Ex Libris C, K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES I BROTHER FABIAN'S MANUSCRIPT ; AND OTHER POEMS. BY SEBASTIAN EVANS. IToniron anb Cambribgc: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1865. LONDON : R. CLAV, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL. PR CONTENTS. BROTHER FABIAN'S MANUSCRIPT. PAGE HOW THE ABBEY OF SAINT WEREWULF JUXTA SLINGSBY CAME BY BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT .... 3 THE THREE KINGS OF COLOGNE 37 ST. BERNARD • 4^ A CHARM 48 OF ROBIN hood's DEATH AND BURIAL 5I JUDAS ISCARIOT's PARADISE 60 Charlemagne's daughter 74 NICKAR the soulless I02 the FIFTEEN DAYS OF JUDGMENT 12$ POEMS. HARVEST HOME I4I A PROUD BEAUTY I $6 VI CONTENTS. PAGE MIDSUMMER EVE l6l VOICES 162 the winter morn 164 the'banners 165 by the sea 166 rouge et noir 167 SHADOWS 172 THE SEVEN FIDDLERS 174 SONG 177 AMERICA 178 2)er Xob als greunb i8i A SPRING-TIDE WELCOME 1 86 GARIBALDI 189 SONG 193 A DIRGE FOR SUMMER I94 CROCUS-GATHERING I96 INSTEAD OF A TRANSLATION FROM B^RANGER .... 1 97 ABSENCE 198 A ROUNDELAY 199 WHAT THE TRUMPETER SAID 200 JOCK O' GLEN MORISTANE 202 THE PURITAN MILITANT 205 SAFI 208 THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 224 A DREAM ON NEW YEAR's EVE 229 CONTENTS. VU PAGE A STORY OF A STONE 23I A housekeeper's story 233 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 24O CAVOUR 242 RELIGIO POET^ 248 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 249 A CHRISTMAS DREAM 262 BROTHER FABIAN'S MANUSCRIPT. Siiscipe corde bono garlaiidam qtiam tili ilono. Toilet laiii^iwres diligatis si niodo flores. HOW THE ABBEY OF SAINT WEREWULF JUXTA SLINGSBY CAME BY BROTHER FABIAN'S MANUSCRIPT. Scene — Saint Werewulfs Cloisters. A.D. 1497. Time — Afternoon. Prior Hugo speaks. You know Saint Wigbald's, — yonder nunnery cell Out there, due South, some fourteen furlongs hence % — Well, five years since, — five ? — six, come Michaelmas, While old Dame Chesslyn, bless her pious soul. Still Prioress, tended that good Saint's ewe-lambs, This tome you speak of, then itself a nun, Fruitlessly holy, waxing year by year Yellow and yellower in virginity, B 2 4 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. Graced the refectory lettern. Truth to tell, Of all the sisters, six besides the dame, Was only Margery who could read at all. Now, John the Archbishop, (some four years it was Since Bourchier peradventure went to Heaven, And John, translated to the archbishopric From Ely, himself as slippery as an eel, Wriggled right busily in the Church's mud,) Just then, to clinch his pastoral on the wear Of broidered girdles, silken liripoops, Swords, daggers and such vanities, thought meet To swinge Saint Werewulf s with a special charge, A rasping monitory, five skins long ; Four and nine-tenths a schedule of our sins m Item on item, bearing each the name Of some delinquent brother fairly engrossed, And, these recited, stinglike in the tail. Came threats of visitation. Heaven knows what. All ills on this side Purgatory and Hell, Unless we all in three-score days exact BROTHER FABIAN'S MANUSCRIPT. Abjured the nether trinity, world, flesh, fiend, And donned the radiant nimbus of the Saints. Straight, Blaize, our Abbot, red with saintly wrath, Summons us all to meet him ; reads the charge, And bids us all digest it ; storms and fumes, Dubs us all liars, hypocrites, and fools ; — Swears he foretold the issue. There was one, A lurching, lean-lipped, lollardizing loon. Whom we all hated : " Brother Joce," quoth Blaize, " Some blatant lollard slanderer of the faith " No doubt hath played the spy on us, and blabbed. " My lord Archbishop sneaps us for our sloth ; " 'T is time I startled some of ye ! Suppose " 1 take and roast you for a heretic 1 " Pitch you like Prophet Jonas to the whale, " And still the storm you have raised about our ears " Take rede, Sir Lollard ! " So he frowned and left, And hastened to Saint Wigbald's through the fields. " Gramercy, Abbot," quoth the Dame, " what ails ? 6 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. " Gout 1 No, it can't be gout, you have walked too quick. " Anything wrong at Malton with the Grange 1 " Or Ralph among the deer again 1 What, — no? " Well, then 'tis Joce ! — I'll swear an oath 'tis Joce ! " " Peace, wench ! " says he, " his grace of Canterbury " Has heard your doings at Saint Wigbald's here, " And swears to scourge ye with a whip of steel ! " What ! Is your house in order ? I must see " And make report ! " — Lord, how the poor soul cried And cursed the lollards ! What, you marvel how I know she cursed them 1 Thus ; — I heard her curse. — You see, the Abbot walked across the fields ; — I, skirting by the fence along the lane. I knew of course that, like the holy oil On Aaron's head, which trickled to his beard. And thence dropped fatness on his garment's hem, The precious balm with which the Archbishop broke Dan Blaize's pate would fall irriguous down And reach Saint Wigbald's first unless I sped ; BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. 7 So, lest the sweet inunction, oozing forth, Should chance to anoint the sisters unawares, I thought I'd just let Margery hear the news, And Well, in short, Blaize tramped Saint Wigbald's through, Chapel and chamber, cellar, dortour, all ; The Dame behind him : not a kinder soul E'er lived than Dame Aylse Chesslyn. As they passed Through the refectory to the strangers' hall, Blaize caught a glimpse of something on the desk ; And knowing how bare Saint Werewulf's was of books, Stept up to inspect the volume : " Ha, what's this 1 — " H'm, — sermons, — Fabian, — 'tis a clerkly hand ; — " You don't much use them, mother ! " Here he wiped The dust from thumb and finger on her hood. " We are short of books up there. Suppose we say " I take the book and send you a brace of trout " On Fridays every year the season through 1 " Come, is 't a bargain 1 " " Nay," says she, " you know, 6 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT, ^' Abbot, where Abel snares you all your trout. " There 's never a scale of trout in Slingsby brook, " And though I bid Ben Gogolai not keep count " How many Abel poaches, every fish, " If all had right alike, belongs to me. " Besides, that book, — the Archdeacon said himself " 'T was worth St. Wigbald's whole year's rent twice told ; " And more, I would not part with it — " " Well, well, " No matter ! " quoth the Abbot, but the Dame Felt that he meant to have the book, and would. But how 1 Well, maybe you remember him, Young Randal, nephew of the Prioress 1 A scholar here at the Abbey, where he learnt At least how not to learn the sciences : For what with our abundant lack of clerks, Our liking for the lad and his for play, The schooling, trivial and quadrivial, all Fared at the best but evil. Doctrinal, BROTHER Fabian's manuscript, Donat and /Esop, Cato, small and great, At seven years' end, I take it, still for him Were dark as Daniel or the Apocalypse. No less he fomid books useful. Once, indeed, He sent a poet soaring through the skies Who never else had reached them, Theodule, With his /Ethiopum terras torn to strips And twisted in a kite-tail. More, he learnt To play at knucklebone with augrim stones. And found his abacus expressly scored For nine-men's morris on an indoor scale. So that, you see, all told, he might have trussed His sum of scholarship in one round O, Had it been worth the trussing. Blaize himself, Not being poet Marcian, who contrived That wondrous wedding of Dan Mercury Once on a time to Dame Philology, Could find no foil to fix his quicksilver. " Curst knave ! " says he, " why learn ye not to read % lO BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT. " There's nought but gallows in your gait and eye, — " Gallows from boot to birret, top to toe, " Yet ye dare scofif at clergy ! Come the day " When ye're caught tripping in your pranks, how then 1 " What, can't even spell a neckverse 1 Learn, I say ! " For of all knaves that ever God let live, " Unless all promises fail and saws prove false, " Thou'lt most rue lack of clergy ! " " Nay, no fear," Quoth Randal, " You are surety for my life ! " No judge will bid you live that bids me hang ! " Faith, had you bought knave Randal for a fool, Knave Randal soon had sold you for the same ! You should have seen him on Saint Nicholas' day, When he was Abbot of Misrule, and shaved Dickon Precentor clean on half his face, And tonsured half the bristles of his scalp : " My son," (}uoth he, " Thou'rt drunk but thrice a week. " I cannot make thee more than half a monk ! " Once, too, on Innocents' eve, the day we showed BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. IT Hell Harrowed in the chancel every year Before we turned the pageants out of church, He read us such a gibe !— Our stage, you know, Rested upon the roodloft, just above My stall and Blaize's, all the screen below Hid by the arras of the Amazons : — Randal presented Belzebub that year : But when Saint Peter on his bugle horn Had blown tantivy for the final soul. And locked the elect within the golden gates, Lo, on a sudden, forth leaps Belzebub, Vaults from the roodloft with a sobresault Into the pulpit. " What care I ? " quoth he ; " Well robbed, well rid ! Yon feeless Janitor " Up there, I ween, hath weightier cause than I " To howl a Dc Profiindis ! Saw ye e'er " Such lenten lozels as these saintly souls % " Prime booty, be they not, for Heaven to steal ? " Poor skulking lazars, bare of cross and pile 12 BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. " As toads of fur or feather ! Ragman's Roll " Would take precedence of their calendar ! " Bah ! let the churls live happy ! I am content ! " But you, my gallant masters, fear ye not ! " Mine own dear muttons of Saint Werewulf s fold ! " Ye claim no kindred with these babes of grace ! " In yonder kingdom ye nor sow nor mow ! " No, ye are mine, sweet souls, for ever mine ! " O, ere ye schooled me, I was dunce as dull " As Satanas or Lucifer, — unskilled " Even to hold yon souls of right mine own, — " A mere untutored prentice in my craft ! " But now, accepted brother of your guild, " And master in all mysteries of sin, " Shall I forget, nor quite ye for the boon 1 " Nay, my seraphic doctors ! Never yet " Was Belzebub ungrateful to his peers ! " O, ye shall feast with cardinals and kings ; " And all the purpled demi-gods of fame " At Hell's high table. Dives in the midst, BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT. . 1 3 " Where nevermore shall thief break in and steal " /;/ scECida sceculoi'iim ! Lo, even now " I go to spread the banquet for my guests ! " With that, my knave louts low and wags his tail, Clambers from desk to roodloft like a cat, And skips again into the jaws of Hell ! Well, 't was one Thursday, just on Michaelmas, At daydawn, Randal starts him off to fish Down at Saint Wigbald's ; — Whether he knew no trout Were in the brook, or whether he hoped for sport More to his mind in the Dame's private pond Behind the cell, — or whether as I surmise, Diabolo instigante, — God best knows ; But down he walked to the triangular stew Sacred to poor Dame Aylse's favourite luce. The Dame, — she had some wry whimsies in her skull, — Had wont each morn and even, rain or shine, To cross the croft to this triangular pool And ring her silver sanctus on the marge, — 14 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. The bell, by the way, — a gift from Ulverscroft, Rang oftener far at mass for Sir John Pike Than for the sisters, and Sir John, who lurked Plotting his raids among the chestnut roots That weave a wattled rampart round the bank Against the lower floodgate, — when he heard, Would dart from out his hiding with a swirl. And shoal on shoal of startled sticklebacks Leap silver-sided, flash on flash before, Like sprays of osier when the summer wind Toys with their upturned leaves, while to and fro, All proud at heart of argent-damasked mail And glistening hinges of his golden fins, The knightly vassal of the pool glanced by To claim his sovereign's largess. If to-day She brought a full-fed frog, (she docked the feet Before she gave him frogs,) to-morrow came A brace of gudgeon or a slice of beef; Except indeed on Fridays, when the fare Was only rye-bread manchet, soaked in milk. BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. 1 5 She had her faults, good dame, — for who is free 1 But none can say she ever gave her fish Flesh on a Friday. Once in every year Moreover, at Saint-John's-tide, after mass, The Prioress marched with all the sisterhood And Abel and Ben Gogolai to the pool And weighed her darling. 'T was a sight to see Ben Gogolai wheedling with a landing-net, And Abel with the steel-yard, Michael-like, Waiting, till spooned out on the shaven turf Ben clutched the brute adroitly by the eyes And coiled him gasping in the scale ; — that year I well remember, he just turned nine pounds. Well, down steps Randal to the pool, when, lo, Just as he pinned his gudgeon on the hook, A herd of fat geese from the grange-yard gate Marched cackling through the meadow. Quick as thought, Randal was in among them, gripped the neck Of him who gabbled loudest, held him tight, 1 6 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Bore him, a fluttering prisoner to the pool, Made fast his line, — the gudgeon on the hook. About the fowl's left leg and let him swim. Dame Juliana Berners, by the way, Had taught this double treatment in her tract Then lately printed with new-fangled types By Caxton at Saint Al ban's, which discourse Being sent, a gift from Sopwell to my Dame, Was read to Randal through by Margery, Not without profit, — as the gander felt. Meanwhile, Ben Gogolai, — What ? — You don't know Ben ? The curst old Hebrew with the wooden leg 1 Why, he was half the income of the cell ! 'T was Blaize, — of course, first saw the man's true worth, Transmuted him by alchemy to gold, And minted him. You see, when first he came, Ben stumped on errands for the Prioress, Tended the geese, fetched water, piled the logs, Did all that none else would, got cuffs and kicks, BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. 1 7 Victualled on orts, — if ever he got the bones Before the greyhound, he fared sumptuously. Blaize came, saw, christened ! — Why, the noise it made Was worth a farm in fee. A Hebrew Jew Christened at Easter in Saint Werewulfs font 1 Never a hallow in five counties round Was half so holy ! Blaize and Ben were saints, And the whole house a pattern to the world ! Alas ! so warm a piety, zeal so true Found such sweet favour with the Cherubim That soon 't was all translated to the skies ! At least, none lingered here below. Ere long Blaize was again but Blaize, and Ben was Ben, Not saints, nor one nor 't other. Still, our fame Bruited abroad, pricked other Abbots' souls To achieve the like, and Blaize, who deemed it shame To waste such wealth of glory on himself, Farmed the old Jew to others. Twenty marks In gold the Abbot of St. Alban's gave To rebaptize Ben Gogolai, — twenty-five c 1 8 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. The Abbot of St. Edmund's, so throughout, As each in turn converted and baptized, Called the lost sheep of Judah to the fold, And showed the world an Israelite indeed. Ben's single leg was a sore cross to Blaize : Had he had two, Ben might have dyed his beard, Filched a new suit, and been another Jew, Aaron or Levi, Solomon or Saul, Fit for a fresh conversion. As it was, 'T was hardly politic to baptize him twice Within a lifetime in the self-same font. Failing more baptism, Blaize, who ever sought The glory of God, next thought of miracle. Could Heaven restore the Hebrew's missing shank. We, too, might walk more firmly, and support Fresh fame on that new pillar of the Church. Deaf brother Cradock was a skilful leech And mainly cunning in chirurgery. All that Salerno, all that Oxford taught BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. tp Of medicine, magic and astrology From Galen, Haly or Averroes, Gilbert or Gatsden, Gordon, Glatisaunt, Was Cradock skilled in. Marry, if e'er a leech By leechcraft could work miracle, 't was he ! But though the leg he fashioned was a leg As natural as a Christian's, for indeed 'T was shaped in willow on Saint Luke's day hewn, The planets all propitious, save perhaps That envious Saturn stood just one degree Too nigh the ascendant, — though the Hebrew's stump To fit it featly had been seared again With actual cautery when the moon was full, Though the fair childlike skin, right cheveril, shamed Its fellow's true Jew leather, — still, the knee, Perversely unmiraculous, eschewed All offices of kneeship ; first too lax, — Then, when the thews were braced, as much too stiff, Then, when the happy medium seemed just hit, Lax when 't was wanted stiff, and stiff when lax. C 2 20 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. Maugre all Cradock's art, apostate still, Ben without crutch could only at best achieve Good-fellow's gait, two stumbles and a fall ; And though Saint Werewulf, doubtless, at a \nnch Would have wrought fifty miracles at once, Had each one single leg to stand upon, 'T was clear the leg that foundered with a Jew Could never bear both Jew and miracle. " Yea, brother Cradock, 'tis a goodly leg," Quoth Blaize, " a marvel ! Avicen himself " Ne'er wrought more artificial counterfeit ! " Yet, for we live not in the good old days, " And these New-Learning firebrands of the faith " Singe us so closely, that 't were well to fling " No touchwood nigh them, — 't were improvident " For Providence to interpose herein ! " 'T were best, I think, to drop the miracle : " The leg will give us a name for works of alms." And so the miracle dropped, and Ben dropped too, BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. 2 1 Into a mere Jew menial of my Dame's, A mongrel cowherd, verdurer, messenger, Lord Paramount of Saint Wigbald's geese and fish. Well, as I said before you snapped my web Of chronicle, Randal scarce had turned adrift His gander with the gudgeon tied to his leg, When down limps Ben, blaspheming through the croft. The Avenging Fate of goose-rape, halt but dread, Breathing out scourge and cudgel, foam on beard : — " Thief, thief ! — The goose, the goose ! — Thou Naza- rene hound, " Come thou within the circle of my crutch " ril score a charm on thy Barabbas hide " Shall teach thee chant Peccavi for a month " To the tune of Os fregisti ! " Down he bears Like a lop-sided pirate caravel Banging his mangonels as he rolls and nears. Just as he skirts the pool, up Randal leaps, 22 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. Butts at his ribs full-tilt without a word, Rolls him plump backwards, sprawling on the turf. Clutches his timber peg, and with a wrench Unscrews it from the stump and leaves him flat, An Israelite spread-eagle, one leg couped. — Then, fiddler-like, while low the Avenger lies, The leg for viol, and the crutch for bow, Rattles a Jubilate in his ears. " So-ho ! " he chuckles, "have I drawn your sting, " Old hornet Judas % Will you teach me chant, " My bird of Paradise % Come, suppose you try " Adhesit pavimcnto, — Ecce nunc, " Or Vir beat us qui nan abiit, ''■ Eh, my heraldic martlet?'' But, meanwhile, Sir John the pike, who has not yet broke his fast. Eyes greedily Randal's gudgeon as it trails Behind the gander, tempting, silvery sweet, Darts out and gulps it bodily, hooks and all ; Not waiting, graceless infidel, to mark BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. 23 That still unblessed, the perilous morsel lacks The matins-tinkle of the silver bell. Now clangs the din of battle ! — Gander, pike, Pike, gander, tugging, wrestling for the life ! "Hooked, by Saint Wigbald, hooked !"— Off Randal skips, Flinging Ben's leg and crutch with dexterous aim Athwart the feathered fisher's mid career ; Clapping his hands and dancing on the marge As though Saint Vitus kicked him. Ben the while, Dumb-struck at first, incredulous of the crime, Sits up and stares bewildered : then, the truth Through the eyes brainward filtering drop by drop, 'Gins howl " Thieves ! — murder ! — help ! my leg ! the - pike!" Till, as the royal fray 'twixt fowl and fish Still fiercer waxes, he forgets to howl. And watches — eye, mouth, nostril all agape. Gabbling and plashing half across the pool, 2 4 BROTHER FABIAN'S MANUSCRIPT. A fleet of goose-down scudding in his wake, Wrestles the gander, straining web and wing. — Suddenly halts, — a charm-wrecked argosy Dreamily foundering in enchanted deeps, The feathery poop half tugged beneath the waves By a live anchor. Up he flaps again, Like a mad trampler in a vintage-vat. Churning the ripples into foam, his head Now ducking fruitlessly beneath the surge, Now lifted cackling his despair to Heaven ! A lull ! — Sir John fights sulky. Randal's bird Now prematurely jubilant, as before Despairing prematurely, wags his tail And prunes his ruflled pinions, gabbling low The while a ditty of gracious self-applause. Again the poop bobs under ! — Off he starts. The craziest he of biped lunatics, A gander desperate ! Universal earth. Itself fast shuddering into chaos, holds BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. 