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Poems

By William Allingham

Allingham, William (1824-1889)

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TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ., WHO ENCOURAGED MY FIRST LITERARY ATTEMPTS, AND HAS SINCE BEFRIENDED ME IN MATTERS OF MORE IMPORTANCE, This Volume IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

THE PILOT'S PRETTY DAUGHTER.

The harbour banks, all glittering gay,
Laughed in their turn no sad adieu
In parting from a fair Spring day
That laughingly withdrew.
Great brilliant clouds, piled round the sea
And hills, had left blue zenith free
For last lark earliest star to greet;
When, for the crowning vernal sweet,
Along my path I chanced to meet
The Pilot's pretty Daughter.

Round her gentle, happy face,
Dimple-soft and freshly fair,

Danced, with careless ocean-grace,
Locks of silk-brown hair;
Shading her cheeks or waved behind,
As lightly blew the veering wind,
Unbound, unbraided, and unlooped;
Or when to tie her shoe she stooped,
Below her chin the half-curls drooped,
And veiled the Pilot's Daughter.

Rising, she tossed them gaily back,
With gesture infantine and brief,
To fall around as soft a neck
As wilding-rose's leaf.
Her Sunday frock, of lilac shade
(That choicest tint), was neatly made,
And not too long to hide from view
The stout but no-way clumsy shoe,
And stocking's smoothly-fitting blue,
That graced the Pilot's Daughter.

With look half-timid and half-droll,
And then with slightly downcast eyes,
And blush that outward softly stole,
Unless it were the skies

Whose sunlight shifted on her cheek,
She half-turned when she heard me speak;
But 'twas a brightness all her own,
That in her firm light step was shown,
And the clear cadence of her tone;
The Pilot's lovely Daughter!

Were it my lot, there peeped a wish,
To hand a pilot's oar and sail,
Or haul the dripping moonlight mesh,
Spangled with herring-scale;
By dying stars, how sweet 'twould be,
And dawn-blow freshening the sea,
With weary, cheery pull to shore,
To gain my cottage home once more,
And meet, before I reached the door,
My darling Pilot's Daughter!

This element beside my feet
Looks like a tepid wine of gold;
One touch, one taste, dispels the cheat,
'Tis salt and bitter cold:
A fisher's hut, the scene perforce
Of narrow thoughts and manners coarse,

Coarse as the curtains that beseem
With net-festoons the smoky beam,
Would no-way lodge my favourite dream,
E'en with my Pilot's Daughter.

To the open riches of the earth,
Endowing men in their own spite,
The “Poor,” by privilege of birth,
Stand in the closest right:
But not alone the palm grows dull
With clayey delve and watery pull;
And Labour sends a sleepy class
To school, a childish school to Mass:
True love will raise, not sink,—alas!
How fades my Pilot's Daughter!

Raise her, perhaps?—But ah! I said,
'Twere wiser let such thoughts alone.
So may thy beauty, simple maid,
Be mine, yet all thy own:
Joined in my free, contented love
With these fair gathering stars above—
Before whose stedfast truth it seems

That “Rich” and “Poor” are as the beams
And shadows on the river-streams
That soon will sing thee into dreams.
So passed the Pilot's Daughter.

THE ALLEY.

How unlike your careful faces,
Lank and dark of city lane,
To the buxom country graces
Flushed with air and washed with rain!

Harmony with nature keeping,
Like a natural growth is seen
Their white cots, like snowdrops peeping
From amidst their swathes of green.

Finches, linnets, hearty thrushes,
Build and sing upon the boughs;
Flower and fruit make noontide luscious,
Mingling with the breath of cows.

In their brook-divided meadows
Blythe they ted the new-mown hay;
And the violet starry shadows
Fold in sleep their summer's day.

Your homes are but live interments
Down in narrow, noisome nooks,
Under shade of hanging garments,
By the side of filthy brooks.

Pennyworths of sunshine dully
Light green patches, not of grass;
Dust and smoke the close air sully,
Night brings nauseous stars of gas.

Other than the gay brown tinting
Of the sun on rustic cheek,
Shows your early wrinkles' printing
Sallowed in the smoky reek.

You have some few shrivelled flowers,
Moping feathered slaves a few;—
Are your feelings and your powers
Thus debased and saddened too?

Yielded we to gloom and mourning,
Here indeed were ample scope.
Yet in this faint natural yearning
Comes, I feel, a breath of hope.

Heaven's own stars, too, pale and quiet,
Looking with compassion down
O'er the city's smoke and riot,
Even this poor alley crown.

Could we turn your gaze dejected
To those truths as high and bright,
Coping life for eyes erected,
Even here not vanished quite,—

Simple soon as mountain valley,
Vice no more a nest would find
In the shelter of your alley;
Nor would Filth remain behind.

JUSTICE FOR IRELAND!

Justice for Ireland! brothers all,
Of every creed and station!
Both great and small, a private call
Hath each to save the nation.
The impulse of my patriot heart
Is to advise you truly
(Advisers have an easy part),
Be yours to act it duly.

Justice for Ireland! O ye bards
By whom her woes are bruited;
Her laurel wreath the Muse awards
To strains more deeply rooted.
For tears and rage are transient things,
And whilst on these ye 're battened,
The sky looks love, the gay bird sings,
The mountain soars unflattened.

Justice for Ireland! if ye can,
O host of writers broguish;
Nor paint each fellow-countryman
As blundering or roguish.
Think less of oddities and rags,
And more of human-nature;
And 'stead of party-words and flags,
March under something greater.

Justice for Ireland! O ye priests,
Both Protestant and Roman;
Let each observe his fasts and feasts,
But try to anger no man.
Religion's rind is little worth,
The milk is in the kernel;
All love is of celestial birth,
All hatred, of infernal.

Justice for Ireland! echoing band
Of empty agitators;
Who scorn each noiseless busy hand,
And canonise the praters.
Well may shrewd foes in secret scoff,
Nor think your mouths of corking;

While so much steam is blowing off,
There 's little left for working.

Justice for Ireland! Members dear,
Be honest not so rarely;
And blush, ye Landlords, praise to hear,
For treating tenants fairly.
Justice for Ireland! poorer man,
Your evil passions bridle;
And to assist you, try the plan
Of ne'er by choice being idle.

Justice for Ireland! brothers all,
Of every creed and station;
And other counsel if ye call,
For saving of the nation—
This maxim in the meantime prize,
Nor think its plainness humbling,
Let everyone beware of lies,
And laziness, and grumbling.

A HALLOW-EVE CHANT.

The Autumn's elfin gold turns pale,
And twilight closes fast and chill,
And dirge-like winds with lengthening wail
Moan low, or rise with whistle shrill.
In winter's night the year declines,
A night that gaily we receive,
For thick with happy stars it shines,—
Its Hesper, Hallow-eve!
Fresh-dawning Hallow-eve!
Sweet new-old Hallow-eve!
For what thou wert, for what thou art,
Twice-welcome, Hallow-eve!

It freezes, but no frost on earth
The seasons of the soul can blight;
Here bloom at once a Spring of mirth,
A Summer-tide of joy to-night.

Though days grow short, this Fire 's a sun
That will not set without our leave;
Our hearts are flowering every one
In the beams of Hallow-eve!
Bright-blazing Hallow-eve!
Warm-glowing Hallow-eve!
Far sweeter flowers than April's dowers
Are these of Hallow-eve!

'Tis Autumn too; who can may snatch
The golden fruit from bough or pail;
But Fire and Water closely watch
The treasure, as in fairy tale.
And sure this is a fairy hour,
That lets the spirit-world retrieve
A little while its ancient power,
In right of Hallow-eve!
Mysterious Hallow-eve!
Fantastic Hallow-eve!
To hall and hob our childhood's throb
Returns with Hallow-eve!

Heav'n's stars were used for lamps of old
The future's mantling mist to clear;

By earth-stars are our fortunes told,
The Nuts in constellation here.
Glimpse of the patterns, gay or dull,
From which the Fatal Spinsters weave
Our life-threads for their Berlin-wool,
Is caught from Hallow-eve!
Love-sibyl, Hallow-eve!
Heart-prophet, Hallow-eve!
A nut can hold the story told
All through by Hallow-eve!

Now love in cabbage-stalk can read
Papyrus-wealth of hidden lore;
Or raise a crop from garden-seed,
Like that from dragons' teeth of yore.
To-night before the wasted fire
A phantom turns the drying sleeve,—
The treasured thought, the heart's desire,
Takes shape from Hallow-eve!
Fair-shadowing Hallow-eve!
Gay-threatening Hallow-eve!
A guardian sprite, a witch in white,
Is gentle Hallow-eve!

Here are no eyes to frown us grave,
No tongues to creak in rusty talk;
And cares take flight before our stave,
Like goblins from the crow of cock.
What grim and shadowy spectre hosts
Do men as substances receive?—
To-night we supersede such ghosts
By those of Hallow-eve!
Our laughing Hallow-eve!
Our loving Hallow-eve!
Till love and mirth have fled from earth,
Our thrice-dear Hallow-eve!

THE TRIUMPH.

(A FUNERAL FANCY)

The sad array wound slowly along the road;
The dusky feathers nodding on the bier
Moved in the solemn distance; spreading near,
The dark and sluggish stream of mourners flowed,
Oft pausing, with slow resumption of the load
Of lazy motion; through the tranquil, clear,
Thin morning air, a sound upon the ear,
Monotonous of feet and wheels abode.
A tyrant's triumph I beheld, I thought;
On that plumed car, unseen of mortal eye
Enthroned; and the slain victim that did lie
Beneath his feet, on those his vassals brought
Dumb fear—each knowing it might be his lot
Next to adorn that awful pageantry.

EVENING.

(A CLOSE VIEW.)

Star-shadows dot our tiny lake,
And, sparkling in between
The dusky fringe the larches make,
Soft stars themselves are seen;
Our boat and we, not half awake,
Go dreaming down the pond,
Whilst slowly calls the Rail, “Crake-crake,”
From meadow-flats beyond.

The happy, circling, bounded view
Embraces us with home;
But up, through heaven's star-budding blue,
Our souls are free to roam;
Whence for this veil of scented dew
That makes the earth so sweet,
A touch of astral brightness too,
A peace—that is complete.

THE MUSIC-MASTER.

(A LOVE STORY.)

I. PART I.

I

Music and Love,—two names of sweet accord,
The two white wings of super-mortal joy!
Music, that tells of Heaven without a word,
And flows through sense unstained with its alloy;
Love, that at last a worshipper doth win us
To the divinity we feel within us.

II

Love, that is charged with far a higher task;
Through wicket of a single soul to show
An upward path, until the pilgrim bask
In that broad beam, diffused through all below,
Where the transmitted prismal rays unite
In pure, unbounded, universal light.

III

Music and Love! Would I had power to blend
These two to beautify a simple tale,
So charm a gentle audience to attend,
About a village in an Irish dale,
Where once I lived, in those uncareful years,
Upon whose sunshine we look back through tears.

IV

Ireland, the Cinderella of the three
Called Sister Kingdoms, darkened with the stains
Of long and sore maltreatment though she be,
Amidst her ashes a sweet voice retains:
And our old village was as deep imbued
With music as a mavis-peopled wood.

V

When evening fell upon the long-drawn street,
And brother-fields, reposing hand in hand,
Unlike where feverish cities scorn to greet
Atoning dusk that quiets all the land,
'T was my amusement to go strolling by
Houses and cottages, a friendly spy.

VI

In one place would a fiddle deftly glide
Through jovial mazes of a jig or reel;
Or ever deepen down with plaintive slide,
Like passion forced to tremble, bend and kneel;
Or rise like bitter sorrow half subdued,
And gently buoyant to a higher mood.

VII

Blent with the roar of bellows and of flame,
Perchance the reed-voice of a clarionet
From forge's open, ruddy shutter came;
Or round some hearth a silent ring was set,
Where the low flute with plaintive quivering ran on
Through “Colleen Dhas,” or “Hawk of Ballyshannon.”

VIII

And not the least delightful glimpse, o' nights,
Would be, a group of girls at needlework,
Placed round a candle throwing soft half-lights
On the contrasted faces, and the dark
And fair-haired heads, a bunch of human flowers,—
Whilst some old ditty helped to wile the hours.

