LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 kY^i^U-- 
 
 t
 
 LONDON VISIONS
 
 LONDON VISIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 LAURENCE BINYON 
 
 COLLECTED AND 
 AUGMENTED 
 
 LONDON 
 ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET 
 
 1908
 
 
 First published in Oilober, 1908.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 These poems have been colleded from two little 
 volumes published under the same title in 1895 
 and 1898; from a volume of poems printed by 
 Mr. Daniel at Oxford in 1895, and from "Por- 
 phyrion and other Poems," published in 1 898. To 
 these are added a certain number of unpublished 
 pieces, more recently written. 
 
 Little satisfied as I am with the verse which 
 forms this collection, composed at various times, 
 and some of it now a long while ago, I have 
 thought it better to leave it as it was written, save 
 for a few correftions and omissions. I should 
 wish that the whole, now rearranged, should be 
 regarded as a single corporate poem, and no one 
 piece apart from the rest. Some, I feel, are too 
 insignificant to stand alone, yet add perhaps some 
 slight touch to an aggregate effeft. 
 
 No. VI is reprinted from "The Saturday 
 Review," No. VII from "The Academy."
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. Red Night 
 II. The Little Dancers 
 
 III. February Twilight 
 
 IV. The Statues 
 V. Narcissus . 
 
 VI. The Builders 
 VII. The Destroyer . 
 VIII. The Golden Gallery at 
 Paul's . 
 IX. The Dray . 
 X. The Rag-Picker 
 XI. A Woman . 
 XII. The Storm 
 
 XIII. The Paralytic . 
 
 XIV. The Sleepers 
 XV. May Night 
 
 XVI. Deptford . 
 XVII. The Bathers 
 XVIII. The Escape 
 XIX. Midsummer Noon 
 XX. Eleonora Duse as Magda 
 
 vii 
 
 Saint 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 8 
 
 II 
 
 12 
 
 15 
 
 17 
 18 
 
 20 
 
 22 
 
 24 
 
 25 
 29 
 
 30 
 33 
 36 
 
 41 
 42
 
 iii 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The Convict 
 
 44 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Martha . . . . 
 
 46 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 August 
 
 54 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The Fire . . . . 
 
 55 
 
 XXV. 
 
 To A Derelict 
 
 59 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Trafalgar Square 
 
 62 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The Reformer 
 
 65 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Whitechapel High Road 
 
 68 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 In the British Museum 
 
 • 71 
 
 XXX. 
 
 The Threshold . 
 
 ■ 73 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 The Road Menders . 
 
 . 80 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 November . 
 
 . 83 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 The Mother 
 
 . 84 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 The Toy-seller . 
 
 . 85 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 The Birch Tree . 
 
 . 86 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Fog .... 
 
 . 87 
 
 XXXVII. 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Mother of Exiles 
 John Winter 
 
 . 88 
 . 90 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Songs of the World UNBOR^ 
 
 J 94
 
 LONDON VISIONS 
 
 I 
 
 RED NIGHT 
 
 Rolled in a smouldering mist, wrapt in an ardent 
 
 cloud, 
 Over ridged roofs, over the buried roar 
 That comes and goes 
 
 Where shadowy London mutters at the core 
 Of meeting streets interminably ploughed 
 Through blackness built and steepled and im- 
 mense 
 With felt, un featured, waste magnificence, 
 The night shudders and glows. 
 Ensanguined skies, that lower and lift and change 
 Each instant! sullen with a spectral rose 
 Upon the towered horizon; but more near 
 A lurid vapour, throbbing up the gloom. 
 Glares like a furnace fume; 
 Exhausted pallors hover faint and strange; 
 Dull fiery flushes melt and reappear; 
 While over all in lofty glimpses far 
 Spaces of silence and blue dream disclose 
 The still eye of a star. 
 
 I B
 
 RED NIGHT 
 
 Muffled in burning air, so dumb 
 
 Above this monstrous ever-trembling hum, 
 
 What hide you, heavens ? What sombre presences, 
 
 What powers pass over ? What dim-legioned host, 
 
 What peopled pageantries. 
 
 With gleam of arms and robes that crimsoned trail, 
 
 In silent triumph or huge mockery hail? 
 
 O, is it the tumultuous-memoried ghost 
 
 Of some lost city, fabulous and frail. 
 
 Stoops over London; Susa, Thebes, or Tyre, 
 
 Rebuilded out of mist and fire ? 
 
 No, rather to its secret self revealed 
 
 The soul of London burning in the skies 
 
 Her desolations and her majesties! 
 
 There, there is all unsealed: 
 
 Terror and hope, ecstasy and despair 
 
 Their apparition yield. 
 
 While still through kindled street and shadowy 
 
 square 
 The faces pass, the uncounted faces crowd, — 
 Rages,lamentings,joys,in masks of flesh concealed. 
 
 Down a grimed lane, around a bare-benched room. 
 Seven shapes of men are sunken, heads upon hands 
 
 bowed. 
 — O spent and mad desires, lost in the fiery cloud, 
 What dungeon fled you from ? 
 Across the river's glittering gloom, 
 Under the towered chimes, a youth steps, bright 
 
 2
 
 RED NIGHT 
 
 With dream that all the future clothes, 
 
 Into this new, enchanted land. 
 
 Incessant stream the faces into light ! 
 
 From his wife's hand 
 
 Behold a drunkard snatch the toil-earned pence, 
 
 And strike her on the patient face with oaths. 
 
 But over trees, upon a balcony. 
 
 To a young girl life murmurs up immense 
 
 Its strange delight, 
 
 And in her pulses to her spirit sings. 
 
 Along an alley thronged and flaring 
 
 A woman's loud self-loathing laughter rings. 
 
 The old prowler leers. Fierce cries a mob incense. 
 
 (Still the red Night her stormy heart is baring.) 
 
 A bent blind beggar taps along the stones. 
 
 The indiflferent traffic roars and drones. 
 
 Blank under a high torch 
 
 Gapes a house-ruin, propped with beams ; beneath 
 
 Some shadow-guarded and neglected porch 
 
 A girl and boy 
 
 (Whence flowered, O Night, yon soft and fearful 
 
 rose ?) 
 Press timid lips and breathe, 
 Speechless, their joy. 
 Hither and thither goes 
 
 The homeless outcast; students turn the page 
 By lamplight; the physician sentences; 
 Dull-eyed or jovial, tavern-loungers drink; 
 The applauded actor steps upon the stage ; 
 Mothers with far thoughts watch upon their knees 
 
 3
 
 RED NIGHT 
 
 Where children slumber; revellers stamp and 
 
 shout; 
 Long-parted bosoms meet in sobbed embrace; 
 Hope, behind doors, ebbs from the waiting face ; 
 Locked bodies sway and swell 
 With pain of unendurable farewell : 
 No instant, but some debt of terror's paid, 
 Some shame exafted, measureless love poured out, 
 Weak hearts are helped, strong men are torn, 
 Wild sorrow in dear arms is comforted, 
 The last peace dawns upon the newly dead, 
 And in hushed rooms is heard wail of the newly 
 
 born. 
 
 What ferments rise and mingle. 
 
 Night, on your cloudy mirror I what young fire 
 
 Shoots, and what endless lassitudes expire! 
 
 Yet out of one flesh wrought, 
 
 None separate, none single! 
 
 Hater and hated, seeker and sought, 
 
 O restless, O innumerable shapes, 
 
 Kneaded by one all-urging thought. 
 
 That none diverts, that none escapes ; 
 
 So thirsted for, if not in pride, in shame, 
 
 If not with tenderness, with railing curse. 
 
 If not with hands that cherish, hands that maim, 
 
 Life, how vast! Life, how brief! 
 
 Eternally wooed and wooing, 
 
 That some would stifle, and some hotly seize, 
 
 And some by cunning trap into their mesh, 
 
 4
 
 RED NIGHT 
 
 Or plunder in the darkness like a thief; 
 And these from rapturous pangs of flesh 
 Would crush to maddening wine, and these 
 In still renunciation lure to their soul's ease. 
 Though never in a single heart contained, 
 Though depth of it no wisest seer may plumb, 
 Though height of it no hero wholly gained, 
 Heavenly and human, twined in all our throes 
 Of passion that in blind heat overflows 
 To charge the night with thick and shuddering 
 
 fume, 
 And felt in every cry, in every deed 
 Defaced or freed, 
 
 Ah, spent at such a dear and cruel cost, — 
 Possessed a moment, and then, like yon height 
 Of stars, clouded in our own selves and lost, — 
 Lives the supreme 
 Reality, diviner than all dream. 
 
 Now all the heaven like a huge smithy glows, 
 
 Hollow and palpitating dusk and glare ! 
 
 Ah, forge of God, where blows 
 
 The blast of an incredible flame, what might 
 
 Shapes to what uses there 
 
 Each obdurate iron or molten fiery part 
 
 Of the one infinite wrought human heart, 
 
 In tears, love, anger, beauty and despair 
 
 Throbbing for ever, under the red night?
 
 II 
 
 THE LITTLE DANCERS 
 
 Lonely, save for a few faint stars, the sky- 
 Dreams; and lonely, below, the little street 
 Into its gloom retires, secluded and shy. 
 Scarcely the dumb roar enters this soft retreat; 
 And all is dark, save where come flooding rays 
 From a tavern window; there, to the brisk measure 
 Of an organ that down in an alley merrily plays, 
 Two children, all alone and no one by, 
 Holding their tattered frocks, through an airy 
 
 maze 
 Of motion, lightly threaded with nimble feet, 
 Dance sedately : face to face they gaze. 
 Their eyes shining, grave with a perfect pleasure.
 
 Ill 
 
 FEBRUARY TWILIGHT 
 
 O Weariness, that writest histories 
 
 On all these human faces, and O Sighs 
 
 That somewhere silence hears ! You have no part, 
 
 It seems, in the old earth's deep-flowering heart ; 
 
 Your way of solace is a different way. 
 
 A colour comes upon the end of day. 
 At this street-corner, budded branches bare 
 Trace springing lines upon the tender air; 
 But over the far misty flush one's eye 
 Lights at an apparition: lo, on high 
 The little moon ! as if she came all fresh 
 Into this world, where our brief blood and flesh 
 Is weary of burdens. She has seen all earth's 
 Most mighty races in their ends and births, 
 And all the glory and sorrow wrought and sung 
 Since hps found language ; and to-night is young.
 
 IV 
 THE STATUES 
 
 Tarry a moment, happy feet, 
 That to the sound of laughter glide ! 
 O glad ones of the evening street, 
 Behold what forms are at your side! 
 
 You conquerors of the toilsome day 
 Pass by with laughter, labour done; 
 But these within their durance stay; 
 Their travail sleeps not with the sun. 
 
 They, like dim statues without end, 
 Their patient attitudes maintain; 
 Your triumphing bright course attend, 
 But from your eager ways abstain. 
 
 Now, if you chafe in secret thought, 
 A moment turn from light distress, 
 And see how Fate on these hath wrought, 
 Who yet so deeply acquiesce. 
 
 Behold them, stricken, silent, weak, 
 The maimed, the mute, the halt, the blind. 
 Condemned amid defeat to seek 
 The thing which they shall never find. 
 