25 But one thing certain, that the pool's bewitched ! Within the unhallowed banks weird sorcery lurks Fatal to goose-kind ! With a spooming plunge That trails his torturer victim in his wake He wrestles shoreward, paddling piteously With impotent neck outstretched beyond the marge, So freely near, so inacessible, With that lithe fiend still jerking at his leg : Till Randal, conscious of the coming Dame, Clutching the chance and outstretched neck at once With his right hand, falls flat, and with his left Gropes for his pike-line in the muddy ooze, Unmoors the hapless proxy of his rod, And lands Sir John in triumph. — Ben, the while, Weary of shouting, emptied of his oaths, Turns his grey muzzle to the grass and groans. But what about this volume 1 Nay, no haste ! — You laymen are impatient, — live too quick ! Albertus, in the unfathomable gloss 2 6 HROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT. Whicli moats his version of the Apocalypse •: Against the siege of modern heretics, 'T is true, interpreted beyond a doubt The world to verge on Antichrist and Doom More than two centuries since : — still, here we are ! And, say these lollard Doctors speak sheer truth About the Scarlet Woman in the sun And other like conundrums, here we are. Walking Saint Werewulf's cloisters. Two hours hence We sup with Blaize in the refectory : Till then, what matter how we slay the time 1 Granted your science and philoso])hy Divine and human are momentous things : — I am loath to cavil : — still, my tale 's of geese ! Patience ! The tale will end before we sup. Now, so Saint Werewulf or the devil ordained. As Randal, flushed with guilt and triumph, sneaked In at Saint Werewulf's orchard-gate, prize-fraught. Full front he met the Abbot : " Ha, sir Knave, BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. 27 " What mischief now ? — By'r lady, a noble luce ! — " Where gat ye such 1 " He lifts Sir John by the eyes And weighs him by the scale of arm and eye : " Within five ounces of ten pound," quoth he, " Where gat ye — " Then the treacherous secret flashed Across his brain. " Saint Wigbald ! 'T is my Dame's ! " Dame Aylse's darling ! Why, thou Judas imp ! " Unnatural varlet ! — Sirrah, to my cell ! " I'll teach ye how to angle with a rod, " Poaching your — aunt's pet luce ! " Oft' Randal shnks : " Stop ! " thunders Blaize, the grin about his mouth As like the pike's he held as egg to egg, — " I have spared the rod too long and spoilt the child : " Hanging's the only heal for neck so stiff"! " Mark me, — hie straightway to my Solomon room " And creep behind the arras ! If one soul " Catch sight of one-ninth part of a hair of thine " Till I release thee, 't were as good to dance 28 BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT. " At high noon, honied, on a hornet's nest " Nqjced, as meet me after ! Quick, be off ! " Back strides the Abbot to the buttery hatch, Leaves the Dame's pike in charge of pantler John : " Mark, — stuffed, and sodden with sweet herbs and wine, " And, mind, no hint of garhc !" — starts once more Down to Saint Wigbald's sorely vexed at heart. Meanwhile, the Dame and Margery, hearing Ben Bawling for help, steered Jewry-ward full sail, Almost ere Randal's heels were out of sight. Ben, who till now had ever known the Dame Tender and pitiful-hearted as a Saint, Whined out his grief with groans that might have wrung A crab-tree with compassion ; but the Dame, No crab-tree, certes, — toward the martyred Jew Was more than crab-tree callous ! When she heard 'T was Randal's hand had widowed her, " Take that ! " Says she, and flings three minnows in his face, Meant for the breakfast of the late Sir John, — BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. 29 " Judas ! and that ! " — here spits upon his beard And kicks him ; " Marry, a dastard Hebrew dog ! " Randal ! " — another kick, but Margery here Catches and holds her back by sleeve and hood : '' May all the lies that gender in thy heart " Be turned to weevils, fiery canker-worms " To fret thy vitals, ere they reach thy lips ! " Randal, forsooth ! And thou, thou polecat Jew, " Sittest and watchest, waitest patiently, " Heedless and helpless, scarecrow as thou art ! " And Randal — Randal," here the wrath broke down Into a pitiful whimper, " killed my pike ! " Killed ! — Margery, Margery ! Randal killed my pike ! " Well, Margery led the Dame across the croft. Fetched spice and comfits, milk and peppermint, Then found and sent old Abel to the Jew. Blaize in the meantime enters, finds the Dame : — " Lord, Abbot, here so soon 1 — You've heard our newsl " She whimpered, " take a draught of peppermint ; 30 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. " 'T is sovereign to corroborate tlie heart ! " A sniff — " Tliat Judas, Ben ! " — another snifif : "'Tis my behef Ben helped him!"— "H'm!" quoth Blaize, " I have baulked Dan Randal's poaching, anyway ! " Wliy, let such tales get wind about the court, " And Heaven knows what might happen ! " " Trae," says she, ' But, Abbot, what do you mean about the boy ? " " Oh, he, — the thief 1 I packed him oft' at once " With Joce," — now mark ye, Joce had angered Blaize Again the night before, rebuking him The brethren by, for swearing at the dice ^Vhen Cradock won the dagger and silver sheath. And Blaize, five cups of Rhenish in his brain. Vowed that he'd roast him at the stake ere Yule In Slingsby bull-ring for a heretic : So Joce ere morrow morning took the hint. His books and his departure. Blaize, you see, In lying, always built liis lies on truth ; — BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. 31 " Joce hates me, as you know, and I hate Joce ; " So when I knew 't was Randal killed your pike, " I packed the brace of traitors off at once "To Grimleysdyke, to try our penitent cell" " Gramercy, Blaize, — why Joce will kill the lad ! ' Breaks in the Prioress. " Kill the lad 1 Not he ! " I scarce suppose he loves him overmuch, " But kill, Besides, I bade on no account " To keep him fasting more than twice a week, " Nor scourge him more than twice, nor then with knots " Bigger than beans." The Prioress stared and paled. — " Good Lord, Blaize Archer ! " — then she clutched his arm. Glared straight into his eyes, nor breathed, nor winked, Then loosed her fingers on his arm, and sighed, — " You're a hard man, Blaize Archer, hard and false ! " What is 't you want 1 God knows I am poor enough ! " Blaize gulped a dose of peppermint and coughed. " Nay, Dame, 'tis I should ask what is't you want, 32 BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. " I — I want nothing ! " — " This, forgive the lad ! " 'Twas but a madcap froHc ! " — " Yea," quoth he, " But madcap tricks are rank as murder now ! " Hath he not brought our holy faith to shame, " And jeoparded our houses 1 Still, perchance ; — " Well, Dame, I'll think about it ! " Then, as one Who knows he has lied to one who knows he lies, With brazen courtesy bids good day, and parts. Returned, he had scarce dispatched three larded quails With a half-stoup of egg-whip hypocras, When lo, my Dame rides ambling on her mule Up to Saint Werewulf s, Abel close behind, Pufhng and staggering under half a buck. Blaize lifts the Prioress from the selle ; — " Why, Dame, "What cheer 1 How fresh thou'rt looking ! By my hand, " This evil time hath been so busy of late " Vexing the souls of statesmen and of clerks, " He clean forgets you quiet godly dames ; "Withers us doctors, — leaves you fair and young 1 " BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. 33 So kisses her and enters, hand in hand, And leads her, fluttered, to the Solomon-room. " Abbot," says she, " I have brought ye half a buck : *' 'Twas killed — our Lady's octave — why, let's see, " To-morrow will be the fortnight. Come, the lad ! " Say you forgive him ! " — Randal, who the while Behind the arras — 'twas a Flanders piece Of the Wise King's just judgment — watched the twain Tlirough a small rent whose dog's-ear lid curled wide Just where the right hand of the doomsnian grasps The huge gold-hilted falchion, heaved to halve The live child 'twixt the mothers, pricked his ears. " Tell me, at least, he's safe ! " " Yea, safe enow," Quoth Blaize, " I'll warrant Joce will see him safe ! " They are safe enough at Grimleysdyke ere now : "As to the penance, maybe " " Blaize," says she, " I'll swear thou'rt lying by thy naughty smile ! "'Twas just that smile was ever on the lips " Of my poor darling " — Here she wiped her eyes D 34 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. And fell to whimpering : " Tell me where he is ! " Look, here's the silver bell from Ulverscroft : " Now my pike's gone, I want no silver bells, " And you, perhaps, may value it ! Nay, come, " Tell me where Randal is, and take the bell ! " "I tell thee. Dame, he's gone to Grimleysdyke " With Joce, to do strict penance in the cell. " Still, since thou plead'st for him so urgently, " Suppose I say three months instead of twelve, " And take him back at Christmas 1 Art content ? " " Randal three months with Joce at Grimleysdyke, "And I content? Blaize Archer, body and soul " Have I been none but yours this thirty years, " Come Whitsun, and though false ye've been and are, " God knows I am true to you as false to Him ! " Jesu forgive me ! — 'Tis a cruel thing " A father to set ransom on his child " And bid the mother pay to the utmost mite ! BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. 35 " Once was a time you loved the lad and me ; " Him for my sake you loved, and me for his ! " Blaize ! Where's my boy and thine, thou kindless man • "' Unnatural father ! — Here, is't this you crave 1" With that, she draws from out her purfled sleeve This book you speak of, Fabian's Manuscript, Dusted and furbished up, with clasps like gold, A bait to snare an emperor or pope, — " I knew you meant to have it ! " Blaize sat mute. " Speak, Blaize, a' God's name !" Smiling, up he rose And kissed her. " Bless thee, thou'rt a kindly soul ! " Randal, thou knave, come hither ! " Sore abashed The culprit creeps from under Solomon's throne : — " Down on thy marrowbones, thou graceless imp, " And sue forgiveness ! " — " Randal, mine own boy ! " The Dame could say no more, but hugged the lad As if he had saved her soul, not killed her pike ! " Bless thee, my son ! " quoth Blaize : " Man's life's a span ! D 2 36 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. " Why make that span unhappy ? Here, you see, " We all are happy 1 Thou, thou hast caught thy luce, " And a fine brace of parents ! This good Dame " Finds, for the nonce, a sweetheart and a son ! " And I, — thus ever virtue reaps reward, — " I, too, achieve my guerdon : — first, the fish, " Item, a side of venison, nearly ripe, " Item, a silver sanctus, — item, this, " This goodly volume, useless to my Dame, " And last, a conscience void of all offence ! " Incipiunt miilti, 7ion perficiunt bona stuitL THE THREE KINGS OF COLOGNE. These be the three that followed the Star : Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar. They were Kings, but the Gospel calls them Wise ; Nor let this be matter of doubt or surprise, For they lived in the olden time, and then 'Twas the custom of Kings to be Wise men. But let us not therefore sinfully err By interpreting " Magus " as Sorcerer ; For though Simon did rightly bear the name, Yet in this case it meaneth not the same, As was plain to be seen when Simon flew On the foul fiend's back up into the blue, For the fiend at the praying of Peter and John S^ BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Shot him off like a sack, and brake his neck-bone. And as 'twould be heresy to suppose That a like mischance could have happened to those^ So the name of Magus, 'tis equally clear, Not always intendeth a Sorcerer. They were Kings, and Three Wise Kings, in faith, And we learn whence they came by what David saith. Quod reges Tharsis et insula Witli those of Saba and Araby To the Prince of Peace should their gifts present. The King whom all gentes servient. But some there be of the Doctors who say That they came from Mesopotamia, A land which lieth, as they surmise, Betwixt two rivers of Paradise, Phison, to wit, and Hiddekel ; — But that which we know not we cannot tell. OrIETUR STELLA EX JaCOB, I Have read in the book named Numeri, THE THREE KINGS OF COLOGNE. 39 Where the Advent Balaam doth foretel, Et consurget virga de Israel, Which is to say that the Kings from afar Should arise and follow after the Star ; For " virga," which meaneth a rod, 'tis clear, He useth for kingly sceptre here. So when they beheld the Star, they knew By its looks that Balaam's words were true, And they rose with their camels and companies, And gifts of most precious merchandise ; And came, for the Star was guiding them To the gates of the great Jerusalem. " Where is the child ? What news, what news " Of Him who is born the King of the Jews?" And they answered, " O Kings, our news is none, " For Kaiser Herod hath never a Son." Then Herod himself came forth, in dread, And spake to the Three Wise Kings, and said. With glozing words : " O Kings of the East, ,40 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. " I have heard it told by Prophet and Priest, " That the Christ who shall come of David's stem " Shall be born in the city of Betlilehem ; " If there ye find him, return and tell, " That myself may worship the Child as well." Then the Star sailed on, and the Kingly Three, With their gifts, and camels, and company, Followed amain by valley and hill And river and flat, till the Star stood still O'er the holy spot where the Child-King lay In a stable in Bethlehem Ephrata. And now ye may see why the Kings were Wise, For foolish Kings would have doubted their eyes When they saw the Star stand still in the air ; For who could have dreamed that a King was there, There, in the stable, with ox and ass 1 Yet the Wise Men knew it might come to pass, And they entered the stable reverently THE THREE KINGS OF COLOGNE. 4I As the Court of a kinglier majesty, The Court of the King of Kings, whose sway The Princes of Earth must all obey. And there on his Mother's knees He sate, A new-bom Child in His low estate ; But they saw through the veil of outward things The Lord of Lords, and the King of Kings, And every mother, and every child. For the sake of that Maiden undefiled And her spotless Son they knew should be God's witness on earth to eternity. And they knelt and worshipped, and each laid down At the feet of the Child his sceptre and crown. Then Caspar offered his gifts of gold. To signify thus, as the Doctors hold, That the child was King. And behold, the Child Took the gold in his little hands and smiled. And gave, all earthly gold above. In return — the Heavenly gold of Love. 42 BROTHER FABIAN'S MANUSCRIPT. Then Melchior came with his frankincense, Meaning thereby in a mystic sense, That the Child was God. And behold, the Child Took the spice in his little hands and smiled, And for earthly incense, the story saith, Gave the Heavenly frankincense of Faith. Then Balthazar knelt last with the myrrh, Bitter and precious, from whence we infer That the Child was Man. And behold, the Child Took the myrrh in his little hands and smiled. And did for his earthly myrrh assign The Heavenly myrrh of a Hope divine. And Mary maid, with her mother's hand Gave each of the Three a swaddling band, A swaddling band of those that He wore, As a token to treasure for evermore, And humbly, humbly, the Three Wise Men Turned each to his country, home again ; THE THREE KINGS OF COLOGNE. 43 And the Star that had risen to bid them come, Turned back to the East to guide them home. Then laid they aside all earthly state Their Heavenly sovereign to emulate ; Laid by the sceptre, and crown, and ball, And the golden robe and the purple pall : And their gold and rubies they gave to the poor, For the sake of the Child whose gifts they bore ; And preached in the city and wilderness The news of the new-born Prince of Peace. Full forty years by desert and town They told of His Advent up and down, Till good Saint Thomas the Three did find, As they taught in the furthest parts of Ind, And baptized them all in the name of Christ, As appears by an old Evangelist, Who saith besides that the Holy One Gave them other and brighter crowns to don. 44 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. For He crowned them all, ere He called them home, With the thorny crown of martyrdom, And, beyond the gates of the world of strife. Evermore with the golden crown of Life. And the Empress Helena gathered their bones. And set them with gold and with ruby stones, And treasured them up in a holy shrine Of the church in the city of Constantine. But when Godfrey was King of Jerusalem, Bishop Eustace to Milan translated them, ' And thence, with a nail of the Holy Cross, They were stolen by Emperor Barbaross, And Bishop Rene laid every bone In the shrine of the Kings, in the Church of Cologne, And there in rubies written in full, Ye may read for a ducat on every skull The names of the Three who followed the Star, Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar. THE THREE KINGS OF COLOGNE. 45 Domino Gratias. Haply to-night I shall speak of the shepherds, and tell you aright Of Abishai, Sobothai, Balchias, And what is implied by the Ox and Ass. ST. BERNARD. The holy man sits chanting in his cell, Bernard, than whom the golden gloriole None fitlier circleth with its saintly spell. " Venite exultemus ! " All his soul Makes music of the words, and harmonies Well up unbidden as he sings, and roll Echoes of harping from half-opened skies Flooding the cloistral glooms with angel song, Till the full strain of those sweet symphonies Swells in his heart with eloquence too strong For human speech, and o'er his organ keys Flinging his cjuivering fingers, to prolong That hymn celestial — ^by his side he sees Him who is aye beside him, with a smile — ST, BERNARD. 47 His own smile — on his lips, and words like these, Hissing between them : " Aye, this hour awhile " They have been listening — Roch and Flamian, " Sigar and Blaize, and all the saintly file. " Look at the grating there ! When you began, " Did you not mark the bald-pates 1 aye, and feel " How the whole cloister hearkened as you ran " So sweetly through the gamut 1 I appeal " To your own conscience." But the saint was mute. And a strange horror crept from head to heel. Then with himself as who had held dispute, *' I am a sinful man, O Lord ! " he said, " And viler in thine eyes than the dumb brute ; " Yea, guilt is with me even as I tread " These holy heights of song : Be merciful, " That I may worship thee without all dread ! " Get thee behind me, Sathanas ! Thou dull " Snake ! not for thee did I begin my song, " For thee will I not stint it." And the full Aisles heard the saint till morn chant loud and long. A CHARM. When at Easter on thy lea First thicklegged lamb thou see, — If upon the greenwood side Brock or crafty fox be spied, Goodman, turn thy money ! If the magpie or the jay Or the lapwing cross thy way, Or the raven from his oak Ban thee hoarsely with his croak, Goodman, turn thy money ! If when at the hearth thou sit Spark from out the fire should flit, — A CHARM. 49 If when wintry tempests beat Candle wear a winding-sheet, Goodman, turn thy money ! If the wizard's ring appear Round the moon, or if thou see her Full or new, — or, worse mishap, New with old upon her lap, Goodman, turn thy money ! If the salt thou chance to spill, Token sure of coming ill, — If thirteen sit down to sup And thou first have risen up, Goodman, turn thy money ! Goodman true, wouldst fend thyself From witchcraft and midnight elf'? Wouldst thou dree no faery harm 1 Keep in mind my simple tharm, Goodman, turn thy money ! E 50 BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. Goodman, learn my charm and verse ! Learn to carry poke or purse ! And, that not in vain thou learn. Somewhat keep therein to turn ! — Goodman, turn thy money ! Quoth Fabian. OF ROBIN HOOD'S DEATH AND BURIAL. Bold Robin is at the Kirkleys For a deed that is y-do, And threescore and three of the king's men Came to fetch him therefro. " Now dup the gate," quoth the king's men, " So quickly as ye may, " And yield ye the traitor that liggeth here " Or ye shall rue the day." Then up and spoke the Abbess That was his sister dear : " My lords, there is never a traitor " This day that liggeth here ! " E 2 52 BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT. Thereat Lord Perryn he waxed wood And tirled the hair on his Hp, Quoth he, " Bold Robin he hggeth here, " And hence he shall not slip ! " For we have rid fro Saint Alban's " With letters fro the king : " They are written with his own hand " And sealed with his ring." " Then," quoth the Abbess, " ye may stand without " And tirl the hair on your chin ! " The king may bear his letters himself, " I nill not let ye in ! " Then spoke the false Lord Newbery, " A parlous dame, parfay ! " But an if bold Robin Hood be here, " We will kill him this day ! " OF ROBIN hood's DEATH AND BURIAL. 53 " Ye traitor, false Lord Newber}^," Spake up the Abbess than : " She was my mother's tiring-maid " That was thy sire's leman ! " There nis not one false loon as ye " In all broad England ! " An I were a man as ye're a girl " I'd slay thee with my hand ! " " See now," quoth Lord Newbery, " We do but parle in vain ! " — They brought an axe and a beetle, And split the door in twain. " Come down," then spoke Lord Perryn, " Come down, thou bold outlaw ! " Ye shall be hanged on a tree, " Ye have a man y-slaw ! " 54 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. " Ye may not take me hence," quoth Robin, " Ye may not do me die ! — " For this is the sanctuary " And Saint Chad's jawbone hereby ! " " Nay then," quoth Lord Newbery, " Sith we may not do thee die, " Yet we'll have a basin of thy blood '* Or ever we pass hereby ! " Lord Newbery drew a bodkin And pricked him on the arm : I wot the traitor leugh to see His heartis blood run warm ! " A basin, a basin hither," he said, " To catch the blood fro the vein ! " Until the basin be full of blood " He shall not forth again ! " OF ROBIN HOOD S DEATH AND BURIAL. 55 He pricked a hole in the basin That nobody should know ; — And ever bold Robin bled above, And the blood tricked forth below. " My sister," then quoth bold Robin, " As thou art lief and true, " So fetch me an arrow hither, " Bot and my bow of yew ! — " For these bin traitors here " That have a true man in hold ! " They are a-draining my lifeblood, " My heart it is acold ! — " Then up and went his sister, I wot she was not slow : She brought to him an arrow Bot and she brought his bow. 56 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Bold Robin uprist fro the bed, His cheek was white to see :- — " I will," quoth he, "where ye find this arrow, " There ye shall bury me. " And ye shall bear Friar Tuck on hand " That he aye say mass for my soul, " That Mar}^ mother and may " Me free fro pain and dole I " — He took his bent bow in his hand, And a broad arrow he let flee : Seven furlongs he shot the arrow Whereat it stuck in a tree. Spoke out bold Robin than, I wis his voice was small ; " Farewell, dear sister, Christ ye speed, " Sith it may no better befal ! OF ROBIN hood's death AND BURIAL. 