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 <s — '
 
 BALDER.
 
 BALDER. 
 
 PAET THE FIRST. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF "THE ROMAN." 
 
 'y.-..- 
 ^ 
 
 LONDON: 
 SMITH, ELDER, AND CO. 65, CORNHILL; 
 
 BOMBAY: SMITH, TAYLOR, AND CO. 
 1854.
 
 LONDON : 
 BUADBURir AKII ETANS, PRIXTEBS, WHlTr.rBI ARS.
 
 e/1 
 
 BALDER.— PAET THE FIRST. 
 
 y^
 
 PEESONS. 
 
 Balder (a Poet). 
 Amy {his wife). 
 Doctor Paul. 
 An Artist. 
 A Servant.
 
 BALDER 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 ^ Study, with books, MSS. and statues. A window looks over a coxmlry 
 valley to the neigkboaring mountains. A door in the study comimini- 
 cates with an adjoining room. 
 
 Balder {musing). To-morrow I count thirty years, save one. 
 Ye grey stones 
 
 jOi this old tower gloomy and ruinous, \ «g, ra * ^ 
 Wherem I make mine eyrie as an eagle d-c-^^'^' 
 
 Among the rocks ; stones, valley, mountains, trees, 
 In which I dwell content as in a nest 
 Of Beauty,— comprehended less by more — 
 Or above which I rise, as a great ghost 
 Out of its mortal hidl ; vale, mountains, trees. 
 And stones of home, which, as in some old tale 
 O' the east keep interchange of prodigies 
 "With me, and now contain me and anon 
 Are stomached by mine hunger, unappeased 
 That sucks Creation down, and o'er the void 
 Still gapes for more ; ye whom I love and fear 
 
 6 2
 
 BALDER. 
 
 And worship, or i' the hollow of iny hand 
 
 Throw like a grain of incense up to Heaven, 
 
 Tell me your secrets ! That ye have a heart 
 
 I know ; but can it beat for such as I ? 
 
 Or do I unbeheld behold the fair 
 
 And answering mystery of your countenance 
 
 Passionate with rains and sunshine, and, unheard, 
 
 Have audience of your voices, but as one 
 
 Who in a temple passes unrespect 
 
 Between the kneeling suppliant and the saint, 
 
 Meeting the uplifted face and the rapt eyes 
 
 That look beyond ? Am I but as a fly 
 
 Touching the vestal beauties of a maid 
 
 Unchidden ; intimate but by how much 
 
 Inferior ? Do ye speak over my head 
 
 Even as we pray aloud before a child ? 
 
 You trees that I have loved so well, ye flo veers 
 
 Unto whom, by so much as ye are more 
 
 In beauty, hath befallen a better love 
 
 Than mine, being hee chosen who to me 
 
 Is as your airy fragrance and mere hues 
 
 To your unblushed substantial ; thou sweet vale 
 
 In which my soul, calm lying like a lake, 
 
 Keflects the stars, or, stirred, upon the shores 
 
 Of mountains maketh music, or more loud. 
 
 Rising in sudden flood, and breaking up 
 
 That firmament to heaped and scattered stars, 
 
 Chaotic to and fro from hill to hill
 
 BALDER. 
 
 Defies the rounding elements, and rolls 
 Eeverberating thunder; have I lived 
 Not unbeloved, and shall I pass away 
 Not an unwept ? 
 
 Tou floors, in whose black oak 
 The straitened hamadryad lives and groans, 
 Te creaking dark and antiquated floors, 
 Who know so well in what sad note to join 
 The weary lullaby what time she rocks X A, 
 
 Her babe, and murmurs music sad and low, vvu ^o 
 _Sii_aad.. and low as if this tower did keep ^ ^ 
 The murmur of the years as a sea-shell ^^ 
 
 The sea, or in these legendaiy halls 
 The mere air stirred, and wdth some old unknown 
 Sufiicient conscience moved upon itself, 
 AVhispering and sighing ; ruined castle- wall 
 Whereby she gro weth like some delicate flower 
 In a deserted garden, thou grim wall 
 Hemming her in with thine unmannered rock f 
 
 Wherein I set her as a w^andering clown 
 Who, in a fairy-ring, by night doth seize \ 
 
 Some elfin taper, and would have it burn 
 In his gaunt lanthom WTought by human hands 
 Uncouth, yet art so passing bright with her — 
 So fragrant ! little window in the wall. 
 Eye-lashed with balmy sprays of honeysuckle. 
 Sweet jessamine, and ivy ever sad, 
 Wherein like a most melancholy eye,
 
 BALDER. 
 
 All day she sits and looks forth on a world 
 
 Less fair than she, and as a living soul 
 
 Informs the rugged face of the old tower 
 
 AVith beauty ; when the soul hath left the face 
 
 The sad eye looks no longer from the lid, 
 
 The sweet light is put out in the long rain, 
 
 The flower is withered on the wall, the voice 
 
 AVill never murmur any more, and ye, 
 
 Te, that both spake and saw, are dumb and blind, 
 
 — Blind save when midnight bolt from your deaths-head 
 
 Starts like a bloody eyeball, or your rot 
 
 Glimmers in corse-liglits on the shuddering dark 
 
 And dumb, but for such noise as dumb men make, 
 When winds are moaning in your empty jaws — 
 "Will there be aught to tell of what has been ? 
 Where for so many nights and days she wept, 
 Shall not sweet colours in the slanting sun 
 Cross and recross, and floor the empty space 
 With rainbows ? AVill the lingering swallow stay 
 Within, as conscious of an influence 
 Like summer ? Will an earlier primrose shine 
 On a peculiar season whereabout 
 The winds beat idly ? Shall the whiter thrush 
 Alight upon your dreary round and sing 
 As to a nestling ? Shall the village school 
 Know the low turret where all stricken birds 
 Do shelter ? Or the curious traveller note 
 The lonely tower where evermore the dew
 
 BALDER. 
 
 Hau"-s on the herbs of ruin ? 
 
 Sun and moon 
 Rising and setting, but now face to face 
 In equal Heaven, remember us! ye 
 Celestial lovers you at least should make 
 A love immortal ! On this final eve 
 Methinks that ye look down on me with eyes 
 Of human contemplation. Lady Moon, 
 Casting as yet no shade, thy shade dissolved 
 In daylight of thy lord, O royal Sun, 
 Who though at last thou sink beneath the tides 
 She raiseth, unsubdued shalt glorify 
 The fatal waters, and still shine on her 
 AVith undiminished love, to you I leave 
 Our memories. Oh consecrate these stones 
 And point with mindful shadow day and night, 
 Where we lie dust below. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 The same. From the adjoining room, through the half-opened door, 
 ureheard the ivJcing of a cradle and the voice of Amy. 
 
 Amy. The years they come, and the years they go 
 Like winds that blow from sea to sea ; 
 From dark to dark they come and go, 
 All in the dew-fall and the rain.
 
 BALDER. 
 
 Down by the stream there be two sweet willows, 
 — Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow, — 
 One hale, one blighted, two wedded willows 
 All in the dew-fall and the rain. 
 
 She is blighted, the fair young willow, 
 — Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow, — 
 She hears the spriug-blood beat in the bark ; 
 She hears the spring-leaf bud on the bough ; 
 But she bends blighted, the wan weeping wallow, 
 All in the dew-fall and the rain. 
 
 The stream runs sparkling under the willow, 
 — Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow, — 
 The summer rose-leaves drop in the stream ; 
 The winter oak-leaves drop in the stream ; 
 But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow, 
 All in the dew-fall and the rain. 
 
 Sometimes the wind lifts the briglit stream to her, 
 — Hush thee, babe, while the wdld winds blow, — 
 The false stream sinks, and her tears fall faster ; 
 Because she touched it her tears fall faster ; 
 Over the stream her tears fall faster. 
 All in the sunshine or the rain. 
 
 The years they come, and the years they go ; 
 Sing well-away, sing well-away !
 
 BALDER. 
 
 And under mine eyes shines tlie bright life-river ; 
 
 Sing well-away, sing well-away ! 
 
 Sweet sounds the spring in the hale green willow, 
 
 The goodly green willow, the green waving willow ; 
 
 Sweet in the willow, the wind- whispering willow ; 
 
 Sing well-away, sing well-away ! 
 
 But I bend blighted, the wan weeping willow, 
 
 All in the sun, and the dew, and the rain. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 The same. A tahle covered with 3ISS. and hoohs. Balder, sdus. 
 
 Balder. Looking upon the lives of other men, 
 I see them move in apt and duteous signs. 
 That look like cause and consequent, through type 
 And antitype, day after equal day, 
 Tear after answering year, from sire to son. 
 But life liath been to me a strange wild dream, 
 Wherein the prodigies that haunt and home 
 "Within a human bosom have been brought 
 Marvel by marvel, as to Adam once 
 The monsters of the Earth, that I might name them, 
 And know them, and be friends with them. 
 
 A youth 
 In years, I hold tlie weft and woof of age, 
 And wheresoever Time may cut the web.
 
 10 BALDER. 
 
 Can find uo novel texture. One sole tliread 
 
 Thou owest me, Lachesis ! but I will trust thee, 
 
 Oh thou unfailing debtor ! Upon Earth 
 
 All sights I have beheld but one ; all sorrows 
 
 Either in type or kind endured but one. 
 
 Death, careful of my learning, hath withstayed 
 
 His final presence, lest his shade allay 
 
 My wounds, and, as before the King of Beasts, 
 
 The lesser horrors of the wilderness 
 
 Elee at his great approach. I have not seen him, 
 
 In cause or in effect. But he will come ! 
 
 Eor till he come my perfect manhood lacks. 
 
 And this that I was born to do is done. 
 
 By nothing less than man. 
 
 That I should do it, 
 And be the King of men, and on the inform 
 And perishable substance of the Time 
 Beget a better world, I have believed 
 Up thro' my mystic years, since in that hour 
 Of young and unforgotten exstacy 
 I put my question to the universe. 
 And overhead the beech-trees murmured " Yes." 
 Therefore I grew up calm like a young god, 
 Having in well-assured serenity 
 No haste to reach and no surprise to wear 
 The inevitable stature ; nor thought strange 
 To feel me not as others, to pursue 
 Amid the crowd a solitary way,
 
 BALDER. 11 
 
 And take my own in the o'er-peopled world, 
 
 And find it no man's else. When at the first, 
 
 Because I was no higher than mankind. 
 
 All men went past, and no man looked on me, 
 
 I felt no humbler. AVhen this ample frame 
 
 Expanded into majesty, and they 
 
 Who saw fell back admiring, I beheld 
 
 Their change, not mine ; for the unconscious child, 
 
 Tho' for his childhead he be special child, 
 
 Isjiniversal man, and in his thouglits 
 
 Doth glass the future. The thin sapling oak, 
 
 Hid in the annual herbage of the field. 
 
 Hath oaken members, and can boast no more 
 
 When they defy the storms of heaven, and roost 
 
 The weary-winged Ages. One alone, 
 
 Early and late, — faithfid as she who knows 
 
 And keeps the secret of the foundling heir — • 
 
 Did bear me witness. Nature from my birth 
 
 Confessed me, as who in a multitude 
 
 Confesseth her beloved and makes no sign ; 
 
 Or as one all unzoned in her deep haunts, 
 
 If her true-love come on her unaware, 
 
 Hastes not to hide her breast, nor is afraid ; 
 
 Or as a mother 'mid her sons displays 
 
 The arms their glorious father wore, and, kind, 
 
 Jn silence with discerning love commits 
 
 Some lesser danger to each younger hand, 
 
 But to the conscious eldest of the house
 
 12 BALDER. 
 
 The naked sword ; or as a sage amid 
 
 His pupils in the peopled portico, 
 
 Where all stand equal, gives no precedence. 
 
 But by intercalated look and word 
 
 Of equal seeming, wise but to the wise, 
 
 Denotes the favoured scholar from the crowd ; 
 
 Or as the keeper of the palace-gate 
 
 Denies the gorgeous stranger and his pomp 
 
 Of gold, but at a glance, although he come 
 
 In fashion as a commoner, unstarred, 
 
 Lets the prince pass. 
 
 I think my hour is nigh. 
 I am almost equipped ; and earth and air 
 Are full of signs. The uncommanded host 
 Of living nations, swaying to and fro 
 Like waves of a great sea that in mid-shock 
 Confound each other, white with foam and fear, 
 T' Eoar for a leader. All this last strange year 
 The clouds seemed higlier, and each bird of wing 
 Doubled his usual flight, and the blue arch 
 Opened above, expansive; even as tho' 
 The labouring world drew in a deeper breath. 
 And raised her swelling bosom nearer Heaven 
 With expectation. My prophetic heart 
 Confirmed the omen, and, as ere the crash 
 Of earthquake the dull sun stands clothed upon 
 With sackcloth, and as to his golden head 
 Shorn, I am troubled with the fate not yet
 
 BALDER. 13 
 
 Accomplished ; an unreasoning melancholy 
 Directs me ; I have lingered by the Past 
 As by a death-bed, with unwonted love 
 And such forgiveness as we bring to those 
 Who can offend no more. The very stones 
 Of old memorial have been dear to me, 
 Sitting long days on ancient stiles worm-worn, 
 And gazing thro' green trees o'er grassy graves 
 Upon the living village and the dead, 
 The early and the latter tryst that all 
 Have kept so long and well ; or to the pile 
 Eeared by those English whose ancestral feet 
 Trod the same path their children's children keep 
 Still hallowed, where the beauty of the vale. 
 The blushing girl of yonder bridal train, 
 "Walks in her love and joy, and passing slow 
 Salutes unconscious with her wedding skirt 
 The gable end, no greyer than of yore, 
 When by the same dark yew for ever old. 
 The same grey Time did hold his scythe above 
 Her grandame's head, whose silk of long ago 
 So rustled on the wall when she went by 
 A happy bride, and heard perchance that day 
 Tales from wan lips of the far morning when 
 Her mother's mother passed as fiiir as she. 
 Or on the leafy and live-long repose 
 Of country labour, and the unhasted life 
 That plods with equal step the wonted way,
 
 14 BALDEE. 
 
 A-field at morn and homeward slow at eve, 
 
 And slow with eve and morn through drowsy day 
 
 Doth toil and feed and sleep and feed and toil. 
 
 Or on lone homesteads and the untrespassed rest 
 
 Of immemorial pastures, and the tread 
 
 Of dreamful herds in verdant peace unvexed 
 
 And taskless thro' the round of sauntering day, 
 
 And all the dewy leisure of the meads. 
 
 As though the coming din of war should scare 
 
 The tenants of the field, and wildered fear 
 
 Distract the rural motion, and repeat 
 
 In bleating folds and trampled harvests loud 
 
 With dread, the desperate and delirious pulse 
 
 Of man ; and knowing I did look my last 
 
 Of pastoral quiet, and the passive gait 
 
 Of ease that is the step of all their world, 
 
 Their world at pace with solemn things above, 
 
 "With tardy-footed twilight, and all powers 
 
 Eterne that tread time with celestial wont 
 
 Immortal, with the seasons of the earth, 
 
 And with the calm procession of the stars. 
 
 Tis well that on the landmark of to-day 
 
 I lean awhile, and with clear eyes look back 
 
 Upon the way I came, ere once again 
 
 I set forth on my journey to the goal 
 
 "Which I have sworn to win. 
 
 That bard wlio lies 
 Lilce the old knight i' the picture, at the root
 
 BALDER. 15 
 
 Of our hereditary tree, (first sire 
 Of the long line where Shakspeare is not last) 
 And by his posture measures height with none, 
 Beheld a " House of Fame." For me, I seek 
 A sterner architecture and a dome 
 More like the heavens, ugonthat hill which he 
 Who climbs is strongest among living men, 
 The seat of templed Power. JSTot Fame but Power. 
 Or Fame but as the noise of Power, a voice 
 That in the face is wind, but in the ear 
 I Truth, Knowledge, Wisdom, Question, Speculation, 
 Hope, Fear, Love, Hate, Belief, Doubt, Faith, Despair, 1 
 Every strong gust that shifts the sails of man, 
 And so far worth the utterance ; Fame the paid 
 Muezzin on the minaret of Power, 
 Calling the world to worship ; Fame the pied 
 And gilded following of the royal house. 
 Whose function is without, to spread the awe 
 Of Power among the common herd, and hand 
 External homage to the chaste convoy 
 Of them who serve in presence ; or at best, 
 An argent herald running on before. 
 Nor daring once to tui-n his menial mouth 
 To teU me what I know, and whose great trump 
 Tho' it blow Eegnarok and wake the graves, 
 Is but a sounding brass. Not Fame but Power. 
 Power like a god's and wielded as a god ! 
 1 would have been the wind, and unbeheld
 
 16 BALDER. 
 
 Ease the tall roaring forest, not the flash 
 
 That cannot move unseen ; the influence 
 
 Unnamed that finds a city and leaves a tomb, 
 
 But not the conflagration to flame wide 
 
 A rabble holiday, round which tlie Town 
 
 Gapes, and w^hereof all men have leave to speak, 
 
 Cried in the civic streets and parodied 
 
 In pictures ; and for which, at last put out, 
 
 No hand so base but had availed to do 
 
 The final deed, nor urchin but hath spat 
 
 Enough extinction. Whatsoe'er attains 
 
 In solitude, and out of sight doth sling 
 
 The stone of practice where no vulgar tongue 
 
 May cry unskilled applause on the wide throw 
 
 Of strong attempt, nor ever in men's eyes 
 
 Hath eminence so young that the kind hand 
 
 Of popular approval dare be laid 
 
 Upon its head, I love. The Victory 
 
 "Which hath no mortal opposite to try 
 
 Conclusions and assess my over-match, 
 
 I covet. I could wish that the good Powers, 
 
 Which watched over my making had denied 
 
 The gifts that quell mankind. I would have gone 
 
 Into the wilderness, and in some cell 
 
 Of task severe and exercise divine, 
 
 Grown god-like tdl perforce tlie vigilant gods 
 
 Seeing me there made me their deputy 
 
 As being next to them. I would have sat
 
 BALDER. 17 
 
 And blessed creation, seeing in calm joy 
 The thankless welfare, and content to know, 
 That from their far thrones, Potentates of Heaven, 
 When a new glory flushed this planet earth 
 Did look to me on mine. AVhatever rules 
 By its mere nature and that native place 
 Holding of nought below it, from below 
 Eeceives nor of accession or decess, 
 Nay by its sovereign essence, is beyond 
 The praise and subject homage of the ruled, 
 I would have been ; up from the viewless air 
 That feeds the unconscious world, or this rare life 
 Full in these throbbing veins that moves unfelt 
 The beating heart I feel, to the supreme 
 And central force that sways the vuiiverse 
 "Unknown, and, being absolute, well pleased 
 Eesigns the weight of glory, and permits 
 To shining suns and stars the gorgeous crown, 
 And golden signs of empire. 
 
 I do think 
 My throne is set. If this next year might bring 
 My one delayed experience ! And, that past. 
 End, as with harvest, in some genial close 
 Of happier fortunes ! For the fruit of sorrow, 
 Tho' it do grow in the shade ere it be ripe, 
 Asks light and heat, and I am now as when 
 Oblivious Nature holds the time o' year, 
 BrimfuU in a dead level of dull days,
 
 18 BALDER. 
 
 Till, reaching forth a hand, tlie sudden sun 
 
 Touches the cup, and spills upon the earth 
 
 The mantling season. 
 
 {Taking up a Manuscript.) Oh thou first, last, work ! 
 
 Thou tardy-growing oak that art to be 
 
 My club of war, my staff, ray sceptre ! Thou 
 
 Hast well nigh gained thine height. My early planned, 
 
 Long meditate, and slowly- written epic ! 
 
 Turning thy leaves, dear labour of my life. 
 
 Almost I seem to turn my life in thee. 
 
 Thy many books my many votive years, 
 
 And thy full pages numbered with my days. 
 
 I could look back on all that I have built 
 
 As on some Memphian monument wherein 
 
 The kings do lie in glory, every one 
 
 Each in his house, and forward to thy blank 
 
 Fair future, as one gazes into depths 
 
 Of necromantic crystal, and beholds 
 
 The heavens come down. 
 
 I think I have struck off 
 One from the weary score of human tasks. 
 Ha\-ing so told my story in a tongue 
 So common to the ages, that no man 
 In after times shall tell it, but the fact 
 To which I have given voice shall be laid by, 
 And this my sterling with mine image on, 
 Present the ponderous bulk ; and I shall leave 
 This history my autograph, wherein
 
 BALDER. 19 
 
 The hand that writes is part of what is writ, 
 
 Aud I, like the steeped roses of the east, 
 
 Become the necessary element 
 
 Of that which doth preserve me. 
 
 Howsoe'er 
 
 This be, and whether I attain or fail 
 
 To add another to those lights of heaven 
 
 That rule our day and night, — to set a sun 
 
 Of joy above us, or some saddest moon 
 
 Whose pale reflected rays, from their first aim 
 
 And primal course bent back and contravert 
 
 Like some Apollo's golden shaft returned 
 
 From an opposing bow, shall still bespeak 
 
 The splendour of their quiver — I do feel 
 
 I have deserved to win. Thought, Labour, Patience, 
 
 And a strong AVill, that being set to boil 
 
 The broth of Hecate would shred his flesh 
 
 Into the cauldron, and stir deep with arms 
 
 Flayed to the seething bone ere there default 
 
 One tittle from the spell — these should not strive 
 
 Li vain ! No. I have lived what I have sung, 
 
 And it shall live. The flashes of the fire 
 
 Are fire, that which was soul is spirit still, 
 
 And shall not die. I sat above my work 
 
 As God above the new unpeopled world 
 
 Sat and foresaw our days, and sun and cloud 
 
 Of good and ill passed o'er the countenance 
 
 Ineffable, and filled the plains below ; 
 
 c2
 
 20 BALDER. 
 
 Smiled all a floral kingdom thro' the world, 
 Or frowned a race of lions. 
 
 "With the year 
 That ended yesterday, I close the book 
 Of mortal contest, and begin to sing 
 Record of the aerial tournaments 
 Whereof we are but shadows, on the fields 
 Where spirit meets with spirit, and god with god. 
 And first thee. Death, — 
 [Enter servant, loith post-bacf.] Letters ! (opens and reads.) 
 
 Balder (after a long pause) . Oh men, oh men. 
 What are ye that I yearn to you, and ye 
 To me, but that no grasp of mortal love 
 Against the strong enribbed heart can break 
 The mystic band that limits each from each, 
 Nor sternest edifice of separate life 
 Can wholly shut ye out ? If nought can make 
 TJs one, why can we not be twain in peace ? 
 Why do you touch me, why do your kind eyes, 
 Unasked, look into mine ? Why does your breath 
 Tall warm upon me, and infect my veins 
 With strange commotion ? Is it to be borne. 
 That ye will neither enter into me, 
 Nor leave me ? that men look upon my face. 
 And take me for another ; that I know 
 Your wants before you tell them, feel the pains 
 You feel ; give language to your secret bliss 
 Better than you who know it ? That ye cure
 
 BALDER. 21 
 
 My bodily ailments with the selfsame drug 
 That heals the fool ; that he who should cut off 
 This right hand with nice science, that foreknows 
 Each sequent vein and muscle, learned his skill 
 Upon a felon ? That my last death-sob 
 Win be much like what any hangman hears, 
 And that the very meanest lips alive 
 Do speak some word of mine ? 
 
 Thou happy God, 
 That hast no likeness, wherefore hast Thou made 
 Me thus ? Have I not gone into unknown 
 Unentered lands, and heard in alien tongue 
 Strange man unto strange man unload his heart. 
 And started in my soul, and said, " Eh ghost ! 
 Art thou I ? " 
 
 Am I one and every one, 
 Either and aU ? The innumerable race. 
 My Past ; these myriad-faced men my hours ? 
 What ! have I fiUed the earth, and knew it not ? 
 Why not ? How other ? Am I not immortal ? 
 And if immortal now, immortal then ; 
 And if immortal then, existent now ; 
 But where ? Thou living moving neighbour, Man, 
 Art thou my former self — me and not me ? 
 Did I begin, and shall I end ? Was I 
 The first, and shall I one day, as the last, 
 Stand in the front of the long file of man. 
 And looking back, behold it winding out,
 
 --^ 
 
 22 BALDER. 
 
 Far thro' the unsearched void, and measuring time 
 Upon eternity, and know myself 
 Sufficient, and, that like a comet, I 
 Passed thro' my heaven, and fill'd it ? 
 
 [Through the door are heard the roching of a o'adle, and the voice of 
 
 Amy.] 
 
 Ami/ (singing) . The cuckoo-lamb is merry on the lea. 
 The daisied lea ; I would I were the lamb ! 
 While that the lark will pipe, the lamb will dance, 
 And when the lark is mute he danceth stiU ; 
 Up springs the lark, and pipes again for joy ! 
 He, more by birth, than we by toil and skill, 
 Is happy with no labour but to live ; 
 He leapeth early, and he leapeth late ; 
 He leapeth in the sunshine and the rain, 
 Nor fears the honr that will not find him blest, 
 And milky plenty sauntering by his side. 
 Also the lamb that doth not toil nor spin, 
 Lies where he will, and where he lieth sleeps. 
 Sleeps on the hill-top like a cloud o' the hiU, 
 Sleeps where the trembling Lily of the Vale, 
 Albeit she is so spotless, sleepeth not. 
 But like a naked fairy fears all night 
 The wind that for her beauty cannot sleep. 
 Sleeps on the nettle or the violet; 
 Or where the sun doth warm his trance with light, 
 Or where the runnel murmureth cool dreams. 
 Or where the eglantine not yet in bloom
 
 BALDER. 23 
 
 Like a sweet girl full of her sweeter tbouglit 
 
 Reveals unheard the sweetness still to be. 
 
 Or where the darnel nods, and, as they tell. 
 
 Of beauty nursed upon a savage dug, 
 
 Sucks grace from the harsh bosom of the waste. 
 
 Sleeps in the meadow buttercups at noon, 
 
 — A babe a-slumber in a golden crib — 
 
 Or Like a daisy by the way-side white, 
 
 And like a daisy quieteth the way. 
 
 The lamb, the lamb, I would I were the Lamb ! 
 
 Balder (musing). Thou most pure. 
 
 And guileless voice, I never breathed thee ! No, 
 Thou meek misfortune, thou art not my past. 
 My Amy, my own Amy, whom of old 
 I found as a wild sailor of the sea 
 Comes on some happy isle of Love and Peace, 
 Some isle where joys that in all other climes. 
 Sweet flying thro' the night of his dark way, 
 A moment rest upon his sail, pass on. 
 And are beheld no more, in equal haunts 
 And bright assured communion ever dwell. 
 Day without night, and native, brood and sing ! 
 Thou who thro' the stern ordeal of this life 
 Didst cling beside me, while I showed my power, 
 And turned tlie dust and ashes where I stood, 
 To gold and ruby, so that the great throng 
 Cried out for envy, and with murderous shout 
 Demanded the pure jewel I had not,
 
 24 BALDER. 
 
 And wlien I trembled, knowing that mine art 
 
 Was ended, and tlie clamorous people saw, 
 
 r'nseen didst slide thy wealth into my hand 
 
 And save me, so that I, serene, unclosed 
 
 My palm before the Judge, and lo ! a pearl ; 
 
 My first Love and my last, so far so near, 
 
 So strong, so weak, so comprehensible 
 
 In these encircling arms, so undescribed 
 
 In any thought that shapes thee ; so divine, 
 
 So softly humari that to either stretch, 
 
 Extreme and farthest tether of desire 
 
 It finds thee still ; my ministering saint. 
 
 Attendant sprite, enshrined Egeria ! 
 
 My ornament, my crown, my Indian gem 
 
 And incommunicable amulet 
 
 Upon my breast, not me but warm with me ! {pauses) . 
 
 You heavens ! how far a little breath may blow 
 
 The unstable bubble of inflated thought ! 
 
 O voice, little voice, what power of thine 
 
 Disbands my hosts, which, as a crowd of shades 
 
 That scatter at a word, in sudden rout 
 
 Like the four winds unloosed have sprung apart 
 
 And vanished into distance, until I 
 
 Wliose royal and innumerable train. 
 
 Out -trooped the legioned gods, am left alone 
 
 As one uncounted ? How those charmed walls, 
 
 And airy castles, that we rear to hold 
 
 The powers that plague us, and do well contain,
 
 BALDER. 25 
 
 Imprisoned fiends are pervious to the toiich 
 
 Of any hiiman hand ! That we should build them, 
 
 And a mere child should put his vital finger 
 
 Thro' the main bulwark ! That the head should write, 
 
 And with a gush of living blood, the heart 
 
 Should blot it ! As one proves there is no God 
 
 And falls upon his knees. Eight sapient sage ! 
 
 Supreme intelligence ! Sole substantive ! 
 
 Lord of the empty dark ! True Prince of Nil 
 
 And Nihilo ! a royal argument ; 
 
 But ere thou sign triumphant demonstration 
 
 Be blest and let a benefit refute thee ! 
 
 My little Amy ! [Exit. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The empty Study. Through the half open door is heard the voice of Amy. 
 
 Amy. My lord, that walkest thro' the universe. 
 Did I not go beside thee, as a child, 
 "With humble step and looking to thy face ? 
 
 My king, who reignest wheresoe'er thou art ! 
 All do thy best, my King ! but who as I ? 
 Hast thou not all thy subjects here in me ? 
 
 My husband, who hast loved me like a god,
 
 26 BALDER. 
 
 And blessed me, surely I did well to love 
 Thee as a god ? — but can a god forget ? 
 
 Wherein have I offended? Nay, thy brow 
 Is sweet and cloudless — I have done no ill. 
 
 My husband, have I not been still thy bird, 
 Thy dove, thy snow-white dove, upon thy wrist, 
 Or in thy breast or feeding from thy lips, 
 Or round thine head, or fluttering with fond feint 
 Before thy footsteps — with mine eyes on thee ? 
 
 Was I not as a lamb around thy feet. 
 
 That loved thee ? Tor my neck thou didst entwine. 
 
 Sweet garlands and I followed thee, nor knew 
 
 The inexorable sadness, till a door 
 
 Opened, and thou art among men, and I 
 
 Am but a lamb, and bleat about the gate. 
 
 My husband, I have been an orphan fawn 
 
 That ran beside the cubless lioness ; 
 
 Who spared her, and did make Avith her what sport 
 
 Befits the offspring of the forest king. 
 
 And the poor fawn still gambolled in her blood. 
 
 Have I not been a moth about thy light 
 
 Scorched, scorched; but, husband! whenthewound was worst, 
 
 Winging with madder passion still to thee !
 
 BALDER. 27 
 
 Wert thou not always as a crescent moon, 
 And I thy star within thee, till the time 
 Came, and the lengthening distance, and I knew 
 My rising and my setting were not thine. 
 
 Oh was I not a floweret in thine hand 
 When thou didst stand upon the peak of thought 
 Gazing to heaven, which with a thunder- shock 
 RoUed back, and angels came to thee, and thou 
 Didst stretch to them thine open hands upHft 
 In welcome, and I fell to where I am. 
 
 I think they touched thine eyes, and that thenceforth 
 Thou seest aU things clearly, and me here, 
 Nor knowest it is very far from thee. 
 Oh husband ! it is night here in the vale, 
 And I lie on the rugged earth who had 
 Thy bosom ; moreover I cannot hear 
 Thy voice, nor tho' thou seest me can I see 
 Thy face. It is not with me as with thee ; 
 The shadows here are always long and deep, 
 Also the night comes sooner than to thee.
 
 28 BALDER. 
 
 SCENE V. 
 The Study. Balder at his wnting-taUe. 
 
 Balder. Death, thou must stand aside ! The mood is not 
 Upon me, and my gold is only dug 
 I' the vein. The microcosmos, like its twin, 
 Hath climates and their seasonable fruits. 
 My brain is warm, and I behold the sun ; 
 Clear as a pulsing wave of hyaline, 
 And I cry " Light ; " tender and beautiful 
 As the west waiting for the evening star, 
 And loveliness, like a fair girl, comes forth 
 Into the dewy silence. As I throb 
 The sense responds, and, like a courtier's eyes, 
 Einds for each royal folly of my soul 
 Portentous reason. The disordered fact 
 Outruns its antecedent, and so much 
 Eternity within doth set at nought 
 The wont of time, that I am stirred yet ere 
 Disturbance, and do suffer by the ill 
 Not yet admitted to the sum of things. 
 I will await what figure now unseen 
 Is to rise up and lay his charmed hand 
 Upon this inner harp from string to string 
 Already trembling, and arrive, tho' late. 
 To give a name to that foredone effect 
 Which else had lacked a father. 
 
 [He meditates, ivrites, and reads aloud.
 
 BALDER. 29 
 
 " Then saw I Genius, blind, with upturned face, 
 
 As one who hears, and to the struggling sense 
 
 (Tottering beneath accomplishment, and faint 
 
 In touch of the inestimable prize) 
 
 Each from his oflBce brings her conscript powers 
 
 Auxiliar, and in strained conflux sustains 
 
 The sole perception ; happy so to gain 
 
 The one sufficient knowledge, and therein 
 
 TJtterlj blessed. Like a listening saint 
 
 Lifting her wrapt brow to the audible Heaven. 
 
 Nor sightless by defect, but that her lids 
 
 Closed o'er the needless eyes. Her moving lips 
 
 Perfunctory incessant murmur made. 
 
 And thus she held her unrespective way, 
 
 Pollowing the upper sound which no man heard, 
 
 Summer and winter, day and night ; but more 
 
 Like a sweet madness in those dearer times 
 
 Wherein the horned seasons fill and wane, 
 
 Spring, autumn, morn, and eve ; o'er hill and alp, 
 
 Forest and city, steep and battlement, 
 
 Or wrought or native ; through vales, gulphs, and caves, 
 
 And midnight solitudes, and martial plains. 
 
 And sun, and storm, and frost, and flood, and fire." 
 
 Bah, is this Genius who should rule the world 
 And be incarnate God ? Eather, methiuks. 
 Some maimed celestial, feeling back her way 
 To the lost heavens, or that fair Eve whom once
 
 30 BALDER. 
 
 Genius, what time she "listened to the voice," 
 Caught in his arms in Eden. 
 (^Turning to a statue) Listening Eve ! 
 
 What marvel that my speU-hound fancy drew 
 The captive, not the captor ? As the earth 
 Bevolves, and we behold the vanished stars 
 Of yesterday, that, being fixed, remain 
 To gladden lauds beyond us, so in thee 
 Immortal ! this our Present wondering comes 
 Eound to the sight of long lost Paradise, 
 And all the primal act. And we go down 
 To death, but thou, fast held, reraainest to rise 
 On other times, and, orient by our faU, 
 Shalt light the orb of ages. 
 
 Thou rare power. 
 Sluggard, ungrateful, wayward, false, and vain, 
 Whom men call Muse ! I cannot fetter thee 
 But I can punish. Back into the void. 
 And bring me what I seek ? [He writes. 
 
 Now what art thou, 
 Grenius ? (reads) " There came a chariot o'er the earth, 
 Swift on strange wheels, such as eye hath not seen, 
 Nor can see, in the speed of their great course 
 Viewless, but leaving tracks which nations ran 
 To wonder at. Whether o'er rugged rocks 
 Passing, and turning all their streams to tears 
 Sad down the channelled visage of the hills ; 
 Or o'er the level sea, whirling strange dews
 
 BALDER. 31 
 
 And rainbows to a luminous mist, wherein 
 Mermaids in sportive companies made play- 
 Beneath their dark hair, till the heaving sea 
 Blushed like a cloudy morn, and dolphins leaped, 
 And Triton mounted on a foaming wave 
 Sounded pursuit ; or o'er the beaten road 
 Of daily use raising a dust that fell 
 Upon the things that were, and made them new. 
 (The clime cleared, and on either hand the path 
 Arcadian did spontaneous holiday 
 Prankt with its herbs of grace. Fair sun and moon, 
 From signs of fortune with consenting stars 
 In sweet succession, or conjunctions rare 
 Shone festal round the car, while Time himself 
 Grew young, and ran before. Fierce beasts that shun 
 The common sunshine, rose, and each subdued, 
 Moved to the genial light, from his dark den 
 Approaching tame by every forest glade, 
 Where Una led the lion. Nor rude race 
 Of daily men, that like a city flood, 
 Came headlong heedless mixed in civic din, 
 Escaped the spell ; nor touched the enchanted ground 
 But sudden as to music in the air. 
 Grave measured step and custom of the gods 
 O'ertook them — Salian and ffinoplian dance 
 Heroic, and the front of golden days.) 
 Or whether over Alpine solitudes 
 Ploughing such record as nor mountain storms
 
 32 BALDER. 
 
 That rage midway, nor liigli above tlie thunder 
 
 The ceaseless snows of silent centuries 
 
 Efface ; or crossing immemorial plains 
 
 Indentured where the furrows fiU with flowers 
 
 As with a Tyrian rain ; where'er on earth 
 
 It found the barren wilderness, and left 
 
 Eden — if Eden was the rosy prime. 
 
 The master passion, and first ecstasy 
 
 Of this our world. Nor drawn by steed, nor steered 
 
 By buman band, it came an empty car 
 
 To the embattled people as of will, 
 
 And took its martial station in tbe van, 
 
 And post of honour. Then tbe mighty men 
 
 Climbed, venturous, its crystal sides wherein 
 
 The chansjing tumult of the mirrored field 
 
 Shone, like opposing armies. But behold 
 
 A marvel ! for the empty car was full, 
 
 And none could enter. Therefore moved with fear 
 
 And jealous doubt, they called the legions round 
 
 To thrust it forth, which passive in the midst 
 
 Stood stirless — tho' still wheeled the wheeling wheels 
 
 Invisible with motion. But when spears 
 
 Were couched and charging, sudden from the ground 
 
 "Wingless it rose ! and all the baffled host 
 
 EeU with deceived expectance. As it rose 
 
 Slow thro' the day, the wondrous wheels being still 
 
 Hung in the air, and the great multitude 
 
 "With upturned eyes amazed at once cried out
 
 BALDER. 33 
 
 Their likeness, and of countless voices each 
 Belied its neighboui*. But the car sublime 
 Above the round horizons, each on each 
 Widening like circles in the stagnant sea 
 Of space disturbed, shovred like a lesser world 
 Dyed with the coloured earth, and as it went 
 Heavenward, and we astonied still beheld, 
 Lo ! we were ware as of a countenance 
 Unspeakable, and as of burning hands 
 Waving farewells, and somewhat of a form 
 Sitting within the bj ightness. Then convulsed 
 With shame, both of their tardy eyes obscure 
 And lost revenge, from instant bows and slings, 
 Artillery and every loud offence, 
 Sudden the universal host upsent 
 Impotent rage. As tho' the earth that lay 
 A sleeping beast, sprang up, and with a roar 
 Shaking his shaggy hide, with thickest dust 
 Darkened the air. 
 
 Then the mysterious wheels 
 Whirled in the sky ; the burning hands uplift 
 Pointed to Heaven ; and the tremendous car 
 Launched thro' the seas of light, and passed the noon 
 As the mere yellow strand whence it set sail 
 To sea ; careering as to reach the goal 
 Of all things, and come back. And, as it passed. 
 He whom we saw threw out a golden chain, 
 And linked the sun, and led liim from his lair 
 
 D
 
 34 BALDER. 
 
 Obedient, while night fell on earth ; and He 
 Shot thro' the darkness and was lost. But soon, 
 — Himself unseen — I knew his viewless way. 
 Thro' the stirred Heavens where I saw the stars 
 Leaving their spheres, till as it were a host 
 Of meteors shone across the streaming sky. 
 Nor him victorious long the toil delayed, 
 But on a time thro' all the flaming air 
 Kose the large dawn of his far-oft' return, 
 And as it rose and rose embraced the earth 
 Into a breast of glory ; such great day 
 Began the morning as if life had changed 
 Its metre, heaving nature had attained 
 To grander issues, and a roimded year 
 Came up the ampler east. And Him I saw 
 Eushing upon the Orient ; in his train 
 Tierce as reluctant lions dragged at speed 
 Behind a victor, — all their forest-brood 
 Eoaring around and leaping — captive suns 
 Attend him, and their wild and scattered moons 
 "Whiten the air. Then the pale nations cast 
 Dust on their heads, and hid their dazzled eyes. 
 And over aU a great sound, full of deatli, 
 Shrieked like a plague-wind from a battle-field, 
 Noisome with mortal horror thro' the land. 
 ' Woe, woe, we cast him from us in his day. 
 And now he will return to take the world 
 And burn it in his fury ! '"
 
 BALDER. 35 
 
 {Throws the MS. to the ground). Lie thou there ! 
 Grenius is yet unwritten. 
 
 [Through the door is heard the voice of Amy. 
 
 Happy eve, happy eve ! 
 
 But the mavis singing in the eve, 
 
 Siugeth for the silence of the eve. 
 
 Happy flower, happy flower. 
 
 But the golden secret of the flower. 
 
 Hidden honey sweeter than the flower. 
 
 Happy moon, happy moon, 
 
 But the loving moonlight of the moon, 
 
 Tender wonder fairer than the moon. 
 
 Little child, little child, 
 
 As the evening mavis unto me. 
 
 As the twilight mavis unto me. 
 
 Little child, little child. 
 
 As the hidden honey unto me, 
 
 As the golden honey unto me. 
 
 Little child, little child. 
 
 As the wondrous moonlight unto me, 
 
 As the better moonlight unto me. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 BALDER. 
 
 SCENE YI. 
 Tlie vacant Study. Tkroufjh the open door the voice of Amy. 
 
 Ami/. Sleep thee, my child, altho' when thou didst sleep 
 And shut thine eyes methought the world was blind. 
 Sleep thee, my child, altho' thy mother wakes, 
 Sleep, happy babe, upon a woful breast. 
 
 Oh, babe, I can endure to live ; oh babe, 
 I see thee thro' the anguish of my years 
 Like a star rising thro' the smoke of hell. 
 
 Oh babe, I have escaped to thee beyond, 
 Beyond the present tortiu-e, calm and sweet ; 
 A moment, and I reck not of the fiends. 
 
 And I am bathed in dews, and in thy sphere 
 Thou bearest me naked of all my woes 
 Which burn upon me, babe, but are not me. 
 
 My vesture is on fire ; all all in vain, 
 
 In vain I tear it, knotted strong and deep 
 
 With chains more cruel than the flames, in vain 
 
 I run and fan them in the wind of life. 
 
 A moment I am free beyond the years ! 
 
 Thou risest, oh my star, and I to thee !
 
 BALDER, 37 
 
 A moment, and the flesh must needs be here, 
 And the fierce anguish knotted to the flesh, 
 And I am like a spirit in thine vu'n. 
 Cool thro' the balmy shades of painless heaven. 
 
 Sleep, sleep, my babe, thou shalt not cry me nay ; 
 Sleep, sleep, my babe, my babe, while it is night 
 Ah, who shall say the morn may not be fair ? 
 Sleep, little babe, and let my terror sleep ! 
 Oh sleep awhile, and stop the wheels of fate. 
 I think that there is privilege in wo, 
 And sorrow may not seize us everywhere, 
 And havoc doth not hunt where'er he list, 
 And sleep is halcyon time when griefs are still. 
 Sleep, sleep, my babe, and let me clasp thee fast 
 And know a little space thou canst not die, 
 Nor earth nor heaven or plots or works thine ill. 
 Sleep, sleep, my babe, my babe, and let me hold 
 My destiny a moment in mine arms, 
 Nor find it heavier than can rise and fall 
 Harmless as thou upon my heaving breast. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! the vision of my youth ! 
 When that I lifted not mine eyes to pray, 
 But I beheld him thro' the cloudless air, 
 Walking as on a morning mountain-top 
 Transfigured, with the azure clothed about, 
 Nor on a higher earth, but lower heaven !
 
 3S BALDER. 
 
 Sleep, sleep, my babe, and dream tby mother's dream, 
 That all her joy may be contained in thee. 
 
 He stood in light, he stood in blinding light ! 
 I loved, I climbed to reach him where he stood, 
 I the weak woman, I the child of clay ! 
 I fell ; to see him from the beetling brink, 
 Stretching for ever unavailing arms 
 To her who, as in dreams, for ever falls. 
 
 Oh hapless, hapless heart, too proud to fall ! 
 Oh hapless, hapless limbs, too frail to climb ! 
 Heart of these limbs, how couldst thou be so proud ? 
 Oh limbs, how could ye mate so proud a heart ? 
 Sleep, sleep, my babe, and dream thy mother's dream. 
 And if to wake like her, oh wake no more ! 
 
 If thou couldst grow what once I prayed to be, 
 If I could see a daughter at his side, 
 And he might look upon himself more fair, 
 And all her mother with a kinder fate ! 
 
 Tho' I have failed and fallen in the race, 
 Thou shalt redeem me, and with better limbs 
 Contend. And I will kneel and shew my scars. 
 And make too memorable with my tears 
 Each treacherous fortune where thy mother fell.
 
 BALDER. 39 
 
 And break with mine own hands her image fair, 
 And show her to thine eyes so wan and weak, 
 Crazed with waste life and unavailing days. 
 And stir thee, blushing with her penitence, 
 And in the fire of a great love and woe 
 Become as nought before thee, that thou, Babe, 
 Inherit from her ashes, and arise 
 Triumphant from the pyre, and so in death 
 I load thee with my hopes, and win in thee ! 
 
 Awake, awake, my babe, my only babe, 
 Sleep not too deeply, babe, thou art my heart, 
 And only by its pulse I know I live. 
 
 SCENE VIT. 
 
 The Study. Balder writing. 
 
 Balder {reads). I stood and did not dream. 
 Before me was the great plain, and behind 
 The long dark mountains over which the sun 
 Held noon; and as I stood the earth 'till now 
 AE summer trembled, and beyond the ridge 
 A pulsing murmur as of coming seas 
 On echoing shores from out a further void. 
 Grew in the far dim distance, as once more 
 Old ocean made invasion, and advanced
 
 iO BALDER. 
 
 With all his waves. And as a dreamer hears 
 
 What sounding on her fleeing track pursues 
 
 The frantic soul that in the panic dies, 
 
 In louder progress, strepitous, so came 
 
 The great approach. Whereat the agued earth 
 
 With deadly fear did shiver to her core. 
 
 And the soiind rose, and her great dread became 
 
 Convulsion, and the rampant uproar beat 
 
 Wilder alarum on the battered ear, 
 
 Swift waxing to the tumult of a host 
 
 Charging to battle all on serried steeds 
 
 That stepped as one. I strained to the event 
 
 With eye-balled sight as to a cry i' the dark. 
 
 And all the unseen pursuit more near enraged, 
 
 — The panting terror and the throbbing chase, — 
 
 Wilder as if the beating heart o' the world 
 
 In palpitation mad and moribund 
 
 Huge in its quaking tenement did shake 
 
 Th' enribbed rocks. And — as me, utterless, 
 
 Strong tumult choked, and sick expectance pale. 
 
