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297

STANZAS.

[Soft be the voice and friendly that rebukes]

Soft be the voice and friendly that rebukes
The error of thy way,
For sickness hath the summer of thy looks
Touch'd with decay.
Now may be pardon'd, even for virtue's sake,
Words less of gall than grief—
The warning of autumnal winds that shake
The yellowing leaf.
They bid thee if thou leav'st thy bloom behind,
Bethink thee to repair
That ravage, and the aspect of thy mind
To make more fair.
Let not thy loss of brightness be a loss,
Which might be countless gain,
If from thy beauty it should purge the dross,
Eat out the stain.
298

Then beauty with pure purposes allied
Wouldst thou account—to lift
The minds of men from worldliness and pride—
A trust—not gift.
Oh! may thy sickness, sanative to thee,
Bring thee to know that trust!
That so thy soul may to thy beauty be
Not less than just.
299

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE HON. EDWARD ERNEST VILLIERS.

WHO DIED AT NICE, ON THE 30TH OCTOBER, 1843.

I.

A grace though melancholy, manly too,
Moulded his being: pensive, grave, serene,
O'er his habitual bearing and his mien
Unceasing pain, by patience temper'd, threw
A shade of sweet austerity. But seen
In happier hours and by the friendly few,
That curtain of the spirit was withdrawn,
And fancy light and playful as a fawn,
And reason imp'd with inquisition keen,
Knowledge long sought with ardour ever new,
And wit love-kindled, show'd in colours true
What genial joys with sufferings can consist:
Then did all sternness melt as melts a mist
Touch'd by the brightness of the golden dawn,
Aerial heights disclosing, valleys green,
And sunlights thrown the woodland tufts between,
And flowers and spangles of the dewy lawn.
300

II.

And even the stranger, though he saw not these,
Saw what would not be willingly pass'd by:
In his deportment, even when cold and shy,
Was seen a clear collectedness and ease,
A simple grace and gentle dignity,
That fail'd not at the first accost to please;
And as reserve relented by degrees,
So winning was his aspect and address,
His smile so rich in sad felicities,
Accordant to a voice which charm'd no less,
That who but saw him once remember'd long,
And some in whom such images are strong
Have hoarded the impression in their heart
Fancy's fond dreams and Memory's joys among,
Like some loved relic of romantic song
Or cherish'd master-piece of ancient art.

III.

His life was private; safely led, aloof
From the loud world,—which yet he understood
Largely and wisely, as no worldling could.
For he by privilege of his nature proof
Against false glitter, from beneath the roof
Of privacy, as from a cave, survey'd
With steadfast eye its flickering light and shade,
And justly judged for evil and for good.
301

But whilst he mix'd not for his own behoof
In public strife, his spirit glow'd with zeal,
Not shorn of action, for the public weal,—
For truth and justice as its warp and woof,
For freedom as its signature and seal.
His life thus sacred from the world, discharged
From vain ambition and inordinate care,
In virtue exercised, by reverence rare
Lifted, and by humility enlarged,
Became a temple and a place of prayer.
In latter years he walk'd not singly there;
For one was with him, ready at all hours
His griefs, his joys, his inmost thoughts to share,
Who buoyantly his burthens help'd to bear,
And deck'd his altars daily with fresh flowers.

IV.

But farther may we pass not; for the ground
Is holier than the Muse herself may tread;
Nor would I it should echo to a sound
Less solemn than the service for the dead.
Mine is inferior matter,—my own loss,—
The loss of dear delights for ever fled,
Of reason's converse by affection fed,
Of wisdom, counsel, solace, that across
Life's dreariest tracts a tender radiance shed.
Friend of my youth! though younger yet my guide,
How much by thy unerring insight clear
302

I shaped my way of life for many a year,
What thoughtful friendship on thy deathbed died
Friend of my youth, whilst thou wast by my side
Autumnal days still breathed a vernal breath;
How like a charm thy life to me supplied
All waste and injury of time and tide,
How like a disenchantment was thy death!
303

SENT WITH SOME LEAVES AND FLOWERS FOUND IN A BOOK TO THE PERSON WHO HAD PUT THEM THERE THIRTY YEARS BEFORE.

Oh tender leaves and flowers,
Though wither'd, tender yet;
What privilege of joy was ours
In youth when first we met.
Bright eyes beheld your bloom,
Fair hands your charms caress'd,
And not irreverent was the doom
That laid you here to rest.
Sweet phantoms, from your bed
Thus re-arisen, you paint
The likeness of a love long dead
In faded colours faint.
Oh tender flowers and leaves!
By all our vanish'd joys—
By glittering spring-tide that deceives,
By winter that destroys—
Though nought can now restore
The perish'd to its place,
Eyes dimm'd by time and tears once more
Shall look you in the face.
304

LAGO VARESE.

(VISITED IN 1827.)

I stood beside Varese's Lake,
Mid that redundant growth
Of vines and maize and bower and brake
Which Nature, kind to sloth
And scarce solicited by human toil,
Pours from the riches of the teeming soil.
A mossy softness distance lent
To each divergent hill;
One crept away looking back as it went,
The rest lay round and still;
The westering sun not dazzling now, though bright,
Shed o'er the mellow land a molten light.
And rambling on by creek and cove,
I found upon the strand
A shallop, and a girl who strove
To drag it to dry land:
I stood to see—the girl look'd round—her face
Had all her country's clear and definite grace.
305

She rested with the air of rest
So seldom seen, of those
Whose toil remitted gives a zest
Not languour to repose.
Her form was poised yet buoyant, firm though free,
And liberal of her bright black eyes was she.
Her hue reflected back the skies
That redden'd in the West;
And joy was laughing in her eyes
And bounding in her breast,
Its sovereignty exulting to proclaim
Where pride could make no mutiny, nor shame.
This sunshine of the Southern face,
At home we have it not;
And if they be a reckless race,
These Southerns, yet a lot
More favour'd on the chequer'd earth is theirs,—
They have life's sorrows, but escape its cares.
For her if Sorrow lay in wait
The ambush was of flowers,
And hers was such a smile as sate
Triumphant on the Hours;
A smile it was that seem'd to claim for earth
Some lost inheritance of primal mirth.
306