IX

Pianoforte's sound from curtained pane
Would join the lofty to the lowly roof,
In the sweet links of one harmonious chain;
And often down the street some Glee's old woof,
“Hope of my heart”—“Ye shepherds”—“Lightly tread,”
Would stay my steps, or lull me in my bed.

X

Claude was our village music-master's name.
His little foreign mother, pale and sad,
Only to make him ours by birth-right came,
And call him Claude,—an alien grave she had,
Beneath the ivy's everlasting pall,
That hangs upon the ruined abbey-wall.

XI

Nature for once a father's hope outwent
In gifts that favoured his peculiar prayer:
And all the widower's fond desires were bent
In Claude his own successor to prepare;
Commencing from that moment he could win
A baby-crow with tinkling triangle's din.

XII

And to the boy it did not come amiss,
To live and labour in the new Art-world.
Easy and native he became in this;
And gladly every green thought-tendril curled
Around the trelliage, shaped itself thereby,
And on that ladder mounted to the sky.

XIII

To time and tune his young sensations swayed.
He heard a minor in the wind at night
To what it all day long had boldly played;
The thunder roared like bands before the might
Of marching armies; in a summer calm
The chanting waters fell into a psalm.

XIV

The chapel organ-loft, his father's seat,
Was to the child an earthly paradise;
And that celestial one, that used to greet
His infant dreams, could take no other guise
Than green enchanting curtains and gold pipes,
And angels of whom quire-girls were the types.

XV

For chosen shrewdly from the congregation,
His father's training had sufficed to bring
Some sweet wild voices to subordination
To simple rules of chant; and these would sing
So sweetly with the little instrument,
That heavenward scarce more sister music went.

XVI

Poor girls in chief; here, one who had her nest
Like mountain throstle, 'mong the gay gold furze,
As honey-voiced; there, one compelled to rest
Like finch in cage, whose tones not equalled hers,
When what she hummed at work all through the week
Rose up in Sabbath chorus, proud and meek.

XVII

Month after month, young Claude was used to sit
Beside his father; till there came at length
The long-expected day, that found him fit
To have committed to his boyish strength
Those magic keys, which open wide the gates
Of a new world, soft-swayed by fairy fates.

XVIII

Free by these portals to adventure forth
Through Music-land, where half dissolves the veil
That blinds an unknown region from our earth,
To lustrous sheen or silver vapours pale:
Unchecked through wide and wëird realms to travel,
And many a haunted pathway to unravel.

XIX

Oft, when the river winding through the plain,
And distant fields were shaded, fold on fold,
With the slow dusk, and on the purpling pane
Soft twilight barred with crimson and with gold
Lent to the simple little house of prayer
A richly solemn, a cathedral air;

XX

His symphonies, to suit the dying close,
Suffused the calm with tones too tender-sweet
For tear-refusal; least of all by those
Who in the dew were lingering to complete
Their pious “Paters,” kneeling by a grave;
To whom a heavenly comforting it gave.

XXI

So went the years. Day after quiet day
Bathing our village, in the great time-floods
Set like an islet with a hawthorn grey,
Where circling seasons bring a share of buds,
Nests, blossoms, scarlet fruit; and, in their turn,
Of falling leaves and broken twigs forlorn.

XXII

So went the years, that never may abide.
How boy to manhood, manly prime to age,
With ceaseless, unsuspected motion slide!
His father, wearying in his pilgrimage,
Has long resign'd to Claude the master's place,
A youthful master, and boy-smooth in face.

XXIII

But Claude still saves his hour of evening leisure:
And now, the Spring upon the emerald hills
Dancing with flying clouds, how keen his pleasure,
Plunged in deep glens, or tracking upland rills,
Till night's first star recall him from his roaming,
To breathe his gathered secrets to the gloaming.

XXIV

Spring was around him, and within him too.
Delightful time! when life without a spur
Bounds gaily forward, and the heart is new
As the green wand fresh budded on a fir;
And Nature, into jocund chorus waking,
Tempts each young voice to join her merry-making.

XXV

Many a clear echo gave he to the Spring,
When from his fingers streamed electric power,
In spirit-troops of evanescent wing,
And sunshine glimpsing through the April shower,
And clouds, and delicate glories, and the bound
Of yellow sky came melting into sound.

XXVI

The ear receives in common with the eye,
One beauty, flowing through a different gate;
Melody is its form, and harmony
Its hue; the arts so interpenetrate,
And all reciprocally sympathise,
For all at first from one foundation rise.

XXVII

Nature is one, and Art is also one,—
The Sun of Nature, and the Moon of Art;
And he who at the centre has begun,
Shall lifefully perform his single part;
Whilst he who blindly chains himself to this
In surface-work, the part shall also miss.

XXVIII

Yet sometimes in Claude's playing came a tone,
It never caught upon the April earth,
A sighing music, scarcely deemed his own,
That rose uncalled, and sounded like the birth
Of pensive longing, and of soft despair,
Of novel promise veiled with doubt and care.

XXIX

Abode a dim anxiety, and threw
Upon his thoughts its shadow from behind;
That he was ever as in search, he knew,
But never what it was he hoped to find;
Companions pained him, and whene'er he could,
He soothed himself with friendliest solitude.

XXX

For he was in that crisis of the soul
When many men grow weak, and some grow strong;
When morning mists begin to rise and roll,
Sweet poison stings the poet into song,
Love to the lover shows the life of life,
The heart's white shield is summoned into strife.

XXXI

Duly each lengthening evening served to call
His footsteps to the frank, untroubled fields;
Ev'n though the gulphy sky with frequent fall
Lightened its mass of clouds, and all the bields
And boughs were dripping wet; and day by day
One constant path now seemed to be his way.

XXXII

Two pupils lived upon the river side,
At Ivycot,—just where a sudden gush
Of foamy tumbling water, then a wide
And lakelike mirror sundered, brimming flush,
The wooded shores; and there he also found
His golden leisure's best enchanted ground.

XXXIII

It was a humble home, compact and neat
As oriole's nest. A gentle woman, she
Who chose and beautified the green retreat,
Where she was doomed so short a time to be,
Ere summoned to a stiller place of rest;
Spending her last breath in a dear behest.

XXXIV

That was for her two daughters: she had wed
A plain, rough husband, though a kind and true;
And “Dearest Bernard,” from her dying bed
She whispered, “Promise me you'll try to do
For Ann and Milly what was at my heart,
If God had spared me to perform my part.”

XXXV

As well as his not ample means allowed,
Or as the neighbouring village could supply,
The father kept his promise, and was proud
To see the girls grow up beneath his eye,
Two ladies in their culture and their mien;
Though with a difference easy to be seen.

XXXVI

A spirit unrefined the elder had,
An envious eye, a tongue of petty scorn.
That women these may own—how true! how sad!
And these, though Ann had been a countess born,
Had stamped her meaner to the dullest sight,
As is a yellow lily than a white.

XXXVII

White lily,—Milly,—darling little girl!
I think I see as once I saw her stand;
Her light hair waving in a single curl
Behind her ear,—a kid licking her hand;
Her fair young face with health and racing warm,
And loose frock blown about her slender form.

XXXVIII

The dizzy lark, a dot on the white cloud,
That sprinkles music to the April breeze,
Was not more gay than Milly's lightsome mood;
The gentle bird that starry twilight sees
Cradled among the braird in closest bower,
Was not more quiet than her quiet hour.

XXXIX

Knowledge flowed softly to her open mind,
And made it rich with colour and perfume,
As flowers imbibe the sun; she seemed to find
Her thoughts and acts unconsciously assume
A tone like Nature's heiress, one endowed
With harebell, leaf, and star, and rosy cloud.

XL

Not seldom Claude without intention used
His customary time to overstay
With her, whose music was a power educed
From inner treasures, opening day by day;
Not seldom, whilst with finest skill he taught,
It seemed he took away more than he brought.

XLI

And never did her fair face look more fair
Than when the sacred glow of harmonies
Lighted it up, as though her spirit were
A mild blue heav'n out-beaming at her eyes,
As with Claude's voice her round contralto rose
In those sweet psalm-tunes which they often chose.

XLII

She was a child in years when he began
His visits; but her mind was further grown.
Woman more childhood ever keeps than man,
In her soft voice and cheek—nor these alone;
And up the sky with no intense revealing
May the great dawn of womanhood come stealing.

XLIII

The faded moon of childhood, trembling white,
Now lingers low in her soul's flushing heaven,
As wooed in a farewell; the mounting light
Transfuses all the air with subtle leaven;
And shadowy mountain-peaks begin to show
Their unsuspected paths amid the glow.

XLIV

Her silky locks have ripened into brown,
Her soft blue eyes grown deeper and more shy;
And lightly on her lifted head the crown
Of queenly maidenhood sits meek and high;
And in the rich reluctance of her voice
A seraph seems too thoughtful to rejoice.

XLV

Few her companions are, and few her books;
And in a ruined convent's circling shade,
The very loveliest of river-nooks,
Where trailing birch, fit bower for gentle maid,
And feathered fir-tree half shut out the stream,
She often sits alone to read or dream.

XLVI

Thence once or twice she thinks that she espies
Claude's fleeting figure on the other shore;
But ever past the charmèd ground he hies,
And where the rapids round an angle roar
Through verdured crags, shelters his beating heart;
Child-like intent to seek yet stay apart.

XLVII

Milly resumes her favourite reverie
About “a friend,” “a real friend, to love;”
But finds her broken thought is apt to flee
To what seem other subjects: slowly move
The days, and counted days move ever slowest:
Milly!—how long ere thine own heart thou knowest?

XLVIII

Sooner than Claude knows his. His path-side birds
Are scarcely more unconscious or more shrinking.
Yet would he tell his love in simple words,
Did love stand clearly in his simple thinking;
Too high that grand discovery for one
Who thinks that life with him is scarce begun.

XLIX

All but himself seem wise and busy men;
He feels as though despised, and justly too,
Or only borne with;—could he venture then
To deem this rich inheritance his due?
Slowly the fine and tender soul discerns
Its rareness, and its noble station learns.

L

And so upon a royal eventide,
When the ripe month sets glowing earth and air,
And lovely Summer by a current side
Twines amber honeysuckles in her hair,
Our Claude and Milly meet by trembling chance,
And side by side are moving, as in trance.

LI

It is a path branch-curtained and moss-grown,
From which at intervals the loiterer sees,
Through headland green and ivied rock borne down,
The white flood flashing swift behind the trees.
How oft they stop, how long, they nothing know,
Nor how the pulses of the evening go.

LII

A level pond, adorned with softest shadows
Of groves and fissured cliffs and evening sky,
And rural domes of hay, where sunny meadows
Slope to embrace its margin peacefully,
The slumb'ring river to the rapid draws;
And here, upon a grassy jut, they pause.

LIII

How shy a strength is Love's, that so much fears
Its darling secret to itself to own!
Their rapt, illimitable mood appears
To each of them to be enjoyed alone;
Exalted high above all range of hope
By the pure soul's eternity of scope.

LIV

Yet in each heart a prophecy there breathes,
Of how in future hours this evening's phantom,
Arrayed in fairer hues than sunlight weaves
For Nature's richest robe, may rise to haunt them.
The landscape wavers from the sight of each;
And full their bosoms swell, too full for speech.

LV

Is it a dream? The countless happy stars
Stand silently into the deepening blue;
In slow procession all the molten bars
Of cloud move down; the air is dim with dew;
Eve scatters roses on the shroud of Day,
And the old world seems far withdrawn away.

LVI

With good-night kiss the zephyr, warm with sleep,
Gains its soft cradle in a bed of trees,
Where river-chimes aye tolling sweet and deep
Make lullaby; and all field-scents that please
The Summer, float into its veil of gloom
Dream-interwoven in a viewless loom.

LVII

Clothed with an earnest paleness, not a blush,
And with the angel gravity of love,
Each lover's face amid the twilight hush
Is like a saint's whose thoughts are all above
In voiceless gratitude for heavenly boon;
And o'er them for a halo comes the moon.

