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THE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Marvin MacLean 
 
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POEMS 
 
 THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS, 
 

 
POEMS 
 
 INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS, 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT ^BROWNING. 
 
 ELEGANTLY ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 PUBLISHED BY E. H. BUTLER & CO. 
 
 1865. 
 
PKIXTED BY I. ASHMEAD. 
 
 GIFI 
 

 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 To most persons who accost Mrs. Browning's Poems, 
 for the first time, she presents a strange paradox. A 
 woman, with such an indiviclnality as seems to rise above 
 the trammels of sex, she invades all the realms of 
 thought, contests the palm of highest scholarship, and 
 sings enthusiastic political songs in favor of regenerated 
 Italy. 
 
 But ^Irs. Browning is a true woman, after all. Her 
 affections spring forth to greet the blinded Eomney in 
 Aurora Leigh, and her '^Sonnets from the Portuguese," 
 are as impassioned as any in the English language. 
 
 She has been accused of elliptical and confused diction. 
 This is not just. Her works require an attentive reader, 
 but once carefully studied they display a remarkably 
 clear mind, subtle fancy, noble imagination, and the 
 
 (vii) 
 
 164 
 
VlU ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 largest culture. In spite of ignorant critics, she has 
 therefore gained a growing popularity, and is at present 
 as extensively read in America as any other English 
 poet. 
 
 Our careful selection has, as its aim, to render a truthful 
 portraiture of her mind and heart, and thus to conduce 
 to a more thorough knowledge of the greatest poet pro- 
 duced by England in our generation. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Lament for Adonis 13 
 
 The Cry of the Children . ]8 
 
 The Lady's Yes 24 
 
 Heaven's Sunrise to Earth's Blindness 26 
 
 The Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus 27 
 
 From "Earth and her Praisers" 34 
 
 Crowned and AVedded 36 
 
 Crowned and Buried 39 
 
 False Step 46 
 
 Cowper's Grave 48 
 
 Hector in the Garden 51 
 
 Sleeping and Watching 55 
 
 The Seraph and Poet 57 
 
 Comfort 58 
 
 To George Sand 59 
 
 Heaven and Earth 59 
 
 A Song against Singing 60 
 
 Loved Once 62 
 
 A Child's Thought of God 64 
 
 The Sleep C)3 
 
 The Weakest Thing 67 
 
 A Woman's Shortcomings 68 
 
 (xi) 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Man's Requirements 70 
 
 Inclusions 72 
 
 Love for Love 72 
 
 A Lock of Hair 73 
 
 Call me by my Pet-Name 74 
 
 The Kiss 74 
 
 The Best Thing in the World 75 
 
 The Cry op the Hitman 76 
 
 My Kate 80 
 
 Amy's Cruelty 82 
 
 GrARIBALDI 84 
 
 Only a Curl 87 
 
 Mother and Poet 89 
 
 Napoleon III. in Italy 94 
 
 Christmas Gifts 110 
 
 A Curse for a Nation 112 
 
 Void in Law 117 
 
 May's Love 120 
 
 The Forced Recruit 120 
 
 King Victor Emanuel entering Florence, April, 1860 122 
 
POEMS 
 
 THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 
 
 FROM BION. 
 
 I MOURN for Adonis — Adonis is dead, 
 
 Fair Adonis is dead and the Loves are lamenting. 
 
 Sleep, Cypris, no more on tliy purple-strewed bed : 
 
 Arise, wretch stoled in black; beat thy breast unrelenting, 
 
 And shriek to the worlds, " Fair Adonis is dead." 
 
 I mourn for Adonis — the Loves are lamenting. 
 
 He lies on the hills in his beauty and death ; 
 The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white thigh. 
 
 Cytherea grows mad at his thin gasping breath. 
 While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory. 
 
 And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of bis ])r()ws, 
 2 (i:^) - 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Man's Requirements 70 
 
 Inclusions 72 
 
 Love for Love 72 
 
 A Lock of Hair 73 
 
 Call me by my Pet-Name 74 
 
 The Kiss 74 
 
 The Best Thing in the World 75 
 
 The Cry op the Human 76 
 
 My Kate 80 
 
 Amy's Cruelty 82 
 
 Garibaldi 84 
 
 Only a Curl 87 
 
 Mother and Poet 89 
 
 Napoleon IIL in Italy 94 
 
 Christmas Gifts 110 
 
 A Curse for a Nation 112 
 
 Void in Law 117 
 
 May's Love 120 
 
 The Forced Recruit 120 
 
 King Victor Emanuel entering Florence, April, 1860 122 
 
POEMS 
 
 THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 
 
 FROM BION. 
 
 I. 
 
 I MOURN for Adonis — xiclonis is dead, 
 
 Fair Adonis is dead and the Loves are lamenting. 
 
 Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed : 
 
 Arise, wretch stoled in black ; beat thy breast unrelenting, 
 
 And shriek to the worlds, " Fair Adonis is dead." 
 
 I mourn for Adonis — the Loves are lamenting. 
 
 He lies on the hills in his beauty and death ; 
 The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white thigh. 
 
 Cytherea grows mad at his thin gasping breath. 
 While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory, 
 
 And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of his brows, 
 2 (i:^) - 
 
14 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just parted 
 The kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose, 
 
 Though the kiss of the Dead cannot make her glad-hearted : 
 He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews. 
 
 III. 
 I mourn for Adonis — the Loves are lamenting. 
 
 Deep, deep in the thigh is Adonis's wound, 
 But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom presenting. 
 
 The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around, 
 And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill, 
 
 And the poor Aphrodite, with tresses unbound, 
 All dishevelled, unsandalled, shrieks mournful and shrill 
 
 Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her 
 feet. 
 Gather up the red flower of her blood which is holy, 
 
 Each footstep she takes ; and the valleys repeat 
 The sharp cry she utters and draw it out slowly. 
 
 She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian, on him 
 Her own youth, while the dark blood spreads over his body, 
 
 The chest taking hue from the gash in the limb, 
 And the bosom once ivory, turning to ruddy. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ah, ah, Cytherea ! the Loves are lamenting. 
 
 She lost her fair spouse and so lost her fair smile : 
 When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting, 
 
 Whose fairness is dead with him : woe worth the while ! 
 All the mountains above and the oaklands below 
 
 Murmur, ah, ah Adonis I the streams overflow 
 
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 15 
 
 Aphrodite's deep wail ; river-fountains in pity 
 
 Weep soft in the hills, and the flowers as they blow 
 
 Redden outward with sorrow, while all hear her go 
 
 With the song of her sadness through mountain and city. 
 
 Ah, ah, Cytherea ! Adonis is dead. 
 
 Fair Adonis is dead — Echo answers, Adonis ! 
 Who weeps not for Cypris, when bowing her head 
 
 She stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies ? 
 — When, ah, ah ! — she saw how the blood ran away 
 
 x\nd empurpled the thigh, and, with wild hands flung out, 
 Said with sobs, " Stay, Adonis I unhappy one, stay. 
 
 Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee about 
 With the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss ! 
 
 Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again. 
 For the last time, beloved, — and but so much of this 
 
 That the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain ! 
 — Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth. 
 
 To my heart, and, the love-charm I once more receiving, 
 May drink thy love in it and keep of a truth 
 
 That one kiss in the place of Adonis the living. 
 Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far. 
 
 My Adonis, and seekest the Acheron portal, — 
 To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar, 
 
 While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal, 
 And follow no step ! Persephone, take him. 
 
 My husband ! — thou'rt better and brighter than I, 
 
16 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 So all beauty flows down to thee : / cannot make him 
 
 Look up at my grief; there's despair in my cr}^, 
 Since I wail for Adonis who died to me — died to me — 
 
 Then, I fear thee I — Art thou dead, my Adored ? 
 Passion ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me, 
 
 Cypris is widowed, the Loves seek their lord 
 All the house through in vain. Charm of cestus has ceased 
 
 With thy clasp ! too bold in the hunt past preventing, 
 Ay, mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast I" 
 
 Thus the goddess wailed on — and the Loves arc lamenting 
 
 Ah, ah, Cytherea ! Adonis is dead. 
 
 She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed. 
 And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close, 
 
 Her tears, to the wind-flower ; his blood, to the rose. 
 
 VII. 
 
 I mourn for Adonis — Adonis is dead. 
 
 Weep no more in the woods, Cj^therea, thy lover ! 
 So, well : make a place for his corse in thy bed, 
 
 With the purples thou sleepest in, under and over. 
 He's fair though a corse — a fair corse, like a sleeper. 
 
 Lay him soft in the silks he had pleasure to fold 
 When, beside thee at night, holy dreams deep and deeper 
 
 Enclosed his young life on the couch made of gold. 
 Love him still, poor Adonis ; cast on him together 
 
 The crowns and the flowers : since he died from the place, 
 
A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 17 
 
 Why, let all die with him ; let the blossoms go wither, 
 Kain myrtles and olive-buds down on his face. 
 
 Rain the myrrh down, let all that is best fall a-pining, 
 Since the myrrh of his life from thy keeping is swept. 
 
 Pale he lay, thine Adonis, in purples reclining; 
 
 The Loves raised their voices around him and wept. 
 
 They have shorn their bright curls off to cast on Adonis; 
 
 One treads on his bow, — on his arrows, another, — 
 
 One breaks up a well-feathered quiver, and one is 
 Bent low at a sandal, untying the strings, 
 And one carries the vases of gold from the springs, 
 
 While one washes the wound, — and behind them a brother 
 Fans down on the body sweet air with his wings. 
 
 VIIl. 
 
 Cytherea herself now the Loves are lamenting. 
 
 Each torch at the door Hymenaeus blew out ; 
 And, the marriage-wreath dropping its leaves as repenting, 
 
 No more " Hymen, Hymen,'' is chanted about, 
 But the ai ai instead — •• ai alas" is begun 
 
 For Adonis, and then follows " ai Hymenaeus I" 
 The Graces are weeping for Cinyris' son, 
 
 Sobbing low each to each, " His fair eyes cannot see us !" 
 Their wail strikes more shrill than the sadder Dionc's. 
 The Fates mourn aloud for iVdonis, Adonis, 
 Deep chanting ; he hears not a word that they say : 
 
 He loould hear, but Persephone has him in keeping. 
 — Cease moan, Cytherea: leave pomps for to-day. 
 
 And weep new when a new year refits thee for weeping. 
 2* 
 
18 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 
 
 Do ye hear the children weeping, my brothers, 
 
 Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
 They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, 
 
 And that cannot stop their tears. 
 The young Iambs are bleating in the meadows. 
 
 The young birds are chirping in the nest, 
 The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 
 
 The young flowers are blowing toward the west — 
 But the young, young children, my brothers. 
 
 They are weeping bitterly ! 
 They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 
 
 In the country of the free. 
 
 Do you question the young children in the sorrow 
 Why their tears are falling so ? 
 
 The old man may weep for his to-morrow 
 Which is lost in Long Ago ; 
 
 The old tree is leafless in the forest. 
 The old year is ending in the frost. 
 
 The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest. 
 The old hope is hardest to be lost : 
 
 But the young, young children, my brothers, 
 Do you ask them why they stand 
 
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 19 
 
 Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, 
 In our happy Fatherkind ? 
 
 They look up with their pale and sunken faces, 
 
 And their looks are sad to see, 
 For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses 
 
 Down the cheeks of infancy ; 
 " Your old earth," they say, " is very dreary, 
 
 Our young feet," they say, '' are very weak ', 
 Few paces have we taken, yet are weary — 
 
 Our grave-rest is very far to seek : 
 Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children. 
 
 For the outside earth is cold. 
 And we j^oung ones stand without, in our bewildering 
 
 And the graves are for the old." 
 
 IV. 
 
 " True," say the children, " it may happen 
 
 That we die before our time : 
 Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen 
 
 Like a snowball, in the rime. 
 We looked into the pit prepared to take her : 
 
 Was no room for any work in the close clay ! 
 From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her, 
 
 Crying, " Get up, Httle Alice ! it is day." 
 If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, 
 
 With your ear down, little Alice never cries ; 
 
20 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her, 
 
 For the smile has time for growing in her eyes : 
 And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in 
 
 The shroud by the kirk-chime. 
 It is good when it happens," say the children, 
 
 " That we die before our time." 
 
 Alas, alas, the children ! they are seeking 
 
 Death in life, as best to have : 
 They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, 
 
 With a cerement from the grave. 
 Gro out, children, from the mine and from the city, 
 
 Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do; 
 Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty, 
 
 Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through ! 
 But they answer, " Are your cowslips of the meadows 
 
 Like our weeds anear the mine ? 
 Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows, 
 From your pleasures fair and fine ! 
 
 " For oh," say the children, "we are weary. 
 And we cannot run or leap ; 
 
 If we cared for any meadows, it were merely 
 To drop down in them and sleep. 
 
 Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, 
 We fall upon our faces, trying to go ; 
 
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 21 
 
 And, underneath our heavy e^^elids drooping, 
 
 The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. 
 For, all day, we drag our burden tiring 
 
 Through the coal-dark, underground -, 
 Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron 
 
 In the factories, round and round. 
 
 " For all day, the wheels are droning, turning; 
 
 Their wind comes in our faces, 
 Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, 
 
 And the walls turn in their places : 
 Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, 
 
 Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, 
 Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, 
 
 All are turning, all the day, and we with all. 
 And all day, the iron wheels are droning, 
 
 And sometimes we could pray, 
 ' ye wheels,^ (breaking out in a mad moaning) 
 ' Stop ! be silent for to-day !' " 
 
 Ay, be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing 
 
 For a moment, mouth to mouth ! 
 Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathino- 
 
 Of their tender human youth I 
 Let them feel that this cold metallic motion 
 Is not all the life Grod fashions or reveals : 
 
22 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Let tliem prove their living souls against the notion 
 
 That they live in you, or under you, wheels ! 
 Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, 
 
 G-rinding life down from its mark ; 
 And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, 
 
 Spin on blindly in the dark. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Now tell the poor young children, my brothers, 
 
 To look up to Him and pray ; 
 So the blessed One who blesseth all the others. 
 
 Will bless them another day. 
 They answer, " Who is God that he should hear us. 
 While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ? 
 AVhen we sob aloud, the human creatures near us 
 
 Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. 
 And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) 
 
 Strangers speaking at the door : 
 Is it likely God, with angels singing round him. 
 Hears our weeping any more ? 
 
 " Two words, indeed, of praying we remember. 
 And at midnight's hour of harm, 
 
 ' Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber. 
 We say softly for a charm. 
 