 8
 
 THE STATUES 
 
 They haunt the shadows of your ways 
 In masks of perishable mould : 
 Their souls a changing flesh arrays, 
 But they are changeless from of old. 
 
 Their lips repeat an empty call, 
 But silence wraps their thoughts around. 
 On them, like snow, the ages fall; 
 Time muffles all this transient sound. 
 
 When Shalmaneser pitched his tent 
 By Tigris, and his flag unfurled, 
 And forth his summons proudly sent 
 Into the new unconquered world ; 
 
 Or when with spears Cambyses rode 
 Through Memphis and her bending slaves, 
 Or first the Tyrian gazed abroad 
 Upon the bright vast outer waves; 
 
 When sages, star-instru6led men. 
 To the young glory of Babylon 
 Foreknew no ending; even then 
 Innumerable years had flown, 
 
 Since first the chisel in her hand 
 Necessity, the sculptor, took. 
 And in her spacious meaning planned 
 These forms, and that eternal look; 
 
 9
 
 THE STATUES 
 
 These foreheads, moulded from afar, 
 These soft, unfathomable eyes, 
 Gazing from darkness, like a star; 
 These lips, whose grief is to be wise. 
 
 As from the mountain marble rude 
 The growing statue rises fair. 
 She from immortal patience hewed 
 The limbs of ever-young despair. 
 
 There is no bliss so new and dear, 
 It hath not them far-off allured. 
 All things that we have yet to fear 
 They have already long endured. 
 
 Nor is there any sorrow more 
 Than hath ere now befallen these, 
 Whose gaze is as an opening door 
 On wild interminable seas. 
 
 O Youtii, run fast upon thy feet. 
 With full joy haste thee to be filled. 
 And out of moments brief and sweet 
 Thou shalt a power for ages build. 
 
 Does thy heart falter? Here, then, seek 
 What strength is in thy kind! With pain 
 Immortal bowed, these mortals weak 
 Gentle and unsubdued remain. 
 
 10
 
 V 
 
 NARCISSUS 
 
 By white St. Martin's, where the fountain shone 
 
 And plashed unheard in the busy morning air, 
 March, with rippling shadow and sudden sun. 
 Laughing riotous round the gusty square. 
 From frail narcissus heaped in baskets there 
 Blew to me, as I passed, its odour keen, 
 Keen and strange, subtle and sweet; 
 And lo! all new and green. 
 Spring for me had entered the stony street. 
 
 II
 
 VI 
 THE BUILDERS 
 
 Staggering slowly, and swaying 
 
 Heavily at each slow foot's lift and drag, 
 
 With tense eyes careless of the roar and throng 
 
 That under jut and jag 
 
 Of half-built wall and scaffold stream along. 
 
 Six bowed men straining strong 
 
 Bear, hardly lifted, a huge lintel stone. 
 
 This ignorant thing and prone. 
 
 Mere dumbness, blindly weighing, 
 
 A brute piece of blank death, a bone 
 
 Of the stark mountain, helpless and inert, 
 
 Yet draws each sinew till the hot veins swell 
 
 And sweat-drops upon hand and forehead start, 
 
 Till with short pants the suffering heart 
 
 Throbs to the throat, where fiercely hurt 
 
 Crushed shoulders cannot heave; till thought and 
 
 sense 
 Are nerved and narrowed to one aim intense, 
 One effort scarce to be supported longer! 
 What tyrant will in man or God were stronger 
 To summon, thrall and seize 
 The exadtion of life's uttermost resource 
 
 12
 
 THE BUILDERS 
 
 That from the down-weighed breast and aching 
 
 knees 
 To arms lifted in pain 
 And hands that grapple and strain 
 Upsurges, thrusting desperate to repel 
 The pressure and the force 
 Of this, which neither feels, nor hears, nor sees ? 
 
 13
 
 VII 
 THE DESTROYER 
 
 He stands on high in the torch glare, 
 With planted feet, with lifted axe. 
 Behind, a gulf of crimsoned air; 
 Beneath, the old wall that gapes and cracks 
 
 Tossed fragments crash to dust and smoke. 
 Exulting life, aloft he stands 
 And drives his unrepentant stroke. 
 Nor heeds the havoc of his hands. 
 
 Below, one lingers gazing. Why 
 Within his heart does secret joy 
 Quivering awaken and reply 
 To each home-blow, Destroy, destroy? 
 
 Lulled in the casual feast of sense. 
 Awed by the ages' fortress-walls. 
 Out of its slumber roused, intense. 
 To the swung axe a demon calls, — 
 
 Man's Demon, never satiate, 
 That finds nought made to its desire; 
 How shall it to this world be mate, — 
 To a world of stone, a heart of fire !
 
 VIII 
 
 THE GOLDEN GALLERY AT 
 SAINT PAUL'S 
 
 The Golden Gallery lifts its aery crown 
 
 O'er dome and pinnacle : there I leaned and 
 
 gazed. 
 Is this indeed my own familiar town, 
 This busy dream ? Beneath me spreading hazed 
 In distance large it lay, nor nothing broke 
 Its mapped immensity. Golden and iron-brown, 
 The stagnant smoke 
 
 Hune coiling- above dense roofs and steeples dim. 
 The river, a serpent pale, my wandermg eye 
 Lightened; but houses pressed to his silver brim. 
 With charging clouds the sky 
 Broad shadows threw. And now in a sudden 
 
 shower 
 A veil sweeps toward me ; violent drops fall hard : 
 Then softly the sun returns on chimney and tower, 
 And the river flashes, barred 
 With shadowy arches; warm the wet roofs shine. 
 And the city is stricken with light from clouds 
 
 aslow. 
 Uplifting in dazzling line 
 O'er valleys of ashy blue, their wrinkled snow. 
 
 15
 
 THE GOLDEN GALLERY 
 
 I leaned and gazed: but into my gazing eyes 
 Entered a sharp desire, a strange distress. 
 East I looked, where the foreign masts arise 
 Li rough sea-breathing reaches of broad access; 
 And North to the hills, and South to the golden 
 
 haze, 
 But nowhere found satisfaction more. 
 Beneath me, the populous ways 
 Muttered ; but idly vast their troubled roar 
 Went up ; I heard no longer : before me rose 
 Pale as, at morning, mist from autumn streams. 
 The longing of men made visible, helpless woes, 
 Fountains of love wasted, and trampled dreams. 
 Escaped from hearts of youth, or aged brain. 
 Hither they floated, hither fled. 
 Then thou, O city of strife, mother of pain, 
 Faded'st ; and out of the mist a new city 
 I built in dream, the stones of it raised with tears, 
 And founded deep in hearts that have richly bled; 
 But watched, through mightier years. 
 By towers of faith, and girdled with walls of pity. 
 
 i6
 
 IX 
 THE DRAY 
 
 Huge through the darkened street 
 
 The Dray comes, rolling an uneven thunder 
 
 Of wheels and trampling feet; 
 
 The shaken windows stare in sleepy wonder. 
 
 Now through an open space, 
 
 Where loitering groups about the tavern's fume 
 
 Show many a sullen tace 
 
 And brawling figure in the lighted gloom, 
 
 It moves, a shadowy force 
 
 Through misery triumphant: flushed, on high 
 
 Guiding his easy course, 
 
 A giant sits, with indolent soft eye. 
 
 He turns not, that dim crowd 
 Of listless forms beneath him to behold; 
 Shawled women with head bowed 
 FHtting in hasty stealth, and children old : 
 
 Calm as some conqueror 
 
 Rode through old Rome, nor heeded at his heel, 
 'Mid the proud spoils of war. 
 What woeful captives thronged his chariot wheel. 
 
 17 c
 
 X 
 
 THE RAG-PICKER 
 
 In the April sun 
 Shuffling, shapeless, bent, 
 Cobweb-eyed, with stick 
 Searching, one by one, 
 Gutter-heaps, intent 
 Wretched rags to pick. 
 
 O, is this a man ? — 
 Man, whose spirit ere6l 
 Trampling circumstance, 
 Death and evil, can 
 Measure worlds, nor checked 
 By fell time and chance, 
 
 With undaunted eye. 
 With a mouth of song. 
 Front the starrv blue? — 
 (O you passers-by. 
 Moving swift and strong. 
 Answer, what seek your) 
 
 Husk of manhood, mere 
 Shrivel of his kind! — 
 In a bloodless mask 
 i8
 
 THE RAG-PICKER 
 
 How the old eyes peer, 
 With no light behind ! — 
 Mate of his mean task ; 
 
 Yet this wreckage fill 
 With a thought, possess 
 With a faith's empire, 
 It shall be a will 
 Mightier than the seas, 
 Man, more dread than fire ! 
 
 10
 
 XI 
 A WOMAN 
 
 O THOU that facing the mirror darkly bright 
 In the shadowed corner, loiterest shyly fond, 
 To ask of thine own sad eyes a comfort slight, 
 Before thou brave the pathless world beyond ; 
 
 Not first to-night invades thy spirit this wild 
 Despair, when loneliness stabs thee! Turned, 
 
 thy face 
 Trembles, and soft hesitation makes thee a child. 
 The child thou wast in some far, forgotten place. 
 
 Amid things for ever rejefted. Thoughtest thou 
 
 so 
 From the blankness of life to escape to a region 
 
 enjoyed, 
 Glowing, and strange? Yet blank to-night, 1 
 
 know. 
 Spreads life, my sister; within thee a deeper void. 
 
 In all this city, methinks, so charged with pain. 
 None sufters as thou; desiring what thou dost 
 With insupportable longing, and still in vain 
 Desiring, still accepting what thou must. 
 
 20
 
 A WOMAN 
 
 Where tarries he, Love, the adored one? In fields 
 
 unknown 
 Roams he apart, or in sound of a pleasant stream 
 Sleeps? Nay, dwells he in cloudy rumour alone, 
 A name, a vision, a sweet, eluding dream? 
 
 He lives, he lives, my sister; yet rarely to men 
 He appears; they touch but his robe, and believe 
 
 it is he. 
 But soft, with inaudible feet, he is flown, nor 
 
 again 
 Comes soon ; rejoicing still to be wayward and 
 
 free. 
 
 A moment, ev'n now, he was near thee: in- 
 visible wings 
 
 Brushed by thee; and infinite longing, to follow, 
 to find 
 
 That vision truth, o'ercomes thee, — thy heart's 
 sad things 
 
 To tell in a trusted ear, on a bosom kind. 
 
 Alas! not so he is won: when the last despair 
 Encamps in thy heart, at last when all seems 
 
 vain. 
 Then, perchance, he will steal to thee unaware. 
 And loose thy tears, and understand thy pain. 
 
 21
 
 XII 
 THE STORM 
 
 Stooping over London, skies convulsed 
 
 With thunder moved : a rumour of storm remote 
 
 Hushed them, and birds flew troubled. The 
 
 gradual clouds 
 Up from the West climbing, above the East 
 Glowed sullen as copper embossed j against their 
 
 gloom. 
 Like ghosts astonished, thronged the steeples 
 
 white. 
 Still with absorbed hurry the streets' uproar 
 Ran, shadowed by strange unquiet, as vaguely 
 
 pursued. 
 Lone workers from drear windows looked and 
 
 sighed. 
 Nearer drooped the sky's contracted face ; 
 The face of a Titan in punishment heavily 
 
 bowed. 
 As painful sweat, the drops fell loud: at last, 
 With silent shivering flashes of angry flame, 
 Long stifled, his deep thunder burst and groaned. 
 Then crawling over, the banks of darkness broke 
 And loosened splendour showered its arrows 
 
 abroad. 
 
