The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Now I have seen thee, and I hereby swear
That all those sonnets never were “in place”
Except when smiling upward towards thy face
Or nestling, starlike, in thy raven hair.
Thine actual presence has but added grace
And charm to the Ideal: how could it e'er
Do aught but charm and help? Could it impair
Thought's image, sought by me in lengthened chase?

Thy face and voice have been with me. They stayed
When thy slight girlish figure in the shade
Of night was hidden, and I was left alone:
Yet not so! for the memory is so clear
That I can almost see thee standing here
And listen, as I listened, for each tone.

118

II.
TO “YOU”

I name thee not. Thou art too sweet to name.—
In heaven thou shalt be music or a flower,
A portion of God's bright sky, or a flame,
Or singing-bird in some celestial bower.
I seal thee mine by true love's kingly power,
Aye, mine the more for this world's empty blame:
I only love thee more, sweet hour by hour,
Though loveless voices cry, “Such love is shame!”

We will caress in roses,—and when night
Is on the earth our passion shall be one
With the vast passion of the moon and stars.
When morning puts the starry hosts to flight
Our lips shall meet, in presence of the sun:
Yea, in earth's prison, we kiss between the bars.

119

III.
PAIN'S PURPOSE

They are not good, the sorrow and the pain,
Save only as leaders unto higher things:
When agony, with black or blood-red wings,
Flaps round our brows it is that we may gain
Some higher gift that God's stern servant brings.
The thorn-crown means that some day we shall reign
Crowned not with thorns but flowers,—as queens and kings
Able the imperial sceptre to retain.

Through mortal pain we pass towards being painless:
Yea, towards the kingly life that God lives; stainless,
Purged of desire, and perfect in its scope.
The daily agony whose hot darts pierce
With flight unintermittent, swift and fierce,
Is wreathed with this unintermittent hope.

120

IV.
THE ONE STAR

There are sad places where no starbeam shines,
Waste desolate abysses of the dark,
Where no glad light the wandering soul may mark,—
Whereover the black waves in stormy lines
Pour ceaselessly:—spots where no angel's foot
Has trodden; lurid as deep deadly mines:
Hell-pits wherein the lingering captive pines;
Devoid of buds and flowers and gracious fruit.

What star can light them, or what step traverse
These regions branded with a mystic curse?
What help can reach the prisoners therein bound,—
Cold pulses there shall throb at what glad sound?
What flame, what fire, can comfort there impart?
Only the sweet fire of a woman's heart.

121

V.
“I SEE FOR THEE”

I see for thee, where thou canst never see.
I fight for thee, where thou canst never fight.
I bear for thee a radiant torch of light
From Art's pure temple, burning high and free.
Blossoms I gather too from hill and lea,
Some sad, all tender, some divinely bright:
I clothe thee with a portion of love's might;
Lo! in my arms, when tired I carry thee.

And all I ask is that thou wilt be glad
And pure and sweet and true-souled; as thou art:
True to the intuition of thine heart,
And happy—'tis enough that one be sad!
Be thyself simply; and, love, lady, friend,
Trust me,—oh, trust me to the very end!

122

VI.
A RED SEA-WEED (A NEW YEAR'S GIFT)

A gracious present! for it carries all
The past wrapped fondly in its blood-red folds.
Utterly deep significance it holds:
Across the silent years it seems to call.
It tells of countless bitter tears let fall
And of bright early happiness besides:
It speaks too of the buoyant summer tides,
And wintry waves that stormed the grey sea-wall.

I take it as a token from the graves
Of thy sad past. Thou givest it, and lo!
This blood-red frond that bloomed amid sea-caves
Hath power thy present heart of love to show:
This weed that still preserves the scent of waves
Which broke at Whitby twenty years ago!

123

VII.
ANOTHER HILL

Another hill surmounted hand in hand
We pass towards other suns and other days:
Before us, glittering through the noon-tide haze,
Gleam the far portals of another land.
The summits whereon you and I must stand,
Snow-clad, enrapture now our upward gaze;
We quit the valleys and the rose-hung ways,
And follow out Love's uttermost command.

Ah sweet! when you and I alone succeed
With hearts that quiver and with feet that bleed
In reaching that strange mountain-summit there,
Shall we not smile—as round our close-linked hearts
The unsullied wind, straight from the sunrise, darts!
Shall we not laugh—amid that sinless air!

124

VIII.
“MORE, MORE, HAD I THE POWER’

More, more, had I the power, my soul would do.—
Am I content,—till all thy soul is bright
With God's own passionate unearthly light,
And on thy forehead all God's heaven of blue
Set like a jewel? Lo! I would renew
Thy soul, long-lost amid the pathless night,—
Be thine eternal champion in the fight,—
Bring thee from false ends towards love's purpose true.

O love, thou knowest me not! My love hath lightened
From end to end of heaven, and heaven hath brightened;
It is a tender gift:—it is a sword
To cut all chains and armlets that surround thee.
Astray thou wast,—but lo! thy love hath found thee.
Rise. Thou art free to meet thy rightful lord.

125

SPIRITUAL PASSION: TWO SONNETS

I. [I feel towards God just as a woman might]

I feel towards God just as a woman might
Who hears her lord praised by the adoring crowd:—
Who hears them hymn his strength with pæan loud—
His glory in thought or speech, his force in fight.
She knows him better. Through the silent night
She has watched his face beneath keen sorrow bowed;
Him she has cherished with embraces white;
She has kissed the lips that seem to men so proud

She cannot fear: she loves. She can but smile
That men should dread like some disastrous wand
His sceptre wielded o'er the people, while
She knows the sea-deep love that lies beyond.
She trusts her lord without one thought of guile,
Knowing her union holier and more fond.

126

II. [Or, as a man might love some haughty queen]

Or, as a man might love some haughty queen
I love God. How the lover might rejoice
At accents he finds silvery of that voice
Which makes the base slaves tremble, and the mean!
The lover faces her with look serene,
Who knows the grey eyes and the clinging breast
By him in sweet proximity possest
Are all too sweet for wrath to intervene.

O sweet sweet gleaming body of a God!
No wrath there is in thee: the lover trod
Unchidden that queen's palace-chamber through—
And so I likewise fearlessly embrace
Thy form, and look thy glory in the face;
Thine inmost woman-heart is gentle too.

January, 1877.

127

THE BRIDEGROOM OF VENUS

Not with the autumnal leaves so red and golden
Nor with the autumnal light
Crowned art thou, Venus, when strong suns embolden
Thy coming yet more bright.

Thou art not springlike, nor of mortal seeming,
Nor must thy bridegroom wear
The buds of April, tender, soft and gleaming,
Within gold spring-blown hair.

Thou art as summer. When thy June around thee
Burns splendid through the blue
We know that then the fervent year has found thee
Robed in thy raiment new.