 And horror of the end — a louder blast 
 
 Rush'd o'er, and sudden at a thunder peal. 
 
 As tho' the loaded sound did with a roar 
 
 Discharge its cause, while the great herd that grazed 
 
 The summits parted like a scattered flock 
 
 Beneath a lion, somewhat leaped the hills, 
 
 The awfal hills, and on the shattered plain 
 
 Came like the crash of doom ! liiderless he
 
 BALDER. 41 
 
 Who can bestride him ? Tho' his reeking flanlcs 
 Sonorous clang with loud caparison 
 Of sounding war. A moment, and he stands 
 Heightened with pride, dilate at haughty gaze, 
 His swelling frame to half the horizon round 
 Breathmg defiance ; fierce his levelled head ^ 
 Equals the clouds ; his eye is as a hot 
 And bloody star ; his nostrils as the red 
 Round throat of fiery ordnance, and his snort 
 Ten thousand clarions. Such a steed so wild, 
 Left in some ancient battle of the gods 
 Great Mars unhorsed. 
 
 And now as one who sees 
 His foe beyond the river, with a plunge 
 Divides the waters, he with sudden spring 
 From the recoiling fields that reeled and broke, 
 Breasted the big spent clouds that, faint with flight, 
 Each upon each lay cumulous, and thro' 
 That sundered sea, tremendous, a mile hence, 
 Swift as a bolt and heavy as a hill. 
 Shocked the rent plain, and in as wild rebound. 
 Leaped in mere strength a thousand fathoms high, 
 Lashing new winds, and, wanton in descent. 
 Spurning far heaven with upslung vehemence 
 Of impious heels ; and gnashing rooted oaks. 
 Wilful did fling them into either sky 
 Like loathed grass. Then sudden in career 
 He stretched across the flats. His mighty limbs
 
 42 BALDER. 
 
 Resulting in the plunge from rest to speed 
 Caverned whereon he stood, and left his place 
 Mixed in tumultuous ruin. As he went 
 His hot hoofs thundering filled the fatal air 
 Recalcitrant, and scattered rocks and stones, 
 Crushed hall and hamlet, trampled tower and town. 
 Aye peaceful earth, and sods that nursed the lamb, 
 Eed with the trodden flocks, in hurtled death 
 Swept the disastrous land. As when some mine, 
 Dark filled with sulphurous slaughter, at a nod 
 Belching its storm, o'erwhelms in sudden wreck 
 The startled siege. O'er all the wide expanse 
 The wondrous swift concussion of his course 
 Sped desolation ; far and near I saw 
 How dust-clouds, hovering like the pestilence, 
 Marked fallen cities, that on either hand 
 Confessed the unseen commotion where he passed. 
 And round the extremest verge dim rocks were rent, 
 And him in distance lost a sound betrayed. 
 The loud world groaned within as the great cry 
 Of crushed mankind proclaimed the track of " Wae."
 
 BALDER. 43 
 
 SCENE VIII. 
 
 Tlie vacant Study. Through the open door the voice of Amy. 
 
 Amy. Is there no hostel by the way of life ? 
 My wayfare was from far as I can see ; 
 As far my toil is hot and white before ; 
 I stagger with my load, and halt midway, 
 And trembling turn beseeching eyes and vain 
 Backward and forward from my pitiless place. 
 The weary miles lie infinite beyond, 
 And each might be the future and the past. 
 I would lay down my biu-den lest I die. 
 Is there no hostel by the way of life ? 
 
 SCENE IX. 
 
 The Study. Balder, at his writing-table. 
 
 Balder. This very morn 
 Thro' her green island home the laughing spring 
 Drove, flinging joy, her blossom-laden car. 
 Eorth from the polar cavern of the snows, 
 Dripping with winter, leaped a northern storm, 
 And shook himself ; and she lay buried white 
 Beneath an avalanche. At that dread sight 
 Up rose the "West, and such a wind went by.
 
 44 BALDER. 
 
 As stunned the isle with voices, like a chief 
 
 Rushing to battle with a sounding host 
 
 In shouting ranks wide on the echoing hills. 
 
 At first a roar of warning, " to the north ! " 
 
 Then like the shriek of all a ravished land, 
 
 " O Europe, Europe, Europe, Europe, Europe! " 
 
 And then like the world's trumpet blown to war, 
 
 " The North, the North, the North, the North, the North !" 
 
 Enter, under the windoio, loandenng Sailors, singing. 
 
 Sailors. 
 " How many ?" said our good Captain. 
 " Twenty sail and more." 
 We were homeward bound. 
 
 Scudding in a gale with our jib towards the Nore. 
 Right athwart our tack, 
 The foe came thick and black, 
 Like Hell-birds and foul weather — you might count them 
 by the score. 
 
 The Betsy Jane did slack 
 To see the game in view. 
 They knew the Union- Jack, 
 And the tyrant's flag we knew ! 
 Our Captain shouted " clear the decks!" and the Bo'sun's 
 whistle blew. 
 
 Then our gallant Captain, 
 
 With his hand he seized the wheel,
 
 BALDER. 45 
 
 And pointed with his stump to the middle of the foe. 
 
 " Hurrah, lads, in we go !" 
 
 (You should hear the British cheer, 
 
 Fore and aft.) 
 
 " There are twenty sail," sang he, 
 
 " Bat little Betsy Jane bobs to nothing on the sea!" 
 
 (You should hear the British cheer, 
 
 Tore and aft.) 
 
 " See yon ugly craft 
 
 With the pennon at her main ! 
 
 Hurrah, my merry boys, 
 
 There goes the Betsy Jane !" 
 
 (You shoidd hear the British cheer. 
 
 Fore and aft.) 
 
 The foe, he beats to quarters, and the Eussian bugles sound ; 
 And the little Betsy Jane she leaps upon the sea. 
 " Port and starboard!" cried our Captain; 
 " Pay it in, my hearts !" sang he. 
 " We're old England's sons. 
 And we'll fight for her to-day !" 
 (You should hear the British cheer 
 Fore and aft.) 
 
 " Fire away!" 
 In she runs, 
 And her guns 
 Thunder round, [Exeunt Sailors.
 
 46 BALDER. 
 
 Balder. As lie who turns 
 From the full-shining and white orb of noon 
 Sees a black sun in air, this chant of Preedom 
 Leaves in my soul its hideous contrary. [Pauses. 
 
 Be patient, Death, for if not thee I paint, 
 None but thine immemorial minister 
 Thy dear abortion whom thy craft sent here 
 That by his side thou mayst look good and fair. 
 Prevents thine honours. 
 
 My poor goosequill ! Bah ! 
 Had I a pen plucked where Celeeno flies 
 Uncleanest ! 
 
 My old ink-horn ! — why thou drop 
 Of rheum ! thou milk-pot ! — [ Writes and then reads. 
 
 Lo Tyranny ! a Juggernaut than he 
 Who makes an Indian Bacchanal blush blood 
 At his unuttered hideousness more foul. 
 Nor on a car of India, but upborne 
 Upon a monstrous shape for which the brood 
 Of creeping reptiles, or the noisome plagues 
 Egyptian found no type, nor Hydra old, 
 Nor fell Chimgera. High the idol sat, 
 Grore-stained, nor arm to seize, nor leg to stand 
 Had he, but from his beast his branchless trunk 
 Eose festerous thro' the morning. What he rode 
 Headless came onward, manyfold and one 
 As a dishevelled legion, and far off 
 Showed like a galley of ten thousand oars
 
 BALDER. 
 
 In numberless commotion, nor in stroke 
 
 Ordered, but with division infinite 
 
 Beating the air ; for round its dreadful length 
 
 Such moving arms innumerous like a fry 
 
 Of tvpining fiery Pythons plied the earth 
 
 Incessant, and, alternate feet and hands, 
 
 Bore the black bulk, or with contentious haste 
 
 Incredible, before, beside, behind, 
 
 In manifold appearance all too slow 
 
 To feed consumption, filled the ghastly maw 
 
 Of him who sat above, and eyes had none, 
 
 Nor human front, nor but a mouth obscene. 
 
 Abominable, that for ever yawned 
 
 Insatiate, drivelling from its carrion sides 
 
 Infernal ichor. Wide the cavern gaped. 
 
 Still straining wider, and thro' gurgling weight 
 
 Of seething full corruption night and day 
 
 His craving bowels, famished in his fill, 
 
 Bellowed for more. Which, when the creature heard 
 
 That bore him, dread, like a great shock of life, 
 
 Convulsed it, and the myriad frantic hands, 
 
 Sprang like the dances of a madman's dream. 
 
 And so he came ; and o'er his head a sweat 
 
 Hung like a sulphurous vapour, and beneath 
 
 Petid and thunderous as from belching hell, 
 
 The hot and hideous torrent of liis dun£: 
 
 Eoared down explosive, and the earth, befouled 
 
 And blackened by the stereo ro us pestilence,
 
 48 BALDER. 
 
 "Wasted below liim, and where'er lie passed 
 The people stank. 
 
 SCENE X. 
 
 Thz vacant Study. Tlirough the open door the voice of Amy. 
 
 Amy. Neither gold nor silver, oh ye heavens ! 
 Only a little sunshine and sweet air, 
 The sunshine and the air of the old days ! 
 
 Only to be a feather on the stream, 
 A thistle-plume upon the changing wind 
 Hither and thither ; to go to and fro 
 And up and down the joyance of the world, 
 The happy world, and be a part of all. 
 
 Ye are now unto me, oh ye bright heavens, 
 As one who should misuse the deaf and blind 
 In secret, but full loud when men are by 
 Speaketh rich words of love into the ears 
 That hear not, and before the sightless eyes 
 Makes vain ado of all they cannot see. 
 
 I pray ye ope the lattice of my soul 
 And let the wind blow on me ere I die, 
 And let me hold my forehead to the light, 
 And let me feel the falling of the dews, 
 And know the holv blessing of the rain !
 
 BALDER. 49 
 
 SCENE XI. 
 
 Tlie vacant Study. Tlirowjli the open door the voice of Amy. 
 
 Amy. My babe, my babe, Tv-hen thou art grown to age, 
 "What ■will thy speech avail thee among men ? 
 Thy father-land speaks not thy mother-tongue. 
 
 Eor loving me, and thou Avilt love me, babe, 
 I shall be still thy book, and all thy words 
 Of love and gladness thou shalt spell in me. 
 
 And loving me — and thou wilt love me, babe. 
 Shall I not be thy beauty and thy good ? 
 And thou wilt seek mine image in the earth. 
 And make thy world of all things likest me. 
 
 Thou wilt not make day night, nor niglit thy day, 
 But dwell in the unvalued parts of day. 
 Shadow shall be thy light, and light thy shade. 
 What men forget, thou wilt remember well, 
 And all they know and love thou wilt forget. 
 
 Also, poor babe, thou wilt not hear the birds 
 Of morning, but if any night-fowl wail 
 Ear in the lonely hills, thou wilt awake, 
 And I shall see thee listen in my breast ! 
 
 Nor shall thine eye pursue the butterflies,
 
 50 BALDER. 
 
 Nor joy in shining beetle, nor humming bee ; 
 But thou wilt clap thine hands to feel the bat 
 Stirring the twilight ; and at hoot of owl, 
 Shalt laugh and leap as at a mother's voice. 
 
 Also when thou shalt go upon thy feet. 
 Thy tiny feet beside me, well I know 
 Thou wilt not bring me daisies, nor sweet cups 
 Of gold and pearl, nor ever-ringing bells. 
 
 But we shall pass the flowery banks and braes, 
 Unheeded as a winter — thou and I. 
 Thy little footstep will be old and staid, 
 And thou wHt gaze upon the ground like me. 
 
 And I shall see thee stoop for withered straws, 
 And every joyless waif the wind lets fall. 
 I think thou wilt not pass a blighted leaf 
 Dead in the dust : and I shall lead thee by 
 The churchyard yew with lingering gaze and long 
 Reluctant ; I shall sit me down and weep. 
 And thou wilt climb my lap, and deck my head 
 With garlands, till I tremble at thy glee. 
 And lift my hands to find — hemlock and rue. 
 
 Also, poor babe, these walks that once I loved 
 And tended shall have nought for thee in spring 
 Or summer, but thy childish eye shall light
 
 BALDEPw. 51 
 
 With knowledge wlien iu any plot unseen 
 
 December brings the thorn that flowers in vain, 
 
 Or^hellebore, like a girl-murderess, 
 
 Green-eyed and sick with jealousy, and white 
 
 With wintry thoughts of poison. All the year 
 
 Thou wilt be doleful in the planted beds 
 
 And bowers, but a strange sense shall draw thee where 
 
 Whatever nook that never saw the sun 
 
 Is dark and cold, with undescended dews 
 
 And saddest moss, and mildew of the wood 
 
 And wall, and livelong orpine that cannot die, 
 
 Moist ivy, and inglorious moschatel 
 
 Like a blind beggar 'neath a upas-tree 
 
 Sickening below the nightshade. And thine heart 
 
 Shall fill thee, and thou shalt be rich and glad 
 
 As at a garden ! 
 
 Oh my babe, my babe. 
 That wert to be his glory and his joy. 
 The flower of women and the star of men. 
 Latest of mortal daughters, and the best. 
 The final Eve to sum up once for all 
 The loveliness of woman, and touch lips 
 With her who first began us ; the born theme 
 Of all the poets since the world was new, 
 WTio singing as they could still sang of her, 
 And knowing only she must be, knew not 
 Or when or where. She, she, that was to come 
 In the whole image of the Beautifiil,
 
 52 BALDER. 
 
 Between the attending Loves, and bear aloft 
 
 Wisdom and knowledge as a wreathed lyre 
 
 That sounds but with her going, trembling sweet 
 
 In trembling garlands ; or with bolder hand 
 
 Eun o'er all noble arts as one runs o'er 
 
 A nine-stringed harp, and at her changing will 
 
 Equal in each be every Muse in turn, 
 
 And multiply the Graces as she moved! 
 
 His words are on my lips, my babe, my babe, 
 
 He sang them to me, child, in olden days, 
 
 TiU I sprang up before hiiu, full of pride. 
 
 And reeled, and fell, and mourned until thou earnest, 
 
 And ever since have sung his song to thee. 
 
 And thou "wilt grow like me, my babe, my babe, 
 
 And he shall seek and seek thro' all the earth, 
 
 Nor see his heart's desire until he die ! 
 
 Will no one snatch thee from my bosom, babe. 
 
 And save thee from thy mother ? Do not love me, 
 
 No, do not love me, no, no, do not love me. 
 
 No, do not love me ; 'tis the lullaby 
 
 I'll sing all day. No, do not love me, no, 
 
 No, do not love me. 
 
 Dost thou waken, babe ? 
 Hush, hush, rebellious ! Is my breast so hard 
 A pillow ? Nay, what ails thy mother's milk ? 
 Ah, dost thou turn from me, my little babe ? 
 Does the spell work already ? Love me, love me ! 
 Love me, my babe, lest I go mad with fear !
 
 BALDER. 53 
 
 SCENE XII. 
 
 The Study. Balder at Ms writing-table. 
 
 Balder. The great array is marshalled ; on the right 
 Freedom, Truth, Justice, Merej, Love, and Peace 
 Captained by Genius, stand under the broad 
 Standard of day held by the east and west 
 With sanguine hands and high. 
 
 In horrid rank 
 Sinister, front to hostile front opposed 
 Beneath a banner dark as if black winds 
 Of chaos rose iu tempest and did blow 
 The billowy verge of everlasting night 
 O'er the celestial border, glare the host 
 That follow the blind Power whose headless beast 
 Some evil god directs. Above his crest 
 Driven in the inevitable storm behind, 
 Like lambent flames of darkness lickinfl: far 
 The middle air, his terrible ensign 
 Roars to the coming war. 
 
 They stand at gaze, 
 Expecting till the equal voice of Death 
 Midway between the fierce and serried vans 
 Give signal of advance. But his great place 
 Is empty, and the crowded action waits. 
 
 [Through the door comes the voice o/Amy.
 
 54 BALDER. 
 
 Amy {sings). 
 Up went the jaunty jay, 
 Bough by bough, bough by bough. 
 Up went the jaunty jay, 
 Up the tall tree. 
 
 Up the tall tree where a happy bird was singing, 
 
 By his mossy home was singing, 
 
 To his callow brood was singing 
 
 In the green tree ; 
 
 In the tall tree-top, in the merry tree-top, 
 
 — Alas, so merry ! 
 
 In the brave tree-top, 
 
 Waving to and fro. 
 
 As a gay gallant up the stairs of pleasure. 
 By leaps the jaunty jay went up the tree. 
 Thou knowest, O mother-bird ! for thou wert by, 
 mother-bird, thy young, thy callow young ! 
 When he stood o'er them as one stands at meat, 
 Did they not lift their heads up as to thee ? 
 And lilie a fruit he plucked them one by one, 
 — The jay, the shining jay, the jocund jay ; — 
 In the tall tree-top, in the merry tree-top, 
 — Alas, so merry ! — 
 In the brave tree-top. 
 Waving to and fro. 
 
 Like a gay gallant from a ruined maiden,
 
 BALDER. 55 
 
 The painted jay came smirking down the tree. 
 Oh bird, oh crying bird, oh mother bird, 
 Oh childless bird, could I not die for thee ? 
 Yes, I could die for thee ! 
 
 SCEIS^E XIII. 
 The Study. Balder at his writing-table. 
 
 Balder. Had it been my portion here 
 With these obedient limbs and iron aid 
 Of some unconscious instrument to dig 
 The unquestionable soil, so that this hand 
 Thus armed should with no further cost than throes 
 Of definite volition — as to grasp, 
 To sink, to raise, — complete the stated dues 
 Of daily labour ! 
 
 "Were I born to plough, 
 While the lark drops upon his meal, the long 
 Material black and measurable furrow. 
 Whereof the brute sense of returning steer. 
 Treading the line, observant, testifies 
 That it is made indeed, and grossest clown 
 Who holds two eyes in use is a critic 
 Superfluously endowed ! 
 
 Happier to drive 
 The patient ass along the beaten way, 
 Laden with humble fruits to the set mart
 
 56 BALDER. 
 
 Of fixed reward, and back to certain rest, 
 
 And sweet assured possession, than like me 
 
 Bound helpless on the fury of the winds. 
 
 To scour the plains I seek not, scale the height 
 
 Where my brain swims, and leap, as in a dream, 
 
 Down into the unfathomable void. 
 
 While from the fall — like my back-streaming hair — 
 
 Fear-blown in all my veins the blood streams back, 
 
 And faints with horror. 
 
 I that am called proud. 
 Lying most humbly weary and abject 
 On the immoveable earth that doth so please 
 This mortal frame, and seeing my dull race 
 Doing their easy pleasures to and fro, 
 Self-ordinate, could sometimes sell my birth-right 
 For any pottage that would feed the flesh 
 Of other men upon me. 
 
 Death, Death, Death ! 
 I have seen every face but thine to day ! 
 And to behold thee, from sunrise till now, 
 How have I strained these eyeballs ! IEtU. 
 
 Through the open door comes the voice of Amy. 
 Ami/. A pool in a deep valley at dead noon, 
 Lidless and shadeless like a burning eye, 
 Low lieth looking at the summer sun : 
 So in my bosom, oh my babe, my babe, 
 Thou liest low, and lookest up to me.
 
 BALDER. 
 
 SCENE XIV. 
 The Study. Balder {solus) at his writing-taile. 
 
 Balder. My heart is heavy. This it is to speak 
 On Alpine heights and with the profane breath 
 Of innocent words, to bring the avalanche 
 Upon my human head. I might have known 
 That he who treads these altitudes must walk 
 As from the mansions of eternal snow 
 I have beheld two customary stars 
 Go forth in sovereign converse, like to gods, 
 But seen to speak, not heard. 
 
 A dread is on me. 
 As in a mortal iUness, when the flesh 
 Knows in the air the coming dart, and shakes 
 With terror. I have called so loud and long 
 Into the twilight cave of Mystery ; 
 And now at length, when thro' the cavei'nous dark 
 I hear far answering feet, my stout heart sinks. 
 That Dream ! As some wild legendary rhyme 
 Heard on a grandame's knee, that being at end 
 Is stiU again begun, while at each turn 
 O' the winding tale the listener, cowering low, 
 Whispers the wonted question, to receive 
 More cold and pale the expected old reply 
 That lifts another hair, I ponder o'er 
 My strange adventure, and do press and wring 
 The mirk and husk of memory. Once again
 
 58 BALDER. 
 
 I'll fill tlie cup to the enchanted brim 
 
 And drink it slowly. Yesterday I sat 
 
 From early morn tiU dark and strove in vain 
 
 To see the face of Death. And in the night 
 
 I dreamed. Meth ought I stood within this room, 
 
 As on the day when first I saw it grey 
 
 And empty ; o'er my head a single branch 
 
 Of ivy threaded the high wall and hung 
 
 In green possession. And medreamed I stood 
 
 Robed like a necromancer, and wdth spells 
 
 Called on the name of Death. The wizard's store 
 
 Hung at my girdle, and on this last prize 
 
 I spent it sternly with the desperate hand 
 
 Of him who will be Prince or Beggar — each. 
 
 New spell was more tremendous than the last. 
 
 At first there was great silence thro' the cell, 
 
 And then the cell was moved, tho' nothing stirred, 
 
 But under the gross visible I knew 
 
 An inner perturbation, as the crowd 
 
 Before the curtain feel the viewless scene 
 
 Inscrutable which heaves the swaying folds 
 
 That roll the mystery from stage to roof. 
 
 And roof to stage. And then a hush like death ; 
 
 And thro' the hush a somewhat in the air 
 
 Twisting and falling ; and I looked and saw 
 
 The ivy -branch, and all the brancb was bare, 
 
 And the broad leaves lay shrivelled on the ground. 
 
 The fourth time the strong silence in the cell
 
 BALDER. 59 
 
 Was as the straining silence of the rack, 
 
 When the still-tightening torture wrenches him 
 
 Who will not speak. The great veins in my brow 
 
 Throbbed with suppression, and such consciousness 
 
 I had of coming uproar, rising up 
 
 Thro' the containing stillness — as the fire 
 
 Of ^tna swells under her dark blind hill 
 
 And bursts in desolation — that my lips 
 
 Cried out. As if the sudden whip of Hell 
 
 Flashed on a pack of demons caught asleep, 
 
 The place brake silence, and a naked shriek 
 
 Came thro' the right hand wall and, shrieking, passed 
 
 Out on the left, and when I called, returned 
 
 Still shrieking, and so out upon the right. 
 
 And to and fro until my deafened brain 
 
 Eeeled, and I fell down flat and slept as dead. 
 
 Then to me, sleeping, in my ear, these words, 
 
 Not as from outer nature yet in voice 
 
 Not mine, tho' nearer to me than the ear 
 
 That heard it, as if in my head the blood 
 
 Along the intricate deep veins did hiss 
 
 A whisper and fled shivering to the heart. 
 
 " Bring me the inflated skin thou callest Life, 
 
 And I will turn the wind-bag inside out 
 
 And clothe me." 
 
 I am not the fool of dreams, 
 Yet hold it not incredible that things 
 Are seen before their time, and, — as tonight
 
 60 BALDER. 
 
 In this strange vision, where, "while all was still 
 
 I felt the undelivered silence swell — 
 
 Somewhat to be lies in the womb of Xow, 
 
 And eyes unstayed by mortal obscuration 
 
 Behold at once tlie Mother and the Child. 
 
 A white skin and the sweet fair-seeming flesh 
 
 Shut back the common eye-sight ; but there be 
 
 Who looking fast on the unblushed repose 
 
 Of Beauty — where she lieth bright and still 
 
 As some spent angel, dead-asleep in light 
 
 On the most heavenward top of all this world. 
 
 Wing-weary, — seized with sudden trance and strong 
 
 Thro' the decorous continent and all 
 
 The charmed defence of Nature can behold 
 
 The circling health beneath them, the red haste 
 
 Of the quick heart, and of her heaving breast 
 
 The cavernous and windy mysteries ; 
 
 Yea, all the creeping secrets of her maw, 
 
 The busy rot within her, and the worm 
 
 That preys upon her vitals. So perchance 
 
 I see the Euture in the Present. Or 
 
 If in the smoothest hour of patent nature 
 
 That overhanging weight of Destiny 
 
 Which loads the heavy air do brood on us, 
 
 What wonder that our tenderer substance take 
 
 Impress divine, and show the awful stamp 
 
 And parody of Fate ? 
 
 One can be brave
 
 BALDER. 61 
 
 At noon, and witli triumphant logic clear 
 
 The demonstrable air, but ne'ertheless, 
 
 Sometimes at Hallowe'en when, legends say, 
 
 The things that stir among the rustling trees 
 
 Are not all mortal, and the sick white moon 
 
 Wanes o'er the season of the sheeted dead, 
 
 We grow unreasonable and do quake 
 
 With more than the cold wind. The very soul, 
 
 Sick as the moon, suspects her sentinels. 
 
 And thro' her fortress of the body peers 
 
 Shivering abroad ; our heart-strings over-strung. 
 
 Scare us with strange involuntary notes 
 
 Quivering and quaking, and the creeping flesh 
 
 Knows all the starting horrors of surprise 
 
 But that which makes them, and for that, half-wild, 
 
 Quickens the winking lids, and glances out 
 
 From side to side, as if some sudden chance 
 
 Of vision, some unused slant of the eye, 
 
 Some accidental focus of the sight 
 
 0' th' instant might reveal a peopled world 
 
 Crowding about us, and the empty light 
 
 Alive with phantoms. Doubtless there are no ghosts ; 
 
 Yet somehow it is better not to move 
 
 Lest cold hands seize upon us from behind, 
 
 Or forward thro' the dim uncertain time 
 
 Pace close with paly face. My ominous Dream 
 
 Leaves me in shuddering incredulity 
 
 As logically white.
 
 62 BALDER. 
 
 SCENE XY. 
 
 Tlie vacant Study. Through the door the voice of Amy. 
 
 Amy, Out of the dungeon comes the captive's cry, 
 Whose no man knoweth, nor shaR ever know. 
 The cry ! the cry ! out of the sealed cell 
 That no man may look into, comes a cry ! 
 
 Up thro' the dumb sod of a churchyard green, 
 One of the undistinguishable dead 
 Below the many many graves complains. 
 
 The Beloved and the Unbeloved are lying there, 
 The stifling earth on them. The cry is dull, 
 Whose no man knoweth, nor shall ever know. 
 
 Thy cry, thy feeble cry, my little babe ! 
 All the long day and all the weary night ! 
 I bend me down over the sealed cell. 
 And strain my ears against the sodden grave, 
 And weep and know not, nor shall ever know.
 
 BALDER. 63 
 
 SCENE XVI. 
 The Study. Balder (solus) at Ms ivritinrj-talle. 
 
 Balder. Yesterday I said 
 That as the lion at the water-brooks 
 Prints his dread feet, to-morrow's great event 
 Fording our sleep to his appointed place 
 Beyond that Eubicon perchance may leave 
 His footsteps in the sand. 
 
 'Twas but a fancy, 
 But in a sleepless night seeking those steps 
 Thro' all the inner wilderness, I came 
 On other scars and tx*aces, real as rock, 
 Familiar too, and terribly historic 
 As the carved walls whereon a martyr leaves 
 His storied wrongs. 
 
 I see the Poet's heart 
 Is but a gem whereon his woe doth cut 
 Her image, and he turns upon the world 
 And sets his signet there in high wild shapes 
 The necessary convex of a wound 
 As miserably deep. 
 
 I cannot stamp 
 The face of Death upon the universe 
 Till Death hath graven the seal. I wait that one 
 Last drcadfid blazon to fulfil a shield 
 Persean ; that being held up to the day
 
 64 BALDER. 
 
 Shall make mankind my marble. 
 
 Tet kow long: ? 
 
 Proud Death thou keepest not the company 
 Of lowlier pains and griefs. It may require 
 A greater light than I have known to cast 
 Thine awful shadow. Whom thou visitest 
 "With thy best pomp, and all the circumstance 
 Of special love, are not of those who house 
 The common brood of sorrow ; but they seem 
 Set up in shine of great prosperity 
 Upon the dial of Time, with one sole shade 
 To point the final hour. Tet peradventure 
 We who stand out of tlie sweet sun perceive 
 No shadow, not because the shade is less 
 But more. Aye, in this twilight atmosphere 
 Thou mayst approach unseen as air in air, 
 And strike me unaware. But near or far 
 I need thee, and in all the strange sad past 
 Of my predestined life to say " I need," 
 Hath been to move the universal wheels 
 In answering motion, which in act I knew 
 When the concluding cause and last resvilt 
 Of thousands dropped into my open want 
 The supplementary fruit. Whether my will 
 Hath power on nature, or this heart of mine 
 Is so compacted in the frame and work 
 Of all things that in various kind they keep 
 Attuned performance, I know not. Perhaps
 
 BALDEE. 65 
 
 There comes to eacli man in his day some word 
 
 "Whereto the tacit Visible without, 
 
 Is the foregone conckisiou. As amid 
 
 The silent summer eve of violet air 
 
 That which thou seest hath no superscription 
 
 Or title written ; when we speak of it 
 
 'Tis with a finger pointed to the sky, 
 
 " Behold ! " as in despair of human speech. 
 
 But lo, if in that moment and the hap 
 
 Of other descant one say " Holiness," 
 
 A pulse of sweet emotions thro' the dark, 
 
 As tho' that somewhat in the mystery 
 
 Eesponded to a name ! 
 
 Such moments make 
 My hours, such hours my days, such days my years. 
 
 (A long pause). Who is to die ? It is not credible 
 
 That this I have begun should come to end 
 
 For lack of human lives, or that a pang 
 
 Not mortal shoidd fly wide of me ; of me 
 
 Who had I the round earth within my hand 
 
 O'er-populous as a gi'een water-drop, 
 
 Wovdd swallow it to taste a novel savour. 
 
 {AnotTier pause^ If I could give up 
 This seasoned body to the advance of death, 
 And from my vantage-post within survey 
 The slow assault, and mark the victor, held
 
 6o BALDER. 
 
 In view before the garrisoned approacli 
 
 And each well-fouglit obstruction, and so write 
 
 The story of the siege — ay, while he climbed 
 
 The mound I sat on till the pen fell, struck 
 
 From mine untrembling hand ! But who shall bear 
 
 To the externe and living world, that last 
 
 Convicting record ? AVhat strong sign convey 
 
 Safe thro' the taken barriers, and the close 
 
 Opposing ranks of Death the lineaments 
 
 "Which end his long disguise ? No. The same key 
 
 Which let him thro' the circle of the sense 
 
 "Would close the gate behind him, and secure 
 
 The first last secret all men hear, and none 
 
 Betray. 
 
 If but to me the privilege 
 To know and to declare ! To suffer all 
 That in our common nature doth fulfil 
 And end perception, with a sense exempt 
 From that benign conclusion ! In the arms 
 Of health to hold each form of mortal iU, 
 TiU death should die upon my conscious breast, 
 And I by superhuman strength complete 
 The sum of human sorrow — God to see, 
 And man to suff'er ! The unchanged gold 
 On the charred bones of the Pompeian bride, 
 Tho' it survive the murderous fire, hath felt 
 A deadly heat. If I could seize a soul 
 And part to part adjust my qualities
 
 B.iLDER. 67 
 
 Upon it, so that like to like consort 
 
 Might form a whole whereof the half could die 
 
 And the remainder watch it ! 
 
 {Starting up). Tou just gods, 
 
 Is it not thus already — you good gods — 
 
 [He walks in great agitation. 
 (Sits again). A thought stood at the threshold of my heart 
 And shut the light out. It has past, and I 
 Have not yet half beheld it. But I know 
 That as its shadow came along the way 
 I looked up, and the valley and the hills 
 A moment swerved and failed, and as a smoke 
 
 Eolled over in a wind of coming death. 
 
 [Through the door is heard the voice of Amy. 
 
 Amg. If thou wouldst sleep, my babe, if thou wouldst 
 sleep 
 And weary of the never-ending day ! 
 Thou hast not milked me of my sorrow, babe, 
 Why must thou moan and watch and wake like me ? 
 
 INIy babe, my babe, is it not well with thee ? 
 And if not well, the end is come iadeed. 
 
 My place was dark, and o'er a darker place 
 A great hand held me that I covild not see. 
 
 Below us the dark gulph, for ever deep. 
 Above us, thro' the dark, a light of day, 
 
 F 2
 
 68 BALDER. 
 
 And thou wert as a jewel on my breast, 
 
 Sweet sliining in the light that lit not me. 
 
 The hand is weary with upholding me ! 
 
 If ill hath touched thee, babe, we are given o'er, 
 
 Given o'er and dropt, a pillage and a prey ! 
 
 Ah ! in the dark gulph what shall not seize thee ! 
 
 If thou wouldst sleep, my babe, if thou wouldst sleep, 
 Nor scare me with the mystery of thine eyes. 
 
 Alas, thy parted lips, my babe, my babe ! 
 Alas, the hot breath from the cankered rose ! 
 Alas, the little limbs ! Alas, the heart 
 That beateth like a wounded butterfly ! 
 My babe, my babe, what hath befallen thee ? 
 
 I see it all ; I see, I see it all ! 
 
 How couldst thou lie upon my breast and live ? 
 
 The doom has run its date, the hour is here ! 
 
 Not enough, babe, oh ! not enough, my babe, 
 
 That I who was the favourite and the flower, 
 
 Bruised and beaten by a thousand ills. 
 
 As to the utter shelter and mere shed 
 
 Of this great gilded palace-world did creep 
 
 With thee, not wholly lost since thou wert not, 
 
 Nor in my desolation desolate. 
 
 Because the glory could not give thee more 
 
 Than me, or the bare walls of sorrow less.
 
 BALDER. 69 
 
 My babe, it was too good for thee and me, 
 God hath abandoned us, and from His home 
 Is driving forth the mother and her child. 
 
 "O 
 
 My child, my child, the wolf is in the way. 
 And what if he doth choose the suckling lamb ? 
 Hush babe, my little babe, my only babe, 
 That I might die for thee, my babe, my babe. 
 
 Balder [sinhinj Ids head into his hands). So soon, so 
 soon ! My lamb, my lily-bud. 
 My little babe ! My daughter, oh my daughter ! {A long 
 
 pause). 
 {Looking up). Tes, I redeem the mother with the child! 
 Fate, take thy price ! If this hand shakes^ to pay it, 
 'Tis with the trembling eagerness of him 
 AVTio buys an Indian kingdom -^vith a bead. 
 'Tis past. I rise up childless, but no less 
 Than I. Tliere was one bolt in all the heavens 
 Which falling on my head had with a touch 
 Eent me in twain. This bursting water-spout 
 Hath left me whole, but naked. Better so 
 Than to be cloven in king's raiment. Ay, 
 My treasure-house is broken, and I lose 
 What nothing can restore, and poorer men 
 Had held to the last drop of desperate blood. 
 But I, who know the secrets of the place, 
 Breathe freely when I learn the worst, and find
 
 70 BALDEE. 
 
 The felon sought no further. 
 
 Yet my babe ! 
 My tiny babe ! — 
 
 SCENE XYII. 
 
 The Study. Balder, solus. Through the door comes a sound of weeping. 
 
 Balder. My heart doth beat, 
 But I am calm, calm as a -winter tree 
 AVhereon one dead leaf flutters in the wind. 
 The waters of my soul that swelled so high, 
 Broke up my deeps and filled my universe, 
 Have sunk to such a mirror as reflects 
 The heaven and earth, and makes whatever face 
 Bends anew o'er them out of the unknown 
 A part of all things. Now I cannot weep. 
 I have climbed out o' the thunder, and most cold 
 Upon the heights of everlasting snow 
 Stand with cherubic knowledge. 
 
 This hot breast 
 Seems valley deep, and what the wind of Eate 
 Strikes on that harp strung there to bursting, I, 
 Descending, mean to catch as one unmoved 
 In stem notation. A strange sense of sight, 
 Fearless that lightning-like finds easiest way 
 Self-warranted where way is none, makes wide
 
 BALDER. 71 
 
 Mine eyes that could look thro' into the depths 
 
 Behind the face of Grod. 
 
 'Tis well. Even so 
 
 Would I meet Death, 
 
 [Exit throurjli the door of the adjoining room. 
 
 SCENE XYIII. 
 
 TJie Study. Balder, solus. 
 
 Balder. If to the long mysterious trance of death 
 There be immortal waking, he who lifts 
 His head from the clay pillow, and doth stretch 
 Eternal life thro' all his quickening limbs, 
 And conscious on his opening orbs receives 
 Kemembered light, and rises to be sure 
 He hath revived indeed, tastes in that first 
 Best moment what the infinite beyond 
 Can never give again. 
 
 I should awake 
 On some such resurrection, having lived 
 Thro' what I feared was mortal, and endured 
 That most malignant hour which must or close 
 The perilous adventure, or, being forced, 
 Admit to happier times. 
 
 The ground grows firm 
 Beneath ; the elfin atmosphere of spells
 
 72 BALDER. 
 
 That smit these limbs with palsj, has given place 
 
 To vital air. I smell the native world. 
 
 The fortress of the last enchanter yields ; 
 
 My life is free before me. I am strong : 
 
 I shaU survive, subdue, surmount, attain ! 
 
 Thou mystery, which dost attend my voice 
 
 Like a tame beast, and goest in and out 
 
 AVhene'er I will, and liest at my feet. 
 
 Come let me paint the picture I have bought 
 
 So dearly, but, being painted, will hold cheap, 
 
 Ay, tho' I rent it at the yearly cost 
 
 Of such an annual tribute ! Here ! Be here ! 
 
 He comes. Even now this black environment 
 
 Grows cold with his approach ; and as on one 
 
 Benighted in the forest dreadful eyes 
 
 Shine thro' the dark, and Somewhat unbeheld 
 
 Draws nigh, thro' the thick darkness of my night 
 
 I see thine eyes, oh Death ! 
 
 [Takes pen and paper, in attitude to wnte. The voice of Amy 
 comes tlirouylt the door. 
 
 Amy. That I might die and be at rest, oh God ! 
 That I might die and sleep the sleep of peace ; 
 That I might die and close these eyes within 
 That shut not when the outer lids are sealed ; 
 That I might die and know the balm of death 
 Cool thro' my loosened limbs ; that I might die, 
 That I might die and stretch me out unracked. 
 And feel but as I died wiiat is not pain.
 
 BALDER, 73 
 
 It is dead midnight, and tlie time to sleep. — 
 Mj light has gone out in the dead midnight ; 
 All things are equal in the utter dark ; 
 I cannot see my way upon the world. 
 
 All in the dark a tempest beateth me, 
 Black waves out of the north and of the south. 
 Black waves out of the east and of the west, 
 Black falling waves that drench me from the sky ! 
 
 On every side the waters lash me round, 
 And lift me till I know not where I stood. 
 And wist not where is earth or where is heaven ! 
 
 [^Listening, he falls into a reverie. 
 
 Balder. Little babe. 
 
 Who wentest out from us two days ago 
 Not to return, what has become of thee 
 In this great universe ? That thou art changed 
 I know ; for whereas thou hadst lain since birth 
 On the warm breast that fed thee in a dream 
 Of peace, and, like a flower, wert given and ta'en 
 Unconscious, on a morn thou didst awake. 
 And while we weeping strove to keep thee, thou, 
 As at some awful voice that called thee hence 
 On high behest, becamest a man in will, 
 And ceasing thy babe's cry didst go in haste ! 
 We also went a little way with thee,
 
 74 BALDER. 
 
 As they whose best-beloved doth cross the seas 
 Attend him to the shore — even to the brink 
 Of the great deep, and stretch along the sands 
 Wringing vain hands of sorrow ; yet none saith 
 " Why goest thou ? " nor with naked sword of love 
 Denies; and none doth leap into his fate, 
 Crying " I also," and with desperate clasp 
 Hang on his neck till breakers far behind 
 Forbid return. Spell-bound they stand and dry 
 On the sea-line, and not a quivering lip 
 Murmureth "To-morrow;" but his sire doth seize 
 The prow that would recede, and with stern will 
 Holds it, rebellious, to the task, and she 
 Who bore him, with her tears and trembling hands 
 Constrains and hastes him lest he lose the tide. 
 
 So also in a dream as one who walks 
 Asleep, and with her sunk eye on a star 
 Eising doth take her slumbering babe, and o'er 
 The snows of midnight to the precipice 
 Paceth with silent purpose, doubting nought. 
 And tumeth on the brink, with empty hands, 
 And to her bed unconscious, nor till morn 
 Beholds the vacant pillow — and, well-known, 
 Her foot-prints, — passionate ; we went with thee, 
 And did return alone. My babe, my babe. 
 What have we done ? At whose sufficient pledge, 
 Upon whose testimony, and well-sworn
 
 BALDER. 75 
 
 Assurance have we left thee, and believed ? 
 
 Did I go down before thee ? Did I try 
 
 The unventured way ? With which hand did I smooth 
 
 Thy pillow ? Or with what nice care explore 
 
 The grave which in my trance I called thy bed ? 
 
 Thy bed ? wert thou so cradled ? Doth the boor 
 
 Upon the hungry common save his hide 
 
 By such a lodging as thou in thy pomp 
 
 Didst enter, while the sable priest gave thanks, 
 
 And praised the long home where he would not chain 
 
 His dog ? Thy home, poor babe ? Bah ! the stone den 
 
 Of murder is more human ; the dank keep 
 
 Of felon anguish built to house despair 
 
 Hath not a cell so rude ! [Muses. 
 
 "Was it a door 
 From this most ordered world into the waste 
 Of all things ? Have we shut thee forth, poor child, 
 And wist not of thy journey, nor the end 
 And exit of that gloomy subterrene 
 Which thou didst enter, and whose unknown mouth 
 May be in Chaos ? Tliia, the upper gate. 
 Was fair, and, hanging o'er, the flowers looked down 
 After thee going, shedding many dews 
 That went as falling stars into the gulph, 
 A moment bright like thee. But, oh thou babe. 
 What of the nether port, which thou hast reached 
 Who wert so swift to go ? We shut thee in 
 As to a chamber of rest, and did confirm
 
 76 BALDER. 
 
 The outer bars, and on the adit set 
 
 The seal of Hermes, and o'er all dispread 
 
 The cheerful turf, and sowed it round with spring. 
 
 Mad faith ! — false father ! — customary fool ! — 
 
 Tool of low instinct and obsequious use ! — 
 
 Curse thee, blind slave ! why didst thou leave her thus 
 
 In her worst need ? Who, who shall certify 
 
 Her rest ? And thou, oh mother, that didst plunge 
 
 So boldly into the vexed flood of life, 
 
 Holding thy babe aloft, with thy right hand, 
 
 Bra\dng the billows ; what unseen sea-scourge 
 
 Had struck thee, that thou too didst bow thine head 
 
 A-sudden succourless, and hast gone down 
 
 As others ? Doth no voice out of the ground. 
 
 Up thro' the music of the grasshoppers 
 
 Smite thee ? Whence, mother, had thy nursling child 
 
 This gift to sleep alone ? Whence knowest thou, 
 
 O mother, who in its long dying swoon 
 
 Didst warm it in thy bosom, and forfend 
 
 The summer wind, and kiss the tenderness 
 
 Of years upon its momentary brow, 
 
 And with the wild haste of thy maddened eyes 
 
 Course heaven and earth, as to glean anywhere 
 
 One help forgotten ; and at the last breath 
 
 Distraught and bending over it didst break 
 
 Thy life upon it, if perchance that balm 
 
 Might heal ; and ere it died wert as one dead 
 
 With dread of ill, whence knowest thou what change
 
 BALDER. 77 
 
 Absolves tliy care ? What thunder or what bush 
 
 Of burning spake to thee when thou didst rise 
 
 And veil thy face, and, unresisting, feel 
 
 The child go from thee out into the rains 
 
 And dews, and didst kneel silent while we threw 
 
 Cold earth upon it, and piled up that wall 
 
 "Which late compunction and awakening throes. 
 
 Pangs of reproach and passion of despair. 
 
 And starting eyes mocked by the empty world, 
 
 And famished breasts convulsed when nights are chill, 
 
 And stretched-forth arms that waste with vacancy, 
 
 And all the tumult of the desperate heart 
 
 That leaps to the impossible desire 
 
 And unsurrendered bliss, can pass no more. 
 
 SCENE XIX. 
 
 The Study. Balder at his writ'nuj-tahle, preparing to write, when the voice 
 of Amy comes through the open door. 
 
 K 
 
 Ami/. My heart is shivered as a fallen cup. 
 And all the golden wine is in the earth. 
 
 My heart is stricken, and it cannot heal. 
 Tho' thou art but a little grave I know 
 little grave, it will bleed into thee 
 For evermore, and thou wilt not be filled.
 
 78 BALDER. 
 
 The fountains of my fate are dry ; my soul 
 Is dying iu the famine of my lot, 
 I am a dead leaf in a wintry wind ; 
 My stem is broken from the tree of life, 
 I wither in the sun and in the air, 
 I wither in the rain and in the dews. 
 
 And though the wind doth throw me on the tree. 
 
 Oh wind ! thou canst not bind what thou didst break ; 
 
 I wither in the verdure of the leaves. — 
 
 Beneath my window built the nightingale ; 
 
 Ah cruel, who despoiled her happy nest ! 
 
 And in his wanton gripe he crushed her egg. 
 
 Her one lone egg ; — so doth Fate crush my heart. 
 
 The spring returns unto the nightingale. 
 
 The nightingale shall find a happier tree ; 
 
 The ravished nest must drift upon the day. 
 
 The wind shall toss it as an idle straw. 
 
 The rain shall tread its ruins to the earth. 
 
 And I am all despoiled for evermore. 
 
 \^He rises sorrowfully, and shuts the door. 
 
 Balder. How often our twin passions do exchange 
 Fraternal uses, and alike in face 
 But opposite in sex, confound the eye 
 That reckons on their valour, or makes bold 
 Upon presumptive weakness, nor descries 
 The pious counterfeit when manly strength
 
 BALDER. 79 
 
 Presents meek maidenhead, or female parts 
 
 Complete tlie heroic brow, and she who lacks 
 
 So much of manhood plights her faith as man, 
 
 Or strong Sebastian's virile arm redeems 
 
 The gage of virgin Yiola. To-day 
 
 My grief — like one who crossed in hapless love 
 
 Betakes him to the wars, and tells in blows 
 
 His bitter need of kisses — speaks with voice 
 
 Of fiery wrath. [ Writes and then reads. 
 
