II THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Thornton & Son Booksellers, 1 II The Broad, Oxford. ^be Cantciburi? ipoet^. Edited by William Sharp. POEMS OF OWEN MEREDITH (THE EARL OF LYTTON). FOR FULL LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES, SEE CATALOGUE AT END OF BOOK. POEMS OF OWEN MERE- DITH (THE EARlCoB^''^ LYTTON). SELECTED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY M. BETHAM-EDWARDS. AUTHORISED EDITION. " Und so do ist der Dichter zugleich Lehrer, Wahrsager, Freund derGotterund der Menschen."— Wilhelm Meister. LONDON : WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, 24 WARWICK LANE. NEW YORK : 3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET, ^90 CONTENTS, PAGE From " Clytemnestr v"— Clytemnestra 1 From "The Wanderer"— The Magic Land S Desire 9 Fatality 10 Thoughts at Sunrise — 12 Thoughts at Sunset .... 12 To Irene 15 An Evening in Tuscany IC The Storm 19 Song 22 The First Farewell .... 23 Forbearance 23 To a Woman; or, the Last "Wish 24 A Love-Letter 24 The Message 31 Sea-Side Elegiacs 47 The Shore 49 PAGE The Vampire 51 A Remonstrance 52 Meeting Again 56 Earth's Havings 57 The Last Farewell 59 The Last Assurance CI The Deserted Palace . . 61 The Buried Heart 62 How these Songs were made 64 The Portrait 65 Going back again 70 Two out of the Crowd . . 71 Bluebeard 76 Fatima 78 Resurrection 78 The Chess-board 83 Fata Morgana 84 Consolation 88 A Footstep 89 Requiescat 90 Madame la Marquise . . 91 943SS3 VI CONTENTS. PAGE Midges 94 Good-night in the Torch 97 Spring and Winter 106 SOXG FROM "LUCILE"— The Bird of Paradise . . 109 From "Songs of Ser- VIA "— The Stag and the Vila. . 113 Love and Sleep 114 Tittle Tattle 116 Love confers Nobility . . 117 Neglected Flowers 117 From "Chronicles and Characters "— Genseric 118 The Dauphin 119 Missry 123 The Apple of Life 132 Last Words 142 From " Orval "— Epithalamium 148 From " Miscellaneous Poems "— Ode to a Starling 150 The Lay of the Cock .... 153 Little Ella 160 Droppings 163 Know Thyself 164 Knowledge and Wisdom 165 Side by Side 165 PAGE Divided Lives 171 Sacrifice 172 Duty 173 From "Fables in SOiNg"— Introductory 174 The Thistle 176 Possession 186 Prematurity 187 The Far and the Near.. 188 The Blue Mountains; or, The Far 189 A Wheat-Stalk ; or, The Near 196 Lost Treasures 200 Only a Shaving 204 Questionable Consola- tion 208 From "Glenaveril"— Part L, Canto II 212 Human Destinies 215 The Family Board 217 From "After Para- dise"— North and South 219 Athens 220 Cintra 220 Sorrento Revisited 228 A Sigh 228 Necromancy 229 Strangers 229 Uriel 238 Transformations 245 INTRODUCTION, As the nosegay indicates the hixuriance of the garden, so should a selection epitomise the genius of the poet. Old acquaintances are reminded of many a familiar flower, strangers are enticed to enter. If the first may miss more than one especial favourite, they will still feel grateful for so much beauty presented to them in small com- pass ; if the last cannot roam over the entire domain, they are compensated by the gift of lily or rose. "The poet," writes the all-sympa- thetic Goethe, "is alike teacher, seer, the friend of gods and men." A more modest yet gracious and self-rewarding function is that of the poet's interpreter, of one who culls choicest blossoms of poesy for others, pointing to the pleasance wherein they grow. It is no easy task to review in a few short pages the poetic career of Owen Meredith and the Earl of Lytton, one and the same person, yet characterised by work so widely divergent in scope and treatment as to suggest two individualities. No less might doubtless be averred of many another poet, but authorship and personality in viii INTRODUCTION, their case being united from the onset, such contrasts are less striking. With a constancy, ahnost universally witnessed, a constancy often illogical enough, the vast majority of readers prefer the poet's earlier to his later utterances — Owen Meredith to the Earl of Lytton. Such is the verdict passed on most writers winning the laurel crown in early youth. Perhaps the world is too lazy, too pre-occupied, to bestow the same amount of thought and sympathy upon their maturer achievements ; it is so difficult, more- over, to believe that the same wand can enchant us twice over! But may there not in this case be another reason ? When a writer has pleased, his readers, for the most part, wish to go on being pleased in the same way ; no matter how often he repeats himself, if the repetition is up to his standard, nothing more is expected or asked of him. When every new work is a wholly new departure, the striking out of a new path, then he is sure, at least for a time, to forfeit popularity ; he is under the necessity of creating his public. Thus it has come about that the poetic achievements of Lord Lytton's maturer years still await the fame they deserve. In the words of an able critic, " The first work in which Lord Lytton's genius did itself full justice was Glenaveril^ pub- lished in 1885. By this time Owen Meredith, the poet, had well-nigh been forgotten in the Earl of Lytton, diplomatist and statesman. The great originality of this work, its wealth of ideas and creation of character, obtained no adequate recog- INTRODUCTION. ix nition."* My endeavour has been to make the accompanying selection a representative one, re- vealing the various aspects of a many-sided genius, the subtle and the sportive, the picturesque and the reflective, the dramatic and psychological. It has also been my plan to avoid fragmentariness, and give, with one or two exceptions, only such pieces as are complete in themselves. This arrangement has necessarily led to the exclusion of descriptive passages of great brilliance and beauty, but which, gems removed from their setting, were more suited to a volume of mere extracts. Middle-aged lovers of poetry well remember the pleasure with which they hailed the appearance of Clytemnestra. Seldom indeed has a first attempt secured its youthful author such poetic rank. This noble dramatic poem, like the "Iphigenie auf Tauris" of Goethe, is no mere echo of the old Greek drama, but an interpreta- tion in the modern spirit of one of its most striking episodes. In the "Agamemnon," writes Dr. Donaldson, the queen's jealousy of Cassan- dra and guilty connection with the worthless ^gisthus, who does not make his appearance till towards the end, are scarcely touched upon as motives, and remain in the background.t In Owen Meredith's Clytemnestra^ her vacillating lover, like Macbeth, eager to reap the fruits of crime, but shrinking from the crime itself, is a prominent figure, the protagonist of the play, the * See the Scots" Review, 1887. t Donaldson's Theatre of the Oreeks. a-\ X INTRODUCTION. faithless wife adducing reprisals for her slaughtered child in order to excuse the murder of her husband. " Whate'er I am, be sure that I am that Which thou hast made nie, — nothing of myself," is her passionate outpouring to vEgisthus, calling forth the fervid reply — "Oh, you are a Queen, That should have none but gods to rule over 1 Make me immortal with one costly kiss ! " Readers will do well to turn from the extract here given, a piece of description complete in itself, to the account of the same event in the old drama. The ditference between the ancient and modern spirit is strikingly brought out. In ^schylus the sacrifice at Aulis reads like a page out of the " Prometheus Bound." All is rugged, stern, awe- inspiring. The poet of our own day softens the picture, a magic spell overtakes us as we read, the harmony of the numbers takes from the horror of the scene described. Touching too, and serving as a relief to the sombre story, is the scene between the young Orestes and his sister Electra, the afiectionate, neglected daughter of the murderess Queen, who, wedded to a herdsman, is the heroine of one of Euripides' charming plays. With Clytenmesira appeared " The Earl's Return," abounding in weird description, and INTRODUCTION. xi also some shorter pieces, several of \vhich, old favourites, are here reproduced. Owen Meredith's next volume. The Wanderer^ was received even more warmly than the first, and here the task of selection has been comparatively easy. "The Portrait," "The Marquise," " Midges," " A Love - Letter," are among the poet's brilliant triumphs of this period. "To a Woman," in later volumes called "The Last Wish," is an entire love-story and life-story in four lines. A few years later appeared Lucile. The author, in his touching dedication to his illustrious father, spoke of the doubt and discouragement with which he gave his new poem to the world, following a path in which he could discover no footprints before him either to guide or warn. In reality Lucile^ although an experiment, pos- sessed all the elements of popularity. This novel in verse appealed alike to young and old, to the practical and romantic. It contained deep human interest, a note of lofty moral aspiration, abundant knowledge of the world, a moving story having a picturesque background; lastly, the narrative was in flowing, graceful verse. The local colour of the early portion, that part of the scene laid in the Pyrenees, is especially attractive ; as we read, we breathe the pine-scented air of the forest, gaze upon the deep gorges and flower-besprinkled dells, hear the thunder of the storm amid the mountains. Lucile is said to be the most popular narrative poem in America, but has not yet been xii INTRODUCTION. given to the English public in a form within reach of all, A cheap edition of this charming story would be a public boon. In the following year (1861) the Songs of Servia were given to the world. " What they are," wrote the poet in his Introduction, "let the reader decide. What they are meant to be is nothing more than a rude medium through which to convey to other minds something of the impres- sion made upon my own by the poetry of a people among whom literature is yet unborn ; who in the nineteenth century retain, with the traditions, many also of the habits and customs of a bar- barous age ; and whose social life represents the struggle of centuries to maintain under the code of Mahomet, the creed of Christ. " It is indeed this strange intermixture of Ma- hometan with Christian associations which gives to the poetry of the Servs its most striking charac- teristics. It is the sword of a Crusader in the scabbard of a Turk. That, however, which mainly distinguishes this from all other contemporary poetry with which I am acquainted is the evidence borne on the face of it, of an origin, not in the heads of a few but in the hearts of all. This is a Poetry of which the People is the Poet ! " Awaiting a popular re-issue of the Serbski Pesme, a.\l familiar with these "native wood-notes wild" will welcome old favourites here, whilst readers now introduced to them for the first time will enjoy a poetic treat Artless, joyous, or plaintive by turns, we are reminded as we read INTRODUCTION, xiii of the national Slavonic music, especially of the songs of the Steppes, as lately rendered in Paris by a band of Russian vocalists. Just as the physi- ognomies of the singers were strikingly contrasted with their voices, the men having many of them wild half-Tartar faces, whilst their singing was of the sweetest, tenderest, most pathetic imagin- able; so in the Songs of Servia^ the naivetd, even ruggedness of the measures, are allied with airiest fancy and melancholy grace. In both, too, is conspicuous a certain espilglerie^ a roguishness, in keeping with themes so primitive, an art so untutored. From the succeeding volumes. Chronicles and Characters (1869), selection has necessarily been limited. The length of these poems, mostly narrative, has shut them out of a volume limited in size, yet nowhere else are the author's wealth of fancy and mastery of versification more apparent. Lord Lytton revels in rhyme, and has made some developments of it peculiarly his own, a point returned to later on. These poems are all rhymed, and abound in striking description. Take, for example, the passage entitled "A Blind Man sees far," from the " Siege of Constantinople." Alone sits the sightless old Doge Dandolo, and beholds with his mental vision the triumph of Venice in the East. He " saw, as in a trance, Constructed out of golden circumstance, The steadfast image of a far-oflf thing Glorious and full of wonder. , . . xiv INTRODUCTION. Clear upspring Into the deep blue sky the golden spii-es That top the milk-white towers, like windless fires ; O'er gardened slopes, slant shafts of plumy palm Lean seaward from hot hillsides breathing balm. Green, azure, and vermilion, fret with gold. Blaze the domed roofs in many a globed fold Of splendour, set with silver studs and discs : And, underneath, the solemn obelisks And sombre cypress stripe with blackest shade Sea terraces, by summer overlaid With such a lavish sunlight as o'erflows And drops between thick clusters of wild rose And clambering sparweed, down the sleepy walls To the broad base of granite pedestals That prop the grated ramparts, round about The wave-girt city ; whence flow in and out The wealth and wonder of the Orient World : And, high o'er all this populous pomp, unfurled In the sublime dominions of the sun. And fanned by floating Bosphorus breezes won. To waft to Venice each triumphant bark The winged and warrior Lion of St. Mark ? " Or take this description of Cyprus from " Caterina Cornaro " : — " In Cyprus, where 'live Summer never dies, Love's native land is. There the seas, the skies, Are blue and lucid as the looks, the air Fervid and fragrant as the breath and hair, Of Beauty's Queen ; whose gracious godship dwells In that dear island of delicious dells, Mid lavish lights and languid glooms divine. There doth she her sly, dainty sceptre twine With seabank myrtle spray and roses sweet And full as, when the lips of lovers meet INTRODUCTION. xv The first strange time, their sudden kisses be There doth she lightly reign ; there holdeth she Her laughing court in gleam of lemon groves, The wanton mother of unnumbered Loves ! " Goethe says somewhere that painters should live in palaces. Doubtless Lord Lytton's poems owe much of their rich colouring to the writer's early acquaintance with some of the loveliest and most favoured regions under the sun. Owen Meredith is indebted to the diplomatist, the ambassador. Readers, compelled to do most of their travels by proxy, may here transport them- selves to those romantic lands, which by turns became his home. The Chronicles a?id Characierisiics must not, however, be regarded entirely from the objective point of view. In some of these pieces reflecting various phases of life, thought, and history, the framework is made subsidiary to the idea, the background to the story. A deep, passionate note of sympathy with suffering humanity, is struck in "Misery" and "The Dauphin"; subtle psycho- logical problems are worked out in " The Botanist's Grave," with its moral — " The world, perchance after all, knows already enough, what is wanted la not to know more but how to imagine, the much that it knows." 07-val^ or the Fool of Time^ appeared in 1869. Suggested by an analysis of a Polish poem, the xvi INTRODUCTION. work is quite unlike any other by the author. Orval, in turn, suggests Faust, Manfred, and Cyprian of Calderon's famous play. The key-note to his story or to theirs is — '* We are fooled By time and plagued -svith granted prayers. Henceforth, Let man, whose realm is the Actual, leave To the great God, what by the greedy grasp Of his impatient passion, man destroys, — ♦ The Ideal Beauty ! '" The dialogue is in blank verse, and the treatment of a weird, complex story, highly imaginative and poetic. Fables in So?ig belong to 1874. It is not easy to characterise these two volumes, containing poems so directly opposed to each other alike in form and spirit. Lord Lytton has made fable-land his own, maybe it is the poetic region in which he most de- lights. Here we find his charming testimony to ^sop and the fanciful but touching description of "The Forest whose name is Fable," hidden from the busy, unreflective crowd, but accessible to artless, childlike natures. The stories which may be strictly classified as fable, deal not only with the sayings and doings of the animal world, but of the supposititious sayings and doings of inanimate nature. Every object, natural or artificial, is made a sentient, observant entity, and thus endowed, is able to afford alternate warning, amusement, or instruc- tion. Many of the parables abound in humorous INTRODUCTION. xvii touches. It is a curious region to which we are transported, a region wherein men and women hold only the secondary place, or perhaps do not so much as exist, whilst even nature is sometimes kept in the background or banished altogether. A consummate knowledge of the world and of the springs moving human conduct is here displayed. Some of the poems, on the other hand, can hardly come under the category of fable at all. To this list belong "The Wheat-Ear," and "The Thistle," each full of tenderest meaning, and showing the closest observation of nature. A lapse of nearly ten years brings us down to the publication of Lord Lytton's epic of modern life, Glenaveril. Why is it that whilst Lucile attained immediate popularity, this far more brilliant, original, and finished work yet awaits the recognition it deserves ? The reason is not hard to discover. Lucile^ sparkling, full of life, colour, and movement, appealed to the vast majority of readers. It is a book for relaxation, not study, one we may put in our pocket, like a novel, for spare moments. Glenaveril belongs to a wholly different stamp. The plot is very involved. It occupies two closely- printed volumes ; it contains political satire sure to offend very large numbers ; last of all, it exacts attention. On the other hand, the two foster-brothers, whose life-story is so intricately and tragically interwoven, the old German pedant, the modern xviii INTRODUCTION, Robinson Crusoe, Cordelia — could not the author have invented a name for his heroine? — all these are charming creations. Interspersed with the narrative are brilliant passages, reflective and dramatic, also some of those fables and fairy tales in which Lord Lytton has hardly a rival, and his high level of artistic finish is everywhere maintained. Yet even sympathetic readers might desire certain excisions. The work would undoubtedly gain much by judicious condensation. A poem sent into the world in the form of two bulky volumes is unavoidably handicapped from the practical point of view— to put it bluntly, as a marketable commodity. Only one or two extracts are given from Gleiiaverll^ but readers must go to the poem itself for any grasp of its scope and character. The following verses may be taken as the key- note: — " What she sees in love Is life's most sacred mission from above. A mission to which few are called perchance, And fewer still are chosen, to effect The revelation and deliverance Of a sublime evangel, whose elect Evangelists, each worldly circumstance That contradicts its truth, must need reject . . . How should I know what passes in the high Ethereal regions of which souls like hers Are the inhabitants ! Such regions lie Beyond my reach, where Earth with Heaven confers 1 Yet though I cannot comprehend them, I INTRODUCTION. xix The more revere those wondrous characters Whose lives bestow on all the human race A higher dignity, a grander grace. And in that girl I humbly recognise One of those rare surpassing souls whose glow Gladdens the world with beautiful surprise, like great creative poets." The speaker is a blunt, shrewd, matter-of-fact American. In George Eliot's novels, the painful problem almost invariably before us is the subjection of the more elevated nature to the inferior. In Glenaveril \vq find a cheerfuller, we will hope, truer theory. The effect of ideal characters upon those infinitely below them, only attracted upward by virtue of sympathy, is subtly and beautifully worked out. With the little \o\nvciQ &nX.\\.\Q.di After Paradise j or. Legends of Exile (1887) closes this brief survey. Concerning the poet's latest effort I cannot do better than quote from a critic before alluded to. " The best of these poems are not only superior to anything Lord Lytton has yet produced, but are such as to entitle him to a very high place among contemporary poets. The merit, however, of these last is of a peculiar order, and that, perhaps, not likely to attract a very large circle of readers. The peculiarity consists in a combination of two elements — the fantastic and the philosophical. Lord Lytton transports us into a world of airy fancy, a world purely imaginative ; yet through all the imagination the reflective vein runs so strongly as to make it clear that as much importance is XX INTRODUCTION. attached to the underlying thought as to the poetical medium in which it is conveyed. In this peculiar department of poetry Lord Lytton appears to us to have established something like a claim to pre-eminence. The 'Legend of Music' and 'Uriel' are poems as original as they are beauti- ful, and we do not think any other living writer could have produced them. . . . For originality, for wealth of poetic diction, for the harmonious flow of its verse, and for the subtle and creative fancy which it displays, the 'Legend of Music' deserves to take its rank with the best poems the century has produced." The Legends of Exile form a series, and must be read as a whole to be understood and appreciated. On this account, also because of its length, much to my regret, I have been obliged to leave out the " Legend of Music," which would best convey the spirit and range of the volume. Whence comes the Ideal? This is the problem the poet has set himself to work out, on lines of his own. Imbued with the philosophy of Plato, he regards, "Our birth as but a sleep and a forgetting " — knowledge as a reminiscence of what we have experienced in a former condition. " Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing." INTRODUCTION. xxi The Ideal is therefore memory, a bright ray shot up from a sun that has for ever sunk behind our mortal horizon. It will easily be seen how well the Biblical story of the Fall lends itself to such a theory. Music, love, poetry, are recollections, dreams, the Ideal itself a golden vision, never to be grasped. Pessimistic as is this doctrine, and opposed to the modern Socialistic dictum, "The Golden Ag^e is before us and not behind," we must remember that the poet's ideal refers to spiritual things only, not to the material side of existence, which certainly shows a pro- gressive and no retrograde movement. Is there not truth here ? Can we look about us and feel sure that we are any nearer an inner ideal of life than Plato? Is there not a certain measure of truth in Renan's wail over the gradual vulgarisation of life and society.?* In "Uriel" and "Strangers," detached pieces forming no part of The Legends of Exile^ the same theme is handled with great power and pathos. The first is a parable which each reader may interpret after his own fashion. Be they " bright- eyed desires," passions, enthusiasms, or ideals, the Legions which Uriel led forth to do battle with the world, at the bidding — shall we say of duty, * " Peut-etre la vulgarite g^nerale sera-t-elle un jour la condition du bonheur des ^lus. La vulgarite Americaine ne brulerait point Bruno, ne persecuterait point Galilee, Nous n'avons pas le droit d'etre fort difficiles, " — Renan, Souvenirs de Jeunesse. xxii INTRODUCTION. ambition, love, or imagination ? — lie vanquished around him. He is but chief of a slaughtered band. Yet once more the voice makes itself heard, urges him forth a second time to become the sport of destiny, to be finally crushed and overcome. In the cold, cynical atmosphere of disenchantment he hears another voice — " Some say it is Despair, And others say it is Experience." "Strangers" will appear at first sight to many readers fragmentary, obscure, perhaps incoherent. Those who read and re-read will, we think, accord it a foremost place among Lord Lytton's shorter poems. The deepest note of human feeling is here struck. And it is one of sadness, even of despair. The ideal world of spiritual -minded humanity is a disillusion. Love, able to re-create after its own image, becomes in turn victim of its magnanimity. The mission of the lofty, angelic nature, is to love, to sacrifice self and to suffer ! — a conclusion sad enough, but borne out by the history of the world from the beginning until now. Our poet, whose sympathy is ever with what is elevated and noble, leaves a more inspiriting message to the work-a-day world. " Deep in Nature's undrained Cornucopia, Every good that man seeks, he shall find : And to fools, only fools is Utopia The abode of the hopes of mankind. INTRO D UCTION. xxiii For whate'er God hath made for man's good He hath granted man means to attain ; Say thou therefore ' I will,' not * I would/ Undeterred by the coward's disdain." Having now surveyed the harvest, we offer this sheaf of golden grain, feeling sure that the reader's thanks, as well as our own, will be heartily accorded the generous author who has permitted such lavish gleanings. M. B.-E. Note. — In accordance with Lord Lytton's wishes, the poems, as far as possible, appear according to the date of their original publication. Many of the early pieces are from revised versions. poems ot ©wen /iDeteMtl) (The Earl of Lytton). »#« From ''CLYTEMNESTRAr CLYTEMNESTRA. X. — Clionis. The winds were lull'd in Aulis; and the day, Down-sloped, was loitering to the slumbrous west. There was no motion of the glassy bay. The black ships lay abreast. Not any cloud would cross the hollow skies. The distant sea boom'd faintly. Nothing more. They walk'd about upon the yellow shore ; Or, lying listless, huddled groups supine. With faces turn'd towards the flat sea-spine, They plann'd the Phrygian battle o'er and o'er; Till each grew sullen, and would talk no more. But sat, dumb-dreaming. Then would some one rise, And look up at the high mast-heads with haggard, - hopeless eyes. Wild eyes — and, crowding round, yet wilder eyes — And gaping, languid lips ; And everywhere that men could see, About the black-ribb'd ships, 707 CL YTEMNESTRA. Was nothing but the deep-red sea; The deep-red shore ; The deep-red skies; The deep-red silence, thick with thirsty sighs; And daylight, dying slowly. Nothing more. The tall masts stood upright ; And not a sail above the burnish'd prores ; The languid sea, like one outwearied quite, Shrank, dying inward into hollow shores, And breathless harbours, under sandy bars ; But, rushing swift into the hot broad blue, The intense, sultry stars Burn'd strong, and singed the simmering welkin thro'; And, all below, the sick and steaming brine The spill'd-out sunset did incarnadine. At last one broke the silence; and a word Was lisp'd and buzz'd about, from mouth to mouth; Pale faces grew more pale; wild whispers stirr'd; And men, with moody, murmuring lips, conferr'd In ominous tones, from shaggy beards uncouth : As though some wind had broken from the blurr'd And blazing prison of the stagnant drouth. And stirr'd the salt sea in the stifled south. The long-robed priests stood round ; and, in the gloom, Under black brows, their bright and greedy eyes Shone deathfully; there was a sound of sighs, Thick-sobb'd from choking throats among the crowd. That, whispering, gather'd close, with dark heads bow'd ; But no man lifted up his voice aloud, For heavy hung o'er all the helpless sense of doom- Then, after solemn prayer. The father bade the attendants tenderly CL YTEMNESTRA. Lift her upon the lurid altar-stone. There was no hope in any face ; each eye Swam tearful, that her own did gaze upon. They bound her helpless hands with mournful care; And loop'd up her long hair. Back from the altar-stone, Slow-moving in his fix^d place A little space, The speechless father turn'd. No word was said. He wrapp'd his mantle close about his face, In his dumb grief, without a moan. The lopping axe was lifted overhead. Then, suddenly. There sounded a strange motion of the sea, Booming far inland; and above the east A ragged cloud rose slowly, and increased. Not one line in the horoscope of Time Is perfect. O what falling off is this, When some grand soul, that else had been sublime, Falls unawares amiss, And stoops its crested strength to sudden crime ! So gracious a thing is it, and sweet. In life's clear centre one true man to see. That holds strong nature in a wise control; Throbbing out, all round, the heat Of a large and liberal soul. No shadow, simulating life. But pulses warm with human nature, In a soul of godlike stature ; Heart, and brain, all rich and rife With noble instincts; strong to meet Time calmly, in his purposed place. Sound through and through, and all complete; Exalting what is low, and base; CL YTEMNESTRA. Enlarging what is narrow, and small; He stamps his character on all, And Avith his grand identity Fills up Creation's eye. He will not dream the aimless years away In blank delay, But makes eternity of to-day, And reaps the full-ear'd time. For him Nature her affluent horn doth brim. To strew with fruits and flowers his way — Fruits ripe, and flowers gay. The clear soul in his earnest eyes Looks through and through all plaited lies; Time shall not rob him of his youth Nor narrow his large sympathies. He is not true, he is a truth, And such a truth as never dies. Who knows his nature, feels his right, And, toiling, toils for his delight; Not as slaves toil : where'er he goes, The desert blossoms with the rose. He trusts himself in scorn of doubt, And lets orb'd purpose widen out. The world works with him; all men see Some part of them fulfiU'd in him ; His memory never shall grow dim ; He holds the heaven and earth in fee. Not following that, fulfilling this, He is immortal, for he is I O weep ! weep ! weep ! Weep for the young that die; As it were pale flowers that wither under CL YTEMNESTRA, The smiting sun, and fall asunder, Before the dews on the grass are dry, Or the tender twilight is out of the sky, Or the lilies have fall'n asleep; Or ships by a wanton wind cut short. And wreck'd in sight of the placid port, Sinking strangely, and suddenly — Sadly, and strangely, and suddenly— Into the black Plutonian deep. O weep ! weep ! weep ! Weep, and bow the head. For those whose sun is set at noon : Whose night is dark, without a moon : Whose aim of life is sped Beyond pursuing woes. And the arrow of angry foes, To the darkness that no man knows — The darkness among the dead. Let us mourn, and bow the head, And lift up the voice, and weep For the early dead ! For the early dead we may bow the head. And strike the breast, and weep ; But, oh, what shall be said For the living sorrow ? For the living sorrow our grief — Dumb grief — draws no relief From tears, nor yet may borrow Solace from sound, or speech ; — For the living sorrow That heaps to-morrow upon to-morrow In piled up pain, beyond Hope's reach ! It is well that we mourn for the early dead. Strike the breast, and bow the head ; For the sorrow for these may be sung, or said, CL YTEMNESTRA. And the chaplets be woven for the fallen head, And the urns to the stately tombs be led, And love on their memory may be fed, And song may ennoble the anguish ; But, oh, for the living sorrow — For the living sorrow what hopes remain? For the prison'd, pining, passionate pain That is doom'd for ever to languish, And to languish for ever in vain, For the want of the words that may bestead The hunger that out of loss is bred. O friends, for the living sorrow — For the living sorrow — For the living sorrow what shall be said? XX. — Chorus {conclusion). Only Heaven is high. Only the Gods are great. Above the searchless sky. In unremoved state ; They, from their golden mansions, Look over the lands, and seas ; The ocean's wide expansions, And the earth's varieties : Secure of their supremacy, And sure of affluent ease. Who shall say "I stand !" nor fall? Destiny is over all ! Rust will crumble old renown. Keep and castle, tower and town, Bust and column tumble down ; Throne, and sceptre; crest, and crown. CL YTEMNESTRA. Destiny is over all ! One by one, the pale guests fall At lighted feast, in palace hall ; And feast is turn'd to funeral. Who shall say '* I stand I" nor fall ? 1 )estiny is over all ! THE MAGIC LAND. From " THE WANDERER:' THE MAGIC LAND. By woodland belt, by ocean bar, The full south breeze our foreheads fann'd. And lightly roll'd round moon and star Low music from the Magic Land, By ocean bar, by woodland belt, More fragrant grew the glowing night, While, faint thro' dark blue air, we felt The breath of some unnamed Delight; III. Till Morning rose, and smote from far Her elfin harps. Then sea, and sky, And woodland belt, and ocean bar, To one sweet note, sigh'd Italy i DESIRE. DESIRE. The Night is come, — ah, not too soon! I have waited her wearily all day long, ^Vhile the heart, now husht, of the feverish noon In his burthen'd bosom was beating strong. But the cool clear light of the quiet moon Hath quench'd day's fever, and forth in song, One by one, with a buoyant flight, Arise day's wishes releast by night. The night is come ! On the hills above Her dusky hair she hath shaken free, And her tender eyes are dim with love, And her balmy bosom lies bare to me. She hath loosen'd the shade of the cedar grove. And shaken it over the long dark lea, She hath kindled the glow-worm, and cradled the dove. In the silent cypress tree. Hesperus, bringer of all sweet things, Hear me in heaven, and favour my call ! Bring me, O bring me, what naught else brings The one sweet thing that is sweeter than all. Bring me unto her, or bring her to me. Whose unseen eyes I have felt from afar. 1 feel I am near her, but where is she? I know I shall find her, but when shall it be? O hasten it, Hesperus starl 5 FA TALITY. My heart, as a wind-thrilled lyre, Throbs audibly. Bright in the grove, Like mine own thoughts taking fire, The star-flies hover and rove. Arise! go forth, keen-eyed, swift-wing'd Desire! Thou art the Bird of Jove, And strong to bear the thunders that destroy, Or fetch the ravisht flute-playing Phrygian boy. Go forth athwart the world, and find my love ! FATALITY. I HAVE seen her, — the Summer in her soft hair. And the blush-rose husht in her face, And the violet hid in her eyes ! And my heart, in love with its own despair, Speeded each pulse's passionate pace To that goal where pain is the prize. 