Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems | ||
Other Poems.
A SONG.
[Once—and only once—you gave]
One rich gift, which Memory
Shuts within itself, to save
Sweet and fresh, while life may be:
Shuts it like a rose-leaf treasured
In the pages of a book,
Which we open, when heart-leisured,
Now and then—softly to look.
How and when, the tend'ring of it,
Would you, out of rose-leaf thrift,
Claim from me the rend'ring of it?
('Twas of such unwonted kind!)
Half a mind I have to tell you
Not to tell you half a mind.
MOTHERS.
(A Dialogue at Boston, Mass., U.S.A.)
Yon noisy child
I'd like to choke, being but ‘brutal man;’
That Mother mild
With song and kiss:
And gives it, at the loudest of its fit,
Her milky bliss.
Made for mint-sauce:
At its first cry the Ewe quits clover-eating
And runs, perforce.
Hungry—I'll vouch it!
Flies with a fat grub to her nested darling,
Nor dreams to pouch it!
In helpless season!
You Boston girls seem up to everything:
Tell me the reason.”
Better than others?
God can't be always everywhere: and, so,
Invented Mothers.”
INSCRIPTION FOR STAINED-GLASS WINDOW
IN ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH, WESTMINSTER, LONDON.
By mouth of many thousand tongues: he swayed
The pens which break the sceptres. Good Lord! make
Thy strong ones faithful and thy bold afraid!
SONNET TO AMERICA.
America! At this thy Golden Gate,New travelled from those portals of the West,
Parting—I make my reverence! It were best
With backward looks to quit a Queen in state!
Land of all lands most fair, and free, and great,
Of countless kindred lips, wherefrom I heard
Sweet speech of Shakespeare—keep it consecrate
For noble uses! Land of Freedom's Bird,
Fearless and proud! so let him soar that, stirred
By generous joy, all lands may learn from thee
A larger life, and Europe, undeterred
By ancient dreads, dare also to be free
Body and Soul, seeing thine eagle gaze
Undazzled, upon Freedom's sun full-blaze.
THE BRITISH EMPIRE.
FROM CLAUDIAN.
She alone knew, of victors first and best,To fold the vanquished to her pardoning breast:
To gather 'neath her wings, in one great brood,
The tribes of Man, by might, then love, subdued,
Mother, not Queen, calling those sons by birth
Whom she had conquered—linking ends of Earth.
THE SULTAN'S RING.
(From the Persian.)
Heard one in rags, sore-troubled, say this thing
Under the palace-arch—haggard and faint
Rocking upon the Carpet of Complaint:
“Oh, Sultan! to the Door of God goest thou
As I to thine: therefore accomplish now
Mercy towards me, as thou for mercy prayest:
‘Make glad my heart!’ To Allah so thou sayest,
Therefore, from Sorrow's darkness bring forth mine!”
Now, on that Sultan's thumb a stone did shine,
Pigeon-blood ruby, such a gem the Shroff
Faltered in telling what would weigh enough
In gold tomâns to price it. In the night
It glowed as Day had dropped spark of rose-light
As though a red imprisoned sunbeam gleamed.
While, at his stirrup-iron, grim and dumb,
The Aghas watched, stroking their beards. He drew
The ruby off, and quotha: “It was new
Upon our lips that prayer! God may delay
To hear us if we turn our hearts away
When others ask. Go, sell this ring, and buy
Oil of Content for Sore of Misery!”
Than king's ear guilty of unheard appeal!
CHAPTER I. OF THE DHAMMAPADA.
By thought was wrought and builded. If a soul
Hath evil thoughts, pain comes as wheels of cart
Behind its oxen roll.
Our thoughts shape us and frame. If one endure
In purity of thought, joy follows still
As his own shadow—sure!
Abased me, beaten me!” If one shall keep
Thoughts like these angry words within his breast
Hatreds will never sleep!
Abased me, beaten me!” If one shall send
Such angry words away for pardoning thought
Hatreds will have an end.
Did hatred cease by hatred. Always 'tis
By Love that hatred ceaseth. From the prime
The ancient Rule is this.
Or never knew, how mortal wrongs pass by:
But they who know, and who remember, let
Transient quarrels die.
Gluttonous, proud, in idle luxuries,
Mâra will him o'erthrow, as wind and rain
Level short-rooted trees.
Temperate, faithful, firm, shunning all ill,
Mâra shall no more shake that man strong-souled
Than the wind doth a hill.
Being anishkashya , not sin-free
Nor heeding Truth and Law—in wrongfulness
That holy robe wears he.
Clean from offence, doth still in virtue dwell
Observing temperance and truth—that wight
Weareth Kashya well.
