THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD 
 
 FOR THE 
 ENGLISH READING ROOM 
 
 English Reading Room
 
 6 O
 
 THE COMING OF LOVE 
 RHONA BOSWELL'S STORY 
 AND OTHER POEMS
 
 THE COMING OF LOVE 
 
 RHONA BOSWELL'S STORY 
 AND OTHER POEMS fc BY 
 THEODORE [WATTS-DUNTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF AYLWIN 
 
 JOHN LANE: The Bodley Head 
 LONDON V NEW YORK 1899
 
 FIFTH EDITION 
 
 W. H. WHITE AND CO. LTD. 
 KIVKKPII.E PRESS, EDINBURGH
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE COMING OF LOVE PARE 
 
 PERCY BEFORE THE COMING OF LOVE . 3 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN-RISE . . 25 
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID . 83 
 
 TALK ON WATERLOO BRIDGE . . 149 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 A DEAD POET . . . . . 153 
 
 A GRAVE BY THE SEA . . . . 155 
 
 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE . . .163 
 
 JOHN THE PILGRIM . . . .173 
 
 COLUMBUS . . , , , ,175
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BEATRICE . . . . .177 
 
 THE THREE FAUSTS ( . r . 179 
 
 TOAST TO OMAR KHAYYXM . . . 183 
 
 PRAYER TO THE WINDS. .187 
 
 QUEEN KATHERINE . . . .189 
 
 DICKENS RETURNS ON CHRISTMAS DAY . 191 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS-TREE AT THE PINES . 193 
 
 PROPHETIC PICTURES AT VENICE . . 195 
 
 WHAT THE SILENT VOICES SAID . . 209 
 
 COLERIDGE 217 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI . . . .219 
 
 To A SLEEPER AT ROME . . .222 
 IN A GRAVE-YARD (Oliver Madox-Brown) 224 
 
 Two LETTERS TO A FRIEND . . . 226 
 
 ANCESTRAL MEMORY (The deaf and dumb 
 
 Son of Croesus) .... 230 
 
 APOLLO IN PARIS . . . . .232 
 AT THE THEATRE FRANQAIS . . . 238 
 To MADAME CARNOT , 240
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 PAG! 
 
 THE LAST WALK FROM BOAR'S HILL . 242 
 
 THE OCTOPUS OF THE GOLDEN ISLES . 247 
 
 LOVE HOLDS OF HEAVEN IN FEE . . 249 
 
 THE WOOD-HAUNTER'S DREAM , . 252 
 
 MIDSHIPMAN LANYON .... 254 
 
 A REMINISCENCE OF THE OPEN-AIR PLAYS 256 
 
 LECONTE DE LISLE .... 262 
 
 To BRITAIN AND AMERICA (On the death 
 
 of Lowell) 265 
 
 To MRS. GARFIELD (On the death of the 
 
 President) 267
 
 PREFATORY NOTE TO THE 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 A WORD ABOUT RHONA BOSWELL AND 
 SINFI LOVELL 
 
 ONE of my most generous critics has said of 
 "The Coming of Love" that, "although published 
 earlier than ' Aylwin,' it is a sequel to the novel." 
 And a sequel it is; so far, at least, as an 
 important character in "Aylwin" is concerned 
 Rhona Boswell though between " Aylwin " 
 and "The Coming of Love" another story 
 intervenes. 
 
 About Rhona, and about Sinfi Lovell, too, 
 I have received many letters of inquiry kind 
 letters from entire strangers, which nothing but
 
 * PREFA TOR Y NO TE 
 
 my late illness, followed by an overwhelming 
 pressure of work in arrear, has prevented me 
 from answering fully and answering most grate- 
 fully. 
 
 A call for a new edition of "The Coming 
 of Love" gives me an opportunity that I must 
 not let slip of answering these kind friends. 
 
 I have said that, so far as regards Rhona 
 Boswell's story, "The Coming of Love" is a 
 sequel to "Aylwin." If the allusions to Rhona's 
 lover, Percy Aylwin, in the prose story have 
 been, in some degree, misunderstood by some 
 readers if there is any danger of Henry Aylwin, 
 the hero of the novel, being confounded with 
 Percy Aylwin, the hero of this poem it only 
 shows how difficult it is for the poet or the 
 novelist (who must needs see his characters from 
 the concave side only) to realise that it is the 
 convex side only which he can present to his 
 reader. 
 
 The fact is that the motive of "Aylwin" 
 dealing only as it does with that which is elemental
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xi 
 
 and unchangeable in Man is of so entirely poetic 
 a nature that I began to write it in verse. After 
 a while, however, I found that a story of so 
 many incidents and complications as the one 
 that was growing under my hand could only be 
 told in prose. This was before I had written 
 any prose at all yes, it is so long ago as that. 
 And when, afterwards, I began to write criticism, 
 I had (for certain reasons important then, but 
 of no importance now) abandoned the idea of 
 offering the novel to the outside public at all. 
 Among my friends it had been widely read, both 
 in manuscript and in type. 
 
 Now and then I used to draw upon the manu- 
 script for favourite tit-bits of description, etc., 
 to decorate an essay. Certain parts of "The 
 Coming of Love" were written about the same 
 time. The two Aylwins, Henry and Percy, were 
 then very distinct in my own mind ; they are very 
 distinct now. And I confess that the possibility 
 of their being confounded with each other had 
 never occurred to me. A certain similarity 
 between the two there must needs be, seeing
 
 i PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 that the blood of the same Romany ancestress, 
 Fenella Stanley, flows in the veins of both. I 
 say there must needs be this similarity, because 
 the ancestress was Romany. For, without start- 
 ing the inquiry here as to whether or not the 
 Romanies as a race are superior or inferior to all or 
 any of the great European races among which they 
 move, I will venture to affirm that in the Romanies 
 the mysterious energy which the evolutionists 
 call " the prepotency of transmission " in races, is 
 specially strong so strong, indeed, that evidences 
 of Romany blood in a family may be traced down 
 for several generations. It is inevitable, there- 
 fore, that in each of the descendants of Fenella 
 Stanley, the form taken by the love-passion 
 should show itself in kindred ways. But the 
 reader who will give a careful study to the 
 characters of Henry and Percy Aylwin, will come 
 to the conclusion, I think, that the similarity 
 between the two is observable in one aspect of 
 their characters only. The intensity of the love- 
 passion in each assumes a spiritualising and 
 mystical form akin to nothing so much as
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xiii 
 
 to the mystic beauty-worship of Sufism, which 
 teaches that, deeper than Tartarus, stronger than 
 Destiny and Death, the great heart of Nature is 
 beating to the tune of universal love and beauty. 
 But with regard to Romany women, Henry 
 Aylwin's feeling towards them was the very oppo- 
 site of Percy's. When, in speaking of George 
 Borrow some years ago, I made the remark that 
 between Englishmen of a certain type and gypsy 
 women there is an extraordinary physical attrac- 
 tion an attraction which did not exist between 
 Borrow and the gypsy women with whom he was 
 brought into contact I was thinking specially 
 of the character depicted here under the name of 
 Percy Aylwin. And I asked then the question 
 Supposing Borrow to have been physically drawn 
 with much power towards any woman, could she 
 possibly have been Romany? Would she not 
 rather have been of the Scandinavian type ? 
 would she not have been what he used to 
 call a " Brynhild " ? From many conversations 
 with him on this subject, I think she would have 
 been a tall blonde, of the type of Isopel Berners
 
 xiv PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 who, by-the-by, was much more a portrait of a 
 splendid East-Anglian road-girl than is generally 
 imagined. And I think, besides, that Borrow's 
 sympathy with the Anglo-Saxon type may account 
 for the fact that, notwithstanding his love 
 of the free and easy economies of life among 
 the better class of Gryengroes, his gypsy 
 women are all what have been called "scenic 
 characters." 
 
 When he comes to delineate a heroine, she is 
 the superb Isopel Berners that is to say, she is 
 physically (and indeed mentally, too), the very 
 opposite of the Romany chi. It was here, as I 
 happen to know, that Borrow's sympathies were 
 with Henry Aylwin far more than with Percy 
 Aylwin. 
 
 The type of the Romany chi, though very 
 delightful to Henry Aylwin as regards companion- 
 ship, had no physical attractions for him, otherwise 
 the witchery of the girl here called Rhona Boswell, 
 whom he knew as a child long before Percy 
 Aylwin knew her, must surely have eclipsed such 
 charms as Winifred Wynne or any other winsome
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xv 
 
 "Gorgie" could possess. On the other hand, it 
 would, I believe, have been impossible for Percy 
 Aylwin to be brought closely and long in con- 
 tact with a Romany girl like Sinfi Lovell and 
 remain untouched by those unique physical 
 attractions of hers attractions that made her 
 universally admired by the best judges of female 
 beauty as being the most splendid "face-model" 
 of her time, and as being in form the grandest 
 woman ever seen in the studios attractions that 
 upon Henry Aylwin seem to have made almost 
 no impression. 
 
 There is no accounting for this, as there is 
 no accounting for anything connected with the 
 mysterious witchery of sex. And again, the strong 
 inscrutable way in which some gypsy girls are 
 drawn towards a "Tarno Rye" (as a young 
 English gentleman is called), is quite inexplicable. 
 Some have thought and Borrow was one of 
 them that it may arise from that infirmity of 
 the Romany Chal which causes the girls to 
 "take their own part" without appealing to 
 their men-companions for aid that lack of
 
 xvi PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 masculine chivalry among the men of their own 
 race. 
 
 II 
 
 THE HUMOUR OF THE ROMANY CHI 
 
 And now for a word or two upon a matter in 
 connection with " Aylwin " and " The Coming of 
 Love" which interests me more deeply. Some 
 of those who have been specially attracted towards 
 Sinfi Lovell have had misgivings, I find, as to 
 whether she is not an idealisation, an impossible 
 Romany chi, and some of those who have been 
 specially attracted towards Rhona Boswell have 
 had the same misgivings as to her. 
 
 The Times, in a kindly notice of " The Coming 
 of Love," said that the sort of gypsies here 
 depicted are a very interesting people "unless 
 the author has flattered them unduly." 
 
 Those who best know the women of the 
 gypsies will be the first to aver that I have not 
 "flattered them unduly." 
 
 One of the great racial specialities of the 
 Romany is the superiority of the women to
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xvii 
 
 the men. For it is not merely in intelligence, 
 in imagination, in command over language, in 
 comparative breadth of view regarding the Gorgio 
 world that the Romany women (in Great Britain, 
 at least) leave the men far behind. In every- 
 thing that goes to make nobility of character 
 this superiority is equally noticeable. To imagine 
 a gypsy hero is, I will confess, rather difficult. 
 Not that the average male gypsy is without a 
 certain amount of courage, but it soon gives 
 way, and, in a conflict between a gypsy and an 
 Englishman, it always seems as though ages of 
 oppression have damped the virility of Romany 
 stamina. 
 
 Although some of our most notable prize- 
 fighters have been gypsies, it used to be well 
 known, in times when the ring was fashionable, 
 that a gypsy could not always be relied upon 
 to "take punishment" with the stolid indifference 
 of an Englishman or a negro, partly, perhaps, 
 because his more highly-strung nervous system 
 makes him more sensitive to pain. 
 
 The courage of a gypsy woman, on the other
 
 xviii PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 hand, has passed into a proverb ; nothing seems 
 to daunt it. This superiority of the women to 
 the men extends to everything, unless, perhaps, 
 we except that gift of music for which the gypsies 
 as a race are noticeable. With regard to music, 
 however, even in Eastern Europe (Russia alone 
 excepted), where gypsy music is so universal that, 
 according to some writers, every Hungarian 
 musician is of Romany extraction, it is the 
 men, and not, in general, the women, who 
 excel. Those, however, who knew Sinfi Lovell 
 may think with me that this state of things 
 may simply be the result of opportunity and 
 training. 
 
 But it is with regard to the humour of gypsy 
 women that Gorgio readers seem to be most 
 sceptical. The humorous endowment of most 
 races is found to be more abundant and richer 
 in quality among the men than among the 
 women. But among the Romanies the women 
 seem to have taken humour with the rest of the 
 higher qualities. 
 
 A question that has been most frequently
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xix 
 
 asked me in connection with my two gypsy 
 heroines has been Have gypsy girls really the 
 esprit and the humorous charm that you attri- 
 bute to them? My answer to this question 
 shall be a quotation from Mr Groome's delightful 
 book, "Gypsy Folk-Tales," just published. 
 
 Speaking of the Romany chi's incomparable 
 piquancy, he says : 
 
 " I have known a gypsy girl dash off what 
 was almost a folk-tale impromptu. She had 
 been to a pic-nic in a four-in-hand with 'a 
 lot o' real tip-top gentry ' ; and ' Reia,' she 
 said to me afterwards, ' I '11 tell you the 
 comicalest thing as ever was. We'd pulled 
 up, to put the brake on ; and there was &ptiro 
 hotchiwitchi (old hedgehog) come and looked 
 at us through the hedge ; looked at me hard. 
 I could see he 'd his eye upon me. And home 
 he 'd go, that old hedgehog, to his wife, and 
 "Missus," he'd say, "what d'ye think? I 
 seen a little gypsy gal just now in a coach 
 and four horses " ; and " Ddbla ! " she 'd say,
 
 xx PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 "sawktimni 'as varde kendw" ("Bless us! 
 everyone now keeps a carriage").'" 
 
 Now, without saying that this impromptu folk- 
 lorist was Rhona Boswell, I will at least aver, 
 without fear of contradiction from Mr Groome, 
 that it might well have been she. 
 
 Although there is as great a difference between 
 one Romany chi and another, as between one 
 English girl and another, there is a strange and 
 fascinating kinship between the humour of all 
 gypsy girls. 
 
 No three girls could possibly be more unlike 
 than Sinfi Lovell, Rhona Boswell, and the girl of 
 whom Mr Groome gives his anecdote; and yet 
 there is a similarity between the fanciful humour 
 of them all. 
 
 The humour of Rhona Boswell must speak for 
 itself in these pages where, however, the passion- 
 ate and tragic side of her character and her story 
 dominates everything. But I cannot resist the 
 temptation of giving an example of Sinfi Lo veil's 
 humour, and of her power of dramatic narrative.
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xxi 
 
 It is recorded that years after the events told 
 in "Aylwin," a Gorgio friend of Sinfi Lovell's 
 was crossing Snowdon with her from Capel 
 Curig, and they stopped to observe the same 
 sunrise effects which are described in "Aylwin." 
 The splendours made the friend very voluble, 
 while Sinfi remained silent. At last he said, 
 " You don't seem to enjoy it a bit, Sinfi." 
 
 The slightest of smiles broke over her face 
 as she said, " Don't injiy it, don't I ? You 
 injiy talkin' about it. / injiy letting it soak 
 in." 
 
 On another occasion the same friend got 
 her to talk about Hurstcote Manor and D'Arcy. 
 He did so with great difficulty, however, for, 
 underlying all her humour, there was, he thought, 
 a sadness bespeaking a heart which, though not 
 broken, was sorely bruised. 
 
 "Well," said Sinfi at last, "there ain't much 
 to tell about that It 's allus a quiet life down 
 there. Mr D'Arcy 's lively enough sometimes; 
 but sometimes he has the blues awful, and lays 
 rollin' on the great brown holland sofy in the
 
 xxii PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 studio, a-pickin' his nails an' a-lookin' at nothink. 
 But that ain't so very often; and he is a nice 
 man, an' everybody likes him. There 's on'y one 
 'musin' party down there, an' that's a kind o' 
 housekeeper, a born nataral; they calls her 
 Mrs Titwing." 
 
 Sinfi then began to tell the friend some racy 
 anecdotes about D'Arcy's housekeeper, from which 
 it appeared that the painter, after Sinfi had been 
 the means of restoring Winifred Wynne to health, 
 had insisted on the gypsy's being elevated from 
 the position of model to that of a friend and 
 an equal. This had been somewhat resented in 
 the kitchen, and the kind of humorous good 
 sense that was Sinn's characteristic had enabled 
 her to see that the resentment was but. natural 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 " You see," said Sinfi, " whenever I went 
 down to Hurstcote Manor before, the sarvents 
 allus used to call me the gypsy model, and you 
 must know that all English Gorgios, whether 
 gentlefolks or sarvents, is allus much more 
 ingorant than the Welsh Gorgios, and they look
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xxiii 
 
 down on us Romanies in a way as allus makes 
 me laugh." 
 
 The Gorgio friend said, in mock reproachful- 
 ness : " You forget for the moment your good 
 breeding, Sinfi; I am an English Gorgio." 
 
 " I mean Gorgio sarvents, in course," said Sinfi, 
 with ready tact. "It ain't perlite to say Gorgio 
 at all to a Gorgio. Toffs is the word when you're 
 talkin' o' gentlefolk. Howsomedever, what with 
 my dukkurin' an' what with my singin' an' playin' 
 on the crwth, Mr D'Arcy's sarvents used to like 
 to get me in the sarvents' hall, an' used to look 
 forrud to my goin' to Hurstcote. But new, when 
 Mr D'Arcy would keep on treatin' me like a 
 real rawnee, in course it put their noses out o' 
 jint, an' this used to 'muse me. I used to say 
 to the butler, 'That nose o' yourn has got a 
 twist lately, Mr Slater. You don't look quite 
 so straight along it as you used to ; what 's the 
 matter with it now? Is it 'coz Mr D'Arcy will 
 make a rawnee on me? Now, you knows very 
 well,' I sez, 'that I don't want to be made a 
 rawnee on. There ain't a Gorgio lady in the
 
 xxiv PREFA7VRY NOTE 
 
 land,' sez I, 'as is fit to hold the candle to a 
 Romany rawnee and a duke's chavi,' I sez. ' The 
 Gorgios is all mumply when set by the side of 
 a Romany.'" 
 
 " Lady Sinfi ! " the friend exclaimed, in a still 
 more reproachful tone. 
 
 "Of course, when I said that," exclaimed 
 Sinfi, " I hadn't seen much of nice, kind Gorgies. 
 Well, this used to make the butler laugh an' seem 
 half ashamed of hisself, an' he used to say, ' It 's 
 all right, my gal ; us sarvents allus liked you, Sinfi ; 
 and though it is a bit queer to see you a-settin' down 
 at table with the guvernor and the lady-model, this 
 is Topsy-Turvey Hall, you know ; that 's what we 
 calls it, an' it's a lark to see you three a-settin' 
 there, an' it makes a little fun in this dull place. 
 At first we did jib at it a bit, but now we're 
 got used to it we like it ; but it 's that bloomin' 
 Mrs Titwing as has got her back set up about 
 it, an' she's allus a-talkin' to me and the cook 
 an' all of us about the insult to us of Mr D'Arcy's 
 goin's-on; and if it is insultin' for you to be 
 a-settin' there, sarvents are very thin-skinned 
 about bein' insulted, you know.'
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xxv 
 
 "That's what he sez. The housekeeper, you 
 must know, is a sort o' stuck-up, gray -eyed, 
 born nataral, as ain't got all her buttons. Afore 
 I got there she used to be allus a-talkin' about 
 the difference atween her as is a lady an' the 
 sarvents, an' about her bein' nearer to the parlour 
 folk than the sarvents' hall. Well, this 'ere born 
 nataral, Mrs Titwing, bein' a Christian rawnee, 
 used to think that the more she hated the 
 heathen gypsies, as she called us, the more 
 she wur a-sayin' her prayers; an' this made 
 her be so friendly all at wonst with the 
 sarvents, an' egg 'em on to set up a kind of a 
 scrimmage agin' me, though they done it in a 
 kind o' half-hearted way, as I see'd. So one day 
 I told Mr D'Arcy about it, and I sez to him, 
 'Jist to make peace with the born nataral, 
 who's very ingorant and don't know no better, 
 I think I had better have my vittles in the 
 sarvents' hall as I used to; it don't make no 
 difference to me. If a born nataral, as is a 
 mumply Gorgio to boot, looks down on me, / 
 looks down on all born natarals, and all Gorgios 
 too if they're mumply.'
 
 xxvi PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 "But Mr D'Arcy jumps off his paintin'- stool 
 and begins to swear an' bawl out, till he makes 
 the room ring agin, an' he sez, 'Pull that 'ere 
 bell, Sinfi,' an' I does, an' in comes one o' the 
 sarvents, an' Mr D'Arcy sez, 'Send that that 
 Mrs Titwing here, an' then go an' tell all the 
 sarvents to come up ; I wants to speak to 'em.' 
 An' up comes the born nataral, lookin' about 
 the eyes as if she'd jist been a-peelin' ingins. 
 An' when Mr D'Arcy claps eyes on her, he 
 sez, 'A nice kind of a Christian woman you 
 are ! I suppose you think the more you spit 
 in the face of the heathen gypsy, as you call 
 my friend Sinfi, the more you show your love 
 for the Lord Jesus. But look you here, Mrs 
 Titwing, the Lord Jesus, when you get to them 
 Golden Gates o' Heaven as you are very anxious 
 to get thro', He '11 say, " What do you want here, 
 Mrs Titwing? It's the other gates across the 
 way as opens for such as you. It ain't me as 
 you takes arter, Mrs Titwing; it's the gent over 
 the way," and then the porter o' them golden gates 
 he'll jist give you a gentle kick, an' say, "Out you
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xxvii 
 
 goes, Mrs Titwing, out you goes." An' presto ! 
 you'll find yourself behind them other gates as 
 belongs to the other party, where all the con- 
 gregation of Little Bethel of Hurstcote village is 
 waitin' for you.' And when all the other sarvents 
 comes in, Mr D'Arcy he makes them stand in a 
 row afore him ; and then he pints to me and sez, 
 ' You see that Romany chi ? ' 
 
 "See what, Sinn?" asked the friend. 
 
 "Well, of course, he didn't say Romany chi, 
 he said 'You see Sinn suppose that she'd 
 done any one on you a great sarvice, and brought 
 herself to death's door a-doin' on it. Suppose 
 she saved you from bein' burnt in your beds, say, 
 or drownded in the weir, say, should you feel 
 friendly-like towards that gypsy model, or un- 
 friendly ? ' And they all sez at wonst, ' In course, 
 sir, we should feel friendly-like, and very friendly- 
 like.' 'Well,' sez Mr D'Arcy, 'Sinn Lovell has 
 done me, an' a dear friend o' mine, a great sarvice 
 at the risk of her own life, she has. And the 
 doctor tells me that it will do her good to be 
 nusscd up in the parlour, an' have her meals along
 
 xxviii PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 o' me. What should you think of me if I turned 
 round and said, "No, she shan't, because she's 
 a gypsy model"?' Then the parlour-maid what 
 hates the born nataral, sez, ' I should say it wasn't 
 a bit like Mr D'Arcy, but a good deal like a fine 
 Christian lady what shall be nameless ; a lady wot 
 sez her prayers reg'lar, an' tries to set people agin 
 each other.' Then they all began to laugh, an' 
 the born nataral began to cry ; and there were an 
 end of the row." 
 
 But I think enough has here been said to show 
 how richly endowed are the Romany girls with 
 humour. 
 
 Ill 
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Since the appearance of this volume, there has 
 been a great deal of acute and learned discussion 
 as to the identity of that mysterious "friend" of 
 Shakspeare, to whom so many of the sonnets 
 are addressed. But everything that has been
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION xxix 
 
 said upon the subject seems to fortify me in 
 the opinion that "no critic has been able to 
 identify " that friend. Southampton seems at first 
 to fit into the sacred place; so does Pembroke 
 at first. But, after a while, true and unbiassed 
 criticism rejects them both. I therefore feel 
 more than ever justified in " imagining the friend 
 for myself." And this, at least, I know, that to 
 have been the friend of Shakspeare, a man 
 must needs have been a lover of nature; he 
 must have been a lover of England, too. And 
 upon these two points, and upon another the 
 movement of a soul dominated by friendship 
 as a passion I have tried to show Shakspeare's 
 probable influence upon his "friend of friends." 
 It would have been a mistake, however, to cast 
 the sonnets in the same metrical mould as 
 Shakspeare's. 
 
 T. W.-D. 
 
 Christmas 1898.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE TO FIRST 
 AND SECOND EDITIONS 
 
 HAD it not been for the intervention of matters 
 of a peculiarly absorbing kind matters which 
 caused me to delay the task of collecting these 
 verses I should have been the most favoured 
 man who ever brought out a volume of poems, 
 for they would have been printed by William 
 Morris, at the Kelmscott Press. As that pro- 
 jected edition of his was largely subscribed for, 
 a word of explanation to the subscribers is, I 
 am told, required from me. Among the friends 
 who saw much of that great poet and beloved 
 man during the last year of his life, there was 
 one who would not and could not believe that 
 he would die myself. To me he seemed human 
 vitality concentrated to a point of quenchless 
 light; and when the appalling truth that he must
 
 xxxii PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 die did at last strike through me, I had no heart 
 and no patience to think about anything in con- 
 nection with him but the loss that was to come 
 upon us. And, now, whatsoever pleasure I may 
 feel at seeing my verses in one of Mr Lane's 
 inviting little volumes will be dimmed and marred 
 by the thought that Morris's name also might 
 have been, and is not, on the imprint. 
 