 Lo, Justice ! and led in 
 By History, as by a little child. 
 She, moving as a goddess, slow drew nigh 
 Three adverse forms and human to behold, 
 Each a Colossus ; Insolence, and Fraud, 
 And Malice. These approaching her, advanced 
 A step, and drew their several weapons. One 
 With voice like a cracked trumpet, and too loud 
 For that he said ; and one with whisper dire, 
 Like the great ghost of a great sound, as large 
 But bodiless ; the third as still as death. 
 They came : then Justice, lifting up her hand, 
 " Back to your shapes ! " The three fell down headlong. 
 The first a Cur deformed, of monstrous birth, 
 With head that Parthian-like still looked behind 
 And fled from what he hurt ; the next a Spider, 
 Gi-aunt black and lean, full of unnatural eyes 
 Detestable ; the tliird a reeking Toad. 
 Bare in the day, these, or with horrid whine
 
 80 BALDER. 
 
 Slunk to the earth, or crouched in dark and foul 
 
 Discovery, or swat a cancerous pool 
 
 Of poison, and lay hid. But Justice spake : 
 
 " Because ye did your will upon the weak, 
 Because ye had no pity on the poor, 
 Because your hands were quick to stab the fallen, 
 Because ye made your pillage of the slain, 
 
 Because ye lay in ambush for the brave. 
 Because ye stole by night upon the good, 
 Because ye dug a pitfall for the true. 
 
 Because ye overcried the voice of Eight, 
 
 Because ye clapped your hands when strong men lied, 
 
 Because ye smote the cheek of innocence, 
 
 And spat your fetid spume in "Wisdom's face ; 
 
 Because being bestial, ye bewitched men's eyes 
 To see my sons as beasts, and ye as men, 
 
 Because in all your sins ye knew your sin. 
 And saw me while ye sware that I was not. 
 And heard me thro' the clamour of your tongues, 
 And shouted more lest men should see ye shake ; 
 
 Because my sons have spoken in mine ears, 
 And all ye did to them of old I know :
 
 BALDER. 81 
 
 Because, accursed ! they sliall not defile 
 Their hands to slay you, since with such as ye 
 'Twere equal shame to be at peace or war ^ 
 
 Because outcast from heaven, and earth, and hell, 
 
 Detect, disowned, detested, and despised, 
 
 There is no power to which ye can be true, 
 
 And Satan cannot trust ye more than Grod, 
 
 I come ! " She wrenched the bandage from her eyes. 
 
 And looked on them : — and — as the summer bolt 
 
 Falls in the forest on the gathered leaves 
 
 Of winter, and they start into a flame 
 
 Out of their empty place, — a kindling fire 
 
 Consumed them, and a sudden rolliog smoke 
 
 Showed they had been. / And lo ! from out the smoke 
 
 I saw the grim and clanking skeleton 
 
 Of the dead dog, licked bare to the white bones, 
 
 Eun as alive. With skull revert, and jaws 
 
 That may not cease to move, but make no sound. 
 
 He flees for ever o'er the startled earth, 
 
 A terror and a sign. 
 
 SCENE XX. 
 The vacant Study. Tlirough the door the voice of Amy. 
 
 Amy. Oh wounded dove, oh dove with broken wing. 
 Oh dying dove, wert thou not beautiful ?
 
 82 BALDER. 
 
 Why didst thou hide thee, trembler, from the day, 
 And strain into the crevice of the cliff, 
 And press thy beating breast against the hill. 
 As if the rock should ope and let thee in ? 
 
 I took thee to my heart, oh snow-white dove, 
 I would have kissed and kissed thee o'er and o'er, 
 But thou wert fierce with fear, and with wild eyes 
 Didst turn upon me like a frantic maid 
 That struggles with a lover in the dark. 
 Bruising the hands that would have cherished her. 
 And gnashing on the lips that seek her own. 
 
 Oh dove, I also fall with broken wing, 
 I also strive and turn upon my fate, 
 And strike the inevitable hands in vain. 
 I also strain my bosom to the earth, 
 The earth that will not ope and let me in. 
 
 SCENE XXI. 
 
 The vacant Study. Through the door the voice of Amy. 
 
 A772y. That I might only die and be at rest, 
 That I might die and sleep the sleep of peace, 
 That I might die and close these eyes within. 
 These eyes that start and stare so hot with Kfe, 
 And mad-wide while the outer lids are sealed !
 
 BALDER. 
 
 That I might die and know the bahn of death, 
 And feel but as I died what is not pain. 
 
 The summer is a load upon my sense, 
 
 A pile of durance builded over head ; 
 
 The battening shadow, and the fattening earth, 
 
 And aU the thick abundance of the trees ! 
 
 PaU, Summer ! rend the cerements of my tomb ! 
 If I might know that aught that binds can break ! 
 K I might struggle thro' my choking bands. 
 And cheat me with the transport that I rise ! 
 Alas, thou faUest, and I am not free ! 
 Alas, alas, thou canst not let me forth ! 
 AJas, alas, the grave-clothes, not the grave ! 
 Alas, alas, the vaulted adamant, 
 And dolour of inexorable things ! 
 
 SCEKE XXII. 
 The vacant Study. TJirough the door the voice of Amy. ^V^ 
 
 Ami/. Swallow, that yearly art blown round the world, 
 "What seekest thou that never may be found ? 
 Whither for ever sailing and to sail ? 
 I think the gulphs have sucked thine haven down, 
 And thou still steerest for the vanished strand. 
 What cheer, what cheer, oh fairy mariuere 
 
 G 2
 
 84 BALDER. 
 
 Of windy billows, sea-mew of the air ? 
 The viewless oceans wash thee to and fro, 
 Spout thee to Heaven, and dive thee to the deep. 
 Swallow ! I also seek and do not find. 
 
 SCEN^E XXIII. 
 
 The cowrt-yard of the Tower. Balder, solus. Enter Dr. Paul. 
 
 Balder. Doctor! 
 
 Doctor. You're well ? My patient ? 
 
 Balder. Only now 
 
 She went to sit beside the little grave. 
 Prithee, friend, wait awhile. It were ill-done 
 So soon to follow. 
 
 Doctor. Is this pilgrimage 
 
 A manner with her ? 
 
 Balder. Thou may'st even trace 
 
 The path her feet have worn across the mead 
 Straight from our threshold. Many times a day 
 She rises up as who should hear a sound 
 Ear off. I have gone with her hour by hour, 
 And still she hath the step of expectation, 
 Kneels by the woful mound and leans her ear 
 Upon the earth, lifts her wan cheek with flush 
 And gesture of surprise, feels one by one 
 The gaps and junctures of the ungrown sod 
 As 'twere new broken, and anon doth shake
 
 BALDER. 85 
 
 Her piteous head, and look into my face 
 Aa if I wronged her ; and so home in haste 
 Unresting. But she watcheth night and day 
 To steal unnoticed forth, and then she stays 
 Till some one lead her homeward. Drawing nigh 
 Beneath the twilight I perceive she sits 
 Upon a neighbouring stone, and by her lipa 
 I think she sings, slow swaying to and fro, 
 As one who rocks a child. I give her way 
 For fancy, — like the image that our boors 
 Set by their kine, — doth milk her of her tears. 
 And loose the terrible unsolved distress 
 Of tumid Nature. Under observance 
 She hath been silent since that mortal hour ; 
 Lying close like a toiled bird, that with wide eyes 
 Is mute and strange, but, being alone, lets forth 
 Its sad wild cry. 
 
 Paul, I have heard that cry 
 Twice lately in the dark, here, where we sit ! 
 How I have been so long both deaf and blind 
 Confounds invention, but my sense at last 
 Is opened, and I do perceive this ill 
 Is not a growth of yesterday. They teU 
 In sea tales of deaf men made whole amid 
 The roar of battle, who go forthwith mad, 
 "Wild with the naked torment of the bruised 
 Unseasoned function. I do think my case 
 Is such a thunderous healing. What I hear
 
 86 BALDER. 
 
 Strikes tbrougli the feeble garment of tlie flesh, 
 And stuns the very soul. My book stands still. 
 I am no carpet knight, and in my time 
 Have known hard knocks, but, callous as I am, 
 This breaks endurance. 
 
 Since the malady 
 That racked her, three short summers since, I held 
 Her sorrows to be no more than the toys 
 And creatures of a tender melancholy. 
 The honey-droppings of an atmosphere 
 So delicate that every mist and whiff 
 Which sails a grosser sky came down in rain. 
 But this is hell, and the infernal fall 
 Of burning snow. 
 
 Doctor. Poor thing, poor thing, poor thing ! 
 
 How long think you ? 
 
 Balder. An hour ? 
 
 Doctor. If it must be. 
 
 We men of drug and scalpel still are men 
 And have our feelings. I call us the gnomes 
 Of science, miners who scarce see the light 
 Working within the bowels of the world 
 Of beauty. 
 
 Balder. But your toil, like theirs, gives wealth 
 And warmth, and glory, to a fairer sphere, 
 Brings forth the golden wonder, which in hand 
 Of prince or clown, of poet or of fool, 
 Is standard still ; lights up the common hearth
 
 BALDER. 87 
 
 Of household joy familiar, and makes bright 
 The jewelled front of kings. 
 
 Doctor. Ah, my good friend, 
 
 I was a poet once, and thought strange things, 
 Very strange things. How I would walk alone 
 And mutter in my going, dare the heavens 
 As thus ! clap sudden hand upon my brow, 
 Hold up a finger and cry hist ! to the air. 
 Walk you a mile bareheaded in the rain, 
 Stop, gaze the ground, stamp like a bull, and sigh. 
 Sigh like a painted Boreas ! or in fierce 
 Obstetric frenzy of the labouring Muse, 
 Collar the astonished wayfarer with " Sir, 
 Tour tablets ! " scare the woodman's hut with calls 
 Tor pen and paper, or make eloquent 
 The graphic bark of beech. Ah, those days when 
 I courted Sophonisba, long ago. 
 And we two loved the moonlight and wrote verses ! 
 It melts my very heart to think on't ! 
 
 Balder. Love 
 
 Makes us all poets. Each man in his turn. 
 At culmination of one happy hour 
 Consummate of some sole and topmost day 
 Hath his apotheosis. Nature thus, 
 Ere she send forth her mintage to the world, 
 Assays it for eternity, and sets 
 The stamp of sterling manhood. Erom the mount 
 Of high transfiguration you come down
 
 88 BALDER. 
 
 Into your common life-time, as the diver 
 
 Breathes upper air a moment ere he plunge, 
 
 And, by mere virtue of that moment, lives 
 
 In breathless deeps and dark. "We poets d^ell 
 
 Upon the height, saying, as one of old, 
 
 " Let us make tabernacles : it is good 
 
 To be here." 
 
 Doctor. Out of mortal sight ! Ay, you 
 Live to posterity. 
 
 Balder. Tour pardon ; no ! 
 
 Doctor. To the mere present ? 
 
 Balder. No. I do not scorn 
 Tame, and those wide and calmer after days 
 Where Time's thick flood grows quiet, letting down 
 Its golden grains to be the jealous wealth 
 Of nations ; but I clioose to say, " I live 
 To God and to myself." Of God I know 
 Little to satisfy a human heart 
 So fashioned to adore Him ; of mvself 
 Still less, yet somewhat ; of posterity 
 This only, — that in circling cycles, come 
 What will come on the ever-rolling years. 
 The Ages will not outlive a true man 
 And his Divine Creator. 
 
 Doctor. Well, well, poet, 
 
 If love makes heroes it makes fools. And Nature, 
 If, as you say, fresh from that crucible. 
 She marks us current, full as often signs
 
 BALDER. 89 
 
 The cap of Momus as tlie bay of Caesar. 
 "Were you but where I am, and with my eyes 
 Saw as I see to what this love can bring 
 Men down. 
 
 Balder. Not love, but passion, the mere dance 
 Of this gross body to the soul's sweet singing, 
 Which you mistake for love, because sometimes 
 The singer, high and pale, descends to join 
 ("With haughtier step as consciously a god) 
 The Paphian measure of his mortal twin. 
 And strange reflection of the glowing flesh 
 Doth flush the soid. 
 
 Doctor. I have walked far. 
 
 Balder. "We'll enter — 
 
 Prom the high window in the turret there, 
 I see the churchyard in the dale. 
 
 Doctor. Dost spend 
 
 The day in watching ? 
 
 Balder. I keep vigil on her 
 
 As any star behind his golden face 
 Spends his great gifts upon his proper world, 
 And lights us with an idle faculty. 
 
 [They enter the Tower, and mount to the Study. 
 
 Doctor. A poet's studio ! I have often passed 
 The lintel of yoiir home, but ne'er before 
 The threshold of its penetralia. I 
 Long to behold your gods. 
 
 Balder. Expect none, Paul.
 
 90 BALDER 
 
 Doctor. How? 
 
 Balder. Expect none, my friend, if seeing me 
 Thou Last seen none. My word on it ^neas 
 Is godless, or " Penatiger jEneas." 
 
 Doctor. Thou Pagan ! why the room is an Olympus ! 
 
 Balder. Olympus' top is a long way from heaven. 
 
 Doctor. From heaven say you ? The mason, by my count, 
 Is greater than the house, and I perceive 
 That old Italian, whose Uranian pride 
 When his great prince had forfeited the skies, 
 Built him another heaven, and filled the dome 
 "With angels, like the first. 
 
 Balder. Ay, dauntless Michael, 
 
 Who drew the Judgment, in some daring hope 
 That, seeing it, the gods could not depart 
 From so divine a pattern. 
 
 Doctor. Ah ! thou, too. 
 
 Sad Alighieri, like a waning moon 
 Setting in storm behind a grove of bays ! 
 
 Balder. Yes, the great Florentine, who wove his web 
 And thrust it into hell, and drew it forth 
 Immortal, having burned all that could burn, 
 ' And leaving only what shall still be found 
 
 Untouched, nor with the smeU of fire upon it, 
 '' Under the final ashes of this world. 
 
 ( Doctor. Shakspeare and Milton ! 
 
 Balder. Switzerland and home. 
 
 I ne'er see Milton, but I see the Alps, 
 
 (
 
 BALDER. 91 
 
 Aa once sole standing on a peak supreme, 
 
 To the extremest verge summit and gulpli 
 
 I saw, height after depth, Alp beyond Alp, 
 
 O'er which the rising and the sinking soul 
 
 Sails into distance, heaving as a ship 
 
 O'er a great sea that sets to strands unseen. 
 
 And as the mounting and descending bark 
 
 Borne on exulting by the under deep, 
 
 Gains of the wild wave something not the wave, 
 
 Catches a joy of going, and a will 
 
 Eesistless, and upon the last lee foam 
 
 Leaps into air beyond it, so the soul 
 
 Upon the Alpine ocean mountain-tost. 
 
 Incessant carried up to heaven, and plunged 
 
 To darkness, and still wet with drops of death 
 
 Held into light eternal, and again 
 
 Cast down, to be again uplift in vast 
 
 And infinite succession, cannot stay 
 
 The mad momentum, but in frenzied sight 
 
 Of horizontal clouds and mists and skies 
 
 And the untried Inane, springs on the surge 
 
 Of things, and passing matter by a force 
 
 Material, thro' vacuity careers, 
 
 Rising and falling. 
 
 Doctor. And my Shakspeare ! Call 
 
 Milton your Alps, and which is he among 
 The tops of Andes ? Keep your Paradise, 
 And Eves, and Adams, but give me the Earth
 
 92 BALDER. 
 
 That Shakspeare drew, and make it grave and gay 
 Witli Shakspeare's men and women ; let me laugh 
 Or weep with them, and you — a wager, — ay, 
 A wager by my faith — either his muse 
 Was the recording angel, or that hand 
 Cherubic which fills up the Book of Life, 
 Caught what the last relaxing gripe let fall 
 By a death-bed at Stratford, and henceforth 
 Holds Shakspeare's pen. Now strain your sinews, poet. 
 And top your Pelion, — Milton Switzerland, 
 And English Shakspeare — 
 ,^ ^^^^i Balder. This dear English land ! 
 
 i , . ^f* This happy England, loud with brooks and birds, 
 Shining with harvests, cool with dewy trees, 
 
 Ot' '^ And bloomed from hill to dell ; but whose best flowers 
 
 Are daughters, and Ophelia still more fair 
 Than any rose she weaves ; whose noblest floods 
 The pulsing torrent of a nation's heart ; 
 Whose forests stronger than her native oaks 
 Are living men ; and whose unfathomed lakes 
 Eor ever calm the unforgotten dead 
 In quiet graveyards willowed seemly round, 
 O'er which To-day bends sad, and sees his face. 
 Whose rocks are rights, consolidate of old 
 Thro' unremembered years, around whose base 
 The ever- surging peoples roU and roar 
 Perpetual, as around her clifi's the seas 
 That only wash them whiter ; and whose mountains.
 
 BALDER, 93 
 
 Souls that from this mere footing of the earth 
 Lift their great virtues thro' all clouds of Fate 
 Up to the very heavens, and make them rise 
 To keep the gods above us ! 
 
 Doctor. Your hand on it ! 
 
 Balder. The wicket swings, how now ? 
 
 Doctor. A tattered man. 
 
 Balder. I must go down — 
 
 Doctor. An aged peasant woman, 
 
 A chubby child beside her ; by my soul 
 The rosy blossom and the withered crab, 
 Both on one bough ! who are they ? 
 
 Balder. Pensioners. 
 
 Doctor. Tour's ? 
 
 Balder. Her's. 
 
 Doctor. ' Some say the illumining sun is dark ; 
 
 But poor as you are — 
 
 Balder. Is this blossom sweet ? 
 
 Doctor. Most fragrant ! 
 
 Balder. Yet I plucked it on a rock 
 
 Where common grass had died. Learn this, my friend, 
 The secret that doth make a flower a flower. 
 So frames it that to bloom is to be sweet. 
 And to receive to give. The flower can die. 
 But cannot change its nature ; though the earth 
 Starve it, and the reluctant air defraud, 
 No soil so sterile and no Hving lot 
 So poor but it hath somewhat still to spare
 
 94 BALDER, 
 
 In bounteous odours. Charitable tbej 
 Who, be their ha\dng more or less, so have 
 That less is more than need, and more is less 
 Than the great heart's goodwill. 
 
 Here are books, here 
 A picture, still unpacked, from the great city, 
 Sent by an early college friend, who vows 
 A pilgrimage to these old hills ; and there 
 (Arrived this morning from the muse knows where) 
 That strange sweet mystery, the early scrawl 
 Of young Ambition. Genius is born blind ; 
 See how the nursling fumbles for the dug, 
 Lipping each barren likeness ; now distent 
 As limpet on a rock, and sucking hard 
 The east-wind, and now drawing with a touch 
 Nectar for gods ; 'twill help the hour on — 
 ( Going.) Stay ! 
 
 Paul, thou art somewhat of an antiquary ; 
 Let these walls entertain thee ; at thy leisure 
 Spell out these parchments, which my chamberlain, 
 The spider, deems too bare for such a presence, 
 And with his orfrays and embroidery 
 Decks an' I will or no. To my heart, Paul, 
 The mouldering stones of this old tottering tower 
 Axe not more ancient ; this, for all I feel, 
 Might be the dust of centuries ! 
 
 Doctor. What are they ? 
 
 Balder. Listen : when we came here, a bridal pair,
 
 BALDER. 95 
 
 Joyous and young and poor, I took this room 
 
 For mine, the forge in which to beat my gifts 
 
 To the white heat that lights and warms the world ; 
 
 And so I left it bare. "We had small store, 
 
 And that I spent on her's. But still she came. 
 
 And sat beside me at her daily tasks 
 
 In happy silence ; then I said " not here ! " 
 
 But she said " here ! " and kissed me ; oh those days ! 
 
 She was so fair 
 
 Doctor. She was ? 
 
 Balder. She is ; she was 
 
 So fair, so delicately bred ; I saw 
 Her there, and all the strong unseemly place 
 Disturbed me. " Oh for cloth of gold," I cried, 
 " To make a palace for thee ! " But she smiled. 
 "When she came in I felt the cold grey air 
 Strike her like stone, and when she walked methought. 
 Oft as she passed between me and the wall. 
 The rudeness of the unhewn and jagged rock, 
 Albeit that bodily it touched her not. 
 Harried her beauty ; and, whene'er she sat 
 Looking her sweet content, stern histories 
 Sank from the dark roof thro' the dungeon day, 
 And fell upon her face like grinding dust 
 Upon the apple of mine eye. She knew 
 My trouble, saying, " Where thou art, to me 
 Heaven arches o'er thee, and I dwell in tents 
 Of azure ; but, my husband ! as thou wilt.
 
 96 BALDER. 
 
 Nevertheless, not silver and not gold, 
 vSilver and gold are not for me or thee ; 
 But oh, my poet husband ! what thou hast 
 Give me." And so I hung the room with Thought. 
 Morning and noon, and eve and night, and all 
 The changing seasons ; scenes, or new or old, 
 Strange faces and familiar ; forms of men 
 Or gods in valleys deep, or mountains high ; 
 And how she loved them ! Tarry till I come. [Goes. 
 
 px ^M^'i Doctor (unfolding a scroll). "What's here ? sad heart ! 
 
 some withered primroses ! 
 "^ (Heads.) " Spring, who did scatter all her wealth last year, 
 
 Had gone to heaven for more ; and coming back 
 Flower-laden after three full seasons, found 
 The Earth, her mother, dead. 
 
 " Far off, appaUed 
 With the unwonted pallor of her face, 
 She flung her garlands down, and caught, distract, 
 The skirts of passing tempests, and thro' wilds 
 Of frozen air fled to her, all uncrowned 
 "With haste, — a bunch of snowdrops in her breast, 
 Her charms dishevelled, and her cheeks as white 
 As winter with her woe. She fell upon 
 The corse, and warmed it. The maternal earth, 
 "Which was not dead, but slept, unclosed her eyes. 
 Then Spring, o' era wed at her own miracle, 
 Fell on her knees ; and then she smiled and wept. 
 Meanwhile the attendant birds her haste outstripped,
 
 BALDER. 97 
 
 Chasiug her voice, crowd round and till the air 
 
 "With jocund loyalty ; and eager winds 
 
 Her suitors, at full speed with Love and wild, 
 
 Hie by her in the lusty cheer of Marcli, 
 
 Crying her name. Laughed Spring to see them pass, 
 
 — Laughing in tears. Then it repented her 
 
 To see the old parental limbs of Earth 
 
 Lie stark as death ; and fared she forth alone 
 
 To where she left her burden in the void 
 
 Beyond the south horizon ; her fair hair 
 
 Streaming spring clouds among the vernal stars. 
 
 Eeturning, slow with flowers, she dressed the Earth, 
 
 AVhich had sat up, and, being naked, blushed, 
 
 And stretched her conscious arms to meet the Spring, 
 
 Who breathed upon her face, and made her young. 
 
 Then did her mother Earth rejoice in her ; 
 
 And she with filial love and joy admired, 
 
 Weeping and trembling in the wont of maids. 
 
 Meantime her pious fame had filled the skies ; 
 
 He that begat her, the almighty Sun, 
 
 Passing in regal state, did call her '' child," 
 
 And blessed her and her mother where they sat — 
 
 Her by the imposition of bright hands, 
 
 The Earth with kisses. Then the Spring would go. 
 
 Abashed with bliss, decorovis in the face 
 
 Of love parental. But the Earth stood up, 
 
 And held her there ; and, them encircling, came 
 
 All kind of happy shapes that wander space, 
 
 n
 
 98 BALDER. 
 
 Brightening the air. And they two sang like gods 
 Under the answering heavens. 
 
 Doctor {unrolling another scroll). Here Summer, 
 
 {reads.') " Summer, 
 
 Mother of gods and men, with equal face 
 Unchangeable, and such wide eyes diAane 
 As on the Athenian hill-top Phidian Jove 
 Inherited ; whose universal sense 
 Seems made with ampler vision to behold 
 A larger world than ours. She leans in light 
 On rose-leaves, as a long and lazy cloud 
 Leans on the broad bed of the blushing west. 
 In her right hand a horn of plenty, red 
 "With fragrant fruits exuberant ; in her left 
 The early harvest ; crowned with oak and ash. 
 Her hot feet slippered in the calid seas. 
 Her voice is like the murmur of the floods 
 Sluggard with noon, or the thick-leaved response 
 Of sultry forests to the languid winds 
 DuU with the dog-days." 
 
 Nay, no more ; one knows 
 This better out of doors. Now Autumn ! blow 
 A windy morning, and a whirr of wings. 
 
 [Unrolling another scrol reads. 
 
 " He stands beside a throne of golden hUla, 
 And up the steep steps of the royal throne 
 The burdened forests climb like countless slaves 
 Laden with gold. He stands and heeds them not ;
 
 BALDER. 99 
 
 Meanwhile his hand, with air abstract and wan, 
 From the abounding tribute of the earth 
 Scatters imperial largesse. All her fields 
 Are his ; they own their lord ; his barns are full, 
 His rivers run with wine, and his red plains 
 Shout with the vintage. Yet he stands beside 
 His golden throne, and looketh up to heaven, 
 And sigheth in the melancholy winds, 
 And smileth sweeter sadness. He hath learned 
 The lesson of power ; therefore his locks are sere. 
 Therefore there is no light in the sunk eyes 
 Wliich day and night reproach the sun and stars 
 With the unsated hunger of a soul 
 That is no richer tho' the world be won." 
 
 Too sentimental ! He should take a license 
 To kill game. — 
 ( Unrolling another scroll.) Autuinn still ? Corpo di 
 
 Baccho ! 
 A metamorphosis ! " The Death of Autumn ! " [R-sads. 
 " Sometimes an aged king upon his bed, 
 He dieth 'mid the conscious hush of all 
 His reverent realm, and silent snows him wind. 
 Or, haply, at midnight a choir of winds 
 Chanting great anthems, bear him to his rest. / 
 
 And sometimes doing battle with his fate, 
 A wreatlied wrestler from a gorge of wine. 
 He falls in pride ; a giant in his blood. 
 Dashed with the purple feast as to his robes 
 
 u 2
 
 100 BALDER. 
 
 Of azure triumph and his golden crown 
 Olympic, while his dying eye on fire 
 Brings a red glow into the cheeks of Death, 
 His ghastly foe, and his feUed stature shakes 
 The sounding halls. 
 
 " And sometimes as a maid 
 Dead and undone, the pale and drowned year 
 Lies still and silent on the mortal shore, 
 With dank unmeaning lips and sightless eyes 
 Ooze-filled, and blanch limbs stark and stiff beyond 
 The draggled robes soaked with a colder death. 
 And sometimes as a trusting maid who waits 
 Her far false lover, and thro' long lone hours 
 Expects in vain, but as the sun goes down, 
 Chilled with the bitter day where love is not, 
 Blighted and mute, astonied beyond speech, 
 Stands utterless ; while aU within is changed 
 From life to death, and under that pale breast 
 Unheaving and those glittering eyes transacts 
 The alchemy of ruin. Nor she weeps, 
 Nor starts, nor shrieks, nor throws her arms to heaven. 
 But motionless and crimson with her wrong 
 Dies in her silence, and falls still as leaves 
 Thro' stiUer air." 
 
 Enough. Shall I try Winter ? 
 '^ [Unrolling another scroll, reads. 
 
 " Who is he 
 That o'er green pastui-es of the latter year.
 
 BALDER. 101 
 
 And on the mountain-tops, and through the woods 
 
 Passeth amid the pageant of the world 
 
 Silent and ceaseless, laying hand on nought. 
 
 Not as content, for greed is in his eye, 
 
 But patient in the confidence of fate. 
 
 Downward in face, and as to his bent head 
 
 Covered ; by night and day, in sun or rain, 
 
 Unlooked for, unforeseen, but ever found. 
 
 And keeping ever on an aimless way 
 
 With the firm foot of purpose, as in dreams 
 
 We walk to airy biddings, and as on 
 
 A king's death-day, while all the court stand round 
 
 Power unresigned, the inevitable heir 
 
 Doth eye the crown and pace the palace floors 
 
 Expectant. But none know him for a king 
 
 Nor do him homage. The too-lusty green 
 
 Of the o'er-confident time unawed stands out 
 
 Into his path, and the insulting growth 
 
 Below retards his unrespected feet. 
 
 He sees, and a cold smile comes on his face 
 
 As moonlight upon ice ; the shivering wind 
 
 Starts from his side, and fleeing ominous. 
 
 Spreads such a sign as in the latter day 
 
 Shall blow from chill Damascus ; but no roll 
 
 Of answering thunder nor dread bolt of wrath 
 
 Smites the roused world that listens and forgets. 
 
 Yet some are wise. With him on hill-tops hoar 
 
 The o'erruling spirits and attentive hours
 
 102 BALDER. 
 
 Confer, and seek and take his high behest 
 
 In secret, and make peace with things to come. 
 
 And failing Autumn, like an aged king, 
 
 Talked with him on the field of cloth of gold, 
 
 And as he spake fell dead ; and the lush powers, 
 
 And pleasures full, which ruled the summer reign 
 
 (Like ships on a calm sea, that sinking slow 
 
 Of all their gallant bulk above the wave 
 
 Leave but a naked mast) sank one by one 
 
 Into the earth, and in the wonted place 
 
 Were found in lesser fashion, daily less. 
 
 And now the fields are empty, but He walks 
 
 Hale and unminished to and fro and up 
 
 And down, and more and more the observance 
 
 Of the astonished year is turned and turned 
 
 Upon the Solitary, and the leaves 
 
 Grow wan with conscience, and a-sudden fall 
 
 Liege at his feet, and all the naked trees 
 
 Mourn audibly, lifting appealing arms. 
 
 Which when he knew, as a pale smoke that grows 
 
 Keeping its shape, he rose into the air 
 
 And froze it, and the broad land blanched with fear, 
 
 And every breathless stream and river stopped. 
 
 And thro' him, walking white and like a ghost 
 
 With grim unfurnished limbs, the cold light passed 
 
 And cast no shade. Then was he king indeed, 
 
 And aU the undefended world he saw 
 
 Bare at his will. His brow grew black on her ;
 
 BALDER. 103 
 
 And with a sound that killed her shuddering heart, 
 He whistled for the North." 
 
 Nay, rheumatism 
 Forbid! Let's have some sunshine {unrolling scrolls) — 
 
 JEschylus — 
 Thor — Balder — a Viking — a Eunic Skald — 
 
 Kun-y-a and the Gopees — Seeva-deo — y" 
 
 What next? Stay, here's some warmth in prospect. "Dawn." 
 {Beads). " See her in naked beauty, calm as snow, 
 And cradled in a cloud upon the east. 
 Unblushed, unconscious, with unopened lids, 
 Fair as the first of women where she lay 
 Among the asphodels of Paradise 
 Before God breathed for her the breath of life." 
 Too cool, I long for morning. Here ! 
 {Opening a scroll, and reading). " Lo, Morn 
 
 When she stood forth at universal prime, 
 The angels shouted, and the dews of joy 
 Stood in the eyes of earth. While here she reigned 
 Adam and Eve were full of orisons. 
 And could not sin. And so she won of God 
 That ever when she walketh in the world 
 It shall be Eden. And around her come 
 The happy wonts of early Paradise. 
 Again the mist ascendeth from the earth 
 And watereth the ground, and at the sign 
 Nature, that silent saw our woe, breaks forth 
 Into her olden singing, near and far
 
 104 BALDER. 
 
 The full and voluntary eliorus tune 
 
 Spontaneous tbroats, and the ten thousand strings 
 
 That by meridian day, being struck, give out 
 
 A muffled answer, peal their notes, and ring 
 
 Reverberating music. Once again 
 
 The heavens forget their limits, pinions bright 
 
 O'er-passing mix the ethereal bounds with ours, 
 
 And vrinds of morning lead between their wings 
 
 Ambrosial odours and celestial airs 
 
 Warm with the voices of a better world. 
 
 Dews to the early grass, Light to the eyes. 
 
 Brooks to the murmuring hills. Spring to the earth, 
 
 Sweet winds to opening flowers, moen to the heart ! 
 
 But more than dew to grass or light to eyes 
 
 Or brooks to murmuring hills or spring to earth 
 
 Or winds to opening flowers, moen to the heart ! 
 
 Once more to live is to be happy ; Life 
 
 With backward-streaming hair and eyes of haste 
 
 That look beyond the hills, doth urge no more 
 
 Her palpitating feet ; Her wild hair falls 
 
 Soft thro' the happy light upon her limbs. 
 
 She turns her wondering gaze upon herself, 
 
 Sweet saying — ' It is good.' Once more the soul 
 
 Eises in Eden to immortal gifts, 
 
 And by the side of morning, — new from heaven. 
 
 Fresh from the stores of all things, and wdthin 
 
 Her limpid face still wearing reflex bright 
 
 Of joys that shall be, — dances glad with strange
 
 BALDER. 105 
 
 Unutterable Knowledge. We are healed ; 
 The curse falls from our eyelids ; all the thorns 
 And thistles that do plague us, clad in gems 
 Stand round ; and we behold them as they are, 
 And call them jewelled friends. All fetters break; 
 Prom the tremendous girdle that doth round 
 The globe and keep her, to these heavy bonds 
 That bind us to her, and whose last stronghold 
 Is clenched in central fires. We are not dogs 
 Nailed to a needful den, but winged lions. 
 And walk the earth from choice, — the fair free earth 
 That willeth to be here, and cares not yet 
 To mount up like a coloured cloud to God. 
 The pulse of Being flows, the ill that ran 
 Along her veins, the hand of Incubus 
 Upon her throat, are gone like night ! All things 
 Do well, and still his function is to each 
 Consummate welfare. As the unheeded garb 
 Upon the rising and the falling breast 
 Of beauty, that still moveth as she moves, 
 Breathes with her breath and quivers with her sighs, 
 So Nature's varied robe lies light on her, 
 The beautiful broad surface of the world 
 And all its kingdoms. Memoiy that stirred 
 And murmured thro' the helpless dreamy dark, 
 Snuffing the eternal air, sinks silent down 
 To utter sleep, for whereas day that is 
 Bendeth beneath the golden multitude
 
 106 BALDER. 
 
 Of all the days that have been, each to-morrow 
 Heavier for yesterdaj^, Morn hath no past. 
 Primeval, perfect, she, not born to toil, 
 Steppeth from under the great weight of life, 
 And stands as at the first. 
 
 " The feast is spread, 
 And none know wherefore. Wherefore ? who shall ask ? 
 Who cannot feast ? As a rich bride in smiles 
 And blushes for her much bliss eateth not, 
 And seeth that they serve a sacrament 
 And something more than wine, the poet sits. 
 While Who stood glorious at the shining head 
 Of jubilee, where men a light beheld 
 And he a presence, clad in sounding joy 
 Moves down the festal aisles. As a true queen, 
 In whose ennobling eyes her lowliest guests 
 Are princes, so she slow descends to far 
 Forgotten places, and with her mere smile 
 Rights the unequal board. Light shines to light 
 Down to the earth and upward to the heaven, 
 And whatsoe'er unknown it is whereof 
 Our lives default, whatever of divine 
 Whose aU irreparable absence makes 
 The nameless dolour of a mortal day. 
 Returns in fuU. As love, that hath his cell 
 In the deep secret heart, doth with his breath 
 Enrich the precincts of his sanctuary 
 And glorify the brow and tint the cheek ;
 
 BALDER. 107 
 
 A s in a summer garden one beloved 
 
 Whom roses hide, unseen fills aU the place 
 
 With happy presence ; as to the void soul 
 
 Beggared with famine and with drought, lo God ! 
 
 And there is great abundance ; so comes MOEN, 
 
 Plenishes all things and completes the world." 
 
 {Opening another scroll). Nowfor the matron sister, drowsy 
 
 Noon, .-^ 
 
 The lotus-eater, nay, nay, I must keep v \ 
 
 My eyes open ; I'll pass her for the next. 
 This should be evening by its place. No title ! 
 {Beads.) "And seest thou her who kneeleth clad in gold 
 And purple, with a flush upon her cheek, 
 And upturned eyes full of the love and sorrow 
 Of other worlds ? 'Tis said that when the sons 
 Of God did walk the earth she loved a star 
 Which went aloft with God, but, lest she die. 
 Day after day looks out on her from heaven 
 At sunset smiling, so she wears her robe 
 Sad but imperial, as of right a queen." 
 
 [Turns to another scroll, unrolls, and reads. 
 
 " And lo the last strange sister, but tho' last 
 
 Elder and haught, called Night on earth, in heaven \ 
 
 Nameless, for in her far youth she was given 
 
 Pale as she is, to pride, and did bedeck 
 
 Her bosom with innumerable gems, / 
 
 And God, He said, ' Let no man look on her 
 
 For ever,' and, begirt with this strong spell /
 
 108 BALDER 
 
 The moon in her wan hand she wanders forth, 
 Seeking for some one to behold her beauty, 
 And wheresoe'er she cometh eyehds close, 
 And the world sleeps." 
 
 I'm sleepy too ; Heigho ! 
 Is this a dream ? 
 \/ {Opens a scroll and reads ^ " I knew a famUy 
 
 Of fairies. Thou wouldst hear their history ? 
 But how ? I cannot speak of them apart; 
 Nay, hardly of the matter of this breath 
 May frame their common story. Our least word 
 Too palpable is grosser than the strength 
 Of all, as one bright water-drop contains 
 An animalcular people. Oberon, 
 Step forth, and let me fit thee with a sound 
 Wherein from top to toe thou wouldst not stand 
 Hid as an urchin in his grandsire's coat ! 
 Their dwelling-place was by the water's edge 
 Under a stone. The mosses of the brink 
 Spread ample shade with branching arms at noon, 
 And there each day they lay at ease, all three 
 Singing a drowsy chorus like the hum 
 Of hovering gnat above a bed at night. 
 Heard when the house is still. Such needful rest 
 Concludes the daily feast ; — a grain of grass 
 In no more honey-dew than loads an ant 
 Driven like an ass before them. Once a day 
 They fed at home, but morn and eve I saw
 
 BALDER. 109 
 
 AYhere in green ambush under milking kine, 
 
 Looking up, all, as to a precipice, 
 
 They watched the pail, and when the white plash fell 
 
 Cupped in some patent floweret, gathering round, 
 
 Climbed the laborious stem, and bending o'er. 
 
 Drank deep ; which done, they seek the lucid lake. 
 
 And sailing forth in pride, the emerald wing 
 
 Of summer beetle is a barge of state ; 
 
 Her cock-boat, red and black, the painted scale 
 
 Of lady-fly aft in the fairy wake 
 
 Towed by a film, and tossed perchance in storm, 
 
 When airy martlet, sipping of the pool. 
 
 Touches it to a ripple that stirs not 
 
 The lilies. Thus I knew the tiny band, 
 
 Kor only so, but singly, and of each 
 
 The several favour ; yet I can but speak 
 
 With organs made to tell of gods and men. 
 
 Thou who Avouldst know them better think the rest, 
 
 And with some fine suggestion which has taste 
 
 Of a remembered odour, silent sweet, 
 
 Or what rare power divides the last result 
 
 Of mortal touch, and to the atomy 
 
 Grives an unnamed inferior, or what sense 
 
 Responds the tremors of the soul and takes 
 
 The sound of wings that unbeheld by eyes 
 
 Mystic and seldom thro' its upper air 
 
 Pass as in wandering flight ; therewith behold 
 
 My vision, and therewith accept the parts
 
 110 BALDER. 
 
 Of the so delicate whole whicli my strained care 
 Brought not uuminished, nor could bring, but found 
 As 'twere an elfin draught in faery cup, 
 And to be spilled by the mere pulse of hands 
 Like mine. Therewith attach each separate grace 
 Of those thus fair together ; know what made 
 Each brother beauteous, what more subtle charm 
 The lovelier sister, and what golden hair 
 Hung over her as sometimes shimmereth light 
 From smallest dew-drop, else unseen, that crowns 
 The slimmest grass of all the shaven green 
 At morning. Love them by their names, for names 
 They had, and speech that any word of ours 
 Would drop between its letters uncontaiued ; 
 Love them, but hope not for impossible knowledge. 
 In their small language they are not as we ; 
 Nor could, methinks, deliver with the tongue 
 Our gravid notions ; nor of this our world 
 They speak, tho' earth-born, but have heritage 
 Erom our confines, and property in all 
 That thro' the net of our humanity 
 Floats down the stream of things. Inheritiug 
 Below us even as we below some great 
 Intelligence, in whose more general eyes 
 Perchance Mankind is one. Neither have fear 
 To scare them, drawing nigh, nor with thy voice 
 To roll their thunder. Thy wide utterance 
 Is silence to the ears it enters not.
 
 BALDER. ni 
 
 Eaising the attestation of a wind, 
 
 No more. As we, being men, nor hear but see 
 
 The clamour and the universal tramp 
 
 Of stars, and the continual Voice of God 
 
 Calling above our heads to all the world." 
 
 I like this better. Shall I try again ? 
 
 Wheugh ! what a roomful ; I'm not half-way round. 
 
 Courage, Paul ! one more venture ! 
 
 {Unrolls a scroll and reads') " Chamouni ! " 
 
 "If 
 Thou hast known anywhere amid a storm /\ 
 
 Of thunder, when the Heavens and Earth were moved, 
 A gleam of quiet sunshine that hath saved 
 Thine heart ; Or where the earthquake hath made wreck, 
 Knowest a stream, that wandereth fair and sweet 
 As brooks go singing thro' the fields of home ; 
 Or on a sudden when the sea distent 
 With windy pride, upriseth thro' the clouds 
 To set his great head equal with the stars 
 Hast sunk Hell-deep, thy noble ship a straw 
 Betwixt two billows ; Or in any wild 
 Barbaric, hast, with half-drawn breath, passed by 
 The sleeping savage, dreadful still in sleep. 
 Scarred by a thousand combats, by his side 
 His rugged spouse — in aught but sex a chief — 
 Their babe between ; Or where the stark roof- tree 
 Of a burnt home blackened and sear lies dark. 
 Betwixt the gaunt-ribbed ruin, hast thou seen
 
 112 BALDER. 
 
 The rose of peace ; Or in some donjon deep, 
 
 Eent by a giant in the blasted rock 
 
 And proof against his peers, — hast then beheld 
 
 Prone in the gloom, naked and shining sad 
 
 In her own light of loveliness, a fair 
 
 Daughter of Eve : Then as thou seest God 
 
 In some material likeness, less and more, 
 
 Thou hast seen Chamouni, mid sternest Alps 
 
 The gentlest valley ; bright meandering track 
 
 Of summer when she winds among the snows 
 
 Zrom Land to Land. Behold its fairest field 
 
 Beneath the bolt-scarred forehead of the hills 
 
 Low lying, like a heart of sweet desires, 
 
 Pulsing all day a living beauty deep 
 
 Into the sullen secrets of the rocks. 
 
 Tender as Love amid the Destinies 
 
 And Terrors ; whereabout the great heights stand 
 
 Down-gazing, like a solemn company 
 
 Of gray heads met together to look back 
 
 Upon a far fond memory of youth. 
 
 Northward and southward of my hut, from heaven 
 
 To earth, two gates of ice shut in the scene. 
 
 As tho' between twin icebergs a green sea 
 
 Had melted, and the summer sun and sky 
 
 Shone in the waters. All the vale is flowers. 
 
 Take thy staff shod with iron, gird thy loins 
 
 For conflict. Let us to the northern gate ! 
 
 Is this a wood of pines ? Are these but rocks,
 
 BALDEE. 113 
 
 Hurled by the winter tempest ? Did a chance 
 
 O'erthrow these trunks — in the stern wont of war 
 
 Supine ? Or was it here the Thunderer smote 
 
 The Griants — And the battered remnant stand 
 
 Astonied giving glory to the Heavens ? 
 
 Aye, these are pines ; but thou shalt turn and break 
 
 The hugest on thy knee, having once passed 
 
 Out of their umbrage, and in open day 
 
 Fronted the everlasting looks of them 
 
 Who sit beyond in council ; round whose feet 
 
 Are w^rapped the shaggy forests, and whose beards, 
 
 DoASTi from the great height unapproachable. 
 
 Descend upon their breasts. There, being old, 
 
 All days and years they maunder on their thrones 
 
 Mountainous mutterings, or thro' the vale 
 
 Eoll the long roar from startled side to side 
 
 "When whoso, lifting up his sudden voice, 
 
 A moment speaketh of his meditation. 
 
 And thinks again. There shalt thou learn to stand 
 
 One in that company, and to commune 
 
 "With them, saying, ' Thou, oh Alp, and thou, and thou 
 
 And I.' Nathless, proud equal, look thou take 
 
 Heed of thy peer, lest he perceive thee not, — 
 
 Lest the wind blow his garment, and the hem 
 
 Crush thee, or lest he stir, and the mere dust 
 
 In the eternal folds bury thee quick ! 
 
 The forest now behind thee, at thy feet 
 
 The torrent, thrust tlune head back as who seeks
 
 114 BALDER. 
 
 The polestar ; and above the mountains green, 
 
 And o'er the shepherd's shealing, — less than nest 
 
 On tree-top — and o'er woods that are as moss, 
 
 Black on a ruin, — over the icy sea 
 
 — A billowy Sibir of ten thousand hills 
 
 As tho' yon white rocks, bending evermore 
 
 So potently above the floods, begat 
 
 A likeness, and from out their yielding breasts 
 
 Compelled a brood of stone — o'er naked crags, — 
 
 Aye, above where the shyest roe unseen 
 
 Draws the thin breath, and marmot cannot pass 
 
 The inexorable famine, — over wilds 
 
 Por ever dead, and snow, and upper snow, 
 
 And wastes above the snow, see nearer heaven 
 
 The base of a great pyramid, and rise 
 
 Slow to his peak, like a gray pinnacle 
 
 Of the towered earth piercing the cloudless skies. 
 
 To us how calm and lonely, tenantless 
 
 And silent as the still and empty air, 
 
 But to that height the seldom mountaineer 
 
 Looks from the extremest footing of some ridge 
 
 Incredible, three times beyond our ken. 
 
 And to his keen and upward-straining eyes 
 
 Bound it midway the circling eagles sail, 
 
 As daws that round some thin and distant spire 
 
 On English hill, scarce seen thro' lucent air 
 
 Are motes in the evening sun. 
 
 " Now, if thou diu'st,
 
 BALDER. li; 
 
 Drop from the Alp to lowest vale remote 
 
 Breathless ; nor be the first in that great fall. 
 
 So yon dark glacier from his native snows 
 
 Pell on the narrow valley, which beneath, 
 
 Like a poor foundered skiff, when some vast whale 
 
 In his unwieldy death-pang leaps and falls, 
 
 Is sunk and lost. Grim with mortality, 
 
 "War-stained he lies in heavy length, and bleeds, 
 
 A hill of death. Behold aloft the seas 
 
 Whence he came down, unmelting seas of snow 
 
 Well-named, the ocean of a frozen world. 
 
 A marble storm in monumental rage, 
 
 Ploughed on the fragment of a shattered moon. 
 
 Passion at nought and strength still strong in vain, 
 
 A wrestling giant, spell-bound, but not dead. 
 
