Chronicles and Characters By Robert Lytton (Owen Meredith): In Two Volumes |
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| IX. | BOOK IX.
HERE AND THERE. |
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 | Chronicles and Characters |  |
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BOOK IX. HERE AND THERE.
ROMANCES AND BALLADS.
“L'histoire ne commence, et ne finit, nulle part.”—Louis Blanc.
257
ATLANTIS.
1.
To greet the young Atlantis of the WestStrange gifts the Monarchs of the Old World sent:
The sighings of the hearts of their opprest,
Howlings and hungers of their hungriest,
And many a trampled truth, and foil'd intent,
And pining hope erewhile in prison pent,
Half-starving bodies and sore-stricken souls,
And every wretchedness the deep unrest
That shakes the sad shores of the Old World rolls
Ever and anon to drown in gulfs unguest,
—The wreeks of Time! And all these ruin'd things
The Witch-Queen of the Oceanides
Shaped into glorious forms of crownèd kings;
And to their sorrows gave she sovereignties
Upon the frontiers of the Future Time;
Where they sit throned, judging the Old World's crime.
2.
Yet did the Old World plague her on this wise:258
It dropt a serpent's egg. And, ere her eyes
Were open'd, forth did the hatch'd reptile creep,
And breed a venomous brood of tyrannies,
Sloths, usurpations, ignominies, lies:
Which her yet-infant force, by fear, did keep
Subservient to their wicked witcheries.
These, when she stronger wax'd, and strove to rise
And set her foot upon the viperous heap
Of their infernal progeny, were wise
In the old wisdom of their Serpent Sire,
And, taught by Satan, tempted her desire
Of Power—to palter and to compromise
With Profit—by their poison-pouches brew'd
From human blood in human flesh black-hued
So that the Angel in her droopt his wing,
And sank into a sick and sullen swound;
And Gold was made her God, and Cain her King,
And Crime the crown wherewith her head was crown'd.
Until her reptile rulers wax'd secure
Of Sin's success, and pass'd the bitter bound
Of what God's patience suffers man to' endure;
Spat on the cheek their kiss had left impure,
Beat her, and left her bare to her distress.
But, hardier than the hooted lioness
When the net breaks,—stern mother of strong times,
She leapt to lordly life, and roll'd around
The lustrous orbs of her indignant scorn,
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Of the Old World; which, deeming her forlorn
In that surpassing pang wherein she found
Surpassing strength, glad of man's loss stood by,
With spleenful sneer, and supercilious eye,
Scribbling on time's loose sands with crooked staff
Anticipations of her epitaph.
For, fool'd by its own wishful hate, it deem'd
Those pangs of her transcendent Second-Birth
To be the desperate death-throes of what seem'd
Her last wild hour. And the old kings o' the earth
Mock'd with their pointed sceptres, and made mirth.
3.
Then, in the dark of her shaked star's eclipse,She caught and clung to that Omnipotent Hand
Which whoso holds stands fast, nor ever slips
Or strays, tho' darkness be on sea and land.
And Strength was given to her from Heaven, when Power
Proffer'd by Hell she spurn'd: strength to withstand
And stand. In that apocalyptic hour
Her might was inexhaustible by man,
(Even as the mythic horn, which ever flow'd,
Because the illimitable ocean
Forever at one end thereof abode)
For thro' her frame those heavenly forces ran
Whose fountain-head is the Eternal God.
Her fervid foot with fiery purpose shod
260
Of frenzied Opposition firmly trod;
Tho' oft repulsed, returning oft, to yield
Of Freedom's heritage no hallow'd sod:
Nor ever drowsed she on her battle shield,
Till her supreme spear, red with traitorous blood,
Had slain the Serpent and his rebel brood.
4.
A Queen she is, tho' round her forehead shinesNo semblance of the circlet of a crown;
Save what rare promise of rich sunrise twines
In her wild hair from splendours of its own.
High in the heaven of human hope her throne
Rises remote from us, whose orb declines
Down the dark slope of time,—remote and lone
In solitary light, as when afar
A crimson cloud, the pent sun's stormy zone,
Brightens the welkin; and belated signs
Are setting, and a sudden breeze is blown
About the shuddering stillness of the dawn:
Some sleep a heavy sleep, with curtain drawn
And shutter fast against whatever beams
Visit the dark; and unto them dawn's star
Is even as tho' it were not: some there are
That see and fear it; unto whom it seems
A portent prophesying woeful war,
And ruin to the world whereon it gleams,
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Of jostled thrones, the flowing forth of streams
Whose fury Law's old limitary bar
Shall stem no more, the unsoldering of old schemes,
And foundering of old fabrics, splint and spar,
And trampling of tumultuary extremes
Which man's mild golden middle way shall mar:
But some, tho' few, that dream'd of it in dreams
And waked, believing, with unwearied eyes
To watch for the illumining of dark skies,
What time the skies were darkest, hail the sight
As haply herald of a long-wisht light.
5.
Little she heeds our welcome or our scorn.The title-deeds of her immense command
She sues not from the signing of our hand.
Great Nature sign'd them when her child was born.
Great Nature guards them. They shall not be torn
From Nature's grasp. The inviolable land
Into whose spacious lap her affluent horn
Showers more wealth than e'er the unvalued sweat
Of serf and villain did of old beget
From the wrong'd earth, to appease the discontent
Of murtherous monarchies whose names are yet
On palaces and temples opulent,
She holds by Nature's, not by our, consent.
Her foot is on the Serpent she hath slain.
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The red blood blossoms, as it drips from it,
To flowers that flourish best on battle plain;
Which, being pluckt, for sudden cures are fit;
Whose biting juices purge out many a stain.
Her cheek is flusht with fervour, not with pain.
Her eyes are beacon lights by Freedom lit.
And her strong forehead is severely knit
By somewhat of a newly-learn'd disdain
For the much mockery of our little wit.
About the fillet of her brows is writ
Humanity—sad word, oft sigh'd in vain
By weary lips of wretches doom'd to sit
Counting the links of Custom's cruel chain:
But on those lips of hers the sound thereof
Is even as tho' all laughters that had lain,
(Frozen by old Unwisdom's wintry scoff)
Long mute in Nature's mighty heart, leapt free
To join a new world's general jubilee.
6.
We, clinging to the present, in our fearTo front the future, miss the joy of both.
We praise the past, with praises insincere,
For what its loudest eulogists are loth
To emulate; whose supercilious sloth
Plays off, with hollow commendations drear,
The virtues and the valours that have ceased
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Against whatever lives in living breast
Of virtue and of valour, striving here,
And striving now, to help man's imminent need,
And honour passèd worth by present deed.
We chuckle when they fall, who fight—or sink,
Who soar—or stumble, who strain forward still.
We know not what to do, nor what to think,
Save only to do nothing, and think ill
Of all things done. We peep about the brink
Of the full-flowing river of time, until
Some waning moon's wan influence, to fulfil
Our feeble hope, do chance to suck and shrink
The torrent wave we have not strength nor skill
Either to pass, or turn what way we will.
The winds of change afflict us. What to-day
We tether tight to-morrow whirls away.
That which our faith affirms our fear denies.
Our conscience cries to our convenience Nay.
The tides of things are flowing otherwise
Than with their wills on whom our doubt relies.
Their prophesyings Fate's fierce facts gainsay,
And Time's swift wisdom their slow wit belies,
Whose master is unmerciful surprise,
And their sad task, impossible delay.
7.
Therefore the ardours and the heats, that here264
The hopes which our inhospitable fear
Hoots into houseless space,—the manifold
Enthusiasms, Love sends forth to cheer
Each lusty champion that gives battle bold
In his glad cause,—the meanings and the aims
That move the mighty disc of Circumstance,
And that strong demiurgic faith, that frames
Foundations deeper than the drifts of chance,
Escape us—in the striving of the soul
Of poets, and the thinking of the thought
Of sages, and the yearning to its goal
Of that endeavouring Impulse, which hath brought
All things to what they are, nor pauses ever
Halfway to what they shall be; whose endeavour
Undoes our deedless doings. And all these
Are made the servants of the Destinies
Which, being our despots, are her ministers;
Who dips in the dim light of setting suns
The spacious skirts of that vast robe of hers
That widens ever in the wondrous West:
But on her sceptre shines the morning star,
Whereto she sings mysterious orisons.
In her large lap Jove's Bird hath built his nest;
And the great Ocean Stream orbicular
Goeth about to girdle her strong breast,
Whereto the nurseling hopes of Time are prest.
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8.
A mightier wrong than the remorseless Greek,In the sad decad of the woes of Troy,
Revenged what time he did his angers wreak
On grey-hair'd Priam and his Phrygian boy,
A loftier scorn than that of Thetis' son,
With nobler sword, redress'd on fiercer field:
A fairer prize than Helen's beauty won;
A haughtier foe than Hector forced to yield;
And left a theme, for larger Iliads fit
Than Homer sung, in legends yet unwrit.
9.
Then came the Old World's monarchs; who had sought(Hoping that Hell might over Heaven prevail)
To crown the infernal foe wherewith she fought,
What time the fight was dubious,—crying, ‘All hail
‘Most sovereign lady! since thou didst not fail
In battle such as never was before,
Since when the Titans did the Gods assail.
For now thou art the Goddess we adore,
(Long vow'd to lift not whatsoever veil
Her Godhood wears) whose title is Success.
Therefore be witness of our willingness
To give thee welcome!’
But she answer'd not:
Who then was musing on man's faith in what
Her faith had won for man—Futurity.
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Mere barbarous battle for most brutal gain,
The slave's affliction and the tyrant's joy,
The making, not the breaking, of the chain
Which Hell's Ambition in his hand doth hold:
—But, for all human faith in human worth;
For man's most outraged hope in heavenly things;
For those high aspirations that go forth,
The holy souls of human sufferings,
To gladden God; for our afflicted Earth
And our forgotten Heaven; for whatsoe'er
Redeems the Past, making the Future fair,
The Present blameless; for the black man's flesh,
The white man's spirit; for Freedom, fluttering,
Caught in her first flight by the fowler's mesh,
With sullied feather and with broken wing;
For all sublime Ideas that cry to God,
Buried alive beneath earth's clumsy clod
Of sullen fact; and every noble thought;
—For these, not only for herself, she fought!
And theirs her victory is, not hers alone:
For they to help her in the conflict wrought.
Where'er the oppressor trembles at the groan
Of the opprest; wherever Truth is taught
To challenge Falsehood with undaunted tone;
Wherever a slave is made into a man,
And that man's flesh and blood are made his own;
Where what a poet dreams a people can
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A wish—scarce even a hope—in ages gone,
Begins to be a certainty clear-seen;
Wherever Justice widens Freedom's span;
Wherever right for all is wrong to none,
And fear in many is not force in one;
Wherever life assumes a lovelier mien;
Wherever Conscience is crown'd Custom's Queen;
Wherever good believed is good begun;
—The everlasting trophies she hath won
Shall stand unshaken by the storms of time,
Deep as man's heart, and as man's hope sublime.
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MISERY.
I.
'T was neither day nor night, but both together
Mix'd in a muddy smudge of London weather,
And the dull pouring of perpetual
Dim rain was vague, and vast, and over all.
Mix'd in a muddy smudge of London weather,
And the dull pouring of perpetual
Dim rain was vague, and vast, and over all.
She stray'd on thro' the rain, and thro' the mud,
That did the slop-fed filmy city flood,
Meekly unmindful as are wretches, who,
Accustom'd to discomfortings, pursue
Their paths scarce conscious of the more or less
Of misery mingled with each day's distress.
Albeit the ghostly rag, too thin to call
Even the bodily remnant of a shawl,
(Mere heaps of holes to one another stitch'd)
That tightly was about her shoulders twitch'd,
As, at each step, the fretful cough, in vain
By its vext victim check'd, broke loose again,
And shiver'd thro' it, dripping drop by drop,
Contrived the flaccid petticoat to sop
With the chill surcharge of its oozy welt.
That did the slop-fed filmy city flood,
Meekly unmindful as are wretches, who,
Accustom'd to discomfortings, pursue
Their paths scarce conscious of the more or less
Of misery mingled with each day's distress.
Albeit the ghostly rag, too thin to call
Even the bodily remnant of a shawl,
(Mere heaps of holes to one another stitch'd)
That tightly was about her shoulders twitch'd,
As, at each step, the fretful cough, in vain
By its vext victim check'd, broke loose again,
And shiver'd thro' it, dripping drop by drop,
269
With the chill surcharge of its oozy welt.
The mud was everywhere. It seem'd to melt
Out of the grimy houses, trickling down
Those brick-work blocks that at each other frown,
Unsociable, tho' squeezed and jamm'd so close
Together; all monotonously morose,
And claiming each, behind his iron rail,
The smug importance of a private jail.
It seem'd to stuff the blurr'd and spongy sky;
To clog the slimy streets; and fiercely try
To climb the doorsteps; blind with spatter'd filth
The dismal lamps; and spew out its sick spilth
At unawares, from hidingplaces, known
In dark street-corners to its spite alone.
She stray'd on thro' the mud: 'twas nothing new:
And thro' the rain—the rain? it was mud too!
The woman still was young, and Nature meant,
Doubtless, she should be fair; but that intent
Hunger, in haste, had marr'd, or toil, or both.
There was no colour in the quiet mouth,
Nor fulness; yet it had a ghostly grace
Pathetically pale. The thin young face
Was interpenetrated tenderly
With soft significance. The warm brown eye,
And warm brown hair, had gentle gleams. Perchance
Those gracious tricks of gesture and of glance,
Those dear and innocent arts,—a woman's ways
Of wearing pretty looks, and winning praise,
—The pleasantness of pleasing, and the skill,
Were native to this woman,—woman still,
Tho' woman wither'd. There's a last degree
Of misery that is sexless wholly. She
Was yet what ye are, mothers, sisters, wives,
That are so sweet and lovely in our lives;—
A woman still, for all her wither'd look,
Even as a faded flower in a book
Is still a flower.
