Amenophis and Other Poems Sacred and Secular :: :: University of Virginia Library

Pausanias, Regent of Sparta, after commanding his countrymen in the victory of Plataea, was corrupted by sight of Persian luxury and despotism, and began to act the tyrant, notably in his conduct to a free maiden of Byzantium, where he was in command of the Greeks allied against the King of Persia. They, disgusted, withdrew from him, who, meanwhile, tormented by the shade of the maiden, whom he had slain in error, after vain efforts to appease the spirit, was recalled to Sparta. His treasonable offers to Persia being now betrayed by a slave, he was starved to death by order of the citizens in the Brazen House of Athena.

These events fell between 479 and 466 B.C.

I

By the wine-dark Euxine sea,
Where Second Rome once lifted high
Her pomp of marble majesty,
An earlier city clothes itself in glee.
—Megarian Byzance!—for Plataea's plain
Soaks with Persian gore;
Hellas breathes once more;
Pausanias' arm has won; the land is free again.

131

II

Let the triumph then flame out
Along her terraces and towers,
The curved sea-wall, the cypress bowers,
In lights and altar-fires and song and shout:
For golden-panoplied Masistes lies
Naked 'mong the dead!
Artabazus fled!
Pausanias' name goes up in hymn and sacrifice.

III

Peace in all her sweetness hail!
No more the clarions ravish sleep;
Red rust-stains o'er the lances creep;
Gray spider-meshes gather on the mail:
Glad youths with girls the Comus-carols share;
In our feastful bowers
Song puts forth her flowers:
Peace with thy children, hail! Hail, Wealth and Order fair!

A splendid fragment, from a Paean by the lyrical poet Bacchylides,

Τικτει δε τε θνατοισιν Ειρανα------

is here paraphrased.

IV

Why, with envy of his name,
Should Spartan hands the tale erase
From the tall Delphic tripod-base?
—The day was thine,—and thine must be the fame!
Pure hero, brave and pure, for such alone
God with glory crowns;
Bulwark of our towns,
Byzantium welcomes thee, and calls thee now her own!

132

V

—Vain the welcome and the praise!
Unconscious irony of man!
Not knowing how the God His plan
By evil tools works out, and hidden ways:
For He with lightning eyes the secret heart
Searches through, while we
Guess from what we see,
And coarsely, by success, define the hero's part.

VI

Sparta's life and lore forgot,
He that was once Pausanias, now
Before the King he smote can bow,
Swine-changed as Circe's herd, and knows it not!
Traitor to Hellas and Heraclid name,
Despot, in his lust
Hardening, to the dust
Men, women, all, he hurls, the victims of his shame.

VII

—Fairest of Byzantine maids,
Fair Cleonicé, pure and sweet,
With downcast eyes and modest feet
Moving as Leto through Gortynian glades;
Heart of thy mother's heart from infant years
As the gentle face
Rounds to maiden grace,
And she through very love thy beauty sees with tears.

133

VIII

As the dearest nymph of all
Who bend round Artemis in the dance,
When eyes with star-like rapture glance,
And silken waves on ivory shoulders fall,
Lips part for joy, not breath,—she stands upright,
Like the Delian palm,
In her maiden calm,
Whilst all the air around trembles with beauty's light:

IX

—For thy mother best, and thee,
If thy last breath had been the first!
This day the tyrant's greedful thirst
For his foul harem claims thy purity:
Sure sign of baseness at the heart, he deems
Woman slave and toy;
Cast aside, when joy
Sickens the sated sense;—forgot with morning dreams.

X

Midnight as a robber's mask
Now muffles close o'er town and sea:
Now force and fraud and sin are free
To lurk and prowl and do their wolvish task:
Now tow'rd the tyrant's spear-encircled bed,
Tow'rd Pausanias' tent,
Lo, white footsteps bent,
So shame-struck soft, her heart speaks louder than her tread!

134

XI

Helpless, hapless victim-maid!
Not first nor last, I ween, art thou,
Thy gentleness coerced to bow,
Losing thyself to lust,—and nothing said!
Only a girl! only one more, abased,
While man's tyrant-might
Boasts thee frail and light,
And thy creation mars, to his desires disgraced!

XII

Now the brutal couch she seeks
Through blinding night—for, at her prayer,
The odorous lights extinguish'd are—
To hide from self her horror-kindled cheeks:
Ghost-like with vagrant steps she threads the camp:—
Labyrinth-like the shade
Of that tent:—the Maid
Strikes down with clanging fall the lightless golden lamp.

XIII

Sudden from the darkness wide
As some blue trenchant lightning-flame
That seams the cloud, a scimitar came,
And Cleonicé by Pausanias died!—
Dead!—for the traitor deem'd himself betray'd!
Dead!—The Persian sword,
Slavery's sign abhorr'd,
From worse than death, by death redeem'd the Dorian maid.

135

XIV

Morning comes; and with the mo.
The timely bird, the clarion-cry,
The crowding sailors' glad ‘Hy—hy,’
The jostling galleys in the sun-gilt Horn:
But all the happy music of the day
O'er her went in vain,
Where upon the plain
Like some young palm, in all its promise fell'd, she lay.

XV

Morning comes: And he who wrought
The shame, as one refresh'd awakes,
And lust's remorseless counsel takes,
And names another victim in his thought;
‘But if our citizens fret, and 'gainst my sway
With the allies combine,—
Persia's King is mine!
Europe to Asia yoked shall soon my will obey!’

XVI

‘Go where blinded Insolence
And selfish Lust, her child, lead on!’—
O voiceless Voice, to him alone
Whisper'd within, unfelt by mortal sense!
Aye whisper'd!—And a Presence now is by;
Ever at his side
Seems unseen to glide;
A clinging second self; a Shade he cannot fly.

136

XVII

As the fever-feeble wretch,
With lidless eyes and stirless head
Sees a gray ghost beside his bed,
And in the vision knows his fated Fetch:
Or gaunt Orestes, when the deed was done,
Queen and co-mate slain,
Full requital ta'en,
Winning his game, himself found by the Furies won;

See the terrible υμνος εξ'Ερινυων in the Eumenides of Aeschylus.

XVIII

In his ears the frenzying song,
That chain'd the soul and dried the flesh,
And flung a close air-woven mesh
Around its prey, while wingless serpents throng
Draining him to a shadow; and his brain
Maddens with the sting,
As the Erinnyes sing
The songless chaunt of Hell, the soul-corroding strain.

XIX

Yet the Loxian gave him peace!
And to the Hill of War the fair
Athena bade the youth repair,
And purged his guilt, and voted him release;
For he repented of parental gore,
Of that double stroke;
And the Just Ones' yoke
Was lighten'd from his neck, and he breathed free once more.

137

XX

—But the God-abandon'd chief,
By his own passions lash'd and whirl'd,
To deeper depths each day was hurl'd,
Yet from that haunting Voice found no relief:—
‘Where Insolence and Lust drive down their prey,
Go, Pausanias, go!’
—Doom'd to sink more low
Then e'er his glory soar'd, on red Plataea's day.

XXI

Sparta, from his place of pride
Reclaims her King: he must obey!
Through wild Arcadia runs the way,
Arcadia, land of song and mountain-side;
Where Phoebus o'er his favourite valley reigns,
Bassae green and deep;
And white columns peep
Nymph-like amid the trees, fairest of Grecian fanes.

