ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY AND OTHER POEMS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Crown Svo, cloth, 6s. THE GREAT QUESTION and other Sermons. "These sermons have a vividness and a certain natural splendour which raises them far above the level of many even equally thoughtful productions. They have true life in them, and they are illustrated with references to history and literature, which keep up the close attention of the reader." Spectator. "To those who value sound theological and moral teaching, expressed in language of rare eloquence and power, we can safely recommend the study of this new volume of sermons by BISHOP ALEXANDER." John Bull. LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & Co. ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY AND OTHER POEMS ie, 5bs \6yov e&pvQpov els rd aT&^a. /xou. ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY AND OTHER POEMS BY WILLIAM ALEXANDER, D.D., D.C.L. BISHOP OF DERRY AND RAPHOE LONDON KEG AN PAUL/TRENCH & CO., I, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1886 [The two longest poems in this volume, and several other pieces, have not been printed before. For permission to publish the rest, my acknowledgments are due to the proprietors of The Spectator, Good Words, The Contemporary Review, The A r ational Review, and Mac- mi Han's Magazine.] (The rights of translation and of reproduction, are reserved?) I very well know that he who would write anything in verse likely to live must surrender himself to verse passionately and almost undividedly ; for poetry is as exacting as she is beautiful. And indeed there was for myself a time, very long ago, when I was near believing that I had a call to consecrate myself to the sacred muse ; that I might possibly become one of the brethren who prophesy with harps, and are instructed in the songs of the Lord. But a summons which I could not resist made me, to my surprise, a governor of the sanctuary and of the house of God. Yet even now, late in my troubled day, I look back to my former purpose. And here I gather together fragments mostly which (with three or four exceptions) I have had no sufficient time either to conceive deeply or to finish even after the measure of my own poor powers. Some, I already know, tare for the things such as they are, and think them not altogether worthy of death. Perhaps God may enable me to say in the sweeter dialect dear to me long ago some things which I have failed to say in prose. If so, I shall thank Him from my heart. If not, the Church and the world will suffer no great wrong from me ; and, for myself, I do not much fear a whiff of sarcasm and the painless punish- ment of oblivion. 161 I. TO ROBERT JOCELYN ALEXANDER? SUSPECTED all my life of poetry, I come at last and make confession here. Late. late, mv son ! in the autumn nf mv ERRATA. Page 17, line 4 from bottom, for "God's always is man's usual" read "God's usual is man's always." 19, stanza 3, line 2, for "red-fruited" read " rich-fruited." 46, line 3, for "has" read "hast." 48, stanza 2, line 5, for "higher star" read " star higher." 96, line 2 from bottom, for " life gives the life " read " Life gives the life." 104, line 10, for " chance met" read " chance-met." 133, lines 7 and 8 should form one line only. 243, line 13, for "Dyonysus" read "Dionysus." 2. Essayest thou, poet of a long-past morn, A new forth-pouring of song's waves to try, Song's wither'd blooms again on the fanes to tie ? Time was when from thy thought those waves seem'd borne * See " Ishmael," by Robert Jocelyn Alexander, p. 219. t Gen. xxxvii. 7. I. TO ROBERT JOCELYN ALEXANDER* SUSPECTED all my life of poetry, I come at last and make confession here. Late, late, my son ! in the autumn of my year, I gather up my sheaves that scatter'd lie, Some faint far light of immortality Falling upon my field, and the severe Relentless winds whistling into mine ear " Gather thou up thy sheaves before thou die." Sheaves ! at that word I think of Israel's meadow And valleys thick with corn.f And on my lid A proud tear trembles, as on his there did. " These are my sheaves that rest, each on its shadow ; And all, along their little golden line, Make their obeisance, O my son, to thine. 2. Essayest thou, poet of a long-past morn, A new forth-pouring of song's waves to try, Song's wither'd blooms again on the fanes to tie ? Time was when from thy thought those waves seem'd borne * See " Ishmael," by Robert Jocelyn Alexander, p. 219. t Gen. xxxvii. 7. VI if INTRODUCTORY SONNETS. Sunlit at once and strong, splendidly torn, Their very fall a flash of victory. Time was thy flowers were fresh as the morning sky, To thee, perchance to others now a scorn. Two or three fibrous skeleton-leaves with story Of some sweet summer day and things that died Two or three yellow foam-flakes for the glory, Two or three bubbles for the big brimm'd tide. -What if flowers breathe again before God's shrine, Waves sound sonorous on a strand divine ? 3- I never yet heard music howe'er sweet, Never saw flower or light, ocean or hill, But a quick thought of something finer still Touch'd me with sadness. Never did I meet Completest beauty but was incomplete, Never view' d shapes half fair enough to fill The royal galleries of my boundless will. Never wrote I one line that I could greet A twelvemonth after with a brow of fire. Thus, then, with aim unreach'd, thought unexpress'd, Unsatiated throbbings of desire, I walk my way of life, and find no rest. Thus beauty does not soothe me, and a cry Of some deep want ends all my poesy. Lord ! all my sins and negligences past, Whereby, though fain, I am powerless to proclaim Some great thing, worthy of Thy worthy Name, Pardon. And be Thy royal purple cast INTRODUCTORY SONNETS. ix O'er this vile vest ; and let the love thou hast Flush this cold white to a red rose of shame. And whilst Thou pardonest, Thou the very same, My different sins, O pardon this the last This little song-shaft, full of motes that glance ; This little gem, full of the flaw that pales ; This little verse-book, full of verse that fails ; This little music, full of dissonance ; This little wild-rose, full of dust within ; This little sin that is brimfull of sin. CONTENTS. POEMS NARRATIVE, SACRED, AND REFLECTIVE. PAGE ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY . .. ... ... 3 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS SANCTI BERNARDI SERMONES IN CANTICA ... ... ... ... 26 THE NEW ATLANTIS ... ... "... ... 52 SUPER FLUMINA ... ... ... >.* ... 66 THE ISLAND CHURCH ... ... ... ... 75 Music OR WORDS? ON THE SEVEN LAST WORDS ... 82 THE OLD MAN AND THE SHIP ... ... ... 88 REPENTANCE AND FAITH ... ... ... ... 93 YOUTH RENEWED ... ... ... ... ... 95 HINTS OF THE DIVINE ... ... ... ... ... 97 His NAME ... ... ... ... ... ... 102 VERY FAR AWAY ... ... .... ... ... 105 THE BIRTHDAY CROWN ... ... ... ... 107 CHRIST ON THE SHORE ... ... ... ... ... 109 THE CHAMBER PEACE ... ... ... ... in A FINE DAY IN HOLY WEEK <...? ... ... ... 114 A FINE DAY ON LOUGH SWILLY ... ... ... 116 A PRAYER ... ... ... ... ... ... 120 WAVES, WAVES, WAVES ... ... ... ... ' 121 BELOW AND ABOVE ;.. ... ... ... ... 122 ROBERT BURNS A FRAGMENT ... ... ... 125 Xll CONTENTS. PAGE A THOUGHT FOR THE ROYAL BRIDAL ... ... ... 129 A CONTRAST ... .. ... ... ... 132 THE ICEBOUND SHIP A LYRICAL FRAGMENT ... ... 134 PICTURA POESIS ... ... ... ... ... 141 ADRIFT ON THE ARCTIC SEA ... ... ... ... 145 PAINTING FOR TIME ... ... ... ... 146 NARROW GOODNESS LINES WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF POST- HUMOUS SERMONS ... ... ... ... 149 THE PREACHER'S MEDITATION ... ... ... 153 IMPERFECT REPENTANCE ... ... ... ... 158 II. CHARACTERS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC. R. C. TRENCH, ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, RESIGNED Nov. 28, 1884 163 DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ... ... ... 165 DEATH OF LORD J. G. BERESFORD, PRIMATE OF ALL IRE- LAND ... ... ... ... ... 169 DEATH OF S. WILBERFORCE, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER ... 172 ON READING SOME LINES BY WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER 175 DEATH OF THE EARL OF DERBY... ... ... ... 178 THE DERRY STATUE TO THE MEMORY OF SIR R. A. FERGUSON, M.P. ... .. ... ... ... 182 EPITAPH ON AGNES JONES, IN FAHAN CHURCHYARD ... 185 EPITAPH ON S. M. : FOR A WARD OF A HOSPITAL ... 186 EPITAPH ON R. H., IN DERRY CATHEDRAL ... ... 187 INSCRIPTION ON THE STATUE ERECTED TO CAPTAIN BOYD, IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN .. 188 III. WITHERED LAUREL LEAVES. ODE ADDRESSED TO THE EARL OF DERBY, AND RECITED IN THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE, OXFORD, AT HIS INSTAL- LATION AS CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY, JUNE i, 1853 191 CONTENTS. Xlll PAGE THE DEATH OF JACOB ... ... ... *9 6 THE WATERS OF BABYLON ... 209 ISHMAEL. BY ROBERT JOCELYN ALEXANDER, ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S INSPECTORS OF SCHOOLS ... 219 IV. SONNETS. THREE SONNETS SUGGESTED BY SAMUEL RUTHERFORD ... 229 THE PRINCESS ALICE THREE SONNETS ... 231 Two SONNETS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT ... ... 233 THE LIGHTED BUILDING ... ... ... ... 235 THOUGHTS BY THE SEA Two SONNETS ... ... ... 236 "A WINTER GALE IN THE CHANNEL" ... ... 238 FIVE SONNETS CHIEFLY SUGGESTED BY ST. AUGUSTINE ... 240 ST. JOHN AT PATMOS ... ... 243 THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER ... ... ... ... 245 V. TRANSLATIONS. VIRGILII ^ENEIS, LIB. VI. 1-281 ... 249 FROM VICTOR HUGO * THE EMPEROR'S RETURN ... ... ... 262 BOAZ ASLEEP ... ... ... ... ... 266 THE ROSE OF THE INFANTA . . 269 THE REGIMENT OF BARON MADRUCE ... ... 273 THE POOR ... ... .. ... 276 THE PARRICIDE ... ... ... ... 283 PSALM LXVIII. ... 287 PSALM XCIII. ... .. ... ... 293 PSALM CIV. ... ... .: ... ... 295 * These translations from Victor Hugo were executed jointly by myself and my wife, Cecil Frances Alexander, chiefly in the year 1865. I. POEMS NARRATIVE, SACRED, AND REFLECTIVE. ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. (AUGUST TO DECEMBER, A.D. 386.) SYNOPSIS. St. Augustine retires to Cassiciacum to prepare for his baptism His company, especially his mother Monica, his natural son Adeodatus, and the young poet Licentius Augustine's Latin Employment of the party Their studies and discussions General condition of Christian art and thought Augustine's love of light ; of the sea Speculations about disembodied spirits Story of the Notary of Uzala ; of Gennadius Comments upon the Psalter, especially the Penitential Psalms ; upon the Miracle of Cana Licentius reads Virgil aloud His version of the tale of Dido Speculations of the young poet upon Virgil's condition in the world of spirits Con- clusion. NOTE. The books of St. Augustine which belong to this period are these "De Ordine," " De Vit. Beat.," " Contra Academ.," " De Immort.," and the " Soliloquia." Augustine's own narrative has been closely followed throughout this poem. The thoughts attributed to him are generally to be found in his writings. Thus, his feeling for light is beautifully marked in "Confess.," lib. x. 34. His appreciation of the ocean will be doubted by no one who reads the following sentences. " In cosli et terrae et maris multimoda et varia pulchritudine, in ipsius quoque maris tarn grandi spectaculo, cum sese diversis coloribus incluit velut vestibus, et aliquando viride atque hoc multis modis, aliquando pur- pureum, aliquendo cceruleum est. Quam porro delectabiliter spectatur 4 ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. etiam quandocunque turbatur, et fit inde major suavitas." ("De Civ. Dei," xxii. 24). The stories of the Notary and of Gennadius are to be found in " Epp.," clviii. ix., so that the former at least is, literally speaking, an anachronism as it stands here. Licentius read Virgil to the party upon fine afternoons, substituting at times, apparently, poems of his own. Now the sweet arrow of the Love divine Resistlessly had pierced Augustine's heart. The flowers of speech he will no more entwine, Frequent no more the rhetorician's mart. He gazes on the sun so long denied, And the sun-gazer groweth sunny-eyed. " His forehead, deep encrimson'd with the crown ; His lips, so full of grace, all deadly pale; My Shepherd's wounded heart with woe cast down, My Shepherd's cheek cut with the cruel hail O'er what wild hills, in face of what a foam, With what exultant arm He bore me home ! " Wholly for my poor love Himself He gave. A great gift for a miserable whole ; An ocean for a little dying wave. And shall I offer him a divided soul, Half of the mud that in the street doth lie, If half the azure of the starlit sky ? " Said Verecundus, " Thou art ill at ease. My farm lies north from here but a few leagues ; Fair is its meadow-land, fair its chestnut trees. Go rest thee well from thy thoughts' long fatigues, Thou and thy dearest." So Augustine went On holiday to that green banishment 57: AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. For rest enfolded in that happy haunt, For time to meditate the Church's creed ; For prayer, that when from the baptismal font He rises by regeneration freed, The white life issuing thence his soul may win To wear immaculate in a world of sin. It was a little company of ten. Over them all was Monica gently set, A flower of womanhood for those loving men. O winter flower, O faded violet, By what rude fortune from thy garden toss'd, Paled by what sun, discoloured by what frost ? With her a boy of fifteen summers came. Into the presence of the lad did pass An influence from a climate as of flame ; And in those lustrous eyes of his there was A tint of flowers and oceans far away Amid the woods and waves of Africa. Him evermore a shadow overhung, Not of the great Numidian forests bom The prophecy of genius that dies young, The far cloud-film of a too radiant morn. Ah ! they who early pass through one dark gate Have looks like thine, thou young Adeodate ! Thou art of those who breathe with a strange smile The delicate words that only genius saith ; Guests whom God spares us but a little while, For they are wanted in the land of death, And leave but tracks of light that was not seen, Hints of a golden land that might have been. ST. AUGUSTINE S HOLIDAY. Hast thou no mother with a name to note ? It is not written in the tenderest scroll That love and recollection ever wrote, The perfected confession of a soul. Into the dark she glides, a silent shame, And a veil'd memory without a name. And the world knoweth not what words she pray'd, With what long wail before the altar wept, What tale she told, what penitence she made, What measure by her beating heart was kept, Nor in what vale or mountain the earth lies Upon the passionate Carthaginian's eyes. Well that one penitent hath found such grace As to be silent in the silent years, That no light hand hath lifted from her face The silver veil enwoven of her tears. Well that one book at least, at least one sod, Keeps close one tender secret of our God. Well that the virgin saints of her may cry, " Our sister comes, mute after many tears Some anguish rounded by a victory Is hers, some calm after a storm of years. O noble pity, that consoles her quite ! O large forgiveness, touching all to white ! " Next comes the laureate of the little throng, The young Licentius, whose deft art confers Some grace upon the later Latin song- Waxwork, not marble, in hexameters Drawing in colours soft, but soon to cease, A pastel for a proud old masterpiece. ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. But one moves aye among them as the chief A thoughtful brow with saint engrav'd thereon. And there was something of the Psalmist's grief, And of the inspiration of St. John, And of the gravity that might beseem The Plato of that little Academe. Roman his speech, not as men talk'd at Rome. Here an apostle spake, and there a psalm, And here philosophy had made its home. Passion and thought he pack'd in epigram, Marring the stone of speech wherewith he wrought, But perfecting the likeness of his thought. O'er all he said there hung a subtle spell. For with him over sea a native art He brought, an accent's glamour suiting well Magnificent barbarisms of the heart, Learn'd by inhaling 'neath Numidian trees Sunny solecisms of the provinces. Four lakes, that made a fourfold heav'n below, Slept in that pleasant place, where Apennine Grey-fissured meets the Alpine lines of snow ; Round it a symphony of light divine, Red on the hill-side, gold along the plain, The purpling cluster, and the yellowing grain. One of those spots where busy hearts are still And world- worn natures quietly renew'd. I see it now, hill rising over hill, The near ones crested with the olive wood, And in the bluish distance, where morn breaks, White behind all a line of snowy peaks. S7. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. Fair sped the days. At noon, not overproud, They help'd the rustics with the vines or herd, Which done, full oft the autumn-tide allow'd Sweet liberty for prayer or for the word, Or for discourses grave, or readings made From a page chequer'd by the chestnut shade. Well for the men whose spirits try to scale The mountain peaks that overtop our lives. There is a victory for them that fail, Defeat alone for him who never strives. High themes wherewith to cope makes weak men strong :- Well for the men who lived when thought was young. Well for the men who lived in the long ago, They breath'd an ampler quietude than we ; A few great books which they had time to know, Fresh as the untiring voices of the sea, Made the old music that is ever new : Well for the men who lived when books were few. Few books were with them ; but they were the best The Epistles, Gospels, and prophetic scroll ; The Psalter, too, wherein the ruggedest Of Latin takes to it a Hebrew soul, And seems to yearn for music that may reach The mysteries that lie beyond all speech. Others, moreover, which no sage contemns, Nearest immortal mortals ever wrought, Whose perfect words are the all-opulent gems That star the broad brows of the kings of thought, Whose lines shall live as long as numbers flow Plato was there, Plotin, and Cicero. ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. They show in distance chief the glorious Greek The needle-point of truth enwrapt in mist, Not the way leading to that difficult peak Yet Plato preach'd magnificently Christ. Yea, in each volume, and on every sod, Whatever truth man troweth is of God. Now, as I write, I seem to hear the kine, The rippling murmur of the little stream That runs toward the bath through banks of vine, I see the moonlit hills rise like a dream The very leaf which autumn-tide brought low In Lombardy a thousand years ago; And as it dropped insubstantive on the rill, And sinking help'd to break the brimming flow, Set moving high discourse of fate and will, Proving that chance is God's incognito That chance, in Heaven's tongue order, interweaves Vaster variety than waves and leaves. And oft I meditate what round they made Of solemn usage and of stately form, On what fair frame of visible things they stay'd ; What music fell in tears or rose in storm, What soft imaginative rites they had, With what investiture their faith they clad. Not then the church rose visibly encrown'd. No mighty minster tower'd majestic yet. No organ gave its plenitude of sound, And on the Alpine pinnacle was set No carven King, whose crown is of the thorn, No Calvary crimson in the southern morn. io ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. No miracle of beauty and of woe Look'd from the wall, or for the rood was hewn, No colour'd sunlight fell on the floor below. Under the silver of the Italian moon, No visible throng of angels made their home On the white wonder of the Gothic dome. Yet, fed with inward beauty through the years, Much did the Church's mind anticipate Of more majestic fanes, more tuneful tears, Simplicity more touching, nobler state. So the pale bud, where quietly it grows, Dreams itself on superbly to the rose. Questions by meditative wisdom ask'd Must wait for answer till the hour beseems ; Souls were as yet unborn severely task'd To give interpretation to such dreams ; Shapes by the master-hands as yet unfreed Slept in the massive marble of the Creed. The picture slept within the Gospel story ; The music slept on psalms as on a sea ; In a dim dawn before its dawn of glory The poem slept, a thought that was to be. The schoolmen's syllogisms, a countless train, AVere folded in that strong and subtle brain. Christ said, " I need them." Out the colour sprang, The music wailed and triumph'd down the aisles, With voices like the forest's poets sang, Invisible thoughts grew visible in smiles In smiles, and tears, and songs, and the exact Majestic speech by centuries compact. ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. II Sometimes at morning, or at eventide, Augustine look'd upon the lake and sky Not there the glory of light for which he sigh'd In all the autumn heaven of Italy. " Poor shadows are ye yea, but dimly bright To me remembering that grander light. " Ah, light ! with its attendants all day long, Soothing and charming with a magic touch. It passes not like every measured song, Its vast and variegated train is such, Its omnipresent tide of silver flow, The queen of all the colours of the bow. " O light ! which Isaac and which Jacob saw Falling upon the dim prophetic scroll, When with closed eyes they taught the holiest law, The light that radiates from the luminous soul True light thou art of an unsetting sun, And all who see thee and who love are one. " And they who turn away and this disdain Dwell in the flesh as in a shady place; And yet of this whatever doth remain, Whate'er half-glooming glimmer touch their face, Yea, all that charms is overflow divine, And circumfulgence of that light of Thine. " Yet even here, upon this lawn of rest, I miss the splendour of my own far ocean, The various robes which wondrously invest The evanescent moods of his emotion- Green of a hundred shades and the fine fall Of azure tint and pomp purpureal. 12 ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. " Fair are these waters as these hills are fair, A fit enfolding for a rustic home ; But who their narrow beauty may compare With that majestic amplitude of foam ? These azure reaches where the reeds scarce shake The long calm silver of the Lombard lake, " They cannot thunder with a voice like his, They cannot show the immeasurable line, They have no smoke of white foam o'er the abyss, No distances that infinitely shine, No beat of a great heart, no pendulous swing, No angry flap as of an eagle's wing. " He has the magic swell, the tinkling fall, In drowsy days of truce, when skies are pure, Monotonous, incessant, musical; And when his trumpets sound for war, the obscure Ionian eloquence, the vast replies Voluminous, the interminable sighs. " The fierceness of him no man shall refrain See him with all his water-floods astir, Like a great king, nigh dispossess'd of his reign, Staggering with fated hosts, a traveller Against the wind upon his shoreward track, His torn white hair tormentedly blown back. " They have but one sweet look and steadfast tone ; Save when the tempest's battle may be set, The war of their white passion passes soon ; His the great epic, theirs the canzonet, And the brief storm-bursts like an angry ode, And the floods flashing like an episode." ST. AUG USTINES HO LI DA V. 1 3 Another while I seem'd to hear him speak : They had been calling back weird tales of ghosts, Stories that grimly float in lands antique, Faint, fragmentary voices from grey coasts, And the dim notices we sometimes have From the far land that lies beyond the grave. " Now, hear my stories. A few years ago Lived a boy-notary in Uzala town. Letter'd full fair the sentences did flow From his quick pen. At first, youth's rosy crown He wore with laughter ; then, the world abhorr'd, Like Tertius ever writing in the Lord. " He sicken'd in the feverish Autumn tide, And lay for sixteen days 'twixt death and life ; But a few days before he gently died, And found his consolation after strife, Faintly, half smiling, sang ere he went to rest, ' Poculum tuum qudm prcedarum est? " Then his own hand upon his forehead sign'd The holy cross, and on his lips did trace ; And on the pillow where his head declined, Lay the sharp shadow of an old man's face So worn it was but after a little while Back came the boy-look and the innocent smile. " Thereafter on the third day his friends came, To whom the tidings of his death was sent. The priests he loved were gather'd to proclaim Redemption's sweet and awful sacrament. Now two days later was a vision seen. There rose a palace from a meadow green ; I 4 ST. AUGUSTINE 'S HOLIDAY. " From it funereal music sounded slow, A faint sweet scent went out upon the air ; The great gates open'd noiselessly ; and lo ! Its halls and floors were golden everywhere, And passing stately out with sound of chants An old man stood with two white pursuivants. " And, * Lift me the boy's body for awhile Heavenward,' he said, 'for heavenward was his walk.' Which done, for peradventure half a mile, Rose-trees appear'd, a bud on every stalk. Buds of the roses red and white were they Such buds are virgins call'd in Africa. "And when the priest, his father, came that night, And threw himself in prayer on the boy's grave, Lo ! in the glory of a silver light A thousand rosebuds lay on it, and gave Such attestation as mute things may give To those whose lives unstain'd by passion live. " Of roses, my Licentius ! singing next, With Horace sing not, myrtled at his wine; Be not thy verse with paynimry perplex'd, But raise thy poesy to strains divine, And tell how fitly angel hands let fall Such virgin gifts for spirits virginal. " Now for a graver tale. In youth I knew Gennadius, a physician. Over sea He came to Africa, and not a few Brought with him of the youth of Italy ; Preferring for his science and his home The marble streets of Carthage to his Rome. .ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. " From groping in the mechanism of our frame There was a faltering in the good man's faith ; Not once or twice to him the question came, Whether for man a life were after death, Haunting him as he thought of heart and brain, And track'd the dim tremendous path of pain. " Yet still he pray'd, ' O life of every life, O truth believed in first, then understood, Give me the prize that is not won by strife ; Give- me faith's sweet translucent certitude.' Then a voice came to him o'er sleep's soft sea, Saying, 'Arise, Gennadius, follow me.' " Him following, to a certain place he fared, Where on the right there rose a dulcet strain Beyond all sweetness he had ever heard ; And as he listen'd to that soft refrain, * This,' said the spirit who him had in trust, 1 This is the music of the perfect just.' " So he awoke, and cried, ' A dream at best.' But the next night the very same young man Came, saying, ' Gennadius, thou rememberest Answer, and I will help thee as I can The things thine eyes and ears did lately take ; Saw'st thou and heard'st in vision, or awake ? " ' Can thy cold skill or cunning scalpel find A way to that impenetrable lair, The life intense of the impalpable mind ? Or canst thou tell thy purblind scholars where The ear that hears the swell as of the sea, The wondrous eyes wherewith thou seest me ? 16 ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. " 'So when thy body lieth in its bed, Be it the ocean wave, or burial sod, When thou art of the sleepers men call dead, That in thee which is deathless may see God. There may be gloom or gleam for the soul's eyes In doleful dells, or bowers of Paradise.' " Often he took the Psalter in his hand, And turn'd to pages blister'd long with tears, The balm of broken hearts in every land, The consolation of a thousand years ; And nobly bold told penitents their bliss, In gentle images perchance like this " Look when thou walkest by the winter strand, Hath it befallen thee, that through the grey Of the sea mist, into thy very hand, Floated a snow-white bird through the salt spray, Fair, but deep wounded, bubbling from its beak A thin red foam, with faint infantine shriek ? " Which noting, to thyself thou mad'st a dirge ' There is no healing in this hand of mine ; Here must thou die, by the unpitying surge ; Not in the long blue distances divine, Not in thy little happiness upborne On seas refulgent with the rosy morn.' " Such, and so sorely wounded, floating in, Are penitents beside the sea of time : Such, and so deep, the crimson stain of sin, The scar we bear in this ungentle clime. But lo ! a healing Hand our wound above, Strong as eternity, and soft as love. ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. 17 " And a sweet voice that unto us hath lent A new beginning and a nobler flight. So to poor hearts He gives incontinent A larger liberty of golden light ; Makes more than expiation for our fault, And arches over us His bluest vault, " Saying, ' I charge thee, O my wounded bird, Soar nearer to the heaven where'er thou art ; Let all the breezes by thy plumes be stirr'd ; I heal thee through and through, O bleeding heart! I ask thy song, and give thee voice to sing; I bid thee soar, and give thee strength of wing. " ' What I command I give my mourners still, Give the delight that doth the victory gain \ Give first, and then command them as I will, Sweet penitence taking pleasure in its pain. I bid thee set those psalms of sorrow seven To the allegro of the airs of Heaven.' " And yet another time methought one read The gentle miracle of the Marriage Feast. "Ours be the sweetness of the wine," he said, " The bridal benediction of our Priest ; And in the silence of our hearts be heard The voiceless words of Him who is the Word. " Each vineyard is a purple curtain screen, Whereon God's colours we may ever trace ; God's always is man's usual, and is seen Paled by too constant light to common place ; And scarcely do our drowsy hearts revere The miracle of vintage every year. c 1 8 ST. AUGUSTINE S HOLIDAY. 11 God is not bound by laws Himself has made ; Water is not less wonderful than wine ; God's living finger weaves a pattern' d braid, Yet in full liberty of love divine, And still free notes of a new music dwell In Heaven's sweet novelty of miracle. " Lo ! the world's gifts are goodliest at first The rapturous enjoyment, the rich sense, The revelling draught thereafter the fierce thirst, The dark'ning sky, the passionate impotence. But Thou hast kept Thy light for our eclipse Kept Thy good wine for pale and dying lips." And once, when near its end their idlesse drew, It chanced the afternoon was mild and fine. The Master cried, " What ho ! the sky is blue. Come, poet, read the verse thou call'st divine. Nay, and I will not blame thee overmuch If thou mix with it thine own gentle touch. " Thy Virgil bring. With him thou shalt bring flowers, Odours emparadised in some fadeless phrase. Thou shalt set bees a-hum ming in the bowers, And make us weep for old immortal days ; And, pagan though he be, yet shall we bless God's gift in him of exquisite tenderness. " Fling, then, o'er us the great magician's spell, Read with meet cadence while the eve is clear Tell o'er again what our hearts know so well. The moonlit sea shall quiver as we hear In one six-beated line a tale be stored, A garden gather'd in one perfect word." ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. 19 To whom Licentius. " Lately I was thinking Of the delicious love-tale Virgil wrought Out of his cup my spirit had been drinking ; Rather, I sank into his ocean thought. And with the tide I swam that summer sea, And all its waves grew buoyant under me. " There was a murmur in my ears and heart, Whereof the larger music came from him ; But of mine own there was a little part, Little indeed to his, and harsh and dim. Of Homer's mighty song and high intent Sonorous echo, theft magnificent " He made ; but ah ! I marr'd whate'er I stole He the red-fruited scion, the stem I Of the poor pomegranate, lending to the whole Only the red tint of my poverty He like the bird's white wing above the river, I the white shadow that can reach it never. " Listen ! I breath'd our soft Numidian air ; I saw Elissa to the hunting go ; The golden-netted sunshine of her hair Flicker'd in sunshine as it fell below. The golden baldrick flung she round her breast, The golden fibula clasp'd her purple vest. " With yellow jasper stone his sword hilt starr'd, He how majestic, like a prince indeed, How stately she, how regal of regard ! A huntress on her white Massylian steed. And, though the jocund morning waxes late, Herself impatient makes her lover wait, 20 ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. 11 Who looks like Phoebus, when he Cynthus treads, After the Lycian snows and streams ice-mute, Walking with murmurous rush of river-beds ; While heav'n is silver o'er him, and underfoot Anemones spring, and daffodils are born For golden tassels to his bugle horn. " Ah me ! how beautiful to her he seem'd, To whom such fascination there was given. The mountain-tops whereon his boyhood dream'd, Had forests haunted by the hosts of Heaven. Out of the sunset sky ablaze with flame, Out of the silver silences he came ; " Came with the music of the Idalian pines Round him, with whisper'd message from the star, His mother's herald o'er the mountain lines, Until dawn steeps her pure pale primrose bar In rosiest colour'd radiance ever born Out of the ivory palaces of morn ; " Came with such touch of moonlight on his sail, From such resplendent distances of foam, With all the loveliness of such a tale, The spell of such a visionary home ; And finely floated round that princely form A mystery of the battle and the storm. " Full soon she sobs, * Stay if my prayer avails ; Train me to bear the last long parting thus ; Stay till our Afric wild-flow'rs fill the dales, Till yon waves look less strange and dangerous, Till I shall discipline this poor heart so That with the swallows I may let thee go. ^r. AUGUSTINE S HOLIDAY. 21 " ' Ah ! an thou fleest, then my wraith be found Where'er thy fateful footsteps yet shall stand My very shadow shall be gold-encrown'd, My very shadow shall be sad and grand ; My shadow haunt thee on each sea and lawn, Mute in the moonlight, dying in the dawn.' " Perchance he would have stay'd, but not in vain The calling to our purpose on us lies. Our lives are links in a remorseless chain. Of what avail to her that his heart sighs ' Elissa, and a Carthaginian home,' When Heaven and all its influence will have Rome ? " Soon this hath passed. The parting all is o'er, And all her passionate reproach of him, And all the watching from the salt seashore Of the sail fading o'er the ocean rim Of the sail fading on the cruel sea, On the false wave not half so false as he. " Night, gentle night, rush'd from the Afric sky. Head under wing the birds of wave and air Slept, hushing all their sweet small poesy. If we have our forgetfulness of care, So have those little hearts in bower and brake, And the still dreamland of the starlit lake. " But she her fiery bed premeditates, And ' Let him see the smoke, a far off breath,' She wails ; ' a blur on Summer's lustrous gates, And bear with him the omen of my death Ah no ! my poor heart be, till it wax dim, A taper on a shrine, and burn for him. ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. " ' And if so be that Here in her ruth Send Iris with the hopes and hues of heav'n To hang above my death, I pray in sooth That half the sweetness may to him be given, And half my rainbow melt away in rose And violet on the ocean where he goes.' " This passed away and then meseem'd to tread The underworld in visionary sleep. ^Eneas-like I visited the dead. Behold ! a spirit pass'd, who seem'd to weep Not hopelessly. ' Young Poet ! ' did he say, Men calPd me Maro while I saw the day. " ' Each of us poets hath his proper gift ; Not all the gift to use the gift aright. Red cups of battle or of wine they lift Wildly, and stain what should be lily white. Each bloom has thus its cankerworm within, . Each splendid line is thus a splendid sin. " ' And others sang high strains with mean intent Or for the tyrant of their little time, Or gave to hatred what for love was meant ; Less than immortal made immortal rhyme, So that the satire with the years has grown A fossil scorpion with a sting of stone. " ' The Latin tongue was lent me at my will. Lo ! the flowers fade upon the summer leas The storm of battle passes, and is still ; But sorrow is a deeper thing than these Sorrow for human things lasts through the years I was the first that chose the gift of tears. ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. 23 " * I used it as an instrument to express Beyond all battle camps, and courts of kings, The majesty of human tenderness, Sweet ruth for the vicissitudes of things The subtle pathos, the magnetic touch, The broken voice that tells the heart so much. " ' Once the dim prophecies floating round the earth I gather'd thornless roses, stormless seas, Meadows in blossom for a better birth, Mother and child, nova progenies All this I twined for all the race of man In higher strains than aught Sicilian. " ' And is it nothing that I taught all this, That through the world's confusion sweetly smiled Before me the conception of our bliss, The happiest Mother, the divinest Child, That scarcely once or twice did touch impure Fall on my virginal emportraiture ? ' " Then with low voice he ask'd, ' And is there hope ? Or must I wander always lost, lost, lost ? ' Out like a rose the dawn began to ope, This side and that the clouds were crimson cross'd, And manifold voices round us seem'd to say, ' Yea, there is hope, but it is far away.' " Ah ! not so far for low and winning sweet, 1 Venite, invenietis] some one said ; Like breath of balm upon the heart it beat Light ran along the region of the dead The echoes multiplied from east to west, * Venite ad me omnes suave est." 1 " 24 ST. AUGUSTINE'S HOLIDAY. Licentius ceased. To Elissa's tale at even A hundred times within the twenty years Augustine's tender heart had duly given The tributary offering of his tears. Yet, while the boy's big drops of ruth he chid, The salt dew trembled on the Master's lid. And Monica thought how first she read the tale In her Numidian home at eventide, Thought of .^Eneas with each sunlit sail, Thought of Elissa with each wave that died. The saint perhaps condemned it, but alas ! The woman sigh'd, and said how sweet it was. As to the boy's deep ruth and tender prayer For Virgil, be there silence grave and wise. The mother of the Master was aware How the first woodland walk through which we rise To the precipitous mountain peak of truth Is love the sunlit heresy of youth. The holiday is o'er the rest is done. Cassiciacum lies in sunny mist ; They turn toward it, praying every one, " To Verecundus do thou give, O Christ ! For that sweet rest beneath the happy skies The fadeless greenery of Thy Paradise." Never was yet to-day whose incompleteness Fail'd not in somewhat of the bliss it brought, Till it inherited the dim faint sweetness, The immaculate azure of the sky of thought ; Till we baptized the dead hours far away By the ethereal name of yesterday. ST. AUGUSTINE S HOLIDAY 25 So " My one holiday," oft the old man cried ; " When shall the Bishop's holiday come again ? " When the fierce Huns are on the mountain-side, And he lies sick to death in August ; when The cactus flowers of Hippo 'neath the blue Are steep'd with crimson blood-drops through and through ; When through the date groves in the scarce-lit dales Over the Seybous and his dreaming calms, The importunate sweetness of the nightingales Comes to the old man falling asleep with psalms ; And, a thin thread of scarlet, morning breaks Silently on the Atlantean peaks. ( 26 ) AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. SANCTI BERNARD! IN CANTICA. SYNOPSIS. Study of the Song of Songs Two schools of interpretation The first represented by M. Kenan's " Le Cantique " The vaudeville theory The second represented by St. Bernard's LXXXVI. Sermons upon Canticles The influence of the book upon the saint's life His early days His mother Aleth His renunciation of the world and of the worldly side of the Church He brings with him his whole family, including his father, Sir Tescelin, and his sister, Humbeline Clairvaux Spiritual power of St. Bernard's teaching Visit of St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, to Clairvaux His death there Death of his brother Girard Incapacity of nature to console St. Bernard's sermon on Cant. i. 5 The Pope visits Clairvaux Simplicity of his reception Sermon on Cant. ii. 16 Conclusion Cant. v. 2, 5 Summary of the spiritual interpretation. . NOTE. In the composition of this poem, I have constantly availed myself of the interesting and accurate notices (Note sur Fontaine-les- Dijon, patrie de St. Bernard, par 1'Abbe Chenevet) and other local papers in the fourth volume of Migne's edition of St. Bernard's works, pp. 1621-1661. The death of St. Malachy at Clairvaux took place in 1148. St. Bernard has written the archbishop's life, which is here closely fol- lowed. The visit of Pope Innocent to Clairvaux was many years earlier, in 1131. Ernald's account has been carefully used. "A pauperibus Christi, non purpura et bysso ornatis, nee cum deauratis Evangeliis AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 27 occurrentibus, seel pannosis agminibus scopulosam bajulantibus crucem, non tumultuantium classicorura tonitruo, non clamosa jubilatione, sed suppressa modulatione affectuosissime susceptus est. Flebant episcopi, fleba tipse summus Pontifex ; omnes mirabantur congregationis illius gravitatem. Nihil in ecclesia ilia videbat Romanus quod cuperet. Nihil in oratorio nisi nudos viderunt parietes. Solennitas non cibis, sed virtutibus agebatur. Panis ibi autopyrus pro simila, pro careno sapa, pro rhombis olera, pro quibuslibet deliciis legumina ponebantur. Si forte piscis inventus est, domino Papas appositus est, et aspectu, non usu, in commune profecit " (St. Bernard, "Vita," lib. ii., Auctore Krnaldo., ap. opp. S. Bernard, iv. 272). Passages from the Sermons on the Canticles are freely transferred to the poem. Mr. Frederic Harrison's beautiful and appreciative article on St. Bernard did not reach me until my verses were almost finished. Of such a writer one can but say, " Cum talis sis, utinam noster esoes." I READ the '* Song of Songs " I thought it pure, The very flame of the full love of God ; And over it there hung the clear obscure Of Syrian night, and scents were blown abroad Whose very names breathe on us mystic breath Myrrh, and the violet-striped habatseleth. Strange words of beauty hung upon mine ear Semada, that is scent and flower in one Of the young vine-blooms in the prime of the year ; Senir, Amana, Carmel, Lebanon, Eloquent of rivers and of mountain trees, Dim in the Oriental distances. And purple paradise of pomegranate flowers, Kopher, kinnamon, balsam, wealth of nard, And things that thickets fill in summer hours, Blue as a sky white-clouded, golden-starr'd, Whereby we may surmise not far from thence Mountains of myrrh and hills of frankincense. 28 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. I read the Hebrew late into the night ; At last the lilies faded, and the copse Had no more fragrance, and I lost delight, As when in some sweet tongue a poem stops, Half understood yet being once begun, Our hearts are strangely poorer when 'tis done. Two volumes lay before me. One a tome Which heretofore for years had stood between Tender Augustine, terrible Hierome ; And the last Father's name was duly seen In faded letters betwixt leather thongs " Saint Bernard's Sermons on the Song of Songs." The other, fresh from Paris, " Le Cantique," Look'd a thin volume of a new romance. Yet did I pray, " O Spirit whom I seek, Teach me by which of these two lights of France, The unbegun Beginning I may reach, Thy sweetest novelty in oldest speech." So the two books I read ; the first whereof, A drama of earth's flame this song did deem Five acts with epilogue, tale of true love, Shepherd and vine-dresser such shiyr shyriym Idyllic as Theocritus might trill Say rather, a soft Hebrew vaudeville. Solomon sweeps by with threescore mighty men, Poor dove, all fluttering in the falcon's beak, So foully carried from her quiet glen ! He flashes on with her so sweetly weak, Elderly, evil-eyed, and evil-soul'd, Scented and cruel in a cloud of gold.* * Cant. iii. 6-u. M. Renan, "Etude sur le Cantique," pp. 30, 31, 190, 191. AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 29 To the accursed palace they have come. Dresses like rainbows float through the Harem. To the faint plash of fountains never dumb Are sung wild songs of earth's unholiest flame. The large-eyed odalisks are lolling there ; The tambour taps, and bounds the bayadere. Ah ! as in dreams her shepherd singing stands : " Arise, my love, my fair one, come away ; The winter has pass'd over into lands Whose heritage is rain, whose heavens are grey. Flow'rs for my flow'r, the turtle's voice is heard It is the green time for the singing bird. " The exhalation of the vine-bloom flows On the rich air. Why is my white dove mute In the cleft of the rock ? Behold, the fig-tree throws Her aromatic heart into her fruit. Save for me only spring is everywhere. O let me hear thee from thy mountain stair." Which hearing, in her heart she hums her lilt, Learnt long ago of some dark vine-dresser. Sing it, O maiden, whensoe'er thou wilt. The vine-leaf shadow o'er thee is astir " Let not the little foxes from thee 'scape, Spoiling our vines that have the tender grape." And so, O peasant girl, be won for wife. No young Theresa of the Hebrews thou ; Yet an illusion traverses thy life Which gives ideal light to thy dark brow, Which makes home beautiful, and proudly sings Songs of defiant purity to kings. 30 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. And if no ecstasy lights up thy face, No flame of seraphim consumes thy heart ; If thou hast natural truth, not heavenly grace ; At least, O sunburnt Shulamite ! thou art A tender witness to a purer lot In the base centuries when love was not. I smiled a moment. Then a discontent Filled me with grief and spiritual shame. " Where then ? " I cried, " is the old ravishment, The ointment pour'd forth of the Holiest Name ? This song was once as fair for souls to mark As the sod fresh cut to the prison'd lark " A daisied sod whereon the bird in rapture Quivers, remembering a little while The large inheritance before his capture, When from some azure and unmeasured mile He rain'd down music, where the shadows pass From the white cloud-sails o'er the glittering grass." And a voice said, " Take thou the other book ; Therewith the life of the great Abbot scan. Behold its peace and purity, and look ! He guides the restless intellect of man All streams that from all monasteries part, And the king's council, and the woman's heart. " He cleaves through heresy with one bright word, Weak with the weakest, stronger than the strong, Holds love a sharper weapon than the sword, Heipeth all them to right who suffer wrong ; And as he walks the world, in street or dell, The dry earth blossoms into miracle." AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 31 I read the double columns thro' and thro', Till the Saint's eyes look'cl at me from the line. Methought the heav'n above the book was blue, And love's green land before me lay divine ; And, " Hearken to him," said a voice to me, Cor meum vulnerasti is the key, " Whereto the riddle is no riddle more. The Bride and Spouse he ever doth rehearse, One epithalamium sings he o'er and o'er Christ and the Church ; and for the measured verse Forbidden true Cistercians, as he knows, Takes a saint's vengeance in impassion'd prose." " What time the world in winter morn is white, The prints upon the snow are for thine eye A record of the chronicles of night Such snow be this sweet song, a mystery On whose white surface thou may'st see the faint And heavenward traces of a pilgrim saint." " Draw me," One saith. " We will run after Thee." The Boy's eyes open'd on a golden land Forest and chase, river and lilied lea, And steeds to rein, and vassals to command, And the light rippled in the summer air In softer gold on Bernard's chestnut hair. Full shy he was, and grave and sweet of speech, Of skill in riding and running at the ring, And ever ready to give right to each ; Which seeing, his father smiled upon the thing, And said to Aleth, with a proud bright glance, " What if our boy be Burgundy's first lance ? 