University of Virginia Library

LATER SONNETS

LOVE IS BEST

Dare all things for Love's sake, since love is best,
Of Fate ask nothing, rather by your deeds
Rebuke it for its niggard ways unblest,
And trust to Love to shield you in your needs.
Remember in the shade of the new years
Only what Love has given. This shall be
Daily your dole, a safeguard from your tears,
Outwitting change and Time's inconstancy.
—Knock loudly at Love's door. He is awake.
Offer him roses. 'Tis his month of June.
Watch all his ways. Do worship for his sake.
Seek out his service. He shall serve you soon.
Know this of Love, who fears not Fate's disaster
Answers for both and is of Time the master.

SHE SHALL NOT GUESS

Even if I died no sound should tell it her.
Death babbles, but the calm of her dear eyes
In vain would ask, no tell-tale breath should stir
The lips still treasuring a thought unwise.
How vain my life has been in its disguise,
Left unregarded, her least pensioner,
Yielding to all, unasking even with sighs
The dole of hope not Heaven could quite confer.
—To-day behold me on this page her name
Over my own inscribing, with no prayer,
Nor daring even to kneel in my distress.
What I have written in this candle's flame
Shrinks ere 'tis finished, and the incensed air
Bears but betrays it not. She shall not guess.

ALL WHITE

All white, all light, all beautiful she stands,
Love in her eyes, a glory round her brows,
Blanched as the lilies chaste in her chaste hands.
Even so God's saints in their celestial house.
Red only are her lips, ay, red as those
Turned by the Queen, that happy day in France,
As yet unkissed, to him who made his vows,
Victor in fight, to her his soul's romance.
Idly she stands in dreams.—Ah, Launcelot,
Couldst thou but plead here haply and prevail,
Touch her soft cheek, draw tears from her sweet eyes,
Open her lips to passionate words unwise,
Receive her true kiss 'neath thy coat of mail:
In Love's name, I who love, should grudge it not.

ALL WHITE CONTINUED

Ah, beautiful sweet woman, made in vain,
Since Launcelot is dead and only I,
Alas for this new world of recreant men,
Remain in age Love's creed to justify
And prove his right to fools who would deny!
Heaven's help shall win her, though she long hath been
Child of a doubting Age. Or let me die
At her dear feet, my Guenevere, my queen.
—Ride therefore forth, my soul, on this last quest.
Oblivion soon shall fold all in its arms.
Love, if she love thee or love not. The loss
Is hers, not thine, since each thing else is dross;
Not thine, whom Heaven makes whole and no hurt harms,
Even that of death, so thou have loved thy best.

GRATITUDE

If gratitude a poor man's virtue is,
'Tis one at least my sick soul can afford.
Bankrupt I am of all youth's charities,
But not of thanks. No. Thanks be to the Lord!
Praise be, dear Lady of all grace, to you.
You were my mediciner, my one sole friend,
When the world spurned me from its retinue.
And I am yours, your bond-slave to the end.
—How shall I tell it you? There was a time
When I was sordid in my unbelief,
And mocked at all things less robust than crime,
A convict in my prison-house of grief.
But that is past. Your pity was the key
Which sent me forth, a broken man, but free.

O FOR A SOUL

O for a soul surrendered of all guile!
A plain white soul with nothing on it writ,
No creed of mockery to make men smile,
No boast of wisdom travestied as wit;
Only a clean soul where the infinite
Calm of the heavens, as on some tropic isle,
Should have looked down and on the face of it,
Inscribed in sunlight, “Nothing here was vile.”
—Thus to my life I argue it to-day,
Thus chide my heart its too long vanity,
Its lawless strength, its insolence of play,
Its ancient rage of storm-tossed chivalry.
And yet, God wot, should Love's wind breathe my way,
My heart would rise still, a tumultuous Sea.

