Poems and Sonnets :: :: University of Virginia Library

Poems and Sonnets

By George Barlow

Barlow, George

POEMS AND SONNETS

PART I.

II.

PART II.

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POEMS AND SONNETS

“The rapture of pursuing Is the prize the vanquished gain.”—Longfellow.

I. PART I.

DEDICATION.

SAND AND THE BAYS.

I

She crowned my hair with sand; I wonder will
She ever twine her hand amid the bays,
And ever render unto me the praise
Without which all men's praise, alas, is nil,
But which is potent by itself to fill
To the full the flowing current of my days:
Was it an omen for my future lays,
An evil omen, that she chose to spill,
And twine amid my locks a sandy wreath?
Have I, in fact, as Keats in humble thought
Deemed that in water he his name had wrought,
To shifting sand of poetry made bequeath;
And will the foamy, white, advancing teeth
Of Time bring both myself and mine to nought?

II

Will she be favourable? she, who crowned with sand
My head, too happy to be touched at all
By what her hand had touched to care to call
Out, “Stay, sweet, choose a less ill-omened band
Wherewith to bind my brow.” I seem to stand
Before her, yea, before my Queen alone,
And into nothingness the world is thrown
For the time, and only two possess the land;
I offer her my book; I think that she
Will smile to recognize a flower or two
We plucked together, set in frame-work new,
And many buds and blossoms she will see
Unseen before, and leaflets not a few,
And will she, think you, cast a glance on me?

LOVE.

A SERIES OF SONNETS.

PSYCHE AND MERCURY, ONE OF RAPHAEL'S FRESCOES.

A face that, as it seems to me, combines
All beauties of expression into one!
As shines upon the sea the summer sun,
With rippling laughter it for ever shines;
Gaze only with intensity, the lines
Will shift themselves before you; I could swear
I've seen it move as I was standing there,
And look to me and speak to me by signs;
And then the wonder of the black-brown hair,
And gleaming glory of the green-grey eyes!
I never see the picture, I declare,
Without a gasp of sorrow and surprise,
Surprise that I have found a face so fair,
Sorrow that 'tis not mine in anywise.

THE SONG OF THE BLIND POET.

It sootheth me on love's delights to linger,
They're true for some one else, if not for me,
I cannot sing in any other key,
At least, I'll point them out with passionate finger,
A voice, an unseen sound, a sightless singer,
I'll teach them what to take and what to flee,
A Finger-Post, a Light-House in the sea,
Of joy to all men but myself a bringer;
There was a world of wonder and of daytime,
I found it, men that live will find it, fair,
For them will gleam the greenery of Maytime,
And laughter leave an echo in the air,
For them the hours of work and pleasant playtime,
For me the inactive deeps of dull despair.

BLOWN BUBBLES.

I may not see you, love, but I will greet you
With sweet blown bubbles, kisses of my rhymes:
Sleepless, my thoughts shall wander forth to meet you—
At odorous hours of dusk, at evening-times,
A vesper-song, a fairy peal of chimes,
Borne in upon your hearing they shall reach you,
Take form, and falling at your feet beseech you
To breathe a prayer for a lover in lonely climes;
I would, my love, that fancy's troop of kisses
Might fall upon you like a gentle dew,
A shower of shaken rose-petals, or a crew
Of elves to pelt you with bewildering blisses
And cowslip-balls, beneath sweet warm abysses
Of hay to smother you, as we used to do
In the hot hazy afternoons in hay-fields,
Hours of delight in childhood's pleasant play-fields,
Happy, amidst the green, beneath the blue.

THE ECSTACY OF THE HAIR.

I'd send a troop of kisses to entangle
And lose themselves in labyrinths of hair,
Thy deep dark night of hair with stars to spangle,
And, each a tiny fire-fly, to dangle
Amid the tresses of that forest fair;
A perfume seems to blossom into air,
The ecstacy that hangs about the tresses,
Their blush, their overflow, their breath, their bloom,
A wind that gently lifts them, and caresses,
And wings itself, and floats about the room;
My meaning this but partially expresses,
The thoughts that in me smoulder and consume,
I want to say that to my mind the hair
So wonderfully, wildly, sweetly fair
Seems, that a fancy all my soul possesses
Its ecstacy ought to blossom into perfume.

SPRING.

I

As some sweet rosebud opens and discloses
A widening wealth of beauty to the view,
As every day in spring the wild-flower posies
Increase in number, scent, and warmth of hue,
As pale pink rosebuds redden into roses,
And faint gray larkspur freshens into blue,
As every morn the great sun-artist rises
And paints afresh high heaven's fiery floor
With streaks, and lights, and tints, and new surprises,
And waves of colour all unknown before,
Bewildering the air with shapes and sizes
Of clouds its shining surface sprinkled o'er,
So day by day your beauty, my delight,
omes clearer, fuller, fresher into sight.

II

As every wave a broken wave that follows
Flings a fresh flower of foam upon the shore,
As year by year the home-returning swallows
Seem sweet to us as though ne'er seen before,
As greenery of spring on hills, in hollows,
Seems each new spring-time greener than of yore,
As every morn the ether seems to lighten
With one great blue broad smile from side to side,
As snows are white, and holly-berries brighten
With ruddier redness at each Christmas-tide,
And flowers are fair, and orange-blossoms heighten
Their loveliness for each new blushing bride,
So love your beauty every morning light
Blossoms into some new nosegay of delight.

IN SPITE OF ME.

O love, my love, I love you more than ever,
I prithee tell me, what am I to do?
With some faint, feeble shadow of endeavour
At times I try the bonds of love to sever,
But stronger than before they close anew,
I could not, if I would, become untrue,
I feel as if before I'd loved you never
For every day your beauty into view
Comes clearer; as the great gold sun-ship rises,
A vessel fraught with ever-fresh surprises,
So daily beams upon me some sweet vision
Entangling in its train some new condition;
In fine, I find that still as life grows longer
In spite of me my love becometh stronger!

KING LOVE.

I

Out of the depths of loneliness I cry,
A voice to awake the echoes of the past,
A voice that rises, borne upon the blast,
And seeks the shadowy land for which I sigh,
A land I long to visit ere I die,
Where, throned in isles of green and bowers of roses,
Himself a red rose, revels and reposes
King Love, all bathed about with seas of posies
And scent of honeysuckle hanging nigh;
There skies are blue and breath of gentle breezes
Gladdens a land that smiles from side to side,
Smiling a smile the enraptured soul that seizes
And whirls adown its own soft-flowing tide,
A land of purple seas, of day that pleases
And night that soothes, a starry dark-eyed bride.

II

Nor only dwells the King in bowers of roses
Amid the growth and greenery of the land,
Across the seas and barren breadths of sand
His voice is heard, the mountain-height discloses
His form enshrined where ignorance supposes
The cold white Snow-Queen lords it all alone,
Shaking the snow-showers round her misty throne,
And all her force to melting love opposes;
Warm Love that melts the very rocks in sunder,
And crumbles mountains into sheets of sea,
Brave Love that steals the bolts of Monarch Thunder,
And, when the Monarch mutters, laughs in glee,
True Love, the King of Wisdom and of Wonder,
White, born of woman, fiery-footed, free.

III

Along the hills and heights and purple highlands,
Adown the valleys, lo! Love sweeps his wand,
The spring breathes blossoms born at his command.
The streams, the lakes, the seas, the wreath of islands,
The sunset-splendour of the western skylands,
All borrow bloom and beauty from his touch,
He holds the Round World crumpled in his clutch,
The suns and moons, the starry far and nigh lands;
Love interpenetrates the silent spaces,
Therein his wings awake a wave of sound,
With Sound and Light King Love runs laughing races
And beats them breathless, beats them at a bound,
Above, beneath the earth, yea, in all places
Some shimmer of his presence may be found.

A KISS FOR EVER.

Two lovers were found, slain by lightning. And it seemed as if, when the lightning slew them, they were in the act of kissing one another.

I

They stood beneath the roses in the lane—
The honeysuckle breathed upon the pair,
The roses shed their petals in her hair
And blushed for joy—two lives without a stain,
With pleasure pale and passing into pain
Were hand in hand together, and the air
About them both a perfume seemed to bear,
A misty veil that closed around the twain
And hid them from the world: her gentle breath
Rises and falls and lightly fans his face,
The after-sunset silence of the place
Broods o'er them sleepily, as still as death,
Save only when from time to time he saith
Low words, her rosy lips soft whispers grace.

II

A little while, and then the first-born kiss,
Long, lovingly and lingeringly taken,
By one who feels the whole wide world of bliss
For him that rosebud cup contains; a shaken
Wild rosebush sprinkles them with drops of dew,
Pure, pearly, dripped from off the leafy fingers—
They nestle in her hair and trickle through—
All save one larger loitering pearl that lingers
Crowning the fair white circle of her brow
In sign that she too reigns henceforth a queen,
A queen among the pure; the branches bow,
And eyes of love the sprays and flowers atween
Seem softly to peep out upon a pair
Together soon the life of death to share.

III

For, from on high, the Lord of Love looked down
On man and maid, and saw that these were pure,
And, pleased, prepared right royally to crown
Their lips with a white kiss that should endure,
The kiss for which fair lovers have been sighing
Through all the ages that have passed away,
A kiss to last for ever, never flying
Through all the hours of Eternal Day;
And this they won; Love sent his servant Lightning
To seal for ever their one lovers' kiss,
And bear them gently, softly, without frightening,
To spend their honeymoon in brighter bliss,
Among the lanes where faithful lovers walk
In heaven, to renew that evening's broken talk.

The accounts of this occurrence were given in the daily papers at the time.

ANNE HATHAWAY.

“Anne Hathaway, she hath a way,” I wonder
What way it was that won the singer's soul,
Could lips that pout, and part, and smile asunder,
Heart of a Shakespeare conquer and control,
Or had some traitor tress “a way of waving”
In windy jubilance across her eyes—
A way it was, I doubt not, worth the saving
In some soft sonnet proud of such a prize,
Only, unluckily, the words were broken
Short off, you see, by some such “woman's way,”
For, soon as Shakespeare's lips the above had spoken,
So sound an illustration I should say
Of what he meant was given in a kiss
That he was well content the rest to miss.

Completion of the unfinished sonnet attributed to Shakespeare, beginning “Anne Hathaway, she hath a way.”

REMINISCENCE.

Standing upon the cliff where I remember
That autumn eve the maiden musing stood,
Enwrapped around with twilight of September,
Pondering soft things in some soft maiden mood,
Fanning a fresh flame out of memory's ember
Over the past and “is to be” I brood;
I joy to see that signs are all around me
Of her sweet presence who before was there,
An echo of her loveliness has found me
Breathed forth from all the crowd of flowers fair
That, smiling upwards, silently surround me,
Filling the places that before were bare;
A perfume of her presence seems to hover
In ecstasy about the holy place,

Entanglements of trefoil and of clover
In soft solicitude my feet embrace,
The special spots her feet have trodden over
By blossom-clusters special sweet I trace,
And, resting in the midst of flowers fair
Feel in some sort as if their queen was there.

A FLOWER.

A fair white flower, gathered all alone,
Before me sighs, and bends a lowly head;
Instinct with life she seems, as if she shed
Tears for the sake of soft companions flown,
As if she musically made a moan
(Just as a maiden though she smile or weep
Her soul in beauty cannot fail to steep)
After her loved ones into sorrow thrown;
'Tis wet to-night, and all the cliffs are raining,
And heavy hang the beaded blades of grass,
And I can fancy pale white faces straining,
Pale flower faces, tearful with complaining,
After my captive planted in a glass—
Herself, it seems, a sorrow far from feigning.

SACRA NOX.

O Night divine, bringer of dreams to mortals,
What should we do without thee? when the day
Like some slow snake has dragged its length away,
With gentle hand thou closest eyelid portals,
And, fact shut out, sweet fiction works within,
And many a form to Beauty's Queen akin
Sweeps through the sleeper's brain, the weary din
Of daylight all forgotten, bliss that foretells
Reality of waking bliss to be,
Casting across the forehead of the sleeper
Soft lights and shades, as over summer sea
Flit clouds of colour, ever waxing deeper
As laughs by night a soul in light a weeper
Uprising strong the moon of ecstasy.

TO A YELLOW ROSE.

O flower of flowers, fit for Beauty's breast,
To rise and fall upon a bosom fair,
Or sink in silent ecstasy and rest
Deep down amid the hollows of her hair,
Sweet places winged with odours all divine,
Soft nests wherein I long to twine my hands,
Whence beauty, queen of roses, bright as thine
Buds, blossoms, and at last in air expands;
For I have always felt the wealth of tresses,
Of certain deep dark tresses I have seen,
No wreath of rhymes, no written word expresses—
I approach the nearest to the thing I mean,
When I say that to my mind this wondrous hair
Seemeth to blossom into scent as fair.

ONCE!

I

When we grow old shall we forget, I wonder,
The bloom and delicate odour of our youth?
Will years that are to be divide in sunder
The achieved and the as yet unconquered truth?
Will cheeks all pale with eld and worn and shrunken
Remember the sweet flush that once they wore,
And limbs that totter, as a man reels drunken,
Be mindful of the weight that once they wore
So lightly? Sad to me the thought of growing
Towards the withering withered autumn time,
For autumn roses lose the art of blowing,
The only true rose is the rose of prime,
And what a rose is that, the rose of youth,
No words of poet compass all its truth!

II

If this be so, my brothers, let us sing,
Yea, let us raise our voices while we can,
And join our numbers to the birds of spring;
Our life is short, for but a little span
We see the sunshine, then we face the winter,
And though we shiver, we in our sore need,
Never, although we blow it till it splinter,
Will music echo from a wintry reed;
But something is it but once to have spoken,
And wrung from out our hearts a broken cry,
A cry towards Beauty—to have given token
Once how we love her, once before we die,
And if we can but die upon her breast
Breathing her loveliness we may find rest.

III

Something it is to have found in some slight measure
A voice, a gift of speech, before we die,
Yea, should we die now yet we've had the pleasure
Of breathing out our souls in one long sigh
Towards the lips of Beauty; this, my brothers,
While life abides in veins of ours we do,
As timid children cry for absent mothers,
We cry for her, we know that she is true;
Though all else fail us Beauty has been; never
Can we forget the vision we have seen,
Weak as a babe is Death's arm bonds to sever,
He cannot change a kiss that once has been,
He cannot move its image from the lips
Though thrice in his cold stream a soul he dips.

IV

Therefore we triumph—even in our sorrow—
For if we vanish Beauty yet abides,
And if our song is blotted out to-morrow
Our Queen for ever through the planet rides,
Yea, if our name be not rememberèd
And no man mourn us, She it may be bears
In memory these singers who are dead,
Their vainly sought for crowns she wins and wears;
And so it should be; let us raise our voices
And beat upon our hearts till each one rings,
What matters agony if she rejoices,
Or loss of self, if only some one sings,
What matters anything if she our Queen
Lives on, and her sweet face our eyes have seen?

V

What we have seen no soul can take away,
What we have known, is open to no hand
To rob us of, we too have had our day
And sailed the seas, and traversed lengths of land
In search of satisfaction, and our sorrow
Is when we fear the Beauty of the Whole
Is not as we would have it—but we borrow
In some sort consolation for our soul
By falling back upon the fact that certain
It is that eyes of ours have Beauty seen,
If o'er her form has fallen again the curtain
'Tis none the less true that she once has been,
That we with our eyes, yea, these eyes of ours,
Have seen her home and fairyland of flowers.

VI

What has been may be yet again—for others
At all events, if for ourselves no more;
We pass the wonder on towards our brothers
Who have wandered further forward on the shore
Of Man's Development; let these men find her,
And raise their voices loud, and sing her fame,
But let us know to whom we have resigned her,
Our Goddess—if they are worthy of her name;
Let these, the poets of the future, finish
The work we have tried, and trying, left undone;
By not a jot their fame would we diminish,
By not a ray the splendour of their sun,
Only let some one say the things we see,
And these things see with clearer sight than we.

DON'T.

Don't—ah, but, sweet, I will—you must not mind it,
My turn at last it is to have my will,
If I should kiss my treasure till I blind it
Closed eyes of hers I'd go on kissing still;
A poor wild singer am I, and a singer
In love is not, you know, like other men,
They kiss their mistress' hand, I kiss each finger,
Then think I've miss'd one out and count again;
Let these make odes, as is their bounden duty,
To love, and seal their songs with finger tips,
But as for me when I am praising Beauty
My signature is always with the lips
Just so, sweet—let me kiss the place again,
Believe me it will heal the sooner then.

THE BAY-LEAF CROWN.

I

And is it yet in front in spite of all?
That crown my eyes are hungry to embrace,
And will my head be ever fitting place
On which its circular shadow soft may fall?
If this be so, I am strong to burst the thrall
Of every low desire that backward bears
A soul that should be wingèd as the airs,
That downward drags a heart that should be tall
As a majestic oak, and as the sea
In width, and as the diamond air above
In depth, intensity, and warmth of love
Towards all the living things that 'neath it be,
And long as woman's memory, and as free
And gentle as the flying of a dove.

II

Far, far in front they glitter, those sweet leaves,
But many a lonesome agony lies between,
And many a desert all untouched by green,
And many a day that mocks, and night that grieves,
And many a harvest all bereft of sheaves,
Bereft of fruit to gather—but the prize
Is worthy—in the future far it lies,
And distance of its sorrow hope bereaves;
But pain is pain, and bitter are the tears
We shed, the wreaths of weeping we entwine,
Sad cypress wreaths made bright with eglantine,
Around the cherished hopes of vanished years,
Around our earlier loves, their low-laid biers,
Their ghosts proceeding in a pale long line.

ISOLINA.

I

O all fair women of my boyish days
With whom I fell in love in sweet rotation,
I bow my head in humble obligation,
And lift my voice, and loudly sing your praise;
There was an “Isoline” whose memory stays
Yet with me, and “Die Vernon,” I remember
How heartily to her I did surrender
My soul, my reverent open-eyed amaze
At that most fascinating dame; and others
A countless host of many coloured eyes
Whose glances now, alas! forgetfulness smothers,
But which once thrilled me throughly with surprise,
And unto thoughts that tender youth supplies,
All high romantic thoughts, were foster-mothers.

II

But, chiefest of them all, sweet Isolina
The heroine of the ‘War-Trail’ doth remain
In mind of mine, and even now the pain
And mingled pleasure of her high demeanour
In that most perilous time in which I'd seen her
My memory is potent to retain,
And her fierce beauty as of dark-eyed Spain
Is present with me; when a boy to screen her
From those wild Indians what would I have done,
To have been the happy man who brought her back,
A kiss of Isolina's to have won,
To have followed furiously the White Horse track?
Why, I was all the time upon the rack,
I felt upon my lids the fervent sun

III

Of Mexico, and through the shadowy waste
Of mezquite bushes and the flowery plains
I followed hard the trail with loosened reins
And made pursuit of her in hottest haste,
All tremulous lest half a tress displaced
By rougher hands might bring to nought our pains;
An echo of the agony yet remains,
A vision of the speed with which we raced
Across these burning prairies, and a throb,
Yea, even now a throb of that long kiss
With which we welcomed back to arms of bliss,
Inviolate, her that fate had tried to rob
Us of; pure ecstasy indeed was this,
The ecstasy that endeth in a sob,

IV

Too sweet to tarry dry-eyed; good old tale,
I thank thee for the pleasure thou hast given
To hours of boyhood, in that I have striven
Over thy pages, heart a-beat and pale,
To one at least thou hast been of avail,
And of reality his mind hast shriven
For a time, asunder robe of daylight riven,
And filled Imagination's swelling sail
With breezes of romance; farewell my Queen,
My early dark-eyed face-flushed Queen of Hearts,
Tanned with the passion of those Southern parts!
Alas! full many a year has rolled between
Thee and thy boyish knight, and sting of darts
Of Love far fiercer since his soul has seen.

ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

I saw a couple courting—and her face
Was beautiful, and she was half afraid,
And he, the stronger, rather roughly played
With fears of hers, and caught in his embrace
Her form eluding him with lissom grace,
And clasped again the waist that forward swayed;
And so they toyed together, man and maid,
And filled with sunny love the quiet place
Where they were seated; and I looked and thought,
“She is seated on love's ladder—it is true,
Her love, but much remaineth yet to do
Before love's hand the flower of love has wrought,
And to the ladder's summit she is brought,
Proceeding rung by rung the stages through!”

II

But most I marked that strange consenting “Nay”
Of womanhood, at once her choicest gift,
The power by which God meant her high to lift
Our manhood, the sweet power of giving way,
And chiefest peril; many a weary day
Will pass before we learn to reverence
Those lips of hers that bid a man “go hence”
While all the time they whisper “Sweetheart stay”
By something than mere words more potent far—
Before we learn to reverence the yielding,
And meet it on our side by courtly shielding
Of woman from her own malignant star,
Not caring that her very grace should mar
Beauty that otherwise she should be wielding.

III

It is so beautiful, that readiness
To yield herself unquestioning, so fair,
That doubled twenty times should be the care
With which we harder men ourselves address
To the task of coaxing forth the coy caress
That woos us as a blossom woos the air,
Half fearful yet half eager—it is there,
But grasp it rudely, it is there the less.
Experiments in love for all the ages
We have been making, and we see our way
At last to somewhat of a clearer day,
To the fresh unfolding of some final pages
Of Love's portfolio; its final sway
In utmost Beauty God himself engages;

IV

In utmost Beauty, Purity as well—
Twin sisters these, they traverse hand in hand
The lengthy avenues of Love's long land,
And great as is the fall from heaven to hell
The loss is if a man would either quell
To worship one alone; the latter wears
A white rose in her bosom, and she bears,
Her sister, set upon her lips to tell
Her fragrance unto each she deigns to kiss,
A red rose—in the future we shall know
That Beauty hath a breast as white as snow,
That lips of Purity with passionate bliss
Are rosy as her sister's, and that this,
This combination, hath the sunset glow,

V

The fire of the scarlet evening air,
All its intensity made more intense
By dazzling clearness free from all offence,
And not made colourless, but made more fair,
More beautiful, more passionately rare
By the white rose petals; more to be desired
Than kisses of a cheek by passion fired
Is such a sweet unbinding of the hair
Of Beauty; in that kiss and here alone
King Passion hath his rights and Beauty too,
For otherwise she maketh much ado,
Queen Beauty, roughly hurled from off her throne
And crushed beneath his gauntlet; but a few
Have both the Monarch and his Lady known,

VI

And found them fair, she soft as eventide,
He burly with the blushes of the noon,
For ever humming forth some lusty tune,
Ready to kiss her if she only sighed,
She—one with whom it would be sweet to ride
Beneath an early rising of the moon,
Or listen to the ripple all in tune
The March Triumphant of a flowing tide;
But let us grasp the hands of King and Queen,
And be with her on silent summer eves,
And run a race with Passion 'mid the sheaves,
The golden sheaves of Autumn in between
At molten noonday, yea, and after, glean
With her the ears that he the reckless leaves.