 With regard to the two chief poems in the 
 volume, perhaps I ought to offer an explanatory 
 word or two. The gypsies depicted in "The 
 Coming of Love" belong to a peculiar class, the 
 East Anglian and East Midland horse-dealers 
 from Wales. At horse fairs no dealers are so 
 clever as they in seeing the points of a horse, 
 buying him at the lowest price possible, and 
 selling him at the highest. Hence they are often 
 as prosperous as the mongrel vagabonds and 
 London tramps, classed as "gypsies" by such 
 writers as the late well-intentioned George Smith 
 of Coalville, are squalid. 
 
 With regard to "Christmas at the Mermaid," 
 such liberties as I may, here and there, have
 
 TO FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS xxxiii 
 
 taken with the history of the Jacobean period, 
 are not such, I hope, as will vex the student. 
 And as concerns the mysterious friend of Shak- 
 speare, to whom so many of his sonnets were 
 addressed, I consider that no critic has been 
 able to identify him, and that I am entitled to 
 imagine that friend for myself. 
 
 T. W.-D.
 
 THE COMING OF LOVE 
 
 RHONA BOSWELL'S STORY 
 
 CHARACTERS 
 
 PERCY AYLWIN of Rington Manor, Kinsman of 
 HENRY AYLWIN of Raxton Hall. 
 
 RHONA BOSWELL, nicknamed "Merrylaugh the 
 Rider."
 
 THE COMING OF LOVE 
 RHONA BOSWELL'S STORY 
 
 PART I 
 PERCY BEFORE THE COMING OF LOVE
 
 THE COMING OF LOVE 
 RHONA BOSWELL'S STORY 
 
 PART I 
 PERCY BEFORE THE COMING OF LOVE 
 
 I 
 A STARRY NIGHT AT SEA 
 
 IF heaven's bright halls are very far from sea, 
 I dread a pang the angels could not 'suage : 
 The imprisoned seabird knows, and only he, 
 How drear, how dark, may be the proudest 
 
 cage. 
 
 Outside the bars he sees a prison still : 
 The self-same wood or mead or silver stream 
 That lends the captive lark a joyous thrill 
 Is landscape in the seabird's prison-dream. 
 So might I pine on yonder starry floor
 
 4 BEFORE THE COMING 
 
 For sea-wind, deaf to all the singing spheres; 
 Billows like these, that never knew a shore, 
 Might mock mine eyes and tease my hungry 
 
 ears ; 
 
 No scent of amaranth, moly, or asphodel, 
 In lands that bloom above yon glittering 
 
 vault, 
 
 Could soothe me if I lost this briny smell, 
 This living breath of Ocean, sharp and salt. 
 
 II 
 
 NATURE'S FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 
 (A morning swim off Guernsey with a Friend.) 
 
 As if the Spring's fresh groves should change 
 
 and shake 
 
 To dark green woods of Orient terebinth, 
 Then break to bloom of England's hyacinth,
 
 OF LOVE 5 
 
 So 'neath us change the waves, rising to take 
 Each kiss of colour from each cloud and flake 
 Round many a rocky hall and labyrinth, 
 Where sea-wrought column, arch, and granite 
 
 plinth, 
 Show how the sea's fine rage dares make and 
 
 break. 
 Young with the youth the sea's embrace can 
 
 lend, 
 Our glowing limbs, with sun and brine 
 
 empearled, 
 
 Seem born anew, and in your eyes, dear friend, 
 Rare pictures shine, like fairy flags unfurled, 
 Of child -laud, where the roofs of rainbows 
 
 bend 
 Over the magic wonders of the world.
 
 6 BEFORE THE COMING 
 
 III 
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF NATURE'S FRAGRANCY 
 (The Tiring-room in the Rocks.) 
 
 THESE are the " Coloured Caves " the sea-maid 
 built ; 
 
 Her walls are stained beyond that lonely fern, 
 
 For she must fly at every tide's return, 
 
 And all her sea-tints round the walls are 
 spilt. 
 
 Outside behold the bay, each headland gilt 
 
 With morning's gold ; far off the foam- 
 wreaths burn 
 
 Like fiery snakes, while here the sweet waves 
 yearn 
 
 Up sand more soft than Avon's sacred silt. 
 
 And smell the sea! no breath of wood or 
 field, 
 
 From* lips of may or rose or eglantine,
 
 OF LOVE 7 
 
 Comes with the language of a breath benign, 
 Shuts the dark room where glimmers Fate 
 
 revealed, 
 Calms the vext spirit, balms a sorrow 
 
 unhealed, 
 Like scent of seaweed rich of morn and brine. 
 
 IV 
 
 LOVE BRINGS WARNING OF NATURA 
 MALIGNA 
 
 (PERCY sailing with a friend past the Casket Lighthouse.") 
 
 AMID the Channel's wiles and deep decoys, 
 Where yonder Beacons watch the siren-sea, 
 A girl was reared who knew nor flower nor 
 
 tree 
 Nor breath of grass at dawn, yet had high 
 
 joys:
 
 8 BEFORE THE COMING 
 
 The moving lawns whose verdure never cloys 
 Were hers. At last she sailed to Alderney, 
 But there she pined. "The bustling world," 
 
 said she, 
 
 " Is all too full of trouble, full of noise." 
 The storm-child, fainting for her home, the 
 
 storm, 
 Had winds for sponsor one proud rock for 
 
 nurse, 
 Whose granite arms, through countless years, 
 
 disperse 
 
 All billowy squadrons tide and wind can form : 
 The cold bright sea was hers for universe 
 Till o'er the waves Love flew and fanned them 
 
 warm. 
 
 But Love brings Fear with eyes of augury : 
 Her lover's boat was out; her ears were 
 dinned
 
 OF LOVE 9 
 
 With sea-sobs warning of the awakened wind 
 That shook the troubled sun's red canopy. 
 Even while she prayed the storm's high revelry 
 Woke petrel, gull all revellers winged and 
 
 finned 
 
 And clutched a sail brown-patched and weather- 
 thinned, 
 
 And then a swimmer fought a white, wild sea. 
 " My songs are louder, child, than prayers of 
 
 thine," 
 
 The Mother sang. " Thy sea-boy waged no strife 
 With Hatred's poison, gangrened Envy's 
 
 knife- 
 With me he strove, in deadly sport divine, 
 Who lend to men, to gods, an hour of life, 
 Then give them sleep within these arms of 
 mine!"
 
 10 BEFORE THE COMING 
 
 V 
 
 MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKEN 
 
 v, on seeing a storm-petrel in a cage on a cottage 
 wall near Gypsy Dell, takes down the cage with the 
 view of releasing the bird.) 
 
 I CANNOT brook thy gaze, beloved bird ; 
 
 That sorrow is more than human in thine 
 
 eye; 
 Too deeply, brother, is my spirit stirred 
 
 To see thee here, beneath the landsmen's 
 
 sky, 
 Cooped in a cage with food thou canst not 
 
 eat, 
 Thy "snow-flake" soiled, and soiled those 
 
 conquering feet 
 
 That walked the billows, while thy "sweet- 
 sweet-sweet " 
 
 Proclaimed the tempest nigh.
 
 OF LOVE ii 
 
 Bird whom I welcomed while the sailors cursed, 
 Friend whom I blessed wherever keels may 
 
 roam, 
 Prince of my childish dreams, whom mermaids 
 
 nursed 
 
 In purple of billows silver of ocean-foam, 
 Abashed I stand before the mighty grief 
 That quells all other: Sorrow's King and 
 
 Chief, 
 
 Who rides the wind and holds the sea in fief, 
 Then finds a cage for home ! 
 
 From out thy jail thou seest yon heath and 
 
 woods, 
 But canst thou hear the birds or smell the 
 
 flowers ? 
 Ah, no! those rain-drops twinkling on the 
 
 buds 
 Bring only visions of the salt sea-showers.
 
 12 BEFORE THE COMING 
 
 " The sea ! " the linnets pipe from hedge and 
 
 heath ; 
 " The sea ! " the honeysuckles whisper and 
 
 breathe, 
 
 And tumbling waves, where those wild-roses 
 wreathe, 
 
 Murmur from inland bowers. 
 
 These winds so soft to others how they burn ! 
 The mavis sings with gurgle and ripple and 
 
 plash, 
 
 To thee yon swallow seems a wheeling tern ; 
 And when the rain recalls the briny lash, 
 Old Ocean's kiss we love oh, when thy sight 
 Is mocked with Ocean's horses manes of 
 
 white, 
 
 The long and shadowy flanks, the shoulders 
 bright 
 
 Bright as the lightning's flash
 
 OF LOVE 13 
 
 When all these scents of heather and brier and 
 
 whin, 
 All kindly breaths of land-shrub, tlower, and 
 
 vine, 
 Recall the sea-scents, till thy feathered skin 
 
 Tingles in answer to a dream of brine 
 When thou, remembering there thy royal 
 
 birth, 
 
 Dost see between the bars a world of dearth, 
 Is there a grief a grief on all the earth 
 So heavy and dark as thine ? 
 
 But I can buy thy freedom I (thank God !), 
 Who loved thee more than albatross or 
 
 gull- 
 Loved thee, and loved the waves thy footsteps 
 
 trod 
 
 Dreamed of thee when, becalmed, we lay 
 a-hull
 
 14 BEFORE THE COMING 
 
 'Tis I, thy friend, who once, a child of six, 
 To find where Mother Carey fed her chicks, 
 Climbed up the boat and then with bramble 
 sticks 
 
 Tried all in vain to scull 
 
 Thy friend who shared thy Paradise of Storm 
 
 The little dreamer of the cliffs and coves, 
 Who knew thy mother, saw her shadowy 
 
 form 
 Behind the cloudy bastions where she 
 
 moves, 
 And heard her call : " Come ! for the welkin 
 
 thickens, 
 And tempests mutter and the lightning 
 
 quickens ! " 
 
 Then, starting from his dream, would find the 
 chickens 
 
 Were daws or blue rock-doves
 
 OF LOVE IS 
 
 Thy friend who owned another Paradise, 
 
 Of calmer air, a floating isle of fruit, 
 Where sang the Nereids on a breeze of spice, 
 While Triton, from afar, would sound 
 
 salute : 
 There wast thou winging, though the skies 
 
 were calm ; 
 For marvellous strains, as of the morning's 
 
 shalm, 
 
 Were struck by ripples round that isle of 
 palm 
 
 Whose shores were Ocean's lute. 
 
 And now to see thee here, my king, my king, 
 Far-glittering memories mirrored in those 
 
 eyes, 
 As if there shone within each iris-ring 
 
 An orbed world ocean and hills and 
 skies !
 
 16 BEFORE THE COMING 
 
 Those black wings ruffled whose triumphant 
 
 sweep 
 Conquered in sport ! yea, up the glimmering 
 
 steep 
 
 Of highest billow, down the deepest deep, 
 Sported with victories ! 
 
 To see thee here ! a coil of wilted weeds 
 Beneath those feet that danced on diamond 
 
 spray, 
 
 Rider of sportive Ocean's reinless steeds 
 Winner in Mother Carey's Sabbath-fray 
 When, stung by magic of the Witch's 
 
 chant, 
 
 They rise, each foamy-crested combatant 
 They rise and fall and leap and foam and gallop 
 
 and pant 
 
 Till albatross, sea-swallow, and cormorant 
 Must flee like doves away !
 
 OF LOVE 17 
 
 And shalt thou ride no more where thou hast 
 
 ridden, 
 And feast no more in hyaline halls and 
 
 caves, 
 Master of Mother Carey's secrets hidden, 
 
 Master and monarch of the wind and waves, 
 Who never, save in stress of angriest blast, 
 Asked ship for shelter never till at last 
 The foam-flakes hurled against the sloping 
 mast 
 
 Slashed thee like whirling glaives ? 
 
 Right home to fields no seamew ever kenned, 
 Where scarce the great sea-wanderer fares 
 with thee, 
 
 I come to take thee nay, 'tis I, thy friend ! 
 Ah, tremble not I come to set thee free ; 
 
 I come to tear this cage from off this wall, 
 
 And take thee hence to that fierce festival 
 
 B
 
 1 8 BEFORE THE COMING 
 
 Where billows march and winds are musical, 
 
 Hymning the Victor-Sea I 
 * * * # * 
 
 Yea, lift thine eyes to mine. Dost know me 
 
 now ? 
 Thou'rt free ! thou'rt free ! Ah, surely a 
 
 bird can smile ! 
 Dost know me, Petrel ? Dost remember how 
 
 I fed thee in the wake for many a mile, 
 Whilst thou wouldst pat the waves, then, 
 
 rising, take 
 
 The morsel up and wheel about the wake ? 
 Thou'rt free, thou'rt free, but for thine own 
 dear sake 
 
 I keep thee caged awhile. 
 
 Away to sea ! no matter where the coast: 
 The road that turns for home turns never 
 wrong ;
 
 OF LOVE 19 
 
 Where waves run high my bird will not be 
 
 lost: 
 
 His home I know : 'tis where the winds are 
 strong 
 
 Where, on a throne of billows, rolling hoary 
 
 And green and blue and splashed with sunny 
 glory, 
 
 Far, far from shore from farthest promon- 
 tory 
 
 Prophetic Nature bares the secret of the story 
 That holds the spheres in song 1 
 
 (PERCY, carrying the bird in the cage, turns to cross 
 a rustic wooden bridge leading past Gypsy Dell, when 
 he suddenly comes upon a landsman-friend of his, a 
 "Scholar-Gypsy" 'who is just parting from ayoung 
 Gypsy-girl, dressed in the picturesque costume of the 
 well-to-do " Gryengroes," or horse-dealers. She is 
 carrying in one hand a fishing-rod, and in the other 
 an oster-wythe, upon which three or four fish are 
 strung by the gills. With the evening sun falling 
 upon her lustrous eyes and illuminating the rich 
 colour of her face, the girl presents a picture of 
 such striking beauty that PERCY stands dazzled
 
 BEFORE THE COMING 
 
 and forgets the petrel. The bird pushes its way 
 through the half-open door and flies away. As the 
 two friends stand and watch the Gypsy-girl passing 
 down the Dell, the Scholar-Gypsy relates many 
 anecdotes of her anecdotes 'which teach PERCY 
 that the land is richer than the sea, and teach him 
 also that, through the unsophisticated movements of 
 the female heart, Natura Benigna can express 
 herself.) 
 
 VI 
 
 NATURA BENIGNA REVEALED THROUGH A 
 GYPSY-CHILD 
 
 The Scholar-Gypsy's story of Rhona BosweU as a Child 
 "THE child arose and danced through frozen 
 
 dells, 
 Drawn by the Christmas chimes, and soon she 
 
 sate 
 Where, 'neath the snow around the churchyard 
 
 gate, 
 
 The ploughmen slept in bramble-banded cells : 
 The gorgios pass'd, half-fearing gypsy-spells,
 
 OF LOVE 21 
 
 While Rhona gazing seem'd to meditate ; 
 Then laugh'd for joy, then wept disconsolate : 
 ' De poor dead gorgios cannot hear de bells.' 
 Within the church the clouds of gorgio-breath 
 Arose, a steam of lazy praise and prayer 
 To Him who weaves the loving Christmas- 
 stair 
 
 O'er sorrow and sin and wintry deeps of Death ; 
 But where stood He ? Beside our Rhona 
 
 there, 
 Remembering childish tears in Nazareth." * 
 
 * For this anecdote of Rhona Boswell as a child I am 
 indebted to my friend Francis Hindes Groome, author of 
 " In Gipsy Tents" and the Romany novel, " Kriegspiel," 
 
 CONCLUSION OF PART I
 
 THE COMING OF LOVE 
 
 RHONA BOSWELL'S STORY 
 
 PART II 
 THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUNRISE
 
 THE COMING OF LOVE 
 RHONA BOSWELL'S STORY 
 
 PART II 
 THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUNRISE 
 
 RHONA'S FIRST KISS 
 (PERCY alone in Rington Furze : RHONA has just left him.} 
 
 IF only in dreams may Man be fully blest, 
 
 Is heaven a dream ? Is she I claspt a dream ? 
 
 Or stood she here even now where dew-drops 
 
 gleam 
 And miles of furze shine yellow down the 
 
 West? 
 
 I seem to clasp her still still on my breast 
 Her bosom beats : I see the bright eyes beam. 
 I think she kiss'd these lips, for now they seem
 
 26 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Scarce mine: so hallow'd of the lips they 
 
 press'd. 
 
 Yon thicket's breath can that be eglantine ? 
 Those birds can they be Morning's choristers? 
 Can this be Earth? Can these be banks of 
 
 furze ? 
 
 Like burning bushes fired of God they shine ! 
 I seem to know them, though this body of mine 
 Passed into spirit at the touch of hers 1 
 
 II 
 
 THE GOLDEN HAND* 
 PERCY. 
 
 Do you forget that day on Rington strand 
 When, near the crumbling ruin's parapet, 
 
 * Among the Gypsies of all countries the happiest pos- 
 sible "Dukkeripen" (i.e., prophetic symbol of Natura 
 Mystica) is a hand-shaped golden cloud floating on the sky. 
 It is singular that the same idea is found among races
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 27 
 
 I saw you stand beside the long-shore net 
 The gorgios spread to dry on sun-lit sand ? 
 
 RHONA. 
 Do I forget ? 
 
 PERCY. 
 
 You wove the wood-flowers in a dewy band 
 Around your hair which shone as black as 
 
 jet: 
 
 No fairy's crown of bloom was ever set 
 Round brows so sweet as those the wood- 
 flowers spanned. 
 
 I see that picture now ; hair dewy-wet : 
 Dark eyes that pictures in the sky expand : 
 
 entirely disconnected with them the Finns, for instance, 
 with whom Ukko, the " sky god " or " angei of the sun- 
 rise," was called the " golden king " and " leader of the 
 clouds," and his Golden Hand was more powerful than 
 all the army of Death. The " Golden Hand " is some- 
 times called the Lover's Dukkeripen.
 
 28 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Love-lips (with one tattoo "for dukkerin") 
 
 tanned 
 By sunny winds that kiss them as you stand. 
 
 RHONA. 
 Do I forget ? 
 
 The Golden Hand shone there : it's you forget, 
 Or p'raps us Romanies ondly understand 
 The way the Lovers' Dukkeripen is planned 
 Which shone that second time when us two met. 
 
 PERCY. 
 Blest "Golden Hand"! 
 
 RHONA. 
 
 The wind, that mixed the smell o* violet 
 Wi' chirp o' bird, a-blowin' from the land 
 Where my dear mammy lies, said as it fanned 
 My heart-like, " Them 'ere tears makes mammy 
 fret."
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 29 
 
 She loves to see her chavi lookin' grand, Chad. 
 
 So I made what you call'd a coronet, 
 And in the front I put her amulet : 
 She sent the Hand to show she sees me yet. 
 
 PERCY. 
 Blest " Golden Hand " J 
 
 III 
 
 RHONA'S LOVE LETTER AFTER PERCY'S 
 FIRST STAY IN GYPSY DELL 
 
 Gypsy Dell, Wensdy. 
 
 THIS ere comes hoppen, leaven me the same, 
 
 And lykwise all our breed in Gypsy Dell, 
 
 Barrin the spotted gry, wot's turned up lame ; Hone. 
 
 A crick have made his orfside fetlock swell. 
 
 The Scollard's larnen me to rite and spel, 
 
 It's 'ard, but then I longed to rite your name :
 
 30 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Them squrruls in the Dell have grow'd that 
 tame! 
 
 How sweet the haycocks smel ! 
 
 Faith. Dordi ! how I should like you just to see 
 The Scollard when he's larnen me to rite, 
 A buzzin like a chafer or a bee, 
 
 Eyes. Else cussen you wi' bloodshot yockers bright 
 Mouth, And moey girnin, danniers gleamin white. 
 
 teeth. 
 
 He's wuss nor ever follerin arter me, 
 Peepin roun' every bush an every tree 
 Mornin and noon and night. 
 
 When I wur standin by the river's brim, 
 Birds. Hearin the chirikels in Rington wood, 
 
 And seein the moorhens lam their chicks to 
 
 swim, 
 
 Thinks I, " I hears the Scollard's heavy 
 thud";
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 31 
 
 And when I turned, behold ye, there he stood I 
 He says I promised as I'd marry him, 
 And if I di'n't he'd tear me limb from limb. 
 Sez I, " That's if you could." 
 
 But when I thinks o* you, a choon aglall, A montb 
 
 ago. 
 
 Dray mendys tan a-studyin Romany in our tent. 
 
 Nock, danniers, moey, yockers, canners, bal Nose, 
 
 teeth,mouth, 
 T t i r i eyes, ears, 
 
 It make me sometime larf and sometime cry ; hair. 
 And that make Granny's crinkles crinkle sly ; 
 
 " Dabla ! " my daddy says, "de* blessed gal Faith. 
 
 Shall lei herself a tarnow Rye she shall Get. 
 
 Young 
 _ gentleman. 
 
 A tarnow Romany Rye. Gypsy 
 
 gentleman. 
 
 I lets em larf, but well I knows too well 
 The ondly tarnow Rye, and ondly man, 
 That in my dreams I sometime seem to lei Get. 
 Ain't for the lyks o' mee in this 'ere tan, Tent. 
 
 * The gypsies of the present generation cease, except 
 in childhood, to say " de" for " the."
 
 3 2 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 The Rye wot sat by mee where Dell-brook 
 
 ran, 
 
 And larnt my Romany words and used to tell 
 Sich sweet, strange things all day, till shadders 
 
 fell 
 
 And light o' stars began. 
 
 Mose nights I lays awake, but when the cock 
 Begin to crow and rooks begin to fly 
 And chimes come livelier out o' Rington clock, 
 It's then I sees your pictur in the sky 
 (So plane, it seems to bring the mornin' nigh), 
 Hair, teeth, Bal, danniers, canners, yockers, moey, nock : 
 
 ears, eyes, 
 
 *' My daddy's bort me sich a nicet new frock. 
 Your loving Your comly korly chy. 
 
 darkgirL J J J
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 33 
 
 IV 
 
 PERCY READING THE LETTER AT 
 RINGTON MANOR 
 
 THE trees awake : I hear the branches creak ! 
 And ivy-leaves are tapping at the pane : 
 Dawn draws across the grey a safiron streak, 
 To let me read at sunrise once again 
 Beautiful Rhona's letter, which has lain, 
 Balming the pillow underneath my cheek, 
 While in the dark her writing seemed to speak : 
 Her great eyes lit my brain. 
 
 I felt the paper felt her thumb's device 
 That stamped the wax ; I seemed to feel the 
 
 fingers 
 
 Which wrote these misspelt words of rarer price 
 Than songs of bards I worshipped as the 
 
 bringers
 
 34 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Of light from shores where spheral music 
 
 lingers, 
 
 Till came this girl, whose music could entice 
 My soul to that diviner Paradise 
 
 Where lovers are the singers 
 
 That Paradise which Rhona can transfer 
 From Eden to the tents of Gypsy Dell, 
 Where Love is still his own orthographer 
 As when on scriptured leaves of asphodel 
 He taught his earliest pupil, Eve, to spell 
 Where Love speaks out what makes his bosom 
 
 stir 
 
 Frankly as yonder woodland chorister, 
 Whose first notes rise and swell.
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 35 
 
 V 
 EVENING ON THE RIVER 
 
 PERCY AND RHONA. 
 
 MORE mellow falls the light and still more 
 
 mellow 
 
 Around the boat, as we two glide along 
 Tween grassy banks she loves where, tall and 
 
 strong, 
 
 The buttercups stand gleaming, smiling, yellow. 
 She knows the nightingales of " Portobello ; " 
 Love makes her know each bird ! In all that 
 
 throng 
 
 No voice seems like another : soul is song, 
 And never nightingale was like its fellow ; 
 For, whether born in breast of Love's own bird, 
 Singing its passion in those islet-bowers 
 Whose sunset-coloured maze of leaves and 
 
 flowers
 
 36 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 The rosy river's glowing arms engird, 
 
 Or bora in human souls twin souls like 
 
 ours 
 Song leaps from deeps unplumbed by spoken 
 
 word. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE NATURE WORSHIPPER AND WOMAN'S 
 WITCHERY 
 
 (PERCY walking along the river-side near Gypsy Dell 
 at break of day.} 
 
 LOVE knows a wrong no tears can ever atone : 
 A word can break the web of Passion's spell, 
 And then away the enchanted woof is blown 
 That made a faery world of wood and dell : 
 But direr than all direst words are deeds : 
 Can I, who saw her body shake and sway 
 Before a storm of rage, like yonder reeds
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 37 
 
 When March winds bend them o'er the water- 
 weeds 
 Can I forgive that wrong of yesterday ? 
 
 Can I, who saw the lips of this wild girl, 
 So loving once, shrink back till pearly teeth, 
 That once seemed lovelier than the morning's 
 
 pearl, 
 Flashed bright as that bright blade she dared 
 
 unsheathe 
 
 Can I, who saw a brow, a throbbing throat 
 Glassed in the stream beneath the willow tree, 
 As up she sprang, a tigress, in the boat 
 Can I forgive her, though the siren wrote 
 The loveliest letter in the world to me ? 
 