And in the true finds untruth—he expires
Never attaining Knowledge—life's to rue
He follows vain desires.
The false in falseness with unblinded eye,
He doth attain to knowledge. Life with these
Aims well before they die.
Passions through minds which holy thoughts despise:
As rain runs from a well-laid roof—so shake
Their passions off, the wise.
And mourneth in the life to come. In both
He grieveth. When he seeth fruit of wrong
To see he will be loath.
And in the world to come. From both he takes
Pleasaunce. When he doth see his works bear fruit
The good sight gladness makes.
Having once died: glad alway, glad to know
What good deeds he had done, glad that he had
More good where he did go.
Leaf after leaf recites, and line by line;
No Buddhist is he, but a hireling
Who counts another's kine.
Only one verse of Dharma, but hath ceased
From envy, hatred, malice, ill concerns,
He is the Buddhist Priest!
THE CHIPMUNK.
Where the gardens touched the woodlands
(Always with new eyes beholding
Men and beasts and birds and flowers
In your land, so fair and friendly,
In America so wondrous);
Suddenly I spy, careering,
Tail in air, alert, observant,
Glittering with black-beady eyeballs
On the rail-edge, like rope-dancer,
Some small beast not known in England.
“What is that?” I said, inquiring,
“Can it be Longfellow's squirrel,
Hiawatha's Adjidaumo?”
Laughingly replied my comrade,
Tan-faced, prairie boy of ten;
“That's the Chipmunk, and we kill him
For his smooth, grey, stripey skin.”
If his little coat has stripes!
Brother he must be, or cousin
To a chipmunk that I know
Dwelling in the Indian Jungle.
No one kills the small Geloori
Over there in far-off India,
Ever since they heard the story
How its coat came to be striped.”
And I told the Hindoo story
All to save chipmunks and squirrels.
Shiva, Lord and God of all things,
By the sea-shore saw a squirrel
Grey, with bushy tail and bright eyes,
Dipping constantly in ocean—
Dipping twenty times a minute,
Dipping deeply in the salt waves
Bushy tail, and then besprinkling
On the shore the gathered water.
Little grey, insensate Squirrel!
Dipping in the mighty ocean
Tail so insignificant?”
“Oh, Creator of all living,
Glorious Shiva! I am trying
To bale dry the Indian Sea;
For there came a furious tempest
Where I built my happy nest;
And the palm has fallen seaward,
And the nest lies in the water,
And my wife and pretty children
In the nest will float away;
Therefore, all the night and day here
Do I dip my tail and shake it,
Hoping, if I labour stoutly,
At the last to bale the sea dry,
So that I may save my darlings
Even though I spoil my tail.”
“Truly 'tis a good example,
Little, grey, absurd Geloori!
Which you set to families.
If all husbands were as faithful,
And all fathers proved as fond,
Happier would be those I fashion,
Then He stooped, and, with His great hand—
Hand that makes the men and spirits—
Hand that holds the stars and planets
As we grasp a bunch of grapes—
Shiva stroked the toiling squirrel;
Four green stripes upon the grey;
Marks by the Supreme Hand planted
As a sign of love forever.
Then He lifted high that hand,
Waved it to the rolling waters,
Waved it to the roaring Main,
Which ran back with all its surges
Like white dogs that know their master,
Leaving bare the rocks and seaweed,
Leaving high and dry the palm-tree.
Cocking high his tail again,
Found his wife, and found his children
Dry and well, and chirping welcomes.
So he brought them safe to dry land,
But the wonder was to see
All their little smooth backs “stripey”
With the sign of Shiva's fingers!
Good men never kill the chipmunks;
And, I think, his cousins here,
Though no God has ever stroked them,
Would be grateful if you left them
Playing 'mid the scarlet maples
Of your Pennsylvanian woods.
A ROSE OF THE “GARDEN OF FRAGRANCE.”
(From the Persian of Sâdi's “Bostan.”)
To bear a breaking heart may prove thy fate.
Mindful of thine own day of helplessness.
In thanks to Allah drive no man from thine.
Pluck out his heart-grief, lift his drooping head.
Kiss not the lifted face of thine own son!
Shakes to the sigh the orphan breathes alone.
Cleanse him from dust of his calamity!
Meeting one fatherless and lamed—did stay
And 'twas forgot: and the man died at last:
That man again, walking in Paradise;
And what he said the Prince could understand:
“Ajâb! that one thorn made me many Roses!”
TO MY BIOGRAPHER.
Track me through my mire,
You shall never know
Half that you desire!
Deck me, or deride;
In my veil of verse
Safe from you I hide.
A PICTURE.
(From the German of the Queen of Roumania.)