MY OWN DART.

I love Love, therefore am I far apart
From Love—because she's everything to me
The less am I allowed her face to see,
The less am able to outpour my heart,
Permitted less to ease its aching smart
And low to fall and say, “I worship thee;”
If I loved less the fates would gracious be,
But loving much transfixed by mine own dart
Of over great anxiety I die;
I cannot get to clutch the thing I would,
If it were possible—ah! if I could
Attain to it, extended in a sigh
My being, all of it, would prostrate lie,
Fainting for joy at such a gainèd good!

POETRY.

I love it, but I cannot find a voice,
I cannot bead my thoughts upon the strings
Of that soft lyre wherewith the Goddess sings,
I cannot sorrow rightly, nor rejoice
Aright—her garment over me she flings;

I love Love, but I cannot reach her hair,
Though lips of mine are burning with desire
With kisses to enkindle in a fire
What I, caressing once, once found so fair—
No striving of the spirit brings me nigher.

MISS THACKERAY'S “REINE.”

I

Thank Heaven! that there still are left a few
Right noble women who know how to feel—
If there are none in fact, why let them steal
Possession of our hearts, the heroic crew
Who in the fictions which alone are true
Alone give unto mankind cause to kneel
In adoration—let the novelists heal
The age, providing us with Passion new;
If women whom we daily see around
Are white and feeble, most unreal dames,
For God's sake let us bury knightly aims
Along with knightly stories underground,
And when they seek us, let us still be found
Insensible to any but the claims

II

Of storied damsels—such as noble Reine
Who set my heart a-scribbling in this fashion
I wonder whether such a wealth of passion,
Save only in recesses of the brain
Of genius, on earth doth yet remain,
Whether a woman fit to tie the shoe
Of Reine of Petitport is ever true,
Or only fancied in the painted pane
Of High Imagination; but since one,
One worthy woman, only think my brothers,
Has struggled into life, we'll hope for others,
Yea, for a reign of Goddesshood begun,
That the Romances that have such a run
May unto passionate romance be mothers!

ABSTRACT TO CONCRETE.

I

My Queen, I have not quite forgotten you—
Though abstract thoughts have occupied my pen
Of late, I turn towards you now and then,
And never fail to find refreshment new;
As opens out a flower towards the blue
When early morning chases shades of night,
So when your beauty, sweet one, comes in sight
I put aside the work I had to do
And open out Imagination's arms
To grasp the graceful image that I see—
To grasp at all events the thought of thee.
That of itself a mind perturbèd calms,
And, exercising a magician's charms,
Bids pale Philosophy take wings and flee.

II

Philosophy is pale—she is a bride
To some who rosier lips have never seen,
Who never in the company have been,
Have never trodden, silent, at the side
Of Beauty; had they, they must have defied
Another to assert herself as Queen;
The Marble Goddess hath a countenance keen,
And she is gentle, and her hands are wide
In distribution, but—one day I saw,
I caught a glimpse, high seated in a wood,
Of Beauty, and I tell you she is good,
Fair as a rose, and free from any flaw,
And in a moment, lo! I loved her more
Than the other in a century any could.

LOVE'S ORDEAL.

SUGGESTED BY MR. MAC DONALD'S POEM.

He felt the darkness—and he felt them fold
Around him, arms of her who loved him so
That she was certain Youth yet lay below
The aged garment that she did behold
Encircling him grown withered, wrinkled, old—
That she was strong extremity to know,
Yea, strong to cherish with her breast of snow
His breast by this time earthy, clay-like, cold;
Another way the story may be told
For fades from arms of ours Queen Beauty's glow
As frequently, and sore excess of woe
Is over eyelids sick with longing rolled,
Heavy with fainting for a sight of her

Who has withdrawn the sunset of her face,
And left in heaven not a single trace,
No gold-tipped cloud to show that she was there,
That but a moment since the sky was fair
And crimson colour flooded every place.

BLUE WEATHER.

A beautiful blue day! I would that I
Were pure as is to-day the cloudless sky,
Transparent as the spotless autumn air,
That unto Beauty I might be more nigh,
Myself more like her, nobler and more fair
And stronger; low before her feet to lie,
Watching the downcast ripples of her hair
The endless fire of her face, I sigh,
Too happily placed to care to move or cry,
Too happy even to pray or wonder why
I am happy, only knowing that I share
The nectar of the glances of her eye!

THE WORLD.

We are moved, it seems, by never changing law
Towards the better, with the best in view
In the distance; mist-enfolded mountains new,
Strange valleys our forefathers never saw
Gleam wonderfully before us—passing o'er
Each ridge another magically blue,
Folded in mystery, cuts the horizon through,
And with discovery's passion even more
Unquenchably inspires us; so we wander
Towards the future, careless of the past,
Each age outflanking utterly the last,
Working new miracles for us to ponder,
While ever those sweet misty mountains yonder
Entice the feet of Progress forward fast.

A MEETING.

I pray you kiss me once, my queen, to show
That all the past is merged in present bliss,
And kiss me twice to make more certain this,
And once again to signify the flow
The happy future undivided glow
Of Love; make each kiss keener than the last
To indicate the pallor of the past
Compared with rosy days we two shall know;
A kiss for present, future, past, for each
Was good; the past was lit by expectation
Striving across the waves of tribulation
Unto the present arms of hope to reach,
Sweet is the present, blessed beyond speech,
Sweeter each future than the former station.

THE GOVERNESS.

Have you been lonely, darling? So have I,
And weary, oh! so sick and sad at times—
I used to hum the old familiar rhymes
That we, do you remember, used to try
Upon the pianoforte on the sly—
Delight ecstatic of those youthful crimes!
Most marvellous melody of those drawing-room chimes
Sometimes in the morning no one else being by!
So sorrowfully they came back to me
Laden with fragrance of the vanished past—
I thought at the time it was too good to last,
That such excessive happiness must flee,
And so it did, but now hath followed fast
A far more radiant reality.

GLANCES.

I

Some of those looks I never shall forget,
Some of those looks you gave me long ago;
To you at all events, I own, I owe
Remembrance sweeter even than regret;
When I recall your eyes my eyes are wet,
You used to glance at me sometimes just so—
Just so it was—ah! you would hardly know,
But I remember how the lightnings met—
The sudden mutual flashing of the eyes
When one struck strongly on a common chord
That used the other's action to applaud;
Though unto height of threescore years I rise
And every other pleasure life denies
I have that recollection for reward,

II

Reward of having lived and sorrowed much
And sinned and suffered; why it was worth while
Creating one to get but one such smile,
To feel the passionate fervour of a touch
Of hands that used to send an electric shock
That shivered into pieces the rent rock
Of my poor heart in most emphatic style;
If now my life is desert, yet an isle,
A green oasis, blossoms in the past,
And worth the agony of all the rest
It is with one such vision to be blessed,
By one such memory to be followed fast,
To have one radiant recollection cast
Across the raging waters sore-distressed

III

Of present sad existence, to have known
At least in dreams how wonderful is Love
When Beauty, girded sweetly, sits above,
The occupant of some soft grassy throne,
How rapturous a thing it is to own
Yourself defeated, over head and ears
Immersed in Passion's sea of smiles and tears,
When some one else's heart is there to moan
The music of response; at least I say
That Love is Beautiful, that Love is Fair,
And rosy is the circling of the air
Around the heads of lovers in the way;
If now in loveless paths my footsteps stray
Yet once for me the paths perfumed were.

DELL' INFERNO.

I

O sea of all the sorrow of the earth,
Thou rollest wide gray-garmented sad waves
Across a mute metropolis of graves,
Thou takest from us, but dost not give birth
To other than a melancholy mirth—
Who hath been salted in thy cruel caves
To the end the scar of his remembrance saves
And holdeth but of little passing worth
The occasional gleams of a most sorry sun
That striveth through the mists to beat a way,
He knoweth that the evening will be gray,
He knoweth that the sand of time will run
No faster, though he shake the glass and pray
Existence to give over and have done.

II

No faster—though he plead with piteous tears—
For each shall struggle his allotted span,
Enjoy and suffer, each as best he can,
Performing a pale pilgrimage of years
That slowly build a greatening pile of biers
Above the hopes with which the youth began
His fervent course, when first his chariot ran
Triumphantly, not knowing aught of fears;
The roses now have shed their summer leaves,
The bloom is faded, shorn the strength of limb,
The eye that flashed with brilliance once is dim,
Droop heads of desolation sodden sheaves
Over which hangs a cloudy sky that grieves
The swallows who in low sad circuit swim.

III

Are these things true? Is Beauty not a fable
Invented by the misty minds of men
As seasoning for a supper now and then?
Hath Goodness, think you, a foundation stable,
And is there other than a flimsy cable
Connecting us with lands beyond the sky
Of which men babble when they come to die
Because they find themselves no longer able
For pleasure upon earth? Is God a dream,
And harmony, the poet's crown of bays,
And other crowns as well that all men praise
That for a season satisfying seem?
And is it merely a nervous self-wrought gleam
That fire of Love that flashed upon the ways,

IV

And turned the very paving stones to gold?
Then let us sink into our beds and sleep,
Or cast ourselves upon the grass and weep
Until another Deluge we behold
The hideous beauty-lacking fields enfold
Through which we cripples, shorn of deity, creep;
What is there left for us but one long deep
Draught of annihilation icy cold?
For what we used to worship is away,
And we ourselves are nowise worshipful,
And we have lost the art the strings to pull
That move aside the curtains of the day,
And we have lost the knowledge how to pray—
Of misery's bitter herbs our hands are full;

V

The apples of our love have turned sour,
We see no longer what of old we saw,
Nor is the vision present any more
Of Beauty holding in her hand the flower,
The scent of which her grace was wont to shower
Our poet's rainbow-coloured garments o'er;
The voices of our souls are very sore
For lack of singing, yea, for lack of power
Lark-like to rise into the morning sky;
No longer overhead the air is blue,
Cold shafts of raindrops pierce us through and through
Until we raise an exceeding bitter cry,
And crouching forehead downward, wait to die
For want of any living thing to do.

VI

Yet they were sweet, the old familiar days
In which we trod firmfooted on the earth,
When lips were resonant with frequent mirth,
And mouths were moved with frequent lilt of lays,
And hands were able thanksgiving to raise
To Heaven; when we were strong and all went well,
Our foot-soles ignorant as yet of hell,
And eyes not shrivelled with the infernal blaze;
The memory abideth; even here,
Amid the scorching gloomy aisles of heat
Wherein we wander, cool old shades are sweet,
And in the pressing presence of a fear
That giveth us no rest we still hold dear
Earth's grasses grateful to uncovered feet;

VII

We still remember pleasant hours of noon
In summer, and the happy river-sides
Where ripple unceasing after ripple glides,
The tender radiance of the August moon
That breatheth down a sweet delirious swoon
Of ecstasy, and eloquence provides
For lovers sailing down the abundant tides
That move the boat of Passion to a tune
Of fairy-fingered music; we are glad,
With feet enshrined upon the fiery bars
Of agony that every feature mars,
To recollect that even we have had,
We sorrowfullest sinners, we who are sad,
A sight of some sweet clusters of the stars

VIII

Of Love's innumerable constellations;
These lips once quivered at a maiden's kiss,
That now must tremble at the tyrant hiss,
The steam-engine approach, of hostile nations
Of gad-flies of remorse that take their stations
Upon the neck and shoulders of a man
Bare for the torment, where each stinger can,
Each to pursue his noisome occupations;
Once we were free from these—free as a child
Who having wandered from his mother's arms
Plucks flower and flower, ignorant of harms
In any, till with voice and gesture mild
She calls him back, and soon his eyes have smiled
Themselves to sleep forgetful of alarms.

KATE AT THE WINDOW, “GRIFFITH GAUNT.”

A most sweet picture! Kate—the fire—the moon—
The ivy-tree—with Griffith Gaunt below,
All softened by the tender light of snow,
And set by Love to a dim delicious tune
That swelled into a stronger symphony soon,
Into a fiercer more ecstatic glow—
Such painting we have not been let to know
Of late; the age is waking from the swoon
Of artificiality that since
The great wide human grand Shakespearian time
Has given us jingles for melodious rhyme
And made poor nature's delicate features wince;
Approach us, rouse us, keen-eyed Fairy Prince,
And kiss us out of centuries of crime.

102

WHAT THE SONNET NEEDS.

“To write a Sonnet is an easy thing,”
Says somebody, “there are but fourteen lines—
Once get the knack that word with word combines
And you will soon be qualified to sing,
And o'er your shoulders rightfully may fling
The mantle of a poet.” I say, No;
To write a Sonnet first through fire and snow
Your heart must pass due melody to bring
From out the inert mass; some lady fair
You have to love with a half hopeless pain,
(This serves to give the “yearning” of the strain),
While now and then a glimmer of her hair
Waved in the distance, serveth back to bear
The power of soaring high in song again.

103

A VISION.

I have a vision of a lady bending
Over a wounded warrior clad in mail,
Blood-stained, sore smitten, weak and very pale—
A vision of sweet delicate fingers tending
His feebleness, a fair physician sending
Throughout his veins a draught that doth avail:
And ever and anon I see her fail
And faint half backward, woman's courage ending
For a season; then he smileth—such a smile!
Great eyes of fire glowing back within
The head encased in panoply of tin,
A smile as of a child not knowing guile;
For she hath pitied him who mocked him while
Unwounded, which is worth a death to win.

104

CROWNS.

There are many crowns; the poet's wreath of bays,
The warrior's laurel and the monarch's gold,
The twisted sweet rose garlands that enfold
The brow of Beauty—they were wont to praise
In Greece the parsley and the oaken sprays
And the grey sad wild olive we are told,
But if I had my choice I'd choose to hold
As a reward for any tuneful lays
I may have had the grace to sing—a wreath—
A wreath of woven ferns and meadows-sweet—
And if you ask me why, I will not say—
But such a simple crown for me is meet,
And memories lurk therein with golden feet
Bringing back one unforgotten summer day.

105

THE POET'S CROWN.

Ah! they may sneer, the men who do not know
The glory of the things the poet sees,
Who feel no magic in a western breeze,
Who see no marvel in a sheet of snow,
No mystery-mountains in the sunset glow,
Who hear no lisp of voices in the trees,
Who sit and sip their port and take their ease,
Not feeling either ecstasy or woe
Of any exalted attitude—but I
Would rather wear the crown the poet wins
Than any other underneath the sky—
Save only that, the sweetest gift of all,
Which on a favoured lover letteth fall
His mistress by a sparkle of her eye.

106

DEATH'S LIPS AND PALMS.

There are two crowns I covet most of all—
One that the fair white brows of poets wear,
That singers only have the right to share,
The other that a woman's grace lets fall
Upon the head of him she wills to call
Her knight, and whom she singleth out to bear
Her banner; but as yet alas! my hair
Is neither shadowed by a laurel pall,
Nor have my lips been crowned with Love's long kiss;
I wait for both—I wait the most for this;
I wait—and it may be that no warm grasp
May round my living brow the former clasp,
That I may never know the latter bliss,
Till lips and brow Death's lips and rough hands rasp.

107

LOVES.

Loves vary; one is like a summer night
Just after rainfall, rich with fragrant dews,
Another Love is like a shy recluse
Who shuns the glaring openness of light
And folds his happiness from public sight
Wandering the woods at eventide to muse,
Love is a flower of vari-coloured hues,
Passion an eagle of uncertain might;
Some lips there are that tremble, others close
Upon their rapture, faces that grow pale
With longing, others shrouded in a veil
Of reticence, or flushing as a rose;
This seeks to hide emotion, that one shows
In every lineament Love's written tale.

108

THE POET.

The poet wore a wreath of many years
Of labour and of agony of thought,
And straightway he the fresh green bay leaf brought
That she might crown him whom with outpoured tears
And strong solicitude and anxious fears
His forward footsteps had unceasing sought;
He found her not, and all the fame was nought,
And as the sturdier steed the higher rears,
He bounded, vehement in passion, back
And tore the bay leaves—slowly—one by one—
Dropping the crown his worthiness had won
In crumpled pieces on the dusty track;
What is the world to him who finds it lack
The warmth and radiance of Beauty's Sun?

109

WREATHS.

A wreath of oak leaves for a runner's head,
Gold for the monarch, laurel for the brow
Of the successful warrior I trow,
Bay leaves upon the poet should be shed,
And o'er the tresses of a Genius dead
To place white roses his admirers bow—
Towards another coronet I vow
Allegiance, to a strange ambition wed,
A crown of woven ferns and meadow-sweet;
I cannot tell you why I choose this thing,
But go ye into summer woods and bring
The flowers of my choice with speedy feet,
And I will sweep the lyre with finger fleet,
For very love of recollection sing.

Over the tomb of Charles Dickens they placed a chaplet of roses.

110

A VISION OF THE PAST.

I have a Vision, clad in green and gold,
Of the Past that seemeth very sweet at times,
And wakeneth an echo of old rhymes—
Green for the leafage and the mossy mould
And ferny foliage amid which we strolled,
Gold for the sunlight falling branches through,
Falling upon a face as bright—that's you—
And mountain-chesnut berries that we hold;
Do you remember? I shall not forget,
Though now ('tis in November that I write)
In that sweet woodland all the leaves are wet,
Symbolical of that most sorry blight
Which has thought good my withered being to smite
Leaving an antique savour of regret.

111

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE.

They sat together in an autumn wood,
These two—they were not very old you know—
She on a mossy pinnacle, he below,
Discussing (do you think they understood
The subject, wise ones, ye who wear the hood
Of Learning?) the Philosophy of Love!
The lady lecturer from the rock above
Discoursing, he replying as best he could;
Ah well! one “learned love from a lady's eyes”
Says Shakespeare—this man's task was sweeter far,
More highly privileged are they that are
Permitted to become in love-lore wise
By teaching of the lips, albeit in sighs
The lesson endeth, having left a scar!

112

THE PROMISED LAND.

I

Let some one else achieve it! it was fair
The poetic purpose that I had in view,
Sweet as the early sprinkling of the dew,
Fresh as the savour of a mountain-air,
That distant hint of bay-leaves for the hair,
The remote announcement of a work to do;
I stood bare-headed underneath the blue
Ready a stern allegiance to swear
To Beauty—but alas! it has passed away,
And I am cold and shiver and am sad
To think that lips of hers have signed a “Nay;”
I give them up! the joys I might have had,
But I would see them—from a present bad,
A cloudy foggy damp November day.

113

II

I would look to the summer that there might have been;
I do not groan for loss alone, I mourn
The realization of my rapture torn
From out my mind, I weep for loves unseen;
I might have wandered with my Forest Queen
Through dim arched aisles of mystery, sunlit glades,
And sat with her beneath the beechen shades,
And trodden in time the bending grasses green,
And pressed soft palms upon the mossy floors,
Seated, and gazing upward in her eyes
That put to shame the efforts of the skies
When the strong sun has kissed the cloudy doors
Of heaven into Beauty—being wise
I might have won such ecstasy I ween.

114

III

But I was foolish, therefore have I failed;
And yet I know not if the fault is mine
Entirely, or how much to Fate's design
Is due, for force of circumstance assailed
With vehemence the fortress of my Will;
But I will cease from groaning and be still,
If only this one thing for which I pine,
This boon for which incessant I have wailed
Be mine, to see as in a Panorama—
As unto Moses it was given to see
The Promised Land of Canaan that he
Was ne'er to enter in a warrior's armour—
If I may but behold my being's drama,
My ‘might have been’ expanded before me!

115

NORTH AND SOUTH.

They met beneath the darkening orange trees
Upon a perfect evening of the South;
Just light enough was left for mouth to mouth
To find a gentle way when one might please,
And in accordance laughed a lover's breeze
Across the ripples of the broad blue bay
That, softening into night, before them lay,
And washed toward their silent resting knees:
The one was fair with all the lusty bloom
Blown upon faces by the Northern winds,
But she showed that pale passion which the minds
Of sweet Italia's daughters doth consume,
When dark eyes serve to fill the features' room
Covering the countenance with most fervent blinds.

121

THE POET'S GRAVE.

FIRST VERSION.

“He hath sung sweetly,” so the Lady said,
Sweet Poesy, who stood above his grave
With tears and claspèd sorrowing hands that gave
A gentle tribute to her hero dead—
“He hath sung sweetly, let the bays be shed
About the brows of one more prophet brave,
He hath sung sweetly, let a rose-wreath wave
Around the eager brain that beauty fed;
He hath sung sweetly,” and she bent, the Queen,
To press upon his lips a farewell kiss,
But started back—for—what a thing is this!
The poet's eyes to open slow are seen,
For—Beauty once attained is life I ween,
And death it is the beautiful to miss.

122

THE POET'S GRAVE.

SECOND VERSION.

“He hath sung sweetly,” so she said, and came,
The Lady of the bays, to where he lay
Quiet beneath the evening shadows gray,
While in the west the sun was as a flame—
“He hath sung sweetly,” said the gentle dame,
And—half a tear fell sudden on the clay,
“He hath sung sweetly, Poetry must pay
This tribute to a soul of lofty aim;”
But as she said the words, behold, a form
Most strong, most beautiful, before her stood,
The Poet, risen from his coffin-wood,
Alive, heart beating, head conceiving, warm—
For—Beauty wept for him, for whom he died,
And therefore was he present at her side.