32 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. '' What if he wed a maid of high estate ? With her a castle by broad acres girt. He that will greatly rise must wisely wait ; So I will mail him in his battle-shirt, And send him to the wars, that he may be All that beseems a knight of his degree." But Lady Aleth, faintly smiling, said, " Ah, this boy Bernard is of other stamp. But yesterday he sigh'd, 1 1 will not wed. Mother, I hate the revel and the camp, The drops of blood upon our castle walks, And the fierce beauty of my father's hawks. " ' I will no poesy of earthly loves, I put from me all Ovid's magic spell ; Two voices hold me only one the dove's, The Spouse's one, in God's sweet canticle ; And my heart hears one singing every day, " Arise, my love, my fair one, come away."' " What must be, must," replied Sir Tescelin. "Squires carry knights' spurs germinant at their heel ; Young priest becomes young prelate without sin ; If Bishop Bernard at the altar kneel, Were he less saint, an if his saintship gain A glorious abbacy, a broad domain ? " But "Nay," quoth she, "nor may this come to pass. Now, I will tell thee what is in his heart In his own words, yesterday after Mass : ' Mother, a voice is calling me apart ; All the day long it sayeth within me, " Draw me, O Lord ; we will run after Thee." AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 33 "' Sometimes meseems the trump of Judgment sounds; Sometimes God pierceth me, and sometimes wins, With great attraction of the five sweet Wounds, With fierce light flashing on my little sins. That which I yearn for is not court nor strife, But the beginning of a saintly life " ' The lore that scarcely may be learn'd aright From any parchment on a dusty shelf, The stern self-discipline of God's true knight, Who bravely wars the warfare against self, Bow'd in a penitence at the bleeding Feet, Whereof the very bitterness is sweet. " * Sinful with all the sinful I would go To the one heart human, and yet divine ; Nor lavish all my love on aught below, Nor bow too deeply at another shrine, As if in all heav'n's host there were for such A truer pity or a tenderer touch. " ' Nothing from self, all from His perfect Name To say the good thing in me is mine own, That were as if the chamber wall should claim The golden sunbeam shimmering on the stone ; That were to drain the ocean with thy lips, Or turn back Jordan with thy finger-tips. " ' Perchance our Church has too much of the earth ; Our abbots, peradventure, are too rich ; We ask too often " What is the see worth ? " Forget the fane to overgild the niche. Give me no jewell'd mitre, no red garb, No bowing vassals, and no milk-white barb. D 34 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. " 'Nay, over-gaudy grown with time that grows, Religion robes herself in rainbow dyes. Ah, sighs and tears ! the sighs she doth enclose In bubbles, and the tears she petrifies ; And pomp enwrappeth in a golden pall The rich rigidity of ritual. " ' First, let the soul be beautiful within ; Then the soul's beauty duly shall create Form, colour, harmony, to awe and win Outward from inward as inseparate As music from the river when it flows, Shadow from light, or fragrance from the rose. " ' My portion be the austere and lowly fane, The quiet heart that praises ere it sings, The genuine tears that fall like timely rain, The happy liberty from outward things, The wing that winnoweth the ample air, The heaven's gate touch'd by the soft hand of prayer. " ' The sunshine-veined vintage stored for years, Quaff' d with quaint laughter in the refectory, Of this I will have none but tender tears, The lore of saints, the spiritual glory, The brotherhood, the cross whereof one saith, JVo ill thing glides where'er it shadoweth. " ' I saw a great Cistercian abbey rise, And out of heaven there fell a voice divine " Enter in, son of Aleth ! on this wise, Reformer of the Order, all is thine. Rise, come away; " whereon I did rejoice In the irresistible music of that voice. AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 35 " ' " But first," I pleaded, " Lord, thou know'st I have Six brothers and a sister, in all seven. Lover of souls, O infinite to save, Give me all these for company in heaven. Draw them in also ; " and then bolder grown "I would be saved, O Lord, but not alone." " ' And then I saw sculptured above the gate *' The vale of Wormwood is a vale of Light ; " And outside there was wailing, war, and hate, And a voice of agony out in the black night ; But in I drew the six from that wild teen, And last of all my fair-hair'd Humbeline, " * Then, thee, my mother, too, I drew thee in Not fair as thou art now, but cold and pale. gentlest heart that ever conquer'd sin ! O Christ's sweet Shulamite in the nun's white veil ! And on thy lips I laid the Host that hour, And rain'd down tears on thee, my winter flower ! " * And last of all my father. I could hear What were the things that to himself he said : " Will he not leave me for another year ? Can he not wait till the old man is dead ? I would much rather die in my old room Than in a cloister of Cistercian gloom. " ' " I would much rather rest with my rough race, Close to the altar, in the church I built ; 1 would the villagers should see my face And Aleth's marble under a canopy gilt, Whispering This was a joyous knight and just, They say he is a thousand years in dust. 36 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. " ' " A thousand years he wears his shirt of mail, And his good hound is couchant at his feet ; If that tough cheek of his be deathly pale, ' Tis but the stone that makes such paleness meet, And in his calm eye come what tide soe'er Is sure regard of everlasting prayer. " * " Yet is it certain what monks say that souls Are lost in circles of light as in a flood, That the saints worship day and night in stoles, Posed without end in marble attitude, Or like the angels on a vestment shown Stitch! d in a sapphire prayer before the thronel " ' " All the night long Sir Tescelin looks to the east, And the sweet lady by him never stirs. But when the thin moon wanes down to her least, And dawn plays faint about his marble spurs, Doth he not sometimes seem to waken ? Hist / Doth the white falcon flutter on his fist 1 " ' u All the night long he prays, I have no doubt, When o'er the October moon the big clouds whirl, And ever and anon she cometh out With fleece of rainbow and of mother rf pearl Her flying touch some minutes' space being still White on the broken waters by the mill. 111 '' But is not yon stiff hound about to yawn ? The lady to hear mass as is her wont ? Are not the rustics going to the lawn To see the gallants gathering for the hunt ? Ah ! this is idle talk, for well know I Such things are not in that eternity. AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 37 " ' " But what and if my appointed time draws near, And I and all I have is doom'd to death ; And what and if for all that I hold dear, The grace of the fashion of it vanisheth ; And if this poor old heart at last must go Like a tree broken by its weight of snow " ' " May I not die upon my Aleth's bed, With shadows of the long familiar trees Making their chequer-work upon my head, Amid the humming of my yellow bees, Where to the sun my peacocks spread their stains Upon my castle terrace of Fontaines ? " " * Nay, for all that, dear father, at the fold Thou knockest. Thy son openeth, and from heaven A voice falls musical for thee : " Behold Thou and thy children whom the Lord has given. Listen to Bernard's voice, and enter in, Sweet Lady Aleth, stout Sir Tescelin ! '" " The Abbey stands in Clairvaux. Bernard speaks From the stone pulpit by the brethren hewn, Of the "Name," or "Lilies," or "Till morning breaks," Making discourse till late in the afternoon ; Pathos and majesty in his speech were blent, Sweetness magnetic and magnificent. " Whence skillest thou ? " his brother Girard said, " To trace these love-links ever feast and fast ? Thou hast not much perused the deathless dead ; Yet shall these words of thine for ever last, Little in space, but sparks of living flame, Little indeed, but roses all the same. 38 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. " And happy we, to whom in thee are given Such sweets both new and old, such lily flowers, Such precious antepast of feasts of heaven. High joy for us of these monastic bowers, To gather on this green Burgundian sod Thy pale gold honey, O thou bee of God." " I know not brother," and the Abbot smiled ; " Yet thou rememberest the forest well. A few years since the snow was on it piled. Thou knowest how often ere the vesper bell, My meditation was prolonged and ye Said it was sweet perchance in flattery. " Nathless the young narcissus snow-drops came With spring (our rustics call them ' angels' tears ') ; A hundred greens were out, no two the same ; The happy promise given by young years For ever, and for evermore belied, Lit the young leaves, and smiled some hours, and died. " So came the spring to Burgundy. Then spoke A voice from out the depths where earth's life stirs. The ' Song of Songs '" reads well under the oak A soft interpretation sigh the firs ; And God's good Spirit taught me what to teach Through the uncountable whispers of the beech. "From the anemones pass'd to me my thought, Through the woods trembling in their thin white robe. A subtler music came to me unsought Upon the washing of the murmurous Aube ; And the long sunset rays on the great boles Wrote me the comment of the holy souls.* * ' ' Nullos se magistros habuisse nisi quercus et fagos joco illo gnitioso inter amicos dicere solet." (S. Bernard, Vita, opp. iv. 240.) AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 39 " For were the Canticle a passion strain, And if it spake of aught beneath the sky, Then from its images thy heart could gain A love-snatch only, or a botany ; Whereas, he finds in it who truly tries, Strength from the strong, and wisdom from the wise. " Here is the ocean of the love divine For the whole Church. What smaller than a sea Can hold a sea ? and yet thy heart and mine Reflection of it hath for thee and me, As one clear bubble sphereth for the eye The azure amplitude of wave and sky. " And this love-strain is never over-told. When God Himself is our musician, say, Wilt thou correct Him to a strain less bold, And teach the mighty Master how to play? Two, two alone can hear these tender things The soul that listens, and the soul that sings." Late, late, in the October afternoon, The monks sat listening spell-bound in the choir ; The voice went ringing on, a lovely tune, A touch of pathos, or a shaft of fire. The sunset flared blood-red, the wild marsh hen Shriek'd through the long reed lances of the fen. Within was spring. Voice to low breezes set Through the greenwood, over the mountain's brink- Voice of Christ's dove, His undefiled yet, Not so much sweet itself of song, I think, As the soft sign whereby we understand That all things sweet are gathering in the land. 40 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. " O that some saint might come to us, and teach From his rich certainty our poor perhaps ! Yea, by his death preach what I cannot preach How earth's hopes scare at last, as when there taps Some broken branch of bloom through storm and rain, Like death's white finger on the window-pane." Scarce was the sermon done, the blessing o'er, A train of horsemen halted at the gate. " My Lord the Abbot," said the janitor, " One like an angel comes to us full late, Primate of a green island o'er the sea ; His name, too, is an angel's Malachy." Four or five days flow'd on in fair discourse ; Gracious his speech and stately his regard. Oft would he warn them with prophetic force That he was come to them to meet the Lord. He rode to Clairvaux in October mist, The Feast-day of St. Luke the Evangelist. Something of fever flush'd his pallid cheek; To Bernard mournfully a little while Out of his spirit's trouble did he speak Of certain tribesmen in his restless isle. " Patience," he cried, " that tree of hidden root, And bitter rind, that hath so sweet a fruit, " Be the good guerdon of the bishop's heart, The turbulent sheep who shepherds in that land. Full often must he bear, with breaking heart, The long ingratitude, the plot well plann'd, The deep suspicion hid with laughing eye, The poison'd dagger sheath'd with flattery. AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 41 " They do possess such imitative grace, Such exquisite sympathy when needed most, Such fine emotion feign'd with mobile face, Such passionate speech withal the enormous boast, The shallowness of hearts that seem so deep, The candid lie that makes you laugh and weep. " O grand traditions, forged me any morn, Ethereal sentiment for solid gold, Vows soon unvow'd, oaths laughingly forsworn, Facts no historian happens to have told, Fair, faint, false legends of a golden spring, A past that never was a present thing. " The thrush sings sweetest with his speckled breast Against the hawthorn jags, their poets say ; His loveliest notes are agony exprest, So that the little pain seems rapture : they, So sharp, so soft, so pitiless, so forlorn, Sing like the thrush, and stab ye like the thorn. " God's pardon rest on them. All that is o'er, The time of my departure is at hand, And here my rest shall be for evermore, Far from Armagh and from that fatal land." So he ; yet still his frame was full of grace, And death seem'd distant from that comely face, Yet on All Saints, " Behold," the leeches said, " Before to-morrow must the Archbishop die ; " Her loftiest rite the monastery made, And sang her music of festivity. Thankless the task, inopportune the art, To sing sweet songs to sorrow's heavy heart. 42 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. And sorrow was in that Cistercian home Sorrow untuned the chant of choir and priest. One only tasted of Christ's honeycomb, One only knew the fulness of the feast. All Saints to Malachy was but the small Dim vesper of his glorious festival. " Lover and friend are darkness light within. Love is eternal ; and I love my Lord, And love ye all ; haply my love may win Somewhat from Thee, O Christ ! whom I regard Humanly pitying, for man's heart is Thine ; Divinely helping, being Thyself divine. " Let me not fall into the bitter pain Of death eternal for any pains of death. Let Christ's omnipotence manifested reign, Making omnipotent one who languisheth, Whose thought and will and memory growing dim, A trinity of misery, call to Him." So, near the twilight was the veil withdrawn. Into a morn-red sea did his sail -sweep A sea not dim with twilight, flushed with dawn, If grey mists melt, if God's beloved sleep, Why search the sea mists when he sails no more ? Why weep for him whose weeping all is o'er ? Then, though all look'd to see the fair soul sail Into the mystery o'er life's furthest line, The moment that it cross'd might none prevail To note for a memorial, or divine The very moment on God's clock to tell W T hen all was over, and when all was well. AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 43 Only the Abbot softly said" Behold, Life is a sea, whose waters ever swing ; A wood, whose leaves like bells are ever toll'd. A tranquil God makes tranquil everything. Here is no trembling leaf, no wrinkling wave, But such serenity as sleepers have. " Sleep, brother, sleep, until the golden year ; Until thou sing, ' Let us arise and see If the vine flourish whether the grapes appear, If all the red buds gem the Passion tree ? ' Till on our hearts shall breathe a better day, And chase the clouds of human things away." Ah ! never sorrow comes that comes alone. Deep calleth unto deep, and wave to wave ; Saint calleth unto saint, and ere hath grown Grass on one sod, there is another grave. The angels of one death-bed come again White clouds returning after God's own rain. And Girard died. The funeral just o'er, The monks were gather'd. Now, it happen'd so That in the scroll which Bernard evermore His garden made eternally in blow, Unto the place in order was he come " Nigra, O filice ! sedformosa sum" " Curtains of Solomon, tents of Kedar such This body is the tent which robs our sight So that it sees not through the foldings much Of the uncircumscribed plenitude of light." Thus in the presence of these childlike men He tells his sorrows sweetly o'er again. 44 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. By the bier tearless had stood Clairvaux's chief, Tearless the rite intoned in priestly vest, And done despite unto the spirit of grief, Lest they, perchance, should say who knew not Christ, "See, the pierced Hand dries not all tears that flow, The wounded Heart is not for every woe." " And shall they say thou knowest me no more, After this human flesh which we wear still, Than I am known by light waves on the shore, Or breezes blowing round a sunny hill ? Ah ! there be some who bid us mourners dwell With Nature's sympathies, so shall it be well. " Mystic condolences of morn and eve Shall touch the heartache tenderly away, The rivers and the great woods interweave A consolation lips can never say ; And with the sighing of the summer sea, Come cadences that chant, ' we pity thee.' " It is not so ; who truly mourn shall trace Something sardonic in that fixed regard, The quiet sarcasm of a great cold face, Staring for ever on, terribly starr'd A silver depth of delicate despair, An uncompassionate silence everywhere. "Ah ! as we weep three voices bid us guess, Three contradictions cross above our dead ; Earth answers us ' perhaps,' and ' no,' and * yes.' ' Perhaps,' by glad streams is conjectured ; Resurgent roses breathe faint ' yes ' ; but ' no ' Sighs o'er the undeceiving death-white snow. AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 45 " How speaks that pitiless power impersonal ? ' / who stand stirless on the starlit tracts ; I who impalpably pervade the All ; I who am white on the long cataracts ; I through ceonian centuries who perform Instinct of spring, or impulse of the storm ; II * I in the greenwood who at May -time move With straggling clouds of hyacinth dark blue ; Who neither laugh nor weep, nor hate nor love, Who sleep at once and work, both old and new Work with such myriad wheels that interlace, Sleep with such splendid dreams upon my face ; " ' When thou hast asKd me " Are my loved ones near ? Surely this golden silence doth contain Them deathlessly ; their dim eyes hold some tear Delicious, born not of the showers of pain " When thou hast questioned me at hush of eve, What right hast thou to say that I deceive ? " ' Perhaps they say, " I pardon thee that wrong ; Nay, love thee more divinely for it all ;" Perhaps they strengthen thee when thou art strong, Perhaps they walk with thee when shadows fall. But this is all I have for thee; the fair Absolute certitude is other where.' " But we will comfort us for him to-day Whom in that altar tomb of ours we hid. Faith's * Yes ' shall rise although the sky be grey, Like a bird singing on a coffin-lid, And like a rescuer victorious Hope Wade far out in death's foam to catch the rope. 46 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. " Think'st thou of me bath'd in the sea of bliss? Art thou unmindful of me, holy mind ? Thou who of light has enter'd the abyss, Art thou with God's great splendour intertwined, A chalice with His fulness fill'd too high For wine-drops of earth's colour'd memory ? " Then must I think of thee, my Girard, aye, As I might think upon some lucent tide ; As I might think of some fair summer day, Profuse of shadows on the mountain-side ; As I might think of the high snows far kenn'd, A cold white splendid quiet without end ? " Nay, that were life which truly liveth not, Life lower than our life, and not above. Thou, thou art near to God in thy fair lot ; Nearer to God is fuller of God's love Fuller of Him who looks on us to bless, Who is impassible, not compassionless. " God's life is to have mercy and forgive ; One spirit with Him, thou, my Girard, art ; Wherefore thro' that great life which thou dost live There is unsuffering sympathy in thy heart. Thou carest, though no care can pass thy gate, And passioning not art still compassionate. " O, that strange tide ! what time the midnight came Thy last. The darkness darkened not. It grew Into a dawn for thee a flush of flame, A midnight dawn, translucent through and through. Dying he sings, or e'er his lips grow dumb, * Laudate in excelsis Dominum! AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 47 " Then with such look as erst I saw him cast In dear old days upon Sir Tescelin, ' Father,' he cried, ' my Father, oh, how vast Our glory to be sons ! ' and so pass'd in To perfect climates spring, and summer sun, Autumn's exuberance, winter's rest in one." Sweet was the last day when the Pontiff rode From Lyons to Clairvaux. Upon the hill The burning sunset had already glow'd. Superbly looks the retinue, and still The Roman clergy and the courtly throng Wait for the pageant and the perfect song. They paused, but no procession went to meet The movement of the rainbow -colour'd wave ; No carpet was there for the Pontiff's feet, No crowd of knights and dames, as in the nave Of Rheims or Rouen ; and as on he fared No herald bovv'd to him, no trumpet blared. Lo ! for the purple prelates, monks in serge ; For the gemm'd crucifix a cross of stone ; For music dying on the vast dim verge Of the groin'd roof, a sweet low monotone, Like the sea's sigh heard on a headland path Such mystic beauty the Church Latin hath. Now it sounds grand, and solemnly it rolls. Like blind men hearing ocean, so hear we Therein the adoration of all souls, Voices out of a vast eternity, The wondrous sighs that soar while they complain, The unperturbed rapture, the sweet pain. 48 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. Now intervolving richly type with type, Reticulated sounds with sounds enlace The thoughts by summers long of prayers made ripe, Writ by some gentle Tacitus of grace. Leaf shadows on them now, a bird-lilt chime Now a grand hammer-stroke of triple rhyme. They sang ; straight out those heartfelt praises broke, Like the old arrows kindling as they flew ; They speak the accent that their Master spoke, Seeing life's highest object clearly through Earth's perturbations like the calm higher star Seen steadfast through the comet's hair of fire. Each knight bethought him of the tender days, Of small hands lifted at his mother's knee ; Each priest felt purer with that burst of praise, Each bishop fell to praying for his see. While knight and priest and bishop concert kept, The Pontiff lifted up his voice, and wept. " Out of the ground the evil weed shall spring, The pestilence shall spread o'er Christian lands ; Black shall the plague be, fell the blossoming Behold, the self-convicted sophist stands, Posing those principles, denying these, Weaving himself into parentheses." " The gold dust rub thou off the radiant moth, The death's head of the heresy show thou there ; From the fell skull tear thou the fine cerecloth, Lift up thy voice, O Bernard ! do not spare, Though the swarms thicken round thee, though the fly Of France shall hiss to that of Italy." AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 49 " What though Abelard promise new-born thought, And Arnold liberty that word of fire ; Speak thou calm truth from God's own treasure brought, The better freedom from our own desire ; The Church's dogma lion-like in rest Of strong repose that faces foemen best." Time for collation, food of garden growth, The ripe fruit crush'd into the temperate cup ; Then, silence made, proudly and gladly both The seneschal proclaimeth, standing up : " Enough for each and all the brethren hope, And one fair fish for our dread lord the Pope." The sumptuous Roman in that stern hall miss'd The chased orfevery, the peacock's pride, The heavy cup, the tint of amethyst ; And each to each around the table sigh'd, " Well till the light of Burgundy wax dim To hear a saint, but not to dine with him ! " But the Pope, wholly wrapp'd in Bernard, learn'd That love hath lore which makes it wondrous wise. Still in the lamp of these saints' hearts have burn'd Time's clearest lights ; they with their gentle eyes, In the deep fold of God's pavilion hid, Knew the world better than the worldlings did. Then to the church. No pictured forms were there. With the eternal golden headache cinct ; No heaven of precious stones without soft air Or sunny distance sweetly indistinct. "I love," said Bernard, "no such rigid sky; Our heaven is Christ, not lapis lazuli." 50 AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. The Romans look'd for altar cloth's design, Fulgent as the Byzantine work, and stiff With rough meandering of the golden line ; A miracle of colouring as if In charmed looms the sunset clouds were trick'd, And magic wrought the matchless acupict. The Romans look'd for vestments to display, Radiant with all the colours of the morn, Rich with pineapple, and pomegranate spray ; But Bernard pray'd " Let art again be born, With beauty not this lower atmosphere's. He paints Christ ill who paints Him not with tears." Then after psalms and vespers all expect, The Pontiff bow'd and bade the Abbot speak. He rose, his chestnut hair with thin grey fleck'd, A little flush upon his pallid cheek, And oped the Song at that place of the lay Which saith, " Pascitur inter lilia" Preluding something for the knights' behalf, Of virgin knights who keep a virgin will Serious, who almost deem it sin to laugh, Bearing the red cross upon Sion's hill ; Who with strong arm corporeal possest The place corporeal of our Jesus' rest, He added " Jesus, Lily for our eyes. Lo ! from the midst those spikelets all of gold, Cinct with the white disposed circlet-wise. Golden divinity in this behold, With fair Humanity pure white around Him, Christ with the crown wherewith his Mother crown'd Him. AN OLD VOLUME OF SERMONS. 51 " Lily and lilies, fair perfumed towers, And all things that be His true lilies are His birth, His words, His works, His passion hours, His life risen beyond the morning star. Joy to our sinful hearts from each is sent ; For each is white, and each is redolent " Ah ! we are poor, and yet it shall be well If we can keep our narrow garden so That He who feeds among the lilies dwell In hearts where we have made one lily grow So that each little life be turned by grace Into one lily perfect in its place." I closed both books ; the double spell was o'er. I slept, but a voice spake with gentle might, " Open to me, open the long closed door ; My locks are filled with the drops of night From some far shore, perchance across the sea, Through drift and rain, soul, I come to thee." I saw a Hand, and raised my hands from thence Were my hands wet with myrrh or tears so late ? If there were myrrh, 'twas myrrh of penitence ; Of penitence that I had made him wait If there were tears, it was because I knew That Hand of love was love-pierced through and through. Then to the Frenchman's vaudeville I turn'd There stands a law for every tongue of man, They only can interpret who have learn'd ; To the unlearn'd it is barbarian. Lay of the lily, dreamland of the dove ! Love hath a tongue they only know who love. C 52 ) THE NEW ATLANTIS. ARGUMENT. Oxford in 1845 reading the New Atlantis of Bacon II. Vision of the Island III. Imaginatively applied to an idealized Oxford IV. Oxford in 1885 Disappointment Discord of Faith and Science in an age of Criticism V. The inner work the hope of reconciliation. A CITY of young life astir for fame, With generations each of three years' date, The waters fleeting, yet the fount the same Where old age hardly enters thro' the gate. Forty years since ! Thoughts now long over-blown Had just begun to quicken in the germ. We sat discussing subjects dimly known One pleasant evening of the Summer Term. So question came of all things new and old, And how the Movement sped and where should lead ? Some, peradventure, scorn'd, but more wax'd bold, And bravely flaunted their triumphant creed. THE NEW ATLANTIS. 