THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES r BY THE SAME AUTHOR. POEMS AND LYRICS OF THE JOY OF EARTH. POEMS AND BALLADS OF TRAGIC LIFE. A READING OF EARTH. MODERN LOVE : A Reprint. Together with THE SAGE ENAMOURED and THE HONEST L.\DV MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. POEMS POEMS THE EMPTY PURSE WITH ODES TO THE COMIC SPIRIT TO YOUTH IN MEMORY AND VERSES BY GEORGE MEREDITH 3Loutiou MACMILLAN AND CO. 1892 PR Soon CONTENTS Wind on the Lyre The Youthful Quest The Empty Purse . Jump-to-Glory Jane To THE Comic Spirit Youth in Memory . ODES PAGE I 4 48 69 92 VERSES Penetration and Trust Night of Frost in May The Teaching of the Nude Breath of the Briar . Empedocles .... To Colonel Charles England before the Storm . Tardy Spring . . . . 109 III 117 120 122 124 MO WIND ON THE LYRE That was the chirp of Ariel You heard, as overhead it flew, The farther going more to dwell, And wing our green to wed our blue ; But whether note of joy or knell, Not his own Father-singer knew ; Nor yet can any mortal tell, Save only how it shivers through ; The breast of us a sounded shell, The blood of us a lighted dew. B THE YOUTHFUL QUEST THE YOUTHFUL QUEST His Lady queen of woods to meet, He wanders day and night : The leaves have whisperings discreet, The mossy ways invite. Across a lustrous ring of space, By covert hoods and caves, Is promise of her secret face In film that onward waves. THE YOUTHFUL QUEST For darkness is the light astrain, Astrain for light the dark. A grey moth down a larches' lane Unwinds a ghostly spark. Her lamp he sees, and young desire Is fed while cloaked she flies. She quivers shot of violet fire To ash at look of eyes. Till': I■:^n'T^' purse THE EMPTY PURSE A Sermon to our Later Prodigal Son Thou, run to the dry on this wayside bank, Too plainly of all the propellers bereft ! Quenched youth, and is that thy purse ? Even such limp slough as the snake has left Slack to the gale upon spikes of whin, For cast-off coat of a life gone blank In its frame of a grin at the seeker, is thine ; And thine to crave and to curse The sweet thing once within. THE EMPTY. PURSE Accuse him : some devil committed the theft Which leaves of the portly a skin, No more ; of the weighty a whine. Pursue him : and first, to be sure of his track, Over devious ways that have led to this. In the stream's consecutive line, Let memory lead thee back To where waves Morning her fleur-de-lys, Unflushed at the front of the roseate door Unopened yet : never shadow there Of a Tartarus lighted by Dis For souls whose cry is, alack ! An ivory cradle rocks, apeep Through his eyelashes' laugh, a breathing pearl. THE EMPTY PURSE There the young chief of the animals wore A likeness to heavenly hosts, unaware Of his love of himself; with the hours at leap. In a dingle away from a rutted highroad, Around him the earliest throstle and merle, Our human smile between milk and sleep, Effervescent of Nature he crowed. Fair was that season ; furl over furl The banners of blossom ; a dancing floor This earth ; very angels the clouds ; and fair 'I'hou on the tablets of forehead and breast : Careless, a centre of vigilant care. Thy mother kisses an infant curl. The room of the toys was a boundless nest, A kingdom the field of the games. Till entered the craving for more, THE EMPTY PURSE And the worshipped small body had aims. A good little idol, as records attest, When they tell of him lightly appeased in a scream By sweets and caresses : he gave but sign, That the heir of a purse-plumped dominant race, Accustomed to plenty, not dumb would pine. Almost magician, his earliest dream Was lord of the unpossessed For a look ; himself and his chase. As on puffs of a wind at whirl, Made one in the wink of a gleam. She kisses a locket curl, She conjures to vision a cherub face, When her butterfly counted his day All meadow and flowers, mishap , Derided, and taken for play The fling of an urchin's cap. Till". I'.MITV I'UKSL When her butterfly showed him an eaglet born, For preying too heedlessly bred, What a heart clapped in thee then ! With what fuller colours of morn ! And high lo the uttermost heavens it flew, Swift as on poet's pen. It flew to be wedded, to wed The mystery scented around : Issue of flower and dew, Issue of light and sound : Thinner than cither ; a thread Spun of llic dream they threw To kindle, allure, evade. It ran the sea-wave, the garden's dance, To the forest's dark heart down a dappled glade ; Led on by a perishing glance, THE EMPTY PURSE By a twinkle's eternal waylaid. Woman, the name was, when she took form ; Sheaf of the wonders of life. She fled, Close imaged ; she neared, far seen. How she made Palpitate earth of the living and dead ! Did she not show thee the w^orld designed Solely for loveliness ? Nested warm. The day was the morrow in flight. And for thee, She muted the discords, tuned, refined ; Drowned sharp edges beneath her cloak. Eye of the waters, and throb of the tree. Sliding on radiance, winging from shade. With her witch-whisper o'er ruins, in reeds, She sang low the song of her promise delayed : Beckoned and died, as a finger of smoke Astream over woodland. And was not she History's heroines white on storm ? Remember her summons to valorous deeds. lo THE EMl'TV PURSE Shone she a lure of the honey-bag swarm, Most was her beam on the knightly : she led For the honours of manhood more than the prize ; Waved her magnetical yoke Whither the warrior bled, Ere to the bower of sighs. And shy of her secrets she was ; under deeps Plunged at the breath of a thirst that woke The dream in the cave where the Dreaded sleeps. Away over heaven the young heart flew, And caught many lustres, till some one said (Or was it the thought into hearing grew ?), Not thou as commoner men ! Thy stature puffed and it swayed. It stiffened to royal-erect; A brassy trumpet brayed ; THE EMPTY PURSE ii A whirling seized thy head ; The vision of beauty was flecked. Note well the how and the when, The thing that prompted and sped. Thereanon the keen passions clapped wing, Fixed eye, and the world was prey. No simple world of thy greenblade Spring, Nor world of thy flowerful prime On the topmost Orient peak Above a yet vaporous day. Flesh was it, breast to beak : A four-walled windowless world without ray, Only darkening jets on a river of slime, Where harsh over music as woodland jay, A voice chants. Woe to the weak ! And along an insatiate feast, 12 THE KMITV rURSE Women and men arc one In the cup transforming to beast. Magian worship they paid to their sun, Lord of the Purse ! Behold him cHmb. Stalked ever such figure of fun For monarch in great-grin pantomime ? See now the heart dwindle, the frame distend ; The soul to its anchorite cavern retreat. From a life that reeks of the rotted end ; While he — is he pictureable ? replete. Gourd-like swells of the rank of the soil, Hollow, more hollow at core. And for him did the hundreds toil Despised ; in ilie cold and heat, This image ridiculous bore On their shoulders for morsels of meat ! THE EMPTY PURSE 13 Gross, with the fumes of incense full, With parasites tickled, with slaves begirt, He strutted, a cock, he bellowed, a bull, He rolled him, a dog, in dirt. And dog, bull, cock, w\is he, fanged, horned, plumed ; Original man, as philosophers vouch ; Carnivorous, cannibal ; length-long exhumed, Frightfully hying and armed to devour ; The primitive w^eapons of prey in his pouch ; The bait, the line and the hook : To feed on his fellows intent. God of the Danae shower. He had but to follow his bent. He battened on fowl not safely hutched. On sheep astray from the crook ; A lure for the foolish in fold. To carrion turning w^hat flesh he touched. 14 Till'. l-MI'TV PURSE And O the grace of his air, As he at the goblet sips, A centre of girdles loosed, AVith their grisly label. Sold ! Credulous hears the fidelity swear. Which has roving eyes over yielded lips : To-morrow will fancy himself the seduced, The stuck in a treacherous slough, Because of his faith in a purchased pair. False to a vinous vow. In his glory of banquet strip him bare, And what is the creature we view ? Our pursy Apollo Apollyon's tool ; A small one, still of the crew By serpent Apollyon blest : THE EMPTY PURSE 15 His plea in apology, blindfold Fool. A fool surcharged, propelled, unwarned ; Not viler, you hear him protest : Of a popular countenance not incorrect. But deeds are the picture in essence, deeds Paint him the hooved and horned. Despite the poor pother he pleads, And his look of a nation's elect. We have him, our quarry confessed ! And scan him : the features inspect Of that bestial multiform : cry. Corroborate I, O Samian Sage ! The book of thy wisdom, proved On me, its last hieroglyph page. Alive in the horned and hooved ? Thou ! will he make reply. i6 THE EMPTY PURSE Thus has the plenary purse Done often : to do will engage Anew upon all of thy like, or worse. And now is thy deepest regret To be man, clean rescued from beast From the grip of the Sorcerer, Gold, Celestially released. But now from his cavernous hold, Free may thy soul be set, As a child of the Death and the Life, to learn, Refreshed by some bodily sweat, The meaning of either in turn, THE EMPTY PURSE 17 What issue may come of the two : — A morn beyond mornings, beyond all reach Of emotional arms at the stretch to enfold : A firmament passing our visible blue. To those having nought to reflect it, 'tis nought ; To those who are misty, 'tis mist on the beach From the billow withdrawing ; to those who see Earth, our mother, in thought. Her spirit it is, our key. Ay, the