123

THE POET'S GRAVE.

THIRD VERSION.

“He hath sung sweetly, he hath died for me,”
Said Beauty, bending o'er the poet dead,
“He hath sung sweetly, round my hero's head
A wreath of farewell bay-leaves let there be,
Lilies and roses likewise, in that he
Was white as well as unto passion wed,
And lastly, let a pearly tear be shed
In that I loved him—yea, I do love thee
Thou poor pale corpse.” No sooner said than lo!
Across his cheek there runs a rosy flush
As of the life returning, as the snow
At advent of the morning 'gins to blush,
For—where are Love and Beauty sideways rush
Death's waters in a horror-stricken flow.

124

A CONTEMPLATED VOYAGE.

Agross the blue Atlantic to a land
Where thought is free, and men may act and speak,
And roses blossom in a woman's cheek
Without the pruning of Convention's hand,
I am going—so good-bye my native strand,
Good-bye to you for many a month and week;
Before I see you let me scale the peak
Of Chimborazo, by Niagara stand,
Across the Rocky Mountains sit astride,
Make havoc of the Himmalaya chain,
And perhaps before I turn me home again
At a canter through Australian deserts ride,
Or tame into a steed some zebra pied
Caught traversing an Oriental plain.

125

SWEET!

I have not written sonnets lately, sweet,
About you, have I? what am I to say,
What melody wring from out my brain to-day
Worthy your soft approving smile to meet,
What flower of novel song before your feet
Already deep in blossoms shall I lay,
A rose-bud, or a white acacia spray,
Or golden globèd lily incomplete?
Nay, sweet, on second thoughts it shall be none
Of these, cast glance of memory back my Queen,
Be quick to apprehend the thing I mean
When I recall a sprig of heath undone
By careless fingers underneath a sun
Of afternoon, and what you asked for glean.

126

THE SUPERNAL LOVELINESS.

I

Outside a wood upon a summer morn
Men were disputing—“Why, I saw her plain,”
Said one, “a violet robe—without a stain
Was hers, and in her hand a lily borne—”
“Nay, but she held a golden hunting horn,”
The second said; the third—“She did retain
A rose;” and yet another—“there remain
Red poppies in her hair and plaited corn;”
The tale of each was different, and I thought
The wonder that the Fairy of the Wood
In honest truth-desiring minds has wrought
In every poet's fancy is made good,
For Beauty we have seen, yet never could
Agree as to the panoply she brought;

128

II

Nor as to Love, nor as to Music; these
Burn in upon our souls in varied guise,
As I have seen the shades of woman's eyes
Shift delicately lookers on to please;
Love hath the savour of a southern breeze
To one, the tinting of the northern skies
To another, and the musically wise
Before a changeful goddess on their knees
Bend rapturously; not to two alike
Is the Ideal Ecstasy afforded,
Behold! the fairy vision I have hoarded
On you with face as different may strike
As is the land one loves of marsh and dyke
From mountains by another's longing lauded.

129

III

They have seen her in the wood and they confess
That she is beautiful and queen of hearts,
But as to e'en the colour of her darts,
Still more the fairy fashion of her dress,
They are divided, for one lays the stress
Upon the folding which her bosom parts,
Another at her grace of girdle starts,
A third it may be worships none the less
The massing of her hair, so in the end
Reports must differ—but they come to me,
And as I am a poet I can see
What each man sees, and satisfied can send
These wayfarers to supplicate and bend
Before my including Beauty's perfect knee.

130

THE SPARROW AND THE THRUSH.

FIRST VERSION.

I

He thought he was a bard of equal power
With others who aforetime twanged the strings,
Around whose brows the unfading bay-wreath clings,
Before whose feet the people incense shower;
Oh, he could sing! as in some summer bower
The nightingale an admiring audience brings,
So feels our young flushed poet as he flings
Aside his sonnets, flower after flower;
But winter came, reaction of his glow,
And took away the fervent pith and marrow
Of the heart that in the heat would overflow,
And he, the second singer trained at Harrow!—
In a looking-glass beheld himself, and lo,
The nightingale was nothing but a sparrow!

131

II

But Beauty came, and smiled, and he was glad,
And well content to sweep a humble harp,
Bringing out at seasons some note strong and sharp,
The echo of some vision he had had,
The nightingale that had been mute and sad
Now burst into a sudden flame of song,
The bird that had been but a sparrow long
Abandoning his garment brown and bad;
For Poesy had said, “my child, the lyre
Gives out a gracious melody in your hands,
Be stalwart, be a singer, do not tire;
I have my nightingales in many lands,
But be an English thrush.” Who understands,
May take this double sonnet for his hire.

132

THE SPARROW AND THE THRUSH.

SECOND VERSION.

I

He thought he was a bard who knew the ways
Of Poesy, and swept the subtle strings,
As when upon a sudden somewhere sings
A nightingale, and all the hearers praise
The sweet bird hidden in the leafy sprays
And hush towards the harmony she brings,
When upward each a hand of waiting flings,
And halting half advanced each foot delays;
He thought he was a poet, he was great
In his own estimation, bone and marrow
Of genius, trained by cunning eye of fate,
The second mighty songster reared at Harrow,
When—in a looking-glass upon a gate
He saw himself perched, and behold, a sparrow!

133

II

Then he despaired—but gentle Beauty came
And laid a cooling palm upon his brow,
And said, ‘my singing bird, be certain now
I had not fanned thy passion to a flame
To bring thee unto poverty and shame,
Nor any who before my footstool bow;
He who would write heroic hymns I trow
Must be himself, as his most lofty aim;’
And then she held a glass before his eyes,
And in it, with a sudden choke and rush
Of feeling as when hopes achievèd flush
Some sufferer, with a shiver of surprise,
Himself again he seemed to recognise,
No nightingale, but a bright-breasted thrush.

134

DANTE AND BEATRICE.

FIRST VERSION.

I

He circled round his Queen—as round a flower
A hawk moth dances on a summer eve,
And having sipped its sweets is loth to leave
And seek some other food-supplying bower,
So Dante, after fire or icy shower
Of agony endurèd, ceased to grieve
For a season, and each circle would achieve
A nearer stand-point, a more passionate power;
And she stood in the centre of the maze,
The purgatory of his tortured heart,
And ever and anon the clouds would part
And Beatrice was clear before his gaze,
And eyes of adoration he might raise,
And clean forget that fires and frost-bites smart;

135

II

Each circle he was closer—then he turned
Aside another journey to pursue,
To brush with weary footstep distant dew;
But that he might be certain that not spurned
In anywise was he, that pity yearned
Towards him, with some flower she would endue
His lean worn fingers, with a hare-bell blue,
Or rose, or hyacinth, whose beauty burned
Till the next meeting, nourishing his soul;
But when the circles slackened to a point,
And gone was every barrier and joint
Of walls of separation, with the whole
Of her sweet self she waited at the goal,
Not now with any blossom to anoint.

137

ROSES FOR HER.

Roses for her! the dark green bays for him,
To adorn the furrowed brows, the weary head,
Over which leaves of sorrow had been shed
As many as on the autumn breezes swim;
Lilies for her! for Dante wreathe a dim
Grey crown as for one risen from the dead,
Through every cell of purgatory led,
For whom hell's horror mantled to the brim;
For her the flowers of spring, for him the sere
And withered branches of the later days—
O Dante, great worn Dante, whom we praise,
By all the ages counted first and dear,
Be thine the flaming offerings of the year
Being ended, hers its softer opening sprays!

138

PHASES.

I

From phase to phase I faint, from song to song,
Even as the earth, through many changes cast,
Once molten fire, shines out green at last,
Nor tarries at a single epoch long;
My lyre now is plaintive, next is strong
Swept by a more sonorous passion blast,
Alone a moment, next my thoughts have passed
To meet a golden-robed advancing throng;
And so I sit and sing; I catch the gleams
That flit across my mind like butterflies
Across a flower-bed, and I string my dreams
Upon a sonnet-necklace as they rise,
Hoping my gift may meet approving eyes
Of her who mistress of my fancy seems;

139

II

From golden bridge of song to bridge of sighs
I leap, from rosy ecstasy to gloom,
From midday to a twilight darkened room,
From summer to a winter that denies
Me fire of words wherewith to sacrifice
To her who sways the sceptre of my doom,
From meads melodious to a silent tomb,
From sweet blue waters to a sea of ice;
But I continue singing—yea I can
By no means bear me otherwise than this,
O voice from out the darkness, not a man,
I seek to strain imagination's kiss
Into a faint similitude of bliss
And by my yearning fires of passion fan;

140

III

At times I hit the mark—then am I glad
In that another jewel of the crown
My lady carries I have blazoned down,
To her attire another grace to add;
That she may be the gladder I am sad,
Forgotten for the sake of her renown—
Yea, let her brow be smoother though I frown
For ever, she be white though I be bad!
But will she hear my singing? yes—I think
That even as a stag may stoop its head,
Or as a sweet pure swan may downward shed
Her dignity at a muddy pool to drink,
So may my lady step towards the brink,
To taste my song may daintily be led.

141

MUSIC.

I

When I hear music I am left alone
With thee, as if the world were but a wood,
And king and queen together we two stood
And occupied in unison a throne,
Glad leaves against close faces blithely blown—
Ah, sweet, the vision—this at least is good!
That ecstasy of music—if it could
Incessant be by hearts enchainèd known!
For all one's soul is turned into a lyre
At such times, and a woman sweeps the strings,
And every nerve becomes a note of fire,
And every strainèd fibre pants and rings
In answer to the subtle touch that stings
Us into one wide flaming of desire;

142

II

We are stretched upon a cross of agony,
Enduring death perpetual at her hands
That shudders into life—who understands,
And hath the power to penetrate and see
My meaning, I am strong to say that he
Hath traversed many acres of love's lands;
Our throats are bound in silken stifling bands,
One foot is raised, and yet we dare not flee;
We are indeed the harp itself she slays
From heaven to higher heaven of delight,
She tortures, ever new creates in might,
New fingered in a hundred lissome ways,
The strings o'er which her touch seraphic strays,
Now loosens one, now draws another tight!

143

THE LEOPARD.

Sweet leopard, kill me, claw me, anything,
The more you irritate me I the more
Shall love the chiding of your velvet paw,
The more you tease me louder I shall sing,
The further cast away the closer cling,
Fiercely repelled more fervently adore;
More gracious far than any peace the war
Of feelings those green catlike glances bring;
Be merciful and slay me, let me know
The utmost sweet abandonment of being,
The extremity of a delicious woe,
Love, I am here before thee, ceased from fleeing,
Be tender if thou canst and strike me so
That I may die thy face entrancèd seeing!

144

“AND KEEP OUR SOULS IN ONE ETERNAL PANT.”

—Keats.

I

“In one eternal pant to keep our souls,”
Said Keats; a poet's motto it might be,
To plunge for ever to a deeper sea
Of ecstasy, as each wave backward rolls,
Exacting pitiless incessant tolls
Of riper redder fruit from Love's sweet tree;
And, clearly, such the fittest life for me,
New wine each day from new provided bowls
Perpetually to sip, yet not to fill
My craving heart; and so it is, for you
Keep all my being in a constant thrill—
Thou hast creative power to renew
With every morn the ambrosial passionate dew
My eager lips are ever prone to spill;

147

II

And so from pant to stronger pant I flow,
Even as my River Thames in downward course
Boils, whirls, and bubbles with a fiercer force,
In haste the unfettered open sea to know;
So in a great increasing volume go
My pulses, waxing hotter as the days
Make more apparent far my lady's praise,
And as the winter waneth; even so
The summer of my love is drawing nigh,
With sweet May-blossoms and the lilac bloom,
And all the streets made heavy with perfume,
And visions of a softer bluer sky;
So with the seasons, with the stream I sigh
And change and eddy, sparkle and consume.

148

THE PEARL NECKLACE.

What can I give you, sweet? I am but poor
As men count riches, yet I have my pen
That flings aside a ruby now and then,
Or emerald not all unworthy your
Acceptance; seeing I will not endure
With aught save choicest jewels to bedeck
That pure unequalled choicer Parian neck
What gift of passionate sense can I procure?
Well, I will take my heart and string the same
Upon a necklace—lady, will that do?
Each pearl shall be a sonnet, and its hue
The brighter, in that tinged with blood it came,
The clearer, being cleansed in the flame
That burns incessant sacrifice to you.

149

THE LOVE-PHILTRE.

“But she will love you, kiss you perhaps, who knows?
Come take it, don't be foolish,” so persuaded
A simple youth a witch with features faded,
And hump-back orthodox, and rusty clothes,
Pressing upon him hard a magic dose
By which his love-suit might be swiftly aided;
But he recoiled, and, vehement, upbraided
Her foul intention, saying, “let my rose
Bloom on and let me wither if so be,
But let her pierce me with her own sweet eyes
Deluded by no draught prepared of thee
Even if heaven to me the truth denies;
Thy gift I accept not in anywise,
Avaunt enchantress, vanish quickly, flee!”

150

THE LAST SONNET.

Your presence is not always with me, sweet,
As a conscious summer sky to dome me round
With rapture, or a soft encircling sound,
Or tenderest embrace of arms that meet,
Or sense of cool refreshment after heat,
Or wreath of flowers about my temples wound;
I seem to lose the treasure I have found,
And in the distance fade departing feet:
But, back you come, with the old threatening hair,
And grace and melody of returning spring,
More cruelly delightful, and more fair;
As each successive season seems to bring
Grass greener, sweeter roses, birds that sing
The stronger, beauty brighter yet you wear.

iii

II. PART II.

LATER SONNETS.

THE SONNET-THRONE.

I

I would have built a throne of sonnets high
And seated you thereon—an ivory throne—
A delicate golden sceptre all your own
My hand had been most cunning to supply,
And crimson curtains should have fluttered nigh,
And flower after flower have been sown,
That regal perfumes might be gently blown
About you, queenly colours greet your eye;
But—you are gone! and in disgust I hurl
My chisel down, I split my poet's pen,
The gorgeous hangings I am quick to furl,
The flowers to uproot that flourished when
Their petals might anticipate the ken
That raised me to a singer from a churl.

II

What shall I do without you? Can I write
Worship and sigh towards the barren airs,
And having laid so many careful stairs,
Each step a sonnet, gold or rosy white
Alternate, lady, lady, is it right
To leave the queenly seat at top unfilled?
Over the silken cushion I have spilled
My very soul in flowery phrases bright,
And now you scorn my offering! down—down—down
With every step and stone and ornament!
Just as an angry child with bitter frown
Sweeps all the toys aside to which he lent
His heart a moment since, so am I bent
On utterly destroying this fair town!

THE SERENADER.

FIRST VERSION.

Out at a window looked a lady fair,
Set, like a miniature, sweet within the frame,
And upward gazed a youth with heart a-flame,
Who laughing said, “To-night I will prepare
A serenade to soften all the air,
And shafts of singing at that casement aim;”
The night wore on, the lover never came,
For pouting lips had answered, “If you dare!”
But O, sweet lady, he has done it still,
He could not help it, please his fault condone,
He could not find a lyre of silver tone
Enough to satisfy his searching will
That autumn, therefore has he sought to fill
Two volumes with the serenader's moan!

THE SERENADER.

SECOND VERSION.

Out at a window looked a lady sweet,
And smiled towards an admiring youth below,
Who answered, “Gracious Madam, I shall go
And buy a harp whose strings by finger fleet
Swept cunningly may move a melody meet
Towards that casement and its hand of snow,”
Came quickly wafted down a laughing “No,”
Silent of serenading was the street.
But—the forbidden song is here instead,
Filling two volumes with a swell of sound,
For what are all my poems choicely bound
But a flowery Serenade whose petals shed
Their perfume round about your sleeping head,
Filling the window, covering the ground?

TRY AGAIN.

“Sweet, try again;” so Beauty said to me;
As wipes a mother tenderly the face
Of her child who has stumbled, eager, in a race,
Till once again his features beam with glee,
So would God's pale humanity smile if He
Vouchsafed a similar maternal grace,
If He would bid our souls resume the chase
Undaunted, what a glory it would be!
So thought I, and a little bird came nigh
With gentle eyes and glistening plumes of blue
Just as my passion ended in a sigh
Of doubt, and joy was potent to renew,
Whispering, as if with message from the sky,
“The thought is no deceit, child, it is true.”

BROWN AND RED.

FIRST VERSION.

“What can I do to please you?” answer then
Was wanting, lady, I will tell you now;
Let my poor poems round about your brow
Wave as a wreath of flowers, or as when
In a tiara jewels twice times ten
Flash like red fruits that 'tween the branches bow,
Accept my service, this my gift allow,
The first aspiring produce of my pen;
I plucked, sweet, I remember once for you
A tiny plant with tender separate leaves
Of red, that olden gift I would renew,
My poem is successful if it weaves
Itself within your memory, and achieves
A proud position, peeping brown hair through.

BROWN AND RED.

SECOND VERSION.

“What can I do to please you?” answer none
There was, but, lady, I will tell you how
If so disposed your heart may please me now,
But first let feet of memory backward run,
And tell me whether you remember one
Sweet plant I plucked for you in former days,
A tender delicate plant with ruby sprays,
Red separate leaflets kindled by the sun?
You do remember? good; then let my song
Be even such a sweet red flower, and bound
Within the black-brown hair I loved, and wound
The tresses I caressed in thought among,
That when a host of other jewels throng
Superior, there that leaf may still be found.

BROWN AND GOLD.

I

Sweet colours as I think! a golden band
Mingled with black the Bride of Corinth wore,
That flashed upon her lover when the door
Gave sudden ingress to a snow-white hand,
And, sweet, for you a circlet I have planned
To mingle if it may be with the brown
Soft tresses, and I lay it gently down,
My “poems” namely, do you understand?
But I am too ambitious, such a gift
Is not for me, but rather if I may
Let me a second time my hand uplift
(For once before I touched your hair in play)
And, awkward as I am, I may make shift
To twine therein a gold thread that shall stay;

II

It was a peacock's feather that old time
Before that, as a boy, tight in your hair
I twisted—nothing, lady, half as fair
I bring now, only a stray wreath of rhyme,
No peacock's feather spotted and sublime
With many eyes and Eastern colours rare,
Rather a brown pale plume a man might tear
From some street-sparrow in our colder clime;
But take it as it is, and it may be
That touched by you a wonder shall be done,
And as a black bird underneath the sun
Shining with many colours you may see,
So suddenly across my rhyme may run
Paradise-plumage, tropic brilliancy!

NOT GONE?

O sweet you are not gone? it cannot be,
You must be waiting underneath the light,
Amid the perfume of a Northern night,
And soon the moon will rise above the sea
And silver, as of old, the ruin, and we
Shall wander off together out of sight,
It cannot but be so—it is not right
That anything so exquisite should flee!
No, I am certain that you still are there
Under those dreamy pale blue Northern skies,
Not a day older, not an hour, as fair
As ever, with the same delicious eyes,
And panoply of sweetly pert replies,
And with that same divinely-coloured hair.

THE SAME AS EVER.

Under the dim blue Northern skies she waits
The same as ever, days are but a dream,
At night again the green witch-glances gleam
As fierce as ever through my fancy's gates,
And shifted is the circle of the fates,
Backward my strong imaginations stream,
Present in living force past figures seem,
And blotted out my memory's evil dates;
And she is waiting, and that strange pale crown
Of turquoises and pearls is on her brow,
White clouds—blue spaces—never shining now
Across the sky, but in that long-lost town
I am present, and again am kneeling down
To that Witch-Lady my sole self to vow!

HARMONIA AND THE HANDMAIDEN.

A sweet handmaiden Poesy had sent
To lead her servant to the palace-gates,
But she herself within the entrance waits,
On a most gracious interviewing bent,
And he was half aware of her intent,
But on the thither road he fell in love
With the handmaiden, and preferred the dove
To the Paradise-bird for his approval meant;
Here was a mess! Harmonia held him fast,
He, like a child, to the handmaiden clung,
And jealous heart of Poesy he stung
By screaming, all his spirit backward cast,
“Not you, old woman, her I love,” and flung
His form convulsed away from her at last!

MY FIRST PROOF-SHEETS.

The proof is in my hand; this very day
Last year my earliest sonnet I achieved,
But when I wrote it who could have believed
That coiled behind it such a lengthy lay
Was waiting, that the words I had to say
Would fill the paper I have just received,
That thus my brain was thickly interleaved
With sheets to be redeemed without delay?
Well, well, the first-fruits of my work are here,
But where are those “fair eyes” of which I wrote
That made my sonnet's melody so dear?
And where alas! the form that seemed to float
As graceful as a maiden in a boat
Along the lines I struggling bent to rear?

PYGMALION'S DOOM REVERSED.

Happy Pygmalion! that the tender boon
Thou didst implore sweet Venus granted thee,
See how thy fate hath been reversed for me
In that alive the Lady of my Tune
Was at the first, but now a marble swoon
Hath caused her soft supremacy to flee,
A fairer flush each day 'twas thine to see,
Not even a statue shall be present soon
For me to sing to, thou didst twine around
That image passionate arms that met the stone,
And every hour more warm the marble found,
My harder fate it is to sit and moan
The desolate seat of a vacated throne,
Embraces swiftly by cold force unwound!

THE LOVE-NOTES.

Yesterday afternoon I strove to sing
Against a thrush high-perched upon a bough,
And certain notes that only every now
And then he introduced, seemed soft to ring
As if “Do you love me, sweet,” or some such thing
He kept repeating, and I failed to seize,
Accomplishing the stronger quavers, these
To which the thrush's soul most close did cling;
Ah! then I thought, the reason's very plain,
These are the love-notes—just as never man
Indite a sonnet for another can,
So these most luscious notes that downward rain
Are thoughts original of the thrush's brain,
And straight from out his love-sick fancy ran.

THE HANDMAIDEN WITH THE GREEN GREEN EYES.