There is a smile which wit extorts
From grave and learned men,
In whose austere and senile sports
The plaything is a pen;
And there are smiles by shallow worldlings worn
To grace a lie or laugh a truth to scorn:
And there are smiles with less alloy
Of those who, for the sake
Of some they love, would kindle joy
Which they can not partake:
But hers was of the kind which simply say
They come from hearts ungovernably gay.
And oh! that gaiety of heart!
There lives not he to whom
Its laugh more pleasure will impart
Than to the man of gloom;
Who if he laugh, laughs less from mirth of mind
Than deference to the customs of mankind.
The day went down; the last red ray
Flash'd on her face or ere
It sank—and creeping up the bay
The night-wind stirr'd her hair;
The crimsom wave caress'd her naked feet
With coy approach and resonant retreat.
307

True native of the clime was she,
Nor could there have been found
A creature who should more agree
With everything around,—
The woods, the fields, and genial Nature, rife
With life and gifts that feed and gladden life.
Congenial all that met the sight,
But in what met the mind
The spirit's intuition might
A discrepancy find;
For foresight is a melancholy gift
That bares the bald and speeds the all-too-swift:
Methought this scene before mine eyes,
Still glowing with yon sun
That seem'd to melt the myriad dyes
Of heaven and earth to one,
A divers unity—methought this scene,
These undulant hills, the woods that intervene,
The multiplicity of growth,
The corn-field and the brake,
The trellised vines that cover both,
The purple-bosom'd lake,
Some fifty summers hence may all be found
Rich in the charms wherewith they now abound.
308

And should I take my staff again,
And should I journey here,
My steps may be less steady then,
My eyesight not so clear,
And from the mind the sense of beauty may
Even as these bodily gifts have pass'd away:
But grant mine age but eyes to see,
A still susceptive mind,
All that leaves us, and all that we
Leave wilfully behind,
And nothing here would want the charms it wore,
Save only she who stands upon the shore.
309

LAGO LUGANO.

(VISITED IN 1843.)

I

Gone are some sixteen summers since the day
When rambling by Varese's reddening lake,
I met that merry maid, and for her sake
Wove the brief chaplet of that perishing lay:
Now let me weave another if I may,
For once again my wandering way I take
Thro' lands where music chimes from every mouth,
And where the sun lights up with cloudless ray
The chambers of the South.

II

Gone are those summers—youth and health are gone,
And feebler and less frequent are the gleams
That startled erst my heart and fill'd my dreams
From transitory faces that but shone
An instant on my path; and few or none
Are now the soaring hours when fancy teems
With visions fair: so be it! I recall
The past without regret—for here is one
Whose love repays me all.
310

III

My youth without its hardness and alloy
I have in her, and much that ne'er was mine,—
A simple heart, a human face divine
Where tears of tenderness with radiant joy
Will oftentimes alternate nor destroy
Each other's traces,—these with wit combine
And graver gifts, to yield me treasures more
Than all youth's fancies fugitive and coy
Returning could restore.

IV

And she was with me, and alone we stray'd
By Lake Lugano one delightful morn,
Through woods not yet dismantled nor forlorn,
For old October slept beneath their shade
Forgetful of his function, to upbraid
The leaves' light dancing and the fields forewarn
Of coming winter: like the light leaves we
In sunshine were as sumptuously array'd
As summer's self could be.

V

We pass'd the wood, and where high walls between
And through rich vineyards thick with clusters red
A causeway to the owner's dwelling led,
We rested in the shade; for there a screen
Of branches of the vine had fashion'd been
311

To arch the causeway's entrance overhead:
Nature had nearly done it; but the art
Of some kind hand that loved her might be seen
As architect in part.

VI

The lake lay glimmering through the wood below;
From its sweet shores upsprang the mountains stern,
And mid the loftiest we could well discern
One that was shining in a cusp of snow:
A butterfly went flickering to and fro
Hard by, and seeing he had yet to learn
That arduous lesson how to spend an hour
Of holiday aright, we bade him go
And fasten on a flower.

VII

Our book for us: of amaranthine hues
The flowers that to the free but searching sight
Did there disclose their inmost beauty bright!
Flowers were they that were planted by the Muse
In a deep soil which the continual dews
Of blessing had enrich'd: no lesser light
Than what was lit in Sydney's spirit clear
Or given to saintly Herbert's to diffuse
Now lives in thine, De Vere.
312

VIII

So pass'd the noontide hour; the breathless air
Propitious to the intent mind's equipoise,
And silent all, save now and then the noise
Of a light rustling in the ivy, where
With short quick run and sudden stop and stare
The lizard fled surprised. But strenuous joys
And claiming respite from their stress and strain
Are those which verse imparts, if read with care
And written to remain.

IX

Now therefore we arose and went our way;
And as we pass'd the dwelling where abode
The owner of the vineyards, in the road
There stood two daughters of the house: the sway
Of English manners overturn'd that day
Permitted us to speak: a marvellous mode
Of foreign speech was mine, but it express'd
To willing listeners what I wish'd to say
As amply as the best.

X

A frank amusement in the eyes of each
Detracted nothing from their courteous cheer;
Their sister voices were, though sweet, not clear,
But sounded softly hoarse, as sounds the beach
Of some cliff-shelter'd cove or inland reach
313

Where the sea slumbers,—voices to our ear
That spake a life of liberty and ease,
Where simple hearts redound to simple speech
And simple pleasures please.

XI

We ask'd for fruit; yet kindlier than before
They bade us in, and we were seated soon
In the bower'd window of a large saloon;
A wench whose face a double welcome wore
For them and for herself, produced good store,
And fast the minutes fled: companions boon
By flowing cups exalted scarce could be
Than those two girls irradiated more,
More happy than were we.

XII

Too fast the minutes fled! We bade adieu
To each kind sister not without regret,
Nor linger'd now; for now the sun was set,
And of the stars, though most were faint, a few
Began to glitter in the paler blue.
Ere long we reach'd our goal—a point where met
Lake, vineyard, chesnut wood, and whence was seen
Fairest of mountains, soft but awful too,
St. Salvador serene.
314

XIII

Thence we return'd, revolving as we went
The lessons this and previous days had taught
In rambling meditations; and we sought
To read the face of Italy, intent
With equal eye and just arbitrament
To measure its expressions as we ought:
And chiefly one conclusion did we draw,—
That liberty dwelt here with Heaven's consent,
Though not by human law.