128

And then thy bridegroom, weary of the daughters
Of earth though sweet they be,
Yearneth for thy gold locks beside the waters
Of thine own amorous sea.

And he must mix his soul with summer glory,—
Not craving for cool shades,
Or autumn hues, brown, radiant, gold and gory,
Or springlike colonnades.

Thy mouth is summer: and thy bridegroom knowing
The flower so strange and fair
Must kiss the amorous gorgeous petals glowing
Against the torrid air.

Not ever again can common loves content him:
This is his sad great doom!
Now that thine arrow of golden love hath rent him,
Point-poisoned from thy bloom.

But evermore, until his spirit find thee,
He wanders and must seek,
Weary and mad till love again may bind thee:
Weary and pale and weak.

129

Thou liftest up for him thy soft long lashes
And gazest in his eyes
And o'er him the wild sense of summer dashes
And light of summer skies.

Thou holdest him in arms that know no limit
To pleasure of embrace:—
With mouth that hath nor age nor death to dim it
And deathless queenlike face

Thou liftest him to regions past man's dreaming
And makest him sublime;
Inspiring all the swift thoughts that whirl streaming
Along the tides of rhyme.

Equal with thee in majesty of yearning
Must he, thy bridegroom, be;
Loves lesser than thine awful one love spurning
Like the contemptuous sea.

This is the doom of him who loving summer
Knew not the summer's charm,
But thought to hold her like a frail new-comer
By force of mortal arm.

130

Not knowing that the sweet June's very favour
Is death to him who breathes
The intoxicating sweet month's flower-fed savour,
Or dallies with its wreaths.

For Venus in the sweet air spreads her pinions
Whose plumage sways and flows,
And flowers she hath for ministers and minions,
A slave in every rose:

So that her breath enchanting and entrancing
Saddens and hurts and slays;
Man cannot bear her shield of sunlight glancing
Across the bright-helmed days.

Autumn we bear; but not the summer's brightness
And not the summer's bloom.
Sorrow we bear; but not love's perfect whiteness
And tender close perfume.

So, truly, when the queen of all love's splendour,
Venus, takes in her arms,
More than all earthly tenderest women tender,
A mortal spirit and charms

131

And chains him, he must reach through strength of passion
And kingly force of will,
Loving in limitless immortal fashion,
Heaven's heights,—or love must kill.

But, whether slain or unslain, let love find us,
And with her sunlike hair
Enchant and ravish and pervade and bind us,—
For love alone is fair.

May, 1881.

132

THE DEATH OF LONDON

When the great city sleeps amid the reeds,—
Yea, when the silent far-off centuries bring
Peace on their wing,—
When to wild toil the supreme rest succeeds,—
When linnets sing
Where now through Blackfriars Bridge the brown stream speeds,—
When Westminster is deep in water-weeds,—
Death shall be lord and king.

The Thames comes circling from wild days afar;
Once matted rushes filled the water-way
Where grand and grey
The tall-towered Abbey meets the morning-star;
From day to day
The awful weary ceaseless town has grown,—
The skies have heard its multitudinous moan,—
Centuries have fled away.

133

Centuries have seen the sorrow of the town:
O'er the grey Abbey close beside the stream
Moonrays that gleam
And fiery suns of summer have flung down
Through deed and dream
Their love and pity;—and the water brown
Has surged around the bridges as they frown
Over the waves with heavy arch and beam.

What cries of woe the silent skies have heard!
Shrieks not of bird
But of lone desolate pale human thing,
With fluttered wing
Seeking the peace the river's dark waves bring.
What secrets strange and deep
In the grim tideway sleep:
And yet in June how the blue ripples sing!

What awful speechless pain of woman and man,
Since the great stream began
To eddy around the roadways of a town,
Its dark waves drown!

134

What tides of strife have coursed along the streets!
Yet still to-day the city's live heart beats;
And still within its leaf-embosomed squares
The gold laburnum kisses the spring airs.

O London, thou most terrible of cities!
What was primeval Babylon to thee?
Or Carthage, or old Rome, or Nineveh?
Thee the red moon that riseth o'er thee pities,—
Yea, the sun weeps for thee:
The Thames is but the river of thy tears
Seeking through wooden arch and granite piers
The sea.

Paris,—ah! Paris. White and fair she sits,
Crowned and a queen.
Through her bright fairy streets the light air flits
Soft and serene.
Her streets have foamed with blood;—and yet most fair
Like a sweet tourney-queen she sitteth there,
And all her pain seems vanished like the pain
Of dead flowers that no June brings here again.

135

Paris has seen Napoleon,—and has heard
The tread of conquerors—twice: but our grim town
Unconquered ever wears its own grim crown,
And hearkens ever to its river's word.
Its grey and sunless springs
Have witnessed wilder things
Than e'en the springs of Paris,—though they be
Blood-bright and sun-illumed alternately.

Ah! the fair eyes that in the city's deep
Have sunk to sleep:
Ah! the strong hearts that underneath the light
So weird and white
Of that same moon have yielded to despair:
The golden hair
On which the London gaslight has shone down,—
The soft lips slain by horrors of the town!

Through century after century the same cry
Still storms the sky:
Men still are born; and passion's rose is born
And lives one morn;—

136

But still the pitiless brown river leaps
Through arch and pier,
And still the moonlight on the water sleeps,
So silver-clear!

Wars we have had: ah! many a stirring day.
How in that grey
Cold spring the Guards' battalions marched away
To the Eastern plains!
Little the skies and stars and clouds can care;
Still the same river singeth in our ear
Through suns and rains
Its one same endless soulless note and clear.

And so it shall be to the very end;
Till all towers fall:
Till the high stones of Westminster descend;
Till night clothes all:
Till in the peace that knows not change nor waking
The city rests, a ruin: till moonlight making
The ripples silver,—sunset and day-breaking,—
See nought but sand and weeds, or perhaps a moss-grown wall.

137

It shall be better then: all shall be peace
Again the reeds shall fill
The quiet stream; all human sounds shall cease:
All shall be sweet and still.
The thrush again shall trill
Forth tender love-notes to his listening mate
Amid tall trees where once was pomp and state:
Grass shall deck Holborn Hill.

Oh how the lark shall soar above green meadows
Where once lost women strolled!
Across the Strand shall stretch great elm-trees' shadows!
Bright buttercups of gold
Shall fill the silent deserts of the squares,
And birch and hazel and oak
Shall glisten under fogless summer airs
Where men's hearts sank, and women's spirits broke.

March, 1882.

War was declared against Russia on March 28, 1854.

138

GOD AND THE SUN

The sun has strength to fill the far untrodden places
With flowers, and force to fold in infinite embraces
Through all the centuries long
Mead after mead, and hill on hill, and valley on valley:
Can ye forbid his fiery love-shafts forth to sally?
Can one monopolise the solar song?