Life and the Death are her words to us here, Of one significance, pricking the blind. This is thy gain now the surface is clear : To read with a soul in the mirror of mind, Is man's chief lesson. — Thou smilest ! I preach Acid smiling, my friend, reveals Abysses within ; frigid preaching a street c I i8 THE EMPTY PURSE Paved unconcernedly smooth For the lecturer straiglit on his heels, Up and down a policeman's beat ; Bearing tonics not labelled to soothe. Thou hast a disgust of the sermon in rhyme. It is not attractive in being too chaste. The popular tale of adventure and crime Would equally sicken an overdone taste. So, then, onward. Philosophy, thoughtless to soothe. Lifts, if thou wilt, or there leaves thee supine. Thy condition, good sooth, has no seeming of sweet ; It walks our first crags, it is flint for the tooth, For the thirsts of our nature brine. But manful has met it, manful will meet. And think of thy ])rivilege : supple with youth, To have sight of the headlong swine, THE EMPTY TURSE 19 Once fouling thee, jumping the dips ! As the coin of thy purse poured out : An animal's holiday past : And free of them thou, to begin a new bout ; To start a fresh hunt on a resolute blast : No more an imp-ridden to bournes of eclipse : Having knowledge to spur thee, a gift to compare ; Rubbing shoulder to shoulder, as only the book Of the world can be read, by necessity urged. For witness, what blinkers are they who look From the state of the prince or the millionaire ! They see but the fish they attract, The hungers on them converged \ And never the thought in the shell of the act. Nor ever life's fangless mirth. But first, that the poisonous of thee be purged. Go into thyself, strike Earth. She is there, she is felt in a blow struck hard. 20 THE EMPTY PURSE Thou findest a pugilist countering quick, Cunning at drives where thy shutters are barred ; Not, after the studied professional trick. Blue-sealing ; she brightens the sight. Strike Earth, Antaeus, young giant, whom fortune trips ! And thou com'st on a saving fact, To nourish thy planted worth. Be it clay, flint, mud, or the rubble of chips, Thy roots have grasp in the stern-exact : The redemption of sinners deluded ! the last Dry handful, that bruises and saves. To the common big heart are we bound right fast, When our Mother admonishing nips At the nakedness bare of a clout. And we crave what the commonest craves. This wealth was a fortress-wall. Under which grew our grim little beast-god stout ; THE EMPTY PURSE 21 Self-worshipped, the foe, in division from all ; With crowds of illogical Christians, no doubt ; Till the rescuing earthquake cracked. Thus are we man made firm ; Made warm by the numbers compact. We follow no longer a trumpet-snout, At a trot where the hog is tracked. Nor wriggle the way of the worm. Thou wilt spare us the cynical pout At humanity : sign of a nature bechurled. No stenchy anathemas cast Upon Providence, women, the world. Distinguish thy tempers and trim thy wits. The purchased are things of the mart, not classed Among resonant types that have freely grown. 22 THE EMPTY PURSE Thy knowledge of women might be surpassed : As any sad dog's of sweet flesh when he quits The wayside wandering bone ! No revihngs of comrades as ingrates : thee 'I'hc tempter, misleader, and criminal (screened By laws yet barbarous) own. If some one performed Fiend's deputy, He was for awhile the Fiend. Still, nursing a passion to speak. As the punch-bowl does, in the moral vein, When the ladle has finished its leak, And the vessel is loqucnt of nature's inane, Hie where the demagogues roar Like a Phalaris bull, with the victim's force Hurrah to their jolly attack On a City that smokes of the Plain ; THE EMPTY PURSE A city of sin's death-dyes, Holding revel of worms in a corse ; A city of malady sore, Over-ripe for the big doom's crack : A city of hymnical snore ; Connubial truths and lies Demanding an instant divorce, Clean as the bright from the black. It were well for thy system to sermonize. There are giants to slay, and they call for their Jack. Then up stand thou in the midst : Thy good grain out of thee thresh, Hand upon heart : relate What things thou legally did'st For the Archseducer of flesh. Omitting the murmurs at women and fate, 24 THE EMPTY PURSE Confess thcc an instrument armed To be snare of our wanton, our weak, Of all by the sensual charmed. For once shall repentance be done by the tongue Speak, though execrate, speak A word on grandmotherly Laws Giving rivers of gold to our young, In the days of their hungers impure ; To furnish them beak and claws, And make them a banquet's lure. Thou the example, saved Miraculously by this poor skin ! Thereat let the Purse be waved : The snake-slough sick of the snaky sin A devil, if devil as devil behaved Ever, thou knowest, look thou but in, THE EMPTY PURSE 25 Where he shivers, a culprit fettered and shaved ; O a bird stripped of feather, a fish chpped of fin ! And commend for a washing the torrents of wrath, Which hurl at the foe of the dearest men prize. Rough-rolling boulders and froth. Gigantical enginery they can command, For the crushing of enemies not of great size : But hold to thy desperate stand. Men's right of bequeathing their all to their own (With little regard for the creatures they squeezed) ; Their mill and mill-water and nether mill-stone Tied fast to their infant ; lo, this is the last Of their hungers, by prudent devices appeased. The law they decree is their ultimate slave : Wherein we perceive old Voracity glassed. It works from their dust, and it reeks of their grave. 26 THE EMPTY PURSE Point them to greener, though Journals be guns; To brotherly fields under fatherly skies ; Where the savage still primitive learns of a debt He has owed since he drummed on his belly for war ; And how for his giving, the more will he get ; For trusting his fellows, leave friends round his sons. Till they see, with the gape of a startled surprise, Their adored tyrant-monster a brute to abhor. The sun of their system a father of flies ! So, for such good hope, take their scourge unashamed ; 'Tis the portion of them who (ivilize, Who speak the word novel and true : How the brutish antique of our springs may be tamed, Without loss of the strength that should push us to flower ; How the God of old time will act Satan of new. If we keep him not straight al the higher Clod aimed; THE EMPTY PURSE 27 For whose habitation within us we scour This house of our Ufe ; where our bitterest pains Are those to eject the Infernal, who heaps Mire on the soul. Take stripes or chains ; Grip at thy standard reviled. And what if our body be dashed from the steeps ? Our spoken in protest remains. A young generation reaps. The young generation ! ah, there is the child Of our souls down the Ages ! to bleed for it, proof That souls we have, with our senses filed. Our shuttles at thread of the woof. May it be braver than ours. To encounter the rattle of hostile bolts, To look on the rising of Stranger Powers. May it know how the mind in expansion revolts 28 TITK KMITV PURSE From a nursery Past with dead letters aloof, And the piping to stupor of Precedents shun, In a field where the forefather print of the hoof Is not yet overgrassed by the watering hours, f And should prompt us to Change, as to promise of sun, Till brain-rule splendidly towers. For that large light wc have laboured and tramped Thorough forest and bogland, still to perceive Our animate morning stamped With the lines of a sombre eve. A timorous thing ran the innocent hind, When the wolf was the hypocrite fang under hood, The snake a lithe lurkcr uj) sleeve, THE EMPTY PURSE 29 And the lion effulgently ramped. Then our forefather hoof did its work in the wood, By right of the better in kind. But now will it breed yon bestial brood Three-fold thrice over, if bent to bind, As the healthy in chains with the sick. Unto despot usage our issuing mind. It signifies battle or death's dull knell. Precedents icily written on high, Challenge the Tentatives hot to rebel. Our Mother, who speeds her bloomful quick For the march, reads which the impediment well. She smiles when of sapience is their boast. O loose of the tug between blood run dry And blood running flame may our offspring run ! May brain democratic be king of the host ! 