Out of the grimy houses, trickling down
Those brick-work blocks that at each other frown,
Unsociable, tho' squeezed and jamm'd so close
Together; all monotonously morose,
And claiming each, behind his iron rail,
The smug importance of a private jail.
It seem'd to stuff the blurr'd and spongy sky;
To clog the slimy streets; and fiercely try
To climb the doorsteps; blind with spatter'd filth
The dismal lamps; and spew out its sick spilth
At unawares, from hidingplaces, known
In dark street-corners to its spite alone.
She stray'd on thro' the mud: 'twas nothing new:
And thro' the rain—the rain? it was mud too!
The woman still was young, and Nature meant,
Doubtless, she should be fair; but that intent
Hunger, in haste, had marr'd, or toil, or both.
There was no colour in the quiet mouth,
Nor fulness; yet it had a ghostly grace
Pathetically pale. The thin young face
Was interpenetrated tenderly
With soft significance. The warm brown eye,
And warm brown hair, had gentle gleams. Perchance
Those gracious tricks of gesture and of glance,
270
Of wearing pretty looks, and winning praise,
—The pleasantness of pleasing, and the skill,
Were native to this woman,—woman still,
Tho' woman wither'd. There's a last degree
Of misery that is sexless wholly. She
Was yet what ye are, mothers, sisters, wives,
That are so sweet and lovely in our lives;—
A woman still, for all her wither'd look,
Even as a faded flower in a book
Is still a flower.
II.
Dark darker grows. The lamps
Of London, flaring thro' the foggy damps,
Glare up and down the grey streets ghostily,
And the long roaring of loud wheels rolls by.
The huge hump-shoulder'd bridge is reach'd. She stops.
The shadowy stream beneath it slides and drops
With sulky sound between the arches old.
Of London, flaring thro' the foggy damps,
Glare up and down the grey streets ghostily,
And the long roaring of loud wheels rolls by.
The huge hump-shoulder'd bridge is reach'd. She stops.
The shadowy stream beneath it slides and drops
With sulky sound between the arches old.
She eye'd it from the parapet. The cold
Clung to her, creeping up the creepy stream.
The enormous city, like a madman's dream,
Full of strange hummings and unnatural glare,
Beat on her brain. Some Tempter whisper'd
‘There,
‘Is quiet, and an end of long distress.
Leap down! leap in! One anguish more or less
In this tense tangle of tormented souls
God keeps no strict account of. The stream rolls
Forever and forever. Death is swift,
And easy.’
Then soft shadows seem'd to lift
Long arms out of the streaming dark below,
Wooingly waving to her.
But ah no,
Ah no! She is still afraid of them to-night,
Those plausible familiars! Die? What right
Is hers to die?—a mother, and a wife,
Whose love hath given hostages to life!
Clung to her, creeping up the creepy stream.
The enormous city, like a madman's dream,
Full of strange hummings and unnatural glare,
Beat on her brain. Some Tempter whisper'd
‘There,
‘Is quiet, and an end of long distress.
Leap down! leap in! One anguish more or less
271
God keeps no strict account of. The stream rolls
Forever and forever. Death is swift,
And easy.’
Then soft shadows seem'd to lift
Long arms out of the streaming dark below,
Wooingly waving to her.
But ah no,
Ah no! She is still afraid of them to-night,
Those plausible familiars! Die? What right
Is hers to die?—a mother, and a wife,
Whose love hath given hostages to life!
The voices of the shadows make reply
‘Woman, no right to live is right to die.
What right to live,—which means, what right to eat
(What thou hast ceased to earn) the bread and meat
That's not enough for all,—what unearn'd right
Hast thou to say “I choose to live?”’
With might
The mocking shadows mounted, as they spoke,
Nearer, and clearer; and their voices broke
Into a groan that mingled with the roar
Of London, growing louder evermore
With multitudes of moanings from below,
Mysterious, wrathful, miserable.
‘Ah no,
‘Ah no! For Willie waits for me at home,
And will not sleep all night till I am come.
'Tis late . . . but there were hopes of work to do:
I waited . . . tho' in vain. Ah, if he knew!
And how to meet to-morrow?’ . . .
A drunken man
Stumbled against her, stared, and then began
To troll a tavern stave, with husky voice,
(The subject coarse, the language strong, not choice)
And humming reel'd away.
Up stream'd again
The voices of the shadows, in disdain:
What right to live,—which means, what right to eat
(What thou hast ceased to earn) the bread and meat
That's not enough for all,—what unearn'd right
Hast thou to say “I choose to live?”’
With might
The mocking shadows mounted, as they spoke,
Nearer, and clearer; and their voices broke
Into a groan that mingled with the roar
Of London, growing louder evermore
With multitudes of moanings from below,
Mysterious, wrathful, miserable.
‘Ah no,
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And will not sleep all night till I am come.
'Tis late . . . but there were hopes of work to do:
I waited . . . tho' in vain. Ah, if he knew!
And how to meet to-morrow?’ . . .
A drunken man
Stumbled against her, stared, and then began
To troll a tavern stave, with husky voice,
(The subject coarse, the language strong, not choice)
And humming reel'd away.
Up stream'd again
The voices of the shadows, in disdain:
‘A mother? and a wife? Ill-gotten names,
Filch'd from earth's blisses to increase its shames!
What right have breadless mothers to give birth
To breadless babies? Children, meant for mirth,
And motherhood for rapture, and the bliss
Of wifehood crowning womanhood, the kiss
Of lips, whose kissing melts two lives in one:—
What right was thine, forsooth, because the sun
Is sweet in June, and blood beats high in youth,
To claim those blessings? Claim'd, what right, forsooth,
To change them into curses: craving love,
Who lackest bread? There is no room above
Earth's breast for amorous paupers. Creep below.
And hide thyself from failure!’
‘Is it so?’
She murmur'd, ‘even so! and yet . . . dear heart,
‘I meant to comfort thee!’ Then, with a start,
‘And he is sick, poor man! No work to-day . . .
No work to-morrow . . . And the rent to pay . . .
And two small mouths to feed!’ . . .
Three tiny elves
As plump as Puck, at all things and themselves
Laughing, ran by her in the rain. They were
Chubby, and rosy-cheek'd, with golden hair,
Tossing behind: two girls, a boy: they held
Each other's hands, and so contrived to weld
Their gladnesses in one. No rain, tho' chill,
Could vex their joyous ignorance of ill.
Then, sorrowfully, her thoughts began to stray
Far out of London, many a mile away
Among the meadows:
In green Hertfordshire
When lanes are white with May, the breathing briar
Wafts sweet thoughts to our spirits, if we pass
Between the hedges, and the happy grass,
Beneath, is sprinkled with the o'erblown leaves
Of wild white roses. In the long long eves
The cuckoo calls from every glimmering bower
And lone dim-lighted glade. The small church tower
Smiles kindly at the village underneath.
Ah God! once more to smell the rose's breath
Among those cottage gardens! There's a field
Past the hill-farm, hard by the little weald,
Was first to fill with cowslips every year;
The children used to play there. Could one hear
Once more that merry brook that leaves the leas
Quiet at eve, but thro' the low birch trees
Is ever noisy! Then, at nutting time
The woods are gayer than even in their prime,
And afterwards, there's something, hard to tell,
Full of home-feelings in the healthy smell
Wide over all the red plough'd uplands spread
From burning weeds, what time the woods are dead.
Filch'd from earth's blisses to increase its shames!
What right have breadless mothers to give birth
To breadless babies? Children, meant for mirth,
And motherhood for rapture, and the bliss
Of wifehood crowning womanhood, the kiss
Of lips, whose kissing melts two lives in one:—
What right was thine, forsooth, because the sun
Is sweet in June, and blood beats high in youth,
To claim those blessings? Claim'd, what right, forsooth,
To change them into curses: craving love,
Who lackest bread? There is no room above
Earth's breast for amorous paupers. Creep below.
And hide thyself from failure!’
‘Is it so?’
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‘I meant to comfort thee!’ Then, with a start,
‘And he is sick, poor man! No work to-day . . .
No work to-morrow . . . And the rent to pay . . .
And two small mouths to feed!’ . . .
Three tiny elves
As plump as Puck, at all things and themselves
Laughing, ran by her in the rain. They were
Chubby, and rosy-cheek'd, with golden hair,
Tossing behind: two girls, a boy: they held
Each other's hands, and so contrived to weld
Their gladnesses in one. No rain, tho' chill,
Could vex their joyous ignorance of ill.
Then, sorrowfully, her thoughts began to stray
Far out of London, many a mile away
Among the meadows:
In green Hertfordshire
When lanes are white with May, the breathing briar
Wafts sweet thoughts to our spirits, if we pass
Between the hedges, and the happy grass,
Beneath, is sprinkled with the o'erblown leaves
Of wild white roses. In the long long eves
The cuckoo calls from every glimmering bower
And lone dim-lighted glade. The small church tower
Smiles kindly at the village underneath.
Ah God! once more to smell the rose's breath
Among those cottage gardens! There's a field
Past the hill-farm, hard by the little weald,
274
The children used to play there. Could one hear
Once more that merry brook that leaves the leas
Quiet at eve, but thro' the low birch trees
Is ever noisy! Then, at nutting time
The woods are gayer than even in their prime,
And afterwards, there's something, hard to tell,
Full of home-feelings in the healthy smell
Wide over all the red plough'd uplands spread
From burning weeds, what time the woods are dead.
‘We were so young! we loved each other so!
Ah yet, . . . if one could live the winter thro’!
And winter's worst is o'er in March . . . who knows?
The times might mend.’
Then thro' her thoughts uprose
The menacing image of the imminent need
Of this bleak night.
‘Two little mouths to feed!
‘No work! . . . and Willie sick! . . . and how to pay
To-morrow's rent?’. . .
She pluck'd herself away
From the bewildering river; and again
Stray'd onwards, onwards, thro' the endless rain
Among the endless streets, with weary gait,
And dreary heart, trailing disconsolate
A draggled skirt with feeble feet slip-shod.
The sky seem'd one vast blackness without God,
Or, if a god, a god like some that here
Be gods of earth, who, missing love, choose fear
For henchman, and so rule a multitude
They have subdued, but never understood.
The roaring of the wheels began anew.
And London down its dismal vortex drew
This wandering minim of the misery
Of millions.
Ah yet, . . . if one could live the winter thro’!
And winter's worst is o'er in March . . . who knows?
The times might mend.’
Then thro' her thoughts uprose
The menacing image of the imminent need
Of this bleak night.
‘Two little mouths to feed!
‘No work! . . . and Willie sick! . . . and how to pay
To-morrow's rent?’. . .
She pluck'd herself away
From the bewildering river; and again
Stray'd onwards, onwards, thro' the endless rain
Among the endless streets, with weary gait,
And dreary heart, trailing disconsolate
A draggled skirt with feeble feet slip-shod.
The sky seem'd one vast blackness without God,
275
Be gods of earth, who, missing love, choose fear
For henchman, and so rule a multitude
They have subdued, but never understood.
The roaring of the wheels began anew.
And London down its dismal vortex drew
This wandering minim of the misery
Of millions.
III.
Grey and grisly 'neath this sky
Of bitter darkness, gleam'd the long blind wall
Of that grim institute, we English call
The Poor-House.
We build houses for our poor,
Pay poor-rates,—do our best, indeed, to cure
Their general sickness by all special ways,
If not successful, still deserving praise,
Because implying (which, for my part, I
Applaud intensely) that society
Is answerable, as a whole, to man,
—Ay, and to Christ, since self-styled Christian!
For how the poor, it brings to birth, may fare;
Tho' some French folks count this in chief the' affair
Of Government, which pays for its mistakes
To Revolution, when grim Hunger breaks
His social fetter sometimes. Still, remains
This fact, a sad one:—'spite of all our pains,
The poor increase among us faster still
Than means to feed them, tho' we tax the till
To cram the alms-box. Which is passing strange,
Seeing that this England in the world's wide range
Ranks wealthiest of the nations of the earth.
But thereby hangs a riddle which is worth
The solving some day, if we can. That's all.
Of bitter darkness, gleam'd the long blind wall
Of that grim institute, we English call
The Poor-House.
We build houses for our poor,
Pay poor-rates,—do our best, indeed, to cure
Their general sickness by all special ways,
If not successful, still deserving praise,
Because implying (which, for my part, I
Applaud intensely) that society
Is answerable, as a whole, to man,
—Ay, and to Christ, since self-styled Christian!
For how the poor, it brings to birth, may fare;
Tho' some French folks count this in chief the' affair
Of Government, which pays for its mistakes
To Revolution, when grim Hunger breaks
His social fetter sometimes. Still, remains
This fact, a sad one:—'spite of all our pains,
276
Than means to feed them, tho' we tax the till
To cram the alms-box. Which is passing strange,
Seeing that this England in the world's wide range
Ranks wealthiest of the nations of the earth.
But thereby hangs a riddle which is worth
The solving some day, if we can. That's all.
This woman, passing by that Poor-House wall,
Shudder'd, and thought . . . no matter! 'twas a thought
Only that made her shudder,—till she caught
Her foot against a heap of something strange,
And wet, and soft; which made that shudder change
To one of physical terror.
