESSON. 113 He rushed on the fae in his might, Willie, In his might to the fecht thro' the night, An' he grippit him grim, an' the fae grippit him, An' they rolled owre i' the fecht : They rolled owre i' the fecht, Willie, Rab wi' his guid sword in han' ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man ! When the gran' stowre cleared awa', Willie, When the gran' stowre cleared awa', An' the mornin' drew near in chitter an' in fear, Still, still, in death they lay twa : Still, still, in death they lay twa, Willie, Rab wi' his guid sword in han' ! Hech, butrye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. Then up fra the death-sod they bore him, Willie, The young men an' maidens they bore him, An' they mak the rocks ring 'gin my bairn were a king, An' a' the sweet lassies greet owre him : A' the sweet lassies greet owre him, Willie, An' their proud lips kiss his cauld han', Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. An' they big him a green grass grave, Willie, They big him a green grass grave, My ain lad ! my ain ! an' they write on the stane, " Wha wad na sleep wi' the brave ? " An' wha wad na sleep wi' the brave, Willie ? Wha wad na dee for his Ian' ? Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man ! Noo come to yon press wi' me, Willie, Come to yon "press wi' me, 8 114 LYKICS. And I '11 show ye somethin' o' auld lang syne, When he was a baimie like thee : When he was a bairnie like thee, Willie, And stood at my knee where ye stan', Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. D' ye see this wee bit bannet, Willie, — I min' weel the day it was new — See how I haud it here to my heart, His wee bit bannet o' blue : His wee bit bannet o' blue, Willie, Wi' its wee bit cockie an' ban' ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. D' ye see his ba' and his stickie, Willie, When he played at the ba' ; Na, na, ye 're no to tak it in han', Ye 're no sae brave an' sae braw ! But gin ye grow braw an' brave, Willie, Aiblins I 'se gie 't to your han', Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. An' this was his Guid Buik, Willie, The Guid Buik that he lo'ed, Where he read the Word o' the great guid Lord Wha bought us wi' His bluid. An' will we spare our bluid, Willie, To buy the dear auld Ian' ? Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. They say he 's dead an' gane, Willie, They say he 's dead an' gane. Wad God my bairnies a' were sons, That ten might gang for ane : Ten might gang for ane, Willie, THE MOTHER'S LESSON. 115 To save the dear auld Ian' ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. I 'd no be lorn an' lane, Willie, I 'd no be lorn an' lane, For gin I had him here by the han' He could na be mair my ain : He 'd no be mair my ain, Willie, Gin 1 grip pit him by the han' ! Hech, but ye 11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye 11 be a brave man. An' oh ! gin ye gang fra me, Willie, Gin ye gang as he gaed fra me, Ye 11 aye be still as near to my heart As the noo when ye sit on my knee : As the noo when ye sit on my knee, Willie, An' I haud yejby the han'. Hech, but ye 11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but yell be a brave man. " An' wad ye no greet at a', mither ? Wad ye no greet at a' ? " Aye, wad I greet my bonnie bonnie bairn ! " An' will ye no greet when I fa' ? " Will I no greet when ye fa', Willie ? God bless your bonnie wee han' ! Hech, but ye 11 be a brave man, Willie, I kent weel ye 'd be a brave man ! Aye, will I greet day an' night, Willie, Aye, wall 1 greet day an' night ! But gin ye can see fra your heaven doun to me, Ye 'se no be wae at the sight : Ye 'se- no be wae at the sight, Willie, E'en in your bright blessed Ian' ! Hech, but ye 11 be a brave man, Willie, I kent weel ye 'd be a brave man. 116 LYRICS. Ye ken how I greet sae sair, Willie, Ye ken how I greet sae sair, When ye 're no my ain guid bairnie the day, An' my een are cloudy wi' care : My een are cloudy wi' care, Willie, An' I lean doun my head on my han', An' think " Will ye be a guid man, Willie, Ah, will ye grow a guid man ? " Ye ken when I did na greet sae, Willie, Ye ken when I did na greet sae ! Gran' gran' are a proud mither's tears, An' the gate that she gangs in her wae : The gate that she gangs in her wae, Willie, Wi' her foot on her ain proud Ian' ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. Ye min' how ye saw me greet, Willie, Ye min' how ye saw me greet, When the great news cam' to the toun at e'en, An' we heard the shout in the street : We heard the shout in the street, Willie, An' the death-word it rode an' it ran. Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. Ye min' how I lift up mine ee', Willie, Ye min' how I lift up mine ee', An' smiled as I smile when I stan' i' the door, An' see ye come toddlin' to me : See ye come toddlin' to me, Willie, An' smile afar off where I stan'. Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. Thank God for ilk tear I let fa', Willie, Thank God for ilk tear I let fa', For oh, where they wipe awa' tears fra' a' een, THE MOTHER'S LESSON. 117 Sic tears they wad no wipe awa' : Sic tears they wad no wipe awa', Willie, Tho' there 's nane may be sad i' that Ian' ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. Noo to your play ye maun gang, Willie, Noo to your play ye maun gang, An belyve, my ain wee, ye '11 come back to my knee, And I "se sing ye an auld Scots sang : I 'se sing ye an auld Scots sang, Willie, A sang o' the dear auld Ian' ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. An' aye d' ye min' what I say, Willie, What ye heard your auld mither say, Better, to dee a brave man an' free, Than to live a fause coward for aye : Than to live a fause coward for aye, Willie, An' stan' by the shame o' your Ian' ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. It 's brave to be first at the schule, It 's brave to be cock o' the class, It 's brave to thwack a Strang fule, It 's brave to win a wee lass, It 's brave to be first wi' the pleugh, An' first i' the reel an' strathspey, An' first at the tod i' the cleugh, An' first at the stag at bay. It 's brave to be laird o' the glen, It *a brave to be chief o' the clan, But he that can dree for his neebor to dee, Oh, he 's the true brave man : He 's the true brave man, Willie, 118 LYRICS. An' the fame o' his name sail be gran* ! Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man, Willie, Hech, but ye '11 be a brave man. ALONE. There came to me softly a small wind from the sea, And it lifted a curl as it passed by me. But I sang sorrow and ho the heavy day ! And I sang heigho and well-away ! Again there came softly a small wind from the sea, And it lifted a curl as it passed by me. And still I sang sorrow and ho the heavy day ! " And I sang heigho and well-away ! Once more there came softly that small wind from the sea, And it lifted a curl as it passed by me. I hushed my song of sorrow and ho the heavy day, And I hushed my heigho and well-away. Then, when I was silent, that small wind from the sea, It came the fourth time tenderly to me ; To me, to me, Sitting by the sea, Sitting sad and solitary thinking of thee. Like warm lips it touched me — that soft wind from the sea, And I trembled and wept as it passed by me. FAREWELL. 119 FAREWELL. Hear me, hear me, now ! By this heaven less pure than thou Fare thee well ! By this living light Less bright, Fare thee well I By the boundless sea Of mine agony, Fare thee well ! That unfathomed sea Which must roll from me to thee, Must roll from thee to me, Fare thee well ! By the tears that I have bled for thee, Farewell ! By the life's-blood I will shed for thee, Farewell ! By that field of death and fear Where I '11 fight with sword and spear The fight I 'ni fighting here, Fare thee well ! By a form amid the storm, Fare thee well ! By a sigh above the cry, Fare thee well ! By the war-cloud and the shout That shall wrap me round about, But can never shut thee out, Fare thee well ! 120 LYRICS. By the wild and bloody close, When I loose this hell of woes, And these fires shall eat our foes, Fare thee well ! By all thou 'It not forget r Fare thee well ! By the joy when first we met, Fare thee well ! By the mighty love and pain Of the frantic arms that strain What they ne'er shall clasp again Fare thee well ! By the bliss of our first kiss, Fare thee well I By the locked love of our last, Till a passion like a blast Tore the future from the past, Fare thee well ! By the nights that I shall weep for thee, Farewell ! By the vigils I shall keep for thee, Farewell ! By the memories that will beam of thee, Farewell ! By the dreams that I shall dream of thee, Farewell ! By the passion when I wake Of this heart that will not break, That can bleed but cannot break, Fare thee well I By that holier woe of thine, Fare thee well ! By thy love more pure than mine, Fare thee well 1 SLEEPING AND WAKING. 121 By the days thou shalt hold dear for me, The lone life thou shalt bear for me, The gray hairs thou shalt wear for me, Farewell ! By thy good deeds offered up for me, Farewell ! When thou fillest the wanderer's cup for me, Farewell ! When thou givest the hungry bread for me, Farewell ! When thou watchest by the dead for me, Farewell ! By the faith of thy pure eyes, By the hopes that shall arise % Day and night to the deaf skies, Fare thee well ! By that faith I cannot share, Fare thee well ! By this hopeless heart's despair, Fare thee well ! By the days I have been glad for thee, The years I shall be sad for thee, The hours I shall be mad for thee, Farewell ! SLEEPING AND WAKING. I had a dream — I lay upon thy breast, In that sweet place where we lay long ago : I thought the morning woodbine to and fro With playful shadows whipped away my rest, And in my sleep I cried to thee, too blest, 122 LYRICS. " Rise, oh my love, the morning sun is bright, Let us arise, oh love, let us arise ; The flowers awake, the lark is in the skies, I will array myself in my delight, And we will — " and I woke to death and night \ " HE LOVES AND HE RIDES AWAY." 'T was in that island summer where They spin the morning gossamer, And weave the evening mist, That, underneath the hawthorn-tree, I loved my love, and my love loved me, And there we lay and kissed, And saw the happy ships upon the yielding sea. Soft my heart, and warm his wooing. What we did seemed, while 't was doing, Beautiful and wise ; Wiser, fairer, more in tune, Than all else in that sweet June, And sinless as the skies That warmed the willing earth thro' all the languid noon. Ah that fatal spell ! Ere the evening fell I fled away to hide my frightened face, And cried that I was born, And sobbed with love and scorn, And in the darkness sought a darker place, And blushed, and wept, and blushed, and dared not think of morn. Day and night, day and night, And I saw no light, "HE LOVES AND HE RIDES AWAY." 123 Night and day, night and day, And in my woe I lay And dreamed the dreams they dream who cannot sleep : My speech was withered, and I could not pray ; My tears were frozen, and I could not weep. I saw the hawthorn rise Between me and the skies, I felt the shadow was from pole to pole, I felt the leaves were shed, I felt the birds were dead, And on the earth I snowed the winter of my soul. Like to the hare wide eyed, That with her throbbing side Pressed to the rock awaits the coming cry, In my despair I sate And waited for my fate ; And as the hunted hare returns to die, And with her latest breath Regains her native heath, So, when I heard the feet of destiny Near and more near, and caught the yelp of death, Toward the sounding sea, Toward my hawthorn-tree, Under the ignorant stars I darkly crept : " There," I said, " they'll find me dead, Lying within my maidenhead." And at my own unwonted voice, I wept ; And for my great heart-ache, Within a little brake I lay me weary down and weary slept, Nor ever oped mine eyes till morn had left the lake. Her morning bath was o'er, And on the golden shore She stood like Flora with her floral train, And all her track was seen 124 LYRICS. Among the watery sheen, That blushed, and wished, and blushing wished again, And parted still, and closed, with pleasure that had been. Oh the happy isle, The universal smile That met, as love meets love, the smile of day, And touched and lit delight Within the common light, Till all the joy of life was ecstacy, And morn's wild maids ran each her flowery way, And shook her dripping locks o'er hill, and dale, and lea ! " At least," I said, " my tree is sear and blight, My tree, my hawthorn-tree ! " With downcast eyes of fear I drew me near and near, Dazed with the dewy glory of the hour, Till under-foot I see A flower too dear to me : I pause, and raise my full eyes from the flower, And lo ! my hawthorn-tree ! As a white-limbed may, In some illumined bay, Flings round her shining charms in starry rain, And with her body bright Dazzles the waters white, That fall from her fair form, and flee in vain, Dyed with the dear unutterable sight, And circle out her beauty thro' the circling main, So my hawthorn-tree Stood and seemed to me The very face that smiled the summer smile : All lesser light-bearers "HE LOVES AND HE RIDES AWAY." 125 Did light their lamps at hers — She lit her own at heaven's, and looked the while A purer sweeter sun, Whence beauty was begun, And blossomed from her blossoms thro' the bios- _ soming isle. Then I took heart, and as I looked upon Her unstained white, I said, " I am not wholly vile." Thus my hawthorn-tree Was my witness unto me, • And so I answered my impleading sin Till blossom-time was o'er, And with the autumn roar Mine unrebuked accuser entered in, And I fell down convinced, and strove with shame Some time after came to me, An image of the hawthorn-tree, And bore the old sweet witness ; and I heard, And from among the dead I lifted up my head, As one lifts up to hear a little bird, And finds the night is past and all the east is red. Small and fair, choice and rare, Snowy pale with moonlight hair, My little one blossoms and springs ! Like joy with woe singing to it, Like love with sorrow to woo it, So my witty one so my pretty one sings ! And I see the white hawthorn-tree and the bright summer bird singing thro' it, And my heart is prouder than kings! While 1 look on her I seem Once again in the sweet dream 126 LYRICS. Of that enchanted day, When, underneath the hawthorn-tree, I loved my love, and my love loved me : And lost in love we lay, And saw the happy ships upon the yielding sea. While I look on her I seem Once again in that bright dream, Beautiful and wise : Wiser, fairer, more in tune, Than all else in that sweet June, And sinless as the skies That warmed the willing earth thro' all the languid noon. Like my hawthorn-tree, She stands and seems to me The very face that smiles the summer smile : All lesser light-bearers Do light their lamps at hers — She lights her own at heaven's, and looks the while A sweeter purer sun, Whence beauty is begun, To blossom from that blossom thro' the blossoming isle. Thou shalt not leave me, child ! Come weather fierce or mild, My babe, my blossom ! thou shalt never leave me ! Life shall never wean us, Nor death shall e'er have room to come between us, And time may grieve me but shall ne'er bereave me, Nor see us more apart than he hath seen us. For I will fall with thee, As a bird from the tree Falls with a butterfly petal whitely shed, THE CAPTAIN'S WIFE. 127 And falling — thou and I — I shall not dread to die, But like a child I '11 take my flower to bed. And when the long cold death-night hath gone by, In the great darkness of the sepulchre I '11 feel and find thee near, My babe, my white white blossom ! And when the trumpet cries, I shall not fear to rise, But wear thee o'er the spot upon my bosom, And come out of. my grave and bear the awful eyes. THE CAPTAIN'S WIFE. I do not say the day is long and weary, For while thou art content to be away, Living in thee, oh Love, I live thy day, And reck not if mine own be sad and dreary. I do not count its sorrows or its charms : It lies as cold, as empty, and as dead, As lay my wedding-dress beside my bed When I was clothed in thy dear arms. Yet there is something here within this breast Which, like a flower that never blossoms, lieth ; And tho' in words and tears my sorrow crieth, I know that it hath never been exprest. Something that blindly yearneth to be known, And doth not burn, nor rage, nor leap, nor dart ; But struggles in the sickness of my heart, As a root struggles in a vault of stone. Now, by my wedding-ring, I charge thee do not move 128 LYRICS. That heavy stone that on the vault doth lie ; I charge thee be of merry cheer, my love, Nor ever let me know that thou dost sigh, For, ah ! how light a thing Would shake me with the sorrow I deny ! I am as one who hid a giant's child In her deep prison, and, from year to year, He grew to his own stature, fierce and wild, And what she took for love she kept for fear. Oh, thou enchanter, who dost hold the spells Of all my sealed cells,- Oh Love, thou hast been silent all too long, A little longer, Love, oh, silent be ; My secret hath waxed strong, My giant hath grown up to angry age ; Do thou but say the word that sets him free, And, lo ! he tears me in his rage ! I do not say the day is sad and dreary, For while thou art content to be away, Living in thee, oh Love, I live thy day, And reck not if mine own be wan and weary. I look down on it from my far love-dream, As some drowned saint may see with musing eyes Her lifeless body float adown the stream, While she is smiling in her skies. But do thou silence keep ! For I am one who walketh on the ledge Of some great rock's sheer edge : I walk in beauty and in light, Self-balanced on the height : A breath ! — and I am breathless in the deep. Oh, my own Love, I warn Thy grief to be as still as they who tread THE CAPTAIN'S WIFE. 129 The snow of alpine peak, And see the pendulous avalanche o'erhead Hang like a dew-drop on a thorn ! I charge thee silence keep ! My life stands breathless by her agony, Oh, do not bid her leap ! I am as calm as air Before a summer storm ; The ocean of my thoughts hath ceased to roll ; This living heart that doth not beat is warm ; 1 think the stillness of my face is fair ; The cloud that fills my soul Is not a cloud of pain. Beware, beware ! one rash Sweet glance may be the flash That brings it raving down in thunder and in rain ! No, do not speak : Nor, oh ! let any tell of thy pale cheek, Nor paint the silent sorrow of thine eye, Nor tell me thou art fond, or gay, or glad ; For, ah ! so tuned and lightly strung am I, That howsoe'er thou stir, I ring thereby. Thy manly voice is deep, But if thou touch from sleep The woman's treble of my shrill reply, Ah, who shall say thine echoes may not weep ? A jester's ghost is sad, The shades of merriest flowers do mow and creep, And oh, the vocal shadows that should fly About the simplest word that thou canst say, What after spell shall ever lay ? Hast thou forgot when I sat down to sing To my forsaken harp, long, long ago, How thou, for sport, wouldst strike a single string, And hark the hovering chorus come and go, Low and high, high and low, 9 130 LYRICS. Till round the throbbing wire Rose such a quivering quire, As all King David's wives were echoing The tenor of their king. Like those dear strings, my silent soul is full Of cries, as a ripe fruit is full of wine. The fruit is hanging fair and beautiful, And dry-eyed as a rose in the sunshine, But try it with a single touch of thine, And, lo ! the drops that start, And all the golden vintage of its heart ! So, thinking of thy debt to Love and me, In some dull hour beyond the sea, Do thou but only say — As carelessly as men do pay their debts — " Oh, weary day ! " And that one sigh o'ersets The hive of my regrets, " Ah, weary, weary day, Oh, weary, weary day, Oh, day so weary, oh, day so dreary, Oh, weary, weary, weary, weary, weary, Oh, weary, weary ! " GRASS FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD. Small sheaf Of withered grass, that hast not yet revealed Thy story, lo ! I see thee once more green And growing on the battle-field, On that last day that ever thou didst grow ! I look down thro* thy blades and see between A little lifted clover leaf GRASS FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD. 131 Stand like a cresset : and I know If this were morn there should be seen In its chalice such a gem As decks no mortal diadem Poised with a lapidary skill Which merely living doth fulfil And pass the exquisite strain of subtlest human will. But in the sun it lifteth up A dry unje welled cup, Therefore I see that day doth not begin ; And yet I know its beaming lord Hath not yet passed the hill of noon, Or thy lush blades Would be more dry and thin, And every blade a thirsty sword Edged with the sharp desire that soon Should draw the silver blood of all the shades. I feel 't is summer. This whereon I stand Is not a hill, nor, as I think, a vale ; The soil is soft upon the generous land, Yet not as where the meeting streams take hand Under the mossy mantle of the dale. Such grass is for the meadow. If I try To lift my heavy eyelids, as in dreams A power is on them, and I know not why. Thou art but part; the whole is unconfest: Beholding thee I long to know the rest. As one expands the bosom with a sigh, I stretch my sight's horizon ; but it seems, Ere it can widen round the mystery, To close in swift contraction, like the breast. The air is held, as by a charm, In an enforced silence, as like sound As the dead man the living. 'T is so still, I listen for it loud. And when I force my eyes from thy sole place And see a wider space, Above, around, 132 LYRICS. In ragged glory like a torn And golden-natured cloud, O'er the dim field a living smoke is warm ; As in a city on a Sabbath morn The hot and summer sunshine goes abroad Swathed in the murky air, As if a god Enrobed himself in common flesh and blood, Our heavy flesh and blood, And here and there As unaware Thro' the dull lagging limbs of mortal make, That keep unequal time, the swifter essence brake. But hark a bugle horn ! And, ere it ceases, such a shock As if the plain were iron, and thereon An iron hammer, heavy as a hill, Swung by a monstrous force, in stroke came down And deafened Heaven. I feel a swound Of every sense bestunned. The rent ground seems to rock, And all the definite vision, in such wise As a dead giant borne on a swift river, Seems sliding off for ever, When my reviving eyes, As one that holds a spirit by his eye With set inexorable stare, Fix thee : and so I catch, as by the hair, The form of that great dream that else had drifted by- I know not what that form may be ; The lock I hold is all I see, And thou, small sheaf! art all the battle-field to me. The wounded silence hath not time to heal When see ! upon thy sod The round stroke of a charger's heel GRASS FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD. 133 With echoing thunder shod ! As the night-lightning shows A mole upon a momentary face, So, as that gnarled hoof strikes the indented place, I see it, and it goes ! And I hear the squadrons trot thro* the heavy shell and shot, And wheugh ! but the grass is gory ! Forward ho ! blow to blow, at the foe in they go, And 't is hieover heigho for glory ! The rushing storm is past, But hark ! upon its track the far drums beat, And all the earth that at thy roots thou hast Stirs, shakes, shocks, sounds, with quick strong tramp of feet In time unlike the last. Footing to tap of drum The charging columns come ; And as they come their mighty martial sound Blows on before them as a flaming fire Blows in the wind ; for, as old Mars in ire Strode o'er the world encompassed in a cloud, So the swift legion, o'er the quaking ground, Strode in a noise of battle. Nigh and nigher I heard it, like the long swell gathering loud What-time a land-wind blowing from the main Blows to the burst of fury and is o'er, As if an ocean on one fatal shore Fell in a moment whole, and threw its roar Whole to the further sea : and as the strain Of my strong sense cracked in the deafened ear, And all the rushing tumult of the plain Topped its great arch above me, a swift foot Was struck between thy blades to the struck root, And lifted : as into a sheath A sudden sword is thrust and drawn again Ere one can gasp a breath. 134 LYRICS. I was so near, I saw the wrinkles of the leather grain, The very cobbler's stitches, and the wear By which I knew the wearer trod not straight ; An honest shoe it seemed that had been good To mete the miles of any country lane, Nor did one sign explain 'T was made to wade thro' blood! My shoe, soft footstooled on this hearth, so far From strife, hath such a patch, and as he past His broken shoelace whipt his eager haste. An honest shoe, good faith ! that might have stood Upon the threshold of a village inn And welcomed all the world : or by the byre And barn gone peaceful till the day closed in, And, scraped at eve upon some homely gate, Ah, Heaven ! might sit beside a cottage fire And touch the lazy log to softer flames than war. Long, long, thou wert alone, I thought thy days were done, Flat as ignoble grass that lies out mown By peaceful hands in June, I saw thee lie. A worm crawled o'er thee, and the gossamer That telegraphs Queen Mab to Oberon, Lengthening his living message, passed thee by. But rain fell : and thy strawed blades one by one Began to stir and stir. And as some moorland bird Whom the still hunter's stalking steps have stirred, When he stands mute, and nothing more is heard, With slow succession and reluctant art Grows upward from her bed, Each move a muffled start, And thro' the silent autumn covert red Uplifts a throbbing head That times the ambushed hunter's thudding heart ; GRASS FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD. 135 Or as a snow-drop bending low- Beneath a flake of other snow Thaws to its height when spring winds melt the skies, And drip by drip doth mete a measured rise ; Or as the eyelids of a child's fair eyes Lift from her lower lashes slow and pale To arch the wonder of a fairy tale ; So thro' the western light I saw thee slowly rearing to thy height Then when thou hadst regained thy state, And while a meadow-spider with three lines Enschemed thy three tall pillars green, And made the enchanted air between Mortal with shining signs, (For the loud carrion-flies were many and late), Betwixt thy blades and stems There fell a hand, Soft, small and white, and ringed with gold and gems; And on those stones of price I saw a proud device, And words I could not understand. Idly, one by one, The knots of anguish came undone The fingers stretched as from a cramp of woe, And sweet and slow Moved to gracious shapes of rest, Like a curl of soft pale hair Drying in the sun. And then they spread, And sought a wonted greeting in the air, And strayed Between thy blades, and with each blade As with meeting fingers played 136 LYRICS. And tresses long and fair. Then again at placid length it lay, Stretched as to kisses of accustomed lips ; And again in sudden strain Spring, falling clenched with pain, Till the knuckles white, Thro' the evening gray, Whitened and whitened as the snowy tips Of far hills glimmer thro* the night. But who shall tell that agony That beat thee, beat thee into bloody clay Red as the sards and rubies of the rings ; As when a bird, fast by the fowler's net, A moment doth forget His fetters, and with desperate wings A-sudden springs and falls, And (while from happy clouds the skylark calls) Still feebler springs And fainter falls, And still untamed upon the gory ground With failing strength renews his deadly wound ? At length the struggle ceased ; and my fixed eye Perceived that every finger wan Did quiver like the quivering fan Of a dying butterfly, Nor long I watched until Even the humming in the air was still. Then I gazed and gazed, Nor once my aching eyeballs raised Till a poor bird that had a meadow nest Came down, and like a shadow ran Among the shadowy grass. I followed with mine eyes ; and with a strain Pursued her, till six cubits* length beyond Thy central sheaf, I found A sight I could not pass. Thehacked and haggard head Of a huge war-horse dead. The evening haze hung o'er him like a breath. GRASS FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD. 137 And still in death He stretched drawn lips of rage that grinned in vain ; A sparrow chirped upon His wound, and in his dying slaver fed, Or picked those teeth of stone That bit with lifeless jaws the purple tongue of pain. But I remembered that dead hand I left to trace the childless lark, And back o'er those six cubits of grass-land, Blade by blade, and stalk by stalk, As one doth walk Who, mindful, counts by dark Along the garden palings to the gate, I felt along the vision to where late There lay that dead hand white ; But now methought that there was something more Than when I looked before, And what was more was sweeter than the rest ; As when upon the moony half of night Aurora lays a living light, Softer than moonshine, yet more bright. And as I looked I was aware Another hand was on the hand, A smaller hand, more fair But not more white, as is the warm delight That curves and curls and coyly glows About the blushing heart of the white rose More fair but not more white Than those broad beauties that expand And fall, and falling blanch the morning air. Both hands lay motionless, The living on the dead. But by and by The living hand began to move and press The cold dead flesh, and took its silent way So often o'er the unrespective clay, In such lon^-drawn caress 138 LYRICS. Of pleading passion, such an ecstacy Of supplicating touch, that as they lay So like, so unlike, twined with the fond art And all the dear delay And dreadful patience of a desperate heart, Methought that to the tenement From which it lately went, The naked life had come back, and did try By every gate to enter. While I thought, With sudden clutch of new intent The living grasp had caught The dead compliance. Slowly thro' The dusky air she raised it, and aloft, While all her fingers soft And every starting vein Tightened as in a rack of pain, Held it one straining moment fixed and mute, And let it go. And with a thud upon the sod, It fell like falling fruit. Then there came a cry, Tearless, bloodless, dry Of every sap of sorrow but its own — It had no likeness among living cries ; And to my heart my streaming blood was blown As if before my eyes A dead man sprang up dead, and dead fell down. The carrion-hunting winds that prowl the wold, Frenzied for prey, sweep in and bear it on, Far, far and further thro' the shrieking cold, And still the yelling pack devour it as they run. And silence, like a want of air, Was round me, and my sense burned low, And darkness darkened ; and the glow Of the living hand being gone, The dead hand showed like a pale stone Full fathom five Under a quiet bay. GRASS FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD. 139 But still my sight did dive To reach it where it lay, And still the night grew dark, and by degrees The dead thing glimmered with a drowned light, As faces seem and sink in depths of darkening seas. Then, while yet My set eyes saw it, as the sage doth set His glass to some dim glimpse afar That palpitates from mote to star, It was touched and hid ; Touched and hid, as when a deep sea-weed Hides some white sea-sorrow. All My sight uprose, and all my soul (As one who presses at the pane When a city show goes by), Crowded into the fixed eye, And filled the starting ball. Nor filled in vain. I began to feel The air had something to reveal. Beyond thejplank indifference Was underlined another sense, Was rained a gracious influence ; And tho' the darkness was so deep, I knew it was not wholly dead, Nor empty, as we feel in sleep That some one standeth by the bed. I beheld, as who should look In trance upon a sealed book. I perceived that in a place The night was lighter, as the face Of an Indian Queen when love Draws back the dark blood from her sick Pale cheek Behind the sable curtain that doth not move. No outer light was shed, But as the mystery Before my stronger will did slowly yield, 140 LYRICS. I saw, as in that dark hour before morn When the shocks of harvest corn Exhale about the midnight field The wealth of yellow suns, and breathe a gentle day. I saw the shape of a fair bended head, And hair pale streaming long and low Veiling the face I might not know, And dabbling all the ground with sweet uncertain woe. Much I questioned in my mind Of her form and kind, But my stern compelling eye Brought no other answer from the air, Nor did my rude hand dare Profane that agony. I watched apart With such a sweet awe in my heart As looks up dumb into the sky When that goddess, lorn and lone, Who slew grim winter like a polar -hew:, And threw his immemorial white Upon her granite throne, Sits all unseen as Death, Save for the loss of many a hidden star And for the wintry mystery of her breath, And at a far-sight that she sees, Bowed by her great despair, Bendeth her awful head upon her knees, And all her wondrous hair Dishevels golden down the northern night. At length my weary gaze Relents : and, haze in haze Pervolving as in glad release, I saw each separate shade Slide from his place and fade, And all the flowering dark did winter back Into its undistinguished black. AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 141 So the sculptor doth in fancy make His formed image in the formless stone, And while his spells compel, Can see it there full well, The ivory kernel in the ivory shell, But shakes himself and all the god is gone. Alas! And have I seen thee but an hour ? And shalt thou never tell Thy story, oh thou broken flower, Thou midnight asphodel Among the battle grass ? Too soon ! Too soon ! But while I bid thee stay, Night, like a cloud, dissolves into the day, And from the city clock I hear the stroke of noon. AFLOAT AND ASHORE. Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort, Like a whale to starboard, a whale to port ; Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort, And the steamer steams thro' the sea, love ! I see the ship on the sea, love, I stand alone On this rock, The sea does not shock The stone ; The waters around it are swirled, But under my feet I feel it go down To where the hemispheres meet 142 LYRICS. At the adamant heart of the world. Oh, that the rock would move ! Oh, that the rock would roll To meet thee over the sea, love ! Surety my mighty love Should fill it like a soul, And it should bear me to thee, love ; Like a ship on the sea, love, Bear me, bear me, to thee, love ! Guns are thundering, seas are sundering, crowds are wondering, Low on our lee, love. Over and over the cannon-clouds cover brother and lover, but over and over The whirl-wheels trundle the sea, love, And on thro' the loud pealing pomp of her cloud The great ship is going to thee, love ; Blind to her mark, like a world thro' the dark, Thundering, sundering, to the crowds wondering, Thundering ever to thee, love. I have come down to thee coming to me, love. I stand, I stand On the solid sand, I see thee coming to me, love ; The sea runs up to me on the sand, I start — 't is as if thou hadst stretched thine hand And touched me thro' the sea, love. I feel as if I must die For there 's something longs to fly, Fly and fly, to thee, love. As the blood of the flower ere she blows Is beating up to the sun, And her roots do hold her down, And it blushes and breaks undone In a rose, So my blood is beating in me, love ! THE GHOST'S RETURN. 143 I see thee nigh and nigher, And my soul leaps up like sudden fire, My life 's in the air To meet thee there, To meet thee coming to me, love ! Over the sea, Coming to me, Coming, and coming to me, love ! The boats are lowered : I leap in first, Pull, boys, pull ! or my heart will burst ! More ! more ! — lend me an oar ! — I 'm thro' the breakers ! I'mon the shore ! I see thee waiting for me, love ! A sudden storm Of sighs and tears, A clenching arm, A look of years. In my bosom a thousand cries, A flash like light before my eyes, And I am lost in thee, love ! THE GHOST'S RETURN. Skirlin' an' birlin', tunin' an" croonin', Reelin' an' skreelin', they piped doun the glen, Lang Hugh an' black Sandie, Ian Dhu an' wee Dandie, Wha wad na gang wi' the braw Hielan'men ? Skirlin' an' birlin', tunin' an' croonin', Reelin' an' skreelin', they piped doun the glen, Wi' a rout an' a shout, an' a' the lasses out, Wha wad na gang wi' the braw Hielan'men ? 144 LYRICS. Skirlin' an' birlin', tunin' an' croonin', Reelin' an' skreelin', they piped doun the glen ! Wi' the hot light o' noon an' the blue sky aboon, Ilka man sword in han' gaed the braw Hielan'men ! Ken ye why we weep ? Think ye that they sleep, Ilka man on his ain bluidy brae, Ilk ane whar he died wi' a faeman by his side, An' the pibroch can wauk him na mae ? Or the news cam fra' the fieP we ken'd it a' too weel, Our bonnie bonnie braw Hielan'men ! Not a foot ony stirred to meet the bluidy word, As the death-roll cam' slow up the glen. Had ye seen any sight of terror and affright ? Did their ghosts walk in white up the glen ? We saw na ony sight o' terror an' affright, An' white's no for braw tartaned men ! Fra the hour they gaed that day, oh the glen was fu' o' wae, Our bonnie bonnie braw Hielan'men ! Sair, sair, an' mair an' mair, our hearts were fu' o' care, And our een speerit aye doun the glen ; Till ae morn it did befa' that we waukit up a', An' the light it was sweet, but an' ben, An' a' that lang day we had na ony wae, An' no ee cared to speer doun the glen. Not a lassie but apart hid her wonder in her heart, An' lay close till the day began to dee, Lest her canty een confest the secret o' her breast, For she said, " They will a' weep but me." DAFT JEAN. 145 But when we met at e'en by the thorn upon the green, An' the tale we a' tellt was the same, Not a word mair we said, but ilkane hid her head, An' kenned that her man was at hame. DAFT JEAN. Daft Jean, The waesome wean, She cam' by the cottage, she cam* by the ha', The laird's ha' o' Wutherstanelaw, The cottar's cot by the birken shaw ; An' aye she gret, To ilk ane she met, For the trumpet had blawn an' her lad was awa.' " Black, black," sang she, " Black, black my weeds shall be, My love has widowed me ! Black, black ! " sang she. Daft Jean, The waesome wean, She cam' by the cottage, she cam' by the ha', The laird's ha' o' Wutherstanelaw, The cottar's cot by the birken shaw ; Nae mair she creepit, Nae mair she weepit, She stept *mang the lasses the queen o' them a', The queen o' them a', The queen o' them a', She stept 'mang the lasses the queen o' them a\ For the fight it was fought i' the fiel' far awa', An' claymore in han' for his love an' his Ian', The lad she lo'ed best he was foremost to fa'. 10 146 " White, white," sang she, " White, white, my weeds shall be, I am no widow," sang she, " White, white, my wedding shall be, White, white!/* sang she. Daft Jean, The waesome wean, She gaed na' to cottage, she gaed na to ha', But forth she creepit, While a' the house weepit, Into the snaw i" the eerie night-fa'. At morn we found her, The lammies stood round her, The snaw was her pillow, her sheet was the snaw; Pale she was lying, Singing and dying, A' for the laddie wha fell far awa\ " White, white," sang she, M My love has married me, White, white, my weeds shall be, White, white, my wedding shall be, White, white," sang she ! THE RECRUITS' BALL. Fiddler loquitur. Heigho, fiddlestick, fiddlestick, fiddlestick, Heigho, fiddlestick, fiddle for a king ! Heigh, pretty Kitty ! heigh, jolly Polly ! Up with the heels, girls ! "fling, lasses, fling ! Heigh there ! stay there ! that "s not the way, there ! Oh Johnny, Johnny, THE RECRUITS' BALL. 147 Oh Johnny, Johnny, Ho, ho, everybody all round the ring ! Heigho, fiddlestick, fiddlestick, fiddlestick, Heigho, fiddlestick, fiddle for a king ! Heigh, pretty Kitty ! heigh, jolly Polly ! Up with the heels, girls ! swing, girls, swing ! Foot, boys ! foot, boys ! to % boys ! do % boys ! Ho, Bill ! ho, Jill ! ho, Will ! ho, Phil ! Ho, Johnny, Johnny, Ho, Johnny, Johnny, Ho, ho, everybody all round the ring ! Deuce take the fiddle, Deuce take the fiddle, Deuce take the jolly fiddle, deuce take the fiddlei ! Here goes the fiddie, Here goes the fiddle, Here goes the jolly fiddle, here goes the fiddler 1 Ned, boy ! your head, boy ! She '11 strike you dead, boy ! There she goes at your nose ! Deuce strike you dead, boy ! Call, boys ! bawl, boys ! Deuce take us all, boys ! Here we go, yes or no, Deuce take us all, boys ! Deuce take the wall, boys, Deuce take the floor, boys, Deuce take the jolly floor, Deuce take us all, boys ! There goes the wall, boys ! There goes the door, boys ! Round they swing in a ring 1 There goes the floor, boys ! 148 LYRICS. Lad, wench, roof, floor, Wench, lad, wall, door ! Curse the ground, spin it round ! Deuce take us all, boys ! FOR CHARITY'S SAKE. " Oh dark-eyed maid," The soldier said, " I 've been wounded in many a fray, But such a dart As you shoot to my heart, I never felt till to-day. " Then give to me Kisses, one, two, three, All for dear Charity's sake. And pity my pain, And meet me again, Or else my heart must break." Peggy was kind, She would save the blind Black fly that shimmered the ale, And her quick hand stopped . If a grass-moth dropped In the drifted snows of the pail. One, two, three, Kisses gave she, All for dear Charity's sake ; And she pitied his pain, And she met him again, For fear his heart should break. wind. 149 The bugle blew, The merry flag flew, The squadron clattered the town ; The twigs were bright on the minster elm, He wore a primrose in his helm As they clattered thro' the town. Heyday, holiday, on we go ! Heyday, holiday, blow boys, blow ! Clattering thro' the town. And when the minster leaves were sear, On a far red field by a dark sea drear, In dust and thunder, and cheer, boys, cheer, The bold dragoon went down. Shiver, poor Peggy, the wind blows high ; Beg a penny as I go by, All for sweet Charity's sake : Hold the thin hand from the shawl, Turn the wan face to the wall, Turn the face, let the hot tears fall, For fear your heart should break. WIND. Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold ! Oh the winter stark, Oh the level dark, On the wold, the wold, the wold ! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold ! Oh the mystery Of the blasted tree On the wold, the wold, the wold ! 150 LYRICS. Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold ! Oh the owlet's croon To the haggard moon, To the waning moon, On the wold, the wold, the wold ! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold ! Oh the fleshless stare, Oh the windy hair, On the wold, the wold, the wold ! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold ! Oh the cold sigh, Oh the hollow cry, The lean and hollow cry, On the wold, the wold, the wold ! * Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold ! Oh the white sight, Oh the shuddering night, The shivering shuddering night, On the wold, the wold, the wold ! THE BOTANISTS VISION. The sun that in Breadalbane's lake doth fall Was melting to the sea down golden Tay, When a cry came along the peopled way, " Sebastopol is ours ! " From that wild call I turned, and leaning on a time-worn wall Quaint with the touch of many an ancient day, The mapped mould and mildewed marquetry THE ORPHAN'S SONG. 151 Knew with my foeussed soul ; which bent down all Its sense, power, passion, to the sole regard Of each green minim, as it were but born To that one use. I strode home stern and hard ; In my hot hands I laid my throbbing head, And all the living world and all the dead Began a march which did not end at morn. THE ORPHAN'S SONG. I had a little bird, I took it from the nest; I prest it, and blest it, And nurst it in my breast. I set it on the ground, I danced round and round, And sang about it so cheerly, With " Hey my little bird, and ho my little bird, And oh but I love thee dearly I " I make a little feast Of food soft and sweet, I hold it in my breast. And coax it to eat ; I pit, and I pat, I call it this and that, And sing about it so cheerly, With " Hey my little bird, and ho my little bird, And ho but I love thee dearly ! " I may kiss, I may sing, But I can't make it feed, It taketh no heed Of any pleasant thing. 152 LYRICS. I scolded, and I socked, But it minded not a whit, Its little mouth was locked, And I could not open it. Tho' with pit, and with pat, And with this, and with that, I sang about it so cheerly, And " Hey my little bird, and ho my little bird, And ho but I love thee dearly I" But when the day was done, And the room was at rest, And I sat all alone With my birdie in my breast, And the light had fled, And not a sound was heard, . Then my little bird Lifted up its head, And the little mouth Loosed its sullen pride, And it opened, it opened, With a yearning strong and wide. Swifter than I speak I brought it food once more, But the poor little beak Was locked as before. i sat down again, And not a creature stirred, I laid the little bird Again where it had lain ; And again when nothing stirred, And not a word I said, Then my little bird THE ORPHAN'S SONG. 153 Lifted up its head, And the little beak Loosed its stubborn pride, And it opened, it opened, With a yearning strong and wide. It lay in my breast, It uttered no cry, 'T was famished, 't was famished, And I could n't tell why. I could n't tell why, But I saw that it would die, For all that I kept dancing round and round, And singing above it so cheerly, With " Hey my little bird, and ho my little bird, And ho but I love thee dearly ! " I never look sad, I hear what people say, I laugh when they are gay And they think I am glad. My tears never start, I never say a word, But I think that my heart Is like that little bird. Every day I read, And I sing, and I play, But thro' the long day It taketh no heed. It taketh no heed Of any pleasant thing, I know it doth not read, I know it doth not sing. With my mouth I read, With my hands I play, 154 LYRICS. My shut heart is shut, Coax it how you may. You may coax it how you may While the day is broad and bright, But in the dead night When the guests are gone away, And no more the music sweet Up the house doth pass, Nor the dancing feet Shake the nursery glass ; And I 've heard my aunt Along the corridor, And my uncle gaunt Lock his chamber door ; And upon the stair All is hushed and still, And the last wheel Is silent in the square ; And the nurses snore, And the dim sheets rise and fall, And the lamplight 's on the wall, And the mouse is on the floor ; And the curtains of my bed Are like a heavy cloud, And the clock ticks loud, And sounds are in my head ; And little Lizzie sleeps Softly at my side, It opens, it opens, With a yearning strong and wide ! It yearns in my breast, It utters no cry, u SHE TOUCHES A SAD STRING,*' ETC. 155 'T is famished, 't is famished, And I feel that I shall die, I feel that I shall die, And none will know why. TW the pleasant life is dancing round and round And singing about me so cheerly, With u Hey my little bird, and ho my little bird, And ho but I love thee dearly ! " " SHE TOUCHES A SAD STRING OF SOFT RECALL." Return, return ! all night my lamp is burning, All night, like it, my wide eyes watch and burn ; Like it, I fade and pale, when day returning Bears witness that the absent can return. Return, return. Like it, I lessen with a lengthening sadness, Like it, I burn to waste and waste to burn, Like it, I spend the golden oil of gladness To feed the sorrowy signal for return, Return, return. Like it, like it, whene'er the east wind sings, I bend and shake ; like it, I quake and yearn, When Hope's late butterflies, with whispering wings, Fly in out of the dark, to fall and burn — Burn in the watchfire of return, Return, return. Like it, the very flame whereby I pine Consumes me to its nature. While I mourn My soul becomes a better soul than mine, And from its brightening beacon I discern 156 LYRICS. My starry love go forth from me, and shine Across the seas a path for thy return, Return, return. Return, return ! all night I see it burn, All night it prays like me, and lifts a twin Of palmed praying hands that meet and yearn — Yearn to the impleaded skies for thy return. Day, like a golden fetter, locks them in, And wans the light that withers, tho' it burn As warmly still for thy return ; Still thro' the splendid load uplifts the thin Pale, paler, palest patience that can learn Nought but that votive sign for thy return — That single suppliant sign for thy return, Return, return. Return, return ! lest haply, love, or e'er Thou touch the lamp the light have ceased to burn, And thou, who thro' the window didst discern The wonted flame, shalt reach the topmost stair To find no wide eyes watching there, No withered welcome waiting thy return ! A passing ghost, a smoke-wreath in the air, The nameless ashes, and the soulless urn, Warm with the famished fire that lived to burn — Burn out its lingering life for thy return, Its last of lingering life for thy return, Its last of lingering life to light thy late return, Return, return. SONNETS ON THE WAR * OTHER POEMS. L' AVENIR. 1 saw the human millions as the sand Unruffled on the starlit wilderness. The day was near, and every star grew less In universal dawn. Then woke a band Of wheeling winds, and made a mighty stress Of morning weather ; and still wilder went O'er shifting plains, till, in their last excess, A whirlwind whirled across the whirling land. Heaven blackened over it ; a voice of woes Foreran it ; the great noise of clanging foes Hurtled behind ; beneath the earth was rent, And howling Death, like an uncaverned beast, Leaped from his lair. Meanwhile morn oped the East, And thro' the dusty tumult God arose. * The Sonnets were first published in 1855. 