Can one flower quite usurp the bounty of Apollo?
The garden of roses first: but then the green deep hollow
His rays with violets fill.
He kisses the bright sea whose whole face gleams to meet him:
Then, next, the lordly mounts with sheeny spears entreat him;
And next he kisses the brown moorland rill.

139

The sun is like to God,—of infinite compassion
And full of awful might of universal passion
And full of force supreme.
The pale star loves but one. The sun loves where he listeth:
Yea whatsoever sweet and fragrant thing existeth,—
In far green valley or by fair blue stream.

The pale star loves but one. The strong fierce fiery solar
Sublime bright endless rays from southern unto polar
Strange regions dart their flame.
What flower of all the flowers within the world resisteth
Or deeplier in the grass its pliant soft stem twisteth,
Sad at his advent? Unto each he came.

Godlike and full of God, the amazing sun hath crowned us
And poured his ceaseless flame of golden bounty round us—
Resistless, endless, great.
Hath yonder sweet and fair soft lily of the valley
Strength into one to bind his red spears when they sally
Forth through the awestruck morn's columnar gate?

140

The armies of the sun march forth in endless legions
And flowers they find and win from infinite far regions
And lead in triumph home.
Not one blue hyacinth the great sun into glory
Of azure tints doth kiss, but each,—and all the hoary
Wild wind-spread masses of the wandering foam.

The cold moon loveth little. But can ye bind Apollo,—
Unto the fiery god prescribe what path to follow?
Haply he tires to-day
Of English chill-lipped loves, and seeks in southern places
New flower-lips sweet to kiss and new soft flower-embraces;
Who hath the power the sun-god's course to stay?

Chain ye your stars and moons. The sun not God's hand chaineth.
The sun hath will like God and every chain disdaineth
And all your ropes and bars.
As is God than the sun, so is the sun supremer
In fiery might of deed than every planet-dreamer,—
Than all your thin-lipped hosts of moons and stars.

141

What hand can touch the sun? What power lay down a limit
To his own fiery force, or reach his flame to dim it
Or hinder on its way
The cataract of his rays that pours in endless torrent
Down airy void vast steeps, a burning golden current,—
Who shall the sun's impassioned will gainsay?

Before the earth was born the great sun loved the flowers
On other hills than these,—in other vales than ours:
And, when the earth is dead,
The sun will still illume his pathway wintry and vernal
And pour forth still the same vast loving light eternal
And still lift Godward his gold fearless head.

God and the sun.—If none were left but these two only
Still would they each pursue their silent pathway lonely;
The sun would, Godlike, shine,
And God would, sunlike, still rule o'er the empty spaces
Though never more his eyes met answering human faces
Nor, more, his nostrils smelt the rose or pine.

142

These two, and these alone, have power of life undying
Within them, fiery sun to fiery God replying;
These: and these two are one.
Love is the spirit that pours its fountains fierce and deathless
Through the vast solar flame. Though all things else lay breathless,
Still would these two abide: God and the sun.

April, 1883.

143

MY SEA-BIRDS

I would have led the way from hill to wooded hollow
And shown to these the paths the larks and linnets follow
And where the violets sleep.
I would have led the way up mountain roads and valleys
And through the yellow-green primrose-embroidered alleys,
And led them by the keen-breathed white-waved deep.

I would have loved them well,—with tender love immortal.
What canst thou do for these? Canst thou pass through the portal
Wherethrough the singers throng?
Canst thou upon thy loves bestow the wide sea's blessing
And the gold morning's kiss, impassioned and caressing,
And all thy soul's kiss in an endless song?

144

These are sea-birds of mine. And thou dost seize and bind them!
With dark-green haze of woods thou bafflest and dost blind them,
My panting white sea-birds!—
This is a deadly wrong. Their wings look strange and homeless
Amid the billowing woods wind-stricken and yet so foamless;
The leaves hide from them the wind's lips and words.

O robber-hand,—and ye who heed the robber's calling!
Lo! over the wide sea the purple dusk is falling:
The stars shine one by one.
Amid this tangled maze of green leaves will ye linger?
Nay, spread white wings and join your lover and your singer
Long ere the morning's blue waves kiss the sun!

March, 1883.

145

THREE SONNETS

147

I.
ON THE PROPOSED CHANNEL TUNNEL

O England! England! whose bright stormy breast
Hath met the kiss of sunlight and of sea
For ages; round whose white sheer cliff-sides flee
Winds only and sea-birds: why wilt thou divest
Thine own self of thine armour? Rather rest
In thine own water-walled security;—
Let tempests and the waves conspire with thee;
Leave thou thine eaglets in their pathless nest.

Keen brains are plotting,—wild foes lurk around:
Through tunnelled glooms how vast an host might pour.
Oh! never let the English heart be found
Who, hearkening to the billows' friendly roar,
Will say—though love is in their very sound—
“Sea, thou hast been our shield. Be so no more.”

March 30, 1882.

148

II.
WRITTEN AFTER SEEING MADAME SARAH BERNHARDT, AS DOÑA SOL IN VICTOR HUGO'S “HERNANI”

I have not lived in vain, for I have heard
The voice of Doña Sol: the voice that brings
Tears to the heart and eyes, and giveth wings
Immortal and divine to every word.
O strange voice, fluting now like some soft bird,
Now full of resonant fieriest wrath that stings
And pierces, dagger-like,—how each note rings
In the soul's very depths, supremely stirred!

It is thy glory that thou hast the power
Even on Hugo's greatness to bestow
An added greatness, and from hour to hour
To hold us so completely rapt that, lo!
If sunrise round us brake in golden shower,
Or death came, we should neither care nor know.

June 8, 1882.

149

III.
LEON GAMBETTA

This is his title of honour. On the day
When, dealing out across the circling snows
Their countless fierce-tongued cannons' iron blows,
The German hordes around his city lay;
When ravaged armies knew not whom to obey,
And half the Imperial Guard in red repose
Slept in the meadows, and no man arose
With any voice save only of dismay:
Then he stood up, and with clear scornful glance
Defied the intruder. Now he lieth dead,
Smitten by keener than the German lance:
Yet by our sons' sons shall it not be said,
“This man alone, when all men's hopes had fled,
Despaired not of the Republic, or of France”?

Jan. 4, 1883.

150

TO A YOUNG AMERICAN LADY

We met upon the pier and parted,
That August evening fair:
I pass the same spot, weary-hearted;
You are not there!

The continent will soon receive you;
Paris will hold you fast
And lure your love, and never leave you
One vision of the past:

And Switzerland with snowy mountains
Will rise upon your sight,
And by the Rhone's green swift-foot fountains
You will forget that night.

151

We might have done so much together,
If Fate had kinder been!
Paced summer woods in still blue weather,
My grey-eyed stranger-queen!

I English and an English singer,
You from America,
If time had had the heart to linger,
Had had so much to say!