TO ONE IN A GARDEN

If I were other than, alas, I am,
A soul in strife, whom banded foemen vex,
If toil were folly and good deeds a sham,
And hydra wrong had shed its serpent necks,
And life's dark problems could no more perplex,
How sweet it were, forgotten of all blame,
In that far garden which your summer decks
To dream with you that grief was but a name.
—Ay, dream! For waking which of us were wise
To spell grief's epitaph? Some tears must be
Even in the herald hour of your sunrise.
And in the night? Ah, child, what misery,
Think you, awaits us when life's flood-gates strain
To the full deluge of the descending rain?

TO ONE IN A HOSTILE CAMP

How dare I, Juliet, in love's kindness be
Your counsellor for these mad days of war,
I, a sworn Montagu, to liberty
Bound by all oaths which men least lightly swear?
How shall I aid you, who enlisted are
In a strange camp, 'neath a strange captaincy,
Nor urge rebellion to that lurid star
Which mocks the captive nations held in fee?
—Nay, bid me not thus falsify my griefs.
I cannot turn my creed nor change my King.
Around me crumble my life's last beliefs,
But in the wreck of faiths to faith I cling.
Lo, this my message is, till Time shall die,
“Though all abandon these, yet never I.”

A RELAPSE

I thought that I had done with fleshly things,
That in the azure of high thought my soul
Had learned to fly on less substantial wings
To a new Heaven, a sublimer goal.
I thought that I was wise beneath the cowl
Of my dead hopes, beyond all power of Spring's
Most eloquent music to again cajole,
And that my service was the King of Kings.
—But look, alas, how thoughtless thought can be,
For to me thinking thus one ventured in
Bearing a letter and I read your name.
Then in an instant through my limbs a flame
Of pleasure ran, and wrought such change in me
That I was eager for all loveliest sin.

AN AUTUMN SONNET

These little presents of your tenderness,
Although less grand a gift than was your love,
Are dear to me in this October stress
Of wind and war and whirling leaves above.
They comfort my soul's Autumn, and they prove
How little time can do, to ban or bless,
How much ourselves. You willed the years should move
Back in their cycle. And behold, love, this!
—Now, therefore, let us mark this fortunate day,
And use it for our feast day. Every year
Let us, when winds are high and the leaves fall,
Hold in this house our love's memorial,
Sitting thus hand in hand. Still let me lay
As in the happy days, ere leaves were sere,
My head upon your lap and call you “dear.”

FRIENDS

I fell among the thieves awhile ago,
Who beat and stripped me; and, thus used, If led
For comfort to the arms of one I know
Who is to me a sister, being wed
To my heart's kinsman. But “Alas,” she said,
“Your nakedness will bring our house to woe.
Prithee begone.” She blushed and turned her head,
And left me doubting with which foot to go.
Friends in the street beheld me, old and new.
The new friends nodded; but the older stepped
In haste from my reproachful eyes and me.
They feared a creditor for sympathy,
And so they fled. One only of the crew,
A harlot, stopped me, kissed my wounds and wept.

THE PRE-ADAMITE WORLD

Who shall declare the glory of the World,
The natural World before Man's form was seen?
Fair stainless planet through the heavens hurled,
And clothed in garments of immortal green!
What depths of forest girt her! What serene
Pastures were hers for cattle numberless
Owning no lord save her, their guileless queen,
Dear Nature's self who ruled them but to bless!
If there was war in Heaven, peace reigned on Earth.
Not by disease did the world's life grow tame,
But by the hand of God, in drought or dearth
Or sudden palsy when the lion came.
Death! who should fear him or his mercy sue,
Whose last pang was the first each creature knew?

A VISION OF FOLLY

I saw one rushing madly in pursuit
Of Liberty. With frenzied steps he strode.
Old laws and customs with disdainful foot
He spurned beneath him in a mire of blood.
He stood before the wondering world a god,
A king with Freedom for his spouse and queen.
He felt his empire was divine and trod,
As on a footstool, on the necks of men.
Ruin awhile and havoc strewed his path.
He had his day of glory and his fall.
He stood once more upon his father's hearth,
Sated with pride, and there in frenzy worse
Wrought foul dishonour on that honoured hall,
And left its walls forever with a curse.