XXII

There athwart the rock-wall white
The long fir-files their spires lift,
Upclimbing dark from rift to rift,
Till snow and azure crown the dazing height;
There, as Pan sleeps below the zenith sun,
Silence only stirs
Where the grasshoppers
Chirr their dry chaunt, and streams with summer music run.

138

XXIII

O'er the vale the Mount of Light,
Lycaeus, lifts his holy head,
One shadeless silver pyramid,
O'ertowering Hellas with Olympian height:
There, Neda and Theosöa, nymphs divine,
Nursed the rocks among
Zeus, when earth was young;
And yet the Lord of Lords finds here his best-loved shrine.

XXIV

Pure in heart and conscience-whole
O they should be, who dare to come
Within dread Nature's secret home,
And nought 'twixt us and her to mask the soul!
As the proud despot treads the vale alone
Fiercer in his ear
Burn the words of fear,
And all that ambient air is Cleonicé's moan!

XXV

Whither from this gad-fly sting,
This coward-making conscience fly?
—He sees Phigalia's rampart high,
And Neda flowing from her mountain-spring
Past Lycosura;—There, as legends said,
Huge Lycaeus hides
In his rifted sides
The Callers-forth of Souls; the Summoners of the Dead.

139

XXVI

Eastward up the vale he turns,
Where walls of rock to left and right
Flicker with living tapestry light,
Aconite, and green mist of feathery ferns:
There, jasmine-stars and golden cistus beam,
While the waves below
Pearl and sapphire flow,
Deepening their voice, as near their birthplace still they stream.

XXVII

Rushing waters, could ye not
Far sea-ward bear the damning cry?—
But now the journey's goal is nigh,
Where one dark pool marks out the fountain-spot:
With lichen-gilded layers and splinter'd steep
Arching high and wide,
Springs the mountain-side,
And the black mirror lies in marble stillness deep.

XXVIII

Sad, as one himself compell'd
The spirits to compel, uprear'd
His grayness the Soul-summoner weird,
And pray'd, and by the hands Pausanias held,
Bending him o'er the mirror blank, and said
‘In the Absolver bold,
Whom thou wouldst behold
Name in thine heart; nor wilt thou vainly seek the dead.’

140

XXIX

Shuddering o'er the shuddering pool,
He sees the Face, not maiden-bright,
But ring'd with blue unhappy light,
And, starting, gazed around, and called her:—Foll!
For she, not here, but where pure souls abide
In the eternal day,
Innocently gay,
Is what she was on earth, transfused and glorified.

XXX

Fled the vision: and alone,
—As when the storm-clouds leeward-go,
Faint flashes broad and reddening glow,
And far horizons mutter undertone,—
These words around the cavern flit, no more,
‘Hence to Sparta flee;
There, release will be:’
And, as he stood, the rock and waters flared with gore.

XXXI

‘Fly!’ the Soul-evoker cried,
‘The God has spoken! Only, know
His message sounds for weal or woe
As the heart is, or is not, purified:
The Soul is its own Fate.’ Pausanias groan'd,
Frown'd, and groan'd again:
—'Twas one moment's pain!
Pride's icy heart grew big; the guilt was unatoned!

141

XXXII

Therefore, O just Gods below,
When hollow Sparta he retrod,
Ye smote him with your Fury-rod
That smites but once, and needs no second blow!
For lust breeds lust, treasons on treasons call,
Till a servile mouth
Tells the shameful truth:
Plataea's victor now is Persia's friend and thrall.

XXXIII

By the temple brazen-wrought
Lo! his own mother's hands begin
To pile the stone and wall him in,
Captive to famine, where he safety sought.
Unhappy Chief! traitor to God and Greece,
Now on Spartan ground
He the end hath found!
But only where thou art, Cleonicé, there is peace.

142

II
TO MY MOTHER'S MEMORY

So many years are gone since last I saw thee,
And I, alas! so young
When that black hour its shadow o'er me flung,
That but with feeble tints,
Vague strokes, half lights, time-troubled tints,
E'en to the inner eye my heart can draw thee.
Yet sometime memory wakes,—
O! not in night, or sadness, but when dawn
Slopes all her silver o'er the dewy lawn,
Or golden day dimples on mountain-lakes,
Or evening's wild-dove tolls her brooding strain,—
Then I remember me of what thou wast,
And see thee once again.

Though denizen'd so long in far-off bowers
And in another air,
Her form I know 'mong all the blest ones there.
Before toward me she turns,
My gazing heart within me burns,
And a new rose-flush flames through all the flowers.
I know the step, the dress,
The grace around her way like sunbeams shed;
The worshipp'd hand, on my then-golden head

143

Laid with the touch of utter gentleness;
The hair—but O! no more what it had been,
Silver'd with pain, not age—but fair as once
In youth, by me unseen.

'Mong all the bright ones there is none such other!
Clear through that myriad throng
Like some sweet subtle scent I catch her song:—
O by whatever name
Now named, thy child, my part I claim;
My soul goes forth to thee: I call thee, Mother!
Smile the low serious smile
Which animated youth to highest aims:
Lay thy soft hand upon the fever flames
That manhood's brain to foolishness beguile:
Hold me once more upon the faithful breast:
Kiss my life-wearied eyelids, say, My Child!
And then I shall find rest.

As when a dove from her soft flight alighting
More softly glides along,
Her feet float by me mid the rose-crown'd throng;
With eyes as if of one
Who sees, and sees not, and is gone
Where other eyes allure, and hands inviting.
—Hast thou no word for me?
None for me, Mother, never needing more
The wisdom needless on the golden floor,

144

The counsels of thy bright sobriety?
—Or, musing on the man that once was child,
Canst not endure to look on all this change;
So fair,—now so defiled?

Mid all the white-robed flock of God, that slowly
Stream up the heavenly ways,
I see the star above her forehead blaze
When she bends back, (as they
Who, turning from their height, survey
Some low dim spire to far remembrance holy);
And, flash'd from breast to breast,
A voice rings clear, as when, knee press'd on knee
And face on face, her whisper'd words to me
Were as the words of God;—and this unrest
Of later years through all the nerves is still'd,
Like some stream-tortured pool, that calms at once
With level crystal fill'd.

Then she: ‘When once we reach the great releasing,
‘Not only are we freed
‘From all that clogs the soul, all earthly greed;
‘But also pain and fear
‘Leave the transnatured spirit clear,
‘And hope, in her fulfilment, finds her ceasing.
‘Whilst here I watch their way
‘Whose life, in life, was more to me than life,
‘The chaunt of peace streams from the heart of strife;

145

‘And all that seems but wrong and disarray
‘Is harmonized to beauty and to good;
‘All thou deem'st pain and ill, in God's high scheme
‘Is love misunderstood.

‘Poor human souls, each in its earth-framed prison,
‘The separate fleshly cell,
‘That meet, but cannot touch, whilst there they dwell!
‘Here I, my child, with you
‘Have real oneness, union true;
‘Eyes never dimm'd by tears, and stainless vision.
‘Love, by the central Throne,
‘Before time was, for this took up his seat,
‘That heart in heart, and soul in soul, should beat,
‘That One should be in All, and All in One:
—‘So here I bide among the rose-crown'd throng
‘Waiting Love's day, and mine, and thine, and thee:
‘For it will not be long.’

