The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

One evening, weary in brain and sad of heart,
I strolled along a sea-front—watched the tide,
Saw golden sunset glitter, then depart
While raven darkness spread her mantle wide.

But in that hour my soul was left alone,
Unloved of night, unsolaced of the sea:
I turned aside, and lo! a garden shone
With glittering lanterns strung from tree to tree.

I entered, and through all my heart there rushed
The sense of youth and gladness once again:
Half pleased, yet half in very truth I blushed
To think how slight a salve cures human pain!

I had been sad at heart, but here was light,
Warmth, colour—pain had loosed its strangling hold:—
The dark trees framed more star-lamps than the night;
Their branches flashed with gems, or burned with gold.

Then, in that mood in which one takes account
Of little things and lets all great cares flee,
I let my gaze from lawn to terrace mount,
From bush illumed to lamp-bedizened tree.

My fancy revelled in the fiery gleams
Of Eastern colour from the lanterns flung;
There mixed a thousand artists' wayward dreams
Love-tales unheard and Epics never sung.

There crimson mandarins put emerald flocks
Of huge Satanic cranes to shameful flight,
And gorgeous fishes cruised amid blue rocks,
Golden, with eyes whence flashed unearthly light.

Pale black-capped soldiers, massed in threatening groups,
Loomed fierce upon the lanterns,—pig-tailed kings,
And executioners, red-handed troops,
And giant butterflies with jewelled wings.

Knives raised from severed necks yet dripped with gore;
Delicious damsels, dainty, almond-eyed,
Ogled their swains; upon a yellow shore
Strange painted junks lay basking in their pride.

Grim hieroglyphics, Chinese down-strokes, meant
No doubt, “I love you—all my heart is thine!”
—While over all flowed soft the mystic scent
The night-wind culls from heliotrope and pine.

Then 'mid that maze of sweet bewildering light
The fears that silence lovers fled away,
And young hearts gathered courage from the night
Who found no words nor courage in the day.

And there were shadowy places, bowers apart,
Where lovers quitting lamp-land for awhile,
Might interchange the thoughts of heart and heart,
With ardour plead, or vanquish with a smile.

There some who had dreamed for years yet never won
The gift of one soft tress, one treasured flower,
Tongue-tied beneath the harsh gaze of the sun,
Found passionate words within the kindly bower.

And lips too coy by day to yield their fill
Of sweetest ecstasy and pure delight
Bent forward eager answering lips to thrill,
Full of the balm and magic of the night.

Eyes which by day were cowards were braver now
And dared within the shadowy bowers to gleam,
Full of the light that makes the lover vow
That but for love's light star-land were a dream!

And tender tongues, sweet cowards alas! by day,
Won from the stars the mandate to be bold,
Heedless what jewels of speech they flung away,
What lovely word-gems of seductive gold.

For round about the thousand lanterns gleamed;
Upon the leafy boughs they gently swung:
Of fairy-land all fervent young hearts dreamed,
And old hearts dreamed of days when they were young.

Then underneath two elms whose verdant gloom
Shadowed a mimic stage, a play began.
The armoured hero tossed his snowy plume:
The villain of the piece disclosed his plan.

A play wins magic from the soft night air,
Steals glamour from surroundings such as these;
The lovely village-maid seems twice as fair
Beneath the actual shadow of living trees.

The courtly dame of passionate romance
Seems twice as courtly, more romantic far,
When o'er real leaves her lover's steps advance
And through real branches peeps the evening star.

Moreover sombre deeds that dye the soul
Crimson, dark horrors fleeing from the light,
Seem twice as grim when actors play their rôle
Beneath the sombre ceiling of the night.

All is so real—we watch no more a part
That some mere actor, aping passion, plays:
We feel the wild love throb through Romeo's heart
And Shakespeare's Juliet thrills us as we gaze.

I gazed—the strange spell seized me, and I felt
While in the background countless lanterns gleamed
As if before some sacred shrine I knelt
Or in Art's holiest temple gazed and dreamed.

Music was rapture—notes that ne'er before
Had aught of magic power, creative might,
Now struck the airs, each note a tiny oar
Urging the soul's bark towards unknown delight.

The universe seemed made for love alone;
All men were lovers, women all were sweet:
Sorrow was but a phase to be outgrown
And death a phantom cringing at our feet.

II. A VOICE FROM THE SEA

The night waxed onward—still the lanterns shone
Swung, gently still, by slightly freshening air;
Still love was king and pleasure held its own
Untired, and still the daring wooed the fair.

Still in that magic garden life seemed good
And still from young lips rang their silvery glee
When I through bosky paths in thoughtful mood
Moved slowly forth and sought the silent sea.

Not far it was—the garden sheltered lay,
A sweet enchanted stormless lamplit spot;
Yet hardly a stone's throw forth a waste of grey
Stretched, hearing love's soft laugh, but heeding not.

