An Actor's Reminiscences and Other Poems By George Barlow |
I. |
I. |
V. |
VII. |
X. |
XII. |
XIII. |
XVII. |
XIX. |
XXV. |
XXIX. |
XXX. |
XXXI. |
XXXII. |
XXXIII. |
XXXIV. |
XXXV. |
XXXIX. |
IX. |
XXX. |
II. |
VIII. |
X. |
I. |
II. |
THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
|
II. |
III. |
An Actor's Reminiscences and Other Poems | ||
227
THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
I
When the twentieth century fadethAs the present century nears its doom,
Will the singers it remembers,
Glancing back along the years of bloom,
Be diviner than the singers
Chanting through our century's sun and gloom?
II
What strange wars and tribulationsWill the far-off voices have to sing!
Creeds and thrones of newer peoples:
228
Love with eyes the same as ever,
Love the eternal century-mocking king!
III
Yet though grand the future singers,Stately though their march of music, be,
Our strange century hath been gladdened;
Woodland green and lake and silver sea,
Purple moor and breezy upland,
Golden gorse-bright heather-haunted lea,—
IV
These have heard our century's singers.What glad faces shone beneath the light
Of the passionate early morning!
When the fields of Europe rang with fight
All the faces of our singers
Brightened into measureless delight!—
229
V
When Napoleon from the IslandPassed, and let the whole world sink to sleep,
Three great singers sang his passing,
Half in triumph, half with eyes that weep;
Byron, Shelley, Victor Hugo,
Rose and sang with passion true and deep.
VI
Far off, very far, it seemeth:Close beside those early singers stood
Blood-smeared wild-eyed Revolution,
And her spirit mingled with their mood;
Now long bright decades of blossoms
Hide that vision gaunt and gore-imbrued.
VII
Wordsworth stands between. His mountainsHide the red and blood-streaked dawn of day.
He with ever-tender passion
230
To his spirit Revolution
Had but one pale far-off word to say.
VIII
Oh those valleys and the mountains,And the lakes and sunsets calm and clear!
Will they be to future singers
As profoundly, passionately, dear?
Will the rocks be mute for ever,
Frowning from their silent towers and sheer?—
IX
Who will sing the Grecian blossomsAs this century's Grecian spirit sang,
Keats,—and all our lanes and hedges
To the sound of Pagan harping rang:—
Forth from dark-hued English waters
Many a sweet-lipped white-limbed Naiad sprang!
231
X
Grey-haired venerable LandorFull of classic passion lived and died:
Strong-browed drama-moulding Browning
Won our woman-poet for his bride:
She too was this century's singer,—
Lyric soul to Sappho's soul allied.
XI
If the century had been barren,Seen no may-tree blossom in its dells;
Never one wild climbing rose-bush;
Never any spire of fox-glove bells;
Never luscious-scented gorse-brake
That the air to sweet response compels;—
XII
If no blossom had been with us,She the flower of flowers had filled the air
With an unexampled fragrance;
232
Yes, the century would have marvelled
At the song-flowers one sweet heart could bear.
XIII
Now the century's days are darkening:Round about her still the singers stand:
One with sad eyes light-forsaken
Nobly sings amid the younger band;
Now no more the English meadows
Lay their golden blossoms in his hand.
XIV
Yet when bright and full of beautyForth the laughing century like a bride
Stepped, was any sweeter singer
Found among the many at her side?
He among the later chosen
Stands, and every door-way opens wide.
233
XV
All the doorways of the valleysOpen of their free-will unto him:
Why should any be reluctant?
For a season brief his eyes are dim:
But the souls of all the blossoms
And of clouds and waters he can hymn.
XVI
Marston, blind yet full of vision,Seeing more than soulless myriads see,
Lo! I singing in the twilight
Of the darkening years along with thee
Bring thee greeting of the woodland
And the solemn greeting of the sea.
XVII
In the dawning of the eraSwift-eyed, seeing, the laurelled singers rose:
But the God-endowed blind singer,
234
Now we hold his hand, and guide him;
Yet the soul-path he the blind man shows.
XVIII
He the path that leaves the valleyWinding upward towards the heaven of song
Points out: leads us, far less clearly
Seeing, the rocky ringing heights along:
He can shame the mountain eagle
With his soul-gaze keen and full and strong.
XIX
This would make the century brighterWere no other singer left to see:
Were no voices heard, nor figures
Seen upon the mountains,—only he:
This would soothe the moaning twilight
Into dawn-like rapturous melody.
235
XX
Was there ever heard a sweeterSong than his to lull a century's close?
