Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Sweet inland Brook! which at all hours,
Imprisoned in a belt of flowers,
Art drawing without song or sound
Thy salient springs, for Oxford bound,
Was ever lapse so calm as thine,
Or water-meadows half so green,
Or weeping weeds so long to twine
With threads of crystal stream between?
Inglorious River! I will be
A laureate, self-elect, for thee.
The quiet of this uncut field
Fit room for minstrel-craft may yield;
And with my skiff beneath this bower,
Thatched o'er with luscious elder-flower,
No sound but my own murmur shall
The local silence disenthral,
Save when a coot at times may pass
Between the blades of milky grass,
Or with a momentary splash
A rat between the tree-roots dash,
Or, drowsy music! sedge-stalks grind
On one another in the wind.
And thus to make his verse more free
The river shall accompany
The poet's voice, while up on high
To their bright congress in the sky

468

The stars are trooping one by one,
Though Chiltern still detains the moon
To silver all his chalky side,
And o'er that sea of beech-wood ride.
O silent Cherwell! once wert thou
A minstrel river; thou didst flow
Gently as now, but all along
Was heard that sweet itinerant song,
Which thou hadst learnt in coming down
From the rich slope of Helidon,
The green-capped hill that overlooks
Fair Warwick's deep and shady brooks,
And blithe Northampton's meadow-nooks,
Tamest of Counties! with a dower
Of humblest beauty rich, a power
Only by quiet minds obeyed,
And by the restless spurned,—scant shade,
And ruddy fallow, and mid these
Rare meadows, foliage-framed, which please
The leisure-loving heart, and line
Where the slow-footed rivers shine,
Upon whose reedy waters swim
The roving sea-birds, on the brim
Of flooded Nenna, in a fleet
With a golden lustre lit,
What time the short autumnal day
Sets o'er the tower of Fotheringay.
Not with the wild and echoing mountains,
Helvellyn's lone cloud-suckled fountains,
Or Langdale's trickling cliffs, or wells,
Heath-hidden, on Blencathra's fells,
Claimest thou kindred; simple birth
Art thou, a thing of common earth!

469

A spot more verdant than the rest
Discerned upon the hoof-marked breast
Of modest pasture, mid the haunts
Of men and cattle, to their wants
Endeared,—there was thy cradle laid
And not unsoothed by music, made
In the clear spring, a prelude sweet
To the artful strains and tinkling falls
Wherewith thy swollen streams should greet
Fair Isis under Oxford's walls.
Thence wert thou known to steer thy flood
To pierce the mead and thread the wood,
And there with curious curves to search
The screens of elm for every church,
Whose leaded roof and stunted tower
Might lurk in some unthought-of bower.
And thither didst thou wander down
To lean thine ear in many a pool,
Cinctured as with a mural crown
Of jewelled tansey, rank and cool,
Where trailing sprays of eglantine
Flung from the hawthorn bushes twine,
Taking fresh root beneath our feet
Amid the plumy meadow-sweet:
While summer shepherded the flocks
And starry herds of lady-smocks.
There, when the rustic folk were maying,
Wert thou with right good-will delaying,
Until “the deep and solemn rings,”
Should time anew thy vocal springs,

470

And they rehearse the borrowed song
In every meadow all along
Till thou shouldst mate thy breezy swells
With the full peal of Oxford bells.

“Famous ring of bells in Oxfordshire, called the Crossring.” Note to Drayton's Polyolbion, Song XV., where “lusty Cherwell” is represented as a “curious maker,” who sang the praises of the rivers at the nuptials of Thame and Isis.

Yes—thou wert tuneful once: that day
Be witness, when the rivers lay
To their own praises proudly listening,
And Chiltern's son, the boyish Thame,
To wed the Lady Isis came,
With his white marly waters glistening.
Thou sang'st the bridal hymn, and all,
The nimble Churn with sliding fall,
The linkèd streams of Coln and Leech,
And Yenload's darkling forest-reach,
And Windrush, and all Cotswold springs,
Praised thee with blithest murmurings,
Praised thee and thy most tuneful air,
From flowery-meadowed Cisseter,
To where the tower of Iffley looks
Intent on Bagley's greenwood nooks.