LVIII

Thus through the leaves and through the gloaming croft
They linger homeward. Flowers around their feet
Bless them, and in the firmament aloft
Night's silent ardours. And an hour too fleet,
Though like whole years of bliss without a blot,
Has drawn them to the porch of Ivycot.—

LIX

Unfolding love full many a change hath lent
To lovers' bearing, flushed and wanned by turns;
In hearts so simple and so innocent
The sacred flame with steady whiteness burns.
They do not shrink, hereafter, but the more
Seek converse; sweeter, graver than before.

LX

One theme at last preferred to every other,
They joy to talk of that mysterious land
Where each enshrines the image of a mother,
Intentest watcher in the guardian band;
And scope to high and tender thought is given,
All unembarrassed, in the air of Heaven.

LXI

Thus sometimes when a hymn has died away
With Palestrina's music of full chords,
And at the trellised window loiter they,
Deferring their good-night with golden words,
Almost they see, without a throb of fear,
Spirits in the blue twilight standing near.

LXII

But day by day, and week by week pass by,
And still the floating Cupid spreads his plume,
Poised on the verge of blissful certainty,
While ev'n a look may call him to assume
The purple ease of his expectant throne,
And claim two loyal subjects for his own.

LXIII

Wondrous, that first full, mutual look of love,
Coming ere either looker is aware;
Unbounded trust, a tenderness above
All tenderness, a blessing in a prayer,
Music, and dreams, and life, and joy, and might,
Soft-swimming in a single beam of light!

LXIV

Oh, when shall fly this talismanic glance,
Which melts like lightning every bolt of steel,
Displays the weighty riddle all at once
That sun and moon were powerless to reveal?
Hath Time the moment treasured when these two
Shall blend their souls in one, like drops of dew?

LXV

Claude came one evening earlier than his hour,
Distrustful of the oft-consulted clock;
And now he waits alone until his flower,
Who keeps true time as one of Flora's flock
Shepherded by the even-star, shall fold
Her loveliness for soft home-leaves to hold.

LXVI

Nor does he think it long. Familiar-dear,—
A sanctity pervades the silent room.
It is the Autumn season of the year;
And mystic softness and love-weighty gloom
Gather with twilight. In a dream he lays
His hand on the piano—dreaming plays.

LXVII

And low and broken sounds at first are stealing
Into the shaded stillness; trembling low
And broken tearfully; opprest with feeling
That knoweth not, and is afraid to know,
The mystery of its life;—but soon do words
Begin to measure with more passionate chords.

LXVIII

And all that has been shadowing through his brain,
A dim existence waiting to be born,—
Amid the inspiration of a strain
Half full of ecstasy and half forlorn,
Flows into eager rapture of expression,
And love at last has gained its free confession.

LXIX

Angel of Music! when our finest speech
Is all too coarse to give the heart relief,
The inmost fountains lie within thy reach,
Soother of every joy and every grief;
And to the creeping words thou lendest wings
On which aloft the 'franchised spirit springs!

LXX

Claude leaves the earth below him; fade and lapse
All worldly circumstance of place and time;
A mist-like music, never his, enwraps
And bears him toward some destiny sublime.
The notes are smothered in his tingling ears,
His head swims, and his cheeks are wet with tears.

LXXI

He cannot overhear (O might it be!)
This stifled sobbing at the open door,
Where Milly stands arrested tremblingly
By that which in an instant tells her more
Than all the dumb months mused of: tells it plain
To joy that cannot comprehend its gain.

LXXII

One moment, and they shall be face to face;
Free in the gift of this great confidence,—
Wrapt in the throbbing calm of its embrace;
No more to disunite their spirits thence.
The myrtle crown half stoops to either brow,—
But ah! what alien voice disturbs them now?

LXXIII

Her sister comes. And Milly turns away;
Hurriedly bearing to some quiet spot
Her tears and her full heart, longing to lay
On a dim pillow cheeks so moist and hot:—
The midnight stars between her curtains gleam,
And Milly sleeps, and dreams a happy dream.

LXXIV

Oh, dream, poor child, beneath the midnight stars!
Lie slumbering far into the yellow dawn!
The shadow creeps apace; the storm that mars
The lily even now is stealing on.
All has been long fulfilled: yet could I weep
At thought of thee so quietly asleep!

LXXV

Most cruel Nature, so untouched, so hard,
The while thy children shake with joy or pain;
Thou wilt not forward Love, nor Death retard
One finger-push for mortals' dearest gain!
Claude, through the summer night, serenely spread,
Strays calmly home, and finds his father—dead.

LXXVI

Thereafter follow many heavy days,
Like wet clouds moving through a sullen sky.
A great, unlooked-for change the mind dismays,
And smites its world with instability;
Its rocks seem quaking, towers and treasures vain,
Peace foolish, Joy disgusting, Hope insane.

LXXVII

And Ivycot itself, that image dear,
Returns to Claude's mind like its own pale ghost,
In melancholy garments, drenched and sere,
Its light, its colour, and its music lost.
Wanting one token sure to lean upon,
(How nearly gained!) his dream of joy is gone.

LXXVIII

His uncle, from beyond th'Atlantic wave
By hap a visitor at this sad season,
Finding him now of such a mood the slave,
Afresh impels him, and with weighty reason,
To his new-chosen country in the West.
And Claude at length gives way to his request.

LXXIX

Brief is the parting scene, and frosty dumb.
The unlike sisters stand alike unmoved;
For Milly's soul is wildered, weak, and numb;
That dead and lost which seemed so dearly proved.
While thought and speech she struggles to recover,
Her hand is prest—and he is gone for ever.

LXXX

Time speeds: on an October afternoon,
Across the well-known view he looks his last:
The valley clothed with peace and fruitful boon,
The chapel where such happy hours were passed,
With rainbow foliage massing round its eaves,
And windows all a-glitter through the leaves.

LXXXI

The cottage-smokes, the river;—gaze no more,
Sad heart!—although thou canst not, wouldst not shun
The visions future years will oft restore;
Whereon the light of many a summer sun,
The stars of many a winter night, shall be
Mingled in one strange, sighing memory.

END OF PART I.

PART II.

I

The shadow Death o'er Time's broad dial creeps
With never-halting pace from mark to mark,
Blotting the sun; and as it coldly sweeps,
Each living symbol melts into the dark,
And changes to the name of what it was;
And earth's progression's indexed by its loss.

II

The Spring unfolding into Summer cheer,
The Summer dreaming into Autumn glow,
The Autumn yellowing with the wasted year
To Winter, and the Winter stealing slow
To Spring again, in smoothest order bound,
Have five times trod their planet circle round.

III

See once again our village; with its street
Lazied in dusty sunshine. All around
Is silence, save a tone for slumber meet,
The spinning-wheel's unbroken whirring sound
From cottage door, where basking on his side
The dog lolls motionless and drowsy-eyed.

IV

Each hollyhock within its little wall
Sleeps in the richness of its crusted blooms;
Up the hot glass the sluggish blue flies crawl;
The heavy bee is humming into rooms
Through open window, like a sturdy rover,
Bringing with him warm scents of thyme and clover.

V

From little cottage-gardens you almost
Smell the fruit ripening on the sultry air;
Opprest to silence, every bird is lost
In eave and hedgerow; save that here and there
With twitter swift, the sole unquiet thing,
Shoots the dark lightning of a swallow's wing.

VI

Yet in this hour of sunny peacefulness,
One is there whom its influence little calms;
One who now leans in agony to press
His throbbing forehead with his throbbing palms,
Now paces quickly up and down within
The narrow parlour of the village inn.

VII

He thought he could have tranquilly beheld
The scene again. He thought his steadfast grief,
Spread level in his soul, could not have swelled
To find once more a passionate relief.
Three years, they now seem hours, have sighed their breath
Since when he heard the tidings of her death.

VIII

Last evening in the latest dusk he came,
A holy pilgrim from a distant land;
And many an object of familiar name,
As at the wave of a miraculous wand,
Rose round his steps; his bed-room window showed
His small white birth-place just across the road.

IX

And yet that room afforded poor repose;
For crowding images perplexed his mind.
Often he sighed, and turned, and sometimes rose
To bathe his forehead in the cool night wind,
And vaguely watch the gradual curtain grey
Uplifting from the glowing stage of day.

X

The long bright morning hours have shifted slow,
When by the hedge he rounds the old green turn,
Wasted by summer of its sweet may-snow,
And through the chapel-gate. His heart forlorn
Draws strength and comfort from the pitying shrine,
Whereat he bows with reverential sign.

XI

Behind the chapel, on a sloping hill,
Circling the ancient abbey's ivied walls,
The graveyard sleeps. A little gurgling rill
Poured through a corner of the ruin, falls
Into a dusky-watered pond, that lags
With lazy eddies 'mid its yellow flags.

XII

Across this pool, the hollow banks enfold
An orchard overrun with rankest grass,
And gnarled and mossy apple-trees, as old
As th'oldest graves almost; and thither pass
The smooth-worn stepping-stones that give their aid
To many a labourer and milking-maid.

XIII

And not unfrequently to rustic bound
On a more solemn errand:—who can see
A kneeler in that melancholy ground,
With aught but gentleness and sympathy,
And feeling of that life in every prayer,
In which the world of matter has no share?

XIV

But resting in the sunshine very lone
Is now each hammock green and wooden cross;
And save the rillet in its cup of stone
That poppling falls, and whispers through the moss
Down to the quiet pool, no sound is near
To break the stillness to Claude's mournful ear.

XV

The writhen elder spreads its creamy bloom;
The thicket-tangling, tenderest briar-rose,
Kisses to air its exquisite perfume
In shy luxuriance; leaning fox-glove glows
With elvish purple;—nor all vainly meet
The eye which unobserved they seem to greet.

XVI

Under the abbey-wall he winds his way,
And passes through a doorway arching deep,
To where no roof excludes the common day;
Though some few tombs in corner shadow sleep
Beneath the matted roof the ivy weaves
With its grey fibres and its varnished leaves.

XVII

First hither comes, in piety of heart,
Over his mother's,—father's grave to bend,
The gentle exile. Stand we far apart,
Whilst his sincere and humble prayers ascend,
As all that are sincere and humble must,
To that Great Soul which lives within our dust.

XVIII

And much more shall we tremble to intrude,
When, rising slow, he seeks another spot,
Where lies enwrapped in grassy solitude,
The grave of “Mary D., of Ivycot;”
And on the stone these added words are seen,
“Also, her daughter Milly, aged eighteen.”

XIX

Profound the moanless aching of the breast,
When weary life is like a grey dull eve
All wrung of colour, withering, and waste
Around the prostrate soul, too weak to grieve.
Less awful far the outcry passionate,
With which an anguished strength accuses fate.

XX

Nor hope, nor wish these mysteries to disperse,
By words that may by human tongue be spoken;
It were a shallow toy, this Universe,
If so its inmost casket could be broken.
Sorrow and pain, as well as hope and love,
Stretch out of sight into the heavens above.

XXI

Yet oh! the cruel coldness of the grave,
The memory of the too, too happy past,
The thought which is the tyrant and the slave,
The sudden sense that drives the soul aghast,
The drowning horror, and the speechless strife,
That cannot sink to death nor rise to life!

XXII

Who, if he could, would paint a grief like this—
The gloomy torturing caverns open lay,
Whence after more than Death's worst bitterness
The toiling spirit struggles back to day,
And fainting lies beneath a careless sun,
Whose succour is not to be begged, but won?—

XXIII

Now slowly lifting up his pallid face,
Claude grew aware that he was not alone.
Amid the silence of the sacred place
Another form was stooping o'er the stone;
A grey-haired woman's. When she met his eyes
She shrieked aloud in her extreme surprise.

XXIV

“The Holy Mother keep us day and night!
Is it himself then? Is it Master Claude?
I little thought I'd ever see this sight!
Warm from the heart I offer up to God
My praises for the answer he has sent
To all my prayers; for now I'll die content!”

XXV

Then, as if talking to herself, she said,
“I nursed her when she was a little child.
I smoothed the pillow of her dying bed.
And just the smile that long ago she smiled
When in her cradle fast asleep she lay,
Was on her features when she passed away.

XXVI

“'Twas in the days of March,” she said again.
“And so it is the sweetest blossom dies,
The wrinkled leaf hangs on, though falling fain.
I thought your hand would close my poor old eyes;
And not that I'd be sitting in the sun
Beside your grave,—the Lord's good will be done!”

