CHARLES KINGSLEY
I
O strong pure spirit to whom
The leaves, the hills, the bright and bounding seas,
The laughing whisper of the English breeze,
Fair summer smiling through our forest trees,
Or spring's soft bloom,
Were gifts of present God,—what death, what tomb
Can hold thee, or what frost-bound gloom?
II
Surely thou livest yet:
Surely thy well-loved Lord hath found for thee
By the grey waves of some celestial sea
A home where, winged with rapture, thou mayest be;
The ferns are sweet
Still as of old in Hampshire, but thy feet
No more the pliant fern-fronds meet.
III
Still burst the heavy seas
Along the shores of Devon, and the sands
Gleam yellow underneath the moon's white hands,
And glad girls' laughter fills the summer lands;
The sweet spring-breeze
Wafts countless subtle scents across the leas;
The June-green deepens in the trees.
IV
But, singer, where art thou?
Singer; for poet ever at heart thou wast.
Never, in age, the sweet gift wholly passed
Away from thee,—thou sangest till the last;
Thou singest now
Mayhap in heaven; new high dreams flush thy brow;
Thy soul anew the gods endow.
V
The strange wild Western shores
That thou didst love,—wherein thy youthful dreams
Took shape,—still bask beneath their fierce sun's beams;
Upon them still the tropic rain-storm streams;
They throb to oars
Still,—still the unaltered wondrous white moon pours
Light through green depths no foot explores.
VI
No bright ship cleaves the foam
Of the far weird Pacific misty seas,
Wafted by pleasure of the lazy breeze,
Making for dim dark line of level trees,
But thou dost roam
In spirit along with it, and seek'st thy home
Beneath that fierce sky's burning dome.
VII
No Amyas fronts the seas
With godlike figure at the vessel's prow
Tall,—yet a godlike form we worship—thou
Broodest angelic where the tree-tops bow
To languid breeze;
Yea, crowned thou standest 'neath the strait palm-trees
Whose fronds o'er-droop the emerald leas.
VIII
That far land is thine home
Beyond all lands,—save only this that found
Delight unspoken in thy harp-string's sound
As thou didst find delight in green wild ground
And wild grey foam
Of England; if for a space thy foot did roam,
Again ere long our hills it clomb.
IX
And in that Western land
The tender Rose of Torridge bloomed anew,
And on her track the fiery good ship flew
Manned by the old stalwart strong Devonian crew:
At love's command
The English lover, grim, forlorn, and grand,
Followed the dark-browed Spanish band.
X
Then Ayacanora came,
And all her passion fell at Amyas' feet,
Ardent with Southern blood and savage-sweet,
And than her own swift forest fawns more fleet
And hot as flame:
A woman worth a strong man's toil to tame
And bend to perfect wifely aim.
XI
What gifts we owe to thee!
Never hath soul been sadder for thy song
Or sinfuller; but like thine East wind strong
Thou blewest a blast that swept away all wrong;
Yea, like the sea
Thou wast in thy clear splendid purity,
And like the sun in golden glee.
XII
The women of England came
One-souled, one-hearted, laying upon thy tomb
Tender rose-blossoms of their hearts' best bloom,
And o'er the land swift swept a sudden gloom,
And then a flame
Of love and tender worship when thy name
Was joined to those whom death's shores claim.
XIII
Better we are that thou
Hast trodden our shores and with thy radiant face
Left springlike memories bright in every place;
And, if the future full God's utmost grace
Of heart and brow
Christ for a moment hid from thee, God now
Shines splendider, and all hearts bow:
XIV
Shines splendider for thee;
For through thy words God's sudden grandeur leapt
And God's bright foot was with us while we slept
And thrills of wondrous hope through heart-strings crept
And filled the sea
With marvel of sweet light and every tree
With dawn's gold spotless purity.
XV
Thou knewest not of the time
When all strong men with Christlike face should seek
The eternal Father's face,—so thou didst speak
Old truths with new-born flush upon thy cheek
And in thy rhyme
Didst struggle upward towards the old heights sublime
That Christ's brave footsteps dared to climb.
XVI
The future shall transcend
Thine utmost dreams: the soul of Man shall flower
With undiscernible unhoped-for power
And England shall be foremost in that hour;
Yet thou, O friend,
Thy passion of heart and fervent brain didst lend
Unknowing towards this self-same end.