57 " And find ye LitUe John, " And give him my bugle horn, " For there nis never a better fellawe " To kill the deer in the morn. " Ye shall give my bow to Friar Tuck " That is a bold outlaw, " To lesen a merchant's girdle " All in the greenwood shaw. " And ye shall tell my merrymen all, " Maid Marian also, " That I am y-slaw right treacherously, " Ne shall go forth no mo " To slay the king's deer in the valleys " Or rob a bishop at noon, " Or to feast in merry Sherwood, " For I shall die full soon. 58 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. " We were the merriest company " Was ever in broad England, " But Robin is slayen treacherously " As I well understand ! ' Now lay the salt on my bowel, " And shut mine eyen tway : " I nill no priest but Friar Tuck, " And he is far away." Then up and spoke Lord Perryn And spoke unto his fere : " Thou hast y-slaw the bravest man " That ever brittled a deer ! " I will to the King presently " And tell him thy treachery ! " And I will twist the willow " To hang thee on a tree ! " OF ROBIN HOODS DEATH AND BURIAL. 59 They bare bold Robin fro fair Kirkleys And laid him on a bier : They dolve a grave beneath the arrow And covered it with brere. A cross y-corve above his head, Another at his feet ; And the pricket belleth in Bernesdale, There nis none now to shete ! Now Mary mother and sweet Saint John Have grace on bold Robin Hood, And keep us all fro traitors false At home and eke abroad ! — Quoth Fabian. JUDAS ISCARIOT'S PARADISE. De San do Brcndano Filio Fin loch. Qui descendunt mare in navibus, "Tis David the Prophet who speaketh thus, ViDERUNT OPERA DOMINI : — And lo, forthwith he telleth us why ; For skyward up with a sudden sweep, Then down they are borne to the yawning deep ;- Therefore he that hath sailed in a ship can tell Of the things of Heaven and things of Hell. Saint Brandon, Abbot of Inisfail, Listened, we read, and wept at the tale JUDAS ISCARIOTS PARADISE, 6 1 That was told in his cell by Beryn the sage, Of Mernoc, his godson's pilgrimage : How he sailed and sailed far away to the East, Till he came to the land of the Lord's behest, The promised land of the Saints, that lies Full in front of the Gates of Paradise, Where Enoch waits for the days of Doom With Elias alone till the Lord shall come ; — A land of glory and life and light, Where never is storm, nor winter, nor night, And the air, with holy wings astir, Breathes bridal incense of balm and myrrh. And the strands are of ruby and diamond, With cliffs of the virgin gold beyond, Cloven by streams from the sheeny glades Of fair palm copses and cedarn shades, Where the herbs are all flower, the trees all fruit — Heaven over the head, heaven under the foot — Where the summers fl} .so swift, so sweet. So happy that none may feel them fleet ; 62 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. And the child might change to the dotard gray Ere he weened he had dwelt there a single day. And Brandon the Abbot heard and wept — And lo, that night by his couch as he slept, Stood One with wings, who looked to the North, And pointed two fingers, and bade — " Go forth ! " And the Saint uprose, and two by two, He called twelve brothers, trusty and true ; And, " Brothers," he said, " will ye sail with me, " For the love of God and His dear Ladye 1 " And, " Father," they answered, " all earthly good " We have left for His sake who died on rood ; " Master art thou, and captain, and friend — " We will sail with thee to the Mid-world's End ! " And they prayed evermore, and kept a fast, With penance, till forty days were past ; And dight them a ship with tackle and gear, JUDAS ISCARIOt's PARADISE. 6$ And sails and anchors and helms to steer, And seven years' provender, wine, and bread, And prayed and toiled till the whole was sped. And lo, as they marched with banners before, And DoMiNE DiRiGE forth to the shore. Two brethren knelt and prayed by the road — " Let us sail with you for the love of God ! " And the Abbot said, " Yea, ye may sail with us, " Sith Christ the Father ordaineth it thus : " Yet, mark ! — of ye twain, there is one shall flit, " Ere the bark turn homeward, alive to the Pit ! " So forth they sailed whither God might send, Were it even to fare to the Mid-world's End. And the wind blew fair and the waves rolled bright, And they trusted in God and their hearts were light. Now the marvels they met on the yeasty deep — Of the fiends and fish, and the Land of Sheep, 64 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. And the fruits and flowers and gems therein ; Of the Worm of the world, hight Jascomyn, Who wrestles and gnashes ever again To grasp his tail in his teeth in vain, So huge, that the mariners landed awhile On the ridge of his spine, and deemed it an isle, Till they lit them a fire, and felt it creep And shudder and shrink to the whirling deep ; Of the Paradise isle, where the soft wing beat Of God's white fowl maketh music sweet ; Of the wondrous stead in the summer sea. Where the sharks lay slumbering peacefully. Shoaled as close as the drifted snow. Like a floor on the hidden strands below, Of beast, and man, and vision divine. And peril, and tempest, and holy sign ; Of lands and seas in a world unknown, And all that they saw betwixt zone and zone, I pass to tell, for the time would fail Ere complines ring to finish the tale. JUDAS ISCARIOT's PARADISE, 65 But to prove that the Psalmist's words be true When he saith in my text that the mariner crew Both mount to Heaven and sink to Hell, Ye shall hear how the same to the Saint befell. Incipit de Juda Iscariote. Mightily ever the South wind blew, And North, ever North, the good ship drew With the holy Brandon, and Brandon's crew. North, ever North, till a glimmering dun That lighted the icebergs, one by one. Was all they knew of the noon-day sun. On, through the darkness, and mist and snow, Or a grisly moonlight, that served to show How the sea snakes writhed in the deep below. They heard, in the night, the icebulks crash With a thundering shock, and grind, and gnash, And the waves hiss back with a seething plash. 66 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Nor anchor was cast, nor sail was furled, Till they neared and saw where the fringe of the world Its arrows of flame through the welkin hurled. And at Christmas, so near as they could count, They came to an isle where a mighty mount Spouted fire and smoke in a blazing fount. Full many a mile there was smoke on the sea, x\nd the blaze ever leapt to the cloudracks free, Rumbling and bellowing hideously. And one cried, " Satanas calls — farewell ! " For yonder mount is the mouth of Hell ! " And they saw him no more, but heard fiends yell And northward still, on that Christmas Day They fared, till they saw where an iceberg lay On the left, and the Saint bade steer that way. JUDAS ISCARIOT'S PARADISE. 67 And they saw One, naked, sit on a stone, Worn by the waves to sinew and bone. Wringing his hands with a dolorous moan, A long loose cloth was thonged by his chin, That flapped in the wind on his wet bare skin, And ox tongues two were tied to his shin. And now in the wave, and now in the wind, Drenched, and pinched, and beaten, and blind, The wretch ever sat on his stone and pined. And the Saint said, " Speak, be thou man or ghost, And tell what thou art, for a thing so lost Never greeted I yet by wave or coast ! " And he ansAvered : — " I, ere I went to pain, Was the Lord's Iscariot chamberlain, Judas, who sold the Christ for gain ! " F 2 68 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Then the shipmates all were aghast for fear, But the good Saint bade cast anchor near, And asked of the ghost : " What dost thou here ? " And Judas answered : " By Christ's dear grace " This day am I loosed from mine own due place " With Herod and Pilate and Caiaphas ; " For He whom the Gates of the Hells obey " Each winter hath granted me here to stay " From Christmas Eve for a night and a day. " And this is my Paradise, here alone " To sit with my cloth and tongues and stone, " The sole three things in the world mine own. " This cloth I bought from the Lord's privy purse, " But gave to a leper. — It hath this curse, " That it beats on my skin, but it saves from worse. JUDAS ISCARIOT's PARADISE. 69 " These tongues I gave to the poor for meat " In the name of Christ, — and the fish that eat " Thereon as they list, forbear my feet. " This stone I found by a road where it lay " And set for a step in a miry way, " Therefore sit I on stone, not ice, this day ! " Then a rout of Fiends came flying amain With a roar and a rush like a hurricane To bear the Iscariot back to pain. But their might was nought, for the Saint was nigh, And round and round with a ghastly cry And clapping of wings they flew harmless by. " Flee hence, flee hence ! " they howled and hissed : " Already in Hell is its darling missed ! " Wilt thou save the traitor who sold the Christ 1" 70 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. And the Saint said, " Nay, my might is none, " But if Jesus will that ye leave him alone " For another night, God's will be done ! " And they screamed and fled to their Hell once more. And Judas thanked Brandon o'er and o'er So piteously that all wept sore. And they bided there through the dreary night, And they knew 't was morn by a fiendish flight And the shriek as they fled of a tortured sprite. And mightily, lo, the North Wind blew. And South, ever South, the good ship drew With the holy Brandon and Brandon's crew. Explicit de Jiida Iscai-iote. In a year and a day Saint Brandon's sail Was furled in the harbour of Inisfail, JUDAS ISCARIOt's PARADISE. . 71 And merrily thronged the brotherhood all, Sacristan, Cellarer, great and small, With welcome of laughter and welcome of tears For the mariner Saint and his holy peers. And huge was the feasting far and wide Through the minster lands that Christmastide. And the Saint sat at meat on the twelfth Yule-day, And spake of the sea and the perilous way, And told, with the rest, of the rock of ice, And Judas Iscariot's Paradise ; And how for a night they had anchored by, Lest the fiends who waited and watched should spy. And the Sacristan spake : " 'T was the very mom " Next after the day that Christ was born, " As I stepped in the gloaming to toll the bell "For matins, behold, I stumbled and fell, " With a broken shin and an arm bruised sore, " On an anchor that clung by the chapel door. " And I shouted, and, lo, at the noise of ray shout. 72 BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. " The half-clad brothers ran staring out ; " And there as we stood in a scared suspense, " A cable, that hung from none knew whence, " Hauled the anchor again up into the sky, " And we deemed that we heard thy shipmates cry ! " And Saint Brandon answered : "It well may be, " For I deem that we sailed in that upper sea " Of waters which Moyses saith were pent " At the first o'erarching the firmament. " For the firmament standeth fast, we know, " 'Twixt the waters above and the waters below ; " And, certes, above the sphere of the sun " We sailed that voyage, for day was none, " Save a glimmer of grey in the misty air, " Though I marvel much how the moon came there. " Yet beware how ye seek too curiously " To fathom Creation's mystery ; " For Science, ye know, is the cub that is yeaned JUDAS ISCARIOTS PARADISE. 73 " By human Pride to the great Arch-Fiend ; " But Faith, an angel bom in the shrine " Of the child-Uke heart, by a grace Divine ! " Wherefore pray ye for faith, and the God of Love, " After life's strange voyage, give rest above ! " Ut in ^ternali gaudio " Benedicamus Domino ! " Amen. CHARLEMAGNE'S DAUGHTER. Aix lay asleep ; the window-gaps of light All shut save one, — roof, tower and bastion black. Great Charles's palace loomed against a flight Of rolling darkness fringed with flying rack, Like a magician's barque that drives forthright Through wave-upheaving winds with level track : Sole in the spiry glooms one ray remote Pierced the tall scarp and shuddered on the moat. A true-born slip, I ween, of Pepin blood Was she who called that maiden bower her own : A stone's throw from the palace, there it stood, A little miracle of carven stone — CHARLEMAGNE'S DAUGHTER. 75 A younger Sibyl's watchtower o'er the flood Beyond the courtyard elm-tree, all alone ; Where she might idle all unvexed, or read, Or watch the stars, or ply the storied brede. And there she sat that night, an empire's pearl — Emma, the darling, fairest, dearest, last Of all the old lion's brood. A blithe-eyed girl Lay nestling at her feet with glance upcast Under her plaited wealth of golden curl, Watching the while what fleeting daydreams passed Cloudshadow-like athwart her lady's brow, And lips in silence eloquent even now. Fronting the fire she sat, half disarrayed. On a low bench, and with her coronet Testing the dazzle of its gems she played, Eyed it askance at armslength now, or set, Golden on locks as golden of her maid ; Her sad eye glistening with a proud regret : 26 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Ah, might she thus slip all the hoops of state And win the freedom of her menial's fate. " Yea," quoth the Princess, " I am all alone ! " My sire forgets the sweet days of his youth, " And claims my heart's love-offerings for his own. " The old grey warrior deems that maiden truth " May thrive on snow, and bud for aye unblown " Like yonder sculptured roses ! Love and ruth " He scarce remembers even as things that were — " Fled wholly, like the raven from his hair ! " Look at this thumb-ring, with its emerald gem, " He gave me but this morn ; — a sovereign charm, " He told me, to true maidens. Why, the hem " Of robe of mine hath virtue that would warm, " I ween, Alraschid's whole green diadem, " And bid it blush true ruby with alarm ! " O could he read me ! Why am I thus fair ? " Will the red blood run white with all his care 1 Charlemagne's daughter. 77 " Child ! I could dance away John Baptist's head " From any Herod in my father's hall — " Drain the old hoards of dynasties, and tread " Under my feet their crowns and purple pall, " With half my beauty ! Lo, I ask for bread — " He answers with an emerald to my call ! " Yet must I love him — love him though he tear " All love from life, save love in love's despair ! " O, I could groan for yearning when I hear " His voice among the yew-trees, and he calls " Emma, his darling, while the big round tear, " Wrung from the weariness of king-craft, falls " Through his thin fingers as his child draws near ! " His child ! Ay me, 'tis there the kindness galls ! " Were he less dear I might be happier ; now " I love him and am loved. Ah, mercy ! how ? " Loveless !" Her head dropped down upon her hand, And tranced she sat in passion of mute woe. 78 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. A queenly star-struck Melancholy, scanned The while by pleading eyes that seemed to know Somewhat, yet scarce the whole could understand. " Loveless, mine own dear lady ! Is it so 1 " My Wilhelm chanced to see you in the yard " Talking, or so it seemed, with Eginhard, " Haply on some state-business?" — "Well, what then?" Quoth Emma, " Is it some portentous thing " For a king's child to speak 1 'Tis like these men ! " They can't even see one talking, but they wring " Some left-hand meaning from it, and unpen " A herd of bleating scandals ! If the king " Had sent old grand-dam Alice, they're so wise " The/d swear 'twas some brisk courtier in disguise ! " What ! talking with her pedagogue at noon — " And in the courtyard 1 O these lovers' schemes ! " Why, the next step is pan'icide ! How soon " Your Wilhelm spies it all ! I'd swear he deems CHARLEMAGNE'S DAUGHTER. 79 " My Euclid lessons rarely opportune " For lovers' converse, and my tasks and themes " One long first conjugation in their sense — " Amo, amas in every mood and tense ! '• Trust him, he knows it all ! A woman's heart " Is easy as his alphabet to read " To Wilhelm's amorous wit ! We act our part, " But he, he knows us ! " — Quoth the maid : " Indeed, " He marked not you but him, and saw him start " Like a deer arrow-stricken in mid-speed " To find such watchful eyes so near, and straight " Bade you adieu and vanished through the gate. " What ! love the Notary, — you % My Wilhelm knows " Your kin too Avell to dream it ! Why, to-day " He served at supper, when a talk arose " Among the peers what emperor should pray " Your hand in wedlock, and he heard propose " Him of Arabia one, and one Cathay : 8o BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT. " Till last my lord spoke, frowning o'er his wine — " ' Emma, my daughter, weds not ! — she is mine ! ' " And you to love the Notary 1 Overbold " Were he who dreamed it ! Yet if all be true, " As true I ween it is, that Wilhelm told " Of what he saw, this Eginhard loves you ! " What think you ?" — But her lady's eyes were cold And her lips silent. Then anon she threw Her weary arms into the air — " 'Tis late ! " Good night — I am weary of this prate. " Come to me early ! " — In a dreamy mood Twisting around her head the golden maze Of plaited locks awhile the maiden stood ; Folded her scarf before the ruddy blaze, Then donned at last her sandal-shoon of wood And left the warm hearth with a lingering gaze. " Good night ! " — and forth, one aguish Ave said, She pattered to the palace home to bed. Charlemagne's daughter. 8i The Princess shot the bolt, and shivering knelt A few brief holy moments ; — but they wrought No hope, no solace. All alone she felt In the wide worid. " What boots it," thus she thought, " This emptiness of empire 1 I would melt " Yon crownal into chessmen, tread to nought " These stony gauds of glory for the power " To love and be loved but for one brief hour. " Father ! Is he a father, who thus dares " Trample his children's heart' s-life in the dust ? " And yet — I know not ! Eginhard ! He wears " A courtier's aspect, as a courtier must. " Yet Wilhelm deems he loves me ! — loves and bears, " Haply, this same sad fardel of mistrust. " O, dost thou love me 1 I am all unblest, " Loved or unloved ; yet men should know men best, " And Wilhelm " — but even then a hurried knock Rattling the latch called back her vagrant thought G 82 BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT. To the blank present, and around her smock Hastily flinging a loose scarf, she sought The chamber door, and one hand on the lock — " Well, child, what is it 1 Why, you might have brought," She said, half-vexed, "that same John Baptist's head, " To call me here at midnight from my bed ! " But a voice answered : " 'Tis not Ermengilde — " I bear you here a message from the king ! " She started, trembling. That low whisper thrilled Through her whole being, and a sudden sting As of one caught in treason unfulfilled Shot through her veins. " What message do you bring ? " And who are you ? " she asked. One might have heard Her heart the while beat like a prisoned bird. And the voice answered : " Eginhard, — I bear *' A message to his daughter from my lord. " Prithee, unmake the door I— The chill night-air Charlemagne's daughter. 83 " Cuts through the cloudy darkness like a sword." — " Say on ! " she answered, but his ear was ware Of a strange tremulous falter in the word, And in a louder tone he made reply : " Haste thee, — unmake the door ! The watch is nigh, " And they will slay me should they take me here ! " Hearken, — mayst hear their tramp ! By heaven, wouldst kill " One who hath held thy father's life so dear? " If thou must deal me death, were 't well to spill " My blood upon your threshold ? Quick ! Dost fear " Lest slanderous tongues should babble aught of ill ? *' How, when the captains hear yon ruffians prate " Of whispering courtiers pinioned at your gate ? " With that she drew the bolt and let him in, And closed the door behind him as the watch Clanked past the bastion- angle with a din Of iron-clashing heels. She even could catch G 2 84 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. A hoarse low burden chanted, " 111 to win, " And ill to win ! " as breathless, hand on latch, She stirred not till they past, and silence fell More dread than clamour in her maiden cell. She turned as if to speak. The lantern stood With its long candle glimmering by the chair, Arras and broidered couch and ivory rood And dizzy floor-mosaic, all were there. And he — that Presence ! — all the fugitive blood, Dismayed to front the invader unaware, Bounded o'erthronging to the citadel ; Once the heart quaked and all amort she fell ! In dread misgiving, as if suddenly He saw an angel out of heaven drop dead, The love-lorn lover cushioned reverently That living corse of beauty on the bed, And clasped the marble fingers : — " Can she die 1 " Jesu have mercy on us both ! " The head Charlemagne's daughter. 