'Twas as tho'
The multitudinous mud, to scare her so,
Had heap'd itself into a hideous heap,
Not human sure, but living. With a creep
The thing, whate'er it was, her chance foot spurn'd,
Began to move; like humid earth upturn'd
By a snouted mole, disturb'd; or else,—suppose
A swarm of feeding flies, when cluster'd close
About a lump of carrion, or a hive
Of brown-back'd bees. It seem'd to be alive
After this fashion. A collective mass
Of movement, making from the life it has,
Or seems to have, in common, tho' so small,
A sort of monstrous individual.
For, from the inward to the outward moved,
The hideous lump heaved slowly; slowly shoved
Layer after layer of soak'd and rotting rags
On each side, down it, to the sloppy flags
Beneath its headless bulk; thus making space
For the upthrusting of the creature's face,
Or creature's self, whate'er that might have been.
Whence, suddenly emerging,—to be seen,
One must imagine, rather than to see,
Since it look'd nowhere, neither seem'd to be
Surprised, or even conscious,—there was thrust
(As tho' it came up thus because it must,
And not because it would) a human head,
With sexless countenance, that neither said
To man, nor woman . . . ‘I belong to you,’
But seem'd a fearful mixture of the two
United in a failure horrible
Of features, meant for human you might tell
By just so much as their lean wolfishness
Contrived more intense meaning to express
Than hunger-heated eye or snarling jaw
Of any real wolf.
Stricken with awe,
The woman, only very poor indeed,
Recoil'd before that creature past all need,
And past all help, too, being past all hope.
For, stern and stark, against the stolid cope
Of the sad, rainy, and enormous night,
That sexless face had fix'd itself upright
At once, and, as it were, mechanically,
With no surprise; as much as to imply
That it had done with this world everywhere,
And henceforth look'd to Heaven; yet look'd not there
With any sort of hope, or thankfulness
For things expected, but in grim distress,
From the mere wont of gazing constantly
On darkness.
London's Life went roaring by,
And took no notice of this thing at all.
It seem'd a heap of mud against the wall.
And if it were a vagrant . . . well? why, there
The Poor-House stands. The thing is its affair,
Not yours, nor mine; who pay the rates when due,
And trust in God, as all good Christians do.
And yet,—if you or I had pass'd that way,
And noticed (which we did not do, I say.
Not ours the fault!) the creature crouching there,
I swear to you, O Brother, and declare
For my part, on my conscience, that, altho'
I never yet was so opprest, I know,
By instant awe of any king or queen,
Prelate, or prince, whate'er the chance hath been,
As to have felt my heart's calm beating stopp'd,
Or my knees faulter, yet I must have dropp'd
(Ay, and you too, friend whom my heart knows well!)
In presence of that unapproachable
Appalling Majesty of Misery;
Lifting its pale-faced protest to the sky
Silently against you, and me, no doubt,
And all the others of this social rout
That calls itself fine names in modern books.
Shudder'd, and thought . . . no matter! 'twas a thought
Only that made her shudder,—till she caught
Her foot against a heap of something strange,
And wet, and soft; which made that shudder change
To one of physical terror.
'Twas as tho'
The multitudinous mud, to scare her so,
Had heap'd itself into a hideous heap,
Not human sure, but living. With a creep
The thing, whate'er it was, her chance foot spurn'd,
Began to move; like humid earth upturn'd
By a snouted mole, disturb'd; or else,—suppose
A swarm of feeding flies, when cluster'd close
About a lump of carrion, or a hive
Of brown-back'd bees. It seem'd to be alive
After this fashion. A collective mass
Of movement, making from the life it has,
Or seems to have, in common, tho' so small,
A sort of monstrous individual.
277
The hideous lump heaved slowly; slowly shoved
Layer after layer of soak'd and rotting rags
On each side, down it, to the sloppy flags
Beneath its headless bulk; thus making space
For the upthrusting of the creature's face,
Or creature's self, whate'er that might have been.
Whence, suddenly emerging,—to be seen,
One must imagine, rather than to see,
Since it look'd nowhere, neither seem'd to be
Surprised, or even conscious,—there was thrust
(As tho' it came up thus because it must,
And not because it would) a human head,
With sexless countenance, that neither said
To man, nor woman . . . ‘I belong to you,’
But seem'd a fearful mixture of the two
United in a failure horrible
Of features, meant for human you might tell
By just so much as their lean wolfishness
Contrived more intense meaning to express
Than hunger-heated eye or snarling jaw
Of any real wolf.
Stricken with awe,
The woman, only very poor indeed,
Recoil'd before that creature past all need,
And past all help, too, being past all hope.
For, stern and stark, against the stolid cope
Of the sad, rainy, and enormous night,
278
At once, and, as it were, mechanically,
With no surprise; as much as to imply
That it had done with this world everywhere,
And henceforth look'd to Heaven; yet look'd not there
With any sort of hope, or thankfulness
For things expected, but in grim distress,
From the mere wont of gazing constantly
On darkness.
London's Life went roaring by,
And took no notice of this thing at all.
It seem'd a heap of mud against the wall.
And if it were a vagrant . . . well? why, there
The Poor-House stands. The thing is its affair,
Not yours, nor mine; who pay the rates when due,
And trust in God, as all good Christians do.
And yet,—if you or I had pass'd that way,
And noticed (which we did not do, I say.
Not ours the fault!) the creature crouching there,
I swear to you, O Brother, and declare
For my part, on my conscience, that, altho'
I never yet was so opprest, I know,
By instant awe of any king or queen,
Prelate, or prince, whate'er the chance hath been,
As to have felt my heart's calm beating stopp'd,
Or my knees faulter, yet I must have dropp'd
(Ay, and you too, friend whom my heart knows well!)
In presence of that unapproachable
279
Lifting its pale-faced protest to the sky
Silently against you, and me, no doubt,
And all the others of this social rout
That calls itself fine names in modern books.
IV.
The woman, stone-cold 'neath the stony looksOf this rag-robed Medusa, shrank away
Abasht; not daring, at the first, to say
Such words as, meant for comfort, might have been
Too much like insult to that grim-faced Queen,
Or King, whiche'er it was, of Wretchedness.
Her own much misery seem'd so much less
Than this, flung down before her,—by God sent,
It may have been, for her admonishment.
But, at the last, she timidly drew near
And whisper'd faintly in the creature's ear
‘Have you no home?’
No look even made reply,
Much less a word. But on the stolid sky
The stolid face stared ever.
‘Are you cold?’
A sort of inward creepy movement roll'd
The rustled rags. And still the stolid face
Perused the stolid sky. Perhaps the case
Supposed was too self-evident to claim
More confirmation than what creeping came
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As tho' to be unnoticed were a boon,
All kinds of notice having proved unkind.
Such creatures as men hunt are loth to find
The hole discovered where they hide; and, when
By chance you stir them out of it, they then
Make haste to feign to be already dead,
Hoping escape that way.
The woman said
More faintly ‘Are you hungry?’
There, at once
Finding intensest utterance for the nonce,
With such a howl 'twould chill your blood to hear
The wolf-jaws wail'd out ‘Hungry? ha, look here!’
And, therewith, fingers of a skeleton claw
Tearing asunder those foul rags, you saw
. . . . Was it a woman's breast? It might be so.
It look'd like nothing human that I know.
She, whose faint question such shrill response woke,
Stood stupified, stunn'd, sick.
V.
Just then there brokeDown the dim street (and any sound just then,
Shaped from the natural utterance of men,
To still that echoed howl, had brought relief
To her sick senses) a loud shout . . . ‘Stop thief!
Stop thief!’
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So vehemently by them, that he brush'd
Their raggedness together,—as he pass'd,
Dropp'd something on the pavement,—and was fast
Wrapp'd in the rainy vapours of the night,
That, in a moment, smear'd him out of sight,
And, in a moment after, let emerge
The trampling crowd; which, all in haste to urge
Its honest chase, swept o'er those women twain,
Regardless, and rush'd on into the rain,
Leaving them both, upon the slippery flags,
Bruised, trampled,—rags in colloquy with rags,
And so,—alone.
VI.
Meanwhile the wolfish face,Resettled to its customary place,
Was staring as before, into the sky,
Stolid. The other woman heavily
Gather'd herself together, bruised, in pain,
Half rose up, slipp'd on something, and again
Sank feebly back upon her hand.
But now
What new emotion shakes her? Doth she know
What this is, that her fingers on the stone
Have felt, and, feeling, close so fiercely on?
This pocketbook? with gold enough within
To feed . . . . Alas! and must it be a sin
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With what its very robber flings away
For bread . . . bread!. . . bread!. . . and still not starve, yet still
Be honest!
‘Were one doing very ill
If . . . One should pray . . . if one could pray, that's sure,
The strength would come at last. We are so poor!
So poor . . . 'tis terrible! To understand
Such things, one should be learn'd, and have at hand
Ever so many good religious books,
And texts, and things. And then one starves. It looks
So like a godsend. What does the Book say
About “the lions, roaring, seek their prey”?
And the young ravens? “Ye are more than these.”
Ah, but one starves, tho'!'
Crouch'd upon her knees
She dragg'd herself up close against the wall,
And counted the gold pieces.
‘Food for all?
‘Us four? And that makes five. The rent to pay
To-morrow? Father, give me strength, to pray
Thy will be done!. . . What, if it were His will
That one should keep it, . . . since one finds it? Still
Have bread to eat? . . . till one can work, of course.
Why else should God have sent it? Which is worse
To starve, or . . . 'Tis as long as it is broad.
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Two little mouths already, and no bread.
And my poor man this three days sick in bed.
And no more needlework, it seems, for me
Till times turn round. Who knows when that will be?
Ah, . . . and consider yet again. That's four
To feed already. Then a fifth? One more!
However can we eke it out? Ah me,
God's creatures to be left like this! Just see
How thin she is!’
Her hands about the thing
They clutch'd began to twitch. Still fingering
The gold convulsively, again she thought,
Or tried to think, of lessons early taught,
Easy to learn once, in the village school,
When to be honest seem'd the simple rule
For being happy; and of many a text
That task'd old Sundays; growing more perplext,
As, more and more, her giddy memory made
Haphazard catches at the words.
‘Who said
“Therefore I say unto you” (ah! 'twere sweet)
“Have no thought for your lives, what ye shall eat”
(If that were possible!)—“nor what to wear”?
Have no thought? that should mean, then, have no care!
“Your Father knoweth of what things ye need
Before ye ask”. . .“The morrow shall take heed
For its own things”. . .? And still, 'tis sure He bade
284
And elsewhere. . . “Ask, and ye shall have”. . .
‘And yet
One starves, I say.
‘Ay! They that have shall get.
That's somewhere, too, and nearer fact, no doubt.
If the rich knew what the poor go without
Sometimes! They do their best for us, that's sure.
But still, the poor. . . they are so very poor!
“Whoever giveth to the least of these
Giveth to Me” . . .? Why one can give with ease
What is one's own . . . when anything's one's own!
Ha! whose is this? There is no owner known.
God sent it here. Whose is it now?’
She stopp'd,
And trembled. And the tempting treasure dropp'd
From her faint hand.
She snatch'd it up again,
And cried ‘Mine! mine! be it the Devil's gain
Or God's good gift! Sure, what folks must, folks may,
And folks must live.’
She gazed out every way
Along the gloomy street. In desert land
To tempted saints mankind was more at hand
Than now it seem'd to this poor spirit pent
In populous city.
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VII.
Hurriedly, she bentAbove her grim companion, in whose ear
She mutter'd, hoarse and quick. . .‘Make haste! see here.
‘There's bread enough for all of us. Get up!
Quick! quick! and come away. To-night we'll sup,
To-morrow we'll not starve ... another day,
Another . . . and then, let come what come may!
Off! off!’
No answer.
To the stolid sky
The stolid face was turn'd immovably.
The sky was dark: the face was dark. The face
And sky were silent both: you could not trace
The faintest gleam of light in the dark look
Of either.
Vehemently the woman shook
That miserable mass of rags. It let
Itself be shaken: did not strive to get
Up, or away: said nought. A worried rat
So lets itself be shaken by a cat
Or mastiff, when the vermin's back, 'tis clear,
Is snapp'd, and there's no more to feel, or fear.
‘O haste!’
No answer.
‘It is late. . .late! come!’
No answer.
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Then o'er the living woman's face there spread
Death's hue reflected.
‘Late!. . .too late!’ she said.
‘O Heaven, to die thus!’
With a broken wail
She turn'd, and fled fast, fast.
Fled whither?
VIII.
Pale
Thro' the thick vagueness of the vaporous night,
From the dark alley, with a clouded light
Two rheumy, melancholy lampions flare.
They are the eyes of the Police.
In there,
Down the dark archway, thro' the greasy door,
Passionately pushing past the three or four
Complacent constables that cluster'd round
A costermonger, in the gutter found
Incapably, but combatively, drunk,
The woman hurried. Thro' the doorway slunk
A peaky pinch'd-up child with frighten'd face,
Important witness in some murder case
About to come before the magistrate
To-morrow. At a dingy table sat
The slim Inspector, spectacled, severe,
Rapidly writing.
In a sort of fear
Of seeing it again, she shut her eyes
And flung it down there. With sedate surprise
The man look'd up.
Thro' the thick vagueness of the vaporous night,
From the dark alley, with a clouded light
Two rheumy, melancholy lampions flare.
They are the eyes of the Police.
In there,
Down the dark archway, thro' the greasy door,
Passionately pushing past the three or four
Complacent constables that cluster'd round
A costermonger, in the gutter found
Incapably, but combatively, drunk,
The woman hurried. Thro' the doorway slunk
A peaky pinch'd-up child with frighten'd face,
Important witness in some murder case
About to come before the magistrate
To-morrow. At a dingy table sat
The slim Inspector, spectacled, severe,
Rapidly writing.
