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

We know our own true home at last:
The gorgeous dreams of heaven are past:
No angel's harp sounds on the breeze.
Gold wings are gone. We mark instead
White wings above the dahlia bed,
And blue wings o'er the clover leas.

These are our angels.—Butterflies,
Blue as the cloudless azure skies,
Or white-winged as the clouds at morn,
Dance o'er the garden-beds, and gleam
Above the hedges. Now we dream
Of other crowns than that of thorn.

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This earth is all.—Then add new worth
To our one home, our fair old earth:
Love every flower in every vale.
The fancied flowers of heaven were grand.
Yet pause: look round. Stretch out thine hand.
Gather that snowdrop pure and pale.

Was ever heavenly bloom so white?—
Did great stars glitter through the night
Of heaven, as on our earth they gleam?
Had heaven a million lamps, as we?
Or white birds on a dark-blue sea?
This is the truth. Heaven was the dream.

Heaven was the dream.—But now we know
How man is made, where man must go:
We seek no opening to the tomb;
Content to pass, content to be
At rest for all eternity
Within the deep and flameless gloom.

The flameless gloom—for once hell-fire
Roared up to heaven, aye flickered higher
Than heavenly towers that rose sublime.

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If heaven we've lost, we've lost as well
The flamelit under-realm of hell:
We cannot either sink, or climb.

The earth is left.—We can adorn
Her beauty,—drape with fields of corn
The plains that fill her ample breast.
Now heaven has past, our souls are free
To love the green earth and the sea:
Now hope is dead, we are at rest.

II.

And woman too is left to love:
She brings us dreams of things above
The common daily life she scorns.
Woman makes all things beautiful;
For from the hedge her hand can pull
The blossoming rose, and leave the thorns!

Our angel stands beside us. She
First made man of a certainty
Dream of a life beyond the tomb.
And, now we seek that life no more,
Woman is left us to adore,
And woman's worship to resume.

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The force we wasted on the sky
Returns to earth. We put it by;
We store it up for better things.
The noblest angel after all
Is woman: sweeter if she fall
At times, for very want of wings!

Great were Isaiah, Peter, Paul:
Our poets can transcend them all;
And, now they sing of earth alone,
They'll rise to lordlier heights of song.
Yes, man himself shall reach ere long
The steps of the Eternal's throne.

For that eternal force is ours:
It brings forth man, it brings forth flowers
And life and death, in it, are one.
It shines in stars: in man it lives:
Its colour to the rose it gives,
And gives its red flame to the sun.

One force through all things works its way:
Through joy and sorrow, night and day:
Is gentle in the blue-bell's breath:

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Is soft within the snow-flake white:
Fierce-hued within the lightning's light:
One power speaks “Life,” or whispers “Death.”

But all beyond is wrapped in gloom.
Nought answers from beyond the tomb:
No starlight travels from that sky.
No eye can pierce the solemn veil:
Each soul exploring comes back pale
From contact with eternity.

III.

Therefore the earth is ours alone:
The sun sits on its flame-red throne;
The stars sit on their thrones in space;—
We have this earth whereon we stand:
We have the thrill in woman's hand:
We have the love in woman's face.

We have the force to win a flower
Of love, and wear it for an hour,
And for an hour to find it sweet.
Aye, sweeter is our love for this—
In that there is no second kiss,
And even the first is over-fleet.

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In that to-morrow's frost will slay
The violets, passing sweet are they!
Life is so short. Let it be grand!
Let every deed of man be true:
There is no heaven in which to do
The noble deeds we only planned.

Great peace is ours; a peace beyond
The reach of those who hope, despond,
And snatch at heaven, and shrink from hell;
The peace of those who hope for nought
Save what each long day's toil has brought,
And, hopeless, feel that all is well.

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II. CHANT OF CHRISTIANS

I.

He brought no flowers, he brought no gems,
No jewels of earth's diadems;
Within a stable he was born.
With us he suffered day by day;
Upon his brow no gold crown lay,
But only mocking points of thorn.

Not on divine soft banks of rose
Where souls of lovers may repose
Rested the Lord of earth and air.
He found not where to lay his head;
Was cradled where the oxen fed;
A rock-tomb was his sepulchre.

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No gifts of love, or power, or fame,
Or earthly rank, were his who came
To lift the humble soul on high.
Though not one star without him shone,
Uncrowned he came, he came alone,
He brought no star-wreath from the sky.

Though, long before the first star gleamed,
Within God's bosom Jesus dreamed,
He was content that dream should pass.
He entered, here, a woman's womb,
And let her sacred flesh entomb
All that he felt, all that he was.

The maiden's womb by God so blessed
Bare Jesus, and the maiden's breast
Suckled the living King of kings.
The infant Mary brought to birth
Was king of heaven, and lord of earth
And air, to where the last star swings.