 As tho' the universal deluge passed 
 
 These confines, and when forty days were o'er 
 
 Knew the set time obedient and arose 
 
 In haste : but Winter lifted up his hand 
 
 And staved the everlasting sicjn which strives 
 
 Eor ever to return. Cold crested tides 
 
 And cataracts more white than wintry foam 
 
 Eternally in act of the great leap 
 
 That never may be ta'en, tliese fill the gorge 
 
 And rear upon the steep uplifted waves 
 
 Immoveable, that proudly feign to go, — 
 
 And on the awftd ramparts of the rock 
 
 Bend forward, as in motion — side by side 
 
 I 2
 
 116 BALDER 
 
 * 
 
 Mixed manifold, rank after mingling rank, 
 
 In all tlie tlirong of multitude, but each 
 
 Condign, and in a personality 
 
 Confest. Kor from the valley seen as waves. 
 
 But as lone shepherd, on some battle hill, 
 
 At setting of a chill moon on the wane, 
 
 Beholds his heroes from their unknown graves 
 
 Snow-cold, with blades of ice, out of the night, 
 
 The peopled peopling night, o'er airy crag 
 
 Crowding imstaimched invasion, with consent 
 
 Of hands that porut advance, and martial gaze 
 
 Of helmed heads, silent, majestical, — 
 
 All ghosts ! Or as some great acropolis. 
 
 Above the wondering eyes of ancient men, 
 
 On sacred feast, a statuary host, 
 
 Sent out her idols round the incandent hill, 
 
 And all her marble deities went by 
 
 In solemn march, tall, white, innumerable. 
 
 Each after each divine ; while far beneath, 
 
 Lone, like some shattered pillar of the skies, 
 
 Half-buried by his fall, headlong and prone. 
 
 The broken worship of a ruder race, 
 
 A Greater lay. Or so methinks of old. 
 
 Below a mount of Jewry, Dagon fell 
 
 Before the Highest ; and in him subdued 
 
 From their high seats, fair bowers, dim haunts beloved, 
 
 And temples of the abdicated earth, 
 
 Upon a day the great mythology
 
 BALDER. li: 
 
 Came forth by legions to behold the sigu. 
 Dethroned, discrowned, divestured ; with bare brows 
 Paler than men ; proud whispering as they pass, 
 In murmur of a thousand waterfalls, 
 While somewhat like the finger of the world 
 Pointeth above their heads into the heavens, 
 And crash as of avenging thunderbolts 
 Pursues them, — nor can haste the step of gods. 
 Low in the abject earth lies Chamouni, — 
 Low in the last profound, whose narrow deep 
 Seems from yon midway and diminished peak — 
 So hunters say — who, clinging to the rock, 
 Dizzy look down — a gulph of mountain-mist, 
 Eainbowed, or if ^substantial, sunk and lost, 
 Drowned in the abyss of air, and lapsed below 
 Terrestrial, hopeless in a void of dreams. 
 Beheld as one should spy from upper wave 
 Of seas unsounded fathomless and dark, 
 Low, thro' mysterious waters infinite. 
 Illumined by a gleam, some jewelled mine 
 Emerald and ruby flashing dreamy gold, 
 Eent in the nether bed of the mid-main. 
 Nor less above yon midway crag the calm 
 Unventured summit, than if who descried 
 The deep-sea gulph, with sudden gaze revert. 
 Sees from his span of footing on the wave 
 Far in unearthly ether unassailed, 
 A great white cloud serene in sacred light
 
 118 BALDER. 
 
 And happy skies. 
 
 " Here, in the lowest vale, 
 Sit we beside the torrent, till the goats 
 Come tinkling home at eve, with pastoral horn 
 Slow down the winding way, plucking sweet grass 
 Amid the yellow pansies and harebells blue. 
 ' The milk is warm. 
 
 The cakes are brown ; 
 
 The flax is spun, 
 
 The kine are dry ; 
 
 The bed is laid, 
 
 The children sleep ; 
 
 Come, husband, come, 
 
 To home and me.' 
 So sings the mother as she milks within 
 The chalet near thee ; singing so for him 
 Whom every morn she sendeth forth alone 
 Into the waste of mountains, to return 
 At close of day as a returning soul 
 Out of the infinite ; lost in the whirl 
 Of clanging systems and the wilderness 
 Of all things, but to one remembered tryst, 
 One human heart and unforgotten cell. 
 True in its ceaseless self, and in its time 
 Restored. But now the dusk which like a tarn 
 Lay long since in the hollows of the hills, 
 Swells from deep caves and tributary glens 
 Unnumbered, till the lower mountain tops
 
 BALDER. 119 
 
 Are covered, and tlie dull and dead sea-line 
 Rests tideless on a shore of sacred snow. 
 And now an unknown trouble has made cold 
 Those higher Alpine foreheads whence supreme 
 Over our darkness a serener day 
 Looked westward and to all that we saw not, 
 The glory and the loss. For they do watch 
 The journey of the setting sun as one 
 Who when the weaker inmates of the house 
 Have sunk about his feet in dews and shades 
 Of sorrow, watches still with brow of light 
 And manly eye a brother on his way ; 
 But when the lessening face shines no return 
 Thro' distance slowly lengthening and sinks slow 
 Behind the hill-top, nor him, looking back. 
 The straining sense discerns, nor the far sound 
 Of wheels, stands fixed in sudden gloom profound, 
 And thoughts more stern than woe. 
 
 " Over those heights 
 TJntrod, nor to be trodden, let thy soul 
 Pass like a fleeting sunshine. Let it glide 
 Over the summit, southward, and descend 
 Where, thro' black mountains, a great river of snow 
 Banked by two Alps, from the eternal source 
 Whiter than clouds between the awful shores 
 Shines to the valley. Meantime we below 
 Tread the dark vale uplooking ; or sit long. 
 With hopeless upturned eyes, as one let down
 
 120 BALDER. 
 
 Into the abyss of everlasting niglit, 
 
 From the impossible deep should gaze in vain 
 
 Up through the silent chaos to the skirts 
 
 Of ordered Nature. "What is he, unseen, 
 
 Who with the dreadful glacier as a sceptre 
 
 Touches the vale, and in his left hand holds 
 
 Ton rounded summit as an orb of state ? 
 
 Thou canst not see them now, but forth to meet 
 
 The sovereign symbol, venerable woods 
 
 Climb the huge steep where age and pride allow, 
 
 And send their lither progeny to scale 
 
 The bleaker rock, ambitious. These, inured, 
 
 Attain the lower precipice, nor blench 
 
 Storm-bred : but these fall back aghast in sight 
 
 Of everlasting Winter, where, snow-borne, 
 
 In his white realm, for ever white, he sits 
 
 Invisible to men ; and in his works 
 
 Gives argument of that which, seen, makes faint 
 
 Aspiring Nature, and his throne a mount 
 
 Not to be touched. Qn either wilderness 
 
 A snow-land spreads along the level skies. 
 
 Now from the eastward midnight draweth nigh. 
 
 When all things rest from labour. As she goes, 
 
 Her vestments floating shut out moon and stars 
 
 Mysterious ; and she breathes before her face 
 
 Darkness where all is dark. ]\Iute goeth she, 
 
 And silently on either hand unyokes 
 
 The willing mountains from beneath their load
 
 BALDER. 121 
 
 Even now dispersing wliile the valley shakes, 
 And in Lis bed the sleeping peasant stirs, 
 And dreams of thunder. They, beheld no more. 
 Leave only to the cataracts, and thee. 
 The great snow baseless in mid-heaven, self-shown. 
 Out-stretched and equal, like supporting wings, 
 Or thro' the windy and tumultuous dark 
 Down the long glacier sounding to the vale. 
 There was a legend wild, whispered at eve, 
 Late round the dying watch-fires to awed men, 
 In those dead seasons whence our Danish sires, 
 Of the Great Arctic Ghost, the efficient power 
 And apparition of the frozen North, 
 The mystic swan of Noma, the dread bird 
 Of destiny, world-wide, with roaring wings, 
 Flapping the ice-wind and the avalanche, 
 And white and terrible as polar snows. 
 By them vmseen behold it ! thro' the night 
 Swooping from heaven, its head to earth, its neck 
 Down-streaming from the cloud ; above the cloud 
 Its great vans thro' a rolling dust of stars 
 Thunderous descending in the rush of fate." 
 
 After Mont Blanc one may sit down unblamed. 
 Eh ! this is tempting — these old eyes were dull 
 Not to see this at room's-length ! A veiled frame ! 
 Reverently set in honour, and once wreathed. 
 It seems, with living flowers now long, long, dead !
 
 122 BALDER. 
 
 The veil of funeral black, embrowned with dust ! 
 
 A portrait as I guess — I'll see it. [Enter Balder. 
 
 Balder. Hold ! 
 
 'Tis sacred ! 
 
 Doctor. Pardon, friend, you make me nervous, — 
 I thought these heads said " Hold." 
 
 Balder. They had cried out 
 
 If I had held my peace. A time may come 
 To raise that veil. Not now. 
 
 Doctor. Tour invalid ? 
 
 Balder. Not yet returned. I'll fetch her. [Goes to window. 
 
 Look here, Paul ! 
 That figure stealing down the linden grove ! 
 'Tis Evening, or 'tis she ! she comes ! she comes ! 
 
 Doctor. 'Tis a most happy symptom. Let her take 
 Her will. I'll wait. 
 
 Balder. Good God ! she turns aside 
 
 From the field-path into the winding track 
 We used in other days. 
 
 Doctor. Still happier sign ! 
 
 Nay, I'll not hurry her. 
 
 Balder. Thanks, thanks. 
 
 Doctor. But, friend. 
 
 Hast thou no song to wear the hour away : 
 I'm weary. 
 
 Balder. Paul, thou art an emperor ! 
 Decree. 
 
 Doctor. Thou hadst of old " a song of seasons,"
 
 BALDER. 123 
 
 With dainty amours and a fire-side close 
 
 Most comfortable, 
 
 • Balder. Aj, an evensong. 
 
 [Goes to his harp, and sings. 
 In the spring twilight, in the coloured twilight, 
 "VVTiereto the latter primroses are stars, A 
 
 And early nightingale 
 Letteth her love adown the tender wind. 
 That thro' the eglantine 
 In mixed delight the fragrant music bloweth 
 On to me, 
 
 Where in the twilight, in the coloured twilight, 
 I sit beside the thorn upon the hill. 
 The mavis sings upon the old oak tree 
 Sweet and strong. 
 Strong and sweet, 
 Soft, sweet, and strong. 
 And with his voice interpreteth the silence 
 Of the dim vale when Philomel is mute ! 
 The dew lies like a light upon the grass, 
 The cloud is as a swan upon the sky, 
 The mist is as a brideweed on the moon. 
 The shadows new and sweet 
 Like maids unwonted in the dues of joy 
 Play with the meadow flowers. 
 And give with fearful fancies more and less, 
 And come, and go, and flit 
 A brief emotion in the moving air.
 
 124 BALDER. 
 
 And now are stirred to fliglit, and now are kind, 
 
 Unset, uncertain, as the cheek of Love. 
 
 As tho' amid the eve » 
 
 Stood Spring with fluttering breast, 
 
 And like a butterfly upon a flower, 
 
 Spreading and closing with delight's excess, 
 
 A-sudden fanned and shut her tinted wings. 
 
 In the spring twilight, in the coloured twilight, 
 
 Ere Hesper, eldest child of Night, run forth 
 
 On mountain-top to see 
 
 If Day hath left the dale. 
 
 And hears, well-pleased, the dove 
 
 From ancient elm and high 
 
 In murmuring dreams still bid the sun good-night. 
 
 And sound of lowing kine, 
 
 And echoes long and clear, 
 
 And herdsman's evening call, 
 
 And bells of penning folds. 
 
 Sweet and low ; 
 
 Oh maid, as fair as thou 
 
 Behold the young May moon ! 
 
 Oh ! happy, happy maid, 
 
 With love as young as she 
 
 In the spring twilight, in the coloured twilight, 
 
 Meet, meet me, by the thorn upon the hiU. 
 
 [Interlude of music. 
 At the midsummer, at the high midsummer, 
 
 Deep in the darkness let me sit embowered 
 
 AU alone ;
 
 BALDER. 125 
 
 AVhat time tbe children of the earth and heaven 
 As of two houses whom a feud divides, 
 Meet in the mingling mystery of midnight, 
 And melting clouds sink low with wooers' tears, 
 Felt but unseen, dropping a balm of joy 
 AVhereto the love-touched leaves 
 Tremble and whisper thro' the gentle land. 
 The incense riseth and the incense falleth 
 And all the stolen hour is stirred with kisses, 
 And silent loves constrain the passionate time ; 
 E,ich loves that as they list 
 Exchange and take and give 
 Unmeted mede and debts for ever due. 
 And sweets are mixed along the languid air 
 Like balmy breath of lovers warm and near, 
 And glowing faces meeting thro' the dark. 
 Hush ! for the world stands still 
 Held in mere joy, as nought on earth would lose 
 The happy place and moment where it stood. 
 Hush ! o'er a stillness, still as Love's delight, 
 Hearts gushing, bosoms heaving, moving arms 
 AVinding, unwinding ; lips that close and part 
 And love still ending and beginning ; Hush ! 
 Put back the dawn, Phosphor ! Set again ! 
 Fall like a sweet drop from the honeyed heavens ! 
 Go down, and carried by a tender cloud ! 
 The exquisite best moment of the night 
 Sinks down with thee. This is the ecstasy !
 
 y 
 
 126 BALDER. 
 
 It sheds, it sheds ! The night is filled mth flowers, 
 
 The viewless night, faint night, the yielding night 
 
 The favouring night, — with flowers and happy rain ! 
 As tho' to-morrow's blossoms spreading odours 
 As they float 
 
 Soft thro' the season, shy thro' the dark season 
 Like a warm dew sank murmuring from the skies. 
 
 [Interlude of music. 
 FaU, fall, faU, 
 FaU, faU, fall, 
 
 Oh orchard fruit fall from the fading tree, 
 Fall fruit of Autumn on the sullen sod, 
 Heavy and dead as clods into a grave. 
 Fall, fall, faU, 
 FaU, faU, faU, 
 
 Lone lingering rose thou knowest all must die ! 
 Canst thou convince the breeze of spring, or blush 
 The summer thro' the cheeks of sallow day ? 
 Thou, sick with solitude, and blanched with tears ? 
 Fall, fall, fall, 
 Fall, faU, fall, 
 
 Sere leaf that quiverest thro' the sad still air, 
 Sere leaf that waverest down the sluggish wind, 
 Sere leaf that whirlest on the Autumn gust, 
 Free in the ghastly anarchy of death. 
 The sad still air which as a alkahest, 
 Potent and silent doth dissolve the year ; 
 The sluggish wind that as a red stream slow
 
 BALDER. 127 
 
 With carnage welters dull, and steams -with death ; 
 
 The sudden gust that like a headsman wild, 
 
 TJplifteth Beauty by her golden hair, 
 
 To show the world that she is dead indeed ! 
 
 FaU, faU, fall, 
 
 FaU, fall, fall. 
 
 Fall twilight rain that dost not strive nor cry. 
 
 But chillest all the time with silent sorrow ; 
 
 And not a wind does violence, nor a plaint 
 
 Stirs the dank quiet of the latter leaves ; 
 
 But — as in speechless looks of him who stands, 
 
 Withered and wan by the wayside of Fate, 
 
 Timeless, unwelcome, aU his better lot 
 
 Outlived, and the dear fashion of his day 
 
 And race forgotten, bended to his ill, 
 
 And lifting not the unavailing voice 
 
 Which no man heedeth — lorn and stillest tears 
 
 Grow in the fade eyes of the relict world. 
 
 [Interlude of musk 
 
 Trim the lamp. 
 Pile the fire ; 
 Brim the cup, 
 Touch the strings ; 
 Sigh of love. 
 Sing of joy ; 
 Trill of maids, 
 Chant of men !
 
 128 BALDER. 
 
 Oh the youBg, 
 And the fair ; 
 Oh the love, 
 And the wine ; 
 Log of Yule, 
 Log of Yule, 
 In thy glamoLir 
 They shine ! 
 
 For an hour 
 We are gods, 
 And of ail 
 Love hath given 
 Lacking none 
 From our world 
 See the sum 
 Of our days ! 
 
 Eound the forms 
 That to day 
 Blushed with life 
 Meet and smile 
 All the shapes 
 Of the past' 
 In the light 
 Grlimmer pale. 
 
 Early loves,
 
 BALDER. 129 
 
 rriends of yore 
 Ancient eyes 
 Voices old 
 Where the blaze 
 Charms the air 
 By our hearth 
 Come again. 
 
 And the sounds 
 And the dreams 
 And the quick 
 And the dead 
 In spell-dance 
 Move round me, 
 In murmur 
 And maze. 
 
 Oh ye Loves ! 
 Oh ye Days ! 
 Oh ye Dead ! 
 Oh ye Dreams ! 
 Bar the door, 
 Bar the door, 
 "With a shout, 
 Shut them in ! 
 
 For aU the outer vrorld is rocked in war ! 
 
 The powers of harm break faith, and in mad might 
 
 Yell for the rout and will not be denied !
 
 130 BALDER. 
 
 Even now the liungry sea begins to wreck, 
 
 And the impatient storms, eager for iE, 
 
 Bide not the expected signal, but blow out 
 
 The lingering Light that flickered in the west. 
 
 To-day is dead an hour before his time ! 
 
 Grood spells are broken, and the shrieking night, 
 
 Down from the haunted and mysterious hills. 
 
 Comes black and shuddering, wrapped about with snows. 
 
 Like a starved Ethiop sheeted from the grave. 
 
 SCENE XXIV. 
 TJie Study. Balder soht^, wnting. Enter Amy. 
 
 Amy. I have somewhat to say : let me come close, 
 Close to thine ear ; my husband, I am well ! 
 
 Balder. Thy pain? — 
 
 Amy. Gone ! I am well ; speak very low ; 
 
 The butterfly fresh from his living grave 
 Eeels not so frail and new. BUst, not a word, 
 'Tis resurrection morning ; I am free. 
 
 Balder. My poor child — 
 
 Amy. Nay, I know ; I am not mad ; 
 
 Hush ! for I think a whisper would disturb 
 This footing ; I am well, so Avell ! I feel 
 I have slipped thro' the chains that held me down;
 
 BALDER, 131 
 
 I could move like a mote thro' the warm air 
 
 Up to the hills. Let us go to the hills. 
 
 Hush, do not answer. I have spoken now. 
 
 I thought it would not last while I could tell thee. [Exit. 
 
 Balder {going to his harp and touching a solemn siveet air). 
 I praise thee, mother earth ! oh earth, my mother ! 
 Oh earth, sweet mother ! gentle mother earth ! 
 Whence thou receivest what thou givest I 
 Ask not as a child asketh not his mother. 
 Oh earth, my mother ! [Amy reappears, habited. 
 
 Balder. And thy lute. Amy ? I will bring thy lute. 
 Nay, my poor nightingale, and art thou dumb 
 By day ? But thou wUt be the lark, my child. 
 So near heaven's gate. Look to the morning hills, 
 "With such a golden tumult over them 
 As if the everlastiug port above 
 For the imperial Sun did ope and close 
 With clangor. Well, well, I'll not let thee sing. 
 But thou shalt murmur to me as the dove 
 When she alit upon the mouutaiu-top 
 And found the leaf of peace. And I will make 
 Thy lute-strings shimmer as the sunshine shook 
 About her as she murmured. [Takes up kw hat and staff. 
 
 My Alp stick ! 
 I think thou art King Edward's staff to-day. 
 For I feel more than king and half confessor. 
 
 [They pa^s side by side into the fields. 
 
 Amy. The hay, the new-mown hay ! the birds, the birds ! 
 
 k2
 
 13^ BALDER. 
 
 Balder. The audible soul of the warm balmy wind 
 That moves in music. Tender pensive thrush 
 Singing his rhythmic cadence, and, below, 
 The blackbird, earnest in the flowering thorn, 
 Chanting his mellow prose as tho' he told 
 A wonted story, ever old and new ! 
 The fitful chaffinch, like a bashful youtb 
 That hui-ries forth his love in sudden speech 
 And blusbing pause, the loud and cheerful wren, 
 The sparrow's chirp, the swallow on the wall — 
 The swallow that pours out her liquid joy 
 Upon the morning flood of happiness, 
 Wherein it falls with silver sound and sweet 
 As water into water ; these, and all 
 The warbling voices breathing of the South, 
 The slender treble of the tuneful year 
 AVith throbbing throats that chorus sunshine thro' 
 The vocal world, dainty, and soft, and low ! 
 And high o'er all a languid noise of rooks. 
 Lost in bright air, cii'cling in sunny calm. 
 Or cawing from the haunt of oaken green 
 The leafy rest of June ! i'^^^^V ^^^^er a meadow of floivers. 
 
 Amy. See ! 
 
 Balder. Seems it not, 
 
 My Amy, that this prattling Babe, the Earth, 
 Sole sitting at the foolstool of the Heaven, 
 Strives to repeat her stars ? 
 
 Amy. ^ 6S.
 
 BALDER. 133 
 
 Balder. Thy small feet 
 
 May tread the pathway careless of the dews : 
 We mortals are contemned of Nature,— she 
 Casts not her pearls before us. But look, Amy, 
 This blade of grass from the untrodden field, 
 This green perfection of abundant health, 
 Complete with dew. Herein behold why Nature 
 Is the one Teacher whom the Poet needs, \CM^f^t&n\j ''^- ■ 
 
 For she alone can show him in her works \ l^\V^>fio, N*- 
 Consummate art, and that supreme excess 
 Which fashions her fair work until the bound 
 Of possible performance, and the verge 
 Of the wrapt heart's belief; and while we say, 
 " Behold the final good ! " sprinkles a dew. 
 And with divine complacence, passeth both. 
 Or having wrought her statue from a block 
 Infallible, with an unfailing hand 
 Quickens the faultless whole, and with a touch 
 Makes cold Perfection live. With her he sees 
 Not only snow, but driven snow, nor driven snow 
 But on the sacred summit of an Alp 
 Immaculate, and on the whitest peak, 
 Whiter than white ; the flower not only fair. 
 But fragrant, and the light not only warm. 
 The fire not only bright ; the summer fruit 
 Sweet to the taste but sweeter to the eye. 
 And over all its tangible a bloom 
 That never can be touched. She, only she,
 
 134 BALDER. 
 
 In her least work, as in her greatest, shows 
 
 To his confessiBg eyes the unattained 
 
 And unattaioable, and tho' his pride, 
 
 Stung to its strength, outstrain the farthest stretch 
 
 Of man, and bring the trophies of the world, 
 
 She, still unsatisfied, by Day and Night 
 
 Points upward, saying, — " Be ye perfect as 
 
 Your [Father in the Heav^ens ! " Thou hearest me not ; 
 
 Thy cheek is wet with tears ; thou art pale and red ; 
 
 Amy, my little child ! 
 
 Ami/. Oh, Love, I live ! 
 I am ! I feel ! The Earth is not a dream ! 
 The Prison doors are broken ! I am free ! 
 I stand forth in the sun ! I know the wind ! 
 The utter world doth touch me ! I can grasp 
 The hands that stretch forth from the mystery 
 That passeth ! I am crowded vdth my life ! 
 It is too much ! the vital march doth stop 
 To press about me ! Air, give air — too much. 
 Too much — forgive, forgive, forgive 
 
 Balder. My Loved ! 
 
 My Lost ! my "Wept ! my early-risen ! I clasp thee 
 Fresh from the dead ! 'Tis past ; new-waked from sleep 
 Sudden amid the concourse of sweet sounds. 
 The rush, the pageant tu.mi.dt, and this tramp 
 Of Being, the weak sense bewildered laughs 
 And weeps by turns. 
 
 Am^. Husband, till now, thy speech
 
 BALDER. 135 
 
 "Was my sole music, wliereimto I kept 
 The maimed attendance of these feeble feet ; 
 To-day 'tis but a note — the first the best — 
 In somewhat that fills all this sunshine space 
 
 "With sound since 'tis for sound to stir the heart 
 
 Unseen. 
 
 Balder. Here let us rest. Thou hast said well 
 'Tis Eesurrection-day. For I remember 
 Once in a sleep of childhood I looked forth 
 Thro' a wide summer window, on a still 
 And Garden-world. Eden, as at the first, 
 I saw, and all the summers since the first, 
 Above it like a golden silent sea 
 Lay warm and sweet and slumb'rous, soaking deep 
 All things in honeyed light — flowers, fruits, and trees, 
 Which breathed their gums and amber, and let down 
 From their festooned fair tops that no wind stirred 
 Visible odours — and the tepid Lakes 
 And the dissolving Hills. And far below, 
 Down thro' green warmth of the relaxed sod 
 To hidden secrets of the inner Earth 
 Slow sank incumbent, sinking, sinking Light. 
 'Twas Eesurrection-morn. "Where I beheld 
 City had never stood, nor ways of men, 
 Nor place of funeral. But the Dead came up 
 Like spring-Flowers, white and golden, thro' the ground, 
 Lifting a little earth, as snowdrops lift. 
 On their strange heads. This morning, as I stood
 
 136 BALDER. 
 
 Beside my open window, ere thou earnest, 
 
 And looked upon tlie day, metliought I saw 
 
 My cliildhood's dream. Is it a dream ? For thou 
 
 Art such a thing as one might think to see 
 
 Upon a footstone, sitting in the sun, 
 
 Beside a broken Grave ! [.Tltey sit musing. 
 
 Amy. Thou hast been silent 
 
 So long, that the slow shade of the tree-top 
 Moved like a dark hand o'er the grass, and took 
 Another daisy. 
 
 Balder. I do know this moment ! 
 
 This is the very wind that long ago 
 In the first morning of sweet life we breathed 
 By the open gate of Love, when thou and I 
 "Went happy in together, knowing not 
 The place, nor heeding if 'twere Earth or no. 
 We were so young, thou wert so pure, the woes 
 And weary ills that keep the gate of Love 
 Looked on us as on shapes concerning whom 
 They had no charge ; the guardians of the trees 
 Slept aU, and with us the sublimer Fates 
 Dealt softly as with children. Did we dream 
 A dream of years upon some flowery knoll. 
 And do we wake where we lay down ? Is this 
 The outer world ? Is this the common day 
 Of all the living ? Oh Amy ! my own child, 
 I could believe this fancy ; never since 
 I felt this wind upon me in my youth
 
 BALDER. 137 
 
 Have I beheld thee as now. Dost tliou remember 
 The old days when at trysting-time thou camest 
 Forth down the winding valley to the stile 
 To meet me, and beside me all the sweet 
 Meandering way trode back in silent joy, 
 With downcast eyes that ever sought the ground, 
 But tell-tale smiles that could not choose but come 
 Me-ward ; quick smiles that every word of mine 
 Stirred up anew so often, that they met 
 Like sudden roses caught in a warm wind. 
 And did provoke each other, ruffling sweets 
 In dear confusion, and in all the change 
 Of my swift fancy changing till they lay 
 Upon thee like the thousand lines of light 
 Upon the shimmering water that the west 
 Moves with a sigh ? So we past slowly on, 
 And so fond gazing on thy silent face 
 I poured the glorious wine of love into 
 A vase of crystal, where it blushed and shone 
 More fair. Sometimes I marvel when I think 
 Of those first days of love ; love that unknown 
 Knew not himself, and stiU went in and out 
 Among the happy inmates of the heart 
 As an unconscious prophet walks amid 
 His brethren ere his equal lips be touched 
 With the live coals of fire. I that so long 
 Spake, and we knew not that I spake of love 
 Because it fiUed my speech, and being all
 
 138 BALDER. 
 
 Seemed notliing, I wlio that I saw it not 
 Never believed it present, nor remembered 
 That the sole face on which I cannot look 
 Is this men know for mine — how did I win thee ? 
 Canst tell me ? 
 
 Amy. I can sing a little song. [She sings. 
 
 The sun he riseth up on new year's day, 
 And looketh on the earth and goeth down ; 
 The earth she stirreth to be looked upon. 
 The faithful sun he riseth day by day. 
 And looketh on the earth and goeth doT\Ti ; 
 The earth she trembleth to be looked upon. 
 The faithful sun he riseth day by day. 
 And looketh on the earth and goeth down ; 
 The earth she blusheth to be looked upon. 
 The faithful sun he riseth day by day. 
 And looketh on the earth and goeth down ; 
 The earth she smileth to be looked upon. 
 The faithful sun he riseth day by day. 
 And looketh on the earth and goeth down ; 
 The earth she sigheth to him from the south ; 
 The earth she stands before him all in flowers ; 
 The many-voiced earth, she calleth him ; 
 She singeth at his chamber that he rise. 
 And long time holdeth him lest he go down. 
 
 Balder. Thou wert as silent as a bird that sits 
 On her dear treasure, and while steps pass nigh 
 Is hushed and hid, but, when the plunderer nears
 
 BALDER. 139 
 
 And only silence could have saved lier, cries. 
 I ne'er forget my little Amy's face 
 Upon the blessed chance that owned us one ; 
 The happy chance that struck me by her side, 
 And all heard that which else had died unheard ! 
 
 Amy. How did she look ? 
 
 Balder. She looked in her surprise 
 
 As when the Evening-Star ta'en vmaware, 
 AVhile fearless she pursues across the Heaven 
 Her Lover Sun, — and on a sudden stands 
 Confest in the pursuit before a world 
 Upgaziug — in her maiden innocence 
 Disarms us, and so looks that she becomes 
 A worship evermore. 
 
 The bare hill-top 
 Shines near above us ; I feel like a child 
 Nursed on his grandsire's knee that longs to stroke 
 The bald bright forehead ; shall we climb ? 
 
 [They ascend the hill. 
 The fort 
 Is won, and here I plant the stalwart sign 
 Of sovereignty. A little while this staff 
 Shall be the solar centre of creation. 
 All that thou seest is thine ! [He lies down. 
 
 How passing sweet 
 To rest the weight of this mortality 
 tJpon such friendly turf, while the free soul 
 Eeleased from earthly shackles shines a star,
 
 140 BALDER. 
 
 Above the great liorizon of this world, 
 Giving and taking Light. 
 
 Lo, the wide sea 
 Of air from the high shore whereon we lie, 
 To the far mountains. Thou couldst lay thy fair 
 And buoyant breast upon it, and go down 
 Into the limpid ocean as the swan 
 Goes down into the lake. 
 
 How strange to know 
 Ton dim old British camp across a plain 
 Of fifty waving miles. Dost thou remember, 
 Dear love, when we two in the central green 
 Of that mauled mountain which om* giant sires 
 Had clipped and cropped as 'twere a Dutch-land tree, 
 Sat a long summer day, and far and near 
 Saw the great martial circles widening out 
 Eing after ring, as tho' the snake that dwells 
 In the world's core had wound him forth and lay 
 Motionless in the sunshine, coil in coil. 
 His great head in the midst, and the green grass 
 Sprang up and knew him not, his one hour's sleep 
 A thousand years. 
 
 Hark, hark, the gathering herds 
 Eound the low valley pool. What ! tears again ! 
 Bright summer showers ! 
 
 Amy. Oh love, the song of life ! 
 
 Oh love, the music of the world ! my ears 
 Are open ! since the years I was a child
 
 BALDER. Ill 
 
 I have not heard it ! Tho' mine eyes have seen 
 
 The ordered pomp and sacred dance of things, 
 
 And marvelled at the measure, it passed on 
 
 In silence, but to-day, to-day, I hear 
 
 The voice to which it moves ! Too sweet, too sweet. 
 
 {They pause. 
 
 Balder. And now my years come on me, and the life 
 That shall be ! I am faint with too much light. 
 But as a death-bed soul exults in death. 
 My spirit soars triumphant as I sink. 
 The day is full of suns ; I lie a-dream, 
 And o'er me the colossus of my fate 
 Stands to the wliite heavens from the shadeless earth, 
 And casts no shadow ! This is that same hour 
 That I have seen before me as a star 
 Seen from a rushiui? comet thro' the black 
 And forward night, which orbs, and orbs, and orbs. 
 Till that which was a shining spot in space 
 Flames out between us and the universe, 
 And burns the heavens with glory. [Pauses. 
 
 Now J live ! 
 T he we akTifisa.h-'^'^ gone by. This seasoned boHy" 
 O'ermasters the strong element, and turns 
 The potent draught to balm ; the Olympian wine 
 That made me reel throbs thro' these larger veins 
 A nobler blood. Come such a day as melts 
 The hard earth back to her primeval drop, 
 And I could look it in the face ! my chains
 
 142 BALDER. 
 
 Break from my ampler limbs. If tlioii didst start 
 I could believe that I sprang up a god, 
 And am a god for ever. Do not kiss me, 
 Lest the remembered touch of those dear Hps 
 Bring back a mortal pleasure. 
 
 Amy, Amy, 
 "Will we not save the world ? 
 
 Amy. 'Tis a fair world ! 
 
 Balder. Look down upon it in the sunny haze 
 Of silent noon, sole in the void of heaven 
 Asleep, divine with the unconscious smile 
 Of everlasting beauty. A well-spread 
 And ordered world ; not the bright elements 
 Innumerous of unrespective change. 
 The broken argosy of the universe 
 On spangled waters ; but a multiform 
 Supreme event, the single continent 
 Of all ; like immaterial deity, 
 Eull of the coloured thought of an unmade 
 Creation. 
 
 Amy. 'Tis tliy kingdom, 'tis thy kingdom. 
 My king, my king ! 
 
 Balder. I will arise and reian ; 
 
 As Grod contains the world I will contain 
 Mankind, and in the solvent of my soul 
 The peopled and unpeopled ages. They, 
 Born and unborn, are one in me, and freed 
 From the disturbing thrall of space and time
 
 BALDER. 143 
 
 Take each and all, in one eternal whole, 
 Ordained places, like a heaven of stars. 
 Thou hast said well 'tis a fair world, but what 
 Do the trees hide ? and yon far cloud of smoke 
 Over the sulphurous city ? Amy, Amy, 
 I yearn towards my race ! 
 
 I have been like 
 A prophet fallen on his prostrate face 
 Upon the hill of fire. Mine hour is come, 
 The earthquake has yawned by me, I have seen 
 The seething core of nature, both these ears 
 Are deaf with voices, I am blind with light. 
 My heart is full of thunder ! In the form 
 Of manhood I will get me down to man ! 
 As one goes down from Alpine tops with snows 
 Upon his head I, who have stood so long 
 On other Alps, will go down to my race, 
 Snowed on with somewhat out of Divine air, 
 And merely walking thro' them with a step 
 God-like to music like the golden sound 
 Of Phoebus' shouldered arrows, I will shake 
 The laden manna round me as I shake 
 Dews from this morning tree. And they shall see 
 And eat, and eating live, and living know, 
 And knowing worship. "We wiU lead the flocks 
 Of the whole earth walking before with staves 
 
 Of light 
 
 Avvj. I — I, too, even I ? ah, husband,
 
 144 BALDER. 
 
 To feel beside tliee ! 
 
 Balder. But I see tliem, Amy, 
 
 Whitening the world like harvest. Wheresoe'er 
 We stay they pastiire; in the temperate sun 
 Disport on hiUs for ever green and fair, 
 Or at our word with universal feet 
 Pass to new fields, their great sound overhead 
 Borne like a banner : under favouring skies 
 Drink of salubrious streams, in innocent lands 
 Lie down to harmless sleep, and rise with us 
 To follow day and summer round the globe ! 
 
 Amy. My husband ! 
 
 Balder. Sing a song of love to me. 
 
 This glory burns me up ; fetch me some tears. 
 
 Amy {sings). There grew a lowly flower by Eden-gate 
 Among the thorns and thistles. High the palm 
 Branched o'er her, and imperial by her side 
 Upstood the sunburnt Lily of the east. 
 
 The goodly gate swung oft with many gods 
 Groing and coming, and the spice- winds blew 
 Music and murmurings, and paradise 
 Welled over and enriched the outer wild. 
 
 Then the palm trembled fast-bound by the feet. 
 And the imperial Lily bowed her down 
 With yearning, but they could not enter in.
 
 BALDER, 145 
 
 The lowly flower she looked up to the palm 
 And lily, and at eve was full of dews, 
 And hung her head and wept and said, " Ah these 
 Are tall and fair, and shaU I enter in ? " 
 
 There came an angel to the gate at even, 
 A weary angel, with dishevelled hair ; 
 For he had wandered far, and as he went, 
 The blossoms of his crown fell one by one 
 Thro' many nights, and seemed a falling star. 
 
 He saw the lovely flower by Eden-gate, 
 And cried, " ah, pure and beautifid !" and turned 
 And stooped to her and wound her in his hair. 
 And in his golden hair she entered in. 
 
 Husband ! I was the weed at Eden-gate, 
 I looked up to the lily and the palm 
 Above me, and I wept and said, " ah these 
 Are taU and fair, and shall I enter in ? " 
 And one came by me to the gate at even, 
 And stooped to me and wound me in his liair, 
 And in his golden hair I entered in ! 
 
 Balder. Nay the poor wanderer, fallen from heaven, 
 drew near 
 The guarded gate ; but with his forfeit skies 
 Had lost his privilege and master-sign.
 
 146 BALDER. 
 
 Aud turned aside and plucked an aspliodel, 
 And, wearing, passed uncliallenged. 
 
 Amy. Hist ! wlio comes ? 
 
 Ah husband, we must be alone to-day ! 
 I feel new-married and do blush to speak. 
 Let us go hence. 
 
 Balder. An artist by his satchel. 
 
 Lie silent he will pass us. {Starts uj).) What ! mj- 
 comrade ! 
 
 Artist. My old friend ! 
 
 Balder. Welcome ! but how many days 
 
 Before your assignation ? 
 
 Artist. Pairly asked. 
 
 Sooth is, I was a wooer of Dame Nature 
 Down in your sylvan valley there. My goddess 
 Left me love-tokens, but denied herself ; 
 I wearied, you may guess ; and every niglit 
 Looked upward to these western tops and saw 
 Her footsteps, and the cloudy draperies 
 She put aside in passing, closing red 
 Behind her, dyed with honour. So I came 
 To sit here and waylay her. 
 
 Balder. Amy, this 
 
 Is that good Gerald whom thou knowest well 
 By many a song and fireside history. 
 Dear old companion, we must meet again ; 
 This is a sweet and solemn festival 
 AVhich we two keep together, she and I.
 
 BALDER. 147 
 
 But ere you leave us for my sake remember 
 
 One of the songs we used to sing of old ; 
 
 "We sang it three at once, and it was called 
 
 " The Song o' the Sun." The glowing orb of joy 
 
 Within my head must shine, or 'twill consume me. 
 
 Tou, each of you, chime in the needful chorus. 
 
 I am the sun ! 
 
 Artist. "With all my heart. Begin. 
 
 Balder. Thou knowest it, little Amy ? 
 
 Amy. Did I e'er 
 
 Forget a worcJ of thine ? [Balder I'ises to his feet. 
 
 Artist. Phoebus- Apollo ! 
 
 Balder. Earliest bird 
 
 Thou hearest me. 
 Me afar off 
 Thro' the dark. 
 EoU O days into the years, and O years into the ages, and 
 
 O ages into the mystery of God ! 
 Oh Love, oh Life, and all ye jocund train 
 Virtues and Joys, my lusty Company, 
 Be loud around me ! Sing because I sing ! 
 Call each to each as I call unto you ! 
 Love calling unto Life 
 " Oh Life ! Oh Life !" 
 Life calling unto Love 
 "Oh Love! Oh Love!" 
 " How beautiful oh Life !" 
 " How beautiful oh Love !" 
 
 L 2
 
 Ids BALDER. 
 
 I am the sun singing behind tlie mountains ! 
 Thou heaven, that didst watcli for me on the hills, 
 Sitting upon the hill-tops above the valley of beauty, 
 Thou hearest me afar off singing behind the mountains, 
 And hast let fall thy mourning, and thy bosom is pale. 
 Also blushes are on thy cheeks lest I see thee, oh thou 
 
 most beautiful. 
 But I win see thee, O thou most beautitul ! j 
 Eobe thee in purple, take thy clouds about thee, 
 Rise up, O queen, with gold upon thy brows. 
 Behold I reach thee forth my golden sceptre, 
 Behold I give thee morning as a garment. 
 Sit on thy hill, and I will touch thy hill. 
 And thou shalt sit upon a diamond throne, 
 And shalt be glorified before my world ! 
 For I see thee, O thou most beautiful ! 
 
 Quiet valley, valley deep and still, 
 
 Dost thou hear my voice behind the mountains ? 
 
 I will come gently as a father peepeth 
 
 Over the cot, over the cot of beauty. 
 
 So will I lift my face up over thee. 
 
 Love, love, love, how beautiful oh love ! 
 
 Art thou well-awakened, little flower ? 
 Are thine eyelids open, little flower ? 
 Are they cool with dew, little flower ?
 
 BALDER. 
 
 149 
 
 Hath the south touched thee ? Hath the fairy kissed thee ? 
 Wilt thou come forth, come forth, iuto my day ? 
 
 Ringdove, ringdove, 
 
 This is my golden finger 
 
 Between the upper branches of the pine ! 
 
 Come forth, come forth, and sing into my day ! 
 
 Butterfly, butterfly. 
 
 This is my golden finger, 
 
 I will feel for thee down among the roses, 
 
 Sweet in the roses, in the climbing roses. 
 
 And put thee from thy bed into my day ! 
 
 Love, love, love, how beautiful, O love ! 
 
 I will arise, I wiU awake the world ! 
 
 They shall be glad because of me, I feel 
 
 The joy-light shining thro' their lids of sleep, 
 
 Like music from the hollow of the earth ! [They sincj. 
 
 It is time, 
 O ye leaves, 
 On the tree-tops 
 Of morning ; 
 Laugh down 
 The trees, 
 
 It is time, 
 O ye streams, 
 On the hill-tops 
 Of morning ; 
 Run down 
 The hills. 
 
 That the pastures That the valleys 
 May wake ! May wake ! 
 
 Awake ! 
 
 It is time, 
 O ye bells. 
 In the gray spire 
 Of morning ; 
 Ring down 
 The spire, 
 That the hamlet 
 May wake !
 
 150 BALDER. 
 
 I am the sun, I am above the mountains, 
 My joy is on me, I will give you day ! 
 I will spend day among you like a king ! 
 YovtT water shall be wine because I reign ! 
 I stave my golden vintage on the mountains. 
 And all your rushing rivers run with day ! 
 I am the sun, I am above the mountains ! 
 Arise, my hand is open, it is day ! 
 Eise ! as men strike a bell and make it music, 
 So have I struck the earth and made it day ! 
 Move, move, world, on all your brazen hinges 
 Send round the thunder of your golden wheels ; 
 Throng out, O millions, out, O shouting millions ; 
 Throng out, millions, shouting, shouting day ! 
 Tor as one blows a trumpet through the valleys. 
 So from my golden trumpet I blow day ! 
 
 O earth, O flowers, birds, beasts, men. 
 
 Day is proclaimed ! I called untH I heard 
 
 The caverns echo ! Day is everywhere ! 
 
 White-favoured day is sailing on the sea, 
 
 And, like a sudden harvest in the land, 
 
 Tlie windy laud is waving gold with day ! 
 
 As for you whom I have awakened, do 
 
 As shall seem good in all your shining eyes. 
 
 Your eyes still wet with morning. They shall dry, 
 
 And day shall fade. But I have done my task : 
 
 Do yours ! And what is this that I have given,
 
 BALDER. 151 
 
 And wlierefore ? look ye to it ! As ye can, 
 Be wise and foolish to the end. For me, 
 I, under all heavens, go forth praising God ! 
 
 Artist. I also. And I also singing lauds 
 To see you both so happy. [Exit. 
 
 Balder. Brave old friend ! 
 
 Amy. Shall we walk, husband, to yon shady tree 
 Above the little stream ? {They walk. 
 
 Balder. Alas ! that one 
 
 Should use the days of summer but to live. 
 And breathe but as the needful element 
 The strange superfluous glory of the air ! 
 Kor rather stand apart in awe beside 
 The untouched Time, and saying o'er and o'er 
 In love and wonder, " these are summer days." 
 
 Amy. Let us sit here. [They sit. 
 
 Balder. Under this ash, last spring, 
 
 I saw a sight more sweet than ever clown 
 Came on a-siidden in a fairy ring 
 By summer moon. A growth of primroses. 
 Thick as the stars by night, and like the stars 
 In constellations and in orbits due. 
 Shone round the central tree. I could believe 
 Queen Plora, on a royal progress tired, 
 Halted beneath it, and her flowery court 
 Pitched their fair tents about her, or, well-pleased, 
 Sole or by twins, in fragrant converse, lay 
 Upon the enchanted ground. Thou hadst a song,
 
 152 BALDER. 
 
 A country song, a chanted calendar, 
 Fit to be timbrelled to the tambourine- 
 
 [Amy inteirupls him 
 Amy (sings). 
 
 Pirst came tlie primrose, 
 
 On the bank high, 
 
 Like a maiden looking forth 
 
 Prom the window of a tower 
 
 When the battle rolls below, 
 
 So looked she. 
 
 And saw the storms go by. 
 
 Then came the wind-flower 
 In the valley left behind, 
 As a wounded maiden pale 
 "With purple streaks of woe 
 When the battle has rolled by 
 Wanders to and fi-o, 
 So tottered she. 
 Dishevelled in the -RTtid. 
 
 Then came the daisies, 
 On the first of May, 
 Like a bannered show's advance 
 While the crowd runs by the way, 
 With ten thousand flowers about them they came trooping 
 through the fields. 
 
 As a happy people come,
 
 BALDER. ] 53 
 
 So came fhej, 
 
 As a happy people come, 
 
 When the war has rolled a^vaj, 
 
 With dance and tabor, pipe and drum. 
 
 And all make holiday. 
 
 Then came the cowslip, 
 
 Like a dancer in the fair, 
 
 She spread her little mat of green. 
 
 And on it danced she. 
 
 With a fillet bound about her brow, 
 
 A fiUet round her happy brow, 
 
 A golden fillet round her brow, 
 
 And rubies in her hair. 
 No more, no more, for I am tired of singing, 
 I'll make a garland, as in olden days. 
 And crown thee as of old. 
 
 [She runs off to neighbouring flowers. 
 
 Balder. Thou most pure essence, 
 
 Wilt thou exhale i' the sun ? Being from me 
 Tho' but a little way mine eyes do fear 
 To leave thee, as they fear to leave the light 
 In a dew-drop. Happy perchance for thee. 
 If the spell brake and light I'eturned to light ! 
 Yet the strong Fate that mixed us hath wrought well. 
 I am for thee ; thou mightest have crossed this world 
 Among our grosser motions as a spirit 
 Unseen, nor having organs to discourse
 
 154 BALDER. 
 
 The rare ethereal of its too divine 
 
 And necessary beauty ; but soul, 
 
 O woman mere and absolute, Amy ! 
 