 22
 
 THE STORM 
 
 Now, opposite the retreating storm aghast, 
 In full-recovered sun, new dazzling clouds, 
 Alp beyond Alp, glitter in awful snow. 
 Men stop in the street to wonder. The brilliance 
 
 runs, 
 Washing with silent waves the town opprestj 
 Startles squalid rooms with a sudden smile; 
 Enters gloomy courts, and glories there. 
 Strange as a vision the wide expanded heavens 
 Open ; the living wind with nearness breathes 
 On weary faces of women of many cares; 
 They stand at their doors and watch with a 
 
 soothed spirit 
 The marvellous West asleep in endless light. 
 
 2?
 
 XIII 
 THE PARALYTIC 
 
 He stands where the young faces pass and 
 throng; 
 His blank eyes tremble in the noonday sun : 
 He sees all life, the lovely and the strong, 
 Before him run. 
 
 Eager and swift, or grouped and loitering, they 
 
 Follow their dreams, on busy errands sped, 
 Planning delight and triumph; but all day 
 He shakes his head. 
 
 24
 
 XIV 
 THE SLEEPERS 
 
 As a swallow that sits on the roof, 
 I gaze on the world aloof; 
 
 In the silence, when men lie sleeping, 
 I hear the noise of weeping : 
 
 The tears, by Day derided. 
 To tender Night confided. 
 
 Ah, now I listen, I cannot delay 
 In thoughts apart ; I must not stay. 
 
 The doors are closed and fast : unseen, 
 With stealthy feet I glide between. 
 
 I see the sleepers asleep in their beds. 
 Negligent arms, motionless heads ; 
 
 Beautiful in the bloom of slumber. 
 Peaceful armies without number. 
 25
 
 THE SLEEPERS 
 
 Not here I linger: the sigh of those 
 
 That sleep not, draws me with answered throes. 
 
 A mother mapping her day of cares, 
 On her sleeping baby softly stares. 
 
 A youth by shameful sorrow torn. 
 Thinks on the unendurable morn. 
 
 By her husband, a wife unhappy lies. 
 With bitter heart and open eyes. 
 
 An old man hears the voice of the wave, 
 His dear son's cold unquiet grave. 
 
 Alone in the lonely, listening night 
 A child lies still in dumb affright: 
 
 The burden of all dark things unknown 
 Weighs on his trembling heart like stone. 
 
 A man remembers his dead love's smile, 
 And his tranquil courage is quelled awhile. 
 
 My heart is heavy with love and pain; 
 The tears within me oppress my brain. 
 
 What shall I tell you, you that ache 
 And number the laggard hours awake? 
 
 26
 
 THE SLEEPERS 
 
 O stabbed and stricken, what soothing art 
 Shall I use to assuage the wounds that smart? 
 
 The consolation that, ere I knew 
 Love and sorrow, I fancied true, 
 
 Is faint and helpless, now I iind, 
 
 As beauty told in the ears of the blind: 
 
 And I cannot tell, if I would, the thought 
 That strengthens me most, when my heart is 
 wrought, 
 
 O brother that cannot the days undo, 
 Could I but the reckoning pay for you ! 
 
 mother, sink your head in peace. 
 And I will your knot of care release. 
 
 Dear child, give me your dread to bear: 
 
 1 hold your hand, I stroke your hair. 
 
 It is I, who love you, that watch and keep 
 Darkness from you, the while you sleep. 
 
 I have no counsel ; I know not why 
 In your breasts the arrows burning lie; 
 
 I cannot heal your hurts, nor take 
 The sharp iron out of souls that ache. 
 
 27
 
 THE SLEEPERS 
 
 O yet, as I watch, the lashes close 
 A little, the eyes their lids dispose ; 
 
 The hand that fondly lies in mine 
 Relaxes; the wearied heads decline. 
 
 And now on wings the sorrows flee 
 From the happy sleepers, hither to me. 
 
 O noiseless sorrows, darkly thronging, 
 My heart is prepared : my tender longing 
 
 You alone can appease, with tears. 
 
 With pangs, with passion, with shame, with fears. 
 
 Feed on my heart that is open and bare. 
 Feed your fill, sorrow and care: 
 
 Take me, pains of all souls forlorn. 
 For O too swiftly arrives the morn. 
 
 28
 
 XV 
 MAY NIGHT 
 
 Come, let us forth, and wander the rich, the 
 
 murmurins; nisiht! 
 The shy, blue dusk of summer trembles above the 
 
 street ; 
 On either side uprising glimmer houses pale: 
 But me the turbulent babble and voice of crowds 
 
 delight; 
 For me the wheels make music, the mingled cries 
 
 are sweet; 
 Motion and laughter call: we hear, we will not 
 
 fail. 
 
 For see, in secret vista, with soft, retiring stars, 
 With clustered suns, that stare upon the throngs 
 
 below. 
 With pendent dazzling moons, that cast a noon- 
 day white, 
 The full streets beckon: come, for toil has burst 
 
 his bars. 
 And idle eyes rejoice, and feet unhasting go, 
 O let us out and wander the gay and golden 
 night. 
 
 29
 
 XVI 
 DEPTFORD 
 
 Well is it, shrouded Sun, thou spar'st no ray 
 To illumine this sad street! A light more bare 
 Would but discover more this bald array 
 Of roofs dejected, window patched that stare 
 From sordid walls : for the shv breath of Spring, 
 Her cheek of flowers, or fragrance of her hair, 
 Thou could'st not, save to cheated memory, bring. 
 
 Alas ! I welcome this dull mist, that drapes 
 The path of the heavy sky above the street, 
 Casting a phantom dimness on these shapes 
 That pass, by toil disfeatured, with slow feet 
 And sad mistrustful eyes ; while in the mire 
 Children a mockery of play repeat, 
 Drearly to satisfy their starved desire. 
 
 Yet O, what clouds of heaviness deter 
 
 My spirit; what sad vacancy impedes! 
 
 I am like some far-ventured traveller, 
 
 Whom, in a forest vast, entangled weeds 
 
 Have hindered; over whom green darkness fills 
 
 The inextricable boughs and stifling feeds 
 
 A poisonous fear, that sinks on him and chills. 
 
 30
 
 DEPTFORD 
 
 Nor finds he faith, amid the monstrous trees 
 Rooted in silence, peopled with strange cries 
 And stealthy shadows (where alone he sees 
 Rank growths of the hot marsh, but watching eyes 
 Imagines), to believe the self-same bark 
 He leans on, lifts to the unclouded skies 
 Its crest viftorious from that cradle dark. 
 
 I with like pain and languor am opprest: 
 
 Me too a forest upon poison fed. 
 
 Me too the marsh and the rank weeds infest. 
 
 Almost I trace in the dumb pall o'erhead 
 
 A net of stubborn boughs that dimly mesh 
 
 The air; I stifle: like a chain of lead 
 
 They weigh upon my soul, they bind my flesh, 
 
 I cannot breathe: the last and worst despair 
 Begins to invade me, numbing even desire 
 That panted for sweet draughts of light and air. 
 Dumb walls against me with blind heaven con- 
 spire: 
 Incredible the sun seems now, a ghost 
 I dreamed of in my dreams; unreal fire. 
 The light is blotted out, the blue is lost. 
 
 Was it mirage, the glow I fancied warm 
 On human cheeks, the beauty of my kind? 
 I feel it fading from me, a brief charm 
 Flying at touch. Blow hither, storms of wind ! 
 
 31
 
 DEPTFORD 
 
 Strike hither, strong sun, to my dulled heart's core ! 
 Awake, disturb me, lest mine eyes grow blind, 
 Bv fatal use to a foul dream resi^jned. 
 Accept for Nature's body this, her sore. 
 
 32
 
 XVII 
 THE BATHERS 
 
 Hither, from thirsty day 
 
 And stifling labour and the street's hot glare, 
 
 To twilight shut away 
 
 Beyond the soft roar, under hovering trees, 
 
 Hither the gleeful multitudes repair, 
 
 And by the open, echoing, evening shore, 
 
 On the dim grass, to the faint freshened breeze, 
 
 With laughter their delighted bodies bare. 
 
 Peaceful above the sunset's burning smoke, 
 
 One star and white moon lure the eastern night. 
 
 Already tasting of that wished delight 
 
 The great elms stir their boughs. 
 
 As from the day's hot languor they awoke. 
 
 But the gliding cool of water whispering calls 
 
 The bathers, in soft-plunging falls. 
 
 To overtake its ripple with swift stroke. 
 
 Or, pillowing their upward faces, drowse 
 
 On undulation of an easy peace ; 
 
 Miraculous release 
 
 Of heavy spirits, laving all desire 
 
 With satisfaction and with joy entire. 
 
 33 ^
 
 THE BATHERS 
 
 Strange now the factory's humming wheel, the cry 
 Of tireless engines, the swift-hoisted bales 
 Unnumbered ; strange the smell of ordered wares 
 In the shop's dimness: noonday traffic fails 
 Out of the wave-washed ear; stiff office stool. 
 And busy hush: and like a turbid dream, 
 The tavern's glittering fume insensibly 
 Ebbs with the hot race and the glutted stream 
 Of labour, thieving the dear sands of youth. 
 But ever closer, like sweet-tasting truth, 
 The vivid drench, the yielding pressure cool; 
 And like a known touch comes the fitful breeze 
 From murmuring silence: the suspended trees 
 Above, the wet drops that from hair and beard 
 Run down the rippled back, are real and sweet. 
 Warm are the breathing limbs, and the firm feet 
 Tread lightly the firm ground, or lightly race 
 To mirthful cries: while Evening, nearer heard 
 And felt, a presence of invisible things 
 Inbreathes, as to the nostril keen slie brings 
 The darkling scented freshness of the grass. 
 
 O now from raiment of illusion shed 
 The perfed: body moves, rejecting care. 
 And to mysterious liberty remits 
 The rejoicing mind, in native pasture fed; 
 And mates its glory with the priceless air. 
 The universal beam, whatever fits 
 Untamable spirits, nor is bought nor sold; 
 Equalled with iierocs old, 
 
 34
 
 THE BATHERS 
 
 That beautifully people the green morn 
 Of time, and from pale marble, young and wise 
 Gaze past our hurrying world, our triumphs worn, 
 And our hearts trouble with their peaceful eyes. 
 
 35
 
 XVIII 
 THE ESCAPE 
 
 Destiny drives a crooked plough 
 And sows a careless seed; 
 Now through a heart she cuts, and now 
 She helps a helpless need. 
 
 To-night from London's roaring sea 
 She brings a girl and boy; 
 For two hearts used to misery, 
 Opens a door of joy. 
 
 Wandering from hateful homes they came, 
 Till by this fate they meet. 
 Then out of ashes springs a flame; 
 Suddenly life is sweet. 
 