But lo! the chance was missed. I never
Asked even of your name,
And now the eternal time-waves sever,
And you I may not claim.

But take this song, and let my yearning
Across far skies and seas
Fly winged, and reach you slowly turning
Through moonlit orange-trees.

And let me say how through the flying
Swift years that are to be
I still shall bear in mind that dying
Gold sun across the sea.

152

That sun we saw, and star that lightened
Above the calm blue deep:—
New dawns have flamed, new sunsets brightened,—
But still you haunt my sleep.

You come in dreams, and will come ever
While wind and sun and sea
Are still the same. I know that never
Your image quite will flee.

Just twenty minutes' talk,—then parted!
So life and love are spent:
But I am always heavy-hearted;
And are you quite content?

Aug. 9, 1882.

153

SONNET TO PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON

O thou who seeing not with thy mortal eyes
Yet hast the sacred spirit of sight to see
The soul of beauty in Nature more than we;
Yea, thou who see'st indeed the sunset skies
And all the blue wild billows as they rise
And summer sweetness of each bower and tree,—
Who see'st the pink glad thyme-tuft kiss the bee,
The silver wing that o'er the grey wave flies:
We hail thee, singer who hast sight indeed
If to see Beauty and Truth and Love be sight;
For whom the soul of the white rose is white,
And fiery-red the fierce-souled red sea-weed;
We hail thee,—thee whom all things love and heed,
Pouring through thee their music and their might.

March 7, 1882.

154

WRITTEN ON A WARM DAY IN DECEMBER

I

Round and round the weary land
Run the signs of Venus' hand
Most fair:
Blue the gentle skies, and bland
The air!

II

Surely in the mossy nooks
There are violets, and the brooks
Are edged
By soft petals,—and the rooks
Are fledged!

155

III

Surely roses soon will blow,
For the starry bloom of snow
This year
Not a meadow seems to know
Nor fear!

IV

Surely Love will soon arise
With the summer in his eyes,
And dreams
Of the tender moonlit skies
And streams!

V

In the winter when the cold
Starves the sheep within the fold,—
Nor shines
The hair of tawny gold
Love twines;

156

VI

Then dreary are the days,—
But the meadows and blue bays
This year
Mark the summer sound of lays
Most clear!

VII

For the mellow skies are bright,
And the plumage of the white
Snow-storm
Scatters not the clouds so light
And warm.

VIII

And the nights are still as fair
As in June, when all the air
Was gay,
And when beauty shone too rare
For day!

December, 1881.

157

A SINGER'S EPITAPH

“Nay, think not evil of him; he is dead:
His heart was white, if warring hands were red:
He rests in peace: forgive him”—so God said.

“He fought a battle that ye cannot see,
And sought with terrible great passion Me:
His work is over; let the singer be.

“He fiercely strove for the superb embrace
I grant my chosen,—met Me face to face,
Standing like Moses in an awful place.

“He sought the kiss of Deity,—and now
It rests for ever on the dead calm brow:
He lived in Me,—ye understand not how.

158

“His soul was one with all the stars and seas
And with my vast inspiring spirit in these;
He heard the messages of flowers and trees.

“He worshipped Beauty with a love divine,
Pure at the root and passionate like mine;
Red roses for his wreath with white combine.

“Red roses,—for his heart was ever red
With weary sweet swift-dropping life-blood shed
For man and woman; twist them round his head.

“White roses,—for his heart was pure within,
And some was sorrow that ye counted sin;
He sought what most have little zeal to win.

“He sought with vast and ultimate desire
His soul to mingle with my Godhead's fire,
And, lifted once, to struggle ever higher.

“His sins were many: but the love that trod
That awful upward road towards me, me God,
Hath cleansed his sin: he ever walked thorn-shod.

159

“Not ever for one moment of one day
Was suffering's bitter harrowing goad away:
With him, to love and battle was to pray.

“They are not what ye think; these poets shed
Their blood for man, and, ere ye know, are dead:
Lo! I can love and honour”—so God said.

June, 1881.

160

QUEEN BEAUTY

I

Queen Beauty far beyond the battle,
Amid those hills divine,
Far from the muskets' weary rattle,
In groves of odorous pine
Or soft green fields where russet cattle
With the deep grass combine,
Reposes:—and her tresses deep
Are scattered o'er her limbs asleep.

II

There Beauty rests,—and will surrender
If thou wilt seek her there.
Then she will clothe thee with gold splendour
Of outpoured fragrant hair,
And cleave to thee with lips most tender,
And all the summer air
Shall fold thee round about with dim
Robe swathing every weary limb.

161

III

Is this not better than the shaking
Of all the cornfields red
Beneath the tramp of cannon waking
Wild echoes with wheeled tread?
Is this not fairer than the breaking
Of dawn o'er countless dead?
Is her hair softer than the hue
Of dead men's locks at Waterloo?

IV

Lo! this for each soul waits,—the pleasure
Of love when battle ends:
Love's limitless immortal treasure
That Beauty's hand extends,
And soft delight that knows no measure
But deepens on and blends
With the sea-surges whence she came,—
A woman-heart, and goddess-flame.

December, 1881.

162

LIFE AND DEATH

I

The roses all are dead: the wintry winds are blowing
Along the shivering streets and o'er the sighing field.
Barren is every bed where once bright flowers were glowing:
No more the hedgerows green their fragrant clusters yield.

II

And so it is with life. The days are growing greyer:
The old loves depart and wither roselike, one by one;
Nought can escape the spear of Time the blossom-slayer;
Something of glory fades at every set of sun.

163

III

The hills shine still the same; the purple-robed dim mountains
Are joyous as of old: but man from day to day
Ages. The silver sea with undiminished fountains
Sparkles: but some hope dies with every shower of spray.

IV

We are helpless in the hand of Force that urges onward:
We cannot stay our feet; no faster can we go.
Whither are we to turn? Moonward or seaward? sunward?
Or to the hills' disdain? or to the fountains' flow?

V

O terrible blind God who urgest on our legions,
Hast thou no eyes nor heart,—hast thou no heed nor care?
Is there no conscious soul within the viewless regions?
Only the silent void of unresponsive air?

164

VI

“And we shall mix with rose”—so say they—“and with lily;
And with the tigers' joys and with the lions' glee:
Laugh in the breeze that floats above the upland hilly:
Smile in the stars that shine above the summer sea!”

VII

Folly! one single hour of warm sweet human living,
With woman's lips to kiss and power her heart to sway,
Surpasses all the joys wide Nature hath for giving:
Outburgeons the full rose and mocks the starry ray.

VIII

Others again: “The dream of conscious living over,
Our influence shall abide and flow throughout the race:
We shall relive in souls of many a future lover;
Burn through the flamelit love in many a future face.

165

IX

“All that we gave shall last. More glorious for cessation
Of the small human life, our words like wingéd things
Shall haunt the hills and meads of many a future nation,—
Become to future souls their revelation-springs.”