 (He comes upon a second letter from RHONA lying on the 
 grass, and stands looking at it with yearning eyes, but 
 afraid to pick it up.) 
 
 Another letter ! Ah, full well I know 
 Those characters so childish, big, and round :
 
 38 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 I think she watches where the hawthorns throw 
 Those shortening shadows on the dewy ground. 
 Ah yes ! that head which gleams by yonder 
 
 bush, 
 Where golden shafts from out the quiver of 
 
 morn 
 Pierce the wet leaves and wake the hidden 
 
 thrush 
 
 That cheek which seems to lend a lovelier blush 
 To blushing may-buds on the dew-bright thorn ! 
 
 (He takes up the letter and reads it alottd.) 
 THE LETTER. 
 
 This time you can't forgive me that I know 
 But when I'm dead o' cryin and in the groun, 
 You'll come, afore my grass has time to grow, 
 And say, " That's hern ; the clods is fresh and 
 
 brown. 
 Field. Lord, how I misses her in puv and tan," 
 
 Tent.
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 39 
 
 You'll say, "that gal wot axed me to forgive 
 
 her! 
 
 It druv her mad to see me kis my han 
 And smile so sweet pore Rhona's ondly 
 
 man ! 
 To that fine rawni rowin on the river. Lady. 
 
 Pore gal," you'll say, " she never touched her 
 
 knife, 
 Leaseways, just touched the handel so," you'll 
 
 say; 
 " She'd never ha' drawed : she wur to bee my 
 
 wife, 
 And loved me, loved me, loved me night and 
 
 day. 
 What made the chi," you'll say, " start from the Girl 
 
 seat ? 
 What made her flesh goo hot and cold and 
 
 shiver
 
 40 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Right down her back-like yis, from hed to 
 
 feet? 
 
 She seed me kis my han and smile so swetc 
 To that fine rawni rowin on the river. 
 
 The Dell," you'll say, " do seem that dul and 
 
 sad ; 
 
 It dreems o' one wot loved me body and soul, 
 And loved me most that day I druv her madd 
 
 Poor heart. And turned her choori zee to burnin coal ; 
 
 Birds. The The chiriklos 'ull chirp ' He should ha' gien 
 
 birds attend 
 
 of a true All them sweet smiles yis. all he had to give 
 
 Romany J ' 
 
 maid. 
 
 her 
 
 To her we buried with her Romany kin, 
 And laid wi' clods all round her eyes an' chin, 
 Through that fine rawni rowin on the river.' " 
 
 You'll say, " Instead o' havin Jasper's gal, 
 So spry at snare and rod and landin net,
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 41 
 
 This teeny clisson from her korley bal Lock from 
 
 her dark 
 , i f hair. Clisson 
 
 Is all. and that 11 ondly make me frett. reaiiy means 
 
 a lock for a 
 
 I'd sooner fish wi' her where swallows fan 
 The brook," you'll say, " where water creases 
 
 quiver, 
 
 Tryin to hide the trouts, but never can, 
 Than smile so sweet and look and kis my han 
 To that fine rawni rowin on the river. 
 
 'Twur here," you'll say, "where many and 
 
 many a night 
 
 We stayed a-settin snares in Gypsy Dell 
 Beneath the stars, or when the moon wur 
 
 bright, 
 
 Till ' twitter ' came the arliest chirikel, Bird. 
 
 And larks the sunshine turned to specks o' gold 
 Flew whistlin up, but none as could deliver 
 A tale o' love like that as then wur told 
 By that pore Rhona, her wot's dead and cold."
 
 43 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 PERCY. 
 
 The witching rogue ! But still I can't forgive 
 her. 
 
 THE LETTER CONTINUED. 
 
 TWO months " 'Twur here," you'll say, " 'twur here, dooey 
 
 choons aglal, 
 
 Tent. Out o' her daddy's tan one night there crep* 
 Handsome. A gal to meet me sich a rinkeni gal 
 
 Though well she knowed the watch the Scol- 
 
 lard kep' : 
 
 She stayed wi* me till all the eastern sky 
 Biled, steamed, and broke to many a fiery slivver 
 Field and That lit up puv and tan and sooterin grei " : 
 
 tent and 
 
 horse. You'll seem to feel her lips 
 
 RHONA. 
 
 (Advancing from the bush, watching him as he reads, 
 then rushing towards him, covering his eyes with her 
 hands, and pulling down his head and kissing him.) 
 
 These lips, my Rye !
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 43 
 
 PERCY. 
 
 These lips, indeed ! Ah ! who would not for- 
 give her ? 
 
 RHONA. 
 
 Lips as 'ud turn to clods without you, dear I 
 
 PERCY. 
 But how this loving Rhona tries my love I 
 
 RHONA. 
 
 And yet she'd walk the world barefoot to hear 
 Them words o' yourn in tan or vesh or puv Tent, wood, 
 Yis, walk and never know her feet wur sore 
 To hear you say, " Ah ! who would not forgive 
 her ? " 
 
 PERCY. 
 
 But that young lady ? 
 
 RHONA. 
 Her what flicks her oar ?
 
 44 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 PERCY. 
 
 The same. 
 
 RHONA. 
 
 You'll never kiss your ban no more 
 To that fine rawni rowin on the river ? 
 
 VII 
 
 OCEAN-SORCERY 
 
 (PERCY on the deck of" The Petrel " after he has 
 been separated from RHONA.) 
 
 WAS it indeed but two sweet years ago 
 When once a sailor on a star-lit sea 
 Babbled about its spell, and did not know 
 How Love makes Nature breathe her poesy ? 
 When did the sea-spell vanish ? On that day 
 When his beloved petrel flew away. 
 But as for them who bade him, made him, come,
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 43 
 
 Though love had crowned him man, to thee, 
 
 wild Ocean, 
 
 Prated of some nepenthe in thy foam 
 To quell his love as by a magic potion- 
 Some anodyne within thy billowy swirl 
 To soothe the body make the soul forget 
 Its guileless passion for a " guileful girl " 
 Whose beauty caught him in a " Gypsy 
 
 net" 
 They should be here to see these billows 
 
 heaving 
 Beneath yon Southern Cross that holds the 
 
 sky, 
 They should be here to see how thou art 
 
 weaving 
 
 Pictures of home by ocean-sorcery ! 
 A dingle's fragrance breathed from every 
 
 billow, 
 Sweeter than Orient frankincense and myrrh
 
 46 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 A slim girl-angler shown beneath a willow, 
 Leaning against its mossy bole for pillow, 
 Must needs recall his every thought to her 1 
 
 VIII 
 THE MUSIC OF NATURA MYSTICA 
 
 (PERCY on board "The Petrel" in the Pacific, 
 cruising among coral islands.") 
 
 LAST Sunday morn I thought this azure isle 
 Was dreaming mine own dream ; each bower 
 
 of balm 
 
 That spiced the rich Pacific, every palm, 
 Smiled with the dream that lends my life its 
 
 smile. 
 
 " These waves," I said, " lapping the coral pile 
 Make music like a well-remembered psalm : 
 Surely an English Sunday, breathing calm, 
 Broods in each tropic dell, each flowery aisle."
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 47 
 
 The heav'ns were dreaming, too, of English 
 
 skies : 
 
 Upon the blue, within a belt of grey, 
 A well-known spire was pictured far away ; 
 And then I heard a psalm begin to rise, 
 And saw a dingle smelt its new-mown hay 
 Where we two loitered loitered lover-wise. 
 
 IX 
 
 LOVE'S CALENTURE 
 (PERCY on board " The Petrel" in a tropic calm.) 
 
 I HEAR our blackbirds singing in our grove, 
 And now I see I smell the eglantine 
 The meadow-sweet where rivulets laugh and 
 
 shine 
 
 To English clouds that laugh and shine above ; 
 I feel a stream of maiden-music move,
 
 4 8 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Pouring through all my frame a life divine 
 
 From Rhona's throbbing bosom claspt to 
 
 mine 
 From that dear harp, her heart, whose chords 
 
 are love 1 
 
 Vanished ! 
 
 O God I a blazing world of sea 
 A blistered deck an engine's grinding jar 
 Hot scents of scorching oil and paint and tar 
 And, in the offing up yon fiery lee, 
 One spot in the air no bigger than a bee 
 A frigate-bird that sails alone afar ! 
 
 (He takes from his pocket and reads a letter from RHONA 
 which reached him in Australia,) 
 
 THE LETTER. 
 
 On Christmas-eve I seed in dreams the day 
 When Herne the Scollard corned and said to 
 me,
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 49 
 
 " He's off, that rye o' yourn, gone clean away Gentleman. 
 Till swallow-time ; he's left this letter : see." 
 In dreams I heerd the bee and grasshopper, 
 Like on that mornin, buz in Rington Hollow, 
 "She'll live till swallow-time and then she'll 
 
 mer, Die. 
 
 For never will a rye come back to her Gentleman. 
 
 Wot leaves her till the comin o' the swallow." 
 
 All night I heerd them bees and grasshoppers ; 
 All night I smelt the breath o' grass and may, 
 Mixed sweet wi* smells o' honey from the 
 
 furze, 
 
 Like on that mornin' when you went away ; 
 All night I heerd in dreams my daddy sal Laugh. 
 
 Sayin, " De blessed chi ud give de chollo Girl, whole. 
 
 O' Bozzle's breed tans, vardey, greis, and all Tems, 
 
 waggons, 
 horses. 
 
 To see dat tarno rye o hern palall i^k. 
 
 Wot's left her till the comin o' the swallow." 
 
 D
 
 56 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 I woke and went a-walkin on the ice 
 
 All white with snow-dust, just like sparklin 
 Salt. loon, 
 
 And soon beneath the stars I heerd a v'ice, 
 Hear. A v'ice I knowed and often, often shoon ; 
 Smoke. And then I seed a shape as thin as tuv ; 
 Spirit. I knowed it wur my blessed mammy's mollo.* 
 
 " Rhona," she sez, " that tarno rye you love, 
 Weep. He's thinkin on you ; don't you go and rove ; 
 
 You'll see him at the comin o' the swallow." 
 
 Sez she, " For you it seemed to kill the grass 
 When he wur gone, and freeze the brooklets' 
 
 Songs. gillies ; 
 
 Hay. There worn't no smell, dear, in the sweetest cas, 
 And when the summer brought the water-lilies, 
 
 wheat. And when the sweet winds waved the golden giv, 
 
 * Mostly pronounced " mullo," but sometimes in the 
 East Midlands "mollo."
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 51 
 
 The skies above 'em seemed as bleak and 
 
 kollo * Black. 
 
 As now, when all the world seems frozen yiv. Snow. 
 The months are long, but mammy says you'll 
 
 live 
 By thinkin o' the comin o' the swallow." 
 
 She sez, " The whinchat soon wi' silver throat 
 Will meet the stonechat in the buddin whin, 
 And soon the blackcap's airliest gillie 'ull float SOD S . 
 From light-green boughs through leaves a-peepin 
 
 thin; 
 
 The wheat-ear soon 'ull bring the willow-wren, 
 And then the fust fond nightingale 'ull follow, 
 A-callin ' Come, dear,' to his laggin hen 
 Still out at sea, ' the spring is in our glen ; 
 Come, darlin, wi' the comin o' the swallow.' " 
 
 * Mostly pronounced "kaulo," but sometimes in the 
 East Midlands " kollo."
 
 52 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 And she wur gone ! And then I read the words 
 
 In mornin twilight wot you rote to me ; 
 
 They made the Christmas sing with summer 
 
 birds, 
 
 And spring-leaves shine on every frozen tree; 
 And when the dawnin kindled Rington spire, 
 Red And curdlin winter-clouds burnt gold and lollo 
 
 Round the dear sun, wot seemed a yolk o' fire, 
 "Another night," I sez, "has brought him 
 
 nigher ; 
 He's comin wi' the comin o' the swallow." 
 
 And soon the bull-pups found me on the Pool 
 You know the way they barks to see me slide 
 But when the skatin bors o' Rington scool 
 Corned on, it turned my head to see 'em glide. 
 I seemed to see you twirlin on your skates, 
 And somethin made me clap my bans and hollo ; 
 Cutting. " It's him," I sez, " a-chinnin o' them 8s."
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 53 
 
 But when I woke-like " I'm the gal wot waits 
 Alone," I sez, " the comin o' the swallow." 
 
 "Comin" seemed ringin in the Christmas- 
 chime ; 
 
 " Comin " seemed rit on everything I seed, 
 In beads o' frost along the nets o' rime, 
 Sparklin on every frozen rush and reed ; 
 And when the pups began to bark and play, 
 And frisk and scrabble and bite my frock and 
 
 wallow 
 
 Among the snow and fling it up like spray, 
 I says to them, " You know who rote to say 
 He's comin wi' the comin o' the swallow. 
 
 The thought on't makes the snow-drifts o' 
 
 December 
 
 Shine gold," I sez, " like daffodils o' spring 
 Wot wait beneath: he's comin, pups, remember ; 
 If not for me no singin birds 'ull sing :
 
 54 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Cuckoo. No choring chiriklo 'ull hold the gale 
 
 Wi' 'Cuckoo, cuckoo,'* over hill and hollow : 
 There'll be no crakin o' the meadow-rail, 
 There'll be no ' Jug-jug ' o' the nightingale, 
 For her wot waits the comin o' the swallow. 
 
 Mine own. Come back, minaw, and you may kiss your han 
 
 Lady. To that fine rawni rowin on the river ; 
 
 witch. I'll never call that lady a chovihan, 
 
 Miserable Nor yit a mumply gorgie I'll forgive her. 
 
 gentile. 
 
 Come back, minaw : I wur to be your wife. 
 Come back or, say the word, and I will follow 
 Your footfalls round the world : I'll leave this 
 
 life 
 
 (I've flung away a-ready that 'ere knife) 
 I'm dyin for the comin o' the swallow." 
 
 * The gypsies are great observers of the cuckoo, and 
 call certain Spring winds " cuckoo storms," because they 
 bring over the cuckoo earlier than usual.
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 55 
 
 X 
 
 THE FIRST DUKKERIPEN OF THE STARS 
 
 (PERCY on the night qf 'his return to the encampment lingers 
 before calling for the ferry-boat upon the tongue of land called 
 Portobello, and looks down the river, where the stars are 
 brilliantly reflected. RHONA, who has secretly come to meet 
 him, appears on the opposite bank, but does not perceive him. 
 owing to the shadowing trees under which he stands.) 
 
 PERCY. 
 
 WHAT sees she in the river as it flows ? 
 
 Does she recall that summer night when we 
 Rowed here beneath the stars the night 
 
 when she, 
 
 Unconscious, then, of that within my breast 
 Which held me mute, murmured in loving 
 
 jest, 
 " Our Tarno Rye, he's dreamin while he rows" ? Young 
 
 gentleman. 
 
 Or is she gazing at the stars that shine 
 Mirrored within the stream to read their 
 sign
 
 56 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Nature's The dukkeripen of good or evil made 
 
 prophetic 
 
 By their reflections mingled with the shade 
 Yon pollard willow throws ? 
 
 That night I murmured, " Life's one joy is this, 
 To love, to taste the soul's divine delight 
 Of loving some most lovely soul or sight 
 To worship still, though never an answering 
 
 sign 
 Should come from Love asleep within the 
 
 shrine." 
 
 That night I said, " I ask no more of bliss 
 Than while beneath the boat the wavelets 
 
 heave 
 
 To touch the gauds upon a gypsy's sleeve, 
 To see the bright nails shine on glistening 
 
 fingers, 
 
 To seethe throat on which the starlight lingers, 
 The mouth I dare not kiss."
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 57 
 
 But that same night Love wrote around the 
 
 prow 
 
 In stars ! Her trembling body turned to me 
 In joyful fear of joy, and I could see, 
 Pictured in frightened eyes, the blissful things 
 A girl's pure soul can see when Love's young 
 
 wings, 
 
 Fragrant of heaven and earth, fan first the brow. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 (RHONA gives a sudden start and looks behind her.) 
 
 What means that start? Why stands she 
 
 there to listen ? 
 
 I see her eyes that in the starlight glisten 
 Her eyes but not the thing of dread they 
 
 see: 
 She's feeling where her knife was wont to 
 
 be 
 Ah, would she wore it now ! 
 
 (" The Scollard's " figure appears from behind the willow.)
 
 58 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 'Tis he, my gypsy rival, by her side ! 
 
 He lifts a knife. She springs, the dauntless 
 girl, 
 
 Lithe as a leopardess ! Ah ! can she hurl 
 
 The giant down the bank ? 
 
 (He prepares to plunge into the river in order to swim to 
 her, when RHONA meets the onrush of her assailant 
 with a blow in the mouth from her fist, which causes 
 him to totter and then stumble over the bank.) 
 
 He falls below, 
 
 Falls where the river's darkest waters flow ! 
 Twice, thrice, he rises sinks beneath the tide ! 
 
 Only the stars and I have seen him fall. 
 Gypsy. Death is her doom who slays a Romany-chal 
 
 Gentile. And weds a gorgio : death ! But only we, 
 
 The stars and I who love the slayer, could see 
 The way the ruffian died. 
 
 (He looks in the river, where the reflected stars make 
 mysterious figures as the ripples twist round the 
 bulrushes.)
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 59 
 
 Twas only we who saw, ye starry throng ! 
 And one white lie of mine will hide the 
 
 deed 
 Of her who gave me love against her 
 
 creed 
 
 The Romany woman's creed of tribal duty 
 Gave Rhona's wealth of love and faith and 
 beauty. 
 
 THE STARS WRITE IN THE RIVER. 
 
 Falsehood can never shield her : Truth is strong. 
 
 PBRCY. 
 
 I read your rune : is tnere no pity, then, 
 In Heav'n that wove this net of life for men ? 
 Have only Hell and Falsehood heart for 
 
 ruth? 
 Show me, ye mirrored stars, this tyrant 
 
 Truth- 
 King that can do no wrong !
 
 60 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Ah ! Night seems opening ! There, above the 
 
 skies, 
 
 Who sits upon that central sun for throne 
 Round which a golden sand of worlds is 
 
 strown, 
 Stretching right onward to an endless 
 
 ocean, 
 
 Far, far away, of living dazzling motion ? 
 Hearken, King Truth with pictures in thine 
 
 eyes 
 Mirrored from gates beyond the furthest 
 
 portal 
 Of infinite light, 'tis Love that stands 
 
 immortal, 
 The King of Kings. And there on yonder 
 
 bank 
 Stands she, and, where the accursed carrion 
 
 sank, 
 The merry bubbles rise !
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 6l 
 
 At last she sees me on this tongue of 
 
 land; 
 She plunges through the fringe of reed and 
 
 moss, 
 She takes the boat; she's pulling straight 
 
 across, 
 Startling the moorhens as the dark prow 
 
 brushes 
 Through reeds and weeds and water-flags 
 
 and rushes. 
 
 Yes, yes, I saw ! Is this the little hand 
 
 That slew him ? How the slender fingers 
 
 quiver 
 Against my lips ! Those stars within the 
 
 river 
 May write of how he died, but Love, my 
 
 darling,
 
 52 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Looks straight at Doom, though wolves of 
 
 Death are snarling, 
 And smiles : " Behold, I stand ! " 
 
 XI 
 
 THE PROMISE OF THE SUNRISE 
 
 (PERCY in the tent on the morning after his marriage 
 with RHONA in Gypsy Dell.) 
 
 THE young light peeps through yonder trembling 
 
 chink 
 The tent's mouth makes in answer to a 
 
 breeze ; 
 
 The rooks outside are stirring in the trees 
 Thro' which I see the deepening bars of pink. 
 I hear the earliest anvil's tingling clink 
 From Jasper's forge ; the cattle on the leas 
 Begin to low. She's waking by degrees : 
 Sleep's rosy fetters melt, but link by link.
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 63 
 
 What dream is hers ? Her eyelids shake with 
 
 tears ; 
 
 The fond eyes open now like flowers in dew : 
 She sobs I know not what of passionate fears : 
 " You'll never leave me now ? There is but 
 
 you; 
 
 I dreamt a voice was whispering in my ears, 
 ' The Dukkeripen o' stars comes ever true.' " 
 
 She rises, startled by a wandering bee 
 Buzzing around her brow to greet the girl : 
 She draws the tent wide open with a swirl, 
 And, as she stands to breathe the fragrancy 
 Beneath the branches of the hawthorn tree 
 Whose dews fall on her head like beads of pearl 
 Or drops of sunshine firing tress and curl 
 The Spirit of the Sunrise speaks to me, 
 And says, " This bride of yours, I know her well, 
 And so do all the birds in all the bowers
 
 64 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Who mix their music with the breath of flowers 
 When greetings rise from river, heath and del 1. 
 See, on the curtain of the morning haze 
 The Future's finger writes of happy days." 
 
 XII 
 
 THE MIRRORED STARS AGAIN 
 (After only a few months with her.) 
 
 THE mirrored stars lit all the bulrush-spears, 
 And all the flags and broad-leaved lily-isles ; 
 The ripples shook the stars to golden smiles, 
 Then smoothed them back to happy golden 
 
 spheres. 
 We rowed we sang; her voice seemed in mine 
 
 ears 
 
 An angel's, yet with woman's dearer wiles ; 
 But shadows fell from gathering cloudy piles 
 And ripples shook the stars to fiery tears.
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 65 
 
 What shaped those shadows like another boat 
 Where Rhona sat and he Love made a liar ? 
 There, where the Scollard sank, I saw it float, 
 While ripples shook the stars to symbols dire ; 
 We wept we kissed while starry fingers 
 
 wrote, 
 And ripples shook the stars to a snake of fire. 
 
 XIII 
 
 THE PROMISE OF THE SUNRISE RENEWED 
 
 (PERCY, on the anniversary of the mysterious dis- 
 appearance of RHONA, stands in the mouth of his 
 solitary tent in Gypsy Dell. He looks towards the 
 spire of Rington Church in the distance, over which 
 the dawn is gradually brightening into a gorgeous 
 sunrise.) 
 
 DEATH'S year has passed : again the new- 
 mown hay, 
 As on that night, perfumes the Dell that 
 
 night 
 
 E
 
 66 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 Whose darkness seemed more dear than 
 
 Eden-light 
 Fragrant of Love's warm wings and Love's 
 
 warm breath 
 Where here I left her doomed to treacherous 
 
 death 
 
 By Romany guile that lured me far away ; 
 'Twas here where petals of the morn are 
 
 cast 
 
 'Mid Night's wild phantoms from the spec- 
 tral past 
 
 'Twas here she made the vow I smiled at then 
 To show her face some morn when hill and 
 
 glen 
 Took the first kiss of Day. 
 
 But now not all the starry Virtues seven 
 Seem strong as she, nor Time, nor Death, nor 
 Night.
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 67 
 
 And morning says, " Love hath such godlike 
 
 might 
 
 That if the sun, the moon, and all the stars, 
 Nay, all the spheral spirits who guide their 
 
 cars, 
 Were quelled by Doom, Love's high-creative 
 
 leaven 
 Could light new worlds." If, then, this Lord 
 
 of Fate, 
 
 When Death calls in the stars, can re-create, 
 Is it a madman's dream that Love can show 
 Rhona, my Rhona, in yon ruby glow, 
 And build again my heaven ? 
 
 " The birds," she said, " they knows us Romany Gypsy girls. 
 
 chies 
 Leaseways the gypsy-magpie an the jay water. 
 
 wagtail 
 
 They knows the Romany tongue yis, all we 
 say:
 
 68 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 So, if the Hernes should do away wi' me 
 'Cause o' the Scollard's death, the birds will 
 
 see 
 
 An' tell the flowers where Rhona's body lies. 
 The Scollard's strong to strive wi' now he's 
 
 dead : 
 
 Outside the tent o' nights I hear his tread. 
 You mind them stars a-shinin in the river 
 That seemed a snake o' fire ? I see'd you 
 
 shiver : 
 It had the Scollard's eyes ! 
 
 But when I'm dead, the Golden Hand o' Love 
 Will shine some day where mists o' mornin 
 
 swim; 
 Me too you'll see, dear, when the sun's red 
 
 rim 
 Peeps through the Rookery boughs by 
 
 Rington spire,
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 69 
 
 And makes the wet leaves wink like stars o' 
 
 fire; 
 Then, when the skylark wakes the thrush and 
 
 dove, 
 
 An' squrrels jump, an' rabbits scrabble roun', 
 An' hares cock up their ears a-shinin brown, 
 An' grass an' blossoms mix their mornin 
 
 smells 
 
 Wi' Dingle songs from all the chirikels, Birds. 
 
 You'll see me there above." 
 
 # * * 
 
 I think 'twas here though now I know not 
 
 whether 
 
 Dead joy or living sorrow be the dream 
 In this same tent round which the branches 
 
 seem 
 
 To stir their whispering leaves as if to tell 
 The morn the dreadful secret of the Dell 
 I think 'twas here we lived that life together.
 
 70 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 (A shape that at one moment seems like a hand, and 
 then a feather of gold, appears in the eastern clouds 
 near the brightening wings of the Spirit of the 
 Sunrise.) 
 
