IBS 
 
 A Homewapd Ridt^ 
 
 Vi'Vyj^fS''^/j'*^'-t'^'Xt[^tTX^*<*'!^yrCiJBEfff'i'9S^^ 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 k 
 
 /f, I ■-ic',
 
 POEMS.
 
 LONDON : PHINTED BT 
 
 SrOTTISWOODK AND CO., NEW-.STKEEI SQCARB 
 
 AND PABMAMENT STBKKT
 
 A Homeward Ride 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 C. AUSTEN LEIGH. 
 
 LONDON : 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 
 
 1868.
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 A HOMEWARD RIDE . 
 
 IN THE SOUND OP MULL 
 
 SPRING, 1866 , 
 
 MAY-DAY . 
 
 A LATE SPRING 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE 
 
 SUNSHINE . 
 
 AUTUMN, 1854. 
 
 GOOD-NIGHX 
 
 SONG 
 
 AUTUMN . 
 
 WINTER 
 
 THE STORM 
 
 INKERMANN 
 
 DAS SIEGESFEST 
 
 ILL TIDINGS 
 
 WRECK 
 
 NACHRUF . 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 I I 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 
 =3 
 26 
 
 27 
 28 
 32 
 
 34- 
 36 
 40 
 42 
 
 44 
 47 
 56 
 58 
 61 
 
 775484
 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ASTROLOGY 
 
 LIGHT AKD SHADE 
 
 VOTA 
 
 MY LADY SLEEPS 
 
 A PLEASANT PATH 
 
 A DYING FALL . 
 
 SEPARATION 
 
 CHANGE , 
 
 A RETURN 
 
 THE KNIGHT OF CLEE 
 
 ONCE FOES, ALWAYS FRIENDS . 
 
 THE RIVALS .... 
 
 NEAR HIS END .... 
 
 MANUMISSUS .... 
 
 THE NEW FOREST, i860 . 
 
 DONNINGTON CASTLE, BERKSHIRE 
 
 TAMISE RIPE .... 
 
 THE sea-king's GRAVE . 
 
 A day's FISHING 
 
 THE WISHING WTDLL . 
 
 THE CHXJRCHYAKD BY THE THAMES
 
 A HOMEWARD RIDE. 
 
 A LL day I hunted with the Sussex hounds ; 
 
 Much had I seen, much ridden, much enjoyed 
 Within the narrow vale that hes between 
 The Noi"thern woodlands and the Southdown hills. 
 
 In February, when the year has turned, 
 Wlien days grow longer, and the loosened earth 
 Remembers possibilities of spring. 
 Then we who hunt are happiest, for then 
 Do foxes run the straightest, and the ground 
 Grows sounder for the rider and his horse. 
 
 So in the vale, one February day, 
 I hunted all day long, through pastures now. 
 And now in ridgy ploughlands intermixed, 
 And now in echoing coverts, riding fast 
 
 B
 
 2 A HOME IV A RD RIDE. 
 
 To the shrill music of the eager pack. 
 And, ever and again, we came across. 
 Deep sunk in miry unsubstantial banks, 
 The hidden waters of some sluggish brook. 
 Where many fell, and many more refused. 
 
 At length our day was glorious with success, 
 For the glad pack, running fi'om scent to view, 
 Seized on their caitiff quarry ; and he died 
 As gallant foxes die, — not turning short 
 Unseen within a wood, or bolted forth 
 By diggers from an unavailing earth, — 
 But with his head set straight, until the hounds, 
 Eight miles and more away from where they found, 
 Closed round him in a many-acred field, 
 Silent and grim, and fighting to the end. 
 
 Thus was my hunting finished, and at length 
 Southward my horse's head I turned, to ride 
 Alone beneath the soft grey evening home — 
 Alone, yet not alone, for he who goes 
 Companionless has much good company
 
 A HOMEWARD RIDE. 
 
 In the fair thoughts that do environ him. 
 
 The past day's feats revolves he ; — how he took 
 
 The inner circle, while the racing pack 
 
 Turned ever to him, as he eased his horse, 
 
 And saw his fellows labouring on the right ; 
 
 Or how, while many fell, yet he unscathed 
 
 Swung some large fence, and landing in the field 
 
 Exultant found that he was well with hounds ; 
 
 Or else of other rides in other days. 
 
 Glad with the voices of familiar friends, 
 
 By Berkshire lanes perchance, or banks of Thames. 
 
 I, as I rode, the while before me saw 
 Mount Caburn, foremost outpost of the chalk. 
 Rise near and massive in the misty air. 
 Behind, the rounded outline of the downs. 
 Blue in the distance, bulwarks of the realm. 
 Were warding oif the distant wintry sea. 
 In liae almost continuous, yet transpierced 
 By the two streams that ever fall and fill 
 As falls and fills the tide, — twin tidal streams,
 
 4 A HOMEWARD RIDE. 
 
 Cuckmere and Ouse, tliat tlirougli alluvial meads 
 Pass slow and sluggish to a sliingly shore. 
 
 Surely the land was pleasant where I rode, 
 Fertile and green, and bounded by the hills, 
 With much to mark and much to meditate. 
 ]\Iuch is there to observe for them who pass 
 Out of a valley to the upland chalk, 
 And watch the road, and soil, and herbage change, 
 And sweet are landscapes bounded by the hills. 
 
 Fair are the crofts the Sussex yeoman reaps. 
 Fair are the timbered granges where he dwells, 
 And fair the churches scattered in the land, 
 Built of grey stone or flint, some standing forth 
 Conspicuous on outliers of the downs, 
 Some bosomed deep by woodland \dllages, 
 Some nestling in the hollows of the hills, 
 And some in hearing of the windy sea. 
 Yet this fair land, men say, in Saxon times 
 Was holden by a salvage heathen race 
 Fiercest of all the tribes of British earth,
 
 A HOMEWARD RIDE. 5 
 
 Who last of all in Eno-land bowed the knee 
 Before the holy Cross Augustine preached 
 Among the neighbour folk of woody Kent. 
 
 Sons of such fathers are the stalwart race 
 Of peasants, open-faced and broad of tongue, 
 Wlio till these kindly acres, leading slow 
 Their teams of long-horned ruddy-coated steers. 
 Son of such fathers is the shepherd, seen, 
 Or half-seen, through the misty scuds of rain. 
 Turning his patient back upon the storm. 
 And propped against his crook beside his charge. 
 Sons of such fathers built yon country town. 
 Old-fashioned, neat, with steep and narrow streets 
 And crown of ancient castle walls, that lies 
 Midway, upon the lower ridge of chalk. 
 Between the valley and the topmost hill. 
 
 High on that topmost hill Avhose sides are scarped 
 With gleaming chalk-pits, where to-day the mill 
 Its upward arms in swift rotation flings, 
 Once, in the ancient days of violence.
 
 6 A HOMEWARD HIDE. 
 
 Unhappy Henry, and his mightier son 
 Born to be great King Edward, and to reign 
 Wisest and strongest of Plantagenets, 
 (Brave then and wise, but not yet fortunate,) 
 Fought all day long the rebel peers, and tied. 
 I dream the clang of arms, the flying host, 
 The harnessed warriors choked in winding Ouse, 
 Where now the engines scream along the flats, 
 And timber bridges thunder with the trains. 
 
 Or if my fancy dares a wider flight. 
 There rises awful on my dreaming mood 
 The age primeval, when the Earth was formed 
 To what she is to-day; and as I di^eam, 
 Saxon, and Norman, and Plantagenet, 
 Heathen and Christian, are of yesterday. 
 What was this scene, when the vast ocean poui*ed 
 His flood inexorable o'er the vale, 
 Washing away the table-land of chalk 
 That joined, so wise men tell, the Southdown range 
 With Surrey and the distant Northdown hills ?
 
 A HOMEWARD RIDE. 
 
 Ages on ages long tlie waters poured 
 With operation slow and secular, 
 From underneath the chalk discovering 
 The ruins of a world more ancient yet, 
 And bones of creatures huge and horrible. 
 How vast the gulf that urged its mighty tides 
 Far up into the land, and shaped the chalk 
 It spared to rounded forms and hollow combes ! 
 Who sailed upon those waves ? Did any walk. 
 Human or else half-human, by the tide ? 
 Or was there only silence dim and vast, 
 The world not yet in labour of her sons, 
 But lying tenantless beneath the moon, 
 As plains Australian lie in these our days. 
 Not yet discovered, nor yet good for man ? 
 On me thus musing many things of old. 
 By this the night has fallen, as I gain 
 The sweet short turf that clothes the swelling hills. 
 Dismounted, by my panting horse I climb 
 High and yet higher to the rustic seat
 
 8 A HOMEWARD RIDE. 
 
 That crowus the beacon, and against me feel 
 The fresh breeze coming from the southern sea. 
 
 Hence, when the daylight serves, is prospect fair 
 And vast to northward, o'er the vale supine, 
 Up o'er the wooded ranges of the Weald 
 To Ashdown, once a forest, and the place 
 Of olden workers of the iron ore, 
 Sounding Avith hammers and tlie din of wheels 
 Ei'e yet the home of iron was the North, 
 But now all silent, desolate, and bare. 
 
 To-night such view is blotted from my sight ; 
 I only see about me as I ride 
 The circliua: rounded ridges of the hills 
 Treeless and smooth as tended garden slopes, 
 Tlio ghostly sheepfolds tinkling to the night, 
 And low thick patches of the native gorse, 
 The home of many foxes ; over all 
 The glimmering line that marks the Channel sea ; 
 Or sometimes catch the lighthouse flashing light 
 To mariners from distant Beachy Head.
 
 A HOMEWARD RIDE. 9 
 
 Even the lonely barns upon these hills 
 
 Are landmarks to the vessels out at sea, 
 
 Seen by how many eyes of passing men, 
 
 Wistful or glad, who fare along the coast, 
 
 Some homeward bound, with cheerful thoughts of 
 
 friends ; 
 Some outward, exiles from the land they love ! 
 
 But I, uncertain, give my horse his rein, 
 For hard to eyes unused it is to thread 
 The inextricable error of the hills, 
 And choose from all the ridge that leads aright. 
 He confident, with forward pricking ears. 
 Trots brisker, knowing near his stable door, 
 And bears me by a track of many ruts, 
 But in the darkness easy to be lost, 
 Till from the down I come on arable ; 
 And soon below me opens in the night 
 The narrow Cuckmere valley, with its stream 
 Embanked and straitened ; on the further side 
 The sheltered village and the formal wood.
 
 lo A HOME IV A RD RIDE. 
 
 And close beneath me, on the hither slope, 
 
 I see and hear the homestead that I seek — 
 
 The life, the lights, and voices of the farm. 
 
 The pleasant Southdown farm, built long ago. 
 
 With massive chimneys, as men built of old, 
 
 And a steep roof of elder centuries. 
 
