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

Straight from the dark of months thy sweet eyes flashed, and sought me;
The light of vanished suns and former stars they brought me,
And light of their own flame:—
And from them all the sense of Spring-tide crocus-hearted
Along my weary soul, swift, on a sudden, darted;
And with thy voice the lark's new love-song came.

Thou wast the spirit of Spring.—The sense of grassy meadows
And merry leaves that dance and balmier twilight shadows
Was born along with thee.
All blossoms are not dead,—for thou art living, lady!
So once again the sun will through the foliage shady
Strike his long arrows, lighting flower and tree.

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Thou art alive. By this I know that Spring will follow:
Now hyacinths will bloom, and hill and copse and hollow
Will gleam with fiery gold.
The silent heart of Spring that for thy mandate waited
Will break to flower at last—Spring tortured and belated,
Hiding his ferns and flowers in fold on fold.

Thou hast the spirit of Spring and Summer's heart within thee:
And who would love and hold, and worship thee, and win thee,
Must meet the Spring's own eyes
Fearless, and Summer's eyes,—and laugh for very pleasure
When the bright fields spread out their limitless gold treasure
Beneath the cloudless smile of stormless skies.

I know that Winter now has passed away before thee.
The very heart of May will worship and adore thee
And kiss thine hands ere long.—
The heart of all the world will come with love and gladness,
And silver streams will seek with silver-voiced sweet madness
To catch the echo of thy pure heart's song.

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And once again I lift the lyre the cold had frozen,
And laugh to think how soon of all flowers thou the chosen
Wilt put the flowers to scorn.
When thou dost call on Spring, he wakes and follows after:
In thine I hear the ring of very June's own laughter:
Thine eyes are lovelier than a summer morn.

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II. ‘THY FACE”

Among the weary crowd of weary common faces
I linger,—and I search through flowerless dreary places,
Seeking amid the throng
One vision worth a thought. Pale Death and Sorrow meet me:
Death sues me for a wreath, and Sorrow doth entreat me
To crown her wild-haired forehead with a song.

Then I take up mine harp, and sing of Death and Sorrow,—
Of how the sweetest things are saddest things to-morrow;
How pain fills every place;
How woe has set its hand upon our city's features;
How agony is grooved on brows of human creatures;—
Then on a sudden, lady, lo! thy face.

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Then Death and Sorrow fade, and Pain smooths out before thee
Its wrinkled brow. The sun seems ever to cast o'er thee
Strange sunlight's ceaseless charm.
Greece rises at thy glance; and Youth and Beauty linger
Beside thee just to kiss one hand or one white finger,
And Life's young red lips kiss thy rounded arm.—

I wander through the crowd. I wander gloomy-hearted.
Then just as if the sun had on a sudden parted
Dense leaves that interlace
And smiled with gracious eyes adown the leafy narrows,
I weary with the points of daily pain's mute arrows
Turn round,—and on a sudden, lo! thy face.

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III. “BEYOND”

Thy springlike spirit has stolen from very Spring the power
Whereby he clothes in robes of leaf and bud and flower
Each new year without fail.
Not even Death, I think, could meet thee and not tremble,
Yea, surely he would turn, and sorrow and dissemble:
At sight of thy flushed cheek his hand would quail.

It seems to me that thou hast endless life within thee;
That never heart of man, nor poet's heart, must win thee,
But souls of flowers and seas:
The living voice of Spring within the woods and mountains;
The laughter of the morn in rivers and in fountains:
The deathless love-song of the thornless breeze:

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These are thine own.—But I,—what can I bring but sadness?
Thou gazest at the plain with young heart full of gladness,
The plain so bright with flowers:
I see beyond the plain the solemn hills ascending
Height beyond awful height, with black crags never ending
And snow-capped vast indomitable towers.

Life's joys are all thine own, its every sunniest pleasure:
While I with only love for sunshine and for treasure
Gaze at thee, rapt and fond.
Yet ever is it true that thou art gazing only
At the broad flowerful plain,—while I with vision lonely
(So lonely!) mark the unscaled rocks beyond.

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IV. “NEVER TIRED?”

And art thou never tired of poems, and of singing?—
“Nay! not more tired than Spring of merry bright birds winging
Along the woods their way.
A woman never tires of love, so it be endless:
The summer, full of flowers, would feel forlorn and friendless
With one flower less on one acacia spray.

“A woman never tires of love, so it be tireless:
A woman never tires till passion's soul be fireless
And song's heart void of flame.
What, do my eyes not speak? Then must my lips make plainer
That Song is ever sweet, a gentle-eyed retainer
Who follows on the path where Love's feet came

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“Sing on; and sing of me. Are still my eyes a wonder?
Sing till the hushed birds part the leafy boughs in sunder
To listen to thy song.
A woman's gentle soul of love is never weary:
Lo! lover, how the dark with songless hand and dreary
Will seek to claim me for its own ere long!

“Sing, ere the night be here.”—Song woke at her sweet warning,
And with the heart of birds and with the wings of morning
Stormed through the sunlit skies:—
For song can never cease, while dark and pure and tender,
Full of the soul of love, and full of light and splendour,
Shine ever through song's heart her unchanged eyes.

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V. IN THE LATER DAYS

So many poets lived, and died, and never found thee!—
How countless are the hearts whose loving song had crowned thee
Had they but seen thy face!—
Now in the later days, when doubt and sorrow darken,
And when to music weird the pain-crowned poets hearken,
For one Time has reserved a nobler place.

In these the later days, when through the mad world ringing
With shock and clash of strife strange sound of fiery singing
Eddies, swift wave on wave;
In these the later days, when some are chanting only
The soul of man laid waste, and passion's heart left lonely,—
While some sing love-songs to the wan-lipped grave;

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In these the later days, when kings and thrones are falling
And when across the waves the fierce storm-birds are calling
And answering, one by one;
When Revolution's tides across the path are foaming;
When whispers, not of love, thrill through the green-leafed gloaming
And tempests threaten God and mock the sun;

In these wild later days, when all is dark and boding;
When deadly thoughts are hurled like deadliest shells exploding
On pale belief and creed;
Strong help and high delight it is to hold a treasure
Untouched by all the storm—a gift that none may measure—
A task to which none other may succeed.

Through all the storms I hear thy gentle soft voice speaking:
Amid the fiery rain of storm-bolts round us shrieking
I listen for thy tread:
Thou wouldst remain unchanged though all the world around thee
Fell at the trump of doom. The love whose strong hand crowned thee
Would hold thee scatheless though the world lay dead.

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Great help and pure delight it is to worship theeward:—
Like turning heart and glance no longer foamward, seaward,
But up some valley-glen
Full of gold gorse and grass and gentle pink-belled heather,
Full of the sense of sun and windless summer weather,—
Then, strengthened, meeting the grey waves again.

Such is the peace thou bring'st.—In this wild stormy season,
Full of the sound of strife and hints of wrath and treason,
It is most glad and sweet
To have on me bestowed the priceless charge to sing thee,
To love thee and to crown,—to worship thee and bring thee
Flowers gathered from betwixt the warriors' feet.

Keats, Shelley, Marlowe,—these would, each, have perished, willing,
If only through their hearts thy voice had once gone, thrilling
Those fiery hearts to praise.
They lived and sang and died, yet never never knew thee!
Their swift song followed not, nor might their love pursue thee:
They died, and, dying, panted for thy gaze.