 Together, where the city ends. 
 And looks on Thamcs's stream, 
 That under Surrey willows bends 
 And floats into a dream, 
 
 Softly in one another's ear 
 They murmur childish speech; 
 Love that is deeper and more dear 
 For words it cannot reach. 
 
 36
 
 THE ESCAPE 
 
 Above them the June night is still: 
 Only with sighs half-heard 
 Dark leaves above them flutter and thrill, 
 As with their longing stirred; 
 
 And by the old brick wall below 
 Rustling, the river glides; 
 Like their full hearts, that deeply glow, 
 Is the swell of his full tides. 
 
 To the farther shore the girl's pale brow 
 Turns with desiring eyes : 
 "Annie, what is it you're wishing now?" 
 She lifts her head and sighs. 
 
 " Willie, how peaceful 'tis and soft 
 Across the water ! See, 
 The trees are sleeping, and stars aloft 
 Beckon to you and me. 
 
 I think it must be good to walk 
 In the fields, and have no care; 
 With trees and not with men to talk. 
 O, Willie, take me there! " 
 
 Now hand in hand up to the Night 
 They gaze ; and she looks down 
 With large mild eyes of grave delight. 
 The mother they have not known. 
 
 37
 
 THE ESCAPE 
 
 Older than sorrow she appears, 
 Yet than themselves more young; 
 She understood their childish tears, 
 Knew how their love was sprung. 
 
 The simple perfume of the grass 
 Comes to them like a call. 
 Obeying in a dream they pass 
 Along the old brick wallj 
 
 By flickering lamp and shadowy door, 
 Across the muddy creek. 
 Warm with their joy to the heart's core. 
 With joy afraid to speak. 
 
 At last the open road they gain, 
 And by the Bridge, that looms 
 With giant arch and sloping chain 
 Over the river's glooms, 
 
 They pause: above, the northern skies 
 Are pale with a furnace light. 
 London with upcast, sleepless eyes 
 Possesses tlie brief nisht. 
 
 b 
 
 The wind flaps in the lamp; and hark! 
 A noise of wheels, that come 
 At drowsy pace; along the dark 
 A waggon lumbers home. 
 
 38
 
 THE ESCAPE 
 
 Slow-footed, with a weary ease, 
 The patient horses step; 
 The rein relaxed upon his knees, 
 The waggoner nods asleep. 
 
 "Annie, it goes the country way, 
 'Tis meant for me and you: 
 It goes to fields, and trees, and hay, 
 Come, it shall take us too! " 
 
 He lifts her in his arms, as past 
 The great wheels groaning ride. 
 And on the straw he sets her fast, 
 And lightly climbs beside. 
 
 The waggoner nods his drowsy head, 
 He hears no sound: awhile 
 Softly they listen in sweet dread, 
 Then to each other smile. 
 
 Odours of dimly flowering June, 
 The starry stillness deep, 
 Possess their wondering spirits; soon, 
 Like children tired, they sleep. 
 
 The waggon creaks, the horses plod 
 By hedges clearer seen, 
 Down the familiar dusty road. 
 And past a village green. 
 
 ^ 39
 
 THE ESCAPE 
 
 The morning star shines in the pond: 
 A cock crows loud, and bright 
 The dawn springs in the sky beyond; 
 The birds applaud the light. 
 
 But on into the summer morn 
 Beneath the gazing East, 
 The sleepers move, serenely borne: 
 The world for them has ceased. 
 
 40
 
 XIX 
 MIDSUMMER NOON 
 
 At her window gazes over the elms 
 A girl; she looks on the branching green; 
 But her eyes possess unfathomed realms, 
 Her young hand holds her dreaming chin. 
 
 Drifted, the dazzling clouds ascend 
 
 In indolent order, vast and slow, 
 
 The great blue; softly their shadows send 
 
 A clearness up from the wall below. 
 
 An old man houseless, leaning alone 
 By the tree-girt fountain, only heeds 
 The fall of the spray in the shine of the sun, 
 And nothing possessing, nothing needs. 
 
 The square is heavy with silent bloom; 
 The tardy wheels uncertain creep. 
 Above in a narrow sunlit room, 
 The widower watches his child asleep. 
 
 41
 
 XX 
 ELEONORA DUSE AS MAGDA 
 
 The theatre is still, and Duse speaks. 
 What charm possesses all, 
 And what a bloom let fall 
 On parted lips, and eyes, and flushing cheeks! 
 The flattering whisper and the trivial word 
 No longer heard, 
 
 The hearts of women listen, deeply stirred. 
 For now to each those quivering accents seem 
 A secret telling for her ear alone : 
 The child sits wondering in a world foreknown. 
 And the old nod their lieads with springing tear, 
 Confirming true that a<Sed dream. 
 And the soul of each to itself revealed 
 Peels to the voice a voice reply. 
 With a leaping wonder, a joy, a fear. 
 It is I, it is I! 
 
 But O what radiant mirror is this that dazzles me, 
 That my dead rapture holds. 
 That all my joy unfolds. 
 That sets my longing free. 
 My sighs renumbers, my old hope renews? 
 I have lived in a sleep, 1 have tasted alien bread, 
 
 42
 
 ELEONORA DUSE AS MAGDA 
 
 I have spoken the speech, and worn the robes of 
 
 the dead; 
 I have buried my heart away, and none believed. 
 But now, speak on, and my bonds untie: 
 At last, it is I, it is I ! 
 
 43
 
 XXI 
 THE CONVICT 
 
 By the warm road-side, where chestnut and thorn 
 The brightness shaded, supine, at ease, 
 A felon, freed that morn, 
 
 Lay idle, and wondered, gazing up through the 
 trees. 
 
 O strange no more to be one of a band 
 Numbered and known ; to lose the measure 
 Of day divided and planned: 
 To think for the morrow, to choose work or 
 pleasure. 
 
 His ear the jostling roar of the street 
 Amazed: he felt the crowd like a load; 
 And welcomed, refuge sweet, 
 Deserted suburb and silent shady road. 
 
 For now, with his hands habitual stones 
 Of the pavement he touched: close to the wall 
 He nestled, and felt to his bones 
 The warmth, and the shadow cool on his fore- 
 head fall. 
 
 4-4
 
 THE CONVICT 
 
 And catching a leaf from the chestnut strayed, 
 He held it, glowing green in the light, 
 Transparent, with veins inlaid ; 
 And thrust the world and its vastness away from 
 sight. 
 
 Children from school, as they passed him, eyed 
 
 His shorn temples, and whispering turned 
 
 To mock him: he on his side, 
 
 Abstrafted, his limbs disposed to a slumber earned. 
 
 A grave citizen, homeward bound, 
 Perceived him, as negligent still he lay. 
 And swerved askance, and frowned. 
 And crossed to the opposite pavement, and went 
 his way. 
 
 But warming him shone the indifferent noonj 
 And chestnut and thorn on his sleeping head 
 In the careless glory of June 
 Scattered their delicate blossom of white and red. 
 
 45
 
 XXII 
 MARTHA 
 
 A WOMAN sat, with roses red 
 Upon her lap before her spread, 
 On that high bridge whose parapet 
 Wide over turbulent Thames is set, 
 Between the dome's far glittering crest 
 And those famed towers that throng the west. 
 Negle6lful of the summer air 
 That on her pale brow stirred the hair, 
 She sat with fond and troubled look, 
 And in her hand the roses shook. 
 Shy to her lips a bloom she laid, 
 Then shrank as suddenlv afraid: 
 For from the breathing crimson leaf 
 The sweetness came to her like grief. 
 Dropping her hands, her eyes she raised, 
 And on the hurrying passers gazed. 
 Two children, loitering along 
 Amid that swift and busy throng. 
 Their arms about each other's shoulder. 
 The younger clinging to the older. 
 Stopped, with their faces backward turned 
 To her: iier heart within her yearned. 
 They were so young! She looked away: 
 O, the whole earth was young to-day ! 
 
 46
 
 MARTHA 
 
 The whole wide earth v/as laughing fair; 
 The flashing river, the soft air, 
 The horses proud, the voices clear 
 Of young men, frequent cry and cheer, 
 All these were beautiful and free, 
 Each with its joy: Alas, but she! 
 She started up, and bowed her head, 
 And, gathering her roses, fled. 
 
 Through dim, uncounted, silent days, 
 She had trod deep-secluded ways; 
 'Mid the fierce throng of jostling lives, 
 Whom unrelenting hunger drives 
 Close to the wall, had stolen by, 
 Yet could not shun calamitv. 
 Her painful thrift, her patient face. 
 Could not the world-old debt erase; 
 Nor gentle lips, nor feet that glide, 
 Persuade the sudden blow aside. 
 This morn, when she arose, her store, 
 Trusted to others, was no more. 
 No more avail her years of care. 
 She must her bosom frail prepare, 
 Exposed in her defenceless age. 
 Against the world and fortune's rage. 
 For bread, for bread, what must be done ? 
 She stole forth in the morning sun. 
 I will sell flowers, she thought : this way 
 Seemed gentler to her first dismay. 
 Soon to the great flower-market, fair 
 47
 
 MARTHA 
 
 With watered leaves and scented air, 
 She came: her seeking, timorous gaze 
 Wandered about her in amaze. 
 The arches hummed with cheerful sound; 
 Buyers and sellers thronged around j 
 Lilies in virsin slumber stirred 
 Hardly, the gold dust brightly blurred 
 Upon their rich illumined snow, 
 As the soft breezes come and go. 
 From her smooth sheath, with ardent wings, 
 Purple and gold, the iris springs ; 
 Deep-umbered wall-flowers, dusk between 
 The radiance and the odour keen 
 Of jonquils, this sad woman's eyes 
 And her o'erclouded soul surprise. 
 But most the wine-red roses, deep 
 In sunshine lying, warm asleep, 
 Breathing perfume, drinking light 
 Into their inmost bosoms bright. 
 Seeming fathomlessly to unfold 
 A treasure of more price than gold. 
 Martha, o'ercome by wonder ntw, 
 Into her heart the crimson drew; 
 The colour burning on her cheek. 
 She stood, in strange emotion weak. 
 But she must buy. Her choice was made: 
 Red rose upon red rose she laid, 
 Lingering, then hastened out, with eyes 
 Bright, and her hands about the prize, 
 And quickened thouo;ht that nowhere aims. 
 
 48
 
 MARTHA 
 
 Soon, pausing above glittering Thames, 
 She spreads the flowers upon her knees. 
 Vast, many-windowed palaces 
 Before her raised their scornful height 
 And haughtily struck back the light. 
 She scarcely marked them, only bent 
 Her fond gaze on the flowers, intent 
 To bind them in gay bunches, drest 
 So to allure the spoiler best. 
 But now, as her caressing hand 
 Each odorous fresh nosegay planned, 
 A new grief smote her to the heart: 
 Must she from her sweet treasure part? 
 They seemed of her own blood. O no, 
 I cannot shame my roses so: 
 I will get bread some other way. 
 So she shut out all thought. The day 
 Was radiant; and her soul, surprised 
 To beauty, and the unsurmised 
 Sweetness of life, itself reproved 
 That had so little felt and loved ! 
 O now to love, if even a flower, 
 To taste the sweet sun for an hour, 
 Was better than the struggle vain. 
 The dull, unprofitable pain. 
 To find her useless body bread. 
 Stricken with grievous joy, she fled. 
 