Was there ever known a purer
Love than his for violet and for rose?
Were there ever greater stronger
Arms wherein love's bosom might repose?
XXI
Was there ever spirit nearerTo the inmost sacred soul of things?
Did blind Homer's soul see deeper?
Did blind Milton's kingly voice that rings
Through the sonnet chant more sweetly,—
Blind, yet listening to Love's rushing wings!
XXII
Had the tender heart of poetEver tenderer sweeter things to say
To the tender heart of woman
236
Blind alone to what is evil,—
Wide-eyed as the sun to bright love's ray.
XXIII
Through the sonnet-metre chantingHe hath found full many a word unsaid
By the elder poets waiting
For his coming. Round about his bed
Gleam the robes of many visions,
White-winged, dark-winged, soft or sweet or dread.
XXIV
Keats and Shelley and the earlySingers, I born later in the day
Missed the holy sound and sight of;
But I meet a friend beneath the grey
Evening light: a brother singer,
Blind, but swift of vision even as they.
237
XXV
Never yet the rolling watersHeld more might of colour than they hold
In the song of the blind poet:
There the sunset breathes and burns with gold:
There the beauty of all blossoms
Mixes,—leaf on soft leaf, fold on fold.
XXVI
There the sovereign grace of womanGleams, and fills the highways of his strain
With the sunlight of her beauty,—
Crowned, a very queen of song, again:
Death has trodden amid his roses,—
Yet what soft scents passing words remain!
XXVII
Though his song is full of sadnessAnd a sense of dear love dead and white,
Yet the music of his measure
238
Though the darkness is around him,
Countless stars about his brow are bright!
XXVIII
Though the darkness closes round him,Light he gives to others,—and the bloom
Of an infinite soul-healing
Breathes on others from his passion's tomb;
And he comes, and brings the morning
Glancing golden-sandalled through the gloom.
XXIX
All our hearts are full of pity;And the spirits of mountains and of flowers
And of waves and rocking woodlands
And of sunsets mix their love with ours;
All the hearts of roses know him,
Thrilling as his footstep nears their bowers.
239
XXX
Much our souls would do to help him;Little may our strongest yearning reach;
Though the pity never fails us,
Fails the song, and weak imperfect speech;
Wild our words are like the wailing
Of the wind through smooth leaves of the beech.
XXXI
Yet our singing, brother, take it,And the heart that finds the singing weak,
Pale beside the deep emotion
That like the dumb waters cannot speak,—
Only surge, and surge for ever,—
Flash, and for a moment tinge the cheek.
XXXII
Lonely, many waited for thee;Blind, that thou mightest give them eyes to see:
Jealous flowers and hills and rivers
240
All the unsung heart of Nature;
Many an uncrowned lake, and tearful lea.
XXXIII
For the whole of Nature never,Bridelike, conquered by a single bard,
Kissed his lips and stood before him,
Loosed her purple deep hair golden-starred;
Still for each the blue receding
Heaven-depths show some mocking gateways barred.
XXXIV
Thus, though Spenser filled the SonnetWith soft fire and wreathed fair flowers around,
And though Milton shook its pillars
Till live thunder leapt along the ground,
Something still is left for later
Singers: still new harps and newer sound.
241
XXXV
Tender buds of beauty gleamingHalf-unseen beside the grassy way
Waited,—till the blind sweet singer,
Marston, came and touched the buds, and they
Sprang to sudden fragrant glory,
Gold for dim pale yellow, red for grey.
XXXVI
If the whole of Nature trulyWere one bride for one great king of song,
Would not kingly Victor Hugo
With the lips that never fostered wrong,
Only equal wide-eyed justice,
Lure her coy reluctant feet along?
XXXVII
Would not she the spirit of NatureWho was girlish, young, when Shelley came,
Meet, mature, the century's singer,
242
Surely, white as if for bridal,
Bride-pure, her our greatest heart may claim.
XXXVIII
If for any single singerShe, sweet Nature, like a woman stood
Conquered, virginal and tearful,
Merging now in passion every mood,
For this singer, high-browed, lonely,
Forth she came, by godlike lips subdued.
XXXIX
Other singers win the kissesOf the flowers her handmaids sweet and white:
Violet-lips and rose-caresses;
Clasp of pliant ivy-tendrils bright;
But for him her voice of ocean
Sounds, and calls him towards her through the night.
243
XL
He the giant message hearingLeaves all friends and passes forth alone,
Knowing that the woman calls him,
Nature, to be sharer of her throne:
Through blue gulfs her whisper thrilleth,
Over limitless white waters blown.