11. Hair, a Summer of glories fill'd With odours! Lips that are ever Spring; The budding and birth of all joys that be, All blossoms that brighten, all beams that gild, All birds that gladden, all breaths that bring Delight to the spirit in me. FATALITY. 1 1 And oh, that smile of divine surprise, That slid out slowly, and lapp'd me round With a rosy rapture of warmth and light ! It began in the dark of her deep blue eyes, And, o'erflowing her face and her faint lips, drown 'd Past, present, and future, quite. In a sea of wonder without a shore. As tho', while you gaze at a drop of dew, It should silently open, and softly rise. And spread to a deluge, and cover you o'er. So round me, and over me, greaten'd and grew The smile of those sorrowful eyes. What sort of a world will the world be now ? Oh, never again what the world hath been ! And how happen'd this marvellous change ? What my old life meant I begin to know, But I know not what may this new life mean. It is all so sweet and strange ! Enough to be sure of, — that, hand in hand, We have seen, with each other's eyes, The heavens grow happier o'er us, And, here below, in the lovely land, As, there above, in the blissful skies, A world of beauty before us ! 1 2 THO UGHTS AT S UNSE T. THOUGHTS AT SUNRISE. The lark leaves the earth, With the dew on his breast. And my love's at the birth, And my life's at the best. What bliss shall I bid the beam bring thee To-day, love ? What care shall I bid the breeze fling thee Away, love? What song shall I bid the bird sing thee, O say, love? For the beam, and the breeze, And the birds — all of these (Eeca,use thou hast loved me) my bidding obey, love. Now the lark's in the light, And the dew on the bough. And my heart's at the height Of the day that dawns now. THOUGHTS AT SUNSET. Just at sunset I would be In a bowery island. Tree Interlacing tree shall strew Sighs and shadows over me ; Whom some Odysseian crew (Far too foolish, or too wise, Here in happy laowers to be Woo'd away from labour due THOUGHTS AT SUNSET To their chieftain's stern emprise) Putting forth in haste to sea, Half an hour before moon-rise, Left behind them, fancy-free, Careless of their shouts and cries, Mine own pleasure to pursue Thro' the warm isle's witcheries. And, if anywhere the breeze Shall have stirr'd those island trees, I, forthwith, may haply view (Lying, luU'd by leafy sighs. Underneath in grassy ease) Who knows what of strange and new Some white naiad's wistful eyes ? Or a wood-nymph's rosy knees ? Or a faun's hoof peeping thro' ? These, or stranger things than these ! II. Nay I already Fancy, tired Of her isle too soon desired, Lightly borne on laughing wind Leaves the lazy land behind. For the seaborn airs that sigh All about the rosy sky Seem, in wishful tones, to say *' Rise, O rise, and haste away!" Seen from sea is sunset best. Forth into the boundless west. Ere yon sinking sun be set I Where the seas and skies are met, And the lights are loveliest Round the deathbed of the day, Find me on the breezy deck 14 THOUGHTS A T SUNSET. Of some fleet felucca, — nest Of old seabirds, born for prey, Who these shallow seas infest. Fancy me brown -faced as they, With hawk eyes that watch one speck 'Twixt the crimson and the yellow; Which shall be a little fleck Of cloud, or gull with outstretcht neck, To Spezia bound from Cape Circello. With a sea-song in mine ears Of the bronzen buccaniers, While the night is waxing mellow. And the helmsman slackly steers — Leaning, talking to his fellow. Who hath oaths for all he hears ; Each thief swarthier than Othello ! Ah, but wander where she will, Here is Fancy's birthplace still; And, tho' far and wide she roam, Long she may not leave her home. Dear, I have not any want Deeper than to be with you. When the low beam, falling slant, Stains the heaven with rosy hue, And, with shuddering pleasure, pant The awaken'd woodlands blue ; And about his leafy haunt, While the stars are faint and few, The tumultous firefly flashes; And such languor softens thro' The deep lights 'neath these long lashes As the heart, it steals into. TO IRENE. 15 First inspires, and then abashes. Just to touch your hand — one touch, The lightest — more would be too much ; Just to watch you leaning o'er That wandering window- rose . . . no more! TO IRENE. As, in lone faerylands, 'twixt coral shelf And beryl shaft, to deck the moonlit cave Where haply dwells some beautiful Queen-Elf, Laden with light and music, a spent wave Strews its unvalued sea-wealth (pearl and gem Sent up in homage from the Deep, her slave !) Then sinks back, sighing, into the salt sea ; So, from my life's love-laden deeps, to thee I pour these poems. Do not thou contemn Gifts offer'd to thee only. Let them have All they were born for, — not the more or less Of aught that grudging hucksters ever gave For such sea-treasures with a greedy guess At this or that pearl's price in weigh'd-out pelf, — But place in the imperial diadem Of thine own fay-born beauty's queenliness. More worth is in them than mere words express. Such pearl-buds, torn from buried branch and stem Of life's deep-hidden growths, attest love's stress. Look down, and see in my sad silent self, Beneath all words, where love lies fathomless; And so, dear love, for love's sake value them. Love's words are weak, but not love's silences. i6 AN EVENING IN TUSCANY. AN EVENING IN TUSCANY. Close, O close and clasp, the pages Of that too-long-paniper'd book ! Leave all poets of past ages. You, my living poem J Look, Down the summer-colour'd weather The sweet day begins to sink ! And the thought that we're together Is the sole thought I can think. Cool the breeze mounts, like this Chianti Which I drain down to the sun. So away with your green Dante ! Turn the page — where we begun — At the last news of Ulysses — A grand image, fit to close Such great golden eves as this is, Full of splendour and repose ! And look down now, o'er the city Sleeping soft among the hills — Our dear Florence ! That great Pitti With its steady shadow fills Half the town up : its unwinking Cold white windows, as they glare Down the long streets, set one thinking Of the old Dukes who lived there; For one knows them, those strange men, sc Subtle brains, and iron thews ! There, the gardens of Lorenzo — The long cypress avenues — Creep up slow the stately hillside Where the merry loungers are. But far more I love this still side — The blue plain you see so far ! Where the shore of bright white villas AN EVENING IN TUSCANY. 17 Leaves off faint : and faint the stream Creeps from bridge to bridge as still as Some husht gladness thro' a dream. On the mountain slopes in glory Lingers still the sinking sun : But up here — slow, cold, and hoary. Climb the olives, one by one: And the land looks fresh : the yellow Arbute-berries, here and there, Growing slowly ripe and mellow Through a flush of rosy hair. For the Tramontana last week Was about. 'Tis scarce three weeks Since the snow lay, one white vast streak. Upon those old purple peaks. So to-day among the grasses One may pick up tens and twelves Of young olives, as one passes, Blown about, and by themselves Blackening sullen-ripe. The corn too Grows each day from green to golden. The large-eyed windflovvers forlorn too Blow among it, unbeholden. Bind these bounteous curls from falling, O my beautiful, my own ! 'Tis for you the cuckoo's calling. Hark ! that plaintive mellow moan Up the hillside, floating nearer, Past the two white convent towers, Where the air is cooler, clearer, Round our calm and pleasant bowers. Oh, that night of purple weather ! (Just before the moon had set), You remember how together We walk'd home ? — the grass was wet— 708 AJV EVENING IN TUSCANY, The long grass in the Poder6 — With the balmy dew among it : And that nightingale — his airy Song— how joyously he sung it 1 All the fig-trees had grown heavy With the young figs white and woolly : And the fireflies, bevy on bevy Of soft sparkles, pouring fully Their warm life through trance on trances Of thick citron-shades behind, Rose, like swarms of loving fancies Through some rich and pensive mind. So we reach'd the Logia. Leaning Faint, we sat there in the shade. Neither spake. The night's deep meaning Fill'd the silence up unsaid. Hoarsely through the cypress-alley A civetta* out of tune Tried his voice by fits. The valley Lay all dark below the moon. Until into song you burst out — That old song I made for you When we found our rose — the first out Last sweet Spring-time in the dew. Well ! ... if things had gone less wildly- Had I settled down before There, in England — labour'd mildly — And been patient — and learn'd more Of how men should live in London — Been less happy — or more wise — Left no great works tried and undone — Never look'd in your soft eyes — I . . . but what's the use of thinking? Hark ! our nightingale — he sings — * Screech-owl. THE STORM. 19 Now a rising note— now sinking Back in little broken rings Of warm song, that spread, and eddy — Now he picks up heart — and draws His great music, slow and steady, To a silver-centred pause ! THE STORM. Both hollow and hill were as dumb as death, While the heavens were moodily changing form. And the hush that is herald of creeping storm Had made heavy the crouch'd land's breath. At the wide-flung casement she stood, full height, With her glittering hair tumbled over her back. And, against the black sky's supernatural black, Shone her white neck, scornfully white. I could catch not a gleam of her anger'd eyes, (She was sullenly watching the storm-cloud roll), But I felt they were drawing down into her soul The thunder that darken'd the skies. " And so do we part, then, for ever? " I said. " O speak only one word, and I pardon the rest ! For sole answer, her white scarf over her breast She tighten'd, not turning her head. 20 THE STORM. ** Ah, must sweet love cruelly play with pain? Or," I groan'd, ** are those blue eyes such deserts of blindness That, O woman, your heart hath no heed of un- kindness To the man on whose breast it hath lain?" VI. Then alive leapt the lightning. She turn'd, in its glare, And the tempest had clothed her with terror : it clung To the folds of her vaporous garments, and hung In the heaps of her heavy wild hair. One word broke the silence : but one : and it fell With the weight of a mountain upon me. Next moment All was bellowing thunder, and she from my com- ment Was gone ere it ceased. Who can tell How I got to my home in the horrible hills. Thro' black swimmings of storm and burst seams of blue rain ? Sick, I lean'd from the lattice, and dizzy with pain. And listen'd — and heard the loud rills, THE STORM. 21 IX. And look'd, — and beheld the red moon low in air. Then my heart leapt ... I felt, and foreknew, it, before I heard her light hand on the latch of the door ! When it open'd at last, — she was there ! Childlike, and wistful, and sorrow-eyed. With the rain in her hair, and the tears on her cheek, Down she knelt — all her fair forehead fallen and meek In the light of the moon — at my side. And she call'd me by every caressing old name She of old had invented and chosen for me. While she crouch'd at my feet, with her cheek on my knee, Like a wild thing grown suddenly tame. XII. 'Twas no vision ! This morning, the earth, prest beneath Her light foot keeps the print. 'Twas no vision last night 1 For the lily she dropp'd, as she went, is yet white With the dew on its delicate sheath 1 — 22 SONG. SONG. As the one star that, left by the morning, Is more noticed than all night's host. As the late lone rose of October, For its rareness regarded the most, As the least of the leaves in December That is loved as the last on the tree, So sweetest of all to remember Is thy love's latest promise to me. We must love, and unlove, and, it may be, Live into, and out of anon, Lovetimes no few in a lifetime. Ere lifetime and lovetime be one. For to love it is hard, and 'tis harder Perchance to be loved again. But if living be not loving, Then living is all in vain. To the tears I have shed, and regret not, What matters a few more tears ? Why should love, that is present for ever. Be afraid of the absence of years ? When the snow's at the door, and the ember Is dim, and I far o'er the sea, Remember, beloved, O remember That my love's latest trust was in thee I FORBEARANCE, ij THE FIRST FAREWELL. I MAY not kiss away the tears that still Hang on the lids which those loved eyes enshrine. I may not weep away the tears that fill These aching eyes of mine. Sleep on, sad soul, shelter'd from love and pain ! Or haply shelter love from pain with thee In thy sweet dreams. When we two meet again, 'Tis but in dreams 'twill be. FORBEARANCE. Call me not, love, unthankful, nor unkind, That I have left my heart with thee, and fled. I were not worth that wealth which I resign'd, Had I not chosen poverty instead. Leaving, I love thee bebt. I dare not swerve From my soul's rights, — a slave tho' serving thee. I but forbear more nobly to deserve. The free gift only cometh of the free. 24 A LOVE-LETTER. TO A WOMAN; OR, THE LAST WISH. Since all that I can ever do for thee Is to do nothing, this my prayer must be : That thou may'st never guess nor ever see The all-endured this nothing-done costs me. A LOVE-LETTER. My love, — my chosen, — but not mine ! I send My whole heart to thee in these words I write; So let the blotted lines, my soul's sad friend, Lie upon thine, and there be blest, at night. This blossom bruised whose purple blood will stain The page now wet with the hot tears that fall — (Indeed, indeed, I struggle to restrain The weight of woe that breaks thus, spite of all !) III. I pluck'd it from the branch you used to praise, The branch that hides the wall. I tend your flowers. I keep the paths we paced in happier days. How long ago they seem, those pleasant hours 1 A LOVE-LETTER. 2; IV. The white laburnum's out. Your judas-tree Begins to shed those crimson buds of his. The nightingales sing — ah, too joyously ! Who says those birds are sad ? I think there is That in the books we read, M'hich deeper wrings My heart, so they lie dusty on the shelf. Alas ! I meant to speak of other things Less sad. In vain ! they bring me to myself. VI. I know your patience. And I would not cast New shade on days so dark as yours are grown, By weak and wild repining for the past, Nor vex sad memory with a bootless moan. For hard enough the daily cross you bear, Without that deeper pain reflection brings; And all too sore the fretful household care, Free of the contrast of remember'd things. viir. But ah ! it little profits, that we thrust From all that's said, what both must feel, unnamed, Better to face it boldly, as we must, Than feel it in the silence, and be shamed. 26 A LOVE-LETTER. Irene, I have loved you, as men love Light, music, odour, beauty, love itself, — Whatever is apart from, and above, Those daily needs which deal with dust and pelf. X. And I had been content, without one thought Our guardian angels could have blush'd to know, So to have lived and died, demanding nought Save, living dying, to have loved you so. My youth was orphan'd, and my age will be Childless. I have no sister. None, to steal One thought away from all you are to me. And yours is all I am, and think, and feel. XII. My wildest wish was vassal to your will: My haughtiest hope, a pensioner on your smile, That did with light my barren being fill, As moonlight glorifies some desert isle. I never thought to know what I have known, — The ecstasy of being loved by you : I never thought within my heart to own One wish so blest that you should share it too : A LOVE-LETTER. 27 XIV. Nor ever did I deem, contemplating The many sorrows in this place of pain, So strange a sorrow to my life could cling, As, being thus loved, to be beloved in vain. But now we know the best, the worst. We have Interr'd, and prematurely, and unknown, Our youth, our hearts, our hopes, in one small grave, Whence we must wander, widow'd, to our own. XVI. And if we comfort not each other, what Shall comfort us in the dark days to come ? Not the light laughter of the world, and not The faces and the firelight of fond home. And so I write to you j and write, and write, For the mere sake of writing to you, dear. What can I tell you that you know not ? Night Is deepening through the rosy atmosphere XVIII. About the lonely casement of this room. Which you have left familiar with the grace That grows where you have been. And on the gloom I almost fancy I can see your face : 28 A LOVE-LETTER. Not pale with pain, and tears restrain'd for me, As when I last beheld it ; but as first, A dream of rapture and of poesy, Upon my youth, like dawn on dark, it burst. Perchance I shall not ever see again That face. I know that I shall never see Its radiant beauty as I saw it then. Save by this lonely lamp of memory, xxr. With childhood's starry graces lingering yet r the rosy orient of young womanhood, And eyes like woodland violets sunny-wet. And lips that left their meaning in my blood. XXII. I will not say to you what every day Unworthy preachers preach to worthless love * Dance the graves bare, if pipe and tabor play, And call faith folly, if the world approve ! ' I will not cant that commonplace of friends, Which never yet hath dried one mourner's tears. Nor say that grief's slow wisdom makes amends For aching hearts and desolated years; A LOVE-LETTER. 29 XXIV. For who would barter all he hopes in life, To be a little wiser than his kind ? Who arm his spirit for continued strife, When all he cared to keep is left behind ? But this, this only . . . Love in blackest woe, Still lovelier than all loveless happiness, Hath brilliancies of joy they never know, Who never knew the depth of love's distress. My messenger (a man by danger tried) Waits in the courts below; and ere our star Upon the forehead of the dawn hath died, Heart of my heart ! this letter will be far Athwart the mountain, and the mist, to you. I know each robber hamlet. I know all This mountain people. I have friends, both true And trusted, sworn to aid whate'er befall. I have a bark upon the gulf. And I, If to my pain I yielded in this hour, Might say ... * Sweet fellow-sufferer, let us fly • I know a little isle which doth embower 30 A LOVE-LETTER, * A home where exiled angels might forbear Awhile to mourn for Paradise.' , . . But no ! Never, how dark soe'er my fate, and drear, Shalt thou reproach me for that only woe XXX. Which neither love can soothe, nor pride controul; Which dwells where duty dies: and haunts the void Of life's abandon'd purpose in the soul ; The accusing ghost of what itself destroy'd. Farewell, and yet again farewell, and yet Never farewell, — if farewell mean to fare Alone and disunited. Love hath set Our days, in music, to the self-same air; And I shall feel, wherever we may be. Even though in absence and an alien clime, The shadow of the sunniness of thee. Hovering, in patience, through a clouded time. Farewell ! The dawn is rising, and the light Is making, in the east, a faint endeavour To illuminate the mountain peaks. Good-night. Thine own, and only thine, my love, for ever I THE MESSAGE. 31 THE MESSAGE. Because she hath the sweetest eyes, The bluest, truest,— and more wise Than woodland violets wild in wood To make wholesome the earth, and good ; Because she hath such glad gold hair That nothing in the laughing air Of the lusty May, at morn, When all that's bright and glad is born, Ever was so glad and bright ; And, therewith, a hand more white And warm than is the warmed coat Of whiteness round a meek dove's throat, Yet withal so calm, so pure. No ill passion may endure That serenest hand's chaste touch ; And because my love is such That I do not dare to speak, Of the changes on her cheek. Which the sunrise and sunset Of her luminous thoughts beget, Nor of her rose-sweet mouth, that is Too sweet to kiss, or not to kiss, 'Tis aye so sweet and savorous ; And because (to comfort us For what throbbings of sweet pain Come, and go, and come again, Till the wishful sense be full, Gazing on aught so beautiful) Such innocent wise ways she knoweth. And so good is all she doeth, — All she is,— so simple, fair, Joyous, just, and debonair. 32 THE MESSAGE. That there is none so ignorant Of worship, nor with soul so scant Of visitations from above. But, seeing her, he needs must love, And purely love, her, — and for this, Love better everything that is; — Therefore now, my Songs, will I That ye into her presence hie, Flying over land and sea, Many an one, that sever me From the sweet thing that hath the sleeping Joy of my shut heart in keeping. But, that when ye hence be gone Into the bounteous region Of that bright land over sea Wherein so many sweet things be, Where my Lady aye doth dwell, Ye her dwelling dear may tell, Nor its special sweetness miss In midst of many sweetnesses; Yet awhile, my Songs, delay Till I have told ye, as I may. All the fairness of the place That is familiar with the grace And glory of my Lady's face. And (so shall ye know that she Dwelleth in loftier light than we. As intimate with skyey things As are creatures that have wings) Being come to mountains seven. Note that one that's nighest heaven: Thereon lieth against the sun A place of pleasaunce, all o'errun THE MESSAGE. 33 With whisperous shade, and blossoming Of divers trees, wherein do sing The little birds, and all together, All day long in happy weather. And well I ween that since the birth Of Adam's firstborn, not on earth Hath ever been such sweet singing Of bird on bough, as here doth bring Into a large and leafy ease His sense that strayeth among the trees, Where mingled is full many a note Of golden-finch and speckle-throat. Even the hoarse-chested starling Here, where creepeth never a snarling Gust to vex his heart, all day Learneth a more melodious lay Than that whereby this bird is known, Which, otherwhere, with chiding tone, What time the fretful Spring doth heave The frozen North, to winds, that grieve Round about the grave of March, He chaunteth from the cloudy larch : The linnet loud, and throstle eke, And the blackbird of golden beak, With perpetual madrigals Do melodise the warm green walls Of those blossom-crowned groves. In whose cool hearts the cooing doves \ Make murmurings innumerable, ' Of sound as sweet as when a well With noise of bubbled water leapeth At a green couch where Silence sleepeth : Nor less, the long-voiced nightingale Doth, deep down in bloomy vale Delicious, pour at full noonlight 709 34 THE MESSAGE. The song he hath rehearsed o'er-night ; And many other birds be there Of most sweet voice, and plumage rare. And names that I not know. Of trees That spring therein such plenty is That I to tell them over all Encumber'd am. Both maple tall There showeth his silver-mottled bark; And beeches, colour'd like the dark Red wine o' the South; and laurels green. Sunny and smooth, that make rich screen Round mossy places, where all day Red squirrels and grey conies play, Munching brown nuts and such wild fare As tumbleth from the branches there. And, for moisture of sweet showers, All the grass is thick with flowers; Primrose pure, that cometh alone; Daisies quaint, with savour none, But golden eyes of great delight. That all men love, they be so bright ; And, cold in grassy cloister set, Many a maiden violet; The bramble flower, the scarlet hepe, Hangeth above in sunny sleep; And all around be knots and rows Of tufted thyme, and lips of cows; Whose sweet savour goeth about The jocund bowers, in and out, And dieth over all the place; So that there is not any space Of sun or shade, but haunted is With ghosts of many sweetnesses. There, dreading no intrusive stroke Of lifted axe, the lusty oak THE MESSAGE, 35 Broad his branches brown doth fling, And reignetb, " every inch a king: " Him also of that other kind In great plenty shall ye find, That while the great year goeth around Sheddeth never his leaves to ground, But in himself his summer hath, And oweth not, nor borroweth, As (though but rare) there be some wise Good men, that to themselves suffice; But in northern land we see Full few, and they but stunted be. Of this goodly kind of tree. The ever-trembling birch, through all Her hoary lights ethereal, Doth twinkle there, 'twixt green and grey; And of fruit-trees is great array : The apple and the pear tree both, Smother'd o'er in creamy froth Of bubbled blossoms; the green fig. With leathern leaves, and horny twig, And gluey globes ; the juniper, That smelleth sweet in midsummer; Nor peach-tree, there, nor apricot, Needeth either nail or knot ; Nor there from churlish weathers wince The orange, lemon, plum, and quince; But under these, by grassy slopes, Hangeth the vine her leafy ropes; Wild Proteus she, o' the wanton wood. That ever shifteth her merry mood. And, aye in luxury of change, Loveth to revel, and dance, and range. In leaves, not hers, she fleeteth through, Hiding her large grape-bunches blue; 36 THE MESSAGE. And here, o'er haunts he maketh brown With droppings from his scented crown, Standeth the stately sycamore, Lifting airy terrace o'er Airy terrace ; — such of yore Dusky masons, deftly skill'd Mighty stones to pile and build, Up-hung in sumptuous Babylon, For silken kings at set of sun To dally with dark girls; but these Are humm'd about by honey bees, And cicale all day long Creek the chamber'd shades among. Far away, down hills that seem Liquid (for the light doth stream Through and through them) like that vail Of lucid mist Morn spreadeth pale O'er Summer's sallow forehead, found Somewhere asleep on upland ground Under the shade of heavy woods, Imaginary multitudes Of melancholy olives waste Their wanness, smiling half effaced In a smooth sea of slumbrous glory; But high on inland promontory Blandly the broad-headed pine, Basking in the blue divine, Drowseth, drench'd with sunny sky : And, while the blue needle-fly Nimbly pricketh in and out The leaf-broider'd lawns about, (As busy she as highborn dame In shining silk, at tambour frame), The pomegranate, flowering flame, Burneth lone in cool retreats, THE MESSAGE, yj Hidden from those gorgeous heats Where summer smoldereth into sweets. Now, when ye have this goodly wood All roamed through, in gamesome mood. At morning tide, and thereon spent Large wealth of love and wonderment, In honour due of such full cheer And lustihood as laugheth here The well-bower'd grass about. That windeth in, and windeth out, Under those bright ribandings The red-budded bramble flings From branch to branch, still straying on Softly, ye shall be ware anon Of a fair garden, glad and great, Where my Lady, in high state Of beauty, doth 'twixt eve and noon, Under a spiritual moon, Visit full oft her vassal flowers In silent and sweet-scented hours, When quiet vast is everywhere, About the blue benignant air And the cool grass, a deep immense Gladness, an undisturbed sense Of goodness in the gather'd calm Of old green woodlands bathed in calm. And bounteous silence. . . . O my love. How softly do the sweet hours move About thy peaceful perfectness ! O hasten, little Songs ! O press To meet my Lady, ye that be Her children, if she knew I . . . But she Still lingereth, and the silver dawn Is silent on the unfooted lawn. Here all day doth couch and sport 38 THE MESSAGE. Trim Flora, with her florid court: Roses that be illumined With royal colour rich and red ; Some, with bosoms open wide, Where the brown bee, undenied, Drinketh deep of honey drops; Others, whose enamell'd knops Prettily do peep between Their half-bursten cradles green ; Lordly lilies, pale and proud; And of all flowers a great crowd ; Whose rare-colour'd kirtles show More hues than of the rainy bow. In sweet warmth and lucid air Nod they all and whisper, where Lightly along each leafy lane Zephyrus, with his tripping train, Cometh at cool of even hour To greet in all her pomp and power Queen Flora, when in mansions damp Of the dim moss his spousal lamp Aloof the enamour'd glow-worm doth Softly kindle; while the moth Flitteth; and, at elfin rites, Sprucely dance the little Sprites Under the young moon all alone. Round about King Oberon. But ye this pleasaunce fair shall reach Ere yet from off the slanted peach The drops of silver dew be slipp'd. Or night-born buds be open-lipp'd, There shall ye find, in lustrous shade Of laurels cool, an old well-head That whelmeth up from under-ground. And falleth with a tinkling sound THE MESSAGE. 39 In a broad basin, builded there, All rose-porphyry, smooth and fair. The water is ever fresh and new. As that Narcissus gazed into, When, for love of his sweet self, He fainted from the flowery shelf, Leaving Echo all that pain ; So that now there doth remain Of him that was so fair and sweet Only in some green retreat A purple flower seldom found, And of her a hollow sound In hollow places. There shall ye Pause as ye pass, and sing . . "To thee, Water, our Master bade us say Glad be thy heart, and pure alway ; May thy full urn never fail ; Thee nor sun nor frost assail, Nor wild winter's wind molest thee; Never newt nor eft infest thee ; Taint nor trouble touch thee never; Heaven above thee smile for ever; Earth around thee ever bear Beauteous buds and blossoms rare; Far from thee be all foul things, Slaves to thee be all sweet springs, Because thou, of thy kindness, hast Shown, in blissful summers past, To fondest eyes have ever been, • Sweetest face was ever seen: Therefore be blest for evermore. " But if, my Songs, ye would explore This pleasaunce all, there be therein Delights so many, day would win His under-goal ere ye were forth 40 THE MESSAGE. Of your much musing on the worth That is therein, and wondrous grace ; Therefore, ere the sun down-pace, Must ye onward, where is spread A fair terrace ; and overhead Thick trellis of the trembling vine, That with leaves doth loop and twine Aery casements, whence the glance Of whoso there, as in a trance, Walketh about the whisperous shade Under that vaulted verdure laid, Seeth far down, and far away, Tower'd cities, throng'd and gay, Blowing woodlands, bright blue streams Sparkling outward, yellow gleams Of waved corn, and sun-burnt swells Of pasture, soothed with sounds of bells Sprinkled in air, of various tone. From little hillside chapel i lone, And peaceful flocks that stray and pass Down endless lengths of lowland grass. And, certes, I will boldly say Of this fair place, let mock who may, That of joy the quintessence Hath never slept about the sense Of mortal man that is to die With fulness sweet as that which I Deep in my solaced heart have known, Whilom walking, not alone, Here in summer morns and eves, When shadowy showers of flittering leaves Fell, shaken thick from many a rout Of little birds that fast flew out Above us ; interruption sweet To converse, felt the more complete THE MESSAGE. For the interposM pauses Born of all such innocent causes. High on the happy lawn above Standeth the dwelling of my love. Fair white all the mansion seemeth, Save where in green shadow dreameth The broad blossom-buttress'd roof, Or where the many-colour'd woof Of honeysuckle and creeping flowers, Visibly from vernal showers "Winning length, hath broider'd all With braided buds the southern wall. Therein many windows be ; And every window fair to see, O'er-canopied with hangings bright, For shelter fresh from summer light.* And underneath, in urns and pots, Sweet-smelling basil, and red knots Of roses ripe ; for every casement Is balconied about at basement, A space where three or four may sit At interchange of song or wit. In the low amber evening hours, Overlooking lawns and flowers. In the hall, which is beneath, A fountain springeth and echoeth, Blown by a sad-looking Nymph, Ravisht from her native lymph And mossy grot, in days of old ; And in marble mute and cold Here for ever must she dwell Uncompanion'd, by the spell Of a stern old sculptor caught ; 42 THE MESSAGE, For, aye since then, the hand that wrought This stony charm her limbs upon May not undo it. Years are gone, And still about her doth she stare, Amazed however she came there. But ye, since ye be free to rove This mansion through, to floors above Up the majestic marble stair Pass with still steps, unseen, to where Soon shall ye find, in sequel long, Twelve great chambers : some be hung With arras quaint, that doth portray Hounds that hold the hart at bay In good green wood, and hunters bold, And dames aclad in green and gold ; And evermore their horns be wound, And evermore there cometh no sound : Others in glowing fresco tell Great Caesar's tale, and how he fell, Pierced through and through; with many a story Of ancient kings that be in glory, And high-renownM heroes old ; Sir Tristram, with his harp of gold. That rashly drain'd the philtre brew'd By the witch Queen for fair Isoud ; Roland in Roncesvalles slain; And bold Sir Ogier the Dane; Huon of Bordeaux, love's true star; Saladin with his scimitar; The Red-beard Kaiser, sleeping still Hid in the heart of Salzburg Hill ; David that danceth round the ark ; And Charlemagne ; ye there may mark. THE MESSAGE, 43 But, O my Songs, more softly now, More softly move ! Breathe low, breathe low ! For, by my heart's most tender fear, I know that ye must now be near The place where, nesting meek and warm, Rosy cheek on snowy arm, With loos'd hair and lidded eye Dreaming doth my Lady lie: And all around the restful air Is silent, sweet, and pure, as where Fond hands some holy taper trim, Peaceful in sacred precincts dim. Now, that my spirit, though far away From her loved beauty, night and day Ever in unreleased pine Seeking, on many a mused line, To flow toward her, purely may Her pureness praise, — humbly I pray Of all good things that wait upon The mind that maketh devotion To what is fair (since such do lean O'er mortal spirits oft unseen Out of the deep and starry night, Or steal on beams of morning light, Or breath of buds, or sound of song Remember'd, to keep safe from wrong, And wretchedness, and self-mistrust, Whatever warreth in this dust Against oblivion), that their grace May from my spirit purge and chase All that is in it not sweet and pure; So may I look with insight sure Into myself, and favour find To make a mirror within my mind. Whereon, unsoil'd of any taint 44 THE MESSAGE. Of sinful thought, my most sweet saint Her fairness may from far let fall In a deep peace perpetual. The memory of her is mellow light In darkness, mingling something bright With all things; like a summer night. The presence of her is young sunrise, That gladdenelh, and, in wondrous wise, Glorifieth, the earth and skies: Her spirit is tender and bright as dew Of May-morn fresh, when stars be few : Her heart is harmless, simple, and true, And blithe, and sweet, as bird in bower, That sifigeth alone from hour to hour: Her face is fair as April flower : Her voice is fresh as bubbling bound Of silver stream, in land new found, That maketh ever a pleasant sound To the soul of a thirsty traveller: Her laugh is light as grasshopper: Her breath is sweet as midsummer: Her hair is a marvellous living thing With a will of its own: the little locks fling Showers of brown gold, gambolling Over the ever-fleeting shade About her shoulder and sweet throat stray'd, With delicate odours underlaid: THE MESSAGE. 