30 TllK EMPTY TURSE Less then shall ihe volumes of History tell Of the step in progression, the slip in relapse, That counts us a sand-slack inch hard won, Beneath an oppressive incumbent perhaps. t Let the senile lords in a parchment sky. And the generous turbulents drunken of morn. Their battle of instincts put by, A moment examine this field : On a Roman street cast thoughtful eye. Along to the mounts from the bog-forest weald. It merits a glance at our history's maps, To see across Britain's old shaggy unshorn. Through the Parties in strife internecine, foot The ruler's close-reckoned direct to the mark. From the head ran the vancjuisher's orderly route. In the stride of his forts through the tangle and dark. THE EMPTY PURSE 31 From the head runs the paved firm way for advance, And we shoulder, we wrangle ! The light on us shed. Shows dense beetle blackness in swarm, lurid Chance, The Goddess of gamblers, above. From the head. Then when it worked for the birth of a star Fraternal with heaven's in beauty and ray, Sprang the Acropohs. Ask what crown Comes of our tides of the blood at war. For men to bequeath generations down ! And ask what thou wast when the Purse was brimmed : What high-bounding ball for the Gods at play : A Conservative youth ! who the cream-bowl skimmed. Desiring affairs to be left as they are. So, thou takest Youth's natural place in the fray. As a Tentative, combating Peace, Our lullaby word for decay. — There will come an immediate decree THE EMPTY PURSE 111 thy mind for the opposite party's decease, If he bends not an instant knee. Expunge it : extinguishing counts poor gain. And accept a mild word of poUcc : — Be mannerly, measured ; refrain From the puffings of him of the bagpipe cheeks. Our political, even as the merchant main, A temperate gale requires For the ship that haven seeks ; Neither God of the winds nor his bellowsy squires. Then observe the antagonist, con His reasons for rocking the lullaby word. You stand on a different stage of the stairs. He fought certain battles, yon senile lor^l. In the strength of thee, feel his bequest to his heirs. We are now on his inches of ground hard won, For a perch to a flight o'er his resting fence. THE EMPTY rURSE 33 Does it knock too hard at thy head if i say, That Time is both father and son ? Tough lesson, when senses are floods over sense ! — Discern the paternal of Now As the Then of thy present tense. You may pull as you will either way, You can never be other than one. So, be filial. Giants to slay, Demand knowing eyes in their Jack. There are those whom we push from the path with respect. Bow to that elder, though seeing him bow To the backward as well, for a thunderous back Upon thee. In his day he was not all wrong. Unto some foundered zenith he strove, and was wrecked. He scrambled to shore with a worship of shore. The Future he sees as the slippery murk ; D 34 THE EMPTY PURSE The Past as his doctrinal library lore. He stands now the rock to the wave's wild wash. Yet thy lumpish antagonist once did work Heroical, one of our strong. His gold to retain and his dross reject, Engage him, but humour, not aiming to quash. Detest the dead squat of the Turk, And suffice it to move him along. Drink of faith in the brains a full draught Before the oration : beware Lest rhetoric moonily waft Whither horrid activities snare. Rhetoric, juice for the mob Despising more luminous grape. Oft at its fount has it laughed In the cataracts rolling for rape Of a Reason left single to sob ! THE EMPTY PURSE 35 'Tis known how the permanent never is writ In blood of the passions : mercurial they, Shifty their issue : stir not that pit To the game our brutes best play. But with rhetoric loose, can we check man's l^rute ? Assemblies of men on their legs invoke Excitement for wholesome diversion : there shoot Electrical sparks between their dry thatch And thy waved torch, more to kindle than light. 'Tis instant between you : the trick of a catch (To match a Batrachian croak) Will thump them a frenzy or fun in their veins. Then may it be rather the well-worn joke Thou repeatest, to stop conflagration, and write 36 THE EMPTY FURSI': Penance for rhetoric. Strange will it seem, AMicn thou readest that form of thy homage to brains For the secret why demagogues fail, Though they carry hot mobs to the red extreme, And knock out or knock in the nail (We will rank them as flatly sincere, Devoutly detesting a wrong. Engines o'ercharged with our human steam), Question thee, seething amid the throng. And ask, whether Wisdom is born of blood-heat ; Or of other than ^Visdom comes victory here ; — Aught more than the banquet and roundelay, That is closed with a terrible terminal wail, A retributive black ding-dong ? And ask of thyself : This furious Yea Of a speech I tlnini]) to repeat. THE EMPTY PURSE In the cause I would have prevail, For seed of a nourishing wheat, Is it accepted of Song ? Does it sound to the mind through the ear, Right sober, pure sane ? has it disciplined feet ? Thou wilt find it a test severe ; Unerring whatever the theme. Rings it for Reason a melody clear, We have bidden old Chaos retreat ; We have called on Creation to hear; All forces that make us are one full stream. Simple islander ! thus may the spirit in verse. Showing its practical value and weight,' Pipe to thee clear from the Empty Purse, Lead thee aloft to that high estate. — The test is conclusive, I deem : 38 TIIK KMPTV PURSE It embraces or mortally bites. We have then the key-note for debate A Senate that sits on the heights Over discords, to shape and amend. And no singer is needed to serve The musical God, my friend. Needs only his law on a sensible nerve : A law that to Measure invites, Forbidding the passions contend. Is it accepted of Song ? And if then the blunt answer be Nay, DLslink thcu sharp from the ramping horde, Slaves of the Goddess of hoar-old sway, The Queen of delirous rites, Queen of those issueless mobs, that rend THE EMPTY PURSE 39 For frenzy the strings of a fruitful accord, Pursuing insensate, seething in throng, Their wild idea to its ashen end. Off to their Phrygia, shriek and gong, Shorn from their fellows, behold them wend ! But thou, should the answer ring Ay, Hast warrant of seed for thy word : The musical God is nigh To inspirit and temper, tune it, and steer Through the shoals : is it worthy of Song, There are souls all woman to hear, Woman to bear and renew. For he is the Master of Measure, and weighs, Broad as the arms of his blue, Fine as the web of his rays, Justice, whose voice is a melody clear. 40 TTTE EMPTY PURSE The one sure life for the numbered long. From him are the brutal and vain, The vile, the excessive, out-thrust : He points to the God on the upmost throne : He is the saver of grain, The sifter of spirit from dust. He, Harmony, tells how to Measure pertain The virilities : Measure alone Has votaries rich in the male : Fathers embracing no cloud, Sowing no harvestless main : Alike by the flesh and the spirit endowed To create, to perpetuate ; woo, win, wed ; Send progeny streaming, have earth for their own, Over-run the insensates, disperse with a ]in ff Simulacra, though solid they sail, And seem such imperial stuff: Yes, the living divide off the dead. THE EMPTY PURSE 41 Then thou with thy furies outgrown, Not as Cybele's beast will thy head lash tail So prreter-determinedly thermonous, Nor thy cause be an Attis far fled. Thou under stress of the strife, Shalt hear for sustainment supreme, The cry of the conscience of Life : Keep the yoinig generations in hail, And bequeath than no tirnibled house I • There hast thou the sacred theme, Therein the inveterate spur, Of the Innermost. See her one blink In vision past eyeballs. Not thee She cares for, but us. Follow her. Follow her, and thou wilt not sink. THE EMPTY rURSE A\'ilh tliy soul the Life espouse: This Life of the visible, audible, ring With thy love tight about ; and no death will be ; The name be an empty thing. And woe a forgotten old trick : And battle will come as a challenge to drink ; As a warrior's wound each transient sting. She leads to the Uppermost link by link ; Exacts but vision, desires not vows. Above us the singular number to see ; The plural warm round us ; oursclf in the thick, A dot or a stop : that is our task ; Her lesson in figured arithmetic. For the letters of i-ifc behind its mask ; Her flower-like look under fearful brows. As for thy special case, O my friend, one must think Massilia's victim, who held the carouse THE EMPTY PURSE 43 For the length of a carnival year, Knew worse : but the wretch had his opening choice. For thee, by our law, no alternatives were : Thy fall was assured ere thou earnest to a voice. He cancelled the ravaging Plague, With the roll of his fat off the cliff. Do thou with thy lean as the weapon of ink. Though they call thee an angler who fishes the vague And catches the not too pink. Attack one as murderous, knowing thy cause Is the cause of community. Iterate, Iterate, iterate, harp on the trite : Our preacher to win is the supple in stiff: Yet always in measure, with bearing polite : The manner of one that would expiate His share in grandmotherly Laws, 44 THE EMPTY PURSE Which do the dark thing to destroy, Under aspect of water so guilelessly white For the general use, by the devils befouled. Enough, poor prodigal boy ! Thou hast listened with patience ; another had howled. Repentance is ])roved, forgiveness is earned. And 'tis bony : denied thee thy succulent half Of the parable's blessing to swineherd returned : A Sermon thy slice of the Scriptural calf! By my faith, there is feasting to come. Not the less, when our luarth we have seen Beneath and on surface, her deeds and designs : Who gives us the man-loving Nazarene, The martyrs, the poets, the corn and the vines. By my faith in the head, she has wonders in loom ; THE EMPTV PURSE 45 Revelations, delights. I can hear a faint crow Of the cock of fresh mornings, far, far, yet distinct ; As down the new shafting of mines, A cry of the metally gnome. When our Earth we have seen, and have linked With the home of the Spirit to whom we unfold, Imprisoned humanity open will throw- Its fortress gates, and the rivers of gold For the congregate friendliness flow. Then the meaning of Earth in her children behold : Glad eyes, frank hands, and a fellowship real : And laughter on lips, as the birds' outburst At the flooding of light. No robbery then The feast, nor a robber's abode the home, For a furnished model of our first den ! Nor Life as a stationed wheel ; Nor History w-ritten in blood or in foam, For vendetta of Parties in cursing accursed. 