XLI
He through crimson dawn returning,Kissed and held of Nature through the night,
Dazzles us with kingly glances
Till we shrink from their excessive light;
Still the awful kiss of Nature
Leaves his lips imperishably bright.
XLII
Yet the age hath room for others.Midway 'tween the younger and elder band
Tennyson, most English-hearted,
244
And the lanes and English meadows
Move and bloom and brighten at his hand.
XLIII
His the message not of ocean:Not the kiss that floats across the sea:
Not the lips whose breath is breezes:
Not the sweet-winged spirit of night,—not she:—
His the calm heart of the valleys,
Filled with many a flower and golden tree.
XLIV
His all English women's beautyIn the lanes with English violets starred:—
But the century hath another
Whom the thunder crowned and sought for bard;
Whom the lightning kissed, and loved him;
For whose soul the sea-wind wrestled hard.
245
XLV
Byron! still the lonely JuraSeeks thee, widowed, weary,—and her sighs
Rolling through the rolling thunder
Find no kindred heart nor song-replies;
And the sea hath lost its comrade,—
On its billowy lips the laughter dies.
XLVI
Yet the sea of RevolutionThrough a younger fiery singer thrills;
And his heart hath caught the rapture
Somewhat of the green far foam-flecked hills,
And his soul hath laughed for gladness
With the laughing clear-eyed mountain-rills.
XLVII
Somewhat of the Master's mantleAnd of speech of his hath fallen on thee,
Swinburne: somewhat of the eternal
246
Through thy sea-like song hath spoken;
Somewhat of the soul of all things free.
XLVIII
And the heart of many a goddessLeft forlorn and weary since the day
When the Pagan shrines' redeemer,
Keats, alas! too early, passed away,
Dares to glance up, and rejoices
Hearing the old note within thy lay.
XLIX
Bowed and full of desolationWas full many a goddess' bright-haired head
When along the viewless valleys
Rang the news that bright-haired Keats was dead:
Eyes long dry and tearless wept him,
And for years no rose won all its red.
247
L
But before the century fullyPassed, a new and fervent singer rose,
And the gods shook off their mourning;
Lo! again the trembling water glows
Round about the form of Venus,
Wakeful after over-long repose.
LI
Once again an English singerTwines about his brow the old Grecian bays,
And the bright hills laugh for gladness,
And his feet are swift i' the rose-hung ways
Where the feet of Keats before him
Dashed the dewdrops from the springing sprays.
LII
Ah! we cannot name each singer.Can we name the flowers that shine along
English glades and wind-kissed meadows?
248
League by league o'er blue sky-billows
Falls the splendour of the starry throng.
LIII
Yet a note of sadness minglesWith our song that praises these who sing.
All must pass. One century forward
Just as blue shall gleam the swallow's wing
O'er the deep green water flashing;
Just as sweet shall be the ungrey-haired Spring!
LIV
Pink the early almond-blossomStill amid the branches brown shall shine:
And the bees shall hum for ever
Through the ivy and round about the vine;
And the blue-green feathery leafage
Still shall crown the red shaft of the pine.
249
LV
Then shall hearts alive and glowingSeek towards dead strong hearts who sing to-day.
But the rose shall laugh and scatter
Dewy pink-red leaves beside the way:
One live flower shall have the magic
All dead things and bloodless to outweigh.
LVI
Nature! Yes our poets win her,Some for mistress, some for deathless bride,
So it seems. Yet young and girlish
She shall smile some future bard beside;
Just as if no soul before him
Ever sang her beauty,—and, singing, died.
LVII
Just as if no flower had everLoved the sun, and withered at its might:
In a hundred years shall Nature
250
Snowdrop-handmaids o'er the valleys,—
And the moon is new-born every night.
LVIII
Every night the night's star thrillethAt the marriage-message of the sea:
What grows old and grey in Nature?
Nought that Nature fashions; only we:—
Not more snowy was the primal
Than last April's dazzling chestnut tree.
LIX
So, when singers are arising,Eager, young, as singers past arose,
Virginal and full of sweetness
Will the world's eyes meet them, and the rose.
Round about each new-born poet
Arms most white his virgin era throws.
251
LX
Yet when each new bard hath kissed her,If he looks within her eyes and deep,
Shall he mark a shade of sadness,—
'Mid the throbs that through her bosom leap
Note one single pulse that trembles
For the distant sake of us who sleep?
Sept., 1882.
An Actor's Reminiscences and Other Poems | ||