 Upon a sacred moment thou didst come 
 
 Into the body of my Love and Power, 
 
 And henceforth art a worship, being seen 
 
 And known unto the eyes and hearts of men 
 
 For ever ; to whom temples shall be built, 
 
 And nations offer gifts of sighs and tears. 
 
 Thou, little one, who sittest twining flowers, 
 
 "White flowers that lie like dew upon thy breast 
 
 Thou fairer blossom, and salutest each 
 
 With such new joy and fond discovery 
 
 As if thou least of living things couldst spare 
 
 A loveliness, and to thee most of aU 
 
 'Twere wondrous to be fair, — Thou who, too rich 
 
 And poor, when thy dear arms are round my neck 
 
 Hast no belief in human lot more proud. 
 
 Nor knowledge of a place in the wide world 
 
 So regal — little knowing what thou art, — 
 
 If I could teU thee all, wouldst thou grow pale 
 
 And tremble ? I know not. Nay if this hour 
 
 The green hill and the world below the hiU 
 
 Fell from thee, and thou shining like a saint 
 
 Inefiable in mid heaven wert left bare 
 
 To the assembled and ixpturned gaze 
 
 Of this great Universe, I could believe 
 
 Thou wouldst no more than lift up thy pure eyes
 
 BALDER. 155 
 
 Unconscious, and walk forth, among the stars, 
 
 As in a planted garden. Well for thee 
 
 Dear child, in thine eternal childhood more 
 
 Thau I who wrestling would join arms with gods ! 
 
 Do these things haunt thee ? Dost thou ever dream 
 
 That thro' all human precincts evermore, 
 
 Wherever Love hath honour and Beauty fame 
 
 Thou shalt be welcome ? Dost thou think at all 
 
 Of those who in the centuries to come 
 
 Shall seek thee ? Men who in a golden time, 
 
 Noblest, shall rule a nobler race than ours. 
 
 These shall have read the shining scroll on high 
 
 And known what thoughts they be that Grod writes down 
 
 Upon his starry tablets, and for these, 
 
 Full-grown, this Mother Earth round whom to-day 
 
 Men stand as children spelling Truths unknown. 
 
 Shall close the open book upon her knee, 
 
 And tell out of her deep invisible heart 
 
 The secrets of her youth ! But these shall pause 
 
 To hear thee, Amy ; bending from their thrones, 
 
 Among which thou vrith simple step and sweet. 
 
 Dressed in thy country life, goest in and out 
 
 By right, for thou art mine ! 
 
 In penury 
 In cold oblivion, in a tortured life. 
 
 Have strange looks lightened from thee ? Hast thou seen 
 How proud they are who in the years to bo 
 Would give their queenly crowns to change one day
 
 156 BALDER. 
 
 With thee, or have it for a moment said 
 
 Of them as it shall be for ever said 
 
 Of Amy ? Has it been that thou hast lain 
 
 Grandly upon the racking hours, aye curved 
 
 The paly channels of thy tears with pride ? 
 
 Smile on, for well thou mayst ! If haughty eyes 
 
 Refuse thee, and the front of jewelled state 
 
 Thine unadorned poor presence, if false tongue 
 
 Blaspheme thee, or cold heart look lightly on 
 
 Thy woe, doth ever music in the air 
 
 Perplex thee ? Doth the mist of morning shape 
 
 Altar and arch and all the fretted pile 
 
 Pompous and gray, where men one day shaU sit 
 
 Upon the graves of them who passed thee by, 
 
 And use their sculptured pride to rest the weight 
 
 Of the forgotten flesh that the wrapt soul 
 
 May hear me well because I speak of Thee, 
 
 In terror or in beauty ? And my love 
 
 A rushing mighty wind goes thro ' the place 
 
 In thunders whereat underfoot the dead 
 
 Move the cold stones, and the great roofs and aisles 
 
 Are shaken as with passion ! And thou. Amy, 
 
 As a white bird across a sunset sky 
 
 In likeness of an angel to and fro 
 
 High wingest thro' the tumult of the dome, 
 
 In the red windy music. 
 
 Or, the storm 
 Being spent, and stillness like the sudden dark
 
 BALDER. 
 
 Tallen on the listening senses, in the pause 
 
 I breathe upon the dumbness of the air 
 
 And heal it, and my breath sweet thro' the hush 
 
 rioodeth the fragrant silence which unstirred 
 
 rills full of me, as an unclouded noon 
 
 Of balmy light ; and thro' that golden noon 
 
 Thou sinkest slow while reverent heads are bowed, 
 
 And bosoms heave, and the cold thrill of awe 
 
 Pales the proud face and bends the feeble knees 
 
 As if a God came down. For thou art mine, 
 
 And I will have it so. 
 
 Amy {returning?) A crown ! a crown ! 
 
 Balder. My beautifid ! 
 
 Aimj, Am I ? Then give me now 
 
 The long long promised lesson ; teach me what 
 Is beauty. I am very well to day, 
 My brain is like that sea of glass and fire 
 "Whereof we read together, whereupon 
 The angels walked. Let them walk thro' my soul. 
 Dost thou remember idle days when we 
 Lay here, and thou didst roll the broken rocks 
 That spun into the valley round as stars ? 
 So take the worlds and bowl them round about me. 
 For well 1 thiuk thou canst ; and I'll not flinch ; 
 Nay try me ! 
 
 Balder. And thou liest amonn; the bells 
 
 And blossoms, and lookest up to any star. 
 And thinkest in some Angel's face to read
 
 158 BALDER. 
 
 The mystery of beauty ? Loveliness 
 
 Is precious for its essence ; time and space 
 
 Make it nor near nor far nor old nor new, 
 
 Celestial nor terrestrial. Seven snowdrops 
 
 Sister tlie pleiads, the primrose is kin 
 
 To Hesper, Hesper to the world to come ! 
 
 For sovereign Beauty as divine is free ; 
 
 Herself perfection, in herself complete, 
 
 Or in the flowers of earth or stars of heaven. 
 
 Merely contained in the seven-coloured bow 
 
 Arching the globe, and still contained in each 
 
 Of all its rain-drops. This, my thought, I give 
 
 To thee, and am no poorer ; no, nor thou 
 
 Still giving, nor a singular of all 
 
 Who ever shall possess it, tho' my thoiight 
 
 Become the equal birthright of unborn 
 
 Nations of men, in every heart a whole. 
 
 There cannot be a dimple on the cheek 
 
 But all an everlasting soul hath smiled; 
 
 Day is but day to all the eyes on earth, 
 
 No less than day to mine. Love strong as death 
 
 Measures eternity and fills a tear ; 
 
 And beauty universal may be touched 
 
 As at the lips in any single rose. 
 
 See how I turn toward the turf, as he 
 
 "Who after a long pilgrimage once more 
 
 Beholds the face that was his desert dream. 
 
 Turning from heaven and earth bends over it.
 
 BALDER. 159 
 
 And parts the happy tresses from her brow, 
 Counting her ringlets, and discoursing bliss 
 On every hint of beauty in the dear 
 Eegaiaed possession, oft and oft retraced, 
 So could I lie down in the summer grass 
 Content, and in the round of my fond arm 
 Enclose enough dominion, and all day 
 Do tender descant, owning one by one 
 Floweret and flower, and telling o'er and o'er 
 The changing sum of beauty stni repaid 
 In the imending task for ever new. 
 And in a love which first sees but the whole. 
 But when the whole is partially beloved 
 Doth feast the multitude upon the bread 
 Of one, endow the units with no less 
 Than all, and make each meanest integer 
 The total of my joy. Yet I have stood 
 And clasped the earth as if she were a maid ; 
 And held her, bearing all her sparkling stars 
 Upon her like a vase of Castalie 
 Upon a Grreek girl's head, and made my boast 
 Of her, and as a lover let her fill 
 My feeding eyes ! Or I have hovered far 
 Upon the verge of all things, and beheld 
 The round globe as a fruit upon a tree, 
 The spangled tree that night by starry night 
 Stands o'er us, and have seen an angel pass. 
 Pluck it and cool his lips, and drop the hull
 
 160 BALDER. 
 
 To chaos, and this earth, that I have loved 
 And vrorshipped, fall out of the universe 
 As unrespected as a dead leaf falls 
 Trom summer aspen, while the innumerous si ars 
 Twinkled and quivered in the wind of God 
 Walking between the shade of fruited heavens 
 Untold as once between the river-trees 
 Of Eden. But wherever I beheld 
 Or one or every one, the whole or part, 
 Some better thing that is not either or all 
 For ever putteth forth from all and each 
 A hand, and toucheth me, as he of old 
 "VYas touched in sleep ; and I as one in sleep 
 Know not or how or where, but, having felt, 
 Believe, and serve the Invisible Unknown, 
 Calling it Beauty. Therefore in sweet awe 
 Tread the bright mystery of the sod beneath 
 Thy feet, thou priest of Beauty ! who dost stand 
 Bareheaded neath the stars, nor dare to slight 
 Her presence in the floweret of the field ! 
 Beware, for beauty, as a maid, delights 
 In summer ambush. Often the mere hem 
 And flutter of her garment doth betray 
 Her covert ; or low murmurings of the leaves 
 O'er-fond about her naked loveliness. 
 Or jealous whisperings of envious winds. 
 Or voice of birds when her unwonted smile 
 Makes sudden sunshine in the dusky dell,
 
 BALDER. 161 
 
 Or stir of showers that fall like kisses on her, 
 
 Or song of streams made happy by her limbs, 
 
 Is all her bruit. And oft she buried is 
 
 — Eapt from her upper realm by gnomes and ghouls, 
 
 A moment powei'ful in the pause of Fate. 
 
 And her immortal body thrust in haste 
 
 Below the earth some lingering tress reveals 
 
 That iloateth like a floweret in the wind. 
 
 There shalt thou stand, and say thy counter-spell. 
 
 Bard of the future ! Master- Prophet ! Man 
 
 Of Men, at whose strong girdle hang the keys 
 
 Of all things ! Lo, the gaping earth and all 
 
 The breathing presence of the Goddess risen. 
 
 At thy shrunk side full statured from the grave. 
 
 Amy. Art thou not he ? 
 
 Balder. The day shall answer. 
 
 Amy. I 
 
 Will answer for the day. And being He 
 Thou must be born to feel as no man felt 
 Before thee. Husband, to be born to feel 
 As no man felt before thee ! I do yearn 
 To know ! Not yonder panting lamb that kneels 
 To drink is more athirst — 
 
 Balder. My beaming Amy ! 
 
 I stroke the tresses from thine eager brow. 
 And looking on thee deem the prodigy 
 Already wrought. 
 
 Amy. Thou wilt not mock me, husband ; 
 
 M
 
 162 BALDER, 
 
 Thou must have somewhat in thee hid and deep, 
 Which, when the future Truth shall be revealed, 
 "Will rise to meet it. Try thy soul for me 
 "With many thoughts as fishers try a lake 
 With flies ; it may be thou shalt find a shape 
 Whereunto something in thy soul shall rise 
 That never yet hath risen. Hast thou no guess 
 Like the dim pictures of a blind man's brain, 
 Or as altho' thou touch me in the dark 
 I know the hand is thine. 
 
 Balder. The man born blind, 
 
 Having felt fire and handled a round ball, 
 Hath better image of the luminous sun, 
 jN^ay is more able to conceive the truth 
 Of some ethereal colour indescript 
 By gross experiment and thick contact 
 Of palpable occasion, than my soul 
 To know the Absolute. Nevertheless, 
 1 have my blind man's dream, and tell it thee 
 As Blind to Blind. In Deity, my child, 
 There is which no man hath seen, nor can see, 
 Nor in the eternity to come will see. 
 To know it undestroyed were to be Grod 
 Indeed. That Work of Grod's which is concrete 
 Of this tremendous attribute we name 
 Sublime ; and in the corporal Idol own 
 What angels and archangels in their hour 
 Of ecstasy when they look up to God
 
 BALDER. 1S3 
 
 TJndazzled, and outpierce the watching eyes 
 
 Ineffable before the throne that from 
 
 Eternity and to Eternity 
 
 Ever awake and waking ever new 
 
 Erom a past lesser sense as from a sleep 
 
 In the unchanging Glory more and more 
 
 And more for ever and for ever know — 
 
 Day without dark — a still increasing light, 
 
 Cannot behold. We feel annihilation 
 
 As 'twere afar off, and mortality 
 
 Is moved with muiHed pangs. For so God wills 
 
 His worship, and the strange perfunctory flesh 
 
 Hath charge concerning us and bids the soul 
 
 To rites unknown, as a dumb servitor 
 
 His Lord to prayer. 
 
 Also there is in God 
 AVhich being seen would end us with a shock 
 Of pleasure. It may be that we should die 
 As men have died of joy, all mortal powers 
 Summed up and finished in a single taste 
 Of superhuman bliss : or it may be 
 That our great latent love, leaping at once 
 A thousand years in stature — like a stone 
 Dropped to the central fires, and at a touch 
 Loosed into vapour — should break up the terms 
 Of separate Being, and as a swift rack 
 Dissolving into heaven, we should go back 
 To God. What incarnation doth obscure 
 
 H 2
 
 1G4 BALDER. 
 
 This attribute to safety and the health 
 
 Of mortal apprehension, I accept 
 
 As beautiful. Thus in all forms I see 
 
 A mediator between God and man 
 
 After the order of Melchisedek, 
 
 A priest and king. Euling them as a king 
 
 Who have no Grod ; but in the sacred sight 
 
 Of a diviner faith as sovereign priest 
 
 Being God with us. And thus the shows of earth 
 
 Must needs survive this world. And thus produced 
 
 From their adverse far points in time and space 
 
 All extant opposites of love and fear 
 
 Meet somewhere in the heavens. How of this truth 
 
 The inward voice not knowing what it saith 
 
 Like a daft maid that hath a tale by rote 
 
 Age after age to immemorial man 
 
 Unwearied nor to weary taketh up 
 
 The world-old parable ! In every tongue 
 
 Speaking of the Sublime and Beautiful 
 
 As of eternal twins, one dark, one fair. 
 
 She leaning on her grand heroic brother 
 
 As in a picture of some old Eomaunt. , 
 
 Amy. Now I will crown thee. 
 
 Balder. Wherefore ? for we rule 
 
 By right which any diadem on earth 
 Nor gives nor takes. Here on this summer bank 
 With neither gold nor tinsel, cap nor croAvn, 
 Hocus nor title, puck nor premier, gown
 
 BALDER. 165 
 
 Nor robe of state, nor conjaring-rod nor sceptre, 
 
 Nor higli nor low grimace of sovereignty, 
 
 To lie here thus and find the earth and air 
 
 Conscious ; or mid their fealty and unclaimed 
 
 Allegiance, free as the wild phantasy 
 
 I follow, and as far from common men. 
 
 Sole wandering like an unasserted god 
 
 Displendoured undeclared but not unknown 
 
 Thro' the sequestered places of my reign. 
 
 Lone glens and glades, dells and enchanted streams, 
 
 Silent hill sides, and holy mountain tops 
 
 Untenanted, without the care of kings 
 
 Counsel or forethought or the toil of change. 
 
 But pausing in mere power where'er I love, 
 
 As the heart beats to people them at will 
 
 From heaven ! — ray Amy, my throned queen, is this 
 
 Royal ? 
 
 Amy. My dread lord, my dear husband, oh 
 
 My teacher, friend, and father, all in one, 
 
 My poet ! 
 
 balder. Shall I do a miracle 
 
 To please thee ? This green realm of thine, this fair 
 
 Sweet hiU is lonely. Yon much-whispering stream 
 
 Interprets no fond lovers ; the old thorn 
 
 Flowers for no village maid ; the aged oak 
 
 Shades not the hoary council of tlie dale ; 
 
 Yet ne'er was silent wilderness more apt 
 
 For vocal habitation. Say wUt thou
 
 16(; BALDER. 
 
 Be inonarcli of a Pastoral ? Shall I 
 Endow thy reign with subjects ? 
 
 Amy. Whence and how ? 
 
 Haider. This empty space above the turf is full 
 Of living shapes, that shapes as yet are not, 
 !Biit possible to my strong-gazing eye 
 Charming the air. Shall tliey come down to thee ? 
 There are necessities they must obey. 
 Laws which these undimensioned wanderers 
 Cry out to think of ; thou hast heard them cry 
 "When we have sat together on the hill 
 Upon a night of wind, for well they know 
 That whoso of their viewless race shall pass 
 Hapless across the field of poet's gaze 
 Is bound. 
 
 Amy. Thou seest him ? 
 
 Balder. I but feel the place 
 
 Informed with presence, which my fixed eye 
 ("Constrains, till having broken the first law 
 The essential motion self-perpetuate 
 Of spirits, and unhesitating change, 
 Time holds and all the sti-aits of lower life 
 Compel. 
 
 Amy. Alas ! Alas ! 
 
 Balder. I see them yield 
 
 Ponderable, visible, subdued 
 To mortal separation and the lot 
 Of self and substance ; flushed with earth, and sad
 
 BALDER. 167 
 
 With human beauty. 
 
 Amy. Pity ! 
 
 Balder. My own Amy ! 
 
 Aviy. Heed it not, Love. A shower out of yon Heaven 
 Depeopled. Tell me. 
 
 Balder. These existences, 
 
 "Won from the elements, and of a life 
 Unknown, nor bounded by the days of ours, 
 Cannot regain estate and order in 
 The evermoving orbit and weird dance 
 Of spirits whence they fell ; which, while mine eye 
 Detains them, desperate, is beyond the verge 
 Ethereal and inexorable revolves 
 Careering thro' the spheres. They, lost, return 
 No more to airy being, but, having touched 
 This globe, are thenceforth a terrestrial part ; 
 Assume our fate, and clothed upon as we 
 Take human functions, but, by gross decess 
 Of organs and the lower use of speech 
 Cannot convey out of their charged souls 
 The secrets of the past ; and looking wrongs 
 Untold, and incommunicable woes. 
 And strange imprisoned joys for ever dumb, 
 Go forth disguised in manhood to enrich 
 A thankless world. 
 
 Thou art wistful, my fair face. 
 To thee I dream. 
 
 Amy. Dream on !
 
 168 BALDER. 
 
 Balder. Nay, not for thee 
 
 The populous fever of a poet's brain. 
 
 Amy. To-day ! To-day ! To-day thou saidst to me 
 I should be with thee in thy Paradise. 
 
 Balder. Aj, but the three days in the heart of the earth ? 
 Dear happy child of sunshine, bless thy lot ! 
 The grave for me ! Tor thee, who watchest in love, 
 The garden of the sepulchre ! 
 
 Amy. I ask not 
 
 To see thine awful visions, but the Prophet, 
 Having come down the hill, interpreteth 
 To feeble ears. And all the shaking signs 
 And thunders of the mountain may be read 
 In whispers. Therefore put me like a sense 
 Behind thine eyes, and let me know the unknown 
 Thicken to apprehension. 
 
 Balder. Come and see. 
 
 At sultry noon, when earth and heaven are still, 
 And everywhere the full and helpless air 
 O'er-fed with summer weighs upon the lids, 
 Hast thou, long looking thro' the trance o' the time 
 To the far misty distance, pale with heat, 
 Beheld what more beheld became a cloud. 
 Mountainous. But, at first, being less than seen. 
 Did stir thee with no more than an unwilled 
 Attention, subtle consciousness of great 
 Approach, as yet beyond the shadowy verge 
 Of knowledge ; which, being grown, became a sense
 
 BALDER. 169 
 
 Of form behind tlie veil, and quickened still 
 Througli the swift dawn of vision to the day 
 Of perfect sight. 
 
 Ask me no more. Alas ! 
 Thine eyes are dim, my child, as if their rays 
 Shone inward ; look forth on me ! This is thine, 
 This sun-light world ! Sport thee, Proserpina, 
 In upper air, with native things that are ! 
 Enough for thee, O fairest, that the flowers 
 Are fair ; enough for them that, being born, 
 Thou takest them to a breast more fair than they. 
 Not thine to seek them in the earth, not thine 
 The gendering caves and secrets where thy spring 
 Is gestate, and the summer yet to be 
 Seethes dark. That underflow and subterrene 
 "Wherein the future heaves, and time to come. 
 Like an embowelled earthquake yet unbelched 
 Disturbs our world, is mine. 
 
 Amy. I cannot play ; 
 
 My heart is heavy with thy strange sad thoughts ; 
 The daisies look too happy ; tell me, love. 
 Some sorrowy history. 
 
 Balder. I had a dream 
 
 Last night ; and it was sad enough to tell 
 In a wan autumn night of falling stars. 
 Thou wert most beautiful, but some dread fate 
 Had touched thee, and dried up the hidden springs 
 Of mortal being ; like a famished plant
 
 170 BALDER. 
 
 Whicli fills its outer blossom from tlie core 
 
 Of vital substance, the material life 
 
 Within thee fed a phantom, and did pass 
 
 Transmuted into beauty. I beheld. 
 
 I clasped thee as the circling shore doth clasp 
 
 The ebbing sea, or one that loves a ghost 
 
 Straineth the vain air in his void embrace ; 
 
 As who should take the snow into his breast, 
 
 I took thee pale and cold, and bared my sword, 
 
 And glaring upon heaven and hell defied 
 
 The hosts to touch thee ; and above, below, 
 
 There was such silence that the bitter laugh 
 
 Within my empty heart rose out of me 
 
 To the four corners of the world, and came 
 
 Back like the mockery of exulting fiends ! 
 
 Thou wert exhaling as a flower that spends 
 
 Its soul in fragrance, and I seized the flower. 
 
 And in the hollow of these passionate hands 
 
 Strove in my mortal agony to shut 
 
 The breath of life ; oh how I cherished thee 
 
 I took thy trembling lamp, and in my robe 
 
 Of love enwinding wrapt it from the wind. 
 
 And made a tabernacle next my heart, 
 
 And drew my soul out of the universe 
 
 To watch it there, and see with deadlier truth 
 
 The soft unflickering flame burn low and low. 
 
 If Death had come to snatch thee from my arms. 
 
 We had fought sore, and my wild grasp had proved
 
 BALDER. 171 
 
 Too strong even for liim ; but thy life died ; 
 
 And while I held thee, faded from my sight 
 
 Like autumn in November. And I hufrged 
 
 — A desperate infidel — the limbs vs'-herefrom 
 
 The sap did sink, and even while I gazed 
 
 The beauty fell. Calling on summer time, 
 
 And giving names of gladness to the sparse 
 
 Sick leaves that waited thin and flushed with death 
 
 The last dread gust, but inly cursing Grod, 
 
 And groaning in my soul for whom so lay 
 
 In straits like mine. Then, in the wont of dreams, 
 
 We were apart. As wlien some pair in lands 
 
 Of buried thunder, walk forth side by side, — 
 
 The unknown line of fate between — and earth 
 
 Tawns, and each, moonstruck, on a separate shore 
 
 Receding diverse, swift thro' sounding glooms. 
 
 Knows but a lengthening distance and a black 
 
 Abyss. Anon, I must return ; what sprite 
 
 Of eager evil rode upon the wind 
 
 I wist not, and I knew not in my dream 
 
 What dreadful need compelled me, nor what hands 
 
 Innumerable, wheresoe'er I turned. 
 
 Thrust me to thee ; nor how thro' ill on ill, 
 
 Battling and bruised, with the blind might of love 
 
 I sought thee, nor why drawing near I saw 
 
 One as expectant on the threshold stand. 
 
 And one that kept the stair, and ready doors 
 
 Oped as I came, and no man asked me whence,
 
 172 BALDER. 
 
 Till at the highest of the creaking house 
 
 Lo the strewn rushes, and a hush of awe ! 
 
 And some who in the way would check my speed 
 
 With words unheard ; and, through the whispered press, 
 
 Fevered and loud the dread and hissing breath 
 
 Of mortal throes. Then cried I once as he 
 
 Who takes his death, and sprang in, and fell down 
 
 Wild on my knees beside thee, thee upon 
 
 A low poor pallet by the hasty hand 
 
 Of pity rudely curtained, and above 
 
 The bed, thro' a mean lattice wide for air, 
 
 The still and starry heaven that I saw not 
 
 Shone. I rent back what hid thee, and beheld 
 
 The tortured witness of thy dying face. 
 
 Thy face. 
 
 Which thou didst lift a little way to me. 
 
 Silent, as conscious all the fearful tale 
 
 Was writ there, and didst creep upon the arms 
 
 That clasped thee, and being pillowed once again 
 
 On the sole breast where thou coiddst sleep in peace. 
 
 The struggling life gave way before the wont 
 
 Of rest. The painful limbs contract with pangs 
 
 iielented, and with sudden weight and strange 
 
 The fleshless form wan as a withered child 
 
 Sank low. I felt ; and a great wind of fear 
 
 Struck down my heart, and deadly consciousness 
 
 Of present evil met an outer sea 
 
 Of flooding ill unknown, that surged me in
 
 BALDEK. 173 
 
 From all the black horizon of the night, 
 
 Drowning the world. I clenched thee where my heart 
 
 Had broken, but thou stretched out madest no sign. 
 
 No, tho' I bent above thy face, and all 
 
 The throbbing functions of my desperate life 
 
 Forsworn that thou didst live, stood still to see. 
 
 Thy tongue is silent, and thy moveless breast — 
 
 Thou hast gone down out of thine eyes, 'tis dust 
 
 The tugging earth doth claim ; the strife is o'er, 
 
 And the stern universe too strong for me. 
 
 Then I looked up, and a great inward cry, 
 
 "With the whole utterless strength of my mad soul. 
 
 Arose. Whereat my inner frame convulsed 
 
 Quaked and rocked Reason from her seat. No man 
 
 Heard it, no, not the listening mourners round 
 
 The chamber door, no, not thyself, tho' late 
 
 Perception lingered in the ear of Death ; 
 
 But it filled Heaven, Amy, and the very stars 
 
 Shook. 
 
 "Wherefore art thou putting back the wind 
 As if it were an enemy ? Alas 
 
 Her flushed cheeks ! and her hands upon her brow ! 
 My little Amy, I am near, fear not ! 
 "We are awake ! I touch thee with my hand ! 
 Thou hast not stirred — this is the very place 
 "Where we two sat, and knew that we were happy — 
 It must be well with thee — 
 
 Amy. My pain ! my pain !
 
 174 BALDER. 
 
 Oh Husband, tell me it is evening ; say 
 
 The sun is set ; say it is dark to thee ; 
 
 No, no, it comes ! it comes ! Husband ! it comes ! 
 
 Like a great Vampyre blackening all the air 
 
 Milking the day of light and sucking blood 
 
 Out of the cheeks o'the World. My pain ! my pain ! [Pauses. 
 
 Why dost look wretched Husband ? we are fools. 
 
 No there was nothing fair ! 'twas all a dream ! 
 
 A flight of happy angels stopped to rest 
 
 And stood upon the earth and hid it out ! 
 
 And now they rise again ; hark how they rise ! 
 
 And all that seemed the sui'face of the world 
 
 Groes up, and the foul earth is like a skull 
 
 Scalped of its golden hair. Do not go up ! 
 
 Do not go up ! I catch your skirts ! my child. 
 
 My little child, my little child, — me also — 
 
 Me also — oh me also ! 
 
 balder. The sun shines, 
 
 This flower is the same colour ; the bird sings ; 
 The clouds, the plain, the mountains, are not changed. 
 
 SCENE XXV. 
 The Study. Balder, solus. 
 
 Balder. Who is He 
 To whom this toilsome and producing earth 
 Is as a cunning workman ? what are they
 
 BALDEK. 175 
 
 Whose lot is to enjoy as ours to lose ? 
 To what fair soil do they transplant our bliss 
 And batten on the harvests that did sprout 
 In blood of ours ? 
 
 "Where be those planted fields 
 Wherein the everlasting flowers are full 
 That budded here ; — whose tender germs, forsooth, 
 In all the universe could find no place 
 Warm as this bosom, and that would not root 
 Save in a human heart ? 
 
 Where art thoii, joy 
 Of yesterday ? In whatsoever world 
 Whatever eyes inherit thee, what lips 
 AVould taste, what hands majestical possess 
 What breast contain, I interdict them all ! 
 Thou art mine ! Do thou but bless them with thy least 
 Enjoyment and I curse thee with my curse, 
 A Father's ! What ! am I but dung, you Heavens, 
 To grow your lush delights ? 
 
 Fool, fool, fool, fool ! 
 What is the flower but that on which it fed ? 
 The same continued atoms now reset 
 In fashion to be glorious ? Are we not 
 As he who lay a hundred years ago 
 In yon cross road, an elm-stake thro' his midst 
 That burgeoned, and he went up thro' its veins 
 Out of Ills prison into tlie bright air 
 And laughed green leaves, and so his felon shame
 
 176 BALDER. 
 
 His rotting shame, dark in the wormy earth, 
 Sprang to a tree, that with ten thousand hands 
 Greets the familiar winds, and fii'st and last 
 Salutes the sun ? 
 
 Ay, if I could go up ! 
 If all these whirling passions lifted me 
 As whirlwinds Kft the sea or the Simoom 
 Dust such as I ! 
 
 Oh Earth, that every year 
 Conceivest and hast no power to bring forth, 
 And year by year beginnest a psalm unsuug. 
 So as with thee is it with all of thiae ? 
 As one who in a crowd of recreant men 
 Begins a chant of freedom, and with brow 
 Lift to the glowing sun, sings the first stave 
 Triumphant, but no ring of bold refrain 
 Surrounds him pausing for the wonted shout. 
 And he looks down to pallid lips and eyes 
 And all the silent treason, and, undone. 
 Sinks on the sward, and hides his shamed face ; 
 So ever looking to a golden time 
 At each new year, impatient, thou criest out 
 " There shall be ! " — and art silent, casting dust 
 Upon thine head. 
 
 Oh, season ever new. 
 Oh Spring that risest with us, sun by sun ! 
 "Whither thine hurrying stream, where thy full tide. 
 Thy neap excess, and overflow ? AVhat vale
 
 BALDER. 177 
 
 Far off in heaven, dost thou yearly flood 
 "With rainbow waters worthy of thy well, 
 Ah fountain Arethuse ? For never here 
 Thy consummation ; but what time we hail 
 Thine outleap, and the pulsing channels sing 
 Somewhat beyond the verdurous verge drinks down 
 The sudden waters, leaving yellow sands 
 That autumn gathers, till the rock beneath 
 Shines in the frost of winter. 
 
 Where on earth 
 Is the unknown meridian of that day 
 Wliich to the Morn I met upon the east, 
 Should be as man to babe ? Doth the young moon 
 Complete her promised light or multiply 
 Her beauty by her days ? 
 
 Where is that rose 
 Which he who gave its bud as hieroglyph 
 Of budding love would own the equal sign 
 Of love's full-fliowered perfection ? 
 
 Of what blood 
 And changeling race are we who fill this earth, 
 Whereunto, hour by hour of every day 
 And night of all its fruitful centuries, 
 Children are born ? 
 
 Oh little child, girl-child. 
 Last daughter of the old manorial house 
 In the green village, thou who when the sun 
 Is rising, and above, below, around,
 
 178 BALDER. 
 
 The dew-drops sliine, as every bougli and spray 
 
 Blade leaf small petal and least acrospire 
 
 Tea, the unbodied joyance of the air 
 
 Had eyes, and smiled to see him, comest forth 
 
 Into the morning as an element 
 
 Of such etherial season duly sweet 
 
 And sweetly due, while singing birds and bees 
 
 Sound like the bubbling of that stream of day 
 
 Whereby thou, tripping, givest song for song ! 
 
 Tair happy child, who goest at thy will 
 
 Into the sunny midst as a white bird 
 
 Into the crystal water that reflects 
 
 Spotless a spotless image, pure in pure. 
 
 And each unlessened still enhancing each, — 
 
 The image whitens the white wave, the w^ave 
 
 Adds the pure image to the floating snow ; — 
 
 Thou who art native to the good of all ; 
 
 Eor whom the unsullied fairness of the earth 
 
 G uards not herself, nor deprecating hands 
 
 Mystic arise out of the Beautiful 
 
 To put thee from the beauty ; who dost tread 
 
 The daisies like a morning-wind and spiU 
 
 Dews from lithe buttercups that fiU again 
 
 With drops of pleasure ; Oh thou unknown essence ! 
 
 So near the eyes, so distant from the heart, 
 
 When dost thou take our nature, and become 
 
 iso more than we ? Something within her looks 
 
 A strange light through her lashes, and a joy
 
 BALDER. 179 
 
 Beyond our throb. It cannot be that tliis 
 Abideth witb her, for sucli bliss fulfilled 
 Thro' all the coming seasons that must yet 
 Accomplish woman, and increasing still 
 Within the ampler temple, were a sight 
 To breed rebellion in the universe. 
 Burn every world with jealousy of her's, 
 Summer this earth, and make the schooldame Nature 
 Break thro' the ill-assumed severity 
 Of her enforced aspect, with a cry 
 Be all the mother, catch thee to her heart, 
 Begin the golden ages, and in thee 
 Eestore mankind. Therefore, thou most fair child. 
 Here thou hast no completion. In what hour 
 Of what set night wilt thou give up this ghost, 
 Exhaled as the last fragrance from a flower 
 Unchanged in hue ? Upon what destined morn 
 Shall she come down a stranger to the board 
 Where the same face and form shall take a place 
 Not hers, and answer to familiar names 
 That have no owner upon earth ? Of them 
 Who loved her is there one who shall be grave 
 With an unconscious sorrow, knowing nought. 
 But saying in himself, since such a day 
 My heart is poorer ? Is there one of all, 
 Who thinking of a blissful time gone by 
 Tliat floats in on his day-dream like sweet air 
 From heaven, sun-bright and full of golden sounds 
 
 n2
 
 180 BALDER. 
 
 Going and coming, at one happy voice 
 
 Among the choir, starting, shall cry " Ah whose ? " 
 
 And muse, and pass his hand across his brow 
 
 Perplexed ? Will they be sodden with a spell, 
 
 Kor Hft astonished eyes and hands to see 
 
 Her shining crescent fill no fuller moon 
 
 Than others ? Nor so much as droop a lid 
 
 Sighing, as when the pulsing heart of youth 
 
 In mere abundance of young life's excess 
 
 Beats an unknown approach that never comes, 
 
 And we look up expecting, and look down 
 
 With melancholy wisdom mildly sad, 
 
 Smiling moralities ? 
 
 They will behold. 
 And she shall grow and marry, breed and die, 
 Even as her mother, and of many none 
 Shall question her. Nevertheless at last 
 Truth shall be justified. Of them who deck 
 Her bier, or chant her thro' the pompous aisle, 
 Or load the blazoned marble with her broad 
 And gravid virtues, or in sable grief 
 Swell the dark progress winding long and slow, 
 Stately to honourable tombs, no hand 
 Will write upon her coflBn, " This is she 
 Who played among the roses." 
 
 Bitter heart, 
 That art so sternly just, is she as far 
 From the dear promise of her youth as thou
 
 BALDER. 181 
 
 From yesterday ? 
 
 Thou little phantom child, 
 
 That merely passing thro' my tranced soul, 
 
 Hast left thy bright path, like the quivering track 
 
 Of any fleeting star, what is that scheme 
 
 Of life where this divine emotion finds 
 
 Its equal place, and in the balanced whole 
 
 Of still renewed proportion gives and takes 
 
 Worthy consent ? "Where doth the Man complete 
 
 The Poet ? My chief impulse, and king- thought. 
 
 Capital virtue, and consummate act, 
 
 To what consorted system, yet unknown, 
 
 Do these belong ? Of what colossal frame 
 
 Do I, like some rude hewer of the rock, 
 
 Dishume the giant Hmb from my rent heart, 
 
 And cannot guess its feUows ? 
 
 Mystery 
 
 Of mysteries, like some great vapouring cloud 
 
 Topping a cumulous Heaven of mysteries ! 
 
 [A long pause. 
 
 Have we been all at fault ? Are we the sons 
 Of pilgrim sires who left their lovelier land, 
 And do we call inhospitable climes 
 By names they brought from home ? 
 
 Who shall declare ? 
 Which of us hath beheld what first was called 
 " Order" ? Since bad hath worse, who testifies 
 That our serenest spectacle is not
 
 182 BALDER, 
 
 The prime Confusion ? Wliere the human sight 
 That ever looked on what they name in Heaven 
 Beauty and Good ? 
 
 That which we fondly deem 
 A happy universe of part with part 
 Well-placed, and call it the full countenance 
 And noblest front of things, I could believe 
 To be upon the very skirts of God, 
 Ay where they roll in tumult, and do flap 
 In the wind of his going. 
 
 This is Chaos, 
 The Chaos whereof Poets sang, and sing 
 Unconscious, never having seen or heard 
 The harmony of Nature. This broad light 
 Is darkness. I who speak of me and mine. 
 Am but a living hand rent from its trunk 
 In the black vortex, and amid the waste 
 Of loaded disproportion and the foul 
 Incongruous ferment of these elements 
 AVhich might be worlds and men, touching at once 
 The grains of all unlikeness, to and fro 
 And up and down among the seething mass 
 YoT ever lifted, grasping dust or flame. 
 Each while I hold it Me, and each alike 
 Put out for any other. Nought between 
 A god's heart and the abominable extremes 
 0£ the worst brood of sin's most loathsome world 
 Impossible ; nought certain but the pain 
 Of finding all unsure.
 
 BALDER. 183 
 
 SCENE XXVI. 
 
 The Study. Balder, soliis. Through the door the voice of Amy. 
 
 Amy. Surely the Lord is cruel but to me, 
 And over boimteous to the race of men 
 "Witli mercy taken from mj single lot. 
 
 I am the dwarf of this great family, 
 
 The favoured lips do drink the wine of Hfe, 
 
 And all the mingled lees fill up my fate. 
 
 I am a place where music music meets. 
 Putting it out ; by how much joy is loud, 
 I am the darker silence : all the lines 
 Of sorrow cross above mv wretched head. 
 
 They are grown sour with sweetness, they are proud 
 AVitli pleasure, they care not to keep awake 
 Even to be happy. Like a slave they bid 
 Their bliss abide their time, and, Like a slave, 
 It fans their happy faces while they sleep. 
 
 Ah Heaven ! they sleep upon the flowery banks. 
 And daylight flowers fill them with honey-dreams. 
 And pleasured smiles do light their languid lips. 
 
 Ah Heaven ! they stand amid the fruited trees,
 
 184 BALDER. 
 
 The golden-fruited trees, and every wind 
 Daubs the ripe fruit upon their sated lips. 
 
 Ah Heaven ! they lie beside the living stream, 
 And the superfluous stream o'er-wells his banks. 
 And laps sweet waters to their happy lips. 
 
 Where they do most enjoy my need is worst ; 
 The living cup they spill would save my life ; 
 The joy that wearies them would give me rest. 
 
 I lie down in the night but cannot sleep ; 
 I keep vain vigil for my plighted bKss ; 
 I strain after the fruit I may not touch, 
 And cannot reach the river tho' I die ! 
 
 SCENE XXVII. 
 
 The Study. Baider, solus. 
 
 Balder. And is this your device, you Heavens, 
 When ye would have the music of our groans ? 
 The feeble lamentations of such pale 
 Hereditary anguish as is born 
 To pangs, and with the dread entail receives 
 Inheritance of patience, the dull howl 
 With which accustomed guilt receives his stripe 
 In skin that thickens to the lash, each ill
 
 BALDER. 185 
 
 That carries with the wrong the slow redress 
 
 Cries not for you ; the lax and languid strings, 
 
 Which Natiu-e, careful of herself, doth loose 
 
 To save her heart, cannot ring out such sounds 
 
 As startle pleasure in your sated ears. 
 
 They should be giants who make sport for gods ! 
 
 As we enjoy we suffer ; legends teU 
 
 That Eden is the utter wilderness, 
 
 And the archangel's stature did become 
 
 The measure of the fiend. Therefore, ye eld 
 
 And sager gods, whose reeking Vulture once 
 
 Did gorge your youthful vengeance on the rock 
 
 In Crete, ye have grown wise, and no more 
 
 Subtract the needful vitals that may throb 
 
 A lustier pang, nor bleed the bull ye bait. 
 
 Prometheus, keep thine heart ! There is no trick 
 
 Of HeU's contrivance that can plague thee so, 
 
 Nor with as subtle mastery dispense 
 
 Such dire infliction ! Even the rude skiU 
 
 Of mortal cruelty hath learned to breed 
 
 The gladiator to die hard ; and they 
 
 AVho roast the human feast upon the shore 
 
 Do supple him with kindness. "What nice nerve 
 
 Thrills the best pleasure twangs the sorest pain ; 
 
 The sense that faints with bliss will faint with woe ; 
 
 And he who dieth of a rose is damned 
 
 Upon the thorn. Therefore, ye jubilant gods, 
 
 Pamper the victim, fill his veins with joy.
 
 186 BALDER. 
 
 Build him of soft endurance, tender and strong 
 
 As a flayed lion ; finish each stern power 
 
 To such an exquisite final that it ends 
 
 A plumed feeling ; let delicatesse 
 
 Weave his thin cuticle, and mesh him in ; 
 
 Be his most sensitive structure the extreme 
 
 That meets and makes a whole with matchless strenfth- 
 
 Even as the dread Apocalyptic beasts 
 
 AVere full of eyes. Thews of asbestos, ribs 
 
 Of adamant, wound in so fine a thread 
 
 Of life produced and ambient that he stands 
 
 The heroic total of great opposites ; 
 
 Pirm as a tower in any wind that blows. 
 
 And trembling to a fragrance in the wind ! 
 
 Then on some human pyre whose dainty frame, 
 
 As 'twere of frankincense and gums of Ind, 
 
 His vital heat might warm into decay, 
 
 Stretch him out, like the prophet on the dead, 
 
 Limb upon fateful limb, and bind him down 
 
 "With the strong bonds of love, and rivet fast 
 
 What everlasting anguish could not break ! 
 
 And fire the pile ! and let your ready flames 
 
 Wrap the incumbent health and scorch the strength 
 
 They not consume ! unguarded, unsuspect, 
 
 Naked, and toiled, not as a hero falls. 
 
 Nor in the wont of battle to receive 
 
 His fate, and, by contending, half subdue ; 
 
 But bound and prone, expatiate with nice art
 
 BALDER. 187 
 
 To the invenient horror, oped and spread 
 To the elective lust of keener flame, 
 Lifting with incommunicable throes 
 The inevitable torment, leaping high 
 In vain and higher, every desperate strain 
 Stirring new fires that burn a loftier bound 
 That fans worse anguish and more wild despair 
 For ever self-renewed, let him plunge, gods, 
 And cheer Olympus ! 
 
 SCENE XXYIII. 
 
 The Study. Balder. Enter Dr. Paul. 
 
 Balder. Come ? Thanks ! 
 
 Doctor. How ? is she worse ? 
 
 Balder. I know not that. 
 
 I sent for thee to hear yet once again 
 The story of her sorrows. 
 
 Doctor. The old errand ! 
 
 Balder. Not so. Thou hast been here in. vain to seek 
 A hope, but I send for thee now to find. 
 Cure her ! 
 
 Doctor. Eour solemn times within this month 
 Have I told thee 
 
 Balder. Paul, Paul, if I can bear 
 
 My portion in this venture dost thou blench
 
 188 BALDER. 
 
 At ttine ? Is it so very mucli tliat thou 
 
 Who canst sit careless of the stars, whose hand 
 
 Shakes not ah-eady with adverse aspects, 
 
 Shouldst draw the horoscope once more for me 
 
 And cast the fates anew ? 'Tis the last time. 
 
 I swear that what conjuncts for bliss or bale 
 
 This sovereign hour determines I accept 
 
 As doom. Therefore be patient. Strain thy skill ! 
 
 Draw it so well that were the burning sun 
 
 Nought but an eyeball, and his sight to thine 
 
 As he to thee, he could not magnify 
 
 Thv deviation ! Thine art is not mine, 
 
 I am no Esculapian, but I know 
 
 Less alteration than our sense can mete 
 
 Would make the inexorable asymptote 
 
 Close like fond hps. Get thee new instruments ; 
 
 No pinhole points and measure of mortal hairs. 
 
 But compass that shall set his foot between 
 
 Two feathers of a butterfly ; a scale 
 
 Scored with 
 
 Doctor. Well, well, I'U see her, and do my best. 
 
 But hope for nought ; if even thine anxious gaze — 
 And love is more than science, — can discern 
 No better sign. 
 
 Balder. Full many a time and oft 
 
 I have sat still thro' aU a summer day, 
 And listened to its change as to a book 
 Bead by untiring lips. Thou wouldst have sworn
 
 BALDER. 189 
 
 The day was like a field of buttercups, 
 Where every shining moment stood and smiled 
 Beside his golden likeness ; but not I ! 
 I know the hours, and call them by their names, 
 As a shepherd his sheep. So in thy world 
 The microcosm 
 
 Doctor. Ah that word microcosm ! 
 
 A true word, my dear poet, a true word, 
 For in sis days Grod makes us, and, alas, 
 If the seventh day wherein He rests be not 
 The sabbath of the grave — 
 
 Balder. In that world, Paul, 
 
 AVhich is thy study, as this other mine, 
 I would look with thine eyes. 
 
 Doctor. As you will, friend. 
 
 ShaU I go in ? 
 
 Balder. Ay, no, I had forgotten ; 
 
 She sleeps ; I'U waken her. 
 
 Doctor. Not hastily. 
 
 Balder. With saddest music. 
 
 [Goes to his harp hy the open windoic. 
 Do ye well to smile 
 Superior, ye wise Heavens, because ye see 
 I am a coward and fool Time to keep 
 Fate at the door ? All this and more I know 
 No less than you. I am aa wise as you 
 
 If this be wisdom ! I pray you cloud over. 
 
 [Balder sings.
 
 190 BALDER. 
 
 In the hall the coffin waits, and the idle armourer stands, 
 At his belt the coffin nails, and the hammer in his hands. 
 The bed of state is hung with crape — the grand old bed 
 
 where she was wed — 
 And like an upright corpse she sitteth gazing dumbly at 
 
 the bed. 
 Hour by hour her serving men enter by the curtained door, 
 And with steps of muffled woe pass breathless o'er the silent 
 
 floor. 
 And marshal mutely round, and look from each to each with 
 
 eye-lids red, 
 " Toucli him not," she shrieked and cried, " he is but newly 
 
 dead!" 
 " Oh, my own dear mistress," her ancient Nurse did say, 
 " Seven long days and seven long nights you have watched 
 
 him where he lay." 
 " Seven long days and seven long nights," the hoary Steward 
 
 said, 
 " Seven long days and seven long nights," groaned the War- 
 
 rener grey, 
 " Seven," said the old Henchman, and bowed his aged head; 
 " On your lives ! " she shrieked and cried, " he is but newly 
 
 dead !" 
 
 Then a father Priest they sought, 
 The priest that taught her all she knew. 
 And they told him of her loss. 
 " For she is mild and sweet of will, 
 She loved him, and his words are peace.
 
