Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

And starless track Time's footsteps; strongest things
Still crumbling back into the caverned past.
But thou, the earliest legend wrought in stone,
The rock-bound riddle of an infant world,
Within that terrible darkness standest still,
Questioning now as then.
I shut my ears to this day's cares, and hear,
Vaguely across the centuries, the clang
Of Coptic hammers round thy half freed limbs:
Slaves with their whip-armed masters see I there;
Thousands like ants; and priests, with noiseless feet,
Passing around them with a serpent-coil;
And kings in crowned hoods, with great sceptres borne
Before them;—red men, and brown-skinned, and swart,
From Nubia or the Isles: what sad resolve,
What fear or inspiration or despair,
Drive on those hordes that know not what they do?

II

Oracular, impassive, open-eyed,—
Open-eyed without vision; answerless,
Yet questioning for life or death, as hath
In later days been fabled,—round thy rest
The scarabee, the snake, the circle-winged,
And other symbols dark were as thy food,

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Prepared for thee with cruelest rites and oaths
Of secresy; innumerable gods
Made life about thee slave to death, seared up
Unchangeably, and in the grave wound in
With undivulged negations of all hopes:
So that the dead could only render back
The sense of these dim-shadowed myths and creeds,
That thou wert set to guard. Perhaps the bones
Of Cheops in his firmest of all tombs
Shook to disclose thy password from the dust
And free man's heart by knowing he cannot know,—
Shook when the priests' slow steps passed evermore
Bearing another Pharaoh home,
With baseless rites and fantasies of faiths,
Devised like clashing symbols and loud drums
To drown the victim's shrieks.
And did not Cleopatra's eager blood
Throb at the thought of thee,
While her wide purple flaunted in the sun,
And the white smoke of her fine perfumes spread
From Cidnus to the unknown waste where now
Ships pass uniting hemispheres by trade?
And yet, may be, she knew, because a queen,
The riddle of thy birth and of thy watch
Before the temple door. Her feverish brain
Left her no heart except for Anthony.
And then, as now,
The winged seeds of autumn died amidst

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The whirling sand-waste. Not beneath thy shade
The sower walked. Joy fled thee, and desire
Passed thee and knelt upon the marble floor:
And still the passionate heart believes, and thou,—
Thou sittest voiceless, without priest or prayer,
As if thou wert self-born.

III

And yet to whom, O Sphinx!
Hast thou not ministered, and dost thou not,
If we interpret rightly those blank eyes?
Beside the Isis-gates, the gates of stone,
Have blood-red heroes and the sons of gods
Uncrowned to thee. Around thy great smooth feet
The hands of wandering Homer may have groped
In his old blindness, while his eloquent lips
Smiled gravely saturnine, as sad high thoughts
Lightened across the hill-tops of his soul.
The lyre of Hermes may have rung to thee,
Before Dodona's leaves shook prophecies
On slumbering votaries; ere the white shafts rose
Fluted on Delphi, or Athenian streets
Had heard the voice of Socrates, nor yet
Was there a Calvary in all the world.

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IV

The beacon-fire from Pharos shines to guide
The beaked triremes with Sidon's wares
And wine from Chios, and the Samian earth
Transformed to gold by potters' artful hands:
A while it shines and then the ships and wares
Are changed: anon the stars are left again
The only watchers. Temples and their shrines
Before the Faith that brooks no rivals fall,
And from the strife the conquering Christian shouts
Against the demons, and the cenobite
Hurries half naked by,
Smiting thee with his crutch and palsied hand.
In the far Thebaid's hermit-warren, weave
Thy straws, blest cenobite! for thou hast seen
Bread brought to thee by ravens from heaven's board,—
Souls carried upwards upon angels' wings;
And, like the red edge of averted thunder,
Thou hast seen all the demons fall sheer down.
Heaven waits for thee; thy life throbs up in prayer,
Shedding joy-tears into the passion-cup;
For these old wickednesses passed away—
Alas! and he too has now passed the same—
And through the deepening sand about thy flanks
Even thou, before the face of heaven,
Appealeth for like burial with thy kin.

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V

Crossing the dusky stream
On the chance stepping-stones of time,
Descending the uneven stairs of myths
Into our nature's cavern-gloom,
Nigh breathless we become,
As if the blood fled backward in the veins;
And when we turn again
Into the even sunlight of to-day,
The interests of the present seem no more
Than fool's-play, wind in trees, an even-song;
And all our dear wise generation shrinks
Into small grasshoppers, or clamouring storks
That build frail nests on roofs of kingless towns,
Uncertain as storm-scattered clouds, or leaves
Heaped up as day shrinks coldly in.
Yet art thou not, O Sphinx!
The mere child's bauble that the man disowns
With loftier knowledge, weightier cares?
Ah, no; for evermore
The question comes again
Which nature cannot answer, but which thou,
Watcher by temple-doors,
Thou mightest have solved to entering worshippers,
Making them turn away,
Earthward, not starward, searching for their home.

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Inward and not down beyond the tomb,
Nor over Styx for fairer days than ours;
For night is certain on the further shore.
Watch then, O Sphinx! watch on,
Before the temple doors of all the gods.

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A DEDICATION.

[_]

(On publishing a Poem called ‘The Year of the World.’)

Those sober morns of spring are gone whose light
Made the leaves golden round the window-sill,
While pleasantly my task advanced from hour
To hour, until the last short page was full.
The kindling influence of the year just then
Had freed the butterfly, and the lightest breeze
Twirled its vacant winter-shell, to me
A sign and symbol, as I fondly deemed.
'Tis pleasant now in fair book-shape to see
What these sweet morns accomplished; be it small,
Yet still a landmark in life's paths, an alms
Saved from oblivion and an indolent past.
Perhaps within its fabric not one thread
Of gold is woven, and those thoughts that weighed
Upon me as a duty weighs, till speech
And action free the conscience from its claim,
Will be to others uninformed and null:
Perhaps the sheep may bleat, the small dogs bark,
And not one man's voice answer me at all.