XXVII

Thus incoherently the woman spoke,
With many interjections full of woe;
And wrapping herself up within her cloak
Began to rock her body to and fro;
And moaning softly, seemed to lose all sense
Of outward life in memories so intense.

XXVIII

Then Claude burst through his silence, and exclaimed
With the most poignant earnestness of tone,
“O nurse, I loved her!—though I never named
The name of love to her, or any one.
'Tis to her grave here—” He could say no more
But these few words a load of meaning bore.

XXIX

Beside the tombstone mute they both remained.
At last the woman rose, and coming near,
Said with a voice that seemed to have regained
A tremulous calm, “Then you must surely hear
The whole from first to last, cushla-ma-chree;
For God has brought together you and me.”

XXX

And there she told him all the moving tale,
Broken with many tears and sobs and sighs;
How gentle Milly's health began to fail;
How a sad sweetness grew within her eyes
And trembled on her little mouth so meek,
And flushed across her pale and patient cheek.

XXXI

And how about this time her sister Ann
“Entered Religion,” and her father's sight
Was very slow the stealing change to scan
In Milly's face, form, voice, and movement light;
Until the sad conviction flew at last,
And with a barb into his bosom passed.

XXXII

Then, with most anxious haste, her dear old nurse
Was sent for to become her nurse again;
But still the pretty one grew worse and worse.
For with a gradual lapse, though free of pain,
And changes slow, that fond eyes would not see,
Crept on the hopeful, hopeless malady.

XXXIII

Spring came, and brought no gift of life to her,
Of all it lavished in the fields and woods.
Yet she was cheered when birds began to stir
About the shrubbery, and the pale gold buds
Burst on the sallows, and with hearty toil
The ploughing teams upturned the sluggish soil.

XXXIV

“'Twas on a cold March evening, well I mind,”
The nurse went on, “we sat and watched together
The long grey sky; and then the sun behind
The clouds shone down, though not like summer weather,
On the hills far away. I can't tell why,
But of a sudden I began to cry.

XXXV

“I dried my tears before I turned to her,
But then I saw that her eyes too were wet,
And pale her face, and calm without a stir;
Whilst on the lighted hills her look was set,
Where strange beyond the cold dark fields they lay,
As if her thoughts, too, journeyed far away.

XXXVI

“After a while she asked me to unlock
A drawer, and bring a little parcel out.
I knew it was of it she wished to talk,
But long she held it in her hand in doubt;
And whilst she strove, there came a blush and spread
Her face and neck with a too passing red.

XXXVII

“At last she put her other hand in mine;
‘Dear nurse,’ she said, ‘I'm sure I need not ask
Your promise to fulfil what I design
To make my last request,—'tis no great task.
You knew young Master Claude’ (and in her speech
She shook) ‘that used to come here once to teach?’

XXXVIII

“I said I knew you well; and she went on,
‘Then listen: if you ever see him more,
And he should speak of days are past and gone,
And of his pupils and his friends of yore—
Should ask you questions—knowing what you've been
To me,—Oh! could I tell you what I mean!’

XXXIX

“But, sir, I understood her meaning well,
Not from her words so much as from her eyes.
I saw it all; my heart began to swell,
I took her in my arms with many sighs
And murmurs, for I had no tongue to speak,
And then I cried as if my heart would break.

XL

“She saw I knew her mind; and bade me give
Into your hand, if things should so befall,
The parcel. Else, as long as I should live
It was to be a secret kept from all,
And then, in case you never more returned,
When my last hour drew near, was to be burned.

XLI

“I promised to observe her wishes duly;
But said I hoped in God that she would still
Live many years beyond myself. And truly
While she was speaking, like a miracle
Her countenance lost every sickly trace.
Ah, dear! 'twas setting light was in her face!

XLII

“After this she was tired and went to bed,
And I sat watching by her until dark,
And then I lit her lamp, and round her head
Let down the curtains. 'Twas my glad remark
How softly she was breathing, and my mind
Was full of hope and comfort,—we're so blind!

XLIII

“The night wore on, and I had fallen asleep,
When about three o'clock I heard a noise
And leaped up quickly. In the silence deep
There she lay praying with a calm weak voice,
Still sweet, although it did not sound the same;
And in that prayer I surely heard your name.

XLIV

“Sweet Heaven! we scarce had time to fetch the priest!
How sadly through the shutters of that room
Crept in the blessed daylight from the east
To us that sat there weeping in the gloom,
And touched the close-shut eyes and peaceful brow,
But brought no fear of her being restless now!

XLV

“The wake was quiet. Noiseless went the hours
Where she was lying stretched so still and white;
And near the bed, a glass with some Spring flowers
From her own little garden. Day and night
I watched, until they took my lamb away,
The child here by the mother's side to lay.

XLVI

“The holy angels make your bed, my dear!
But little call have we to pray for you:
Pray you for him that's left behind you here,
To have his heart consoled with heavenly dew!
And pray too for your poor old nurse, asthore;
Your own true mother scarce could love you more!”

XLVII

Slow were their steps among the crowded graves,
Over the stile and up the chapel walk,
Where stood the poplars with their silvery leaves,
Set motionless on every timid stalk.
The air in one hot calm appeared to lie,
And thunder muttered in the heavy sky.

XLVIII

Along the street was heard the laughing sound
Of boys at play, who knew no thought of death;
Slow silent-stepping cows to milking bound,
Lifting their heads, lowed with moist clover breath;
The girls stood knitting at the doors, and cast
A look upon our stranger as he passed.

XLIX

Scarce had the mourners time a roof to gain,
When with electric glare and thunder-crash,
Heavy and straight and fierce came down the rain,
Soaking the white road with its sudden plash,
Driving all folk within doors at a race,
And making every kennel gush apace.

L

The storm withdrew as quickly as it came,
And through the broken clouds a brilliant ray
Glowed o'er the dripping earth in yellow flame,
And flushed the village panes with parting day.
Sudden and full that swimming lustre shone
Into the room where Claude sat, all alone.

LI

The door is locked and on the table lies
The open parcel. Long he wanted strength
To trust its secrets to his feverish eyes;
But hurriedly he has disclosed at length
A note; a case; and folded with them there,
A silky ringlet from her wealth of hair.

LII

The case holds Milly's portrait—her reflection—
With the small mouth as though about to speak,
The forehead white, the eyes of calm affection,
Even the pretty seam in the soft cheek.
Sweet art! that fixes in eternal prime
The shadow of a moment snatched from Time.

LIII

The note ran thus, “Dear Claude, so near my death,
I feel that like a Spirit's words are these,
In which I say, that I have perfect faith
In your true love for me,—as God, who sees
The secrets of all hearts, can see in mine
That fondest truth which sends this feeble sign.

LIV

“I do not think that He will take away,
Even in Heaven, this precious earthly love;
Surely he sends its pure and happy ray
Down as a message from the world above.
Perhaps it is the full light drawing near
Which makes the doubting Past at length so clear.

LV

“We might have been so happy!—But His will
Said no, who orders all things for the best.
Oh, may his power into your soul instil
A peace like this of which I am possessed!
And may he bless you, love, for evermore,
And guide you safely to his Heavenly shore!”

LVI

That night Claude's pillow bore a restless head;
Aching with memories. His mind retraced
The jewels and the pearls, like flower-leaves shed,
That strewed the by-gone hours with priceless waste;
Whose images beneath a plumbless tide
The searching beam disclosed and magnified.

LVII

Thus clearly into his remembrance strayed,
How once he found (O time that once hath been!)
Amongst his wild flowers on the table laid,
A lovely dark carnation he had seen
In Milly's belt; and how he little guessed
What meaning on its crimson leaves might rest.

LVIII

Once more, the centre of the summer eve,
She lingered by the stream. Once more she sung,
With face all melody; he could believe
Th'appealing tones in distant echoes rung.
He saw her stretched in a most silent place,
With the calm light of prayer upon her face.

LXIX

And all night long the water-drops he heard
Vary their talk of chiming syllables,
Dripping into the butt; and in the yard
The ducks gabbling at daylight: and the spells
Of misty sense recalled a childish illness
When the same noises broke the watching stillness.

LX

Almost he hoped that he had sadly dreamed,
And all the interval was but a shade.
But now the slow dawn through his window gleamed,
And whilst in real slumber he was laid,
There stole a rosier vision 'mong the shrouds
Of folded thought, than Morning through her clouds.

LXI

Wandering in deep green meadows, sunshine-gay,
The mountains wooed him, waving purple dim,
And thither through the soft air glided they,
Himself and Milly. And there rose a hymn
Like silver mist along the climbing glades,
And white forms wafted through the plumy shades.

LXII

Seated together on a bank of flowers,
She took his hand and she began to sing
In Heav'n how softly flow the eternal hours,
And with them all no hour of parting bring:
Then joined a floating chorus overhead,
“Parting and Pain and Doubt, for ever fled!”

LXIII

What comfort and what strength in dreams descend,
Which do not wholly vanish in the light!
—When this our little story hath an end,
That trembles, dreamlike, on the woof of night,
Might so a slender memory be enwrought
To glance among the threads of waking thought!

LXIV

Claude came and went. Till he was far away,
Few in the village guessed that it was Claude.
And years had left behind that sunny day,
Before it chanced a straggler from abroad
Gave news of him; and bade us set him down
As growing rich in a great Southern town.

LXV

After another silent interval,
Arrived a letter from a friend of mine
Who, in obedience to that ceaseless call
Which summons westward, had made bold to join
A band that quitted our domestic fields
For what emprise untamed Columbia yields.

LXVI

“'Midst dateless forests (thus he wrote) we came
One sundown to a clearing. Western light
Burnt through the pine-tops with a fading flame,
Over untrodden regions; and the night
Out of those solemn woods appeared to rise;
Ushered with sound of ghostly harmonies.

LXVII

“Such must have been the atmosphere, we thought,
The visionary light of ancient years,
When Red Man east or west encountered nought
Save bear and squirrel, with their wild compeers.
But other life was here; and soon we found
The little citadel of this new ground.

LXVIII

“The cot beneath a shadowy wall of pines
Looked calmly on a stump-rough sweep of grass:
Its timber roof was eaved with running vines;
And out of Nature's rule it seemed to pass
By shape alone. Long ere we reached the door
We questioned of the mystic sounds no more.

LXIX

“They blended with the twilight and the trees
So softly, floating far and far away,
It was not strange to deem them but the breeze
Hymning its vespers in the forest grey.
But now we heard not airy strains alone,
But human feeling swaying every tone.

LXX

“There swelled an agony of tearful strife;
Which lapsed in swoon;—but from that dark profound
Arose a music deep as love or life,
Spreading into a placid lake of sound,
That took the infinite into its breast,
With Earth and Heaven in one embrace at rest.

LXXI

“The flute-notes failed. At last approaching slow,
Whom found we seated in the threshold shade?
'Twas Claude, our Music-Master long ago
In poor old Ireland!—long inquiries made
Along our track for him were all in vain;
And here at once we grasped his hand again!

LXXII

“And he received us with the warmth of heart
Our brothers lose not under any sky.
But what was strange, he did not stare or start
Like one astonished, when so suddenly
Long-missed, familiar faces from the wood
Emerged like ghosts, and at his elbow stood.

LXXIII

“He seemed like one, I fancied, who was greeting
Long-absent, but not unexpected friends.
Yet he knew nothing of our chance of meeting—
I asked him that. But soon he made amends
For any trace of oddness, by the zeal
With which he cooked us no unwelcome meal.

LXXIV

“We gave him all our news, and in return
He told us how he lived,—a lonely life!
Miles from a neighbour sowed and reaped his corn,
And hardy grew. One spoke about a wife
To cheer him in that solitary wild;
At which he only shook his head and smiled.

LXXV

“Next dawn, when each one of our little band
Had on a mighty Walnut carved his name,
Henceforth a sacred tree, he said, to stand
'Mid his enlarging bounds,—the moment came
For farewell words. But long, behind our backs,
We heard the echoes of his swinging axe.”

Took conventual vows.

GREENWOOD TREE.