53 Grave grew the talk, and golden grew the gloom ; The reason might be weak, the voice was strong. Outside, by fits and starts, from room to room, Boy call'd to boy, like birds, in bursts of song. Of forms they talked that rose, as if in joy, Like magic isles from an enchanted foam ; They prophesied (no prophet like a boy !) Some fairer Oxford and some freer Rome, An Oxford of a more majestic growth A Rome that sheds no blood, and makes no slave The perfect flower and quintessence of both, More reverent science, faith by far more brave. Faith should have broader brow and bolder eye, Science sing "Angelus" at close of day; Faith have more liberal and lucent sky, And science end by learning how to pray. And " Hail the hour," they cried, " when each high morn England, at one, shall stand at the church gate, And vesper bells o'er all the land be borne, And Newman mould the Church, and Gladstone stamp the State." Now, when all left me, on my table lay A volume of my Bacon, where was writ By that great hand, in the evening of his day, The fairest fable sunshine ever lit. While in the dusk white chestnut blossoms paled Above the black old wall, on the great tree, The book and talk commingled, and I sail'd Across a vast unnavigated sea. 54 THE NEW ATLANTIS. II. The enchanted island rose before me, drawn More beautiful than words of mine may reach ; It lay magnificent in a magic dawn, And full of boscage to the foam-fringed beach. How well the city of the sons of knowledge Stood, giving pleasant prospect to the sea ! The fabulous and fancied island college Unfabled and unfancied grew for me. In secret conclave of a sea so vast Earth's widest wilderness of waves ring'd round- No mariner ever caught from any mast A glimpse or inkling of that happy ground. Yet now (such fair adventure did I win !) That I could see and hear whate'er of state Or thought, or work, or worship, was within That muse-discovered island fortunate. I saw the House of Solomon strongly stand, No fane so noble springs from any sod ; The oracle and lanthorn of the land, Where nature is the interpreter of God. The College of the Six Days' Work well call'd, Whence traders issue not for gain or might, For gold or silk, for spice or emerald Only for God's first creature, which is light. I saw the masters of the speech and pen, Those cunning in the secret cause of things ; Whose aspect was as if they pitied men A temperate race, a commonwealth of kings. THE NEW ATLANTIS. 55 And, reverencing self, each soul was great, And, reverencing God, to each was brought With long calm striving strength inviolate, With virgin purity victorious thought. Being such they scorn the mob's vain fierce desires, Whereof coherent reading may not be, Like the wild message interrupted wires Send in magnetic storms below the sea. Deep caverns had they in the mountains wrought, High watch-towers for the clouds and starry tracts ; And many a spacious house where light was caught From tumbling tides and thunderous cataracts. Gardens they had where they perused the flowers, And each had more than fairy tales to tell, For with it bees that buzz'd in golden hours Conspired to work a patient miracle. Exquisite distillations, dainty work Of excellent lustre, gems elsewhere unfound, They lack'd not, nor the music that doth lurk In tremulous string and half inaudible sound. The chemistry of sunlight and of star They knew ; the long slow change of earth and man ; The bells and rings that sweet and dainty are The universal calm aeonian ; The families of all children of the cloud ; The innumerable lives all waves that throng ; Each medicinal plant with pow'r endow'd ; The birds of every wing and every song. 56 THE NEW ATLANTIS. Pictures they had, silent and old, and yet Sweeter than music, richer-hued than rose, And statues of their great men, stirless set, Praxitelean shapes in passionless repose. A place of leafiness, a land of rivers, A clime where frosts in rain and sunshine pass, And temperate nature, half-regretful, shivers The rose in heaven, the diamond on the grass. A land of distant forests purple-domed, Of sunlit sails slow passing park-girt halls, As sweet a land as traveller ever roam'd Through scented limes, by passioning waterfalls. Yet deem'd I " Something wants where all is fair," I sigh'd, " Man doth not live alone by bread "- "What of the higher life, whose breath is prayer? What of the touch of sacraments ? " I said. Behold ! a chime of bells rang toward the east, To a cathedral moved a white-robed host, And of the wisest each man was a priest, And broadest brows were those that brighten'd most. Within, i' the midst, was a scroll clasp'd with gold, And one stood forth of look more sweet than strong, And (for the day was festival) he told "The Finding of the Book," in measured song. " One eve like this, a thousand years ago, Our merchantmen of light were weary grown ; Wise men are strong, but for the strong 'tis woe To know the holiest of truth unknown. THE NEW ATLANTIS. 57 " Lo ! through the trees, like bits intensely shining Cramp'd in the painted window, first there came, Cut into diamonds by the boughs entwining The orange flashes of the sea aflame. " And then through all the cloister'd aisles of beech, The fluted stems from whence the builder learns, There pass'd a softer breath than any speech A dying light stream'd inward on the ferns. " Those trees stand waiting through the silent years, Expecting some one who doth never come ; So sternly happy over human tears, To human words so eloquently dumb. " They wait some song that winters never sing, Some summer blue that eye hath never seen, The far-off foot-fall of some spell-bound spring, That lingers unimaginably green. " But through them passed that eve a mystic breath, A hint from God to all their leaves was given, Some inarticulate news of life and death, The anticipation of some gift from Heaven. " And when the sun had sunk, and the night was Cloudy and calm ; some mile into the sea Upon our eastern coast it came to pass A light unspeakable hover'd far a-lee. " There sail'd a pillar from some shore unknown, Pillar with cross atop, and both of light ; And all the ocean hush'd its stormy tone, And awe was on the azure infinite. 58 THE NEW ATLANTIS. " The throng upon the strand made not a stir, But boats put forth to see the lights divine, And the crews stood as in a theatre, Beholding this, as if a heavenly sign. " And after prayer the wisest of our wise, Toward the pillar rowed with muffled oar, Half fear'd that at one sound beneath the skies, The delicate dream might fade for evermore. " When, as the boat drew near the light of God, The moon being partly hid by pearly bars, Pillar and cross did cast themselves abroad Into a firmament of many stars. "What ark was that? How chanced it on the tide? No gallant ship upon the ocean rode, No lights were lit the mariners to guide, On pencilled spars no sail was moon-besnow'd. " Sole there remain'd that tiny cedar ark, Wherefrom there grew one small green branch of palm, Which open'd, nothing but the Book they mark, Wherein is written every holy Psalm ; " And all the histories of the Hebrew years, And all the treasury of soul-complaints, And all the dim magnificence of seers, And all the sighs and silences of saints. "And all the visions by the Patmian shore, Cycle in cycle orbing manifold, And all the hopes that make the sweet heav'n more Than a mere mist of amethyst and gold. THE NEW ATLANTIS. 59 " And chief enshrined above earth's waves of strife, The unfathomable words that Jesus saith And all the loveliness of one white Life, And all the pathos of one perfect Death." III. On the next eve, beside our glorious river, Forth from the throng I walk'd among the trees, The rustle of whose leaves keeps time for ever To holy bells of ancient colleges. " I will do justice to this place," I cried, " Endow it with imaginative gleam, And let its outward frame be glorified With something of the glory of my dream." Whereon my Oxford rose with airy motion, Superbly touch'd by sunset's magic spell, Most like the fabulous college girt with ocean Far beyond Cambalene and Tyrambel And I could see and hear what fortuned there, The forms and voices of a noble band, In love and all sweet brotherhood walking fair, The thinkers and the workers hand in hand. Not only those who know all lights and shadows, On waves of language as they rise and fall, And live their life upon the Attic meadows Beneath the plane in worlds Platonical ; 60 THE NEW ATLANTIS. Or those who the fine tissue of the lyre Antique can follow through its difficult woof, Or who can march with soul that doth not tire Through the long process of the perfect proof. Eyes, too, were there, deep orbs whereto was given Another and a vaster world to win, The passionless pathway of the stars of heav'n Without, the subtler universe within Histories that seem to have no steadfast end, By one majestic purpose bounden still, As rushing cataracts hang at distance kenn'd One great white wonder from the purple hill The quiet chronicles of rocks and flowers, The mystery of life enwrapped in awe, The interworking of dissimilar powers Where all is harmony, for all is law, Through light's long tide and ocean's silver roll, From the pale primrose to the furthest star, In all the harp of man's immortal soul No strife to desecrate, no string to jar. Each after each, some house of light upsprings, A visible sign of knowledge larger grown, Where cunning hands have heap'd up precious things, And cut thy vision, Verulam, in stone. Oh, lamps too long unlit, now bravely burning One true philosophy that lives and grows ; Oh, happy hand of reverential learning, That brushes snails from Faith's unfolding rose ! THE NEW ATLANTIS. 61 Nor shall want strain of verse superbly wrought, For aye sweet Poesy renews her youth, Hangs songs like hawthorn from the sharpest thought, And daisies o'er the ploughshare track of Truth. And aye let Science disenchant at will, And set her features free from passion's trace A new enchantment waits upon her still, New lights of passion fall upon her face. And aye as Poesy is said to die, Her resurrection comes. She doth create New heaven, new earth, an ampler sea and sky, A fairer Nature, and a nobler fate ; For stealth of Science, poverty of Fact, Indemnifies herself in gold of song, And claims her heritage in that blue tract Of land which lies beyond the reach of wrong. And being divine, believeth the Divine, And being beautiful, creates the fair, And always sees a further mountain line, And stands delighted on a starrier stair. Last, as the evening light wax'd richly dim, Melodious voice of yearning unsufficed, Uprose Magnificat, and holy hymn, And wisdom's strong heart fell asleep in Christ. IV. Years forty years have pass'd away since then, And boys who bent to manhood's earliest strife Are in the silent land, or see as men Few diamond spray-drops on the mill-wheel life. 62 THE NEW ATLANTIS. What high fulfilment hath thy vision found ? What fair adventure hath thy fancy brought ? With what rich wreaths is thy Utopia crown'd ? And what success hath fallen to thy thought ? The thinkers and the workers walk apart Upon the banks of Isis and of Cam. The worker from the thing miscall'd his heart Casts forth like ice his morsell'd epigram. The thinker owns of mere subjective worth His thought, and piles his doubts like flakes of snow, And o'er a darken'd universe drivels forth His feeble and immeasurable " No." And that sweet story. Ah ! the Book enfolden Unstain'd and glorious by the branch of palm, O'er it the shaft of light and cross more golden, Round it the sea's illimitable calm ; Came it so gently within cedar barr'd, And floated it on waves so grandly lit, And kept the angels such a watch and ward, And arch'd such tender azure over it, That the white page should be so darkly blotted By the high treason of the sceptic's ink, And the one story of a life unspotted Fall into four as certain critics think ? That the sweet breath of miracle should die, Like the brief odour of the cedarn ark, On earth's one truest page be branded Lie ! On its one chronicle of sunlight Dark ? THE NEW ATLANTIS. 63 And He whom we adore with bended head, What tints are these the mockers intermix ? The riddle of the years is poorly read, A contradiction loads the crucifix. They call Him King. They mourn o'er His eclipse, And fill a cup of half-contemptuous wine, Foam the froth'd rhetoric for the death-white lips, And ring the changes on the word " divine." Divinely gentle yet a sombre giant ; Divinely perfect yet imperfect man : Divinely calm yet recklessly defiant ; Divinely true yet half a charlatan. They torture all the record of the Life, Give what from France and Germany they get, To Calvary carry a dissecting-knife, Parisian patchouli to Olivet. They talk of critical battle-flags unfurl'd, Of the wing'd sweep of science high and grand And sometimes publish to a yawning world A book of patchwork learning second-hand. Wing'd did they say ? but different wings uplift The little living ecstasy sunward borne, And the brown-feather'd thief, with one poor gift To stoop and twitter as it steals the corn. Ah ! up the chapel-aisles, in rows more thin, The priests pass eastward, and the scholars come, And half-sad faces wear Arouet's grin, And half the old Magnificats are dumb. 64 THE NEW ATLANTIS. Hush'd be such strains of bitterness or hate ; A hidden faith doth Oxford strongly keep. If less of blue the wave irradiate, A purer salt lies many a fathom deep. Patience ! God's House of Light shall yet be built, In years unthought of, to some unknown song, And from the fanes of Science shall her guilt Pass like a cloud. How long, O Lord, how long ? When Faith shall grow a man, and Thought a child, And that in us which thinks with that which feels Shall everlastingly be reconciled, And that which questioneth with that which kneels. And that true Book the lovely dream is o'er Which saw it shelter'd well beneath the palm, Sent by a saint from some mysterious shore, Its tiny frigate floating o'er a calm. No vessel bore it to a sacred isle, No magic kept it from the salt sea-spray, It had no perfect charm of Grecian style, No shaft of glory heralded its way. Yet, peradventure, shall diviner seem The chronicle of a severer truth, Than all the fabulous colouring of the dream That tinted it so richly in our youth. And yet, for all the puzzle of the lines, All the discordant copies stain'd with age, A more miraculous lore it intertwines, A grander Christ looks radiant from its page. THE NEW ATLANTIS. 65 For all the stammering of those simple men, A four-fold unity of truth they reach : Drops as of light fall from their trembling pen, And Christ speaks through them with a tenderer speech. And through all time our father's faith shall speed, And the old utterance be sent abroad, And eastward chanted rise the changeless creed O Light from Light, O very God from God ! But for the New Atlantis for the Church Where faith and knowledge heart-united dwell I think it lies far-off beyond our search, Enfolded by the Hills Delectable. ( 66 ) SUPER FLUMINA. I READ again that wondrous song, So strongly sweet and sweetly strong, That ancient poem, whose music shivers With a chime of rolling rivers Through the forest of the psalms Now it droppeth some golden bead, Hebrew litany, or creed, On its rosary of the reed : Now among the dark-green palms, And through the harp-hung willows grey, It yearneth its sweet self away. And then the stream is fleck' d with froth, And then the psalm is white with wrath, And all the sorrow of the verse Swells out majestic to a curse. "Blessed be thou, Psalm ! " I said, " Whether thy deep words be read Soft and low with bended head ; Or whether chance at vesper-tide In some minster grand and grey, By the organ glorified, Soft the Siiper Flumina SUPER FLUMINA. 67 Rustles by the wreathen pillar. While the hush of eve grows stiller, Till you seem to hear a river, Willows tremble, harp-strings quiver, And a beautiful regret To the heavenly Sion set." " And why," I thought, " must she be still, The Muse, that with her hallow'd fire Those chosen shepherds did inspire Of Bethlehem and of Horeb's hill ; And now, in exile chants again, Not less divinely, such a strain, As he the son of Jesse play'd In Kedron's olive-hoary glade, The glittering grief upon his brow ? In Christ's own church must she rest now, Fair, angel-fair, but frozen, like A marble maid whose death-white fingers Enclasp a harp, o'er which she lingers Stone-silent, but may never strike ? " ii. Musing thus a spirit bright Stood by me that summer night : " Come where the river rolleth calm Of that Babylonian psalm ; Thou shalt learn, by me reveal'd, Why those holy lips are seal'd." Hi. Then on a great Assyrian quay, Fast by the town of Nineveh, At noon of night, methought I stood Where Tigris went with glimmering flood. 68 SUPER FLUMINA. And walls were there all storied round With old grim kings, enthroned, encrown'd. Strange-visaged chief, and winged bull, Pine-cone, and lotus wonderful. Embark'd, I floated fast and far, For I was bound to Babylon. I saw the great blue lake of Wan, And that green island Ahktamar. I saw above the burning flat The lone and snow-capp'd Ararat. But ever spell-bound on I pass, Sometimes hearing my shallop creep, With its cool rustle, through the deep Mesopotamian meadow grass. And now (as when by moons of old, Grandly with wrinkling silver rolFd, It glimmer'd on through grove and lea, For the starry eyes of Raphael Journeying to Ecbatane) The ancient Tigris floweth free, Through orange-grove, and date-tree dell, To pearl and rainbow-colour'd shell, And coral of the Indian sea. Take down the sail, and strike the mast, Here is Euphrates old, at last. Begirt with many a belt of palm, Round fragrant garden-beds of balm, (In one whereof old Chelcias' daughter Went to walk down beside the water, The lily both in heart and name, Whose white leaf hath no blot of shame,) Grandly the king of rivers greets His Sheshach's hundred-gated streets. Through the great town the river rolls, SUPER FLUMINA. 69 Through it another river fleets, Whose awful waves are living souls. High up, the gardens folded fair, Rainbow* d round many a marble stair, Hang gorgeous in the starlit air ; And trees droop down o'er spouted fountains, That once the hunter Mede saw set Far off upon the purple mountains, Blossom'd with white and violet. But o'er the sea of living souls, And o'er the garden, and the wave, A muffled bell, methinketh tolls, " For thee, earth's chief ones stir the grave." And rises to the stars a cry Of triumph and of agony, Far over all the ancient East " How hath the golden city ceased ! " In shadow of his dim blue room, High overhead in painted gloom, Like sunset cloud-encompass'd, Bel Sleeps golden in his oracle. Falleth a voice of far-off Paeans Down where the lion banner droops : " There is a sword on the Chaldeans ; Bel boweth down and Nebo stoops." Ah ! I hear a sound of woe By Euphrates come and go, From the Lebanonian snow. Rolling wave and sighing breeze Wash'd through firs and cedar-trees And the chesnuts' plumes of white Tossing in a fierce delight And a voice that calls and calls, Through the algums, set like walls, 70 SUPER FLUMINA. Purple round white waterfalls. Deepening aye the voice increased, River near, and forest far, Half like funeral, half like feast, " Fallen, O thou Morning Star ! " And on by many a basalt column, Euphrates sang most sad and solemn, As if the prophet scroll below His billows touch'd him with a woe ; As if e'en now he felt the beat Of those predestined Persian feet ; As if through all his sea-like plain, Through all his moonlit roll he hears A music of immortal tears A sobbing as of gods in pain A prophecy of far-off years, When Babylon should become a heap, Sleeping a perpetual sleep, In the Lord's strong indignation, A wilderness, a desolation : High gate buried, broad wall broken, Deed undone, and dree unspoken, Wise men silent, captains drunken, Out of her the great voice sunken, Sea dried up, and fountain shrunken. IV. 'Tis starlight. In the fiery heat No longer doth the landscape wink, And flicker to the water's brink ; It washes by high gates of brass, Between its mounds like mountain ridges, And white-stoled forms on fairy bridges, SUPER FLUMINA. ^l Like boats on seas that cross and meet With their sails moon-besilvered, pass. Gleams from the naphtha cressets fall By Esarhaddon's sun-bright hall. The soldier rests him from the wars, Mylitta's girls their dances weave, The wise men in the lustrous eve Watch the great weird Chaldean stars, Bells in blue Heaven's cathedral chime Hands on the silver clock of Time " What of the night ? what of the night ? " Read, ye astrologers, aright ! v. Who are these sitting by the billows, With their harps hung upon the willows ? For some among the captor throngs Bid them sing one of Sion's songs. VI. " Golden hopes are faded like the sunset, Wan and wither'd like the morning moon, Golden songs are silent on the mountains, Golden harps of Judah out of tune. Ah ! we cannot sing those songs divinest, For, O Sion ! we remember Thee, Ah ! our hearts miss sorely in this valley, The wild beauty of the hill and sea. If there must be music from the exiles, Set we words of battle to the harp, Sweep it as the wild wind sweeps the forest, Let the curse rise high, and fall down sharp ! " 72 SUPER FLUMINA. VII. What time on Judah's hills they trod, Science of song to them was given, The harpers on the harps of God, The poets of the King of Heaven. Mournful their strains, but through them still The hope of their return is seen, Like a sun-silver'd sail between Dark sea and darkly purple hill. Strange race ! that reads for ever scrolls, With future glories pictured bright, As sunsets' golden pencils write Those slanting sentences of light, When tree-tops dusk, on dark green boles. By the broad pulses of this river, Keeping one even time for ever, Since Amraphel was King of Shinar, They long for Jordan's spray and shout, And linked music long drawn out, Passioning with song diviner, From waterfall to waterfall. O, for the line of long green meadows, Waters whose gleams are silver shadows, Whose glooms, where wood-hung hills rise higher, Are darkness dash'd with silver fire, And glens through which those waters come, With many a crashing downward call, With sweeping sound of battle pomp, With blaring of the battle trump And double of the battle drum. And sometimes dawn-blush'd, as with twine Of rosy flowers of Palestine, SUPER FLUMINA. 73 And sometimes touch'd with Paschal moons, And sometimes yellowing in the noons, But always gushing like the swell Of shawms and cymbals raised to Him Who dwells between the Cherubim, The Holy One of Israel. VIII. I saw the star-lights all depart, I heard a shiver thro' the leaf, I heard the river moan and start As if rememb'ring that old grief He had in Eden, when the swell Of Gihon and of Hiddekel Told him that earth's glory fell. I saw the white moon fade and fade, Until her silver flower was laid Dead on the morning's passionate heart But ere the city was dislimn'd, And ere the starlit stream was dimm'd, And ere the exiles ceased to weep Beside Euphrates' mighty sweep, That spirit came to me and said : " Seest thou, why sacred song is dead ? Faith sets those tunes of sorrow high, Love gives that longing to each eye, Hope pledges them the victory. O exiles from a brighter home ! O weepers by. a wilder foam ! O poets to whom God has given On earth the starry harps of Heaven ! When to the city far off kenn'd With love like theirs your eye shall bend, 74 SUPER FLUMINA. * And Heaven look closer through the tear As hills look nigh when rain is near ; When by life's stream your faith shall sigh, When ye shall look with hope as high, For Christ's eternal victory ; God's Church, as in the years of old, Shall chant, and her sweet voice returning Shall touch the eyes with happy yearning, Shall teach the deep heart's harp of gold." ( 75 ) THE ISLAND CHURCH* POOR was the peasant, poor and heavy-hearted, Gone were his fields, his children, and his wife, The kindly friends of other days departed, The fine lights faded from the hills of life. Glad threads of speech, if rough, the labourers mingle By their own fires, where their own smoke-wreaths curl, But Onni sat beside the stranger's ingle, And steeped in tears the scant bread of a churl. The young have hope ; but on his head was shaken The snow that summer sun shall never thaw, Yet bless'd are they whom Heaven has undertaken To chasten and to teach from God's own law. O bread of God ! O fields for ever sunny ! O fadeless flowers upon life's craggiest shelves ! O better substance, more enduring money, By grace laid up within our hearts themselves ! Midsummer Day ! All night the child has folden Himself in expectation, heart and head, Like bee in some rich flow'r-bell dusty golden, With long sleep pleasantly disquieted. * The idea of this poem is taken from one by Runeberg, of which I have only seen a literal French translation. 76 THE ISLAND CHURCH. Midsummer Day ! All night the rivers going By heath and holm triumphantly have slid ; All night a soft and silver overflowing From joy expected bathed the sleeper's lid. Midsummer Day ! At morn the maiden merry Dons her green kirtle ; in the hawthorn lane The farmer's boy beneath the rows of cherry Brings hampers full of flow'rs in the wane. Midsummer Day ! The sad and wrinkled peasant Smiles as he stands erect upon the sod : " In holy church to-day it will be pleasant To taste the liberty of the sons of God.' Midsummer Day ! They smother up the altar With coronals, the brightest of the year ; The village choir have practised well the Psalter, The grand old hymns to Finland ever dear. The feast of flowers ! The old priest has conn'd over A brand-new homily joyful yet perplexed Redolent of garden bloom and meadow-clover ; " Behold the lilies," is the good man's text. The feast of flowers ! Sky, ocean, earth, seem turning All things to flowers. Midsummer winds expire In perfumed music through the roses, burning Like wreaths of red flame on the gilded wire. Flowers in the churches ! Every birchen column Blushes like dawn, or gleams as when it snows ; Their sweet breath in the holy air is solemn, Like warbled music when it comes and goes. THE ISLAND CHURCH. 