I heard: and face to face she seem'd before me,
And moved her hand toward mine.
And I: 'Tis so! now let me take the sign;
With tears and kisses hold
The slender fingers kiss'd of old;—
But silent, flowerlike, she leant back, and o'er me
Her hand, as blessing, held;
And aweful love was on her eyelids spread,
And the pure pearly star, that crown'd her head,

146

Flash'd sudden rose: and my wild heart was quell'd.
And now she turn'd: and, in her turning, Love
Was heard;—Then bent her steps through Heaven;—for she
Knows all the ways thereof.

Go, Song! poor satisfaction of large debt
Which that fair Saint on me for life has bound:
And if the wise thy reason seek,
Say, Thou hast been long sought, and lately found;
My blame, if far below her excellence;—
The spirit is willing, but the tongue is weak.

147

III
IN MEMORY OF ROBERT BROWNING

(At 29, De Vere Gardens 28 December, 1889)

Twilight and peace in the chamber;
Twilight of death and peace
For him who the strife, the long battle of life,
Had fought out to the last release:

Dead in a dying city,
Through her silent water-ways sped
Toward the misty West, and the place of rest
And gray home of the mighty dead:

Now bathed in silence and twilight
Where with wisdom's roseate glow,
Quick lightnings of wit, the chamber was lit
So lately,—yet so long ago:

Where eyes that from youth ne'er look'd on me
But the heart's bright message they bore,
The welcoming lip, the hand's honest grip,
Were mine—mine now never more:—

There with amaranth cross and bay-wreath,
Inane munus, I strove,
Knelt there and pray'd where they said he was laid
To do the last office of love;

148

Love reverent, grateful, deep,
For the treasure that only they,
The poets of love, the wise from Above,
To the world in its deadness convey:

For he, Star-crested, Hope-armour'd,
Struck straight at a swelling tide;
In the valley of doubt, with clarion shout,
Chased coward and doubter aside.

Then the vanish'd Presence in brightness
Was felt once more in the room,
While the worn-out shred the great spirit had shed
Lay garnish'd and still for the tomb.

Not there was the soul I had loved,
Where the mortal raiment was laid,—
Death's vanishing spoil, the lamp without oil,
Blank sheath of the God-wrought blade,—

Bare walls of man's house, where no fire
On the central hearth-stone glows!—
Till silently round me a vapour of sound,
The music of memory, rose:—

And Blest are the dead in the Lord;
For they rest from their labours, I heard;
With a Love is best!—and the life now at rest
Was summ'd in that one brief word.

149

IV
F. C. C.

6 May, 1882

Fair Soul, who in this faltering age didst show
Manhood's right image, constant, courteous, pure,
In silence strong to do and to endure,
'Neath self-suppression veiling inner glow,—

Justice at one with gentleness:—The throe
Of lightning-death found thee, if any, fit,—
Secure in faith,—to bare thy breast to it:—
Ah! thine the joy, beloved!—ours the woe!

For thou hast ta'en thine innocence on high,
The child-simplicity of thy stainless years;
And on thy brows we see the diadem

Of those who walk with Christ in purity,
Fair souls, and wept, like thee, with lifelong tears,
Sword-slain in Ephrataean Bethlehem.

150

V
SAN CARLO BORROMEO AT ARONA

A troubled image the great Statue threw
Down on the waters blue,
Where round the lake gray watchful mountains go,
Frowning beneath the clouds,
And angry summits of eternal snow.

There those who from Arona take their way
To Belgirate's bay,
Dark o'er the long sweet slopes of vernal green
Behold that Image set,
High witness how th' unseen transcends the seen.

She too, the Blesséd one, whose golden smile
Lights up Arona's aisle,
Repeats the message, brought her from above,
In thrice-inspired art,
And that pure master-piece of tender love.

The colossal statue of San Carlo stands upon a hill close to Arona on the Lago Maggiore. Within The Church of S. Maria degli Angeli is the lovely picture of the Nativity, by Gaudenzio Ferrari, here alluded to.

—But round the green hill, and the height, where he,
Teaching mankind to see
Their one true God, stands silent evermore,
The full-voiced nightingale
Thrills the same eloquent song he sang of yore.

151

So, Mother!—when thy feet, from earthly tread
Long sever'd, here were led,
In his due time of joy he sang: And I
See the same scene as thou,
With eyes not dimm'd by tears alone,—and sigh:

Foreseeing that inevitable gloom
Which wraps the nearing tomb;
Whilst thou, great Saint, above me calm dost stand,
Urging the way to God,
With that mute eloquence, and imploring hand.

—Ah Saint, and Mother! Saints together, now
Ye wait the sign to bow
Before the throne, in final, fullest peace;
And cry on those ye love,
Captives of earth, to share the great release.

Baveno; 24 May, 1885

152

VI
THE LAMENT OF ARGATHELIA

For the early descent of the House of Argyll reference has been here made to the great historical works of Skene and Joseph Robertson.

24-25 May, 1878

Dalriada, the dew on thy mountain-tops high
Weeps in silence the night, for thy mistress must die:
Dark shrouds o'er the summit of Cruachan draw,
And a shuddering flits on the face of Loch Awe.

Over Cowal are voices of terror and grief,
The chiefs of Ergadia lamenting their chief,
Where the sons of Earca and Arthur and Lorne,
Dunolly, and Colin, and Somarled mourn.

Stern souls, who have pass'd to the passionless shore
From the bloodshed and harsh battle-music of yore:
Yet amid the red rapine and whirlwind of life,
Knew the magic and sweetness of daughter and wife.

O well should all hearts on the mountain-side moan!
Though 'tis not for a child of Diarmid they groan,
But for her who in girlhood and graciousness came
To be one with the high-hearted lord of their name.

153

As rosebud with rose in the woodland we view,
The bride by her mother in loveliness grew:—
Now, beneath other skies, Love His children has ta'en
Where the roses of God bloom together again.

Dalriada, the mountain-voice lift for the dead!
From thy valleys her sunshine and sweetness are fled:
Bless'd by the eye when it saw her; and more
By the Master unseen Whose true image she bore.

As the burn to the haugh carries life and increase,
Her feet on the mountains were beauty and peace:
Lips gracious with love; and around the fair head
The glory of utter unselfishness shed.

—O! the dearest and nearest her praises should tell,
If the tongue could but speak what the heart knows too well;
For she whom the sons of Diarmid deplore
Between beauty and goodness was something yet more!

Dante:

------tra bella e buona
Non so che fosse più------

She is lost to our eyes, but her footsteps are bright
On the path leading upward to light beyond light:
And long will the vision of all she was here
To dark Argathelia's clansmen be dear.

The sky weeps in silence on moorside and brae
For the soul that has pass'd since the passing of day:—
And to-morrow, as dew when the wind hurries o'er,
Dalriada shall seek her, and find her no more.

154

VII
CHISLEHURST

June, 1879

Purpureos spargam flores. ...

Lone Empress, childless widow, whose sad heart
Knows its own bitterness—and hardly knows—
Death breaking on thee with redoubled blows,
And soul-benumbing smart;

Alone between two memories of past hours;—
Man has no word for pangs like thine!—yet we
For child and sire take up the dirge, to thee
Bringing our tears for flowers.