This was God's condescension great:
To enter by that sacred gate
The land of woe, the land of pain.

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And, having reached this land of ours
Where thorn-points peer from fairest flowers,
What was the fashion of his reign?

He reigned in sinful hearts and weak:
The sinner's soul he came to seek;
He came to dry the sufferer's tears.
He came to tell the worn-out heart,
“Be of good cheer. Lo! mine thou art,
And shalt be through the endless years.”

He came to bid the harlot rise:
To pour God's sunlight through her eyes,
And bid her dark night wane and flee.
He came to bid the whole wide earth
Partake with man, a second birth;
To soothe to rest the restless sea.

He came to bid the waters sink
To quiet on the blue lake's brink;
To say to wild waves, “Peace. Be still!”
He came, that wind-tossed souls might find
A haven for the weary mind:
He came to do the Father's will.

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The will of him who sends the rain
To touch to green the parched-up plain,
Or sends the sun to charm the air:
The will of him through whom night's hours
Glitter with ceaseless starry flowers
That make the boundless dark fields fair.

The will of him through whom began
The cycle of life that leads to man,
And who is Jesus ended all:
Making in Jesus man complete;
Devising evil's full defeat
Through him, and Satan's abject fall.

The will obeying which he died
Thorn-crowned, a spear thrust through his side
And red nails through his feet and hands:
The will of God through which he rose
And passed into supreme repose,
Peace God's Son only understands.

II.

He came to make the blind eyes see;
To show that human will is free;
That God's will underlies the whole:

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That, past all weary winds that roar,
Sweet sunlight gilds a golden shore
Where harbourage waits the storm-tossed soul.

He came and suffered here on earth
That man might win the second birth:
His spotless flesh and blood he gave
That man, partaking, might be fed
With heavenly wine and heavenly bread,
And, haply, so elude the grave.

He healed disease that man might know
That pang and torment, throb and throe,
Are not to last for ever such;
That God, who works in every place
Through his own laws of time and space,
Can change those strait laws at a touch.

God binds the laws. They cannot bind
The Lord of nature and mankind.
Can God's own star-crown bruise his head?
Can God, who made both life and death,
Who breathes through dust a living breath,
Not raise the righteous from the dead?

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Can God, who makes the storm arise
And hurls the thunders through the skies,
Change not, at will, his mode and style?
God, who controls the lightning's fire,
Can he not change, if he desire,
Winter to summer by a smile?

Can he not change man's March to May?
Weave jessamine in December grey
Around his temple-porch at will?
Change ice that stiffens into blue
Calm water, where the reeds renew
Their whispering courtship of the rill?

This is what Jesus came to teach:
That God's sure hand is over each;
That waves may rise, and winds may roar,
But God the King is Lord of all,—
Nor shall a single sparrow fall
From his safe hand for evermore.

Our hairs are numbered—so he said:
Each bright ray of the sunset red
God paints with thoughtful conscious hand.

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The sunset, be it gold or rose,
Just as he wills it, shines and glows,—
And every wave he leads to land.

Not endless law, but ceaseless will.
This is Christ's gospel-message still:
Will at the heart of all things made.
Not Chance at the world-vessel's helm,
But loving Will throughout the realm
Of life, eternally obeyed.

III.

So he who, ere the world began,
Was God, became in all points man:
God's Son was of a woman born.
God took account of woman then,
And honoured the sweet slave whom men
Have lowered and saddened with their scorn.

God honoured woman.—None can say
Since that far-off first Christmas-Day
That woman hath no share nor part
In God's eternal great designs.
Woman and man God's thought combines:
They dwell together in his heart.

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So, thus this stormy world of ours
Was entered. Christ's hand gathered flowers;
He watched the sunset and sunrise:
He wandered by the inland sea,
The blue calm Lake of Galilee;
Earth spread her gifts before his eyes.

God, who had made, in epochs long
Anterior to the first bird's song,
Our fiery bright home spin through space,
Appeared, himself, to test the whole:—
The unexplored vast cosmic soul
Was obvious in a human face.

God came himself, his work to try:
To test his sunlit dome of sky;
To see that all had turned out well.
Through Jesus' searching eyes he viewed
The desert waste, the green-leafed wood,
The rocky height, the watered dell.

Through Jesus' eyes he gazed on man:
And here he chiefliest found his plan
Primordial marred and wrenched awry.

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Man whom he made divinely free,
Ruler of earth, lord of the sea,
Was veriest slave beneath the sky.

And woman, whom God made so sweet,
Was trampled by tyrannic feet:
The queen was harlot now, and slave.
The love that God designed of old
Man's love should win, the women sold;
They bartered now what once they gave.