46 THE EMPTY PURSE The God ill the conscience of multitudes feel, And we feel deep to Earth at her heart, We have her communion with men, New ground, new skies for appeal. Yield into harness thy best and thy worst ; Away on the trot of thy servitude start. Through the rigours and joys and sustainmcnts of air. If courage should falter, 'tis wholesome to kneel. Remember that well, for the secret with some. Who pray for no gift, Init have cleansing in prayer, And free from impurities tower-like stand. I promise not more, save that feasting will come To a mind and a body no longer inversed : The sense of large charity over the land ; Earth's wheaten of wisdom dispensed in the rough. And a bell ringing thanks for a sustenance meal THE EMrTY PURSE 47 Through the active machine : lean fare, But it carries a sparkle ! And now enough, And part we as comrades part, To meet again never or some day or soon. Our season of drought is reminder rude : — No later than yesternoon, I looked on the horse of a cart, By the wayside water-trough. How at every draught of his bride of thirst His nostrils widened ! The sight was good : Food for us, food, such as first Drew our thoughts to earth's lowly for food. 4S JUMr-TO-GLORV JANE JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE A REVELATION Came on Jane, The widow of a labouring swain : And first her body ircmblcd sliarp, Then all the woman was a harp With winds along the strings ; she heard, Though there was neither tone nor word. JUMr-TO-GLORY JANE 49 II For past our hearing was the air, Beyond our speaking what it bare, And she within herself had sight Of heaven at work to cleanse outright, To make of her a mansion fit For angel hosts inside to sit. Ill They entered, and fortliwith entranced, Her body braced, her members danced ; Surprisingly the woman leapt ; And countenance composed she kept ; As gossip neighbours in the lane Declared, who saw and pitied Jane. E 50 JUMP-TO-GLORV JANE IV These knew she had been reading books, The which was witnessed by her looks Of late : she had a mania For mad folk in America, And said for sure they led the way, But meat and beer were meant to stay. That she had visited a fair, Had seen a gauzy lady there, Alive with tricks on legs alone. As good as wings, was also known : And longwhiles in a sullen mood, Before her jumping, Jane would brood. JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE 51 VI A good knee's height, they say, she sprang ; Her arms and feet like those who hang : As if afire the body sped, And neither pair contributed. She jumped in silence : she was thought A corpse to resurrection caught. VII The villagers were mostly dazed ; They jeered, they wondered, and they praised, 'Twas guessed by some she was inspired, And some would have it she had hired An engine in her petticoats, To turn their wits and win their votes.' 52 JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE VIII Her first was Winny Earncs, a kind Of woman not to dance inclined ; But she went up, entirely won, Ere Jump-to-glory Jane had done ; And once a vixen wild for speech. She found the better way to iireach. IX No long time after, Jane was seen Directing jumps at Daddy Green ; And that old man, to watch her fly, Had eyebrows made of arches high ; Till homeward he likewise did hop. Oft calling on himself to stop ! JUMr-TO-GLORY JANE It was a scene when man and maid, Abandoning all other trade, And careless of the call to meals, Went jumping at the woman's heels. By dozens they were counted soon, Without a sound to tell their tune. XI Along the roads they came, and crossed The fields, and o'er the hills were lost, And in the evening reappeared ; Then short like hobbled horses reared. And down upon the grass they plumped Alone their Jane to glory jumped. 54 JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE XII At morn they rose, to see lier spring All going as an engine thing; And lighter than the gossamer She led the bobbers following her, Past old acquaintances, and where They made the stranger stupid stare. XIII When turnips were a filling crop, In scorn ihey jiunpcd a butcher's shop : Or, spite of threats to flog and souse. They jumped for shame a public-house : And much their legs were seized with rage If passing by the vicarage. JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE 55 ' XIV The tightness of a hempen rope Their bodies got ; but laundry soap Not handsomer can rub the skin For token of the washed within. Occasionally coughers cast A leg aloft and coughed their last. XV The weaker maids and some old men, Requiring rafters for the pen On rainy nights, were those who fell. The rest were quite a miracle, Refreshed as you may search all round On Club-feast days and cry, Not found ! 56 JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE XVI For these poor innocents, that slept Against the sky, soft women wept : For never did they any theft ; 'Twas known when they their camping left, And jumped the cold out of their rags ; In spirit rich as money-bags. XVII They jumped the question, jumped reply ; And whether to insist, deny, Reprove, persuade, tlicy jumped in ranks Or singly, straight the arms to flanks, And straight the legs, with just a knee For bending in a mild degree. JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE 57 XVIII The villagers might call them mad ; An endless holiday they had, Of pleasure in a serious work : They taught by leaps where perils lurk, And with the lambkins practised sports For 'scaping Satan's pounds and quarts. XIX It really seemed on certain days, . When they bobbed up their Lord to praise, And bobbing up they caught the glance Of light, our secret is to dance. And hold the tongue from hindering peace ; To dance out preacher and police. SS JUMP-TO-GLORV JANE XX Those flies of boys disturbed them sore On Sundays and when daylight wore : ^^'ith withies cut from hedge or copse, They treated them as whipping-tops, And llung big stones with cruel aim ; Yet all the (lock jumped on the same. XXI For what could persecution do To worry such a blessed crew, On whom it was as wind to fuc, \\'hich set them always jumping higher ? The parson and the lawyer tried, By meek persistency defied. JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE 59 XXII But if they bore, they could pursue As well, and this the Bishop too ; When inner warnings proved him plain The chase for Jump-to-glory Jane. She knew it by his being sent To bless the feasting in the tent. XXIII Not less than fifty years on end. The Squire had been the Bishop's friend And his poor tenants, harmless ones, With souls to save ! fed not on buns, But angry meats : she took her place Outside to show the way to grace. 6o JUMP-TO-CLORV JANK XXIV In apron suit the IJishop stood ; The crowding people kindly viewed. A gaunt grey woman he saw rise On air, with most beseeching eyes : And evident as light in dark It was, she set to him for mark. XXV Her highest leap had come : with case She jumped to reach the Bishop's knees Compressing tight her arms and lips, She sought to jump the Bishop's hips : Her aim flew at his apron-band. That he might see and understand. JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE 6i XXVI The mild inquiry of his gaze Was altered to a peaked amaze, At sight of thirty in ascent ; To gain his notice clearly bent : And greatly Jane at heart was vexed By his ploughed look of mind perplexed. XXVIl In jumps that said, Beware the pit ! More eloquent than speaking it — That said. Avoid the boiled, the roast ; The heated nose on face of ghost. Which comes of drinking : up and o'er The flesh with me ! did Jane implore. 62 JU.Mr-TO-GLORY JANE XXVIII She jumped him high as huntsmen go Across the gate ; she jumped him low, To coax him to begin and feel His infant steps returning, peel His mortal pride, exposing fruit. And off witli hat and apron suit. XXIX We need much patience, well slie knew, And out and out, and through and through, When we would gentlefolk address, However we may seek to bless : At times they hide them like the beasts From sacred beams ; and mostl)' priests. JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE 63 XXX He gave no sign of making bare, Nor she of faintness or despair. Inflamed with hope that she might win, If she but coaxed him to begin, She used all arts for making fain ; The mother with her babe was Jane. XXXI Now stamped the Squire, and knowing not Her business, waved her from the spot. Encircled by the men of might. The head of Jane, like flickering light, As in a charger, they beheld Ere she was from the park expelled. 