Our host has spread beneath our tread
A broidered velvet woof,
Curtains of blue peep richly through
Our fretted palace-roof;
Well spent, say I, in forestry
Each summer day like this,
Till glow-worms light, owl-watchmen cry
Through our green metropolis!

Like those that made in Arden shade
Their happy court of old,
We'll “fleet the time” as in the prime
Of the innocent Age of Gold;
And gently school with Dryad rule
The “forest burghers” here,
That will obey our gentle sway
From love and not from fear.

We will not take, for our pleasure's sake,
The life of bird or beast;
Of herb and fruit and wholesome root
We'll make our Eden feast;
All gay with crowns that give no frowns,
Leaf-woven diadems,
And jewels Earth unmined gives forth,
Her fragrant surface-gems.

We've band and quire that never tire,
By their own music paid;
We've swarded spaces for dancing places;
For thought, calm aisles of shade.
And nooks as meet for converse sweet,
Or rest, or happy book,
Fresh with perfumes from growing blooms,
And the rustling of a brook.

O wood and stream, how fair a dream—
How vain a dream is this!
We owe our life to thoughtful strife
With woe and wickedness.
Man must not spare to spell with care
And work out God's intent;

And know, thou wilt be charged with guilt
Who art but innocent.

The Hermit wise (my friend replies)
With equal truth might say,
“This word for me, not do but be,
Has sempiternal sway.
Effect from cause in Nature's laws
Our succour little needs;
There may be debt for pardon yet
In thy most virtuous deeds.”

LOVE.

Would'st thou prove that love's a cheat,
Love so gentle, love so sweet?
Clear our thoughts, unseal our eyes,
Make us in a wink despise
All we now sincerely prize?
Prythee, leave us in deceit!

Here through fairy-land we skim;
From without the circle's rim
Words of bitter sound from thee
Blame our eyes with fantasy;
But as justly may not we
Tell thee thine are now grown dim?

CHANGE.

That raven tress unbraided
Enshrined from where it flew,
I wonder has it faded,
Since when she proved untrue?
I cannot choose the anguish
Of seeing it anew,
Of knowing if it languish,
And match my own in hue.

For grey has thickly sprinkled
The locks upon my brow,
And that, which was unwrinkled,
Is scored with sorrow's plough.
My features would not strike her,
As like my portrait now;—
But her heart is far unlike her,
The one that heard my vow!

ANACREON'S GRAVE.

[ANTIPATER OF SIDON.]

May the ivy-boughs o'ershadow,
Clustering thickly round thy tomb,
Bard of Teos! and may bloom
Buds from every purple meadow!
Spirts of milk in pearly gushes
Leap from all the conscious earth,
Every tuft around give birth
To founts of wine, sweet-scented, luscious!

So to thy gentle dust below
A ceaseless rain of joy shall flow,
If any joy the dead may know,
Thou dearest fondler of the lyre,
Who didst chant thy songs for ever,
Full of love and full of fire,
All adown life's winding river!

TO THE CICADA.

[MELEAGER.]

Cicada, drunk with drops of dew,
What musician equals you
In the rural solitude?
On your perch within the wood,
Scraping to your heart's desire
Dusky sides with notchy feet,
Thrilling, shrilling, fast and sweet,
Like the music of a lyre.
Dear Cicada, I entreat,
Sing the wood-nymphs something new,
So that from his arboured seat
Pan himself may answer you,
Till every inmost glade rejoices
With your loud alternate voices.
And I may listen, and forget

All the thorns, the doubts and fears,
Love in this sad heart hath set—
Listen, and forget them all;
And so, with music in mine ears,
Where the plane-tree-shadows steep
The ground with coolness, softly fall
Into a noontide sleep.

100

A DEFINITE ATTAINMENT.

Of all the things accomplished yet by man
Which is the greatest? In our loftiest aims
No full accomplishment the wise man claims;
In our mechanic marvels we but plan
To live a little easier if we can;
Science a schoolboy is; poetic fames
Are mere appropriations; Nature shames
The old painters, while we even miss their span.

Our greatest fact,—which Nature rivals not,
Adam owned not before he rued the tree,
Nor Greek in templed Athens e'er attained,—
With weakness, doubt—with earth or death unstained;
I deem, the various powers of Music brought
Together in one soul-deep harmony.

103

THE WANDERING JEW.

O Earth, I am heart-sick with weariness!
Thy times and seasons are alike in pain.
I hate the mocking sunshine, and no less
These high cold-staring stars. The enormous chain
Must all be thus unwinded, link by link,
And I must, drop by drop, thus slowly drink
My ocean-cup of misery to the lees.
All places are alike, and yet, as though
I had some hope of finding change, I go
Through cities, forests, deserts, mountains, seas.
Everywhere like a wandering wind I roam.
O Earth! in all thy bounds I only crave
A place of rest—in all thy lands, one grave.
Earth, Earth, O take me home!
Thou that wast guilty of my birth,
Hast thou no pity, O harsh mother Earth!

104

The unregarded breath of my despair
Groans forth in oft-repeated words of woe:
But I am never mad, even when I tear
This wretched flesh; I never cease to know
The stinging truth, the sharp reality,
Of all that was, and is, and is to be;
The mind doth calmly judge the senses' strife—
And that is ceaseless; for no hour may bring
A moment's lull to my disease of Life.
Sleep's dew that falls on every living thing
With comfortable balm, leaves only me,
Like Gideon's fleece, unwet; this awful lamp,
Burning for ages 'mid sepulchral damp,
Needs no fresh oil nor trimming; on my way
No resting-places stand. I gasp, and pray
For peace, though all in vain until the appointed day.

Hear now the real burden of my woe.
I have gone round and round about the Earth,
Across the halves of morning and of night,
Urged like the planet's breathing satellite;
And searched and sifted all that man can know
Of matter—from the inorganic birth,
Through all the upward workings of its life,

105

By infusion of the element of strife—
Death ever moving (save in me); the might
That makes, by hurrying to destruction each
Successive atom, as a fire keeps bright.
Fold after fold was drawn within my reach
Of Nature's veil, and when I raised at last
The farthest corner, I despised the past
And future of this world.

The inner life
Is noway better: generations run
In the old ruts; the toys are now the same
That mocked forgotten children, and the game
Is ever recommenced and never won.
It made my soul with deepest loathing burn,
While 'twas yet warm enough to loathe and spurn,
Beneath these idiots' feet who mount elate
A palace-stair to upper rooms of state,
To see the vile old treadmill turn and turn.

Be thankful, grumbler at thy shortened span,
There is not giv'n, save to one wretched Man,
Time to exhaust his earth-life, and, mature,
Foolish unlovely childhood long endure!
The simple first-born people lingered slow,

106

The movement quickens as the ages grow,
Till one year teaches more than ancient ten,
And in proportion shrinks the life of men.
The Age that views its World with piercing ken,
Dooms it.

But stiffened in the cramp unscope,
I have, methinks, grown weary ev'n of Hope;
Of what a future world may have in store
Half-tired in prospect, be it worst or best.
I see no good in anything but rest;
Silence and dreamless rest for evermore.

107

EVENING SHADOWS.

In dream of thought to be among the years
That are not born, like years of long ago,
Who bows not, trembling? Dusk, with steps as slow
As mine, crept through the churchyard, dropping tears
Like one that mourned. I mused and mused; methought
Some months, some years were gone, and in that spot
Of graves is lingering a thoughtful Boy.
Amid the twilight stillness deep and lone
He stoops to read an old half-buried stone,
And weeds the mosses that almost destroy
The letters of the name, which is—my own.
The wind about the old grey tower makes moan.
He rises from the grave with saddened brow,
And leaves it to the night, and sighs, as I do now.

111

LOST, ON THE COLOUR.

“Man of Art, thy skill I test!”
“You shall wed next March.”—“Well guessed!”
“Tall Brunette.”—“Absurdly wrong!”
Right enough it proved ere long.

119

THE UPPER ROAD.

Could I fling by this work at length,
These cares, these men, to find
God-service fitter for my strength,
One song would fill my mind.

“The height to which all conscience strives,
The upper road's begun;
Whereas before I lived two lives,
I now live only one.”

Hush! hush! thou vain and coward heart,
Though slavish be thy load,
Serve God in oneness where thou art,—
Thou'rt on the upper road.

122

THE DUSTY MILLER.

Noo I'm three-an'-twenty,—
What'n a time I'm losin'!
Sweethearts I hae plenty,
A' the trouble 's choosin';
Some are landed men,
Some wi' heaps o' siller,—
I can wale frae ten
Richer than the Miller.
Than a dusty, dusty,
Common dusty Miller;
Just a rusty, fusty,
Musty, dusty Miller!

Pairk the walthy tailor's
Crabbit-like an' bandy;

123

Sandy Brown the sailor's
But a shiftin' sandy;
Hawick's head's like snaw,
An' his heart it's chiller,—
Tho' he's laird an' a'
I'd sooner tak' the Miller!
E'en the dusty, dusty,
Landless dusty Miller;
Just the dusty, dusty,
Working dusty Miller!

Hearty, blythe, an' ruddy,
Fresh and pleasant-featured,
With his footstep studdy,
An' his laugh good-natured;—
If I'd ten times mair
Beauty, birth, an' siller,
Yet, I do declare,
I wad tak' the Miller!
Aye, the dusty, dusty,
E'en the dusty Miller!
Tho' he's dusty, dusty,
Just the dusty Miller!

124

THE TOWER AND THE OPEN AIR.

Learning sat in a lonely tower,
Heaping knowledge hour by hour;
Searching through all lives, all forces,
All beginnings, and all courses;
Tracing on, from old to new,
How rounded worlds from chaos grew;
Sifting all matter's form and plan,
Within the utmost reach of man;
All dependence, all relation,
Through the system of Creation.
Of man's mind too, and its modes,
Disentangling all the nodes,
To that limit where extremes
Interpenetrate like dreams,

125

Where the eager wings in vain
Struggle madly to sustain
The soul in void,—where rises ever
A wall of blank to man's endeavour.

One day came a shepherd lad
To where Learning plied his task;
And of him did Learning ask
What knowledge was the best he had.
“A crowded, various earth is spread
Around my footsteps,” said the youth;
“A great Heaven is above my head.
To love and hope in simple truth,
To reverence God, whate'er befall,—
This is best, this is all.”

Then did Learning take the boy,
And teach him all that he could teach;
And, after many years, he said,
“All knowledge in the human reach
Is thine to use and to enjoy.
What count'st thou best?” He answer made,
“Increase of knowledge is good and sweet,
That the soul may shun deceit;

126

And the best is this in sooth—
To love and hope in simple truth,
To reverence God, whate'er befall.
This is best, this is all.”

130

TO A BLIND LADY.

Though beggared of the inheritance of light,
The glorious eye-possession of the earth;
Be thankful still: how few of those with sight
Can feel or use their privilege aright?
A soul undimmed is of far greater worth;
Outweighs a million times the deepest dearth
Of flower-frail sense,—and when from this short night
It shall emerge, how wonderful the Birth!

Emerge, as one who whilst he slowly strains
Up a dark narrow tower with sigh on sigh,
The fresh and brilliant air suddenly gains,—
And lo! created instantaneously,
A sunbright world far stretching to the sky;
Woods, Lakes, and Rivers; Valleys, Hills, and Plains.

131

PLAY OVER.

The curtain fall'n, the audience gone,
The theatre left dark and cold,
Stage-feasts forgot, stage-titles flown,
No more grand words, emprises bold;—

The actors are not left in gloom;
The curtain-fall but set them free
To enjoy true feasts, true names assume,—
To live in wide reality.

132

THE BULL.

The main incidents of “The Bull” are given as facts by some writer on Spain.

The plaudits shake the circus round.
No “sluggard” has the Bull been found.
Three gallant steeds he swiftly gores,
And pushes hard the picadores;
In one mad sweep the chulos drives
Over the barrier for their lives;
And, tail outstretched and head low-bowed,
Fierce nucleus of a dusty cloud,
Flies round the orbit free of check,
Stung by the bandarillas in his neck.

What strikes the crowd with such amaze,
And more intensifies their gaze?—
One soft low whistle has the force
To curb the monster in his course!