For he to France gave wealth, with peace, of yore,
And glory, till success and years unnerved
His soul, and from the wiser self he swerved;
And flattering friends, the sore

Which cankers single rule, and that first blot—
A crown by violence compass'd—work'd their will,
And Nemesis on the fatal frontier-hill
Changed in one hour his lot,

155

Empire for exile:—and his head he bow'd
With no unmanly grief: while Party hate
Fanatic, o'er his final wreck elate,
And the foul city-crowd

Spat forth the venom of its seething scum
On the crush'd, broken-hearted chieftain: All
He wrought for France forgotten in his fall!
—France, of the days to come

Heedless: the shameful cloud with nightly glare
Hung bloodred o'er her streets; the rebel bands
Kindling death's pile with matricidal hands
'Gainst their own city fair.

Land of light memories! enterprises light!
Success alone constrains thy pride to bow!
Ungrateful France! thine idols crowning now,
Now burning, in thy spite!

O yet, this day, fair France! while she apart,
The widow-mother, sits in tearless woe,
Thy better self, thy nobler nature show,
Thy generous ancient heart!

This hope was hers, this only hope!—And now!
Past Itelezi, on Edutu's plain,
The wasted life-blood waits the winter's rain,
Earth's natural tears:—But thou,

156

Seized by the joy of war, and fame in view
With all her sweetness, torrent-like didst go,
Making thy breast the target for our foe
Where the fell assegai flew.

Marcellus of thy race, untimely fled!
Loyal to France and God;—too young—too brave!
Whilst we—vain gift!—with violets crown the grave
Of the loved, honour'd dead.

157

VIII
IN MEMORY OF CHARLES WELLS AND JOSEPH SEVERN,

DYING IN 1879

Severn, by a few pictures of merit and interest: Wells, by his early poem, Joseph and his Brethren;—seemed to promise work worthly the friends of Keats.

Friends of young Keats! Names ne'er to be forgot,
While his,—Theocritus of our isle, and more,—
Is great among our great ones,—we deplore
Not that, in one sad sunless year, the lot

Of Atropos calls ye to the better spot
Where Virtue triumphs, and the strife is o'er;
But that, with you, the living link that bore
Our souls across the years to him, is not.

Friends of young Keats!—If, on earth's hamper'd stage,
Ye kept not all the promise of your prime,
Yet on each forehead fell the happy ray

Of genius: and we watch'd your honour'd age
As of those blest ones, who, in earlier time,
Walk'd with Immortals on life's common way.

158

IX
PERE LA CHAISE

The field of death at Paris,
You might think it a fold from afar;
Like flocks the white tombs scatter'd
That green enclosure star.

There statesman, financier and poet,
Love, glory, ambition and guile,
Are laid 'neath their pompous inscriptions,
And the stranger says ‘Who?’ with a smile.

And some more proudly mock-modest
Rest under their names alone;
And all they will soon inherit
Is but the name and the stone.

There the passionate heart of de Musset
Sleeps itself tranquil and pure;
There Béranger, Heine, Bellini,
Lie 'mid the brilliant obscure;

He, whose melody echoes the music
Of the old Sicilian shore;
And they—in their lifetime too famous
To be famous for evermore.

159

But from the white mausolea
The eye turns wearily soon,
Drawn by the dark fascination
Of the dreary Fosse Commune.

Had these no story of passion?
Had these no passion for fame,
No deeds for remembrance or glory,
Who lie without hillock or name?

They shovel them in by fifties,
And bid them lie down with a grin,
Who could not buy a ‘concession’—
Sons of starvation and sin!

Here at last, by Mortality's favour,
Fraternal and equal they lie:
And the child in vain seeks the mother
With its cross to crown her, and die.

—In this best of worlds, O my brothers,
Is surely something amiss!
Songs of advance and culture,
Is your ultimate triumph this?

Is the soul's heart-hunger abolish'd,
While agnostics their litany cry,
Or Science says, ‘matter to matter,’
With a smile that lurks in a sigh?—

160

The homage and incense of Paris
On the famous and wealthy are shed;
But love and sorrow are kneeling
O'er the undistinguish'd dead;

And the orphan sobs and wanders
O'er the dust that will hide it soon
From the wolfish strife for existence,
In the dreary Fosse Commune.

161

X
AN INVOCATION

Come, Love, as in the golden days
When I was child and thou wast king;
Come, poet-wreathed with Lesbian bays,
And touch each common thing
To heaven by the waving of thy wing.

And crown the crimson wine of life
With roses of celestial birth,
And bid the banquet-hall be rife
With strains unheard on earth,
And sadness sweeter than the songs of mirth.

162

XI
AN ASPIRATION

It is no fault of the loved one,
If I cannot discover
Whether my heart be worthy
To be the heart of her lover.
It is no blot on her beauty
That makes me wonder and waver,
If to fly the might of her magic,
Or ask the seal of her favour.

Who could so look onward and upward
In the faith of his own heart-merits,
When she, young star of the maidens,
By birth a kingdom inherits?
O Love, who o'er earth and heaven
Art more than king, O! before her
Bow down, proud Love, in thy glory
While in thee I kneel and adore her!

O star-drop of liquid silver
That quivers and flames in the zenith!
Say, what is this entrancement,
Or what this misery meaneth?

163

The sapphire spaces about thee
With the light of thy looks thou palest:
What art thou in thine own heaven,
If here thou so prevailest?

Must the spaces that part us
Still spread darker and wider?
Can she stoop from her splendour.
Stoop, and set me beside her?
Can I climb to her beauty,
My star with glory above her?
Or is she too high in heaven
For me to take her and love her?

164

XII
A PAUSE BEFORE BATTLE

Horatia, reputed daughter by Lord Nelson of Lady Hamilton, born 1799, spent her infancy and childhood at Merton. A letter from Nelson to her mother says, “I beg, as my dear little Horatia is to be at Merton, that a strong netting, about three feet high, may be placed round the Nile [a streamlet in the garden, so named by Lady Hamilton], that the little thing may not tumble in.” Horatia married the Rev. P. Ward, and died on March 6, 1881. (Times, March 10, 1881.)

21 October, 1805

In the dreadful calm, before
Thunder-peals of battle roar;
While each moment, as they go,
Wafts them nearer to the foe;
While, ere rival courage bleeds,
Life with Death yet intercedes;—
Kneeling by the bed that ne'er
Thee in life again shall bear,
As they kneel who love and fear,
Admiral, what dost thou here?

Clear across the brine he sees
Surrey hills, and Merton trees,
Where the fresh autumnal light
Gently gilds a cottage white,
Wall'd with jessamine and rose,
Vision of the heart's repose!
There the Lady of his love
Nestles with the nestling dove;
There, on baby fitful feet,
Strays the little daughter sweet.

165

Darling! o'er whose sleeping head
His last prayers that night were shed,
Quitting one he loved too well,
With love's pang ineffable.
—Loved not wisely, could he know
How o'er those the years would go,
Desolate and drear, whom he
Left to us, his legacy,
Bitterer tears than tears of war
Had been pour'd for Trafalgar!