XVII
Greater there are than thou:
Spirits in whom the Sun of spirit shines
Direct,—whose souls amid the mountain-pines
Are nursed, and by the long waves' foam-capped lines;
Who, rugged of brow,
The future's green untouched divine meads plough
And only at God's own mandate bow.
XVIII
The Church to thee was king,
King for a time,—when the old bright dreams less fair
Shone and less urgent in maturer air
And bloom of passion flamed not, and thy rare
Pure lyre did ring
Less oft, and seldomer thy soul did sing;
When weary at last down-drooped thy wing.
XIX
But for thy brave sweet days
We bless thee, Kingsley; for thy young glad voice
Bidding each English valiant soul rejoice
And all true spirits make heroic choice;
Yea, green fresh bays
Thou wear'st for ever for those early lays
Sung in the English bright sun's blaze.
XX
We bless thee most of all
For keen-edged fiery words that cursed and slew
The foul hell-nightmare, smiting through and through
The Church's armour as with sword-stroke true;
Ere thou didst fall,
Tender as Christ, imperative as Paul,
Flame down from heaven thou once didst call:
XXI
Flame to consume and smite
For ever the evil hell-dream and the band
Of priests who fashion it with curséd hand:
Yea forth against their myriads thou didst stand
With face made bright
By open vision of God, and God's own light,—
Clothed in a man's unmeasured might.
XXII
For this we bless thee most:
But also for the souls thou broughtest here,
Making them more than living spirits dear,—
For Amyas, Hereward, and for the clear
Soul whom the host
Of Pagans slew and sent a sinless ghost,
Hypatia, towards heaven's eager coast.
XXIII
And for thy pity too
We love thee: fair Pelagia crowneth thee
With her own final deep sweet purity;
And for thy love of our own grey wild sea
And streamlets blue
And for all noble work thine hand did do
We love thee, English spirit true.
XXIV
Not one red gay sea-weed
Upon our shores but oweth to thine hand
Somewhat:
strange treasures of the deep to land
Thou brought'st and gav'st us heart to understand
And head to heed
All deep-ribbed flowers and shells of sandy mead,
Teacher divine in every deed.
XXV
And thou didst take delight
In children too and through their fairy-land
Didst wander, laughing with them, hand in hand:
In heaven around thee children-spirits band
By day, by night,
Now surely, and thou with face for sheer love bright
New golden fairy-lore dost write.
XXVI
For ever the fair feet
Of loftiest poets linger yearningly
Beside the early ripples of life's sea
Where sounds the laugh of children and their glee
In music sweet:
There Shakespeare, Shelley, Hugo, one may meet,
Resting awhile from mid-song's heat.
XXVII
Yet in first days how fierce
And urgent was the Apollonian glow
Of passion in thee,—how thy sword did go
Flickering athwart the steel ranks to and fro,
As thou didst pierce
Ignoble souls with sword-thrust of thy verse,
Winged as a god's swift lightning-curse!
XXVIII
And how divinely thee
The beauty of woman dawned on like a spell:
How tenderly her girlish footstep fell;
How sweeter than all may-bloom in the dell
Argemone
Burst like a sudden blossom from the lea,
White with all first love's purity!
XXIX
We love and value thee
For that creation of thine early power
Beyond all,—that Shakespearian woman-flower,
The whitest and the sweetest on thy bower
Where many be—
Valentia, Lucia, Grace: thy love we see
Alone in sweet Argemone.
XXX
Art thou with her to-day?
Was she not real? Did never her sweet hand
Open for thee the golden genius-land
And was it not her real rose-breath that fanned,
Upon its way,
Thy flame of valiant force,—no time can slay
What love's own pencil doth portray.
XXXI
Nor can the arrow of time
Slay thee the lover. Thou hast reached a goal
Worthy, we doubt not, of thy kingly soul:
Past mortal winds that rage and waves that roll
In some calm clime
Beyond the jarring shocks of sin and crime
Thou leadest now a life sublime.
XXXII
Our hearts need not despair:
Somewhere thou livest,—as thy flowers return
Each year with petals that with new life burn
And in thy Devon valleys the bright fern
Again is fair;
So thou art risen again to summer air
And sight of summer seas elsewhere.