 We know no other words except ' Our Father,' 
 And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, 
 
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. 23 
 
 God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, 
 
 And hold both within his right hand which is strong. 
 ' Our Father !' If He heard us, He would surely 
 
 (For they call him good and mild) 
 Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 
 ' Come and rest with me, my child/ 
 
 " But, no !" say the children, weeping faster, 
 
 " He is speechless as a stone : 
 And they tell us, of his image is the master 
 
 Who commands us to work on. 
 Go to !" say the children, — " up in Heaven, 
 
 Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. 
 Do not mock us ; grief has made us unbelieving : 
 We look up for God, but tears have made us blind." 
 Do you hear the children weej^ing and disproving, 
 
 my brothers, what ye preach ? 
 For God's possible is taught by His world's loving, 
 
 And the children doubt of each. 
 
 And well may the children weep before you ! 
 
 They are weary ere they run; 
 They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory 
 
 Which is brighter than the sun. 
 They know the grief of man, without its wisdom ; 
 They sink in man's despair, without its calm ; 
 
24 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, 
 
 Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm : 
 Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly 
 
 The harvest of its memories cannot reap, — 
 Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly. 
 
 Let them weep ! let them weep ! 
 
 They look up with their pale and sunken faces, 
 
 And their look is dread to see. 
 For they mind you of their angels in high places, 
 
 With eyes turned on Deity. 
 " How long," they say, " how long, cruel nation. 
 
 Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,- 
 Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation. 
 
 And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ? . 
 Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, 
 And your purple shows your path ! 
 But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper 
 Than the strong man in his wrath." 
 
 THE LADY'S YES. 
 
 " Yes," I answered you last night 
 " No," this morning, sir, I say : 
 
 (Colors seen by caudle-light 
 
 Will not look the same by day. 
 
THE LADY S YES. 25 
 
 "Wheu the viols iDlayed their best, 
 
 Lamps above and laughs below, 
 Love me sounded like a jest, 
 
 Fit for yes or fit for no. 
 
 Call me false or call me free, 
 
 Vow, whatever light may shine, — ■ 
 No man on your face shall see 
 
 Any grief for change on mine. 
 
 Yet the sin is on us both ; 
 
 Time to dance is not to woo; 
 Wooing light makes fickle troth, 
 
 Scorn of me recoils on you. 
 
 Learn to win a lady's faith 
 
 Nobly, as the thing is high. 
 Bravely, as for life and death, 
 
 With a loyal gravity. 
 
 Lead her from the festive boards. 
 
 Point her to the starry skies ; 
 Guard her, by your truthful words, 
 
 Pure from courtship's flatteries. 
 
 By your truth she shall be true. 
 
 Ever true, as wives of yore ] 
 And her yes, once said to you. 
 
 Shall be Yes for evermore. 
 
26 POEMS or THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 HEAVEN'S SUNRISE TO EARTH'S BLINDNESS. 
 
 It is the hour for souls ; 
 That bodies, leavened by the will and love, 
 Be lightened to redemption. The w.orld's old ; 
 But the old world waits the hour to be renewed : 
 Toward which, new hearts in individual growth 
 Must quicken, and increase to multitude 
 In new dynasties of the race of men, — 
 Developed whence, shall grow spontaneously 
 New churches, new oeconomies, new laws 
 Admitting freedom, new societies 
 Excluding falsehood. He shall make all new. 
 
 My Bomney ! — Lifting up my hand in his, 
 As wheeled by Seeing spirits toward the east. 
 He turned instinctively, — where, faint and fair, 
 Along the tingling desert of the sky, 
 Beyond the circle of the conscious hills. 
 Were laid in jasper-stone as clear as glass 
 The first foundations of that new, near Day 
 Which should be builded out of heaven, to God. 
 He stood a moment with erected brows, 
 In silence, as a creature might, who gazed : 
 Stood calm, and fed his blind, majestic eyes 
 LTpon the thought of perfect noon. iVnd when 
 I saw his soul saw, — " Jasper first," I said. 
 
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 ^ 
 
 ' -^A^Jy^^^ -y^^^ \/h/lJ^^^lZf, ■ 
 
THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS. 27 
 
 " And second, sapphire ; third, chalcedony ; 
 The rest in order, . . last, an amethyst." 
 
 THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One ! 
 My flesh, my Lord ! — what name ? I do not know 
 A name that seemeth not too high or low, 
 
 Too far from me or heaven : 
 My Jesus, that is best ! that word being given 
 By the majestic angel whose command 
 Was softly as a man's beseeching said. 
 When I and all the eai'th appeared to stand 
 
 In the great overflow 
 Of light celestial from his wings and head. 
 
 Sleep, sleep, my saving One ! 
 
 II. 
 And art Thou come for saving, baby-browed 
 And speechless Being — art Thou come for saving ? 
 The palm that grows beside our door is bowed 
 By treadings of the low wind from the south, 
 A restless shadow throuo'h the chamber waving : 
 Upon its bough a bird sings in the sun. 
 But Thou, with that close slumber on Thy mouth. 
 Dost seem of wind and sun already weary. 
 Art come for saving, my weary One ? 
 
2$ POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 III. 
 
 Perchance this sleep that shiitteth out the dreary 
 Earth-sounds and motions, opens on Thy soul 
 
 High dreams on fire with God ; 
 High songs that make the pathways where they roll 
 
 More bright than stars do theirs ; and visions 
 
 .^..^ v.x.v^ ^^.IXKJ VIV/ lJXaV.iXO; 
 
 new 
 
 Of Thine eternal Nature's old abode. 
 
 Sufi'er this mother's kiss, 
 
 Best thing that earthly is, 
 To glide the music and the glory through. 
 Nor narrow in thy dream the broad upliftings 
 
 Of any seraph wing. 
 Thus noiseless, thus. Sleep, sleep, my dreaming One ! 
 
 The slumber of his lijDS meseems to run 
 Through m?/ lips to mine heart, to all its shiftings 
 Of sensual life, bringing contrariousness 
 In a great calm. I feel I could lie down 
 As Moses did, and die,* — and then live most. 
 I am 'ware of you, heavenly Presences, 
 That stand with your peculiar light unlost, 
 Each forehead with a high thought for a crown. 
 Unsunned i' the sunshine ! I am 'Avare, Ye throw 
 No shade against the wall ! How motionless 
 Ye round me with your living statuary, 
 
 ^ It is a Jewish tradition that Moses died of the kisses of God's lips 
 
THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS. 29 
 
 While through your whiteness, iu and outwardly, 
 
 Continual thoughts of God appear to go. 
 
 Like light's soul in itself. I bear, I bear 
 
 To look upon the dropt lids of your eyes, 
 
 Though their external shining testifies 
 
 To that beatitude within which were 
 
 Enough to blast an eagle at his sun : 
 
 I fall not on my sad clay face before ye, — 
 
 I look on His. I know 
 My spirit which dilateth with the woe 
 
 Of His mortality, 
 
 May well contain your glory. 
 
 Yea, drop your lids more low. 
 Ye are but fellow-worshippers with me ! 
 
 Sleep, sleep, my worshipped One ! 
 
 V. 
 
 We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem ; 
 
 The dumb kine from their fodder turning them. 
 
 Softened their horned faces 
 
 To almost human gazes 
 
 Toward the newly Born : 
 The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks 
 
 Brought visionary looks. 
 As yet in their astonied hearing rung 
 
 The strange sweet angel-tongue : 
 The magi of the East, in sandals worn, 
 
 Knelt reverent, sweeping round. 
 With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground, 
 8* 
 
30 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 The incense, myrrh and gold 
 These baby-hands were impotent to hold : 
 So let all earthlies and celestials wait 
 
 Upon Thy royal state. 
 
 SleejD, sleep, my kingly One ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 I am not proud — meek angels, ye invest 
 New meeknesses to hear such utterance rest 
 On mortal lips, — " I am not proud" — not proud ! 
 Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son, 
 Albeit over Him my head is bowed 
 As others bow before Him, still mine heart 
 Bows lower than their knees. centuries 
 That roll in vision your futurities 
 
 My future grave athwart, — 
 Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep 
 
 Watch o'er this sleep, — 
 Say of me as the Heavenly said — " Thou art 
 The blessedest of women !" — blessedest, 
 Not holiest, not noblest, no high name 
 Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame 
 When I sit meek in heaven ! 
 
 For me, for me, 
 God knows that I am feeble like the rest ! 
 I often wandered forth, more child than maiden. 
 Among the midnight hills of Galilee, 
 
 Whose summits looked heaven-laden, 
 Listening to silence as it seemed to be 
 
THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS. 31 
 
 Grod's voice, so soft yet strong, so fain to press 
 
 Upon my heart as heaven did on the height, 
 
 And waken up its shadows by a light, 
 
 And show its vileness by a hoHness. 
 
 Then I knelt down most silent like the night, 
 
 Too self-renounced for fears, 
 Raising my small face to the boundless blue 
 Whose stars did mix and tremble in my tears : 
 God heard them falling after, with his dew. 
 
 So, seeing my corruption, can I see 
 
 This Incorruptible now born of me, 
 
 This fair new Innocence no sun did chance 
 
 To shine on, (for even Adam was no child) 
 
 Created from my nature all defiled. 
 
 This mystery, from out mine ignorance, — 
 
 Nor feel the blindness, stain, corruption, more 
 
 Thau others do, or / did heretofore ? 
 
 Can hands wherein such burden pure has been. 
 
 Not open with the cry, "unclean, unclean," 
 
 More oft than any else beneath the skies ? 
 
 Ah King, ah Christ, ah son ! 
 The kine, the shepherds, the abased wise 
 
 Must all less lowly wait 
 
 Than I, upon Thy state. 
 
 Sleep, sleep, my kingly One ! 
 
32 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Art Thou a King, then ? Come, His universe, 
 Come, croAvn me Him a King ! 
 
 Pluck rays from all such stars as never fling 
 Their light where fell a curse, 
 
 And make a crowning for this kingly brow ! — 
 
 What is my word ? Each empyreal star 
 Sits in a sphere afar 
 In shining ambuscade : 
 The child-brow, crowned by none, 
 Keeps its unchildlike shade. 
 Sleep, sleep, my crownless One ! 
 
 Unchildlike shade ! No other babe doth wear 
 
 An aspect very sorrowful, as Thou. 
 
 No small babe-smiles my watching heart has seen 
 
 To float like speech the speechless lips between, 
 
 No dovelike cooing in the golden air. 
 
 No quick short joys of leaping babyhood : 
 
 Alas, our earthly good 
 In heaven thought evil, seems too good for Thee : 
 
 Yet, sleep, my weary One ! 
 
 And then the drear sharp tongue of prophecy. 
 With the dread sense of things which shall be done. 
 Doth smite me inly, like a sword : a sword ? 
 
THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS. [VS 
 
 That " smites the Slieplierd" Then, I think aloud 
 The words " despised/' — " rejected," — every word 
 Recoiling into darkness as I view 
 
 The Darling on my knee. 
 Bright angels, — move not — lest ye stir the cloud 
 Betwixt my soul and His futurity ! 
 I must not die, with mother's work to do, 
 
 And could not hve — and see. 
 
 It is enough to bear 
 
 This image still and fair, 
 
 This holier in sleep 
 
 Than a saint at prayer, 
 
 This aspect of a child 
 
 Who never sinned or smiled; 
 
 This Presence in an infant's flice 3 
 
 This sadness most like love, 
 
 This love than love more deep, 
 
 This weakness like omnipotence 
 
 It is so strong to move. 
 
 Awful is this watching place, 
 
 Awful what I see from hence — 
 
 A king, without regalia, 
 
 A God, without the thunder, 
 
 A child, without the heart for play; 
 
 Ay, a Creator, rent asunder 
 
 From His first glory and cast away 
 
34 rOEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 On His own world, for me alone 
 To hold in hands created, crying — Son ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 That tear fell not on Thee, 
 Beloved, yet thou stirrest in thy slumber ! 
 Thou, stirring not for glad sounds out of number 
 Which through the vibratory palm-trees run 
 
 From summer-wind and bird, 
 
 So quickly hast thou heard 
 
 A tear fjill silently ? 
 
 Wak'st thou, loving One ?— 
 
 FROM "EARTH AND HER PRAISERS.' 
 
 Praised be the mosses soft 
 
 In thy forest pathways oft, 
 
 And the thorns, which make us think 
 
 Of the thornless river-brink 
 
 Where the ransomed tread : 
 Praised be thy sunny gleams, 
 And the storm, that worketh dreams 
 
 Of calm unfinished : 
 Praised be thine active days, 
 And thy night-time's solemn need. 
 When in God's dear book we read 
 
 No night shall he therein : 
 
FROM '* EARTH AND HER PRAISERS." 35 
 
 Praised be thy dwellings warm 
 
 By household faggot's cheerful blaze, 
 
 Where, to hear of pardoned sin, 
 
 Pauseth oft the merry din, 
 
 Save the babe's upon the arm 
 
 Who croweth to the crackling wood : 
 
 Yea, and, better understood, 
 
 Praised be thy dwellings cold. 
 
 Hid beneath the churchyard mould, 
 
 Where the bodies of the saints 
 
 Separate from earthly taints 
 
 Lie asleep, in blessing bound. 
 
 Waiting for the trumpet's sound 
 
 To free them into blessing ; — none 
 
 AYeeping more beneath the sun. 
 
 Though dangerous words of human love 
 
 Be graven very near, above. 
 
 Earth, we Christians praise thee thus. 
 Even for the change that comes 
 With a grief from thee to us : 
 For thy cradles and thy tombs, 
 For the pleasant corn and wine 
 And summer-heat ; and also for 
 The frost upon the sycamore 
 And hail upon the vine ! 
 
36 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 CROWNED AND WEDDED. 
 
 When last before lier people's face lier own fair face she beut, 
 Within the meek projection of that shade she was content 
 To erase the child-smile from her lips, which seemed as if it might 
 Be still kept holy from the world to childhood still in sight — 
 To erase it with a solemn vow, a princely vow — to rule, 
 A priestly vow — to rule by grace of God the pitiful, 
 A very godlike vow — to rule in right and righteousness 
 And with the law and for the land — so God the vower bless ! 
 
 The minster was alight that day, but not with fire, I ween, 
 And long-drawn glitterings swept adown that mighty aisled scene; 
 The priests stood stoled in their pomp, the sworded chiefs in theirs, 
 And so, the collared knights, and so, the civil ministers, 
 And so, the waiting lords and dames, and little pages best 
 At holding trains, and legates so, from countries east and west; 
 So, alien princes^ native peers, and high-born ladies bright. 
 Along whose brows the Queen's, now crowned, flashed coronets 
 
 to light; 
 And so, the people at the gates with priestly hands on high 
 Which bring the first anointing to all legal majesty; 
 And so the Dead, who lie in rows beneath the minster floor. 
 There verily an awful state maintaining evermore ; 
 The statesman whose clean palm will kiss no bribe whate'er it be, 
 The courtier who for no fair queen will rise up to his knee, 
 
CEOWNED AND WEDDED. 37 
 
 The court-dame who for no court-tire will leave her shroud behind, 
 The laureate who no courtlier rhyme than " dust to dust" can find, 
 The kings and queens who having made that vow and worn that 
 
 crown, 
 Descended unto lower thrones and darker, deep adown : 
 Dieu et mon droit — what is't to them ? what meaning can it 
 
 have ? — 
 The King of kings, the right of death — God's judgment and the 
 
 grave. 
 And when betwixt the quick and dead the young fair queen had 
 
 vowed, 
 The living shouted, " May she live ! Victoria, live !" aload : 
 And as the loyal shouts went up, true spirits prayed between, 
 " The blessings happy monarchs have be thine, crowned 
 
 queen !" 
 