64 JUMP-TO-GLORV JANE XXXII Her grief, in jumps of earthly weight, Did Jane around communicate : For that the moment when began The holy but mistaken man, In view of light, to take his lift, They cut him from her charm adrift ! XXXIII And he was lost : a banished face For ever from the ways of grace, Unless pinched hard by dreams in fright. They saw the ]5ishop's wavering sprite Within her look, at come and go. Long after he had caused licr woe. TUMP-TO-GLORY JANE 65 XXXIV Her greying eyes (until she sank At Fredsham on the wayside bank, Like cinder heaps that whitened He From coals that shot the flame to sky) Had glassy vacancies, which yearned For one in memory discerned. XXXV May those who ply the tongue that cheats, And those who rush to beer and meats, And those whose mean ambition aims At palaces and titled names, Depart in such a cheerful strain As did our Jump-to-glory Jane ! F 66 JUMP-TO-GLORY JANE XXXVl Her end was beautiful : one sigh. She jumped a foot when it was nigh. A lily in a linen clout She looked when they had laid her out. It is a lily-light she bears For England up the ladder-stairs. ODES TO THE COMIC SPIRIT " 69 TO THE COMIC SPIRIT Sword of Common Sense ! — Our surest gift : the sacred chain Of man to man : firm earth for trust In structures vowed to permanence : — Thou guardian issue of the harvest brain ! Implacable perforce of just ; With that good treasure in defence, Which is our gold crushed out of joy and pain Since first men planted foot and hand was king Ig 70 TO THE COMIC sriRiT Bright, nimble of the marrow-nerve To wield thy double edge, retort Or hold the deadlier reserve, And llirough thy victim's weapon sting : Thine is the service, thine the sport This shifty heart of ours to hunt Across its webs and round the many a rint Where fox it is, or snake, or mingled seeds Occasion heats to shape, or the poor smoke Struck from a puff ball, or the troughster's grunt ;- Once lion of our desert's trodden weeds ; And but for thy straight finger at the yoke, Again to be the lordly paw, Naming his appetites his needs, Ijchind a decorative cloak : Thou, of the highest, the unwritten Law We read upon that building's architrave In the mind's firmament, by men upraised TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 71 With sweat of blood when they had quitted cave For fellowship, and rearward looked amazed, Where the prime motive gapes a lurid jaw , Thou, soul of wakened heads, art armed to warn, Restrain, lest we backslide on whence we sprang ; Scarce better than our dwarf beginning shoot. Of every gathered pearl and blossom shorn • Through thee, in novel wiles to win disguise. Seen are the pits of the disruptor, seen His rebel agitation at our root : Thou hast him out of hawking eyes ; Nor ever morning of the clang Young Echo sped on hill from horn In forest blown when scent was keen Off earthy dews besprinkling blades Of covert grass more merrily rang The yelp of chase down alleys green. Forth of the headlong-pouring glades, 72 TO THE COMIC SPIRIT Over the dappled fallows wild away, Than thy fine unaccented scorn At sight of man's old secret brute, Devout for pasture on his prey, Advancing, yawning to devour ; Willi step of deer, with voice of flute, Haply with visage of the lily flower. Let the cock crow and ruddy morn His handmaiden appear ! \'outh claims his hour. The generously ludicrous Espouses it. Ikit see we sons of day, On whom Life leans for guidance in our fight. Accept the throb for lord of us ; For lord, for the main central light That gives direction, not the eclipse ; TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 73 Or dost thou look where niggard Age, Demanding reverence for wrinkles, whips A tumbled top to grind a wolf's worn tooth ;-r- Hoar despot on our final stage. In dotage of a stunted Youth ; — Or it may be some venerable sage, Not having thee awake in him, compact Of wisdom else, the breast's old tempter trips ; Or see we ceremonial state. Robing the gilded beast, exact Abjection, while the crackskull name of Fate Is used to stamp and hallow printed fact ; A cruel corner lengthens up thy lips ; These are thy game wherever men engage : These and, majestic in a borrowed shape. The major and the minor potentate. Creative of their various ape ; — The tiptoe mortals triumphing to write 74 TO THE COMIC SPIRIT Upon a perishable page An inch above their fellows' height ; — The criers of foregone wisdom, who impose Its slough on live conditions, much for the greed Of our first hungry figure wide agape ; — Call up thy hounds of laughter to their run. These, that would have men still of men be foes, Eternal fox to prowl and pike to feed ; Would keep our life the whirly pool Of turbid stuff dishonouring History ; The herd the drover's herd, the fool the fool, Ourself our slavish self's infernal sun ; These are the children of the heart untaught By thy quick founts to beat abroad, by thee Untamed to tone its passions under thought, The rich humaneness reading in thy fun. Of them a world of coltish heels for school, We have ; a world with driving wrecks bestrewn. TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 75 'Tis written of the Gods of human mould, Those Nectar Gods, of glorious stature hewn To quicken hymns, that they did hear incensed. Satiric comments overbold, From one whose part was by decree The jester's ; but they boiled to feel him bite. Better for them had they with Reason fenced Or smiled corrected ! They in the great Gods' might, Their prober crushed, as fingers flea. Crumbled Olympus when the sovereign sire His fatal kick to Momus gave, albeit Men could behold the sacred Mount aspire, The Satirist pass by on limping feet. Those Gods who saw the ejected laugh alight Below, had then their last of airy glee ; They in the cup sought Laughter's drowned sprite, 76 TO THE COMIC SPIRIT Fed to dire fatness off uncurbed conceit. Eyes under saw them waddle on their Mount, And drew them down ; to flattest earth they rolled. This know we veritable. O Sage of Mirth ! Can it be true, the story men recount Of the fall'n plight of the great Gods on earth ? How they being deathless, though of human mould, \\'ith human cravings, undccaying frames, Must labour for subsistence ; are a band Whom a loose-cheeked, wide-lipped gay cripple leads At haunts of holiday on summer sand : And lightly he will hint to one that heeds, Names in pained designation of them, names Ensphered on blue skies and on black, which twirl Our hearing madly from our seeing dazed. Add Bacchus unto both ; and he entreats (His baby dimples in maternal chaps Running wild labyrinths of line and curl) TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 77 Compassion for his masterful Trombone, Whose thunder is the brass of how he blazed Of old : for him of the mountain-muscle feats, Who guts a drum to fetch a snappish groan : For his fierce bugler horning onset, whom A truncheon-battered helmet caps. . . . The creature is of earnest mien To plead a sorrow darker than the tomb. His Harp and Triangle, in tone subdued, He names ; they are a rayless red and white ; The dawn-hued libertine, the gibbous prude. And, if we recognize his Tambourine, He asks ; exhausted names her : she has become A globe in cupolas ; the blowziest queen Of overflowing dome on dome ; Redundancy contending with the tight, Leaping the dam ! He fondly calls, his girl, The buxom tripper with the goblet-smile, 78 TO THE COMIC SPIRIT Refreshful. O but now his brows are dun, Bunched are his lips, as when distilling guile, To drop his venomous : the Dame of dames, Flower of the world, that honey one. She of the earthly rose in the sea-pearl, To whom the world ran ocean for her kiss ; He names her, as a worshipper he names. And indicates with a contemptuous thumb. The lady meanwhile lures the mob, alike Ogles the bursters of the horn and drum. Curtain her close ! her open arms Have suckers for beholders : she to this ? For that she could not, save in fury, hear A sharp corrective utterance flick Her idle manners, for the laugh to strike Beauty so breeding beauty, without peer Above the snows, among the flowers ? She reaps This mouldy garner of the fatal kick ? TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 79 Gross with the sacrifice of Circe-swarms, Astarte of vile sweets that slay, malign, From Greek resplendent to Phoenician foul, The trader in attractions sinks, all brine To thoughts of taste ; is't love ? — bark, dog ! hoot, owl ! And she is blushless : ancient worship weeps. Suicide Graces dangle down the charms Sprawling like gourds on outer garden-heaps. She stands in her unholy oily leer A statue losing feature, weather-sick Mid draggled creepers of twined ivy sere. The curtain cried for magnifies to see ! — We cannot quench our one corrupting glance : The vision of the rumour will not flee. Doth the Boy own such Mother ? — shoot his dart To bring her, countless as the crested deeps. Her subjects of the uncorrected heart ? False is that vision, shrieks the devotee ; So TO THE COMIC SPIRIT Incredible, we echo ; and anew Like a far growling lightning-cloud it leaps. Low humourist this leader seems ; perchance Pitched from his University career, Adept at classic fooling. Yet of mould Human those Gods were : deathless too : On high they not as meditatives paced : Prodigiously they did the deeds of flesh : Descending, they would touch the lowest here : And she, that lighted form of blue and gold, Whom the seas gave, all earth, all earth embraced ; Exulting in the great hauls of her mesh ; Desired and hated, desperately dear ; Most human of them was. No more pursue I Enough that the black story can be told. It preaches to the eminently placed : For whom disastrous wreckage is nigh due, Paints omen. Truly they our throbber had ; TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 8i The passions plumping, passions playing leech, Cunning to trick us for the day's good cheer. Our uncorrected human heart will swell To notions monstrous, doings mad As billows on a foam-lashed beach ; Borne on the tides of alternating heats, Will drug the brain, will doom the soul as well ; Call the closed mouth of that harsh final Power To speak in judgement : Nemesis, the fell : Of those bright Gods assembled, offspring sour ; The last surviving on the upper seats ; As with men Reason when their hearts rebel. Ah, what a fruitless breeder is this heart, Full of the mingled seeds, each eating each. Not wiser of our mark than at the start. It surges like the wrath-faced father Sea G 82 TO THE COMIC SPIRIT To countering winds ; a force blind-eyed, On endless rounds of aimless reach ; Emotion for the source of pride, The grounds of faith in fixity Above our flesh ; its cravings urging speech, Inspiring prayer ; by turns a lump Swung on a time-piece, and by turns A quivering energy to jump For