X

Madness! a single day of winds' and waters' riot,
While through the wild salt airs the sea-birds' pinions beat,
Is lordlier than long years of rotten dead mute quiet
Within the churchyard green, or underneath the street.

XI

And higher than all words ranks pure love o'er the glory
Of posthumous renown, how high soever this:
And nobler than new dawns o'er mountains grim and hoary
Is the first sense of love within the throbbing kiss.

October, 1881.

166

IN TOWN AT THE END OF A LONDON SEASON

Oh, for the sea's far splendour,—
The cool wet sound of waves
And tender
Ripple within dark caves!

Oh, for the wide-winged breezes
That churn the waves to foam,—
Heat seizes
And slays us here at home!

The weary head reposes
On pillows hot in town:
No roses
The tired-out forehead crown.

167

Oh for cool sound of waters
And quiet sight of fern!
Heat slaughters
The hearts and heads that burn.

Oh for green grass-leaves plashing
In depth of crystal pool,
And splashing
Of surges blue and cool!

Oh for cool arms of maiden
And wave-cool wave-white breast,
That laden
Spirits therein may rest!

Oh for far sound of rivers,
And bowers with green entwined
That shivers
In the cool soft night-wind!

We are weary and sick and deadened
With heat in this close town
Sun-reddened:—
The roads are parched to brown.

168

Take me, O loved one, take me
Through green woods to the sea:
Awake me,—
I slumber drearily.

Where the fresh seas are whiter
Even than thy white breast,
And brighter,
Take me,—and let me rest!

July 19, 1881.

169

THE FLOWERS' FLIGHT

Yea, all forsook him. Some had kissed his lips;
They fled:
They could not bear joy's gaunt eclipse
And red.

They followed him through many a summer day
And smiled:
They could not face the great waves grey
And wild.

They twisted roses in his sun-crowned hair,
But when
The thorns drew blood from fingers fair,—
What then?

170

They shuddered, and they flung the tender flowers
Down hard.
They had deemed him but for summer hours
A bard.

Their soft love-oath included not the night
Storm-blown.
Their hearts were pale, their hands were white:
They have flown!

The stars watch on, the garden flowers watch on,
Most brave!
But some star-spirits should have shone
To save!

The skies watch with him, and the foam of seas
Gives light:
The waves are gentle near his knees
And bright.

But ah! the spirits who promised many things
And fair:
Who gave the poet flowers and rings
And hair.

171

Where are they? Ask the shallow crowd that fills
Hot rooms,
Led hither and there as fashion wills
And dooms.

Where are they? Ask the floating clouds that sail
The sky.
Ask the wind's ceaseless weary wail
And high!

Where are their kisses? Ask the roses dead
To tell!
Ask the winged fairy feet that fled
So well!

And where is he? Beneath the night he stands
Uncrowned:
The blossoms woven by loving hands
Unwound.

Alone, yet not alone: there is a Power
Supreme
Who crowneth not with kiss or flower
Or dream,—

172

A Power who lifteth to his great embrace
The man
Alone, forlorn, with tired-out face
And wan.

July, 1881.

173

TWO SONNETS

I.
SINKAT

Men slaughtered, women ravished, children slain:
Men, women, children, who for months had dreamed
That English bayonets ere long would have gleamed
Over the sunburnt hopeless southern plain.—
I think there never thrilled a deeper pain
Quite through the heart of England than to-day!
To know that each soul as it passed away
Left first on England's hands its own blood-stain.

O heart of England and great warring eyes
That met the armies of the world and smiled
And hands wherein the silent thunder lies
Sleeping,—are ye now found too weak to save
From slaughter's weltering ravening monstrous wave
One weeping woman or one helpless child?

Feb. 13, 1884.

174

II.
SINKAT AND MR. GLADSTONE

The English heart was leashed.—We watched afar
The desert hosts engirdling day by day
The prostrate city where our duty lay
Prisoned. From rise of sun to set of star
Men called for England's help.—Who rose to bar
The English spirit upon its fiery way?
Who by weak deeds and imbecile delay
Seared honour's white brow with a shame-red scar?

One man: who when the heart of England burned
Held back that heart, and said “Thou shalt not go.”
Whose lips alone in all the land said “No;”
Whose hands alone the pleading pale hands spurned.
Who only in all the land quite tearless turned
From that wild spectacle of lonely woe.

Feb. 26, 1884.

175

ONE LOOK

I

Have not I been as Love through all these years and given
The bloom of flowers and light of stars to thee?
Have not I raised thee high within song's bright-blue heaven?—
What hast thou given to me?

II

Lo! flower on flower and star on star the bright months bring thee,
And songs on songs have floated o'er the sea.
My harp were traitor indeed if ever it failed to sing thee:
What wilt thou give to me?

176

III

The flowers of fourteen years and all their love and laughter;
The singing leaves of every green spring-tree;
These have I given,—and more. And now what cometh after?
Just one swift look for me!

IV

Just one look from the eyes that smote my youth, and slew me;
That now will leave not even my manhood free.
Just one swift flash of light that, lightning-like, darts through me:
This,—and no more for me.

V

For songs and flowers and love and pain that Christ might covet,—
Pain deep as fathomless eternity—
Thy face to see once more, with hardly time to love it,—
This, this is given to me!

177

VI

For limitless strong love, and shoreless wild devotion,
What meet reward, love, think'st thou, can there be?
What can the river give to the white-crested ocean?
Trust.—Give that trust to me.

June 30, 1883.

178

TO A FACE

I

O virginal fair face, and eyes whose fire with sweetness
Blends in divine soft flame and mystical completeness,
I never knew
How sweet the world might be, till thee I saw within it
And felt all old mad dreams of love revive that minute
And the sky's old blue.

II

Forgive me that I am old. Forgive me, face so peerless,
That, though I cannot meet thy gaze unmoved and tearless,
I was born afar
From this to-day's bright world wherethrough, divine, thou movest
And with thine eyes' strange light of inward force reprovest
God's every star.

179

III

Forgive me that the world is fair and bright before thee
But thunder-dark to me. Lo! let me just adore thee,
O face! O face!
Lo! half my life is lived,—or nearly all, it may be.
But thou—what shall the light of heaven within thy day be!
What, love's far embrace!

IV

I have to die. Forgive me.—All ye flowers, forgive me,
Whose splendid summer bloom and glory shall outlive me:
White rose newly blown
Forgive me that I died while thou was just evading
The soft green sheath of leaves thy tender beauty shading,
Half coyly shown.

V

I have the love for all,—for flowers of stars preceding
Our planet-star in space. I weep for blossoms bleeding
In far-off lands.
Yet I grow old while stars and blossoms beyond number
Wax and increase. I seek death's sempiternal slumber:
They seek Love's strong hands.