 III. 
 
 But now before her people's face she bendeth hers anew. 
 And calls them, while she vows, to be her witness thereunto. 
 She vowed to rule, and in that oath her childhood put away : 
 She doth maintain her womanhood, in vowing love to-day. 
 lovely lady ! let her vow ! such lips become such vows, 
 And fairer goeth bridal wreath than crown with vernal brows. 
 lovely lady ! let her vow ! yea, let her vow to love ! 
 And though she be no less a queen, with purples hung above, 
 The pageant of a court behind, the royal kin around. 
 And woven gold to catch her looks turned maidenly to ground, 
 Yet may the bride-veil hide from her a little of that state, 
 While loving hopes for retinues about her sweetness wait. 
 4 
 
38 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 She vows to love who vowed to rule — (the chosen at her side) 
 Let none say, God preserve the queen ! but rather, Bless the 
 
 bride ! 
 None blow the trump, none bend the knee, none violate the dream 
 Wherein no monarch but a wife she to herself may seem. 
 Or if ye say. Preserve the queen ! oh, breathe it inward low — 
 She is a woman, and beloved! and 'tis enough but so. 
 Count it enough, thou noble prince who tak'st her by the hand 
 And claimest for thy lady-love our lady of the land ! 
 And since, Prince Albert, men have called thy spirit high and 
 
 rare, 
 And true to truth and brave for truth as some at Augsburg were, 
 We charge thee by thy lofty thoughts and by thy poet-mind 
 Which not by glory and degree takes measure of mankind. 
 Esteem that wedded hand less dear for sceptre than for ring, 
 And hold her uncrowned womanhood to be the royal thing. 
 
 And now, upon our queen's last vow what blessings shall we pray '/ 
 None straitened to a shallow crown will suit our lips to-day : 
 Behold, they must be free as love, they must be broad as free, 
 Even to the borders of heaven's light and earth's humanity. 
 Long live she! — send up loyal shouts, and true hearts pray 
 
 between, — 
 " The blessings happy peasants have, be thine, crowned 
 
 queen !" 
 
CROWNED AND BURIED. 39 
 
 CROWNED AND BURIED. 
 
 I. 
 Napoleon ! — years ago, and that great word 
 Compact of liumaD breath in hate and dread 
 And exultation, skied us overhead — 
 An atmosphere whose lightning was the sword 
 Scathing the cedars of the world, — drawn down 
 In burnings, by the metal of a crown. 
 
 II. 
 
 Napoleon ! — nations, while they cursed that name, 
 Shook at their own curse ; and while others bore 
 Its sound, as of a trumpet, on before, 
 Brass-fronted legions justified its fame; 
 And dying men on trampled battle-sods 
 Near their last silence uttered it for God's, 
 
 Napoleon ! — sages, with high foreheads drooped, 
 Did use it for a problem ; children small 
 Leapt up to greet it, as at manhood's call ; 
 Priests blessed it from their altars overstooped 
 By meek-eyed Christs ; and widows with a moan 
 Spake it, when questioned why they sate alone. 
 
 IV. 
 
 That name consumed the silence of the snows 
 In Alpine keeping, holy and cloud-hid ; 
 
40 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 The mimic eagles dared what Nature's did, 
 And over-rushed her mountainous repose 
 In search of eyries : and the Egyptian river 
 Mingled the same word with its grand " For ever." 
 
 That name was shouted near the pyramidal 
 Nilotic tombs, whose mummied habitants, 
 Packed to humanity's significance, 
 Motioned it back with stillness, — shouts as idle 
 As hireling artists' work of myrrh and spice 
 Which swathed last glories round the Ptolemies. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The world's face changed to hear it; kingly men 
 Came down in chidden babes' bewilderment 
 From autocratic places, each content 
 With sprinkled ashes for anointing : then 
 The people laughed or wondered for the nonce, 
 To see one throne a composite of thrones. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Napoleon ! — even the torrid vastitude 
 
 Of India felt in throbbings of the air 
 
 That name which scattered by disastrous blare 
 
 All Europe's bound-lines, — drawn afresh in blood. 
 
 Napoleon ! — from the Russias west to Spain : 
 
 And Austria trembled till 3'e heard her chain. 
 
CROWNED AND BURIED. 41 
 
 And Germany was 'ware; and Italy 
 Oblivious of old fames — lier laurel-locked, 
 High-ghosted Caesars passing uninvoked — 
 Did crumble her own ruins with her knee, 
 To serve a newer : ay ! but Frenchmen cast 
 A future from them nobler than her past : 
 
 For verily though France augustly rose 
 "With that raised name, and did assume by such 
 The purple of the world, none gave so much 
 As she in purchase — to speak plain, in loss — 
 Whose hands, toward freedom stretched, dropped 
 
 paralyzed 
 To wield a sword or fit an undersized 
 
 X. 
 
 King's crown to a great man's head. And though along 
 Her Paris' streets, did float on frequent streams 
 Of triumph, pictured or enmarbled dreams 
 Dreamt right by genius in a world gone wrong, — 
 No dream of all so won was fair to see 
 As the lost vision of her liberty. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Napoleon I — 'twas a high name lifted high : 
 It met at last God's thunder sent to clear 
 Our compassing and covering atmosphere 
 4* 
 
POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 And Open a clear sight beyond the sky 
 
 Of supreme empire ; this of earth's was done — 
 
 And kings crept out again to feel the sun. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The kings crept out — the peoples sate at home, 
 
 And finding the long-invocated peace 
 
 (A pall embroidered with worn images 
 
 Of rights divine) too scant to cover doom 
 
 Such as they sufi'ered, cursed the corn that grew 
 
 Rankly, to bitter bread, on Waterloo. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A deep gloom centered in the deep repose ; 
 The nations stood up mute to count their dead : 
 And he who owned the Name which vibrated 
 Through silence, — trusting to his noblest foes 
 When earth was all too gray for chivalry, 
 Died of their mercies 'mid the desert sea. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 wild St. Helen ! very still she kept him. 
 With a green willow for all pyramid, 
 Which stirred a little if the low wind did, 
 A little more, if pilgrims overwept him, 
 Disparting the lithe boughs to see the clay 
 Which seemed to cover his for judgment-day. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Nay, not so long ! France kept her old afiection 
 As deeply as the sepulchre the corse ; 
 
CROWNED AND BURIED. 43 
 
 Until, dilated by sucli love's remorse 
 
 To a new angel of the resurrection, 
 
 She cried, " Behold, thou England ! I would have 
 
 The dead whereof thou wottest, from that grave.'' 
 
 XVI. 
 
 And England answered in the courtesy 
 Which, ancient foes turned lovers, may befit, — 
 " Take back thy dead ! and when thou buriest it. 
 Throw in all former strifes 'twixt thee and me." 
 Amen, mine England ! 'tis a courteous claim : 
 But ask a little room too — for thy shame ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Because it was not well, it was not well, 
 Nor tuneful with thy lofty-chanted part 
 Among the Oceanides, — that Heart 
 To bind and bare and vex with vulture fell. 
 I would, my noble England, men might seek 
 All crimson stains upon thy breast — not cheek ! 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 I would that hostile fleets had scarred Toi-bay, 
 
 Instead of the lone ship which waited moored 
 
 Until thy princely purpose was assured, 
 
 Then left a shadow, not to pass away — 
 
 Not for to-night's moon, nor to-morrow's sun : 
 
 Green watching hills, ye witnessed what was done !* 
 
 * Written at Torquay. 
 
44 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 But since it was done, — in sepulchral dust 
 We fain would pay back someiiiing of our debt 
 To France, if not to honor, and forget 
 How through much fear we falsified the trust 
 Of a fallen foe and exile. We return 
 Orestes to Electra — in his urn. 
 
 A little urn — a little dust inside, 
 
 Which once outbalanced the large earth, albeit 
 
 To-day a four-years child might carry it 
 
 Sleek-browed and smiling, " Let the burden 'bide !" 
 
 Orestes to Electra ! — fair town 
 
 Of Paris, how the wild tears will run down 
 
 XXI. 
 
 And run back in the chariot-marks of time, 
 
 When all the people shall come forth to meet 
 
 The passive victor, death-still in the street 
 
 He rode through 'mid the shouting and bell-chime 
 
 And martial music, under eagles which 
 
 Dyed their rapacious beaks at Austerlitz I 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Napoleon ! — he hath come again, borne home 
 Upon the popular ebbing heart, — a sea 
 Which gathers its own wrecks perpetually, 
 Majestically moaning. Give him room ! 
 
CROWNED AND BURIED. 45 
 
 Room for the dead in Paris ! welcome solemn 
 
 And grave-deep, 'neatli the cannon-moulded column !* 
 
 There, weapon spent and warrior spent may rest 
 
 From roar of fields, — provided Jupiter 
 
 Dare ti'ust Saturnus to lie down so near 
 
 His bolts ! — and this he may : for, dispossessed 
 
 Of any godship lies the godlike arm — 
 
 The goat, Jove sucked, as likely to do harm. 
 
 And yet . . . Napoleon ! — the recovered name 
 Shakes the old casements of the world ; and we 
 Look out upon the passing pageantry, 
 Attesting that the Dead makes good his claim 
 To a French grave, — another kingdom won, 
 The last, of few spans — by Napoleon. 
 
 Blood fell like dew beneath his sunrise — sooth ! 
 But glittered dew-like in the covenanted 
 Meridian light. He was a despot — granted I 
 But the aoToq of his autocratic mouth 
 Said yea i' the people's French ; he magnified 
 The image of the freedom he denied : 
 
 * It was the first intention to bury him under the column. 
 
46 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 And if they asked for rights, he made reply 
 
 " Ye have my glory !" — and so, drawing round them 
 
 His ample purple, glorified and bound them 
 
 In an embrace that seemed identity. 
 
 He ruled them like a tyrant — true ! but none 
 
 Were ruled like slaves : each felt Napoleon. 
 
 XXVII, 
 
 I do not praise this man : the man was flawed 
 
 For Adam — much more, Christ ! — his knee unbent, 
 
 His hand unclean, his aspiration pent 
 
 Within a sword-sweep — pshaw ! — but since he had 
 
 The genius to be loved, why let him have 
 
 The justice to be honored in his grave. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 I think this nation's tears thus poured together, 
 
 Better than shouts. I think this funeral 
 
 Grander than crownings, though a Pope bless all. 
 
 I think this grave stronger than thrones. But whether 
 
 The crowned Napoleon or the buried clay 
 
 Be worthier, I discern not : angels may. 
 
 FALSE STEP. 
 
 Sweet, thou hast trod on a heart. 
 Pass ! there's a world full of men ; 
 
FALSE STEP. 47 
 
 And women as fair as thou art 
 
 Must do such things now and then. 
 
 Thou only hast stepped unaware, — 
 
 Malice, not one can impute ', 
 And why should a heart have been there 
 
 In the way of a fair woman's foot ? 
 
 It was not a stone that could trip, 
 
 Nor was it a thorn that could rend : 
 Put up thy proud uuderlip ! 
 
 'Twas merely the heart of a friend. 
 
 And yet peradventure one day 
 
 Thou, sitting alone at the glass. 
 Remarking the bloom gone away, 
 
 Where the smile in its dimplement was, 
 
 And seeking around thee in vain 
 
 From hundreds who flattered before, 
 
 Such a word as, " Oh, not in the main 
 Do I hold thee less precious, but more V 
 
 Thou'lt sigh, very like, on thy part, 
 
 " Of all I have known or can know, 
 I wish I had only that Heart 
 
 I trod upon ages ago !" 
 
48 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 COWPER'S GRAVE. 
 
 It is a place wliere poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying; 
 It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying : 
 Yet let the grief and humbleness as low as silence languish : 
 Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her 
 anguish. 
 
 poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing ! 
 O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging ! 
 men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling. 
 Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were 
 smiling ! 
 
 And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his 
 
 story, 
 How discord on the music fell and darkness on the glory, 
 And how when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering lights 
 
 departed, 
 He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted, 
 
 He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation, 
 And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adoration ; 
 Nor ever shall he be, in praise, by wise or good forsaken, 
 Named softly as tlie household name of one whom God hath taken. 
 
 With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to think upon him. 
 With meekness that is gratefulness to God whose heaven hath 
 won him, 
 
cowper's grave. 49 
 
 AYho suffered once the madness-cloud to His own love to blind 
 
 liim, 
 But gently led the blind along where breath and bird could find 
 
 him ; 
 
 And wrought within his shattered brain such quick poetic senses 
 As hills have language for, and stars, harmonious influences : 
 The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its number. 
 And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a slumber. 
 
 Wild timid hares were drawn from woods to share his home- 
 caresses, 
 
 Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses : 
 
 The very world, by Grod's constraint, from falsehood's ways 
 removing. 
 
 Its women and its men became, beside him, true and loving. 
 
 And though, in blindness, he remained unconscious of that 
 
 guidino- 
 And things provided came without the sweet sense of providing, 
 He testified this solemn truth, while phrenzy desolated, 
 — Nor man nor nature satisfies whom only Grod created. 
 
 Like a sick child that kuoweth not his mother while she blesses 
 And drops upon his burning brow the coolness of her kis.ses, — 
 That turns his fevered eyes around — " My mother! where's my 
 
 mother ?" — 
 As if such tender words and deeds could come I'rom an\' 
 
 other ! — 
 
50 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 The fever gone, witli leaps of heart he sees her bending o'er him, 
 Her face all pale from watchful love, the unweary love she bore 
 
 him ! — 
 Thus woke the poet from the dream his life's long fever gave 
 
 him, 
 Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes which closed in death to 
 
 save him. 
 
 Thus ? oh, not thus ! no type of earth can image that awaking, 
 Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs, round him 
 
 breaking. 
 Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted, 
 But felt those eyes alone, and knew, — " My Saviour ! not de- 
 serted !" 
 
 Deserted ! Who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness 
 
 rested, 
 Upon the Victim's hidden face no love was manifested ? 
 What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the atoning drops 
 
 averted ? 
 What tears have washed them from the soul, that one should be 
 
 deserted ? 
 