45 Like calm midsummer cloud, nor less Clothed with sweet light and silentness, She in her gracious movement is: Noble withal, and free from fear As heart of eagle, and high, and near To heaven in all her ways : of cheer Gentle, and meek, from harshness free As heart of dove: nor chideth she Things ill, but knovveth not that they be: All clear as waters clean that run Through shadow sweet, and through sweet sun, Her pure thoughts are: scorn hath she none: But in my Lady's perfect nature All is sincere, and of sweet feature. This earth hath none such other creature. Rise, little Songs, on nimble wing ! Arise ! arise ! as larks do sing Lost in that heaven of light they love, So rise, so lose yourselves above My darkness, in the perfect light Of her that is so pure and bright ! Rise, little Songs ! with lusty cheer ^ Rise up to greet my Lady dear. Be bold, and say to her with pride, — ** We are the souls of loves that died ; Whose sweetness is hope sorrow-fed, Whose tendernesses tears unshed ; And we are essences that rise From passions burn'd in sacrifice; 46 THE MESSAGE. The youngest and bright-eyM heirs Of blind unbeautiful despairs; Voiced resignations, once dumb wrongs." Then, if she smile on you, my Songs, Say, as I bid you, word for word, " Lady of him that is our lord, We from his heart, where we were born, Shelter'd, and shut from shame r.nd scorn, Now at his bidding (well-a-day For him, and us !) being fled away, Never again may there abide, Never return, and, undenied, Creep in, and fold our wings, and rest At peace in our abandon'd nest. Wherefore, dear mistress, prithee take (By true love sent, for true love's sake) To thy sweet heart, and spirit pure. Us, that must else but ill endure The scorns of time, and haply fare Homeless as birds in winter are." But if that, on your way to greet My gracious Lady, ye should meet Haply elsewhere with other folk Who may ask ye in scorn or joke, — " Pray you now, little Songs, declare ,Who is that lady so sweet and fair, Whereof this singer that sent you sings. As certainly sweeter than all sweet things ? " See that ye answer not. Songs, but deep In your secretest hearts my secret keep; Lest the world, that loveth me not, should tell The name of the Lady I love so well. SEA-SIDE ELEGIACS. 47 SEA-SIDE ELEGIACS. Ever my heart beateth high and the blood in me danceth delighted, When, in the wind on the wharf, keen from the edge of the land, Watching the white-winged black-bodied ships, as they rise uninvited Over the violet-dark wall o' the waters, I stand. Wondrous with life that is in them, aware of the waters and weathers. They to the populous port pass with a will of their own. Merrily singeth the mariner there, as the cable he tethers Tight to the huge iron ring, hung in the green gluey stone. Swept with the spray is the pavement above ; and the sea-wind is salt there. Down on the causeys all day, humming, the mer- chants unlade Marvellous merchandise, while the sea -engines of burthen, at halt there Shoulder each other, and loll, lazy in shine or in shade. O for the wing o' the grey sea-eagle, that far away inland Croucheth in cave or in creek, waiting the wind on the height ! When night cometh, the great north-wind, blowing bleak over Finland, Leapeth, and, lifting aloft, beareth him into the night. O for the wing o' the bird ! and O for the wind o' the ocean ! 48 SEA-SIDE ELEGIACS, O for the far-away lands ! O for the faces unfound I Would I were hence ! for my spirit is fill'd with a mighty emotion. Why must the spirit, though wing'd, thus to the body be bound ? Ah, but my heart sinketh low, and the rapturous vein is arrested, When, at the mid o' the night, high on the shadowy land, Mournfully watching the ghost-white waves, livid-lipp'd, hollow-breasted. Sob over shingle and shell, here with my sorrow I stand. - Weary of woe that is in them, fatigued by the violent waathers, Feebly they tumble and toss, sadly they murmur and moan, Coldly the moon looketh down through the wan-rolling vapour she gathers Silently, cloud after cloud, round her companionless throne. Dark up above is the wharf; and the harbour. The night-wind alone there Goeth about in the night, humming a horrible song. Black misshapen bulks, coil'd cumbrous things, over thrown there. Seem as, in sullen dismay, silently suffering wrong. O for the wing o' the grey sea-eagle, roamer of heaven ! Him doth the wind o' the night bear through the night on its breast. Over the howling ocean, and unto his ancient haven, Far in the land that he loves finding the realms of his rest. O for the wing o' the bird ! and O for the wind o' the Ocean ! THE SHORE. 49 O for the lands that are left ! O for the faces of eld ! Would I were hence ! for my spirit is fiU'd with a mourn- ful emotion. Why must the spirit, though wing'd, still by the body be held ? THE SHORE. Can it be women that walk in the sea-mist, under the cliflFs there Which the unsatisfied surge sucks with importunate lip ? There, where out from the sand-chok'd anchors, on to the skiffs there. Twinkle the slippery ropes, swinging adip and adrip ? All the place in a lurid, glimmering, emerald glory, Glares like a Titan world come back under heaven again : Yonder, aloof are the steeps of the sea-kings, famous in story ; But who are they on the beach? they are neither women nor men. ^Vho knows, are they the land's, or the water's, living creatures ? Born of the boiling sea? nurst in the seething storms? With their woman's hair dishevell'd over their stern male features. Striding, bare to the knee; magnified maritime forms ! They may be the mothers and wives, they may be the sisters and daughters 710 so THE SHORE. Of men on the dark mid-seas, alone in those black coil'd hulls, That toil 'neath yon white cloud, whence the moon will rise o'er the waters To-night, with her face on fire, if the wind in the evening lulls. But they may be merely visions, such as only sick men witness, (Sitting as I sit here, fiU'd with a wild regret), Framed from the sea's misshapen spume with a horrible fitness To the winds in which they walk, and the surges by which they are wet : — Salamanders, sea- wolves, witches, warlocks; marine monsters Which the dying seaman beholds, when the rats are swimming away, And an Indian wind 'gins hiss from an unknown isle, and alone stirs The broken cloud which burns on the verge of the dead, red day. I know not. All in my mind is confused; nor can I dissever The mould of the visible world from the shape of my thought in me. The Inward and Outward are fused : and, through them, murmur for ever The sorrow whose sound is the wind, and the roar of the limitless sea. THE VAMPIRE. 51 THE VAMPIRE. I FOUND a corpse, with glittering hair, Of a woman whose face, tho' dead, The white death in it had left still fair, Too fair for an earthly bed ! So I loosen'd each fold of her bright curls, roll'd From forehead to foot in a gush of red gold, And kiss'd her lips till her lips were red, And warm and light on her eyelids white I breath'd, and press'd unto mine her breast, Till the blue eyes oped, and the breast grew warm. And this woman, behold ! arose up bold, And, lifelike lifting a wilful arm, With steady feet from the winding sheet Stepp'd forth to a mutter'd charm. rr. And now beside me, whatever betide me, This woman is, night and day. For she cleaves to me so, that, wherever I go She is with me the whole of the way. And her eyes are so bright in the dead of the night, That they keep me awake with dread ; While my life-blood pales in my veins, and fails, Because her red lips are so red That I fear 'tis my heart she must eat for her food ; And it makes my whole flesh creep To think she is drinking and draining my blood, Unawares, if I chance to sleep. 52 A REMONSTRANCE. It were better for me, ere I came nigh her, — This corpse, — ere I looked upon her, — Had they burn'd my body in penal fire With a sorcerer's dishonour. For, when the devil hath made his lair In the living eyes of a dear dead woman, (To bind a man's strength by her golden hair, And break his heart, if his heart be human). Is there any penance, or any prayer, That may save the sinner whose soul he tries To catch in the curse of the constant stare Of those heartbreaking bewildering eyes, — Comfortless, cavernous glowworms that glare From the gaping grave where a dead hope lies? It is more than the soul of a man may bear. For the misery worst of all miseries Is Desire eternally feeding Despair On the flesh, or the blood, that forever supplies Life more than enough, to keep fresh in repair The death ever dying, which yet never dies. A REMONSTRANCE. I. Deem, if thou wilt, that I am all, and worse Than all, they bid thee deem that I must be. But, ah ! wilt thou desert love's universe, Deserting me? A REMONSTRANCE. 53 II. Not for my sake, be mine unworth forgiven, But for thine own. Since I, despite my dearth Of all that made thee, what thou art, my Heaven, Am still thine Earth ; III. Still thy love's only habitable star; "Whose element engender'd, and embosoms All thoughts, all feelings, all desires, which are Love's roots and blossoms. IV. Who will hold dear the ashes of the days ^ Burn'd out on altars deem'd no more divine ? Rests there of thy soul's wealth enough to raise A new god's shrine ? Who will forgive thy cheek its faded bloom, Save he whose kisses that blanch'd rose hath fed Thine eyes, the stain of tears— save he for whom Those tears were shed ? VI. Despite the blemisht beauty of thy brow, Thou would' st be lonely could'st thou love again ; For love renews the beautiful. But thou Hast only pain. 54 A REMONSTRANCE, VII. How wilt thou bear from pity to implore What once thy power from rapture could command? How wilt thou stretch — who wast a Queen of yore — A suppliant's hand?— VIII. Even of thy pride be poor enough to ask Love's purchased shelter, charitably chill, Yet hast thou strength to recommence the task Of pardoning still ? For who will prize in thee love's loss of all Love hath to give save pardon for love wrong'd, Unless that pardon be, whate'er befall Love's pride, prolong'd ? And thou — to whom demanding all that I Can claim no more, wilt thou henceforth extend Forgiveness on forgiveness, with that sigh Which shuns the end ? Where wilt thou find the unworthier lips than mine To plead for pardon with a prayer more lowly ? To whom else, pardoning much, become divine By pardoning w holly ? — A REMONSTRANCE, 55 XII. Ah, if thy heart can pardon yet, why yet Should not its latest pardon be for me ? And, if thou wili not pardon, canst thou set Thy future free From the unpardon'd past, and so forget me ? If not, — forgive me for thine own sad sake; Else, having left me, thou would'st still regret me, And still would'st take XIV. Revenge for that regret on thine own bosom, Revenge on others for the failure, found In them, to rear transplanted love to blossom On blighted ground. XV. As lion, tho' by lion wounded, still Doth miss the boisterous pastime of his kind. Or wild sea-eagle, though with broken quill, Clipt, and confined. And fed on dainty fare among the doves, Doth miss the stormy sea-wind and the brine, So would'st thou miss, amid all worthier loves, The unworth of mine. 56 MEETING AGAIN. XVII. Then, if the flush of love's first faith be wan, And thou wilt love again, again love me, For what I am — no Saint, but still a man That worships thee. MEETING AGAIN. Yes, I remember the white rose. And, since then, the young ivy has grown, From your window we could not reach it, and now it is over the stone. It was yonder that I first met you. Well, time hath his own stern cures ! And Alice's eyes are deeper, and her hair has grown like yours. Your voice, too, — that is alter'd. But there's something here amiss When it is not well to speak kindly. And the olives are ripe, by this. I had fancied, and fear'd . . . but it matters not ! That was my fault, I suppose. Good-night ! it is night so soon now. Look there, you have dropp'd your rose. EARTH'S HA VINGS. 57 Nay, I have one that is wither'd, and dearer to me. I came To say good-night, little Alice. She does not remember my name ! It is but the heat that is making my head and my heart ache so. I never was strong in the old time, as the others were, you know. Is it late? is it late, Irene? The old name sounds so dear ! 'Tis the last time I shall use it. You need show neither anger nor fear. Good-night, good-night, little Alice ! Nay, lady, I need no light. I remember the road, and I noticed the road is unalter'd. Good-night ! EARTH'S HAVINGS. (Song.) Weary the cloud falleth out of the sky, Dreary the leaf lieth low. All things must come to the earth by-and-by, Out of which all things grow. 58 EARTH'S HAVINGS. Let the wild wind laugh and whistle Aloof in the lonesome wood : In our garden let the thistle Start where the rose-tree stood : Let the rotting moss fall rotten With the rain-drops from the eaves: Let the dead past lie forgotten In his grave with the yellow leaves. Weary the cloud falleth out of the sky, Dreary the leaf lieth low. All things must come to the earth by-and by, Out of which all things grow. And again the hawthorn pale Shall blossom sweet i' the Spring ; And again the nightingale In the deep blue nights shall sing : And seas of the wind shall wave In the light of the golden grain : But the love that is gone to his grave Shall never return again. Weary the cloud falleth out of the sky, Dreary the leaf lieth low All things must come to the earth by-and-by, Out of which all things grow. THE LAST FAREWELL, 59 THE LAST FAREWELL. Away ! away ! in those wild eyes Repress the tears whose right is o'er To flow for me. Wrung hands, and sighs, And self-rebukes can not restore What is no more. II. Vain are all words, all weepings vain ! We met too soon : we part too late. Still wear, as best thou can'st, the chain Thine own hands forged about thy fate, Who could'st hot wait. Be happy ! Haunt where music plays, And find no pain in music's tone. Be fair ! Nor blush when others praise That beauty, scarcely now thine own. What's done is done. Take, if thou can'st, from off thy youth The mark of mine, which burns there yet. Take from that unremembering mouth The seal which there mine own hath set. And so, forget, 6o THE LAST FA RE WELL. Tho' unforgot ! It is thy doom To bear henceforth the heavy weight Of my forgiveness to the tomb. I cannot save thee from thy fate; Nor reinstate Thy ruin'd pride, till in my grave Love's broken bond shall buried be. And I, that would have died to save Thy heart's lost freedom, may not free This load from thee. Farewell, till life's mistake is over ! When downward doth thy Genius turn His wasted torch, and half uncover The date upon the funeral urn, I will return. Then in the dark, the doubt, the fear. Amid the Spirits come to take thee, Shall mine to thine again be near, And life's forgiveness mine shall make thee, When death doth wake thee. THE DESERTED PALACE. THE LAST ASSURANCE. Fear me no more. The last wild words are spoken. What heart have I, who worship'd once, to blame thee? Never shall word or deed of mine betoken The bond 'twixt thee and me which thou hast broken. In the lone years to come my lips shall name thee Never, child, never ! And, if unprized applause, or scorned aspersion Should waft mine own name to thine ears again. Know I have triumph'd, — not by thine exertion. Or fail'd, — but not from thy forgiven desertion. For every link is lost between us twain, Forever, child, forever I THE DESERTED PALACE. I. Broken are the Palace windows, Rotting is the Palace floor. And the damp wind thro' the arras Sighs, and swings the creaking door. But it only starts the white owl Perch'd upon a monarch's throne, And the hungry rat that's gnawing Harpst rings tuneless every one. 62 THE BURT ED HEART, Dare you linger here at nightfall, When the horned owls do shout, And the bat, the newt, the viper, And the dead men's ghosts come out ? Peep not, curious fool ! nor enter Here where nobler things have been. Lest you find a Phantom, sitting Throned where sat, long since, a Queen. THE BURIED HEART. This heart, you would not have, 1 laid up in a grave Of song : with love enwound it, And set wild fancies blowing round it. Then I to others gave it ; Because you would not have it. " See you keep it well," I said, " This heart's sleeping — is not dead — But will wake some future day. Keep and guard it while you may." All great Sorrows, — sceptred some. With gold crowns upon their heads, Others that bare-footed roam. Sadly telling cypress beads. THE BURIED HEART. 63 Pilgrims with no settled home, Poorly clad in Palmer's weeds, These from dismal dongeons come, Faint and wan for want of food, Those by many a bitter dart From lost battlefields pursued, — Each one clad in his own mood Each one claiming his own part,— A forlorn and famisht brood, — Came to take my heart. Then, in holy ground they set it, With melodious weepings wet it. And revered it, as they found it, With wild fancies blowing round it. And this heart (you would not have) Being not dead, though in the grave, Work'd miracles and marvels strange, And heal'd many maladies : Giving sight to seal'd-up eyes, And legs to lame men sick for change. The fame of it grew great and greater. Then did you bethink you, later, •• How hath this heart, I would not take, — This weak heart, a child might break — Such glory gotten ? Me he gave it : Mine this heart, and I will have it." Ah, too late ! For crowds exclaim'd ^ " Ours 'tis now : and hath been claim'd. Moreover, where it lies, the spot Is holy ground : so enter not 64 HOW THESE SONGS WERE MADE. None but men of mournful mind — Men to darken'd days resign'd ; Equal scorn of Saint and Devil ; Poor and outcast ; halt and blind ; Exiles from Life's golden revel ; Gnavi'ing at the bitter rind Of old griefs ; or else, confined In proud cares, to serve and grind — May enter: whom this heart shall cure. But go thou by : thou art not poor : Nor defrauded of thy lot. Bless thyself: but enter not I " HOW THESE SONGS WERE MADE. I SAT lovi^ down, at midnight, in a vale Mysterious with the silende of blue pines: White-cloven by a snaky river- tail, Uncoil'd from tangled wefts of silver twines. Out of a crumbling castle, on a spike Of splinter'd rock, a mile of changeless shade Gorged half the landscape. Down a dismal dyke Of black hills the sluiced moonbeams stream'd, and staid. THE PORTRAIT. 65 I pluck'd blue mugwort, livid mandrakes, balls Of blossom'd nightshade, heads of hemlock, long White grasses, grown by mountain pedestals, To make ingredients fit, for many a song Of fragrant sadness, — to embalm the Past — The corpse-cold Past — that it should not decay; But in dark vaults of Memory, to the last, Endure unchanged : for in some future day I will bring my new love to look at it (Laying aside her gay robes for a moment) That, seeing what love came to, she may sit Silent awhile, and muse, but make no comment. THE PORTRAIT. The man wh told this tale is not Either you, or I, good friend; Who may therefore, glad of our better lot, Hear his story told to the end. I. Midnight past! Not a sound of aught Thro' the silent house, but the wind at his prayers. I sat by the dying fire, and thought Of the dear dead woman upstairs. 711 66 THE PORTRAIT, II. A night of tears ! for the gusty rain Had ceased, but the eaves dripping yet; And the moon look'd forth, as tho' in pain. With her face all white and wet : III. Nobody with me, my watch to keep, But the friend of my bosom, the man I love: And grief had sent him fast to sleep In the chamber up above. IV. Nobody else, in the country place All round, that knew of my loss beside, But the good young Priest with the Raphael-face Who confess'd her when she died. That good young Priest is of gentle nerve. And my grief had moved him beyond controul ; For his lip grew white, as I could observe, When he speeded her parting soul. I sat by the dreary hearth alone : I thought of the pleasant days of yore : I said '* the staff of my life is gone: The woman I love is no more. THE PORTRAIT, 67 " Gem-clasp'd, on her bosom my portrait lies, Which next to her heart she used to wear- It is steep'd in the light of her loving eyes, And the sweets of her bosom and hair." And I said—** the thing is precious to me: They will bury her soon in the churchyard clay: It lies on her heart, and lost must be, If I do not take it away." I lighted my lamp at the dying flame, And crept up the stairs that creak'd for fright, Till into the chamber of death I came, Where she lay all in white. X. The moon shone over her winding sheet. There, stark she lay on her carven bed : Seven burning tapers about her feet, And seven about her head. XI. As I stretch'd my hand, I held my breath ; I turn'd, as I drew the curtains apart : I dared not look on the face of death : I knew where to find her heart. 68 THE PORTRAIT. I thought, at first, as my touch fell there, It had warm'd that heart to life, with love; For the thing I touch'd was warm, I swear, And I could feel it move. Twas the hand of a man, that was moving slow O'er the heart of the dead, — from the other side ; And at once the sweat broke over my brow, " Who is robbing the corpse? " I cried. XIV. Opposite me, by the tapers' light. The friend of my bosom, the man I loved, Stood over the corpse, and all as white, And neither of us moved. What do you here, my friend ? " . . . The man Look'd first at me, and then at the dead. There is a portrait here . . . " he began; "There is. It is mine," I said. Said the friend of my bosom, "yours, no doubt, The portrait was, till a month ago. When this suffering angel took that out. And placed mine there, I know." THE PORTRAIT, 69 XVII. This woman, she loved me well," said I. "A month ago," said my friend to me: And in your throat," I groan 'd, "you lie ! " He answer 'd . . . "let us see," " Enough ! " I return'd, '• let the dead decide And whose soever the portrait prove, His shall it be, when the cause is tried, Where Death is arraign'd by Love." We found the portrait, there in its place : We open'd it by the tapers' shine: The gems were all unchanged : the face Was— neither his nor mine. XX. One nail drives out another, at least ! The portrait is not ours," I cried, 'But our friend's, the Raphael-faced young Priest, Who confess'd her when she died." 70 GOING BACK AGAIN. GOING BACK AGAIN. I. I dream'd that I walk'd in Italy, When the day was going down, By a water that silently wander'd by Thro' an old dim-lighted town, II. Till I come to a palace fair to see. Wide open the windows were. My love at a window sat ; and she Beckon'd me up the stair. III. I roam'd thro' many a corridor, And many a chamber of state : Dim and silent was every floor, And the day was growing late. IV. When I came to the little rose-colour'd room From the curtains outflew a bat. The window was open : and in the gloom My love at the window sat. She sat with her guitar on her knee, But she was not singing a note, For some one had drawn (ah, who could it be?) A knife across her throat TPVO OUT OF THE CROWD. fl TWO OUT OF THE CROWD. One circle of all its golden hours The flitting hand of the timepiece there, In its close white bower of china flowers, Hath rounded unaware : II. While the firelight, flung from the flickering wall On the large and limpid mirror behind, Hath redden'd and darken'd down o'er all, As the fire itself declined. III. Something of pleasure, and something of pain There lived in that sinking light. What is it? Faces I never shall look at again, In places you never will visit, IV. Reveal'd themselves from each faltering ember, While, under a palely-wavering flame, Half of the years life aches to remember Reappear'd and died as they came. V. To its dark Forever an hour hath gone Since either you or I have spoken: Each of us might have been sitting alone In a silence so unbroken. ?2 Tl^^O OUT OF THE CROWD, VI. I never shall know what made me look up (In this cushion'd chair so soft and deep, By the table where, over the empty cup, I was leaning, half asleep) To catch a gleam on the picture up there Of the saint in the wilderness under the oak : And a light on the brow of the bronze Voltaire, Like the ghost of a cynical joke; To mark, in each violet, velvet fold Of the curtains that fall 'twixt room and room, The drowsy flush of the red light roll'd Thro' their drapery's glowing gloom. O'er the Rembrandt there — the Caracci here — Flutter warmly the ruddy and wavering hues; And St. Anthony over his book has a leer At the little French beauty by Greuze. There — the Leda, weigh'd over her white swan s back. By the weight of her passionate kiss, ere it falls; On the ebony cabinet, glittering black Thro' its ivory cups and balls : TPVO OUT OF THE CROWD. 7Z Your scissors and thimble, and work laid away, With its silks, in the scented rose- wood box; The journals, that tell truth every day, And that novel of Paul de Kock's : The flowers in the vase, with their bells shut close In a dream of the far green fields where they grev The cards of the visiting people and shows In that bowl with the sea-green hue. Your shawl, with a queenly droop of its own, Hanging over the arm of the crimson chair : And, last — yourself, as silent as stone, In a glow of the firelight there ! I thought you were reading all this time. And was it some wonderful page of your book Telling of love, with its glory and crime, That has left you that sorrowful look ? For a tear from those dark, deep, humid orbs, 'Neath their lashes, so long, and soft, and sleek, All the light in your lustrous eyes absorbs, As it trembles over your check. 74 TIVO OUT OF THE CROWD. Were you thinking how we, sitting side by side, Might be dreaming miles and miles apart? Or if lips could meet over a gulf so wide As separates heart from heart ? XVII. Ah, well ! when time is flown, how it fled It is better neither to ask nor tell. Leave the dead moments to bury their dead. Let us kiss and break the spell ! XVIII. Come, arm in arm, to the window here; Draw the thick curtain, and see how, to-night, In the clear and frosty atmosphere, The lamps are burning bright. XIX. All night, and for ever, in yon great town. The heaving Boulevart flares and roars; And the streaming Life flows up and down From its hundred open doors. XX. It is scarcely so cold, but I and you. With never a friend to find us out. May stare at the shops for a moment or two, And wander a while about. TIVO OUT OF THE CROWD. 75 xxr. For when in the crowd we have taken our place, ( — Just two more lives to the mighty street there !) Knowing no single form or face Of the men and women we meet there, — Knowing, and known of, none in the whole Of that crowd all round, but our two selves only, We shall grow nearer, soul to soul. Until we feel less lonely. Here are your bonnet and gloves, dear. There — How stately you look in that long rich shawl ! Put back your beautiful golden hair. That never a curl may fall. Stand in the firelight ... so, ... as you were— Oh my heart, how fearfully like her she seem'd ! Hide me up from my own despair, And the ghost of a dream I dream 'd I 76 BLUEBEARD, BLUEBEARD. Fair in the love of Fatima (A maiden like an evening star) Lay hid this stain'd and crooked life, As in its sheath my scimitar : For fair with flow'rets damascene The sheath is traced and twined about. But on the blade are blood-spots black That time and rust will not wear out. III. Beneath the hot pomegranate boughs At sunset here alone we sat. To call back something from that hour, I'd give away my Caliphat. IV. — Am I not fair? " " As evening air," I answer'd. "Fresh?" *' As April's sky. Whate'er I be," she whisper'd me, •• I love thee, and all thine am L" BLUEBEARD. 77 V. '• Be satisfied." "Alas!" I sigh' J. And " wherefore dost thou sigh ? " she said. " Because I trace in thy fair face The likeness of a face that's dead." VI. Rash question, rash reply ! The rest Is writ in tears where all who read Revile my name. Ah Fatima, Why did'st thou seek to know my dead ? Large realms were thine, with one reserve Full many a chamber, many a hall. Thy wandering thought was free to rove : I gave thee up the keys of all. VIII. One only key I warn'd thee, spare To use ; because it opes a door That's shut for thy sake and for mine, But, open'd once, will shut no more : IX. And thou that door hast oped, and thou Hast gazed upon the dead, and I That most thy fault, rash child, deplore, Must needs inflict its penalty ! 78 RESURRECTION. FATIMA. 1. A YEAR ago, thy cheek was bright As oleander buds that break The dark of yonder dells by night Above the lamplit lake. II. Pale as a snowdrop in Cashmere Thy face to-night, fair infant, seems. Ah, wretched child I what dost thou hear. When T talk in my dreams ? — RESURRECTION. At Paris it was, at the Opera there ; — And she look'd like a Queen of old time that night, With the wreathed pearls in her raven hair, And her breast with the diamond bright. II. Side by side in our box we sat, Together, my bride betroth'd and I : My gaze was fix'd on my opera-hat, And hers on the stage hard by : RESURRECTION, 79 III. And both were silent, and both were sad. Queenly she lean'd on her full white arm, With that regal, indolent air she had ; So confident of her charm ! IV. I have not a doubt she was thinking then Of her former lord, good soul that he was, Who died the richest, and roundest of men, The Marquis of Carabas. That narrow gate to the kingdom of heaven, He was not too portly, I trust, to pass. I wish him well, for the jointure given To my lady of Carabas. Meanwhile, I was thinking of my first love, As I had not been thinking of aught for years, Till over mine eyes there began to move Something that felt like tears. I thought of the dress that she wore last time, When we stood, 'neath the cypress tree together, In that lost land, in her own solt clime. In the crimson evening weather, 8o RESURRECTION, VIII. By the broken wall, on the brown grass plot; And her warm white neck in its golden chain And her full, soft hair, wound into a knot, And falling loose again : And the jasmin-flower in her fair young breast, (O the faint sweet smell of that jasmin-flower !) And the last bird singing alone to his nest, And the first star over blie tower. I thought of our little quarrels and strife, And the letter that brought me back my ring. And it all seem'd then — in the waste of life — Such a very little thing ! For I thought of her grave below the hill. Which the sentinel cypress tree stands over. And I thought ..." were she only living still. How I could forgive her, and love her ! " And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour, And of how, after all, old things were best, That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower Which she used to wear in her breast. RESURRECTION. 8i It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet, It made me creep, and it made me cold ! Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet Where a mummy is half unroll'd. XIV. And I turn'd and look'd. She was sitting there In a dim box over the stage ; and drest In the dress that I knew, — with that full soft hair, And that jasmin in her breast. XV. She was there, and I was here : And the glittering horseshoe curved between ; And from here to there, and from tier to tier, — From my bride that was to have been. XVI. To my early love, with her eyes down-cast, And over her blush-rose face the shade, (In short, from the Future back to the Past) There was but a step to be made. XVII. To my early love from my future bride One moment I look'd. Then I stole to the door. And traversed the passage, and down at her side I was sitting a moment more. 712 82 RESURRECTION. My thinking of her, or the music's strain, Or something that never will be exprest, Had brought her back from the grave again And brought her back to my breast. She is not dead, and she is not wed ! But she loves me now, and she loved me then ! And the very first words that her sweet lips said, My heart grew youthful again. The Marchioness there, of Carabas, She is wealthy, and young, and handsome still, And but for her . . . well, we'll let that pass, She may marry whomever she will. But I will marry my own first love. With her blush-rose face : for old things are best And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above The brooch in my lady's breast. The world is fill'd with folly and sin, And love must cling where it can, I say: For Beauty is easy enough to win ; But one isn't loved every day. THE CHESS-BOARD. 