Then wherefore do thy waters sleep
In these hushed meadows buried deep,
With lapse that scarce can stir the sedge
And irises upon thine edge?
Ah me! perchance the face of war,
Here seen long years ago, might scare
The pastoral powers and tuneful brood
Who nightly from the reedy flood
Breathed songlike whispers in the ear
Of Saxon hind belated near.
Thus o'er the earth are gentle things
By rude things here and there displaced,
While faith with kind reluctance clings
To vestiges well-night effaced.

471

'Twas strange the pomp of martial guards
Should vex thy green sequestered fords,
And brawling watchwords come and go
Where now thy summer currents flow,
And the old willow's bushy top
O'ershadows yon hoof-printed slope,
And twice an hour perchance, or less,
The swaying hay-carts, as they press
Through the deep stream and sinking road,
Pay tithe from out their odorous load,
Above unto the willow-bough,
And to the gliding stream below.
Still art thou mindful of the day
When Charles beheld the disarray
Of rebel foes upon the ridge
That swells behind Cropredy Bridge,
And parted streaks of crimson blood
Profaned the hayfields and the flood.
It was St. Peter's feast in June,
A day of fragrant rain: at noon,
Unbonneted and free, the king
Dined where a lusty ash did fling
A chequered shade upon the ground,
While the wet grass still sparkled round.
Yet, ere the querulous chimes rang three
Within the streets of Banbury,
Cleveland beneath the selfsame ash
Stood forth, and bade his horsemen dash
In angry charge upon the foe
Who thronged the Cherwell banks below.
Enough, meek Stream! I will not wake
Thoughts of rude triumph here, nor break
The sylvan peace that suits so well
The spirit of the local spell.

472

Sweet, Cherwell! are thy hawthorn tents
Fit havens for my summer boat,
And fair the lily-isles which float,
The stream's most touching incidents.
Gay regions are they, stretching o'er
A gleamy breadth, from shore to shore,
From off the shelving turf projecting,
Of broad-lipped leaves compact and bright,
With threads of water intersecting
The flats of green embossed with white;
And stripes of yellow nuphar, drawn
In random lines across the lawn,
Intrude their rows of golden wedges,
Parting the fairy realm, like hedges,
To shires and baronies, whereon
Are set a court and garrison
Of ladybirds and brilliant flies
In green and gilded panoplies.
There have I watched the downy coot
Pacing with safe and steady foot
The surface of the floating field,
And, though the elastic floor might yield
In chinks, and let the water flow
In beads of crystal from below,
Yet was the tremulous region true
To that rough traveller passing through.
But, as a buoyant vision, breathed
From the poetic spirit, wreathed
In chastely blending hues, and wrought
With the strong tissue of rich thought,
Fades off before the cheerless gaze
Of cold and unimpassioned praise,
Yet cannot perish, but each hour
Is wooed into its place once more

473

By feeling hearts, o'er all the earth
Dwelling apart; so this sweet birth,
This meek and delicate creation,
From the calm, fertile stream outpoured,
Sinks like a graceful exhalation,
To be by genial spring restored,
Frail yet immortal, dying ever,
And ever born within the river,
A summer pageant, gay and fleeting,
Robed like a bride in vivid white,
Dispersed and broken by the greeting
Of the first keen autumnal night.

In flowery May or shady June
Oft have I spent a vacant noon
In Cherwell's matted hawthorn bowers
Or coves of elder, while the hours
In deep sensations of delight
Sped past me with the silent might
Of time unnoted, which for ever
Sweeps onward like a voiceless river;
And now and then a most sweet thought
Or outward beauty in me wrought
With such blithe trouble as to bring
The noontide's pleasant lingering
Most sensibly unto me: these,
Like the soft shaking of a breeze,
The pulse of summer in the trees,
Were my sole hours, my notes of time,
Joy striking joy, an inward chime
Of silent song, yet not the less
All resonant with cheerfulness.
There, stretched at lazy length, I read,
With boughs of blossom overhead,

474

And here and there the liquid blue
Of the smooth sky was melting through.
In tranquil parties o'er the field,
To gain what shade the boughs might yield,
The sheep were clustered in a ring
Beneath each hawthorn's fragrant wing:
Only they did not seek to share
The ample screen where I was laid,
Though I was fain they should repair
At peace with me to that broad shade,
That in mute converse with the creatures,
And gazing on their patient features,
I might recover some sweet sense
Of our original innocence;
But in the light of human eyes
Their guided instincts recognise
Sin's presence, and in sacred fear
Though unalarmed, they come not near.