287
Of seeing it again, she shut her eyes
And flung it down there. With sedate surprise
The man look'd up.
‘Because I do not know
The owner, sir’. . . she said. ‘A while ago
I found it. And there's money in it . . . much,
Oh, so much money, sir!’
A hungry touch
Of the defeated Tempter made her wince
To see him count it. Such a short while since
She, too, had done the same.
The owner, sir’. . . she said. ‘A while ago
I found it. And there's money in it . . . much,
Oh, so much money, sir!’
A hungry touch
Of the defeated Tempter made her wince
To see him count it. Such a short while since
She, too, had done the same.
‘Your name? address?’
She gave them. Easy, from the last to guess
Their wretchedness who dwelt in such a place!
The shrewd and practised eye perused her face
Contented, not surprised; for they that see
Crime oftenest, oftenest, too, see honesty
Where most of us would seldom look for it,
Or find it with surprise . . . in rags, to wit.
She gave them. Easy, from the last to guess
Their wretchedness who dwelt in such a place!
The shrewd and practised eye perused her face
Contented, not surprised; for they that see
Crime oftenest, oftenest, too, see honesty
Where most of us would seldom look for it,
Or find it with surprise . . . in rags, to wit.
‘Honest and poor. Deserves a large reward.
No doubt there'll be one.’
No doubt there'll be one.’
‘Ah, the times are hard,
So hard, God help us all! and, sir, indeed
We are so poor. Two little mouths to feed.
If one could only get some work to do!’
So hard, God help us all! and, sir, indeed
288
If one could only get some work to do!’
‘Ah . . . married? out of work? and children? two?
Mem. Let the owner know, if found. Good night.’
Mem. Let the owner know, if found. Good night.’
But still she stood there. He had turn'd to write.
She stood, and eyed him with a dreary eye,
And did not move. He look'd up presently.
‘Not gone, yet? eh? what more?’
She stood, and eyed him with a dreary eye,
And did not move. He look'd up presently.
‘Not gone, yet? eh? what more?’
‘And, sir’ . . . she said,
‘There's by the Work-House wall a woman. . .dead.
There was no room within, sir, I suppose.
There are so many of them. Heaven knows
'Tis hard for such as we to understand
How such things happen in a Christian land.’
‘There's by the Work-House wall a woman. . .dead.
There was no room within, sir, I suppose.
There are so many of them. Heaven knows
'Tis hard for such as we to understand
How such things happen in a Christian land.’
Her face twitch'd, and her cough grew fierce again,
As she pass'd out into the night and rain.
As she pass'd out into the night and rain.
289
MELANCHOLIA.
AFTER ALBERT DÜRER.
I.
Not in lone wastes, nor by the desert sea,But aye in sound of ceaseless human moan,
By populous shores where wealthy cities be,
The deep-eyed Melancholy dwells alone:
Her elbow large is based on her broad knee;
An iron-claspèd volume hath she thrown
Athwart her hollow ample lap; but she
Doth neither read, nor even look, therein;
Whose eyes with innermost intensity
Burn outward; her shut hand props her upslanted chin.
II.
Her vesture vast, of watchet hue, the mouldOf her strong limbs from lap to foot doth heap
In many a massive fall, and rigid fold;
And all unmov'd the mighty hem doth sleep
Flat on the chilly floor. Her hair down roll'd,
290
O'er her stoop'd shoulder. Heavy from the hold
Of her firm girdle hang full many keys:
For she to Power is porteress, and doth keep
The lock'd and guarded gates of mightiest monarchies.
III.
Crownèd she is with the first-budded leavesOf Spring, that putteth forth delightful things;
But her knit brow beneath her garland grieves:
Folded about her back with eagle wings
Half spread for flight; but her strong body cleaves
Unto the toilful earth. The wealth of kings
Is at her feet, but of her eye receives
No notice: it is hers: she heeds it not.
Her labour lieth around her; measurings,
Plans, shapes, globe, solid, plank, adze, plane, and melting-pot.
IV.
Her foot is on the hammer and the saw:Her hand is on the compass; and she waits.
Who knoweth what mighty circle she will draw?
What calculation vast she meditates?
A lean wolf-hound, hard-by, with doubled paw,
Snores on the flint; her creature tired, that sates,
(Stretching at her firm foot his shaggy jaw)
In slumber deep, deep animal weariness.
291
Her intellectual watch, and strenuous sleeplessness.
V.
Because this Melancholy is, indeed,The mightiest maker underneath the sun.
Yet never shall be satisfied the need
Of her deep heart, nor her long tasks be done.
Sorrow and strength are hers: and she doth feed
With infinite labour infinite longing. None
That know her ever shall from toil be freed.
Rest is not hers to give: but in her hand
Dominion hangs, and sorrows, that have won
Great battles, harness'd wait upon her stern command.
VI.
And some, beholding her with woeful eyes,Have said, “This is Our Lady of Desire
That, feeding earth, doth hunger for the skies,
Full-fatal is her kiss, and fraught with fire.
Know her not.” Others, “Nay, but she is wise,
Strong, patient, and of toil doth never tire.
Sad is she, certes; but her inmost sighs
Are the strong souls of deeds. She is her own
Employer, and doth nothing serve for hire.
Therefore this Melancholy is most worthy to be known.”
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VII.
Above, a hollow bell doth hang i' the beam;Therefrom a rope. O'er one of her large wings
Upon the shadowy wall a sullen scheme
Is faintly traced of careful numberings.
Near which, above the other wing, doth gleam
A livid hourglass that, unmark'd down flings
His measured sands in small monotonous stream.
Death creeps, and peeps into her deep Endeavour;
Time, mocking, saith “Thou makest glorious things
For my unmaking.” She, not answering, museth ever.
VIII.
And on an old millstone that leans hard byThe head of the unmindful Melancholy,
With little wings, the Cherub Infancy
Sits conning her great lesson, meek and lowly;
Across whose small upgather'd knees doth lie
An open tablet that is cover'd wholly
With his first lore. There hangeth from on high
A brazen balance. Slowly stealeth down
The night wherein can no man work, and slowly
The seas and skies grow dark about the distant town.
IX.
There, heavily, across the troubled nightA warning comet trails her hideous hair,
And underneath, the wroth sea waves are white.
293
The cataract cloud spouts storm. With faintest light,
Athwart the seething dark suspended fair,
A wan moon-rainbow wavers on the height.
A thing of darkness and of shapelessness
Half-bat, half-serpent, flitteth outward, there;
Much like the sadness struggling under stress
Of a strong purpose vex'd, not baffled, by despair.
X.
This is a mystery. And methinks 'twere worthMuch thought to know what things it would express.
Dürer, the drawer of dread things, drew forth
The image of it, and the marvellousness,
Out of the angry labour of the North,
Whose child he was: to be (if I can guess
Aright) man's protest against death, and dust,
Sad time, sick sloth, and wretched-heartedness,
And shame, and miserable self-mistrust,
And wicked fears that do full oft men's souls distress.
294
LAST WORDS
OF A SENSITIVE SECOND-RATE POET.
Will, are you sitting and watching there yet? And I know, by a certain skill
That grows out of utter wakefulness, the night must be far spent, Will:
For, lying awake so many a night, I have learn'd at last to catch
From the crowing cock, and the clanging clock, and the sound of the beating watch,
A misty sense of the measureless march of Time, as he passes here,
Leaving my life behind him; and I know that the dawn is near.
But you have been watching three nights, Will, and you look'd so wan to-night,
I thought, as I saw you sitting there, in the sad monotonous light
Of the moody night-lamp near you, that I could not choose but close
My lids as fast, and lie as still, as tho' I lay in a doze:
For, I thought, “He will deem I am dreaming, and then he may steal away,
And sleep a little: and this will be well.” And truly, I dream'd, as I lay
Wide awake, but all as quiet, as tho', the last office done,
They had streak'd me out for the grave, Will, to which they will bear me anon.
Dream'd; for old things and places came dancing about my brain,
Like ghosts that dance in an empty house: and my thoughts went slipping again
By green back-ways forgotten to a stiller circle of time,
Where violets, faded for ever, seem'd blowing as once in their prime:
And I fancied that you and I, Will, were boys again as of old,
At dawn on the hill-top together, at eve in the field by the fold;
Till the thought of this was growing too wildly sweet to be borne,
And I oped mine eyes, and turn'd me round, and there, in the light forlorn,
I find you sitting beside me. But the dawn is at hand, I know.
Sleep a little. I shall not die to-night. You may leave me. Go.
That grows out of utter wakefulness, the night must be far spent, Will:
For, lying awake so many a night, I have learn'd at last to catch
From the crowing cock, and the clanging clock, and the sound of the beating watch,
A misty sense of the measureless march of Time, as he passes here,
Leaving my life behind him; and I know that the dawn is near.
But you have been watching three nights, Will, and you look'd so wan to-night,
I thought, as I saw you sitting there, in the sad monotonous light
295
My lids as fast, and lie as still, as tho' I lay in a doze:
For, I thought, “He will deem I am dreaming, and then he may steal away,
And sleep a little: and this will be well.” And truly, I dream'd, as I lay
Wide awake, but all as quiet, as tho', the last office done,
They had streak'd me out for the grave, Will, to which they will bear me anon.
Dream'd; for old things and places came dancing about my brain,
Like ghosts that dance in an empty house: and my thoughts went slipping again
By green back-ways forgotten to a stiller circle of time,
Where violets, faded for ever, seem'd blowing as once in their prime:
And I fancied that you and I, Will, were boys again as of old,
At dawn on the hill-top together, at eve in the field by the fold;
Till the thought of this was growing too wildly sweet to be borne,
And I oped mine eyes, and turn'd me round, and there, in the light forlorn,
I find you sitting beside me. But the dawn is at hand, I know.
Sleep a little. I shall not die to-night. You may leave me. Go.
296
Eh! is it time for the drink? must you mix it? it does me no good.
But thanks, old friend, true friend! I would live for your sake, if I could.
Ay, there are some good things in life, that fall not away with the rest.
And, of all best things upon earth, I hold that a faithful friend is the best.
For woman, Will, is a thorny flower: it breaks, and we bleed and smart:
The blossom falls at the fairest, and the thorn runs into the heart.
And woman's love is a bitter fruit; and, however he bite it, or sip,
There's many a man has lived to curse the taste of that fruit on his lip.
But never was any man yet, as I ween, be he whosoever he may,
That has known what a true friend is, Will, and wish'd that knowledge away.
You were proud of my promise, faithful despite of my fall,
Sad when the world seem'd over-sweet, sweet when the world turn'd gall:
When I cloak'd myself in the pride of praise from what God grieved to see,
You saw thro' the glittering lie of it all, and silently mourn'd for me:
When the world took back what the world had given, and scorn with praise change'd place,
I, from my sackcloth and ashes, look'd up, and saw hope glow on your face:
Therefore, fair weather be yours, Will, whether it shines or pours,
And, if I can slip from out of my grave, my spirit will visit yours.
But thanks, old friend, true friend! I would live for your sake, if I could.
Ay, there are some good things in life, that fall not away with the rest.
And, of all best things upon earth, I hold that a faithful friend is the best.
For woman, Will, is a thorny flower: it breaks, and we bleed and smart:
The blossom falls at the fairest, and the thorn runs into the heart.
And woman's love is a bitter fruit; and, however he bite it, or sip,
There's many a man has lived to curse the taste of that fruit on his lip.
But never was any man yet, as I ween, be he whosoever he may,
That has known what a true friend is, Will, and wish'd that knowledge away.
You were proud of my promise, faithful despite of my fall,
Sad when the world seem'd over-sweet, sweet when the world turn'd gall:
When I cloak'd myself in the pride of praise from what God grieved to see,
You saw thro' the glittering lie of it all, and silently mourn'd for me:
297
I, from my sackcloth and ashes, look'd up, and saw hope glow on your face:
Therefore, fair weather be yours, Will, whether it shines or pours,
And, if I can slip from out of my grave, my spirit will visit yours.
O woman-eyes that have smiled and smiled, O woman-lips that have kist
The life-blood out of my heart, why thus for ever do you persist,
Pressing out of the dark all round, to bewilder my dying hours
With your ghostly sorceries brew'd from the breath of your poison-flowers?
Still, tho' the idol be broken, I see at their ancient revels,
The riven altar around, come dancing the selfsame devils.
Lente currite, lente currite, noctis equi!
Linger a little, O Time, and let me be saved ere I die!
How many a night 'neath her window have I walk'd in the wind and rain,
Only to look at her shadow fleet over the lighted pane!
Alas! 'twas the shadow that rested, 'twas herself that fleeted, you see,
And now I am dying, I know it:—dying, and where is she?
Dancing divinely, perchance, or, over her soft harp strings,
Using the past to give pathos to the little new song that she sings.
Bitter? I dare not be bitter in the few last hours left to live.
Needing so much forgiveness, God grant me at least to forgive.
There can be no space for the ghost of her face down in the narrow room,
And the mole is blind, and the worm is mute, and there must be rest in the tomb.
And just one failure more or less to a life that seems to be
(Whilst I lie looking upon it, as a bird on the broken tree
She hovers about, ere making wing for a land of lovelier growth,
Brighter blossom, and purer air, somewhere far off in the south,)
Failure, crowning failure, failure from end to end,
Just one more or less, what matter, to the many no grief can mend?
Not to know vice is virtue, not fate, however men rave:
And, next to this I hold that man to be but a coward and slave
Who bears the plague-spot about him, and, knowing it, shrinks or fears
To brand it out, tho' the burning knife should hiss in his heart's hot tears.