 Here all night long, though howl the landward blast, 
 
 And all the dwelling rattle with the storm. 
 
 Are welcomes warm, and faces dear to me, 
 
 And converse happier that the gale is high. 
 
 At last I cross the roadway, and at last 
 My hoofs are ringing on the flinty yard ; 
 And at the sound the stable opening wide 
 Pours out its flood of hospitable light 
 On horse and man, mudstained and travelworn ; 
 And issuing forth inquisitive, the groom 
 Asks much of how we ran and how we fai'cd. 
 
 So pass I from the darkness to the light, 
 Half-tired and happy, to my brothers' home.
 
 II 
 
 IN THE SOUND OF MULL. 
 
 r 
 
 I 
 
 "S it Peace, the silence still 
 
 That hangs over rock and hill, 
 And has hushed the restless trouble of the bay 
 In a slumber so profound, 
 That there only comes the sound 
 Of waterfalls that weep themselves away ? 
 
 II 
 
 And I wonder as I stand. 
 
 For it seems a fairy land, 
 The heather and the mountains and the shore, 
 
 And as if these gleaming seas 
 
 Never thrilled before a breeze, 
 And their calm should be broken nevermore.
 
 12 IN THE SOUND OF MULL. 
 
 Ill 
 For the sea-bird sits asleep 
 On the min'or of the deep, 
 
 Floating idle with his image below ; 
 And many a sunlit sail 
 To invite the lino^erino" crale 
 
 Vainly spreads a deep bosom of snow. 
 
 IV 
 
 Is it Peace, or but a lull 
 Treacherously beautiful. 
 
 But a truce in the elemental strife ? — 
 Even now the wind descends. 
 Even now the copsewood bends. 
 
 And the waters are ruffled into life. 
 
 v 
 And to-night the waves shall pour 
 All their anger on the shore, 
 
 And the voices of the storm shall be high, 
 And the mighty wind shall lift 
 From its black and gleaming rift 
 
 The waterfall in smoke to the sky.
 
 IN THE SOUND OF MULL. i 
 
 VI 
 
 And the heavy mist shall rest 
 
 Oil the mountain's patient breast, 
 On this graveyard where I sit and mnse alone 
 
 Planted thick with many a bed 
 
 Of the nameless rustic dead, 
 And guarded by this ancient cross of stone. 
 
 VII 
 
 It cannot reach them there, 
 
 The tempest in the air, 
 Or the rain, or the thunder of the wave, 
 
 For their storms are overpast, 
 
 They have gone to rest at last, 
 And there must be Peace at length in the grave. 
 
 VIII 
 
 But is it so in truth? 
 Does no memory of youth, 
 Of hopes that once smiled and passed away, 
 Of faces loved in vain, 
 Of life's long unquiet pain, 
 Vex the souls that have had their mortal day ?
 
 14 IN THE SOUND OF MULL. 
 
 IX 
 
 Is it all a voiceless calm, 
 Closed eyes and folded palm ? 
 
 Do tliey never see again the vanished years ? 
 Never think the thoughts they thought, 
 Fight the battles that they fought, 
 
 And once more weep their long forgotten tears ? 
 
 X 
 
 Yet if their rest but seems, 
 
 Fair Angel of our dreams, 
 Wliere is the mighty Seer who can tell 
 
 In what Heaven thou dost hide, 
 
 Peace white- winged and quiet-eyed, 
 By what silent streams thou lovest to dwell ? 
 
 XI 
 
 Dost thou only shed thy light 
 
 In the pauses of the fight 
 That gallant souls are waging with wrong, — 
 
 Gliding softly by the heart 
 
 That sits lonely and apart, 
 Like some snatch of an old melodious song' ?
 
 IN THE SOUND OF MULL. 15 
 
 XII. 
 
 Showing — not to men at ease 
 
 Who are borne down summer seas — 
 The vision of thy well beloved form ; 
 
 But to them who long and late 
 
 Meet the cruel waves of fate, 
 Setting still a steadfast front to the storm ?
 
 i6 
 
 SPRING, 18G6. 
 
 'Qpa I'e'a * xeKiSuif. 
 
 T ITTLE wanderer of the year, 
 Art tliou tlien already here, 
 Clinging to our rainy eaves ? 
 Is it time to think of leaves ? 
 Bringst thou any Avord of mouth 
 From the sun or from the South ? 
 
 Winter hangs about us still. 
 And the snowdrift crowns the hill, 
 And the woods are lifeless yet. 
 And the vale with floods is wet. 
 
 Wake us not before our time 
 With the story of a clime 
 Where to-day the sun is high. 
 Monarch of a cloudless skj- ; —
 
 SFRIiVG, 1866. 17 
 
 Mock us not with tales like these 
 Here amid our northern seas. 
 
 Rather tell us of the way 
 Thou hast come to us to-day ; 
 From what distant Libyan shore 
 Seeking islands bleak and frore ? 
 Borne across what troubled seas 
 To our dim. Hesperides? 
 
 Searching for a home and peace, 
 Didst thou cross the isles of Greece ? 
 Do the boys ia Athens sing, 
 ' See the swallow ! It is spring ! ' 
 As they sang, while yet their town 
 Queenlike wore her violet crown ? 
 
 Flying further, didst thou hear 
 Sounds confused of hate and fear, — 
 See the bayonets flashing bright 
 In the warm Italian lierht 
 Round the city, that has been 
 Ocean's fairest bride and queen, — 
 c
 
 1 8 SPRING, 1866. 
 
 Now another Helen lies 
 Of a fatal strife the prize ? 
 
 Didst thou see the purple shroud 
 Of the heavy thundercloud, 
 Darkening to their utmost band 
 All the plains of Fatherland, — 
 Chai'ged with many a year of woe * 
 To the waiting fields below ? 
 
 Wise in time ! for thou hast come 
 Here to a securer home ; 
 Though these skies are ashen grey, 
 Cold and wet our April day, 
 Build thy nest, swallow, here. 
 Better frost than sword or spear. 
 Here is shelter safe and good 
 For thy callow household brood : 
 Thou shalt keep thy little state 
 Tn this realm inviolate, 
 
 * Vates ignare futuri !
 
 SPRING, 1866. 19 
 
 Careless of the trellised vine 
 By the Danube and the Rhine, 
 And shalt ply thine airy games 
 O'er mine cwn beloved Thames ! 
 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 :may-day. 
 
 TT^IRST of Summer, last of Spring, 
 
 May, unworthy we to sing 
 Thy bright skies, thy balmy days. 
 Thickening shades, and flowery ways. 
 May — May is come : 
 May — to gentle minds most dear, 
 ]\Iay — the jewel of the year : 
 May is vocal, be not dumb.
 
 MAY- DA V. 21 
 
 II 
 
 Hark, the slow stream on its way- 
 Murmurs softer songs to May : 
 See, the blossom-whitened bough 
 Hangs in brightest glory now, 
 
 Spring — Spring is crowned, 
 Crowned, alas ! too soon to die ; 
 Summer's fiercer heat is nigh, 
 Spring is lost as soon as found. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Yet the time that Spring is here 
 Sigh no sigh, and weep no tear ; 
 Fill your little cup of mirth. 
 Short is pleasure's time on earth. 
 Toil — toil is long ; 
 Yet the changeless round of duty 
 Hath its happiness and beauty, — 
 Sweeter for the toil the song.
 
 22 MAY- DAY. 
 
 IV 
 
 Sing then, sing : the birds above 
 Join the revels that you love : 
 Dance, till on the meadow's breast 
 Wearied you sink down to rest : 
 Earth — earth is fair ; 
 Earth is very fair and bright 
 Bathed in floods of sunny light, 
 
 Round you sweeps the perfumed air. 
 
 All is happy : to our earth 
 Heaven gives a silent mu'th ; 
 She is in her fair array, 
 Let us too make holiday : — 
 All — all rejoice, 
 Mar not with a moody sadness 
 Nature's gentle spring of gladness, 
 Give her happiness a voice.
 
 23 
 
 A LATE SPRING, 
 
 I 
 
 TT is weariness, counting the honrs 
 
 And the days, as they heavily move, 
 While she comes not — the queen of the flowers, 
 While she lingers — the goddess we love. 
 
 II 
 Long time for her smile have we waited. 
 
 For the fragrance that breathes from her mouth ; 
 Long time has she wandered unsated 
 
 On the shores of the prodigal South. 
 
 Ill 
 Who will tempt her to come to us, telling 
 
 That the swallows have flown to our eaves. 
 That the forest's bare branches are swelling 
 
 For her with a promise of leaves ; —
 
 24 A LATE SPRING. 
 
 IV 
 Tliat the copses for her have been keeping 
 
 Long hoarded their primroses pale ; 
 That the trout in the shallows are leaping, 
 
 And the cuckoo is loud in the vale ; — 
 
 V 
 That we wait in these storm-beaten islands 
 
 For the glance of her beautiful eyes, 
 To charm the east wind into silence, 
 
 And to light up the clouds of our skies ? 
 
 VI 
 
 But she hears not, nor comes she ; delaying 
 Where kingdoms more fortunate shine, 
 
 Like Queen Proserpine, carelessly playing 
 In what gardens of Enna divine. 
 
 VII 
 
 Can we snatch her perforce ? — to no Hades, 
 But here, on the fair village greens. 
 
 Here to fill up her train of court ladies 
 
 With the choice of our chosen May queens.
 
 A LATE SPRING. 25 
 
 VIII 
 Where her footsteps shall fall on the flowers 
 
 That a thousand bright children -will fling ; 
 Where the chimes from the grey Gothic towers 
 
 Shall speak out their welcome to Spring. 
 
 IX 
 
 She shall see all the land and its treasure, 
 And far, from deep woodland or plain, 
 
 There shall greet her the lark's song of pleasure 
 Or the nightingale's musical pain, 
 
 X 
 
 Ah me ! she is deaf to all voices, 
 
 And she comes not to meadow or grove ; 
 
 But some happier island rejoices 
 
 In the smiles of the goddess we love.
 
 26 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE. 
 
 TXrHAT ftincy was it, Lady bright and fair, 
 
 To bind that wreath of leaves already sere, 
 
 That chaplet of the sad autumnal year, 
 Round thy young brows and on thy sunny hair ? 
 When life itself is fading, wilt thou wear 
 
 The coronal of age with such a grace, 
 
 With such a smile on such a happy face ':' 
 What of thy youth shall Time, the spoiler, spare ? 
 Yet ! may Spring late Knger in the breast. 
 
 Though snows of Winter fall upon the head ; 
 And, as a child before she sinks to rest 
 
 By loving friends is duly visited. 
 May many a youthful memory be thy guest. 
 
 Waking thy silence with familiar tread !
 
 27 
 
 SUNSHINE. 
 