There—ah! 'tis years since—did I pore
The old Greek idylls o'er and o'er,
Creating nooks of freshest green
By mild sea-bays, the fancied scene
Of those bright pastorals: but in sooth
They were less lovely than the truth,
Less lovely than the spots of lawn
Where I have mused in Greece, withdrawn
From all intrusion, the gay shock
Of childish voices, or the flock
Threading the cliff with plaintive bleating,
Or the wild goat's more gamesome greeting,
And where no sound but one could be,
The drowsy echo of the sea,
With scarce a wave upon its breast
Enough to rock a babe to rest.

475

Mid arbutus and gaunt stone-pine
The polished shafts of lentisk shine,
With braided boughs of cytisus,
And under-growths most odorous
Of true Greek thyme with pale pink eyes:—
Ah! many spots to memory rise,
Where beauty made the desolation
Tenfold more sad, a reparation,
So seemed it, of a tender sort
By nature offered, to support
Earth worn and weary with the wrong
Which sin hath wrought on her so long:
Thus gently pleading the defence
Of her mute scenes, to recompense
Her patient solitudes, intent
Thereby to set within our reach
This touching truth which it would teach,—
Man sins, but earth is innocent!

Thus oft upon the bank I lay,
In dreams begetting many a bay
Of desert Greece, to localize
Some idyll, while with still surprise
The modest, calm realities
Stole softly through my half-closed eye,
The native river gliding by,
The cradled lily's nodding flowers,
And Oxford's hazy line of towers,
The willow twinkling in the breeze,
The incense of the elder trees
What time the heats of noonday wooed
The bright and fragrant solitude,
Gentle recalls to summon back
My wanton heart, as though for lack

476

Of native beauty I had sought
For scenes which only live in thought,
And earth in plaintive answer brought
The sweet vicinity to mind
With gentlest urgency,—confined,
Yet oh how beautiful! Each token,
Like soft reproaches but half-spoken
By those we love, with eloquence
Mutely appealed to every sense
Against my dreamy landscapes; there
The brilliant texture of the air,
Clothing each form in purest white,
Filled to the brim that exquisite
Satiety of ear and eye
Which deep mid-summer can supply,
Just ere the autumnal gold invades
The twilight of her leafy shades.

There time set gently upon me
In tides of placid reverie,
With scarce a murmur of sweet verse,
And scarce a mood which could immerse
My heart in solemn thought, soft streams
Of most unfertile beauty, dreams
Of indolent delight. Alas!
Smoothly as summer seemed to pass,
Detached from every haunt of sin
While all was sunny peace within,
It was not innocent: for time
Hath functions awful and sublime,
And on its viewless lapse are traced
Stern chronicles of all the past,
A writing every sunset laid,
While heaven is still, within the shade

477

Of Christ's high Throne, one day to be
A part of the solemnity
And pomp of Judgment: endless Woe
Or endless Weal! to some a show
Of fiery cyphers, symbols dread
Of guilty things unpardonèd,
Of wilful ways and idle mirth
Unloosed by Holy Church on earth.
And some there are to whom that scroll,
Sad record still, may yet unroll
A fairer vision, dark and bright,
Like dawn o'er-mastering tardy night
In dubious streaks, with here and there
A firm and radiant character
To angel's eyes not new, but known
And recognised the Judge's Own.