 Deserted ! Grod could separate from His own essence rather ; 
 And Adam's sins have swept between the righteous Son and 
 
 Father : 
 Yea, once^ Immanuel's orphaned cry His universe hath shaken — 
 It went up single, echoless, " M}^ Grod, I am forsaken !" 
 
HECTOR IN THE GARDEN. 51 
 
 It went up from the Holy's lips amid His lost creation, 
 
 That, of the lost, no son should use those words of desolation ! 
 
 That earth's worst phrenzies, marring hope, should mar not 
 
 hope's fruition, 
 And I, on Cowper's grave, should see his rapture in a vision. 
 
 HECTOR IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 Nine years old ! The first of any 
 Seem the happiest years that come : 
 Yet when /was nine, I said 
 No such W' ord ! I thought instead 
 
 That the Greeks had used as many 
 In besieging Ilium. 
 
 Nine green years had scarcely brought me 
 To my childhood's haunted spring j 
 I had life, like flowers and bees 
 In betwixt the country trees, 
 
 And the sun the pleasure taught me 
 Which he teacheth everything. 
 
 If the rain fell, there was sorrow, 
 Little head leant on the pane, 
 Little finder drawino- down "it 
 
 o o 
 
 The Ion* trailing drops upon it, 
 And the " Rain, rain, come to-morrow," 
 Said for charm against the rain. 
 
52 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Sucli a charm was riglit Canidian 
 Thougli you meet it with a jeer ! 
 If I said it long enough, 
 Then the rain hummed dimly off 
 
 And the thrush with his pure Lydian 
 Was left only to the ear ; 
 
 And the sun and I together 
 
 Went a-rushiug out of doors ; 
 
 We our tender spirits drew 
 
 Over hill and dale in view, 
 Glimmering hither, glimmering thither, 
 
 In the footsteps of the showers. 
 
 Underneath the chestnuts dripping. 
 Through the grasses wet and fair, 
 Straight I sought my garden-ground 
 With the laurel on the mound, 
 
 And the pear-tree oversweeping 
 A side-shadow of green air. 
 
 In the garden lay supinely 
 
 A huge giant wrought of spade ! 
 Arms and legs were stretched at length 
 In a passive giant strength, — 
 
 The fine meadow-turf, cut finely. 
 Round them laid and interlaid. 
 
 Call him Hector, son of Priam ! 
 Such his title and decree. 
 
HECTOR IN THE GARDEN. 53 
 
 With my rake I smoothed his brow, 
 Both his cheeks I weeded through. 
 But a rhymer such as I am, 
 Scarce can sing his dignity. 
 
 Eyes of gentianeUas azure, 
 
 Staring, winking at the skies ; 
 
 Nose of gillyflowers and box ; 
 
 Scented grasses put for locks, 
 Which a little breeze at pleasure 
 
 Set a-waviug round his eyes : 
 
 Brazen helm of daffodillies, 
 
 With a glitter toward the light ; 
 
 Purple violets for the mouth, 
 
 Breathing perfumes west and south ; 
 And a sword of flashing lilies, 
 
 Holden ready for the fight : 
 
 And a breastplate made of daisies, 
 
 Closely fitting, leaf on leaf; 
 
 Periwinkles interlaced 
 
 Drawn for belt about the waist ; 
 While the brown bees, humming praises. 
 
 Shot their arrows round the chief 
 
 And who knows, (I sometimes wondered,) 
 
 If the disembodied soul 
 
 Of old Hector, once of Troy, 
 
 Might not take a dreary joy 
 5* 
 
54 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Here to euter — if it thundered, 
 Rolling up the thunder-roll ? 
 
 Rolling this way from Troy-ruin, 
 
 In this body rude and rife 
 
 Just to enter, and take rest 
 
 'Neath the daisies of the breast — 
 They, with tender roots, renewing 
 
 His heroic heart to life ? 
 
 Who could know ? I sometimes started 
 
 At a motion or a sound ! 
 
 Did his mouth speak — naming Troy 
 
 With an ozotototoc ? 
 Did the pulse of the Strong- hearted 
 
 Make the daisies tremble round ? 
 
 It was hard to answer, often : 
 But the birds sang in the tree, 
 But the little birds sang bold 
 In the pear-tree green and old, 
 
 And my terror seemed to soften 
 Through the courage of their glee. 
 
 Oh, the birds, the tree, the ruddy 
 
 And white blossoms sleek with rain ! 
 
 Oh, my garden rich with pansies ! 
 
 Oh, my childhood's bright romances ! 
 All revive, like Hector's body. 
 
 And I see them stir aoain. 
 
SLEEPING AND WATCHING. 
 
 Aud despite life's changes, chances, 
 And despite the dcathbell's toll, 
 They press on me in full seeming : 
 Help, some angel ! stay this dreaming ! 
 
 As the birds sang in the branches, 
 
 Sing God's patience through my soul ! 
 
 That no dreamer, no neglecter 
 Of the presejQt's work unsped, 
 I may wake up and be doing, 
 Life's heroic ends pursuing, 
 
 Though my past is dead as Hector, 
 And though Hector is twice dead. 
 
 SLEEPING AND WATCHING. 
 
 Sleep on, baby, on the floor, 
 
 Tired of all the playing : 
 Sleep with smile the sweeter for 
 
 That, you dropped away in. 
 On your curls' full roundness stand 
 
 Golden lights serenely; 
 One cheek, pushed out by the hand. 
 
 Folds the dimple inly : 
 Little head and little foot 
 
 Heavy laid for pleasure, 
 
oft rOEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Underneath the lids half shut, 
 Slants the shining azure. 
 
 Open-soul in noon-day sun, 
 So you lie and slumber : 
 
 Nothing evil having done. 
 Nothing can encumber. 
 
 I, who cannot sleep as well, 
 
 Shall I sigh to view you ? 
 Or sigh further to foretell 
 
 All that may undo you ? 
 Nay, keep smiling, little child, 
 
 Ere the sorrow neareth : 
 I will smile too ! patience mild 
 
 Pleasure's token weareth. 
 Nay, keep sleeping before loss : 
 
 I shall sleep though losing ! 
 As by cradle, so by cross, 
 
 Sure is the reposing. 
 
 And God knows who sees us twain. 
 Child at childish leisure, 
 
 I am near as tired of pain 
 As you seem of pleasure. 
 
 Very soon too, by His grace 
 Gently wrapt around me. 
 
THE SERAPH AND POET. 57 
 
 Shall I show as calm a face, 
 
 Shall I sleep as soundly. 
 Differing in this, that you 
 
 Clasp your playthings, sleeping, 
 While my hands shall drop the few 
 
 Given to my keeping : 
 Differing in this, that I 
 
 Sleeping shall be colder. 
 And in waking presently. 
 
 Brighter to beholder : 
 Differing in this beside 
 
 (Sleeper, have you heard me ? 
 Do you move, and open wide 
 
 Eyes of wonder toward me ?) — 
 That while you I thus recall 
 
 From your sleep, I solely. 
 Me from mine an angel shall, 
 
 With reveilHe holy. 
 
 THE SERAPH xVND POET. 
 
 The seraph sings before the manifest 
 God-One, and in the burning of the Seven, 
 And with the full life of consummate Heaven 
 Heaving beneath him like a mother's breast 
 Warm with her first-born's slumber in that nest. 
 
5S POEMS OP THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 The poet sings upon tlie earth grave-riven, 
 Before the naughty world, soon self- forgiven 
 For wronging him, — and in the darkness pressed 
 From his own soul by worldly weights. Even so, 
 Sing, seraph with the glory ! heaven is high ; 
 Sing, poet with the sorrow ! earth is low : 
 The universe's inward voices cry 
 " Amen" to either song of joy and woe ; 
 Sing, seraph, — poet, — sing on equally ! 
 
 COMFOKT. 
 
 Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet 
 From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low. 
 Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so 
 Who art not missed by any that entreat. 
 Speak to me as to Mary at Thy feet ! 
 And if no precious gums my hands bestow. 
 Let my tears drop like amber while I go 
 In reach of Thy divinest voice complete 
 In humanest affection — thus, in sooth. 
 To lose the sense of losing. As a child. 
 Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore. 
 Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth 
 Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, 
 He sleeps the faster that he wept before. 
 
HEAVEN AND EARTH. 59 
 
 TO GEORGE SAND. 
 
 A RECOGNITION. 
 
 True genius, but true woman ! dost deny 
 
 Tlie woman's nature witli a manly scorn, 
 
 And break away the gauds and armlets worn 
 
 By weaker women in captivity ? 
 
 Ah, vain denial ! that revolted cry 
 
 Is sobbed in by a woman's voice forlorn, — 
 
 Thy woman's hair, my sister, all unshorn 
 
 Floats back dishevelled strength in agon}^, 
 
 Disproving thy man's name : and while before 
 
 The world thou burnest in a poet-fire, 
 
 We see thy woman-heart beat evermore 
 
 Through the large flame. Beat purer, heart, and higher. 
 
 Till God unsex thee on the heavenly shore 
 
 Where unincarnate spirits purely aspire ! 
 
 HEAVEN AND EARTH. 
 
 " Aud there was silence iu heaven for the space of half an hour." 
 
 Jievdatioii. 
 
 God, who with thunders and great voices kept 
 Beneath Thy throne, and stars most silver-paced 
 Along the inferior gyres, and open-faced 
 Melodious angels round, — canst intercept 
 Music with music, — yet, at will, hast swept 
 
CO POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 All back, all back, (said lie in Patmos placed) 
 To fill the heavens with silence of the waste 
 Which lasted half an hour ! — lo, I who have wept 
 All day and night, beseech Thee by my tears, 
 And by that dread response of curse and groan 
 Men alternate across these hemispheres, 
 Vouchsafe us such a half-hour's hush alone, 
 In compensation for our stormy years : 
 As heaven has paused from song, let earth from moan ! 
 
 A SONG AGAINST SINGING. 
 They bid me sinu- to thee. 
 
 Thou golden-haired and silver-voiced child — 
 With lips by no worse sigh than sleep's defiled- 
 With eyes unknowing how tears dim the sight. 
 And feet all trembling at the new delight 
 Treaders of earth to be ! 
 
 Ah no ! the lark may bring 
 A song to thee from out the morning cloud. 
 The merry river from its lilies bowed, 
 The brisk rain from the trees, the lucky wind 
 That half doth make its music, half doth find,- 
 
 But / — I may not sing. 
 
A SONG AGAINST SINGING. 61 
 
 How could I think it rigbt, 
 New-comer on our earth as, Sweet, thou art, 
 To bring a verse from out an human heart 
 Made heavy with accumulated tears, 
 And cross with such amount of weary years 
 
 Thy day-sum of delight? 
 
 Even if the verse were said, 
 Thou, who wouldst clap thy tiny hands to hear 
 The wind or rain, gay bird or river clear, 
 AYouldst, at that sound of sad humanities, 
 Upturn thy bright uncomprehending eyes 
 
 And bid me play instead. 
 
 Therefore no song of mine, — 
 But prayer in place of singing ; prayer that would 
 Commend thee to the new-creating God 
 Whose gift is childhood's heart without its stain 
 Of weakness, ignorance, and changing vain — 
 
 That gift of God be thine ! 
 
 So wilt thou aye be young, 
 In lovelier childhood than thy shining brow 
 And pretty winning accents make thee now : 
 Yea, sweeter than this scarce articulate sound 
 (How sweet!) of "father," ^'mother," shall be found 
 
 The Abba on thy tongue. 
 
 And so, as years shall chase 
 Each other's shadows, thou wilt less resemble 
 
02 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Thy fellows of the earth who toil and tremble, 
 Thau him thou seest not, thine angel bold 
 Yet meek, whose ever-lifted eyes behold 
 The Ever-lovino's face. 
 
 LOVED ONCE. 
 
 I CLASSED, apjn-aising once, 
 Earth's lamentable sounds, — the welladay, 
 
 The jarring yea and nay. 
 The fall of kisses on unauswering clay. 
 The sobbed farewell, the welcome mournfuller, — 
 
 But all did leaven the air 
 With a less bitter leaven of sure despair 
 
 Than these words — " I loved once/^ 
 
 And who saith, " I loved once" ? 
 Not angels, — whose clear eyes, love, love foresee. 
 
 Love, through eternity. 
 And by To Love do apprehend To Be. 
 Not Grod, called Love, His noble crown-name castin* 
 
 A lioht too broad for blastino; : 
 The great Grod changing not from everlasting, 
 
 Saith never, " I loved ONCE.'^ 
 
 Oh, never is " Loved once" 
 Thy word, thou Victim-Christ, misprized friend ! 
 Thy cross and curse may rend, 
 
LOVED ONCE. 63 
 
 But having loved Thou lovest to the end. 
 
 This is man's saying — man's : too weak to move 
 
 One sphered star above, 
 Man desecrates the eternal Grod-word Love 
 
 By his No More, and Once. 
 
 How say ye, " We loved once," 
 Blasphemers ? Is your earth not cold enow, 
 
 Mourners, without that snow ? 
 Ah, friends, and would ye wrong each other so '^ 
 And could ye say of some whose love is known. 
 
 Whose prayers have met your own, 
 Whose tears have fallen for you, whose smiles have shone 
 
 So long, — " We loved them once" ? 
 
 Could ye, " We loved her once," 
 Say calm of me, sweet friends, when out of sight ? 
 
 When hearts of better right 
 Stand in between me and your happy light ? 
 Or when, as flowers kept too long in the shade. 
 
 Ye find my colors fade. 
 And all that is not love in me, decayed ? 
 
 Such words — Ye loved me once ! 
 
 Could ye, " We loved her once" 
 Say cold of me when further put away 
 
 In earth's sepulchral clay, 
 When mute the lips which deprecate to-day ? 
 Not so ! not then — least then ! When life is shriven 
 
 And death's full joy is given, — 
 
64 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Of those who sit and love you up in heaven, 
 Say not, " We loved them once." 
 
 Say never, ye loved once : 
 God is too near above, the grave, beneath, 
 
 And all our moments breathe 
 Too quick in mysteries of life and death, 
 For such a word. The eternities avenge 
 
 Affections light of range. 
 There comes no change to justify that change, 
 
 Whatever comes — Loved once ! 
 
 And yet that same word once 
 Is humanly acceptive. Kings have said 
 
 Shaking a discrowned head, 
 "We ruled once," — dotards, "We once taught and led. 
 Cripples once danced i' the vines, and bards approved, 
 
 Were once by scornings moved : 
 But love strikes one hour — love ! those never loved 
 
 Who dream that they loved once. 
 
 A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD. 
 
 They say that God lives very high ; 
 
 But if you look above the pines 
 You cannot see our God ) and why ? 
 
 And if you dig down in the mines 
 You never see Him in the gold ; 
 Though from Him all that's glory shines. 
 