 She fled, but soon her pace grew faint. 
 She paused awhile, and easier went. 
 
 49 E
 
 MARTHA 
 
 Often, in spirits wrought, despair, 
 Not less than joy the end of care, 
 A lightness feigns : for all is done, 
 And certainty at last begun. 
 Martha, with impulse fresh recoiled 
 From empty years, forlorn and soiled, 
 Trembled to feel the radiant breeze 
 Blowing from unknown living seas, 
 And, rising eager from long fast. 
 Drank in the wine of life at last. 
 Now, as some lovely face went by, 
 She noted it with yearning eye ; 
 She joyed in the exultant course 
 Of horses, and their rushing force. 
 
 At last, long wandering, she drew near 
 Her home ; then fell on her a fear, 
 A shadow from the coming Hours. 
 By chance a hawker, crying flowers, 
 His barrow pushed along the street, 
 And the dull air with scent was sweet. 
 As on her threshold Martha stood, 
 A sudden thought surprised her blood. 
 Quickly she entered, and the stair 
 Ascended: first with gentle care 
 Cooled her tired roses : then a box 
 Of little hoardings she unlocks, 
 And brintrs her silver to the door 
 And buys till she can buy no more. 
 Laden she enters: the drear room 
 
 50
 
 MARTHA 
 
 Glows strangely; the transfigured gloom 
 
 Flows over, prodigal in bloom. 
 
 Her lonely supper now she spread; 
 
 But with her eyes she banqueted. 
 
 Over the roofs in solemn flame 
 
 The strong beam of the sunset came, 
 
 And from the floor striking; a glow 
 
 Burned back upon the wall; and lo ! 
 
 How deep, in double splendour dyed, 
 
 Blushed the red roses glorified ! 
 
 When darkness dimmed them, Martha sighed. 
 
 Yet still about the room she went 
 
 Touching them, and the subtle scent 
 
 Wandered into her soul, and brought 
 
 All memories, yet stifled thought. 
 
 As in her bed she lay, the flowers 
 
 Haunted her through the midnight hours : 
 
 'Twixt her shut lids the colours crept; 
 
 But wearied out, at last she slept. 
 
 Next morning she awoke in dread. 
 O mad, O sinful me ! she said. 
 What have I done? how shall this end 
 For me ? Alas, I have no friend. 
 She strove to rise; but in her brain 
 A drowsy magic worked like pain. 
 She sank back in a weak amaze 
 Upon the pillow: then her gaze 
 Fell on the roses; she looked round, 
 And in the spell again was bound. 
 
 51
 
 MARTHA 
 
 The deep-hued blossoms standing by 
 
 With serious beauty awed her eye; 
 
 Upward, inscrutable, they flamed: 
 
 Of that mean fear she was ashamed. 
 
 All day their fragrance in the sun 
 
 Possessed her spirit: one by one, 
 
 She pondered o'er them, dozing still 
 
 And waking half against her will. 
 
 Her body hungered, but her soul 
 
 Was feasting. Gradually stole 
 
 The evening shadow on her bed; 
 
 She could no longer lift her head, 
 
 Deep on her brain the flowers had wrought; 
 
 Now in the dim twilight her thought 
 
 Put trembling on a strange attire, 
 
 And blossomed in fantastic fire. 
 
 She stretched her hand out in the gloom: 
 
 It touched upon a living bloom. 
 
 Thither she turned ; the deep perfume 
 
 O'ercame her; nearer and more near, 
 
 And now her joy is in her fear. 
 
 The lily hangs, the rose inclines. 
 
 With incense that her soul entwines. 
 
 Her inmost soul that dares not stir. 
 
 The gentle flowers have need of her. 
 
 Unpitying is their rich desire — 
 
 Her breath, her being they require. 
 
 O, she must yield ! She sinks far down. 
 
 Conquered, listless, happy, down 
 
 Under wells of darkness, deep 
 
 52
 
 MARTHA 
 
 Into labyrinths of sleep, 
 Perishing; in sweetness dumb. 
 By the close enfolding bloom 
 To a sighing phantom kissed, 
 Like a water into mist 
 Melting, and extinguished quite 
 In unfathomed odorous night. 
 
 At last, the brief stars paling, dawn 
 Breathed from distant stream and lawn. 
 The earliest bird with chirrup low 
 Called his mates ; softly and slow 
 The flowers their languid petals part. 
 And open to the fragrant heart. 
 And now the first fresh beam returned; 
 Bright through the lily's edge it burned 
 And filled the purple rose with fire, 
 And brightened all their green attire. 
 And woke a shadow on the wall. 
 
 But Martha slept, nor stirred at all. 
 
 53
 
 XXIII 
 AUGUST 
 
 In drooping leaves of the plane 
 Hangs blue the early heat; 
 Stirless, a delicate shade 
 Sleeps on the parching street. 
 
 I wander this listless morning 
 
 By the banks of the dazzling river ; 
 
 On the hot stones lean, w^here tov^^ard me 
 
 Lights from the water quiver. 
 
 And clasping hands upon eyes, 
 
 I plunge my thought in a dream 
 
 Of days when the sharp air stung 
 
 And the ice crushed cold in the stream ; 
 
 Vainly! on body and mind 
 
 Has the tyrant sun his will: 
 
 And to me, on the hot stone leaning, 
 
 The city is faint and still. 
 
 Is faint as listening sands, 
 Where, awed by the heavy calm 
 Of the desert heaven, listens, 
 For ever alone, the palm. 
 
 54
 
 XXIV 
 THE FIRE 
 
 With beckoning fingers bright 
 
 In heaven uplifted, from the darkness wakes, 
 
 Upon a sudden, radiant Fire, 
 
 And out of slumber shakes 
 
 Her wild hair to the nightj 
 
 Bewitching all to run with hurried feet, 
 
 And stand, and gaze upon her beauty dire. 
 
 For her the shrinking gloom 
 
 Yields, and a place prepares; 
 
 An ample scene and a majestic room : 
 
 Slowly the river bares 
 
 His bank; above, in endless tier. 
 
 Glittering out of the night the windows come 
 
 To that bright summons; and at last appear, 
 
 Hovering, enkindled, and unearthly clear. 
 
 Steeple, and tower, and the suspended dome. 
 
 But whence are these that haste 
 So rapt? What throngs along the street that 
 press, 
 
 55
 
 THE FIRE 
 
 Raised by enchantment from the midnight 
 
 waste 
 That even now was sleeping echoless? 
 Men without number, lured from near and far 
 As by a world-portending star ! 
 Lo, on the bright bank without interval 
 Faces in murmuring line, 
 With earnest eyes that shine, 
 Across the stream gaze ever; on the wall 
 Faces; and dense along the bridge's side 
 Uncounted faces; softly the wheels glide 
 Approaching, lest they break the burning hush 
 Of all that multitude aflush 
 With secret stranQ-e desire. 
 Warm in the great light, as themselves afire, 
 Thousands are gazing, and all silently ! 
 How to the throbbing glare their hearts reply, 
 As tossing upward a dim-sparkled plume. 
 The beautiful swift Fury scares the sky. 
 The stars look changed on high. 
 And red the steeples waver from the gloom. 
 Distantly clear over the water swells 
 The roar: the iron stanchions dribble bright, 
 And faltering with strong quiver to its fall. 
 Drops, slowly rushing, the great outer wall. 
 From lip to lip a wondering murmur goes, 
 As crouching a dark moment o'er its prey, 
 Swiftly again upleaps 
 
 The wild flame, and exulting madly glows; 
 The city burns in an enchanted day. 
 
 56
 
 THE FIRE 
 
 Still the great throng impassioned silence keeps, 
 
 Like an adoring host in ecstasy. 
 
 Did ever vision of the opened sky 
 
 Entrance more deeply, or did ever voice 
 
 Of a just wrath more terribly rejoice? 
 
 The houseless beggar gazing has forgot 
 
 His hunger; happy lovers' hands relax; 
 
 They look no more into each others' eyes. 
 
 Wrapt in its mother's shawl 
 
 The frettins; child no longer cries. 
 
 And that soul-piercing flame 
 
 Melts out like wax 
 
 The prosperous schemer's busy schemes: 
 
 The reveller like a visionary gleams. 
 
 An aged wandering pair lift up their heads 
 
 Out of old memories; to each, to all. 
 
 Time and the strong world are no more the 
 
 same, 
 But threatened, perishable, trembling, brief, 
 Even as themselves, an instant might destroy, 
 With all the builded weight of years and grief, 
 All that old hope and pleasant usage dear. 
 Glories and dooms before their eyes appear; 
 Upon their faces joy. 
 Within their bosoms fear ! 
 
 Is it that even now 
 
 In all, O radiant Desolation, thou 
 
 Far otF prefigurest 
 
 To each obscurely wounded breast 
 
 57
 
 THE FIRE 
 
 The dream of what shall be? 
 
 And in their hearts they see 
 
 Rushing in ardent ruin out of sight 
 
 With all her splendour, with her streaming robe 
 
 Of seas, and her pale peoples, the vast globe 
 
 A sullen ember crumble into night! 
 
 58
 
 XXV 
 TO A DERELICT 
 
 O TRAVELLED far beyond unhappiness 
 
 Into a dreadful peace ! 
 
 Why tarriest thou here ? The street is bright 
 
 With noon; the music of the tidal sound 
 
 Of London fills the trembling air with power 
 
 Flowing and freed around; 
 
 No corner but is stirred 
 
 With motion and with voices mingling heard, 
 
 That every hour 
 
 Bring thousand faces trooping into light 
 
 Past thee. O hide thyself beneath the ground! 
 
 Trouble not our sunshine longer, lest we see 
 
 Too clearly inscribed on thee 
 
 All that we fear to be. 
 
 What dost thou with the sun ? 
 
 Long since thy race was run. 
 
 What spedlral task employs 
 
 Thy hands? The very boys 
 
 That mocked thee, mock no more; they pass 
 
 thee by. 
 Like a dumb stone that cannot make reply. 
 Yet, even as a stone 
 Will from the turbulent sea 
 
 59
 
 TO A DERELICT 
 
 Take voice and motion not its own, 
 Words on thy lips mechanically stray 
 With echoes and with gleams that fade and come 
 Unrecognized, unknown. 
 And as from some extinguished star 
 The orphan ray 
 
 Still vainly travels its eternal way, 
 A light of meaning flickers from afar 
 From what long since was dumb. 
 Still at the accustomed place 
 Appears thy ruined face; 
 And in thy niche all the resounding day, 
 'Mid busy voices haunting motionless 
 Thou standest; and to every loitering eye 
 Resign'st thy history. 
 Alas ! thou also, thou that art so cold, 
 Thou also once wert young ; 
 And once didst hang upon thy mother's breast 
 And laugh upon thy father's knee. 
 But now thy flesh is nearer to the mould 
 Than the light grass, — and still thou lingerest! 
 Woe to thee now, because thou chosest ill, 
 Because each hour tliou didst resign 
 A little more of thy slow-ebbing will, 
 And to the invading silence didst assentj 
 Because to Life saying for ever Nay, 
 To Death thou saidest Yea, 
 Who leaves thee now engraven with defeat 
 In this triumphal street. 
 With all that was and is no longer thine 
 
 60
 
 TO A DERELICT 
 
 Yielded and spent 
 
 At what a priceless cost, 
 
 O face of many battles, and all lost ! 
 