I

“Oh, that handmaiden with the green green eyes!”
So wept a youth within the palace-gate
Where Poesy herself in cumbrous state
Sat with a chin uplifted to the skies,
“Oh, sweet handmaiden, where art thou?” he cries,
“My love is wasted on this dame sedate,
That I had held thee fast! too late! too late!”
Even so his tearful shrieks incessant rise;
For Poesy had sent a maiden fair
Unto the portals of her lordly dome,
The golden pillars of her palace-home,
To lead the singer whom she would ensnare,
But on the way down came the maiden's hair
Through sudden slip of untrustworthy comb,

II

And he, poor poet, had to bind it fast
Again as she threw back her gentle head
Tossing the sweet brown tresses freely shed
Over her shoulders his pale fingers past,
And, as he did it, he forgot the vast
And solemn Goddess unto whom she led
The way, and loved her messenger instead,
And all his heart into his hands he cast;
And therefore in an agony he tries
To break in twain the lyre that before
His fervent touch, caressing, would adore,
And low upon the bitter marble lies,
Sobbing towards the unsympathizing floor
“That sweet hand-maiden with the green green eyes!”

WHAT SHALL I DO?

I

What shall I do when music fades away,
When silence occupies the world of things,
And not a throat of any throstle sings,
And not a single sunset but is gray,
When blue forsakes the summer, and to day
And night a sodden robe of fog-damp clings,
And never a rosy dream the twilight brings,
And not a sonnet has a word to say?
What shall I do when these things come to pass,
When moons are mute, and all the stars are pale,
And ever, as the winter rushes wail
And shiver at the East wind stalks of grass,
I tremble, fingers powerless alas!
To make my loosened harp-strings of avail?

II

What shall I do when all these things are mine?
A love that was in summer, and instead
The frozen pallor of a wintry head,
A wreath of meadow-sweet I used to twine,
But now of icicles a lengthy line,
And pale snow-berries for the golden-red
Fruit of the mountain chesnut, and a dead
White waste of foam, a scentless field of brine,
For sweet green waters, and for flowers tears,
And fervour barrenness, and fire cold,
And roses of the summer some sad old
And wrinkled dowager rose of later years,
For softest orange-blossoms square-cut biers,
And for forget-me-not a corpse to hold?

THOU COULDST NOT WATCH WITH ME.

I

Thou couldst not watch with me one little hour—
One little hour, sweetheart, only one,
To wait the crimson outleap of the sun,
Was it too much for thee, that icy shower,
And were the roses angry on thy bower,
And did the braids of sweet hair come undone,
And were the waves irreverent to stun
Thy tender lack of man's enduring power?
Thou couldst not watch with me—the flowers are thine
Red in the valleys, fragrant in the meads,
The purple foam-flecked scentless road that leads
Through solitude to sunrise, that is mine;
Thou couldst not watch with me—too weak to twine
Thorn-crowns, lest any dainty finger bleeds;

II

Thou couldst not watch with me—I would have torn
From out the raging waters of the years
That are to be, a crown of passionate tears
For a pearl-circlet—splendour of the morn
As yet beneath the ocean had been born
For thee, and round thy forehead as a star
Songs many and triumphant from afar,
The shouts of victors in the times of dawn;
Thou couldst not watch with me—the night behind
Swallows thee up, in front the great strong sea
Salt hands of welcome stretches out to me,
Alone upon a barren beach I find
Myself, eyes open that before were blind,
Thou couldst not wait and shall I wait for thee?

III

Thou couldst not watch with me—the violets smile
To see the backward fluttering of thy feet,
A peaceful sojourn in the valley, sweet,
Be thine, a homestead in the green defile,
Soft dreams and whispers of the roses, while
I bare my lonely forehead, pale to meet
The increasing future fiery circle's heat,
That rises, red as a volcano-isle;
I laugh to hear the tumult of the breeze—
I weep to see the splendour of the day—
I weep to think that thou art far away
Still treading soberly the moonlight leas,
That toys and trifles have a charm to please
And not the wholesome savour of the spray;

IV

Sweet spray that splashes fast across my lips—
What touches yours? and was it good to choose
The sheltered sunny hill-side, and refuse
The broader rapture of a foot that dips
Deep in the foam, a rosy mouth that sips
The ocean sparkle? round my brows be twined
Fresh seaweed, flowers of green and pink combined,
Do thou the rather with fair finger-tips
Dabble amid the tufted foam of grass,
Make cowslip-balls, and pondering divide
Like Marguerite alone at eventide
The tender daisy for divining glass,
While through these misty barriers I pass
Into the future thou didst deem too wide.

V

Thou hast chosen rather to turn backward eyes
Towards the sunset, and the old sweet tales,
Asking, with smile incredulous, what avails
The fervour of a heart that towards sunrise
The rapid footstep of its pulses plies,
And latest swathings of the dark assails—
I am in love with that white cheek that pales,
I am in love with that fleet foot that flies,
I am in love with glances backward thrown,
Backward or forward they are sweet to me,
Beckons thee onward finger of the sea
In haste to win a daughter for his own,
Beckons thee backward thine untroubled throne,
And quiet creeds to which to bow the knee;

VI

Beckon thee backward gentle palms uplifted,
And amber robes and raiment of the skies,
Hasten thee onward faint awakening cries
From far-off unborn isles and oceans drifted—
Beckons thee backward some strong angel gifted
With sword to sweep the people and devour,
But forward draws thee scent of some sweet flower,
Or delicate shade of sunrise sudden shifted;
Love lies in front; behind, the golden gates,
And sound perpetual of ascending hymns,
And beatific bending of the limbs
Are thine; the wind-kissed crimson clover waits
In front, and as the turbid heaven abates,
From heavenly waves rise clear-cut, starry rims;

VII

Behind, the moonlight and the shadows long
Across the furrows, and the dark-green trees,
In front, calm eyes of morning and the breeze
That stirs the silent meadows into song,
Behind, the lyres of a saintly throng
And stone indented deep by roughened knees
In front, stern faces and the forms of these
Who bow towards the future, and are strong;
Behind are many gardens and the fruits
That redden lighting up the autumn walls,
Green spaces where the mellow apple falls,
Brown circles shadowed by the rose-tree roots,
Paths planted either side with lilac shoots,
Broad sweeps of gravel, dim-lit cloistered halls;

VIII

Behind, the voices of a jewelled choir,
An ornamented, ring-bedizened band
Whose feet along the aisles of heaven stand,
In front, the flashing of a far-off fire,
Red embers breathed upon by hot desire,
The first announcement of an unfound land,
And here and there a grain of golden sand
The pale adventurers' hard-won glimpse of hire;
Cool seats behind, and shady arbours those,
Chosen of butterflies, beloved by bees—
My lady, what hast thou to do with these
Who art thyself the envy of the rose,
Thou that art delicate to do with snows,
And with the salt-lipped bluster of the breeze?

IX

Abide in peace, yea, tarry, be at rest—
The eventide and sunset unto thee
I leave, but as for others, as for me,
Let the blue waves upon their loftiest crest,
Shot like a sunbeam from that flaming nest,
Bear me triumphant to the further sea;
I will not tarry longer under lee
Of those tall cliffs by cowardice possessed;
Forward I hasten; and I send my song
Across the breakers to the sandy shore
Where thou art standing, and I join the roar,
The melody of giants hurled along,
The chant of many wayfarers that throng
To some fair future, to the past no more.

THE POET'S GARDEN.

THE ROSE.

A poet loved a rose—and watched it grow;
And every day a sweeter blush was there,
And pouting petals fuller and more fair,
Each eventide “to-morrow it will blow,”
The poet said, “to-morrow I shall know
The perfect splendour of this flower rare,”
Sometimes its beauty more than he could bear
Brought tears for joy's excess akin to woe;
And so he watched it; and one night he said,
“I see my rose upon the verge of bloom,
To-morrow royal robes she shall assume,
Uplift to heaven a pink most perfect head,”
But when he came next day the rose was dead,
And on that spot they placed—a poet's tomb!

THE LILY.

A poet loved a lily—and his eyes
Were set upon this flower from afar,
Just as a man may tremble towards a star,
Distance between them many miles of skies;
So, similarly, swayed the singer's sighs
This silver glitter, this white moon of plants,
And little rest unto himself he grants
(A somewhat passionate soul, not overwise)
Preparing a choice mossy bank whereon
His sonnets strown might make a velvet bed
For soft reclining of the lily's head,
He thought that there some time she should have shone,
But—poets pity him!—he found her gone
One day, brown gaping garden-mould instead.

THE VIOLET.

A poet loved a violet—and he thought
“The purple is in bud: it is not blown;
'Twas only yesterday that it was sown,
And but the day before the plot was bought;”
And so he turned his heart aside, and sought
To buy a vase wherein the flower grown
To perfect beauty for his very own
He might have, and his hands a marvel wrought,
A many-coloured, cunning, carven glass,
Choice, set with jewels, painted by his pen,
Sides gilt with some sweet poem now and then,
And he had set it down upon the grass
Beside the violet—when a shower alas!
A hail-storm, shattered it in seconds ten.

THE PRIMROSE.

I

A poet loved a primrose in a wood—
“Transplant it some day,” said he, “that will I,
Not under shadow of boughs but under sky—
Blue sky—this tender flower should have stood;
Mistake of gardener! I will make it good,
Correct the early error by and bye;”
And then he left the primrose with a sigh,
And ran to fetch the quickest tools he could;
He was not long; I heard a linnet say,
(You know I understand the speech of these)
A linnet perched upon a hazel spray,
“In less than half a song,” upon his knees
The poet was—so tell me, primrose, please,
Was there a breathless second of delay?

II

He fell upon his knees before he saw
That nothing but a hollow brown was left,
A clean triangle by a trowel cleft,
That not a pretty primrose any more
Was smiling, that a hand had been before
His urgent speed, and consummated theft;
For ever of that flower-face bereft
He turned aside, and closed the forest-door.
But still, they say, a poet by the grave
Of that sweet primrose may be seen to walk
O' nights, and heard in incoherent talk,
And ever to himself doth sob and rave
“Why did not passionate fingers dig the cave?
Thou fool, to run for trowel, line, and chalk!”

THE POET'S AVIARY.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

I

A poet loved a nightingale—and she
Would sing to him, and he was speechless yet,
But vowed solicitude to weave a net
Wherein the tender bird entrapped might be,
And when the moon was silver on the sea,
And all the leaves with silver splashes wet,
He came to that sweet cliff-top wood to set
The cunning of his hand beneath the tree;
And as he passed along the dusty road
He met a boy who swung a wicker cage,
“Some linnet or a chaffinch, I'll engage,”
He commented contemptuous, as he strode
Towards the trysting-tree with heart that glowed,
A war of mingled melody to wage;

II

The beauty of the night was on the leaves,
They trembled to the tuning of a wind
That wept among the stalks, and wailed, and pined,
Not other than a human sufferer grieves,
And on the left hand silver shone the sheaves;
“To-night,” he thought, “my lady will be kind,”
“To-night,” so smiled he, “surely I shall find
The guerdon that a songful soul achieves;”
So pondered he, and trembled, and advanced,
When—feathers and a broken trap he saw,
Dirt scattered here and there by frightened claw,
As here and there the clinging feet had chanced
To alight—one groan he uttered as he glanced,
“That was my bird then!”—spake aloud no more.

THE HAWK.

I

A poet loved a hawk—sweet, wild-eyed, strong
To flutter from the staying of a hand,
And, subtle, soon a silken lure he planned,
And wove in vari-coloured threads of song,
Now gold, now crimson, and his work was long
And wearisome, but still the thought sustained
His soul, “When once my falcon I have gained,
How we will soar above the vulgar throng!
For she shall raise me; I will teach my bird
The art of singing, she shall show me how
To beat the azure wave with windy brow,
In soft ethereal heights as yet unstirred
Save by her sweet brown flying, shall be heard
The added pinion of her poet now.”

II

So mused he; and his silken lure he brought,
And trembled as his fingers sought the wrist
His passion craved, imperious, to have kissed,
But then his labour had been all for nought;
The falcon's crest was eager, and he thought
“I have my beauty safe with one more twist,
To carry on a closed triumphant fist,
My green-eyed bird, my darling, fairly caught!
One more twist,” as he stooped to tie the thread,
(Gold beads of many sonnets strung thereon)
A rustle and a shiver—overhead
The laughing dark eye of the falcon shone,
“You thought you had me safe, but I am gone,
Good-bye my poet, love your lure instead.”

THE FIRST WOMAN.

God made a woman; and he stood aghast
For very wonder; as a sculptor sees
With terror and with trembling of the knees
And tears of yearning his Ideal fast
Emerging from the marble, so God cast
His careless chisel downward, clasped his hands!
And keen upon the Ivory Foot that stands
Across the ages in expansion vast
The edge fell—hardly did he feel the sting,
But blood was drawn, and ever since the day
When God's great poem “Woman” out of clay
His cunning hand was powerful to bring,
He bears in recollection, so they say,
Across his foot that clean-cut ruby ring.

WHAT CAN I GIVE YOU?

I

What can I give you, lady? pearls will soon
Be many, as I doubt not, in your hand—
What silver memory from a former land,
What echo of a chat beneath the moon,
What vision, in a sonnet for a boon
Set daintily, shall I be bold to place
Among the many presents proud to grace
Your boudoir, what choice jewel of a tune?
I cannot give you half, I give you all,
My songs, my volumes, both of them, complete—
You are my books, and they are nothing, sweet,
But one long sounding of a throstle's call
Whose hope is high that next his own may fall
The patter of another throstle's feet;

II

The soft alighting on a neighbouring bough
Of the bright-breasted bird he doth adore;
Such are my poems, lady, nothing more,
A diadem to circle that pure brow,
A peacock's feather twined the tighter now
That through my negligence it fell before,
The scent of fancy's myrtle bruised and sore,
The voiceful repetition of my vow;
This then I give you; even your sweet soul,
Your own sweet self, my lady, back again,
Your self made audible in subtle strain,
And visible on wings of words that roll
Sonorous—you, the prompter of the whole,
Its ecstasy, its agony, its pain!

WELL?

I

Well? have I stirred the ancient chord at all,
Brought any flower of dreamland back to view,
Moved any depth of feeling strange and new,
My lady, by my long-sustainéd call?
When, like a withered autumn leaf let fall,
My book is thrown upon your lap, can I
Discern a deeper colour in your eye,
Have I made memory's waning height more tall?
I have done my work if I have made you weep
In any place, in any made you sigh;
I meant at least one pearly tear to reap,
For very love I meant to make you cry,
You can be cruel, sweetheart, so can I,
Come, hands away from face, and let me peep;

II

I meant to make you laugh and weep as well,
To let you know that every word you said
Hath found immortal wings, by no means dead,
For each upon a fertile fancy fell,
That on my singing fingers I can tell
Each smile as readily as when 'twas shed,
That you are throned in my creative head,
A queen within a fructifying shell;
And so you can't escape me! down they go,
Sweet looks and sour—which were most for me?
Hair loose and waving, as I loved to see
The ripples of its unimpeded flow,
Or, braided tight, as you would have, you know,
A seemlier more becoming way must be;

III

Lips angry, pouting, just as they are now,
I thought they would be when you came to this—
No—not the fire, lady—you might miss
The mark, and then the mantelpiece, I vow!
—Sweet sober vision of a thoughtful brow,
And delicate flush I chiefly loved to see,
The rose of night that reddened soft when we
Talked talk bewitching—you remember how?
Well, shall I stop, or is it there again,
The flush I speak of? never mind, my time
Is short, and I am speechless save in rhyme,
The voice emphatic of a poet's pain,
That need be to you but the patter of rain
Outside the glass it vainly longs to climb.

GRAINS OF SAND.

SWEET EYES.

In places many I have been
Through hours of life's long day,
Sweet eyes full many I have seen,
But none so sweet as they,
Eyes coloured like the moss-water
Of green and brown and gray.

FROM SUNSHINE.

Once a maiden shielded me from sunshine,
Interposing wealth of silk between,
Simple heart of hers it was that won mine,
Ne'er shall I forget that silken screen,
Till the parted rivers run in one line
Not one single barrier between!

II

Once she shielded me from fervent light,
Fervent beating of the midday sun,
She—the shielder—hath forgotten quite,
I—the shielded—though the ages run
Into most chaotic endless night
Hug the closer this that she hath done;

Hug the closer memories one or two
—I have not got many, friends, you see—
Clasp the closer memories a few
Clustered round my being's barren tree,
Breathing gentle solace unto me,
Gentle soothing, as of summer dew;

I have triumphed once at least in life—
If I fail for ever, and am hurled
Out of Beauty's into Blackness' world,
Into lands with desolation rife,
This may calm the fury of the strife,
Once for me a flag hath been unfurled!

YESTERDAY'S DEW.

Priests are many, but men are few,
See that you become
As much yourself as yesterday's dew,
Though strangely alike in some
Respects, was nevertheless quite new,
And never again will come.

TO-MORROW.

What shall I say of to-morrow?
Judging by life of to-day,
Wreathèd it will be with sorrow
Pale, and with rosier play,
Sweet-smelling hours that borrow
Happiness, soon to decay,
Leaving a burthen to follow,
An arrow of sun-god Apollo,
A gap and a resonant hollow,
In hearts once merry as May.

A LOVER'S APOLOGY FOR KISSING HIS MISTRESS' HANDWRITING.

Your hand touched the pen and the pen touched the place,
And that's quite enough, love, for me,
If I can't kiss yourself why I needs must trace
In your writing an image of thee.

A KISS.

A kiss can awake the dead,
And snap the iron of Fate,
And lift the Universe-weight,
And change the colour of hate,
And raise or sbatter a state,
And give to a lone bird a mate,
To a world, to an era, a date;
The worth of a kiss men rate
By lips off which it is shed.

WHAT A SMILE CAN DO.

Sweet, do you know what a smile can do?
Listen, and I will tell;
Send upon souls that are dry, soft dew,
Scatter the fires of hell,
From grey clouds open a glimpse of blue,
Oceans of happiness swell,
Slay false dreams, bringing in the true,
Change a funereal knell,
Breezes that over the churchyard blew,
Into the wind of a bell
Wingèd with echoes of sounds that flew
News of a marriage to tell.

A QUESTION.

One look I have especial in my mind—
Ah! Lady, cruel lady, was it fair
To rouse a hope predestined not to find
Fulfilment, thus to flood the rosy air
With radiance, that I might the sooner share
Despondent wintry darkness of the blind?

THE HOT CLEAR WEATHER.

Pleasant is the hot clear weather
For two—twin swallows together
Soaring aloft in the sky,
But sad for one all alone,
Cast down from his bright blue throne,
To sit upon the ground and moan,
And die!

GONE IS THE BEAUTY.

Gone is the Beauty, clean gone,
And what do I care for the rest?
Stripped is the sun that shone
Of its rays, of its feathers the nest,
And yet men mock me, and tell me
That these things are all for the best!

THE ROSE.

Where is the Rose I gave you, sir?
Is this the sorry way
You treat the gifts that I confer?
Come—have you lost it, eh?
Or—valued it as much as her
You used to love—in play?

The Rose is gone, but, sweet, the fact
Is such a flower scatters
So easily its petals packed,
Your gift so highly flatters,
That—in one wild impulsive act
I kissed it all to tatters!

VERILY THEY HAVE THEIR REWARD.

Verily they have their reward!
The men who enamoured of Beauty
With cold eyes looked upon Duty,
And whether hell had for a booty
Their bodies, cared not at all,
So that upon them was poured
Beauty, they have their reward.

Verily they have their reward!
The men who for Holiness' sake
Cup of the Queen would not take,
Thirst of their throats to slake
At Beauty's river refused,
For the sake, they thought, of the Lord,
These too have their reward.

Verily they have their reward!
Philosophers proud, who have spilled
Beauty's blood, and have killed
Duty besides, and filled
This world with the worship of Truth,
And facts of Science have roared
In our ears, they have their reward.

Verily they have their reward!
Souls that have faithful been
To Beauty, a Goddess, a Queen,
And Kinghood of Goodness have seen,
And Truth for a daughter have known
Of these twain, bearing a sword
Golden, they have their reward.

SURELY TO DIE IS GOOD!

Keats
(loquitur).
Surely to die is good;
We are born it seems for this,
To win us a long cold kiss,
A second of infinite bliss,
Snatched from beneath Death's hood,
Surely to die is good!

Goethe
(loquitur).
Surely to live is better;
We are born for this the rather,
To many a kiss to be father,
To many a rose-pink letter,
To many a luscious night
And new moon's maze of delight,
To many a flowery fetter,
Surely to live is better!

SUNSET OVER THE MULGRAVE WOODS.

Such a sunset! draping clouds in golden
Robes, and casting colour all abroad,
Glad to show to nobody beholden
Is she for it, plenty more is stored,
Plenty more to-morrow morning molten
Masses on the canvas will be poured;

Blue and pink and crimson intershaded,
Interwoven, soft as beauty's hair,
Tracery most intricately braided,
Delicate as lace-work here and there,
One into another fashions faded,
Paler than the former, but as fair;

Best of all the bloom upon the woodlands,
Golden, rosy, dying into white,
Surely underneath them something good stands,
Sleeps a gracious fairy of the night,
Glad to stretch towards us if she could hands
Bountiful, and sparkle into sight.

A LETTER.

Sweet, I tell you that I love you still,
Have you, have you quite forgotten me?
Every separate tinkle of the rill
That the fresh sweet water-cresses fill,
Winding on its way to turn the mill,
Every flower where we used to be,
Hath a power all of me to thrill;

There was a forget-me-not I sent
In a letter—I have never heard
Whether you accepted what I meant,
Whether you the pouting eyebrows bent
In a rage, and my poor missive rent?
Answer me, this time, a single word,
'Tis the last time,—I will be content.

HER BEDROOM.

She had waited, silly, overlong,
She had dallied, now she lay in bed,
Ended was her coy coquettish song,
She had put him off, 'twas very wrong,
By her bedside flourished blue and strong
The forget-me-not, but she was dead,
And he, coming, found a flower instead,
And a gaping sad funereal throng.

THE MAN OF GENIUS.

Once a man of genius there walked
By the Galilean inland sea,
Taught of heaven in parables he talked
Wonderfully, “who can this man be?”
Said the people—Pharisees he balked
And the rulers—“tell us who is he?”