THE SLEEP. 05 
 
 God is so good, He wears a fold 
 
 Of heaven and earth across His face — 
 Like secrets kept, for love, untold. 
 
 But still I feel that His embrace 
 
 Slides down by thrills, through all things made. 
 Through sight and sound of every place. 
 
 As if my tender mother laid 
 
 On my shut lips her kisses' pressure, 
 
 Half-waking me at night, and said 
 
 " Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser ?" 
 
 THE SLEEP. 
 
 " He giveth Ilis beloved sleep." — Psalm cxxvii. 2. 
 
 Of all the thoughts of Grod that are 
 Borne inward into souls afar, 
 Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
 Now tell me if that any is, 
 For gift or grace, surpassing this — 
 " He giveth His beloved, sleep" ? 
 
 What would we give to our beloved ? 
 The hero's heart to be unmoved, 
 The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep, 
 The patriot's voice to teach and rouse, 
 The monarch's crown to light the brows ?- 
 He giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 6* 
 
66 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 What do we give to our beloved ? 
 
 A little faith all undisproved, 
 
 A little dust to overweep, 
 
 And bitter memories to make 
 
 The whole earth blasted for our sake : 
 
 He giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 " Sleep soft, beloved I'^ we sometimes saj, 
 
 Who have no tune to charm away 
 
 Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep : 
 
 But never doleful dream again 
 
 Shall break the happy slumber when 
 
 He giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 men, with wailing in your voices ! 
 delved gold, the wallers heap ! 
 strife, curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 God strikes a silence through you all, 
 And giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 His dews drop mutely on the hill, 
 His cloud above it saileth still, 
 Though on its slope men sow and reap : 
 More softly than the dew is shed. 
 Or cloud is floated overhead, 
 He giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 Ay, men may wonder while they scan 
 A living, thinking, feeling man 
 
THE WEAKEST THING. 67 
 
 Confirmed in such a rest to keep ; 
 But angels say, and through the word 
 I think their happy smile is heard — 
 " He giveth His beloved, sleep." 
 
 For me, my heart that erst did go 
 
 Most like a tired child at a show. 
 
 That sees through tears the mummers leap, 
 
 Would now its wearied vision close, 
 
 Would chikUike on His love repose 
 
 Who giveth His beloved, sleep. 
 
 And friends, dear friends, when it shall be 
 That this low breath is gone from me. 
 And round my bier ye come to weep. 
 Let One, most loving of you all. 
 Say, " Not a tear must o'er her fall ! 
 He giveth His beloved, sleep.'' 
 
 THE WEAKEST THING. 
 
 Which is the w^eakest thing of all 
 
 Mine heart can ponder ? 
 The sun, a little cloud can pall 
 
 With darkness yonder? 
 The cloud, a little wind can move 
 
 Where'er it Usteth ? 
 The wind, a little leaf above, 
 
 Though sere, resisteth ? 
 
68 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 What time that yellow leaf was green, 
 
 My days were gladder ; 
 But now, whatever Spring may mean, 
 
 I must grow sadder. 
 Ah me ! a leaf with sighs can wring 
 
 My lips asunder ? 
 Then is mine heart the weakest thine: 
 
 Itself can ponder. 
 
 Yet, Heart, when sun and cloud are pined 
 
 And drop together. 
 And at a blast which is not wind, 
 ^ The forests wither. 
 
 Thou, from the darkening deathly curse. 
 
 To glory breakest, — 
 The strongest of the universe 
 
 Guardiuo; the weakest ! 
 
 A WOMAN'S SHORTCOMINGS. 
 
 She has laughed as softly as if she sighed, 
 
 She has counted six, and over. 
 Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried — 
 
 Oh, each a worthy lover ! 
 They " give her time f' for her soul must slip 
 
 Where the world has set the grooving : 
 She will lie to none with her fair red lip — 
 
 But love seeks truer loving. 
 
A WOMAN S SHORTCOMINGS. 69 
 
 She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb, 
 
 As her thoughts were beyond recalling, 
 With a glance for one^ and a glance for some. 
 
 From her eyelids rising and tailing; 
 Speaks common words with a blushful air, 
 
 Hears bold words, unreproving; 
 But her silence says — what she never will swear — 
 
 And love seeks better loving. 
 
 Go, lady, lean to the night-guitar 
 
 And droj) a smile to the bringer. 
 Then smile as sweetly, when he is far. 
 
 At the voice of an in-door singer. 
 Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes ; 
 
 Glance lightly, on their removiug ; 
 And join new vows to old perjuries — 
 
 But dare not call it loving. 
 
 Unless you can think, when the song is done, 
 
 No other is soft in the rhythm ; 
 Unless you can feel, when left by One, 
 
 That all men else go with him ; 
 Unless you can know, when upraised by his breath, 
 
 That your beauty itself wants proving ; 
 Unless you can swear, " For life, for death !" — 
 
 Oh, fear to call it loving ! 
 
 Unless you can muse in a crowd all day, 
 On the absent face that fixed you ; 
 
70 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Unless you can love, as the angels may, 
 With the breadth of heaven betwixt you ; 
 
 Unless 3^ou can dream that his faith is fast, 
 Through behoving and uubehoving; 
 
 Unless you can die when the dream is past — 
 
 Oh, never call it loving ! 
 
 A MAN'S REQUIREMENTS. 
 
 Love me, Sweet, with all thou art, 
 Feeling, thinking, seeing; 
 
 Love me in the lightest part. 
 Love me in full being. 
 
 Love me with thine open youth 
 
 In its frank surrender ; 
 With the vowing of thy mouth, 
 
 With its silence tender. 
 
 Love me with thine azure eyes, 
 Made for earnest granting; 
 
 Taking color from the skies, 
 
 Can Heaven's truth be wanting ? 
 
 Love me with their lids, that fall 
 Snow-like at first meeting ; 
 
 Love me with thine heart, that all 
 Neiiiihbors then see beating. 
 
A MAN S REQUIREMENTS. 71 
 
 Love me with thine hand stretched out 
 
 Freely — open-minded : 
 Love me with thy loitering foot, — 
 
 Hearing one behind it. 
 
 Love me with thy voice, that turns 
 
 Sudden faint above me -, 
 Love me with thy blush that burns 
 
 When I murmur, Love me ! 
 
 Love me with thy thinking soul, 
 
 Break it to love-sighing ; 
 Love me with thy thoughts that roll 
 
 On through living — dying. 
 
 Love me in thy gorgeous airs, 
 
 When the world has crowned thee; 
 
 Love me, kneeling at thy prayers. 
 With the angels round thee. 
 
 Love me pure, as musers do, 
 
 Up the woodlands shady : 
 Love me gaily, fast and true, 
 
 As a winsome lady. 
 
 Through all hopes that keep us brave, 
 
 Further off or nigher, 
 Love me for the house and grave, 
 
 And for something higher. 
 
POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear, 
 
 Woman's love no fable, 
 /will love thee — half a year — 
 
 As a man is able. 
 
 INCLUSIONS. 
 
 Oh, wilt thou have my hand. Dear, to lie along in thine ? 
 As a little stone in a running stream, it seems to lie and pine. 
 Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, unfit to plight with thine. 
 
 Oh, wilt thou have my cheek. Dear, drawn closer to thine own ? 
 My cheek is white, my cheek is worn, by many a tear run down. 
 Now leave a little space, Dear, lest it should wet thine own. 
 
 Oh, must thou have my soul, Dear, commingled with thy soul ? — 
 Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand ; the part is in the whole : 
 Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when soul is joined to soul. 
 
 LOVE FOR LOVE. 
 
 FROM THE POKTUGDESE. 
 
 If thou must love me. let it be for nought 
 
 Except for love's sake only. Do not say 
 
 " I love her for her smile — her look — licr way 
 
A LOCK OF HAIR. 73 
 
 Of speaking gently, — for a trick of thought 
 
 That falls in well with mine, and certes brought 
 
 A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" — 
 
 For these things in themselves, Beloved, may 
 
 Be changed, or change for thee, — -add love, so wrought, 
 
 May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 
 
 Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, — 
 
 A creature might forget to weep, who bore 
 
 Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby ! 
 
 But love me for love's sake, that evermore 
 
 Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity. 
 
 A LOCK OF HAIR. 
 
 FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 
 
 I NEVER gave a lock of hair away 
 To a man, Dearest, except this to thee. 
 Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully 
 I ring out to the full brown length and say 
 " Take it." My day of youth went yesterday ; 
 My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee, 
 Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree, 
 As girls do, any more : it only may 
 Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears, 
 Taught dropping from the head that hangs aside 
 Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shenr. 
 Would take this first, but Love is justified, — 
 7 
 
74 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Take it tliou, — finding pure, from all those years, 
 The kiss my mother left here when she died. 
 
 CALL ME BY MY PET-NAME. 
 
 FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 
 
 Yes, call me by my pet-name ! let me hear 
 The name I used to run at, when a child, 
 From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, 
 To glance up in some face that proved me dear 
 With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear 
 Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled 
 Into the music of Heaven's undefiled. 
 Call me no longer. Silence on the bier, 
 While I call God— call God !— So let thy mouth 
 Be heir to those who are now exanimate. 
 Gather the north flowers to complete the south. 
 And catch the early love up in the late. 
 Y^es, call me by that name, — and I, in truth, 
 With the same heart, will answer and not wait. 
 
 THE KISS. 
 
 FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 
 
 First time he kissed me, he but only kissed 
 The fingers of this hand wherewith I write ; 
 
THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. 75 
 
 And ever since, it grew more clean and white, 
 
 Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ''Oh, list," 
 
 When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst 
 
 I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, 
 
 Than that first kiss. The second passed in height 
 
 The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed. 
 
 Half falling on the hair. Oh beyond meed ! 
 
 That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown. 
 
 With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. 
 
 The third upon my lips was folded down 
 
 In perfect, purple state ; since when, indeed, 
 
 I have been proud and said, " My love, my own." 
 
 THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 What's the best thing in the world? 
 June-rose, by May-dew impearled ; 
 Sweet south-wind, that means no rain ; 
 Truth, not cruel to a friend • 
 Pleasure, not in haste to end ; 
 Beauty, not self-decked and curled 
 Till its pride is over-plain ; 
 Light, that never makes you wink ; 
 Memory, that gives no pain ; 
 Love, when, so, you're loved again. 
 What's the best thing in the world ? 
 — Something out of it, I think. 
 
76 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. 
 
 ' There is no God," the foolish saith, 
 
 But none, " There is no sorrow," 
 And nature oft the cry of faith, 
 
 In bitter need will borrow : 
 Eyes, which the preacher could not school. 
 
 By wayside graves are raised, 
 And lips say, " God be pitiful," 
 
 Who ne'er said, " God be praised." 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 The tempest stretches from the steep 
 
 The shadow of its coming, 
 The beasts grow tame and near us creep, 
 
 As help were in the human • 
 Yet, while the cloud-wheels roll and grind, 
 
 We spirits tremble under — 
 The hills have echoes, but we find 
 
 No answer for the thunder. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 The battle hurtles on the plains, 
 Earth feels new scythes upon her ; 
 
 We reap our brothers for the wains, 
 And call the harvest — honour : 
 
 Braw face to face, front line to hne, 
 One imau'C all inherit, — 
 
y^- 
 
 'v'/;i^4/v:^-^/''^ '^^^y^^-^'- 
 
THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. 77 
 
 Then kill, curse on, by that same sign, 
 Clay — clay, and spirit — sj^irit. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 The plague runs festering through the town, 
 
 And never a bell is tolling, 
 And corpses, jostled 'neath the moon. 
 
 Nod to the dead-cart's rolhng : 
 The young child calleth for the cup, 
 
 The strong man brings it weeping, 
 The mother from her babe looks up, 
 
 And shrieks away its sleeping. 
 
 Be pitiful, Ood ! 
 
 The plague of gold strikes far and near, 
 
 And deep and strong it enters ; 
 This purple chimar which we wear, 
 
 Makes madder than the centaur's : 
 Our thoughts grow blank, our words grow strange, 
 
 We cheer the pale gold-diggers, 
 Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, 
 
 And marked, like sheep, with figures. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 The curse of gold upon the land 
 
 The lack of bread enforces ; 
 The rail-cars snort from strand to strand, 
 
 Like more of Death's White horses : 
 The rich preach '^rights" and "future days,'' 
 
 And hear no angel scoflSng, 
 
 7* 
 
78 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 The poor die mute, with starving gaze 
 On corn-shij)s in the offing. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 We meet together at the feast, 
 
 To private mirth betake us ; 
 We stare down in the winecup, lest 
 
 Some vacant chair should shake us : 
 We name delight, and pledge it round — 
 
 "It shall be ours to-morrow V 
 God's seraphs, do your voices sound 
 
 As sad, in naming sorrow ? 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 We sit together, with the skies, 
 
 The steadfast skies, above us, 
 We look into each other's eyes, 
 
 " And how long will you love us ?" 
 The eyes grow dim with prophecy, 
 
 The voices, low and breathless, — 
 '' Till death us part !" — words, to be 
 
 Our best, for love the deathless I 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 We tremble by the harmless bed 
 
 Of one loved and departed : 
 Our tears drop on the lips that said 
 
 Last night, " Be stronger hearted !" 
 God, — to clasp those fingers close. 
 
 And yet to feel so lonely ! 
 
THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. 79 
 
 To see a light upon such brows, 
 Which is the daylight only ! 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 The happy children come to us. 
 
 And look up in our faces ; 
 They ask us — " Was it thus, and thus, 
 
 When we were in their places ?" — 
 We cannot speak; — we see anew 
 
 The hills we used to live in. 
 And feel our mother's smile press through 
 
 The kisses she is giving. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 We pray together at the kirk 
 
 For mercy, mercy solely : 
 Hands weary with the evil work, 
 
 We lift them to the Holy. 
 The corpse is calm below our knee, 
 
 Its spirit bright before Thee — 
 Between them, worse than either, we — 
 
 Without the rest or glory. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 We leave the communing of men. 
 
 The murmur of the passions, 
 And live alone, to live again 
 
 With endless generations : 
 Are we so brave ? — The sea and sky 
 
 In silence lift their mirrors, 
 
80 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFEECTIONS. 
 
 And, glassed therein, our spirits high 
 Recoil from their own terrors. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 We sit on hills our childhood wist, 
 
 Woods, hamlets, streams, beholding : 
 The sun strikes through the farthest mist 
 
 The city's spire to golden : 
 The city's golden spire it was. 
 
 When hope and health were strongest. 
 But now it is the churchyard grass 
 
 We look upon the longest. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 And soon all vision waxeth dull ; 
 
 Men whisper, " He is dying ;'^ 
 We cry no more " Be pitiful !" 
 
 We have no strength for crying : 
 No strength, no need. Then, soul of mine, 
 
 Look up and triumph rather — 
 Lo, in the depth of God's Divine, 
 
 The Son adjures the Father, 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 MY KATE. 
 