 Now all thy dues paid, Death possesses thee; 
 
 But too secure 
 
 To occupy his easy kingdom, spares 
 
 To enforce his title; cruelly forbears, 
 
 And suffers thee to languish in thy lot, 
 
 In this most woeful, that thou weepest not. 
 
 So in some street 
 
 Stirred with the rushing feet 
 
 Of life that glitters and that thunders past, 
 
 An aged house, broken and doomed at last, 
 
 Ere yet it vanish quite, 
 
 Abandons helpless to the light 
 
 Spoiled san6tuaries, filled with emptiness. 
 
 Where late the weary harboured, and young fears 
 
 Were cradled into peace, 
 
 And sacred kisses kissed, and private tears 
 
 Were dried, and true hearts hid their close delight. 
 
 But now the fires are ashes, all is bare. 
 
 The torn, gay paper flutters old. 
 
 And a phantasmal stair 
 
 Climbs into floorless chambers, and hearths cold. 
 
 6i
 
 XXVI 
 TRAFALGAR SQUARE 
 
 Slowly the dawn a magic paleness drew 
 From windows dim; the Pillar high in air 
 Over dark statues and dumb fountains, threw 
 A shadow on the solitary square. 
 
 They that all night, dozing disquieted, 
 Huddled together on the benches cold, 
 Now shrank apart, distrustful and unfed, 
 And by the growing radiance unconsoled. 
 
 Then one, a woman, silently arose. 
 And came to the broad fountain, brimming cool, 
 And over the stone margin leaning close. 
 Dipped hands and bathed her forehead in the pool. 
 
 Now as the fresh drops ran upon her brow 
 And her hands knotted up her hair, the ways 
 Of old lost mornings came to her, and how 
 Into her mirror she would smile and gaze. 
 
 62
 
 TRAFALGAR SQUARE 
 Then she was troubled ; and looked down once 
 
 more 
 
 Into the glimmering water; and she seemed 
 
 The very depth of darkness to explore, 
 
 If it might yield all that she feared and dreamed. 
 
 But that kind clouding mirror answered her 
 With a soft answer; liquid mysteries 
 Of shadow, with a pale breeze just astir, 
 Yielded only the brightness of her eyes. 
 
 It was herself; but O what magic wrought 
 A presage round her, tender and obscure ! 
 The water without stain refused her not: 
 In that deep vision she rejoined the pure. 
 
 The dawn stole on ; and from its buried place 
 Rose in her bosom the sweet strength of youth; 
 She, the rejected, had no more disgrace: 
 Her opening heart drew in a different truth. 
 
 She that had come past her last hope, and found 
 Nothing beyond, and had shed no more tears. 
 But closing with dull ashes her first wound, 
 Had trodden into the daily dust all fears : 
 
 She now began to wonder and to thrill 
 Upon a new horizon : and the pain 
 Of hope began to quicken and to fill 
 The world with strangeness and desire again. 
 
 63
 
 TRAFALGAR SQUARE 
 
 O then I am not come quite to the end, 
 She murmured, and life holds more than I knew. 
 Somewhere by seeking I may find a friend 
 Perhaps, and something in this world be true. 
 
 Alone in this bright battle, whose fierce din 
 Even now awakes round her defenceless lot, 
 Without home, friend, comfort or peace within, 
 The very stones might weep her. She weeps not : 
 
 But as a plant, that under parching drouth 
 Thirsted and drooped and daily heavier grew, 
 Rises afresh to the soft showering south. 
 She lifts her forehead to the sun anew. 
 
 And in her spirit a still fountain springs 
 Deeper than hunger, faith crying for life. 
 That to her eyes an inward clearness brings, 
 And to her heart courage for any strife. 
 
 64
 
 XXVII 
 THE REFORMER 
 
 HYDE PARK 
 
 August from a vault of hollow brass 
 Steep upon the sullen city glares. 
 Yellower burns the sick and parching grass, 
 Shivering in the breath of furnace airs. 
 
 Prone upon their pale, outwearied brows 
 Miserable forms lie heavily. 
 Cumbering the earth; untimely boughs 
 Fallen from this world-o'ershadowing tree, 
 
 London, that with every buried sun 
 Shakes from her strong life a thousand lives. 
 Feeds her heart with blood of hearts undone; 
 Nourished with a million sorrows, thrives. 
 
 Hither the Reformer comes; a flame 
 Burns within his dark, enthusiast gaze. 
 Still he thirsts to show mankind their shame. 
 Lift and drag them from their sinful ways. 
 
 65 ' F
 
 THE REFORMER 
 
 Now amid the prostrate scattered throng 
 Standing, he uplifts his earnest cry: 
 "Wake, awake, rise up from lust and wrong, 
 Quickly seek God's mercy ere you die ! 
 
 "Thunder on your hesitation hangs. 
 God prepares your fearful punishment. 
 Flee, while yet 'tis time, those endless pangs, 
 Hearken, wretched sinners, and repent." 
 
 Scarce the motion of a listless arm, 
 Scarce the uneasy lifting of a head. 
 Answers that stern trumpet of alarm. — 
 Still he sounds his vehement note of dread. 
 
 Hand in hand three children solemn-eyed 
 Wonder up into his face, and pass. 
 Often turning backward, o'er the wide 
 Hueless desert of the hazy grass. 
 
 Fierce the lava-torrent of his speech 
 Pours on those deje6led souls around; 
 Yet his words no single bosom reach, 
 Wither and fall idle on the ground. 
 
 Now at last he falters; his own thought, 
 His own voice, is strange and far to him. 
 The sun stares his meaning into naught; 
 In the stillness all his fire is dim. 
 
 66
 
 THE REFORMER 
 
 From those miserable forms unstirred 
 Now a mute imploring cry he hears, 
 Like a stricken creature's, without word; 
 O what vain voice sounds upon our ears ! 
 
 Powerless are thy terrors to appal. 
 Welcome even, so we feel the less 
 Heavy on our hearts and over all 
 This intolerable emptiness ! 
 
 Empty is the earth for us, the skies 
 Empty; only lives the brazen sun. 
 Empty are our hearts; and if we rise. 
 There is nothing to be sought nor won. 
 
 If upon our silence thou intrude, 
 Speak a speech that we may understand ! 
 Leave us to endure our solitude. 
 Or reach out to us a brother's hand. 
 
 Join us to this life that round us teems; 
 Let us breathe again that common breath 1 
 Bring us sorrow, labour, terrors, dreams, 
 Madness ; but deliver us from death ! 
 
 67
 
 XXVIII 
 WHITECHAPEL HIGH ROAD 
 
 Lusty life her river pours 
 
 Along a road of shining shores. 
 
 The moon of August beams 
 
 Mild as upon her harvest slopes; but here 
 
 From man's full-breath'd abounding earth 
 
 Exiled she walks, as one of alien birth, 
 
 The pale, neglefted foster-mother of dreams. 
 
 For windovv^s with resplendent stores 
 
 Along the pavement dazzle and outstare 
 
 The booths that front them ; there. 
 
 To the throng which loiters by in laughing 
 
 streams 
 Babble the criers: and 'mid eager sounds 
 The flaming torches toss to the wind their hair, 
 And ruddy in trembling waves the light 
 Flushes cheeks of wondering boys 
 Assembled, their lips parted and eyes bright, 
 As the medicine-seller his magic herb expounds, 
 Or some old man displays his painted toys. 
 Deaf with a vacant stillness of the tomb, 
 At intervals a road deserted gapes. 
 Where night shrinks back into her proper gloom, 
 
 68
 
 WHITECHAPEL HIGH ROAD 
 
 Frighted by boisterous flare 
 
 Of the flame, that now through a cluster of 
 
 green grapes 
 Shines wanly, or on striped apple and smooth 
 
 pear 
 Fhts blushing; now on rug or carpet spread 
 In view of the merry buyers, the rude dyes 
 Re-crimsons, or an antic shadow throws 
 Over the chestnut brazier's glowing eyes; 
 And now the sleeping head 
 Of a gipsy child in his dim corner shows, 
 Huddled against a canvas wall, his bed 
 An ancient sack : nor torch, nor hundred cries 
 Awake him from his sweet profound repose. 
 
 But thou, divine moon, with thine equal beam 
 Dispensing patience, stealest unawares 
 The thoughts of many that pass sorrowful on 
 Else undiverted, amid the crowd alone : 
 Embroiderest with beauties the worn theme 
 Of trouble; to a fancied harbour calm 
 Steerest the widow's ship of heavy cares; 
 And on light spirits of lovers, radiant grown, 
 Droppest an unimaginable balm. 
 Yet me to-night thy peace rejoices less 
 Xhan this warm human scene, that of rude earth 
 Pleasantly savours, nor dissembles mirth. 
 Nor grief nor passion : sweet to me this press 
 Of life unnumbered, where if hard distress 
 Be tyrant, hunger is not fed 
 
 69
 
 WHITECHAPEL HIGH ROAD 
 
 Nor misery pensioned with the ill-tasting bread 
 Of pity; but such help as earth ordains 
 Betwixt her creatures, bound in common pains, 
 One from another, without prayer, obtains. 
 
 70
 
 XXIX 
 
 IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 Shafts of light, that poured from the August 
 
 sun, 
 
 Glowed on long red walls of the gallery cool; 
 Fell upon monstrous visions of ages gone, 
 Still, smiling Sphinx, winged and bearded Bull. 
 
 With burnished breast of ebon marble, queen 
 And king regarded full, from a tranquil brain 
 Enthroned together, conquered Time ; serene 
 In spite of wisdom, and older than ancient pain. 
 
 Hither a poor woman, with sad eyes, came. 
 And vacantly looked around. The faces vast. 
 Their strange motionless features, touched with 
 
 flame. 
 Awed her: in humble wonder she hurried past; 
 
 And shyly beneath a sombre monument sought 
 Obscurity; into the darkest shade she crept 
 And rested : soon, diverted awhile, her thought 
 Returned to its own trouble. At last she slept. 
 
 71
 
 IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 Not long sweet sleep alone her spirit possest. - 
 A dream seized her: a solemn and strange 
 
 dream. 
 For far from home in an unknown land, opprest 
 By burning sun, in the noon's terrible beam 
 
 She wandered ; around her out of the plain arose 
 Immense Forms, that high above her stared. 
 Calm they seemed, and used to human woes; 
 Silent they heard her sorrow, with ears prepared. 
 
 Now like a bird, flitting with anxious wings, 
 Imprisoned within some vast cathedral's aisles, 
 Hither and thither she flutters: to each she 
 
 brings 
 Her prayer, and is answered only with grave 
 
 smiles. 
 
 Indescribably troubled, " Crush me," she cries, 
 " Speak, speak, or crush me ! " The lips are dumb, 
 — She woke, no longer in shadow, the sun on 
 
 her eyes, ..v^^.r- ] 
 
 And sighed, and arose, and returned to her 
 
 empty home. 
 