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So be it: on the waters cast I still
My bread, remembering it hath been to me
The bread of life according to my light,
For one full concord, one just harmony
Between the chords of lyre and heart rebuilds
The temple of the soul.

A labour still
Of love it hath been. With the name of love
It shall be sanctified, and unto thee,
Hopefullest friend! do I now send it: thou
Being the Mneme of past wandering years,
And I the hero of mine own romance.
Nor other reasons lack I, it may be,
Although they might not sound so grand and grave.
As this, a gentle critic wilt thou prove:
Or this, if flowers but seldom deck the field,
Thy love shall sow them broadcast.

But, no more;
Eros is the great master, and his law
It is we follow. Eros, child and God,
With unshorn tresses that no crown confines,
Teaches us much. This first; that the great lamp
Of Truth, whose naphtha needs no vestal's care,
Shines not with holier splendours in the crypts
Of book-philosophy and art-arcades,
Wherein th' ambitious arm themselves for fame,

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As the Athenian youths girt up their hair
For the gymnasium, then in those dear bowers
Of our humanity where amaranth grows
With darnels, worts, and thistles. I have paused
Oft-times midway in some laborious scheme,
Asking myself the question,—What avails
This strife, acquiring, losing, when to gain
Or lose is non-essential, and but hangs
Upon the outer husks of life? Reply
Hath reached me from beyond our continent;
It was not I who toiled, cast off to-day
Yesterday's motives, stands unchanged the soul
The same as heretofore. Thus have I learned
To throw no dice with fortune; to remain
Spectator more than actor. Truth descends
Without our prayers and labour. Knowledge stands
Apart from throned wisdom. Trivial things
Minister oft like miracles, and reveal
The narrow path for which we've searched in vain
Through sleepless nights and over sloughs and seas.

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A RHYME OF THE SUN-DIAL.

The dial is dark, 'tis but half past-one:
But the crow is abroad, and the day's begun.

The dial is dim, 'tis but half-past two:
Fit the small foot with its neat first shoe.

The light gains fast, it is half-past three:
Now the blossom appears all over the tree.

The gnomon tells it is but half-past four:
Shut upon him the old school-door.

The sun is strong, it is half-past five:
Through this and through that let him hustle and strive.

Ha, thunder and rain! it is half-past six:
Hither and thither, go, wander and fix.

The shadows are sharp, it is half past-seven:
The Titan dares to scale even heaven!

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The rain soon dries, it is half-past eight:
Time faster flies, but it is not late!

The sky now is clear, it is half-past nine:
Draw all the threads and make them entwine.

Clearer and calmer, 'tis half-past ten:
Count we the gains? not yet: try again.

The shadows lengthen, half-past eleven:
He looks back, alas! let the man be shriven!

The mist falls cold, it is half-past twelve:
Hark, the bell tolls! up, sexton, and delve!

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IN THE VALLEY.

Trusting lambs about the door,
Entering sometimes on the floor;
Timid ewes with simple eyes,
Looking for them in surprise.

With sunny days and busy feet,
Milkmaids' ditties sound so sweet,—
Ditties of contented life,
And love and hopes to be a wife.

Through our valley goest the road
To some prince's grand abode;
A slope of cattle-pasturing green
Rises round, well hedged between.

With fallow fields in spring-time gray,
Past which winds the long highway;
Travellers' heads a mile or more
Are seen descending to our door.

Sometimes the goddess Poverty
Greets us as she wanders by,
And calls the little birds to come
To pick from her thin hand the crumb.

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Sometimes Hope, the youngest Grace
Our lord set up in his high place,
Going to seek for work somewhere,
Or get apprenticed to old Care.

Sometimes Faith, with smile secure,
Makes us feel we are not poor,
To entertain such guests as these
Upon our bench beneath the trees.

Sometimes 'tis Charity herself,
Little children all her pelf,
And our loved little ones run out
To welcome hers with play and shout.

Jesus then the white bread bears,
And naked John the water shares
In a white cup to every one
Resting from the mid-day sun.

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MAY.

(IN A LONDON LODGING.)

Doubtless now in Wetherel woods
The white lady-garlic spreads,
And young ferns hold their wise conclaves,
All nodding their crozier-heads.

There too the last year's bramble sweeps
The Eden's arrowy swell,
And the cuckoo over the larches dark
You'll hear if you listen well.

May is with us, and I am pent
In the city's huge recess,
But prison-bars nor walls of stone
Can shut out spring's caress.

Over the roofs from the fields far off
Fresh influences hie,
Shading the hair from the cool forehead,
Touching it tenderly.

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Open the window, let the breeze
About these brown books play,
And, hark! the caged bird opposite
Knows well that it is May.

Sing louder yet! perhaps both thou
And I enjoy it more
Within this populous wilderness
Than roaming wild woods o'er.

Oh, welcome now to come and go,
You early weak-winged bee!
My primrose pots and crocuses
Are splendid, as you see.

I fear your sturdy hopefulness
Already hath gone astray;
Or came you here to teach me sing
A song to suit the day?

Yes, the summer's feast is spread,
Her wine is poured out free;—
Mignon! I could desire no more
If I but shared with thee!

Where art thou now,—in hawthorn lane?
Or housed with some dull guest?
I'll think of thee, and some have said
Our fancied joys are best.

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But while the mavis sings above,
And the cowslip dots the mead,
If we together heard his song,
Twere a pleasanter May indeed!