83 xxiri. And I think, in the lives of most women and men, There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, If only the dead could find out when To come back, and be forgiven. THE CHESS-BOARD. Irene, do you yet remember. Ere we were grown so sadly wise, Those evenings in the bleak December, Curtain'd warm from the snowy weather, When you and I play'd chess together, Checkmated by each other's eyes? Ah, still I see your soft white hand Hovering warm o'er Queen and Knight. Brave Pawns in valiant battle stand : The double Castles guard the wings : The Bishop, bent on distant things, Moves, sidling, through the fight. Our fingers touch: our glances meet, And falter ; falls your golden hair Against my cheek ; your bosom sweet Is heaving. Down the field, your Queen Rides slow her soldiery all between, And checks me unaware. Ah me ! the little battle's done, Disperst is all its chivalry; Full many a move, since then, have we 84 FATA MORGANA. 'Mid Life's perplexing chequers made, And many a game with Fortune play'd, — What is it we have won ? This, this at least— if this alone;— That never, never, never more. As in those old still nights of yore, (Ere we were grown so sadly wise) Can you and I shut out the skies, Shut out the world, and wintry weather, And, eyes exchanging warmth with eyes, Play chess, as then we play'd, together ! FATA MORGANA. When the latest strife is lost, and all is done with, Ere we slumber in the spirit and the brain. We drowse back, in dreams, to days that life begun with, And their tender light returns to us again. I have cast away the tangle and the torment Of the cords that bound my life up in a mesh : And the pulse begins to throb that long lay dormant 'Neath their pressure; and the old wounds bleed afresh. I am touch'd again with shades of early sadness. Like the summer-cloud's light shadow in my hair: I am thrill'd again with breaths of boyish gladness, Like the scent of some last primrose on the air. FATA MORGANA. 85 And again she comes, with all her silent graces, The lost woman of my youth, yet unpossest: And her cold face so unlike the other faces Of the women whose dead lips I since have prest. The motion and the fragrance of her garments Seem about me, all the day long, in the room : And her face, with its bewildering old endearments, Comes at night, between the curtains, in the gloom. VI. When vain dreams are stirr'd with sighing, near the morning, To my own her phantom lips I feel approach : And her smile, at eve, breaks o'er me without warning From its speechless, pale, perpetual reproach. When Life's dawning glimmer yet had all the tint there Of the orient, in the freshness of the grass, (Ah, what feet since then have trodden out the print there !) Did her soft, her silent footsteps fall, and pass. VIII. They fell lightly, as the dew falls, 'mid ungather'd Meadow-flowers ; and lightly linger'd with the dew. But the dew is gone, the grass is dried and wither'd, And the traces of those steps have faded too. 86 FATA MORGANA. Other footsteps fall about me — faint, uncertain, In the shadow of the world, as it recedes: Other forms peer thro' the half-uplifted curtain Of that mystery which hangs behind the creeds. X. What is gone is gone for ever. And new fashions May replace old forms which nothing can restore : But I turn from sighing back departed passions With that pining at the bosom as of yore. XI. I remember to have murmur'd, morn and even, " Though the Earth dispart these Earthlies, face from face, Yet the Heavenlies shall surely join in Heaven, For the spirit hath no bonds in time or space : '• Where it listeth, there it bloweth; all existence Is its region; and it houseth, where it will. I shall feel her through immeasurable distance. And grow nearer, and be gather'd to her, still. XIII. " If I fail to find her out by her gold tresses, Brows, and breast, and lips, and language of sweet strains, I shall know her by the traces of dead kisses. And that portion of myself whicli she retains." FATA MORGANA. By But my being is confused with new experience, And changed to something other than it was; And the Future with the Past is set at variance; And Life falters 'neath the burthens which it has. XV. Famisht hopes press fast behind me, weakly wailing: Faint before me fleets the good I have not done: And my search for her may still be unavailing 'Mid the spirits that are pass'd beyond the sun. CONSOLATION. CONSOLATION. When I perceive how slight and poor appears (Though with sad care and strong compulsion brought Down ranged rhymes with strenuous search of thought) The express'd result of my most passionate years; Remembering, too, from what divinest spheres Stoop'd many a starry visitant, and taught My spirit at her toils, — how round her wrought Strong Raptures, Sorrows, Splendours rich in tears, My whole heart fails me. Then an inward voice Replies, "Possess thyself, and be content. Life's best is bound not by the utterance Of any word, nor may in sound be spent, To win back echoes out of hollow chance. What thou hasty^// is thine. If much, rejoice." A FOOTSTEP. 89 A FOOTSTEP. Within my mind there is a garden : part Sprung from the greenest stray aways of Spring In a dewy time : part by long labouring Of toilful Love, and many a culturing art Learn'd of skill'd Grief in patientness of heart, Nor without weariness, wrought. Deep-blossoming Growths of long-planted pain cold shadow fling, Sun-proof to every casual golden dart, Over one aspect of this haunt. Elsewhere Full sunlight sleeps for ever. Many a day I lose myself about this quiet place, Following one footstep ever the same way. Dear, 'tis thy ghostly footstep that I trace, But thee thyself I find not here nor there. 90 REQUIESCAT. REQUIESCAT. I SOUGHT lo build a deathless monument To my dead love. Therein I meant to place All precious things, and rare : as Nature blent All single sweetnesses in one sweet face. I could not build it worthy her mute merit, Nor worthy her white brows and holy-eyes, Nor worthy of her perfect and pure spirit, Nor of my own immortal memories. But, as some rapt artificer of old, To enshrine the ashes of a virgin saint, Might scheme to work with ivory, and fine gold, And carven gems, and legended and quaint Seraphic heraldies; searching far lands, Orient and Occident, for all things rare, To consecrate the toil of reverent hands. And m.ake his labour, like her virtue, fair ; Knowing no beauty beautiful as she, And all his labour void, Init to beguile A sacred sorrow ; so I work'd. Ah, see Here are the fragments of my shatter'd pile ! I keep them, and the flowers that sprang between Their broken workmanship — the flowers and weeds ! Sleep soft among the violets, O my Queen, Lie calm among my ruin'd thoughts and deeds ! MADAME LA MARQUISE. 91 MADAME LA MARQUISE. I. The folds of her wine-dark violet dress Glow over the sofa fall on fall, As she sits in the air of her loveliness, With a smile for each and for all. II. Half of her exquisite face in the shade, Which o'er it the screen in her soft hand flings ; Through the gloom glows her hair in its odorous braid In the firelight are sparkling her rings. As she leans — the slow smile half shut up in her eyes, Beams the silky, long silk soft lashes beneath ; Through her crimson lips, stirred by her faint replies, Breaks one gleam of her pearl-white teeth. IV. As she leans — where your eye, by her beauty subdued. Droops — from under warm fringes of broidery white- The slightest of feet, silken-slippered, protrude For one moment, then slip out of sight. As I bend o'er her bosom to tell her the news. The faint scent of her hair, the approach of her cheek, The vague warmth of her breath, all my senses suffuse With Herself; and I tremble to speak. 92 MADAME LA MARQUISE. VI. As she sits in the curtained, Uixurious light Of that room with its porcelain, and pictures, and flowers, When the dark day's half done, and the snow flutters white From the windows in feathery showers, VII. All without is so cold — 'neath the low leaden sky ! Down the bald, empty street, hke a ghost the gen- darme Stalks surly; a distant carriage hums by, All within is so bright and so warm. Here we talk of the schemes and the scandals of court, How the courtesan pushes; the charlatan thrives; We put horns on the heads of our friends, just for sport. Put intrigues in the heads of their wives. Her warm hand, at parting, so strangely thrilled mine, That at dinner I scarcely remark what they say. Drop the ice in my soup, spill the salt in my wine, Then go yawn at my favourite play. But she drives after noon : — then's the time to behold her, With her fair face half hid, like a ripe peeping rose, 'Neath that veil; o'er the velvets and furs which enfold her. Leaning back with a queenly repose. MADAME LA MARQUISE. 93 XI. As she glides up the sunlight 1 — you'd say she was made. To loll back in a carriage, all day with a smile, And at dusk, on a sofa, to lean in the shade Of soft lamps, and be woo'd for awhile. XII. Could we find out her heart through that velvet and lace; Can it beat without ruffling her sumptuous dress; She will show us her shoulder, her bosom, her face, But what the heart's like, we must guess. With live women and men to be found in the world — Live with sorrow and sin, live with pain and with passion — Who could live with a doll, tho' its locks should be curled, And its petticoats trimmed in the fashion ? XIV. *Tis so fair ! — would my bite, if I bit it draw blood ? Will it cry if I hurt it ? or scold if I kiss ? Is it made, with its beauty of wax or of wood ? Is it worth while to guess at all this? 94 MIDGES. MIDGES. I. She is talking aesthetics, the dear clever creature; Upon man and his functions she speaks with a smile, Her ideas are divine upon Art, upon Nature, The Sublime, the Heroic, and Mr. Carlyle. I no more am found worthy to join in the talk, now, So I follow with my surreptitious cigar. Whilst she leads our poetical friend up the walk now, Who quotes Wordsworth and praises her " Thoughts on a Star ! " Meanwhile, there is dancing in yonder green bower, A swarm of young midges. They dance high and low, 'Tis a sweet little species that lives but an hour, And the eldest was born half an hour ago. One impulsive young midge, I hear ardently pouring. In the ears of a shy little wanton in gauze, His eternal devotion ; his ceaseless adoring, Which shall last till the universe breaks from its laws. V. His passion is not, he declares, the mere fever Of a rapturous moment. It knows no control ; It will burn in his breast through existence for ever, Immutably fixed in the deeps of his soul. MIDGES, 95 VI. She wavers— she fktters — male midges are fickle^ Dare she trust him her future ? — she asks with a sigh, He implores — and a tear is beginning to trickle, She is weak — they embrace and — the lovers pass by. VII. While they pass me — down here on a rose leaf has lighted A pale midge, his feelers all drooping and torn, His existence is withered ; its future is blighted. His hopes are betrayed and his heart is forlorn. VIII. By the midge his heart trusted, his heart is deceived now, In the virtue of midges he no more believes From love in its falsehood, once wildly believed now. He will bury his desolate life in the leaves. His friends would console him — the noblest, sagest Of midges have held that a midge lives again ; In Eternity, say they, the strife thou now wagest With sorrow shall cease — but their words are in vain. Can eternity bring back the seconds now wasted In hopeless desire? or restore to his breast, The belief he has lost, with the bliss he once tasted, Embracing the midge that his being loved best ? 96 MIDGES. His friends would console him — the masses adore him: Many hundred long seconds he still has to live ; A beneficent public career is before him, Let him seek in the great world of action to strive ! There is Fame — there's Ambition ! and grander than either, There is Freedom — the progress and march of the race. But to Freedom his breast beats no longer, and neither Ambition nor action her loss can replace. If the time had been spent in acquiring aesthetics I have squandered in learning this language of midges, There might, for my friend in her peripatetics, Have been now two ones to help o'er the bridges. As it is, I'll report her the whole conversation. It would have been longer, but somehow or other (In the midst of that misanthrope's long lamentation) A midge in my right eye became a young mother. Since my friend is so clever, I'll ask her to tell me "Why the least living thing (a mere midge in the egg !) Can make a man's tears flow as now it befell me. Oh, you dear clever woman, explain it, I beg I GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH. 97 GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH. I. A LITTLE longer in the light, love, let me be ! The air is warm. I hear the cuckoo's last good-night float from the copse below the Farm. A little longer, Sister sweet — your hand in mine — on this old seat ! In yon red gable, which the rose creeps round and o'er, your casement shines Against the yellow west, o'er those few sinuous, melan- choly pines. The long, loud day is nearly done. How silent all the place is grown ! From the warm upland comes a gust made fragrant with the brown hay there. The meek cows, with their white horns thrust across the hedge, stand still and stare. The steaming horses from the wains droop o'er the tank their plaited manes. And o'er yon hill-side brown and barren (where you and I, as children, play'd. Starting the rabbit to his warren), I hear the sandy, shrill cascade Leap down upon the vale, and spill cool sound and light i' the lonesome Mill, 713 98 GOOD-NIGHT IN THE TORCH, O can it be for nothing only that this fair world was shown to me? Or but to leave the heart more lonely for loss of beauty ? Can it be ? O closer, closer, Sister dear . . . nay, I have kist away that tear. God bless you, for the tender thought which only upon tears could rise I God bless you, for the love that sought to hide them in those drooping eyes. Whose lids I kiss ! . . . poor lids, so red ! but let my kiss fall there instead. VII. Yes! sad, indeed, it seems each night,— and sadder. Sister, for your sake, — To watch the last low lingering light, and know not where the morn may break. To-night we sit together here. To-morrow night will come ... ah, where? VIII. There's not a flower, there's not a tree, in this old garden where we sit, But what some fragrant memory is closed and folded up in it. To-night the dog-rose smells as wild, as fresh, as when I was a child ! GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH. 99 'Tis eight years since (do you forget?) we set those lilies near the wall : A blue-eyed infant, you ! even yet I seem to see the ringlets fall — The golden ringlets, blown behind your shoulders in the merry wind ! X. Ah me ! old times, — the sweet, the sting ! And oft, by yonder green old gate The field shows through, in morns of Spring, an eager boy, I paused elate With all sweet fancies loosed from school. And oft, you know, when eves were cool In August, bold as two young rooks perch'd in a belfry by themselves, We, chatting of our favourite books, light-hearted over- weening elves. Dealt praise or blame to poets gone, here in the wood- bine-porch alone. Farewell, my epic — I began when life seem'd long, though longer art, — And all the glorious deeds of man made golden riot in my heart — Eight books . ... it will not number nine ! I die before my heroine. loo GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH, Sister ! they say that drowning men in one wild moment can recall Their whole life long, and feel again the pain — the bliss — that throng'd it all. Last night those phantoms of the past again came crowding round me fast. Near morning, when the lamp was low, against the wall they seem'd to flit ; And, as the wavering light would glow or fall, they came and went with it. The ghost of boyhood seem'd to gaze down the dark verge of vanisht days. Once more the garden, where she walk'd on summer eves to tend her flowers, Once more the lawn, where first we talk'd of future years in twilight hours, Arose ; once more she seem'd to pass before me, in the waving grass, To that old terrace ; her bright hair about her warm neck all undone. And waving on the balmy air, with tinges of the dying sun; One lone bright star in the broad west; one late bird singing near its nest. GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH. loi XVII. So lovely, so beloved ! Oh fair as though that sun had never set Which staid upon her golden hair, in dreams I seem to see her yet : To see her in that old green place — the same husht smiling cruel face ! XVIII. That hair, not unlike yours — as bright, but with a warmer golden tinge I Those eyes, a somewhat deeper light, that dream'd beneath a longer fringe ! And still that strange grave smile she had stays in my soul and keeps it sad. From little things— a star, a flower — that touch'd us with the self-same thought, My passion deepen'd hour by hour, until to such fierce heat 'twas wrought, As, shrivelling over every nerve, crumbled the outworks of reserve. I told her then, in that wild time, the love I knew she long had seen; The accusing pain that burn'd like crime, yet left me nobler than I had been ; What matter with what words I woo'd her? She said I had misunderstood her. I02 GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH, Misunderstood ! misunderstood ! . , . Ay, not her only, but thereby All that souls say in flesh and blood ! misunderstanding till I die The meaning of that face, the while my heart lay aching in its smile. Misunderstood? misunderstood? ay, life, love, all things, when, alone, I heard the crashing of my blood on the brute silence 1 She was gone. The stinging sunlight stabb'd me through the leaves. Above, the blind, bright blue XXIII. Laugh'd, with no meaning, in my face. And nothing could I realise Save a dull strangeness, — the disgrace of a stunn'd impotent surprise. The great noon gaped : blithe birds were shrill. The world went on ; my heart stood still. XXIV. My heart stands still, the world goes on, the years go by, and now a mild Unmurmuring mind hath sorrow won from memory. I have seen her child, — The self- same eyes its mother had,— that once had power to make me mad I good-:night in the porch, 103 Dark violet eyes whose glances, deep with April-hints of sunny tears, 'Neath long soft lashes laid asleep, seem'd all too thoughtful for her years ! As though from mine her gaze had caught the secret of some mournful thought. XXVI. But when she spake, her father's air broke o'er her . . . that clear confident voice ! Some happy souls there are that wear their nature [ lightly ; these rejoice ] The world by living, and receive from all men more j than what they give. XXVII. One handful of their buoyant chaff excels our hoards of careful grain. Justly : for one man's joyous laugh augments earth's joy, — is all men's gain. Scorn not the gift of gladness given to those bright f souls. It is from Heaven. I XXVIIT. And, there, are many mansions made : and, here, are many ways : and one Walks safest in the sheltering shade, another in the cheering sun. His sheep the Heavenly Shepherd guides, and pasture fit for each provides, I04 GOOD- NIGHT IN THE PORCH. With care for all. And some His showers shall whiten, some His suns shall warm. Our pains are portioned to our powers. His hand may hurt, but cannot harm. But, if the cross be on us laid, and our soul's crown of thorns be made, Then, sure, 'twere best to bear the cross; nor lightly fling the thorns behind, Lest we grow happy by the loss of what was noblest in the mind. Here — in the ruins of my years — Master, I thank Thee, through these tears ! XXXI. Thou suffered'st here, and did'st not fail. Thy bleeding feet these paths have trod. But Thou wert strong, and I am frail ; and I am man, and Thou art God. How I have striven, Thou know'st. Forgive how I have fail'd, who saw'st me strive. XXXII. It was in the far foreign lands this sickness came upon me first. By hot winds scorching desert sands this fever of the south was nurst. Until it reach'd some vital part. I die not of a brokeri heart. GOOD-NIGHT IN THE PORCH. 105 XXXIII. O think not that ! If I could live . . . there's much to live for, worthy life. It is not for what fame could give — though that I scorn not — but the strife Were noble for its own sake too. I thought that I had much to do — XXXIV. But God begins, child, where men end. , . . Ilark ! 'twas the bittern, as he rose Against the glaring river-bend. How red your little casement glows I The night falls fast. How lonely, dear, this bleak old house will look next year ! XXXV. So sad a thought? ... ah, yes! I know it is not well to brood on this : And yet — such thoughts will come and go, unbidden. "Tis that you should miss, My darling, one familiar tone of this weak voice when I am gone. Again, that bittern's good-night cry ! And what a melancholy charm In yonder streak of orange sky ! Sweet sister, lend your gentle arm To help me back to my old chair. And will you sit beside me there? io6 SPRING AND WINTER, Such calm is in my soul to-night, and all my life so dreamlike seems, I have no wish to sleep. For quite awake I dream the strangest dreams. \Vhich you must hear. Time fleets away. And still, child, still so much to say ! SPRING AND WINTER. Was it well in him, if he Felt not love, to speak of love so ? If he still unmoved must be, Was it nobly sought to move so ? — Pluck the flower, but not to wear it- Spurn it from him, yet not spare it? Need he say tliat I was fair, With such meaning in his tone, Adding ever that her hair Had the same tinge as my own ? Pluck my life up, root and bloom. To make garlands for her tomb ? And, her cheek, he said, tho' bright, Lack'd the lucid blush divine Of that rose each whisper light SPRING AND WINTETi. 107 Of his praises waked in mine; But 'twas just that he loved then More than he can love again. IV. Then, if beauty could not bind him, Wherefore praise me, speaking low ? Use my face just to remind him How no face could please him now ? Why, if loving could not move him, Did he teach me still to love him ? " Yes ! " he said, " he had grown wise now ; He had suffer'd much of yore : But a fair face, to his eyes now, Was a fair face, and no more. Yet the anguish and the bliss. And the dream too, had been his." Ah, those words a thought too tender For the commonplaces spoken ! Looks whose meaning seem'd to render Help to words when speech came broken ! Why so late in July moonlight Just to say what's said by noonlight? VII. And why praise my youth for gladness. Keeping something in his smile That changed all my youth to sadness, io8 SPRING AND WINTER, He still smiling all the while ? Since, when so my youth was over. He said '• seek some younger lover ! Well, the Spring's back now ! the thrushes Are astir as heretofore, And the apple blossom blushes As of old about the door. Doth he taste a finer bliss, I must wonder, in all this, (Winning thus what I have lost) By the usage of my youth ? — I can feel my forehead crost By the wrinkle's fretful tooth, While the grey grows in my hair, And the cold creeps everywhere. THE BIRD OF PARADISE, 109 SONG FROM ''LUCILEP THE BIRD OF PARADISE. Hear a song that was born in the land of my birth! Tlie anchors are lifted, the fair ship is free, And the shout of the mariners floats in its mirth — 'Twixt the light in the sky and the light on the-sea. And the ship is a world. She is freighted with souls/ She is freighted with merchandise ; proudly she sails With the Labour that stores and the Will that control The gold in the ingots, the silk in the bales. •■'' III. From the gardens of Pleasure, where reddens the rose, And the scent of the cedar is faint on the air, Past the harbours of Traffic, sublimely she goes, Mati*s hopes o'er the world of the waters to bear \ THE BIRD OF PARADISE, IV. While the cheer from the harbours of Traffic is heard, Where the gardens of Pleasure fade fast on the sight, O'er the rose, o'er the cedar, there passes a bird, 'Tis the Paradise Bird, never known to alight. And that bird, bright and bold as a Poet's desire, Roams her own native heavens, the realms of her birth There she soars like a seraph, she shines like a fire, And her plumage has never been sullied by earth. VI. And the mariners greet her ; there's song on each lip. For that bird of good omen, and joy in each eye. And the ship and the bird and the bird and the ship, Together go forth over ocean and sky. VII. Fast, fast fades the land ! far the rose-gardens flee. And far fleet the harbours. In regions unknown The ship is alone on a desert of sea, And the bird in a desert of sky is alone. VIII. In those regions unknown, o'er that desert of air, Down that desert of waters — tremendous in wrath, — The storm-wind Euryclydon leaps from his lair And cleaves, through the waves of the ocean, his path. THE BIRD OF PARADISE. IX. And the bird in the cloud, and the ship on the wave, Overtaken, are beaten about by wild gales ; And the mariners all rush their cargo to save, Of the gold in the ingots, the silk in the bales. X. Lo ! A wonder which never before hath been heard, For it never before hath been given to sight ; On the ship hath descended the Paradise Bird, The Paradise Bird never known to alight ! The bird which the mariners bless'd, when each lip Had a song for the omen which gladden'd each eye, The bright bird for shelter hath flown to the ship From the wrath on the sea and the wrath in the sky. But the mariners heed not the bird any more, They are felling the masts, they are cutting the sails, Some are working, some weeping, and some wrangling o'er Their gold in the ingots, their silk in the bales. Souls of men are on board; wealth of man in the hold, And the storm-wind Euryclydon sweeps to his prey; And who heeds the bird? Save the silk and the gold ! And the bird from her shelter the gust sweeps away! 12 THE BIRD OF PARADISE. XIV. Poor Paradise Bird ! on her lone flight once more, Back again in the wake of the wind she is driven To be whelm'd in the storm, or above it to soar, And, if rescued from ocean, to vanish to heaven ! And the ship rides the waters and weathers the gales, From the haven she nears the rejoicing is heard. All hands are at work on the ingots, the bales, Save a child, sitting lonely, who misses — the Bird ! THE STAG AND THE VILA. n From ''SONGS OF SERVIAN THE STAG AND THE VILA.* O'er the mountain, the wild stag browses the mountain herbage alone. At morn he browses, at noon he sickens, at eve he maketh moan. From the rifts of the rocky quarries the Vila hears him and calls — "O beast of the mountain meadows, the woods, and the waterfalls, What sorrow is thine, so great that, browsing at morn, At noon thou ailest ? And now to the stars thou art moaning ! What is it that thou bewailest ? " And the wild stag answers the Vila, mournfully moaning low, — ■ *' O queen of the hills, my sister ! I mourn for my lost white doe, * The Vilas are supernatural beings that appear frequently in the popular poetry oi Servia. They are a kind ot fierce Oreads dwelling among the mountains and forests. They are not in- capable of sympathy with the human race, though their love is generally treacherous and often fatal.— See Songs of Servia.— Note by Atjthok. 114 LOVE AND SLEEP. My milk-white doe, my darling ! from me o'er the moun- tain track, She vvander'd away to the fountain ; she wander'd and never came back. Either forlornly she wanders, mourning me, missing her way, Or the hunters have foUow'd and found her, and she hath perish'd — their prey, Or else she forgets me, the faithless thing ! and ever by valley and crag Strays wanton after a belling note, and follows another stag. If she be lost in the lonesome places, and hollows under the moon, I pray that God of His goodness will guide her back to me soon, But if she follows another stag caring no more to come back, I pray that God in His vengeance guide the hunter fleet on her track." LOVE AND SLEEP. I walk'd the high and hollow wood, from dawn to even-dew, The wild-eyed wood stared on me and unclasp'd and let me thro'. Where mountain pines like great black birds, stood percht against the blue. LOVE AND SLEEP. 115 Not a whisper heaved the woven waof of those warm trees ; All the little leaves lay flat, unmoved of bird or breeze; Day was losing light all round by indolent degrees. Underneath the brooding branches, all in holy shade, Unseen hands of mountain things a mossy couch had made, There, asleep, among pale flowers, my beloved was laid. Slipping down, a sunbeam bathed her brows with bounteous gold, Unmoved upon her maiden breast her heavy hair was roll'd, Her smile was silent as the smile on corpses three hours old. "Oh, God," I thought, "if this be death that makes nor sound nor stir ! " My heart stood still with tender awe, I dared not waken her, But to the dear God in the sky, this prayer I did prefer, *' Grant, dear Lord, in the blessed sky, a warm wind from the sea, To shake a leaf down on my love from yonder leafy tree. That she may open her sweet eye and haply look on me ! " The dear God from the distant sea a little wind releast, It shook a leaflet from the tree and laid it on her breast, Her sweet eyes ope'd and look'd on me. How can I tell the rest ? II& TITTLE TATTLE, TITTLE TATTLE. Two lovers kist in the meadow green ; They thought there was none to espy; But the meadow green told what it had seen To the white flock wandering by. The white flock told it the shepherd, The shepherd the traveller from far, The traveller told it the mariner Watching the pilot star ; The mariner told it his little bark; The little bark told it the sea ; The sea told it the river Flowing down by the lea; The river told it the maiden's mother, And so to the maid it came back : The maiden, as soon as she heard it, Curst them all for a tell-tale pack. "Meadow, be barren for ever! Grass,' grow not henceforth from the mould of thee! Flock, be devoured of the wolf ! Shepherd, the Turk seize hold of thee ! Traveller, rot of the fever! Mariner, drown in the gulf! Bark, may the whirlwind perplex thee, And break thee against the shore ! Sea, may the moon ever vex thee ! River, be dry evermore ! " NEGLECTED FLO WERS. 1 1 7 LOVE CONFERS NOBILITY. He. Violet,* little one mine ! I would love thee, bvit thou art so small. She. Love me, my love, from those heights of thine, And I shall grow tall, so tall ! The pearl is small, but it hangs above A royal brow and a kingly mind : The quail is little, little, my love, But she leaves the hunter behind. NEGLECTED FLOWERS. Little violet, drooping all alone, like my own Drooping heart, I would pluck thee; but there's none, no not one, To whom I dare to give thee ; so I leave thee, and pass on. I would give thee gladly, gladly, if I dared, to Ali Bey ; But too proud (ah, well-a-day !) is Ali Bey — so they say ! Proud he is ! I do not dare. Would he care, he, to wear Any flower that buds or blows ? — save the rose, I suppose ! No ! rest there, and despair ! Live or die ! Thou and I Have no chance to catch one glance from his eye, passing by. * Violet is a pet name as well as a proper name in Servia. 1 8 GENS ERIC, From ''CHRONICLES AND CHARACTERS:' GENSERIC. Genseric, King of the Vandals, who, having laid waste seven lands, From Tripolis far as Tangier, from the sea to the Great Desert sands, Was lord of the Moor and the African, — thirsting anon for new slaughter, Sail'd out of Carthage, and sail'd o'er the Mediterranean water ; Plunder'd Palermo, seized Sicily, sack'd the Lucanian coast, And paused, and said, laughing, *' Where next?" Then there came to the Vandal a Ghost From the Shadowy Land that lies hid and unknown in the Darkness Below. And answer'd, '* To Rome ! " Said the King to the Ghost, *' And whose envoy art thou ? Whence comest thou ? and name me his name that hath sent thee: and say what is thine." *' From far: and His name that hath sent me is God," the Ghost answer'd, "and mine THE DAUPHIN. 119 Was Hannibal once, ere thou wast : and the name that I now have is Fate. But arise, and be swift, and return. For God waits, and the moment is late." And " I go," said the Vandal. And went. When at last to the gates he was come, Loud he knock'd with his fierce iron fist. And full drowsily answer'd him Rome. ''Who is it that knocketh so loud? Get thee hence. Let me be. For 'tis late." "Thou art wanted," cried Genseric. "Open! His name that hath sent me is Fate, And mine, who knock late, Retribution." Rome gave him her glorious things: The keys she had conquer'd from kingdoms: the crowns she had wrested from kings : And Genseric bore them away into Carthage, avenged thus on Rome, And paused, and said, laughing, '• Where next? " And again the Ghost answer'd him, " Home ! For now God doth need thee no longer." •* Where leadest thou me by the hand ? " Cried the King to the Ghost. And the Ghost answer'd, •* Into the Shadowy Land," THE DAUPHIN. A Palace here, a People there. Face to face, i' the rainy air : For the rain is raining heavily, And the sick day shutting a bloodshot eye. THE DA UPHIN. The People, nowhere a while ago, Now here, now there, now everywhere. And, of all in the Palace, none doth knoAV Where the People may be, ere is done This last of two disastrous days. Now waning fast, with watery rays. Quick, Fancy ! ere its light be gone, From out of the many 'tis darkening on Save me a single face. This one. Broider'd of satin, as best befits, Is the gilded chair where the urchin sits, Whose grandsires all earth's greatest were In grandeur, when the grand were great. For the childhood of this child is heir To monarchy's old age. The late Sunbeam, now sinking in his hair (Weary of strife with a rainy sky) Faintly, solemnly, lingers there With a sorrowful glory, soon to die: As all things must, some day, whene'er Time disavows them : Time knows why. O'er kingdoms twain thou wait born to reign, Bourbon child of the Habsburg mother ! Life's fairest, one: and earth's, the other: France, and Youth. Of all the train Of those the wondering world admires, Lords and Ladies, Knights and Squires, Long-robed Senator severe, Royal Duke, and Princely Peer, — They whose heads be Heads of France, THE DAUPHJN. 