158 SONNETS ON THE WAR. THE ARMY SURGEON. Over that breathing waste of friends and foes, The wounded and the dying, hour by hour, - — In will a thousand, yet but one in power, — He labours thro' the red and groaning day. The fearful moorland where the myriads lay Moved as a moving field of mangled worms. And as a raw brood, orphaned in the storms, Thrust up their heads if the wind bend a spray Above them, but when the bare branch performs No sweet parental office, sink away With hopeless chirp of woe, so as he goes Around his feet in clamorous agony They rise and fall ; and all the seething plain Bubbles a cauldron vast of many-coloured pain. THE WOUNDED. " Thou canst not wish to live," the surgeon said. He clutched him, as a soul thrust forth from bliss Clings to the ledge of Heaven ! " Would'st thou keep this Poor branchless trunk ? " " But she would lean my head Upon her breast ; oh, let me live ! " " Be wise." " I could be very happy ; both these eyes Are left me ; I should see her ; she would kiss My forehead ; only let me live." — He dies Even in the passionate prayer. " Good Doctor, say If thou canst give more than another day Of life ? " "I think there may be hope." " Pass on. I will not buy it with some widow's son ! " SONNETS ON THE WAK. 159 " Help," " help," " help," « help ! " " God curse thee ! " u Doctor, stay, Yon Frenchman went down earlier in the day." THE WOUNDED. " See to my brother, Doctor ; I have lain All day against his heart ; it is warm there ; This stiffness is a trance ; he lives ! I swear, — I swear he lives ! " " Good Doctor, tell my ain Auld Mother ; " — but his pale lips moved in vain. " Doctor, when you were little Master John, I left the old place ; you will see it again. Tell my poor Father, — turn down the wood-lane Beyond the home-field — cross the stepping-stone To the white cottage, with the garden-gate — O God ! " — he died. " Doctor, when I am gone Send this to England." " Doctor, look upon A countryman ! " " Devant mon Chef ? Ma foi ! " " Oui, il est blesse beaucoup plus que moi." VOX POPULL What if the Turk be foul or fair ? Is 't known That the sublime Samaritan of old Withheld his hand till the bruised wretch had told His creed ? Your neighbour's roof is but a shed, Yet if he burns shall not the flame enfold Your palace V Saving his, you save your own. Oh ye who fall that Liberty may stand, The light of coming ages shines before Upon your graves ! Oh ye immortal band, > Whether ye wrestled with this Satan o'er 160 SONNETS ON THE WAR. A dead dog, or the very living head Of Freedom, every precious drop ye bled Is holy. 'T is not for his broken door That the stern goodman shoots the burglar dead. CZAR NICHOLAS. We could not turn from that colossal foe, The morning shadow of whose hideous head Darkened the furthest West, and who did throw His evening shade on Ind. The polar bow Behind him flamed and paled, and through the red Uncertain dark his vasty shape did grow Upon the sleepless nations. Lay him low ! Aye, low as for our priceless English dead We lie and groan to-day in England ! Oh, My God ! I think Thou hast not finished This Thy fair world, where, triumph 111 or Good, We still must weep ; where or to lose or gain Is woe ; where Pain is medicined by Pain, And Blood can only be washed out by Blood. CAVALRY CHARGE AT BALACLAVA. Traveller on foreign ground, whoe'er thou art, Tell the great tidings ! They went down that day A Legion, and came back from victory Two hundred men and Glory ! On the mart Is this " to lose f " Yet, Stranger, thou shalt say These were our common Britons. 'T is our way In England. Aye, ye heavens ! I saw them part The Death-Sea as an English dog leaps o'er The rocks into the ocean. He goes in SONNETS ON THE WAR. 161 Thick as a lion, and he comes out thin As a starved wolf; but lo ! he brings to shore A life above his own, which when his heart Bursts with that final effort, from the stones Springs up and builds a temple o'er his bones. HOME, IN WAR-TIME. She turned the fair page with her fairer hand — More fair and frail than it was wont to be — O'er each remembered thing he loved to see She lingered, and as with a fairy's wand Enchanted it to order. Oft she fanned New motes into the sun ; and as a bee Sings thro' a brake of bells, so murmured she, And so her patient love did understand The reliquary room. Upon the sill She fed his favourite bird. " Ah, Robin, sing ! He loves thee." Then she touches a sweet string Of soft recall, and towards the Eastern hill Smiles all her soul — for him who cannot hear The raven croaking at his carrion ear. WARNING. Virtue is Virtue, writ in ink or blood. And Duty, Honour, Valour, are the same Whether they cheer the thundering steps of Fame Up echoing hills of Alma, or, more blest, Walk with her in that band where she is least Thro' smiling plains and cities doing good. Yet, oh to sing them in their happier day ! Yon glebe is not the hind whose manhood mends 11 162 SONNETS ON THE WAR. Its rudeness, yet it gains but while he spends, And mulcts him rude. Even that sinless Lord Whose feet wan Mary washed, went not His way Un coloured by the Galilean field ; And Honour, Duty, Valour, seldom wield With stainless hand the immedicable sword. AMERICA. Men say, Columbia, we shall hear thy guns. But in what tongue shall be thy battle-cry ? Not that our sires did love in years gone by, When all the Pilgrim fathers were little sons In merrie homes of Englaunde ? Back, and see Thy satchelled ancestor ! Behold, he runs To mine, and, clasped, they tread the equal lea To the same village-school, where side by side They spell a our Father." Hard by, the twin-pride Of that grey hall whose ancient oriel gleams Thro' yon baronial pines, with looks of light Our sister-mothers sit beneath one tree. Meanwhile our Shakspeare wanders past and dreams His Helena and Hermia. Shall we fight ? AMERICA. Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us ! Oh ye Who north or south, on east or western land, Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth, Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God For God ; Oh ye who in eternal youth Speak with a living and creative flood This universal English, and do stand SONNETS ON THE WAR. 163 Its breathing book ; live worthy of that grand Heroic utterance — parted, yet a whole, Far yet unsevered, — children brave and free Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be Lords of an empire wide as Shakspeare's soul, Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme, And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spencer's dream. A STATESMAN. Captain be he, my England, who doth know Not careful coasts, with inland welcomes warm ; But who, with heart infallible, can go Straight to the gulf-streams of the World, where blow The inevitable Winds. Let cockles swarm The sounded shores. He helms Thee, England ! who, Faced by the very Spirit of the Storm, Full at the phantom drives his dauntless prow ! And tho' the Vision rend in racks of blood, And drip in thunder from his reeling spars, The compass in his hand, beholds the flood Beneath, o'er-head the everlasting stars Dim thro' the gory ghost ; and calm in these, Thro' that tremendous dream sails on to happier seas. POLAND. ITALY. HUNGARY. In the great Darkness of the Passion, graves Were oped, and many Saints which slept arose. 164 SONNETS ON THE WAR. So in this latter Darkness, which doth close Upon our noon. That Peace Divine which saves And blesses, and from the celestial waves Of whose now-parted garment our worst woes Did touch a healing virtue, by our foes Is crucified. The inextricable slaves Have slain what should have set them free. Behold, The vail is rent ; Earth yawns ; the rocks are hurled In twain ; and Kingdoms long since low and cold, Each with his dead forgotten brow enfurled In that proud flag he fell upon of old, Come forth into the Citv of the World. JERUSALEM. If God so raise the Dead, shall He pass by The Captive and the immemorable chain ? Judcea capta ! — taken but not slain — And cursed not to die — ah, not to die ? Then come out of thine ages, thou art free ! Live but one Greek in old Thermopylae, And Greece is saved ! Dark stands the Northern Fate At Europe's open door ; upon her nod To pass that breach a hundred nations wait. What ! shall we meet her with the bayonet ? As the West sets the Sun 'twixt sea and sky In that Great Gate, Immortal ! let us set Thy doom \ quit Destiny with Destiny, Meet Fate by Fate, and fill the gap with God. AUSTRIAN ALLIANCE. Doth this hand live ? Trust not a royal coat, My country ! Smite that cheek ; there is no stain SONNETS ON THE WAR. 165 But of the clay ! no flush of shame or pain. This is the smell o' the grave. Lift the gold crown And see that brow. Lo ! how the dews drip down The empty house ! The worm is on the walls, And the half-shuttered lights are dull and dead With dusty desecration. The soul fled On a spring-day within thy palace-halls, Hapsburg ! and all the days of all the springs Of all the ages bring it not again ! Vampyre ! we wrench thee from the breathing throat Of living Man, and he leaps up and flings Thy rotten carcase at the heads of Kings. CHILDLESS. The Son thou sentest forth is now a Thought — A Dream. To all but thee he is as nought As if he had gone back into the same Bosom that bare him. Oh, thou grey pale Dame, With eyes so wan and wide, what ! knowest thou where Thy Dream is such a thing as doth up-bear The earth out of its wormy place V 1* the air Dost see the very fashion of the stone That hath his face for clay ? Deep, deep, hast found The texture of that single weight of ground Which to each mole and mark that thou hast known Is special burden ? Nay, her face is mild And sweet. In Heaven the evening star is fair, And there the mother looketh for her child. 166 SONNETS ON THE WAR. THE COMMON GRAVE. Last night beneath the foreign stars I stood And saw the thoughts of those at home go by To the great grave upon the hill of blood. Upon the darkness they went visibly, Each in the vesture of its own distress. Among them there came One, frail as a sigh, And like a creature of the wilderness Dug with her bleeding hands. She neither cried Nor wept ; nor did she see the many stark And dead that lay unburied at her side. All night she toiled, and at that time of dawn When Day and Night do change their More and Less, And Day is More, I saw the melting Dark Stir to the last, and knew she laboured on. ESSE ET POSSE. The groan of fallen Hosts ; a torrid glare Of cities ; battle-cries of Right and Wrong Where armies shout to rocking fleets that roar On thundering oceans to the thundering shore And high o'er all — long, long prolonged, along The moaning caverns of the plaining air, — The cry of conscious Fate. The firmament Waves from above me like a tattered flag ; And as a soldier in his lowly tent Looks up when a shot strikes the helpless rag From o'er him, and beholds the canopy Of Heaven, so, sudden to my startled eye, The Heavens that shall be ! The dream fades. stand Among the mourners of a mourning land. SONNETS ON THE WAR. — CRAZED. 16 7 GOOD NIGHT IN WAR-TIME. TO ALEXANDER SMITH. The stars we saw arise are high above, And yet our Evensong seems sung too soon. Good Night ! I lay my hand — with such a love As thou wert brother of my blood — upon Thy shoulder, and methinks beneath the moon Those sisters, Anglia and Caledon, Lean towards each other. Aye, for Man is one ; We are a host ruled by one trumpet-call, Where each, armed in his sort, makes as he may The general motion. The well-tuned array We see ; yet to what victory in what wars We see not ; but like the revolving stars Move on ourselves. The total march of all Or men or stars God knows. Lord, lead us on ! CRAZED. " The Spring again hath started on the course Wherein she seeketh Summer thro' the Earth. I will arise and go upon my way. It may be that the leaves of Autumn hid His footsteps from me ; it may be the snows. " He is not dead. There was no funeral ; I wore no weeds. He must be in the Earth. Oh where is he, that I may come to him And he may charm the fever of my brain. " Oh Spring I hope that thou wilt be my friend. Thro' the long weary summer I toiled sore ; 168 CRAZED. Having much sorrow of the envious woods And groves that burgeoned round me where I came And when I would have seen him, shut him in. " Also the Honeysuckle and wild bine Being in love did hide him from my sight ; The Ash-tree bent above him ; vicious weeds Withheld me ; Willows in the River-wind Hissed at me, by the twilight, waving wands. " Also, for I have told thee, oh dear Spring, Thou knowest after I had sunk outworn In the late summer gloom till Autumn came, I looked up in the light of burning Woods And entered on my wayfare when I saw Gold on the ground and glory in the trees. M And all my further journey thou dost know ; My toils and outcries as the lusty world Grew thin to winter ; and my ceaseless feet In Vales and on stark Hills, till the first snow Fell, and the large rain of the latter leaves. " I hope that thou wilt be my friend, oh Spring, And give me service of thy winds and streams. It needs must be that he will hear thy voice For thou art much as I was when he woo'd And won me long ago beside the Dee. " If he should bend above you, oh ye streams And anywhere you look up into eyes And think the star of love hath found her mate And know, because of day, they are not stars ; Oh streams they are the eyes of my beloved! Oh murmur as I murmured once of old And he will stay beside you oh ye streams And I shall clasp him when my day is come. CRAZED. 169 " Likewise I charge thee, west wind, zephyr wind, If thou shalt hear a voice more sweet than thine About a sunset rosetree deep in June, Sweeter than thine oh wind, when thou dost leap Into the tree with passion, putting by The maiden leaves that ruffle round their dame, And singest and art silent, — having dropt In pleasure on the bosom of the rose, — Oh wind it is the voice of my beloved ! Wake, wake, and bear me to the voice, oh wind ! " Moreover I do think that the spring birds Will be my willing servants. Wheresoe'er There mourns a hen-bird that hath lost her mate Her will I tell my sorrow — weeping hers. " And if it be a Lark whereto I speak She shall be ware of how my Love went up Sole singing to the cloud ; and evermore I hear his song but him I cannot see. " And if it be a female nightingale That pineth in the depth of silent woods, I also will complain to her that night Is still. And of the creeping of the winds And of the sullen trees, and of the lone Dumb Dark. And of the listening of the stars. What have we done, what have we done, oh Night ! u Therefore oh Love the summer trees shall be My watch-towers. Whereso'er thou liest bound I will be there. For ere the spring be past I will have preached my dolour through the Land, And not a bird but shall have all my woe. — And whatsoever hath my woe hath me. " I charge you, oh ye flowers fresh from the dead, Declare if ye have seen him. You pale flowers Why do you quake and hang the head like me ? 170 CRAZED. " You pallid flowers, why do ye watch the dust And tremble ? Ah you met him in your eaves And shrank out shuddering on the wintry air. " Snowdrops you need not gaze upon the ground, Fear not. He will not follow ye ; for then I should be happy who am doomed to woe. " Only I bid ye say that he is there, That I may know my grief is to be borne And all my Fate is but the common lot." She sat down on a bank of Primroses Swayed to and fro, as in a wind of Thought That moaned about her, murmuring alow, '• The common lot, oh for the common lot." Thus spake she and behold a gust of grief Smote her. As when at night the dreaming wind Starts up enraged, and shakes the Trees and sleeps. " Oh early Rain, oh passion of strong crying, Say dost thou weep oh Rain, for him or me ? Alas, thou also goest to the Earth And enterest as one brought home by fear. " Rude with much woe, with expectation wild, So dashest thou the doors and art not seen. Whose burial did they speak of in the skies ? " I would that there were any grass-green grave Where I might stand and say, ' Here lies my Love.' And sigh, and look down to him, thro' the Earth, And look up, thro' the clearing skies, and smile." Then the Day passed from bearing up the Heav- CRAZED. 171 The sky descended on the Mountain tops Unclouded ; and the stars embower'd the Night. Darkness did flood the Valley ; flooding her. And when the face of her great grief was hid Her callow heart, that like a nestling bird Clamoured, sank down with plaintive pipe and slow. Her cry was like a strange fowl in the dark ; " Alas Night," said she ; then, like a faint ghost, As tho' the owl did hoot upon the hills, " Alas Night." On the murky silence came Her voice like a white sea-mew on the waste Of the dark deep ; a-sudden seen and lost Upon the barren expanse of mid-seas Black with the Thunder. "• Alas Night " said she, " Alas Night." Then the stagnant season lay From hill to hill. But when the waning Moon Rose, she began with hasty step to run The wintry mead ; a wounded bird that seeks To hide its head when all the trees are bare. Silent, — for all her strength did bear her dread — Silent, save when with bursting heart she cried, Like one who wrestles in the dark with fiends, " Alas Night." With a dim wild voice of fear As tho' she saw her sorrow by the moon. The morning dawns ; and earlier than the Lark She murmureth, sadder than the Nightingale. " I would I could believe me in that sleep "When on our bridal morn I thought him dead, And dreamed and shrieked and woke upon his breast. " Oh God, I cannot think that I am blind. I think I see the beauty of the world. Perchance but I am blind, and he is near. 172 CRAZED. " Even as I felt his arm before I woke, And clinging to his bosom called on him, And wept, and knew and knew not it was he. " I do thank God I think that I am blind. There is a darkness thick about my heart And all I seem to see is as a dream. My lids have closed, and have shut in the world. " Oh Love, I pray thee take me by the hand ; I stretch my hand, oh Love, and quake with dread ; I thrust it, and I know not where. Ah me What shall not seize the dark hand of the blind ? " How know I, being blind, I am on Earth ? I am in Hell, in Hell oh Love ! I feel There is a burning gulph before my feet ! I dare not stir — and at my back the fiends ! I wind my arms, my arms that demons scorch, Round this poor breast and all that thou shouldst save From rapine Husband, I cry out from Hell ; There is a gulph. They seize my flesh. (She shrieked.) " I will sink down here where I stand. All round How know I but the burning pit doth yawn ? Here will I shrink and shrink to no more space Than my feet cover. (She wept.) So much up My mortal touch makes honest. Oh my Life, My Lord, my Husband ! Fool that cry est in vain ! Ah Angel ! What hast thou to do with Hell ? " And yet I do not ask thee, oh my Love, To lead me to thee where thou art in Heaven. Only I would that thou shouldst be my star, And whatsoever Fate thy beams dispense I am content. It shall be good to me. CRAZED. 173 " But tho' I may not see thee, oh my Love, Yea tho' mine eyes return and miss thee still, And thou shouldst take another shape than thine, Have pity on my lot, and lead me hence Where I may think of thee. To the old fields And wonted valleys where we once were blest. Oh Love all day I hear them, out of sight, The far Home where the Past abideth yet Beside the stream that prates of other days. u My Punishment is more than I can bear. My sorrow groweth big unto my time. Oh Love I would that I were mad. Oh Love, I do not ask that thou shouldst change iny Fate, I will endure ; but oh my Life, my Lord, Being as thou art a throned saint in Heaven, If thou wouldst touch me and enchant my sense, And daze the anguish of my heart with dreams, And change the stop of grief ; and turn my soul A little devious from the daily march Of Reason, and the path of conscious woe And all the truth of Life ! Better, oh Love, In fond delusion to be twice betrayed, Than know so well and bitterly as I. Let me be mad. (She wept upon her knees.) " I will arise and seek thee. This is Heaven. I sat upon a cloud. It bore me in. It is not so, you Heavens ! I am not dead. Alas ! there have been pangs as strong as Death. It would be sweet to know that I am dead. " Even now I feel I am not of this world Which sayeth day and night, ' For all but thee/ And poureth its abundance night and day And will not feed the hunger in my heart. " I tread upon a dream, myself a dream, I cannot write my Being on the world, The moss grows unrespective where I tread. 174 CRAZED. " I cannot lift mine eyes to the sunshine, Night is not for my slumber. Not for me Sink down the dark inexorable hours. 4 1 would not keep or change the weary day ; I have no pleasure in the needless night And toss and wail that other lids may sleep. " I am a very Leper in the Earth. Her functions cast me out ; her golden wheels That harmless roll about unconscious Babes Do crush me. My place knoweth me no more. " I think that I have died, oh you sweet Heavens. I did not see the closing of the eyes. Perchance there is one death for all of us Whereof we cannot see the eyelids close. " Dear Love I do beseech thee answer me. Dear Love I think men's eyes behold me not. The air is heavy on these lips that strain To cry ; I do not warm the thing I touch; The Lake gives back no image unto me. " I see the Heavens as one who wakes at noon From a deep sleep. Now shall we meet again ! The Country of the blest is hid from me Like Morn behind the Hills. The Angel smiles. I breathe thy name. He hurleth me from Heaven. " Now of a truth I know thou art on Earth. Break, break the chains that hold me back from thee. I see the race of mortal men pass by ; The great wind of their going waves my hair; I stretch my hands, I lay my cheek to them, In love ; they stir the down upon my cheek ; I cannot touch them, and they know not me. CKAZED. 175 " Oh God ! I ask to live the saddest life ! I care not for it if I may but live I I would not be among the dead, oh God ! I am not dead ! oh God, I will not die ! " So throbbed the trouble of this crazed heart. So on the broken mirror of her mind In bright disorder shone the shatter'd World. So, out of tune, in sympathetic chords, Her soul is musical to brooks and birds Winds, seasons, sunshine, Flowers, and maundering trees. Hear gently all the tale of her distress. The heart that loved her loves not now yet lives. What the eye sees and the ear hears — the hand That wooing led her thro' the rosy paths Of girlhood, and the lenten lanes of Love, The brow whereon she trembled her first kiss The lips that had sole privilege of hers, The eyes wherein she saw the Universe, The bosom where she slept the sleep of joy, The voice that made it sacred to her sleep With lustral vows ; that which doth walk the World Man among Men, is near her now. But He Who wandered with her thro' the ways of Youth, Who won the tender freedom of the lip, Who took her to the bosom dedicate And chaste with vows, who in the perfect whole Of gracious Manhood, was the god that stood In her young Heaven, round whom the subject stars Circled ; in whose dear train, where'er he passed Thronged charmed powers ; at whose advancing feet Upspringing happy seasons and sweet times Made fond court carolling ; who but moved to stir All things submissive, which did magnify And wane as ever with his changing will She changed the centre of her infinite ; He 176 THE HARPS OF HEAVEN. In whom she worshipped Truth and did obey Goodness ; in whose sufficient love she felt Fond Dreamer ! the eternal smile of all Angels and men ; round whom, upon his neck, Her thoughts did hang; whom lacking they fell down Distract to the earth ; He whom she loced and who Loved her of old, — in the long days before Chaos, the empyrean days ! — (Poor heart She phrased it so) is no more : and oh God ! Thorough all Time and that transfigured Time We call Eternity, will be no more. THE HARPS OF HEAVEN. On a solemn day I clomb the shining bulwark of the skies : Not by the beaten way, But climbing by a prayer, That like a golden thread hung by the giddy stair Fleck'd on the immemorial blue, By the strong step-stroke of the brave and few, Who, stirr'd by echoes of far harmonies, Must either lay them down and die of love, Or dare Those empyrean walls that mock their starward eyes. But midway in the dread emprize The faint and fainter footsteps cease ; And, all my footing gone, Like one who gathers samphire, I hold on, And in the swaying air look up and down : And up and down through answering vasts descry Nor Earth nor Heaven ; Above, The sheer eternal precipice ; below, The sheer eternal precipice. THE HARPS OF HEAVEN. 177 Then when I, Gigantic with my desperate agony, Felt even The knotted grasp of bodily despair Relaxing to let go, A mighty music, like a wind of light, Blew from the imminent height, And caught me in its splendour ; and, as flame That flickers and again aspires, Rose in a moment thither whence it came ; And I, that thought me lost, Pass'd to the top of all my dear desires, And stood among the everlasting host. Then turn'd I to a seraph whose swift hands. That lived angelic passion, struck his soul Upon a harp — a seraph fair and strong, And faultless for his harp and for his throne, And yet, among The Strength and Beauty of the heavenly bands, No more to be remember'd than some one Poor warrior, when a king of many kings Stamps on the fields, and rears his glittering crop Of standing steel, and the vex'd spirit wings Above the human harvest, and in vain Begins from morn till eve to sum the embattled plain ; Or when, After a day of peace, sudden and late. The beacon flashes and the war-drums roll, And through the torches of the city gate, All the long winter night a martial race Streams to the nation's gathering-place, And, like as waterdrop to waterdrop, Pour on in changeless flood the innumerable men. I turn'd, and as from footing in mid-seas Looking o'er lessening waves thou mayst behold The round horizon of unshadow'd gold, I, standing on an amethyst, look'd round 12 178 THE HARPS OF HEAVEN. The moving Heaven of Harpers throned and crown'd, And said, " Was it from these I heard the great sound ? " And he said — " What sound ? " Then I, grown bolder, seeing I had thriven To win reply — " This that I hear from thee, This that everywhere I hear, Rolling a sea of ehoristry Up and down the jewel of Heaven ; A sea which from thy seat of light, That seems more loud and bright Because more near, To the white twinkle of yon furthest portal, Swells up those circling shores of chrysolite, And, like an odorous luminous mist, doth leap the eternal walls, And falls In wreaths of melody Adown the azure mountain of the sky ; And round its lower slopes bedew'd Breathes lost beatitude, And far away Low, low, below the last of all its lucent scarps, Sprinkles bewildering drops of immortality. O angel fair, thou know'st what I would say — This sound of harpers that I hear, This sound of harpers harping on their harps." Then he bent his head And shed a tear And said, " I perceive thou art a mortal." Then I to him — " Not only, O thou bright Seraphic Pity ! to a mortal ear These sacred sounds are dear, Or why withholdest not thy ceaseless hand ? And why, Far as my dazzled eye Can pierce the lustre of the radiant land, the Magyar's new-year-eve. 179 See I the rapt celestial auditory, Each, while he blessed hears, gives back his bliss With never-tiring touch from golden harps like this ? " Then he to me — " Oh, wherefore hast thou trod Beyond the limit of thine earthly lot ? These that we bear Within our hands are instruments of glory, Wherewith, day without night, We make the glory of immortal light In the eyes of God. As for the sound, we hear it not ; Yet, speaking to thee, child of ignorance, I do remember that I loved it once, In the sweet lower air." — Yet he spake once more, — " But thou return to the remember'd shore ; Why shouldst thou leave thy nation, Thy city, and the house of all most dear ? Do we not all dwell in eternity ? For we have been as thou, and thou Shalt be as we." And he lean'd and kissed me, Saying, — a But now Rejoice, O child, in other joys than mine ; Hear the dear music of thy mortal ear While yet it is the time with thee, Nor make haste to thine exaltation, Though our state be better than thine." THE MAGYAR'S NEW-YEAR-EVE. [1859.] By Temesvar I hear the clarions call : The Year dies. Let it die. It lived in vain. 180 THE MAGYAR'S NEW-YEAR-EVE. Gun booms to gun along the looming wall, Another year advances o'er the plain. The Despot hails it from his bannered keep : Ah, Tyrant, is it well to break a bondsman's sleep ? He might have dreamed, and solved the conscious throes Of Time and Fate in some soft vision blest : Sighed his thick breath in childhood's happy woes, Or spent the starry tumult of the breast On some dear dreamland maid, nor known how high The blind heart beats to hours like this. 'T is nigh ! Lo in the air a trouble and a strife : I feel the Future. Mighty days to come . Strain the strong leash a moment into Life : Shapes beckon : voices clamour and are dumb : And viewless nations charge upon the blast That blows the spectral host to silence, and is past. Hark, hark ! the great hour strikes ! The stroke peals " one ; " Again ! again ! God ! Have the earth and sky Stopped breathing ? Will it never end ? 'T is done. The years are rent asunder with a cry, The big world groans from all her gulphs and caves, And sleeping Freedom stirs, and rocks the mar- tyrs' graves. Oh ye far Few, who, battleworn and grey, Watch from wild peaks the plains where once ye bled, Oh ye who but in fortune less than they Keep the lone vigil of the immortal Dead, Behold ! And, like a fire from steep to steep, Draw, draw the dreadful swords whereon ye lean and weep ! THE MAGYAR'S NEW-YEAR-EVE. 181 And oh you great brave harvest, that, war-ploughed And sown with men, a grateful country yields, You bearded youth who, beardless, saw the proud Ancestral glories of those smoking fields That now beneath ten grassy years lie cold, Rise ! Shew your children how your fathers fought of old ! But we are fettered, and a bondsman's ire Howe'er it flash can only end in show'rs. Who shall unlade these limbs ? Alas, the fire Of passion will not melt such chains as ours ; We have but heated them in wrath of men To harden them in women's tears. W^hat then ? Less than both hands at once what Freeman gives To Freedom ? Stand up where the Tyrant stands, Draw in one breath the strength of slavish lives, Lift the twin justice of your loaded hands, And with that double thunder in the veins Launch on his fated head the vengeance of your chains ! They hear ! I see them thro' dissolving night ! Like sudden woods they rise upon the hills ! The mountains stream with a descending sight, The hollow ear of vacant darkness fills, From side to side the living landscape warms, To arms ! Yon bleeding cloud is speared ! Day breaks ! To arms ! Aye, Tyrant, the day breaks. Look up and fear. To arms ! A greater day than day is born ! To arms ! A larger light than light is near ! A blacker night than midnight foams with morn ! Arise, arise, my Country, from the flood ! Arise, thou god of day, and dye the east with blood! 182 ISABEL. [1847.] In the most early morn I rise from a damp pillow, tempest-tost, To seek the sun with silent gaze forlorn, And mourn for thee, my lost Isabel. That early hour I meet The daily vigil of my life to keep, Because there are no other lights so sweet, Or shades so long and deep, Isabel. And best I think of thee Beside the duskest shade and brightest sun, Whose mystic lot in life it was to be Outshone, outwept by none, Isabel. Men said that thou wert fair : There is no brightness in the heaven above, There is no balm upon the summer air Like thy warm love, Isabel. Men saw that thou wert bright : There is no wildness in the winds that blow, There is no darkness in the winter's night Like thy dark woe, Isabel. And yet thy path did miss Men's footsteps : in their haunts thou hadst no joy ; ISABEL. 183 The thoughts of other worlds were thine in this ; In thy sweet piety, and in thy bliss And grief, for life too coy, Isabel. And so my heart's despair Looks for thee ere the firstling smoke hath curled ; While the wrapt earth is at her morning pray'r, Ere yet she putteth on her workday air And robes her for the world, Isabel. When the sun-burst is o'er My lonely way about the world I take, Doing and saying much, and feeling more, And all things for thy sake, Isabel. But never once I dare To see thine image till the day be new, And lip hath sullied not the unbreathed air, And waking eyes are few, Isabel. Then that lost form appears Which was a joy to few on earth but me : In the young light I see thy guileless glee, In the deep dews thy tears, Isabel. So with Promethean moan In widowhood renewed I learn to grieve ; Blest with one only thought — that I alone Can fade ; that thou thro' years shalt still shine on In beauty, as in beauty art thou gone, Thou morn that knew no eve, Isabel. 184 THE CONVALESCENT TO HER PHYSICIAN. In beauty art thou gone ; As some bright meteor gleams across the night, Gazed on by all, but understood by none, And dying by its own excess of light, Isabel. TO THE AUTHORESS OF " AURORA LEIGH." Were Shakspeare born a twin, his lunar twin (Not of the golden but the silver bow) Should be like thee : so, with sijch eyes and brow, Sweeten his looks, so, with her dear sex in . His voice, (a king's words writ out by the queen) Unman his bearded English, and, with flow Of breastfull robes about her female snow, Present the lordly brother. Oh Last-of-kin There be ambitious Women here on earth Who will not thank thee to have sung so well ! Apollo and Diana are one birth, Pollux and Helen break a single shell. Who now may hope 1? While Adam was alone Eve was to come. She came ; God's work was done. THE CONVALESCENT TO HER PHYSI- CIAN. Friend, by whose cancelling hand did Fate for- give Her debtor, and rescribe her stern award, Oh with that happier light wherein I live May all thine after years be sunned and starred : SAMUEL BROWN. 185 May God, to Whom my daily bliss I give In tribute, add it to thy day's reward, And mine uncurrent joy mayst thou receive Celestial sterling ! Aye and thou shalt thrive Even by my vanished woes : for as the sea Renders its griefs to Heaven, which fall in rains Of sweeter plenty on the happy plains, So have my tears exhaled ; and may it be That from the favouring skies my lifted pains Descend, oh friend, in blessings upon thee ! SAMUEL BROWN. [Died, on the twentieth of September, 1856, at Morn- ingside, near Edinburg, Dr. Samuel Brown, well-known and dear to the fit and few throughout England and Scot- land. He was struck with mortal illness when on the eve of completing the scientific labours to which his splen- did talents had been devoted ; and, after eight painful years of patient and unconquered hope, was obliged to leave the demonstration of his discoveries to the good fortune of future times. 1 He came with us to thy great gates, oh Thou Unopened Age. Our noise was like the wind Chafing the wordy Deep ; but broad and blind They stood unmoved. Then He, — we knew not how, — Laid forth his hand upon them. Lo, they grind Revolving thunders ! Lo, on his dark brow The unknown light ! Lo Azrael came behind And touched him. They clanged back, and all was Now. We wondered and forgot : but He, unbent. 186 EPIGRAM. With eye still strained to the forbidden day, Towered in the likeness of his great intent As if his act should be his monument, Till Azrael pitied such sublime dismay, And led him onward by another way. TO PROFESSOR AND MRS. J. S. BLACKIE. If Time that feeds love dies to die no more, Immortal hours, dear friends, were yours and mine ; For Morn that on the hills oped eyes divine, And Eve that walked like Mary by the shore Where that old Dreamer, as he built, of yore, Saw her, and told his dream in such a shrine * As was a kind of Mary, and the shine Of Noon, and starry censers swinging o'er With Night, all made ye dearer : thou whose soul, Palimpsest of a dead and living world, Taketh nor dust from that nor stain from this, And thou who with thyself hast so empearled The writing — knowing well how rare it is — . That the scrolled jewels and the jewelled scroll In total more than both complete a married whole. EPIGRAM ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES. Nature, a jealous mistress, laid him low. He woo'd and won her ; and, by love made bold, She shewed him more than mortal man should know, Then slew him lest her secret should be told. * Tintern Abbey, dedicated to the Virgin. THE SNOWDROP IN THE SNOW. 187 EPIGRAM ON A PORTRAIT PRESENTED TO J. Y. SIMPSON, M. D. Unto myself my better self you gave. I give yourself yourself; but Ah, my friend, In how inverse a ratio ! To amend The unjust return these thanks are all I have, Except a sigh, when that poor " all " is o'er, To feel, alas, no less your debtor than before. THE SNOWDROP IN THE SNOW. full of Faith ! The Earth is rock, — the Heaven The dome of a great palace all of ice, Russ-built. Dull light distils through frozen skies Thickened and gross. Cold Fancy droops her wing, And cannot range. In winding-sheets of snow Lies every thought of any pleasant thing. 1 have forgotten the green earth ; my soul Deflowered, and lost to every summer hope, Sad sitteth on an iceberg at the Pole ; My heart assumes the landscape of mine eyes Moveless and white, chill blanched with hoarest rime ; The Sun himself is heavy and lacks cheer Or on the eastern hill or western slope ; The world without seems far and long ago ; To silent woods stark famished winds have driven The last lean robin — gibbering winds of fear ! Thou only darest to believe in spring, Thou only smilest, Lady of the Time ! 188 THE SNOWDROP IN THE SNOW. Even as the stars come up out of the sea Thou risest from the Earth. How is it down In the dark depths ? Should I delve there, O F lower For beauty ?. Shall I find the Summer there Met manifold, as in an ark of peace ? And Thou, a lone white Dove art thou sent forth Upon the winter deluge ? It shall cease, But not for thee — pierced by the ruthless North And spent with the Evangel. In what hour The flood abates thou wilt have closed thy wings For ever. When the happy living things Of the old world come forth upon the new I know my heart shall miss thee ; and the dew Of summer twilights shall shed tears for me — Tears liker thee, ah, purest ! than mine own — Upon thy vestal grave, O vainly fair ! Thou should'st have noble destiny, who, like A Prophet, art shut out from kind and kin : Who on the winter silence comest in A still small voice. Pale Hermit of the Year, Flower of the Wilderness ! oh, not for thee The jocund playmates of the maiden spring. For when she danceth forth with cymballed feet, Waking a-sudden with great welcoming, Each calling each, they burst from hill to dell In answering music. But thou art a bell A passing bell, snow-muffled, dim and sweet. As is the Poet to his fellow-men, So mid thy drifting snows, O Snowdrop, Thou. Gifted, in sooth, beyond them, but no less A snowdrop. And thou shalt complete his lot And bloom as fair as now when they are not. Thou art the wonder of the seasons, O First-born of Beauty. As the Angel near Gazed on that first of living things which, when The blast that ruled since Chaos o'er the sere THE SNOWDROP IN THE SNOW. 189 Leaves of primeval Palms did sweep the plain, Clung to the new-made sod and would not drive, So gaze I upon thee amid the reign Of Winter. And because thou livest, I live. And art thou happy in thy loneliness ? Oh couldst thou hear the shouting of the floods, Oh couldst thou know the stir among the trees When — as the herald- voice of breeze on breeze Proclaims the marriage pageant of the Spring Advancing from the South — each hurries on His wedding-garment, and the love-chimes ring Thro' nuptial valleys ! No, serene and lone, I will not flush thy cheek with joys like these. Songs for the rosy morning ; at grey prime To hang the head and pray. Thou doest well. I will not tell thee of the bridal train. No ; let thy Moonlight die before their day A Nun among the Maidens, thou and they. Each hath some fond sweet office that doth strike One of our trembling heartstrings musical. Is not the hawthorn for the Queen of May ? And cuckoo-flowers for whom the cuckoo's voice Hails, like an answering sister, to the woods ? Is not the maiden blushing in the rose ? Shall not the babe and buttercup rejoice Twins in one meadow ? Are not violets all By name or nature for the breast of Dames V For them the primrose, pale as star of prime, For them the wind-flower, trembling to a sigh, For them the dew stands in the eyes ot day That blink in April on the daisied lea ? Like them they flourish and like them they fade And live beloved and loving. But for thee — For such a bevy how art thou arrayed Flower of the Tempests? What hast thou with them ? Thou shalt be pearl unto a diadem Which the Heavens jewel. They shall deck the brows 190 TO A CATHEDRAL TOWER. Of joy and wither there. But thou shalt be A Martyr's garland. Thou who, undismayed, To thy spring dreams art true amid the snows As he to better dreams amid the flames. TO A CATHEDRAL TOWER, ON THE EVENING OF THE THIRTY-FIFTH ANNI- VERSARY OF WATERLOO. And since thou art no older, 't is to-day ! And I, entranced, — with the wide sense of gods Confronting Time — receive the equal touch Of Past and Present. Yet I am not moved To frenzy ; but, with how much calm befits The insufficient passions of a soul Expanding to celestial limits, take Ampler vitality, and fill, serene, The years that are and were. Unchanging Pile ! Our schoolboy fathers play in yonder streets, Wherethro' their mothers, new from evening prayer, Speak of the pleasant eve, and say Good Night. Say on ! to whom oh never more shall night Seem good ; to whom for the last time hath eve Been pleasant ! Look up to the sunset skies As a babe smiles into his murderer's face, Nor see the Fate that flushes all the heaven Unconscious Mother ! Hesper thro' the trees Palpitates light ; and thou, beholding peace, Keepest thy vigil and art fond to think His heart is beating for a world of bliss. " Oh Sabbath Land ! " Ah Mother, doth thine ear Discern new silence ? Dost thou dream what right The earth may have to seem so still to thee ? Oh Sabbath Land ! but on. the Belgian plain TO A CATHEDRAL TOWER. 191 The bolt has fallen ; and the storm draws off In scattered thunders groaning round the hills And tempest-drops of woe upon the field. The king of men has turned his charger's head Whose hoofs did shake the world, but clatter now Unheeding sod. He turns, and in his track The sorrows of the centuries to come Cry on the air. He rides into the night, Which as a dreadful spirit hails him in With lightnings and with voices. Far behind, In the War-marish, Victory and Glory Fall by each other's hands, like friends of old, Unconquered. And the genius of his race Pale, leaning on a broken eagle, dies. High in the midst departing freedom stands On hills of slain ; her wings unfurled, her hands Toward heaven, her eyes turned, streaming, on the earth, In act to rise. And all the present Fortunes, Hopes, Oracles, and Omens of the world Sitting alow, as mourners veiled and dumb, Draw, with weird finger, in the battle-slime The signs of Fate. Behold whom War salutes Victor of victors. War, red-hot with toil, Spokesman of Death. Death, pale with sated lust And hoarse with greed. Behold ! .At his strong call The bloody dust takes life, and obscene shapes Clang on contending wings, wild wheeling round His head exulting. How they hate the light And rout the fevered sunset that looks back Obtesting ! How they scream up at the stars And smite in rage the invisible air ! How, like A swoop of black thoughts thro' a stormy soul They rush about the Victor and snatch joys For all the tyrants of the darkened globe. Who shall withstand him V Him the evening star Trembled to see. Our despots, from the first, Bequeathed him each a feature, and he walks The sum of all oppression and the sign. 192 TO A CATMEDKAL TOWER. Earth ! O Heaven ! O Life ! O Death ! O Man ! Flesh of my flesh, my brother ! Is there hope ? Soul, soul ! behold the portent of the time. High in the heaven, the angels, much-attent, With conscious faces and averted eyes (As one who feels the wrong he will not see,) Gaze upon God, and neither frown nor smile. Grey Pile, Who lookest with thy kindred hills upon This quiet England, shadow-robed for sleep, 1 also speak to thee as one whom kin Emboldens. Demigod among the gods I charge thee by thy human nature speak ! Doth she sleep well ? Thou who hast watched her face Tell me, for thou canst tell, doth the flesh creep ? Ah ! and the soil of Albion stirred that day ! Ah ! and these fields, at midnight, heaved with graves ! The vision ends. Collapsing to a point In Time, I see thee, oh red Waterloo, A deadly wound now healed. From whose great scar Upon the brow of Man, the bloody husks, Have newly fallen. 'T was a Felon's blow On one who reeling, drunk with life, above A precipice, fell by the timely steel ; Bled, and, deplete, was whole ; saw with sane eyes The gulph that yawned ; and rises, praising God, To bind the Assassin. THE ROMAN. A DRAMATIC POEM. NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. That I suffer this Second Edition to go forth without the customary revision and correction, requires, in mod- esty, a word of explanation. Of the faults of the book I am fully conscious. I knew thena when it went to press, I never forgot them in the applause of a generous reception, and if I ever look into it again, they will y doubtless, be additionally offensive. But I did my best in 1849; and in 1852 I will not alter what was done. Whether I can yield purer poetry at eight and twenty than when I wrote ''The Roman" at twenty-five, my readers may in due time have occasion to consider; but — classic authority to the contrary not- withstanding — I hold that to beautify the work of that day by passing some of its members through the mind of this, were to borrow the expedient of that ambitious artisan, who recast the limbs of Cupid in the mould of Psyche. What I have written I have written. The words " Dra matic Poem " in the Title are not mine. " Poetry" and " A Poem " are not necessarily asquipollents. In the next few years I hope to write more " Poetry; " ten years hence, if God please, A Poem. S. D. Feb. 1852. 13 THE ROMAN. SCENE I. A Plain in Italy — an ancient Baitle-Jield. lime, Evening. Persons. — Vittorio Santo, a Missionary of Freedom. He has gone out, disguised as a Monk, to preach the Unity of Italy, the Overthrow of Austrian Domination, and the restoration of a great Roman Republic. A num- ber of Youths and Maidens, singing as they dance. " The Monk" is musing. Enter Dancers. Dancers. Sing lowly, foot slowly, oh why should we chase The hour that gives heaven to this earthly embrace ? To-morrow, to-morrow, is dreary and lonely ; Then love as they love who would live to love only ! Closer yet, eyes of jet, — breasts fair and sweet ! No eyes flash like those eyes that flash as they meet ! Weave brightly, wear lightly, the warm-woven chain, Love on for to-night if we ne'er love again. Fond youths ! happy maidens ! we are not alone ! Bright steps and sweet voices keep pace with our own. Love-lorn Lusignuolo, the soft-sighing breeze, The rose with the zephyr, the wind with the trees. While Heaven, blushing pleasure, is full of love- notes, Soft down the sweet measure the fairy world floats. THE KOMAN. 195 The Monk advances, meets the Dancers, and points to the turf at their feet. The Monk. Do you see nothing there, There, where the unrespective grass grows green, There at your very feet ? Nay, not one step ! 'T would touch it ! 't would profane it ! Palsied be The limb that treads that ground! There is a grave — There is a grave ; — I saw it with these eyes — A grave ! I saw it with these eyes ! It holds — It holds — oh Heaven ! — my mother ! One of the Revellers. Peace, good Padre, Look to thy beads. The turf is level here. Comrades ! strike up ! " Sing lowly, foot " The Mont. Who steps, Steps first on me. I say there is a grave, I say it is my mother's : that I loved her, Ay, loved her with more passion than the maddest Lover among ye clasps his one-day wife ! And I steal forth to keep my twilight vigil, And you come here to dance upon my heart. You come and — with the world at will for dalliance, The whole hot world — deny me that small grave Whose bitter margin these poor knees know better Than your accustom'd feet the well-worn path To your best harlot's bower. The turf is fair ! Have I not kept it green with tears, my mother ? You lustful sons of lax-eyed lewdness, do you Come here to sing above her bones, and mock me, Because my flesh and blood cry out, " God save them ? " May the Heaven's blight One of the Revellers. Nay, holy father, nay, We would not harm thee. Be it as thou wilt. Holy Madonna ! there is little dust In this old land, but has been son or mother In its own day. What ho ! my merry friends, Come, we must dance upon some other grave. Farewell, good father ! Another Reveller. Save you, father ! 196 THE ROMA'S. Another. Think not, We would insult thy sorrow. The Monk. Well, forgive me. I pray you listen how I loved my mother, And you will weep with me. She loved me, nurst me, And fed my soul with light. Morning and Even Praying, I sent that soul into her eyes, And knew what Heaven was though I was a child. I grew in stature, and she grew in goodness. I was a grave child ; looking on her taught me To love the beautiful : and I had thoughts Of Paradise, when other men have hardly Look'd out of doors on earth. ( Alas ! alas ! That I have also learn'd to look on earth When other men see heaven.) I toil'd, but ever As I became more holy, she seem'd holier ; Even as when climbing mountain-tops the sky Grows ampler, higher, purer as ye rise. Let me believe no more. No, do not ask me How I repaid my mother. O thou saint, That lookest on me day and night from heaven And smilest, I have given thee tears for tears, Anguish for anguish, woe for woe. Forgive me If, in the spirit of ineffable penance In words, I waken up the guilt that sleeps. Let not the sound afflict thine heaven, or colour That pale, tear-blotted record which the angels Keep of my sins. We left her. I and all The brothers that her milk had fed. We left her — And strange dark robbers, with unwonted names, Abused her ! bound her ! pillaged her ! profaned her ! Bound her clasped hands, and gagg'd the tremb- ling lips That pray'd for her lost children. And we stood And she knelt to us, and we saw her kneel, THE llOMAN. 197 And look'd upon her coldly and denied her ! Denied her in her agony — and counted Before her sanguine eyes the gold that bought Her pangs. We stood — One of the Revellers. Nay, thou cowM ruffian ! hold ! There \s vengeance for thee yet ! Dost thou come here To blast our hearing with thy damned crimes ? Seize on him, comrades, tear him limb from limb ! The Monk. Yes, seize him ! tear him ! tear him ! he will bless thee If thy device can work a deeper pain Than he will welcome and has suffer'd. Tear him ! But, friends, not yet. Hear her last tortures. Then Find, if ye can, some direr pang for me. The Robbers wearied, and they bade us hold her, Lest her death-struggles should get free. She look'd Upon me with the face that lit my childhood, She calPd me with the voices of old times, She blest me in her madness. But, they show'd us Gold, and we seized upon her, held her, bound her, Smote her. She murmur'd kind words, and I gave her Blows. One Auditor. Fiend ! Another. Hound ! Another. Demon ! Another. Strike him ! Another. Hold him down ! Kill him for hours ! The Monk. Why, how now, countrymen ? How now, you slaves that should be Romans ? Ah! And you will kill me that I smote my mother ? Well done, well done, a righteous doom ! I smote My mother ? Hold ! My mother, did I say ! 