 My senses mock me : these mad eyes behold 
 What seems a hand, a mystic hand of gold, 
 Traced on the steaming canvas of the mist, 
 Gilding the woof of pearl and amethyst 
 A hand or golden feather. 
 
 (Beside the Golden Hand RHONA'S face appears.) 
 
 Is that a picture in a madman's eye ? 
 Or is it Memory, like a mocking elf, 
 Weaving Hope's tapestry to cheat herself ? 
 Or does great Nature, she who garners all 
 The fleeting pictures Time can limn, recall 
 
 The face of her the Romanies doomed to die ? 
 Or is there glowing a face from brow to chin 
 Where yonder wings of morn are widening 
 thin,
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 71 
 
 Her very face, her throat, her dimpling cheek, 
 Her mouth the mouth that love first taught 
 
 to speak 
 Smiling, " Tis I, 'tis I " ? 
 
 THE LARK RISING FROM THE HAY-FIELD. 
 
 Birds of the Dell, the veils of morn are shaking ! 
 And see the face of her, ye loving birds, 
 Who knew your songs who gave them 
 
 human words 
 In those sweet mornings when her breath 
 
 would mingle 
 With breath of flowers, and all the dewy 
 
 Dingle 
 
 Greeted the Spirit of the Sunrise waking ; 
 Ye birds who saw her buried ye who know 
 But cannot utter where she lies below 
 Can never tell yon mourner, for the spell
 
 72 THE DAUGHTER 
 
 The monstrous deed hath cast about the 
 
 Dell 
 The man whose heart is breaking ! 
 
 THE BIRDS OF THE DINGLE. 
 
 She keeps her promise, she who made the vow 
 No Romany law, no Romany guile, should 
 
 ever 
 
 Divide their lives, nor Death's fell malice sever 
 The chain the sunrise forged 'twixt her and 
 
 him ; 
 She keeps her promise : see, through mists 
 
 that swim, 
 Those eyes are hers that brow is Rhona's 
 
 brow 
 
 Symbol. Rhona's, who vowed to show the dukkeripen 
 
 Of Hope, the Golden Hand of promise, 
 when
 
 OF THE SUNRISE 73 
 
 Fate should fulfil the prophet - river's 
 
 warning 
 Vowed she would gaze from ruby domes of 
 
 morning ; 
 She keeps her promise now. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE SUNRISE. 
 
 Though Love be mocked by Death's obscene 
 
 derision, 
 Love still is Nature's truth and Death her 
 
 lie; 
 
 Yet hard it is to see the dear flesh die, 
 To taste the fell destroyer's crowning spite 
 That blasts the soul with life's most cruel 
 
 sight, 
 
 Corruption's hand at work in Life's transition : 
 This sight was spared thee : thou shall still 
 
 retain 
 Her body's image pictured in thy brain ;
 
 74 THE VISION 
 
 The flowers above her weave the only shroud 
 Thine eye shall see : no stain of Death shall 
 cloud 
 
 Rhona ! Behold the vision I 
 
 PERCY. 
 
 As on that morn when round our bridal pillow 
 The sunrise came and you cried: "Smell 
 
 the whin ! " 
 
 And oped the tent to let the fragrance in, 
 Yon clouds like molten metal, boiling brass, 
 Brightening to gold are crested as they 
 
 pass 
 With Love's own fire! And while each 
 
 gleaming billow 
 Rolls o'er the Dell, 'tis Love's own hand that 
 
 launches 
 
 The self-same promise through the self-same 
 branches
 
 AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 75 
 
 The promise of the Sunrise ! Oak and ash 
 And birch and elm and thorn pass on the 
 
 flash 
 Down to the river-willow ! 
 
 ** 
 
 XVI 
 
 NATURA MALIGNA 
 
 (PERCY, in Norway, and afterwards in the Alps, 
 whither he has gone to escape the haunting effect of 
 English scenery upon his mind, has, after living 
 alone in a log-hut, passed into a state of spiritual 
 exaltation, and has come to look upon Nature with 
 the puritanical eyes of a Hindoo Saivite, as being 
 the malignant foe of Man. And yet the dominant 
 thought drives him to go every morning to watch for 
 a sign at sunrise.) 
 
 THE Lady of the Hills with crimes untold 
 Followed my feet with azure eyes of. prey ; 
 By glacier-brink she stood by cataract-spray 
 When mists were dire, or avalanche-echoes 
 rolled.
 
 76 AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 At night she glimmered in the death-wind 
 
 cold, 
 
 And if a footprint shone at break of day, 
 My flesh would quail, but straight my soul 
 
 would say : 
 "Tis hers whose hand God's mightier hand 
 
 doth hold." 
 I trod her snow-bridge, for the moon was 
 
 bright, 
 
 Her icicle-arch across the sheer crevasse, 
 When lo, she stood ! . . . . God made her let 
 
 me pass, 
 Then felled the bridge! .... Oh, there in 
 
 sallow light, 
 
 There down the chasm, I saw her cruel, white. 
 And all my wondrous days as in a glass.
 
 AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 77 
 
 XVII 
 
 THE PROMISE AGAIN RENEWED 
 (PERCY'S dream in the hut.} 
 
 BENEATH the loveliest dream there coils a fear : 
 Last night came she whose eyes are memories 
 
 now ; 
 
 Her far-off gaze seemed all forgetful how 
 Love dimmed them once, so calm they shone 
 
 and clear. 
 "Sorrow," I said, "has made me old, my 
 
 dear; 
 
 Tis I, indeed, but grief can change the brow : 
 Beneath my load a seraph's neck might bow, 
 Vigils like mine would blanch an angel's hair." 
 Oh, then I saw, I saw the sweet lips move ! 
 I saw the love-mists thickening in her eyes 
 I heard a sound as if a murmuring dove 
 Felt lonely in the dells of Paradise ;
 
 78 NATURA BENIGN A 
 
 But when upon my neck she fell, my love, 
 Her hair smelt sweet of whin and woodland 
 spice. 
 
 XX 
 
 NATURA BENIGNA 
 
 (The promise of the sunrise on the morning after the 
 marvellous sight in the sunbow above the cataract.) 
 
 WHAT power is this ? what witchery wins my 
 
 feet 
 
 To peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking snow, 
 All silent as the emerald gulfs below, 
 Down whose ice-walls the wings of twilight 
 
 beat? 
 What thrill of earth and heaven most wild, 
 
 most sweet 
 What answering pulse that all the senses know,
 
 NATURA BENIGN A 79 
 
 Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glow 
 Where, far away, the skies and mountains 
 
 meet ? 
 
 Mother, 'tis I reborn : I know thee well : 
 That throb I know and all it prophesies, 
 O Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spell 
 Of silence, gazing from thy hills and skies ! 
 Dumb Mother, struggling with the years to tell 
 The secret at thy heart through helpless eyes.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE 
 MERMAID
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE 
 MERMAID 
 
 (With the exception of Shakspeare, who has quitted London 
 for good, in order to reside at New Place, Stratford-on-Avon, 
 which he has lately rebuilt, all the members of the Mermaid 
 Club are assembled at the Mermaid Tavern. At the head of the 
 table sits Ben Jonson dealing out the wassail from a large bowl. 
 At the other end sits Raleigh, and at Raleigh's right hand the 
 guest he has brought with him, a stranger, David Gwynn, the 
 Welsh seaman, now an elderly man, whose story of his exploits 
 as a galley-slave in crippling the Armada before it reached the 
 Channel had, years before, whether true or false, given him in 
 the Low Countries a great reputation, the echo of which had 
 reached England. Raleigh's desire was to excite the public 
 enthusiasm for continuing the struggle with Spain on the sea, 
 and generally to revive the fine Elizabethan temper, which had 
 already become almost a thing of the past, save, perhaps, among 
 such choice spirits as those associated with the Mermaid Club.)
 
 84 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 CHRISTMAS knows a merry, merry place, 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one place : 
 Where ? 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 (After filling each cup with wassail.) 
 
 Drink first to Stratford Will beloved mar, 
 So generous, honest, open, brave and free, 
 Who merriest at the Apollo used to be 
 
 Merriest of all the merry Falcon clan. 
 
 (All drink to " Witt Shakspeare") 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Christmas knows a merry, merry place, 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair :
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 85 
 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one place : 
 Where ? 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 That he, the star of revel, bright-eyed Will, 
 With life at golden summit, fled the town 
 And took from Thames that light to dwindle 
 down 
 
 O'er Stratford farms, doth make me marvel still. 
 
 But, tho' we feast without the king to-night, 
 The Monarch leaves a regent friend of friends, 
 With whose own soul the throned spirit 
 blends 
 
 In one fair flame of love's commingling light. 
 
 Brother of Shakspeare, wilt thou not rehearse 
 Those sugared sonnets thy shy muse hath 
 made,
 
 86 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Those lines where Avon, glassing wood and 
 
 glade, 
 
 Seems rippling through the sunshine of thy 
 verse ? 
 
 Wilt thou not tell the Mermaid once again, 
 In golden numbers, what the poet told, 
 Of how his spirit ever was controlled 
 
 By Avon-ripples shining in his brain, 
 
 And how those ripples greeted him that day, 
 Which was the Mermaid's night, when he 
 
 the Swan 
 Flew to the bosom he was nursed upon 
 
 The bosom he so loved when far away ? 
 
 Wilt thou not tell us how the river spake 
 To that sweet Swan returning to its nest 
 Among the lilies dreaming on the breast 
 
 Of Avon, dear to us for Shakspeare's sake ?
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 87 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Christmas knows a merry, merry place, 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one place : 
 Where ? 
 
 SHAKSPEARE'S FRIEND. 
 To sing the nation's song or do the deed 
 That crowns with richer light the motherland, 
 Or lend her strength of arm in hour of need 
 When fangs of foes shine fierce on every hand, 
 Is joy to him whose joy is working well 
 Is goal and guerdon too, though never fame 
 Should find a thrill of music in his name ; 
 Yea, goal and guerdon too, though Scorn 
 
 should aim 
 Her arrows at his soul's high citadel,
 
 88 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 But if the fates withhold the joy from me 
 To do the deed that widens England's day, 
 Or join that song of Freedom's jubilee 
 Begun when England started on her way 
 Withhold from me the hero's glorious power 
 To strike with song or sword for her, the 
 
 mother, 
 
 And give that sacred guerdon to another, 
 Him will I hail as my more noble brother 
 Him will I love for his diviner dower. 
 
 Enough for me who have our Shakspeare's love 
 
 To see a poet win the poet's goal, 
 
 For Will is he ; enough and far above 
 
 All other prizes to make rich my soul. 
 
 Ben names my numbers golden. Since they 
 
 tell 
 
 A tale of him who in his peerless prime 
 Fled us ere yet one shadowy film of time
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 89 
 
 Could dim the lustre of that brow sublime, 
 Golden my numbers are : Ben praiseth well. 
 
 THE EVENING AFTER WILL'S RETURN TO 
 STRATFORD-ON-AVON 
 
 As down the bank he strolled through evening 
 
 dew, 
 
 Pictures (he told me) of remembered eves 
 Mixt with that dream the Avon ever weaves, 
 And all his happy childhood came to view ; 
 He saw a child watching the birds that flew 
 Above a willow, through whose musky leaves 
 A green musk-beetle shone with mail and 
 
 greaves 
 
 That shifted in the light to bronze and blue. 
 These dreams, said he, were born of fragrance 
 
 falling 
 From trees he loved, the scent of musk recalling,
 
 90 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 With power beyond all power of things beholden 
 
 Or things reheard, those days when elves of 
 
 dusk 
 Came, veiled the wings of evening feathered 
 
 golden, 
 And closed him in from all but willow musk. 
 
 And then a child beneath a silver sallow 
 A child who loved the swans, the moorhens' 
 
 " cheep " 
 Angled for bream where river holes were 
 
 deep 
 
 For gudgeon where the water glittered shallow, 
 Or ate the " fairy cheeses " of the mallow, 
 And wild fruits gathered where the wavelets 
 
 creep 
 Round that loved church whose shadow seems 
 
 to sleep 
 In love upon the stream and bless and hallow ;
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 91 
 
 And then a child to whom the water-fairies 
 Sent fish to "bite" from Avon's holes and 
 
 shelves, 
 
 A child to whom, from richest honey-dairies, 
 The flower-sprites sent the bees and "sun- 
 shine elves ; " 
 
 Then, in the shifting vision's sweet vagaries, 
 He saw two lovers walking by themselves 
 
 Walking beneath the trees, where drops of rain 
 
 Wove crowns of sunlit opal to decoy 
 
 Young love from home; and one, the happy 
 
 boy, 
 
 Knew all the thoughts of birds in every strain 
 Knew why the cushat breaks his fond refrain 
 By sudden silence, "lest his plaint should 
 
 cloy " 
 
 Knew when the skylark's changing note of joy 
 Saith, " Now will I return to earth again "
 
 92 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Knew every warning of the blackbird's shriek, 
 And every promise of his joyful song 
 Knew what the magpie's chuckle fain would 
 
 speak ; 
 
 And, when a silent cuckoo flew along, 
 Bearing an egg in her felonious beak, 
 Knew every nest threatened with grievous 
 
 wrong. 
 
 He heard her say, " The birds attest our 
 
 troth ! 
 
 Hark to the mavis, Will, in yonder may 
 Fringing the sward, where many a hawthorn 
 
 spray 
 
 Round summer's royal field of golden cloth 
 Shines o'er the buttercups like snowy froth, 
 And that sweet skylark on his azure way, 
 And that wise cuckoo, hark to what they say : 
 ' We birds of Avon heard and bless you both.'
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 93 
 
 And, Will, the sunrise, flushing with its glory 
 River and phurch, grows rosier with our story ! 
 This breeze of morn, sweetheart, which moves 
 
 caressing, 
 Hath told the flowers; they wake to lovelier 
 
 growth ! 
 They breathe o'er mead and stream they 
 
 breathe the blessing, 
 'We flowers of Avon heard and bless you 
 
 both!'" 
 
 A FRIEND OF MARLOWE S. 
 (Who has been sitting moody and silent.) 
 
 'Tis when the Christmas joy-bells fill the air 
 That memory conies with half-reproachful 
 
 eyes 
 To hold before the soul its legacies, 
 
 Of grief and joy from Christmas-songs that were.
 
 94 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Friends, friends, there come to me, I know not 
 
 why, 
 The words I wrote that day my Kit was 
 
 slain. 
 
 I would not chill this feast, yet am I fain 
 To tell of Kit and how I saw him die. 
 
 ON SEEING KIT MARLOWE SLAIN 
 AT DEPTFORD 
 
 'Tis Marlowe falls! That last lunge rent 
 
 asunder 
 Our lyre of spirit and flesh, Kit Marlowe's 
 
 life, 
 Whose chords seemed strung by earth and 
 
 heav'n at strife, 
 
 Yet ever strung to beauty above or under ! 
 Heav'n kens of Man, but oh! the stars can 
 
 blunder,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 95 
 
 If Fate's hand guided yonder villain's knife 
 Through that rare brain, so teeming, daring, 
 
 rife 
 With dower of poets song and love and 
 
 wonder. 
 Or was it Chance ? Shakspeare, who art 
 
 supreme 
 O'er man and men, yet sharest Marlowe's 
 
 sight 
 To pierce the clouds that hide the inhuman 
 
 height 
 Where man and men and gods and all that 
 
 seem 
 Are Nature's mutterings in her changeful 
 
 dream 
 Come, spell the runes these bloody rivulets 
 
 write ! 
 (They drink in silence to the memory of MARLOWE.)
 
 96 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 MARLOWE'S FRIEND. 
 
 Where'er thou art, "dead Shepherd, "look on me; 
 The boy who loved thee loves more dearly now, 
 He sees thine eyes in yonder holly-bough ; 
 
 Oh, Kit, my Kit, the Mermaid drinks to thee ! 
 
 RALEIGH. 
 (Turning to DAVID GWYNN.) 
 
 Wherever billows foam 
 The Briton fights at home : 
 His hearth is built of water water blue and 
 
 green; 
 
 There's never a wave of ocean 
 The wind can set in motion 
 That shall not own our England own our 
 England queen.* 
 
 * " England is a country that can never be conquered 
 while the Sovereign thereof has the command of the 
 sea." RALEIGH.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 97 
 
 The guest I bring to-night 
 Had many a goodly fight 
 On seas the Don hath found hath found for 
 
 English sails; 
 And once he dealt a blow 
 Against the Don to show 
 What mighty hearts can move can move in 
 leafy Wales. 
 
 Stand up, bold Master Gwynn, 
 Who hast a heart akin 
 To England's own brave hearts brave hearts 
 
 where'er they beat ; 
 Stand up, brave Welshman, thou, 
 And tell the Mermaid how 
 A galley-slave struck hard struck hard the 
 Spanish fleet
 
 o8 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Christmas knows a merry, merry place, 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one piace : 
 Where ? 
 
 DAVID GWYNN'S STORY OF HOW HE AND 
 THE GOLDEN SKELETON CRIPPLED THE 
 GREAT ARMADA SAILING OUT 
 
 " A GALLEY lie " they called my tale ; but he 
 Whose talk is with the deep kens mighty 
 
 tales. 
 The man, I say, who helped to keep you 
 
 free 
 Stands here, a truthful son of truthful 
 
 Wales. 
 Slandered by England as a loose-lipped liar,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 99 
 
 Banished from Ireland, branded rogue and 
 
 thief, 
 Here stands that Gwynn whose life of 
 
 torments dire 
 Heaven sealed for England, sealed in blood 
 
 and fire 
 
 Stands asking here Truth's one reward, 
 belief! 
 
 And Spain shall tell, with pallid lips of 
 
 dread, 
 
 This tale of mine shall tell, in future days, 
 How Gwynn, the galley-slave, once fought and 
 
 bled 
 For England when she moved in perilous 
 
 ways; 
 
 But say, ye gentlemen of England, sprung 
 From loins of men whose ghosts have still 
 the sea
 
 loo CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Doth England she who loves the loudest 
 
 tongue 
 
 Remember mariners whose deeds are sung 
 By waves where flowed their blood to keep 
 her free ? 
 
 I see I see ev'n now those ships of Spain 
 Gathered in Tagus' mouth to make the 
 
 spring ; 
 
 I feel the cursed oar, I toil again, 
 And trumpets blare, and priests and choir- 
 boys sing ; 
 And morning strikes with many a crimson 
 
 shaft, 
 Through ruddy haze, four galleys rowing 
 
 out 
 
 Four galleys built to pierce the English craft, 
 Each swivel-gunned for raking fore and aft, 
 Snouted like sword-fish, but with iron snout.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 101 
 
 And one we call the Princess, one the Royal, 
 
 Diana one ; but 'tis the fell Basana 
 Where I am toiling, Gwynn, the true, the 
 loyal, 
 
 Thinking of mighty Drake and Gloriana ; 
 For by their help Hope whispers me that I 
 
 Whom ten hours' daily travail at a stretch 
 Has taught how sweet a thing it is to die 
 May strike once more where flags of England 
 
 %, 
 
 Strike for myself and many a haggard 
 wretch. 
 
 True sorrow knows a tale it may not tell : 
 Again I feel the lash that tears my back ; 
 
 Again I hear mine own blaspheming yell, 
 Answered by boatswain's laugh and scourge's 
 crack ; 
 
 Again I feel the pang when trying to choke
 
 102 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Rather than drink the wine, or chew the 
 
 bread 
 Wherewith, when rest for meals would break 
 
 the stroke, 
 They cram our mouths while still we sit at 
 
 yoke; 
 Again is Life, not Death, the shape of dread. 
 
 By Finisterre there comes a sudden gale, 
 And mighty waves assault our trembling 
 
 galley 
 With blows that strike her waist as strikes a 
 
 flail, 
 And soldiers cry, " What saint shall bid her 
 
 rally ? " 
 Some slaves refuse to row, and some implore 
 
 The Dons to free them from the metal tether 
 By which their limbs are locked upon the 
 oar;
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 103 
 
 Some shout, in answer to the billows' roar, 
 "The Dons and we will drink brine-wine 
 together," 
 
 "Bring up the slave," I hear the captain 
 
 cry, 
 " Who sank the golden galleon El Dorado. 
 
 The dog can steer." 
 
 " Here sits the dog," quoth I, 
 " Who sank the ship of Commodore 
 
 Medrado ! " 
 With hell-lit eyes, blistered by spray and 
 
 rain, 
 
 Standing upon the bridge, saith he to me : 
 "Hearken, thou pirate bold Medrado's bane! 
 Freedom and gold are thine, and thanks of 
 
 Spain, 
 
 If thou canst take the galley through this 
 sea."
 
 104 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 " Ay ! ay ! " quoth I. The fools unlock me 
 
 straight ! 
 
 And then 'tis I give orders to the Don, 
 Laughing within to hear the laugh of Fate, 
 Whose winning game I know hath just 
 
 begun. 
 I mount the bridge when dies the last red 
 
 streak 
 Of evening, and the moon seems fain for 
 
 night. 
 
 Oh then I see beneath the galley's beak 
 A glow like Spanish auto's ruddy reek 
 Oh then these eyes behold a wondrous 
 sight ! 
 
 A skeleton, but yet with living eyes 
 
 A skeleton, but yet with bones like gold 
 
 Squats on the galley-beak, in wondrous wise, 
 And round his brow, of high imperial mould,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 105 
 
 A burning circle seems to shake and shine, 
 Bright, fiery bright, with many a living 
 
 gem, 
 
 Throwing a radiance o'er the foam-lit brine : 
 " Tis God's Revenge," methinks. " Heaven 
 
 sends for sign 
 That bony shape that Inca's diadem." 
 
 At first the sign is only seen of me, 
 
 But well I know that God's Revenge hath 
 
 come 
 
 To strike the Armada, set old ocean free, 
 And cleanse from stain of Spain the 
 
 beauteous foam. 
 
 Quoth I, " How fierce soever be the levin 
 Spain's hand can hurl made mightier still 
 
 for wrong 
 
 By that great Scarlet One whose hills are 
 seven
 
 106 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Yea, howsoever Hell may scoff at Heaven 
 Stronger than Hell is God, though Hell is 
 strong." 
 
 "The dog can steer," I laugh ; "yea, Drake's 
 
 men know 
 How sea-dogs hold a ship to Biscay 
 
 waves." 
 Ah ! when I bid the soldiers go below, 
 
 Some 'neath the hatches, some beside the 
 
 slaves, 
 And bid them stack their muskets all in 
 
 piles 
 
 Beside the foremast, covered by a sail, 
 The captives guess my plan I see their 
 
 smiles 
 
 As down the waist the cozened troop defiles, 
 Staggering and stumbling landsmen, faint 
 and pale.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 107 
 
 I say, they guess my plan to send beneath 
 The soldiers to the benches where the 
 
 slaves 
 
 Sit, armed with eager nails and eager teeth 
 Hate's nails and teeth more keen than 
 
 Spanish glaives, 
 
 Then wait until the tempest's waxing might 
 Shall reach its fiercest, mingling sea and 
 
 sky, 
 Then seize the key, unlock the slaves, and 
 
 smite 
 
 The sea-sick soldiers in their helpless plight, 
 Then bid the Spaniards pull at oar or die. 
 
 Past Ferrol Bay each galley 'gins to stoop, 
 Shuddering before the Biscay demon's 
 breath. 
 
 Down goes a prow down goes a gaudy poop : 
 " The Don's Diana bears the Don to death,
 
 io8 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 Quoth I, "and see the Princess plunge and 
 
 wallow 
 
 Down purple trough, o'er snowy crest of foam : 
 See ! see I the Royal, how she tries to follow 
 By many a glimmering crest and shimmering 
 
 hollow, 
 Where gull and petrel scarcely dare to roam." 
 
 Now, three queen-galleys pass Cape Finisterre ; 
 
 The Armada, dreaming but of ocean-storms, 
 Thinks not of mutineers with shoulders bare, 
 
 Chained, bloody-wealed and pale, on 
 
 galley-forms, 
 Each rower murmuring o'er my whispered plan, 
 
 Deep-burnt within his brain in words of fire, 
 " Rise, every man, to tear to death his man 
 Yea, tear as only galley-captives can, 
 
 When God's Revenge sings loud to ocean's 
 lyre."
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 109 
 
 Taller the spectre grows 'mid ocean's din ; 
 
 The captain sees the Skeleton and pales : 
 I give the sign : the slaves cry, " Ho for 
 
 Gwynn ! " 
 " Teach them," quoth I, " the way we grip in 
 
 Wales." 
 And, leaping down where hateful boatswains 
 
 shake, 
 I win the key let loose a storm of 
 
 slaves : 
 "When captives hold the whip, let drivers 
 
 quake," 
 They cry; "sit down, ye Dons, and row for 
 
 Drake, 
 
 Or drink to England's Queen in foaming 
 waves." 
 