121 To whom, with a sullen countenance, Hungry hundreds crook the knee, None ))ut boweth the head to thee, Little child ! Whose face is one Of a group that all are gone. For, since thou, O child, didst flee (Who knows where?) from human sight, Never child, kingborn, like thee, Hath been born to absolute right : Sons of kings no more can be Guaranteed, as thou wert then, Of the servitude of men. Hearest thou the sounds outside ? Hearest thou the sounds within ? In the neighbouring chamber Pride Stoops, in colloquy with Fear: Mounier's loyal cares begin : Prudence plucks at Lafayette ; Orleans with sulky stride Is philosophising yet: Chartres hath Louis by the ear: Necker rubs a ruminant chin. Outside in the twilight drear Swells the ominous surly din. See ! the child is playing now With his sister's silky tresses : To whose infantine white brow Lips as white a mother presses. Are not children safe from harm, Circled by a mother's arm ? 122 THE DAUPHIN. In the chair where sits the child Smiling, long since sat and smiled Him men named the "Grand Monarque. Ah, the light is fading dark ! Thro' the palace windows wide What is still so dim descried In the pale persistent rain ? Is the deluge back again ? And what wreckt world's groaning ark There emits its monstrous train To new-people earth with pain ? Men or beasts? What are they ? Mark! Seest thou ? Hear'st thou, little child ? Haggard faces : women wild : Men red-handed, blood-defiled : Heroism, and Hope, and Hate, Hunger, Horror, Wrath, and Crime, Mingling in the march of Fate, Life's grotesque with Love's sublime : Ragged wretches grim and stark, Smiling as they never smiled Till this moment : jaw of shark Gaping at a drowning ship : Eye of tiger: lion's grip: Stormy starvelings, smutcht and soil'd, Thick thro' garden, court, and park, Round that palace terrace-piled. Teeming, tossing, trampling . . . Hark I First a growl, and then a howl, Voice of a vast tormented soul, And then a shrill heart-breaking bark, And now an immense murtherous roar. Nearer, drearer, more and more, — The famisht wild beast's roar for bread ! MISERY, 123 Suddenly the child's hand ceased Its sport among the tiny tresses Of the little golden head Backward bent to its caresses; All those tumbled curls released ; While the pouting child-lips said " Mother, I am hungry I " Cry Of the poor man's child, supprest In a People's starving breast, For so many wicked years ! Cry, no law could longer smother In the lawless lifeless past ! By what strange revenge of chance Didst thou thus ascend so high. From what depths of woe upcast. As to smite the heart of a mother, Heard in the unwilling ears Of a listening Queen of France, From a Dauphin's lips at last ? MISERY. I. 'TwAS neither day nor night, but both together Mix'd in a muddy snudge of London weather. And the dull pouring of perpetual Dim rain was vague, and vast, and over all. 124 MISERY. She stray'd on thro' the mud ; 'twas nothing new : And thro' the rain — the rain ? it was mud too ! The woman still was young, and Nature meant, Doubtless, she should be fair; but'that intent Hunger, in haste, had marr'd, or toil, or both. There was no colour in the quiet mouth, No light in the dim eye. But a wan grace Of perisht beauty in the thin young face That lingered ghost-like. There's a last degree Of misery that is sexless wholly. She Was woman still, for all her wither'd look, Even as a faded flower within a book, Is still a blossom. To the bridge she came Just as the foggy lamps began to flame Along the loud dark streets. With eyes hard set She stopp'd there, lean'd against the parapet, And watch'd the sallow melancholy stream. The enormous city, like a madman's dream. Full of strange hummings and unnatural glare, Beat on her brain. The shadows whisper'd " There, Is quiet, and an end of long distress. Leap down ! leap in ! One anguish more or less God keeps no strict account of." But, to-night, She still fears those dark whispers. What right Is hers to die? — a mother, and a wife. Whose love hath given hostages to life ! The voices of the shadows make reply " Woman, no right to live is right to die." Ah no, for Willie waits for her at home, III— then the little ones— no work has come, MISERY, 125 Though long she waited, and their rent is due To-morrow. Ah, to-morrow ! Fiercer grew The woman's fretful cough. A drunken man Reel'd past her, stared, and down the dark began To troll a tavern stave. Up stream'd again The voices of the shadows, in disdain : ** A mother ? and a wife ? Ill-gotten names, Filch'd from earth's blisses to increase its sliames ! What right have breadless mothers to give birth To breadless babies? " With the exuberant mirth Of childhood, three blithe ragged little elves, Rejoicing in the rain and in themselves, Ran by her. Then her thoughts began to stray Far out of London, many a mile away Among the meadows: in green Hertfordshire From labyrinthine lanes a grey church spire Points heavenward, and a hamlet laughs beneath, Embower'd and haunted by the hawthorn's breath. " We were so young! we loved each other so! Ah yet, . . . if one could live the winter thro' ! And winter's worst is o'er in March ..." Again She wander'd onwards, thro' the endless rain Among the endless streets, with feet slip-shod. The sky seem'd one vast blackness without God. The roaring of the wheels began anew, And London down its dismal vortex drew This wandering minim of the misery Of millions. White beneath the filthy sky And filthy pavement, gleam'd the Workhouse Wall. She recognised it with thoughts augural Of worse to come, and shudder'd. 'Twas a thought 126 MISERY. Only that made her shudder. Her foot caught, However, in a pile of something strange, And wet, and soft ; which made that shudder change To one of physical terror. 'Twas as tho' The multitudinous mud, to scare her so. Had lump'd itself into a hideous heap, Not human sure, but living. With a creep The thing her foot had touch'd began to move, And from the inward to the outward shove Layer after layer of soak'd and rotting rags On each side, down it, to the sloppy flags Beneath its headless bulk ; thus making space For the upthrusting of the creature's face. Or creature's self, whate'er that might have been. Whence, suddenly emerging, to be seen. One must imagine, rather than to see. Since it look'd nowhere, neither seem'd to be Surprised, nor even conscious, there was thrust (As tho' it came up thus because it must And not because it would) a human head. With sexless countenance, that neither said To man nor woman ..." I belong to you," But seem'd a fearful mixture of the two. The woman, only very poor indeed, Recoil'd before that creature past all need, And past all help, too, being past all hope. * For, stern and stark, against the solid cope Of the sad, rainy, and enormous night, The sexless face had fix'd itself upright At once, and, as it were, mechanically, With no surprise ; but seeming to imply That it had done with this world everywhere, And only look'd to Heaven ; yet look'd not there With any sort of hope. MISERY, 127 She shrank away Abasht ; not daring, at the first, to say Such words as, meant for comfort, might have been Too much like insult to that grim-faced Queen, Or King, whiche'er it was, of Wretchedness. Her own much misery seem'd so much less Than this. At last, she timidly drew near And whisper'd faintly in the creature's ear •' Have you no home ? " No look even made reply, Much less a word. But on the stolid sky The stolid face stared ever. " Are you cold ? " A sort of inward creepy movement roU'd The rain-soak'd lump. And still the stolid face Perused the stolid sky. Perhaps the case Supposed was too self-evident to claim More confirmation than what creeping came To loosen those wet rags. The woman said '* Are you not hungry? " Quick the sexless head Turn'd, and the fingers of a skeleton claw Rending its foul and tatter'd shroud, you saw — Was it a woman's breast ? A sudden shout Of many voices from the street rang out, " Stop thief." A man rush'd by these women,— rush'd So vehemently by them, that he brush'd Their raggedness together, — as he pass'd, Dropp'd something on the pavement, — and was fast Wrapp'd in the rainy vapours of the night, That, in a moment, smear'd him out of sight, And, in a moment after, let emerge 128 MISERY. The trampling crowd; which, all in haste to urge Its honest chase, swept o'er that wretched twain, Regardless, and rush'd on into the rain, Leaving them both, upon the grimy flags, Bruised, trampled, — rags in collociuy with rags. And so, — alone. Meanwhile the wolfish face, Resettled to its customary place. Was staring as before, into the sky, Stolid. The other woman heavily Gather'd herself together, bruised, in pain. Half rose up, slipp'd on something, and again Sank feebly back upon her hand. But now What new emotion shakes her? Doth she know What this is, that her clutch upon the stone Hath felt, and, feeling, closes fiercely on ? This pocket-book ? with gold enough within To feed . . . Alas ! and must it be a sin To keep it ? Were it possible to pay With what its very robber flings away For bread . . . bread ! . . . bread ! , . . and still not starve, yet still Be honest ! '* Were one doing very ill If , . . One should pray ... if one could pray, « that's sure, The strength would come at last. We are so poor ! So poor . . . 'tis terrible ! To understand Such things, one should be learn'd, and have at hand Ever so many good religious books, And texts, and things. And then, one starves. It looks So like a godsend !" Crouch'd against the wall, MISERY. 129 She counted the gold pieces. " Food for all? Us four and that makes five." Again she thought, Or tried to think, of lessons early taught, Easy to learn once, in the village school, When to be honest seem'd the simple rule For being happy ; and of many a text That task'd old Sundays; growing more perplext, As, more and more, her giddy memory made Haphazard catches at the words. " Who said ' Therefore I say unto you ' (ah ! 'twere sweet) * Have no thought for your lives, what ye shall eat ' (If that were possible!) — *nor what to wear?' Have no thought (that should mean, then, have no care !) Your Father knoweth of what things ye need Before ye ask. * The morrow shall take heed For its own things ! ' And still 'tis sure He bade The people pray, * Give us our daily bread,' And elsewhere . . . * Ask, and ye shall have.'" She stopp'd, And trembled. And the tempting treasure dropp'd From her faint hand. She snatch'd it up again, And cried ' Mine ! mine ! be it the Devil's gain Or God's good gift ! Sure, what folks must, folks may, And folks must live." She gazed out every way Along the gloomy street. In desert land To tempted saints mankind was more at hand Than now it seem'd to this poor spirit pent In populous city. Hurriedly, she bent Above her grim companion, in whose ear She mutter'd, hof\rse and quick . . . "Make haste! see here ! 715 30 MISERY. Off! off!" No answer. To the stolid sky The stolid face was turn'd immovably. The sky was dark : the face was dark. The face And sky were silent both : you could not trace The faintest gleam of light in the dark look Of either. Vehemently the woman shook That miserable mass of rags. It let Itself be shaken : did not strive to get Up, or away: said nought. A worried rat So lets itself be shaken by a cat Or mastiff, when the vermin's back, 'tis clear, Is snapp'd, and there's no more to feel, or fear. "Oh haste!" No answer. "It is late, late Come!" No answer. Those lean jaws were lock'd and dumb. Then o'er the living woman's face there spread Death's hue reflected. "Late! . . . too late!" she said. " O Heaven, to die ihtis /" With a broken wail She turn'd, and fled fast, fast. Fled whither? Pale Thro' the thick vagueness of the vaporous night, From the dark alley, with a clouded light. Two rheumy, melancholy lampions flare. They are the eyes of the Police. In there, Down the dark archway, thro' the greasy door, Passionately pushing past the three or four Complacent constables that cluster'd round A costermonger, in the gutter found Incapably, but combatively, drunk, MISERY. 131 The woman hurried. Thro' the doorway slunk A peaky pinch'd-up child with frighten' d face, Important witness in some murder case About to come before the magistrate To-morrow. At a dingy table sat The slim Inspector, spectacled, severe, Rapidly writing. In a sort of fear Of seeing it again, she shut her eyes And flung it down there. With sedate surprise The man look'd up. " Because I do not know The owner, sir" . . . she said. " A while ago I found it. And there's money in it . . . much, Oh, so much money, sir I " A hungry touch Of the defeated Tempter made her wince To see him count it. Such a short while since She, too, had done the same. "Your name? address? " She gave them. Easy, from the last, to guess Their wretchedness who dwelt in such a place ! The shrewd and practised eye perused her face Contented, not surprised; for they that see Crime oftenest, oftenest, too, see honesty Where most of us would seldom look for it, Or find it with surprise ... in rags, to wit. '* Honest and poor. Deserves a large reward. No doubt there'll be one." " Ah, the times are hard, So hard, God help us all I and, sir, indeed We are so poor. Two little mouths to feed. If one could only get some work to do 1 " "Ah . . . married? out of work? and children? two? Mem. Let the owner know, if found. Good night." But still she stood there. He had turn'd to write. 132 THE APPLE OF LIFE. She stood, and eyed him with a dreary eye, And did not move. He look'd up presently. "Not gone yet? eh? what more?" "And, . . . she said, '•There's by the Workhouse wall a woman dead. There was no room within, sir, I suppose. There are so many of them. Heaven knows 'Tis hard for such as we to understand How such things happen in a Christian land." Her face twitch'd, and her cough grew fierce again, As she pass'd out into the night and rain. THE APPLE OF LIFE. From the river Euphrates, the river whose source is in Paradise, far As red Egypt, — sole lord of the land and the sea, 'twixt the eremite star Of the orient desert's lone dawn, and the porch of the chambers of rest Where the great sea is girded wiih fire, and Orion returns in the west, As the ships come and go in grand silence, — King Solomon reign'd. And behold. In that time there was everywhere silver as common as stones be, and gold That for plenty was 'counted as silver, and cedar as sycamore trees THE APPLE OF LIFE. 133 That are found in the vale, for abundance. For God to the King gave all these, "With glory exceeding ; moreover all kings of the earth to him came, Because of his wisdom, to hear him. So great was King Solomon's fame. And, for all this, the King's soul was sad. And his heart said within him, " Alas, For man dies ! if his glory abidelh, himself from his glory shall pass. I have planted me gardens and vineyards, and gotten me silver and gold. And my hand from whatever my heart hath desired I did not withhold : And what profit have I in the works of my hand which I take not away ? I have searched out wisdom and knowledge : and what do they profit me, they ? As the fool dieth, so doth the wise. What is gather'd is scatter'd again. As the breath of the beasts, even so is the breath of the children of men : And the same thing befalleth them both. And not any man's soul is his own." This he thought as he sat in his garden, and watch'd the great sun going down. And "Behold," said the King, "in a moment the glory shall vanish ! " Even then, While he spake he was 'ware of a man drawing near him, who seem'd to his ken (By the hair in its blackness like flax that is burn'd in the hemp-dresser's shed, And the brow's smoky hue, and the smouldering eyeball more livid than lead) 134 THE APPLE OF LIFE. As the sons of the land that lies under the sword of the Cherub whose wing Wraps in wrath the shut gateways of Paradise. He, being come to the King, Seven times made obeisance before him. To whom, *' What art thou," the King cried, "That thus unannounced to King Solomon comest?" The man, spreading wide The palm of his right hand, show'd in it an apple yet bright from the Tree In whose stem springs the life never-failing that Sin lost to Adam, when he, Tasting knowledge forbidden, found death in the fruit of it. . . So doth the Giver Evil gifts to the evil apportion. And "Hail! let the King live for ever ! " Bowing down at the feet of the monarch, and laughingly, even as one Whose meaning, in joy or in jest, hovers hid 'twixt the word and the tone, Said the stranger (as lightly the apple he laid in the hand of the King), "From between the four rivers of Eden, Jehovah hath sent me, to bring To his servant King Solomon, even to my lord that on Israel's throne He hath 'stablisht, this fruit from the Tree in whose branch Life abideth: for none That hath tasted this apple shall die." Then he vanish'd. The monarch perused The strange fruit that, alluring his lip, in his hand lay untasted. He mused — " Life is good: but not life for life's sake. Life eternal, eternally young, THE APPLE OF LIPE. I35 That, indeed, were a life to be prized ; when the jubilant spirit is strong, When in veins unfatigued the still bountiful pulses of happiness beat, And the dews of the dawn of Desire on the roses of Beauty are sweet ! Dut what gain were in living forever, when life is unfit to engage The sad care it yet craves? Life eternal, eternally wedded to Age? When the hand saith '/ did^' not */ will do,' the heart saith ' It waSy" not * ' Twill be^ Then too late is the gift of Forever, and too late comes this apple to me." He arose. And wherever the sunlight had been, there was moonlight, and deep In their odorous shadows the myrtle and rose were already asleep. As, with difficult steps, he went feebly, by garden and terrace and court, On his sceptre he lean'd; for that sceptre to him was a staff for support, Tho' to others a rod of dominion. And so to his House he return'd. There, in ivory chambers sweet lamps, that were scented with cinnamon, burn'd, And innumerous columns, 'twixt curtains of crimson, stood gather'd in groves Thick as trees of the forest in Libanus stand, where the wind, as it moves. Whispers, " I, too, am Solomon's servant ! " — huge trunks hid in garlands of gold. On whose tops the skill'd sculptors of Sidon had granted men's gaze to behold 136 THE APPLE OF LIFE. How the phoenix that sits on the cedar's lone summit 'mid fragrance and fire, Ever dying and living, hath loaded with splendours her funeral p)'re ; How the stork builds her nest on the pine-top ; the date from the palm -branch depends; And the shaft of the blossoming aloe soars crowning the life which it ends. And, from hall on to hall pacing slowly, the King mused . . . " O fair Shulamite ! Thy beauty is brighter than starlight on Hebron when Hebron is bright, Thy sweetness is sweeter than Carmel. The King rules the nations; but thou, Thou rulest the King, my Beloved." So murmur'd King Solomon low To himself, as he pass'd thro' the portal of porphyry, that dripp'd, as he pass'd, From the myrrh-sprinkled wreaths on the locks and the lintels ; and enter'd at last, Still sighing, the sweet cedarn chamber, contrived for repose and delight. Where the beautiful Shulamite slumber'd. And straight- way, to left and to right, Bowing down as he enter'd, the Spirits in bondage to Solomon, there Keeping watch o'er his love, sank their swords, spread their wings, and evanish'd in air. The King with a kiss woke the sleeper. And, showing the fruit in his hand, " Behold ! this was brought me erewhile by one coming," he said, ** from the land That lies under the sword of the Cherub 'twas pluckt by strange hands from the tree THE APPLE OF LIFE. 137 Of whose fruit whoso tasteth shall die not. And there- fore I give it to thee, Best beloved of the daughters of women ! The garment, tho' broider'd with gold, Wears away as the moth feeds upon it. So I, in my glory, grow old. But all thine, at the best and the brightest, thou Spirit of Beauty and Bliss, Are the grace and the gladness of youth. Wherefore thine, and thine only, be this ! Keep the gift I resign, never losing the freshness and sweetness of life. And of women forever the fairest shall still be King Solomon's wife ! " And he dropp'd in her bosom the apple. But wistfully, when he was gone, And the beautiful Shulamite, eyeing the gift of the King, sat alone, "Youth and beauty," she mused, "are but gifts to be prized for the love they inspire, And forever to love and be loved — that, no doubt, were a life to desire. But I love neither beauty nor youth if unloved by my loved one they be, For in life is no loveliness save to be loved, Azariah, by thee!" Then she summon'd, to veil her, the Spirits in bondage to Solomon's ring (For that talisman dread, for a toy, had been given to her by the King), And her form from the vision of mortals they veil'd. Thro' the streets, unespied, She went forth to the door of the house of the Prince Azariah, and cried 138 THE APPLE OF LIFE. " It is I ! Dost thou hear my heart beating? Thy love is more comely than gold, And more precious to me is thy kiss than a life that can never grow old ! " Azariah arose, and unbolted the door to the fair Shulamite. " O my queen, what dear folly is this? For as spies are the stars of the night, And at that which is done in the chamber the leak in the housetop shall peep, And the hand of a king smiteth hard, and the eyes of a king never sleep ! " But the beautiful Shulamite answer'd, "Nay, fear not, for lo, what I bring ! 'Tis the fruit of the tree that in Eden Jehovah hides under the wing Of the Cherub that chased away Adam. And who of this apple doth taste. He shall live and not die. Wherefore fear thou not death! for the gift that in haste I have brought thee is life everlasting." But soon as the Prince was alone With her gift, as he lean'd from the lattice he mutter'd, ** Tis well ! she is gone ! " From his lattice he heard down the streets of the city the tripping of feet And the voices of youths running after. And '*Z?/i?," sang a wanton, '* is stveet Long as lasts t lie good mimtteJ'^ " Not long," sigh'd the Prince, *' doth the good minute last! What of life, when it goes?" Then he caught up the apple, and forth with it pass'd To the house of the harlot Egyptian, and mused as he went — *• Life is good THE APPLE OF LIFE. 139 Just so long as the joy of it lasts, while a man doeth that which he would, Goelh whither he listeth, and pleaseth himself be the chance what it may. Shall I care to be loved by a queen, if her love with my freedom I pay? No, the May-be for me, not the Must-be! The field where the wild blossom springs, Not the rose that is guarded by dragons to brighten the precincts of kings ! Open, open, thou dark-eyed beguiler of darkness!" Uprose to his knock, Light of foot, the lascivious Egyptian, and lifted the latch from the lock, And open'd, and led in the prince to her chamber, and pour'd him the wine Wherewith she first brighten'd the moist lips that mur- mur'd, •' Ha, fool! Art thou mine? I am thine. This will last for an hour." And then, humming strange words from a song Sung by maidens in Memphis the old, when they bore the Crown 'd Image along, She sprang loose from his clasp, and danced round him. " Say, fool. "What good gift dost thou bring? " Azariah toss'd to her the apple, and answer'd, *' A gift for a king! " •'Go to, it is nought, fool! An apple." "But an apple that comes from the Tree Of whose fruit whoso tastes lives for ever, I care not. I give it to thee. Nay, witch! 'tis worth more than the shekels of gold thou hast charm'd from my purse. Take it. Eat. Life is sweeter than knowledge: and Eve, thy sly mother, fared worse. " I40 THE APPLE OF LIFE, "Fool, why dost thou laugh?" and he answer'd, " Because, witch, it tickles my brain Intensely to think that all we, that be Something while yet we remain, We, the princes of people — ay, even the King's self — shall die in our day, And thou, that art Nothing, shall sit on our graves, with our grandsons, and play." But anon, when alone, with the fruit in her hanJ still untasted, perusing Her mysterious prize, the dark woman, perplext by sad doubts, fell a musing, And she thought. ..." What is Life without Honour? And what can the life that I live Give to me, I shall care to continue, not caring for aught it can give? I? The man call'd me Nothing. He said well. The great in their glory must go, And shall I go on living forever a life that is shameful and low?" Her tears fell. They fell on the apple. " 'Tis a gift for a king," did he say? Ay, a king's life is life as it should be — a life like the light of the day Wherein all that liveth rejoiceth. For whom then this gift ? Not for me, Nor the fool Azariah that sold it for folly. The King ! only he, — Only he hath the life that's worth living for ever. Whose life, not alone Is the life of the King, but the life of the many made mighty in one. To the King will I carry this apple. And he (for the hand of a king THE APPLE OF LIFE. 141 Is a fountain of hope) in his handmaid shall honour the gift that I bring. And men for this deed shall esteem me, with Rahab by Israel praised, As first among those who, tho' lowly, their shame into honour have raised." So she rose, and went forth thro' the city. And with her the apple she bore In her bosom : and stood 'mid the multitude, waiting therewith in the door Of the hall where the King, to give judgment, ascended at rooming his throne: And, kneeling there, cried, " Let the King live for ever ! Behold, I am one Whom the vile of themselves count the vilest. But great is the grace of my lord. And now let my lord on his handmaid look down, and give ear to her word. For on me was this apple bestow'd, that thy servant should eat and not die. But I said to the soul of thy servant, ' Not so. For behold, what am I, That the King, in his glory and gladness, should cease from the light of the sun, Whilst I, that am least of his slaves, in my shame and abasement live on?' For not sweet is the life of thy servant, unless to thy servant, my lord Stretch his hand, and show favour. For surely the frown of a king is a sword, But the smile of the king is as honey that flows from the clefts of the rock, And his grace is as dew that from Horeb descends on the heads of the flock : 142 LAST WORDS. ' As the grapes of the vines of En-Gedi are favours that fall from his hands, And as towers on the hill-tops of Shenir the throne of King Solomon stands. But how shall one lose what he hath not? Who hath, let him keep what he hath. Wherefore I to the King give this apple." Then great was King Solomon's wrath, And he rose, rent her garment, and cried, '* Woman, whence came this apple to thee ?" But when he was 'ware of the truth, then his heart was awaked, and said he, " From the Angel of Death came the gift. Life rejects it. Jehovah is just. Let man's spirit to Him whence it cometh return, and his dust to the dust! " LAST WORDS. OF A SENSITIVE SECOND-RATE POET, Will, are you sitting and watching there yet? And I know, by a certain skill That grows out of utter wakefulness, the night must be far spent, Will: For, lying awake so many a night, I have learn'd at last to catch From the crowing cock, and the clanging clock, and the sound of the beating watch, A misty sense of the measureless march of Time, as he passes here, LAST WORDS. 143 Leaving my life behind him ; and I know that the dawn is near. But you have been watching three nights, Will, and you look'd so wan to-night, I thought, as I saw you sitting there, in the sad mono- tonous light Of the moody night-lamp near you, that I could not choose but close My lids as fast, and lie as still, as tho' I lay in a doze : For, I mused, *' He will think I am dreaming, and then he may steal away. And sleep a little: and this will be well." And truly, I dream'd, as I lay Wide awake, but all as quiet, as tho', the last office done. They had streak'd me out for the grave. Will, to which they will bear me anon. Dream'd; for old things and places came dancing about my brain. Like ghosts that dance in an empty house: and my thoughts went slipping again By green back-ways forgotten to a stiller circle of time, Where violets, faded for ever, seem'd blowing as once in their prime: And I fancied that you and I, Will, were boys again as of old. At dawn on the hill-top together, at eve in the field by the fold ; Till the thought of this was growing too wildly sweet to be borne. And I oped mine eyes, and turn'd me round, and there, in the light forlorn, I find you sitting beside me. But the dawn is at hand, I know. 31eep a little. I shall not dip to-night. You may leavg fue. Go. 144 LAST WORDS. Eh! is it time for the drink? must you mix it? it does me no good. But thanks, old friend, true friend ! I would live for your sake, if I could. Ay, there are some good things in life, that fall not away with the rest. And, of all best things upon earth, I hold that a faithful friend is the best. For woman. Will, is a thorny flower: it breaks, and we bleed and smart: The blossom falls at the fairest, and the thorn runs into the heart. And woman's love is a bitter fruit; and, however he bite it, or sip, There's many a man has lived to curse the taste of that fruit on his lip. But never was any man yet, as I ween, be he whosoever he may, That has known what a true friend is, Will, and wishVl that knowledge away. You were proud of m.y promise, faithful despite of my fall, Sad when the world seem'd over-sweet, sweet when the world turn'd gall. O woman-eyes that have smiled and smiled, O woman- lips that have kist The life-blood out of my heart, why thus for ever do you persist, Pressing out of the dark all round, to bewilder my dying hours With your ghostly sorceries brew'd from the breath of your poison -flowers ? Still, tho' the idol be broken, I see at their ancient revels, LAST WORDS, 145 The riven altar around, come dancing the selfsame devils. Lente currite, lente currite, noctis equil Linger a little, O Time, and let me be saved ere I die ! How many a night 'neath her window have I walk'd in the wind and rain, Only to look at her shadow fleet over the lighted pane ! Alas! 'twas the shadow that rested, 'twas herself that fleeted, you see, And now I am dying, I know it: — dying, and where is she? Dancing divinely, perchance, or, over her soft harp strings, Using the past to give pathos to the little new song that she sings. Bitter? I dare not be bitter in the few last hours left to live. Needing so much forgiveness, God grant me at least to forgive. Not to know vice is virtue, not fate, however men rave : And, next to this I hold that man to be but a coward and slave Who bears the plague-spot about him, and, knowing it, shrinks or fears To brand it out, tho' the burning knife should hiss in his heart's hot tears. Yet oh ! the confident spirit once mine, to dare and to do! Take the world into my hand, and shape it, and make it anew : Gather all men in my purpose, men in their darkness and dearth. Men in their meanness and misery, made of the dust of the earth, Mould them afresh, and make out of them Man, with his spirit sublime, 716 146 LAST WORDS. Man, the great heir of Eternity, dragging the conquests of Time ! Therefore I mingled among them, deeming the poet should hold All natures saved in his own, as the world in the ark was, of old. Triple fool in my folly I purblind and impotent worm, Thinking to move the world, who could not myself stand firm ! Cheat of a worn-out trick, as one that on shipboard roves Wherever the wind may blow, still deeming the con- tinent moves. Friend, lay your hand in my own, and swear to me, when you have seen My body borne out from the door, ere the grass on my grave shall be green, You will burn every book I have written. And so perish, one and all, Each trace of the struggle that fail'd with the life that I cannot recall. Where was the fault? Was it strength fell short ! And yet (I can speak of it now) How my spirit sang like the resonant nerve of a warrior's battle bow When the shaft has leapt from the string, what time, her first bright banner unfurl'd, Song alm'd her arrowy purpose in me sharp at the heart of the world ! Comfort me not. For if aught be worse than failure from over-stress Of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success. Talk not of genius baffled. Genius is master of man. LAST WORDS. 147 Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can. And pity me not. For death to me is a boon far better than fame. It is only ceasing to die, Will, of a life that has miss'd its aim. From another life, in another world, new aims must arise. And there New efforts' sweetest reward may be the redemption of failure here, 148 EPITHALAMIUM, From ''ORVAL'' EPITHALAMIUM. Ere the moon is washt down by the wave in the west (O thought dread and sweet !), Ere the nightingale, roused by the moon, is at rest, They shall meet ! They, the twain, who were taught by the prescient Power That gave sweets to the bee, giving scents to the flower, To find in each other, what few find out, The one thing sweet in a world so sour, The one thing sure in a life of doubt ! They shall meet, oh, where ? They the Strong and the Fair, In what hour, not of time, in what land, not of earth? Where to breathe is to kindle, and being is birth. Where the soul and the sense are one feeling alone. As the heaven and the moonlight are two and yet one ; When the eyes from the lips Drink delicious eclipse, Wliile, in rose-braided car, Love, free lord of his own, To the fair, the afar, EPITHALAMIUM, 149 The unseen, the unknown, Thro' faint depths of dim fire Is drawn, with tugg'd rein, By the steeds of Desire, In strong triumph amain, 'Tvvixt the twilit courts of the orient porch Of the Dawn of Life ; where the bashful train Of those tender, timorous Spirits, that are The bearers bright of his blushing torch, Are waiting the will of the Morning Star, To unfasten the portals the Destinies bar On the brave, bold world, that is yet unborn, Of the resolute race that is yet to be, When the sunrise of Freedom, in Truth's fair morn, Shall be solemn and bright over land and sea, And all earth be one nation, whose name is borne, Trampling tyranny, scorning scorn. By the gentle, the just, and the free 1 ISO ODE TO A STARLING, From ''MISCELLANEOUS POEMS:' ODE TO A STARLING. Spring's pilot, and her nimblest-wingM darling, Despite the arrowy-flighted Swallow That in thy wake doth follow, To rob thee of renown, intrepid Starling I Full weary of old Winter, sick of sorrow, As I lay a-drowsing in the dark at dawn of day, Seeking to shut from sight a sunless morrow, And suing to assist me flitting Sleep, that would not stay, Out of dim lands remote Came a hoarse but happy note ; And then a scatter'd rustling loud beyond the lattice eaves Of jostled wings, a-riot in the rare and rainy leaves. Surely, surely, saucy angel Of the Virgin Spring's evangel, 'Twas the sound of thee and thine Singing songs yet somewhat hoarser For the sea wind and the brine Breathed and braved by each precursor Of May's azure and sunshine. ODE TO A STARLING. 