85 Stirred, or he thought it stirred ; then all was still Save the great raindrops dripping on the sill ! Again he chafed her hands, and with wild words Pleaded in ears that heard not, " Speak to me, " Mine own love! — dearest!" and the drops, like swords Stabbing his heart, made answer, two and three. " Emma ! " — the hand, as if it sought her lord's, Slipped from the pillow, clasping helplessly, And the eyes opened, but they closed again, As if to waken were too keen a pain ! " Jesu be praised, she lives ! " On lip and cheek The rosy life redawned with gradual glow. As when, slow loitering on from peak to peak, The morning mantles on the mountain snow. Yet when again the sweet lips moved to speak, Her voice but mumiured like the wordless flow, Word-like, of brooklet babbling round a thorn, And mocked the syllables that died ere born. 86 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. At last a feeble hand, upraised with toil, Made signal towards an ebon cabinet With hinge of tendril-sprouting gold, a spoil Of old Ravenna's palace, rough with fret Of graver's art Byzantine. Nard and oil On cedarn shelves in email caskets set Gleamed half-revealed within, beside a row Of ruby cordials and three cups below. Fair in majestic impotence she leant Back on the buttressed cushions, from her side As speeding forth, her liegeman legate bent To seek the drug she needed. Opening wide Both doors he watched her eye for her intent, And touched the vials one by one ; he tried One, two, and at the third she bowed — the horn With it he brought her, carved in unicorn. He poured and held it to her lips ; she drank. It seemed, I wot, such wine as in the cup Charlemagne's daughter, 87 Of amorous Egypt glowed when on the bank Of Nile she bade her Roman lord to sup. And her eyes glistened, — all the ungracious blank Gratefully beaming as she raised them up, And blessed her lover with a smile more sweet Than e'er touched lips of dying anchorete. O Love, weird Alchemist of life, whose spell Transmutes all hearts, all passions ! Is it she Who boasted but even now her might to fell The pride of monarchs like a cedar-tree ? She, who but now in Beauty's right would quell Her lovers with her loveliness and be Mistress in all things of her own sweet will 1 And can she sit there now so pale and still 1 Even so ! She sat there, and her true-love's arm Circled her waist unchallenged as he spoke : " How fares my lady now 1 " The silent charm That sealed her sweet lips, at the question broke, 88 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. And " Cheerily," she answered, while the warm Breath fell upon his forehead like the stroke Of summer sunbeam in a beechwood glade Among the dancing dapj^les of the shade. " Now Heaven be praised for that fair word ! " he said ; " You will be strong anon ! " Then silence fell Upon theni like a mantle, and a dread Grew up between them such as those may tell Who have made shrift of love. The queenly head Swayed like a fair lake-lily o'er the swell And ebb of passionate breath. Unseen above The vanquished Death yielded his sword to Love. At last he spoke — trembling indeed, but slow, As one long schooled with outward calm to speak, Even when the blood ran boiling with the flow Of fitfullest emotion. On his cheek Burnt one small spot of crimson, but the brow Was still with studied stillness. Ye might seek. Charlemagne's daughter. 89 As many a crafty eye had sought ere then, Nor find one passion there of common men, " Emma," he said, " I am a plain poor man, " And thou the daughter of a Kaiser's Hne, " Whose slaves are princes, and whose realm earth's span! " I have no sire save God and Father Rhine ; " I cannot prate of gold as others can : " Cro\\Tis and broad lands and serfs are theirs, not mine ! " Blood, lordship, gold — without them and above " I have a brain to do, a heart to love. " And I have breasted all the storms of state, " Endured the courtier's smile, the princeling's sneer, " Breathed the rank air of courts, nor scorned to wait " While others sat where I was more than peer. " Yea, for thy love hath called me to this fate " And dared me tempt the path that led me here, 90 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. " Though boldest heart might faint, and cheek wax pale " To fathom that abyss, this height to scale ! " Thy love alone ! If for myself ere now " I have done bravely that I willed to do, " And wooed untimely furrows to my brow ; — " If for myself I have been staunch and true " To him I served and serve, and scorned to bow " Though Prince and Pope defied us with their crew, " Yet, when the glory crowned me and a name, " Not for myself but thee I grasped at Fame ! " Laban, my lord, is thankless ! — year on year " I have toiled unrewarded. I have won " Small praise and mickle blame — some love, more fear, " And a scant pension, other guerdon none ! " Now I appeal from Laban ! Wilt thou hear, " And crown thyself the deeds that I have done ? " All, all for thee ! — and more, if more thou wilt, " Yet will I do, even be my heart's-blood spilt ! CHARLEMAGNE S DAUGHTER. 9 1 " O, year on year in dreams I have sought this hour, " As Eve might seek some gate in Paradise, " One narrow wicket, all unwatched by power " Of cherub-swords ! Full many a rare device " Of cunning rhetoric, many an artful flower " Of minstrel phrases eloquent and wise, " Long since I gathered, might this hour once come : " This hour ! 'Tis here, and my full soul is dumb ! " Ah ! where be now those fancies, and the love " That once they might have spoken 1 Love hath grown " Infinite in thy presence ! — lost above " All dizziest heights of love that loves alone ! " Emma, I love thee ! " But to speak nor move She willed not. Like a maiden carved in stone. Save for the panting passionate breath, she sat As if she heard no voice, or cared not what. "Speak, love," he cried, and with a start he flung His arms about her, in love-thirsty eyes 92 BROTHER FABIAN S MANUSCRIPT. Seeking the blessed answer which the tongue Forgot to utter in that sweet surprise. Ah me ! for words wliat recked he, as she clung Close, close about his neck, all witcheries Of eloquence love-molten on her lips In the first kiss of love's apocalypse ] A long, long kiss, unsealing all the springs Of loving converse ; — whispers low and sweet And rich with memories of a thousand things That spoke of old their secret, though it beat Voiceless within their hearts ; — soft murmurings Of happy love, while oft the chattering sleet On the wet stones would dash their lips with pale, And other kisses link the broken tale. So sat those lovers in the days of gold With a new world beneath them and above ! — The old, old tale, which yet is never old While maidens hear and young men tell of love. CHARLEMAGNE S DAUGHTER. 93 From age to age interminably told While strength and beauty bloom, and fond hearts move To the glad music of the eternal truth That breathes in blithe May-dawns and life's sweet youth ! Chant ye a marriage song, ye midnight gales ! Keep watch, thou sleepless elm beside the door. That none disturb their slumber ! — Blab no tales. Thou taper flickering on the bridal floor ! Be still, ye voices from the cloistral vales, Ye should have pealed of Holy Church before ! They sleep, those lovers, and your holy din Will wake them all too soon from their sweet sin, They slept and knew no dread. Yet ere the mom — For dreams, too, have their consciousness, and prate A truer tale of how the night hath worn Than tolling clock to them that wake and wait, — The Notary woke. A ghostly light forlorn Gloamed through the latticed window's archway strait : 94 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Snow? — snow? Could that be snow, that wind-scooped hill That curved athwart the window on the sill 1 And feet leave prints ! He started up amain, Like wreck-woke seaman, yet as one who knows That Death in mockery still spares time to drain One deep last beaker ere the whirlpools close, Fondly he leant to kiss yet once again His love's all-queenly forehead as he rose, Deeming she slumbered, till a tell-tale smile Lit on her mouth, and spoke the simple guile. And her eyes dawned. " Ah, go not yet ! " she cried, " O, I have watched thee till mine eyes grew dim " With very love to watch thee, and the tide " Of fullest passion quivered at the brim ! " This is the height of life ! Henceforth we slide " Downward, for ever downward, till the grim " Grave closes o'er us ! Dearest, wilt thou go " To woo so soon the darkness and the woe ? , Charlemagne's daughter. 95 " The hours are young as yet : yon flickering hght " Hath scarce burnt half-way down, and far away " The blushing dawn still lingers in her flight " O'er the myrrh-groves of Araby. Ah, stay — " Stay yet a little while ! A darker night " Dawns all too soon upon us with the day I " Farewell 1 Thou canst not say that word ! Ah me, " What shall I do, dear love, bereft of thee ? " She flung her arms around him, with a low Murmur between her kisses, as if there She would have held his parting evermo, Breathing her soul out in that sweet despair. Alas, he heard not ! " Seest thou yonder snow V He asked in barren answer to her prayer, And rose. She thought he dreamed, so strange his cheer : " Snow, and if snow it be, what cause for fear ? " Softly he drew the bolt, unmade the door For his despair to enter. All was white ! 96 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Day soon must dawn ! How foot that treacherous floor, Yet not proclahn the secret of the night ? Despair was on the threshold. " All is o'er ! " Insulted heaven itself forbids my flight ! " Vengeance alone awaiteth us ! To fly " Or stay what boots it 1 — either is to die ! " — The Princess stood beside him ere the words Were halfway spoken : — one brief gaze she cast On the white courtyard. " I will whet the swords "That slay thee for this deed!" she said. "Make haste ! " On with your doublet ! If yon sleuth-hound lords " Shall scent where any foot save mine hath past " From out this chamber, — say that woman's wit " Failed woman's love, though that was ne'er said yet ! — " Art ready 1 — Quick ! — Saint Denys speed our love ! — " Up ! — On my shoulders ! — Nay, no flattery now ! — " My limbs are not like theirs who scarce can move CHARLEMAGNE S DAUGHTER. 97 " In harness for the tilt ! What boots it how, •" So thou art safe 1 Look forth ! Even now above " Yon Eastern bastion dayhght 'gins to plough ■" The first grey furrows ! Up ! " And straight she l^ore Her lover on her shoulders from the door ! I would have given now, were I a king, To see that sight, a pension and broad lands, Aye, half a shire, to watch his fingers cling About her chin, — the long hair's liberal strands Circling his wrists in many an amorous ring. And the loose feet soft-stirruped in her hands ! Two lovers on one-pair of sandal-shoon Between the rising sun and setting moon ! Ah me ! the one who saw it was not one Who joyed in seeing, though an Emperor ! — Whether some evil dream before the sun Had snapped his sleep, or problem of deep lore Of kingcraft and new empires lost and won H 98 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Called him thus early from the palace-door, I know not ! Past the elm-tree scarce a pace She stood before her father, face to face ! All three were silent ! silently, poor soul, The Notary slid from his imperial seat, Pale by the crimson Princess as a scroll Of his own parchment, ere he gained his feet. Too well he knew that clench of strong control Under his monarch's beard ! His own heart's beat Was all he heard as the old man strode by And' gazed upon their shame inscrutably ! Whet the great axe, thou headsman, and build high The scaffold, ye black ministers of doom, Whereon an Empire's daughter is to die ! Hang thy broad streets, thou city, with the gloom Of sable palls and funeral blazonry ! Meet vengeance for that crime, a traitor's tomb ! Charlemagne's daughter. 99 Shall bastard blood be mixed with blood of kings, And taint the flow of princedom at the springs ? Grim sat the Monarch down among his peers : " Bring forth the culprits!" Mercy ! There they stood, But not like culprits ! Felon hopes and fears Swayed not the tides of that imperial blod4 ! No quivering on the lips, no dastard tears, No villain touch of shuddering cravenhood ! Love is akin to Death ! At once to die Is the true drift of many a true-love's sigh ! Then spoke the monarch : " Eginhard, my love " For thee hath found its guerdon, and my trust " Been paid right nobly ! Thee I placed above " Thy fellow-courtiers, raised thee from the dust " And gave thee all my heart, that I might prove " Even such return as this ! O, 'tis most just ! »' I am an old man, and my few grey hairs " Had scarce enow of lighter toils and cares ! H 2 TOO BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. " And thou, too, daughter ! " but the unwonted sneer Died in his tremulous voice : " O God, my child I " I have sinned deeply towards thee ! O, too dear I " I would have kept thee mateless, and beguiled " Thy maiden-yearnings ! my reward is here, " Here, in a daughter's shame, a crown defiled ! " God's mercy on us both ! " He paused awhile, His frown unwrinkling to as dread a smile, Then bending to the Notary : " You," he said, " You have proclaimed me thankless ! Monarch's ears Hear whispers oftentimes that cost a head " Even for their very truth. 'Tis true, the jeers *' Of these boy-Herods, and the bitter bread " Of scorned desert among these pampered peers " Too long have mocked thy service ! Ere thou shrive " To die thou yet shalt learn how kings can give ! " My Lord Archbishop ! " From the astonied throng The Pontiff rose full-purpled at the call : Charlemagne's daughter. ioi " Join me these lovers ! Even now too long " We have delayed the marriage festival ! *' Take thy fair portress, Eginhard ! The wrong " That thou hast done me I repay with all " That an old man loved most ! and Christ above ^' Bless ye, my children, in your life and love ! " Sedpeream, Christe, dignus si perditus iste! Quoth Fabian. NICKAR THE SOULLESS. Where by the marishes Boometh the bittern, Nickar the soulless One Sits with his ghittem. Sits inconsolable, Friendless and foeless, Wailing his destiny, Nickar the soulless. Footing the treacherous Marish untrodden, Glides by a Wanderer Hooded in hodden ; NICKAR THE SOULLESS. I03 Grey is his gaberdine, Grey are his hosen : Track that he travels by No man had chosen. " Wherefore thus sorrowful " Sitt'st thou and sighest 1 " Oft when it furthest seems, " Succour is nighest." " Friend," quoth the soulless One, " Friend of the friendless, " Vain are all comforters, " Sorrow is endless ! " Mine, O to make her mine ! " Mine, and for ever ! " Why did I gaze on her? " Mine she is never ! '• Down by the river-aits " Walked she at day-rise, I04 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. " Beautiful, bright as a " Child of the Faeries ; " Kirtled right maidenly, ** Broidered her bodice, " Belted with emeralds " Fit for a Goddess, " Came where the whispering " Aspen leaves quiver, " Just where the silver mere " Spreads from the river, " Came for a morning bath, " Lovely and lonely, " Oman the swan-breasted, *' Oman the only ! " Came, and the silken fret " Deftly untwining, '' Let fall the golden locks, " Ripple-like shining. NICKAR THE SOULLESS. I ©5 " Laid by her aumoner, " Unclasped her brooches, " Loosened her carcanet, " Starry with ouches, " Dofifed the rich baudekin " Broidered with myrtle, " Unlooped the ruby knops " Loosing her kirtle — " Kirtle of cramoisie, " Glist'ning with bezants, " Samite the purfled sleeve, " Slashed into crescents. " Down from her girdlestead, " Rustling and gleaming, " Fall the rich webs and gold, " Fountain-like streaming ; " Snow-white the corset is, " Snow-white the camise ;] lo6 BROTHER FABIAn's MANUSCRIPT. " Snow-white herself as the " Swans of the Thamise. " Beautiful, fair as the " Swan when she stretches " Wings and neck over her " Nest in the sedges, " Stands she in midst of her " Jewels and vesture ; " O for the pride in her " Maidenly gesture ! " O those blue eyne of hers, " Glancing so keenly ! " O those fair Hmbs of hers, " Fashioned so queenly ! " Down to the mere she steps, " Where by the margent " Brightly the morning-red " Glints on the argent ; NICKAR THE SOULLESS. lO? " Stands there a moment in " Womanhood peerless, " Then like a Mermaiden " Plunges in fearless ! " Bright the hair follows her " Swimming and plashing, « Bright as the walk of light " Sunsetward flashing ; " Ah, what a lunacy " Thus to behold her, " Watching the ripples kiss " Softly her shoulder ! *' Watching the snowy limbs " Cleaving the waters, " ' Is she indeed,' methought, " * One of earth's daughters 1 ' " Mine, O to make her mine, « Mine and for ever ! loS BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT " Why did I gaze on her 1 " Mine she is never ! " " Tush ! " quoth the Wanderer, " Fondly thou sighest ! " Oft when it furthest seems, " Succour is nighest ! " Had but the maiden thus " Pledged me her clothing, " She had not won them back " Certes, for nothing ! " Would she have drowned herself, " Think you, to spy you ! " Would her white arms have donned " Swan-wings to fly you 1 " Come, for a bargain, now, " Such as I trade in ! " What wilt thou give an' I " Grant thee the maiden ?" NICKAR THE SOULLESS. 109 " Givel" quoth the soulless One, " WTiat should I give thee 1 " Gift have I none, even " Could I believe thee ! " None, save the ghittern here, " Friend of my weeping, " This, which the Mermaidens " Gave me in keeping. " Often men heark to its " Harping impassioned, " Little they reck the while " Whence it was fashioned ! " Look you, how white it is, " Polished and slender ; " Once a heart beat in it, " Royally tender ! " 'Tis the breast-bone of an *' Emperor's daughter, no BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. " One whom a sister's hand " Slew under water ! " Famous the history, " Molten in metre, " Long ere the Aser gods " Fled before Peter. " Look at the runes on it, " Finger the strings, too ! " Sweeter its tone than aught " Minstrel e'er sings to ! " " Pardon," quoth Evil-eye, " Truly, no bungler " Fashioned your ghittem, but " I am no jongleur ! " Gift so imperial " Seems me moreover, •' Guerdon too costly for " Blessing a lover ! NICKAR THE SOULLESS. m " Thee of thine only wealth " Shame 'twere to rifle, " All that I ask for is " Just a mere trifle ! " Death shoots at human kind, " Hits me or hits thee, " Only just give me thy " Soul when it quits thee ! " Tush ! A man's soul, my friend, " Trust me, in fact is " Great but in theory, " Nothing in practice ! " Only souls hap to be " That which I trade in ; " Come, give me thine, my friend ! " Thine is the maiden ! " Nickar the soulless One, Nickar the crafty, TI2 BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT. Thrummed on his ghittern-strings, Inwardly laughed he ! " Say, if I barter it, " Thou, canst thou take it ? " 111 were a covenant " Made but to break it. " Look you, this soul of mine " Clings so about me, "He is not bom that can " Drag it without me ! " Trust me, so straitly the " Life-blood hath tied us, " Death the Divider's self " Cannot divide us ! " " Aye 1 " quoth the Wanderer, " Is it so fast in 1 " Haply 'twill loose in the " Grave thou art cast in. , NICKAR THE SOULLESS. II3 " I, I can sever it " Ev'n were it faster ; " In my own handicraft, " Trust me, I'm master. " Come, now, to please thee, I'll " Bargain, my brother, " If I don't take it, to " Find thee another. " If I should fail in it, " Will I, or niU I, " Yours is another soul " Clean as a lily ! " Nickar the soulless One, Nickar the crafty. Thrummed on his ghittern-strings. Inwardly laughed he ! " If to a covenant," Then quoth the Dark One, 114 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. " Name you've not learnt to sign, " Still you can mark one. " Pardon ! " He lifted the Hand of the singer, Swift with a needle-point Pricked he his finger ! Nickar the parchment-scroll Lifted unshudd'ring ; — Handed it back to him Marked with a blood-ring. Peal the bells merrily, Ringers of Thrifholm ! Nickar the soulless One Bringeth a wife home ! Oman the swan-breasted, Oman the wader, — Bring forth the bridal-dress, Girls, that ye made her ! NICKAR THE SOULLESS, US Anlaf the Bishop his Blessing delivers, Nickar the soulless One Blanches and shivers ! Swiftly the winter flies, Springtide and summer, White are the cradle-swathes For the new comer ! Toll the bell solemnly, Ringers of Thrifliolm ! Nickar the soulless One Beareth his wife home ! Cold in the God's-acre Sadly he lays his Bride and her little one Under the daisies ! Wliere by the marishes Boometh the bittern, I 2 ii6 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Nickar the soulless One Sits with his ghittern : — Sits inconsolable, Friendless and foeless. Wailing his destiny, Nickar the soulless. Footing the treacherous Marish untrodden, Glides by a Wanderer Hooded in hodden. Grey is his gaberdine, Grey are his hosen, Track that he travels by No man had chosen. " Wherefore thus sorrowful " Sitt'st thou, forlorn One 1 " Did not I win for thee " Swan-breasted Oman 1 " NICKAR THE SOULLESS. 1 1? Nickar the soulless One Speaks without turning : — " Wherefore 1 Thou knowest well " Whom I am mourning ! " Yet what myself am, thou " Seemest to know less : — " Look on me ! Recognize " Nickar the soulless !" Fiercely the Wanderer Glares on the speaker :— " Fool that I was, to be "Fooled by a Nickar!" Where by the marishes Boometh the bittern, Nickar the soulless One Sinks with his ghittern! Drowned in the marishes, Grey-Hood beside him ; ii8 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. Where is the soul that he Vowed to provide him ? Forth to the green-sodded Wilds of I erne, Shiplessly, steedlessly Takes he his journey. Straight to the Holy Lough Derg, where the hoary Patric the bishop still Dwells in his glory ; Dwells in the cavernous Islet, to mortals Where the dread Spirit-world Opens his portals. There the red Hell-river Bellows and hisses, Plunging in flame to the Shrieking abysses. NICKAR THE SOULLESS. HQ There on the brink of the Dolorous river, Smoke Purgatorial Rises for ever : — There with a glow, as of Gold in the coppel, Glimmers Earth-paradise Girdled with opal. There at the gates of the Weird spirit-haven, Crosiered St. Patric stands, Old as a raven. Speaks the grey Wanderer, " Tell me, O Warden, " What shall I give for a "Soul from thy garden?" Keenly the hoary Saint Eyes the grey pedlar : 120 BROTHER FABIAN'S MANUSCRIPT. " Fiend, thou wast ever an " Impudent meddler ! " Off! ere I ban thee with " Bell, book, and candle, " Home for thy taskmaster " Moloch to handle ! " Quaking, the Wanderer Kneels interceding : " Mercy, O mighty One, " Hark to my pleading ! " Not for myself, O saint, " Ask I the favour, " Once in my life I'm not " Slayer, but saver ! " Nickar, the soulless One, " Pitiful Pixie, " Foully hath won of me " Wager too tricksy ! NICKAR THE SOULLESS. 