AMBITION

I had ambition once. Like Solomon
I asked for wisdom, deeming wisdom fair,
And with much pains a little knowledge won
Of Nature's cruelty and Man's despair,
And mostly learned how vain such learnings were.
Then in my grief I turned to happiness,
And woman's love awhile was all my care,
And I achieved some sorrow and some bliss,
Till love rebelled. Then the mad lust of power
Became my dream, to rule my fellow-men;
And I too lorded it my little hour,
And wrought for weal or woe with sword and pen,
And wounded many, some, alas, my friends.
Now I ask silence. My ambition ends.

AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

Here our roads part. Go thou by thy green valley,
Thy youth before thee and the river Nile.
My path lies o'er the desert, and my galley
Has rougher seas to plough (and days) the while.
I know not what to offer you: a smile,
A blessing, a farewell? I dare not dally
Even with the thought of tears. 'Twas but a mile
We walked together, and such things were folly.
I will not hope, who have no faith in fate,
That I shall you remember or you me
Beyond to-morrow. Yet, perhaps the wind
Blowing some morning through its Eastern gate
May tell you of my fortune; and behind
The Western star some evening I may see,
As in a vision of far days more kind,
Your dear eyes watching while the night grows blind.

A WOMAN'S SONNETS

NIGHT ON OUR LIVES

Night on our lives, ah me, how surely has it fallen!
Be they who can deceived. I dare not look before.
See, sad years, to your own; your little wealth long hoarded,
How sore it was to win, how soon it perished all!
Beauty, the one face loved, the pure eyes mine so worshipped,
So true, so touching once, so tender in their dreams!
Find me that hour again. I yield the rest uncounted,
Urns for the dust of time, divine in her sole tears.
—Unseen one! Unforgotten! Oh, if your eyes behold it
By chance, this page revealed which trembling hides your name,
Merged in the ultimate wreck of fame and meaner joys!
Co-partner be with me in this my soul's last sorrow,
Pearl of my hidden life, this grief, that not again
Unspoiled love's rose shall blow, the dear love which was ours.

HOW GREY THE WORLD WAS

How grey the world was with its memories,
How dark even this gay room where the motes run!
How black these curtains, thick with murder cries,
These chairs, this floor with things slain in the sun!
'Twas here I strangled love, a year ago,
And hid it 'neath these pillows drenched in blood,
As a mad mother her sweet babe of woe,
Too strong to die, too fair, which shrieks aloud.
How black and bare and bitter the world was
Just yesterday! To-day, this room, dear Heaven,
What laughters fill it! what light footsteps pass!
See, the white chairs dance round me pleasure-driven,
And these sad pillows, where I wept, blab out
The news that you are here, in psalm and shout!

MOONSTRUCK

I have quarrelled with the Moon. I loved her once,
As all boys love one face supremely fair.
I had heard her praised, and I too, happy dunce,
Let my tongue wag and made her my heart's prayer.
My prayer! For what, great heaven? The midnight air
Seemed trembling in her presence, and those nuns
The worshipping host knelt round her, star and star,
And sobbed “magnificat” in antiphons.
She was my saint, queen, goddess. Then, one night,
Another face I saw, which, not a god's,
Moved me to dreams more sweet than reverence,
And we were near our bliss, when from the clouds
Her angry eyes looked down and drove us thence
Moonstruck and blind and robbed of our delight.

POUR QUI SAIT ATTENDRE

All things, they say, come home to those that wait,
Riches, power, fame, lost fortune, hope deferred,
Health to our friends, ill hap to those we hate,
Even love, that glorious paradisal bird,
The woman unattained, whose thought has stirred
Desire to its last chord importunate;
All shall be ours (so runs the common word)
If but our patience lag not on our fate.
—O, indigent consoling, even if true!
Crumbs for the hungry, who thus fasting live
And die deceived in impotence of bliss!
And we, the god-like fortune-favoured few,
Full dowered of joy? What ransom shall we give,
In thanks to Heaven, who did not wait to kiss?