77 Flowers on the window-sill, and in the chamber, Flowers round the great stem of the village tree, And far away of infinite blue and amber The rose of heaven, the violet of the sea. Speaks out the peasant Onni : " O my master ! But for a little while let me away. Hark, through the woodland walks is rising faster The voice of them that keep their holiday. " All winter long, when the wild wind was grieving, Thou know'st I drudged for thee in wet and cold ; All spring, when God's great sunshine was inweaving Through forest-leaves his thousand nets of gold, " I work'd thy flax ; and still the bounding river Swept with his sound of trumpets through the glade, But my poor ear was sicken'd with the shiver That the monotonous shuttle always made. " Worse, worse than that ; for we our gathering festal Once in the twelvemonth only have down here, But saints and angels, on the sea of crystal, Their feast of flowers keep round th' eternal year. " And much I dread, lest, when my dear Lord call me, The chants of Heaven sound strange within my heart, The low base influence of the earth enthral me, Till I forget how I may bear my part. " Yea, worse than all, six months how long and dreary, This starving soul of mine is unsufficed With that sweet invitation to the weary, The music of the promises of Christ. 78 THE ISLAND CHURCH. " O master ! let me call thee, O, my brother ! I pray thee by all prayers thy heart may search, I pray thee by the days when with thy mother Thou kept'st the feast, O let me go to church ! " But the churl pointed to the stream, where sombre A great white mist was creeping from the hill, Dulling the splendid laughters without number That twinkled on the water by the mill, And said with thick voice, eloquent of the flagon, " There lies thy way to church, thou preaching loon ! Go in that boat alone, I have no waggon Perhaps thy prayers to church will bring thee soon." And Onni heard speechless, and taking only The oar, full heavy for that wrinkled hand, A weak adventurer in his vessel lonely, Pray'd inly, " God of ocean and of land ! " Sweetly and strongly at Thy will far-bringing All fins in waves, all plumes upon the breeze, Beautiful birds to western forest winging, And whatso passeth through the paths of seas, " Me, of more value, with my soul immortal, Mine infinite futurity, than they, Me, a wing'd voyager to Thy starry portal, Lead, loving Father ! to Thy church to-day." Wearily, wearily, drags the oar, and slowly, Like a man blinded by the snow athwart His smarting eyelids, trails the boat, and wholly Lost in the fog, the rower loses heart. THE ISLAND CHURCH. 79 And ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, in the distance, The church bells sounded over holt and hill. He dropp'd his oars, and, weary of resistance, Let the strong river bear him at its will, Until at last the bark's keel sharply grated Upon the white sand of a little isle ; Then ding dong, ding dong, to the man belated. The bells first clash'd, then ceased a little while. White clung the colourless mist on the island forest, Unbeautifying its green depths and fells ; Sad were his thoughts, but just when grief was sorest, A silver music changed upon the bells. Then the mist thinn'd ; the lustrous sky, from off it Sweeping one cloud, left interspace of blue, One isle of summer-light, one voiceless prophet Of sunny touches that make all things new ; And kenn'd beyond the furthest intervening Of dark green hall, and sombre colonnade, The northern river far away was sheening Like the dark blue of some Damascan blade. " Ah, in the church are psalms divinely tender " Yet here is music too, not earthly born, Dropp'd downward by the skylarks as they render Some air heard up beside the gates of morn. And in the woodland depths, with restless shiver, From branch to branch the countless wild birds sing ; So the swift bow of a musician ever Flits with the melody from string to string. 8o THE ISLAND CHURCH. " Ah, in the church the flowers are surely glorious, And the old pillars look full bright and brave ; And the great organ, trembling yet victorious, Keeps quivering on like light upon the wave. "And better still, the good Priest of Christ's merits Speaks to believing hearts, right glad yet awed, And launches sinful yet forgiven spirits On that great deep, the promises of God; " Whilst I, far off from church, like one in blindness Groping, lose sacrament and pastoral tone. The Lord commandeth not His loving kindness, I am cast out from His pavilion." Yet here are flowers, and light, and voices mystic Were never such, since when, as Scripture tells, The High Priest in the Holiest moved majestic With gems oraculous and with golden bells. And here are pillared pines, like columns soaring, With branches tall that like triforiums are, And a soft liturgy of winds adoring, With echoes from some temple-gate ajar. And that no consecration may be wanted, One gently passes through the haunted place Not like Him on the crucifixes painted, With white, cold, aged, agonizing face Not crown'd with thorns, and ever bleeding, bleeding, Stains on that rigid form more dark than wine Not dead but living, beautiful exceeding, Divinely Human, Humanly Divine. THE ISLAND CHURCH. 81 And Onni prays the prayer that knows no measure By bead, or clock, or count of regular chime The prayer which is the fulness of all pleasure, In words unutter'd, and transcending time. His worship ended, Nature sang no longer, But grown contemplative was silent too ; And now made gladder, calmer, holier, stronger, He raised his voice, and bade his soft adieu. " O, fellow-worshippers with me and Nature, Who sang God's praises with my soul forlorn, Wild flower, and forest tree, and winged creature, And all the sunny sanctities of morn, " River, whom God hath taught to be my pilot, Needles of light that dart through larch and birch, Ripples that were the music of mine islet, And pines that were the pillars of my church " Peace, and Farewell." Then happier and faster He glided homeward down the watery way, And with a gentle smile, said, " Thank you, Master, " I was at church, I kept my feast to-day." MUSIC OR WORDS? (ON THE SEVEN LAST WORDS.) AND is it well what one hath said ? "Ye who shall watch beside my bed, Get music, not so much to swell As to be half inaudible, Around my agony. While ye wait My passing through the shadowy gate, Speak me no word articulate. " Touch for me, touch some tremulous chords- Touch, I am weary of all words Of hearing, be it e'er so sweet, What hath capacity of deceit. Let then my spirit on life's brink, Some undeceiving music drink And so it shall be well, I think. " Speak me no words the poet sings That all our human words have wings. Ah ! if those wings at times attain A golden splash on their dark grain From some blue sky-cleft far away, They mostly wear the black or grey That doth beseem the bird of prey. MUSIC OR WORDS* 83 " Speak then no words but some soft air Play ; as it scarcely ripples there, Or, rather say, as its true wing With silver over-shadowing Throbs and no more my soul beneath Shall pass without one troubled breath From sleep to dreams, from dreams to death. " Wherefore be utter'd words kept far, Such as may that dim music mar, That exquisite vagueness finely brought, A gentle anodyne to thought Speak me not any words, O friend ! At least one moment at life's end I want to feel, not comprehend." IL How many words since speech began Have issued from the lips of man ? How few with an undying chant, The gallery of our spirits haunt And with immortal meanings twined More precious welcome ever find From the deep heart of human-kind ? Words that ring on world without end, Words that all woe and triumph blend, Broken, yet fragments where we scan Mirror'd the perfect God and man W T ords whereunto we deem that even All power because all truth is given We. Christians only know of seven. 84 MUSIC OR WORD SI Three hours of an unfathom'd pain, Of drops falling like summer rain, Earth's sympathy and heaven's eclipse Three hours the pale and dying lips By their mysterious silence teach Things far more beautiful than speech In depth or height can ever reach. O kingly silence of our Lord ! O wordless wonder of the Word ! O hush, that while all heaven is awed r Makes music in the ear of God ! Silence yet with a sevenfold stroke Seven times a wondrous bell there broke Upon the cross, when Jesus spoke. One word, one priestly word He saith The advocacy of the death, The mediation by the Throne Wordless beginneth with that tone. All the long music of the plea That ever intercedes for me Is set upon the self-same key. One saving word though love prevails To hold Him faster than the nails, And though the dying lips are white, As foam seen through a dusky night : That hand doth Paradise unbar, Those white lips tell of a world afar, Where perfect absolutions are. One word, one human word we lift Our adoration for the gift MUSIC OR WORDS! Which proves that, dying, well He knew Our very nature through and through. Silver the Lord hath not nor gold, Yet His great legacy behold The Virgin to the virgin-soul'd. One word, the Eli twice wailed o'er 'Tis anguish, but 'tis something more. Mysteriously the whole world's sin, His and not His, is blended in. It is a broken heart whose prayer Crieth as from an altar-stair To One who is, and is not, there. One word, one gentle word. In pain He condescendeth to complain Burning, from whose sweet will are born The dewinesses of the morn. The fountain which is last and first, The fountain whence life's river burst, The fountain waileth out, " I thirst" One royal word of glorious thought. A hundred threads are interwrought In it the thirty years and three, The bitter travail of the Tree, Are finished finished too we scan All types and prophecies the plan Of the long history of man. One word, one happy word we note The clouds over Calvary float In distances, till fleck or spot In the immaculate sky is not ; 86 MUSIC OR WORDS* But on the cross peace falls like balm, Anql the Lord's soul is yet more calm Than the commendo of His psalm. in. Word of the Priest, the one forgiver, Word of the atonement wrought for ever, Of Him who bore in depths unknown The burden that was not His own Word of the human son and friend That doth true human love commend Until humanity shall end Word that bestowed in one brief breath The double gift of life and death Death to the sufferer sweet surprise, Life in the lawns of Paradise Word in the passion-palm once writ, And lo ! earth's waters all are lit Now with pathetic touch of it Word that breathes forth for aye sithence Record of more than innocence, The full assurance reach'd at length, The laying hold upon a strength The resignation sweet and grand Of self into a Father's hand. Quietly passing from this land Be more to me, at last, O words, Than all that trembles from the chords ! MUSIC OR WORDS* 87 Words that have no deceit or hate, Be with me dying I can wait, If ye be with me on that day, If your sweet strength within me stay, A little for the harps to play. ( 88 ) THE OLD MAN AND THE SHIP. AN ARMENIAN LEGEND. 'Tis sunset, and the wind is blowing fair ; Her anchor soon the good ship will be weighing, Toward the cross above the harbour stair The mariners are praying. The sky was flaming westward, and the flood Was flashing all afire by bay and cape, Till their dazed eyes upon the awful rood Could scarce discern the shape. That all day long they saw from off the ship The imaged Man of Sorrows on the Tree, With blood drop on the brow, and thin white lip Above the pitiless sea. Now they averr'd that some resplendence came And on the carven hair and face did smite, Till in a furnace as of silver flame The whole was lost in light. And in the glory as it disappear'd Suddenly hung an aged Pilgrim there ; White as the snow was his majestic beard, White as the snow his hair. THE OLD MAN AND THE SHIP. 89 No thorny crown was on his ample brow, No blood-drops issuing from side or palm, Divinely was the bitter passion now Changed into passionless calm. The fierce light faded then above, below, And on the deck the sailors were aware Of an old man, with beard as white as snow. Sweet was his pleading prayer : " The land 1 seek is very far away Long have I tarried on this shore remote My brothers, ye are bound for it to-day, Oh, take me in your boat ! " So shall I sooner see its mountain line, Its immemorial forests' purple dome, And hear the musical murmurings divine Of rivers round my home. " Those rivers run in crystal ever clearer, Baptizing bluer violets on the sod, And those eternal mountain-tops are nearer Than other hills to God. " Silver and gold for guerdon have I none, But prayers, deep prayers, I offer for my freight, Such as Heaven's gentle heart have often won, When man hath said * Too late ! ' " The mariners replied, " Our ship is large And words are light, and merchants must be paid ; A ship like this, with all her heavy charge, Is not for prayers," they said. 90 THE OLD MAN AND THE SHIP. Then stepp'd the old man down upon the sand, Wind-sifted, sparkling as the mountain sleet, And scoop'd it with his thin and feeble hand, And flung it at his feet. And down it fell in spangles on the shore, A marvellous dust of silver and of gold, Nor ceased until the mariners twice o'er The grey-beard's freight had told. Blind souls of men refusing their true bliss, God's highest offers, and yet sweetly still He bribes them by these lower gifts of His, Against their own proud will ! So to the bark once more the pilgrim pass'd. Out sail'd the gallant vessel homeward bound, But evermore in silence by the mast The pilgrim might be found. While the ship raced upon an even keel And floated buoyant as an ocean bird, Upon the deck, or up beside the wheel, No voice of his was heard. Only sweet virtues grew beneath his eye Both Charity and Hope, which are Heaven's sole Prime roses, and Humility, the shy Meek violet of the soul. Only at vesper-tide, from time to time, Invisible angels, from the starlit stair, Touch'd all their spirits to a more sublime And an intenser prayer. THE OLD MAN' AND THE SHIP. 91 Only by night, what time they cross'd the pale Moonlight into the darkness, high and higher Each topmast seem'd a cross, and its white sail Was snow'd with sacred fire. At last a storm rush'd down upon the flood, And the tyrannic winds sang loud and strong ; The pilot cried, " Beneath this dreadful scud No vessel can live long." Soon rose surmise who might the pilgrim be, His passage money how he came to win ; " God's wrath," they thought, " is working in the sea Because of this man's sin." Whereat the old man rose, and, " Through the storm Give me your ship," he said, and straight did take Mysterious likeness to the wondrous Form On Galilee's wild lake. " Sleep sweetly while the ocean works and stirs, Sleep sweetly till we cross the seething bar, Sleep on, and take your rest, O mariners, For mine own crew ye are." So look'd He upward with his calm bright eye, So made the holy sign with His right hand, His left upon the helm immediately The ship was at the land. But as the ship with all sail set was steer'd Bravely into the port around the cape, No more might ye have seen a silver beard, No more an old man's shape. 92 THE OLD MAN AND THE SHIP. But calm He stood, as when He wears His crown Upon the Calvary on some southern peak, Or where above the altar He looks down, With blood drops on His cheek. And those who knew the Cross so far away, Toward which they pray'd above the harbour stair, Said that its perfected reflection lay Upon the Pilgrim there. So the shore redden'd with the holy dawn, And the bells chimed from all the churches round, And the long surfs fall on the beach was drawn Into one psalm-like sound. And, " Rise from your sweet sleep," the hymn outrang. " From your sad dream, or from your slumber sweet : Here is our Lord, and here our ship," they sang, " Oh, fall at Jesus' feet ! " VENICE, 1872. [This legend is given in a small collection which I read in the Armenian Convent.] ( 93 REPENTANCE AND FAITH. THERE was a ship, one eve autumnal, onward Steer'd o'er an ocean lake ; Steer'd by some strong hand ever as if sunward ; Behind, an angry wake, Before there stretch'd a sea that grew intenser With silver fire far spread Up to a hill mist-gloried, like a censer With smoke encompassed : It seem'd as if two seas were brink to brink, A silver flood beyond a lake of ink. There was a soul that eve autumnal sailing Beyond the earth's dark bars, Toward the land of sunsets never paling, Toward Heaven's sea of stars ; Behind there was a wake of billows tossing, Before, a glory lay. O happy soul ! with all sail set just crossing Into the Far away, The gloom and gleam, the calmness and the strife, Were death behind thee, and before thee life. 94 REPENTANCE AND FAITH. And as that ship went up the waters stately, Upon her topmasts tall I saw two sails, whereof the one was greatly Dark as a funeral pall. But oh, the next's pure whiteness who shall utter ? Like a shell-snowy strand, Or when a sunbeam falleth through the shutter On a dead baby's hand ; But both alike across the surging sea Help'd to the haven where the bark would be. And as that soul went onward, sweetly speeding Unto its home and light, Repentance made it sorrowful exceeding, Faith made it wondrous bright ; Repentance dark with shadowy recollections, And longings unsufficed, Faith white and pure with sunniest affections Full from the Face of Christ. But both across the sun-besilver'd tide Help'd to the heaven where the heart would ride. ( 95 ) YOUTH RENEWED. YES ; with heavy dashing Of a shower just shed, On the gloomy beech tree, Wet were leaves o'erhead. Wet were all the roses On the garden wire, Wet were all the corn-fields, Flakes of yellow fire. By the gloomy beech tree, By the roses wan, Looking on the corn-fields, Whence the gold was gone, Walked I sadly thinking, " I am no more young," When among the dripping Leaves a wild bird sung. Ah ! I thought, it chanted Some immortal strain Of a silver sunshine Coming after rain ; 96 YOUTH RENEWED. Of a richer flushing On a finer rose ; Of a tint more golden Than the autumn knows. Yes ; with sorrow wetted In life's autumn day, Is the cheek full often When the hair grows grey ; All the leaves and blossoms Drip with rain of tears, And the sheaves lie sodden On the field of years. Then a sweet bird singeth Of a joy that lies In the grief that only Maketh love more wise ; Sings of youth more happy, Sunlight more divine Gentle bird, sweet Spirit, What a song is thine ! Forty seems as old age In youth's happy light. Fifty counts as nonage When the head is white. Fifty, sixty, seventy Old age cometh never, If the life gives the life Which is for ever and ever. ( 97 ) HINTS OF THE DIVINE. I. A SEA GLEAM. 'TWAS a sullen summer day ; Skies were neither dark nor clear, Heaven in the distance sheer Over sharp cliffs sloped away Ocean did not yet appear. Not as yet a white sail shimmer'd, Not with full expanse divine Did the great Atlantic shine ; Only very far there glimmer'd Dimly one long tremulous line. In the hedge were roses snow'd Or blush'd o'er by summer morn, Right and left grew fields of corn, Stretching greenly from the road From the hay a breath was borne. Not of small sweet wild rose twine, Not of young corn waving free, Not of clover fields thought we ; Only to that dim bright line Looking, cried we, " 'Tis the sea." H 98 HINTS OF THE DIVINE. In life's sullen summer day Lo ! before us dull hills rise, And above, unlovely skies, Slope off with their bluish grey Into some far mysteries. Love's sweet roses, hope's young corn, Green fields whisper'd round and round By the breezes landward bound (Yet, ah ! scalded too and torn By the sea winds), there are found. And at times in life's dull day, From the flower, and the sod, And the hill our feet have trod To a brightness far away, Turn we saying, " This is God." II. AMONG THE SAND-HILLS, FROM the ocean half a rood To the sand-hills long and low Ever and anon I go ; Hide from me the gleaming flood, Only listen to its flow. HINTS OF THE DIVINE. 99 To those billowy curls of sand Little of delight is lent As it were a yellow tent, Here and there by some wild hand Pitch'd, and overgrown with bent. Some few buds like golden beads Cut in stars on leaves that shine Greenly, and a fragrance fine Of the ocean's delicate weeds, Of his fresh and foamy wine. But the place is music haunted. Let there blow what wind soever ; Now as by a stately river, A monotonous requiem's chanted ; Now you hear great pine woods shiver. Frequent when the tides are low Creep for hours sweet sleepy hums. But when in the spring tide comes, Then the silver trumpets blow And the waters beat like drums. And the Atlantic's roll full often, Muffled by the sand-hills round, Seems a mighty city's sound, Which the night-wind serves to soften By the waker's pillow drown'd : Seems a salvo state or battles Through the purple mountain gaps Heard by peasants ; or perhaps Seems a wheel that rolls or rattles ; Seems an eagle's wing that flaps ; loo HINTS OF THE DIVINE. Seems a peal of thunder, caught By the mountain pines and tuned To a marvellous gentle sound ; Waitings where despair is not, Hearts self-hushing some heart wound. Still what winds there blow soever, Wet or shine, by sun or star, When white horses plunge afar, When the palsied froth-lines shiver, When the waters quiet are ; On the sand-hills where waves boom, Or with ripples scarce at all Tumble not so much as crawl, Ever do we know of whom Cometh up the rise and fall. Need is none to see the ships, None to mark the mid-sea jet Softening into violet, While those old pre-Adamite lips To those boundary heaps are set. Ah ! we see not the great foam That beyond us strangely rolls, Whose white-winged ships are souls Sailing from the port called Home, When the signal bell, Death, tolls. And we catch not the broad shimmer, Catch not yet the hue divine, Of the purpling hyaline ; Of the heaving and the glimmer Life's sands cheat our straining eyne. HINTS OF THE DIVINE. 101 But by wondrous sounds not shut From those sand-hills, we may be Sure that a diviner sea Than earth's keels have ever cut Floweth from eternity. 