So, looking on this world of sin,
God saw no hope without, within,
Nought left save only, dying here
At man's own hands, so to restore
Woman—that man's heart might adore;
And man—that woman might revere

Christ,—having entered by the gate
Of birth the world he made so great,
He found so small, so dark, so sad,—
By one path could return to God:
The grim cross pointed out the road,
And Jesus saw it, and was glad.

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By woman Christ was born. Through men
He reached his Father's home again,
The realm corruption may not see.—
When woman's God so longed to save
That he assumed the flesh she gave,
What was man's answer? Calvary.—

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III. CHANT OF POETS

Sweeter than dreams of moon or star,
Or dreams of heaven,—aye, fairer far,
The dreams of woman's beauty born!
God, when he toiled in heaven alone,
Grew weary. Now she shares his throne
And brings him rapture, night and morn.

What was the whole of heaven most fair
Without the love of woman there—
Without her eyes, without her look?
In heaven the soul of woman grew,
And still her eyes retain the blue
Of that deep heaven which she forsook.

Still something sweet, and something strange,
Is in her eyes that gleam and change,—
A something not of earth or sky:

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A something maddening hearts that gaze;
Requickening thoughts of ancient days,
Dreams of a past eternity.

Half angel she—and yet not quite:
Woman,—with neck and bosom white;
Woman—who gives, gives overmuch.
An angel's heart: a woman's frame;
She brings us peace; she burns with flame;
Destroys a life's work at a touch.

Within the sick-room dark and dread
The glory of her golden head
Brings sunlight. Nigh the grave she stands;
And man forgets the flowers they bring
In gazing at that sweeter thing,
The heavenly lilies of her hands.

Yet passion fierce and passion strong
She wakes. She thrills all hearts to song:
She crowns the poet with the bays.
In dreams of her his life goes by;
Her glances fill with stars his sky,
And fill with thoughts of fire his days.

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God made her soul. Then Satan took
The sweet thing and he changed her look
And set some light of evil there.
She who was wholly angel then
Is half a temptress now to men;
Aye, half a fiend, and wholly fair.

But wholly fair,—for ever fair.—
The mere slight fragrance of her hair,
The least soft thrilling of her hands,
Has served ere now, again will serve,
To make the course of history swerve,
And ruin souls, and ruin lands.

Aye, God and Satan well may fight!
She is so sweet, she is so white;
She is so good to touch and hold.
Love is the only thing that well
May outlive heaven and outlive hell:
This one joy never groweth old.

Still fresh as in the early day
When Eden heard the first rose say,
“A sweeter mouth than mine is born,”

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She treads the earth. Since time began
She has given herself away to man,
With rapture half, and half in scorn.

The magic in her voice and gaze
Is still the same as in old days
When Eden found her very fair.
Till time itself shall change and die
Some marvel past man's speech shall lie
Within the sweetness of her hair.

The sympathizing world has worn
On its own brow Christ's crown of thorn
For nigh two thousand years to-day:
But, ages ere he lived and died,
Woman could lure man to her side;
Her mouth could melt man's will away.

A mere girl's eyes of hare-bell blue
Can thrill a strong man through and through
Whom Jove's own thunders would not bend.
And man will win a world, and this
In turn will barter for a kiss:
And so it will be to the end.

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IV. CHANT OF WOMEN

I.

Man brings us flowers and brings us grief;
He twines for us love's myrtle leaf,
And wreathes about our brows the thorn.
We crave for love? Man gives us this?
Nay, he bestows but passion's kiss,
And tinges passion with his scorn!

Ten thousand years have passed away,
Or more years yet, the wise men say,
Since history on this earth began.
In all those years, what have we gained?
Deceived, misunderstood, disdained,
What shall we render back to man?

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Love.—This our great prerogative,
Eternally we gain and give:
We bring God's sunlight from on high.
The earth was dark until we came;
We fill the earth with love's bright flame,
And steal the gold dawn from the sky.

By love we grow; by love we gain
The right to live, the right to reign:—
When man's wild wayward course is done
We then shall say to man: Behold,
While thine hand delved amid the mould
Our souls caught glory from the sun!

While thou wast watching earth with eyes
Most dim, we watched God in the skies
With gaze that daily grew more clear.
To conquer earth was all thy dream:
To build thy mills on every stream;
Through unconjectured waves to steer!

Where once were fields made bright with flowers
Grew grimy towns and sullen towers:
By river-banks great wharfs arose.

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Where once were alder green and oak
Black factories loom, and chimneys smoke,
And engines break the morn's repose.

