~~i jrt«( lvh*yfThe Dying Swan 15 Notes 882 A Dirge 16 Notes 883 Love and Death 17 Notes 883 The Ballad of Oriana . . . .17 Notes . . . . . .883 Circumstance 18 Notes 883 The Merman 18 Notes 883 The Mermaid 19 Notes .883 Adeline 20 Notes .883 Margaret 20 Notes 883 Rosalind 21 Notes 883 Eleanore 22 Notes 883 'My life is full of weary days' . . 23 Notes 884 ' When in the darkness over me ' . . 24 Notes 884 Early Sonnets 24 1 . Sonnet to — ■ — .... 24 Notes 884 2. Sonnet to J. M. K. . . . 24 Notes 884 3. 'Mine be the strength of spirit' 24 4. Alexander 24 Notes 884 5. Buonaparte 25 Notes 884 6. Poland 25 Notes 884 7. ' Caress 'd or chidden' . . .25 Notes 884 CONTENTS. PAGE Juvenilia — Early Sonnets continued — 8. 'The form, the form alone is elo- quent' 25 Notes 884 9. 'Wan sculptor, weepest thou' . 26 Notes 884 10. 'If I were loved, as I desire to be' 26 Notes 884 11. The Bridesmaid .... 26 Notes 884 The Lady of Shalott, and other Poems : The Lady of Shalott . . . .27 Notes 885 Mariana in the South .... 29 Notes 885 N^The Two Voices 30 Notes 885 The Miller's Daughter .... 36 Notes 886 Fatima 38 Notes 887 (Enone . . . . . .39 Notes 887 The Sisters 43 Notes 888 To 43 The Palace of Art .... 43 V/ Notes 888 Lady Clara Vere de Vere ... 48 Notes . 891 The May Queen 49 Notes 891 New Year's Eve 50 Notes 891 Conclusion 51 Notes 891 ^T4ie Lotos-Eaters 53 V Notes 891 Choric Song 53 Notes 891 A Dream of Fair Women . . .55 Notes 892 The Blackbird 60 Notes 894 The Death of the Old Year ... 60 Notes 894 To J. S 61 Notes 894 On a Mourner 62 Notes 895 'You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease' . 63 • Notes 895 . 'Of old sat Freedom on the heights' . 63 Notes 895 'Love thou thy land' . . . .63 Notes 895 TAGE The Lady of Shalott, etc., continued — England and America in 1782 . . 65 Notes 895 The Goose 65 Notes 895 English Idyls and other Poems: The Epic 66 Notes 895 Morte d'Arthur 67 v Notes 896 The Gardener's Daughter; or, the Pic- tures 71 Notes 897 Dora 75 Notes . . . . .898 Audley Court 78 Notes 898 Walking to the Mail .... 79 Notes 898 Edwin Morris; or, the Lake . . 81 Notes 898 St. Simeon Stylites .... 83 Notes 898 The Talking Oak 86 Notes 898 Love and Duty 90 Notes 899 The Golden Year 91 / Notes 899 >^Ulysses 93 J Notes 899 ^Tithonus 94 Notes 900 Locksley Hall 95 Notes 900 Godiva 101 Notes ...... 901 The Day-Dream 102 Notes 902 Prologue 102 The Sleeping Palace .... 102 The Sleeping Beauty . . . 103 The Arrival 103 The Revival 104 Notes . . . • . . . 90 2 The Departure 104 Notes 902 Moral 104 L'Envoi 105 Notes . " 902 Epilogue 105 Notes 902 Amphion 105 Notes 902 St. Agnes' Eve . . . , .107 Notes 902 Sir Galahad 107 Notes 902 CONTENTS. PAGE Edward Gray 108 Notes 902 Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue . 108 Notes 902 Lady Clare . . . ' . .111 Notes 903 The Captain 112 Notes 903 The Lord of Burleigh . . . .113 Notes 903 The Voyage 114 Notes 904 Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere . .115 Notes 904 A Farewell 116 Notes 904 The Beggar Maid 116 Notes . . 904 /The Eagle 116 Notes 904 'Move eastward, happy earth, and leave' 116 Notes 904 ' Come not, when I am dead ' . . .119 Notes 904 The Letters 117 Notes ....... 904 The Vision of Sin 117 Notes 904 To , after reading a Life and Letters 120 Notes 905 To E. L., on his Travels in Greece . . 121 Notes 905 'Break, break, break' : 121 Notes 905 The Poet's Song 121 Notes 905 Enoch Arden, and other Poems: Enoch Arden 122 Notes 905 The Brook 136 Notes 906 Aylmer's Field 139 Notes 906 Sea Dreams 152 Notes 908 Lucretius 157 Notes 908 The Princess; a Medley . . .161 Notes gog Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington 212 Notes 919 The Third of February, 1852 . . .216 Notes 920 The Charge of the Light Brigade . \ . 217 Notes . . , , . . . ■ . 921 /I page /Ode sung at the Opening of the Interna- tional Exhibition 217 Notes 92 r A Welcome to Alexandra . . . .218 Notes 921 A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Marie Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh . 219 Notes 921 The Grandmother 220 Notes 922 Northern Farmer. Old Style . . .223 Notes 922 Northern Farmer. New Style . .225 Notes 922 The Daisy 227 Notes 922 To the Rev. F. D. Maurice . . .229 Notes 922 Will 229 Notes 922 In the Valley of Cauteretz . . .229 Notes 922 In the Garden at Swainston . . .230 Notes . . . ... . • 922 The Flower 230 Notes ....... 922 Requiescat 230 Notes 923 The Sailor Boy 230 Notes 923 The Islet 231 Notes 923 Child-Songs 231 Notes 923 1. The City Child . . . . 231 Notes 923 2. Minnie and Winnie . . . .231 Notes 923 The Spiteful Letter . . . . . 232 Notes 923 Literary Squabbles 232 Notes 923 The Victim 232 Notes 923 Wages 233 Notes . . . . * . • .923 The Higher Pantheism . . . .234 Notes 923 The Voice and the Peak . . . .234 Notes . . . . • -923 ' Flower in the crannied wall' . . .235 Notes 923 A Dedication 235 Notes • 923 Experiments : Boadicea . « . . • .235 Notes 923 CONTENTS. PAGE Experiments continued — In Quantity 237 Notes . . . 924 Specimen of a Translation of the Iliad in Blank Verse 238 Notes 925 The Window; or, the Song of the Wrens: The Window 239 Notes 925 On the Hill 239 At the Window 239 Gone 239 Winter 239 Spring 240 The Letter 240 No Answer 240 The Answer 240 Ay 241 When 241 Marriage Morning .... 241 UiH Memoriam A. H. H 241 Notes 925 Maud : A Monodrama . . . .281 Notes 940 Idylls of the King. In Twelve Books : Dedication 302 Notes 945 The Coming of Arthur .... 303 Notes 946 The Round Table . . .311 Notes 948 Gareth and Lynette . . .311 Notes 948 The Marriage of Geraint . . .335 Notes . . . . . 951 Geraint and Enid 347 Notes 953 Balin and Balan 362 Notes 954 Merlin and Vivien 373 Notes 955 Lancelot and Elaine . . . .388 Notes 9S 6 The Holy Grail 4IO Notes 9S7 Pelleas and Ettarre . . . .425 Notes 961 The Last Tournament . . . .435 Notes g6i Guinevere 447 Notes Q 6 3 The Passing of Arthur .... 458 Notes 964 To the Queen 466 Notes ....... 965 The Lover's Tale Notes . page 467 965 To Alfred Tennyson, my Grandson . 490 Ballads and other Poems: The First Quarrel 490 Notes , . 966 Rizpah 492 Notes 966 The Northern Cobbler .... 494 Notes 966 The Revenge : A Ballad of the Fleet . 497 Notes 966 The Sisters 499 Notes 967 ! The Village Wife; or, the Entail . . 504 Notes 968 In the^Children's Hospital . . . 507 Notes 968 Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice . 508 Notes 968 The Defence of Lucknow . . . 509 Notes 968 Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham . 511 Notes 968 Columbus 514 Notes 969 The Voyage of Maeldune . . .518 Notes 969 De Prof undis : The Two Greetings . . . .521 Notes 970 The Human Cry .... 522 Notes 972 Sonnets : Prefatory Sonnet to the 'Nineteenth Century' 522 Notes 972 To the Rev. W. H. Brookfield . .522 Notes 972 Montenegro 523 Notes 972 To Victor Hugo 523 Notes 973 Translations, etc. : Battle of Brunanburh .... 523 Notes 973 Achilles over the Trench . . .525 Notes 973 To the Princess Frederica of Hanover on her Marriage 526 Notes 973 Sir John Franklin 526 Notes . . . . . . 973 \ /To Dante 526 » Notes 973 CONTENTS. TlRESIAS, AND OTHER POEMS : Notes 973 To E. Fitzgerald . . . . .526 Notes 974 [/Tiresias 527 ' Notes 974 The Wreck 530 Notes 974 Despair 533 Notes 975 The Ancient Sage .... 536 Notes 975 The Flight 540 Notes 976 To-morrow 543 Notes 976 The Spinster's Sweet-Arts . . . 545 Notes 976 Locksley Hall Sixty Years after . -548 Notes 977 Prologue to General Hamley . . 556 Notes 977 The Charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava 556 Notes 977 Epilogue 557 y Notes 978 (/To Virgil 558 Notes 978 The Dead Prophet . . . -559 Notes 978 Early Spring 560 Notes 979 Prefatory Poem to my Brother's Sonnets 560 Notes 979 Frater Ave atque Vale . . . .561 Notes 979 Helen's Tower 561 Notes 979 Epitaph on Lord Stratford de Redcliffe . 562 Notes ..".... 979 Epitaph on General Gordon . . . 562 Notes . . . . . . 979 Epitaph on Caxton . . . .562 Notes 979 To the Duke of Argyll . . . .562 Notes 979 Hands all Round 562 Notes 980 Freedom 563 Notes 980 To H. R. H. Princess Beatrice . . 563 Notes 980 The Fleet 564 Notes ...... 980 Opening of the Indian and Colonial Ex- hibition by the Queen . . . .564 Notes 988 PAGE Tiresias, and other Poems, continued — Poets and their Bibliographies . .565 Notes 980 To W. C. Macready . . . .565 Queen Mary 569 Notes 981 Harold . 636 Notes 984 Becket 676 Notes 986 The Cup ....... 730 Notes 990 The Falcon 746 Notes ....... 991 The Promise of May . . . .756 Notes 991 Demeter, and other Poems: To the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava . 781 Notes 993 On the Jubilee of Queen Victoria . 782 Notes 993 To Professor Jebb 783 Notes 993 Demeter and Persephone . . . 783 Notes 993 Owd Roa 785 Notes 994 Vastness 788 Notes 994 The Ring . . . . . 790 Notes 994 Forlorn 797 Notes 994 Happy 798 Notes 994 To Ulysses . . . . . .802 Notes 994 To Mary Boyle 803 Notes 995 The Progress of Spring .... 804 Notes 995 Merlin and The Gleam . . . .806 Notes 995 Romney's Remorse . . . . 807 Notes 996 Parnassus 810 Notes 996 By an Evolutionist . . . .810 Notes 996 Far — far — away . . . .811 Notes 997 Politics 811 Notes 997 CONTENTS. Demeter, and other Poems, continued — Beautiful City .... Notes The Roses on the Terrace Notes The Play Notes On One who affected an Effeminate Manner Notes To One who ran down the English Notes The Snowdrop .... Notes The Throstle .... Notes The Oak Notes In Memoriam — William George Ward Notes The Foresters 814 Notes 997 811 997 812 997 812 997 812 997 812 997 812 997 812 997 812 997 813 997 The Death of (Enone, and other Poems June Bracken and Heather . Notes To the Master of Balliol The Death of (Enone .... Notes St. Telemachus Notes Akbar's Dream Notes The Bandit's Death .... Notes The Church-warden and the Curate Notes Charity Notes Kapiolani Notes The Dawn . Notes The Making of Man Notes The Dreamer Notes 851 1000 851 851 1000 853 1001 854 IOOI 859 1002 860 1002 862 1002 863 1002 864 1003 865 1003 865 1003 The Death of (Enone, and other Poems, continued — Mechanophilus Notes . . . . • Riflemen form ! . Notes The Tourney Notes The Bee and the Flower . The Wanderer Poets and Critics .... Notes A Voice spake out of the Skies . Notes Doubt and Prayer .... Notes Faith Notes The Silent Voices .... Notes God and the Universe Notes . . . The Death of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale Notes Crossing the Bar .... Notes Additional Poems : • 'I, Loving Freedom for Herself' 'Life of the Life within my Blood ' To The Hesperides . Song of the Three Sisters The Statesman The Little Maid The Ante-Chamber Three Poems omitted from ' In moriam ' The Grave To A. H. H. . The Victor Hours Havelock Jack Tar Me- 865 1003 866 1003 866 1003 867 867 867 1003 867 1003 867 1003 868 1003 868 1003 868 1003 868 1003 869 1003 873 873 873 873 873 875 875 876 876 876 877 877 877 877 Notes .... Index to the First Lines Index to 'In Memoriam' Index to Songs 879 1011 1015 1017 LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON. 1 SOMERSBY. My father was born on August 6, 1809, at the Rectory of Somersby in Lincolnshire, the fourth son of a family of eight sons and four daughters. The parish doctor said of him when a week old — Here's a leg for a babe of a week ! and he would be bound There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round. The Tennysons trace their descent through a long line of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire squires and yeomen from John Tenison of Holderness (1343), and according to Burke are the co-representatives with the Lords Scarsdale of the ancient family of d'Eyncourt. My father's grandfather and two of his uncles sat in Parliament. His father. Dr. Tennyson, Vicar of Somersby, was a distinguished-looking man, cultivated, and fond of languages and science. He was a competent scholar in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and Syriac, and something of a poet, a painter, and a musician. By the right of primogeniture he ought to have inherited a considerable fortune, but his father disinherited him in favour of his younger son Charles Tennyson, and made him take Holy Orders, for which he had no vocation, and this unfitness plunged him at times into deep fits of melancholy. He was a man of the highest truth and honour, and inspired his neighbours with a certain sense of fear, though he was a genial and brilliant conversationalist. His children were all by nature poets, and Leigh Hunt aptly described them as "a nest of nightingales." When Alfred was a boy, one of his earliest recollections was his grand- mother reading to him "The Prisoner of Chillon." She used to say, "All Alfred's poetry comes from me." This brood of "nightingales" lived 1 [This preface to the poems is naturally an abridgment of my Memoir of my father, with here and there some few facts added, illustrating his character or the methods of his work. The commentaries and notes are for the most part those which, he himself jotted down or bade me jot down for posthumous publication,. — T.J xi xii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON remote from towns in the lonely heart of the country. It was a time of storm and stress in Europe, but they only caught dim echoes of the great storm, and "that world-earthquake, Waterloo." "According to the best of my recollection," writes my father, "when I was about eight years old, I covered two sides of a slate with Thomsonian blank verse in praise of flowers for my brother Charles, who was a year older than I was, Thomson then being the only poet I knew. Before I could read I was in the habit on a stormy day of spreading my arms to the wind, and crying out, 'I hear a voice that's speaking in the wind,' and the words 'far, far away' had always a strange charm for me. About ten or eleven Pope's Homer's Iliad became a favourite of mine, and I wrote hundreds and hundreds of lines in the regular Popeian metre, nay even could improvise them, so could my two elder brothers, for my father was a poet and could write regular metre very skilfully." The note continues — "My father once said to me, 'Don't write so rhythmically, break your lines occasionally for the sake of variety.' "'Artist first, then Poet,' some writer said of me. I should answer, ' Poeta nascitur non fit' ; indeed, 'Poeta nascitur et fit.' I suppose I was nearer thirty than twenty before I was anything of an artist. At about twelve and onwards I wrote an epic of about six thousand lines a la Walter Scott, — full of battles, dealing too with sea and mountain scenery, — with Scott's regularity of octosyllables and his occasional varieties. Though the performance was very likely worth nothing, I never felt myself more truly inspired. I wrote as much as seventy lines at one time, and used to go shouting them about the fields in the dark. All these early efforts have been destroyed, only my brother-in-law, Edmund Lushington, begged for a page or two of the Scott poem. Some- what later (at fourteen) I wrote a Drama in blank verse, which I have still, and other things. It seems to me I wrote them all in perfect metre." These poems of uncommon promise made my grandfather say with pardonable pride, "If Alfred die one of our great poets will have gone," and at another time, "I should not wonder if Alfred were to revive the greatness of his relative, William Pitt." When Alfred was seven he went to the grammar school at Louth, the little township on the banks of the river Ludd, but he hated the constraint. He left school in 1820 and returned to Somersby, where his father taught him and his brother Charles until they went to Cambridge. They read the great authors, — the ancient classics, and Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Bacon, Hooker, Bunyan, Addison, Burke, Goldsmith, The Arabian Nights, Malory's Morte D' Arthur. The earliest letter from him that has survived was addressed to his Aunt Marianne Fytche. It is an amusing piece of precocity for a boy of twelve years old. LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xiii SOMERSBY. My dear Aunt Marianne — When I was at Louth you used to tell me that you should be obliged to me if I would write to you and give you my remarks on works and authors. I shall now fulfil the promise which I made at that time. Going into the library this morning, I picked up "Sampson Agonistes," on which (as I think it is a play you like) I shall send you my remarks. The first scene is the lamentation of Sampson, which possesses much pathos and sublimity. This passage, Restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm Of hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone, But rush upon me thronging, and present Times past, what once I was, and what am now, puts me in mind of that in Dante, which Lord Byron has prefixed to his "Corsair/' "Nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice, Nella miseria." His complaint of his blindness is particularly beautiful, O loss of sight, of thee I most complain ! Blind among enemies ! O worse than chains, Dungeon or beggary, or decrepit age ! Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, And all her various objects of delight Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased Inferior to the vilest now become Of man or worm ; the vilest here excel me : They creep, yet see ; I, dark in light, exposed To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day ! O first created beam, and thou great Word, "Let there be light !" and light was over all. — I think this is beautiful, particularly O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon. After a long lamentation of Sampson the Chorus enters, saying these words : This, this is he. Softly awhile ; Let us not break in upon him : O change beyond report, thought, or belief ! See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused. If you look into Bp. Newton's notes, you will find that he informs you that "this beautiful application of the word 'diffused' is borrowed from the Latin." It has the same meaning as temere in one of the Odes of Horace, Book the second, Sic temere, et rosa Canos odorati capillos, xiv LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON of which this is a free translation, "Why lie we not at random, under the shade of the platain (sub platano) , having our hoary head perfumed with rose water ? " To an English reader the metre of the Chorus may seem unusual, but the difficulty will vanish, when I inform him that it is taken from the Greek. In line 1333 there is this expression, "Chalybean tempered steel." The Chalybes were a nation among the ancients very famous for the making of steel, hence the expression " Chalybean," or peculiar to the Chalybes : in line 147 "the Gates of Azzur" ; this probably, as Bp. Newton observes, was to avoid too great an alliteration which the " Gates of Gaza" would have caused, though (in my opinion) it would have rendered it more beautiful : and (though I do not affirm it as a fact) perhaps Milton gave it that name for the sake of novelty, as all the world knows he was a great pedant. I have not, at present, time to write any more ; perhaps I may continue my remarks in another letter to you, but (as I am very volatile and fickle) you must not depend upon me, for I think you do not know any one who is so fickle as — Your affectionate nephew, A. Tennyson. Byron, who is mentioned in this letter, was worshipped by my father in his boyhood. He told me that when Byron died he felt stunned and "as if the world had been darkened " for him ; and he could only rush out into the wood and carve on the sandstone rock, "Byron is dead." In his old age he used to say, "Byron is too much depreciated now, but he has such force that he will come into his own again." Through these early years my father made many friends among the Lincolnshire farmers, labourers, and fisher folk. "Like Wordsworth on the mountains," said FitzGerald, "Alfred too, when a lad abroad on the wold, sometimes of a night with the shepherd, watched not only the flock on the greensward, but also 'the fleecy star that bears Andromeda far off Atlantic seas.' Two of his earliest lines were The rays of many a rolling central star Are flashing earthward, have not reached us yet." The Lincolnshire folk were apt in the early part of the nineteenth century to be uncouth and mannerless. A type of rough independence was my grandfather's coachman, who, blamed for not keeping the harness clean, rushed into the drawing-room, flung the whole harness on the floor, and roared out "Clean it yourself, then." Again, the Somersby cook was a decided character, and "Master Awlfred" heard her in some rage against her master and her mistress exclaim: "If you raked out Hell with a small-tooth comb, you weant find their likes," a phrase which long lingered in my father's memory. In the poem of "Isabel" he more or less described his mother, 1 "a remarkable and saintly woman." She devoted herself entirely to her husband and children, and to the poor of the parish. 1 Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Stephen Fytche. LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xv Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign The summer calm of golden charity, The intuitive decision of a bright And thorough-edged intellect to part Error from crime. She earnestly looked forward to the time when Alfred would become "not only a great poet but a great and good man." He inherited from her a spirit of reverence, humour, love of animals, and extreme sensitiveness. This sensitiveness contrasted remarkably with his great physical strength and his downright bluntness. "All the Tennysons are black-blooded," he would say, for his father's melancholy preyed upon them all more or less through life. As a child, in the middle of the black night he would rush forth, fling himself on the graves in the little church- yard — asking God to let him soon be beneath the sod. But his strongest characteristic was his love of Nature, to which he always turned for comfort. Everywhere in Nature he heard a voice — he saw everywhere above Life and Nature "the gleam." Over the mountain, On human faces, And all around me, Moving to melody, Floated the Gleam. The charm and beauty of the brook at Somersby haunted him. He delighted to recall the rare richness of the bowery lanes; the wooded hollow of Holy Well; the cold springs flowing from the sandstone rocks, the flowers, the mosses, and the ferns. He loved this land of quiet villages, "ridged wolds," large fields, gray hill-sides, "tufted knolls," noble ash-trees. He had a passion for the "waste enormous marsh," the "heaped hills that bound the sea," the boundless shore at Mablethorpe, and the thunderous breakers. FitzGerald writes: "I used to say Alfred never should have left old Lincolnshire, where there were not only such good seas, but also such fine Kill and dale among 'the Wolds' which he was brought up in, as people in general scarce thought on." My Uncle Charles told how, on the afternoon of the publication of the Poems by Two Brothers in 1826, my father and he hired a carriage with some of the money earned, and driving along fourteen miles over the wolds and the marsh to Mablethorpe, "shared their triumph with the winds and waves." The following fragment, written on revisiting Mablethorpe, is a notable sample of his descriptive style : — xvi LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON Mablethorpe. Here often when a child I lay reclined : I took delight in this fair land and free ; Here stood the infant Ilion of the mind, And here the Grecian ships all seem'd to be. And here again I come, and only find The drain-cut level of the marshy lea, Gray sand-banks, and pale sunsets, dreary wind, Dim shores, dense rains, and heavy-clouded sea. And this simile in The Last Tournament is also taken from what he often saw there : as the crest of some slow-arching wave, Heard in dead night along that table-shore, Drops flat, and after the great waters break Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves, Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud, From less and less to nothing. Cambridge and Arthur Hallam. In 1827 Frederick Tennyson, the eldest brother, went to Trinity College, and was joined there in the following year by Charles and Alfred. My father felt the confinement of his life after the free country, and a want of inspiration and sympathy in the teaching provided by the college authorities. He writes : I am sitting owl-like and solitary in my rooms (nothing between me and the stars but a stratum of tiles). The hoof of the steed, the roll of the wheel, the shouts of drunken Gown and drunken Town come up from below with a sea-like murmur. I wish to Heaven I had Prince Hussain's fairy carpet to transport me along the deeps of air to your coterie. Nay, I would even take up with his brother Aboul-something's glass for the mere pleasure of a peep. What a pity it is that the golden days of Faerie are over ! What a misery not to be able to con- solidate our gossamer dreams into reality ! . . . When, my dearest Aunt, may I hope to see you again ? I know not how it is, but I feel isolated here in the midst of society. The country is so disgustingly level, the revelry of the place so monotonous, the studies of the University so uninteresting, so much matter of fact. None but dry-headed, calculating, angular little gentlemen can take much delight in A + B, etc. I have been seeking "Falkland" here for a long time without success. Those beautiful extracts from it, which you showed me at Tealby, haunt me incessantly ; but wishes, I think, like telescopes reversed, seem to get their objects at a greater distance. " I can tell you nothing of his college days," writes Edward Fitz- Gerald to a friend, " for I did not know him till they were over, though I LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xvii had seen him two or three times before : I remember him well, a sort of Hyperion.' With his poetic nature and warmth of heart, he soon made his way. Fanny Kemble, who used to visit her brother John, said of him when at college, "Alfred Tennyson was our hero, the great hero of our day." Another friend describes him as "six feet high, broad-chested, strong- limbed, his face Shakespearian, with deep eyelids, his forehead ample, crowned with dark wavy hair, his head finely poised, his hand the admira- tion of sculptors, long fingers with square tips, soft as a child's but of great size and strength. What struck one most about him was the union of strength with refinement." In later years he confessed that he owed much to Cambridge. At Somersby he had studied nature, there he was able to study his fellow- men. His friends were many, scholars and poets, Arthur Hallam, Trench, Brookfield, Milnes, Spring-Rice, Merivale, Lushington, Blakesley, Spedding, Thompson, and others. When my father first came into the dining-hall at Trinity, Thompson said at once, "That man must be a poet !" There was in all these young fellows, keen intellectual energy, imaginative generosity, and public spirit. They called aloud for liberty and toleration. The star of Byron, which had shone brightly in my father's boyhood, had set ; Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, and Wordsworth were in the ascendant. "Byron and Shelley," my father wrote, "however mistaken they were, did yet give the world another heart and new pulses" by their fiery lyrical genius. "If Keats had lived," he added, "he would have been the greatest of us." Wordsworth he looked on "as the greatest poet on the whole since Milton. Blank verse, indeed, is the finest possible vehicle for thought in Shakespeare as well as in Milton," Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean Rings to the roar of an angel onset. A society of young Cambridge men, to which my father and most of his friends belonged, called "The Apostles," was then said to be "waxing daily in religion and radicalism." They not only debated on politics but read Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Butler, Hume, Bentham, Descartes and Kant, and discussed such questions as the Origin of Evil, the Derivation of Moral Sentiments, Prayer, and the Personality of God. Among the Cam- bridge papers I find a remarkable sentence on "Prayer" by Hallam : With respect to prayer, you ask how I am to distinguish the operations of God in me from motions in my own heart ? Why should you distinguish them or how do you know there is any distinction ? Is God less God because He acts by general laws when He deals with the common elements of nature ? . . . That fatal mistake xviii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON which has embarrassed the philosophy of mind with infinite confusion, the mistake of setting value on a thing's origin rather than on its character, of assuming that composite must be less excellent than simple, has not been slow to extend its deleterious influence over the field of practical religion. My father — after perhaps reading Cuvier, or Humboldt — seems to have propounded in some college discussion the theory that "the develop- ment of the human body might possibly be traced from the radiated, vermicular, molluscous and vertebrate organisms." The question of surprise put to him on this proposition was, "Do you mean that the human brain is at first like a madrepore's, then like a worm's, etc. ? but this cannot be, for they have no brain." At this time, with one or two of his more literary friends, he took a great interest in the work which Hallam had undertaken, a translation from the Vita Nuova of Dante, with notes and prefaces. For this task Hallam, who in 1827 had been in Italy with his parents, and had drunk deep of the older Italian literature, says that he was perfecting himself in German and Spanish, and was proposing to plunge into the Florentine historians and the medieval Schoolmen. He wrote to my father: "I expect to glean a good deal of knowledge from you concerning metres which may be serviceable as well for my philosophy in the notes as for my actual handiwork in the text. I purpose to discuss considerably about poetry in general, and about the ethical character of Dante's poetry." My father said of his friend: "Arthur Hallam could take in the most abstruse ideas with the utmost rapidity and insight, and had a marvellous power of work and thought, and a wide range of knowledge. On one occasion, I remember, he mastered a difficult book of Descartes at a single sitting." On June 6, 1829, the announcement was made that my father had won the Chancellor's prize medal for his poem in blank verse on "Timbuctoo." Out of his "horror of publicity," as he said, he gave it to his friend Merivale for declamation in the Senate House. To win the prize in anything but rhymed heroics was an innovation. My grandfather had desired him to compete, so unwillingly he patched up an old poem on "The Battle of Armageddon," and came out prizeman over Milnes, Hallam, and others. His friends remarked that he had from the first a deep insight into character, and would often turn upon them with a terse and some- times grim criticism when they thought him far away in the clouds, as for instance: "There is a want of central dignity about him, he excuses himself," or "That is the quick decision of a mind that sees half the truth." They also pronounced him to be an unusually fine literary critic, and a man of deep thought and infinite humour. His first volume of Poems, chiefly Lyrical was published in 1830. Arthur Hallam criticised LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xix it in the Englishman's Magazine, and his enthusiasm was worthy of his true and unselfish friendship. Hallam was, according to my father, "as near perfection as mortal man can be." "If ever man was born for great things," Kemble wrote to his sister Fanny, "he was. Never was a more powerful intellect joined to a purer and holier heart ; and the whole illuminated with the richest imagination, with the most sparkling yet the kindest wit." In this connection I may quote the following note received by me (June 19 13) from the present Master of Trinity : It must have been early in 1886 that I was a guest at Trinity Lodge. After breakfast, one Sunday, Dr. Thompson and I were talking about the very distin- guished group of his contemporaries, and in particular of the Arthur Hallam of "In Memoriam." I remember saying to Dr. Thompson in substance — I cannot recall my exact words — "Are you able to say, not from later evidence, but from your recollection of what you thought at the time, which of the two friends had the greater intellect, Hallam or Tennyson?" "Oh, Tennyson !" he said at once with strong emphasis, as if the matter was not open to doubt. Arthur Hallam was often at Somersby and became engaged to my father's sister Emily. Together my father and he visited the Pyrenees, and held a secret meeting with the leaders of a conspiracy against the tyrant, King Ferdinand of Spain. It was there in the Pyrenees that my father wrote part of "CEnone." Such descriptive lines as these are based upon the Pyrenean scenery : There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine, And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine In cataract after cataract to the sea. "Before I pass on from 'CEnone,'" Arthur Sidgwick writes, "I may add a word or two on Tennyson's classical poetry generally, and his debt to the great ancient masterpieces. He was perhaps not exactly a scholar in what I may call the narrow professional sense; but in the broadest and truest sense he was a great scholar. In all Tennyson's classic pieces, 'CEnone,' 'Ulysses,' 'Demeter,' 'Tithonus,' the legendary subjects, and in the two historic subjects, 'Lucretius' and 'Boadicea' the classical tradition is there with full detail, but by the poet's art it is transmuted. 'CEnone' is epic in form, the rest are brief monodramas: the material is all ancient, and in many subtle ways the spirit ; the handling is modern and original. In translations, too few, Tennyson can only be called consummate." xx LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON In February 1831 Dr. Tennyson fell ill and summoned my father home from Cambridge, and in March he was found leaning back in his chair, having passed away suddenly and peacefully. The Tennysons, however, did not leave Somersby Rectory until 1837. Hallam still continued to visit them and read Dante, Tasso, and Petrarch with my father and his sister Emily. My father managed all the affairs of the family. His extraordinary common-sense was notable throughout his life, and was frequently commented on by his Cambridge con- temporaries. In 1832 Hallam and he went a tour up the Rhine, and my father published his second volume, Poems by Alfred Tennyson. Some critics saw that a new and true poet had come among them, and Emerson praised the volume in America. Of "The Lady of Shalott," which is "not far below the high-water mark of symbolic poetry," 1 Hallam wrote, "The more I read it the more I like it." Of the "Lotos-Eaters" Merivale said to Thompson, "I have converted by my readings both my brother and your friend Richardson to faith in the 'Lotos-Eaters.'" "Mariana in the South," written in the South of France, especially delighted Hallam. "The Palace of Art," my father notes, "is the embodiment of my own belief that the godlike life is with man and for man, and that Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters that never can be sundered without tears." Among the poems often quoted by Trench and his other friends at this time was "Anacaona," which, however, was not published by him in his collected works. Anacaona. A dark Indian maiden, Warbling in the bloom'd liana, Stepping lightly flower-laden, By the crimson-eyed anana, Wantoning in orange groves Naked, and dark-limb 'd, and gay, Bathing in the slumbrous coves, In the cocoa-shadow'd coves, Of sunbright Xaraguay, Who was so happy as Anacaona, The beauty of Espagnola, The golden flower of Hayti ? In the purple island, Crown'd with garlands of cinchona, Lady over wood and highland, The Indian queen, Anacaona, » Sir Alfred Lyall. LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxi Dancing on the blossomy plain To a woodland melody : Playing with the scarlet crane, The dragon-fly and scarlet crane, Beneath the papao tree ! Happy, happy was Anacaona, The beauty of Espagnola, The golden flower of Hayti ! Naked, without fear, moving To her Areyto's mellow ditty, Waving a palm branch, wondering, loving, Carolling "Happy, happy Hayti !" She gave the white men welcome all, With her damsels by the bay ; For they were fair-faced and tall, They were more fair-faced and tall, Than the men of Xaraguay, And they smiled on Anacaona, The beauty of Espagnola, The golden flower of Hayti ! Following her wild carol She led them down the pleasant places, For they were kingly in apparel, Loftily stepping with fair faces. But never more upon the shore Dancing at the break of day, In the deep wood no more, — By the deep sea no more, — No more in Xaraguay Wander'd happy Anacaona, The beauty of Espagnola, The golden flower of Hayti ! Christopher North criticised the volume of 1832 sharply in Blackwood: "Alfred is the greatest owl ..." The Quarterly ridiculed the poems pitilessly. My father was depressed by these unfavourable reviews. As Jowett notes: "Tennyson experienced a great deal of pain from the attacks of his enemies. I never remember his receiving the least pleasure from the commendation of his friends." Of flatterers he used to say, "Flattery makes me sick." Friendly criticism of a sane critic like Spedding or Hallam was much more to him than the praise or dispraise of the multitude. "I think it wisest," he writes to Henry van Dyke, "for a man to do his work in the world as quietly and as well as he can, without much heeding the praise or dispraise." Hallam urged him to rind amusement in those "hair-splitting critics who are the bane xxii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON of good art." "To raise the many," he continued, "to his own real point of view, the artist must employ his energies and create energy in others." The general estimation in which the Quarterly was then held was echoed by an old Lincolnshire squire who assured my father that "the Quarterly was the next book to God's Bible." His friends felt that he had begun to base his poetry more on the broad and common interests of the time and of universal humanity, but their commendation did not much comfort him, and he thought of leaving England to live in Jersey, Italy, or the South of France. Hallam urged him to publish "The Lover's Tale," ! which had been written in 1828, but he thought it had too many crude thoughts and lines. Of this poem and "Timbuctoo" my father said, "Neither is imitative of any poet, and as far as I know nothing of mine after 'Timbuctoo' was imitative. As for being original, nothing can be said which has not been said before in some form or another." Then came a crushing grief, the death of Hallam at Vienna on September J 5? ^SZ- "The Two Voices" or "Thoughts of a Suicide" was begun under the cloud of this overwhelming sorrow. But such a great friendship and such a loss helped to reveal him to himself. "Alfred," writes one of his friends, "although much broken in spirits, is yet able to divert his thoughts from gloomy brooding, and keep his hand in activity." A still small voice spake unto me, "Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?" Then to the still small voice I said, "Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made." "My poem of 'Ulysses,'" so his own words tell us, "gives my thought more simply than 'In Memoriam' of the need of going forward and brav- ing the difficulties of life." His belief in God, his strong sense of duty, and his own power made him devote himself to work. The following is a list of the week's work which he drew up: Monday — History, German. Tuesday — Chemistry, German. Wednesday — Botany, German. Thursday — Electricity, German. Friday — Animal Physiology, German. Saturday — Mechanics. Sunday — Theology. Next week — Italian in the afternoon. Third week — Greek ; and in the evenings Poetry, Racine, Moliere, etc. "Perpetual idleness," he would say, "must be one of the punishments in Hell." Now and then, when he could save a little hoard, he went to London to visit his friends in their homes. One of his troubles at this time was that he was pestered by applications from the editors of magazines and annuals for poems. For example, Milnes wrote to him in 1835 asking 1 This poem, founded on one of Boccaccio's tales (1827), was pirated in 1879, and s > he published it with a sequel "The Golden Supper." LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxiii for a contribution to an annual edited by Lord Northampton. He sent the following answer : December 1836. Dear Richard — As I live eight miles from my post-town and only correspond therewith about once a week, you must not wonder if this reaches you somewhat late. Your former brief I received, though some si* days behind time, and stamped with the post-marks of every little market-town in the country, but I did not think it demanded an immediate answer, hence my silence. That you had promised the Marquis I would write for him something exceeding the average length of "Annual compositions" ; that you had promised him I would write at all : I took this for one of those elegant fictions with which you amuse your aunts of evenings, before you get into the small hours when dreams are true. Three summers back, provoked by the incivility of editors, I swore an oath that I would never again have to do with their vapid books, and I brake it in the sweet face of Heaven when I wrote for Lady What's-her-name Wortley. But then her sister wrote to Brookfield and said she (Lady W.) was beautiful, so I could not help it. But whether the Marquis be beautiful or not, I don't much mind; if he be, let him give God thanks and make no boast. To write for people with prefixes to their names is to milk he-goats ; there is neither honour nor profit. Up to this moment I have not even seen The Keepsake: not that I care to see it, for the want of civility decided me not to break mine oath again for man nor woman, and how should such a modest man as I see my small name in collocation with the great ones of Southey, Wordsworth, R. M. M., etc., and not feel myself a barndoor fowl among peacocks ? Good-bye. — Believe me always thine, A. T. Milnes was angry at the refusal, and my father answered him banter- ingly again : Jan. 10, 1837. Why what in the name of all the powers, my dear Richard, makes you run me down in this fashion ? Now is my nose out of joint, now is my tail not only curled so tight as to lift me off my hind legs like Alfred Crowquill's poodle, but fairly between them. Many sticks are broken about me. I am the ass in Homer. I am blown. What has so jaundiced your good-natured eyes as to make them mistake harmless banter for insolent irony : harsh terms applicable only to who, big as he is, sits to all posterity astride upon the nipple of literary dandyism, and "takes her milk for gall" ? "Insolent irony" and "piscatory vanity," as if you had been writing to St. Anthony, who converted the soft souls of salmon; but may St. Anthony's fire consume all misapprehension, the spleen-born mother of fivefold more evil on our turnip-spheroid than is malice aforethought. Had I been writing to a nervous, morbidly-irritable man, down in the world, stark-spoiled with the staggers of a mismanaged imagination and quite opprest by fortune and by the reviews, it is possible that I might have halted to find expressions more suitable to his case ; but that you, who seem at least to take the world as it comes, to doff it, and let it pass, that you, a man every way prosperous and talented, should have taken pet at my unhappy badinage made me lay down my pipe and stare at the fire for ten minutes, till the stranger fluttered up the chimney ! You wish that I had never written that passage. So do I, since it seems to have given xxiv LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON such offence. Perhaps you likewise found a stumbling-block in the expression "vapid books," as the angry inversion of four commas seems to intimate. But are not Annuals vapid? Or could I possibly mean that what you or Trench or De Vere chose to write therein must be vapid ? I thought you knew me better than even to insinuate these things. Had I spoken the same things to you laughingly in my chair, and with my own emphasis, you would have seen what they really meant, but coming to read them peradventure in a fit of indigestion, or with a slight matutinal headache after your Apostolic symposium, you subject them to such misinterpretation as, if I had not sworn to be true friend to you till my latest death- ruckle, would have gone far to make me indignant. But least said soonest mended ; which comes with peculiar grace from me after all this verbiage. You judge me rightly in supposing that I would not be backward in doing a really charitable deed. I will either bring or send you something for your Annual. It is very problematical whether I shall be able to come and see you as I proposed, so do not return earlier from your tour on my account ; and if I come, I should only be able to stop a few days, for, as I and all my people are going to leave this place very shortly never to return, I have much upon my hands. But whether I see you or no — Believe me always thine affectionately, A. Tennyson. I have spoken with Charles. He has promised to contribute to your Annual} Frederick will, I daresay, follow his example. See now whether I am not doing my best for you, and whether you had any occasion to threaten me with that black "Anacaona" and her cocoa-shod coves of niggers. I cannot have her strolling about the land in this way. It is neither good for her reputation nor mine. When is Lord Northampton's book to be published, and how long may I wait before I send anything by way of contribution ? In the end "O that 'twere possible" (on which "Maud" was after- wards founded) was sent to Lord Northampton. FitzGerald also notes that in this year Alfred wrote a poem on the Queen's accession, "the burden being 'Here's a health to the Queen of the Isles.'" One stanza I have heard my father repeat : That the voice of a satisfied people may keep A sound in her ears like the sound of the deep, Like the sound of the deep when the winds are asleep ; Here's a health to the Queen of the Isles. London and Emily Sellwood. Some time about 1835 he had written the following, hitherto unpub- lished, fragment on "Semele," 2 which seems to me too fine to be lost : 1 The Tribute. 