 We leap adown the hatches ; in the dark 
 We stab the Dons at random, till I see
 
 110 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 A spark that trembles like a tinder-spark, 
 Waxing and brightening, till it seems to be 
 
 A fleshless skull, with eyes of joyful fire : 
 Then, lo ! a bony shape with lifted hands 
 
 A bony mouth that chants an anthem dire, 
 
 O'ertopping groans, o'ertopping Ocean's quire 
 A skeleton with Inca's diadem stands 1 
 
 It sings the song I heard an Indian sing, 
 Chained by the ruthless Dons to burn at 
 
 stake, 
 
 When priests of Tophet chanted in a ring, 
 Sniffing man's flesh at roast for Christ His 
 
 sake. 
 The Spaniards hear : they see : they fight no 
 
 more; 
 They cross their foreheads, but they dare 
 
 not speak. 
 Anon the spectre, when the strife is o'er,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID in 
 
 Melts from the dark, then glimmers as before, 
 Burning upon the conquered galley's beak. 
 
 And now the moon breaks through the night, 
 
 and shows 
 
 The Royal bearing down upon our craft 
 Then comes a broadside close at hand, which 
 
 strows 
 
 Our deck with bleeding bodies fore and aft. 
 I take the helm ; I put the galley near : 
 
 We grapple in silver sheen of moonlit surge. 
 Amid the RoyaFs din I laugh to hear 
 The curse of many a British mutineer, 
 
 The crack, crack, crack of boatswain's biting 
 scourge. 
 
 " Ye scourge in vain," quoth I, " scourging for 
 
 life 
 
 Slaves who shall row no more to save the 
 Don;"
 
 112 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 For from the Royal's poop, above the strife, 
 
 Their captain gazes at our Skeleton ! 
 " What ! is it thou, Pirate of El Dorado ? " 
 He shouts in English tongue. And there, 
 
 behold ! 
 
 Stands he, the devil's commodore, Medrado. 
 "Ayl ay!" quoth I, "Spain owes me one 
 
 strappado 
 
 For scuttling Philip's ship of stolen 
 gold. 
 
 " I come for that strappado now," quoth I. 
 "What means yon thing of burning bones? " 
 
 he saith. 
 " 'Tis God's Revenge cries, ' Bloody Spain shall 
 
 die I 1 
 
 The king of El Dorado's name is Death. 
 Strike home, ye slaves ; your hour is coming 
 swift,"
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 113 
 
 1 cry ; " strong hands are stretched to save 
 
 you now ; 
 
 Show yonder spectre you are worth the gift." 
 But when the Royal, captured, rides adrift, 
 I look : the skeleton hath left our prow. 
 
 When all are slain, the tempest's wings have 
 
 fled, 
 
 But still the sea is dreaming of the storm : 
 Far down the offing glows a spot of red, 
 
 My soul knows well it hath that Inca's form. 
 " It lights," quoth I, " the red cross banner of 
 
 Spain 
 
 There on the flagship where Medina sleeps 
 Hell's banner, wet with sweat of Indians' 
 
 pain, 
 
 And tears of women yoked to treasure train, 
 Scarlet of blood for which the New World 
 weeps.
 
 114 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 There on the dark the flagship of the Don 
 
 To me seems luminous of the spectre's glow ; 
 But soon an arc of gold, and then the Sun, 
 
 Rise o'er the reddening billows, proud and 
 
 slow; 
 Then, through the curtains of the morning mist, 
 
 That take all shifting colours as they shake, 
 I see the great Armada coil and twist 
 Miles, miles along the ocean's amethyst, 
 
 Like hell's old snake of hate the winged 
 snake. 
 
 And, when the hazy veils of Morn are thinned, 
 That snake accursed, with wings which swell 
 
 and puff 
 Before the slackening horses of the wind, 
 
 Turns into shining ships that tack and luff. 
 " Behold," quoth I, " their floating citadels, 
 The same the priests have vouched for 
 musket-proof,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 115 
 
 Caracks and hulks and nimble caravels, 
 That sailed with us to sound of Lisbon bells 
 Yea, sailed from Tagus' mouth, for Christ's 
 behoof. 
 
 For Christ's behoof they sailed : see how they go 
 
 With that red skeleton to show the way 
 There sitting on Medina's stem aglow 
 
 A hundred sail and forty-nine, men say ; 
 Behold them, brothers, galleon and galeasse 
 Their dizened turrets bright of many a 
 
 plume, 
 
 Their gilded poops, their shining guns of brass, 
 Their trucks, their flags behold them, how 
 
 they pass 
 
 With God's Revenge for figurehead to 
 Doom ! "
 
 u6 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 Now drink to Drake and drink to those 
 Who when they saw through evening's purple 
 
 veils 
 
 Two far-divided points that rose 
 Two crescent horns that brightened into sails 
 Laughed though methinks their laugh was 
 
 grim 
 Laughed when those horns like evening's 
 
 pinion tips 
 
 Burnt ruddier, and the centre dim 
 Came up and filled the horizon's rim 
 Laughed loud and cried : "See how the pirzes 
 swim, 
 
 Our Spanish ships" 
 
 The men who saw the Armada float, 
 And lit the beacon fires to spread the news,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 117 
 
 While smack, and hoy, and fishing boat 
 Swelled big with pride, and landsmen joined 
 
 the crews. 
 
 Papist like Lutheran met with laughter 
 The ban of Rome Drink to those Papist halls 
 That rang with shouts from rush to rafter, 
 "Whate'er the bans the winds may waft 
 
 her, 
 
 England's true men are we and Pope's men 
 after, 
 
 When England calls." 
 
 DRAYTON. 
 
 Fill every cup with Mermaid-sack, 
 And sing a song of Drake and Howard's men, 
 
 Who broke the Spanish Bloodhound's back 
 In England's glorious week of triumph, when 
 
 Her fate, which aye was Freedom's fate,
 
 Il8 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Hung on the sons she suckled to be free- 
 When down before them in the Strait 
 Went that fell flag the free waves hate, 
 
 And God said : " England, this is thine estate ! 
 And gave the sea. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The sea I 
 
 Thus did England fight ; 
 And shall not England smite 
 With Drake's strong stroke in battles yet to be?* 
 And while the winds have power 
 Shall England lose the dower 
 She won in that great hour 
 
 The sea ? 
 
 * He who alive to them a Dragon was 
 
 Shalbe a Dragon unto them againe, 
 For with his death his terrour shall not passe, 
 But still amid the aire he shall remaine. 
 
 Sir Francis Drake, by CHARLES FITZGEOFFREY 
 Oxford, 1596.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 119 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 (Turning to RALEIGH.) 
 
 To win the Theban prize, each brought his 
 
 la y, 
 When, lo! a stranger stood, wind-flushed 
 
 and tanned, 
 
 Who sang of marvellous sights in many a land 
 And voices heard on waters far away. 
 
 But fools shall give to fools the bay for prize, 
 Yea, though Apollo's self hath brought an 
 
 ode: 
 And songs are sung in Time's forgotten mode 
 
 When high gods sing from still-receding skies. 
 
 The bard whose song the Thebans might not 
 
 follow, 
 Because he sang of more than Theban things,
 
 120 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Was he whose music, struck from Nature's 
 
 strings, 
 Builded the walls of Ilion, great Apollo. 
 
 Cried Phcebus, soaring high his bright feet 
 
 shod 
 With Day that quenched the day and hid the 
 
 town 
 
 " Ye spurn Apollo as a sunburnt clown, 
 Ye pallid priestlings of a sunburnt god ! 
 
 " The milk-white forehead, tender and dainty- 
 skinned, 
 Your sculptors give me lips too fine to 
 
 quaff 
 The wine of morning make Olympus 
 
 laugh : 
 
 Gods know the sun-god bronzed by brine and 
 wind."
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 121 
 
 The Mermaid, "Ocean-shepherd, "drinks to thee: 
 Sunburnt thou art, and knowest the great 
 
 round world, 
 As Phoebus knows : tell us howEn gland hurled 
 
 Spain to the bottom of the guardian sea. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Christmas knows a merry, merry place, 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one place : 
 Where ? 
 
 RALEIGH. 
 
 Hail to the wassail-steam that rises 
 Above the head of him who brewed it, Ben. 
 
 Rare shapes it takes and wondrous guises 
 Of ships, and flags, and guns, and fighting 
 men.
 
 122 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 The Mermaid's spicy steam to-night 
 
 Brings back the curling clouds of other smoke 
 Less dainty of scent, less pure and white, 
 Yet sweet and full of high delight 
 
 To me who saw how English sailors fight 
 On English oak. 
 
 I feel the west wind blowing in, 
 And, when out-warps the fleet of every sail, 
 
 I hear Drake say, " 'Twill soon begin, 
 The game between the sword-fish and the 
 
 whale " 
 
 Hear Wynter say: " Those galleons towered, 
 With Philip's trinkets, Philip's filigree, 
 And painted trucks and pennons flowered, 
 Shall feel the stroke of England's Howard, 
 And touch the ships of Drake whose keels 
 have scoured 
 
 Philip's own sea."
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 123 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The sea ! 
 
 Thus did England fight ; 
 And shall not England smite 
 With Drake's strong stroke in battles yet to be ? 
 And while the winds have power 
 Shall England lose the dower 
 She won in that great hour 
 
 The sea ? 
 
 RALEIGH. 
 
 Out-warp the ships the Spaniard knew 
 Ere Drake returned from "singeing Philip's 
 
 beard," 
 
 With flags that under Cadiz flew 
 When right between the Spanish keels he 
 
 steered ; 
 Out-warp the ships John Hawkins made
 
 124 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Hornets for golden bees from El Dorado 
 With keels as fine as rapier-blade, 
 Slipping to follow or evade 
 
 As swiftly through a Spanish cannonade 
 As sea-gull's shadow. 
 
 Off Plymouth Sound the Sabbath smiles 
 When whale and swordfish meet in deadly 
 
 play- 
 When up the Channel, miles on miles, 
 The swordfish stabs and stabs and glides away. 
 
 The Spaniard hath both sail and oar. 
 And what hath England ? Sons who strike 
 
 with glee 
 
 To music of the cannon's roar 
 Strike, strike till e'en the rooks on shore 
 Rise scared, and Channel sea-fowls wheel and 
 soar 
 
 Right out to sea.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 125 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The sea ! 
 
 Thus did England fight ; 
 And shall not England smite 
 With Drake's strong stroke in battles yet to be ? 
 And while the winds have power 
 Shall England lose the dower 
 She won in that great hour 
 
 The sea? 
 
 RALEIGH. 
 
 And now from bays and creeks and coves, 
 Through all the sacred ways, from farthest 
 Scillies 
 
 To that sweet bay where whispering groves 
 Stretch on to many a lawn of Jersey lilies ; 
 
 From Lyme to that flower-fragrant home 
 Of nightingale and rose, beloved Wight,
 
 126 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 They come in smacks, in skiffs they come 
 And even in little shallops some 
 
 To show how foes who brave our Channel-foam 
 Will have to fight. 
 
 When, like a playful hound released, 
 From purple portals of the opening day 
 
 At last the wind from out the east 
 Drives smoke and vapour over Weymouth Bay, 
 
 Medina hath the wind, he sees, 
 And bears on Howard's line with luckless 
 might ; 
 
 And Drake knows well the Narrow Seas 
 
 That nurtured him knows how the breeze 
 Of summer follows all the sun's decrees 
 From dawn till night. 
 
 At last Medina finds his goal, 
 And, safe as hunted wolf within his lair,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 127 
 
 He anchors close by Calais shoal, 
 While England's sea-dogs fret around him 
 
 there. 
 
 " Damned be the foe who will not fight ! " 
 Saith Wynter. " List, my Lord High Admiral ; 
 Beneath yon moon a-shining bright 
 There lies the Don in direst plight, 
 With riddled hulls and sails with men in 
 fright, 
 
 But fight he shall. 
 
 " O' nights, my lord, the tide sets down 
 To where yon gaudy-bellied gold-tubs lie 
 
 So close they seem like Plymouth town 
 Save for the lanterns swaying there on high. 
 
 When midnight sounds by Spanish bells, 
 To-morrow night, before the moon shines free, 
 
 Send fire-ships round their caravels, 
 
 Their clumsy galleon-citadels;
 
 128 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 The Don will deem them 'Antwerp's floating 
 hells' 
 
 That burn on sea." 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The sea ! 
 
 Thus did England fight ; 
 And shall not England smite 
 With Drake's strong stroke in battles yet to be ? 
 And while the winds have power 
 Shall England lose the dower 
 She won in that great hour 
 
 The sea? 
 
 RALEIGH. 
 
 The midnight bells ! I hear them rung ! 
 In strength the Spaniard sleeps, but battle- 
 thinned ;
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 129 
 
 No dreams hath he of Prowse and Young, 
 There stealing with the fire-ships down the 
 
 wind, 
 
 Till smoke up-curls and flames devour 
 And Night's black wings are glowing like fiery 
 
 pinions, 
 
 Which wax in light and wax in power, 
 Illuming Gravelines wakened tower 
 With sparks and flakes that seem a ruddy 
 shower 
 
 From hell's dominions. 
 
 Troops, priests, and sailors dance with dread, 
 As dance bewildered steeds in burning stables ; 
 
 Sails open in the reeking red : 
 The Fleet Invincible hath slipped its cables ! 
 
 " The Antwerp fire ! the floating mine ! " 
 The Spaniards shout. But now there comes to me 
 
 A sign I know, the Channel's sign
 
 130 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 A sound most like the sleuth hound's whine 
 When slot is found : Drake knows that cry 
 divine : 
 
 'Tis England's sea ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The sea 1 
 
 Thus did England fight ; 
 And shall not England smite 
 With Drake's strong stroke in battles yet to be ? 
 And while the winds have power 
 Shall England lose the dower 
 She won in that great hour 
 
 The sea ? 
 
 RALEIGH. 
 
 Six miles from shore lies trembling Spain, 
 Yearning for Calais Roads and Flushing sands ;
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 131 
 
 But Drake hath said, " Never again 
 Shall Parma with the Golden Duke shake 
 
 hands." 
 
 The south-west wind has never shifted, 
 And there, while morning opes bewildered eyes, 
 While Spain lies shattered, scattered, drifted, 
 With hulls and sails the balls have rifted, 
 Both warring fleets as by a hand are lifted 
 Our billows rise ! 
 
 While morning gazes o'er the waves, 
 Gilding the ships, the Spaniards sallow-skinned, 
 
 The cruel oars, the weary slaves, 
 Drake starts : " What signs are these on sea 
 and wind ? " 
 
 He knows what glorious combatant 
 Is moving now to hold our England free ; 
 
 He knows our Channel's covenant 
 
 With Freedom knows how billows pant,
 
 132 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 Ere yet begins the Channel's English chant 
 Of wind and sea. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The sea ! 
 
 Thus did England fight ; 
 And shall not England smite 
 With Drake's strong stroke in battles yet to be ? 
 And while the winds have power 
 Shall England lose the dower 
 She won in that great hour 
 
 The sea ? 
 
 RALEIGH. 
 
 The choirboys sing the matin song, 
 When down falls Seymour on the Spaniard's 
 
 right. 
 He drives the wing a huddled throng
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 133 
 
 Back on the centre ships, that steer for flight. 
 
 While galleon hurtles galeasse, 
 And oars that fight each othct kill the slaves, 
 As scythes cut down the summer grass, 
 Drake closes on the writhing mass, 
 Through which the balls at closest ranges pass, 
 Skimming the waves. 
 
 Fiercely do galley and galeasse fight, 
 Running from ship to ship like living things. 
 
 With oars like legs, with beaks that smite, 
 Winged centipedes they seem with tattered 
 wings. 
 
 Through smoke we see their chiefs encased 
 In shining mail of gold where blood congeals ; 
 
 And once I see within a waist 
 
 Wild English captives ashen-faced, 
 Their bending backs by Spanish scourges laced 
 In purple weals.
 
 134 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 (DAVID GWYNN here leaps up, pale and panting, and 
 bares a scarred arm, but at a sign from RALEIGH 
 sits down again.) 
 
 The Don fights well, but fights not now 
 The cozened Indian whom he kissed for friend, 
 
 To pluck the gold from off the brow, 
 Then fling the flesh to priests to burn and 
 
 rend. 
 
 He hunts not now the Indian maid 
 With bloodhound's bay Peru's confiding 
 
 daughter, 
 
 Who saw in flowery bower or glade 
 The stranger's god-like cavalcade, 
 And worshipped, while he planned Pizarro's 
 trade 
 
 Of rape and slaughter. 
 
 His fight is now with Drake and Wynter, . 
 Hawkins, and Frobisher, and English fire,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 135 
 
 Bullet and cannon ball and splinter, 
 Till every deck gleams, greased with bloody 
 
 mire : 
 
 Heaven smiles to see that battle wage, 
 Close battle of musket, carabine, and gun : 
 Oh, vainly doth the Spaniard rage 
 Like any wolf that tears his cage ! 
 Tis English sails shall win the weather gauge 
 Till set of sun I 
 
 Their troops, superfluous as their gold, 
 Out-numbering all their seamen two to one, 
 
 Are packed away in every hold 
 Targets of flesh for every English gun 
 
 Till, like Pizarro's halls of blood, 
 Or slaughter-pens where swine or beeves are 
 pinned, 
 
 Lee-scuppers pour a crimson flood, 
 
 Reddening the waves for many a rood,
 
 136 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 As eastward, eastward still the galleons scud 
 Before the wind. 
 
 " Doth mighty Parma wait to join 
 The ' deathless fleet ' that holds four thousand 
 dead? 
 
 That fleet shall never turn the Groyne 
 If cannon-gear be ours and sailors' bread " 
 
 As thus he speaks brave Cumberland 
 Sweeps down to set the crown .on Victory ; 
 
 While privateers on every hand 
 
 Are flocking, flocking, from the land, 
 To drive out Philip's Pope-anointed band 
 To the open sea. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The sea! 
 
 Thus did England fight ; 
 And shall not England smite
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 137 
 
 With Drake's strong stroke in battles yet to be ? 
 And while the winds have power 
 Shall England lose the dower 
 She won in that great hour- 
 The sea ? 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 (At the conclusion of RALEIGH'S song.) 
 
 Sweet is the song of victories 
 Which only leaves the singer's deed unsung. 
 
 (He stops, having perceived that GWYNN, who has been 
 following RALEIGH'S story with intense excitement, 
 has now passed into a condition resembling hysteria, 
 staring into the air and pulling open his dress to 
 display scars of the branding iron and of the 
 boatswain's galley -scourge.) 
 
 Look to thy friend ! Before his eyes 
 What ghostly picture in the air is hung ?
 
 138 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 LODGE. 
 
 Good Master Gwynn, we pray thee tell 
 The Mermaid what hath blanched thy lips and 
 brow. 
 
 DEKKER. 
 
 Some sight he sees of Death or Hell. 
 
 CHAPMAN. 
 
 We marvel, friend, what mighty spell, 
 Making each vein upon thy forehead swell, 
 Hath seized thee now. 
 
 GWYNN. 
 
 With towering sterns, with golden stems 
 That totter in the smoke before their foe, 
 
 I see them pass the mouth of Thames, 
 With death above the billows, death below 1
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 139 
 
 Who leads them down the tempest's path, 
 From Thames to Yare, from Yare to Tweed- 
 mouth blown, 
 
 Past many a Scottish hill and strath, 
 All helpless in the wild wind's wrath, 
 Each mainmast stooping, creaking like a lath ? 
 The Skeleton ! 
 
 At length with toil the cape is passed, 
 And faster and faster still the billows come 
 
 To coil and boil till every mast 
 Is flecked with clinging flakes of snowy foam. 
 
 I see, I see, where galleons pitch, 
 That Inca's bony shape burn on the waves, 
 Flushing each emerald scarp and ditch, 
 While Mother Carey, Orkney's witch, 
 Waves to the Spectre's song her lantern- 
 switch 
 
 O'er ocean-graves.
 
 140 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 The glimmering crown of Scotland's head 
 
 They pass. No foe dares follow but the storm. 
 The Spectre, like a sunset red, 
 
 Illumines mighty Wrath's defiant form, 
 And makes the dreadful granite peak 
 
 Burn o'er the ships with brows of prophecy ; 
 Yea, makes that silent countenance speak 
 Above the tempest's foam and reek, 
 
 More loud than all the loudest winds that 
 shriek, 
 
 " Tyrants, ye die ! " 
 
 The Spectre, by the Orkney Isles, 
 Writes " God's Revenge " on waves that climb 
 
 and dash, 
 
 Foaming right up the sand-built piles, 
 Where ships are hurled. It sings amid the 
 
 crash ; 
 Yea, sings amid the tempest's roar,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 141 
 
 Snapping of ropes, cracking of spars set 
 
 free, 
 
 And yells of captives chained to oar, 
 And cries of those who strike for shore, 
 " Spain's murderous breath of blood shall foul 
 no more 
 
 The righteous sea ! " 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 So lists the Mermaid to the sailor's song,* 
 But let not wassail cool on Christmas 
 
 Eve : 
 The hero's tale being told, why, let us 
 
 leave 
 
 For merrier themes the fight of Right with 
 Wrong. 
 
 * " So lists the sailor to the mermaid's song." Ardun of 
 Feversham.
 
 I 4 2 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 WASSAIL CHORUS. 
 
 l 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 CHRISTMAS knows a merry, merry place. 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one place ; 
 Where ? 
 
 RALEIGH. 
 
 Tis by Devon's glorious halls, 
 
 Whence, dear Ben, I come again : 
 Bright with golden roofs and walls 
 
 El Dorado's rare domain 
 Seem those halls when sunlight launches 
 Shafts of gold through leafless branches, 
 Where the winter's feathery mantle blanches 
 Field and farm and lane.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 143 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Christmas knows a merry, merry place. 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one place : 
 Where? 
 
 DRAYTON. 
 
 'Tis where Avon's wood-sprites weave 
 Through the boughs a lace of rime. 
 While the bells of Christmas Eve 
 
 Fling for Will the Stratford-chime 
 O'er the river-flags embossed 
 Rich with flowery runes of frost 
 O'er the meads where snowy tufts are 
 tossed 
 
 Strains of olden time.
 
 I 4 4 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Christmas knows a merry, merry place, 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one place : 
 Where ? 
 
 SHAKSPEARE'S FRIEND. 
 
 'Tis, methinks, on any ground 
 
 Where our Shakspeare's feet are set. 
 There smiles Christmas, holly-crowned 
 
 With his blithest coronet : 
 Friendship's face he loveth well : 
 'Tis a countenance whose spell 
 Sheds a balm o'er every mead and dell 
 Where we used to fret.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 145 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Christmas knows a merry, merry place, 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one place : 
 Where? 
 
 HEYWOOD. 
 
 More than all the pictures, Ben, 
 
 Winter weaves by wood or stream, 
 Christmas loves our London, when 
 
 Rise thy clouds of wassail-steam 
 Clouds like these, that, curling, take 
 Forms of faces gone, and wake 
 Many a lay from lips we loved, and make 
 London like a dream.
 
 146 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Christmas knows a merry, merry place, 
 Where he goes with fondest face, 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 Tell the Mermaid where is that one place : 
 Where ? 
 
 BEN JONSON. 
 
 Love's old songs shall never die, 
 Yet the new shall suffer proof; 
 Love's old drink of Yule brew I, 
 
 Wassail for new love's behoof : 
 Drink the drink I brew, and sing 
 Till the berried branches swing, 
 Till our song make all the Mermaid ring 
 Yea, from rush to roof.
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID 147 
 FINALE. 
 
 Christmas loves this merry, merry place : 
 Christmas saith with fondest face 
 
 Brightest eye, brightest hair : 
 " Ben ! the drink tastes rare of sack and mace : 
 Rarel"
 
 A TALK ON WATERLOO 
 BRIDGE 
 
 THE LAST SIGHT OF GEORGE BORROW 
 
 WE talked of " Children of the Open Air," 
 Who once on hill and valley lived aloof, 
 Loving the sun, the wind, the sweet reproof 
 Of storms, and all that makes the fair earth 
 
 fair, 
 
 Till, on a day, across the mystic bar 
 Of moonrise, came the "Children of the 
 
 Roof," 
 Who find no balm 'neath evening's rosiest 
 
 woof, 
 Nor dews of peace beneath the Morning Star
 
 ISO A TALK ON WATERLOO BRIDGE 
 
 We looked o'er London, where men wither and 
 
 choke, 
 Roofed in, poor souls, renouncing stars and 
 
 skies, 
 
 And lore of woods and wild wind prophecies, 
 Yea, every voice that to their fathers spoke : 
 And sweet it seemed to die ere bricks and 
 
 smoke 
 Leave never a meadow outside Paradise.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 A DEAD POET 
 
 THOU knewest that island, far away and lone, 
 
 Whose shores are as a harp, where billows 
 break 
 
 In spray of music and the breezes shake 
 O'er spicy seas a woof of colour and tone, 
 While that sweet music echoes like a moan 
 
 In the island's heart, and sighs around the 
 lake, 
 
 Where, watching fearfully a watchful snake, 
 A damsel weeps upon her emerald throne.
 
 154 ROSSETTI 
 
 Life's ocean, breaking round thy senses' shore, 
 Struck golden song, as from the strand of 
 
 Day: 
 
 For us the joy, for thee the fell foe lay 
 Pain's blinking snake around the fair isle's core, 
 Turning to sighs the enchanted sounds that 
 
 play 
 Around thy lovely island evermore.
 