Eighteen Christian centuries have tried
This responsive doubtful task to do,
Needles philosophical have plied,
Spades of metaphor and poetry too—
“God he is,” at last the Churches cried,
“God Himself,”—but is the answer true?

CONTRASTS.

Pleasure is sweet and sweet the scent of roses—
But sad the vanished fragrance of the past,
If flowers are fair the flowers do not last,
Within the petals lo! the worm reposes.

Love is of God, divine the face of Love—
Granted, but doth Love fill the visible earth,
Doth God to everything that is give birth,
And is not even God strong Fate above?

Rosy is youth and sweet the early years—
But youth shall vanish, and for fervour frost
Shall sparkle, and the rose-hue shall be lost,
And smiles give sorry place to future tears.

A DREAM.

I dreamed that I was lying
With my head upon her breast,
Wings folded, ceased from flying,
As a bird's are in his nest;

Very happy was I, lying,
And her breath like gentle dew
Kept over me soft flying,
How I wish the dream was true!

A MELODY.

The wings of the melody take me
Speeding back to the place
Where last the light did forsake me,
The light of my true love's face,
The waves of the melody wake me,
And her sweet image I trace;

Trace as when last I saw it,
The face of a goddess, a queen,
Teeth of the years shall not gnaw it,
For ever as it hath been
In the past, without freckle or flaw, it
By eyes of my mind shall be seen;

Well I remember the night when
Last met hands of us twain,
Dark was it, gone was the light then,
Pleasure made way for pain,
Morning will beam on my sight when
My Sun-queen shineth again!

OVER!

Yea, it is over, sweet, and now
Alone we face the seasons,
Alone life's fickle fallows plough,
And find our trusts were treasons,
Alone we trudge, we two, I trow,
For at last we've found our reasons!

BAGPIPES.

I love sweet roses, but instead
I only gather night-shade,
And round about my nightly head
Instead of poppies bright, laid
Sweet slumber thereupon to shed,
Bagpipes are till the light played!

THE IMAGE OF EACH.

Surely the image of each
Will one day burst the veil
Of the body, and rend the mail
In twain of the flesh, and the pale
Sick shrouds to our feet that reach,
Clouding the image of each!

One day the gleams that we see
Now upon faces at times,
The lame disjointed rhymes,
The clustering vine that climbs,
A sun, a poem, will be,
And the last a great strong tree,
Tall, planted in fervent climes!

THE ENGLISH MAIDENS.

I

Ah me! the English maidens,
How beautiful they are,
You will not find their equals
Although you wander far
Through sunset-lighted Aidenns,
And search from star to star.

II

How beautiful they might be!
If one fair woman knew
The wonder of her womanhood,
And would but carry through
Right to the end her own ideal,
Unshaken, steadfast, true.

III

The very thought delights me,
The fact I shall not see,
It startles, it affrights me,
Compared with what they be—
And yet they hope from frightfulness
The sons of men to free!

SONGS.

BEAUTY WITH GREEN EYES.

Beauty with green eyes,
Beauty with grey,
Soft as the sunrise,
Bright as the day,
Be to me kind skies,
Hearken, I pray;

Beauty with grey eyes,
Beauty with brown,
Lo! what a depth lies,
Deep—deep down—
You must be very wise!
No—don't frown;

Beauty with brown eyes,
Beauty with green,
Just as each shade dies,
My sighs, Queen,
Follow, and sorrow flies
Colours between!

THE WHOLE NIGHT LONG.

That must have been the reason, that yesterday I heard
What made the hope of seeing you a hope for months deferred,
Why, though before I fancied I had conquered and was strong,
I went to bed—and dreamed of you the whole night long;

I had wooed an abstract Goddess, I had bowed before the feet
Of art, the marble Lady, and had found her worship sweet,

106

But night brought back reality, by day I did thee wrong,
Avenged thou art—I dreamed of thee the whole night long;

In the clash of arms, so hath it our Tennyson, forgets
A man love's early savours and the younger years' regrets,
I doubt it—when the lull came, and ceased the cannons' song,
I think that I should dream of you the whole night long;

What do I care for Progress, the triumphant “march of mind?”
My eyes keep backward looking into eyes long left behind,
By day I fail to reach them, when sleep-lit fancies throng
They shine upon me tenderly the whole night long;

107

To merge oneself in action is well enough by day,
It's not so very hard then to drive a thought away,
How will it be when darkness puts a point to memory's prong?
Why—I shall lie and dream of you the whole night long;

“Come be a man,” they say to one, “assert the inborn strength
Of manhood, why should any love become a love of length?”
I know not—but when silence slays the clatter of the gong
Of daytime, I shall dream of you the whole night long.

110

A DREAM OF ROSES.

He dreamed a dream of roses,
And bowers of delight
Where rosy love reposes
Through soft sweet hours of night,
Till eyes of his uncloses
The coming of the light;

He dreamed of faces never
Seen save in depth of dreams,
When hours of darkness sever
What is from that which seems,
And raptures gone for ever
Return in rainbow gleams;

111

He dreamed that he was walking
By side of maiden fair,
A happy twain were talking,
And breath of evening air
Was sweet, and moths were hawking
Around them everywhere;

And sweet the scent of clover,
And smiles of flowers around,
And odours wafted over
Their heads, and o'er the ground—
Queen Loveliness a lover
At eventide has found;

The summer seems to bear them
Aloft in arms of love,
As if from earth to tear them
And carry them above,
All pain henceforth to spare them,
Brooding with wings of dove

112

Over sweet souls united
In silken love-spun bond,
Their separate beings plighted
By oath of kisses fond,
When lips that blush delighted,
Cling eager, and beyond

The veil seems half uplifted
And meaning of the world
Made plain, the curtain shifted,
The drop-scene upward furled,
And cloud-wreaths sidelong drifted,
And fog-banks backward hurled;

For many a misty season
Clears up with love beside,
Truth is too much for treason
When two together ride,
And bright the reign of Reason
Beneath the sway of bride;

113

Four eyes can pierce a cloud-veil
That baffles two alone,
What seemed to be a shroud pale
In rainbow colours shown
Shines, as a suit of proud mail
Behind a monarch's throne!

The loneliness that slays us
Is over, and instead
From brokenness to raise us
A downward bending head
Hangs over us, and sways us
With smiles from heaven shed;

And, were it not a dream, love,
My very soul would leap,
In rosy lips that gleam, love,
Like flowers from out a deep
Dim summer-scented sea, love,
Its utmost self to steep,

114

Pressing from out the roses
All odours strong to save,
The ecstasy that closes
One's eyes as in a grave
Dug deep in seas of posies
Whose lips about one wave!

115

WHEN WE ARE LEFT ALONE!

Love shall mount to his throne, my sweet,
Love shall mount to his throne,
Soon, when friends that abide
To say good-bye by our side
Have finally farewell cried,
When we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

Now you are all my own, my sweet,
Now you are all my own,
But many a kiss must wait
Till we sit by ourselves in our state,
Gone, given up to our fate,
When we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

116

Sweet to me now is your tone, my sweet,
Sweet to me now is your tone,
But sweeter far will it be
When, spoken alone to me,
Its silvery notes are free,
When we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

When we have wings and are flown, my sweet,
When we have wings and are flown,
Joy we will have, you and I,
Soaring aloft in the sky
As twittering twin swallows fly,
When we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

Pleasant it is to have known, my sweet,
Pleasant it is to have known
Friendship and pressure of hands,
But brighter the bloom that expands
On the spot where Loveliness stands,
When we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

117

Pleasant it is to have sown, my sweet,
Pleasant it is to have sown
Seeds of friendship on earth,
Sweeter by far is the birth
Of Beauty's smile, and the mirth
Of lips that are left alone, my sweet,
Of lips that are left alone!

Many a nice old crone, my sweet,
Many a nice old crone
Has a sweet dim sort of a smile,
But the thought of old age is a vile
Thing, a sin, a blasphemy, while
Young lovers are left alone, my sweet,
Young lovers are left alone!

Half of it is not known, my sweet,
Half of it is not known,
Of the happiness that for us waits
When the bars are drawn, and the gates
Closed, and the hubbub abates,
When we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

118

Pleasant it is to have known, my sweet,
Pleasant it is to have known
Life and the light of the skies,
But sweeter the sight of the eyes
Of each other, and soft replies,
When we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

Pleasant it is to have grown, my sweet,
Pleasant it is to have grown
Into the strength of a man,
But sweeter than shouts in the van
Of the battle the lisp of your fan
Waved when we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

Pleasant it is to have thrown, my sweet,
Pleasant it is to have thrown
Pallor and pain to the winds,
Quick drawing up the blinds,
Letting in the sun that finds
Us when we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

119

Lone are the birds that moan, my sweet,
Lone are the birds that moan,
Twain are the birds that sing
Making woods and the copses ring
Back again with the notes that they fling
When two are left alone, my sweet,
When two are left alone!

Joyful enough to have shown, my sweet,
Joyful enough to have shown
To ourselves some savours of love
Already, but gladness above
What She dreams, the wings of my Dove
Shall anoint once we are alone, my sweet,
Once we are left alone!

Once was a time to groan, my sweet,
Once was a time to groan
When you and I were apart,
Severed the halves of our heart,
These, they shall cease to smart
When we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

120

Had I a heart of stone, my sweet,
Had I a heart of stone,
Surely my heart would melt
At the thought of the joys we felt,
The kisses that each soul dealt
When we were left alone, my sweet,
When we were left alone!

Kisses before were blown, my sweet,
Kisses before were blown
From the end of a finger tip,
But out from the flower of a lip
Sweet kisses each shall sip
When we are left alone, my sweet,
When we are left alone!

Know you the source of the Rhone, my sweet,
Know you the source of the Rhone,
Pure as the skies it goes
Till the Arve and its melted snows
Are joined, and muddy it flows
Henceforth, no longer alone, my sweet,
Being left no longer alone!

121

AS ROSES ARE TO JUNE.

As sweet you are to me, my love,
As roses are to June,
As clouds that march in tune
To the fair face of the moon,
As sweet you are to me, my love,
As roses are to June!

As dear you are to me, my love,
As green to eyes of spring,
As boughs of woods that ring
To birds therein that sing,
As dear you are to me, my love,
As green to eyes of spring!

122

As good you are to me, my love,
As showers to thirsty ground
When drops of healing sound
In the summer all around,
As good you are to me, my love,
As showers to thirsty ground!

As fair you are to me, my love,
As morning to the air
And the ringlets of the hair
Of Aurora here and there;
As fair you are to me, my love,
As morning to the air!

As new you are to me, my love,
As every dawn is new
And the sparkle of the dew
Fresh grass that glitters through;
As new you are to me, my love,
As every dawn is new!

123

As old you are to me, my love,
As Beauty to our eyes,
To every child that cries
For a face, a form, that flies;
As old you are to me, my love,
As Beauty to our eyes!

As young you are to me, my love,
As the flush upon the face
Of a winner in a race,
Or your own lips' grace;
As young you are to me, my love,
As your own lips' grace!

As strong you are to me, my love,
As waves are to the sea,
And miles of mist that flee
To the ether where they be;
As strong you are to me, my love,
As waves are to the sea!

124

As kind you are to me, my love,
As the moon to waves at night,
As the radiance of the light
Of the sun to waking sight;
As kind you are to me, my love,
As the moon to waves at night!

As true you are to me, my love,
As the magnet to the pole,
As love to every soul,
As stars to seas that roll;
As true you are to me, my love,
As the magnet to the pole!

As white you are to me, my love,
As snows upon the heights,
And the dazzle of the lights
Of Aurora in the nights;
As white you are to me, my love,
As snows upon the heights!

125

As pure you are to me, my love,
As ether's softest breath,
Or the gentle hands of Death,
As every word Christ saith;
As pure you are to me, my love,
As every word Christ saith!

As fond you are of me, my love,
As I am fond of you,
Like swallows in the blue
We twitter, two and two;
As fond you are of me, my love,
As I am fond of you!

126

WEEPING ALONE.

I saw a maiden weeping alone—
And the wail of the wind swept by,
And clouds clean covered the sky,
And never a blade was dry
Of the grass by her, weeping alone!

I saw a maiden weeping alone—
Tear-stained face that was fair
Once, wind-waved beautiful hair,
Sad eyes, how came you there
In the wet grass, weeping alone?

127

I saw a maiden weeping alone—
Head upon hands and knees
Huddled up to the head one sees,
Look close, and wonderment flees,
And pity is left alone!

I saw a maiden weeping alone—
Hair that a man might stroke
Strayed, trailed from under a cloak
That covers her head from the folk
That laugh at a maiden alone!

I saw a maiden weeping alone—
Where is he, what is he like,
Has he lifted a sword to strike
In the wars, or a ploughboy's pike,
And left his sweetheart alone?

128

I saw a maiden weeping alone—
Where is he, perhaps he is dead,
Buried in blood for a bed,
With the sod for a pillow instead
Of her breast, and she is alone!

I saw a maiden weeping alone—
Where is he, yet it may be
He lives, and has left her, and she
Will never his false face see
Any more, so she weepeth alone!

129

AUGUST—AN IDYLL.

Young they were, and hand in hand
Across the fields they wandered,
Swiftly passing through the land
A wealth of love they squandered
That afternoon, when hand in hand
They loved, and laughed, and pondered!

The August sun across the sheaves
Shot slantwise bolts of light,
Beneath the nodding golden eaves
They sat, till hint of night,
With cool hand laid upon the leaves,
Brought back to them their sight;

130

Sight gone astray a weary way,
The world long left behind
That afternoon of August day—
We know that love is blind,
And eyes of those who own his sway
The best thing blindness find.

Now cooler lips the dews caress,
And gentle shadows fall,
And fold around the maiden's dress,
And homeward lovers call,
And back they go, two hearts a-glow,
Beside the low grey wall;

I do not think that either will
In time to come forget
One single whisper of the rill,
One single leaflet wet
That night with dew they wandered through,
One waft of mignonette!

131

I think that many a kiss will stay
On brow, and eyes, and hand,
That many a blithesome breeze will play,
And many a wintry strand
Be white with snow before they go,
These, into Lethe's land!

For one such day is brighter far
Than years that slowly crawl,
And single sight of one such star,
Such sight as did befall
These two to see, will better be
Than constellations all.

132

A SERENADE.

Wake, sweet, look to the life of the air,
And the scent of the winds below,
The moonlit night is in love with the light
Of a half-seen shimmer of snow!

Draw back the curtain—thy true love stands
With eyes that climb and aspire,
As the tendrils wind convolvulus-twined,
To Beauty on high to be nigher;

The scent of the flower-beds all night long
Has leave, you know it, to play
By your bedside, and why should you chide
Feet low on the ground that stay?

133

Let the light of the moon fall soft on an arm
By the window-sill sweet shining,
Like ivory white set in jet-black bright
Stray tresses of hair for a lining;

I thought you were fair, I thought you a queen,
When I looked on you, love, by day,
But little I thought of the radiance brought
By night when the sun is away!

Your eyes were deep, and I sank therein,
But never I thought to swim
In a sea so deep, my soul to steep
In ecstasy up to the brim!

Sweet, blow me a kiss—O flowers on high
Stretch petals of hands and down
To my lips “with care” bring its fragrance fair,
In love of it life I drown!

134

THRICE!

Kiss me once to wash away the past,
All the dark and dreary time between
Now and when I sadly saw you last
Disappear behind the bushes green,
Garment fluttering out of eyeshot fast,
Kiss me for forgiveness sake, my queen!

Kiss me twice, to emphasize the new,
This new, blessed, happier, holier time,
Clouds have parted, shines again the blue,
Rings again the old triumphant rhyme,
Peals in either heart a merry chime,
Kiss me twice to show that it is true!

135

Kiss me thrice, yea, sweetheart, once again,
Think of all I've suffered far away,
Think of all the panting and the pain,
Bleeding feet that 'mid the briars stray
Seeking sight of you from day to day,
Signify that I may here remain!

136

SISTERS.

YOUNGER SISTER.
What is he like, sweet sister mine?
I prithee talk to me
Of the face and form of that lover of thine,
His image I long to see!

ELDER SISTER.
O sweet my love, he has bonny brown hair,
And his eyes are of glistening grey,
And his face is a rose, and his feet are fair,
And his glance is as bright as day!

137

YOUNGER.
And how does he smile, this lover of thine,
I have seen you smile at the thought,
I have seen you smile, sweet sister mine,
Somebody that smile taught!

ELDER.
He smiles, little bird, as the great Sun smiles
In the morning drying the dew,
And the glance of his eye falls soft and beguiles
An answering eye glance too!

YOUNGER.
So his hair is brown, sweet sister mine,
Does it curl? . . . and his eyes are grey . . .
Has he rose-red lips, that lover of thine,
Like mine, sweet sister, say?

ELDER.
Oh sweet, he has lips that I love right well,
As rosy, and stronger than thine,
For his could be set to encounter hell,
Or . . . parted to meet . . . perhaps . . . mine!

138

YOUNGER.
And what does he say, sweet sister mine,
Does he talk, does he prattle at all,
Can he say soft things, this lover of thine,
Can he thoughts of thine own forestall?

ELDER.
Ah! sweet, you should hear him, 'tis not for me
To show you, I can't, how he talks . . . .
But his voice is as soft as the fall of the sea
As close by my side he walks!

YOUNGER.
And oh! can he kiss, sweet sister mine . . . .
I remember at school we agreed
That nobody should be a lover of thine
If he couldn't . . . in this succeed!

ELDER.
Ah! love, one day you will know for yourself
What a kiss from a hero means . . . .
Why, sister mine, you sly little elf,
You are not yet in your teens!

139

YOUNGER.
Shall I have, do you think, sweet sister mine,
When I grow as tall as you,
And as pretty . . . perhaps . . . such a lover as thine,
A lover shall I have too?

ELDER.
Yes, little sister, keep you still
And be content to abide,
Eyes now full of fun one day shall fill
With tears when he walks by your side.

YOUNGER.
What is it like, sweet sister mine,
What they call being in love?
Was he in love, that lover of thine,
When he kissed . . . I saw . . . your glove?

ELDER.
Sweet, it is fair beyond all our dreams,
And gentle as airs at night,
And softer than wave of a symphony seems
That lulls one asleep with delight.

140

YOUNGER.
Can he laugh, can he smile, sweet sister mine,
Or is he stern, does he frown,
This bearded man, this lover of thine,
As he bends his high head down?

ELDER.
Aye, he can laugh, little sister mine,
He can laugh, and his laugh is sweet,
Thrilling the veins as a draught of wine,
As the wild wind thrills the wheat.

YOUNGER.
And aren't you sorry, sweet sister mine,
From me, from us all to part,
To leave us all for that lover of thine,
To give to him your young heart?

ELDER.
Sorry, my sweet, as the flowers that give
To the sun their scents in the morn,
As the crimson clouds that for one thing live
Their colour to give to the dawn.

141

YOUNGER.
But is he worth it, sister mine,
Is he worthy . . . worthy of you . . .
If he is the sun, that lover of thine,
You are something better than dew!

ELDER.
Worthy . . . aye . . . we will not talk, sweet,
Of worth, if you please, any more,
Precious to me is the print of his feet,
And the sound of his step at the door.

YOUNGER.
Has he ever told you, sister mine,
That he loved you, loved you at all,
Has he spoken out, that lover of thine,
Did he ever at your feet fall?

ELDER.
Never, love, but he said, “My own,”
And I . . . I knew what he meant . . .
I . . . why I know each turn of his tone . . .
And . . . home together we went!

142

YOUNGER.
Ah! together . . . sweet sister mine,
I remember now very well
How you and he, that lover of thine,
Came home as the night mists fell.

ELDER.
Ah! I remember too, little love,
And the dews and the darkening trees,
And pale clear skies and a sparkle above
Of the stars, and the balm of the breeze.

143

THE SONG OF THE LONELY SOUL.

I live my life in a lonely land
Without the sound of a smile,
Pacing a desolate twilight strand,
Gnawing my heart with a file
Of memories iron, a heaped-up band,
Like waves that the wild winds pile

All together, en masse, pell-mell,
Writhing like crested snakes,
Opening depths of a foam-flecked hell,
Filling the air with flakes
That ride, like witches, right out of the well
Where each upon each wave breaks;

144

Such are the miseries strong to assail
Heart and being of mine,
Thrashing the wheat of one's mind with a flail
That leaves no time to repine,
For blows are rapid, and coats of mail
Would be only as twisted twine

Before the force of it; not to kill
Outright are the blows of it bent,
Only to torture, only to spill
Warm blood from the veins of us rent
As runs from a rock rod-stricken a rill,
It seems as if it were sent!

If there is Purpose what care we?
What matter if there is none?
For then, as it seems, the sooner the sea
Drowns out the light of the sun,
And swamps in water all things that be
The sooner will Death be done!

145

If there is Love, though not for us,
Yet it is well to abide—
If there is Beauty, we'll not discuss
Result of our own life's ride,
But cease, like waves from foam, from the fuss
Of the ages and calm subside;

If there is none there is nothing at all,
All things that are, are not,
The Universe crumbles beneath a pall
Of rottenness, silences hot
To blast with their breath us weak worms fall
On us, being from being to blot.

146

IT'S ALL GONE AWAY.

It's all gone away,
The light of the day,
Now skies are gray,
And closed are the eyes
Of Love, hope flies,
But miseries stay!

Never again
Shall it be as when
Strength as of ten
Was ours in the flower
Of life, and the power
Of manifold men!

147

Weak as the grass
Limbs of us pass
Brittle as glass
To the grave that waits
With a grin on its gates—
Life is a farce,

Only without
Laughter, and shout
Of delight, and the pout
Of lips that admire
The actors' fire,
And sparkle about;

Left of the fun
Of the play there is none,
Never a pun
In the drama of life
To lighten the strife
With a ray of the sun;

148

Slowly we go
All of a row,
Roses that blow,
And flowers that are faded,
To the churchyard shaded
By tombs that grow;

What does it matter?
Earth is the fatter,
Beauty we scatter
All over the ground,
Soon to be found
In the worms' wet platter;

Lips are in bloom
Ripe for the gloom
Of a sunless tomb,
And flowers are fair—
We fix them there
For decay to consume;

149

The younger the better
For death the setter
Of plants, the abettor
Of grey grave-mists
And skeletons kissed
By the clank of a fetter;

Bloom upon cheeks
For a time—till leaks
Life's can, and he seeks
With slow sad strides
Like a ghost that glides
Death's pitiless peaks;

Upon these he sits,
And Loveliness flits,
And they are at quits,
Sad Life and Death—
Life gives us breath,
Our throats Death slits!