XIV

A liberty imperfect, undesign'd,—
A liberty of circumstance; but still
A liberty that moulds the heart and will
And works an inward freedom of the mind.
Not such is statutable freedom: blind
Are they to whom the letter that doth kill
Stands for the spirit that giveth life: sore pains
They take to set Ambition free, and bind
The heart of man in chains.

XV

Ambition, Envy, Avarice, and Pride—
These are the tyrants of our hearts: the laws
Which cherish these in multitudes, and cause
The passions that aforetime lived and died
In palaces, to flourish far and wide
315

Throughout a land—(allot them what applause
We may, for wealth and science that they nurse
And greatness)—seen upon their darker side
Bear the primæval curse.

XVI

Oh England! “Merrie England,” styled of yore!
Where is thy mirth? Thy jocund laughter, where?
The sweat of labour on the brow of care
Makes a mute answer—driven from every door!
The may-pole cheers the village green no more,
Nor harvest-home, nor Christmas mummers rare;
The tired mechanic at his lecture sighs,
And of the learned, which, with all his lore,
Has leisure to be wise?

XVII

Civil and moral liberty are twain:
That truth the careless countenances free
Of Italy avouch'd; that truth did we,
On converse grounds and with reluctant pain,
Confess that England proved. Wash first the stain
Of wordliness away; when that shall be,
Us shall “the glorious liberty” befit
Whereof, in other far than earthly strain,
The Jew of Tarsus writ.
316

XVIII

So shall the noble natures of our land
(Oh nobler and more deeply founded far
Than any born beneath a Southern star!)
Move more at large, with ampler reach expand,
Be open, courteous, not more strong to stand
Than just to yield,—nor obvious to each jar
That shakes the proud; for Independence walks
With staid Humility aye hand in hand,
Whilst Pride in tremor stalks.

XIX

From pride plebeian and from pride high-born,
From pride of knowledge no less vain and weak,
From overstrain'd activities that seek
Ends worthiest of indifference or scorn,
From pride of intellect that exalts its horn
In contumely above the wise and meek,
Exulting in coarse cruelties of the pen,
From pride of drudging souls to Mammon sworn,
Where shall we flee and when?

XX

One House of Refuge in this dreary waste
Was, through God's mercy, by our fathers built,—
That house the Church: Oh England, if the guilt
Of pride and greed thy grandeur have abased,
Thy liberty endanger'd, here be placed
317

Thy trust: thy freedom's garment, if thou wilt,
To piece by charters and by statutes strive,
But to its personal rescue, haste, oh haste!
And save its soul alive.

XXI

Thus pour'd we forth our hearts: but now 'twas late;
The stars were fully out, and other light
Was none; in secret sessions of the night
The mountains closing kept a gloomier state.
A boat whose oars with punctual sound sedate
Seem'd like the pulse of silence, stole in sight
And sped us to the town.—End, end they must,
Such days! But lasting are the gains and great
They leave behind in trust.
318

To H. C.

(In reply.)

It may be folly—they are free
Who think it so, to laugh or blame,
But single sympathies to me
Are more than fame.
The glen and not the mountain-top
I love; and though its date be brief,
I snatch the rose you send, and drop
The laurel leaf.
319

STANZAS.

[Dear Nina, how betides it that with you]

Dear Nina, how betides it that with you
Sickness and Sorrow, which since Time was born
Were Youth's destroyers, seem but to renew
The twilight softness of your dewy morn?
You days of Charlton, how you laugh'd to scorn
The imminent Future! Portion it its due;
I look in those large eyes whose tender blue
The darken'd hair now deepens, and maintain
That Time with all his following forlorn,
Sickness and Sorrow, Injury and Pain,
If a Destroyer, is an Angel too.
Dante, the glorious dreamer, was he wrong
The “Mount of Preparation” to invest
With sapphire hues, and people with a throng
Of happy Spirits? One at his behest
Sang the remember'd strain he loved the best,
Whereby he knew that early loves are strong
Met in the “Second Region:” I so long
There wandering, hear a voice when daylight fades
And shines the Love-Star singly in the West,
Sweeter than what was sweetest in the shades
Of Purgatory, Casella's broken song.
320

THE AMPHITHEATRE AT POZZUOLI.

The strife, the gushing blood, the mortal throe,
With scenic horrors fill'd that belt below,
And where the polish'd seats were round it raised,
Worse spectacle! the pleased spectators gazed.
Such were the pastimes of times past! Oh shame!
Oh infamy! that men who drew the breath
Of freedom, and who shared the Roman name,
Should so corrupt their sports with pain and death.
—The pastimes of times past? And what are thine,
Thou with thy gun or greyhound, rod and line?
Pain, terror, mortal agonies, that scare
Thy heart in Man, to brutes thou wilt not spare.
Are theirs less sad and real? Pain in Man
Bears the high mission of the flail and fan;
In brutes 'tis purely piteous. God's command,
Submitting His mute creatures to our hand
For life and death, thou shalt not dare to plead;
He bade thee kill them, not for sport, but need.
Then backward if thou cast reproachful looks
On sports bedarkening custom erst allow'd,
Expect from coming ages like rebukes
When day shall dawn on peacefuller woods and brooks,
And clear from vales thou troublest, custom's cloud.
321

TWO WAYS OF LIFE.

Alwine, Adelais, Hildebrand.
A FOREST SCENE.
Alwine.
The path is to your right; be not alarm'd;
For I have haunted this old forest long
And learnt its ways.

Adelais.
I have no fears—with you.

Hildebrand.
I heard a horn but lately, nor long since
I saw the King. It is not far we've wander'd;
And after facing that so insolent Sun
In all his mid-day triumph mounting high,
How grateful is this gloom! these sylvan vaults,
How they protect the spirit!

Adelais.
I could dream
I were a maid that for the cloister quits
The monarch's court, finding in this retreat
That peace the world refused her.

Hildebrand.
Rather say
That peace it had not to bestow. Your thought
Might fancy from her wardrobe well attire
322

With many an apt similitude; to chaunt
Morning and evening service there is here
A numerous choir, nor is their song of praise
Less sacred because cheerful; and at noon
Comes meditative stillness, or by fits
Some soft confession of a wandering wind
Makes silence audible and sweet repose
Aware that it exists. By fancy fed
'Tis thus we revel in resemblances;
But truth . . .