O maker of all hideous things,
'Twas well God sent us without wings
To dwell upon thine earth with thee—
Else, long ere this, our souls had fled
Beyond the waste of sunset red,
Beyond the green-blue waste of sea:

Else some remembrance of our home
Had lured us forth to soar and roam
Through silent leagues of star-sown air,
Compelling us to search for flowers
In airy fields and heavenly bowers,
Man having stripped earth's meadows bare!

II.

How couldst thou, having hid with steam
And smoke the skies where sweet stars gleam,
Discern the starlight in our look?
How couldst thou, having choked all flowers
In fields and woodlands, care for ours?
What cares the boulder for the brook?

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Thou, slave of thine electric light,
Hast even invoked perennial night
To brood above thy city's spires;
Lest one vast arrow of the sun
Should pierce the fog, and leave not one
Unquenched, of thine ephemeral fires!

But we, who dreamed of higher things,
Were happy where the brown lark sings
Above the fields of golden grain.
At peace with God, we saw the showers
Rejoice the pale sun-stricken flowers,
And blessed God for his bounteous rain.

The poor fish panting out of reach
Of the cool water, on the beach,
With death's hues glittering on his side,
Him would we save: him back we threw,
And, smiling, saw the water blue
Receive him safe.—You would deride.

What pity for the tortured horse
Has man? He goads him on his course:
There is no mercy in his soul.—

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God, when he made the dumb things, erred.
If he had let them speak one word,
Just to repudiate man's control!

And God, who made our womanhood
And made it at the outset good,
Erred too, in that he made us weak.
The strength was man's: the soul was ours.
God should have guarded his pale flowers
In heaven, and let man come to seek.

And yet...God hardly could have known
That man would claim us for his own;
Would hound the thought of God away:
Would change the form God made so sweet
Into the harlot of the street;
Teach those to curse, who once could pray.

Ah, piteous story of our wrongs!—
And yet to God the whole belongs:
We give to God and Christ the whole.
We trust God, till all sufferings end:
We have in Christ a deathless Friend,
An helper sweet, a kindred soul.

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Christ by his perfect womanhood
Hath power to make all women good:
The fallen to lift, the sad to save.
Women who met his glances knew
That here at last was manhood true:
Fearless, to him their hearts they gave.

They called him “God;” for God was here.
The Godhood in a man makes dear
The man to woman. Woman's kiss
Is never given as mankind deems,
Absorbed in its own narrow dreams.
God in man—woman worships this.

Not all the flowers man brings to her
Make her forget Christ's sepulchre.
She whispers, “Lord, remember me!”
In every crown her brow has worn
Woman in secret plants a thorn,
In homage to Gethsemane.

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II. BALLADS OF HUMAN LIFE

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I.

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I. BLUE-BELLS

“One day, one day, I'll climb that distant hill
And pick the blue-bells there!”
So dreamed the child who lived beside the rill
And breathed the lowland air.
“One day, one day, when I am old I'll go
And climb the mountain where the blue-bells blow!”

One day! One day! The child was now a maid,
A girl with laughing look;
She and her lover sought the valley-glade
Where sang the silver brook.
“One day,” she said, “love, you and I will go
And reach that far hill where the blue-bells blow!”

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Years passed. A woman now with wearier eyes
Gazed towards that sunlit hill.
Tall children clustered round her. How time flies!
The blue-bells blossomed still.
She'll never gather them! All dreams fade so.
We live and die, and still the blue-bells blow.

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II. THE TOURNAMENT

The trumpets' blare
Rings through the air:
The glittering lists are bright with sword and shield.
A hundred gallant knights,
Known in a thousand fights,
Mix and engage upon the mimic field.
But one towers o'er them all,
A noble knight and tall,
With giant form in armour black concealed.

In vain, in vain,
The thick blows rain,—
He dreams of her whose heart has wrought him wrong.
With little heed of all,
He lets the swift strokes fall:

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His war-horse steers a way with onset strong.
He gazes up above:
Where is his lady-love?
He marks her not amid the courtly throng.

And yet at last,
When hope was past,
Flashed on his eyes the wondrous eyes he sought.
She wore his colours too,
White, twined with tender blue—
“She loves!” His strength rushed on him at the thought.
Then knight on knight fell low:
Aye, always it is so!
By woman's hand a true knight's sword is wrought.

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III. CHRISTMAS FAIRIES

Ah! dear old Christmas-tides of long ago.
Around the creaking roof-tops roared the blast:
The streets and hills and fields were draped in snow;
Across the ice the glittering skates shot past.
Youth was not dead!
Bright green and red
The holly-leaves and holly-berries gleamed.
The merry church-bells rang;
Our young hearts laughed and sang;
Of joyous years to come our spirits dreamed.