Now for these again he pray'd,
Kneeling while the fight delay'd:—
Once more o'er that English home
Saw the sunbeams go and come;
Saw the garden-child at play
Call'd by Emma's knee to pray;
O'er the thought once more he smiled,
Lion-soul'd heroic child!
Then his place in calmness takes,
While the battle-thunder breaks.

166

XIII
THE LOST ‘EURYDICE’

24 March, 1878

[_]

The mother of a young Officer seen at the helm when the frigate capsized, was waiting his return at Southsea.

‘Lady, she is round the Needles: now Saint Catherine's Cape they sight:
Now her head is set north-eastward; 'fore the beam the Foreland light.

‘Look, we see the light from Southsea,’—and beyond the fancy goes,
Where e'en now the fated keel is gliding under dark Dunnose:

Swanlike gliding, as some cloud that, dark below, the storm-wind's hue,
Towers into silver summits, sailing o'er the tranquil blue.

O the change!—and in one hour!—when, swanlike, on the harbour's breast,
Plumage furl'd and voyage over, safe the gallant ship will rest!

167

—All the movement of the haven spread beneath her eyes in vain,
At a window watch'd the Lady, gazing o'er the sunlit main;

Thinking, from the Foreland light-ship they perchance e'en now might see,
See the noble ship,—My Ship!—for brings she not my boy to me?

Drifted from the waves the splendour; from the sky died out the blue:
Yet the Lady saw not; deep beyond herself her sight withdrew.

Sunshine glow'd within her bosom; happy music in her ears;
Love in glory painting all the beauty of his youthful years.

Heart 'twixt brave and tender balanced; manly child, and childlike youth:
Bright as heaven, as ocean open; true to true love, true to truth.

‘Fit for earth, and fit for heav'n,’ she thinks, ‘whate'er his destined lot;’
—He is there already, Mother! Mother!—and thou know'st it not!

168

Thunderbolts of icy storm-wind in its panting bosom piled,
Sudden, towering angry-black, a cloudy wall climbs wide and wild.

Like a squadron at the signal, forth the mad tornado flies,
Robed in blinding folds of snow, together mixing seas and skies.

—From the window turn, Lady! toward the light-ship look no more;
Happy that thou canst not see the darkening headland, surf-white shore.

Thirty minutes since they watch'd her;—stately vision, jocund crew:—
All beyond from outward witness hidden, lost to mortal view.

Voice was none, nor cry of terror;—as when snowdrifts whelm the dell,
Smitten, slain, at once, and buried, where the mad tornado fell.

Right upon her side she dipp'd, then turn'd and went within the main:
Only at her helm, the last, the gallant boy was seen;—in vain!

169

—Weep not for thy children, England! though the wild waves hold their prey:—
England owns a thousand thousand, loyal to the death as they.

Ah! the sun once more, uncaring, glitters o'er the hapless dead,
Golden shafts through twilight emerald piercing to their oozy bed.

There, ring'd round with foam-fleck'd waters, flapping sails and shatter'd poles
Lift themselves, a desolate beacon, o'er three hundred English souls.

There the sun may blaze uncaring, there the ripples kiss and play,
Chalk-bright cliffs and grassy headland smiling to the smiling bay.

But within the Lady's soul the music and the glow are gone;—
This alone is left to cheer thee, Mother! Mother!—this alone:

Though the heart's desire on earth thy longing eyes ne'er meet again,
True to God and England, at the helm, thou seest him;—not in vain!

170

XIV
THE SUN-DIAL

I look on the happy children,
And they bid me join their play
By the sun-dial in the garden,
The sun-dial old and gray.

They smile as they watch the shadow
With stealthy resistless pace;
But they read not the lesson, the dear ones,
Writ on the dial's face.

For you, my children, it numbers
No hours save hours serene;
No fears for a hidden future,
No pang for the dread ‘has been.’

The vision of wasted chances,
Of faces we would not forget
Yet prized not enough when with us,
The deep, unavailing regret:

The years in their torrent swiftness
That shriek as seaward they go...
—What know they of this, the children?
Ah, better they should not know!

171

They smile and watch by the dial,
Till darkness hurries them hence:—
And their souls are bathed in slumber
With the sunshine of innocence.

But I stand and watch them sleeping,
And over their faces go
Flushes and smiles and sweetness,
And breathing even and low.

I muse on the thousand perils
That hang o'er each golden head;
And I know that my treasures tremble
Like dew on the gossamer-thread.

O Life, what art thou that holdest
What is more than life to thee
By the tenure of thine own hours,
Thine own fragility?

And each breath is a sigh, that nearer
Brings the long farewell to me:—
O were Life not life for ever,
Better life should not be!

172

XV
TO A CHILD

The soft blue fire within thine eyes,
The blush-rose of the rounded cheek,
The curve of the caressing lips
Moulded to motions meek,—
All are too fugitive!
These cannot live, my little one!
These cannot live.

The golden glances in thy hair,
The grief-unfretted forehead fine,
The gracious harmony of form
Marr'd by no coarser line;—
All are too fugitive!
These cannot live, my little one!
These cannot live.

As the full birdweed-bloom in June,
Where purple stain'd on purple lies,
The masterpiece of Flora, one
One short day burns, and dies,—
All are too fugitive!
These cannot live, my little one!
These cannot live.

173

But the clear message of the eyes
When truth in silence speaks and glows;
The candour of the faithful lips
Now rosier than the rose—
The rose is fugitive—
But these will live, my little one!
But these will live.

But the mind's inner grace, the form
That 'neath this outward hidden lies;
More beautiful than beauty's self
Beneath its dear disguise:—
These are not fugitive!
These gifts will live, my little one!
But these will live.

The radiance of the open soul
Pure from all touch of self and ill,
The heart at unison with the head,
The gracious woman's will:—
These are not fugitive;
These, these, will live, my little one!
These ever live.

September, 1873

174

XVI
PORTRAIT OF A CHILD OF SEVEN

Fair Temple! by some Architect above
With all-foreknowing power in secret plann'd,
While Grace and Graciousness on either hand,
And Innocence with Love

Stood by, and shaped each curve to Beauty's line,
With flower-soft touch, more pure than Phidian skill
Or Flaxman's—till the marble miracle
Shone fair and full and fine,

And breathed and warm'd with life; like mountainsnows
At dawn, or as beneath Pygmalion's hand
The Parian maid confess'd the soul's command,
And whiteness flush'd to rose.

—I gaze, and in this living temple know
My seven-years' treasure; and the soul looks straight
From those bright windows, and the rosy gate
Smiles in Love's perfect bow.

Fair shrine!—yet of a fairer far within
Thou art but outward mask and symbol weak,
As the sun's shadow, moonlight;—and we seek
The soul beneath the skin,

175

Veil'd and incarnated in lineament,
Limb, footstep, finger, gesture, voice, caress;
And e'en to silken hair, to childly dress,
By loving fancy lent.

Fair soul! young hidden inmate! yet no less
Seen in the crystal clear intelligence,
The deep-heart love, the meditative sense,
The pure unselfishness;

While (Reynolds in each line), by me she stands
With violet steadfast eyes, and pensive smile
Of absolute faith, and lays on mine the while
Her soft caressing hands:—

Till now one perfect whole of heavenly art,
Inward and outward, in the child I trace;
Harmonious as some type of Raphael grace,
Or strain of sweet Mozart.