seats angelical : it shrinks, it yearns, Loves, loathes ; is flame or cinders ; lastly cloud Capping a sullen crater : and mankind We see cloud-capped, an army of the dark. Because of thy straight leadership declined ; At heels of this or that delusive spark : Now when the multitudinous races press Elbow to elbow hourly more, A tliickened host ; when now we hear aloud Life for the very life implore TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 83 A signal of a visioned mark ; Light of the mind, the mind's discourse, The rational in graciousness, Thee by acknowledgement enthroned, To tame and lead that blind-eyed force In harmony of harness with the crowd, For payment of their dues ; as yet disowned. Save where some dutiful lone creature, vowed To holy work, deems it the heart's intent ; Or where a silken circle views it cowled. The seeming figure of concordance, bent On satiating tyrant lust Or barren fits of sentiment. Thou wilt not have our paths befouled By simulation ; are we vile to view. The heavens shall see us clean of our own dust. 84 TO THE COMIC SPIRIT Beneath thy breezy flitting wing : They make their mirror upon faces true ; . And where they win reflection, lucid heave The under tides of this hot heart seen through. Beneficently wilt thou clip All oversteppings of the plumed, The puffed, and bid the masker strip, And into the crowned windbag thrust. Tearing the mortal from the vital thing, A lightning o'er the half-illumed, Who to base brute-dominion cleave, Yet mark effects, and shun the flash. Till their drowsed wits a beam conceive. To spy a wound without a gash, The magic in a turn of wrist, And how are wedded heart and head regaled When \Vit o'er Folly blows the mort. And their high note of union spreads TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 85 Wide from the timely word with conquest charged ; Victorious laughter, of no loud report, If heard ; derision as divinely veiled As terrible Immortals in rose-mist. Given to the vision of arrested men : Whereat they feel within them weave Community its closer threads, And are to our fraternal state enlarged ; Like warm fresh blood is their enlivened ken : They learn that thou art not of alien sort, Speaking the tongue by vipers hissed, Or of the frosty heights unsealed, Or of the vain who simple speech distort. Or of the vapours pointing on to nought Along cold skies ; though sharp and high thy pitch : As when sole homeward the belated treads. And hears aloft a clamour wailed. That once had seemed the broomstick witch 86 TO THE COMIC Sl'II^lT Horridly violatinif cloud for drought : He from the rub of minds dispersing fears, Hears migrants marshalling their midnight train ; Homeliest order in black sky appears, Not less than in the lighted village steads. So do those half-illumed wax clear to share A cry that is our common voice ; the note Of fellowship upon a loftier plane, Above embattled castlc-wall and moat ; And toning drops as from pure heaven it sheds. So thou for washing a phantasmal air, For thy sweet singing keynote of the wise, Laughter — the joy of Reason seeing fade Obstruction into Earth's renewing beds, Beneath the stroke of her good servant's blade — Thenceforth art as their earth-star hailed ; Gain of the years, conjunction's prize. The greater heart in thy appeal to heads. TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 87 They see, thou Captain of our civil Fort ! By more elusive savages assailed On each ascending stage ; untired Both inner foe and outer to cut short, And blow to chaff pretenders void of grist : Showing old tiger's claws, old crocodile's Yard-grin of eager grinders, slim to sight. Like forms in running water, oft when smiles. When pearly tears, when fluent lips delight : But never with the slayer's malice fired : As little as informs an infant's fist Clenched at the sneeze ! Thou would'st but have us be Good sons of mother soil, whereby to grow Branching on fairer skies, one stately tree ; Broad of the tilth for flowering at the Court : Which is the tree bound fast to wave its tress ; Of strength controlled sheer beauty to bestow. Ambrosial heights of possible acquist, 88 TO THE COMIC SPIRIT Where souls of men with soul of man consort, And all look higher to new loveliness Begotten of the look : thy mark is there ; While on our temporal ground alive, Rightly though fearfully thou wieldest sword. Of finer temper now a numbered learn That they resisting thee themselves resist ; And not thy bigger joy to smite and drive. Prompt the dense herd to butt, and set the snare Witching them into pitfalls for hoarse shouts. More now, and hourly more, and of the Lord Thou lead'st to, doth this rebel heart discern, When pinched ascetic and red sensualist Alternately recurrent freeze or burn, And of its old religions it has doubts. It fears thee less when thou hast shown it bare ; Less hates, part understands, nor much resents. When the prized objects it has raised for prayer. TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 89 For fitful prayer ; — repentance dreading fire, Impelled by aches ; the blindness which repents Like the poor trampled worm that writhes in mire ; — Are sounded by thee, and thou darest probe Old Institutions and Estabhshments, Once fortresses against the floods of sin, For what their worth ; and questioningly prod For why they stand upon a racing globe, Impeding blocks, less useful than the clod ; Their angel out of them, a demon in. This half-enlightened heart, still doomed to fret, To hurl at vanities, to drift in shame Of gain or loss, bewailing the sure rod, Shall of predestination wed thee yet. Something it gathers of what things should drop At entrance on new times ; of how thrice broad 90 TO TIIK COMIC SPIRIT The world of minds communicative; how A stragghng Nature classed in school, and scored With stripes admonishing, may yield to plough Fruitfullest furrows, nor for waxing tame Be feeble on an Earth whose gentler crop Is its most living, in the mind that steers, By Reason led, her way of tree and flame, Beyond the genuflexions and the tears ; Upon an Earth that cannot stop. Where upward is the visible aim,* And ever we espy the greater God, For simple pointing at a good adored : Proof of the closer neighbourhood. Head on. Sword of the many, light of the few ! untwist Or cut our tangles till fair space is won Beyond a briared wood of austere brow, Relieved of discord by thy timely word At intervals refreshing life : for thou TO THE COMIC SPIRIT 91 Art verily Keeper of the Muse's Key ; Thyself no vacant melodist ; On lower land elective even as she ; Holding, as she, all dissonance abhorred ; Advising to her measured steps in flow ; And teaching how for being subjected free Past thought of freedom we may come to know The music of the meaning of Accord. 92 YOUTH IN MEMORY YOUTH IN MEMORY Days, when the ball of our vision Had eagles that flew unabashed to sun ; When the grasp on the bow was decision, And arrow and hand and eye were one ; ^Vhen the Pleasures, like waves to a swimmer, Came heaving for rapture ahead ! — Invoke them, they dwindle, they glimmer As lights over mounds of the dead. Behold the winged Olympus, off the mead, With thunder of wide pinions, lightning speed, YOUTH IN MEMORY 93 Wafting the shepherd-boy through ether clear, To bear the golden nectar-cup. So flies desire at view of its delight, When the young heart is tiptoe perched on sight. We meanwhile who in hues of the sick year. The Spring-time paint to prick us for our lost, Mount but the fatal half way up. Whereon shut eyes ! This is decreed. For Age that would to youthful heavens ascend, By passion for the arms' possession tossed, It falls the way of sighs and hath their end ; A spark gone out to more sepulchral night. Good if the arrowy eagle of the height, Be then the little bird that hops to feed. Lame falls the cry to kindle days Of radiant orb and daring gaze. 94 YOUTH IN MEMORY It docs but clank our mortal chain. I'^or Earth reads through her felon old, Tlie many-numbered of her fold, Who forward tottering backward strain, And would be thieves of treasure spent, With their grey season soured. She could write out their history in their thirst To have again the much devoured. And be the bud at burst ; In honey fancy join the flow. Where Youth swims on as once they went. All choiric for spontaneous glee Of active eager lungs and thews ; They now bared roots beside the river bent ; Whose privilege themselves to see ; Their place in yonder tideway know ; The current glass peruse ; The depths intently sound ; YOUTH IN MEMORY 95 And sapped by each returning flood, Accept for monitory nourishment, Those worn roped features under crust of mud. Reflected in the silvery smooth around : Not less the branching and high singing tree, A home of nests, a landmark and a tent, Until their hour for losing hold on ground. Even such good harvest of the things that flee, Earth offers her subjected, and they choose Rather of Bacchic Youth one beam to drink. And warm slow marrow with the sensual wink. So block they at her source the Mother of the Muse. Who cheerfully the little bird becomes, Without a fall, and pipes for peck at crumbs, May have her dolings to the lightest touch ; As where some cripple muses by his crutch, 96 YOUTH IN MEMORY Unwitting that the spirit in him sings : ' Wlicn I had legs, then had I wings, As good as any born of eggs. To feed on all aerial things, When I had legs ! '' And if not to embrace he sighs. She gives him breath of Youth awhile. Perspective of a breezy mile. Companionable hedgeways, lifting skies ; Scenes where his nested dreams upon their hoard Brooded, or up to empyrean soared : Enough to link him with a dotted line. But cravings for an eagle's flight, To top white peaks and serve wild wine Among the rosy undecayed, Bring only flash of shade From her full throbbing breast of day in niglit. By what they crave arc they betrayed : YOUTH IN MEMORY 97 And cavernous is that young dragon's jaw, Crimson for all the fiery reptile saw In time now coveted, for teeth to flay, Once more consume, were Life recurrent May. They to their moment of drawn breath, Which is the life that makes the death. The death that makes ethereal life would bind : The death that breeds the spectre do they find. Darkness is wedded and the waste regrets Beating as dead leaves on a fitful gust, By souls no longer dowered to climb Beneath their pack of dust, Whom envy of a lustrous prime, Eclipsed while yet invoked, besets, And dooms to sink and water sable flowers, That never gladdened eye or loaded bee. Strain we the arms for Memory's hours, We are the seized Persephone. H 98 VOUTil I\ MEMORY Responsive never to the soft desire For one prized tune is this our chord of Hfc. 