 /^ IFT of tlie gods ! How on this dusky wall, 
 And far away on river, plain, and glen, 
 
 On all things lovely and nnloved of men, 
 Equally floods the light celestial ! — 
 Me the glad hours with sudden influence call 
 
 To wander in the spirit once again 
 
 To that half-fancied, half-remembered den 
 Of a weird woodland by a waterfall ; 
 Where the bright sunlight came through trellised 
 shade. 
 
 Where all things beautifal and sweet were found ; — 
 The dun fawns tripping through, from glade to glade ; 
 
 A wasteful wealth of flowers upon the ground ; 
 Silence intense, yet fairest music made, 
 
 And music most intense, yet not a sound.
 
 28 
 
 AUTUMN, 1854. 
 
 I 
 rpHE chiller air that whistles as it blows, 
 
 The smooth-shorn iiplands with their lingering 
 sheaves. 
 The stream that in its fuller volume flows, 
 And ah ! the falling leaves ; — 
 
 n 
 
 The sportsman's gun sharp echoing through the vale. 
 The frosty clearness of the waning day, 
 
 All sounds, all scents around us tell the tale 
 Of Summer past away. 
 
 Ill 
 While yet the golden August days were long. 
 
 Prescient of this, the shrill- voiced swifts had fled ; 
 "Wise birds that would not stay to sing their song 
 
 Wlien their delights were dead.
 
 AUTUMN, 1854. 29 
 
 IV 
 
 Ah me ! how much of joy and hope and love 
 Fled with the birds, and shall not come again : 
 
 Not only is the brightness of the grove 
 Quenched by the Autumn rain ; 
 
 V 
 Not only are the dim leaves downward borne, 
 
 Not only are the shadowy branches sere : 
 For every leaf some heart is left foi'lorn 
 
 In every passing year. 
 
 VI 
 
 How much of love has lived its little time ! 
 
 How much of joy has laughed itself away ! 
 How many a friendship, fresh in Summer's prime, 
 
 Is dead and cold to-day ! 
 
 VII 
 
 We know not of the tears that round us fall 
 As frequent as the raindrops on the sod, 
 
 Nor hear how many grief-choked voices call 
 For help and strength on God.
 
 30 AUTUMN, 1854. 
 
 « 
 
 YTII 
 
 We cannot Icnow what memories are stirred 
 By the kno-wTi scenes we pass so lightly by ; 
 
 All Nature's sounds, by us so idly heard, 
 Bring tears to some sad eye. 
 
 IX 
 
 Be sure some memory lives in every breeze, 
 And wakes in all the seasons of the year ; 
 
 Some laughed their lightest under leafless trees, 
 To some is Summer dear ; — 
 
 X 
 
 Dear for the sake of recollected love. 
 
 Or scarce less dear for some remembered woe ; — 
 So like the thoughts that joy and sorrow move, 
 
 Recalled from lon^ ago. 
 
 XI 
 
 And if no joy with Summer passed away 
 From us, if Autumn brings no present pain ; 
 
 Yet scarce may we refuse one tear to-day 
 For what comes not again.
 
 AUTUMN, 1854. 31 
 
 XII 
 
 To-day our home with merry voices rings, 
 No loved ones lost, no stricken faces pale : — 
 
 Alas ! these days shall be departed things, 
 A half-remembered tale. 
 
 XIII 
 
 On us too misty shades of age shall fall 
 
 Peopled alone with phantoms of our youth ; 
 
 And we shall sit in silence and recall 
 Ghosts of our olden Truth.
 
 GOOD-NIGHT. 
 
 I 
 p\ OOD-NIGHT ! tlie heavens are clear, 
 
 The stars are gleaming bright, 
 
 The fittest evening of the year 
 
 To wish thee, love, good-night ! 
 
 II 
 
 The Kvelong summer day 
 
 I hung upon thine eyes ; 
 We felt the red sun fade away, 
 
 And the still moon arise. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Good-night ! the morn was fair, 
 
 And golden was the noon, 
 And dewy sweet the evening air. 
 
 That parts us all too soon.
 
 GOOD-NIGHT. 33 
 
 IV 
 Good-niglit ! one last good-night ! 
 
 And one last parting prayer ; — 
 Shine all thy days as calmly bright, 
 
 Gleam all thy moons as fair !
 
 34 
 
 SONG. 
 
 II TY darling, though the sun to-night 
 
 Should leave an angry sky, 
 And though to-morrow's earliest hght 
 Should find the tempest high ; 
 
 II 
 Though every flower that blooms to-day 
 
 Should broken be, and dead, 
 And over all the garden way 
 
 Untimely petals shed; 
 
 III 
 
 Yet I, possessing none the less 
 
 My summer sunlight clear, 
 Look for a day of happiness 
 
 Among the blossoms here.
 
 SONG. 35 
 
 IV 
 
 With you and each dear little one 
 
 Shall lightly pass the hours, 
 For you shall be my summer sun, 
 
 And they shall be my flowers. 
 
 1) 2
 
 36 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 inLUSHED Autumn, with his golden crown, 
 
 And clusters of the vine, 
 Who comes when Summer's sun goes down 
 
 To tread the purple wine, — 
 Whose cheeks with honest toil are brown, 
 Who brings a feast to farm and town, 
 
 To you and me and mine ; —
 
 AUTUMN. 37 
 
 II 
 
 Sad Autumn, touched with early frost, 
 Who thins the reddened leaves, 
 
 Who brings a message sad, and most 
 The mourner's spirit grieves, 
 
 For he speaks of early promise lost, 
 
 And of seas by winds untimely tossed, 
 And of snow among the sheaves. 
 
 Ill 
 
 What emblem shall befit him best ? 
 
 Shall I hate him, or fear, or love ? 
 Does he tell us of the ends possessed 
 
 For which our Svimmer strove ? 
 Or of human weakness late confessed ? 
 And is it in kindness or bitter jest 
 
 That he withers the wreaths we wove ?
 
 38 AUTUMN. 
 
 IV 
 
 Or does he say, all passions here 
 
 Are laid to rest at last, 
 And all the visions of the year 
 
 In a wrack on his shore are cast ? 
 That hope is hope, and fear is fear, 
 EiTt why should we waste a smile or a tear 
 
 On thitigs that with Summer passed ? 
 
 season ! whose mornings are misty and cold, 
 
 Whose sunlight is brief and still. 
 When the gossamer decks in fold on fold 
 
 Meadow and bank and hill, 
 And the skirts of whose evening skies are rolled 
 In purple and amethyst and gold. 
 
 And whose early nights are chill :
 
 AUTUMN. 39 
 
 VI 
 
 Teach us the lesson that we need, 
 
 Whatever that lesson be ; 
 For surely he vf'ho runs may read 
 
 That his race is vanity, — 
 And surely voices there are, to lead 
 The halting steps of all souls that bleed 
 
 To peace and to rest, in thee !
 
 40 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 (An Imitation.) 
 ] 
 
 i~\ LOOK, my friends ! the drift lies steep 
 
 Piled on the Chilterns' glittering brow ; 
 O hark ! within the woodland deep 
 The trees lament their load of snow. 
 
 II 
 But we to keep the frost at bay 
 
 Will see the fire burns bright and clear ; 
 And you shall drink with me to-day 
 
 A magnum of the comet year. 
 
 HI 
 
 And leave the rest to Heaven ; for Heaven 
 
 Can stay the tempest if it will : 
 Ti)-night — the very oaks are riven, 
 
 To-morrow — and the lake is still.
 
 WINTER. 41 
 
 IV 
 Yet who to-morrow's sky would know ? 
 
 To-night is ours, if we are wise ; 
 To-night my fathers' halls shall glow 
 
 With wit and wine and woman's eyes. 
 
 T 
 
 Fill high : let him who will decline ; 
 
 Let age and prudence be severe ; 
 But thou be glad that it is thine 
 
 To whisper love in beauty's ear ; 
 
 VI 
 
 To sigh and flatter not in vain, 
 
 In thine the yielding hand to press ; 
 
 To look in eyes that anger feign, 
 Yet ask thee for a new caress.
 
 42 
 
 THE STORM. 
 
 I 
 "O IGHT on the rocks she came beneath the night, 
 The blinding mist drove heavy on the strand : 
 Voices there were within her, warmth, and light, — 
 Clouds and the tempest hid the iron land. 
 
 n 
 Ah ! fated vessel, full of hope and pride, 
 
 One hour of life remains to you, — no more, — 
 Then shrieks and struggles in the cruel tide, — 
 
 Then the waves beating on a lifeless shore. 
 
 Ill 
 Ah ! was there none to save from such an end, 
 
 No kindly beacon on the cliffs above. 
 No warning voice of angel or of friend — 
 
 Could knowledge nothing help, and nothing love ?
 
 THE STORM. 43 
 
 IV 
 Nothing to sail in sucli a gallant trim ? 
 
 Nothing the long experience of the seas ? 
 And to have known the Arctic noontides dim, 
 
 And the sweet airs of the Hesperides ? 
 
 V 
 But so, as some great warrior moves to death 
 
 With careless speech and triumph in his eyes, 
 
 Not knowing that he draws his latest breath, 
 
 Not knowing that to-day he surely dies ; — 
 
 VT 
 
 Through shoals and breakers harmless have you past, 
 With prow exultant and unriven sail. 
 
 Borne onward to predestined wreck at last 
 By the dark fate that follows in the gale.
 
 44 
 
 INKERIIANN. 
 
 (November 1854.) 
 
 rpHEY say, before the break of Hgbt, 
 
 When soldiers are to die, 
 Old warrior ghosts the livelong night 
 
 Sweep through the misty sky, 
 And that the echoing spear and shield 
 Ring dimly o'er the fated field. 
 
 II 
 And surely if the dead are stirred 
 
 By tidings of the brave, — 
 If ever sounds of life are heard 
 
 Across the silent grave, — 
 They felt the battle-thrill that ran 
 Above the vale of Inkermann.
 
 INKERMANN. 45 
 
 in 
 Men told us England's heart was cold, 
 
 Her homes no heroes bore, 
 That honour was a thing of old, 
 
 And glory charmed no more : — 
 Even as they spoke we felt they lied, 
 And now we know how Cathcart died. 
 
 IV 
 
 How died they all ! the brave, the good. 
 
 The gallant, and the gay ; 
 Wrapt in that rolling mist they stood 
 
 To fling their lives away ; 
 Then closed upon the Russians' might 
 To show them how the free can fight. 
 
 V 
 And we who sit at home and weep 
 
 For those who come no more, 
 For all the precious dead who sleep 
 
 By the Euxine's sounding shore, 
 Yet smile we in our tears to know 
 How well our brothers met the foe.
 