 72
 
 XXX 
 
 THE THRESHOLD 
 
 AN ODE 
 
 I WALKED beside full-flooding Thames to-night 
 Westward ; upon my face the sunset fell : 
 The hour, the spacious evening, pleased me well. 
 Buoyant the air breathed after rain, and kind 
 To senses flattered with soft sound and light 
 Of merry waves that leapt against the wind, 
 Where, broadly heaving barge and boat at rest, 
 The River came at flood ; from golden skies 
 Issuing through arches, black upon the West, 
 To flame before the sunset's mysteries. 
 
 Far off to-night as a remembered dream 
 That different Thames, familiar as a friend, 
 That youthful Thames, to whom his willows bend 
 With private whisper; where my boat would 
 
 come. 
 Heaped with fresh flowers, and down the cool 
 
 smooth stream 
 Follow his green banks through the twilight home. 
 Far from these paven shores, these haughty towers, 
 Where wave and beam glorying together run, 
 
 n
 
 THE THRESHOLD 
 
 As though they would disown those cradHng 
 
 bowers, 
 And gushed immediate from the molten sun. 
 
 Dazzled I turn ; and lo, the solemn East 
 Before me comes. Soft to my eyes, yet bright, 
 London her vastness stretches in hushed light 
 Murmuring; wharf and terrace curve afar 
 Past bridge and steeple, thronging, great with 
 
 least, 
 To Paul's high cross that sparkles like a star. 
 The distant windows glitter; and high o'er them, 
 Clouds unapproachable, illumined snows. 
 Tinged with calm fire that blushes like a gem, 
 As though themselves burned inwardly, repose. 
 
 All things, methought, that inward glory shared, 
 A radiant strangeness: nothing I beheld 
 But spoke in a new tongue to me, or spelled 
 New meanings; and within me a deep sense 
 Of portals opening, of an hour prepared. 
 Prophesied; and a light, transported thence. 
 Of expectation on me also came. 
 Glowing, the city waits what shall arrive: 
 The steep clouds smoulder as to sudden flame 
 They would burst forth, and the wave leaps alive. 
 
 Immediately stole over me the tiiought 
 Of this age ending; painful and oppressed. 
 Its cry, entreating still- rejected rest, 
 
 74
 
 THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Echoed behind me. But I seemed to stand 
 Beyond ; and over the near threshold brought 
 Of days to be, the air blew strong and bland. 
 I listened; and a voice, w^herein bore part 
 Cloud, light, and wind, and water, thus began 
 Aerial tones; a voice from the deep heart 
 Of all things speaking to the heart of man. 
 
 Say, troubled one, what sorrow is it keeps 
 Thy spirit? Because thy latest dream is shed, 
 Is the root sapped, and the strong branches dead.? 
 Forget'st thou that thy generations have 
 Their seasons, and for them her due term sleeps 
 Spring, with her buds, dreaming in Autumn's 
 
 grave ? 
 Because 'twas Autumn with thee, thou sit'st 
 
 mute. 
 To the fall of the leaf consenting : Yet thine 
 
 eyes 
 Cast round thee, and consider what fair fruit 
 The full seeds bear in charge ! Wake, and arise ! 
 
 Wake, and for blither energy remit 
 
 This tedious questing in the inscrutable past, 
 
 This pondering the before and after vast. 
 
 O couldst thou take, like us, Time's quiet bloom. 
 
 On life alone expend thy freshened wit. 
 
 The burden and the joy alone resume ! 
 
 The mountains groan not that the streams devour 
 
 75
 
 THE THRESHOLD 
 
 With thievish tongue their ancient high estate, 
 Nor of her pining leaf complains the flower; 
 But thou enjoy'st not nor rejeft'st thy fate. 
 
 Pitying thee, the Powers that on thee cast 
 Thy destiny, 'mid labour solace sent. 
 For veiled they keep that infinite ascent 
 Of years, and by degrees the pathway show 
 Up which thou mountest, deeming still the last 
 Step won, and numbered all the stones of woe. 
 And easily triumphant thou lean'st forth 
 To grasp the final palm; when that eludes, 
 As easily dejedled : placid Earth 
 Remains, a mirror for thy hundred moods. 
 
 Dream-builder, for whose dreams thy lips invent 
 Names of sweet sound, freedom and peace and 
 
 truth. 
 Upon the bright fermenting mists of youth 
 Projecting a foredoomed reality : 
 Happy, if gross joys could thy brain content. 
 Or could thy faith match thy credulity; 
 Ever inweaving Earth's plain warp with thread 
 Of thy deep wishes, thine own heart's strong hue, 
 The mind thy prison, thought thy narrow bed, 
 With truth, with freedom what hast thou to do? 
 
 O yet, I answered, not in vain desire 
 Spurs us to gaze into the infinity. 
 To dip our hands in that wide whispering sea. 
 
 76
 
 THE THRESHOLD 
 
 How shall one flower the whole wood's voices 
 
 tell, 
 Or one small sphere interpret that full choir 
 Of orb with orb, music ineffable 
 From all worlds mingled ? Yet since our best joy 
 Not in possession but beyond us lies, 
 Our hearts at last, weary of earth's annoy. 
 Only that far-off music satisfies. 
 
 Name beyond names. Heart of the Eternal Life, 
 Whom our faint thought hardly at times con- 
 ceives. 
 Who hear'st but as the oak his fluttered leaves 
 The cry of parting spirits; who in the pang 
 For children born rejoicest ; from whose strife 
 And travail issuing the bright worlds outsprang; 
 If the wide thought of thee my childish grief 
 Ever effaced, accept my manhood's vow ! 
 O sweet and insupportable, O chief 
 And first and last of all loves, hear me now ! 
 
 Me, whom this living vastness once appalled, 
 And this uproar disheartened and oppressed, 
 Now larger thoughts enfranchise, with sweet zest 
 Nourish, and this immensity sustains; 
 Buoyed as a swimmer upon ocean, called 
 From time to the eternal, my due pains 
 Accepting, in thy bosom I repose, 
 Of joys and griefs together make my bed, 
 
 77
 
 THE THRESHOLD 
 
 In longing to set sure against all foes 
 My spirit freed, and with thy spirit wed. 
 
 Thou, thou remainest ever in lovely power 
 Triumphant, whom beginning never knew; 
 'Tis we alone that our own strength undo, 
 'Tis we alone that, to thy ardour lame, 
 Often defeated, miserably deflower 
 The joy thou gavest, quench the imparted flame, 
 And native sweet sourly to ashes turn. 
 
 help, inspire! Us with thyself endow ! 
 Through our brief actions let thy greatness burn, 
 As through the clouds the light is burning now! 
 
 For me, since thou this hour to see thee whole 
 Vouchsafest, no more shall my heart deny 
 That thou proceed'st, because I fail and cry. 
 Henceforth will I endure to walk right on 
 Nor my bliss too much ponder, nor my dole. 
 And since dear peace fortifies faith alone, 
 
 1 trust thee, and not loth resign my heart. 
 
 Nor though thou shouldst betray me, wound and 
 
 rend, 
 Would my course alter, that the better part 
 Have chosen, enduring to the unknown end. 
 
 So inwardly my lifted spirit sang. 
 And lo, that solemn joy to authorize. 
 With answering bloom before my lifted eyes 
 
 78
 
 THE THRESHOLD 
 
 The clouds moved softly ; the far western fires 
 A moment o'er the steeples paused and sprang. 
 Now on the eye the fading light expires. 
 But 'tis to me as if Earth cast off Day, 
 Assuming her own glory, and her flight 
 Unwearied urging on the eternal way, 
 Already glowed among the lamps of Night. 
 
 79
 
 XXXI 
 THE ROAD MENDERS 
 
 How solitary gleams the lampHt street 
 
 Waiting the far-ofF morn ! 
 
 How softly from the unresting city blows 
 
 The murmur borne 
 
 Down this deserted way ! 
 
 Dim loiterers pass home with stealthy feet. 
 
 Now only, sudden at their interval, 
 
 The lofty chimes awaken and let fall 
 
 Deep thrills of ordered sound; 
 
 Subsiding echoes gradually drowned 
 
 In a great stillness, that creeps up around, 
 
 And darkly grows 
 
 Profounder over all 
 
 Like a strong frost, hushing a stormy day. 
 
 But who is this, that by the brazier red 
 Encamped in his rude hut, 
 With many a sack about his shoulder spread 
 Watches with eyes unshut? 
 Tlie burning brazier flushes his old face, 
 Illumining the old thoughts in his eyes. 
 Surely tile Night doth to her secrecies 
 
 80
 
 THE ROAD MENDERS 
 
 Admit him, and the watching stars attune 
 To their high patience, who so lightly seems 
 To bear the weight of many thousand dreams 
 (Dark hosts around him sleeping numberless) ; 
 He surely hath unbuilt all walls of thought 
 To reach an air-wide wisdom, past access 
 Of us, who labour in the noisy noon. 
 The noon that knows him not. 
 
 For lo, at last the gloom slowly retreats. 
 
 And swiftly, like an army, comes the Day, 
 
 All bright and loud through the awakened streets 
 
 Sending a cheerful hum. 
 
 And he has stolen away. 
 
 Now, with the morning shining round them, come 
 
 Young men, and strip their coats 
 
 And loose the shirts about their throats, 
 
 And lightly up their ponderous hammers lift, 
 
 Each in his turn descending swift 
 
 With triple strokes that answer and begin 
 
 Duly, and quiver in repeated change, 
 
 Marrying the eager echoes that weave in 
 
 A music clear and strange. 
 
 But pausing soon, each lays his hammer down 
 
 And deeply breathing bares 
 
 His chest, stalwart and brown. 
 
 To the sunnv airs. 
 
 Laughing one to another, limber hand 
 
 On limber hip, flushed in a group they stand, 
 
 And now untired renew their ringins toil. 
 
 8i ^ G
 
 THE ROAD MENDERS 
 
 The sun stands high, and ever a fresh throng 
 
 Comes murmuring; but that eddying turmoil 
 
 Leaves many a loiterer, prosperous or unfed, 
 
 On easy or unhappy ways 
 
 At idle gaze, 
 
 Charmed in the sunshine and the rhythm en- 
 
 thrallins;. 
 As of unwearied Fates, for ever young, 
 That on the anvil of necessity 
 From measureless desire and quivering fear, 
 With musical sure lifting and downfalling 
 Of arm and hammer driven perpetually, 
 Beat out in obscure span 
 The fiery destiny of man. 
 
 82
 
 XXXII 
 NOVEMBER 
 
 Together we laughed and talked in the warm 
 
 lit room : 
 Out now, alone I come 
 
 Into the street, in the fall of the early night. 
 Shadowy skies, with a pale uncertain gloom, 
 Hover above the houses dim ; but bright 
 In wetness mirrored far. 
 
 Retreating lamps outshine the lingering light. 
 Hazily blue the air, heavy with dews 
 The wind ; and before me the cries and the crowd, 
 And the sleepless murmur of wheels ; not loud, 
 For a magical softness all imbrues. 
 The softness estranges my sense : I see and I hear, 
 But know 'tis a vision intangible, shapes that seem. 
 All is unreal; the sound of the falling of feet, 
 Coming figures, and far-off hum of the street; 
 A dream, the gliding hurry, the endless lights, 
 Houses and sky, a dream, a dream! 
 