O Time! O Life! ye were not made
For languid dreaming in the shade,
Nor sinful hearts to moor all day
By lily-isle or grassy bay,
Nor drink at noon-tide's balmy hours
Sweet opiates from the meadow-flowers.
O give me grace, dear Lord! to win
Thy pardon for my youthful sin,
For all the days, in woods embowered,
When currents of soft thought o'erpowered
With pleasant force the sense of duty,—
And gentle nature's harmless beauty,
Too much adored, gave birth to throngs
Of joys effeminate, and songs
Which sprung from earth, and like a breeze
Died wantonly among the trees,
Without a moral or a mirth
Above the passing bliss of earth!

478

But now doth evening's pensive wing
Less of misleading beauty bring,
And clothes insensibly the scene
With sweeter, but more sober, green.
The pageant of the noon gives place
To evening's tenderness, a grace
As soft, nay softer, and more holy,
And with some tinge of melancholy
Endeared and chastened, and a balm
Of palpable and breathing calm
By songs of birds confessed, and flowers
That wave more gaily in their bowers,
And gentle kine that graze once more
Spotting the misty pastures o'er,
And flocks of rooks that settle down
Upon the elms which gird the town.

And see the sun! How well he sets
Behind those triple minarets
Of silent poplar! All is still,
But that one thrush upon the hill:
And now and then a flight of wind
The glassy current will unbind,
Driving the ripples to the edge
Among the spikes of rustling sedge.
Now evening lends her rosy hue
With liquid colors to bedew
The hoary stone and chapel gray
Where Austin's monks were wont to pray.
And strangely in the crimson west
Doth Atlas seem awhile to rest
On the star-gazing tower, where he
For years hath stooped full wearily

479

Bearing the world, in patient sign
That He who bears it is divine
And yet true Man;—and in the heart
Of many sunsets hath had part,
Prompting that lesson to mine eye,
While pictured on the glowing sky
In dark colossal effigy.

O many an evening have I been
Entranced upon that glorious scene,
When silent thought hath proved too strong
For utterance in tranquil song.
There intermingling with the trees
The city rose in terraces
Of radiant buildings, backed with towers
And dusky folds of elm-tree bowers.
St. Mary's watchmen, mute and old,
Each rooted to a buttress bold,
From out their lofty niche looked down
Upon the calm monastic town,
Upon the single glistering dome,
And princely Wykeham's convent home,
And the twin minarets that spring
Like buoyant arrows taking wing,
And square in Moorish fashion wrought
As though from old Granada brought,
And that famed street, whose goodly show
In double crescent lies below,
And Bodley's court, and chestnut bower
That overhangs the garden wall,
And sheds all day white flakes of flower
From off its quiet coronal.

480

Methinks I see it at this hour,—
How silently the blossoms fall!

The figures (for I believe there is more than one) that support the globe on the Observatory, viewed from Cherwell, which lies to the east, have the effect of a single figure, seen in relief against the sun setting over Cumnor or Whyteham.

Strange scene it is which they behold,
Those watchmen on St. Mary's pile,
Who see the noiseless moonlight smile
On spires and pinnacles untold,
Whose ranks may baffle every eye
That vainly would their number know,
And roofs which rear the Cross on high
In grave and monitory show:—
Strange scene it is which mortal gaze
But rarely mounts on high to praise,
A region where for ever dwells
The tremulous throbbing of the bells,
Encircling every turret there
With close embrace of tuneful air,
While oft the very stones respire
With the deep anthems of the choir,—
A world above our world, a ground
Thus tenanted by form and sound,
A costly region, day and night
Laid open to angelic sight!

There, mid the shade scarce visible,
The suburb of the Holy Well
With low-browed Church doth seem to guard
The ancient city's northern ward;
And barely might the eye discover,
Through the green umbrage stooping over,
The battlemented wall that bounds
The mitred Waynfleet's sumptuous grounds,
The sweet-brier court and cloistered way
And mimic glade where deer may stray,
And the two sunny angles where
The almond and the cypress are,

481

And, graceful three! those brother trees
That meet and part with every breeze,
The birch that weeps upon the sward,
Yet with the plane-tree serves to guard
The light acacia's fluttering shade
In pearly pendents all arrayed.
And in the meadow-island there
As to the breeze the willows bare
Their silver sides, and wave about,
The practised eye may then find out,
Close-hidden, when the wind is still,
The weedy roof of Magdalen mill.