No lanterns flashed upon the sombre deep,
No throne of pleasure stood exalted there,
But stirring as it were in troubled sleep
The windless ocean murmured to the air:

“I hear the sounds of joyance—through dark leaves
Uncounted tiny meteor-lanterns shine;
The earth is gladdened, or my ear deceives:
Yet what abysmal loneliness is mine!

“No stars to-night through all the cloud-draped halls
Of heaven shall glitter, nor shall laughter be
To-night within the black sky's boundless walls
Save only mine, the laughter of the sea.”

I heard, and as I heard my spirit thrilled
Moved deep within me—from the sea there came
A sudden sense of mighty power that filled
My spirit with might and joy without a name.

No more the scent of heliotrope and pine
Suggested love's soft hour and passion's glee;
My nostrils drank the scent, the scent divine,
That gives to man the strange soul of the sea.

And, as I drank the scent, my soul grew great
And amorous for the sea's embrace and strong;
Then through the starless dark heaven's cloudy gate
Came the first cadence of the night-wind's song:—

“One fête, O sea! and are not thousands thine,
When through the heights and depths of purple space
The frenzied spears of forked red lightning shine
And when the pale ships shudder at thy face?

“One mortal fête, one garden's joyous bowers
Wherein swift-hearted lovers urge their claims—
Lo! theirs are one night's perishable flowers,
Thine are the golden stars' immortal flames.

“Fêtes thou hast watched on balmier shores than these
Beneath a softer heaven, where gentler night
Darkens the myrtle-groves and orange trees
And where fair women's eyes flash lovelier light.

“Where are the lovers who beside thy waves
Exchanged love's vows a thousand years ago?
Thy waters wash above their lampless graves:
Above their summer haunts thy wild waves flow.

“Fêtes thou hast watched on ships that through the deep
Urge venturous keels—then changing light to gloom
Hast bade the music pause, the dancers sleep
No wakeful slumber in their cold vast tomb.

“Man is but mortal but, immortal sea,
Beyond all words thine heart and mine are strong:
Thou hast the music of eternity
Within thy silence, I within my song.”

Then, as the wind's song ceased, from cloud on cloud
The sudden spears of lightning flashed their gleams;
The thunder pealed above the plains unploughed;
Far in the past seemed passion's languid dreams.

For now a larger passion shook my soul
Swayed by the prowess of the stormy night:
I laughed to hear the rising breakers roll,
Watching the echoing coast-line fringed with white.

The storm-wind and the sea were holding there
Majestic parley, their wild hearts were one:—
The lightning's fiery radiance thrilled the air,
The midnight blackness that defies the sun.

And through it all I mortal was a part
Of the immortal—time had ceased to be.
The mighty sea's was as the storm-wind's heart:
The storm-wind's soul was boisterous with the sea.

All was forgotten save the strife I saw,
The strife that hurls the doomed ships to their goal:
With rapture deeper even than deepest awe
I saw revealed the ocean's deathless soul;

The soul that though man's race to-day might die
Would still hold parley with the storm, the night,
And still through limitless eternity
Worship the gloom and battle with the light.

III. THE DAY AFTER

A silent morn—the storm had wholly passed,
The sunless ocean rested still and grey;
I sought the garden paths, the lawns green-grassed,
Where last night's feastful hours had slipped away.

Ah! in one night wild autumn's hand had flung
The spoil of months upon the sodden ground:
The trees where last night's graceful lanterns swung
Seemed now in sombre funeral robes enwound.

Their leaves that yesterday bore summer's green
And made believe that June's sky still was bright
Were robbed to-day of all their lustrous sheen,
Stained to disastrous russet in a night.

Upon the lawns the brown sere leaves were strewn,
Mixed with some scattered lanterns' coloured shreds;
Bright paper globes that mocked the golden moon
Last night lay tattered on wet paths and beds.

Among the heliotrope the mandarins
In hopeless wild forlorn confusion lay,
Blending their gorgeous reds and vivid greens
With purple flowers in desolate array.

Where last night's graceful Juliet moved divine
A few damp planks and boards neglected frowned,
And sombre seemed the lawn's dark fringe of pine
That last night heard soft amorous laughter sound.

Then through my soul there ran a sudden dread,
An icy terror—“Can this horror be?
Must soon all bright and joyous things be dead?
Is nought immortal save the storm and sea?

“Is even the sea itself with all its waves
Mortal? Hath time who slays each human form
The power to dig for oceans monstrous graves,
The strength to hush the trumpets of the storm?

“Is there one Spirit who gazing from on high
Sees planet after planet reach its goal,
Who sees each star within the starry sky
Enact its part, and every human soul,—

“Who then the farce being ended, says to all,
To last night's lovers and to moon and sun,
‘The play is over—let the curtain fall!
Pass into darkness, for your hour is done’?”