Sits upon the splintered summitSwathed in tempest, by a black gulf,
Wondrous beautiful, a Woman—
Large and strong her body's lines are
As she leans upon the rock
At the crag's edge lightly swaying:
One knee rests across the other
Balanced, and, with fingers clenched,
In her hand she grasps a serpent,
Careless how the monstrous creature
Twines and coils, and shoots its fork forth
Helpless that white grip to loosen,
Helpless to escape her fingers.
Red her hair is; like to flame-tongues
Float into the clouds and capture
The chain-lightning as it falls,
Drawing through its skeins those flashes
Which glide harmless down her body,
But, beneath her, split a pine-tree
From its topmost bough to foot.
And the eyes of that wild woman,
In the light which flickers purple
Round and round the summit, glitter
Green beneath great brows of black.
DURCH DEN WALD.
(From the German of the Queen of Roumania.)
Upborne upon airy gay wings:
As the breeze lisps the beech-boughs among
So softly it lit on my strings:
And my harp told the River again:
And the trees and the birds caught the strain:
And the flow'rs set up soft whisperings.
There was budding and blooming at this:
The birds woke, with welcome, the grove
And the rocks and the springs felt the bliss;
It seemed 'twould be sunshine forever
As the sun shed red gold on the River
And the waves and the bank-buds did kiss.
Song and Love in its fury it caught,
And both to the far Sea it bore,
So an end to all singing was brought!
And the River went silently by,
And the gold melted out of the sky,
And the talk of the birds came to naught!
THE TOPSAIL OF THE VICTORY.
(“On the wall is suspended the foretopsail of Lord Nelson's flagship Victory.” Vide “Catalogue of Naval Exhibition, Chelsea, 1891.”)
Proud battle-plumage, torn with shot and ball,
Draped in wide tattered glory on this wall!
Come hither! Come and see!
The topsail of his Flagship, when he sailed
To win Trafalgar for us,—and prevailed
'Mid thunder, flame, and fear.
Shining and white that day! hallyard and clew,
Cringle and tack and bolt-rope—clean and new—
Close to the foe to come:
As yellow as King George's guineas! Rent
From bunt to ear-ring: yet magnificent!
Yet in royal state arrayed!
Built of the British Oak, and manned with hearts
Staunch as the heart of oak! What pulse but starts?
What pride leaps to the lip
The boatswain pipe: “Hoist the foretopsail, Lads!
Haul home! Haul home!” And then it soars and spreads
Like pinion of sea-bird:
And then it sees from foretop—while it holds
The Spanish breeze, and mightily unfolds—
Down on the decks that crowd
Stripped to the waist at stations: every man
Alight with the great signal-words which ran
Joyous, and good, and grand—
That every man this day”—“Ay! ay! we hear!
Our duty we shall do: have ye no fear.”
The very cannons' necks
Craving for battle-food: and, leading all
Nelson's Three-decker goes, majestical!
Beautiful! terrible!
Flew ye indeed that forenoon, white and great,
Wafting our hero to his glorious fate
Over the dancing sea?
The haughty foemen's challenge-flags unfold
And, ever true at need
And Nelson, from his knees, come brave and gay
To give his bright blood for us? and the array
Of liners, in his wake?
Bullets and round-shot rend thy bellying white!
And scarlet smoke-wreaths from the rattling fight
Enwrap thee, weather and lee!
'Mid blast of such red thunders, rife with death,
Such terror as no tempest witnesseth,
Our British Jacks, aglow,
As if each man were not King's man, but King!
And what cheers split the sky, when fluttering,
Flag after flag comes down!
While thy scorched folds flap triumph—that 'curst ball!
The mortal wound! our matchless Champion's fall!
Loss that made all gain dear.
Under your foot he fell—splendid in death:
Under your shade breathed forth his patriot breath!
Ah! wove with valour's gold.
Flaunt to the world, as once to France and Spain,
Token of England's might upon the main,
Better than blazoned flags.
Tatters which make it boast enough to be
Of Nelson's blood! Torn Wings of Victory
From dread Trafalgar's day!
THE FRIGATE ENDYMION.
(“Towards the close of the war with France, Captain the Hon. Sir Charles Paget, while cruising in the Endymion frigate on the coast of Spain, descried a French ship of the line in imminent danger, embayed among rocks on a lee shore: bowsprit and foremast gone, and riding by a stream cable, her only remaining one.
Though it was blowing a gale, Sir Charles bore down to the assistance of his enemy, dropped his sheet-anchor on the Frenchman's bow, buoyed the cable, and veered it across his hawser. This the disabled ship succeeded in getting in, and thus seven hundred lives were saved from destruction.