 BALDEK. 191 
 
 And he shall heal her ill." 
 
 But her watch she did not cease. 
 
 He blest her where she sat distraught, 
 
 And showed her holy cross, — 
 
 The cross she kissed from year to year — 
 
 But she neither saw nor heard ; 
 
 And said he in her deaf ear 
 
 All he had been wont to teach, 
 
 All she had been fond to hear, 
 
 Missalled prayer, and solemn speecli. 
 
 But she answered not a word. 
 Only when he turned to speak with those who wept about 
 
 the bed, 
 " On your lives !" she shrieked and cried, " he is but newly 
 dead ! " 
 
 Then how sadly he turned from her it were wonderful to tell, 
 And he stood beside the death-bed as by one who slumbers 
 
 well, 
 And he leaned o'er him who lay there, and in cautious 
 
 whisper low, 
 "He is not dead, but sleepeth," said the Priest, and smoothed 
 
 his brow. 
 " Sleepeth ? " said she, looking up, and the sun rose in her 
 
 face ! 
 " He must be better than I thought, for the sleep is very 
 
 sound." 
 " He is better," said the Priest, and called her maidens round.
 
 192 BALDER. 
 
 With them came that ancient dame who nursed her when a 
 
 child ; 
 " Oh Nurse," she sighed, " oh Nurse," she cried, "oh Nurse ! " 
 and then she smiled, 
 
 And then she wept ; with that thej drew 
 
 About her, as of old ; 
 
 Her dying eyes were sweet and blue. 
 
 Her trembling touch was cold ; 
 
 But she said, " my maidens true 
 
 No more weeping and well-away ; 
 
 Let them kill the feast. 
 
 I would be happy in my soul. 
 
 ' He is better,' saith the Priest ; 
 
 He did but sleep the weary day, 
 
 And will waken whole. 
 
 Carry me to his dear side. 
 
 And let the halls be trim ; 
 
 AVhistly, whistly," said she, 
 
 " I am wan with watching and wail, 
 
 He must not wake to see me pale, 
 
 Let me sleep with him. 
 
 See you keep the tryst for me, 
 
 I would rest till he awake 
 
 And rise up like a bride. 
 
 But whistly, whistly ! " said she. 
 
 " Yet rejoice your Lord doth live; 
 
 And for his dear sake 
 
 Sav Laus Domine."
 
 BALDER. 193 
 
 Silent they cast down their eyes, 
 
 And every breast a sob did rive, 
 
 She lifted her in wild surprise 
 
 And they dared not disobey. 
 •'Laus Deo," said the Steward, hoary when her days were new, 
 "Laus Deo," said the Warrener, whiter than the warren 
 
 snows ; 
 " Laus Deo," the bald Henchman, who had nursed her on 
 his knee. 
 
 The old Nurse moved her lips in vain 
 
 And she stood among the train 
 
 Like a dead tree shaking dew. 
 
 Then the Priest he softly stept 
 
 Midway in the little band 
 
 And he took the Lady's hand 
 
 " Laus Deo ! " he said, aloud 
 
 " Laus Deo," they said again 
 
 Tet again, and yet again, 
 
 Humbly crossed and lowly bowed. 
 
 Till in wont and fear it rose 
 
 To the Sabbath strain. 
 
 But she neither turned her head 
 
 Nor " whistly, whistly," said she. 
 
 Her hands were folded as in grace 
 
 We laid her with her ancient race 
 
 And all the village wept. 
 Balder. I think she stirs. Go in ! 
 
 [The Doctor enters, remains, and reappears.
 
 194 BALDER. 
 
 Balder. Is there no change ? 
 
 Doctor. None that brings hope. 
 
 Balder. That day seems scarcely past — 
 
 That day of ■ 
 
 Doctor. My poor friend, when a ship strikes 
 
 Long time on the mad surge she heaves and falls, 
 And dips in winds and waves her leaning spars : 
 Till, like a dying horse, with a last plunge 
 She rises, reels, and over from the reef 
 Goes mast-down in the deep. To see her rise 
 Rises the landsman's cheer along the shore, 
 And sinks with her. 
 
 Balder. Enough. 
 
 Paul, long ago 
 I said a time would come to raise the veil 
 On yonder scroll. Lift it to day. I owe 
 No less excuse for my relentless gripe, 
 And thy still barren labour. Eead out, Paul, 
 Por I would hear what I have lost ; albeit 
 To me those words are but a rosary, 
 As unlike what they count as beads and prayers. 
 Head slowly, and with a minute respect. 
 As thou wouldst touch the enchanted elements 
 On a magician's table — poor to look on. 
 But things that, being moved, perplex the stars. 
 And knot the threads of Nature. Do but fail 
 Or falter, and by Heaven ! I strike thee dead ! 
 Aye, marvel at me, for thou knowest not
 
 BALDER. 195 
 
 What I shall see. For tliee, as men infer 
 From maps and charts the living earth and heavens, 
 Learn there what once was she — what is she now 
 Thou knowest. 
 
 Doctor (aside). He is pale, — pale to his lips, 
 His eye is set. I'll humour him. 
 
 [Doctor lifts the veil, and reads the scroll beneath. 
 
 (Beads). " In hee, 
 
 Nature's first thought was beauty ; she conceived 
 Her image sitting in her robe of white 
 Thinking of spring, and, at the fancy moved. 
 Smiling breathed softly, and did turn to make 
 The firstling snowdrop of the stainless year. 
 And, as the year arose, her fairer thought 
 Took substance, and, consummate in her care. 
 Grew with the growing year ; for at her will 
 Day after day past by, and passing dropt 
 Its own memorial flower, the better sign 
 Of all ; and night by night, when shades are deep, 
 And that mysterious sorrow is transact 
 Unseen, and there is weeping in the air, 
 She, understanding all, midst common dews. 
 Caught the accepted tear that makes the liour 
 So holy. Nor herself in greater deeds 
 Forgot the less, thro' each surpassing mood 
 In which with higlier ecstasy she wrought 
 Abundant summer, whatsoe'er confessed 
 Her happier hand — elect and dedicate 
 
 2
 
 196 BALDER. 
 
 Encreased the secret store ; and over all 
 
 Frequent and fond with dainty change and wise — 
 
 As meet perfection of each part admits 
 
 Phoebus or Dian, — various balm of life 
 
 She poured from golden and from silver vase 
 
 Of sun and moon. But when the year was grown, 
 
 (And sweet by warmer sweet to nuptial June 
 
 The flowery adolescence slowly filled, 
 
 Till in a passion of Eoses all the time 
 
 Flushed, and around the glowing Heavens made suit) 
 
 And onward through the rank and buxom days, 
 
 Tho' she ceased not to work and help the year 
 
 Great with the burden of the honeyed past. 
 
 And gave her good deliverance and great pomp 
 
 Of harvest, and in royal glory robed 
 
 Matron and mother, to her dearer hoard 
 
 She added nought, nor what her love had hid 
 
 Unclosed before the broad unclouded face 
 
 And heated welfare of the lusty world. 
 
 But when the destiny that haunts the proud 
 
 Did tardy judgement, and the prosperous year, 
 
 Struck in her young maternity, beheld 
 
 First born and last lie low, and wrapping wild 
 
 The early mists about her, on the ground 
 
 Amid her prostrate hopes disconsolate 
 
 Sat veiled ; or standing forth Avith upstretched hands 
 
 And strange appealing eyes, and wildered face 
 
 Hectic with fate, looked like her spring-time self
 
 BALDER, 197 
 
 Transfigured on some martyr pile of woe 
 
 Seen through the flame ; then Natui'e knew her hour 
 
 And at conjunction of the setting signs 
 
 Opened her sacred Casket and took forth 
 
 Well-pleased: and of the lone and latter rose 
 
 Pale Autumn violets, and all hapless blooms 
 
 Did make in mournful fragrance sadly sweet 
 
 The mortal breath of beauty." 
 
 Balder. Do not smile ! 
 
 This is no dream, for she came in September, 
 And if she were o'erlaid with lily -leaves, 
 And substantived by mere content of dews, 
 Or limbed of flower-stalks and sweet pedicels, 
 Or made of golden dust from thigh of bees, 
 Or caught of morning mist, or the unseen 
 Material of an odour, her pure text 
 Could seem no more remote from the corrupt 
 And seething compound of our common flesh ! 
 Nay, as I oft have told thee — a whole year 
 Ere she was born, her mother fed on fruits. 
 Read on. Sir Science, for thou readest truth ! 
 Truth is a Janus, Paul, but either face 
 Herself, therefore be reverent 
 
 Doctor reads. " I have seen 
 
 The poet in his pride, who of his urns 
 And lachrymals and crystal chalices 
 Hath one, most treasured of his treasure-house, 
 To which he goeth only with full heart
 
 198 BALDER. 
 
 And leaves the fulness there ; ambrosial blood 
 As of that cluster, weeping wine, wherein 
 The blessing is, its vintage all unpressed 
 Save by the purple and spontaneous touch 
 Of too abundant being. Nature thus 
 The Poet Nature singing to herself — 
 Did make Her in sheer love, having delight 
 Of all her work, and doing all for joy. 
 And built her like a Temple wherein cost 
 Is absolute, dark beam and hidden raft 
 Shittim, each secret work and covert use 
 Fragrant and golden, all the virgin walls 
 Pure, and within without, prive and apert. 
 Prom buried plinth to viewless pinnacle 
 Enriched to Grod. 
 
 "Ah, was the very air 
 Etherial round her, so that whoso breathed 
 Eevived to his best nature and grew bright 
 Por her sake, as a mote from dim to dim 
 Sails the sunbeam ? — What deity indwelt 
 Her still small voice, which was her perfect self 
 Audible — that most happy voice, which when 
 It rose to gladness made men rich and glad 
 Unminished, and receiving but to spend 
 Sweeter abundance with a lovelier will. 
 Gayer for gaiety, but of the gay 
 Still gayest, as bright sun o'er brightened fields 
 Seems brighter, gaining from the light he gives.
 
 BALDER. 199 
 
 That voice which was to sorrow as its sigh, 
 
 And by the side of wonted circumstance 
 
 Went as the tinkle of Titania's feet, 
 
 Einging the hour of day on fairy bells 
 
 Marriage or funeral. Nor less blessed when 
 
 It fell into the bosom of the poor 
 
 Like gold and silver. That dear voice which when 
 
 She sang her Hfe, the charmed listener hearing, 
 
 Accepted for consummate loveliness 
 
 Till she was mute, and, his divided soul 
 
 Eeturning to the eyes, her silent beauty 
 
 By the higher sense perceived, seemed insomuch 
 
 Diviner music. 
 
 " Oft have I admired 
 When the poor wayfarer on whom she looked 
 Clothed in his tattered fortune did take rank 
 A moment in her smile, and could not ask 
 The alms his famine craved ; the passing thief 
 Had virtue in her service, and the clown 
 Grace to be hers. The maimed who chanced to meet 
 Her far-off beauty on the way, aside 
 Drew into shadow till she passed, nor begged 
 Aught that might turn the light of her fair face 
 On the too conscious fault ; and Lazarus 
 Covered his sores with deeper sense of ill. 
 Eude country -wives to whom in lane or mead 
 Happened her sweet regards, with honoured face 
 And thankful did obeisance going by
 
 200 BALDER. 
 
 As owning bounty and a duty known 
 Unschooled ; the village children at the door — 
 Little two-year children — having gazed, 
 Ean to her as she passed and caught her skirt 
 And looking up laughed strange intelligence, 
 Abashed and pleased, in the mere act repaid. 
 And wiser than the three-score-years-and-ten 
 That chid the holy freedom, being purblind. 
 Eor they who saw her were as one who knows 
 A mystic sign and smiles with consciousness. 
 There is a soul unto the grosser sense 
 Of spoken language, an unuttered thought 
 Virgin and peerless, which no man hath said 
 Nor hath the hope to hear upon the earth, 
 Tho' it be dear as the unbodied dream 
 Of early love, familiar as the wife 
 Upon his breast, albeit untouched as maids 
 In Paradise. In every human speech 
 No speaker but hath with him, undeclared. 
 This angel ; and doth bear about a thing 
 Too lovely for his lips, beloved unnamed. 
 As every heart upon its secret, so 
 The world did look on her ! Where'er she went 
 Nature in dale or hill, in cot or grove 
 Owned her, and in the shepherd or the lamb 
 Confest no less. The Lamb which to her knee 
 Came fearless, unsuspicious of the gray 
 Grim guardian of the fold who harmed her not
 
 BALDER. 201 
 
 Nor challenged her just right what-time she took 
 The lambkin, willing, to her purer breast. 
 Thus or in haunts beloved or foreign fields 
 Her equal way was all among her own 
 Unquestioned still, nor anywhere or new 
 Or strange. "We had a wonted bower, secluse. 
 Of honeysuckle wild in mossy dell 
 Facing the noon, and sheltered from the north 
 By denser shade ; flowery it was and deep. 
 And caught the flowiug light as chaliced leaves 
 The sunset. In the ianer sanctities 
 Shy birds did nest, and all the summer through 
 Entering with tumult of distress I shook 
 The troubled verdure, but she came at will 
 And sat there ; and the birds went in and out 
 As tho' she were so merely beautiful 
 That nought betrayed her limits and she mixed 
 She, undistinguished — with the love-lit air 
 The fragrance and the summer joy that lived 
 In that green bower. 
 
 " So lovely in her rest 
 More lovely her awakened beauty played 
 The smiling pastime of her innocent life 
 Gracious and holy, wherein fairest thought 
 And fond performance thro' melodious hours 
 Rhymed like a gentle ballad. All she did 
 Expressed her. The mild lore and simple arts 
 She knew and loved might exercise unblamed
 
 202 BALDER. 
 
 Chaste Flora's self or wliat pure essence warms 
 
 The happy difference of a morn of May. 
 
 Song and answering lute, and mute delight 
 
 Of pencilled touch, and nice dexterity 
 
 Of bending Eve in gardened Paradise 
 
 Were hers ; she had a faerie forestrie 
 
 Of birds, and bees, and summer flies ; she knew 
 
 Sweet mysteries of sunrise and sunset, 
 
 Of seasons, moons, and clouds. But chief in joy 
 
 Her skill was among flowers, which in her hand 
 
 Took better hues, and fell under her looks 
 
 Into an ordered beauty as before 
 
 Their queen ; and when they crowned her, unaware 
 
 The butterfly did court the rose as still 
 
 Upon the blushing tree. Tet more I loved 
 
 An art which of all others seemed the voice 
 
 And argument ; rare art, at better close 
 
 Of chosen day, worn like a jewel rare 
 
 To beautify the beauteous, and make bright 
 
 The twilight of some sacred festival 
 
 Of love and peace. Her happy memory 
 
 "Was many poesies, and when serene 
 
 Beneath the favouring shades and the first star. 
 
 She audibly remembered, they who heard 
 
 Believed the Muse no fable. As that star 
 
 Unsullied from the skies, out of the shrine 
 
 Of her dear beauty beautifully came 
 
 The beautiful, untinged by any taint
 
 BALDER. 203 
 
 Of mortal dwelling, neither flushed nor pale, 
 Pure in the naked loveliness of Heaven. 
 Such and so graced was she. 
 
 " But not alone, 
 Ah purest ! not alone in thy first reign 
 Of placid pastures and beseeming woods 
 Palatial, where the conscious waterfalls 
 That leaped in bliss beside thee did no more 
 Than all that gave thee thro' the loyal year 
 Duteous attendance, not alone by glen 
 Or mountain wert thou absolute ! nor he 
 "Who passed thee, tutelar, amid the wUds 
 Of thine accustomed sanctuary alone 
 Thy worshipper ! Hers was no vulgar glare, 
 Startling the dazzled crowd to blink and gaze, 
 Nor came she glorious as a summer noon. 
 Melting aU looks to pleasure and aU Umbs 
 Relaxing as with heat, and thro' the sense 
 Sending soft breath of love and southern joy. 
 The happy paths she blessed led not to courts 
 Or cities. Loved and loving she would live 
 No more accompanied than by what train 
 Is love's and in the love-feast of her days 
 Served while she sat or sat whileas she served ! 
 To know where winding from the ancient tree 
 By the gray style thro' copse and daisied dell, 
 In every mood of immemorial mind 
 The simple village went a thousand years ;
 
 204 BALDER. 
 
 Or o'er the brook upon the stepping-stones 
 To follow uuperplexed thro' bosky maze, 
 The feet of sorrow to her shyest lair ; 
 Or at the ruined cot, and down the dim 
 Deserted path, to watch under the dust 
 The unwonted grass rise slowly up and lift 
 The memory of the dead from oiF the earth ; 
 Or round the wildered garden to convince 
 The graceless moss of greed ; Or from lone lane 
 At summer eve to trace some ancient track 
 A-field and learn what need or joy of life 
 Saw viewless landmarks in the devious way. 
 Her daily pleasaunce. But where men are met, 
 If unpropitious hap or lot unsought 
 Awhile constrained her, fate that did the wrong, 
 Jealous, allowed no other ; as a King 
 Seizing his bride, rapt from her native bowers 
 Circassian, in the amorous crime completes 
 His cruelty and makes the captive queen. 
 Not otherwise, and looking like a flower 
 Dropt in the city street — some blossom fair 
 That grew dew-nurst and lone green miles away — 
 Into the heedless crowd that knew her not 
 She came uncrowned, and they wist not she came ; 
 Till simply sitting in the parlous midst 
 Her presence like a silent virtue spread 
 About her. For a little while she sat 
 Unhonoured, but a consciousness disturbed
 
 BALDER. 205 
 
 The spot, and as a holy influence 
 
 Did touch the unwilling people into awe, 
 
 "Whom gentle observance and sweet respect 
 
 Disposed, till who partook her magic ring 
 
 Still or discursive, sole or sociable. 
 
 Each in his several function did denote 
 
 Her place. Nor customary in mere use 
 
 Perfunctory, and rite of cap or knee. 
 
 The general homage ; but of some inborn 
 
 Content and central sanction in the soul. 
 
 Inmost and earlier than where creeds begin 
 
 Or doubts divide. Men turned and asked not why, 
 
 Nor, seeing, marvelled that they turned ; but apt 
 
 Took reverent distance ; nor, decorous, ceased 
 
 The fealty of regard. With decent eyes. 
 
 And with no louder sign nor needless bruit 
 
 Of the unuttered reason than what-time 
 
 On wintry day they face by mute consent 
 
 The seldom sun. Thus she who came unknown 
 
 Into the stranger crowd with modest step 
 
 And eyes that rather would be ruled than rule. 
 
 Having no need of praise, nor hope of fame. 
 
 Nor conscience of dominion, did subdue 
 
 Its chaos to lier nature, being divine. 
 
 And merely present could no less than stir 
 
 The dull and grosser essence to revolve 
 
 About her, as by instinct and hid force 
 
 Of that well-ordered universe whereof
 
 206 BALDER. 
 
 Its matter was a part. Herself informed 
 
 The jarring elements, till, as her sway 
 
 No utter sign enforced, nor shows of power, 
 
 Nor but a golden sweet necessity 
 
 Sovereign, unseen, the subject heart gave like 
 
 Confession. Not as they confess a queen 
 
 With sudden shout, but as two friends regard 
 
 A rising star, and speak not of it while 
 
 It fills their gaze. The loud debate grew low. 
 
 What was unseemly chastened, and the fear 
 
 Of Beauty waking her moralities 
 
 Sent thro' adjusted limbs the long-forgot 
 
 Ambition to be fair. Nor sex, nor rank. 
 
 Nor age, nor changed condition, did absolve 
 
 Her rule, which whatsoever was remote 
 
 From sin the more saluted. Every where 
 
 Babes smiled on her, and women on her face 
 
 Did look as women look in happy love. 
 
 So the world blessed her ; and another world 
 
 Like spheres of cloud that interpenetrate 
 
 Till each is either, met and mixed with this. 
 
 And as the angel Earth that bears her Heaven 
 
 About her so that wheresoe'er in space 
 
 Her footstep stayeth we look up and say 
 
 That Heaven is there — She moved and made all times 
 
 And seasons equal ; trode the mortal life 
 
 Immortally, and with her human tears
 
 BALDER. 207 
 
 Bedewed the everlasting, till the Past 
 
 And Euture lapsed into a golden Now 
 
 For ever best. She was much like the moon 
 
 Seen in the day time, that by day receives 
 
 Like joy with us, but when our night is dark, 
 
 Lit by the changeless sun we cannot see, 
 
 Shineth no less. And she was like the moon, 
 
 Because the beams that brightened her passed o'er 
 
 Our dark heads, and we knew them not for light 
 
 Till they came back from hers ; and she was like 
 
 The moon, that whatsoe'er appeared her wane 
 
 Or crescent was no loss or gain in her 
 
 But in the changed beholder. I, who saw 
 
 Her constant countenance, and had its orb 
 
 Still full on me with whom she rose and set. 
 
 Knew she had no lunation. In herself 
 
 The elements of holiness were merged 
 
 In white completion, and all graces did 
 
 The part of each. To man or Deity 
 
 Her sinless life had nought whereof to give 
 
 Of worse or better, for she was to God 
 
 As a smile to a face. Ah God of Beauty ! 
 
 Wbere in this lifeless picture my poor hand 
 
 Hath done her wrong, forgive ; she was Thy smile. 
 
 How could I paint her ? That I dared essay 
 
 Her image and am innocent, I plead 
 
 Kesistless intuition, which believes 
 
 Where knowledge fails, and, powerless to define
 
 208 BALDEE. 
 
 Or to confound, still calls the face and smile 
 Not one, but twain, and contradicts the sense 
 Material, which, beholding her, beholds 
 Essence not Effluence, nor Thine but Thee." 
 
 Doctor. Aje — veil it over ! 
 
 Balder. Once again I say 
 
 Cure her ! 
 
 Doctor. J\jid, good friend, hear me once for all. 
 I have brought to your wife's lamented case 
 What skill I own, — and twenty years of cure 
 Have taught me somethiug — but for much esteem 
 Of her and you, I made her malady 
 The subject of my college. I stand here 
 A simple country surgeon, but where'er 
 Men worship Science, some one of her Priests 
 Calls me his friend ; whatever oracles. 
 As yet unbruited, murmur from the cell, 
 I learn from these. Therefore in my poor words 
 You hear a verdict sworn to by the prime 
 Of Europe. 
 
 Balder. There is no most rare device 
 Occult, or cunning of the eye or hand, 
 Or mastery of subtle elements, 
 Bevond thee ? 
 
 Doctor. No. 
 
 Balder. AVhatever lesson new 
 
 These latter days have spelled in the unread 
 And polyglot palimpsest of this body
 
 BALDER. 209 
 
 Is thine already ? Thou hast it within 
 Bj rote ? 
 
 Doctor. Yes. 
 
 Haider. Let us speak of other things. 
 
 The sun must be near setting — shall we watch him 
 From the old rampart of my Euin ? Follow. 
 
 Doctor. With all my heart ! \Th^y ascend to the ramparts. 
 
 Doctor (emerging?) Truly the light is sweet ! 
 
 That winding stair — two hundred steps and more ■ 
 
 My head swims 
 
 Balder. Tis a fearful height. My Dog 
 
 Whose stature thou didst praise seen hence appears 
 Xotably less. His kennel which thou knowest 
 Befits a mastiff of the English breed, 
 Might house a cur. We have a legend here. 
 A maniac dwelt in this old tower and hence 
 Throwing his keeper, hid the battered corse 
 In yonder tarn. His ghost preserves my fish. 
 A dalesman would as soon drop line in hell 
 As in the murder-pool. 
 
 Doctor. I shudder. 
 
 Balder. Sounds 
 
 The old tale credible ? How say thy craft ? 
 Is the leap death ? 
 
 Doctor. Dcatli to a hundred lives ! 
 
 His mother would not know tlie face that reached 
 Ton stones from these. 
 
 Balder. Thou art a feeble man, 
 
 p
 
 210 BALDER. 
 
 I am no giaut, but am tlirice thy match ; 
 Cure her ! 
 
 Doctor. Thou hast mine answer. 
 
 Balder. And thou mine. 
 
 Cure her. 
 
 Doctor. I cannot. 
 
 Balder. In mine art I know 
 
 Passion and terrible occasion make 
 Men poets, poets gods. Thine may have like 
 Apotheosis. Cure her ! 
 
 Doctor. Hands off! see 
 The precipice we stand on 
 
 Balder. Ah! ah! ah! 
 
 Cure her! 
 
 Doctor. Thou jestest with me ! 
 
 Balder. By the Heavens 
 
 No! 
 
 Doctor. Stand back ! 
 
 Balder. Cure her ! 
 
 Doctor. Free me ! Mercy ! Help ! 
 
 We have been friends, thou wilt not murder me ? 
 
 Balder. We have been lovers, but I sent a shaft 
 Into her heart. If thou canst draw it forth 
 Well ; but if not 
 
 Doctor. Nay, I can fight for life ! 
 
 Madman ! Hold ! Murderer ! Mercy ! Mercy ! 
 
 Balder. Cure her ! 
 
 Doctor. Spare me ! my wife ! my children !
 
 BALDER. 211 
 
 Balder. Cure ber ! 
 
 Doctor. I'brist I 
 
 God ! oh God ! 
 
 Balder. Cure her ! 
 
 Doctor. I will ! 
 
 Balder {releasing liivi). Thou wilt XOT ! 
 
 Liar ! Begone ! Haste ! Lest in my despair 
 Thou, 'scape not twice. 
 
 SCENE XXIX. 
 
 The Study. Balder solus. 
 
 Balder. I will sit down 
 And let the stars roll on. Such pitiless signs 
 Cannot for universal health maintain 
 An hour's ascendant. If the heavens could halt 
 I might despair, but the worst orb that moves 
 Betters my fate. 
 
 SCENE XXX. 
 The Study. Balder sits by the open vnndmo. 
 
 Balder. Thou dull tree, 
 What and hast thou gained nothing ? Not a twig, 
 A leaf, a flower, a colour ? By my count 
 
 f 2
 
 212 BALDER. 
 
 Thou shouldst liave leafed and summered, seared and died 
 
 Since I sat down beside thee. Nay, if I 
 
 Had lifted up this head that thou dost shade, 
 
 To see thee branchless, thy dismantled trunk 
 
 AVorm-wemmed in hollow age — I could have said 
 
 " Why this is well, yes, thou and I, old friend. 
 
 Have filled our days." [Turns to papers on tlu table. 
 
 How goes the human year ? 
 The first of a new month ! I take my times 
 And seasons as a traveller in the night 
 Kneels by the stone beside the unknown way, 
 And gropes with patient finger the moss-grown- 
 And mouldering miles ; while at his trembling touch 
 Out of the ignorant strange dark comes forth 
 The old remembered name, and or the light 
 Of home, or the intolerable flash 
 That sends him scorched and moaning. 
 
 I remember 
 A year ago to day I left my fields 
 To dwell in cities. How that black sad time 
 Frowns back to this. The first dark day it rained. 
 An inky rain blackening the civic shrubs 
 And birds apostate whom my heart knew not. 
 Between the door-sills flowed the narrow street. 
 Betwixt the house-tops crept as foul a mirk 
 Soaking and cheerless, as if overhead 
 Another street, inverted in the air, 
 Let down an answering ooze ; and I beheld
 
 BALDER, 213 
 
 Nor felt it was not well ; till suddenly 
 
 Upon the morrow eve the sun shone in, 
 
 The country sun — and I rose up in haste 
 
 And clasped my hands and cried " not here, not here 
 
 i'or pity ! " as she cries whom secret shame 
 
 Hath soiled, and puts away with passionate tears 
 
 The old familiar kisses. The third day 
 
 I went ; but in those three days saw strange sights 
 
 And many, which men told me that the eyes 
 
 "Which dwell there daily saw and did not weep. 
 
 I saw the palaces of throned Law 
 
 "Where Law supreme in red and ermine sits, 
 
 And, like the fool's cap on the telescope 
 
 With his pert sheepskin shuts out sun and stars. 
 
 I saw the man-fruit on the gallows-tree 
 
 It hung up like a fruit and like a fruit 
 
 Shook ia the wind, like a fruit was plucked down 
 
 And the dark wintry branch stood bare. That day 
 
 I saw a withered woman in her rags 
 
 "Watch by a door and snatch what lay within 
 
 And feed her young. I saw a stout arm seize 
 
 And hale her to a dungeon. The same hour 
 
 I saw a young man in the flush of youth 
 
 Broad in the sunshine of the city street. 
 
 Meet a poor soul that once had been a maid ; 
 
 She knew that she was desolate, and he 
 
 Spat in her ruined face because he miglit. 
 
 I did not hear that he was hanged or chained. 
 
 \r
 
 214 BALDER. 
 
 And so the world went on. But was it tlius 
 
 Tliat in the Eye of Him who made the world 
 
 While it was yet unmade the thing to be 
 
 Did golden revolution, and appeared 
 
 80 lovely that He made it ? If this eartli 
 
 Be but a Lazary, a madman's cell, 
 
 A gaol, a charnel, wherefore was it reared 
 
 So like a temple ? Hath a den of thieves 
 
 The gates called " Beautiful ? " Or are these hills, 
 
 "Whereon the consecrated Noon doth set 
 
 The golden candlestick, and robed Eve 
 
 Shall light her late burnt-offering in the west, 
 
 The changers' tables ? Tet ah, who shall say 
 
 " My Father's House," and by that right divine 
 
 Dispose unblamed within ? Whose sinless cords 
 
 Shall cleanse it ? What sufficient touch of faith 
 
 Removing the great mountain that on high 
 
 Holds back the imminent Hyaline, imsluice 
 
 The second deluge ? Where is he on earth, 
 
 At whose great word I, who sit here to-day 
 
 In her fair porch and royal gate of all 
 
 One sore from head to heel, should rise and walk ? 
 
 And at what word that did not make me whole. 
 
 Would I, for all the beauty of my place. 
 
 Lift from the chaste chryselephantine floors 
 
 One leprous limb ? Tet who shall dare to cast 
 
 A stone upon my sin, or with white hands 
 
 Hale me beyond the portals ? Drugs there be
 
 BALDER. 215 
 
 For every ill, and in their books the wise 
 Apportion each to each ; but who shall bring 
 The living instance to the written saw ? 
 For every sickness of a human soul 
 There may be balm in Gilead, but what eye 
 Infallible shall find, what lip shall name 
 My hid disease ? To hell, ye empirics ! 
 And bum your statutes. 
 
 Who shall legislate 
 For the unseen performance of the heart ? 
 Or in the balance of his justice weigh 
 The imponderable soul ? By what gross word 
 Of this her rude interpreter assess 
 Her necessary silence ? By what work 
 Of menial senses judge her viewless hand, 
 Her secret enterprise, her imobeyed 
 Commandment ; good in service turned to ill, 
 Or ill so carried that it looked like good ? 
 "What profiteth to draw your lines about 
 A haunted house, or hem a ghost with trench 
 And scarped epaulment ? Canst thou chain the wiad. 
 Or put material fetters upon thought 
 That bloweth where it listeth ? Or debar 
 The Soul from her delight ? Who shall keep watch 
 O'er the forbidden treasure, and attach 
 Her going out and coming in ? Sliow me 
 The etherial captive naked in the sun, 
 Bound at thy chariot wheels ; bend at thy will
 
 216 BALDER. 
 
 Her free immortal limbs ; pass, under seal, 
 The charter of her rights, repeal this sia 
 Enacb yon virtue, with a single groat 
 Endow a starved remembrance, confiscate 
 That in the past that I could tell thee of. 
 And I will hear ! Aye, send thy Sherifi", King, 
 Into this bosom ; apprehend this pang ; 
 Touch Me or these ; arrest that bloody knife 
 Wherewith I quiver ; standing by my side 
 Thrust in thine arm if thou art man, oil King ! 
 And stay these burning hands that day and night 
 Are felon here ! 
 
 " King ! " Aye, that word crowns all ! 
 Where is our King ? If there be some man buUt 
 Eor each due office, and no man alive 
 But in liis place is matchless, where is he 
 The head and master workman to dispose 
 Tasks fit for aU and each to his fit task ? 
 For we are the disordered elements 
 Of that tremendous engine which, compact, 
 Should put a soul into this floating earth 
 And drive her thro' the stars ; make headlong way 
 Dead in the wind of chance and all the tides 
 Of fortune, laugh to scorn the storms of fate. 
 Make white the deeps of chaos, and, at last, 
 Cast her eternal anchor on the shore 
 Of far applauding Heaven. 
 
 But now unplaced
 
 BALDER. 217 
 
 Constrict in bonds inordinate, or ties 
 
 With hopeless lesion lax, in unexplained 
 
 Society consorted to no end, 
 
 Or from connexion apt or impotent 
 
 Absolved and separate, dissolute, poured down 
 
 In orderly disorder, quick or dead 
 
 Inert or vital as the several part 
 
 Motive or to be moved fulfils in vain 
 
 Its own peculiar, fruitful now no more 
 
 In general welfare and the good of all — 
 
 We lie on heap, and each constituent finds 
 
 Disastrous sloth or detrimental use ; 
 
 Dead in himself, or motionless as dead 
 
 Oppressed beneath his fellows, or, upHft 
 
 By wilful hand of hapless circumstance 
 
 And so appUed, in sad unequal case 
 
 With unadapted organs ill performs 
 
 Unsuited functions, fine with gross, and gross 
 
 With fine. If One Infallible might speak 
 
 And make these dry bones live ! If any sign 
 
 Could daily end this dire perplexity ! 
 
 We are the sons of anguish ; we are born 
 
 In labour and to labour ; toil and pain 
 
 Begin us, and shall end us. It is well. 
 
 We are your slaves, work your high pleasure on us ! 
 
 Aye, load us tiU we crack, and our great ^\ ills 
 
 Shall not be less than yours ! None of these things 
 
 Move us, for none of these things our proud hearts
 
 218 BALDER. 
 
 Arraign or shall arraign you, ye gods ! 
 
 We are no rebels ; this our loud demand 
 
 Is not the ill blooded and morose complaint 
 
 Of secret hate, or the promulged war 
 
 Of overt treason, but a claim of right 
 
 Preferred by lips still loyal in the phrase 
 
 Of sweet subjection, the ensheathed appeal 
 
 Of armed allegiance, the obtesting cry 
 
 Of a forgotten people. Te are gods, 
 
 And we are men ; so let it be. But ye 
 
 Speak not our language nor we yours. If one 
 
 Might rede aright to us jowr dark decrees, 
 
 "Whereof we pay infraction with the blood 
 
 Of ignorance ! If any daily voice. 
 
 Were it no larger than this grasshopper's, 
 
 In our own tongue could only say to us 
 
 " Well done, well done, thy feet are in the way, 
 
 This path beyond the darkness is the same ; 
 
 Thou hast not walked in dreams, nor in thy sleep 
 
 Hath any passing mischief carried thee 
 
 Far from the roads of morning ! Nought is lost. 
 
 That which thou sawest thou sawest, what thiiie ear 
 
 Heard hath been spoken ; thou art not yet false ; 
 
 This that thou callest good is good : go on, 
 
 It shall be well with thee in all the worlds ! " 
 
 But now am I as one blindfold and bound, 
 
 AVho, 'mid a sounding pageant, pressed and thronged 
 
 With tramp of steeds and shout of changed event
 
 BALDEK. 219 
 
 Koar of innumerable multitude 
 
 And banners' proud advance and clang of liorns 
 
 Dying the gaudy air with hot acclaim, 
 
 And flux and reflux of resistless tide, 
 
 Doth take from side to side with helpless face 
 
 Blind buffet of the surging turbulence 
 
 And strong bewilderment, and feels his blood 
 
 Down-dropping, and his wounds ; but heedeth more 
 
 The wonder of his heart, and moans and moans, 
 
 " Alas that I could see ! " 
 
 " I ? " who am I ? 
 Whence? How? Why? Whither? 
 
 This old world that stands 
 Before me day and night, what ? wherefore ? 
 
 Down 
 Thou pompous and intolerable ruin ! 
 I weary of thee ! Thou art out of knowledge ; 
 Thy centuries untold ; thy Builders where ? 
 Thy fashion lost ; thy substance without name ; 
 The very need that thou didst satisfy 
 Forgot. Why cumberest thou the fields of air, 
 Incantada ? 
 
 The cardinal intent. 
 The regnant virtue, final element. 
 And master good, the better truth of all, 
 Wbich on its ordered arms upbears these shows 
 As leaves upon a tree; that which beheld 
 Infers the necessary universe
 
 220 BALDER. 
 
 As substance shadow ; and being known indeed, 
 Is the old fruit which, eaten, maketh gods, 
 Who shall discover and therein first find 
 Himself and all his race ? There is some truth 
 Unknown, whose very footsteps are more bright 
 Than any visible face, and on whose track 
 TJnlooked for the glad heart in loud surprise 
 Doth open like a hound. Sometimes I pass 
 Plain after plain of many-trodden life. 
 And never cross it; and anon when Hope 
 Grown careless hath unleashed his piu'suivants 
 And all the long invariable way 
 Stretches in lifeless waste — my dazzled eyes 
 And the long trail of Hght ! This panting heart 
 Eacing pursuit where as she runs the run 
 Gives strength to run and warm and warmer air 
 Leads on the nose of capture, mad to win 
 O'ertakes the brightening leagues ; then all at fault 
 Stands fixed and bays the sky. As one should trace 
 An angel to the hill wherefrom he rose 
 To Heaven, and on whose top the vacant steps 
 In march progressive with no backward print 
 A- sudden cease. Sometimes, being swift, I meet 
 His falling mantle torn off in the wind 
 Of great ascent, whereof the attalic pomp 
 Between mine eyes and him perchance conceals 
 The bare celestial. Whose stiQ happier speed 
 ShaU look up to him while the blinding toy
 
 BALDER. 221 
 
 In far perspective is but as a plume 
 
 Dropped from the eagle ? Whose talarian feet 
 
 Shall stand unshod before him while he spreads 
 
 His pinions ? Who shall take him by the hand ? 
 
 I have tried all Philosophies ; I know 
 
 The height and depth of science ; I have dug 
 
 The embalmed Truth of Karnak and have sailed 
 
 Tigris and Ganges to the sacred source 
 
 Of eastern wisdom ; I have lived a life 
 
 Of noble means to noble ends ; and here 
 
 I turn to the four winds, and say " In vain, 
 
 In vain, in vain, in vain ! " 
 
 The end is come. 
 I stand upon the Babel I have built, 
 I have surpassed the mountains, the great globe 
 Lies inexhaustible below, my days 
 Are stdl before me ; these unconquered limbs 
 Invulnerable hang by my strong side 
 Erawny with toil ; but I have worked my last. 
 1 cannot lift these arms. I have attained 
 The furthest realm aerial where the air 
 Is gross enough to breathe, and IS'ature's self 
 Eefuses to o'erbmld the vital bound 
 And lift me into death. I lay me down 
 Upon my life-long work the wretchedest man 
 That ever fought and lost. What I have done 
 No more being done is vain, and more being done 
 Unsouls the bulk that went before, and rears
 
 222 BALDER. 
 
 A pyramid to liold into the sun 
 
 The offence of my mortality. My pride 
 
 Hath climbed till I can hardly see the earth 
 
 Beneath me, and from that last possible height 
 
 Looks up with fainting eyeballs to behold 
 
 A heaven no whit more near. Is there no help ? 
 
 [A pause. 
 O Thou Invisible, whoe'er thou art, 
 Who with sufficient presence and plenary touch 
 Extensive, whether in the unfathomed east 
 And west or in the terrible extremes 
 Beyond the pole star and the southern cross 
 They mark the immeasurable round of heaven. 
 At once distendest -n-ith coequal life 
 The order' d spheres ; either withdraw thyself 
 From the serene and golden harmony 
 Of that inspired matter overhead 
 Which circleth irrespective day and night 
 In heedless welfare ; either give up realms 
 That once were Chaos to the mortal shock 
 Of the last anarchy ; let maddened day 
 Scorch hope to ashes, and the flaming night 
 Affright us till the yeU of our despair 
 Else in the howling regions ; be exhaled 
 O Power, let me behold the sudden stars 
 Meet in omnipotent havoc that results 
 To utter space and ebbs and flows and ebbs 
 In vast conflux and infinite recoil
 
 BALDER. 223 
 
 Systole and diastole, tiU lo ! 
 
 A universe that like our mortal lot 
 
 Panteth to death, and in the hopeless sight 
 
 "We leap to final flames ; or now at last 
 
 Unveil Thyself and save us ! Come forth strong 
 
 To judgment ! Justify the shows of things, 
 
 And heal hee and this world ! 
 
 SCENE XXXI. 
 
 The Study. Balder at his table in act to write. Through the door the voice 
 of Amy. As she sings he rises and rushes from the room. 
 
 Amy. That I might die and be at rest O Grod ! 
 That I might die and sleep the sleep of peace ! 
 That I might die and know the balm of death 
 Cool thro' my limbs and all my silenced heart ! 
 
 God, that I might die ! that I might die ! 
 
 Death, Death, thou wilt not take me ? should I bring 
 
 Disquiet to thy kingdom ? Yesterday 
 
 Was pain, and had a yesterday of pain 
 
 Whereto it was to-morrow ; and pain, pain 
 
 This dark to-day, to-morrow's yesterday 
 
 And yesterday's to-morrow ; then why not 
 
 To-morrow ? and why less because with thee ? 
 
 1 know the wanderer in the desert heat
 
 224 BALDER. 
 
 When the well faileth and the cruise is spent 
 Sees with his eyes his great necessity 
 And hears the murmur of bis strong desire 
 And speeds — to drearer wastes and deadlier sand. 
 If I am he, O Death, and thou my Thought 
 Hast lain so long before me cool and sweet 
 And art the mirage of a wretched heart! 
 
 In what fair shape hast thou beguiled me not ? 
 O Death in all this vision of the world 
 What have I seen, Betrayer, if not thee ? 
 
 Sometimes I climb, and thou upon the height 
 
 My mother waiting for her weary child 
 
 "With outstretched circling arms and bosom bare ! 
 
 Or I am falling in a draw-well deep 
 
 Red round with infinite depth of hateful eyes 
 
 And night-mare mocking faces, and below 
 
 Thou liest like a smile of love and peace. 
 
 Sometimes I am a maimed captive, bound 
 
 To the swift chai-iot of the pitiless sun. 
 
 And thou art night that dost unloose my chain! 
 
 Or I a pilgrim at the gate of heaven, 
 
 Torn with the thorniest way, and thou Death 
 
 A virgin angel met upon the verge, 
 
 And pitiful thou dost divesture me
 
 BALDER. 225 
 
 And there of all my tattered earthly weeds 
 Spreadest a bed where I may sleep my last 
 Nor enter weary on the happy land. 
 
 Or I a floating vapour, white and wan, 
 Casting a shade and shedding doleful dews. 
 And thou a sunshine from a sun unseen 
 Dost touch me, passing, to a rarer change. 
 I float and sadden not the summer air 
 Xor shed a doleful dew nor cast a shade. 
 
 Or I am sailing on an ocean wild 
 
 And o'er the bark I bend me, fain to die, 
 
 And hopeless look into the sea ; and eyes 
 
 Shine up like drowned jewels from the depths. 
 
 And somewhat riseth in the deep to me, 
 
 And in the waters a familiar face 
 
 And a hand waving to the mermaid-cells. 
 
 Touch me, O Death ! This moment let me sleep ! 
 I can do all, Death, but doubt in thee. 
 Touch me, O Death, lest I be wild with fear ! 
 Aye, now thou art again as thou hast been. 
 Stay with me ; lay thine hand upon my brow, 
 Cool, cool ; bend o'er me ; let thy shadowy hair 
 Shut out the distance from my aching eyes. 
 Stand between me and the unsetting sun ; 
 Cor"r>1" fte frailty of my feeble limbs 
 
 Q
 
 226 BALDER. 
 
 And task me with a burden I can bear ! 
 
 I fling me on the shore ; I cannot try 
 
 The ocean of interminable life. 
 
 Hush me, and sing me to a better mind. 
 
 A little rest, a little rest, O Death, 
 
 Ere the great labour of the world to come ! 
 
 SCEjN'E XXXII. 
 
 The Study. Balder sits at the table turning the leaves of a MS. 
 
 Page after page ! from earliest light of dawn 
 
 To the first evening star, and still in vain ! 
 
 The eye indeed perceives, but the shut soul 
 
 Hath no reception. As in a great house 
 
 Upon a day of mourning when the lord 
 
 Pines in his closet, and the eager crowds 
 
 Eill the contentious vestibule and keep 
 
 Jostling attendance, what the sense admits 
 
 Stands in the outer precincts of my head 
 
 But gains not me. Nay, thro' dull walls I hear 
 
 The intolerable murmur, and go back 
 
 To darker depths. If these ears would forget ! 
 
 These eyes contain their uses in the straits 
 
 Of function, and the strong impediment 
 
 Of wood and stone ! A little rest ! An hour's 
 
 Oblivion ! Six days have I sat as now, 
 
 lu the same chamber, at the well known place, 
 
 In the same chair, before the wonted table,
 
 BALDER. 227 
 
 "Witli tlie same pen dipped in the self same horn, 
 
 The altar laid as when the god came down, 
 
 And every duteous rite of sacrifice 
 
 But not the fire from heaven ! Ton pitying gods, 
 
 I am content to sufier ; as ye will 
 
 Work all your pleasure on me ; but I pray, 
 
 Having so far advanced my monument, 
 
 Let me not die unhonoured. I ask not 
 
 Space for the dearest business of life ; 
 
 But if we are to die unloose these limbs 
 
 A little season, grant but what reprieve 
 
 May place the fiaial stone which shall surmount 
 
 Our ashes, and these votive hands shall shed 
 
 The blood ye long to taste ! these mindful arms 
 
 Embrace your vengeance ! [Pauses. 
 
 If ye ever heard, 
 Save what is left of me ! Ye will lose nought ; 
 I shall die nobler game. Hack me to earth 
 By this slow baiting and the inglorious wounds 
 Will mortify, and I that might have roared 
 At bay upon your foremost, and, upreared 
 Like a wild desperate Lion, have made sport 
 Tor your divinest prowess, may turn tail 
 And trail my hinder death along the ground 
 Of craven faint retreat. Now ! now ! ye swift 
 And interposing powers ! the cry ! the cry ! 
 
 [Amy is Iveard thro Ike door. 
 
 Amy. Blind, blind I stand and dare not stir for fear. 
 
 q2
 
 22S BALDER. 
 
 Blind, blind I turn my face up to the sky. 
 I have no hope to hide my bruised face 
 Which evermore a strong hand in the air 
 Smites v^'ith a burniua: rod and will not rest. 
 
 SCENE XXXIII. 
 
 The Study. Baldee, solus. Tlirougli the half open door is heard the 
 
 voice o/Amt. 
 . [5e rises and shuts the door. 
 
