Love-Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

EARLY POEMS.

(Written in 1870.)

I. AN EARTH-SONG.

I

That I could sing the splendour,
And some account could render
Of all the joys of living like a man upon the earth;
The wonder of the daytime,
The greenery of May-time,
The mystery of death-time, the mystery of birth!

II

That I could pierce the ether,
The earth—and plunge beneath her
Wide-rolling prairie-panoply of surface-smiles and flowers;
And get me to the centre,
And find the fires that rent her
Cliffs and chasms and mountain-tops, the live volcanic powers!

III

Returning to things human,
I'd sing of man and woman,
And all the life of love-time, the glory of the land;
How man is handed over,
A child become a lover,
From woman unto woman, from tender hand to hand.

IV

Man leaves at last his mother,
And findeth in another
A wondrous new development of love that ceaseth never;
More wonderful than dreams were,
Fulfilled with fairyland, fair
Fruition of the fancy-realm that seemed a myth for ever.

V

And as he sits a-dreaming,
Along his brain is streaming
A river of recollection that linketh old and new;
He sees the realization
Of childhood's admiration
Of doughty deeds of heroes, of the beautiful and true.

VI

How clearly he remembers
By stirring up the embers
Of memory, how Woman first appeared in childish dreams;
A goddess of the ether
Who smiled on men beneath her,
All garmented in sunset, and bright with burning beams.

VII

Calm, crowned, an earthly centre,
Her robes without a rent, her

Presence an embodiment of all we fancied fair;
With eyes of wondrous seeming,
With tenderness all gleaming,
And a light upon her raiment, and a glory in her hair.

VIII

One hardly likes to think of it,
Again in dreams to drink of it,
A draught of joy so wonderful, a picture passing pure;
And yet, not all ungrateful,
We are glad that in the hateful
Dark lanes of later life a ray of light can still endure.

IX

A memory of the vision,
The dream, the intuition,
The God-vouchsafed glimpses of the life that ought to be;
Ah me! the early river,
The flakes of light that quiver
Across its course miles upward from the weary weary sea!

X

It leaps along the sandbanks
And laughs atween the fern-ranks,
With splashing and with dashing, and with sounds of happy glee;
It has not seen the town yet,
The grief is further down yet,
The child is not the model of the man that is to be.

XI

Then come the town-pollutions:
An æon of ablutions
Shall not restore the freshness of the stream above the town;
The Arve has joined the Rhone now,
With tardiness of flow now,
And weightier wave of water it for ever runneth down.

XII

On towards the sea though!
Little does the stream know
All the wealth of wonderment awaiting it in death;
Dreams that it shall find there
All before it found fair,
Purity of raiment, and a joy that takes the breath.

XIII

Fullest restoration
To rightful rank and station;
Perfected development of all the dreams of youth;
Even for him a May-queen,
Fair, with eyes of grey-green,
And bloom of black-brown tresses, and the whiteness of the truth.

Good Friday, 1870.

II. A BRIDAL-CHANT.

[_]

Hexameters.

Over the hills and far away, right into the home of the summer,
Hand in hand together they go, towards the region of sunset;
She, fair as a daughter of Eve; he, bright as a beam of Apollo,
Straight, upright as a rod, not bent and bowed together,
Like to the careworn men who within this fortunate island
Toil and moil for a crust, and exist, and dream they are living.
Fair as the sons of Greece who beneath the unspeakable ether
Wrought, and fought with the gods, the givers of might to mortals,
Givers of might and of manhood, and lust of doing and daring;
Givers of strength in the struggle, and endless perseverance.
Fair as Psyche is fair, bright, beautiful, gift of the goddess
(She who rewards the brave with ecstasy not to be uttered),
Sweet as Venus herself, was the Bride who blossomed before him.

III. THE EMIGRANT'S SONG.

Hark to the dashing of the deep blue sea
As the sides of the boat are gleaming
Through deep-drawn furrows of the lands that are free,
With a foam-line after us streaming!

Life before us, and room to expand!
Let us steer for the home of the sunset,
Let us make for the shores of an infinite land
And smile at the swift waves' onset.

Let us cast from off us the chains of the old
And look to a life that is new;
As the creeds of the past wax fainter and cold,
Clear rises a creed that is true.

We shall soon be free; far out of the reach
Of the priests, and the tales of tradition;
Fear not: we shall ground on a gravelly beach,
And arrive at a rightful condition.

Let us leave the churches that clamour and cry,
And put the books on the shelves;
Come, men, my brothers, at least we will try
To find us a faith for ourselves!

We are leaving lands where respectable saints
Look down on the poor and the old;
Where Nature is scorned, and humanity faints,
And women are bought and sold.

Where priests shriek shouts, and condemn their betters,
While women fall faint, and fade before them,
Believing in lies, believing in fetters,
And not in the truth of the Spirit that bore them.

The Spirit that lords it over the sea,
Shines in the sunshine, walks in the wind,
Sounds in the life of the leaves of a tree,
Kisses the eyes of a soul that has sinned.

Clothèd upon with the might of the thunder
And brighter than brightness of lightning rays;
Fulfilled with life—dividing asunder
The soul and the body, the nights and days.

The Spirit that breathes in the infinite ether,
And clothes the night with a mantle of stars;
All-gracious; smiling on mortals beneath her;
Spirit of peace-time, Spirit of wars.