21 March, 1879

176

XVII
L'IMPREVU

PORTH GWYN, DINLLEYN

Dear child, methought, how often have we turn'd
The page where art sets forth a scene like this,—
The rocks, the cove, the green green waves that kiss
Their pebbled beach,—and for the spot have yearn'd!

—Wilful, why would'st not come?—Here at my feet
The rustling of the ever-restless sea
Round each dark shatter'd rock runs foamingly
With quick inrush of flood, and quick retreat:

Yet not this soft-flush'd dome of Autumn sky,
Those golden sands that clasp the Shining Bay,
And smile their welcome to that nearing tide

The heart's desire can wholly satisfy,—
All Nature's beauty here, and thou away!
—A touch—a kiss:—and she was at my side.

12 September, 1883

177

XVIII
IN MEMORIAM

As I wander o'er hillside and meadow
I think of the children three;
I hear the pure blithe voices,
The fair fair faces I see.

Frank, blue-eyed, sturdy, and smiling;
Gwenllian rounded and fine;
And the lips of the little eldest
Than coral more coralline.

And the glory of youth and gladness
Is in all that they do and say,
And they walk without past or future
In the light of an endless to-day.

But I from the past look onward
To a future hidden from you;
And I trace this image of childhood
For the eyes of hereafter to view:

That when mine are fallen to darkness,
They may rest on the picture awhile,
With a smile, my darlings no longer!
That is not altogether a smile.

1868

178

XIX
THE HAPPY VALLEY

In the heart of the long bare uplands
It lies like a river of green;
And the trees each slope descending
Leave a flowery sward between:—

A flowery path for the children,
With the oak and the thorn on high;
Coverts to tempt the boldest,
And shelter-spots for the shy.

Come, Love, to the happy valley
Where the turf slopes smooth and dry:
At our feet the laughing children;
Above, the laughing sky.

Life has no hour more golden
Than thus on the grassy slope:
While we blend the age of reason
With the brighter age of hope.

179

For Childhood is of the valley,
Haven'd from tempest and heat;
With flowers beyond its grasping,
And flowers beneath its feet;

Mid-age has the long bare uplands,
Bare to the heat and the rain:—
Come, Love, to the happy valley,
Children with children again.

180

XX
CHILDREN'S LAMENT FOR BABY

Dear little Baby day by day
We watch'd as on the bed it lay;
And oft its eyes it open'd wide,
And smiled to see us at its side:—
The clothes are on the empty bed;
But where is little baby fled?

Its limbs were growing long and fine,
Its hands put out to clasp and twine;
The lips began to coo and call;
It sat upright and wish'd to crawl;
And brighter daily round its head
The golden hair like sunrise spread.

When first within the cot it lay,
We ask'd if it had come to stay;
And scream'd for joy to hear them tell
'Twas sent from God with us to dwell,
And play about till it was grown,
And be our very very own.

181

And when its eyes were sunk and dim,
And wasting seized each tiny limb,
We nursed it on our knees all day,
And begg'd it not to go away:
It moved its head and faintly cried,
And then lay still and sigh'd and sigh'd.

And now we cry and look in vain,
And cannot see it here again:—
The cot is white and still and bare,
But baby smiles and sings elsewhere;
Among God's Angels bright and dear:
Yet not more Angel there than here.

182

XXI
VERE NOVO

Sweet primrose-time! When thou art here
I go by grassy ledges
Of long lane-side, and pasture-mead,
And moss-entangled hedges:

And all around her army gay
The primrose weather musters,
In single knots, and scatter'd files,
And constellated clusters.

And golden-headed children go
Among the golden blossoms,
And harvest a whole meadow's wealth,
Heap'd in their dainty bosoms.

Ah! Play your play, sweet little ones,
While life is gladness only:
Nor ask an equal mirth from hearts
Which, e'en with you, are lonely.

God to His flowers His flowers gives,
Pure happiness uncloying;
Whilst they, whose primrose-time is past,
Enjoy in your enjoying.

183

XXII
A LATE SPRING

The Marriage of Zephyrus and Chloris

Chloris ... in the Greek mythology, figures the fresh golden green of Spring.

Late Zephyr, thou this month and more art dallying
In some sweet western cave,
Atlantis, or Ogygia, where the wave
Laps thee in sleep, or some white Goddess-form
Holds back thy sallying.

Within the gracious haunts of early flowering
Idly the children seek
Thy children,—primrose, speedwell, hyacinth meek;
While in this March-May breeze the windflower-stars
Shine faint and cowering.

The violet only comes, the true-heart's favourite,—
And on the trees meanwhile,
Chloris, thy bride, looks vainly for a smile,
A breath, excusing thy delay; and thou
Hast nought to say for it.

184

But she, forgetful of the days of flowering,
Sits in the forest gray,
And all her buds blush reddening at thy stay,
And cannot weave their rose-wreaths for the bride,
Or green embowering.

What ails thee, Zephyr, while the blackbird clamorous
Calls thee to Chloris' side,
Mocking thy chilling absence from the bride;
While the sad silent nightingale holds back
His welcome amorous?

Come, Zephyr, come! the heavens one moment favouring,
Invite thee from the west;
Fair Chloris woos thee to her genial breast;
Spring waits the bridal, sick of this delay,
And long, long wavering.

May, 1879

185

XXIII
NATURAE REPARATRICI

Sweet fleckless sky, May heralding
All Summer's joys together,
Vine-wreath, rose, myrtle, nightingale,
And youth's unclouded weather:

Thy sunshine is my gloom: I mourn
Young Hope, aims idly cherish'd;
The faces seen no more on earth,
The priceless years, the perish'd.

Yet Nature holds a gracious hand,
Her ancient way pursuing;
And spreads the charms we loved of old,
To aid the heart's renewing.

Here her long crests of sky-ward crag
Allure the unresting swallows;
Here still the dove's low love-note floats
Above her leafy hollows.

186

Here its calm strength her hillside rears
From heaving slopes of clover;
Here still the pewit pipes and flits
Within his furzy cover.

Here hums the wild-bee in the thyme,
Here glows the royal heather;
And youth comes back upon the breeze,
And youth's unclouded weather.

187

XXIV
A HALCYON DAY IN SUMMER

Though thy song-tribute ne'er has fail'd, O Sea!
Since that Aeolian Master set thy soul
To music in his long hexameter roll,
One gift, in these changed years, I bring to thee:—

For thou to-day hast veil'd thy majesty
'Neath this smooth shining floor of purpled green,
Pattern'd with white waves o'er the gloom unseen
Where gray Leviathan circles fast and free:—

On such a day might Galataea fair
Flaunt her fleet dolphins o'er the buoyant plain,
While Zephyrs dipt and vaulted through the sky:

—Now one lone bird, wheeling, her hungry prayer
Screams forth, responsive to the low refrain
Of thy sweet, sad, eternal litany.

Lyme,September, 1888

188

XXV
A DORSET VALLEY

Between Monkton Wyld and Reed's Barn, Lyme

It is no cemented mile-path,
Of Rome's imperial day,
That drives over down and valley—
Right onward its ruthless way:

Nor in years of the mine and the furnace
Was it laid by a later hand,
To be one of the veins of iron
Which bear the pulse of the land:—

But the path that I show you, children,
Has an older way of its own.
And took its sweet steps through the valley
Ere Roman and Saxon were known.