Alwine.
Renounces and abjures them! No;
Love, if you will, the woods, and love their ways,
But, I beseech you, love not for their sake
The life to which you liken them. Believe me,
The cloisters of the forest merit praise
For innocence and peace, which never yet
Those of the convent justified.

Adelais.
To me
Ere yet my credulous childhood had been taught
To question what I saw, the cherub choir,
The chaunt, the thuribule, the stoled procession,
Seem'd heaven itself more than the way to heaven;
And as the tournaments and shows of war
Fill high the hearts of boys, so me a girl
Did ceremonials of the Church enchant,
Raise to religious rapture, and uplift
With fond desires to wage the war of faith
In a conventual life. And are they gone?
323

Those fond desires—that rapture of the heart?

Alwine.
They are—they are—I give them God's good speed.

Hildebrand.
Far other lessons shall we learn from Him
Who for the love of man was made a man,
Walking the earth in love, by links of love
With man associate humanly in life,
And human sorrow deifying in death,
That so this cursory world He might bequeath
A practicable passage, not impure
Since trodden of His feet.—I stretch too far
The privilege of the old to teach their betters.
Farewell—that cry recalls me to the chase.

[Exit.
Alwine.
A tale there is pertaining to this wood
Which, but that I should tell it ill, might steal
Some moments you would not repent to spare
From the day's pastime.

Adelais.
Place me on the trunk
Of that uprooted oak, where shine and shade,
Moved by the wandering minstrel in the trees,
Dance to his music. Tell me now the tale.

Alwine.
Once on this forest's edge a castle rose
That dwarf'd to very shrubs its loftiest oaks,
A ruin now, half buried, half o'ergrown.
Sole did it stand, dividing warlike states,
As midway in a torrent some huge rock;
324

And in it dwelt a maid whose shapely form
Was like the hare-bell that so lightly springs
Out from the huge rock midway in the torrent;
And from its turrets could the maid descry
A convent in a valley, which with looks
Wistful and sad she oft regarded long,
For she was weary of wild usages,
And sick because the eyes that look'd at her
Were cold, and obdurate, and haughty.

Adelais.
All?

Alwine.
Some more, some less.—And finding thus no rest,
She went one night to seek the Sibyl's cave
Deep in the forest, and to know from her
(That Sibyl ever young who witness bare
With David of the course and end of time)
Which life were worthier,—that which braved the world
And all its trials, or which fled the world
And knew no trials, but was blankly pure.

Aldelais.
What answer made the Sibyl?

Alwine.
None by word
She took her by the hand and led her far
Through brake and briar in darkness many a rood,
And stopp'd where bubbled up a fountain clear
Beside an ancient cross: Lo! here, she said,
Life springeth: then with measured step sedate
Advanced again, but counting as she went,
And stopp'd again: and here, she said, behold
325

The parting of the ways—life sunders here.
With that she sang a low sweet melody,
Mysterious but penetrating too,
Which with a slow and subtle magic crept
Into the bosom of the darkness. Soon
It ceased, and as it ceased, a glorious light
Forth from the bosom of the darkness burst,
And fill'd the ways of life.

Adelais.
What ways were they?

Alwine.
The maiden where she stood could see but twain,
Each a long avenue; of yews was this
And palms commingled; that, of various growth;
Each with a roof of intertangled boughs,
And crossways at the close an open grave.
Midway the path beyond the one grave grew
A single cypress; at each end the other
A willow. Down the path of palms and yews
A bloodless phantom of a woman walk'd,
Hooded and veil'd, with languid step and slow
And oft reverted head. Once and again
A holy rapture lifted her, and scarce
She seem'd to touch the ground; but presently
It left her, and with languid step and slow
And drooping posture pass'd she on her way,
Still praying as she went, but stumbling still
Through weariness o'er sticks and straws, and still
With sticks and straws she quarrell'd as she pray'd.
326

When she approach'd the grave that crossways closed
The avenue, though weary of the way,
She seem'd not glad, but shudder'd and recoil'd,
Shaking through weakness of her weariness;
And though she upward look'd, look'd backward too,
And so with arms that clasp'd the solitude
She slowly disappear'd:—This way of life,
The Sibyl said, is the way celibate,
Where walks erroneous many a monk and nun:
The good therein is good that dies therein
And hath no offspring; neither hath the evil;
For He that out of evil bringeth good
Begets no issue on the evil here:
Probation blotted from the book of life
With evil good obliterates; for these two,
In quality though opposite and at war,
Are each to each correlative and essential,
And evil conquer'd maketh moral good,
With virtue, which is more than innocence.
But now, she said, behold that other way.
The maiden turned obedient, and beheld
Where at the outset from a myrtle bower
A figure like Aurora flush'd with joy
Leapt lightly forth, and dancing down the path
Shook the bright dewdrops from the radiant wreath
That crown'd her locks profuse: ere long the flush
Subsided, and the bounding steps were stay'd;
But firmly still and with a durable strength
327

She travell'd on: not seldom on her way
A colour'd cloud diaphanous, like those
That gild the morn, conceal'd her; but ere long
She issued thence, and with her issued thence
A naked child that roll'd amongst the flowers
And laugh'd and cried: a thicker cloud anon
Fell round her, and from that with sunken eyes
She issued, and with stains upon her cheek
From scalding tears; but onward still she look'd
And upward still, and on her brow upturn'd
And on the paleness of her penitent face
A glory broke, the dayspring from on high:
Thenceforth with loftier and less troubled strength
And even step she trod the tremulous earth,
Elastic, not elate: the grave was near
That crossways cut the path; but with her went
A company of spirits bright and young
Which caught the blossoms from her wreath that fell
And gave them back; and as she reach'd the close,
Gazing betwixt the willows far beyond
Full many a group successive she descried
With wreaths like hers; and as she softly sank
A heavenly hope that like a rainbow spann'd
A thousand earthly hopes, its colours threw
Across the gloomy entrance of the grave.
This, said the Sibyl, is the secular way—
With joys more free and nobler sorrows fraught,
Which scatter by their force life's frivolous cares
328

And meaner molestations: stern the strokes,
The struggles arduous which this way presents,
And fearful the temptations; but the stake
Is worthier of the strife, and she that wins
Hears at the gate of heaven the words “Well done”
And “Enter thou.”—The Sibyl ceased; the maid
Look'd round, and saw—not her, but in her place
A suppliant bending low: he press'd her hand
Imploringly, and ask'd her,—“Of those ways
Which choosest thou? and is it not the last?”
What answer to that lowly suppliant gave
That maiden mild?