151 I, at least, thy voice believing, And, in responsive mood, Religiously receiving Its prophecies of good, All the morn long have been roaming The wet field and wintry wood, The burthen of an old song humming : — '* The starlings are come ! and merry May, And June, and the white thorn, and the hay. And the violet, and then the rose, and all sweet things are coming ! " But O ill-welcom'd bird I Thy most impassion'd lays By heedless ears are heard. Thou comest before thy time, and unattended. The sluggard Spring delays To justify thy word ; And rancorous Winter stays To wreak on thee the wrath of frosts and rains offended ; Whilst thou of sunny days Still singest, undeterr'd By scorn or stinted praise, Befriending thus a land that leaves thee unbefriended. Envy not thou Ceyx, or Halcyon, Their sultry seas, fair-meadow'd lands of fable, And foamless isles, the tempest strikes not on. That sleep in harbours green and hospitable ; For thou, within thyself, despite foul weather, Hast golden calms and glories Like windless lights where wizards meet together On stormy promontories. Leave to the soft luxurious Nightingale Her amorous revels and embower' d delights Where, over lush rose leaves the balmy gale Is breathing low thro' blue midsummer nights. 152 ODE TO A STARLING. Thine is the bardic chant, the battle strain, The strenuous impulse thine, Antagonising wind and sleety rain In the tough-headed pine. Leave to the Lark his lucid chariotings And mirth Memnonian, when auroral skies With shining azure bathe his lyric wings. Thy realm beyond to-morrow's orient lies. Safe from the reach of this anarchic time, Where unreveal'd primroses, And many a lurking love, and budding rhyme Each note of thine discloses. Thy friends are yet unborn ; The earliest violet, The first bud on the thorn, The first M'an cowslip, wet With tears of the first morn That doth such joys beget. Thy foes are yet a-dying ; Ragged-skirted rains, Winds at random flying Fast with cloudy manes. And the last snows, lying Lost on chilly plains. Grief and Joy together Colloquise with thee : Sad and sunny weather Shift around the tree Where, not heeding either, Thou dost carol free A music over-winging On laughter-lifted pinions^ Earth's bleakness and despair. Like old Amphion's singing. To raise serene dominions THE LA V OF THE COCK. 153 And fashion from void air, Stirr'd by the nimbly-sounding minions Of its mysterious mandate, everywhere Those blossomy battlements, And florid tents, Where, in due time, shall dwell All the delicious sights, and sounds, and scents Of Spring's green citadel. THE LAY OF THE COCK. Who will awaken the Lay of the Cock ? Who will praise his prowess and power ? Who will sing of his virtues seven ? If there be any of mortal stock Worthy to say *' I will waken that lay," Uplifted high on a lofty tower Where the light is holy and fresh from heaven, In a white robe stoled, with a harp of gold, Loud, in the hearing of gods and men. Let him smite his harp at the matin hour To a note like jubilant Memnon's, when That strong marmorean mouth of his From the rapturous east a reorient ray Of his mother's fairest effulgences Did, with a mystical fiery touch. To a sudden ethereal melody wake. 154 THE LA V OF THE COCK. Alas, that in me is no music such As would then be heard for my hero's sake ! But albeit unfit, magnanimous bird, Thy bard to be, since slumbering still Are the worthier singers, here, undeterr'd By mine own unworth, and my want of skill, I make essay, at the dawn of day, In honour of thine to awaken the lay. And, as tho' I stood on a lofty tower Where the light is holy and fresh from heaven, In a white robe stoled, with a harp of gold. To hymn high praise of thy prowess and power, And do homage in song to thy virtues seven. III. Handmaid of heroes, Martial Muse ! Bring me hither a burnisht shield, Broad as the targe of Idomeneus * When forth he strode to the battlefield! By the mighty spirits of warriors old Let the orb of that mighty shield be borne : And roll me hither, thro* heavens that hold High pageant aglow with the triumphing Morn, Aurora's chariots, whose chargers bold The youngest-born of the Hours adorn With housing of glory and harness of gold ! Then, ere the ardours of sunrise faint. Or ever a gorgeous cloud grow wan, Dip me the pencil in each bright dye Of that dazzling pomp, that I may paint Whom but the hero that marcheth by In robes of honour regalian, * A cock was painted on the shield of Idomeneus. THE LAY OF THE COCK. 155 Mail'd and mantled, with crest on high, The valorous marshal of Day's blithe van. And all the while, by down and dale "Where dews are fresh and light is clear, From far away i' the buxom gale Let brave-mouth'd bronzen music come Of chiding trump and thunderous drum. Thrilling the heart of the man who may hear, Like the moving on of some marvellous tale Of chivalry, joust, and knightly cheer. With royal train, whose sheeny stain Is sable shot with emerolde; Breastplate broad of brightest gold; Scarlet crest, thick turreted As Cybele's, on stately head ; Beard of ruddier tinct than is (If old legends lie not) his Who, full-arm'd, is slumbering still Hid in the heart of Salzburg hill ; Shining cuishes, greaves of steel ; Spleenful spur on knightly heel ; Who is he doth lightly leap. Flashing forth o' the night's dim tent When the dew is deep, and the lark asleep, Orient arms in the Orient ? VI. It is the guardian, gallant and gay, Of the great world's drowsy conscience. Day 156 THE LA Y OF THE COCK, By day he doth in the twilight wan Rise up, and, with resonant roundelay, From the cloven caverns of dream unlock Sleep's bondsmen, speeding upon their way The wills and wishes of waken'd man. How shall we hail him ? what is his name ? His names are many, for wide his fame ; Blue-helm'd Bellona's champion, The Bird of Mars, Alectryon, The Bird of Fire, the Bird of Lok; Sacred sire of a sacred clan; FaithfuUest chief of the feathery flock Since temples arose in Asia, Or priests and augurs their rites began, Roman, Grecian, Arabian, And Runic, — they whose spells could sway Sea- hurricanes Scandinavian. VII. Wise and wary as one should be That is vigilant lord of the virtues seven, First of all upon earth is he To watch, and be ware of, change in heaven. For in heaven a bride he hath ; and she Is starry, tender, and fair to see ; Whose mystical name is Alcyon.* To her he merrily three times three Soundeth his strepitant clarion. Since nothing hath he to hide ; but, free And open, he beareth wherever he wend A fearless front and a spirit bold In all his wooings and all his wars. * The constellation of the Pleiades was called by the A rabian astronomers "The Hen and Chickens." THE LA Y OF THE COCK, 157 Which well they knew, those Flamens old AVho in honour did hold for his corselet of gold, His stately stride, and his crest on end, The armed comrade of mighty Mars, And fair Minerva's familiar friend. When he walketh under the vaulted arch "N^herethro' a mounted knight might march At easy speed his pacing steed Nor bruise one plume of his helmet crest. This bird, whose magnanimous graciousnesses The least of his kingly gestes expresses, Hath so lofty a heart in so lordly a breast That, with condescensive and sidelong tread. Lightly he boweth his stately head. For courtesy's sake, as becometh a king With his vassals around him progressing. IX. Then up on a great sunbeam he springeth. His clashing vans doth thrice unlock With a shudder of joy, and make sweet shock Of all his silken sheeny feathers; And wingeth, but not far he wingeth, His weighty flight, erect and tall Descending on the breezy wall. Where he with voice sonorous singeth, After the fashion of his forefathers To rally his clan from far away. His ancient famous roundelay. But first, as when in martial Rome, 158 THE LAY OF THE COCK. Before the Conscript Fathers all, Uprising with importance, some Famed leader senatorial Assumed imposing attitude, With gather'd rol)e and right arm bare, So he, in oratoric mood, With finger'd foot upcurl'd in air. Fit posture doth select; then high And shrill is heard the rallying cry Whereto, his kinsmen, answering him From distant regions, make reply; While he, with inward ecstasy, Doth either dim blue eyelid film Let fall o'er each delighted eye. Anon, the noon is high up-wheel'd. And reapers droop in oaten field. But he for whom my harp I string (So might I half his glory share !) In easy state, an orient king, Gracious, grave, and debonair, Thro' his throng'd seraglio moveth 'Mid his strutting queens; and, stately, One he seeketh, one reproveth, Ruling all sedately. Well-skill'd in government is he, High-couraged, honourable. And gentle-manner'd, as should be Good kings whose thrones are stable: Wise, loving, watchful as a star, By lofty thoughts uplifted; And, birds or men, full few there are So affluently gifted. THE LAY OF THE COCK. 159 Chanted and told to a harp of gold, Upon seven strings, should his virtues be ; That be sevenfold as, in time of old, Were the Seven Spirits of Chivalrie: Noble Valour, that feareth n(jne : Prudence, that keepeth what Valour hath won : Vigilance wary, and Courtesy kind : Love, that gives life to all virtues combined : Justice, that fails not, whatever befall : And Temperance, setting the measure to all. Chanted and told to a harp of pure gold, Upon strings that are seven, with song sevenfold, Worthy to be are his virtues. And we. If we were as bold, as loving, as free. High-hearted, strong-soul'd, and wise, as he, As sober, vigorous, vigilant, just, And joyous, and scornful of mean mistrust, Then the world would be what the world to me Doth seem when I hear, in the sunshine clear, This minstrel making magnanimous cheer, And hailing the light with a heart of glee. For his brave song teacheth timely content : And, far as it reacheth, my soul is sent. Honouring God's good government. And greeting the general joy of the world : W^hile music without, and mirth within, Mingle my heart with the merry din Of a loud and high defiance hurl'd At darkness, and sorrow, and sin. i6o LITTLE ELLA. LITTLE ELLA. I. I KNOW now, little Ella, what the flowers Said to you then, to make your cheek so pale ; And why the blackbird in our laurel bowers Spake to you only, and the timorous snail Fear'd less your steps than those of the May shower. It is not strange these creatures loved you so. And told you all. 'Twas not so long ago You were yourself a bird, or else a flower. And, little Ella, you were pale because So soon you were to die. I know that now. And why there ever seem'd a sort of gauze Over your deep blue eyes, and sad young brow. You were too good to grow up, Ella, you, And be a woman, such as I have known ! And so upon your heart they put a stone, And left you, child, among the flowers and dew. III. O thou, the morning star of my sad soul ! My little elfin friend from Faery Land ! Whose memory is yet innocent of the whole Of that which makes me doubly need thy hand. Thy guiding hand from mine so soon withdrawn ! Here, where I find so little like to thee, For thou wert as the breath of dawn to me, Starry, and pure, and brief, as is the dawn. LITTLE ELLA, i6i Thy knight was I, and thou my Faery Queen. ('Twas in the days of love and chivalry!) And thou did'st hide thee in a bower of green. But thou so well hast hidden thee, that I Have never found thee since. And thou did'st set Many a task, and quest, and high emprize, Ere I should win from thine approving eyes My guerdon, — ah ! so many, that not yet My tasks are ended, nor my wanderings o'er. But some day there will come across the main A magic barque, and I shall quit this shore Of care, and find thee in thy bovver again ; And thou wilt say, "My brother, hast thou found Our home at last ? " . . . "Whilst I, in answer, sweet, Shall heap my life's last booty at thy feet. And bare my breast with many a bleeding wound. The spoils of time ! the trophies of a world ! The keys of conquer'd towns, and captived kings, And many a broken sword, and banner furl'd. The heads of giants, and swart soldan's rings, And many a maiden's scarf, and many a wand Of baffled wizard, many an amulet, And many a shield with mine own heart's blood wet. And jewels rare from many a distant land ! 717 i62 LITTLE ELLA. VII. How sweet with thee, my sister, to renew The happy search for those ethereal birds Which back to their own chmes thou did'st pursue, — Ah, heedless! thou, in all whose deeds and words Unkindness never was till then, nor lack Of care for others' pain ! Could'st thou but see How woeful weary is my want of thee, Methinks that even now thou would'st come back ; Leaving thy heavenly playmates, for my sake, To let me lean my head upon thy breast. And weep away those worst of griefs that ache And scorch, but cannot turn to tears. Or, best, The way that leads where thou art gone, contrive, O child, to whisper to me! Ope the gate, And help me thro'. Else, I shall die too late Even for thy consoling to revive. She pass'd out of my youth at the still lime O' the early light, when all was green and husht. She pass'd, and pass'd away. Like broken rhyme Her sweet short life's few relics are. This crusht And scatter'd rose, she dropp'd: that page, she turn'd, And finish'd not : this curl, her gift : this knot That flutter'd from her . . . Hard world, harm them not ! My right to keep them hath been sorely earn'd. DROPPINGS, 163 DROPPINGS. The leaves that fall on the grassy wall, And the rain dropping out of the apple tree ! And is it only a passing dream ? For I know not why, but these things seem Just now worth more than the world to me. Fast the leaves fall on the grassy wall ; Fast drops the rain from the apple tree; And if I could feel what I feel now But a moment longer, I think I should know More than ever was known, or known will be. III. Wherefore? Leaves fall all day on the wall, All day drops rain from the apple tree. But never before did the leaves and the rain, And they doubtless will never, never again, Seem about to impart such a secret to me. IV. Mere leaves that fall on yonder wall ! Mere rain dropping down out of yonder tree ! What matter ? If Nature has something to say, Let her take her own time, let her choose her own way, So long as at last she will say it to me. 1 64 KNO W THYSELF. V. Ah! but leaves will fall, as now, on the wall And rain, as now, drop from out of the tree, Many, many a day, while the chance, I know, Is lost ! I have miss'd what, a moment ago, The leaves and the rain had confided to me. TNfiei 2EATT0N. Well and good is this doctrine of *' Know thyself," And let him obey it, that can, to the letter; Self-ignorance being the veriest fetter That ever kept fools in the stocks, no doubt. But, while the Greek sages lie there on my shelf. Why should I scruple to speak my mind out, And assert that " Forget thyself" is a better? Self-nnconsciousness being, perchance, The one thing free from self-ignorance. Not by looking within, but by living without. This centre of self, shall a man grow wise. Let us, leaving ourselves, then, go boldly about. And take part in the business of earth and skies : For only by knowledge of that which is not Thyself, shall thyself be learn'd, I wot. Woe to the nation, and woe to the age, and woe, woe to the man That live not outside of themselves ! To them dis- solution is near. Healthful and happy are they that, promoting the infinite plan. Are moved with the movement of things, and have joy in the general cheer. SIDE BY SIDE, 165 KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM. Measure thy knowledge by the weight of it, Which is a kind of sorrowfulness. Men Dig deep, get gold, and judge its value then, According as the heaviness be great of it. But love thy wisdom for the lightness of it. Glad wisdom is not gotten, but is given: Not dug out of the earth, but dropp'd from Heaven: Heavenly, not earthly, is the brightness of it. SIDE BY SIDE. I. (friend and friend.) May we, then, never know each other ? Who love each other more, I dare Affirm for both, than brother brother, Ay I more, my friend, than they that are The children of one mother. A look — and lo, our natures meet ! A word — our minds make one reply ! A touch — our hearts have but one beat I And, if we walk together — why The same thought guides our feet i66 SIDE BY SIDE, The self-same course ! The flower that blows A scent unguess'd in hedgerow green, Slim spiders, where the water throws, The starry-weeded stones between, Strange light that flits and flows. Were charged by some sweet spirit, sure, (Love's minister, and ours !) to strike Our sense with one same joy, allure Our hearts, and bless us both alike With memories that endure. True friend I I know you : and I know You know me too. And this is well. Yet something seems to lie below All knowledge, which is hard to tell. The world, where hands let go, Slips in between. The warmth yet stays Where, twelve safe hours ago, no more Your soul touch'd mine. But days and days Make callous what one day leaves sore, Ichoring the wound they graze. Not ours the change, if change must fall, Nor yours the fault, nor mine, my friend ! Life's love will last : but not love's small Sweet hourly lives. That these should end It grieves me. That is all. This is time's curse. Since life began It hath been losing love too fast. SIDE BY SIDE. 167 And I would keep, while yet I can, Man's faith in love, lest at the last I lose love's faith in man. But something sighs, " Be satisfied. Ye know no more than ye can know." And walking, talking, side by side, It sometimes seems to me as though Love did to love provide (How shall I say?) a man, in fine, A ghostly Third, — who is, indeed, Not you nor I, though yours and mine ; The creature of our mutual need. The friend for whom we pine. You call him Me : I call him You : Who is not either you nqr I : This phantom friend, whom we pursue, Released by Love's fine alchemy, Mere product of us two ! The man that each in each hath sought, And each within himself hath found : The being of our separate thought. To each by his own nature bound. From his own nature wrought. Heed well our friend, while yet we may ! There are so many winds about, And any wind may blow away Love's airy child. O never doubt He is the common prey t i68 SIDE BY SIDE, Of every chance, while love remains : And every chance, which he survives Is something added to love's gains. Comfort our friend whilst yet he lives! Dead, what shall pay our pains ? If cold should kill his heart at last, Regret will idly muse, and think In at what window blew the blast ? Or how we might have stopp'd that chink. "What mends a moment past ? ir. (man and wife.) >say, Sweet! no thought, not any thought. At least not any thought of you, But what must thank dear love. Nor aught Of love's mistrust between us two Can ever creep. Thank God, we keep Too close to let thin doubts slip through, And leave a scar where they divide Hearts meant by Heaven to hold together. So, soul by soul, as side by side, We sit. Thought wanders hither, thither, From star to star, yet not so far But what, at end of all its tether, It feels the beating of your heart. To which mine bound it long ago. Our love is perfect, every part. SIDE BY SIDE, 169 Love's utmost reach'd at last, must so Henceforth abide. And, if I sigh'd Just now, I scarcely wish to know The reason why. Who feels love's best, Must feel love's best can be no more. We see the bound, no longer guess'd, But fix'd for ever. Lo, the shore ! On either hand, 'twixt sea and land, How clear and fine does sight explore That long-drawn self-determined line Of difference traced I My Own, forgive That, sitting thus, your hand in mine, Glad that dear God doth let us live So close, my Own, so almost one, A thought that wrongs repose should strive With pure content. So much we are, Who are no more .... could I explain ! Ah, the calm sea-coast! Think, how far Across the world came land and niain, Endeavouring each to find and reach The other, — well, and they attain Here ! And just here, where they unite, The point of contact seems to be The point of severance. Left and right, Here lies the land and there the sea. They meet from far: they touch: yet are Still one and one eternally, I70 SIDE BY SIDE. With still that touch between — that touch That joins and yet divides — the shore. Oh soul to soul, dear love, 'tis much ! Love's utmost gain'd can give no more. And yet . . . Well, no ! 'tis better so. Earth still (be glad !) holds Heaven in store. DIVIDED LIVES. 171 DIVIDED LIVES. O LIVES beloved, wherein mine once did live, Thinking your thoughts, and walking in your ways On your dear presence pasturing all my days, In pleasantness, and peace ; whose moods did give The measure to mine own ! how vainly strive Poor Fancy's fingers, numb'd by time, to raise This veil of woven years, that from my gaze To hide what now you are doth still contrive ! Dear lives, I marvel if to you yet clings Of mine some colour; and my heart then feels Much like the ghost of one who died too young To be remember'd well, that sometimes steals A family of unsad friends among Sighing, and hears them talk of other things. 173 SACRIFICE. SACRIFICE. Unto my soul I said — " Make now complete Thy sacrifice by silence. Undeterr'd, Strike down this beggar heart, that would be heard, And stops men's pity in the public street; A mendicant for miserable meat ! Nor pay thy vassal, Pain, with any word. Lest so the deed thou doest should be slurr'd By shameful recompense, and all unsweet. Uncover not the faces of thy dead. Slay thy condemned self, and hide the knife. And even as death, compassionating life, With gracious verdure doth the graves o'erspread, So hide beneath a smiling face the whole Of thine unutter'd misery, O my soul I " DUTY. 173 DUTY. How like a trumpet from the sentinel Angel, that standeth in the morning star, Empanoplied and plumed, as angels are Whom God doth charge to watch that all be well, Cometh to me thy call, O terrible, That, girt, and crown'd, and sworded for Heaven's war, Standest supreme above the confused jar Of shock'd antagonisms, and the yell Of trampled pain ! Thou of the solemn eyes, Firm-fronted Duty, on whose high command My heart waits awed, stretch forth thy harness'd hand, And with a louder summons bid arise My soul to battle. Hark, the muster-roll ! Thy name is call'd. Forth, thou poor conscript soul I 174 INTRODUCTORY. From ''FABLES IN SONG." INTRODUCTORY. I. A LITTLE bird fares well in Spring. For all she wants she finds enough, And every casual common thing She makes her own without rebuff. First, wool and hair from sheep and cow: Then twig and straw, to bind them fast, From thicket and from thatch : and now A little nest is built at last. From out that little nest shall rise, When woods are warm, a living song, A music mixt with light, that flies Thro' fluttering shade the leaves among. INTRODUCTORY. 175 IV. Its home? straw, twi^, and wool, and hair. Mere nothings, these, to house or herd. Who made them something, made them fair, Making them all her own ? The bird. O little bird, take everything. And build thy nest without rebuff, And, when thy nest is builded, sing ! For who can praise thy song enough? And some believe (believe they wrong ?) If like the bird the bard could sing, That, like the bird, fit home foj Song The bard would find in everything. VII. By casual grace of common chance From house and herd, from thick and thatch, Assign'd for Song's inheritance Had Song the gift that grace to catch. Such things I found, by passers-by As rubbish from the roadside thrust; Which poets, seeking poesy, Disdain'd to rescue from the dust. 176 THE THISTLE, IX. Yet here they are — not rubbish now I fain would hope. Do critics stare, Reserve applause, and rub the brow? O that a little bird I were ! THE THISTLE. MoTtO. (a flower's ballad.) It was a thorn, And it stood forlorn In the burning sunrise land : A blighted thorn, And at eve and morn Thus it sigh'd to the desert sand. ** Every flower. By its beauty's power, With a crown of glory is crown'd. No crown have I, For a crown I sigh, For a crown that I have not found. A crown ! a crown ! A crown of mine own, To wind in a maiden's hair!" THE THISTLE, 177 Sad thorn, why grieve ? Thou a crown shalt weave, But not for a maiden to wear. That crown shall shine When all crowns save thine, With the glory they gave, are gone : For, thorn, my thorn, Thy crown shall be worn By the King of Sorrov/s alone. PRELUDE. The green grass-blades aquiver With joy at the dawn of day (For the most inquisitive ever Of the flowers of the field are they) Lisp'd it low to their lazy Neighbours that flat on the ground, Dandelion and daisy, Lay still in a slumber sound: But soon, as a ripple of shadow Runs over the whisperous wheat. The rumour ran over the meadow With its numberless fluttering feet : It was told by the water-cresses To the brooklet that, in and out Of his garrulous green recesses, For gossip was gadding about : And the brooklet, full of the matter, Spread it abroad with pride; 718 178 THE THISTLE. But he stopp'd to gossip and chatter, And turn'd so often aside, That his news got there before him Ere his journey down was done; And young leaves in the vale laugh'd o'er him, ** We know it ! The snow is gone I " The snow is gone ! but ye only Know how good doth that good news sound, Whose hearts, long buried and lonely, Have been waiting, winter-bound, For the voice of the wakening angel To utter the welcome evangel, " The snow is gone : re-arise. And blossom as heretofore, Hopes, imaginings, memories, And joys of the days of yore I " 'Tis the white anemone, fashion'd so Like to the stars of the winter snow. First thinks, *' If I come too soon, no doubt I shall seem but the snow that hath staid too long, So 'tis I that will be Spring's unguess'd scout." And wide she wanders the woods among. The borage, blue-eyed, with a thrill of pride, (For warm is her welcome on every side) From Elfland coming to claim her place. Garments gay of green velvet takes Creased from the delicate travelling case A warm breeze breaks. The daisy awakes And opens her wondering eyes, yet red THE THISTLE, 179 About the rims with a too long sleep ; Whilst, bold from his ambush, with helm on head And lance in rest, doth the bulrush leap. Primrose and violet nestle themselves. Under the trees, by tens and twelves. But the venturous cowslips, one by one, Trembling, chilly, atiptoe stand On little hillocks and knoils alone; Watchful pickets, that wave a hand For signal sure that the snow is gone, Then around them call their comrades all In many a blithe and festal band ; Till the field is alive with grass and flowers, And wherever the flashing footsteps fall. Of the fleet, ethereal April showers, The untoucht earth laughs, overlaid With multitudinous blossom and blade. PART I. 'Twas long after the grass and the flowers, one day, That there came straggling along the way A little traveller, somewhat late. Tired he was; and down he sat In the ditch by the road, where he tried to nestle Out of the dust and the noontide heat. Poor little vagabond wayside Thistle! In the ditch was his only safe retreat. Flung out of the field as soon as found there, And banisht the garden, where should he stay? Wherever he roam'd, still Fortune frown'd there, And, wherever he settled, spurn'd him away. i8o THE THISTLE, From place to place, had he wander' d long The weary high road, parcht with thirst. Now here, in the ditch, for awhile among The brambles hidden, he crouch'd ; and first Wistfully eyed, on the other side, A fresh green meadow with flow'rets pied; And then, with a pang, as he peep'd and pried, " Oh, to rest there ! " he thought, and sigh'd. •' Oh, to rest there, it is all so fair! Yonder wanders a brooklet, sure? No ! it is only the mill-sluice small. But he looks like a brook, so bright and pure, And his banks are broider'd with violets all. Soft ! — I have half a mind to try — Could one slip in yonder quietly, Where the rippled damp of the deep grass spares Cool rest to each roving butterfly, How pleasant 'twould be ! There is nobody by, And perhaps there is nobody owns or cares To look after yon meadow. It seems so still, Silent, and safe — shall I venture ? — I will ! From the ditch it is but a step or two. And, maybe, the owner is dead, and the heirs Away in the town, and will never know." Then the little Thistle atiptoe stood, All in a tremble, sharp yet shy. The vagabond's conscience was not good. He had been so often a trespasser sly, He had been so often caught by the law. He had been so often beaten before; He was still so small : if a spade he saw, He mutter'd a Paternoster o'er, THE THISTLE, i8i And cower'd. So, cautiously thrusting out Here a timorous leaf, there a tiny sprout, And then dropping a seed, and so waiting anon For a chance lift got from the wind — still on, With a hope that the sun and the breeze might please To be helpful and kind — by degrees he frees And feels his way with a fluttering heart. In the ditch there were heaps of stones to pass. They scratch'd him, and tore him, and made him smart, And ruin'd his leaves. But those leaves, alas. Already so tatter'd and shatter'd were. That to keep them longer was worth no care; And at last he was safe in the meadow ; and there *«Ah, ha!" sigh'd the Thistle; "so far, so well ! If I can but stay where I am, I shall fare Blithe as the bee in the blossom's bell. O blest abode ! To have done with the road, And got rid of the ditch ! Ah, who can tell The rapture of rest to the wanderer's breast?" Down out of heaven a dewdrop fell On the head of the Thistle : and he fell asleep In the lap of the twilight soft and deep. PART III, At sunrise he woke : and he still was there, In the bright grass, breathing the balmy air. He stretch'd his limbs, and he shook off the dust, And he wash'd himself in the morning dew; And, opening his pedlar's pack, out-thrust A spruce little pair of leaflets new; And made for himself a fine white ruff, i82 THE THISTLE, About his neck to wear ; And pruned and polish'd his prickles tough ; And put on a holiday air. And ** If only nobody finds me out ! " He laugh'd, as he loll'd among The grass, delighted, and look'd about, And humm'd a homely song, In his wanderings heard elsewhere — ** A crown! a croiunt A crown of mine own, To wind in a maiden's hair I " But ... a sweep of the scythe, and a stamp of the foot, And "Vile weed! is there no getting rid of thee ever?" And what little was spared by the scythe, the boot, With its hobnails, hasten'd to crush and shiver. 'Twas the Farmer, who just then happen'd to pass. He had gone to the field to cut some grass For his beast that morn ; and no sooner saw The trespasser there i^ijlagranie delicto, Than, scythe in hand, he enforced the law On the luckless offender, vi et ictu. All mangled and bruised, the poor little Thistle With his desperate roots to the soil clung fast. The Farmer away, with a careless whistle, Homeward over the meadow pass'd. The thistle. igj The Thistle breathed freer, and shook his gasht head. "All's well, if it be no worse ! " he said. ** My crown is gone, but 'twill grow again. There is many another {I feel it) in me. And one must not make too much of the pain. Only, you good saints, let me not be Forced, for my sins, to return to the road ! " Then his roots he burrow'd more deep and broad. But every day ' twas the self-same thing ! Tho' he made himself little, and hid his head, Trying, with all his might, to cling Close to the soil, and appear to be dead. For his spacious leaves, that were carved and curl'd. For Corinthian columns in temples fair. He could not check them when these unfurl'd Their flourishing architecture there, And, all about him their beauty spreading, Layer upon layer uprose from below ; And the hardy young head, in despite of beheading, Sprang up again— for the scythe to mow ! Round and about him, each blossom was blowing. No chance of blowing had he found ever : Who no sooner was seen than the sharp steel mowing. Or the harsh foot crushing him, stopp'd the endeavour. And, "Oh, blessed," he sigh'd, "is the blossom that blows 1 Colours I know of, no eyes yet see. But I dare not show them ; and nobody knows, Nobody guesses, what's hidden in me ! In all the world but one creature, alas. For love's sake seeks me; and he is an ass." i84 THE THISTLE. So went the Spring : and so came and went The Summer. The aftermath was mown. In bristly patches, no longer blent With the glow of the blossoms that there had blown, The lean gaunt herbage scantly grew, And the beast of the field had the residue The primrose was gone, and the violet, And under the desolate woods, the white Anemone's constellations, set. Had left the earth dark as a starless night, But, outliving his betters one by one, In the flowerless field, with no thought of flight, The brave little Thistle remain'd — alone ! And, since skies were cold, and suns were dim, No one noticed, and no one praised, But also no one maltreated, him. And the pensive beasts of the field, that grazed The twice-cropt grass, where their wandering whim Led them, lazy, from spot to spot, Shunn'd the Thistle and harm'd him not. PART VI. Then the Thistle, at last, could enlarge his store Of the few joys fate had vouchsafed him sparely. Baffled a hundred times, and more, Bruised, and torn, and surviving barely. Still he swvived: and for him, him only. Green leaves gladden'd the leafless cold THE THISTLE. 