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

Once more! And can I mix the past and present
Close in a single cup of claspéd hands,
Into a single grasp compress the pleasant
Old memories, the voices of lost lands,
Into a single glance hurl all the passion
That should have been, that is to be no more,
Then say goodbye to you in common fashion
And move to meet the lone waves' hollow roar?
Once more to see you—then—I must be dreaming—
My Lady of the rosebands and the bays,
My sweet hair still divinely downward streaming,
My dimple, and my soft caressing ways—
It is not true? to-morrow I shall wake,
And off my heart the accursed nightmare shake!

XXIV. ONCE MORE

II.

Once more to bring to mind the green old places,
And songs and dreams and tenderness recall,
As in one flash to see my sonnets' faces
In your face, then a long farewell to all;
Sweet eyes...sweet lips...no time for numeration
Have I, I leave a dainty list behind,—
One gaze, one second in the singer's station
With vision clear, the next a poet blind;
Once more to feel the summer thrill flow through me,
Then winter—winter—winter—and the dark,
The last time at the sunrise to renew me,
To the old sweet melody once more to hark,
Once more—once more—then never, love, again,
But one long Arctic solitude of pain.

XXV. THE POET'S ROSE

A poet loved a rose—and watched it grow,—
And every day a sweeter blush was there,
And pouting petals fuller and more fair;
Each eventide “to-morrow it will blow,”
The poet said—“to-morrow I shall know
The perfect splendour of this flower rare;”
Sometimes its beauty more than he could bear
Brought tears for joy's excess akin to woe.

And so he watched it,—and one night he said,
“I see my rose upon the verge of bloom,
To-morrow royal robes she shall assume,
Uplift to heaven a pink most perfect head;”
But when he came next day the rose was dead,
And on that spot they placed—a poet's tomb!

XXVI. THE BITTERNESS OF LIFE

This is the bitterness of life,—to know
That Love lies not in front but far behind:
That not for violent searching shall one find
A sweet-faced rose of hope beneath time's snow,
Nor any flower of new joy below
The furrows swept by the autumnal wind,
Nor any corn-stalk when the maidens bind
The golden ears in a long laughing row.

This is the bitterness of life,—to feel
The slow-limbed noisome minutes crawl away,
But not to mark by any happy peal
Of silver bells the passing of a day,
Tarrying till one more consciousness doth steal
Into death's pine-wood, damp, obscure, and grey.

Christmas Eve, 1871.

XXVII. THE MOONLIT ISLAND

Behind me blooms a mystical far place,
Filled with faint dreams and odours of delight;
As when a mariner beneath the night
Leaves the soft isle that for a little space
Covered his wandering shrouds with warmth and grace,
And sweet strange perfumes wafted from the shore
Follow.—My island shall return no more,
Nor scents of blossoms soothe a sleepless face.

But as in far Pacific hazy seas
Lingers that moonlit island of my soul,
Washed over by a honey-perfumed breeze.
And there the bright birds flit from knoll to knoll,
And dappled fawns are tame among the trees,
And the smooth interminable breakers roll.

XXVIII. A PASSING GLIMPSE

I caught a passing glimpse above my head
Of Summer's coronet, pale and tender blue,—
And memory ran my spirit thro' and thro',
Recalling with his piercing lance-point red
Summers and flowery seasons mute and dead,
Long since despatched and hidden from mortal view:
Recalling the sweet sense of evening dew,
And sweeter sense of Love's low whispers said.

It all has vanished, and I add my wailing
To myriads seated by the hollow tomb,
Leaning cold foreheads on its dismal railing:
I mourn the utter overthrow of bloom,
And spirit after tortured spirit sailing
Towards Death's black impenetrable gloom.

XXIX. NEVER AGAIN

Is there no resurrection from the dead?—
Ah, what does this one simple sentence mean?
Never again to watch the grass wax green
In spring-time, and the early rose wax red.
Never again to mark the waving head
Of some fair tuft of cream-white meadow-sweet:
Never again the gold crowns of the wheat,
Nor yellow leaves by autumn breezes shed!

This is the meaning of the simple word;—
Ne'er, after some poor thirty years or so,
To listen to the song of any bird,
Or hear the storm-struck sea's unquiet flow.
Never again to mark a rose's grace,
Nor the sweet smiling of a woman's face.

XXX. HOPELESS

My high hope passes. What is left me now?
Yea, what is all the guerdon of my song?
Why have I laboured, resolute and strong,
Building, with blood-sweat from my weary brow,
This Temple time doth spurn and disallow?—
What recompence is there for suffering long?
What justice in the world,—what wrath for wrong,—
What corn to ingather for the hands that plough?

The old old question: yea, the sad old story.
Just one more spirit passing towards the tomb,
Crowned, yet uncrowned,—brown-haired, yet aged and hoary,—
With every flower of passion in full bloom,
Filled with the poet's sense of life's wild glory,
Yet burthened, likewise, with the poet's doom.

XXXI. THE POET'S DOOM

This is the poet's doom: to love all joys,
To mark them fading, and to mourn them dead.
To see the rose at day-break blushing red:
At night to watch the wind with wanton noise
Scattering the petals from their perfect poise,—
Strewing with pale pink gems the brown cold bed;
To marvel at some woman's curve of head,
Till death both body and carven brow destroys.

This is the poet's doom—far more than others
To feel the life, and so the death far more:
To sing for the sweet sake of tuneless brothers
The beauty of each shell upon the shore:
To see too deep; to love a rose too much,—
And so to mark it fading at his touch!

XXXII. YET SWEETER AND SWEETER

Yet sweeter and yet sweeter as we pass
Towards bitter death that slays all songs and flowers,
Becomes the scent that hovers o'er the bowers
Of youth; yet lovelier the bright green grass;
Yet tenderer fair passion's burning hours;
Yet softer all the varied songs of love;
Yet bluer the clear spotless heavens above;
And yet more manifold life's glorious powers.

Now for the first time human life is fair
In that there is no life beyond the grave:
Now for the first time shines the morning air
With true delight,—now first the branches wave
In genuine glee,—now first the roses wear
In perfect calm those tints no power can save.