121 " I, who but Struck it to " Humour his follies, " Wagered no less than a " Soul to the soulless ! " Wagered and lost it ! — Ah, " Saint, if thou aid not, " Think of my doom for the " Wager that's paid not ! " Sure thou canst find him a " Soul to inherit 1 " Any will do for him, " So 'tis a spirit ! " Just a mere idiot's, " Say, or a baby's 1 " Either would suit for him, " Grossest of gabies ! " What 1 In the Limbo, there, *' Out of the many 122 BROTHER FABIAN's MANUSCRIPT. " Unbaptized little ones, " Hast thou not any 1 " Pity that all of them " Thus should be wasted ! " Surely at least by one " Bhss may be tasted 1 " See ! Here's a Prodigal's " Spirit I'll cede thee ; " Damned is it evermore, " Elsewise, I rede thee ! " Look you ! " He draws forth the Soul from his pocket, Flimsily tied, with its Date on a docket ; Smooths out its gossamer Inwardly muttering ; Holds it up chapmanlike, Temptingly fluttering, NICKAR THE SOULLESS. 1 23 " Fiend ! " quoth the Saint, " not oft " Art thou caught sleeping ! " Give me thy Prodigal's " Soul to my keeping, " Since for him, dreeing the " Dole of Purgation, " Prayer may avail even " Yet to salvation. " Spirit for Spirit's not " Mine to return thee ; " Nathless one favour thy " Pleading shall earn thee ! " Oman the Beautiful " Here still abideth, " Till the dread Hand her soul " Heavenward guideth ; " Here, too, her little one " Wanders for ever, 124 BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. " Like as his father wont, " Down by the river. " Fiend, when the Beautiful " Winneth to glory, " With her the child shall go " Bearing thy story ; " He, who fain heavenward " All men would gather, " Haply shall take the Child " In for the Father ! " £x nihilo nil fit : Sathanas 7it perderet, emit ; Perdere cum voluit^perdidit at noluit. quoth Fabian. THE FIFTEEN DAYS OF JUDGMENT. " Then there shall be signs in Heaven."- Thus much in the text is given, Worthy of the sinner's heeding : But the other signs preceding Earth's Last Judgment and destruction, And its fiery reconstruction, May be drawn from other channels ; For we read in Hebrew annals That there shall be altogether^ Fifteen Judgment days ; but whether Following or interpolated, » Jerome saith, is nowhere stated. T26 BROTHER FABIAN'S MANUSCRIPT. Day I. On the first day, loud upcrashing, Shall the shoreless ocean, gnashing With a dismal anaclysmal Outrush from its deeps abysmal, Lifted high by dread supernal. Storm the mountain heights eternal ! Forty cubits of sheer edges, Wall-like, o'er the summit-ridges Stretching upright forth — a mirror For the unutterable terror Of the huddled howling nations, Smit with sudden desolations, Rushing hither, thither, drunken, Half their pleasant realms sea-sunken ! Day II. On the second day, down-pouring, Shall the watery walls drop roaring THE FIFTEEN DAYS OF JUDGMENT. 127 From the ruinous precipices To the nethermost abysses, With a horrible waterquaking In the world-wide cataracts, shaking Earth's foundations as they thunder To the cavernous darkness under. — Surf-plumed steeds of God Almighty, Rock and p)Taniid, forest, city, Through the flood-rent valleys scourging. Wild in headlong ebb down-surging, Down, till eye of man scarce reaches Where, within its shrunken beaches. Hidden from a world's amazement. Cowers the Deep in self-abasement. Day III. On the third day, o'er the seething Of the leprous ocean writhing. Whale and dragon, ore and kraken. And leviathan, forsaken 128 . BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. His unfathomable eyrie, To and fro shall plunge — the dreary Dumb death-sickness of creation Startling with their ululation. Men shall hear the monsters bellow Forth their burden, as they wallow ; But its drift ? — -Let none demand it ! God alone shall understand it ! Day IV. On the fourth day, blazing redly, With a reek pitch-black and deadly, A consuming flame shall quiver From all seas and every river ! Every brook and beck and torrent Leaping in a fiery current ; All the moats and meres and fountains Lit, like beacons on the mountains ; Furnace-roar of smolten surges Scaring earth's extremest verges ! THE FIFTEEN DAYS OF JUDGMENT. I 29 Day V. On the fifth day, Judgment-stricken, Every green herb, from the Hchen To the cedar of the forest. Shall sweat blood in anguish sorest ! On the same, all fowls of heaven Into one wide field, fear-driven, Shall assemble, cowed and shrinking, Neither eating aught, nor drinking ; Kind with kind, all ranked by feather, Doves with doves aghast together, Swan with swan in downfal regal. Wren with wren, with eagle, eagle ! Ah ! Avhen fowl feel such foreboding, What shall be the Sinner's gocidingi Day VI. On the sixth day, througii all nations Shall be quaking of foundations, K 130 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. With a horrible hollow rumbling — All that all men builded cmmbling As the heel of Judgment tramples Cot and palace, castles, temples, Hall and minster, thorp and city ; — All men too aghast for pity In the crashing and the crushing Of that stony stream's downrushing ! — And a flame of fiery warning Forth from sundown until morning With a lurid coruscation Shall reveal night's desolation ! Day VII. On the seventh day, self-shattered, Rifting fourfold, scarred and scattered, Pounded in the Judgment's mortars. Every stone shall split in quarters ! Pebble, whinstone, granite sparry, Rock and boulder — stones of quarry, THE FIFTEEN DAYS OF JUDGMENT. 131 Shaped or shapeless, all asunder Shivering, split athwart and under ; And the splinters, each on other, Shall make war against his brother, Each one grinding each to powder, Grinding, gnashing, loud and louder. Grinding, gnashing on till even, With a dolorous plea to Heaven. What the drift 1 — Let none demand it ! God alone shall understand it ! Day VIII. On the eighth, in dire commotion, Shall the dry land heave like Ocean, Puffed in hills and sucked in hollows, Yawning into steep-down swallows — Swelling, mountainously lifted, Skyward from the plains uprifted — With a universal clamour, Rattling, roaring through the tremor ; K 2 T33 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. While, flung headlong, all men living Grovel in a wild misgiving ! — What, O Sinner, shall avail your Might in solid Earth's own failure ? Day IX. On the ninth day all the mountains Shall drop bodily, like spent fountains, All the cloud-capped pride of pristine Peak and pinnacle amethystine Toppling, drifting to the level, Flooding all the dales with gravel ; One consummate moment blasting All that seems so everlasting — All men to the caves for shelter Scurrying through the world-wide welter Day X. On the tenth day, hither, thither. Herding from their holes together, THE FIFTEEN DAYS OF JUDGMENT. 1 33 With a glaring of white faces, Through the desolate wildernesses Men shall o'er that mountain ruin Run as from a Death's pursuing, — Each one with suspicious scowling, Shrinking from his fellow's howling — For all human speech confounded Shall not sound as once it sounded. None shall understand his brother — Mother child, nor child his mother ! Day XI. On the eleventh day, at dawning. Every sepulchre wide yawning ; At the approach of Earth's Assessor, Shall -upyield its white possessor ; — All the skeletons, close-serried. O'er the graves where each lay buried, Mute upstanding, white and bony, With a dreadful ceremony 134 BROTHER FABIANS MANUSCRIPT. Staring from the morn till gloaming Eastward for the Judge's coming ; Staring on, with sockets eyeless, Each one motionless and ciyless, Save the dry, dead-leaf-like chattering, Through that white-branched forest pattering. What its drift? — Let none demand it ! God alone shall understand it ! Day XII. On the twelfth, the Planets seven And all stars shall drop from Heaven ! On the same day, scared and trembling, All four-footed things assembling. Each after his kind in order — All the lions in one border, Sheep with sheep— not needing shepherd — Stag with stag — with leopard, leopard — Shall be herded cowed and shrinking, Neither eating aught, nor drinking, THE FIFTEEN DAYS OF JUDGMENT. 1.35 But to Godward bellowing, shrieking, Howling, barking, roaring, squeaking ;— What the drift ?— Let none demand it 1 God alone shall understand it ! Day XIII. On the thirteenth awful morning Shall go forth the latest warning, With a close to all things mortal, For the Judge is at the portal ! In an agony superhuman. Every living man and woman, Child and dotard— every breather- Shall lie down and die together, That all flesh in death's subjection May abide the Resurrection ! Day XIV. On the fourteenth, morn to even, Fire shall feed on Earth and Heaven, i-i6 BROTHER Fabian's manuscript. 'O Through the skies and all they cover, Under earth, and on, and over; All things ghostly, human, bestial, In the crucible celestial Tested by the dread purgation Of that final conflagration ; Till the intolerable whiteness Dawn, of God's exceeding brightness Tlirough the furnace-flame's erasure Of yon mortal veil of azure ! Day XV. Last, the fifteenth day shall render Earth a more than earthly splendour, Once again shall Word be given : " Let there be new Earth, new Heaven ! " And this fleeting world — this charnel, Purified, shall wax eternal ! — Then all souls shall Michael gather At the footstool of the Father, THE FIFTEEN DAYS OF JUDGMENT. I37 Summoning from Earth's four corners, All erst human saints ; and scorners, And without revenge or pity Weigh them in the scales almighty ! — Sinner ! Dost thou dread that trial ? Mark yon shadow on the dial ! Asf illi semper i/iodb " cms, eras," umbra docebit. EXPLICIT. POEMS. HARVEST HOME. " The boughs do swing, and the bells do ring, " As we merrily home the harvest bring." Gay with ribbons and with roses, Twisted straws and cornfield posies, Four grey horses, sleek and strong, Bear the harvest-wain along ; While the lime-trees, as it rolls, Snatch aloft the golden tolls Immemoiially due To their cloistral avenue. See, upon the top of it Crowned with boughs the reapers sit ; And hark, what is the song they sing ? 142 POEMS. " The boughs do swing, and the bells do ring, " As we merrily home the harvest bring." In the wake, too, as it passes, Sunburnt mothers, lads and lasses, Some with poppies on their brows, Swinging bonnets, swinging boughs, March behind in idle order With the shepherd's dog as warder ; Singing some, with measured pace, Treble to the reapers' bass. While the chime keeps company From the dovecot belfry nigh, Mingling with the song below, High and low and high and low ; " The boughs do swing, and the bells do ring, " As we merrily home the harvest bring." See, the waggon stops its sailing By the fanner's garden paling, HARVEST HOME, 1 43 And the troop in order stand By the porch on either hand, Till the gaifer to the door, With his dame and grandsons four, Comes to greet them, while a maiden With the horns and beer-jug laden Stands behind the household ring As the crowd in chorus sing : — " Now God bless our good master " For many a year to come, " To plough and sow and reap and mow, " And bring the harvest home ! '' To bring the harvest home, good man, " And happy may he be ! ■' We've ploughed, weVe sown — we've reap'd, we've mown, " And we bring it merrily, " We bring the harvest home ! " Home, home I The harvest home I " The harvest home ! — Huzza ! 144 POEMS. " And God bless our good mistress, " Her children all and some, " To plough and sow and reap and mow, " And bring the harvest home ! " To bring the harvest home, good dame, " With all her family ! " We've ploughed,we've sown — we've reap'd, we've mown, " And we bring it merrily, " We bring the harvest home ! " Home, home ! The harvest home ! " The harvest home ! — Huzza ! " Like a barque from Eldorado Seeking the spice-islands' shadow, On it sails, the shouting over, To its brother ricks of clover In the yard beyond the gate, There to yield its golden freight While the thirsty troopers press Round the beer-jug sorceress. HARVEST HOME. 1 45 Since, besides, the bustling mother One jug empty, brings another, Poaching Dick with his one arm Thinks a draught will do no harm, Though his claim be somewhat slender, Save that now, while birds are tender, He's netted since they've done the reaping Five fat brace while folks were sleeping. See, among the unwashen topers Throng a score of interlopers Gay in Sunday-best and more ! Never, surely, Katie wore Hat like that in holy place ! Never, surely, Katie's face Beamed as now on Sabbath morning With so wicked an adorning From the rose that blooms so late On the trellis o'er the gate ! L 146 POEMS. Come, be ofif, you tippling idlers ! Dick, you rascal, call the fiddlers ! Clear the green, and let's be doing, We're baking while we should be brewing ! Ha, the Queen I — the Harvest Queen ! Crowned right royally I ween With the simple wheaten ears Walking there among her peers ; Nor less royally, in sooth. Crowned with beauty, grace, and youth : Frank and fair from head to foot. Rippled tress to brass-holed boot. Wearing just the form and favour Health and honest Nature gave her ; Not too small of hand or waist, Undisfigured, undisgraced ; Meet in a free land to be Wife and mother of the free : Queen in presence and in motion. Claiming loyallest devotion HARVEST HOME. 1 47 From her lieges, great and small ; Queen in all things and to all. Yet, methinks, beneath the state, They may see who watch and wait, Something in her face and mien Of kindlier stuff than makes a queen — A glance, at times a thought too soft — A fall of eyes that meet too oft — What, Katie, jealous 1 — Come, remember She marries Ned ere next September, And then — who knows 1 Come, spare your frown ! What '? " don't care fivepence for the crown ? It is not that they've made her Queen — Only she looks " — Ah, well, I ween These harvest lads and lasses here Will serve a humbler Queen next year ! Now, Ned, where are you, lad 1 We're waiting While you stand there with Grannam prating ! Bow to the Queen and lead her up ! L 2 148 POEMS. You'll scarce dance down before we sup ! So ! Mark him where he comes ! A fellow To make small courtiers' blood run yellow ; Walking there without a coat, Nothing more about his throat Than a knot without a bow Round the collar's crumpled snow. Just a streak of crimson thread Bound about the cropt black head, Rough and round and resolute, Curled like polished ebony-root : Thewed like Adam, with a stride Proud, yet with a noble pride — Pride that hateth, scorneth no man : Just, in truth, a brave young yeoman. He bows : — A prince might ape that air, Half stately, half familiar, With which at top he takes his stand ; Still proud, with queenship hand in hand, HARVEST HOME. 1 49 And looks down on the bachelors Like Saul among his warriors. He daps his hands. Now, twanging, braying, You tuning fiddlers, fall to playing ! Scrape it, fiddlers ! foot it, dancers ! See how heel to fiddle answers ! Foot it, shuffling, shifting places Down the avenue of faces : Shifting, shuffling, in and out, Up and down and round about ; Whirling skirts and ribbons streaming, Neat-la.ced ankles trimly gleaming, Corduroys all shaking, reeling, Hobnailed boot-soles toeing, heeling, Stamping, shuffling all in line, Treading out the tune like wine. Foot it, foot it ! Shake your leather ] Foot it featly down together J 150 POEMS, Look you here, how httle Lizzie, All her curly pate dance-dizzy, IJides it in her pinafore As she dances at the door, Dances to herself and sings, Clapping chubby arms for wings. Look, too, even the elders watching Find the dancers' frenzy catching : "With her sticks, see. Master's mother Rests on one, — beats time with t'other, While the Grand-dad, standing by her, Warming with his boyhood's fire. Steps aside to little Liz, Takes her chubby hand in his, Four with fourscore hand in hand. Briskly joins the dancing band. And, though Curly-pate looks gravely, Makes believe to foot it bravely. HARVEST HOME. 151 What's that, Gaffer 1 — Supper ready 1 Wait awhile, we're not so greedy ! Let the old folk get them seated ; We've not done, we're hardly heated ! Faster, fiddlers ! — Dancers, faster ! — One more round, then follow Master ! So, to supper ! " House " or kitchen Finds a seat for all and each in : Vet stand awhile : the feast can spare One little resting-place for prayer, AMiile the Vicar, grave and portly, Asks a blessing, — not too shortly, On the harvest and the house, Him that reaps, and him that ploughs, Him that stores the golden yield, And him whose sheaf is left afield, That he at home may envy not His niggard neighbour's wealthier lot ; On the farm and on the feast. On the host and on the guest. 152 POEMS. Now be seated ! Master's carving Makes believe his guests are starving. Though all that yard and field afford Find a dish upon the board, All that Plenty can procure For the village epicure, Beef and bacon, eggs and cheese, Creams, the Queen's own master-piece, Cakes and cates, and junkets rare, Meet for feasting bishops' fare : All the more to village taste, That 'tis plenty without waste. What a clatter, what a chatter, What a clap of plate and platter, While the A^icar talks of cows, Superphosphates and steam-ploughs, To a neighbour's wife, who feeds : Words she likes, but she loves deeds. HARVEST HOME. 1 53 But amid the din below Talk, I ween, hath ruddier glow. Where the gossips hint their tales Of Tom and Bess, and Dick and Aylse, While, further down, the ham provokes Five village wits to launch two jokes. " Welcome ! God speed the plough and flail ! " The Gaffer starts the sops and ale ; A brown toast-island in the cup Afloat among pricked crabs at top ; Launched in the tankard's gulf profound, From lip to lip the toast goes round : Look, not a dame will shirk her draught, But quaff it deep as Gaff"er quaffed ! Aye, even the Queen right frankly dips Among the crabs her dainty lips. So, — queenly heart shall never fail 1 God speed the plough ! God speed the flail ! 154 POEMS. Ha, who comes here 1 'Tis red-head Johnnie Says he's brought the Vicar's pony. Well ! even harvest-feasting passes ! We and Time have empty glasses ! (lood-night ! — Good-bye ! — Yet, ere we go, Let's peep into the door below, Where fiddler Sam among the smoke Is singing when he does not choke, And when he falters in the middle Ekes out the tune upon his fiddle ; Till poaching Dick, who grows uneasy To listen to a pipe so wheezy, Takes up the stave an octave lower. And shakes the rafters with his roar : " Says Tom, ' Good day, you proper young men, " ' What makes you to fight so ] " ' And come you along with me, young maid, " ' For I think it is time to go.' " HARVEST-HOME. I 5 5 Good-night once more ! Look, broad and low, Tlie moon with harvest-fire aglow Sheds quiet over field and tree. And all sleeps, save the bats and we. Time is swift, and youth grows old ! Let us grasp the days of gold ! Sa}' thou Poet, say thou Sage, Is not this the golden age 1 Not behind us, not before us ! Even now 'tis shining o'er us ! 'Mid the stir of Old and New, 'Mid the strife of False and True, Mother Nature, still the same, Faithful to the eternal aim, Every year renews the prime Of the golden olden time ! 156 POEMS. I A PROUD BEAUTY. I AM fair, you say, in the morning, Cantering over the heath : Fair at night in ball-room adorning, Satin and ribbons and wreath. O, of course ! You could kneel to my slipper, Kiss the print of my heel in the dirt : Be delighted to murder the snipper Who measures my waist for a skirt ! Yes, I'm fair ; but, I thank }-ou, my mirror Can speak more justly than you. Your praise of my beauty's an error : That tells me I'm fair, but is true ! A PROUD BEAUTY. 1 57 'Tis true,— I am fair, and you feel it; I have eyes ; I know what I know. Am I under an oath to conceal it 1 Am I sinner so foul if I show 1 Yes ! Puppy and pedant and poet Might pardon the beauty, and grin. 'Tis not to be fair, but to know it, That — that is the pardonless sin ! Venus on Titian's easel — Helen in Homer's song — Psyche from Gibson's chisel, And I — we are all in the wrong ! I am proud, you whisper ; — So be it ! Let the hard word stand ! — I am proud ! Am I to blush if you see it, You, — and the rest of the crowd ] You, — of course you cannot mistake me, Who know us women so well ! 15^' POEMS. What I am, is of course what you make me ! I am proud, as you all can tell ! I am proud ! 'Twere in vain for a Mister, You simper, to sue my accord : Plain Esquire might suit for my sister, But I — I am mate for my lord. Well, I thank you, you read me so truly ! My lord, too, is quite of your mind. I hear he's been furnishing newly ; A Countess no doubt is behind. Yes ! Beauty in royallest blossom Heaven shaped expressly for him, Such a judge of the swell of a bosom, The curve of a delicate limb ! Well, at times pride suffers a stumble Even from gazing so high. I am proud : for once I'll be humble — I deign to tell you, you lie ! A PROUD BEAUTY. 