But I have caught the contagion of a world that I never loved,
Pleased myself with approval of those that I never approved,
Palter'd with pleasures that pleased not, and fame where no fame could be,
And how shall I look, do you think, Will, when the angles are looking on me?
Yet oh! the confident spirit once mine, to dare and to do!
Take the world into my hand, and shape it, and make it anew:
Gather all men in my purpose, men in their darkness and dearth,
Men in their meanness and misery, made of the dust of the earth,
Mould them afresh, and make out of them Man, with his spirit sublime,
Man, the great heir of Eternity, dragging the conquests of Time!
Therefore I mingled among them, deeming the poet should hold
All natures saved in his own, as the world in the ark was of old;
All natures saved in his own to be types of a nobler race,
When the old world passeth away, and the new world taketh his place.
Triple fool in my folly! purblind and impotent worm,
Thinking to move the world, who could not myself stand firm!
Cheat of a worn-out trick, as one that on shipboard roves
Wherever the wind may blow, still deeming the continent moves.
Blowing the frothy bubble of life's brittle purpose away;
Child, ever chasing the morrow, who now cannot ransom a day:
Still I call'd Fame to lead onward, forgetting she follows behind
Those who know whither they walk thro' the praise or dispraise of mankind.
Friend, lay your hand in my own, and swear to me, when you have seen
My body borne out from the door, ere the grass on my grave shall be green,
You will burn every book I have written. And so perish, one and all,
Each trace of the struggle that fail'd with the life that I cannot recall.
Dust and ashes, earth's dross, which the mattock may give to the mole!
Something, secure of achievement survives, as I trust, with the soul.
The life-blood out of my heart, why thus for ever do you persist,
Pressing out of the dark all round, to bewilder my dying hours
With your ghostly sorceries brew'd from the breath of your poison-flowers?
Still, tho' the idol be broken, I see at their ancient revels,
The riven altar around, come dancing the selfsame devils.
Lente currite, lente currite, noctis equi!
Linger a little, O Time, and let me be saved ere I die!
How many a night 'neath her window have I walk'd in the wind and rain,
Only to look at her shadow fleet over the lighted pane!
Alas! 'twas the shadow that rested, 'twas herself that fleeted, you see,
And now I am dying, I know it:—dying, and where is she?
298
Using the past to give pathos to the little new song that she sings.
Bitter? I dare not be bitter in the few last hours left to live.
Needing so much forgiveness, God grant me at least to forgive.
There can be no space for the ghost of her face down in the narrow room,
And the mole is blind, and the worm is mute, and there must be rest in the tomb.
And just one failure more or less to a life that seems to be
(Whilst I lie looking upon it, as a bird on the broken tree
She hovers about, ere making wing for a land of lovelier growth,
Brighter blossom, and purer air, somewhere far off in the south,)
Failure, crowning failure, failure from end to end,
Just one more or less, what matter, to the many no grief can mend?
Not to know vice is virtue, not fate, however men rave:
And, next to this I hold that man to be but a coward and slave
Who bears the plague-spot about him, and, knowing it, shrinks or fears
To brand it out, tho' the burning knife should hiss in his heart's hot tears.
299
Pleased myself with approval of those that I never approved,
Palter'd with pleasures that pleased not, and fame where no fame could be,
And how shall I look, do you think, Will, when the angles are looking on me?
Yet oh! the confident spirit once mine, to dare and to do!
Take the world into my hand, and shape it, and make it anew:
Gather all men in my purpose, men in their darkness and dearth,
Men in their meanness and misery, made of the dust of the earth,
Mould them afresh, and make out of them Man, with his spirit sublime,
Man, the great heir of Eternity, dragging the conquests of Time!
Therefore I mingled among them, deeming the poet should hold
All natures saved in his own, as the world in the ark was of old;
All natures saved in his own to be types of a nobler race,
When the old world passeth away, and the new world taketh his place.
Triple fool in my folly! purblind and impotent worm,
Thinking to move the world, who could not myself stand firm!
300
Wherever the wind may blow, still deeming the continent moves.
Blowing the frothy bubble of life's brittle purpose away;
Child, ever chasing the morrow, who now cannot ransom a day:
Still I call'd Fame to lead onward, forgetting she follows behind
Those who know whither they walk thro' the praise or dispraise of mankind.
Friend, lay your hand in my own, and swear to me, when you have seen
My body borne out from the door, ere the grass on my grave shall be green,
You will burn every book I have written. And so perish, one and all,
Each trace of the struggle that fail'd with the life that I cannot recall.
Dust and ashes, earth's dross, which the mattock may give to the mole!
Something, secure of achievement survives, as I trust, with the soul.
Something? . . . Ay, something comes back to me . . . Think! that I might have been . . . what?
Almost, I fancy at times, what I meant to have been, and am not.
Where was the fault? Was it strength fell short! And yet (I can speak of it now)
How my spirit sung like the resonant nerve of a warrior's battle bow
When the shaft has leapt from the string, what time, her first bright banner unfurl'd,
Song aim'd her arrowy purpose in me sharp at the heart of the world!
Was it the hand that falter'd, unskill'd? or was it the eye that deceived?
However I reason it out, there remains a failure time has not retrieved.
I said I would live in all lives that beat, and love in all loves that be:
I would crown me lord of all passions (and the passions were lord of me!)
I would compass every circle, I would enter at every door,
In the starry spiral of science, and the labyrinth of lore.
Arrogant error! whereby I starved like the fool in the fable of old,
Whom the gods destroyed by the gift he craved, turning all things to gold.
A little knowledge will turn youth grey. And I stood, chill in the sun,
Naming you each of the roses; blest by the beauty of none.
My song had an after-savour of the salt of many tears,
Or it burn'd with a bitter foretaste of the end as it now appears:
And the world, that had paused to listen awhile, because the first notes were gay,
Pass'd on its way with a sneer in a smile: “Has he nothing fresher to say?
“This poet's mind was a weedy flower that presently comes to nought!”
For the world was not so sad but what my song was sadder, it thought.
Comfort me not. For if aught be worse than failure from over-stress
Of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success.
Talk not of genius baffled. Genius is master of man.
Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can.
Blot out my name, that the spirits of Shakspeare and Milton and Burns
Look not down on the praises of fools with a pity my soul yet spurns.
And yet, had I only the trick of an aptitude shrewd of its kind,
I should have lived longer, I think, more merry of heart and of mind.
Surely I knew (who better?) the innermost secret of each
Bird, and beast, and flower. Failed I to give to them speech?
All the pale spirits of storm, that sail down streams of the wind,
Thro' the cloven thunder-cloud, with wild hair blowing behind;
All the soft seraphs that float in the light of the crimson eve,
When Hesper begins to glitter, and the heavy woodland to heave:
All the white nymphs of the water that dwell mid the lilies alone:
And the buskin'd maids for the love of whom the hoary oak trees groan;
They came to my call in the forest; they crept to my feet from the river:
They softly look'd out of the sky when I sung, and their wings beat with breathless endeavour
The blocks of the broken thunder piling their stormy lattices,
Over the moaning mountain walls, and over the sobbing seas.
So many more reproachful faces around my bed!
Voices moaning about me: “Ah! couldst thou not heed what we said?”
Peace to the past! it skills not now: these thoughts that vex it in vain
Are but the dust of a broken purpose blowing about the brain
Which presently will be tenantless, when the wanton worms carouse,
And the mole builds over my bones his little windowless house.
It is growing darker and stranger, Will, and colder—dark and cold,
Dark and cold! Is the lamp gone out? Give me thy hand to hold.
No: 'tis life's brief candle burning down. Tears? tears, Will! Why,
This which we call dying is only ceasing to die.
The hard thing was to live, Will. With flowers and music, life,
Like a pagan sacrifice, leads us along to this dark High Priest with the knife.
I have been too peevish at mere mischance. For whether we build it, friend,
Of brick or jasper, life's large base dwindles into this point at the end,
A kind of nothing! Who knows whether 'tis fittest to weep or laugh
At those thin curtains the spider spins o'er each dusty epitaph?
Almost, I fancy at times, what I meant to have been, and am not.
301
How my spirit sung like the resonant nerve of a warrior's battle bow
When the shaft has leapt from the string, what time, her first bright banner unfurl'd,
Song aim'd her arrowy purpose in me sharp at the heart of the world!
Was it the hand that falter'd, unskill'd? or was it the eye that deceived?
However I reason it out, there remains a failure time has not retrieved.
I said I would live in all lives that beat, and love in all loves that be:
I would crown me lord of all passions (and the passions were lord of me!)
I would compass every circle, I would enter at every door,
In the starry spiral of science, and the labyrinth of lore.
Arrogant error! whereby I starved like the fool in the fable of old,
Whom the gods destroyed by the gift he craved, turning all things to gold.
A little knowledge will turn youth grey. And I stood, chill in the sun,
Naming you each of the roses; blest by the beauty of none.
302
Or it burn'd with a bitter foretaste of the end as it now appears:
And the world, that had paused to listen awhile, because the first notes were gay,
Pass'd on its way with a sneer in a smile: “Has he nothing fresher to say?
“This poet's mind was a weedy flower that presently comes to nought!”
For the world was not so sad but what my song was sadder, it thought.
Comfort me not. For if aught be worse than failure from over-stress
Of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success.
Talk not of genius baffled. Genius is master of man.
Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can.
Blot out my name, that the spirits of Shakspeare and Milton and Burns
Look not down on the praises of fools with a pity my soul yet spurns.
And yet, had I only the trick of an aptitude shrewd of its kind,
I should have lived longer, I think, more merry of heart and of mind.
Surely I knew (who better?) the innermost secret of each
Bird, and beast, and flower. Failed I to give to them speech?
303
Thro' the cloven thunder-cloud, with wild hair blowing behind;
All the soft seraphs that float in the light of the crimson eve,
When Hesper begins to glitter, and the heavy woodland to heave:
All the white nymphs of the water that dwell mid the lilies alone:
And the buskin'd maids for the love of whom the hoary oak trees groan;
They came to my call in the forest; they crept to my feet from the river:
They softly look'd out of the sky when I sung, and their wings beat with breathless endeavour
The blocks of the broken thunder piling their stormy lattices,
Over the moaning mountain walls, and over the sobbing seas.
So many more reproachful faces around my bed!
Voices moaning about me: “Ah! couldst thou not heed what we said?”
Peace to the past! it skills not now: these thoughts that vex it in vain
Are but the dust of a broken purpose blowing about the brain
Which presently will be tenantless, when the wanton worms carouse,
And the mole builds over my bones his little windowless house.
304
Dark and cold! Is the lamp gone out? Give me thy hand to hold.
No: 'tis life's brief candle burning down. Tears? tears, Will! Why,
This which we call dying is only ceasing to die.
The hard thing was to live, Will. With flowers and music, life,
Like a pagan sacrifice, leads us along to this dark High Priest with the knife.
I have been too peevish at mere mischance. For whether we build it, friend,
Of brick or jasper, life's large base dwindles into this point at the end,
A kind of nothing! Who knows whether 'tis fittest to weep or laugh
At those thin curtains the spider spins o'er each dusty epitaph?
Wherefore, if man be immortal (which faith in the days that are done
I have ever upheld 'neath the weight of that Present, which now is this Gone)
Should he fear lest his feeble unfolding from this cramp and chrysalis world
Of forces sheathed in himself, by the strongest not wholly unfurl'd,
This first of man's efforts at growth, howsoever it fail or succeed,
Be the last of his dealings with time, and the spirit stop short with the deed?
Do you know, I have often thought, Will, that, we feverish spirits are, here
In life, shut down, like wingèd moths enclosed in a crystal sphere,
Thro' whose thin glassy element we can see upon all sides round
The starry spaces, the heavens, the heights, the depths, the immense, the profound;
Which seen, the soul no sooner soars to attain what her passion perceives,
Than bruised by her limits, with frustrate wing, she falls to the earth. Death cleaves
With a kindly touch, as he passes by, this globe, this brittle thing
That clips us round, and at last we are free. But ah woe, if the wounded wing
Of the broken spirit can bear no more the beating heart above!
For me there will soon be scope to soar: but this sorrowful weight of love
I shall hardly uplift from the earthy bed to which it is sinking me.
Pray for my soul, in her trial, at hand, of the wonderful world to be!
Pray for my soul, that she may find and fashion some fairer way
From the manifold modes of expression as yet unfound, unattempted, to say
The word within, which that handful of earth the hard sexton will shovel anon
On the lips of a buried man can surely not check, when its meaning is gone
To work on the world that death opens. I wait. There are ages in store.
But the love . . . ah, the love, Will? the fair human face that I follow'd of yore,
It eludes me at last, and for ever! for ever I lose it! the most
I can gain from the grave, is—not this, but the knowledge of why it was lost.
I have ever upheld 'neath the weight of that Present, which now is this Gone)
Should he fear lest his feeble unfolding from this cramp and chrysalis world
Of forces sheathed in himself, by the strongest not wholly unfurl'd,
305
Be the last of his dealings with time, and the spirit stop short with the deed?
Do you know, I have often thought, Will, that, we feverish spirits are, here
In life, shut down, like wingèd moths enclosed in a crystal sphere,
Thro' whose thin glassy element we can see upon all sides round
The starry spaces, the heavens, the heights, the depths, the immense, the profound;
Which seen, the soul no sooner soars to attain what her passion perceives,
Than bruised by her limits, with frustrate wing, she falls to the earth. Death cleaves
With a kindly touch, as he passes by, this globe, this brittle thing
That clips us round, and at last we are free. But ah woe, if the wounded wing
Of the broken spirit can bear no more the beating heart above!