 A GRAVE BY THE SEA 
 
 I 
 
 YON sightless poet* whom thou leav'st behind, 
 Sightless and trembling like a storm-struck 
 
 tree, 
 
 Above the grave he feels but cannot see, 
 Save with the vision Sorrow lends the 
 
 mind, 
 
 Is he indeed the loneliest of mankind ? 
 Ah no ! For all his sobs, he seems to me 
 Less lonely standing there, and nearer thee, 
 Than I less lonely, nearer standing blind ! 
 * Philip Bourke Marston.
 
 156 A GRAVE BY THE SEA 
 
 Free from the day, and piercing Life's disguise 
 That needs must partly enveil true heart 
 
 from heart, 
 
 His inner eyes may see thee as thou art 
 In Memory's land see thee beneath the 
 
 skies 
 
 Lit by thy brow by those beloved eyes, 
 While I stand by him in a world apart. 
 
 II 
 
 I stand like her who on the glittering Rhine 
 Saw that strange swan which drew a faery 
 
 boat 
 
 Where shone a knight whose radiant fore- 
 head smote 
 
 Her soul with light and made her blue eyes 
 shine
 
 A GRAVE BY THE SEA 157 
 
 For many a day with sights that seemed divine, 
 
 Till that false swan returned and arched his 
 
 throat 
 In pride, and called him, and she saw him 
 
 float 
 A down the stream : I stand like her and pine. 
 
 I stand like her, for she, and only she, 
 Might know my loneliness for want of thee. 
 Light swam into her soul, she asked not 
 
 whence, 
 Filled it with joy no clouds of life could 
 
 smother, 
 
 And then, departing like a vision thence, 
 Left her more lonely than the blind, my brother.
 
 158 A GRAVE BY THE SEA 
 
 III 
 
 Last night Death whispered : " Death is but 
 
 the name 
 Man gives the Power which lends him life 
 
 and light, 
 
 And then, returning past the coast of night, 
 Takes what it lent to shores from whence it 
 
 came." 
 What balm in knowing the dark doth but 
 
 reclaim 
 
 The sun it lent, if day hath taken flight ? 
 Art thou not vanished vanished from my 
 
 sight 
 
 Though somewhere shining, vanished all the 
 same? 
 
 With Nature dumb, save for the billows' moan, 
 Engirt by men I love, yet desolate
 
 A GRAVE BY THE SEA 159 
 
 Standing with brothers here, yet dazed and 
 
 lone, 
 King'd by my sorrow, made by grief so 
 
 great 
 That man's voice murmurs like an insect's 
 
 drone 
 
 What balm, I ask, in knowing that Death is 
 Fate? 
 
 IV 
 
 Last night Death whispered : " Life's purblind 
 
 procession, 
 
 Flickering with blazon of the human story 
 Time's fen-flame over Death's dark terri- 
 tory- 
 Will leave no trail, no sign of Life's aggres- 
 sion.
 
 160 A GRAVE BY THE SEA 
 
 Yon moon that strikes the pane, the stars in 
 
 session, 
 Are weak as Man they mock with fleeting 
 
 glory. 
 
 Since Life is only Death's frail feudatory, 
 How shall love hold of Fate in true possession ? " 
 
 I answered thus : " If Friendship's isle of palm 
 
 Is but a vision, every loveliest leaf, 
 Can knowledge of its mockery soothe and calm 
 This soul of mine in this most fiery grief ? 
 If Love but holds of Life through Death in 
 
 fief, 
 
 What balm in knowing that Love is Death's 
 what balm ?
 
 A GRAVE BY THE SEA 161 
 
 V 
 
 Yea, thus I boldly answered Death even I 
 Who have for boon who have for deathless 
 
 dower 
 Thy love, dear friend, which broods, a magic 
 
 power, 
 
 Filling with music earth and sea and sky : 
 " O Death," I said, " not Love, but thou shall 
 
 die; 
 For, this I know, though thine is now the 
 
 hour, 
 And thine these angry clouds of doom that 
 
 lour, 
 Death striking Love but strikes to deify." 
 
 Yet while I spoke I sighed in loneliness, 
 For strange seemed Man, and Life seemed 
 comfortless,
 
 162 A GRAVE BY THE SEA 
 
 And night, whom we two loved, seemed 
 
 strange and dumb ; 
 
 And, waiting till the dawn the promised sign, 
 I watched I listened for that voice of thine, 
 Though Reason said : " Nor voice nor face 
 can come." 
 
 BlRCHINGTON, EASTERTIDE 1 882
 
 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 
 I 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL'S PROGRESS TO PARADISE* 
 
 (Beneath the cypress overhanging her lover's tomb the 
 slave girl lies stretched on the stone. In the shadow 
 by the tree are seen the " wide black eyes " and the 
 sombre wings of Azraeel, the Angel of Death.) 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL. 
 
 ANGEL of Death ! Hearken in yonder wood 
 How turtle and nightingale are murmuring 
 "Pity"; 
 
 * Although the Koran refers three times to the wives of 
 the just accompanying them into Paradise (Sura xiii. 
 36-42), and although there is a tradition of a Paradise 
 apart from the men reserved for the few women whom 
 Mohammed did not see hi his vision of perdition, the 
 popular notion in some Mohammedan countries is that 
 women have no souls to be either blessed or damned.
 
 164 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 
 
 " Pity," yon slave-girls moan who brought me 
 
 food 
 
 And milk and shawls, to soothe my solitude : 
 See how they weep, returning to the city. 
 
 THE PROPHET, who is passing the tomb, stops 
 to listen.) 
 
 ILY\S. 
 
 What sorrow, child, hath made thee fain to 
 die? 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL. 
 
 I would not die : this frame of mine remem- 
 bers 
 
 Each touch of his which gave it sanctity, 
 Flickering within the body's memory, 
 
 As come and go the sparks in slumbering 
 embers.
 
 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 165 
 
 Save me from Azraeel him whose sword 
 
 divides 
 Love's dearest bonds whose malice struck 
 
 to sever 
 My life from one who loves me, though he 
 
 bides 
 
 Where never slave girl stood, with houri brides. 
 I would not die, but live and weep for ever. 
 
 ILYAS TO AZRAEEL. 
 
 Yea, Love is strong! This child would spend 
 
 her days 
 Here on this tomb with cypress boughs for 
 
 cover, 
 
 While travellers whisper as they stop and gaze 
 Across the graveyard, "See how love can craze ! 
 She lives upon the tomb where sleeps her 
 lover."
 
 166 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL. 
 
 Death knows I have no soul, and never more 
 Those lips shall touch the widowed lips that 
 
 quiver 
 With memories of the light which once they 
 
 wore. 
 Death knows I have no soul with wings to 
 
 soar 
 To one who stands beside the Holy river. 
 
 (A spirit resembling the slave girl herself in form and 
 feature, but winged like a Peri, descends from the 
 sunset clouds, leaving an iridescent track behind it.) 
 
 ILYAS TO AZRAEEL. 
 
 Lo ! Allah sends a vision down the air 
 
 That leaves a rainbow track o'er thy 
 dominions.
 
 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 167 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL. 
 
 What shape is that which treads the Peris' 
 
 stair ? 
 
 It stands beside me now with shining hair, 
 I breathe the musk of Aidenn from its 
 
 pinions. 
 
 ILYAS. 
 
 No soulless Peri this whose eyes illume 
 
 With mirrored radiance of a deathless 
 
 glory 
 The cypress branches round thy lover's 
 
 tomb, 
 And flush the vans of Death with such a 
 
 bloom 
 
 That Evening's rosy wings seem wan and 
 hoary.
 
 1 68 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL TO THE VISION. 
 
 Spirit, whose tears are falling on the stone, 
 Doth sorrow stamp an angel's forehead 
 
 human ? 
 
 Thou speakest not, but as a sight half known, 
 Within a dream, thy face seems like mine 
 
 own, 
 
 And eyes that weep must needs be kin to 
 woman. 
 
 AZRAEEL. 
 
 Thy lover waiteth by the Holy Lote. 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL. 
 
 With houris ? 
 
 AZRAEEL. 
 
 Nay, he loveth still a maiden.
 
 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 169 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL. 
 
 That maiden hath no soul to ford the moat. 
 
 ILYAS. 
 Thou'rt loved of Allah ! 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL. 
 
 Yet his servant smote 
 
 Him whom the houris dare not clasp in 
 Aidenn. 
 
 (The spirit stoops and kisses the slave girl's forehead.) 
 ILYAS. 
 
 I think the spirit's kiss upon thy brow 
 
 Seals Allah's promise of a blissful morrow. 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL TO THE VISION. 
 
 Morrow for me ! Speak, spirit, who art thou ?
 
 170 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 
 
 ILYA.S. 
 
 Tis thine own soul the spirit with thee now 
 Is thine own soul new-lit by love and 
 sorrow. 
 
 II 
 
 THE BEDOUIN-CHILD 
 
 (Among the Bedouins a father in enumerating his 
 children never counts his daughters, for a daughter 
 is considered a disgrace.) 
 
 Ii.YA.8 the prophet, lingering 'neath the moon, 
 Heard from a tent a child's heart-withering 
 
 wail, 
 
 Mixt with the message of the nightingale, 
 Afld, entering, found, sunk in mysterious 
 
 swoon, 
 
 A little maiden dreaming there alone. 
 She babbled of her father sitting pale
 
 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 171 
 
 'Neath wings of Death 'mid sights of 
 
 sorrow and bale, 
 And pleaded for his life in piteous tone. 
 
 " Poor child, plead on," the succouring prophet 
 
 saith, 
 While she, with eager lips, like one who 
 
 tries 
 To kiss a dream, stretches her arms and 
 
 cries 
 To Heaven for help "Plead on; such pure 
 
 love-breath, 
 Reaching the Throne, might stay the wings of 
 
 Death 
 That, in the Desert, fan thy father's eyes." 
 
 The drouth-slain camels lie on every hand ; 
 Seven sons await the morning vultures' 
 claws ;
 
 172 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF LOVE 
 
 'Mid empty water-skins and camel-maws 
 The father sits, the last of all the band. 
 He mutters, drowsing o'er the moonlit sand, 
 " Sleep fans my brow : Sleep makes us all 
 
 pashas ; 
 Or, if the wings are Death's, why Azraeel 
 
 draws 
 A childless father from an empty land." 
 
 " Nay," saith a Voice, " the wind of Azraecl's 
 
 wings 
 A child's sweet breath hath stilled ; so God 
 
 decrees " : 
 
 A camel's bell comes tinkling on the breeze, 
 Filling the Bedouin's brain with bubble of 
 
 springs 
 And scent of flowers and shadow of wavering 
 
 trees 
 Where, from a tent, a little maiden sings.
 
 JOHN THE PILGRIM 
 
 A.D. 1249 
 
 THE MIRAGE 
 
 BENEATH the sand-storm John the Pilgrim 
 
 prays ; 
 
 But when he rises, lo ! an Eden smiles, 
 Green leafy slopes, meadows of chamomiles, 
 Claspt in a silvery river's winding maze : 
 " Water, water ! Blessed be God ! " he says, 
 And totters gasping toward those happy 
 
 isles. 
 
 Then all is fled ! Over the sandy piles 
 The bald-eyed vultures come and stand at 
 gaze.
 
 174 JOHN THE PILGRIM 
 
 11 God heard me not/*' says he, " blessed be 
 
 Godl" 
 And dies. But as he nears the pearly 
 
 strand, 
 Heav'n's outer coast where waiting angels 
 
 stand, 
 
 He looks below : " Farewell, thou hooded clod, 
 Brown corpse the vultures tear on bloody 
 
 sand: 
 
 God heard my prayer for life blessed be 
 God!"
 
 COLUMBUS 
 
 FOR THE FESTIVAL AT HUELVA 
 
 A Castilla y a Leon 
 Nuevo Mundo did Colon. 
 
 To Christ he cried to quell Death's deafening 
 
 measure 
 Sung by the storm to Death's own chartless 
 
 sea; 
 To Christ he cried for glimpse of grass or 
 
 tree 
 When, hovering o'er the calm, Death watched 
 
 at leisure ; 
 And when he showed the men, now dazed 
 
 with pleasure,
 
 176 COLUMBUS 
 
 Faith's new world glittering star-like on the 
 
 lee, 
 
 " I trust that by the help of Christ," said he, 
 " I presently shall light on golden treasure." 
 
 What treasure found he ? Chains and pains 
 
 and sorrow 
 
 Yea, all the wealth those noble seekers find 
 
 Whose footfalls mark the music of mankind ! 
 
 'Twas his to lend a life : 'twas Man's to borrow : 
 
 'Twas his to make, but not to share, the 
 
 morrow 
 
 Who in Love's memory lives this morn en- 
 shrined.
 
 BEATRICE 
 
 FOR THE SIXTH CENTENARY OF BEATRICE'S DEATH, 
 COMMEMORATED AT FLORENCE IN MAY, 1890 
 
 THOU, spreading through six hundred years an 
 
 air 
 
 Of memory fresh as Morning's altar-spice, 
 Thou, Star of Dante Star of Paradise, 
 Hast made the star of womanhood more fair ; 
 For though thou art now his lofty guardian 
 
 there, 
 
 Victress o'er jealous Sin, who dared entice 
 His feet from thee * though now the high 
 device 
 
 * " Purg.," c. xxx. See also Guide Cavalcanti's sonnet 
 to Dante Alighieri, rebuking his way of life after the death 
 of Beatrice. 
 
 M
 
 i ;8 BEATRICE 
 
 Of wisdom lights the wreath around thine 
 
 hair; 
 
 Those eyes can dim the angels' eyes above 
 Because they tell what flight was thine 
 
 below : 
 
 No eagle-flight past peaks of fire and snow, 
 But through Life's leaves the flutter of a dove 
 Whose beating wings soothed Dante's air with 
 
 love 
 Struck music from the wind of Dante's woe.
 
 THE THREE FAUSTS 
 
 INSCRIBED TO MISS ELEONORE D*ESTERRE KEELING 
 
 I 
 THE MUSIC OF HELL 
 
 I HAD a dream of wizard harps of hell 
 Beating through starry worlds a pulse of pain 
 That held them shuddering in a fiery spell, 
 Yea, spite of all their songs a fell refrain 
 Which, leaping from some red orchestral sun, 
 Through constellations and through eyeless 
 
 space 
 Sought some pure core of bale, and finding 
 
 one 
 (An orb whose shadows flickering on her face
 
 i8o THE THREE FAUSTS 
 
 Seemed tragic shadows from some comic mime, 
 
 Incarnate visions mouthing hopes and fears 
 
 That Fate was playing to the Fiend of Time), 
 
 Died in a laugh 'mid oceanic tears : 
 
 " Berlioz," I said, " thy strong hand makes me 
 
 weep, 
 That God did ever wake a world from sleep." 
 
 II 
 
 THE MUSIC OF EARTH 
 
 I had a dream of golden harps of earth : 
 And when they shook the web of human life, 
 The warp of sorrow and the weft of mirth, 
 Divinely trembling in a blissful strife, 
 Seemed answering in a dream that master- 
 song 
 Which built the world and lit the holy skies.
 
 THE THREE FAUSTS 181 
 
 Oh, then my listening soul waxed great and 
 
 strong 
 
 Till my flesh trembled at her high replies ! 
 But when the web seemed answering lower 
 
 strings 
 
 Which hymn the temple at the god's expense, 
 And bid the soul fly low on fleshly wings 
 To gather dews rich honey-dews of sense, 
 " Gounod," I said, " I love that siren-breath, 
 Though with it chimes the throbbing heart of 
 
 Death." 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE MUSIC OF HEAVEN 
 
 I had a dream of azure harps of heaven 
 Beating through starry worlds a pulse of 
 
 joy.
 
 182 THE THREE FAUSTS 
 
 Quickening the light with Love's electric 
 
 leaven, 
 
 Quelling Death's hand, uplifted to destroy, 
 Building the rainbow there with tears of man 
 High over hell, bright over Night's abysses, 
 The arc of sorrow in a smiling span 
 Of tears of many a lover's dying kisses, 
 And tears of many a Gretchen's towering 
 
 sorrow, 
 
 And many a soul fainting for dearth of kin, 
 And many a soul that hath but night for 
 
 morrow, 
 
 And many a soul that hath no day but sin ; 
 "Schumann," I said, "thine is a wondrous 
 
 story 
 Of tears so bright they dim the seraphs' 
 
 glory."
 
 TOAST TO OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 \N EAST ANGLIAN ECHO-CHORUS 
 
 INSCRIBED TO OLD OMARIAN FRIENDS IN MEMORY OF 
 HAPPY DAYS BY OUSE AND CAM 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 IN this red wine, where Memory's eyes seem 
 
 glowing, 
 And days when wines were bright by Ouse 
 
 and Cam, 
 And Norfolk's foaming nectar glittered, 
 
 showing 
 What beard of gold John Barleycorn was 
 
 growing, 
 We drink to thee, right heir of Nature's 
 
 knowing, 
 
 Omar Khayyam I
 
 184 TOAST TO OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 I 
 Star-gazer, who canst read, when Night is 
 
 strewing 
 Her scriptured orbs on Time's wide ori- 
 
 flamme, 
 Nature's proud blazon : "Who shall bless or 
 
 damn? 
 
 Life, Death, and Doom are all of my bestowing ! " 
 CHORUS : Omar Khayyam I 
 
 II 
 
 Poet, whose stream of balm and music, flowing 
 Through Persian gardens, widened till it 
 
 swam 
 
 A fragrant tide no bank of Time shall dam 
 Through Suffolk meads, where gorse and may 
 were blowing, 
 
 CHORUS : Omar Khayyam !
 
 TOAST TO OMAR KHAYYAM 185 
 
 III 
 Who blent thy song with sound of cattle 
 
 lowing, 
 
 And caw of rooks that perch on ewe and ram, 
 And hymn of lark, and bleat of orphan lamb, 
 And swish of scythe in Bredfield's dewy 
 mowing ? 
 
 CHORUS : Omar Khayyam ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Twas Fitz, "Old Fitz," whose knowledge, 
 
 farther going 
 Than lore of Omar, "Wisdom's starry 
 
 Cham," 
 
 Made richer still thine opulent epigram : 
 Sowed seed from seed of thine immortal 
 sowing. 
 
 CHORUS : Omar Khayyam
 
 186 TOAST TO OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 In this red wine, where Memory's eyes seem 
 
 glowing, 
 And days when wines were bright by Ouse 
 
 and Cam, 
 And Norfolk's foaming nectar glittered, 
 
 showing 
 What beard of gold John Barleycorn was 
 
 growing, 
 We drink to thee till, hark 1 the cock is 
 
 crowing 1 
 
 Omar Khayyam I
 
 PRAYER TO THE WINDS 
 
 ON PLANTING AT THE HEAD OF FITZGERALD'S 
 GRAVE TWO ROSE-TREES WHOSE ANCESTORS 
 HAD SCATTERED THEIR PETALS OVER THE 
 TOMB OF OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 " My tomb shall be on a spot where the north-wind 
 may straw roses upon it." OMAR KHAYYAM to 
 
 KWAJAH NlZAMI. 
 
 HEAR us, ye winds ! 
 
 From where the north-wind strows 
 Blossoms that crown "the King of Wis- 
 dom's " tomb, 
 The trees here planted bring remembered 
 
 bloom, 
 Dreaming in seed of Love's ancestral rose,
 
 1 88 PRAYER TO THE WINDS 
 
 To meadows where a braver north-wind blows 
 O'er greener grass, o'er hedge-rose, may, 
 
 and broom, 
 
 And all that make East England's field- 
 perfume 
 Dearer than any fragrance Persia knows. 
 
 Hear us, ye winds, North, East, and West and 
 
 South, 
 
 This granite covers him whose golden mouth 
 Made wiser ev'n the Word of Wisdom's 
 
 King: 
 Blow softly over Omar's Western herald 
 
 Till roses rich of Omar's dust shall spring 
 From richer dust of Suffolk's rare Fitzgerald.
 
 QUEEN KATHERINE 
 
 ON SEEING MISS ELLEN TERRY AS KATHERINE 
 
 IN "KING HENRY vin." 
 
 SEEKING a tongue for tongueless shadow-land, 
 Has Katharine's soul come back with power 
 
 to quell 
 
 A sister-soul incarnate, and compel 
 Its bodily voice to speak by Griefs command ? 
 Or is it Katherine's self returns to stand 
 As erst she stood defying Wolsey's spell 
 Returns with those wild wrongs she fain 
 
 would tell 
 
 Which Memory bore to Eden's amaranth- 
 strand ?
 
 igo LATER POEMS 
 
 Or is it thou, dear friend this Queen, whose 
 
 face 
 The salt of many tears hath scarred and 
 
 stung ? 
 
 Can it be thou, whose genius, ever young, 
 Lighting the body with the spirit's grace, 
 Is loved by England loved by all the race 
 Round all the world enlinked by Shake- 
 speare's tongue 1
 
 DICKENS RETURNS ON CHRISTMAS 
 DAY 
 
 A ragged girl in Drury Lane was heard to exclaim 
 "Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die 
 too ? " June g, 1870. 
 
 " DICKENS is dead ! " Beneath that grievous 
 
 cry 
 London seemed shivering in the summer 
 
 heat; 
 Strangers took up the tale like friends that 
 
 meet : 
 
 Dickens is dead ! said they, and hurried by ; 
 Street children stopped their games they 
 
 knew not why, 
 
 But some new night seemed darkening down 
 the street.
 
 192 DICKENS RETURNS 
 
 A girl in rags, staying her way-worn feet, 
 Cried, " Dickens dead ? Will Father Christmas 
 die?" 
 
 City he loved, take courage on thy way ! 
 
 He loves thee still, in all thy joys and fears. 
 Though he whose smile made bright thine eyes 
 
 of grey 
 Though he whose voice, uttering thy bur- 
 
 thened years, 
 Made laughters bubble through thy sea of 
 
 tears 
 Is gone, Dickens returns on Christmas Day !
 
 THE CHRISTMAS TREE AT "THE 
 PINES" 
 
 LIFE still hath one romance that naught can 
 
 bury 
 Not Time himself, who coffins Life's 
 
 romances 
 
 For still will Christmas gild the year's mis- 
 chances, 
 If Childhood comes, as here, to make him 
 
 merry 
 
 To kiss with lips more ruddy than the cherry 
 To smile with eyes outshining by their glances 
 The Christmas tree to dance with fairy 
 dances 
 
 And crown his hoary brow with leaf and berry. 
 
 N
 
 194 THE CHRISTMAS TREE 
 
 And as to us, dear friend, the carols sung 
 
 Are fresh as ever. Bright is yonder bough 
 Of mistletoe as that which shone and swung 
 When you and I and Friendship made a 
 
 vow 
 That Childhood's Christmas still should seal 
 
 each orow 
 
 Friendship's, and yours, and mine and keep 
 us young.
 
 PROPHETIC PICTURES AT VENICE 
 
 THE WALTZ AT THE VENETIAN REVELS, 
 NEW YEAR'S EVE, 1866 
 
 HAS she forgotten for such halls as these 
 The domes the angels built in holy times, 
 When wings were ours in childhood's flowery 
 
 climes 
 
 To dance with butterflies and golden bees ? 
 Forgotten how the sunny-fingered breeze 
 Shook out those English harebells' magic 
 
 chimes 
 On that child-wedding morn, 'neath English 
 
 limes, 
 
 'Mid wild-flowers tall enough to kiss her 
 knees?
 
 196 PROPHETIC PICTURES 
 
 The love that childhood cradled girlhood 
 
 nursed 
 
 Has she forgotten it for this dull play, 
 Where far-off pigmies seem to waltz and 
 
 sway 
 Like dancers in a telescope reversed ? 
 
 Or does not pallid Conscience come and 
 
 " Who sells her glory of beauty stands 
 accursed"? 
 
 But was it this that bought her this poor 
 
 splendour 
 That won her from her troth and wild- 
 
 flower wreath 
 Who " cracked the foxglove bells " on Gray- 
 
 land Heath, 
 
 Or played with playful winds that tried to 
 bend her,
 
 PROPHETIC PICTURES 197 
 
 Or, tripping through the deer-park, tall and 
 
 slender, 
 
 Answered the larks above, the crakes be- 
 neath, 
 Or mocked, with glitter of laughing lips and 
 
 teeth, 
 When Love grew grave to hide her soul's 
 
 surrender ? 
 Her soul's surrender I Well yon future 
 
 spouse 
 Paid nothing for the soul ! He bought, as 
 
 rake, 
 " A woman's points " : kisses these lips that 
 
 shake 
 The heart with wonder when they seal their 
 
 vows 
 
 These eyes where hues of sky and ocean take 
 All shapes of love these brows ! my darling's 
 brows !
 
 ig8 PROPHETIC PICTURES 
 
 The body knows me as I touch her waist 
 The fingers throbbing through the little 
 
 glove 
 
 The fingers trembling at my arm above 
 The breast whose pearls are heaving inter- 
 laced : 
 
 All know these arms of mine that once em- 
 braced. 
 Though I could give no palace only 
 
 love 
 
 That gift which " only a child had dared ap- 
 prove " 
 
 The soul's sweet temple holds me uneffaced : 
 The body feels me " crack" those foxglove bells 
 In this soft hand to "make the elfin 
 
 thunder " : 
 
 In these pink ears I think the music swells 
 To Fate's world-waltz that holds the stars 
 asunder :
 
 PROPHETIC PICTURES 199 
 
 But 'tis the soul has learnt what Mammon 
 
 sells : 
 
 As here we spin, what are its thoughts ? I 
 wonder. 
 
