THE GIFT OF WILLIAM G. KERCKHOFF TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES r THE LIBRARY OF FRIEDRICH KLUGE (.: \ A SELECTIONS FRO.Nt ROBERT BROWNING'S POETICAL WORKS I s^' SELECTIONS FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING FIRST SERIES ^cto fibition '' ' •" ' J •> ' J J : • . 1 J ' ' ' 3 LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1889 124039 t t » I « * DEDICATED TO IN POETRY— ILLUSTRIOUS AND CONSUMMATE IN FRIENDSHIP — NOBLE AND SINCERE In the present selection from my poetry^ there is an attempt to escape from the embarrassment of appearing to pronounce upon what myself 7nay consider the best of it. I adopt another principle J and by simply stringing together certain pieces on the thread of an imaginary personality , I present them in succession^ rather as the natural developjnent of a particular experietice than because I account them the most noteworthy portion of my work. Such an attempt was made in the volume of selections fro7n the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browniftg: to which — ifi outward uniformity., at JC least — my own would venture to become a cojnpanion. ^ A few years ago, had such an opportunity prese?ited ^- itself I inight have been tempted to say a luord in reply to , the objections 7ny poetry was used to encounter. Time has ^ kindly co-operated with my disinclination to write the 43 poetry attd the criticism besides. The readers I ain at last '^:\ privileged to expect, meet me fully half-way; ajid if from *"' thefttittg staftd-point, they must still " censure 7ne in their f,j^ wisdo7/i^' they have previously " awake7ied their se7ises pJ that they 77iay the better judge." Nor do I apprehe7id a7iy ^ more charges of bei7tg wilfully obscure, tinconscientiously careless, or perversely harsh. Having hitherto done 7ny ut77iost i7i the art to which my life is a devotio7t, I cannot e7igage to i7tcrease the effort; but I conceive that there 77iay be helpful light, as well as re-assuring war77ith, i7i the attentio7i and sy77ipathy I gratefully ack7iowledge. R. B. London, May 14, 1872. CONTENTS. PACK MY STAR .1 A FACE . . • t/ I * MYLASTJQUCHES3 '. 2 SONG FROM " PIPPA PASSES " 4 CRISTINA 4 C OUNT GISMOND . , x- — ^ EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS 12 THE GLOVE ,12 SONG iS ;? A SERENADE AT THE VILLA . . . . . . iS YOUTH AND ART , . . . . , . . ^i~ THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS .24 SONG FROM "PIPPA PASSES" 51 C^ HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT If AIX" 51 SONG FROM "PARACELSUS" c^ THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADER . .54 y^INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP . . , . . 56 THE LOST LEADER 57 IN A GONDOLA . . . \ . . . . . 5S X A LOVERS' QUARREL 66 earth's IMMORTALITIES 72 THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 72 ^-r^J K^ MESMERISM -76 CONTENTS. PACK BY THE FIRESIDE gl \M' ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND / gr IN A YEAR ^6 SONG FROM "JAMES LEE " 99 A woman's last word 99 ^/MEETING AT NIGHT JOI HURTING AT MORNING I02 WOMEN AND ROSES I02_ MISCONCEPTIONS IO4 A PRETTY WOMAN iq^ A LIGHT WOMAN I07 LOVE IN A LIFE HO LIFE IN A LOVE HO THE LABORATORY Ill GOLD HAIR .113 THE STATUE AND T"*^ cTTcaa. ^19 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 12^^ time's REVENGES I3I WARING . 133 HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD I4I THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND I4I • THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY I46 'f'^r. • UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THp CITY . . . .154 pjPT- ^p jpjMm-TTCj .... ... .,^48 » FRA LIPPO LIPPI . 160. '/t/ . ^lANDREA DEL SARTO 171 «THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH 179 , A TOCCATA OF GALUPPl'S 183 ^a» y IT SI £J KESA CONTEMP ORARY . . . . J 86 PROTUS 189 MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA . . . . . 191 ABT VOGLER 197 TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA .... ... 202 CONTENTS. XI •' DE GUSTIBUS— " ..".•■•• 205 THE GUARDIAN ANGEL -°" ^ EVELYN HOPE ^°^ MEMORABILIA ^'^ APPARENT FAILURE ^" /_/ ^ />-pROSPICE '-^^ V^^b "CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME" _2I j^l^^jj^. 1 A grammarian's FUNERAL . . • . ' . • 222 \ ''27 CLEON ' INSTANS TYRANNUS . . . •" • • • • ^37 AN EPISTLE -2^2 CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS • V ^^9 __ SAUL ■ • • 257 ^^ABBI BEN EZRA ...-•• ^77 EPILOGUE ...."• -24 MV STAR. All that I know Of a certain star Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue ; Till my friends have said They would fain see, too. My star that dartles the red and the blue ! Then it stops like a bird ; like a flower, hangs furled : They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world ? Mine has opened its soul to me ; therefore I love it. A FACE. If one could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold. Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers ! No shade encroaching on the matchless mould Of those two lips, which should be opening soft In the pure profile ; not as when she laughs. For that spoils all : but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's Burthen of honey-coloured buds, to kiss And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, How it should waver, on the pale gold ground, L B A FACE. \ Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb : But these are only massed there, I should think, Waiting to see some wonder momently Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky, (That 's the pale ground you 'd see this sweet face by) All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. MY LAST DUCHESS. FERRARA. That,'S my last Duchess painted on the wall. Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now : Frk Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will 't please you sit and look at her ? I said •' Frk Pandolf " by design : for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance. The depth and passion of its earnest glance. But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there ; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek : perhaps Frk Pandolf chanced to say " Her mantle laps " Over my lady's wrist too much," or " Paint " Must never hope to reproduce the faint « Half-flush that dies along her throat : " such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough MY LAST DUCHESS. 3 For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart — how shall I say ? — too soon made glad, Too easily impressed ; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhe:-e. Sir, 't was all one ! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace — all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men,— good ! but thanked Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who 'd stoop to blame This sort of trifling ? Even had you skill In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this " Or that in you disgusts me ; here you miss, " Or there exceed the mark "—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, — E'en then would be some stooping ; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt. Whene'er I passed her ; but who passed without Much the same smile ? This grew ; I gave commands ; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will 't please you rise .? W^e 'II meet 'The company below, then. I repeat. The Counfyour master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence Of mine for dowry will be disallowed ; Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed .At starting, is my object. Nay, we '11 go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity. Which Glaus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me ? SONG FROM ' PIPPA PASSES.' SONG FROM 'PIP PA PASSES? I Give her but a least excuse to love me ! When — where — How — can this arm establish her above me, If fortune fixed her as my lady there, There already, to eternally reprove me ? (" Hist ! " — said Kate the queen ; But " Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "'T is only a page that carols unseen, " Crumbling your hounds their messes ! ") II Is she wronged ? — To the rescue of her honour. My heart ! Is she poor ? — What costs it to become a donour ? Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her ! (" Nay, list ! " — bade Kate the queen ; And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, " 'T is only a page that carols unseen, " Fitting your hawks their jesses ! ") CP/ST/NA. I She should never have looked at me if she meant I should not love her ! There are plenty . . men, you call such, I suppose . . she may discover All her soul to, if she pleases, and yet leave much as she found them : But I 'm not so, and she knew it when she fixed me, glancing round them. CRISTINA. 5 II What ? To fix me thus meant nothing ? But I can't tell (there 's my weakness) What her look said i — no vile cant, sure, about " need to strew the bleakness " Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed, that the sea feels " — no " strange yearning " That such souls have, most to lavish where there 's chance of least returning." Ill Oh, we 're sunk enough here, God knows ! but not quite so sunk that moments. Sure tho' seldom, are denied us, when the spirit's true endowments Stand out plainly from its false ones, and apprise it if pursuing Or the right way or the wrong way, to its triumph or undoing. IV There are flashes struck from midnights, there are fire- flames noondays kindle. Whereby piled-up honours perish, whereby swollen ambitions dwindle, While just this or that poor impulse, which for once had play unstifled. Seems the sole work of a life-time that away the rest have trifled. V Doubt you if, in some such moment, as she fixed me, she felt clearly. Ages past the soul existed, here an age 't is resting merely. 6 CRISTINA. And hence fleets again for ages : while the true end, sole and single, It stops here for is, this love-way, with some other sou] to mingle ? VI Else it loses what it lived for, and eternally must lose it ; Better ends may be in prospect, deeper blisses (if you choose it), But this life's end and this love-bliss have been lost here. Doubt you whether This she felt as, looking at me, mine and her souls rushed together ? VII Oh, observe ! Of course, next moment, the world's honours, in derision. Trampled out the light for ever. Never fear but there 's provision Of the devil's to quench knowledge, lest we walk the earth in rapture ! — Making those who catch God's secret, just so much more prize their capture ! VIII Such am I : the secret 's mine now ! She has lost me, I have gained her ; Her soul 's mine : and thus, grown perfect, I shall pass my life's remainder. Life will just hold out the proving both our powers, alone and blended : And then, come next life quickly ! This world's use will have been ended. COUNT GISMOND. COUNT GISMOND. AIX IN PROVENCE. I Christ God who savest man, save most Of men Count Gismond who saved me ! Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, Chose time and place and company To suit it ; when he struck at length My honour, 't was with all his strength, II And doubtlessly, ere he could draw All points to one, he must have schemed ! That miserable morning saw Few half so happy as I seemed. While being dressed in queen's array To give our tourney prize away. Ill I thought they loved me, did me grace To please themselves ; 't was all their deed God makes, or fair or foul, our face ; If showing mine so caused to bleed My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped A word, and straight the play had stopped. IV They, too, so beauteous ! Each a queen By virtue of her brow and breast ; Not needing to be crowned, I mean. As I do. E'en when I was dressed. Had either of them spoke, instead Of glancing sideways with still head ! COUNT GISMOND. V But no : they let me laugh, and sing My birthday song quite through, adjust The last rose in my garland, fling A last look on the mirror, trust My arms to each an arm of theirs, And so descend the castle-stairs — VI And come out on the morning troop Of merry friends who kissed my cheek, And called me queen, and made me stoop Under the canopy — (a streak That pierced it, of the outside sun. Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun) — VII And they could let me take my state And foolish throne amid applause Of all come there to celebrate My queen's-day — Oh I think the cause Of much was, they forgot no crowd Makes up for parents in their shroud ! VIII However that be, all eyes were bent Upon me, when my cousins cast Theirs down, 't was time I should present The victor's crown, but . . . there, 't will last No long time . . . the old mist again Blinds me as then it did. How vain ! IX See ! Gismond 's at the gate, in talk With his two boys : I can proceed. COUNT GISMOND. Well, at that moment, who should stalk Forth boldly — to my face, indeed — But Gauthier ? and he thundered " Stay ! " And all stayed. " Bring no crowns, I say ! X " Bring torches ! Wind the penance-sheet " About her ! Let her shun the chaste, " Or lay herself before their feet ! " Shall she, whose body I embraced " A night long, queen it in the day ? " For honour's sake no crowns, I say ! " XI I ? What I answered ? As I live, I never fancied such a thing As answer possible to give. What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine's whole Strength on it ? No more says the soul. XII Till out strode Gismond ; then I knew That I was saved. I never met His face before, but, at first vie\v^ I felt quite sure that God had set Himself to Satan : who would spen d^_ K mmute's mistrusTbn the end .^ _ XIII He strode to Gauthier, in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote In blood men's verdict there. North, South, East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, And damned, and truth stood up instead. lo COUNT GISMOND. XIV This glads me most, that I enjoyed The heart o' the joy, with my content In watching Gismond unalloyed By any doubt of the event : God took that on him— I was bid Watch Gismond for my part : I did. XV Did I not watch him while he let His armourer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while ! His foot ... my memory leaves | No least stamp out, nor how anon He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. XVI And e'en before the trumpet's sound Was finished, prone lay the false knight, Prone as his lie, upon the ground : Gismond flew at him, used no sleight O' the sword, but open-breasted drove. Cleaving till out the truth he clove. XVII Which done, he dragged him to my feet And said, " Here die, but end thy breath " In full confession, lest thou fleet " From my first, to God's second death ! " Say, hast thou lied ?" And, " I have lied " To God and her," he said, and died. XVIII Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked — What safe my ^eart holds, though no_w ord I I COUNT GISMOND. ii Could I repeat now, if I taske d ^y powers for everfto a third _' Dear even as you are._ Pass the rest Until I sank upon hirbreast. XIX Over my head his arm he flung Asrainst the world ; and scarce I felt His sword (that dripped by me and swung) A little shifted in its belt : For he began to say the while How South our home lay many a mile. XX So, 'mid the shouting multitude We two walked forth to never more Return. My cousins have pursued Their life, untroubled as before I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place God lighten ! May his soul find grace ! XXI Our elder boy has got the clear Great brow ; tho' when his brother's black Full eye shows scorn, it . . . Gismond here ? And have you brought my tercel back ? I was just telling Adela How many birds it struck since May. 12 EUR YD ICE TO ORPHEUS. i EUR YD ICE TO ORPHEUS. A PICTURE BY FREDERICK LEIGHTON, R.A. But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow ! Let them once more absorb me ! One look now Will lap me round for ever, not to pass Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond : Hold me but safe again within the bond Of one immortal look ! All woe that was. Forgotten, and all terror that may be, Defied, — no past is mine, no future : look at me ! THE GLOVE. (peter ronsard loquitur.) " Heigho," yawned one day King Francis, " Distance all value enhances ! " When a man 's busy, why, leisure " Strikes him as wonderful pleasure : " 'Faith, and at leisure once is he ? " Straightway he wants to be busy. " Here we 've got peace ; and aghast I 'm " Caught thinking war the true pastime. "Is there a reason in metre ? " Give us your speech, master Peter ! " I who, if mortal dare say so. Ne'er am at loss with my Naso, " Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets : " Men are the merest Ixions " — Here the King whistled aloud, " Let 's "... Heigho ... go look at our lions ! " THE GLOVE. ij Such are the sorrowful chances If you talk fine to King Francis. And so, to the courtyard proceeding, Our company, Francis was leading, Increased by new followers tenfold Before he arrived at the penfold ; Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen At sunset the western horizon. And Sir de Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost With the dame he professed to adore most — Oh, what a face ! One by fits eyed Her, and the horrible pitside ; For the penfold surrounded a hollow Which led where the eye scarce dared follow. And shelved to the chamber secluded Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded. The King hailed his keeper, an Arab As glossy and black as a scarab. And bade him make sport and at once stir Up and out of his den the old monster. They opened a hole in the wire-work Across it, and dropped there a firework. And fled : one's heart's beating redoubled ; A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled. The blackness and silence so utter. By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter ; Then earth in a sudden cpntortion •- Gave out to our gaze her abortion. Such a brute ! Were I friend Clement Marot (Whose experience of nature's but narrow, And whose faculties move in no small mist When he versifies David the Psalmist) I should study that brute to describe you Illu7n Judex Leoftem de Tribu. One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy T4 THE GLOVE. To see the black mane, vast and heapy, The tail in the air stiff and straining, The wi-de eyes, nor waxing nor waning, As over the barrier which bounded His platform, and us who surrounded The barrier, they reached and they rested On space that might stand him in best stead : For who knew, he thought, what the amazement. The eruption of clatter and blaze meant, And if, in this minute of wonder, No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder. Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered, The lion at last was delivered ? Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead ! And you saw by the flash on his forehead, By the hope in those eyes wide and steady. He was leagues in the desert already. Driving the flocks up the mountain. Or catlike couched hard by the fountain To waylay the date-gathering negress : So guarded he entrance or egress. " How he stands ! " quoth the King : " we may well swear, (" No novice, we 've won our spurs elsewhere " And so can afford the confession,) " We exercise wholesome discretion "In keeping aloof from his threshold ; " Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold, " Their first would too pleasantly purloin " The visitor's brisket or sirloin : "But who 's he would prove so fool-hardy? " Not the best man of Marignan, pardie ! " The sentence no sooner was uttered. Than over the rails a glove fluttered, Fell close to the lion, and rested : THE GLOVE. '5 The dame 't was, who flung it and jested With life so, De Lorge had been wooing For months past ; he sat there pursuing His suit, weighing out with nonchalance Fine speeches like gold from a balance. Sound the trumpet, no true knight 's a tarrier ! De Lorge made one leap at the barrier, Walked straight to the glove,— while the lion Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire. And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir, — Picked it up, and as calmly retreated. Leaped back where the lady was seated And full in the face of its owner Flung the glove. " Your heart's queen, you dethrone her ? " So should I ! "—cried the King—" ' t was mere vanity, " Not love, set that task to humanity ! " Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing. Not so, I ; for I caught an expression In her brow's undisturbed self-possession Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment, — As if from "no pleasing experiment She rose, yet of pain not much heedful So long as the process was needful, — As if sKe had tried, in a crucible. To what " speeches like gold " were reducible; And, finding the finest prove copper. Felt smoke in her face was but proper ; To know what she had 7iot to trust to, Was worth all the ashes and dust too. She went out 'mid hooting and laughter ; Clement Marot stayed ; I followed after, 16 THE GLOVE. And asked, as a grace, what it all meant ? If she wished not the rash deed's recalment ? " For I " — so I spoke — " am a poet : " Human nature — behoves that I know it ! " She told me, " Too long had I heard " Of the deed proved alone by the word : " For my love — what De Lorge would not dare ! " With my scorn — what De Lorge could compare ! " And the endless descriptions of death " He would brave when my lip formed a breath, " I must reckon as braved, or, of course, " Doubt his word — and moreover, perforce, " For such gifts as no lady could spurn, " Must offer my love in return. " When I looked on your lion, it brought " All the dangers at once to my thought, " Encountered by all sorts of men, " Before he was lodged in his den, — " From the poor slave whose club or bare hands " Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands, " With no King and no Court to applaud, " By no shame, should he shrink, overawed, " Yet to capture the creature made shift, " That his rude boys might laugh at the gift, " — To the page who last leaped o'er the fence " Of the pit, on no greater pretence " Than to get back the bonnet he dropped, " Lest his pay for a week should be stopped. " So, wiser I judged it to make " One trial what ' death for my sake ' " Really meant, while the power was yet mine. " Than to wait until time should define " Such a phrase not so simply as I, " Who took it to mean just ' to die.' " The blow a glove gives is but weak : THE GLOVE. 17 " Does the mark yet discolour my cheek ? " But when the heart suffers a blow, " Will the pain pass so soon, do you know ? " I looked, as away she was sweeping. And saw a youth eagerly keeping As close as he dared to the doorway. No doubt that a noble should more weigh His life than befits a plebeian ; And yet, had our brute been Nemean — (I judge by a certain calm fervour The youth stepped with, forward to serve her) — He 'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn I f you whispered, "Friend, what you 'd get, first earn ! ' And when, shortly after, she carried Her shame from the Court, and they married, To that marriage some happiness, maugre The voice of the Court, I dared augur. For De Lorge, he made women with men vie, Those in wonder and praise, these in envy ; And, in short, stood so plain a head taller That he wooed and won . . . how do you call her ? The beauty, that rose in the sequel To the King's love, who loved her a week well. And 't was noticed he never would honour De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her) With the easy commission of stretching His legs in the service, and fetching His wife, from her chamber, those straying Sad gloves she was always mislaying, While the King took the closet to chat in, — But of course this adventure came pat in. And never the King told the story. How bringing a glove brought such glory, I. c l8 THE GLOVE. But the wife smiled — " His nerves are grown firmer " Mine he brings now and utters no murmur." Venienti occurrite morbo ! With which moral I drop my theorbo. SONG. Nay but you, who do not love her, Is she not pure gold, my mistress ? Holds earth aught — speak truth — above her ? Aught like this tress, see, and this tress, And this last fairest tress of all, So fair, see, ere I let it fall ? II Because, you spend your lives in praising ; To praise, you search the wide world over ; Then why not witness, calmly gazing, If earth holds aught — speak truth — above her? Above this tress, and this, I touch But cannot praise, I love so much ! A SERENADE AT THE VILLA. I That was I, you heard last night. When there rose no moon at all. Nor, to pierce the strained and tight Tent of heaven, a planet small : Life was dead, and so was light. A SERENADE AT THE VILLA. 19 II Not a twinkle from the fly, Not a glimmer from the worm. When the crickets stopped their cry, When the owls forbore a term, You heard music ; that was I. Ill Earth turned in her sleep with pain. Sultrily suspired for proof : In at heaven and out again, Lightning ! — where it broke the roof, Bloodlike, some few drops of rain. IV What they could my words expressed, O my love, my all, my one ! Singing helped the verses best, And when singing's best was done. To my lute I left the rest. V So wore night ; the East was gray, White the broad-faced hemlock flowers : There would be another day ; Ere its first of heavy hours Found me, I had passed away, VI What became of all the hopes. Words and song and lute as well .'' Say, this struck you : " When life gropes " Feebly for the path where fell " Light last on the evening slopes, — ca 20 A SERENADE AT THE VILLA. VII " One friend in that path shall be, " To secure my step from wrong ; " One to count night day for me, " Patient through the watches long, " Serving most with none to see." VIII Never say — as something bodes — " So, the worst has yet a worse ! " When life halts 'neath double loads, " Better the task-master's curse " Than such music on the roads ! IX " When no moon succeeds the sun, " Nor can pierce the midnight's tent " Any star, the smallest one, " While some drops, where lightning rent " Show the final storm begun— X « When the fire-fly hides its spot, " When the garden-voices fail " In the darkness thick and hot, — " Shall another voice avail, " That shape be where these are not ? XI " Has some plague a longer lease, " Proffering its help uncouth ? " Can't one even die in peace ? " As one shuts one's eye on youth, " Is that face the last one sees?" A SERENADE AT THE VILLA 21 XII Oh how dark your villa was, Windows fast and obdurate ! How the garden grudged me grass Where I stood — the iron gate Ground its teeth to let me pass ! YOUTH AND ART. I It once might have been, once only : We lodged in a street together. You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely, I, a lone she-bird of his feather. II Your trade was with sticks and clay. You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished Then laughed " They will see, some day, " Smith made, and Gibson demolished." Ill My business was song, song, song ; I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered, " Kate Brown 's on the boards ere long, " And Grisi's existence embittered ! IV I earned no more by a warble Than you by a sketch in plaster ; You wanted a piece of marble, I needed a music-master. 