Adelais.
I think she answer'd “Yes.”

329

THE HERO, THE POET, AND THE GIRL.

Something between a pasture and a park,
Saved from sea-breezes by a hump of down,
Tossed blue-bells in the face of April, dark
With fitful frown:
And there was he, that gentle hero, who,
By virtue and the strength of his right arm,
Dethroned an unjust king, and then withdrew
To tend his farm:
To whom came forth a mighty man of song,
Whose deep-mouthed music rolls thro' all the land,
Voices of many rivers, rich or strong,
Or sweet or grand.
I turned from Bard and Patriot, like some churl
Senseless to Powers that hold the world in fee,—
How is it that the face of one fair girl
Is more to me?
330

SONNET IN THE MAIL COACH.

What means at this unusual hour the light
In yonder casement? Doth it hint a tale
Of trouble, when some maiden mourner pale
Confides her sorrows to the secret night?
Or doth it speak of youth uprising bright
With glad alacrity ere morning break
To chase a hope new-started; or—but lo!
The wan light creeps with stealthy motion slow
Across the chamber: shall we token take
From this that o'er sick bed or mortal throe
Sad watch is kept?—Small answer can I make,
Nor more can of that dim-seen watcher know,
Than that some object, passion, throb, or ache,
Has kept some solitary heart awake.
331

STANZAS.

[For me no roseate garlands twine]

For me no roseate garlands twine,
But wear them, Dearest, in my stead;
Time has a whiter hand than thine,
And lays it on my head.
Enough to know thy place on earth
Is there where roses latest die;
To know the steps of youth and mirth
Are thine, that pass me by.
332

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY,

AFTER READING CERTAIN CRITICISMS ON “HIS LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE.”

Farewell, great heart! how great shall they
Who love true greatness truly know,
Though from thy grave the popinjay
Cry “tear him” to the carrion crow.
Farewell, pure Spirit! o'er thy tomb,
Write canker'd critics what they please,
A temple rises, and the womb
Of Time is big with devotees.

REPROACH REPROVED.

Reproach me not; for if my love run high,
Unjust complainings well may drain it dry;
Reproach me not; if love run low, reproach
Did never yet set dried-up love abroach.
333

THE FLIGHT.

Perched on a rafter in a windy barn,
Head on one side inquisitive, blue lids
Winking at gleamings of the moonshine white,
In meditative stillness thomas stood,—
Thomas of Emily the best beloved,
Thomas the best of owls. Revolving long
The past, the present, in his secret soul,
Thoughts nursed in silence, thoughts that gathered strength
From reticence, arose,—and they were these:
This Emily means well, is kind, nay more,
I may presume to say reveals herself
In accents which no owl with ears to hear
And half a heart, can choose but understand;
The food that she provides is plentiful
And good, and I were but a thankless owl
To murmur (though the partridge-wing last night
Might better have been raw); the enemy,
Small but tormenting, ambushed in my down
She valiantly confronts and shares my pain:
334

All this I grant, and, granting all, still ask
Is she a helpmate meet? How so? By night
I wake, she sleeps; I sleep by day, she wakes.
Can she catch mice? I doubt it. And her voice,
Expressive though it be, nor wanting tones
Significant of love, may not compare
With one that in the watches of the night
Will sometimes reach me, echoing from afar,—
The voice of that ideal treasured long,
Long treasured in my heart, the voice of her,
Madge Howlet of the Ivy Tod. Farewell,
Fond Emily! Georgina too, Farewell!
And Riversdale! my friends, but not my kind;
Nature is strong within me; I will break
The bonds of alien custom: Madge, I come.
By yon moon that keeps her place
Ordered in the realms of space,
By the stars that hold their courses,
By the streams that know their sources,
By the dateless solitudes
Of the immemorial woods,—
Madge, I come:
By the voice of old that spoke
From the inside of an oak,
Saying to my kith and kin
Here is house-room, enter in,—
Madge, I come:
335

By the souls of all the owls
That with pride ancestral swelling
Scorned the ways of barn-door fowls
And with Nature had their dwelling;
By the Fathers of our line,
Ominous deemed, if not divine,
Sacred erst to Proserpine,
Whom wise Glaucopis, born of Jove,
Honoured above all the grove,
Whence descended to our race
Godlike gravity of face,—
Madge, I come:
What ruin old,
In wood or wold,
Sent forth that cry,
“Fly, fly, oh fly!”
'Tis Nature's voice,
And I obey;
If Madge rejoice
Let mourn who may—
To Man and all his Emilies, Adieu!
I fly, oh woods, oh wolds, oh Madge, to you.
336

OLYMPIA MORATA.

WRITTEN AFTER VISITING HER GRAVE AT HEIDELBERG.

A tombstone in a foreign land cries out,
Oh Italy! against thee: She whose death
This stone commemorates with no common praise,
By birth was thine: but being vowed to Truth,
The blood-stain'd hand that lurks beneath thine alb
Was raised to strike; and lest one crime the more
Should stand in thine account to heaven, she fled.
Then hither came she, young but erudite,
With ardour flush'd, but with old wisdom stored
(Which spake no tongue she knew not), apt to learn
And eloquent to teach,—and welcomed here
Gave the brief beauty of her innocent life
An alien race to illustrate; and here
Dying in youth (the beauty of her death
Sealing her life's repute), her ashes gave
An honour to the land that honour'd her.
—Jerusalem! Jerusalem! which killest
The Prophets! if thy house be desolate,
Those temples too are desolate and that land
Where Truth's pure votaries may not leave their dust.
337

SONG.

[The bee to the heather]

The bee to the heather,
The lark to the sky,
The roe to the greenwood,
And whither shall I?
Oh, Alice! oh, Alice!
So sweet to the bee
Are the moorland and heather
By Cannock and Leigh!
Oh, Alice! oh, Alice!
O'er Teddesley Park
The sunny sky scatters
The notes of the lark!
Oh, Alice! oh, Alice!
In Beaudesert glade
The roes toss their antlers
For joy of the shade!—
But Alice, dear Alice!
Glade, moorland, nor sky,
Without you can content me,
And whither shall I?
338

HEROISM IN THE SHADE.

[_]

WRITTEN AFTER THE RETURN OF SIR H. POTTINGER FROM CHINA, IN 1845.