198 THE JIOMAN. My mother V Mine, yours, ours ! One Auditor. Seize him. AIL Die, liar ! Die. The Monk. But my brothers — will you seize my brothers ? What ! will you let that cursed baud escape That hoard the very gold that slew her '? Make A full end. Finish up the work. You cowards ! What ! you can pounce on an unarm'd poor man, But tremble at the gilded traitors ! AIL Name them ! They shall die ! Point them out! where are thevV The Monk. Here ! You are my brothers. And my mother was Yours And each man among you day by day Takes, bowing, the same price that sold my mother, And does not blush. Her name is Rome. Look round, And see those features which the sun himself Can hardly leave for fondness. Look upon Her mountain bosom, where the very sky Beholds with passion : and with the last proud Imperial sorrow of dejected empire, She wraps the purple round her outraged breast, And even in fetters cannot be a slave. Look on the world's best glory and worst shame. You cannot count her beauties or her chains, You cannot know her pangs or her endurance. You, whom propitious skies may hardly coax To threescore years and ten. Your giant fathers CalPd Atlas demigod. But what is she, Who, worn with eighteen centuries of bondage, Stands manacled before the world, and bears Two hemispheres — innumerable wrongs, Illimitable glories. Oh, thou heart That art most tortured, look on her and say If there be any thing in earth or heaven, THE ROMAN. 199 In earth or heaven — now that Christ weeps no longer — So most divinely sad. Look on her. Listen To all the tongues with which the earth cries out. Flowers, fountains, winds, woods, spring and sum- mer incense, Morning and eve — these are her voices — hear them ! Remember how, in the old innocent days Of your young childhood, these sang blessings on you. " Remember how you danced to those same voices, And sank down tired, and slept in joy, not doubting That they would sing to-morrow ; and remember How when some hearts that danced in those old days, And worn out laid them down, and have not waken'd, Gave back no answer to the morning sun, She took them to her mother's breast and still Holds them unweary, singing by their slumbers, And though you have forgotten them remembers To strew their unregarded graves with flowers. Oh those old days, those canonized days ! Oh that bright realm of sublunaiy heaven, Wherein they walk'd in haloes of sweet light, And we look'd up, unfearing, and drew near And learnt of them what no succeeding times Can tell us since of joy ; — for so, being angels, They suffer'd little children. Oh those days ! Why is it that we hear them now no more ? And the same destiny that brought us pangs Took every balsam hence ? Did we wake up From infancy's last slumber in a new And colder world ? My mother, thou shalt answer ! I hear thee — see thee. The same soul informs 200 THE ROMAN. The present that look'd once through undimm'd eyes In Childhood's past. What though it shines through tears ? It shines. What though it speaks with trembling lips, Tuned to such grief that they say bright words sadly ? It speaks. And by that speech thou art the mother That bore us ! Oh you sons of hers, remember When joy had grown to passion, and high youth Had aim'd the shafts that lay in Childhood's quiver, If you have ever gone out, (and each Roman Heart must have note of one such better day,) Full of high thoughts, ambitions, destinies, And stood, downcast, among her ruin'd altars, And fed the shameful present with the past ; And felt thy soul on the stern food grow up To the old Roman stature : and hast started To feel a hundred nameless things, which Kings Call sins, — and Patriots, virtues : and self-judged, Conscious and purple with the glorious treason, Hast lifted flashing eyes, bold with great futures, And in one glance challenged her earth, seas, skies, And they have said, " Well Done." And thou hast felt Like a proud child whom a proud mother blesses. Ah ! your brows kindle ! What ! I have said well? What ! there are some among you who have been The heroes of an hour ? you men of Parma, What ! you were Romans once ! you worse than slaves, Who, being Romans once, are men of Parma ! Tried on the Roman habit, and could wear it But a short hour on your degenerate limbs ! Sons of the empress of the world, and slaves THE ROMAN. 201 To powers a Roman bondman would not count Upon his fingers on a holiday ! Do not believe me yet. She is no mother, Who has but nursed your joy and pride. Remem- ber, If thou hast ever wept without a heart To catch one tear, and in the lonely anguish Of thy neglected agony look'd out On this immortal world, and seen — love-stricken— Light after light her shadowy joys take up Thy lorn peculiar sorrow, till thy soul Seem'd shed upon the universe, and grief, Deponent of its separate sadness, clung To the stupendous dolour of all things, And wept with the great mourner, and smiled with her When she came back to sunshine — with the joy Of a young child after the first great grief Wherein a mother's holy words first spake To the young heart of God. But I am dreaming ; You have not wept as I have. Yet remember, If she hath shown you softer signs than these — If there are none among you who have given . To her chaste beauty, to the woods and mountains, And lone dim places, sorrowfully sweet, Where love first learns to hear himself, and blush not — Thoughts which you would deny me at confession, Thoughts, which although the peril of a soul Hung on their utterance, would have gone unborn In silence down to hell, unblest, unshriven, And, in despairing coyness, daring all, Because they could dare nothing. Like the shy Seared bird, to which the serpent's jaws are better Than his rude eyes. And yet you gave them to HER, And these same trembling phantasies went forth, To meet the storms that shake the Apennines, And did not fear. And so you call'd her mother, 202 THE KOMAN. And so the invisible in you confest The unseen in her ; and so you bore your witness To her august maternity, and she Reflected back the troth. Remember, so Great Romulus and those who after him Built the Eternal City, and their own Twin-born eternity — even as the workman Is greater than the work — stood at her knee, And brighten'd in her blessing ; and remember If they were sons like you ! What! can dead names Stir living blood ? Fear not, my countrymen ! They are not German chieftains that I spoke of. Tremble not, brethren, they are not our lords. Our lords ! they conquered men. They are some souls That once took flesh and blood in Italy, And thought it was a land to draw free breath in, And drew it long, and died here ; and since live Everywhere else. What ! your brows darken ! what ! 1 wronged you foully ; 't was no fear that daubed them : What ! your cheeks flush as some old soldier's child, Glows at inglorious ease when a chance tongue Speaks of the triumph where his father fell ! What then ! these dead are yours ! Men, what are they ? What are they ? — ask the world and it shall an- swer. And you f True, true, you have your creed ; you tell me That twice a thousand years have not outworn The empire in that blood ot theirs that flows In your dull veins. You tell me you are Romans ! Yet they were lords and you are slaves ; the earth Heard them and shook. It shakes, perchance, for you; THE ROMAN. 203 Shakes with the laugh of scorn that there are things Who lick the dust that falls from Austrian feet, And call the gods their fathers ? Bear with me, I am not here to reckon up your shames, I will know nothing here but my wrong'd mother. I cry before heaven she is yours. That you May kill me for the part I bore, and then Do judgment on yourselves. Look on that mother Whose teeming loins peopled with gods and heroes Earth and Olympus — sold to slaves whose base Barbarian passions had been proud to swell In death a Roman pageant. Every limb Own'd by some separate savage — each charm lent To some peculiar hist* The form that served The world for signs of beauty, parcelPd out A carcase on the shambles, where small kings, Like unclean birds, hang round the expected car- rion, And chaffer for the corpse which shall not die ! Look on that mother and behold her sons ! Alas, she might be Rome if there were Romans ! Look on that mother ! Wilt thou know that death Can have no part in Beauty ? Cast to-day A seed into the earth, and it shall bear thee The flowers that waved in the Egyptian hair Of Pharaoh's daughter ! Look upon that mother — Listen, ye slaves, who gaze on her distress, And turn to dwell with clamorous descant, And prying eye, on some strange small device Upon her chains. In no imperial feature, In no sublime perfection, is she less Than the world's empress, the earth's paragon, Except these bonds. These bonds ? Break them. Unbind, Unbind Andromeda ! She was not born To stand and shiver in the northern blast, Or fester on a foreign rock, or bear, Rude licence of the unrespective waves. 204 THE ROMAN. She is a queen ! a goddess ! a king's daughter ! What though her loveliness defied the heavens ; Unbind her, she shall fill them ! Man, unbind her, And, goddess as she is, she owns thee, loves thee, Crowns thee ! And is there none to break thy chains, My country ? Is there none, sons of my mother? Strike, and the spell is broken. You behold her Suppliant of suppliants. Strike ! and she shall stand Forth in her awful beauty, more divine Than death or mortal sorrow ; clothing all The wrecks and ruins of disastrous days In old-world glory — even as the first spring After the deluge. Why should we despair ? The heroes whom your fathers took for gods, Walk'd in her brightness, and received no more Than she gives back to you, who are not heroes, And have not yet been men. They toil'd and bled, And knew themselves immortal, when they hung Their names upon her altars ; ask'd no fate But that which you inherit and disdain To call it heritage — subdued the world, And with superior scorn heard its lip-service, And bade it call them Romans, and believe Earth had no haughtier name. Be not deceived. They stood on Roman, you on Parman ground, But yet this mould is the same ground they stood on. The evening wind, that passes by us now, To their proud senses was the evening wind. These are the hills, and these the plains, whereby The Roman shepherd fed his golden flocks, And kings look'd from their distant lands, and thought him Greater than they. The masters of the world Heard the same streams that speak to you, its slaves. THE ROMAN. 205 These rocks were their rocks, and their Roman spring Brought, year by year, the very self-same blossoms, (The self-same blossoms, but they stood for crowns.) The flowers beneath their feet had the same per- fume As those you tread on — do they scorn your tread ? They saw your stars; and when the sun went down, The mountains on his face set the same signs To their eyes as to yours. O thou unseen Rome of their love, — immaculate and free ! Thou who didst sit amid the Apennines, And looking forth upon the conscious world, Which heard thee and obey'd, beheld thy children From sea to sea ! Yes, we are here, my mother, And here beside thy mountain throne we call thee Ascend, thou uncrown'd queen ! Yet a few days, Yet a few days, and all is past. Behold Even now, the harvest seedeth, and the ear Bends rich with death. Yet a few days, my mother, And thou shalt hear the shouting of the reapers, And we who sharp the sickle shall ring out The harvest-home. Nay, look not on me, mother, Look not on me in thy sublime despair ; Thou shalt be free ! I see it all, my mother, Thy golden fetters, thy profaned limbs, Thy toils, thy stripes, thine agonies, thy scars, And thine undying beauty. Yes, all, all, And all for us and by us. Look not on me. Ay ! lift thy canker'd hands to heaven, earth hath not Room for so vast a wrong. Thou shalt be free, Thou shalt be free, before the heavens I swear it ! By thy long agony, thy bloody sweat, Thy passion of a thousand years, thy glory, Thy pride, thy shame, thy worlds subdued and lost, Thou shalt be free ! By thine eternal youth, 206 THE ROMAN. And coeternal utterless dishonour — Past, present, future, life and death, all oaths, Which may bind earth and heaven, mother, I swear it. We know we have dishonour'd thee. We know All thou canst tell the angels. At thy feet, The feet where kings have trembled, we confess, And weep ; and only bid thee live, my mother, To see how we can die. Thou shalt be free ! By all our sins, and all thy wrongs we swear it. We swear it, mother, by the thousand omens That heave this pregnant time. Tempests for whom The Alps lack wombs — quick earthquakes — hur- ricanes That moan and chafe, and thunder for the light, And must be native here. Hark, hark, the angel ! I see the birthday in the imminent skies ! Clouds break in fire. Earth yawns. The exulting thunder Shouts havoc to the whirlwinds. And men hear, Amid the terrors of consenting storms, Floods, rocking worlds, mad seas and rending mountains, Above the infinite clash, one long great cry, Thou shalt be free ! [ The audience have one by one stolen away. The Monk, recovering from his enthusiasm, finds himself alone.] The Monk. Ah solitude ! and have I Raved to the winds ? [-4 pause. Bow not thy queenly head, Beat not thy breast ; they do not leave thee, mother ! We have no strength to meet the offended terrors Of thy chaste eyes. Yet a few days, my mother. And when the fire of expiation burns, Thou shalt confess thy children. Oh, bear with us. THE ROMAN. 207 Hath the set sun forsaken thee ? We know All that thou art, and we are : and if, mother. The unused weight of the ineffable knowledge Bendeth our souls, forgive us. [ Another long pause. Yes, all gone ! And not one word — one pitiful cheap word — One look that might have brighten'd into promise ! All faint, pale, recreant, slavish, lost. No cur That sniffs the distant bear, and sneaks downcast With craven tail and miscreant trepidation To kennel and to collar, could slink home With a more prone abasement. [Another long pause. Kill me ! kill me ! Thine hour is not yet come. Then give me mine ! Thou must endure, my mother, I have taken A meteor for the dawn. Thou must endure, And toil, and weep. Oh, thou offended majesty ! my heart Beats here for thee. Strike it ! Thou must en- dure. I may not, at the peril of my soul, Give thee aught other counsel ; and I would not For many souls that any man should dare To give thee this and live. Alas ! when truth Is treason, and the crime of what we do Transcends all sins but the more damning guilt Of doing aught beside. [Another pause. Or is it, mother, That thou hast chosen ill? That I, the dreamer, Catch not the language of these waking men ? With our humanity infirm upon us, My God ! it is a fearful thing to stand Alone, beneath the weight of a great cause And a propitious time ! [Another pause. Mother ! [A long pause. Be patient, O thou eternal and upbraiding Presence, Which fillest heaven and earth with witness ; be 208 THE ROMAN. What thou hast been : and, if thou canst, forgive What I cannot forgive ; and let me be What I was. Take, take back this terrible sight ! This sight that passeth the sweet boundaiy Of man's allotted world. Let me look forth And see green fields, hills, trees, and soulless waters Give back my ignorance. Why should my sense Be cursed with this intolerable knowledge ? Let me go back to bondage. What am I, That I am tortured to supernal uses, Who have not died ; and see the sights of angels With mortal eyes? Unhand me, mother ! why Must I, so many years removed from death, Be young and have no youth ? What have I done That all thy millions look on thee with smiles, And I with madness ? Why must I be great ? When did T ask this boon ? Why is the dull, Smooth, unctuous current of contented baseness Forbidden to me only ? What art thou, Magician ! that who serves thee hath thenceforth No part on earth beside ? That I am doom'd — Am doom'd to preach in unknown tongues, and know What no man will believe ? To strive, and weep, And labour with impossible griefs and woes, That kill me in the birth ? That 1 am thus, That I am thus, who once was calm, proud, happy, — Ay, you may smile, you ancient sorrows, — happy. Stay ! happy ? And a slave ? [A very long pause. If I must see thee, If it must be, if it must be, my mother ! If it must be, and God vouchsafes the heart No gift to unlearn truth ; if the soul never Can twice be virgin ; if the eye that strikes Upon the hidden path to the unseen Is henceforth for two worlds ; if the sad fruit Of knowledge dwells forever on the lip, And if thy face once seen, to me, O thou Unutterable sadness ! must henceforth THE ROMAN. 209 Look day and night from all things ; grant me this, That thine immortal sorrow will remember How little we can grieve who are but dust. Make me the servant, not the partner, mother, Of woes, for whose omnipotence of pain I have no organs. Suffer that I give Time and endurance for impossible passion ; Perchance accumulated pangs may teach me One throe of thy distress. How canst thou think My soul can contain thine ? SCENE II. Time and place as in Scene I. Francesca, a young girl, one of the Auditors in Scene I. has remained hidden among the trees. The Monk, silent. Francesca (musing). While he yet spake I waited for a pause, And now, if I could dare to hear my voice In this most awful silence, it should pray That he would speak again. You heavens, you heavens, Lend me your language. This progressive thought, This unit-bearing speech, whose best exertion Is but dexterity, the juggler's sleight, That with facility of motion cheats The eye, whose noblest effort can but haste The single ball of phantasy, and make Succession seem coincidence, is not For such an hour. Lend me some tongue, you heavens, Worthy of gods : in whose celestial sense The present, past, and future of the soul Sink down as one ; even as these dews to-night 14 210 THE ROMAN. Fall from a thousand stars. He hears. He turns. Now, now, ye saints! The Monk (turning and perceiving h&r). Lady, what wouldst thou ? [She is silent. Child, What wouldst thou ? Francesca. 1 have heard thee. Dost thou ask ? The Monk (pointing to the dancers in the far distance). Did they not hear? Daughter, persuade me this, And I will bless thee. Francesca (taking a flower from her breast). Is that rosebud sweet ? I pluck'd it from a thicket as I pass'd ; One day, perhaps, some cottage plot ; but now Given up to dominance of vulgar thorns, And weeds of deadlier moral. Yet methinks 'T is still a rose. Wilt thou receive it ? The Monk. Aye. Fra?icesca. I am that rose, my father, so accept Me. The Monk. Child, I will. Francesca. I have heard much to-night Of Roman deeds, of sages, and of heroes, Of sons who loved, and sons who have betray'd. Hath Rome no daughters to repeat her beauty, Renew the model of old time, and teach Her sons to love the mother in the child ? Was Rome, my father, built and peopled by One sex ? The very marble of your ruins Looks masculine. In heart I roam about them, But wheresoe'er my female soul peers in — Even to the temple courts — some bearded image Cries Privilege. Doth Salique law entail The heritage of glory ? Is there nothing, Nothing, my father, in the work of freedom For woman's hand to do ? The Monk. The past, that book THE ROMAN. 211 Of demonstrated theorems, lies open. Why seek my poor unproved hypothesis, When God hath solved for thee ? Child, choose thy page. Here bleeds Lucretia. Rome hath now ten Tarquins (Ten Tarquins, but we call them dukes and kings). There, Arria. Many a Pcetus lives to-night Who would have given right joyfully to freedom The Roman heart that makes a sorry slave, If Arria would have shown him how to die. Virginia ! Appius — nay, we have no state Where Appius would have deign'd to be a despot. But that divine idea incarnate in Virginia's corse, and teeming in the blood Which quickening in your Roman ground grew up A national virginity — that glory, Though it reach up to heaven, may make its footstool Wherever there is earth enough to die on. Remember her who Francesca. Hear me yet, my father, And I will light thee to a sterner text Than thou hast heart to preach from. Yonder castle Darkening the hill The Monk. Child, the days come when where The deadliest stronghold of its lordliest keep Spreads the dank flags, tear-damp, of its most dark Detested dungeon, thou — not 1 — shalt see The wild thyme and the bee. Francesca. Is there nought writ Of Tullia, who once drove the car of blood Over her father's corse ? Sir, from those walls My father rules. The Monk (after some silence). Shall Paul stop preaching lest Eutychus sleep ? In the Damascene way Shall his eyes shut out light from heaven ? Not though It scorch them blind ! Truth is a god, my child ; 212 THE ROMAN. Rear thou the altar, he himself provides The lamb. The great judge, Truth, who takes thy verdict, Avenges a false finding though it save Thy brother's soul. Truth is the equal sun, Ripening no less the hemlock than the vine. Truth is the flash that turns aside no more For castle than for cot. Truth is a spear Thrown by the blind. Truth is a Nemesis Which leadeth her beloved by the hand Through all things ; giving him no task to break A bruised reed, but bidding him stand firm Though she crush worlds. Francesco. Master ! I would serve Truth. The Monk (meditates, then speaks). Oh Free- dom ! ruddy goddess of the hill, Say, from that breezy ledge of genial rock, Where, yet ere twilight, with thine eastward face Turn'd to to-morrow's sunrise, thou hast laid Thy joyous limbs, dew-bathed — which day scarce tames To sleep — oh say, is this pale dreamer thine ? Go home, poor child, thou hast thy burden ; I Add nothing. Francesco,. Thou canst speak in parables, Or with stern silence stifle the poor heart That breathes thy words ; but, father, I will sit Here at thy feet. The Monk. So does my dog ; but do I Take him to council ? Francesco. Yet thou givest him To watch thee day and night. Grant me no less. The Monk. Oh tyrant's daughter, lovest thou Roman thus ? Francesco. Aye. The Monk (musing). Can the heart be less than what it holds ? The fetter'd slave that in his fetters slays THE ROMAN. 213 His lord, has strength to break them. Arms that break Their chains have strength to throw them in the sea. Perchance I have judged ill. Yes. Unattaint, Perchance, the Arethusan blood of Rome Hath coursed the conduit of a tyrant's veins, And from the fetid entrails of the earth Springs up Diana's fountain ! Soul, soul, soul, Wilt thou again believe ? Are figs of thistles ? Hast thou not tasted of the Dead- Sea fruits ? The clouds are midnight with to-morrow's storm : Wilt thou launch freedom in a cockle-shell ? What ! Patriot, dost thou pay the gold of Home For phantom ship to skim aerial waves Or desert mirage ? Bah ! what falconer Shall man this butterfly-hawk ? Will that nice beak Stoop to a bloody lure ? Poor child, poor child, The feeblest tongue that freemen use will deafen These ears where every word went bowing in ! These pamper'd ears, born in the purple chamber Of silken state, these soft voluptuous ears, Dainty and fancy-fed, that of the tribe Of many-visaged language, know alone That bastard and emasculated speech That does court-embassies. That perfumed minion, Which runs the powder'd errands of intrigue ; That slave-born slave, that audible obeisance, Which on the silver plate of compliment Exchanges rotten hearts. That sleek thrice-curFd Prim arbiter of vile proprieties, Whose wax-light days begin and end with fashion ; That velvet impotent, whose effete passions Wait smiling the fantastic lusts of kings. ****** How shall she bear the sound when a strong land In the rude health of freedom shall say Rome ! 214 THE ROMAN. Go home, girl, thou hast nought in me, nor I In thee. Francesca. Thy words stand 'twixt my home and me. The Monk. Hence ! Thou shalt pass them. Free- dom's sentinels Challenge no feathers. Francesca. I have heard thy fears, And fear not. Do the damn'd, my father, shrink At voice of angel ? Shall not the small sense Of feeblest child sustain the crash of doom ? The Monk. The day is thine. There was a Greek sage once, who stood in spirit Sublime beside his outraged flesh and blood, The only calm beholder. He and thou, Raw girl ! have come into one heritage ; He in grey hairs, weary and wise, as sage ; Thou in the flush of unreflecting days, As woman. With bowed head I stand before thee, Child ! teach me. Francesca. Mock me not, oh father, mock Me not. Is it so great a boon to die ? The Monk. Have what thou wilt — do what thou wilt. Francesca (throwing herself at his feet). He takes me ! You Heavens ! he takes me. Master, Teacher, Lord ! The Monk. I take thee not. Francesca. Thou canst not drive me from thee ! I see it all ! He would even crush the fly That hums about him. No, my father, no, I die not thus. The Monk. I take thee not, brave girl, Thy Country claims thee. That great Rome, for whom Many have fallen, but how few have died. That generous country, which, while other lands THE ROMAN. 215 Build up their bulwarks of their children's dust, Of her best sons, in her worst need, asks only Apotheosis. Dost thou weep to exchange The mortal for the eternal ? Francesco,. Teach me how To serve her. The Monk. Pay her tithes of the rich love That bore thee to her feet. That love which tri- umph'd In victory like his of Underwalden, Who buried in his own unconquer'd breast Th' opposing spears. Francesco. Father, I am a poor Weak ignorant. Thy voice falls on my heart Like heavenly music, but alas, I know not What words they sing to it in heaven. I pray thee Give eyes to this blind trouble in my soul, Set me some task — nay, do not spare me, master, Some task at which thy bravest is not brave — Teach me some lesson, in our woman's language, Of action and endurance ; I will say it, That thou shalt bless thy scholar ! The Monk. Child ! child ! child ! Thou art yet young, and foot of babe can do No sacrilege. But curb these proud beliefs, There comes a time, when holy bounds o'er-stept May blast thee. Child, freedom hath sanctuaries, Wherein the chaste hands of her best high-priest Tremble to serve. Slave ! merry smiling slave ! Dancing an hour since to the shameful music Of thine own chains — Francesco. Oh father, father, spare me ! Make me her lowest servant — The Monk. Child, not so. How should I judge thee ? Enoch was the first, But not the last translated. To both worlds — The inner and the outer — we come naked. The very noblest heart on earth, hath oft No better lot than to deserve. And yet, 216 THE ROMAN. What laurel I'd impotent shall show his head Beside that uncrown'd giant ? No, my daughter, I think thou hast a place beside the throne. Behold it near the skies : the golden steps Of human toil that reach it, and the angels Ascending and descending. AVilt thou climb ? Francesca. Oh father ! The Monk. Let me breathe thee round the base Of the celestial steep. I have a task Such as becomes the neophyte of freedom ; It shall be thine. Francesca. I clasp thy knees, my father. The Monk. Brave girl, it is a Tyro's task ; a baptism That will not drown. The very holiday-work Of glory — Francesca. May I do no nobler ? The Monk. Hear it. Go forth at dawn — as they of old, go forth — Carry nor purse, nor scrip, nor shoes, salute By the way no man. Through this sad broad land, Even from the Alps to the three seas, cry out, " Rome is at hand ! " Francesca. Father, no more ? The Monk. No more. Francesca. No word of War, Glory, Shame, Tyrants ? Nothing Of this Rome's feature ? The Monk. Did John Baptist know Whom he foreran ? Daughter, thy chains lie there, Not two hours off. No law forbids thee wear them. Francesca. Forgive me, father, I am thine, all thine, But — nay, frown not — what if men tire of this Strange cuckoo note ? The Monk. Do two hearts hear the cuckoo With the same beat ? Lend me thy lute, dear girl ; There was a song that in my wanderings THE ROMAN. 217 I heard in other years. A wayward song That caught the murmur of the waterfall, By which I sang it. But no matter. 'T will Find its way where the brawny words of manhood Might be too rude. I would, my poor disciple, I had some foot more fit than an arm'd heel To tread the dwelling of thy woman's soul. And while we commune, daughter, — for alas, A patriot militant has no to-morrows — Hear this first lesson. It may be remember'd When I am not. Stern duties need not speak Sternly. He who stood firm before the thunder, Worshipp'd the still small voice. Let the great world That bears us — the all-preaching world — instruct thee, That teacheth every man, because her precepts Are seen, not heard. Oh, worship her. Fear not Whilst thou hast open eyes, and ears for all The simplest words she saith. Deaf, blind, to these, Despair. That worst incurable, perchance Some voice may heal hereafter, but none here. For before every man, the world of beauty, Like a great artist, standeth day and night, With patient hand retouching in the heart God's defaced image. Reverence sights and sounds, Daughter; be sure the wind among the trees Is whispering wisdom. Now assist me. lute. [ The Monk sings — recitativo — touching the lute at intervals. There went an incense through the land one night, Through the hush'd holy land, when tired men slept. [Interlude of music. The haughty sun of June had walk'd, long days, Through the tall pastures which, like mendicants, Hung their sear heads and sued for rain : and he Had thrown them none. And now it was high hay- time, 218 THE ROMAN. Through the sweet valley all her flowery wealth At once lay low, at once ambrosial blood Cried to the moonlight from a thousand fields. And through the land the incense went that night, Through the hush'd holy land when tired men slept. It fell upon the sage ; who with his lamp Put out the light of heaven. He felt it come Sweetening the musty tomes, like the fair shape Of that one blighted love, which from the past Steals oft among his mouldering thoughts of wisdom. And she came with it, borne on airs of youth ; Old days sang round her, old memorial days, She crown'd with tears, they dress'd in flowers, all faded — And the night-fragrance is a harmony All through the old man's soul. Voices of eld, The home, the church upon the village green, Old thoughts that circle like the birds of Even Round the grey spire. Soft sweet regrets, like sunset Lighting old windows with gleams day had not. Ghosts of dead years, whispering old silent names Through grass-grown pathways, by halls mouldering now. Childhood — the fragrance of forgotten fields ; Manhood — the wraforgotten fields whose fragrance Pass'd like a breath ; the time of buttercups, The fluttering time of sweet forget-me-nots ; The time of passion and the rose — the hay -time Of that last summer of hope ! The old man weeps, The old man weeps. His aimless hands the joyless books put by ; As one that dreams and fears to wake, the sage With vacant eye stifles the trembling taper, Lets in the moonlight — and for once is wise. [Interlude of music. There went an incense through the midnight land, Through the hush'd holy land where tired men slept. It f 41 upon a simple cottage child, Laid where the lattice open'd on the sky, THE ROMAN. 219 And she look'd up and said, Those flowers the stars Smelt sweet to-night. God rest her ignorance ! There went an incense through the land one night, Through the hush'd holy land when tired men slept It pass'd above a lonely vale, and fell Upon a poet looking out for signs In heaven and earth, and went into his soul, And like a fluttering bird among sweet strings, Made strange iEolian music wild and dim. {Interlude. A haggard man, silent beneath the stars, Stood with bare head, a hasty step withdrawn From a low tatter'd hut, wherefrom the faint Low wail of famine, like a strange night-bird, Cried on the air. He had come forth to give His dying child, his youngest one, repose. " Father," it said, a you weep, I cannot die." There went an incense through the land that night, Through the hush'd holy land when tired men slept ; It came upon his soul, and went down deep Deep to his heart, and threw the new-made hay Upon the coals of fire that ember'd there. And by the rising flame came pictures fair, Of old ancestral fields that strangers till, And patrimony that the spoiler reaps. Then falls the flame upon the pallet near, And forward on the canvas of the night, To the wild father's eye, lights up that landscape Of love and health and hope which yesterday The poorest crumbs of the oppressor's feast Might buy. Oh God ! how coarse a crust may be The bread of life. He breathes the night-balm in, And breathes it back the red-hot smoke of ven- geance ! [Musical interlude. There was a lonely mother and one babe, — - A moon with one small star in all her heaven — Too like the moon, the wan and weary moon, In pallor, beauty, all, alas ! but change. 220 THE EOMAN. Through six long months of sighs that moon un- waning Had risen and set beside the little star. And now the little star, whom all the dews Of heaven refresh not, westers to its setting, Out of the moonlight to be dark for ever. O'er the hush'd holy land where tired men sleep, There went an incense through the night. It fell Upon the mother, and she slept — the babe, It smiled and dream'd of paradise. Thanks, listener. I am a sorry minstrel. Had my art Been echo to the nature in thy face We had heard nobler strains. Francesco, (sadly). Alas ! there only Is thy child false. The Monk. Ah ! sighing still ? Francesco. Dear father, One more forgiveness ! Spirits half cast out Tear the possess'd and cry. Indulgent master, Complete thy miracle. The Monk (severely). Hath the possess'd Faith to be healed ? Francesco. I could do all for love, Bleed, die for it, — even to the second death — I could, I would, I will — but to give flesh For marble ; to be crush'd out of the earth By some cold image falling from the clouds ! The Monk. Woman, is this a place for earthly passion ? Francesco. Not passion, no, not passion. Hu- man light In the stern idol's eyes — a heart, a pulse To sanctify the embrace — the love that throbs Belief — Oh master, master! The Monk. I am patient, Strange priestess — how long are these mysteries V Francesco (pauses). Sir, they are even now ended. I say not THE ROMAN. 221 Whether the fire be out upon the altar, Or if the holy portals are self-closed ^Against unpitying eyes ; but — they are ended. The Monk. Child, I have wrong'd thee. Francesca. Father, say not so. They are not wrong'd who have no rights. And what Have I before thee ? The Monk. More, my daughter, more Than thou or I remembered. Do the stars Frown on us ? Yet that cloud of wayward wishes The world sent up at vesper-time hangs now Fevering the heaven between their eyes and ours. Daughter, forget my sins. Fond Hector, arm'd, Smiled a paternity too terrible Even for a hero's child. The earnest soul Drawing a sword is warrior cap-a-pied, And this voice, strife- strain'd, catches ill to-night The pitch of the confessional. Brave girl, Canst thou trust twice ? Francesca. Do I trust God the less For an unanswer'd prayer ? Command me, master ; 'T was the Promethean madness that essay'd To warm a clay heart with celestial fire. I am content to serve. The Monk. Nay, tell me all. Francesca. Not so, my father. No, thou shalt not cross This threshold. No, thou shalt not stoop so low As to the lintel of a heart like mine ! Nay, tempt me not. I have received my sorrow, And am content. The sin was too delicious For feebler retribution. But, oh, once To bear what I have borne this hour sufficeth For one life. The Monk. Thou poor trembling child, be calm. Truth, partial to her sex, made woman free Even of her inmost cell ; but man walks round The outer courts, and by the auspices 222 THE EOMAN. And divinations of the augur reason. Knows her chaste will, her voice, and habit better — With a sure science, more abstract and pure — Than ye who run by instinct to her knee. Answer me, child, perchance Francesca. Nay, father, nay, I am not worthy of thine auguries. I will confess. I fear'd — forgive me, father, I did fear that as there have been who flew Wild with their own inevitable shadow ; The dark monotony from day to day, Of words that had no image in my brain, — Great everpresent names that stand for nothing In heaven or earth, sounds, awful, awful sounds, For shapes I cannot see, haunting my ears, Might drive me mad. Is not a whisper, father, Fearful at night ? Are there not some, my father, Who have been doom'd to drag a skeleton Rattling behind them ? Oh, you heavens, you heavens, I shall go mad. The Monk (^musingly). Ay, child, those rank weeds, words, Exhaust the soul. Francesca. A little love, dear master, It seem'd to me if I could know and love — Though afar oil' — this Home of which thou speakest, It would make life of death. The Monk. Yes, thou must love her, There must be fire from heaven or hell to burn Offerings that burnt were incense, but neglected Pollute the winds. Thou must love Rome, my daughter, As she loves thee. Francesca. Oh, can she love me ? How, Oh, tell me how the mortal can win looks From the eternal ? How the daughters of men Drew angels down ? Alas, thou jestest, father, THE KOMAN. 223 She — the espoused of ages — how shall I Woo her J The Monk. Even as thou makest other loves. Watch her and wait upon her ; let her share Thy morn and eve, and in the sleep of noon Dream of her. Have no shame to see her by Thy bed at night, and to undress thine heart In her sad gaze. In the dull ways of men Sitting and walking lonely, let her image Be thy attendant spirit, and interpret All things into her language. Haply passing A ruin'd garden, all of broken statues, Temples o'er-turn'd, sweet haunts of love and pleasance Denied and trodden in the outraged earth, And blossoms like the noon for radiance, trampled By foul insulting feet : while over all The appealing music of wronged solitudes, Of shades deflower'd and sanctities profaned, Hangs like a dewy exhalation — then Look up and say, My country ! Wandering through The lovely ruin, if thy step should strike On some fair column ; prone and moss-interr'd, Fit for a god to stand on ; one of those That found amid a desert's sands alone, Should of the wealth of its one witness give Another tome to history — be reverent, Tread as thy feet were among graves — and say, My country ! Or, oh prince's daughter, if In some proud street, leaning 'twixt night and day From out thy palace balcony to meet The breeze — that tempted by the hush of eve, Steals from the fields about a city's shows, And like a lost child, scared with wandering, flies From side to side in touching trust and terror, 224 THE ROMAN. Crying sweet country names and dropping flow- ers — Leaning to meet that breeze, and looking down To the so silent city, if below With dress disorder'd and dishevell'd passions Streaming from desperate eyes that flash and flicker Like corpse-lights, (eyes that once were known on high, Morning and night, as welcome there as thine,) And brow of trodden snow, and form majestic That might have walk'd unchallenged through the skies, And reckless feet, fitful with wine and woe, And songs of revel that fall dead about Her ruin'd beauty — sadder than a wail — (As if the sweet maternal eve for pity Took out the joy, and, with a blush of twilight, Uncrown'd the Bacchanal) — some outraged sister Passeth, be patient, think upon yon heaven, Where angels hail the Magdalen, look down Upon that life in death and say — My country ! SCENE III. Tlie neighbourhood of Milan, during a popular Emeute. A great band of Insurgents, armed, and singing, pass over. The Monk stands near. All (chanting as they march). Who would drone on in a dull world like this ? Heaven costs no more than a pang and a sigh ; Dash off the fetters that bind us from bliss, Fair fall the freeman who foremost shall die ! Death 's a siesta, lads, take it who can ! Wave the proud banners that wave for Milan ! THE ROMAN. 225 Chanted in song, and remember'd in story, Sunk but to rise — like the sun in the wave — Grandly the fallen shall sleep in his glory, Proudly his country shall weep at his grave, And hallow like relics each clod where there ran The blood of that hero who died for Milan ! Holy his name shall be, blest by the brave and free, Kept like a saint's-day, the hour when he died ! The mother that bore him, the maid that bends o'er him Shall weep, but the tears shall be rich tears of pride. Shout, brothers, shout for the first falling man, Shout for the gallant that dies for Milan ! Long, long years hence by the home of his truth, His fate, beaming eyes yet unborn shall bedew, Beloved of the lovely, while beauty and youth Shall give their best sighs to the brave and the true ! On spears ! spur cavaliers ! Victory our van, Fame sounds the trumpet that sounds for Milan ! [ They pass ; the Monk steps forth, and stopping some of the rearguard, speaks. The Monk. Would you know The path of that false tyrant, who enslaved Your fetter'd land : and, with her outraged beauties Beaming upon you, made ye glad to die ? Soldier. Ay, holy father. The Monk. Would you know the spot Where, in the shoutings of his maniac triumph, He calls his blood-hounds round his gory hands, And cheers them on the prey ? Soldier. Since the noon-sun Shone on the flying Austrians, we have track'd them, And burn to sup as we have dined. Speak on. 15 226 THE ROMAN. The Monk. If I could count you man by man, and horse By horse, and bayonet by bayonet, And point the very lurking place — Soldier. Nay, speak ! The sun sinks, and Milan herself goes down With to-nioht's dews. Speak, speak good father. The Monk. Fools ! What ! do you take me for some Austrian trull, At service of the first camp follower That sues her ? Do you think I make my council Of way-side danglers ? Dost betray me, fellow ? Thou pale-faced German knave, if thou art aught That man may name unblushing, hence and bring me The leaders of this crew. One Soldier to another. Go fetch the captain Of the tenth troop. The Monk. Friend, fetch ten thousand captains, And march them here to march them back again ; What ! dost thou think Milan's great doom is meat For mouths like thine ? Hence, bring your general, And bid him — as he values absolution For all that army of unshriven souls That hope to make their beds in Paradise — Appear with such attendance as befits The majesty of freedom. Hence, and tell him I can show where Milan's great foe is flagrant, And swear upon my priestly faith, this night He shall behold him ! [Exit a Soldier. Enter General and crowd of Trooj)S. General. Sir, and reverend father, Thou wilt forgive me if I am deceived — A straggler of our army brought — but now — An imminent commandment. Wa^s it thine ? The Monk. Mine. General. We do trust thou hast not wrong'd us, father ; THE ROMAN. 227 Each passing moment that goes by us now Is full of lives. The Monk. I have not wrong'd you. Hear me. You say you combat for your country — mine, Yours, every man's in whom the proud high blood Of the old time still struggles with the present, And throbs and blushes at degenerate days ; The country of the Caesars, and the saints, And, better still, the land of stirring deeds, Done by rude hands, and heads as yet uncrown'd In earth or heaven ; the lady of the kingdoms — The soil on which the gods came down, confounding Their heaven with ours; — restore me if I wander From your own words — you strike for this dear country ? All. Die for it! The Monk. And the tide that flow'd from those Old Roman veins like empire, so that where The Roman bled he ruled — the blood that soak'd His sovereignty into the land he fell on, Flows in you, and you feel it ? General, Reverend father, Times hastes — the news — thine oath — we must hence — The Monk. Peace ! Wilt thou direct my gifts, rebellious child ? [ Turning to the Crowd. Say, will you hear me ? Will you know the spot Where the foe lurks I swore to show you ? All. Speak ! The Monk. You feel the pulses of the Roman blood, You think the masters of the world begot Kings, and not slaves — you come forth with the same Looks, passions, sinews, souls and giant hearts, Which in your sires stood round your ancient heroes, And lifted them to o-lorv on their shields, 228 THE ROMAN. — Those heroes worshipp'd by the startled earth, Who seeing them above you, call'd them gods — You know the same grand instinct of vast empire, You stand upon the same Italian ground, You stand on that same ground, the same proud people, And the inheritors of ancient worlds, Shout for Milan ! What ! will you pay your lives To buy a freedom girt by fewer acres Than your old consuls would have thrown away Upon a birth-day gift ? What, has this land, This Italy, grown smaller, and lacks ground For such a temple as it once upbore ? Or in your base hearts, shrunk with shameful days, Is there no space to build a Roman glory ? Go to ! you feebler sons of feeble days, You that would totter with the very name By which men call'd your sires ! Go to, you pig- mies, Who have no more resource in your dwarf nerves, To know the squalor of your futile limbs, Than you have sight or soul or sense to compass The awful stature of a Roman people ! AVhy do I speak of glory ? Italy, This Italy, which in its length and breadth Scarce served your fathers for a throne to sit on, Confounds their children with its vast horizon ! And the posterity of those who counted Conquests by continents, weigh'd out dominion By hemispheres, and cast a score of kingdoms As dust to balance the unequal scale, Wage comfit combats at a carnival ! Coin fatherlands and farthings ; and step out Their mimic royalties, and make toy princes Glorious in gilt and gingerbread for kings At school to play with. Husbandmen in crowns, Great in the lordship of a Roman field, Affect the despot, and to trembling townships Nod sovereignty ; with equal hand create THE KOMAN. 229 A constitution, country, and court-cook, Will loyalties, and point with awful finger Which hedge and ditch shall bound a patriotism ! While Romans smile, and sons of Caesar farm Well pleased what CaBsar would have deem'd too strait To breed his wild boars for a hunting day, And call it Empire ! Enter fresh crowds of Soldiers shouting. Soldiers. Long live the republic ! Long live the commonwealth of Lombardy ! The Monk. Long live eternal Rome ! long live that Rome Which is not dead but sleepeth ! long live Rome ! Men, this is the great year of resurrection ! All who are in their graves shall hear his voice, And come forth ! That which twenty centuries hence Lay down a hero, shall rise up a god ! Shout, countrymen ! and wake the graves ; shout, Rome ! Reptjbi ic ! Rise ! Many voices. Down with him, down with him. Viva Milano ! General. A hearing, comrades ! Many. Peace ! the General speaks ! General. Priest, at thy peril Many. At thy peril, priest ! General. Priest, at thy peril, cease these time- less babblings, Respect thine oath and life. Show us the foe ! Soldiers. The foe, the foe, the foe, The Monk. Each silent man, When I cry Rome ! Each false, base-blooded shouter, When you cry Lombardy ! Soldiers. Base-blooded ! false ! Base-blooded ! false ! give him a ball in the mouth ! Milan! Milan! up muskets ! 230 THE ROMAN. General. Shoulder arms ! The Monk. Each self-judged helot, pleased to toil, a Goth, When he might rule, a Roman ! Rome ? Rome ? Rome ? Bah ! by what witchcraft should you know that name, You Tuscans, Luccans, Florentines, Sardinians, Parmans, Placentians, Paduans and — slaves ? Soldiers. Spear him — a pike, a pike \ Some. Hear the priest ! Others (with great uproar). Stone him, Stone him The Monk. I am a Roman. Let some Vandal Cast the first stone. SCENE IV. Moonlight. Francesca alone, musing, sitting on a bank beneath trees. Cecco, a friend, enters unpevceived, at the close of her soliloquy. Francesca. I will but live in twilight, I will seek out some lone Egerian grove, Where sacred and o'er-greeting branches shed Perpetual eve, and all the cheated hours Sing vespers. And beside a sullen stream, Ice-cold at noon, my shadowy self shall sit, Crown'd with dull wreaths of middle-tinted flowers ; With sympathetic roses, wan with w r eeping For April sorrows ; frighten'd harebells, pale With thunder ; last, half : scented honeysuckle, That like an ill-starr'd child hides its brown head Through the long summer banquet, but steals late To wander through the fragments of the feast, THE ROMAN. 231 And glad us with remember'd words that fell From guests of beauty ; sunburnt lilies, grey Wind-whispering ilex, and whatever leaves And channeling blossoms Flora, half-asleep, Makes paler than the sun and warmer than the moon ! Was ever slave so dark and cold as I ? Ah cruel, cruel night ! the very stars Put me to shame ! I spur my soul all day With thought of tyrants, woes and chains, and curse As oft my pallid and ill-blooded nature, That will not rage. Oh for some separate slave To pity every vassal by ! Some tyrant By whom I might set down of all oppressors That they are thus and thus ! Oh that some hand, Oh that some one hand, faint and fetter-wrung, Would thrust its clanking wrongs before my eyes, And I could bleed to break them ! And thou ! country ! Thou stern and awful god, of which my reason Preaches infallibly, but which no sense Bears witness to — I would thou hadst a shape. It might be dwarf, deform'd, maim'd, — anything, So it was thine ; and it should stand to me For beauty. And my soul should wait on it, And I would train my fancies all about it, Till growing to its 'fashion, and most nurtured With smiles and tears they strengthen'd into love. But— Santo — this indefinite dim presence I cannot worship. O thou dear apostle, Oh what a patriot could Francesca be If thou wert Rome ! Oh what a fond disciple Should his tongue have whose only eloquence Was praise of thee ! To what a pile of vengeance One look of retribution in thine eye Were torch enough ! Be still, my heart, be still ! Ah wilful, wilful heart, dost thou refuse ? Nay, be appeased — I bid thee silence, lest Consenting cheeks attest how well thou say est ! 232 THE KOMAN. Too late, too late. Nay, do you crave, you blushes, Escort of spoken passion, to interpret Your beauties to the moon, which, pale with love And watching for the never-coming night, Mistakes them for some rosy cloud of dawn, And ends her vigil ? Heart, have all thy will ! Santo, I love thee ! love thee ! love thee ! love thee ! Santo, I love thee ! oh, thou wild word love ! Thou bird broke loose ! I could say on and on, And feel existence but to speak and hear. Santo, I love thee ! Hear ! Francesca loves thee, Santo, I love thee ! oh, my heart, my heart, My heart, thou Arab mad with desert-thirst, In sight of water! — think upon the sands, Thou leaping trembling lunatic, and keep Some strength to reach the well. Cecco (approaching). What voice is this, That calls upon a traitor ? Francesca. Thou base stranger, Thou coward spy ! one that will call on him, Though her tongue pay the forfeit ! Yes, vile Austrian, I call him, I, — I, who to save my soul Would scorn to call upon the milk-eyed saints That look from Heaven upon your German deeds And do not blight you ! Cecco (drawing nearer). Sister Roman ! well And timely met. Francesca. Cecco ! thy lips are traitors, And mouth to German fashions. I believed The hour I sometime pray'd for, come already. And thee an Austrian spy. Cecco. Forgive me that I show'd my passport at a friendly gate, Despair is a poor courtier. I may waste Only so many words as may demand Assistance, if thou hast it, and if not God-speed ! It wants but three short hours of dawn, THE ROMAN. 