1 59 Let me speak ! You see me, a woman — Lovely, with eyes to compare. Think you I ceased to be human So soon as I felt I was fair 1 Have I nought in my heart but ambition i No blood '? not a passion to move 1 Do I yearn for a park and position, Yet never feel hungry for love 1 Speak ! Where is your red-headed scullion One whit more woman than 1 1 The title and rent-roll and bullion — Can they stifle the heart's wild cry "? Coward ! You feel you're unworthy Of beauty peerless as mine, So you feign that my passion is earthy, And yours — yours of course is divine ! Tlie old tale ! — You have lost in your running. And whine that the judgment is wrong ! l6o POEMS. Mother Nature, you find, is too cunning : She fashions the fair for the strong. Doubtless, you feel it acutely, To be weak, I grant you, is hard ; But might you not suffer it mutely 1 I neither made you nor marred. Could you love half so well as you tell us, You'd be first to be proud of my pride ; Too proud — far too proud to be jealous, Though a king babbled love by my side. Go ! I remit you your duty ! My lieges at least shall be true. I treasure my pride and my beauty Not for my lord — nor for you. POEMS. i6r MIDSUMMER EVE. Feast of Saint John, ah, where the faery train \Mio wont of old on this thy hallowed Eve In trim array their twilight dance to weave In forest nooks, unseen of eyes profane ? Ay me, Titania wakes not, and the strain Of Pixy songs is still ! Dost thou not grieve, Grey Festival, that felon Time should leave Thy brooks and woods unhaunted e'er again ? O mourn, but not for them ! The Ithuriel flash That scathed their sheen, still spares the baser creed Where elder faith heard elfin timbrels clash. And fays' shrill pipings echo through the mead, There the new gospel's calculating greed Eyes the broad oaks, and hears the chink of cash 1 62 POEMS. VOICES. Our star shines out in tlie West, And a mist floats up from the sea, Floats up by the brook while the wind is still In the leaves of the linden tree. All still as we sit in the still moonshine In the bracken up to the knee, Sa\e the beat of a heart that beats to mine, And the beat of a heart that beats to thine, Dear love ! A heart that beats to thine. VOICES. 1 63 A voice goes down with the brook, And a voice comes up from the shore, But they whisper a sweeter tale to-night Than ever they whispered before : They have wept and sighed, but never hke this Were the sighs and the tears of yore, For they weep, but the tears are the tears of bliss : — Thev sigh, — 'tis the sigh in a lovers kiss. Dear love ! The sigh in a lover's kiss. M 2 164 POEMS. THE WINTER MORN. Heigh-ho, the sorrow and the snow, And a true true love forlorn ! O wearily I go o'er the weary weary snow, In the weary, weary winter morn ! Tramping, tramping, whither shall I go ? — Tramping, tramping, weary-foot and worn 1 For O, and for O, in the darkness and the snow, O well the wind may blow, and O well the tear may flow For a true true love forlorn ! POEMS. 165 THE BANNERS. Lordly Banners, waving to the stars, Flap upon the nightwind, heavy with the dew :- Trustful Youth is wending to the wars, Strong in Ancient faith to battle with the New. Lordly banners, trodden in the clay, Lie upon the mountain, dank with other dew : Hapless Youth hath lost the bloody day : Ancient faith is feeble, — stronger is the New. Lordly banners, other than of yore, Flap upon the night-wind, heavy with the dew : Youth to battle girdeth him once more. New and Old are feeble, — mighty is the True ! l66 POEMS. BY THE SEA. Sweet day, thy beauty doth unseal all springs Of pure delight, where even Despair might slake Awhile his infinite thirsting, and partake In tlie deep gladness of all outward things. Yea, Sea and Autumn sit like crowned kings Over the revels of the world, and make Awful rejoicing to the Lord ! — Break, break. Thou prison-silence in the silver strings, And blossom into song ! O day of days, Joying among the stars in breathless calm, ^Vith thine own tribute to the eternal psalm From Nature's heart outwelling evermore, With all sweet voices of the waves and shore Give thou to (iod one hymn of human praise ! POEMS. 167 ROUGE ET XOIR. You there, looking so demure at Yonder lily-fisted curate, And the other there, his brother, In his spurs and knightly red : ]Mar\el you how e'er your sister Kissed the Parson when he kissed her 1 Or how Fanny can sit rapt in Loving converse with the Captain ? How one care of such a pair of Enters into maiden's head 1 Come, methinks you're somewhat bitter, ]M\' fair cynic crochet-knitter : 1 68 POEMS. If you like a chat, let's strike a Fairer balance if we can. Yonder dandy little cleric, Mediaeval-neoteric, Yonder Horseguards' ultimatum, Lisp and giggle and pomatum, Weigh them, flay them, bray them, slay them, Still you'll find them each a man ! 'Tis a something nobler, surely, Which those damsels love so purely, Than the waistcoat or the laced coat. Priestly black or knightly red. Beams there, then, no light supernal. Lode-star of a love eternal. Evermore in each vocation, To excuse the adoration Which discovers in their lovers All of great in hand or head ? ROUGE ET NOIR. Yes ! The Soldier and the Preacher, That the guardian, this the teacher, Own a title true and vital To a heart' s-love infinite ! Clothe us how you will, we're human : God hath made us man and woman. Rightly then, shall help-mate tender Love her guider and defender, And by rule of Nature's true-love Still adore the Priest and Knight ! Lo you there, at Eden's portals Stand the grand primeval mortals, Man and woman, merely human In the lore of Good and 111 ! Yet, though fallen both, and banished, All their garden-glory vanished. Knight, by Cherub-s\vords appointed. Priest, by Seraph-tears anointed, I -JO POEMS. Still the woman loves the true man, Knight and Priest she loves him still I Or, so please you, turn the pages Of the great world's coming ages To the latest and the greatest : Look adown the years, and see ^Miere, beyond the days of mitres, ^^'here, beyond the days of fighters, Priest of white self-sacrifices. Warrior with his wants and vices, Still the woman loves the true man With the grander love to be ! Aye, and in the baser real Still she clings to this ideal : Else I wonder much how yonder Pair could e'er have won them wives Yet 'twere ill to pass them blindly ; Let us rather own them kindly ROUGE ET NOIR. As the types of nobler orders, Nobler preachers, nobler svvorders, Even though nothing but their clothing Tell the meaning of their lives ! Is the lore not worth the learning Taught by yonder love-lamp burning Pure and holy on the lowly Altar of a sister's breast 1 Vou, no doubt, are wiser, older, And perhaps a trifle colder. Yet whate'er the outer cover Of your own sublimer lover, Baser, nobler, king or cobbler. All you love is Knight or Priest ! 172 POEMS. / SHADOWS. Lonely o'er the dying ember I the past recal, And remember in December April buds and August skies, As the shadows fall and rise, As the shadows rise and fall. Quicker now they flit and flicker On the dreary wall ; Aye, and quicker still, and thicker Throng the fitful fantasies, As the shadows fall and rise, As the shadows rise and fall. SHADOWS. 173 Dimmer now they shoot and shimmer On the dreary wall. Dimmer, dimmer, still they glimmer Till the light in darkness dies, And the other shadows rise, And the other shadows fall. 1/4 POEMS. THE SEVEN FIDDLERS. A BLUE robe on their shoulder, And an ivory bow in hand, Seven fiddlers came with their fiddles A-fiddling through the land. And they fiddled a tune on their fiddles That none could understand. For none who heard their fiddling Might keep his ten toes still, E'en the cripple threw down his crutches, And danced against his will : Young and old they all fi^ll a-dancing, While the fiddlers fiddled their fill. THE SEVEN FIDDLERS. 175 They fiddled down to the ferry — The ferry by Severn-side, And they stept aboard the ferry, None else to row or guide. And deftly steered the pilot. And stoutly the oars they plied. Then suddenly in mid-channel These fiddlers ceased to row, And the pilot spake to his fellows In a tongue that none may know : " Let us home to our fathers and brothers, And the maidens we love below." Then the fiddlers seized their fiddles, And sang to their fiddles a song : " We are coming, coming, O brothers, " To the home we have left so long, " For the world still loves the fiddler, " And the fiddler's tune is strong." 176 POEMS. Then they stept from out the ferry Into the Severn-sea, Down into the depths of the waters Where the homes of the fiddlers be, And the ferry-boat drifted slowly Forth to the ocean free ! But where those jolly fiddlers Walked down into the deep, The ripples are never quiet. But for ever dance and leap. Though the Severn-sea be silent, And the winds be all asleep. POEMS. 177 SONG. I LOOK into the eyes I love And watch the old love beaming, And call from out the buried years The oldj old lover's dreaming. Just here and there one line of grey Divides the raven tresses, I sigh : — Youth fades apace — I smile, The love that blest, still blesses ! N 178 POEMS. AMERICA. I. I SAW two Curses in the blood of men Laving their hoary loathliness. A fen Choked with unburied corpses steamed before their den. One bare aloft the Sword, and one the Scourge. Four spotted things laughed a hyena-dirge As their grim monarchs waded through the gory surge. Blood evermore oozed in from North and South, And ever as they laved, a ghastlier youth Slid through their ghastly Eld, and slaked its hideous drouth. AMERICA. 179 And War lay down and lapped a loathly draught, Rolling his eyes half drunkenly, and laughed : " Not yet thy hand nor mine forgets its wonted craft ! " Thousand on thousand blood-recorded years, " Have thou and I battened on blood and tears, " Sworn fellows, cheek by jowl — Hell's eldest born twin- peers. " Yet in thy perilous hour, when waked by thee " I rose to shield thy realm against the Free, " E'en yet men dream that War shall Slavery's dooms- man be." And Slavery howled : " Not yet, not yet we die ! " Thou art my Saviour, and thy Saviour I ! — ■ " Brother, thy fall shall herald that mine own draws nigh ! " N 2 l8o POEMS. 11. And other Two I saw who walked the sea : — One bare an Olive-bough and one a Key : White-robed, white-winged, they walked the waters mournfully. And Peace said, " Look — yon fair far-stretching land " Hath sworn by all the blood upon her hand, " That Slavery evermore her corner-stone shall stand. " Dost thou not tremble 1 " Freedom answered : " No ! " But go thou first — and wheresoe'er thou go " Surely I too shall follow though my steps be slow ! " For in my dreams, — yea, and my dreams come true, " God gave me empire over Old and New : — " I wait — Hereafter, mine are all beneath the blue ! " POEMS. t8t :Dcr 3;ob al6 grcunb. A TRANSLATION OF TPIE PJCTURE BY ALFRED RETHEL. PATER NOSTER, QUI ES IN CCELIS. Is the sun shining 1 I thought he set An hour ago :— but I forget : And I seem to feel from over the hill The red glow bathing my forehead still. SANCTIFICETUR NOMEN TUUM, Very quiet it seems to-night, Very c^uiet to left and right, And I know full well, though I cannot see, How the calmness falls over meadow and tree, lS2 POEMS. And the carven pinnacles clear and high, HoAv still the}" stand in the quiet sky. ADVENIAT REGNUM TUUM. I feel like a sick man praising God, When his fever is spent, and he walks abroad, And the peace that flows from all peaceful things ^^'ells fresh in the worn heart's shrunken springs, Till his eyes o'erflow, and the world grows dim, And he hushes the chords of his own weak hymn To join in the silent psalmody Floating up from the brooks, and fields, and sky, To the great good God, pouring down from above Such wealth of glory, and peace, and love. Yea, very quiet it seems to-night, Very quiet to left and right. Very quiet and very sweet ! I would die to-night if God thought meet ! POEMS. 183 SICUT IN CCELO, ITA IN TERRA. Did I read it to-night, or long ago, Of the blessed Eulalia's shroud of snow, And the dove from her martyr lips that flew With the girlish spirit so white and true 1 Ay me, O God, Thou hast called to Thee Full many a soul as white as she ! Ay, I tolled the bell but yesterday For such an one in the twilight grey. ^^'as it yesterday 1 — I am very old, And my eyes wax dim, and my blood grows cold, — Is it forty years 1 There was snow on the ground. That lay on my heart as the years rolled round ; But green is the churchyard now below, And my heart is cold, but not with the snow. — PANEM QUOTIDIANUM DA NOBIS HODIE. Is it a bird 1 Ay, chirp for thy crumbs, Thou shalt have them, my child, when Tine comes : 184 POEMS. For there's something strange on my heart and brow, And I cannot get up to serve thee now. ET REMITTE NOBIS DEBITA NOSTRA. I do not think I am tohing the bell, Yet surely I hear it knolling a knell : — Is it Wolf? No, he never tolled so well ! Ha ! old Friend, is it thou 1 'Tis kind to come thus to help me now, For I feel almost too feeble to rise. And it seems a labour to open my eyes. Ah, well ! You can toll even better than I ! But, who for 1 I forget, for so many die. Yet, I thought when they told me, 'twas one I knew, One near and dear, but I wot not who. ET LIBERA NOS A MALO. AMEN. Music is it 1 'Tis many a year Since I heard the requiem sung so clear, — / POEMS. T 8 DONA EIS, DONA EIS ^TERNAM. And hark to the organ, how cahii and deep ! Seven years I have heard it not, save in sleep. Oh, hearken ! It never seemed so near ! Is it she who singeth so sweet and dear 1 SOLVET S^CLUM IN FAVILLA TESTE DAVID CUM SIBYLLA 1 Oh, to rise and join ! If I could but see ! Dear God ! — Nunc dimittis, Domine ! D 1 86 POEMS. A SPRING-TIDE WELCOME. March loth, 1863. Bid her welcome, O fairest Spring from the South ! She is fair as thyself that greets thee ! — Meet her and kiss her on eyes and mouth, — The Spring from the North that meets thee ! — Meet her and kiss her, O Spring from the South, Our bride in her bridal gladness ; With the Crocus, in true-love's saffron sheen, Bring the Snowdrop's maidenly white between, For the bride in her bridal gladness ; And scatter the purple Violet, For a hope that blooms through an old regret. Sweet, sweet in the hues of sadness ! A SPRING-TIDE WELCOME. 187 Bid her welcome, O Violet, under thy leaves, Sweet, sweet, in thy purple mourning, — The Hope who comes to the land that grieves For the Good One unreturning ! — Greet her, O Violet, under thy leaves, In thy purple mourning greet her ! Tell her that sweet to the heart that bleeds Is the hidden fragrance of holy deeds, Yet say there is one thing sweeter ; — ■ For sweet, O sweet though the memory be Of the Wise and Good in the Land of the Free, The renewing of Hope is sweeter ! Bid her welcome, O Snowdrop, out on the lea, Fair, fair in thy maiden whiteness. — The Maiden wlio comes from over the sea, So fair in her maiden brightness ! — Greet her, O Snowdrop, out on the lea, To thine own sweet self compare her ! 1 88 POEMS. Tell her how English pulses bless The charm of her maidenly loveliness, Yet say there is one thing fairer ; — For fair, O fair though her form may be, To the brave true man in the Land of the Free, Her maiden heart is fairer ! Bid her welcome, O Crocus-cups i' the sun, Bright, bright in your golden glory. The Dansker Bride who is wooed and won To grace our English story ! Greet her, O Crocus-cups i' the sun ! With a golden welcome cheer her ! — Tell her that dear to an Empire's bride Is the fulness of Empire's pomp and pride, Yet say there is one thing dearer : — For dear though the pride of Empire be To the bride of a Prince in the Land of the Free, The true True-love is dearer ! POEMS. 189 GARIBALDI. April, 1864. Happy be the gales that waft thee, Bark that bearest o'er the sea, Prophet, — aye and more than prophet of Italia One and Free ! — Welcome, Joseph Garibaldi ! With all praise of tongue and pen, Welcome, welcome with all honour, with all love of all true men ; Garibaldi ! — As I name thee, from the backward past of time Flash the shapes of old-world Manhood,— shapes of old- world Faith sublime ; 1 90 POEMS. Awful shadows of thy brethren, gazing on me as I gaze, Demigods and stately Visions of the dim heroic days. And I see among the Visions, where in Lemnos isle untrod, One foot-stricken Philoctetes wields the arrows of a god ; Wastes the v/eary years in sorrow, while afar the Chiefs of Troy Laughing proudly on the leaguers, bid them enter and destroy. And I hear the Prophet whisper : " Hark, Achaians, would ye speed. Go, fetch hither Philoctetes : he alone can do this deed. His alone the fateful arrows, tempered in Lerncean gore : — Let him come, Alcides' comrade, and Troy town shall be no more ! " GARIBALDI. 19! And I see a false Ulysses, with a hate-dissembling guile, Urging forth the stricken Hero to the leaguer from his isle. And the warrior from the meshes of his falsehood burst- ing free, To the gods' will grandly yielding, and the Fate, whate'er it be. And again once more I see him, waxing whole of his deep wound, Watch the triumph of his arrows, see all Troy a blazing mound ; And beyond the blaze and triumph, and the War-god's glorious ills, See him girt with peaceful peoples, on the free Calabrian hills ! Thou thrice-nobler Philoctetes ! Is thy foot-wound not vet whole 1 192 POEMS. Solferino's new Ulysses — hath he loved thee to cajole ? Through and through our welcome ringing, o'er a fallen Troy we hear The last curses of Mastai, Antonelli's dying sneer ! POEMS. 1 93 SONG. Kisses, sweet kisses, — sweeter than death : Beneath and above Nothing but love, — Love in the heart and the quick warm breath ! Weeping, wild weeping, — sadder than death : Above and beneath Nothing but death, — Death in the heart and the bridal wreath ! Count me those kisses, sweeter than death Ah, Sorrow, so few '? Make up the due ! Count me the tears, too, sadder tium deat o 194 POEMS. A DIRGE FOR SUMMER. Summer dieth : — o'er his bier Chant a requiem low and clear ! — Chant it for his dying flowers, — Chant it for his flying hours. Let them wither all together Now the world is past the prime Of the golden olden-time. Let them die, and dying Summer Yield his kingdom to the comer From the islands of the West : He is weary, let him rest ! ^1 II A DIRGE FOR SUMMER. I95 And let mellow Autumn's yellow Fall upon the leafy prime Of the golden olden-time. Go, ye days, your deeds are done ! Be yon clouds about the sun Your imperial winding-sheet ! Let the nightwinds as they fleet Tell the story of the glory Of the free great-hearted prime Of the golden olden-time. O 2 196 POEMS. CROCUS-GATHERING. Come, gather the crocus-cups with me, And dream of the summer coming : Saffron and purple and snowy white, All awake to the first bees humming. The white is there for the maiden-heart, And the purple is there for sorrow : The saffron is there for the true true love, And they'll all be dead to-morrow. POEMS. 197 INSTEAD OF A TRANSLATION FROM BERANGER. Butterfly-racing, boys ; butterfly-chasing, boys, Down by the milldam, boys,— off and away ! Hats off, and follow him, fluttering, flickering. Under the chestnuts and over the hay ! There in the clover now ! — Throw your hat over now ! Catch him, and keep him, and home with your prize ! Ha, Where's the captive, boys 1 — Fluttering, flickering, Far, far away in the blue summer skies ! Fair one, O task me not ! — Dear one, O ask me not ! Free let him flutter o'er brook-land and lynn ! What if I caught him you,— what if I l)rought him you, Named on a label, and spiked on a pin '. TgS POEMS. ABSENCE. Fade, thou twisted briony, Still upon the white-thorn tree ! Fail, ye berries red and gold ! Fall and blacken in tlie bracken, Fade and fall ! — The year is old. Never cometh She to wear Wreaths of thine among her hair, While we watch the autumnal gales Blow the shadows o'er the meadows, Dimming half the distant dales. POEMS. 199 A ROUNDELAY. Come, sit beneath the hawthorn tree, And press thy lips to mine : I have a merry song for thee, Will cheer thy heart like wine. O well the bonny heath may smile, The lark sing clear above : For we will love a little while, Though all in vain we love. And green the leaves should be o'erhearl, The bracken brown beneath : For O, that thou and I lay dead Upon the bonny heath I 200 POEMS. WHAT THE TRUMPETER SAID. 1855. At a pot-house bar as I chanced to pass I saw three men by the flare of the gas : Soldiers two, with their red-coats gay, And the third from Chelsea, a pensioner grey, With three smart hussies as bold as they. Drunk and swearing and swaggering all, With their foul songs scaring the quiet Mall, While the clash of glasses and clink of spurs Kept time to the roystering quiristers, And the old man sat and stamped with his stump : Wlien I heard a trumpeter trumpet a trump : — " To the wars ! — To the wars ! " March, march ! WHAT THE TRUMPETER SAID. 20I " Quit your petty little tittle-tattle, '.' Quit the bottle for the battle, " And march ! " To the wars, to the wars ! " March, march with a tramp ! " To the wars ! Up, you toper at your tipple, bottle after bottle at the tap ! Quit your pretty dirty Betty ! Clap her garter in your cap, " And march ! " To the trench and the sap ! " To the little victual of the camp ! " To the Httle liquor of the camp ! " To the breach and the storm ! " To the roaring and the glory of the wars ! " To the rattle and the battle and the scars !" Trumpeter, trumpet it out ! 202 POEMS. JOCK O' GLEN MORISTANE " Come to your liame, laddie, Laddie, I'm wearie : Jock o' Glen Moristane, Jockie, my dearie ! " " Mither, where's Jockie gane 1 Ken ye, my mither ? Gin I tyne Jockie, I'll ne'er find anither." " Jock's gane a hawking, lass, Doim by Loch Lomond : Jock's no be back to thee. Lassie, this tvva' mond. JOCK O' GLEN MORISTANE. 203 "Jockie's no tme to ye Mair than to twenty ; Mithers ye hae but ane. Wooers by plenty." " Tell me nae mair, mither, Mither, I'm wearie : . Jockie's my ain true love, Jockie's my dearie." " Jock's i' the well, Lizzie, Lizzie Mac Taggart ! Speir where your mither gat Bluid on her shoe-girt ? " Toom is your father's ha', Jock o' Glen Mor'stane ! Toom is your bridal bed, Cauld is your hear'stane ! >04 POEMS. " Cauid is your hand, Jockie, Doun i' the water : Caulder the heart that leed Till her ain dochter ! " Cauld is the wide warld To hearts that are wearie. Come to my arms, Jockie, Jockie, my dearie ! " POEMS. 205 THE PURITAN MILITANT. IcHABOD, Icliabod ! — Never to rise again. Godless Prelate and King ! Courage, ye saints of God ! Lift up your eyes again ! Lift up your voice and sing ! Chant we, brothers, in chorus Through the fires of tribulation, For the Lamb hath gone before us, Our Guide and strong Salvation ! Our prayers and penance and fasting And manifold agonies Are writ in the book everlasting, And lovely in His eyes ! 