But years to come bring trouble and despair.
If childhood brings its simple dream of joy
Youth brings love's holier dream, a dream more fair
Than dreams which haunt the bright heart of the boy.
But all dreams melt
As soon as felt,—

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They fade into the mist of things unseen.
Youth's dream of love, alas!
Must likewise pale and pass:
Sweet love must be as if it had not been.

And yet—the holly-berries still are bright;
The bells chime merrily across the snow:
A thousand Christmas-trees will give delight,
Green as the Christmas-trees of long ago.
Why are we sad?
The young are glad;
They dance around the fir-tree hand in hand.
Outside, white miles of snow:
Inside, the red fire's glow
And children's smiles and dreams of fairy-land.

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IV. TWO NIGHTS

Last night he kissed my hair, and kissed my face,
And laughed, and praised my figure's supple grace.
My soul was dazzled as with sudden flame:
Star behind star my sweet star-bridesmaids came:
To-night, to-night,
No soft starlight,
But gloom profound that veils the heaven and sea.

Last night the world was full of light and fire:
Star throbbed to star, and burned with sweet desire
There was no heaven—for earth was heaven instead!
No immortality,—for death was dead!
To-night, to-night,
Dead is delight,
And pain awakes and lives eternally.

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Last night I thought before God's throne I stood
And knew, knew once for all, that God was good.
To-night how vast a darkness clothes me round:
I madden for love's footfall. Not a sound!—
Last night, last night,
My love took flight:
Cloud sobs to cloud, and whispers, “Where is he?”

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V. LOVE'S ETERNITY

Love's early honey-moon is passing sweet.
The enraptured lovers wander hand in hand
Through the wild roses and the golden wheat,
And passion's glamour clothes the sea and land.
Her eyes outvie
The starlit sky:
Love is so full of light that nought else gleams.
Love would give light,
Were the world black as night!
Love would create its heaven of stars and dreams!

Then come maturer days. Glad children glance—
Upon the tree of life love's blossoms blow.
And yet some element of old romance
Has vanished, melted in the long ago!
The husband says,
“Think of the days

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When hand in hand we wandered, you and I;
The nights of June;
The marvel of the moon:
In later days must love's old glory die?”

But with the voice that charmed his heart of old
And made the whole of life one moonlit dream
The true wife answers, “Life's tale is not told:
In front of us new starlit skies will gleam.
When toil is o'er,
Love as before
Will find us, sweetheart, claim us for his own.
Love's autumn day,
Aye! though our hair be grey,
Shall match the sweetness of our summer flown.”

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VI. MIDNIGHT AT THE HELM

“What see'st thou, friend?
The frail masts bend,
Thy ship reels wildly on the tossing deep;
Thy fearless eyes
Regard the skies
And this broad waste wherethrough white chargers leap;
See'st thou the foam?”

Pilot.—

“I see my home,
And children on a white soft couch asleep.”

“What see'st thou, friend?
The tiller-end
Thou graspest safely in thy firm strong grip;
Thine eyes are strange,
They seem to range

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Beyond sea, sky, and cloud, and struggling ship,
Beyond the foam.”

Pilot.—

“I see my home,—
Brown cottage-eaves round which the swallows dip.”

“What see'st thou, friend?
Black leagues extend
On all sides round about thy bark and thee;
Not one star-speck
Above the deck
Abates the darkness of the midnight sea;
The waves' throats roar—”

Pilot.—

“I see the shore,
And eyes that plead with God for mine and me.”

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VII. THE GHOST AT THE WHEEL

Off Beachy Head the vessel wrestles hard:
In vain the captain's eyes would pierce the gloom.
The great grim cliffs, foam-belted, iron-barred,
Through the wild wreaths of scudding sea-fog loom.
No stars shine out.
Put helm about?
Nay! this one ship will hold her lonely way!
Though death be near,
Her captain's deaf to fear:
His voice out-thunders wind and hissing spray.

Yet at the rudder, see this lurid light!
A form takes shape amid the wind and spray:
A white face glitters through the jet-black night.
Why falls the captain on his knees to pray?
His brother's form
Shines through the storm,

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His brother drowned where these same mad waves flow
Round Beachy Head:
The strong man shakes in dread:
When dead men steer, where will the doomed ship go?

The dead man steered. The labouring ship veered round.
The awe-struck sailors watched without a word.
The waves and threatening thunder ceased to sound:
You might have caught the carol of a bird.
Then slowly grew
The sky pale-blue;
Morn showed that when the spectre took command,
Ten yards away
Were deadly reefs and spray:
Love outlasts death, and aids with living hand.

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VIII. THE SENTRY

Along his path the sentry paces slow;
Above the field of battle soars the moon:
The night is silent, save for wailing low
Of wounded men who will be silent soon.
The sentry stands
With ready hands
And eyes that peer far out into the gloom.
The hostile hosts,
Like groups of ghosts,
Upon the distant shadowy hill-tops loom.