It winds like a grassy streamlet
'Twixt hollies and hazels old,
And the palms of silvery velvet,
Where the willow-wren twinkles in gold.

189

Where the wayside slopes are embosom'd
In gorse and the feathery brake;
Where the round root-stems of the beeches
Coil like a gray old snake:

Where the sky is pierced with the arrows
Of the sweet shrill linnet aloft,
And red robin and black bird answer
With mellower song from the croft;

And the cottages peep in their whiteness
'Mid the holts of the valley wild,
And shine as the smile that lightens
The face of a pensive child;

And little ones stand in the doorway
With their handfuls of cowslip gold,
While the smoke goes white from the hearthstone,
As it went in the days of old:—

And we smile as we see the children
Smile in their valley green;
Our relic spared from Old England;
Our own dear Dorset scene.

190

XXVI
BETWEEN NIGHT AND MORNING

IN SOUTH-WESTERN ENGLAND

Still, still,—so still that you might carve,
Like marble in the bed,
Vast blocks of solid silence, from
The night around us spread:
Till stealthy-glimmering dawn with gray
Dilutes the ebon dark,
And tuning for the sky his song,
Awakes the woodland lark.

Thou Dawn that silent flood'st the vale,
Wilt flood the vale with song,
While tremulous wing and open'd beak
In their green nurseries throng.
With those who chaunt His praise, and float
Through Heaven their order'd way,
God's little ones of hedge and holt
Their angel-service pay.

191

Now o'er the bay a second sea
Of liquid amber swims:
Each grove now to the gracious light
Breaks forth in thankful hymns:
With jocund cry the blackbird trim
Leaps on the dewy lawn:—
O snow-soft silence of the night!
O music of the dawn!

192

XXVII
A SUMMER SUNSET

IN SOUTH-WESTERN DORSET

This hour is given to peace:—
The downward-slanting sunbeams graze the vale
Where Even breathes her stealthy gathering gray;
And o'er white stubble-plots, the sheaves
Like walls of gold put forth their ripe array.

Upon the green slope sward
The hedgerow elms lie pencill'd by the sun
In greener greenness: and, athwart the sky,
Dotted like airy dust, the rooks
Oar themselves homeward with a distant cry.

And the whole vale beneath,
To Castle Lammas' violet-bosom'd height,
With all its wealth outspread of harvest hopes,
Half green, half russet gold, runs up
As a fair tapestry shaken o'er the slopes.

It is an utter calm!
The topmost ash-tree sprays have ceased to wave;
The cushat checks her sweet redoubled moan;
And e'en the gray-wall'd cottages
Sleep 'mid their crofts like things of Nature's own.

193

I hear the shepherd's call;
The white specks gather to the crowding fold,
Their lowly palace of unvex'd repose:
While o'er the chambers of the sun
Float filmy fleeces of empurpled rose.

And now the silent moon
Lifts her pale shield above a glassy sea,
And from the highest cloud the sunbeams cease:
And, tranced in Nature's holy hour,
The time-sick heart renews its ancient peace.

—Then in the soul we know
The presence of our dear ones: Love binds up
The sore of life, and pours himself in balm:
While e'en the memories of the dead
Glide painless through the breast in star-like calm.

194

XXVIII
AUTUMN

With downcast eyes and footfall mild,
And close-drawn robe of lucid haze,
The rose-red Summer's russet child
O'er field and forest Autumn strays:
On lawn and mead at rising day
Tempers the green with pearly gray;
And 'neath the burning beech throws round
A golden carpet on the ground.

And oft a look of long regret
Her eyes to Summer's glory throw;
Delaying oft the brand to set
That strips the blossom from the bough:
And where in some low shelter'd vale
The last sweet August hues prevail,
Her eager frosts she will repress,
And spare the lingering loveliness.

And for her searing hours of night
And narrow'd spaces of her day,
By sudden smiles of mellow light
And azure gleams she strives to pay;

195

With cluster'd coral tempts the bird
To livelier song than Summer heard,
Till the loud flutings of his strain
Cheat him almost to Spring again.

Yet, in her own despite, her sway
Leads down the year to gloom and cold,
And all the green delight of May
Her touch transmutes to barren gold:
As Age, that crowns with wealth our years,
Dries the sweet spring of human tears,
And while to pride of state we press,
Kills the soul's inner fruitfulness.

Ah! whilst her stealthy hands unbare
The naked trellis of the groves,
Black Winter laughs within his lair,
And revels in the wreck he loves:
And knows his hour will soon be here
To cast his shroud upon the year,
And o'er the white hill-side and vale
To ride and ravage on the gale.

And though beneath the snow-mass'd slope
The harvests of the future lie,
No hue of life, no hint of hope
Lights the dead earth and spectral sky:

196

And all the promise of the Spring
Is like a hidden far-off thing;
A dream too tender, faint, and sweet,
For mortal eyes again to meet.

No! The dear hopes that grow more dear
With sterner self-restraint we quell;
And what lies hid within the year
We would not, if we could, foretell.
No!—And if once again we see
The green leaf glorify the tree,
The gray sky glisten into blue,
It will not be the Spring we knew.

197

XXIX
FROM LUCERNE

If I could put my love in words,
Would I pour out to Thee
A sweeter song than any yet
Was sung by bird on tree:—

Here, where the many-pointed Mount
That wears the cap on high,

Mons Pil[e]atus; So named from its frequent cloud-covering.

Pale against paler air, builds up
His snows beneath the sky;—

Or where, above an English sea,
Our green hills fringe the bay,
The long sweet hours of eve we sit,
Till golden fades to gray.

—But as who, at some shrine long-sought,
Would speak, but cannot dare,
So much the Presence overawes
The pilgrim and the prayer;

So am I mute:—Yet, to the soul
Can that dumb silence tell
In words beyond art's choicest art,
How well I love,—how well!

May, 1885

198

XXX
AN AUTUMN SONG

TO EUGENIA

Summer hay and harvest
Come and gone again:
Ah! the months are measured
By the yellow wain!
As the stately cargoes
Down the valley sway;
Golden wheat-sheaf mountains,
Hills of scented hay.

Yearly for her children
Earth, the Mother, pours
Thus in rick and linhay
Her sustaining stores:
Heedless if the ploughman
Reap the seed he sows,
If with grass and leaf-bud
He o'erlive the snows.

Man she loves; but loves not
With a mother's heart;
'Tis the race that only
In her care has part.

199

For the Whole providing,
Deaf to each one's fate,
She our tears and laughter
Eyes with smile sedate.

—Down a twilight ocean
Men like swimmers go;
Some sweet face beside them,
Some few voices know.
Faint and firm the Pole star
Beaconing overhead,
O'er the heaving billows
Draws a silver thread.

Who knows when his nearest
'Neath the flood shall go?
Who, when Death may call him
From the night below?—
—Shall we see the spring-time,
Hear the bird again?
Ask no more, when autumn
Brings the harvest wain!

Swaying down the hillside,
On the hedge it weaves
Lines of golden wheat-straw
That outlast the leaves:
—Shall we see the spring-time
Bud and burst again?—
Ask no more, Eugenia!
Ask no more in vain!