185 Where, Summer's orphan, he linger'd lonely Over her grave in the frozen mould. For, as days, long dead, by a bard born after Are invoked, and revive in a form more fair, All the bliss that was beauty, the life that was laughter, Ere the frolic fields were bereft and bare, The lone Thistle renew'd and transform'd to his own; As flower by flower — from the fervid rose, Whose beauty so well to herself is known, That she blushes proud of the truth she knows. To the violet. Modesty's vanquisht child. Hiding her head in the sylvan places Where her wandering wooer, the March gust wild, Hath left her faint from his harsh embraces, All of them — all, in a dream divine To the Thistle their else-lost secrets told Of blushes that burn, and of brows that shine. With passion of purple and glory of gold. So all flowers of the field were alive in one : And the glow of his sheen, and the gloss of his down. Were as jewels dead queens have confided alone To the craftsman who fashions them all to a crown. For each hope in the heart of the poor plant hidden, Each vision of bliss and of beauty, nurst With a passion, by Prejudice check'd and chidden. For a life by the fiat of Fortune curst, Rushing forthwith into rich reality, Fill'd the cup of a quenchless thirst Till it flow'd with exuberant prodigality. And his long-pent life into blossom burst. l86 POSSESSION. A single blossom : but statelier far. And fairer, than many a million are. A splendid disc, full and flashing with wonder 1 As the sea-rose swims on the water, so That effulgent star on the bleak earth under Lay spread out in a luminous glow. And "At last I can blossom! blossom! blossom! " The Thistle laugh'd, greeting the earth and heaven, And he blossom'd his whole heart out of his bosom. And all was forgotten, save all that was given. POSSESSION. A POET loved a Star, And to it whisper'd nightly, "Being so fair, why art thou, love, so far? Or why so coldly shine, who shinest so brightly ? O Beauty, woo'd and unpossest, O might I to this beating breast But clasp thee once, and then die, blest ! " That Star her Poet's love, So wildly warm, made human. And, leaving for his sake her heaven above, His Star stoop'd earthward, and became a woman. •' Thou who hast woo'd and hast possest, My lover, answer, which was best, The Star's beam, or the Woman's breast ? " PRE MA TURITY. 1 87 ' ' I miss from heaven, " the man replied, ** A light that drew my spirit to it." And to the man the woman sigh'd, '* I miss from earth a poet," PREMATURITY. If aught in Nature be unnatural, It is the slaying by a spring-tide frost Of Spring's own children : cheated blossoms all, Betray'd i' the birth, and born for burial Of budding promise, scarce beloved ere lost ! Once, in the silence of a clear Spring night, This still, cold-footed Frost, with footstep light Slid thro' the tepid season like a ghost Wrapt in thin white. Flitting, he smote the first-born of the year. And, ere the break of day, their pretty buds were sere. But the blossoms that perish'd Were those alone Which, in haste to be cherish'd With loosen'd zone Had too soon to the sun all their beauty shown. Lightly- vested, Amorous-breastedj i88 THE FAR AND THE NEAR. Blossom of almond, blossom of peach : Impatient children, with hearts unsteady, So young and yet more precocious each Than the leaves of the Summer, and blushing already ! Ill, These perish'd, because too soon they lived ; But the oak-flower, prudent and proud, survived. "If the sun would win me," she thought, "he must Wait for me, wooing me warmly the while; For a flower's a fool, if a flower v/ould trust Her whole sweet being to one first smile." THE FAR AND THE NEAR. (to e. l.) Fair soul, that o'er mine own dost shine So fair, so far above. Dear heart, that hast so close to mine The home of thy true love: Be thine these songs of Far and Near ! Two worlds their sources are : Each makes the other doubly dear. The near one and the far. THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 189 THE BLUE MOUNTAINS; OR, THE FAR. TART I. I. When little kings, whose race was run A little while ago, Had little thrones to sit upon, And little else to do. Within a little town, remote From Europe's larger scenes, There dwelt a man of little note, Who lived on little means. II. A man, he was, of humble birth and mind, His life was lowly, small was his estate. Yet was there ever a human life confined In bounds so narrow by ungenerous fate. But it had in it something far and strange ? This man, from youth to age, had lived and grown In a great longing for a far blue range Of hills that hover'd o'er his native town. Ne'er had his footsteps climb'd those mountains blue. But half his life, and all his thoughts, dwelt there, lie was a man beyond himself. They drew His being out of him, and made it fair. For wheresoe'er his gaze around him roved, There were those beautiful blue hills. And he, Who lived, not in himself, but them, so loved And so revered them, that they ceased to be To him mere hills, mere human feet may wend. Their azure summits, to his longing view. Were features of a dear, though distant friend, In kingly coronal and mantle blue. I90 THE BLUE MOUNTAINS, III. And "Oh," he mused, "full sure am I Those mountains feel, in silent joy, The love my gaze doth give them. They Seek it, indeed, with signs all day ; Down drawing o'er their shoulders fair, This way and that, soft veils of air, And colours, never twice the same, Woven of wind, and dew, and flame, And strange cloud-shadows, and slant showers, •* That is their speech. 'Tis unlike ours, Easy to learn, tho', if one tries; One only has to use his eyes. The colours are the vowels. These Are liquid links whose mobile ease Such fluent combination grants To those substantial consonants, Precipitous crags, and sudden peaks. The accents are the lightning-streaks And thunder-claps, that render, each. Such emphasis to mountain speech. Next follow fog and mist, which are Verbs we may call irregular; Perplexing when at first you view them, But persevere, and you'll get thro' them. Then comes the rain, which just supplies The necessary quantities Of notes of admiration. Far Too many, folks may think they are. But if such folks could understand The mountains, there on every hand They'd find about them more, far more. Than notes of admiration, score THE BLUE MOUNTAINS, 191 On score, suffice for. Think, what lands And peoples every peak commands ! Then find the statesman that knows how To govern one land. As for two, That task's beyond the best, we feel. Now, had we, like the hills, to deal With winds, and storms, and clouds, and snows, Nor lose our dignified repose. Who'd wonder why the hills abound In thoughts so serious, so profound. About what men, when met together. Talk, without thinking, of— the weather ? But still to talk it is men's wont, Both when they think and when they don't. Ah, good old hills! If majesty Should, some day hence, be forced to fly From all her other thrones on earth, 'Tis there, with you, who gave her birth. That she her latest home would find, AbovBy but still amongy mankind ! " PART II. Thus ever the fancies of the man (Like their own restless rills) Upon the mighty mountains ran, Refresht by far-off hills. Not one of his neighbours, he could swear. Half so well as those mountains, knew him, WTio wrapp'd his soul in their robe of blue. And, if that were fancy, this was true : 192 777^ BLUE MOUNTAINS. That, whether or not, those mountains fair For the good of this man had a thought or care. Much good they had contrived to do him By simply being there. His only wish was to tell them of it, And requite them for it. But not, as now, When to every peak, with the snow above it, And the azure of heaven above the snow. It was only his wishes that found their way ; But among the hills, himself ^ some day Before he died, if that might be. When the hills could hear what he had to say, And how much to say to the hills had he ! III. Oh, heavenly power of human wishes For as wings to birds, and as fins to fishes. Are a man's desires to the soul of a man. *Tis by these, and by these alone, it can Wander at will thro' its native sphere Where the beauty that's far is the bliss that is near. Fate favour'd the wishes of this poor man. For the wave of the ebbing century ran In a sudden surge of storm at last Over the little spot of earth, Where, else, unnoticed he might have past To his obscure death from his obscure birth. And thus he, whose life had lain out of sight, A social nothing, the strain and swell Of the time's strong trouble swept into light, THE BLUE MOUNTAINS, 193 And suddenly made perceptible. Then, as soon as noticed by those in power, The man was honour'd (O happy hour!) By the sight of his name in a Royal Decree ; Which inform'd the world that he (poor he ! Who could have fancied so strange a thing?) Had really and truly lived to be A cause of alarm to his lord the King. For it banish'd him to a place, he knew Must be in the midst of those mountains blue. And thus his wishes, at last, came true. Glad was our friend, when himself he found, In. travelling trim, to the mountains bound! The way was long, and the road was steep. And, before he had got to his journey's end, The night was dark, and the hills asleep. '* Aha!" thought he, '* will they know their friend, Who is here at last ? Too late to-night To see them, of course ! They are sleeping now. But to-morrow, to-morrow at earliest light, I shall arise ere the red cock crow, And visit mine old friends, every one." So, at dawn, he arose with the rising sun, And forth, as blithe as a bird, went he. At first he was puzzled and pain'd, to find All round him a field which appear'd to be 719 194 THE BLUE MOUNTAINS, Just like the fields he had left behind : A little meadow of grass, hemm'd round With many a little hillock and mound, Which hinder'd his sight from ranging far. "But soon are these small hills climbed," he thought, " And behind them, doubtless, the blue ones are, Where, sportively hiding, they wish to be caught. " Then he mounted the hillocks that rose close by, And thence, indeed, he beheld once more The old blue hills. But they were not nigh ; They were far, far, far aAvay, as before. IV. *' Strange !" he mused, "yet I travell'd all day, Ay, and more than the half o' the night, too, post ! And all my life I have heard folks say That the blue hills are but a day, at most, From my native town. Did they err, I wonder? " Then he asked of a traveller passing by, " Pray, sir, what is that country yonder ? There, where the hills are so blue and high." And, when the traveller had told him the name Of the place where the blue hills now were seen, Alas, poor man ! 'twas the very same Where, till then, he had all his life long been : The country about his native town — His birthplace — whence he had just been banish'd. The blue hills there he had never known, And the blue hills here^ which he loved, had vanish'd. THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 195 PART IV. " And have I been living, then, all this while In a blue land — really and truly blue ? " The exile sigh'd with a sorrowful smile, "And never dream'd of it ! Can it be true? Never dream'd of it ! All seem'd grey, Or dusty white, with a patch or two Of lean green grass, or raw red clay, To enliven the rest. But blue ? . . . blue ? . blue?" . . . The man fell into a reverie. O'er his cerulean home a brood Of ethereal clouds were floating free. And they sign'd to him, and he understood. in. " As the waves that are clad in the azure of ocean, So clad in the azure of heaven are we. As thou movest, we move, with an unseen motion And, where thou foUowest, there we flee. For the children of Never and Ever we are, And our home is Beyond, and our name is Afar. " Never to us shall thy steps attain, Nor ever to thee may we draw nearer. But, if fair in thy vision our forms remain. Still love us, the farther we are, the dearer, And be thou ours, as thine we are. For what were the near, were it not for the far ? 196 A WHEAT-STALK " Look above, and below— to the heaven, the plain ! The low and the level, they disappear. The aloof and the lofty alone remain. And, for ever present tho' never near. Whilst ours are the summit, the sky, and the star Still thine is the beauty of all that we are." IV. All this, in his much-loved mountain-tongue, The man's heart, hearing it, understood. And he thought of the old old days, so young ! But he spake not : only, let fall a flood Of passionate notes of admiration. Over his wan cheek silently sweeping. As when, in their sorrow and desolation, At the death of the summer, the hills are weeping. V. Then the folk about him, who knew not aught Of that mountain language, shook the head. "How he takelh his sentence to heart!" each thought. And ** Courage 1 the time must mend," they said. A WHEAT-STALK; OR, THE NEAR. The cattle tinkle down the lanes, And there the bramble-roses blow. From rocky haunts to reach the plains The rills, with shaken timbrel, go. A WHEAT-STALK, 197 Gay dancers light ! The hills are bright With gleaming peaks of golden snow. By fragrant gales in frolic play The floating corn's green waves are fann'd, And all above, broad summer day 1 And all below, bright summer land ! And, born of each, Far out of reach, Those shining alpine spectres stand. A world of beauty, grandeur, grace, Abundance, fill'd with force divine. No sooner doth mine eye embrace Than my soul hath made it mine. How deep, O soul, Thy depth must be. To hold the whole Of a world in thee I But O eye, and O soul, is your thirst yet sated ? Or what more do ye claim for your own ? Must this world, at the best, be so lightly rated, For the sake of a better, unknown? Ah, farther away than the farthest hill-top Do Ifeel mine own boundless emotion! And my heart, tho' o'erbrimm'd it may be by a drop, Is contented not with an ocean. 198 A WHEAT-STALK. On the blossomy lattice ledge, Whence, far off, I descry The long land's light blue edge, With, beyond it, but the sky. From a glass half fill'd with water Leans an ear of wheat — a prize Erewhile my little daughter Brought home with brighten'd eyes. To her things near and known, Seem strange and far away, The hamlet next our own As distant as Cathay ! Nor needs she earth should be So wondrous wide and far, Such worlds at hand hath she. And every world a star ! Why, dreaming ever, clings my gaze so fast To this small wheat-stem? Whence its power to draw My refluent thoughts from yonder distance vast, And hang them on a homely wheaten straw ? It is that, small and homely though it be, This car of wheat so homely and so small, Because it is so near, so near to me, Hath size enough and power to cover all. It leans along full twenty leagues of land, And hides them with a straw. The purple hills Peer through its hoary panicle. The grand Horizon's azure orb one wheat-stem fills. A WHEAT-STALK. 199 Kindly perspective ! Little things close by Exceed great things remote : for Nature's art Brings vision to a centre in the eye, Affection to a centre in the heart. And, were it not so, light and love would be Lost wanderers ; and the universal frame A heap of fragments; and the force to see, The force to feel, mere force without an aim. VI. O near ones, dear ones ! you, in whose right hands Our own rests calm; whose faithful hearts all day Wide open wait till back from distant lands Thought, the tired traveller, wends his homeward way! Helpmates and hearthmates, gladdeners of gone years, Tender companions of our serious days, Who colour with your kisses, smiles, and tears Life's warm web woven over wonted ways, Young children, and old neighbours, and old friends, Old servants — you, whose smiling circle small Grows slowly smaller till at last it ends Where in one grave is room enough for all, O shut the world out from the heart you cheer! Tho' small the circle of your smiles may be. The world is distant, and your smiles are near. This makes you more than all the world to me. 200 LOST TREASURES. LOST TREASURES. PART I. It was the splendid winter-tide, And all the land was thrilling white, In a solemn and songless sunshine wide, Whose gorgeous uncongenial light Harden'd whatever it glorified. And while that glory was streaming amber Into a childhood-haunted chamber, A child, at play by the lattice-sill, Where daily the redbreasts begging came, Noticed a glittering icicle That flash'd in the sun like a frozen flame. So, plucking it oflF, he seized and put it Into a box of gilded paper. There, to be treasured for ever, shut it. Danced about it with shout and caper, And then, as a child will do, forgot it. For suddenly under the lattice roU'd A music of cymbal and trumpet blent. And, oh merry and brave it was to behold The soldiers below, who in scarlet and gold Marching blithe to the music went. And after the soldiers, cleaving the cold Slantwise, shot like a falling arrow, And perch'd on the sill of the lattice, a bold, Bright-eyed, sharp-beak'd, hungry sparrow; Claiming, with saucy, sidelong head. His accustom'd alms of a crumb of bread, Tho' to get what he ask'd he would not stop, But off, with a pert, impatient hop. Went twittering over the roof instead. LOST TREASURES. 201 Next follow'd far more than a man can mention Of indoor claims on a child's attention. And at last 'twas a whip to whip the top, And "Oh, where is Grandfather? 'tis he must find one! " Then away in a hurry the small feet trot, Yet pause : for that icicle, first forgot, And then remember'd all in a minute, It were surely a pity to leave behind one. So the treasure-box, with the treasure in it, Their tiny treasurer carries away. But ah, what sorrowful change is this In the box where safely the bright gem lay Erewhile, a secretly-beaming bliss To beautify many a winter's day ? For, drop by drop, is the drench'd box dripping, And the gilded paper is all undone, And, away in a shower of warm tears slipping, The deceitful treasure is well-nigh gone. So, weeping too, with the woeful story (In a passion of grief unreconciled For the lost delight of a vanisht glory) To the old man hastens the troubled child. Lone by the old hearth was the old man sitting. He, too, a treasure-box had on his knee ; And slowly, slowly, like sad snow-flakes flitting Down from the weak boughs of a wither'd tree. Fell from his tremulous fingers, wet with tears, Into the embers of the old hearth's fire, Wan leaves of paper yellow'd by long years : Letters, that once were treasures. 202 LOST TREASURES. The Grandsire Welcomed the infant with a kind, faint smile. The burning letters, black and wrinkled, rose Along the gusty flue ; and there awhile (Like one who, doubtful of the way he goes, Lingers and hesitates) along the dark They hover'd and delay'd their ghostly flight, Thin sable veils wherein a restless spark Yet trembled! — and then pass'd from hum.an sight. How oft had human eyes in days of yore Above them beam'd, and with what tender light! Wherefore, O wherefore, had those eyes no more Upon them gazed for many a heedless year? Was not the record which those eyes had read With such bright rapture in each blissful tear Still writ in the same letters, which still said The self-same words ? Ah ! why not now, as then. With the same power to brighten those changed eyes? Why should such looks such letters meet again As strangers? each to each a sad surprise ! " How pale," the eyes unto the letters said, " And wan, and weak, and yellow are ye grown ! " And to the eyes the letters, "Why so red About the rims, and wrinkled ? Eyes unknown, Nor ever seen before, to us ye seem. Save for a something in the depths of you Familiar to us, like a life-like dream So well remember'd it almost seems true ! " The grandchild weeps upon the grandsire's knee, And babbles of his treasure fled away. The old man listens to him patiently. And tells the child, as tho' great news were there, LOST TREASURES, 203 Old tales which well the child already knows, And smoothes his tumbled curls, and comforts him. The winter day is darkening to its close, On the old hearth the dying fire grows dim. PART III. The child upon the old man's breast was sleeping, The old man stiller than the sleeping child I Then slowly, softly, near and nearer creeping From book-shelves dark, and dusty papers piled, Old thoughts, old memories of the days of old, Which lurk'd about that old room everywhere, Hidden in many a curtain's quiet fold, Panel, or picture-frame, or carven chair, All silent, in the silence, one by one, Came from between the long-unlookt-at leaves Of old books; rose up from the old hearth-stone; Descended from the old roofs oaken eaves; Laid spectral hand in hand by twos and threes, And then by tens and twenties; circled dim Around the old man, on whose tranquil knees Still slept the infant; and, saluting him, The eldest vvhisper'd, " Dost thou know us not? Many are we who come to take farewell. For all departs at last. Ay, even the thought Of what hath been. Sunbeam and icicle, Childhood and age ! The joys of childhood perish Before the heats of manhood; manhood's heats Before the chills of age. Whate'er ye cherish. As whatsoe'er ye sufier, fades and fleets. What goes not with the heat, goes with the cold. For all that comes, goes also. What ye call Life, is no more than dyings manifold. All changes, all departs, all ends. All, all ! " 204 ONL Y A SHA VING. ONLY A SHAVING. I. A CHILD, as from school he was bounding by. Near the wall of a carpenter's workshop found A lustrous shaving that lured his eye ; And this treasure he timidly pick'd from the ground. The thing was tender, transparent, light, Silk-soft, odorous, vein'd so fine With rosy waves in the richest white, Rare damask of dainty design I With awe he touch'd it, and turned it o'er. He had never seen such a wonder before. And, gay as a ringlet of golden hair, It had floated and fallen down at his feet ; Where, fluttering faint in each breath of bright air, It lay bathed by the sunshine sweet. The boy was a widow's sireless son. A poor dame, pious and frugal, she. Brothers and sisters he had none. Playmates and playthings few : and he Was gentle, and dreamy, and pure, as one To whom most pleasures privations be Ere childhood's playing is done. IV. He would like to have taken his treasure away. *' But what," he thought, " would my mother say ? ONL V A SHA VING. 205 As he wistfully eyed the window'd wall Whence down from the casement of some ground floor He thought he had seen the fair thing fall. Then he knock'd at the half-shut door. Near it the sturdy head workman stood. He was busily planing a plank of wood. His arms were up to the elbows bare, Brawny and brown as the branch of an oak, And heavy with muscle and dusky with hair. Down over his forehead and face in a soak, (For the heat of his labour had left them wet) Fell mane-like, matted, and black as jet, A huge unkempt and cumbrous coil Of stubborn curls ; that to forehead and face, Gave a savage look as he stoop'd at his toil, With many a sullen and sooty trace Of the glue-pot's grease and the workshop's soil. His shirt — last Sunday, though coarse, as clean As the parson's own, — this Friday noon Had the hue of the shift of that famous queen Who took Granada, but not so soon As her oath was taken. This man had seen The gentle child at the door, and thought " 'Tis the child of a customer come with a message. •* Pray, what has my little master brought ? Or what may he want? " With no cheerful piesage At the sight of his grim-faced questioner, A few faint words the poor child stammers, Words unheard 'mid the noisy stir Of the hissing saws and the beating hammers. 2o6 ONL Y A SHA VING. When, abasht and blushing, he stands deterr'd With a fluttering heart like a frighten'd bird ; As he holds the shaving out in his hand, Timidly gazing at that strange prize. The workman was puzzled to understand This gracious vision. He rubbed his eyes. Is it vainly such visions come and go In flashes across life's labouring way? We uplift the forehead and fain would know "What to think of them. Whence come they ? For they burst upon us and brighten the air For a moment round us, and melt away, Lost as we longingly look at them. VII. "Hi! Silence, all of you hands down there! " And you might have heard the hum of a fly In the hush of the suddenly silenced place. " What is it, my child? " With a glowing face- "Sir," said the child, " I was passing by. And I saw it fall, as I pass'd below, From the window, I think. So, as it fell near, I have pick'd it up, and I bring it you now." '* Bring what ? " ** This beautiful ringlet here. Have you not miss'd it? It must, I know, Have been hard to make. I have taken care. The wind was blowing it round the wall. And I never saw anything half so fair. But it is not broken, I think, at all." ONL V A SHA VING, 207 VIII. A 'prentice brat, whose cheek was puft With a burst of laughter ready to split, Turn'd pale, by a single glance rebuft Of that workman's eye, which had noticed it. And the man there, shaggy and black as a bear, Nor any the sweeter for sweat and glue, Laid a horny hand on the child's bright hair, With a gentle womanly gesture drew The child up softly on to his knees. And gazed in its eyes till his own eyes grew Humid and red at the lims by degrees. IX. " Wliat is thine age, fair child? " he said. " Five, next June." *' And it pleases thee. This. . . ringlet-thing?" The small bright head Nodded. He put the child from his knee. Swept from the bench a whole curly clan Of such shavings, and, " Hold up thy pinafore. There, they are thine. Run away, little man! " " Mine ? " " All thine." Then he open'd the door, Stoop'd, and . . . was it a sigh or a prayer That, as into the sunshine the sweet child ran, Away with it pass'd in its golden hair ? Anon, when the hubbub again began Of hammer and saw in the workshop there. This workman paused from his work ; and stood Looking awhile (as though vexed by the view) At the shape which his work had bequeathed to the wood. 2o8 QUESTIONABLE CONSOLATION. Then he turn'd him about, and abruptly drew His pipe from his pocket, and stufTd it, and lit, And sat down on the bench by the open door, And smoked, and smoked. And in circles blue As the faint smoke wander'd the warm air o'er, Still he sat dreamily watching it Rise like a ghost from the grimy clay, And hover, and linger, and fade away. XII. I know not what were his thoughts. But I know There be shavings that down from a man's work fall Which the man himself, as they drop below, Haply accounts of no worth at all ; And I know there be children that prize them more Than the man's true work, be its worth what it may. And I think that (albeit 'twas not half o'er) This workman turn'd from his work that day. Having, just then, nor wish nor will To go on planing a coffin still. QUESTIONABLE CONSOLATION. A BUTTERFLY (and had the wretch been born With all the beauties that, at best, adorn A butterfly's complete perfection, still He but a butterfly had been, at best) QUESTIONABLE CONSOLATION. 209 Came into life a cripple ; dispossest Of half his natural features; born i' the chill, Bletnisht, and misbegotten ; an abortion Doom'd from the birth to suffering and distortion. II. One wing unfinisht, and misshapen one : Six legs he had, but of his six legs none That served the purpose for which legs are made : The piteous pivot of his own distress, Aye with self-torturing unsteadiness About himself he turn'd ; and found no aid In aught that life vouchsafed him, leg or wing To life's attainment of one wisht-for thing. III. He saw the others hovering in the sun ; He saw them seek each other; saw them shun Each other, by each other to be sought ; He saw them (each, itself, a second flower) On flowers, entranced by the transcendent power Of their own happiness; he saw them, fraught With frolic rapture, fearless wantons all ! And saw himself, unable even to crawl. IV. " And I," he thought, " I too, was meant to be A winged joy, a wandering ecstasy ! Ah, must I envy, for his happier lot, The wingless worm that hath, complete, whate'er As worm he wants ; who wants no more, to fare Thro* life content ; by life defrauded not Of what mere life makes capable of joy Even in a worm ? still happier far than I ! 720 2IO QUESTIONABLE CONSOLATION. V. '* I, to whom life refuses all things I all Life's joy in earth, air, water I Still too tall The tiniest stem that bears the lowliest flower For me to climb! too rough air's lightest sigh For me to ride I the nearest dewdrop, dry Ere I can reach it ! All, beyond my power ! All, save to disappear — go down — go by — Sink out of life, not having lived — and die I " VI. The dying sun the insect's dying moan O'crheard, and answer'd from his falling throne, ** Mourn not! I, even I, the sun, go down. Sink, and drop into darkness. Look at me! " — He sinks. In pompous purple pillows he. His kingly forehead, girt with golden crown, And, slowly, with delight his gaze grows dim, Seeing earth's sadness for the loss of him. VII. Delicious homage of a dear dismay Paid to the happy, when they pass away, By grief not theirs! Beneath him, prostrate, lies A world that worships him; and everywhere Therein he finds some record rich and fair Of his own power. He sinks: and wistful eyes His pathway follow to its glorious bourn. He sinks: and longing voices sigh " Return ! " QUESTIONABLE CONSOLATION, 211 VIII. He passes: but he hath not pass'd in vain. He passes, proving by life's loss its gain, And bearing with him what he leaves behind. He goes: rejoicing, "All that I have given Memoiy makes mine again, and makes it even Mine more completely than before. I shined Rising and setting. All my light was shown, And all my force was felt." Thus suns go down. The boastful orb's last glories, lingering, That cripple smote. " Go, glories! tell your king, Smiling, he said, "go, him that sent you tell, Not all so wretched as I deem'd was I. Since I have seen how suns go down, thereby School'd have I been to know, and value well, What they, the happy, — they that have it not, — Would fain filch even from a wretch's lot, The grandeur of its utter desolation." All glowing with rebuke and shamed vexation The braggart sun's resentful blushes burst. As o'er the deep, whose surface, and no more. His glory gilt, he, slowly sinking, bore This knowledge gain'd : that Misery at her worst Hath one poor grace of tragic interest Proud Pleasure vainly envies at his best. 212 GLEN A VERIL. From " GLEN A VERIU PART I., CANTO II. O youth, O childhood, fugitive angels you, That once, gone back to Heaven, return no more ! In vain our hearts invoke you to renew The joys that followed you ; in vain implore. The bounty of a single drop of dew. That perisht with you from our paths before We knew you gone. The only dew that wets Those pathways now falls there from vain regrets. Regrets that while you lingered here below. We knew not that ye would so soon depart. Regrets that you are gone ; regrets to know That you will come no more ; regrets that start To life at every backward glance we throw, Regrets that cling to the discouraged heart When all the joys that smile on later years Lost youth's memento morty fills with tears. GLENA VERIL. 213 III. Oh, Heaven ! to have been young, and all youth was, AH we have felt and cannot feel again, Still to remember and to find, alas. That the remembrance of lost joy is pain! *Tis ever drinking from an empty glass. Better the full glass broken, than the vain, Importunate wild cravings, that caress, With pining lips its perfect emptiness I IV. Full in the fresh delight of victory. Young warriors ! In your bridal garments drest, On your death biers young virgin brides go by I Perish, young infants, on your mother's breast ! And you in love's first kiss, young lovers die, Dreaming of beauty still to be possest ! Let earth, thro' you, whose bliss no memory mars. Send up one happy message to the stars ! Say to them, you, ** O wistful stars, down there, Hid in the depths of night's primeval dome From your bright eyes, that seek her everywhere. Happiness dwells. From her abode we come. There have we seen and known her ; and we bear This message of the earth, her human home. From star to star, through all your shining mists Of suns and planets, * Happiness exists ' ! " VI. Why do the stars with such reproachful eyes Search all the dismal avenues of night ? What questions that admit of no replies Come trembling to us on their plaintive light 214 GLENAVERIL. " Alas ! " they seem to say, ** earth's look belies The tidings carried in their heavenward flight, By these young messengers she sent us. Yes, They sung to us of earthly happiness." " What have you done with it ? Where is it ? Who Are its possessors ? Yonder man, that glides Down the dark alley stealthily, below His cloak gleams something that he grasps and hides, But can it be his happiness ? Ah, no ! Ilark ! through the sleeping house what harsh sound grides, r the shuttered dark ? Doth happiness emit That sullen cry? or is it the centre-bit? Is it for happiness dark hands explore Those rummaged coffers ? Is it happiness You woman, hovering by the half-shut door, On every passing stranger strives to press ? W^ho are earth's happy ones ? and where their store Of undiscoverable earthly bliss ? Lurks it beneath the lids of eyes that keep Its stolen treasures only while they sleep ? " What to such questioners can we reply ? Is all earth's happiness a heartless boast ? Is it not lest the legend of earth's joy Should all too soon become a legend lost, HUMAN DESTINIES. 