133

From the seats a rustic stranger
Vaults into the ring of danger,
Mildly calls the Bull by name,
“Bell' Azufre!”—never came
A lamb more meekly to a child
Than to his friend this brute so strong and wild.

Joined in a gentle group they stand;
The fierce Bull licks the herdsman's hand,
Whose other strokes his shivering ear,
And soothes away his rage and fear,
Till with a low, contented moan
He lays his tortured body down,
And of the mountain pasture dreams,
And of the free and cool Sierra streams.

A passing ruth the audience share:
The simple herdsman could not bear
His favourite's pangs, and thus hath sought
The old friend's side, distrusting nought,—
Trusting the faithful beast aright,
Whose rankling pain, tumultuous fright,
Mocked despair, revengeful rage,
The well-known voice could in a breath assuage.

134

Is it not so? Ah shame, not so!
This is a portion of the show—
Contrived a novel zest to bring
To the arena's bloody ring.
A luxury has been found at length;
Besides his courage and his strength
The brute's affection's bought and sold
To help the pastime, for some bits of gold!

New plaudits shake the circus round.
The Bull is startled by the sound:
Remembering all the wrong and pain,
He plunges to his feet again,—
Whirls his master over his head.
“Madre Santa! he is sped!”
In air a purse drops from his breast
And falls before him to the trampled dust.

Din springs up and swift commotion,
As on laughing tropic ocean
May a wild tornado strike.
Brilliant chulos, leopard-like,
Bound in to the herdsman's aid.
Too late. He now is both ways paid.

135

—Might all that true love falsely sell
Make sure of being recompensed as well!

TO THE AUTHOR OF “HESPERIDES.”

Hayrick some do spell thy name,
And thy verse approves the same;
For 'tis like fresh-scented hay,—
With country lasses in't at play.

138

THE BANNER.

We blazon on our banner wide,
Whose silken scarlet fold
In streams of noble blood is dyed,
A mystic crown of gold.

Which needs, in peacefullest repose,
Regilding every day:
And half our daily service goes
The charge thereof to pay.

And when the sacred symbol strives
Amid the storm of war,
We take and give ten thousand lives
For what is dearer far.

139

That it again may float at ease
On haughty palace-height,
Unfurling to the summer breeze
And glittering in the light.

Yet preach not that its cost is great,
And that its worth is small:
Till ancient honour 's out of date
Our Banner shall not fall!

The earth is full of symbol powers
In all that 's great and fair;
And if thou like not this of ours—
Go, range thyself elsewhere.

140

IN THE TRAIN.

With its precious human freight
Barred and linked in long array,
Slowly moves the ponderous weight,
Smoothly glides away.

Quickened puff and playing stroke
Find the narrow ledges true,
Over fields the torn white smoke
Lingers into dew.

Swiftly with dismaying shriek
Down through cavern gloom we roll,
Forth in laughing daylight break,
Onward to the goal.

145

Through the mountain's rocky heart,
Over champaign richly spread,
'Thwart the flood, the chasm, we dart,
Distant streets to tread.

Lender, not antagonist,
Nature claims this force as hers,—
But, the strict conditions missed,
Jealously demurs.

154

AN AUTUMN EVENING.

Queen Autumn now makes progress through the land,
That loyally hath spread along her way
A golden carpet, prankt with many a band
Of broidered flowers and leafage clustering gay.

The tapestries of the tissued clouds on high,
Rich with the changing glories of the heaven,
Mass round a vaulting of the purest sky
That e'en to festal season can be given.

And tall tree-arches, hung with scented wreaths
And studded with warm fruit, cope every road;
And everywhere a busy joy outbreathes;
And Plenty's wide-mouthed horn is overflowed.

157

Lately, when this good time was at its best,
One evening found me, with half-wearied pace,
Climbing a hill against the lighted West,
A cool air softly flowing on my face.

I reached the top: the calm and gorgeous sky
Bathed a broad harvest-view in double gold;
Sheaf-tented fields of bloodless victory;
Stacked farms, embosomed in their leafy fold,

Pillared with light blue smoke;—grass-shaded hill
And brown ploughed-land, their graver colourings lent;
And some few heads of corn ungathered still,
Like agèd men to earth, their cradle, bent.

And reapers, gleaners, and full carts of grain,
With undisturbing motion and faint sound
Fed the rich calm; whose marge a mountain chain,
Soaked in dream-colour, girt with Beulah bound.

At length across an easy-falling slope,
Down through the harvesters I sauntered slowly,
Field after field; until I reached a group,
A pleasant group, who were not strangers wholly.

158

The Farmer, still an active man though grey,
Stood talking to his sturdy second son,
Who had been with the reapers all the day,
And now put on his coat, for work was done.

And two as lovely girls as ever breathed,
A slender, blue-eyed, golden-headed pair,
Laughed with a little nephew whilst he wreathed
Red poppies through his younger sister's hair.

I joined the party, at their warm request.
The cheerful dame, outside the cottage-door,
Welcomed her cheerful people and their guest,
Then hastened to display her choicest store.

The children running to a poor lame boy,
Whose crutches, on the stool beside him leaning,
Seemed in his book forgot,—with eager joy
Gave him the crowded flowers that formed their gleaning.

With humble wisdom, blotless merriment,
In that low, gentle-simple, plain abode,
Delightful was the evening that I spent;
Closed with a quiet worshipping of God.

159

And loitering home—all worldly feelings stilled—
Unclouded peace, a supermortal boon,
Filled all my soul: as heaven and earth were filled
With the white glory of the Harvest Moon.

160

THE SLAVER.

“The Slaver” was suggested by a description in Tom Cringle's Log.

The Slaver was burning, the sea was aflame,
And the sunset was dimmed with the blaze of the same.
“These slaves,”—said the crew, “Let us pick two or three;
For the rest, they may burn, they may drown—what care we!”

Then the cry of ten-score in that black vessel crammed
Arose like the cry of ten-score of the damned;
Chained fast whilst the growling flame fought with the sea,
Like tiger with lion, whose prey they should be.

Some rended their bonds with the strength of despair,
And swam to the boats; but a fiercer was there
Than the sea or the fire, and more cruel than they;
For Man took Death's side in the terrible fray!

161

A young negro girl in the long-boat had place.
Through the water close by rose a dark, well-known face.
When she saw it she cried out with joy like a child,
And held down her hand to her lover, and smiled.

A shot rang beside her: he sank like a stone:
The waters were bloody, and she was alone.
She has sprung from the boat: she is lost in the deep.
In the grey gulphs of ocean these two lovers sleep.

165

[“Learn to Live,” “Remember Death,”]

“The inscription Think How To Live is admirable, and the more so, because it calls to mind the detestable Memento Mori, and triumphs over it beautifully.” —Schiller to Goëthe, criticising Wilhelm Meister.

“Learn to Live,” “Remember Death,”
Are not maxims that oppose.
Life, that wafts not on a breath
Nor with pulses ebbs and flows,
Diligently learn:

Death, not Life's antagonist,
But consoler, glorifier;
Transcendental realist;
Sure, and daily drawing nigher,—
Joyfully discern.

167

THE BUBBLE.

Ah, the pretty planet!
Ah, the floating sphere!
Gentle sighings fan it
Near and yet more near.

World as light as feather,
Spun of coloured rays;
All the hues together
Tinge it as it plays.

Autumn's deepest golden,
Summer, wed to Spring,
Silvery Winter olden,
Move in changeful ring.

168

Open shine of morning
Fresh on dripping flow'rs,
Closer pomp adorning
Pillow of the hours.

Childhood's dreamy colour,
Pulsing into light,
Waxing full and fuller,
Dimmed again to night.

Past and future mingle
Through the lucent globe;
Wave entwined and single,
Like a woven robe.

All is freely flowing,
Interchanging round;
Prismal life outgoing,
Welling without sound.

Would the breath to fan it
Had for once repelled,
Since that fairy planet
Never could be held!

169

Ere it burst for ever;
Leaving as our prize,
Gall our lips to savour,
Tears to blind our eyes.

170

MOONRISE.

Above the headlands massy dim
A swelling glow, a fiery birth,
A marvel in the sky doth swim,
Advanced upon the hush of earth.

The Globe, o'erhanging bright and brave
The pale green-glimmering ocean-floor,
Silvers its wave, its rustling wave
Soft-folded on the shelving shore.

O lonely Moon, a lonely place
Is this thou cheerest with thy face;
Three sand-side houses, and afar
The steady beacon's faithful star,

173

Comprise the tokens few and weak
That here of human effort speak.

But at this moment thou art risen
Full above the mighty city;
Viewing palace, viewing prison,
Calm alike from pride and pity;
Witching the ranges of its lamplight wan,
With other glares thou coldly gazest on.

One veil of mystic pattern thou hast spread
Over the multiform, enormous bound.
Halving church-towers and endless streets with shade;
Piercing to many a lurking-place profound;
Lighting those aits of melancholy ground
Where, 'mid the rush of life, repose the dead:
And sliding through, with pale unnoticed ray,
As into Time Eternity doth flow,
Skylights where little heaven can find its way
Amidst the theatre's distracted glow:
Flooding the suburbs with effulgence wide,
And shining into pleasure-gardens, gay
With variegated glitter and display,
Where lively music thrills and dancers glide.

174

Of all pursuits and passions that engage
Man's Proteus soul, an aggregate so vast
Thou seest not upon this sphere amassed
Elsewhere in thy encircling pilgrimage.

And o'er it thine, like Memory's pallid beams,
An all-subduing pensiveness do cast,
Until the present as a vision seems
Enchanted from the stillness of the past;
Or like our childhood's hopes and dreams
Wafted back at last.

Trembling in half-consciousness,
Hovers to console and bless
On its pinions shining
The glory mild, the tearful boon,—
But it fades away, how soon!
From rapture into pining,
For childhood's home of vanished bliss,
Aye the heart's metropolis.

Little Town, by other shores,
Girt with other mountains,
No Italian City pours

175

Such a wealth of fountains,
As in thee my steps would greet
Gushing up in every street,
Of recollections full and sweet!

O Moon, a calm ascent is thine,
Above that well-known mountain-line;
There, while I speak, ascendest thou;
Its towering westward bastion now
To golden sunset bids good-night,
And eastward it receives thy ghostly light.

Art thou truly looking down
Into the streets of the little town,
Where I know every chimney's place,
Every door's and window's face?—
Thou hast set before thee clear,
As in many a by-gone year
'Fore the years begun to change,
One small roof, familiar-strange,
Roof that oped to many a vision
Grim, fantastic, or elysian:
On the river dance thy beams
To the tune that swayed my dreams;

176

Swallowed in the gloomy arches
Where beneath the bridge it marches;
Shining unopposed and wide
O'er the harbour's mingling tide;
Striking with a wand of power,
Landmark grey, the old church-tower;
Yet disturbing not its sleep;
Nor the slumber far more deep
Its solitary precincts claim,
Paved with many a well-known name.

There the Fall for ever tolls;
And the Bar, through nights and days,
Booms from sand-hills by the sea,
When th'Atlantic water rolls
Solemnly and heavily,—
Now whitened with thy rays.

The narrow tide I gaze on here,
With thee, O Moon, less kindly greets
My pensive eye than that which beats
The fierce Atlantic cliffs along;
Its stranger voice, though far less strong,
Less soothes mine ear.

177

But with a full and pure emotion,
To thee be all the ancient homage brought,
Calm Queen of the tempestuous ocean,
And more unruly tides of human thought!
Thou, at the touch of whose enchantments mild
The jars of Time and Space are reconciled;
All life is with the passing moment blended,
All earth around the present scene suspended,—
With vanish'd joys and dreams within their scope,
And unreach'd mysteries of Faith and Hope.

178

THE EMIGRANT'S DREAM.

Once I dreamed that I was crossing,
Exile sad, the lonely ocean,
Ever plunging, ever tossing
In monotony of motion;
All too cramped, and yet too free,
Smothered in a shaking jail,
Driven by the wandering gale
Over wastes of sea.

Swift the senseless ship is cleaving
Death-dark waters, that dissever
Weary hearts, out-worn with grieving,
Weary hearts and homes for ever.
Berth is sickly close below,
Blast above us harshly rings;
—O the early thrush that sings
Where my carnations blow!

179

Mine? alas, that day is vanished!
I am outcast, I am lonely,
I am broken, I am banished,
All my hope is patience only!
—In my dream I moaned aloud,
And behold! a heavenly bliss
Stooping like a mother's kiss
Through the slumbrous cloud.

Thrush from laurel-bough was trilling.
Eyelids not as yet unclosing
Hugged the home-contentment filling
My luxurious heart's reposing,
As the soft embracing air
Was full of spiced carnation-breath,—
'Scaped from the Satan of sleep's death,
The horrible Nightmare!

Would Death's self, that nurse ungainly,
To a dreamless rest had rocked me—
Ere the chill light showed me plainly
'Twas not slumber that had mocked me.
Ere I saw my thrush's cage
Swinging in the steerage glooms,

180

Saw the box that held my blooms
On the rough-laid stage.

“Bird,” I said, “in double prison,
Quickly is your song reviving;
Flowers, your scents have never risen
Sweetlier, when in garden thriving.
O that in my heavy state
Hope could promise that at length
I might gather needful strength
To surmount my fate!”

181

THE LULLABY.

I saw two children hushed to death,
In lap of One with silver wings,
Holding a lute, whose latest breath
Still lingered on the trembling strings.

Her face was very pale and fair,
And from her hooded eyes was shed
A love celestial, and her hair
Was like a crown around her head.

No smallest wave will she displace
That fills the lute's faint-ebbing strain;
The notes seem echoed from her face,
And echoed back from their's again.

185

THE WORLD'S EPIGRAM.

O Land of Freedom! well thou didst begin;
A noble blazonry most nobly win:—
O Land of Freedom! it is strange, methinks,
Thy Stars should seem a chain of spiky links,
Thy Stripes, whip-printed on a human skin,
Thine Eagle sick, or else a dunghill bred,
(The blessed sun so disconcerts his eyes)—
That empty Cap inscribed as Liberty's,
A relic of the absent or the dead.

196

THE EPICUREAN.

You upon the tossing surges,
We upon the shore;
Soon the mighty tide immerges
Both for evermore.

Love, you say, is nought but folly,
—Do not tell me why.
Earth's best joys are melancholy,
—Learn it you, not I!

How long Love may choose to love me,
What is that to me?
Joy comes from below, above me?
Either let it be!

197

We on easy margin lolling,
Hear the billow fret;
See you mud and weeds uphauling
In your toilsome net.

Here we kiss and make us merry,
Drinking of the best;
When the tide our joys shall bury,
Here we'll lie at rest.

If they will, let angel pinions
Save us into air.
Hope and Fear have joint dominions.
Be the present fair!

198

THE PALE IMAGE.

When she lieth on her bed,
With a crown of lilies pale
Set upon her peaceful head;
And her true-love's kiss would fail
To restore a little red
To the blanchèd cheek;
When her hands, all white and cold,
On her cold cold breast are laid,
O'er the straight and snowy fold,
Palm to palm as though she prayed,—
Prayer to rest for aye untold
On that mouth so meek:

Do not gaze on her too much.
You that have the dearest right,

199

Press her lip with parting touch,
Leaving dimmed your misty sight:
Death is false,—and e'en to such
Gentle ones as she.
If you feed your loving eyes
Then when Death her bridegroom seems,
She shall come in deathly guise
Through your thoughts and through your dreams;
And when met in Paradise,
Scarcely known shall be.

200

[The mild promising stars are coming into view]

The mild promising stars are coming into view,
The voice of the waterfall is toning in the air,
Whilst lazily the cloud-fire smoulders on the sea,
And all the landscape-outlines are blurred with falling dew,—
As my rapture is with sadness, because I may not share,
And double it by sharing it with Thee.

Now the calm shadowy earth lies musing like a saint,
Wearing for a halo the pure circlet of the moon;
Like a full happy heart is the flowing of the tide;
And the night-wind from the mountain breathes steady, though so faint,—
As I am breathing softly, “Ah! might some heavenly boon
Bestow thee, my beloved one, to my side!”

206

GRAYWACKÈ'S TOMB.

Graywackè on his bed of death
Cheapened a tomb with stint of breath:
I could have told him how to save
Some money wasted on his grave.
'Twere but extraction of his heart,
(Death must have pierced some softer part,)
Then, after some few strokes, to turn
The lump into a marble urn,
If chisel could be found to cut it,—
For lasting monument to put it.
No epitaph were half so ample,
At once a record and a sample;
And Time had vainly there, in sooth,
Gnawed, till he broke his last old tooth!

207

TO THE CASTLE OF DONEGAL.

Castle of Donegal! both green and grey,
Like an old poet; where thine outworks lay
A sessions-house, and barrack for police
Lie in thy shadow. If from ivied peace
We could recall thee, and revive to-day
The men whom thy crazed walls, their children, cease
Almost to recollect; how we and they
Would wonder! How their wonder would increase
When by their antique customs they were driven
(As soon would happen to those chiefs of yore)
To feel our unromantic forms of power,
Police and Statute-Law. Therefore, still riven
And roofless be thou; strength is law no more;
The times that suited thee are gone—thank Heaven!

Resembles Fuller:—“The Pyramids, doting with age, have forgot the names of their founders.”

208

ROYAL MARRIAGES.

Three days agone
Her hand was won
By suitor that was skilled to woo;
And now come we
In state, to see
The Church's ceremonials due.

The Bride in white
Is clad aright,
And in the carriage closely hid;
No blush to veil—
For too, too pale
The cheek beneath each downcast lid.

White favours rest
On every breast;
And yet methinks we seem not gay.

209

The church is cold,
The priest is old,—
Now who will give the bride away?

Bowed sexton there,
With frosty hair,
Stand forward and discharge thy trust.
Priest's words sound forth;
They 're—“Earth to earth,
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Withdrawn in gloom
Waits Death the groom;
(His wedding-chimes, how slow they swing!)
With icy grip
He soon will clip
Her finger with the wormy ring.

The match is fair.
This silent pair,
Here to each other given for ever,
Were lovers long,
Were plighted strong
With oaths and bonds that nought could sever.

210

So sisters two
Are parted now,
Quitting the home where both drew breath;
The Soul made wife
To the Prince of Life,
The Body wedded to King Death.

214

THE REPROOF.

Why dost always weep and groan?
(Nature thus reproved her son)
Never child do I disown,
But thou art a favoured one.
Strong and apt attendants run
Swiftly to thy call;
Best of every service done
To thy share doth fall.

Greener elm I give to thee;
Rosier rose, of richer scent;
Brighter river, grander sea,
Bluer sky above thee bent;

215

Dreams on others never spent,
Waking or asleep;
Love, and varying wonderment,
Almost angel-deep.

Yet the grumbler's part you choose;
Gifts so noble, lightly prize;
Murmur that these brilliant hues
Only serve to blind your eyes.
Welcoming the rose with sighs,
Since it has a thorn;
Cradling every joy that dies,
Freezing the new-born.

Try, ere longer you complain,
If there be no fault in you.
All my wealth is spread in vain,
Where the heart is less than true.
Rose's favour wisely sue,
Fear not then to bleed;
Love with earnest spirit woo,
Loves thou 'lt never need.

Know, my child, I've sent thee down
To instruct and cheer the rest:

216

On thy mountain brow a frown
Chills and darkens east and west.
Deep within a lordly breast
Hide thy skill in grief,—
Only in a power expressed
For thy friends' relief.

220

COOKERY.

THE QUICKEST WAY FOR A Tête de Veau, Couronnée.

Take a sect, no matter what,
Throw the doctrines in your pot,
Stirring as it may require,
On the very slowest fire,
Till it dance and sing a little,—
Boiling over not a tittle!

Put in pepper for a savour;
Butter next, to smooth the flavour;
Add, with well-dried slips of sage,
Whate'er sauce may be ‘the rage.’
Choose neat mould, and fill the same:—
You've cooked yourself a Poet's Fame!

221

ÆOLIAN HARP.

Is not the world too beautiful for thee,
Child of littleness, child of clay?
Thinkest thou skies will ever bend o'er thee,
Kind and patient as those of to-day?
Flowers their sweetness ever keep,
Night be prompt with dew and sleep,
Passions flow within the marge,
Madness care for custom's targe,
Wind, fire, water, spare to slay,
Brain exalt thee, hand obey,
Tame as the servants, the slaves of to-day?

We wait, we wait, we wait, we wait,
We lie in ambush for thy fate!
Is the end come at last?
The proud foolish dream past?

222

We are flinging off the yoke,
Thou art melting into smoke.
Dost thou feel the waking earth
Spurn thee with a terrible mirth?
As the mighty change kindles,
Hue fades, strength dwindles,
All the beauties, all the riches,
Vanish like a feast of witches!

Is it in truth the revolt thou wert fearing,
Child of the infinite, child of hope?
Or is it the world but disappearing,
As thou soarest to loftier scope?

223

TO ---.

Know, the chill breeze that warns the eager buds
From childish hurry to forestall the Spring,
Is more a benefactor to the woods
Than that which breathes a warmer welcoming:
And this is deemed too rare a growth to lose
One ripening element the garden can infuse.

227

OUR MOUNTAIN RANGE.

Thank Heav'n, we live in a mountain land!
Where a flight without wings is at our command,—
To play with the streams in their springing youth,
Let them swell in spate or dwindle in drouth;
Or to make o'er the clouds our Olympian seat,
Where the thunder is rolled beneath our feet,
Where storm and lightning,
And sunshine bright'ning,
Solemnly girdle our steep retreat!

Above, the king-eagle's realm we share,
Below, the haunts of the shy brown hare.
Upland farmstead, and shepherd's cot,
Wide view, with many a round lake-dot,—
Beechen valley, and bilberry dell,
And glen where the Echoes and Fairies dwell,

228

With heaps and bosses
Of plume-fern and mosses,
Scarlet rowan, and slight blue-bell.

The watch-towers of the Morn they rise,
And they treasure the last light of the skies,
Wear giant shadows from noontide clouds,
Or dimmer foldings of vapoury shrouds;
And at dusk the mounting stars appear
On their pinnacle crags, or the chill moon-sphere
Crowning only
Summits lonely,
'Mid black abysses and caves of fear.

Or the sun-parched heather, afire by night,
Traces with awful judgment-light
The outline black of our mightier dome
Than glows in the Easter-fires of Rome;
And leagues over valley and plain and bay
Beacons afar the flickering ray;
Bright o'erpowering
Embers cowering
Pale in the west, of the sunken day.

229

When Winter, fierce slave, with mutter and frown
Brings the misty robes and the cold white crown,
And blares with the terrible trumpet gale,
And crashes the cymbals of the hail—
Stung into life by the savage strains
Muster the barbarous suzerains,
And redly horrent
Each shouting torrent
Rages down to the trembling plains.

But when packed in the hollows the round clouds lie,
And the wild-geese flow changing down the sky
From the salt sea-fringe,—the softer rains
Run like young blood through the withered veins
That sweeping March left wasted and weak;
And the agèd mountain, so dim and bleak,
With sudden rally
By mound and valley
Laughs with green light to his baldest peak.

Not to the heaven of heavens they go,
Our cliffs, nor wear the eternal snow;
Yet we feel our kinship stablished well
To those by the great White Mount that dwell;

230

To the shepherds closed in Idalian glade;
To the Arabs resting in Libanus' shade;
To swartest livers
By unknown rivers
'Mong Hills of the Moon, like ghosts arrayed:

When the wide and lonely morning breaks,
To stern explorers of condor-peaks;
When storm gathers red in the burthened air,
To the wanned in Etna's or Hecla's glare;
At eve-glow, to those who love from their vines
The chestnut surge of the Apennines;
At night, to Norwegians
In craggy regions
Grim with grey bristles of scattered pines.

O broad, inorganic, mighty range
Of familiar Beings, for us no change
'Mid changing landscapes descends on you,
To the early memories ever true.
The mountain-child loves his home the best,
Years destroy not his rock-built nest;
Nor his pure emotion,
When over the ocean,
He prays to be laid on its mother-breast.

231

Day with its waves of light and noise
Ebbs o'er the barrier: seem like toys
The objects our daily life fulfils,
To the Power flowing free on the ancient hills.
Soar higher, Thought! The time-sickness leavens
The mountains too, and the starry sevens:
Souls endeavour
To Him that ever
Is throned on the circle of the heavens.