2o6 POEMS. Pilgrims, footsore and sick To the New Jerusalem : Our brows all streaming red with the prick Of the thorny diadem. Our bones lie scattered before the pit, White as a forester's chips, For a deadly wine and blood with it Hast thou held, O Lord, to thy servant's lips I Stretch forth thy hand, thou Righter Of them that sufter the wrong ! Up, Lord, and smite the smiter ! Avenge us ! The time is long. Bind their nobles in fetters. And scourge their kings with steel ! Write on their walls the letters Of the wrath they are doomed to feel ! THE PURITAN MILITANT. 20 7 Mcne, mene, tekel upharsin 1 Open thy gates, O king ! Up, Lord, avenge us ! Drive with thy cars in ! Smite hip and thigh, that thy saints may sing ! Ichabod, Ichabod ! — Never to rise agatn ! Godless Prelate and King ! Courage, ye saints of God ! Lift up your eyes again ! Lift up your voice and sing ! 2o8 POEMS. SAFI. Safi knelt by the spring with her wonted pitcher at even, Safi, slender of limb and small as the deer of the Desert, Safi, daughter of Am, White Rose of the Desert Oasis. Safi espied far away in the yellow mist of the Desert Shimmering into a shape, how One rode, thirstily hasting Tall on a camel aloft to the welcome Fountain of Blessing. Taller he rode than men, though wayworn, wearily stooping, Nigher and nigher amain as Safi hid from his presence Trembling under the palm, as he dropped from his camel to drink there. Still she stood in the sun, that among the stems of the palm-trees SAFI. 209 Westering flooded with flame the sands and the blessed Oasis. Still she stood while he drank, stood still as a hyacinth gathered, Dreading almost to breathe lest the eye of the Stranger espy her. Still she stood while they drank, that strange tall man and his camel, Drank and drank yet again of the bubbling Fountain of Blessing, Leaping alive from the rock, the life of the palms of the valley. " Praise be to Allah ! " he cried, " and thou, O Spring of the Desert, " Blessed be thou among springs evermore ! " and straight from his finger Loosing an emerald ring, a talisman flashing with cipher, Dropped it into the fount : " Be this the thanks of the Pilgrim ! P 2 I O POEMS. " So never more, O Spring, shall thy waters fail to the stranger, " So never more shall drought or the sudden rains defile thee ! " Blessed Be thou as the streams of Hiddekel, blessed for ever ! " Safi heard where she stood in her hiding under the palm- tree, Safi saw as she turned how her shadow fell from her hiding Full on the tell-tale sward to the dusty foot of the Stranger. "Beautiful art thou, O shadow !" he murmured, "beau- tiful also " She who under the palm hath heard the prayer of the Stranger ! — " Beautiful, slender of limb, lithe, light as the lissom acacia, " Beautiful, mild as the olive, hereafter haply as fruitful 1 SAFI. 2 I I "Such an one would I wed, — will wed, by Allah, if only " Stately she be as the palm, — bride meet for a Son of the Giants, " Be she as tall as my ear, she shall wed the Son of the Giants ! " Safi heard where she stood in her hiding under the palm- tree, Safi blushed from her foot to the folds of her maidenly turban, Safi's blood beat fast with sudden joy and amazement, Safi's love as a rose to the sunshine opens its petals. Blossomed glowing and sweet to the sunny word of the Stranger : — Safi blanched from her foot to the folds of her maidenly turban, Safi's blood stood still with sudden fear and amaze- ment, Safi's love, as a rose that feels the simoom of the Desert, P 2 2 12 POEMS. Drooped in her tremulous heart at the parching word of the Stranger, Tinghng hot in her ear,—" if stately, tall as a palm-tree." " I, what am I ? — but a rose, little Rose of the Desert Oasis ! " Tall he strode where she stood in her hiding under the palm-tree, Shamefast, eyeing the spring, little Rose of the Desert Oasis. " Peace, O maiden, be with thee ! " and " Peace," she answered, " and blessing ! " " Who, then, art thou, and whence, O maiden, Rose of the Desert 1 " " Safi, daughter of Am, men call me, O Son of the Giants ! " " Safi, daughter of Am, thou art lithe as the lissom acacia ; *' Beautiful, mild as the olive, hereafter hi\\)\y as fruitful, SAFI. 213 " Would thou wert tall as the shadow that pointed thee out in thy hiding, " Stately and tall as a palm, — bride meet for a Son of the Giants ! " Peace be with thee, my child ! " — and straightway turned he and left her ! Safi stood by the spring and wept there,— desolate Safi ! Never Safi had loved till she loved that Son of the Giants : — Never Safi had loved till she loved and lost him to- gether ! Weeping she stood by the Spring : " O Spring, he hath blest thee for ever ! " Me hath he cursed though I love, though I love him only and ever ! " Then in the Spring she beheld an unwonted trouble of waters Bubble and boil as she gazed, and a Voice spake out of the fountain : 2 I 4 POEMS. " Peace be upon thee, O daughter of Am, little Rose of the Desert ! " Safi, thee have I loved since first with thy pitcher at even " Hither thou earnest, and oft have I prayed for a mate for my Safi, " Oft have I prayed for my Safi a mate of the Sons of the Giants ! " Lo, he hath left me a pledge, thou saw'st, of grateful remembrance, "Take thou, Safi, his ring— I am paid by gratitude only ; " Mine are the gems of the Deep, and the secret ores of the Desert, " Mine is the diamond's frost and the costly blaze of the ruby, " Mine is the Pilgrim's prayer, — be thine the pledge of his blessing ! " Take it, — lo, where it lies ! — He loves whoe'er may possess it ! I SAFI. 215 " Take it, and sprinkle anon thy head seven times with my water ! " Ask me no more, but trust ! — and peace be upon thee and blessing ! " Safi knelt by the Spring : " Allah bless thee, Fountain of Blessing ! " Sail slipped on her thumb the talisman flashing with cipher : Safi sprinkled her head seven times with the water of blessing : Safi slept by the spring the sleep of holy enchantment. " Where is Safi, my rose, — my Safi, light of my house- hold ] " Never to linger so long she wont by the fountain at even : " Why doth she linger so long, my Safi, Rose of the Desert 1 " 2l6 POEMS. Thus mused Am the Sheikh, as he marked a Stranger approaching, Stranger and camel that paced by the path that leads from the fountain ; " Peace be with thee, O Stranger ! " and " Peace," he answered, " and blessing ; " " Enter thy servant's dwelling, and rest thyself and thy camel ! " " Peace to thy house," he answered, " O Sheikh, and the blessing of Allah ! " Thus they entered and sat. The bubbling cloud of the hookah Gratefully fragrant spread with the grateful fragrance of berries. Mutely they rested awhile, till the old man spoke to the Stranger : " Saw'st thou a damsel, O Stranger, by yonder wells with a pitcher 1" " Father," he said, " by the spring did I leave one fair as the morning, SAFI. 2 I 7 " Beautiful, slender of limb, and lithe as the lissom acacia : " Is she thy daughter, O Sheikh 1 Thrice blessed art thou, O father ! " Were she but tall as fair, she were bride for a Son of the Giants ! " " Peace from Allah be on thee, my son !" Then again they were silent. Silent till holy sleep sealed fast the eyes of the Stranger. " Peace be upon thee, my son ! I go to seek for my Safi." Safi he found by the well, — his Safi, Rose of the Desert, Safi, Rose of the Desert, but Safi, tall as a palm-tree : — Safi, no more, as of old, little Rose of the Desert Oasis, Safi asleep by the well, but grown by a cubit in sleeping. " .\llah be praised, () my child ! — my child, His hand is upon thee ! " Beautiful ever thou wert, and lithe as the slender acacia, 2l8 POEMS. " Stately and tall as a palm art thou now, — a bride for the Giants ! " Safi woke from her sleep, the sleep of blessed enchant- ment, Safi's eyes as she woke met those of her sire's amazement, Safi's heart stood still, and the life-blood failed within her. " Is it a dream 1 — Allah's will be done. Never dreamed I aforetime " Dream such as this, — so sweet, so strange ! — Nay ! Allah forgive me ! " Peace be upon thee, my father ! — so strange I forgot to salute thee ! " Kneeling, she kissed his hand. " What is this ? ^Vhat ails thee, my father ? " How is thy shadow grown less ! thyself so dwindled before me ! — "Sorcery is it? — Behold, I stoop, yet still thou art smaller ! SAFI. 219 " Even thy mookleh's crown scarce reaches up to my eyebrow, " Mine, whom thou wont to call little Rose of the Desert Oasis ! " Am I awake ? — Is it thou 1—1 dreamed of the Sons of the Giants, " Lo, I awake, and thyself dost seem a child of the Pigmies ! " Praised be Allah ! — Ah when will He deign restore thee thy stature ? " " Daughter," said Am the Sheikh, " my Safi's father hath changed not. " I have not dwindled a hair, thyself hast grown by a cubit ! " Allah hath wrought this change, though as yet its meaning I know not ! " Safi was mute, for she felt in her heart her destiny certain. Homeward they wended together, perplexed both sire and daughter ; 2 20 POEMS. " Whence, my Safi, is this ? this amulet flashing with cipher ! " Speak, for haply therein may the mystery's drift be imprisoned ! " "Allah is great !" said Safi, *'I stood by the spring with my pitcher : " Lo, there rode to the spring on his camel a Son of the Giants, " Drank and drank yet again of the bubbling Fountain of Blessing ; " Dropped this ring by the brim ; lo, I seek him now to return it." Doubtfully on paced Am the Sheikh : " Not far shalt thou seek him, " Even now in my dwelling he sleeps, this Son of the Giants ! " Safi again was mute, for she felt her destiny certain. Homeward they wended together, both silent, sire and daughter. SAFI. 221 Little to Safi — no more little Rose of the Desert Oasis — Seemed the familiar stones, the palms and slender acacias ; Little the roofs and the gates, and little the home of her fathers, Little the old dear door, where the Pilgrim stood by the threshold, Cross-armed, bowed in salute : " Peace, peace be upon ye, and blessing ; " Allah forgive me my sleep ! Thy guest was weary and wayworn — " This thy daughter, Sheikh 1 Thrice blessed art thou, O Father ! " Beautiful art thou, O maiden, and lithe as the slender acacia, ■' Beautiful, mild as the olive, hereafter haply as fruitful ! " Stately and tall as the palm, bride meet for the Son of the (Giants ; • Tall thou art as my ear ; thou shalt wed the Son of the Giants ! " 222 POEMS. Safi heard where she stood by the httle door of her fathers : Safi's love, as a rose to the sunshine opens its petals, Blossomed glowing and sweet to the sunny word of the Pilgrim. Safi held forth a hand with the amulet flashing with cipher : " Lo, is the talisman thine 1 O Pilgrim, read me the cipher ! " Humbly the tall man knelt and kissed the hand of the maiden. " Allah is great ! Be the talisman thine ! The Fountain of Blessing " Gave thee the ring for thyself : thyself shall read me the cipher ! " Allah is great, O Sheikh ! AVilt give thy daughter in marriage 1 " Safi, no more, as of old, little Rose of the Desert Oasis, " Safi, Rose of the Desert, but Safi, tall as a palm-tree. SAFI. 223 *' Safi, slender of limb, but Safi, grown by a cubit^ — " Allah hath sealed her Himself, bride meet for a Son of the Giants ! " " Allah is great," said the Sheikh, " His ways are mar- vellous ever ! " Allah hath chosen Himself a bridegroom meet for my Safi! " Be thou the son of my age, — thy household blessed for ever!" 124 POEMS. THE Ol.D TIME AND THE NEW. A PLEASANT tale of the Rabbins, Of the mighty days of old, Delivered by village sexton As he delved the graveyard mould. The crazy old Ark was rotting On the peaks of Ararat, When Shem and his father Noah By the rippling Gihon sat. A kid was roast on the embers, And they sat them down to sup : POEMS. 225 And the first red blood of the vineyards Blushed in the beechen cup. The supper was blessed and eaten, And the wine flowed fast and free, While the children swam in Gihon, Or raced on the level lea. " Father," quoth Shem, deep musing, '"Twere a pleasant thing, I trow, " To dwell in a house of marble " Beneath yon mountain brow ; " Where we and our wives and children " Might sit for aye at ease, " Watching the herds and cattle " On the sunny river-leas. •' Our homeless tents are weary, " Shifting by down and dell : Q. 2 26 POEMS. '' No rest upon the mountain, " No rest beside the well." Then spoke the hoary Shipwright, As he heaved a patient sigh : " Our fathers are gone before us, "And we, my son, must die ! " Thine years are scarce three hundred, "And mine are forty score : "Yet 1 ween thou canst not reckon " On even three hundred more ! " Then Shem was very mournful. And he wist not what to say : And his father bore the wine-bowl And took to the tents his way. Thought Shem, as he wended after, With his dark eyes dim with tears : POEMS. 227 " What use were a house of marble " For a poor three hundred years ? " II. I stood at a Jewish counter, In the midst of a Christian town, By the side of a haggard woman Clad in a tattered gown. And I know not what memory stirred it In that mart of blood for gold, But I thought of that pleasant story And the yew-tree lives of old. She spoke to the bearded Hebrew, And a tear-drop stained her sleeve — " My husband lies on his death-bed, " And hath not a day to live. Q 2 2 28 -POEMS. " He hath sent you back this wallet " Of work that he had to do ; -' And he prays you have pity upon him " As Christ shall have pity on you." Then swore the Mammon-prophet, And he clenched his teeth : " Begone ! " I have paid him well for his labour, " And it must and shall be done ! '• What care I for his croaking 1 " It is but a feint to shirk : " If he have but an hour to live in, " He still has an hour to work ! " Before that New-Light gospel Millennial lives grew dim : I thought of that dying worker, And Shem was a child to him. POEMS. 229 A DREAM ON NEW YEAR'S EVE. I DREAMED a dream : — Methought two travellers To an old hostel in a narrow street Came walking wearily, their way-worn feet Shod in strange sandals : and the folk said: "Sirs, " What make ye here to-night ? " but on they went Unheeding, for the winter day was spent, And sought their chamber. As they lay awake, The jangling bells clanged forth a sudden peal Of strangest music, and they seemed to feel The Old Year die upon the night, and break The links of Past and Future ; and below There was a noise of trampling in the snow, 230 POEMS. And clamorous angry voices : but they heard The strife all idly, turned them round and slept, Slept even in my dream, and something kept A watch above them that nor spoke nor stirred. Then one awoke, and started to his feet, And spoke his fellow : " Christ is in the street ! " And forth they went to meet Him, but they found The street all empty, save a shivering heap Of frozen sack-cloth, where one seemed to weep Stretched by a threshold on the wintry ground. Then one said : "Speak, O Lord !" and bent him o'er The moaning outcast. But I dreamed no more. POEMS. 231 A STORY OF A STONE. Two children in a mood forlorn As childish mood may be, Walked hand in hand one summer morn Beside the western sea. And there upon the sand, alone, Half-hid, by chance they saw An oval quaker-coloured stone Without a seam or flaw. 1 know not what of comfort dwelt Within its sea-worn face, But something, sure, therein they felt That seemed to meet their case. 232 POEMS. Some household clearness in its look Beside the weary foam : — Some love, unwrit in any book, That bade them bear it home. And many a year, from time to time, When brought by chance to day, A flash from earnest childhood's prime Around it yet would play. A flash from earnest childhood's prime That dimmed the eye with tears. And smote athwart the passing time The moods of buried years. POEMS. 235 A HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY. You recollect our keeper, one-armed Dick, Who took you up for poaching when you came With young Sir Harry first ; and swore he knew You were no friend of master's, for you wore A yellow neckerchief, — poor old Sir Harry Being just defeated for the county : — Well, He told us all one morning, 'twas the day Two years exact after the old man's death. Just about Martlemas, how he had seen Strange foot-prints in the snow. They came, he said, Straight from the lower stew-pond to the hall : A neat, slim boot enough, but somewhat queer Aliout the ball o' the foot, as if the sole 234 POEMS. Were cleft along the middle ; but what made The thing seem stranger, though he looked and looked A good half-hour or more, he never found One print to match it t' other side the pond : Not one to match it — nothing but blank snow, With here and there a deer-trail, ploughed and deep. As if the beasts were startled. Well, that day, A stranger came among us sure enough, I'hough none saw how he came. An evil day Was that if e'er one dawned upon God's earth. Not that I'm superstitious, but I think Sometimes God gives Beelzebub a day, And that was one, if e'er God does give days. My lady knew the foreigner, it seemed, In her own country, a Hungarian Duke I think they called him, and he stayed and stayed, And walked and rode, shot, played at billiards, fished, With poor Sir Harry — sang, too, of a night, He and my lady, strange outlandish airs. POEMS. 235 Such as old Schwartz the courier used to play- On his guitar, with strange outlandish words. And so he lived among us, lived and seemed One of the family almost, to those Who knew no better. We all hated him, All but my lady's foreign waiting-woman, And she Your blood, sir, would have boiled like mine To see that brazen madam smirk and leer And mince their jargon on her tigress' lips Whene'er she met him. Well, all's over now ! And as I said, sir, we all hated him. Not that he was not civil, for he was. And free enough with money ; but, you know. Old servants' eyes are watchful ! That man's look Would make you shiver in a July sun. Wolf that he was ! We knew he was a Avolf, And knew no good could come of him. But, sir, If you'll believe me, that same son of Cain Was loved by half the county. Lord, they flocked Like crows to carrion ! If that man had bid 236 POEMS. Lord Charles and young Sir Sampson lick his boots, They'd have drawn rapiers which should lick them first ! Well, sir, one afternoon I went upstairs To see about the linen, and I stood, So God ordained, one moment at the window That looks across the courtyard, and I saw In the north green room, where my lady sate, Her and that miscreant ; talking loud they were, And angrily, when something that she said Stung him, as I suppose, and quick as thought, He unclasped his great knife, and struck her here. Here in the breast ! As I'm a living soul, I saw him stab her in the breast three times, I saw him do it ! Stab, stab, stab, three times ! " Murder," I shouted, "murder !" And ran round With Miles, and cook, and Johnson to the room ! There she lay on the floor, a heap of blood. As dead as marble ! He, that fiend, was gone. Now, mark you, poor Sir Harry at the time POEMS. 237 Was walking through the courtyard with his whip, And that young waiting-woman, with a grin, Hissed out, "There goes the murderer!" He, poor man, Came in and found us there quite quietly. " What's this 1" says he. My God, to see him turn And look down at his wife as she lay there ! "Murderer!" snarled the maid. He stood straight up "If I have done this deed," he said, " great God ! " Smite me, and stamp me murderer !" Down he fell ! Fell flat down on the carpet, fell down dead ! Dead as his wife beside him. Both stark dead ! Some vessel in the heart, the doctor told The jurymen, had broken. " Just in time," Quoth one, "to baulk the gallows of their due !" Would you believe it 1 That young child of hell, The waiting-woman, and a stranger lad, Who said he came there begging, swore they saw Sir Harry kill his wife — Sir Harry himself ! Swore it upon the Book, with when and how ! And 1 1 I might as good have held my peace 238 POEMS. As Stand there witness of his innocence. The coroner told me 'twas a shameful thing At my age to forswear me ; bade me pray, And Heaven knows what more nonsense ; and Lord Charles Backed him in all he said. " This female dotes," Says he, " God's judgment brands the guilty brow ! " His vengeance reaches where man's arm falls short V And then the parson : " This man prayed to God " To smite if he were guilty, and God smote !" So they went on, God help us ! and the world Thinks to this day Sir Harry did the deed, And quotes his death as one of God's great feats f Judgment, forsooth I \Vlio taught the world this creed ? Not Christ, I wot ! Vihy, mark you, those eighteen On whom the tower in Siloam fell. Were they, too, murderers 1 Nay, was Christ Himself, Because God smote Him 1 For myself, I own, I think God heard my poor young master's prayer POEMS. 239 In quite another fashion ; took him hence, Because He would not smite him ! Had he lived, He had indeed been smitten ! Many a time When folks but I'm no parson, and young men Don't heed old women's prate. Well, sir, this Duke, Devil or Duke, — we searched the country round, Offered rewards, set bloodhounds on his track, Hired detectives at two pounds a day — All to no purpose ! Still no tidings came Of him or any like him. All the hounds Made for the stew-pond, and we had it dragged. And dragged again, with nothing for our pains Except a great swine's carcase, which our Dick Swore to his dying day was none but he! ;4o POEMS. A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Once the rod of Jesse's stem Blossomed fair in Bethlehem, And in ages long ago God came down to man below. Angel-lips to shepherds then Bore the news " Good will to men," And a kingly guiding-star Beckoned Eastern seers from far. Needs no star nor Angel's word Now to guide us to our Lord. Bethlehem lies everywhere ! Seek and find ! — The Child is there ! POEMS. 