180

VI

Forgive me, all ye flowers whom I shall never furnish
With soft love-songs whose wings beneath far suns that burnish
Their bright plumes might fly,
Forgive me that I love, but yet am not immortal:
That ye wait at love's porch, while I wait at the portal
Where love must die.

May 20, 1883.

181

MANY LOVES, YET EACH INTENSE

SONNET

“There is but one love pure and strong and deep
In the whole life of each. No loves have power
Again like first love into passionate flower
To bloom. When first love fades, all love-songs sleep.”
So thinkest thou? Nay! the whole soul can weep,
Rejoice, and love, with limitless desire
As many times as there are stars on fire
To light the darkling fields the wild winds reap.

If loves were many as all these starry fires
That beacon, far on high, from void to void,
There would be room for some new star-love buoyed
By the dark air whose tender breath suspires
Around it.—All past constellations' scorn
Hinders no new sweet star from being born.

January, 1883.

182

WORDSWORTH AND THE MODERN SCHOOL

I

Of far-off purple hills and mist-crowned mountains hoary
Wordsworth dreamed.
His soul was one with clouds and golden sunsets' glory
As they gleamed.

II

With mystic strength of soul and prophet's exaltation
He beheld
The glittering hosts of stars take up their nightly station,
God-impelled.

III

Fair Nature was his Queen, and on her bosom ample
He reposed.
He heard not Passion's steeds, whose fiery swift hoofs trample:
He disclosed

183

IV

The secrets of the hills, the secrets of the rivers
And the skies,—
Yet never felt the stroke that woman's soul delivers
Through her eyes.

V

Ah! than the hills more fair, and than the rivers sweeter
Unto me,
And tenderer than the pulse of silver-voiced soft metre
Of the sea,

VI

A woman's face and voice. Though hills and valleys bound me
And the streams,
I'd push them all aside if once my true love crowned me
In her dreams.

March, 1884.

184

A SONG OF THE EARTH

I

Not of thee, Melancholy,
But rather of joy's ceaseless summer sky
And all the rapture holy
That on the snow-white breast of love doth sigh
I'd sing,—and not of heaven
With endless golden harp and golden crown
But of the stars of even
And all the autumnal waving corn gold-brown
And all the woodlands' glory
When wild October gilds them with bright hand
And the long sea-waves hoary
Which fleck with rainbow foam the glittering sand:—
Not of the angelic glances
But of our women's eyes of sober grey

185

Through which the sweet love dances
And of their feet that linger in the way
And of their heaven of passion
Wherein the souls that worship them may dwell
I sing,—in the old Greek fashion,
For flowerless loveless heaven to me is hell.

II

I sing of hedgerow roses
And quiet violets nestling in the green
And vales where love reposes
And meads where in the grass his hand is seen
Flowerlike amid the flowers,
White 'mid the lilies, scented 'mid the may:
I sing of the soft bowers
Where love was radiant in the world's young day
Before the need of higher
And holier loftier rapture—so they said—
Thwarted love's living lyre
And marred the sunshine on his golden head.

III

I sing of woman diviner
Than loveless shapeless women of our day:

186

I crown her, and assign her
The chiefest holiest place within my lay.
Before she sought for other
Than the sweet love of earth, lo! it was well;
Beauty was perfect mother
To passion: she was godlike ere she fell.
But now strange thoughts possess her
And dreams of far-off stars and alien skies
And the cold winds caress her
And the sweet laugh hath vanished from her eyes
And the old-world rapture ceases
And woman bends beneath another yoke
Than man's,—and care increases
And what her hand first fashioned, then it broke.

IV

But for us life suffices
And all its tender joys and dreamful ways:
It lures us and entices
With all its suns and winds and moony rays
And magic months of summer
When the soft air breathes infinite sweet calm
And each rose, glad new-comer,
Folds secrets infinite in pink-white palm.

187

And when these fail, and, weary,
We face the wintry gloom and death draws nigh
With garb and brow most dreary
And secrets of the tomb in sunless eye
And laughter indecorous,
It shall be sweet and of avail to know
That loves in passionate chorus
Sang round us, rose-wreathed, long strange years ago
And that we sang, soft-timing
Our song to all the waters' gracious tune
With winds for ever chiming
And following the chaste guidance of the moon:—
That once for us the splendour
Of the undying summer's bosom beamed,
Ripe, copious, bounteous, tender,
And once for us the summer's dark eyes gleamed
Responsive and alluring
Till our young hearts sprang forth upon the road,
Fierce, eager, long-enduring,
While round us all the rident morning glowed;
And though the night hath found us
And we too fade and fall and pass away
Once sacred morning crowned us
And love our call would answer and obey

188

And we were full of daring
And swift hearts failed not at love's voice to leap
Though night is now preparing
Gloom for us, and the inevitable sleep.

May, 1881.

189

UNITY IN COMPLEXITY

The poet's work is one.—He sings in divers places
Of summer and of spring, and soft and deep-lined faces,—
Of rapture and despair:
Of all the sorrow of love, and joy that this surpasses;
Of the lark's nest amid the deep May-scented grasses;
Of floating sea-weed and drowned golden hair.

The universe is one to him.—He passes through it
And at one glance, at times, like large-eyed God can view it:
The whole of things he owns:—
Death, horror, and the cry of human pain he fears not;
There is not any note amid the whole he hears not,—
Laughter of love, or sorrow's piercing tones.

190

And then ye take his work and say “There's evil in it!”
—Because the eagle is there, and not alone the linnet:
—The lion, and yet the fawn:
—The bitter cry of men upon the midnight tossing,
When o'er their vessel's bows the white-maned waves are crossing:
—The smile with which creation meets the dawn.

Shall he say but one thing? Shall he sing but one season?
Give all his heart to Spring? That were unheard-of treason
To Summer's wishful gaze!
Not fields are bright with corn alone, but also bloody
With gaping wounds of men when the August moon gleams ruddy
Over the landscape through a smoky haze.

Doth the high god of dawn drape ever his bridal-chamber
In the old yellow tints and glorious gold-washed amber?
Doth he not deck the sky
With splendid vast superb rich crimson radiation
And with strange azure dyes and sudden deep carnation
That blushes deeper as his bride draws nigh?

191

Are all the forests full of flowers of but one colour?
If roses grew alone, how infinitely duller
This ruddier world would be!
If ever the white manes of maddening mad sea-horses
Raged, whirling round about the black ships' plunging courses,
How we should miss our blue and foamless sea!

So is the poet's song a diverse thing and ample.—
He saw the wild red steeds the yielding corn-blades trample
At far-off Waterloo.
He heard the weird strange shrieks and deep groans of the dying,
And saw upon the field the blood-stained bear-skins lying,—
Blood on the scarlet coats, blood on the blue.