But not on these the soldier's gaze is set;
His heart is gazing elsewhere than his eyes.
He sees a garden sweet with mignonette;
He hears a voice that to his own replies.
O'er leagues of sea
In thought flies he;

266

He stands beside a window wreathed with rose.
Sweet eyes of blue,
Pure, soft, and true,
Gaze in his own, till his heart overflows.

Ha! guns flash out. The dream is over then.
The vision vanishes. It melts away.
Lo! plumes, and neighing steeds, and throngs of men,
And rattling rifles, in the morning grey.
No cottage door—
Mad guns that roar!
No tender glance from maiden's loving eyes.
Yet pity not
A soldier's lot:
He well has loved, who for his country dies.

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IX. THE ENGINE DRIVER

Through sleet and snow
The wild wheels go:
Across waste wolds with purple heather bright,
O'er many a bridge,
Through tunnelled ridge,
Flinging weird fires along the startled night,
The engine flies,—
And one man's steady eyes
And hands must guide the thundering force aright.

What trust we place
In that one face,
In those stern lips and dauntless hands that steer:
Bridegroom and bride
Sit side by side,

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And trust their lives to him without a fear.
Through sun and snow
The flashing wild wheels go:
He guides those flashing wheels from year to year.

Through storm and sun
The wild wheels run;
Blue skies o'erhead, or murky midnight gloom:
Through summer showers,
Past woodbine—bowers,
Past steep banks yellowed with soft primrose-bloom.
Yet one man's skill
Makes the end good or ill:
He holds the keys of pleasure—or the tomb!

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X. ON THE RAMPARTS

The gold sun sets above the solemn sands;
The strained sight aches across the yellow sea:
In front, around, the solitude expands,
Grim, terrible, devoid of flower or tree.
The waste seems dead;
No line of red
Upon the horizon brings the city cheer.
Fierce foes surround;
Their trumpets sound;
No answering English bugle-note rings clear.

Upon the ramparts lo! one paces slow;
From time to time he gazes o'er the sands:
If morning brings not help, all hope must go.
He lifts to silent heaven strong urgent hands.
Is help not nigh,
O starlit sky

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And Eastern moon whose white orb glitters past?
Black looms the night.
No help in sight!
Must the beleaguered city fall at last?

Morning! The thin mist rises in the air:
Not yet the great sun flashes from the sky.
That grim and silent watcher still is there.
To-day must bring relief, or all must die.
Gaze once again
Across the plain:
One last wild look, for now the sun shines clear.
Ha! bayonets gleam;
It is no dream;
Our England's help can reach us even here!

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XI. THE EXPLORER

Through forests deep,
Where serpents creep,
The fearless strong explorer threads his way:
'Neath tropic moons,
Past dim lagoons,
Depths where the sun can never send a ray.
His life is in his hand:
He treads the burning sand:
His labour ceases not from day to day.

And yet at night
His soul takes flight:
He seeks another country in his dreams.
He wanders through
Lanes fresh with dew

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And cornfields where the scarlet poppy gleams.
He sees the spotted trout
From the dark bank flash out:
He sees green willows fringing English streams.

At morn he wakes:
His road he takes:—
Upon mud-banks vast crocodiles repose.
The trout's quick gleam
Was but a dream:
The poppy was a dream, a dream the rose!
Yet England's viewless might,
Stretching through day and night,
Follows wherever English valour goes.

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XII. THE BURNING SHIP

The transport ship pursues its lonely way
Across the purple moonlit Indian deep.
Above, the stars shine out with tender ray:
The waveless far-spread ocean seems asleep.
All, all was well,
When evening fell,
And well at sunrise all shall surely be.
There's nought to fear!
Steer, keen-eyed helmsman, steer,—
Steer the great ship across the silent sea!

But ah! what piteous sudden cry rings out?
“Fire!”—“Fire!” again.—Oh, can this dread thing be?
Yes, once again the wild heart-rending shout
Troubles the bosom of the peaceful sea.
“Fire!”—Red flames rise
And stain the skies:

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The fire spreads o'er the sails, and licks the mast.
The ship's consumed!
The passengers are doomed:
Each agonizing moment seems their last.

But ah! the steady soldiers form in lines:
Athwart the fire the regiment's old flag floats.
The fire upon men's fearless faces shines:
The sailors pass the women to the boats.
The boats recede;
Wild eyes give heed—
Their death-watch on the deck the soldiers keep.
One strange last cheer,
Which England's heart shall hear—
And then the sun rose on a sail-less deep.

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II.