For me there will soon be scope to soar: but this sorrowful weight of love
I shall hardly uplift from the earthy bed to which it is sinking me.
Pray for my soul, in her trial, at hand, of the wonderful world to be!
306
From the manifold modes of expression as yet unfound, unattempted, to say
The word within, which that handful of earth the hard sexton will shovel anon
On the lips of a buried man can surely not check, when its meaning is gone
To work on the world that death opens. I wait. There are ages in store.
But the love . . . ah, the love, Will? the fair human face that I follow'd of yore,
It eludes me at last, and for ever! for ever I lose it! the most
I can gain from the grave, is—not this, but the knowledge of why it was lost.
307
A BEATEN ARMY.
1
We have struck our last blow, we have spent our last shot now,And we pour here in protest the last drops of life.
All—save man's honest right—we have lost, they have got now,
And theirs is the triumph where ours was the strife.
2
Ours, the blood on the bastion: our foeman's, the flag there:His, the soil of our birth: ours, the graves he insults:
And our brave dead are dumb while their murderers brag there
Of crimes praised on earth for successful results.
3
Be it so! tho' Right Trampled be counted for Wrong,And that pass for Right which is Evil Victorious,
Here, where Virtue is feeble, and Villany strong,
'Tis a Cause, not the fate of a Cause, that is glorious.
308
4
Here, where heroes are vanquisht, where robbers are victors,Where the Wronger the Judge is,—from Cæsar to God
Scorn'd Justice, preceded no more by her lictors,
Appeals for escape from the axe and the rod.
5
Be it so! We are saved thus from man's obligations,For man's mere success, to the means which deduct
From pure Truth just so much as is owed to relations
With Chance, for what Chance gives—this world's usufruct.
6
Earth's Success, at the purest, with stain of the earthyLeaves the white worth of Truth, where it touches it, less:
But what worth has Success in the cause that's unworthy?
We have fail'd? Be it so! We are pure of Success.
7
And so man puts upon us no claim, to diminishOur claim upon God—which is perfected thus:
Here our least gain begins where their greatest must finish:
They—the debtors to Earth for what Heaven owes to us!
309
8
Graves are better than crowns thus. Oh, ever and everThis bartering Eternity's birthright to Time!
God, we give Thee, unblemisht, our frustrate endeavour:
Earth, we leave thee, unchallenged, thy share in man's crime!
310
A POOR MAN
OR THE MATCHMAKER AND THE BIRD.
I knew a man, the world call'd poorBecause he barely paid the price
Of leave to live. I pass'd his door,
I think, once daily, twice or thrice.
A little door in the long street,
Left open to let in the sun
Which, warmly its old friend to greet,
Into the house did laughing run.
For there was that in this man's face
Which made you feel the sun was bound
To come and shine on any place
Where such a face was to be found.
He barely earn'd the bread of life
By making little wooden matches:
He shaped them neatly with a knife
And tied them up in tiny batches:
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Perhaps, if I could feel quite sure
Mine were as innocent as his,
I should not mourn to be as poor.
Because, whene'er I chanced to meet
That man's face, I perceived it smiled
A smile as innocent, and sweet,
And simple, as a little child,
Smiling at all things. I suppose
His soul was in its infancy,
Life's smiling-time, which most men lose
By living. Else, I wonder why
I felt so sure he smiled thus too,
When neither I, nor any one,
Was there to see him. Think! how few
There are, that smile when quite alone!
And from a cage upon the wall
A bird sang to him all day long,
So sweet and merry a madrigal
That all who, passing, heard that song
Felt younger, therefore better; just
As tho' the times were back again,
Which man's growth buries in the dust
It drops from its own branches, when
We yet could hear, from the blue sky,
In accents clearly understood,
Our Father saying to us ‘Try,
My children, to be glad and good.’
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Till, pleased, the neighbours each began
To pray ‘God bless the singing bird,
‘That sings to bless the working man!’
For in the work of the man's hand,
As in the song of the bird's heart,
There was, we all could understand,
A unison. Each seem'd a part
O' the other: and, still, both, as 't were,
Of something higher,—since both praised it.
The joy of labour, not the care:
‘The Poetry of Life,’ some phrased it.
The world (whatever that word means,
That means so little, or so much,
According as our humour leans)
Holds rich, or poor, whom good things, such
As fetch the world's good price, belong
Or lack to. What's the value which
God sets on Labour and on Song?
This poor man had them. Was he rich?
The old watchmaker (still his shop
Stands yonder, where the town buys watches)
Used daily, passing here, to stop
And greet my poor friend of the matches.
And, day by day, that rich man offer'd
To buy this poor man's bird away.
Ten gulden . . . twelve . . . fifteen . . . he proffer'd:
And still the poor man answer'd Nay.
313
Undream'd of by a man so poor!
And still that rich man, to importune
This poor man, daily seeks his door:
And, day by day, the silver pieces
Before the poor man's eyes are spread
And, day by day, the sum increases:
And still the poor man shakes his head.
I watch'd this bargain, day by day.
We poets, in dark corners peeping
‘For subjects’, as you people say,
Have cat's eyes that when closed, and sleeping
As you might think, are most awake.
I, with this friendly fellow-creature,
Had bargains of my own to make;
My business being with Human Nature;
Whose ins and outs if we would turn to,
We men of verse must not be nice.
And I would have you people learn, too,
For what we learn we pay the price.
All these things happen'd, you may know,
In old Vienna, famed ('tis said there)
As now it is, in years ago,
For wooden matches which are made there.
Next time he came, the mechanician
Here, in his crafty hand, did bring
(The wary, wicked, old magician!)
An instrument, a marvellous thing!
314
‘Good morrow, friend! and, good friend, pray
How many dozen wooden matches
Do you suppose you make a-day?’
‘Some twenty dozen. Sometimes more,
It may be.’ ‘Twenty dozen, say you?
And, good friend, for each dozen score
How much may your employers pay you?’
‘For every dozen kreutzers five.’
‘The paltry fellows! Only that?
A beggarman, as I'm alive,
Gets more by holding out his hat.’
Therewith, triumphant, up he takes
A block of wood that's lying by,
Sets to it his instrument, and makes
Some twenty hundred matches fly
All neatly shaved across the table.
‘Magic! why here, in half a second,
Are matches more than I am able
To make in twenty days well reckon'd,’
The poor man shouts in wonderment.
‘Just so, friend. Here your fortune see.
Keep you the cunning instrument,
And give the singing bird to me.’
Amazed, subdued, bewilder'd, lost,
The poor man render'd up the song,
The labour, of his life. Almost
I hoped that rich man, for the wrong
315
In time by some avenging twinge;
And something in me seem'd to sicken,
As when a sudden sallow tinge,
For all the flaring of the sun,
Shows the first sign of sure decay
In Summer's glorious green begun.
For when I heard my poor friend say
‘'Tis magic! devilcraft!’ I thought
He had good cause for saying this,
And that the Devil might have bought
God's gift away—that smile of his.
But now he flourish'd and grew rich,
Gain'd money, spent it, throve in trade,
Retired, and lived at ease. All which
Was cause for smiling—so folks said.
And yet they say he smiled no more
(And I believe the thing they say)
That smile he used to smile of yore,
When he was poor, and work'd all day.
How should he smile so? when the song,
The labour, of his life were gone?
Said I, just now, that all day long
He used to smile, when quite alone?
Error! Who less alone than he
With work and song, then? It was now
The man was quite alone, you see.
And now he smiled no more, I know:
316
Man's work—which Nature cheers meanwhile,
And the mere work of a machine:—
One smiles, the other hath no smile.
So still about my mind will lurk
The question . . . There's some value, sure,
God's Will assigns to Song and Work:
This rich man lack'd them. Was he poor?
317
A MAN OF SCIENCE
OR THE BOTANIST'S GRAVE.
“Here lie the mortal remains” (I may spare you the limitless list
Of academies, institutes, colleges, orders, whereof he was member)
Of Doctor Theophilus Timothy Bloom, the renown'd botanist,
Deceased (so his gravestone instructs you) the fourteenth day of December,
Of academies, institutes, colleges, orders, whereof he was member)
Of Doctor Theophilus Timothy Bloom, the renown'd botanist,
Deceased (so his gravestone instructs you) the fourteenth day of December,
In the Year of Our Lord, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty=two.”
See! the lichens, already revenging themselves on their former tormentor,
Sprawl over his new-cut name, and have hidden it half out of view.
Meanwhile, I that knew the man, mourning my mild-eyed Mentor,
See! the lichens, already revenging themselves on their former tormentor,
Sprawl over his new-cut name, and have hidden it half out of view.
Meanwhile, I that knew the man, mourning my mild-eyed Mentor,
318
Graced in his dust by this epitaph lean and bald as himself,
Whom I fancy I still see spreading his specimens dry in the sun
He has taken his final farewell of, bequeathing, at least, to my shelf
Full forty folios in print, and a manuscript newly begun
Whom I fancy I still see spreading his specimens dry in the sun
He has taken his final farewell of, bequeathing, at least, to my shelf
Full forty folios in print, and a manuscript newly begun
On the carbonaceous compounds found in botanical tissues,—
Cellulose, glucose, lignine, dextrine, inuline, starch,—
A treatise laboriously written, and raising remarkable issues
On all questions of cellular structure, commenced but a year back in March,—
Cellulose, glucose, lignine, dextrine, inuline, starch,—
A treatise laboriously written, and raising remarkable issues
On all questions of cellular structure, commenced but a year back in March,—
For the honour and glory of Science, as well as my old friend's sake,
I, that knew him, I say, here relate you his life from beginning to end.
—Hark! how the throstle is singing! and yonder bluebells in the brake,
How they nod on the noontide airs! . . . Peace be to the soul of my friend!
I, that knew him, I say, here relate you his life from beginning to end.
—Hark! how the throstle is singing! and yonder bluebells in the brake,
How they nod on the noontide airs! . . . Peace be to the soul of my friend!
Man's life dwindles apace, while the world grows vaster and vaster,
And Nature, pleasing herself, smiles heedless of simple or sage.
Be it known, then, that Doctor Theophilus Timothy Bloom, our master,
Who has left us forlorn of his lights in the sixtieth year of his age,
And Nature, pleasing herself, smiles heedless of simple or sage.
319
Who has left us forlorn of his lights in the sixtieth year of his age,
He, too (who could imagine it?), under that lean leathern hide of his
Once bore about the high-beating and bountiful heart of a boy,
A heart full of wonder and worship! Was passionate, too, in the pride of his
New-born belief in himself as a being capacious for joy.
Once bore about the high-beating and bountiful heart of a boy,
A heart full of wonder and worship! Was passionate, too, in the pride of his
New-born belief in himself as a being capacious for joy.
Bright you may image the eye of him (long since dull as a paste eye),
Bright with a brilliant hope in a July morning sweet,
When the boy's blithe step thro' the college cloister bounded hasty,
And, proud, at the door of the Teacher the passionate boy's heart beat.
Bright with a brilliant hope in a July morning sweet,
When the boy's blithe step thro' the college cloister bounded hasty,
And, proud, at the door of the Teacher the passionate boy's heart beat.
“Speak, my Pupil!” “O Master, I burn with a boundless impatience to know.”
“For this must I praise thee, my Pupil. For knowledge is joy to the creature
Created to know the Creator. Yet patience! since knowledge is slow,
Being infinite. What wouldst thou know?” And the boy, unabash'd, answer'd, “Nature.”
“For this must I praise thee, my Pupil. For knowledge is joy to the creature
Created to know the Creator. Yet patience! since knowledge is slow,
Being infinite. What wouldst thou know?” And the boy, unabash'd, answer'd, “Nature.”
320
“Nature is vaster than knowledge. What wouldst thou know of her, my son?”
“Not, O Master, the act, which I see, but the thought, which I cannot discern:
I stand in the centre, gaze round me, see everywhere action alone,
And find nowhere the source of the thought found in action wherever I turn.”
“Not, O Master, the act, which I see, but the thought, which I cannot discern:
I stand in the centre, gaze round me, see everywhere action alone,
And find nowhere the source of the thought found in action wherever I turn.”
Said the Teacher, “In order, my Pupil, to reach to the source of the thought,
We must follow the act in succession. The thought may be one, once for all,
All at once; but the action is many and diverse, to unity brought
In the mind by slow aggregates growing alike from the great and the small.
We must follow the act in succession. The thought may be one, once for all,
All at once; but the action is many and diverse, to unity brought
In the mind by slow aggregates growing alike from the great and the small.
“There is but one vast universal dynamic, one mover, one might,
Variously operant under the various conditions it finds:
And we call that by turns electricity, friction, caloric, and light,
Which is none of these things, and yet all of them. Ask of the waves and the winds,
Variously operant under the various conditions it finds:
And we call that by turns electricity, friction, caloric, and light,
Which is none of these things, and yet all of them. Ask of the waves and the winds,
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“Ask of the stars of the firmament, ask of the flowers of the field,
They will answer you all of them, naming it each by a different name.
For the meaning of Nature is neither wholly conceal'd nor reveal'd,
But her mind is seen to be single in her acts that are no-where the same.
They will answer you all of them, naming it each by a different name.
For the meaning of Nature is neither wholly conceal'd nor reveal'd,
But her mind is seen to be single in her acts that are no-where the same.
“Each of these acts is a spy and informer upon her: and any
Of the separate sciences, following these, may be follow'd by man:
For the goal of man's mind is one, but the goings of men's minds many,
And each, by his own way going, must get to the goal as he can.
Of the separate sciences, following these, may be follow'd by man:
For the goal of man's mind is one, but the goings of men's minds many,
And each, by his own way going, must get to the goal as he can.