233 I swore to Santo he should have a Bible Two hours before his time. Francesca. It wants three hours Of dawn — thou sworest he should have a Bible Two hours before his time — Cecco — Cecco. Be brief, For pity. Is there any bold man near Who has and who dare lend ? Francesca. Be brief, for pity — Thou sworest he should have — you heavens, you heavens, What do your clouds hide ? Cecco. I must leave thee. Francesca (to Cecco who essays logo: she shows a poniard). Cecco, Tell me ; tell all. Ah Cecco — nay, look here In the moonlight — saints ! I can use it ! Cecco. Strange, Wild girl, how ? know'st thou not as well as I Vittorio preaching to some Milanese Who would be patriots if they knew but how, Spent precious hours in which the German foe Slipt from the snare ? whereat brave Roderigo — A gallant sword — the greatest libertine In Milan — seized him. In the castle dungeon He lies since noon, and with the coming dawn Dies. Francesca. Dies, dies, — who dies ? — pray you, friend, say on ; I am not wont to wander. [She sinks gently to the earth. Cecco reclines her on a bank and hastens on. After awhile Francesca sits up. This is well ! That last waltz spent me. Let me see, what gallant Danced young Francesca down V Nay, he '11 boast rarely ! Yet it seems, long ago — long, long ago. Such dreamless sleep ! Thou melancholy moon, What ! have I caught my death-damp of the dews V 234 THE ROMAN. Death, — death, — ah ! — [A long pause ; she sits with her head in her hands. A gallant sword — the greatest libertine In Milan ? — yes, yes, — Roderigo, — yes — \ Another long pause. He lies since noon — ay, in the castle dungeon, And with the dawn — No, no, thou pitiless sun ! Thou durst not rise ! Oh sea, if thou hast waves, Quench him ! [Another long pause. A gallant sword — the greatest libertine In Milan. — Ah — the greatest libertine ? Who says I am not fair ? Ye gods ! I curse you : Why do ye tempt me ? [A very long pause. Cecco passes in returning. It is over, Cecco ; Cecco, I tell thee it is past, is past. Santo is free. Look thou that horses wait Near the east gate by sunrise. At the walls My mission ends. Doubt not. I am not mad, I hope I am not. Yet one hour of frenzy Would take me from this hell to heaven. But Cecco, I would not buy oblivion, at this moment, With a right hand that shakes. I tell thee, haste ! Gaze not on me ! with all the fiends about me, I have not sat an hour stock-still for nought ; Begone ! [Exit Cecco. SCENE V. The Common Room of an Inn. Enter, by different doors, a, number of Students and Burghers, shouting to each other as they meet and greet. Each and all. The news ? The news ? The news V The news ? The news ? One. I 've a good tale. Another. I better. THE ROMAN. 235 Another. I the best. Another. Mine caps superlative. Another. Hurrah ! and mine 's A feather in the cap. Another. Boys! mine 's the bird That grew the feather. The first. Hear me for my age. The second. Me for my honesty. The third. Me for my beauty ! The fourth. Me for my wit. The fifth. Me for my eloquence. The sixth. Me For all these. Another. Me for none of them, since naked Beggars are best arm'd. Enter Giacco. Halloo ! AIL Giacco ! Giacco ! Brave Giacco ! Giacco. Here 's a tale, my comrades ! All. Hear him ! One. Hurrah 1 trust Giacco for a pretty wench And a good story. Another. Nay, for certain, Milan Has no such tell-tale. Another. Lads ! a cup all round, Giacco does besfc-i One (aside)( Pray Mary ! he knows mine ; Every goo^saint ! it must be mine. Some. Now Giacco ! Others. Attend ! attend ! attend ! Others. Silence ! Now Giacco ! Giacco. There came a man — One. Aye, ' t is so. Another. Very true — So I say. Another. Hear him ! Another. Aye, aye, go on, Giacco ! Giacco. There came a man dress'd like a priest — One. The same. 236 THE KOMAN. Another. Yes, 't was a priest. Another. Said I not well ? ah, ah ! Trust Giacco for a tale. Giacco. A thin pale man — One. A pale thin man. Another. Yes, pale and spare, I say so. Another. Spare, very spare. Another. The same ! the dogs snarl'd at him As he were bones. Giacco. He pass'd down Duomo Street — One. The very street ! Another. Yes, yes, the place, the place, The very place — all but the name — good Giacco ! Another. Giacco forgets a little — Yes, yes, Gi- acco — (Aside). My life on it, he means the place I say ! Giacco. Walking down slowly — One. Yes, yes, walking slowly. Another. Right, Giacco ! Another. Well done, Giacco. Another. Aye, I say so ; Oh, ' t is mv story ! Giacco. Walking down he enters A merchant 's office hard upon the quay — One. Wrong, Giacco ! Another. Giacco, thou 'rt beside thyself ! Another. Blind Giacco! Another. Saints and angels ! Giacco. Why I saw him — Another. Giacco, thou liest ! Another. Turn him out ! Another. Nay ! 't is flagrant ! All. Turn him out ! Enter a Village- Schoolmaster. Doctor Scio. Men ! Some. Room for the Doctor Scio ! *- * Th e reader need not be reminded that Scio is but one sylla- ble in Italian. THE KOMAN. 237 Others. Chair for the master, there ! Others. Hats off ! the Doctor ! All. Room for the Doctor ! Let the Doctor judge ! Take him aside, Giovanni. Tell him all ! Tell him, Giovanni ! Scio {pompously). Children agapete ! Well-beloved children ! trouble not Giovanni ! For as of old the mild mellifluous beams Of Cytherea on the Prince of Troy Stole through the broken pane, — as to Endymion, Through the crack'd casement of consenting cave, The star-train'd goddess came ; so from these wide And vomitorial windows, belch'd your tumult To me transgressing. Some. Hear him ! Others. Well done, Scio ! Hear him ! One. Oh learning ! what a treasure thou art ! Others. Hurrah ! Speak, Doctor, speak ! Scio. The labourer Is worthy of his hire. Friends, what is hire ? All. Wages ! Scio. And when, Sirs, does the fatigate Pellosseous, son of sudorific toil, Receive his wage ? Is it not, friends, the eve, The sweet stipendiar eve of Saturn's day ? Burghers (to each other). Didst hear the like ? What 't is to be a scholar! Scio has my boy — for one. Scio. And shall we, friends, Shall we degrade the majesty of Learning Which I — which I — her infinitesimal Exiguous representative — Some. Bravo, Well said ! Scio. Which I — her representative Exiguous but unworthy — Some. No, no, Scio, No, not unworthy. 238 THE EOMAN. Others. Don't be modest, Seio ; Unworthy ! bah ! — Others. Give us the other words — Go on, Scio, "infinite" — Scio. I say, my friends, Shall I, the representative of Learning, Work first and be paid after, like the plodder In yonder field ? My friends, there was a thing, A tool, an article, friends, a utensil Known to our fathers by the sacred names Poculum, cantharus, carchesium, scyphus, Cymbium, culullus, cyathus, amystis, Scaphium, batiola, and now by us Their children, Sirs, albeit unworthy, call'd A cup. All. A cup, a cup, a cup of wine ! Well done, old Scio ! hurrah ! a cup of wine Here for the Doctor, oh ! a cup of wine. Enter a Stranger, who stands aside. A Burgher botes to him and speaks. Burgher (to Stranger). A stranger ? Stranger. Yes. Burgher. You come in a good time, Sir ; Sir, you 're a happy man, I give you joy, Sir ; Sir, these are times ! — I take it, Sir, few men Can gainsay that, Sir, — these are times, Sir, eh ? Stranger. Sir, these are times. Burgher (pointing to Scio). You take me, Sir, I see. Now, Sir, behold that man. I say, Sir, mark him ; Now, Sir, you see a man, a man, Sir. Stranger. Sir, I see a man. Burgher. Just my idea, Sir, — Sir, I crave your further knowledge, we are friends — Saints ! how a patriot's eye — between ourselves — Sir, A patriot's eye finds out the man of the age. Stranger. There is a nameless something — THE ROMAN. 239 Burgher. Sir, you have it ; My own idea, Sir, from a boy — a something Indisputably something. Yes, a something As one might say — to speak more plainly — some- thing, A something, Sir, — something in the set of the ear — Many shout. Scio — Doctor Scio — Silence! The Doctor ! Silence ! Enter Lelio, a Student. Lelio. Here 's news, friends ! Many. How now, Lelio ? Lelio. Which man here Tells the best tale ? Many. I. I. I. I. I. I. Lelio. Nay, everybody ! Write me up a nonsuch ! I can beat everybody. Heroes can No more. All. A challenge, lads ; what ho ! a ring, A ring, a ring, a ring ! Champion, step out ! A ring ! a ring ! A Student. Go call thy daughter, hostess, Here 's that will make her honest. Hostess. Sir ? Student. A ring. All. Now, Lelio, now, each man that beats thee wins His bottle. Lelio. Done. You know the fair Francesca, Count Grasses daughter ? All. Are we Milanese ? Lelio. Well — One. Well ? Another. Well ! Nay, if she 's well, Lelio, 'T is no such story ! Lelio. Which man has not seen Young Roderigo Rossi ? All. Or the sun, The moon — a star or two — the Duomo — well ? 240 THE ROMAN. Lelio. Young Rossi and a priest fell out last night. Several. A priest — a priest — a priest — One. My life upon it The fellow knows my story. Lelio. On this quarrel, Our gallant Cavaliero dooms his man To die at day-break. Many. By the holy pope, A foul deed — nay, a foul deed. One {aside). Ne'ertheless, By Heavens I 'm glad on 't. This is not my story. My priest was a true patriot. Lelio. At midnight — (Count Grassi's child hath a fair face) Several. At midnight, Count Grassi's child hath a fair face ! Fie, Lelio; Why what a traitor art thou ! Lelio. Attend, I say ! Bold Rossi's lewdness is a proverb — Several {pour badiner). Hold, Lelio, for pity — there are bachelors here — We are not all companions in misfortune ! For pity, Lelio ! Lelio. You that shout for pity, If you be Pity's followers, do her now Your best allegiance. Good friends, I, her quaestor, Claim tribute from you. A few tears will pay it. Listen. The young Francesca, at the price Of her fair body, bought the captive's life ; The priest is free. Do not cry out. Young Rossi Craved instant payment. She in her superb High loveliness, whose every look enhanced The ransom, sent him from her, glad to grant Another maiden hour for prayer and tears. Francesca wore a poniard. She is now A maid for ever. Hostess {to one standing by). How is that, Sir ? Student {aside). Hush ! Dead ! ^HE ROMAN. 241 Several* 'T is a woful story. Poor Francesca! Scio. Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine ! Several. Amen. Amen. Hostess {aside). Dead ! 't is against my conscience ; Dead !' and the Signor Rossi ! why a comelier Walks not Milan. Dead — nay^ I couldn't have done it ! Well, well, there be hard hearts that slight their blessings. So comely a young man! The saints preserve me ! Nay, 't was a sinful blindness. Lelio. How now, hostess, Some wine, some wine ; wine, wine. Several. More wine ; now, Lelio, Who was this monk ? — Lelio. Fill up your glasses, comrades, Sorrow is thirsty fellowship — eh, hostess ? Several. Lelio — now, Lelio — name, name, name ! Others. This priest, This lady-killing priest ! Lelio (to one). Hast thou forgotten A dance with Ginevra at eve ? A priest — One. The same ? Lelio. The same. One. Vittorio Santo ? speak ! Another. Santo ! Another. Vittorio Santo ? Lelio. What! Yincenzo Barnaba ! Ah Tomaseo ! are ye also Of Nazareth ? Well done ! tell you my story. Many. Lelio — hear Lelio — Others. Hear ! Lelio. It was this Santo. Dost thou mind, Giacchimo, how, deftly feigning Sorrows about a grave, he won our ears 16 242 THE -ROMAN. And pricked us on to virtue with the sword Of our own sympathies? With such shrewd warfare — Proteus for transformation — Briareus For head and hands — this strange campaigner carries The fire and sword of his hot argument From cot to palace, plain to mountain-top. The merchant at his ledger, lifting eyes Bloodshot with lack of sleep — for last night blew — Sees him beside his desk at close of day, And thinks the lamp burns dimmer, and believes The untold loss already. The pale priest, Opening his silent lips with such an omen That the faint listener starts, relates how some Great galleon, gallant on her homeward way — A floating Ind, mann'd by the pride of Europe — Storm'd by a scallop fleet of naked pirates, Bestrews their savage shores, and makes each rock Arabia. With keen eyes catching the throes Of his now gasping auditor, the tale Our stern tormentor fashions so astutely, That each new fear, enduing, strains it to Its several shape. Watching each rising hope, He stings it mad with some especial horror, And by a track of anguish feels his way Straight to his victim's heart. In that worst mo- ment The messenger of doom assumes the angel ! Looks that evangelise, eyes that beam light Into the soul, 'till every dead hope glitters Like a crown'd corpse ; a moment's shining silence, Slow placid words that hurry to a torrent; Then the gulf-stream of passion ! high command, Entreaty, reason, adjuration ; — all The martial attitudes of a grand soul. The lavish wealth of infinite resource ! Diamonds thrown broad-cast for denaros ! — aye, THE ROMAN. 243 That Argosy he spoke of, scatter'd on The maddest waves of rushing rapid, surging Headlong through foaming straits, above, below, Tossing the wealth of kingdoms, hurtles not With such tumultuous riches as the flood Of his strange eloquence. And then the scared And half-drown'd trader — lifting his blind thought Above the waters, that with sudden ebb Left him in silence — finds he is alone. Of all the golden wreck, his struggling soul Holds fast but this — Rome is that glorious galleon, Now stranded and forlorn : her freight of honours Strew'd up and down the world, purpling strange snows And loading cold barbaric winds with incense. That night, at home, the merchant tells his story, Wherewith, still later, madam at her glass Stirs sleepy Abigail. Sweet Abigail, Still nearer midnight, garrulously coy, 'Twixt amorous Corydon and her warm charms, Weaves the gauze meshes of the thrice-told tale. Next morn oh 'Change betimes the story stalks By blind deaf faces, as a spirit might walk Among the wooden gods of the sea-kings. The hour of contract over, — the fierce edge Of morning appetite now turn'd with gold — Nature appeased, and the commercial soul In jolly after-dinner complaisance Relax'd and smiling, — prosperous ears attend The merchant never weary of recounting. " Insured, Sir ? " " I fear not." " Heyday, heyday, A sorry venture ! " Then the angry hum Subsiding, all surround the man of facts. Sage heads shook much that day. Municipal Grave brains plagued with strange phantoms, never yet Free of the city, in the sacred gloom Of shades official, ached, and retched, and heaved, To throw the incivic innovation off: 24 i THE ROMAN. And in the pangs of labour crying out, Betrayed the parentage. So this strange priest Made his foes preach for him, till all Leghorn Hung on his lips. With bold incessant presence Whereto no shrine is sacred, no stern fastness Strong, no offended majesty majestic, No sinner excommunicate, no saint Holy, no Dives rich, no Lazarus poor, No human heart unworthy — this strange man — This cowl'd evangelist, that Monk is not — (For he preach'd yesterday that not a bare Untempled spot, unblest, unconsecrate On earth, but is sufficient sanctuary For the best hour of the best life ; — no cloud In any heaven so dark that a good prayer Cannot ascend,) — this polyglot of prophets, Roams like a manifold infection, shedding Through the sick souls of men the strange disease Of his own spirit. Not an art or calling Wherein men work'd in peace, but at his touch Spreads the indefinite sorrow. In the field Halting the team of early husbandman, He chides him for the German weeds that choke The Roman crop of glory ; bids him seek The plough of Cincinnatus, and bring forth Into the sunshine of the age, that soil, That old heroic soil whence patriots spring ! Hard by the wondering swain, sequester'd close By summer elms and vines, the village forge From cheerful anvil all the long day rings The chimes of labour. Thence at winter night Shines to the distant villager the star Of home ; to which the homeless wayfarer, Trudging with fainting steps the storm-vex'd moor, Turns hopeless eyes, as to the vestal fire Of sweet impossible peace. Thereby the priest Pausing, the sturdy smith suspends his stroke Before the reverend stranger ; who accepts The homage with such liquidating grace THE ROMAN. 245 That the stunn'd peasant, unabsolved of duty, Renews obeisance. Then the pale intruder Striding some stool, with hand upon the bellows, Moves the slack fire, and bids the work go on : Cursing the slave who stoops for prince or priest The dignity of toil. To the rough music Setting strong words, he sends with easy skill Wrongs, hopes, and duties trooping through the soul Of the stout smith, and there on his own smithy Blows the rough iron of his heart red-hot. Seizing the magic time, with sudden hand He stamps him to the quick ; — a Patriot ! the hour Is come to beat our ploughshares into swords, Our pruning hooks to spears ! " The brand driven home, The apostle vanishes, lest weaker words Efface the sign. A Student. Lelio ! dost thou remember — Lelio. I know thy thought, — the shopman of the vale — Studeiit. Nay, Lelio — Lelio. Now I have it — ■ the stout Tuscan, With wain o'erloaded — Student. Not he — Lelio. Ah ! the maid Who sang in German — Student. No — Lelio. Stay ! she who wore The cameo victory — Student. Now hear me, Lelio. When he saw — L^elio. What ! when meeting country boys With laurel and acanthus — Student. No ! the saints ! Lelio. True, true, the tale of the parch'd field beside The aqueduct — Student. Wrong ! Holy Mary ! 246 THE ROMAN. Lelio. Well — Student. Peace, I say, Lelio ! Lelio. Sometime hence, dear friend ; I am not weary. 'T was of the round tower Of Vesta, whence the epicurean Time, Fresh from the feasts of Rome, took but the heart, And all is there but the celestial flame That consecrated all — Student. Have thine own way, But were I Lelio — Lelio. Tut, I know thy story. 'T was of the eve when, meeting by the way An ancient pedagogue, whose thin, time-worn, And reverend features (whereabout grey locks Hung lank as weeds), great names went in and out, Mournfully populous, like olden heroes Haunting some Roman ruin ; our fierce patriot — Say I not well ? Student. Hast thou in truth forgotten The village priest ? Lelio. The priest ? our priest says little To alb and stole — whether from shrewd self- knowledge, Or feeling that all tyrants are familiars, And that those proud praetorians who subverted The commonwealth of God would lord it over An earthly heritage — therefore, good comrade, Owe us thy tale. Student. One day — Lelio. One moment first, (" One day " can spare it). I shall ne'er forget, When falling in upon a lone wild road With a fat monk, our patriot, for sheer lack Of occupation, challenges a war Of words. Good saints ! a firework by a fountain ! A schoolboy's freak played out with cannon balls And rotten apples ! As our Santo's lightnings Through the thick haze of t'other's sanctity THE ROMAN. 247 Singed brow and beard, heavens ! how the reverend eyes (Wrestling with wrinkles and siesta-time) Did struggle to a stare. And the good man, Heaving his flesh, buzzed like a portly fly Irr thundery weather ; our relentless Santo At parting gives him for to-morrow's text The whip of knotted cords that cleansed the temple. u Preach, priest," he cries, " that from these sacred bounds, This outraged temple Italy, each Roman Scourge those that sell the sacrilegious doves Of perjured peace. Overturn, o'erturn," he cries, " The tables of those German money-changers, That make this house of prayer a den of thieves." Assaulting thus with rude declaim those ears Dull with the gentle lowings of fat kine And soft excitements of refectory-bell, Our Santo leaves him, ere the saint disturbs, In doubt of man or demon, could revolve Upon his axis. All. Ah, ah ! Well done, Lelio ! Lelio. Our friar on this — One. Why the saints smite thee, Lelio ! Now, Lelio ! — Eh ? nay, Sirs, as I 'm alive This was my story ! Another. Give thee joy of it, Old Giacco, ? t was a sorry tale, now mine — Lelio. Friends ! we grow solemn. Wine, I say. A song, A song. One. Ay, something loyal — Lelio. Worthy friends, We should do well to purify the air Whereof these tales were made ; forced by our lips Into unwilling treason. One. Lelio ! Another. Shame ! 248 THE ROMAN. Lelio. Therefore, my merry boys, I vote a ditty^ A well-affected ditty — nay, some say 'T was writ by Metternich and Del Caretto, At Schoenbriin after dinner. Nay, no groans ! Sweet friends, no groans ! Nay, hear me, friends. Shouts from many. Down with him ! Lelio. No Carbon aro — Many. Down with him ! Lelio. I call it The triple crown, or the three jolly kings, The Devil — Some. Hear ! Some. Hurrah ! Lelio. The Devil — All. Hurrah ! Lelio. The Pope and the Kaiser. All. Hurrah ! Lelio ! Lelio ! True to the backbone still ! Up with him, boys ! Chair him ! a hall ! a hall ! now, Lelio, now ! Shout cheerly, man — here 's thunder for a chorus ! SCENE VI. A Plain. A Cottage. The Monk ( Vittorio Santo). Two Children (a Boy and Girl). Their Father and Mother (both young) sit at the cottage door. The Monk draws near. The Monk (aside). This is the spot. From hence my eye unseen Commands their cottage. Hither have I fared Five times at this same hour, and five times learn'd To love my nature better. Here I stood, And felt, when passing gales in snatches bore me Their evening talk, as if some wayward child Had pelted me with flowers. She is a poet, Or in or out of metre. Rome must have her. THE ROMAN. 249 A mother too, 'tis well ; then there is one thing The poet will serve. Ah ! art thou forth to-day, Thou little tyrant, that shalt rule for me ? My faith ! a lovely boy ! holy St. Mary ! Hark how he earols out his royalty, And, born a sovereign, rules and knows it not. The father must be mine too ; he hath bone And sinew, and — if the eye's gauge deceive not — ■ A soul as brawny. Heavy deeds demand Such carriers. I will win or lose this night. Let me draw near. [The Children are sporting. The Girl hides among myrtles, and sings. Girl. Whither wingest thou, wingest thou, win ny wind ; Where, winny wind, where, oh where ? Boy (singing). My sister, my sister, I flit forth to find ; My sister, my sister, the orange-flow'r fair ! Girl. Since thy songs thy soft sister seek, What wouldst with her ? say, oh say. Boy. Oh, to pat her pearl-white cheek, And court her with kisses all day ! [The Clrild bursts from her hiding place, and the Chil- dren chase each other over the plain. The Mother. Husband ! the music in my soul would chord Most sweetly with thy voice. Take down thy lute. The Father. Nay, Lila ; bid me not do violence To this calm sunset. List that golden laughter, Hark to our children ! There is music like The hour. From each to each the heart can pass, And know no change. The Mother. Sing me a song about them, Kind husband. Sing that song I made for thee, When once, on a sweet eve like this, we wateh'd As now our joyous babes — I blessing them, Thou marvelling, with show of merry jest, How they could be so fair. 250 THE ROMAN. The Father. Even as thou wilt, Dear Lila. If the spirit of these moments Deem my voice sacrilege, let him forgive The singer for the poet. \_He sings Oh, Lila ! round our early love, What voices went — in days of old ! Some sleep, and some are heard above, And some are here — but changed and cold ! What lights they were that lit the eyes That never may again be bright ! Some shine where stars are dim ; and some Have gone like meteors down the night. I marvel I'd not to see them beam, Or hear their music round our way ; A part of life they used to seem, But these — oh whence are they V Ear hath not heard the tones they bring, Lip hath not named their name, Like primroses around the spring, Each after each they came. I should not wonder, love, to see In dreams of elder day, The forms of things that used to be, But these — oh whence are they ? Dost thou remember when the days Were all too short for love and me, And we roam'd forth at eve in rays Of mingled light from heaven and thee ? One gentle sign so often beam'd Upon us with such favouring eyes, That every vow we plighted seem'd A secret holden with the skies. THE ROMAN. 251 Now sometimes, in strange phantasy, I think, if stars could leave their sphere, And won by the dear love of thee, Renew the constellation here, And shine here with the tender light That glinted through the olden trees, They would come silently and bright, And one by one, like these. How can a joy so pure and free Have sprung from tears and cares ? I have no beauty — and for thee, Thou hast no mirth like theirs. Yet with strange right each takes his rest Even when he will, on thy fair breast, Nor doubts nor fears nor prays. The daisy smiling on the lea Comes not with kindlier trust to be Beloved of April days. I look into their laughing eyes, They cannot have more light than thine — But treasured by ten thousand ties, Mine own I know thee, Lila mine. Wistful I gaze on them and say, — Fond, checking with a doubtful sigh The pride that swells, I know not why — These, these, oh whence are they ? [ The Monk draws near. The Father. Lila ! the same pale* priest we saw last eve ! The Mother. Good husband, bid him here. The dust of travel Tells that his way was weary. Holy Sir, Will 't please you sit with us ? The herds are milk'd. 252 THE ROMAN. Our bread is brown, but honest. The Monk. Do not ask me. Are you not happy ? The Wife. Happy ! reverend father ? We thank God, and say yes. . This day five years One whom I saw for the first time, through tears. Came with the flowers. When they began to fade How my heart sieken'd ! But God call'd him not With them. And though the snows of winter came He stayed, and held enough of summer with him To fill my house. Should I not be most happy ? Look on my boy, my merry one ! Good father, Which of the angels do they miss in heaven ? Ofttimes at mass I press him close, and tremble To the sweet voices, lest at w in excelsis " He should remember, and go back. The Monk. Oh mother, That art, and art not, kind ! 'T is a brave boy. The Mother. And then he is so gentle and so fond, And prattles to me sometimes in strange wisdom, And asks of me in such sweet ignorance, That teaching him I weep ; oft, oft, for joy, But oft for very grief, that each task leaves One tiny question less. The Monk. 'T is a sweet child. The Father. Sir Priest, thou knowest well how poor an image A mother's love will idolize ; but this Dear boy hath put a woman's heart in me, He is so good, so dutiful — The Mother'. And yet When he kneels by me at his innocent prayer, Oft I look down and feel that I have need To learn of him. The Monk. Let me bless him. The Father. My son, The priest would bless thee on thy birth-day ; boy, THE ROMAN. 253 Come bend thee at his knee. The Monk. Thou little child, Thy mother's joy, thy father's hope — thou bright, Pure dwelling where two fond hearts keep their gladness — Thou little potentate of love, who eomest With solemn sweet dominion to the old, Who see thee in thy merry fancies charged With the grave embassage of that dear past, When they were young like thee — thou vindica- tion Of God — thou living witness against all men Who have been babes — thou everlasting promise Which no man keeps — thou portrait of our na- ture, Which in despair and pride we scorn and wor- ship — Thou household-god, whom no iconoclast Hath broken, — if I knew a parent's joys, If I were proud and full of great ambitions, Had haughty limbs that chafed at ill-borne chains, If I had known a tyrant's scorn and felt That vengeance though bequeathed is still revenge, I would pray God to give me such a son ! Therefore, thou little one, mayst thou sleep well This night : and, for thy waking, may it be Where there are neither kings nor slaves. Of all Thy playmates, mayst thou be the first to die — The Mother shrieks. Ah ! holy father ! The Monk. Smitten in the bud Mayst thou fade on the stalk that had no thorns To save thee from the spoiler — mayst thou — The Mother. Mercy ! The Father. Fiend ! murderer ! The Monk. Did you not bid me bless him ? The Mother. My boy ! my happy one ! my bright-eyed babe ! Tlie Father. Thou hooded demon ! thou hell- priest ! 254 THE ROMAN. The Monk. Be patient. I will take off the blessing ; but hear me, And you shall bid me pray for it again. The Mother. Blessing ? 'T is blessing to be- hold him smile With his bright, innocent, unconscious eyes, Which thou wouldst close forever ! The Monk. Is that blessing ? Too happy mother ! how thou lov'st to weep ! Come hither, child. Nay, daughter, tremble not ! He is a Roman, and can fear no man — A child, and dreads not death. 'T is the purblind Dim sense of after years that makes our monsters. The earth hath none to children and to angels. Eyes weak with vigil, sear'd with scalding tears, Betray us, and we start at death and phantoms Because they are pale. And the still-groping heart Incredulous by over much believing — Walking by sight dreads the unknown, and clings Even to familiar sorrow, and loves more The seen earth than the unseen God. Aye, bright one, Climb near the lips that speak of death. The word Falls on the sunshine of thy face and casts No shadow. Thou dost play among the flowers Morning and even, and the selfsame wind Fosters and scatters them. Why shouldst thou fear V Twine thy young arms, thou little budding vine, Round the old barren oak ; 't is sweet to love thee, Too sweet. I look upon thy brow of promise, And see it in the future like some cloud Uprising from the distant hills, that seemeth To bear up heaven. This may do more. Con- tain it. Contain it and the things which heaven and earth Cannot contain. In thine unsullied eves, THE KOMAN. 255 Not made for tears ; in thy bright looks, sweet boy, Wherein the blush yet sleeps which sights of shame Shall call there, till the weary veins refuse Their office, and endurance sends the blood Back from the blanchM cheeks to the terrible heart To heave and madden there — (let tyrants tremble Who rule pale slaves) — yes, in thy brave proud mien, Thou baby hero, that art born in vain, I see why Roman mothers wept for glory And we for shame. I see the ancient beauty Sport on the plain where Brutus watch'd his chil- dren, And give them no supremacy. I see lulus' self. Cornelia would have own'd These jewels. Regulus saw nothing fairer When from the sands of Carthage his great thought Walk'd by the streams of his Italian hills, And by the well-known grove beheld his children Play round the homeside myrtles, where their mother Sat and look'd eastward ! Wherein art thou less Than Roman ? Oh thou hapless flower, that canst not Fruit in this frozen land, how shall I bless thee ? Art thou not noble, gentle, beautiful ? Hast thou one aspiration to climb aught Beside thy mother's knee ? Do they not love thee, Believe thee, trust thee, hope in thee, adore thee ? Dost thou not take their cares from morn till eve, And in the radiant alchemy of thine eyes Transmute them into joys ? Runs not their fate In that inherited blood that warms thy cheek ? Were they not things like thee, and are they not Themselves f and do they murmur ? What though, fair one, Angels might envy — if they were not angels — The stature that the fresh bright air of freedom Should fan thee to ? It passes the court fashion, 256 THE ROMAN. Breaks footstep in the Austrian ranks, and fits No cell in Spielberg. It might even betide That Roman arms work'd ill in chains ; a voice Like that which cheer'd the legions, might be guilty Of old ancestral words which would sound strange In German ears. Nay. there was once a Roman — I saw him, and felt nobler ! he was like thee ! Like thee as star to star ! If you be parents, Fall down and pray that he may die ! The Mother. Good padre, Pity us. The Father. Priest ! The Mother. Be silent, he is moved, Perchance he was a father. [A long pause, the Monk covers his head irith his mantle. The Monk {looking up). Evening comes Apace. The tired ox slackens in the furrow. The shade that on your threshold paused but now, Hath climb'd the vine where from the eaves the swallow Sings early vespers. My full heart prescient Heaves to the falling hour. Children, kneel down, Let holy words spread evening in your souls, Lest they be timeless when the far bell rings Ave Maria. [.They kneel. The Monk reads. The Monk. And I heard a voice, A voice from heaven, which said unto me, " Write, Blessed are the dead." \_He pauses. Rise up ! I had forgotten ! Forgive me ! The Mother. Reverend father ! The Father. Friend, what say'st thou ? The Monk. That if thou wert what that proud man should be Who calls this child " my son," this land " my coun- try," ^ ■• Thou hadst cried out u Amen ! " The Father. Sir Priest, so please you To speak in riddles — read them. THE ROMAN. 257 The Monk. I will read them. And mine enigma shall be such grim pastime As fiends might play at. Pity me, this anger Wrongs you. I do forget that you are yet But a few moments off from happiness, And that the music of her shores is singing Still in your ears. We dwellers in the dark Forget the weakness of your daylight eyes. I should remember that the twilight stands 'Twixt night and day. My fierce and tropical fancy, Hot with swift pulses, saw the sun go down, And look'd up for the stars. I had a brother — I had ? Oh heaven ! there is no Lazarus So poor as Dives fallen ! You whose portion In the abounding present is unspent — You with whose friendships and familiar joys Earth is still populous — you who have not Learn'd yet, when stranger lips descant of love, Unconsciously to look upon the turf — You who are only of this upper world, You know not what it costs to say " I had." But there shall come a time when ye shall sit Safe in this cabin, yet shall feel the rain Falling upon you, though your limbs be dry, And your hearth warm. And then you shall for- give me, And feel that I have something to forgive ! Then you shall know how sickly and distract Thoughts grow, that pass their days beneath the sod, And sit whole nights by graves. I had a brother, We were twin shoots from one dead stem. He grew Nearer the sun, and ripen'd into beauty ; And I within the shadow of my thoughts, Pined at his side and loved him. He was brave, Gallant and free. I was the silent slave Of fancies ; neither laugh'd, nor fought, nor play'd, 17 258 THE ROMAN. And loved not morn nor eve for very trembling At their long wandering shades. In childhood's sports He won for me, and I look'd on aloof; And when perchance I heard him call'd my brother, Was proud and happy. So we grew together, Within our dwelling by the desert plain, Where the roe leap'd, And from his icy hills the frequent wolf Gave chivalry to slaughter. Here and there Rude heaps, that had been cities, clad the ground With history. And far and near, where grass Was greenest and the unconscious goat browsed free, The teeming soil was sown with desolations, As though Time — striding o'er the field he reap'd — Warm'd with the spoil, rich droppings for the gleaners Threw round his harvest way. Frieze, pedestal, Pillars that bore through years the weight of glory And take their rest. Tombs, arches, monuments, Vainly set up to save a name, as though The eternal served the perishable ; urns, Which winds had emptied of their dust, but left Full of their immortality. In shrouds Of reverent leaves, rich works of wondrous beauty Lay sleeping — like the children in the wood — Fairer than they. Columns like fallen giants, The victor on the vanquish'd, stretch'd so stern In death, that not a flower might dare to do Their obsequies. And some from sweet Ionia, With those Ionia bore to Roman skies Lay mingled, like a goddess and her mother, Who wear, with difference, the co-equal brightness Of fadeless youth. The plain thus strew'd with ages Flower'd in the sunshine of to-day, and bore me The Present and the Past. But there were some Proud changeless stones that stood up in the sun, THE ROMAN. 259 And with their shadowy finger on the plain Drew the same mystic circle day by day. And these I worshipp'd. Honouring them, because It needs must be they knew the sense that sign Bore in the language of Eternity ; And fearing them for that dark hand which ever — When I drew near their awful face at noon, And, spent with wondering, sank down unconscious, And slept upon the turf — came back at even And cast me shuddering out. So days wore on, And childhood. And the shade of all these ruins Fell on my soul. And he, my pride, grew up, With, and without me. And we were such brothers As day and night. We met at morn and eve. Each sun uprose to find us hand in hand, And see a tender parting. Each first star Led back the shades and us. He flush'd with conquest, Rich in the well slain antelope, and all That feathery wage youth loves to take for labour ; I laden with new thoughts. Pale, travel-worn, Spent with fierce exercise and faint with toil, I, who — the shepherd of the plain would tell you — Since sunbreak upon one same broken column Sat like a Caryatid. So youth was mine, And seasons crown'd it manhood. Manhood came, And with it those fierce instincts of strange combat, That hurtle in the heart when the new powers, Like eager vassals on Ascension-day, Crowd round the throned will. Childhood and youth May own unwritten law, and kiss the rod That strikes, but parleys not. But man must be A subject, not a. slave. And manhood stood Before the shadows that had awed the child. And bade them answer. And they spoke. My heart 260 THE ROMAN. Stood up A thousand senses ran to arms, To guard the revelation ; but it came not. Like a mask'd guest, the voice went through my soul, And wandering there long days and nights, made My hours alarums. So the phantom knight, In awful legend of the old Romaunt, By a proud castle winds his ghostly horn, And blows his challenge in at every gate, And through the chafed halls stalks the unearthly sound, And fills with strange ubiquitous defiance Turret and dungeon, battlement and keep, Which groan back answering War. While at the blast Grim sudden furies fill the martial place, Helm rings with hauberk, scutcheon'd gonfalons Wave in no wind. Shields rattle. Chargers neigh To unblown clarions. Weapons clash unbid On the vex'd walls, and men, with swords half- drawn, Start up and stare into the troublous air. Not otherwise the voice disturb'd my soul, Till spectral nights and strange unnatural days Beckon'd their neighbour, Death. I felt him chill The sunshine round me. But I only look'd More fondly for my brother.. When day went, And we met by the well-known spot at even, And by the kindred moon, he saw the pale Faint life that lean'd upon his stalwart beauty, I was a dearer burden than the spoils Of his best hunting field. With tender pain He led me forth at sunrise, and came back Before the dews. And, with moist eyes, I mark'd Daily he brought home less and less at even, With forethought of the day's sad robbery, THE ROMAN. 261 Keeping in fond economy more strength To lend mine indigence. And thus I measur'd My life's receding tide. 'T was beautiful To see, as each wave ebb'd from earth, the sands, Purple with flowers from heaven. He gave me cares, I paid him from the alms the hills, and vales, Plains, ruins, waters, fields, and skies had thrown me Through my long hours of waiting. I beheld him — And so you shall behold your child one day — Sublime as if a god of old had stepp'd Warm from his marble pedestal. I gave him Nectar for gods. I saw his eyes light up, And into his heroic hand I put The weapon of my thoughts. And he smote with it — Look to your boy, he will smite so — he smote And struck such flashes from a despot's helm As might set thrones on fire. And some who winced Complain'd. When the lamb bleats in the Abruzzi, The wolf is silent — 't is the tyrant's music ; But let one miscreant yelper howl, and mark How all the pack gives tongue. An outraged people Cries out for ages, and the sacred sound Broods o'er our land, and finds no wind to bear The thankless burden hence. A tyrant yells, — Though but the very meanest starveling hound, The most distemper'd cur that feeds upon The garbage thrown from palaces — no matter — A thousand echoes tell it in Vienna, And fill the air with German. Oh my brother, Would I had been content to be thy debtor, Nor paid thee in a coin that bore the stamp Of freedom in a captive land ! They seized him, They seized ! Who seized ? Some Roman lictor — one Beneath whose reverend hand it would be glory 262 THE ROMAN. To think that heroes suffer'cl so, and counted The touch no shame ? Goths, whose barbarian sires Made holiday for ours. Vandals and Huns, The cubs of dams more savage than our mothers Deign'd to enslave ; all that rank Northern growth, By whose rude hands the might of bones and thews Bearded our conscript fathers in the forum, And beards their children here, — who sit like them, Silent, but not like them sublime. Camillus ! What ! can we lounge upon our curule chairs, And play the Roman only in endurance ? Earth ! what hast thou of vigour less than Greece, That in that genial soil the serpent's teeth Sprang up arm'd men ; — and here we have sown heroes And reap — grass ! Yes. He fell. Behold your son : Picture him nobler than the noblest vision Of thy day-dreams, poor mother ! See, the blood- hounds Have track'd him to your cot. A faded face Lies with dark uprais'd eyes of love before The fond heroic brother. Heavenly calm Warders the room, and of the sweet emotions Of the rejoicing world without, lets in Only the silent sunshine. The door bursts ! A shriek ! a shout ! they seize him ! The pale form Springs at the first and falls. Now see your hero Like an inspired colossus striding o'er him. With either hand he hurls a savage hence, Foots each bare neck, with twice another twain Acquaints the sounding walls. Falls by some blow From unseen hand. Sinks by the yelling weight Of crowds. A moment more, and like dead game Slung by some troopers side, mother, he greets thee, And leaves thee baptized in his sprinkled gore, To faiths kings dream not of. Oh brother, brother, THE ROMAN. 263 Oh memory ! that canst bring me back such woes And break not ! Thus they tore him from me. Ah, Poor tender child, why doth thy baby heart Look up through saddening eyes ? What ! little one, And canst thou read the future ? Dost thou know That he was like thee ? Ay, poor mother, clasp him, Clasp him while yet thou may'st ! Secure as thou That morn I clasp'd my brother ! Dost thou ask What tidings fell upon the failing ear Of him who in the cottage by the plain Lay weeping ? Be it as thou wilt, poor mother, It concerns thee; — what if of all thy tears — Thy fated tears — a few are shed too soon ? For me I am a rock which, long years hence, The storms stripp'd rudely, and with my few flowers Took all that nursed them, and to after tempests Left but the cold bare stone. In earth or heaven I have no more to fear. But for thee, mother, I will read out this story, and perchance Teach thee to strike the fire that yet may burn The page ere it be thine. The Mother. Oh that thou wouldst ! The Monk. Not of the dungeons, those dark catacombs Where our oppressors heap'd their sins for ages, W T rong after wrong, till the o'er-surfeited rock At the great day of reckoning shall belch up A thousand years to cry for vengeance. No, Those Roman limbs were purchased far too dearly To rot in Spielberg. He was tall of stature, And fair to look upon. So shall your son Be tall and fair. It pleasured some small tyrant To see such goodly slaves. The shameful trappings Of a detested loyalty, the fillets That deck the sacrifice, the fearful gewgaws That ratify the compact, when the body 264 THE ROMAN. Serves what the soul abhors, and with the bribe Tricks out the whoredom, these worse chains re- placed The felon's fetters, and the outraged Roman Rose up an Austrian soldier ! The plot thickens — The shadow of the end is on my soul — Count tears for words — nay, you are parents — I Was but a brother — wherefore should I speak ? Poor mother ! in this Jordan I have need To be baptized of you. My soul is wise In grief. Yet a few years and you shall smile — If you can smile — to think I taught ye. Tell me, What would your gallant boy, if tyrants bade him Shed Roman blood like rain ? Look on your Roman ! Mine was no less! — Was — Oh my heart! He hurl'd — His proud looks prouder than his words of pride, — With desperate hand the execrated sword Flagrant before the despot and defied him ! Rent from his breast the gilt dishonour, spurn'd it Into Italian dust. Erect, defiant, Before the host cried Freedom ! and was doom'd, Doom'd to a coward's death. They led him forth, They led him forth a pace upon the Lea, Scourged, buffeted, reviled, and only asking To die unbound, with his unconquer'd face Turned to the south and home. And they denied him. By a rude trench where fresh-turn 'd earth lay dark, He stood a passing moment, and since then I say u I had a brother." If I weep To see your child, forgive me, and remember When I drew near his sport this eve, and you Look'd on with smiles, and I with sighs, you mar- vell'd. Why marvel, when we saw not the same scene V Before you lay the happy evening world, THE ROMAN. 265 O'er-joyous in the promise of more joy, And there he sported like a merry voice Singing of morrows. Mine eyes sought the same Point of the compass, but for me the shades In my dark soul went forth to meet the night, The night that look'd from grove and thicket, eall- By missionary winds and twilight birds All earth to that meek face wherein she payeth Her duties to the moon. He sported, too, In my world, and 't was sweet to look on him. But to my eyes, in ambient atmospheres Of tints and hues that brighten'd other days, Floated round smiling — like a choir of angels About a cherub — that old dreamy past, In which he plays my brother. Near his feet There was a long sad mound, and by the mound Dark drops of blood. And when he prattled out His childish joy, my heart heard distant muskets, And to my ear the heavy earth fell dead Into a cofrinless grave. [ The vesper bell sounds from the distant convent. Ave Maria ! The Mother (throwing herself passionately to the ground). Ave Maria ! Happy evermore, Oh Mater Unigeniti — save, save, Oh save my child ! The Father. Ave Maria ! Queen Of judgment that went forth to victory ! Remember desolation blights the hills That slew the Crucified ! Mother avenged ! If my first-born must be like thine, grant vengeance Like thine ! The Mother. If it must be — The Monk. Ave Maria ! say It shall not be ! Thou who didst bear salvation ! Oh Virgin ! thou who in thy breast didst carry The fate of worlds unfainting — give, give strength To these ! 266 THE ROMAN. The Father and Mother. Oh Mother, pity us ! — The Monk. Oh Mother, Pity our country ! Mater benedicta ! Thou who three days didst watch a tomb in tears, Pity our vigil of a thousand years, And bid the dead arise ! The Father and Mother. Oh Queen of sighs, Look down on us from thy fair heaven with eyes Softer than evening ! The Mother. Mater casta, pia, Quondam afflicta — take him to thy skies ! Even what thou wilt for me, but oh, for him Hast thou no place among thy seraphim ? Is he not thine ? Thou gavest him. Take, oh take The bright gift back, for a sad mother's sake, Oh Mother ! The Monk. Ah ? The Father. Amen ! The Monk. Ave Maria ! [They rise. The Father. Priest, hast thou no Amen ! The Monk. Did I not tell you That you should crave my blessing, though it fell Black as a curse ? The Mother. Alas ! The Monk. Says the priest ill Who prays the mother's prayer ? The Mother. Be merciful ! The Monk. Nay, be you merciful. I look upon This gentle boy, and every blushing feature Of his young beauty cries for mercy — The Mother. Priest, If thou art false in all things as in this, God help thee. I have been a tender mother ! The Monk. Thou filiacide ! Why should he die ? This land, Hath it no place for him ? This Roman sunshine, Doth it fall strangely on his cheek ? These flowers, Twine they not kindly with his hair, and peep With fondness in his brighter face ? THE ROMAN. 267 The Boy. Oh, mother, Tell him they love me. The Mother. Hush ! my beautiful ; What is there loves thee not ? The Monk. Why should he die, Whom the whole world surrounds, and with chaste voices Woos to sweet life ? You craven hearts ! Who slew My brother, and shall slay your son ? These hills ? These woods that frown on you ? The sun and moon, That look down on their ancient shrines, and smile That you adore their God V Tell me, what lot Is desperate which the heaven and earth condemn not ? Did this land, which bore gods, spend all its strength In the sublime conception, and birth-worn Bring pigmies forth in these last days ? What fate Made only Romans mortal ? Is it written That when the oppressor meets the oppress'd, and one Dies, it must be the slave f You Romans !. — stay, I have o'ershot myself. You will betray me. You have look'd on this child for five long years, Five long fond loving years, and never wish'd To save him — why should I — The Mother. Oh father, save him ! Bid me die — on my knees — The Father. Peace. Priest, the cloud Is silent till it lightens ; dost thou take me ? The Monk. Thou hast a fearless eye. The Father. . Priest, try my heart ! The Monk. Ah, traitor ! what ? 't is well. Yes, he for whom That fair boy prattles hath a lifelong preacher No father yet sat under unconverted. We men are calm or hurricane. The heart Fills silently, and at the last wrong bursts. He laughs his merry creed out at all hours, And day and night looks treason. 268 THE ROMAN. The Father. Come the day When deeds shall back his looks ! The Monk. Well said, brave Roman ! Thy hand ! and we are brothers. Shall we brook To see this Italy our fathers left us Held for an Austrian garden ? The Father. Noble priest, Some say the garden bears strange fruit ere long, But the old soil is crop-sore, and craves fatting With German blood. The Monk. Ah ? The Father. Hast thou heard some whispers The wind brings from Sardinia ? Is it well ? The Monk. All things are well, but silence and endurance. The Father. Bend here ! the very spider on the wall Must not hear this — The Monk. (Ay, what so pitiful, So loathsome, but it may connive with kings ?) The Father. Hark in thine ear. The jolly lords of Naples, Florence, Turin, Yerona, ay, Modena, And some too near to name, ride bravely, — eh ? What if the horse kick ? The Monk. Ah ? The Father. This is fair weather ; Worse grubs have grown to butterflies. How now, If these same Duchies spread their wings Republics? What then, my Carbonaro ? Is it well ? The Monk. 