Strong to rejoice in the roar of the battle,
Strong to inspire the might of a man
Calm in the midst of its thunderous rattle,
Leaping alert in the heart of the van.

Holding the threads of the life of the nations,
Songs of the seasons, tides of the sea;
Dealing rewards and condemnations,
Fashioning, causing to cease to be.

Bringer of birth-time, worker of wonder,
Daily developing life in the earth;
Maker of heat, light, forger of thunder,
Seasons of sadness, hours of mirth.

Maker of hours of work and of playtime,
And above all things, Author of love—
Love the incarnate spirit of May-time,
Spirit that broods with the wings of a dove.

Love that slayeth and love that healeth,
With the power of life and death in his wings;
Love with the ice-cold power that congealeth,
And love the looser of frozen strings.

Sweet love that gladdens with gleams of the spring-time,
And scent of flowers, and singing of birds;
And leaves that re-echo the lilt of the windrhyme,
And laughter, and musical lowing of herds.

Such is the Spirit that fools are blaspheming,
Preaching of darkness, horrors of hell,
Torturing souls who are timidly dreaming
That if a God reigneth it must be well.

Well for the good men, well for the sinners,
Well for the priests, whose power shall fall;
Well for the saints and the feeble beginners;
Some way or other, well for us all.

IV. THE DEAD MEN'S SONG.

I

Praise we death
Who stays our breath
And sends us rest from pain;
Slay we life
With edge of knife
And hurl him back again.

II

Praise the tomb,
The utmost gloom
Of garments graveyards hold;
The dead men's lyre,
And flames of fire
From mouth of skeleton rolled.

III

Praise the dance
Of feet that prance
Upon the ball-room floor
Deep down below,
Where worm-buds grow,
And light's alive no more.

IV

Slay we love,
The feeble dove,
And smear her wings with clay!
Here below
We dead men know
Her not—the beetles play.

V

And mosses damp,
And clink of clamp,
And spiders' webs entwined
In hair of ours,
In woven bowers,
Are dear to dead men's mind.

V

Half-eaten eyes
With no surprise
We see: that sort of thing
Is common here;
Whole eyes are dear;
This is the song we sing.

V. THE WIFE'S RETURN.

Deary me, what a dirty room!
Quick, my husband, bring me a broom,
And let me sweep away the gloom
That reigns when I'm not here.

This is the way you treat the place
When I, your wife, no longer grace
This home of ours with the light of my face—
'Tis enough to move a tear!

Get you gone, and let me alone;
Out of the way; and when you're flown
I'll sweep it clean as if 'twere mown—
You go and fetch the beer.

The only thing, I often think,
That the men are fit for is to drink
Or empty soap-suds into the sink:
I'm never away but I fear;

Fear for the garden most of all,
Dream of the pigs, and hear them squall,
And see the children playing at ball
On the flower-beds, far and near.

See the potatoes going to rot,
The peas in pieces, and what not,
The cabbages all a mouldy lot,
And never a currant clear.

Never you mind—I'm home again,
And that's the chief thing; only when
Next time I go, be sure that then
You manage better, dear.

VI. GOOD-NIGHT.

Good-night, good-night!
Till dawn of day
May soft sleep stay
By you, I pray;
Till breaks the light;
Good-night—good-night.

Good-night, good-night!
The day was glad
When you I had
In sight, but sad
Is now my plight;
Good-night—good-night.

Good-night, good-night!
The darkness teems
With you: in dreams
I hunt the gleams
Of tresses bright;
Good-night—good-night.

Good-night, good-night!
Till to-morrow
Sorrow—sorrow:
Then we borrow
Wings for flight;
Good-night—good-night.

Good-night, good-night!
I think of you,
My hero true,
The long night through;
Till shines the light;
Good-night—good-night.

Good-night, good-night!
To-morrow, sweet,
Again we meet,
And gone the feet
Of evil plight;
Good-night—good-night.

Good-night, good-night!
I feel your hand,
I see you stand
In dim dream-land,
In garments bright;
Good-night—good-night.

Good-night, good-night!
Yours am I, sweet,
Slow to sigh, sweet,
Swift to fly, sweet,
Strong for flight;
Good-night—good-night.

Good-night, good-night!
The last adieu:
To-morrow's dew
Will fall on two,
On love alight;
Good-night—good-night.

Good-night, good-night!
The last kiss blown,
The last look flown,
From off his throne
Must love alight;
My own—good-night.

VII. BEYOND THE YEARS!

Beyond the years there lies a compensation
For all this heaped-up mountainous pile of woe,
This Alpine elevation of the snow
Of sorrow, this most piteous tribulation,—
These oceans filled at founts of women's tears;
For all, I tell you, waiteth compensation
Beyond the years!

For all the agony, and heart-sick groaning,
And agitation of uplifted hands
That seek to pull God down from where He stands
And force His silent eyes to see the moaning,
To listen to the heaving of the lands,
There waiteth somewhere, somehow, compensation;
A flower expands

Of hope that beckoneth weary footsteps forward
Towards a possibility of life,
A possible cessation of the strife,
A possible approach of earth's ship shoreward:
As watcheth for a husband's step a wife,
Our eyes are strained towards this compensation
For ceaseless planetary tribulation,
This cutting of the cord of our damnation
With keen-edged knife.