 II 
 
 THE TEMPTATION 
 
 THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT AFTER THE WALTZ AT 
 THE VENETIAN REVELS 
 
 WHEN hope lies dead ah, when 'tis death to 
 
 live, 
 And wrongs remembered make the heart 
 
 still bleed, 
 Better are Sleep's kind lies for Life's blind 
 
 need 
 
 Than truth, if lies a little peace can give. 
 A little peace 1 'tis thy prerogative, 
 
 O Sleep ! to lend it ; thine to quell or feed
 
 200 PROPHETIC PICTURES 
 
 This love that starves this starving soul's 
 
 long greed, 
 
 And bid Regret, the queen of hell, forgive. 
 Yon moon that mocks me thro' the uncurtained 
 
 glass 
 
 Recalls that other night, that other moon, 
 Two English lovers on a grey lagoon, 
 The voices from the lantern'd gondolas, 
 
 The kiss, the breath, the flashing eyes, and, 
 
 soon, 
 
 The throbbing stillness: all the heaven that 
 was. 
 
 (The Lover rises from his bed and opens the window. 
 While he looks out, a pearl necklace, to which is 
 suspended an amulet, an antique Venetian ruby cross, 
 is thrown in. This he takes from the floor and 
 examines with repeated exclamations of surprise. 
 After partly dressing himself as if to go out, he 
 suddenly stops, throws off his clothes, shuts the 
 window, hangs the necklace and cross on the antique 
 window-fastening; then returns to his bed and lies 
 watching the moonlight playing round the rubies.)
 
 PROPHETIC PICTURES 201 
 
 III 
 
 PROPHETIC PICTURES ON THE 
 WALLS 
 
 How red the light of New Year's morning falls 
 On each emblazoned pane whose tints illume 
 With prophecies the pictures round the 
 room ! 
 
 The warriors, doges, nobles, cardinals, 
 
 Battles, processions, floating festivals, 
 Venetian girls, Venetian dames a-bloom 
 With mid-life's chilly joys of gem andplume, 
 
 All leap to life upon the kindled walls. 
 
 Each painted vision seems a living part 
 
 Of Memory's pageant marshalled by my 
 
 grief. 
 It says, " The New Year garners no relief, 
 
 No solace for that anguish at thy heart." 
 The light that falls thro' yonder amulet 
 Makes every picture say, " Forget, forget."
 
 202 PROPHETIC PICTURES 
 
 IV 
 
 PROPHECY OF THE FIRST PICTURE 
 
 
 
 (The light falls through the rubies on the picture of 
 " The Dark Knight and the Ferryman. ' ' The Lover 
 reads aloud the descriptive verses on the frame.) 
 
 THE boatman sate with brawny arms em- 
 browned, 
 
 Steadying the wherry as it rocked afloat ; 
 The " Dark Knight " came, and on his shield 
 
 and coat 
 
 Symbols of doom and hell's devices frowned. 
 He leapt aboard. "Wilt row to Devil's 
 
 Ground 
 
 For gold ? " The man sate dumb with chok- 
 ing throat. 
 
 " Who finds the devil in his ferry-boat 
 Must row him," said his soul, " across the 
 sound." * 
 
 * " He who takes the devil in his boat must row across 
 the sound." OLD PROVERB.
 
 PROPHETIC PICTURES 203 
 
 To Devil's Ground he rowed, a sulphurous 
 
 coast ; 
 "Alight," said then the Knight, "'tis here 
 
 we dwell." 
 "Nay, Dark Knight, nay, though here my 
 
 boat hath crossed, 
 I asked thee not aboard." "Thou rowest 
 
 well; 
 Who ships the devil is not always lost, 
 
 But lost is he who rows him home to Hell." 
 
 V 
 
 PROPHECY OF THE SECOND PICTURE 
 
 (The light falls through the rubies on the picture of 
 "The Damsel of the Plain." The Lover reads 
 aloud the descriptive verses on the frame.) 
 
 CHILDE ROWLAND found a Damsel on the 
 
 Plain, 
 Her daffodil crown lit all her shining head ;
 
 204 PROPHETIC PICTURES 
 
 He kissed her mouth, and through the world 
 
 they sped, 
 The beauteous, smiling world, in sun and 
 
 rain. 
 But when long joys made love a golden 
 
 chain, 
 
 He slew her by the sea ; then, as he fled, 
 Voices of earth and air and ocean said, 
 " The maid was Truth : God bids you meet 
 again." 
 
 Between the devil and a wild, deep sea 
 He met a foe more soul-compelling still ; 
 
 A feathered snake the monster seemed to be, 
 And wore a wreath o' the yellow daffodil. 
 
 Then spake the devil : " Rowland, fly to me : 
 When murdered Truth returns she comes to 
 kill."
 
 PROPHETIC PICTURES 205 
 
 VI 
 
 PROPHECY OF THE THIRD PICTURE 
 
 (The light falls through the rubies on the Rosicrucian 
 panel-picture called " The Rosy Scar," depicting 
 Christian galley-slaves on board an Algerine galley 
 watching, on Christmas-eve, for the promised 
 appearance of Rosenkreutz as a " rosy -phantom." 
 The Lover reads aloud the descriptive verses on the 
 frame.) 
 
 "WHILE Night's dark horses waited for the 
 
 wind, 
 He stood he shone where Sunset's fiery 
 
 glaives 
 Flickered behind the clouds ; then, o'er the 
 
 waves, 
 
 He came to them, Faith's remnant sorrow- 
 thinned. 
 
 The Paynim sailors clustering, tawny-skinned, 
 Cried, 'Who, is he that comes to Christian 
 
 slaves ? 
 Nor water-sprite nor jinni of sunset caves,
 
 206 PROPHETIC PICTURES 
 
 The rosy phantom stands nor winged nor 
 
 finned." 
 
 All night he stood till shone the Christmas- 
 star; 
 
 Slowly the Rosy Cross, streak after streak, 
 Flushed the grey sky flushed sea and sail 
 
 and spar, 
 Flushed, blessing every slave's woe-wasted 
 
 cheek. 
 Then did great Rosenkreutz, the Dew-King, 
 
 speak : 
 
 " Sufferers, take heart, Christ lends the Rosy 
 Scar."
 
 PROPHETIC PICTURES 207 
 
 VII 
 
 NEW YEAR'S MORNING, 1867, AT VENICE 
 AFTER HER LIBERATION 
 
 (The Lover goes to the window and gazes down the Grand 
 Canal, over which the morning is glowing.) 
 
 "MAN'S knowledge, save before his fellow 
 
 man, 
 
 Is ignorance his widest wisdom folly. 
 In Nature's eyes still gazing, dazzled wholly 
 By sights his own eyes make, how should he 
 
 scan 
 
 Pictures like those in Nature's iris-span ? 
 Hers show the cypress, his the melancholy, 
 His shine with Christmas, hers with simple 
 
 holly 
 
 That knew no mirth till Yule-tide feasts began." 
 So Reason says ; yet to my heart it seems 
 That yonder sun, firing the mists of 
 morn,
 
 208 PROPHETIC PICTURES 
 
 Gilding each dome that scorned the Austrian's 
 
 scorn, 
 
 Painting the Grand Canal with rosy gleams, 
 Looks conscious down on me and vanished 
 
 dreams 
 
 But Freedom's year o'er Venice smiles 
 new-born 1
 
 WHAT THE SILENT VOICES SAID 
 
 A SONNET SEQUENCE 
 
 I 
 
 IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 "As the procession wound through the vast 
 fane, bars and curiously formed flakes of golden 
 light would, every now and then, break through 
 the gloomy atmosphere and play along the tops 
 of the arches and the roof." 
 
 " LOVE is the spirit's life and withers never : 
 We twain shall meet again on some bright 
 
 shore!" 
 
 So spake my heart, but still within its core 
 Whisper'd that foe who mocks the soul's en- 
 deavour : 
 
 " The very greatness of the man shall sever 
 
 O
 
 210 THE SILENT VOICES 
 
 Thy soul from such a soul so wing'd to 
 
 soar: 
 
 Love wins no starry strand that can restore 
 To thee a soul whose pinions mount for ever." 
 
 Though well I knew the voice was coward 
 
 Fear's, 
 It marred the solemn music in mine ears, 
 
 Till, sudden, through the vapour-curtain grey 
 Veiling the roof, fluttered a flake of light : 
 
 A golden hand it seemed : I saw it play 
 Along the roof along the " Lantern's " height. 
 
 II 
 
 THE GOLDEN HAND 
 
 WAS it a sign from those, forgot by Fame, 
 Who built the minster built by that same 
 spell
 
 THE SILENT VOICES 211 
 
 Which bids the honey-bee fit cell to cell 
 Who shaped in joy until dead stone became 
 A thing of life who worked with poet's aim 
 When seized by song to make what shall 
 
 compel 
 The maker's own fierce heart to say " 'Tis 
 
 well " 
 Careless for other praise, for other blame ? 
 
 For I recalled how scarce three years before 
 I followed Browning down the sacred floor, 
 When minster-spirits seemed to haunt the 
 
 fane : 
 Heroes of song and those whose blood was 
 
 spilt 
 For England and those nameless ones who 
 
 built 
 Our temple seemed to join the funeral 
 
 train.
 
 212 THE SILENT VOICES 
 
 III 
 
 THE GOLDEN SCROLL 
 
 " THAT beckoning hand," I said, " mysterious, 
 
 golden, 
 
 Playing along the roof in bright unrest 
 As if in welcome of this royal guest : 
 Comes it from those who built these arches 
 
 olden?" 
 
 But as I spoke it changed : a scroll unfolden 
 Shone with the master's words that oft had 
 
 bless'd 
 My heart in youth when, dark and sorely 
 
 press'd, 
 
 It yearned for light to strengthen and em- 
 bolden. 
 
 I read the words that helped me when a boy 
 Roaming with book in hand the Ousels side :
 
 THE SILENT VOICES 213 
 
 1 drew again, from founts that cannot cloy, 
 
 Draughts of immortal song, till Faith defied 
 Fear's hissing head, and poetry and joy 
 And youth returned, and grief was quelled 
 by pride. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE MINSTER SPIRITS 
 
 " BEHOLD, ye builders, demigods who made 
 England's Walhalla, ye who haunt this pile 
 Of living stone ! behold us here defile 
 
 Behind this pall, winding through light and 
 shade 
 
 Of arch and pillar, where such bones are laid 
 As Time can only breed in one loved isle 
 Tis Tennyson we bring : he was erewhile 
 
 Our king," I said ; " we loved him undis- 
 mayed ! "
 
 214 THE SILENT VOICES 
 
 Sorrow had fled ; for pride and joy of him 
 Made Life seem Death made Death seem 
 
 Life's own life 
 And more and more the mighty fane grew 
 
 rife 
 
 With spirits mighty. Yet mine eyes grew dim 
 For her who watch 'd at Aid worth, that dear 
 
 wife 
 He loved so well, when rose her loving hymn. 
 
 V 
 
 THE SILENT VOICES 
 
 SWEET was the sweet wife's music, and 
 
 consoling : 
 
 The past returned : I heard the master's talk, 
 That many a time in many a happy walk 
 I heard when through the whin of Aldworth 
 strolling,
 
 THE SILENT VOICES 215 
 
 Or on the cliffs of Wight with billows rolling 
 Below the jaggy walls of gleaming chalk : 
 Again I saw him stay his giant-stalk 
 To watch the foamy-crested breakers shoaling. 
 
 And when the music ceased and pictures fled 
 I walked as in a dream around the grave, 
 
 And looked adown and saw the flowers out- 
 spread, 
 
 And spirit- voices spake from aisle and nave: 
 " To follow him be true, be pure, be brave : 
 
 Thou needest not his lyre," the voices said. 
 
 VI 
 
 WHAT THE VOICES SAID 
 
 " BEYOND the sun, beyond the furthest star, 
 Shines still the land which poets still may win 
 Whose poems are their lives whose souls 
 within
 
 2i6 THE SILENT VOICES 
 
 Hold naught in dread save Art's high 
 
 conscience-bar 
 
 Who have for muse a maiden free from scar 
 Who know how beauty dies at touch of 
 
 sin 
 
 Who love mankind, yet, having gods for kin, 
 Breathe zephyrs, in the street, from climes 
 afar. 
 
 Heedless of phantom Fame heedless of all 
 Save pity and love to light the life of 
 
 Man 
 
 True poets work, winning a sunnier span 
 For Nature's martyr Night's ancestral thrall : 
 True poets work, yet listen for the call 
 
 Bidding them join their country and their 
 clan." 
 
 OCTOBER 1892
 
 COLERIDGE 
 
 I SEE thee pine like her in golden story 
 
 Who, in her prison, woke and saw, one 
 
 day, 
 The gates thrown open saw the sunbeams 
 
 Play, 
 With only a web 'tween her and summer's 
 
 glory; 
 
 Who, when that web so frail, so transitory, 
 It broke before her breath had fallen 
 
 away, 
 
 Saw other webs and others rise for aye 
 Which kept her prisoned till her hair was 
 hoary.
 
 218 COLERIDGE 
 
 Those songs half-sung that yet were all 
 
 divine 
 That woke Romance, the queen, to reign 
 
 afresh 
 
 Had been but preludes from that lyre of thine, 
 Could thy rare spirit's wings have pierced 
 
 the mesh 
 
 Spun by the wizard who compels the flesh, 
 But lets the poet see how heav'n can shine.
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 
 
 THE TWO CHRISTMASTIDES 
 
 I 
 ON Winter's woof, which scarcely seems of 
 
 snow, 
 
 But hangs translucent, like a virgin's veil, 
 O'er headstone, monument, and guardian- 
 rail, 
 The New Year's sun shines golden seems to 
 
 throw 
 Upon her coffin-flowers a greeting glow 
 
 From lands she loved to think on seems to 
 
 trail 
 
 Love's holy radiance from the very Grail 
 O'er those white flowers before they sink below.
 
 220 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 
 
 Is that a spirit or bird whose sudden song 
 From yonder sunlit tree beside the grave 
 Recalls a robin's warble, sweet yet strong, 
 Upon a lawn beloved of wind and wave 
 Recalls her " Christmas Robin," ruddy, 
 
 brave, 
 
 Winning the crumbs she throws where black- 
 birds throng ? 
 
 II 
 
 In Christmastide of heaven does she recall 
 Those happy days with Gabriel by the 
 
 sea, 
 Who gathered round him those he loved, 
 
 when she 
 
 " Must coax the birds to join the festival," 
 And said, " The sea-sweet winds are musical 
 With carols from the billows singing free
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 221 
 
 Around the groynes, and every shrub and 
 
 tree 
 
 Seems conscious of the Channel's rise and 
 fall"? 
 
 The coffin lowers, and I can see her now 
 
 See the loved kindred standing by her side, 
 As once I saw them 'neath our Christmas 
 
 bough 
 
 And her, that dearer one, who sanctified 
 With halo of mother's love our Christmas- 
 tide 
 And Gabriel too with peace upon his brow.
 
 TO A SLEEPER AT ROME 
 
 For the unveiling by Edmund Gosse of the 
 American memorial bust to the poet Keats in 
 Hampstead Parish Church, July 16, 1894. 
 
 THY gardens, bright with limbs of gods at 
 
 play 
 Those bowers whose flowers are fruits, 
 
 Hesperian sweets 
 That light with heaven the soul of him who 
 
 eats, 
 
 And lend his veins Olympian blood of day 
 Were only lent, and, since thou couldst not 
 
 stay, 
 Better to die than wake in sorrow, Keats,
 
 TO A SLEEPER AT ROME 223 
 
 Where even the Siren's song no longer 
 
 cheats 
 
 Where Love's long "Street of Tombs'* still 
 lengthens grey. 
 
 Better to nestle there in arms of Flora, 
 
 Ere Youth the king of Earth and Beauty's 
 
 heir, 
 
 Drinking such breath in meadows of Aurora 
 As bards of morning drank, ./Egean air 
 Wake in old age's caverns of Ellora, 
 
 Carven with visions dead and sights that 
 were !
 
 IN A GRAVEYARD 
 
 OLIVER MADOX BROWN 
 NOVEMBER 12, 1874 
 
 FAREWELL to thee, and to our dreams fare- 
 well- 
 Dreams of high deeds and golden days of 
 
 thine, 
 Where once again should Art's twin powers 
 
 combine 
 
 The painter's wizard-wand, the poet's spell I 
 Though Death strikes free, careless of Heaven 
 
 and Hell- 
 Careless of Man, of Love's most lovely shrine ; 
 Yet must Man speak must ask of Heaven a 
 
 sign 
 That this wild world is God's, and all is well.
 
 IN A GRAVEYARD 22$ 
 
 
 
 Last night we mourned thee, cursing eyeless 
 
 Death, 
 
 Who, sparing sons of Baal and Ashtoreth, 
 Must needs slay thee, with all the world to 
 
 slay ; 
 
 But round this grave the winds of winter say : 
 "On earth what hath the poet? An alien 
 
 breath. 
 
 Night holds the keys that ope the doors of 
 Day."
 
 TWO LETTERS TO A FRIEND 
 
 LETTER I. 
 AFTER THE WEDDING 
 
 BRIGHT-BROWED as Summer's self, who claspt 
 
 the land, 
 With eyes like English skies, where seemed 
 
 to play 
 
 Deep azure dreams behind the tender grey, 
 All light and love, she moved : I see her stand 
 Beneath that tree ; I see the happy band 
 Of bridesmaids on the lawn where blossoms 
 
 sway 
 
 In light so rare, it seems as if the day 
 Glowed conscious of the future's rosy 
 strand.
 
 TWO LETTERS TO A FRIEND 227 
 
 O Friend, if sun and wind and flowers and 
 
 birds, 
 
 In language deeper drawn than human words, 
 From deeper founts than Time shall e'er 
 
 destroy, 
 
 All spoke to thee in Summer's rich caress, 
 Even so my heart, though wordless too, 
 
 could bless ; 
 It could but feel a joy to know thy joy. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 AFTER DEATH'S MOCKERY 
 
 WHEN death from out the dark, by one blind 
 
 blow, 
 Strikes down Love's heart of hearts severs 
 
 a life 
 
 Cleaves it in twain as by a sudden knife, 
 Leaving the dreadful Present, dumb with woe,
 
 228 TWO LETTERS TO A FRIEND 
 
 Mocked by a Past, whose rainbow-skies aglow 
 O'erarch Love's bowers, where all his flowers 
 
 seem rife 
 
 In bloom of one sweet loving girl and wife 
 Then Friendship's voice must whisper, whisper 
 low. 
 
 Though well I know 'tis thou who dost inherit 
 Heroic blood and faith that lends the spirit 
 Strength known to souls like thine, of noblest 
 
 strain, 
 
 Comfort I dare not proffer. What relief 
 Shall Friendship proffer Love in such wild 
 
 grief? 
 I can but suffer pain to know thy pain : 
 
 I can but suffer pain ; and yet to me 
 
 Returns that day whose light seemed heavenly 
 light,
 
 TWO LETTERS TO A FRIEND 229 
 
 Whose breath seemed incense rising to unite 
 
 That lawn where every flower and bird and 
 
 bee 
 Seemed loving her who shone beneath that 
 
 tree 
 With lawns far off, whose flowers of higher 
 
 delight, 
 
 Beyond Death's icy peaks and fens of night, 
 Bloomed 'neath a heaven her eyes, not ours, 
 could see. 
 
 Brother, did Nature mock us with that glory 
 Which seemed to prophesy Love's rounded 
 
 story ? 
 
 Or was it that sweet Summer's fond device 
 To show thee who shall stand on Eden slopes, 
 Where bloom the broken buds of earthly 
 
 hopes 
 Stand waiting "heath a tree of Paradise ?
 
 ANCESTRAL MEMORY 
 
 i. 
 
 THE DEAF AND DUMB SON OF CRCESUS 
 
 HE saw their spears who scaled the parapet, 
 Then pouring, glittering, with a torrent's 
 
 force, 
 
 Through battered gates the spears ! With- 
 out remorse 
 
 He struck, he slew, round Croesus sore beset. 
 He heard not Slaughter's din, but felt her 
 
 sweat 
 And smelt her breath where many a bloody 
 
 corse, 
 
 Trampled by Persian camel, Lydian horse, 
 Showed how at Sardis Fate and Croesus met.
 
 ANCESTRAL MEMORY 231 
 
 But when he saw his father down at last 
 Down, waiting death at some fierce foeman's 
 
 stroke 
 Louder the dumb boy shrieked than Winter's 
 
 blast : 
 " Man, kill not Croesus ! " 
 
 Twas the Race that spoke : 
 The blood of Lydian Kings within him woke 
 Ancestral memory woke the sceptred Past.
 
 APOLLO IN PARIS 
 
 ; 
 
 TO THE FRENCH ACADEMY ON THE ELECTION 
 OF M. J. M. DE HEREDIA 
 
 I 
 
 SPIRES, roofs, and towers gleam in the sunset's 
 
 glow 
 
 Till Paris burns like some old poet-town 
 That draws Apollo's radiant presence down 
 By music mounting from his sons below : 
 Methinks he greets you, fearless men who know 
 His sons and guard them, lest their sire's 
 
 renown 
 Be dimmed when bastard fingers clutch the 
 
 crown 
 Of him, our Lord of light and lyre and bow.
 
 APOLLO IN PARIS 233 
 
 As when he scared the hordes who sacked old 
 
 Rome 
 
 That day he soared above his temple-dome 
 When gods were fleeing the voices of the 
 
 Vandals, 
 I see him now whose song keeps heaven 
 
 immortal ; 
 I see him now : he shines above your portal, 
 
 Phoebus from golden curls to golden 
 sandals ! 
 
 II 
 
 With limbs of light I see the song-god stand 
 Flushing your roof ! He knows your hands 
 
 are strong 
 
 Against his foes, the brazen-throated throng, 
 Whose breath is blight to beauty in every 
 land ;
 
 234 APOLLO IN PARIS 
 
 " Foes of my foes," saith he, " who dare with- 
 stand 
 The great coarse voice that works my 
 
 children wrong, 
 
 Ye crown He"re"dia with the crown of song 
 Heedless of all save Art's divine command ! 
 
 He sings the past the beauty that hath been : 
 I love him, I remembering those bright 
 
 days 
 
 Before the world grew grey of Vandal haze, 
 When gods might mix with men of godlike 
 
 mien 
 And maids with lovesome eyes of mortal 
 
 sheen, 
 
 Sweet goddesses of earth with Woman's 
 ways :
 
 APOLLO IN PARIS 235 
 
 III 
 
 I love the song-born poet, for that he 
 
 Loves only song seeks for love's sake alone 
 Shy Poesie, whose dearest bowers, unknown 
 
 To feudaries of Fame, are known to me." 
 
 So saith the god, in tones which seem to be 
 That music of the sunset richly blown 
 When sinks the sun-god from his sinking 
 throne 
 
 Within the burnished bosom of the sea. 
 
 He soars away, a star in rosy air ; 
 But see ! the memory of his presence there 
 Lives where he stood. Yea, though a god 
 
 hath fled, 
 
 Leaving a fading memory scarce beholden, 
 A true god's very shadow glimmers golden 
 With lovelier light than mortal brows can 
 shed.
 
 236 APOLLO IN PARIS 
 
 ENVOY. 
 
 The poet sings what Nature, dreaming, saith, 
 But still his Bride is Art that starry 
 
 wife 
 From shores where music ot the gods is 
 
 rife. 
 
 She teaches him the strain that conquereth, 
 Whether he touch the lyre, or breathe his 
 
 breath 
 Through flute of Phoebus or through Pan's 
 
 wild fife 
 
 Whether of Man he sings or Nature's life, 
 Or shining sward beyond the dykes of death. 
 
 Yet, though he asks but this, the Bride's 
 
 acclaim 
 Though not Fame's trumpet nor the wreath of 
 
 Fame
 
 APOLLO IN PARIS 237 
 
 Can give the bridegroom joy whose Bride is 
 
 Art- 
 He grieves when bastard-brows are crowned 
 
 with flowers, 
 
 And Helicon grows noisier than a mart 
 Remembering Poesie within her bowers.
 
 AT THE THEATRE FRANgAIS 
 
 ON THE REVIVAL, AFTER FIFTY YEARS, OF " LE 
 ROI S'AMUSE" 
 
 NOVEMBER 22, 1882 
 
 POET of pity and scourge of sceptred crime 
 Titan of light, with scarce the gods for 
 
 peers 
 What thoughts come to thee through the 
 
 mist of years, 
 
 There sitting calm, master of Fate and Time ? 
 Homage from every tongue, from every 
 
 clime, 
 
 In place of gibes, fills now thy satiate ears. 
 Mine own heart swells, mine eyelids prick 
 with tears
 
 AT THE THEATRE PRANQAISE 339 
 
 In very pride of thee, old man sublime ! 
 