'T is well. The poorest living face hath grace Beside a death's-head. That fierce king did well Who slew the priests of Baal, hew'd down his groves, And spoiPd his altars. But that king did better Who crown'd Moriah. 'T is a zealot's faith That blasts the shrines of the false god, but builds No temple to the true. THE ROMAN. 269 The Father. Ay, what is Truth ? Pilate lacks answer. - The Monk. The bold man like thee, Who lays his life in a strange hand — The Father (starting). Ah, Priest ! His life — how now ? The Monk. Jestest, my gentle Roman ? Wronged men like us, sworn to such deeds as ours, Leave courtly phrases when they speak of treason. Alas, poor Italy ! to tell his fortune To whom a priest's lips can bring home rebellion, Merits no sorcerer's fee. A truce to trifling. What wasted words are these ! Thou art a father, Have I not said to thee this boy that is To die, may live — what more ? The Father. No more. Sir Priest, Thou takest me ill. There is no wild rebellion So fierce I have not fire enough to light it. If I had rather chosen to be free, Of all men — so. Thou hast my faith, who holdest My halter. The Mother. And, by Heaven, thou hast it, Priest, Though we were freer than a thousand winds ! Aye, and our lives a million million times Lived and died over, so thou wilt but save My child. The Monk. Have I not said it ? Wherefore, friends, Is this unseemly turbulence of passion ? Did you not call me to your solemn counsel ? Had I nbt told you how my brother died V Had you not wept with vision of those pangs, Which in that boy's face yet shall rack your eyes ? — The Mother. Shall f Oh, my father ! Oh, my father ! The Monk. Shall. He who would conquer kings, himself must be The first king conquer'd. Shall a rebel start To hear rebellion ? Shall I have mv counsel 270 THE ROMAN. Cried up and down the earth, like the small will Of vulgar majesty ? He who would creep To sleeping game is silent. Will they stand Firm, think you, at the judgment and the scaffold, Who start beneath the lintel of their homes, And rave at evening chat ? No. He must die. [ The Mother starts up, seizing a knife that lies near. The Mother. Priest ! I am but a woman, and a weak one ! I think thee faithful, and in that thought bless thee. I am a wife, a wife, Priest, and a true one ; I think him brave, and in that thought revere him ; But let me doubt ye — only let me doubt ye — And I would wash that hearthstone in your blood, If but the poorest spatter on the wall Would save my child ! The Monk (aside). Then by that chain I lead thee, Wild lioness. (Aloud). There heaves a bosom meet To suckle Freedom. Calm thee, Roman mother, That yet shalt smile in Rome. The day may come To strike ; till then seal up thine own hot lips, As thou wouldst seal thy foe's. Be true, a hero Shall call thee " mother ! " Fail but in thy fealty To the least word of mine, my heaviest grief Is bliss beside thy lightest. Peace. This seal Makes the bond perfect. Now to calmer counsel. Thou say'st, brave Roman,- that our lords ride fiercely, That the steed chafes already — see ! Ife throws them. Who vaults into the saddle ? Every flock Has slain its pigmy swain — salvete greges ! But, patriot, who shall lead the sheep to pasture, And keep the wolf at bay ? The Father. Each separate state Must crown the sovereign people. The Monk. By what name THE ROMAN. 271 Will men speak, think ye, of that seven-hill'd city, Within whose catacombs dominion sleeps, And in whose ruins Time himself walks lightly, Lest she should stir below V The Father. Rome. The Monk. And the rest, How do you name them ? The Father. By the names they found Noble enough to strike in ; thus, Milan. The Monk. And why ? Is the sky bluer at Milan Than where we stand ? Are the clouds red at noon ? Or by what mystic omen doth the world Call for this christening ? Doth Dame Nature, old, And yearning to be fruitful in her dotage, Breed names, and call them children ? When you dream Of our Italian fatherland, it glitters With half a hecatomb of palaces, Each royal. Your free heart is sad. You frown. Strike off their crowns. Salute them commonweals, And wake up shouting u Glory ! " How now, Roman, If some strong arm stretching from sea to sea Sweep all your pasteboard kickshaws to the ocean, And leave us the broad field of Italy To build up Rome ? Marvel not, gentle friends, Sprung out of yesterday, poor hearts, and growing Like creeping plants, even to the size and fashion Of what ye lean on — marvel not that we Who worship Freedom with one soul, adore her In different deity. As I have told you, Dark fanes and reverend trophies, stones that might Be portals to the world ; the fossil limbs By which we build the giants of old time ; Grey wonders stranger for decay ; strange frag- ments Of forms once held divine, and still, like angels, 272 THE ROMAN. Immortal everywhere ; lone hermit columns, Whereto the ideal hath no space to add The pile they bore ; stern pediments that lookVl On altars where antipodes burnt incense, And the three arms of the great globe piled up Their several tribute ; all the sacred shades Which the great Past receding from the world Casts out of heaven on earth ; — these and like these, The high, the deep, the eternal, the unbounded, Were sponsors to my soul : and if my thought, Where your more nice and neoteric fancy Labours with townships, deals out continents, Think it no marvel. Listen. The sunrise Of that dread day which found me brotherless, Saw a pale face on a low bed. Despair Gave life by taking it. That evening's sun Fell on the empty pallet, and beside it An arm'd man, flush'd to wildness. Lost, alone, Every sweet structure of my heart in heaps, With the one terrible shock ; mazed, ignorant Of all things but the one which cast them forth, The desolation in my soul cried out, And rushing to the ruins I fell down, The darkest ruin of all. I knelt and wept, And was a child before them, with the madness Of a man's heart. I fell upon my face. Strange sleep possess'd me. Through the hot short night, Across the hotter desert of my brain My life went past. All seasons new and old, All hours of day and night, all thoughts, fears, fan- cies, Born on this spot, met as in after-death About me ; and of each my tatter'd heart Begg'd healing and found none. At each new face THE ROMAN. 273 I look'd up wild with hope, and look'd down fierce With chafed expectance. Then I rose and cursed AIL hope, all thought, all knowledge, all belief, And fell down still believing. With each hour In my spent soul some lingering faith went out, Woes that began in fire had burnt to blackness, The very good within me had grown grim, The frenzy of my shipwreck'd heart had thrown Its last crust overboard — then, then, oh God ! Then in the midnight darkness of my passion, The veil was rent which hid the holy of holies, And I beheld and worshipp'd. Mad despair Rung out the desperate challenge — " What art thou, Unpitying presence ! which for years beside These stones hast stood before me, pass'd me, touch'd me, Shook my blind sense, and seaFd my eyes from seeing ? Tell me, that I may curse thee ! " The sun rose. Forth towards me as in awful adjuration Each ruin stretch'd appealing shades. There came Soft lightning on my soul, and by a voice Ineffable, and heard not with the ears, " Rome." At that sound a thousand thousand voices Spread it through all things. Each imperial col- umn, Each prone grey stone, touch'd by the eloquent winds, Heard it and gave it back. Trees, woods and fountains In musical confusion, leaves, buds, blossoms — Even to small flowers unseen, with voices smaller Than treble of a fay — atoms of sound Whereof a thousand falling on one ear, The unwitting sense should count them troubled silence — 18 274 THE ROMAN. Birds, brooks, and waterfalls, — all tongues of dawn, The very morning hum of summer time, S weird the sweet tumult ; early mists that lay Silent on hill-tops, vocal in the sun Roll'd off like waves of voices, the stirr'd air Sung with bright ecstasy. Down came the thunder, Like a vast hull cleaving the sea of sound, That lash'd up louder ; then the hills cried out, And emulous the valleys ; all the earth Shook with the sounding ardour, and methought My flush'd soul, drunk with zeal, leap'd high and shouted, Rome ! With that name, incomprehensible beauty FilPd the still gratulate air from earth to heaven, And knowing I knew not. Even as one dead I fell. As though that one great sight accomplish'd All consciousness, and the progressive sense Reaching the goal stood still. Ere I awoke, The sun had mounted the proud throne of noon, Received the homage of the world, and stept From his high-place well-pleased. Calm, brave, serene, Refresh'd as from a sleep of ages, weak As a birth-weary mother, but yet strong In cast-out sorrows, I stood up and gazed With long looks of sweet wonder. The fierce craving In my lank hungry soul had ceased. The thirst That burn'd my heart was quench'd. The mystic yearning For something ever near, and ever far, That made my life one dream of wasting fever, Was over. All those indistinct strange voices Wherein, like waters underground, great truths Were heaving in my heart, and lash'd its sides To bursting ; those dim tones wherein, like fra- grance THE ROMAN. 275 From troubled flowers at midnight, unseen balm Went up in my dark soul, all the forerunners, The thousand messengers by which this night Had told me it would come, — all partial knowl- edge Before the consummation fell away As things that had no office ; wither'd up Like blossom on the fruit. Thus it must be '\ hat noble man who deems his nature born As vast as truth, must sweat, and toil, and suffer, And overcome — enduring. When the heart Adds a new planet to its heaven, great portents Clash the celestial influence ; strange signs Of coming dread, mysterious agencies, And omens inconceivable convulse The expectant system, while the stranger sails Still out of sight in space. Dim echoings Not of the truth, but witnessing the truth — Like the resounding thunder of the rock Which the sea passes — rushing thoughts like heralds, Voices which seem to clear the way for greatness, Cry advent in the soul, like the far shoutings That say a monarch comes. These must go by, And then the man who can out-watch this vigil Sees the apocalypse. Oh that first hour Within the Eden of a quiet soul ! Oh for that bounteous hour, to him whose youth, Bred up in grief's sad penury, hath found Joy's daily pittance all too poor to lay One pleasance by ; oh that Pierian hour When first the plenteous life o'erwelling sends Its irrigating streams before the face Of the young hope, and decks, in frondent dis- tance, To-morrow with the verdure of to-day. That hour when first the slipping foot grows firm Upon some plot of present, and we gaze From the sufficient rock with softening eyes 276 THE ROMAN. Across the green sweet pastures of the future, And for the first time dare to look on them As heritage. How the exulting thoughts, Like children on a holiday, rush, forth And shout, and call to every humming bee, And bless the birds for angels ! Oh that hour ! In the reflected sunshine of remembrance My heart is melting. Twilight and the dews Proclaim me parlous. *T is a sorry string That, being struck, is silent. Farewell Romans. Meet me to-morrow here. This is no mood To plan stern deeds. Farewell. Remember, courage, Truth, silence. If you fail in either, look Upon your boy. SCENE VII. A lonely Spot. The turf-grown site of some old Roman Amphitheatre. A meeting of Minstrels. An aged Bard presides. The Monk enters. The Monk (to a Minstrel). Sir, I have walk'd far and crave a seat. Minstrel (to another). His reverence Is weary and would sit. Is it against The statutes of our order ? Second Minstrel. Holy Sir, There are good feet that do not walk Parnassus. Behold us here a minstrel convocation, And deem it no irreverence if we say, That in that company of bards a priest Lacks civic rights. The Monk. Sir, thou art not yet free Of that most holy guild. Thy soul hath yet THE ROMAN. 277 To learn the instinctive flight which cleaves the air Of immortality. I do perceive As yet it wings by sight. The dove that bears The poet's message starts from that pure height Where earthly fashions fade. Let common eyes Read men in frock and cowl. The creeping thing That harbours in the bark knows not the region Where the fruit hangs. I hoped, Sirs, to find here A nobler estimation. Another Minstrel. And thou shalt. Others. Bravo ! W'ell said. Hear Giulio ! Another. This guitar, Its face, Sir Priest, like mine, is brown with age; Find me the newest dainty from Cremona That dares a bar with it ! Another. Or mine, and yet 'T was the sole heritage my grandsire left. Another. Would we, Sir Priest, exchange these twisted entrails For chords of gold ? Another. Faith, T would string my lute With hangman's hemp, if it made music. Others. Aye, And I. And I. And I. The President. Sir and good father, You see us here a humble company — I speak the language of the world, Sir, nor Affirming nor denying — (the w T ayfarer Of many lands is not responsible For each vernacular) — Sir, in what stature We may be seen by the renewing angel Some few years hence I say not, but you see us Being what we are, met to pursue an art Lightly esteem'd, but which to name divine Is not the filial rapture of a son, Since in the change of time it hath not changed ; Indigenous to all the earth. A spirit Evoked by many, but a bound familiar To no magician yet. The equal tenant 278 THE ROMAN. Of loftiest palace and of lowliest cot, Treading the rustic and the royal floor To the same step and time. In every age, With all the reverence that man claims as man, Preaching to clouted clown, and with no more To throned kings. The unrespective friend — In such celestial wise as gods befriend — By turns of haughtiest monarch, humblest swain ; And with impartial love and power alike Ennobling prince and peasant. Giving all, Receiving never. What else makes a god ? What human art looks so divine on earth ? And, as you tell us, seraphs in high heaven Find nothing worthier. Sir, accept me well, Let not these lutes, pipes, harps, and dulcimers, And outward signs of the musician's trade, Mis-teach you of us. Reverend Sir, believe not That — priests of Harmony — our service knows One only of her temples. Sir, we hope One day to serve her where the ears of flesh Cannot inherit; where material sounds Enrobe no more her pure divinity. And we, imcumber'd by the aids of sense, Shall see, and in the silent universe Adore her. Holy Sir, each minstrel here Is poet also. The Monk. Canst thou tell me, friend, What 't is to be a poet ? President. Such the theme Of this day's contest. The Monk. Let me strike a string In such a strife. President. Read thou this riddle for us, And, father, this my chair I abdicate, And crown thee king of bards. The Monk. Nay, friend, forbear — Prithee no kings. I would believe, good brother, All honest here Have you a kind harp, friends, That for a stranger's sake will do sweet dutv THE ROMAN. 279 In unaccustom'd hands ? One. Take mine. Another. Or mine. Another. Or mine. Another (aside). Now, Sackcloth ! Another (aside). Look to hear Apollo Discourse Church music ! Another (aside). To the buttery-hatch, Ye strolling thrummers. 'T is alms-giving day, My life the godly almoner is good At broken victuals. How many stale masses, Crusts scriptural and classic bones — Another. Fie, Henri, Thy wanton ditty ! Henri. Ingrate ! wot I not The priest was coming ? Another (aside). Hush, clean ears, clean ears, A psalm at least ! Another. Surely the Song of Songs. Henri. Aye, but no Solomon's. Others. Friends, friends, friends, Silence. The Monk sings. The poet bends above his lyre and strikes — No smile, no smile of rapture, on his face ; — The poet bends above his lyre and strikes, — No fire, no fire of passion, in his eye ; — The poet bends above his lyre and strikes, No flush, no prophet's flush, upon his cheek ; — Calm as the grand white cloud where thunders sleep, Like a wrapt listener — not in vain to listen — Feeling the winds with every sense to catch Some far sound wandering in the depths of space, The poet bends above his lyre and strikes. [Interiude of music. The poet bends above his lyre and strikes. Ah Heaven ! I hear! Again. Ah Heaven, I hear ! Again : — the vacant eyes are moist with tears ! Again : — they gleam with vision. Bending lower. 280 THE JKO MAN. Crowding his soul upon the strings. — Again. Hark, hark, thou heart that leapest ! Ye thrilPd fibres ! See the triumphant minstrel in the dust, To his own music. Hark ! Angels in heaven Catch it on golden harps ! Down float their echoes Richer than dews of Paradise. Inspired, Tuning each chord to the enchanted key. The poet sweeps the strings and wakes, awe- stricken, The sounds that never die. From hill to hill They vibrate round the world of time, as deep Calleth to deep. [Here the Monk ceases to sing. But note like this stirs not The wind of every day. And f t is the ear To know it, woo it, wait for it and stand Amid a Babel deaf to other speech, That makes a poet. And from ear like this, That troubling of the air which common men Call harmony, falls unrespected off, As balls from a charm'd life. Hear yet again A better parable. The good man hears The voice in which God speaks to men. The poet, In some wrapt moment of intense attendance, The skies being genial and the earthly air Propitious, catches on the inward ear The awful and unutterable meanings Of a divine soliloquy. Soul-trembling With incommunicable things, he speaks At infinite distance. So a babe in smiles Repeats the unknown and unknowable Joys of a smiling mother. President. Victor, hail ! How say you, friends — a triumph ? Many. Crown him, crown him ! The Monk. Good friends, fair brothers, how have I deserved this V THE ROMAN. 281 Whose chattels have I seized, whose hearth pro- faned, Whom have I slain, whose daughter have I ravish'd, That you should cry of crowns 1 President. Sir, reverend Sir, This chair of state is yours. All. Ascend, ascend ! The Monk. Friends, brother bards, since thus you bid me call you, With a long weary journey must I buy The honours of this moment? When I spent Those labours — all my wealth — they were dis- bursed, In the shrewd estimate that so much outlay Invested in your wisdom could but yield A goodly increase. Only on such venture Prudence, the soul's stern sacristan, paid down The perils of this pilgrimage. Which of you, Receiving wherewithal to buy a harp, Shall spend it on a chaplet ? Which among you, Playing the overture to some mild air Of sweet attendance and humility, Succeeds it with a march ? My gentle friends, Let me go even as I came, — as much W T iser as you may please — in all things else No whit less humble. Sir, and my good father, Resume the place of honour. These grey hairs And time-taught looks beseem it. I beseech you, Speak more at length. Methinks the chorister years Must needs chant nobly in such reverend walls. For me, I claim the seat of a disciple, And if in any wise I have excell'd, And I yet fear, dear friends, you do mistake The stature of your courtesy for that Of my desert — reward me, ere we part, With one more hearing. Many shout. Ten ! Agreed. "Agreed. Agreed. Long live the Monk. Well said ! 282 THE ROMAN. President. Companions, You have heard the conqueror. While we have forgotten Our wonted duties for this episode, The unoblivious sun hath paused not once ; Our time is far spent, and five harps are still Unstruck. Hath any brother yet unheard Any unbaptized child of voice or lute Born since our last song-feast, whereon he craves Fraternal benediction ? Let each such Stand forth. A Minstrel. I have a tale of rural pity, Set in a rustic measure to such music As the uncertain winds, and rustling leaves, And devious sounds of night made round the heads Of them it sings. A very simple sorrow, To be heard only in the silent hours It sigh'd in. Use it gently, Sirs ; I call it " The Winter's Night." President. Acquit thee, brother ! All. Hear ! Minstrel sings. And she stood at its father's gate, At its father's gate she stood, With her baby at her breast ; 'T was about the hour of rest — There were lights within the place — The old moon began to sink, (Long, like her, upon the wane,) It grew dark ; she drew her hood Close about her pallid face : At the portal down she sate, Where she will not sit again. " Little one," she slowly said, Bending low her lowly head, " In all this wide world only thee, And my shame, he gave to me. When thou earnest I did think On that other gift of his — Hating that I dreaded this. THE ROMAN. 283 Thou art fair — but so was he ; 'T is a winning smile of thine, — Ah ! what fatal praise it is ! — One such smile once won all mine. Little one, I not repine, It befits me well to wait My lord's will, till I be dead — Once it was a gentler will ! " With that, a night-breeze full chill, Shook some dead leaves from the lime ; At the sad sound, loud and burly Like a warder, went the blast Round about the lordly house ; Hustled her with menial wrath, Much compelling forth her cast, Who was all too fain to go ; She sank down upon the path — She cower'd lower, murmuring low, " What was I that I should earn, For I loved him, more return Than I look'd for of the sun, When he smiled upon me early In our merry milking-time ? " Then was silence all ; the mouse Rustled with the beechen mast, The lank fox yelp'd round, the owl Floating, shriek'd pale horror past ; Strange and evil-omen'd fowl Croak'd about her, and knew not. Round her had the last bat fed. " Little one," she said, " the cot Where I bore thee was too low For a haughty baron's bride. Little one, I hope to go Where the palace-halls are wide ; When thou prattlest at his knee, Wilt thou sometimes speak of me ? 284 THE ROMAN. Tell him, in some eve," she said, " Where thou knowest I shall be. When he hears that I am grand, In those mansions ever fair, Will he look upon me there As a lady of the land, And think no more in scorn Upon thee and on the dead? " All below the garden banks, Where the blighted aspens grew, Faded leaves faint breezes blew, As in pity, round her. Then Low whispering in her plaintive plight, Her shivering babe she nearer nurst. " 'T is a bitter night," said she, " Little one, a dreary night. Little shalt thou bless the first, Pass'd upon thy father's ground. Aye ! cower closer in thy nest, Birdie! that didst never build There is warmth enough for thee, Though the frost shall split the tree Where it rocks " " Little one," she said again, u Babe," she said, " my little son, Thou and I at last must part ; There is in my freezing heart Only life enough for one. By the crowing of the cocks, Early steps will tread the w r ay, Could mine arms but wrap thee round 'Till the dawning of the day ! " Silent then she seem'd to pray, Then she spoke like one in pain, " Little one, it shall be done, I will keep thee back no more ; It were sweet to go together, If thou couldst be mine alone ; As it is I must restore THE ROMAX 285 Treasure not mine own. All the gift and the sweet thanks Will be over by to-morrow. He must- weep some tears to see What at morn they will bring in Where she dared not living come. He will take thee to his home, And bless the mother in the child. Little one, 't is sweet to me, Who once gave him all I had — Hoped it duty, found it sin — Once more to give all, but now Take no shame, and no more sorrow Than a death-pang sets at rest/' Closer then her babe she prest, Chiller sank the wintry weather. Once again the owl cried near, Once more croak'd the strange night-bird; From the stagnance of the fosse Lorn pale mists, like winding-gear, Hung about her and look'd sad ; Then the blast, that all this while Slumber'd by a freezing fountain. Burst out rudely, like a prince From a midnight revel rusbing, In his train a thousand airs, Each ambitious of his guilt, Each as cruel, cold and wild, Each as rugged, chill and stark, Hurtled round their leader crushing All the fretwork of the dark ; Frosty palace, turret and tower, Mosque and arabesque, mist-built By winter fairies. Then, grown gross With the licence of the hour, They smote the mother and the child ! Dark night grew darker, not a smile Came from one star. The moon long since Had sunk behind the mountain. 286 THE ROMAN. At the mirkest somewhat stirred The sere leaves, where the mother sate ; For a moment the babe cried, Something in the silence sigh'd, And the night was still. Oh fate ! What hadst thou done ? Oh that hard sight Which morn must see ! When Winter went About the earth at dawn, he rent His locks in pain, and cast grey hairs Upon it as he past. So when Maids, poor mother, wail thy lot — Mournful at the close of day — By that legendary spot Oft they tell us, weeping, how Hoar frost lay on thy pale brow When they found thee, and was not Paler than the clay. A Minstrel. A grievous tale ! The Monk. Where 's he that dares to say so ? Liar ! thou art not grieved. Any vile Austrian May serve thy sister so to-morrow night, And he that wears the longest sword among ye Shall fear to draw it ! A young Minstrel. Here 's my blade ! Show me The bloodless German ! The Monk. Youth ! respect thy master ! Dost thou talk treason ? What, boy, if the German Be bloodless ? He hath blood enough to rule thee ! Tut ! sheathe thy maiden sword — leave pantomime To puppets — 1 but said thou art not grieved. And I said well. Such thews as thine being grieved Ne'er yet were idlers. Tut, tut, man, be grateful, Thine owner feeds thee well. I never saw A sleeker slave. The Minstrel. Slave ! President. Friends, friends, friends, I pray you, Silence. Benvolio's song ! A Minstrel. I have a fancy About a rose ; sung on the morn I saw THE ROM AX. 287 My mother's first grey hair. Let your harsh thoughts Breathe gently on it — it is overblown. Oh maiden ! touch gently the rose overblown, And think of the mother thy childhood hath known ; Smile not on the buds that exult from her stem, Lest her pallor grow paler that thou lovest them. From their beauties, oh maid, each bright butterfly chase, Till his duties are paid to that dew-faded face, And forbid the gay bee one deceitful sweet tone, Till his vows are all said to the rose overblown. Sorrow, oh maid, is more grateful than bliss, Rosebuds were made for the light breeze to kiss. And woo how thou wilt in the soft hope to see Some bright bursting blossom that blooms but for thee, Weep thy fond wish, thou shalt look up to find Thy tears worn as gems to beguile the next wind. Turn then thine eyes to the rose overblown, Speak of its place in a tremulous tone, Sigh to its leaves as they fall one by one, And think how the young hopes the heart used to own Are all shedding fast — like the rose overblown. Yes, turn in thy gloom to the rose overblown, Reverently gather each leaf that hath gone, Watch every canker and wail every streak, As thou countest the lines on thy mother's dim cheek ; Twilight by twilight, and day after day, Keep sweet attendance on sweeter decay. When all is over weep tears — two or three — And perchance long years hence, when the grass grows o'er thee, Fond fragrant tribute to days long by-gone, Shall be shed on thy grave by some rose overblown. The Monk. We are a wealthy people 288 THE ROMAN. In all the faculties of woe. We have Our sighs for roses, elegies for sparrows, And seas of salt tears tor deceased gold-fish ; We eat our pet-lambs in a mourning robe, And bury game-cocks with " the point of war." And since we weep no tears for thee, my country, It needs must be thou hast deserved thy death. Rome, Rome ! I was deceived ; I thought thee murder'd, Aye, foully, foully murder'd ! A Minstrel. Thou hast thought Well. Others. Bravo, ^ietro ! Others. Hear him ! The Monk. This is treason. A priest, I cannot hear my sovereign slander'd ! One word more, I denounce you ! The President. Friends, attend ! Silence ! Vicenzo, venerable brother, Methinks I heard thy harp. Its youthful strings Sound to me through the music of those years, Those threescore years, since first we play'd to- gether, As the dear voice of a beloved girl, In virgin throng of louder choristers, While all the troop contend before the ear, Passeth alone and free to the hid heart. Dreaming of youth doth make me young again ! Friend, thou hast been a man of grief, and though My dream of thy first music be a dream, Thy sounds to-day are sweeter. Such a touch Hath gracious wisdom. The great harmony Of a most sad sweet life hath been play'd out Upon those strings, and sympathetic chords Repeat it. Holy brother, there are some In this good company who know thee not. Forego the privilege of years, and lift, A moment, all the mantle from thine heart. THE ROMAN. 289 Our eyes are blind with noonday, and our brows Ache with the tropics. Let us with chaste awe Stand in the mellow evening of thy voice, Before the old man's soul — the rayless sun Seen through the mist of sorrows. Thanks, dear brother, That strain replies. I hear it, like a chime To vespers. Vicenzo. Friend, why is thy speech of " broth- ers ? " My brother died. I heard last night, in the dark, How the first Christians spake to one who went Where I shall soon behold him. Some. Good Yicenzo ! Others. Hear ! Others. Hear Vicenzo. Vicenzo. Clamorous sirs, you are wise. Give your praise now. You will need all your silence When I have sung. The men of whom I speak Lived by the prime tradition, ere the hands Of ages soii'd it, or the guilt that shrunk Before that bare intolerable witness Bound it in gems and purple. Sirs, my lay Is simple as their faith. [He, sings. Brother, there is a vacant spot within our holy band, And poorer is our earthly lot by one strong heart and hand. Yet, brother, it were ill to weep, when life hath been so drear, That we are left alone to keep its painful vigil here. 'T were ill if thou hast trod the way to count the labouring hours, Or mourn that sorrow filPd thy cup with hastier hand than ours. Sleep softly by thy bending tree, till death's long sleep be o'er, 19 290 THE ROMAN. That thou canst not remember, we remember thee the more. Sleep softly, — that thine heart hath pass'd through all death's deep distress, To such calm rest as now thou hast, shall make us dread it less. Sleep softly, brother, sleep. But, oh, if there are hopes more blest Than sleep, where seasons come and go about a dreamless rest ; If we may deem this grave a shrine which summer rites observe, ' Where autumn pours the votive wine, and white- robed winters serve ; If we may think that those who now sit side by side with God, Have sent for thee to ask thee how we tread the path they trod ; Oh, brother, if it be not sin when God hath broke the chain Of earthly thought, to bind thee in its fever'd links again, This much of all that earth did know, and all that life hath given, The sadness of our love below bequeathes thy bliss in heaven ; Remember what the bounden bear, though thou for aye art free, And speak of us as kindly there, as here we think of thee. The Monk. " Remember what the bounden bear ! " Old man, We cannot sing this song. There may be lands Where chains are heavy. Here in Italy We wear them as the draught-ox wears his bells — * One. Priest ! . The Monk. Hark that martial strain ! Ye Gods^ do all Dead tongues cry out at once ? THE ROMAN. 291 A Minstrel You Romans ! see The vision of Quirinus ! The Monk. Ha, ha, ha ! The Minstrel (sings). Who shall say what thoughts of glory life's mean paths unhon- ourd tread, Like those rays of distant suns, that pass us, view- less, overhead ? For the heaviest heart that sleepeth hath its heavy sleeping dream, Like the dull light on the ripple of a duller twi- light stream ; But, oh poet, if the dullard hath a soul beyond thy ken, N Who shall paint the hero's vision, who among the sons of men ? Who shall paint him, wrapt and lonely, when the god within him speaks, And the passing skirts of Fate smite the blood into his cheeks ; When the future on the ocean of his great soul hangs like night, And some hull of thought comes ploughing all its midseas into light ? Who shall paint him leaning on the Present, stand- ing on the Past, Gazing o'er the furthest Future deep into the stormy Last ; Gazing where on the remotest verge the nether mists are riven, — A giant with an oak-tree staff, looking from sea- sands to heaven? {Interlude of music. One dull day of indolence, the new-thatch'd city being all built, On his sheath'd sword bent Quirinus, with his hand upon the hilt. Round the sun's hid place on high all the stolid heaven was dead, 292 THE ROMAN. All the flat-floor'd earth below him look'd a temple domed with lead ; Not a voice from all the forests ! not a beam from all the floods ! Sadder for that early autumn, like cold sunshine, lit the woods. Far, the arms of Latian hills held on high a city of power ; With the eye of lust Quirinus burnt its beauties tower by tower, Till the conscious Latian hills, jealous of the con- queror's mien, Proudly drew the mists of morning, decent, round the ravish'd scene. Waking from the imperial dream, said Quirinus, looking towards Rome, " So the mist of time descending hides me from the years to come ! " Near, below, a rushing torrent its long dance of beauty led, And a forest-beast of grandeur eross'd it with a stately tread ; Golden ran the rapid river gleaming though the skies were cold, Far into the Sabine distance, mantling with its sands of gold. Said Quirinus, sad, but proudly, gazing with a look sublime, " Gods ! so fording life, would I send golden sands down streams of time ! " He look'd up to heaven, and he look'd down upon the river strand : Smiling through . the crystal water, shining lay the untroubled sand. Said Quirinus, proud, but sadly, gazing upon frith 3 and firth, " Gods ! so shall the tide of ages rase my footsteps from the earth ! " THE ROMAN. 293 Sat the sun in his pavilion ; the dark drapery, stern and even, Hanging earthward. Before noon the west winds dancing through high heaven, Fill'd with sudden mirth, drew back the giant folds with hands profane ; Pleased he saw the earth, and like a young hot prince began to reign. All this while Quirinus bent heroic eyes that could not weep, On a tear of dew that lay dull amid the grass asleep ; Even while he gazed a sunbeam, slanting from its radiant path, Dipt into the dew, and came forth like a goddess from the bath. Then Quirinus — "That such lot were mine, ye arbiters afar ! Gods ! ye touch the sleeping water and it wakens to a star ! " While he looks the sun is higher, while he looks the star grows old, While he looks, the dews are lying, as the dews lie, dead and cold. Then Quirinus — all the hero looking sadness while he said, " Gods ! so shall the sun of glory one day leave me cold and dead ! " Then he gazed, as heroes gaze, upon whom, — conscious, — earth and skies Seem gazing back. To their live silence all his living soul replies, " Thou who knowest me, whom thus I know, — Eternal as thou art, Oh thou visible ! how is it with me in thy silent heart ? " Then the rock beside him crumbled in the noon- heat stone by stone, ' ; Gods ! the very earth may rot ere a fame like mine be grown ! " 294 THE ROMAN. Then a salt wind — like a sea-ghost sick of land — faint voices bore, " Gods ! but once to hear the ages booming on the future shore ! " Then he look'd the sun in the face, like an eagle in his death-sorrow. " Gods ! the very stars themselves are nearer to us than to-morrow ! " Then in rapture, all the godhead of his line about his brow — " Mother ! Dionaean Mother ! that the years to come were now ! " Soft Idalian incense laid him languid on the amo- rous sod. At the softest a great thunder shook the mountain like a god. Starting from the Paphian trance, the hero leap'd in the sunlight, All his sudden soul o'erlooking the dull sense of mortal sight ; Staring, staring in the air, high over the Roman town, Staring, staring pale and deadly where the future years came down. Dost thou see them, as I see them, like a great mist sinking slow, With the unborn dead o'er-pictured, and the things that shall be ? Lo, Woes that throw no shade on joy ; joys that shed no light on woe, Flush'd with being yet to be, full of soul that makes no sign, Tarquin chaste beside Lucretia, Tullius mute by Catiline. Dost thou see them, as I see them, like a haze upon the sky, Painted with dumb agonies, and woes that neither strive nor cry ; THE ROMAN. 295 Spell* bound victors unpursuing, routed hosts that do not fly ; Lifeless in the form of life, with ineffectual gran- deur great, As the foemen, Good and 111, twin-slumber in the womb of Fate ? Dost thou see them, as I see them, dread as when the demon of rain From cloudland verge shakes out a veil of storms across the lower plain ? Dost thou see them, wider, wider, from the moun- tains to the main, Peopling, peopling either heaven, till troubled with the infinite sight, Both horizons flush'd at once attest them in dis- temper'd light ? | Interlude of music. Dost thou see them, as I see them, like a great mist sinking slow, From the everlasting height, floating in celestial show, Silent vast, like heaven unrolPd, to the eternal hills below ? Lo ! they touch the earth. Ye Gods ! are mine eye-balls crazed with wine ? Shock of life, like midnight lightning, shouts along the leaping line. Lo ! the children of the ages on the fields of fame beneath, Each in clamour springs from sleep as one day he shall spring from death. Gods ! that cry of startled being ! Gods ! that din of life sublime, Each convulsive form begins the many-colour'd work of time, 296 THE ROMAN. Each in agony of action flashes through his frenzied part, As in deadly moments years of life gleam through the heaving heart, Gods ! I shall go wild with sight ! Whirling arms and lambent eyes, Raging, clash in sounds that mock the sadder surge of shrieks and sighs ; Each assumes the sudden future, each in turn de- fied defies, Stream in air the Sabine tresses, Brutus strikes and Caesar dies ! So some host of rayless meteors smite our air, and mad with might, Burst in storms of stars, and charge in flaming le- gions through the night. All this while Quirinus stood, wrapt as the Python, grand as Jove, His face a microcosm, wherein the passions of the ages strove. Downward, downward, solemn and slow, the dreamy pageant dim descends, A man's height upward life, — no more. In heaven the dead, on earth the fiends. Downward, downward, till the valley, line uncon- scious line succeeds, Mingling yet a moment lifeless with the life that strives and bleeds. See the insatiate plain engulf ! See the still renew'd array, Touching earth, explode with life, and hurtling sink out of the day. Gods ! the tapestries of heaven o'erwrought with fate, majestic, fell, And burnt upon the earth, and dropt their flaming fragments into hell ! See on high incessant hosts, to where the heavenly vistas close, And the xery height of heights with a higher ad- vent glows, THE ROMAN. 297 Dyed with change: as I have seen when wild me- ridian moons are bright, Stormy dreams of rainbows colour all the troubled soul of night. See below exhaustless life — hark the still-renewing roar Of successive being kindling from the mountains to the shore ! Tumult as of full-grown nations starting into crash- ing birth ; Tumult, tumult, wide as heaven, wild along the rocking earth ; Tumult, tumult, from the dizzy maddening mounts' distracted crowd, Pealing out till both horizons own it like a bloody cloud ! With such flame and thunder, in the Gallic mad- man's vision dark, So the ordnance of the world, drawn up, might hail the Omniarch ! All this while Quirinus stood, gazing with a wilder gaze, Heaving with a Delphic fury, shouting to the com- ing days ! Warm'd into the gait of time, he springs before the march of things, Imperial with an age of empire, royal with a world of kings ! Stand, Quirinus ! Hold thine own ! Reel not, giant drunk with power ! Did no demigod come down to stay thee in that desperate hour, When Fortune blew her loudest blast, and, mind- ful of the ills in store, Play'd a flourish ere she changed her awful stop for evermore ; And Rome, upon the hill of fame, above whose height the thunderer nods, Culminated like a globe, and paused before the gasping gods, 298 THE ROMAX. Awhile in dreadful poise. One moment suns smiled on it dark and cold, And lit a star. It shone. And then (like that tre- mendous stone of old) Recoiling to infernal depths shook heaven, down- whirling as it fell, Through red storms of molten glories lash'd up from the soil of hell ! How shalt thou behold that hour? for ah ! the gen- erous and the brave Spring upon the surge of fate, but ebb not with the ebbing wave. In that hour the Dionaean caught him up to heaven ; that he Beholding as a god beholdeth, seeing, might survive to see ! The Monk (stepping forward). Ye spell-bound men, Who stand and stare each other in the face As though it were an auspice, do yon dare Behold on earth what your translated Sire Saw from the heavens V Didst thou not even there, Oh hero! with thy strong humanities Startle the impassive gods ; with mortal cries Stir the still air of immortality, And with thine earthly faculty of tears Distain the empyrean ? [Silence. They whisper among themselves. President. Sir, and brother, Show us this vision. The Monk. Doth the heart speak there ? Wot you there have been sights ere now which turn'd The seer into stone ? There have been words Which made graves tenantless, and hunt the dead Shrieking through hell. There have been tongues that smo^e The lazy air wherein the gnat did dance, And it hath dropp'd down molten on a soul, THE ROMAN. 299 And branded it for ever. You know this, And you will hear ? A Shout. And we will hear ! The Monk. Your blood Be on your heads ! A Shout. Be on our heads and thine ! The Monk. And mine. If ye be brothers, I shall die With you, and if not, by you. Death is death. [He is silent. The President (after awhile). My brother, we attend thee. The Monk. You will hear me ? You will behold ? I do beseech that man Who owns a faint heart, friends, to bear it forth Beyond your patriot circle : half a bowshot Will save him. I shall speak low. By the gods, It should be sung in whispers. What ! not one ? What ! you draw nearer ? Be not rash, my brothers, Those Cretan mazes that outlie the heart Can no man tread so swiftly. I shall pause. [He is silent — then continues. It is a fearful thing to stand in the path Of destiny. Here on this bridge am I, And you, poor souls, upon the fateful bank Roam up and down, and cast your wistful eyes To the Cimmerian shores, whose twilight reign Your sense, acclimated to Acheron, Mistakes for day. I hold ye back, poor shades, And with a right hand blister'd with the flames, Point to a way of fire. You cannot see The Elysian fields beyond it, and what god Commands you to believe me ? My poor brothers, Some. This is madness ! Some. Hush ! behold him. Others. Wake, Dreamer ! 300 THE ROMAN. The Monk. I can see nothing in the heaven Or earth why next year should be worse than this ; I do not learn from any sign in the sky That you shall dance less lightly at the fair, Or drink your pottle weaker at the wake, Or find the wench less willing at the wedding, Or sing less often in the castle hall, Or think the rich man's nod a poorer fee, Or sit less thankful at the menial's fare, Or rear one chubby slave the less or more, Or share their mother on worse usury With yonder German — Some. Shame — Others. Hold ! Others. Are we clowns? Others. Peace. Hear him out — hear the priest out. Down with him. Hear him. Hear, hear, hear, hear him out. Down with him. The Monk. 'T is a hard fate. As yet you are not guilty ; As yet the dull Maremma of the future From the mephitic stagnanee of the past Stretches as unforbidden. But hear me, And the Egyptian curse turns it to blood ! Yet you might tread it — with the march of life Stir the pestiferous slime of days, till weak Or sturdy vitals, soon or late, drop each In his appointed hole. Why should I speak ? Friends, 't is a tearful time. As yet your eyes Have not been open'd to know good from evil. The dread of the great hour before the fail Gathers upon my soul. Now must I do The miracle which paints the universe. You stand before me here all men, all brothers, And I must give you sight. And, seeing, he Who is not straight transfigured to a saint, Must blacken to a fiend. This is that water That rots the adulteress — dare ye drink ? THE ROMAN. 301 Some. Now mercy ! Others. Aye, aye, aye, to the dregs. Others. Pour, priest, pour, pour. One. S'death ! do you mock us ? Speak ! The Monk. I pray you, patience, I pray you, patience. These are times, my brothers, When the grand Roman habit is a dress For no man's masquerade. {They continue to shout']. Beseech you, patience, Patience, sweet friends ! The cap of liberty Is not a carnival wear. There are laws, friends, — You have not read them — they are writ in German, But they are laws. And by the laws the blush Of shame is disaffected and forbidden, The proud tears of a patriot are not loyal, The thoughts of good men are against the statute; Who would speak like a freeman must content him To walk a chain or two more like a slave. I break no laws. I tell you by the laws To inherit from your sires is robbery, To think what you are thinking is rebellion, To take the counsel of the brave is treason, To strike a despot on his throne is death. I do entreat you, friends, obey the laws ! If you were heroes I must hold my peace. I should have sinn'd already. By the laws You should not see this sight if you were heroes ; But slaves ! behold ! The Monk sings. Some sad slow strain — Deep wails and plaintive pain, With thy most sorrowy soul, my harp, remember ! Hie where in some lone spot, By the cold hearth of a forsaken cot, A dying orphan cowers by the last ember ! To some unseen green space Of a deserted place, 302 THE ROMAN. Where the pale grass and the lorn flowers are holy ; And of remorseless wrong, In mournful gusts and long, Winds cry at eve, where the betray'd lies lowly : And with them, as they float — The wail and the wind note — Thy woes most sweet bewilderments entwine, And, harp ! thou hast not found One desolate sad sound That does not ring like laughter on a grief like mine. My harp ! how oft, when cold And worn with cares untold, With hearts untrue, stern looks, and sunless brows, Thy first sweet breath that stole Stirr'd incense in my soul, Like the south wind among the myrtle boughs. But there are in our lot Thoughts where earth's sounds come not — Like the eternal calm of the mid-seas — And all that might have been And all that is, — oh Queen Of minstrelsy, thou hast no voice for these. I hear, soul-wrapt, thy song In stirring notes and strong, High wandering in the years for ever flown ; To my exulting sight The gorgeous Past comes bright ! In the broad earth too poor for her renown, Italia great and wise, Sits, and to golden skies Lifts the grand brow which clouds contend to crown. But, oh ! if in that hour Of calm unchallenged power, THE ROMAN. 303 Some vision of prescient fate supreme Forewarn her in mid-pride Of all that must betide, Who, who may sing the anguish of that dream ? Thy straining strings should start As breaks her bursting heart, And all thy broken chords confess the unconquer'd theme ! Return, my harp, return Beside this broken urn, Count the long days low lying where it lies Have all thy wandering will ! With fitful fancies fill Long interludes of ill ! With sweeping blasts and strange unearthly cries, Swift laughter, hurrying fears, Madness, and joys, and tears, And every mood that wayward wildness tries, These are the winged years ! They pass. And where is she whose greatness claims the skies ? Behold her ! wan and fair, Her pale arm soii'd and bare, That trembles in the intolerable chain — Behold the woes that rise To her undying eyes, Too proud to faint and too imperial to complain ; Behold her bend and grieve From shameful morn to eve, And till, with captive hands, the graves that hide her Slain ! Behold the toil that lives And strives, and sinks and strives ! Her outraged looks to every heaven addrest ! Her pride, grown fierce by fate, Her mien deject and great, 304 THE ROMAN. Her violated bosom's wild unrest ; Behold her — travail-torn — Endured but still unborne Behold what fetters load her queenly breast. « Behold the glittering cares Her brow, in mockery, wears, The crowns of thorn and tinsel, tear-empearl'd ; Hark the unwonted names That consummate her shames ! They dare not call her Rome — no, not down hurl'd And chain'd ! — lest at the sound Each Vandal bond they bound Fall from her and confess the empress of the world ! Thus with untiring plaint How oft thy fancies paint Each changing mood of her unchanging woe. Before my sadden 'd eyes Obedient dolours rise, A thousand subject passions pale and glow ! And each new wrong she bears Thou actest in mine ears, And ill complains to ill, and blow resounds to blow ! But what shall paint the power Of that disastrous hour, When coarse oppression struck with ruder hand, And, at some worst disgrace, She raised her bleeding face, And saw with folded arms her sons consenting stand ? My harp ! at that last gaze Her eyes, dishonoured, raise, Thou, with Timanthean woe grown utterless, Changing the unequal key THE ROMAN. 305 Of slaves that might be free, But rot and senile in unavenged duresse, Thy descant of disdain Loud liftest, till our pain Shows us the shade of her ineffable distress. Then the mists are breaking ! Then our hearts are waking ! We call her u mother ! " and she answers ! Then The blood that won these plains Boils in our modern veins, Years are unlived ! Italia ! once again, Where thy proud eagles shine All Roman, and all thine, We rise and — bah ! I dream'd that we were men ! [ Great confusion and outcry ; in the midst of which the Monk disappears. SCENE VIII. A Dungeon. The Monk, Vittorto Santo, and a few of his chosen fol- lowers {among them the "Mother" of Scene VI.) who are admitted to see him for the last time. They are con- versing. His trial, by Austrian Court-martial, takes place at day-break. The Monk. I grant you there must be for every man Some hill, plain, valley, or familiar tree, Beside whose sweetness his young soul beholding, Grew till the invisible within put on The outward beauty. As your Roman mothers Conceiving gazed upon their marble gods, And brought forth sons like them. But if these homesteads Contain that wealth of utterless affections, Hopes, fears, traditions, duties, memories, 20 306 THE ROMAN. Inborn respects, instincts of good and evil, That creature faith, that visible religion, Which my soul utters when I say " My country," Then the best sight makes the best citizen, The horizon of our rights shuts in with age, Each day of weeping leaves us less to weep for, Infirmity makes outlaws, and the blind Are aliens everywhere. A Youth. Beloved master, For thus — sublime in the near neighbourhood Of death — I must behold thee, even as men On hill-tops seen against the heaven beyond Seem giants — The Monk. Friend, forbear. Who made me ruler And judge among you — or who gave thee licence To be a slave ? Beloved, thou art young : the time May come when thou shalt tremble to create Or to depose a master. In dominion — The universal idol — the world worships The unknown God. Sometimes in these last hours I have had visions of a more divine Iconoclast, who shall demand, " Will God Be worshipp'd in the noblest image ? " Let That pass. I feel it has not pass'd for ever. Meanwhile learn this. Drawing near authority To make or to unmake — Man, put thy shoes From off thy feet, for the place where thou standest Is holy ground. A Friend. Who then shall dare rebel ? The Monk. Well ask'd, brave patriot, where is that blasphemer Who dares rebel ? Let us obey. But, Roman, Shall we obey the living or the dead ? " The powers that be ! " By what sign will ye know The -powers that be ? My friends, we are the fools THE ROMAN. 