“By the hundred ways that await you are waiting a hundred guides:
Yet you can but walk one way at a time, follow one guide, use
One chart, in despite of the ninety-nine others each comer decides
At the outset to take or renounce, as his choice may predominate. Choose!”
Yet you can but walk one way at a time, follow one guide, use
One chart, in despite of the ninety-nine others each comer decides
At the outset to take or renounce, as his choice may predominate. Choose!”
322
Heavy, then, hearing this, was the heart of the student, whose soul
But a moment before on her wing was uplifting the world's light load,
And, “How can I choose me, O Master, the road, since I see not the goal?
Or how can I choose me the guide, since I see not even the road?”
But a moment before on her wing was uplifting the world's light load,
And, “How can I choose me, O Master, the road, since I see not the goal?
Or how can I choose me the guide, since I see not even the road?”
The Master, smiling, answer'd . . . “Of the works of Nature, those
Wherein her method of working is easiest found of detection,
Are certain living bodies whose life can but feebly oppose
The life-seeking, life-slaying process of scientific dissection:
Wherein her method of working is easiest found of detection,
Are certain living bodies whose life can but feebly oppose
The life-seeking, life-slaying process of scientific dissection:
“These bodies are vegetal bodies: the dealing of Science with these
Is the least of her difficult labours. Begin, then, with Botany . . . Stay!
Open the door before you, and turn to the right, if you please.
You are in the Botanical Class, now. Stay here, friend. I wish you good day.”
Is the least of her difficult labours. Begin, then, with Botany . . . Stay!
Open the door before you, and turn to the right, if you please.
You are in the Botanical Class, now. Stay here, friend. I wish you good day.”
So sitteth Theophilus perch'd on the brim of the beaker of knowledge,
Poor fly! sipping . . . Nature? no, Botany,—merely one kind of ingredient
Of the complex Elixir he thirsts for:—the blue-eyed hope of the College,
A maiden-minded student, humble of heart and obedient.
Poor fly! sipping . . . Nature? no, Botany,—merely one kind of ingredient
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A maiden-minded student, humble of heart and obedient.
But O what a hopeless confusion doth Order at first sight appear!
Unwearied Theophilus, sitting, and conning the grammar of Nature,
Thro' the whole of the humming hot noon with the cuckoo's note cleaving it clear,
Is it knowledge thou seekest? Then patience, and master, meanwhile, nomenclature.
Unwearied Theophilus, sitting, and conning the grammar of Nature,
Thro' the whole of the humming hot noon with the cuckoo's note cleaving it clear,
Is it knowledge thou seekest? Then patience, and master, meanwhile, nomenclature.
So, like a drunken bee, you behold him, bewilder'd, floundering,
Foot-deep, faint in the pollen; or, now, climbing filaments, high on
The polypetalous whorl; now, wandering round and around a ring
Rotate, campanulate, ventricose, valvate . . . O wheel of Ixion!
Foot-deep, faint in the pollen; or, now, climbing filaments, high on
The polypetalous whorl; now, wandering round and around a ring
Rotate, campanulate, ventricose, valvate . . . O wheel of Ixion!
Day after day, and still darkness. At length a light breaks on the labour.
For Linnæus, the Lecturer tells us, has classified plants, single-handed.
“Classification of plants?” . . . All hail! bid the pipe and the tabor
Be joyful! the chaos grows cosmic: at length on firm ground we are landed!
For Linnæus, the Lecturer tells us, has classified plants, single-handed.
324
Be joyful! the chaos grows cosmic: at length on firm ground we are landed!
No! . . . For this classification, the learnèd Professor continues,
Is utterly wrong; since it separates plants into sexes, like men;
Whereas plants are not plagued, like us humans, in that way. So brace up your sinews,
Push on, and good-by to Linnæus. The light's out. All darkness again.
Is utterly wrong; since it separates plants into sexes, like men;
Whereas plants are not plagued, like us humans, in that way. So brace up your sinews,
Push on, and good-by to Linnæus. The light's out. All darkness again.
Not that, just yet, it much matters: no cause, at the least, for dejection.
Here's a new house, where the first thing is simply to stow away lumber;
Make yourself room to look round you; in time, after further reflection,
Doubtless you'll hit on some better arrangement; and, once disencumber
Here's a new house, where the first thing is simply to stow away lumber;
Make yourself room to look round you; in time, after further reflection,
Doubtless you'll hit on some better arrangement; and, once disencumber
The ground that you stand upon, presently things will drop into their places,
Each his appropriate corner find out, and most fitting relation:
So, till the fates find a fitter one, let us, not making long faces,
But thankful enough to Linnæus, put up with his classification.
Each his appropriate corner find out, and most fitting relation:
325
But thankful enough to Linnæus, put up with his classification.
New light anon! Hope of haven descried from a different shore, now!
Where Science, in France, clearer-sighted, escaped from all tangle and trammel, eyes
The whole of the vegetal world in neat groups, and has fix'd evermore now
This fact,—that, tho' plants have no sexes, they nevertheless may have families.
Where Science, in France, clearer-sighted, escaped from all tangle and trammel, eyes
The whole of the vegetal world in neat groups, and has fix'd evermore now
This fact,—that, tho' plants have no sexes, they nevertheless may have families.
Still, tho', the infinite found in the finite dismays our endeavour.
To the unknown perforce we abandon this vast starry sphere (sad confession!)
As baffling our bounded embrace: but it surely is hard when for ever
The least grain of sand we approach, growing reachless, eludes our possession.
To the unknown perforce we abandon this vast starry sphere (sad confession!)
As baffling our bounded embrace: but it surely is hard when for ever
The least grain of sand we approach, growing reachless, eludes our possession.
Worlds beyond worlds without end, we may make up our minds to relinquish:
But worlds within worlds without end make the heart of a man faint within him;
To be mock'd by a mite! and to feel that the lamp of our life must extinguish
Its light, ere, exploring, we measure immensity pack'd in a minim!
But worlds within worlds without end make the heart of a man faint within him;
326
Its light, ere, exploring, we measure immensity pack'd in a minim!
To be crusht by a crystal of salt! to be foil'd by a film, or a flinder!
To be stopp'd like the merest, minutest of emmets, whose poor little progress
To the goal, where she drops underground, the least hump of a molehill may hinder!
A fortress to find in each fungus! in each lady Fly-trap an ogress!
To be stopp'd like the merest, minutest of emmets, whose poor little progress
To the goal, where she drops underground, the least hump of a molehill may hinder!
A fortress to find in each fungus! in each lady Fly-trap an ogress!
“One group, but one, from the million learn first to know something about, now,”
Says the Lecturer, leaving the pulpit, his brain for a while pump'd powerless,
“I propose to begin with the most elementary class, and give out now
As the theme of our next day's discourse, the class call'd Cryptogamic, or Flowerless.”
Says the Lecturer, leaving the pulpit, his brain for a while pump'd powerless,
“I propose to begin with the most elementary class, and give out now
As the theme of our next day's discourse, the class call'd Cryptogamic, or Flowerless.”
Deep, then, we plunge into Acrogens, Ætheogams, Amphigams, still:
Hope to get on by degrees into Exogens, Endogens: meantime
Moons wax and wane; summers fleet; from the Student, as patient he crams still
Dry leaves under tin lids, steals sighing the glad and the green time.
Hope to get on by degrees into Exogens, Endogens: meantime
327
Dry leaves under tin lids, steals sighing the glad and the green time.
Sad! For I fancy . . . at times, as the moist eye wanes ever meeker,
And the lank yellow locks by degrees fall scant from the pure bald brow,
Much-tried Theophilus (still a sad-thoughted unsatisfied seeker)
Startled, perchance, by the cuckoo, or vext by green buds on the bough,
And the lank yellow locks by degrees fall scant from the pure bald brow,
Much-tried Theophilus (still a sad-thoughted unsatisfied seeker)
Startled, perchance, by the cuckoo, or vext by green buds on the bough,
Lifting those wide wan looks, with an unslaked grief in the gaze of them,
Into the high blue stillness of heaven, so still, and so high!
Watching the white clouds roll'd on the unreturning ways of them,
Murmuring among his books, with a deep dejected sigh,
Into the high blue stillness of heaven, so still, and so high!
Watching the white clouds roll'd on the unreturning ways of them,
Murmuring among his books, with a deep dejected sigh,
“Ah, but all this, after all, is not what I pined for! Up there
The veilèd Mystery sits on the solemn mountain peak:
The vast clouds form and change at her feet: and my heart's despair
Cries aloud where no auswer is heard: for this Silence never will speak.
The veilèd Mystery sits on the solemn mountain peak:
The vast clouds form and change at her feet: and my heart's despair
Cries aloud where no auswer is heard: for this Silence never will speak.
328
“Yonder, up there, as of old, when he play'd on my heart's harp-strings,
The wind, with a surly music, is moaning aloof in the tree:
Yonder, up there, in the blue and the breezy mid-sky swings
The lanneret hawk, as of old, when my heart went higher than he.
The wind, with a surly music, is moaning aloof in the tree:
Yonder, up there, in the blue and the breezy mid-sky swings
The lanneret hawk, as of old, when my heart went higher than he.
“Could one leap all at once to the end! not doom'd, like a grub, to grope
About in the blinding earth, looking up never more from one's load!
Well, never mind! One is laying up knowledge, at least, one must hope;
And one cannot afford to leap over the knowledge that lies in one's road.”
About in the blinding earth, looking up never more from one's load!
Well, never mind! One is laying up knowledge, at least, one must hope;
And one cannot afford to leap over the knowledge that lies in one's road.”
Intermediate methods! importance of every detail!
Say we, consoling ourselves; and again pick up heart to persist.
Ha, but cryptogams grow by the hundred, and books by the bushel,—men fail!
Here the door opens. In steps the Botanical Archivist,
Say we, consoling ourselves; and again pick up heart to persist.
Ha, but cryptogams grow by the hundred, and books by the bushel,—men fail!
Here the door opens. In steps the Botanical Archivist,
Asking...whom else but Theophilus? what better man could you wish?
To catalogue all the collection of dried plants recently sent
From the Himmalayan range by Commander Cornelius Fish;
And Theophilus cannot decline an appeal where an honour is meant.
To catalogue all the collection of dried plants recently sent
From the Himmalayan range by Commander Cornelius Fish;
And Theophilus cannot decline an appeal where an honour is meant.
329
Friend! when a man to one purpose the whole of his will hath awarded,
He will justly be jealous of all other claims on the time given to it:
He will lock up his life in a turret of tall triple brass, dragon-guarded,
Hide himself close in a strong central thought, and let nothing break thro' it:
He will justly be jealous of all other claims on the time given to it:
He will lock up his life in a turret of tall triple brass, dragon-guarded,
Hide himself close in a strong central thought, and let nothing break thro' it:
Beauty peeps in at the casement, he savagely fastens the shutter:
Pleasure trips light at the threshold, he pushes the bolt in the door:
Fortune, red gold in her right hand, comes fearless with good news to utter,
He seals up his ears like Ulysses, and laughs at her, proud to be poor:
Pleasure trips light at the threshold, he pushes the bolt in the door:
Fortune, red gold in her right hand, comes fearless with good news to utter,
He seals up his ears like Ulysses, and laughs at her, proud to be poor:
But one foe, the most unforeseen, the most dangerous, deadliest of all,
Sure, if it finds, to o'erthrow him—the child of a word or a glance,
The tenant of emptiest nothing—he cannot exclude, nor forestal,
Nor contend with, how wary so ever: and that foe is lnnocent Chance.
Sure, if it finds, to o'erthrow him—the child of a word or a glance,
The tenant of emptiest nothing—he cannot exclude, nor forestal,
Nor contend with, how wary so ever: and that foe is lnnocent Chance.
330
Theophilus, most coscientious, most scrupulous scraper-together
Of crumbs dropt from other men's trenchers, laboriously much-annotating,
Sorting, reviewing, arranging,—assigning its true whence and whither
To this plant, and that plant, of each plant the family history stating,
Of crumbs dropt from other men's trenchers, laboriously much-annotating,
Sorting, reviewing, arranging,—assigning its true whence and whither
To this plant, and that plant, of each plant the family history stating,
In the hap-hazard, higgledy-piggledy ship-load of riches from Nature
Robb'd by Commander Cornelius Fish, the illustrious sailor,
Lights, by ill luck, on a milk-white gnaphalium, foreign in feature,—
Petals more pointed and definite, sepals profuser and paler
Robb'd by Commander Cornelius Fish, the illustrious sailor,
Lights, by ill luck, on a milk-white gnaphalium, foreign in feature,—
Petals more pointed and definite, sepals profuser and paler
Than those of its kindred in Europe,—in short, a new specimen, clearly
Distinguish'd. Whereat, as in conscience compell'd, for mankind's information
The Doctor (alas! now no longer mere student, but straighten'd severely
Into sedate middle age) then and there, after due consultation
Distinguish'd. Whereat, as in conscience compell'd, for mankind's information
The Doctor (alas! now no longer mere student, but straighten'd severely
Into sedate middle age) then and there, after due consultation
331
Of all that botanical writers have said on gnaphalia in general,
Sits down, and indites a small treatise, this specimen specially treating;—
Its structure, morphology, system, and elements, gaseous or mineral,
Thus in respect of the race of gnaphalia, our knowledge completing.
Sits down, and indites a small treatise, this specimen specially treating;—
Its structure, morphology, system, and elements, gaseous or mineral,
Thus in respect of the race of gnaphalia, our knowledge completing.