 64 INKERMANN. 
 
 VT 
 How fast their deadly volleys flashed, 
 
 How answered blow for blow, 
 While wave on wave upon them dashed 
 
 Up from the vale beloAv, 
 Till through the eddying smoke and flame 
 The fiery Zouave charging came. 
 
 VII 
 
 Woe for the gallant dead and true 
 That heaped the cumbered plain ! 
 
 What prayers were said at home for you. 
 The loved, — yet all in vain ! 
 
 "Wliat joy went forth with you, what pride, 
 
 What trembling hopes, — and yet you died ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 We waited till the tidings came 
 
 From o'er the wintry seas, 
 The fearful news that spread like flame 
 
 Borne on the eastern breeze,' 
 How you had struggled long and well, 
 How like your fathers' sons you fell !
 
 47 
 
 DAS SIEGESFEST. 
 
 (Schiller.) 
 
 ■pRIAlM'S halls in ruin lying, 
 Aslies only left in Troy ; — 
 Many a Grecian booty-laden, 
 
 Many a soldier drunk with joy, 
 Sat upon his lofty vessel 
 
 On the Hellespont's fair strand 
 Ready for the happy journey, 
 Ready for the Grecian land : — 
 
 ' Comrades, friends with me returning 
 Raise on high a festive strain, 
 We are bound for home again 
 ^Vhere our household fires are burning.'
 
 48 DAS SIEGESFEST. 
 
 II 
 But in long array lamenting 
 
 Sat the Trojan women there, 
 
 Sadly striking on their bosoms — 
 
 Pale and with dishevelled hair ; 
 
 And amid the wild rejoicing 
 
 Came their mournful monotone, 
 
 As they sang their homes' undoing 
 
 In a low unheeded moan : 
 
 ' Farewell to our pleasures fled ! 
 
 From a fallen home we go 
 
 Slaves of an insulting foe, 
 
 Only happy are the dead.' 
 
 Ill 
 Calchas at the laden altar 
 
 Calls on many a holy name, 
 And invokes the might of Heaven 
 
 As he lights the odorous flame, — 
 Pallas, pride and dread of nations, 
 
 Neptune, girder of the land,
 
 DAS SIEGESFEST. 49 
 
 Jove, who strikes the flash of terror 
 From the ^gis in his hand : — 
 ' All is suffered, all is done. 
 
 And our foe has fallen at last, 
 And the fated years are past, 
 And the mighty city won.' 
 
 IV 
 
 Atreus' son, the princely leader, 
 
 Reckons up his hosts again, 
 Whom he brought from distant Aulis 
 
 Unto dai'k Scamander's plain ; 
 And the clouds of gloomy sorrow 
 
 Gather on his kingly brow, 
 For he sees of countless thousands 
 Only these returning now : — 
 
 ' Therefore raise a careless strain, 
 Ye who see the Kght of day, 
 Te who take your homeward way ; 
 Few are bound for Greece again.' 
 
 E
 
 50 DAS SIEGESFEST. 
 
 V 
 ' Yet not all who now are parting 
 
 Shall possess theu' homes in joy, 
 
 Even at the household altar 
 
 Can a felon stroke destroy ; 
 
 Some shall find at home a traitor 
 
 Whom the foemen's weapons spai'e ;' — 
 
 Thus Ulysses spake his warning 
 
 With a god- inspired air : — 
 
 ' Happy he whose wife is true, 
 
 Happy he whose home is sure ! 
 
 Scarce will woman's faith endure, 
 
 And the wicked seeks the new.' 
 
 Yi 
 Prize of all the fatal contest. 
 
 In her husband's arms at rest ; 
 Mcnelaus, happy victor. 
 
 Holds his Helen to his breast. 
 Wrong and crime must go to ruin, 
 
 And the evil punished be,
 
 DAS SIEGESFEST. 51 
 
 For the gods tliey rule in Heaven, 
 And upright is their decree : — 
 ' Evils on the evil fall, 
 
 Evil on the faithless guest ; 
 Jove, who judgeth all things best, 
 Seeth and avengeth all.' 
 
 VII 
 
 ' Ye the living, ye the happy,' 
 
 Cries Oileus' gallant son ; 
 * Ye can praise the powers sitting 
 On Olympus' awfal throne. 
 Yet their gifts they give at random, 
 
 And by chance their favours come, 
 For Patroclus lieth buried. 
 
 And Thersites saileth home : — 
 
 Blindly all their gifts they give, 
 Blindly falleth destiny ; 
 Therefore raise a song on high 
 Ye that have the lot to Hve ! ' 
 e2
 
 52 DAS SIEGESFEST. 
 
 VIII 
 ' Yes, the war has snatched the noblest, 
 
 And for ever shall the Greek, 
 
 When he holds his solemn feast-day, 
 
 Of thy deeds of valour speak, 
 
 my brother ! his defender 
 
 When the ships were wrapt in flame ; 
 
 Yet to yonder crafty coward 
 
 All the prize of honour came : — 
 
 Sleep thou in thy quiet rest, 
 
 Never vanquished by a foe ; 
 
 Ajax fell by Ajax' blow, 
 
 It was madness slew the best.' 
 
 IX 
 
 Then his son to great Achilles 
 
 Proudly pours the votive wine : — 
 * Far above all earthly honour. 
 Mighty father, shineth thine ! 
 
 Far above all earthly fortune 
 Do I count a noble name,
 
 DAS SIEGESFEST. S3 
 
 And wlien low the body lietli 
 
 Still to live in deathless fame : — 
 
 Men unborn shall tell thy glory, 
 For a thousand ages long 
 Heroes live in endless song, 
 Mortal life is but a story.' 
 
 X 
 
 ' If the voice of song be silent,' 
 
 Thus great Tydeus' son began, 
 ' I myself will bear my witness, 
 
 And will praise a conquered man ; 
 I will tell of gallant Hector 
 
 For his altars fighting well ; — 
 If ye praise the arm that vanquished, 
 Praise the noble heart that fell — 
 Him who for his country bled, 
 Him who many a fearful day 
 Kept your closing ranks at bay, — 
 Let his foemen praise the dead ! '
 
 5^ DAS SIEGESFEST. 
 
 XI 
 
 He that lived three generations, 
 
 Nestor Avith a jovial mien 
 Stretches out a laurelled beaker 
 To the weeping Phrygian queen : — 
 ' Drain it off, that'draught Lethean, 
 It can wash away thy smart ; 
 Mighty Bacchus worketh wonders, 
 And can heal the broken heart ; — 
 Drain it, lady, and forget : 
 
 Wine will cure the deepest smart. 
 Wine will heal the broken heart. 
 And a bound to sorrow set. 
 
 XII 
 
 ' Even Niobe, all wretched. 
 
 Whom immortals hated so, 
 She could taste the golden vintage, 
 
 And constrain her mighty woe ; 
 For whenever from the goblet 
 
 To the lips the red streams swell,
 
 DAS SIEGESFEST. 55 
 
 Is the deepest sorrow banished 
 And the saddest heart is well ; — 
 
 And whenever foams that stream 
 On the eager lips of men, 
 Bruised sonls are whole again, 
 Pain and grief but phantoms seem.' 
 
 XIII 
 
 Last of all the sad Cassandra 
 
 Rose the lofty ships among ; 
 As she saw the smoking ruins, 
 
 Lifting high her fateful song : — 
 ' Smoke, and less than smoke, are mortals ; 
 As yon vaporous pillars wane. 
 So all earthly powers shall vanish, 
 Only shall the gods remain ; — 
 By the rider on his way. 
 
 By the sailor sitteth sorrow : 
 Who is sure of his to-morrow ? 
 Let us live our life to-day ! '
 
 56 
 
 ILL TIDINGS. 
 
 I 
 r\ LADY, thy first-born is dead ! 
 
 mother, thy darling lies low ! 
 But he died Avhen his comrades had fled, 
 But he fell with his face to the foe. 
 
 II 
 To the mother that bare him in pain, 
 
 And that tended his childhood with care, 
 Of him Cometh nothinj^r agrain, 
 
 No token nor lock of his hair. 
 
 in 
 mother ! great sorrow is thine 
 
 For the joyous, the honest, the brave — 
 That the brilliant no longer shall shine, 
 
 That the youthful is gone to his grave !
 
 ILL TIDINGS. 57 
 
 IV 
 lady, but great is tliy pride 
 
 For a son and a soldier so true ! 
 In the place of his duty he died 
 
 At the task that God gave him to do.
 
 WRECK. 
 
 I 
 
 TNDISTINCT in the distance and black, 
 Piled liigli upon ]\Iona's wild shore, 
 
 Lie the fragments of navies in wrack, 
 That gallant and hopeful of yore 
 Light hearts and rich merchandise bore. 
 
 II 
 
 They are piled undistinguished and dim, 
 They are named and remembered no more ; 
 
 Unless on the world's utmost rim 
 Some trafi&cker telling his store 
 Speaks of losses on Mona's wild shore.
 
 WRECK. 59 
 
 III 
 So they who are faring through life, 
 
 Baffled oft by the tempests of fate, 
 How much have they lost in the strife 
 
 That never, or early or late, 
 
 Shall they find at the day's golden gate ! 
 
 IV 
 
 The jettisons made of dear hopes. 
 
 The brands half-consumed of old fires. 
 
 Loves parted Kke axe-sundered ropes, 
 And wan forms of unburied desires 
 Lie thick where the coast -line retires. 
 
 V 
 
 Abandoned on life's farthest shore. 
 
 Across the wide ocean of years 
 Lie the waifs that the hurricane bore 
 
 Far away from to-day's hopes and fears, — 
 
 Far off, and too distant for tears.
 
 6o WRECK. 
 
 VI 
 
 Yet, once and again, as there lifts 
 
 The darkness that broods in the skies, 
 
 Through the tempest that changes and drifts 
 Can be seen the lost treasure that Hes 
 Where the waves round the headland uprise.
 
 6i 
 
 NACHRUF. 
 
 (From the German.) 
 I 
 
 TTP yonder steps tliy foot but now has past, 
 Thy presence tenanted this silent room, 
 On thee the raoonhght through those leaves was cast, 
 For thee the lawns were gay with summer bloom. 
 
 n 
 
 Thy seat was by the shining casement there. 
 Old memories of the past within thy breast : 
 
 Here hast thou slept, and with a whispered prayer 
 Charmed all thy sorrows to a dreamless rest. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And thou hast gone ; and with thy gentle grace 
 The Angel of this house has past away ; 
 
 And I — woe's me ! — have stepped into thy place — 
 Wild singer of an unmelodious lay.
 
 62 NACHRUF. 
 
 IV 
 And, sitting liere alone, it seems to me 
 
 As if these walls had knowledge and had speech ; 
 As if the trees and gardens spoke of thee 
 
 In language which my senses cannot reach. 
 
 V 
 
 O ! that I understood : the words they speak 
 Perchance might roll away this load of pain, 
 
 Bring coolness to this hot and wasted cheek, 
 Give tears and slumber to these eyes again. 
 