He hears to-day the wind sweep o'er the same wide meadows
And sees the gold corn flecked with countless dancing shadows;
No dying forms are there;
Only the blaze of calm triumphant summer sunlight,—
Not as when all lights merged their lustre in the one light,
The light that flames from battle's eyes and hair.

192

Just as the wind has purged with infinite filtration
That far-off battle-field where nation against nation
Wrestled, for life or death:
Just as the sea heeds not the dead vast hordes within it
But laughs in God's clear eyes as virginal this minute
As under the first morning's golden breath:

Just as the forest heeds the countless dying flowers
Within it not at all, but buildeth up new bowers
More fair than all the old:
Just as within the streets of white immortal Paris
No sign to-day of red mad Revolution tarries
But only gay wheels where the cannon rolled:

So in the poet's song are all things found united:—
Are lovers when they wind close clinging arms affrighted
In that their marriage-bed
Hath ere this heard the sighs of lonely souls unmarried?
What is it unto them that their white couch hath carried
The helpless cold weight of the inamorous dead?

193

What is it that the moon through their bright curtains peeping
Hath, through those curtains bright, gazed once upon the weeping
Of some forsaken heart?—
Just so, all-seeing at once, from palace unto prison
Passes the undisturbed and all-embracing vision
Of pitying pitiless soul-sleepless Art.

In one house lo! a death. A marriage in another.
The strange joy mixed with tears of some pale new-made mother
Perhaps in an upper room.
Perhaps in a room below some sorrow past expression.—
Art graspeth all alike, and taketh full possession
Alike of sunlit space and starless gloom.

So with superb strong poise of pinions never-ending
The soul of Art flies forth, her force of being blending
With God's own power of will:
Seeing with equal sight in plunging white sea-valleys
The overburthened ship that pants but never rallies
And groups of children playing on yon green hill.

April, 1883.

194

TO J. A. B.

Back over twenty years we look. What blasts have sounded
From War's red trumpet!—what fierce deadly strifes abounded:
Strange is it, as back one looks!
Since the old boyish time when you and I together
Walked over purple miles of wind-tossed Cornish heather
And watched the arrowy trout in Cornish brooks.

Since the old Harrow days what bitter devastation
Has smitten low the hopes of nation after nation:—
Wide Europe's fields have bled
Since you and I as boys laughed round the merry wicket;
When all our worldly hopes were centred in our cricket,
Nor mattered it if kings or popes fell dead!

195

What was an Emperor's fate compared to winning merely
A hard-fought racquet-match! The latter struggle clearly
Meant most to gods and men!
Ah! happy days,—ere love steps in with all its passion
And moulds all things in new half-sweet half-mournful fashion:
The days that pass, and glance not back again.

In the long twenty years how many well-loved faces
Have vanished from our gaze! How many vacant places,
Looking around, we see.
Yet still the glad old earth hath flowers to wreathe and cherish
For us, old friend. Past hopes like dead leaves fall and perish,
And young-leaved new hopes spring round you and me.

The seasons come and go. The swift-winged swallow seaward
Turns. The bright eyes of Spring turn hopeward, heavenward, gleeward.
The autumn meadows gleam.

196

Sweet Summer binds her hair in dark-green leafy places.
Men die,—and love is born, and passion's white embraces
Change all things into one wild golden dream.

Some nations fall,—and new great nations rise above them.
Sad human hearts are wrung when the true hearts who love them
Pass, at the death-god's wing.
Some friendships are quite dead, and others fast are going.
Some passion-cups are dry that once were overflowing.
But still our friendship is a living thing.

How little once we thought that I, the Muses wooing,
Should spend my days their shy sweet sidelong gaze pursuing
And, after twenty years,
Bring you these flowers of song,—some where the dew yet lingers,
Some gathered later on with dust-stained weary fingers;
Some bright; some blood-stained; and some wet with tears.

197

Ah! when from Harrow hill we saw the far fields spreading
Gilded with evening light, if life's path we are treading
Had then as clearly showed,
Should we have shrunk in dread, as we drew back the curtain?
God only knows. But this, old friend, we know for certain:
Our friendship has shed light on all the road.

March, 1883.

198

GOD'S JUDGMENT-DAY

From all the ends of the earth the plaintiffs came.—
“I lost my three sons in a day,” one said:
The next, “My white-souled daughter wedded shame.”
Then came a flower with overburthened head
And petals filled with flush of vengeful flame;
Weeping, it plained: “My sister rose was red;
We loved each other, and we rested close
Against the quiet garden's grey old wall
Till the wind shook us roughly from repose
And lo! one day I saw my sister fall.
Now I am lonely; lonelier than those
Who throng the sunlit flower-beds,—yea, than all.
God, give me back my sister.” Then the man:
“God, give me back my daughter. Lo! I saw
Her poor face lit by gas, so peaked and wan,
In a London street. The winter wind blew raw
And down her rouge-red cheeks the rain-drops ran;
Doth this not strike thy listless soul with awe?”

199

Next came an Empress: “Surely thou hast done
Worse things to me and sadder”—so she wept—
“Than unto any soul beneath the sun.
Our kingdom was stolen from us while we slept;
Scattered was all the glory we had won,
And lo! red Revolution's tiger leapt
Upon us, and the people of France forgot
All good deeds, and all bad were brought to light.
My husband died. My son in loneliest spot
Thou didst ordain the savage spears to smite,
So making sonless too my widowed lot.
God of the wide earth, answer. Was this right?”
And then a woman: “Lo! an Empress' tears
Move God perhaps. But has he heed of mine?
Has he watched through the weary weary years
My whole soul yearn and agonize and pine
After the son who 'mid the serried tiers
Of battle fell? Can God my grief divine?
Lo! she was beautiful, that Empress there,
And crowned and happy. I was quite alone
—Save for my son the bond-slave of despair—
Her husband levied to support his throne
Vast armies, and my son they must ensnare:
Empress and Emperor reap what they have sown.”

200

And then another woman: “Lo! the waves
Sucked down my husband on my wedding-day.
God! hast thou not enough white watery graves
Round thee in their interminable array
That thou must add another?”—So she raves,
With madness in her eyes of sunless grey.
And then a prisoner: “In Siberian mines
For fifty years I languished,—while the blue
Sweet sky above me kissed thy waving pines
And laughter came thy palace-gateways through.
If thou dost place me where the sunlight shines
Now, canst thou those lost fifty years renew?
Canst thou restore my wife who 'neath the knout
Perished? Canst thou restore my only child?”
And then there came a grim voice from without,
An Emperor's: “My rule was ever mild
And clement. Yet one day the fires leaped out
And left my limbs a shattered horror, piled
Loose in the roadway.” Then his son exclaimed,
“And my life is a horror likewise! I
Though nowise crippled, blind, deformed, or lamed,
Through palace-windows only see the sky
And know myself through all my land defamed
And stir not out unless my guards are nigh.