 Balder. In vaia ! There is but one wall upon earth 
 Thou canst not pass : One door that being closed 
 Is closed on thee ; one refuge where even thou 
 Art silent. If I hide myself in deeps 
 Of lonely woods the murmuring trees take up 
 Thine argument ; if in the further wUds 
 Of the waste hiUs, my heart is full of tongues 
 And each to either in untiring round 
 They tell thy story. She of old who fled 
 Before the humming fly, and coursed the world 
 Uncomforted, wild with the ceaseless sound 
 Susurrent, was in better case than I 
 "Who have no hope of change, and with swift flight 
 Should bear as swift a woe. I am impaled 
 Here where I stand ; my hurt, alas, not mortal, 
 But touching at the very hinge and crank 
 The springs of action and the palsied limbs 
 Of staring struck desire. 'Tis hard, 'tis hard. 
 To lie upon this earthly battle-field
 
 BALDER. 229 
 
 Among the sick and helpless in the rear 
 And see the strife and the eternal prize 
 Borne off by other hands, and hear the trunip 
 And all the victory which thou canst not share. 
 But nature smooths the pillow that she spreads, 
 The fevered hand is weary of the sword, 
 The fallen warrior's eye hath lost its fire. 
 His voice its thunder ; his unstanched wound 
 Hath bled ambition, and the sick man's pap 
 Is not the bait of war. 
 
 Ask what he feels 
 Who with the pulse of promise and the limbs 
 Of young performance and the lusts of youth 
 Swelling and flushing on unconquered brows 
 And favouring heavens above him and great signs 
 In the consenting earth, mounts to his dear 
 And proud intent, and hears already rise 
 The shout of conquest, and, in grasp of all. 
 Tea in the triumph of his measured strength — 
 That leans over accomplishment to close 
 With forward acquisition, — stops stone still, 
 Spell-bound. iVnd spell-bound locked and motionless. 
 With unseen prowess of inglorious war. 
 Hid in his silent body strives with fate 
 And spends his might within. (As one doth grind 
 The set teeth down, and in his clenched palm 
 Break his own bones, and cram his charged veins 
 To bursting, string each muscle till it crack,
 
 230 BALDER. 
 
 Hold but a little breath witb will enougli 
 
 To bind tbe winds of Heaven, and stay a band 
 
 AVith force that could arrest tbe headlong world, 
 
 And no man knows it.) He tbro' starting eyes 
 
 Sees all that should be his, and, like a fierce 
 
 And hungry mastifi" held back by a chain 
 
 In the full scent and sight of his near prey, 
 
 And strong to seize, that gasps and claws the ground 
 
 And wears his bloody talons to the bone 
 
 With unrelaxed endeavour, he beholds 
 
 While the auspicious light goes down the sky 
 
 And high in Heaven the awful omens change, 
 
 And 'mid the murmurs of impatient earth 
 
 He stands for ever straining to the breach 
 
 Of still denied occasion. 
 
 My keen ears 
 Heard each careering star that rounds the sky, 
 And knew them by their sounds. But now to list 
 In vara, nor know if the great march of worlds 
 Stand still ! When life was sweet I would have died 
 That men might happier live ; when hard existence 
 Toiled thro' its sweats of blood, I would have lived 
 That men might nobler die ; but now alike 
 To live unfruitful and to die unblest ! 
 Heavens ! that the creak of passing wain should hide 
 The voice that drowns the rolling universe ! 
 That thou, despite of me, canst fill the world, 
 And no more pressure of this hand than holds
 
 BALDER. 231 
 
 A bundle of unbruised buttercups 
 Could still tbee ! That the bannered host of man 
 Under my leading starts on its white way 
 Down the rejoicing ages, and thou, Amy, 
 Canst take the car of glory by the wheel 
 And stop it ; with a single touch arrest 
 That wondrous winged horse whereon I rode. 
 And throw mankind in, me. 
 
 SCENE XXXIV. 
 
 A field near the Tower. Balder, solus. 
 
 Oh God ! to how great office was I born. 
 To how proud exaltation came I in 
 Unquestioned as one comes unto his own. 
 Eor nor was it forbidden me to hold 
 The pen of sovereign Nature when she bent 
 To send her message to the sons of men. 
 Nor, — being her Scribe, and finding in her eyes 
 Maternal favour — undismissed to sit 
 At her dread feet, while her much-musing Voice 
 Like muffled thunders of a storm unburst 
 Did murmur to her heart. Nor she disdained 
 In royal leisure to remember me : 
 Keeping her eyes upon the wilderness 
 In mercy, and dividing to my sense 
 The o'er-great burden of her gaze and speech.
 
 232 BALDER. 
 
 And I being asked made answer, having grace 
 
 To speak. Nor unto me was it denied 
 
 To hear responsive secrets from her lips. 
 
 Nor to behold her undestroyed what time 
 
 She held her court and all the subject Powers 
 
 Of the obedient Universe appeared 
 
 To hear her bidding, and to each her hand 
 
 Dispensed his several task. Nor unto me 
 
 Wholly inhibited, nor by these orbs 
 
 In this dark day forgot, the blinding sight 
 
 Of that all incommunicable hour 
 
 And ecstasy when she who wears the stars 
 
 Sitting alone amid Infinitude 
 
 Nor seeing from her all-surveying throne 
 
 Sovereign or peer, doth veU. her awful head 
 
 And own a Master, 
 
 Naked from the womb 
 She took me, and she clothed me round about, 
 Nor have I other garment than the robe 
 She gave ; wherefore I, driven forth and disowned, 
 Displaced, dishonoured, cut off once for all, 
 Outcast and unauthentic, by my weeds 
 Stni seem her servant. All that seek her grace 
 Salute me, and my hands are full of bribes. 
 They whom she loves are free to me in speech 
 No longer mine, and uncommanded slaves 
 Contend to do me service. Hereabout 
 I am confessor to a thousand flowers
 
 BALDER. 233 
 
 And wheresoe'er I stand some one begins 
 Her unsouglit confidence : eacli several Oak 
 Standing above me, hoarse with waving arms, 
 Makes me companion of bis difficult strength 
 As Cromwell spake to Milton. 
 
 From what state 
 Am I cast down ! Where shall I rest who lay 
 In the hid core of sUence and did sleep 
 Cradled in central calm ? In what world find 
 A dwelling ? Under what less potentate 
 A new allegiance ? Beneath what dark Heavens 
 A worship ? From what spot of lower spheres, 
 A Universe ? In Heaven, Hell, Earth, or Air, 
 Aught that can satisfy a heart which once 
 Beat in the very breast and vital seat 
 Of aU things, and being forced to the extremes, 
 Resents the unblest deformity and hath 
 No function of a heart ? 
 
 Oh Queen, oh Mother 
 Take take me back ! 
 
 I that ne'er wept before ! 
 Thou seest! 
 
 Snent ? Silent and these tears ! 
 Nay this is to outrun the Destinies. 
 True I am fallen indeed, but not yet dead ! 
 Dead ? How if dead not fallen ? And perliaps 
 From the high place I fiiled no more removed 
 Than that her mournful and imperial hands
 
 234 BALDER. 
 
 Miglit urn me in a star ? And as one bears 
 
 A Heavy sleeper witli fast closed lids 
 
 Whose dreams like shadows of the truth repeat 
 
 The outer perils darkly, in this sleep 
 
 I have had visions ? Hence wild phantasy ! 
 
 I live ! 
 
 Hast thou forgotten me ? This brow 
 These limbs that at thy feet thou hast so oft 
 Looked down upon in love that I have seen 
 The spheres grow pale missing their wonted light, 
 How are they less than then ? A friend — a foe — 
 The beneficial difference of the sword 
 Is in the using ! Something I have done, 
 Something may do. Chaos hath still his standard. 
 Speak, or I join it ! lead the dark attack 
 By the most secret way ; betray thy counsels ; 
 Make thy hid thoughts the common sport o' the air, 
 Map thy designed war, and thine arch-foe 
 Forearm with master-spells. 
 
 Aye silence, silence. 
 Why not ? How should I move thee, sublime 
 Invulnerable ? Though I not behold 
 Thy countenance, I know that if the smile 
 Dimmed on thy lips, or round thy brow serene 
 Tempered the gracious summer, these whose sight 
 Attains thy face had drooped their sudden heads 
 With hopeless frost. 
 
 But is it wise in thee
 
 BALDER. 235 
 
 With this imperial scorn to rouse an arm 
 
 "Which once was worth tliine honour ? To send forth 
 
 "Wrath which was once thine angel ? And unloose 
 
 A tongue which learned its language on thy breast 
 
 Amid the nursling thunders ? Thou art there 
 
 And shalt be ; nor can I aspire to shake 
 
 Thy throne. But tliis terrestrial sovereignty, 
 
 This sublunary verge and late domain 
 
 Of empire, who shall save it ? Speak to me ! 
 
 Or by a conscript hell — [Panscs. 
 
 In vain, in vain ! 
 Smile on ! I see it all. Thou hast ta'en thought 
 Of this defection. What I lift is not 
 The hand that moved the heavens. Thy pride hath 
 
 snapped 
 The weapon it disused. The self-same touch 
 Put me at once from duty and disservice, 
 And dwarfed me from my native healthful height 
 Below obnoxious stature. 
 
 Shall I look 
 Into the wayside pool to see my face, 
 And shall a water-beetle blot it out ? 
 I could believe no less. Poor mannikin, 
 Prate as thou list — pray, sing, preach, rave, despair, 
 Square to the sun, defy the stars ! Thou art free ! 
 Eoyally done ! I am too mean a thing 
 To have mine anger reckoned. This weak arm 
 Is warrant for desertion ; this cold heart
 
 236 BALDER. 
 
 May throb for whom it list ; this scrannel voice 
 
 Pipe here or there unchallenged. Everywhere 
 
 Misfortune hath the privilege of treason 
 
 And impotence prescription to rebel ! 
 
 Once it had not been thus ; no, nor couldst thou, 
 
 Oh Unapproachable Serenity, 
 
 Have heard me all unmoved. 
 
 But now sit calm. 
 Wert thou the merest maid that ever lay 
 Well-portioned and well-pleased before her glass 
 Braiding her locks and shining thro' her curls 
 Upon the kneeling lover at her feet 
 Enough refusal, insolent and vain, 
 Eound her most dainty finger slow and cold 
 With equal touch and languid cruelty 
 Twining his heart-strings and her golden hair, 
 I could not harm thee. 
 
 I, who from thine height 
 Beheld, and, — since we claim for corporal self 
 Whatever bears the living head wherefrom 
 The soul looks out — I that saw down from thence 
 To the far footing of the solid dark 
 My starry stature ; I who with stern eye 
 Did gaze into the opening infinite, 
 And on the scale of that perspective scan 
 This measiu-ed earth ; I who would equal space. 
 And as a thing apart in outer courts 
 Contain creation ; I am even contract
 
 BALDER. 
 
 To the dimensions of some elfin world. 
 
 This ehecquered field shall be my vast expanse ; 
 
 Yon tree Igdrasil ; any passing cloud 
 
 In golden distance o'er my sinking head 
 
 Shall arch sufficient Heaven ; the nightly Moon 
 
 Toil the horizon of a fairy ring 
 
 As once I led her the majestic march 
 
 Of this great globe, and in impatient power 
 
 Danced round her steps as David round the Ark, 
 
 And wheeling into utter depths returned 
 
 About her languid motion. Day by day 
 
 Shall bring my grain of wheat and drop of dew 
 
 Content ; and I shall see the rising Sun 
 
 Above the Mole-heaps as I saw him once 
 
 Above the hills of God ! 
 
 SCENE XXXV. 
 
 The Study. Balder, solus. 
 
 Balder. I could believe I heard myself grow thin, 
 The slack and empty sail cling close and dry 
 Upon the cordage masts and stays of life, 
 My bare unmuflied bones collapse and clank 
 And what Avas round and cheerful in this body 
 Fall out of observation. 
 
 Let it fall, 
 It has survived my use — this goodly space 
 And palace of the flesh which hall by hall
 
 238 BALDER. 
 
 I have given up, retreating from a voice 
 Without, till, more than housed in the strait bounds 
 Of its most secret cell, I find at last 
 How little it bested me. 
 
 I that laid 
 My hand upon this breast and deemed I throbbed 
 Beneath ; who held my unity of powers 
 In such most sweet conversion that it seemed 
 Love was essential in the tranquil soul 
 And wisdom cordial in the beating heart. 
 Where am I ? Did the echoes of the house 
 Deceive me, and tlie murmur of the shell ? 
 My soul hath gone back like a sea on heaps 
 Before a Prophet's rod ; leaving that bare 
 Which never saw the light — the gulphs and deeps 
 And all the infand unknown which since the first 
 It covered but was not. And I sit here 
 Within my passions ; and that writhing round 
 Of rooted serpents rises like a ring 
 Of licking flames about me. Some are dead 
 And others gnaw them. Of the living, some 
 Lie lank as worms ; some roar as dragons ; all 
 Enjoy or suffer; and I see unmoved 
 How each fulfils his office ; coils and glides, 
 Plays as when Eve stood smiling, warms, desires, 
 Swells, springs, falls, maddens, struggles, twists and dies, 
 Strangled in its own knots. I see them, — mine 
 Not me ; myself in the hot midst, a cold
 
 BALDER. 239 
 
 Calm lidless eye tliat neither hopes nor fears 
 
 Nor loves nor hates nor smiles nor weeps nor prays. 
 
 It cannot last. I am a living man 
 
 Xot an anatomy for time and change 
 
 To scalpel when they teach the younger gods 
 
 And show them subject man. Tou heavens, what right 
 
 Makes me the bleeding instance ? "Why am I 
 
 The Paragon of woes ? How dare they seize 
 
 These organs to discuss the novel signs 
 
 Of unaccustomed torture ? Must I bear 
 
 That they may be instructed ; with keen edge 
 
 Distinguish what is mortal from the threads 
 
 Of inconclusive anguish, and in slow 
 
 Discovery one by one dissect away 
 
 The stamens of endui'ance, with fine point 
 
 Experimental and touch exquisite 
 
 Detect of each rare core the central sense, 
 
 Open the vesture of the secret nerve. 
 
 Make bare the naked torment and lay out 
 
 The warm and quivering Nature styled and strung 
 
 For vital exposition ? Malefactors, 
 
 Who in the last resource of desperate hope 
 
 Yield up their breathing bodies to the schools, 
 
 Die under such division. Human hate 
 
 On choicest victim of her direst hour 
 
 Hath not accomplished it ; the subtlest pains 
 
 Of her most fell invention cannot pass 
 
 That Lethe through which pitying Powers convey
 
 240 BALDER. 
 
 The wretcli for wLose worst crime in their just eves 
 
 'Tis more than expiation to be aim 
 
 Of such unheard-of purpose. Hell itself 
 
 Hath no such agony ; the very Damned 
 
 Are plunged in whole. 
 
 SCENE XXXVI. 
 
 A Mil near the Tower. Balder, solus. 
 
 Balder. Like a sailing eagle old 
 
 "Which with unwavering wings outspread and wide 
 Makes calm horizons in the slumbrous air 
 Of cloudless noon and fills the silent heaven 
 With the slow circulation of a course 
 More placid than repose, this shining still 
 And universal day revolves serene 
 Around me, hasting not and uncompelled. 
 But the tumultuous thought within my head 
 Is a poor captive beast, that to and fro, 
 Wild in the trepidation of mad pain 
 Beats its red bars in blood. Gods ! how it climbs 
 This throbbing dungeon, leaps and falls and leaps 
 In strong attempt, and strains a battered face 
 Against the narrow outlets, gnaws the holds 
 Of iron and shakes loud with desperate will 
 The adamantine doors. What ! have I caged 
 A leopard in my pleasure-house ? Am I 
 A doomed city ? are these halls a roost
 
 BALDER. 241 
 
 For owls and dragons ? Shall the bittern cry 
 Out of the stagnant courses of my heart 
 And the fox litter in her palaces ? 
 My seat wherein I sat is overturned, 
 My images are broken and cast down, 
 My set and sacred places are defiled, 
 My fair adorned walls dismantled all 
 And all the tattered tapestries of life 
 Eent on the floors of E-uin ! 
 
 I do not rage 
 Nor rave ; but I ask you ye blue heavens, 
 "What have I done ? 
 
 I do remember me 
 That on a cottage threshold once I saw 
 An idiot child. His blue orbs in his brow 
 Were as when some round rosy cloud of morn 
 Opens deep azure eyes and we see thro' 
 To heaven. On his calm countenance there lay 
 A lazy day of sehC-sufficing hours, 
 And all the changes in his face were made 
 By the soft feet of pleasure slow and fair. 
 Is there a soul behind you ? There was none 
 In him ! He was born deaf and dumb and blind 
 And foolish. But he was as bright as you.
 
 242 BALDER. 
 
 SCENE XXXVII. 
 
 A Glen among the Hills near the Tower. Baldeh, solus. 
 
 Balder. I will return. 
 Sitting down here this morn I turned my back 
 Upon the sun, and now he sees my face. 
 Waste hours — where all are waste ! A round of sand 
 Built in the endless sands with walls of sand. 
 That the red Tartarean world I feel 
 "Within me hath reality without 
 Amid the discord of my soul I yet 
 Can make denial heard. And as a man 
 "With whose disloyal organs ruthless Eever 
 Hath tampered till some play him false and all 
 Are treasonable, touching one by one 
 His harlequin euTironment constrains 
 Protean shapes to stand and give response, 
 And of attested qualities constructs 
 A synthesis more sure than the sick eye, 
 I, whom nor morning gladdens nor meek eve 
 Consoles, do know my desperate malady 
 And testify that fruitless eve and morn 
 Have both done well. I will not be deceived, 
 And so my day becomes a manifold 
 And drear induction that sets Truth from Truth, 
 As the blind hesitating sire of old 
 Jacob from Esau ; and with tender strength
 
 BALDER. 243 
 
 Of one wlio going must divide fond arms 
 
 Enfolding, and unravel •with stern love 
 
 Soft intertwining fingers of dear hands 
 
 That clasp him, doth unlock the enfoundered hulls 
 
 And spars of the strange worlds I see and feel, 
 
 And bid them pass as twain. Here where I sit 
 
 The sun must needs be sweet, — the bees sing in it, 
 
 And yon large fly — a hawk among his kind — 
 
 Still in the very level of mine eye 
 
 Keeps on the wing, with shining long delay 
 
 Or sudden flash of capture. 
 
 On the bank 
 The nodding moor-hen lands to preen her quiUs. 
 The trout hath left the alders of the pool 
 And basks. Her beak the brooding king-fislier 
 Shows, breathless, at her caUow hole above 
 The brook ; within the eddies of the brook 
 The water-mouse dissolves and re-appears ; 
 Therefore 'tis halcyon weather. [lie rises avd walks homeward. 
 
 The small flock 
 That lay but now, fleece upon panting fleece. 
 About the knees of yonder aged oak — 
 Their lusty lord upon a gnarled root 
 High in the cooler midst — descend and lill 
 The lengthening shade. The weed that shuts at nouJi 
 Is closer than a sleeping infant's lid ; 
 And the pale evening rose hath not yet set 
 Her chalice for the dews ; therefore it is
 
 244 BALDER. 
 
 That heavy hour of silent afternoon 
 
 When even grief can slumber and forget. 
 
 For me I know no seasons, nor will trust 
 
 The tale of the extravagant heart that tells 
 
 Between the orient and the setting sun 
 
 A year of days, and calls the outer world 
 
 Chaos let loose. [Enters the Oarden. 
 
 This green turf nicely fine 
 A fairy host marshals its serried sj)ears 
 Innumerable, and of all not one 
 Hath turned an edge ; a human conflict here 
 Had trodden it as o'er our helmed heads 
 The wrestling gods contending trample down 
 A field of legions. Up the new spread walk 
 Well-trimmed, my morning footsteps where I cam e, — 
 Eight hours since by the dial, — still remain ; 
 None other near them : therefore I have been 
 Alone, and as I walk I print a like 
 And solitary record, therefore now 
 I am alone. 
 
 If I went forth at morn 
 Thro' a well-tilled soft garden, and came back 
 This very hour to find ifc trodden hard. 
 Stamped to a summer floor, and all my home 
 Threshed out upon it, flying here and there, 
 Chaff" on the wind, 'twere less incredible 
 Than this approven solitude. 
 
 Across
 
 BALDER. 2t5 
 
 My doorway I perceive the gossamer 
 
 Drew silver bars behind me. They have lost 
 
 The immaterial beauty of the morn, 
 
 When passing on the gleaming wind they seem 
 
 Eather effect than cause, the cutting sheen 
 
 Of somewhat on the eye too swift for sight, 
 
 Or hung across the early way appear 
 
 A shining prohibition in the air 
 
 No more. But these are stiff as rods of glass. 
 
 And flat with drought. Therefore since I went forth, 
 
 None hath gone in or out. 
 
 This looks like peace, 
 And I must needs believe it. [Enters a room. 
 
 How the motes 
 In idle sunshine slowly circulate, 
 A little heaven of worlds as calm and sweet 
 As any stars above us. Eh ! my breath 
 Sucks gidphs beneath the golden equipoise 
 And sets a viewless tide that bears away 
 Systems and suns. Thou great astronomer. 
 Perplexed by some new motion. Who on high 
 Beyond thy telescopic organ stands 
 Breathing ? 
 
 A wood wren ! and the open lattice 
 He passes deftly with familiar wing. 
 No chance intruder, or the crystal panes 
 Had toiled him, and my first step at the door 
 Had been his fearful signal ! Is the day
 
 246 BALDER. 
 
 Sucli and so comparably native here 
 That even the tenants of the silent wood 
 Deem it their own possession ? Peace — 
 
 [Enters an inner room. 
 
 Asleep ! 
 Her pallid head npon her hand, and all 
 The blighted harvest of her locks unsheaved 
 Upon her pillow ; whence a single hair 
 Hangs its sweet tendril and by duest time 
 Still kept to the fair rise and shadowy fall 
 Of her white breast denotes how undisturbed 
 The obedient air about her ! To my cheek 
 'Tis hot and angered as with glare of fire ! 
 But the Mimosa by her doth not fade ; 
 Some dew is on the blossoms that she wears, 
 Plucked, doubtless, in the shadow of the dell ; — 
 And I observe yon frail-winged butterfly 
 Which fluttered through the eastern casement cool 
 With freshest odours — and whose fairy fans 
 Had shrivelled in a heat which cherishes 
 This human flesh — doth palpitate unharmed 
 Mid through the glow that scorched me. 
 
 Inch by inch 
 
 Adjusting every witness of the soul 
 By such external warrants, I do reach 
 Herself, the centre and untaken core 
 Of this enchanted Castle whose far lines 
 And strong circumvallations in and in
 
 BALDER. 247 
 
 Concentring I liave carried, but found not ' 
 
 Tlie foe that makes them deadly ; and I stand 
 Before these most fair walls and know he lies 
 Contained, and in the wont of savage war 
 Prowl round my scatheless enemy and plot 
 Where, at what time, with what consumftate blow 
 To storm his last retreat and sack the sense 
 That dens her fierce malease. 
 
 I am as one 
 Who hearing music thro' the dark doth press 
 Straight towards the sound and comes upon a tower, 
 And feels along the impediment whereby 
 To pass it ; and the walls still put him back 
 And the contained voice still calls and he 
 Still pressing to the sound still journey eth round 
 His hid desire ; and now by ear led on 
 Draws nigh, — and now, when close piu'suit should break 
 The skin of fleshed enjoyment, hears the voice 
 Fainter and fainter from the further cell. 
 And so unconscious treads a beaten ring 
 Following that moony voice that wanes and fiUs 
 And wanes, and at the worst again is new. 
 Till at the last, instructed by defeat, 
 Step by slow step he measures round the wall 
 The crescent sound, and at one loudest spot 
 Of proximate possession lays his siege, 
 And with his straining strength and bruised hands 
 Would force the unyielding Stone !
 
 248 BALDER. 
 
 Thus have I tracked 
 That still unseen disturber of my days 
 Who in this holy sanctuary hath made 
 His sacrilegious dwelling ; yea could lay 
 A finger on the small fair space that hides 
 Within such ^abaster and most pure 
 Sarcophagus the cancerous atomy 
 Which with its black disease, as with a stench, 
 Infects this gracious world. From the w'ide air 
 Thro' the freed earth and up the very stairs 
 Of home, entrenched against me, hold by hold. 
 Implacable with steady overthrow 
 Of hounding hate incessant I dislodge him. 
 And here before a scale of living bone 
 Come to my final stop ! and though my arms 
 Can hem him in, and his unforced place 
 To these avenging and swift hands be near 
 As their own marrow, know him here at last 
 Impregnable. Heavens ! that the very knife 
 Which doth uproot a weed would cut more deep 
 Than should eradicate from the restored 
 Sweet universe that thread of bitterness 
 Which feeds the mighty shade that poisons aU ! 
 That with one little stroke I could cut out 
 This oecumenical and central wrong, 
 And dare not do it ! With no stronger use 
 Of no more muscles than would rend this hair, 
 This little hair — I could end once for all
 
 BALDER. 249 
 
 That sole accursed evil which hath been 
 
 My Master ! That the mortal chase hath brought 
 
 Mine enemy to ground, and he lies here 
 
 As far off from my just revenge as in 
 
 The farthest of the stars ! 
 
 f 
 
 SCE^^E XXXVIII. 
 The Hill-side. Enter Balder. 
 
 Balder. "Was this world built for happiness, that man 
 In aU his agonies since pain began 
 Hath, as of intuition, changed its use 
 And customary order ; made the Night 
 A banquet-hall for his cold feast of Death, 
 And Day his weary chamber ? Or was't wrought 
 In equal seasons, that the separate waUs 
 Of twain but neighbouring mansions might contain 
 The happy and the wretched ? 
 
 I that walked 
 All this long night upon the bare hill-top 
 Grow heavy in the sunshine and would sleep. 
 
 \_IIc lies down and sleeps — after a while starts up. 
 
 This dream ! why I came leaping out of it 
 
 Half-witted and half-dead as one escapes 
 
 From dungeons into air. I must have wept, too. 
 
 The grass below my face is aU bedewed, — 
 
 Away . [Turns and sleeps.
 
 250 BALDER. 
 
 [Leaps up with disordered looks. 
 No, no, it cannot be, it must not be, 
 It shall not be ! — Amy ! — 
 
 [LooMng up, his eye catches the clouds. 
 
 Tou white full heavens ! 
 You crowded heavens that mine eyes left but now 
 Shining and void and azure ! — 
 
 Ah ! ah ! ah ! 
 Ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! 
 By Satan ! this is well. What ! am I judged ? 
 Tou ponderous and slow-moving ministers, 
 Are you already met ? Are crimes begot 
 Above ? And do we sLu to give the train 
 And hungry following of the stately gods 
 An office ? Doth their pastime tarry there 
 Because I lag ? Is it to be endured 
 That while I sleep the ready forum forms 
 About me, and the conscript fathers wait 
 The unaccomplished wrong ? Hence ! clear the heavens ! 
 Break up ! What ! can I not so much as dream 
 But your substantial thunders must surround 
 The ghostly fault, and with material towers 
 And bodily environment hem in 
 The thin unflesh'd commission ? Do you close 
 Upon me like a weary prey run down. 
 Stalked to the final onset ? But I live ! 
 Will you sit at the board while the meal walks ? 
 How if you are too soon ? Who sees the game ?
 
 BALDER. 251 
 
 Look down upon ns here — wliicli is your man ? 
 
 Wliat have I done ? My hands are white — behold ! 
 
 Tou solemn imperturbable o'er-high 
 
 All-seeing and prededicate avengers, 
 
 For once ye sit in vain ! My will is not 
 
 Tours ; nor shall any terrors of your loud 
 
 Discomfiture, nor any warning sign — 
 
 No, tho' the rocked right half of heaven rolled o'er 
 
 And stood at heaps on the sinister side — 
 
 Unplant my fixed resolve. Mine eyes do pierce 
 
 The lower ostentations of your brief 
 
 And temporary royalty to reach 
 
 A Paramount Supreme. 
 
 SCENE XXXIX. 
 
 The Studi). A writing-table, with paper and pens. 
 
 Balder. Tes, I will bear, forbear, hope, labour, wait. 
 Yet once again. He who from love of day 
 Doth end his life in the obscurest hour 
 Of long-lived night flies not from aged Nox 
 But from unborn Aurora. 'Tis the part 
 Of wisdom to endure. Whatever clime 
 Surround, more fair, this sublunary scene, 
 Howe'er we name those undiscovered Powers 
 That rule us and do place our weal and woe.
 
 Si52 BALDER. 
 
 The problem of the wretched is to pass 
 
 Not the set circumscription of his known 
 
 And ordered ill, but the unsearched confines 
 
 Of their supreme disposals. Failing that 
 
 All fails ; and the poor slave for whom extends 
 
 No safe inviolable shore, no last 
 
 Red Stygian frontier where the angry hordes 
 
 Of hurrying hell must needs stand balked and droop 
 
 The unavailing scorpions, — had best bend 
 
 To his worst task, nor heat the blood of swift 
 
 Inevitable vengeance. Once again — 
 
 \_Tlbrough the open door, Amt is heard. 
 
 Amy. If thou art not, death, if thou art not, 
 I am immortal and not born to die, 
 And time hath no dominion over me. 
 Is this the secret of my wretched lot, 
 Is this the secret of a happy world 
 And all the joy of life that glads not me ? 
 
 I think I am immortal ; I do think 
 My unrespective being takes to-day 
 The further woes of an eternal fate. 
 
 In vain the earth is happy, and in vain, 
 
 In vain, a little space above my head 
 
 The dread and over-arching destiny 
 
 Is calm and fair ; I feel from pole to pole, 
 
 Nor know the year that doth devour mine heart !
 
 BALDER. 253 
 
 Oh, God ! Thou hast not made me for my lot, 
 
 I faint in prospect of the shoreless sea ! 
 
 I cannot stand under the universe ! 
 
 That it would sink and crush me once for all ! 
 
 That I were broken as a thing defect, 
 Wholly rubbed out as of no right to be, 
 And as a heedless error of the hand 
 Cancelled for ever from the book of life ! 
 
 [After a long silence she is heard again. 
 That I might die and be no more at all. 
 That I might cease out of the scheme of things, 
 And all my place be filled up evermore ! 
 
 I am galled with my destiny ; that one 
 "Would take my lot out of my scorched hands, 
 And all my heritage in heaven and earth. 
 Oh, God, forget me from thy universe. 
 Oh, God, I have retired out of my life, 
 The functions of my soul are dead, and I 
 Am but a burning hope of not to be ! 
 Oh, God fulfil me ; I am but this thirst. 
 This all-consuming thirst, quench it and me ! 
 
 [After a long silence she is heard again. 
 My punishment is more than I can bear. 
 Oh, men, oh, living men, oh, passers by, 
 No, this was not my sentence, no man yet 
 For such a fault hath heard so hard a doom !
 
 254 BALDER. 
 
 For a small matter did they shut me in 
 Upon the eve of war, and on the morn 
 The tower was taken and the gaoler fled ! 
 
 My cell is in the dank and hollow ground, 
 The ruins fell above it ; no man knows 
 Its place ; I am forgotten in my land. 
 
 I lay my hand upon the creeping thing, 
 
 The worm crawls o'er me ; the snail harbours up 
 
 My limbs. I am as dark and all-forgot 
 
 As any stone that never saw the sun 
 
 And is and was and vsdll be in the earth. 
 
 I hear the sound of life above my head, 
 The toads leap with it, and the very rock 
 Shakes with the overgoing ; but I know 
 Tlio fallen ruins lie on heap ; my cry 
 Can never struggle to the day ; no man 
 Will ever seek me. 
 
 Hist ! they move the stones ! 
 East, faster ! or I famish ! This was not 
 My sentence ! I was not shut in for this ! 
 No man could treat me so ! oh, men, oh, men, 
 The tower was taken and the gaoler fled, — 
 Let me out, let me out ! I starve ! I starve ! 
 
 [Listening to tJds he rises. 
 Balder. You great Gods,
 
 BALDER. 255 
 
 Here like a niglit-mare do I shake you off! [After a pause. 
 
 Poor child, 
 
 Come hither, perchance I can help thee. Hear me. 
 
 [She comes. 
 By all her wrongs, 
 Her unrespited Patience, nnreleased 
 Endeavour, unremembered sighs and tears ; 
 By her unheard poor prayers, her unfulfilled 
 Long hope, her uncrowned faith, her love unblest, 
 Her unallayed incomparable sorrow ; 
 By all that hath no worthy place on earth, 
 All that hath won no summons from the sides, 
 I swear to set her free ! 
 
 Amy {kneeling before him). To set me free ? 
 Am I to be free ? oh to set me free ? 
 It cannot be so. Sir, thou knowest not ; 
 They have forgotten me where I do lie ; 
 The tower was taken and the gaoler fled ; 
 The ruins fell on heap ; the many stones 
 Are o'er me ; no man can come near nor tell 
 The under earth is hollow. Oh to help me, 
 Oh to come near me, oh to set me free ! 
 
 [She sinJcs on the floor icecpinrj. 
 
 Balder {musing). This leprosy 
 Of murder being fairly out on me 
 Hath lost its worst disease. The dark excess 
 That for so many days o'er-loaded all 
 31 y swollen veins, strangled each vital service,
 
 256 BALDER. 
 
 And pressing hard the incommoded soul 
 In its unyielding tenement convulsed 
 The wholesome work of nature, is expelled. 
 The crisis of my malady is past 
 And leaves me sane but hideous. I do stand 
 Blood-hot from head to heel but cool withiu. 
 Blood-wet and steaming blood from every pore 
 Incarnadine, but retching at those mouths 
 The red surcharge that killed me. I am calm 
 And being calm shall better aim the bolt 
 Forged and flung down amid the thunder-rain 
 Of Passion. That great rain that did so drown 
 The present where it fell that aU beyond 
 Looked back upon already seems a world 
 Before the flood. 
 
 I will even let her forth 
 As a poor bird out of a burning cage. 
 Nought in the direst caverns of the dark 
 Untried unknown can be less kind to her 
 Than I have been. Somewhere, perhaps, in space 
 There may be better places than this world ; 
 No worse. Tes, I wiU let thee forth, poor child. 
 Aye tho' the seven times sacred bars be built 
 Of the twelve holy jewels, and I break 
 The door that will not open ! Amy ! Amy ! 
 She sleeps ! What ! hath the very breath of murder 
 Such odour of its substance that the air 
 About me brings her to a doze like Death ?
 
 BALDER. 257 
 
 'Tis well ! so can I test the untried strength 
 That seems invincible. How now — how then ? 
 
 [He bends over her. 
 
 Now, — these dark tresses that I lift aside 
 
 To see the brow they shade, and, in my hand. 
 
 Having no sensible motion yet do lie 
 
 With something of agreement ; nor as things 
 
 Wholly inert, but lighter than their weight 
 
 With strange and inner help : — then — Nay for if 
 
 The hair grow after death ? I have read so. 
 
 Now a most pallid cheek and leaden lids 
 
 Closed lids still livid with her latest pain ; 
 
 And on the cheek and on the lid two tears. 
 
 Then — but they'll scatter morning flowers upon her, 
 
 And if some dew-drops fall upon her face 
 
 They must needs be as these — no lovelier 
 
 No purer, nor less meet to call to mind 
 
 The briny taste of human sorrow. Now 
 
 A little stirring of the breast — then none. 
 
 Now not so much as drives away the fly 
 
 Upon her bosom — then 
 
 You Gods, I curse ye ! 
 
 \_After a pause. 
 
 I did not tremble, therefore I can do't. 
 
 \A very long silence, dwring whick she still sleeps at his feel. 
 
 [Clock strikes. 
 Another hour, and thou that sleepest there 
 Hast like a rosy Angel that o'erstands
 
 258 BALDER. 
 
 The pale flat corse that is and is not she, 
 
 Stood in my eyes and tried me. Am I bent 
 
 Grey, weathered, travel-stained ? The hidden truth 
 
 And secret of that strange geography 
 
 We traverse in the journey we caU life 
 
 I know not ; but I know that in this hour 
 
 I have inhabited each backward spot 
 
 Left long ago, long past and, by my count, 
 
 Almost as far behind as Heaven before. 
 
 Whenever I did take thee by the hand 
 
 With fatal purpose, thou sweet looking up 
 
 Didst lead my ignorant steps and charmed eyes 
 
 To some dear olden scene and moment where 
 
 I could not kill thee. None seemed far and none 
 
 More near than any other. But I turned 
 
 Upon the bruised body at my feet 
 
 And would not see the phantom. Then it sang. 
 
 And then I heard thee Hke a bell i'the air. 
 
 Stirring the silver silence circulate 
 
 About thee into music ; while around 
 
 Dreamy upon the wind the floating past 
 
 Circled thee shining, as stained clouds about 
 
 The watery moon, and all the ancient joy 
 
 Came forth revolving in the coloured void, 
 
 Well-wonted, nor life-weary, but with looks 
 
 Terribly sweet, as waiting on thy voice 
 
 And only lacking thee to be again. 
 
 And I am shaken with grief and my black fate
 
 BALDER. 259 
 
 Shrieks as a night of tempest at my head 
 
 And the dream passes like far village chimes 
 
 Blown on a rushing twilight full of rain. 
 
 I did not tremble ; therefore I can do't. 
 
 "Who if not I ? Poor Dove, Poor Dove, I caught thee 
 
 In the eagle's talons and did carry thee 
 
 Up to the heights I dared nearest the sun 
 
 And scorched thee blind ! And shall my pinions fail 
 
 To hurry thee beyond the temperate bound 
 
 Of mortal anguish, or refuse that great 
 
 And consummating mercy-stroke that cleaves 
 
 The last of vital ether and doth end 
 
 Captive and captor in the final blaze 
 
 Of solar conflagration ! I can do it . 
 
 Whether these mortal Dsedalean wings 
 
 Will bear me living to the central pyre, 
 
 The dire event must try. Enough to know 
 
 I shall not die till I have seen thee first 
 
 In safe destruction ; this most exquisite flesh 
 
 These tender filaments will have transpired 
 
 luvisible in incense filling Heaven 
 
 Ere I am ashes. 
 
 Oh my Beautiful 
 My Beautiful why wert thou ever mine ? 
 Why didst thou love me ? What had I to do 
 With thee ? Oh Eve, oh happy happy Eve, 
 AVhy didst thou hear my voice ? Was Paradise 
 Too narrow to content thee ? Paradise 
 
 s2
 
 260 BALDER. 
 
 That if thou wert immortal would Lave brought 
 
 Some better flower for every sweeter day 
 
 Of thy still blest for-ever ; nor had asked 
 
 More answering care than this — that for the fame 
 
 Of her dear handiwork thou shouklst not bend 
 
 Thy cheek above her blushing rose nor wear 
 
 Her lily in thy breast ! What dost thou here ? 
 
 Have I the band that pencils the white page 
 
 Of snowdrops, or doth hang on the fine ear 
 
 Of each unhurt fair blossom morn by morn 
 
 Its pendulous jewel ; is my manly texture 
 
 Soft as the silken slopes of Venus' thigh, 
 
 That I should touch thee ? Can I give thee food 
 
 Celestial ? or what vital element 
 
 Dissolve in a sweet draught of delicate air 
 
 And serve thee ? Is my home an amber tent 
 
 Of April cloud ? Are my black oaken floors 
 
 Light-paven levels such as spirits walk 
 
 At moon-rise ? Can I take an evening mist 
 
 And dip it in the west and clothe thy limbs 
 
 AYith gold and purple ? Have I zephyr-winds 
 
 To wait upon thee, and to snood thine hair 
 
 "With gossamer ? Then wherefore art thou mine ? 
 
 That any immortality of pangs 
 
 The damned know not might buy this boon for me 
 
 This only boon — to set thee back again 
 
 In thy first best estate ! to wrench mine heart-strings 
 
 From thy life's web and burn them in deep hell !
 
 BALDER. 261 
 
 Wliat weary Angel exiled from the skies, 
 
 Her baby at her breast, with failing strength 
 
 Paused at this earth and left thee ? Thou wert not 
 
 Of us and being grown up shouldst have gone 
 
 Back to thine heaven ; or having business here 
 
 It should have been in some excepted task 
 
 Set out and sacred from the common lot. 
 
 If there be any still and vesper hoar 
 
 More pure than all the day, thou shouldst have been 
 
 Its tutelar, to lead it in and out, 
 
 Versed in the duteous season and each rite 
 
 Of welcome and farewell. This changeful earth 
 
 Should be to thee a garden where we take 
 
 Rare pleasaunce and in happy weather walk 
 
 But do not dwell. Thou shouldst have dwelt afar 
 
 With everlasting Morning, going fortli 
 
 "With her and from her chaste urn unrebuked 
 
 — Dipping thy sinless hand — shouldst sprinkle dews. 
 
 Or at the side of Spring, her handmaiden 
 
 Bearing her violets, what time she comes 
 
 Over the hills descending shouldst have passed 
 
 Into this valley blessing it and me. 
 
 And shouldst have loved me only while the fields 
 
 Were sown, nor pitied me forlorn, nor heard 
 
 My vows, nor faithless to thy Goddess-queen 
 
 Forgot thy better duty, but have gone 
 
 When she went, singing o'er the southern slopes 
 
 Joyous beside her ; turning on the height
 
 262 BALDER. 
 
 For my sake and in richer violet-beds 
 
 Betraying tliat thiae hand relaxed with thought. 
 
 So thou shouldst still have left me and returned 
 
 With the pervading year, for ever young, 
 
 Till that sad season when thy tearful care 
 
 Eound not the old man on the wonted hill 
 
 Xor by the thorn nor the memorial tree ; 
 
 And made a time of strange forget-me-nots 
 
 And melancholy flowers that love the rain. 
 
 Setting the fairest banks with saddest blooms 
 
 And by a grassy mound in one deep dell 
 
 Beating thy breast let fall the store of spring, 
 
 So that to other vales the spring came late 
 
 Tarrying for thee. And whenceforth thou being given 
 
 To sudden sighs and musings didst not keep 
 
 Thine old unblamed attendance, and no more 
 
 Didst sow thy flowers with free impartial hand. 
 
 But, sick with fitful fancies, oft delayed 
 
 Oft hasted, till for many hapless years 
 
 Spring lost her fame on earth ; nay had a weird 
 
 And crazy name, because that fall by fall 
 
 Thou still remindful didst steal back alone 
 
 To trim my grave, and ever and anon 
 
 After the snows were white didst visit me 
 
 Being ill at rest ; and lo ! in that strange dell 
 
 Unseasonable thaws and timeless flowers 
 
 And none knew why. 
 
 But I have taken thee
 
 BALDER. 263 
 
 And in my coarse and savage ignorance 
 Put thee to mortal uses. Bent these hands 
 Which from some flowery chalice should have fed 
 The early bee, to grind the daily bread 
 Of household travail, set to vulgar toil 
 These tender fingers vrhich were made to unfold 
 The plaited w^ngs of butterfly or know 
 One violet from another, and this frame 
 For which if she had found it anywhere 
 Forsaken Nature of herself had wrought 
 Peculiar season, left a prey to harsh 
 Inclement fortunes, torn by winds of woe. 
 Bit by the frosts of poverty and struck 
 To the scorched marrow by the burning stroke 
 I did not feel. Thou art avenged ! avenged ! 
 Oh Amy ! wilt thou go back to thy fields 
 Of childhood, and the walls of the old home 
 That loved thee ? Wilt thou wander late at eve 
 When all the west is still and black and pass 
 Among the dim trunks of remembered trees 
 Like a returning sunset ? WiU the flowers 
 Be fairer there tomorrow, and grey men 
 Look on the year and praise it with the years 
 Of youth, and all the village that so long 
 Had drooped for thee, like a revived plant 
 That drinks by dark a subtle sustenance 
 Which no man seeth, lift the sudden head 
 That yesterday was low ? There wilt thou be
 
 264 BALDER. 
 
 Oread and Naiad, or from many oaks 
 
 Wtisper thy secret, wander like a sigla 
 
 Thro' green woods where we wandered, or persuade 
 
 Misfortune from the happy cots we loved, 
 
 Or spread by tranquil Night or genial Day 
 
 Felt but unseen a necessary health 
 
 AVithin, without, thro' all the charmed place, 
 
 The hearth serener and the happier bed. 
 
 The ways auspicious and the waters safe ? 
 
 No go not there ! The very paths are yet 
 
 Bare with my footsteps. I shall haunt thee still. 
 
 have distraught thy world, and thy poor skill 
 Can never recompose it. Night by night 
 Thou shouldst behold me in the western sky. 
 Dyed with thy blood. Spring, Summer, Autumn, "Winter, 
 Should be the racking seasons of the day 
 I killed thee ; every custom of mankind 
 A various form of murder ; aye the knife 
 Upon the unoffending cottage board 
 Eound which the children sit, should rise unheld 
 And stab thee to the heart. 
 
 Eather return 
 Into this general nature, whereof thou 
 Art not so much a part or element 
 As the consummate whole in a given space 
 More visible, — a ripple of the sea. 
 The whole is happy ; sink into the whole. 
 I think there is no separate tenement
 
 BALDER. 265 
 
 — No, thougli thou wert an angel far in heaven — 
 Where thy meek subject soul would dare refuse 
 Incfress to mine. Better be re-dissolved, 
 Nor have one atom of thine unconstrained 
 Free essence so defined as to receive 
 The local weight of sorrow, nor a sense 
 So fashioned to contain a human thought 
 As to remember me ! 
 
 SCENE XL. 
 
 Tlie Study. Balder solus at the open window. 
 
 Balder. Oh you o'er-arching and high heavens on whom 
 I caU, because that as remote from me 
 Ye must be good ; that as diverse from me 
 Te must be strong ; that as serene above 
 The comprehension of my human sense, 
 Te may be happy ; is it well, you heavens 
 That ye look down on such a thing as I ? 
 
 If your innumerous hosts be seraphs crowned, 
 Throned, with radiant limbs and upturned eyes 
 Eeilecting God, — and such, methinks, but now 
 I saw at eve ere the great choir was filled 
 Taking their thrones expectant of the hour. 
 And for the general anthem one by one 
 Tuning their harps and shedding dewy tears
 
 266 BALDER. 
 
 Ecstatic, — if they sit there to adore, 
 And have perpetual function of mere praise, 
 "Were it not wise, ye heavens, to draw your clouds 
 Between us ? I was faithful once as they, 
 And mighty as the mightiest who doth sweep 
 His golden starry strings, and with the sound 
 Lighten these tuneless deeps. If I were God 
 They should not see this heart. 
 
 SCENE XLI. 
 The Study. Balder, solus, by the windotc. 
 