302 nrs NAME. O WONDERFUL ! round whose birth hour Prophetic song, miraculous power, Cluster and burn, like star and flower, Those marvellous rays that at Thy will, From the closed Heaven which is so still, So passionless, stream'd round Thee still, Are but as broken lights that start, O Light of Light, from Thy deep heart ; - Thyself, Thyself, the wonder art ! O Counsellor ! four thousand years, One question tremulous with tears, One awful question vex'd our peers. They asked the vault but no one spoke ; They asked the depth no answer woke ; They ask'd their hearts that only broke. They look'd, and sometimes on the height Far off they saw a haze of white, That was a storm, but look'd like light. ffIS NAME, 103 The secret of the years is read, The enigma of the quick and dead, By the Child voice interpreted. O everlasting Father, God ! Sun after sun went down, and trod Race after race the green earth's sod, Till generations seem'd to be But dead waves of an endless sea, But dead leaves of a deathless tree. But Thou hast come, and now we know Each wave hath an eternal flow, Each leaf a lifetime after snow O Prince of Peace ! crown' d and discrown'd, They say no war nor battle's sound Was heard the tired world around. They say the hour that Thou did'st come, The trumpet's voice was stricken dumb, And no one beat the battle-drum. Yea, still as life to them that mark Its poor adventure, seems a bark Whose track is pale, whose sail is dark : Thou, who art Wonderful, dost fling One ray, till, like the sea-bird's wing, The canvas is a snowy thing Till the dark boat is turn'd to gold, And all the great green ocean roll'd With anthems that are new and old, io 4 HK NAME. With noble path of luminous ray From the boat slanting all the way To the Island of undying day. And still as clouding questions swarm Around our hearts, and dimly form Their problems of the mist and storm : As fleeting years seem poorly fraught With broken words, wherefrom is wrought Nathless of love the loveliest thought, Mere meaningless syllables chance met, Though in one perfect poem yet Uninterrupted to be set ; And when not yet in God's sunshine, The smoke drifts from the embattled line And shows the Captain's full design ; We bid our doubts and passions cease, Our restless fears be still'd with these Counsellor, Father, Prince of Peace ! VERY FAR AWAY. ONE touch there is of magic white, Surpassing southern mountain's snow, That to far sails the dying light Lends, where the dark ships onward go Upon the golden highway broad That leads up to the isles of God. One touch of light more magic yet, Of rarer snow 'neath moon or star, Where, with her graceful sails all set, Some happy vessel seen afar, As if in an enchanted sleep Steers o'er the tremulous stretching deep. O ship ! O sail ! far must ye be Ere gleams like that upon ye light. O'er golden spaces of the sea, From mysteries of the lucent night, Such touch comes never to the boat Wherein across the waves we float- 106 VERY FAR AWAY. O gleams more magic and divine, Life's whitest sail ye still refuse, And Hying on before us shine Upon some distant bark ye choose. By night or day, across the spray, That sail is very far away. 107 THE BIRTHDAY CROWN. IF aught of simple song have power to touch Your silent being, O ye country flowers, Twisted by tender hands Into a royal brede, hawthorn, tear thou not the soft white brow Of the small queen upon her rustic throne, But breathe thy finest scent Of almond round about. And thou, laburnum, and what other hue Tinct deeper gives variety of gold, Inwoven lily, and vetch Bedropp'd with summer's blood, 1 charge you wither not this long June day ! Oh, wither not until the sunset come, Until the sunset's shaft Slope through the chestnut-tree ; Until she sit, high-gloried round about With the great light above her mimic court Her threads of sunny hair Girt sunnily by you. io8 THE BIRTHDAY CROWN. What other crown that queen may wear one day, What drops may touch her forehead not of balm, What thorns, what cruel thorns, I will not guess to-day. Only, before she is discrowned of you, Ye dying flowers, and thou, O dying light, My prayer shall rise " O Christ ! Give her the unfading crown. " The crown of blossoms worn by happy bride ; The thorny crown o'er pale and dying lips, I dare not choose for her Give her the unfading crown ! " CHRIST ON THE SHORE. IN the silence of the morning, Of the morning grey and clouded, Mist enshrouded, On the shore of Galilee, Like a shape upon a column, Sad and solemn Christ is standing by the sea, In the silence of the morning. On the waters cold and misty, Like a rock, its dark back lifting Through the drifting Vapours, heaves the fisher's boat. Still through grey-fog hood and mantle That most gentle Watcher looketh where they float On the waters cold and misty. Hearts are waiting, eyes are weeping, Comes a voice, a susurration ; Tribulation Melteth, melteth like the mist ; no CHRIST ON THE SHORE. Yet, like music rich and olden Hiding golden Words, that sweet voice hideth Christ From the hearts that wait, and weep Him. In another morning silence, When a greyer fog falls dreary And we weary With the sea's beat evermore, Cometh One, and pale and wounded, Mist-surrounded, Looketh from another shore In another morning silence. Other waters cold and misty On the wet sands grandly singing, Bear a swinging Little bark call'd Life by men ; While the bark is swinging slowly, That most Holy Watcher looks : light silvers then On the waters cold and misty. Hearts are waiting, eyes are weeping, Falls a voice, O sweet but broken ! Falls a token Light bedimm'd with blinding mist. Take us where there are no ocean's Wild commotions ; Where we shall not know, O Christ ! Weary hearts, or tear-wet eyelids. ( III ) THE CHAMBER PEACE. A SUMMER night that blows, Fragrant with hay and flowers, on copse and lawn A window muffled round and round with rose, Fronting the flush of dawn. O pilgrim, well is thee Till the day break, and till the shadows cease, Resting the faint heart and the failing knee, In that sweet chamber, Peace. The white moon through the trees Sails but thou singest to a heavenly tune, " Needeth no sun the land my spirit sees, "Neither by night the moon." Before thine eyes half closing Like ink-black plumes their tops the willows shake ; Through them thou seest a little boat reposing Upon a moonlit lake, And " O," thou say'st, " my soul Was like those inky plumes the night winds toss ; But now it hangs in one great silver roll Over a hidden Cross, H2 THE CHAMBER PEACE. Ever on life's wild swell My heart went drifting, drifting on remote, But now within the veil 'tis anchor'd well, Safe as that little boat." Or if the shower that lingers In fleecy clouds of moonlight-tissued woof Falls, and the soft rain with a hundred fingers Taps on the chamber roof, " Christ," the lone pilgrim saith, " My Saviour, comes this heart's poor love to win ; Thy locks are filPd with dew," he murmureth, "Oh that Thou wouldst come in." So rests the pilgrim ever, Hearing at solemn intervals a swell, Music as of a grandly falling river On Hills Delectable. So rests he till he knows The morning redden in the eastern skies, And fronts the unfolding of heaven's fiery rose, The beautiful sunrise. Another chamber yet The curtain is of grass, and closely drawn ; But the pale pilgrim, in its portal set, Looketh toward the dawn. Ofttimes red roses lie On the green curtain of that chamber low, And blossoms like the deep blue summer sky, Or like the winter snow. THE CHAMBER PEACE. 113 And when the eves are calmest, Up in the incense-laden aisles of lime, Some sweet bird meditateth like a psalmist His poesy sublime. So lay the pilgrim down Set thou his feet, and face, and closed eyes, Where they may meet the golden raying crown Of Christ's august sunrise. So let him rest, unheard Thy faithless mourning ; let thy murmur cease ; Translate the grave into a gentler word, Call it the "Chamber Peace." A FINE DA Y IN HOL Y WEEK. THERE is a rapturous movement, a green growing Among the hills and valleys once again, And silent rivers of delight are flowing Into the hearts of men. There is a purple weaving on the heather, Night drops down starry gold upon the furze, Wild rivers and wild birds sing songs together, Dead nature breathes and stirs. Is this the season when our hearts should follow The Man of Sorrows to the hills of scorn ? Must not our pilgrim grief be scant and hollow On such a sunny morn ? Will not the silver trumpet of the river Wind us to gladsomeness against our will ? The subtle eloquence of sunlight shiver What sadness haunts us still ? If I might choose these notes should all be duller, That silver trump should fail in Passion week ; The mountain-crowning sky wear one pale colour, Pale as my Saviour's cheek. A FINE DAY IN HOLY WEEK. 115 And day and night there should be one slow raining, With mournful plash, upon the moor and moss, And on the hill one tree, its bare arms straining ; Bare as my Saviour's cross. Nay, if thy heart were sorrowful exceeding, Its pulses big with that divinest woe, These natural things would only set it bleeding To think it should be so To think that guilty and degraded Nature Could look as joyful as she looketh now, When the warm blood has dropp'd from her Creator Upon her branded brow. A FINE DAY ON LOUGH S WILLY. SOFT slept the beautiful autumn In the heart, on the face of the Lough- Its heart, whose pulses were hush'd, Till you knew the life of the tide But by a wash on the shore. A whisper like whispering leaves In green abysses of forest Its face, whose violet melted, Melted in roseate gold Roses and violets dying Into a tender mystery Of soft impalpable haze. Calm lay the woodlands of Fahan : The summer was gone, yet it lay On the gently yellowing leaves Like a beautiful poem, whose tones Are mute, whose words are forgot, But its music sleepeth for ever Within the music of thought. The robin sang from the ash, The sunset's pencils of gold A FINE DAY ON LOUGH SW1LLY. 117 No longer wrote their great lines On the boles of the odorous limes, Or bathed the tree-tops in glory, But a soft strange radiance there hung In splinters of tenderest light. And those who look'd from Glengollen Saw the purple wall of the Scalp, As if through an old church window Stain'd with a marvellous blue. From the snow-white shell strand of Inch You could not behold the white horses Lifting their glittering backs, Tossing their manes on Dunree, And the battle boom of Macammish Was lull'd in the delicate air. As in old pictures the smoke Goes up from Abraham's pyre, So the smoke went up from Rathmullen ; And beyond the trail of the smoke Was a great deep fiery abyss Of molten gold in the sky, And it set a far track up the waters Ablaze with gold like its own. Over the fire of the sea, Over the chasm in the sky, My spirit as by a bridge Of wonder went wandering on, And lost its way in the heaven. The ship is out on the lake, The fisherman stands on the deck. Rosy and violet sea ; Delicate haze in the distance ; Ji8 A FINE DAY ON LOUGH S WILLY. Woodlands softer than summers ; Great golden eye of intense, Concentrated marvellous light ; Mysterious suggestions of thought ; Beautiful yearnings of fancy ; Wonderful imaginations ; Throbs of the being immortal Who, prison'd deep in the heart, Looks through the bars of the flesh : What recketh he of them all ? So to the reasonless eye The Master's picture is only A heap of colouring flat, A strange confusion of strokes, And thought, and study, and books, And fine traditions of taste, Are the glasses through which we survey The beauty of natural things, Till stars come splendidly out That our eyes would have never beheld ; And cultured association Hangeth to things that we see, Hints and prophetical types, Shadows grand and immortal. Sacraments dim and delightful, Of the things that the eye hath not seen. O this ship and ocean of life ! I,, like the fisherman's bay, On this awful beautiful sea Gaze on a glory for ever That I love not, nor know as I ought- Sail on a beautiful deep, Hear the soft washing of waves A FINE DAY ON LOUGH S WILLY. 119 That set to the shore of our God Look on purpureal hills, Look on exquisite woocjs, Soft, and most solemn and stately Sail toward the gate of Heaven, Yet know it not, nor consider ! Hues more radiant by far Than the Autumn ever could give Move round my wondrous existence, The daily deep of my life ; Prospects of things that shall be In the country over the waves Memories, sorrows, and thoughts Noble and beautiful words, Deeds that darkly reveal The transparent measureless depth Of the soul of our nature's Redeemer. Oh for the day that shall teach me To know their meaning at last, Beyond the lake of this life, Beyond the gate of the sunset Upon the hyaline sea ! C 120 ) A PRAYER. OH, when my hour is come, if so Thou wilt, Let the sweet blossoms of the bough of love Hang o'er my bed. But, howsoe'er it be, Thro' the night watches, till the birds awake Their sad importunate music, till the morn Pale on the pane, oh, let me wait for God ! Gently, my Saviour ! stand beside the door ; Gently, my Saviour ! through the lattice glide ; Dip my life's leaves, adust with thought and care, In sacramental dews, and make them gold. Rest over me in love, O pierced One ! Smile on me sadly through my mist of sin, Smile on me sweetly from Thy crown of thorns. As the dawn looketh on the great dark hills, As the hills dawn-touch'd on the great dark sea, Dawn on my heart's great darkness, Prince of Peace ! ( 121 ) WAVES, WAVES, WAVES. WAVES, waves, waves, Graceful arches lit with night's pale gold, Boom like thunder thro' the mountain roll'd ; Hiss, and make their music manifold, Sing, and work for God along the strand. Leaves, leaves, leaves, Beautified by Autumn's withering breath ; Ivory skeletons, carven fair by death, Float and drift at a sublime command. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, Beating wavelike on the mind's strange shore, Rustling leaf-like through it evermore Oh that they might follow God's good hand ! ( 122 ) BELOW AND ABOVE. DOWN below, the wild November whistling, Thro' the beech's dome of burning red, And the Autumn sprinkling penitential Dust and ashes on the chestnut's head. Down below, a pall of airy purple Darkly hanging from the mountain side, And the sunset from his eyebrow staring O'er the long roll of the leaden tide. Up above, the tree with leaf unfading By the everlasting river's brink, And the sea of glass, beyond whose margin Never yet the sun was known to sink. Down below, the white wings of the sea-bird, Dash'd across the furrows dark with mould, Flitting like the memories of our childhood Through the trees now waxen pale and old. Down below, imaginations quivering Through our human spirits like the wind, Thoughts that toss like leaves about the woodland, Hopes like sea-birds flash'd across the mind. BELOW AND ABOVE. 123 Up above, the host no man can number, In white robes, a palm in every hand, Each some work sublime for ever working In the spacious tracts of that great land. Up above, the thoughts that know not anguish, Tender care, sweet love for us below, Noble pity free from anxious terror, Larger love without a touch of woe. Down below, a sad mysterious music, Wailing through the woods, and on the shore ; Burden'd with a grand majestic secret That keeps sweeping from us evermore. Up above, a music that entwineth With eternal threads of golden sound The great poem of this strange existence, All whose wondrous meaning has been found. Down below, the church to whose poor window Glory by the autumnal trees is lent, And a knot of worshippers in mourning, Missing some one at the Sacrament. Up above, the burst of Hallelujah, And (without the sacramental mist Wrapt around us like a sunlit halo) The great vision of the face of Christ. Down below, cold sunlight on the tombstones And the green wet turf with faded flowers- Winter roses, once like young hopes burning, Now beneath the ivy dripp'd with showers. 124 BELOW AND ABOVE. And the new-made grave within the churchyard, And the white cap on that young face pale, And the watcher, ever as it dusketh, Rocking to and fro with that long wail. Up above, a crown'd and happy spirit, Like an infant in the eternal years, Who shall grow in love and light for ever, Order'd in his place among his peers. O the sobbing of the winds of Autumn, And the sunset streak of stormy gold, And the poor heart thinking in the churchyard, " Night is coming, and the grave is cold " ! O the pale and plash'd and sodden'd roses, And the desolate heart that grave above, And the white cap shaking as it darkens Round that shrine of memory and love ! O the rest for ever, and the rapture, And the hand that wipes the tears away, And the golden homes beyond the sunset, And the hope that watches o'er the clay ! All Saints' Day, 1857. ROBERT BURNS. A FRAGMENT. SCOTLAND, meet nurse of the poetic spirit, Gave to the boy his lyre ; From whose wild heart her ballad-bards inherit Their pathos and their fire. She did but touch them with her inspiration, Put harps into their hand ; There was enough of love, and indignation, And legend in the land. To them the "gurly" ocean brought a wailing Of girls in " kames o' goud ; " " Sir Patrick and our true loves are not sailing " Home, for the sea's their shroud. Fair Elfland's Queen, when summer twilight brought her, Rode through the diamond dew ; The jingling spurs were out by Eden water, Moss-troopers not a few. The slow pathetic strain went dying, dying, Griefless at last to be, Turf-happ'd and sound asleep, with Helen lying On fair Kirkconnel lea. 126 ROBERT BURNS. She lends its crimson glory to the heather, Mist wraps the hills afar, Blends natural and human things together, Storm, sunshine, love, and war. Mother of many songs on field and ocean, Lost love that weeps and yearns, Mother of homely faith and high devotion, And most of Robert Burns. All Scottish legends did his fancy fashion, All airs that richly flow, Laughing with frolic, tremulous with passion, Broken with love-lorn woe : Ballads whose beauties years have long been stealing And left few links of gold, Under his quaint and subtle touch of healing Grew fairer, not less old. Grey Cluden, and the vestals' choral cadence, His might awoke therewith ; Till boatmen hung their oars to hear the maidens Upon the banks of Nith. His, too, the strains of battle nobly coming From Bruce, or Wallace wight, Such as the Highlander shall oft be humming Before some famous fight. Nor only these for him the hawthorn hoary Was with new wreaths enwrought, The crimson-tipped daisy wore fresh glory, Born of poetic thought. ROBERT BURNS. 127 From the " wee cow'ring beastie " he could borrow A moral strain sublime, A noble tenderness of human sorrow, In wondrous wealth of rhyme. Oh but the mountain breeze must have been pleasant, Upon the sunburnt brow Of that poetic and triumphant peasant Driving his laurelPd plough ! Him on whom Heav'n bestow'd the heart's fine flashes, The lyrist's delicate art ; While man wrote out for symbol on his ashes A broken lyre and heart. Yea, and himself of wassail, praise, and passion, Drank deeply in his years, And thereof for his future fame did fashion A veil of smiles and tears. Smiles for the song that hath such rare beguilement, Laughter, and love to win ; Tears for the dust, and ashes, and defilement, Tears for the shame and sin. O the wild wit that mars the holy hymning ! The stains upon the stole ! The spray-drops from the sea of passion dimming The windows of the soul ! Hush ! the man's sighs, his longings, and his laughter Are silent now by Doun ; The music of the immortal song lives after, A many mingled tune. 128 ROBERT BURNS. And all at last, with solemn sweet surprises, In anthems die away, And o'er the glee of Tarn O' Shanter rises The "Cotter's Saturday." And from a multitude beside the river, And on the mountain sod, Sweetly goes up for ever, and for ever, " Come, let us worship God." A THOUGHT FOR THE ROYAL BRIDAL. ALL winter long I tarried in a strange, monotonous land, Among pine forests an eternal throng Of green plumes, changeless o'er the changeless sand, Whereto the ocean singeth one sole song, Heard swinging heavily by sun or star, On its Biscay an bar. But with the spring I see the mountains topp'd with sunny white, Like silver clouds beyond imagining, Rise in the cloudless blue, and, day or night, 'Tis sweet to hear clear-water'd Adour sing, And watch the shadows which far forests throw On Pyrenean snow. All the year through There hung a grand monotony of grief O'er England, ever quiet, ever true. Speeches and elegies perchance were brief, But voices faltered, till the whole world knew She mourn'd her Prince from evil tongues secure Because his heart was pure. K 130 A THOUGHT FOR THE ROYAL BRIDAL. Worthy to bear Half the Crown's crushing burden in the State Where monarchy but cometh forth more fair From fires of revolution, where to fate The king may yield ; but still the throne is there, As drops that make the rainbow on the river Perish the rainbow never ! But lo ! with spring (I will not say our grief hath fled for good, But it is time-touch'd to a gentler thing), The Princess comes whose noble womanhood Is better than the circlet of a king : Surely young grass and flowers are clothing now The furrows of God's plough. Ah ! Princess, come f Come, Princess ! in the war-ship, o'er the wave ; Come, Princess ! o'er the favourable foam ; With blazing streets, with banners of the brave, With arches they will hail thee to thy home ; With these, and the long thunders of the cheers Falling in rain of tears. In tears ! in tears ! Remembering who, with pageantry as grand, Pass'd through the acclaim of people and of peers, When, with her princely spouse at her right hand, She went in state among the endless cheers, And " let her people see her " as she rolled On, in a cloud of gold. Sweet lady ! pass On to St. George's Chapel. Wear as free The royal jewels, in a starry mass A THOUGHT FOR THE ROYAL BRIDAL. 131 Clustered, as doth some bride of low degree Her wreath from orchard or from meadow-grass. Surely when joy so trembles to a tear The dead are strangely near. From where his true Heart-love of beauty feeds on the uncreated And ancient Beauty that is ever new ; Where his deep thirst for purity is sated, And his high soul hath found a work to do Sublimer than the work on earth he wrought, And full of nobler thought ; Surely one spirit, Full of a tender care that is not dread, Full of sweet love that doth no touch inherit Of fear or woe one of the living dead, Stoled in the robe made white by Christ's dear merit, With benediction for the princely pair, Stands on the altar stair. Here, missing sore Old England, and her streets ablaze with lights, The illumination, when the day is o'er, Shall be the splendours that on starry nights From silver snows stream to heaven's silver floor ; And for a nation's cheers, the silent prayer Breath'd on the mountain air. DE BlGORRE, l86l. 132 ) A CONTRAST* OUTSIDE, over the lea, Thunderous sky of a May-day morn, Soft sad green of the growing corn, The blackbird under the red-leaf'd tree, A host of cowslips where shadows pass From sailing clouds above the grass. Things of the spring and summer born, Nothing faded, nothing forlorn, But all looks tenderly for me Outside, over the lea. II. Far away a room I see. An old man lying in mortal pain, With thin hands clasp'd again and again. One chant only cometh to me Miserere Domine ! AH is vanity ! Far away a room I see. Written on a railway journey to attend a death-bed, A CONTRAST. 133 III. Yet over sorrow and over death Cometh at last a song that saith This, this is the victory, Even our faith. Love maketh all the crooked straight, And love bringeth love to all that wait, And laughter and light and dewy tear To the hard blind eyes of Fate. All shall look tenderly yet and free Outside over the lea, And deep within the heart of me. ( 134 THE ICEBOUND SHIP. A LYRICAL FRAGMENT. THREE things are stately found Yea, four, one saith, be comely in their going, The lion, and the he-goat, and the hound, And, with his flying flags and bugles blowing, The king in harness marching, mail'd and crown'd. Stately is each of these ; But statelier still the battle ship, When o'er the white line of the heavy seas, Like stars o'er snow-crown'd trees, Storm-sway'd and swung, its bright lights roll and dip. And statelier yet again The spirits of our sailor Englishmen. Well-pleased with forward ocean's manly roar,* They only fear the shore. * * * * * These things are stately found ; But when the lion slowly, slowly dies, Never waxing well of his deep wound ; When the he-goat on the golden altar lies, Fasten'd to it for a sacrifice ; When the baying of the hound * KTUTTOS apatjv irAvrov. Sophoc., Phil., 1455. THE ICEBOUND SHIP. 135 Never more beneath the hunter's glad blue skies To the merry, merry bugle shall make full answer rise On the field, or by the yellowing forest skirt, Dying of a deadly hurt, From the storm of chase apart, With a horn-thrust in his stout old heart ; When the king, who march'd forth mail'd and crown'd, With roses rain'd from balconies and clarion's ringing sound, Hath red drops upon his battle shirt, Bleeds away into his silver mail, Sees his banners like a tatter'd sail, And the oldest captain's cheek turns pale ; When those desperate horsemen charge, and fail, And himself is taken by the foe and bound ; He-goat, lion, king, and hound, Statelier far, and nobler are ye found Statelier far, and nobler thus Beauty and glory are less glorious, Less beautiful than sorrow, grand and true ; The steadfast will is more august than fate, And they who greatly suffer are more great Than they who proudly do ! . . . And when the man-of-war No longer takes the tide on her dark hull, Nor, like a sea-bird, dippeth beautiful Bows under to the green seas rolling far ; And heareth nevermore, the hardy tar, The wind that singeth to the Polar star Humming and snoring thro' rigging and spar ; But, like a grand and worn-out battle car, The good ship rests with crystals round the keel, And frost-flowers hanging from the wheel ; 136 THE ICEBOUND SHIP. And when the man-of-war Rests ice-bemarbled, she is statelier there, As the crusader, carven still and fair, With those white hands of prayer, Is holier than the soldier fiery soul'd, Glimmering in steel and gold O red-cross knight ! O red-cross ship ! enough ye both have toil'd. And the funeral bell hath toil'd, And wave and battle both away have roll'd, The ocean's billow and the banner's fold, The great white horses and the rider bold. Ah ! sea and war have now no troubling breath. Brave knight ! good ship ! ye surely are assoil'd By the great pardoner Death. ***** Stately ! but statelier yet, What time the winter thy good ships beset With ice-mail'd meshes of his awful net, And wondrously the summer sun went down, Tiara'd with the shadow and the flame And night with horror of great darkness came, On her black horse, a veil upon her face, Riding above his sunken crown. But day's white palfrey kept not equal pace. Seal, and bear, and walrus brown, Were heard no longer on the floe ; Sledge or kayak of the Esquimaux Come there never to that place of woe ; Ptarmigan and grouse were fleck'd with snow, All the ivory gulls flapp'd far away ; Fox and hare, turn'd white and silver-grey, Crept in silence closer to the day. THE ICEBOUND SHIP. 137 Silence silence save the ice that growl'd, Save the wind that hammer'd the stiff shroud, Or, like lean dogs, thro' the darkness howl'd, Hunting on some weird and wolfish cloud. Ah, me ! the wise men tell, Who read the dark speech of the fossil well, How in some age ^Eonian, The mild moons, as 'twere queens at play, Shook out their splendours like a silver fan, And delicate ammonites boated in the bay, And on the beach, through crimson-creeper'd plant And rainbow-colour'd shell, there trode the elephant At last an orange band, Set in a dawn of ashen grey, To things that winter in that dreadful land Told, like a prophet, of the sun at hand ; And the light flicker'd like an angel's sword, This way, and that, across the dark fiord ; And strangely colour'd fires Play'd round magnificent cathedral spires, Grandly by winter of the glacier built, With fretted shafts by summer glory tipp'd, And darkness was unmufrled, and was ripp'd Like crape from heaven's jewell'd hilt. O those grand depths on depths that look like fate Awfully calm and uncompassionate ! Those nights that are but clasps, or rather say Bridges of silver flung from day to day ; That vault which deepens up, and endeth never ; That sea of starlit sky, Broad'ning and bright'ning to infinity, Where nothing trembles, surfers, weeps for ever ! But still the ships were fast in the icefield, And, while the midnight Arctic sun outwheel'd, 138 THE ICEBOUND SHIP. Thicker and thicker did Death's shadows fall On the calm forehead of the Admiral. O Admiral, thou hadst a shrine Of silver not from any earthly mine, Of silver ice divine A sacrament, but not of bread and wine. Thou hadst the Book, the stars in whose broad skies Are truths and silences, and mysteries, The love which whoso loveth never dies. Brave hearts ! he cannot stay ; Only at home ye will be sure to say How he has wrought and sought,and found found what? The bourne whence traveller returneth not ! Ah no ! 