307 Of eyesight and the earthly habitudes Which cannot look aloft. Walking the plank Of life o'er the abyss, we fear to glance Or upward to the stars, or downward to the grave. Our souls, yoke-strain'd, in attitude of toil Bend earthward. Oft the imworshipp'd angel passeth While we, with eyes nVd on the ground from which We came, adore his footsteps in the sand. And God, this while, is in the heaven of heavens ! Stand ! Christian ! thou who hastest towards a throne By that old pathway which our fathers wore When a king sat there. Traitor ! yon blood-stain'd Mad sans-culotte, whose godless feet are rattling Among kings' bones, — yon vulture of the nations, Yelling instinctive through the fateful air To deathstruck dynasties, — yon maniac serf Ringing his broken chains, and piling, wild With freedom, hills of courtly slain to reach The throned effigy to which thou kneel est, And strew the imperial tatters to the wind — That outlaw is no rebel ! What art thou Who bendest to the empty rags which once Enrobed dominion, and with stiff knee passest That uncrown'd presence, unbegilt, unfeather'd, Naked and full of God, whose step disturbs The centre of the world ? Friends ! Gessler's hat Two centuries hence had more divinity Than any crown to-day. Is aught on earth Eternal V Man has rights ; but is a corpse A man ? Doth the heir rob the dead ? The stars Themselves burn out. Spring, summer, autumn, winter, Each traitor to the past, and each in turn To its own season loyal. Are these things 308 THE ROMAN. Dumb ? Look on high. That which you call re- bellion Is but the changed obedience which we pay To changing dispensations. The true rebel Is he who worships for the powers that are Powers that are not. {Enter a Jailor, secretly disposed to favour the Monk.) Jailor. The hour, most reverend Sir, Of which you bade me warn you struck but now. One more is all the grace I dare. Even that Discoyer'd, would be bought with all my own. The Monk. Good friend, we thank thee. Did we not know, jailor, That the time cometh when to have done this ser- vice To these and me this night shall more avail thee Than an imperial signet, we would speak Of recompence. Yet wear this, [taking a ring from his finger,'] and forget not When it was given and why. Enough. We count The moments. Gentle Romans, when ye enter The land of milk and honey, recollect That God spared Rahab. The great day of reck- oning Is not so far hence that ye shall forget Vittorio Santo's keeper. A Friend. Show me why It does not dawn to-morrow. 'T may suit well Thy monk's disguise to draw the sword of the Spirit, And wrestle not with flesh and blood, but hath Rome one arm only ? How shall he whose tongue Fate hung awry be eloquent ? My comrades, Thus ! [ With a gesture.] In truth, Santo, my right worthy friend, Me thinks thou hast even offer'd up thyself And thy good cause on a cold altar — THE ROMAN. 309 The Monk. So Did Abel. The Friend. Yes, 't is well, 'tis very well, Noble no doubt and wondrous heavenly, but — An elder Friend. Peace, stripling! Friend revered, thou hast wrought out Thy chosen path to freedom. It ends here. The Monk (pointing up). There. I am no such royal guest, dear Cosmo, But I can stand a moment at the gate. Cosmo. We, reverent of thy martyr zeal, but hearing A voice which calls us by a shorter road To be cut out by hands, ask if the sword That patriot draws be guilty ? The Monk. When the Baptist CalPd to repentance, did he weigh the dust And measure out the sackcloth ? Let a prophet Wait upon silence. Who can hold his peace Hath said his message. Things that once have dwelt In heaven will make that prison, a man's heart, Glad to release them. Let the seer see And he will cry. Herein I have not seen. The image that for me fills earth and heaven Shuts out the shapes beyond. A Woman (" The Mother" in Scene VI). Yet, father, — oh Let me still call thee so ! — are there not hard Unripen'd times, when the gold sickle of angels Reaps not the harvest — early dawns of truth, When we must burn a grosser light than day ? The Monk. If the true man were of the world, and had The sun of his great orbit in its centre, And kept the measure of its seasons, then, Daughter, thou hadst said well. But he who steps Forth from the radiant chambers of the future To show us how the unseen ages look ; 310 THE ROMAN. He who comes forth a voluntary hostage Of the supreme good-will of times to come ; He who grew up among your children's children, And calls by name the years you never knew ; He who takes counsel of the things that yet Are not, and answers with his kindling eyes Questions ye cannot hear; he who is set Among us pigmies, with a heavenlier stature And brighter face than ours, that we must leap Even to smite it, — that man, friends, must have The self-existence of a god. From him The poor necessities, hopes, fears, and fashions Of the expedient Present, fall like waves From adamant. Friends ! learn a prophet's pa- tience. Do you remember how, in backward years, Night after night the patient harvest-moon Climbs her high seat above the silent fields, In act to reign ? Bating no majesty For her great solitude. Unmann'd, below, The golden plenty spreads, unwarn'd of change, Ample repose. From corn-crown'd hill to hill, From waving slope to slope, where sickly winds Disturb'd flit blind from sudden sleep to sleep, From calm auriferous deeps and from the broad Pale distance, drowsy in the genial light, From all the dull expanse of voiceless plains, O'er which, unscared, the midnight curlew cries, No answering horn salutes her. Smile on, pale, Prophetic queen ! Know ere thy wane, thine hosts, Thy sounding hosts, shall darken all the vales ! Not otherwise the poet and the prophet, The patriot and the sage. The Youth. This is well said. And if we desperate men had calm or leisure To seek the fruit of knowledge where it hangs Through all the fair wide gardens of the soul, Doubtless 't were reverend idlesse. But, good Sir, THE ROMAN. 311 A partisan in war-time must needs carry His daily meed of duty in his hand. We have no time — we freemen — The Monk. Ah, young friend, Dost thou too die to-morrow ? Gonzalo (a friend). Noble Sir, Forgive him ! - The Monk. He spake not amiss, Gonzalo, A little out of tune, no more. I thank him. And if I could dismiss you from this last Communion, with no ampler utterance Than yet hath pass'd between us ; if I left you Here upon earth, and with the clouds above, To the dim sayings of the sibylline stars, And now, at midnight, gave your tear-blind eyes No compass but the landmarks, which serve angels Journeying heaven and earth, Rezzio's rebuke Flying before would shut against my soul The gates of paradise. I have come short Of my high calling, friends, but (I thank God) Not thus far. The old Castellan, just now, Came not unbidden. I desired, my brethren, To ask of you, this our last mutual hour, A death gift, — if you like it — laid upon My funeral pile. Somewhat I had to say. A Friend (aside). Son. The Son (aside). Father. The Friend (aside). Mine own chaplain — hasten — The Monk (observing them). Marquis, Are we such strangers ? Sirs, ye do me wrong. What chrysm can hold, what hand of flesh can spread The unction of a soul ? I bear in me The priesthood of a Christian man, and do My own death-rites. What sins I have, are writ- ten On high : and that angelic record needs No death-bed supplement. Son ! let us brighten 312 THE ROMAN. This last best hour with thoughts that shining through To-morrow's tears shall set in our worst cloud The bow of promise. In my life, long past, There is a passage, friends, which set apart From our rich confidence, I have reserved As burden for this hour. Ye are just, brethren, And will believe me that I dig this dust Of personal remembrance as the sands Of golden shores. In giving you the wisdom Which I received, and now commit to your Chaste hands, with prayers, ye may be better stewards, I wish, if I may speak thus, to transplant, Not the fruit only, but the tree whereon It grew ; that so they may have life in you, Unto a goodlier increase. And for this Awful and mystic husbandry I chose The climate of the grave. And if, dear friends, I stray some moments from my history, Through the sideways of sterile circumstance, Be gracious to the old man garrulous. The old man, friends. Age is the shadow of death, Cast where he standeth in the radiant path Of each man's immortality. What age, To the dumb infant of eternity, Bring threescore years and ten ? Brother Gon- zalo, Prithee that prison water-jar. My lips Are feverish with to-morrow. \_He drinks. Wells the spring Pure even here V Oh nature, nature, thou Hast done thy part ! Thanks, gentle friends. Now soul, I turn thee loose among the fields of old. [He pauses. Imperial Summer in hot luxury Reign'd like a new-crown'd caliph. Heavy Noon, THE ROMAN. 313 Golden and dead-asleep, oppressive lay, Athwart the sated world. I, book in hand, Wander'd since dawn, it was my wont, those fair Campanian fields where ancient poets went To learn the fragrance of ambrosial air, And every nymph was Hebe — but where now, When the serf makes his lair where Romans dwelt, Nature, disdainful of the hideous trespass, Teaches, retributive, the wasting cheek How slaves should look. From early morn to eve My feet had roam'd these plains, my heart the ages. And burden'd with the brightness of the hour, I sought the shade which old Vespasian built. Those walls which, lest degenerate tongues disturb The indignant dead, we call the Coliseum — Those wondrous walls which, like the monument Of some old city of the plague, stand up Mighty in strength and ruin, with no more Decay than serves for epitaph, and takes Impiety from pride, and breaks the crown'd Pillar of triumph on the conqueror's grave. Those walls whose grey infirmities seem only The mood of an imperishable face, Awful as scars upon a Titan's brow, Dread as a strong man's tears. Small marvel, truly, With that eternal witness looking on, That thou, Campagna ! art for very shame True to the days of old ! Entering, I sat Refresh'd in shadow, and like some high wizard, In wayward hour, call'd with a god's caprice Spirits of new and old. In that doom-ring Of time, who would not be magician ? Now, I sought old chronicles for Nero's house, That golden crown that made mount Palatine Poyal. And those imperial halls wherein Ca3sar is still august. Now, pensive, sitting Within the very shade of destiny, 314 THE ROMAN. I saw their ruins strew the hills of Rome. And looking forth through rents, by which the years Pass in and out, I gazed as one should gaze Upon some battle-field of the old gods. And the Olympian slain lay there, unearth'd, With whitening limbs — like bark'd oaks, thunder- scarr'd, Loading the fearful ground, ghastly and gaunt, In all the dreadful attitudes of death. So sojourning — a pilgrim of the past — Kind sleep o'ertook me, travel-worn of soul. My eyes, unconscious, closed to scenes without, And at a shout I opened them within Upon the world of dreams. With strange recoil As at a nod, the extended scroll of time RolTd up full fifteen ages. That Honorius Who cut the world in two, gave holiday To all the pride of Rome. The new arena, (For in old Rome three hundred years seem'd new,) Which great Vespasian, working for all time, Built up with Jewish hands, (as he would sweat Their immortality into the stone,) Teem'd to the parapet. The sun of noon Shed golden evening through a silken heaven, Fair floating, which for clouds received the incense Of all the Arabies. Luxurious art Ensnared the unwilling winds, and like toil'd eagles, Held them through all the hot Italian day, Flapping cool pleasures. Ever-falling waters Solaced the ear, themselves beheld through fra- grance, Till the lapp'd sense in soft confusion own'd Redolent light. Behind a hedge of gold In the elysian field, imperial state Purpled the ring. High, high, and higher rose The babel tower of heap'd up life, and o'er THE ROMAN. 315 This strange rich arras, rainbow-hued and vast, The eternal marble, imminent, looked down, And the cyclopean mass of the huge walls Frown'd from the arches. And before their stern And monumental grandeur, the up-piled Mortality was as this hand b'eside This rock-hewn dungeon. In the midst stand I, On that tremendous theatre condemn'd To play the last red scene of a short life, Lest Cagsar yawn. You heavens ! While I draw sword And do the hideous courtesies of war, My senses, quick with fate, learn all the scene, And snuff, prescient, on the heavy air The perfumed death. My foe, a Spartacus In make and weapon, took with careless scorn The languid challenge ; and with his flat sword Spurn'd me to action. So have I beheld At the unequal pleasure of the winds, Some poplar giant — tyrant of the plain — Fall foul of some slim cypress. Point to point, And blade to blade, and hilt to hilt opposed, The glittering mazes of the gleaming glaive Coil and recoil. The waxing strife has shrunk The earth to standing-ground. The whole wrapt being Sent hot into the hand, spares not one sense Beyond the sword-arm's circle. Into which Half-understood, the dreadful seas of clamour Thunder their surges. So, meseems, a soul Falling through mid-space hears the passing shout Of unseen worlds. And now the giant, stung, Casts off his sword craft. Striding like a storm, Uproots me, lightening. See my blade fly up Like a flung torch ; myself into the dust HurM like a spear ; and the goliath folding His untask'd arms upon his unbreathed breast, Look up without a flush for the well-known Signal of doom. Two hundred thousand hands 316 TPIE ROMAN. Gave it. He saw. While the sword rose and fell, Up from the podium to the beetling height I turn'd one dying look to the mute nation Which — stretching neck and nerve with sanguine strain To catch the bloody joy — through all its legions Held such a stifled horrible expectance, As if the greed of anguish could not spare The groan a sigh might cover. Round the vast O'er-peopled hell the terrible haste of death Took my mad eyes, and, in the indistinct Wild glance, its serried thousands glared on me Like one tremendous face. Consenting sat That day, all that the world most loved, fear'd, worshipp'd. Sages whose household words, caught up, made proverbs For far-otf nations ; grey proconsuls, warriors Whose mere names stood for victory in all The tongues of Europe ; senators whose title Ennobled kings ; priests of all orders, bishops Whose heavenly treasure was not lent, as yet, To earthly usury ; great merchants, men Who dealt in kingdoms ; ruddy aruspex, And pale philosopher, who bent beneath The keys of wisdom ; artists, and whatever In Rome claimed to be poet ; woman, too, And passing fair, — not that mine eye had note Of any separate loveliness, or knew, More than a sense of exquisite relief, A more or less in hate, an intuition That in the living mountain which rose round All was not adamant ; a milder mood In a most terrible destiny. I saw it, As when upon the fretful parapet Of some vast cloud that doth engird the west, Flush'd and distemper'd with the angry hues Of passionate sunset, oft at eve there shineth THE ROMAN. 317 A line of purer light. All these sat there Consenting, and with them the purple pride To which all these bow'd down ; — and I must die. Swept through the silence a great wind of voices, " Look to the podium ! " Breaking from the ranks A christian priest — I knew him by his habit — Cleaves the gold fences, — lion-proof — with more Than lion's heart, and, as the sword fell, stands 'Twixt me and slaughter. Abdiel with such ges- ture Held Satan off. The rude barbarian, scorning The feeble game, flings down his sword. That moment Methought hell burst, and in a death-trance heard I The outcry of the damn'd. The observant host Rose like the simultaneous tide when hid Volcanos heave the ocean, and a long Vast wave engulfs an island. Not the war Even of those seas drowning the blasphemies Of shrieking sinking cities, storms the ear Like what I heard. Tremendous rushing life Yell'd round the place, and, as the howling vortex Belch'd up its sounds, the screaming horrors struck The impassive walls, and like caged fiends came back Convulsed with madness. Then the tempest turns Inwards, and with one gust, as at a sign, Guts the stone entrails of the awful tower In whirlwind of revenge. Like an explosion Down hails the hurricane fury. So Vesuvius With mountains wrench'd from her own bowels, piles Shouting the blasted plain. Slain, slain and buried By the same act, under one terrible heap Lay martyr, victor, vanquish'd. Last to die I felt the growing weight and heard through all The exulting thousands. How the sounds dash'd down 318 THE ROMAN. Like stamping furies. Here the vision ends : With the death-pang I woke. Absolute calm, A silence like the silence of the desert, Silence beyond repose, lone, lifeless, stagnant, Muter than any grave. Silence too dead For living tongue to name. Silence more placid Than peace or night or death ; (for these are strings Unstruck but to be stricken ;) idiot silence, Sterile, and blank, and blind. A breathless pause In heaven and earth ; held till the moving thought Seems turbulence, this human nature grows Unseemly on us, our life's common functions Impertinent and gross, and conscious cheeks Excuse the beating heart with blushes. Silence As of a listening world. Such strange defect, Such lean and hungry quiet, such keen sense Of absence grown effectual, that the ear Faints as for breath, and even the very substance Of latent sound seems dead. Alas ! for language, s We sing the healing darkness of sweet night, But for Egyptian darkness that was felt Have names no blacker. When you speak of silence, 'T is as the sweet content of voiceless woods After the nightingale — as the home-genius Sole watching by the sleep of happy babes With finger at her lip, and shows of stillness, Meanwhile the sleeper smileth and the air Stirs with dream-music. When / use the word Think of some other silence. In that other I woke. From sound to stillness as when stormy hearts In passion break. From tempest to dead calm, As when at some strange portent clashing hosts Halt in mid-shock. From all to nothingness, A soul from chaos shot into the void Beyond the universe. THE ROMAN. 319 In my short rest From imminent heights, the dust of slow decay — Sands from the glass of time shaken of winds — Crumbs from the feast of desolation — strew'd My slumbering face upturn'd. The Gorgon Sleep Made them a shower of stones. My wondering eyes O'er-charged with sense, in shuddering unbelief Unclose upon the lone inane expanse Of summer turf, from which the mouldering walls Shut not the sunshine ; like a green still lake Girt by decaying hills. Urging my gaze Round the tremendous circle, arch on arch, And pile on pile, that tired the travelPd eye, I saw the yawning jaws and sightless sockets Gape to the heedless air. Like the death's-head Of buried empire. And the sun shone through them With calm avoidance that left them more dark, And pleasured him with some small daisy's face Grass-grown. As though even from the carrion of gods, The instinct of the living universe Held heaven and earth aloof. All through the lorn Vacuity winds came and went, but stirr'd Only the flowers of yesterday. Upstood The hoar unconscious walls, bisson and bare, Like an old man deaf, blind, and grey, in whom The years of old stand in the sun and murmur Of childhood and the dead. From parapets Where the sky rests, from broken niches — each More than Olympus, — for gods dwelt in them, — Below from senatorial haunts and seats Imperial, where the everpassing fates Wore out the stone, strange hermit birds croak'd forth Sorrowful sounds, like watchers on the height Crying the hours of ruin. When the clouds Dress'd every myrtle on the walls in mourning With calm prerogative the eternal pile Impassive shone with the unearthly light 320 THE ROMAN. Of immortality. When conquering suns Triumph'd in jubilant earth, it stood out dark With thoughts of ages : like some mighty captive Upon his deathbed in a christian land, And lying, through the chant of Psalm and Creed Unshriven and stern, with peace upon his brow, And on his lips strange gods. Rank weeds and grasses, Careless and nodding, grew, and asked no leave, Where Romans trembled. Where the wreck was saddest Sweet pensive herbs, that had been gay elsewhere, With conscious mien of place rose tall and still, And bent with duty. Like some village children W T ho found a dead king on a battle-field, And with decorous care and reverent pity Composed the lordly ruin, and sat down Grave without tears. At length the giant lay, And everywhere he was begirt with years, And everywhere the torn and mouldering Past Hung with the ivy. For Time, smit with honour Of what he slew, cast his own mantle on him, That none should mock the dead. Oh, Solitude, What dost thou here ? Where are those legions ? They Were men, not spirits. Where those shouts that like Wild waves upon a low lee shore, but now Lash'd me to death ? Thou Earth, where didst thou quake When they went down? Was it that shock, oh Earth, That left these ruins ? Crying thus, I ponder'd The subject of my dream. Beside me still Lay that old chronicle whence, as from some Quaint ancient banquet-hall, a gorgeous bevy Of gods and men had pass'd forth with my soul THE ROMAN. 821 Into sleep's stranger pleasaunce, and thence stray- ing Wander'd the world. The open page, held wide By my stretch'd slumbering arm, interpreted The vision. There my waking eyes had closed. 'T was where Honorius on a high day gives Games to great Rome ; and one unfriended priest, Telemachus by name, soul- stricken, leaps The circus fences, and in mid-arena Stays the unholy combat, and dies there, Stoned by the people. When he wahVd through Rome That morning, no man turned to gaze on him. He had no friend, no mistress, no disciple, No power, fame, fortune, wealth, or human cunning, And hath no record upon earth but this, That he died there. Yet those walls where he suffer'd — Those great imperial monumental walls Built to feast nations in for ever — stand From that day tenantless. In that man's blood Baptized to ruin. Then my heart cried out, Herein, oh prophet, learn a prophet's duty ! For this cause is he born, and for this cause, For this cause comes he to the world — to bear Witness. Oh God-ordain'd ! thine hands are God's ! Sully them not. The days shall come when men Who would be angels shall look back to see What thou wert. Live for them. Speak, speak thy message ; The world runs post for thee. The good by nature, The bad by fate ; — whom the avenging gods Having condemn'd have first demented. Know By virtue of that madness they are thine. Lay-brothers working where the sanctity Of thine high office comes not. Savage friends Who, scattering in their wrath thy beacon, light The fire that clears the wilderness. Unconscious Disciples, writing up the martyr's title 21 322 THE ROMAN. In Hebrew, Greek, and Latin on his cross. Love him who loves thee ; his sweet love hath bought A place in heaven. Bat love him more who hates, For he dares hell to serve thee. Pray for him Who hears thee gladly ; it shall be remember'd On high. But, martyr ! count thy debt the greater To the reviler; he hath bought thy triumph With his own soul. In all thy toils forget not That whoso sheddeth his life's blood for thee Is a good lover ; but thy great apostle, Thy ministering spirit, thy spell-bound World-working giant, thy head hierophant And everlasting high priest, is that sinner Who sheds thine own. A Friend. Alas ! Another. 'T is a hard saying, Who can hear it ? SCENE IX. The Trial. An Austrian Court-martial. A number of Officers as Judges. An empty chair Jor the President, who enters during the proceedings. A subordinate Officer prosecutes. Various Witnesses. A great crowd of Auditors. The Monk stands in the midst with an abstracted air, murmuring to himself. Prosecutor. The court has heard the minstrel, Henri de Jaloux ; the most reverend father, Ghiotto Ingordo ; and the rustic crowd Brought under guard from Milan. Noble Sirs, Will ? t please you listen to an aged witness, A simple man, but of a good report, And grey in loyalty. Codardo Goffo, Stand forth ! Now worthy GofFo, of what crime Dqst thou here charge the prisoner ? — THE ROMAN. 323 A Judge. Speak, old man ! Old Goffo. So please you, I was working in the fields ; I serve my lord our bishop — and our bull, Mad with the fly — for, an it please your worships, Since I drove plough, which will be thirty year Come Martinmas, for an it please your worships, My lord the bishop's land — not that I say it For any ill-will to my lord the bishop — But so it is — your worships please to ask Giacchimo, — young Giacchimo — (poor old Giacch, We wore him out.) Your worships, 't is no use Denying it. But as I say, our bull Curst with the midge — i Prosecutor. Speak to the case, old man, You see the prisoner ! Old Goffo. Aye, Sir, aye. Our bull, Bit like a loach — A Judge. Wake up, thou prating loon, Or have thine ears slit ! To the case, I say, And leave this babble ! Old Goffo. Good, your worships, yes. Where was I, please your worships ? Aye. Our bull — A Judge. Silence ! Another Judge. Nay, Colonel, let him on. Well, sirrah ! Old Goffo. Our bull, your worship — I am sev- enty year And more, but let me see the beast, your worship, That throws me, bull or cow, with a fair odds. But, as I say, our Lammas calf — a better Never suck'd dam — 't was eight weeks old that day, Had took the murrain — as it might be here I made a shift — my poor old back, your worships ! And knelt to feed it ; when up comes our bull, And down I am. Not that I think, your worships, — A Judge. Babbling old man, hear me. Answer me short! v 324 THE ROMAN. What I shall ask thee. Jailor, heat thine irons, And burn his tongue out if he fails. Now, sirrah, What of this man ? Old Goffo. Please you, my lord, he came — Not that I ever saw him till that hour — My lord, I am a poor old man, my lords, I am a very poor old man — the bishop — A Judge, Silence ! the prisoner saved you ? Is it so ? Old Goffo. Please you, my lord, he did, my lord — A Judge. And you ? Old Goffo. My lords, it was the only piece I had — By all the saints ! — nay, pray, your worships, mercy, A poor old man ! I meant to pay it back — My lord the bishop's steward that same day, Says he, Go buy — A Judge. Enough ! you gave the prisoner A coin — and why ? Old Goffo. An offering, please your worships, An old man's life is sweet — I swear, my lords, Only an offering — nay — Another Judge. Piously done ! Speak up, good man ! The prisoner took it ? Old Goffo. Ah, Sirs, that an honest man who served his bishop Good sixty year — nay, I might say, your wor- ships, Sixty and one : at Martinmas — I mind it AVell — I was hired. My mother — rest her soul, She was a mother, sirs, — she says — says she — A Judge. Jailor, your irons ! Old Goffo. Mercy, oh, my lords, I will speak — mercy, oh, my lords — A Judge. Hear me. Say yes or no. The prisoner kept your coin ? Old Goffo. No, please my lord. A Judge. No, sirrah ? How ? THE ROMAN. 325 Old Goffo. Nay, mercy ! My lords, I will tell all. Judge. Peace, fool, say on. Old Goffo. Please you, he flung it on the ground, and stamp'd it Like any ram — my lords — as I stand here, — And said — Judge. Ay, tell us what he said. Old Goffo. My lords, I am a very feeble poor old man, I pray your worships mercy — on my knees — My lords — my youngest girl left one small child, For pity's sake, my lords, remember it, — My youngest daughter, please your worships, — she Left him to me — for pity's sake, my lords, My lords, for pity's sake ! A Judge. Is there none here Who will interpret this strange witness ? Prosecutor. Sir, The poor half-witted dotard fears to be Confounded with his benefactor. I, Marshalling the evidence, heard this from him, That when the prisoner saw the superscription And image of my lord the duke, he spurn 'd The money, and declared that masses bought With king-stamp'd price purchased the soul for hell, With sundry other ravings, treating of Rome and Republics. A Judge. Is this so ? Old Goffo. My lords, 'T is very true. President (who enters). Eh — eh — why this is treason, Treason — eh — said he so ? — honest old man, Speak on — he told thee — eh — yes, yes, he told thee All kinds of things — eh — yes — to slay the bishop, Speak out — fear not — to slay the bishop — eh ? * — 326 THE ROMAN. Old Goffo. My lords, as I shall answer on my soul, He said not so ; rather, my lords, he bade — President. There, get you gone — there, get you gone — Prosecutor. Call up Si^nor Pulito Mansueto. Now, Sir, What say you ? Mansueto. Sir, I have a son. The son Of my grey widowhood. To whose dear tune I have so play'd my life, in the dim future Of my old heart I own no single hope That has not all his features. What he was To me, a daughter seem'd to my rich neighbour, Worthy Antonio ; and wherein my son Fail'd of perfection's stature, it did show Complete in her. Antonio and I, Old schoolfellows — had mark'd them for each other, Well pleased to make our dynasties shake hands When we might greet no longer. That their love Should have run smoothly in the golden channels Made by the hands that made them, Sir, what father Will doubt ? Sirs, where my garden joins the fields Low in the vale, no hedge shuts out the fairies, But Art and Nature, intimately sweet, Exchange their beauties. Fond amidst them runs A brook, that like some babbling child between Two bashful lovers, telling tales to each, Perfects their friendship. Bowering all the way With equal joy, they clothe it, and in love Shut out the very sun. Hither my boy Came oft, at noon, to sing and meditate Antonio's daughter : — his sole confidante An ancient dulcimer, the quaint strange spoil Of some old disinterred city. Here, Good Sirs, this traitor met him, and did use — So I learn now — to sing his witchcraft to him, Discoursing much of other mistresses, THE ROMAN. 327 Freedom and Rome — (the Mussulman) : in fine, My son, beguiled, Sirs, by this sorcerer's spells, Slighted Antonio's daughter, and is gone I know not whither. A Judge. Is it likely, friend, The poison wrought no further ? Had this knave No monetary service of your son ? Had he — President. Eh — money — eh — old gentleman ? What ? Did he rob you ? Mansueto. On my honour, no. My child, Sir, is no felon. He took nothing But his old lyre. Nay, now you urge my thought , There was an ancient toga which had hung With other Roman relics in my hall, He took that with him. And God bless him with it ! Sir, I am not a seer, but methinks Your house is childless. Prosecutor. Call Capo di Matti ! Now, Matti, what are you ? Matti. My lords, I am, Or was, my lords, of late, house-steward to My lord the marquis. A Judge. And you know this man ? President. Eh — eh > — you know him ? Look the man in the face. Turn about, prisoner ! Eh, you dog — Matti. My lords, He was a frequent guest where I have served, A very turbulent fellow, good my lords, And dangerous to the state. A Judge. And in your business — President. Eh — yes, your business — eh ? your daily business At table, eh ? and so forth. You have heard — Speak up, Sir, you have heard ? Matti. As this, my lords. His manner was to say with many words, Your worships have no right in Italy, 328 THE ROMAN. No, not so much as to the ground you stand on. Then 't was his pleasure to revile crown'd heads ; His highness is no duke, — his majesty No emperor or king, — my lord the pope — A Catholic tongue, my lords, may not deliver His awful discourse of my lord the pope ! But most, my lords, it was his wont to boast Of some strange secret known to himself only, To sweep your worships from this land, without Gun, sword, or pistol. Which, my lords, I hold To be some compound hot and devilish Of his black art. My lords, I know the time When I have sick'd to hear him. Once, my lords, As I shall answer on my sinful soul, The prisoner promised my late lord, the marquis, To show him all his secret after dinner, P the garden house. My lords, some said that eve It thunder'd. I knew better. A Judge. This is fearful. Well, Sir,— Matti. And, please your lordships, at my lord's He wore no cowl — my lords, he is no priest — This gown, my lords, is worn the better to carry His villanous compound. I have heard him say so. A Judge. Heaven and earth ! President. What ? what ? not a priest, and wear Priest's clothes ? Why, blasphemy — eh ? Blas- phemy, Rank blasphemy — put it down so. A Judge. Well, fellow, This shall be thought on. Matti. 1 do fear to say What more I heard. A Judge. Speak out ! Another. Sirrah, thine oath ! Matti. Nay then, my lords, nay, to say truth, my lords, A man is none the worse for what he hears — Or you, my lords — THE ROMAN. 329 A Judge. Speak to the point ! MattL My lords, Am I held guiltless ? — Servants have their duties — A Judge. Speak out, I say. MattL My lords, it seems to pass Man's wickedness — but, as I hope to see Heaven and the blessed, this man hath conspired To level every city, small and great. In all this land save one. Sirs, take it down, I swear, my lords, even to the very words A hundred times repeated, till my knees Shook to stand by — u Rome all, Rome only" so He phrased it. I speak true, my lords — Prosecutor. The Court Shall hear a confirmation. You may go. Stand up, Bugiardo Sporco, serving-man To the aforesaid marquis — A Voice from the Croiod. But discharged (Let the Court take good note of it) for lying, Theft, and adultery. Prosecutor. Silence ! my lord marquis. Now, fellow, have you heard ill of this prisoner? Sporco. Times out of mind, my lord. A Judge. Tell what was wont To be his converse at your master's table. Sporco. First and foremost, to cut all Austrian throats — Pillage all churches — ravish all the women, And hold them afterwards in common ; ten To each man. Then he had a plan to roast — Shouts from the Crowd. Down with the rascal ! kill him where he stands. Stones ! Stones ! Stones ! A Judge. Soldiers, save the witness. Another. Charge This rabble. A Friend of the Monk's. Peace, good people. The Crowd. Peace ! peace ! peace ! Prosecutor. Call up — 330 THE ROMAN. A Judge. The Court is satisfied. Arraign The prisoner. An Officer. How say'st thou, Vittorio Santo, Sometime, but falsely, self-styled Monk of Jesus, And now on trial : Thou hast had free hearing Of thine accusers. Speak. Guilty or not ? The Monk (musing). "It is in vain to rise up early, to sit Up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. So He giveth His beloved rest." Officer. Yittorio Santo ! self-styled Monk of Jesus, Guilty or not ? Answer ! The Monk (musing). You, you that cry " How long ?** be patient ; is not your heaven sweet? Officer. Yittorio Santo — self-styled Monk of Jesus, Guilty or not ? The Monk (musing). Brother! it is thy voice ; 'T was well of thee, my brother ! to speak now. The home, the plain, the column by the tower, Sickness, thy love, loss, death : the revelation, Resolve, thought, labor, disappointment, triumph, And now the end. Yes, it was well, my brother ! A Judge. Shout in his ear. Smite him, ye drowsy guards. What ! shall this slave despise us ? Corporal, hither ! Thou hast a voice, cry out, " Yittorio Santo, Guilty or not ? " Corporal (shouts). Santo ! Yittorio Santo ! Guilty or not ? The Monk. I am a Roman. Find me A judge and I refuse not to be tried. Prosecutor. Traitor ! thou standest at the judg- ment-seat Of Wollustling von Bauerhund von Bosen, Baron of Herrschwuth, and Scheinheiligkeit, Count d'Omicidio, Marshal in the armies Of that dread sovereign Apostolical THE ROMAN. 331 Our Liege and thine — the imperial Ferdinand^ Emperor of Austria — King — The Monk. Peace ! I have heard His titles. Find me, friend, a judge, and I Refuse not to be tried. The President. A judge! eh? what? A judge — eh — are we not a judge ? eh ? what ? Nay, pull his cowl about his face ! There ! flout him! Spit at him ! Dog ! Nay, we will teach thee, cur ! A judge forsooth ! Pluck the mad priest by the nose ; Nay, not a judge ? Then hear thy sentence — The Monk. Spare Thy lips, for I appeal. President. Appeal, appeal, Nay, he appeals, the dog ! Appeals ! hear that ! By Heavens ! appeals ! Appeal, vile slave ? to whom ? The Monk. To that which — looking o'er your heads and through These walls, which soon shall be as dust — I see Rise like an awful spirit from the earth. To you, as yet, invisible. To me, Present and filling all things. Strong as fate ; Dreadful as heavenly justice ; more imperial Than all the builders of the Babylons ; Invincible as death ; and beautiful As itself only. President. Drag the traitor out ! What ! Does he threaten us with ghosts ? Men rush in shouting. To arms ! To arms ! Others. The mob ! Others. Rebellion ! Others. Carbonari ! A Judge. Guard the priest ! Enter Soldier. Soldier. Captain, twenty thousand men, By my guess — rogues and peasants — 332 THE ROMAN. Captain. How far hence ? Soldier. Three gunshots. Captain. Armed ? Soldier. Ordnance, they say ! Captain. Who leads ? Soldier. A Woman. A Judge. Man the gates ! Men (rushing in). The mob ! the mob ! A Spectator {to the Monk). Be these thy ghosts then? The Monk. Were the troubled waters The angel ? Yet how many at Bethesda Saw no more than the trouble ! Spectator. Being heal'd, What matter ? The Monk. Good friend, much. The heal'd will worship The healer. Men (rushing in). Haste, haste, haste. More. My lords ! a woman, My lords ! a woman like a prophetess, Hair in the winds, and eyes on fire — A Judge. We know. Peace ! Guards, remove the prisoner ! President. Eh — eh — what — Remove — remove — yes, yes, off with him — eh ? You lag ? You dogs ! lend me a bayonet ! There, There ! by the heels ! Drag him out by the heels ! A Judge (to the Captain). Tell off two hundred. By the southern gate Lead out your prisoner. Underneath the walls Let him be shot. Face right about, and reach The western heights. Great shouts without. Down with the Austrians ! Arms ! Blood ! Charge ! Death — death to tyrants ! Vic- tory ! Freedom ! BALDER. PART THE FIRST. AUTHOR'S PREFATORY NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. If the Poetry of this book had met with critical cen- sure, I hope and believe I should have received the ver- dict in silence. Not from any disrespect towards the organs of public opinion, but from certain convictions on the subject of Poetry, which it is not needful here to set forth. Convictions, however, which might be expressed by the author of a book so well received as " The Ro- man," without provoking those suspicions that usually, and often justly, attend a depreciation or deprecation of applause. But I find that many reviewers have mistaken the moral purpose and import of u Balder," and I therefore prefix to my Second Edition these few explanatory lines. The present book is the first part of a work, which I hope to complete in three Parts. I intend as the principal sub- ject of that work the Progress of a Human Being from Doubt to Faith, from Chaos to Order. Not of Doubt in- carnate to Faith incarnate, but of a doubtful mind to a faithful mind. In selecting the type and conditions of humanity to be represented, I chose, for several important reasons, the poetic type and the conditions of modern civilization. And in treating the first and sadder portion of my sub- ject I felt that justice to Nature required me to avoid all conventional portraits of the doubter, and — since in these 334 PREFATORY NOTE days his malady is more often negative than positive — to indicate the absence of faith rather by the states and proportions of the other qualities than by a more distinct and formal statement of the differential defect. I understand that the public press have described my hero to be egoistic, self-contained, and sophistical, imper- fect in morality, and destitute of recognised religion, mis- taken in his estimate of his own powers and productions, and sacrificing to visionary hopes and dreamy distant philanthropies the blessing that lay in his embrace, and "the duty which was nearest." This is precisely the impression which I wished the readers of this volume to receive, and I owe some ac- knowledgment for such loud and emphatic testimony that exactly what I desired to attain has been attained. I have reason, however, to blame some of these powerful witnesses for the indecorous haste and uncharitable dog- matism with which, as I have seen and am informed, they have taken for granted that I must personally admire the character I think fit to delineate, and that 1 present as a model what, in truth, I expose as a warning. That I, in common with many of my critics, am not altogether free from some of the sins of my hero is probable on the general principle that "Balderism" in one form or an- other is a predominant intellectual misfortune of our day. But that I have no theoretical approbation of such errors, may, I think, be naturally inferred from the his- tory of failure and sorrow which I have herein attached to them. That the author of " The Roman," a book of faith, patriotism, and self-sacrifice, must be personified in Balder, the egoistic hero of isolation and doubt, is a theory which, I think, contains its own refutation. Its serious maintenance might transfer to our modern critics a satire of Ben Jonson's which we have now no women who deserve : " Did I not tell thee, Dauphine? Why all their actions are governed by crude opinions without reason or cause: they know not why they do anything, but as they are informed, believe, judge, praise, condemn, love, hate; and in emulation one of another do all these things alike. Only they have a natural inclination sways 'em generally to the worst when they are left to themselves.' 1 '* I am told, however, that some important critical author- ities, while recognising that " Balder" in " part the first," is by no means my notion of " Exemplar Dei " TO THE SECOND EDITION. 335 have loudly questioned the propriety of his creation, and have demanded by what public want or social ne- cessity the author was directed to this portion of his subject. Perhaps it would be considered too general a reference if I were to remit my demandants to the whole History of Intellect; and I will therefore indicate some special and recent chapters. In so indicating, I prefer — and can afford — to pass over those which would popularly vin- dicate this volume of my work, and to direct the really earnest inquirer to the materials of a wider and more philosophic reply. To the elements of my hero as they exist, uncombined or undeveloped, in the much-observed and well-recorded characters of men who have been, and have more or less deserved to be, praised, loved, followed and revered. To such suggestive monuments as the Au- tobiography of Haydon ; to memorable passages in the letters of Keats; to many lessons from the life of David Scott ; to sundry incidents in the history of Goethe ; to several schools of English, French, and German Philoso- phy. I might add — if I had not already confined myself to History — to the secret consciousness of the rising genius — perhaps the rising youth — of our strong, great, ambi- tious, but perplexed and disconcerted time. It will be perceived, by the tone of these remarks, that I treat the misrepresentations to which this book has been subject as solely the result of unwilling misconstruction. If at any time or in any place, they have had a less par- donable origin, I am not inclined to be severe on the offender. Poetry, by whatsoever other qualities it be distin- guished, has this common characteristic — that it will five. Whether, therefore, this work be Poetry or not, 1 think its assailant may equally ciaim our condolence. On the one hand he assaults it to no detriment but his own ; on the other, I have imposed on him the labour of killing what, if it can die, should never have been born. My personal relation to either case may be briefly and tritely expressed : " A modest, sensible, and well-bred man Will not affront me, — and no other can." BALDER. SCENE I. A Study, with books, MS3. and statues. A window looks over a country valley to the neighbouring mountains. A door in the study communicates with an adjoining room. Persons. — Balder {a Poet) ; Amy (his wife) ; Doctor Paul; An Artist ; A Servant. Balder (musing). To-morrow I count thirty years, save one. Ye grey stones Of this old tower gloomy and ruinous, Wherein I make mine eyrie as an eagle Among the rocks ; stones, valley, mountains, trees, In which I dwell content as in a nest Of Beauty, — comprehended less by more — Or above which I rise, as a great ghost Out of its mortal hull ; vale, mountains, trees, And stones of home, which, as in some old tale O' the East keep interchange of prodigies With me, and now contain me and anon Are stomached by mine hunger, unappeased That sucks Creation down, and o'er the void Still gapes for more ; ye whom 1 love and fear And worship, or i' the hollow of my hand Throw like a grain of incense up to Heaven, Tell me your secrets ! That ye have a heart I know ; but can it beat for such as I ? Or do I unbeheld behold the fair And answering mystery of your countenance BALDER. 337 Passionate with rains and sunshine, and, unheard, Have audience of your voices, but as one Who in a temple passes unrespect Between the kneeling suppliant and the saint, Meeting the uplifted face and the rapt eyes That look beyond ? Am I but as a fly Touching the vestal beauties of a maid Unchidden ; intimate but by how much Inferior ? Do ye speak over my head Even as we pray aloud before a child ? You trees that I have loved so well, ye flowers Unto whom, by so much as ye are more In beauty, hath befallen a better love Than mine, being her chosen who to me Is as your airy fragrance and mere hues To your unblushed substantial ; thou sweet vale In which my soul, calm lying like a lake, Reflects the stars, or, stirred, upon the shores Of mountains maketh music, or more loud, Rising in sudden flood, and breaking up That firmament to heaped and scattered stfars, Chaotic to and. fro from hill to hill Defies the rounding elements, and rolls Reverberating thunder ; have I lived Not unbeloved, and shall I pass away Not all unwept ? You floors, in whose black oak The straitened hamadryad lives and groans, Ye creaking dark and antiquated floors, Who know so well in what sad note to join The weary lullaby what time she rocks Her babe, and murmurs music sad and low, So sad and low as if this tower did keep The murmur of the years as a sea-shell The sea, or in these legendary halls The mere air stirred, and with some old unknown Sufficient conscience moved upon itself, Whispering and sighing ; ruined castle- wall Whereby she groweth like some delicate flower 22 338 BALDER. In a deserted garden, thou grim wall Hemming her in with thine unmannered rock Wherein I set her as a wandering clown Who, in a fairy-ring, by night doth seize Some elfin taper, and would have it burn In his gaunt lanthorn wrought by human hands Uncouth, yet art so passing bright with her — So fragrant ! little window in the wall, Eye-lashed with balmy sprays of honeysuckle, Sweet jessamine, and ivy ever sad, Wherein like a most melancholy eye, All day she sits and looks forth on a world Less fair than she, and as a living soul Informs the rugged face of the old tower With beauty ; when the soul hath left the face The sad eye looks no longer from the lid, The sweet light is put out in the long rain, The flower is withered on the wall, the voice Will never murmur any more, and ye, Ye, that both spake and saw, are dumb and blind, — Blind^ave when midnight bolt from your deaths- head Starts like a bloody eyeball, or your rot Glimmers in corse-lights on the shuddering dark — And dumb, but for such noise as dumb men make, When winds are moaning in your empty jaws — Will there be aught to tell of what has been ? Where for so many nights and days she wept, Shall not sweet colours in the slanting sun Cross and recross, and floor the empty space With rainbows ? Will the lingering swallow stay Within, as conscious of an influence Like summer ? Will an earlier primrose shine On a peculiar season whereabout The winds beat idly ? Shall the winter thrush Alight upon your dreary round and sing As to a nestling ? Shall the village school Know the low turret where all stricken birds BALDER. 339 Do shelter ? Or the curious traveller note The lonely tower where evermore the dew Hangs on the herbs of ruin ? Sun and moon Rising and setting, but now face to face In equal Heaven, remember us ! O ye Celestial lovers you at least should make A love immortal ! On this final eve Me thinks that ye look down on me with eyes Of human contemplation. Lady Moon, Casting as yet no shade, thy shade dissolved In daylight of thy lord, O royal Sun, Who though at last thou sink beneath the tides She raiseth, unsubdued shalt glorify The fatal waters, and still shine on her With undiminished love, to you I leave Our memories. Oh consecrate these stones And point with mindful shadow day and night, Where we lie dust below. SCENE II. The same. From the adjoining room, through the half-opened door, are heard the rocking of a cradle and the voice of Amy. Amy. The years they come, and the years they go Like winds that blow from sea to sea ; From dark to dark they come and go, All in the dew-fall and the rain. Down by the stream there be two sweet willows, — Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow, — One hale, one blighted, two wedded willows All in the dew-fall and the rain. She is blighted, the fair young willow, — Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow, — 340 BALDER. She hears the spring-blood beat in the bark ; She hears the spring-leaf bud on the bough ; But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow, All in the dew-fall and the rain. The stream runs sparkling under the willow, — Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow, — The summer rose-leaves drop in the stream ; The winter oak-leaves drop in the stream ; But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow, All in the dew-fall and the rain. Sometimes the wind lifts the bright stream to her, — Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow, — The false stream sinks, and her tears fall faster ; Because she touched it her tears fall faster ; Over the stream her tears fall faster, All in the sunshine or the rain. The years they come, and the years they go ; Sing well-away, sing well-away ! And under mine eyes shines the bright life-river ; Sing well-away, sing well-away ! Sweet sounds the spring in the hale green willow, The goodly green willow, the green waving willow, Sweet in the willow, the wind-whispering willow ; Sing well-away, sing well-away ! But I bend blighted, the wan weeping willow, All in the sun, and the dew, and the rain. SCENE III. The same. A table covered with MSS. and books. Balder, Balder. Looking upon the lives of other men, I see them move in apt and duteous signs, That look like cause and consequent, through type BALDEK. 