 VI 
 
 Foi', day and night, this only would I see, 
 And, seeing not, my very soul is riven. 
 
 O loved and lost ! if thou dost think of mc, 
 And thinking of me if thou hast forgiven !
 
 63 
 
 ASTROLOGY. 
 
 I 
 f\ READ, sweet student of the night, 
 
 Thy lesson, for the skies are fair ; — 
 See if Orion's sword be bright, 
 
 How shines the splendour of the Bear ! 
 
 II 
 Look how the streamers of the North 
 
 Throb rosy light across the sky — 
 How the wild meteors bursting forth 
 
 Shoot into nothingness and die ! 
 
 Ill 
 To-night the skies are oracles 
 
 Of all that mortal man would learn, 
 And in their depths a spirit dwells 
 
 Writing in sentences that burn.
 
 64 ASTROLOGY. 
 
 IV 
 
 And happy be the words that fall, 
 fair Astrologer, to thee ; 
 
 May Heaven's handwriting mystical 
 Show thee some answer well to see ! 
 
 V 
 
 I sit within the panelled gloom 
 Of walls for years unvisited. 
 
 The tenant of a ghostly room 
 
 Hung with the pictures of the dead, 
 
 VT 
 
 And distant, in the dark recess 
 Of yonder mulHoned oriel, 
 
 I watch thee reading motionless 
 Some horoscojje thou lovest well — 
 
 VII 
 
 Learning the language of the skies. 
 And listening what the planets say. 
 
 And following with those earnest eyes 
 The hosts of Heaven upon their way.
 
 65 
 
 LIGHT AND SHADE. 
 
 1 
 
 A LL tlie day our steps have been 
 
 Tlirough these woodland pathways green ; 
 Round us has the summer air 
 Made a melody so fair, 
 That it almost seemed to me 
 We could hear a distant sea, 
 As we lingered through the glade 
 Half in light and half in shade. 
 
 F
 
 66 LIGHT AND SHADE. 
 
 n 
 
 forgive me ! if my mood 
 Has been silent, strange and rnde ; 
 If companionslilp like mine 
 Has been little worthy thine : 
 Doubt not I have watched the while 
 Every gesture, every smile, — 
 Treasured all that has been said 
 Underneath this happy shade. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Let us rest a little here 
 By this water welling clear, 
 Dropping down from stone to stone 
 With a music all its own, 
 Though we scarce can see it pass 
 Through the interwoven grass — 
 Here is sunlight worthy thee, 
 Here is shadow fit for me.
 
 LIGHT AND SHADE. 67 
 
 IT 
 
 I Avill go awhile apart 
 With the trouble at my heart, 
 Until silence has repressed 
 All the folly of my breast, 
 Till mine eyes can bear to turn 
 With a wiser unconcern 
 Unto thee, lady bright ! — 
 From the shadow to the lierht. 
 
 V 
 
 Many things I longed to say, 
 But the hope has passed away 
 With the dreams that cheated me 
 Of a life that cannot be. 
 Of a love to answer mine, 
 Of a future half divine : — 
 They were phantoms of the night. 
 Shadows that are seared by light, - 
 f2
 
 68 LIGHT AND SHADE. 
 
 VI 
 
 Idle thoughts I dare not tell — 
 forgive them, and farewell ! 
 Grant me only, as I stand, 
 One last pressure of the hand, 
 One last look for me to prize 
 From the quiet of thine eyes 
 Ere I pass away from sight 
 Into darkness out of light.
 
 69 
 
 VOTA. 
 
 I 
 
 TRENE, with the steadfast eyes, 
 
 Yet standing on the shore of life, 
 Yet ignorant of storm or strife, 
 
 What art can tell thy destinies ? 
 
 II 
 
 If wishes have a power to bless. 
 
 Thy days be crowned with perfect ends, 
 With ' honour, love and troops of friends,' 
 
 And wealth, if wealth be happiness. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A radiant youth, a quiet age ; 
 
 Then, undismayed and undistrest, 
 Among thy children loved and blest, 
 
 To close the peaceful pilgrimage.
 
 70 
 
 VOTA. 
 
 IV 
 Yet, dearest, if my idle hope, 
 
 Shaping a future from thy face 
 
 As gentle as its gentle grace, 
 Has drawn too fair a horoscope ; — 
 
 V 
 
 And if the common lot be thine. 
 If pain must dim those tender eyes, 
 Pass tlirous'h the ills that round thee rise 
 
 Upholden by a strength di^^lne ! 
 
 vr 
 A noble life, a glad release 
 
 From all the sorrows of the way ; 
 
 And when thou hast fulfilled the day, 
 The end be, like the morning-, peace !
 
 71 
 
 MY LADY SLEEPS. 
 
 -yKvKipof KOi iyip<Tiixov vnvov. 
 
 QLEEP sound, dear love ! Though the winds be 
 
 high, 
 And the dark clouds drift through the troubled 
 
 sky, 
 Though the rising waters foam and roar, 
 And mournfully howl round the tortured shore, — 
 111 sounds from thy slumbers be far away. 
 And soft be thy di-eams as a summer day !
 
 72 MY LADY SLEEPS. 
 
 II 
 Sleep sound ! Though the world be weary with fears, 
 And eyes that love thee be sad with tears, 
 Yet never a sorrow break thy rest, 
 And never a pang shoot through thy breast, 
 No shadow pass o'er thy closed eyes, 
 But their visions be visions of Paradise ! 
 
 Ill 
 Sleep sound, sweet love ! Till the morning light 
 Lead up the new day with its fresh delight ; 
 Till the welcome sun, as it mounts above, 
 Recall thee to duty, and peace, and love, — 
 To a calm existence untouched by strife, 
 And the quiet round of a holy life !
 
 73 
 
 A PLEASANT PATH. 
 
 T\OWN the slant copsewood to the stile 
 
 I loitered, hanging on thy smile, — 
 We talked of pleasant things the while. 
 
 For all things pleasant were in thee, — 
 Things seen and things as yet to see, 
 What had been and what was to be. 
 
 How loverlike the trees inclined, 
 As if with all a lover's mind 
 For long: embraces intertwined !
 
 74 ^J PLEASANT PATH. 
 
 How loverlike the wind was sighing ; 
 What hollow cadences replying, 
 Sad as if love and hope were dying ! 
 
 Yet all was bright and all was well, 
 Hearts lighter than our words could tell, 
 And sunshine indescribable !
 
 75 
 
 A DYING FALL. 
 
 I 
 
 T WILL not call you, love, untrue, 
 
 If only when to-morrow calls. 
 For him who loved and lived for you 
 One teardrop falls : — 
 
 II 
 If only, Avhen the guns shall tell 
 
 That the great battle has been fought. 
 To him who blessed you as he fell 
 
 You give one thought. 
 
 Ill 
 
 One tear to grace his funeral, 
 
 One thought upon his nameless grave, 
 For he shall lie as he will fall — 
 
 Among the brave.
 
 76 A DYING FALL. 
 
 IV 
 Then be your life begun anew, 
 
 Love one and be beloved by all ! 
 1 will not call you, love, untrue, 
 
 Though I must fall.
 
 77 
 
 SEPARATION. 
 
 TTIILL high, my friends ! to-night is ours, 
 
 To-night kind speech and cordial hand ; 
 To-morrow — and the early showers 
 
 Blot from our eyes the lessening strand. 
 
 II 
 Fill high to those who love us well, 
 
 Or seem to love us, — who can know ? 
 folly ! for our last farewell 
 
 Shall be forgotten ere we go. 
 
 Ill 
 And whom should our departing grieve ? 
 
 Such guests are borne by every wind. 
 We — what are we — that hope to leave 
 
 Remembrance and regret behind ?
 
 78 SEPARATION. 
 
 IV 
 
 Only, too pleasant was the shore, 
 
 Too sweet its songs, too fair its smiles ; 
 
 Aiid well for us that sail and oar 
 
 Shall bear us from these golden isles — 
 
 V 
 Shall bear us down to other skies. 
 
 Past barren shores, through adverse foam, 
 Until there vanish from our eyes 
 
 This vision of a happy home !
 
 79 
 
 CHANGE. 
 
 TIAINT incense hung upon the air, 
 
 The priest's last blessing had been said, 
 Yet still she knelt in silent prayer. 
 Left with the memories of the dead. 
 
 ir 
 Fair sculptured saints with endless smile 
 
 Looked down upon the mortal's woe. 
 And, distant in the darkened aisle, 
 
 The fading tapers flickered low. 
 
 Ill 
 Widowed and childless ! Far away 
 
 For his dear country died her lord : — 
 They told her, as he fell he lay. 
 
 And knightlike grasped his shattered sword.
 
 8o CHANGE. 
 
 IV 
 And outside, in the moonlight wan, 
 
 Where ghostlike elms their tresses wave, 
 The minster's shadow falls upon 
 
 A little cross, a little grave. 
 
 V 
 Widowed and childless ! Wlio can know 
 
 The anguish of her shuddering prayer ? 
 Pass by her, brothers : let us go 
 
 From sorrow that we may not share. 
 
 VI 
 
 Short time ago we saw her move 
 The -worship of our wondering eyes, 
 
 And, brighter for the light of love, 
 Grow into all our auguries. 
 
 VII 
 
 Her husband's arm around her cast. 
 And bending to her child's caress. 
 
 So through our trivial world she passed 
 The perfect type of happiness.
 
 CHANGE. 8 1 
 
 VIII 
 And now — what utter change is there ! 
 
 Not that her face or form are old ; 
 Not that upon her lustrous hair 
 
 Dim silver streaks the shining gold. 
 
 IX 
 
 The same, yet not the same ; for now 
 Still young the load of age she bears, 
 
 And carries on her patient brow 
 A grief too sorrowful for tears. 
 
 X 
 
 This is the change that darkens life ; 
 
 Not duller eyes or feebler brain, 
 But knowing that the ceaseless strife 
 
 Takes friends that will not come again ; — 
 
 XI 
 
 Steals one by one the gifts of youth, 
 Gifts swiftly lost as freely given — 
 
 The poet-dreams that clothed the truth 
 About us with a light of heaven ; — 
 G
 
 82 CHANCE. 
 
 XII 
 The hopes high wrought, yet scarce expressed, 
 
 That faded into sober day ; 
 And Love, that Hke an angel guest 
 
 Came unawares, and passed away. 
 
 XIll 
 
 This shall no earthly comfort heal, 
 This dread we at the hands of fate, — 
 
 To look into our hearts, and feel 
 Its chambers lone and desolate.
 
 83 
 
 A RETURN. 
 
 I 
 TTE stood once more upon that airy brow, 
 
 And saw the vale beneath him, whence upswells 
 A hum of life from out the world below, 
 And all the fitful music of the bells. 
 