22 YOUTH AND ART. V We studied hard in our styles, Chipped each at a crust hke Hindoos, For air, looked out on the tiles, For fun, watched each other's windows. VI You lounged, like a boy of the South, Cap and blouse^nay,^ bit of beard too 3 Or you got it, rubbing your mouth With fingers the clay adhered to. VII And I — soon managed to find Weak points in the flower-fence facing, Was forced to put up a blind And be safe in my corset-lacing. VIII No harm ! It was not my fault If you never turned your eye's tail up As I shook upon E in alt., Or ran the chromatic scale up : IX For spring bade the sparrows pair. And the boys and girls gave guesses, And stalls in our street looked rare With bulrush and watercresses. X Why did not you pinch a flower In a pellet of clay and fling it .'' Why did not I put a power Of thanks in a look, or sing it ? YOUTH AND ART. 23 XI I did look, 3harp as a lynx, (And yet the memory rankles) When models arrived, some minx Tripped up stairs, she and her ankles. XII But I think I gave you as good ! " That foreign fellow, — who can know " How she pays, in a playful mood, " For his tuning her that piano ? " XIII Could you say so, and never say " Suppose we join hands and fortunes, " And I fetch her from over the way, " Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes ?• XIV No, no : you would not be rash, Nor I rasher and something over : You 've to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover. XV But you meet the Prince at the Board, I 'm queen myself at bals-pares, I 've married a rich old lord. And you 're dubbed knight and an R. A. XVI Each life 's unfulfilled, you see ; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy : We have not sighed deep, laughed free. Starved, feasted, despaired,— been happy. 24 YOUTH AND ART. XVII And nobody calls you a dunce, And people suppose me clever ; This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it for ever. THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. I You 're my friend : I was the man the Duke spoke to ; , I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too ; I So, here 's the tale from beginning to end, | My friend ! II Ours is a great wild country : If you climb to our castle's top, I don't see where your eye can stop ; For when you 've passed the corn-field country, Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed, And sheep-range leads to cattle-track. And cattle-track to open-chase, And open-chase to the very base O' the mountain where, at a funeral pace, Round about, solemn and slow, One by one, row after row, Up and up the pine-trees go. So, like black priests up, and so Down the other side again To another greater, wilder country. That 's one vast red drear burnt-up plain, Branched through and through with many a vein, THE FLIGHT- OF THE DUCHESS. Whence iron 's dug, and copper 's dealt ; Look right, look left, look straight before, — Beneath they mine, above they smelt, Copper-ore and iron-ore. And forge and furnace mould and melt. And so on, more and ever more, Till at the last, for a bounding belt, Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore, — And the whole is our Duke's country. Ill I was born the day this present Duke was — (And O, says the song, ere I was old !) In the castle where the other Duke was — (When I was happy and young, not old !) I in the kennel, he in the bower : We are of like age to an hour. My father was huntsman in that day ; Who has not heard my father say That, when a boar was brought to bay, Three times, four times out of five, With his huntspear he 'd contrive To get the killing-place transfixed, And pin him true, both eyes betwixt ? And that 's why the old Duke would rather He lost a salt-pit than my father. And loved to have him ever in call ; That 's why my father stood in the hall When the old Duke brought his infant out To show the people, and while they passed The wondrous bantling round about. Was first to start at the outside blast As the Kaiser's courier blew his horn. Just a month after the babe was born. " And," quoth the Kaiser's courier, " since " The Duke has got an heir, our Prince 26 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. " Needs the Duke's self at his side : " j The Duke looked down and seemed to wince, 1 But he thought of wars o'er the world wide, Castles a-fire, men on their march, d The toppling tower, the crashing arch ; And up he looked, and awhile he eyed The row of crests and shields and banners Of all achievements after all manners. And " ay," said the Duke with a surly pride. The more was his comfort when he died At next year's end, in a velvet suit, i With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot \ In a silken shoe for a leather boot, I Petticoated like a herald. In a chamber next to an ante-room, Where he breathed the breath of page and groom, What he called stink, and they, perfume : — They should have set him on red Berold Mad with pride, like fire to manage ! They should have got his cheek fresh tannage Such a day as to-day in the merry sunshine ! Had they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin ! (Hark, the wind 's on the heath at its game ! Oh for a noble falcon-lanner To flap each broad wing like a banner. And turn in the wind, and dance like flame !) Had they broached a cask of white beer from Berlin ! — Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine Put to his lips when they saw him pine, A cup of our own Moldavia fine, Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel And ropy with sweet, — we shall not quarrel. IV So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess Was left with the infant in her clutches. 7 HE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 2? She being the daughter of God knows who : And now was the time to revisit her tribe. Abroad and afar they went, the two, And let our people rail and gibe At the empty hall and extinguished fire, As loud as we liked, but ever in vain. Till after long years we had our desire, And back came the Duke and his mother again. V And he came back the pertest little ape That ever affronted human shape ; Full of his travel, struck at himself. You 'd say, he depised our bluff old ways 1 Not he ! For in Paris they told the elf That our rough North land was the Land of Lays, The one good thing left in evil days ; Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time, And only in wild nooks like ours Could you taste of it yet as in its prime, And see true castles with proper towers, Young-hearted women, old-minded men. And manners now as manners were then. So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it, This Duke would fain know he was, without being it ; 'T was not for the joy's self, but the joy of his showing it, Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it. He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out, The soufs of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn- out : And chief in the chase his neck he perilled, On a lathy horse, all legs and length, With blood for bone, all speed, no strength ; —They should have set him on red Berold With the red eye slow consuming in fire, And the thin stiff ear like an abbey spire ! 28 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. VI Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard : And out of a convent, at the word, Came the lady, in time of spring. —Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling ! That day, I know, with a dozen oaths I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes Fit for the chase of urox or buffle In winter-time when you need to muffle. But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure. And so we saw the lady arrive : My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger ! She was the smallest lady alive. Made in a piece of nature's madness. Too small, almost, for the life and gladness That over-filled her, as some hive Out of the bears' reach on the high trees Is crowded with its safe merry bees : In truth, she was not hard to please ! Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead, Straight at the castle, that 's best indeed To look at from outside the walls : As for us, styled the " serfs and thralls," She as much thanked me as if she had said it, (With her eyes, do you understand ?) Because I patted her horse while I led it ; And Max, who rode on her other hand. Said, no bird flew past but she inquired What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired— If that was an eagle she saw hover. And the green and grey bird on the field was the plover. When suddenly appeared the Duke : And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed On to my hand,— as with a rebuke, And as if his backbone were not jointed, THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 29 The Duke stepped rather aside than forward, And welcomed her with his grandest smile ; And, mind you, his mother all the while Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor'ward ; And up, like a weary yawn, with its puUies Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis ; And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies, The lady's face stopped its play, As if her first hair had grown grey ; For such things must begin some pne day. VII In a day or two she was well again ; As who should say, " You labour in vain ! » This is all a jest against God, who meant " I should ever be, as I am, content " And glad in his sight ; therefore, glad I will be." So, smiling as at first went she. VIII She was active, stirring, all fire- Could not rest, could not tire- To a stone she might have given life ! (I myself loved once, in my day) —For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife. (I had a wife, I know what I say) Never in all the world such an one ! And-here was plenty to be done. And she that could do it, great or small, She was to do nothing at all. There was already this man in his post. This in his station, and that in his office. And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most To meet his eye with the other trophies, Now outside the hall, now in it, 3C THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen, At the proper place in the proper minute, And die away the life between. And it was amusing enough, each infraction Of rule — (but for after-sadness that came) To hear the consummate self-satisfaction With which the young Duke and the old dame Would let her advise, and criticise. And, being a fool, instruct the wise. And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame. They bore it all in complacent guise. As though an artificer, after contriving A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him So found the Duke, and his mother like him : The lady hardly got a rebufif— That had not been contemptuous enough, With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off the old mother-cat's claws. IX So, the little lady grew silent and thin. Paling and ever paling, As the way is with a hid chagrin ; And the Duke perceived that she was ailing, And said in his heart, " 'T is done to spite me, " But I shall find in my power to right me ! " Don't swear, friend ! The old one, many a year, Is in hell, and the Duke's self . . . you shall hear. X Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning. When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice, That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice, Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold. THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 31 And another and another, and faster and faster, Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled, — Then it so chanced that the Duke our master Asked himself what were the pleasures in season, And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty, He should do the Middle Age no treason In resolving on a hunting-party. Always provided, old books showed the way of it ! What meant old poets by their strictures ? And when old poets had said their say of it. How taught old painters in their pictures ? We must revert to the proper channels. Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels, And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions. Here was food for our various ambitions, As on each case, exactly stated — To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup. Or best prayer to St. Hubert on mounting your stirrup— We of the household took thought and debated. Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin His sire was wont to do forest-work in ; Blesseder he who nobly sunk " ohs " And " ahs " while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose ; What signified hats if they had no rims on. Each slouching before and behind like the scallop, And able to serve at sea for a shallop, Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson ? So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on 't, What with our Venerers, Prickers and Verderers, Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers, And oh the Duke's tailor, he had a hot tim.e on 't ! XI Now you must know that when the first dizziness Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided. The Duke out this question, "The Duke's part provided. 32 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. " Had not the Duchess some share in the business ? " For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses Did he estabHsh all fit-or-unfitnesses : And, after much laying of heads together, Somebody's cap got a notable feather By the announcement with proper unction That he had discovered the lady's function ; Since ancient authors gave this tenet, " When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege, " Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet, " And with water to wash the hands of her liege " In a clean ewer with a fair toweling, " Let her preside at the disemboweling." Now, my friend, if you had so little rehgion As to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner, And thrust her broad wings like a banner Into a coop for a vulgar pigeon ; And if day by day and week by week You cut her claws, and sealed her eyes. And clipped her wings, and tied her beak, Would it cause you any great surprise If, when you decided to give her an airing, You found she needed a little preparing ? — I say, should you be such a curmudgeon. If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon ? Yet when the Duke to his lady signified. Just a day before, as he judged most dignified. In what a pleasure she was to participate, — And, instead of leaping wide in flashes. Her eyes just lifted their long lashes, As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate, And duly acknowledged the Duke's forethought, But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught, Of the weight by day and the watch by night. And much wrong now that used to be right. So, thanking him, declined the hunting, — I THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 33 Was conduct ever more affronting ? With all the ceremony settled — With the towel ready, and the sewer Polishing up his oldest ewer, And the jennet pitched upon, a pieballed, Black-barred, cream-coated and pink eye-balled, — No wonder if the Duke was nettled ! And when she persisted nevertheless, — Well, I suppose here 's the time to confess That there ran half round our lady's chamber A balcony none of the hardest to clamber ; And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting, Stayed in call outside, what need of relating ? And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent Adorer of Jacynth of course was your servant ; And if she had the habit to peep through the casement. How could I keep at any vast distance ? And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence. The Duke, dumb stricken with amazement. Stood for a while in a sultry smother. And then, with a smile that partook of the awful. Turned her over to his yellow mother To learn what was decorous and lawful ; And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct. As her cheek quick whitened thro' all its quince-tinct. Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once ! What meant she ? — Who was she ? — Her duty and station. The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once, Its decent regard and its fitting relation — In brief, my friends, set all the devils in hell free And turn them out to carouse in a belfry And treat the priests to a fifty-part canon. And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran on ! Well, somehow or other it ended at last. And, licking her whiskers, out she passed ; And after her, — making (he hoped) a face I. D 34 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin, Stalked the Duke's self with the austere grace Of ancient hero or modern paladin, From door to staircase— oh such a solemn Unbending of the vertebral column ! XII However, at sunrise our company mustered ; And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel, And there 'neath his bonnet the pricker blustered. With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel ; For the court-yard walls were filled with fog You might cut as an axe chops a log — Like so much wool for colour and bulkiness ; And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness, Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily, And a sinking at the lower abdomen Begins the day with indifferent omen. And lo, as he looked around uneasily. The sun ploughed the fog up and drove it asunder. This way and that, from the valley under ; And, looking through the court-yard arch, Down in the valley, what should meet him But a troop of Gipsies on their march, No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him. XIII Now, in your land, Gipsies reach you, only After reaching all lands beside ; North they go. South they go, trooping or lonely, And still, as they travel far and wide, Catch they and keep now a trace here, a trace there, That puts you in mind of a place here, a place there But with us, I believe they rise out of the ground, And nowhere else, I take it, are found With the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned ; THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 35 Born, no doubt, like insects which breed on The very fruit they are meant to feed on. For the earth — not a use to which they don't turn it, The ore that grows in the mountain's womb. Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb. They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it — Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle With side-bars never a brute can baffle ; Or a lock that 's a puzzle of wards within wards ; Or, if your colt's forefoot inclines to curve inwards. Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle That keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle ; But the sand — they pinch and pound it like otters ; Commend me to Gipsy glass-makers and potters ! Glasses they '11 blow you, crystal-clear. Where just a faint cloud of rose shall appear, As if in pure water you dropped and let die A bruised black-blooded mulberry ; And that other sort, their crowning pride. With long white threads distinct inside, Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots which dangle Loose such a length and never tangle. Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters. And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters : Such are the works they put their hand to, The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to. ^nd these made the troop, which our Duke saw sally Toward his castle from out of the valley. Men and women, like new-hatched spiders, Come out with the morning to greet our riders. And up they wound till they reached the ditch, Whereat all stopped save one, a witch That I knew, as she hobbled from the group. By her gait directly and her stoop, D 2 36 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. I, whom Jacynth was used to importune To let that same witch tell us our fortune. I The oldest Gipsy then above ground ; And, sure as the autumn season came round, She paid us a visit for profit or pastime, And every time, as she swore, for the last time. And presently she was seen to sidle Up to the Duke till she touched his bridle, So that the horse of a sudden reared up As under its nose the old witch peered up \ With her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes \ Of no use now but to gather brine, And began a kind of level whine .,i Such as they use to sing to their viols \ When their ditties they go grinding j Up and down with nobody minding. \ And then, as of old, at the end of the humming | Her usual presents were forthcoming \ — A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of trebles, (Just a sea-shore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles,) Or a porcelain mouth-piece to screw on a pipe-end, — And so she awaited her annual stipend. ; But this time, the Duke would scarcely vouchsafe A word in reply ; and in vain she felt With twitching fingers at her belt For the purse of sleek pine-martin pelt, Ready to put what he gave in her pouch safe,— Till, either to quicken his apprehension. Or possibly with an after-intention. She was come, she said, to pay her duty To the new Duchess, the youthful beauty. No sooner had she named his lady, Than a shine lit up the face so shady, And its smirk returned with a novel meaning : For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning ; If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow I THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 37 She, foolish to-day, would be wiser to-morrow ; And who so fit a teacher of trouble As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double ? So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture, (If such it was, for they grow so hirsute That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit) He was contrasting, 't was plain from his gesture, The life of the lady so flower-like and delicate With the loathsome squalor of this helicat. I, in brief, was the man the Duke beckoned From out of the throng : and while I drew near He told the crone — as I since have reckoned By the way he bent and spoke into her ear With circumspection and mystery — The main of the lady's history. Her frowardness and ingratitude ; And for all the crone's submissive attitude I could see round her mouth the loose plaits tightening. And her brow with assenting intelligence brightening. As though she engaged with hearty goodwill Whatever he now might enjoin to fulfil, And promised the lady a thorough frightening. And so, just giving her a glimpse Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hernshaw, He bade me take the Gipsy mother And set her telling some story or other Of hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw, To wile" away a weary hour For the lady left alone in her bower, Whose mind and body craved exertion And yet shrank from all better diversion. XIV Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter, Out rode the Duke, and after his hollo i24H..ihf 38 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Horses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor, And back I turned and bade the crone follow. And what makes me confident what 's to be told you Had all along been of this crone's devising. Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you. There was a novelty quick as surprising : For first, she had shot up a full head in stature, And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered. As if age had foregone its usurpature. And the ignoble mien was wholly altered, And the face looked quite of another nature, ^ And the change reached too, whatever the change meant, Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement : For where its tatters hung loose like sedges, Gold coins were glittering on the edges. Like the band-roll strung with tomans Which proves the veil a Persian woman's : And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly Come out as after the rain he paces. Two unmistakable eye-points duly Live and aware looked out of their places. So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry Of the lady's chamber standing sentry. I told the command and produced my companion. And Jacynth rejoiced, she said, to admit any one, For since last night, by the same token, Not a single word had the lady spoken. They went in both to the presence together. While I in the balcony watched the weather. XV And now, what took place at the very first of all, I cannot tell, as I never could learn it : Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall On that little head of hers and burn it THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 39 If she knew how she came to drop so soundly Asleep of a sudden, and there continue The whole time, sleeping as profoundly As one of the boars my father would pin you 'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison, — Jacynth, forgive me the comparison ! But where I begin my own narration Is a little after I took my station To breathe the fresh air from the balcony, And, having in those days a falcon eye. To follow the hunt thro' the open country, From where the bushes thinlier crested The hillocks, to a plain where 's not one tree. When, in a moment, my ear was arrested By — was it singing, or was it saying, Or a strange musical instrument playing In the chamber ? — and, to be certain, I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain, And there lay Jacynth asleep, Yet as if a watch she tried to keep. In a rosy sleep along the floor With her head against the door ; While in the midst, on the seat of state. Was a queen — the Gipsy woman late, With head and face downbent On the lady's head and face intent : For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease, The lady sat between her knees, 'And (fer them the lady's clasped hands met, And on those hands her chin was set. And her upturned face met the face of the crone Wherein the eyes had grown and grown As if she could double and quadruple At pleasure the play of either pupil — Very like, by her hands' slow fanning. As up and down like a gor-crow's flappers 40 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. They moved to measure, or like bell-clappers. I said, " Is it blessing, is it banning, " Do they applaud you or burlesque you — " Those hands and fingers with no flesh on ? " But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue, At once I was stopped by the lady's expression : For it was life her eyes were drinking From the crone's wide pair above unwinking, — Life's pure fire, received without shrinking, Into the heart and breast whose heaving Told you no single drop they were leaving, — Life, that filling her, passed redundant Into her very hair, back swerving Over each shoulder, loose and abundant. As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving ; And the very tresses shared in the pleasure, Moving to the mystic measure, Bounding as the bosom bounded. I stopped short, more and more confounded, As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened. As she listened and she listened. When all at once a hand detained me, The selfsame contagion gained me, And I kept time to the wondrous chime. Making out words and prose and rhyme, Till it seemed that the music furled Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped From under the words it first had propped. And left them midway in the world. Word took word as hand takes hand, I could hear at last, and understand ; And when I held the unbroken thread, The Gipsy said : — " And so at last we find my tribe, THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS 4! " And so I set thee in the midst, " And to one and all of them describe " What thou saidst and what thou didst, " Our long and terrible journey through, " And all thou art ready to say and do " In the trials that remain. " I trace them the vein and the other vem " That meet on thy brow and part again " Making our rapid mystic mark ; " And I bid my people prove and probe " Each eye's profound and glorious globe " Till they detect the kindred spark " In those depths so dear and dark, " Like the spots that snap and burst and flee, " Circling over the midnight sea. " And on that round young cheek of thine " I make them recognise the tinge, " As when of the costly scarlet wine " They drip so much as will impinge " And spread in a thinnest scale afloat " One thick gold drop from the olive's coat " Over a silver plate whose sheen " Still thro' the mixture shall be seen. " For so I prove thee, to one and all, " Fit, when my people ope their breast, " To see the sign, and hear the call, " And take the vow, and stand the test " Which adds one more child to the rest — " When the breast is bare and the arms are wide, " And the world is left outside. " For there is probation to decree, " And many and long must the trials be " Thou shalt victoriously endure, " If that brow is true and those eyes are sure. " Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay " Of the prize he dug from its mountain-tomb,— 42 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. " Let once the vindicating ray " Leap out amid the anxious gloom, " And steel and fire have done their part, " And the prize falls on its finder's heart : " So, trial after trial past, " Wilt thou fall at the very last " Breathless, half in trance " With the thrill of the great deliverance, " Into our arms for evermore ; " And thou shalt know, those arms once curled " About thee, what we knew before, " How love is the only good in the world. " Henceforth be loved as heart can love, " Or brain devise, or hand approve ! " Stand up, look below, " It is our life at thy feet we throw " To step with into light and joy ; " Not a power of life but we employ " To satisfy thy nature's want. " Art thou the tree that props the plant, " Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree — " Canst thou help us, must we help thee ? " If any two creatures grew into one, " They would do more than the world has done ; " Though each apart were never so weak, " Yet through the world should we vainly seek " For the sum of knowledge and the might " Which in such union grew their right : " So, to approach at least that end, " And blend, — as much as may be, blend " Thee with us or us with thee,^ " As climbing plant or propping tree, " Shall some one deck thee over and down, " Up and about, with blossoms and leaves .'' " Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland-crown, " Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves. THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 43 " Die on thy boughs and disappear " While not a leaf of thine is sere ? " Or is the other fate in store, " And art thou fitted to adore, " To give thy wondrous self away, " And take a stronger nature's sway ? " I foresee and I could foretell " Thy future portion, sure and well : " But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true, " Let them say what thou shalt do ! " Only be sure thy daily life, " In its peace or in its strife, " Never shall be unobserved ; " We pursue thy whole career, " And hope for it, or doubt, or fear. " Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved, " We are beside thee in all thy ways, " With our blame, with our praise, " Our shame to feel, our pride to show, " Glad, angry — but indifferent, no ! " Whether it be thy lot to go, " For the good of us all, where the haters meet, " In the crowded city's horrible street ; " Or thou step alone through the lone morass " Where never sound yet was " Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill, " For the air is still, and the water still, " When the blue breast of the dripping coot " Dives under, and all is mute. " So, at the last shall come old age, " Decrepit as befits that stage ; " How else wouldst thou retire apart " With the hoarded memories of thy heart " And gather all to the very least " Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, " Let fall through eagerness to find 44 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. " The crowning dainties yet behind ? " Ponder on the entire past " Laid together thus at last, " When the twilight helps to fuse " The first fresh with the faded hues, " And the outline of the whole, " As round eve's shades their framework roll, " Grandly fronts for once thy soul ! " And then as, 'raid the dark, a gleam " Of yet another morning breaks, " And like the hand which ends a dream, " Death, with the might of his sunbeam, " Touches the flesh and the soul awakes, " Then—" Ay, then indeed something would happen ! But what ? For here her voice changed like a bird's ; There grew more of the music and less of the words. Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen To paper and put you down every syllable With those clever clerkly fingers. All I 've forgotten as well as what lingers In this old brain of mine that 's but ill able ^ To give you even the poorest version Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering ! — More fault of those who had the hammering Of prosody into me and syntax. And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks ! But to return from this excursion, — Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest. The piece most deep and the charm completest, There came, shall I say, a snap — And the charm vanished ! And my sense returned, so strangely banished, And, starting as from a nap, I knew the crone was bewitching my lady, With Jacynth asleep ; and but one spring made I THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 45 Down from the casement, round to the portal, — Another minute and I had entered,— When the door opened, and more than mortal Stood, with a face where to my mind centred All beauties I ever saw or shall see. The Duchess : I stopped as if struck by palsy. She was so different, happy and beautiful, I felt at once that all was best, And that I had nothing to do, for the rest, But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful. Not that, in fact, there was any commanding ; I saw the glory of her eye. And the brow's height and the breast's expanding, And I was hers to live or to die. As for finding what she wanted, You know God Almighty granted Such little signs should serve wild creatures To tell one another all their desires. So that each knows what his friend requires, And does its bidding without teachers. I preceded her ; the crone Followed silent and alone ; I spoke to her, but she merely jabbered In the old style; both her eyes had slunk Back to their pits ; her stature shrunk ; In short, the soul in its body sunk Like a blade sent home to its scabbard. We descended, I preceding ; Crossed the court with nobody heeding ; All the world was at the chase, The court-yard like a desert place. The stable emptied of its small fry. I saddled myself the very palfrey I remember patting while it carried her, The day she arrived and the Duke married her. And, do you know, though it 's easy deceiving 46 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Oneself in such matters, I can't help believing The lady had not forgotten it either, And knew the poor devil so much beneath her Would have been only too glad, for her service, To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise. But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it. Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it. For though, the moment I began setting His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting, (Not that I meant to be obtrusive) She stopped me, while his rug was shifting. By a single rapid finger's lifting, And, with a gesture kind but conclusive. And a little shake of the head, refused me, — I say, although she never used me, Yet when she was mounted, the Gipsy behind her, And I ventured to remind her, I suppose with a voice of less steadiness Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me, — Something to the effect that I was in readiness Whenever God should please she needed me, — Then, do you know, her face looked down on me With a look, a look that placed a crown on me. And she felt in her bosom, — mark, her bosom — And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom. Dropped me . . ah, had it been a purse Of silver, my friend, or gold that 's worse, Why, you see, as soon as I found myself So understood, — that a true heart so may gain Such a reward, — I should have gone home again, Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself ! It was a little plait of hair Such as friends in a convent make To wear, each for the other's sake, — This, see, which at my breast I wear. Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment), THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 47 And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment. And then, — and then,— to cut short, — this is idle, These are feelings it is not good to foster, — I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle. And the palfrey bounded, — and so we lost her. XVI When the liquor 's out why clink the cannikin ? I did think to describe you the panic in The redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin, And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness, How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib, When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness — But it seems such child's play, What they said and did with the lady away ! And to dance on, when we 've lost the music. Always made me— and no doubt makes you — sick Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern As that sweet form disappeared through the postern, She that kept it in constant good humour, It ought to have stopped ; there seemed nothing to do more. But the world thought otherwise and went on. And my head 's one that its spite was spent on : Thirty years are fled since that morning. And with them all my head's adorning. Nor did the old Duchess die outright. As you expect, of suppressed spite. The natural end of every adder Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder : But she and her son agreed, I take it. That no one should touch on the story to wake it, For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery ; So, they made no search and small inquiry : 48 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. And when fresh Gipsies have paid us a visit, I 've Noticed the couple were never inquisitive, But told them they 're folks the Duke don't want here, And bade them make haste and cross the frontier. Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it, And the old one was in the young one's stead, And took, in her place, the household's head, And a blessed time the household had of it ! And were I not, as a man may say, cautious How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous, I could favour you with sundry touches Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness (To get on faster) until at last her Cheek grew to be one master-plaster Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse : In short, she grew from scalp to udder Just the object to make you shudder. XVII You 're my friend — What a thing friendship is, world without end ! How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet. And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit, Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup, Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids — Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids ; Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs, Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease. I have seen my little lady once more, Jacynth, the Gipsy, Berold, and the rest of it, THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 49 For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before ; I always wanted to make a clean breast of it : And now it is made — why, my heart's blood, that went trickle. Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets, Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle, And genially floats me about the giblets. I '11 tell you what I intend to do : I must see this fellow his sad life through — He is our Duke, after all. And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall. My father was born here, and I inherit His fame, a chain he bound his son with ; Could I pay in a lump I should prefer it, But there 's no mine to blow up and get done with : So, I must stay till the end of the chapter. For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter. Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on, Some day or other, his head in a morion And breast in a hauberk, his heels he '11 kick up. Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup. And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust. And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown with a blue crust. Then I shall scrape together my earnings ; For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes. And our children all went the way of the roses ; It 's a long lane that knows no turnings. One needs but little tackle to travel in ; So, just one stout cloak shall I indue : And for a staff, what beats the javelin With which his boars my father pinned you ? And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently. Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful, I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly ! Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful. What 's a man's age ? He must hurry more, that 's all \ I. K 50 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold : When we mind labour, then, then only, we 're too old — What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul ? And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees, (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil) I hope to get safely out of the turmoil And arrive one day at the land of the Gipsies, And find my lady, or hear the last news of her From some old thief and son of Lucifer, His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop, Sunburned all over like an ^thiop. And when my Cotnar begins to operate And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate, And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent, I shall drop in with — as if by accident — " You never knew then, how it all ended, " What fortune good or bad attended " The little lady your Queen befriended ? " — And when that 's told me, what 's remaining ? This world 's too hard for my explaining. The same wise judge of matters equine Who still preferred some slim four-year-old To the big-boned stock of mighty Berold, And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine, He also must be such a lady's scorner ! Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau : Now up, now down, the world 's one see-saw. — So, I shall find out some snug corner Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight, Turn myself round and bid the world good night ; And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen) To a world where will be no further throwing Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen ! SONG FROM ''PIPPA PASSES." 51 SONG FROM ''PIP PA PASSES." The year 's at the spring, And day 's at the morn ; Morning 's at seven ; The hill-side 's dew-pearled ; The lark 's on the wing ; The snail 's on the thorn ; God 's in His heaven — All 's right with the world. ''HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIXP [16-.] 1 I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; '' Good speed !" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew ; " Speed ! " echoed the wall to us galloping through ; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast. II Not a word to each other ; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place ; I turned iii my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. Ill 'T was moonset at starting ; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear ; E 2 52 ''HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see ; At Diiffeld, 't was morning as plain as could be ; And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half chime, So, Joris broke silence with, " Yet there is time ! " IV At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun. And against him the cattle stood black every one, To stare thro' the mist at us galloping past. And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, With resolute shoulders, each butting away The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray : V And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; And one eye's black intelligence,— ever that glance O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance ! And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. VI By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris " Stay spur ! " Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her, " We '11 remember at Aix " — for one heard the quick wheeze Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees. And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank. As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. VII So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And " Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight ! FROM GHENT TO A IX." 53 VIII " How they '11 greet us ! " — and all in a moment his roan Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim. And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. IX Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, Shook ofif both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear. Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer ; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. X And all I remember is, friends flocking round As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground ; And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine. As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. 'SONG FROM ''PARACELSUS:' I Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From oiit her hair : such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, 54 SONG FROM ''PARACELSUS." From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howHng n?ain, To treasure half their island gain. II And strew faint sweetness from some old Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud Which breaks to dust when once unrolled ; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead, was young. THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR. 1842. I As I ride, as I ride. With a full heart for my guide. So its tide rocks my side, As I ride, as I ride. That, as I were double-eyed. He, in whom our Tribes confide, Is descried, ways untried As I ride, as I ride. II As I ride, as I ride To our Chief and his Allied, Who dares chide my heart's pride As I ride, as I ride ? Or are witnesses denied — THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR. 55 Through the desert waste and wide Do I glide unespied As I ride, as I ride ? Ill As I ride, as I ride. When an inner voice has cried, The sands slide, nor abide (As I ride, as I ride) O'er each visioned homicide That came vaunting (has he lied ?) To reside — where he died, As I ride, as I ride. IV As I ride, as I ride. Ne'er has spur my swift horse plied, Yet his hide, streaked and pied, As I ride, as I ride. Shows where sweat has sprung and dried, —Zebra-footed, ostrich-thighed— How has vied stride with stride As I ride, as I ride ! V As I ride, as I ride. Could I loose what Fate has tied, Ere I pried, she should hide -^ (As I ride, as I ride) All that 's meant me— satisfied When the Prophet and the Bride Stop veins I 'd have subside As I ride, as I ride ! 56 INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. I You know, we French stormed Ratisbon : A mile or so away On a little mound, Napoleon Stood on our storming-day ; With neck out-thrust, you fancy how. Legs wide, arms locked behind. As if to balance the prone brow Oppressive with its mind. II Just as perhaps he mused " My plans " That soar, to earth may fall, " Let once my army leader Lannes " Waver at yonder wall, — " Out 'twixt the battery smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping ; nor bridle drew Until he reached the mound. Ill Then ofif there flung in smiling joy, And held himself erect By just his horse's mane, a boy : You hardly could suspect — (So tight he kept his lips compressed, Scarce any blood came through) You looked twice ere you saw his breast Was all but shot in two. IV " Well," cried he, " Emperor, by God's grace " We 've got you Ratisbon ! INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. 57 " The Marshal 's in the market-place, " And you '11 be there anon " To see your flag-bird flap his vans " Where I, to heart's desire, " Perched him ! " The chiefs eye flashed ; his plans Soared up again like fire. The chiefs eye flashed ; but presently Softened itself, as sheathes A film the mother-eagle's eye When her bruised eaglet breathes. " You 're wounded ! " " Nay," the soldiei-'s pride Touched to the quick, he said : " I 'm killed, Sire ! " And his chief beside. Smiling the boy fell dead. ' THE LOST LEADER. I Just for a handful of silver he left us. Just for a riband to stick in his coat — Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us. Lost all the others, she lets us devote ; They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver. So much was theirs who so little allowed : How all our copper had gone for his service ! Rags— ^vere they purple, his heart had been proud ! We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him. Lived in his mild and magnificent eye. Learned his great language, caught his clear accents. Made him our pattern to live and to die ! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us,— they watch from their graves ! 58 THE LOST LEADER. He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, He alone sinks to the reaf and the slaves ! II We shall march prospering —not thro' his presence ; Songs may inspirit us,— not from his lyre ; Deeds will be done,— while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire. Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more. One task more declined, one more footpath untrod. One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels. One wrong more to man, one more insult to God ! Life's night begins : let him never come back to us ! There would be doubt, hesitation and pain. Forced praise on our part— the glimmer of twilight, Never glad confident morning again ! Best fight on well, for we taught him— strike gallantly. Menace our heart ere we master his own ; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us. Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! IN A GONDOLA. He sings. I SEND my heart up to thee, all my heart In this my singing. For the stars help me, and the sea bears part ; The very night is clinging Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space Above me, whence thy face May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place. She speaks. Say after me, and try to say My very words, as if each word Came from you of your own accord, m A GONDOLA. 59 In your own voice, in your own way : " This woman's heart and soul and brain "Are mine as much as this gold chain " She bids me wear ; which " (say again) " I choose to make by cherishing " A precious thing, or choose to fling " Over the boat-side, ring by ring." And yet once more say ... no word more 1 Since words are only words. Give o'er ! Unless you call me, all the sanie, Familiarly by my pet name. Which if the Three should hear you call, And me reply to, would proclaim At once our secret to them all. Ask of me, too, command me, blame — Do, break down the partition-wall 'Twixt us, the daylight world beholds Curtained in dusk and splendid folds ! What 's left but— all of me to take ? I am the Three's : prevent them, slake Your thirst 1 'Tis said, the Arab sage In practising with gems, can loose Their subtle spirit in his cruce And leave but ashes : so, sweet mage, Leave them my ashes when thy use Sucks out my soul, thy heritage ! He sings. I Past we glide, and past, and past ! What 's that poor Agnese doing Where they make the shutters fast ? Grey Zanobi's just a-wooing To his couch the purchased bride : Past we glide ! 