150

MY LOVE.

MEDIÆVAL.

My Love is as the rose, her lips
Are sweeter than the buds the bee
In booming condescension sips,
Each stray of hair that sideways slips,
Is dearer than ten crowns to me.

My Love is as the lily, white
And pure and passionate, lithe and tall,
I dream of her the livelong night,
And see her towering, golden bright,
Beside the old grey garden wall.

151

My Love is as the violet,
Most fair and modest, in the shade
She sits, 'tis long since we have met,
Aud therefore both my eyes are wet,
And all my heart in motion made.

My Love is as the meadow-sweet,
The odour of her hair is good,
And round about her passing feet
Enchanted flowers you may meet,
The grass is green where she hath stood.

My Love is as the golden corn,
Her hair it waveth in the wind,
Before her face delight is born;
Attendant roses of the dawn
Behind her footstep you may find.

152

ACROSS THE SEA.

Across the sea, across the strand,
My Lady waved a snow-white hand,
A farewell token to the land,
A farewell gift to me,

Across the strand, across the sea,
My Lady sent a sign to me,
Twain lovers that should parted be,
My lady sent a hand!

Across the waves, across the foam,
She hurled a hasty hand-shake home,
About to rove, about to roam,
About to leave my side,

153

Across the foam, across the waves,
White intermediate heaving graves,
A look the wind and water braves,
The last glance of my bride!

Across the sea, across the strand,
My Lady waved a snow-white hand,
By backward breezes forward fanned,
By blithesome breezes home,

Across the strand, across the sea,
She sent a joyous sign to me,
A sign that shortly she would be
Returned, no more to roam!

Across the waves, across the waste,
My Lady came in gladsome haste,
Blown kisses each the other chased,
Blown kisses sent to me,

154

Across the waste, across the waves,
Across the lapping sea that laves
The ship's keel, comes my Queen and saves,
Praise Heaven, my memory!

155

THREE—ONLY THREE.

Oh, love, give me a kiss,
One—only one,
To be the beginning of bliss,
The first soft ray of the sun,
The last wave wind being done,
Last step a race being run,
Grant me, sweetheart, this,
One—only one!

Two—only two,
To kiss each other, and be
Twin kisses clinging to me
Like seaweed washed in the sea,
Or drops of delicate dew,
Two—only two!

156

Three—only three,
That I may remember, sweet,
How your heart with my heart beat,
And the rapid pulse of your feet
When you came to give to me
Three—only three!

157

VICTOR HUGO INSIDE PARIS.

“I pity you who are with the kings who kill;”
So said he, Victor Hugo, and prepared
In the arms of that sweet city they had dared
To threaten, aged blood of his to spill,
As if her kisses, youthful, he had shared.

“I pity you who are with the kings who kill,
But me to minister to a people dying
It suits, and in the rear of Terror flying,
And in the van of Hope that forward will
Advance, to end a life of absent sighing;

158

“Of lonely sighing far apart from her
My own sweet city, yea, my love, my queen,
I come to end the years that rolled between
Us, and my body to inter
Within the walls where long my soul hath been.

“At a most supreme moment I return
When Freedom re-established on the throne
A chant triumphant ending in a groan
Is singing, one hand pointing to an urn,
The other to a despotism flown!

“One hand is pointing to the sunset skies
Where sinks, but not this time in seas of blood,
Napoleon's sun that high in heaven stood
But yesterday, and held her for a prize—
And here my Lady hath the thing she would;

“But with the other to the raging hordes
Of mad barbarians marching to her gates
To wreak on lips inviolate their hates
She points, and summons garniture of swords,
And lovers' breasts to meet the fickle fates.

159

“And shall she make to any one in vain,
To any one of us, her last appeal,
Crowned with a kiss to each for woe or weal,
A kiss that either lips of Death retain,
Or else that rosy Victory's mouth may seal?”

160

AT NIGHT.

Come to where the waters play
Underneath the moon,
See the honeysuckle spray
Beckons softly, answer “yea,”
You will be obedient, eh,
You will join me soon?

Come to where the sands are light
And the breezes cool,
O, my sweet one, shining white
At the window, we will write
Names upon the beach to-night,
We will play at “school!”

161

Come to where I wait for you,
Where I wait and sing,
Breathe upon me as the dew
Gently fans the grasses through,
Strength exhausted to renew,
Health of heaven to bring.

I had, when I wrote this, the exquisite love-scene in poor Robertson's drama of “School” in my mind.

ANSWER.

No, Sir, you were cross to-day,
Ah, I saw you frown,
'Tis too cold to-night to play,
Listen honeysuckle spray,
Hear my answer, take my “Nay,”
Winding woodwork down.

I am cross to-night as well—
Sir, what did you mean
Praising so that faded belle,
Really I can hardly tell—
Here a pouting rosebud fell
Lifted eyes between;

162

Played the waters, played the pair
On the shining sands.
He was handsome, she was fair,
Love was rosy, he was there,
Well the three contented were,
Closely clasped their hands.

163

BREAKERS THREE.

The bells are chiming loud to-night,
A sight they suggest to me
Of a foam-flecked ocean surface white,
A passionate heaving sea,
And a boat with wings to flee
The following waters' glee
To the harbour beacon bright;

Or, a wood with one beside,
Dear, very dear to me,
In a leafy, laughing, deep green tide
The boughs and twigs of a tree
Wave over us graciously
As I upon bended knee
Beseech her to be my bride;

164

Or, a sandy desolate shore
With pale grey thistles to me
Face turning evermore,
Low green cliffs on our lee,
And a heart that seems to be
As heavy as breakers three
That follow and burst and roar.

165

TWO TOGETHER!

Easy 'tis for two together
Rainy skies to face,
Roughest bursts of windy weather,
All alone to pace
Needs a heart as hard as leather,
'Tis a sorry case!

I have seen the clouds unfolding
When four eyes were there,
Clouds that only now were holding
Over one poor pair
Pitiless thunder-symptoms, scolding
Copper sheets of air.

166

I have seen the scent of flowers
Freshen and expand,
Glad to greet united powers,
Glad to greet a hand
Robbing blossom-laden bowers
At a soft command.

I have seen a shower hurry,
Haste to leave the skies,
Cloudy masses in a flurry,
Thunderstorm that flies,
All for fear a crash might worry,
Drown two lovers' sighs!

I have seen the ether brighten
All from side to side,
And the sunshine smile and lighten
Like as if it tried
All the universe to whiten
For some bonny bride!

167

I have seen the roses blushing
Into deeper red,
Beauty over lilies rushing,
Bloom intenser shed
When two lovers' cheeks were flushing
Over every head,

Every gentle head of flower,
'Faith they seem to share
With us some mysterious power,
Hand in hand to fare
Along with us, glad gifts to shower
Upon a happy pair!

168

ALONE!

Alone! alone!
What does it mean?
Has any one seen
The last rose-queen
Of the Autumn blown?
She is left alone.

Alone! alone!
The last brave man
In the rear, in the van
The foremost, can
Tell, must have known,
What it is to be lone.

169

Alone! alone!
A love-sick maid
Who fingers a braid
Of hair that he played
With often, is shown
The grief of the lone.

Alone! alone!
A mother, whose sons
In the war by the guns
Are standing, stuns
The trumpet's tone,
For, she is alone.

Alone! alone!
An old man grey
Who has lived his day
Who has played his play,
Now feeble grown
Sits sadly alone.

170

Alone! alone!
A bird in its nest
Who misses the breast
That it loves the best,
For a mate makes moan,
Is indeed alone.

Alone! alone!
A lover who sighs
For the light of the eyes
Of his mistress, cries
With a vehement groan
I am alone.

171

WHEN SUNS ARE BRIGHT.

When suns are bright,
And life's before you,
And breezes o'er you
Are floating light,
Nor miseries gnaw you,

Launch forth your bark,
And sail the seas,
Inhale the breeze,
Till dawn of dark
And nights that freeze;

172

Sing in the blue,
Like happy birds,
And leap as herds
Are wont to do
When morning girds

Her belt of beauty—
Soon to pass
Like gathered grass
Some hot hand's booty,
Or broken glass;

Love while you may,
It is not long
That lasts a song,
An hour of play,
A life of wrong,

A gaze in eyes,
A broken heart,
An æon's smart,
And shattered lies
Life's every part,

173

A sigh, a kiss,
And all is gone
And hope is borne
On wings of bliss
To lands forlorn:

Where desert sands
Stretch dreary plains,
And flower of pains
Alone expands,
Alone remains!

Was this thing meant
For us to see
And not to flee,
When we were sent
Alive to be?

That we should sigh
The livelong day,
And weep for play,
For gladness cry,
Nor wish to stay;

174

That we should love
The life of flowers,
And rose-hung bowers,
And clouds above,
And summer showers,

And softest airs
Of twilight lands,
And lonely sands
Where Beauty fares,
And Mystery stands,

And inland scenes,
And wealth of woods
With waving hoods
Of varied greens
That reach for roods,

And moors' expanse,
Where bells of heather
In windy weather
And fern-leaves dance
In joy together,

175

And sweeping hills,
Where winds are free
And kissed in glee
The leaping rills
The breezes flee—

I cannot tell
Why these are glad,
But we are sad—
Why we a hell,
These heaven had?

176

AH, WELL-A-DAY!

Ah, well-a-day!
Man is a worm,
Weak and infirm,
A blossomless germ
Woven of clay—
Ah, well-a-day!

Ah, well-a-day!
Woman is a dream,
A stray rose-beam
From the sunset stream,
One red ray—
Ah, well-a-day!

177

Ah, well-a-day!
Love is the light
Of an hour, in the night
It fails us quite,
Never does it stay—
Ah, well-a-day!

Ah, well-a-day!
What is the bloom
Of youth worth? gloom
And moss on a tomb
Is the end of the way—
Ah, well-a-day!

Ah, well-a-day!
Beauty of lips
The young man sips
Death's hand snips
With his scissors, I say—
Ah, well-a-day!

178

Ah, well-a-day!
Best to be gone,
Not to be born,
To be left forlorn
In the womb of the clay—
Ah, well-a-day!

Ah, well-a-day!
Beauty of a rose
No man knows
Till the best part goes,
Till the cankers slay—
Ah, well-a-day!

Ah, well-a-day!
Best for us all
Like leaves to fall,
And escape from the thrall
Of our garments gray—
Ah, well-a-day!

179

Ah, well-a-day!
Flowers are sweet,
And lips that meet,
But swift are the feet
Of the flails that flay—
Ah! well-a-day!

Ah, well-a-day!
Come, let us turn,
Strong souls that burn,
To the face of the Urn,
Strong souls that stray—
Ah, well-a-day!

Ah, well-a-day!
Sweet was the hair,
And the face was fair
Of Beauty, but where
Is she gone to, pray?
Ah, well-a-day!

180

Ah, well-a-day!
The world is mad,
We are all of us sad,
We are most of us bad,
We are weak to delay—
Ah, well-a-day!

Ah, well-a-day!
There is a child—
See, he has smiled!
Bricks he has piled
In a heap at his play—
Ah, well-a-day!

Ah, well-a-day!
Few men know
Where spring-buds blow,
And the birth of the snow
That blossoms in May—
Ah, well-a-day!

181

Ah, well-a-day!
All men see
Agony, and flee—
Why should we be
At all, if we pay
Such a penalty, eh?

182

GOOD-NIGHT!

Good-night, my sweet one, sleep attend you,
And bear you into dreamland on his wings,
Into a mist of soft sights send you,
Where not a single bird there is but sings,
Happiness higher than the day's is lend you,
And eyes that revel in the midst of things,
From which, alas! the light will rend you
In spite of memory that backward clings.

183

MY LOVE.

MEDIÆVAL.

My Love is of the summer, she
Is bound about her brow with hair
As golden as the sun-lit air
Upon a base of porphyry;

A summer Queen she seems to be,
Her feet caress the grasses fair,
And they in turn obeisance bear,
And blossoms bend before her knee;

She hath a wondrous way with me,
She glances at me, and I wear
A silent mien, content to share
Her sweet complaisant company.

184

My Love is of the autumn, she
Hath black-brown hair and subtle eyes,
Green as the green-grey Northern skies,
Her face is good for man to see;

I strove, alas! I failed to flee,
As effort flutters down and dies
Like a shot swallow, and low lies,
So I succumbèd quietly;

With meadow-sweet and fern did we
In Love's unending Folly wise
Make garlands, weave together ties
That left me shorn of liberty.

My Love is of the spring-time, she
Is gentle as the opening flowers,
And lays a sense of cooling showers
Upon a forehead fever-free;

185

Under an Elm's gigantic lee
We sat and laughed aside the hours
With pouting time-regardless powers,
And tears of changing ecstasy;

She hath blue eyes, she hath the key
To open green May-scented bowers,
She hath the songs of birds for dowers,
And nosegays folded full of glee.

My Love is of the winter, she
Is queen of the dim blue-gray land
Where the auroral streamers stand,
And, roseate, stride across the sea;

The daughter of the winter, he
Her cheeks with bitter frosts hath fanned,
And made my Lady keen-eyed, and
Next beautiful in turn to thee

186

My Goddess of the graces three
Who hast the autumn to command,
And hast the eyes so subtly planned,
Holding three separate shades in fee.

187

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

188

189

THE FIRST.

As dreams at morning fly
And leave no trace behind,
When we draw up the blind,
To the limbo of mists consigned,
So when to thee I sigh
Cleared are the clouds of my mind—

Cleared are the clouds of my mind,
Breaks forth and shines the blue
Wet dismal fog-damps through,
Slays fancies false the true,
And faces false I find
Fly before thought of you.

190

O darling do not leave
My side, or I shall die,
To you my soul doth cry,
To you my heart doth fly,
For loss of you I grieve
As the flowers at sunset sigh;

Come back at least in dreams,
And let me see your face,
If but for some short space,
And let my fancy trace
Deep hair of thine that gleams,
Ringlets that interlace;

Come to me when you can—
As sighs for the scent of the rose
Air where a rosebud blows
I sigh, my wings I close,
They hang down weak and wan,
My life-stream stagnant flows,

191

O sweet, come, quicken the life
In my veins, make roses blow,
Melt sad white widths of snow,
Bid gladsome streamlets flow
Till all the air is rife
With melody, freed from woe;

As for me I am weary,
I lie and think of you
And paint a likeness true,
As songbirds love the blue
Bright skies I love you dearie,
Each dawn my love is new;

As songbirds hate the winter,
Short days and nights that freeze,
No flowers and leafless trees,
As songbirds cease the breeze
With shafts of song to splinter,
So am I ill at ease,

192

Sick, silent, when we're parted,
Unhappy till we meet,
Till sound of some one's feet
Is heard, and hands that greet
Make whole the heart that smarted,
Rebuild the broken street;

Sweet love, I cannot say
Though I try the things I would—
Ah! if I only could,
If at your feet I stood
The gift of a voice one day
Made mine, sweet, then you should

Know what your Beauty means,
And how my heart is riven,
And how in vain I've striven
To reach the heights of Heaven
With pen that only gleans
Stray ears, through Earth's fields driven;

193

I find my life flow sadly,
And many a stagnant pool
Is there, and breezes cool
Are absent, 'tis the rule
It seems for daytime badly
And night to use their tool;

But if your life flows gladly
Something that is to know,
Then all things are not woe,
And grass beneath the snow
Is green yet, and less madly
Our pulses come and go;

If Beauty is, and you, sweet,
Are Beautiful, 'tis well!
The cold and fires of hell
Have not sufficed to quell
All things, and your white feet,
Unsinged, the good news tell;

194

Be perfect; let your Beauty
Bud, blossom, like a rose,
Straight as a rose-tree grows
Rise, proud and pure as snows,
The sons of men for booty
To you Fate, smiling, throws;

And all I claim—I do claim
This much—is right of place;
I was the first to trace
In dust before your face
My form, the first that came,
The foremost in the race,

First lover of them all,
The first to speak your praise,
The first a psalm to raise
With heart and lips a-blaze
Fast bound in Beauty's thrall,
The first your Beauty slays!

195

ONE TRESS.

I should have liked one tress—one—only one—
One sea-soft ripple of the black-brown hair,
One ray from off the circle of the sun,
One leaf from out a flowering forest fair,
Surely, sweet lady mine, 'twere no harm done
Of wealth so wide a mite with me to share;

One drop from out the Great Wide World of Water,
One crystal blade from fields of ether torn,
One distant dimple of a smile, O daughter,
One blush from off the crimson face of morn,
One soft sweet echo of thy low love-laughter,
One pearl-pink petal pouted from a rose,
One wingèd word of answer, silence after,
One star from all the galaxies of snows,

196

One look of love, one pressure of a hand,
One sparkle flashed from out an answering eye,
One grain from all the silted seas of sand,
One point of light from blue expanse of sky,
One rosy foam-flower flung from out the Ocean
Fair as Queen Venus, when she rose, new-born,
One gentle message of a hand in motion
All fraught with hopefulness for love forlorn,
One whisper of the wind on summer mornings
Waking a glad re-echo in the leaves,
One ripple of laughter rung from under awnings
Merry maidens shading on soft summer eves,
One moonbeam shining silvery o'er the billows
Amid the bewildering witchery of the night,
One delicate dream-tune played about our pillows,
One ray, one pure white shaft of morning light,
One echo of a symphony suggesting
Delicious dreams in rainbow raiments dressed,
One glimpse of hope of somewhere, sometime, resting
And sinking into sleep, and being blest,

197

One distant tiny tinkle of remembrance,
Preserved through all the sights and sounds of morn,
Of some fair vision, without form or semblance,
Amid the misty dim dream-valleys born,
One flame plucked off the pyre of sunset fires,
One feather fallen from out an eagle's wing,
One waft of melody seized from off the lyres
Of all the Universe of Birds that sing,
One flake of foam blown off the ocean ridges,
One rattle in the rowlocks of an oar,
One winglet waving in a mist of midges,
One shell from all the lone Atlantic shore,
One silent memory of seasons golden
When life and love went hand in hand together,
One glance a fearful follower to embolden,
One whistle of wind aloft in winter weather;
One rosy flush a fair face overflowing,
One honeysuckle-scented wave of air,
One lightning flash the landscape sudden showing,
One look, its owner only half-aware,

198

Right to the heart of hearts of some one going,
For him a life or death-doom to declare—

All these seem small things, lady—I ask less,
For I only ask of thee one tiny tress.

199

MY LOVE.

My love is waiting by the sea—
By sloped long hillocks of dun sand
With grey-green grasses clothed, a land
Most lonely, there she chose to stand—
Most grievous, there she chose to be—
My love is waiting by the sea!

My love is waiting in the wood—
Beneath her feet the flowers are red
And yellow, over her sweet head
The falling fluttered leaves are shed,
She wears her hair, she wears no hood,
My love is waiting in the wood!

200

My love is waiting at the gate—
A rose she holds between her hands,
And, silent, smiling down she stands,
Her hair in braids of golden bands
Hangs downward by its own glad weight,
My love is waiting at the gate!

My love is waiting in the lane—
The honeysuckle stoops inclined
To kiss her, of an equal mind
With me, the roses blush to find
Their rivalry of redness vain,
My love is waiting in the lane!

My love is waiting on the shore—
The waves are plashing at her feet,
Soft music this, but not so sweet
As low desire of lips that meet,
Once having met to meet the more,
My love is waiting on the shore!

201

My love is waiting by the stream—
Ah, sweet o ne, fast the waters flow,
Our joy is fleeting even so,
A moment's mute delight we know,
A moment's wild ecstatic dream,
And—love's no longer by the stream!

My love is waiting nigh the lake—
Sweet pebbles, rounded water-stones
She stands upon, I would my bones
Were even as ye, I would my groans
A sacrifice her feet might take,
That love would slay me by the lake!

My love is waiting in the road—
And up and down she looks and weeps,
My coldness at a distance keeps,
For what she, cruel, sowed she reaps,
She mocked me when my own heart glowed,
I leave her weeping in the road!

202

My love is waiting by the trees—
Those fair four trees where first we met,
I have them in my memory yet,
She waits, she sigheth for regret,
And I burn round her in the breeze,
And breathe upon her through the trees!

My love is waiting in the street—
We are not rich, we envy not
The wealthy, ours a lowly lot,
But she, she loveth me, God wot!
And therefore are my footsteps fleet
To meet my lady in the street!

My love is waiting by the burn—
A Scottish maiden she, and I
A Scotchman born as such to die
Am steadfast, O the soft blue eye,
The yellow hair, the lips I earn
As greeting, coming nigh the burn!

203

My love is waiting by the brook—
The peppermint and forget-me-not
Make sweet and gracious all the spot,
But as for me my lips are hot,
My eyes are eager, and I look
For heaven and her beside the brook!

My lady waiteth on the hill—
And I, I weep, I cannot move,
I cannot go to meet my love,
I strive below, she sings above,
Bound fast by fate's remorseless will
I cannot cry, nor climb the hill!

My love is waiting in the glade—
And over her the branches bow
And make a green cathedral now
With waving aisles, across her brow
A soothing shadow next have laid,
And so she waits within the glade!

204

My love is waiting on the beach—
High green cliffs on the dexter hand
Enclose us from the inward land,
And on the left the billows band
Together in a foamy reach,
And laugh, as we do, on the beach!

My love is waiting by the elm—
In France, a lonely sun-struck spot
With poplars lined that waver not
In straightness, in the mid-day hot
She chose with fire to overwhelm
My parched pale soul beside the elm!

My love is waiting by the bridge—
A country bridge with mosses grown
Across a babbling streamlet thrown,
And she and I were there alone,
Alone we walked the wooded ridge,
And, after, rested on the bridge!