 Balder. And once since then it hath been night and day. 
 Before my open eyes the useless sua 
 Perfunctory again hath been drawn up 
 Over yon east. Why I know not, nor care, 
 For in my soul the season hath not changed. [Pauses. 
 It must be done. How 1 have learned so weU 
 That the di-ead lesson going to and fro 
 On the bare surface of my beaten brain 
 Hath trod out its own footsteps. Yet once more 
 Let me dispose it in the attitude 
 Of due performance. This most sovereign gift 
 Of long sought death should be the last and best 
 Of all our sweet love-tokens, and bestowed 
 In the ripe moment and receptive throb 
 Of her consent, my hint and cue to be
 
 BALDER. 2G: 
 
 Her own entreaty. Good. [Pauses. 
 
 " Tliat I might die," 
 And then I strike. [Pauses. 
 
 — Who struck ? Liar, not I ! 
 For in this forehead came the mortal dint 
 And stunned me ! Down from my flayed shoulders thou 
 Intolerable weight that like a beast 
 Hast dropped on me out of the mystery 
 And blackest umbrage. I have enough to bear, 
 I hurl thee off — aye, tho' thou clawest my life 
 And rollest into Hell. I have not sinned ! 
 It is no sin ! Did she not beg for death ? 
 Is it not blessed to give ? And if the gift 
 Bankrupt the giver — how ? Tou heavens, if I 
 Am merely poor that she who gave her mite 
 Was Croesus' widow ! 
 
 Did she not pray too ? 
 Have I not heard her at midnight and noon ? 
 And she was righteous, and her righteous prayer 
 Must needs avail : what is to come must come. 
 Whether by thunder-bolt, or secret touch 
 Of plague, or undetermining event 
 Of irrespective hap, or by the hand 
 Of love, how guiltier ? Beast, I have not sinned ! 
 Off! — Why 'tis well. Thus as with sudden shout 
 I scare it from me, and these worse within 
 That like a pack of hungry wolves disperse 
 A moment into darkness and return
 
 268 BALDER. 
 
 Ravening tlie more. Vain labour to vain end. 
 
 Even let them gorge tlaeir full. ]My pride is carrion 
 
 And stinks to be devoured. Hie in you hell-dogs 
 
 And split your hides ! There is no good in me ; 
 
 Why cavil in what fashion I shall wear 
 
 The necessary evil of an essence 
 
 Inexorably bad ? If that which lives 
 
 In this detested arm had warmed the sap 
 
 And swelled the branches of some innocent tree, 
 
 A murderer would have plucked it. 
 
 Do you weep 
 Ye heavens ? Let fall your balmy tears in vain. 
 Aye, make the grass green that she may not tread ; 
 Let brooks prate idly, fill the empty earth 
 With wasted flowers. AVhat matter ? Have your will 
 Niggard or good. Xone evermore shall see 
 Or hear. My Beautiful, my Beautiful, 
 Thou art slain ! Thou art slain ! 
 
 Grod, that I had not been ; 
 That I had perished in my father's veins ! 
 That some fore-blasting flash had dried me up. 
 And nature had not known an hour or womb 
 
 So cursed as to conceive me ! 
 
 [He sits silent for two hows by the window. 
 
 Forty times and five, 
 And every time to each twin beak a meal ; 
 Two meals and but a single fly to each 
 Fourscore and ten ; but I perceive the bird
 
 BALDER. 269 
 
 Feedeth by favour, aud the furtlier beak 
 That hath a forward air and overhangs 
 The pendant threshold at each dole enjoys 
 A double bounty. Do both parent birds 
 Concern in this fond labour ? I think both. 
 They seem alike ; but measuring with mine eye 
 By the small boles and bosses of the nest 
 I mark that the alternate visitant 
 Plants its right tiny foot where the left claw 
 Of the last comer rested, and this so 
 Not once or twice within the laws of chance. 
 But in such due succession as bespeaks 
 Or choice or habit personal. If choice 
 Then both by differentia, since in birds 
 The sense of numbers, if such sense exist. 
 Solely perceptive must of need omit 
 Numerical relation, and if habit 
 Both by the hypothesis. 
 
 Oh thou great grief, 
 That like a lion at the foot of a tree 
 Dost wait for me — gape thy red jaws ! I come ! 
 It must be done, Tlie very day is doomed. 
 A shut and funeral city hung with black 
 Is not more different from the daily streets 
 Than this day from another. As on morn 
 Of foul and horrid execution 
 The sullen Tyrant orders from the North 
 His hideous hordes upon the glowing land
 
 270 BALDER. 
 
 That loved the captive, Winter ere his time 
 
 Upon the genial season hath advanced 
 
 Sudden with all his Power. Down the moist walls 
 
 The long snail slimes ; cold things of fen and pool 
 
 Come within doors and as a native stone 
 
 Do crawl the gristly heartli ; and in my soul 
 
 This palpable obscurity repeats 
 
 The outer darkness, and within, without, 
 
 Cosmic and microcosmic, as yon twain 
 
 Eound answering hemispheres, world answers world. 
 
 I cannot see the hills or the mild sky, 
 
 Or aught of gentler aspect that beheld 
 
 Might yet dissuade me. To mine inward eyes 
 
 That might have met unmanned such sweet array 
 
 Of sacred opposition, there is now 
 
 Nought but the inner mist and through the mist 
 
 A path stark clear. Therefore it must be done. 
 
 As one who having stared upon the sun. 
 
 Turning his eyeballs downward doth bedaub 
 
 The blotted world with black, to my hot sight 
 
 A moving pall is in the air and when 
 
 I think of her it falls upon the face 
 
 I could not slay. Therefore it must be done. 
 
 Nature herself consenting to the deed 
 
 Lets her veil round it and to me shut in 
 
 Of all her universe doth leave alone 
 
 The victim and the knife. Therefore, oh God, 
 
 It must be done. [ffe attemps to rise.
 
 BALDER. 271 
 
 I will arise. Eare moment ! 
 The slow will hath not reached the idle thews 
 Yet, being dispatched, the irrevocable deed 
 Is now in act, and I that have not moved 
 Already am felonious. What ! is this 
 A dream, that the strong cause o'ershoots the effect 
 And passes with its message the untouched 
 Dull functions it should stir ? At length I stand. 
 What ! am I chained ? Have I trunk-hose of lead ? 
 The door — the door — my limbs do help the ground 
 Sucking me in. The threshold is not yet. 
 I labour against the atedfastness o' the air, 
 Which bars my breast, and, as two walls of ice 
 Falling together with mine head between, 
 Enlocks me. Hands, hands, nothing but hands — Ah ! 
 Is it so horrible that very nothing 
 Conceives to stay it? Off! I will be free. 
 Darkness at noon ! Aye, aye, the flood swells fast. 
 
 This lightning [Sinks in a swoon. 
 
 [After lying long he recovers and sits up. 
 
 A swoon ? So best. Zero once past is past. 
 And the uncounted scale beneath hath not 
 A credible extreme. I am a man 
 Who with the very gate of death shuts out 
 Each earthly work behind him, and with all 
 His human powers in one comes back to do 
 A single office. By this strait I leave 
 Tlie womb of failing nature, and am born
 
 272 BALDER. 
 
 Invincible ; safer perhaps to know 
 
 The range of chance, and stronger to have felt 
 
 The worst of mortal weakness. Weakness ? Bah ! 
 
 I turned the sword of manhood in my hand 
 
 And with mine eye I tried it, and on edge 
 
 The broad attempered steel went out of sight. 
 
 A true Damascus blade ! [Clock strikes. 
 
 One, two, three, four, 
 Eive, six, seven. Never trembling wretch that hears 
 The form of Justice strained at the approach 
 Of that one final word that holds his fate. 
 As I for that last stroke. 
 I well remember that at eight o'clock 
 "We, far asunder, kept a tryst in Heaven 
 Night after night for years. At that sweet hour. 
 She had a prayer she used to say for me, 
 And ever since I think the very time 
 Repeats it. I have need of prayers to-night. 
 And I do think the evening air so oft 
 Ensweetened with her deprecating breath 
 WOl then be gracious for her. 
 
 I'll not haste 
 Nor to the moment of the deed abate 
 One jot that smooths the doing. lOoing to the window. 
 
 Brittle world ! 
 Thou hast another hour ere I do break thee. 
 Eor she shall live until the clock strikes eight. 
 Oh heavy, heavy curfew !
 
 BALDER. 273 
 
 SCENE XLII. 
 
 The vacant Stiuly. — Busts, hooks, a harp, ttc. A locked writing-case 
 
 on the table. 
 
 [Enter Amy {her face very pale,- — her hair 
 dishevelled, — hei' dress disordered). 
 
 Amy. Aye — this is the place. 
 
 This is the chamber of his nights and days. 
 
 Let me lie close. "Where be these mistresses 
 
 For which his lawful wife must sit in the shade ? 
 
 \J^alcing vip the icriting-case. 
 What are you in here ? [ShaJcing the case. 
 
 Do you know me, girls ? 
 This makes the treason full ; I have endured 
 Too long. Have I not loved him like a god? 
 Am I not beautiful ? Is it no shame 
 That he should leave these limbs for liarridans 
 That I can shake together in a box ? 
 It must be ended — I will wait him here 
 And he shall do me right. [CroucJies down in a corner. 
 
 [Enter Balder. — He stands a long time silent. 
 Balder. Ye pale companions, marble counsellors, 
 Who for so many years have been content 
 To ratify my will ; or in the shine 
 Of whose mysterious influence I have been 
 The unwitting creature of a power unknown 
 Wrought by the pitiless necessity
 
 274 BALDER. 
 
 Of your supreme ascendant ; Deities 
 
 Or Slaves, — I know not whether — but not stones ! 
 
 Ye who have darkened with me as white brows 
 
 Of the invulnerable rocks with thunder, 
 
 And in my triumphs have been moved as gods 
 
 Changing unchangeable with such a truth 
 
 Of inner motion that the deferent eye 
 
 Obeyed the conscious soul and saw a change 
 
 Sweeter than mortal beauty, like the smiles 
 
 That flit and flicker ia dim light about 
 
 The lips of death ! Oh thou dear sanctuary, 
 
 Wherein as in a body I have dwelt 
 
 The informing spirit, finding more and more 
 
 3Iy wish forelaid, my wants fulfilled in thee, 
 
 Till going forth from thee the plastic sense 
 
 Subserves thee, absent, and I stretch the hand 
 
 To the familiar distance, and raise vain eyes, — 
 
 As an unbodied ghost new given to air 
 
 Enfolds the immaterial arms, and strains 
 
 To lift the wonted limbs ! my stringless harp, 
 
 — Poor empty skull that hadst so sweet a tongue — 
 
 Te broken tablets ; — 
 
 [Opening the case and taking forth a scroll. 
 
 Thou material soul. 
 Thou uncontained dimension, thou dead self. 
 Which art not I, and shalt perhaps revive 
 When this I am is nought ; thou wondrous voice
 
 BALDER. 275 
 
 That canst be seen and touched ; thou strange parhelion 
 
 That wilt not set with me ; thou Ariel 
 
 Fast in the rifted pine ; thou Afreet dread 
 
 And fierce, whom, sealed by a strong sign of power. 
 
 As in a charmed vial thus I hold 
 
 Inert and silent, so that a child's hand 
 
 May bear thee harmless, place thee here and here, 
 
 Take thee and leave thee, — thou that being loosed 
 
 Mayst leap foi-th like a blast of the simoom 
 
 And tear a host to tatters ; thou entombed 
 
 And mummied past ; thou colourless substantial 
 
 Which in a light unrisen shalt be called 
 
 A microcosm of beauty ; thou dull moonstone 
 
 Dark as cold lava now — that rushing o'er 
 
 The upturned heads of nations might'st have shone 
 
 A blazing portent, troubling thrones of kings ; 
 
 Thou black uncomely root ; thou trifling seed ; 
 
 Thou grain of poison or of antidote 
 
 So little and so much ; thou estHlation 
 
 And sacred concrete of the golden cloud 
 
 That filled the azure of my years, and like 
 
 fcThe legendary water-drop that falls 
 
 On Abyssinian summit and becomes 
 
 Egyptian harvests — wert to flood the earth ; 
 
 Oh thou that I have made in fear and awe 
 
 And ignorance, knowing only thou canst smite 
 
 Angels and fiends, and shake the shrines of Gods ; 
 
 T 2
 
 276 BALDER. 
 
 Thou liiddeu secret, master Alcliemy 
 And cunningest composition of mine art, 
 Which as a fireball with this unknown hand 
 Approaching through the dark I thought to throw 
 Into the smouldering ashes of mankind 
 And see, with thunder like the clap of doom, 
 Prom eartli to heaven — as if a pillared light 
 Shot up from the rent centre of the world — 
 The midnight of my wretched race made day 
 With my unthought of glory — • 
 
 [Amy, rising suddenly, approachinr/ wildly, snatches 'he sci'oll 
 and throws it through the open window into the moat. 
 
 Amy. Grlory? see! 
 
 Can it light up that pit down where I dwell 
 Out of the light of day and of the stars ? 
 Out of the light o' the grave ; — Aye, the dull earth 
 Below the dead is not so black with night 
 But the great day shall stir it ! Is it well 
 That the dull earth below the dead hath light 
 And I am dark for ever ? Is that well ? 
 Is that well, husband ? Husband, is it well ? 
 Oh yes, thy glory ! Tes — he must have glory, 
 Tes, he must have his glory ; he can stand 
 All day in the sun, but he must have his glory ! 
 He has walked here up in the sunshine world. 
 He has been in the wind and the sweet rain, 
 And none cried ' Upset the cup o' the honey-time.
 
 BALDER. 277 
 
 Upset the cup o' the houey time,' 
 And I am empty and dry. 
 
 \_Lool:s vacantb/ on the fjvound. 
 
 Thy glory ? 
 
 I pray thee, husband, tell me what it is. 
 
 Is it a god that it can set me free ? 
 
 Hath it limbs to burrow P Can it reach me ? 
 
 Is it any thing that I have known ? 
 
 There was Love — I knew it — thou taughtest me. 
 
 How many songs hast thou not sung of love ? 
 
 [Sings. 
 
 " When first I courted thee. Amy, 
 
 The years we knew were fair and few, 
 I was gay as break of day, 
 And thou wert pure as dew. 
 
 I looked into thy face, Amy, 
 No word I said, no tear I shed. 
 
 My love-light true fell in thy dew, 
 And came back rosy-red." 
 
 Or, 
 
 " Love broke his golden bow, chasing thee long ago, 
 Then the boy cried. 
 Thou didst in pity turn " — 
 
 Nay not tliat, but, 
 " Come love, and bring 
 Sweet hope and joy " —
 
 278 BALDER. 
 
 Words, words ! what are they, down 
 Where I am ? Oh, my husband, would it reach me ? 
 Dost think that it would reach me for thy sake ? 
 Dost think it would ? And will it fetch me back 
 Being thine ? I do remember all things thine 
 Did love me. There was never dog of thine 
 But if I looked would run before my eyes 
 And bay for pleasure ; if I dropped my glove 
 'Twould carry it, poor Pompey ! Bay ? Who spoke 
 Of Bays ? Is this a time to mock me, Husband ? 
 Yet some one hath said somewhat of the sea ; 
 I think I heard it ; Didst thou speak of the sea ? 
 Why do I see the sea ? And was it kind 
 That thou shouldst maunder to me of the sea ? 
 To me ? To me ? Alas ! the moonlight water ! 
 Dost thou mind when we sailed together, love, 
 We two alone, and thou didst say the moon 
 Was like a silver boat, — and so the silver 
 Slanted — I know not how, — and I fell in 
 Deep, deep. But I am deeper, deeper now. 
 I think the sea-rocks gaped and I fell here 
 With all the s'ea between me and the wind. 
 And the sea-rock between me and the sea. 
 I strike it thus. — [Striking her head against the stone wall. 
 
 Balder. My Amy ! 
 
 Amy. Why how now ? 
 
 Do not move me, but rather move it for me ; 
 For why should I lie here out of the world r 
 
 i
 
 BALDER. 279 
 
 Thou knowest not, husband, what it is to lie 
 
 With all the sea between thee and the wind. 
 
 And the sea-rock between thee and the sea. 
 
 I say why should I lie here ? Out of all 
 
 The beauty of the earth, the blessed chime 
 
 Of things, the touch and furthest cast of good, 
 
 The common warmth of human kind, the voice 
 
 Of man or God ? Out of the very sea 
 
 That rolls and rolls above my aching head 
 
 And will not cool these lips ? Man, what have I 
 
 To do with thee ? How long is't since we two 
 
 Drew near ? If I am altered since we met, 
 
 What then ? Have we dwelt at the further poles 
 
 For nought ? Because my puppet warmed thy bed 
 
 And filled thy chair have we been side by side ? 
 
 Ah, ah ! didst never look in at the eye 
 
 And miss me ? What, didst never hear my heart 
 
 Like a clock ticking in an empty house ? 
 
 Husband r Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, — [Pamcs. 
 
 Do not disbelieve. 
 
 They will scoff at thee, they will shake thy dream 
 
 Out of thy soul, they will deny, deny 
 
 This where I am, but thou hast heard a voice 
 
 Out of its depths, thou hast heard it ! does it souud 
 
 Like a beloved familiar ? Is there fire 
 
 Above-ground that could smelt what thou didst love 
 
 To this ? Hast met it anywhere on earth
 
 280 BALDER. 
 
 My husband ? Aye, and have I frightened thee 
 Into my mate ? Shoot out thine eyeballs more ! 
 See ! see ! [Dancing before him. 
 
 Thou canst not shut up ears and eyes. 
 List to my voice, my voice which I upheave 
 As I did force it through a dome of brass. 
 Mine hour is come. I will cry in thine ears 
 And burst in crying. Canst thou tell how deep 
 By the sound ? Black — black — Hast a good ear for 
 
 colour ? 
 It bubbles thro' it aU, up — up — I think 
 Thou dost not hear me, but thou shalt hear once, 
 Once, only once, and I will be so silent, 
 So silent — thou shalt not look pale at me. 
 Thou shalt not chatter thy long teeth at me. 
 Thou shalt not show out thy black beard at me. 
 Wliat, does it grow so fast ? What, have I scared thee ? 
 AVhat, does the white skin shrink back down the roots ? 
 Art thou a porcupine ? AVhat ! Shall I dance ? 
 Aye, husband, dance and sing ; aye, hear me sing. 
 Hear ! thou shalt hear ; my voice is coming up ; 
 Hark, hark, it comes ; dyed with the dark, it comes ! 
 
 Now it comes into me, now I will cry ; 
 
 [She shriels. 
 I atn his wife ! This is my murderer ! 
 Make way, make way, this is a murderer ! 
 I am in hell, slain, lost, robbed, murdered, mad,
 
 BALDER. 281 
 
 He did it, he ! 
 
 Balder. He knows it. 
 
 Amy. Mad, mad, mad. 
 
 [Sinhing in Ids arms in a swoon. 
 
 Balder. Now, now, my soul ! it must be ere she wake. 
 I will bear this alone ; she shall not know 
 The hand that strikes — This hand ! Nor man nor fiend 
 Would do thee harm but me ! Now — now — yet oh ! 
 That it must be now. That it had been while 
 The fire of madness burned her, and she swelled 
 And blackened like a burning house, once home, 
 Now but a house in flames. For home is not 
 The stone that holds it ; and the elements 
 That once were Amy, and which marked thy place 
 And made thee visible, were neither thou 
 Nor all thou wert to me, nor all thou art. 
 Lying this moment here, here as of old. 
 And with no sign in heaven or earth to say 
 That thou canst never waken as of old. 
 
 Tet one more kiss which thou canst not return. 
 Eeturn ? And hast thou given thy last ? Oh, Amv, 
 Wake, wake ! My last ? And taken as the others ? 
 
 [Bows Ais head into Ms hand. 
 
 Accursed coward, and is this thy love ? 
 
 Poor slaughtered innocent, thou hadst good right 
 
 To scorn me ! Closer, closer to my heart.
 
 282 
 
 BALDER. 
 
 There tliou didst find the bane, and shouldst receive 
 The final COUnterpoison. [Ber/ins to divest her. 
 
 Heaving breast, 
 How oft have I undone thy weeds as now. 
 And very softly, very silently 
 As now — and not more tenderly, no not 
 ]More tenderly, no, on thy bridal night, 
 No, not more tenderly. But oh, you heavens, 
 Wherefore and wherefore ? 
 
 Here, under her bosom, 
 It cannot fail here. Hide thee, hide thee. Heart ; 
 Poor fluttering bird, why wilt thou stir the lilies ? 
 Dost thou not know me who I am ? Soft, soft ; 
 Thou hast so often struggled in mine arms 
 Asleep, and I have wakened thee with kisses, 
 I pray thee do not struggle now, my child, 
 I cannot rouse thee from this dream. 
 
 Oh God, 
 If she should clasp her hands upon her breast 
 And moan ! If she should feel through this thin trance 
 The cold steel ere it pierce and call on me 
 For help ! — but I will hold thee fast, my child, 
 Fast in these arms altho' thou start and cry. 
 And shield thee from myself ! If I strike ill 
 Tlie first stroke, and she wake and strive for life ; 
 If she should ope her eyes but once too late 
 And go forth to believe for evermore
 
 BALDER. 283 
 
 I struck unkindly — [Thrmvs a Tcerchief over her face. 
 
 No, she shall not see me. 
 And now thy liviug face is gone for ever, 
 And I have murdered thee before thy time. 
 Nor Grod nor Demon could have wrung from me 
 This moment, this last moment, only thou 
 Oh, only thou. — [Frantically lifts the Icrchicf 
 
 Amy ! 
 
 Thou, thou, all thou ! 
 Help me, my child. Aye, look so beautiful. 
 'Tis well ; if there be heaven this is not 
 To kill thee.— Now. 
 
 THE END.
 
 LONDON : 
 BRATBIIRY AND EVANS, PIlINTiat=, WIIITKIRIARS.
 
 December 1853. 
 
 A CATALOGUE 
 
 OF 
 
 ^t\xs antr ^btanlrarli Books!, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 
 
 65, CORNHILL, LONDON. 
 
 Morfes in x^z ^ress. 
 
 I. 
 
 BALDER. 
 
 A POEM. PART THE FIRST. 
 
 By the Author of " THE ROMAN." 
 
 In One Volume. (Now ready.) 
 
 II. 
 
 THE BHILSA TOPES; 
 
 Or, Buddhist Monuments" of Central India. 
 
 By MAJOR A. CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 One Volume, 8vo, with Numerous Illustrations. 
 
 [yust ready.) 
 
 III. 
 
 THE CROSS AND THE DRAGON; 
 
 Or, Memorials of Christianity in China ; with notices of 
 
 the Secret Societies of the Chinese. 
 
 By J. KESSON. 
 
 One Volume, Post 8vo. 
 
 {Now ready.) 
 
 IV. 
 TWO PRIZE ESSAYS 
 
 JUVENILE DELINQUENCY. 
 By MICAIAH HILL, Esq., and C. F. CORNWALLIS. 
 
 One Volume, Post 8vo, price 6s. cloth. 
 
 {Now ready.) 
 V. 
 MODERN GERMAN MUSIC. 
 By HENRY F. CHORLEY, Esq. 
 
 Two Volumes, post 8vo. {Nearly ready.)
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 VI. 
 
 AVILLION, AND OTHER TALES. 
 By the Author of " Olive," ''The Head of the Family," &c. 
 Three Volumes, post 8vo. [Now ready.) 
 
 VII. 
 
 MAUDE TALBOT. By HOLME LEE. 
 
 Three Volumes, Post 8vo. [Shortly.) 
 
 VIII. 
 
 AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, AND THE 
 
 COUNTRY ADJACENT. 
 Post 8vo, with a View and Coloured Map. Price 6s. cloth. 
 
 {Now ready.) 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE TRUE LAW OF POPULATION. 
 
 Shown to be connected with the Food of the People. 
 By THOMAS DOUBLEDAY. 
 
 Third and Enlarged Edition, 
 One Volume, 8vo, price lo^. cloth [Now ready.) 
 
 X. 
 
 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE HIMALAYA. 
 By CAPTAIN RICHARD STRACHFY, 
 
 Bengal Engineers. 
 One Volume, 8vo, with Numerous Illustrations. 
 
 XI. 
 
 FOUR YEARS AT THE COURT OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 Being the Despatches of Sebastian Guistinian, Venetian 
 Ambassador to England ; 
 
 Illustrating the Court Life and Diplomatic Intercourse of the 
 period, the character of Cardinal Wolsey, and the course 
 of events, a.d. 1515 to 1519. 
 
 Translated from the Italian by Rawdon Brown. 
 In One Volume. 
 
 ^
 
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 THE INSURRECTION IN CHINA. 
 
 By Dr. YVAN and M. GALLERY. 
 
 With a Supplementary Account of the Most Recent Events. 
 
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 SECOND EDITION". 
 
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 *^* The Publishers of this Volume hailing purchased the exclusi-ve right of translating the 
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 the French Embassy in China, to which Dr. Yvan was attached as Physician ; and 
 giving a lucid account of the origin and progress of the civil war now raging in 
 China, bringing it down to the present day." — Blackivood's Magazine, 
 
 '* Their narrative is animated by traits of Chinese manners, opinions, and ideas, 
 and by lively reminiscences of the country and some of the actors with whom the 
 authors were personally acquainted." — Spectator. 
 
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 change going on in China." — Economist. 
 
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 "A timely and interesting publication, full of most curious and valuable matter." — 
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 " The Revolution in China is the greatest revolution the world has yet seen." — 
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 MEMORANDUMS MADE IN IRELAND. 
 
 By SIR JOHN FORBES, M.D., Author of 
 " The Physician's Holiday." 
 Two Vols., Post 8vo, with Illustrations, price il. is. cloth. 
 
 " A complete handbook of the sister island. If there be any, who, know'ng 
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 and profit to be derived from the journey will be much enhanced by a careful study 
 of Dr. Forbcs's very sensible observations." — Neiv S^uarterly Revietu. 
 
 " The book is excellent, and, like all the writings of its author, points to a gcod 
 purpose. It is honest, thoughtful, liberal, and kindly. By readers of all grades Dr. 
 Forbcs's volumes will be read with pleasure." — Examiner. 
 
 " Dr. Forbes is evidently possessed of a candid mind, and though he has dealt with 
 polemical matter, he does not write in a sectarian spirit." — Athenaum. 
 
 iSi
 
 4 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 ^moxl% of Mx. Mu%Mn. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE STONES OF VENICE. Vol. 3. The Fall. 
 
 By JOHN RUSKIN, Esc)., 
 
 Author of " Modern Painters," " Seven Lamps of 
 Architecture," Sec. 
 
 Imperial 8vo, with 12 Plates Drawn by the Author, price 
 i/. IIS. 6^., in embossed cloth, with top edge gilt. 
 
 »#* THIS VOLUME COMPLETES THE WORK. 
 
 " The * Stones of Venice ' is the production of an earnest, religious, progressive, 
 and informed mind. The author of this essay on architecture has condensed into 
 it a poetic apprehension, the fruit of awe of God, and delight in nature; a know- 
 ledge, love, and just estimate of art j a holding fast to fact and repudiation of hearsay ; 
 an historic breadth, and a fearless challenge of existing social problems; vi^hose 
 union we know not where to find paralleled." — Spectator. 
 
 " One of the most important works on aesthetics ever published in this country ; 
 and which not only equals in profundity any single work put forth in modern times 
 upon art, but surpasses in importance any that has heretofore been written upon the 
 subject; inasmuch as the writer is gifted with the rare tact to make profound truths 
 plain to common understandings." — Daily News. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE STONES OF VENICE. Vol. 2. The Sea Stories. 
 
 By JOHN RUSKIN, Esq. 
 
 Imperial 8vo, with 20 Plates, and numerous Wood-cuts, 
 price 2/. 2s. cloth. 
 
 " No one who has studied art in Venice will go through this book without such 
 pleasure as belongs to a revival of some of his warmest admirations, and the refresh- 
 ment of his most delicious associations. This volume is full of fine things, and of true 
 things." — Athenaum. 
 
 «' The plates in this volume are all line engravings, most minutely designed and 
 delicately executed ; and they familiarize us with some of the most lovely and profuse 
 architectural inventions in the world." — Spectator. 
 
 " No one who has visited Venice can read this book without having a richer glow 
 thrown over his remembrances of that city ; and for those who have not, Mr. Ruskin 
 paints it with a firmness of outline and vividness of colouring that will bring it before 
 the imagination with the force of reality." — Literary Gazette. 
 
 " The whole volume is eloquent and thoughtful, and creative of thought in others 
 This book is a noble innovation upon the old dead talk of architects, and amateurs 
 in architecture." — Examiner. 
 
 " Mr. Ruskin is the first really popular writer we have ever had upon architecture : 
 he is the first writer who has satisfactorily touched upon architectural principles.''^ — 
 Daily Neivs. 
 
 ^^-
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO. 
 
 mioxU of i^r. aaus!iin. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE STONES OF VENICE. Vol. i. The Founda- 
 tions. With Twenty-One Plates and numerous Wood- 
 cuts. Imperial 8vo, 2/. 2s. cloth. 
 
 "The book before us contains Mr. Ruskin's theory and doctrines of the elements 
 of architecture, applied to the various points of practical building. Throughout is 
 manifest the great aim of inculcating, by every possible form of precept and example, 
 the absolute necessity of preserving an unfailing correspondence between the desti- 
 nations of buildings, and their forms and decorations. Mr. Ruskin's work cannot be 
 read by any one without improvement to his moral sense and mental discipline. 
 It has an indestructible value. It tells us the truth on much where it greatly 
 imports us to be informed. The eloquence of the book is extraordinary." — Examiner. 
 
 " The reputation which Mr. Ruskin has earned by his former works will probably 
 receive a great accession of lustre from ' The Stones of Venice.' This work 
 may be justly described as his most valuable performance, and fitted to become the 
 most popular of ail his productions." — British Quarterly Re-vietv. 
 
 *' Mr. Ruskin has seized on the great principle that all art is the expression of man's 
 delight in God's work. This is his clue through the universe ; holding fast by that, 
 he can never get far v»rong. His pursuit of truth is as admirable for its clear- 
 sightedness as it is for its konesty." — Eclectic Re-vietv. 
 
 IV. 
 
 MODERN PAINTERS. Imperial 8vo. Vol. I. Fifth 
 Edition^ i8.f. cloth. Vol. II. Third Edition^ los. 6d. cloth. 
 
 " Mr. Ruskin's work will send the painter more than ever to the study of nature ; 
 will train men who have always been delighted spectators of nature, to be also atten- 
 tive observers. Our critics will learn to admire, and mere admirers will learn how to 
 criticise : thus a public will be educated." — Blackivood's Magazine. 
 
 " A generous and impassioned review of the works of living painters. A hearty 
 and earnest work, full of deep thought, and developing great and striking truths in 
 art." — British Siuarterly Rc'vieiv. 
 
 " A very extraordinary and delightful book, full of truth and goodness, of power and 
 beauty." — North British Rcvieio. 
 
 " One of the most remarkable works on art which has appeared in our time." — 
 Edinburgh Re-vieiv. 
 
 *^* The Third Volume is in preparation. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. With 
 Fourteen Etchings by the Author. Imperial Svo, i/. is. 
 cloth. 
 
 " By the • Seven Lamps of Architecture,' we understand Mr. Ruskin to mean 
 the seven fundamental and cardinal laws, the observance of and obedience to which 
 are indispensable to the architect who would deserve the name. The politician, the 
 moralist, the divine, will find in it ample store of instructive matter, as well as the 
 artist." — Examiner.
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 Seaorfes of iWr. ©jbacfe^rap. 
 
 I. 
 
 LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS 
 OF THE i8th CENTURY. 
 
 By W. M. THACKERAY, Esq., 
 
 Author of " Esmond," " Vanity Fair," " Pendennis," &c. 
 
 Second Edition, revised by the Author. 
 
 In One Volume, crown 8vo., price los. 6d. cloth. 
 
 " To those who attended the lectures, the book will be a pleasant reminiscence, to 
 others an exciting novelty. The style — clear, idiomatic, forcible, familiar, but never 
 slovenly j the searching strokes of sarcasm or irony ; the occasional flashes of generous 
 scorn ; the touches of pathos, pity, and tenderness ; the morality tempered but never 
 weakened by experience and sympathy j the felicitous phrases, the striking anecdotes, 
 the passages of wise, practical reflection ; all these lose much less than we could have 
 expected from the absence of the voice, manner, and look of the lecturer." — 
 Spectator, 
 
 " All who did not hear these lectures will wish to know what kind of talk they 
 were, and how these English humorists and men of genius in past times were de- 
 scribed or criticised by a humorist and man of genius in our own. * » * What 
 fine things the lectures contain ! What eloquent and subtle sayings, what wise and 
 earnest writing ! How delightful are their turns of humour; with what a touching 
 effect, in the graver passages, the genuine feeling of the man comes out j and how 
 vividly the thoughts are fainted, as it were, in graphic and characteristic words." — 
 Examiner. 
 
 " This is to us by far the most acceptable of Mr. Thackeray's writings. His 
 graphic style, his philosophical spirit, his analytical powers, his large-heartedness, his 
 shrewdness and his gentleness, have all room to exhibit themselves." — Economist. 
 
 " These Lectures are rich in all the best qualities of the author's genius, and 
 adapted to awaken and nourish a literary taste thoroughly English." — British Quar- 
 terly Re-uietv. 
 
 " Full of sound, healthy, manly, vigorous writing ; sagacious in observation, inde- 
 pendent and thoughtful, earnest in sentiment, in style pointed, clear and straight- 
 forward." — Westminster Reiiie'w. 
 
 ** A valuable addition to our permanent literature : eloquent when the author is 
 serious J brilliant when he is gay : they are charming reading." — Daily Ne-us. 
 
 " Truly beautiful, suggestive essays, on topics fertile in suggestion." — Z-faJtr. 
 
 " The most delightful book that many a day has seen." — Nonconformist. 
 
 " One of the most amusing books that we have read for a long time, and o«e that 
 we think will occupy a lasting place in English literature." — Standard. 
 
 ^-
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO. 
 
 Wioxls of iltr. ^fiacfetrag. 
 
 II. 
 ESMOND. By W. M. THACKERAY, Esq., 
 
 Author of " Vanity Fair," " Pendennis," &c. 
 
 Second Edition. 
 
 In Three Volumes^ Crown Svo^ Price ll. lis. 6d. cloth. 
 
 "A second edition of 'Esmond' within a few weeks of the issue of the first, 
 speaks significantly for Mr. Thackeray's growing popularity. , , . Mr. Thackeray 
 has selected for his hero a very noble type of the cavalier softening into the man 
 of the eighteenth century, and for his heroine one of the sweetest women that ever 
 breathed from canvass or from book, since RafFaelle painted and Shakspeare wrote. 
 Esmond will, we think, rank higher as a work of art than * Vanity Fair' or * Pen- 
 dennis,' because the characters are of a higher type, and drawn with greater finish, 
 and the book is more of a complete whole. The style is manly, clear, terse, and 
 vigorous, reflecting every mood — pathetic, grave, or sarcastic — of the writer." — 
 Spectator. 
 
 " Once more we feel that we have before us a masculine and thorough English 
 writer, uniting the power of subtle analysis with a strong volition and a moving 
 eloquence — an eloquence which has gained in richness and harmony. His pathos is 
 now sweeter, — less jarred against by angry sarcasm, but perhaps scarcely so powerful. 
 Esmond must be read, not for its characters, but for its romantic though improbable 
 plot, its spirited grouping, and its many thrilling utterances of the anguish of the human 
 heart. Having reached the middle of the first volume, ' forward' will be the wish 
 of every reader of this highly-wrought work." — Athen^um. 
 
 " We have at once to express in the warmest terms of praise our appreciation of 
 the skill and taste with which 'Esmond' is written. The story of the novel is 
 ingenious and very elegantly constructed, and carried onward so as to gratify constant 
 curiosity until the end. In short, the book thoroughly occupies our minds with a 
 sense of strength on the part of the writer, of which the manifestation is always 
 made gracefully." — Examiner. 
 
 " In quiet richness, ' Esmond' mainly resembles the old writers ; as it does also in 
 weight ot thought, sincerity of purpose, and poetry of the heart and brain. It is wise 
 and sweet in its recesses of thought and feeling ; and is more hopeful, consolatory, and 
 kindly than ' Vanity Fair.' Thinking and educated readers will discern in it an 
 immense advance in literary power over Mr. Thackeray's previous writings." — Eraser' t 
 Magazine. 
 
 A PORTRAIT OF W. M. THACKERAY, Esq. 
 Engraved by Francis Holl, from a Drawing by Samuel 
 Laurence. Engravers' Proofs on India Paper, 2/. 2s. i 
 Prints, i/. is. 
 
 »
 
 WioxH of (Bmxtx 23ell. 
 
 I. 
 VILLETTE. By CURRER BELL, 
 
 Author of "Jane Eyre," "Shirley," &c. 
 
 In Three Volumes^ Post 8'L'o, Price lA I is. 6d. cloth. 
 
 " This book would have made Currer Bell famous had she not been already. It 
 retrieves all the ground she lost in * Shirley,' and it will engage a wider circle of readers 
 than ' Jane Eyre,' for it has all the best qualities of that remarkable book. There is 
 throughout a charm of freshness which is infinitely delightful : freshness in observa- 
 tion, freshness in feeling, freshness in expression. Brain and heart are both held in 
 suspense by the fascinating power of the writer." — Literary Gazette. 
 
 " This novel amply sustains the fame of the author of ' Jane Eyre' and ' Shirley' 
 as an original and powerful writer. • Villette ' is a most admirably written novel, 
 everywhere original, everywhere shrewd, and at heart everywhere kindly. The men, 
 women, and children who figure throughout it have flesh and blood in them, and all 
 are worked out in such a way as to evince a very keen spirit of observation, and a fine 
 sense of the picturesque in character." — Examiner. 
 
 *' The tale is one of the affections, and remarkable as a picture of manners. A 
 burning heart glows throughout it, and one brilliantly distinct character keeps it alive. 
 The oldest man, the sternest, who is a genuine novel-reader, will find it hard to get 
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 and made acquaintance with the choleric, vain, child-like, and noble-hearted M. Paul 
 Emanuel." — Athenteum. 
 
 " Of interesting scenes and well-drawn characters there is abundance. The charac- 
 ters are various, happily conceived, and some of them painted with a truth of detail 
 rarely surpassed. The style of * Villette' has that clearness and power which are the 
 result of mastery over the thoughts and feelings to be expressed, over the persons and 
 scenes to be described." — Spectator. 
 
 " 'Villette' may claim the unhesitating commendations of readers and critics. The 
 autobiogiaphy of the heroine is at once natural, interesting, cheerful, piquant, and 
 thoughtful," — Britannia. 
 
 " ' Villette' is not only a very able but a very pleasant book. It is a tale which, 
 though here and there it is dashed with wonder and melancholy, is as a whole cheer- 
 ful and piquant; abundant in clear, clear-cut, strongly-drawn etchings, presenting so 
 pleasant and effective a transcript of manners, English and Continental, thai its success 
 cannot fail to be remarkable." — Morning Chronicle. 
 
 " The author of ' Jane Eyre ' and ' Shirley ' has again produced a fiction of extra- 
 ordinary literary power, and of singular fascination ; it is one of the most absorbing of 
 books, one of the most interesting of stories. 'Villette' will add immensely to the 
 author of ' Jane Eyre's ' fame, as a philosophical and analytical expositor of the human 
 heart and feelings." — Globe, 
 
 " The whole three volumes are crowded with beauties ; with good things, for which 
 we look to the clear sight, deep feeling, and singular though not extensive experience 
 of life, which we associate with the name of Currer Bell." — Daily Nejvs. 
 
 ^-
 
 SMITH^ ELDER AND CO. 
 
 Worfes of ®umr 33eU. 
 
 II. 
 
 SHIRLEY ; a Tale. By Currer Bell. A new Edition. 
 Crown 8vo, 6s. cloth. 
 
 " The peculiar power which was so greatly admired in * Jane Eyre' is not absent 
 from this book. It possesses deep interest, and an irresistible grasp of reality. There 
 is a vividness and distinctness of conception in it quite marvellous. The power of 
 graphic delineation and expression is intense. There are scenes which, for strength 
 
 and delicacy of emotion, are not transcended in the range of English fiction 
 
 The women will be the favourites with all readers. Both are charming. The views 
 of human nature which pervade the volumes, are healthy, tolerant, and encouraging." 
 — Examiner. 
 
 " ' Shirley ' is an admirable book ; genuine English in the independence and up- 
 rightness of the tone of thought, in the purity of heart and feeling which pervade it, 
 in the masculine vigour of its conception of character, and in style and diction. It is 
 a tale of passion and character, and a veritable triumph of pyschology." — Morning 
 Chronicle. 
 
 "'Shirley' is very clever. The faculty of graphic description, strong imagination, 
 fervid and masculine diction, analytic skill, all are visible. Gems of rare thought and 
 glorious passion shine here and there throughout the volumes." — Times. 
 
 III. 
 
 JANE EYRE : an Autobiography. By Currer Bell. 
 Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. cloth. 
 
 "* Jane Eyre' is a remarkable production. Freshness and originality, truth and 
 passion, singular felicity in the description of natural scenery and in the analyzation 
 of human thought, enable this tale to stand boldly out from the mass, and to assume 
 its own place in the bright field of romantic literature. We could not but be struck 
 with the raciness and ability of the work, by the independent sway of a thoroughly 
 original and unworn pen, by the masculine current of noble thoughts, and the un- 
 flinching dissection of the dark yet truthful character." — Times. 
 
 IV. 
 
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS and AGNES GREY. By 
 Ellis and Acton Bell. With a Selection of their 
 Literary Remains, and a Biographical Notice of both 
 Authors, by Currer Bell. Crown 8vo, 6s. cloth. 
 
 "' Wuthering Heights' bears the stamp of a profoundly individual, strong, and 
 passionate mind. The memoir is one of the most touching chapters in literary 
 biography." — Nonconformiit. 
 
 V. 
 
 POEMS. By Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Fcap. 
 8vo, 4;. cloth. 
 
 " Remarkable as being the first efforts of undoubted genius to find some congenial 
 form of expression. They are not common verses, but show many of the vigorous 
 qualities in the prose works oi the same writers : tiic love of nature which charac- 
 terises Currer Bell's prose works pervades the whole of tlie present volume." — Christian 
 Remembrancer.
 
 ^ 
 
 10 BOOKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 iWr. CRtognm's Jpictions. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SILAS BARNSTARKE. 
 
 By TALBOT GWYNNE. 
 
 One Volume, crown 8vo., price ioj. 6d. cloth. 
 
 "Mr. Gwynne has adopted the nervous and succinct style of our forefathers, while 
 narrating the career of a lover of money. The reader will find little to impede 
 his interest in following the career of this bad man to its bad end." — Atbenaum. 
 
 " In many ways this book is remarkable. Silas and his relations stand forth so 
 distinctly and forcibly, and with so much simplicity, that we are far more inclined to 
 feel of them as if they really lived, than of the writers of pretended diaries and auto- 
 biographies. The manners and ways of speech of the time are portrayed admirably." 
 — Guardian. 
 
 " The gradual growth of the sin of covetousness, its temporary disturbance by the 
 admixture of a softer passion, and the pangs of remorse, are portrayed with high 
 dramatic effect, resembling in some scenes the gigantic majesty of ancient Tragedy," 
 —John Bull. 
 
 " A story possessing an interest so tenacious that no one who commences it, will 
 easily leave the perusal unfinished." — Standard. 
 
 " A book of high aim and unquestionable power." — Examiner. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE SCHOOL FOR FATHERS ; An Old English Story. 
 By T. Gwynne. Crown 8vo. Price 105. ^d. cloth. 
 
 " The pleasantest tale we have read for many a day. It is a story of the Taller 
 and Spectator days, and is very fitly associated with that time of good English literature 
 by its manly feeling, direct, unaffected manner of writing, and nicely-managed, wellf 
 turned narrative. The descriptions are excellent; some of the country painting 
 is as fresh as a landscape by Constable, or an idyl by Alfred Tennyson." — Examiner. 
 
 " ' The School for Fathers' is at once highly amusing and deeply interesting — full 
 of that genuine humour which is half pathos — and written with a freshness of feel- 
 ing and raclness of style which entitle it to be called a tale in the Vicar of Wakefield 
 school." — Britannia. 
 
 " Few are the tales so interesting to read, and so admirable m purpose and style, as 
 « The School for Fathers.' "—Globe. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE SCHOOL FOR DREAMERS. ByT. GWYNNE. 
 Crown 8vo. Price lOs. 6d. cloth. 
 
 "The master-limner of the follies of mankind, the author of ' The School for 
 Fathers,' has produced another tale abounding with traits of exquisite humour and 
 sallies of sparkling wit." — yohn Bull. 
 
 "'The School for Dreamers' maybe credited with life, humour, and vigour. 
 There is a spirit of enjoyment in Mr. Gwynne's descriptions which indicates a genial 
 temperament, as well as a shrewd eye." — Athenaum. 
 
 " A story which inculcates a sound and sensible moral in a manner equally delight- 
 ful and effective." — Morning Post. 
 
 " A powerfully and skilfully-written book, intended to show the mischief and 
 danger of following imagination instead of judgment in the practical business of life." 
 — Literary Gazette. 
 
 " An admirable and caustic satire on ' equalitj' and fraternity' theories." — 
 Britannia.
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO. II 
 
 iiiliss Babanagl^'s jpamak 33iOQrapfties. 
 
 I. 
 
 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY, EXEMPLARY FOR 
 PIETY AND CHARITY. By Julia Kavanagh. 
 Post 8vo, with Portraits. Price I2s. in embossed cloth, 
 gilt edges. 
 
 " The authoress has supplied a great desideratum both in female biography and 
 morals. The style is clear, the matter solid, and the conclusions just." — Globe. 
 
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 skill in the delineation of characters is rarely to be found. The author has accom- 
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 all ages of Christianity, are united by their devotion to the sick, the wretched, and 
 the destitute." — Guardian. 
 
 II. 
 
 WOMAN IN FRANCE DURING THE i8th CEN- 
 TURY. By Julia Kavanagh. 2 vols, post 8vo, 
 with Eight Portraits. I2s. in embossed cloth. 
 
 " Miss Kavanagh has undertaken a delicate task, and she has performed it on the 
 whole with discretion and judgment. Her volumes may lie on any drawing-room 
 table without scandal, and may be read by all but her youngest countrywomen without 
 risk." — Quarterly Review. 
 
 " Which among us will be ever tired of reading about the women of France .'' 
 especially when they are marshalled so agreeably and discreetly as in the pages before 
 us." — Athenusum. 
 
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 examples. The book shows often an original tone of remark, and always a graceful 
 and becoming one." — Examiner. 
 
 JiHiss Saormclcg's i^obcl. 
 
 AMABEL. By Mary Elizabeth Wormeley. Three 
 Volumes, post 8vo. Price i/. iii. bd. 
 
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