6o Ilf A GONDOLA. II Past we glide, and past, and past ! Why's the Pucci Palace flaring Like a beacon to the blast ? Guests by hundreds, not one caring If the dear host's neck were wried : Past we glide ! She sings. I The moth's kiss, first ! Kiss me as if you made believe You were not sure, this eve, How my face, your flower, had pursed Its petals up ; so, here and there You brush it, till I grow aware Who wants me, and wide ope I burst. 11 The bee's kiss, now ! Kiss me as if you entered gay My heart at some noonday, — A bud that dares not disallow The claim, so, all is rendered up, And passively its shattered cup Over your head to sleep I bow. He sittgs. I What are we two ? I am a Jew, And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue, To a feast of our tribe ; Where they need thee to bribe The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe Thy . . . Scatter the vision for ever ! And now, As of old, I am I, thou art thou ! I IN A GONDOLA. 6l II Say again, what we are ? The sprite of a star, I lure thee above where the destinies bar My plumes their full play Till a ruddier ray Than my pale one announce there is withering away Some . . . Scatter the vision for ever ! And now, As of old, I am I, thou art thou ! He muses. Oh, which were best, to roam or rest ? The land's lap or the water's breast ? To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves, Or swim in lucid shallows, just Eluding water-lily leaves, An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust To lock you, whom release he must ; Which life were best on Summer eves ? He speaks, musing. Lie back : could thought of mine improve you ? From this shoulder let there spring A wing ; from this, another wing ; Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you ! Snow-white must they spring, to blend With your flesh, but I intend They shall deepen to the end, Broader, into burning gold. Till both wings crescent-wise enfold Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet To o'er your head, where, lo, they meet As if a million sword-blades hurled Defiance from you to the world ! 62 IN A GONDOLA. Rescue me thou, the only real I And scare away this mad ideal That came, nor motions to depart ! Thanks ! Now, stay ever as thou art ! Still he muses, I What if the Three should catch at last Thy serenader ? While there 's cast Paul's cloak about my head, and fast Gian pinions me, Himself has past His stylet through my back ; I reel ; And ... is it thou I feel ? II They trail me, these three godless knaves, Past every church that saints and saves. Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves By Lido's wet accursed graves. They scoop mine, roll me to its brink, And ... on thy breast I sink ! She replies, musing. I Dip your arm o'er the boat side, elbow-deep, As I do : thus : were death so unlike sleep, Caught this way ? Death 's to fear from flame or steel. Or poison doubtless ; but from water — feel ! II Go find the bottom ! Would you stay me ? There Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass To plait in where the foolish jewel was, I flung away : since you have praised my hair, 'T is proper to be choice in what I wear. I IN A GONDOLA. 63 He speaks. Row home ? must we row home ? Too surely Know I where its front 's demurely Over the Guidecca piled ; Window just with window mating, Door on door exactly waiting, All 's the set face of a child : But behind it, where 's a trace Of the staidness and reserve, And formal lines without a curve, In the same child's playing-face ? No two windows look one way O'er the small sea-water thread Below them. Ah, the autumn day I, passing, saw you overhead ! First, out a cloud of curtain blew, Then a sweet cry, and last came you — To catch your lory that must needs Escape just then, of all times then. To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds And make me happiest of men. I scarce could breathe to see you reach So far back o'er the balcony. To catch him ere he climbed too high Above you in the Smyrna peach, That quick the round smooth cord of gold, This coiled hair on your head, unrolled. Fell- down you like a gorgeous snake The Roman girls were wont, of old. When Rome there was, for coolness' sake To let lie curling o'er their bosoms. Dear lory, may his beak retain Ever its delicate rose stain. As if the wounded lotus-blossoms Had marked their thief to know again 64 IN A GONDOLA. Stay longer yet, for others' sake Than mine ! What should your chamber do ? — With all its rarities that ache In silence while day lasts, but wake At night-time and their life renew, Suspended just to pleasure you Who brought against their will together These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether That dumb they look : your harp, believe With all the sensitive tight strings Which dare not speak, now to itself Breathes slumberously, as if some elf Went in and out the chords, his wings Make murmur, wheresoe'er they graze, As an angel may, between the maze Of midnight palace-pillars, on And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone Through guilty glorious Babylon. And while such murmurs flow, the nymph Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell As the dry limpet for the lymph Come with a tune he knows so well. And how your statues' hearts must swell ! And how your pictures must descend To see each other, friend with friend ! Oh, could you take them by surprise, You 'd find Schidone's eager Duke Doing the quaintest courtesies To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke ! And, deeper into her rock den. Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen You 'd find retreated from the ken Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser — As if the Tizian thinks of her. And is not, rather, gravely bent On seeing for himself what toys IN A GONDOLA. 65 Are these, his progeny invent, What Htter now the board employs Whereon he signed a document That got him murdered ! Each enjoys Its night so well, you cannot break The sport up : so, indeed must make More stay with me, for others' sake. She speaks. I To morrow, if a harp-string, say, Is used to tie the jasmine back That overfloods my room with sweets, Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets My Zanze ! If the ribbon 's black. The Three are watching : keep away ! 11 Your gondola — let Zorzi wreathe A mesh of water-weeds about Its prow, as if he unaware Had struck some quay or bridge -foot stair ! That I may throw a paper out As you and he go underneath. There 's Zanze's vigilant taper ; safe are we. Only one minute more to-night with me ? Resume your past self of a month ago ! Be you the bashful gallant, I will be The lady with the colder breast than snow. Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand More than I touch yours when I step to land. Just say, " All thanks, Siora ! " — Heart to heart And lips to lips ! Yet once more, ere we part. Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art 1 I. F 66 IN A GONDOLA. He is surprised, and stabbed. It was ordained to be so, sweet ! — and best Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast. Still kiss me ! Care not for the cowards ! Care Only to put aside thy beauteous hair My blood will hurt ! The Three, I do not scorn To death, because they never lived : but I Have lived indeed, and so — (yet one more kiss)- can die ! A LOVERS' QUARREL. I Oh, what a dawn of day ! How the March sun feels like May ! All is blue again After last night's rain, And the South dries the hawthorn-spray. Only, my Love 's away ! I 'd as lief that the blue were gray. II Runnels, which rillets swell, Must be dancing down the dell. With a foaming head On the beryl bed Paven smooth as a hermit's cell : Each with a tale to tell. Could my love but attend as well III Dearest, three months ago ! When we lived blocked-up with snow, — When the wind would edge In and in his wedge, m\ A LOVERS' QUARREL. 67 In, as far as the point could go — Not to our ingle, though. Where we loved each the other so ! IV Laughs with so little cause \ We devised games out of straws. We would try and trace One another's face In the ash, as an artist draws-; Free on each other's flaws. How we chattered like two church daws ! V What 's in the " Times " ? — a scold At the Emperor deep and cold ; He has taken a bride To his gruesome side. That 's as fair as himself is bold : There they sit ermine-stoled. And she powders her hair with gold. VI Fancy the Pampas' sheen ! Miles and miles of gold and green Where the sunflowers blow In a solid glow, And to break now and then the screen — Black neck and eyeballs keen, Up a wild horse leaps between ! VII Try, will our table turn ? Lay your hands there light, and yearn Till the yearning slips Thro' the finger tips F 2 68 A LOVERS' QUARREL. In a fire which a few discern, And a very few feel burn, And the rest, they may live and learn. VIII Then we would up and pace, For a change, about the place, Each with arm o'er neck : 'T is our quarter-deck. We are seamen in woeful case. Help in the ocean-space ! Or, if no help, we '11 embrace. IX See, how she looks now, dressed In a sledging-cap and vest ! 'T is a huge fur cloak- Like a reindeer's roke Falls the lappet along the breast : Sleeves for her arms to rest, Or to hang, as my Love likes best. X Teach me to flirt a fan As the Spanish ladies can, Or I tint your lip With a burnt stick's tip And you turn into such a man ! Just the two spots that span Half the bill of the young male swan. XI Dearest, three months ago, When the mesmerizer Snow With his hand's first sweep Put the earth to sleep, A LOVERS' QUARREL. 69 'T was a time when the heart could show All — how was earth to know, Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro ? XII Dearest, three months ago. When we loved each other so, Lived and loved the same Till an evening came When a shaft from the devil's bow Pierced to our ingle-glow, And the friends were friend and foe ! XIII Not from the heart beneath — 'T was a bubble born of breath, Neither sneer nor vaunt. Nor reproach nor taunt. See a word, how it severeth ! Oh, power of life and death In the tongue, as the Preacher saith ! XIV Woman, and will you cast For a word, quite off at last Me, your own, your You, — Since, as truth is true, I was You all the happy past — Me do you leave aghast With the memories We amassed ? XV Love, if you knew the light That your soul casts in my sight. How I look to you For the pure and true, 70 A LOVERS' QUARREL. ' And the beauteous and the right, — Bear with a moment's spite When a mere mote threats the white ! XVI What of a hasty word ? In the fleshly heart not stirred By a wornj's pin-prick Where its roots are quick ? See the eye, by a fly's foot blurred — Ear, when a straw is heard Scratch the brain's coat of curd ! XVII Foul be the world or fair More or less, how can I care? 'T is the world the same For my praise or blame, And endurance is easy there. Wrong in the one thing rare — Oh, it is hard to bear ! XVIII Here 's the spring back or close. When the almond-blossom blows ; We shall have the word In a minor third There is none but the cuckoo knows : Heaps of the guelder-rose ! I must bear with it, I suppose. XIX Could but November come, Were the noisy birds struck dumb At the warning slash Of his driver's-lash — I A LOVERS' QUARREL. 71 I would laugh like the valiant Thumb Facing the castle glum And the giant's fee-faw-fum ! XX Then, were the world well-stripped Of the gear wherein equipped We can stand apart, Heart dispense with heart In the sun, with the flowers unnipped, — Oh, the world's hangings ripped. We were both in a bare-walled crypt ! XXI Each in the crypt would cry " But one freezes here ! and why ? " When a heart, as chill, " At my own would thrill " Back to life, and its fires out-fly ? " Heart, shall we live or die ? " The rest . . . settle by-and-by ! " XXII So, she 'd efface the score, And forgive me as before. It is twelve o'clock : I shall hear her knock In the worst of a storm's uproar : I shall pull her through the door, I shall have her for evermore ! 72 EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES. EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES. FAME. See, as the prettiest graves will do in time, Our poet's wants the freshness of its prime ; Spite of the sexton's browsing horse, the sods Have struggled through its binding osier rods ; Headstone and half-sunk footstone lean awry. Wanting the brick-work promised by-and-by ; How the minute grey lichens, plate o'er plate. Have softened down the crisp-cut name and date ! LOVE. So, the year 's done with ! {Love vie for ever !) All March begun with, April's endeavour ; May-wreaths that bound me June needs must sever ; Now snows fall round me, Quenching June's fever — {Love me for ever /) THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER. I I SAID — Then, dearest, since 't is so. Since now at length my fate I know, Since nothing all my love avails, Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, Since this was written and needs must be- My whole heart rises up to bless Your name in pride and thankfulness ! Take back the hope you gave, — I claim THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER. 73 Only a memory of the same, — And this beside, if you will not blame, Your leave for one more last ride with me. II My mistress bent that brow of hers ; Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs When pity would be softening through, Fixed me a breathing-while or two With life or death in the balance : right ! The blood replenished me again ; My last thought was at least not vain : I and my mistress, side by side Shall be together, breathe and ride. So, one day more am I deified. Who knows but the world may end to-night ? Ill Hush ! if you saw some western cloud All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed By many benedictions — sun's And moon's and evening star's at once — And so, you, looking and loving best, Conscious grew, your passion drew Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, Down on you, near and yet more near. Till flesh must fade for heaven was here ! — Thus leant she and lingered— joy and fear ! Thus lay she a moment on my breast. IV Then we began to ride. My soul Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll Freshening and fluttering in the wind. Past hopes already lay behind. What need to strive wilh a life awry? 74 THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER. Had I said that, had I done this, So might I gain, so might I miss. Might she have loved me ? just as well She might have hated, who can tell ! Where had I been now if the worst befell ? And here we are riding, she and I. V Fail I alone^inwords_aniijieeds-? Why, all me n stri ve and who succeeds ? We rode ; it seemed my spirit flew, Saw other regions, cities new, As the world rushed by on either side. I thought, — All labour, yet no less Bear up beneath their unsuccess. Look at the end of work, contrast The petty done, the undone vast. This present of theirs with the hopeful past ! I hoped she would love me ; here we ride. VI What hand and brain went ever paired .'' What heart alike conceived and dared 1 What act proved all its thought had been .'' What will but felt the fleshly screen ? We ride and I see her bosom heave. There 's many a crown for who can reach. Ten lines, a statesman's life in each ! The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier's doing ! what atones ? They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. My riding is better, by their leave. VII What does it all mean, poet 1 Well, Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER. 75 What we felt only ; you expressed You hold things beautiful the best, And pace them in rhyme so, side by side. 'T is something, nay 't is much : but then, Have you yourself what 's best for men ? Are you — poor, sick, old ere your time — Nearer one whit your own sublime Than we who have never turned a rhyme ? Sing, riding 's a joy ! For me, I ride. VIII And you, great sculptor — so, you gave A score of years to Art, her slave. And that 's your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn ! You acquiesce, and shall I repine ? What, man of music, you grown grey With notes and nothing else to say, Is this your sole praise from a friend, " Greatly his opera's strains intend, " But in music we know how fashions end ! ' I gave my youth ; but we ride, in fine. IX AY' W ^Q-knows .w hat 's Jit for us ? Had fate P ropos ed bliss here should sublim ate Myj being — had I signed the bond^- Still one must lead some life beyond. Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul. Could I descry such ? Try and test ! I sink back shuddering from the quest. Earth being so good, would heaven seem best ? Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride. J.^ -tA 76 THE LAST KIDE TOGETHER. And yet — she has not spoke so long ! What if heaven be that, fair and strong At life's best, with our eyes upturned Whither life's flower is first discerned. We, fixed so, ever should so abide ? What if we still ride on, we two, With life for ever old yet new, Changed not in kind but in degree. The instant made eternity, — And heaven just prove that I and she Ride, ride together, forever ride ? MESMERISM. I All I believed is true ! I am able yet All I want, to get By a method as strange as new ; Dare I trust the same to you ? II If at night, when doors are shut, And the wood-worm picks, And the death-watch ticks, And the bar has a flag of smut, And a cat 's in the water-butt — III And the socket floats and flares, And the house-beams groan, And a foot unknown Is surmised on the garret-stairs, And the locks slip unawares — MESMERISM. 77 IV And the spicier, to serve his ends, By a sudden thread, Arms and legs outspread. On the table's midst descends, Comes to find, God knows what friends ! — V If since eve drew in, I say, I have sat and brought (So to speak) my thought To bear on the woman away. Till I feh my hair turn grey— VI Till I seemed to have and hold, In the vacancy 'Twixt the wall and me From the hair-plait's chestnut-gold To the foot in its muslin fold — VII Have and hold, then and there, Her, from head to foot, Breathing and mute, Passive and yet aware. In the grasp of my steady stare— VIII Hold and have, there and then, All her body and soul That completes my whole, All that women add to men, In the clutch of my steady ken— 78 MESMERISM. IX Having and holding, till I imprint her fast On the void at last As the sun does whom he will By the calotypist's skill — X Then, — if my heart's strength serve, And through all and each Of the veils I reach To her soul and never swerve, Knitting an iron nerve — XI Command her soul to advance And inform the shape Which has made escape And before my countenance Answers me glance for glance — XII I, still with a gesture fit Of my hands that best Do my soul's behest, Pointing the power from it, While myself do steadfast sit— XIII Steadfast and still the same On my object bent. While the hands give vent To my ardour and my aim And break into very flame — MESMERISM. 79 XIV Then I reach, I must believe, Not her soul in vain, For to me again It reaches, and past retrieve Is wound in the toils I weave ; XV And must follow as I require, As befits a thrall, Bringing flesh and all. Essence and earth-attire, To the source of the tractile fire : XVI Till the house called hers, not mine. With a growing weight Seems to suffocate If she break not its leaden line And escape from its close confine. • XVII Out of doors into the night ! On to the maze Of the wild wood-v/ays. Not turning to left nor right From the pathway, blind with sight— XVIII Making thro' rain and wind O'er the broken shrubs, 'Twixt the stems and stubs. With a still, composed, strong mind. Not a care for the world behind— So MESMERISM. XIX Swifter and still more swift, As the crowding peace Doth to joy increase In the wide blind eyes uplift Thro' the darkness and the drift ! XX While I — to the shape, I too Feel my soul dilate : Nor a whit abate, And relax not a gesture due, As I see my belief come true. XXI For, there ! have I drawn or no Life to that lip ? Do my fingers dip In a flame which again they throw On the cheek that breaks a-glow ? XXII Ha ! was the hair so first ? What, unfilleted, Made alive, and spread Through the void with a rich outburst, Chestnut gold-interspersed ? XXIII Like the doors of a casket-shrine, See, on either side. Her two arms divide Till the heart betwixt makes sign, " Take me, for I am thine ? " MESMERISM. 8i XXIV " Now — now " — the door is heard ! Hark, the stairs ! and near — Nearer — and here — " Now ! " and, at call the third, She enters without a word. XXV On doth she march and on To the fancied shape ; It is, past escape. Herself, now : the dream is done And the shadow and she are one. XXVI First, I will pray. Do Thou That ownest the soul, Yet wilt grant control To another, nor disallow For a time, restrain me now ! XXVII I admonish me while I may, Not to squander guilt, Since require Thou wilt At my hand its price one day ! What the price is, who can say ? BY THE FIRESIDE. I How well I know what I mean to do When the long dark autumn evenings come : And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue ? With the music of all thy voices, dumb In life's November too ! I. G g2 BY THE FIRESIDE. II I shall be found by the fire, suppose, O'er a great wise book, as beseemeth age ; While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows. And I turn the page, and I turn the page, Not verse now, only prose ! Ill Till the young ones whisper, finger on lip, " There he is at it, deep in Greek : " Now then, or never, out we slip " To cut from the hazels by the creek "A mainmast for our ship ! " IV I shall be at it indeed, my friends ! Greek puts already on either side Such a branch-work forth as soon extends To a vista opening far and wide. And I pass out where it ends. V The outside frame, like your hazel-trees— But the inside-archway widens fast, And a rarer sort succeeds to these. And we slope to Italy at last And youth, by green degrees. VI I follow wherever I am led, Knowing so well the leader's hand : Oh woman-country, wooed not wed. Loved all the more by earth's male-lands, Laid to their hearts instead ! VII Look at the ruined chapel again Half-way up in the Alpine gorge ! BV THE FIRESIDE. S3 Is that a tower, I point you plain, Or is it a mill, or an iron forge Breaks solitude in vain ? VIII A turn, and we stand in the heart of things ; The woods are round us, heaped and dim ; From slab to slab how it slips and springs, The thread of water single and slim. Through the ravage some torrent brings ! IX Does it feed the little lake below ? That speck of white just on its marge Is Pella ; see, in the evening-glow. How sharp the silver spear-heads charge When Alp meets heaven in snow ! X On our other side is the straight-up rock ; And a path is kept 'twixt the gorge and it By boulder-stones where lichens mock The marks on a moth, and small ferns fit Their teeth to the polished block. XI Oh the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers, And thorny balls, each three in one, The chestnuts throw on our path in showers ! For the drop of the woodland fruit 's begun, These early November hours, XII That crimson the creeper's leaf across Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt. O'er a shield else gold from rim to boss, And lay it for show on the fairy-cupped Elf-needled mat of moss, G 2 84 BY THE FIRESIDE. XIII By the rose-flesh mushrooms, undivulged Last evening— nay, in to-day's first dew Yon sudden coral nipple bulged, Where a freaked fawn-coloured flaky crew Of toad-stools peep indulged. XIV And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge That takes the turn to a range beyond, Is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge. Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond Danced over by the midge. XV The chapel and bridge are of stone alike, Blackish-grey and mostly wet ; Cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke. See here again, how the lichens fret And the roots of the ivy strike ! XVI Poor little place, where its one priest comes On a festa-day, if he comes at all, To the dozen folk from their scattered homes. Gathered within that precinct small By the dozen ways one roams — XVII To drop from the charcoal-burners' huts. Or climb from the hemp-dresser's low shed. Leave the grange where the woodman stores his nuts, Or the wattled cote where the fowlers spread Their gear on the rock's bare juts. XVIII It has some pretension too, this front, With its bit of fresco half-moon-wise BY THE FIRESIDE. 85 Set over the porch, Art's early wont : 'T is John in the Desert, I surmise, But has borne the weather's brunt — XIX Not from the fault of the builder, though, For a pent-house properly projects Where three carved beams make a certain show, Dating — good thought of our architect's — 'Five, six, nine, he lets you know. XX And all day long a bird sings there, And a stray sheep drinks at the pond at times ; The place is silent and aware ; It has had its scenes, its joys and crimes, But that is its own affair. XXI My perfect wife, my Leonor, Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too. Whom else could I dare look backward for. With whom beside should I dare pursue The path grey heads abhor ? XXII For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with them ; Youth, flowery all the way, there stops— Not they ; age threatens and they contemn. Till they reach the gulf wherein youth drops. One" inch from our life's safe hem ! XXIII With me, youth led ... I will speak now. No longer watch you as you sit Reading by fire-light, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it. Mutely, my heart knows how — 86 BY THE FIRESIDE. XXIV When, if I think but deep enough, You are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme ; And you, too, find without rebufif Response your soul seeks many a time, Piercing its fine flesh-stufif. XXV My own, confirm me ! If I tread This path back, is it not in pride To think how Httle I dreamed it led To an age so blest that, by its side, Youth seems the waste instead ? XXVI My own, see where the years conduct ! At first, 't was something our two souls Should mix as mists do ; each is sucked In each now : on, the new stream rolls. Whatever rocks obstruct. XXVII Think, when our one soul understands The great Word which makes all things new. When earth breaks up and heaven expands, How will the change strike me and you In the house not made with hands ? XXVIII Oh I must feel your brain prompt mine, Your heart anticipate my heart, You must be just before, in fine. See and make me see, for your part. New depths of the divine ! XXIX But who could have expected this When we two drew together first BY THE FIRESIDE. 