2 Semele was beloved by Zeus. Hera (Juno), being jealous of her, visited her in the guise of her old nurse, and persuaded her to ask Zeus to appear to her in the same majesty as he appeared to Hera. Zeus warned Semele of the danger of her request. But she insisted on seeing him in the majesty of his godhead. He accordingly came to her as the god of thunder, and she was burnt up by his lightnings. Zeus, however, LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxv Semele. I wish'd to see Him. Who may feel His light and love ? He comes. The blast of Godhead bursts the doors, His mighty hands are twined About the triple forks, and when He speaks The crown of sunlight shudders round Ambrosial temples, and aloft, Fluttering thro' Elysian air, His green and azure mantles float in wavy Foldings, and melodious thunder Wheels in circles. But thou, my son, who shalt be born When I am ashes, to delight the world — Now with measured cymbal-clash Moving on to victory ; Now on music-rolling orbs, A sliding throne, voluptuously Panther-drawn, To throbbings of the thunderous gong, And melody o' the merrily-blowing flute ; Now with troops of clamorous revellers, Merrily, merrily, Rapidly, giddily, Rioting, triumphing Bacchanalians, Rushing in cadence, All in order, Plunging down the viney valleys — In 1837 the Tennyson family left Somersby and* established themselves at High Beech in Epping Forest. A little later a life-like portrait is drawn of my father by Carlyle, with whom he was particularly intimate, and of whom he said once to Gladstone, " Carlyle is a poet, to whom Nature has denied the faculty of verse " : Alfred is one of the few British and foreign figures (a not increasing number, I think) who are and remain beautiful to me, a true human soul, or some authentic approximation thereto, to whom your own soul can say "Brother !" However, I doubt he will not come (to see me) ; he often skips me, in these brief visits to town ; skips everybody, indeed ; being a man solitary and sad, as certain men are, dwelling in an element of gloom, carrying a bit of Chaos about him, in short, which he is manufacturing into Cosmos. ... He had his breeding at Cambridge, saved her child, Dionysus (Bacchus), with whom she was pregnant. After a while this son of hers took her from the lower world up to Olympus, where she became immortal, and was named Thyone. xxvi LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON as if for the Law or the Church ; being master of a small annuity on his father's decease, he preferred clubbing with his mother and some sisters, to live unpromoted and write poems. In this way he lives still, now here, now there; the family always within reach of London, never in it ; he himself making rare and brief visits, lodging in some old comrade's rooms. I think he must be under forty, not much under it. One of the finest-looking men in the world. A great shock of rough, dusky hair ; bright, laughing, hazel eyes ; massive aquiline face — most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow brown complexion, almost Indian-looking, clothes cynically loose, free and easy, smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical, metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous; I do not meet in these late decades such company over a pipe ! We shall see what he will grow to. Among his friends were now numbered Rogers, Carlyle, Thackeray, Dickens, Savage Landor, Maclise, Leigh Hunt, Tom Campbell, Forster, W. E. Gladstone. Of all London he liked Fleet Street most. He delighted in "the central roar." "This is the place where I should like to live," he would say, infinitely preferring it to the stuccoed houses of the West End. One day in 1842 FitzGerald records a visit to St. Paul's with him, when he observed : "Merely as an inclosed space in a huge city this is very fine," and when they got out under the heavens into the midst of the "central roar," "This is the Mind, that is a mood of it." While in London he often lodged in 60 Lincoln's Inn Fields, or at 2 Mitre Court in the Temple, dining out at the Cock Tavern. From High Beech the Tennysons migrated to Tunbridge Wells, thence to Boxley, Maidstone, near his favourite sister Cecilia, who married a year later the great Greek scholar, Edmund Lushington. In 1838 he took a tour to Torquay, where he wrote "Audley Court." In 1839 he visited Wales, Mablethorpe, Aberystwith, Bourne- mouth — in 1840 Warwick, and Coventry, where "Lady Godiva" was written. In 1840 he also went to Mablethorpe and Yorkshire. Nature in her different aspects in these and other different places gave him inspiration, as shown again and again in the poems themselves. The years spent in strenuous labour and self-cultivation, and his quasi-engagement to Emily Sellwood, daughter of Henry Sellwood of Berkshire, and niece of Sir John Franklin, had braced him for the struggle of life. He would arrange his material which he had "in profusion, and give as perfect a volume as he could to the world." "I felt certain of one point," he said; "if I meant to make any mark at all it must be by shortness, for the men before me had been so diffuse, and most of the big things except King Arthur had been done." "One night," writes Aubrey de Vere, "after he had been reading aloud several of his poems, all of them short, he passed one of them to me and said, 'What is the matter with that poem?' I read it and answered, 'I see nothing to complain of.' He laid his ringers LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxvii on two stanzas of it, the third and fifth, and said, 'Read it again.' After doing so I said, 'It has now more completeness and totality about it, but the two stanzas you cover are among the best.' 'No matter,' he said, 'they make the poem too long-backed, and they must go at any sacrifice. Every short poem,' he remarked, 'should have a definite shape like a curve — sometimes a single, sometimes a double one — assumed by a severed tress or the rind of an apple when flung on the floor.'" The first time he had met Emily Sellwood was at Somersby in 1830, when he saw her suddenly in Holy Well Wood walking with Arthur Hallam, and said to her, "Are you a Dryad or an Oread wandering here?" But the "eternal lack of pence" prevented them marrying until 1850. Up to 1840, however, they corresponded, and subjoined are some fragments of the beautiful letters which he wrote to her : — "The light of this world is too full of refractions for men ever to see one another in their true positions. The world is better than it is called, but wrong and foolish. The whole framework seems wrong, which in the end shall be found right." "Bitterness of any sort becomes not the sons of Adam, still less pride, for they are in that talk of theirs for the most part but as children babbling in the market- place." "The far future has been my world always." "I shall never see the Eternal City, nor that dome, the wonder of the world; I do not think I would live there if I could, and I have no money for touring." "Mablethorpe. I am not so able as in old years to commune alone with Nature. I am housed at Mr. Wildman's, an old friend of mine in these parts : he and his wife are two perfectly honest Methodists. When I came I asked her after news, and she replied: 'Why, Mr. Tennyson, there's only one piece of news that I know, t that Christ died for all men.' And I said to her: 'That is old news, and good and new news ' ; wherewith the good woman seemed satisfied. I was half- yesterday reading anecdotes of Methodist ministers, and liking to read them too . . . and of the teaching of Christ, that purest light of God." "That made me count the less of the sorrows when I caught a glimpse of the sorrowless Eternity." "A good woman is a wondrous creature, cleaving to the right and the good in all change ; lovely in her youthful comeliness, lovely all her life long in comeliness of heart." "London. There is no one here but John Kemble, with whom I dined twice; he is full of burning indignation against the Russian policy and what he calls the moral barbarism of France; likewise he is striving against what he calls the 'mechanic influence of the age, and its tendency to crush and overpower the spiritual in man,' and indeed what matters it how much man knows and does if he keep not a reverential looking upward ? He is only the subtlest beast in the field." xxviii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON "We must bear or we must die. It is easier perhaps to die, but infinitely less noble. The immortality of man disdains and rejects the thought, the immortality of man to which the cycles and the aeons are as hours and as days." Throughout his life he always held up this ideal of true love — To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, Until they won her ; for indeed I know Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man. The Two Volumes of 1842 and "The Princess" The year 1842 saw the publication of two volumes of poems, some old and re-touched, some new, among them several English Idylls which im- mediately raised him to the front rank of poets. Among the new poems were "The Gardener's Daughter," "Dora," "Locksley Hall," "The Morte d' Arthur," "Love and Duty," "St. Agnes' Eve," "Sir Galahad," "Launcelot and Queen Guinevere," "The Vision of Sin," "Break, Break. n The handling of these later poems is much lighter and freer, the interest more varied, deeper and purer ; there is more humanity with less imagery, a closer adherence to truth, a greater reliance for effect upon the simplicity of Nature. The Quarterly Review passed from its mood of hostility to one of admiration. Rogers sent his blessing. Of all the criticisms that which pleased him most was a letter from Carlyle : Cheyne Road, Chelsea, December 7, 1842. Dear Tennyson — Wherever this find you, may it find you well, may it come as a friendly greeting to you. I have just been reading your Poems ; I have read certain of them over again, and mean to read them over and over till they become my poems : this fact, with the inferences that lie in it, is of such emphasis in me, I cannot keep it to myself, but must needs acquaint you too ,with it. If you knew what my relation has been to the thing called English "poetry" for many years back, you would think such fact almost surprising ! Truly it is long since in any English Book, Poetry, or Prose, I have felt the pulse of a real man's heart as I do in this same. A right valiant, true fighting, victorious heart; strong as a lion's, yet gentle, loving, and full of music : what I call a genuine singer's heart ! There are tones as of the nightingale ; low murmurs as of wood-doves at summer noon ; everywhere a noble sound as of the free winds and leafy woods. The sunniest glow of life dwells in that soul, chequered duly with dark streaks from night and Hades : LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxix everywhere one feels as if all were filled with yellow glowing sunlight, some glorious golden Vapour, from which form after form bodies itself ; naturally, golden forms. In one word, there seems to be a note of "The Eternal Melodies " in this man, for which let all other men be thankful and joyful ! Your " Dora " reminds me of the Book of Ruth; in the "Two Voices," which, I am told, some reviewer calls I trivial morality," I think of passages in Job. For truth is quite as true in Job's time and Ruth's as now. I know you cannot read German : the more interesting is it to trace in your "Summer Oak" a beautiful kindred to something that is best in Goethe; I mean his "Miillerin" (Miller's Daughter) chiefly, with whom the very Mill-dam gets in love, though she proves a flirt after all, and the thing ends in satirical lines ! Very strangely, too, in the "Vision of Sin" I am reminded of my friend Jean Paul. This is not babble, it is speech ; true deposition of a volunteer witness. And so I say let us all rejoice somewhat. And so let us all smite rhythmically, all in concert, "the sounding furrows," and sail forward with new cheer "beyond the sunset," whither we are bound — It may be that the gulfs will wash us down, It may be we shall touch the happy Isles And see the great Achilles whom we knew. These lines do not make me weep, but there is in me what would fill whole Lachrymatories as I read. But do you, when you return to London, come down to me and let us smoke a pipe together. With few words, with many, or with none, it need not be an ineloquent pipe ! Farewell, dear Tennyson; may the gods be good to you. With very great sincerity (and in great haste), I subscribe myself — Yours, T. Carlyle. During the period preceding the publication of these volumes he saw many old and made many new friends — among them Charles Kingsley, Frederick Robertson, Aubrey de Vere, Coventry Patmore, Robert Brown- ing, Frederick Pollock. Aubrey de Vere gives an account of a visit made at that time to Wordsworth : Alfred Tennyson's largeness, of mind and of heart was touchingly illustrated by his reverence for Wordsworth's poetry, notwithstanding that the immense merits which he recognised in it were not, in his opinion, supplemented by a proportionate amount of artistic skill. He was always glad to show reverence to the "old poet," not then within ten years of the age at which the younger one died. "Words- worth," he said to me one day, "is staying at Hampstead in the house of his friend Mr. Hoare; I must go and see him; and you must come with me. Mind you do not tell Rogers, or he will be displeased at my being in London and not going to see him." We drove up to Hampstead and knocked at the door, and the next moment it was opened by the poet of the world, at whose side stood the poet bf the mountains. Rogers' old face, which had encountered nearly ninety years, seemed to double the numbers of its wrinkles as he said, not angrily, but very drily: "Ah, you do not come up the hill to see. me !" During the visit it was with Tennyson that the bard of Rydal held discourse, while the recluse of St. James' Place, whom "that angle" especially delighted, conversed with me. As xxx LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON we walked back to London through grassy fields not then built over, Tennyson complained of the old poet's coldness. He had endeavoured to stimulate some latent ardours by telling him of a tropical island where the trees, when they first came into leaf, were a vivid scarlet; — "Every one of them, I told him, one flush all over the island, the colour of blood ! It would not do. I could not inflame his imagination in the least !" During the preceding year I had had the great honour of passing several days at Rydal Mount with Wordsworth, walking on his mountains, and listening to him at his fireside. I told him that a young poet had lately risen up. Wordsworth answered that he feared from the little he had heard that if Crabbe was the driest of poets, the young aspirant must have the opposite fault. I replied that he should j udge for himself, and without leave given, recited to him two poems by Tennyson, viz. "You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease," and "Of old sat Freedom on the heights." Wordsworth listened with a gradually deepening attention. After a pause he answered, "I must acknowledge that these two poems are very solid and noble in thought. Their diction also seems singularly stately." The new publications, however, did not bring him wealth. In 1844 a physician near Beech Hill, Dr. Allen, with whom the Tennyson family had become acquainted, either conceived or adopted the idea of wood- carving by machinery. He inspired the Tennysons with so great an: enthusiasm for it, that by degrees he persuaded my father to give him the money for which, wearied by a careless agent, he had sold his little estate; in Grasby, Lincolnshire, and even the £500 left him as a legacy by] Arthur Hallam's aunt. Not merely this, however, — since, but for my father's intervention apparently, all the property of such of the family as were at Beech Hill would have merged in this philanthropic undertaking; so fascinating was the prospect of oak panels and oak furniture carved by machinery, thus brought by its cheapness within the reach of the; multitude. The confidence my father had placed in the "earnest-frothy" Dr. Allen proved to be misplaced. The entire project collapsed ; my father's worldly goods were all gone, and a portion of the property of hil brothers and sisters. Then followed a season of real hardship and self-j sacrifice and many trials for my father and mother, since marriage seemed to be farther off than ever. So severe a hypochondria set in upon him] that his friends despaired of his life. "I have," he writes, "drunk one ol those most bitter draughts out of the cup of life, which go near to makd men hate the world they move in." My uncle, Edmund Lushington, inj 1844 generously insured Dr. Allen's life for part of the debt due to nrd father; the Doctor died in January 1845. His friends procured my father a civil list pension, chiefly through thd intervention of Carlyle and Henry Hallam. He recovered his health and set to work again, and in 1847 published "The Princess," the "heralJ melody" of the higher education of women, although perhaps in this; progressive age the then progressive views expressed there may seem to LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxxi some now somewhat old-fashioned. Andrew Lang writes: "On reading 'The Princess' afresh one is impressed, despite old familiarity, with the extraordinary influence of its beauty. Here are, indeed, the best words best placed, and that curious felicity of style, which makes every line a marvel, and an eternal possession. It is as if Tennyson had taken the advice which Keats gave to Shelley, 'Load every rift with ore.'" As for the various characters of the poem, they give all possible views of women's higher education, and as for the Princess Ida, the poet who created her considered her as one of the noblest of his creations. Woman must train herself to do the large work that lies before her even though she may not be destined to be wife or mother, cultivating her understanding, not her memory only, her imagination in its highest phases, her inborn spirituality and her sympathy with all that is pure, noble, and beautiful, rather than mere social accomplishments ; then and then only will she further the progress of humanity, then and then only will men continue to hold her in reverence. For simple rhythm and word and vowel music flbie considered his "Come down, O Maid," mostly written in Switzerland (1846), as among his most successful blank verse : Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height : What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) In height and cold, the splendour of the hills ? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease • To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; And come, for Love is of the valley, come, For Love is of the valley, come thou down And find him ; . . . ... let the torrent dance thee down To find him in the valley ; let the wild Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air : So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth Arise to thee ; the children call, and I Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees. i wo versions of "Sweet and Low" were made and were sent to Emily illwood to choose which should be published. The unpublished version Sins thus : xxxii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON Bright is the moon on the deep, Bright are the cliffs in her beam, Sleep, my little one, sleep ! Look, he smiles, and opens his hands, He sees his father in distant lands, And kisses him there in a dream, Sleep, sleep. Father is over the deep, Father will come to thee soon, Sleep, my pretty one, sleep ! Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the West, Under the silver moon, Sleep, sleep ! The letters which he received then show that these songs added in 1850I — "As thro' the land at eve we went," "Sweet and low," "The splendour' falls," "Tears, idle tears," "Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, "Home they brought her warrior dead," "Ask me no more" — had] especially moved the great heart of the people. The following notes onj the poem were left by my father : — , In the Prologue the "Tale from mouth to mouth" was a game which I have] more than once played when I was at Trinity College, Cambridge, with my brother undergraduates. Of course, if he "that inherited the tale" had not attended very carefully to his predecessors, there were contradictions ; and if the story werq historical, occasional anachronisms. In defence of what some have called the too poetical passages, it should be recollected that the poet of the party was requestec to "dress the tale up poetically," and he was full of the "gallant and heroic chronicle." Some of my remarks on passages in the "Princess" have beei published by Dawson of Canada, who copied them from a letter which I wrote t< him criticizing his study of the "Princess." The child is the link through the parti as shown in the songs which are the best interpreters of the poem. Before th first edition came out, I deliberated with myself whether I should put songs betwc the separate divisions of the poem ; again I thought that the poem would explaii itself, but the public did not see the drift. The first song I wrote was naraei "The Losing of the Child." The child is sitting on the bank of the river an< playing with flowers ; a flood comes down ; a dam has been broken thro' — thi child is borne down by the flood ; the whole village distracted ; after a time thj flood has subsided ; the child is thrown safe and sound again upon the bank ; an( there is a chorus of jubilant women. After the publication of "The Princess" he went for tours in Cornwal and Ireland. He mixed with many classes of Irish, and often spoke them "as not only feudal but oriental, loving those in authority to ha^ the iron hand in the silken glove." LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxxiii Marriage, "In Memoriam," and Farringford. The year 1850 was the golden year of my father's life. He published "In Memoriam," at which he had worked through seventeen years. He had written the following section within two months of Arthur Hallam's death: "Fair ship, that from the Italian shore." The poem appeared without his name. The critics blundered. One declared that "much shallow art was spent on the tenderness shown to an Amaryllis of the Chancery Bar." Another that "these touching lines evidently come from the full heart of the widow of a military man." Throughout "In Memoriam" my father muses on the problems of Life, Death, Knowledge, and Religion, and expresses his firm faith in the love of God, in the "Christ that is to be," in Free-will, and in the life after death of the human soul. On such high subjects as "the blessing of honest belief, the blessing also of 'honest doubt,' the supreme majesty of veracity and every form of truth, the grandeur of the Creator's living energy in the Universe, as part by part revealed by science, in whose multiplied and advancing triumphs the poet personally exulted ; again, in the sacredness and the perfect beauty of human love, wedded and unwedded, brotherly and sisterly, filial and parental, on such high themes — who, I ask, since Dante, has written, I do not say with more piety or more tenderness, but with more manliness and more power ? " 1 He once said to Tyndall, who agreed with him. "No evolutionist is able to explain the mind of man, or I how any possible change of physiological tissue can produce conscious thought." As to the different forms of Christianity, he observed with Sara Coleridge that "the whole logical truth is not the possession of any one party, that it exists in fragments among the several parties, and that :much of it is yet to be developed." "Forsitan uno itinere non protest perveniri ad tarn grande secretum." He expressed his conviction that "Christianity with its divine Morality, without the central figure and life of Christ, the Son of Man, would become cold"; that this passionate "creed of creeds had done infinitely more for our poor common humanity than any preceding religion or philosophy." According to Jowett "it was |n the spirit of an old saint or mystic, and not of a modern rationalist, that Tennyson habitually thought and felt about the nature of Christ. Never did the slightest shadow of ridicule or profaneness mix itself up with the applications which he made of Scripture, although he was quite aware that Sthere were many points on which he differed widely from the so-called Evangelical, or High-Church world, and he always strove to keep religion free from the taint of ridicule." "What 'In Memoriam' did for us," writes Professor Henry Sidgwick, "for me at least, was to impress on 1 The Master of Trinity (April 1913)- xxxiv LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON us the ineffaceable and ineradicable conviction that humanity will not and cannot acquiesce in a godless world. If the possibility of a godless world is excluded, the faith thus restored is for the poet un- questionably a form of Christian faith : there seems to him, then, no reason for doubting that 'the sinless years that breathed beneath the Syrian blue,' and the marvel of the life continued after the bodily death, were a manifestation of the 'immortal love' which by faith we embrace as the essence of the Divine Nature." "I do not know," Stopford Brooke says, "in any of the earlier poems, not even in 'Maud,' anything on a higher range of passionate imagination and breathing more of youthful ardour weighted with dignity of thought than a song like this : Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, Rings Eden thro' the budded quicks. Or take this other where the loveliness of Nature is met and received with joy by that receptive spirit of delight in a sensuous impression which a young man feels; and where the depths of the feeling has wrought the short poem into an intensity of unity : each verse linked like bell to bell in a chime to the verse before it, and all swinging into a triumphant close ; swelling as they go from thought to thought, and finally rising from the landscape of the earth to the landscape of infinite space. Can anything be more impassioned and yet more solemn ! It has the swiftness of youth, and the nobleness of manhood's sacred joy : Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, That rollest from the gorgeous gloom Of evening over brake and bloom And meadow, slowly breathing bare The round of space, and rapt below Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood, And shadowing down the horned flood In ripples, fan my brows and blow The fever from my cheek, and sigh The full new life that feeds thy breath Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, 111 brethren, let the fancy fly From belt to belt of crimson seas On leagues of odour streaming far, To where in yonder orient star A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.' "Vision after vision of Nature, each of a greater beauty and sentiment than its predecessor, succeed one another, and each of them is fitted to a corresponding exaltation of the emotions of the soul. Take 'Calm and LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxxv still night on yon great plain,' 'By night we linger'd on the lawn,' and the storm (he loved tempestuous days) : The forest crack'd, the waters curPd, The cattle huddled on the lea; And wildly dash'd on tower and tree The sunbeam strikes along the world." "It must be remembered," my father notes, "that 'In Memoriam' is a. poem, not an actual biography. It is founded on our friendship, on the engagement of Arthur Hallam to my sister, on his sudden death at Vienna, just before the time fixed for their marriage, and on his burial at Clevedon Church. The poem concludes with the marriage of my youngest sister Cecilia. It was meant to be a kind of Divina Commedia, ending with happiness. The sections were written at many different places, and as the phases of our intercourse came to my memory and suggested them. I did not write them with any view of weaving them into a whole, or for publication, until I found that I had written so many. The different moods of sorrow as in a drama are dramatically given, and my conviction that fear, doubts, and suffering will find answer and relief only through faith in a God of love. 'If ig not always the author speaking of himself, but the voice of the human race speaking through him. After the death of A. H. H. the divisions of the poem are made by First Xmas Eve (Section xxvih.), Second Xmas (lxxviii.), Third Xmas Eve (civ. and cv., etc.). I myself did not see Clevedon till years after the burial of A. H. H. Jan. 3, 1834, and then in later editions of 'In Memoriam' I altered the word 'chancel,' which was the word used by Mr. Hallam in his Memoir, to 'dark church.' As to the localities in which the poems were written, some were written in Lincolnshire, some in I^ondon, Essex, Gloucestershire, Wales, anywhere where I happened to be. "And as for the metre of 'In Memoriam' I had no notion till 1880 that Lord Herbert of Cherbury had written his occasional verses in the same metre. I believed myself the originator of the metre, until after 'In Memoriam' came out, when some one told me that Ben Jonson and Sir Philip Sidney had used it." With this year of 1850 came to him at once glory, fame, and competence, and the joy and peace of marrying, at Shiplake on the Thames (June 13), the wife for whom he had so long waited. "The peace of God came into my life when I married her." And let me quote here from my Memoir about her, although as a son I cannot allow myself full utterance. "It was she who became my father's adviser in literary matters; 'I am proud of her intellect,' he wrote. With her he always discussed what he was working at ; she transcribed his poems ; to her and to no one else he referred for a final criticism before publishing. She, with her 'tender, spiritual nature,' xxxvi LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON and instinctive nobility of thought, was always by his side, a ready, cheerful, courageous, wise, and sympathetic counsellor. It was she who shielded his sensitive spirit from the annoyances and trials of life, answering (for example) the innumerable letters addressed to him from all parts of the world. By her quiet sense of humour, by her selfless devotion, by 'her faith as clear as the heights of the June-blue heaven,' she helped him also to the utmost in the hours of his depression and of his sorrow; and to her he wrote two of the most beautiful of his shorter lyrics, 'Dear, near and true,' and the dedicatory lines which prefaced his last volume, 'The Death of CEnone.'" Five months after his marriage my father was offered the poet-laureate- ship by the Queen, for the Prince Consort had read "In Memoriam" and delighted in it. Curiously enough the night before the offer came he dreamt that the Prince had kissed him on the cheek, and that he had remarked, "Very kind, but very German." He took a day to consider the offer, and at the last wrote two letters, one accepting and one refusing, and determined to make up his mind after consulting with his friends. He hated being thrust forward before the public. One evening at Bath House Milnes had wished to introduce him to the Duke of Wellington. "No," said he, "why should the great Duke be bothered by a poor poet like me?" When he had been officially proclaimed poet-laureate he complained that he was thenceforward inundated with letters, that he could not possibly answer them all, but at any rate, in many an instance, his correspondence bears witness to his open-hearted kindness and liberality. Moxon asked him to publish a fresh volume of poems. The seventh edition of collected poems appeared in 1851 with the dedication to the Queen : Rever'd, beloved — O you that hold A nobler office upon earth Than arms or power of brains or birth Could give the warrior Kings of old. A little later were published National Songs, "Rise, Britons, Rise," "The Third of February," "Hands all Round." One of the deepest desires of his life was to help the realisation of the ideal of an Empire by the most intimate union of every part of our British Empire. He believed that every part so united would, with a heightening of individuality to each member, give such strength, greatness, and stability to the whole as would make our Empire a faithful and fearless leader in all that is good throughout the world. Dr. Warren writes : English of the English, emphatically a national poet, he was at the same time cosmopolitan in his sympathies, 1 and no modern English poet is so well known 1 For example he felt deep sympathy with Poland and Montenegro. His sonnets entitled "Poland" and "Montenegro" have been translated over and over again in LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxxvii abroad, as the translations of Morel, of Freiligrath, Strodtmann, Feis and others, of Saladino Saladini and D. Vicente De Arana, or the remarkable recent book of Dr. Roman Dyboski on Tennyson's Language and Style, may testify. At his centenary, his work received, in such articles as those of M. Emile Faguet, M. Firmin Roz, and M. Auguste Filon, a recognition in France yet more striking than that in England. So, again, no English poet of recent times has met with so much attention across the seas, notably from writers like Stedman, Genung and Van Dyke in the United States, and Dr. S. Dawson and others in our own colonies. Husband and wife set up housekeeping at Warninglid, Sussex, looking on the South Downs ; next year they went to Chapel House, Twickenham, where I was born. Their first child had been born dead. At the time my father wrote : It was Easter Sunday, and at his birth I heard the great roll of the organ, of the uplifted psalm (in the chapel adjoining the house) . Dead as he was I felt proud of him. To-day when I write this down the remembrance of it rather overcomes me : but I am glad that I have seen him, dear little nameless one that hast lived tho' thou hast never breathed, I, thy father, love thee and weep over thee, tho' thou hast no place in the Universe. Who knows? It may be that thou hast. . . . God's will be done. My father and mother later took a tour in Italy, and the poem of the " Daisy" was written to commemorate it. In 1852 he published his great "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington." He also attended a levee at Court in the Court suit that Wordsworth wore, and first became acquainted with his true friend of later years, the Duke of Argyll. "I am so glad to know you," said the Duke. "You won't find much in me after all," was the blunt rejoinder. In 1853 they entered into the occupation of Farringford in the Isle of Wight as their permanent home. When they had first "gazed from the drawing-room window out through the distant wreath of trees towards a sea of Mediterranean blue, with rosy capes beyond, the down on the left rising above the foreground of undulating park, golden-leaved elms and chestnuts, and red-stemmed pines," they agreed that they must if possible have that view to live with. On taking up their abode there they at once settled to a country life, looking after their farm and garden, and tending the poor and sick of the village. His Love of Children. "Maud." The years spent at Farringford were the happiest of my father's life. In March 1854 another son, Lionel, was born. Of babies he would say: different languages, and have been published and republished in these two countries; and the Montenegrins have more than once placed wreaths on his grave in Westminster Abbey. For a Polish appreciation see Mine. Modjeska's Memories and Impressions, pp. 397-8. xxxviii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON "There is something gigantic about them. The wide-eyed wonder of a babe has a majesty in it which as children they lose. They seem to be prophets of a mightier race." To his own children he was devoted, took part in their pastimes and amusements, and was their constant companion. I remember his emphatic recitation in those far-off years of "Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre, Mironton, mironton, mirontaine," of " Si le roi m'avait donne Paris sa grand' ville," of "Ye Mariners of England," and of "The Burial of Sir John Moore," and my father's words spoken long ago still dwell with me, "A truthful man generally has all virtues." He taught us to appreciate beauty in Nature and in Art. Drama, simple music, painting, sculpture, and architecture, all had their message for him. The first Latin I learned from him was Horace's O fans Bandusiae, and the first Greek the beginning of the Iliad. 1 Before this he liked to make us learn and repeat ballads, and simple poems about Nature, but he would never teach us his own poems, or allow us to get them by heart. In the summer as children we generally passed through London to Lincolnshire, and he would take us for a treat to Westminster Abbey, the Zoological Gardens, the Tower of London, the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum, or the National Gallery. The last he much delighted in, and would point us out the various excellences of different masters; he always led the way first of all to the "Raising of Lazarus" by Sebastian del Piombo, and to Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne." A favourite saying of his was, "Make the lives of children as beautiful and happy as possible." He occasionally travelled in the summer, visited his friends or enter- tained them in his own house. With FitzGerald he began to learn Persian in order to read Hafiz in the original. F. D. Maurice among others came, and my father welcomed him to his home in the well-known poem : Come, when no graver cares employ, Godfather, come and see your boy : Your presence will be sun in winter, Making the little one leap for joy. 1 See article by H. G. Dakyns in Tennyson and His Friends. LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xxxix Should all our churchmen foam in spite At you, so careful of the right, Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight : Where, far from noise and smoke of town, I watch the twilight falling brown All round a careless-order'd garden Close to the ridge of a noble down. The first important poem which was written at Farringford was "The Charge of the Light Brigade," then (1855) "Maud, or the Madness" — called now the most passionate of love poems, although at first denounced as too morbid and too melancholy to be tolerated. "This poem is a little Hamlet, the history of a morbid poetic soul, under the blighting influence of a recklessly spectdating age. He is the heir of madness, an egotist with the makings of a cynic, raised to sanity by a pure and holy love which elevates his whole nature, passing from the height of triumph to the lowest depths of misery, driven into madness by the loss of her whom he has loved, and, when he has at length passed through the fiery furnace, and has recovered his reason, giving himself up to work for the good of mankind through the unselfishness born of his great passion." My father pointed out that even Nature at first presented itself to the man in sad visions. And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air. The "blood-red heath," too, is an exaggeration of colour, and his suspicion that all the world is against him is as true to his nature as the mood when he is "fantastically merry." "The peculiarity of this poem," my father added, "is that different phases of passion in one person take the place of different characters." The writing of "Maud" was largely due to that friend of friends, Sir John Simeon. Looking through a volume of manuscripts one day at Farringford Sir John came upon the lyric : O that 'twere possible After long grief and pain To find the arms of my true love Round me once again ! When I was wont to meet her In the silent woody places By the home that gave me birth, We stood tranced in long embraces Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter Than anything on earth. xl LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON "Why do you keep those beautiful lines unpublished?" he said. My father told him that the poem had appeared years before in The Tribute, but that it was really intended to be part of a dramatic poem. Sir John gave him no peace until he had woven a story round these lines, and so "Maud" came into being. I shall never forget his last reading of it at Aldworth on August 24, 1892. He was sitting in his high-backed chair, fronting a southern window, which looks over the groves and yellow corn-fields of Sussex toward the long line of south downs that stretches from Arundel to Hastings (his high-domed Rembrandt-like head outlined against the sunset-clouds seen through the western window). His voice, low and calm in every-day life, capable of delicate and manifold inflection, but with "organ tones" of great power and range, thoroughly brought out the drama of the poem. From the proceeds of the sale of "Maud" he was enabled to com- plete the purchase of Farringford. In 1854 he visited Glastonbury and Wells, in 1855 the New Forest and Oxford where he was made a D. C. L., in 1856 Wales, in 1858 Norway, in 1859 Portugal, in i860 Cornwall, and in 1861 the Pyrenees, where he wrote "All along the Valley," in memory of his sojourn in the Valley of Cauteretz with Arthur Hallam more than thirty years before. "The Idylls of the King." In 1859 he brought out his first four "Idylls of the King" — "Enid," "Vivien," "Elaine," and "Guinevere," — which aroused as much enthusiasm as "Maud" had provoked resentment. Ten thousand copies were sold in the week of publication. Thackeray sends a letter to him : Reading the lines ("Blow, bugle, blow") which only one man in the world could have written, I thought about the horns of Elfland blowing in full strength, and Arthur in gold armour and Guinevere in gold hair, and all those heroes and knights and beauties and purple landscapes and misty gray lakes in which you have made me live. They seem like facts to me, since about three weeks ago (three weeks or a month was it ?) when I read the book. It is on the table yonder, and I don't like somehow to disturb it, but the delight and gratitude ! Some of his friends, however, like Ruskin, complained that "so great power ought not to be spent on visions of things past but on the living present," and that they felt "the art and the finish a little more than they liked to feel it." Swinburne, himself "a reed through which all things blow into music," although dissatisfied with the " scheme " of the " Idylls," admired their "exquisite magnificence of style." And Edward FitzGerald wrote: "I feel how pure, noble, and holy your work is, and whole phrases, lines, and sentences will abide with me, and, I am sure, with men after me." "I believe," my father said to me, "the existence of King Arthur ■ LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xli (500 a.d.) is more or less mythical." He is mentioned in the Welsh Bards of the seventh century as "the leader." In the twelfth century Geoffrey of Monmouth collected the legends about him as a European conqueror in his History of the Britons, and translated them from Celtic into Latin. Wace translated them into French, and added the story of the Round Table. "My meaning in the 'Idylls of the King' was spiritual. I took the legendary stories of the Round Table as illustrations. Arthur was allegorical to me. I intended to represent him as the Ideal of the Soul of Man coming in contact with the warring elements of the flesh." He continued, "Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing colours. Every reader must find his own interpretation accord- ing to his ability, and according to his sympathy with the poet." He notes, "The personal drift of the Idylls is clear enough. The whole is a dream of man coming into practical life and ruined by one sin (the guilty love of Launcelot and of Guinevere). Birth is a mystery and Death is a mystery, and in the midst lies the table-land of life, and its struggles and performances. It is not the history of one man or of one generation, but of a whole cycle of generations. The vision of Arthur as I have drawn him came upon me when while little more than a boy I first lighted upon Malory." He has made the old legends his own, restored the idealism, and infused into them a spirit of modern thought and an ethical signifi- cance, setting his characters in a rich and varied landscape; as indeed, otherwise, these archaic stories would not have appealed to the modern world at large. There is no more reason why he should follow Malory's version than that Malory should be true to Walter Map. He felt himself justified, in always having pictured Arthur in his parable as the ideal man, by such passages as this from Joseph of Exeter: "The old world knows not his peer, nor will the future show us his equal : he alone towers over other kings, better than the past ones and greater than those that are to be." "Undoubtedly," Sir Alfred Lyall writes, "the figure of Arthur — representing a warrior-king endowed with the qualities of unselfishness, clemency, generosity, and noble trustfulness, yet betrayed by his wife and his familiar friend, forgiving her and going forth to die in a last fight against treacherous rebels — has a grandeur and a pathos that might well affect a gravely emotional people. Moreover, the poem is a splendidly illuminated Morality." The coming of Arthur is on the night of the New Year : when he is wedded "the world is white with May": on a summer night the vision of the Holy Grail appears: and the "Last Tournament is in the following autumn-tide." Guinevere flies through the mists of autumn, and Arthur's death takes place at midnight in midwinter. The form of the "Coming of Arthur" and of the "Passing" is purposely more xlii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON archaic than that of the other Idylls. In 1832 had appeared the first of the Arthurian poems in the form of a lyric, "The Lady of Shalott" (another version of the story of Launcelot and Elaine), and this was followed in 184.2 by the other lyrics "Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere," "Sir Galahad." The 1842 volume also contained the "Morte d' Arthur," written about 1835. In 1869 my father published the "Coming of Arthur," "The Holy Grail," and "Pelleas and Ettarre," the volume containing also the well-known poems, "Lucretius," "a masterly study of the great Roman sceptic," 1 and the second "Northern Farmer"; in 1871 "The Last Tournament," in 1872 "Gareth and Lynette," and in 1885 "Balin and Balan." Thus he completed the "Idylls of the King" in twelve books. The poem regarded as a whole gives his innermost being more fully perhaps, though not more truly, than "In Memoriam." In "Gareth" the "joy of life in steepness overcome, And victories of ascent " lives in the eternal youth of goodness. But in the later "Idylls " the allowed sin not only poisons the spring of life in the sinner, but spreads its poison through the whole community. In some natures, even among those who would "rather die than doubt," it breeds suspicion and want of trust in God and man. Some loyal souls are wrought to madness against the world. Others, and some among the highest intellects, become the slaves of the evil which is at first half-disdained. Tender natures sink under the blight, that which is of the highest in them working their death. And in some, as faith declines, religion turns from practical goodness and holiness to superstition : This madness has come on us for our sin. These seek relief in selfish spiritual excitement, not remembering that man's duty is to forget self in the service of others, and to let visions come and go, and that so only will they see "The Holy Thing." In the Idyll of "Pelleas and Ettarre," selfishness has turned to open crime; it is "the breaking of the storm " ; nevertheless Pelleas still honours his sacred vow to the King and spares the wrong-doers. Whereas in "The Last Tourna- ment" the wrong-doer "suffers his doom," and "is cloven thro' the brain." We have here the deadly proof of the kinship of all wilful sin, murder following adultery in closest relation of cause and consequence, — the prelude of the final act of the tragedy which culminates in the temporary triumph of evil, the confusion of the moral order, closing in the great "Battle of the West." When my father wrote the dedication of "The Idylls or Epylls of the King" to the Prince Consort after his death, the Queen invited him to visit her. He was much affected by his interview. He told how she stood pale and statue-like before him speaking in a 1 Andrew Lang. LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xliii quiet, unutterably sad voice. "There was a kind of stately innocence about her." She said many kind things to him, such as: "Next to the Bible 'In Memoriam' is my comfort." She talked of Hallam, and of Macaulay, of Goethe, and of Schiller in connection with the Prince, and observed that he was so like the picture of Arthur Hallam in "In Memoriam," even to his blue eyes. My father suggested that he thought that the Prince