'Tis clipped to deadness with a wanton knife, In wishes that for ecstasies aspire. Yet have we glad companionship of Youth, Elysian meadows for the mind, Dare we to face deeds done, and in our tomb Filled with the parti-coloured bloom Of loved and hated, grasp all human truth Sowed by us down the mazy paths behind. To feel tliat heaven must we that hell sound through Whence comes a line of continuity, That brings our middle station into view. Between those poles ; a novel Earth we see. In likeness of us, made of banned and blest ; The sower's bed, but nut the reaper's rest : YOUTH IN MEMORY 99 An Earth alive with meanings, wherein meet Buried, and breathing, and to be. Then of the junction of the three. Even as a heart in brain, full sweet May sense of soul, the sum of music, beat. Only the soul can walk the dusty track Where hangs our flowering under vapours black. And bear to see how these pervade, obscure, Quench recollection of a spacious pure. They take phantasmal forms, divide, convolve, Hard at each other point and gape, Horrible ghosts ! in agony dissolve, To reappear with one they drape For criminal, and. Father ! shrieking name, Who such distorted issue did beget. Accept them, them and him, though hiss thy sweat loo VOUTII IN MEMORY Off brow on breast, whose furnace flame Has eaten, and old Self consumes. Out of the purification will they leap, Thcc renovating while new light illumes The dusky web of evil, known as pain, That heavily up healthward mounts the steep ; Our fleshly road to beacon-fire of brain : Midway the tameless oceanic brute Below, whose heave is topped with foam for fruit. And the fair heaven reflecting inner peace On righteous warfare, that asks not to cease. Forth of such passage through black fire we win Clear hearing of the simple lute, Whereon, and not on other, Memory plays For them who can in quietness receive Her restorative airs : a ditty thin YOUTH IN MEMORY loi As note of hedgerow bird in ear of eve, ' Or wave at ebb, the shallow catching rays On a transparent sheet, where curves a glass To truer heavens than when the breaker neighs Loud at the plunge for bubbly wreck in roar. Solidity and bulk and martial brass, Once tyrants of the senses, faintly score A mark on pebbled sand or fluid slime, While present in the spirit, vital there, Are things that seemed the phantoms of their time ; Eternal as the recurrent cloud, as air Imperative, refreshful as dawn-dew. Some evanescent hand on vapour scrawled Historic of the soul, and heats anew Its coloured lines where deeds of flesh stand bald. True of the man, and of mankind 'tis true. Did we stout battle with the Shade, Despair, Our cowardice, it blooms ; or haply warred I02 YOUTH IN MEMORY Against the primal beast in us, and flung ; Or cleaving mists of Sorrow, left it starred Above self-pity slain : or it was Prayer First taken for 1 ,ife's cleanser ; or the tongue Spake for the world against this heart ; or rings Old laughter, from the founts of wisdom sprung ; Or clap of wing of joy, that was a throl) From breast of Earth, and did no creature rob : These quickening live. But deepest at her springs, Most filial, is an eye to love her young. And had we it, still see with it, alive Is our lost garden, flower, bird and hive. Blood of her blood, aim of her aim, arc then The green-robed and grey-crested sons of men : She tributary to her aged restores The living in the dead ; she will inspire Faith homelier tiian on the Voiider shores. Abhorring these as mire. YOUTH IN MEMORY 103 Uncertain steps, in dimness gropes, With mortal tremours pricking hopes, And, by the final Bacchic of the lusts Propelled, the Bacchic of the spirit trusts : A fervour drunk from mystic hierophants ; Not utterly misled, though blindly led. Led round fermenting eddies. Faith she plants In her own firmness as our midway road : Which rightly Youth has read, though blindly read ; Her essence reading in her toothsome goad ; Spur of bright dreams experience disenchants. But love we well the young, her road midway The darknesses runs consecrated clay. Despite our feeble hold on this green home, And the vast outer strangeness void of dome. Shall we be with them, of them, taught to feel. Up to the moment of our prostrate fall, The life they deem voluptuously real, 104 YOUTH IN MEMORY Is more than empty echo of a call, Or shadow of a shade, or swing of tides ; As brooding upon age, when veins congeal, Grey palsy nods to think. With us for guides. Another step above the animal. To views in Alpine thought are they helped on. Good if so far we live in them when gone ! And there the arrowy eagle of the height, Becomes the little bird that hops to feed, Glad of a crumb, for tempered appetite To make it wholesome blood and fruitful seed. Then Memory strikes on no slack string, Nor sectional will varied Life appear: Perforce of soul discerned in mind, we hear Earth with her Onward chime, with Winter Sprin And ours the mellow note, while sharing joys YOUTH IN MEMORY 105 No more subjecting mortals who have learnt To build for happiness on equipoise, The Pleasures read in sparks of substance burnt ; Know in our seasons an integral wheel, That rolls us to a mark may yet be willed. This, the truistic rubbish under heel Of all the world, we peck at and are filled. VERSES PENETRATION AND TRUST 109 PENETRATION AND TRUST Sleek as a lizard at round of a stone, The look of her heart slipped out and in. Sweet on her lord her soft eyes shone, As innocents clear of a shade of sin. II He laid a finger under her chin. His arm for her girdle at waist was thrown Now, what will happen and who will win. With me in the fight and my lady lone ? no PEMTRAirON AND TRUST III He clasped her, clasping a shape of stone ; Was fire oil her eyes till they let him in. Ilcr breast to a (lod of the daybeams shone, And never a corner for serpent sin. IV Tranced she stood, with a chattcriiiL; chin ; Her shrunken form at his feet was thrown : At home to the death my lord shall win. ^Vhcn it is no tyrant who leaves me lone ! NIGHT OF FROST IN MAY in NIGHT OF FROST IN MAY With splendour of a silver day, A frosted night had opened May : And on that plumed and armoured night, As one close temple hove our wood, Its border leafage virgin white. Remote down air an owl hallooed. The black twig dropped without a twirl ; The bud in jewelled grasp was nipped ; 112 NIGHT OF FROST IN MAY The brown leaf cracked a scorching curl ; A crystal off the green leaf slipped. Across the tracks of rimy tan, Some busy thread at whiles would shoot ; A limping minnow-rillet ran, To liang upon an icy foot. In this shrill hush of quietude, The car conceived a severing cry. Almost it let the sound elude, When chuckles three, a warble shy, From hazels of tlic garden came, Near by the crimson-windowed farm. They laid the trance on breath and frame, A prelude of the passion-charm. Then soon was heard, not sooner heard Than answered, doubled, lrcl)lcd, more, NIGHT OF FROST IN MAY 113 Voice of an Eden in tlie bird Renewing with his pipe of four The sob : a troubled Eden, rich In throb of heart : unnumbered throats Flung upward at a fountain's pitch, The fervour of the four long notes. That on the fountain's pool subside, Exult and ruffle and upspring : Endless the crossing multiplied Of silver and of golden string. There chimed a bubbled underbrew AVith witch- wild spray of vocal dew. It seemed a single harper swept Our wild wood's inner chords and waked A spirit that for yearning ached Ere men desired and joyed or wept. I 114 NIGHT OF FROST IN MAY Or now a legion ravishing Musician rivals did unite 111 love of sweetness high to sing The subtle song that rivals light ; From breast of earth to breast of sky ; And they were secret, they were nigh A hand the magic might disperse ; The magic swung my universe. Yet sharpened breath forbade to dream, Where all was visionary gleam ; Where Seasons, as with cymbals, clashed ; And feelings, passing joy and woe, Churned, gurgled, spouted, interflashed. Nor either was the one we know : Nor pregnant of the heart contained In us were they, that griefless plained, NIGHT OF FROST IN MAY 115 That plaining soared ; and through the heart Struck to one note the wide apart : — A passion surgent from despair ; A paining bUss in fervid cold ; Off the last vital edge of air, Leap heavenward of the lofty-souled, For rapture of a wine of tears ; As had a star among the spheres Caught up our earth to some mid-height