205

My love is waiting far away—
In Italy underneath the blue
A sculptor's work I have to do
But I can only image you,
For you possess me, night or day,
Although you are so far away!

My love is waiting in the town—
In London, and I try to write
“Dramatic Poems,” failing quite,
She lays her hands across my sight,
And what she wills I must put down,
My queen, and queen of London town!

My love is waiting on the heath—
Sweet upland, would that I were there,
That nostrils drank the scented air
Of furze, and feet the fingering fair
Of heather felt, a foxglove wreath
I'd weave for love upon the heath!

206

My love is waiting in the vale—
I have not seen her since I went
On fame's achievement strongly bent
To the wars, my soul in sunder rent,
One half she holds, that maiden pale,
Of a soldier's heart hid in the vale!

My love is waiting on the mount—
Beneath the rocks, above the vines
That grow in green trim-trellised lines
She sits, and slowly sadly pines,
As I pine, and the hours count
Until I stand on that Swiss mount!

My love is waiting in the night—
Dark-eyed, a sweet signora face,
With the old unequalled southern grace
Of figure, in the market place
Against the carven pillar, white
She leans and shineth through the night!

207

My love is waiting by the bay—
The Ganges rolls long brown-lipped waves,
And her bare feet their whisper laves,
Their broken whisper, just as saves
Each kiss a keener word to say,
A closer lip-caress next day!

My love is waiting in the North—
I see her, she hath green-grey eyes,
And something of the serpent lies
Within those deep bewildering skies,
Whence witchery lightens, ceaseless, forth
The Auroral lustre of the North!

My love is waiting—fond of me
She is, at least she was last year,
Who knows, I may not now be dear,
We are parted, shall I shed a tear?
Come, sweet one, if I weep for thee
At least a half tear drop for me!

208

My love is waiting where I left
Her last—and let her wait awhile,
For when I wept she did but smile,
Now let her sorrow and beguile
As best she may, from love's lips reft,
The time, for laughed-at love has left!

My love is waiting—is it so,
And doth she wait and look for me?
As seeks an old sweet flower a bee,
So will I flutter unto thee,
The unforgotten lips to know
Again I tasted long ago!

My love is waiting in a dream—
Come, sleep, and close the daylight gates,
And where my golden-haired one waits
Robed in the delicate mystic states
Of dreamland, let my presence seem,
And let me join her in a dream!

209

My love is waiting in the morn—
Her face is in the rosy flush,
The beatific sunrise blush,
And out the gay-eyed memories gush,
The tinted clouds night left forlorn,
To meet my mistress in the morn!

My love is waiting at the eve—
The golden sunset gleams away
Its glory into simple gray,
The rose-hued raptures where are they,
Is nought left but to sigh and grieve,
And mourn our midday merged in eve?

My love is waiting in the breeze—
A fairy she, with wings outspread
She hovers round about my head,
And in each shower of leaves is shed
Upon me, sighs from out the trees,
And rustles gently in the breeze!

210

My love is waiting by the boat—
The ripples rise, advance, and flee,
My lady's foot is stayed for me,
And golden all across the sea
The sunset splendours fall and float,
My love is waiting by the boat!

My love is waiting at the mound—
Grey, desolate, in a lonely place,
With granite boulders leaving space
For fern and heaths that interlace,
A witch-like, strange, enchanted ground,
With Fairy Love upon the mound!

My love is waiting by the hedge—
Under her feet the laughing blue
Wild speedwell peep the grasses through,
And white stars glisten two and two
Along the ivy-tangled edge
Of that sweet spring-time trysting hedge!

211

My love is waiting in the sky—
At sunrise towards her face I turn,
At sunset towards her lips I yearn,
And all the livelong day I burn
To win me wings of death, and fly
To her I long for in the sky!

My love is waiting far behind—
One kiss, one whisper, only one,
And with the setting slanting sun
Her life—my life as well—was done,
And henceforth here death's face I find,
Love's warm embrace being left behind!

My love is waiting in a cloud—
A cloud of memory, mute and wet
With raindrops of grey gone regret,
That shall be slashed with rainbow yet,
As the sun turns a winter shroud
Of mist into a red-lipped cloud!

212

My love is waiting where the moon
Casts all across a dim grey waste
Of waves and sand by waters chased
A pale-gold shimmer, and I haste
To wake her from that cold sad swoon
Beneath the unsympathizing moon!

My love is waiting where the sun
Burns vehement, and the distant hills
With azure mist-enchantment fills,
I wait to learn the thing she wills,
She waits to see her work well done,
She in the shade, I 'neath the sun!

My love is waiting, and I go
To lay upon her lips a kiss
Including all the passion this
My song hath seized, no note I miss,
No pang of the melody, tear or throe,
When my own mistress' mouth I know!

213

YET HOW FAIR!

God saw the world that he had made, and its beauty swept across his soul like a sudden scent of summer in the air, like the sound of distant music, like the melody of the wings of the wind, and he leaned his head upon his hands and wept.

Yet how fair!
For all the sweeping agony of rain
That bars the windows of the day with pain
At night, behold! the moon peeps forth again
With golden hair,
This world of ours is woeful, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
To-day her words are cruel, and her eyes
Shake all the summer glory of the skies
Into the sieve of sadness, and low lies
Her lover in despair,
Wicked is she who wounds him, yet him fair!

214

Yet how fair!
In all the reckless splendour of his youth
He rides his horse-hoofs over trampled truth,
And gives for gladness to a maiden ruth,
And sorrow for her share,
Ignoble is his presence, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The long melodious laughter of the storm
Across a seething waste of billows borne
When shipwrecked heart from heart asunder torn
Shrieks everywhere,
Wild is the winter weather, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The simple lines of softly smiling lips
That hold a rosebud unto him that sips
Their sweetness, that a sudden shudder nips
And freezeth there,
Thrice treacherous are they, brother, yet how fair!

215

Yet how fair!
The burning flow of vowels that deceive,
That wrap a heart in flames they mean to leave,
And such a marvellous web of witchery weave,
So soft a lair,
Kindled at hell the words are, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
When on some sick St. Anthony peepeth in
A face whose fire might tempt a saint to sin,
Braided with sighs of souls she seeks to win,
She seeks to tear,
Wicked is she who tempts him, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The world is heavy with the weight of snows,
And only here and there we find a rose,
And up and down the wheel of fortune goes,
And hard to bear
Her folly, she is fickle, yet how fair!

216

Yet how fair!
The summer morning wet with woven dews
On all the grass not one of us can choose
But love, though unto him the day refuse
A flower to wear,
The summer day is selfish, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The gentle moonlight cast across the sheaves,
Though in the midst there sits a soul that grieves,
Whose heart is shaken like the autumn leaves,
To blossom ne'er
Again in this world, bitter, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The silvery night that takes a maid away
For whom a mother somewhere strives to pray,
The silvery night in arms of which they stray
A passionate pair,
The night it is that wiles them, yet how fair!

217

Yet how fair!
An early morning in the woods of spring
When like young leaves so easily they cling—
Those kisses—and the afternoons that sting,
That would repair
With sadness over-gladness, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The bloom and pouting petals of a rose,
Though not a man of us there is but knows
That bloom is for a season, after goes,
And goeth where?
Thrice bitter is its beauty, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
A little hand that waves a man to follow,
A wafted sigh that, foolish, he must swallow,
A glance that leads him over hill and hollow,
Swift to ensnare,
A simple thing is each one, yet how fair!

218

Yet how fair!
The white face of a hero lying dead,
Over each cheek of his a pale rose shed,
Death's bosom bent to pillow him instead
Of heart of her
Who would have died to save him, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The very rubbing off of early bloom,
Yea, and the threatening terror of the tomb,
Yea, and the steady coming on of gloom
An end to declare
Of all things, bitter is it, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The laughing eyes of maidenhood the while
Their sole success is knowing how to smile,
Although we feel that teeth of time will file,
His fingers pare
The softest apple-blossom, yet how fair!

219

Yet how fair!
The weary years, the years that come and go
And crown their sad departure, each, with snow,
For each to some gay heart has given a glow,
A kindled glare
Of happiness, they hasten, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The softest sighs of air that steal between
Downbending tracery of branches green
Where lovers' feet are often standing seen,
Though frosts should dare
To nip the leaves in winter, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The foam flakes showered all across the blue,
On mornings when the wind is wailing through
The rigging, and a pair of lovers true
Their fealty swear,
The sea's an arch deceiver, yet how fair!

220

Yet how fair!
The very ecstasy that drags us down,
The very wild delirium of the crown
A smile can weave, and fling to earth a frown,
A motion scare,
Sweet is it, fleeting is it, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The dreams that wave their sleepy wings at night
And scatter, scared at advent of the light,
To leave us unfledged, after visions bright
Fast held of care,
Deceitful are they, dangerous, yet how fair!

Yet how fair!
The whole of things, the ecstasy that drains
The panting soul till not a drop remains,
Till pleasure's flower ripens into pains,
Till eyelids stare,
Till happiness is heavy, yet how fair!

221

Yet how fair!
In spite of all, the Universal Glow,
In spite of all the streets on fire with woe
And faces pale and haggard all-a-row,
Though to prepare
Reaction runs the feeling, yet how fair!

222

THE BRIGAND'S LETTER.

“I cherish the sweet hope she will not marry,
Marry again, my love, my dark-eyed queen,
It may be memory of a man will tarry
In heart of hers when I am bruised between
The sudden folding doors of violent death;
I charge you, therefore, brother, safe to carry
Words wafted by her husband's dying breath;
If aught there were that yet for me could parry
The silent stress of agony that awaits
My soul approaching close Death's darksome gates
It were to know that she, my love, were true,
The grave being found too feeble to undo
The silken love-knot twined around us two,
Made strong for both by fingers of the Fates;

223

But if she should be all too weak to wait
To meet me at Death's lonely garden-gate,
Let it be so— I lay no vows upon her;
Let all my gifts of happy olden time
In such case still be hers, with this my rhyme,
My wreath of death-song, last of all I'd don her!
But take away, sweet brother mine, and keep,
The ring I gave her with my name therein,
If so be she, my queen, should count so cheap
The heart that once she thought it wealth to win,
Because it beats beneath the ground—I love her!
And wings of mine may, who knows, wave above her,
And, if she but be true, we may discover
Some gate by which to Heaven to enter in!”

Founded, literally, on a letter purporting to have been written by one of the Greek Brigands to his wife on the eve of his execution. I do not know whether the reported letter was true or not, but it was quite beautiful enough to be true.

224

A LITANY

FOR THE USE OF THE MEN WHOM THE CHURCHES HAVE IN THIS AGE CAST OUT.

God, God, what does it all mean,
All this agony of being?
Surely, Thou dost not rejoice
Mankind's misery in seeing?
Send us some sound of a voice,
Send us some avenue of fleeing.

If there is Purpose in the pain,
Scourge, till we faint beneath the rod,
Waken us, and scourge us again;
If Thou art our Mother O God,
Not one of us will complain,
Hell we will traverse unshod.

225

Beauty is the thing that we require—
Beautiful if Thou canst make
Us men and women by fire,
Then over us fires rake,
Such is thy children's desire,
They will not blench neither quake.

Heat we can bear and the pain of it,
Cold of the ice-cold lake,
Are we assured of the gain of it,
Souls in our hands we will take,
If we suspect but the bane of it,
Limbs of us quiver and shake.

One thing Thou lovest and mortals,
Beauty—and Goodness and Truth;
Towards these open Thou the portals,
Spare not, make away with ruth,
So that to us in the end falls
Beauty of Holiness in sooth.

226

Purposeless pain we outcry at,
He were a Fiend not a God,
He that should issue his fiat
For application of the rod
Only for torture, we sigh at
But love not the might of his nod.

Nay if He be, we defy Him,
Turning to worship a man,
Some one, the best we can find,
He that is least of us blind,
Strongest, and purest of mind,
With Godhead at once we supply him.

But, if Thou art, O our Lord,
And if Thou lovest us, well—
Lead us through horrors of hell,
World-wide conflagrations to quell,
As sheep follow a bell
We will follow the flame of Thy sword.

227

HYMN

AT SUNRISE OF THE THEISTIC ‘PILGRIM FATHERS’ LANDING ON THE SHORE OF A NEW FAITH— THEIR ‘TE DEUM LAUDAMUS.’

At Last, thank God, the watchers on the mountains
Tell us that far off flush the streaks of dawn,
Again are flowing long-forgotten fountains,
From out the ether long-lost sounds are born,
On all sides round about us are appearing
Signs, and faint flowers of Thought not seen before,
And hope there is that we at last are steering
Our Planet Vessel to the looked-for shore,
That all these weary centuries of waiting
At last, it may be, quicken to an end,
And rolls the Race towards its final state in
That groove in which its way it has to wend
Through all the glorious future harvest years
When tree of life of ours its blossom bears;

228

When sons of men who long have been enduring,
Waiting the sunrise, bound in bitter thrall,
Eyes bent upon the ground, their heads obscuring
With poured-out ashes, faces to the wall,
These, who endured the agony of anguish,
And all the strain and struggle of the fight,
Sweet pale girl faces, prisoners who languish
Peeping between the prison bars of night,
And all that mighty host in tribulation
Now longing, well nigh hopeless, for the morn,
Shall feel at last a thrill of jubilation
As sounds from out the foremost watcher's horn
Signal that in the east the morning sun
To assail the realms of darkness has begun;

229

Shall raise their heads, and looking each to other,
Each holding out to each a happy hand,
Say, “Dreams of ours are over, sister, brother,
At last upon the continent we stand,
Awake, firm-footed, finding things we dreamed of
In daylight wear an even happier hue,
Finding the things our hearts the surer seemed of
Are verily the truest of the true,
Finding that better after all is daylight
And pale blue skies and breezes of the morn
Than dreams engendered by the broken stray light
From clouded moon-rays o'er the ocean borne
To us the humble watchers upon earth
For the Great Planet of the Future's birth;

230

“The higher were the thoughts of us aforetime
The purer and the truer now they seem,
The sorrows undergone in our sad sore time
Like smoking torches far behind us gleam
Just marking the old margin of the darkness
And making clearer light in which we stand,
Of agony if we had had one spark less
Our lanterns had not lasted to the land
And we had lingered on, for ever moaning
Across the billows of an angry sea,
Wind blowing off the foam of our strong groaning
Without a haven into which to flee,
But now, secure upon the Sacred Shore,
We laugh at waves that mocked at us before;

231

“And ah God! how we love our friends and brothers
Who, hand in hand together, sailed the seas,
Not resting on the land, content as others
By deputy to inhale the ocean breeze,
But strong to sail alone the ocean spaces
Ploughing the deep blue furrows flecked with foam,
Not crying, like children lost in lonely places,
‘We are lost—where are we—find us—take us home,’
But crying rather, ‘helmsman, we will forward
Where most of all are dangers that devour,
We are not landsmen to be frightened shoreward
In terror at mere mention of a shower,
Where waves are deep, and flies the fiercest spray
There, helmsman, lies for us our lonely way;’”

232

—Dark nights for these, and long lone hours of watching,
Cold hands upon the tiller through the night,
Like schoolboys counting hours, their knives notching
Slow spaces of approach of morning light,
And backward looking o'er the ocean-spaces
To hearts of friends who stay at home on shore,
And dreary midnight thoughts of lost embraces,
And weary pulling at the weary oar,
And doubts if after all the labour boots them
And wiser after all are those at home,
Doubts which arise though mouth of no man moots them,
Mouths tightly set with stern resolve to roam
Onward, aye ever onward to the end,
Though arms wax feeble, and strong oar-blades bend;

233

Bend wearily, as bend above the handles
Bowed breasts of the once eager-hearted band,
Faint light upon them thrown from lantern candles
That here and there among the benches stand,
Just making visible the outer ocean
Flinging on all sides angry spots of spray,
And shadows, as it were, of hands in motion
To rend the boat in splinters as a prey,
Great giant shadows, flung from out the blackness
Hanging around them, heavy, like a pall,
And walls of water right across their track, less
Easy to climb than cliffs of granite tall,
All these, and other horrors bar the way
Of passengers from twilight unto day;

234

But unto these few, in that they still trusted,
And bore their heads up 'mid the seas of scorn,
And kept their helmets bright, and swords not rusted,
And shields untarnished, neither banners torn,
To these is given to see the first faint flushing
Of sunrise ushering in the future day,
And bright cloud-clusters o'er the ether rushing—
Eyes strained to catch the first faint rosy ray,
And lips apart, and nostrils all expanded,
Strung to inhale the savour of the breeze
From off the hay-fields, sweet to men new-landed
From over barren breadths of scentless seas,
Odours of home that bring the hot salt tears
To hardy eyes that have not wept for years;

235

For all the old loves in the sweet new morning
Seem stronger still, and better than before,
Besides that many a new love has been born in
The dreary long time since we left the shore,
Loves now are wingèd that before were wingless,
And lips are rosy that were pale of old,
Dost think that any bird of song would sing less
If broken down were bars of cage that hold,
That cheek of maiden would not bloom the fairer
For keen embraces of the rough salt sea,
That rosy flowers of flesh would be the rarer
If torn from out hot flower-pots, fresh and free,
Full free themselves to wander, and explore
Dim visions only seen as yet from shore?

236

The birds are free, and all the fields and flowers,
And flying clouds, and spaces of the air,
And foam-bells flung from off the seas in showers,
And seaweed floating, like long waving hair,
The insects all are free, the world of creatures
That underlies our own on every side
Have faces fair, with no distorted features,
On wings of nature, fetterless, they ride,
And hard it is to see why man, the noblest,
Should tie himself by senseless iron chains,
Man, who, of all the creatures ought to know best
That Liberty is, truly, She who reigns,
While all the other queens are fitful shades
Their worship only a fond dream that fades;

237

Around us, yesterday, the skies were raining,
And we were all enswathed in driving mist,
And eyes were sore, and heavy hearts were straining,
To-day by happiness our souls are kissed;
We stand upon the summit of the mountain,
And see the fair green valleys far below,
And many a silver stream, and many a fountain,
And many a league of blossom white as snow,
Bright spots are here and there, laburnum clusters,
Whose slender fingers drip with yellow rain,
And red and white horse-chestnuts, stalwart musters,
And sheets of purple lilac strew the plain,
For face of morning that upon us gleams
Is wreathed with smiles of spring-time as it seems;

238

The world then, after all, is not a medley,
A chaos of twisted snakes that intertwine,
A seething mass of human heads, a deadly
Fermenting flask of every kind of wine
Mixed at haphazard, but a fair great picture,
Complete in every part from side to side,
Open to keenest glance, severest stricture,
Of men within it—many-coloured, wide
Enough to satisfy the largest craving,
With many a nook and corner for the small,
Its floor with inlaid land and water paving,
And roof of ether, stainless, over all,
On all sides round about, beneath, above,
Clasping the whole in soft strong arms of love.

239

RELIGIONISTS.

Let us fix our eyes upon distant skies,
And turn from a world that in wickedness lies,
Let us flee, let us pray, let us hurry away,
For the maw of the devil is big, say they;

Let us crucify flesh, the devil's own mesh,
And fly from his states and turn “Secesh,”
'Tis a very bad thing for sinners to sing,
Slow psalms are the tunes that happiness bring;

Aside let us shove soft savours of love,
Laid up for us all are treasures above,
Rose-lips of delight are not for a knight
Enamoured of flowers of Paradise bright;

240

Bodies of clay were built for a day,
Here upon earth for a minute we stay,
Yet it is true that only a few
Shall pierce to the height of the Heaven of blue;

All the rest in the fiery nest
Of Gehenna are laid by the devil's behest,
We upon high look down from the sky
Upon neighbours and friends that in agony lie;

Theirs is the blame, they never came
To our Church, and visited now by shame,
Each shall repent that his ears he lent
To temptation, and over the broad way went;

Upon earth in pride these sinners deride—
Poor puffed up people!—saints who have sighed,
Now let them see that happy are we,
From the pit not one of them forth can flee;

241

Babes are there, the devil to spare
Is seldom wont, and all who dare
To impugn his will the fire shall kill,
And breath of them power of his shall spill;

Let us all rejoice, let us lift our voice,
We that have made the righteous choice,
We are inside, and these that defied
Our warnings given to the depths have hied;

Not to return, for ever to burn,
Each that Religion on earth shall spurn,
In the depths of the pit, by hammering hit
Of the fiends, and fires of agony lit.

242

THE AGONY OF THE AGE.

Horror of darkness, agony of craving
And straining after what we cannot see,
Bound hand and foot, fast, powerless to flee,
One moment dumb with stupor, wildly raving
The next, a maddening memory still saving
Deep down within some ancient recollection
Of life and love and laughter and affection,
Green fields and flowers and leaves and branches waving;
Pierces the walls of e'en this hideous prison
A ray of light, a memory of the sea
Dancing beneath a summer sun new-risen,
Risen for all things else, not risen for me,
A dream, a vain mirage, a vanishing vision,
That leaves the dark a deeper dark to be;

243

A consciousness of misery, and of gladness
A pale faint shadow that seemeth æons old,
A dream that's talked about, a tale that's told,
A dim delusion, echo of all men's madness,
Their refuge from the pelting storms of sadness,
A hut, a furze-bush on a lonely wold;
Short time it shields them for the walls are rolled
Asunder, and reality that had less
Pity than foe that waits to gather force,
Beats hard upon them, and they fold their arms,
And take it as the merest matter of course,
And close their eyes, and see the wondrous charms
Of Beauty fade and fall without remorse,
And all the might of men, and war's alarms,
And warrior's ecstasy, and love that strengthens,
And strainèd hour of battle life that lengthens,
And sink beneath a weight of windless calms;

244

At times they rouse them, rise, and feebly wonder,
“What was it—where is it—can it be true—
The life we lived, the work we used to do,
The open sea, the sky, the clouds, the thunder,
The piled-up heaps by lightning torn asunder
With intermittent glimpses of the blue,
The force of freshness when we rose anew
The purse of each new day's delights to plunder?”
Raising their heads and looking each to other,
Resting a weary brain on weary hand,
Each says to each, “do you believe it, brother,
Is it a dream, or was there such a land,
A land of love, of sister and of mother,
Have we lain here for ever, did we stand
Once fair among the foremost doing battle,
Rejoicing in the roaring and the rattle,
Or is it all a desolate waste of sand?