Which done now, ... no sooner the Doctor's small treatise, exciting sensation,
Is read by the learnèd, than straightway three scandalised savants, dissenting
In toto, determined to deal with what calls for severe reprobation,
Hurl at him and the public three passionate pamphlets, objecting, commenting,
Is read by the learnèd, than straightway three scandalised savants, dissenting
In toto, determined to deal with what calls for severe reprobation,
Hurl at him and the public three passionate pamphlets, objecting, commenting,
Suggesting, appealing, opposing, inveighing, reproaching, regretting;
Whereunto, nothing daunted, he feels himself bound to make answer minutely,
Disclosing, expounding, disputing, affirming, denying, upsetting,
Proving himself no mere tyro, attacking the main points acutely.
Whereunto, nothing daunted, he feels himself bound to make answer minutely,
Disclosing, expounding, disputing, affirming, denying, upsetting,
Proving himself no mere tyro, attacking the main points acutely.
332
Back to the charge, each opponent, tenacious returning, with rage hacks
Hard at the Doctor, and fights every inch with the heart of a Roman:
Not to be vanquish'd by numbers, the Doctor, as valiant as Ajax,
Buckles the tighter his breastplate, and rushes in wrath on the foeman.
Hard at the Doctor, and fights every inch with the heart of a Roman:
Not to be vanquish'd by numbers, the Doctor, as valiant as Ajax,
Buckles the tighter his breastplate, and rushes in wrath on the foeman.
Religion, meanwhile, and Theology fly to the rescue of something,
No man precisely knows what, with emphatical protest on all things.
O what a strepitant contest, to make a man envy the dumb thing
Gifted by God with the grace to be silent, whatever men call things!
No man precisely knows what, with emphatical protest on all things.
O what a strepitant contest, to make a man envy the dumb thing
Gifted by God with the grace to be silent, whatever men call things!
Ossas of argument piled upon Pelions of perfect conviction!
Otium rogat ... no help for it! Caught now, mid-seas, in Ægeo,
On we drive, hurl'd by Euroclydon ... Heaven send us help in affliction,
And save us from heretic knaves, qui non recte loquuntur de Deo!
Otium rogat ... no help for it! Caught now, mid-seas, in Ægeo,
On we drive, hurl'd by Euroclydon ... Heaven send us help in affliction,
And save us from heretic knaves, qui non recte loquuntur de Deo!
333
Deathless, the dismal discussion continues thro' years grey and greyer.
Curst be the hand of Commander Cornelius Fish! that did gather
That mischievous milk-white mountain weed, better left on its layer
Of snow, near the sunrise, safe hid in the high Himmalayan weather.
Curst be the hand of Commander Cornelius Fish! that did gather
That mischievous milk-white mountain weed, better left on its layer
Of snow, near the sunrise, safe hid in the high Himmalayan weather.
Wretchedest weed in creation! sly hypocrite fashion'd by Fate,
To bring the grey hairs of my friend full of grief to the grave where he lies now!
Who could surmise in thy face of white innocence heartfuls of hate
And contention? No more upon thee, wicked weed, will I ever set eyes now!
To bring the grey hairs of my friend full of grief to the grave where he lies now!
Who could surmise in thy face of white innocence heartfuls of hate
And contention? No more upon thee, wicked weed, will I ever set eyes now!
For the learnèd defunct we lament here at last grew (and all for thy sake too!)
Nothing more than, himself, a mere human gnaphalium, sapless and wither'd;
Till Death, for his own choice collection of dried things, was minded to take to
Himself such a notable specimen. Bloom, with the bloom off him, gather'd
Nothing more than, himself, a mere human gnaphalium, sapless and wither'd;
Till Death, for his own choice collection of dried things, was minded to take to
Himself such a notable specimen. Bloom, with the bloom off him, gather'd
334
By Dis, gloomy gatherer! catalogued, pack'd up, disposed of for ever,
Lies (here you have him!) named, dated, and done with. Meanwhile the great question
He started, surviving the Doctor, who died of his latest endeavour,
Continues to puzzle our Pundits with cart-loads of precious suggestion.
Lies (here you have him!) named, dated, and done with. Meanwhile the great question
He started, surviving the Doctor, who died of his latest endeavour,
Continues to puzzle our Pundits with cart-loads of precious suggestion.
Suppose, now, some man with one object in life—to construct a steam-engine:—
First, say you, study dynamics; then metals; learn smelting and founding;
Off with you, next, to the cog-wheel department; cog wheels; you may then join
The cylinder-makers; and so forth; in this way the full circle rounding;
First, say you, study dynamics; then metals; learn smelting and founding;
Off with you, next, to the cog-wheel department; cog wheels; you may then join
The cylinder-makers; and so forth; in this way the full circle rounding;
Meanwhile the man dies. Our friend here,—what now is he doing, I wonder?
Chasing a phantom gnaphalium, worlds beyond worlds wanly straying?
Or simply, with palms cross'd at ease on his cool narrow couch, lying under
This pother, and laughing alone in his grave-sleeve at what I am saying?
Chasing a phantom gnaphalium, worlds beyond worlds wanly straying?
Or simply, with palms cross'd at ease on his cool narrow couch, lying under
This pother, and laughing alone in his grave-sleeve at what I am saying?
335
Anyhow, here lie the mortal remains (with a limitless list too
Of academies, institutes, colleges, orders, whereof he was member)
Of Doctor Theophilus Timothy Bloom the renown'd botanist, who
Died in the year Sixty-two, on the fourteenth day of December.
Of academies, institutes, colleges, orders, whereof he was member)
Of Doctor Theophilus Timothy Bloom the renown'd botanist, who
Died in the year Sixty-two, on the fourteenth day of December.
Well! sitting here on the grave of my master, while under the stone
The red worm is picking his brains, there's a notion comes into my mind:—
(Was it the throstle that sung it, up there where the blackthorn is blown?
Or here, in the long grass, was it let fall by the whispering wind?
The red worm is picking his brains, there's a notion comes into my mind:—
(Was it the throstle that sung it, up there where the blackthorn is blown?
Or here, in the long grass, was it let fall by the whispering wind?
What, if the grey cricket chirrup'd it, chasing yon seed-ball enchanted?
What, if the wild bee humm'd it, ruffling the rich guelder rose?)
The world, perchance after all, knows already enough: what is wanted
Is, not to know more, but know how to imagine the much that it knows.
What, if the wild bee humm'd it, ruffling the rich guelder rose?)
The world, perchance after all, knows already enough: what is wanted
Is, not to know more, but know how to imagine the much that it knows.
336
A GREAT MAN.
1
That man is great, and he alone,Who serves a greatness not his own,
For neither praise nor pelf:
Content to know, and be unknown:
Whole in himself.
2
Strong is that man, he only strong,To whose well-order'd will belong,
For service and delight,
All powers that, in the face of Wrong,
Establish Right.
3
And free he is, and only he,Who, from his tyrant passions free,
By Fortune undismay'd,
Hath power upon himself, to be
By himself obey'd.
337
4
If such a man there be, where'erBeneath the sun and moon he fare,
He cannot fare amiss.
Great Nature hath him in her care
Her cause is his:
5
Who holds by everlasting lawWhich neither chance nor change can flaw:
Whose steadfast course is one
With whatsoever forces draw
The ages on:
6
Who hath not bow'd his honest headTo base Occasion: nor, in dread
Of Duty, shunn'd her eye:
Nor truckled to loud times: nor wed
His heart to a lie:
7
Nor fear'd to follow, in the offenceOf false opinion, his own sense
Of justice unsubdued:
Nor shrunk from any consequence
Of doing good.
338
8
He looks his Angel in the faceWithout a blush: nor heeds disgrace,
Whom nought disgraceful done
Disgraces. Who knows nothing base
Fears nothing known.
9
Not morsell'd out from day to dayIn feverish wishes, nor the prey
Of hours that have no plan,
His life is whole, to give away
To God and man.
10
For tho' he live aloof from ken,The world's unwitness'd denizen,
The love within him stirs
Abroad, and with the hearts of men
His own confers:
11
The judge upon the justice-seat:The brown-back'd beggar in the street:
The spinner in the sun:
The reapers reaping in the wheat:
The wan-cheek'd nun
339
12
In cloister cold: the prisoner leanIn lightless den: the robèd Queen:
Even the youth who waits,
Hiding the knife, to glide unseen
Between the gates:—
13
He nothing human alien deemsUnto himself, nor disesteems
Man's meanest claim upon him:
And, where he walks, the mere sunbeams
Drop blessings on him:
14
Because they know him Nature's friend,On whom she doth delight to tend
With loving-kindness ever,
Helping and heartening to the end
His high endeavour.
15
Therefore, tho' mortal made, he canWork miracles. The uncommon man
Leaves nothing commonplace.
He is the marvellous. To span
The abyss of space,
340
16
The orb of time, is his by faith,And his, whilst breathing human breath,
To taste, before he dies,
The deep eventual calm of death,
Life's latest prize.
17
If such a man there be, where'erBeneath the sun and moon he fare,
He doth not fare alone.
He goeth girt with cohorts, powers,
The monarch of his manful hours,
Whose mind's his throne:
18
He owes no homage to the sun:There's nothing he need seek or shun:
All things are his by right:
He is his own posterity:
His future in himself doth lie:
His soul's his light:
19
Lord of a lofty life is he,Loftily living, tho' he be
Of lowly birth: tho' poor,
He lacks not wealth: nor high degree
In state obscure.
341
20
The merely great are, all in all,No more than what the merely small
Esteem them. Man's opinion
Neither conferr'd, nor can recall,
This man's dominion.
342
MABEL MAY.
1.
I was weary all thro' of the thousand and oneWants, wishes, and wretchedest sorts of strife
Within, and without, which some call Life,
Mable May,
When I climb'd to the cloud on the mountain cone,
And lay on the bare black rock, alone,
In the watchful twilight vast and grey,
Mabel May;
And yearn'd for the yet unarisen light,
As a wretch yearns, sick of a woeful night;
—To plunge, in a passionate gush of sight,
And leap at one bound of a rapture bright,
Into the burning heart of the sun,
And be lost,—like a star, when the dark is done,
O'erwhelm'd in the fount of the full-pour'd day,
Mabel May!
343
2.
And lo you! all round me, all o'er me, he rose,The august godlike Glory pure,
Which not even the eagle's eyes endure,
Mabel May:
He smote, like a trumpet, the slumbering snows
To a burning blush, from their pale repose
Wide awake; and ... How shall I say,
Mabel May?
My very heart ached with the interminate
Splendour for which it had lain in wait.
Was it joy, was it pain, was it love, was it hate,
That agony born of a bliss too great?
And I stagger'd blinded beneath the blows
Of the bare-orb'd Beauty, and sought for who knows
What phantom hand to lead me away,
Mabel May!
3
So it ever hath been, so it ever shall be,Since man was made for the lot of man.
'Tis the curse of his course since his course began,
Mabel May.
Our soul to feel, and our sight to see,
Are afire and athirst. Then it comes: and we
Are made sport for the powers we brought into play,
Mabel May.
344
Scale the summit: and, breathless, behold—but in vain—
What we cannot endure. We are lost by our gain,
And o'erwhelm'd by the triumph whereto we attain:
Enslaved by the force we ourselves have set free,
And unmade by the might that we make. Who is he
That stands fast, and looks full in the face of his day,
Mabel May?
4.
So I turn'd me anon by the downward trackTo the valley beneath; never lifting again
My looks left dim by the dazzling pain,
Mabel May;
With above and behind me the mountain, black
And broad, still holding the sun at his back;
And dejectedly follow'd my darkling way,
Mabel May,
With no care now what the chance might be
Of the next thing I should be forced to see,
When the dance of the colours that, dazzling me
Danced on before, should disperse and flee,
And leave me asmart from the torturous hack
Of the Sun-god's triumphing knife, alack!
Like that poor Satyr, he stoop'd to flay,
Mabel May.
345
5.
But how did it happen? For suddenly thereThe vale was wash'd with a warm sweet wave
Of luminous verdure balmy and suave,
Mabel May;
And a million mild wild odours were
Afloat in the fresh moist morning air;
And the birds broke out in a rapturous lay,
Mabel May;
While on each grass blade, in a silver bell,
The bright dew trembled before it fell
To the warbling pure, in the sweetbriar dell,
Of that delicate harper, Ariel;
And even the rock, no longer bare,
Was robed in a roseate mantle rare;
And the gaunt thorn-bushes were laughing gay,
Mabel May.
6.
Fools fly in the face of the bliss they believeThey were born for. If born for it, why not wait?
Can fate miss man, or man miss fate,
Mabel May?
No! we claim to acquire, unresign'd to receive,
What chance, not choice, can alone achieve:
And then, when we fail, as is fit, we say
(Mabel May)
346
But what, when we say it, if unaware
The burning Beauty we could not bear,
Taking pity on our pain'd pride, as 'twere,
Should pour itself over our path, and weave
Life's way with the light we have learn'd to leave,
Warming our souls with a reflex ray,
Mabel May?
7.
O'tis you are the cause of these thoughts, I tryTo release in song, but shall never succeed;
They lie too deep in my soul, indeed,
Mabel May!
For in you is the light of my life; and I
And my life are yours, to be made thereby
Of what colour you will. You are my day,
Mabel May!
But that light of you in this life of mine
Were a depth of glory too divine
For my sense to bear, if it did not shine
Soften'd, reflected,—fused, in fine,
With the common things of life, that lie
In that light, transmuted to melody,
Odour, and colour, by its glad play,
Mabel May.
My wife, my life, my day, whose sway
Makes all things sweet with a sense of sun,
347
My one in all, and my all in one,
Now I hold you fast where my footsteps stray,
And find you most when you seem away,
Loving you more than my love can say,
Mabel May!
END OF BOOK IX.
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