 II 
 Old well-remembered friends before him lay ; — 
 The willow-bordered stream, the cross-crowned 
 spire, 
 The clock that rings with footsteps of the day, 
 The thin blue smoke from many a happy fire. 
 
 Ill 
 Below him surged the old rook-haunted trees, 
 
 Far off the uplands slept serenely blue. 
 And, over all, the children of the breeze 
 
 Soft summer clouds their dreamy shadows threw. 
 
 g2
 
 84 A RETURN. 
 
 lY 
 No change is here. Eternal nature smiles 
 
 Unmoved for human love and life and tears ; 
 And harmlessly as Ocean round his isles 
 
 Rolls the swift current of the silent years. 
 
 V 
 
 And yet how changed to him who mourns for dead 
 Feelings and friends that fled, ah me, how fast ! 
 
 Who mourns not such that wakens with his tread 
 The lonely echoes of the sleeping Past ? 
 
 VI 
 
 Whose eyes are dry, that wandering apart 
 
 Slow lingers tlu'ough a home long lost and loved ? 
 
 There are some memories touch the sternest heart, 
 And at rare moments hardest men arc moved. 
 
 VII 
 
 Who will not weep upon the grave of youth, 
 Wondering to find the turf above so green ? 
 
 Who has not tears to shed for early truth 
 And all that has been, and that might have been.
 
 A RETURN, 85 
 
 VIII 
 From this loved home over a hemisphere 
 
 Cam.e dreams that spoke of early hope and light ; 
 
 And now — it seems a dream that he is here, 
 
 Some sad illusion of a weary night. 
 
 IX 
 
 For — when he dreamed — he heard his brothers call, 
 He saw his mother's patient pitying eye : 
 
 And now, — alone his measured footsteps fall 
 By the dark river roUing silently. 
 
 X 
 
 And — when he dreamed — he was a boy again, 
 And laughed and lived again his golden life : 
 
 And now, — the bitter sense of self -wrought pain. 
 And the ill memories of guilt and strife ! 
 
 XI 
 
 Weep, weep, poor wretch, beneath the moaning trees ; 
 
 Weep for the voices stilled, the silent home : — 
 Then forth once more upon life's angry seas 
 
 To toss and labour on the tossing foam !
 
 86 
 
 r 
 
 THE KNIGHT OF CLEE. 
 
 I 
 
 T was a maiden made her moan 
 
 Upon tlie liills of Glee, 
 And wept upon a rugged stone 
 Beneath a weeping tree. 
 
 II 
 
 Her knight was false, was false, she said, 
 
 Her dearest love unkind ; 
 He swore to keep his tryst, she said, 
 
 Come battle, storm, or wind. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But ah ! she said, some fancy new 
 
 Has wiled his heart away ; 
 He, that so faithful was and true, 
 
 Has broken faith to-day.
 
 THE KNIGHT OF CLEE. 87 
 
 IV 
 Ah ! surely, maideB, fate or war, 
 
 Or something else than will, 
 Has kept the faithful knight afar 
 
 That he is not on the hill. 
 
 V 
 
 Something ; — but not that he forgets 
 
 A face and form so rare, 
 Or cares not that the tempest wets 
 
 The tresses of thy hair. 
 
 VI 
 
 Yet still she fed her grief anew, 
 
 And still she made her moan 
 Beneath the moaning tree that grew 
 
 Out of the rugged stone. 
 
 VII 
 
 Him the meanwhile swoln Severn's wave. 
 From Worcester's treacherous shore, 
 
 By bloody Tewkesbury's reverend nave — 
 By Gloucester's abbey bore.
 
 88 THE KNIGHT OF CLEE. 
 
 VIII 
 By Berkeley's towers, a fearsome sight, 
 
 The murdered knight of Clee, 
 That should have kept his tryst to-night, 
 
 Was floated out to sea.
 
 89 
 
 ONCE FOES, ALWAYS FRIENDS. 
 
 I 
 
 TN a minster far down in the vales of the West 
 
 By a cunning hand carved he two warriors at rest, 
 Spurred, belted, and mailed, with white face turned 
 
 to face, 
 So they sleep, interchanging an endless embrace. 
 
 II 
 ' Once foes, always friends ; ' only this, nothing more 
 To tell of the name and the lineage they bore ; 
 * Once foes, always friends ; ' this the legend alone 
 With Orate pro animis cut in the stone.
 
 go ONCE FOES, ALWAYS FRIENDS. 
 
 iir 
 How lived they, or when ? On what times were they 
 
 cast ? 
 And they yielded their lives in what fight of the past ? 
 for eyes to look back through the ages of gloom, 
 And to read the dark riddle they left on their tomb ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Were they brothers, or closer than brothers in truth ? 
 And what cloud came between them to darken their 
 
 youth ? 
 Did it rise from beneath ? was it sent from above ? 
 Was it war or religion, ambition or love ? 
 
 V 
 
 Or was it, in days scarce remembered and far. 
 On a desperate field of some old civil war, 
 That long parted they met in unconscious career, 
 And that each fell at length by his brother's blind 
 spear ?
 
 ONCE FOES, ALWAYS FRIENDS. 91 
 
 VI 
 Who can see ? who can tell ? Only this can we know — 
 That those still marble faces were carved long ago ; 
 For the sake of that pair pious masses were said, 
 And the jDomp of religion rolled over the dead. 
 
 VII 
 
 They have slept their long slumber, and smiled their 
 
 calm smile, 
 Though Cromwell's stern troopers were housed in the 
 
 aisle, 
 Nothing hurt by the tempest of war as it passed, 
 Or the rage of the Puritan iconoclast. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Let us trust, notbing doubting, that tale of their life, 
 That their love was unending, and short was their 
 
 strife ; 
 Here at least, in this tomb, the brief rivalry ends, 
 And — Orate pro animis — for they were friends.
 
 92 
 
 THE RIVALS. 
 
 rpHREE knights of lineage knightly 
 
 For the love of a maiden fair, 
 Eor the light that Hes in her lustrous eyes 
 
 And the sheen of her yellow hair, 
 Have given their nights to watching 
 
 And their weary days to care. 
 
 II 
 The first is a gallant soldier 
 
 Who fiery deeds hath done, 
 Wlio in open fight with main and might 
 
 His golden spurs hath won ; — 
 And he sighs and swears, (but most he swears,) 
 
 He shall be the chosen one.
 
 THE RIVALS. 93 
 
 III 
 The second, a gentle scholar, 
 
 Who dwells by Isis' shore. 
 Hath learned all rhymes of the ancient times 
 
 And their long-forgotten lore ; — 
 And he woos her in such verses 
 
 As never were heard before. 
 
 IV 
 But the third is a knight of worship, 
 
 Whom vassals and hinds obey, 
 Where his castle stands on his broad rich lands 
 
 Stretching long roods away ; — 
 And he comes and looks, though little he speaks, 
 
 For little he has to say. 
 
 V 
 
 And the lady smiles on the soldier 
 
 Most of the rival three ; 
 And she listens long to the scholar's song. 
 
 For she loves such minstrelsy ; — 
 But never the less I think I can guess 
 
 Which knight will the victor be.
 
 94 
 
 NEAR HIS END. 
 
 I 
 
 T\ID you mark him pass up by the hedgerow, 
 
 Faint and reeling, with low drooping tail ? 
 He was black with the stains of the moorland, 
 And red with the soil of the vale. 
 
 II 
 You could tell that his moments were numbered, 
 
 And, caitiff and fox though he be, 
 Almost you felt pity a creature 
 
 So hunted and weary to see. 
 
 Ill 
 He has come by the yards and the homesteads. 
 
 The scenes of his forays of old ; 
 He has roused in the coppice the pheasant, 
 
 And scared huddled sheep in the fold.
 
 NEAR HIS END. 95 
 
 IV 
 And still for the place of his refuge 
 
 He holds on with resolute will, — 
 For the earths by the lonely gorse covert 
 
 High up on the slope of the hill. 
 
 V 
 
 Yet in vain, for his fate is upon him, 
 Close and loud the avengers behind, 
 
 That have raced him across the low country, 
 Since they found, fifty minutes up wind. 
 
 VI 
 
 He is fated ; — and birds of ill omen 
 
 Traitor-like are pursuing his way. 
 As they hover exultant above him — 
 
 The evil-tongued magpie and jay. 
 
 VII 
 
 His thefts and his triumphs are over, 
 
 He shall never rob henroost again. 
 Never come down at night from the hillside 
 
 To feast on the spoils of the plain.
 
 96 NEAR HIS END. 
 
 VIII 
 This onl}^ last honour is left him, 
 
 To fall without terror or cry, 
 And — true son of a long line of robbers- 
 
 Unrepentaut and silent to die.
 
 97 
 
 MANUMISSUS. 
 
 I 
 
 TS it so that we meet again, 
 
 O maid witli the beautiful eyes ? 
 I have cherished through years of pain 
 
 Old hopes and old memories ; — 
 And "vou o-reet me with calm disdain 
 
 And the look of a cold surprise. 
 ir 
 Perhaps it is better so ; 
 
 But I had not learned to forget 
 That our whispers were sad and low, 
 
 And our foolish eyes were wet, 
 And we trembled, long ago, 
 
 The last time that we met. 
 
 H
 
 98 M A NU MISSUS. 
 
 Ill 
 When we yielded om- passive boat 
 
 To the will of the mighty stream ; 
 When wc watched the lilies afloat, 
 Saw the stars of Summer gleam, 
 And the nightingale's thrilling note 
 Was the melody of our dream. 
 
 IV 
 
 Shall I tell you the word you said 
 At the witching time of night, 
 
 As we passed from the willow glade 
 Out into the waters bright, — 
 
 From the true and tender shade 
 To the cold and elfish light ? 
 
 V 
 
 Shall T tell you that little word 
 The life of my life has been ; 
 
 That nothing these ears have heard, 
 And nothing these eyes have seen, 
 
 The depth of my heart has stirred 
 Like your memory, Geraldine ?
 
 MANUMTSSUS. 99 
 
 VI 
 It was but a vision of youth, 
 
 Your careless voice will say, 
 To dream that a woman's truth 
 
 Could last for a summer's day ; 
 And I thank you, — for in sooth 
 
 That fancy has fled away. 
 
 VII 
 I have loved, and I was wi'ong ; 
 
 But upon me a spell was cast, 
 And to-day, like an idle song, 
 
 The hope of a life has past : — 
 The enchantress that held me long 
 
 Has broken her charm at last. 
 
 H 2
 
 lOO 
 
 THE NEW FOREST, 1860. 
 
 ui piBoi vAr)5 
 
 Mvpioi' 
 
 I 
 
 rpHOU dweller in the dusky town. 
 