 And thou, the mother who bore him, beauteous 
 
 France, 
 Round whose fair limbs what web of sorrow 
 
 is spun ! 
 I see thee lift thy tear-stained countenance 
 
 Victress by many a victory he hath won ; 
 I hear thy voice o'er winds of Fate and Chance 
 Say to the conquered world : " Behold my 
 soul"
 
 TO MADAME CARNOT* 
 
 Ax Dijon gleamed on that bright coun- 
 tenance 
 
 Illumed by love of thee and love of those 
 Who sprang from thee tears born of 
 
 coming woes. 
 
 The sad prophetic Spirit of joyous France 
 Wept too, methinks, to see her son advance 
 
 * " When the President reached Dijon he had the 
 happiness to find awaiting him on the railway platform 
 his son, the lieutenant, and his daughter and son-in-law, 
 with their little daughter, a sweet child of four. The 
 grandfather took her into his carriage, and embraced her 
 affectionately, and said how much more pleasant it would 
 be to get out and stay at Dijon with her than to go on to 
 Lyons. His eyes filled with tears as he gave her the 
 parting kiss, and handed her to her father." DAILY NEWS, 
 June 25, 1894.
 
 TO MADAME CARNOT 241 
 
 To death ; and when he kissed the child 
 
 there rose 
 That sight the Future's mirror sometimes 
 
 shows, 
 The mother-land in grip of Fate or Chance. 
 
 " Daughter," saith France to thee, " this day of 
 
 sorrow 
 Wins for his threatened land a sunnier 
 
 morrow : 
 His was the death could save me not 
 
 another : 
 
 For me thy dear one robbed thee of his life 
 For me fought, bosom bare yea, met the knife 
 Hell whetted for the bosom of his Mother."
 
 THE LAST WALK FROM BOAR'S HILL 
 
 TO A. C. S. 
 
 I 
 
 ONE after one they go ; and glade and heath, 
 Where once we walked with them, and 
 
 garden-bowers 
 They made so dear, are haunted by the 
 
 hours 
 
 Once musical of those who sleep beneath ; 
 One after one does Sorrow's every wreath 
 Bind closer you and me with funeral flowers, 
 And Love and Memory from each loss of 
 
 ours 
 
 Forge conquering glaives to quell the conqueror 
 Death.
 
 WALK FROM BOAR'S HILL 243 
 
 Since Love and Memory now refuse to yield 
 The friend with whom we walk through mead 
 
 and field 
 
 To-day as on that day when last we parted, 
 Can he be dead, indeed, whatever seem ? 
 Love shapes a presence out of Memory's 
 
 dream, 
 A living presence, Jowett golden-hearted. 
 
 II 
 
 Can he be dead ? We walk through flowery 
 
 ways 
 From Boar's Hill down to Oxford, fain to 
 
 know 
 What nugget-gold, in drift of Time's long 
 
 flow, 
 
 The Bodleian mine hath stored from richer 
 days;
 
 244 WALK FROM BOAR'S HILL 
 
 He, fresh as on that morn, with sparkling 
 
 gaze, 
 Hair bright as sunshine, white as moonlit 
 
 snow, 
 
 Still talks of Plato while the scene below 
 Breaks gleaming through the veil of sunlit 
 haze. 
 
 Can he be dead ? He shares our homeward 
 
 walk, 
 And by the river you arrest the talk 
 
 To see the sun transfigure ere he sets 
 The boatmen's children shining in the wherry 
 And on the floating bridge the ply-rope 
 
 wets, 
 Making the clumsy craft an angel's ferry.
 
 WALK FROM BOAR'S HILL 245 
 
 III 
 
 The river crossed, we walk 'neath glowing 
 
 skies 
 Through grass where cattle feed or stand 
 
 and stare 
 With burnished coats, glassing the coloured 
 
 air 
 
 Fading as colour after colour dies : 
 We pass the copse ; we round the leafy 
 
 rise 
 Start many a coney and partridge, hern and 
 
 hare; 
 
 We win the scholar's nest his simple fare 
 Made royal-rich by welcome in his eyes. 
 Can he be dead ? His heart was drawn to 
 
 you. 
 
 Ah ! well that kindred heart within him 
 knew
 
 246 WALK FROM BOAR'S HILL 
 
 The poet's heart of gold that gives the spell ! 
 Can he be dead ? Your heart being drawn to 
 
 him, 
 How shall ev'n Death make that dear presence 
 
 dim 
 
 For you who loved him us who loved him 
 well?
 
 THE OCTOPUS OF THE GOLDEN 
 ISLES 
 
 "What ! Will they even strike at me ? " 
 
 ROUND many an Isle of Song, in seas serene, 
 With many a swimmer strove the poet-boy, 
 Yet strove in love: their strength, I say, 
 
 was joy 
 To him, my friend dear friend of godlike 
 
 mien! 
 
 But soon he felt beneath the billowy green 
 A monster moving moving to destroy : 
 Limb after limb became the tortured toy 
 Of coils that clung and lips that stung 
 unseen.
 
 4 8 THE OCTOPUS 
 
 " And canst thou strike etfn me ? " the swimmer 
 
 said, 
 
 As rose above the waves the deadly eyes, 
 Arms flecked with mouths that kissed in 
 
 hellish wise, 
 Quivering in hate around a hateful head. 
 
 I saw him fight old Envy's sorceries : 
 I saw him sink : the man I loved is dead !
 
 LOVE HOLDS OF HEAVEN IN FEE 
 
 AT A FUNERAL 
 
 I 
 THESE tears, as down the slope Death's pageant 
 
 wends 
 These tears, whence come they tears I 
 
 cannot smother ? 
 
 Is it for thee they flow, my brother's brother? 
 Is it for him they flow, or these dear friends ? 
 My thoughts are far away where water bends 
 Around a grange my thoughts are with 
 
 that other 
 Who held thee yea, ere thou couldst babble 
 
 " Mother," 
 
 Who holds thee still by strength that never 
 ends.
 
 250 LOVE HOLDS OF HEAVEN IN FEE 
 
 She holds thee she who, like the mother- 
 dove, 
 
 Draws near her nestlings only to caress, 
 Whose love for thee, for them, boundless, 
 
 above 
 
 All other wealth of Woman's tenderness, 
 Is not their dower alone : its boon can bless 
 All eyes which see that mother's eyes of love. 
 
 II 
 
 She holds thee still : Love holds of heaven in 
 
 fee: 
 Still lives that face where Nature seemed to 
 
 write 
 
 Life's twin-ancestral story in mingled light 
 On lips whose smile was hers of love or glee, 
 In eyes whose pictures from the blue-grey sea, 
 Radiant of laughters, radiant in despite
 
 LOVE HOLDS OF HEAVEN IN FEE 251 
 
 Of shadowy bars from lashes dark as night, 
 Seemed like a sailor's memory haunting thee. 
 
 She holds thee still ; Death dares not dim that 
 
 face 
 Rich with the runes of each historic race, 
 
 Where, like the message of an olden scroll 
 Deep-glimmering in a priceless palimpsest, 
 The language of the past seemed half-exprest 
 
 Beneath the scriptures of a new-lit soul.
 
 THE WOOD-HAUNTER'S DREAM 
 
 THE wild things loved me, but a wood-sprite 
 
 said : 
 " Though meads are sweet when flowers at 
 
 morn uncurl, 
 And woods are sweet with nightingale and 
 
 merle, 
 Where are the dreams that flush'd thy childish 
 
 bed? 
 
 The Spirit of the Rainbow thou wouldst wed ! " 
 I rose, I found her found a rain-drench'd 
 
 girl 
 Whose eyes of azure and limbs like roseate 
 
 pearl 
 Coloured the rain above her golden head.
 
 THE WOOD-HAUNTER'S DREAM 253 
 But when I stood by that sweet vision's side 
 
 I saw no more the Rainbow's lovely stains ; 
 To her by whom the glowing heavens were 
 
 dyed 
 The sun showed naught but dripping woods 
 
 and plains : 
 " God gives the world the Rainbow, her the 
 
 rains," 
 
 The wood-sprite laugh'd, " our seeker nnds a 
 bride."
 
 MIDSHIPMAN LANYON 
 
 " Midshipman Lanyon refused to leave the 
 Admiral and perished." TIMES, June 30, 1893. 
 
 OUR tears are tears of pride who see thee 
 
 stand, 
 Watching the great bows dip, the stern 
 
 uprear, 
 Beside thy chief, whose hope was still to 
 
 steer, 
 Though Fate had said, " Ye shall not win the 
 
 land ! " 
 
 What joy was thine to answer each command 
 From him calamity had made more dear, 
 Save that which bade thee part when Death 
 
 drew near, 
 Till Tryon sank with Lanyon at his hand I
 
 MIDSHIPMAN LAN YON 255 
 
 Death only and doom are sure: they come, 
 
 they rend, 
 But still the fight we make can crown us 
 
 great : 
 Life hath no joy like his who fights with 
 
 Fate 
 Shoulder to shoulder with a stricken friend : 
 
 Proud are our tears for thee, most fortunate, 
 Whose day, so brief, had such heroic end.
 
 A REMINISCENCE OF THE OPEN-AIR 
 PLAYS* 
 
 TO PIERROT IN LOVE 
 
 THE CLOWN WHOSE KISSES TURNED A CRONE 
 TO A FAIRY-QUEEN 
 
 WHAT dost thou here, in Love's enchanted wood, 
 Pierrot, who once wert safe as clown and 
 
 thief- 
 Held safe by love of fun and wine and food 
 From her who follows love of Woman, 
 Grief 
 
 * Epilogue for the open-air performance of Banville's 
 " Le Baiser," in which Lady Archibald Campbell took the 
 part of " Pierrot " and Miss Annie Schletter the pa-t of 
 the " Fairy." COOMBE, August 9, 1889.
 
 THE OPEN-AIR PLAYS 257 
 
 Her who, of old, stalked over Eden-grass 
 Behind Love's baby-feet whose shadow 
 
 threw 
 
 On every brook, as on a magic glass, 
 Prophetic shapes of what should come to pass 
 When tears got mixt with Paradisal dew? 
 
 Kisses are loved but for the lips that kiss : 
 
 Thine have restored a princess to her throne, 
 Breaking the spell which barred from fairy 
 
 bliss 
 
 A fay and shrank her to a wrinkled crone ; 
 But, if thou dream'st that thou from Pantomime 
 
 Shalt clasp an angel of the mystic moon 
 Clasp her on banks of Love's own rose and 
 
 thyme, 
 
 While woodland warblers ring the nuptial- 
 chime 
 Bottom to thee were but a meek buffoon.
 
 258 THE OPEN-AIR PLAYS 
 
 When yonder fairy, long ago, was told 
 
 The spell which caught her in malign eclipse, 
 Turning her radiant body foul and old, 
 
 Would yield to some knight-errant's virgin 
 
 lips, 
 And when, through many a weary day and 
 
 night, 
 
 She, wondering who the paladin would be 
 Whose kiss should charm her from her grievous 
 
 plight, 
 
 Pictured a-many princely heroes bright, 
 Dost thou suppose she ever pictured thee ? 
 
 'Tis true the mischief of the foeman's charm 
 Yielded to thee to that first kiss of thine. 
 
 We saw her tremble lift a rose-wreath arm, 
 Which late, all veined and shrivelled, made 
 her pine ; 
 
 We saw her fingers rise and touch her cheek,
 
 THE OPEN-AIR PLAYS 259 
 
 As if the morning breeze across the wood, 
 Which lately seemed to strike so chill and 
 
 bleak 
 
 Through all the wasted body, bent and weak, 
 Were light and music now within her blood. 
 
 'Tis true thy kiss made all her form expand 
 Made all the skin grow smooth and pure as 
 
 pearl, 
 Till there she stood, tender, yet tall and 
 
 grand, 
 
 A queen of Faery yet a lovesome girl, 
 Within whose eyes whose wide, new-litten 
 
 eyes 
 
 New litten by thy kiss's re-creation 
 Expectant joy that yet was wild surprise 
 Made all her flesh like light of summer skies 
 When dawn lies dreaming of the morn's 
 carnation.
 
 260 THE OPEN-AIR PLAYS 
 
 But when thou saw'st the breaking of the spell 
 Within whose grip of might her soul had 
 
 pined, 
 Like some sweet butterfly that breaks the cell 
 
 In which its purple pinions slept confined, 
 And when thou heard'st the strains of elfin song 
 Her sisters sang from rainbow cars above 
 
 her 
 Didst thou suppose that she, though prisoned 
 
 long, 
 
 And freed at last by thee from all the wrong, 
 Must for that kiss take Harlequin for lover ? 
 
 Hearken, sweet fool ! Though Banville carried 
 
 thee 
 To lawns where love and song still share 
 
 the sward 
 Beyond the golden river few can see 
 
 And fewer still, in these grey days, can ford ;
 
 THE OPEN-AIR PLAYS 261 
 
 And though he bade the wings of Passion fan 
 Thy face, till every line grows bright and 
 
 human, 
 
 Feathered thy spirit's wing for wider span, 
 And fired thee with the fire that comes to man 
 When first he plucks the rose of Nature, 
 Woman; 
 
 And though our actress gives thee that sweet 
 
 gaze 
 Where spirit and matter mingle in liquid 
 
 blue- 
 That face, where pity through the frolic 
 
 plays 
 That form, whose lines of light Love's pencil 
 
 drew 
 
 That voice, whose music seems a new caress 
 Whenever passion makes a new transition 
 From key to key of joy or quaint distress
 
 z6a THE OPEN-AIR PLAYS 
 
 That sigh, when, now, thy fairy's loveliness 
 Leaves thee alone to mourn Love's vanished 
 vision : 
 
 Still art thou Pierrot naught but Pierrot ever ; 
 
 For is not this the very word of Fate : 
 " No mortal, clown or king, shall e'er dissever 
 
 His present glory from his past estate " ? 
 Yet be thou wise and dry those foolish tears ; 
 
 The clown's first kiss was needed, not the 
 
 clown, 
 
 By her who, fired by hopes and chilled by fears, 
 Sought but a kiss like thine for years on years : 
 
 Be wise, I say, and wander back to town.
 
 LECONTE DE LISLE 
 
 JULY 17, 1894 
 
 A REMINISCENCE OF THE JUBILEE REVIVAL 
 OF " LE ROI S 1 AMUSE " NOVEMBER 22, 1882 
 
 WHERE'ER thou art, canst thou forget that night 
 When, after fifty years, the victory came, 
 And Hugo throned above all thrones of 
 
 Fame 
 Watched his own mighty dream uncoil its 
 
 might, 
 
 And thou didst stand with shining locks of white 
 And eyes that, answering our proud hearts' 
 acclaim, 
 
 Lost all their arrowy mockeries, and became 
 Dim with the tears that made their lashes 
 bright ?
 
 264 LECONTE DE LISLE 
 
 Nirvana was thy quest ! But love like thine 
 For that great soul must bear thy kindled 
 
 soul 
 
 Where Love's high-chosen constellations shine 
 Of stars unmingled with the " loveless 
 
 Whole " : 
 
 When love hath coloured life with hues divine, 
 What poet seeks Nirvana's hueless goal ?
 
 TO BRITAIN AND AMERICA 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 YE twain who long forgot your brotherhood 
 And those far fountains whence, through 
 
 glorious years, 
 
 Your fathers drew, for Freedom's pioneers, 
 Your English speech, your dower of English 
 
 blood 
 Ye ask to-day, in sorrow's holiest mood, 
 
 When all save love seems film ye ask in 
 
 tears 
 " How shall we honour him whose name 
 
 endears 
 The footprints where beloved Lowell stood ? "
 
 266 TO BRITAIN AND AMERICA 
 
 Your hands he joined those fratricidal hands, 
 Once trembling, each, to seize a brother's 
 
 throat : 
 
 How shall ye honour him whose spirit stands 
 Between you still? Keep Love's bright 
 
 sails afloat, 
 For Lowell's sake, where once ye strove and 
 
 smote 
 
 On waves that must unite, not part, your 
 strands.
 
 TO MRS. GARFIELD 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 SUCH strength as his, striving in such a strife, 
 Will win at last : God gave thy dear one 
 
 all: 
 
 A seat above the conflict, power to call 
 Peace like a Zephyr, when alarms were rife ; 
 Home music too, children and heroine wife, 
 God gave : then gave Death's writing on the 
 
 wall, 
 And on the road the assassin : bade him 
 
 fall, 
 Death-stricken at the shining crest of Life.
 
 268 TO MRS. GARFIELD 
 
 And yet our tears are sweet. God bade him 
 
 taste 
 All gifts of heav'n, like manna raining 
 
 down 
 Clothed him with Good for Might, whose 
 
 sweet renown 
 
 Touched Ocean's lyre to music as it passed ; 
 Then crowned him thine indeed giving at last 
 Pain suffered well, thy Garfield's deathless 
 crown.
 
 JBs tbe same Butbor 
 
 Sixteenth Edition. In One Volume, Crown 8vo, gilt top. Price 6s. 
 
 AYLWIN 
 
 By THEODORE WATTS^DUNTON 
 
 Author of 
 
 " The Coming of Love s Rhona Boswell's Story " 
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 " The appearance of a novel from the hand of a poet and critic is an interesting event. 
 The interest of Mr Watts-Dunton's ' Aylwin ' is heightened also by the fact that the 
 author is known to have drawn largely on his reminiscences for his material to have 
 mingled Wahrheit and Dichtung. The reader, therefore, expects, and will not fail to find 
 himself in the company of some of the most remarkable men of genius of our time." 
 Times. 
 
 " The author of ' Aylwin ' has a certain kinship with the creator of Wilhelm Meister." 
 Literary World. 
 
 " A fascinating book, the outcome of real art, the reflex of a real personality. The mere 
 writing of it rises at times to the very poetry of prose." Academy. 
 
 " To name a finer love story than this would tax the best-stored memory." World. 
 
 "Full of the open air, full of passion, with a skilfully contrived plot, which hurries the 
 reader on breathless from page to page." Dr ROBERTSON NICOLL in the Sketch. 
 
 " Un r^cit tres po6tique, fort bien conduit. M. Dunton s'est attach^ a montrer qu 
 'aucun homme ayant aim6 une femme d'un profund amour spirituel ne saurait 6tre 
 materialiste.' Cette opinion est comme le leit-motiv de son ouvrage. Elle este exprim6e 
 avec un rare eloquence par divers personnages, surtout par le peintre d'Arcy, en qui les 
 lecteurs Anglais ont tout de suite reconnu un portrait de Rossetti, qui fut de son vivant 
 1'intinie ami de M. Dunton." Journal des Debate. 
 
 " A vivid, enthralling, absorbing love-story, full of movement, life and vigour. Its open- 
 air freshness, its thrilling interest, and its intense and noble passion, will make it one of 
 the most eagerly read novels of recent years." Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " The book is amazing in its variety and in its power, in the art with which it combines 
 the mystical with the actual, the pomp of society with the humour and the pathos of the 
 slum. Sinfl Lovell is one of the most finished studies of its type and kind in all romantic 
 literature." Daily News. 
 
 "We can recall no study of the love-passion that can compare with 'Aylwin. It 
 declines to be classed. It is of no school. It owns no lineage, acknowledges no tradition. 
 Its form is new, its ethical message is new." The Star. 
 
 " A poem in prose. Its style unpretentious, yet full of poetry ; its wide variety of 
 sympathy and diversity of scene particularly its subtle study of gipsy life, its vein of 
 personal reminiscence, and its spiritual teaching, combine to make it an addition, not 
 only to our best works of fiction, but to our masterpieces of prose." Literature. 
 
 " The words of ' Aylwin ' come ' straight from the heart,' and consequently go straight 
 to the heart." Athenaeum. 
 
 "Since 'Manon Lescaut' we have had no such tale of sentiment; and without doubt 
 the sentiment of Mr Watte-Dunton is of a higher sort than that of the Abb6 Prevost." 
 Standard. 
 
 " One of the wonders of ' Aylwin ' is the artistic power with which the spiritual essences 
 of wholly diverse characters are illustrated in a subtle unity, while at the same time the 
 human narrative goes on sheer and strong." Sun. 
 
 "Sinfi Lovell will probably prove one of the greatest heroines in fiction." Echo. 
 
 LONDON < HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED
 
 The Sequel to " Aylwin " is contained in 
 
 THE COHINQ OF LOVE 
 
 RHONA BOSWELL'S STORY 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 By THEODORE WATTS/DUNTON 
 
 Crown 8vo, 58. net. Fifth Edition 
 
 "In 'The Coming of Love' (which, though published earlier, is 
 a sequel to ' Aylwin ) he has given us an unforgettable, we cannot 
 but believe an enduring portrait ; one of the few immortal women 
 of the imagination. Rhona Bos well comes again into 'Aylwin.'" 
 Literature. 
 
 "On account of the haunting magic of ' The Coming of Love,' 
 Rossetti intended to use one of the scenes for a picture that 
 depicted in a sonnet called 'The Stars in the River,' which he 
 pronounced to be the 'most original of all the versions of the 
 " Doppelganger " legend.' " Athenaum. 
 
 "Superb writing; it has its chances for all time. Marked by 
 the poet's strongest characteristics, his rare art of describing by 
 successive images of strength and beauty. " Daily News. 
 
 " A work to which the student and the literary historian must 
 turn with feelings of reverence for many a generation to come. 
 'Rhona' surely has come to stay in English poetry." Sun. 
 
 "Gives the author a definite, permanent, and distinguished 
 position among present-day poets. Globe. 
 
 "Original and interesting, fresh in subject and feeling." The 
 Times. 
 
 "Has the distinctive quality of not resembling the work of any 
 other poet." Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " 'The Coming of Love' is a striking story, powerfully told." 
 Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " Here unquestionably is the grand style which Arnold so often 
 desiderated in modern verse. By the sonnets in the second half of 
 his volume, Mr Watts-Dunton ranks among the foremost of living 
 poets." St James" Gazette. 
 
 " In a succession of tableaux sometimes so vivid and realistic 
 that we seem to be looking at a canvas rather than a printed page ; 
 at other times as cloudy and uncanny as the shadow-scenes depicted 
 in a beryl stone or magic crystal, Mr Watts-Dunton contrives to 
 present before us the evolution of a soul." Sketch. 
 
 JOHN LANE 
 THE BODLEY HEAD LONDON AND NEW YORK
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 JUBILEE GREETING AT SPITHEAD 
 
 TO THE 
 
 MEN OF GREATER BRITAIN 
 
 Crown 8vo, is. net. 
 
 Opinions of the Press. 
 
 " His verses breathe the spirit of fraternity among all 
 the peoples of the Empire." Times. 
 
 "You may count on one hand, and still have fingers to 
 spare, those bards on whom the national muse has smiled. 
 But Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton has come out of the 
 ordeal as one of the distinguished few. His 'Jubilee 
 Greeting ' embodies real patriotism and real poetry." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 "The Jubilee has not gone by without at least one 
 poetical commemoration of dignity and merit. It has 
 genuine emotion and living imagery." Bookman. 
 
 " The poem is a noble one." Literary World. 
 
 " From first line to last Mr. Watts-Dunton preserves a 
 lofty tone, such as befits his lofty theme." 
 
 Black and White. 
 
 "His strong, sure style, and the rich colouring he 
 employs, are equally admirable." Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 " Full of colour, glow, feeling and passion." 
 
 Daily Mail. 
 
 " A poem in which the expansion of England is cele- 
 brated in stanzas of great beauty and power." 
 
 Yorkshire Herald.
 
 Spirited and patriotic." Guardian. 
 
 " Contains some fine patriotic poetry." Leeds Mercury. 
 
 " From the accomplished pen of Mr. Theodore Watts- 
 Dunton, whose poetical work is destined before long (we 
 believe) to receive the widespread appreciation it deserves." 
 
 Globe. 
 
 " This poem is interesting by reason of its daring 
 attempt to throw the glamour of poetry upon modern 
 ships of war." Morning Leader. 
 
 " This noble composition ... is necessarily something 
 of a battle cry." Daily News. 
 
 "The great Naval Review has here been made the 
 occasion for publishing a patriotic poem of high merit by 
 Mr. Watts-Dunton." Christian World. 
 
 "Among the many poems written in honour of the 
 Longest Reign Celebration. Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton's 
 1 Greeting at Spithead ' attracts the attention." 
 
 Morning Post. 
 " Fine verses in an exalted vein of Imperial patriotism." 
 
 St. James's Gazette. 
 
 "The whole ode is animated by a noble and virile 
 spirit." British Review. 
 
 "A splendid contribution to our treasury of patriotic 
 poetry." Glasgow Herald. 
 
 " One bard, and one only, in England has clothed in 
 deathless song the spirit of this stirring period of Imperial 
 triumph. Mr. Watts-Dunton is amongst the first makers 
 of nineteenth-century verse." African Critic. 
 
 " Brother craftsmen will appreciate the skill with which 
 phrase is built upon phrase and line upon line, each 
 stanza being wrought powerfully to a clinching close. 
 Here practically is a new voice in English poetry with an 
 accent and a message of its own." Athenteum.
 
 ^ JOHN LANE J^i 
 
 HE AD ,83 
 VIQOS T 
 
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 LONDON 
 
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 I8g8 
 
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