2 1 S That in their unsuspecting youth they die Who still believe in it ? And we (sad host Of mourners !) hide our griefs, and whisper low, Lest them, and it, our voice should disavow. X. For who would blast what those young lips have blest ? Or who the promise they proclaimed, belie? For their sakes, Sorrow, in thine aching breast Stifle the vain, involuntary sigh! For their sakes, Misery, be thy groans suppressed ! And smile, Old Agel Lo, as thou limpest by, Along the hedge, the honeysuckle flings, Her frolic blossom and the linnet sings ! HUMAN DESTINIES. Some childhoods are there, that impatient pass Into life's sewer of common cares, almost As rapid as the rinsings of a glass Down from the garret to the gutter tost By some wild Magdalen, whose midnight mass Is a libation to the unlaid ghost Of her slain innocence. Where such drops fall No blossoms spring. The gutter takes them all. Others there be, whose days are drops of dew That softly, droplet after droplet, sliding 2i6 HUMAN DESTINIES. From flower to flower, in sheltered peace pursue Hushed grassy courses; all their sweetness hiding, Till from its silent growth a rivulet new The woodland wins, along whose wavelets gliding On sunbeams and on moonbeams, fearless elves Under dim forest leaves, disport themselves. And there's a beauty that demands the light, Bursting like glory from the battle plain, Full-blown. A whole world's homage is its right ; The sun is not solicited in vain ; He shines to be admired ; from alpine height To height, from shore to shore, from main to main, The god goes radiant, gilding, as it rolls. Each wave between the Indus and the Poles. But ah ! that beauty born beneath the veil. The Isis of the heart ! By many a fold Its mystic vesture tells the silent tale Of charms that eyes profane may not behold. ^Vl^ilst to its own appointed priest the pale Composure of the sacred image, stoled In sweet repose, if ruffled not, reveals The secret it from all beside conceals. Lift not the veil ! Divined in silence, leave The beauty hid beneath its holy hem ! Poesy, Childhood, Faith, Love, Passion, weave (Like the wise moth, ere round the rose's stem THE FAMILY BOARD, 217 With wavering joy his budded winglets heave) O'er them a mystery that shehers them From the rude touch and the inquisitive eye. Lift not the veil ; but worship and pass by ! THE FAMILY BOARD. If in thy jaded spirit thou wouldst feel One hour of pure repose, and with repose A careless joy ! — go, join some family meal ! How calm and full of cheerfulness life grows Where, round one board, the commonplace appeal Of daily habit hath assembled those Who dwell within its kind, familiar fold, In unison together, young and old ! What sparkling expectation fills with light, The children's eyes ! How softly, one by one From each parental forehead, out of sight. Fade the smoothed puckers, as the meal goes on. How sociality aids appetite To improve the charm which it bestows upon Plain wholesome dishes that are not " too good And bright foir hmman nature's daily food." The children's rippling prattle that promotes The parents' grave, unruffled gaiety, Like rivulets revelling along flowery moats Into calm rivers, they enrich thereby 2i8 THE FAMILY BOARD, Chance questions, light replies ; gay anecdotes, Laughter, not loud but full of innocent joy, The gurgling bottle and the chinking glass, And little jokes that jostle as they pass I The multifarious mirthfulness of these Interfluent sounds continued hovering Around that table, like the restless bees That haunt the honied banquets of the Spring, And in exchange for sweets and essences. Music and merriment to the blossoms bring, As coming, going, humming, glowing they, From flower to flower inquisitively stray. NORTH AND SOUTH. 219 From ''AFTER PARADISE; OR, LEGENDS OF EXILED NORTH AND SOUTH. Far in the southern night she sleeps; And there the heavens are husht, and there, Low murmuring from the moonlit deeps, Faint music lulls the dreamful air. No tears on her soft lashes hang, On her calm lips no kisses glow. The throb, the passion, and the pang Are over now. But I? From this full-peopled north. Whose midnight roar around me stirs, How wildly still my heart goes forth To haunt that silent home of hers ! 220 CINTRA. There night by night, with no release, These sleepless eyes the vision see, And all its visionary peace But maddens me. ATHENS. The burnt-out heart of Hellas here behold ! Quench'd fire-pit of the quick explosive Past, Thought's highest crater — all its fervours cold, Ashes and dust at last ! And what Hellenic light is living now To gild, not Greece, but other lands, is given; Not where the splendour sank, the after-glow Of sunset stays in heaven. But loud o'er Grecian ruins still the lark Doth, as of old, Hyperion's glory hail. And from Hymettus, in the moonlight, hark The exuberant nightingale 1 CINTRA. I. In the brake are creaking The tufted canes. And the wind is streaking With fugitive stains A welkin haunted by hovering rains. CINTRA 221 ii; Low lemon-boughs under My garden wall, In the Quinta yonder, By fits let fall Here an emerald leaf, there a pale gold ball, - III. On the black earth, studded With droplets bright From the fruit trees, budded, Some pink, some white, And now overflooded with watery light. IV. For the sun, thro' a chasm Of the colourless air. With a jubilant spasm From his broken lair Upleaps and stands, for a moment, bare! But a breath bewilders The wavering weather; And those sky-builders That put together The vaporous walls of the cloud-bound ether CINTRA. •VI. From the mountains hasten In pale displeasure To mortice and fasten The bright embrazure, Shutting behind it day's innermost azure. VII. On the bleak blue rim Of the lonesome lea, Shapeless and dim As far things at sea, Mafra yon nebulous clump must be ! VIII. Across the red furrows To where in the sides Of the hills he burrows (As a reptile hides) The many-legg'd, long-back'd, aqueduct strides Just over the pines. As from tapers snuffd, A thin smoke twines Till its course is luff'd At the edge of the cliff, by the breeze rebufTd. CINTRA. 223 Whence, downward turning A dubious haze, (From the charcoal burning) It strays, delays, And departs by a dozen different ways. The chestnuts shiver, The olive trees Recoil and quiver, Stung by the breeze, Like sleepers awaked by a swarm of bees. XII. Down glimmering lanes The grey oxen go ; And the grumbling wains They drag onward slow Wail, as they wind in a woeful row, XIII. With fruits and casks To the seaside land^ Where Colares basks In a glory bland, And from gardens o'erhanging the scented sand 224 C INTRA. XIV. Great aloes glisten And roses dangle. But listen ! listen ! The mule-bells jangle, Rounding the rock-hewn path's sharp angle. As their chime dies out The dim woods among, With the ghostly shout And the distant song Of the muleteers that have pass'd along, XVI. From behind the hill Whence comes that roar. Up the road so still But a minute before ? 'Tis a message arrived from the grieved sea- shore. XVII. And, tho* close it seems, Yet from far away It is come, as in dreams The announcements they To the souls that can understand convey. CINTRA. 225 XVIII. For whenever you hear, As you hear it now, That sound so clear, You may surely know Foul weather's at hand, tho* no wind should blow. XIX. But the cork wood is sighing, It cannot find rest; And the raven, flying Around his black nest. Hath signall'd the storm to the Sierra's crest. XX. Plaintive and sullen, Penal va moans; The torrents are swollen ; The granite bones Of Cruzalta crackle with split pine cones; XXI. Roused and uproarious The huge oaks yell Till the ghost of Honorious Is scared from his cell, Where not even a ghost could in quietude dwell 721 226 CINTRA. XXII. For the woods all round Its cork-clad walls Are storm'd by the sound Of the waterfalls That have shatter'd their mountain pedestals. XXIII. On the topmost shelf Of the Pena, fast As the rock itself, In a cluster vast Stood castle and keep but a moment past; XXIV. Now, in what to the sight Is but empty air. They are vanisht quite, And the sharp peak, bare As a shaven chin, is upslanted there. Can a film of cloud. Like the fiat of Fate, In its sightless shroud Thus obliterate The ponderous mass of a pile so great i CINTRA. 227 XXVI. 'Twas a fact, yet a breath Has that fact dispell'd. So truth, underneath A cloud compell'd To hide her head, is no more beheld, XXVII. The achievement of years, By a minute effaced, Departs, disappears. And is all replaced By a cold blank colourless empty waste. All forms, alas, That remain or flee As the winds that pass May their choice decree, Stand faster far than have stood by me. The man I served, And the woman I loved. But what if they swerved As their faith was proved, When a mountain can be by a mist removed ? 228 A SIGH. SORRENTO REVISITED. (1885.) On the lizarded wall and the gold-orb'd tree Spring's splendour again is shining; But the glow of its gladness awakes in me Only a vast repining. II. To Sorrento, asleep on the soft blue breast Of the sea that she loves, and dreaming, Lone Capri uplifts an ethereal crest In the luminous azure gleaming. III. And the Sirens are singing again from the shore. 'Tis the song that they sang to Ulysses; But the sound of a song that is sung no more My soul in their music misses. A SIGH. The passion and the pain of yore Slow time hath still'd in vain, Since all that I can feel no mors I yearn to feel again. STRANGERS. 229 NECROMANCY. Why didst thou let me deem thee lost for years, Youth of my heart? And, now that I have shed O'er thy false grave long-since-forgotten tears, And put away my mourning for the dead, And learn'd to live without thee half content, What brings thee back alive, tho' in disguise ? For thou, with this fair stranger's beauty blent, Art smiling on me thro* another's eyes. STRANGERS. (a rhapsody.) Children are born, about whose lucid brows The blue veins, visibly meandering, stream Transparent : children in whose wistful eyes Are looks like lost dumb creatures in a crowd, That roam, and search, and find not what they seek. These children are life's aliens. The wise nurse Shakes her head, murmuring, " They will not live !" A piteous prophecy, yet best for them The death that, pitifully premature. Remits the pitiless penalty of birth ; Letting the lost ones steal away unhurt, Because unnoticed, from a world not theirs. Strangers and star-born strayaways forlorn, Who come so careless of the outlandish wealth You carry with you, dropping as you go Treasures beyond the reach of Orient Kings, 230 STRANGERS. What seek you here where your unvalued gifts Shall leave you beggars for an alms denied ? Earth yields not their equivalent. No field So profitless but some poor price it hath ; A spurious picture or a spavin'd horse INfay find in time their willing purchasers ; But never for its worth shall you exchange A soul's unmarketable opulence. And when at last, of those who (unenrich'd By your impov'rishment) the gift forget, Your thirst and hunger crave a broken crust, A drop of water from the wayside well, Stripes shall correct such importunities. Linger not ! live not 1 give not ! Hide your gifts, Ungiven, deeper than Remembrance digs Among the haunted ruins she explores For riches lost. And if abrupt mischance Their buried store reveal, without a blush Disown it, for a lie may sometimes save A miser's life. The truth would serve as well, Were truth not unbelievable ; for, stored In coin not current here and gems unprized, Your treasures are worth nothing to the wretch They tempt to make them, by a murder, his. But this the assassins know not, and ill-arm'd, lU-arm'd and worse than weaponless, are you ! To whose inefficacious grasp was given In solemn mockery the seraphic sword That only archangelic hands can hold. Your own have clutch'd it by the burning blade, And, when you wield it, 'tis yourselves you wound. You that have Feeling, think you to have all? Poor fools, and you have absolutely nought ! STRANGERS. 231 In reckonings of this world's arithmetic Everything else is something by itself, Feeling alone is nothing. Could you add That nothing to what counts for anything, Forthwith a tenfold potency perchance The unreckonable zero might bestow Upon the reckon'd unit. But what boots A value so vicarious? Yours the spell WTiose all transfigurating sorceries Convert the dust man grovels into gold ; Robing the pauper royal in the pomp Of princely exultations, changing night To morning, death to life, the wilderness To paradise ; beautifying pain, Cleansing impurity, and strewing thick The gulphs of Hell with starry gleams of Heaven. I'.ut use it not ! Unsanction'd miracles Are sentenced sins. Writ large for all to read, About the world's street corners Reason posts •'Beware of the Miraculous!" Whereto Prudence appends, the placard to complete, ** Miracles x\re forbidden ! " Use it not, Your gift unblest ! Lo, Virtue's High Priest comes, Calls the Sanhedrim's long-phylacteried train, Consults the scriptured scrolls, within them finds No warrant for the wonders you perform, And them and you doth anathematise. Linger not ! live not I give not ! All your gifts Shall turn to stones and scourges in the hands That crave them, and to live is to be lost. Thou starry snowflake, whose still flight transforms The frozen crystal's constellated crown 232 STRANGERS. To an ethereal feather, seek not here, Celestial strangers, seek not here on earth, Where Purity were nameless but for thee, The warmth that wastes, the fervours that defile 1 Upon our wither'd branches hang not thou Thy votive wreaths, nor our bleak paths invest With thy pale presence I Vainly dost thou cling About our fasten'd casements, vainly spread So close beside our doors thy spotless couch. Behind them dwells Ingratitude. The voice That welcomed thine arrival will anon Resent thy lingering, and exclaim " Enough! " Trust not the looks that smile, the lips that sigh, •* I love thee ! " For to-day those words mean •'Come!" To-morrow '* Go 1 " Men's words are numberless. And yet in man's speech only the same word Means ** No" to-morrow that meant " Yes" to-day. Linger not, live not, give not, you forlorn Gift-laden strangers! With your gifts ungiven, And so at least undesecrated, die 1 What fills with such invincibility The frail seed striving thro' the stubborn soil ? The sun so long one herbless spot caress'd, That in the darkling germ beneath it stirr'd A tender trouble, and that trouble seem'd A promise. * ' Can it be, the Sun himself Hath sought me ? He so glorious, he so great, And I so dark, so insignificant I Dear Sun, with all the strength thy love reveal'd, Responding to thy summons, I am here ! " STRANGERS, 233 And the rich Ufe of granaried Lybia glows Revelling already in a single grain. Doth the Sun answer, ' Little one, too much ^ Thou hast responded, now respond no more? No, for throughout the illimitable heights And deeps of boundless Being, to attain It scarce suflSces, at the most and best, To tend beyond the unattainable, And too much love is still not love enough. The Sun may set, but all his rising wrought To life's enraptured consciousness remains. The Sun disowns not, even when he deserts, What he put forth his fervours to evoke. Man's love alone its doing disavows. And makes denial of its dearest deed. Beneath a dead bird's long-uncared-for cage, That hangs forgotten in the cloister'd court Of some lone uninhabitable house, From the chink'd pavement slowly creeping comes A thin weak stem that opens like a heart. And puts forth tenderly two tiny hands Of benediction to that cage forlorn. Then dies, as tho' its little life had done All it was born to do. The flint-set earth Requites the dead bird's gift— one casual seed, And from her stony breast a blossom blows. But, pouring forth Uranian star-seed, strew Incipient heavens thro' all the hoUowness Of human gratitude for gifts divine, 234 STRANGERS, And nothing from the sowing of such seed Shall blossom but the bitterness of death. O that the throbbing orb of this throng'd world, The sun-led seasons, the revolving years, Day with his glory, night with all her stars, The present, and the future, and the past, And earth, and heaven, should but a bauble be ! The unvalued gift of an extravagant soul, Given undemanded, broken by a breath, The sport of one exorbitant desire, The easy spoil of one minute mischance, And all for nothing ! What ? the unheedful flint Spares room to house the blossom that requites A chance seed fallen from a dead bird's cage, And nothing, nothing, in the long-long years, That bring to other losses soon or late The loss of loss rernember'd, shall arise? Nothing, not even a penitential tear, A fleeting sigh, a momentary smile, The benediction of a passing thought Of pitiful remembrance — to repay The quite-forgotten gift of too-much love ! All other loss comparison avails To lessen, and all other ills worse ill May mitigate. Defeated monarchs find Cold comfort left in Caesar's legions lost : The ruin'd merchant in the bankrupt state : The bedless beggar in the bed-rid lord. The sight of Niobe dries many tears. And by the side of open graves are graves Long seal'd, like old wounds cicatrised by time. STRANGERS, 235 But this is an immitigable ill, A lastingly incomparable loss, A forfeiture of refuge that exiles Its victim even from the lonest lodge Where Misery's leprous outcasts may at least Commiserate each other. The excess Of one o'erweening moment hath usurpt The whole dominion of eternity; Yet even the usurpation was a fraud. For what seem'd all was nothing; and its dupes, Who mourn that moment's loss, have with it lost The right to say that it was ever theirs. Sceptic, approach and, into this abysm Of torment gazing, tremblingly believe ! Behold in Hell the soul's appalling proof Of her dread immortality ! What else Could for a moment undestroy'd endure The least of such annihilating pangs ? Transmute them into corporal sufferings. Hurl Their victim from the visionary top Of some sky'd tower, and on its flinted base Shatter his crumpled carcass : if the heart Still beats, lay bare each lacerated nerve And sear with scorching steel the sensitive flesh : Or lift the bleeding ruins of the wretch, Lay them in down, bandage with cruel care The broken limbs, and nurse to life again Their swooning anguish: then from eyes that burn Chase slumber, and to lips that parch deny Release from thirst. It boots not ! Flesh and blood Death to his painless sanctuary takes, And life's material mechanism stops. The first pang is the last. But all these pangs 236 STRANGERS. (And add to these what worse, if worse there be. The torturer's teeming art hath yet devised) Attain not the tenth part of those endured Without cessation by the soul that loves, When love is only suffering. What escape, What refuge, from self-torment hath the soul ? Or what for love is left unoverthrown By love's own overthrow ? The growth of love, Outgrowing the wide girdle of the world, Hath in itself absorb'd sun, moon, and stars, Life, Death, and Thought's illimitable realm. Leaving in Time no moment, and in Space No point, its omnipresence kindles not To palpitant incandescence — and what then ? A word, nay not so much, a breath unbreathed, A look, and all this universe of love, Cramm'd with the curse of Tantalus, becomes A pitiless infinitude of fierce Importunate impossibilities, Where nothing is but what may never be. Fond wretch, with those insatiable eyes, Among the ruins of a world destroy'd What art thou seeking? Its destroyer? Look! He stands before thee. And thou know'st him not. The traitor of thy perisht universe Hath perisht with it. Nay, that world and he, Whose creature and creator was thyself, Save in thyself existed not. Away, Disown'd survivor of what never was ! There is a sigh that hath no audible sound, STRANGERS. 237 And, like a ghost that hath no visible form, Breathing unheard thro' solitudes unseen, Its presence haunts the Desert of the Heart. Fata Morgana I Fair Enchantress, Queen Of all that ever-quivering quietness, There dost thou dreaming dwell, and there create Those fervid desolations of delight, "Where dwell with thee the joys that never were ! And, when in darkness fades the phantom scene, The wizard stars that nightly trembling light That undiscover'd loneliness are looks From eyes that love no longer. All the winds That whisper there are breaths of broken vows And perjured promises. The pale mirage That haunts the simmering hyaline above Is all the work of ghosts, and its bright wastes Teem with fantastic spectres of the swoons Of prostrate passions, hopes become despairs, And dreams of bliss unblest. In that weird sky There is no peace, but a perpetual trance Of torturous ecstasy. Vext multitudes Of frantic apparitions mingle there. And part, and vanish, waving vaporous arms Of supplication — to each other lured, And by each other pantingly repulsed- The goblin picture of a passionate world Painted on nothingness ! And all the sands. Heaved by the sultry sighings of the heart Of this unquietable solitude. Are waves that everlastingly roll on O'er wrecks deep-sunken in a shoreless sea ^Vhose bed is vast oblivion. Out of sight, Into that sea's abysmal bosom pour'd, Flow all desires unsatisfied, all pains 238 URIEL. Unpitied, all affections unfulfiU'd. And sighs, and tears, and smiles misunderstood. There all the adventurous argosies that sail'd In search of undiscover'd worlds, reduced To undiscoverable wrecks, remain. And there perchance, at last, no more estranged From all around them, since not strangers they Than all things else, where all things else are strange, In that wide strangeness unrejected rest The world's rejected strangers loves unloved, And lives unlived, and longings unappeased. URIEL. (A MYSTERY.) DEDICATION. To you, the dead and gone, bright-eyed Desires Whose beauty lights no more my dwindled day, Here, sitting lone beaide forsaken fires, I dedicate this lay. f HEARD a Voice by night, that called to me "Uriel! Uriel!" The night was dark, and nothing could I see, Yet knew I by the voice that it was She URIEL, 239 Whom my soul loves so well That when She calls Her follower I must he, Whether She call from Heaven or from Hell. II. Then to the Voice, " What is thy will ? " said I. But for sole response thro' the darkness fell, Repeated with the same importunate cry, Mine own name only, " Uriel ! Uriel ! " I could not sleep nor rest upon my bed, So I rose up, and thro' the husht house pass'd With steps unlighted (for my lamp was dead) Out on the heath. III. That Voice flew onward fast, Still calling, and still onward after it I followed, far outsped : for there, beneath The moonless heaven, not even a marsh-fire lit Night's fearful sameness; and athwart the heath, Not fast and free as flew the Voice that led, But halting oft, my steps went stumblingiy. Each footstep, as it fell, recoil'd with dread From what it toucht ; and, tho' I could not see, I felt that, where I trod, the plain was spread With corpses. Heap'd so thick they seem'd to be That I, at every moment, fear'd to tread Upon a dead man's face. Yet, undeterr'd, My feet obey'd a will not mine, whose spell Their course constrain' d. For still that Voice I heard, ,, And still the Voice called '* Uriel! Uriel! 240 URIEL, At last a livid light began to grow Low down in heaven. It was the moon that, pent Behind a slowly crumbling cloud till now, Athwart thin flakes of worn-out vapour sent A filmy gleam. And I could see thereby The corpses that lay litter'd on the heath. Each white up-slanted face and unshut eye Was staring at me with the stare of death : Harnessed in rusty meil from head to heel Was each dead body : and each dead right hand Grasp'd by the hilt a blade of bloodstained steel, But broken was each blade. And, while I scann'd Those dead men's faces, I began to feel A sadness which I could not understand : But unto me it seem'd that I had seen, And known, and loved them, somewhere, long ago: Tho' when, or where, and all that was between That time and this (if what perplexed me so With mimic memories had indeed once been) I knew no longer. On this fatal plain Vast battle must have once been waged, so keen That none was spared by the relentless foe For unmolested burial of the slain. V. And, as I gazed upon them, wondering why These unrememberable faces seem'd Mysteriously familiar to mine eye. The cloudy light that on their corselets gleam'd Grew clearer, and a sound began to swell Moaning along the heath : the swarthy sky URIEL. 241 "Was scourged by a strong wind : the moonlight stream'd, Flooding the land: and on the dead men fell Its frigid splendour. Then stark upright rose Each dead man, shouting " Uriel! Uriel! " And in the windy air aloft all those Arm'd corpses waved their shatter'd swords. VI. I cried, " What are ye? and what name is it you bear? Corpses or ghosts ? Is Life with Death allied, To breed new horrors in this hideous lair Of Desolation ? " And they all replied ** Thine is our name, for thine our Legions were, And thine would still be, if thou hadst not died. But corpse or ghost thou art thyself, and how Should we thy death survive ? It is not well When the dead do not know the dead, nor know The date of their own death-day, Uriel! Our leader bold in many a fight wast thou, And we fought bravely. But thy foes and ours Were strongest. And the strife is over now. And we be all dead men. And those tall towers We built are fallen, all our banners torn, All our swords broken, all our strong watch fires Quencht, and in death have we been left forlorn Of sepulture, tho* sons of princely sires, Born to find burial fair with saints and kings, W^here, over trophied tombs, the taper shines On tablets rich with votive offerings, And priestly perfumes soothe memorial shrines. And that is why we cannot find repose In the bare quiet of unburied death; 722 242 URIEL. But ever, when at night the wild wind blows Upon the barren bosom of this heath, Our dead flesh tingles, and revives, and glows With the brief passion of a borrow'd breath, Breathed by the wind : and on as the wind goes Go with the wind we must, where'er that be, A lonesome pilgrimage along the night, Till the wind falls again, and with it we. Farewell ! " VII. The wild wind swept them from my sight, Even as they spake, and all the heath was bare. Sighingly the wind ceased. The night was still. The dead were gone. Only the moonlight there Upon the empty heath lay clear and chill Then I remember'd long-forgotten things. And all my loss. I could not farther fare Along that haunted heath ; for my heart's strings Were aching, gnaw'd by an immense despair. Flat on the spot where last they stood I fell, And clutch'd the wither'd fern, as one that clings Fast to a grave where all he loved lies dead, And wept, and wept, and wept. "Rise, Uriel," The Voice I knew still call'd, ** and follow me !" But I could only weep, so vast a well Of tears within me flow'd. At last I said •' What heart or hope have I to follow thee ? Are not the Legions lost, that at thy call To mine own overthrow and theirs I led ? For I have seen again their faces all. And death was all I saw there." *' Let them be ! " The Voice replied, "The dead shall live again When we have reach'd the goal whereto I go, URIEL. 243 And there shalt thou rejoin them. Nor till then Can'st thou thyself return to life, for thou Thyself art also fall'n among the slain. But look upon me, faithless one, and know That I am life in death, and joy in pain, And light in darkness." vm. I look'd up, and saw, In glory that was not of mere moonlight, (Glory that filled me with a great glad awe) Shining above me, Her my soul loves well, Like a white Angel. And along the night Her voice still call'd me, *' Uriel ! Uriel ! " Again I follow'd. And it seem'd that days, And nights, and weeks, and months, and years went And on we went by never-ending ways, Thro' worlds and worlds. And ever was mine eye Fixt on that beckoning Form with faithful gaze. And seasons little cared for — shine or shade. Or heat or cold — pursued us. Many a Spring, And many a Summer, many an Autumn, stay'd My panting path, and round me strove to fling Their fervid arms, and many a Winter made His frozen fingers meet and fiercely cling In lean embrace that long my course delay'd, And Pain and Pleasure both essay'd to wring My purpose from me. But still, sore afraid Lest I should lose my Guide by tarrying. Forward I press'd whenever the Voice said "Uriel! Uriel! linger not." 244 URIEL, At last We reach'd what seem'd the end of a dead world. Wall'd round it was by mountains bare and vast, And thro' them one thin perilous pathway curl'd Into an unknown land of ice and snow. Where nothing lived, nor aught was left to freeze But frost. There was a heap of bones below; Above, a flock of vultures. Under these, Hard by a stream that long had ceased to flow, A miserable, squalid, lean old man. Nursing a broken harp upon his knees, Sat in the frozen pass. His eyes were wan. But full of spiteful looks She my soul loved, Fair as a skyward Seraph on the wing, Before me up that perilous pathway moved, Calling me from above, and beckoning. But he that sat before the pass began To twang his harp, which had but one shrill string, (Whose notes like icy needles thro' me ran And with a crack'd and creaking voice to sing " O fool, infatuated fool, forbear! For yonder is the Land of Ice and Snow, And She is dead that beckoneth to thee there. And dead forever are the dead, I know." Whilst thus that lean old man, with eyes aglare, Sang to his broken harp's one string below, The vultures scream'd above in the bleak air "Dead are the dead forever!" X. *' What art thou, Malignant wretch ? " I cried. The old man said TRANSFORMATIONS. 245 " I am the Ancient Porter of this Pass, Beyond which lies the Land of Ice and Snow. And all the dwellers in that land are dead, And dead forever are the dead, I know. And this, my harp— I know not when, alas ! But all its strings were broken long ago, Save one, which time makes tough. The others were Of sweeter tone, but this sounds more mtense. And, for my name, some say it is Despair, And others say it is Experience." Thereat he laugh'd, and shook his sordid rags, And his wan eyes with sullen malice gleam' d. And loud again, upon the icy crags, In that bleak air above, the vultures scream d. TRANSFORMATIONS. (a midsummer night's dream). I. " Here at last alone, You and I together ! All the night our own. And the warm June weather ! Not a soul in sight ! What we will, we may. Nothing is by night As it was by day. Look around you ! See, 246 TRANSFORMA TIONS. All things change themselves. Blossom, bower and tree Turn to Fays and Elves: Trivial things and common Into rare things rising. Why should man and woman Be less enterprising? Fashion's formal creatures We till now have been, With prim-patterned features And a borrow'd mien, Now the mask is broken, Now the fetters fall, Wishes long unspoken Now are all in all ! Wondrous transformation Now, for you and me, Waits our invocation. Say, what shall we be ? " II. "What you will," said She. III. "Look, then, and listen! For you must be waiting, Behind a high grating, The sound of my signal. Along the wild land I have gallop'd full speed on my coal-black steed To free my love from my foeman's hand. And lol in the moonlight alert I stand Close under the castle wall. TkAiSfSFORMATlONB. 24^ Look out, I am here 1 Leap down, nor fear ! For into my r.escuing arms you fall, Safe and free. They are round you, see ! One saddle must serve us, so cling to me well. And away, and away, thro' the night we flee ! But hark ! 'Tis the clang of the 'larum bell. Our pursuers awake. For dear life's sake Cling to me closer and closer still, And speed, speed, my coal-black steed ! They are hurrying after us over the hill, But clear'd is the river, and cross'd is the heath. Deep into the sheltering woods we dart, And O what a ride! for I feel your breath, And how hot it burns ! and I hear your heart. And how loud it beats ! as I laugh * We part No more, come life, come death I ' " IV. *'No, no," She sighed, "not so! Too fiercely fleets your coal-black steed, And pleasure faints in passion's speed. And the bliss that lingers the best must be. Sighed She. "Listen, then, and look, once more! We are sailing round a southern island. Fragrant breathes the dusky shore, Folded under many a moonlit highland. Fragrant breathes the dusky shore, 24g TkANSFOkMATiONS. And where dips the languid oar Wavelets dimple, flash and darkle, Odours wander, fireflies sparkle : Thro' them all our bark is gliding, Gliding softly, gliding slowly: Not a cloud their sweetness hiding, And the heavens are husht and holy: Midnight's panting pulse uncertain Faintly fans the heaving curtain O'er the silken-pillow'd seat Where you lie with slippered feet, Tresses loosed and zone unbound ; While, my ribbon'd lute unslinging, I, your troubadour, beside you, O'er its chords, that trembling sound. Pour the song my soul is singing: List, and let its music guide you, Till the goal of dreams is found ! '"' VI. "Ah, stay so! " She murmured low, *' Song and stream forever flow ! And if this be dreaming, never Let me wake, but dream for ever, Dreaming thus, if dream it be! " Then He : VII. " As night's magic blends together Moonbeams, starbeams, odours, dews. In a hush of happy weather, TRANSFORMA TIONS, 249 Earth and heaven to interfuse; So my song draws softly down All your soul into my own, Bounteous gift on gift bestowing: First that heaven, your face; and then Heaven's divinest stars, those eyes Under dewy lashes glowing; Last, those lips, whose smile caresses All their breath beatifies; And the fragrance o'er me flowing From those downward shaken tresses, Whose delicious wildernesses Hide such haunts of happy sighs ! " VIII. " Rise, ah rise! " Faint She whispered. *' Hold me fast ! Far away the fixt earth flies, And I know not where we are. What is coming? What is past? Bursting, flashing, fleeting, see, Swiftly star succeeds to star Till .... in what new world we are ? ** Love's," said He. " Song and lute the spell obeying, Cease in silence, sweeter, stronger, Than song-singing or lute-playing ; And, entranced, I know no longer 722-1 250 TRANSFORMATIONS. 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