 She was not as pretty as women T know. 
 
 And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow 
 
MY KATE. 81 
 
 Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways, 
 While she's still remembered on warm and cold days — 
 
 My Kate. 
 
 Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; 
 You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face : 
 And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth, 
 You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth — 
 
 My Kate. 
 
 Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke, 
 You looked at her silence and ftmcied she spoke : 
 Whtn she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone. 
 Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone — 
 
 My Kate. 
 
 I doubt if she said to you much that could act 
 As a thought or suggestion : she did not attract 
 In the sense of the brilliant or wise : I infer 
 'Twas her thinking of others, made you think of her — 
 
 My Kate. 
 
 She never found fault with you, never implied 
 Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side 
 Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town 
 The children were gladder that pulled at her gown — 
 
 My Kate. 
 
 None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall ; 
 They knelt more to God than they used, — that was all : 
 
82 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant, 
 But the charm of her presence was felt when she went — 
 
 My Kate. 
 
 The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, 
 She took as she found them, and did them all good; 
 It always was so with her — see what you have ! 
 She has made the grass greener even here . . with her grave- 
 
 My Kate. 
 
 My dear one ! — when thou wast alive with the rest, 
 I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best : 
 And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part 
 As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart — 
 
 My Kate? 
 
 AMY^S CRUELTY. 
 
 Fair Amy of the terraced house, 
 
 A^ssist me to discover 
 Why you who would not hurt a mouse 
 
 Can torture so your lover. 
 
 You give your coffee to the cat, 
 Y"ou stroke the dog for coming, 
 
 And all your face grows kinder at 
 The little brown bee's humming. 
 
 But when he haunts your door . . the town 
 Marks coming and marks going . . 
 
AMY S CRUELTY. 83 
 
 You seem to have stitched your eyelids down 
 To that long piece of sewing ! 
 
 You never give a look, not you, 
 
 Nor drop him a " Grood morning," 
 To keep his long day warm and blue, 
 
 So fretted by your scorning. 
 
 She shook her head — "The mouse and bee 
 
 For crumb or flower will linger : 
 The dog is happy at my knee. 
 
 The cat purrs at my finger. 
 
 " But he . . to him, the least thing given 
 
 Means great things at a distance; 
 He wants my world, my sun, my heaven, 
 
 Soul, body, whole existence. 
 
 " They say love gives as well as takes; 
 
 But I'm a simple maiden, — 
 My mother's first smile when she wakes 
 
 I still have smiled and prayed in. 
 
 " I only know my mother's love 
 
 Which gives all and asks nothing; 
 And this new loving sets the groove 
 
 Too much the way of loathing. 
 
 "Unless he gives me all in change, 
 
 I forfeit all things by him : 
 The risk is terrible and strange — 
 
 I tremble, doubt, . . deny him. 
 
84 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 " He's sweetest friend, or hardest foe, 
 
 Best angel, or worst devil; 
 I either hate or . . love him so. 
 
 I can't be merely civil ! 
 
 ''You trust a woman who puts forth, 
 Her blossoms thick as summer's ? 
 
 You think she dreams what love is worth, 
 Who casts it to new-comers? 
 
 "Such love's a cowslip-ball to fling, 
 A moment's pretty pastime; 
 
 / give . . all me, if anything, 
 The first time and the last time. 
 
 Dear neighbor of the trellised house, 
 
 A man should murmur never, 
 bough treated worse tli 
 Till doted on for ever 
 
 Though treated worse than dog and mouse, 
 
 GARIBALDI. 
 
 He bent his head upon his breast 
 Wherein his lion-heart lay sick : — 
 " Perhaps we are not ill-repaid ; 
 
 Perhaps this is not a true test ; 
 
 Perhaps that was not a foul trick ; 
 Perhaps none wronged, and none betrayed. 
 
GARIBALDI. 85 
 
 "Perhaps the people's vote which here 
 
 United, there may disunite, 
 
 And both be lawful as they think; 
 Perhaps a patriot statesman, dear 
 
 For chartering nations, can with right 
 
 Disfranchise those who hold the ink. 
 
 "Perhaps men's wisdom is not craft; 
 
 Men's greatness, not a selfish greed ; 
 
 Men's justice, not the safer side ; 
 Perhaps even women, when they laughed. 
 
 Wept, thanked us that the land was freed, 
 
 Not wholly (though they kissed us) lied. 
 
 "Perhaps no more than this we meant, 
 
 When up at Austria's guns we flew. 
 
 And quenched them with a cry apiece, 
 Italia! — Yet a dream was sent . . 
 
 The little house my father knew. 
 
 The olives and the palms of Nice." 
 
 He paused, and drew his sword out slow. 
 
 Then pored upon the blade intent, 
 
 As if to read some written thing ; 
 While many murmured, — "He will go 
 
 In that despairing sentiment 
 
 And break his sword before the King." 
 
 He poring still upon the blade, 
 
 His large lid quivered, something fell. 
 
86 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 " Perhaps," he said, " I was not born 
 With such fine brains to treat and trade, — 
 And if a woman knew it well, 
 Her falsehood only meant her scorn. 
 
 " Yet through Yarese's cannon-smoke 
 My eye saw clear: men feared this man 
 At Como, where this sword could seal 
 
 Death's protocol with every stroke : 
 
 And now . . the drop there scarcely can 
 Impair the keenness of the steel. 
 
 '' So man and sword may have their use; 
 
 And if the soil beneath my foot 
 
 In valor's act is forfeited, 
 I'll strike the harder, take my dues 
 
 Out nobler, and all loss confute 
 
 From ampler heavens above my head. 
 
 " My King, Kiug Yictor, I am thine! 
 
 So much Nice-dust as what I am 
 
 (To make our Italy) must cleave. 
 Forgive that." Forward with a sign 
 
 He went. 
 
 You've seen the telegram '{ 
 
 Palermo's tahen. we helieve.. 
 
ONLY A CURL. 87 
 
 ONLY A CURL. 
 
 Friends of faces unknown and a land 
 
 LTnvisited over the sea, 
 Who tell me how lonely you stand 
 With a single gold curl in the hand 
 
 Held up to be looked at by me, — 
 
 While you ask me to ponder and say 
 What a father and mother can do, 
 With the bright fellow-locks put away 
 Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay 
 Where the violets press nearer than you. 
 
 Shall I speak like a poet, or run 
 
 Into weak woman's tears for relief? 
 Oh, children ! — I never lost one, — 
 Yet my arm's round my own little son, 
 And Love knows the secret of Grrief. 
 
 And I feel what it must be and is. 
 When God draws a new angel so 
 Through the house of a man up to His, 
 With a murmur of music, you miss, 
 And a rapture of light, you forego. 
 
 How you think, staring on at the door, 
 
 Where the face of your angel flashed in. 
 That its brightness, familiar before. 
 Burns oiF from you ever the more 
 For the dark of your sorrow and sin. 
 
POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 "God lent him and takes him," you sigh; 
 
 — Nay, there let me break with your jjain : 
 God 's generous in giving, say I, — ; 
 And the thing which He gives, I deny 
 
 That He ever can take back again. 
 
 He gives what He gives. I appeal 
 
 To all who bear babes — in the hour 
 When the veil of the body we feel 
 Rent round us, — while torments reveal 
 The motherhood's advent in power, 
 
 And the babe cries I — has each of us known 
 
 By apocalypse (God being there 
 Full in nature) the child is our own, 
 Life of life, love of love, moan of moan. 
 
 Through all changes, all times, everywhere. 
 
 He 's ours and for ever. Believe, 
 
 father ! — mother, look back 
 To the first love's assurance. To give 
 Means with God not to tempt or deceive 
 
 With a cup thrust in Benjamin's sack. 
 
 He gives what He gives. Be content ! 
 
 He resumes nothing given, — be sure ! 
 God lend ? Where the usurers lent 
 In His temple, indignant He went 
 
 And scourged away all those impure. 
 
MOTHER AND POET. 
 
 He lends not 3 but gives to the end, 
 As He loves to the end. If it seem 
 
 That He draws back a gift, comprehend 
 
 'Tis to add to it rather, — amend, 
 And finish it up to your dream, — 
 
 Or keep, — as a mother will toys 
 
 Too costly, though given by herself, 
 
 Till the room shall be stiller from noise, 
 
 And the children more fit for such joys, 
 
 Kept over their heads on the shelf. 
 
 So look up, friends ! you, who indeed 
 
 Have possessed in your house a sweet piece 
 Of the Heaven which men strive for, must need 
 Be more earnest than others are, — speed 
 Where they loiter, persist where they cease. 
 
 You know how one angel smiles there. 
 
 Then weep not. ^Tis easy for you 
 To be drawn by a single gold hair 
 Of that curl, from earth's storm and despair, 
 
 To the safe place above us. Adieu. 
 
 MOTHER AND POET. 
 
 TURIN, AFTER NEWS FROM GAETA, 1861. 
 
 Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east, 
 And one of them shot in the west by the sea. 
 
90 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT A>.'D THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Dead ! botli my boys ! When you sit at the feast 
 And are wanting a great song for Italy free, 
 Let none look at me ! 
 
 Yet I was a poetess only last year, 
 
 And good at my art, for a woman, men saidj 
 
 But this woman, this, who is agonized here, 
 
 — The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head 
 For ever instead. 
 
 What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain ! 
 
 What art is she good at, but hurting her breast 
 With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain ? 
 
 Ah boys, how you hurt I you were strong as you pressed, 
 And I proud, by that test. 
 
 What art 's for a woman ? To hold on her knees 
 
 Both darlings ! to feel all their arms round her throat, 
 
 Cling, strangle a little ! to sew by degrees 
 
 And ^broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ; 
 To dream and to doat. 
 
 To teach them . . It stings there ! / made them indeed 
 Speak plain the word countri/. /taught them, no doubt. 
 
 That a country 's a thing men should die for at need. 
 2 prated of liberty, rights, and about 
 The tyrant cast out. 
 
 And when their eyes flashed . . my beautiful eyes ! . . 
 /exulted; nay, let them go forth at the wheels 
 
MOTHER AND POET. 91 
 
 Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise 
 
 When one sits quite alone ! Then one weeps, then one kneels ! 
 God, how the house feels I 
 
 At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled 
 With my kisses, — of camp-life and glory, and how 
 
 They both loved me; and, soon coming home to be spoiled, 
 In return would fan ofi" every fly from my brow 
 With their green laurel-bough. 
 
 Then was triumph at Turin: " Ancona was free I" 
 And some one came out of the cheers in the street. 
 
 With a face pale as stone, to say something to me. 
 My Gruido was dead ! I fell down at his feet, 
 While they cheered in the street. 
 
 I bore it; friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime 
 
 As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained 
 To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time 
 
 When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained 
 To the height he had gained. 
 
 And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong, 
 Writ now but in one hand, "I was not to faint, — 
 
 One loved me for two — would be with me ere long : 
 And Viva V Italia I — lie died for, our saint. 
 Who forbids our complaint." 
 
 My Nanni would add, "he was safe, and aware 
 
 Of a presence that turned oflf the balls, — was imprest 
 
92 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, 
 And how 't was impossible, quite dispossessed, 
 To live on for the rest.'' 
 
 On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line 
 
 Swept smoothly the next news from Graeta : — Shot. 
 
 Tell his mother. Ah, ah, "his," "their" mother, — not " mine," 
 No voice says ^' M^ mother" again to me. What ! 
 You think Gruido forgot ? 
 
 Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven, 
 They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe? 
 
 I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven 
 Through That Love and Sorrow which reconciled so 
 The Above and Below. 
 
 Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark 
 To the face of Thy mother ! consider, I pray. 
 
 How we common mothers stand desolate, mark, 
 
 Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, 
 And no last word to say ! 
 
 Both boys dead? but that's out of nature. We all 
 
 Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 
 
 'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall; 
 And, when Italy's made, for what end is it done 
 If we have not a son ? 
 
 Ah, ah, ah ! when Glaeta's taken, what then? 
 
 When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport 
 
MOTHER AND POET. 93 
 
 Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men ? 
 When the guus of Cavalli with final retort 
 Have cut the game short? 
 
 When A^enice and Rome keep their new jubilee, 
 
 When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green and red, 
 
 When you have your country from mountain to sea. 
 When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, 
 (And 1 have my Dead) — 
 
 What then ? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low, 
 And burn your lights faintly ! My country is tliere^ 
 
 Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow : 
 My Italy's there, with my brave civic Pair, 
 To disfranchise despair! 
 
 Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength, 
 And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn; 
 
 But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length 
 Into wail such as this — and we sit on forlorn 
 When the man-child is born. 
 
 Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east, 
 
 And one of them shot in the west by the sea. 
 Both ! both my boys ! If in keeping the feast 
 
 You want a great song for your Italy free, 
 Let none look at me I 
 
 [This was Laura Savio, of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sons were 
 killed at Ancona and Gaeta.] 
 
91 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY. 
 
 I. 
 
 Emperor, Emperor! 
 From the centre to the shore, 
 From the Seine back to the Rhine, 
 Stood eight milUons up and swore 
 By their manhood's right divine 
 
 So to elect and legislate, 
 This man should renew the line 
 Broken in a strain of fate 
 And leagued kings at Waterloo, 
 When the people's hands let go. 
 
 Emperor 
 
 Evermore. 
 
 II. 
 
 With a universal shout 
 They took the old regalia out 
 From an open grave that day ; 
 From a grave that would not cjpse, 
 Where the first Napoleon lay 
 
 Expectant, in repose. 
 As still as Merlin, with his conquering face 
 Turned up in its unquenchable appeal 
 To men and heroes of the advancing race, 
 
 Prepare to set the seal 
 Of what has been on what shall be. 
 Emperor 
 Evermore. 
 
NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY. 95 
 
 III. 
 
 The thinkers stood aside 
 
 To let the nation act. 
 Some hated the new-constituted fact 
 Of empire, as pride treading on their pride. 
 Some quailed, lest what was poisonous in the past 
 Should graft itself in that Druidic bough 
 On this green now. 
 
 Some cursed, because at last 
 The open heavens to which they had look'd in vain 
 For many a golden fall of marvellous rain 
 
 AYere closed in brass -, and some 
 Wept on because a gone thing could not come; 
 And some were silent, doubting all things for 
 That popular conviction, — evermore 
 Emperor. 
 
 IV. 
 
 That day I did not hate 
 
 Nor doubt, nor quail, nor curse. 
 
 I, reverencing the people, did not bate 
 
 My reverence of their deed and oracle. 
 
 Nor vainly prate 
 
 Of better and of worse 
 Against the great conclusion of their will. 
 