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I. THE SONG OF ABOU KLEA

Our English manhood's still the same
As in the days of Waterloo;
The sons uphold their father's fame,
Beneath strange skies of burning blue.
The race is growing old, some say,
And half worn out and past its prime;
But English rifles volley “Nay,”
And English manhood conquers time.
Then fear not, and veer not
From duty's narrow way:
What men have done, can still be done,
And shall be done to-day!

The broad wild desert stretched away
For many and many a weary league;

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Our soldiers suffered day by day,
Enduring hunger, thirst, fatigue.
But still, when their fierce foes they met,
They fought and conquered as of old:
The sun of England has not set;
Our nation's story is not told.
Then blench not, and quench not
High hope's glad golden ray:
What men have done, can still be done,
And shall be done to-day!

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II. ENGLAND HO! FOR ENGLAND

A FEDERATION SONG

Old England needs her children,
She needs them every one,
From India's morning-bugle
To the last sunset-gun:
North, East, and South, she needs them,
And in the furthest West,
And where the Channel waters
Storm round her rocky breast.

The day is surely coming
When all alike she'll need,
All far-off true descendants
Of the old island-breed.

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The day is surely coming
When all may have to strike
For England, ho! for England—
So all must fare alike!

“For England, ho! for England”—
The great deep-throated cry
Rings far across the waters;
A million mouths reply,
“For England, ho! for England,
Till England's work be done,—
And England's work is timeless
And measured by the sun.”

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III. THE WORKMAN-KING

I'm only a working man, my boys,
I toil in the London smoke,
But when a holiday comes, my boys,
I cease to grind and choke.
The garden of England's mine, my boys,
Its valleys and woods and plains,
For the people rules the whole, my boys,
The people votes and reigns!

The democrat rules the whole, my boys,
The forests of larch and oak;
We never need cough and sniff, my boys,
In the great towns' soot and smoke.
The heather-bud swells on the moors and fells
And the sea is blue and wide;
Do you know how sweet the country smells?
You never can tell till you've tried!

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A noble heritage this, my boys,
To possess and rule and sway!
Now the people votes and reigns, my boys,
We speak, and our lords obey.
The garden of England's ours, my boys,
But to rule ourselves remains,
For the man who governs and rules himself
Is ever the man who reigns—
The man who can govern and rule himself
Is ever the king who reigns!

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IV. RETROSPECT

“O conquering poet, thou that hast
The whole world at thy feet,
What laurel-garlands crown thy past!
Is not the present sweet?

Poet.

“I'd fling away my crown of bay,
Lose it without one throe,
To feel beside my own to-day
The tender heart I flung away
Long, long ago!

“O statesman, thou that guidest things
With godlike strength of will,
Thou art more regal than earth's kings;
They hear thee, and are still.”

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Statesman.

“I shape the world continually,
I lay its monarchs low,
And yet I'd give the world to see
The dead eyes smile that smiled at me
Long, long ago!”

“O warrior, thou that carriest high
Thy grey victorious head,
What pæans echo to the sky
At thy war-horse's tread!”

Warrior.
“I heed them not. I long to hear
The child's speech, soft and slow,
That used to sound upon mine ear,
So sweet, so pure, so silver-clear,
Many and many and many a year
Ago!”

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V. TWO NESTS

In the leafless sycamore
Lo! a winter nest.
Round it all the ceaseless roar
Of the storm's unrest.
Here love's palace once was seen
Swinging to the breeze,
Roofed and guarded by the green,
Full of melodies.
Here the sunset loved to rest,
Smiling on the thrush's nest.

In yon London attic room
Once a painter wrought;
All our dense November gloom
Darkened not his thought.

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Woman's love was here as well;
Woman's loving eyes
Met the painter's when they fell
From the pictured skies.
Love forsook his fiery quest,
Pausing at the painter's nest.

Both are changed alike to-day.
When the thrushes flew,
Sorrow turned the green leaves grey,
Robbed the heaven of blue.
Painter, sweetheart, both are dead,
But the room remains,
And an easel smeared with red,—
Dusty window panes.
Death destroys with equal zest
Painter's bower, or thrush's nest.

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VI. THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

In every heart a story;
In every heart a grief;
The sorrow of a lifetime;
A pain or rapture brief.
Old hearts and young together,
All hearts alike, are one;
All harden in black weather,
All soften at the sun.

All hearts have had their burden;
Romance has come to most,
Has entered life with trumpets
And vanished like a ghost.

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Each heart is like an album
With blossoms therein dried;
Sweet blossoms, pure love-blossoms,
That bloomed a day, then died.

Oh! brothers, Oh! strong brothers,
And sisters sad and sweet,
Wives, daughters, fathers, mothers,—
In suffering all can meet.
The path of pain in common
We all alike have trod,—
May that one pathway lead us,
Lead all alike to God!