201

Is this a life worth having,—knowing well
That round about me murderous creatures wait
To fling the bomb with red fuse dipped in hell?
I dare not move beyond my palace-gate
For fear of dull roar of the deadly shell.
Armed guards surround and watch me early and late.
God, is this just?” And next a butterfly:
“Born on a sunny morning 'mid the flowers
And waving grasses and green leaves was I.
Rapture it was from fragrant fields to bowers
All honeysuckle-girt to hover and hie,
Trying in the swift air my new-born powers.
But lo! a creature caught me in a net
And through my struggling body thrust a pin
(I feel the steely cold pang even yet!)
And just as sweet life promised to begin
Dead was I,—long before my first sun set.
To make me, then to slay me, was a sin,
Lord God! The eternal justice is in fault
That I, when all my white-winged friends were free
And happy, thus was marred by rude assault
And stabbed to death. Lord God, canst thou not see
That thus to pin me and prison in a vault
Airless, with human quick dexterity,

202

Was murder?” Then a poet rose and said:
“I blame thee, God,—for though fair visions pass
Gold-winged and grand and gorgeous through my head
I cannot stay their arrowy flight, alas!
I shall speak no true word till I am dead
And o'er me waves thy never-ending grass!
Why make me at all, if thus I must pursue
Beauty, and never reach her though I follow
With ardent tireless feet the whole world through;
O'er mountain steep and down green-skirted hollow
And over ocean-wastes of endless blue,
Swifter than flight of summer-searching swallow?
Of all created things we have the most
And bitterest cause to blame thee. Thou hast poured
Love in our hearts, and given us but a ghost
Instead of love,—or slain love with thy sword.
Now round about thy throne, a fiery host,
We stand, with tongues that witness 'gainst thee, Lord.”
And then a woman: “What is theirs to this
Sorrow of mine that eats away my soul?
—The bitter longing for love's flame-lipped kiss:
—The daily journeying not towards any goal:
—To dream of love, how passing sweet it is,
And wake to hear love's wheels i'the distance roll.

203

—To long to feel against one's white smooth breast
And white smooth neck a lover's soft lips burn:
—For love's divine unutterable rest
With every pulse of womanhood to yearn:
To follow love in a fatigueless quest,
Yet to watch love's eyes ever shift and turn
Aside,—is this not agony supreme?
Thou, God, in heaven canst know not aught so grim
And deep and terrible.”—But then a scream
Rang round the vaulted judgment-chamber dim;
A blood-stained soldier spoke: “Ah! God, I deem
Thou never hast had in seas of blood to swim!
Thou hast not felt the round-shot tear its way
Through thy rent flesh, and, fallen amid the wheat,
There lingered helpless through the maddening day,
Crushed by the gun-wheels and the chargers' feet.
Thou hast the great white clouds whereon to lay
Thy head when fevered by the summer heat.”

And then a husband: “Day by day my life
Grows yet more wearisome. The flowers outside
Laugh when they hear the shrill voice of my wife
And toss their petals through the window wide,

204

Mocking our endless miserable strife;—
Ah! when I married, all my true soul died.”
But then a woman spoke: “My husband slew
All high thoughts in me,—till my lover came,
And then the sweet and young thoughts bloomed anew;
But now alas! each flower with scarlet shame
Was tipped, and flushed beneath the sunny blue
With trembling dread and streaks of passionate flame.
God's face was in my lover's: yet I felt
That duty drew me from him. When I fled,
The very world beneath me seemed to melt
And hell beneath me yawned wide open and red
And stroke on stroke the sword of agony dealt
Till I alive was mingled with the dead
In all save outward seeming. Then one hour
Again my lover came along the way
And kissed my weary mouth till all aflower
It laughed, and sudden sunlight flushed the grey
Waste thornful branches of my hawthorn bower...
And then—now, God, hast thou one word to say
In thine excuse?—my husband's sword flashed out
Straight from behind our tender bower of green,
And red strange heavy drops ran all about,
And lo! where, even just now, my lips had been

205

Blood from my lover's lips welled slow without:
O murderous God, who witnessedst that scene,
Can I forgive thee?—Never! though the tears
Ran down thy cheeks for ever.” Then a slave:
“For eighty long unutterable years
I watched the free wind through the reed-beds wave,
And heard some women's laughter with mine ears,
Yet never laughed,—till round me closed the grave.”
And then a statesman: “Surely most of all
Slaves are we who upon the people wait;
On whom in turn the vengeful masses fall;
Whom sometimes through the deadly prison-gate
They lead, and sometimes on the steel-spiked wall
Fix our grey heads in their dull poisonous hate,
Though all our lives have done them service true.
God, what of this?” And then a wild-eyed man:
“God! surely thy misdeed thine heart shall rue.
Through all eternity my curse and ban
Shall rest upon thee! Whom thy keen sword slew,
Let her forgive thee; for I never can.”
And then a woman, pale, and all her face
Deep-lined with grief: “I loved, and dreamed that he
Returned my love. My beauty won more grace
From the sweet thought. Yes, I was fair to see!

206

And lovers thronged about me in each place.
God, thou didst bid the tender dream to flee,
As all the golden hues of perfect morn
Flee through the morning's swiftly-closing gate.”
She spake,—and with one voice the wild forlorn
Strange group cried: “God, we crown thee with our hate,
Hate,—and an inextinguishable scorn.”

And then God's answer came in one word. “Wait.”

March, 1883.

207

WINGED LOVE

“Though watched and captive, yet in spite of all,
They found the art of kissing through a wall.”
—Pope.

I

Through walls and doors Love goes:
His lips are in the rose;
His feet are on the hills;
His voice is in the rills.

II

His breath is in the breeze;
He thunders in strong seas;
And through the arcades of morn
He winds his hunting-horn.

208

III

What do ye, ye who bind
Love? Can Love be confined
By earthly bars or grates
Or bolts or brazen gates?

IV

Through walls the winged kiss flies,
And over gloom of skies:
Through foes that cluster round
It speeds without a sound:

V

Then it alights, and brings
Soft gladness on its wings.
What gaoler can descry
The winged kiss hovering nigh!

VI

What prison can retain
Love's plumes of golden grain?
What haunt of woe and death
Can bind Love's sky-sweet breath?

209

VII

At iron chains and steel
Love laughs,—and barriers reel
Drunken before his tread
And light about him shed.

VIII

The sweetest kiss man knows
Is that a woman throws
Through narrowing prison-bars,
So letting in the stars!

IX

So letting in the night
And all its boundless might:
So letting in the blue
That the great moon sails through.

X

The most triumphant lips
Are those which Love's mouth sips
With twenty guards beside,
And every guard defied!

210

XI

Love steals between all bars,
As steal through these the stars.
Foes wait in gaunt array?
Love comes another way!

XII

While every door is sure
And all the locks secure
Behold Love, woman-wise,
In at the window flies!

June, 1881.