87 Just for the obvious human bliss, To satisfy life's daily thirst With a thing men seldom miss ? XXX Come back with me to the first of all, Let us lean and love it over again. Let us now forget and now recall. Break the rosary in a pearly rain, And gather what we let fall ! XXXI What did I say ?— that a small bird sings All day long, save when a brown pair Of hawks from the wood float with wide wings Strained to a bell : "gainst noon-day glare You count the streaks and rings. XXXII But at afternoon or almost eve 'T is better ; then the silence grows To that degree, you half believe It must get rid of what it knows, Its bosom does so heave. XXXIII Hither we walked then, side by side. Arm in arm and cheek to cheek. And still I questioned or replied. While my heart, convulsed to really speak - Lay choking in its pride. XXXIV Silent the crumbling bridge we cross. And pity and praise the chapel sweet, And care about the fresco's loss. And wish for our souls a like retreat, And wonder at the moss. 88 BY THE FIRESIDE. XXXV Stoop and kneel on the settle under, Look through the window's grated square : Nothing to see ! For fear of plunder, The cross is down and the altar bare, As if thieves don't fear thunder. XXXVI We stoop and look in through the grate. See the little porch and rustic door, Read duly the dead builder's date ; Then cross the bridge that we crossed before. Take the path again — but wait ! XXXVII Oh moment one and infinite ! The water slips o'er stock and stone ; The West is tender, hardly bright : How grey at once is the evening grown — One star, its chrysolite ! XXXVIII We two stood there with never a third. But each by each, as each knew well : The sights we saw and the sounds we heard, The lights and the shades made up a spell Till the trouble grew and stirred. XXXIX Oh, the little more, and how much it is ! And the little less, and what worlds away ! How a sound shall quicken content to bliss. Or a breath suspend the blood's best play, And life be a proof of this ! XL Had she willed it, still had stood the screen So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love and her : BY THE FIRESIDE. 89 I could fix her face with a guard between, And find her soul as when friends confer, Friends — lovers that might have been. XLl For my heart had a touch of the woodland time, Wanting to sleep now over its best. Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime, But bring to the last leaf no such test ! " Hold the last fast ! " runs the rhyme. XLII For a chance to make your little much, To gain a lover and lose a friend. Venture the tree and a myriad such, When nothing you mar but the year can mend : But a last leaf— fear to touch ! XLIII Yet should it unfasten itself and fall Eddying down till it find your face At some slight wind — best chance of all ! Be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place You trembled to forestall ! XLIV Worth how well, those dark grey eyes, That hair so dark and dear, how worth That a man should strive and agonise. And taste a veriest hell on earth For the hope of such a prize ! XLV You might have turned and tried a man, Set him a space to weary and wear, And prove which suited more your plan, His best of hope or his worst despair, Yet end as he began. 90 BY THE FIRESIDE. XLVI But you spared me this, like the heart you are, And filled my empty heart at a word. If two lives join, there is oft a scar, They are one and one, with a shadowy third ; One near one is too far. XLVII A moment after, and hands unseen Were hanging the night around us fast ; But we knew that a bar was broken between Life and life : we were mixed at last In spite of the mortal screen. XLVIII The forests had done it ; there they stood ; We caught for a moment the powers at play : They had mingled us so, for once and good. Their work was done — we might go or stay, They relapsed to their ancient mood. XLIX How the world is made for each of us ! How all we perceive and know in it - Tends to some moment's product thus, When a soul declares itself — to wit. By its fruit, the thing it does ! L Be hate that fruit or love that fruit, It forwards the general deed of man : And each of the Many helps to recruit The life of the race by a general plan ; Each living his own, to boot. LI I am named and known by that moment's feat ; There took my station and degree ; BY THE FIRESIDE. 91 So grew my own small life complete, As nature obtained her best of me— One born to love you, sweet ! LII And to watch you sink by the fireside now Back again, as you mutely sit Musing by firelight, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it, Yonder, my heart knows how ! LIII So, earth has gained by one man the more. And the gain of earth must be heaven's gain too ; And the whole is well worth thinking o'er When autumn comes : which I mean to do One day, as I said before. ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. I My love, this is the bitterest, that thou— Who art all truth, and who dost love me now As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say— Shouldst love so truly, and couldst love me still A whole long life through, had but love its will. Would death, that leads me from thee, brook delay. II I have but to be by thee, and thy hand Will never let mine go, nor heart withstand The beating of my heart to reach its place. When shall I look for thee and feel thee gone ? When cry for the old comfort and find none ? Never, I know ! Thy soul is in thy face. 92 ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. Ill Oh, I should fade — 't is willed so ! Might I save, Gladly I would, whatever beauty gave Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too. It is not to be granted. But the soul Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole Vainly the flesh fades ; soul makes all things new. IV It would not be because my eye grew dim Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him Who never is dishonoured in the spark He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade Remember whence it sprang, nor be afraid While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark. V So, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and clean. Outside as inside, soul and soul's demesne Alike, this body given to show it by ! Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss, What plaudits from the next world after this, Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky ! VI And is it not the bitterer to think That, disenCTasje our hands and thou wilt sink Although thy love was love in very deed ? I know that nature ! Pass a festive day, Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed.. VII Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell ; If old things remain old things all is well. For thou art grateful as becomes man best : I ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. 93 And hadst thou only heard me play one tune, Or viewed me from a window, not so soon With thee would such things fade as with the rest. VIII I seem to see ! We meet and part ; 't is brief ; The book I opened keeps a folded leaf. The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank ; That is a portrait of me on the wall- Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call : And for all this, one little hour to thank ! IX But now, because the hour through years was fixed, Because our inmost beings met and mixed. Because thou once hast loved me— wilt thou dare Say to thy soul and Who may list beside, " Therefore she is immortally my bride ; *' Chance cannot change my love, nor time impair. X " So, what if in the dusk of life that 's left, " I, a tired traveller of my sun bereft, " Look from my path when, mimicking the same, " The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone ? » —Where was it till the sunset ? where anon " It will be at the sunrise ! What 's to blame ?" XI Is it so helpful to thee ? Canst thou take The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake. Put gently by such efforts at a beam ? Is the remainder of the way so long, Thou need'st the little solace, thou the strong ? Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream ! 94 ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. XII — Ah, but the fresher faces ! " Is it true," Thou 'It ask, " some eyes are beautiful and new ? " Some hair, — how can one choose but grasp such wealth ? " And if a man would press his lips to lips " Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips " The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth ? XIII " It cannot change the love still kept for Her, " More than if such a picture I prefer " Passing a day with, to a room's bare side : " The painted form takes nothing she possessed, " Yet, while the Titian's Venus lies at rest, " A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide ? XIV So must I see, from where I sit and watch, My own self sell myself, my hand attach Its warrant to the very thefts from me — Thy singleness of soul that made me proud, Thy purity of heart I loved aloud, Thy man's-truth I was bold to bid God see ! XV Love so, then, if thou wilt ! Give all thou canst Away to the new faces — disentranced, (Say it and think it) obdurate no more : Re-issue looks and words from the old mint. Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print Image and superscription once they bore ! XVI Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend, — It all comes to the same thing at the end. Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shaU be. ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. 95 Faithful or faithless : sealing up the sum Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee ! XVII Only, why should it be with stain at all ? Why must I, 'twixt the leaves of coronal. Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow ? Why need the other women know so much, And talk together, " Such the look and such " The smile he used to love with, then as now ! " XVIII Might I die last and show thee ! Should I find Such hardships in the few years left behind, If free to take and light my lamp, and go Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit, Seeing thy face on those four sides of it The better that they are so blank, I know ! XIX Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'er Within my mind each look, get more and more By heart each word, too much to learn at first ; . And join thee all the fitter for the pause 'Neath the low door-way's lintel. That were cause For lingering, though thou calledst, if I durst ! XX And yet thou art the nobler of us two : What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do. Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride ? I '11 say then, here 's a trial and a task ; Is it to bear?— if easy, I '11 not ask : Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride. 96 ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. XXI Pride ? — when those eyes forestall the life behind The death I have to go through ! — when I find, Now that I want thy help most, all of thee ! What did I fear ? Thy love shall hold me fast Until the little minute's sleep is past And I wake saved. — And yet it will not be ! IN A YEAR. I Never any more, While I live. Need I hope to see his face As before. Once his love grown chill, Mine may strive : Bitterly we re-embrace, Single still. II Was it something said, Something done. Vexed him .-" was it touch of hand, Turn of head ? Strange ! that very way Love begun : I as little understand Love's decay. Ill When I sewed or drew, I recall How he looked as if I sung, — Sweetly too. IN A YEAR. 97 If I spoke a word, First of all Up his cheek the colour sprung, Then he heard. IV Sitting by my side, At my feet. So he breathed but air I breathed, Satisfied ! I, too, at love's brim Touched the sweet : I would die if death bequeathed Sweet to him. V " Speak, I love thee best ! " He exclaimed : " Let thy love my own foretell ! " I confessed : " Clasp my heart on thine " Now unblamed, " Since upon thy soul as well •' Hangeth mine ! " VI "Was it wrong to own, Being truth ? Why should all the giving prove His alone .'' I had wealth and ease. Beauty, youth : Since my lover gave me love, I gave these. VII That was all I meant, — To be just, H 98 IN A YEAR. And the passion I had raised, To content. Since he chose to change Gold for dust, If I gave him what he praised Was it strange ? VIII Would he loved me yet, On and on. While I found some way undreamed — Paid my debt ! Gave more life and more, Till all gone, He should smile " She never seemed " Mine before. IX " What, she felt the while, " Must I think .? " Love 's so different with us men ! " He should smile : " Dying for my sake — " White and pink ! ' Can't we touch these bubbles then " But they break?" X Dear, the pang is brief, Do thy part, Have thy pleasure ! How perplexed Grows belief ! Well, this cold clay clod Was man's heart : Crumble it, and what comes next ? Is it God.? I SONG FROM ''JAMES LEE.'' 99 SONG FROM ''JAMES LEE:' I Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, This autumn morning ! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth : Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. II That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true ; Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows. If you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you. Make the low nature better by your throes ! Give earth yourself, go up for gain above ! A WOMAN'S LAST WORD I Let 's contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep : All be as before, Love, — Only sleep ! II What so wild as words are ? I and thou In debate, as birds are, Hawk on bough ! H 2 100 A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. Ill See the creature stalking While we speak ! Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek. IV What so false as truth is, False to thee ? Where the serpent's tooth is. Shun the tree — V Where the apple reddens, Never pry — Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I. VI Be a god and hold me With a chann ! Be a man and fold me With thine arm 1 VII Teach me, only teach, Love ! As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Think thy thought — VIII Meet, if thou require it Both demands, Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands. ^ WOMAN'S LAST WORD. loi IX That shall be to-morrow Not to-night : I must bury sorrow Out of sight : X — Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me !) And so fall asleep, Love, Loved by thee. -•o*- MEETING AT NIGHT. The grey sea and the long black land ; And the yellow half-moon large and low ; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow. And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. II Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach ; Three fields to cross till a farm appears ; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match. And a voice less loud, through joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each ! 102 PARTING AT MORNING. PARTING AT MORNING. Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, And the sun looked over the mountain's rim And straight was a path of gold for him, And the need of a world of men for me. WOMEN AND ROSES. I I DREAM of a red-rose tree. And which of its roses three Is the dearest rose to me ? II Round and round, like a dance of snow In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go Floating the women faded for ages. Sculptured in stone, on the poet's pages. Then follow women fresh and gay, Living and loving and loved to-day. Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens. Beauties yet unborn. And all, to one cadence, They circle their rose on my rose tree. Ill Dear rose, thy term is reached. Thy leaf hangs loose and bleached : Bees pass it unimpeached. IV Stay then, stoop, since I cannot climb, You, great shapes of the antique time, WOMEN AND ROSES. 103 How shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you, Break my heart at your feet to please you ? Oh, to possess and be possessed ! Hearts that beat 'neath each pallid breast ! Once but of love, the poesy, the passion. Drink but once and die !— In vain, the same fashion. They circle their rose on my rose tree. V Dear rose, thy joy 's undimmed : Thy cup is ruby-rimmed, Thy cup's heart nectar-brimmed. VI Deep, as drops from a statue's plinth The bee sucked in by the hyacinth, So will I bury me while burning. Quench like him at a plunge my yearning, Eyes in your eyes, Hps on your lips ! Fold me fast where the cincture slips, Prison all my soul in eternities of pleasure, Girdle me for once ! But no— the old measure. They circle their rose on my rose tree. VII Dear rose without a thorn. Thy bud 's the babe unborn : First streak of a new morn. VIII Wings, lend wings for the cold, the clear ! What is far conquers what is near. Roses will bloom nor want beholders. Sprung from the dust where our flesh moulders, What shall arrive with the cycle's change .? A novel grace and a beauty strange. I04 MISCONCEPTIONS. I will make an Eve, be the Artist that began her, Shaped her to his mind ! — Alas ! in like manner They circle their rose on my rose tree. MISCONCEP TIONS. This is a spray the bird clung to. Making it blossom with pleasure. Ere the high tree-top she sprung to, Fit for her nest and her treasure Oh, what a hope beyond measure Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to,- So to be singled out, built in, and sung to ! II This is a heart the queen leant on, Thrilled in a minute erratic. Ere the true bosom she bent on, Meet for love's regal dalmatic. Oh, what a fancy ecstatic Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on, — Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on ! A PRETTY WOMAN. That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers. And the blue eye Dear and dewy, And that infantine fresh air of hers ! A PRETTY WOMAN. 105 II To think men cannot take you, Sweet, And enfold you, Ay, and hold you. And so keep you what they make you, Sweet ! Ill You like us for a glance, you know — For a word's sake Or a sword's sake : All 's the same, whate'er the chance, you know. IV And in turn we make you ours, we say — You and youth too, Eyes and mouth too. All the face composed of flowers, we say. V All 's our own, to make the most of. Sweet — Sing and say for. Watch and pray for, Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet ! VI But for loving, why, you would not. Sweet, Though we prayed you, Paid you, brayed you ' 111 a mortar— for you could not. Sweet ! VII So, we leave the sweet face fondly there . Be its beauty Its sole duty ! Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there ! io6 A PRETTY WOMAN. VIII And while the face lies quiet there, Who shall wonder That I ponder A conclusion ? I will try it there. IX As,- -why must one, for the love foregone Scout mere liking ? Thunder-striking Earth, — the heaven, we looked above for, gone ! X Why, with beauty, needs there money be, Love with liking ? Crush the fly-king In his gauze, because no honey bee ? XI May not liking be so simple-sweet, If love grew there 'T would undo there All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet ? XII Is the creature too imperfect, say ? Would you mend it And so end it? Since not all addition perfects aye ! XIII Or is it of its kind, perhaps, Just perfection — Whence, rejection Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps ? A PRETTY WOMAN. 107 XIV Shall we burn up, tread that face at once Into tinder, And so hinder Sparks from kindling all the place at once ? XV Or else kiss away one's soul on her ? Your love fancies ! — A sick man sees Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her ! XVI Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose, — Plucks a mould-flower For his gold flower. Uses fine things that efface the rose XVII Rosy rubies make its cup more rose, Precious metals Ape the petals, — Last, some old king locks it up, morose ! XVIII Then how grace a rose ? I know a way ! Leave it, rather. Must you gather?^ ^ Smell, kiss, wear it — at last, throw away , A LIGHT WOMAN. I So far as our story approaches the end. Which do you pity the most of us three ?— My friend, or the mistress of my friend With her wanton eyes, or me ? lo8 A LIGHT IVOAIAN. s II My friend was already too good to lose, And seemed in the way of improvement yet, When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose And over him drew her net. Ill When I saw him tangled in her toils, A shame, said I, if she adds just him To her nine-and-ninety other spoils, The hundredth for a whim ! IV And before my friend be wholly hers, How easy to prove to him, I said. An eagle 's the game her pride prefers. Though she snaps at a wren instead ! V So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take. My hand sought hers as in earnest need, And round she turned for my noble sake, And gave me herself indeed. VI The eagle am I, with my fame in the world, The wren is he, with his maiden face. — You look away and your lip is curled ? Patience, a moment's space ! VII For see, my friend goes shaking and white. He eyes me as the basilisk : I have turned, it appears, his day to night, Eclipsing his sun's disk. I A LIGHT WOMAN. 109 VIII And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief : " Though I love her — that, he comprehends — " One should master one's passions, (love, in chief) " And be loyal to one's friends ! " IX And she, — she lies in my hand as tame As a pear late basking over a wall ; Just a touch to try, and off it came ; 'T is mine,— can I let it fall ? X With no mind to eat it, that 's the worst ! Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist ? 'T was quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst When I gave its stalk a twist. XI And I,— what I seem to my friend, you see ; What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess : What I seem to myself, do you ask of me ? No hero, I confess. XII 'T is an awkward thing to play with souls. And matter enough to save one's own : Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals fie played with for bits of stone ! XIII One likes to show the truth for the truth ; That the woman was light is very true : But suppose she says,— Never mind that youth ! What wrong have I done to you ? no A LIGHT WOMAN. XIV Well, any how, here the story stays, So far at least as I understand ; And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays Here 's a subject made to your hand ! LOVE IN A LIFE. I Room after room, I hunt the house through We inhabit together. Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her — • Next time, herself ! — not the trouble behind her Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume ! As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew ; Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather. II Yet the day wears, And door succeeds door ; I try the fresh fortune — Range the wide house from the wing to the centre. Still the same chance ! she goes out as I enter. Spend my whole day in the quest, — who cares } But 't is twilight, you see, — with such suites to explore, Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune ! LIFE IN A LOVE. Escape me ? Never — Beloved ! While I am I, and you are you, LIFE IN A LOVE. m So long as the world contains us both, Me the loving and you the loth, "While the one eludes, must the other pursue. My life is a fault at last, I fear : It seems too much like a fate, indeed ! Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed. But what if I fail of my purpose here ? It is but to keep the nerves at strain. To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall. And baffled, get up and begin again, — So the chace takes up one's life, that 's all. While, look but once from your farthest bound At me so deep in the dust and dark, No sooner the old hope goes to ground Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark, I shape me — Ever Removed ! THE LABORATORY. ANCIEN Rl^GIME. Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly. May gaze thro' these faint smokes curling whitely. As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy — Which-is the poison to poison her, prithee .-' II He is with her, and they know that I know Where they are, what they do : they believe my tears flow While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear Empty church, to pray God in, for them ! — I am here. 112 THE LABORATORY. Ill Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste, Pound at thy powder, — I am not in haste ! Better sit thus and observe thy strange things, Than go where men wait me, and dance at the King's. IV That in the mortar — you call it a gum ? Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come ! And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue. Sure to taste sweetly, — is that poison too ? V Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures, What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures ! To carry pure death in an earring, a casket, A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket ! VI Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live ! But to light a pastile, and Elise with her head And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead ! VII Quick— is it finished ? The colour 's too grim ! Why not soft like the phial's, enticing and dim ? Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir, And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer ! VIII What a drop ! She 's not little, no minion like me ! That 's why she ensnared him : this never will free The soul from those masculine eyes, — say, " No !" To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go. THE LABORATORY. 