I.

The Million smiles; the taverns ring with toasts;
A thousand journals teem with good report
And plauditory paragraph; with hosts
Of thankful deputations swarm the streets;
His native city of her hero boasts;
The minister who chose him, in the choice
Exults; and prompted to its part, the court
The echo of the country's praise repeats,
And by the popular pitchpipe tunes its voice.

II.

But where is he whose genius led the way
To all this triumph? Elliot, where is he?
—When first that Monster of the Eastern sea,
That hugest empire which for ages lay
Becalm'd beneath the sun, with strange see-saws
Convulsively unsheath'd its quivering claws,
'Twas he that watch'd its motions many a day,
339

Foreseeing and foretelling that the sleep
For those unnumber'd centuries so deep
Would pass; and when its rage and fear at length
Shook off thenumbness from its labouring strength,
'Twas he whose skill and courage gagg'd its gaping jaws.

III.

Justice, Truth, Mercy,—these his weapons were;
And if the sword, 'twas wielded but to spare
Through timely terror worse event. With rare
And excellent contemperature he knew
How best on martial ardour to confer
The honours that are then alone its due
When patience, prudence, ruth are honour'd too.
When to relent he saw, and when to dare,
Sudden to strike, magnanimous to forbear:
Prone lay the second city of that land,
Third of the world, a suppliant at the feet
Of him whom erst she gloried to maltreat!
But then a great heart to itself was true—
On the rash soldier's bridle was the hand
Of Elliot laid, with calm but firm command.

IV.

Thou mighty city with thy million souls!
To England, through that rescue, art thou made
A treasure-house of tribute and of trade!
To England, whose street-statesmen, blind as moles.
340

Scribe-taught, and ravening like wolves for blood,
Spared not his wisdom's temperance to upbraid
Who thus thy ruin righteously withstood.
Thou mighty city, for thy ruler's faults,
Not thine, how many an innocent had bled,
How many a wife and mother hung her head
In agony above thy funeral vaults,
What horrors had been thine, what shame were ours,
If he, by popular impulses betray'd,
Or of rash judgments selfishly afraid,
Had render'd up thy wealth and blood to feast
That hunger of the many-headed beast
Which its own seed-corn tramples and devours.

V.

But service such as his, to virtue vow'd,
Ne'er tax'd for noise the weasand of the crowd,
Most thankless in their ignorance and spleen.
His glory blossoms in the shade, unseen
Save by the few and wise; to them alone
His daring, prudence, fortitude are known.
—In the beginning had his portion been,
Even as a pilot's in a sea unplough'd
By cursive keel before, when winds pipe loud
And all is undiscover'd and untried,
To take the difficult soundings in the dark,
And then with tentative and wary course,
And changing oft with change of wind and tide,
341

The shoals to pass, evade the current's force,
And keep unhurt his unappointed bark;—
A tentative and wary course to steer,
But ever with a gay and gallant cheer.
This task perform'd, when now the way was clear,
The armament provided, and the mark,
Though hard to be attain'd, was full in sight,
Upon his prosperous path there fell a blight,
Distrust arrested him in mid-career.

VI.

Another reap'd where he had sown: success,
Doubtless well-won, attended him to whom
The harvesting was given: his honours bloom
Brightly, and many a rapturous caress
The populace bestows—what could they less?
Far be from me malignly to assume
Such praise, how oft soe'er it may have swerved
From a just mark, must needs be undeserved:
But knowing by whom the burthen and the heat
Was borne,—with what intrepid zeal, what skill,
Care, enterprise, and scope of politic thought,—
Through labours, dangers, obloquy, ill-will,
Battle, captivities, and shipwreck, still,
With means or wanting means, alert to meet
In all conjunctures all events,—if aught
Could make a wise man wonder at the ways
Of Fortune, and the world's awards of praise,
342

'Twould be, whilst taverns ring and tankards foam
Healths to this hero of the harvest-home,
To think what welcome had been his whose toil
Had fell'd the forest and prepared the soil.

VII.

What makes a hero? Not success, not fame,
Inebriate merchants and the loud acclaim
Of glutted avarice, caps toss'd up in the air,
Or pen of journalist with flourish fair,
Bells peal'd, stars, ribands, and a titular name,—
These, though his rightful tribute, he can spare;
His rightful tribute, not his end or aim,
Or true reward; for never yet did these
Refresh the soul or set the heart at ease.
—What makes a hero? An heroic mind
Express'd in action, in endurance proved:
And if there be pre-eminence of right,
Derived through pain well suffer'd, to the height
Of rank heroic, 'tis to bear unmoved,
Not toil, not risk, not rage of sea or wind,
Not the brute fury of barbarians blind,
But worse,—ingratitude and poisonous darts
Launch'd by the country he had served and loved:
This with a free unclouded spirit pure,
This in the strength of silence to endure,
A dignity to noble deeds imparts
Beyond the gauds and trappings of renown:
343

This is the hero's complement and crown;
This miss'd, one struggle had been wanting still,
One glorious triumph of the heroic will,
One self-approval in his heart of hearts.

ST. HELEN'S-AUCKLAND.

I wander o'er each well-known field
My boyhood's home in view,
And thoughts that were as fountains seal'd
Are welling forth anew.
The ancient house, the aged trees,
They bring again to light
The years that like a summer breeze
Were trackless in their flight.
How much is changed of what I see,
How much more changed am I,
And yet how much is left—to me
How is the distant nigh!
344

The walks are overgrown and wild,
The terrace flags are green,
But I am once again a child,
I am what I have been.
The sounds that round about me rise
Are what none other hears;
I see what meets no other eyes,
Though mine are dim with tears.
The breaking of the summer's morn—
The tinge on house and tree—
The billowy clouds—the beauty born
Of that celestial sea,
The freshness of the faëry land
Lit by the golden gleam . . . .
It is my youth that where I stand
Comes back as in a dream.
Alas, the real never lent
Those tints, too bright to last;
They fade and bid me rest content
And let the past be past.
The wave that dances to the breast
Of earth, can ne'er be stay'd;
The star that glitters in the crest
Of morning, needs must fade:
345

But there shall flow another tide,
So let me hope, and far
Over the outstretch'd waters wide
Shall shine another star.
In every change of Man's estate
Are lights and guides allow'd;
The fiery pillar will not wait,
But parting, sends the cloud.
Nor mourn I the less manly part
Of life to leave behind;
My loss is but the lighter heart,
My gain the graver mind.
346

THE LYNNBURN.