 When April stirs the waking year, 
 Quit toil or pleasure, and come down 
 To drink a draught of Nature here 
 From hills and woods as charming yet 
 As for the kings Plantagenet ! 
 
 II 
 The buds are purple on the trees — 
 
 Not wholly clothed nor wholly bare, 
 Half turning from the unseen seas 
 
 To woo the softer inland air ; 
 And fair the russet boughs between, 
 Tlic larch is specked with tender green.
 
 THE NEW FOREST, i860. loi 
 
 III 
 Fair too the little forest stream 
 
 By some undying fountain fed, 
 That hurries in a silver gleam 
 
 Above its tawny gravel bed ; — 
 On high the heron flapping slow 
 Watches his hunting-grounds below. 
 
 IV 
 
 Fair sights and sounds ! The cuckoo's song, 
 The blackcocks curling on the heath, 
 
 The wood- pigeon's soft tale of wrong, 
 And, as we list with bated breath, 
 
 Far — from the landscape's azure bounds — 
 
 There comes the distant cry of hounds. 
 
 v 
 Come, pass beneath the oaken grove 
 
 By silver birch and hollies' sheen, — 
 Speak of the memories we love, 
 
 ]\Iuse on the sorrows we have seen, 
 While gleams, through boughs that interlace, 
 Make ' sunshine in a shady place.'
 
 I02 THE NEW FOREST, i860. 
 
 VI 
 Here in this sylvan solitude, 
 
 This pleasaunce of the Norman kings, 
 Is quiet for our pensive mood ; — 
 
 Less loudly here the Present rings, 
 Only across our path are cast 
 The mighty shadov^^s of the Past. 
 
 VII 
 
 Such fairy scenes, when life was new, 
 We pictured, hanging on the page 
 
 That tells of Una's champion true 
 Dogged by the crafty Archimage ; — 
 
 Or, fired with a chivalrous glow. 
 
 We rode such glades with Ivanhoe. 
 
 vm 
 These fairy scenes in very truth 
 
 Heard the great Conqueror's bugle call. 
 And, in our nation's freshest youth, 
 
 Saw his Red son's untimely fall, 
 Who ceased from wild ambition's stir 
 To sleep in classic Winchester.
 
 THE NEW FOREST, i860. 103 
 
 IX 
 Men say they wasted town and tower, 
 
 Changed homesteads to a savage glen, 
 Their lives a stern abuse of power; — 
 
 And yet they sinned like mighty men ; 
 Here sought they, riding from afar, 
 Brief pastime from a life of war. 
 
 X 
 
 Do we their sons, who hold their place, 
 
 The children of this later day, 
 A vacant and unwarlike race. 
 
 Deserve a nobler name than they ? 
 We reap the pleasures of the soil. 
 The harvest — but without the toil. 
 
 XI 
 
 Ai e we a race degenerate ? 
 
 What answer shall the future give, 
 When some fierce struggle, soon or late, 
 
 Shall bid our glory die or live, — 
 Shall try us if we stand or yield 
 Before our foes of many a field ?
 
 I04 THE NEW FOREST, i860. 
 
 XII 
 High questions these ; — and yet we feel 
 
 That England's heart is mighty still, 
 Remembering the serried steel 
 
 On Inkermann's heroic hill, — 
 Thinking on Lucknow's leaguered wall, — 
 The odds at Delhi's siege and fall. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Meanwhile across the narrow seas 
 
 Come, month by month, and year by year. 
 
 Dim wai-nings borne upon the breeze, 
 And sounds of tempest and of fear : — 
 
 Kings plotting for a yard of earth, 
 
 And nations in the throes of birth.
 
 los 
 
 DONNTNGTON CASTLE, BERKSHIRE. 
 
 TTTHERE the twin towers are bosomed in the tree 
 
 They say that Chaucer lived when time was 
 
 young, 
 Who first struck music from the EngHsh tongue. 
 
 Had he foi'eknowledge of the bards to be ? 
 Heard he their strains Hke voices of a sea 
 
 On distant shores in long procession flung ? 
 
 His splendid harp not yet had Shakespeare strung, 
 Nor vocal yet was Milton's melody ; 
 And still unforged in Time's vast cavern lay 
 
 The thousand links of sweetness, fair and strong, 
 
 The chain of IjtIc, of heroic song, 
 That thralls the souls of men who live to-day. 
 We serve great masters. He from fotintains new 
 Here fresh and pure the living waters drew.
 
 io6 
 
 TAMISE RIPE. 
 
 ' A praty town by Tamise ripe.'— Leland. 
 
 r\¥ ' Tamise ripe ' old Leland tells ; 
 
 1 read, and many a thought upswells 
 Of Nature in her loveliest dress, 
 Of peaceful homes of happiness — 
 Deep-meadowed farms, sheep-sprinkled downs. 
 Fair bridges with their ' praty towns ' 
 
 By Tamise ripe.
 
 TAMISE RfPE. 107 
 
 II 
 
 Stirred by the pulse of many oars 
 That glide between the siimmer shores, 
 I love the waters fresh and clear, 
 And all the changes of the year, 
 Down to late Autumn's ruddy woods, 
 And volume of the Winter floods 
 
 By Tamise ripe. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The waving tresses of the weeds, 
 The water's ripple in the reeds. 
 The plunging lasher cold and bright 
 Making sweet music to the night. 
 Old spires, and many a lordly grove,- 
 All these there are, and more, to love 
 
 On Tamise ripe.
 
 io8 TAMISE RIPE. 
 
 IV 
 
 Dear Oxfm'd with her crown of towers, 
 
 Fair Eton in her happy bowers, 
 
 The reach by Henley broadly spread, 
 
 High Windsor with her royal dead, 
 
 And Richmond's lawns and Hampton's glades- 
 
 What shore has memories and shades 
 
 Like Tamise ripe ? 
 
 Not vine-crowned Rhine, or Danube's flood, 
 
 Or sad Ticino red with blood ; 
 
 Not ice-born Rhone or laughing Seine, 
 
 Or all the golden streams of Spain ; — 
 
 But dearer far to English eyes. 
 
 And bound with English destinies, 
 
 Is Tamise ripe.
 
 TAMISE RIPE. 109 
 
 VI 
 
 High up, on Danesfield's guarded post 
 Great Alfred turned the heathen host ; 
 Below, the vaults of Hurley sent 
 An evil king to banishment ; 
 And yet more sacred was the deed 
 Done on the isle by Runnymede 
 
 On Tamise ripe. 
 
 VII 
 
 And down where commerce stains the tide 
 Lies London in her dusky pride. 
 Deep in dim wreaths of smoke infurled, 
 A wonder of the modern world : 
 How much to love within the walls 
 That lie beneath the shade of ' Paul's ' 
 
 By Tamise ripe !
 
 no TAMISE RIPE. 
 
 Vlll 
 
 And if, which God in heaven forefend ! 
 On us the alien foe descend, 
 The stream we love has many a son 
 To fight and win as Alfred won ; 
 High deeds shall illustrate the shore, 
 And freedom shall be saved once more 
 On Tamise ripe.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE SEA-KING'S GRAVE. 
 
 I 
 TTE was a mighty Rover 
 
 Who lies beneath this mound 
 That sea- winds bluster over 
 And sea-birds scream around. 
 
 ,11 
 No fitter place whereunder 
 
 A sea-king's grave should be — 
 Lulled by the rolling thunder 
 
 Of the stormy German Sea. 
 
 Ill 
 Long ages since they laid him 
 
 To slumber where he fell ; 
 Long ages since they made him 
 
 This rude sepulchral cell ;
 
 112 THE SEA-KING'S GRAVE. 
 
 IV 
 
 And di'agged asliore his gallej- 
 To serve him for a bier, 
 
 Here whei'e the shallow valley 
 Comes seaward from the mere ; 
 
 V 
 
 Aud where the sluggish river 
 Flows slowly to the strand, 
 
 They heaped to lie for ever, 
 O'er ship and chief the sand. 
 
 VI 
 
 He was a mighty Rover, 
 
 For he swept the British seas 
 
 From the shininsr cliffs of Dover 
 To the farthest Orcades. 
 
 VII 
 There was terror in the haven 
 
 Aud mourning on the shore, 
 Where he brought the Danish raven 
 
 And the hosts that bowed to Thor.
 
 THE SEA-KINGS GRAVE. 113 
 
 VIII 
 For lie came to kill and pillage, 
 
 And lie carried blood and flames 
 Through shrine and farm and village 
 
 From Whitby unto Thames. 
 
 IX 
 
 And he spoiled with scornful laughter 
 
 Halls of abbot and of earl, 
 And left death and blackened rafter 
 
 In the cottage of the churl. 
 
 And we who sail in quiet 
 Along the peaceful land, 
 
 Or on summer mornings lie at 
 Ease on the yellow sand ; 
 
 XI 
 
 And watch each shade that passes 
 Across the nameless mound, 
 
 Where yellow scanty grasses 
 Scarce hide the barren ground :
 
 114 THE SEA-KLVGS GRAVE. 
 
 XII 
 "We little dream the Rover 
 
 In his vessel rests beneath, 
 As a sword when wars arc over 
 
 Lies rusting in its sheath. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Fit resting place ! upon her 
 
 He slew and fought and toiled ; 
 
 And was laid to sleep in honour 
 Within the land he spoiled.
 
 lis 
 
 A DAY'S FISHING. 
 
 I 
 QWEET stream, that clearer art than glass, 
 
 Here once again I come 
 
 Some few glad hours by thee to pass 
 
 A wanderer from mj home. 
 
 II 
 Be favourable, sky, to-day, 
 
 Grant me my utmost wish, 
 And give to me my modest prey, 
 
 Some little store of fish ! 
 
 Ill 
 The pleasure that I take to wet 
 
 My slender horsehair line, 
 It is no pleasure with regret 
 
 Like revelry or wine. 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 ADAVS FISHING. 
 
 IV 
 I come with thoughts and footsteps free 
 
 The smoky town fi'om out, 
 And Hnger, gentle stream, bj thee 
 
 And watch the springing trout. 
 
 V 
 
 The burn that down the mountain falls 
 
 For me is all too rude, 
 And with too hoarse a trouble calls 
 
 Upon its solitude. 
 
 VI 
 
 Not such art thou, — what name to bear 
 
 It liketh thee the best. 
 Or Kennet swift, or Itohen clear, 
 
 Or Lambornc else, or Test. 
 
 VII 
 
 Such names they have — the pleasant streams 
 
 By which I love to walk, 
 Whose brimmino- course throug:hmeadoAvsa'leam.s 
 
 From cradles in the chalk.
 
 A DAY'S FISHING. II7 
 
 VIII 
 Whose imirmur gentle is and deep, 
 
 Answering to pleasant sounds 
 Of lazy kine and garrulous sheep 
 
 In happy pasture grounds. 
 