113 IX For only last night, as they whispered, I brought My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought Could I keep them one half minute fixed, she would fall Shrivelled ; she fell not ; yet this does it all ! X Not that I bid you spare her the pain ; Let death be felt and the proof remain : Brand, burn up, bite into its grace — He is sure to remember her dying face ! XI Is it done ? Take my mask off ! Nay, be not morose ; It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close : The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee ! If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me ? XII Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill, You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will ! But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings Ere I know it — next moment I dance at the King's ! GOLD HAIR: A STORY OF PORNIC. I Oh, the beautiful girl, too white, Who lived at Pornic down by the sea, Just where the sea and the Loire unite ! And a boasted name in Brittany She bore, which I will not write. I 114 GOLD HAIR. II Too white, for the flower of life is red ; Her flesh was the soft seraphic screen Of a soul that is meant (her parents said) To just see earth, and hardly be seen, And blossom in heaven instead. Ill Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair ! One grace that grew to its full on earth : Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare, And her waist want half a girdle's girth, But she had her great gold hair. IV Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss, Freshness and fragrance— floods of it, too ! Gold, did I say ? Nay, gold 's mere dross : Here, Life smiled, " Think what I meant to do ! " And Love sighed, " Fancy my loss ! " V So, when she died, it was scarce more strange Than that, when some delicate evening dies, And you follow its spent sun's pallid range, There 's a shoot of colour startles the skies With sudden, violent change, — VI That, while the breath was nearly to seek. As they put the little cross to her lips, She changed ; a spot came out on her cheek, A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse. And she broke forth, " I must speak ! " GOLD HAIR. 115 VII " Not my hair ! " made the girl her moan — " All the rest is gone or to go ; " But the last, last grace, my all, my own, " Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know ! " Leave my poor gold hair alone ! " VIII The passion thus vented, dead lay she : Her parents solDbed their worst on that, All friends joined in, nor observed degree : For indeed the hair was to wonder at. As it spread — not flowing free, IX But curled around her brow, like a crown, And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap. And calmed about her neck — ay, down To her breast, pressed flat, without a gap r the gold, it reached her gown. X All kissed that face, like a silver wedge 'Mid the yellow wealthy nor disturbed its hair : E'en the priest allowed death's privilege, As he planted the crucifix with care On her breast, 'twixt edge and edge. XI And thus was she buried, inviolate Of body and soul, in the very space By the altar ; keeping saintly state In Pornic church, for her pride of race, Pure life and piteous fate. 12 ii6 GOLD HAIR. XII And in after-time would your fresh tear fall, Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile, As they told you of gold both robe and pall, How she prayed them leave it alone awhile, So it never was touched at all. XIII Years flew ; this legend grew at last The life of the lady ; all she had done, All been, in the memories fading fast Of lover and friend, was summed in one Sentence survivors passed : — XIV To wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth ; Had turned an angel before the time : Yet, since she was mortal, in such dearth Of frailty, all you could count a crime Was — she knew her gold hair's worth. XV At little pleasant Pornic church. It chanced, the pavement wanted repair, Was taken to pieces : left in the lurch, A certain sacred space lay bare. And the boys began research. XVI 'T was the space where our sires would lay a saint, A benefactor, — a bishop, suppose, A baron with armour-adornments quaint. Dame with chased ring and jewelled rose Things sanctity saves from taint ; GOLD HAIR. 117 XVII So we come to find them in after-days When the corpse is presumed to have done with gauds Of use to the living, in many ways : For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds, And the church deserves the praise. XVIII They grubbed with a will : and at length — O cor HumantDH^ pectora cceca, and the rest ! — They found — no gaud they were prying for. No ring, no rose, but— who would have guessed ?— A double Louis-d'or ! XIX Here was a case for the priest : he heard, Marked, inwardly digested, laid Finger on nose, smiled, " A little bird " Chirps in my ear : " then, " Bring a spade, " Dig deeper ! " — he gave the word. XX And lo, when they came to the coffin-lid. Or rotten planks which composed it once. Why, there lay the girl's skull wedged amid A mint of money, it served for the nonce To hold in its hair-heaps hid ! XXI Hid there ? Why ? Could the girl be wont (She the stainless soul) to treasure up Money, earth's trash and heaven's affront ? Had a spider found out the communion-cup. Was a toad in the christening-font ? Ii8 GOLD HAIR. XXII Truth is truth : too true it was. Gold ! She hoarded and hugged it first, Longed for it, leaned o'er it, loved it— alas — Till the humour grew to a head and burst, And she cried, at the final pass, — XXIII " Talk not of God, my heart is stone ! " Nor lover nor friend — be gold for both ! " Gold I lack ; and, my all, my own, "It shall hide in my hair. I scarce die loth " If they let my hair alone ! " XXIV Louis-d'ors, some six times five, And duly double, every piece. Now, do you see ? With the priest to shrive, With parents preventing her soul's release By kisses that kept alive, — XXV Wifh heaven's gold gates about to ope, With friends' praise, gold-like, lingering still. An instinct had bidden the girl's hand grope For gold, the true sort — " Gold in heaven, if you will ; « But I keep earth's too, I hope." XXVI Enough ! The priest took the grave's grim yield : The parents, they eyed that price of sin As if thirty pieces lay revealed On the place to bury strangers in., The hideous Potter's Field. GOLD HAIR. 119 XXVII But the priest bethought him : " ' Milk that 's spilt' " — You know the adage ! Watch and pray ! " Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt ! " It would build a new altar ; that, we may ! " And the altar therewith was built. XXVIII Why I deliver this horrible verse ? As the text of a sermon, which now I preach. Evil or good may be better or worse In the human heart, but the mixture of each Is a marvel and a curse. XXIX The candid incline to surmise of late That the Christian faith may be false, I find ; For our Essays-and-Reviews' debate Begins to tell on the public mind, And Colenso's words have weight : XXX I still, to suppose it true, for my part. See reasons and reasons ; this, to begin : 'T is the faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie — taught Original Sin, The Corruption of Man's Heart. THE STATUE AND THE BUST There 's a palace in Florence, the world knows well, And a statue waFches it from the square, And this story of both do our townsmen tell. I20 THE STATUE AND THE BUST. Ages ago, a lady there, At the farthest window facing the East Asked, " Who rides by with the royal air ? " The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased ; She leaned forth, one on either hand ; They saw how the blush of the bride increased- They felt by its beats her heart expand — As one at each ear and both in a breath Whispered, " The Great Duke Ferdinand." That self-same instant, underneath. The Duke rode past in his idle way. Empty and fine like a swordless sheath. Gay he rode, with a friend as gay, Till he threw his head back—" Who is she .? " — " A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day." Hair in heaps lay heavily Over a pale brow spirit-pure — Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree, Crisped like a war-steed's encolure — And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes Of the blackest black our eyes endure. And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise Filled the fine empty sheath of a man, — The Duke grew straightway brave and wise. He looked at her, as a lover can ; She looked at him, as one who awakes : The past was a sleep, and her life began. Now, love so ordered for both their sakes, A feast was held, that self-same night. In the pile which the mighty shadow makes. THE STATUE AND THE BUST 121 (For Via Larga is three parts light, But the palace overshadows one, Because of a crime which may God requite ! To Florence and God the wrong was done, Through the first republic's murder there By Cosimo and his cursed son.) The Duke (with the statue's face in the square) Turned, in the midst of his multitude. At the bright approach of the bridal pair. Face to face the lovers stood A single minute and no more, While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued — "O Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor — For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred. As the courtly custom was of yore. In a minute can lovers exchange a word ? If a word did pass, which I do not think, Only one out of the thousand heard. That was the bridegroom. At day's brink He and his bride were alone at last In a bed-chamber by a taper's blink. Calmly he said that her lot was cast, That the door she had passed was shut on her Till the final catafalk repassed. The world meanwhile, its noise and stir. Through a certain window facing the East, She could watch like a convent's chronicler. Since passing the door might lead to a feast. And a feast might lead to so much beside, He, of many evils, chose the least. 122 THE STATUE AND THE BUST. *' Freely I choose too," said the bride : " Your window and its world suffice," Replied the tongue, while the heart replied — " If I spend the night with that devil twice, " May his window serve as my loop of hell " Whence a damned soul looks on paradise ! " t fly to the Duke who loves me well, " Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow " Ere I count another ave-bell. " 'T is only the coat of a page to borrow, " And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim, " And I save my soul — but not to-morrow " — (She checked herself and her eye grew dim) " My father tarries to bless my state : " I must keep it one day more for him. "Is one day more so long to wait ? " Moreover the Duke rides past, I know ; " We shall see each other, sure as fate." She turned on her side and slept. Just so ! So we resolve on a thing, and sleep : So did the lady, ages ago. That night the Duke said, " Dear or cheap " As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove " To body or soul, I will drain it deep." And on the morrow, bold with love, He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call, As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove) And smiled " 'T was a very funeral, " Your lady will think, this feast of ours, — " A shame to efface, whate'er befall ! i THE STATUE AND THE BUST. 123 " What if we break from the Amo bowers, " And try if Petraja, cool and green, " Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?" The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen On his steady brow and quiet mouth, Said, " Too much favour for me so mean ! " But, alas ! my lady leaves the South ; " Each \vind that comes from the Apennine " Is a menace to her tender youth : "Nor a way exists, the wise opine, " If she quits her palace twice this year, " To avert the flower of life's decline." Quoth the Duke, " A sage and a kindly fear. " Moreover Petraja is cold this spring : " Be our feast to-night as usual here ! " And then to himself—" Which night shall bring " Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool — " Or I am the fool, and thou art the king ! " Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool — " For to-night the Envoy arrives from France " Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool. " I need thee still and might miss perchance. " To-day is not wholly lost, beside, " With its hope of my lady's countenance : " For I ride — what should I do but ride ? " And, passing her palace, if I list, " May glance at its window — well betide ! ^ So said, so done : nor the lady missed One ray that broke from the ardent brow, Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed. 124 THE STATUE AND THE BUST. Be sure that each renewed the vow, No morrow's sun should arise and set And leave them then as it left them now. But next day passed, and next day yet, With still fresh cause to wait one day more Ere each leaped over the parapet. And still, as love's brief morning wore. With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh, They found love not as it seemed before. They thought it would work infallibly. But not in despite of heaven and earth : The rose would blow when the storm passed by. Meantime they could profit, in winter's dearth. By store of fruits that supplant the rose : The world and its ways have a certain worth : And to press a point while these oppose Were simply policy ; better wait : We lose no friends and we gain no foes. Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate. Who daily may ride and pass and look Where his lady watches behind the grate ! And she — she watched the square like a book Holding one picture and only one. Which daily to find she undertook : When the picture was reached the book was done, And she turned from the picture at night to scheme Of tearing it out for herself next sun. So weeks grew months, years ; gleam by gleam The glory dropped from their youth and love, And both perceived they had dreamed a dream ; THE STATUE AND THE BUST. 125 Which hovered as dreams do, still above : But who can take a dream for a truth ? Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove ! One day as the lady saw her youth Depart, and the silver thread that streaked Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth, The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked, — And wondered who the woman was, Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked Fronting her silent in the glass — " Summon here," she suddenly said, " Before the rest of my old self pass, " Him, the Carver, a hand to aid, " Who fashions the clay no love will change, " And fixes a beauty never to fade. " Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange " Arrest the remains of young and fair, " And rivet them while the seasons range. " Make me a face on the window there, " Waiting as ever, mute the while, " My love to pass below in the square ! " And let me think that it may beguile " Dreary days which the dead must spend '' Down in their darkness under the aisle, " To say, ' What matters it at the end ? " ' I did no more while my heart was warm " ' Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.' " Where is the use of the lip's red charm, " The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, " And the blood that blues the inside arm— 126 THE STATUE AND THE BUST. " Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, " The earthly gift to an end divine ? " A lady of clay is as good, I trow." But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace, Was set where now is the empty shrine— (And, leaning out of a bright blue space. As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky, The passionate pale lady's face — Eyeing ever, with earnest eye And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch, Some one who ever is passing by — ) The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch In Florence, *' Youth— my dream escapes ! " Will its record stay .?" And he bade them fetch Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes " Can the soul, the will, die out of a man " Ere his body finds the grave that gapes .? " John of Douay shall effect my plan, " Set me on horseback here aloft, " Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, " In the very square I have crossed so oft : . " That men may admire, when future suns " Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, " While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze- " Admire and say, ' When he was alive " ' How he would take his pleasure once ! ' " And it shall go hard but I contrive " To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb " At idleness which aspires to strive." I THE STATUE AND THE BUST. 127 So ! While these wait the trump of doom, How do their spirits pass, I wonder, Nights and days in the narrow room? Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder What a gift hfe was, ages ago. Six steps out of the chapel yonder. Only they see not God, I know, Nor all that chivalry of his, The soldier-saints who, row on row. Bum upward each to his point of bliss — Since, the end of life being manifest. He had burned his way thro' the world to this. I hear you reproach, " But delay was best, " For their end was a crime." — Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test, As a virtue golden through and through. Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view ! Must a game be played for the sake of pelf ? Where a button goes, 't were an epigram To offer the stamp of the very Guelph, The true has no value beyond the sham : As well the counter as coin, I submit, When your table 's a hat, and your prize, a dram. Stake your counter as boldly every whit, Venture as warily, use the same skill, Do your best, whether winning or losing it, If you choose to play ! — is my principle. Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will 128 THE STATUE AND THE BUST. The counter, our lovers staked, was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin : And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. You of the virtue (we issue join) How strive you ? De te^fabula ! . LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. I Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles. Miles and miles. On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop As they crop — y^^ ij^ Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say) Of our country's very capital, its prince, Ages since. Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war. II Now, — the country does not even boast a tree, As you see. To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills From the hills Intersect and give .a name to, (else they run Into one) Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. 129 O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall Bounding all, Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, Twelve abreast. Ill And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass Never was ! Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads And embeds Every vestige of the city, guessed alone. Stock or stone — ■ Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe Long ago ; Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame Struck them tame ; And that glory and that shame alike, the gold Bought and sold. IV Now, — the single little turret that remains On the plains. By the caper overrooted, by the gourd Overscored, While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Through the chinks — Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time Sprang sublime, And a hurning ring, all round, the chariots traced As they raced, And the monarch and his minions and his dames Viewed the games. V A nd I know — while tlius the quiet-coloured eve S miles to leave I. ' K 130 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. ,"<" T o their folding ^all our many tinkling fleece In such peace, A nd the slopes and rills in undistinguishe d_grey Melt_away:r=, That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair Waits me there In the turret when ce the charioteer s caught sou l For the goal, Wh en the king looked, where she looks now, breath- less, dumb Till I come. I VI But he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide. All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades, Colonnades, All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, — and then, All the men ! Whp n T do rnme, .she, will speak n ot, she will stand, Rith er hand On my should er^ givp v»p»- pypg tTip firc^^ f;rv V>race Of my fac e. Ere w e rush, ere w^ fxting'ii'^h gigVit- f)p d speech Each on each. VII In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North, And they built their gods a brazen pillar high majv- As the sky, \ JjJ Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force — y^. tj^ Gold, of course. --^rfl Oh heart ! oh blood that freezes, blood thaftfurns ! \\,^\ Earth's returns '^ LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. 131 For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin ! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest ! Love is best. TIMES REVENGES. I 'VE a Friend, over the sea ; I like him, but he loves me. It all grew out of the books I write ; They find such favour in his sight That he slaughters you with savage looks Because you don't admire my books. He does himself though, — and if some vein Were to snap to-night in this heavy brain, To-morrow month, if I lived to try, Round should I just turn quietly. Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand Till I found him, come from his foreign land To be my nurse in this poor place. And make my broth and wash my face And light my fire and, all the while. Bear with his old good-humoured smile That I told him " Better have kept away " Than come and kill me, night and day, " With, worse than fever throbs and shoots, " The creaking of his clumsy boots." 1 am as sure that this he would do, As that Saint Paul's is striking two. And I think I rather . . . woe is me ! — Yes, rather would see him than not see If lifting a hand could seat him there Before me in the empty chair To-night, when my head aches indeed, K 2 132 TIME'S REVENGES. j I And I can neither think nor read Nor make these purple fingers hold The pen ; this garret 's freezing cold ! And I 've a Lady — there he wakes The laughing fiend and prince of snakes Within me, at her name, to pray Fate send some creature in the way Of my love for her, to be down-torn, Upthrust and out ward -borne, | So I might prove myself that sea Of passion which I needs must be ! Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint And my style infirm and its figures faint. All the critics say, and more blame yet, And not one angry word you get. But, please you, wonder I would put My cheek beneath that lady's foot Rather than trample under mine The laurels of the Florentine, And you shall see how the devil spends A fire God gave for other ends ! I tell you, I stride up and down This garret, crowned with love's best crown, And feasted with love's perfect feast, j To think I kill for her, at least, " Body and soul and peace and fame. Alike youth's end and manhood's aim, — So is my spirit, as flesh with sin. Filled full, eaten out and in With the face of her, the eyes of her, The hps, the little chin, the stir Of shadow round her mouth ; and she —I '11 tell you,— calmly would decree That I should roast at a slow fire, If that would compass her desire TIME'S REVENGES. 133 And make Iicr one whom they invite To the famous ball to-morrow night. There may be heaven ; there must be hell ; Meantime, there is our earth here — well ! WARING. Since he gave us all the slip, Chose land-travel or seafearing, Boots and chest or staff and scrip, Rather than pace up and down Any longer London town ? II Who 'd have guessed it from his lip Or his brow's accustomed bearing, On the night he thus took ship Or started landward ? — little caring For us, it seems, who supped together (Friends of his too, I remember) And walked home thro' the merry weather, JThe snowiest in all December. I left his arm that night myself For what's-his-name's, the new prose-poet Who wrote the book there on the shelf — How, forsooth, was I to know it If Waring meant to glide away Like a ghost at break of day ? Never looked he half so gay ! 134 WARING. Ill He was prouder than the devil : How he must have cursed our revel ! Ay, and many other meetings, Indoor visits, outdoor greetings As up and down he paced this London, With no work done, but great works undone. Where scarce twenty knew his name. Why not, then, have earlier spoken. Written, bustled ? Who 's to blame If your silence kept unbroken ? " True, but there were sundry jottings, " Stray-leaves, fragments, blurrs and blottings, " Certain first steps were achieved " Already which "— (is that your meaning ?) " Had well borne out whoe'er believed "In more to come ! " But who goes gleaning Hedge-side chance-blades, while full-sheaved Stand cornfields by him ? Pride, o'erweening Pride alone, puts forth such claims O'er the day's distinguished names. Meantime, how much I loved him, I find out now I 've lost him. I who cared not if I moved him, Who could so carelessly accost him. Henceforth never shall get free Of his ghostly company, His eyes that just a little wink As deep I go into the merit Of this and that distinguished spirit — His cheeks' raised colour, soon to sink. As long I dwell on some stupendous And tremendous (Heaven defend us !) Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous WARING. 135 Demoniaco-seraphic Penman's latest piece of graphic. Nay, my very wrist grows warm With his dragging weight of arm. E'en so, swimmingly appears, Through one's after-supper musings, Some lost lady of old years With her beauteous vain endeavour And goodness unrepaid as ever ; The face, accustomed to refusings, We, puppies that we were . . . Oh never Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled Being aught like false, forsooth, to ? Telling aught but honest truth to ? What a sin, had we centupled Its possessor's grace and sweetness ! No ! she heard in its completeness Truth, for truth 's a weighty matter And, truth at issue, we can't flatter ! Well, 't is done with ; she 's exempt From damning us thro' such a sally ; And so she glides, as down a valley, Taking up with her contempt, Past our reach ; and in, the flowers Shut her unregarded hours. V Oh, could I have him back once more, This Waring, but one half-day more ! ~ Back, with the quiet face of yore, So hungry for acknowledgment Like mine ! I 'd fool him to his bent. Feed, should not he, to heart's content ? I 'd say, " to only have conceived, " Planned your great works, apart from progress, " Surpasses little works achieved ! " 136 WARING. I 'd lie so, I should be believed. I 'd make such havoc of the claims Of the day's distinguished names To feast him with, as feasts an ogress Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child ! Or as one feasts a creature rarely Captured here, unreconciled To capture ; and com.pletely gives Its pettish humours license, barely Requiring that it lives. VI Ichabod, Ichabod, The glory is departed ! Travels Waring East away ? Who, of knowledge, by hearsay, Reports a man upstarted Somewhere as a god, Hordes grown European-hearted, Millions of the wild made tame On a sudden at his fame ? In Vishnu-land what Avatar 1 Or who in Moscow, towards the Czar, With the demurest of footfalls Over the Kremlin's pavement bright With serpentine and syenite. Steps, with five other Generals That simultaneously take snuff. For each to have pretext enough And kerchiefwise unfold his sash Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff To hold fast where a steel chain snaps, And leave the grand white neck no gash .? Waring in Moscow, to those rough Cold northern natures borne perhaps, Like the lambwhite maiden dear WARING. 