'tis only that his spirit high Hath gone upon a new discovery, A marvellous passage on a sea unbounded, Blown by God's gentle breath; But that the white sail of his soul has rounded The promontory Death ! * * * * * How shall we bury him ? Where shall we leave the old man lying ? With music in the distance dying dying, Among the arches of the Abbey grand and dim ; There, if we might, we would bury him ; And comrades of the sea should bear his. pall; And the great organ should let rise and fall The requiem of Mozart, the " Dead March " in Saul Then, silence all ! And yet far grandlier will we bury him. Strike the ship-bell slowly slowly slowly ! Sailors ! trail the colours half-mast high ; Leave him in the face of God most holy, Underneath the vault of Arctic sky. THE ICEBOUND SHIP. 139 Let the long, long darkness wrap him round, By the long sunlight be his forehead crown' d. For cathedral panes ablaze with stories, For the tapers in the nave and choir, Give him lights auroral give him glories Mingled of the rose, and of the fire. Let the wild winds like chief mourners walk, Let the stars burn o'er his catafalque. Hush ! for the breeze, and the white fog's swathing sweep. I cannot hear the simple service read. Was it " earth to earth " the captain said, Or, " we commit his body to the deep," Till seas give up their dead ? Well pleased our island-mother scans, As mothers of heroic children use, In things like these, her silent Inkermanns, Her voiceless Trafalgars, and Waterloos. O trenches of the winter wild and black ! O Balaklavas of the rolling pack ! O combats in the sledge, or on the yards, Magnificent as marches of the Guards ! O dreader sights to see, and sounds to list, Than Muscovite and gun, grey through the morning mist ! Ye tell our England that of many a son Deep agonies are suffer'd, high deeds done, Whereof is sparing memory, or none, That have eternity and deathless land Before the starry threshold of our God ; And evermore in such she learns to read The pledge of future deed. 140 THE ICEBOUND SHIP. Hush ! Be not overbold. Who dares to talk about success In presence of that solemn blessedness ? Who, but God, dares to give a martyr gold ? O high and stately things, Are ye dead defeated still? Is the lion silent on the hill ? Doth the he-goat lie before the fane, All his glory dash'd with a red stain, Dropping from the heart's deep springs ? Is the good hound mute upon the track ? Is the mail'd king borne thro' tears that fall like rain, Drums and banners muffled up in black ? Is the war-ship frozen up for ever ? Shall the sailor see home's white cliffs never ? Hush ! Oh, leave him in the darkness of the land, Cover'd with the shadow of Christ's hand ; Leave him in the midnight Arctic sun, God's great light o'er duty nobly done, God's great whiteness for the pardon won ; Leave him waiting for the setting of the Throne, Leave him waiting for the trumpet to be blown, In God's bosom, in a land unknown. Leave him (he needeth no lament) With suns, and nights, and snow ; Life's tragedy is more magnificent, Ending with that sublime and silent woe. Tis well it should be so. 1858. PICTURA POESIS. GENOA, 1872. Two sunny winter days I sped along The Riviera's winding mountain way ; Scarcely I caught the blue sea's faint far song, By terraced hill and olive-shaded bay. Far off the Alpine snow's eternal line Stretch'd over hills with wondrous curves cut well, Against the irridescent dome divine, The cupola of light ineffable. They say thought loses 'neath the Italian heaven The mortal languor of its modern scorn ; That England's passionless pilgrims may be given An ampler soul beneath an ampler morn. Would it were thus ! In sooth it may be so, Yet well I ween, my littleness I bore In sight of the imperishable snow, In presence of the glory of that shore, Selfish before that purity without end, Faith's eye ungifted with a sight more keen, What time the outward eye had fullest kenn'd Those long deep distances of lustrous sheen. 142 PICTURA POES1S. False where our God so many a secret writes In lovely syllables for souls elect, Aye, where the very winter half his nights In gardens sleeps of roses not undeck'd. If he have wrinkles, they are greenly hid ; If murmurings, they are tuned to silver seas ; And any dimness from his brow is chid By the gold lamps of all the orange trees. And so we came to that world-famous sweep Where, on her amphitheatre of hill. Old Genoa looks superbly on the deep, As if she held her own Columbus still ; As if toward Africa, at close of day, Her galleys headed under press of sail, And brave old Admiral Doria, grim and grey, Watch'd from the terraces their golden trail, And to the gentle girl who paced beside Told tales of sinking ships and war clouds dun, Until he heard again the hurrying tide And the long growling of the battle gun. Yet still, through all the witchery of the clime, My heart felt burden'd with its former pain ; I ask'd for something beyond reach of time, To make me for a little young again. Nor ask'd in vain, for wandering here and there, To see the pictures with an idle heart, Above the red Palazzo's marble stair I own'd the magic of old Vandyck's art. PICTURA POESIS. 143 Be still, and let me gaze a noble child Upon the Master's canvas here I see : Surely two hundred summer suns have smiled Italian light, young Brignola, on thee. The light that makes such violets divine, And hangs such roses on the haunted soil, And spheres such flashes in the flask of wine, And fills the olive with such golden oil. The light, too, that makes hearts with living chords Too fine for happiness that never fails To ripen lives too richly whence the words Of all those strange pathetic passion tales. But thou, immortal child ! with those dark eyes, And that proud brow I will not call it white, A something rather like the snow that lies Between dark clouds and the unclouded light. I know not, will not ask what was thy fate Whether thou laughedst in this very spot, Then wentest forth in beauty with thy mate, A fair adventure and a gentle lot. Whether with intermingling gleam and gloom Thy shadows and thy sunshine did rain down, Like that sweet lady in the other room, Thy sister with the gold on her green gown. Whether thou livedst till the winter came, And the calm with it that its spring denies, Retaining only of thy present frame The unextinguish'd light of those full eyes. 144 PICTURA POESIS. Whether thou lovedst, and the winds of heaven Blew favourably, and, thy moon-touch'd sail Glimm'ring into the dark, to thee was given The voyage of a little fairy tale. Whether thou lovedst after that forlorn Tasting the bitter out of human sweet, Thy forehead pierced with some acanthus thorn, The cruel thistles stabbing all thy feet, Till, as befalls in this strange land of thine, Where prayer and passion, earth and heav'n so mix, A mournful thing thou fledd'st to love divine, And found'st a bridegroom in the crucifix. But as it is, thou standest here for aye, Type of the gracious childhood of the south, Thy dark hair never fleck'd with threads of grey, No channell'd lines under thy perfect mouth. Thou hast no grief, no selfishness at all. Possessing all of beauty but its scorn, Thou floatest smilingly outside the fall, Unsuffering, unsinning, unforlorn. I cannot question thee if thou couldst speak Thy soft Italian would but touch mine ears As if a sweet wind beat upon my cheek Through the dim light a rain of flowers and tears. Enough that, wrought by Vandyck's master hand, I see thy beauty by an inward light, And in a better language understand Thy childhood's inextinguishable light. ( 145 ) ADRIFT ON THE ARCTIC SEA I SEE a ship adrift upon the tide, Methinks she maketh past King William's Land The stars are glimmering through her rifted side, Her mast is like a giant's broken wand. What, is there no one standing at the wheel ? An awful ship indeed without a stir ; Yet through the icebergs steers the rolling keel, Like death's pale horses panting after her. Well done, O silent ship ! the bar is past, The icy battlement left upon the lee ; Why doth no gallant sailor climb the mast To view the glory of that iceless sea ? O silent ship and crew ! the starriest crown Of all earth's mariners your deed hath won ; But lo ! the ship first reels, and then goes down, And with her all her crew a skeleton. So when some thinker wins the prize of thought, And his keel cuts the just-discover'd wave, Down with him goes the work that he has wrought He finds at once a passage and a grave. L 146 PAINTING FOR TIME. ONE sunny eventide, At a great painter's side, A maiden paced glad eyed. Enchanted did she see That glorious gallery. Beauty and strength were there, The heroic and the fair, Faces superbly wrought By the creative thought. Happy she walk'd, and proud, Yet something like a cloud Just touch'd the maiden's brow. Quoth he, "What thinkest thou?" " Master," she said, " this place Is haunted with all grace. There, where shafts falling late Those forms irradiate, Lo ! as I gaze, they seem To pass into a dream. A dream but, as men say, Ere sea-frets gather grey, While still is light to scan, That stream Northumbrian,* * The Coquet at Warkworth, famous for the peculiar defmiteness of the shadows which it reflects. PAINTING FOR TIME. 147 The shadow of the spire, And the autumn trees on fire Look as real as the things To our imaginings. So gazing here I think, As by that river's brink Shadow and substance stand Inverted by thy hand The shadows I and you, They only fix'd and true, They those alone who live, And we insubstantive, Yet on their features all Whose semblance fills the hall Why hath thy hand let fall That wanness as of snow ? Master, I long to know." " Heed not what now appears. In the abyss of years ; In the unapparent morn Of centuries unborn, Something more fair and fine Than thou canst now divine ; Some magic colour thrown On the white monotone, Some unimagined dye Under the distant sky Of the futurity, Shall yet unlighted eyes Transcendently surprise. Say not this colouring pale Is but of small avail. The hues thou dost create Are too immaculate. 148 PAINTING FOR TIME. Flood them with warmer flood, Paint with more passionate blood. As with red graphs rich juice The whiteness interfuse. Men generations hence Shall thank my abstinence Prophetic and sublime." He cried, " I paint for time, And these shall live in light, Ideal and infinite Of dawns when I lie dead. I paint for time," he said. Laughter, or love, or tears, Who would bequeath his peers, Far through the distant years ; Who would a work descry Man's heart will not let die, While lives mortality ; He with an aim sublime Must also paint for time, And proudly wise let fall Applauses temporal. ( 149 ) NARROW GOODNESS. LINES WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF POSTHUMOUS SERMONS. As a child, in a quiet place Which earth's wild whirl hath hardly stirr'd, Grows shy as some fair forest bird, And feareth every stranger's face, And wots not what a world there is Of love beyond his little isle, Half jealous of his father's smile, Half jealous of his mother's kiss ; But when he leaves that strip of strand, Life's larger continent to explore, He findeth friends on the far shore, And graspeth many a brother's hand : So may I deem it fares with thee So may I think that thou hast found, O man of God ! who standest crown'd With glory on the crystal sea ! Where all the harps are heavenly sweet, Where all the palms are passing green ; Where on all faces falls the sheen Of the temple in the golden street ; 1 50 NARROW GOODNESS. Are hands thou never thought's! would fold The heavenly harp, the fadeless palm, And faces most divinely calm Thou never thoughtest to behold. Forgive, if in thy textual art I see thee what thou art not now, With something of a narrow brow And something of a narrow heart ; If any buds that thou hast strewn To me look dry for want of showers, And scentless as Platonic flowers, Pale white beneath the pale white moon.* For still, I think, in world's above The narrow brow grows bright and broad With the great purposes of God, And the heart widens with His love. And the poor thoughts on earth so pale, Turn to the sun his warmth to win, And drink the silent sunbeams in, And hue and fragrance never fail. , Sure at thy creed, confess'd erewhile, Now with large heart and lovelit eye Thou sighest if the blessed sigh ; Thou smilest if the blessed smile. Thou smilest at the glory given To those innumerable kings, And putt'st away thy childish things, Taught by the manly love of Heaven ; * Platonic! flores quosdam etiam lunse dicunt esse familiares, qui sane huic sideri canant hymnos. (Scaliger, " De Subtil," Ex. 170.) NARROW GOODNESS. 151 For whilst that thou wert here below, From that thick-thorn'd belief of thine Thy spirit push'd some flowers divine, Like furze that flowers in frost and snow. And as, when finest fancies troop Across the painter's haunted soul, He draws the outline first in coal Before he lets the pencil droop With colour like the sky above : So dark the sketch thy heart had drawn But now it wears the rose-red dawn, Or floats in golden mists of love. So let me think for evermore, Yea, let me say beside the sea " God's love is singing loud to me, And chanting grandly on the shore." And say, when all the stars are high "It is our Father's ancient book. How many myriad myriads look On His love-letters of the sky ! " And say, where anguish never sleeps, Staring upon the city wall, Where, shaking in her gaudy shawl, On the door-step the harlot weeps, " Father ! I know Thee good as just ! O Dove Divine, I hear Thy wings Come rustling round these faded things, And dropping dew upon their dust ! 152 NARROW GOODNESS. " I hear Thee whispering unto sin, I see Thee in the flowerlike thought That groweth in such hearts unsought, For which they neither toil nor spin. " I see, too, where, with lifted hands, Amidst all shapes of human woe, A heavenly shadow on life's snow, The Christus Consolator stands." So let me say, and let me feel That through all sin our Father's eye Looks love on all beneath the sky, That He is willing all should kneel. And let me hope some trembling souls May enter Heaven from this cold world, Like poor birds by the snow-wind hurl'd In where the great church organ rolls : Although they know not where they fly, Although they open their dim eyes, All panting with the great surprise, The grand and awful harmony. ( '53 ) THE PREACHERS MEDITATION. LORD of all these thousand spirits, spirits differing more than faces do ; Knowing all these thousand spirits, with their thousand histories, through and through ; Knowing all these thousand histories as their own hearts know not never knew ; Save me from the mean ambition vulgar praise of eloquence to win From falsetto and self-conscious pathos from declamatory din From the tricky pulpit business, and the silky talking that is sin. 3- Grant me honestly and strongly, as the strong and honest only can, To uprear my temple. Ever when a great cathedral stands for man, Still, severe, serene, and simple, depth of thought and science drew the plan. i'54 THE PREACHERS MEDITATION. Save me from false intermixture, faithless patronizing of Thy grace. From the too resplendent colours that the tender tints of truth efface, From the insolent scorn unholy of Thy glorious holy commonplace. Never yet hath earthly chemist secret of creating gem-stars found ; Still the difficult tint mysterious lies uncaught for God takes half the round Of the ages for creating the small deathless light call'd diamond. 6. Never yet hath earthborn message, chemistry, or stroke of chisel faint, Lit and glorified our nature, made the gem without a flaw or taint : All God's working, and His only, makes that diamond divine a saint. Never bright point but the gospel's won all colours hidden in heart deeps, Show'd in perfected reflection all that nobly flashes, sweetly weeps. So they say the sea-tinct sapphire somewhere in the blood-blush'd ruby sleeps. THE PREACHER'S MEDITATION. 155 8. Wherefore not at all I ask Thee for the sharp-cut facets of bright wit Not for arrows of the archer cunning that the inner circle hit Not for coloured fountains rising by fantastic lamps and glasses lit. If Thy Spirit's sword-hilt glitter sometimes, as its blade divine I wheel, Golden thought or gemlike fancy is not God's own sharpness. Soldier leal Thinks not of the gold and jewell'd hilt, but of the keenness of the steel. 10. Grant me, Lord, in all my studies, through all volumes roaming where I list, Whatsoever spacious distance rise in ample grandeur through thought's mist, Whatsoever land I find me, that of right divine to claim for Christ. ii. Do men dare to call Thy Scripture mystic forest, unillumined nook ? If it be so, O my spirit ! then let Christ arise on thee, and look ! With the long lane of His sunlight shall be cut the forest of His Book. 156 THE PREACHERS MEDITATION. 12. And at times give me the trembling inevitable words that none forget. Give the living golden moment when a thousand eyes are lit and wet, And some pathos makes the silence palpitate, and grow more silent yet. And a thousand hearts together are as one love-fused and reconciled. And a thousand passionate natures harden'd by the world and sin-defiled, Look upon me for a moment with the soft eyes of a little child. 14. Give me words like the unveiling lightning that the sky a moment rips Words that show the world eternal over where this world's horizon dips Words of more than magic music, with the name of Jesus on the lips. Give me words of Thine to utter that shall open the lock'd heart like keys,- Words that, like Thine own sweet teaching, shall be medicinal for disease, Words like a revolving lanthorn for the ships in darkness give me these. THE PREACHERS MEDITATION. 157 1 6. In the Sunday summer evening two lights are there, in the church, unlike. One the cool sweet dying sunshine ; one the gas-jets' fierce light-beaded spike. With the first my speech be gifted light to touch and tremble, not to strike. So for all these thousand spirits, differing more than any faces do, Christ through me may have some message that shall be at once both old and new, And my sinful human brethren through my sinful lips learn something true. ( 158 ) IMPERFECT REPENTANCE. AT such a time full well I know within Myself I wrought a sin. Light in the eye it had, and little sips Of honey on the lips. No sooner done but the light died, and all The honey became gall. Then was my soul stone-silent for a space, And whiteness wann'd my face. After a little then again I heard The music of the word, And took the absolution sweet and grand Into my own faith's hand, And breathed the ozone in the healing breeze Of sacramental seas. Out rang my song : " My sore distress doth cease, Pardon I find and peace ; The very plenitude of Love divine Unboundedly is mine." But lo ! the step of Time steals slowly on, And, ever and anon, The spectre of the sin which I thought lost Rises, no hated ghost. IMPERFECT REPENTANCE. 159 Rather, " How beautiful," my spirit cries, " O love ! are those grey eyes. What filmy robes float for me, what rich tunes, Dim fields and white half-moons. And, while some silver flax-rock in the brown Rack is turn'd upside down, The fine disorder'd threads and cloud-fluff thin Are like thy hair, sweet sin ! And, as we pass, the faint scent rises yet Of stock and mignonette, Through the garden looking on the starlit sea And my sin kisseth me. And twice as fair she is as ever of old, Because not half so bold, The grossness of the sense and of the eye Refined to memory ; The ethereal delicacy of the past Over fact's coarse world cast ; The flexile bough of fancy quivering on After the bird is gone." Whereon I thought " Alas ! the heavy fall. I am not changed at all. Look how some fitful hour when smoky grey Mountain-mists roll away, The sunshine's magic and creative sports Transform white seams of quartz, Whereof each one that glistens, being wetted, Seemeth with diamonds fretted, But, being dried and unlit, it is found Mere stone, not diamond, So seem'd I like a saint upon God's hill That am a sinner still. 160 IMPERFECT REPENTANCE. Methought that I, out of the strong black jaw And iron grasp of law, Had pass'd over the poor earthly line Into the land divine, Where all things are made new, and grace redresses Us with her tendernesses. Ah ! I who loved the living love its ghost, And, loving, I am lost. What shall I say? that thoughts like these returning Are scarcely worth the mourning, Nay, that they have a beauty in their place, Disgracing not my grace, Like green corn-ears ungilded of the suns Bettering the golden ones ? Not this shall be my argument but this : " See lest thy crown thou miss ; And, that thou hear not one day bitter sentence, Repent of thy repentance." II. CHARACTERS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC. R. C. TRENCH, ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. RESIGNED NOVEMBER 28, 1884. " Laureatus spiritu scriptis coronatur suis." THOU whom we miss and mourn, Though not yet graveward borne, Who by this act of faith Hast antedated death, Thee our love speaks about, As if thy presence out Had stately to the vast Darkness and silence pass'd ; As if all light that lies Deep in those thoughtful eyes, Splendour and shadowy grace Of that pathetic face, All the strange music known Unto thy voice alone, Of prayer and sorrow born, Mix'd with majestic scorn Of baseness and of ill, As if all these were still ; 1 64 R. C. TRENCH, ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. As if the light and sound Were changed for the profound Quiet and darken'd spot Where all things are forgot Thou, in all working such As thy true hand did touch, Thou, with an aim sublime, Master, didst write for time. Thou scornedst to imprint One evanescent tint Upon the measured page Thou mad'st so grave and sage. Wherefore the years shall look With thanks upon thy book. Thou, when an angry spell On clamorous hundreds fell ; Or sometimes when men press'd Thorns to that patient breast, Or their suspicion laid Upon that stately head, Slowly didst turn away Heart-wounded from the fray, And unto God alone Madest majestic moan. God ! by whose will created The time and man are mated, Give us such chiefs again, Give us such kings of men Who shout no narrow creed, And do no little deed, But to their work impart A grace-touch'd human heart. ( 165 ) DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. RICHARD WHATELY, D.D., BORN 1787, DIED 1863. FAST falls the October rain, and dull and leaden Stretch the low skies, without one line of blue ; And up the desolate streets, with sobs that deaden The rolling wheels, the winds come rolling too. Faster than rain fall teardrops, bells are tolling ; The dark sky suits the melancholy heart ; From the church organs awfully is rolling Down the draped fanes, the requiem of Mozart. O tears beyond control of half a nation, O sorrowful music, what have ye to say ? Why take men up so deep a lamentation ? What prince or great man hath there fall'n to-day ? Only an old Archbishop, growing whiter Year after year, his stature proud and tall, Palsied and bow'd, as by his heavy mitre ; Only an old Archbishop that is all ! Only the hands that held with feeble shiver The marvellous pen by others outstretch'd o'er The children's heads are folded now for ever In an eternal quiet nothing more ! 1 66 DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP WHAT ELY. No martyr he, o'er fire and sword victorious ; No saint in silent rapture kneeling on ; No mighty orator with voice so glorious That thousands sigh when that sweet voice is gone. Yet in Heaven's great cathedral, peradventure, There are crowns rich above the rest, with green Places of joy peculiar where they enter Whose fires and swords no eye hath ever seen. They who have known the truth, the truth have spoken With few to understand and few to praise, Casting their bread on waters, half heart-broken, For men to find it after many days. And better far than eloquence that golden And spangled juggler dear to thoughtless youth The luminous style through which there is beholden The honest beauty of the face of Truth. And better than his loftiness of station, His power of logic, or his pen of gold, The half unwilling homage of a nation Of fierce extremes to one who seem'd so cold ; The purity by private ends unblotted, The love that slowly came with time and tears, The honourable age, the life unspotted, That is not measured merely by its years. And better far than flowers that blow and perish Some sunny week the roots deep laid in mould Of quickening thoughts, which long blue summers cherish, Long after he who planted them is cold. DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 167 Yea, there be saints who are not like the painted And haloed figures fix'd upon the pane, Not outwardly, and visibly ensainted, But hiding deep the light which they contain. The rugged gentleness, the wit whose glory Flash'd like a sword because its edge was keen, The fine antithesis, the flowing story, Beneath such things the sainthood is not seen, Till in the hours when the wan hand is lifted To take the bread and wine, through all the mist Of mortal weariness our eyes are gifted To see a quiet radiance caught from Christ ; Till from the pillow of the thinker, lying In weakness, comes the teaching then best taught ; That the true crown for any soul in dying Is Christ not genius, and is faith not thought. O wondrous lights of death, the great unveiler, Lights that come out above the shadowy place, Just as the night, that makes our small world paler, Shows us the star-sown amplitudes of space ! Rest then, O martyr, pass'd from anguish mortal ; Rest then, O saint, sublimely free from doubt ; Rest then, O patient thinker, o'er the portal, Where there is peace for brave hearts wearied out O long unrecognized, thy love too loving, Too wise thy wisdom, and thy truth too free ! As on the searchers after truth are moving, They may look backward with deep thanks to thee. i6S DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. By his dear Master's holiness made holy All lights of hope upon that forehead broad, Ye mourning thousands quit the Minster slowly, And leave the great Archbishop with his God. ( i6 9 ) DEATH OF LORD J. G. BERESFORD, PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND. To his rest among the saints of old That our stately Primate must be laid, In an ever hallow'd mould, That the good Archbishop sleepeth well, Tongue and pen unto the people tell ; Drape the great cathedral where he pray'd, Let the bell be toll'd. Not for marvellous speech or musings grand, Not for martyr's pains ! Those noble eyes Open'd on a golden land ; With him beauty, honour, wealth, and power Grew like hue and fragrance with the flower ; Stormless, all in sunshine did he rise And in sunshine stand. Taylor, round the altar twining roses, Coloufd by the summer of his touch ; Ken, his music who discloses, Half by angels, half by thrushes taught ; Butler's regal majesty of thought, Ireland's princely Primate had not such : Weep where he reposes. 