232

[It seems an easy thing to say]

It seems an easy thing to say,
“To-morrow I must go away.”
And yet when I come back again,
How little treasure may remain,
For people will change as the swift months fly,—
Forget, or travel, or marry, or die.

233

WHERE?

“It is written.” Where? Oh, where?
In the blue chart of the air?
In the sunlight? In the dark?
In the distant starry spark?
In the white scroll of the cloud?
In the waved line of the flood?
In the distant range of cliff?
In the rock's deep hieroglyph?
In the scribbled veins of metal?
In the tracings of the petal?
In the fire's fantastic loom?
In the fur, or scale, or plume?
In the greeting brother's glance?
In the corpse's countenance?
In the core of my own soul?
In the cypher of the whole?
Trying to be true and meek,
Daily, momently, I seek.

239

THE BEE.

“Busy Bee, untiring one,
Honest eye-servant of the Sun,
Is't for him thou workest so?
Will he ever care or know?
Or who else doth service crave?
Art thou hireling? Art thou slave?
Whither doth thy toiling tend?
To be smothered in the end—
While the Dorr and Dragon-Fly
Idly live and gently die?”

Saith the Bee, “It is my part,
And I do it with my heart,
Ever cheerful work to give,
And herein I happy live,

240

Waiting not the close of day
To receive my certain pay.
Of the end I nothing wis,
But full clearly know I this—
Idle should I rest, or fly,
Every hour a death I'd die.”

241

RESPECT FOR LITERATURE.

“For letters, I declare,”
(Old Pomposo cries) “I bear
As profound respect as any man on earth!”
He is certainly exempt
From the species of contempt
To which familiarity gives birth.

242

THE YOUNG STREET SINGER.

How sad!—to hear a song of mirth
Sung in the homeless street,
By one in melancholy dearth
Of clothes, and food to eat,
Or place beside the poorest hearth
For bare and blistered feet.

Some tones of softness still retains
This worn and feeble voice,
That once, perhaps, in hawthorn lanes
Helped spring-time to rejoice;
Not then impelled by hunger-pains,
But childhood's merry choice.

Mayhap the mother little thought
Her darling and her pride,
Portioned with but the songs she taught,

245

Must face the world so wide,
And give the starving outcast's lot
A speech so unallied.

How weary are the unknown ways,
How sharp the pitiless stones,
What haughty heads the houses raise
From one whom no one owns.
Whose mouth is singing lively lays,
Whose heart is utt'ring groans!

The careless window's happy glow
Displays the lighted room,
The very pools of rain below
The ruddy tint assume;
But not a ray doth it bestow
To cheer the wanderer's gloom.

Save that a petty hope has strayed
Into the aching breast:
Nor be the slender fee delayed.
But may thy weary quest
Alight on more effectual aid;
Or may'st thou soon find rest!

251

CANT.

When the Priest who talks of striving
A heavenly strife,
Thinks far more of present living
Than future-life;
When the altar-fire he's stirring
To roast and stew,
As if for cure of souls, like herring,
The smoke would do;
When, to one well-known hell-deserver
Most tolerant,
He warns the rest with chronic fervour;
Here is Cant.

When the Author writes love-letters
To all mankind;
Or strikes with lightning-scorn the fetters
That myriads bind;

252

When, who is his neighbour, truly
He tells the proud;
Or groans for Genius most unduly
Chilled and cowed;
Yet low to gilt, shrined calves will lout it;
Nor hand will grant
To Worth, till Worth can do without it;
Here is Cant.

When all motives in the Soldier
Take holiest names;
And at the touch of death grow bolder
In lofty claims,
As if the ghastly phosphorescence
That rotting sheds
Were one with th'heavenly halo-presence
On sainted heads.
When artful knaves thus flatter grossly
Fools-militant,
And blockhead millions echo closely;
Here is Cant.

When Statesmen, down at foot of hill, are
All warm and bold,

253

But as they climb the mountain-pillar
Grow cold and cold:
When the Patriot's voice is vox et
Præterea nihil:
When the Martyr-spirit baulks at
Each daily trial:
When Bishops' sleeves, with all their bloatage,
Give space too scant
For laughs at Mother Church's dotage;
Here is Cant.

When “Honesty,” that bragged ingredient
In every trade,
Means just the minimum, expedient
For Interest's aid:
When beyond abstract gold, so many
“Friendship” esteem,
Yet with so few the concrete guinea
Will kick the beam:
When “Love,” while owned the firmest, chiefest
Boon life can grant,
Is weighed as though the least and briefest;—
Here is Cant.

254

When poem-reader,—poem-writer,
(This too may be)
In living type is no inditer
Of poetry.
When any man thinks God's prescription
Man's ways should school;
And makes himself the one exception
To prove the rule;—
Howe'er he may in sight of others
Gloze, pray or rant;
Howe'er the conscience-voice he smothers;
His life is Cant.

255

POETS AND FLOWERS.

SIXTH GUESS.

High in the costly gardens of the great,
Still proud of its ancestral seat in ken
Of Andes or of Appalachian hills,
The Agave towers. Step after step is built
Above its weighty leaves the mass of bloom,
Slow-nurtured pyramid—with which compared,
Flowers at its base appear like shepherd's huts
Round those Nilotic structures that beheld
Isis and Orus and the Memphian gods,
Long ruined, they still firm.

For whom but thee
(Although of foreign stock its pilèd wealth)
O great Blind Man of England, to whose sight,
Cancelled from earth, unrolled the wars of Heaven,
And sweetness of the primal Paradise,
For whom but thee, this mighty Agave blows!

256

ON READING OF THE FUNERAL OF THE POET WORDSWORTH.

When, looking eastward forth from Mona's shore,
I saw on peaks that crowned the dim sea-line
Sunlight with sudden revelation pour;
A superadded radiancy, more fine
Than ever mountains from mere sunlight wore,
Above a viewless vale appeared to shine.
Such glory, rock-built Westmoreland, was thine,
Such glory now, alas! is thine no more.

Not so! His honoured grave to thee belongs;
The pedestal for an eternal Thought;
Set in its solemn temple fitly wrought
Of waters, clouds, and giant mountain-throngs—
Enriched with what they gave his life and songs,
And by the exalted Spirit unforgot.

259

ÆOLIAN HARP.

A Traveller wendeth over the wold,
Black the air and black the ground,
(Would he were cherished from the cold
Nigh this blaze we sit around!)
Into the dark and through the dark,
Over marsh and mound,
—Death-bell like, his heart hath tolled
One groan—no other sound.
Hush!—hark!

A creeping wind cometh over the wold,
Creeping through the pitch-dark air,
Whistling for Will-o'-the-Wisp to hold
His flickering lantern there.

260

High it is, and low it is,
And the dead man's face is bare;
But the prying wind is not so bold
As to touch his blood-wet hair.
—What is this?

Is't a tale by warm fireside?
Paused the whispering pair, and sighed?
—Draw the window-curtains close,
Blackest night is round the house.
The cat purs loud, the crickets sing;
How shadowy sweet our tranquil ring.
Hush!—hush!
The wind's in the chimney: and below
The softly-crackling fire sheds dusky glow.

261

JOHN JONES'S ENEMY.

A TRUISM.

John Jones he has an enemy
Who haunts him night and day,
Who tempts him, and poisons him,
And leads him all astray.

John Jones he hates this enemy,
And curses him full sore,
And nine misfortunes out of ten
Lays justly at his door.

John Jones he loves this enemy
Before his friend or wife,
And 'fends his fame from evil words
At peril of his life.

262

He thinks there is in all the world
No truth except in him,—
He finds him all one living lie,
Tongue, body, brain, and limb.

He knows him well,—is still deceived;
Distrusts him,—takes his word;
Abuses him,—excuses him;
Fears him,—is not deterred.

Who is John Jones's enemy,
This haunting demon-elf?
You 've seen his enemy, whene'er
You 've seen John Jones's self.

265

THE GANDER IN POUND.

One day a wise old Gander found
A friend of his shut up in pound;
Who soon conveyed his grievous wrongs
In tone that to such tale belongs.
As down the road he took a stroll,
Without offence to living soul,—
One of the frightful monster-birds,
Those gabblers of unfowlish words,
Nips him between its bony wings,
And into this vile dungeon flings;
Where he must starve to death, alas!
Without a single blade of grass.
“O Liberty, thou Goddess fair,
No more may I thy blessings share;
Nor see my little goslings' face;
Expiring in this dismal place!”

266

This said, like a despairing thing
He thrust his head beneath his wing,
And as he stood, appeared to have
One leg already in the grave.
While feathered sage from wall-top ansered,
In speech were no disgrace to Hansard:
“My friend, 'tis plain you need not bear
One hour's starvation or despair,
If you will merely condescend
Your lazy thrapple to unbend;
Let down your leg, shake either wing,
And on the wall beside me spring.
The height 's the same, within, without;
Your pinions are more young and stout
Than mine; so if you choose to try,
You're in a moment free as I.”
Thus spake (he must have been a Solan)
The ancient bird. As our days roll on,
Perhaps his counsel may avail
In some like case to hit the nail.

267

THE BIRD.

A NURSERY SONG

“Birdie, Birdie, will you pet?
Summer is long a-coming yet;
You 'll have silken quilts and a velvet bed,
And a pillow of satin for your head.”

“There's a prettier bed in the ivy wall,
Where I live with my brothers and sisters and all;
And every day some garden tree
Brings a message from Summer to me.”

“O Birdie, Birdie, will you pet?
Diamond-stones and amber and jet
We'll string in a necklace fair and fine,
To deck this pretty bird of mine.”

268

“Thanks for your diamonds and amber and jet,
But here is a necklace far better yet;
A ring of feathers of changing hue,
Lighter, and smoother, and warmer too.”

“O Birdie, Birdie, won't you pet?
We'll buy you a dish of silver fret,
A golden cup and an ivory seat,
And carpets soft beneath your feet.”

“There's no running water in cups of gold,
Free food a silver dish can't hold,
A rocking twig beats an ivory chair,
And the softest paths lie through the air—
So adieu, fair lady, adieu!”

274

BEFORE BREAKFAST.

I spring from my lightly-prest pillow
To tread the gay sunshiny floor,
And greet the young glittering billow,
Whose surf almost reaches our door.

Now the cliff spreads its cheerful adorning
Of matted sea-pink under foot;
The lark gives me “top of the morning!”
The sailing-boat nods a salute.

Already, with new sea-born graces,
Comes many a bright-featured maid;
Peep children's damp hair and fresh faces
From straw-hat's or sun-bonnet's shade.

276

With whisper alone for my hearing,
Clear-trembles my tide-brimming pool;
Head-first from the rock disappearing,
I waver, embraced with the cool!

The king of the Morning's wide treasures,
I revel in water and air;
Join salmon and gull in their pleasures—
Then home to my sweet human fare!

277

OH, WERE MY LOVE.

Oh, were my Love a country lass,
That I might see her every day;
And sit with her on hedgerow grass
Beneath a bough of may;
And find her cattle when astray,
And join her driving them to field,
And linger on the homeward way,
And woo her lips to yield
A twilight kiss before we parted,
Full of love, yet easy-hearted!

Oh, were my Love a cottage maid,
To spin through many a winter night,
Retired in ingle-corner's shade
From fir-wood blazing bright!
Beside her wheel, what dear delight

278

To watch the blushes go and come,
With tender words that took no fright
Beneath the friendly hum,—
Or rising smile, or tear-drop swelling,
At a fireside legend's telling!

Oh, were my Love a peasant girl,
That never saw the wicked town;
That never dressed in silk and pearl,
But in a lilac gown!
How less than weak were fashion's frown
To vex our unambitious lot;
How rich were love and peace to crown
Our green secluded cot,—
Where Age would come serene and shining,
Like an autumn day's declining!

280

DYNAMIC.

Thinkest thou that stone is dead?
Its very steadfast quiet tells
It is not; or in it were bred
A changing into something else.

Stones, imbued with more of Death,
Might expect more quick improvement.
See the source of sap, blood, breath—
Vital impulse, hopeful movement.