 IX 
 
 The wood-pigeon soft sorrow tells 
 
 Out of the liigh tree-tops ; 
 The cuckoo's voice like silver bells 
 
 Conies ringing o'er the copse. 
 
 X 
 
 Now woods are rich with leafy June, 
 
 Now longest is the day, 
 Most liquid is the songster's tune. 
 
 And whitest hangs the May. 
 
 XI 
 
 Sweet is it underneath the trees 
 
 To shelter from the sun, 
 To whistle for the loitering breeze, 
 
 And wish the shower begun.
 
 iiS A DAY'S WISHING. 
 
 XIT 
 
 And sweet, while falls the plashing rain, 
 To draw with careful hand. 
 
 The slight rod Lending with the strain, 
 My struggling prey to land. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Or, while the noontide hour I rest, 
 
 In visionary ken 
 To see in antique garments dressed 
 
 Shades of old fishermen. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Some monk, perhaps, of figure spare. 
 
 And worn ascetic look, 
 Comes wandering from yon cloister fail', 
 
 And throws his feathered hook. 
 
 XV 
 
 Though long ago his Abbey lies 
 
 In ruins scant and gi'ey. 
 Once rose these trout for him, as rise 
 
 These trout for me to-day.
 
 A DAY'S FISHING. "9 
 
 XVI 
 
 Oft has he strayed these waters by 
 
 And caught the spotted spoil, 
 Not dreaming that his faith should die 
 
 For ever from the soil : 
 
 XVII 
 
 Like me, with pleasant thoughts in throng, 
 
 And dreams of false and true. 
 And many a memory of old song, 
 
 And many a gleam of new. 
 
 XVIII . 
 Doubtless, as now, the miller leant 
 
 Over his little court ; 
 And, as to-day, a greeting sent, 
 
 And wished the father sport. 
 
 XIX 
 
 At eve the abbot riding past, 
 
 (The parson passed but now,) 
 Marked how the trout were rising fast, 
 
 And watched his brother throw.
 
 I20 A DAY'S FISHING. 
 
 XX 
 
 And when the shadows darker fell 
 
 He gathered up his store, 
 And homeward went his sport to tell 
 
 At the refectory dour. 
 
 XXI 
 
 But I, whenever night may fall, 
 Bound for a happier home, 
 
 Shall hear the Uttle voices call 
 In joy that I am come. 
 
 XXII 
 
 The life he lived was not Kke oiu*s, 
 His creed was not as mine, 
 
 Yet knew he well these selfsame scours, 
 And where to throw his line. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 And many a figure more has trod 
 
 The banks to-day I tread, 
 And deftly plied the taper rod 
 
 Above the river bed.
 
 A DAVS FISffl.VG. 121 
 
 XXIV 
 Elizabethan bards, who loved 
 
 The music of the brooks, 
 Here in my very footsteps moved 
 With shining store of hooks. 
 
 XXT 
 
 And Jacobean sages came, 
 
 And worthies Caroline ; 
 And he — the very chiefest name 
 
 Of brothers of the line — 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Old Izaak, with equipment quaint, 
 
 Who tells with quainter pen 
 How Jesus loved to choose a saint 
 
 Chiefly from fishermen. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Still are his pages redolent 
 
 Of shadows deep and cool, 
 Of meadows with May blossoms sprent, 
 
 And many a lucid pool.
 
 122 A DAY'S FISHING. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Almost beneath yon spreading beech 
 
 I look to see him laid, 
 Striving with old world lore to teach 
 
 Some bungler at his trade. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Almost I fancy I shall see 
 
 His rods amid the grass, 
 His ' angles placed at usury ' 
 
 Until the rain shall pass. 
 
 XXX 
 
 He fished down stream, and every cast 
 Methinks a trout he drew ; — 
 
 Ah ! simple trouts in days long past, 
 I would I fished for you. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 And after him a figure grave, 
 A Georgian wigged divine, 
 
 Wise Paley, thoughtful by the wave, 
 Throws workmanlike his line
 
 A DAY'S FISHING. 12: 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Well loved lie his philosophy, 
 
 Yet better still to feel 
 A fish in season on his fly, 
 
 And. hear the ringing reel. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Nor less expert, Sir Humphry walked 
 
 A fisher by these woods. 
 And pleasantly the while he talked 
 
 Of distant Styrian floods. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 He, wearied with his studious hours 
 
 And cabalistic books, 
 Found health among the springing flowers, 
 
 And rest beside the brooks. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 See then of what a gentle race 
 
 A quiet angler springs ; 
 What pleasant fancies give a grace 
 
 To all his wandermgs
 
 124 ^ £>A]--S F/SmXG 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Not all the din of any day, 
 
 Not all the city's press, 
 Shall ever wholly take away 
 
 His sense of happiness. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 One day he spends among the streams 
 In meadows bright and clear, 
 
 And carries off a wealth of dreams 
 To last him for a year.
 
 THE WISHING WELL. 
 
 ' Quantb praestantius esset 
 Niinien aquee, viridi si margine clauderet undas 
 Heii)a, nee ingenuum violarent marmora tophum.' 
 
 I 
 
 T/'OICE of this region fabulous ! 
 For silent else is all the air, 
 None else remains to tell to us 
 
 The story of the things that were :- 
 
 II 
 Fair Fountain of this valley lone ! 
 
 That falhng with a ceaseless plaint 
 Into thy cup of sculptured stone, 
 
 Speakest of Fairy and of Saint.
 
 ,26 THE WISHING WELL. 
 
 Ill 
 For name of either thou hast borne : 
 
 Time was Titania by thee played ; 
 And rings by elfish footsteps worn 
 
 Still linger in the magic glade. 
 
 IV 
 
 But when the Benedictine came 
 To build upon these meadows fair, 
 
 He called thee by a holier name, 
 
 And blessed thy source with book and prayer ; 
 
 V 
 
 And said the old belief was sin : — 
 
 Yet still, so ran the rustic creed, 
 Strange voices sounded, faint and thin, 
 
 By summer nights along the mead. 
 
 VI 
 
 And whether it were Saint or Pay, 
 Blessing or magic, — who could tell ? 
 
 Men said that virtue in thee lay, 
 
 And loved thee as the ' Wisliing Well.'
 
 THE WISHING WELL. 127 
 
 VII 
 
 And still thy chalice carved of stone, 
 Though old beliefs have past away, 
 
 Though Fairy and though Saint be gone, 
 Brims with clear crystal day by day. 
 
 VIII 
 
 And waiting here an idle while, 
 
 And looking with a listless eye, 
 I see beneath thy waters smile 
 
 The changeless azure of the sky — 
 
 IX 
 
 The changeless azure flecked with grey. 
 That was as deep, as fair, as clear, 
 
 Or ever down the woodland way 
 
 The first wild savage wandered here ; — 
 
 o 
 
 X 
 
 Or ever man thy dwelling knew. 
 And, resting on the virgm sod, 
 
 Looked wondering on the imaged blue, 
 And blessed thee as the gift of God.
 
 128 THE WISHING WELL. 
 
 XI 
 
 And, if there still be power ia tliee 
 To grant the wishes we conceive ; 
 
 If it avail implicitly 
 
 The old tradition to believe : — 
 
 XII 
 
 Give me, fair stream, — not gold nor love, 
 Not fortune high nor length of days, 
 
 Not force to rise the crowd above, 
 Nor the deceit of human praise : 
 
 XIII 
 
 But this ; — that like thy waters clear, 
 Though creeds and systems come and go, 
 
 Unvexed within a narrow sphere 
 
 My life with even stream may flow — 
 
 XIV 
 
 May flow, and fill its destined space, 
 With this at least of blessing given. 
 
 Upwards to gaze with fearless face. 
 
 And mirror back some truth of Heaven !
 
 129 
 
 THE CHURCHYARD BY THE THAMES. 
 
 "ITTHERE throws tlie churcli's solid tower 
 
 Its shadow on the frequent graves, 
 And bears unmoved the wintry shower, 
 And every idle wind that raves, — 
 
 II 
 I wander through the solemn ways, 
 
 And listen to the hollow bell. 
 That measures out to us our days, 
 And warns us that we use them well. 
 
 K
 
 i^o THE CHURCHYARD BY THE THAMES. 
 
 Ill 
 Alas ! in vain : how many here 
 
 Have heard and heeded not the sound, 
 Cumbered the earth from year to year, 
 And cumber now this holy ground. 
 
 IV 
 
 How many in this quiet vale 
 
 With strength to wage a noble strife, 
 
 Once hoisted high a gallant sail, 
 
 Yet drifted down the stream of life ! 
 
 V 
 
 Ah ! whither ? what their destiny 
 No mortal dreamer here may tell, 
 
 Save that beneath this turf they lie, 
 
 Save that this tower has rung their knell. 
 
 VI 
 Their haunts are worn by other feet 
 
 Where the broad river cleaves the- plain, 
 Now shrinking in the summer heat. 
 
 Now turbid with the winter's rain.
 
 THE CHURCHYARD BY THE THAMES. 131 
 
 VII 
 
 Yet some that ran a better race, 
 The children of a nobler stem, 
 
 Here lie within their narrow place, 
 
 And tears and blessings followed them. 
 
 VIII 
 The priest that from the sacred shrine 
 
 Oft raised the Sacrament on high. 
 And faithful spake the words divine, 
 
 And blessed the kneeling company. 
 
 IX 
 
 The minister of later days, 
 
 When larger streams of knowledge ran, 
 And he who ruled a little space, 
 
 The stern and steadfast Pui'itan — 
 
 X 
 
 Here lie they with the flock they fed, 
 Here lie they by the path they trod, — 
 
 Their memories for ever fled, 
 
 Their merits in the breast of God.
 
 152 THF^ CHURCHYARD BY THE THAMES;. 
 
 xr 
 Nameless they are, yet not unknown ; 
 
 They toiled we know not how or when, 
 Yet the good seed that they have sown 
 Still lives within the heai'ts of men. 
 XII 
 
 So musing of the ancient dead, 
 I watch the wintry sun decline. 
 
 And wonder, as the graves I tread. 
 
 What spot of churchyard earth is mine — 
 
 XIII 
 
 What soil shall on these limbs be cast, 
 Wlaen shall they bear me solemnly ; — 
 
 Now, or when lingering years have past ; 
 Here, or beneath some other sky ? 
 
 XIV 
 
 What shall be said of praise or blame 
 
 Above me when I lie alone ; 
 What eyes shall read the graven name, 
 
 Will some one weep upon the stone ?
 
 THE CHURCHYARD BY THE THAMES. 133 
 
 XV 
 I know not ; but howe'er it be, 
 
 Wherever they shall lay my head, 
 
 May some kind spirit mourn for me, 
 
 And speak with patience of the dead ! 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODB AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUiRR 
 
 i.ND PARLIAMENT STREET
 
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