Of double life to ear and sight, She giving voice to thought that shines Keen-brilliant of her deepest mines ; While steely drips the rillet clinked, And hoar with crust the cowslip swelled. Then was the lyre of earth beheld, Then heard by me : it holds me linked ; no NlClir OK I'ROST I\ M.W Across the years to dead-ebb shores I stand on, my blood-thrill restores. But would I conjure into me Those issue notes, I must review AVhat serious breath the woodland drew ; The low throb of expectancy ; How the while mother-muteness pressed On leaf and meadow-herb ; how shook, Nigh speech of mouth, the sparkle-crest Seen spinning on the bracken-crook. THE TEACHING OF THE NUDE 117 THE TEACHING OF THE NUDE A Satyr spied a Goddess in her bath, Unseen of her attendant nymphs ; none knew. Forthwith the creature to his fellows drew, And looking backward on the curtained path, He strove to tell ; he could but heave a breast Too full, and point to mouth, with failing leers Vainly he danced for speech, he giggled tears, Made as if torn in two, as if tight pressed. Ii8 THE TEACHING OF THE NUDE As if cast prone ; then fetching whimpered tunes For words, flung heel and set his hairy flight Through forest-hollows, over rocky height. The green leaves buried him three rounds of moons. A senatorial Satyr named what herb Had hurried him outrunning reason's curb. II 'Tis told how when that hieaway unchecked, To dell returned, he seemed of tempered mood Even as the valley of the torrent rude, The torrent now a brook, the valley wrecked. In him, to hale him high or hurl aheap. Goddess and Goatfoot hourly wrestled sore ; Hourly the immortal prevailing more : Till one hot noon saw Meliboeus peep THE TEACHING OF THE NUDE 119 From thicket-sprays to where his full-blown dame, In circle by the lusty friskers gripped, Laughed the showered rose-leaves while her limbs were stripped. She beckoned to our Satyr, and he came. Then twirled she mounds of ripeness, wreath of arms. His hoof kicked up the clothing for such charms. I20 Bin:ATii ov Tin: i-.kiak BREATH OF THE BRIAR O BRIAR-SCENTS, On yoii wct wiiig Of warm South-west wind brushing by, You mind mc of the sweetest thing That ever mingled frank and shy : When she and \. by love enticed, Beneath the orchard-ajiples met, In equal halves a ripe one sliced, And smelt the juices ere we ate. BREATH OF THE BRIAR 121 II That apple of the briar-scent, Among our lost in Britain now, Was green of rind, and redolent Of sweetness as a milking cow. The briar gives it back, well nigh The damsel with her teeth on it ; Her twinkle between frank and shy. My thirst to bite where she had bit. 122 EMPEDOCLES EMPEDOCLES He leaped. With none to hinder, Of Aetna's fiery scoriae In the next vomit-shower, made he A more pecuHar cinder. And this great Doctor, can it be. He left no saner recipe For men at issue with despair ? Admiring, even his poet owns, While noting his fine lyric tones, The last of him was liccls in air 1 EMPEDOCLES i2i Comes Reverence, her features Amazed to see high Wisdom hear, With ghmmer of a faunish leer. One mock her pride of creatures. Shall such sad incident degrade A stature casting sunniest shade ? O Reverence ! let Reason swim ; Each life its critic deed reveals ; And him reads Reason at his heels, If heels in air the last of him ! 124 TO COLONEL rilAKLLS TO COLONEL CHARLES (Dvi.NG General C.B.B.) An English heart, my commandant, A soldier's eye you have, awake To right and left ; with looks askant On bulwarks not of adamant. Where white our Channel waters break. II Where Grisncz winks at Dungcness Across the rufllcd strip of salt. You look, :\u(\ like the prospect less. On nil 11 and guns would you lay stress, To bid the island's Ujenun iialt. TO COLONEL CHARLES 125 III While loud the Year is raising cry At birth to know if it must bear In history the bloody dye, An English heart, a soldier's eye. For the old country first will care. IV And how stands she, artillerist. Among the vapours waxing dense. With cannon charged ? Tis hist I and hist ! And now she screws a gouty fist, And now she counts to clutch her pence. 126 TO COLONKL CHARLES With shudders chill as aconite, The couchant chewer of the cud Will start at times in pussy fright Before the dogs, when reads her sprite The streaks predicting streams of blood. VI She thinks they may mean something ; thinks They may mean nothing : haply both. Where darkness all her daylight drinks, She fain would find a leader lynx, Not too much ta.xing mental sloth. TO COLONEL CHARLES 127 VII Cleft like the fated house in twain, One half is, Arm ! and one, Retrench ! Gambetta's word on dull MacMahon : ' The cow that sees a passing train : ' So spies she Russian, German, French. VIII She ? no, her weakness : she unbraced Among those athletes fronting storms ! The muscles less of steel than paste. Why, they of nature feel distaste For flash, much more for push, of arms. 128 TO COLONKL CIIAKI.KS IX The poet sings, and well know we, That 'iron draws men after it.' But towering wealth may seem the tree Which bears the fruit Indci)init\\ And draw as fast as battle's fit, If feeble be the hand on guard, Alas, alas ! And nations are Still the mad forces, though the scarred Should they once deem our emblem Pard Wagger of tail for all save war ; — TO COLONEL CHARLES 129 XI Mechanically screwed to flail His flanks by Presses conjuring fear ;- A money-bag with head and tail ; — Too late may valour then avail ! As you beheld, my cannonier, XII When with the staff of Benedek, On the plateau of Koniggratz, You saw below that wedgeing speck ; Foresaw proud Austria rammed to wreck, Where Chlum drove deep in smoky jets. February 1887. K I30 ENGLAND BEFORE THE STORM ENGLAND BEFORE THE STORM The day that is the night of days, With cannon-fire for sun ablaze, We spy from any billow's lift ; And England still this tidal drift ! Would she to sainted forethought vow A space before the thunders flood, That martyr of its hour might now Sparc her the tears of blood. ENGLAND BEFORE THE STORM 131 11 Asleep upon her ancient deeds, She hugs the vision plethora breeds, And counts her manifold increase Of treasure in the fruits of peace. What curse on earth's improvident, When the dread trumpet shatters rest, Is wreaked, she knows, yet smiles content As cradle rocked from breast. Ill She, impious to the Lord of Hosts, The valour of her offspring boasts, Mindless that now on land and main His heeded prayer is active brain. 132 ENGLAND BEFORE THE STORM No more great heart may guard the home, Save eyed and armed and skilled to cleave Yon swallower wave with shroud of foam, We see not distant heave. IV They stand to be her sacrifice, The sons this mother flings like dice, To face the odds and brave the Fates ] As in those days of starry dates. When cannon cannon's counterblast Awakened, muzzle muzzle bowled, And high in swathe of smoke the mast Its fighting rag outroUed. 1891. TARDY SPRING 'j)j TARDY SPRING Now the North wind ceases, The warm South-west awakes ; Swift fly the fleeces, Thick the blossom-flakes. Now hill to hill has made the stride, And distance waves the without end : Now in the breast a door flings wide ; Our farthest smiles, our next is friend. 134 TARDY SPRING And song of England's rush of flowers Is this full breeze with mellow stops, That spins the lark for shine, for showers ; He drinks his hurried flight, and drops. The stir in memory seem these things. Which out of moistened turf and clay, Astrain for light push patient rings, Or leap to find the waterway. 'Tis equal to a wonder done, Whatever simple lives renew Their tricks beneath the father sun, As though they caught a broken clue : So hard was earth an eyewink back ; But now the common life has come. The blotting cloud a dappled pack, The grasses one vast underhum. A City clothed in snow and soot, With lamps for day in ghostly rows, TARDY SPRING 13S Breaks to the scene of hosts afoot, The river that reflective flows : And there did fog down crypts of street Play spectre upon eye and mouth : — Their faces are a glass to greet This magic of the whirl for South. A burly joy each creature swells With sound of its own hungry quest ; Earth has to fill her empty wells, And speed the service of the nest ; The phantom of the snow-wreath melt, That haunts the farmer's look abroad, Who sees what tomb a white night built, Where flocks now bleat and sprouts the clod. For iron Winter held her firm : Across her sky he laid his hand : And bird he starved, he stiffened worm ; A sightless heaven, a shaven land. 136 TARDY SPRING Her shivering Spring feigned fast asleep, The bitten buds dared not unfold : We raced on roads and ice to keep Thought of the girl we love from cold. But now the North wind ceases, The warm South-west awakes, The heavens are out in fleeces. And earth's green banner shakes. Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh 4r UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. f. '^ -'J^iS!^ RFC LD 7 -* FIVFT -UR. PM Form L9-100ra-9.'52(A3105)444 UC SOLITHFRN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 370 577 9 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS AxNGELES .^^^ <'' 'Ji^^^^H ■ '^/ - » '■■Pi ' ■ ' -. - • • ■ ■ .'.'•; "it, ■ < * ' .,■■'«'- •,■■ ;'■ - •• . ■ ■■■O ;!> V^l; '.^ ' '-.^ ■ » "•i .»,,,,•-. ■ -.^r ",i?.';,'-' *;;*■> ■ * , , --■J;.-' J,-v ^■S-' ■■ - ■;.-,,w^ , -' - "-V ■;'^^ ,-- . .v<^^ >'^; i ■ • '_* *»■-- _ » . • , j^ififli i' . ■ ^' ~'^' AJ^^^^I ' '' K ^1^1 ■■ -Ts'-'j:. f^ "• ■.■>■; ."•,' '■'^*-- ■ '-JB > VA; V;:^^V^' \:'- 'v;h{ii ' "'* -i''- -% ■ {•'■mm "^t:S| ■ " ' . , Ss."^M ,' ■■. V --^ -^