200

XXXI
A VISION OF LIFE

Days come and days go by,
Gliding so fast that one
Into another almost seems to run,
And Thursday dawns ere Wednesday is nigh:
One precious leaf each plucking from the tree
Of life allotted me.

Through the thinn'd boughs atop
Looks in the naked blue;
The flowers all fall'n, and scanty fruit in view,
Sweet-ripe to pull, or set for future crop;
And at the root the hidden worm I know
Mining to lay it low.

Ah tree, that once in youth,
When hope was green and high,
Dreamt its large leafy head would touch the sky,
Its roots all matted round the central truth!
How poor, by that vast visionary tree,
Looks the small shrub I see!

201

Not rooted in pure truth
But in some shifting soil,
Where error and appearance mock our toil,
Till freezing Age seals the bold eyes of Youth,
Saying, ‘Look here! for all thy force and glow,
Thou canst no farther go.’

Yet, though the leaves may fall,
The life-sap is not shrunk,
But gathers strength deep in the knotted trunk,
And, losing part, has more than having all;
Condensed within itself to meet the stress
Of age, with cheerfulness.

And for the dreams of youth
Come larger aims, that bear
Elsewhere their fruit, their crown expect elsewhere,
In amaranth meadows of immortal truth,
Where the sun sets not all our night below
O'er flowers of golden glow:

Unfading leaves, and eyes
Wiped from all human tears;
Soft gliding of the years that are not years,
Eternal spaces:—not like those our sighs
Note as they pass, while, fast as bubbles fly,
Days come and days go by.

202

XXXII
BETWEEN GRAVE AND CRADLE

She will not come again, or bless thy bed,
Fair lamb asleep, softer than thy soft nest;
Or count the heavings of a grandchild's breast,
Kissing the pure fresh lips rose-garlanded,
Life's open gates:—Ah vain, ah vain;
She will not come again.

Unseen by her thy face, warm nestled Dove,
Snatch'd ere she knew the fruitful hours to be,
Her own child's blessedness fulfill'd in thee,
This waxen miniature, this roseblush Love:
Here, Angel Mother, here!—Ah vain—
She will not come again.

Thou smil'st on me: thy baby grasp repays
The touch of mine: I see her in thy face:
Her heart informs the lastling of her race:
I hear the fairy feet of jocund days,
The dear remember'd voice: Ah vain;
She will not come again.

203

Sweet smiler! so! 'tis blithe Love foots the stair,
A mother's carol cry beyond the door:—
O she would smile to hear, who smiles no more,
And bid me wipe the fond tears of despair
And joy where all is joy:—Ah vain—
She will not come again.

204

XXXIII
ELEGY ON THE DEPARTED

E se non piangi, di che pianger suoli?

O field of God, with grassy waves
Spread as a summer sea,
What peace is o'er thine inmates pour'd:
Oh that 'twere so with me!

There 'neath the holy Cross the sods
Her soul's fair vesture hold;
The ransom'd spirit borne meanwhile
To Jesus' happy fold.

But to my side, by night, by day,
The mortal arrow cleaves:
Earth's cup of innocent delight
A wormwood savour leaves.

I shun the seat whence oft we watch'd
The sunset rose the sky:
All Nature's charm before me flits
As o'er a dead man's eye.

In each fair spot a memory hid
The heart with torture sears:
The hills by those dear eyes last seen
I see through blinding tears.

205

Ah sweet Spring days by lamb-starr'd lea,
Fresh feathery grove, and glen;
All earth with three-fold beauty blest,—
For thou with me wert then!

Or where 'neath some tall cliff the sea
Her peacock bosom raised,
And smiled a bluer, tenderer smile
As by thy side I gazed!

Now o'er the lightsome skies a pall
Of rayless gray has come,
For with her going hence is gone
The sunshine of the home.

I dread the door where those soft steps
Have pass'd, and pass'd away:
The bedside where my Saint in Heaven
Bow'd low for Heaven to pray.

—O fond faint eyes that turn'd to me
In that last, bitterest woe!
O Love, Love, Love, my Love, my own,
How could'st thou leave me so?

Still o'er the lawn the star-eyed sky
Lets fall her silver tears:
The rose that knew thy tending hand,
Her heedless beauty rears:—

206

They reck not, they, that thou art gone,
Nor how earth's minutes run
While thy dear face withdrawing fades
As mist in morning sun.

O deeper than the deepest pang
The form from memory chased;
Love's empty vase with ashes fill'd,
The wound by Time effaced!

Sad years that dim the dear, dear face
As round your circles sweep!
Dearest, did I not weep thee now,
How should I ever weep?

Still to my side by night, by day,
The mortal arrow clings:
The fair fresh breeze of dawn may waft
No comfort on her wings:

The soft security of sleep,
The blessings of the night,
These sorrow-streaming eyes in vain
In vain to rest invite.

O Heaven on which my soul I cast
With all the force of faith,
From thy pure crystal depths reveal
That holy Spirit-Wraith!

207

Mother! be with me as thou wert—
Or if the heavenly place
Have wrought the change, the aureoled head,
Sure I shall know thy face!

The hand that almost o'er my brow
Breathed in its soft caress;
The peace on the fair forehead sign'd,
The step, the very dress:—

Smile as when once the tender eyes
Upon thy baby smiled;
On that pure bosom let me rest,
And be thy child, thy child!

—Ah, silence in that azure sky,
And on this grassy field!
And silence on thy lips to me
By law almighty seal'd!

Not here, not here, but where the Blest
Their crown of victory win;
Where the Redeemer and the Life
Welcomes His faithful in.

—What sudden voice the stillness stirs,
What low sweet loving cry?
About her Cross, lo! where the dove
Circles and sweeps on high.

208

O Mother, Mother mine, my soul
Mounts with the mounting dove:
Almost I seem thy steps to trace
To Heavens the heaven above!

—Thou first blest sign of peace to man,
Love's own sweet messenger!
Where my Saint sits, God grant me wings
To rise and follow her.

1891

University of Virginia Library

VARIA

IPAUSANIAS AND CLEONICE

AN OLD-HELLENIC BALLAD

Argument

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IV

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VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI

XXXII

XXXIII

IITO MY MOTHER'S MEMORY

IIIIN MEMORY OF ROBERT BROWNING

IVF. C. C.

VSAN CARLO BORROMEO AT ARONA

VITHE LAMENT OF ARGATHELIA For the early descent of the House of Argyll reference has been here made to the great historical works of Skene and Joseph Robertson.

VIICHISLEHURST

VIIIIN MEMORY OF CHARLES WELLS AND JOSEPH SEVERN,

DYING IN 1879

IXPERE LA CHAISE

XAN INVOCATION

XIAN ASPIRATION

XIIITHE LOST ‘EURYDICE’

XIVTHE SUN-DIAL

XVTO A CHILD

XVIPORTRAIT OF A CHILD OF SEVEN

XVIIL'IMPREVU

PORTH GWYN, DINLLEYN

XVIIIIN MEMORIAM

XIXTHE HAPPY VALLEY

XXCHILDREN'S LAMENT FOR BABY

XXIVERE NOVO

XXIIA LATE SPRING

The Marriage of Zephyrus and Chloris Chloris ... in the Greek mythology, figures the fresh golden green of Spring.

XXIIINATURAE REPARATRICI

XXIVA HALCYON DAY IN SUMMER

XXVA DORSET VALLEY