 And yet, voice and verse. 
 Which God set in me to acclaim and sing- 
 Conviction, exaltation, aspiration, 
 We gave no music to the patent thing, 
 
96 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Nor spared a lioly rhythm to throb and swim 
 
 About the name of him 
 Translated to the sphere of domination 
 
 By democratic passion ! 
 
 I was not used, at least, 
 
 Nor can be, now or then, 
 
 To stroke the ermine beast 
 
 On any kind of throne, 
 (Though builded by a nation for its own,) 
 And swell the surging choir for kings of men — 
 " Emperor 
 Evermore." 
 
 V. 
 
 But now, Napoleon, now 
 That, leaving far behind the purple throng 
 
 Of vulgar monarchs, thou 
 
 Tread'st higher in thy deed 
 
 Than stair of throne can lead 
 
 To help in the hour of wrong 
 The broken hearts of nations to be strong. — 
 Now, lifted as thou art 
 To the level of pure song, 
 We stand to meet thee on these Alpine snows! 
 And while the palpitating peaks break out 
 Ecstatic from somnambular repose 
 With answers to the presence and the shf»ut. 
 We, poets of the people, who take part 
 With elemental justice, natural right. 
 
NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY. 97 
 
 Join in our echoes also, nor refrain. 
 We meet thee, Napoleon, at this height 
 At last, and find thee great enough to praise. 
 Receive the poet's chrism, which smells beyond 
 
 The priest's and pass thy ways ; — 
 An English poet warns thee to maintain 
 God's word, not England's : — let His truth be true 
 And all men liars ! with His truth respond 
 To all men's lie. Exalt the sword and smite 
 On that long anvil of the Apennine 
 Where Austria forged the Italian chain in view 
 Of seven consenting nations, sparks of fine 
 
 Admonitory light. 
 Till men's eyes wink before convictions new. 
 Flash in God's justice to the world's amaze. 
 Sublime Deliverer ! — after many days 
 Found worthy of the deed thou art come to do — 
 Emperor 
 Evermore. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But Italy, my Italy, 
 
 Can it last, this gleam? 
 
 Can she live and be strong, 
 
 Or is it another dream 
 
 Like the rest we have dreamed so long ? 
 
 And shall it, must it be. 
 That after the battle-cloud has broken 
 She will die off again 
 9 
 
98 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Like the rain, 
 
 Or like a poet's song 
 
 Sung of her, sad at the end 
 
 Because her name is Italy, — 
 
 Die and count no friend ? 
 
 It is true, — may it be spoken, 
 
 That she who has lain so still, 
 
 With a wound in her breast, 
 
 And a flower in her hand, 
 
 And a grave-stone under her head, 
 
 While every nation at will 
 
 Beside her has dared to stand 
 
 And flout her with pity and scorn, 
 
 Saying, " She is at rest. 
 
 She is fair, she is dead, 
 
 And, leaving room in her stead 
 
 To Us who are later born, 
 
 This is certainly best !" 
 
 Saying, " Alas, she is fair. 
 
 Very fair, but dead, 
 
 And so we have room for the race." 
 
 — Can it be true, be true. 
 
 That she lives anew ? 
 
 That she rises up at the shout of her sons. 
 
 At the trumpet of France, 
 
 And lives anew? — is it true 
 
 That she has not moved in a trance, 
 
 As in Forty-eight? 
 
NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY. 
 
 When her eyes were troubled with blood 
 
 Till she knew not friend from foe, 
 
 Till her hand was caught in a strait 
 
 Of her cerement and baffled so 
 
 From doing the deed she would ; 
 
 And her weak foot stumbled across 
 
 The grave of a king, 
 
 And down she dropt at heavy loss, 
 
 And we gloomiugly covered her face and said, 
 
 " We have dreamed the thing; 
 
 She is not alive, but dead." 
 
 VII. 
 
 Now, shall we say 
 
 Our Italy lives indeed ? 
 
 And if it were not for the beat and bray 
 
 Of drum and trump of martial men. 
 
 Should we feel the underground heave and strain, 
 
 Where heroes left their dust as a seed 
 
 Sure to emerge one day ? 
 And if it were not for the rhythmic march 
 Of France and Piedmont's double hosts, 
 
 Should we hear the ghosts 
 Thrill through ruined aisle and arch, 
 Throb along the frescoed wall. 
 Whisper an oath by that divine 
 They left in picture, book and stone 
 
 That Italy is not dead at all ? 
 Ay, if it were not for the tears in our eyes 
 
100 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 These tears of a sudden passionate joy 
 
 Should we see her arise 
 From the place where the wicked are overthrown, 
 
 Italy, Italy ? loosed at length 
 
 From the tyrant's thrall, 
 Pale and calm in her strength ? 
 Pale as the silver cross of Savoy 
 When the hand that bears the flag is brave, 
 And not a breath is stirring, save 
 
 What is blown 
 Over the war-trump's lip of brass, 
 Ere Garibaldi forces the pass ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Ay, it is so, even so. 
 
 Ayj and it shall be so. 
 Each broken stone that long ago 
 She flung behind her as she went 
 In discouragement and bewilderment 
 Through the cairns of Time, and missed her way 
 
 Between to-day and yesterday. 
 
 Up springs a living man. 
 And each man stands with his face in the light 
 
 Of his own drawn sword, 
 Ready to do what a hero can. 
 Wall to sap, or river to ford. 
 Cannon to front, or foe to pursue, 
 Still ready to do, and sworn to be true, 
 
 As a man and a patriot can. 
 
NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY. 101 
 
 Piedmontese, Neapolitan, 
 
 Lombard, Tuscan, Romagnole, 
 
 Each man's body having a soul, — 
 
 Count how many they stand, 
 
 All of them sons of the land, 
 
 Every live man there 
 
 Allied to a dead man below, 
 
 And the deadest with blood to spare 
 
 To quicken a living hand 
 
 In case it should ever be slow. 
 
 Count how many they come 
 
 To the beat of Piedmont's drum, 
 
 With faces keener and grayer 
 
 Than swords of the Austrian slayer, 
 
 All set against the foe. 
 
 " Emperor 
 
 Evermore.'^ 
 
 IX. 
 
 Out of the dust, where they ground them, 
 
 Out of the holes, where they dogged them, 
 
 Out of the hulks, where they wound them 
 
 In iron, tortured and flogged them; 
 
 Out of the streets, where they chased them, 
 
 Taxed them and then bayoneted them, — 
 
 Out of the homes, where they spied on them, 
 
 (Using their daughters and wives,) 
 
 Out of the church, where they fretted them, 
 
 Rotted their souls and debased them, 
 
 9^ 
 
lO'i POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Trained them to answer with knives, 
 
 Then cursed them all at their prayers ! — 
 
 Out of cold lands, not theirs, 
 
 Where they exiled them, starved them, lied on them ; 
 
 Back they come like a wind, in vain 
 
 Cramped up in the hills, that roars its road 
 
 The stronger into the open plain ; 
 
 Or like a fire that burns the hotter 
 
 And longer for the crust of cinder. 
 
 Serving better the ends of the potter ; 
 
 Or like a restrained word of God, 
 
 Fulfilling itself by what seems to hinder. 
 
 " Emperor 
 
 Evermore." 
 
 X. 
 
 Shout for France and Savoy ! 
 Shout for the helper and doer. 
 Shout for the good sword's ring, 
 Shout for the thought still truer. 
 Shout for the spirits at large 
 Who passed for the dead this spring, 
 Whose living glory is surer 
 Shout for France and Savoy ! 
 Shout for the council and charge ! 
 Shout for the head of Cavour \ 
 And shout for the heart of a King 
 That's great with a nation's joy. 
 Shout for France and Savoy ! 
 
NAPOLEON HI. IN ITALY. 103 
 
 XI. 
 
 Take up the child, Mac Mahon, though 
 
 Thy hand be red 
 
 From Magenta's dead. 
 
 And riding on, in front of the troop, 
 
 In the dust of the whirlwind of war 
 Through the gate of the city of Milan, stoop 
 And take up the child to thy saddle-bow, 
 Nor fear the touch as soft as a flower 
 
 Of his smile as clear as a star ! 
 Thou hast a right to the child, we say, 
 Since the women are weeping for joy as those 
 Who, by the help and from this day, 
 
 Shall be happy mothers indeed. 
 They are raining flowers from terrace and roof: 
 
 Take up the flower in the child. 
 While the shout goes up of a nation freed 
 
 And herocially self-reconciled, 
 Till the snow on that peaked Alp aloof 
 Starts, as feeling God's finger anew. 
 And all those cold white marble fires 
 Of mounting saints on the Duomo-spires 
 
 Flicker against the Blue. 
 " Emperor 
 Evermore." 
 
 Ay, it is He, 
 Who rides at the King's right hand ! 
 
104 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Leave room to his horse and draw to the side, 
 
 Nor press too near in the ecstasy 
 
 Of a newly delivered impassioned land : 
 
 He is moved, you see, 
 He who has done it all. 
 They call it a cold stern face; 
 
 But this is Italy 
 Who rises up to her place ! — 
 For this he fought in his youth, 
 Of this he dreamed in the past ; 
 The lines of the resolute mouth 
 Tremble a little at last. 
 Cry, he has done it all ! 
 
 " Emperor 
 
 Evermore." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 It is not strange that he did it, 
 Though the deed may seem to strain 
 To the wonderful, unpermitted, 
 For such as lead and reign. 
 But he is strange, this man : 
 The people's instinct found him 
 (A wind in the dark that ran 
 Through a chink where was no door), 
 And elected him and crowned him 
 
 Emperor 
 
 Evermore. 
 
NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY. 105 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Autocrat ? let them scoflF, 
 
 "Who fail to comprehend 
 That a ruler incarnate of 
 
 The people, must transcend 
 All common king-born kings. 
 These subterranean springs 
 A sudden outlet winning, 
 Have special virtues to spend. 
 The people's blood runs through him, 
 Dilates from head to foot, 
 Creates him absolute, 
 And from this great beginning 
 Evokes a greater end 
 To justify and renew him — 
 Emperor 
 Evermore. 
 
 XV. 
 
 What ! did any maintain 
 
 That God or the people (think !) 
 
 Could make a marvel in vain ? — 
 
 Out of the water-jar there, 
 
 Draw wine that none could drink ? 
 
 Is this a man like the rest, 
 
 This miracle, made unaware 
 
 By a rapture of popular air, 
 
 And caught to the place that was best ? 
 
 You think he could barter and cheat 
 
106 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 As vulgar diplomates use, 
 
 With the people's heart in his breast? 
 
 Prate a lie into shape 
 
 Lest truth should cumber the road ; 
 
 Play at the fast and loose 
 
 Till the world is strangled with tape ; 
 
 Maim the soul's complete 
 
 To fit the hole of a toad ; 
 
 And filch the dogmau's meat 
 
 To feed the offspring of G-od? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Nay, but he, this wonder, 
 
 He cannot palter nor prate, 
 
 Though many around him and under. 
 
 With intellects trained to the curve, 
 
 Distrust him in spirit and nerve 
 
 Because his meaning is straight. 
 
 Measure him ere he depart 
 
 With those who have governed and led ; 
 
 Larger so much by the heart. 
 
 Larger so much by the head. 
 
 Emperor 
 
 Evermore. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 He holds that, consenting or dissident, 
 Nations must move with the time ; 
 
 Assumes that crime with a precedent 
 Doubles the guilt of the crime : 
 
NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY. 107 
 
 — Denies tliat a slaver's bond, 
 
 Or a treaty signed by knaves, 
 (Quorum magna pars and beyond 
 Was one of an honest name) 
 Gives an inexpugnable claim 
 To abolishing men into slaves. 
 Emperor 
 Evermore. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 He will not swagger nor boast 
 
 Of his country's meeds, in a tone 
 Missuiting a great man most 
 
 If such should speak of his own ; 
 Nor will he act, on her side, 
 
 From motives baser, indeed, 
 Than a man of a noble pride 
 
 Can avow for himself at need ; 
 Never, for lucre or laurels, 
 
 Or custom, though such should be rife, 
 Adapting the smaller morals 
 
 To measure the larger life. 
 He, though the merchants persuade, 
 
 And the soldiers are eager for strife, 
 Finds not his country in quarrels 
 
 Only to find her in trade, — 
 While still he accords her such honour 
 
 As never to flinch for her sake 
 Where men put service upon her, 
 
108 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Found heavy to undertake 
 And scarcely like to be paid : 
 Believing a nation may act 
 Unselfishly — shiver a lance 
 (As the least of her sons may, in fact) 
 And not for a cause of finance. 
 Emperor 
 Evermore. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Grreat is he, 
 Who uses his greatness for all. 
 His name shall stand perpetually 
 
 As a name to applaud and cherish, 
 Not only within the civic wall 
 For the loyal, but also without 
 
 For the generous and free. 
 
 Just is he. 
 Who is just for the popular due 
 
 As well as the private debt. 
 The praise of nations ready to perish 
 
 Fall on him, — crown him in view 
 
 Of tyrants caught in the net, 
 And statesmen dizzy with fear and doubt ! 
 And though, because they are many, 
 
 And he is merely one, 
 And nations selfish and cruel 
 Heap up the inquisitor's fuel 
 To kill the body of ^n'gh intents. 
 
NAPOLEON III. IN ITALY. 109 
 
 And burn great deeds from their place. 
 
 Till this, the greatest of any, 
 
 May seem imperfectly done ; 
 
 Courage, whoever circumvents ! 
 
 Courage, courage, whoever is base ! 
 
 The soul of a high intent, be it known, 
 
 Can die no more than any soul 
 
 Which God keeps by him under the throne ; 
 
 And this, at whatever interim, 
 
 Shall live, and be consummated 
 
 Into the being of deeds made whole. 
 
 Courage, courage ! happy is he. 
 
 Of whom (himself among the dead 
 
 And silent), this word shall be said ; 
 
 — That he might have had the world with him, 
 
 But chose to side with suffering men. 
 
 And had the world against him when 
 
 He came to deliver Italy. 
 
 Emperor 
 
 Evermore. 
 
 10 
 
110 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 CHRISTMAS GIFTS. 
 
 Gregory Nazianzen. 
 
 The Pope on Christmas Day 
 
 Sits in St. Peter's Chair; 
 But the peoples murmur and say, 
 
 "Our souls are sick and forlorn, 
 And who will show us where 
 
 Is the stable where Christ was born V 
 
 The star is lost in the dark ; 
 
 The manger is lost in the straw ; 
 The Christ cries faintly . . hark ! . . 
 
 Through bands that swaddle and strangle — 
 But the Pope in the chair of awe 
 
 Looks down the great quadrangle. 
 
 The magi kneel at his foot, 
 
 Kings of the east and west, 
 But, instead of the angles, (mute 
 
 Is the "Peace on earth'' of their song,) 
 The peoples, perplexed and opprest, 
 
 Are sighing, "How long, how long?" 
 