[_]

Revisited in 1839.

I

Again, oh stream, beloved in earlier years
And not unsung, within thy wooded glen
I stand, and inwardly my hushed heart hears
The same remembrancer that murmured then;
For thou wert with me ere the haunts of men
Were trodden of my feet, and thou could'st gloze
Even in the days long past of younger days than those.

II

And I would ask, melodious recluse
Whose sameness measures change, if I be still
Like him who whilom turned his fancy loose
To chase the shadows thro' thy woods at will;
I would be told of change for good and ill,
And know if I be capable, as once,
To thy low call to make a musical response.
347

III

The old plank bridge is gone—the stone-built arch
Is but a sorry substitute to me;
But mining still beneath that leaning larch
The same slow current spreads itself: I see
Reflected there a face how changed since we
Were neighbours, and so oft at eventide
(Then was thy sweet voice sweetest) wandered side by side.

IV

Some twenty years have held since then their course
In light and shade, in smiles and bitterness,
And so long I have been to thee perforce
Occasional, not constant; not the less
In gladness have I sought thee and in distress,
And counsel sweet we still together took
At every change of life in this sequestered nook.

V

What did'st thou witness first? the life of dreams,
Of genial nights and mornings run to waste,
Ambitious hopes, a fancy fired by themes
Of thoughtless passion, labour much misplaced
In aping wild effusions where false taste
Bedecks false feeling, visionary love
For what not earth below affords nor Heav'n above.
348

VI

This ere I left thee: Then the sturdier state
Of youthful manhood, prompt for action, proud
Of self-reliance, strenuous in debate,
Presumptuous in decision, by a crowd
Of busy cares encompassed, which allowed
For dreaming sensibilities scant scope;—
Yet room for one fair face vouchsafed, one fearful hope.

VII

A will disordered, hurried mind, and heart
Though wearied yet intolerant of rest,
Thou cunning'st adept in the healing art
I brought to thee; well knowing thou wert blest
With wondrous power to still the troubled breast;—
Than thou none more, save Siloa's brook which feeds
The flowers that breathe their balm from sempiternal meads.

VIII

Another change;—the face was no more seen,
The hope expired: the appetite for rule,
Advancement, civil station, which had been
Therewith allied, began thenceforth to cool:
To be the powerful, serviceable tool
Of statecraft seemed inglorious, and with feet
Less shackled did I then revisit this retreat.
349

IX

'Twas summer, and I heard the cushat coo,
And saw the dog-rose blooming in the groves;
All was as fresh as when the world was new;
I plucked the roses, listened to the doves,
Forgetful for a season of fixed loves
And fugitive caresses—I was free:
Then came the Muse and laid her thrilling hand on me.

X

Not wholly slighted had she been before,
But now my heart was hers by night and day;
I loved her not for honours that she wore
In the World's eye, rich robe and wreath of bay,
But for herself—and therefore did I pay
My service due with labour slow and sure
In secret many a year, content to be obscure.

XI

A change again;—my name had travelled far,
And in the World's applausive countenance kind
I sunned myself—not fearing so to mar
That strength of heart and liberty of mind
Which comes but by hard nurture: Me, tho' blind,
God's mercy spared—from social snares with ease
Saved by that gracious gift, inaptitude to please.
350

XII

To thee I fled; and it was then thy mood
To teach Autumnal lessons; for a blast
Blown by the North had weeded from thy wood
The yellow leaf, but o'er the russet past,
That graver beauty leaving to the last
By strength of stem preserved: Thou said'st “Behold
Such colours life should keep when skies are dark and cold.”

XIII

My “yea” fell flat: The interests that are youth's
And youth's alone, could now no more be mine;
The soul's deep, sacred and sufficing truths;
Seemed to dim eyes too distantly divine;
A world that will not flatter, to resign
Costs little: but life's wherewithal ran low
When bounty at my need new sources bade to flow.

XIV

For of the many one who smiled at first
On better knowledge wore a smile as bright;
And still when dreariness had done its worst
And dryness weaned the multitude, despite
Of doubts and sore disturbance that pure light
Burnt up reanimate, wherein to live
Was the one genuine joy that Earth had now to give.
351

XV

Last change of all, I hither brought my bride,
At whom each sweetest, freshest woodland flower
Laughed as to see a sister by its side;
And old eyes glistened in that gladdening hour;
For who are they in yon square border tower
Half up the hill? and in the cottage near
Whose is the old grey face so tender and so dear?

XVI

My weal had been their last and only stake
In life's decline; and doubt and fear and pain
Long, largely had they suffered for my sake:
To them whose hearts did never touch profane
Of worldly cares corrode or pleasures stain,
(How peaceful but for me!) at length I brought
The charm that soothed to rest full many an anxious thought.

XVII

Thou garrulous stream, my youth's companion sweet,
In earlier years if I have loved thee well,
In after years if oft my faithful feet
Assiduously have sought thy sylvan dell,
If to my heart thy voluble voice can tell
So much so softly, am I wrong to raise
My voice above thine own in publishing thy praise?
352

ERNESTO.

Thoughtfully by the side Ernesto sate
Of her whom, in his earlier youth, with heart
Then first exulting in a dangerous hope,
Dearer for danger, he had rashly loved.
That was a season when the untravell'd spirit,
Not way-worn nor way-wearied, nor with soil
Nor stain upon it, lions in its path
Saw none,—or seeing, with triumphant trust
In its resources and its powers, defied,—
Perverse to find provocatives in warnings
And in disturbance taking deep delight.
By sea or land he then saw rise the storm
With a gay courage, and through broken lights
Tempestuously exalted, for awhile
His heart ran mountains high, or to the roar
Of shatter'd forests sang superior songs
With kindling, and what might have seem'd to some,
Auspicious energy:—by land and sea
He was way-founder'd—trampled in the dust
353