But now the leaves are darker grown,
And o'er the fields a shade is thrown
Of soft transparent gloom: the stream
Shines with subdued but stedfast gleam
Through the dusk veil of twilight air,
And the white lilies waver there,
Like distant lights borne up and down
In anchored ship or midnight town.
The stars are clear and strong, but soon
The light of the unrisen moon
With soft infusion through the sky
Mingles apace, and up on high
The stars wax dim, while purple night,
Thus weakened by the stealthy light,
Translucent grows as crystal bay
Of Midland Sea on summer day.
But now above the willow tops
That cluster there, a silvery copse
Which doth an earthy pool infold,
With prow and stern of ruddy gold
The crescent lifts itself, to ride
With Hesperus sparkling at its side

482

Almost in contact, night by night
Divided more and more, a slight
Yet mournful sign, as though it were
That in the worlds of upper air
Rude separations still might come
To souls in their eternal home.
But though our heart such vision grieves,
And though it visibly bereaves
The evenings of their special grace,
Yet had we but the gift to trace
The wisdom of the starry sky,
No gloomy types would meet our eye,
And to the signs so sweetly wrought,
By moon and stars, there should be nought
But kind interpretations given;
For there are no farewells in heaven.

Behold! as night succeeds to eve,
The owls with sombre plumage leave
Their cloisters in the hollow trees,
And shed sad voices on the breeze
All up the moonlit vale. The dew
Falls on the flowers which shed anew
Their simple fragrance: and the river
Far off in many a reach doth quiver,
Outstretching like a lucid creature,
Appearing scarce an earthly feature
Upon the nightly landscape, here
Embraced within some thicket near
In calm obscurity, and there
Emerging to the radiant air,
A coiled and gleamy flickering line
Among the meadows serpentine,
Broken by intervening boughs
Through which the lovely crescent glows

483

Upon the dimpled waters. Sweet
The wandering poet's eye to meet
Are quiet fields by moonlight seen
With groups of white, recumbent sheep,
Where elm-cast shadows dimly green
On the dew-beaded pasture sleep.

But now awhile on vale and hill
The loveliness of night is still;
The beautiful mutations stop
On field and stream and dark tree-top,
Only the shadows somewhat shift,
And the bright stars a little drift
Across the sloping sky: so slow
The moving pageant seems to go
We might believe that for some cause
The spheres at midnight made a pause,
And heaven and earth in awe sublime
Stayed to receive new grants of time,
And new permissions to delight
The race of men with day and night.

Now in the east there is a stir
Of powers that wait to minister
Unto the sunrise, and a blooming
Prophetic of his far-off coming.
The sluggish spires of chilly steam
Are twisting o'er the silent stream,
And from the willow-grounds are breathing,
And round the haycocks slowly wreathing,
Until they stand, each side by side,
Within the vapor magnified,
Like dim and visionary things
Seen through the smoke of magic rings.
The air is waxing bright and chill,
Though yet the doubtful lark is still;

484

And in the whitening sky the trees
Grow black and keen as day is breaking,
While here and there a creeping breeze
The huge dew-laden boughs is shaking.
And see! St. Mary's vane aloft
Glows like a star serene and soft,
And doth with secret influence reach
The sun whose rising it doth preach;
As holy Church will once descry,
By power of her ascetic eye,
The Advent of her Bridegroom nigh.

So have I dreamed with pure delight
A visionary day and night
On Cherwell's banks: thus song could stir
In me a willing minister
To my sick brother. With a tear
I left behind the crystal mere,
Deep summer out upon the hills,
The dusky deans, the cool-breathed rills,
And, shaded in the tender gloom
And silentness of his sick room,
Hour after hour brought o'er my sense
A most pathetic influence.
The careful step, the voice subdued
My heart with meek advances wooed
To softer images; while nigh,
Beneath the window, glided by
The earthy Cherwell, strangely shrunk
So long had thirsty summer drunk
Of its spare stream. And up the river,
I watched the radiant network quiver
Beneath the bridge; and oft there came,
Swift as a meteor's shooting flame,
A king-fisher from out the brake,
And almost seemed to leave a wake