 And, instead of the kine, bewilder in 
 
 Shadow of aisle and dome, 
 The bear who tore up the children. 
 
 The fox who burnt up the corn, 
 
CHRISTMAS GIFTS. Ill 
 
 And the wolf who suckled at Rome 
 Brothers to slay and to scorn. 
 
 Cardinals left and right of him, 
 
 Worshippers round and beneath, 
 The silver trumpets at sight of him 
 
 Thrill with a musical blast : 
 But the people say through their teeth. 
 
 " Trumpets ? we wait for the Last!" 
 
 He sits in the place of the Lord, 
 
 And asks for the gifts of the time ; 
 Gold, for the haft of a sword. 
 
 To win back Romagna averse, 
 Incense, to sweeten a crime, 
 
 And myrrh, to embitter a curse. 
 
 Then a king of the west said, "Good! — 
 
 I bring thee the gifts of the time ; 
 Red, for the patriot's blood, 
 
 Green, for the martyr's crown. 
 White, for the dew and the rime. 
 
 When the morning of God comes down.'' 
 
 — mystic tricolour bright ! 
 
 The Pope's heart quailed like a man's; 
 The cardinals froze at the sight. 
 
 Bowing their tonsures hoary : 
 And the eyes in the peacock-fans 
 
 Winked at the alien glory. 
 
112 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS 
 
 But tlie peoples exclaimed in hope, 
 "Now blessed be be wlio has brought 
 
 These gifts of the time to the Pope, 
 When our souls were sick and forlorn. 
 
 — And here is the star we sought, 
 To show us where Christ was born I" 
 
 A CURSE FOR A NATION. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 1 HEARD an angel speak last night, 
 
 And he said, " Write ! 
 Write a Nation's curse for me, 
 And send it over the Western Sea." 
 
 I faltered, taking up the word : 
 
 "Not so, my lord ! 
 If curses must be, choose another 
 To send thy curse against my brother. 
 
 "For I am bound by gratitude, 
 
 By love and blood, 
 To brothers of mine across the sea. 
 Who stretch out kindly hands to me." 
 
 "Therefore," the voice said, "shalt thou write 
 
 My curse to-night. 
 From the summits of love a curse is driven. 
 As lightning is from the tops of heaven." 
 
A CURSE FOR A NATION. 113 
 
 "Not so/' I answered. "Evermore 
 
 My heart is sore 
 For my own land's sins : for little feet 
 Of cliildren bleeding along the street : . 
 
 " For parked-up honours that gainsay 
 
 The right of way : 
 For almsgiving through a door that is 
 Not open enough for two friends to kiss : 
 
 "For love of freedom which abates 
 
 Beyond the Straits ; 
 For patriot virtue starved to vice on 
 Self-praise, self-interest, and suspicion : 
 
 "For an oligarchic parliament, 
 And bribes well-meant. 
 What curse to another land assign. 
 When heavy-souled for the sins of mine ?" 
 
 "Therefore," the voice said, " shalt thou write 
 
 My curse to-night. 
 Because thou hast strength to see and hate 
 A foul thing done loitliin thy gate." 
 
 "Not so," I answered once again. 
 
 " To curse, choose men. 
 For I, a woman, have only known 
 How the heart melts and the tears run down." 
 
 "Therefore," the voice said, " shalt thou write 
 
 My curse to-night. 
 10* 
 
Ill POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Some women weep and curse, I say, 
 (And no one marvels,) niglit and day. 
 
 " And thou slialt take their part to-night, 
 
 Weep and write. 
 A curse from the depths of womanhood 
 Is very salt, and hitter, and good." 
 
 So thus I wrote, and mourned indeed. 
 
 What all may read. 
 And thus, as was enjoined on me, 
 I send it over the Western Sea. 
 
 THE CURSE. 
 
 Because ye have broken your own chain 
 
 With the strain 
 Of brave men climbing a Nation's height, 
 Yet thence bear down with brand and thong 
 On souls of others, — for this wrong 
 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
 Because yourselves are standing straight 
 
 In the state 
 Of Freedom's foremost acolyte, 
 Yet keep calm footing all the time 
 On writhing bond-slaves, — for this crime 
 
 This is the curse. Write 
 
 Because ye prosper in God's name, 
 
 With a claim 
 To honour in the old world's sight, 
 
A CURSE FOR A NATION. 115 
 
 Yet do the fiend's work perfectly 
 In strangling martyrs, — for this lie 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
 Ye shall watch while kings conspire 
 Round the people's smouldering fire, 
 
 And, warm for your part, 
 Shall never dare — shame ! 
 To utter the thought into flame 
 
 Which burns at your heart. 
 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
 Ye shall watch while nations strive 
 With the bloodhounds, die or survive. 
 
 Drop faint from their jaws, 
 Or throttle them backward to death, 
 And only under your breath 
 
 Shall favor the cause. 
 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
 Ye shall watch while strong men draw 
 The nets of feudal law 
 
 To strangle the weak, 
 And, counting the sin for a sin, 
 Your soul shall be sadder within 
 
 Than the word ye shall speak. 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
 When good men are praying erect 
 That Christ may avenge his elect 
 And deliver the earth, 
 
116 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 The prayer in your ears, said low, 
 Shall sound like the tramp of a foe 
 That's driving you forth. 
 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
 When wise men give you their praise, 
 They shall pause in the heat of the phrase, 
 
 As if carried too far. 
 When ye boast your own charters kept true, 
 Ye shall blush ; — for the thing which ye do 
 
 Derides what ye are. 
 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
 When fools cast taunts at your gate. 
 Your scorn ye shall somewhat abate 
 
 As ye look o'er the wall, 
 For your conscience, tradition, and name 
 Explode with a deadlier blame 
 
 Than the worst of them all. 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
 Go, wherever ill deeds shall be done, 
 Go, plant your flag in the sun 
 
 Beside the ill-doers ! 
 And recoil from clenching the curse 
 Of God's witnessing Universe 
 
 With a curse of yours. 
 
 This is the curse. Write. 
 
VOID IN LAW. ]17 
 
 VOID IN LAW. 
 
 Sleep, little babe on my knee, 
 
 Sleep, for the midnight is chill, 
 And the moon has died out in the tree, 
 
 And the great human world goeth ill. 
 Sleep, for the wicked agree : 
 
 Sleep, let them do as they will. 
 Sleep. 
 
 Sleep, thou hast drawn from my breast 
 The last drop of milk that was good ; 
 
 And now, in a dream, suck the rest, 
 Lest the real should trouble thy blood. 
 
 Suck, little lips dispossessed, 
 
 As we kiss in the air whom we would. 
 
 Sleep. 
 
 lips of thy father ! the same, 
 
 So like ! Very deeply they swore 
 When he gave me his ring and his name. 
 
 To take back, I imagined, no more ! 
 And now is all changed like a game. 
 
 Though the old cards are used as of yore ? 
 Sleep. 
 
 "Void in law," said the Courts. Something wrong 
 In the forms? Yet, "Till death part us two, 
 
 I, James, take thee, Jessie," was strong. 
 And One witness competent. True 
 
118 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Such a marriage was worth an old song, 
 
 Heard in Heaven though, as plain as the New. 
 Sleep. 
 
 Sleep, little child, his and mine ! 
 
 Her throat has the antelope curve, 
 And her cheek just the color and line 
 
 Which fade not before him nor swerve : 
 Yet she has no child ! — the divine 
 
 Seal of right upon loves that deserve. 
 Sleep. 
 
 My child ! though the world take her part, 
 Saying, " She was the woman to choose, 
 
 He had eyes, was a man in his heart," — 
 We twain the decision refuse : 
 
 We . . weak as I am, as thou art, . . 
 Cling on to him, never to loose. 
 
 Sleep. 
 
 He thinks that, when done with this place. 
 All's ended ? he'll new-stamp the ore ? 
 
 Yes, Caesar's — but not in our case. 
 Let him learn we are waiting before 
 
 The grave's mouth, the heaven's gate, Grod's face, 
 With implacable love evermore. 
 
 Sleep. 
 
 He's ours, though he kissed her but now ; 
 He's ours, though she kissed in reply ; 
 
VOID IN LAW. 119 
 
 He's ours, though himself disavow, 
 And God's universe favor the lie ; 
 
 Ours to claim, ours to clasp, ours below, 
 Ours above, . . if we live, if we die. 
 
 Sleep. 
 
 Ah baby, my baby, too rough 
 
 Is my lullaby ? What have I said ? 
 
 Sleep ! When I've wept long enough 
 I shall learn to weep softly instead. 
 
 And piece with some alien stuff 
 
 My heart to lie smooth for thy head. 
 
 Sleep. 
 
 Two souls met upon thee, my sweet ; 
 
 Two loves led thee, out to the sun : 
 Alas, pretty hands, pretty feet. 
 
 If the one who remains (only one) 
 Set her grief at thee, turned in a heat 
 
 To thine enemy, — were it well done ? 
 Sleep. 
 
 May He of the manger stand near 
 And love thee ! An infant He came 
 
 To His own who rejected Him here, 
 
 But the Magi brought gifts all the same. 
 
 / hui'ry the cross on my Dear ! 
 My gifts are the griefs I declaim ! 
 
 Sleep. 
 
320 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 MAY'S LOVE. 
 
 You love all, you say, 
 Round, beneath, above me : 
 
 Find me then some way 
 Better than to love me, 
 
 Me, too, dearest May ! 
 
 O world-kissing eyes 
 
 Which the blue heavens melt to ! 
 I, sad, overwise. 
 
 Loathe the sweet looks dealt to 
 All things — men and flies. 
 
 You love all, you say : 
 Therefore, Dear, abate me 
 
 Just your love, I pray ! 
 
 Shut your eyes and hate me — 
 
 Only me — fair May ! 
 
 THE FORCED RECRUIT. 
 
 SOLFERIXO, 1859. 
 
 In the ranks of the Austrian you found him. 
 He died with his face to you all; 
 
 Yet bury him here where around him 
 You honor your bravest that fall. 
 
THE FORCED RECRUIT. 121 
 
 Venetian, fair-featured and slender, 
 
 He lies shot to death in his youth, 
 With a smile on his lips over-tender 
 
 For any mere soldier's dead mouth. 
 
 No stranger, and yet not a traitor, 
 
 Though alien the cloth on his breast, 
 Underneath it how seldom a greater 
 
 Young heart, has a shot sent to rest ! 
 
 By your enemy tortured and goaded 
 
 To march with them, stand in their file, 
 His musket (see) never was loaded. 
 
 He facing your guns with that smile I 
 
 As orphans yearn on to their mothers, 
 
 He yearned to your patriot bands ; — 
 " Let me die for our Italy, brothers, 
 
 If not in your ranks, by your hands ! 
 
 '^ Aim straightly, fire steadily ! spare me 
 
 A ball in the body which may 
 Deliver my heart here, and tear me 
 
 This badge of the Austrian away ! " 
 
 So thought he, so died he this morning. 
 
 What then ? many others have died. 
 Ay, but easy for men to die scorning 
 
 The death-stroke, who fought side by side. 
 
 One tricolor floating above them ; 
 
 Struck down 'mid triumphant acclaims 
 11 
 
122 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Of an Italy rescued to love them 
 
 And blazon the brass with their names. 
 
 But he, — without witness or honor, 
 
 Mixed, shamed in his country's regard, 
 
 With the tyrants who march in upon her, 
 Died faithful and passive : 'twas hard. 
 
 ' Twas sublime. In a cruel restriction 
 
 Cut off from the guerdon of sons, 
 With most filial obedience, conviction. 
 His soul kissed the lips of her guns. 
 
 That moves you ? Nay, grudge not to show it, 
 While digging a grave for him here : 
 
 The others have died, says your poet, 
 Have glory, — let Mm have a tear. 
 
 KING VICTOR EMANUEL ENTERING FLORENCE, APRIL, 
 
 1860. 
 
 King of us all, we cried to thee, cried to thee. 
 Trampled to earth by the beasts impure, 
 Dragged by the chariot's which shame as they roll : 
 The dust of our torment far and wide to thee 
 Went up, darkening thy royal soul. 
 Be witness, Cavour, 
 That the King was sad for the people in thrall 
 This King of us all ! 
 
 King, we cried to thee I Strong in replying, 
 Thy word and thy sword sprang rapid and sure, 
 
KING VICTOR EMANUEL ENTERING FLORENCE. 123 
 
 Cleaving our way to a nation's place. 
 Oh, first soldier of Italy ! — crying 
 
 Now grateful, exultant, we look in thy face. 
 Be witness, Cavour, 
 That, freedom's first soldier, the freed should call 
 First King of them all ! 
 
 This is our beautiful Italy's birthday ; 
 
 High-thoughted souls, whether many or fewer, 
 Bring her the gift, and wish her the good. 
 While Heaven presents on this sunny earth-day 
 The noble king to the land renewed : 
 Be witness, Cavour ! 
 Roar, cannon-mouths ! Proclaim, install 
 The King of us all ! 
 
 G-rave he rides through the Florence gateway, 
 Clenching his face into calm, to immure 
 His struggling heart till it half disappear ; 
 If he relaxed for a moment, straightway 
 He would break out into passionate tears — 
 (Be witness, Cavour !) 
 While rings the cry without interval, 
 " Live, King of us all !" 
 
 Cry, free peoples ! Honour the nation 
 
 By crowning the true man — and none is truer : 
 Pisa is here, and Livorno is here, 
 
 And thousands of faces, in wild exultation. 
 Burn over the windows to feel him near — 
 (Be witness, Cavour !) 
 
]24 POEMS OF THE INTELLECT AND THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 And thousands of faces, in wild exultation, 
 Burn over the windows to fesel him near — 
 (Be witness, Cavour !) 
 Burn over from terrace, roof, window and wall, 
 On this King of us all. 
 
 Grrave ! A good man's ever the graver 
 For bearing a nation's trust secure ; 
 And 7i€, he thinks of the Heart, beside, 
 Which broke for Italy, failing to save her, 
 And pining away by Oporto's tide : 
 Be witness, Cavour, 
 That he thinks of his vow on that royal pall. 
 This King of us all. 
 
 Flowers, flowers, from the flowery city ! 
 Such innocent thanks for a deed so pure. 
 As, melting away for joy into flowers, 
 The nation invites him to enter his Pitti 
 
 And evermore reign in this Florence of ours. 
 Be witness, Cavour ! 
 He'll stand where the reptiles were used to crawl, 
 This King of us all. 
 
 Grrave, as the manner of noble men is — 
 Deeds unfinished will weigh on the doer : 
 And, baring his head to those crape-veiled flags, 
 He bows to the grief of the South and Venice. 
 Oh, riddle the last of the yellow to rags, 
 And swear by Cavour 
 That the King shall reign where the tyrants fall, 
 True Kingr of us all ! 
 
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