would have made a great King ; she answered, "He always said that it did not signify whether he did the right thing or did not, so long as the right thing was done." As will be seen from the letters between my father and the Queen in my Memoir of my father there was a very real friendship between them. After another interview, November 1883, he wrote to her Majesty, "During our conversation I felt the touch of that true friendship which binds human beings together, whether they be Kings or cobblers." "Enoch Arden," Ald worth, and the Plays. My father now wrote more English Idylls, "The Idylls of the Hearth." The story of Enoch Arden the fisherman, who after years of exile comes home to find his wife married to another, was given him by the sculptor Woolner. At one time of his life he lodged for many months with fisher- men in their cottages by the sea. He loved the sea as much as any sailor, and knew all its moods whether on the shore or in mid-ocean. Hence some of his most successful poems were "Enoch Arden," "The Revenge," "Break, Break," "The Sailor Boy," "The Voyage," "Sea Dreams." "Enoch Arden" is the most popular of his poems on the Continent. In the volume of 1864 were included "Aylmer's Field," "Tithonus," "The Northern Farmer," "The Flower," "The Grandmother." Edward FitzGerald, after reading "The Northern Farmer," wrote: I read on till the "Lincolnshire Farmer" drew tears to my eyes. I was got back to the substantial rough-spun Nature I knew ; and the old brute, invested by you with the solemn Humour of Humanity, like Shakespeare's Shallow, became a more pathetic phenomenon than the knights who revisit the world in your other verse. It may be noted that this study of character set the fashion throughout Great Britain and America of drawing character-sketches in rough-hewn ballads. During the summer of 1864 he visited Brittany. In 1865 he visited Waterloo and Weimar and Dresden, in 1866 Marlborough, in 1867 Dorset- shire and South Devon, in 1868 Tintern Abbey and South Wales. In 1869 he took a tour in Switzerland. In 1871 he went to North Wales, in 1872 to Paris and Grenoble, in 1873 to the Italian Lakes, and in 1874 xliv LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON to the Pyrenees, which he had last seen in 1861. These tours spurred him on to work, as is shown by the numerous poems written during those years. Meanwhile, he received numberless guests, Garibaldi, Owen, Tyndall, Huxley, Tourgenieff the Russian novelist, Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands, Longfellow, George Eliot, Gladstone, Jenny Lind, Bradley, Montagu Butler, Lady Franklin, Palgrave, Jowett, and the Duke of Argyll. Of Garibaldi he spoke with enthusiasm: "He is marvellously simple, but in worldly matters he seems to have the divine stupidity of a hero." He wrote his impressions of the man as follows to the Duke of Argyll : — Did you hear Garibaldi repeat any Italian poetry ? I did, for I had heard that he himself had made songs and hymns ; and I asked him, "Are you a poet ? " "Yes," he said quite simply, whereupon I spouted to him a bit of Manzoni's great ode, that which Gladstone translated. I don't know whether he relished it, but he began immediately to speak of Ugo Foscolo, and quoted, with great fervour, a fragment of his "I Sepolcri," beginning with "II navigante die veleggio," etc. and ending with "Delle Parche il canto," which verses he afterwards wrote out for me : and they certainly seem to be fine, whatever the rest of the poem may be. I have not yet read it but mean to do so, for he sent me Foscolo's Poesie from London; and in return I sent him the "Idylls of the King," which I do not suppose he will care for. What a noble human being ! I expected to see a hero and I was not disappointed. One cannot exactly say of him what Chaucer says of the ideal knight, "As meke he was of port as is a maid"; he is more majestic than meek, and his manners have a certain divine simplicity in them, such as I have never witnessed in a native of these islands, among men at least, and they are gentler than those of most young maidens whom I know. He came here and smoked his cigar in my little room and we had a half hour's talk in English, tho' I doubt whether he understood me perfectly, and his meaning was often obscure to me. I ventured to give him a little advice : he denied that he came with any political purpose to England, merely to thank the English for their kindness to him, and the interest they had taken in himself and all Italian matters, and also to consult Ferguson about his leg. Stretching this out he said, "There's a campaign in me yet." When I asked if he returned thro' France, he said he would never set foot on the soil of France again. I happened to make use of this expression, "That fatal debt of gratitude owed by Italy to Napoleon." " Gratitude," he said ; "hasn't he had his pay? his reward? If Napoleon were dead I should be glad, and if I were dead he would be glad." These are slight chroniclings, but I thought you would like to have them. He seemed especially taken with my two little boys. He now began to study Hebrew with a view to making a metrical version of "Job." One day he asked Jowett to give him a literal transla- tion of one of the verses. "But I can't read Hebrew," said Jowett. "What!" he exclaimed, "you the Priest of a great religion and can't read your own sacred books." On April 23, 1868, Shakespeare's LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xlv birthday, he and his friend, Sir John Simeon, laid the foundation of his house, Aldworth, in Sussex, which he afterwards always inhabited in the summer to avoid the stream of tourists who invaded him in the Isle of Wight. We read in my mother's Journal his expression of a wish that, if ever the shields on the mantelpiece in his study were emblazoned, they should be emblazoned with arms or devices representing the great modern poets, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, and Words- worth, and if there had been another shield he would have added Moliere. Aubrey de Vere wrote of the new home : The second home was as well chosen as the first. It lifted England's great poet to a height from which he could gaze on a large portion of that English land which he loved so well, see it basking in its most affluent summer beauty, and only bounded by the "inviolate sea." Year after year he trod its two stately terraces with men the most noted of their time, statesmen, warriors, men of letters, science and art, some of royal race, some famous in far lands, but none more welcome to him than the friends of his youth. Nearly all of those were taken from him by degrees ; but many of them stand successively recorded in his verse. The days which I passed there yearly with him and his were the happiest days of each year. They will retain a happy place in my memory during whatever short period my life may last ; and the sea murmurs of Freshwater will blend with the sighing of the woods around Aldworth, for me, as for many more worthy, a music, if mournful, yet full of consolation. In 1872 some prominent politicians were advocating the breaking of the connection between Great Britain and Canada. My father was roused to indignation, and wrote in his " Epilogue to the Idylls of the King": And that true North, whereof we lately heard A strain to shame us "keep you to yourselves; So loyal is too costly ! friends — your love Is but a burthen; loose the bond, and go." Is this the tone of empire ? here the faith That made us rulers ? this, indeed, her voice And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven ? The following letter from Lord Dufferin (February 25, 1873) tells of the happy effect these words had in Canada : — The assertion that their connection with Great Britain weakens their self- confidence or damps the ardour of Canadian Nationality is a pure invention. Amongst no people have I ever met more contentment with their general condition, a more legitimate faith in all those characteristics which constitute their nationality, or a firmer faith in the destinies in store for them. Your noble words have struck responsive fire from every heart; they have been published in every newspaper, and have been completely effectual to heal the wounds occasioned by the senseless language of the Times. xlvi LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON In 1874 he and Sir James Knowles founded the Metaphysical Club, the object of the Society being that those who were ranged on the side of Faith should meet and discuss with those ranged on the side of Unfaith. During one of the preliminary meetings, d propos of some angry discussion, my father said humorously, "Modern science at all events ought to have taught men to separate light from heat/' and this was adopted as the rule of the Society. At this time he was elected an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. "Queen Mary," the first play of what he called his "historical trilogy" ("Harold," "Becket," and "Queen Mary"), was begun about 1873 an d published in 1875. "This trilogy of plays," he noted, "portrays the making of England." In "Harold" (1876), that "Tragedy of Doom," we have the great conflict between Danes, Saxons, and Normans for supremacy, the awakening of the English people and clergy from the slumber into which they had for the most part fallen, and the forecast of the greatness of our composite race. In "Becket" (printed 1879, published 1884) the struggle is between the Crown and the Church for predominance, a struggle which continued for many centuries. In "Mary" are described the final downfall of Roman Catholicism in England, and the dawning of a new age ; for after the era of priestly domination comes the era of the freedom of the individual. "In 'The Foresters'" (1892), he notes, "I have sketched the state of the people in another great transition period of the making of England, when the barons sided with the people and eventually won for them the Magna Charta." To begin publishing plays for the stage after he was sixty-five years of age was thought to be a hazardous experiment. He had, however, always taken the liveliest interest in the theatre ; and he bestowed infinite trouble on his dramas. He was quite alive to the fact that for him to attempt dramatic work would be at first unpopular, since he was then mainly regarded as an Idyllic, or as a Lyric, poet. But Spedding, a first- rate Shakespearian scholar, George H. Lewes, George Eliot, and Irving admired his plays and encouraged him to persevere in spite of all dis- couragement, especially praising the faithful and subtle delineation of character and the "great dramatic moments." He felt that he had the power; and even at the age of fourteen he had written plays which were extraordinary for a boy, full of vivid contrasts and striking scenic effects. To meet the conditions of the modern theatre my father studied many modern plays. He had also refreshed his mind with reading "Job" in the Hebrew, for which he had the highest admiration, and the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, which were to him full of reality and moral beauty. All his life he enjoyed discovering the causes of historical and social movements, and had a strong desire to reverse unfair judgments, and an eager delight in the analysis of human motive. "Queen Mary," LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xlvii "The Cup," "The Falcon," "Becket," and "The Foresters" were all more or less successful on the stage, and it seems to me that some of his finest work is to be found in them. "Becket" is, as my father recognised, "loosely constructed," but Irving wrote that it was "a finer play than ' King John/ " and said that it was a mistake to imagine that he "had made" "Becket," for this drama, especially the closing act, was "an inspiration." That and "The Cup" were two of Irving's four great popular triumphs. For a while, indeed, original poetic drama was restored by the poet and the actor to the English stage. It was interesting to my father to learn the impression made by "Becket" upon Roman Catholics. He first asked the opinion of his neighbour at Freshwater, W. G. Ward. He could not have asked a more candid, truth-speaking critic than this "most generous of all Ultra- montanes," who was deeply versed not only in the spirit and doctrine of his own Church, but also in the modern French and English drama. Ward listened patiently, though convinced "that the whole play would be out of his line." At the end of the play he broke out: "Dear me ! I did not expect to enjoy it at all. It is splendid ! How wonderfully you have brought out the phases of his character as Chancellor and Archbishop! Where did you get it all?" Struggle for power under one guise or another has doubtless been among the most fruitful sources of theme for tragedy. During many centuries, as we know, "spiritual power," clothed in earthly panoply, seemed to most men to be the one embodiment of the Divine Power. What struck those who saw the play on the stage was the clear and impressive manner in which he had brought out Becket's feeling that in accepting the Archbishopric he had changed masters, that he was not simply advanced to a higher service of the same liege lord, but that he had changed his former lord paramount, whose fiery self-will made havoc of his fine intellect, for one of higher degree ; and had become a power distinct from, and it might be antago- nistic to, the king. His Life in the Country. At this period of his life my father would tramp over hill and dale, with his crook-handled stick, accompanied by my brother, myself, or a friend, and by a dog, not caring if the weather were fair or foul, every now and then stopping in his rapid walk to give point to an argument or to an anecdote. When alone with me he would often chant a poem that he was composing, and add fresh lines. There was the same keen eye as of old for strange birds or flowers, and, as of old, the same love of fair landscape. If a tourist were seen coming towards him he would flee ; for many would recognise from a distance his broad-brimmed wide-awake (the kind of hat that Carlyle, Sir Henry Taylor, and others of his contemporaries wore) xlviii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON and his short blue cape with velvet collar, and would deliberately make for him in order to put some question. His hours were quite regular. He breakfasted at eight, lunched at two, dined at seven. At dessert, if alone, he would read to himself, or if friends were in the house he would sit with them for an hour or so, and entertain them with varied talk. He worked chiefly in the morning over his pipe, or in the evening after his pint of port, also over his pipe. Rare books or books with splendid bindings he never cared for; yet he treasured his first edition of Spenser's Faerie Queene, and his second edition of Paradise Lost. He would read over and over again his favourite authors, and his delight was genuine when he came across a new author who "seemed to have some- thing in him." He was fond of simple music — Beethoven's songs, and English, Scotch, and Irish ballads. He was not unfrequently abstracted in mood for days while he was composing, which made him appear brusque to strangers, but alone with his family he was never so happy as when engaged on a great subject. 'His very directness and simplicity, moreover, caused him sometimes to be misunderstood. With strangers, doubtless, he was shy at first, owing mostly to his short-sight, though none could be more genial when he thawed. No one could have been more tolerant cf or more gracious to dull people ; and out of his imaginative large-hearted- ness he usually invested every one with higher qualities than he or she possessed. As Jowett observed, "He would sit by a very commonplace person, telling stories with the most high-bred courtesy, endless stories not too high or too low for everyday conversation." Frederick Locker thus describes the lighter side of his nature: "Balzac's remark that 1 dans tout homme de genie il y a un enfant ' may find its illustration in Tennyson. He is the only grown-up human being that I know of who habitually thinks aloud. His humour is of the dryest, it is admirable. . . . He tells a story excellently, and has a catching laugh. There are people who laugh because they are shy or disconcerted, or for lack of ideas . . . only a few because they are happy or amused, or perhaps triumphant. Tennyson has an entirely natural, and a very kindly laugh." He had the passion of a scientist for facts. His talk travelled over a vast range of subjects, his dignity and repose of manner, his low musical voice, and the power of his magnetic eye keeping the attention riveted. With the country-folk he loved to converse ; especially seeking out the poor old men, from whom he always tried to ascertain their thoughts upon death and the future life. His afternoons he generally spent on one of our smaller lawns, sur- rounded by birch and different sorts of pine and fir and cypress, after the fashion of separate green parlours. Here he would read the daily papers or some book to my mother lying out in her sofa chair, or would receive friends from the neighbourhood, or would talk to guests staying in the house. LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON xlix Friends, the Peerage, Lionel's Death. My mother was seriously ill in 1875, and I was summoned home from Cambridge. I became my father's secretary, and stayed with him continuously until his death. In 1876 we visited Edward FitzGerald at Woodbridge, and Gladstone at Hawarden. We found Edward FitzGerald in his garden at Little Grange among his papers, and he and my father talked of the old days. They reverted, of course, to their favourite Crabbe, my father laying stress on his "sledge-hammer lines," and Fitz- Gerald telling how he (Crabbe), when a chaplain in the country, felt an irresistible longing to see the sea, mounted a horse suddenly, rode thirty miles to the coast, saw it, and rode back comforted. They also referred to Thackeray, whose work my father called "so delicious, so mature" ; while Fitz said of him, "I hardly dare take down Thackeray's early books, they are so great, it is like waking the thunder." At Hawarden the conversation between my father and Gladstone ranged over Dante, "Harold," Gladstone's late speech about remitting the income-tax, modern morality, the force of public opinion, the evils of materialism, and the new Biblical criticism. When we were in London, Ruskin, Browning, and Renan visited us, and we paid a visit to Lord Russell at Pembroke Lodge. "The craven fear of being great" my father felt was among the besetting sins of certain English statesmen, and in reply to this Lord Russell cried aloud that there must be no niggardliness with regard to armaments. They were both convinced that "if our colonies could be welded with the United Kingdom into one Imperial whole, we should be able to stand alone." General Gordon, to whom my father's poems were after- wards a comfort and delight in those last days at Khartoum, came to lunch with us. Having learnt that we had no guests he glided spirit-like into the dining-room where we were already seated. Going up straight to my father he said in a solemn voice, " Mr. Tennyson, I want you to do something for the young soldiers. You alone are the man who can do it. We want train- ing-homes for them all over England." In consequence the Gordon Home \;is initiated by my father after Gordon's death and in his memory. Two or three times we met George Eliot in town, and my father told her that the flight of Hetty in Adam Bede and Thackeray's gradual breaking down of Colonel Newcome were the two most pathetic things in modern prose fiction. We often saw Carlyle. My father would observe, "Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle on the whole enjoyed life together, else they would not have chaffed one another so heartily." One day I remember Carlyle putting his hands on Alfred, my brother Lionel's son, and saying solemnly "Fair fall thee, little man, in this world and the next." During 1877 my brother visited Victor Hugo in Paris, and my father addressed to him the sonnet "Victor in Drama, Victor in Romance." 1 To which Hugo replied, "I 1 He admired Alfred de Musset as an artist more than Victor Hugo. 1 LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON believe in Divine Unity. I love all the peoples, and admire your noble poetry." In 1878 my father renewed his acquaintance with Ireland, going to Westport, Galway, and Killarney. In 1879 my uncle, Charles Tennyson Turner, died. The death of this favourite brother profoundly affected my father; he began to hear ghostly mysterious voices all round him. Dr. Andrew Clark ordered him abroad, so we journeyed in June 1880 to Venice, and the journey did in effect restore his health: while at Sirmio, Catullus's " all-but-island," he wrote the touching lines "Frater Ave atque Vale." At the close of 1880 he published Ballads and Other Poems, which had a large sale, "Rizpah" and "The Revenge" and "The Defence of Lucknow" being among the most popular of his poems. Then came in 1881 and 1883 the deaths of his old friends Spedding and Fitz Gerald. Gone into the darkness, that full light Of friendship ! Past in sleep away By night into the deeper night ! The deeper night ? A clearer day Than our poor twilight dawn on earth. In 1 88 1 he strongly advocated the federation of Australia, and wrote to the Australian statesman, Sir Henry Parkes : "I always feel with the Empire, and I read with great interest of these first steps in Federation." He looked forward to Australian Federation as the prelude to some sort of Imperial Federation. Previously he had written to Mr. Dudley Adams of Sydney: "Perhaps some day one of the dreams of my life may be realised, and England and her colonies be as truly one Empire as the counties of England are one kingdom, the aims of the Empire still higher than those of the kingdom. But this will not be in my own time, I fear. The strife of party must have outworn itself, and the faith of the world have shaped itself into one great simple creed before the Great Sequel." In 1883 we cruised with Gladstone in the Pembroke Castle to Copen- hagen — thousands of people lining the shore as we steamed off from Barrow, and cheering for "Gladstone" and "Tennyson." The friends agreed not to talk on politics, about which they disagreed, and the conversation often fell on Dante, Goethe, Milton, Shakespeare, and the English poets and prose writers. "No one," said Gladstone, "since ^schylus could have written The Bride of Lammermoor" My father was inclined to think Old Mortality Scott's greatest novel. Goethe's songs in Wilhelm Meister he would recite with highest admiration. "Read the exquisite songs of Burns," he would say, — "in shape each of them has the perfec- tion of the berry, in light the radiance of the dewdrop." Of Gray he said: "Gray in his limited sphere is great, and has a wonderful ear." The following he held to be "among the most liquid lines in any language": LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON li Though he inherit Nor the pride, nor ample pinion That the Theban eagle bear, Sailing with supreme dominion Through the azure deep of air. During the voyage Gladstone urged upon him to accept a peerage, laying stress on the nobility and insight of his political and historical poems, and on the greatness of "Guinevere" and of "In Memoriam." He was very unwilling to do so. In the end he consented for the sake of literature. Moreover, he was grateful to the Queen, who desired that he should belong to what he regarded as "the greatest Upper Chamber in the world." He looked upon it as foremost in debating power, a stable, wise, and moderating influence in these changeful democratic days. He wrote: "By Gladstone's advice I have consented to take a peerage, but for my own part I shall regret my simple name all my life." On March ii, 1884, he took his place on the cross-benches, for he said he "could not pledge himself to Party, which is made too much of a god in these days." He was in favour of reasonable innovation, and there was no really Liberal movement in which he was not in the^ forefront. Like Burke, he had a strong belief in the common-sense and political moderation of the British people, but he did not hesitate to express his opinion that "stagna- tion is more dangerous than revolution." Mr. Arthur Sidgwick notes about his political views : It is easy to idealize freedom, revolution, or war; and the ancients found it easy to compose lyrics on kings, athletes, warriors, or other powerful persons. From the days of Tyrtaeus and Pindar to Byron, Shelley, and Swinburne, one or other of these themes has been the seed of song. But the praise of ordered liberty, of settled government, of political moderation, is far harder to idealize in poetry. It has been the peculiar aim of Tennyson to be the constitutional, and in this sense the national, poet : and it is his peculiar merit and good fortune to have succeeded in giving eloquent and forcible expression to the ideas suggested by these aims. Oh yet, if Nature's evil star Drive men in manhood, as in youth, To follow flying steps of Truth Across the brazen bridge of war — If New and Old, disastrous feud, Must ever shock, like armed foes, And this be true, till Time shall close, That Principles are rain'd in blood ; Not yet the wise of heart would cease To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt, But with his hand against the hilt Would pace the troubled land, like Peace ; lii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay, Would serve his kind in deed and word, Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, That knowledge takes the sword away. The last couplet seems to me — where all is powerful and imaginative — to be a master stroke of terse and pointed expression. It would be hardly an exaggeration to say that it sums up human history in regard to one point — namely, the disturb- ing and even desolating effect of the new Political Idea, until its triumph comes, bringing a higher and more stable adjustment, and a peace more righteous and secure. His first vote was given for the Extension of the Franchise. He writes to Gladstone : Ald worth, July 1884. I did not write more fully knowing how overwhelmed you are with business and anxiety, but you have found time to write to me notwithstanding, and I must answer, and you must read my answer or not as you can and will. Here is some- thing of my creed. The nation is one and includes all ranks of people. I take for granted that botfi Houses are equally anxious to do justice to all. Certainly the House of Peers has the prior claim to confidence, being the older of the two, and it would be a base abdication, if it forewent its right and its duty to reconsider an all-important question. The Extension of Franchise I hold to be matter of justice ; the proper time for bringing forward the question, matter of opinion. Whether this was the proper time or not — Extension I now hold to be an accomplished fact. But I think that at this time, and at all times, redistribution is necessarily an integral part of a true Franchise Bill. For instance, whether the towns are to dominate and absorb the country votes, or the country votes to have their due weight, whether loyal North Ireland is to be overridden by disloyal South, seem to me all-important facts in the true representa- tion of the country. (A Franchise Bill, I take it, is intended to facilitate the choice of those supposed to be best fitted to understand the needs and the claims of the people, and to devise means for satisfying them.) If you solemnly pledge yourselves that the Extension Bill shall not become law before redistribution has been satisfactorily settled, I am quite willing to vote with you, and in proof I come up to town notwithstanding gout. My wife is very grateful for your letter, but will not of course trouble you with a reply. — Ever yours, Tennyson. . I am oppressed with gout, and therefore beg you will excuse my employing my daughter-in-law's hand. On November 14 he forwarded the following lines to the Prime Minister : — LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON liii Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act Of steering, for the river here, my friend, Parts in two channels, moving to one end — This goes straight forward to the cataract : That streams about the bend ; But tho' the cataract seem the nearer way, Whate'er the crowd on either bank may say, Take thou the "bend," 'twill save thee many a day. Gladstone eventually acted in accordance with the hopes my father had expressed, and the Franchise Bill was read a second time without a division. He published his volume, Tiresias and Other Poems, at the end of 1885. Of his autobiographical poem, "The Ancient Sage," dealing, like the "De Profundis," with the deeper problems of human life, he wrote: "The whole poem is very personal. Those passages about 'Faith' and the 'Passion of the Past' were more especially my own personal feelings." The reception of his poem, "To Virgil," gratified him much, as he liked it himself. The year 1886 brought on us a great grief in the death of my brother Lionel on his voyage home from India. He said, "The thought of Lionel's death tears me to pieces, he was so full of promise, and so young." December of this year also saw the publication of "The Promise of May," and of the second part of "Locksley Hall" (dated 1887). The following lines were written about my brother Lionel: — Truth, for Truth is Truth, he worshipt, being true as he was brave; Good, for Good is Good, he follow'd, yet he look'd beyond the grave ! Truth for Truth, and Good for Good ! The Good, the True, the Pure, the Just — Take the charm "For ever" from them, and they crumble into dust. His MS. note on the poem is : A dramatic poem, and the Dramatis Personse are imaginary. Since it is so much the fashion in these days to regard each poem and story as a story of the poet's life or part of it, may I not be allowed to remind my readers of the possi- bility, that some event which comes to the poet's knowledge, some hint flashed from another mind, some thought or feeling arising in his own, or some mood coming - — he knows not whence or how — may strike a chord from which a poem evolves its life, and that this to other eyes may bear small relation to the thought, or fact, or feeling to which the poem owes its birth, whether the tenor be dramatic, or given as a parable ? Such lines as these, however, gave his own belief : Plowmen, Shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still could find, Sons of God, and kings of men in utter nobleness of mind. liv LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON In 1888 he had a serious attack of gout, from which he recovered with difficulty. On his eightieth birthday (1889) he received numberless congratulatory letters and telegrams. "I don't know what I have done," he said, "to make people feel like that towards me, except that I have kept my faith in Immortality." Speaking of Alexander Smith's line "Fame, fame, thou art next to God," he would observe, "Next to God — next to the Devil, say I. Fame might be worth having if it helped us to do good to a single mortal, but what is it ? merely the pleasure of hearing oneself talked of up and down the street." During this year he published his Demeter and Other Poems. The general tone of criticism was to the effect that "Merlin and the Gleam," and "Demeter," and above all "Crossing the Bar," were wonderful productions for a man of fourscore years, and rivalled some of the best of his older poems. "Who is the Pilot in * Crossing the Bar'?" my father was repeatedly asked. "The Divine," he answered. "The Pilot has been on board all the time, but in the dark I have not seen Him." He was inclined to think that the seven of his own best lyrics were, "All along the Valley," "Courage, poor Heart of Stone," "Break, Break, Break," "The Bugle Song," "Ask me no more," "Crossing the Bar," and the blank-verse lyric, "Tears, idle Tears" ; and that his finest simile was — Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might, Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. "In his latest poems," writes Henry Butcher, "we may miss some- thing of the early rapture of his lyric songs, but he is still himself and unmistakable, and had he written nothing but the lines 'To Virgil' and 'Crossing the Bar,' he would have surely taken rank among the highest. Towards the end of his life the moral and religious content of the poems becomes fuller with his deeper sense of the grandeur and pathos of man's existence." Death of Browning. My Father's Last Work and Days. On the day of the publication of Demeter and Other Poems my father heard of the death of Robert Browning : "so loving and appreciative that one cannot but mourn his loss as a friend and as a poet, and one feels that one has lost a mine of great thoughts and pure feelings, and much else besides." My father said something of this sort about his poetry : "He never greatly cares about the glory of words or beauty of form. He seldom attempts the marriage of sense with sound, although he shows a spontaneous felicity in the adaptation of words to ideas and feelings." My father loved Browning and was loved by him. They have now emerged from the inevitable posthumous eclipse. They were both LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON lv imaginative thinkers and creators, noble teachers, holding, in the estimation of their contemporaries, high and honoured rank in the glorious company of great English poets. I never heard talk so brilliant, so deep, so full of imagery as when these two friends talked together. Each had a noble faith in God, and in the purpose of life ; and in each this faith finds a great utter- ance. Their poetic methods, however, were widely different. For example, "Tennyson," Sir Alfred Lyall says, " employed his wonderful image-making power to illustrate some mental state of emotion, availing himself of the mysterious relation between man and his environment, whereby the outer in- animate world is felt to be the resemblance and reflection of human moods." Browning, on the other hand, was constantly propounding moral and intellectual riddles on these " human moods" and the human environ- ment. As my father expressed it, "Browning has a great imagination. He has a genius for an intricate sort of dramatic composition, and for analyzing the human mind in intricate situations." Unlike Browning my father acted strictly on his rule that "the artist is known by his self- limitation." "Only the concise and perfect work," he thought, "would last." He was sometimes in the habit of chronicling in four or five words or more whatever might strike him as a picture, and weaving a poem about this, carrying this poem in his head until it was perfect — or some- times "the poem would come" — his words — in one breath of inspiration. "Hundreds of lines," as he said, " have been blown up the chimney with my pipe smoke, or have been written down and thrown into the fire as not being perfect enough." He delighted in throwing off impromptu verses in various metres. Sir Richard Jebb writes a> follows about his metrical power : — As a metrist, he is the creator of a new blank verse, different both from the Elizabethan and from the Miltonic. He has known how to modulate it to every theme, and to elicit a music appropriate to each; attuning it in turn to a tender and homely grace, as in "The Gardener's Daughter"; to the severe and ideal majesty of the antique, as in "Tithonus"; to meditative thought, as in "The Ancient Sage " or "Akbar's Dream"; to pathetic or tragic tales of contemporary life, as in "Aylmer's Field" or "Enoch Arden"; or to sustained romantic narrative, as in the "Idylls." No English poet has used blank verse with such flexible variety, or drawn from it so large a compass of tones; nor has any maintained it so equably on a high level of excellence. In lyric metres Tennyson has invented much, and has also shown a rare power of adaptation. Many of his lyric measures are wholly his own; while others have been so treated by him as to make them virtually new. At the Tennyson centenary celebration by the British Academy (1909) Lord Curzon said of him: "He (Tennyson) is at least these things — a great artist, a great singer, a great prophet, a great patriot, and a great Englishman." If I may venture to speak of his special influence upon the lvi LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON world, my conviction is that its main and enduring qualities are his power of expression, his range of imagination, the perfection of his work- manship, his strong common-sense, 'the high purport of his life and work, his truthfulness, his humility, his humour, and his broad, open-hearted, and helpful sympathy. The death of the Irish poet Allingham took away from us yet another friend. My father often repeated Allingham's last words: "I see such things as you cannot dream of." In 1890 the great portrait of my father which hangs in the hall of Trinity College, Cambridge, was painted by G. F. Watts at Farringford ; and in June of that year he worked at his Lincolnshire poem "The Church- warden and the Curate," heartily laughing over the humorous passages. Sir Norman Lockyer visited us, and he said of my father, "His mind is saturated with astronomy ; since Dante there has never been so great a scientific poet." In 1891 he was working at his "Akbar," and wrote his majestic hymn to the Sun while cruising in a friend's yacht. The philo- sophers of the East had a great fascination for him, and he felt that the Western religions might learn much from them of spirituality. He took much interest in preparing his "Foresters, or Robin Hood" for the stage. It proved to be a great success in America — an old-world woodland play, "a pastoral without shepherds," and was published in April 1892. In 1 89 1 and 1892 he still took long walks at Farringford and Aldworth with the President of Magdalen, Jowett, the Bishop of Ripon, Arthur Coleridge, Stanford, Dakyns, Henry Butcher, Jebb, and others, talking to them vigorously on all sorts of topics, but I heard him quote more than once, "The wan moon is setting behind the white wave, and time is setting for me, oh !" On a day in June (1892), on one of his daily walks at Farringford, he suddenly felt very tired, a thing unusual with him, and sat down. It was one of the first signs of his failing strength, though as he walked up the garden he cheered up again, and pointed out the splendour of the flowers. On June 29 he partook of the Communion with my mother and said : It is but a communion, not a mass ; No sacrifice, but a life-giving feast — impressing upon the rector (Dr. Merriman) that he could not partake of it except in that sense. He said: "My most passionate desire is to have a clearer vision of God," and "It is impossible to imagine that the Almighty will ask you, when you come before Him in the next life, what your particular form of creed was: but the question will rather be, 'Have you been true to yourself, and given in My Name a cup of cold water to one of these little ones ? ' " On June 30 we left Farringford for Aldworth. My father at first took LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON lvii his regular walks of two or three miles over Blackdown, but the walks dwindled gradually, and he sat more and more in his summer-house. On his eighty-third birthday he quoted from Bacon, "It is Heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in Charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of Truth." In September he looked over the proofs of his last volume The Death of (Enone and Other Poems, many of which had been written during this last year, and which my wife had copied out for the press. On the 28th he complained of great weakness. He read Job and St. Matthew. On Tuesday, October 4, he called out, "Where is my Shakespeare? I must have my Shakespeare." Then he said, "I want the blinds up, I want to see the sky and light." He repeated, "The sky and 'light!" He asked me, "Have I not been walking with Gladstone in the garden, and showing him my trees?" On the day before his death he talked to the doctor about death: "What a shadow this life is, and how men cling to what is after all but a small part of the great world's life." Then the doctor told him (for his interest was always keen " in the lot of lowly men ") of an incident that had happened lately. "A villager, ninety years old, was dying, and had so much pined to see his old bed-ridden wife once more that they carried her to where he lay. He pressed his shrunken hand upon her hand, and in a husky voice said to her, 'Come soon,' and soon after passed away himself." My father murmured "True Faith"; and the tears were in his voice. Suddenly he gathered himself together and spoke one word about himself to the doctor, "Death?" The doctor bowed, and he said, "That's well." Later he exclaimed, "I have opened it." I cannot tell whether he spoke to my mother, referring to the Shakespeare opened by him at Hang there like fruit, my soul, Till the tree die, which he always said were among the tenderest fines in Shakespeare ; or whether these lines from one of his own last poems of which he was fond were running through his head — Fear not thou the hidden purpose of that Power which alone is great, Nor the myriad world, His shadow, nor the silent Opener of the Gate. During the evening the full moon flooded the room and the great landscape outside with light ; and we watched in solemn stillness. He passed away at 1.35 a.m. on Thursday, October 6, his hand resting on his Shakespeare, and I spoke over him his own prayer, "God accept him ! Christ receive him !" because I knew that he would have wished it. • He was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey on October 12, next to Robert Browning and in front of the Chaucer monument. The great lviii LIFE AND WORK OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON crowd round the Abbey and the funeral service with its two anthems, " Crossing the Bar" and "The Silent Voices," rising above the vast congregation, will be long remembered. Every day for weeks after multitudes thronged by the new-made grave in a never-ceasing proces- sion. The tributes of sympathy which we received from many countries and from all classes and creeds were not only remarkable for their universality, but for their depth of feeling. Against the pillar near his grave has been placed the fine bust of him by Woolner. His wife survived him four years, and is buried in the quiet church- yard at Freshwater. Dear, near and true, no truer Time himself Can prove you, tho' he make you evermore Dearer and nearer. TENNYSON. (The best-known portraits of my father are by Laurence, Watts, Herkomer, and Millais. The best photographs are a half-length by Mayall,. a profile by Mrs. Cameron, and two three-quarters by Barraud done in his eightieth year.) TO THE QUEEN. Revered, beloved — O you that hold A nobler office upon earth Than arms, or power of brain, or birth Could give the warrior kings of old, Take, Madam, this poor book of song; For tho' the faults were thick as dust In vacant chambers, I could trust Your kindness. May you rule us long, Victoria, — since your Royal grace To one of less desert allows This laurel greener from the brows Of him that uttered nothing base ; And leave us rulers of your blood As noble till the latest day ! May children of our children say, * She wrought her people lasting good ; And should your greatness, and the care That yokes with empire, yield you time To make demand of modem rhyme If aught of ancient worth be there ; 1 Her court was pure ; her life serene ; God gave her peace ; her land reposed '; A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen ; Then — while a sweeter music wakes, And thro* wild March the throstle calls, Where all about your palace-walls The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes — ' And statesmen at her council met Who knezv the seasons when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet March, 1851. B 1 By shaping some august decree, Which kept her throne unshaken still, Broad-based upon her people's will, And compassed by the inviolate sea.' JUVENILIA CLARIBEL. A MELODY. I. Where Claribel low-lieth The breezes pause and die, Letting the rose-leaves fall : But the solemn oak-tree sigheth, Thick -leaved, ambrosial, With an ancient melody Of an inward agony, Where Claribel low-lieth. II. At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone : At noon the wild bee hummeth About the moss'd headstone : At midnight the moon cometh, And looketh down alone. Her song the lintwhite swelleth, The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, The callow throstle lispeth, The slumbrous wave outwelleth, The babbling runnel crispeth, The hollow grot replieth Where Claribel low-lieth. NOTHING WILL DIE. When will the stream be aweary of flowing Under my eye? When will the wind be aweary of blowing Over the sky? When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting? When will the heart be aweary of beating? And nature die? Never, oh ! never, nothing will die; The stream flows, The wind blows, The cloud fleets, The heart beats, Nothing will die. Nothing will die; All things will change Thro' eternity. 'Tis the world's winter; Autumn and summer Are gone long ago; Earth is dry to the centre, But spring, a new comer, A spring rich and strange, Shall make the winds blow Round and round, Thro' and thro', Here and there, Till the air And the ground Shall be fill'd with life anew. The world was never made; It will change, but it will not fade, j So let the wind range; For even and morn Ever will be Thro' eternity. Nothing was born; Nothing will die; All things will change. ALL THLNGS WLLL DLE — LEONLNE ELEGLACS. ALL THINGS WILL DIE. Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing Under my eye ; Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing Over the sky. One after another the white clouds are fleeting; Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating Full merrily; Yet all things must die. The stream will cease to flow; The wind will cease to blow; The clouds will cease to fleet; The heart will cease to beat; For all things must die. All things must die. Spring will come never more. Oh ! vanity ! Death waits at the door. See ! our friends are all forsaking The wine and the merrymaking. We are calPd — we must go. Laid low, very low, In the dark we must lie. The merry glees are still; The voice of the bird Shall no more be heard, Nor the wind on the hill. Oh ! misery ! Hark ! death is calling While I speak to ye, The jaw is falling, The red cheek paling, The strong limbs failing; Ice with the warm blood mixing; The eyeballs fixing. Nine times goes the passing bell: Ye merry souls, farewell. The old earth Had a birth, As all men know, Long ago. And the old earth must die. So let the warm winds range, And the blue wave beat the shore For even and morn Ye will never see Thro' eternity. All things were born. Ye will come never more, For all things must die. LEONINE ELEGIACS. Low-flowing breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm'd in the gloaming : Thro' the black-stemm'd pines only the far river shines. Creeping thro' blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes, Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall. Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly; the grasshopper carolleth clearly; Deeply the wood-dove coos; shrilly the owlet halloos; Winds creep; dews fall chilly: in her first sleep earth breathes stilly : Over the pools in the burn water-gnats murmur and mourn. Sadly the far kine loweth : the glimmer- ing water outfloweth : Twin peaks shadow'd with pine slope to the dark hyaline. Low-throned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks; but the Naiad Throbbing in mild unrest holds him beneath in her breast. The ancient poetess singeth, that Hes- perus all things bringeth, Smoothing the wearied mind : bring me my love, Rosalind. Thou comest morning or even; she cometh not morning or even. False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind? SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS OF A SECOND-RATE SENSITIVE MIND. God ! my God ! have mercy now. 1 faint, I fall. Men say that Thou Didst die for me, for such as me, Patient of ill, and death, and scorn, And that my sin was as a thorn Among the thorns that girt Thy brow, Wounding Thy soul. — That even now, In this extremest misery CONFESSIONS OF A SENSITIVE MIND. Of ignorance, I should require A sign ! and if a bolt of fire Would rive the slumbrous summer noon While I do pray to Thee alone, Think my belief would stronger grow ! Is not my human pride brought low? The boastings of my spirit still? The joy I had in my freewill All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown ? And what is left to me, but Thou, And faith in Thee? Men pass me by; Christians with happy countenances — And children all seem full of Thee ! And women smile with saint-like glances Like Thine own mother's when she bow'd Above Thee, on that happy morn When angels spake to men aloud, And Thou and peace to earth were born. Goodwill to me as well as all — I one of them : my brothers they : Brothers in Christ — a world of peace And confidence, day after day; And trust and hope till things should cease, And then one Heaven receive us all. How sweet to have a common faith ! To hold a common scorn of death ! And at a burial to hear The creaking cords which wound and eat Into my human heart, whene'er Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear, With hopeful grief, were passing sweet ! Thrice happy state again to be The trustful infant on the knee ! Who lets his rosy fingers play About his mother's neck, and knows Nothing beyond his mother's eyes. They comfort him by night and day; They light his little life alway; He hath no thought of coming woes; He hath no care of life or death; Scarce outward signs of joy arise, Because the Spirit of happiness And perfect rest so inward is; And loveth so his innocent heart, Her temple and her place of birth, Where she would ever wish to dwell, Life of the fountain there, beneath Its salient springs, and far apart, Hating to wander out on earth, Or breathe into the hollow air, Whose chillness would make visible Her subtil, warm, and golden breath, Which mixing with the infant's blood, Fulfils him with beatitude. Oh ! sure it is a special care Of God, to fortify from doubt, To arm in proof, and guard about With triple-mailed trust, and clear Delight, the infant's dawning year. Would that my gloomed fancy were As thine, my mother, when with brow: Propt on thy knees, my hands upheld In thine, I listen'd to thy vows, For me outpour'd in holiest prayer — For me unworthy ! — and beheld Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew The beauty and repose of faith, And the clear spirit shining thro'. Oh ! wherefore do we grow awry From roots which strike so deep? why dare Paths in the desert? Could not I Bow myself down, where thou hast knelt To the earth — until the ice would melt Here, and I feel as thou hast felt? What Devil had the heart to scathe Flowers thou hadst rear'd — to brush the de-.v From thine own lily, when thy grave Was deep, my mother, in the clay? Myself? Is it thus? Myself? Had I So little love for thee? But why Prevail'd not thy pure prayers? Why pray To one who heeds not, who can save But will not? Great in faith, and stron| Against the grief of circumstance Wert thou, and yet unheard. What if Thou pleadest still, and seest me drive Thro' utter dark a full-sail'd skiff, Unpiloted i' the echoing dance Of reboant whirlwinds, stooping low Unto the death, not sunk ! I know At matins and at evensong, That thou, if thou wert yet alive, In deep and daily prayers would'st strive To reconcile me with thy God. Albeit, my hope is gray, and cold At heart, thou wouldest murmur still — 1 Bring this lamb back into Thy fold, My Lord, if so it be Thy will.' Would'st ..v.11 me I must brook the rod And chastisement of human pride; CONFESSIONS OF A SENSITIVE MIND— THE KRAKEN. That pride, the sin of devils, stood Betwixt me and the light of God ! That hitherto I had defied And had rejected God — that grace Would drop from his o'er-brimrning love, As manna on my wilderness, If 1 would pray — that God would move And strike the hard, hard rock, and thence, Sweet in their utmost bitterness, Would issue tears of penitence Which would keep green hope's life. Alas! I think that pride hath now no place Nor sojourn in me. I am void, Dark, formless, utterly destroyed. Why not believe then? Why not yet Anchor thy frailty there, where man Hath moor'd and rested? Ask the sea At midnight, when the crisp slope waves After a tempest, rib and fret The broad-imbased beach, why he Slumbers not like a mountain tarn? Wherefore his ridges are not curls And ripples of an inland mere? Wherefore he moaneth thus, nor can Draw down into his vexed pools All that blue heaven which hues and paves The other? I am too forlorn, Too shaken : my own weakness fools My judgment, and my spirit whirls, Moved from beneath with doubt and fear. 'Yet,' said I, in my morn of youth, The unsunn'd freshness of my strength, When I went forth in quest of truth, | It is man's privilege to doubt, If so be that from doubt at length, Truth may stand forth unmoved of change, [ An image with profulgent brows, I And perfect limbs, as from the storm | Of running fires and fluid range j Of lawless airs, at last stood out This excellence and solid form Of constant beauty. For the Ox Feeds in the herb, and sleeps, or fills The horned valleys all about, And hollows of the fringed hills In summer heats, with placid lows Unfearing, till his own blood flows About his hoof. And in the flocks The lamb rejoiceth in the year, And raceth freely with his fere, And answers to his mother's calls From the flower'd furrow. In a time, Of which he wots not, run short pains Thro' his warm heart; and then, from whence He knows not, on his light there falls A shadow; and his native slope, Where he was wont to leap and climb, Floats from his sick and filmed eyes, And something in the darkness draws His forehead earthward, and he dies. Shall man live thus, in joy and hope As a young lamb, who cannot dream, Living, but that he shall live on? Shall we not look into the laws Of life and death, and things that seem, And things that be, and analyse Our double nature, and compare All creeds till we have found the one, If one there be? ' Ay me ! I fear All may not doubt, but everywhere Some must clasp Idols. Yet, my God, Whom call I Idol? Let Thy dove Shadow me over, and my sins Be unremember'd, and Thy love Enlighten me. Oh teach me yet Somewhat before the heavy clod Weighs on me, and the busy fret Of that sharp-headed worm begins In the gross blackness underneath. O weary life ! O weary death ! O spirit and heart made desolate ! O damned vacillating state ! THE KRAKEN. BELOW'the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth : faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides : above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumber'd and enormous polypi SONG — LILIAN— ISABEL. Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the sur- face die. SONG. The winds, as at their hour of birth, Leaning upon the ridged sea, Breathed low around the rolling earth With mellow preludes, ' We are free. The streams through many a lilied row Down-carolling to the crisped sea, Low-tinkled with a bell-like flow Atween the blossoms, ' We are free.' LILIAN. Airy, fairy Lilian, Flitting, fairy Lilian, When I ask her if she love me, Claps her tiny hands above me, Laughing all she can; She'll not tell me if she love me, Cruel little Lilian. II. When my passion seeks Pleasance in love-sighs, She, looking thro' and thro' me Thoroughly to undo me, Smiling, never speaks : • So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple, From beneath her gathered wimple Glancing with black-beaded eyes, Till the lightning laughters dimple The baby-roses in her cheeks; Then away she flies. Prythee weep, May Lilian ! Gaiety without eclipse Wearieth me, May Lilian: Thro' my very heart it thrilleth When from crimson-threaded lips Silver-treble laughter trilleth : Prythee weep, May Lilian. Praying all I can, If prayers will not hush thee, Airy Lilian, Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, Fairy Lilian. ISABEL. Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed With the clear-pointed flame of chastity, Clear, without heat, undying, tended by Pure vestal thoughts in the trans- lucent fane Of her still spirit; locks not wide-dispread, Madonna-wise on either side her head; Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign The summer calm of golden charity, Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood, Revered Isabel, the crown and head, The stately flower of female fortitude, Of perfect wifehood and pure lowli head. II. The intuitive decision of a bright And thorough-edged intellect to part Error from crime; a prudence to withhold ; The laws of marriage character' d in gold Upon the blanched tablets of her heart ; A love still burning upward, giving light To read those laws; an accent very low In blandishment, but a most silver flow Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, Right to the heart and brain, tho' unde- scried, Winning its way with extreme gentle- ness Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride; ISABEL — MARIANA. A courage to endure and to obey; A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway, Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life, The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife. in. The mellow'd reflex of a winter moon; A clear stream flowing with a muddy one, Till in its onward current it absorbs With swifter movement and in purer light The vexed eddies of its wayward brother: A leaning and upbearing parasite, Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite With cluster'd flower-bells and am- brosial orbs Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other — Shadow forth thee: — the world hath not another (Tho' all her fairest forms are types of thee, And thou of God in thy great charity) Of such a finish'd chasten'd purity. MARIANA. ' Mariana in the moated grange.' Measure for Measure. With blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds look'd sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch ; " Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, ' My life is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ! ' Her tears fell with the dews »t even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, ' The night is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, ' I am aweary, aweary I would that I were dead ! ' Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night- fowl crow: The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her : without hope of change, In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn About the lonely moated grange. She only said, ' The day is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ! ' About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark: For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding gray. She only said, ' My life is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ! ' And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, ' The night is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, ' I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ! ' All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creak'd ; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, Or from the crevice peer'd about. Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. MARIANA— MADELINE. She only said, ' My life is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, ■ I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead ! ' The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower. Then, said she, ' I am very dreary, He will not come,' she said; She wept, ' I am aweary, aweary, Oh God, that I were dead !' TO Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn, Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain The knots that tangle human creeds, The wounding cords that bind and strain The heart until it bleeds, Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn Roof not a glance so keen as thine : If aught of prophecy be mine, Thou wilt not live in vain. ii. Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit; Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow: Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords, Can do away that ancient lie; A gentler death shall Falsehood die, Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words. III. Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch, Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need, Thy kingly intellect shall feed, Until she be an athlete bold, And weary with a ringer's touch Those writhed limbs of lightning speed ; Like that strange angel which of old, Until the breaking of the light, Wrestled with wandering Israel, Past Yabbok broke the livelong night, And heaven's mazed signs stood still In the dim tract of Penuel. MADELINE. Thou art not steep'd in golden languors, No tranced summer calm is thine, Ever varying Madeline. Thro' light and shadow thou dost range, Sudden glances, sweet and strange, Delicious spites and darling angers, And airy forms of flitting change. n. Smiling, frowning, evermore, Thou art perfect in love-lore. Revealings deep and clear are thine Of wealthy smiles : but who may know Whether smile or frown be fleeter? Whether smile or frown be sweeter, Who may know? Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow Light-glooming over eyes divine, Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine, Ever varying Madeline. Thy smile and frown are not aloof From one another, Each to each is dearest brother; Hues of the silken sheeny woof Momently shot into each other. All the mystery is thine; Smiling, frowning, evermore, Thou art perfect in love-lore, Ever varying Madeline. in. A subtle, sudden flame, By veering passion fann'd, About thee breaks and dances : When I would kiss thy hand, The flush of anger'd shame O'erflows thy calmer glances, And o'er black brows drops down A sudden-curved frown : But when I turn away, Thou, willing me to stay, Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest; SONG: THE OWL— THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. But, looking fixedly the while, All my bounden heart entanglest In a golden-netted smile; Then in madness and in bliss, If my lips should dare to kiss Thy taper fingers amorously, Again thou blushest angerly; And o'er black brows drops down A sudden-curved frown. SONG — THE OWL. When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits. II. When merry milkmaids click the latch, And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch Twice or thrice his roundelay, Twice or thrice his roundelay; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits. SECOND SONG. TO THE SAME. Thy tuwhits are lull'd, I wot, Thy tuwhoos of yesternight, Which upon the dark afloat, So took echo with delight, So took echo with delight, That her voice untuneful grown, Wears all day a fainter tone. I would mock thy chaunt anew; But I cannot mimic it; Not a whit of thy tuwhoo, Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, With a lengthen'd loud halloo, Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free In the silken sail of infancy, The tide of time flow'd back with me, • The forward-flowing tide of time; And many a* sheeny summer-morn, Adown the Tigris I was borne, By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens green and old; True Mussulman was I and sworn, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Anight my shallop, rustling thro' The low and bloomed foliage, drove The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove The citron-shadows in the blue : By garden porches on the brim, The costly doors flung open wide, Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim, And broider'd sofas on each side : In sooth it was a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Often, where clear-stemm'd platans guard The outlet, did I turn away The boat-head down a broad canal From the main river sluiced, where all The sloping of the moon-lit sward Was damask-work, and deep inlay Of braided blooms unmown, which crept Adown to where the water slept A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. A motion from the river won Ridged the smooth level, bearing on My shallop thro' the star-strown calm, Until another night in night I enter'd, from the clearer light, Imbower'd vaults of pillar'd palm, Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. Of hollow boughs. — A goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Still onward; and the clear canal Is rounded to as clear a lake. From the green rivage many a fall Of diamond rillets musical, Thro' little crystal arches low Down from the central fountain's flow P'all'n silver-chiming, seemed to shake The sparkling flints beneath the prow. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Above thro' many a bowery turn A walk with vary-colour'd shells Wander'd engrain'd. On either side All round about the fragrant marge From fluted vase, and brazen urn In order, eastern flowers large, Some dropping low their crimson bells Half-closed, and others studded wide With disks and tiars, fed the time With odour in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Far off, and where the lemon grove In closest coverture upsprung, The living airs of middle night Died round the bulbul as he sung; Not he : but something which possess'd The darkness of the world, delight, Life, anguish, death, immortal love, Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd, Apart from place, withholding time, But flattering the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Black the garden-bowers and grots Slumber'd : the solemn palms were ranged Above, unwoo'd of summer wind : A sudden splendour from behind Flush'd all the leaves with rich gold- green, And, flowing rapidly between Their interspaces, counterchanged The level lake with diamond-plots Of dark and bright. A lovely time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, Distinct with vivid stars inlaid, Grew darker from that under-flame : So, leaping lightly from the boat, With silver anchor left afloat, In marvel whence that glory came Upon me, as in sleep I sank In cool soft turf upon the bank, Entranced with that place and time, So worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Thence thro' the garden I was drawn — A realm of pleasance, many a mound, And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn Full of the city's stilly sound, And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round The stately cedar, tamarisks, Thick rosaries of scented thorn, Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks Graven with emblems of the time, In honour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. With dazed vision unawares From the long alley's latticed shade Emerged, I came upon the great Pavilion of the Caliphat. Right to the carven cedarn doors, Flung inward over spangled floors, Broad-based flights of marble stairs Ran up with golden balustrade, After the fashion of the time, And humour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. The fourscore windows all alight As with the quintessence of flame, A million tapers flaring bright From twisted silvers look'd to shame The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd Upon the mooned domes aloof In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd Hundreds of crescents on the roof Of night new-risen, that marvellous time To celebrate the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Then stole I up, and trancedly Gazed on the Persian girl alone, Serene with argent-lidded eyes Amorous, and lashes like to rays Of darkness, and a brow of pearl ODE TO MEMORY. ii Tressed with redolent ebony, In many a dark delicious curl, Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone; The sweetest lady of the time, Well worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Six columns, three on either side, Pure silver, underpropt a rich Throne of the massive ore, from which Down-droop'd, in many a floating fold, Engarlanded and diaper'd With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd With merriment of kingly pride, Sole star of all that place and time, I saw him — in his golden prime, The Good Haroun Alraschid. ODE TO MEMORY. ADDRESSED TO . I. Thou who stealest fire, From the fountains of the past, To glorify the present; oh, haste, Visit my low desire ! Strengthen me, enlighten me ! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory. ii. Come not as thou earnest of late, Flinging the gloom of yesternight On the white day; but robed in soften'd light Of orient state. Whilome thou earnest with the morning mist, Even as a maid, whose stately brow The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd, When she, as thou, Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits, Which in wintertide shall star The black earth with brilliance rare. Whilome thou earnest with the morning mist, And with the evening cloud, Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast (Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind Never grow sere, When rooted in the garden of the mind, Because they are the earliest of the year). Nor was the night thy shroud. In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope. The eddying of her garments caught from thee The light of thy great presence; and the cope Of the half-attain'd futurity, Tho' deep not fathomless, Was cloven with the million stars which tremble O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy. Small thought was there of life's distress; For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful : Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres, Listening the lordly music flowing from The illimitable years. strengthen me, enlighten me ! 1 faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory. Come forth, I charge thee, arise, Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes! Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines Unto mine inner eye, Divinest Memory ! Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall Which ever sounds and shines A pillar of white light upon the wall Of purple cliffs, aloof descried : Come from the woods that belt the gray hill-side. 12 ODE TO MEMORY— SONG. The seven elms, the poplars four That stand beside my father's door, And chiefly from the brook that loves To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand, Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves, Drawing into his narrow earthen urn, In every elbow and turn, The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland, O ! hither lead thy feet ! Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds, Upon the ridged wolds, When the first matin-song hath waken'd loud Over the dark dewy earth forlorn, What time the amber morn Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud. V. Large dowries doth the raptured eye To the young spirit present When first she is wed; And like a bride of old In triumph led, With music and sweet showers Of festal flowers, Unto the dwelling she must sway. Well hast thou done, great artist Memory, In setting round thy first experiment With royal frame-work of wrought gold; Needs must thou • dearly love thy first essay, And foremost in thy various gallery Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls Upon the storied walls; For the discovery And newness of thine art so pleased thee, That all which thou hast drawn of fairest Or boldest since, but lightly weighs With thee unto the love thou bearest The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like, Ever retiring thou dost gaze On the prime labour of thine early days : No matter what the sketch might be; Whether the high field on the bushless Pike, Or even a sand-built ridge Of heaped hills that mound the sea, Overblown with murmurs harsh, Or even a lowly cottage whence we see Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enor- mous marsh, Where from the frequent bridge, Like emblems of infinity, The trenched waters run from sky to sky; Or a garden bower'd close With plaited alleys of the trailing rose, Long alleys falling down to twilight grots. Or opening upon level plots Of crowned lilies, standing near Purple-spiked lavender : Whither in after life retired From brawling storms, From weary wind, With youthful fancy re-inspired, We may hold converse with all forms Of the many-sided mind, And those whom passion hath not blinded, Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded. My friend, with you to live alone, Were how much better than to own A crown, a sceptre, and a throne ! strengthen me, enlighten me ! 1 faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory. SONG. A spirit haunts the year's last hours Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers: To himself he talks; For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh In the walks; Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers : Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i' the earth so chilly ; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. II. The air is damp, and hush'd, and close, As a sick man's room when he taketh repose A CHARACTER— THE POET. 13 An hour before death ; My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, And the breath Of the fading edges of box be- neath, And the year's last rose. Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. A CHARACTER. With a half-glance upon the sky At night he said, ' The wanderings Of this most intricate Universe Teach me the nothingness of things.' Yet could not all creation pierce Beyond the bottom of his eye. He spake of beauty : that the dull Saw no divinity in grass, Life in dead stones, or spirit in air; Then looking as 'twere in a glass, He smooth'd his chin and sleek'd his hair, And said the earth was beautiful. He spake of virtue : not the gods More purely when they wish to charm Pallas and Juno sitting by : And with a sweeping of the arm, And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye, Devolved his rounded periods. Most delicately hour by hour He canvass'd human mysteries, And trod on silk, as if the winds Blew his own praises in his eyes, And stood aloof from other minds In impotence of fancied power. With lips depress'd as he were meek, Himself unto himself he sold : Upon himself himself did feed : Quiet, dispassionate, and cold, And other than his form of creed, With chisell'd features clear and sleek. THE POET. The poet in a golden clime was born, With golden stars above; Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, The love of love. He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill, He saw thro' his own soul. The marvel of the everlasting will, An open scroll, Before him lay : with echoing feet he threaded The secretest walks of fame : The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed And wing'd with flame, Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue, And of so fierce a flight, From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung, Filling with light And vagrant melodies the winds which bore Them earthward till they lit; Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower, The fruitful wit Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew Where'er they fell, behold, Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew A flower all gold, And bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling The winged shafts of truth, To throng with stately blooms the breath- ing spring Of Hope and Youth. So many minds did gird their orbs with beams, Tho' one did fling the fire. Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams Of high desire. THE POET'S MIND — THE SEA-FAIRIES. Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world Like one great garden show'd, II. Dark-brow'd sophist, come not anear; And thro' the wreaths of floating dark All the place is holy ground; upcurl'd, Hollow smile and frozen sneer Rare sunrise flow'd. Come not here. Holy water will I pour And Freedom rear'd in that august sun- Into every spicy flower rise Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around. Her beautiful bold brow, The flowers would faint at your cruel When rites and forms before his burning cheer. eyes In your eye there is death, Melted like snow. There is frost in your breath Which would blight the plants. There was no blood upon her maiden Where you stand you cannot hear robes From the groves within Sunn'd by those orient skies ; The wild-bird's din. But round about the circles of the In the heart of the garden the merry bird globes chants. Of her keen eyes It would fall to the ground if you came And in her raiment's hem was traced in in. In the middle leaps a fountain flame Like sheet lightning, Wisdom, a name to shake Ever brightening All evil dreams of power — a sacred With a low melodious thunder; name. All day and all night it is ever drawn And when she spake, From the brain of the purple moun- Her words did gather thunder as they tain Which stands in the distance yonder : ran, It springs on a level of bowery lawn, And as the lightning to the thunder And the mountain draws it from Heaven Which follows it, riving the spirit of man, above, Making earth wonder, And it sings a song of undying love; And yet, tho' its voice be so clear and So was their meaning to her words. No full, sword You never would hear it; your ears are Of wrath her right arm whirl'd, so dull; But one poor poet's scroll, and with his So keep where you are : you are foul with word sin; She shook the world. It would shrink to the earth if you came in. THE POET'S MIND. THE SEA-FAIRIES. i. Slow sail'd the weary mariners and Vex not thou the poet's mind saw, With thy shallow wit : Betwixt the green brink and the running Vex not thou the poet's mind; foam, For thou canst not fathom it. Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms Clear and bright it should be ever, prest Flowing like a crystal river; To little harps of gold ; and while they Bright as light, and clear as wind. mused THE DESERTED HOUSE— THE DYING SWAN. H Whispering to each other half in fear, Shrill music reach'd them on the middle Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly no more. Whither away from the high green field, and the happy blossoming shore? Day and night to the billow the fountain calls : Down shower the gambolling waterfalls From wandering over the lea : Out of the live-green heart of the dells They freshen the silvery-crimson shells, And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells High over the full-toned sea : O hither, come hither and furl your sails, Come hither to me and to me : Hither, come hither and frolic and play; Here it is only the mew that wails; We will sing to you all the day : Mariner, mariner, furl your sails, For here are the blissful downs and dales, And merrily, merrily carol the gales, And the spangle dances in bight and bay, And the rainbow forms and flies on the land Over the islands free; And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand; Hither, come hither and see; And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave, And sweet is the colour of cove and cave, And sweet shall your welcome be : O hither, come hither, and be our lords, For merry brides are we : We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words : O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten With pleasure and love and jubilee : O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten When the sharp clear twang of the golden chords Runs up the ridged sea. Who can light on as happy a shore All the world o'er, all the world o'er? Whither away? listen and stay : mariner, mariner, fly no more. THE DESERTED HOUSE, i. Life and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide : Careless tenants they ! II. All within is dark as night : In the windows is no light; And no murmur at the door, So frequent on its hinge before. III. Close the door, the shutters close, Or thro' the windows we shall see The nakedness and vacancy Of the dark deserted house. IV. Come away : no more of mirth Is here or merry-making sound. The house was builded of the earth, And shall fall again to ground. Come away : for Life and Thought Here no longer dwell; But in a city glorious — A great and distant city — have bought A mansion incorruptible. Would they could have stayed with us ! THE DYING SWAN. The plain was grassy, wild and bare, Wide, wild, and open to the air, Which had built up everywhere An under-roof of doleful gray. With an inner voice the river ran, Adown it floated a dying swan, And loudly did lament. It was the middle of the day. Ever the weary wind went on, And took the reed-tops as it went. Some blue peaks in the distance rose, And white against the cold-white sky, 16 THE DYING SWAN— A DIRGE. Shone out their crowning snows. One willow over the river wept, And shook the wave as the wind did sigh; Above in the wind was the swallow, Chasing itself at its own wild will, And far thro' the marish green and still The tangled water-courses slept, Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow : at first to the ear The warble was low, and full and clear; And floating about the under-sky, Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear But anon her awful jubilant voice, With a music strange and manifold, Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold As when a mighty people rejoice With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold, And the tumult of their acclaim is roll'd Thro' the open gates of the city afar, To the shepherd who watcheth the even- ing star. And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds, And the willow-branches hoar and dank, And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds, And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank, And the silvery marish-flowers that throng The desolate creeks and pools among, Were flooded over with eddying song. A DIRGE. Now is done thy long day's work; Fold thy palms across thy breast, Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest. Let them rave. Shadows of the silver birk Sweep the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. Thee nor carketh care nor slander; Nothing but the small cold worm Fretteth thine enshrouded form. Let them rave. Light and shadow ever wander O'er the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. III. Thou wilt not turn upon thy bed; Chaunteth not the brooding bee Sweeter tones than calumny? Let them rave. Thou wilt never raise thine head From the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. Crocodiles wept tears for thee ; The woodbine and eglatere Drip sweeter dews than traitor's tear. Let them rave. Rain makes music in the tree O'er the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. v. Round thee blow, self-pleached deep, Bramble roses, faint and pale, And long purples of the dale. Let them rave. These in every shower creep Thro' the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. VI. The gold-eyed kingcups fine ; The frail bluebell peereth over Rare broidry of the purple clover. Let them rave. Kings have no such couch as thine, As the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. VII. Wild words wander here and there: God's great gift of speech abused Makes thy memory confused : But let them rave. LOVE AND DEATH— THE BALLAD OF ORIANA. 17 The balm-cricket carols clear In the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. LOVE AND DEATH. What time the mighty moon was gather- ing light Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise, And all about him roll'd his lustrous eyes; When, turning round a cassia, full in view, Death, walking all alone beneath a yew, And talking to himself,' first met his sight : y You must begone,' said Death, ' these walks are mine.' Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight; Yet ere he parted said, 'This hour is thine : Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree Stands in the sun and shadows all be- neath, So in the light of great eternity Life eminent creates the shade of death; The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall, But I shall reign for ever over all.' THE BALLAD OF ORIANA. My heart is wasted with my woe, Oriana. There is no rest for me below, Oriana. When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow, And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, Oriana, Alone I wander to and fro, Oriana. Ere the light on dark was growing, Oriana, At midnight the cock was crowing, Oriana : Winds were blowing, waters flowing, We heard the steeds to battle going, Oriana ; Aloud the hollow bugle blowing, Oriana. In the yew-wood black as night, Oriana, Ere I rode into the fight, Oriana, While blissful tears blinded my sight By star-shine and by moonlight, Oriana, I to thee my troth did plight, Oriana. She stood upon the castle wall, Oriana : She watch'd my crest among them all, Oriana : She saw me fight, she heard me call, When forth there stept a foeman tall, Oriana, Atween me and the castle wall, Oriana. The bitter arrow went aside, Oriana : The false, false arrow went aside, Oriana : The damned arrow glanced aside, And pierced thy heart, my love, my bride, Oriana ! Thy heart, my life, my love, my bride, Oriana ! Oh ! narrow, narrow was the space, Oriana. Loud, loud rung out the bugle's brays, Oriana. Oh ! deathful stabs were dealt apace, The battle deepen'd in ics place, Oriana; But I was down upon my face, Oriana. They should have stabb'd me where I lay, Oriana ! How could I rise and come away, Oriana? How could I look- upon the day? They should have stabb'd me where I lay Oriana — They should have trod me into clay, Oriana. O breaking heart that will not break, Oriana ! iS CIRCUMS TANCE — THE MERMAN. pale, pale face so sweet and meek, Oriana ! Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak, And then the tears run down my cheek, Oriana : What wantest thou? whom dost thou seek, Oriana? 1 cry aloud : none hear my cries, Oriana. Thou comest atween me and the skies, Oriana. I feel the tears of blood arise Up from my heart unto my eyes, Oriana. Within thy heart my arrow lies, Oriana. O cursed hand ! O cursed blow ! Oriana ! happy thou that liest low, Oriana ! All night the silence seems, to flow Beside me in my utter woe, Oriana. A weary, weary way I go, Oriana. When Norland winds pipe down the sea, Oriana, 1 walk, I dare not think of thee, Oriana. Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree, I dare not die and come to thee, Oriana. I hear the roaring of the sea, Oriana. CIRCUMSTANCE. Two children in two neighbour villages, Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas; Two strangers meeting at a festival; Two lovers whispered by an orchard wall; Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease; Two graves grass-green beside a gray church -tower, Wash'd with still rains and daisy blos- somed ; Two children in one hamlet born and bred; So runs the round of life from hour to hour. THE MERMAN. Who would be A merman bold, Sitting alone, Singing alone Under the sea, With a crown of gold, On a throne ? II. I would be a merman bold, I would sit and sing the whole of the day; I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power; But at night I would roam abroad and play With the mermaids in and out of the rocks, Dressing their hair with the white sea- flower; And holding them back by their flowing locks I would kiss them often under the sea, And kiss them again till they kiss'd me Laughingly, laughingly; And then we would wander away, away To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high, Chasing each other merrily. in. There would be neither moon nor star; But the wave would make music above us afar — Low thunder and light in the magic night — Neither moon nor star. We would call aloud in the dreamy dells, Call to each other and whoop and cry All night, merrily, merrily; They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells, THE MERMAID. 19 Laughing and clapping their hands be- Would slowly trail himself sevenfold tween, Round the hall where I sate, and look in . All night, merrily, merrily: at the gate But I would throw to them back in mine With his large calm eyes for the love of Turkis and agate and almondine : ' me. Then leaping out upon them unseen And all the mermen under the sea I would kiss them often under the sea, Would feel their immortality And kiss them again till they kiss'd me Die in their hearts for the love of me. Laughingly, laughingly. Oh ! what a happy life were mine ill. Under the hollow-hung ocean green ! Soft are the moss-beds under the sea; But at night I would wander away, We would live merrily, merrily. away, I would fling on each side my low- flowing locks, THE MERMAID. And lightly vault from the throne and play L With the mermen in and out of the rocks; We would run to and fro, and hide and Who would be A mermaid fair, seek, Singing alone, On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson Combing her hair shells, Under the sea, Whose silvery spikes are nighest the In a golden curl sea. With a comb of pearl, But if any came near I would call, and On a throne? shriek, And adown the steep like a wave I 11. would leap From the diamond-ledges that jut from I would be a mermaid fair; the dells; I would sing to myself the whole of the For I would not be kiss'd by all who day; would list, With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair; And still as I comb'd I would sing and Of the bold merry mermen under the sea; They would sue me, and woo me, and say, flatter me, ' Who is it loves me ? who loves not In the purple twilights under the sea; me? ' But the king of them all would carry I would comb my hair till my ringlets me, would fall Woo me, and win me, and marry me, Low adown, low adown, In the branching jaspers under the From under my starry sea-bud crown sea; Low adown and around, Then all the dry pied things that be And I should look like a fountain of In the hueless mosses under the sea gold Would curl round my silver feet silently, Springing alone All looking up for the love of me. With a shrill inner sound, And if I should carol aloud, from aloft Over the throne All things that are forked, and horned, In the midst of the hall; and soft Till that great sea-snake under the sea Would lean out from the hollow sphere From his coiled sleeps in the central of the sea, deeps All looking down for the love of me. 20 ADELINE — MARGARE T. ADELINE. Mystery of mysteries, Faintly smiling Adeline, Scarce of earth nor all divine, Nor unhappy, nor at rest, But beyond expression fair With thy floating flaxen hair; Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes Take the heart from out my breast. Wherefore those dim looks of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline ? Whence that aery bloom of thine, Like a lily which the sun Looks thro' in his sad decline, And a rose-bush leans upon, Thou that faintly smilest still, As a Naiad in a well, Looking at the set of day, Or a phantom two hours old Of a maiden past away, Ere the placid lips be cold? Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, Spiritual Adeline ? What hope or fear or joy is thine? Who talketh with thee, Adeline? For sure thou art not all alone. Do beating hearts of salient springs Keep measure with thine own? Hast thou heard the butterflies What they say betwixt their wings? Or in stillest evenings With what voice the violet woos To his heart the silver dews? Or when little airs arise, How the merry bluebell rings To the mosses underneath? Hast thou look'd upon the breath Of the lilies at sunrise? Wherefore that faint smile of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline ? Some honey-converse feeds thy mind, Some spirit of a crimson rose In love with thee forgets to close His curtains, wasting odorous sighs All night long on darkness blind. What aileth thee? whom waitest thou With thy soften'd, shadow'd brow, And those dew-lit eyes of thine, Thou faint smiler, Adeline? Lovest thou the doleful wind When thou gazest at the skies? Doth the low-tongued Orient Wander from the side of the morn, Dripping with Sabsean spice On thy pillow, lowly bent With melodious airs lovelorn, Breathing Light against thy face; While his locks a-drooping twined Round thy neck in subtle ring Make a carcanet of rays, And ye talk together still, In the language wherewith Spring Letters cowslips on the hill? Hence that look and smile of thine, Spiritual Adeline. MARGARET. O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, What lit your eyes with tearful power, Like moonlight on a falling shower? Who lent you, love, your mortal dower Of pensive thought and aspect pale, Your melancholy sweet and frail As perfume of the cuckoo-flower? From the westward-winding flood, From the evening-lighted wood, From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as tho' you stood Between the rainbow and the sun. The very smile before you speak, That dimples your transparent cheek, Encircles all the heart, and feedeth The senses with a still delight Of dainty sorrow without sound, Like the tender amber round, Which the moon about her spreadeth, Moving thro' a fleecy night. MAR GARE z — R OSALIND. 21 You love, remaining peacefully, To hear the murmur of the strife, But enter not the toil of life. Your spirit is the calmed sea, Laid by the tumult of the fight. You are the evening star, alway Remaining betwixt dark and bright : Lull'd echoes of laborious day Come to you, gleams of mellow light Float by you on the verge of night. What can it matter, Margaret, What songs below the waning stars The lion-heart, Plantagenet, Sang looking thro' his prison bars? Exquisite Margaret, who can tell The last wild thought of Chatelet, Just ere the falling axe did part The burning brain from the true heart, Even in her sight he loved so well? A fairy shield your Genius made And gave you on your natal day. Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade, Keeps real sorrow far away. You move not in such solitudes, You are not less divine, But more human in your moods, Than your twin- sister, Adeline. Your hair is darker, and your eyes Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue, And less aerially blue, But ever trembling thro' the dew Of dainty-woeful sympathies. O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, Come down, come down, and hear me speak : Tie up the ringlets on your cheek : The sun is just about to set, The arching limes are tall and shady, And faint rainy lights are seen, Moving in the leavy beech. Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady, Where all day long you sit between Joy and woe, and whisper each. Or only look across the lawn, Look out below your bower-eaves, Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves. ROSALIND. My Rosalind, my Rosalind, My frolic falcon, with bright eyes, Whose free delight, from any heignt of rapid flight, Stoops at all game that wing the skies, My Rosalind, my Rosalind, My bright-eyed, wild-eyed falcon, whither, Careless both of wind and weather, Whither fly ye, what game spy ye, Up or down the streaming wind? II. The quick lark's closest-caroll'd strains, The shadow rushing up the sea, The lightning flash atween the rains, The sunlight driving down the lea, The leaping stream, the very wind, That will not stay, upon his way, To stoop the cowslip to the plains, Is not so clear and bold and free As you, my falcon Rosalind. You care not for another's pains, Because you are the soul of joy, Bright metal all without alloy. Life shoots and glances thro' your veins, And flashes off a thousand ways, Thro' lips and eyes in subtle rays. Your hawk-eyes are keen and bright, Keen with triumph, W'atching still To pierce me thro' with pointed light; But oftentimes they flash and glitter Like sunshine on a dancing rill, And your words are seeming-bitter, Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter From excess of swift delight. Come down, come home, my Rosalind; My gay young hawk, my Rosalind : Too long you keep the upper skies; Too long you roam and wheel at will; But we must hood your random eyes, That care not whom they kill, ELEANORE. And your cheek, whose brilliant hue Is so sparkling-fresh to view, Some red heath-flower in the dew, Touch'd with sunrise. We must bind And keep you fast, my Rosalind, Fast, fast, my wild-eyed Rosalind, And clip your wings, and make you love : When we have lured you from above, And that delight of frolic flight, by day or night, From North to South, We'll bind you fast in silken cords, And kiss away the bitter words From off your rosy mouth. ELEANORE. Thy dark eyes open'd not, Nor first reveal'd themselves to English air, For there is nothing here, Which, from the outward to the inward brought, Moulded thy baby thought. Far off from human neighbourhood, Thou wert born on a summer morn, A mile beneath the cedar-wood. Thy bounteous forehead was not fann'd With breezes from our oaken glades, But thou wert nursed in some delicious land Of lavish lights, and floating shades : And flattering thy childish thought The oriental fairy brought, At the moment of thy birth, From old well-heads of haunted rills, A.nd the hearts of purple hills, And shadow'd coves on a sunny shore, The choicest wealth of all the earth, Jewel or shell, or starry ore, To deck thy cradle, Eleanore. II. Or the yellow-banded bees, Thro' half- open lattices Coming in the scented breeze, Fed thee, a child, lying alone, With whitest honey in fairy gar- dens cull'd — A glorious child, dreaming alone, In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down, With the hum of swarming bees Into dreamful slumber lull'd. Who may minister to thee t Summer herself should minister To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded On golden salvers, or it may be, Youngest Autumn, in a bower Grape-thicken'd from the light, and blinded With many a deep-hued bell-like flower Of fragrant trailers, when the air Sleepeth over all the heaven, And the crag that fronts the Even, All along the shadowing shore, Crimsons over an inland mere, Eleanore ! How may full-sail'd verse express, How may measured words adore The full- flowing harmony Of thy swan-like stateliness, Eleanore? The luxuriant symmetry Of thy floating gracefulness, Eleanore? Every turn and glance of thine, Every lineament divine, Eleanore, And the steady sunset glow, That stays upon thee? For in thee Is nothing sudden, nothing single; Like two streams of incense free From one censer in one shrine, Thought and motion mingle, Mingle ever. Motions flow To one another, even as tho' They were modulated so To an unheard melody, Which lives about thee, and a sweep Of richest pauses, evermore Drawn from each other mellow-deep; Who may express thee, Eleanore? I stand before thee, Eleanore; I see thy beauty gradually unfold, ELEANORE. 23 Daily and hourly, more and more. I muse, as in a trance, the while Slowly, as from a cloud of gold, Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile. I muse, as in a trance, whene'er The languors of thy love-deep eyes Float on to me. I would I were So tranced, so rapt in ecstasies, To stand apart, and to adore, Gazing on thee for evermore, Serene, imperial Eleanore ! Sometimes, with most intensity Gazing, I seem to see Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep, Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep In thy large eyes, that, overpower'd quite, I cannot veil, or droop my sight, But am as nothing in its light : As tho' a star, in inmost heaven set, Ev'n while we gaze on it, Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow To a full face, there like a sun remain Fix'd — then as slowly fade again, And draw itself to what it was before ; So full, so deep, so slow, Thought seems to come and go In thy large eyes, imperial Eleanore. As thunder-clouds that, hung on high, Roofd the world with doubt and fear, Floating thro' an evening atmosphere, Grow golden all about the sky; In thee all passion becomes passionless, Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness, Losing his fire and active might In a silent meditation, Falling into a still delight, And luxury of contemplation As waves that up a quiet cove Rolling slide, and lying still Shadow forth the banks at will: Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea : And the self-same influence Controlleth all the soul and sense Of Passion gazing upon thee. His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love, Leaning his cheek upon his hand, Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would languish evermore, Serene, imperial Eleanore. VIII. But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined, While the amorous, odorous wind Breathes low between the sunset and the moon; Or, in a shadowy saloon, On silken cushions half reclined; I watch thy grace; and in its place My heart a charmed slumber keeps, While I muse upon thy face; And a languid fire creeps Thro' my veins to all my frame, Dissolvingly and slowly : soon From thy rose-red lips my name Floweth; and then, as in a swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife, My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my colour, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death, Brimmed with delirious draughts of warm- est life. I die with my delight, before I hear what I would hear from thee; Yet tell my name again to me, I would ho. dying evermore, So dying ever, Eleanore. My life is full of weary days, But good things have not kept aloof, Nor wander'd into other ways : I have not lack'd thy mild reproof, Nor golden largess of thy praise. And now shake hands across the brink Of that deep grave to which I go : Shake hands once more : I cannot sink So far — far down, but I shall know Thy voice, and answer from below. EARLY SONNETS. II. When in the darkness over me The four-handed mole shall scrape, Plant thou no dusky cypress-tree, Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape, But pledge me in the flowing grape. And when the sappy field and wood Grow green beneath the showery gray, And rugged barks begin to bud, And thro' damp holts new-flush'd with May, Ring sudden scritches of the jay, Then let wise Nature work her will, And on my clay her darnel grow; Come only, when the days are still, And at my headstone whisper low, And tell me if the woodbines blow. EARLY SONNETS. TO . As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood, And ebb into a former life, or seem To lapse far back in some confused dream To states of mystical similitude; If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair, Ever the wonder waxeth more and more, So that we say, ' All this hath been before, All this hath been, I know not when or where.' So, friend, when first I look'd upon your face, Our thought gave answer each to each, so true — Opposed mirrors each reflecting each — That tho' I knew not in what time or place, Methought that I had often met with you, And either lived in either's heart and speech. II. TO J. M. K. My hope and heart is with thee — thou wilt be A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest To scare church-harpies from the master's feast ; Our dusted velvets have much need of thee : Thou art no Sabbath-drawler of old saws, Distill'd from some worm-canker'd homily ; But spurr'd at heart with fieriest energy To embattail and to wall about thy cause With iron-worded proof, hating to hark The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone Half God's good sabbath, while the worn- out clerk Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark. Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free, Like some broad river rushing down alone, With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was thrown From his loud fount upon the echoing lea: — Which with increasing might doth for- ward flee By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle, And in the middle of the green salt sea Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. Mine be the power which ever to its sway Will win the wise at once, and by degrees May into uncongenial spirits flow; Ev'n as the warm gulf-stream of Florida Floats far away into the Northern seas The lavish growths of southern Mexico. IV. ALEXANDER. Warrior of God, whose strong right arm debased The throne of Persia, when her Satrap bled At Issus by the Syrian gates, or fled Beyond the Memmian naphtha-pits, dis graced EARLY SONNETS. 25 For ever — thee (thy pathway sand- erased) Gliding with equal crowns two serpents led Joyful to that palm-planted fountain-fed Ammonian Oasis in the waste. There in a silent shade of laurel brown Apart the Chamian Oracle divine Shelter'd his unapproached mysteries : High things were spoken there, unhanded down; Only they saw thee from the secret shrine Returning with hot cheek and kindled eyes. v. BUONAPARTE. He thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak, Madman ! — to chain with chains, and bind with bands . . That island queen who sways the floods and lands From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke, When from her wooden walls, — lit by sure hands, — With thunders, and with lightnings, and with smoke, — Peal after peal, the British battle broke, Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands. We taught him lowlier moods, when El- sinore Heard.the war moan along the distant sea, Rocking with shatter'd spars, with sud- den fires Flamed over : at Trafalgar yet once more We taught him : late he learned humility Perforce, like those whom Gideon school'd with briers. VI. POLAND. How long, O God, shall men be ridden down, And trampled under by the last and least Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased To quiver, tho' her sacred blood doth drown The fields, and out of every smouldering town Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be in- creased, Till that o'ergrown Barbarian in the East Transgress his ample bound to some new crown : — Cries to Thee, ' Lord, how long shall these things be? How long this icy-hearted Muscovite Oppress the region?' Us, O Just and Good, Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three; Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right — A matter to be wept with tears of blood ! Caress'd or chidden by the slender hand, And singing airy trifles this or that, Light Hope at Beauty's call would perch and stand, And run thro' every change of sharp and flat; And Fancy came and at her pillow sat, When Sleep had bound her in his rosy band, And chased away the still-recurring gnat, And woke her with a lay from fairy land. But now they live with Beauty less and less, For Hope is other Hope and wanders far, Nor cares to lisp in love's delicious creeds; And Fancy watches in the wilderness, Poor Fancy sadder than a single star, That sets at twilight in a land of reeds. VIII. The form, the form alone is eloquent ! A nobler yearning never broke her rest Than but to dance and sing, be gaily drest, And win all eyes with all accomplish- ment : Yet in the whirling dances as we went, My fancy made me for a moment blest To find my heart so near the beauteous breast That once had power to rob it of content. A moment came the tenderness of tears, The phantom of a wish that once could move, A ghost of passion that no smiles re- store — For ah ! the slight coquette, she cannot love, 26 EARLY SONNETS. And if you kiss'd her feet a thousand years, She still would take the praise, and care no more. IX. Wan Sculptor, weepest thou to take the cast Of those dead lineaments that near thee lie? sorrowest thou, pale Painter, for the past, In painting some dead friend from memory ? Weep on : beyond his object Love can last: His object lives: more cause to weep have I : My tears, no tears of love, are flowing fast, No tears of love, but tears that Love can die. 1 pledge her not in any cheerful cup, Nor care to sit beside her where she sits — A.h pity — hint it not in human tones, But breathe it into earth and close it up With secret death for ever, in the pits Which some green Christmas crams with weary bones. If I were loved, as I desire to be, What is there in the great sphere of the earth, And range of evil between death and birth, That I should fear, — if I were loved by thee? All the inner, all the outer world of pain Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine, As I have heard that, somewhere in the Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine. 'Twere joy, not fear, claspt hand-in-hand with thee, To wait for death — mute — careless of all ills, Apart upon a mountain, tho' the surge Of some new deluge from a thousand hills Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge Below us, as far on as eye could see. XI. THE BRIDESMAID. bridesmaid, ere the happy knot was tied, Thine eyes so wept that they could hardly see; Thy sister smiled and said, ' No tears for me ! A happy bridesmaid makes a happy bride.' And then, the couple standing side by side, Love lighted down between them full of glee, And over his left shoulder laugh'd at thee, ' O happy bridesmaid, make a happy bride.' • And all at once a pleasant truth I learn'd, For while the tender service made thee weep, 1 loved thee for the tear thou couldst not hide, And prest thy hand, and knew the press return'd, And thought, 'My life is sick of single sleep : O happy bridesmaid, make a happy bride ! ' THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 27 THE LADY OF SHALOTT AND OTHER POEMS. THE LADY OF SHALOTT. PART I. On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And thro' the field the road runs by To many-tower'd Camelot; And up and down the people go, Gazing where the lilies blow Round an island there below, The island of Shalott. "Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Thro' the wave that runs for ever By the island in the river Flowing clown to Camelot. Four gray walls, and four gray towers, Overlook a space of flowers, And the silent isle imbowers The Lady of Shalott. By the margin, willow-veil'd Slide the heavy barges trail'd By slow horses; and unhail'd The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd Skimming down to Camelot : But who hath seen her wave her hand? Or at the casement seen her stand? Or is she known in all the land, The Lady of Shalott? Only reapers, reaping early In among the bearded barley, Hear a song that echoes cheerly From the river winding clearly, Down to tower'd Camelot : And by the moon the reaper weary, Piling sheaves in uplands airy, Listening, whispers ' 'Tis the fairy Lady of Shalott.' PART II. There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott. And moving thro' a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear. There she sees the highway near Winding down to Camelot : There the river eddy whirls, And there the surly village-churls, And the red cloaks of market girls, Pass onward from Shalott. Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, An abbot on an ambling pad, Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad, Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad, Goes by to tower'd Camelot : And sometimes thro' the mirror blue The knights come riding two and two; She hath no loyal knight and true, The Lady of Shalott. But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror's magic sights, For often thro' the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights And music, went to Camelot : Or when the moon was overhead, Came two young lovers lately wed; ' I am half sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shalott. 28 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, He rode between the barley-sheaves, The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot. A red- cross knight for ever kneel' d To a lady in his shield, That sparkled on the yellow field, Beside remote Shalott. The gemmy bridle glitter'd free, Like to some branch of stars we see Hung in the golden Galaxy. The bridle bells rang merrily As he rode down to Camelot : And from his blazon'd baldric slung A mighty silver bugle hung, And as he rode his armour rung, Beside remote Shalott. All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather, The helmet and the helmet-feather Burn'd like one burning flame together, As he rode down to Camelot. As often thro' the purple night, Below the starry clusters bright, Some bearded meteor, trailing light, Moves over still Shalott. His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd ; On burnish 'd hooves his war-horse trode; From underneath his helmet flow'd His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. From the bank and from the river He flash'd into the crystal mirror, ' Tirra lirra,' by the river Sang Sir Lancelot. She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro' the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; 'The curse is come upon 'me,' cried The Lady of Shalott. PART IV. In the stormy east-wind straining, The pale yellow woods were waning, The broad stream in his banks complain- ing, Heavily the low sky raining Over tower'd Camelot; Down she came and found a boat Beneath a willow left afloat, And round about the prow she wrote The Lady of Shalott. And down the river's dim expanse Like some bold seer in a trance, Seeing all his own mischance — With a glassy countenance Did she look to Camelot. And at the closing of the day She loosed the chain, and down she lay; The broad stream bore her far away, The Lady of Shalott. Lying, robed in snowy white That loosely flew to left and right — The leaves upon her falling light — Thro' the noises of the night She floated down to Camelot : And as the boat-head wound along The willowy hills and fields among, They heard her singing her last song, The Lady of Shalott. Heard a carol, mournful, holy, Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, Till her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darken'd wholly, Turn'd to tower'd Camelot. For ere she reach'd upon the tide The first house by the water-side, Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott. Under tower and balcony, By garden-wall and gallery, A gleaming shape she floated by, Dead-pale between the houses high, Silent into Camelot. Out upon the wharfs they came, Knight and burgher, lord and dame, And round the prow they read her name, The Lady of Shalott. MARIANA IN THE SOUTH. 29 Who is this? and what is here? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they cross'd themselves for fear, All the knights at Camelot : But Lancelot mused a little space; He said, ' She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.' MARIANA IN THE SOUTH. With one black shadow at its feet, ' The house thro' all the level shines, Close-latticed to the brooding heat, And silent in its dusty vines : A faint-blue ridge upon the right, An empty river-bed before, And shallows on a distant shore, In glaring sand and inlets bright. But ' Ave Mary,' made she moan, And ' Ave Mary,' night and morn, And • Ah,' she sang, ' to be all alone, To live forgotten, and love forlorn.' She, as her carol sadder grew, From brow and bosom slowly down Thro' rosy taper fingers drew Her streaming curls of deepest brown To left and right, and made appear Still-lighted in a secret shrine, Her melancholy eyes divine, The home of woe without a tear. And ' Ave Mary,' was her moan, • Madonna, sad is night and morn,' And ' Ah,' she sang, ' to be all alone, To live forgotten, and love forlorn.' Till all the crimson changed, and past Into deep orange o'er the sea, Low on/her knees herself she cast, Before Our Lady murmur' d she; Complaining, ' Mother, give me grace To help me of my weary load.' And on the liquid mirror glow'd The clear perfection of her face. ' Is this the form,' she made her moan, 'That won his praises night and morn ? ' And ' Ah,' she said, .' but I wake alone, I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn.' Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat, Nor any cloud would cross the vault, But day increased from heat to heat, On stony drought and steaming salt; Till now at noon she slept again, And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass, And heard her native breezes pass, And runlets babbling down the glen. She breathed in sleep a lower moan, And murmuring, as at night and morn, She thought, ' My spirit is here alone, Walks forgotten, and is forlorn.' Dreaming, she knew it was a dream : She felt he was and was not there. She woke : the babble of the stream Fell, and, without, the steady glare Shrank one sick willow sere and small. The river-bed was dusty- white; And all the furnace of the light Struck up against the blinding wall. She whisper'd, with a stifled moan More inward than at night or morn, ' Sweet Mother, let me not here alone Live forgotten and die forlorn.' And, rising, from her bosom drew Old letters, breathing of her worth, For 'Love,' they said, 'must needs be true, > To what is loveliest upon earth.' An image seem'd to pass the door, To look at her with slight, and say ' But now thy beauty flows away, So be alone for evermore.' 1 cruel heart,' she changed her tone, ' And cruel love, whose end is scorn, Is this the end to be left alone, To live forgotten, and die forlorn? ' But sometimes in the falling day An image seem'd to pass the door, To look into her eyes and say, ' But thou shalt be alone no more.' And flaming downward over all From heat to heat the day decreased, And slowly rounded to the east The one black shadow from the wall. 'The day to night,' she made her moan. 3° THE TWO VOICES. 'The day to night, the night to morn, And day and night I am left alone To live forgotten, and love forlorn.' At eve a dry cicala sung, There came a sound as of the sea; Backward the lattice-blind she flung, And lean'd upon the balcony. There all in spaces rosy-bright Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears, And deepening thro' the silent spheres Heaven over Heaven rose the night. And weeping then she made her moan, 'The night comes on that knows not morn, When I shall cease to be all alone, To live forgotten, and love forlorn.' THE TWO VOICES. A still small voice spake unto me, * Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be? ' Then to the still small voice I said : ' Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made.' To which the voice did urge reply : ' To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie. ' An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk : from head to tail Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. ' He dried his wings : like gauze they grew; Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew.' I said, ' When first the world began, Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, And in the sixth she moulded man. ' She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast.' Thereto the silent voice replied : ' Self-blinded are you by your pride : Look up thro' night : the world is wide. 'This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse. ' Think you this mould of hopes and fear" Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres?' It spake, moreover, in my mind : • Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind.' Then did my response clearer fall : ' No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all.' To which he answer'd scoffingly : ' Good soul ! suppose I grant it thee, Who'll weep for thy deficiency? ' Or will one beam be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancell'd in the world of sense? ' I would have said, 'Thou canst not know,' But my full heart, that work'd below, Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow. Again the voice spake unto me : ' Thou art so steep'd in misery, Surely 'twere better not to be. ' Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep : Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep.' I said, * The years with change advance : If* I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance. ' Some turn this sickness yet might take, Ev'n yet.' But he : ' What drug can make A wither'd palsy cease to shake?' I wept, ' Tho' I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow; THE TWO VOICES. 3* 'And men, thro' novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not.' 'Yet,' said the secret voice, 'some time, Sooner or later, will gray prime Make thy grass hoar with early "rime. ' Not less swift souls that yearn for light, Rapt after heaven's starry flight, Would sweep the tracts of day and night. ' Not less the bee would range her cells, The furzy prickle fire the dells, The foxglove cluster dappled bells.' I said that ' all the years invent; Each month is various to present The world with some development. ' Were this not well, to bide mine hour, Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower How grows the day of human power?' ' The highest-mounted mind,' he said, ' Still sees the sacred morning spread The silent summit overhead. ' Will thirty seasons render plain Those lonely lights that still remain, Just breaking over land and main? ' Or make that morn, from his cold crown And crystal silence creeping down, Flood with full daylight glebe and town? ' Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet. 'Thou hast not gain'd a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite. * 'Twere better not to breathe or speak, Than cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but still to seek. ' Moreover, but to seem to find Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, A healthy frame, a quiet mind.' I said, ' When I am gone away, " He dared not tarry," men will say, . Doing dishonour to my clay.' ' This is more vile,' he made reply, 'To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, Than once from dread of pain to die. ' Sick art thou — a divided will Still heaping on the fear of ill The fear of men, a coward still. ' Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground? 'The memory of the wither'd leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf. 'Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust; The right ear, that is fill'd with dust, Hears little of the false or just.' ' Hard task, to pluck resolve,' I cried, ' From emptiness and the waste wide Of that abyss, or scornful pride ! 'Nay — rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise. ' When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash'd and rung. ' I sung the joyful Paean clear, And, sitting, burnish'd without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear — ' Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life — ' Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love — ' As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about — 32 THE TWO VOICES. ' To search thro' all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law: 1 At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed, ' To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor merely in a selfish cause — ' In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown; * Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, When soil'd with noble dust, he hears His country's war-song thrill his ears : * Then dying of a mortal stroke, What time the foeman's line is broke, And all the war is roll'd in smoke. ' Yea ! ' said the voice, ' thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood. ' If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour? * Then comes the check, the change, the fall, Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all. ' Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, Link'd month to month with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain. L ' Thou hadst not between death and birth |m3issolved the riddle of the earth. |\So were thy labour little-worth. ' That men with knowledge merely play'd I told thee — hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade; ' Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind. • For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. ' Cry, faint not : either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn. ' Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest flights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. ' Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 1 1 will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow. ' If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embraci ng-cloud, Ixion-like; ' And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower ' Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl ! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all.' 1 dull, one-sided voice,' said I, ' Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die ? * I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds. I I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven : 1 Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream; 1 But heard, by secret transport led, Ev'n in the enamels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head — THE ?W0 VOICES. 33 { Which did accomplish their desire, Bore and forebore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. ' He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones : ' But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face.' The sullen answer slid betwixt: I Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd, The elements were kindlier mix'd.' I said, ' I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse. ' And that, in seeking to undo One riddle, and to find the true, I knit a hundred others new : ' Or that this anguish fleeting hence, Unmanacled from bonds of sense, Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence : ■ For I go, weak from suffering here : Naked I go, and void of cheer : What is it that I may not fear? ' ' Consider well,' the voice replied, i His face, that two hours since hath died; Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride ? * Will he obey when one commands ? Or answer should one press his hands He answers not, nor understands. I His palms are folded on his breast : There is no other thing express'd But long disquiet merged in rest. j His lips are very mild and meek : Tho' one should smite him on the cheek, And on the mouth, he will not speak. j His little daughter, whose sweet face He kiss'd, taking his last embrace, Becomes dishonour to her race — * His sons grow up that bear his name, Some grow to honour, some to shame, — But he is chill to praise or blame. * He will not hear the north-wind rave, Nor, moaning, household shelter crave From winter rains that beat his grave. ' High up the vapours fold and swim : About him broods the twilight dim : The place he knew forgetteth him.' ' If all be dark, vague voice,' I said, 'These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. ' The sap dries up ; the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs? ' I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew. ' From grave to grave the shadow crept : In her still place the morning wept : Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept. * The simple senses crown'd his head : " Omega ! thou art Lord," they said, " We find no motion in the dead." ' -Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease ? ' Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By Which he doubts against the sense? ' He owns the fatal gift of eyes, That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies. ' Here sits he shaping wings to fly : His heart forebodes a mystery : He names the name Eternity. ' That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself on every wind. 34 THE TWO VOICES. 1 He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro' thick veils to apprehend A labour working to an end. • The end and the beginning vex His reason : many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counterchecks. • He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would. ' Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn. ' Ah ! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt, 1 But thou canst answer not again. With thine own weapon art thou slain, Or thou wilt answer but in vain. ' The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. In the same circle we revolve. Assurance only breeds resolve.' As when a billow, blown against, Falls back, the voice with which I fenced A little ceased, but recommenced. ' Where wert thou when thy father play'd In his free field, and pastime made, A merry boy in sun and shade? * A merry boy they call'd him then, He sat upon the knees of men In days that never come again. 1 Before the little ducts began To feed thy bones with lime, and ran Their course, till thou wert also man : ' Who took a wife, who rear'd his race, Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face, Whose troubles number with his days : * A life of nothings, nothing-worth, From that first nothing ere his birth To that last nothing under earth ! ' • These words,' I said, ' are like the rest; No certain clearness, but at best A vague suspicion of the breast : ' But if I grant, thou mightst defend The thesis which thy words intend — That to begin implies to end; I Yet how should I for certain hold, Because my memory is so cold, That I first was in human mould? I I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, A random arrow from the brain. 1 It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round. ' As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping thro' from state to state. • As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again, ' So might we, if our state were such As one before, remember much, For those two likes might meet and touch. ' But, if I lapsed from nobler place, Some legend of a fallen race Alone might hint of my disgrace ; 1 Some vague emotion of delight In gazing up an Alpine height, Some yearning toward the lamps oi night; • Or if thro' lower lives I came — Tho' all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame — • I might forget my weaker lot ; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not. • And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind. THE TWO VOICES. 35 1 Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory : 1 For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime? 4 Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams — ; ' Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare.' The still voice laugh'd. ■ I talk,' said he, \ Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality.' ' But thou,' said I, ' hast missed thy mark, Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark. | Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensue With this old soul in organs new? ' Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death. * 'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want.' I ceased, and sat as one forlorn. Then said the voice, in quiet scorn, I Behold, it is tbfe Sabbath morn.' And I arose, and I released" The casement, and the light increased With freshness in the dawning east. Like soften'd airs that blowing steal, When meres begin to uncongeal, The sweet church bells began to peal. On to God's house the people prest : Passing the place where each must rest, Each enter'd like a welcome guest. One walk'd between his wife and child, With measured footfall firm and mild, And now and then he gravely smiled. The prudent partner of his blood Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good, Wearing the rose of womanhood. And in their double love secure, The little maiden walk'd demure, Pacing with downward eyelids pure. These three made unity so sweet, My frozen heart began to beat, Remembering its ancient heat. I blest them, and they wander'd on : I spoke, but answer came there none : The dull and bitter voice was gone. A second voice was at mine ear, A little whisper silver-clear, A murmur, ' Be of better cheer/ As from some blissful neighbourhood, A notice faintly understood, I I see the end, and know the good.' A little hint to solace woe, A hint, a whisper breathing low, ' I may not speak of what I know.' Like an v'Eolian harp that wakes No certain air, but overtakes Far thought with music that it makes : Such seem'd the whisper at my side : ' What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?' I cried. ' A hidden hope,' the voice replied : So heavenly-toned, that in that hour From out my sullen heart a power Broke, like the rainbow from the shower, To feel, altho' no tongue can prove, That every cloud, that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love. And forth into the fields I went, And Nature's living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent. 36 THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 1 wonder'd at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers : You scarce could see the grass for flowers. I wonder'd, while I paced along : The woods were fill'd so full with song, There seem'd no room for sense of wrong; And all so variously wrought, I marvell'd how the mind was brought To anchor by one gloomy thought; And wherefore rather I made choice To commune with that barren voice, Than him that said, ' Rejoice ! Rejoice ! ' THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. I see the wealthy miller yet, His double chin, his portly size, And who that knew him could forget The busy wrinkles round his eyes? The slow wise smile that, round about His dusty forehead drily curl'd, Seem'd half-within and half-without, And full of dealings with the world? In yonder chair I see him sit, Three fingers round the old silver cup — I see his gray eyes twinkle yet At his own jest — gray eyes lit up With summer lightnings of a soul So full of summer warmth, so glad, So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, His memory scarce can make me sad. Yet fill my glass : give me one kiss : My own sweet Alice, we must die. There's somewhat in this world amiss Shall be unriddled by and by. There's somewhat flows to us in life, But more is taken quite away. Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife, That we may die the self-same day. Have I not found a happy earth? I least should breathe a thought of pain. Would God renew me from my birth I'd almost live my life again. So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mine — It seems in after-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine — To be the long and listless boy Late-left an orphan of the squire, Where this old mansion mounted high Looks down upon the village spire : For even here, where I and you Have lived and loved alone so long, Each morn my sleep was broken thro' By some wild skylark's matin song. And oft I heard the tender dove In firry woodlands making moan; But ere I saw your eyes, my love, I had no motion of my own. For scarce my life with fancy play'd Before I dream'd that pleasant dream — Still hither thither idly sway'd Like those long mosses in the stream. Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear The milldam rushing down with noise, And see the minnows everywhere In crystal eddies glance and poise, The tall flag-flowers when they sprung Below the range of stepping-stones, Or those three chestnuts near, that hung In masses thick with milky cones. But, Alice, what an hour was that, When, after roving in the woods ('Twas April then), I came and sat Below the chestnuts, when their buds Were glistening to the breezy blue; And on the slope, an absent fool, I cast me down, nor thought of you, But angled in the . igher pool. A love-song I had somewhere read, An echo from a measured strain, Beat time to nothing in my head From some odd corner of the brain. It haunted me, the morning long, With weary sameness in the rhymes, The phantom of a silent song, That went and came a thousand times. Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood I watch '-1 che little circles die- THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 37 They past into the level flood, And there a vision caught my eye; The reflex of a beauteous form, A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, As when a sunbeam wavers warm Within the dark and dimpled beck For you remember, you had set, That morning, on the casement-edge A long green box of mignonette, And you were leaning from the ledge And when I raised my eyes, above They met with two so full and bright — Such eyes ! I swear to you, my love, That these have never lost their light. I loved, and love dispell'd the fear That I should die an early death : For love possess'd the atmosphere, And fill'd the breast with purer breath. My mother thought, ' What ails the boy ? ' For I was alter'd, and began To move about the house with joy, And with the certain step of man. I loved the brimming wave that swam Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, The sleepy pool above the dam, The pool beneath it never still, The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor, The dark round of the dripping wheel, The very air about the door Made misty with the floating meal. And oft in ramblings on the wold, When April nights began to blow, And April's crescent glimmer'd cold, I saw the village lights below; I knew your taper far away, And full at heart of trembling hope From off the wold I came, and lay Upon the freshly-flower'd slope. The deep brook groan'd beneath the mill; And 'By that lamp,' I thought, 'she sits ! ' The white chalk-quarry from the hill Gleam'd to the flying moon by fits. ' O that I were beside her now ! O will she answer if I call? O would she give me vow for vow, Sweet Alice, if I told her all? ' Sometimes I saw you sit and spin; And, in the pauses of the wind, Sometimes I heard you sing within, Sometimes your shadow cross'd the blind. At last you rose and moved the light, And the long shadow of the chair Flitted across into the night, And all the casement darken'd there. But when at last I dared to speak, The lanes, you know, were white with may, , Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek Flush'd like the coming of the day; And so it was — half-sly, half-shy, You would, and would not, little one ! Although I pleaded tenderly, And you and I were all alone. And slowly was my mother brought To yield consent to my desire : She wish'd me happy, but she thought I might have look'd a little higher; And I was young — too young to wed: 'Yet must I love her for your sake; Go fetch your Alice here,' she said : Her eyelid quiver'd as she spake. And down I went to fetch my bride : But, Alice, you were ill at ease; This dress and that by turns you tried, Too fearful that you should not please. I loved you better for your fears, I knew you could not look but well; And dews, that would have fall'n in tears, I kiss'd away before they fell. I watch'd the little flutterings, The doubt my mother would not see; She spoke at large of many things, And at the last she spoke of me; And turning look'd upon your face, As near this door you sat apart, And rose, and, with a silent grace Approaching, press'd you heart to heart Ah, well — but sing the foolish song I gave you, Alice, on the day When, arm in arm, we went along, A pensive pair, and you were gay 3§ THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER — FATIMA. With bridal flowers — that I may seem, As in the nights of.old, to lie Beside the mill-wheel in the stream, While those full chestnuts whisper by. It is the miller's daughter, And she is grown so dear, so dear, That I would be the jewel That trembles in her ear: For hid in ringlets day and night, I'd touch her neck so warm and white. And I would be the girdle About her dainty dainty waist, And her heart would beat against me, In sorrow and in rest: And I should know if it beat right, I'd clasp it round so close and tight. And I would be the necklace, And all day long to fall and rise Upon her balmy bosom, With her laughter or her sighs, And I would lie so light, so light, I scarce should be unclasp'd at night. A trifle, sweet ! which true love spells — True love interprets — right alone. His light upon the letter dwells, For all the spirit is his own. So, if I waste words now, in truth You must blame Love. His early rage Had force to make me rhyme in youth, And makes me talk too much in age. And now those vivid hours are gone, Like mine own life to me thou art, While Past and Present, wound in one, Do make a garland for the heart: £o sing that other song I made, Half-anger'd with my happy lot, Vhe day, when in the chestnut shade I found the blue Forget-me-not. Love that hath us in the net, Can he pass, and we forget? Many suns arise and set. Many a chance the years beget. Love the gift is Love the debt. Even so. Love is hurt with jar and fret. Love is made a vague regret. Eyes with idle tears are wet. Idle habit links us yet. What is love? for we forget: Ah. no! no! Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife, Round my true heart thine arms entwine My other dearer life in life, Look thro' my very soul with thine ! Untouch'd with any shade of years, May those kind eyes for ever dwell ! They have not shed a many tears, Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. Yet tears they shed : they had their part Of sorrow : for when time was ripe, The still affection of the heart Became an outward breathing type, That into stillness past again, And left a want unknown before; Although the loss had brought us pain, That loss but made us love the more, With farther lookings on. The kiss, The woven arms, seem but to be Weak symbols of the settled bliss, The comfort, I have found in thee : But that God bless thee, dear — who wrought Two spirits to one equal mind — With blessings beyond hope or thought, With blessings which no words can find. Arise, and let us wander forth, To yon old mill across the wolds; For look, the sunset, south and north, Winds all the vale in rosy folds, And fires your narrow casement glass, Touching the sullen pool below : On the chalk-hill the bearded grass Is dry and dewless. Let us go. FATIMA. O Love, Love, Love ! O withering might ! O sun, that from thy noonday height Shudderest when I strain my sight, Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light, Lo, falling from my constant mind, Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind, I whirl like leaves in roaring wind. Last night I wasted hateful hours Below the city's eastern towers : i FA TIM A — (EN ONE. 39 I thirsted for the brooks, the showers : I roll'd among the tender flowers : I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth; I look'd athwart the burning drouth Of that long desert to the south. Last night, when some one spoke his nam::, From my swift blood that went and came A thousand little shafts of flame Were shiver'd in my narrow frame. Love, O fire ! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul thro' My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. Before he mounts the hill, I know He cometh quickly : from below Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow Before him, striking on my brow. In my dry brain my spirit soon, Down-deepening from swoon to swoon, Faints like a dazzled morning moon. The wind sounds like a silver wire, And from beyond the noon a fire Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher The skies stoop down in their desire; And, isled in sudden seas of light, My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight, Bursts into blossom in his sight. My whole soul waiting silently, All naked in a sultry sky, Droops blinded with his shining eye : I will posses^ him or will die 1 will gi?ow round him in his place, GroWj/five, die looking on his face, Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace. CENONE. There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine, And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine In cataract after cataract to the sea. Behind the valley topmost Gargarus Stands up and takes the morning : but in front The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel, The crown of Troas. Hither came at noon Mournful GEnone, wandering forlorn Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills. Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest. She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine, Sang to the stillness, till the mountain- shade Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff. 1 mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida. harken ere I die. For now the noonday quiet holds the hill : The grasshopper is silent in the grass : The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, Reste like a shadow, and the winds are dead. The purple flower droops: the golden bee Is lily-cradled : I alone awake. My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim, And I am all aweary of my life. * O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Hear me, O Earth, hear me, O Hills, O Caves That house the cold crown'd snake ! O mountain brooks, I am the daughter of a River-God, Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, A cloud that gather'd shape : for it maybe That, while I speak of it, a little while My heart may wander from its deeper woe. 4Q (ENONE. * O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. I waited underneath the dawning hills, Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark, And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine : Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris, Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd, white-hooved, Came up from reedy Simois all alone. ' O mother Ida, harken ere I die* . Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft : Far up the solitary morning smote The streaks of virgin snow. With down- dropt eyes I sat alone : white-breasted like a star Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin Droop'd from his shoulder, but his sunny hair Cluster'd about his temples like a God's : And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow brightens When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came. * Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. He smiled, and opening out his milk- white palm Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold, That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd And listen'd, the full-flowing river of speech Came down upon my heart. 1 " My own (Enone, Beautiful-brow'd CEnone, my own soul, Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav'n 'For the most fair,' would seem to award it thine, As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace Of movement, and the charm of married brows." * Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. He prest the blossom of his lips to mine, And added " This was cast upon the board, When all the full-faced presence of the Gods Ranged in the halls of Peleus; where- upon Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere due : But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve, Delivering that to me, by common voice Elected umpire, Here comes to-day, Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine, Mayst well behold them unbeheld, un- heard Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods." 1 Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. It was the deep midnoon : one silvery cloud Had lost his way between the piney sides Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came, Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower, And at their feet the crocus brake like fire, Violet, amaracus, and asphodel, Lotos and lilies : and a wind arose, And overhead the wandering ivy and vine, This way and that, in many a wild festoon Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro'. 1 mother Ida, harken ere I die. On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit, And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd Upon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew. Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made Proffer of royal power, ample rule Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue Wherewith to embellish state, M from many a vale And river-sunder'd champaign clothed with corn, (ENONE. 4i Or labour'd mine undrainable of ore. Honour," she said, " and homage, tax and toll, From many an inland town and haven large, Mast-throng'd beneath her shadowing citadel In glassy bays among her tallest towers." ' O mother Ida, harken ere I die. Still she spake on and still she spake of power, "Which in all action is the end of all; Power fitted to the season; wisdom- bred And throned of wisdom — from all neigh- bour crowns Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand Fail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from me, From me, Heaven's Queen, Paris, to thee king-born, A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born, Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power Only, are likest gods, who have attain'd Rest in a happy place and quiet seats Above the thunder, with undying bliss In knowledge of their own supremacy." \ Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. She ceasecL and Paris held the costly fruit Out at arm's length, so much the thought of power Flatter'd his spirit; but Pallas where she stood Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold, 'ihe while, above, her full and earnest eye Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply. ' " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self- control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power. Yet not for power (power of herself Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law, Acting the law we live by without fear; And because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of conse- quence." • ' Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Again she said : " I woo thee not with gifts. Sequel of guerdon could not alter me To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am, So shalt thou find me fairest. Yet, indeed If gazing on divinity disrobed Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair, Unbias'd by self-profit, oh ! rest thee sure, That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee, So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood, Shall strike within thy pulses like a God's, To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks, Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will, Circled thro' all experiences, pure law, Commeasure perfect freedom." 1 Here she ceas'd, And Paris ponder'd, and I cried, '* O Paris, Give it to Pallas ! " but he heard me not, Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me ! ' O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Idalian Aphrodite beautiful, Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells, With rosy slender fingers backward drew From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat And shoulder : from the violets her light foot Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form Between the shadows of the vine-bunches Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved. 42 (ENONE. ' Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes, The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh Hatf-whisper'd in his ear, " I promise thee The fairest and most loving wife in Greece." She spoke and laugh'd : I shut my sight for fear: But when I look'd, Paris had raised his arm, And I beheld great Here's angry eyes, As she withdrew into the golden cloud, And I was left alone within the bower ; And from that time to this I am alone, And I shall be alone until I die. ' Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die. Fairest — why fairest wife ? am I not fair ? My love hath told me so a thousand times. Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday, When I past by, a wild and wanton pard, Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she? Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains Flash in the pools of whirling Simois. ' O mother, hear me yet before I die. They came, they cut away my tallest pines, My tall dark pines, that plumed the craggy ledge High over the blue gorge, and all between The snowy peak and snow-white cataract Foster'd the callow eaglet — from beneath Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat Low in the valley. Never, never more Shall lone CEnone see the morning mist Sweep thro' them; never see them over- laid With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud, Between the loud stream and the trem- bling stars. ■ O mother, hear me yet before I die. I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds, Among the fragments tumbled from the glens, Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her The Abominable, that uninvited came Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall, And cast the golden fruit upon the board, And bred this change; that I might speak my mind, And tell her to her face how much I hate Her presence, hated both of Gods and men. ' O mother, hear me yet before I die. Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times, In this green valley, under this green hill, Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone? Seal'd it with kisses? water'd it with tears? O happy tears, and how unlike to these ! O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face? O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight? death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud, There are enough unhappy on this earth; Pass by the happy souls, that love to live : 1 pray thee, pass before my light of life, And shadow all my soul, that I may die. Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, Weigh heavy on my eyelids : let me die. 1 O mother, hear me yet before I die. I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts Do shape themselves within me, more and more, Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear Dead sounds at night come from the in- most hills, Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother Conjectures of the features of her child Ere it is born : her child ! — a shudder comes THE SISTERS— THE PALACE OF ART. 43 Across me : never child be born of me, Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes ! ' O mother, hear me yet before I die. Hear me, earth. I will not die alone, Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me Walking the cold and starless road of Death Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love With the Greek woman. I will rise and go Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says A fire dances before her, and a sound Rings ever in her ears of armed men. What this may be I know not, but I know That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day, All earth and air seem only burning fire.' THE SISTERS. We were two daughters of one race : She was the fairest in the face : The wind is blowing in turret and tree. They were together, and she fell; Therefore revenge J^ecame me well. O the Earl was/fair to see ! She died : she went to burning flame : She mix'd her ancient blood with shame. The wind is howling in turret and tree. Whole weeks and months, and early and late, To win his love I lay in wait : O the Earl was fair to see ! I made a feast; I bade him come; I won his love, I brought him home. The wind is roaring in turret and tree. And after supper, on a bed, Upon my lap he laid his head : O the Earl was fair to see ! I kissed his eyelids into rest : His ruddy cheek upon my breast. The wind is raging in turret and tree. I hated him with the hate of hell, But I loved his beauty passing well. O the Earl was fair to see ! I rose up in the silent night : I made my dagger sharp and bright. The wind is raving in turret and tree. As half-asleep his breath he drew, Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro'. O the Earl was fair to see ! I curl'd and comb'd his comely head, He look'd so grand when he was dead. The wind is blowing in turret and tree. I wrapt his body in the sheet, And laid him at his mother's feet. O the Earl was fair to see ! TO . WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM. I send you here a sort of allegory, (For you will understand it) of a soul, A sinful soul possess'd of many gifts, A spacious garden full of flowering weeds, A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain, That did love Beauty only (Beauty seen In all varieties of mould and mind), And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good, Good only for its beauty, seeing not That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters That dote upon each other, friends to man, Living together under the same roof, And never can be sunder'd w'thout tears. And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be Shut out from Love, and on her threshold He, Howling in outer darkness. Not for this Was common clay ta'en from the common earth Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears Of angels to the perfect shape of man. THE PALACE OF ART. I BUILT my soul a lordly pleasure-house, Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. I said, ' O Soul, make merry and carouse, Dear soul, for all is well.' 44 THE PALACE OF ART. A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd brass I chose. The ranged ramparts bright From level meadow-bases of deep grass Suddenly scaled the light. Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf The rock rose clear, or winding stair. My soul would live alone unto herself In her high palace there. And 'While the world runs round and round,' I said, 1 Reign thou apart, a quiet king, Still as, while Saturn whirls, his stedfast shade Sleeps on his luminous ring.' To which my soul made answer readily : ' Trust me, in bliss I shall abide In this great mansion, that is built for me, So royal-rich and wide.' Four courts I made, East, West and South and North, In each a squared lawn, wherefrom The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth A flood of fountain-foam. And round the cool green courts there ran a row Of cloistets^ branch'd like mighty woods, Echoing all night to that sonorous flow — Of spouted fountain-floods. And round the roofs a gilded gallery That lent broad verge to distant lands, Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky Dipt down to sea and sands. From those four jets four currents in one swell Across the mountain stream'd below In misty folds, that floating as they fell Lit up a torrent-bow. And high on every peak a statue seem'd To hang on tiptoe, tossing up A cloud of incense of all odour steam'd From out a golden cup. So that she thought, • And who shall gaze upon My palace with unblindeci eyes, While this great bow will waver in the sun, And that sweet incense rise?' For that sweet incense rose and never fail'd, And, while day sank or mounted higher, The light aerial gallery, golden-rail'd, Burnt like a fringe of fire. Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and traced, Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires From shadow'd grots of arches interlaced, And tipt with frost-like spires. Full of long-sounding corridors it was, That over-vaulted grateful gloom, Thro' which the livelong day my soul did pass, Well-pleased, from room to room. Full of great rooms and small the palace stood, All various, each a perfect whole From living Nature, fit for every mood And change of my still soul. For some were hung with arras green and blue, Showing a gaudy summer-morn, Where with puff 'd cheek the belted hunter blew His wreathed bugle-horn. One seem'd all dark and red — a tract of sand, And some one pacing there alone, Who paced for ever in a glimmering land, Lit with a low large moon. One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. You seem'd to hear them climb and fall And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, Beneath the windy wall. THE PALACE OF ART. 45 And one, a full-fed river winding slow By herds upon an endless plain, The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, With shadow-streaks of rain. And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. In front they bound the sheaves. Be- hind Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil, And hoary to the wind. And one a foreground black with stones and slags, Beyond, a line of heights, and higher All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags. \ ArfoHiighestTsnow and fire. And one, an English home — gray twi- light pour'd On dewy pastures, dewy trees, Softer than sleep — all things in order stored, A haunt of ancient Peace. Nor these alone, but every landscape fair, As fit for every modd of mind, Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there / Not less than truth design'd. # * » * * * * * Or the maid-mother by a crucifix, In tracts of pasture sunny-warm, Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx Sat smiling, babe in arm. Or in a clear-wall'd city on the sea, Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily; An angel look'd at her. Or thronging all one porch of Paradise A group of Houris bow'd to see The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes That said, We wait for thee. Or mythic tltheris-deeply-wounded son In some fair space of sloping greens Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon, And watch'd by weeping queens. Or hollowing one hand against his ear, To list a foot-fall, ere he saw The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear Of wisdom and of law. Or over hills with peaky tops engrail'd, And many a tract of palm and rice, The throne of Indian Cama slowly sail'd A summer faTinM with spice. Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasp'd, From off her shoulder backward borne : From one hand droop'd a crocus : one hand grasp'd The mild bull's golden horn. Or else flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh Half-buried in the Eagle's down, Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky Above the pillar'd town. Nor these alone : but every legend fail Which the supreme Caucasian mind Carved out of Nature for itself, was there, Not less than life, design'd. Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung, Moved of themselves, with silver sound ; And with choice, paintings of wise men I hung The royal dais round. For there was Milton like a seraph strong, Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild ; And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd his song, And somewhat grimly smiled. And there the Ionian father of the rest; A million wrinkles carved his skin; A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast, From cheek and throat and chin. Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately-set Many an arch high up did lift, And angels rising and descending met With interchange of gift. Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd With cycles of the human tale 4 6 THE PALACE OF ART. Of this wide world, the times of every land So wrought, they will not fail. The people here, a beast of burden slow, Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings; Here play'd, a tiger, rolling to and fro The heads and crowns of kings; Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind ' " All force in bonds that might endure, And here once more like some sick man declined, And trusted any cure. But over these she trod : and those great bells Began to chime. She took her throne : She sat betwixt the shining Oriels, To sing her songs alone. And thro' the topmost Oriels' coloured flame Two godlike faces gazed below; Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam, The first of those who know. And all those names, that in their motion were Full-welling fountain-heads of change, Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon'd fair In diverse raiment strange : Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue, Flush'd in her temples and her eyes, And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew Rivers of melodies. No nightingale delighteth to prolong Her low preamble all alone, More than my soul to hear her echo'd song Throb thro' the ribbed stone; Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, Joying to feel herself alive, Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible .earth, Lord of the senses five; Communing with herself: 'All these are mine, And let the world have peace or wars, 'Tis one to me.' She — when young night divine Crown'd dying day with stars, Making sweet close of his delicious toils — Lit light in wreaths and anadems, And pure quintessences of precious oils In hollow'd moons of gems, To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried, ' I marvel if :.iy ctill delight In this great house so royal-rich, and wide, Be flattcr'd to the height. 'O all things fair to sate my various eyes! shapes and hues that please me well! silent faces of the Great and Wise, My Gods, with whom I dwell ! 'O God-like isolation which art mine, 1 can but count thee perfecT gain, What time I watch the darkening droves of swine That range on yonder plain. 1 In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, They graze and wallow, breed and sleep; And oft some brainless devil enters in, And drives them to the deep/ Then of the moral instinct would she prate And of the rising from the dead, As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate ; And at the last she said : ' I take possession of man's mind and deed. I care not what the sects may brawl. I sit as God holding no form of creed, But contemplating all.' Full oft the riddle of the painful earth Flash'd thro' her as she sat alone, Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, And intellectual throne. THE PALACE OF ART. 47 And so she throve and prosper'd : so three years She prosper'd : on the fourth she fell, Like Herod, when the~~shout was in Eis ears, Struck thro' with pangs of hell. Lest she should fail and perish utterly, God, before whom ever lie bare The abysmal deeps of Personality, Plagued her with sore despair. When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight The airy hand confusion wrought, Wrote, ' Mene, mene,' and divided quite The kingdom of her thought. Deep dread and loathjng jrf her solitud e Fell on her, frorn which mood was born S corn of hersel f; again, from out that mood Laughter at her self-scorn. * What ! is not this my place of strength,' she said, / ' My spacious mansion built for me, Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid Since my first memory? ' But in dark corners of her palace stood Uncertain shapes; and unawares On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, And horrible nightmares, And hollow shades, enclosing hearts of flame, And, with dim fretted foreheads all, On corpses three-months-old at noon she came, That stood against the wall. A spot of dull stagnation, without light Or power of movement, seem'd my soul, 'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite Making for one sure goal. A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand, Left on the shore ; that hears all night The plunging seas draw backward from the land Their moon-led waters white. A star that with the choral starry dance Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw The hollow orb of moving Circumstance Roll'd round by one fix'd law. Back on herself her serpent jjride had curl'd. 'No voice,' she shriek'd in that lone hall, ' No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world : One deep, deep silence all ! ' She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod, Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, Lay there exiled from eternal God, Lost to her place and name; And death and life she hated equally, And nothing saw, for her despair, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, No comfort anywhere; Remaining utterly confused with fears, And ever worse with growing time, And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, And all alone in crime : Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round With blackness as a solid wall, Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound Of human footsteps fall. As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, In doubt and great perplexity, A little before moon-rise hears the low Moan of an unknown sea; And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, 'I have found Anewjand, but I die.' She howl'd aloud, ' I am on fire within. There comes no murmur of reply. 4 8 LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. What is it that will take away my sin, And save me lest I die ? ' So when four years were wholly finished, She threw her royal robes away. * Make me a cottage in the vale,' she said, ' Where I may mourn and pray. ' Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are So lightly, beautifully built : Perchance I may return with others there When I have purged my guilt.' LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Of me you shall not win renown : You thought to break a country heart For pastime, ere you went to town. At me you smiled, but unbeguiled I saw the snare, and I retired: The daughter of a hundred Earls, You are not one to be desired. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I know you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for mine, Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake A heart that dotes on truer charms. A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find, For were you queen of all that is, I could not stoop to such a mind. You sought to prove how I could love, And my disdain is my reply. The lion on your old stone gates Is not more cold to you than I. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching limes have blown Since I beheld young Laurence dead. Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies : A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his throat Which you had hardly cared to see. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you. Indeed I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall : The guilt of blood is at your door : You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, And slew him with your noble birth. Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent The gardener Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. I know you, Clara Vere de Vere, You pine among your halls and towers : The languid light of your proud eyes Is wearied of the rolling hours. In glowing health, with boundless wealth, But sickening of a vague disease, You know so ill to deal with time, You needs must play such pranks as these. Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, If time be heavy on your hands, Are there no beggars at your gate, Nor any poor about your lands? Oh ! teach the orphan-boy to read, Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, Pray heaven for a human heart, And let the foolish yeoman go. THE MAY QUEEN. 49 THE MAY QUEEN. You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year; Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day; For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine; There's Margaret and Mary, there's Kate and Caroline : But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say, So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake, If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break : But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see, But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree? He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday, But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white, And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light. They call me cruel-hearted, but 1 care not what they say, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be : They say his heart is breaking, mother — what is that to me? There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green, And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen; For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far away, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n its wavy bowers, And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers; And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass, And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass; There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still, And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill, And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and play, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. s 50 THE MAY QUEEN. So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear, To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year : To-morrow 'ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. NEW-YEAR'S EVE. If you're waking call me early, call me early, mother dear, For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year. It is the last New-year that I shall ever see, Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more of me. To-night I saw the sun set : he set and left behind The good old year, the deat old time, and all my peace of mind; And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree. Last May we made a crown of flowers : we had a merry day; , Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May; And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse, Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops. There's not a flower on all the hills : the frost is on the pane : I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again : I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high : I long to see a flower so before the day I die. The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree, And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er the wave. But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave. Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine, In the early early morning the summer sun 'ill shine, Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill, When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still. When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night; When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool. You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade, And you'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid. I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass, With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass. I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now; You'll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go; Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild, You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child. THE MAY QUEEN. If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place; Tho' you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face; Tho' I cannot speak a word, I shall harken what you say, And be often, often with you when you think I'm far away. Goodnight, goodnight, when I have said goodnight for evermore, And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door; Don't let Erne come to see me till my grave be growing green : She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been. She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor : Let her take 'em : they are hers : I shall never garden more: But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette. Goodnight, sweet mother : call me before the day is born. All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn; But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year, So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear. CONCLUSION. I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am; And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb. How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year ! To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet's here. O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise, And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow, And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go. It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done ! But still I think it can't be long before I find release; And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace. O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair ! And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there ! blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head ! A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed. He taught me all the mercy, for he show'd me all the sin. Now, tho' my lamp was lighted late, there's One will let me in : Nor would I now be well, mother, again if that could be, For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me. 1 did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet ; But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine, And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign. 52 THE MAY QUEEN. All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call ; It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul. For lying broad awake I thought of you and Efne dear; I saw you sitting in the house and I no longer here ; With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resign'd, And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind. I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed, And then did something speak to me — I know not what was said; For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind, And up the valley came again the music on the wind. But you were sleeping; and I said, ' It's not for them : it's mine.' And if it come three times, I thought, I take it for a sign. And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars, Then seem'd to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars. So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go. And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day. But, Efne, you must comfort her when I am passed away. And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret; There's many a worthier than I, would make him happy yet. If I had lived — I cannot tell — I might have been his wife; But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life. O look ! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know. And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine — Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine. O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun — For ever and for ever with those just souls and true — And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado? For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home — And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come — To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast — And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest THE LOTOS-EATERS. 53 THE LOTOS-EATERS. 1 Courage ! ' he said, and pointed toward the land, 'This mounting wave will roll us shore- ward soon.' In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. A land of streams ! some, like a down- ward smoke, Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke, Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. They saw the gleaming river seaward flow From the inner land : far off, three moun- tain-tops, Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, Sfood sunset-fiush'd : and, dew'd with showery drops, Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. The charmed sunset lingered low adown In the red West : thro' mountain clefts the dale Was seen far inland, and the yellow down Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale And meadow, set with slender galingale; A land where all things always seem'd the same ! And round about the keel with faces pale, Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave To each, but whoso did receive of them, And taste, to him the gushing of the wave Far far away did seem to mourn and rave On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, His voice was thin, as voices from the grave ; And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake, And music in his ears his beating heart did make. They sat them down upon the yellow sand, Between the sun and moon upon the shore; And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, Of child, and wife, and slave; but ever- more Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar, Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. Then some one said, ' We will return no more; ' And all at once they sang, ' Our island home Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.' CHORIC SONG. There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, Or night-dews on still waters between walls Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes; Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep, And thro' the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. II. Why are we weigh'd upon with heavi- ness, And utterly consumed with sharp dis- tress, 54 THE LOTOS-EATERS. While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: to]] fllorigj We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown : Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, ' There is no joy but calm ! ' Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? III. Lo ! in the middle of the wood, The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud With winds upon the branch, and there Grows green and broad, and takes no care, Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow Falls, and floats adown the air. Lo ! sweeten'd with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mel- low, Drops in a silent autumn night. All its allotted length of days, The flower ripens in its place, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. IV. Hateful is the dark-blue sky, J Vaulted o'er the dark -blue sea. Death is the end of life; ah, why Should life all labour be? Let us done. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. Let us alone,. What pleasure can we have To war with evil ? Is there any peace fin ever climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence; ripen, fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death, L *** or dreamful ease. v. How sweet it were, hearing the down- ward stream, With half-shut eyes ever to seem Falling asleep in a half-dream ! To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; To hear each other's whisper'd speech; Eating the Lotos day by day, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, > And tender curving lines of creamy spray; To lend our hearts and spirits wholly > To the influence of mild-minded melan- choly; To muse and brood and live again in memory, With those old faces of our infancy Heap'd over with a mound of grass, Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass ! Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, And dear the last embraces of our wives And their warm tears : but all hath suf- fer'd change: For surely now our household hearths are cold: Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange : And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Or else the island princes over-bold Have eat our substance, and the min- strel sings Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. Is there confusion in the little isle? Let what is broken so remain. The Gods are hard to reconcile : 'Tis hard to settle order once again. There is confusion worse than death, TroubTe on trouble, pain on pain, Long labour unto aged breath, THE LOTOS-EATERS— A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 55 Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. VII. But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) With half-dropt eyelid still, Beneath a heaven dark and holy, To watch the long bright river drawing slowly His waters from the purple hill — To hear the dewy echoes calling From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine — To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine ! Only to hear and see the far-off spark- ling brine, Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine. The Lotos blooms below the barren peak : The Lotos blows by every winding creek : All day the wind breathes low with mel- lower tone : Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of, mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: Wh ere the y smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an an- cient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; Chanted from an i ll-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer — some, 'tis whisper'd — down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade, ' The Legend of Good Women? long ago Sung by the morning star of song, who made His music heard below; Dan Chaucer, the first v/arbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still. And, for a while, the knowledge of his art Held me above the subject, as strong gales Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho' my heart, Brimful of those wild tales, 56 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. Charged both mine eyes with tears. In As when a great thought strikes along every land the brain, I saw, wherever light illumineth, And flushes all the cheek. Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand The downward slope to death. And once my arm was lifted to hew down A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, 1 hose far-renowned brides of ancient song That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town; Peopled the hollow dark, like burning And then, I know not how, stars, And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing wrong, thought And trumpets blown for wars; Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep And clattering flints batter'd with clang- Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd, ing hoofs; and brought And I saw crowds in column' d sanctu- Into the gulfs of sleep. aries ; And forms that pass'd at windows and on At last methought that I had wander'd far roofs In an old wood : fresh-wash'd in coolest Of marble palaces; dew The maiden splendours of the morning star Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall Shook in the stedfast blue. Dislodging pinnacle and parapet Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall; Enormous elm-tree-boles did stoop and Lances in ambush set; lean Upon the dusky brushwood underneath And high shrine-doors burst thro' with Their broad curved branches, fledged wrth heated blasts clearest green, That run before the fluttering tongues New from its silken sheath. of fire; White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and The dim red morn had died, her journey masts, done, And ever climbing higher; And with dead lips smiled at the twi- light plain, Squadrons and squares of men in brazen Half-fall' n across the threshold of the sun, plates, Never to rise again. Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, There was no motion in the dumb dead air, Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron Not any song of bird or sound of rill; grates, Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre And hush'd seraglios. Is not so deadly still So shape chased shape as swift as, when As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine to land turn'd Bluster the winds and tides the self- Their humid arms festooning tree to same way, tree, Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level And at the root thro' lush green grasses sand, burn'd Torn from the fringe of spray. The red anemone. I started once, or seem'd to start in pain, I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I Resolved on noble things, and strove knew to speak, The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 57 On those long, rank, dark wood-walks drench'd in dew, Leading from lawn to lawn. The smell of violets, hidden in the green, Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame The times when I remember to have been Joyful and free from blame. And from within me a clear under-tone ThrilPd thro' mine ears in that unbliss- ful clime, 'Pass freely thro' : the wood is all thine own, Until the end of time.' At length I saw a lady within call, Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair. Her loveliness with shame and with sur- prise Froze my swift speech : she turning on my face The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes, Spoke slowly in her place. ' I had great beauty : ask thou not my name : No one can be more wise than destiny. Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came I brought calamity.' 'No marvel, sovereign lady: in fair field Myself for such a face had boldly died,' I answer'd free; and turning I appeal'd To one that stood beside. But she, with sick and scornful looks averse, To her full height her stately stature draws; 'My youth,' she said, 'was blasted with a curse : This woman was the cause. ' I was cut off from hope in that sad place, Which men call'd Aulis in those iron years : My father held his hand upon his face; I, blinded with my tears, ' Still strove to speak : my voice was thick with sighs As in a dream. Dimly I could descry The stern black-bearded kings with wolf- ish eyes, Waiting to see me die. 'The high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat; The crowds, the temples, waver'd, and the shore; The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat; Touch'd; and I knew no more.' Whereto the other with a downward brow: ' I would the white cold heavy-plung- ing foam, Whirl'd by the wind, had roll'd me deep below, Then when I left my home.' Her slow full words sank thro' the silence drear, As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea: Sudden I heard a voice that cried, ' Come here, That I may look on thee.' I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise, One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll'd; A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, Brow-bound with burning gold. She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began : ' I govern 'd men by change, and so I sway'd All moods. 'Tis long since I have seen a man. Once, like the moon, I made 'The ever-shifting currents of the blood According to my humour ebb and flow. I have no men to govern in this wood: That makes my only woe. ' Nay — yet it chafes me that I could not bend One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye 58 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. That dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, From tone to tone, and glided thro' all friend, change Where is Mark Antony? Of liveliest utterance. * The man, my lover, with whom I rode When she made pause I knew not foi sublime delight; On Fortune's neck: we sat as God by Because with sudden motion from the God: ground The Nilus would have risen before his She raised her piercing orbs, and fill'd time with light And flooded at our nod. The interval of sound. * We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest lit darts; Lamps which out-burn'd Canopus. O As once they drew into two burning my life rings In Egypt ! the dalliance and the wit, All beams of Love, melting the mighty The flattery and the strife, hearts . Of captains and of kings. 'And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms, Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I My Hercules, my Roman Antony, heard My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms, A noise of some one coming thro' the Contented there to die ! lawn, And singing clearer than the crested t And there he died : and when I heard bird my name That claps his wings at dawn. Sigh'd forth with life I would not brook my fear * The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel Of the other: with a worm I balk'd his From craggy hollows pouring, late and fame. soon, What else was left? look here ! ' Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell, Far-heard beneath the moon. (With that she tore her robe apart, and half The polish'd argent of her breast to 1 The balmy moon of blessed Israel sight Floods all the deep-blue gloom with Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a beams divine : laugh, All night the splinter'd crags that wall Showing the aspick's bite.) the dell With spires of silver shine.' 