YOUTH AND KNOWLEDGE

What price, child, shall I pay for your bright eyes
(How large a debt!) the light they shed on me?
What for your cheeks, so red in their surprise,
Your lips, your hands, your maiden gestures free,
Your fair brows crowned with grave nobility,
All the delight which in your presence lies,
The words unsaid, the deeds which dare not be,
The dreams undreamed, my meed of Paradise?
—Nay, I can pay naught; your poor bankrupt I,
Since gold may not nor frankincense nor myrrh
Serve my account nor any gift of kings.
Yet be my wealth yours, joys that fools deny,
Knowledge of life, love, power as presbyter,
The wit to teach youth's zeal to use its wings.

LE ROI EST MORT. VIVE LE ROI!

Why wait for Arthur? He too long has slept.
He shall not hear you—no, nor heed your moan,
More than the wail of those fair Queens that kept
Their watch for him what months in Avalon!
He shall not wake for any mother's son
Nor mother's daughter of them all in tears,
His knights, his ladies. How then for this one,
You the last blossom of our world's lost years?
—Ah, let him sleep. For see how in the wood,
Under the dead oak, green new saplings spring,
How the thorn blossoms, while birds cry aloud
In scorn of grief. And, Lady, by the rood!
There rides a knight, new-armed and questing proud,
Who shouts, “The king is dead. Long live the King!”

LOVE RIDES DISGUISED

What name is his, thy knight's? Nay, ask it not.
If fate should hear thee, child, what griefs might come.
Love rides disguised. He fears a counterplot
For his own plot of joy in heathendom.
Restrained he goes; a single rose-red plume
Is all his badge. No blazon hath he wrought,
Device nor sign; his motto “sum qui sum.”
Silent is he of Court and Camelot.
—Be wise, sweetheart, nor tempt time to mischance.
Love at his own hour shall his whole face show.
Oh, if thou hast not seen him, thou shalt see!
Undo shalt thou his helm with thy blest hands,
Nurse his tired head upon thy pitying knee.
Then shall he tell all, and thou all shalt know.

A GLORY GONE

What is my thought of you, beloved one,
Now you have passed from me and gone your ways?
Glory is gone with you from stars and sun,
And all wise meaning from the nights and days.
There is no colour, no delight, no praise
In the deep forest, where your dear eyes shone,
Nor any dryad face with cheeks ablaze
To paint the glades grown sere as Avalon.
—What is my thought of you? No thought have I
But just to weep the pity of lost things,
Grieve with the wind, and rain tears with the rain.
The sun may smile, who knows, in a blue sky,
To-morrow? But to-day Hope's passionate wings
Are folded and Love waits on only Pain.

A DIGIT OF THE MOON

This book is written for Man's ultimate need,
A creed of joy sent down to the aged Earth
From days of happier daring and more mirth
To comfort and console all hearts that bleed.
Here shall ye find how Love, that mastering weed
Of tropic growth and paradisal power,
Sprang in a night and found its fortunate hour
And was fulfilled of glory, flower, fruit, seed,
A wonder to the Forest.—O ye souls
Of men and women, who on Time's whim wait
Nor clutch her hem when Pleasure turns to flee!
Read of these two, who ill content with doles
Rose in their rage and gave assault to Fate
And won their birth-fruit. Read. Nay, dare it ye!

NEW THINGS ARE BEST

What shall I tell you, child, in this new Sonnet?
Life's art is to forget, and last year's sowing
Cast in Time's furrow with the storm winds blowing
Bears me a wild crop with strange fancies on it.
Last year I wore your sole rose in my bonnet.
This year—who knows—who, even the All-knowing,
What to my vagrant heart, for its undoing,
Of weeds shall blossom ere my tears atone it?
—New Spring is in the air with new desirings;
New wonders fructify Earth, Sea, and Heaven,
And happy birds sing loud from a new nest.
Ah, why then grieve Love's recreant aspirings,
His last year's hopes, his vows forgot, forgiven?
Child, be we comforted! New things are best.