 83
 
 XXXIII 
 
 The Mother to her brooding breast 
 Her shrouded baby closely holds, 
 A stationary shadow, drest 
 In shadow, falling folds on folds. 
 
 With gesture motionless as Night 
 
 She stands J through wavering glare and sound 
 
 Deep pierces like a sombre light 
 
 The full gloom of her gaze profound. 
 
 84
 
 XXXIV 
 
 The Toy-seller his idle wares 
 Carefully ranges, side by side; 
 With coveting soft earnest airs 
 The children linger, open-eyed. 
 
 His haunted soul from far away 
 Looks in the lamplight absently: 
 They see not him, O happy they! 
 He sees not them, O woeful he ! 
 
 85
 
 XXXV 
 
 THE BIRCH TREE 
 
 Touched with beauty, I stand still and gaze 
 In the autumn twilight. Yellow leaves and brown, 
 The grass enriching, gleam, or waver down 
 From lime and elm: far-glimmering through the 
 
 haze 
 The quiet lamps in order twinkle; dumb 
 And fair the park lies; faint the city's hum. 
 
 And I regret not June's impassioned prime, 
 When her deep lilies banqueted the air, 
 And this now ruined, then so fragrant lime 
 Cooled with clear green the heavy noon's high 
 
 slare ; 
 Nor flushed carnations, breathing hot July; 
 Nor April's thrush in the blithest songs of the 
 
 year. 
 With brown bloom on the elms and dazzling sky ; 
 So strange a cJiarm there lingers in this austere 
 Resigning month, yielding to what must be. 
 Yet most, O delicate birch, 1 envy thee, 
 Child among trees! with silvery slender limbs 
 And purple sprays of drooping hair. Night dims 
 The grass ; the great elms darken ; no birds sing. 
 At last I sigh for the warmth and the fragrance 
 
 flown. 
 But thou in the leafless twilight shinest alone, 
 Awaiting; in ignorant trust the certain spring. 
 
 86
 
 XXXVI 
 FOG 
 
 Magically awakened to a strange, brown night 
 The streets He cold. A hush of heavy gloom 
 Dulls the noise of the wheels to a murmur dead : 
 Near and sudden the passing figures loom ; 
 And out of darkness steep on startled sight 
 The topless walls in apparition emerge. 
 Nothing revealing but their own thin flames, 
 The ray less lamps burn faint and bleared and red : 
 Link-boys' cries, and the shuffle of horses led, 
 Pierce the thick air; and hke a distant dirge. 
 Melancholy horns wail from the shrouded Thames. 
 Long the blind morning hooded the dumb town ; 
 Till lo! in an instant winds arose, and the air 
 Lifted : at once, from a cold and speftral sky 
 Appears the sun, and laughs in mockery down 
 On groping travellers far from where they deem. 
 In unconje6lured roads; the dwindled stream 
 Of traffic in slow confusion crawling by: 
 The baffled hive of helpless man laid bare. 
 
 87
 
 XXXVII 
 MOTHER OF EXILES 
 
 What far-off trouble steals 
 
 In soft-blown drifts of fflimmerino; rain? 
 
 What is it the wind feels, 
 
 What sighing of what old home-seeking pain 
 
 Among the hurried footsteps and the wheels, 
 
 The living low continual roar 
 
 Of night and London? What is it comes near. 
 
 Felt like a blind man's touch along the wall 
 
 Questing, and strange, like fear, 
 
 Lets a lone silence 'mid the turmoil fall, 
 
 Makes the long street seem vaster than before, 
 
 And the tall lamp, above dim passers-by. 
 
 Gleam solitary as on an ocean shore. 
 
 Ships on far tracks are stemming through the 
 
 night; 
 South, east and west bv foreign stars thcv steer; 
 Another half-world in the sun lies bright; 
 The darkness and the wind are here. 
 
 And now the rare late footfall scarce is heard. 
 But the wind cries along the emptied street. 
 In cowering lamp-light flicker the fine drops 
 To vanish wildly blurred: 
 
 88
 
 MOTHER OF EXILES 
 
 A hunted sky flies over the housetops. 
 
 Importunate gusts beat 
 
 Shaking the windows, knocking at the doors 
 
 As with phantasmal hands, 
 
 A crying as of spirits from far shores 
 
 And the bright under-lands. 
 
 Seeking one place 
 
 That is to each eternal in the hue 
 
 The lisht, the shadow of some certain hour, 
 
 One pang-like moment, years cannot efface. 
 
 O infinite remoteness, near and new! 
 
 O corner where friend parted from his friend! 
 
 O door of the first kiss, the last embrace ! 
 
 O day when aU was possible, O end 
 
 Irrevocable ! O dream-feet that pace 
 
 One street, dear to the dead ! 
 
 O London stones, that glimmer in the rain, 
 
 With bliss, with pain, have you not also bled? 
 
 89
 
 XXXVIII 
 JOHN WINTER 
 
 What ails John Winter, that so oft 
 Silent he sits apart? 
 
 The neighbours cast their looks on him; 
 But deep he hides his heart. 
 
 In Deptford streets the houses small 
 Huddle forlorn together. 
 Whether the wind blow or ke still, 
 'Tis soiled and sorry weather. 
 
 But over these dim roofs arise 
 
 Tall masts of ocean ships, 
 
 Whenever John Winter looked on them 
 
 The salt blew on his lips. 
 
 He cannot pace the street about, 
 
 But they stand before his eyes ! 
 
 The more he shuns them, the more proud 
 
 And beautiful they rise. 
 
 He turns his head, but in his ear 
 The steady Trade-winds run. 
 And in his eye the endless waves 
 Ride on into the sun. 
 90
 
 JOHN WINTER 
 
 His little boy at evening said, 
 Now tell us, Dad, a tale 
 Of naked men that shoot with bows, 
 Tell of the spouting whale! 
 
 He told old tales, his eyes were bright. 
 His wife looked up to see 
 And smiled on him: but in the midst 
 He ended suddenly. 
 
 He bade them each good-night, and kissed 
 And held them to his breast. 
 They wondered and were still, to feel 
 Their lips so fondly pressed. 
 
 He sat absorbed in silent gloom. 
 His wife lifted her head 
 From sewing, and stole up to him. 
 What ails you, John? she said. 
 
 He spoke no word. A silent tear 
 Fell softly down her cheek. 
 She knelt beside him, and his hand 
 Was on her forehead meek. 
 
 But even as his tender touch 
 Her dumb distress consoled. 
 The mighty waves danced in his eyes 
 And through the silence rolled. 
 
 91
 
 JOHN WINTER 
 
 There fell a soft November night, 
 Restless with gusts that shook 
 The chimneys, and beat wildly down 
 The flames in the chimney nook. 
 
 John Winter lay beside his wife. 
 'Twas past the mid of night. 
 Softly he rose, and in dead hush 
 Stood stealthily upright. 
 
 Softly he came where slept his boys, 
 And kissed them in their bed. 
 One stretched his arms out in his sleep: 
 At that he turned his head. 
 
 And now he bent above his wife. 
 She slept a sleep serene. 
 Her patient soul was in the peace 
 Of breathing slumber seen. 
 
 'to 
 
 At last he kissed one aching kiss, 
 Then shrank again in dread, 
 And from his own home guiltily 
 And like a thief he fled. 
 
 But now with darkness and the wind 
 He breathes a breath more free, 
 And walks with calmer step like one 
 Who goes with destiny. 
 
 92
 
 JOHN WINTER 
 
 And see, before him the great masts 
 Tower with all their spars 
 Black on the dimness, soaring bold 
 Among the mazy stars. 
 
 In stormy rushings through the air 
 Wild scents the darkness filled, 
 And with a fierce forgetfulness 
 His drinking nostril thrilled. 
 
 He hasted with quick feet, he hugged 
 The wildness to his breast. 
 As one who goes the only way 
 To set his heart at rest. 
 
 When morning glimmered, a great ship 
 Dropt gliding down the shore. 
 John Winter coiled the anchor ropes 
 Among his mates once more. 
 
 93
 
 XXXIX 
 SONGS OF THE WORLD UNBORN 
 
 Songs of the world unborn 
 
 Swelling within me, a shoot from the heart of 
 
 Spring, 
 As I walk the ample and teeming street 
 This tranquil and misty morn. 
 What is it to me you sing? 
 
 My body warm, my brain clear, 
 Unreasoning joy possesses my soul complete; 
 The keen air mettles my blood, 
 And the pavement rings to my feet. 
 
 houses ere6t and vast, O steeples proud, 
 That soar serenely aloof. 
 
 Vistas of railing and roof. 
 
 Dim-seen in the delicate shroud of the frosty air. 
 
 You are built but of shadow and cloud, 
 
 1 will come with the wind and blow. 
 
 You shall melt, to be seen no longer, O phantoms 
 
 fair. 
 Embattled city, trampler of dreams, 
 So long deluding, thou shalt delude no more; 
 
 94
 
 SONGS OF THE WORLD UNBORN 
 
 The trembling heart thou haughtily spurnest, 
 
 But thou from a dream art sprung, 
 
 From a far-ofF vision of yore, 
 
 To a dream, to a dream returnest. 
 
 Time, the tarrier, 
 
 Time the unshunnable, 
 
 Stealing with patient rivers the mountainous lands, 
 
 Or in turbulent fire upheaving, 
 
 Who shifts for ever the sands, 
 
 Who gently breaks the unbreakable barrier. 
 
 Year upon year into broadening silence weaving, 
 
 Time, O mighty and mightily peopled city, 
 
 Time is busy with thee. 
 
 Behold, the tall tower moulders in air, 
 
 The staunch beam crumbles to earth, 
 
 Pinnacles falter and fall, 
 
 And the immemorial wall 
 
 Melts, as a cloud is melted under the sun. 
 
 Nor these alone, but alas. 
 
 Things of diviner birth, 
 
 Glories of men and women strong and fair, 
 
 They too, alas, perpetually undone! 
 
 As the green apparition of leaves 
 
 Buds out in the smile of May; 
 
 As the red leaf smoulders away, 
 
 That frozen Earth receives; 
 
 In all thy happy, in all thy desolate places, 
 
 They spring, they glide. 
 
 Unnumbered blooming and fading faces! 
 
 O what shall abide ? 
 
 95
 
 SONGS OF THE WORLD UNBORN 
 
 Aching desire, mutinous longing, 
 
 Love, the divine reJsel, the challenge of all. 
 
 Faith, that the doubters doubted and wept her fall. 
 
 To an empty sepulchre thronging : 
 
 These, the sap of the earth, 
 
 Irresistibly sprung, 
 
 In the blood of heroes running sweet, 
 
 In the dream of the dreamers ever young, 
 
 Supplanting the solid and vast delusions, 
 
 Hearten the heart of the wronged to endure defeat, 
 
 The forward-gazing eyes of the old sustain. 
 
 Mighty in perishing youth, and in endless birth, 
 
 These remain. 
 
 CHISWICK I'RKSS : I'RINTED HV CHAKLES WHI I TINGH AM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANK, LONDON.
 
 UC SOUTHERfJ RFGIOrjAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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