His many-colour'd hopes—his lading rich
Of precious pictures, bright imaginations,
In absolute shipwreck to the winds and waves
Suddenly render'd.
By her side he sate:
But time had been between and wov'n a veil
Of seven years' separation, and the past
Was seen with soften'd outlines, like the face
Of nature through a mist. What was so seen?
In a short hour, there sitting with his eyes
Fix'd on her face, observant though abstracted,
Lost partly in the past, but mixing still
With his remembrances the life before him,
He traced it all—the pleasant first accost,
Agreeable acquaintance, growing friendship,
Love, passion at the culminating point
When in a sleeping body through the night
The heart would lie awake, reverses next
Gnawing the mind with doubtfulness, and last
The affectionate bitterness of love refused.
—Rash had he been by choice—by wanton choice
Deliberately rash; but in the soil
Where grows the bane, grows too the antidote;
The same young-heartedness which knew not fear
Renounced despondency, and brought at need
With its results, resources. In his day
Of utter condemnation there remain'd
Appeal to that imaginative power
354

Which can commute a sentence of sore pain
For one of softer sadness, which can bathe
The broken spirit in the balm of tears;—
And more and better to after days; for soon
Upsprang the mind within him, and he knew
The affluence and the growth which nature yields
After an overflow of loving grief.
Hence did he deem that he could freely draw
A natural indemnity. The tree
Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enrich'd
By its own fallen leaves; and man is made
In heart and spirit from deciduous hopes
And things that seem to perish. Through the stress
And fever of his suit, from first to last,
His pride (to call it by no nobler name)
Had been to love with reason and with truth,
To carry clear through many a turbulent trial
A perspicacious judgment and true tongue,
And neither with fair word nor partial thought
To flatter whom he loved. If pride it was
To love and not to flatter, by a breath
Of purer aspiration was he moved
To suffer and not blame, grieve, not resent,
And when all hopes that needs must knit with self
Their object, were irrevocably gone,
Cherish a mild commemorative love,
Such as a mourner might unblamed bestow
On a departed spirit.
355

Once again
He sate beside her—for the last time now:
And scarcely was she alter'd; for the hours
Had led her lightly down the vale of life,
Dancing and scattering roses, and her face
Seem'd a perpetual daybreak, and the woods
Where'er she rambled, echoed through their aisles
The music of a laugh so softly gay
That spring with all her songsters and her songs
Knew nothing like it. But how changed was he!
Care and disease, and ardours unrepress'd,
And labours unremitted, and much grief,
Had written their death-warrant on his brow.
Of this she saw not all—she saw but little—
That which she could not choose but see she saw—
And o'er her sunlit dimples and her smiles
A shadow fell—a transitory shade—
And when the phantom of a hand she clasp'd
At parting, scarce responded to her touch,
She sigh'd—but hoped the best.
When winter came
She sigh'd again; for with it came the word
That trouble and love had found their place of rest
And slept beneath Madeira's orange groves.
356

To V.R.

Victoria, by the grace of God
Of Loveland and of Joyland Queen,
The path that heretofore you trod
A dainty primrose path has been:
And whither next? Makes answer Hope,
“The generations of the days
Have travell'd up a sunny slope
To lose themselves in golden haze;
“But Love and Innocence are strong,—
What hath been shall be, they and I
Asseverate,—and to us belong
Some natural gifts of prophecy.”
So Hope: a dear young friend of ours,
Dear when she drinks the morning dew,
Dear when she shines through evening showers,
And dearest when she tells of you!
357

ODE.

I.

Time was, Virginia, when the poem made
By passionate Nature in creating you
Like to a minister of flame had play'd
Around my path, and wheresoe'er I stray'd
Had open'd to my view
The earth in robes of purple light array'd
And gemm'd with morning dew.

II.

Those times return not—let them not return—
But let me not forget that once they were;
Far be from me that Fancy's age should err
In quest of guerdons youth alone can earn;
But must I therefore cease to yearn
After the mood when evening notes prolong
Some distant echoes of the matin song?
O Nature! sedulous to read
Thy lore, shall I thy sway dispute?
No, let my Being still proceed
Involving all, seed, flower, and fruit,
358

The current still recur—
No, let me still hold fast
Treasures of old amass'd,
And in Imagination's votive urn
Let me, with rites more sad than stern,
Deposit only, not inter,
The ashes of the bright and beautiful Past.

III.

Strong are the hours and days;
Youth's mortal part decays;
But there are powers on earth more strong than Time:
Give me your hand, Virginia; we will go
To where the old streams carol as they flow
(Whilst the late-blown blossoms bend
To list the strain that ne'er shall end)
Telling of many a charm and many a rhyme
Born ere your birth, when I was in my prime.

IV.

The Morning Stars together sang,
With chaunted loves the woodlands rang,
When, in the glorious solitude of dawn,
I walk'd, and made the earth that I beheld:
Whether by native power impell'd
From inward germ the brain-creation sprang,
Or by constructive force was deftly drawn
From flower-crown'd ruins of poetic Eld;
359

Whether to secret wood-embosom'd lawn
I summon'd Satyr, Nymph, and Faun,
Or call'd up shapes divine
Seen of no eye but mine
(Though to some shape of this Earth's brood
Bearing belike a sweet similitude),
Or saw through rocky rift of mountain range
Far off a blue and sunny sea
And full in sail a carrack bound to me,
Charged with a freight of something rich and strange,
Words, spells, and witcheries, with power endued
To build me up a name
Of perdurable fame,
Which should not suffer wrong by death or change.

V.

Gone—gone, Virginia, are both dawn and noon;
Yet fled they not too swiftly nor too soon:
Much they found of what they sought,
Much they left of what they brought:
God speed them! for in yonder evening sky
As bright a vision meets as charm'd an eye.
I see again in heaven's own texture wrought
The sea of sunniest blue,
The carrack full in view,
The mountain range, the rocky rift,
Ethereal lawns of softest green
Sequester'd and serene,
360

And woods where Fauns and Satyrs lift
Their shaggy long-ear'd heads the boughs between.
And not in colour'd clouds descried,
But here in substance verified,
Shines forth a living mind in such a mien
As Fancy may have sometimes seen
When wandering in her youth through kingdoms wide
She dream'd a dream of Faëry Land and sigh'd
After the Faëry Queen.

VI.

Farewell! The mood is past: Fair friend, adieu!
The mood is past; but I have owed to you
A flash of light that in the abyss profound
Show'd me forgotten forms. They sleep—they sleep—
But not in death. Deep calleth unto Deep.
Farewell! a blessing treads upon the ground
You tread; your very breath a blessing breathes;
And in the regions where the lost is found
My youth and yours shall meet: That forecast sheathes
A sharp regret, and stills an idle sound.
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