485

Of brilliant hues behind; and couched
On the close sward the deer had slouched
Their heads, and watched the currents pass,
While ears and antlers in the grass
With restless movement twinkled. There
The elm swung lightly on the air,
And many a fickle willow drooped,
While the laborious current scooped
The moist earth from its roots, and wore
A deep beneath the o'erhanging shore,
A summer refuge alway cool,
Where in the dark sequestered pool
Among the fibres of the tree
The curious eye may often see
A little crew of silver dace
Self-prisoned in that shadowy place.
And sheets of lawn with verdant brows
Just glimmered through the veil of boughs.
Or in the sloping sunset twinkled
Like a smooth golden lake breeze-wrinkled,—
A long broad lake of meadow-grass,
Where winds and slanting sunbeams pass,
And intershot with gold and green
In fluted lines with rows between
Of gilded field-flowers that appear
Like ripples on a crystal mere;
And that fair land-lake stiller lies
And better wins the wandering eyes
To fixed delight, than if the face
Of silent waters filled the place.

And nightly up the watery glade
By stealth the russet autumn strayed,
While here and there a leaf was seen
Forswearing summer's darksome green,

486

And every day a gem or two
Were freshly braided on the yew,
And yet so slowly it might seem
The wayward eye did rather dream,
If poet's eye could e'er misread
The least of nature's signs, which feed
His simple heart. And haunted so,
Watching the Cherwell daily flow,
I sang of him, his fields and flowers,
The transmutations of the hours,
The tranquil day, the starry night,
The alternations of delight,
Which on this simple river shower
Methinks a more than common dower
Of placid beauty: and meanwhile,
Though every form without did smile,
My tender office hourly wrought
A shade to blend with sunny thought,
And the sick-room itself could bring
Somewhat of pensive hallowing
For fancy's chastisement. Sweet Stream!
O mayst thou be a cheering gleam
Long unwithdrawn; and when oppressed
By a sick spirit's sad unrest,
May nature's forms a fountain prove
For faith unfailing, and a love
That breeds submission! May they bear,
It is no light unworthy prayer,
Such pure and blameless joy to me,
When I shall disenfranchised be,
Of rough heathside and open air!

And better still if I could lie
Waiting for death,—and azure sky,

487

Cool forest, and the keen-breathed hill,
And freshening sounds of dashing rill,
The long-loved cuckoo's woodland call,
And the wildness of the waterfall,
And holy ocean's solemn shore,—
Might be uncoveted, nay more,
All unremembered, and mine ear
Be deaf to those kind neighbors near
Who speak of sun and fields and air
And garden flowers, as though they were
A part of me, or they could be
Where I am then,—on Calvary,
A flowerless mountain, where the Cross
My patient thoughts may well engross.

And better still if I could dare
To pray the Saint's exclusive prayer,
And with bold fervor ask of Heaven
More thorns and griefs than it hath given.
So might I lie, in love with pain,
And, like a miser with his gain,
Handle the aching limb, to feel
More palpably how pangs can heal
Sin's wounds, and how beyond all price
The sweetness of self-sacrifice,
And what strange pleasures pain may bring
As being a holy Christlike thing,
And the repentant soul how still
Beneath the weight of God's sweet Will.
So might I lie, in saintly strait
Whether to sue for death or wait

488

That I might suffer more, and bear
The Cross a little further, dare
A little more to match the Road
Of Dolours which our Saviour trod.
So might I lie, in peace how deep!
So, like an infant, fall asleep,
While suffering cradled me to rest,
Like Jesus, at our Lady's breast.

S. Theresa. Pati et mori. S. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi. Patire e non morire. The latter Saint on her death-bed uttered these remarkable words:—Sappiate che l'esercitio del patire è cosa tanto pregiata e nobile, che il Verbo trovandosi nel Seno del suo eterno Padre, abbondantissimo di ricchezze e delitie di Paradiso, perche non era ornato della stola del patire, venne in terra per questo ornamento, e questo era Dio, che non si potea ingannare. They arose perhaps from a confused remembrance in her mind of a wonderful passage in the eleventh chapter of Tauler's Institutes.