UNE FEUILLE MORTE

Je rêve debout devant la porte
Qui vient de se fermer sur moi.
Je colle mes yeux en triste sorte
Sur ce carré de sombre bois.
Je tourne entre mes deux doigts
Une fleur, une petite fleur; qu'importe?
Elle était bien bleue autrefois.
Ce n'est plus qu'une feuille morte.
Pauvre fleur, la douleur t'enlaidit
Les pétales mornes et pendues.
Tu sens mauvais, tu noircis.
Hélas fidèle, que fais-tu?
Mourir! C'est vite prendre ton parti!
Et moi donc, qui ai tant perdu?

THREE PICTURES

I have seen many things in many lands,
And many sorrows known and many joys,
And clutched at pleasure's cup with lawless hands,
And drunk my fill of mirth and lust and noise,
Nor spared to make of human hearts my toys,
But fed with life the brute strength of my pride,
As with a tribute of fair living boys
The monstrous lord of Crete him satisfied.
—But of all pictures laid up in my soul
Are three most beautiful and passionate,
The illumined margin of an ancient scroll,
Which moraliseth pity, love and hate;
And these, when she is sad, she doth unroll
And on their common meaning meditate.

THREE PICTURES CONTINUED

The first, a woman, nobly limbed and fair,
Standeth at sunset by a famed far sea.
Red are her lips as Love's own kisses were,
Yet speak they never though they smile on me.
An old knight, next, and arméd cap-à-pie,
Watcheth the slaughtered clay that was his heir.
The winding-sheet is not more white than he,
Hath sat since dawn and hath not shed a tear.
The third a tortured bull about to die
In the arena. No proud infidel
E'er laid his dripping spears more scornfully
In Spanish dust; for he too, ere he fell,
Hath slain a man. Ah Christ! That murderous eye
Burneth athirst like the red pit of Hell.

FRIENDSHIP'S BLACK AND WHITE

Romance is writ for me with many names
Of fair loved faces, each page a design
Blazoned and tinctured, this with saffron flames
Enshrining fancy, that with opaline
Rays of mad hopes, half sunlight, half moonshine,
This last with the sole gold of passionate blames
Enjoyed and harvested and made divine
By Love's long memory far outlasting Fame's.
—Leave it untouched, the rose-sweet manuscript.
Youth lies asleep in it, its spellbound knight.
Turn not the leaves lest he should wake dismayed.
This page alone stands open, unequipped
Of any hue save friendship's black and white,
Named with one name that needs not be afraid.

IN MEMORIAM W.M. & E.B.J.

Mad are we all, maids, men, young fools alike and old,
All we that wander blind and want the with to dare.
Dark through the world we go, dazed sheep, across life's wold,
Edged from the flowers we loved by our herd's crook of care.
Life? Have we lived it? No. We were not as these were,
Intent, untiring souls who proved time till their death.
Nay we were sluggards, all, how crazed in our despair
Each day of their fame won here nobly witnesseth.
—What is life's wealth? To do. Its loss? To dream and wait.
Years vanish unfulfilled; but work achieved lives on.
Not all Time's beauty died when these two fell asleep.
Dear Madeline, if we grieve our own less strenuous fate,
Heaven send us still this strength, this joy, now they are gone
At least like these to love, even though mad fools we weep.

TO A DISCIPLE OF WILLIAM MORRIS

Stand fast by the ideal. Hero be,
You in your youth, as he from youth to age.
Dare to be last, least, in good modesty,
Nor fret thy soul for speedier heritage.
Even as he lived, live thou, laborious, sage,
Yielding thy flower, leaf, fruitage seasonably,
Content if but some beauty in Time's page
Out of thy being spring and live through thee.
Churl Fame shall grudge (ah, let it grudge!) thee glory.
Knaves have earned that. Behold, the blossoming thorn
Emblazoneth the hedge where fools made foray,
Redeemeth their sad flouts and jibes forlorn.
Ere thou shalt guess, the nightingale thy story
Learning shall speak of thee and shame their scorn.

TO A DEAD JOURNALIST

The busy trade of life is over now,
The intricate toil which was so hard for bread,
The strife each day renewed 'neath this poor brow
By this frail hand to be interpreted,
The zeal, the forethought, the heart's wounds that bled,
The anger roused, the stark blow answering blow,
All that was centred in that aching head
Of black necessity for weal or woe.
—Its use, its purpose what? Nay, less than none,
More blindly naught than even the dull clay
Left on this bed, its corporal union done,
Which we must shovel to its grave to-day.
O soul of Man, thou pilgrim of distress
Lost in Time's void! Thou wind of nothingness!