341 And antitype, day after equal day, Year after answering year, from sire to son. But life hath been to me a strange wild dream, Wherein the prodigies that haunt and home Within a human bosom have been brought Marvel by marvel, as to Adam once The monsters of the Earth, that I might name them, And know them, and be friends with them. A youth In years, I hold the weft and woof of age, And wheresoever Time may cut the web, Can find no novel texture. One sole thread Thou owest me, Lachesis ! but I will trust thee, Oh thou unfailing debtor ! Upon Earth All sights I have beheld but one ; all sorrows Either in type or kind endured but one. Death, careful of my learning, hath withstayed His final presence, lest his shade allay My wounds, and, as before the King of Beasts, The lesser horrors of the wilderness Flee at his great approach. I have not seen him, In cause or in effect. But he will come ! For till he come my perfect manhood lacks, And this that I was born to do is done, By nothing less than man. That I should do it, And be the King of men, and on the inform And perishable substance of the Time Beget a better world, I have believed Up thro' my mystic years, since in that hour Of young and unforgotten extasy I put my question to the universe, And overhead the beech-trees murmured " Yes." Therefore I grew up calm like a young god, Having in well-assured serenity No haste to reach and no surprise to wear The inevitable stature ; nor thought strange To feel me not as others, to pursue Amid the crowd a solitary way, 342 BALDER. And take my own in the o'er-peopled world, And find it no man's else. When at the first. Because I was no higher than mankind, All men went past, and no man looked on me, I felt no humbler. When this ample frame Expanded into majesty, and they Who saw fell back admiring, I beheld Their change, not mine ; for the unconscious child, Tho' for his childhead he be special child, Is universal man, and in his thoughts Doth glass the future. The thin sapling oak, Hid in the annual herbage of the field, Hath oaken members, and can boast no more When they defy the storms of heaven, and roost The weary-winged Ages. One alone, Early and late, — faithful as she who knows And keeps the secret of the foundling heir — Did bear me witness. Nature from my birth Confessed me, as who in a multitude Confesseth her beloved and makes no sign ; Or as one all unzoned in her deep haunts, If her true-love come on her unaware, Hastes not to hide her breast, not is afraid ; Or as a mother 'mid her sons displays The arms their glorious father wore, and, kind, In silence with discerning love commits Some lesser danger to each younger hand, But to the conscious eldest of the house The naked sword ; or as a sage amid His pupils in the peopled portico, Where all stand equal, gives no precedence, But by intercalated look and word Of equal seeming, wise but to the wise, Denotes the favoured scholar from the crowd ; Or as the keeper of the palace-gate Denies the gorgeous stranger and his pomp Of gold, but at a glance, although he come In fashion as a commoner, unstarred, Lets the prince pass. BALDER. 343 I think my hour is nigh. I am almost equipped ; and earth and air Are full of signs. The uncommanded host Of living nations, swaying to and fro Like waves of a great sea that in mid-shock Confound each other, white with foam and fear, Roar for a leader. All this last strange year The clouds seemed higher, and each bird of wing Doubled his usual flight, and the blue arch Opened above, expansive ; even as tho' The labouring world drew in a deeper breath, And raised her swelling bosom nearer Heaven With expectation. My prophetic heart Confirmed the omen, and, as ere the crash Of earthquake the dull sun stands clothed upon With sackcloth, and as to his golden head Shorn, I am troubled with the fate not yet Accomplished ; an unreasoning melancholy Directs me ; I have lingered by the Past As by a death-bed, with unwonted love And such forgiveness as we bring to those Who can offend no more. The very stones Of old memorial have been dear to me, Sitting long days on ancient stiles worm-worn, And gazing thro* green trees o'er grassy graves Upon the living village and the dead, The early and the latter tryst that all Have kept so long and well ; or to the pile Reared by those English whose ancestral feet Trod the same path their children's children keep Still hallowed, where the beauty of the vale, The blushing girl of yonder bridal train, Walks in her love and joy, and passing slow Salutes unconscious with her wedding skirt The gable end, no greyer than of yore, When by the same dark yew for ever old, The same grey Time did hold his scythe above Her grandame's head, whose silk of long ago So rustled on the wall when she went by 344 BALDEK. A happy bride, and heard perchance that day Tales from wan lips of the far morning when Her mother's mother passed as fair as she. Or on the leafy and live-long repose Of country labour, and the unhasted life That plods with equal step the wonted way, A-field at morn and homeward slow at eve, And slow with eve and morn through drowsy day Doth toil and feed and sleep and feed and toil. Or on lone homesteads and the untrespassed rest Of immemorial pastures, and the tread Of dreamful herds in verdant peace un vexed And taskless thro' the round of sauntering day, And all the dewy leisure of the meads. As though the coming din of war should scare The tenants of the field, and wildered fear Distract the rural motion, and repeat In bleating folds and trampled harvests loud With dread, the desperate and delirious pulse Of man ; and knowing I did look my last Of pastoral quiet, and the passive gait Of ease that is the step of all their world, Their world at pace with solemn things above, With tardy-footed twilight, and all powers Eterne that tread time with celestial wont Immortal, with the seasons of the earth, And with the calm procession of the stars. 'T is well that on the landmark of to-day I lean awhile, and with clear eyes look back Upon the way I came, ere once again I set forth on my journey to the goal Which I have sworn to win. That bard who lies Like the old knight i' the picture, at the root Of our hereditary tree, (first sire Of the long line where Shakspeare is not last) And by his posture measures height with none, Beheld a " House of Fame." For me, I seek A sterner architecture and a dome BALDER. 345 More like the heavens, upon that hill which he AVho climbs is strongest amono; living men, The seat of templed Power. Not Fame but Power. Or Fame but as the noise of Power, a voice That in the face is wind, but in the ear Truth, Knowledge, Wisdom, Question, Speculation, Hope, Fear, Love, Hate, Belief, Doubt, Faith, De- spair, Every strong gust that shifts the sails of man, And so far worth the utterance ; Fame the paid Muezzin on the minaret of Power, Calling the world to worship ; Fame the pied And gilded following of the royal house, Whose function is without, to spread the awe Of Power among the common herd, and hand External homage to the chaste convoy Of them who serve in presence ; or at best, An argent herald running on before, Nor daring once to turn his menial mouth To tell me what I know, and whose great trump Tho' it blow Kegnarok and wake the graves, Is but a sounding brass. Not Fame but Power. Power like a god's and wielded as a god ! I would have been the wind, and unbeheld Rase the tall roaring forest, not the flash That cannot move unseen ; the influence Unnamed that finds a city and leaves a tomb, But not the conflagration to flame wide A rabble holiday, round which the Town Gapes, and whereof all men have leave to speak, Cried in the civic streets and parodied In pictures ; and for which, at last put out, No hand so base but had availed to do The final deed, nor urchin but hath spat Enough extinction. Whatsoe'er attains In solitude, and out of sight doth sling The stone of practice where no vulgar tongue May cry unskilled applause on the wide throw Of strong attempt, nor ever in men's eyes 346 BALDER. Hath eminence so young that the kind hand Of popular approval dare be laid Upon its head, I love. The Victory Which hath no mortal opposite to try Conclusions and assess my over-match, I covet. I could wish that the good Powers, Which watched over my making had denied The gifts that quell mankind. I would have gone Into the wilderness, and in some cell Of task severe and exercise divine, Grown god-like till perforce the vigilant gods Seeing me there made me their deputy As being next to them. I would have sat And blessed creation, seeing in calm joy The thankless welfare, and content to know. That from their far thrones, Potentates of Heaven, When a new glory flushed this planet earth Did look to me on mine. Whatever rules By its mere nature and that native place Holding of nought below it, from below Receives nor of accession or decess, Nay by its sovereign essence, is beyond The praise and subject homage of the ruled, I would have been ; up from the viewless air That feeds the unconscious world, or this rare life Full in these throbbing veins that moves unfelt The beating heart I feel, to the supreme And central force that sways the universe Unknown, and, being absolute, well pleased Resigns the weight of glory, and permits To shining suns and stars the gorgeous crown, And golden signs of empire. I do think My throne is set. If this next year might bring My one delayed experience ! And, that past, End, as with harvest, in some genial close Of happier fortunes ! For the fruit of sorrow, Tho' it do grow in the shade ere it be ripe, Asks light and heat, and I am now as when BALDER. 347 Oblivious Nature holds the time o' year, Brimfull in a dead level of dull days, Til J, reaching forth a hand, the sudden sun Touches the cup, and spills upon the earth The mantling season. (Taking up a Manuscript.) Oh thou first, last, work ! Thou tardy-growing oak that art to be My club of war, my staff, my sceptre ! Thou Hast well nigh gained thine height. My early planned, Long meditate, and slowly-written epic ! Turning thy leaves, dear labour of my life, Almost I seem to turn my life in thee. Thy many books my many votive years, And thy full pages numbered with my days. I could look back on all that I have built As on some Memphian monument wherein The kings do lie in glory, every one Each in his house, and forward to thy blank Fair future, as one gazes into depths Of necromantic crystal, and beholds The heavens come down. I think I have struck off One from the weary score of human tasks. Having so told my story in a tongue So common to the ages, that no man In after times shall tell it, but the fact To which I have given voice shall be laid by, And this my sterling with mine image on, Present the ponderous bulk ; and I shall leave This hislory my autograph, wherein The hand that writes is part of what is writ, And I, like the steeped roses of the East, Become the necessary element Of that which doth preserve me. Howsoe'er This be, and whether I attain or fail To add another to those lights of heaven That rule our day and night, — to set a sun 348 BALDER. Of joy above us, or some saddest moon Whose pale reflected rays, from their first aim And primal course bent back and contravert Like some Apollo's golden shaft returned From an opposing bow, shall still bespeak The splendour of their quiver — I do feel I have deserved to win. Thought, Labour, Patience, And a strong Will, that being set to boil The broth of Hecate would shred his flesh Into the cauldron, and stir deep with arms Flayed to the seething bone ere there default One tittle from the spell — these should not strive In vain ! No. I have lived what I have sung, And it shall live. The flashes of the fire Are fire, that which was soul is spirit still, And shall not die. I sat above my work As God above the new unpeopled world Sat and foresaw our days, and sun and cloud Of good and ill passed o'er the countenance Ineffable, and filled the plains below ; Smiled all a floral kingdom thro' the world, Or frowned a race of lions. With the year That ended yesterday, I close the book Of mortal contest, and begin to sing- Record of the aerial tournaments Whereof we are but shadows, on the fields Where spirit meets with spirit, and god with god. And first thee, Death, — [Enter servant, with post-bag. Letters ! (opens and reads.) Balder (after a long pause). Oh men, oh men, What are ye that I yearn to you, and ye To me, but that no grasp of mortal love Against the strong enribbed heart can break The mystic band that limits each from each, Nor sternest edifice of separate life Can wholly shut ye out ? If nought can make Us one, why can we not be twain in peace ? BALDER. 349 Why do you touch me, why do your kind eyes. Unasked, look into mine ? Why does your breath Fall warm upon me, and infect my veins With strange commotion ? Is it to be borne, That ye will neither enter into me, Nor leave me ? that men look upon my face, And take me for another ; that I know Your wants before you tell them, feel the pains You feel ; give language to your secret bliss Better than you who know it ? That ye cure My bodily ailments with the selfsame drug That heals the fool ; that he who should cut off This right hand with nice science, that foreknows Each sequent vein and muscle, learned his skill Upon a felon ? That my last death-sob Will be much like what any hangman hears, And that the very meanest lips alive Do speak some word of mine ? Thou happy God, That hast no likeness, wherefore hast Thou made Me thus ? Have I not gone into unknown Unentered lands, and heard in alien tongue Strange man unto strange man unload his heart, And started in my soul, and said, " Eh ghost ! Art thou I ? " Am I one and every one, Either and all ? The innumerable race, My Past ; these myriad-faced men my hours ? What ! have I filled the earth, and knew it not ? Why not ? How other ? Am I not immortal ? And if immortal now, immortal then ; And if immortal then, existent now ; But where ? Thou living moving neighbour, Man, Art thou my former self — me and not me ? Did I begin, and shall I end ? Was I The first, and shall I one day, as the last, Stand in the front of the long file of man, And looking back, behold it winding out, Far thro* the unsearched void, and measuring time 350 BALDER. Upon eternity, and know myself Sufficient, and, that like a comet, I Passed thro' my heaven, and fill'd it ? [ Through the door are heard the rocking of a cradle, and the voice of Amy.] Amy (singing). The cuckoo-lamb is merry on the lea, The daisied lea ; I would I were the lamb ! While that the lark will pipe, the lamb will dance, And when the lark is mute he danceth still ; Up springs the lark, and pipes again for joy ! He, more by birth, than we by toil and skill, Is happy with no labour but to live ; He leapeth early, and he leapeth late ; He leapeth in the sunshine and the rain, Nor fears the hour that will not find him blest, And milky plenty sauntering by his side. Also the lamb that doth not toil nor spin, Lies where he will, and where he lieth sleeps. Sleeps on the hill-top like a cloud o' the hill, Sleeps where the trembling Lily of the Vale, Albeit she is so spotless, sleepeth not, But like a naked fairy fears all night The wind that for her beauty cannot sleep. Sleeps on the nettle or the violet ; Or where the sun doth warm his trance with light, Or where the runnel murmureth cool dreams, Or where the eglantine not yet in bloom Like a sweet girl full of her sweeter thought Reveals unheard the sweetness still to be. Or where the darnel nods, and, as they tell, Of beauty nursed upon a savage dug, Sucks grace from the harsh bosom of the waste. Sleeps in the meadow buttercups at noon, — A babe a-slumber in a golden crib — Or like a daisy by the way-side white, And like a daisy quieteth the way. The lamb, the lamb, I would I were the Lamb ! BALDER. 351 Balder (musing). Thou most pure, And guileless voice, I never breathed thee ! No, Thou meek misfortune, thou art not my past. My Amy, my own Amy, whom of old I found as a wild sailor of the sea Comes on some happy isle of Love and Peace, Some isle where joys that in all other climes, Sweet flying thro' the night of his dark way, A moment rest upon his sail, pass on, And are beheld no more, in equal haunts And bright assured communion ever dwell, Day without night, and native, brood and sing ! Thou who thro' the stern ordeal of this life Didst cling beside me, while I showed my power, And turned the dust and ashes where I stood, To gold and ruby, so that the great throng Cried out for envy, and with murderous shout Demanded the pure jewel I had not, And when I trembled, knowing that mine art Was ended, and the clamorous people saw, Unseen didst slide thy wealth into my hand And save me, so that I, serene, unclosed My palm before the Judge, and lo ! a pearl ; My first Love and my last, so far, so near, So strong, so weak, so comprehensible In these encircling arms, so undescribed In any thought that shapes thee : so divine, So softly human that to either stretch, Extreme and farthest tether of desire It finds thee still ; my ministering saint, Attendant sprite, enshrined Egeria ! My ornament, my crown, my Indian gem And incommunicable amulet Upon my breast, not me but warm with me ! ( pauses). You heavens ! how far a little breath may blow The unstable bubble of inflated thought ! O voice, little voice, what power of thine Disbands my hosts, which, as a crowd of shades 352 BALDER. That scatter at a word, in sudden rout Like the four winds unloosed have sprung apart And vanished into distance, until I Whose royal and innumerable train, Out-trooped the legioned gods, am left alone As one uncounted ? How those charmed walls, And airy castles, that we rear to hold The powers that plague us, and do well contain, Imprisoned fiends are pervious to the touch Of any human hand ! That we should build them, And a mere child should put his vital finger Thro' the main bulwark ! That the head should write, And with a gush of living blood, the heart Should blot it ! As one proves there is no God And falls upon his knees. Right sapient sage ! Supreme intelligence ! Sole substantive ! Lord of the empty dark ! True Prince of Nil And Nihilo ! a royal argument ; But ere thou sign triumphant demonstration Be blest and let a benefit refute thee ! My little Amy ! [Exit. SCENE IV. The empty Study. Through the half-open door is heard the voice of Amy. Amy. My lord, that walkest thro' the universe, Did I not go beside thee, as a child, With humble step and looking to thy face ? My king, who reign est wheresoe'er thou art ! All do thy hest, my King ! but who as I ? Hast thou not all thy subjects here in me ? BALDER. 353 My husband, who hast loved me like a god, And blessed ine, surely I did well to love Thee as a god ? — but can a god forget ? Wherein have I offended ? Nay, thy brow Is sweet and cloudless — I have done no ill. My husband, have I not been still tlry bird, Thy dove, thy snow-white dove, upon thy wrist, Or in thy breast or feeding from thy lips, Or round thine head, or fluttering with fond feint Before thy footsteps — with mine eyes on thee ? Was I not as a lamb around thy feet, That loved thee ? For my neck thou didst en- twine Sweet garlands, and I followed thee, nor knew The inexorable sadness, till a door Opened, and thou art among men, and I Am but a lamb, and bleat about the gate. My husband, I have been an orphan fawn That ran beside the cubless lioness ; Who spared her, and did make with her what sport Befits the offspring of the forest king. And the poor fawn still gambolled in her blood. Have I not been a moth about thy light Scorched, scorched ; but, husband ! when the wound was worst, Winging with madder passion still to thee ! Wert thou not always as a crescent moon, And I thy star within thee, till the time Came, and the lengthening distance, and I knew My rising and my setting were not thine. Oh was I not a floweret in thine hand When thou didst stand upon the peak of thought 23 354 BALDER. Gazing to heaven, which with a thunder-shock Rolled back, and angels came to thee, and thou Didst stretch to them thine open hands uplift In welcome, and I fell to where I am. I think they touched thine eyes, and that thence- forth Thou seest all things clearly, and me here, Nor know est it is very far from thee. Oh husband ! it is night here in the vale, And I lie on the rugged earth who had Thy bosom ; moreover I cannot hear Thy voice, nor tho' thou seest me can I see Thy face. It is not with me as with thee ; The shadows here are always long and deep, Also the night comes sooner than to thee. SCENE V. The Study. Balder at his writing-table. Balder. Death, thou must stand aside ! The mood is not Upon me, and my gold is only dug F the vein. The microcosmos, like its twin, Hath climates and their seasonable fruits. My brain is warm, and I behold the sun ; Clear as a pulsing wave of hyaline, And I cry u Light ; " tender and beautiful As the west waiting for the evening star, And loveliness, like a fair girl, comes forth Into the dewy silence. As I throb The sense responds, and, like a courtier's eyes, Finds for each royal folly of my soul Portentous reason. The disordered fact Outruns its antecedent, and so much Eternity within doth set at nought BALDER. 355 The wont of time, that I am stirred yet ere Disturbance, and do suffer by the ill Not yet admitted to the sum of things. I will await what figure now unseen Is to rise up and lay his charmed hand Upon this inner harp from string to string Already trembling, and arrive, tho' late, To give a name to that foredone effect Which else had lacked a father. [He meditates, writes, and reads aloud. " Then saw I Genius, blind, with upturned face, As one who hears, and to the struggling sense (Tottering beneath accomplishment, and faint In touch of the inestimable prize) Each from his office brings her conscript powers Auxiliar, and in strained conflux sustains The sole perception ; happy so to gain The one sufficient knowledge, and therein Utterly blessed. Like a listening saint Lifting her wrapt brow to the audible Heaven. Nor sightless by defect, but that her lids Closed o'er the needless eyes. Her moving lips Perfunctory incessant murmur made, And thus she held her unrespective way, Following the upper sound which no man heard, Summer and winter, day and night ; but more Like a sweet madness in those dearer times Wherein the horned seasons fill and wane, Spring, autumn, morn, and eve ; o'er hill and alp, Forest and city, steep and battlement, Or wrought or native ; through vales, gulphs, and caves, And midnight solitudes, and martial plains, And sun, and storm, and frost, and flood, and fire." Bah, is this Genius who should rule the world And be incarnate God ? Rather, methinks, Some maimed celestial, feeling back her way To the lost heavens, or that fair Eve whom once 356 BALDER. Genius, what time she " listened to the voice," Caught in his arms in Eden. {Turning to a statue) Listening Eve ! What marvel that my spell-bound fancy drew The captive, not the captor ? As the earth Revolves, and we behold the vanished stars Of yesterday, that, being fixed, remain To gladden lands beyond us, so in thee Immortal ! this our Present wandering comes Round to the sight of long lost Paradise, And all the primal act. And we go down To death, but thou, fast held, remainest to rise On other times, and, orient by our fall, Shalt light the orb of ages. Thou rare power, Sluggard, ungrateful, wayward, false, and vain, Whom men call Muse ! I cannot fetter thee But I can punish. Back into the void, And bring me what I seek ? \_He writes. Now what art thou, Genius ? (reads) u There came a chariot o'er the earth, Swift on strange wheels, such as eye hath not seen, Nor can see, in the speed of their great course Viewless, but leaving tracks which nations ran To wonder at. Whether o'er rugged rocks Passing, and turning all their streams to tears Sad down the channelled visage of the hills ; Or o'er the level sea, whirling strange dews And rainbows to a luminous mist, wherein Mermaids in sportive companies made play Beneath their dark hair, till the heaving sea Blushed like a cloudy morn, and dolphins leaped, And Triton mounted on a foaming wave Sounded pursuit ; or o'er the beaten road Of daily use raising a dust that fell Upon the things that were, and made them new. (The clime cleared, and on either hand the path Arcadian did spontaneous holiday BALDER. 357 Prankt with its herbs of grace. Fair sun and moon, From signs of fortune with consenting stars In sweet succession, or conjunctions rare Shone festal round the car, while Time himself Grew young, and ran before. Fierce beasts that shun The common sunshine, rose, and each subdued, Moved to the genial light, from his dark den Approaching tame by every forest glade, Where Una led the lion. Nor rude race Of daily men, that like a city flood, Came headlong heedless mixed in civic din, Escaped the spell ; nor touched the enchanted ground But sudden as to music in the air, Grave measured step and custom of the gods O'ertook them — Salian and CEnoplian dance Heroic, and the front of golden days.) Or whether over Alpine solitudes Ploughing such record as nor mountain storms That rage midway, nor high above the thunder The ceaseless snows of silent centuries Efface ; or crossing immemorial plains Indentured where the furrows fill with flowers As with a Tyrian rain ; where'er on earth It found the barren wilderness, and left Eden — if Eden was the rosy prime, The master passion, and first extasy Of this our world. Nor drawn by steed, nor steered By human hand, it came an empty car To the embattled people as of will. And took its martial station in the van, And post of honour. Then the mighty men Climbed, venturous, its crystal sides wherein The changing tumult of the mirrored field Shone, like opposing armies. But behold A marvel ! for the empty car was full. And none could enter. Therefore moved with fear 358 BALDER. And jealous doubt, they called the legions round To thrust it forth, which passive in the midst Stood stirless — tho' still wheeled the wheeling wheels Invisible with motion. But when spears Were couched and charging, sudden from the ground Wingless it rose ! and all the baffled host Fell with deceived expectance. As it rose Slow thro' the day, the wondrous wheels being still Hung in the air, and the great multitude With upturned eyes amazed at once cried out Their likeness, and of countless voices each Belied its neighbour. But the car sublime Above the round horizons, each on each Widening like circles in the stagnant sea Of space disturbed, showed like a lesser world Dyed with the coloured earth, and as it went Heavenward, and we astonied still beheld, Lo ! we were ware as of a countenance Unspeakable, and as of burning hands Waving farewells, and somewhat of a form Sitting within the brightness. Then convulsed With shame, both of their tardy eyes obscure And lost revenge, from instant bows and slings, Artillery and every loud offence, Sudden the universal host upsent Impotent rage. As tho' the earth that lay A sleeping beast, sprang up, and with a roar Shaking his shaggy hide, vv ith thickest dust Darkened the air. Then the mysterious wheels Whirled in the sky ; the burning hands uplift Pointed to Heaven ; and the tremendous car Launched thro' the seas of light, and passed the noon As the mere yellow strand whence it set sail To sea ; careering as to reach the goal Of all things, and come back. And, as it passed, BALDER. 359 He whom we saw threw out a golden chain, And linked the sun, and led him from his lair Obedient, while night fell on earth ; and He Shot thro' the darkness and was lost. But soon, — Himself unseen — I knew his viewless way, Thro' the stirred Heavens where I saw the stars Leaving their spheres, till as it were a host Of meteors shone across the streaming sky. Nor him victorious long the toil delayed, But on a time thro' all the flaming air Rose the large dawn of his far-off* return, And as it rose and rose embraced the earth Into a breast of glory ; such great day Began the morning as if life had changed Its metre, heaving nature had attained To grander issues, and a rounded year Came up the ampler East. And Him I saw Rushing upbn the Orient ; in his train Fierce as reluctant lions dragged at speed Behind a victor, — all their forest-brood Roaring around and leaping — captive suns Attend him, and their wild and scattered moons Whiten the air. Then the pale nations cast Dust on their heads, and hid their dazzled eyes, And over all a great sound, full of death, Shrieked like a plague-wind from a battle-field, Noisome with mortal horror thro' the land. ' Woe, woe, we cast him from us in his day, And now he will return to take the world And burn it in his fury ! ' " {Throws the MS. to the ground). Lie thou there ! Genius is yet unwritten. [ Through the door is heard the voice of Amy. Happy eve, happy eve ! But the mavis singing in the eve, Singe th for the silence of the eve. 360 BALDER. Happy flower, happy flower, But the golden secret of the flower, Hidden honey sweeter than the flower. Happy moon, happy moon, But the loving moonlight of the moon, Tender wonder fairer than the moon. Little child, little child, As the evening mavis unto me, As the twilight mavis unto me. Little child, little child, As the hidden honey unto me, As the golden honey unto me. Little child, little child, As the wondrous moonlight unto me, As the better moonlight unto me. SCENE VI. The vacant Study. Through the open door the voice of Amy. Amy. Sleep thee, my child, altho' when thou didst sleep And shut thine eyes methought the world was blind. Sleep thee, my child, altho' thy mother wakes, Sleep, happy babe, upon a woful breast. Oh, babe, I can endure to live ; oh babe, I see thee thro' the anguish of my years Like a star rising thro' the smoke of hell. Oh babe, I have escaped to thee beyond, Beyond the present torture, calm and sweet ; A moment, and I reck not of the fiends. BALDER. 361 And I am bathed in dews, and in thy sphere Thou bearest me naked of all my woes Which burn upon me, babe, but are not me. My vesture is on fire ; all all in vain, In vain I tear it, knotted strong and deep With chains more cruel than the flames, in vain I run and fan them in the wind of life. A moment I am free beyond the years ! Thou risest, oh my star, and I to thee ! A moment, and the flesh must needs be here, And the fierce anguish knotted to the flesh, And I am like a spirit in thine urn, Cool thro' the balmy shades of painless heaven. Sleep, sleep, my babe, thou shalt not cry me nay ; Sleep, sleep, my babe, my babe, while it is night. Ah, who shall say the morn may not be fair ? Sleep, little babe, and let my terror sleep ! Oh sleep awhile, and stop the wheels of fate. I think that there is privilege in woe, And sorrow may not seize us everywhere, And havoc doth not hunt where'er he list, And sleep is halcyon time when griefs are still. Sleep, sleep, my babe, and let me clasp thee fast And know a little space thou canst not die, Nor earth nor heaven or plots or works thine ill. Sleep, sleep, my babe, my babe, and let me hold My destiny a moment in mine arms, Nor find it heavier than can rise and fall Harmless as thou upon my heaving breast. Alas ! alas ! the vision of my youth ! When that I lifted not mine eyes to pray, But I beheld him thro' the cloudless air, Walking as on a morning mountain-top Transfigured, with the azure clothed about, Nor on a higher earth, but lower heaven ! 362 BALDER. Sleep, sleep, my babe, and dream thy mothers dream, That all her joy may be contained in thee. He stood in light, he stood in blinding light 1 I loved, I climbed to reach him where he stood, I the weak woman, I the child of clay ! I fell ; to see him from the beetling brink, Stretching for ever unavailing arms To her who, as in dreams, for ever falls. Oh hapless, hapless heart, too proud to fall ! Oh hapless, hapless limbs, too frail to climb ! Heart of these limbs, how couldst thou be so proud ? Oh limbs, how could ye mate so proud a heart ? Sleep, sleep, my babe, and dream thy mother's dream, And if to wake like her, oh wake no more ! If thou couldst grow what once I prayed to be, If I could see a daughter at his side, And he might look upon himself more fair, And all her mother with a kinder fate ! Tho' I have failed and fallen in the race, Thou shalt redeem me, and with better limbs Contend. And I will kneel and shew my scars, And make too memorable with my tears Each treacherous fortune where thy mother fell. And break with mine own hands her image fair, And show her to thine eyes so wan and weak, Crazed with waste life and unavailing days. And stir thee, blushing with her penitence, And in the fire of a great love and woe Become as nought before thee, that thou, Babe, Inherit from her ashes, and arise Triumphant from the pyre, and so in death I load thee with my hopes, and win in thee ! BALDER. 363 Awake, awake, my babe, my only babe, Sleep not too deeply, babe, thou art my heart, And only by its pulse I know I live. SCENE VII. The Study. Balder writing. Balder (reads). I stood and did not dream. Before me was the great plain, and behind The long dark mountains over which the sun Held noon ; and as I stood the earth 'till now All summer trembled, and beyond the ridge A pulsing murmur as of coming seas On echoing shores from out a further void, Grew in the far dim distance, as once more Old ocean made invasion, and advanced With all his waves. And as a dreamer hears What sounding on her fleeing track pursues The frantic soul that in the panic dies, In louder progress, strepitous, so came The great approach. Whereat the agued earth With deadly fear did shiver to her core. And the sound rose, and her great dread became Convulsion, and the rampant uproar beat Wilder alarum on the battered ear, Swift waxing to the tumult of a host Charging to battle all on serried steeds That stepped as one. I strained to the event With eye-balled sight as to a cry i' the dark, And all the unseen pursuit more near enraged, — The panting terror and the throbbing chase, — Wilder as if the beating heart o' the world In palpitation mad and moribund Huge in its quaking tenement did shake Th' enribbed rocks. And — as me, utterless, Strong tumult choked, and sick expectance pale, 364 BALDER. And horror of the end — a louder blast Rush'd o'er, and sudden at a thunder peal, As tho' the loaded sound did with a roar Discharge its cause, while the great herd that grazed The summits parted like a scattered flock Beneath a lion, somewhat leaped the hills, The awful hills, and on the shattered plain Came like the crash of doom ! Riderless he Who can bestride him ? Tho' his reeking flanks Sonorous clang with loud caparison Of sounding war. A moment, and he stands Heightened with pride, dilate at haughty gaze, His swelling frame to half the horizon round Breathing defiance ; fierce his levelled head Equals the clouds ; his eye is as a hot And bloody star ; his nostrils as the red Round throat of fiery ordnance, and his snort Ten thousand clarions. Such a steed so wild, Left in some ancient battle of the gods Great Mars unhorsed. And now as one who sees His foe beyond the river, with a plunge Divides the waters, he with sudden spring From the recoiling fields that reeled and broke, Breasted the big spent clouds that, faint with flight, Each upon each lay cumulous, and thro' That sundered sea, tremendous, a mile hence, Swift as a bolt and heavy as a hill, Shocked the rent plain, and in as wild rebound, Leaped in mere strength a thousand fathoms high, Lashing new winds, and, wanton in descent, Spurning far heaven with upslung vehemence Of impious heels ; and gnashing rooted oaks, Wilful did fling them into either sky Like loathed grass. Then sudden in career He stretched across the flats. His mighty limbs Resulting in the plunge from rest to speed Caverned whereon he stood, and left his place BALDER. 365 Mixed in tumultuous ruin. As he went His hot hoofs thundering filled the fatal air Recalcitrant, and scattered rocks and stones, Crushed hall and hamlet, trampled tower and town, Aye peaceful earth, and sods that nursed the lamb, Red with the trodden flocks, in hurtled death Swept the disastrous land. As when some mine, Dark filled with sulphurous slaughter, at a nod Belching its storm, o'erwhelms in sudden wreck The startled siege. O'er all the wide expanse The wondrous swift concussion of his course Sped desolation ; far and near I saw How dust-clouds, hovering like the pestilence, Marked fallen cities, that on either hand Confessed the unseen commotion where he passed. And round the extremest verge dim rocks were rent, And him in distance lost a sound betrayed, The loud world groaned within as the great cry Of crushed mankind proclaimed the track of " War." SCENE VIII. The vacant Study. Through the open door the voice of Amy. Amy. Is there no hostel by the way of life ? ■ My wayfare was from far as I can see ; As far my toil is hot and white before ; I stagger with my load, and halt midway, And trembling turn beseeching eyes and vain Backward and forward from my pitiless place. The weary miles lie infinite beyond, And each might be the future and the past. I would lay down my burden lest I die. Is there no hostel by the way of life ? 366 BALDER. SCENE IX. The Study. Balder, at his writing-table. Balder. This very morn Thro' her green island home the laughing spring Drove, flinging joy, her blossom-laden car. Forth from the polar cavern of the snows, Dripping with winter, leaped a northern storm, And shook himself; and she lay buried white Beneath an avalanche. At that dread sight Up rose the West, and such a wind went by, As stunned the isle with voices, like a chief Rushing to battle with a sounding host In shouting ranks wide on the echoing hills. At first a roar of warning, " to the north ! " Then like the shriek of all a ravished land, " O Europe, Europe, Europe, Europe, Europe ! " And then like the world's trumpet blown to war, u The North, the North, the North, the North, the North ! " Enter, under the window, wandering Sailors, singing. Sailors. " How many ? " said our good Captain. " Twenty sail and more." We were homeward bound, Scudding in a gale with our jib towards the Nore. Right athwart our tack, The foe came thick and black, Like Hell-birds and foul weather — you might count them by the score. The Betsy Jane did slack To see the game in view. They knew the Union-Jack, BALDER. 367 And the tyrant's flag we knew ! Our Captain shouted " clear the decks ! " and the Bo'sun's whistle blew. Then our gallant Captain, With his hand he seized the wheel, And pointed with his stump to the middle of the foe. " Hurrah, lads, in we go ! " (You should hear the British cheer, Fore and aft.) " There are twenty sail," sang he, " But little Betsy Jane bobs to nothing on the sea ! " (You should hear the British cheer, Fore and aft.) " See yon ugly craft With the pennon at her main ! Hurrah, my merry boys, There goes the Betsy Jane ! " (You should hear the British cheer, Fore and aft.) The foe, he beats to quarters, and the Russian bugles sound ; And the little Betsy Jane she leaps upon the sea. " Port and starboard ! " cried our Captain ; " Pay it in, my hearts ! " sang he. " We 're old England's sons, And we '11 fight for her to-day ! " (You should hear the British cheer. Fore and aft.) u Fire away ! " In she runs, And her guns Thunder round. Exeunt Sailo?'s. 368 BALDER. Balder. As he who turns From the full-shining and white orb of noon Sees a black sun in air, this chant of Freedom Leaves in my soul its hideous contrary. [Pauses. Be patient, Death, for if not thee I paint, None but thine immemorial minister Thy dear abortion whom thy craft sent here That by his side thou mayst look good and fair, Prevents thine honours. My poor goosequill ! Bah ! Had I a pen plucked where Celoeno flies Uncleanest ! My old ink-horn ! — why thou drop Of rheum ! thou milk-pot ! — [ Writes and then reads, Lo Tyranny ! a Juggernaut than he Who makes an Indian Bacchanal blush blood At his unuttered hideousness more foul. Nor on a car of India, but upborne Upon a monstrous shape for which the brood Of creeping reptiles, or the noisome plagues Egyptian found no type, nor Hydra old, Nor fell Chimaera. High the idol sat, Gore-stained, nor arm to seize, nor leg to stand Had he, but from his beast his branchless trunk Rose festerous thro' the morning. What he rode Headless came onward, many fold and one As a dishevelled legion, and far off Showed like a galley of ten thousand oars In numberless commotion, nor in stroke Ordered, but with division infinite Beating the air ; for round its dreadful length Such moving arms innumerous like a fry Of twining fiery Pythons plied the earth Incessant, and, alternate feet and hands, Bore the black bulk, or with contentious haste Incredible, before, beside, behind, In manifold appearance all too slow To feed consumption, filled the ghastly maw BALDER. 369 Of him who sat above, and eyes had none, Nor human front, nor but a mouth obscene, Abominable, that for ever yawned Insatiate, drivelling from its carrion sides Infernal ichor. Wide the cavern gaped, Still straining wider, and thro* gurgling weight Of seething full corruption night and day His craving bowels, famished in his fill, Bellowed for more. Which, when the creature heard That bore him, dread, like a great shock of life, Convulsed it, and the myriad frantic hands, Sprang like the dances of a madman's dream. And so he came ; and o'er his head a sweat Hung like a sulphurous vapour, and beneath Fetid and thunderous as from belching hell, The hot and hideous torrent of his dung Roared down explosive, and the earth, befouled And- blackened by the stercorous pestilence, Wasted below him, and where'er he passed The people stank. SCENE X. The vacant Study. Through the open door the voice of Amy. Amy. Neither gold nor silver, oh ye heavens ! Only a little sunshine and sweet air, The sunshine and the air of the old days ! Only to be a feather on the stream, A thistle-plume upon the changing wind Hither and thither ; to go to and fro And up and down the joyance of the world, The happy world, and be a part of all. 24 370 BALDER. Ye are now unto me, oh ye bright heavens. As one who should misuse the deaf and blind In secret, but full loud when men are by Speaketh rich words of love into the ears That hear not, and before the sightless eyes Makes vain ado of all they cannot see. I pray ye ope the lattice of my soul And let the wind blow on me ere I die, And let me hold my forehead to the light, And let me feel the falling of the dews, And know the holy blessing of the rain ! • SCENE XI. The vacant Study. Through the open door the voice of Amy. Amy. My babe, my babe, when thou art grown to age, What will thy speech avail thee among men ? Thy father-land speaks not thy mother-tongue. For loving me, and thou wilt love me, babe, I shall be still thy book, and all thy words Ot love and gladness thou shalt spell in me. And loving me -■— and thou wilt love me, babe, Shall I not be thy beauty and thy good ? And thou wilt seek mine image in the earth, And make thy world of all things likest me. Thou wilt not make day night, nor night thy day, But dwell in the unvalued parts of day. Shadow shall be thy light, and light thy shade. What men forget, thou wilt remember well, And all they know and love thou wilt forget. BALDER. 371 Also, poor babe, thou wilt not hear the birds Of morning, but if any night-fowl wail Far in the lonely hills, thou wilt awake, And I shall see thee listen in my breast ! Nor shall thine eye pursue the butterflies, Nor joy in shining beetle, nor humming bee ; But thou wilt clap thine hands to feel the bat Stirring the twilight ; and at hoot of owl, Shalt laugh and leap as at a mother's voice. Also when thou shalt go upon thy feet, Thy tiny feet beside me, well I know Thou wilt not bring me daisies, nor sweet cups Of gold and pearl, nor ever-ringing bells. But we shall pass the flowery banks and braes, Unheeded as a winter — thou and I. Thy little footstep will be old and staid, And thou wilt gaze upon the ground like me. And I shall see thee stoop for withered straws, And every joyless waif the wind lets fall. I think thou wilt not pass a blighted leaf Dead in the dust : and I shall lead thee by The churchyard yew with lingering gaze and long Reluctant ; I shall sit me down and weep, And thou wilt climb my lap, and deck my head Wilh garlands, till I tremble at thy glee, And lift my hands to find — hemlock and rue. Also, poor babe, these walks that once 1 loved And tended shall have nought for thee in spring Or summer, but thy childish eye shall light With knowledge when in any plot unseen December brings the thorn that flowers in vain, Or hellebore, like a girl-murderess, Green-eyed and sick with jealousy, and white With wintry thoughts of poison. All the year 372 BALDER. Thou wilt be doleful in the planted beds And bowers, but a strange sense shall draw thee where Whatever nook that never saw the sun Is dark and cold, with undescended dews And saddest moss, and mildew of the wood And wall, and livelong orpine that cannot die, Moist ivy, and inglorious moschatel Like a blind beggar 'neath a upas-tree Sickening below the nightshade. And thine heart Shall fill thee, and thou shalt be rich and glad As at a garden ! Oh my babe, my babe, That wert to be his glory and his joy, The flower of women and the star of men. Latest of mortal daughters, and the best. The final Eve to sum up once for all The loveliness of woman, and touch lips With her who first began us ; the born theme Of all the poets since the world was new, Who singing as they could still sang of her, And knowing only she must be, knew not Or when or where. She, she, that was to come In the whole image of the Beautiful, Between the attending Loves, and bear aloft Wisdom and knowledge as a wreathed lyre That sounds but with her going, trembling sweet In trembling garlands ; or with bolder hand Run o'er all noble arts as one runs o'er A nine-stringed harp, and at her changing will Equal in each be every Muse in turn, And multiply the Graces as she moved ! His words ai^ on my lips, my babe, my babe, He sang them to me, child, in olden days, Till I sprang up before him, full of pride, And reeled, and fell, and mourned until thou earnest, And ever since have sung his song to thee. And thou wilt grow like me, my babe, my babe, And he shall seek and seek thro' all the earth, BALDER. 373 Nor see his heart's desire until he die ! Will no one snatch thee from my bosom, babe, And save thee from thy mother ? Do not love me, No, do not love me, no, no, do not love me, No, do not love me ; 't is the lullaby I '11 sing all day. No, do not love me, no, No, do not love me. Dost thou waken, babe ? Hush, hush, rebellious ! Is my breast so hard A pillow ? Nay, what ails thy mother's milk ? Ah, dost thou turn from me, my little babe ? Does the spell work already ? Love me, love me ! Love me, my babe, lest I go mad with fear ! SCENE XII. The Study. Balder at his writing-table. Balder. The great array is marshalled ; on the right Freedom, Truth, Justice, Mercy, Love, and Peace Captained by Genius, stand under the broad Standard of day held by the east and west With sanguine hands and high. In horrid rank Sinister, front to hostile front opposed Beneath a banner dark as if black winds Of chaos rose in tempest and did blow The billowy verge of everlasting night O'er the celestial border, glare the host That follow the blind Power whose headless beast Some evil god directs. Above his crest Driven in the inevitable storm behind, Like lambent flames of darkness licking far The middle air, his terrible ensign Roars to the coming war. They stand at gaze, 374 BALDER. Expecting till the equal voice of Death Midway between the fierce and serried vans Give signal of advance. But his great place Is empty, and the crowded action waits. [ Through the door comes the voice of Amy. Amy (sings). Up went the jaunty jay, Bough by bough, bough by bough, Up went the jaunty jay. Up the tall tree. Up the tall tree where a happy bird was singing, By his mossy home was singing, To his callow brood was" singing In the green tree ; In the tall tree-top, in the merry tree-top, — Alas, so merry ! In the brave tree-top, Waving to and fro. As a gay gallant up the stairs of pleasure, By leaps the jaunty jay went up the tree. Thou knowest, Oh mother-bird ! for thou wert by, Oh mother-bird, thy young, thy callow young ! When he stood o'er them as one stands at meat, Did they not lift their heads up as to thee ? And like a fruit he plucked them one by one, — The jay, the shining jay, the jocund jay ; — In the tall tree-top, in the merry tree-top, — Alas, so merry ! — In the brave tree-top, Waving to and fro. Like a gay gallant from a ruined maiden, The painted jay came smirking down the tree. Oh bird, oh crying bird, oh mother-bird, Oh childless bird, could I not die for thee ? Yes, I could die for thee ! 