241 Shepherds, bring not gifts nor gold ! Small the wealth of shepherds' fold : — Ye from the rich East bring thence Gold and myrrh and frankincense ! Lo, the Son of David doth In His love accept ye both ; Blesseth both, — nor heedeth which Be the poor men or the rich. Rise and seek, ye Christians, rise ! In the manger still He lies ! Seek and find Him, rich and poor ! Christ is born for evermore ! :;42 POEMS. CAVOUR. Gone, and thy work not done ! Dead, dead, while yet Yon crazy shaveling clanks his spectral keys Over Italia's capital, and raves Of immemorial Empire, aimlessly From palsied hands spilling the dull dead bolts, Which once were lightning, o'er unheeding realms ! — Dead, dead, while yet before his Roman sire The unfledged boy-anarch of St. Elmo kneels, And whets his venom ; after his foul kind Hatching his dastard treasons, — dreaming still Of Freedom quivering on Sicilian racks, And sceptres, gilt once more with martyrs' blood, Wielded throughout illimitable night POEMS. 243 By inexterminable Bourbons ! — Dead, Dead, while Venetia strangles in the net Four-square of Austrian Kaisers ! Dead, while still Imperial Gaul sits Sphynxlike on the world And plots her murderous riddles ! O dead, dead ! And none to grasp thy mande. None, like thee, Cavour ! A narrower wisdom, feebler will And hand less firm shall weave the tangled threads Of thy Italia's destiny ! Alone, Alone, Cavour, Italia's slave and lord, Didst thou control the chaos ! They will come. Ignoble Pigmies, chattering Myrmidons, And act their petty antics o'er thy grave, Thine, who didst dwarf them ; apes of statesmanship. Mocking thy kingly wisdom and broad lore With their own small ambitions, schemes and feuds, And boast themselves thy equal ! They will come. The sires of old rebelhons, men whose eyes R 2 244 POEMS. Grown dim by gazing on their dungeon walls, Or dark with blinding exile, can discern No hope of sunrise even in the morn Of temperate Freedom, babbling, babbling still Their old Utopian nothings ! Birds of night, Flapping foul wings and shrieking at the day Because it dawns not Westward ! They will come, The loathsome spawn of Anarchy, the slaves Of despots, things that battened on the blood Wrung from Italia's agony, — and they, The dark, dishallowed priesthood of dead creeds Who in the vineyards of God's heritage Trampled the wine-vats, crushing human hearts, Hopes, passions, aspirations, and thereout Sucked horrible frenzy, drunkenness of lust, And uttermost perdition !— They will come And none shall scare them ! Nightmares of the past Squatting in hideous council on thy tomb. Thou wilt not heed them ! They are nought to thee ! Thou hast gone forth and left them, — them and us ! POEMS. 245 Ay me, gone, gone for ever ! leaving them To wreak their littlenesses unchastised, And us, thy friends, thy country, to our tears ! — Tears, tears of bitter anguish, not despair, Thou dost forbid despair ! Yea, even now We walk not hopeless ! Lives Ricasoli, Lives Garibaldi, aye, and many a one No whit less dear to Freedom, men whose souls Thyself didst kindle with the holiest flame Of Patriot love ! They live, yet mightier far, Thy name, thy wisdom live, — their beacon-fire, Their compass, bulwark, oracle, and shield, To rouse, to guide, to strengthen, teach, protect ; — And more, — the dread Archangels of the world, God's own first children, who from age to age, ^on to ^on, with invisible hands Broaden the bounds of life, and give to men The wider freedom, grander love, more truth, More love, — the eternal Destinies are theirs ! 346 POEMS. We sorrow, but despair not ! Soon or late That fell chimeral spectre of a Faith Dead but unburied, from the Seven Hills Whereon he lingers, girt with Gaulish steel, Flits with the night that shields him ! Even now, Dying Mastai to the Rome he chokes Bequeaths a schism whose timely rent shall ope To welcome Freedom ! — Soon or late the hands Of Hapsburg Kaisers loosen from their grip The sceptre of old Venice ! Soon or late, Imperial crownals dwindle on the brow Of bastard Bonapartes ! Earth can wait ! — God hinders not, nor hastens ! Not for thee. O, not for thee, Cavour, this feeble hand Shall twine the vulgar coronal of Fame ! — Thou didst not toil for glory ! In the dreams That nursed thy boyhood, thy Italia stood Star-crowned before thee, and in words of fire POEMS. 247 Bade thee go forth and conquer ! Not for Fame ! The greed, which, hungrier than the greed of gold, And nobler only in the nobler deeds That win wherewith to sate it, touched not thee ! Thou didst not lust for praise ! Thy lordlier soul Disdained the crown ! Italia, One and Free, This and not Fame ! Italia, One and Free ! This was thy lode-star ! This thy life ! For this Didst thou dare all and do all ! Yea, for this, With that wise virtue, which unwiser souls Knew not as virtue, didst thou deign to sue, And chaffer Vv'ith the ravening Arbiter Who grasped Ausonia's future ! Even, for this Thou couldst endure that friendship should grow cold With him, that pirate of Sicilian seas Who won thee half thy Italy ! This, this, Like a rich heirloom to the beggar world, Thine, even in death, — Italia, One and Free, Dost thou bequeath us ! Yea, she shall be One And Free, thy monument throughout all time ! 248 POEMS, RELIGIO POET.-E. Help thou, but be not holpen. If need be, Give men what ware thou hast worth gold, for gold ; And, so thy tale of ware be truly told. Buy Freedom as thou wilt, — but be thou free ! Here close thy count with man. Save this to thee Be there no reckoning made of bought and sold. But live the life God gives thee, and withhold Thy nobler hand from aught of earthly fee. Stand four-square to the world for praise or blame : Deserve, but touch no guerdon. Name and fame, Titles and useless wealth leave thou to them ^^'ho can be paid thereby. Such be not thou ! True work, true love can spare the laurelled brow : 'J'he great are greatest with no diadem. POEMS. 249 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. December 2.j^th, 1863. Thou sleepest ! Thou wilt never wake again ! No more for ever among mortal men That scrutinous eye under the giant brow Shall rede the riddles of their life. Even now Thou sleepest well, where bitter indignation No more can lacerate thy heart ! — No more The babble of misprision, and the sore Galling of treacherous craft and envious passion Vex thee, there sleeping Where greatness breeds not hatred, and thy Fame Can turn no more to shame The dwarf ambitions round thy Titan-grandeur creeping! 250 POEMS. Asleep ? Nay, rather, on this Christmas Eve Dost thou not sup with Shakspere, and receive Immortal welcome of the Great of old ? — Ah, pitiful dream ! The man we loved lies cold, Cold, very cold and still ! The brave true heart will never beat again : There dwells no thought within the kingly brain : All spent the liberal fountains of the will ! O Master, O true Friend ! I cannot borrow The bitter laurels of a fabulous sorrow To strew thy bier withal ! The word I speak This night is one I must ! If all too weak, Thou wilt forgive me ! There be times and moods That slay the soul with silence. When the floods Yawn for Arion, he must sing or die ! O well is he, whose numerous verse and high To his whole thought can then give utterance meet. And speak the word that saves, — for ever sweet, Sweet, and for ever strong ! POEMS. '251 Thou, if e'er of old, dread Soul of song, This night speak with me once again ! Ere yet My life slope downward to the suns that set, — Now, ere the brain wax feeble, and the heart Unlearn its youthful madness ; — ere mine Art Slip from me like the glory from a cloud, Leaving me dark, a melancholy shroud Of dead imaginations ; yet once more Give me this night to soar Beyond these visible shows which men deem Life, Thither, where mortal sorrow, pain and strife, And toil and turmoil seem but as they are. Mere dreams fast fleeting. Yea, if e'er thy star 1 have sought devoutly, if nor lust of Fame, Nor lust of Gold, — far other, yet the same, — Have marred the song I brought Thee in old time, Grant me that this my rhyme, Though wintry pale the blossoms of my wreath, And dashed with dews of Death, Live, not unworthy, on that deathless head 1 252 POEMS. Master ! O true Friend ! what word of mine Can meetly solve the arrears of glory due ? Can tell how wise thou wert, how brave, how true ? Can speak to after years The fulness of our love, our loss, our tears 1 — 1 who, unlessoned in the skill divine, Hear of thy fall, as under a strange shield. Far in the fameless outskirt of the field, Namelessly warring, haply young Lavaine Might hear of Lancelot smitten through the brain Full in the fore-front of the Table Round ! — O peerless Knight, and ilower of chivalry ! No more at trumpet's sound Thy grasp shall whiten on that mighty hilt, To cleave the brazen panoply of guilt, Rescue his victims, set his captives free ! — No more, no more in Knightly brotherhood. Thy presence cheer us in the Eternal Fight ! — There, where thy greatness stood A gate of strength, unyielding 'gainst the flood, POEMS. 253 Surges even now the ghastly tide-rush in, Falsehood, and falsehood's kin, Fair-kirtled foulness, snowy-mantled sin ! — One sunny Sabbath in a sweet September, Dost thou remember How fair, far sheening o'er the pleasant wealds The mellow Autumn on the woods and fields Of Sidney's Penshurst lay '? O Master mine. Red I aright that silent mood of thine 1 — Yea, I too saw them, heard them as they came, — Sidney, and Sidney's sister, and her son. And whispered with thee ! Came, too, one by one, Thy starry brethren in immortal fame, Who, wistful lingering on those awful lawns Still walk on springtide dawns, Spenser and Jonson, peaceful Wotton came. And Shakspere ! — Shakspere, for I saw thee bow Thy hoary wisdom, and upon thy brow There glowed a light as of ethereal flame : 254 POEMS. And musingly thou question'dst : " Is it true That Shakspere walked indeed with Herbert there 1 " Dost thou remember ? — In that haunted air I felt thy kindred with the mightier few ; Ay, and the secret of thy might I knew, — That strength to bind, and that swift power to loose, That gave thee lordship over want and use, To wield unshorn man's high prerogative. And live the life that Nature bade thee live : The whole man subject to thy strong control, To hold the temperate tenor of thy soul, And even if stung by common blame or praise, To nurse a strong will in emasculate days. And through their pedlar pettiness to keep In thought and deed, a something of the sweep Of life Elizabethan, and the grand Old days when there were giants in the land. Ere the poor pigmies of a conscious time, Owned the Man less, but styled the Age sublime — To teach, — whate'er thy motley mood might be, POEMS. 255 Even in jest, the Truth that makes men free ; Even in jest, the Love that makes men kin ; — The Faith in noble deeds that deigns no sin. True Friend and Master ! — known, alas, too late ! — What dreams of Art were thine, when first thy youth Held converse with the Archangels of the South, Raphael and Michael, and those lesser glories, Giotto, Orcagna, and their feres, whose stories Speak, shapeful, deathless on Ausonian walls 1 — What dreams ! what sheen of gleaming intervals. As when in paths untrod Pure eyes catch glimpses of the skirts of God ! And thou, too, wert a Painter 1 — Ah, not so ! Yet evermore under the motley show Of madliest mirthful fancies, clearly yet Didst thou reveal thy teachings, nor forget Wholly thine old ambitions ! There, too, there, 256 POEMS, Unknown, yet rightful heir Of Chaucer, Hstening to Petrarca's tales ; Of Milton, lingering in Sibylline dales ; Of Shelley, chanting Adonais' dirge ; Of Byron, mourning Shelley, when the surge Yielded his white limbs to the friendly pyre, As though earth durst not tomb that child of heavenly fire ; — There, even there, didst thou too learn to fashion The fire of God that lives in human passion Into keen arrows of sweet poesy : — Nor love alone ! Thine, too, of old the high Moods of young Fancy, when in yonder land Hesperian forth she wanders, and with hand Unchallenged, plucks of amaranthine trees The golden glory of the Atlantides ! — Or, day-dream-piloted, the Siren's song Hears o'er the deep, Sicilian caves among, Wlrile the gods waken, and Parthenope Forgets her long trance by the INIidland sea ; POEMS. 257 With the old witchery singing her sweet hes To mariners of forlorn argosies : — Promise of Love and Empire, and more deep, Nepenthes and irrefragable sleep ! Thou, thou hast watched her through the caves at eve, Ruthlessly fair, with eyes that never grieve. Gliding, the sunset flushing her white breast. To slay the brooding halcyon on her nest ! — O, when in after days, Ulysses, thou Versed in all lore of cities and of men, Didst hear indeed those Siren-songs again, Fell there no fleeting shadow on thy brow 1 Stirred they no bitter memory with their smiles, Thelxiope or Lysia, whose sweet wiles Wrecked every bark save thine that nearcd their bone- strewn isles 1 Ulysses 1 Ay, whate'er all capitals. Street, market, minster, palace and hall and cot Could tell or teach of manners and of men, S 258 POEMS. Their loves, hates, toils, sports, fasts, and festivals, Thou in the lidless treasury of thy soul Didst prodigally hoard, and from thy store Scattering thy wealth, didst ever garner more ! And, lest thy teaching lacked perfection yet, Came Misery, dreadful Angel, and Regret Sate tracing evermore With hieroglyphs of woe thy hearthstone o'er and o'er ! Ah, Christ ! For ever must the Poet's lore Be perfected e'en thus 1 O gentle Child, To those who kneel this night in Bethlehem, Hast thou no sweeter message 1 — Thou to them Wilt thou say calmly : " Go ye forth, and grieve ?" O Mary, mother mild ! I pray thee by thy sevenfold crown of sorrows. Is this the mystery of thy holy eve 1 — Is there no meaning left in our to-morrows] — Hark ! Even now their answer, and again Comes borne of little voices, high and low, POEMS. 259 That wintry nightwinds blow About the highways with the drizzHng rain ! Friend ! Thou, too, heardst that answer ! In the loss, And strife, and manifold agony of sore pain, Thou hadst achieved that wisdom of the Cross, And made thy griefs thine own, thy brethren's gain ! Was it some effluence of the mood and time. That seemed even now to lighten through my rhyme ? Alas, that mood is o'er ! I dreamed last night that in a minster old One wandered with me, and I said, " Come down Into the Charnel Royal, and behold The ancient Monarch with his carven crown, Where he lies stately on his sepulchre !" And we went down, but lo ! the tomb was gone That I remembered, though the broad flat stone, Whereon it stood, remained ; and underneath We knew that ancient Monarch slept in death. s 2 26o POEMS. And kneeling down among the bones of kings, And skulls still crowned, and gilt moth-eaten things, That once were robes of Princes, here and there With ruby, topaz, emerald glistening still, — We swept aside into a little hill The kingly dust from off that marble square, And read the runes that in clear-chiselled rhyme Fringed that old Empire's last gray coverlid, Though all the words of that forgotten time Were in the tongue that none can understand Save the dead only : — but the glittering sand, Full in the centre of the stone, as though There stirred beneath some living creature hid, Shook tremblingly, and lo ! We read thy name there, Thackeray, carven deep, And knew thee, lying low. Among thy brethren in that sovran sleep ! Then, through the rounded window, in the green And sunlit churchyard I beheld the tomb That I remembered, — from the charnel gloom POEMS. 261 Unflawed, forth-lifted into God's free air, And marvelled that I knew not Thou hadst been Even of old the crowned One sculptured there. O Friend ! — I dare not see thee as thou art ! — These idle fancies are but as the flow Of bubbling organ-trebles, clear but low, At daAvn in sleeping nunneries, that grow Louder and ever louder, till the white Sisters awake to their old undelight ! — Ay, me ! — And I awaken with a start, To feel thy cold hand pressed against my heart ! 262 POEMS. A CHRISTMAS DREAM. I DREAMED a dream, towards Christmas Eve, Of a people whose God was Make-beheve, And a time nigh come to do more than grieve : A dream of an old Faith shrunk to a Guess, And a Christian Church, and Senate, and Press, Which believed they believed in it more or less. With dazed red eyes, and rime on his beard, And pinched blue fingers, and toes frost-seared, Old Father Christmas sat waiting his weird. POEMS. 263 Fire was none, and the frozen breath Fringed the lips with ice o'er his chattering teeth, As he shook on the Yule log and prayed for Death ! And men said : " Christmas is old and cold, " Let us make him merry and blithe and bold ! " Let us paint him a fire, and cheer him with gold ! " And the Painter came, and the Carpenter, And the 'Prentice and Scene-shifter, all astir With canvas and pasteboard and laths of fir. And they painted a fire, and hung the scene With a broidered arras of gold and green, And holly festoons on the walls between. And over the dying King below Swung a pinnacled canopy all aglow With crockets of golden mistletoe. 264 POEMS. And within there dangled all to see The three gilt pills of the Medici, Marked Lionel, Meyer, and Antony. And men said : " Christmas is old and cold ; " We have made him merry, and blithe and bold ! " We have painted a fire, and cheered him with gold !' And the old King groaned, but he could not speak For the crust of ice on his palsied cheek ; — But none took heed of a groan so weak. Then under a Hierarch's coronet There crawled in one with a fisher's net, And its eye was ablaze with an awful threat. With a snaky hiss in an oily sneer. And a wild-cat's grin in a saintly leer. It spoke, as it crawled, for all to hear : POEMS. 265 ''' Father," it said, " thou art old and cold, " We will make thee merry, and blithe and bold ! " We have wrought for thy slumber a couch of Gold ! ' And a pye-coat shepherd-crew paced near. With a coffin of gold on a gilded bier. And a tissue of gold for funeral-gear. And they rested each on his golden crook. And chanted a hymn from a holy book : But the old King only groaned and shook. He groaned and shook, but he could not speak For the crust of ice on his palsied cheek : They heeded him not, those herdsmen sleek. But the Hierarch bowed, for a lordlier Chief Came crowned with lawgiver's strawberry-leaf, And sceptred with poppy-stalks bound in a sheaf. 266 POEMS. Toothless and bald, he had teeth and hair, Wizened and wrinkled, his cheek was fair, For the hare's-foot had hidden the crow's-foot there. " Father," he said, " thou art old and cold ! " To make thee merry, and blithe and bold, " We have brought thee Myrrh in a box of gold ! " And a rout of Elders in scarlet and fur, Hobbled goutily in with cackle and stir, And laid on the coffin a casket of myrrh. And they carolled a psalm to him, line by line. How Wisdom is water, but Knowledge wine, And Childhood earthy, but Dotage divine. And the old King groaned, but he could not speak For the crust of ice on his palsied cheek ; Had he shrieked, they scarce would have heard his shriek. POEMS. 267 Then a third Chief came whose wand was a scroll : " 'Tis he," they buzzed, " who hath pawned his soul " To be rolled in lengths on the printer's roll." Halt of a foot, but strong was he : His gait was a serf's, but his eye was free : — His crown was a broad phylactery. " Father," he said, " thou art old and cold, — " We will make thee merry, and blithe and bold, " With Frankincense in a box of gold ! " And a rabble of motley, none knew whence. Laid a chest on the bier with the frankincense. And a scroll of their names who had paid their pence. And they chanted a carol, some low, some high : But the burden of all their psalmody Was " I, I have given, and I, and I ! " 268 . POEMS. And the old King groaned, but he could not speak For the crust of ice on his palsied cheek ; But they deemed it was only an old man's freak ! And they all strolled forth to their own hearth -side, And left him alone, for 'twas Christmas-tide : And the Midnight tolled, and the old King died ! And behold, or ever the tolling ceased, Three Kings with their comj^anies most and least Rode amain toward a Star that sailed from the East. And three from the West, in shepherd array, Ran East, for an Angel fled that way, And the wayfarers met where the dead King lay. " Where is the Child 1 " they cried, " the Child " Who is born our King, are we all beguiled ? " And they stared at the corpse, and their eyes waxed wild. POEMS. 269 There sat he, an iceberg shaped like a King, In the midst of his theatre garnishing : — And they said, " Let us bury this frozen thing ! " And they lit them a fire, and piled it high With the canvas and pasteboard and carpentry, And the frankincense that they found thereby. And they thawed the limbs of that Monarch old. And spread the myrrh betwixt fold and fold, As they wrapped him and laid in the cofiin of gold. And lo, as they dirged him a requiem. There were voices of Angels answering them With a chant : " He is born in Eethlelicm ! " And the rooftree gaped with a sudden gash. And a blaze of glory, a blinding flash, Burst in from the sky with a thunder crash ! 270 POEMS. And I woke : — but I saw how the coffin of gold Was the manger-cradle of One foretold Who should right the Wrong and make new the Old. And one cried, " Gather them, all and some, "For the Christ is reborn in His Christendom ! " And I heard the voice of a Babe cry, " Come ! " Come, for the Old still breathes in the New ! Come, for the False is lost in the True, And the Creed may die but the Christ lives through ! THE END R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, LONDON. This book is DUE on the last date stamped helov/.' OCT ^ ^ s yVfSC s= EB15 -' 1?--. r . OCT 01 1^0 4 1984 ilWK JUNl[-fri1«m I OM-1 1-50(2555) 470 REMINGTON RAND - 20 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 365 404 3 PR 4699 E929b ■Ml