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VII. THE PILOT'S WIFE

“The moon shines out with here and there a star,
But furious cloud-ranks storm both stars and moon:
The mad sea drums upon the harbour-bar;
Will the tide slacken soon?
O Sea that took'st my youngest, wilt thou spare?”
—And the Sea answered through the black night-air,
“I took thy youngest. Shall I spare to-night?”

“The thundering breakers sweep and slash the sands;
To westward lo! one line of cream-white foam:
I raise to darkling heaven my helpless hands;
I watch within the home.
O Sea that took'st my eldest, wilt thou save?”
—And the Sea answered as from out a grave,
“I slew thine eldest son for my delight.”

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“The giant waves plunge o'er the shingly beach;
The tawny-maned great lions of the sea
With pitiless roar howl down all human speech;
Is God far-off from me?
O Sea that slewest my sons, mine husband spare!”
—The Sea's wild laughter shook and rent the air:
Lo! on the beach a drowned face deadly white.

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VIII. THE DEAD CHILD

But yesterday she played with childish things,
With toys and painted fruit.
To-day she may be speeding on bright wings
Beyond the stars! We ask. The stars are mute.

But yesterday her doll was all in all;
She laughed and was content.
To-day she will not answer, if we call:
She dropped no toys to show the road she went.

But yesterday she smiled and ranged with art
Her playthings on the bed.
To-day and yesterday are leagues apart!
She will not smile to-day, for she is dead.

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IX. THE SHADOW AT THE DOOR

What adds a beauty to the rose?
The thought that, when the night-wind blows,
The petals white or petals pink
At his cold touch may fail and shrink.
This gives its beauty to the flower—
That it but blooms and lives one hour.
The sun gives charm. What gives it more?
The Shadow waiting at the door.

The sweetest hour may swiftly pass:
Brown are these blades, that once were grass.
Blue eyes, gold hair, they are but shows;
Death takes them, as it takes the rose.
Love draws such eager passionate breath
Because he's followed fast by death.
What makes us value Love's kiss more?
The deathlike Shadow at the door.

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O love, our bower of love is sweet;
The white rug nestles round your feet.
Your brown eyes watch the bright fire's glow;
I watch your eyes. I love them so!
The pictures watch us from the wall:
I'm king, and you the queen of all.
Does aught else watch? Aye, one thing more:
That ghostlike Shadow at the door!

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X. SADNESS AND GLADNESS

Our tired hearts gather sadness, as we grow
In care and thoughts and pain.
The sweet spring sunlight that once charmed us so
Will never gleam again.
The grey mists thicken as the sun declines:
A deepening shadow clothes the mountain pines.

But our tired heart sees not the whole of things.
Still over the brown stream
Flashes the kingfisher with rapid wings,
One sudden azure gleam.
Because our souls are weary or are sad,
We quite forget that half the world is glad!

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Some lover just has won his lady's smile,
As we won long ago:
The wild hedge-blossoms cluster by the stile,
Gold buttercups a-row:
The silvery minnow darts along the stream:
Life is not all a trouble or a dream.

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XI. NEAR AT HAND

The dead are with us through our nights and days;
They have not journeyed far,
Beyond the clouds, beyond the golden haze
That shrouds the furthest star.
Our earthly flowers
Are still to them most dear,
And still they hear
The songs of merry birds in hawthorn bowers.

Friends who have passed are never far away,
Beyond the warmth of June,
Beyond the sights and sounds and scents of May,
Beyond our waters' tune.
They linger still
To watch the white moon rise
Behind the hill,
And still take pleasure in the sunlit skies.

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They nearest are, just when we need them most.
They help with living hands;
No spectral shape, no fruitless pallid ghost,
Peers from the unseen lands.
They watch and heed;
Their legions fill the air;
They never speed
Beyond the cry of pain, or reach of prayer.

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XII. LOVE AND DEATH

An angel watched the world rejoicing:
The flowers sang in the morning light;
The blue sea sang its tender love-song
To golden-girdled stars at night.
All seemed so full of peace and gladness—
Till lo! a sudden ice-cold breath
Passed over hill and wave and meadow:
A stern voice whispered, “I am Death!”

Alas! in all that angel's dreaming
His loving heart had never dreamed
That only for one single moment
The fairy blossoms sang and gleamed.
He turned, and in despairing sadness
Would have resought the heavens above,
When, softly sounding through the shadows,
A sweet voice whispered, “I am Love!”

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And then the angel saw that fairer
Than heaven with all its strifeless calm
Is earth, for Love makes sorrow lovely,
And plucks from grief the victor's palm.
Aye, Love with its undying sweetness
Can soothe the weary, cheer the lone:
If Death's voice threatens through the darkness,
Love whispers, “Death is overthrown!”