245

“Whose fault is it, why is it we are sleeping
With weary heads upon the yellow sand,
A circle of sleepers, an inactive band,
Stiff as the stony circle that is keeping
Mute watch at Stonehenge, while the world is weeping,
Laughing, enjoying, tasting tears and sorrow,
And mirthfulness to-day and death to-morrow,
And times of birth, of sowing and of reaping?
Were it not well at least to have a part
In action, to immerse oneself in living,
Though action brought with it a keener smart
Than Buddhist feels his conscious life upgiving
To the Infinite Soul, to mingle in the mart,
And drink one's fill of struggling and of striving?

246

“But who will set us free? the winds are free,
The waters rise and fall for very gladness,
The evening pang, the shadow of sunset sadness
At morning advent fades in infinite glee,
The leaves pass kisses on from tree to tree,
The summer brings a sound of happy lovers,
An everlasting tunefulness that hovers
High on the hills, and shines upon the sea;
The Universe is Happiness—but we,
Striving in vain to tear away the chains
That circle us, the more acutely see
Our own consuming atmosphere of pains,
Long only the more maddeningly to flee,
The more triumphantly the sunshine reigns
Without us, the more ecstasy in the sky,
The more would we weave wings for us and fly,
But back we sink exhausted on the plains;

247

“Black plains of horror, destitute of greenness,
Brooding above them lowers a lurid sky,
We gasp, and, could we, willingly would die
If but to escape the visions of uncleanness
And tear aside the rags and robes of meanness,
The rags that flutter around us as we lie;
The silence, piled upon us mountains high,
Burns in upon our brainlessness, sereneness
Of Infinite Atmosphere towers above our faces,
We sink into ourselves and fall for ever
And find no footing in the void, endeavour
A something sometimes seen in distant places,
A creature of the fancy, or a star
At times appearing dimly from afar,
While Hope, the Rainbow-Goddess, leaveth never
Of passage of her train the tiniest traces.”

248

A NINETEENTH-CENTURY “EPITHALAMION.”

IN THREE PARTS.

“My darling, do you care for me at all?”
“I only love you, sweet,” the maiden said,
He answered not, but slowly sank his head
Upon the breast his being held in thrall;

A time of sacred silence, and of rapture,
And giant thoughts that round the planet roll
And dance from star to star, and chase and capture
Echoes of the Universal Soul,
Of race-horse thoughts that pant from pole to pole,
And skim the ages, and returning pour
The wealth they've gathered on time's shelving shore

249

At feet of her their master bends before;
The cup of ecstasy can hold no more,
It groans for very fulness, seething o'er
It floods with flowers the encircling floor,
Passion the chrysalis must find a door
To free herself, and now the kisses rain,
Till pleasure sinks into the lap of pain,
Thence to arise, strong to receive, again;

250

Rejoice ye stars and heights of windy ether,
And pass the message on from hand to hand,
The Queen of air has stooped to wed beneath her,
Love leads the Goddess of the sea to land,
With hair of hers she weaves a silken band
To link the seas of sunrise and of sunset,
By no one has such sovereignty been won yet
Of sister nymphs that haunt the ocean strand!

Take up the message, wind, and waft it over
The waste of waters, hearken waves of blue,
Babble about the secret of a lover,
And bear a name to coasts and countries new,
The name of her to whom a reckless rover
Resigns himself, henceforth strong, steadfast, true!

251

Resigns himself, resigning each to other
With loss of self the essence of the soul,
Commingling into one white wondrous whole
Embracing love of father, love of mother,
With all the ancient love of sister, brother,
The carpet of the future they unroll,
Before them love lies outlined in a scroll,
And live delights the laughing days to smother;
They see before them traced in wondrous fashion
A shadowy record of what is to be,
Vales of endeavour, sunlight, heights of passion,
Ecstatic glimpses, raging of the sea,
While all the further end beyond unrolled,
Melts mistlike into one wild wave of gold;

252

And hand in hand together they will wander
Through all the shady roadways of the land,
Till hand in hand together they shall stand
Upon the snowy summits that are yonder,
Now pressing onward, pausing now to ponder,
At times she stoops to pluck for him a flower,
The fairest she can find, a gift, a dower,
A dower that each of other leaveth fonder;
As mind, and love, and life of each expands,
While individual passion groweth stronger,
It widens, reaching out to other lands,
And, not the less intense, becometh longer,
With eyes of light that look beyond “the yonder,”
High as the hills, a wealth too great to squander,
Binding the earth together in broad bands.

253

Words fail me; would that I could paint the wonder
Of young souls met together on the earth,
The growth of Giant passion, and the birth
Of Love, that I could clothe my pen with thunder,
That I could tear the sunset robes asunder,
And paint with every colour of the sky
The splendour of young love before I die
And face the dark, and pass Death's gateway under;
I faint, I fade, I cannot reach the meaning
Of earth or air, of sea, or sky, or land,
Bewildered in the centre, drowsily dreaming,
While all the air with countless colours streaming
Intoxicates with ecstasy, I stand,
Afraid to move, afraid to raise a hand,
Lest I disturb the Incense cloud around me slowly steaming!

254

The joy that trembles at itself, the rapture,
The keen pursuit, the glimpses of the goal,
The more than mad delirium of the soul
Realizing possibility of capture,
The dreams at night as gorgeous as stories
Of old Arabia, visions, sunset glories,
The thought that after all it may be true,
That woman's love may yet be left for you,
—And dim delights of dark and morning rapture—
The Past and Present on for ever flowing
Towards a Future time more glorious still,
With speed of light the lightsome minutes going,
With speed of sound the hours that work their will,
A Righteous Willing, one with inclination,
And Universe of Life, and world's rotation,
And every sunlight shaft, and wandering rill!

The notion runs throughout of the whole Universe of Things partaking, with an almost conscious sympathy, in the happiness of the happy lovers.

255

PANTHEISTIC EFFUSIONS.

WHAT THE DEAD MAN SAW.

I am lying dead, deep down beneath the ground,
Choked out from hope of loving, or of living,
Hope of achieving aught, receiving, giving,
Cold, motionless, alone, in graveclothes bound,
All voiceless in a realm without a sound,
A flash of memory at times reminding
My soul with bitterness, black, biting, blinding,
Of joys that once alive on earth I found;
I sometimes seem to see the sky as clearly
As ever, a happy child, I used to do,
The birds and flies and flowers I loved so dearly,
The broad green seas of grass, the arch of blue,
The dream, departing, grazes me so nearly
'Tis hard to believe it baseless, bald, untrue;

256

I find that I can still rejoice a little,
Can still delight me in the life of others,
Warm souls upon the earth, my moving brothers,
In love the bubble, beautiful but brittle,
Can still take pleasure in the thought that ever
Life streameth onward, hurrying, loitering never,
Its surface bearing fair white lily kisses,
And sound of sighs and songs, and woes and blisses,
Fierce flame of battle, failure, strong endeavour,
Meetings that madden, partings souls that sever,
Glimpses of heaven, weeping, wild embraces,
Horrors of hell beneath, pale praying faces,
And gleams of light from distant dazzling places,
Glories that beckon onward, rainbow traces,
Free heights of ether, snowy mountainous spaces,
And Hope with wings, and eyes that smile for ever;

257

The stream flows on though I have ceased to be,
Flows over, under, through the conscious me,
Expanded, widened out upon the tide,
Free from encumbrance, fetterless, I ride,
And float towards the universal sea,
I feel the life of leaves, the grasses growing,
One with the sower, in the seed he's sowing,
Fulfilled with joy of harvest and of mowing,
Partaker of the May-fly's dance of glee,
I sip the honey with the humble bee,
An antelope, I leap along the sands,
And, like a lion, pace the lonely strands,
In death I've found at last to life the key,
One mighty blood pulse beats throughout the whole,
One Central Heart, one Universal Soul,
One Vital Force of all the lives that be;

258

Along the polished graven groove of space
In harmony the planets run their race,
And tides of suns and starry clusters roll,
The power that runs the race we call Free Force,
Limitless fields of ether form the course,
Each sun and moon a bounding burning horse
Moving melodiously beneath control,
A music sounds across from pole to pole,
Beating a burthen out of sultry sands,
Ringing the changes on the frozen lands,
Dissolving, forming, joining hands in hands,
Bringing the severed sons of men together,
The extreme southern shores of rainless weather,
The regions where the glittering iceberg stands,
In one soft silken Universal Tether
To link the scattered skeins of separate nations,
Their planet homes, their lands, their several stations,
Convolving into one triumphant whole,
As seethes the rich red wine within the bowl,
And foaming, flashing, slowly settles down;
The end is worthy, such an end shall crown

259

The writhing long-drawn serpent of the ages,
The many-volumed roll of history's pages,
Smoothing right out at last creation's frown!

II.

I wonder whether I shall ever arise,
And join the ranks of men that work and fight,
And reach again the region of delight?
Far off from me the land of labour lies,
Hope faints, and, fading into daylight, dies,
Once rosy as the sunset, and as bright
As the May moon that sails the seas of night,
At morn before the great sun frigate flies;

Though I am dead life flows around, above me,
I find some comfort in its ceaseless flow,
I hear the voices of the men that love me,
They reach me lying, silent, far below,
The grasses wave above my funeral mound,
And love bears blossoms even underground.

260

A COOL WET RIPPLE.

I lose myself in all the life around me,
A cool wet ripple adown the stream I go,
I widen out to meet the hills that bound me,
The horizon hills that bound my being's flow,
Softly I melt me out into the ether
All bathed about, without, within, with air,
And sink into the earth, and dive beneath her
Green surface-garden, blossoming, broad and fair,
Along the branches brown I stretch my fingers,
My finger tips pervade the points of leaves,
Awake, aware of the warm life that lingers
In the midst, the leafy soul that sings and grieves,
Stirring the sap within the various veins
With vegetable rapture, pangs and pains.

261

THE HOME OF LOVE.

Where is the home of Love? Upon the mountains
Amid the icy peaks and slopes of snow,
Or in the soft green valleys far below,
Where willows' tresses trail in crystal fountains?
Haunts he the homes that stud the sandy reaches,
The white-washed walls where fisher-folk abide,
Shaken at every rising of the tide,
The dim expanse of shore, the gravelly beaches?
Men seem uncertain; one there is that teaches
That “Love is of the valley,” I think rather
To every place and person he is father,
Though diverse are his forms, and ways, and speeches;

262

He dwells, methinks, in every bower of roses,
And peeps from out each petal of a flower,
Into the essence of the scent his power
Impressed pervades the waves and widths of air,
From point to point his balmy breath to bear,
Laden with sweets of all the world of posies;
Along the winding paths of woods he walks,
And with the strawberry gatherers he talks,
And hides himself within the yellow stalks
Of corn, in seas of grass his head reposes,
In petals of pimpernel his eyes he closes,
Atween the curtains red secure he dozes,
And all his panting pale pursuers balks;
I've seen him seated all the livelong day
Astride upon a scented seat of May
Thrilling right out from thence his roundelay,
And heard him in the night upon the seas
Laugh in the blithesome laughter of the breeze,
And shout a-sailing on the watery way,
When he will shine upon us none can say,
Nor where, 'tis “as his majesty doth please;”

263

Sometimes, upon some merry summer morn
From out a night of silvery silence born,
The hills are startled with his hunting horn
And all the crimson spaces of the dawn
With sounds of life and light are sudden filled,
While all the strings of melody are thrilled
That right across creation's gulf are drawn,
Like gossamer spiders' threads across a plain,
Or air-dividing tiny threads of rain,
Or streaks the canvas of the sky that stain
When sunset's scarlet flames have riven and torn
Its smooth white surface; sometimes in the night
When all the waves are dancing, laughing light
Melodious music underneath the moon,
Ripple after ripple melting into tune,
Love sends upon the soul a sudden swoon,
And, losing self, across the seas one goes,
While all the life of love about one flows,
Along the veins in giant throbs and throes

264

The hot blood pulsing, at one gasp of sight
This Universe of mute mysterious might
Flaming across one's vision, all the ages
Read by the light of lightning, history's pages
An open scroll, all wisdom of all sages,
The sources whence pale Passion's river rages,
The roots of that Great Tree whose leaf assuages
Our mortal agonies, and for ever wages
With evil one continual winning war;

In slow procession through our eyelid portals
The story of the loves and hates of mortals
Streams endlessly, and all the loves that are
And shall be, piercing through the silent spaces
Our eyes behold at once the world's embraces,
The hands that pray, the passion of all faces,
The circle of caresses, tear-drop traces,
Hope's chariot around the world that chases
The steeds of dark Despair, the wars of races,
We hear the sound of kisses in all places;

265

And, hand in hand with Love, from star to star
We dance along the railroad rays of light,
Cleaving, as if with arrow's fiery flight,
The abysmal sacred silences of Night,
Finding in every moon the self-same story,
With golden sheaf of similar human glory
The glorious heads of solar systems crowned,
We span the spaces star from star that sunder,
And all the cloudy home of Monarch Thunder
And bright-eyed Lady Lightning his fair spouse,
[The Queen of those that kiss—her kisses slay,]
Lies bare before us, in the air around
Mighty orchestral choruses resound,
From off the surfaces of spheres that bound
Alive along the windy ways of space
Flung loudly and triumphantly; they rouse
The sleeping white-enfolded form of Day,
Who casts aside with rosy fluttering fingers
The star-bespangled robe of Night that lingers

266

Still here and there about the western sky,
And, opening wide his single sunny eye,
Across the fields of ether far and nigh
Sends glances hot the dews of dark to dry,
And gladden into scent the flowers that sigh
For his sweet coming, into song the birds,
And into motion musical the herds,
Smiling upon them with his festive face.

267

THE POET'S BRIDE.

Pleasant it is beneath a tree to lie
And, gazing upward, see the turquoise sky
Broken across by moving emeralds green,
Emeralds all blazing with the golden sheen
The sunlight casts upon them, every leaf
Of colour, green and gold, a shining sheaf,
Shining against the broad background of blue
That burns above and, parted, glistens through,
As though ten thousand maidens' bright blue eyes
Were peeping through the leaves in soft surprise,
Or eyes of fairies in a virtuous glow
Of anger at the mortal stretched below,
Inquisitive to search the mysteries
Deep hidden within the leafy hearts of trees;

268

Pleasant again to stretch one's being wide,
Unclothed, unfettered, out from side to side,
And, lengthening long arms, oneself at rest
In some soft, grassy, flower-scented nest,
To embrace the whole wide earth in clasp of love,
And feel her green arms slowly close above
Your sinking head, feeling as if you were
Slow-sinking in some scented sea of air,
Or rosy summer-quiet sunset-sea,
Clothed all about with mists of ecstasy;

Yea, the Earth is indeed the poet's bride,
A Queen for ever seated at his side.
Upon the fair broad billow of her breast
His head falls heavily and sinks to rest,
And she bends over him, his hot brow bathing
In her cool ether breath, his limbs enswathing
In wreaths of long-leaved blossoming grass and flowers,
Cooling her hero with the sound of showers

269

Down-shaken in the distance, breathing rest
In every rising of her gentle breast
And happiness in the downfall, now she twines
About his brow a bower of eglantines,
Or places underneath his sleeping head
Soft cushions woven of roses white and red,
Smoothing with gentle hands his grassy bed,
Now all her art for him the Earth combines
That scents of all her choicest garden flowers
By savour sweet may soothe his sleeping hours,
Building about him misty perfume bowers
From off the universe of blossoms shed;

O great Earth-Goddess, happy indeed is he
That man to whom thy beauties wedded be,
Though all men scorn him, Thou, the Earth, art wide,
And his alone art Thou from side to side,
For him buds, blossoms, flowers and fruits are born,
Wave goldenly for him long leagues of corn,

270

Forests and rivers, lakes and silent seas,
All shower drops, every whisper of a breeze,
The whole world's wealth of beauty, forms and flowers,
Sweet sounds and scents and sights and woven bowers
Of all fair colours interlaced together,
With all white wild delights of winter weather,
And bare-browed summer revelry, and spring's
Soft ecstasy when all the greenwood rings
With loud love songs of every bird that sings
And happy voices of ten thousand things
Bursting aside their ice-bound wintry tether;
All these are his, the Earth-Queen's bridal dower,
Her secrets all are in the poet's power,
Placed by her gently in his humble hands,
Sweet secrets that he only understands
Of all men, silent secrets of the sea,
Sad secrets some of things that hidden be,
And secrets soft hidden in the hearts of roses,
Others the deep green forest soul discloses,

271

Others again that smile from out the sky
When sunsets of November seem to dye
The clouds in scarlet, fading with a sigh
Of low wind bitter-breathed across the wold,
Like some bright meteor-life whose tale is told,
Into cold calm-eyed distances of grey,
Hot blue-robed summer secrets of the day,
And secrets of the night his Queen unfolds
To the poet, over him her white hand holds
The great unspeakable silence of the Dark,
Sacred, as some sweet maiden you may mark
From sunlight strong to shield her lover's head
Low lying beside her; from his happy bed
At dawn the Queen awakes him, from her breast
Raising him, right content therein to rest
For ever, and across the world she takes
His soul in great grand glimpses, lonely lakes
He sees beset by snowy mountains tall,
A blue sky burning constant over all,

272

And wide dim reaches of hot yellow sand,
And flowery visions of a verdant land,
Well watered, smiling, rich from side to side,
Intense in colour, next the dreamers ride
Along the edges of a creeping tide,
Out and away blue distances of sea
Into the infinite ether seem to flee
That sits upon the horizon like a throne
And claims the land and seascape for its own
Brooding above the whole, along the edge
Towers a wave-clomb, black-browed, beetlingledge
Of cliff, kissed here and there by lights of green
And white, deep-carven clefts pierce in between
As where some giant's chisel erst has been
Shining with soothing sound and silver sheen
Of rivulets drawn from out the rocky wedge;
At last he sinks into her arms and sleeps,
And she bends over him, and smiles and weeps,
Soft tears and smiles of Beauty born together
Like rain and sunshine in uncertain weather

273

Making a beaming rainbow of her face,
White arms she winds about him that embrace
His form as lovingly as arms of roses
Whose wealth of tenderness some wall encloses
With wreaths of flowers and leaves and rich perfume,
Or dark green ivy clusters that entomb
The trunk of some great weary prostrate tree,
She holds her servant safe from harm, and he,
Half conscious of the embraces of his bride,
Floats dimly down the sleepy fast-flowing tide
That runs to meet the quiet dreamful wide
Illimitable haven of the sea.

274

CHANGES.

It does not take very long
To change the colour of things,
A cloud that a storm-blast brings
Has blue behind, loud sings
The bird who before was strong
To scatter the wet from his wings;

A thunderous afternoon
Is oftentimes light as it grows
Towards eventide, Alpine snows
Gleam rosy on heights and blows
Blue gentian, under the moon
The mad sea softly flows;

275

Gleams from behind the clouds
At even, suddenly red,
The sun's great glorious head,
And light of his presence is shed,
Fast breaking the dun grey shrouds,
Across the waves that were dead;

Suddenly green and blue
Flecked with breakers of white
Gleams the ocean, a sight
To madden a man with delight
As the wail of the wind whistles through
His brain, and wakes in him might;

Falls upon sunburnt sails
A smile of the sun, and they shine,
Shine ruddy, the whole long line
Of fishing boats, mists of the Rhine
Gathered high when the sunlight fails
Scatter, ruins and rocks are fine;

276

Broad blue breadths of the sea
Change to a sullen grey,
For the light is taken away,
The clear white light of the day,
And the distances darken and flee
Far further, and thickens the spray;

But rises the sun in the morn,
And the shoals and the porpoises play,
And the grey mists quicken away,
And the rose-streaks redden and stray
In the east, and Beauty is born,
And rises a glad new day.

277

NORTH AND SOUTH.

Praise we the skies of the North,
And the grey long seas and the foam,
And the slope of the beach by our home,
And the mariners hard to roam,
Most lusty to issue forth!

Laud we the sands of the South,
The green sweet shores and the blue,
With a soft light shimmering through
Still waves that float a canoe,
That wash by the harbour mouth!

278

Praise we the arms of our men,
Most sinewy, muscular, lean,
Lithe bodies shapely and clean,
Long limbs that have wrestled and seen
A fierce hot race now and then!

Laud we our women and eyes
Very lovely, that after the day
Has burned its beauty away
Expand, plead, sparkle, and pray,
When the mists of the evening rise!

Praise we our fair-cheeked girls,
Red lips, and roses, and hair
For the most part golden, and rare
Blue glances cast here and there
Upon young unnoticing churls!

279

Laud we the pale clear brow
Of a passionate queen of the land
Where the olives and oranges stand,
And the myrtles, and hand in hand
The milk-white oxen plough!

Praise we a Northern flower,
Upright, strong, lady of light,
With modesty clothed for a might,
And eyes as the stars that are bright
When the long cold nights are in power!

Laud we a Southern maid,
With the fire and the sweet firm walk,
And the movements supple, and talk
Of a meeting soon where the cork
Trees furnish a suitable shade!

280

POWERLESS!

Sad to see but not
To be able alas! to do,
To see the thing that is new,
And know that this is what
They want, that this is true;

But not to be able to speak,
Though a man may struggle and sigh,
Though fire flash from the eye,
And fire burn on the cheek,
To be passed, inaudible, by;

281

To struggle as one in a dream
To burst the choking bands
Of unreality's lands,
To be and not to seem,
To loose the powerless hands,

But back again to be thrown
Into the old dark place,
We who had known the grace
Of Beauty, we thought, to moan
For a sight of her bright sweet face,

For a sight of her we adore
Piercing the gloom of the dark,
That we with wings of a lark
May rise the universe o'er
Grown small as a dim small spark,

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And shower down from the skies
Manifold gifts for men,
Light, and fire now and then,
Songs, and melodious cries,
Rocket-like flash of a pen—

Bitter it is, when our work
Is some such as this, to be bound
On earth, and here to be found
Feeble, seeming to shirk
Our duty, giving no sound.

END OF PART II.