THE ROWFANT CATALOGUE

Friends had he many, neighbours next to none.
Rowfant and Crabbet lay few fields apart.
Each Sunday saw him here, his church drill done,
Duly stroll in to talk of books and art,
Entrapped, may-be, to share my modest tart,
Roast fowl and claret, and an evening won
In stealth from Sabbath bonds strange to his heart.
Childlike he prized these truant bursts of fun.
—Long years ago! It needs his wit to jog
Old time to life. Yet I remember well
Companioning him home to the hill's top
Keen on his books, and how he paused to tell
Eager the first news of this Catalogue.
Reading it, see, the tears come and I stop.

ON A GRAVE IN THE FOREST

Hush, gentle stranger. Here lies one asleep
In the tall grass whom we must not awaken.
For see, the wildest winds hush here and keep
Silence for her and not a leaf is shaken,
Lest she should wake and find herself forsaken.
Close to my feet aweary did she creep
And slept, and she is sweetly still mistaken
Deeming I stand by her and watch her sleep.
—Hush, gentle stranger! One as gentle lies
In this poor grave, and weep before you go
For one who knew no weeping, yet abode
Among our human sorrows and was wise
With tenderer sympathy than tears can show,
The gentlest kindliest creature made by God.

ALFRED TENNYSON

Tears, idle tears! Ah, who shall bid us weep,
Now that thy lyre, O prophet, is unstrung?
What voice shall rouse the dull world from its sleep
And lead its requiem as when Grief was young,
And thou in thy rapt youth, Time's bards among,
Captured our ears, and we looked up and heard
Spring's sweetest music on thy mourning tongue
And knew thee for Pain's paradisal bird.
We are alone without thee in our tears,
Alone in our mute chauntings. Vows are vain
To tell thee how we loved thee in those years
Nor dream to look upon thy like again.
We know not how to weep without thy aid,
Since all that tears would tell thyself hast said.

IRELAND'S VENGEANCE

This is thy day, thy day of all the years.
Ireland! The night of anger and mute gloom,
Where thou didst sit, has vanished with thy tears.
Thou shalt no longer weep in thy lone home
The dead they slew for thee, or nurse thy doom,
Or fan the smoking flax of thy desire
Their hatred could not quench. Thy hour is come;
And these, if they would reap, must reap in fire.
—What shall thy vengeance be? In that long night
Thou hast essayed thy wrath in many ways,
Slaughter and havoc and Hell's deathless spite.
They taught thee vengeance who thus schooled thy days,Taught all they knew, but not this one divine
Vengeance, to love them. Be that vengeance thine!

A PERFECT SONNET

Oh, for a perfect sonnet of all time!
Wild music, heralding immortal hopes,
Strikes the bold prelude. To it from each clime,
Like tropic birds on some green island slopes,
Thoughts answering come, high metaphors, brave tropes,
In ordered measure and majestic rhyme.
And, presently, all hearts, kings', poets', popes',
Throb to the truth of this new theme sublime.
Anon 'tis reason speaks. A note of death
Strengthens the symphony yet fraught with pain,
And men seek meanings with abated breath,
Vexing their souls,—till lo, once more, the strain
Breaks through triumphant, and Love's master voice
Thrills the last phrase and bids all joy rejoice.

HE MAKES AN END

What shall I tell you, dear, who have told all,
What do, whose wish, whose will is manacled,
What dare, whose duty at your festival
Is but to light the candles round Love's bed?
How can I sing to you uncomforted
By any crumb of kindness Joy lets fall?
Unsexed am I by service, heart and head.
Nay, let me sleep and turn me to the wall.
—Alas there is a day when all joy dies,
Through stress of time and tears' thin nourishment
And that dumb peace of Age which veils the end.
Here am I come, and here I close my eyes,
With what I may of dreams (they naught portend),
Framing your face, the last before Love went.