'I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found As one that museth where broad sunshine Me lying dead, my crown about my laves brows, The lawn by some cathedral, thro' the A name for ever! — lying robed and door crown'd, Hearing the holy organ rolling waves Worthy a Roman spouse.' Of sound on roof and floor Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest Within, and anthem sung, is charm'd and range tied Struck by all passion, did fall down To where he stands, — so stood I, and glance when that flow A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 59 Of music left the lips of her that died To save her father's vow; The daughter of the warrior Gileadite, . A maiden pure; as when she went along From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with wel- come light, With timbrel and with song. My words leapt forth : ' Heaven heads the count of crimes With that wild oath.' She render'd answer high : 'Not so, nor once alone; a thousand times I would be born and die. ' Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root Creeps to the garden water-pipes be- neath, Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit Changed, I was ripe for death. 'My God, my land, my father — these did move Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave, Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love Down to a silent grave. ' And I went mourning, " No fair Hebrew boy Shall smile away my maiden blame among The Hebrew mothers emptied of all joy, Leaving the dance and song, ' Leaving the olive-gardens far below, Leaving the promise of my bridal bower, The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow Beneath the battled tower. 'The light white cloud swam over us. Anon We heard the lion roaring from his den; We saw the large white stars rise one by one, Or, from the darken'd glen, ' Saw God divide the night with flying flame, And thunder on the everlasting hills. I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became A solemn scorn of ills. ' When the next moon was roll'd into the sky, Strength came to me that equall'd my desire. How beautiful a thing it was to die For God and for my sire ! ' It comforts me in this one thought to dwell, .That I subdued me to my father's will; Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, Sweetens the spirit still. ' Moreover it is written that my race Hew'd Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer On Arnon unto Minneth.' Here her face Glow'd, as I look'd at her. She lock'd her lips : she left me where I stood : 'Glory to God,' she sang, and past afar, Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood, Toward the morning-star. Losing her carol I stood pensively, As one that from a casement leans his head, When midnight bells cease ringing sud- denly, And the old year is dead. ' Alas ! alas ! I a low voice, full of care, Murmur'd beside me : ' Turn and look on me: I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair, If what I was I be. 6o A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN—THE BLACKBIRD. * Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor ! O me, that I should ever see the light ! Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor Do hunt me. day and night.' She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust: To whom the Egyptian : ' Oh, you tamely died ! You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust The dagger thro' her side.' With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams, Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams Ruled in the eastern sky. Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark, Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc, A light of ancient France; Or her who knew that Love can vanquish Death, Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, Sweet as new buds in Spring. No memory labours longer from the deep Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep To gather and tell o'er Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain Compass' d, how eagerly I sought to strike Into that wondrous track of dreams again ! But no two dreams are like. As when a soul laments, which hath been blest, Desiring what is mingled with past years, In yearnings that can never be exprest By sighs or groans or tears; Because all words, tho' cull'd with choicest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, Wither beneath the palate, and the heart Faints, faded by its heat. THE BLACKBIRD. O blackbird ! sing me something well : While all the neighbours shoot thee round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell. The espaliers and the standards all Are thine; the range of lawn and park : The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden wall. Yet, tho' I spared thee all the spring, Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret the summer jenneting. A golden bill ! the silver tongue, Cold February loved, is dry : Plenty corrupts the melody That made thee famous once, when young : And in the sultry garden-squares, . Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse, I hear thee not at all, or hoarse As when a hawker hawks his wares. Take warning ! he that will not sing While yon sun prospers in the blue, Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, Caught in the frozen palms of Spring. THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sigh- ing: : THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR— TO J. S. 61 Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow And tread softly and speak low, For the old year lies a-dying. Old year, you must not die; You came to us so readily, You lived with us so steadily, Old year, you shall not die. He lieth still : he doth not move : He will not see the dawn of day. He hath no other life above. He gave me a friend, and a true true-love, And the New-year will take 'em away. Old year, you must not go; So long as you have been with us, Such joy as you have seen with us, Old year, you shall not go. He froth'd his bumpers to the brim; A jollier year we shall not see. But tho' his eyes are waxing dim, And tho' his foes speak ill of him, He was a friend to me. Old year, you shall not die; We did so laugh and cry with you, I've half a mind to die with you, Old year, if you must die. He was full of joke and jest, But all his merry quips are o'er. To see him die, across the waste His son and heir doth ride post-haste, But he'll be dead before. Every one for his own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend, Comes up to take his own. How hard he breathes ! over the snow I heard just now the crowing cock. The shadows flicker to and fro : The cricket chirps : the light burns low : 'Tis nearly twelve o'clock. Shake hands, before you die. Old year, we'll dearly rue for you : What is it we can do for you? Speak out before you die. His face is growing sharp and thin. Alack ! our friend is gone. Close up his eyes : tie up his chin : Step from the corpse, and let him in That standeth there alone, And waiteth at the door. There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, And a new face at the door, my friend, A new face at the door. TO J. S. The wind, that beats the mountain, blows More softly round the open wold, And gently comes the world to those That are cast in gentle mould. And me this knowledge bolder made, Or else I had not dared to flow In these words toward you, and invade Even with a verse your holy woe. 'Tis strange that those we lean on most, Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed, Fall into shadow, soonest lost : Those we love first are taken first. God gives us love. Something to love He lends us; but, when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone; This is the curse of time. Alas ! In grief I am not all unlearn'd; Once thro' mine own doors Death'did pass ; One went, who never hath return'd. He will not smile — not speak to me Once more. Two years his chair is seen Empty before us. That was he Without whose life I had not been. Your loss is rarer ; for this star Rose with you thro' a little arc Of heaven, nor having wander'd far Shot on the sudden into dark. I knew your brother : his mute dust I honour and his living worth : A man more pure and bold and just Was never born into the earth. 62 TO J. S.— ON A MOURNER. I have not look'd upon you nigh, Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep. Great Nature is move wise than I : I will not tell you not to weep. And tho' mine own eyes fill with dew, Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain, I will not even preach to you, 'Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain.' Let Grief be her own mistress still. She loveth her own anguish deep More than much pleasure. Let her will Be done — to weep or not to weep. I will not say, ' God's ordinance Of Death is blown in every wind; ' For that is not a common chance That takes away a noble mind. His memory long will live alone In all our hearts, as mournful light That broods above the fallen sun, And dwells in heaven half the night. Vain solace ! Memory standing near Cast down her eyes, and in her throat Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear Dropt on the letters as I wrote. I wrote I know not what. In truth, How should I soothe you anyway, Who miss the brother of your youth ? Yet something I did wish to say : For he too was a friend to me : Both are my friends, and my true breast Bleedeth for both ; yet it may be That only silence suiteth best. Words weaker than your grief would make Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease Although myself could almost take The place of him that sleeps in peace. Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace : Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll. Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. Nothing comes to thee new or strange. Sleep full of rest from head to feet; Lie still, dry dust, secure of change, ON A MOURNER. Nature, so far as in her lies, Imitates God, and turns her face To every land beneath the sk^es, Counts nothing that she meets with base, But lives and loves in every place; Fills out the homely quickset-screens, And makes the purple lilac ripe, Steps from her airy hill, and greens The swamp, where humm'd the drop- ping snipe, With moss and braided marish-pipe; And on thy heart a finger lays, Saying, ' Beat quicker, for the time Is pleasant, and the woods and ways Are pleasant, and the beech and lime Put forth and feel a gladder clime.' IV. And murmurs of a deeper voice, Going before to some far shrine, Teach that sick heart the stronger choice, Till all thy life one way incline With one wide Will that closes thine. v. And when the zoning eve has died Where yon dark valleys wind forlorn, Come Hope and Memory, spouse and bride, From out the borders of the morn, With that fair child betwixt them born. VI. And when no mortal motion jars The blackness round the tombing sod, LOVE THOU THY LAND. 63 Thro' silence and the trembling stars Conies Faith from tracts no feet have trod, And Virtue, like a household god Promising empire; such as those Once heard at dead of night to greet Troy's wandering prince, so that he rose With sacrifice, while all the fleet Had rest by stony hills of Crete. You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist, And languish for the purple seas. It is the land that freemen till, That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land, where girt with friends or foes A man may speak the thing he will; A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where Freedom slowly broadens down From precedent to precedent : Where faction seldom gathers head, But by degrees to fullness wrought, The strength of some diffusive thought Hath time and space to work and spread. Should banded unions persecute Opinion, and induce a time When single thought is civil crime, And individual freedom mute; Tho' Power should make from land to land The name of Britain trebly great — Tho' every channel of the State Should fill and choke with golden sand — Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, Wild wind ! I seek a warmer sky, And I will see before I die The palms and temples of the South. Of old sat Freedom on the heights, The thunders breaking at her feet : Above her shook the starry lights : She heard the torrents meet. There in her place she did rejoice, Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind, But fragments of her mighty voice Came rolling on the wind. Then stept she down thro' town and field To mingle with the human race, And part by part to men reveal'd The fullness of her face — Grave mother of majestic works, From her isle-altar gazing down, Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks, And, King-like, wears the crown : Her open eyes desire the truth. The wisdom of a thousand years Is in them. May perpetual youth Keep dry their light from tears; That her fair form may stand and shine, Make bright our days and light our dreams, Turning to scorn with lips divine The falsehood of extremes ! Love thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro' future time by power of thought. True love turn'd round on fixed poles, Love, that endures not sordid ends, For English' natures, freemen, friends, Thy brothers and immortal souls. But pamper not a hasty time, Nor feed with crude imaginings The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings That every sophister can lime. Deliver not the tasks of might To weakness, neither hide the ray From those, not blind, who wait fof day, Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light. 6 4 LOVE THOU THY LAND. Make knowledge circle with the winds; But let her herald, Reverence, fly Before her to whatever sky Bear seed of men and growth of minds. Watch what main-currents draw the years : Cut Prejudice against the grain : But gentle words are always gain ; Regard the weakness of thy peers : Nor toil for title, place, or touch Of pension, neither count on praise : It grows to guerdon after-days : Nor deal in watch-words overmuch : Not clinging to some ancient saw; Not master'd by some modern term; Not swift nor slow to change, but firm: And in its season bring the law; That from Discussion's lip may fall With Life, that, working strongly, binds — Set in all lights by many minds, To close the interests of all. For Nature also, cold and warm, And moist and dry, devising long, Thro' many agents making strong, Matures the individual form. Meet is it changes should control • Our being, lest we rust in ease. We all are changed by still degrees, All but the basis of the soul. So let the change which comes be free To ingroove itself with that which flies, And work, a joint of state, that plies Its office, moved with sympathy. A saying, hard to shape in act; For all the past of Time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact. Ev'n now we hear with inward strife A motion toiling in the gloom — The Spirit of the years to come Yearning to mix himself with Life. A slow-develop'd strength awaits Completion in a painful school; Phantoms of other forms of rule, New Majesties of mighty States — The warders of the growing hour, But vague in vapour, hard to mark; And round them sea and air are dark With great contrivances of Power. Of many changes, aptly join'd, Is bodied forth the second whole. Regard gradation, lest the soul Of Discord race the rising wind; A wind to puff your idol- fires, And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made, That we are wiser than our sires. Oh yet, if Nature's evil star Drive men in manhood, as in youth, To follow flying steps of Truth Across the brazen bridge of war — If New and Old, disastrous feud, Must ever shock, like armed foes, And this be true, till Time shall close, That Principles are rain'd in blood; Not yet the wise of heart would cease To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt, But with his hand against the hilt, Would pace the troubled land, like Peace; Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay, Would serve his kind in deed and word, Certain, if knowledge bring the sword That knowledge takes the sword away — Would love the gleams of good that broke From either side, nor veil his eyes : And if some dreadful need should rise Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke : To-morrow yet would reap to-day, As we bear blossom of the dead : Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed Raw Haste, half-sister to Decay. ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN 1782 —THE GOOSE. 65 ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN 1782. O thou, that sendest out the man To rule by land and sea, Strong mother of a Lion-line, Be proud of those strong sons of thine Who wrench'd their rights from thee ! What wonder, if in noble heat Those men thine arms withstood, Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught, And in thy spirit with thee fought — Who sprang from English blood ! But Thou rejoice with liberal joy, Lift up thy rocky face, And shatter, when the storms are black, In many a streaming torrent back, The seas that shock thy base ! Whatever harmonies of law The growing world assume, Thy work is thine — The single note From that deep chord which Hampden smote Will vibrate to the doom. THE GOOSE. I knew an old wife lean and poor, Her rags scarce held together ; There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather. He held a goose upon his arm, He utter'd rhyme and reason, Here, take the goose, and keep you warm, It is a stormy season.' She caught the white goose by the leg, A goose — 'twas no great matter. The goose let fall a golden egg With cackle and with clatter. She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf, And ran to tell her neighbours; And bless'd herself, and cursed herself, And rested from her labours. And feeding high, and living soft, Grew plump and able-bodied; Until the grave churchwarden doff' d, The parson smirk'd and nodded. So sitting, served by man and maid, She felt her heart grow prouder : But ah ! the more the white goose laid It clack'd and cackled louder. It clutter'd here, it chuckled there; It stirr'd the old wife's mettle : She shifted in her elbow-chair, And hurl'd the pan and kettle. 1 A quinsy choke thy cursed note ! ' Then wax'd her anger stronger. 1 Go, take the goose, and wring her throat, I will not bear it longer.' Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the cat; Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer. The goose flew this way and flew that, And filPd the house with clamour. As head and heels upon the floor They flounder'd all together, There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather : He took the goose upon his arm, He utter'd words of scorning : ' So keep you cold, or keep you warm, It is a stormy morning.' The wild wind rang from park and plain, And round the attics rumbled, Till all the tables danced again, And half the chimneys tumbled. The glass blew in, the fire blew out, The blast was hard and harder. Her cap blew off, her gown blew up, And a whirlwind clear'd the larder : And while on all sides breaking loose Her household fled the danger, Quoth she, • The Devil take the goose, And God forget the stranger ! ' 66 THE EPIC. ENGLISH IDYLS AND OTHER POEMS. THE EPIC. A.T Francis Allen's on the Christmas- eve, — The game of forfeits done — the girls all kiss'd Beneath the sacred bush and past away — The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall, The host, and I sat round the wassail- bowl, Then half-way ebb'd : and there we held a talk, How all the old honour had from Christ- mas gone, Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out With cutting eights that day upon the pond, Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, I bump'd the ice into three several stars, Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, Now harping on the church-commis- sioners, Now hawking at Geology and schism; Until I woke, and found him settled down Upon the general decay of faith Right thro' the world, ' at home was little left, And none abroad : there was no anchor, none, To hold by.' Francis, laughing, clapt his hand On Everard's shoulder, with ' I hold by him.' ' And I,' quoth Everard, ' by the wassail- bowl.' 'Why yes,' I said, 'we knew your gift that way At college : but another which you had, I mean of verse (for so we held it then), What came of that? ' ' You know,' said Frank, ' he burnt His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books ' — And then to me demanding why? 'Oh, sir, He thought that nothing new was said, or else Something so said 'twas nothing — that a truth Looks freshest in the fashion of the day: God knows : he has a mint of reasons : ask. It pleased me well enough.' ' Nay, nay,' said Hall, ' Why take the style of those heroic times? For nature brings not back the Masto- don, Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel models? these twelve books of mine Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing- worth, Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt.' 1 But I,' Said Francis, ? pick'd the eleventh from this hearth And have it : keep a thing, its use will come. I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes.' He laugh'd, and I, tho' sleepy, like a horse That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my ears; For I remember'd Everard's college fame When we were Freshmen : then at my request He brought it; and the poet little urged, But with some prelude of disparagement, Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes, Deep-chested music, and to this result. MORTE H ARTHUR. 67 MORTE D'ARTHUR. So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter sea; Until King Arthur's table, man by man, Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord, King Arthur : then, because his wound was deep, The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood on a dark strait of barren land. On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : • The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot, as in the days that were. I perish by this people which I made, — Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more — but let what will be, be, I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm That without help I cannot last till morn. Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, Which was my pride : for thou remem- berest how In those old days, one summer noon, an arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonder- ful, Holding the sword — and how I row'd across And took it, and have worn it, like a king: And, wheresoever I am sung or told In aftertime, this also shall be known : But now delay not : take Excalib«r, 1 And fling him far into the middle mere : Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word.' To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : ' It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. A little thing may harm a wounded man. Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.' So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock, Came on the shining levels of the lake. There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud,- ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, In act to throw : but at the last it seem'd Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd There in the many-knotted waterflags, That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. So strode he back slow to the wounded King. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedi- vere : ' Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?' 68 MORTE D' ARTHUR. And answer made the bold Sir Bedi- vere: ' I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping on the crag.' To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale : 'Thou hast betray 'd thy nature and thy name, Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight : For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.' Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, How curiously and strangely chased, he smote His palms together, and he cried aloud, ' And if indeed I cast the brand away, Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, Should thus be lost for ever from the earth, Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. What good should follow this, if this were done? What harm, undone? deep harm to dis- obey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. Were it well to obey, then, if a king de- mand An act unprofitable, against himself ? The King is sick, and knows not what he does. What record, or what relic of my lord Should be to aftertime, but empty breath And rumours of a doubt ? but were this kept, Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, Some one might show it at a joust of arms, Saying, " King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps Upon the hidden bases of the hills." So might some old man speak in the aftertime To all the people, winning reverence. But now much honour and much fame were lost.' So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, And hid Excalibur the second time, And so strode back slow to the wounded King. Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily : ' What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard? ' And answer made the bold Sir Bedi- vere: ' I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the iong ripple washing in the reeds.' To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: ' Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, Unknightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow'd of the power in his eye That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, In whom should meet the offices of all, Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; Either from lust of gold, or like a girl Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, I will arise and slay thee with my hands.' Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword, And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl'd •in an arch, MORTE H ARTHUR. 69 Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea. So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonder- ful, And caught him by the hilt, and bran- dish'd him Three times, and drew him under in the mere. And lightly went the other to the King. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: 1 Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?' And answer made the bold Sir Bedi- vere: ■ Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, So great a miracle as yonder hilt. Then with both hands I flung him, wheel- ing him; But when I look'd again, behold an arm, Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonder- ful, That caught him by the hilt, and bran- dish'd him Three times, and drew him under in the mere.' And answer made King Arthur, breath- ing hard: 'My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, And bear me to the margin; yet I fear My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.' So saying, from the pavement he half rose, Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes As in a picture. Him Sir Bevidere Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, And would have spoken, but he found not words; Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, Muttering and murmuring at his ear, ' Quick, quick ! I fear it is too late, and I shall die.' But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd, Larger than human on the frozen hills. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry Before. His own thought drove him). like a goad. Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, And the long glories of the winter moon. Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them ; and descending they were ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — by these Three Queens with crowns of gold — and from them rose A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, And, as it were one voice an agony Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world. Then murmur'd Arthur, ' Place me in the barge,' 70 MORTE D 1 ARTHUR. And to the barge they came. There those three Queens Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. But she, that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, And dropping bitter tears against his brow Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white And colourless, and like the wither'd moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops Of onset ; and the light and lustrous / curls — That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the dais-throne — were parch'd with dust ; Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. So like a shatter'd column lay the King ; Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, ' Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? For now I see the true old times are dead, When every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance brought out a noble knight. Such times have been not since the light that led The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. But now the whole round table is dissolved Which was an image of the mighty world ; And I, the last, go forth companionless, And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds.' And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : ' The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within Himself make pure ! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things sue wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. But now farewell. I am going a long way With these thou seest — if indeed I go — (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) To the island-valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard- lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with sum- mer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.' So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full- breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull MORTE D> ARTHUR — THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER. Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the -mere the wailing died away. Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long Had wink'd and threaten'd darkness, flared and fell : At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound, And waked with silence, grunted f Good ! ' but we Sat rapt: it was the tone with which he read — Perhaps some modern touches here and there Redeem'd it from the charge of nothing- ness — Or else we loved the man, and prized his work ; I know not : but we sitting, as I said, The cock crew loud ; as at that time of year The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn : Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill- used, 'There now — that's nothing!' drew a little back, And drove his heel into the smoulder'd log, That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue : And so to bed ; where yet in sleep I seem'd To sail with Arthur under looming shores, Point after point ; till on to dawn, when dreams Begin to feel the truth and stir of day, To me, methought, who waited with a crowd, There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore King Arthur, like a modern gentleman Of stateliest port ; and all the people cried, I Arthur is come again : he cannot die.' Then those that stood upon the hills behind Repeated — ' Come again, and thrice as fair ; ' And, further inland, voices echo'd — 'Come With all good things, and war shall be no more.' At this a hundred bells began to peal, That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas-morn. THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; OR, THE PICTURES. This morning is the morning of the day, When I and Eustace from the city went To see the gardener's daughter; I and he, Brothers in Art ; a friendship so complete Portion'd in halves between us, that we grew The fable of the city where we dwelt. My Eustace might have sat for Her- cules; So muscular he spread, so broad of breast. He, by some law that holds in love, and draws The greater to the lesser, long desired A certain miracle of symmetry, A miniature of loveliness, all grace Summ'd up and closed in little; — Juliet, she So light of foot, so light of spirit — oh, she To me myself, for some three careless moons, The summer pilot of an empty heart Unto the shores of nothing! Knowyounot Such touches are but embassies of love, To tamper with the feelings, ere he found Empire for life ? but Eustace painted her, And said to me, she sitting with us then, ' When will you paint like this?' and I replied, (My words were half in earnest, half in jest,) ' 'Tis not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceived, A more ideal Artist he than all, Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair More black than ashbuds in the front of March.' And Juliet answer'd laughing, ' Go and see The gardener's daughter : trust me, after that, You scarce can fail to match his master* piece.' THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; And up we rose, and on the spur we went. Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. News from the humming city comes to it In sound of funeral or of marriage bells; And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear The windy clanging of the minster clock ; Although between it and the garden lies A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream, That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge Crown'd with the minster-towers. The fields between Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd kine, And all about the large lime feathers low, The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. In that still place she, hoarded in herself, Grew, seldom seen; not less among us lived Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard Of Rose, the gardener's daughter ? Where was he, So blunt in memory, so old at heart, At such a distance from his youth in grief, That, having seen, forgot ? The common mouth, So gross to express delight, in praise of her Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, And Beauty such a mistress of the world. And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, Would play with flying forms and images, Yet this is also true, that, long before I look'd upon her, when I heard her name My heart was like a prophet to my heart, And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes, That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds, Born out of everything I heard and saw, Flutter'd about my senses and my soul ; And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm To one that travels quickly, made the air Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East, Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. And sure this orbit of the memory folds For ever in itself the day we went To see her. All the land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud Drew downward : but all else of heaven was pure Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge, And May with me from head to heel. And now, As tho' 'twere yesterday, as tho' it were The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound, (For those old Mays had thrice the life of these,) Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze, And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood, Leaning his horns into the neighbour field, And lowing to his fellows. From the woods Came voices of the well-contented doves. The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy, But shook his song together as he near'd His happy home, the ground. To left and right, The cuckoo told his name to all the hills; The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm; The redcap whistled; and the nightingale Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day. And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me, ' Hear how the bushes echo ! by my life, These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing Like poets, from the vanity of song? Or have they any sense of why they sing? And would they praise the heavens for what they have?' And I made answer, < Were there nothing else For which to praise the heavens but only love, OR, THE PICTURES. 73 That only love were cause enough for praise.' Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought, And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd, We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North ; Down which a well-worn pathway courted us To one green wicket in a privet hedge; This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned; And one warm gust, full-fed with per- fume, blew Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. The garden stretches southward. In the midst A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade. The garden-glasses glanced, and mo- mently The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver lights. 1 Eustace,' I said, ' this wonder keeps the house.' He nodded, but a moment afterwards He cried, ' Look ! look ! ' Before he ceased I turn'd, And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there. For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose, That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught, And blown across the walk. One arm aloft — Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape — Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood, A single stream of all her soft brown hair Pour'd on one side : the shadow of the flowers Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist — Ah, happy shade — and still went waver- ing down, But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced The greensward into greener circles, dipt, And mix'd with shadows of the common ground ! But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe bloom, And doubled his own warmth against her lips, And on the bounteous wave of such a breast As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young. So rapt, we near'd the house ; but she, a Rose In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil, Nor heard us come, nor from her ten- dance turn'd Into the world without ; till close at hand, And almost ere I knew mine own intent, This murmur broke the stillness of that air Which brooded round about her : ' Ah, one rose, One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull'd, Were worth a hundred kisses press'd on lips Less exquisite than thine.' Shelook'd: but all Suffused with blushes — neither self-pos- sess'd Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that, Divided in a graceful quiet — paused, And dropt the branch she held, and turn- ing, wound Her looser hair in braid, and stirr'd her lips For some sweet answer, tho' no answer came, Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it, And moved away, and left me, statue-like, In act to render thanks. I, that whole day, Saw her no more, altho' I linger'd there Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk. So home we went, and all the livelong way With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me. ' Now,' said he, ' will you climb the top of Art. You cannot fail but work in hues to dim The Titianic Flora. Will you match 74 THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER. My Juliet ? you, not you, — the Master, Love, A more ideal Artist he than all.' So home I went, but could not sleep for joy, Reading her perfect features in the gloom, Kissing the rose she gave me o'er and o'er, And shaping faithful record of the glance That graced the giving — such a noise of life Swarm'd in the golden present, such a voice Call'd to me from the years to come, and such A length of bright horizon rimm'd the dark. And all that night I heard the watchman peal The sliding season : all that night I heard The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours. The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good, O'er the mute city stole with folded wings, Distilling odors on me as they went To greet their fairer sisters of the East. Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all, Made this night thus. Henceforward squall nor storm Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt. Light pretexts drew me; sometimes a Dutch love For tulips : then for roses, moss or musk, To grace my city rooms; or fruits and cream Served in the weeping elm; and more and more A word could bring the colour to my cheek; A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew; Love trebled life within me, and with each The year increased. The daughters of the year, One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd ; Each garlanded with her peculiar flower Danced into light, and died into the shade; And each in passing touch'd with some new grace Or seem'd to touch her, so that day by day, Like one that never can be wholly known, Her beauty grew; till Autumn brought an hour For Eustace, when I heard his deep ' I will,' Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold From thence thro' all the worlds : but I rose up Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes Felt earth as air beneath me, till I reach'd The wicket-gate, and found her standing there. There sat we down upon a garden mound, Two mutually enfolded; Love, the third, Between us, in the circle of his arms Enwound us both ; and over many a range Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers, Across a hazy glimmer of the west, Reveal'd their shining windows: from them clash'd The bells; we listen'd; with the time we play'd, We spoke of other things; we coursed about The subject most at heart, more near and near, Like doves about a dovecote, wheeling round The central wish, until we settled there. Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her, Requiring, tho' I knew it was mine own, Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear, Requiring at her hand the greatest gift, A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved ; And in that time and place she answer'd me, And in the compass of three little words, More musical than ever came in one, The silver fragments of a broken voice, Made me most happy, faltering, ■ I am thine.' Shall I cease here ? Is this enough to say That my desire, like all strongest hopes, By its own energy fulfill'd itself, Merged in completion ? Would you learn at full THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER — DORA. 75 How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades Beyond all grades develop'd ? and indeed I had not staid so long to tell you all, But while I mused came Memory with . . sad eyes, Holding the folded annals of my youth; And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by, . And with a flying finger swept my lips, And spake, ' Be wise : not easily forgiven Are those who, setting wide the doors that bar Trie secret bridal chambers of the heart, Let in the day.' Here, then, my words have end. Yet might I tell of meetings, of fare- wells — Of that which came between, more sweet than each, In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves That tremble round a nightingale — in sighs Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utter- ance, Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might I not tell Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, And vows, where there was never need of vows, And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars; Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit, Spread the light haze along the river- shores, And in the hollows; or as once we met Unheedful, tho' beneath a whispering rain Night slid down one long stream of sigh- ing wind, And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep. But this whole hour your eyes have been intent On that veil'd picture — veil'd, for what it holds May not be dwelt on by the common day. This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul; Make thine heart ready with thine eyes : the time Is come to raise the veil. Behold her there, As I beheld her ere she knew my heart, My first, last love; the idol of my youth, The darling of my manhood, and, alas ! Now the most blessed memory of mine age. DORA. With farmer Allan at the farm abode William and Dora. William was his son, And she his niece. He often look'd at them, And often thought, • I'll make them man and wife.' Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all, And yearn'd toward William; but the youth, because He had been always with her in the house, Thought not of Dora. Then there came a day When Allan call'd his son, and said, * My son : I married late, but I would wish to see My grandchild on my knees before I die : And I have set my heart upon a match. Now therefore look to Dora ; she is well To look to; thrifty too beyond her age. She is my brother's daughter : he and I Had once hard words, and parted, and he died In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred His daughter Dora: take her for your wife; For I have wish'd this marriage, night and day, For many years.' But William arswer'd short : 'I cannot marry Dora; by my life, I will not marry Dora.' Then the old man Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said : ' You will not, boy ! you dare to answer thus! But in my time a father's word was law, And so it shall be now for me. Look to it ; Consider, William: take a month -to think, i 7 6 DORA. And let me have an answer to my wish; Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack, And never more darken my doors again.' But William answer'd madly; bit his lips, And broke away. The more he look'd at her The less he liked her; and his ways were harsh ; But Dora bore them meekly. Then before The month was out he left his father's house, And hired himself to work within the fields; And half in love, half spite, he woa'd and wed A labourer's daughter, Mary Morrison. Then, when the bells were ringing, Allan call'd His niece and said : ' My girl, I love you well; But if you speak with him that was my son, Or change a word with her he calls his wife, My home is none of yours. My will is law.' And Dora promised, being meek. She thought, ' It cannot be : my uncle's mind will change ! ' And days went on, and there was born a boy To William; then distresses came on him; And day by day he pass'd his father's gate, Heart-broken, and his father help'd him not. But Dora stored what little she could save, And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know Who sent it; till at last a fever seized On William, and in harvest time he died. Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat And look'd with tears upon her boy, and thought Hard things of Dora. Dora came and said : 1 1 have obey'd my uncle until now, And I have sinn'd, for it was all thro' me This evil came on William at the first. But, Mary, for the sake of him that's gone, And for your sake, the woman that he chose, And for this orphan, I am come to you : You know there has not been for these five years So full a harvest : let me take the boy, And I will set him in my uncle's eye Among the wheat; that when his heart is glad Of the full harvest, he may see the boy, And bless him for the sake of him that's gone.' And Dora took the child, and went her way Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound That was unsown, where many poppies grew. Far off the farmer came into the field And spied her not; for none of all his men Dare tell him Dora waited with the child; And Dora would have risen and gone to him, But her heart fail'd her; and the reapers reap'd, And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. But when the morrow came, she rose and took The child once more, and sat upon the mound; And made a little wreath of all the flowers That grew about, and tied it round his hat To make him pleasing in her uncle's eye. Then when the farmer pass'd into the field He spied her, and he left his men at work, And came and said: 'Where were you yesterday? Whose child is that ? What are you doing here ? ' So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground, And answer'd softly, 'This is William's child ! ' ' And did I not,' said Allan, ' did I not Forbid you, Dora? ' Dora said again : 'Do with me as you will, but take the child, And bless him for the sake of him that's gone ! ' DORA. 11 And Allan said, ' I see it is a trick Got up betwixt you and the woman there. I must be taught my duty, and by you ! You knew my word was law, and yet you dared To slight it. Well — for I will take the boy; But go you hence, and never see me more.' So saying, he took the boy, that cried aloud And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell At Dora's feet. She bowed upon her hands, And the boy's cry came to her from the field, More and more distant. She bow'd down her head, Remembering the day when first she came, And all the things that had been. She bow'd down And wept in secret; and the reapers reap'd, And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. Then Dora went to Mary's house, and stood » Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise To God, that help'd her in her widow- hood. And Dora said, ' My uncle took the boy; But, Mary, let me live and work with you : He says that he will never see me more.' Then answer'd Mary, ' This shall never be, That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself:. And, now I think, he shall not have the boy, For he will teach him hardness, and to slight His mother; therefore thou and I will go, And I will have my boy, and bring him home; And I will beg of him to take thee back : But if he will not take thee back again, Then thou and I will live within one house, And work for William's child, until he grows Of age to help us.' So the women kiss'd Each other, and set out, and reach'd the farm. The door was off the latch: they peep'd, and saw The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees, Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks, Like one that loved him: and the lad stretch'd out And babbled for the golden seal, that hung From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire. Then they came in: but when the boy beheld His mother, he cried out to come to her : And Allan set him down, and Mary said : 'O Father! — if you let me call you so — I never came a-begging for myself, Or William, or this child; but now I come For Dora : take her back; she loves you well. Sir, when William died, he died at peace With all men; for I ask'd him, and he said He could not ever rue his marrying me — 1 had been a patient wife : but, Sir, he said That he was wrong to cross his father thus : " God bless him ! " he said, " and may he never know The troubles I have gone thro' ! " Then he turn'd His face and pass'd — unhappy that I am ! But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight His father's memory; and take Dora back, And let all this be as it was before.' So Mary said, and Dora hid her face By Mary. There was silence in the room ; And all at once the old man burst in sobs : — ' I have been to blame — to blame. I have kill'd my son. 7* AUDLEY COURT. I have kill'd him — but I loved him — my dear son. May God forgive me ! — I have been to blame. Kiss me, my children.' Then they clung about The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times. And all the man was broken with re- morse ; And all his love caire back a hundred- fold; And for three hours he sobb'd o'er Will- iam's child Thinking of William. So those four abode Within one house together; and as years Went forward, Mary took another mate; But Dora lived unmarried till her death. AUDLEY COURT. 'The Bull, the Fleece are cramm'd, and not a room For love or money. Let us picnic there At Audley Court.' I spoke, while Audley feast Humm'd like a hive all round the narrow quay, To Francis, with a basket on his arm, To Francis just alighted from the boat, And breathing of the sea. ' With all my heart,' Said Francis. Then we shoulder'd thro' the swarm, And rounded by the stillness of the beach To where the bay runs up its latest horn. We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp'd The flat red granite; so by many a sweep Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach'd The griffin-guarded gates, and pass'd thro' all The pillar' d dusk of sounding sycamores, And cross'd the garden to the gardener's lodge, With all its casements bedded, and its walls And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine. There, on a slope of orchard. Francis laid A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound, Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt oi home, And, half-cut-down, a. pasty costly-made, W T here quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks Imbedded and injellied; last, with these, A flask of cider from his father's vats, Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat And talk'd old matters over; who was dead, Who married, who was like to be, and how The races went, and who would rent the hall: Then touch'd upon the game, how scarce it was This season; glancing thence, discuss'd the farm, The four-field system, and the price of grain ; And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split, And came again together on the king With heated faces; till he laugh'd aloud; And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang — 4 Oh ! who would fight and march and countermarch, Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, And shovell'd up into some bloody trench Where no one knows? but let me live my life. ' Oh ! who would cast and balance at a desk, Perch'd like a crow upon a three-legg'd stool, Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints Are full of chalk? but let me live my life. ' Who'd serve the state? for if I carved my name Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, I might as well have traced it in the sands; The sea wastes all : but let me live my life. 'Oh! who would love? I woo'd a woman once, But she was sharper than an eastern wind, AUDLEY COURT— WALKING TO THE MAIL. 79 And all my heart turfi'd from her, as a thorn Turns from the sea; but let me live my life.' He sang his song, and I replied with mine: I found it in a volume, all of songs, Knock'd down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride, His books — the more the pity, so I said — Came to the hammer here in March — and this — I set the words, and added names I knew. ' Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep, and dream of me : Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm, And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. 1 Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm; Emilia, fairer than all else but thou, For thou art fairer than all else that is. 'Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast : Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip: I go to-night : I come to-morrow morn. ' I go, but I return : I would I were The pilot of the darkness and the dream. Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.' So sang we each to either, Francis Hale, The farmer's son, who lived across the bay, My friend; and I, that having where- withal, And in the fallow leisure of my life A rolling stone of here and everywhere, Did what I would; but ere the night we rose And saunter'd home beneath a moon, that, just In crescent, dimly rain'd about the leaf Twilights of airy silver, till we reach'd The limit of the hills; and as we sank From rock to rock upon the glooming quay, The town was hush'd beneath us : lower down The bay was oily calm; the harbour- buoy, Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm, With one green sparkle ever and anon Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart. WALKING TO THE MAIL. John. I'm glad I walk'd. How fresh the meadows look Above the river, and, but a month ago, The whole hill-side was redder than a fox. Is yon plantation where this byway joins The turnpike? James. Yes. John. And when does this come by? James. The mail? At one o'clock. John. What is it James. A quarter to. John. Whose house is that I see? No, not the County Member's with the vane : Up higher with the yew-tree by it, and half A score of gables. James. That? Sir Edward Head's: But he's abroad : the place is to be sold. John. Oh, his. He was not broken. James. No, sir, he, Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his face From all men, and commercing with himself, He lost the sense that handles daily life — That keeps us all in order more or less — And sick of home went overseas for change. John. And whither? James. Nay, who knows? He's here and there. But let him go; his devil goes with him, As well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes. John. What's that? James. You saw the man — on Mon- day, was it ? — There by the humpback'd willow; half stands up And bristles; half has fall'n and made a bridge; And there he caught the younker tickling trout — Caught in flagrante — what's the Latin word? — Delicto : but his house, for so they say, Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook So WALKING TO THE MAIL. The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors, And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay'd : The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs, And all his household stuff; and with his boy Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, ' What ! You're flitting ! ' ' Yes, we're flitting,' says the ghost (For they had pack'd the thing among the beds). 1 Oh well,' says he, ' you flitting with us too — Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again.' John. He left his wife behind ; for so I heard. James. He left her, yes. I met my lady once: A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs. John. Oh yet but I remember, ten years back — Tis now at least ten years — and then she was — You could not light upon a sweeter thing : A body slight and round, and like a pear In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin As clean and white as privet when it flowers. James. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and they that loved At first like dove and dove were cat and dog. She was the daughter of a cottager, Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride, New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd To what she is : a nature never kind ! Like men, like manners : like breeds like, they say : Kind nature is the best : those manners next That fit us like a nature second-hand; Which are indeed the manners of the great. John. But I had heard it was this bill that past, And fear of change at home, that drove him hence. James. That was the last drop in the cup of gall. I once was near him, when his bailiff brought A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince As from a venomous thing : he thought himself A mark for all, and shudder'd, lest a cry Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs Sweat on his blazon'd chairs; but, sir, you know That these two parties still divide the world — Of those that want, and those that have : and still The same old sore breaks out from age to age With much the same result. Now I myself, A Tory to the quick, was as a boy Destructive, when I had not what I would. I was at school — a college in the South : There lived a flayflint near; we stole his fruit, His hens, his eggs; but there was law for us ; We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She, With meditative grunts of much content, Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and mud. By night we dragg'd her to the college tower From her warm bed, and up the cork- screw stair With hand and rope we haled the groan- ing sow, And on the leads we kept her till she Pigg'd. Large range of prospect had the mother sow, And but for daily loss of one she loved As one by one we took them — but for this — As never sow was higher in this world — Might have been happy : but what lot is pure? EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE IAKE. 8\ We took them all, till she was left alone Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine, And so return'd unfarrow'd to her sty. John. They found you out? James. Not they. John. Well — after all — What know we of the secret of a man? His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound, That we should mimic this raw fool the world, Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites, As ruthless as a baby with a worm, As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows To Pity — more from ignorance than will. But put your best foot forward, or I fear That we shall miss the mail : and here it comes With five at top : as quaint a four-in-hand As you shall see — three pyebalds and a roan. EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. O ME, my pleasant rambles by the lake, My sweet, wild, fresh three quarters of a year, My one Oasis in the dust and drouth Of city life ! I was a sketcher then : See here, my doing : curves of mountain, bridge, Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built When men knew how to build, upon a rock With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock : And here, new-comers in an ancient hold, New-comers from the Mersey, million- aires, Here lived the Hills — a Tudor-chimnied bulk Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers. O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull The curate; he was fatter than his cure. But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names, G Long learned names of agaric, moss and fern, Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks, Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim, Who read me rhymes elaborately good, His own — I call'd him Crichton, for he seem'd All-perfect, finish'd to the finger nail. And once I ask'd him of his early life, And his first passion; and he answer'd me; And well his words became him : was he not A full-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke. * My love for Nature is as old as I; But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that, And three rich sennights more, my love for her. My love for Nature and my love for her, Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew, Twin-sisters differently beautiful. To some full music rose and sank the sun, And some full music seem'd to move and change With all the varied changes of the dark, And either twilight and the day between; For daily hope fulfill'd, to rise again Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe.' Or this or something like to this he spoke. Then said the fat-faced curate Edward Bull, 'I take it, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world. A pretty face is well, and this is well, To have a dame indoors, that trims us up, And keeps us tight ; but these unreal ways Seem but the theme of writers, and in- deed Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff. 82 EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. 1 say, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world.' 'Parson,' said I, 'you pitch the pipe too low : But I have sudden touches, and can run My faith beyond my practice into his : Tho' if, in dancing after Letty Hill, I do not hear the bells upon my cap, I scarce have other music : yet say on. What should one give to light on such a dream? ' I ask'd him half-sardonically. 'Give? Give all thou art,' he answer'd, and a light Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek; •I would have hid her needle in my heart, To save her little finger from a scratch No deeper than the skin : my ears could hear Her lightest breath; her least remark was worth The experience of the wise. I went and came; Her voice fled always thro' the summer land; I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days! The flower of each, those moments when we met, The crown of all, we met to part no more.' Were not his words delicious, I a beast To take them as I did? but something jarr'd; Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem'd A touch of something false, some self- conceit, Or over-smoothness : howsoe'er it was, He scarcely hit my humour, and I said : 'Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me, As in the Latin song I learnt at school, Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left? But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein : I have, I think, — Heaven knows, — as much within; Have, or should have, but for a thought or two, That like a purple beech among the greens Looks out of place : 'tis from no want in her: It is my shyness, or my self-distrust, Or something of a wayward modern mind Dissecting passion. Time will set me right.' So spoke I knowing not the things that were. Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull: 'God made the woman for the use of man, And for the good and increase of the world.' And I and Edwin laughed; and now we paused About the windings of the, marge to hear The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms And alders, garden-isles; and now we left The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran By ripply shallows of the lisping lake, Delighted with the freshness and the sound. But, when the bracken rusted on their crags, My suit had wither'd, nipt to death by him That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk, The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles. 'Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more : She sent a note, the seal an Elle vous suit, The close, ' Your Letty, only yours ; ' and this Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of morn Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran My craft aground, and heard with beat- ing heart The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel; And out I stept, and up I crept : she moved, ST. SIMEON STYLITES. 83 Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers : Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she, She turn'd, we closed, we kiss'd, swore faith, I breathed In some new planet : a silent cousin stole Upon us and departed : • Leave,' she cried, 15 O leave me ! ' ' Never, dearest, never : here I brave the worst : ' and while we stood like fools Embracing, all at once a score of pugs And poodles yell'd within, and out they came Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. * What, with him ! Go ' (shrill'd the cotton-spinning chorus) ; ■ him ! ■ I choked. Again they shriek'd the burthen — ' Him! ' Again with hands of wild rejection ' Go ! — Girl, get you in ! ' She went — and in one month They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds, To lands in Kent and messuages in York, And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile And educated whisker. But for me, They set an ancient creditor to work : It seems I broke a close with force and arms: There came a mystic token from the king To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy ! I read, and fled by night, and flying turn'd : Her taper glimmer'd in the lake below : I turn'd once more, close-button'd to the storm ; So left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear. Nor cared to hear? perhaps: yet long ago I have pardon'd little Letty; not indeed, It may be, for her own dear sake but this, She seems a part of those fresh days to me ; For in the dust and drouth of London life She moves among my visions of the lake, While the prime swallow dips his wing, or then While the gold-lily blows, and overhead The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag. ST. SIMEON STYLITES. Altho' I be the basest of mankind, From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob, Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer, Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin. Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years, Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs, In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold, In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps, A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud, Patient on this tall pillar I have borne Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow; And I had hoped that ere this period closed Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest, Denying not these weather-beaten limbs The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm. O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe, Not whisper, any murmur of complaint. Pain heapM ten-hundred-fold to this, were still Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear, Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush'd My spirit flat before thee. O Lord, Lord, Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, For I was strong and hale of body then; And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt away, 84 ST. SIMEON STYLITES. Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard Was tagg'd with icy fringes in the moon, I drown'd the whoopings of the owl with sound Of pious hymns and psalms, and some- times saw An angel stand and watch me, as I sang. Now am I feeble grown; my end draws nigh; I hope my end draws nigh : half deaf I am, So that I scarce can hear the people hum About the column's base, and almost blind, And scarce can recognise the fields I know; And both my thighs are rotted with the dew; Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry, While my stiff spine can hold my weary head, Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone, Have mercy, mercy : take away my sin. O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, Who may be saved? who is it may be saved ? Who may be made a saint, if I fail here ? Show me the man hath suffer'd more than I. For did not all thy martyrs die one death ? For either they were stoned, or crucified, Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here To-day, and whole years long, a life of death. Bear witness, if I could have found a way (And heedfully I sifted all my thought) More slowly-painful to subdue this home Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, I had not stinted practice, O my God. For not alone this pillar-punishment, Not this alone I bore : but while I lived In the white convent down the valley there, For many weeks about my loins I wore The rope that haled the buckets from the well, Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose; And spake not of it to a single soul, Until the ulcer, eating thro' my skin, Betray'd my secret penance, so that all My brethren marvell'd greatly. More than this I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all. Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee, I lived up there on yonder mountain side. My right leg chain'd into the crag, I lay Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones; Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice Black'd with thy branding thunder, and sometimes Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not, Except the spare chance-gift of those that came To touch my body and be heal'd, and live : And they say then that I work'd miracles, Whereof my fame is loud amongst man- kind, Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, OGod, Knowest alone whether this was or no. Have mercy, mercy ! cover all my sin. Then, that I might be more alone with thee, Three years I lived upon a pillar, high Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve; And twice three years I crouch'd on one that rose Twenty by measure ; last of all, I grew Twice ten long weary weary years to this, That numbers forty cubits from the soil. I think that I have borne as much as this — Or else I dream — and for so long a time, If I may measure time by yon slow light, And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns — So much — even so. And yet I know not well, For that the evil ones come here, and say, ' Fall down, O Simeon : thou hast suffer'd long For ages and for ages ! ' then they prate Of penances I cannot have gone thro', Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fall, Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked. But yet Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints ST. SIMEON STYLITES. §5 Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth House in the shade of comfortable roofs, Sit with their wives by fires, eat whole- some food, And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls, I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light, Bow down one thousand and two hundred times, To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the saints; Or in the night, after a little sleep, I wake : the chill stars sparkle; I am wet With drenching dews, or stiff with crack- ling frost. I wear an undress'd goatskin on my back; A grazing iron collar grinds my neck ; And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross, And strive and wrestle with thee till I die: mercy, mercy ! wash away my sin. O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am; A sinful man, conceived and born in sin : 'Tis their own doing; this is none of mine; Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this, That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha! They think that I am somewhat. What am I? The silly people take me for a saint, And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers : And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here) Have all in all endured as much, and more Than many just and holy men, whose names Are register'd and calendar'd for saints. Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. What is it I can have done to merit this? 1 am a sinner viler than you all. It may be I have wrought some miracles, And cured some halt and maim'd; but what of that? It may be, no one, even among the saints, May match his pains with mine; but what of that ? Yet do not rise; for you may look on me, And in your looking you may kneel to God. Speak ! is there any of you halt or maim'd? I think you know I have some power with Heaven From my long penance: let him speak his wish. Yes, I can heal him. Power goes forth from me. They say that they are heal'd. Ah, hark ! they shout • St. Simeon Stylites.' Why, if so, God reaps a harvest in me. O my soul, God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be, Can I work miracles and not be saved? This is not told of any. They were saints. It cannot be but that I shall be saved; Yea, crown'd a saint. They shout, ' Behold a saint ! ' And lower voices saint me from above. Courage, St. Simeon ! This dull chrysalis Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all My mortal archives. O my sons, my sons, I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname Stylites, among men ; I, Simeon, The watcher on the column till the end; I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes; I, whose bald brows in silent hours become Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now From my high nest of penance here pro- claim That Pontius and Iscariot by my side Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, A vessel full of" sin : all hell beneath Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my sleeve, Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. I smote them with the cross; they swarm'd again. In bed like monstrous apes they crush'd my chest : So ST. SIMEON STYLITES— THE TALKING OAK. They flapp'd my light out as I read : I saw Their faces grow between me and my book; With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine They burst my prayer. . Yet this way was left, And by this way I 'scaped them. Mortify Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps, With slow, faint steps, and much exceed- ing pain, Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise : God only thro' his bounty hath thought fit, Among the powers and princes of this world, To make me an example to mankind, Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say But that a time may come — yea, even now, Now, now, his footsteps smite the thresh- old stairs Of life — I say, that time is at the doors When you may worship me without re- proach ; For I will leave my relics in your land, And you may carve a shrine about my dust, And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones, When I am gather'd to the glorious saints. While I spake then, a sting of shrewd- est pain Ran shrivelling thro' me, and a cloudlike change, In passing, with a grosser film made thick These heavy, horny eyes. The end ! the end ! Surely the end ! What's here? a shape, a shade, A flash of light. Is that the angel there That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come. I know thy glittering face. I waited long; My brows are ready. What! deny it now? Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ! Tis gone: 'tis here again; the crown! the crown ! So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me, And from it melt the dews of Paradise,. Sweet ! sweet ! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense. Ah ! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints : I trust That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven. Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God, Among you there, and let him presently Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft, And climbing up into my airy home, Deliver me the blessed sacrament; For by the warning of the Holy Ghost, I prophesy that I shall die to-night, A quarter before twelve. But thou, O Lord, Aid all this foolish people; let them take Example, pattern: lead them to thy light. THE TALKING OAK. Once more the gate behind me falls; Once more before my face I. see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, That stand within the chace. Beyond the lodge the city lies, Beneath its drift of smoke; And ah ! with what delighted eyes I turn to yonder oak. For when my passion first began, Ere that, which in me burn'd, The love, that makes me thrice a man, Could hope itself return'd; To yonder oak within the field I spoke without restraint, And with a larger faith appeal'd Than Papist unto Saint. THE TALKING OAK. 87 For oft I talk'd with him apart; And told him of my choice, Until he plagiarised a heart, And answer'd with a voice. Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven None else could understand; I found him garrulously given, A babbler in the land. 'But since I heard him make reply Is many a weary hour; 'Twere well to question him, and try If yet he keeps the power. Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, Whose topmost branches can discern The roofs of Sumner-place ! Say thou, whereon I carved her name, If ever maid or spouse, As fair as my Olivia, came To rest beneath thy boughs. — 1 Walter, I have shelter'd here Whatever maiden grace The good old Summers, year by year Made ripe in Sumner-chace : 'Old Summers, when the monk was fat, And, issuing shorn and sleek, Would twist his girdle tight, and pat The girls upon the cheek, ' Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, And number'd bead, and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spence And turn'd the cowls adrift : ' And I have seen some score of those Fresh faces, that would thrive When his man-minded offset rose To chase the deer at five; ' And all that from the . town would stroll, Till that wild wind made work In which the gloomy brewer's soul Went by me, like a stork : 'The slight she-slips of loyal blood, And others, passing praise, Strait-laced, but all-too-full in bud For puritanic stays : 1 And I have shadow'd many a group Of beauties, that were born In teacup-times of hood and hoop, Or while the patch was worn; I And, leg and arm with love-knots gay, About me leap'd and laugh'd The modish Cupid of the day, And shrill'd his tinsel shaft. I I swear (and else may insects prick Each leaf into a gall) This girl, for whom your heart is sick, Is three times worth them all; ' For those and theirs, by Nature's law, Have faded long ago; But in these latter springs I saw Your own Olivia blow, ' From vhen she gamboll'd on the greens A baby-germ, to when The maiden blossoms of her teens Could number five from ten. 1 1 swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, (And hear me with thine ears,) That, tho' I circle in the grain Five hundred rings of years — ' Yet, since I first could cast a shade, Did never creature pass So slightly, musically made, So light upon the grass: ' For as to fairies, that will flit To make the greensward fresh, I hold them exquisitely knit, But far too spare of flesh.' O hide thy knotted knees in fern, And overlook the chace; And from thy topmost branch discern The roofs of Sumner-place. But thou, whereon I carved her name, That oft hast heard my vows, Declare when last Olivia came To sport beneath thy boughs. ft THE TALKING OAK. 1 yesterday, you know, the fair That round me, clasping each in each, Was holden at the town; She might have lock'd her hands. Her father left his good arm-chair, And.rode his hunter down. * Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet As woodbine's fragile hold, 1 And with him Albert came on his. Or when I feel about my feet I look'd at him with joy : The berried briony fold.' As cowslip unto oxlip is, So seems she to the boy. O muffle round thy knees with fern, And shadow Sumner-chace ! ' An hour had past — and, sitting straight Long may thy topmost branch discern Within the low-wheeFd chaise, The roofs of Sumner-place ! Her mother trundled to the gate Behind the dappled grays. But tell me., did she read the name I carved with many vows ' But as for her, she stay'd at home, When last with throbbing heart I came And on the roof she went, To rest beneath thy boughs? And down the way you use to come, She look'd with discontent. 1 yes, she wander'd round and round These knotted knees of mine, ' She left the novel half-uncut And found, and kiss'd the name she Upon the rosewood shelf ; found, She left the new piano shut : And sweetly murmur'd thine. She could not please herself. 1 A teardrop trembled from its source, ' Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, And down my surface crept. And livelier than a lark My sense of touch is something coarse, She sent her voice thro' all the holt But I believe she wept. Before her, and the park. 1 Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light, ' A light wind chased her on the wing, She glanced across the plain; And in the chase grew wild, But not a creature was in sight: As close as might be would he cling She kiss'd me once again. About the darling child : 1 Her kisses were so close and kind, ' But light as any wind that blows That, trust me on my word, So fleetly did she stir, Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind, The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, But yet my sap was stirr'd : And turn'd to look at her. 1 And even into my inmost ring 'And here she came, and round me A pleasure I discern'd, play'd, Like those blind motions of the Spring And sang to me the whole That show the year is turn'd. Of those three stanzas that you made About my " giant bole; " 'Thrice-happy he that may caress The ringlet's waving balm — ' And in a fit of frolic mirth The cushions of whose touch may press She strove to span my waist : The maiden's tender palm. Alas, I was so broad of girth, I could not be embraced. ' I, rooted here among the groves , But languidly adjust ' I wish'd myself the fair young beech My vapid vegetable loves That here beside me stands, With anthers and with dust : THE TALKING OAK. 89 ! For ah ! my friend, the days were brief Whereof the poets talk, "When that, which breathes within the leaf, Could slip its bark and walk. 1 But could I, as in times foregone, From spray, and branch, and stem, Have suck'd and gather'd into one The life that spreads in them, 1 She had not found me so remiss; But lightly issuing thro', I would have paid her kiss for kiss, With usury thereto.' O nourish high, with leafy towers, And overlook the lea, Pursue thy loves among the bowers But leave thou mine to me. flourish, hidden deep in fern, Old oak, I love thee well; A thousand thanks for what I learn And what remains to tell. ' 'Tis little more : the day was warm; At last, tired out with play, She sank her head upon her arm And at my feet she lay. 1 Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves. I breathed upon her eyes Thro' all the summer of my leaves A welcome mix'd with sighs. 1 1 took the swarming sound of life — The music from the town — The murmurs of the drum and fife And lull'd them in my own. ' Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, To light her shaded eye; A second flutter'd round her lip Like a golden butterfly; * A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck, From head to ankle fine. ; Then close and dark my arms I spread, And shadow'd all her rest — Dropt dews upon her golden head, An acorn in her breast. 1 But in a pet she started up, And pluck'd it out, and drew My little oakling from the cup, And flung him in the dew. ' And yet it was a graceful gift — I felt a pang within As when I see the woodman lift His axe to slay my kin. ' I shook him down because he was The finest on the tree. He lies beside thee on the grass. O kiss him once for me. ' O kiss him twice and thrice for me, That have no lips to kiss, For never yet was oak on lea Shall grow so fair as this.' Step deeper yet in herb and fern, Look further thro' the chace, Spread upward till thy boughs discern The front of Sumner-place. This fru'.t of thine by Love is blest, That but a moment lay Where fairer fruit of Love may rest Some happy future day. I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, The warmth it thence shall win To riper life may magnetise The baby-oak within. But thou, while kingdoms overset, Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet Thine acorn in the land. May never saw dismember thee, Nor wielded axe disjoint, Thou art the fairest-spoken tree From here to Lizard-point. O rock upon thy towery-top All throats that gurgle sweet ! All starry culmination drop Balm-dews to bathe thy feet I go THE TALKING OAK — LOVE AND DUTY. All grass of silky feather grow — And while he sinks or swells The full south-breeze around thee blow The sound of minster bells. The fat earth feed thy branchy root, That under deeply strikes ! The northern morning o'er thee shoot, High up, in silver spikes ! Nor ever lightning char thy grain, But, rolling as in sleep, Low thunders bring the mellow rain, That makes thee broad and deep ! And hear me swear a solemn oath, That only by thy side Will I to Olive plight my troth, And gain her for my bride. And when my marriage morn may fall, She, Dryad-like, shall wear Alternate leaf and acorn-ball In wreath about her hair. And I will work in prose and rhyme, And praise thee more in both Than bard has honour'd beech or lime, Or that Thessalian growth, In which the swarthy ringdove sat, And mystic sentence spoke; And more than England honours that, Thy famous brother-oak, Wherein the younger Charles abode Till all the paths were dim, And far below the Roundhead rode, And humm'd a surly hymn. LOVE AND DUTY. Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel ? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts ? Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law, System and empire ? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the . Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of him- self? If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days, The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end. But am I not the nobler thro' thy love? O three times less unworthy ! likewise thou Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years, The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit Of wisdom. Wait: my faith is large in Time, And that which shapes it to some perfect end. Will some one say, Then why not ill for good? Why took ye not your Pastime? To that man My work shall answer, since I knew the right And did it; for a man is not as God, But then most Godlike being most a man. — So let me think 'tis well for thee and me — Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow To feel it ! For how hard it seem'd to me, When eyes, love-languid thro' half tears would dwell One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, Then not to dare to see ! when thy low voice, Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep LOVE AND DUTY— THE GOLDEN YEAR. 9« My own full-tuned, — hold passion in a leash, And not leap forth and fall about thy neck, And on thy bosom (deep desired relief!) Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd Upon my brain, my senses and my soul ! For Love himself took part against himself To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love — O this world's curse — beloved but hated — came Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine, And crying, ■ Who is this? behold thy bride,' She push'd me from thee. If the sense is hard To alien ears, I did not speak to these — No, not to thee, but to thyself in me : Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all. Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak, To have spoken once? It could not but be well. The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, And all good things from evil, brought the night In which we sat together and alone, And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart, Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye, That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears As flow but once a life. The trance gave way To those caresses, when a hundred times In that last kiss, which never was the last, Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died. Then follow'd counsel, comfort, and the words That make a man feel strong in speaking truth; Till now the dark was worn, and overhead The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd In that brief night; the summer night, that paused Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung Love-charm'd to listen : all the wheels of Time Spun round in station, but the end had come. O then like those, who clench their nerves to rush Upon their dissolution, we two rose, There — closing like an individual life — In one blind cry of passion and of pain, Like bitter accusation ev'n to death, Caught up the whole of love and utter' d it, And bade adieu for ever. Live — yet live — Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all Life needs for life is possible to will — Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by My blessing ! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold, If not to be forgotten — not at once — Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams, O might it come like one that looks con- tent, With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth, And point thee forward to a distant light, 'Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh'd Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of pearl Far furrowing into light the mounded rack, Beyond the fair green field and eastern THE GOLDEN YEAR. Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote : It was last summer on a tour in Wales : Old James was with me : we that day had been 92 THE GOLDEN YEAR. Up Snowdon; and I wish'd for Leonard there, And found him in Llanberis: then we crost Between the lakes, and clamber'd half way up The counter side; and that same song of his He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore They said he lived shut up within himself, A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, That, setting the how much before the how, Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, ' Give, Cram us with all,' but count not me the herd! To which 'They call me what they will,' he said : 1 But I was born too late : the fair new forms, That float about the threshold of an age, Like truths of Science waiting to be caught — Catch me who can, and make the catcher crovvn'd — Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. But if you care indeed to listen, hear These measured words, my work of yestermorn. ' We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move; The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun; ' The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse; And human things returning on them- selves Move onward, leading up the golden year. 'Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud, Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, Yet oceans daily gaining on the land, Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, And slow and sure comes up the golden year. ' When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps, But smit with freer light shall slowly melt Tn many streams to fatten lower lands, And light shall spread, and man be liker man Thro' all the season of the golden year. 'Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? If all the world were falcons, what of that? The wonder of the eagle were the less, But he not less the eagle. Happy days Roll onward, leading up the golden year. ' Fly, happy happy sails, and bear the Press; Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; Knit land to land, and blowing haven- ward With silks, and fruits, and spices, cleat of toll, Enrich the markets of the golden year. ' But we grow old. Ah ! when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro' all the circle of the golden year?' Thus far he flow'd, and ended; where- upon ' Ah, folly ! ' in mimic cadence answer'd James — ' Ah, folly ! for it lies so far away, Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 'Tis like the second world to us that live; 'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven As on this vision of the golden year.' With that he struck his staff against the rocks And broke it, — James, — you know him, — old, but full Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, And like an oaken stock in winter woods, O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis : Then added, all in heat: ♦ What stuff is this ! Old writers push'd the happy season back, — The more fools they, — we forward : dreamers both : You most, that in an age, when every hour UL YSSES. 93 Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt Upon the teeming harvest, should not plunge His hand into the bag: but well I know That unto him who works, and feels he works, This same grand year is ever at the doors.' He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap And buffet round the hills, from bluff to bluff. ULYSSES. It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink L ife to the Tee s : all times I have enjoy' d Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea : I . am become a name ; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known : cities of men, And manners, climates, councils, govern- ments, Myseif not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To just unburnish'd, not to shine in use ! As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains : but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinkingstar, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle — Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail : There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me — That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all : but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The li gh ts- begin to twinkle from the rocks : The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs : the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 94 TITIIONUS. Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths ( )f all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to se^kjJtojfin^iuid4io^ti?^ieJ