375 SCENE XIII. The Study. Balder at his writing-table. Balder. Had it been my portion here With these obedient limbs and iron aid Of some unconscious instrument to dig The unquestionable soil, so that this hand Thus armed should with no further cost than throes Of definite volition — as to grasp, To sink, to raise, — complete the stated dues Of daily labour ! Were I born to plough, While the lark drops upon his meal, the long Material black and measurable furrow, Whereof the brute sense of returning steer, Treading the line, observant, testifies That it is made indeed, and grossest clown Who holds two eyes in use is a critic Superfluously endowed ! Happier to drive The patient ass along the beaten way, Laden with humble fruits to the set mart Of fixed reward, and back to certain rest, And sweet assured possession, than like me Bound helpless on the fury of the winds, To scour the plains I seek not, scale the height Where my brain swims, and leap, as in a dream, Down into the unfathomable void, While from the fall — like my back-streaming hair — Fear-blown in all rny veins the blood streams back, And faints with horror. I that am called proud, Lying most humbly weary and abject On the immoveable earth that doth so please This mortal frame, and seeing my dull race Doing their easy pleasures to and fro, 376 BALDER. Self-ordinate, could sometimes sell my birth-right For any pottage that would feed the flesh Of other men upon me. Death, Death, Death ! I have seen every face but thine to-day ! And to behold thee, from sunrise till now, How have I strained these eyeballs ! [Exit. Through the open cfoor comes the voice of Amy. Amy. A pool in a deep valley at dead noon, Lidless and shadeless like a burning eye, Low lieth looking at the summer sun : So in my bosom, oh my babe, my babe, Thou liest low, and lookest up to me. SCENE XIV. The Study. Balder (solus) at his writing-table. Balder. My heart is heavy. This it is to speak On Alpine heights and with the profane breath Of innocent words, to bring the avalanche Upon my human head. I might have known That he who treads these altitudes must walk As from the mansions of eternal snow I have beheld two customary stars Go forth in sovereign converse, like to gods, But seen to speak, not heard. A dread is on me. As in a mortal illness, when the flesh Knows in the air the coming dart, and shakes With terror. I have called so loud and long Into the twilight cave of Mystery ; And now at length, when thro' the cavernous dark I hear far answering feet, my stout heart sinks. That Dream ! As some wild legendary rhyme Heard on a grandame's knee, that being at end BALDER. 377 Is still again begun, while at each turn O' the winding tale the listener, cowering low, Whispers the wonted question, to receive More cold and pale the expected old reply That lifts another hair, I ponder o'er My strange adventure, and do press and wring The mirk and husk of memory. Once again I '11 fill the cup to the enchanted brim And drink it slowly. Yesterday I sat From early morn till dark and strove in vain To see the face of Death. And in the night I dreamed. Methought I stood within this room. As on the day when first I saw it grey And empty ; o'er my head a single branch Of ivy threaded the high wall and hung In green possession. And medreamed I stood Robed like a necromancer, and with spells Called on the name of Death. The wizard's store Hung at my girdle, and on this last prize I spent it sternly with the desperate hand Of him who will be Prince or Beggar — each New spell was more tremendous than the last. At first there was great silence thro' the cell, And then the cell was moved, tho' nothing stirred, But under the gross visible I knew An inner perturbation, as the crowd Before the curtain feel the viewless scene Inscrutable which heaves the swaying folds That roll the mystery from stage to roof, And roof to stage. And then a hush like death ; And thro' the hush a somewhat in the air Twisting and falling ; and I looked and saw The ivy-branch, and all the branch was bare, And the broad leaves lay shrivelled on the ground. The fourth time the strong silence in the cell Was as the straining silence of the rack, When the still-tightening torture wrenches him Who will not speak. The great veins in my brow Throbbed with suppression, and such consciousness 378 BALDER. I had of coming uproar, rising up Thro' the containing stillness — as the fire Of iEtna swells under her dark blind hill And bursts in desolation — that my lips Cried out. As if the sudden whip of Hell Flashed on a pack of demons caught asleep, The place brake silence, and a naked shriek Came thro' the right hand wall and, shrieking, passed Out on the left, and when I called, returned Still shrieking, and so out upon the right, And to and fro until my deafened brain Keeled, and I fell down flat and slept as dead. Then to me, sleeping, in my ear, these words, Not as from outer nature yet in voice Not mine, tho' nearer to me than the ear That heard it, as if in my head the blood Along the intricate deep veins did hiss A whisper and fled shivering to the heart. " Bring me the inflated skin thou callest Life, And I will turn the wind-bag inside out And clothe me." I am not the fool of dreams, Yet hold it not incredible that things Are seen before their time, and, — as to-night In this strange vision, where, while all was still I felt the undelivered silence swell — Somewhat to be lies in the womb of Now, And eyes unstayed by mortal obscuration Behold at once the Mother and the Child. A white skin and the sweet fair-seeming flesh Shut back the common eye-sight ; but there be Who looking fast on the unblushed repose Of Beauty — where she lieth bright and still As some spent angel, dead-asleep in light On the most heavenward top of all this world, Wing-weary, — seized with sudden trance and strong Thro* the decorous continent and all BALDER. 379 The charmed defence of Nature can behold The circling health beneath them, the red haste Of the quick heart, and of her heaving breast The cavernous and windy mysteries ; Yea, all the creeping secrets of her maw, The busy rot within her, and the worm That preys upon her vitals. So perchance I see the Future in the Present. Or If in the smoothest hour of patent nature That overhanging weight of Destiny Which loads the heavy air do brood on us, What wonder that our tenderer substance take Impress divine, and show the awful stamp And parody of Fate ? One can be brave At noon, and with triumphant logic clear The demonstrable air, but ne'ertheless, Sometimes at Hallowe'en when, legends say, The things that stir among the rustling trees Are not all mortal, and the sick white moon Wanes o'er the season of the sheeted dead, We grow unreasonable and do quake With more than the cold wind. The very soul, Sick as the moon, suspects her sentinels, And thro' her fortress of the body peers Shivering abroad ; our heart-strings over-strung, Scare us with strange involuntary notes Quivering and quaking, and the creeping flesh Knows all the starting horrors of surprise But that which makes them, and for that, half-wild, Quickens the winking lids, and glances out From side to side, as if some sudden chance Of vision, some unused slant of the eye, Some accidental focus of the sight O' th' instant might reveal a peopled world Crowding about us, and the empty light Alive with phantoms. Doubtless there are no ghosts ; Yet somehow it is better not to move 380 BALDER. Lest cold hands seize upon us from behind, Or forward thro' the dim uncertain time Face close with paly face. My ominous Dream Leaves me in shuddering incredulity As logically white. SCENE XV. The vacant Study. Through the door the voice of Amy. Amy. Out of the dungeon comes the captive's cry, Whose no man knoweth, nor shall ever know. The cry ! the cry ! out of the sealed cell That no man may look into, comes a cry ! Up thro' the dumb sod of a churchyard green, One of the undistinguishable dead Below the many many graves complains. The Beloved and the Unbeloved are lying there, The stifling earth on them. The cry is dull, Whose no man knoweth, nor shall ever know. Thy cry, thy feeble cry, my little babe ! All the long day and all the weary night ! I bend me down over the sealed cell, And strain my ears against the sodden grave, And weep and know not, nor shall ever know. 381 SCENE XVI. The Study, Balder {solus) at his writing-table. Balder. Yesterday I said That as the lion at the water-brooks Prints his dread feet, to-morrow's great event Fording our sleep to his appointed place Beyond that Rubicon perchance may leave His footsteps in the sand. 'T was but a fancy, But in a sleepless night seeking those steps Thro' all the inner wilderness, I came On other scars and traces, real as rock, Familiar too, and terribly historic As the carved walls whereon a martyr leaves His storied wrongs. I see the Poet's heart Is but a gem whereon his woe doth cut Her image, and he turns upon the world And sets his signet there in high wild shapes The necessary convex of a wound As miserably deep. I cannot stamp The face of Death upon the universe Till Death hath graven the seal. I wait that one Last dreadful blazon to fulfil a shield Persean ; that being held up to the day Shall make mankind my marble. Yet how long ? Proud Death thou keepest not the company Of lowlier pains and griefs. It may require A greater light than I have known to cast Thine awful shadow. Whom thou visitest With thy best pomp, and all the circumstance Of special love, are not of those who house The common brood of sorrow ; but they seem Set up in shine of great prosperity 382 BALDER. Upon the dial of Time, with one sole shade To point the final hour. Yet peradventure We who stand out of the sweet sun perceive No shadow, not because the shade is less But more. Aye, in this twilight atmosphere Thou mayst approach unseen as air in air, And strike me unaware. But near or far I need thee, and in all the strange sad past Of my predestined life to say " I need," Hath been to move the universal wheels In answering motion, which in act I knew When the concluding cause and last result Of thousands dropped into my open want The supplementary fruit. Whether my will Hath power on nature, or this heart of mine Is so compacted in the frame and work Of all things that in various kind they keep Attuned performance, I know not. Perhaps There comes to each man in his day some word Whereto the tacit Visible without, Is the foregone conclusion. As amid The silent summer eve of violet air That which thou seest hath no superscription Or title written ; when we speak of it 'T is with a finger pointed to the sky, " Behold ! " as in despair of human speech. But lo, if in that moment and the hap Of other descant one say " Holiness," A pulse of sweet emotions thro' the dark, As tho' that somewhat in the mystery Responded to a name ! Such moments make My hours, such hours my days, such days my years. [A long pause. Who is to die ? It is not credible That this I have begun should come to end For lack of human lives, or that a pang Not mortal should fly wide of me ; of me Who had I the round earth within my hand BALDER. 383 O'er-popuious as a green water-drop, Would swallow it to taste a novel savour. [Another pause. If I could give up This seasoned body to the advance of death, And from my vantage-post within survey The slow assault, and mark the victor, held In view before the garrisoned approach And each well-fought obstruction, and so write The story of the siege — aye, while he climbed The mound I sat on till the pen fell, struck From mine untrembling hand ! But who shall bear To the externe and living world, that last Convicting record ? What strong sign convey Safe thro* the taken barriers, and the close Opposing ranks of Death the lineaments Which end his long disguise ? No. The same key Which let him thro' the circle of the sense Would close the gate behind him, and secure The first last secret all men hear, and none Betray. If but to me the privilege To know and to declare ! To suffer all That in our common nature doth fulfil And end perception, with a sense exempt From that benign conclusion ! In the arms Of health to hold each form of mortal ill, Till death should die upon my conscious breast, And I by superhuman strength complete The sum of human sorrow — God to see, And man to suffer ! The unchanged gold On the charred bones of the Pompeian bride, Tho' it survive the murderous fire, hath felt A deadly heat. If I could seize a soul And part to part adjust my qualities Upon it, so that like to like consort Might form a whole whereof the half could die And the remainder watch it ! (Starting up). . You just gods, 384 BALDKR. Is it not thus already — you good gods — [He walks in great agitation. (Sits again). A thought stood at the threshold of my heart And shut the light out. It has past, and I Have not yet half beheld it. But I know That as its shadow came along the way I looked up, and the valley and the hills A moment swerved and failed, and as a smoke Rolled over in a wind of coming death. [ Through the door is heard the voice of Amy. Amy. If thou wouldst sleep, my babe, if thou wouldst sleep And weary of the never-ending day ! Thou hast not milked me of my sorrow, babe, Why must thou moan and watch and wake like me ? My babe, my babe, is it not well with thee V And if not well, the end is come indeed. My place was dark, and o'er a darker place A great hand held me that I could not see. Below us the dark gulph, for ever deep* Above us, thro' the dark, a light of day, And thou wert as a jewel on my breast, Sweet shining in the light that lit not me. The hand is weary with upholding me ! If ill hath touched thee, babe, we are given o'er, Given o'er and dropt, a pillage and a prey ! Ah ! in the dark gulph what shall not seize thee ! If thou wouldst sleep, my babe, if thou wouldst sleep, Nor scare me with the mystery of thine eyes ! Alas, thy parted lips, my babe, my babe ! Alas, the hot breath from the cankered rose ! Alas, the little limbs ! Alas, the heart BALDER. 385 That beateth like a wounded butterfly ! My babe, my babe, what hath befallen thee ? I see it all ; I see, I see it all ! How couldst thou lie upon my breast and live ? The doom has run its date, the hour is here ! Not enough, babe, oh ! not enough, my babe, That I who was the favourite and the flower, Bruised and beaten by a thousand ills, As to the utter shelter and mere shed Of this great gilded palace-world did creep With thee, not wholly lost since thou wert not, Nor in my desolation desolate, Because the glory could not give thee more Than me, or the bare walls of sorrow less. My babe, it was too good for thee and me, God hath abandoned us, and from His home Is driving forth the mother and her child. My child, my child, the wolf is in the way, And what if he doth choose the suckling lamb ? Hush babe, my little babe, my only babe, That I might die for thee, my babe, my babe ! Balder (sinking his head into his hands). So soon, so soon ! My lamb, my lily-bud, My little babe ! My daughter, oh my daughter ! [^1 long pause. (Looking up). Yes, I redeem the mother with the child ! Fate, take thy price ! If this hand shakes to pay it, 'T is with the trembling eagerness of him Who buys an Indian kingdom with a bead. 'T is past. I rise up childless, but no less Than I. There was one bolt in all the heavens Which falling on my head had with a touch Rent me in twain. This bursting water-spout Hath left me whole, but naked. Better so 25 386 BALDER. Than to be cloven in king's raiment. Aye, My treasure-house is broken, and I lose "What nothing can restore, and poorer men Had held to the last drop of desperate blood. But I, who know the secrets of the place, Breathe freely when I learn the worst, and find The felon sought no further. Yet my babe ! My tiny babe ! — SCENE XVII. The Study. Balder, solus. Through the door comes a sound of weeping. Balder. My heart doth beat, But I am calm, calm as a winter tree Whereon one dead leaf flutters in the wind. The waters of my soul that swelled so high, Broke up my deeps and filled my universe, Have sunk to such a mirror as reflects The heaven and earth, and makes whatever face Bends anew o'er them out of the unknown A part of all things. Now I cannot weep. I have climbed out o' the thunder, and most cold Upon the heights of everlasting snow Stand with cherubic knowledge. This hot breast Seems valley deep, and what the wind of Fate Strikes on that harp strung there to bursting, I, Descending, mean to catch as one unmoved In stern notation. A strange sense of sight, Fearless that lightning-like finds easiest way Self-warranted where way is none, makes wide Mine eyes that could look thro' into the depths Behind the face of God. BALDEK. 387 'T is well. Even so Would I meet Death. [Exit through the door of the adjoining room. SCENE XVIII. The Study. Balder, solus. Balder. If to the long mysterious trance of death There be immortal waking, he who lifts His head from the clay pillow, and doth stretch Eternal life thro' all his quickening limbs, And conscious on his opening orbs receives Remembered light, and rises to be sure He hath revived indeed, tastes in that first Best moment what the infinite beyond Can never give again. I should aw r ake On some such resurrection, having lived Thro' what I feared was mortal, and endured That most malignant hour which must or close The perilous adventure, or, being forced, Admit to happier times. The ground grows firm Beneath ; the elfin atmosphere of spells That smit these limbs with palsy, has given place To vital air. I smell the native world. The fortress of the last enchanter yields ; My life is free before me. I am strong : I shall survive, subdue, surmount, attain ! Thou mystery, which dost attend my voice Like a tame beast, and goest in and out Whene'er I will, and liest at my feet, Come let me paint the picture I have bought So dearly, but, being painted, will hold cheap, Aye, tho' I rent it at the yearly cost 388 BALDER. Of such an annual tribute ! Here ! Be here ! He comes. Even now this black environment Grows cold with his approach ; and as on one Benighted in the forest dreadful eyes Shine thro* the dark, and Somewhat unbeheld Draws nigh, thro* the thick darkness of my night I see thine eyes, oh Death ! [ Takes pen and paper, in attitude to write. The voice of Amy comes through the door. Amy. That I might die and be at rest, oh God ! That I might die and sleep the sleep of peace ; That I might die and close these eyes within That shut not when the outer lids are sealed ; That I might die and know the balm of death Cool thro' my loosened limbs ; that I might die, That I might die and stretch me out unracked, And feel but as I died what is not pain. It is dead midnight, and the time to sleep. — My light has gone out in the dead midnight ; All things are equal in the utter dark ; I cannot see my way upon the world. All in the dark a tempest beateth me, Black waves out of the north and of the south, Black waves out of the east and of the west, Black falling waves that drench me from the sky ! On every side the waters lash me round, And lift me till I know not where I stood, And wist not where is earth or where is heaven ! [Listening, he falls into a reverie. Balder. Little babe, Who wentest out from us two days ago Not to return , what has become of thee In this great universe ? That thou art changed I know ; for whereas thou hadst lain since birth BALDER. 389 On the warm breast that fed thee in a dream Of peace, and, like a flower, wert given and ta'en Unconscious, on a morn thou didst awake, And while we weeping strove to keep thee, thou, As at some awful voice that called thee hence On high behest, becamest a man in will, And ceasing thy babe's cry didst go in haste ! We also went a little way with thee, As they whose best-beloved doth cross the seas Attend him to the shore — even to the brink Of the great deep, and stretch along the sands Wringing vain hands of sorrow ; yet none saith » Why goest thou V " nor with naked sword of love Denies ; and none doth leap into his fate, Crying " I also," and with desperate clasp Hang on his neck till breakers far behind Forbid return. Spell-bound they stand and dry On the sea-line, and not a quivering lip Murmureth u To-morrow ; " but his sire doth seize The prow that would recede, and with stern will Holds it, rebellious, to the task, and she Who bore him, with her tears and trembling hands Constrains and hastes him lest he lose the tide. So also in a dream as one who walks Asleep, and with her sunk eye on a star Rising doth take her slumbering babe, and o'er The snows of midnight to the precipice ' Paceth with silent purpose, doubting nought, And turneth on the brink, with empty hands, And to her bed unconscious, nor till morn Beholds the vacant pillow — and, well-known, Her foot-prints, — passionate ; we went with thee, And did return alone. My babe, my babe, What have we done ? At whose sufficient pledge, Upon whose testimony, and well-sworn Assurance have we left thee, and believed ? Did I go down before thee ? Did I try The unventured way ? With which hand did I smooth 390 BALDER. Thy pillow ? Or with what nice care explore The grave which in my trance I called thy bed ? ; Thy bed ? wert thou so cradled ? Doth the boor Upon the hungry common save his hide By such a lodging as thou in thy pomp Didst enter, while the sable priest gave thanks, And praised the long home where he would not chain His dog ? Thy home, poor babe ? Bah ! the stone den Of murder is more human ; the dank keep Of felon anguish built to house despair Hath not a cell so rude ! [Muses. Was it a door From this most ordered world into the waste Of all things ? Have we shut thee forth, poor child, And wist not of thy journey, nor the end And exit of that gloomy subterrene Which thou didst enter, and whose unknown mouth May be in Chaos ? This, the upper gate, Was fair, and, hanging o'er, the flowers looked down After thee going, shedding many dews That went as falling stars into the gulph, A moment bright like thee. But, oh thou babe, What of the nether port, which thou hast reached Who wert so swift to go ? We shut thee in As to a chamber of rest, and did confirm The outer bars, and on the adit set The seal of Hermes, and o'er all dispread The cheerful turf, and sowed it round with spring. Mad faith ! — false father ! — customary fool ! — Tool of low instinct and obsequious use ! — Curse thee, blind slave ! why didst thou leave her thus In her worst need ? Who, who shall certify Her rest ? And thou, oh mother, that didst plunge So boldly into the vexed flood of life, BALDER. 391 Holding thy babe aloft, with thy right hand, Braying the billows ♦ what unseen sea-scourge Had struck thee, that thou too didst bow thine head A-sudden succourless, and hast gone down As others ? Doth no voice out of the ground, Up thro' the music of the grasshoppers Smite thee ? Whence, mother, had thy nursling- child This gift to sleep alone ? Whence knowest thou, Oh mother, who in its long dying swoon Didst warm it in thy bosom, and forfend The summer wind, and kiss the tenderness Of years upon its momentary brow, And with the wild haste of thy maddened eyes Course heaven and earth, as to glean anywhere One help forgotten ; and at the last breath Distraught and bending over it didst break Thy life upon it, if perchance that balm Might heal ; and ere it died wert as one dead With dread of ill, whence knowest thou what change Absolves thy care ? What thunder or what bush Of burning spake to thee when thou didst rise And veil thy face, and, unresisting, feel The child go from thee out into the rains And dews, and didst kneel silent while we threw Cold earth upon it, and piled up that wall Which late compunction and awakening throes, Pangs of reproach and passion of despair, And starting eyes mocked by the empty world, And famished breasts convulsed when nights are chill, And stretched-forth arms that waste with vacancy, And all the tumult of the desperate heart That leaps to the impossible desire And unsurrendered bliss, can pass no more ? 392 BALDER. SCENE XIX. The Study. Balder at his writing-table, preparing to write, when the voice of Amy comes through the open door. Amy. My heart is shivered as a fallen cup, And all the golden wine is in the earth. My heart is stricken, and it cannot heal. Tho' thou art but a little grave I know Oh little grave, it will bleed into thee For evermore, and thou wilt not be filled. The fountains of my fate are dry ; my soul Is dying in the famine of my lot. I am a dead leaf in a wintry wind ; My stem is broken from the tree of life, I wither in the sun and in the air, I wither in the rain and in the dews. And though the wind doth throw me on the tree, Oh wind ! thou canst not bind what thou didst break ; I wither in the verdure of the leaves. — Beneath my window built the nightingale ; Ah cruel, who despoiled her happy nest ! And in his wanton gripe he crushed her egg, Her one lone egg ; — so doth Fate crush my heart. The spring returns unto the nightingale, The nightingale shall find a happier tree ; The ravished nest must drift upon the day, The wind shall toss it as an idle straw, The rain shall tread its ruins to the earth, And I am all despoiled for evermore. [He rises sorroicfully, and shuts the door. Balder. How often our twin passions do ex- change BALDER. 393 Fraternal uses, and alike in face But opposite in sex, confound the eye That reckons on their valour, or makes bold Upon presumptive weakness, nor descries The pious counterfeit when manly strength Presents meek maidenhead, or female parts Complete the heroic brow, and she who lacks So much of manhood plights her faith as man, Or strong Sebastian's virile arm redeems The gage of virgin Viola. To-day My grief — like one who crossed in hapless love Betakes him to the wars, and tells in blows His bitter need of kisses — speaks with voice Of fiery wrath. [ Writes and then reads. Lo, Justice ! and led in By History, as by a little child. She, moving as a goddess, slow drew nigh Three adverse forms and human to behold, Each a Colossus ; Insolence, and Fraud, And Malice. These approaching her, advanced A step, and drew their several weapons. One With voice like a cracked trumpet, and too loud For that he said ; and one with whisper dire, Like the great ghost of a great sound, as large But bodiless ; the third as still as death. They came : then Justice, lifting up her hand, "Back to your shapes!" The three fell down headlong. The first a Cur deformed, of monstrous birth, With head that Parthian-like still looked behind And fled from what he hurt ; the next a Spider, Gaunt black and lean, full of unnatural eyes Detestable ; the third a reeking Toad. Bare in the day, these, or with horrid whine Slunk to the earth, or crouched in dark and foul Discovery, or swat a cancerous pool Of poison, and lay hid. But Justice spake : " Because ye did your will upon the weak, 394 BALDER. Because ye had no pity on the poor, Because your hands were quick to stab the fallen, Because ye made your pillage of the slain ; Because ye lay in ambush for the brave, Because ye stole by night upon the good, Because ye dug a pitfall for the true ; Because ye overcried the voice of Right, Because ye clapped your hands when strong men lied, Because ye smote the cheek of innocence, And spat your fetid spume in Wisdom's face ; Because being bestial, ye bewitched men's eyes To see my sons as beasts, and ye as men ; Because in all your sins ye knew your sin, And saw me while ye sware that I was not, And heard me thro' the clamour of your tongues, And shouted more lest men should see ye shake ; Because my sons have spoken in mine ears, And all ye did to them of old I know ; Because, accursed ! they shall not defile Their hands to slay you, since with such as ye 'T were equal shame to be at peace or war ; Because outcast from heaven, and earth, and hell, Detect, disowned, detested, and despised, There is no power to which ye can be true, And Satan cannot trust ye more than God, 1 come ! " She wrenched the bandage from her eyes, And looked on them : — and — as the summer bolt Falls in the forest on the gathered leaves Of winter, and they start into a flame Out of their empty place, — a kindling fire BALDER. 395 Consumed them, and a sudden rolling smoke Showed they had been. And lo ! from out the smoke I saw the grim and clanking skeleton Of the dead dog, licked bare to the white bones, Run as alive. With skull revert, and jaws That may not cease to move, but make no sound, He flees for ever o'er the startled earth, A terror and a sign. SCENE XX. The vacant Study. Through the door the voice of Amy. Amy. Oh wounded dove, oh dove with broken wing, Oh dying dove, wert thou not beautiful ? Why didst thou hide thee, trembler, from the day, And strain into the crevice of the cliff, And press thy beating breast against the hill, As if the rock should ope and let thee in ? I took thee to my heart, oh snow-white dove, I would have kissed and kissed thee o'er and o'er, But thou wert fierce with fear, and with wild eyes Didst turn upon me like a frantic maid That struggles with a lover in the dark, Bruising the hands that would have cherished her, And gnashing on the lips that seek her own. Oh dove, I also fall with broken wing, I also strive and turn upon my fate, And strike the inevitable hands in vain. I also strain my bosom to the earth, The earth that will not ope and let me in. 396 BALDER. SCENE XXI. The vacant Study. Through the door the voice of Amy. Amy. That I might only die and be at rest, That I might die and sleep the sleep of peace, That I might die and close these eyes within, These eyes that start and stare so hot with life, And mad-wide while the outer lids are sealed ! That I might die and know the balm of death, And feel but as I died what is not pain. The summer is a load upon my sense, A pile of durance builded over head ; The battening shadow, and the fattening earth, And all the thick abundance of the trees ! Fall, Summer ! rend the cerements of my tomb ! If I might know that aught that binds can break ! If I might struggle thro* my choking bands, And cheat me with the transport that I rise ! Alas, thou fallest, and I am not free ! Alas, alas, thou canst not let me forth ! Alas, alas, the grave-clothes, not the grave ! Alas, alas, the vaulted adamant, And dolour of inexorable things ! SCENE XXII. The vacant Study. Through the door the voice of Amy. Amy. Swallow, that yearly art blown round the world, What seekest thou that never may be found ? Whither for ever sailing and to sail ? BALDER. 397 I think the gulphs have sucked thine haven down, And thou still steerest for the vanished strand. What cheer, what cheer, oh fairy marinere Of windy billows, sea-mew of the air ? The viewless oceans wash thee to and fro, Spout thee to Heaven, and dive thee to the deep. Swallow ! I also seek and do not find. SCENE XXIII. The court-yard of the Tower. Balder, solus. Enter Dr. Paul. Balder. Doctor ! Doctor. You 're well ? My patient ? Balder. Only now She went to sit beside the little grave. Prithee, friend, wait awhile. It were ill-done So soon to follow. Doctor. Is this pilgrimage A manner with her ? Balder. Thou may'st even trace The path her feet have worn across the mead Straight from our threshold. Many times a day She rises up as who should hear a sound Far off. I have gone with her hour by hour, And still she hath the step of expectation, Kneels by the woful mound and leans her ear Upon the earth, lifts her wan cheek witn flush And gesture of surprise, feels one by one The gaps and junctures of the ungrown sod As 't were new broken, and anon doth shake Her piteous head, and look into my face As if I wronged her ; and so home in haste Unresting. But she watcheth night and day To steal unnoticed forth, and then she stays 398 BALDER. Till some one lead her homeward. Drawing nigh Beneath the twilight I perceive she sits Upon a neighbouring stone, and by her lips I think she sings, slow swaying to and fro, As one who rocks a child. I give her way For fancy, — like the image that our boors Set by their kine, — doth milk her of her tears, And loose the terrible unsolved distress Of tumid Nature. Under observance She hath been silent since that mortal hour ; Lying close like a toiled bird, that with wide eyes Is mute and strange, but, being alone, lets forth Its sad wild cry. Paul, I have heard that cry Twice lately in the dark, here, where we sit ! How I have been so long both deaf and blind Confounds invention, but my sense at last Is opened, and I do perceive this ill Is not a growth of yesterday. They tell In sea tales of deaf men made whole amid The roar of battle, who go forthwith mad, Wild with the naked torment of the bruised Unseasoned function. I do think my case Is such a thunderous healing. What I hear Strikes through the feeble garment of the flesh, And stuns the very soul. My book stands still. I am no carpet knight, and in my time Have known hard knocks, but, callous as I am, This breaks endurance. Since the malady That racked her, three short summers since, I held Her sorrows to be no more than the toys And creatures of a tender melancholy, The honey-droppings of an atmosphere So delicate that every mist and whiff Which sails a grosser sky came down in rain. But this is hell, and the infernal fall Of burning snow. BALDKK. 399 Doctor. Poor thing, poor thing, poor thing ! How long think you ? Balder. An hour ? Doctor. . If it must be. We men of drug and scalpel still are men And have our feelings. I call us the gnomes Of science, miners who scarce see the light Working within the bowels of the world Of beauty. Balder. But your toil, like theirs, gives wealth And warmth, and glory, to a fairer sphere, Brings forth the golden wonder, which in hand Of prince or clown, of poet or of fool, Is standard still ; lights up the common hearth Of household joy familiar, and makes bright The jewelled front of kings. Doctor. Ah, my good friend, I was a poet once, and thought strange things, Very strange things. How I would walk alone And mutter in my going, dare the heavens As thus ! clap sudden hand upon my brow, Hold up a finger and cry hist ! to the air, Walk you a mile bareheaded in the rain, Stop, gaze the ground, stamp like a bull, and sigh, Sigh like a painted Boreas ! or in fierce Obstetric frenzy of the labouring Muse, Collar the astonished wayfarer with " Sir, Your tablets ! " scare the woodman's hut with calls For pen and paper, or make eloquent The graphic bark of beech. Ah, those days when I courted Sophonisba, long ago, And we two loved the moonlight and wrote verses ! It melts my very heart to think on 't ! Balder. Love Makes us all poets. Each man in his turn, At culmination of one happy hour Consummate of some sole and topmost day Hath his apotheosis. Nature thus, 400 BALDEK. Ere she send forth her mintage to the world, Assays it for eternity, and sets The stamp of sterling manhood. From the mount Of high transfiguration you come down Into your common life-time, as the diver Breathes upper air a moment ere he plunge, And, by mere virtue of that moment, lives In breathless deeps and dark. We poets dwell Upon the height, saying, as one of old, " Let us make tabernacles : it is good To be here." Doctor. Out of mortal sight ! Aye, you Live to posterity. Balder. Your pardon ; no ! Doctor. To the mere present ? Balder. No. I do not scorn Fame, and those wide and calmer after days Where Time's thick flood grows quiet, letting down Its golden grains to be the jealous wealth Of nations ; but I choose to say, " I live To God and to myself." Of God I know Little to satisfy a human heart 80 fashioned to adore Him ; of myself Still less, yet somewhat ; of posterity This only, — that in circling cycles, come AVhat will come on the ever-rolling years, The Ages will not outlive a true man And his Divine Creator. Doctor. Well, well, poet, If love makes heroes it makes fools. And Na- ture, If, as you say, fresh from that crucible, She marks us current, full as often signs The cap of Momus as the bay of Caesar. Were you but where I am, and with my eyes Saw as I see to what this love can bring Men down. Balder. Not love, but passion, the mere dance BALDER. 40] Of this gross body to the souPs sweet singing, Which you mistake for love, because sometimes The singer, high and pale, descends to join (With haughtier step as consciously a god) The Paphian measure of his mortal twin. And strange reflection of the glowing flesh Doth flush the soul. Doctor. I have walked far. Balder. We '11 enter — From the high window in the turret there, I see the churchyard in the dale. Doctor. Dost spend The day in watching ? Balder. I keep vigil on her As any star behind his golden face Spends his great gifts upon his proper world, And lights us with an idle faculty. [ They enter the Tower, and mount to the Study. Doctor. A poet's studio ! I have often passed The lintel of your home, but ne'er before The threshold of its penetralia. I Long to behold your gods. Balder. Expect none, Paul. Doctor. How ? Balder. Expect none, my friend, if seeing me Thou hast seen none. My word on it iEneas Is godless, or u Penatiger iEneas." Doctor. Thou Pagan ! why the room is an Olympus ! Balder. Olympus' top is a long way from heaven. Doctor. From heaven say you ? The mason, by my count, Is greater than the house, and I perceive That old Italian, whose Uranian pride When his great prince had forfeited the skies, Built him another heaven, and filled the dome With angels, like the first. Balder. Aye* dauntless Michael, Who drew the Judgment, in some daring hope 26 402 BALDER. That, seeing it, the gods could not depart From so divine a pattern. Doctor. Ah ! thou, too, Sad Alighieri, like a waning moon Setting in storm behind a grove of bays ! Balder. Yes, the great Florentine, who wove his web And thrust it into hell, and drew it forth Immortal, having burned all that could burn, And leaving only what shall still be found Untouched, nor with the smell of fire upon it, Under the final ashes of this world. Doctor. Shakspeare and Milton ! Balder. Switzerland and home. I ne'er see Milton, but I see the Alps, As once sole standing on a peak supreme, To the extremest verge summit and gulph I saw, height after depth, Alp beyond Alp, O'er which the rising and the sinking soul Sails into distance, heaving as a ship O'er a great sea that sets to strands unseen. And as the mounting and descending bark Borne on exulting by the under deep, Gains of the wild wave something not the wave, Catches a joy of going, and a will Resistless, and upon the last lee foam Leaps into air beyond it, so the soul Upon the Alpine ocean mountain-tost, Incessant carried up to heaven, and plunged To darkness, and still wet with drops of death Held into light eternal, and again Cast down, to be again uplift in vast And infinite succession, cannot stay The mad momentum, but in frenzied sight Of horizontal clouds and mists and skies And the untried Inane, springs on the surge Of things, and passing matter by a force Material, thro' vacuity careers, Rising and falling. BALDER. 408 Doctor. And my Sbakspeare ! Call Milton your Alps, and which is he among The tops of Andes ? Keep your Paradise, And Eves, and Adams, but give me the Earth That Shakspeare drew, and make it grave and gay With Shakspeare's men and women ; let me laugh Or weep with them, and you — a wager, — - aye, A wager by my faith — either his muse Was the recording angel, or that hand Cherubic which fills up the Book of Life, Caught what the last relaxing gripe let fall By a death-bed at Stratford, and henceforth Holds Shakspeare's pen. Now strain your sinews, poet, And top your Pelion, — Milton Switzerland, And English Shakspeare — Balder. This dear English land ! This happy England, loud with brooks and birds, Shining with harvests, cool with dewy trees, And bloomed from hill to dell ; but whose best flowers Are daughters, and Ophelia still more fair Than any rose she weaves ; whose noblest floods The pulsing torrent of a nation's heart ; Whose forests stronger than her native oaks Are living men ; and whose unfathomed lakes For ever calm the unforgotten dead In quiet graveyards willowed seemly round, O'er which To-day bends sad, and sees his face. Whose rocks are rights, consolidate of old Thro' unremembered years, around whose base The ever-surging peoples roll and roar Perpetual, as around her cliff's the seas That only wash them whiter ; and whose moun- tains, Souls that from this mere footing of the earth Lift their great virtues thro' all clouds of Fate Up to the very heavens, and make them rise To keep the gods above us ! 404 BALDER. Doctor. Your hand on it ! Balder. The wicket swings, how now ? Doctor. A tattered man. Balder. I must go down — Doctor. An aged peasant woman, A chubby child beside her ; by my soul The rosy blossom and the withered crab, Both on one bough ! who are they ? Balder. Pensioners. Doctor. Your's ? Balder. Her's. Doctor. Some say the illumining sun is dark ; But poor as you are — Balder. Is this blossom sweet ? Doctor. Most fragrant ! Balder. Yet I plucked it on a rock Where common grass had died. Learn this, my friend, The secret that doth make a flower a flower, So frames it that to bloom is to be sweet, And to receive to give. The flower can die, But cannot change its nature ; though the earth Starve it, and the reluctant air defraud, No soil so sterile and no living lot So poor but it hath somewhat still to spare In bounteous odours. Charitable they Who, be their having more or less, so have That less is more than need, and more is less Than the great heart's goodwill. Here are books, here A picture, still unpacked, from the great city, Sent by an early college friend, who vows A pilgrimage to these old hills ; and there (Arrived this morning from the muse knows where) That strange sweet mystery, the early scrawl Of young Ambition. Genius is born blind ; See how the nursling fumbles for the dug, Lipping each barren likeness ; now distent As limpet on a rock, and sucking hard BALDEK. 405 The east-wind, and now drawing with a touch Nectar for gods ; 't will help the hour on — (Going.') Stay ! Paul, thou art somewhat of an antiquary ; Let these walls entertain thee ; at thy leisure Spell out these parchments, which my chamberlain, The spider, deems too bare for such a presence, And with his orfrays and embroidery Decks an' I will or no. To my heart, Paul, The mouldering stones of this old tottering tower Are not more ancient ; this, for all I feel, Might be the dust of centuries ! Doctor. What are they ? Balder. Listen : when we came here, a bridal pair, Joyous and young and poor, I took this room For mine, the forge in which to beat my gifts To the white heat that lights and warms the world ; And so I left it bare. We had small store, And that I spent on her's. But still she came, And sat beside me at her daily tasks In happy silence ; then I said a not here ! " But she said ** here ! " and kissed me ; oh those days ! She was so fair Doctor. She was ? Balder. She is ; she was So fair, so delicately bred ; I saw Her there, and all the strong unseemly place Disturbed me. " Oh for cloth of gold," I cried, " To make a palace for thee ! " But she smiled. When she came in I felt the cold grey air Strike her like stone, and when she walked me- thought, Oft as she passed between me and the wall, The rudeness of the unhewn and jagged rock, Albeit that bodily it touched her not, Harried her beauty ;' and, whene'er she sat Looking her sweet content, stern histories 406 BALDER. Sank from the dark roof thro' the dungeon day'j- And fell upon her face like grinding dust Upon the apple of mine eye. She knew My trouble, saying, " Where thou art, to me Heaven arches o'er thee, and I dwell in tents Of azure ; but, my husband ! as thou wilt. Nevertheless, not silver and not gold, Silver and gold are not for me or thee ; But oh, my poet husband ! what thou hast Give me." And so I hung the room with Thought. Morning and noon, and eve and night, and all The changing seasons ; scenes, or new or old, Strange faces and familiar ; forms of men Or gods in valleys deep, or mountains high ; And how she loved them ! Tarry till 1 come. [Goes. Doctor (unfolding a scroll). What's here ? sad heart ! some withered primroses ! (Reads.) " Spring, who did scatter all her wealth last year, Had gone to heaven for more; and coming back Flower-laden after three full seasons, found The Earth, her mother, dead. " Far off, appalled With the unwonted pallor of her face, She flung her garlands down, and caught, distract, The skirts of passing tempests, and thro* wilds Of frozen air fled to her, all uncrowned With haste, — a bunch of snowdrops in her breast, Her charms dishevelled, and her cheeks as white As winter with her woe. She fell upon The corse, and warmed it. The maternal Earth, Which was not dead, but slept, unclosed her eyes. Then Spring, o'erawed at her own miracle, Fell on her knees ; and then she smiled and wept. Meanwhile the attendant birds her haste outstripped, Chasing her voice, crowd round and fill the air With jocund loyalty ; and eager winds Her suitors, at full speed with Love and wild, BALDER. 407 Hie by her in the lusty cheer of March, Crying her name. Laughed Spring to see them pass, — Laughing in tears. Then it repented her To see the old parental limbs of Earth Lie stark as death ; and fared she forth alone To where she left her burden in the void Beyond the south horizon ; her fair hair Streaming spring clouds among the vernal stars. Returning, slow with flowers, she dressed the Earth, Which had sat up, and, being naked, blushed, And stretched her conscious arms to meet the Spring, Who breathed upon her face, and made her young. Then did her mother Earth rejoice in her ; And she with filial love and joy admired, Weeping and trembling in the wont of maids. Meantime her pious fame had filled the skies ; He that begat her, the almighty Sun, Passing in regal state, did call her " child," And blessed her and her mother where they sat — Her by the imposition of bright hands, The Earth with kisses. Then the Spring would go, Abashed with bliss, decorous in the face Of love parental. But the Earth stood up, And held her there ; and, them encircling, came . All kind of happy shapes that wander space, Brightening the air. And they two sang like gods Under the answering heavens." Doctor {unrolling another scroll). Here Summer, (reads.) " Summer, Mother of gods and men, with equal face Unchangeable, and such wide eyes divine As on the Athenian hill-top Phidian Jove Inherited; whose universal sense Seems made with ampler vision to behold A larger world than ours. She leans in light On rose-leaves, as a long and lazy cloud Leans on the broad bed of the blushing west. 408 BALDER. In her right hand a horn of plenty, red With fragrant fruits exuberant ; in her left The early harvest ; crowned with oak and ash, Her hot feet slippered in the calid seas. Her voice is like the murmur of the floods Sluggard with noon, or the thick-leaved response Of sultry forests to the languid winds Dull with the dog-day s." Nay, no more ; one knows This better out of doors. Now Autumn ! blow A windy morning, and a whirr of wings. [ Unrolling another scroll, reads. " He stands beside a throne of golden hills, And up the steep steps of the royal throne The burdened forests climb like countless slaves Laden with gold. He stands and heeds them not ; Meanwhile his hand, with air abstract and wan, From the abounding tribute of the earth Scatters imperial largesse. All her fields Are his ; they own their lord ; his barns are full, His rivers run with wine, and his red plains Shout with the vintage. Yet he stands beside His golden throne, and looketh up to heaven, And sigheth in the melancholy winds, And smileth sweeter sadness. He hath learned The lesson of power ; therefore his locks are sere, Therefore there is no light in the sunk eyes Which day and night reproach the sun and stars With the unsated hunger of a soul That is no richer tho' the world be won." Too sentimental ! He should take a license To kill game. — (Unrolling another scroll.) Autumn still ? Corpodi Baccho ! A metamorphosis ! " The Death of Autumn ! " [Heads, " Sometimes an aged king upon his bed, He dieth 'mid the conscious hush of all His reverent realm, and silent snows him wind. BALDER. 409 Or, haply, at midnight a choir of winds Chanting great anthems, bear him to his rest. And sometimes doing battle with his fate, A wreathed wrestler from a gorge of wine, He falls in pride ; a giant in his blood, Dashed with the purple feast as to his robes Of azure triumph and his golden crown Olympic, while his dying eye on fire Brings a red glow into the cheeks of Death, His ghastly foe, and his felled stature shakes The sounding halls. " And sometimes as a maid Dead and undone, the pale and drowned year Lies still and silent on the mortal shore, With dank unmeaning lips and sightless eyes Ooze-filled, and blanch limbs stark and stiff beyond The draggled robes soaked with a colder death. And sometimes as a trusting maid who waits Her far false lover, and thro' long lone hours Expects in vain, but as the sun goes down, Chilled with the bitter day where love is not, Blighted and mute, astonied beyond speech, Stands utterless ; while all within is changed From life to death, and under that pale breast Unheaving and those glittering eyes transacts The alchemy of ruin. Nor she weeps, Nor starts, nor shrieks, nor throws her arms to heaven, But motionless and crimson with her wrong- Dies in her silence, and falls still as leaves Thro' stiller air." Enough. Shall I try Winter t [ Unrolling another scroll, reads. " Who is he That o'er green pastures of the latter year, And on the mountain-tops, and through the woods Passeth amid the pageant of the world Silent and ceaseless, laying hand on nought. Not as content, for greed is in his eye, 4H> BALDER. But patient in the confidence of fate. Downward in face, and as to his bent head Covered ; by night and day, in sun or rain, Unlooked for, unforeseen, but ever found, And keeping ever on an aimless way With the firm foot of purpose, as in dreams We walk to airy biddings, and as on A king's death-day, while all the court stand round Power unresigned, the inevitable heir Doth eye the crown and pace the palace floors Expectant. But none know him for a king Nor do him homage. The too-lusty green Of the o'er-confident time unawed stands out Into his path, and the insulting growth Below retards his uninspected feet. He sees, and a cold smile comes on his face As moonlight upon ice ; the shivering wind Starts from his side, and fleeing ominous, Spreads such a sign as in the latter day Shall blow from chill Damascus ; but no roll Of answering thunder nor dread bolt of wrath Smites the roused world that listens and forgets. Yet some are wise. With him on hill-tops hoar The o'erruling spirits and attentive hours Confer, and seek and take his high behest In secret, and make peace with things to come. And failing Autumn, like an aged king, Talked with him on the field of cloth of gold, And as he spake fell dead ; and the lush powers, And pleasures full, which ruled the summer reign (Like ships on a calm sea, that sinking slow Of all their gallant bulk above the wave Leave but a naked mast) sank one by one Into the earth, and in the wonted place AVere found in lesser fashion, daily less. And now the fields are empty, but He walks Hale and unminished to and fro and up And down, and more and more the observance Of the astonished year is turned and turned BALDER. 411 Upon the Solitary, and the leaves Grow wan with conscience, and a-sudden fall Liege at his feet, and all the naked trees Mourn audibly, lifting appealing arms. Which when he knew, as a pale smoke that grows Keeping its shape, he rose into the air And froze it, and the broad land blanched with fear, And every breathless stream and river stopped, And thro' him, walking white and like a ghost With grim unfurnished limbs, the cold light passed And cast no shade. Then was he king indeed, An