137 From the circle of mute kings Unable to repress the tear, Each as his sceptre clown he flings, To Dian's fame at Taurica, Where now a captive priestess, she alway Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach •. As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry Amid their barbarous twitter ! . In Russia? Never ! Spain were filter ! Ay, most likely 't is in Spain That we and Waring meet again Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid All fire and shine, abrupt as when there 's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall From some black coffin-lid. Or, best of all, I love to think The leaving us was just a feint ; Back here to London did he slink. And now works on without a wink Of sleep, and we are on the brink Of something great in fresco-paint : Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor, Up and down and o'er and o'er He splashes, as none splashed before Since great Caldara Polidore. Or Music means this land of ours Some favour yet, to pity won By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers, — " Give me my so-long promised son, " Let Waring end what I begun ! " Then down he creeps and out he steals, 138 WARING. ■ Only when the night conceals His face ; in Kent 't is cherry-time, Or hops are picking : or at prime Of March he wanders as, too happy. Years ago when he was young, Some mild eve when woods grew sappy And the early moths had sprung To life from many a trembling sheath Woven the warm boughs beneath ; While small birds said to themselves What should soon be actual song. And young gnats, by tens and twelves Made as if they were the throng That crowd around and carry aloft The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure. Out of a myriad noises soft. Into a tone that can endure Amid the noise of a July noon When all God's creatures crave their boon. All at once, and all in tune, And get it, happy as Waring then. Having first within his ken What a man might do with men : And far too glad, in the even-glow, To mix with the world he meant to take Into his hand, he told you, so — And out of it his world to make, To contract and to expand As he shut or oped his hand. Oh Waring, what 's to really be ? A clear stage and a crowd to see ! Some Garrick, say, out shall not he The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck ? Or, where most unclean beasts are rife, Some Junius — am I right ? — shall tuck His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife ! WARING. 139 Some Chatterton shall have the luck Of calling Rowley into life ! Someone shall somehow run a muck With this old world, for want of strife Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive To rouse us, Waring ! Who 's alive ? Our men scarce seem in earnest now. Distinguished names ! but 't is, somehow, As if they played at being names Still more distinguished, like the games Of children. Turn our sport to earnest With a visage of the sternest ! Bring the real times back, confessed Still better than our very best ! II I " When I last saw Waring . . ." (How all turned to him who spoke ! You saw Waring ? Truth or joke ? In land-travel or sea-faring ?) II " We were sailing by Triest " Where a day or two we harboured : " A sunset was in the West, " When, looking over the vessel's side, ^" One of our company espied " A sudden speck to larboard. " And as a sea-duck flies and swims " At once, so came the light craft up, " With its sole lateen sail that trims " And turns (the water round its rims *' Dancing, as round a sinking cup) " And by us like a fish it curled. I40 WARING. " And drew itself up close beside, " Its great sail on the instant furled, " And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried, " (A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's) " ' Buy wine of us, you English Brig ? " ' Or fruit, tobacco and cigars ? " ' A pilot for you to Triest ? " ' Without one, look you ne'er so big, " ' They '11 never let you up the bay ! " ' We natives should know best.' " I turned, and ' just those fellows' way,' " Our captain said, ' The 'long-shore thieves " ' Are laughing at us in their sleeves.' Ill " In truth, the boy leaned laughing back ; " And one, half- hidden by his side " Under the furled sail, soon I spied, " With great grass hat and kerchief black, " Who looked up with his kingly throat, " Said somewhat, while the other shook " His hair back from his eyes to look " Their longest at us ; then the boat, " I know not how, turned sharply round, " Laying her whole side on the sea " As a leaping fish does ; from the lee " Into the weather, cut somehow " Her sparkling path beneath our bow, " And so went off, as with a bound, " Into the rosy and golden half " O' the sky, to overtake the sun " And reach the shore, like the sea-calf " Its singing cave ; yet I caught one " Glance ere away the boat quite passed, " And neither time nor toil could mar " Those features : so I saw the last WARING. 141 " Of Waring ! " — You ? Oh, never star Was lost here but it rose afar ! Look East, where whole new thousands arc ! In Vishnu-land what Avatar? HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD. Oh, to be in England now that April 's there, And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England— now ! And after April, when May follows And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows ! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge — That 's the wise thrush : he sings each song twice over Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture ! And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower — Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower ! THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. That second time they hunted me From hill to plain, from shore to sea, And Austria, hounding far and wide 142 THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side, Breathed hot and instant on my trace. — I made, six days, a hiding-place Of that dry green old aqueduct Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked The fire-flies from the roof above, Bright creeping thro' the moss they love : —How long it seems since Charles was lost ! Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed The country in my very sight ; And when that peril ceased at night, The sky broke out in red dismay With signal-fires. Well, there I lay Close covered o'er in my recess, Up to the neck in ferns and cress. Thinking on Metternich our friend, And Charles's miserable end. And much beside, two days ; the third. Hunger o'ercame me when I heard The peasants from the village go To work among the maize : you know. With us in Lombardy, they bring Provisions packed on mules, a string, With little bells that cheer their task. And casks, and boughs on every cask To keep the sun's heat from the wine ; These I let pass in jingling line, And, close on them, dear noisy crew. The peasants from the village, too ; For at the very rear would troop Their wives and sisters in a group To help, I knew ; when these had passed, I threw my glove to strike the last. Taking the chance : she did not start, Much less cry out, but stooped apart. One instant rapidly glanced round, THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. 143 And saw me beckon from the ground. A wild bush grows and hides my crypt ; She picked my glove up while she stripped A branch off, then rejoined the rest With that ; my glove lay in her breast : Then I drew breath ; they disappeared : It was for Italy I feared. An hour, and she returned alone Exactly where my glove was thrown. Meanwhile came many thoughts ; on me Rested the hopes of Italy ; I had devised a certain tale Which, when 't was told her, could not fail Persuade a peasant of its truth ; I meant to call a freak of youth This hiding, and give hopes of pay, And no temptation to betray. But when I saw that woman's face. Its calm simplicity of grace, Our Italy's own attitude In which she walked thus far, and stood, Planting each naked foot so firm. To crush the snake and spare the worm — At first sight of her eyes, I said, " I am that man upon whose head " They fix the price, because I hate " The Austrians over us ; the State " Will give you gold — oh, gold so much ! — " If you betray me to their clutch, " And be your death, for aught I know, " If once they find you saved their foe. " Now, you must bring me food and drink, " And also paper, pen and ink, " And carry safe what I shall write " To Padua, which you 11 reach at night 144 THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. " Before the duomo shuts ; go in, " And wait till Tenebree begin ; " Walk to the third confessional, " Between the pillar and the wall, " And kneeling whisper, Whence comes peace ^i " Say it a second time, then cease ; " And if the voice inside returns, " From Christ and Ft'ecdomj what co7icerns " The cause of Peace? — for answer, slip " My letter where you placed your lip ; " Then come back happy we have done " Our mother service — I, the son, " As you the daughter of our land ! " Three mornings more, she took her stand In the same place, with the same eyes : I was no surer of sun-rise Than of her coming : we conferred Of her own prospects, and I heard She had a lover — stout and tall, She said— then let her eyelids fall, " He could do much " — as if some doubt Entered her heart, — then, passing out, " She could not speak for others, who " Had other thoughts ; herself she knew : ' And so she brought me drink and food. After four days, the scouts pursued Another path ; at last arrived The help my Paduan friends contrived To furnish me : she brought the news. For the first time I could not choose But kiss her hand, and lay my own Upon her head — " This faith was shown " To Italy, our mother ; she " Uses my hand and blesses thee." THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. 145 She followed down to the sea-shore ; I left and never saw her more. How very long since I have thought Concerning — much less wished for — aught Beside the good of Italy, For which I live and mean to die ! I never was in love ; and since Charles proved false, what shall now convince My inmost heart I have a friend ? However, if I pleased to spend Real wishes on myself — say, three — I know at least what one should be. I would grasp Metternich until I felt his red wet throat distil In blood thro' these two hands. And next, — Nor much for that am I perplexed — Charles, perjured traitor, for his part, Should die slow of a broken heart Under his new employers. Last — Ah, there, what should I wish 1 For fast Do I grow old and out of strength. If I resolved to seek at length My father's house again, how scared They all would look, and unprepared ! My brothers live in Austria's pay — Disowned me long ago, men say ; And all my early mates who used To praise me so — perhaps induced -More than one early step of mine — Are turning wise : while some opine " Freedom grows license," some suspect " Haste breeds delay," and recollect They always said, such premature Beginnings never could endure ! So, with a sullen " All 's for best," I. L 146 THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. The land seems settling to its rest. I think then, I should wish to stand This evening in that dear, lost land, Over the sea the thousand miles, And know if yet that woman smiles With the calm smile ; some little farm She lives in there, no doubt : what harm If I sat on the door-side bench. And while her spindle made a trench Fantastically in the dust, Inquired of all her fortunes — ^just Her children's ages and their names. And what may be the husband's aims For each of them. I 'd talk this out, And sit there, for an hour about. Then kiss her hand once more, and lay Mine on her head, and go my way. So much for idle wishing — how It steals the time ! To business now. THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. PIANO DI SORRENTO. FORTlJ, Fortu, my beloved one, sit here by my side. On my knees put up both little feet ! I am sure, if 1 tried, I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco. Now, open your eyes, Let me keep you amused, till he vanish in black from the skies. With telling my memories over, as you tell your beads ; All the Plain saw me gather, I garland— the flowers or the weeds. THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. 147 Time for rain ! for your long hot dry Autumn had net- worked with brown The white skin of each grape on the bunches, marked hke a quail's crown, Those creatures you make such account of, whose heads, — specked with white Over brown like a great spider's back, as I told you lasx night,— Your mother bites off for her supper. Red-ripe as could be, Pomegranates were chapping and splitting in halves on the tree. And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone, or in the thick dust On the path, or straight out of the rock-side, wherever could thrust Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower its yellow face up. For the prize were great butterflies fighting, some five for one cup. So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning, what change was in store. By the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets which woke me before I could open my shutter, made fast with a bough and a stone. And look through the twisted dead vine-twigs, sole lattice that 's known. Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles, while, ~busy beneath, Your priest and his brother tugged at them, the rain in their teeth. And out upon all the flat house-roofs, where split figs lay drying, The girls took the frails under cover : nor use seemed in trying L 2 148 THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. To get out the boats and go fishing, for, under the cUff, Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind-rock. No seeing our skiff Arrive about noon from Amalfi ! — our fisher arrive, And pitch down his basket before us, all trembling alive, With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit ; you touch the strange lumps. And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner of horns and of humps. Which only the fisher looks grave at, while round him like imps. Cling screaming the children as naked and brown as his shrimps ; Himself too as bare to the middle— you see round his neck The string and its brass coin suspended, that saves him from wreck. But to-day not a, boat reached Salerno : so back, to a man, Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards grape- harvest began. In the vat, halfway up in our house-side, like blood the juice spins. While your brother all bare-legged is dancing till breath- less he grins Dead-beaten in effort on effort to keep the grapes under, Since still, when he seems all but master, in pours the fresh plunder From girls who keep coming and going with basket on shoulder, And eyes shut against the rain's driving ; your girls that are older, — For under the hedges of aloe, and where, on its bed Of the orchard's black mould, the love-apple lies pulpy and red, THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. 149 All the young ones are kneeling and filling their laps with the snails Tempted out by this first rainy weather, — your best of regales, As to-night will be proved to my sorrow, when, supping in state, We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen, three over one plate) With lasagne so tempting to swallow in slippery ropes. And gourds fried in great purple slices, that colour of popes. Meantime, see the grape bunch they 've brought you : the rain-water slips O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe which the wasp to your lips Still follows with fretful persistence. Nay, taste, while awake, This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball that peels, flake by flake. Like an onion, each smoother and whiter : next, sip this weak wine From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper, a leaf of the vine ; And end with the prickly pear's red flesh that leaves thro' its juice The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth. Scirocco is loose ! Hark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives which, thick ~in one's track. Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them, tho' not yet half black ! How the old twisted olive trunks shudder, the medlars let fall Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees snap off, figs and all, ISO THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. For here comes the whole of the tempest ! no refuge, but creep Back again to my side and my shoulder, and listen or sleep. O how will your country show next week, when all the vine-boughs Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture the mules and the cows ? Last eve, I rode over the mountains ; your brother, my guide, Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles that offered, each side, Their fruit-balls, black, glossy, and luscious, — or strip from the sorbs A treasure, or, rosy and wondrous, those hairy gold orbs ! But my mule picked his sure sober path out, just stopping to neigh When he recognised down in the valley his mates on their way With the faggots and barrels of water. And soon we emerged From the plain where the woods could scarce follow ; and still, as we urged Our way, the woods wondered, and left us. Up, up still we trudged. Though the wild path grew wilder each instant, and place was e'en grudged Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones like the loose broken teeth Of some monster which climbed there to die, from the ocean beneath— Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed that clung to the path. And dai-k rosemary ever a-dying, that, 'spite the wind's wrath, THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. 151 So loves the salt rock's face to seaward : and lentisks as staunch To the stone where they root and bear berries : and . , . what shows a branch Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets of pale seagreen leaves ; Over all trod my mule with the caution of gleaners o'er sheaves. Still, foot after foot like a lady, still, round after round, He climbed to the top of Calvano : and God's own pro- found Was above me, and round me the mountains, and under, the sea, And within me my heart to bear witness what was and shall be. Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal ! no rampart excludes Your eye from the life to be lived in the blue solitudes. Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement ! still moving with you ; For, ever some new head and breast of them thrusts into view To observe the intruder ; you see it, if quickly you turn And, before they escape you, surprise them. They grudge you should learn How the soft plains they look on, lean over and love (they pretend) — Cower beneath them, the black sea-pine crouches, the wild fruit-trees bend. E'en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut : all is silent ~ and grave : 'T is a sensual and timorous beauty, — how fair ! but a slave. So, I turned to the sea ; and there slumbered, as greenly as ever Those isles of the siren, your Galli. No ages can sever The Three, nor enable their sister to join them, — halfway 152 THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses— no farther to-day ! Tho' the small one, just launched in the wave, watches breast-high and steady From under the rock her bold sister, swum halfway already. Fortu, shall we sail there together, and see, from the sides, Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts where the siren abides ? Shall we sail round and round them, close over the rocks, tho' unseen. That ruffle the grey glassy water to glorious green ? Then scramble from splinter to splinter, reach land, and explore. On the largest, the strange square black turret with never a door, Just a loop to admit the quick lizards ? Then, stand there and hear The birds' quiet singing, that tells us what life is, so clear ? — The secret they sang to Ulysses when, ages ago. He heard and he knew this life's secret, I hear and I know. Ah, see ! The sun breaks o'er Calvano. He strikes the great gloom And flutters it o'er the mount's summit in airy gold fume. All is over. Look out, see, the gipsy, our tinker and smith, Has arrived, set up bellows and forge, and down-squatted forthwith To his hammering under the wall there ! One eye keeps aloof The urchins that itch to be putting his jews'-harp to proof, THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. 153 While the other, thro' locks of curled wire, is watching how sleek Shines the hog, come to share in the windfall. Chew, abbot's own cheek ! All is over. Wake up and come out now, and down let us go. And see the fine things got in order at church for the show Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening. To-morrow's the Feast Of the Rosary's Virgin, by no means of Virgins the least : As you '11 hear in the off-hand discourse which (all nature, no art) The Dominican brother, these three weeks, was getting by heart. Not a pillar nor post but is dizened with red and blue papers ; All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar a-blaze with long tapers. But the great masterpiece is the scaffold rigged glorious to hold All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers and trumpeters bold Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber : who, when the priest 's hoarse. Will strike us up something that 's brisk for the feast's second course. And then will the flaxen-wigged Image be carried in ~ pomp Thro' the plain, while, in gallant procession, the priests mean to stomp. All round the glad church lie old bottles with gunpowder stopped. Which will be, when the Image re-enters, religiously popped. 154 THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. And at night from the crest of Calvano great bonfires will hang : On the plain will the trumpets join chorus, and more poppers bang. At all events, come— to the garden, as far as the wall ; See me tap with a hoe on the plaster, till out there shall fall A scorpion with wide angry nippers ! — " Such trifles ! " you say ? Fortu, in my England at home, men meet gravely to-day A.nd debate, if abolishing Corn-laws be righteous and wise ! —If 't were proper, Scirocco should vanish in black from the skies ! UP AT A VILLA-DOWN IN THE CITY. (AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY.) I Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city- square ; Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there ! II Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least ! There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast ; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast. Ill Well now, look at our villa ! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull, UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY. 155 Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull ! — I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair 's turned wool. IV But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses ! Why? They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there 's something to take the eye ! Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry ; You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by ; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high ; And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly. V What of a villa.'' Though winter be over in March by rights, 'T is May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights : You 've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze. And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint grey olive- trees. VI Is it better in May, I ask you 1 You 've summer all at once ; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. 156 UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY. VII Is it ever hot in the square ? There 's a fountain to spout and splash ! In the shade it sings and springs ; in the shine such foam-bows flash On the horses with curHng fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash, Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash. VIII All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle. Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is .shrill, And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. Enough of the seasons,— I spare you the months of the fever and chill. IX Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church- bells begin : No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in : You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. By and by there 's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth ; UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY. 157 Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. At the post-office such a scene-picture — the new play, piping hot ! And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's ! Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome and Cicero, " And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) " the skirts of St. Paul has reached, " Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached." Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession ! our Lady borne smiling and smart, With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart ! Batig-whang-whajig goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife; No keeping one's haunches still : it 's the greatest pleasure in life. But bless you, it 's dear — it 's dear ! fowls, wine, at double the rate. They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate It 's a horror to think of And so, the villa for me, not the city ! Beggars can scarcely be choosers : but still — ah, the pity, the pity ! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals. 158 UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY. And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles ; One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals : Bang-ivhang-whang go&% the drum, tootle-te-tootlethe. fife. Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life! PIC TOR IGNOTUS. FLORENCE, I 5 — . I COULD have painted pictures like that youth's Ye praise so. How my soul springs up ! No bar Stayed me — ah, thought which saddens while it soothes ! — Never did fate forbid me, star by star, To outburst on your night, with all my gift Of fires from God : nor would my flesh have shrunk From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk To the centre, of an instant ; or around Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan The license and the limit, space and bound, Allowed to truth made visible in man. And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw. Over the canvas could my hand have flung, Each face obedient to its passion's law, Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue. Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace. Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place ; Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved, — PIC TOR IGNOTUS. 159 O human faces, hath it spilt, my cup ? What did ye give me that I have not saved ? Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well !) Of going — I, in each new picture, — forth, As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, Bound for the calmly satisfied great State, Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went. Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, Through old streets named afresh from the event, Till it reached home, where learned age should greet My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct Above his hair, lie learning at my feet ! — Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked With love about, and praise, till life should end, And then not go to heaven, but linger here. Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend. The thought grew frightful, 't was so wildly dear ! But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights Have scared me, like the revels through a door Of some strange house of idols at its rites ! This world seemed not the world it was, before. Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped . . . Who summoned those cold faces that begun To press on me and judge me ? Though I stooped Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun. They drew me forth, and spite of me . . enough ! These buy and sell our pictures, take and give. Count them for garniture and household-stuff, And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate, Partakers of their daily pettiness. Discussed of,— "This I love, or this I hate, "This likes me more, and this affects me less ! " Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint i6o PIC TOR IGNOTUS. These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint- With the same cold calm beautiful regard, — At least no merchant trafifics in my heart ; The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart : Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. So, die my pictures ! surely, gently die ! O youth, men praise so,— holds their praise its worth ? Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry ? Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth ? FRA LIPPO LIPPI. I AM poor brother Lippo, by your leave ! You need not clap your torches to my face. Zooks, what 's to blame .? you think you see a monk ! What, 't is past midnight, and you go the rounds, And here you catch me at an alley's end Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar ? The Carmine 's my cloister : hunt it up, Do,— harry out, if you must show your zeal, Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole. And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, Weke, weke, that 's crept to keep him company ! Aha, you know your betters } Then, you '11 take Your hand away that 's fiddling on my throat, And please to know me likewise. Who am 1 1 Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend Three streets off— he 's a certain . . . how d' ye call ? Master— a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, FRA LIPPO LIPPI. l6l I' the house that caps the corner. Boh ! you were best ! Remember and tell me, the day you 're hanged, How you affected such a gullet's-gripe ! But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves Pick up a manner, nor discredit you : Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets And count fair prize what comes into their net ? He 's Judas to a tittle, that man is ! Just such a face ! Why, sir, you make amends. Lord, I 'm not angry ! Bid your hangdogs go Drink out this quarter-florin to the health Of the munificent House that harbours me (And many more beside, lads ! more beside !) And all 's come square again. I 'd like his face — His, elbowing on his comrade in the door With the pike and lantern, — for the slave that holds John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair With one hand (" Look you, now," as who should say) And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped ! It 's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, A wood-coal or the like ? or you should see ! Yes, I 'm the painter, since you style me so. What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, You know them, and they take you ? like enough ! I saw the proper twinkle in your eye — 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. Let 's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. Here 's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands To roam the town and sing out carnival. And I 've been three weeks shut within my mew, A-painting for the great man, saints and saints And saints again. I could not paint all night — Ouf ! I leaned out of window for fresh air. There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song, — Flower d the broom, I. M l62 FRA LIPPO LIPPI. Take away love, and our earth is a tomb ! Flower d the quince, I let Lisa go, and what good in life since ? Flower d the thyme — and so on. Round they went. Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter Like the skipping of rabbits by moonhght, — three sliir. shapes, And a face that looked up . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood, That 's all I 'm made of ! Into shreds it went. Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, All the bed-furniture — a dozen knots, There was a ladder ! Down I let myself. Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, And after them. I came up with the fun Hard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well met, — Flower d the rose. If I ^ve been merry, what matter who knows f And so, as I was stealing back again, To get to bed and have a bit of sleep Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast .. With his great round stone to subdue the flesh, "^ You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see ! Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head — Mine 's shaved^a monk, you say— the sting 's in that ! If Master Cosimo announced himself. Mum 's the word naturally ; but a monk ! Come, what am I a beast for .? tell us, now ! I was a baby when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. I starved there, God knows how, a year or two On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks. Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day. My stomach being empty as your hat. The wind doubled me up and down I went. Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, FRA LIPPO LI PPL 163 (Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew) And so along the wall, over the bridge, By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, While I stood munching my first bread that month : " So, boy, you 're minded," quoth the good fat father Wiping his own mouth, 't was refection-time, — " To quit this very miserable world ? " Will you renounce " . . , " the mouthful of bread ? " thought I ; By no means ! Brief, they made a monk of me ; I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, Palace, farm, villa, shop and banking-house. Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici Have given their hearts to — all at eight years old. Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 'T was not for nothing — the good bellyful, v^The warm serge and the rope that goes all round, ^__j And day-long blessed idleness beside ! "jj:^" Let 's see what the urchin 's fit for" — that came next. Not overmuch their way, I must confess. Such a to-do ! They tried me with their books : Lord, they 'd have taught me Latin in pure waste ! Flower d the clove. All the Latin I const)-iic is, " Anio " / love / But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets Eight years together, as my fortune was. Watching folk's faces to know who will fling The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, And who will curse or kick him for his pains, — Which gentleman processional and fine, Holding a candle to the Sacrament, Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch The droppings of the wax to sell again, Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, — How say I ? — nay, which dog bites, which lets drop His bone from the heap of offal in the street, — M 2 I64 FRA LIPPO LIPPI. Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, He learns the look of things, and none the less For admonition from the hunger-pinch. I had a store of such remarks, be sure, Which, after I found leisure, turned to use : I drew men's faces on my copy-books. Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes, Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's And made a string of pictures of the world Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun. On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black. " Nay," quoth the Prior, " turn him out, d' ye say 1 " In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. " What if at last we get our man of parts, " We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese " And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine " And put the front on it that ought to be ! " And hereupon he bade me daub away. Thank you ! my head being crammed, the walls a blank, Never was such prompt disemburdening. First every sort of monk, the black and white, I drew them, fat and lean : then, folks at church. From good old gossips waiting to confess Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, — To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot. Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there With the little children round him in a row Of admiration, half for his beard, and half For that white anger of his victim's son Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, Signing himself with the other because of Christ (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this After the passion of a thousand years) Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, FRA LIPPO LI PPL 165 (Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, Her pair of ear-rings and a bunch of flowers (The brute took growling) prayed, and so was gone. I painted all, then cried, " 'T is ask and have ; " Choose, for more 's ready ! " — laid the ladder flat, And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. The monks closed in a circle and praised loud Till checked, taught what to see and not to see, Being simple bodies, — " That 's the very' man ! " Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog ! " That woman 's like the Prior's niece who comes " To care about his asthma : it 's the life ! " But thert my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked ; Their betters took their turn to see and say : The Prior and the learned pulled a face And stopped all that in no time. " How ! what 's here ? " Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all ! " Faces, arms, legs and bodies like the true " As much as pea and pea ! it 's devil's game ! " Your business is not to catch men with show, " With homage to the perishable clay, " But lift them over it, ignore it all, " Make them forget there 's such a thing as flesh. " Your business is to paint the souls of men — " Man's soul, and it 's a fire, smoke . . no, it 's not . . " It 's vapour done up like a new-born babe — " (In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) " It 's . . well, what matters talking, it 's the soul ! " Give'^us no more of body than shows soul ! " Here's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, " That sets up praising,— why not stop with him .^ " W^hy put all thoughts of praise out of our head " With wonder at lines, colours, and what not ? " Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms ! " Rub all out, try at it a second time ! i66 FRA LIPPO LIPPI. " Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts, " She 's just my niece . , . Herodias, I would say, — " Who went and danced, and got men's heads cut off ! " Have it all out ! " Now, is this sense, I ask? A fine way to paint soul, by painting body So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further And can't fare worse ! Thus, yellow does for white When what you put for yellow 's simply black, And any sort of meaning looks intense When all beside itself means and looks nought. Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn, Left foot and right foot, go a double step, Make his flesh liker and his soul more like. Both in their order ? Take the prettiest face, The Prior's niece . . . patron-saint — is it so pretty You can't discover if it means hope, fear. Sorrow or joy ? won't beauty go with these ? Suppose I 've made her eyes all right and blue. Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash. And then add soul and heighten them threefold ? Or say there 's beauty with no soul at all — (I never saw it — put the case the same — ) If you get simple beauty and nouo'hi- pI'^p.,- Yon get about the best thing Gnd inveni s : That 's somewhat :^ and you '11 find the soul you have missed, Within youri^elf, when vou return him thank s. " Rub all out ! " Well, well, there 's my life, in short, And so the thing has gone on ever since. I 'm grown a man no doubt, I 've broken bounds : You should not take a fellow eight years old And make him swear to never kiss the girls. I 'm my own master, paint now as I please — Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house ! Lord, it 's fast holding by the rings in front — Those great rings serve more purposes than just FRA LIPPO LI PPL 167 To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse ! And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work. The heads shake still — " It 's art's decline, my son ! " You 're not of the true painters, great and old ; " Brother Angelico 's the man, you '11 find ; " Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer : " Fag on at flesh, you '11 never make the third ! " Flower d the pine, Yoii keep yoiirmistr . . . manners, and V II stick to mine ! I 'm not the third, then : bless us, they must know ! Don't you think they 're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin ? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them — sometimes do, and sometimes don't ; For, doing most, there 's pretty sure to come A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints — A laugh, a cry, the business of the world — {Flower d' the peach, Death for us all, and his own life for each /) And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over. The world and life 's too big to pass for a dream. And I do these wild things in sheer despite, And play the fooleries you catch me at, In pure rage ! The old mill-horse, out at grass After hard years, throws up his stiff" heels so. Although the miller does not preach to him The only good of grass is to make chafif. What would men have ? Do they like grass or no — May" they or may n't they ? all I want 's the thing Settled for ever one way. As it is. You tell too many lies and hurt yourself : Yon don't like what you only like too much. You do like what, if given you at your word, You find abundantly detestable. For me, I think I speak as I was taught : I68 FRA LIPPO LIPFL • I always see the garden, and God there A-making man's wife : and, my lesson learned, The value and significance of flesh, I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards. You understand me : I 'm a beast, I know. But see, now — why, I see as certainly As that the morning-star 's about to shine. What will hap some day. We 've a youngster here Comes to our convent, studies what I do. Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop : His name is Guidi — he '11 not mind the monks — They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk — He picks my practice up — he '11 paint apace, I hope so — though I never live so long, I know what 's sure to follow. You be judge ! -You speak no Latin more than I, belike ; However, you 're my man, yon 've seen the world — The beauty and the wonder and the power, The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades, Changes, surprises, — and God made it all ! — For what .'' Do you feel thankful, ay or no. For this fair town's face, yonder river's line. The mountain round it and the sky above, Much more the figures of man, woman, child, These are the frame to ? What 's it all about .'' To be passed over, despised ? or dwelt upon. Wondered at? oh, this last of course ! — you sav;,,^^- But why not do as well as say, — paint these Just as they are, careless what comes of it ? God's works — paint any one, and count it crime To let a truth slip. Don't object, " His works " Are here already ; nature is complete : " Suppose you reproduce her — (which you can't) " There 's no advantage ! you must beat her, then." For, don't you mark ? we 're made so that we love FRA LIPPO LI PPL 169 First when we see th em painted, things we have passed Terhaps a hundred times nor cared to see ; And so t he y are better, pain t^e_d.-=]2etter ^ to us, Which is the ^amp thing- , _Art was given fo r that '^ God uses us to help ea cli other so, Lending- our minds out . Have you noticed, now, Your culHon's hanging face ? A bit of chalk. And trust me but you should, though ! How much more If I drew higher things with the same truth ! That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place. Interpret God to all of you ! Oh, oh. It makes me mad to see what men shall do And we in our graves ! This world 's no blot for us Nor blank ; it means intensely, and means good : To find its meaning is my meat and drink. " Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer ! " Strikes in the Prior : " when your meaning 's plain " It does not say to folks — remember matins, " Or, mind you fast next Friday ! " Why, for this What need of art at all 'i A skull and bones. Two bits of stick nailed cross-wise, or, what 's best, A bell to chime the hour with, does as .well. I painted a St. Laurence six months since At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style : " How looks my painting, now the scaffold 's down .'"' I ask a brother : " Hugely," he returns — " Already not one phiz of your three slaves " Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, " Buf's scratched and prodded to our heart's content, " The pious people have so eased their own " With coming to say prayers there in a rage : " We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. " Expect another job this time ftext year, " For pity and religion grow i' the crowd — " Your painting serves its purpose ! " Hang the fools ! I70 /^RA LIPPO LIPPI. — That is— you '11 not mistake an idle word Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, Got wot, Tasting the air this spicy night which turns The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine ! Oh, the church knows ! don't misreport me, now ! It 's natural a poor monk out of bounds Should have his apt word to excuse himself : And hearken how I plot to make amends. I have bethought me : I shall paint a piece . . . There 's for you ! Give me six months, then go, see Something in Sant' Ambrogio's ! Bless the nuns ! They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint God in the midst. Madonna and her babe. Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood. Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet As puff on puff of grated orris-root When ladies crowd to church at midsummer. And then i' the front, of course a saint or two — St. John, because he saves the Florentines, St. Ambrose, who puts down in black and white The convent's friends and gives them a long day, And Job, I must have him there past mistake. The man of Uz, (and Us without the z. Painters who need his patience.) Well, all these Secured at their devotion, up shall come Out of a corner when you least expect. As one by a dark stair into a great light. Music and talking, who but Lippo ! I ! — Mazed, motionless and moon-struck— I 'm the man ! Back I shrink— what is this I see and hear 1 I, caught up with my monk's things by mistake, My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, I, in this presence, this pure company ! Where 's a hole, where 's a corner for escape ? Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing Forward, puts out a soft palm—" Not so fast ! " FRA LIPPO LI PPL 171 — Addresses the celestial presence, " nay — " He made you and devised you, after all, " Though he 's none of you ! Could Saint John there, draw — " His camel-hair make up a painting-brush ? " We come to brother Lippo for all that, " Iste perfecit opus ! " So, all smile — I shuffle sideways with my blushing face Under the cover of a hundred wings Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you 're gay And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut, Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops The hothead husband ! Thus I scuttle off To some safe bench behind, not letting go The palm of her, the little lily thing That spoke the good word for me in the nick, Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would say. And so all 's saved for me, and for the church A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence ! Your hand, sir, and good bye : no lights, no lights ! The street 's hushed, and I know my own way back, Don't fear me ! There '5 the grey beginning. Zooks ! ANDREA DEL SARTO. (called "the faultless painter.") But do not let us quarrel any more. No, my Lucrezia ! bear with me for once : Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart ? I '11 work then for your friend's friend, never fear, Treat his own subject after his own way, Fix his own time, accept too his own price, And shut the money into this small hand 172 ANDREA DEL SARTO. When next it takes mine. Will it ? tenderly ? Oh, I '11 content him, — but to-morrow, Love i I often am much wearier than you think, This evening more than usual : and it seems As if— forgive now — should you let me sit Here by the window, with your hand in mine, And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, Both of one mind, as married people use. Quietly, quietly the evening through, I might get up to-morrow to my work Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this ! Your soft hand is a woman of itself. And mine, the man's bared breast she curls inside. Don't count the time lost, neither ; you must serve For each of the five pictures we require : It saves a model. So ! keep looking so — My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds ! — How could you ever prick those perfect ears, Even to put the pearl there ! oh, so sweet — My face, my moon, my everybody's moon. Which everybody looks on and calls his, And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn. While she looks— no one's : very dear, no less. You smile ? why, there 's my picture ready made. There 's what we painters call our harmony ! A common greyness silvers everything, — All in a twilight, you and I alike — You, at the point of your first pride in me (That 's gone, you know) — but I, at every point ; My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. There 's the bell clinking from the chapel-top ; That length of convent-wall across the way Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside ; The last monk leaves the garden ; days decrease, ANDREA DEL SARTO. I73 And autumn grows, autumn in everything. Eh ? the whole seems to fall into a shape, As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead ; So free we seem, so fettered fast we are ! I feel he laid the fetter : let it lie ! This chamber, for example — turn your head — All that 's behind us ! You don't understand Nor care to understand about my art, But you can hear at least when people speak : And that cartoon, the second from the door — It is the thing. Love ! so such things should be : Behold Madonna ! — I am bold to say. I can do with my pencil what I know, What I see, what at bottom of my heart I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, I do not boast, perhaps : yourself are judge, Who listened to the Legate's talk last week ; And just as much they used to say in France. At any rate 'tis easy, all of it ! ^ y - No sketches first, no studies, that 's long past : jL jrvJ^ /i/ I do what many dream of, all t heir lives, ^~'y^ r~^ j<9'M/^ — Dream ? strive tn dn, and agonise to dn, ^^^ ' Aiid fail in doing. I could count twenty such On twice your fingers, and not leave this town. Who strive — you don't know how the others strive To^paint a little thing like that you smeared Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, — j Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, / Jf (I know his name, no matter) — so much less ! / - ^^jTvJ^ Well, le ss is more, Lucrezij . : I am iudL'-ed. T^^\f_ Q IcT^ Th ere b urns a truer light of God in them, ' (J — ^ n their vexed beatmg stutfed and stopped-up brain. 174 ANDREA DEL SARTO. ,>^v*~ Heart , or whate'er else, than goes on tn prnmpt: . f- f*"^ T his low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of m inei_ \ |/^ ThpJr wnrl-g ^rr»p CTrrmnrlw^j- f^^ hut thfii -n'JPlvPS, T Vnnvv^ ' '^ Reach many a time a heaven that 's shut to me, ^ .<\^ ^t^t ^ Enter and take their place there sure enough, Though they come back and cannot tell the world. My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. The sudden blood of these men ! at a word — Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. I, painting from myself and to myself. Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken ; what of that ? or else, Rightly traced and well ordered ; what of that ? Speak as they please, what does the mountain care ? Ahjjjut a man's reach should exceed his gr; Or what 's a heaven fo r ? All is silver-gre y. P lacid and perfectwith rny ?^rt : the worse ! I know both wh'at Iwant and what might gam And yet how profitless to know, to sigh lcV\ "Had I been two, another and myself, ^*'*'t<-l^