170 DEATH OF THE PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND. Ay, whilst now the white sail of his soul Watch we glimmering round death's misty cape, Slowly let the organ roll ! From our clouded hearts let raindrops fall To the soft breath of the ritual ; Solemnly the old cathedral drape, Let the church bells toll ! Strong is eloquence, and lore is deep But for kingly quiet so sustain'd That it seem'd a saintly sleep, For the lore that was so simply wise, For the lordly presence and calm eyes, For the love and purity unfeign'd, Let the people weep. Not by fourteen thousand bits of gold Measured, but by books at Resurrection Of the perfect just unroll'd, Ah ! it must have been a weary weight, Fifty years of such a high estate Well ! he need not fear the recollection, Let the bell be toll'd. Ah ! the great bell tolleth there blow never Twice the self-same flowers, but other ones ; Flows not twice the self-same river. All that majesty of prayers and alms, All that sweetness as of chanted psalms Round the brow half princely, half St. John's, It is gone for ever. Ah ! the great bell tolls, but through the cloud, If we see aright, and through the mist, DEATH OF THE PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND. 171 Larger eyed and broader brow'd, With his stainless lawn divinely brighter, With a crown and not a heavy mitre, In the full cathedral fane of Christ Is the Archbishop bow'd. Leave him with the Bishop of our souls, Leave the princely old man with the bless'd ; Need is none of Fame's false scrolls : Calm is on his brow from God's own climate, Softly draw the curtain round our Primate, Let the angels sing him to his rest, Ah ! the great bell tolls ! July 26, 1862. ( 172 ) DEATH OF S. WILBERFORCE, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. How thin the veil between our eyes, And angel wings in motion ! How narrow the long ledge that lies 'Twixt us and death's dim ocean ! They rode by sunlit copse and glen And 'neath the woodland's shadow They spurn'd, with hoofs that rang again, The cruel sloping meadow. A plunge a fall and lo ! the rock. The veil was rent asunder. How swift the change, how sharp the shock, How bright the waking yonder ! Old England heard it with a start ; She mourns with voice uplifted : Mother of many a noble heart, But ah ! what son so gifted ? From his own Oxford's storied hall, Her stream by light oars ruffled, To where, beside the plane-trees tall, His Winton's bells are muffled, DEATH OF S. WILBERFORCE. 173 The whole land wears the garb of grief For that great wealth departed Her peerless prelate, statesman, chief, Large soul'd and gentle hearted; The man so eloquent of word, Who sway'd all spirits near him, Who did but touch the silver chord, And men perforce must hear him ; Who won rude natures at his will, And charm'd them with the glamour Of his sweet tongue, and kept them still Forgetful of their clamour ; Who from no task for Christ soe'er, True soldier, sought indulgence, To him it wore so grand an air, -Was lit with such effulgence ; Who sweetly smiled, and deftly plann'd, And his true work to fashion, Like hammers in a skilful hand, Took every party's passion ; Whom men call'd subtle overmuch Because all threads of beauty He interwork'd with magic touch Into the web of Duty, And from their hundred varying dyes Wove well a wondrous colour, That might have pleased malignant eyes More, if it had been duller ; 174 DEATH OF S. WILBERFORCE. He for whom many hearts are sore, Lost to so many places The great cathedral's crowded floor A hush of upturn'd faces, The village church, where children knelt Beneath his hands o'ershading, And rugged men sweet comfort felt Or tender true upbraiding, The Senate, barren evermore Of the rich voice that stirr'd it, The platform, where the charm is o'er That spell-bound all who heard it. How many a noble deed he plann'd ! How many a soul he guided, With sympathy of heart and hand, And feelings many-sided ! And when the social lists were lit, And worthy foemen tilted, How flash'd the poniard of his wit, Keen-bladed, diamond-hilted. Sleep calm in earth, a Bishop robed, Waiting God's golden morrow. O memory, leave the wound unprobed, Nor bring too sharp a sorrow ! Let love draw near, and hope and faith, Where the good saint lies sleeping ; His white face beautiful in death, His soul in Christ's own keeping. WILLIAM DERRY, C. F. ALEXANDER. ( 175 ) ON READING SOME LINES BY WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER. As when at night we tread the lonely deck, In the first hour of moonlight on the wave, Far, far away, the watcher marks some streak Which dying day hath pencill'd o'er his grave : So more than living lights, beyond all fair, In living genius, is departed worth Man's spirit makes love-tokens of whate'er Hath come from genius now no more on earth. As in a gold-clasp'd volume closely hid, The pale, pale leaves of some remember'd rose, Dating the heart's deep chronicles unhid, Suggest more thought than all which greenly grows ; As in the winter, from some marble jar, Whose sides are honey'd with a rosy breath, You catch faint footfalls of the spring afar, And find a memory in the scent of death : So these, the characters of Butler's pen, Are more to us than all that, day by day, Are traced by mightiest hands of living men, T'is death that makes them more esteem'd than they. 1 76 ON READING SOME LINES BY 'Tis not because the affluent fancy flung Such pearls of price ungrudging at thy feet, 'Tis not because that blessed poet sung His Heavenly Master's truth in words so sweet No ; 'tis because the heavy churchyard mould Lies on the dear one in that lonely dell Lies on the hand that held the pen of gold, The brain that thought so wisely, and so well. Nay, say not so ; write epitaphs like these For sons of song who fling light words abroad, Whose art is canker'd with a sore disease, Who feed a flame that tends not up to God. But tie, the empurpled cross with healing shadow Was the great measure of the much he knew ; 'Twas this he saw on mountain, and on meadow, The only beautiful, the sternly true. Not vague to him the great Laudate still Stirring the strong ones of the waterflood, And the deep heart of many an ancient hill, And light-hung chords of every vocal wood ; Not dark the language written on the wide Marmoreal ocean written on the sky, On the scarr'd volume of the mountain side, On many-paged flowers that lowly lie ; Nor dark, nor vague ; not Nature, but her God ; Nor only Nature's God, but Three in One, Father, Redeemer, Comforter bestow'd On hearts made temples by the Incarnate Son. WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER. 177 All sweetest strains rang hollow to his ear, Wanting this key-note ; earthy, of the earth, Seeming like beauty to the eye of fear, Like the wild anguish of a harlot's mirth. True Poet, true Philosopher to whom Beauty was one with truth, and truth with beauty ; True Priest, no flowers so sweet upon thy tomb As those pure blossoms won from rugged duty. He might have sung as precious songs as e'er Made our tongue golden since its earliest burst, But those poetic wreaths him seem'd less fair Than moral truth o'er science wide dispersed. He might have read man's nature deeper far Than any since his broad-brow'd namesake died, But like those Eastern Sages, so the star He follow'd till he found the cradle side. And now, ye mountains and ye voiceful streams ! For your interpreter ye need not weep ; On the eternal hills fall brighter gleams, Through Eden more delightful rivers sweep. Friends, kinsmen, fellow-churchmen, fellow-men, Yes, ye may weep, but be it not for him. Life might have brought him larger lore what then ? It would have kept him from the seraphim. Dear hand, dear lines, in them still undeparted Tokens I see of one before the Throne, Butler the child-like, and the tender-hearted, Taken so young by Him who takes His own. ( 178 ) DEATH OF THE EARL OF DERBY. " Ille ego qui quondam." As looks a hero after fields of battle On those whose skill hath been the charge to shun, On craven cohorts with unbloody armour, Chattering of the achievements they have done A tragic look and solemn, Sorrow, contempt, and pity all in one : So when those fatal nights of great debating And pettiest sequel paled to their last dawn, So look'd our Derby ere he left for ever The red-bench'd chamber with its rows long drawn Look'd on his broken party, Look'd ominous on the triple lines of lawn, And then pass'd out ; but ere he left he turn'd him And on his gathered Peers he gazed again So in the olden days some strong pathetic Face of a wounded prophet gazed, and then Sank in God's darkness grandly From out the infinite littleness of men, DEATH OF THE EARL OF DERBY. 179 Pass'd from the petty policies around him To ampler spheres, where all is large and deep, Pass'd to the summer morning in its calmness, Colouring the space divine and skiey sweep O'er Westminster and London That starts and talks and tosses in its sleep ; Pass'd onward for a little, peradventure, To realms enchanted, loved in days gone by, To hear the music intricate yet familiar That Horace meditates, or with kindling eye To listen to the ancient Majestic roll of Homer's poetry ; Pass'd for a while to think of manly triumphs Won in the full assembly of the State, Long since, when principles were powers in England, When parties and their orators were great, The golden days when Stanley Was still the star and marvel of debate ; When, not with swollen limb and pallid forehead And faltering memory, but with faultless word And rolling fire of eloquence and sarcasm He spoke the speeches that a nation heard, And all the stormy pulses Of the Commons House of Parliament were stirr'd ; Pass'd to the things of more abiding import, The silent agonies of frame and brain, That sometimes bring the sick man from Christ's Presence The light that makes so many mysteries plain, The solemn wine of gladness That cometh with the sacrament of pain ; l8o DEATH OF THE EARL OF DERBY. Pass'd to the chamber in his lordly mansion, Where still his mother Church with music mild From her old book of promise and of pardon The weary hours of lassitude beguiled, And, like a soldier's mother, Breath'd of her sweetest to her bravest child. Now that last look we saw upon his features Is surely changed into a tender bliss. No more of scorn, or pain, or pity something Gentler than arrow-touch of Artemis,.* Repose and adoration, And whatsoever else immortal is. Ah ! ye do well to bear him out from Knowsley, Quietly, as he charged you, to the aisle. No harm that muffled bells be heard from steeples, Or that flags half-mast high be hung awhile ; But let not any herald Break the wand o'er him, and proclaim his style. Only what time the vault is dimly lighted Among the proud old Earls the bier be set ; And of retainer rough, and sturdy tenant, And noble kindred, every cheek be wet ; And on the blazon'd coffin Be duly seen the cap and coronet Sufficient is all England's proclamation Of him whose chaplet many a leaf entwines The noblest giver of the noblest largesse ; Whose name for ever on her record shines ; Who, for a while turned poet, Pour'u his large rhetoric into Homer's lines. * II., xxiv. 759. DEATH OF THE EARL OF DERBY. 181 Sufficient for his witness to his country The work that only patriot spirits can Work in the plenitude of truth and genius, The loftiest life-work of directest plan Rest, Edward, Earl of Derby, A very perfect knight and gentleman. ( 182 ) THE DERRY STATUE TO THE MEMORY OF SIR R. A. FER- GUSON, M.P. AH, raise it up Raise up the statue in the storied town ; Make it a sign of sorrow and renown, Like flags that tell us where a ship went down. Ah,, raise it u-p Raise up the statue in the quiet square ; Crowning the street that rises, like a stair, Up from the river in the gloom or glare. And let it front At eve or dawn> or with a nameless charm Of mystic darkness on its folded arm, The Foyle that brims and brightens by the Farm. Why raise it up ? Where are the great lines there that we may seek, As of the statesman with pale brow and cheek, As of the senator in act to speak ? Not such are here, If life-drawn truth have moulded it ; not such, If inspiration, by some happy touch, Have stamp'd in bronze the presence loved so much. THE DERRY STATUE. 183 Yet raise it up. Methinks the shaggy brow speaks honest scorn, And sharp and kindly as a frosty morn Is the man's wholesome influence reborn. Ah, raise it up Show us the rugged gentleness, the true eyes Of him who never wrought for place or prize, Who lack'd the golden eloquence that lies ! Ah, raise it up And let it tell, as far as sculpture can, For those who have congenial hearts to scan, The noble quietness of an honest man. Yet scarcely tell The lines that gather on that kindly brow, The cares that wither and the pains that bow He has forgotten them, and we will now. And often here, Come from the heather'd hill, where ever higher, Summer by summer, creeps the yellow fire Of the ripe corn right up the mountain's spire And often here, When in the busy square the parted meet, Peasant and stately gentleman shall greet A face they know, a presence sadly sweet Ah me ! ah me ! The souls in white, who with a single aim Have wrought or thought for us, they may not claim Or care to hear the echoes of their name. 1 84 THE DERRY STATUE. They may not heed If men remember them or not below Earth's bells are muffled for them as with snow, Perchance unheard o'er the dark river's flow. Yet raise it up Raise up the statue, in this land and time, When to tell truth heads all the lists of crime, And lives are low, and only words sublime. EPITAPH ON AGNES JONES. BURIED IN FAHAN CHURCHYARD. ALONE with Christ in this sequester'd place, Thy sweet soul learn'd its quietude of grace. On sufferers waiting in this vale of ours, Thy gifted touch was train'd to higher powers ; Therefore, when death, O Agnes ! came to thee Not on the cool breath of our lakelike sea, But in the workhouse hospital's hot ward, A gentle helper with the gentle Lord, Proudly as men heroic ashes claim, We ask'd to have thy fever-stricken frame, And lay it in our grass beside our foam, Till Christ the Healer call His healers home. 186 EPITAPH ON S. M. FOR A WARD OF A HOSPITAL. THY body rests beneath the Italian sod, Thy soul's inheritance is the light of God ; Yet here our hopes and memories of thee Who sleepest well beside the far blue sea We twine, all fair and sunny as they are, With other sights and scenes that differ far, With sickness, mortal agony, and tears ; Yet not reproach from thee affection fears. In anguish comforted and want sufficed Thy spirit joy'd on earth, as now with Christ. ( I8 7 ) EPITAPH ON R. //., IN DERRY CA THEDRAL. DOWN through our crowded lanes, and closer air, O friend, how beautiful thy footsteps were ; When through the fever's waves of fire they trod, A form was with thee like the son of God. 'Twas but one step for those victorious feet, From their day's walk unto the golden street ; And they who watch'd that walk, so bright and brief, Have mark'd this marble with their hope and grief ( 188 ) INSCRIPTION ON THE STATUE ERECTED TO CAPTAIN BOYD, IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN. O in the quiet haven, safe for aye, If lost to us in port one stormy day, Borne with a public pomp by just decree, Heroic sailor ! from that fatal sea, A city vows this marble unto thee. And here, in this calm place, where never din Of earth's great waterfloods shall enter in, Where to our human hearts two thoughts are given- One Christ's self-sacrifice, the other Heaven, Here is it meet for grief and love to grave The Christ-taught bravery that died to save, The life not lost, but found beneath the wave. III. WITHERED LAUREL LEAVES. ODE ADDRESSED TO THE EARL OF DERBY, AND RECITED IN THE SHELDO- NIAN THEATRE, OXFORD, AT HIS INSTALLATION AS CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY, JUNE i, 1853. I HAD been thinking of the antique masque Before high peers and peeresses at Court, Of the strong gracefulness of Milton's task, " Rare Ben's " gigantic sport Those delicate creations, full of strange And perilous stuff, wherein the silver flood And crowned city suffer'd human change Like things of flesh and blood. And I was longing for a hand like those Somewhere in bower of learning's fine retreat, That it might fling immortally one rose, At Stanley's honour'd feet. Fair as that woman whom the Prophet old In Ardath * met, lamenting for her dead, With sackcloth cast above the tiar of gold, And ashes on her head. * 2 Esdras ix. 38. 192 ODE. Methought I met a lady yester-even ; A passionless grief, that had nor tear nor wail. Sat on her pure proud face, that gleam'd to Heaven, White as a moonlit sail. She spake. " On this pale brow are looks of youth, Yet angels, listening on the argent floor, Know that these lips have been proclaiming truth Nine hundred years and more. " And Isis knows what time-grey towers rear'd up, Gardens and groves and cloister'd halls are mine, Where quaff my sons from many a myrrhine cup Draughts of ambrosial wine. " He knows how night by night my lamps are lit,. How day by day my bells are ringing clear, Mother of ancient lore, and Attic wit, And discipline severe. " It may be long ago my dizzied brain, Enchanted swam beneath Rome's master spell, Till like light tinctured by the painted pane Thought in her colours fell. " Yet when the great old tongue with strong effect Woke from its sepulchre across the sea, The subtler spell of Grecian intellect Work'd mightily in me. " Time pass'd my groves were full of warlike stirs ; The student's heart was with the merry spears, Or keeping measure to the clanking spurs Of Rupert's Cavaliers. ODE. 193 " All those long ages, like a holy mother, I rear'd my children to a lore sublime, Picking up fairer shells than any other Along the shores of Time. " And must I speak at last of sensual sleep, The dull forgetfulness of aimless years ? Oh, let me turn away my head, and weep Than Rachel's bitterer tears " Tears for the passionate hearts I might have won, Tears for the age with which I might have striven, Tears for a hundred years of work undone, Crying like blood to Heaven. " I have repented and my glorious name Stands scutcheon'd round with blazonry more bright. The wither'd rod, the emblem of my shame, Bloom'd blossoms in a night. "And I have led my children on steep mountains, By fine attraction of my spirit brought Up to the dark inexplicable fountains That are the springs of thought, " Led them, where on the old poetic shore The flowers that change not with the changing moon Breathe round young hearts, as breathes the sycamore About the bees in June. " And I will bear them, as on eagle wings, To leave them bow'd before the sapphire throne, High o'er the haunts where dying pleasure sings With sweet and swanlike tone. 194 ODE. " And I will lead the ages great expansions, Progressive circles toward thought's Sabbath rest, And point beyond them to the many mansions Where Christ is with the blest. " Am I not pledged who gave my bridal ring To that old man heroic, strong, and true, Whose grey-hair'd virtue was a nobler thing Than even Waterloo ? "Surely that spousal morn my chosen ones Felt their hearts moving to mysterious calls, And the old pictures of my sainted sons Look'd brighter from the walls. " He sleeps at last no wind's tempestuous breath Play'd a dead march upon the moaning billow, What time God's angel visited with death The old Field Marshal's pillow. "There was no omen of a great disaster Where castled Walmer stands beside the shore ; The evening clouds, like pillar'd alabaster, Hung huge and silent o'er. " The moon in brightness walk'd the fleecy rack, Walk'd up and down among the starry fires ; Heaven's great cathedral was not hung with black Up to its topmost spires. " But mine own Isis kept a solemn chiming, A silver requiescat all night long, And mine old trees with all their leaves were timing The sorrow of the song. ODE. 195 " And through mine angel-haunted aisles of beauty From the grand organs gush'd a music dim, Lauds for a champion who had done his duty, I knew they were for him ! " But night is fading I must deck my hair For the high pageant of the gladsome morn ; I would not meet my chosen Stanley there In sorrow, or in scorn. " I know him nobler than his noble blood, Seeking for wisdom as the earth's best pearl, And bring my brightest jewelry to stud The baldrick of mine Earl. " I, and my children, with our fairest gift, With song will meet him, and with music's swell : The coronal a king might love to lift, It will beseem him well. " And when the influx of the perilous fight Shall be around us as a troubled sea, He will remember, like a red cross knight, God, and this day, and me." ( 196 ) THE DEATH OF JACOB* effriv a\\i)yopovfj.eva. I READ how Israel, after life's long lent, Enter'd the quiet Easter-Eve of Faith. We do thee grievous wrong, O eloquent, And just and mighty Death ! Life is a cave,f where shadows gleam and glide Between our dim eyes and a distant light ; Faint breaks the booming of the outer tide, Faint falls its line of white. When in the cave our spirits darkling stand, Where the light strangely flickers on the floor, Comes death, and softly leads us by the hand Unto the cavern door. I saw the Syrian sunset's meteor crown Hang over Bethel for a little space ; I saw a gentle wanderer lie down With tears upon his face. * Being the Poem to which an Accessit was awarded by the judges of the best Poem on a Sacred Subject, in the University of Oxford, June I, 1857. t 'I8e 7&p av6p(t>irovs oiov kv Karayela} ot/ojVet (T7njA.atw8et . . . (/>ais Se ay-rots irvpbs avuBev Kal Tr6ppa6ev Ka.6p.evov oiriaBev avruv, /c.r.A. (Plat.) THE DEATH OF JACOB. 19? Sheer up the fathomless, transparent blue, Rose jasper battlement, and crystal wall ; Rung all the night air, pierced through and through With songs angelical. And a great ladder was set up the while From earth to heaven, with angels on each round, Barks that bore precious freight to earth's far isle, Or sail'd back homeward bound. Ah ! many a time we look, on starlit nights, Up to the sky as Jacob did of old, Look longing up to the eternal lights To spell their lines of gold ; But nevermore, as to the Hebrew lone, Each on his way the angels walk abroad ; And nevermore we hear with audible tone The awful voice of God. Yet, to pure eyes, the ladder still is set, And angel visitants still come and go ; Many bright messengers are moving yet From this dark world below. Thoughts, that are surely Faith's outspreading wings ; Prayers of the Church, aye keeping time and tryst ; Heart-wishes, making bee-like murmurings, Their flower the Eucharist ; Spirits elect, through suffering render'd meet For those high mansions ; from the nursery door, Bright babes that climb up with their clay-cold feet Unto the golden floor ; 198 THE DEATH OF JACOB. These are the messengers, for ever wending From earth to Heaven, that faith alone may scan ; These are the angels of our God, ascending Upon the Son of Man.* I saw a tent beside the lotos river ; I saw an old man bow'd upon his bed ; Methought the river sang, " I roll for ever, But he will soon be dead. " Long since, his grandsire walk'd beside my stream ; His wife, a lily, lit my lilied meadows : t Long since they glided, like a magic dream, Into the old world shadows. " Up where his grandsire rests the mummy goes, Up to the shrivell'd lily's mask of clay, But on my rolling music grandly flows, And ft shall flow for aye ! " Whereto another voice kept chanting on, "The shadows come, the shadows go, old river ! But when thy music shall be mute and gone, He shall sing psalms for ever." And then methought, beside that pastoral tent, The ladder rose from the green land below ; Fair spiritual creatures made descent, And beckon'd him to go, * St. John i. 51. " The disciples could not but think of the ladder of Heaven at Bethel, when our Lord uttered these well-known words." (Stier's " Words of Jesus.") The words air' apri ttye