After performing this chivalrous action the Endymion, being herself in great peril, hauled to the wind, let go her bower-anchor, club-hauled, and stood off shore on the other tack.” Vide“Catalogue Royal Naval Exhibition, 1891.”)
Blossomed a brighter pink, for pride,
As, through the glories of the place
Wistful, we wandered, side by side.
Done to the life, in steel and gold,
Howard and Drake—a stately band—
Sir Walter, Anson, Hawkins bold:
Of Blake's great battles, and the roar
Of Jervis, thundering through the sea:
With Rodney, Hood, and fifty more:
Duty's dear Hero, Britain's star—
The chieftain of the dauntless breast,
Nelson, our Thunderbolt of War!
On conquered decks from Don and Dane,
We saw him Victory's laurelled Lord
Rend the French battle-line a-twain:
In thick of dread Trafalgar's day:
The blood-stains, and the ball which tore
Shoulder-gold, lace, and life away.
The green seas foamed with gallant blood:
The skies blazed high with flame and fear,
The tall masts toppled to the flood.
Of each tremendous Ocean fight,
Safe, by the strength of those below
The flag of England floated bright!
To be a British girl and claim
Some drops, too, of such splendid blood,
Some distant share of deathless fame!”
From tender French and Spanish eyes
For all those glorious days we gained.
Oh! the hard price of victories!”
With triumph crowned, which cost no tear:
Waged gallant 'gainst the tempest's might.”
Then turned we to a canvas near.
The coast is Spain! Cruising to spy
An enemy, she finds him so,
Caught in a death-trap, piteously!”
Wild breakers on the black rocks foam
Will drown the ship's whole company
When that one Anchor's fluke comes home.
Head-sails to cast her off the land:
Those poor souls have to draw breath, yet
As long as while a warp will stand.
Only to keep off, therefore,—tack,
Mark from afar ‘Jean Crapaud's’ fate,
And lightly to “my Lords” bear back
To splinters, and some thirty score
Of ‘Mounseers’ perished! Not a gun
To fire! Just stand by—no more!
Eyes open—where this Gaul is driven,
Would steer straight into Hell's mid woe
Out of the easy peace of Heaven.
Not lion-hearted Paget! No!
The war's forgot! He'll make us see
Seamanship at its topmost. Blow
Forward and aft, all hands on deck!
Let my sails draw, range hawsers clear!
Paget from Fate his foe will pluck!”
Hoisted—full friendly—at the main!
Her guns run in: twice to a rag
The stormsail torn: but set again.
Into their rigging, and they dip
The tricolor, with hearts made warm
By hope and love. Look now! his ship
How, between life and death, he keeps
His Frigate like a pleasure-boat
Clean full and by: and, while he sweeps
His big sheet-anchor: buoys it, cast
Clear o'er the rail. They know, they know!
Here's help! here's hope! here's chance at last!
The English hawser o'er her side,
All fear is fled of yon black strand:
Safely the huge Three-decker rides.
With Jean and Jacques, and Paul and Pierre;
And float to fight King George's men
Thanks to the goodly British gear.
Never was darker plight for craft;
Laid-to—all save one anchor gone,
And those black fateful rocks abaft!
A sailor's highest lesson shown;
They view by skill that Frigate snatched
From peril direr than their own.
Round to the starboard tack: but drives
Full on the rocks in staying: try
To wear her, the same fate arrives.
Her cable to the bitts: makes fast;
Drops anchor: by the starboard swings:
And, when a-lee her stern is cast,
Sheets home her foresail: fills, and swerves
A ship's length forth. Subtle and swift
Her aim the tempest's wrath now serves.
Foot by foot steals she space to live:
Self-stripped of hope, except she win
The offing. None can succour give!
And then ‘helm down!’ Then, something free
Comes the fierce blast! That leeward shore
Slides slow astern! That raging sea
She weathers! 'tis a saviour saved!—
Seamanship conquers! Past belief
She rounds! The peril hath been braved!
Rings in her wake the Frenchmen's cheer,
Bidding the good ship glad farewell
While our staunch Frigate draws out clear.
Never a smarter sea-deed done!”
“This fight of the Endymion.”
L'ENVOI.
(From the German of the Queen of Roumania.)
[And that which here I have been singing]
It was all yours—not mine!
From your joy all its gladness bringing:
Its sad chords from your sorrows ringing:
I did but you divine!
You made the folk-tales true!
In this Earth-show of chance and changing,
Of life uniting, death estranging,
Look, Soul! these things were you!
And these tired lips lie dumb,
Then you my words will better measure,
And in my love take larger pleasure,
Its meaning being come!
Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems | ||