The Marriage Before Death, And Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Diana and Francesco, two Republicans, are imprisoned by their opponents and condemned to death. They are thrown by chance or stratagem into the same cell in the Prison, on the night before their execution. Francesco, who is Diana's impassioned lover, implores on this last night, for a last blossom of sweet life, the bounty of her love. This, after much hesitation, grounded on the thought that to tarry for high angelic union entered into after death would be purer and better, she, trusting in heaven, gives him. And the pure utter passion and joy of it go far towards making Francesco, previously an infidel, save as regards his dream of an ideal earthly Republic, a believer in life eternal and in God.

Crowned with this strange last joy, and nobly exultant, they pass the next morning towards their death—“Not as those that have no hope.” And round them their companions sing their last chorus, not without something of a grim envy: though they too are content for the Republic's sake to die. For they pass not as these pass, from a couch of sweet-smelling roses to the black bitter grave; the scent of the flowers of love's sweet immaculate night hangs not round them, only the weird white philosophic or patriotic hope, in the strength of which they walk towards death, not groaning, if not rejoicing—but such a memory of unutterable and endless fragrance caresses and strengthens, girds and crowns, delights and glorifies these.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Diana.
Francesco—her Lover.
Chorus of Republicans.

Scene I.—In a large Cell in the Prison.

Diana.—
And so we die to-morrow. Oh, Francesco,
Why have they added torture to our love,
And love to torture?—why concealed us thus
In one same prison, and with these same bands
Confined us?—we who should be gladly cleaving
In some bright boat the bright and bounding waves.
We are to die: they say so; die to-morrow.
The fair Republic that we both do worship
Will be the richer by the blood of two
To-morrow; lordlier by the martyrdom
Of two sad lovers, stricken side by side.
But why enclose us not in separate cells
For this last terrible and bitter night?
Why heap upon the fuel of their rage
Fresh, hot, remorseless, glowing coals, that burn
The very inmost spirit? Yea, why disturb
My peaceful prayers and slumbers by the face
Of him I love so madly? My Francesco,
What feelest thou? Is it not bitterer yet
Than e'en the bitter knowledge of our death
To have to blend with this our cypress crown

Red roses of warm, living, breathing love?
To have, just when we would fix thoughts on heaven,
Or, turning to thine own strong hopeless creed,
On rest that lasts for ever—at that point
When all the soul, through agony prolonged,
And awful wrestling with its inner self,
Is reaching some high fatalistic goal
Of snow-white resignation, calm and clear,
Just then, at that grand moment, to be merged,
Yea, dashed, hurled, plunged within the resonant waves
Of earthly passion, foaming on the rocks
Of earthly iron cliffs we had left behind
For ever and for ever, as we thought?
Is this not hard?—though sweet flowers glitter through
Its tangled wood of trouble—hard, as if
Some sacred snow-white statue of a god,
Spotless, superb, as if from Phidias' hand,
Lost suddenly its clear, triumphant calm,
Becoming human, and so less divine,
Flushed now with roseate, breathing loveliness.
Bitter and painful as 'twould be for one
Who, climbing now, at last, the golden stairs

Of heaven, and halting on the topmost step—
With all the glorious plains of Paradise
Stretched wide before him—should be flung adown
Those high steps, on a sudden, by some hand
Remorseless, and for many an evil hour
Forced to re-tread the barren ways of earth.
Yea, hard as 'twas for dead, glad Lazarus,
E'en at the mandate of his Brother and Lord—
E'en for his sisters' and the people's sake—
Again to clothe himself in carnal robes,
And battle once more with the temporal wind;
Yet oh! my love, Francesco, it is sweet,
Sweet, passing sweet! to see thee even here,
And even thus.

Francesco.—
Oh! sweet Diana mine.
Hush! hide thy voice and hide thy face within
My bosom; 'tis alive and warm enough
To-night to shelter thee. Sweet! be not sad;
Be not dismayed; be rather great of heart,
And glad and most triumphant, for to-night
Shall see our nuptials: not with orange blossom,
And fair young girls for bridesmaids, and the stout,

True friends of the bridegroom crowding round his path,
But with the imminent shadow of foul death
To hover over us, and deepen joy,
Till it becomes a joy no marriage yet
Has felt—a pleasure adequate for gods.
Full many a year have lovers to declare
And to accomplish all their perfect love,
When fate smiles; we have but one single night:
Therefore to-night let radiant love be crowned—
Crowned, sweet Diana, with a wreath of flowers
Sweet as thine own sweet lips and thy sweet self.
See here, there is a small and tender plant,
Thin, scanty, white-flowered, climbing o'er the sill
Of this our prison window—let me wreathe it,
With many kisses, in thy dark rich hair!

[He approaches her.
Diana.—
Nay, nay, my lord and lover, be not rash,
'Tis not the time for fooling—think of death.

Franc.—
Nay, rather 'tis the time for adding warmth
To all the fuel of love that yet remains.

Diana.—
Sweet, let the sorry embers have their will;
But as for us, we'll light a flame in heaven.

Franc.—
Yea, lady, but the glittering match must first
Be struck on earth—I trust no fire of heaven.

Diana.—
The fire of heaven is an intenser flame
Than any scanty pallid passion of earth.

Franc.—
Try thou my lips, O lady—if they are cold,
Then sigh, and seek angelic lips in heaven.

Diana.—
Nay, loved one, 'tis thine own sweet lips I need;
But perfect-pure, angelic in their touch.

Franc.—
Angelic they will be when they touch thine:
Angelic and immortal never else.

Diana.—
How can I yield to thee? for 'tis to dash
The goblet of pure love upon the ground.

Franc.—
Nay, 'tis to fill it with a glorious wine,
And then to quaff that draught in triumph high.

Diana.—
Rather to poison with an earthly drug
The pure ethereal nectar of our dream.

[He approaches nearer.

Franc.—
How can I give thee up? If heaven is ours
'Twill be the brighter for Love's gift of flowers.

Diana.—
The flowers of heaven are sweet without our pains,
The songs of heaven are fair without Love's strains.

Franc.—
But fairer for the added voice of Love;
Let us, together chanting, pass above.

Diana.—
Together singing—but no earthly song;
Nay, darling, hinder not, for I was strong.

Franc.—
Strong, lady, only by forgetting me,
Now I am here, that bitter force must flee.

Diana.—
Nay, love, 'tis I remember things divine;
For life, through death, I am altogether thine.

Franc.—
I have no faith in heaven—no perfect gleam
Of joys to come;—grant me this perfect dream.

Diana.—
If I should give thee this much longed for flower,
Wilt thou believe in God—at this last hour?

Franc.—
I will believe in roses—and in thee:
No more can I foretell with certainty.

Diana.—
If thou art vouchsafed such high joy in this,
Wilt thou not trust the Lord for further bliss?

Franc.—
I will believe in thee and hope in heaven,
Which so superb a grace by death has given.

Diana.—
I know not clearly what may be may part:
I know but one thing: whither tends my heart.

Franc.—
Sweet, be not long considering—Death awaits
Our coming, just outside our Church's gates.

Diana.—
I have to dally with thee, for I know
That sometimes gifts of woman nurture woe.

Franc.—
There is but one woe—not to hold thee fast
As mine own bride—bride to the very last.

Diana.—
And what of death? the lips of death are cold.

Franc.—
But thine are warm—oh blossom of my dream.

Diana.—
Our destiny is clear, our life is told.

Franc.—
Not finished yet, remains love's sunset-gleam.

Diana.—
Is that a gleam to light a man to death?

Franc.—
Yea! light enough to glorify the tomb.

Diana.—
Poor is it—feeble, but a woman's breath!

Franc.—
Rather the full flame of a woman's bloom.

Diana.—
Is that a fire whereto a man may trust?

Franc.—
Yea! all the treasures of his inmost soul.

Diana.—
Soon will it flicker—soon be as the dust!

Franc.—
Ne'er will it cease man's spirit to console.

[A pause. She changes her tone.
Diana.—
Ah, love! Francesco, all the blossom white
And maidenly of my heart I give this night,
Not keeping any sweet flower back from thee.

[Francesco reaches forward and embraces her.
Franc.—
And I—I take it with a gladdened heart
That throbs with kingly triumph in each part
Like the full pulses of the storm-struck sea.

Diana.—
Be tender with me, I have none to aid me,
Be gentle now that thou hast all thy will.

Franc.—
Thou shalt not need a sister to upbraid me,
Our passion's wine no hasty hand shall spill.

Diana.—
Be glad that I will give thee all thou askest,
Not waiting heaven to give thee of my store.

Franc.—
Sweet, in the light of some pure God thou baskest,
Dark death may not divide us evermore.

Diana.—
It cannot sever, unless God be wroth,
That I am not to keep my virgin oath,
Giving myself too soon, on earth, away.

Franc.—
Nay, lady, there are debts that love doth owe,
And which to be paid must be paid below;
While yet we live, and yet 'tis called to-day.

Diana.—
Thou art my love!

Franc.—

Thou art my dove—
And my lady of dreams and of glory,
To-night is our bridal night,
To-night is our life's long story,
Our years of thought and delight.
To-night we must know each other,
Or never, never at all;
As lovers, as sister and brother,
In chains and in love's soft thrall.
All thoughts that lovers are keeping
For future pleasures and days,
Through our brains to-night must be sweeping.
To-night all songs and lays
Must sound—for never—oh, sweet one,
Shall any to-morrow's kiss
Atone for an over-fleet one,
Complete an imperfect bliss.

To-morrow our bodies shall moulder
And perhaps our spirits too,
The thought makes whiter your shoulder,
More crimson your lips' sweet hue.
Yea, fairer thou art, my lady,
As a dying beautiful rose;
Whose petals in grasses shady
The cold wind shakes as it blows.
Far fairer thou art and sweeter
For this one marvellous night,
Softer, whiter, completer,
More honey-like, bland, and bright;
More pure and more smooth and delicious,
More ripe and rosy to kiss:
For death with his glance suspicious,
Waiting to sever our bliss.
I love thee the more for the terror
That crowns our bridal with gloom,
Yea, further life were an error,
Seemly and fit is the tomb.
For a man when he kisses a maiden,
Sweet and pure as thou art,
Should die by pleasure o'erladen,
Stricken and pierced in the heart.
He should not live till to-morrow,

Having won one beautiful rose;
He should not tarry for sorrow
To smite, as a shower of snows;
He should not linger nor tarry,
Having kissed, having loved, having won;
His pleasure and joy let him carry
Beyond the setting sun.
Yea, life would hinder and spoil it,
The new-found, beautiful grace,
Mar and finger and foil it,
Dim the bloom of the face
Of love,—let lovers be wary
Of how they linger in life;
True love is cautious and chary
Of bliss; he carries a knife
To sever, and smite, and sunder
The passionate, glorious cords;
He strikes in a peal of thunder,
As lightning are his shrill swords.
If love abounds, and is ample,
Let lovers watch and beware,
Lest his following fast foot trample,
His following swift hand tear;
Lest all be over, or ever
The strains of joy were begun;

And the kiss be completed never;
And the first fair strands undone;
And the pleasures tarnished and broken,
In the midst of a loud wild wail;
Sweet whispers but half spoken,
Sweet faces suddenly pale,
Strong hands made suddenly weaker
Than wan waves under the dawn;
And soft lips silent and meeker
Than death, when the veil is drawn
Across some dear face shrunken,
Where once was a rose so red;
A flower that had eaten and drunken
To the full of the suns that are fled:—
But we, my lady, are safer
Than this. We need not fear;
Our life's seal is but a wafer;
The swift destroyer is near,
Who shall break the seal, and deliver
Our spirits, if such there be?
We need not quake nor shiver;
We cannot tremble and flee.
Yea, soon we shall know for certain
The wonder that lies beyond;
We shall peer behind the curtain

With glances tender and fond,
To see whether death be truly
The last destroyer, or no:
Whether life beginneth newly,
The river again to flow,
The water again to glimmer
In sweet blue ripples,—the foam
Again to sparkle and shimmer,
Fresh wandering feet to roam,
Fresh wondering eyes to wonder
At new-found marvellous scenes,
Fresh skies to threaten and thunder,
Fresh buds to broider the greens;
Fresh roses, red, and a glory,
To glitter along the ways,
Fresh May-bloom, fragrant and hoary,
To brighten the spring with its blaze;
Fresh friends to talk and to ponder,
Fresh lovers to laugh and to kiss;
Whether new joys wait for us yonder,
Loved one, fervent as this!

We shall know whether this one pleasure
Be surely, certainly, all;
Life's supreme meet measure:
Whether the fruit must fall

Being ripe now, perfect and rounded,
Red and sweet as thy lips!
Whether once God's mercy abounded,
Then that suffered eclipse.
Or whether beyond the thunder,
Beyond the stars and the waves,
Are yet new regions for wonder,
Built above sins and graves.
Whether yet beyond the roaring
Of Death's white terrible foam,
God waits preparing, out-pouring
Life—providing a home—
A home for lovers and sinners,
A home for patriots too—
So that through death we are winners
Of life, and of love made new.
But I—I build not a minute
Upon the uncertain hope
That may have no truth in it—
I face the axe or the rope
With eyes as fearless and steady
As those of the martyr who
Holds life but a stream or an eddy
Of heaven's broad seas of blue.

I go to my fate quite fearless,
For, lady, have I not thee,
Superb—so noble and peerless,
A blossom of purity;
Yea, have I not thee to guide me
Towards heaven, through death's cold stream,
To help and cheer, and to chide me
If I quail, though it be in a dream—
Have I not this perfect marriage
As a red, red rose to wear—
A scaffold for bridal carriage,
But—the fairest bride of the fair.
The fairest flower of flowers,
The loveliest gift of days,
The choicest guerdon of hours,
Surely I can but praise,
Praise fate, praise heaven who grants me
Just at the point of death
A flower whose bloom enchants me,
A blossom of so sweet breath
That all the swords and the trouble
Darken, and disappear—
Death's waves are smooth, not a bubble
Breaks, though death be near.

All is peace, and a shining,
Glad, fair road to the stars;
Or to a rest unrepining
That no black enemy mars—
All is peace—O flower
This thou hast brought to me,
Hope in the last wild hour,
Joy in extremity.
If not faith, yet a glimmer
Of sweet glad faith in God;
My pathway had been dimmer,
No star had flashed on the sod,
If thou, O woman, O blossom,
Had'st not so tenderly saved,
By the balm of a snow-white bosom,
By the banner of joy thou hast waved:
By gifts so perfect and ample,
That all my heart is a flame
Too large for death to trample,
Too bright for the sword to shame.

Diana.—
And I am content, O love,
That this fair joy should be;
God's gift it is from above—
God's sweet gift given through me.

As yet thou seest alone
The humble minister—me;
Not God on His great gold throne,
No bright futurity;
But be thou sure that God—
The great fair Lord and King,
Lord of the earth's bright sod,
Who broodeth with bright gold wing
Above each glimmering place
Like a glittering faint fair star—
Will show thee His grand pure face
Ere thy spirit has wandered far
Beyond the river of death.
Like a pure rich fire He may come,
In the wind's clear outpoured breath,
In a rose's red rich bloom,
In my own risen voice
Perhaps—or another's tone;
I know not;—thou shalt rejoice
In the pleasure of God, mine own.
Thou shalt find the Lord of Hosts,
That His glory is no sick dream,
Nor His ministers faint sad ghosts,
Nor His heaven a mere stray gleam;

Thou shalt find it sweetly true;
Thou shalt step within the gates
Health and life to renew;
For the holy Lord God waits,
Francesco, yearning for thee,
Francesco—longing to bring
Thy spirit in purity
Within the courts of the King.
I hold that our love is nought,
An adulterous woman I,
Had my heart a foul thing brought,
A passion fated to die—
I hold no love of avail
That lives not ever within
God's holiest temple's veil,
Made pure from each taint of sin—
Pure as the Christ is pure,
Too strong for death to hold,
Able a life to secure,
And a love that turns not cold.
Thou art strong to die for the sake
Of the fair Republic—think—
Thou art willing to walk to the stake,
Of a fiery death to drink,

For truth and for thine own soul,
Without the help of a creed;
To reach such a sweet high goal,
On Calvary Christ did bleed.
Yea, God then suffered to win
For Himself, for a pure white bride
The whole earth gathered in
To His gathering heart, to His side.
Not for a nation He
Did suffer death on the Cross,
But for every shore of a sea,
For all peoples—without the loss
Of a single straggling one—
That He might claim in the end
Each lover of truth for a son,
Each warrior-soul for a friend.
So He set an example high,
Not dreading the cold foul death,
Not flinching really to die,
And be utterly void of breath;
No pictured death was His,
No faint similitude,
But a death as real as this,
That to-morrow, with anguish rude,

Shall try and test our hearts,
Whether we can endure or no
Hot agony's piercing darts,
Dissolution's icy throe.
God has tried it first;
He felt the hunger and pain,
The wild sick spasm of thirst,
The hot mad throbs in the brain.
The road we tread He has trod,
And the path is dim no more,
For the lamp of the passion of God
Was there as a flame of yore.
So doubt not, lover sweet!
That our death is but as a dream,
From which we shall wake to meet,
Having crossed the sad, cold stream.

[She kisses him tenderly, and gives him a red rose from her bosom.
Diana.—
This rose I give thee: they have spared it to me;
Upon thy breast to-morrow let it shine.

Franc.—
It is as fire from heaven to renew me,
Since, choicest rose of roses, thou art mine.

Diana.—
Now, let us part a season; all I told thee
I will without fail, ere the morrow, do.

Franc.—
Yea, sweet! for one sweet night I shall enfold thee
In passion's arms: give love one sweet long view.

Diana.—
Keep thou the rose; the living rose, soon dying,
Is not for thee till strikes the midnight bell.

Franc.—
Till strikes that hour, forlorn, I shall be sighing;
When strikes that hour, though doomed, it shall be well.

Diana.—
Remember, 'tis for Heaven's sake that I love thee.

Franc.—
Remember, 'tis for thy sake that I burn.

Diana.—
Remember, 'tis my trust that this may move thee.

Franc.—
Remember, 'tis through thee that death I spurn.

Scene II.—On the way to Execution.

—A large company of Republicans marching along; Diana and Francesco in their midst. They all sing:
Chorus—
We are passing along to our agony red;
We are doomed, we are stricken, made one with the dead.

Diana.—
Yet a hope doth remain.

Chorus—
For the people we die; for the people we go
Towards the swords that are sharpened, the faggots that glow.

Franc.—
But we heed not the pain.

Chorus—
There are two that have drunk of a pleasure so deep
That they heed not the time—they are sunk in a sleep.

Diana.—
We see clearer than ye.

Chorus—
A lover has played with the loose sweet hair
Of his lady so long that he heeds not the snare.

Franc.—
'Tis no trap set for me.

Chorus—
When love can make strong twain souls with his song,
And annihilate death by the bloom of the breath
Of woman, there's hope in spite of the rope,
And chance of reward in the track of the sword,
And pleasure to gain in the pathway of pain,
And a clamour of lyres in the midst of the fires—

Franc.—
And loveliest flowers in these last hours,
Rich roses in bloom round the sides of the tomb,
And a glory to save in the mouth of the grave—

Diana.—
And a God to defend at the uttermost end
And to raise from the dead—'tis to life we are led—
But a passing breath is the wind of our death;
The sun of our day shall abide alway.
So be of good cheer—deliverance is near;
Our Republic to save we pass to the grave.
Francesco, remember—thou hast thy rose?

Franc.—
On my bosom a peerless blossom it glows.

Diana.—
Dost thou fear? I fear not—I think not, at least.

Franc.—
Nay, lady! my vision on thee I can feast.

Diana.—
And I feast my vision on God most high;

Franc.—
And I upon thee—it is sweet to die;

Diana.—
Yea, sweet, for God and my lover are nigh;

Franc.—
Calm, lady, and clear is the glance of thine eye;

Diana.—

It is fixed upon God—it is firm and sure:
I feel that our passion and pleasure were pure;
I know that a love so intense must endure.

Sweet heart, good-bye!

TUA-TUA: or, ROSE-ROSE:

A Dramatic Poem,

IN THREE SCENES.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Tua-Tua: or, Rose-Rose. A Dyak Maiden, living in an island adjacent to Borneo.
Roco. A native of the island; in love with Tua-Tua.
Robert Campbell. An Englishman, wrecked on the island; also in love with Tua-Tua.
Chorus of Dyak Maidens, Chorus of Dyak Priests, English Sailors, etc.

Scene I.—In a Dell in the Forest.

—Sunset fading into night.—Roco, alone, singing to a strange discordant native instrument:
[Roco]

We love: not like the whites:—
The delights
Of love, if they fail,
We assail.

Lo! my lance
As the glance
Of a woman is bright:—
Lo! my sword
On the sward
I rest softly to-night.

Lo! I wait
For my fate,
And my fate waits for me;
And the god
And his rod
Wait for some one; 'tis she.

(The branches part, and Tua-Tua enters softly, coming down a woodside path slowly and carefully. She is pale, and trembles slightly. She looks round somewhat timidly, and, seeing Roco, advances.)

Tua-Tua.—
You sent for me.

Roco.—
I did.

[A pause. He says no more.
(Tua-Tua stands before him, her hands hanging folded in front of her, her eyes looking down)—
[Tua-Tua]
You sent for me.
[Another pause—longer.
You sent for me.

[Another pause—longer still.
(She turns, as if to depart.)
Roco
(with voice gradually growing louder and fiercer)—
I sent for you; and you—you know the cause.
Have I not seen you with the Englishman?
Have I not seen him growing day by day
Dearer, and felt that as he dearer grew
I, Roco, grew perpetually less dear?
Did I not see you kiss him?—yes, last night—
(You never kissed me so. I am not blind!)
Did I not see you give him the white blossom
Fresh from your hair? (You never gave me one!
I am not mad: I mark, I understand.)
[Raising his voice somewhat—
Now, Tua-Tua, here am I to-night,
I, Roco, your old lover—your old slave!—
Yes, so it used to be in the happy days.

Here am I, and I swear you shall not go
Till you have given me burning kiss for kiss.
Kiss me—if you can love me, all the better;
If you are not so gifted, all the worse:
Kiss me, you shall!
(Tua-Tua glances round once; then meets his eyes once without flinching, and looks down again.)
Kiss me.
Well; kissing is too much. Give me your hand.

Tua-Tua.—
I will not.

Roco.—
Then you shall kiss me.

Tua-Tua.—
No, Roco. Don't be foolish. I remember
As well as you the early happy days—
Happy they were—the boyish girlish days
Among the gaudy blossoms, by the streams,
Upon the hills. Don't let us spoil those days.
I have not changed: I gave you all I could,
I give you all I can—I have not changed.
'Tis you have changed—you are not the old Roco.
Come, be the old true Roco—be to-night
The glad, old honest Roco.

Roco.—
Kiss me, then.

Tua-Tua.—
Nay! that were not the glad old courteous Roco.

Roco.—
You do not know me, I have sworn an oath—
Vowed to the Fetish. Ah, you tremble now;
You know the nature of a Fetish oath.
Sworn to the Fetish either I will have
Your body living, or that he shall have
Your blood, your bones, your body—stabbed and dead.
By all our sacred gods the Englishman
Shall never have you; I will kill you first,
But through the Fetish—bloodier, fiercer death—
Kill myself—kill your lover—dye the world
In one broad, bitter, red, tremendous stream.
You do not know me; come, sweet lips, be wise.

Tua-Tua.—
You do not know me.

Roco.—
Yes, I know you well.
You are a bunch of flowers for man to kiss
And fondle with—No more, I think.

Tua-Tua.—
Just so.
Because I am a bunch of flowers—no more—
Why any gathered bunch will serve your need;

I'll pick you in the forest thousands such.
Aye, there are girls who are indeed not more,
Some, perhaps, not quite as much. There's Hadiflèe,
Ashan, Floriflua, Tetua, Honnimel,—
Why one of these might suit you. Let me go.
Roco, dear Roco, will you let me go?
I'll always love—not love—but honour you—
Pray for you at the altar of the gods.
[She stoops and picks a flower.
Here is a blossom for you—let me go.

Roco.—
Do you love me? Say it, and I will let you go.

Tua-Tua.—
Not that, not that. Here, take the blossom, Roco.
See how the white is garlanded with green.

Roco.—
Do you love me? Say it, and I'll let you go.

Tua-Tua.—
You do not mean this, Roco?—you're in play?

Roco.—
Do you love me? Say it, or—I shall not ask
Again. Do you love me?

Tua-Tua.—
I love you not.

Roco.—
Then by the altar of our sacred god,
I curse you, curse you, curse you, Tua-Tua;

I curse your lips that kissed the Englishman;
I curse your bosom that the Englishman
Had kissed—and fondled too—if you had let him:
I curse your luring voice, so subtle-sweet;
I curse your whole smooth body—fragrant now
As this smooth, shining flower I pluck and place
Within my mouth, and spit out to the ground
As soon the god shall spit your body out;
Fragrant no more, a burnt and withered thing—
Black, bleeding, horrid, sickly, nauseous, foul
Disgusting—palpitating yet from death,
From knives, and from the embraces of the priests.
Ah, girl, you don't know all; nor will you know
Until the sacrifice is all fulfilled—
Until upon the altar, panting hard,
Bound for the torture, fragrant for the knife,
You look straight up once—you will not look twice—
And see the passion in the hot priest's eyes
(The priest whose lot has fallen to him to have

The lone fruition of the sacrifice),
The lust, and love, and fierce religion mixed.
Ah, flower—ah, fragrant flower—fragrant for whom?
Not for your English lover after all.
Him, too, I curse, and all his haughty ways;
His high disdain of us—his spotless flesh—
His glittering eyes—his ever-ready sword.

Tua-Tua.—
Love?
Yes this is love. Oh, fool, I know you now,
And soon shall you know Tua-Tua. Fool,
Now I am strong: I am a girl no more,
A woman brimming over with my sex.
I love the Englishman, yes—love him—love him.
I love, love him—love him, love him, love him—
And you; why you I hate. Do you hear my words?
[Drawing nearer.
I hate you, you are but a wretched coward.
I hate you, and for all you have to say,
For all your cries and curses dread you not.
I love my lover, love his golden hair,
Worship the sea within his sea-blue eyes,

Worship a purity enshrined therein,
Of which he has taught me somewhat; every step
Of his fair feet upon our island grass
I follow in awe and worship; oh you fool!
Fool, wretched brainless heartless parrot-head
Ape-heart, and soul of shell-fish; go and seek
[Pointing sea-ward with her left hand.
Your like amid the coral and the weed
That shine beneath the sea there—go and search;
Do you hear me; go I say.

Or tarry here;
Yes, tarry here; it is the better thing,
Stay here and listen while a woman's voice
Laughs at you. Roco, do you hear me laugh?
Or are you deaf; struck deaf as well as fool?
You cannot hear me laugh—then see me laugh:
See the white, shining teeth I show at you—
I'll kiss you—kiss you with my pearl-white teeth.
Oh! I could grind them through your every bone
And laugh to see the blood spirt—foul thick blood,

Far, far too thick to spirt and splash, it must be;
But I am wild—am wicked; oh, blue eyes
Of my sweet lover, ye would now reprove!
For all my speech I've not forgotten you,
For all my wild and wayward speech, no whit,
No whit have I forgotten. Christ was calm,
They say; He answered not with anger thus;
Oh, help me, Christ! And as for you—you fly,
You fish, you Roco—I just simply hate you;
I spit you out as you spat out the flower.

Roco.—
And I, I curse you; go and talk of love
Now to your lover; kiss him gently—so.
[Picking another flower, and making believe to kiss it gently.
He only loves you for your beauty; when
The beauty's gone, the love will vanish too.
He'll fling you forth as I fling forth this flower,
And tread you, as I tread it, in the dust,
I go to bring to pass the Fetish doom.

Tua-Tua
(sinking down among the flowers, utterly exhausted).—
Ah, Robert! Christ! I do want to be good.
I have said too much.
[Then, half-rising.
I do so hate him! yet I love you more
Than I hate him; for you I could forgive him.

Christ help me! Robert help me! I must rest,
Must even sleep, it may be, for a little.
What was the prayer you taught me, Robert—words
About forgiving even one's enemies—
And surely Roco is a deadly enemy.
[She falls asleep on the grass, wearied out, saying—
I hate you Roco; yet love, love is best;
To Robert and to Christ I leave the rest.
Good-night.

Scene 2.—In the forest.

Robert Campbell and Tua-Tua resting upon a bank overhung with flowers, in sight of the ocean.
Robert.—
My dark-skinned beauty of the tropic wood
My “Tua-Tua,” “Rose-Rose,” flower of flowers,
Come nearer; lean a little closer—so.
Kiss me, sweetheart; nay, shrink not so away,
The seal of love in England is a kiss,
And all about my country you were once
Eager—on fire with eagerness—to learn.

A change has come, I know; this dismal Fetish
Has claimed you for a sweet voluptuous prey;
Your soft limbs, gathered on the altar dark,
In the grim austere valley of the god
Will shortly bleed beneath the bitter knife,
And all the priests who perpetrate the foul,
The foul, accursed superstitious rite,
Will laugh, and praise their high gods for the deed.
That black and grass-grown valley will be fair
With your warm, bounding, joyous, girlish blood;
And I—I shall return—or not return!
Pass home to England sadder, but more wise,
Having learned how superstition lingers yet
In these fair islands: how a priestly knife
At the instigation of a cowardly heart—
(For he is a coward; I must call him that!
Your lover, Tua-Tua, is a coward.
Coward he is, although his lifted hand
Smote the foul superstitious life away
From his own body, out of love for you—
What he calls love—in order to procure
The grievous Fetish vengeance; that, being dead,

And having with his final breath invoked
The Fetish curse upon your darling head,
He might, a spirit of spirits among the rocks,
A weird grey spirit among the weird dark rocks,
See all your red dear blood-drops trickling down,
Vowed for a pleasant offering to the god.
That was his vengeance! yea, that was his love!
His evil, dark-skinned love; the best that he,
Your lover and your servitor, could do!
Now what is English love; the fairer love,
Born under skies of which we used to talk,
And which I promised you should one day see?
Is it that piteous, self-seeking thing,
Which revels in the ruin of the soul
And body of the loved one, if her heart
Be given elsewhere—as your heart was given
Not to the pale self-murderer, but to me.
A man has died that you, my sweet, might die.
A man has died to kill. Can no one die
To bless and to deliver and to save?
White skin for dark—white heart for whiter heart,
Red blood for red blood—strength for supple power,

True man for woman: Robert for his love.
Lily for Rose; Lily you used to call me—
Do you remember? In that all my face
Was fresh with English breezes, clear and fair!)
What was I saying about my home just now,
Before your cruel lover crossed my mind?
Oh! that your death being over I might pass
Home to my country sadder yet more wise,
Having learned how superstition lingers still
In many an island of this wondrous land,
This Bornese Archipelago—how God,
In cleansing sundry corners of the earth,
By His own thunderstroke, from time to time,
Left this still evil, merciless, impure.
This I should learn, I say, and carry home,
A lesson burnt upon my brain and heart.
But, sweet, I will not leave you; Tua-Tua,
Rose-Rose—there must be some far fitter way,
Some hope, some swift avoidance, some escape.
Oh, for a British vessel, for stout hands,
Brave hearts of England, if but four or five,
To bear the painter and his lady-love—
His dark-skinned, perfect-bosomed lady-love—
Out to the breezes of the briny sea!
Oh, dark-blue ocean, rolling sultry waves

Upon the sand before us—oh, still sea,
Oh, heaving, purple, pitiless broad sea,
Unintermittent with thy monstrous waves,
That climb for ever on this snowy shore,
Swelling in awful squadrons without wind—
Take thou my cry to England. Oh, calm sea—
Take thou her cry to England—take our cry—
Let England's daughters, fair and white and sweet,
Hear this their sister, fair and dark and sweet,
(And me their brother, English-born and strong)
As on this island in the strange far sea
We face the imminent approach of death!
A death most horrid—fork-tongued, devilish.
Yea, as we wait—for who am I, to leave
My gentle, sweet love-lady to herself?
I will not leave her. Oh, my English land,
Oh, white far cliffs of England—oh, high shores,
Sweet grass and clover scenting English fields,
And all pure thoughts and converse of the free;
Oh, women of England, who shall hear our tale,
For nothing now is hidden in the end,
And men of England who shall hear it too
And feel your brave hands tingle for a sword—
Judge me, if this be not my path of right.

It is not suicide—it may be blessed
To some all-righteous and auspicious end,
But, if it be not blessed to worldly joy,
It shall be blessed to spirit-ecstasy.
For we shall die together, she and I,
Lips cling to lips upon the funeral pyre,
Breast cleave to breast beneath the heavy knife,
Spirit embracing spirit, seek the stars!
Oh, dear, far cliffs of England, fare ye well.
And welcome all ye valleys of fierce heat,
Ye tangled forests, strange and terrible,
Horrid with swamps, or grand with awful flowers,
Sweet as the centre of my Blossom's lips—
Welcome ye regions fathomless, wherein
My true love like some perfect butterfly
Gleamed first, a radiant shape, across my path;
Sweeter ye are to me because of her,
Fairer ye are to me because of her,
Than all the wind-swept, unscorched English glades.
Yea, Tua-Tua kiss me—art not thou
My sweet sea-breeze of England—my divine
Savour of clover, and the happy cliffs?
More art thou unto me than all these things;

These, more than these. And thine own glory too
Thou hast; the blossoms of this gorgeous land
Are all made doubly fragrant in thine hair.
Something thou hast within thy wondrous eyes
Of those clear wondrous heavens that arch the sea;
And all thy voice is silver as the choirs
Who crowd at early morn thine echoing woods.
See—kissing this red blossom thou hast twined
Within thine unsurpassable loose hair,
I swear I will not leave thee, though I die.

Tua-Tua.—

My love, my true brave-hearted English lover,
It is no use, unless indeed—but nay!
It is no use. What can my sweetheart do
Against a whole fierce tribe of armed men?
For all our tribe, from immemorial time,
Has given support and honour to the priests.
My lover died—he killed himself, and, dying,
Invoked upon me the last curse of heaven,
Devoting me to the Fetish; so I die.
Ne'er yet has one soul so devoted fled
The wrath of priests and gods; it would be impious!
True, thou hast told me of a softer creed,

Of Christ (is that the name?) with tender eyes,
And tender ministry of upraised hands,
Blessing, not slaying—saving, not destroying—
But He is far away; His face is fair,
I know it is, like thy face: it is clear,
And strong, and calm, and kingly; yea, His eyes
Have surely the sweet colour of thine own;
Blue, like the blue sea—and His hair is soft,
And gold, and long and wavy—like thine own.
Perhaps thou art Christ! thou art the Christ, to me,
To Rose-Rose—Tua-Tua; thou art her Christ,
Her king, her lord, her saviour—yet, my sweet,
King, love, and lord, and saviour—me, thy poor
And humble dark-skinned love, thou canst not save!
To-day we are free; no single soul to-day
Will interrupt; it is the custom here,
Like all such customs, faithfully observed,
That the last day before a woman falls
Stricken on the blood-stained altar to the gods,
She is given perfect freedom—and 'tis thought
That whoso spies commits an impious act.
She comes and goes as her own heart ordains.

Therefore to-day is ours: to-morrow theirs.
Kiss me, oh, English lover—kiss me hard,
Yea, so—and so—now kiss me yet again.
See how I take the blossoms from my hair,
All loose, and pouring downward to my feet,
My black wild hair, that you, my lover, love—
See how I take the blossoms one by one,
And twine them in the bright gold of thine own.
There, they look better now; the black hair spoilt them!
They needed thy bright locks and thy bright eyes
To show them. Ah! you are so beautiful!
And there are girls in England, are there not?
One day—not long to wait, for I shall die
To-morrow, and a ship will shortly sail—
One day they'll see you, call you beautiful,
Caress you, kiss you. Will they kiss like this?
And they are white and fair, with golden hair
And sea-blue eyes, like yours; you will forget
Your dark-skinned maiden in their tender arms.
Oh, England! country of my true heart's love,
Dearly I love thee, love thee for his sake;
Yet never shall I see thy green, cool shore,
But here amid the burning island rocks
Must perish, perish, perish—and alone!

Ah, Christ!—ah, gods of my own tribe and race!
Help me—oh! help me—patiently to bear.
Now listen lover: nothing can avert
The vengeance of the Fetish; but to-day
Is ours, and love's, and life's; hear thou this song—
I made it for thee—if my English falters,
Laugh not but only smile—my dying gift.
But rest thy gold head first upon my bosom;
See, I uncover it alone for thee.
I take away, I daughter of a king,
The ancient Dyak monarch of this wild—
I tear away the brazen close cuirass
And press thee—thus—to the naked, heaving breast
No eye of living man till now has seen—
Only the maidens, the attendant girls,
Bathing me daily in the crystal stream
That flows beside the palace; in the pool
Guarded, and fenced, and watched. But now press close,
Oh sweet, oh king of men, oh Englishman!
Take all I have to give thee for thine own.
Press close and listen:—

She sings:—

Leave, oh! leave me, lover dear,
Peril and swift death are here.
Kiss and leave me.
Blood-stained priests are on the track;
Swiftly fly and glance not back.
Heaven, receive me!

How I love thee who can tell?
Other maids may kiss as well
In other lands;
But, oh! the beating, burning heart,
Thine in its inmost every part,
Who understands?

Ah, sweet, sweet! I give away
Thine eyes of blue to eyes of grey;
Thy golden hair
To golden locks or locks of brown;
The gift Christ gave I must put down—
It was too fair.

Too fair, too fair for dark-skinned maid,
And therefore up the black sad glade
I have to go.
Alone, alone, apart from thee—
A girl's blood for a penalty
Must flow.

Farewell, farewell; but when you kiss
The next red mouth, remember this—

[Kisses him.

Remember me.
This lock of hair, this one red flower,
Give to thy maiden in that hour;
Give it with glee.

Robert.—

And I can sing. A painter though I am
By trade, I have the artist's general gift;
And I will turn it now to good account.
Listen, my Rose-Rose, how I answer thee.

He sings:—

Rose-Rose, fairest flower of mine!
In English meadows thou shalt shine—
Or I will die
With thee, with thee, sweet blossom, here,
And hold thee for that death more dear,
Hold thee more nigh.

The black death comes, the blue eyes shine—
They were not God's, they were not thine,
If they should swerve.
This bitter fate that tries us hard
The gates of love hath quite unbarred—
Made straight each curve.

By God I swear, and by thine hair,
And by thy face so dark and fair,
And by thine eyes,
And by thy lips made mine for ever,
That death shall join, and shall not sever—
That death's mouth lies.

By Christ I swear, by His sun-bright hair,
And by the tides of English air
And English sea,
That I will hold thee to the last
As my own bride—thus—warm and fast;
Trust thou me.

By eyes of English women now
Fixed on my heart and on my brow,
Waiting to learn
What one lone Englishman can do
When love is strong and love is true,
I will not turn.

Scene III.—Chorus of attendant Dyak Maidens, bringing Tua-Tua bound towards the Altar of the Fetish in the black stony valley. Priests of the god, Soldiers, etc.

—Robert Campbell leaning against a rock, quiet but alert. The dead body of the lover exposed on a rock

near, in the full glare of the sun. Women hacking at it with knives from time to time.
[The Dyak Maidens sing, leading Tua-Tua along:—

We are bringing a flower
To death's faint bower;
Hearken, O god!
O Fetish holy,
We lead her slowly
To thine abode:
A woman most fair,
With flower-filled hair;
Be gracious, O god!
Let thy vengeance as fire leap forth
From the east to west and the north.

Let her limbs be sweet,
And her naked feet.
Listen, O god!
O deity holy,
We drag her slowly
To thine abode:
A maiden most pure,
Her beauty secure
For thine arms for ever, O god.

Let thy fury as flame abound,
And this deed to thy glory redound.

Let her maidenly glance
Flinch not for the lance.
Hear us, O god!
Let her maidenly look
Gaze full at the hook—
The bent steel goad—
That shall shortly impale
The flesh we unveil,
Singing All hail,
Greeting, O god!

Chorus of Priests:—

Swiftly bring her to the flaming altar;
Let your lingering steps, oh maids, not falter:
Ready are the knife, the fire, the halter.

Bring the maiden most sweet
To the god's dear feet;
Bring the woman most fair
To the god's black lair;
That he
With ravenous hands
May hurry and tear;

And the sands
When she
Faints suddenly,
Tortured and smitten,
By the keen steel bitten,
May hide her forlorn, from all lands.

So shall glory abound,
And the fame of our race
Resound
In every place.

Swiftly bring her, maidens; falter not:—
Bear her towards the blood-stained, guarded plot:—
Let all hearts sing,
For a joyous thing
It is that the gods prepare
This body of maiden fair,
With beautiful loosened hair,
For their sacred feast.
Let each High Priest
In his happiness sing—
Till the far rocks ring.

For to-day the favour of God most high
Descends in a rain of blood from the sky,

And a glory of heaven and of pleasure is nigh.
Sing therefore:—
A stranger is leaning against the rocks,
Let him see no mortal the great god mocks:—
See wherefore
We bring an offering fairer than flocks,
Softer than flowers
From softest bowers;
More sweet, more fragrant, purer than these,
To the high god's temple, our great god's knees,—
Let the stranger, coming from strange, dim seas,
Mark how in the hot, delirious breeze
We dance round her
Whom our hands confer
On our god, our god to please.
Let him know that our gods are pure—
Let him feel that their laws are sure.
Let him see that our hands are firm—
That a life is a bud in the germ—
A broken shell on the shore,
A bubble of foam,—no more.
Bring the knife,
For her life.

Robert
(stepping forward, and addressing himself to the Chief Priest)—
Hold!
Is there no other way by which the oath
May be accomplished, and the maiden saved?
I know not all your customs, yet I feel
That in the subtle sacrificial rites
Which you observe, there must be holy means
By which the god at once may be appeased,
The maiden saved, the nation glorified.
Speak; is there aught that I, a stranger here,
Yet wishing welfare to the maid, can do?

Chief Priest.—
Nothing; for blood is spilt, and blood must flow.
Helpless, the maiden towards our god must go.

Maiden Chorus.—
Surely she must, with pang and wail and throe!

Priest Chorus.—
Which please the deities, laughing far below!

Robert.—
But in this godless gospel of despair
Is there no hope concealed—no latent flower
With seemly petals—though the petals be
Of livid texture, of smooth lustrous red?
A red plant better is than none at all!

Speak priests, speak maidens, speak ye clustering forms
Chanting this doleful litany i' the air!
Is there no hope? If blood must flow for blood
Why must the blood of this sweet maiden flow?
Are there no gifts that please the nether gods
Save maidens' bodies? Will not strength avail,
Power, vigour, manhood—are not these divine?
Are not divine things gracious gifts for gods?

Chief Priest.—
Yea, these are good; but woman is the flower
Chosen to deck the great god's holiest bower.

Maiden Chorus.—
Soon will arrive her last, yet glorious, hour!

Priest Chorus.—
Oh, great god, pity us; thy bounty shower!

Robert.—
It cannot be: speak priest; I see thy face
With something in it of relenting thought.

Chief Priest.—
A way there is; but never hath it been
Within the memory of our people used.
But yet 'tis written in our sacred books,
Which I have studied till my eyes grew blind
With patient poring o'er the lettered page.

A way there is; for if a man will go
(So it is written) patient to the death,
A maiden dedicate may be redeemed.
But bitter are the terms, the rules annexed!
Written it is that not by one straight blow
The man shall perish, as the mai den might
By one straight blow have perished—but that he
Shall linger three days, starving, tortured, hewn,
Stabbed—facing death in horrible mute ways,
Whereof the record tells not; and this rule
The god imposes in that no one man
Dying by common death, though he be strong,
Firm-sinewed, supple, agile, fearless, fair,
Can, like the tremulous and dying form
Of some delicious, panting, bright-browed maid—
(Praise to the god!—may all his altars gleam
With many a such auspicious sacrifice!
Praise to the god!—may his rule last for ever!)
No man can, like a quivering, slender maid
Glut the great-hearted frenzy of the god—
And stir to feverous fire of high delight,
Religious madness foaming at the lips,
His gladdened, patient-hearted worshippers.
Therefore, a maid being more than three times worth

A man—so estimates the amorous god—
A man must die three times, must die three days,
That is to say, must spend three days in dying.
Then shall the maid, if she have heart to kiss
The dead man's corpse, and heart to vow a vow
Solemn, firm-ratified by conscious heaven—
A vow to live and die unwed henceforth—
Then shall she, having vowed, be wholly free.

Robert.—
Ah! Now I know the meaning of her speech,
That short “unless:” she strangled on her tongue,
The “unless indeed:” she knew of this strange way,
She knew, but would not tell me—perfect heart.
Priest, I am English, I am not your own
To take, to bind, to do with as you will;
But yours I will be for this woman's sake.
What are three days in hell—for this is hell,
This rocky, sun-smit, devil-haunted glade—
What are three days in hell to years in heaven?
Gazing, perhaps towards the gold-haired Christ
My lady dreams of; gazing, perhaps, towards Him,

With her I died for smiling by my side.
I see it all; this rock is Calvary;
I am Christ's deputy; He is not here
But I am here—or Christ is here in me—
And I am sent to plant the blood-stained cross
Of my own tortured body on this hill.
So be it.

Tua-Tua.—
Lily!

[He turns and meets her eyes straight. They are full of tears.
Robert.—
Yes, Rose-Rose.

Tua-Tua.—
Did you quite forget
That though the others knew your language not,
Me you have taught it—did you quite forget
That, bright-eyed Lily, when you spake aloud?
Ah, even if you had not uttered speech
So clear, so bold, your eyes so bold and clear
Would have made all your marvellous purpose plain.
But I am Tua-Tua—daughter fair
Of the great king. Lily, you shall not die.
Rather will I, by cursing the grim god
And all his priests—yes, sweet, for you I dare—
Bring down his utter vengeance falling now

Swift, sudden, sure, remorseless, on myself.
Lily—you shall not do it.

Robert.—
Stay me not.
For all the wind of England in my hair
Is playing cool and sweet—'tis not the draught
From yon dark cavern fringed by emerald fern,
It is not that, but the cool, perfect breeze
Scented with July grass from English cliffs—
I see the cliffs, and all the cliffs are lined
With women watching how, beneath the sun,
I, English, for their sister-woman act.
Watching—I hear their voices silver-sweet,
I see their eyes of beautiful sea-grey,
Sea-blue, sea-green, or tender loveliest brown;
I hear their voices, and I see their eyes,
And all their waving, wondrous, lily-hands
Bowed gently to the English breeze that sweeps
The cliff, do point me one way—towards my death.
Oh, Tua-Tua, sweet, implore me not.
I could not look an Englishwoman, dear,
Not one true Englishwoman in the face,
If I, a coward, fled my proper doom.
These are the breezes where is duty high,
This is the cool wind; if I e'er returned

Coward to England, I should surely find
The sun, the scorching heaven, the hot wind there.
The breeze in summer would be hell's hot fume—
The smell of grass the savour of the fires
Of hell, and every woman's glance, unknowing,
Would stab me like hell's dagger to the bone.
For in their every glance, unconscious quite,
I should see that last glance of yours, O Rose,
Which, when the priests—if I shall give you up—
Drag you away, will o'er your shoulder seek—
Yes, love, you cannot help it—seek out mine,
And seek it with a last imploring look—
The look that only a woman can bestow,
And which once seen—be eyes that cast it dark—
Or light—yea, be the woman's body dark,
Or white and splendid—so it be but thrown
Into the eyes of some pale man behind,
Must haunt and scourge and purge him till his death—
And perhaps beyond death, through the meadows red
Of hell, or snow-white asphodel in heaven.

Tua-Tua.—
I feel all English, and I feel all love!
Now first I understand how love is fair,
And how the perfect English heart can speak.
Thou hast lifted me, my lover, by thy words,
In this short space of time unto a height
That all my girlish yearning never knew.
Alone I wandered through the lonely woods,
Amid the blossoms red and blossoms white,
Pining, desiring—through the early days
Before your face, a gleam of moonlight, came—
Pining for something, but I knew not what;
Desiring something, which I saw not how
To reach; the gift is now within my arms—
'Twas love I needed—lo! my love is here!
Now am I standing higher than e'er before
I, Dyak maid, the daughter of a king,
Have stood; for I have stood upon the hills
Of this our island—low, and topped by trees—
And watched the waving leagues of sultry blossoms
Stretched far before me—now I stand else-where—
I stand with thee upon an English cliff,
And gaze not over blossoms, but the sea;
I stand with thee upon an English cliff,
And feel the cool wind lifting all my hair,

As just now in thy thought it lifted thine.
Far, far before me stretches the grey sea
That thou hast told me of—the sweet grey sea,
Grey as the eyes of maidens thou hast loved
In England long before thy quick glance fell
On dark-eyed Tua-Tua; but I am English;
Lo! I am English; thou hast made me so!
And, being English, being loved besides
By thee, the English gold-haired ruddy Christ,
The chains of all these gods, though I am bound
In body, fall like snapped reeds off my heart
And off my leaping spirit. I hold the Christ
For lover now and king—I scorn these gods.

Chorus of Maidens—
She “hath spoken blasphemy;” drag her away
Beyond all blossoms, beyond the day.

Chorus of Priests—
To regions fetid, far from the ray
Of the light, where black fiends revel and stray.

Chief Priest.—
Hear us, O great god—hear us, I pray.

Tua-Tua.—
Before me stretches the wide sea's grey.

Robert.—
From a cliff we glance o'er an English bay.

Tua-Tua.—
But I am true.
If thou wilt die, why I will die,

And, with thee, on swift pinions fly
Through the stars, through the sky
Of blue.

Robert
(To the Chief Priest)—
Take me lest she curse thy god—
Take me speedily.
Lo! thy deity lusts for blood,
Longeth greedily.
Flesh and bones I give thy god,
Give them readily.

Tua-Tua.—
Curse—

A shout—Enter English Sailor;—The Boatswain sings:
[Boatswain]
Strike the blackies right and left—strike them down;
Hit their god up in that cleft—smash his crown;
Take those jewels—'tis no theft: go it, Brown.

Chorus of Sailors.—
Hit them hard and scatter them, English tars—
Black backs shine better for crimson scars!

Boatswain.—
Come, my hearties, with a song—come along;
Loose the girl—have a care—give her air;
Seize the priest. How the blacks show their backs!

Chorus of Sailors.—
Hit them hard and scatter them, English tars—
Black backs shine better for crimson scars!

Boatswain.—
Hit them hard—damn their talk and their chatter
(Set the Captain free—is he free?—no matter!)
Now three cheers for the Queen, and the girl.
Wipe your faces—hottish work, Thomas Earl!

Chorus of Sailors.—
Hit them hard and scatter them, English tars—
Black backs shine better for crimson scars!

Tua-Tua.—
Tides from the English sea have reached us here.

Robert.—
Strange how rough voices can sound sweet and clear.

Tua-Tua.—
They are no voices, but thy sea's wild cheer—
Just as it breaks on thy wild cliff-sides sheer,
So hath it surged for our deliverance, dear,
Against the human rocks that hemmed us here.
Come near.

END OF SCENE.

This poem is founded on a superstition prevailing among certain savage tribes, to the effect that if one person considers himself to have been injured by another he may secure an inexorable vengeance by entering the house of the person he desires to punish, devoting him or her with solemn curses to the Fetish, and then, in the presence of the person so devoted, killing himself. After this, the unfortunate object of his vengeance has no possible mode of escape; she or he is handed over to the priests, taken to a lonely spot, and duly sacrificed with all the bitter and bloody rites of their abominable religion.

LOVE'S EARLY MUSIC.

I.—THE SONG OF THE BLACK-BROWN HAIR.

All ye who care to a tale to list
Of wonder of woman, and man's despair,
Come—hark to the tale that I love the best,
Of my Alice's wonder of black-brown hair.

Alice the beautiful! Alice the fair!
Sweet lady of torment; clothed as a queen,
With the sad, sweet tresses of black-brown hair—
The sweetest of any my eyes have seen.

The sweetest crown that Love ever bore—
The black-brown tresses that come in the night;
And, pouring about me, unite to pour
A heavy-sweet perfume of vain delight.

An odour that clothes me and wraps me around,
Till I feel nought else in my mad delight
And shiver of pulses—as one in a swound
Dreams rapturous visions till morning light.

An odour of roses, and faintly fair
With the faint sweet breath, and the balm of the night;
The odorous odour of black-brown hair,
That slays me, and makes me alive with might.

The odour, as rich as the bright gorse-bloom,
Flows through me and wraps me as vapour the stars;
Yea, windeth around me as web of the loom;
As a stream that ripples, as flame that chars.

The manifold scents of the year of flowers
Are gathered, and garnered, and made as one.
The sweet scent mindeth of deep green bowers,
Hot, and kissed, and blessed by the sun.

The sweet scent mindeth of lonesome lakes,
And autumn sunsets of green and grey,
And the sea, with its ripple of luminous flakes,
And the deep burnt odour of dying day.

To bury my face in the black-brown hair
That maddeneth me to think upon—
To tell thee once that thou art fair,
And fling thee my heart to trample upon!

To look right into the deep green eyes,
And through them, and through them—and look yet again—
To sigh out my soul in a passion of sighs,
As clouds outpour their burden of rain.

To tell thee I love thee, and that thou art fair,
Yea, fairer than roses, and soft as the dew—
And sweet, O sweetest, beyond compare,
With a sweetness that thrilleth me through and through.

To bury my face in the black-brown hair!
The black-brown hair that I love so well!
To bury therein my burden of care,
And rise, well knowing that all is well.

To bury my face in the black-brown hair;
To anoint my face with its honey-soft smell!
How madly I love it, song cannot declare—
How wildly I long for it, life cannot tell.

To cool my cheeks in the black-brown hair;
To swaddle it round me, and choke my sighs—
To wrap myself round with the black-brown hair,
And bite it, and kiss it—and kiss your eyes.

To kiss your eyes till I closed them, sweet;
To kiss them hardly with hungry lips;
To watch the torrent of passion's heat
Tinge your sweet face to the eyelid tips.

To kiss your eyes till I closed them, sweet;
To kiss them open, and kiss them again;
To kiss your lips till I hurt you, sweet,
With clinging pleasure of panting pain.

To bathe my face in the black-brown hair—
The black-brown hair that I love so well,
That to win one lock of the black-brown hair,
I would run, not walk, to the gates of hell.

Yea, pass right through them, and scatter the flames,
And trample the fires with bold bare feet;
And face the devils, and face the flames,
And face the fires, and face the heat.

Yea, face the cold of the ice-cold lake,
And hideous horror of ice-bound bands;
Whom pity of Dante did forsake,
Him would I gladden with heated hands.

True sorrow the red flames cannot smother—
True love hell's fierce blows cannot break—
Love's tears shall deliver thy soul, my brother,
From its ice-bound bands in the ice-cold lake.

Though great the horror and hot the fires,
That strive the heart of a man to shake;
Yet stronger is love, and love's desires,
And greater the cause that love has at stake.

Love, who is sweet as a maid that advances,
Can soothe as a maiden, and mould, and remake;
Love, with his quiver of winged eye-glances,
Can pierce to the depths of the ice-cold lake.

Pale cowards I sought and kissed, and liars
My soul in pity would not forsake;
Methought a soul that had faced the fires,
Might laugh at the cold of the ice-cold lake.

O, black-brown hair that I love the best,
Of all fair hair of women I've seen,
The black is as black as a blackbird's breast,
The brown is as bright as a thrush's wing.

Nor only the hair, so tenderly fair,
Shines—all thy beauty, from foot to head,
Leads on from afar, a white soft star,
With rays o'er ripples of yearning shed.

Thy form appeareth in dreams at night,
With limbs that dazzle on every side;
For each, as it seemeth to me, gleams white
With a halo of passion glorified.

O, sweet, warm dream, that endured for awhile,
Then burst like a bubble, and left all dark,
Could I reach you once, though death should defile
My body, and leave it a shattered ark,

I would gather my whole soul into a kiss—
That kiss should show how I loved you, sweet;
But my soul escaping, through too much bliss,
Would leave me, I wot well, dead at your feet!

Far in the far-away heights of the ether,
Saileth my lady on outspread wings;
I crawl, æons and æons beneath her—
A man that groaneth—a maid that sings.

I struggle to reach her, I strive to beseech her,
Through ages pursuing the sound of her strain;
Ages of horror and wild weird agony!
Ages of agony—æons of pain!

My lady I follow, with wings of a swallow,
And feet as the swift sweet feet of a fawn;
O'er highland and hollow, my lady I follow,
From morn to twilight, from night till dawn.

O'er mountain and hollow, with speed of a swallow,
Full hard to follow, my lady hies;
The feet that twinkle, sweet odours sprinkle,
The better to trace her course as she flies.

The sunset is gleaming, faint odours are streaming
About the bier of the day now dead;
My lady, like a soft ghost in seeming,
Steers for the sunset of yellow and red.

Ah! those pure shadows across the meadows,
Bright clouds that cover the sun's gold head,
The mystical west, by his warmth caressed,
Is all on fire with orange and red.

Strange colours that seem, as in some deep dream,
To show forth passion, when passion is ripe:
Wild tints that stay, at the close of the day,
For love's pure image, for love's soft type.

The love of a man is as red fierce fire;
The love of a woman as flickering flame;
The fire smoulders—the flame leaps higher,
As high as the heavens from whence it came.

The happiness fadeth, my lady upbraideth,
With words that are cruel (with looks that are sweet);
I hurry me over fair fields of clover,
That glitter with whiteness of vanishing feet.

Her breath is sweeter, her beauty completer
Than clover-blossoms the night winds beat;
Her face is fairer, her cheeks are rarer
Than roses; her hands are whiter than wheat.

O lady of wonder, strong as the thunder,
And brighter than brightness of lightning rays,
With sweet short lips, now smiling asunder,
Now puckered in petulant, pouting ways.

Thou wilt not obey me! 'twere better to slay me!
Without thy presence no life can endure!
To die were pleasure—to suffer, sweet measure,
To die, well-dying by hands that are pure.

Yea, life were bitter, and death were fitter,
Without thee; with thee, death were sweet!
Lips lately laden with kisses of maiden,
Are strong fires ready death's fires to meet!

When soul and body are smitten in sunder,
And life fails, slain by the fire from above;
Will there be anything left I wonder—
Anything left us as luscious as love?

Will there be anything perfect and painless?
Joy without sadness, fire without flame—
Passion that rises imperial and stainless—
Mirth without madness, love without shame?

O, Death! O, reaper of days and hours!
High on the hill-tops, deep in the mine;
By garnering sons and daughters of ours,
Daily developing muscle of thine!

O, Death! what shall I say of thee?
In this my song that a woman commands!
How shall we wait thy coming? with glee—
With laughter, like some spring flower that expands—

Standing with eyes cast down to the ground—
Or sternly regarding the hour-glass sands,
O, Death, our Brother?—and thus be found,
Awaiting thy coming with folded hands.

Ah! sweet, remember you dim green bowers,
And a soft summer day long buried and dead;
When I wove you a garland of meadow-sweet flowers,
As a prize for your beauty—a crown for your head?

I was but a poor wild swan, without note—
To my breast your arrow-point did not cling—
But now I am stricken, and songs forth float—
Then I was voiceless; now I can sing.

I can sing of the vision of quivering lips,
And hair that in ripples went and came;
And a face that shone to the eyelid tips
With lovely showers of passion's flame.

I can sing of visions that flashed in the night
Before me—whereat the sick heart swims;
Of draperies golden, and dimly white
With a white revelation of gleaming limbs.

And, since I can sing, as I could not of old,
And tell all nations that thou art fair;
Vouchsafe me a gift — no gift of gold—
Only a tress of the black-brown hair.

Oh, since I can speak—yea, since I am bold,
And able to sound sweet songs i' the air;
Be kind, be pitiful—be not cold,
Vouchsafe me a lock of the black-brown hair.

I need it—indeed, it has ever been told
That a safeguard from evil is found in the rare
Love-locks Love's finger doth linger to hold—
Oh, grant me a safeguard of black-brown hair.

That, when I am wounded, or pale and surrounded
By enemies whose eyes glitter and glare,
That delicate tress may be near to redress—
That sure sweet safeguard of black-brown hair!

And when I am dying, that lock may be lying,
Still where you placed it—still left there;
That Death may be sure that a woman most pure
Once found me—and crowned me with black-brown hair!

Yea, this you may give me—you've chosen to leave me,
All else—all softer delights, I miss.
Grant me the hair; and, in heaven's high air,
Grant me a rosebud; give me a kiss.

This token of thine, which I long for and pine
To possess, thou mayest give me—I crave but this
Upon earth; in the sky be tender with thy
Long, deep-drawn, deathless, universe-kiss!

It shall make me amends for the folly of friends,
It shall cure as a pure rose saves by its scent;
It shall be unto me Christ's purity,
And God's most merciful kindly intent.

It shall be the blossom and beauty of things—
Divine sweet Alice, for thy soft kiss
I will wait till fate at the golden gate
Of heaven brings straight what seemed amiss.

For I shall remember our sweet September
For ever; I think thou wilt not forget;
But in some far heaven thy soft eyes even
With love of that old time may be wet.

I part from thee here for many a year,
With songs of sorrow, and words of regret,
But, trust me—never shall Time's sword sever
The golden thought of the joys we met.

My labour shall find thee, my voice shall remind thee
Of old hopes vanished, from time to time;
My poems shall follow thee, with plumes of a swallow thee
Seeking—with ardours of valorous rhyme.

In this life I yield thee; but 'tis but to shield thee
The better; 'tis but to be free to proclaim
To men that shall listen, soft eyes that shall glisten
As thine eyes glistened, thine own sweet name.

'Tis but to make greater our pleasure later,
When both our hearts and our minds have grown;
Some spirit has told me that I shall enfold thee
One day, my lost one—but still mine own.

I feel, through the weary days, dismal and dreary,
The far keen rapture of that embrace!
Its far keen glory—when life's dull story
Is quickened, by thine imperial face.

When the draperies golden, that flamed in the olden
Soft dream, float lovingly close to mine;
When thou art not holden in sorrow, embolden
My coming—call for me, lady divine!

And I will be ready, my voice shall be steady,
And all the airs around shall be sweet;
To the dim soft bower of love's first hour
We two will hasten, we twain will retreat.

To the bright far meadows, where love's first shadows
Fell—and crossed, and were tossed round our feet;
To that far glad ocean, whose amorous motion
Combined and twined with our bosoms' beat.

And there we will linger; I, the singer,
Thou the singer's glory and crown;
And all life's labour, and life's red sabre,
In those far meadows I will lay down.

For I only care for thee, and for singing—
I care not for pleasure, I heed not the toys
To which the hands of the crowd are clinging—
I seek not the common inglorious joys.

Treasures of silver, treasures of gold,
Fair hair of women, and crowns of kings,
And all that the earth's great granaries hold
Of fruitful flavour of precious things.

The wonders carven by cunning of tool—
The herds that bellow, the flocks that bleat—
And wealth of cotton, and wealth of wool,
And wonderful waving wealth of wheat.

I would fling them all to the winds, my sweet,—
The winds that scatter, the winds that tear,—
For one short half-hour to sit at thy feet,
And twine sweet roses in black-brown hair!

For one short half-hour to feel the passion
Course and flow through our veins as of old—
To twine thy locks in lover's fashion—
Plait upon soft plait, fold upon fold.

To know that never may chill time sever
The hearts of lovers once made one:
That the sorrow is over: that rover to rover
Clings—that agony's task is done.

As with one spirit to claim and inherit
All that God the King can provide,
All treasures of earth in a world-wide mirth
To gather together, for bridegroom and bride.

To know that pure love, by the power from above,
Has conquered all barriers cast between:
To feel that thy soul, not a part, but the whole,
Is for ever my darling, for ever my queen.

To kiss thee at last, when our trouble is past,
With tenderness like God's tender embrace:
To pour my eyes, like God's glance from the skies,
Through the depths of thy spirit, the deeps of thy face.

Together carest, to be tranquil and blest—
No more to tremble—no more to yearn:
In one long sigh together to die—
In one long rapture God's peace to earn!

It is this, it is this, O holiest kiss,
That in the end thy calm shall achieve—
Together, sweet Alice, love's uttermost chalice
In God's high palace, at life's soft eve,

We shall drink, and the pure high joy shall endure,
And among the angels queenly and fair,
The foremost of all, white, passionate, tall,
Shall be crowned, as a woman, with black-brown hair.

From one sufferer whom he saw in hell, the great pitiful Dante turned without pity; an example not to be followed.

II.—PASSION'S MYSTICISM.

Of manhood's fierce addresses, and womanhood's caresses;
Of sultry summer sunshine, and the winds of spring;
For those that follow after, a tale of tears and laughter,
A tale of joy and sorrow, I will set myself to sing.

Once in time I met a woman, queenliest queen of all things human,
Queen of earth and queen of ocean, queen of fire and queen of air;
Before her bent my being, bowed in uttermost devotion,—
The crown of all things beautiful, the fairest of the fair.

My darling, O my sweet one; if I never may possess you,
Let me greet you on the paper with blown kisses of my rhymes;
Let me still the frantic longing but to see you and caress you,
By fancying sweet lip-kisses, pressed a thousand, thousand times!

Oh, I long for her—I seek her! in the night-time I am dreaming
Of the tresses that elude me, and the hands that fly by day!
Yearning to embrace the fickle, hopeless fancies round me streaming!
Craving to possess and clasp and press the ghost to which I pray!

To inform her with mine image! to feel her flowing through me
With softly soothing current of electrical delight!
Absorbed into each other, ghostly sister—ghostly brother,
Phantom mixing into phantom, wedded spirits of the night!

As a smoke-wreath writhes and eddies, so her being writhes around me—
Clasps my body, clasps my spirit, clasps my fancy, clasps my mind;
Till my brain, instead of thinking, sits deliriously drinking
Deepest death-draughts of emotion, making deaf and dumb and blind.

So I swoon on for ever, without shadow of endeavour,
As a passively-receiving image well content to serve:
While her presence winds about me, stealing stealthily throughout me—
Wakening musical re-echo of response in every nerve.

Yielding up, without resistance, individual existence,
With every gate of being thrown wide open to receive,
First, a consciousness of Alice—second, of the great world-palace,
With its rainbow-rippling echoes—in full triumph I achieve.

As a river to the ocean, with mute majesty of motion,
Rolls the river of her consciousness convolving into mine—
And our consciousnesses plighted, in a bridal band united,
Roam from region unto region, a world-consciousness to twine.

In a vision laid before me, as in German mystic story,
Lying naked, bare and open, the world-mystery I see;
Sweeping through my eyelid portals, rush the loves and hates of mortals,
Rush the loves of man and woman, past and present and to be.

In a moment, in a twinkling, as if from magic sprinkling
Of wondrous magician, fall the scales from off my eyes;
Roofs of houses are uplifted, and partition-walls are shifted,
And the people are transparent, and dim worldvisions rise.

Even such a mighty waking, from the love of thee is shaking
Its glorious powers throughout me—from the love of one sweet soul,
With majesty and terror, revealing every error,
Unfolding every beauty—no portion, but the whole.

A VISION IN HYDE PARK.

As an exiled mountaineer desires,
When he marks the old familiar horn,
The mountain-palace of his sires,
And the vine-clad slope where he was born,
The yellow leagues of wind-swept corn,
And the old wide flames of beacon-fires:

As his foot pauses in the street,
And all his being halts and thrills,
At the unforgotten music sweet,
That so pervades and shakes and fills
His soul with the savour of the hills,
And the sense of countless fields of wheat—

And some one on the mountain side,
Waiting to give him welcome soft—
Ah! that old face of a dead bride,
That even here in London oft
Shines out so clear, he stares aloft
And fancies that she has not died!

So all my memory hurries back
To one strange night—the moon was full,
And brightly gleamed across the track,
And silvered many a silent pool;
The gentle winds were slight and cool,
And hardly made the branches crack.

And then I saw my first love shine
Resplendent as a rising star
That moves along the ocean-line,
And flames in glory from afar,
With red wheels and a red-lipped car—
Or burns behind the mountain pine.

I understood the clear white truth,
And all the power and zeal of it—
And the rose-flushed passion of my youth
Was as a comet—and it lit
The town, and its long splendour hit
The peaks of every tower in sooth.

And all the past was clear before
The wondrous face of that strange light:
Again we wandered on the shore—
And the perfume of a northern night
Passed daintily our spirits o'er,
And every place was bright.

And then it vanished; and I knew
That I was in a London park:
Behold, the wintry sky was blue!
Behold, the wintry streets were dark!
And the moon was only a red spark,
And my dream was not true.

But yet I worship that wild dream,
And the splendour manifold
That poured along the streets a beam
Of molten luscious gold,
Although I only hold
One thin remembered gleam.

THE ROSE WILL BLOSSOM NONE THE LESS.

The rose will blossom none the less,
When I am lying dead and cold,
The summer breeze will still caress
Its petals as of old.

The pure white lilies still will shine
Along the quiet lanes, though I
No more their tender stalks may twine,
For Nature cannot die.

The green grass still will glitter through
The woods—the ferns will still be sweet
With morning and with evening dew,
Though no morn I may meet.

Lovers will wander through the woods,
And twine bright tendrils in their hair,
And laugh from under blossomy hoods—
But I shall not be there.

Soft lips will cling, and smile, and kiss,
Soft hands will join with tender glee,
Glad with the old impassioned bliss
Of love;—I shall not see.

Nature is pitiless—she spurns
The individual—then bestows
On others that for which he yearns,
Nature no mercy knows.

Each year the fresh bright buds begin
Their lovely spotless reign—the flowers
Their various hues and odours win,
But where are last year's bowers?

Yea, where are last year's lovers? Where
Are all the lips we found so sweet,
The golden wind-waved wealth of hair,
Bright as the wind-waved wheat?

Where are the joys that came and fled,
Where are the birds that sang and flew,
Where are the roses that were red,
The hare-bells that were blue?

Where are the grasses that were green,
Where are the lilies that were white,
Where are the moons that swam serene
Through cloven tides of night?

Where are the whispers that we heard,
In love's soft summer weather, when
The leaves were loud with many a bird,
As we were lute-voiced—then?

Where is the meadow-sweet I found,
To twine within your dark-brown hair?
The summer grass that hid the ground,
And those soft fern-fronds—where?

Where are you now? Where are the days
So full of hope, so full of glee;
Where are my first impassioned lays
That mingled with the sea?

Where are my early eager songs,
Where are the early wild desires;
Where are the thoughts that leaped in throngs
Across fast-smitten lyres?

Where are the bays that once were green?
Alas! they are withered and burnt brown;
Nothing remaineth that hath been,
No garland, and no crown.

Fresh flowers shall bloom beside the way,
Fresh summers smile—fresh lovers too,
When I am old and worn and grey,
But all these shall be new!

Not one bud of the buds we saw,
Shall spring and bloom for us again;
Such—such is Nature's piteous law,
Her gift of constant pain.

Her gift of constant change and growth,
For, lest the world be over full,
She hath the bitter mission both
To plant and to up-pull.

She hath no mercy in her hands,
She hath no pity in her voice;
She bid leth all the verdant lands
Bud, blossom and rejoice.

And then when autumn comes she shakes
The wild red leaves upon the air,
And hurls them o'er the rustling brakes,
Like jewels from her hair.

The fierce red leaves fly far and wide,
O'er autumn fields and autumn hills,
Like cast-off jewels of a bride,
Whose heart some sorrow chills.

And then a new spring comes again,
And all the green young leaves are there,
Without a trace of death or pain,
Nature rebinds her hair.

But when we closelier look we find
That every bud is wholly new,
Nature was over-rich to bind
Again the leaves that flew

Adown the autumn in her locks—
She must have flowers that never more
Shall glitter 'mid the woods and rocks,
And never shone before.

So let us find a sad content
In yielding to her bitter ways,
When hope and youth and joy are rent
From us, then let us raise

Our eyes towards future joys that some
Shall know, but which we shall not see.
Again the laughing spring shall come—
Again the red-rose tree.

Again sweet lovers shall traverse
The sacred, silent groves we knew;
Soft secrets these in turn shall nurse,
In hearts as soft and true.

These I address my song to—these
Whom perhaps my struggling voice may reach,
As a far wind 'mid distant trees,
Or faint waves on a beach.

I like to feel that some may read
These words when I am long since dead,
And see that as their hearts do bleed,
A buried heart once bled;

And know that as their living souls
Rejoice and laugh on summer days,
I once rejoiced and laughed—their bowls
Of gladness I could raise.

I like to feel that they may say
To one another, “Would that we
Alive in this our meagre day
Could be as dead as he,

“If but we might with plaintive song
Secure our tender loves from death,
And mix them in a current strong
With the Eternal's breath;

“Sending a living music past
Our graves that surely are to be,
A song that mixes with the blast,
That floats upon the sea.

“Thus blending our lives with the flowers
Of summers sleeping yet unborn
Amid the future's mountainous bowers,
Thus mingling with the morn

“Whose crimson cloud-ranks from afar
We watch for—thus made one with those
Who walk 'neath many a future star,
Made one with many a rose.

“Made one with many a linnet too,
And many a yellow-breasted thrush,
And many a lark who climbs the blue,
And many a bending rush

“In many a bright-green future lake,
By many a soft and grassy shore—
Thus able their joys to partake,
Although we live no more.

“Able to sip the lips of love,
And thrill soft bosoms with our song,
And quicken hearts our numbers move,
And make the doubting strong.

“Able to rest in tender hands,
Though we ourselves have past away
Into pale flowerless scentless lands
Of languor and decay.”

I like to feel that thus may speak
Some future readers of these lines,
Looking towards some far mountain peak,
Or trellised hill of vines.

And, thinking thus, the very gift
Of which they speak I seem to know;
Wide plumes of pleasure I uplift,
Wide pinions, white as snow.

And, no more, sorrow comes to me
Because the rose will blossom still
When I have long since ceased to be—
Rather a rapturous thrill

To think that perhaps a song or two
Of mine may yet outlive the rose,
And still be found a blossom new,
When spring's bloom fades and goes.

To think that perhaps a word of mine
May have more durance than the thrush,
More power of lasting than the vine,
More vigour than the rush.

To think that perhaps my voice may sound
To future lovers sitting where
Once for my love's own locks I wound
White flowers as sweet and fair.

To think that perhaps a poet's life
Is not the brief and hollow thing
Death severs with his wayward knife,
But gifted with a wing

To rise and hover o'er the grave:
So let the rose bloom none the less,
And let the dim grey willows wave,
And let the winds caress

New flowers when I am dead and gone;
If but one passionate tune shall live,
That tune shall bid my spirit wan
A lively joy receive.

If but one maiden weeps for me,
Yea, but one single tender tear,
That pearl shall pierce triumphantly
The black forbidding bier

And change into a white rose—this,
This boon I shall not fail to see;
And that white flower shall bring the bliss
Of ample heaven to me!

TO MAZZINI TRIUMPHANT.

1

At last, our brother, thou hast left the land
Of trouble and of sorrow and dismay,
And joined thy harp to the ecstatic band,
Whose voices and whose glad lyres sing alway
In regions where God's presence is as day;
The countenance so dear to every soul
Who fought for hope, for freedom, and the grey
City by which the waves of Tiber roll,
Now vanishes from earth—now shines at heaven's high goal.

2

Would that I had the harp from Shelley's hand,
The solemn voice of Milton—and his sight
Nurtured on heavenly visions sweet and grand,
The more so for the absence of the light
Common, in which the common earth is dight;
Would that I had the voices of all singers,
And all their palms, and robes of lustrous white,
That I might fit the chant that in me lingers
To words less weak and frail, with more auspicious fingers!

3

Would that I had the reed whose swift point sang
Of paradise, and heaven's heights, and of hell,
From which the immortal soul of the era rang:
For, truly, things as great are ours to tell,
With whom in these last ages it is well;
Yea, things as vast to sing with a sonorous
And wide-mouthed trump, or softly-cadenced shell—
The beauty of the mother-age that bore us,
And many a flaming star borne perilously o'er us.

4

For inspiration is not dead; it seeks
The worthy presence of a worthy bard,
Then with a glorious rose inflames his cheeks!
He cometh; but the slow time doth retard
His labour, and surrounding ice is hard
For any, even a trumpet-blast, to melt,
And dark-plumed foes fame's golden turrets guard,
And in the mid way iron blows are dealt,
And many iron shocks that singer shall have felt.

5

The singer whom we see not, but who stands
Most surely at the gateway of the time,
With might and risen power within his hands,
And all a sun's fresh brilliance in his rhyme;
Loud as the thunder in its organ-chime,
Yet soft as the sweet speaking of a girl
Fed upon fairy tales and lore sublime,
Who laughs, sweet-shaking many a golden curl,
At dexterous fairy-tales of palaces of pearl.

6

So sweet and yet so strong shall be the diction
Of the great singer soon about to be;
He shall disdain the haunts of ancient fiction,
And ancient iron-armoured revelry,
And tales of knights who struggled knee to knee,
For he shall mark before him in the fighting
Of the wide peoples, and the foaming sea
Of present thought, a subject grand, delighting
His fiery spirit—all the paler epochs blighting.

7

Casting himself with faith and sweet persuasion
Into the yeasty channel of our days,
And seizing each fair opportune occasion,
He shall achieve as bright a crown of bays,

With as divine a worship of those sprays,
As any who in previous epochs drew
The people with the fervour of their lays;
Laurels were theirs, rose-clusters not a few—
But round his brow shall flame the stars within the blue.

8

And thou, Mazzini sweet, hast paved the way!
Saint John thou art to this fair coming bard,
Singing with blameless heart thy prose-clad lay.
Him all the icy seasons do retard,
The spring breathes feebly, and earth's frost is hard;
Our glad inwreathed redeemer comes not yet,
Not yet the face shines, wonderful tho' marred,
By no green hill-side may his steps be met,
His footprint presses not the wandering mignonette.

9

But, our Mazzini, thou hast made the path
Easier, for where thy lonely soul hath bled,
Pierced either by false friends' or prelates' wrath,
Soft flowers, impurpled with that living red,

100

Along the lonely way a radiance shed—
Where thou hast groaned, birds have caught up the note
And hurl it transformed round about the head
Of each who, following with swift soul, both float
Along the self-same way as in pursuing boat.

10

Easier it is for Christ, O great Saint John,
When comes the approaching healer of our age,
To put his healing store of garments on,
And open out a less tempestuous page
Of Being;—thou, interpreter and sage,
Hast gone before, and all the path is ready,
And the fierce elements less madly rage,
And less oppressive is the devious eddy
Of priestcraft, and the true stand stronger and more steady.

11

Therefore we worship with religious awe,
Mazzini, thy fair spirit, that has past
The wood-side beyond which man never saw.
We cannot follow yet; desire is fast,

101

Both fleet of foot and wing, but earth's sad blast
Has yet to be endured a little while,
A little longer with faint fluttering mast
Life's vessel through foam-heaps the black winds pile,
Surges and toils—not yet the cliff-top meadows smile!

12

But, happy soul, it is not so with thee;
Thy strife is ended, and thy banner waves
Beyond that bitter, foam-encircled sea;
Beyond the cold domain of clay and graves
Thou art, and all thy spoken message saves,
Even as the Comforter from Christ was sent
To comfort those who, hidden in deep caves
And lonely forests, by fierce anguish rent,
Held to the blood-stained road by which their Master went.

13

That glorious season doth return to us:
And, as the first brave Christians did endure
All tortures for truth's sake, and triumphed thus,
With simple hearts that perished for the pure,

102

So, in this unreturning age, be sure,
Fresh tortures of the spirit, many and strange,
Some which time softens, some past mortal cure,
Await the unflinching ones whose thought would range,
Impassioned o'er the hills or trackless tides of change.

14

But through the sorrow, brother, thou hast journeyed;
Harder than we fight hath thy spirit fought;
With actual steel lances thou hast tourneyed,
Into which conflict we have not been brought:
Yet all the horror of lonely tears and thought
Is not a small thing, is it, brother mine?
These present birth-pangs, are they all for nought?
Or shall we, at our own life's ending, twine
Sweet laurels of glad victory, perfect even as thine?

15

This, this we know, that one of us emerges
With triumph from the terror and the pangs
Of life, even as a diver from thick surges
Is risen—while his iron armour clangs

103

Around him, and, victorious, he harangues
His fellows, telling of the depth profound,
And rocky hollows, and of sharks' keen fangs,
And scarlet flowers whose clusters interwound
Glitter among the stones, in gorgeous masses bound.

16

So, from the horrors of the trembling deep,
Mazzini rises into heavenly air,
And regions wherein yet we may not peep,
But which, we know, the eternal blossoms bear;
His load of life-long sorrow and of care
Is lifted, and he passes towards the crown
That he alone of patriot hearts can wear:
Peace cometh; he may put the good steel down,
And rest for evermore, secure in his renown.

17

Fair risen spirits round him stand; but none
Is greater than the dead man who doth rise
With perfect hands and forehead like the sun,
And all Italia's future in his eyes,
Wherein the vast unspoken passion lies:
The crown he weareth no soul touched before,
Virgin it is, yet dewy from the skies
That break triumphantly above the shore
For which his untold pain he, pain-defying, bore.

104

18

To all the prophets great who have preceded
His equal course, he is united now;
To Milton, who gave light that England needed,
Although it wandered from his darkened brow
To illume a wider field; to all who vow
Their lives to freedom; most of all to those
Who guided through the waters the sweet prow
Of fair Italia's vessel as it rose
On the white waves it flung aside like scattered snows.

19

To Shelley, and to him whom Shelley mourned
In that sweet song wherethrough all music sighs,
Is our Mazzini's snow-white soul returned,
Even as a lark reseeks the voiceless skies
From which he fell, with fresh soliloquies;
Shelley and Adonais and the great
Italian with the forehead crowned and wise,
And all his country's thorn-wreathed martyrs, wait
To welcome this new king, beside his palace-gate.

105

20

But most of all to Christ, I see him draw,
With the same pure God-breathing presence near—
I mark their meeting, but with sacred awe,
And somewhat in me yet of earthly fear,
I do retreat from words I may not hear;
Their faces are too bright for me to see—
But yet their far-off voices ringing clear,
Suffice as in a dream to bring to me
Visions of earth made glad with hours of purity.

21

They speak—so much I gather through my dream—
Of all that shall be when the earth is white,
And through its plains swift tides of blessing stream;
When as a cloud by day, a fire by night,
In every heart God rests—when man's pure might
At length accomplished is, and man is crowned
With his own soul's unutterable light:
When all the prisoners whom the ages bound
With bitter bands at length in liberty are found.

106

22

They speak of that fair season when the spirit
Of man, so shackled through the ages long,
Shall, like themselves, stride forward and inherit
The lands he covets with desire so strong,
But which he cannot reach by sword or song
As yet, not being pure—but he shall find
A pathway at the last from every wrong,
And all earth's blossoms round his brow shall bind,
And stand forth as a king invincible in mind.

23

The stars shall be his servants, and the hills
No tardy lingering tribute then shall pay—
His foot shall be upon the foaming rills,
His forehead shall be bright with ocean-spray;
Along the eddying wind his words shall stray—
The incarnate God in manhood then shall dwell,
All nature shall be subject to his sway,
Earth, heaven, and all the deep of fiery hell—
Plains, rivers, sands and shores—each glade and grassy dell.

24

His spirit shall be paramount—imperial
He shall be over all the world of things:
This he shall rule by conquest sure; ethereal
And white shall be the glitter of his wings—

107

His crown more golden than the crowns of kings,
His heart more steadfast than the fickle hearts
Of gods whose thrones time having raised now flings
Downward, unsheathing pitiless keen darts—
Laughing as each pale god in emptiness departs.

25

The lonely night shall be a fitting wreath
For him—the stars shall cluster round his brow—
Victor he shall be o'er the pains of death.
The winds and crested ocean-waves shall vow
Allegiance, and before his sceptre bow;
Upon the mountains when the morn is red,
Strange snowy glittering heights untrodden till now,
The conquering foot of man their lord shall tread:
His spirit shall converse with the unforgotten dead.

26

Woman, no more a subject, but a queen,
Shall be the fairest rose within his bower,
The sweetest the desirous years have seen:
O, whitest most unfathomable flower,

108

Whose petals soft eternal fragrance shower,
At length, at length, thine heart hath victory!
Yea, now at last the immeasurable hour
When thy pure triumph with glad eyes we see,
Rejoicing too with souls that worship utterly.

27

Beyond all speech the triumph of the tender
Pure woman-heart that then the years shall bring:
All foes who have resisted shall surrender—
All friends she shall reward with snow-white wing:
Thee, sweet, sweet, future goddess I would sing—
Thee and thy crown of fair undying roses
Whose buds thy far more spotless forehead ring
Thee and thine empire that slow time discloses,
As time all other realms, imperious, opposes.

28

I see thee, woman, as thou shalt be surely
When the great day of thine empire shall come—
I see thee stepping towards thy throne demurely,
With all thy face flushed into happy bloom:

109

Gone are the years of terror and of gloom—
Man equal partner in thy perfect joys
With thee the boundless empire shall resume:
I hear above the waves' and wild winds' noise
Thy laughter, and the ringing of thy silver voice!

29

Oh beautiful thou art—more fair, O lady,
In that thou thus hast suffered through time's night,
Threading the obscure dark hills and valleys shady
With patient step that travelled towards the light,
Implacable in unassuming might:
More lovely art thou for the years so long
Wherein thou hadst not grown to woman quite,
Not yet wast moulded perfectly, nor strong—
Sweeter thy now mature illimitable song.

30

I see thee and I sing thee—and I see
The wide-spread glory that shall soft descend
Upon the earth—the wonder that shall be
When folly slain by truth's spear, hath an end—

110

Ah! the swift golden wheels of progress tend
Resistlessly along the impassioned road,
Till with the far-off summer skies they blend
Wherein the sunrise of mankind hath glowed,
True to the golden joy that poets' visions showed.

31

I see the hope of every patriot finished,
The dream of every sorrowing bard complete;
The altar of earth's prayers is undiminished,
But each petition, with exalted feet,
Has sought the inmost chamber-hollows sweet
Wherein God sits to answer; He doth spurn
No single flame of sacrificial heat;
He gathers all desires of souls that yearn,
And presently each hope shall, magnified, return.

32

God gathers all our hearts into His bosom;
They rise like scentless lilies wan and pale;
He doth return them as the blood-red blossom
Of some superb rose that might proudly sail
Upon a woman's breast; our mingled wail
Is melody if heard from out the sky,
Even from behind the Holy Temple's vail,
Whereto through paths of misery we fly,
Ascending to our homes, God's palaces on high.

111

33

So much I learned; but then the Italian vision
Of joy and beauty on my spirit broke;
As the green earth doth bound from winter's prison,
Spurning with laughter every icy yoke,
A liberated universe then spoke;
I marked the re-united shores of nations;
The passion of the re-united folk
Brought incense and immaculate oblations
Of fruitful hearts to God as happy protestations.

34

The sounds of prayer were common; yet no churches
Usurped the grim protection of a creed;
The wings of white prayers fluttered through the birches,
And pure petitions blossomed in each mead;
No longer do our poet-martyrs bleed,
For truth is worshipped, reverenced everywhere.
The spirit of truth doth calmly take the lead,
All hearts are free as freest mountain air,
All souls of men are white, made exquisitely fair.

112

35

And, fairest of all lands, I saw thine own,
Mazzini, rising softly from the waste
Of many a scattered church and vanquished throne;
Like some pure island on the waters placed
By hands of a creating God in haste
Thy country gleamed, superb with many towers,
Grand with the endless city that hath graced
The avenues of time, and furnished flowers
Of beauty to adorn the universe's bowers.

36

At last, Mazzini, thou art understood!
Thy passion, and thy valour, and thy love.
Thou art not veiled with any paltry hood;
Thy spirit, rich with the presence of the dove
Of holiness, is visible above
The Rome that shall be; therein thou art praised
By every poet through whose fancy move
Numbers majestic with delight; high raised
Thou art where once the fires of persecution blazed.

37

We pray thee help us; we are puzzled sorely,
Hard bound by clanking fetters of the age,—
We struggle, we aspire, succeeding poorly,
Down-stricken by the adamantine rage

113

Of elements we know not how to assuage;
But thou art treading some soft, flowery mead,
Or turning some fresh philosophic page
Of heavenly knowledge;—help our souls in need;
Be present as a god to save and intercede.

38

Be present with us; let thy trusty spirit
Visit not only Italy, thine own,
But do thou, in sweet sympathy, inherit
Salt shores by alien, fiercer breezes blown,
Inhabited by tribes of hoarser tone;
Our England gave thee refuge; guide us on
Through struggle, sorrow, frailty, many a groan;
Until our great contentment shall have shone,
And we may reach the country whither thou art gone.

39

Our England boasts a noble race of singers,
Our England in the time that doth draw near,—
The age that shall be present, though it lingers,
Making away with every sword and sneer,

114

And doubtful, sick presentiment of fear,
Shall play a noble part; her bards shall speak
The spring-tide message of the worldly year,
As from some pale prophetic mountain-peak,
Upon the which they wait,—with flame upon each cheek.

40

The summer of the planet shall be sounded
From Italy—thy land, thy love, thine own;
Thy love that soared, exceeded, and abounded,
Shall be re-gathered into richer tone
When Italy's red, liberal rose is blown,
For great Italian poets shall arise
Even sweeter than the flute of Dante flown
Towards flowery hollows of celestial skies;
Great prophets of intense, unfathomable eyes.

41

The spirit of Italy shall find a measure,
The summer of the future shall pervade
The land God granted as a perfect treasure
Of sunlight to the lands He set in shade;

115

By river and by sunny nook and glade
The triumphs of Italia shall be counted;
Like some white-breasted, flower-engirdled maid,
Upon the white steed of her freedom mounted,
She shall be seen; the fangs of priestcraft shall be blunted.

42

The central God shall speak through many voices,
Through women, and through young men, or a child—
When all the fragrant bridal-room rejoices,
Rich with faint perfumes as of roses piled,
Or savours of broad meadows undefiled,
God shall be there; and every bride shall know it,
Revealing God's breast in her bosom mild,
Not needing an inspired high-priest to show it,
Nor any voice of sage, nor love-disclosing poet.

43

O grand Mazzini, such a season waits us;
I see it dimly, and I strive to sing
The coming pleasurable time that mates us
To this divine soul of a lovely thing;

116

Already do the buds of roses cling
To the sweet casement—all the buds are swelling—
The fields are laden with the odorous spring,—
And, in accordance, I would be foretelling
Love's spring in numbers sweet most softly upward welling.

44

The hyacinths will soon bedeck the corners
Of many a happy and most fragrant wood;
Why should the sons of men be perjured mourners,
When bridal blossoms, rich for many a rood,
Join happy voices in their solitude?
Self-sacrifice provides to human sorrow
A key, and this was thy perpetual mood,
And therefore do we softly seek to borrow
At thy most sacred tomb gifts fitted for the morrow.

45

We do not wait to see thy body rise,
As once disciples lingered at a tomb,
With mournful tear-drops in their down-cast eyes,—
We do not look to see the perfect bloom

117

Of risen Mazzini issue from the gloom,
As once disciples said that Jesus leapt
From spent hell-fires that struggled to consume
In vain,—as once again the same eyes wept
Before them, or the voice thrilled through them as they slept.

46

We do not look to see our hero enter,
With visible body, a rent heaven of blue,
Dividing as an arrow swift the centre
Of that stupendous azure dome we view,
Cleaving its sounding hollows through and through
With dazzling wings of passionate desire
And pearly radiance and impurpled hue.
We add no colours to the sun-set fire;
Crowned with the simple light of morning, we aspire.

47

The cheeks of death are white; that pale rose hovers
Softly upon the features of the dead,
Softly upon pale women who had lovers,
Whose cheeks were once thrice kissed to roses red,

118

Whose rich lips bloomed, though now the bloom hath fled;
Death's white flower covers these with tender petals,
Above the rich departing crimson shed;
And we—we seek not with invention's nettles
To spoil the eternal peace that round the still brow settles.

48

God places on the dead His solemn palm,
As a white, pure, imperishable rose,
Imperishable in a fragrant calm;
And we—we strive not madly to unclose
The petals that His tender hands dispose
Upon the corpse, august in its new sleep;
But over it God's sacred blossom blows,
And unintelligible tears we weep,
But not for sorrow's sake—for something e'en more deep.

49

For death is unto us as something deeper,
More holy, than it seemed to men before;
The dead man is a voluntary sleeper
Upon God's breast—we cannot, as of yore,

119

A risen, pallid Lazarus implore,
But rather, with a love too deep for speech,
The quiet dust to quiet dust restore,
Knowing that the departed soul shall reach
Beyond the waves of death the bright immortal beach.

50

Sure that he labours in some sinless mansion,
It may be 'mid the measureless white air,
Or in some vast, ecstatic brain-expansion
Of all the slow, yet wondrous, powers that were,—
Tedious to him, yet excellently fair,
With due regard to whence he, perhaps, had risen,
As from a dark and mist-clothed valley-lair
Into a mountain-ether; from a prison
Unto a palace steps each man, from fate to vision!

51

But into higher regions steps the dead:—
And thither, O our Leader, thou art gone,
With sacred, unpolluted human head;
Beyond death's mountains a new sun has shone,

120

Tipping the previous summits faint and wan
As with a light insufferably pure:
O brother, has not some pure-breasted swan
Of soft Italian loveliness been sure
At last to heal the soul that nobly did endure?

52

Upon the earth thou wast a lonely man,
Thou art not, I am certain, lonely now.
A solitary honour is the van
Of battle, or of thought! a lonely brow
For certain that which doth allegiance vow
To purposes unfathomed by the frail
And fickle herd, who understand not how
One passion, vast, imperishable, pale
With its most intense life, may garb a man in mail.

53

Driving him surely from the grassy meadows
Of daisy-flecked, harp-haunted common life,
Towards the mute and scentless mountain-shadows:
Towards some unsearchable, sequestered strife;
So that he severs with religious knife
The bonds that tie him to the common soul,
For his soul with a secret voice is rife,
And o'er his spirit secret whispers roll,
Urging him fiercely on towards many a viewless goal.

121

54

But, brother, I am certain that the passion,
Pent-up, misunderstood, imprisoned long,
Has mixed in some celestial, fearless fashion,
With the soft music of a woman's song;
Thine heart of love was tender, yet most strong,
But it was wholly given to Italy—
Or so it seemed to us—but we were wrong!
Some personal passion thou shalt surely see,
Who didst on earth adore, in utter purity.

55

The sacred kiss of Italy, most pleasant,
Is printed on thy dead, heroic brow,
But with some perfect spirit thou art present,
Some soft embodiment of Italy, now,
Who shall reward thee—ah! we know not how,
Being with remnants of the body blind;
Some woman, the fruition of thy vow,
Thy spotless manhood shall most surely find,
Who through thy thorn-crowned hair love's blossom-wreath shall wind.

122

DEATH OR YOU.

(“Night or Blucher.” Wellington at Waterloo.)

“Night or Blucher!” O'er the blood-stained field,
Through the stress and strain of Waterloo
Sounds the cry of him who would not yield—
And my cry is, sweetheart, Death or you!
Through the terror and the stress of life,
“Death or you” is ever on my lips—
Hear me, sweetest—hear me, perfect wife—
Help me through our love-sun's dark eclipse.

“Night or Blucher!” Death or you, my sweet!
Which, I wonder, which, would help me most—
Sound of some one's gentle helpful feet,
Or Queen Death, the gentle helpful ghost?
Be that as it may—forth sounds my cry—
Death or you—upon the midnight breeze—
Oh, God, help—love, help me, for I die,
Smitten by slow piercing agonies!

123

“Night or Blucher!” Ah, the day was hot,
Cool and full of hope the even seemed—
Help was on its swift march to the spot—
Of that help or night the Leader dreamed.
Surely all my day of fiercest pain
Equals or surpasses Waterloo—
Surely through the anguish and the strain,
I may sigh forth, sweetheart—Death or you.

124

TO THEE, LOVE.

For this our happy day, love,
What tribute shall I bring,
What word of pleasure say, love,
What wreath upon thee fling?
What song without delay, love,
Shall I, thy poet, sing.

Oh, shall it be a rose, love,
With petals bright and red,
Through which my passion glows, love,
In which my heart has bled,
A perfect flower which shows, love,
What passion would have said?

Or lily sweet and white, love,
And pure as is thine heart?
A perfume, a delight, love,
To leave when we must part,
Though only for a night, love,
(But one night brings its smart!)

125

Or violet blue and tender
As all thy thoughts of me—
A subtle blossom-splendour
In which the soul may see
What Love's own God may render
In some futurity!

Say what is it to be, love,—
O blossom of my soul,
What blossom can I see, love,
What flower so perfect, whole—
I choose and gather, thee, love,
The flower whose heart I stole.

I send thee thine own heart, love,
A blossom rendered back,
Made perfect by mine art, love,
With scent that it did lack,
When passion was apart, love,
And joy not on the track.

This flower I choose and send, love—
Oh, dream of it to-night—
Dream of me, without end, love,
And when the sleeping sight
New vision doth extend, love,
Come to me, my delight!

126

Come to me; seek and find me;
We are apart by day:
The suns of daytime blind me
With piercing loveless ray;
Thou art my moon assigned me—
Oh, gleam upon my way!

Thou art my star of even,
To light my lonely track—
My star in bluest heaven,
To guide to God's throne back,
To lift and to enliven,
To guard from foes' attack.

Thou art my own white beauty—
Thou comest in the night,
Treading love's flowers for booty
Beneath thy footing light,
Giving me dreams of duty,
Nerving my soul with might.

Thou art my blossom white, love,
Whose beauty undefiled
By the sweet wholesome sight, love,
Has made me as a child,
With eyes and forehead bright, love,
No more with misery wild.

127

Thou art my blossom red, love—
My rose of pure perfume,
Lifting a gracious head, love,
Above the abolished tomb;
The strength thy petals shed, love,
Death's kingdom shall consume.

Thou bringest unto me, love,
The glory of the air
Of summer—and the sea, love,
Within thine eyes is fair—
And black night owes to thee, love,
The blackness of her hair.

All glory I can find, love,
Within thy white sweet soul,
All pleasures of the mind, love,
All love-joy—even the whole.
To ecstacy resigned, love,
I touch love's utmost goal.

Be ever with me, white love,
At evening and by day—
Be unto me my bright love,
My sweet moon's rising ray—
Endue me with thy might, love—
Come to my heart, and stay.

128

Let all thy fulness pour, love,
In passion through my veins;
Be Queen as once of yore, love,
On southern sunstruck plains,
When we heard the lions' roar, love,
And rustle of hot rains.

When ere this life began, love,
We loved and kissed and clung—
A woman and a man, love,
By shafts of passion stung—
When you were sweet and wan, love,
And I was fierce and young.

When you were like a flower, love,
And I was like the sky,
Or like a perfumed bower, love—
Fragrant when thou wert nigh,
When passion in its power, love,
Swept on us from on high.

When we in valleys green, love,
Kissed, and our lips were full
Of ecstacy serene, love,
And all the airs were cool;—
Such passion ours hath been, love,
Such passion-grapes to pull.

129

By all the sweet old days, love,
Hear thou my song to-night;
By passion's burning rays, love,
And the old moon's subtle light—
By love's heaven-kindled blaze, love,
Yea, by thy breast most white.

By all these wondrous things, love,
I pray thee that thou hear
The passion-song which sings, love,
Itself within thine ear
To-night—the chant which brings, love,
Thy lover's strong heart near.

Were but my heart a rose, love,
That rose I would bestow
Just as it burns and glows, love,
Upon thee; but I know
Not where the flowers repose, love—
My flowerless heart I throw.

A flower beside thy feet, love,
A flower for thee to wear
Perhaps not all unsweet, love,
A red rose in thine hair:
Strong passion's bloom is meet, love,
For nights of summer air.

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The smaller flowers would fade, love,
At summer's burning kiss—
My heart is not afraid, love—
I fearless, give thee this.
A flower reared in no shade, love,
But under noontide bliss.

And grant me in return, love,
The flower for which I long,
The bloom for which I burn, love,
With passion pure and strong—
The heart for which I yearn, love,
Which blossoms in my song.

Then roses white and red, love,
Through far eternal years,
Shall flame about the head, love,
Which Love immortal rears—
And, joined in one when dead, love,
We shall surmount life's fears.

Therefore, my own, own, own love,
Oh list to me to-night,
Hear my harp's burning tone, love,
Interpret it aright—
Black sorrow's wings have flown, love,
In front the sky is bright.

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Come; through the mist of stars, love,
Swift seek me; I am here.
Burst all the lingering bars, love,
With eyes as God's heaven clear
Smite all that chills or mars love—
Soft, summer-sweet, appear!

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MARIA FORSTER AND JEAN PAUL.

“As Maria Forster entered womanhood, Richter became the ideal of all that was dreamed or imagined. He was the only living mortal that was admitted into her ideal world; the purest and holiest of men, a saint, a ‘new Christ for her,’ who could alone bear her over the waves of life that threatened right and left to overwhelm her. To be near him in some form, or in some relation, was the only contingency in which she could find peace. To hold some kind of communion with him was a necessity of her nature. She must speak to him, or she must die.”—See the “Life of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter.”

Ah! could I see him—for he fills my dreams
With sweet white fancies flying in stray gleams,
Like butterflies amid the meadow grass,
Across my brain's mad vapour-shrouded glass.
Ah! could I see him! all my heart is full
At morning and at noon and when the cool
Clear sunset gilds our cottage window-pane,
And when night's glamour doth pervade my brain
I am held by thoughts I know not how to speak;
The red rose is a white rose in my cheek,
And tears do throng my eyes, I know not how,
And fever parches my torn sultry brow.

Ah! Richter—father, hear my fainting prayer,
Borne towards thee on the sympathetic air;

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And let thy daughter's sorrow and her dreams
Wake in thy soul responsive tender gleams.
Thine own grand soul—whose early power I felt
Throughout my fiery girlhood burn and melt,
Yet—guard me angels from immodest thought,
But as a father's distant message brought
Towards me on the gold angelic wings:
Beneath thy fair touch all my spirit sings,
Beneath the pressure of thy distant hands
My spirit's smiling inner bloom expands.

Ah! Richter, shall I see thee, my fair lord,
In heaven, having cut Time's paltry cord
Of separation, for thy loving sake,
And plunged for thee beneath the death-cold lake?
In heaven passion and reward are one,
And moons are not detained from their sweet sun
By distance, or by custom, or by fate.
Ah! Richter, at the heavenly outer gate
I tarry—fair grand genius-soul—for thee,
Having conquered Death's pale intermediate sea,
As only women-souls can conquer Death
By dainty witchery of rose-perfumed breath.

That perfume—ah! my lover, shall be thine,
And all my hands can weave of soft woodbine,
And ivy, and white lilies, and gold corn,
And poppies, that love's sleep may thence be born

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To flutter over us with healing wings,
Even so thy passionate-voicèd daughter!—sings.

Daughter—a simple daughter—ah! good God,
The cold interposition of Thy rod
One moment was forgotten, and I soared
Towards fragrant heights by maidenhood abhorred,
And drank forbidden nectar in a dream.
Now—father, thy departing garments gleam
Like ghostly visitors across a wave,
Or grasses beckoning around a grave.

But father—my sweet father—all thy tales
Of high romance, at which the spirit pales
With ecstasy and deep unuttered thought,
Those legends which thy magic hand has wrought,
Are made a part inalienable of me,
As the moon's reflection mixes with the sea.

I know not what I mean—I cannot say
The things that trouble me from day to day,
I only know that every flower I see
Serves somehow to remind my soul of thee.
I only know that every sunrise fair,
Filled wildly with unutterable air,
Wrenches my eager spirit till it turns
Towards the house o'er which thy planet burns;

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And every sunset, red or green or grey,
Hath but one same unerring word to say.

I am but a mute maiden, I am young,
And thou art first of those whose magic tongue
Pervades the utmost limits of our land,
A silver-voiced and silver-soulèd band.
Who am I thus to venture to declare,
Even towards the pure reliable high air,
The passion that a daughter—is it so?
Or are my spirits steeped in some dense glow
Fetched from the entrancing mystic house of hell?
O, haste ye angel-spirits, haste to tell
A puzzled maid the way wherein to walk;
I would be valiant—would withstand and balk
The power of Monarch Satan, if it be
The Fiend who pierces and inhabits me.

But it cannot be so—my love is high,
Even as an eagle in the utmost sky;
And I am but a pale tree-perching bird,
Far from the lowest limit of his word,
And therefore may I safely send my voice
Towards the region where the gods rejoice,
Well-knowing that my high lord heareth not—
Yet would that he were with me in this spot,

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Or rather would that he were far away,
Not covering me with blushes of dismay.

Sweet, listen, let us traverse some lone wood
Filled full with many herbs and flowers good,
And I will weave a fragrant coronet
To crown thy temples grey from labour's sweat,
And weary from creation all alone.
Thy wife—nay, is my idol overthrown?
She cannot love him as I love my lord;
She bears the marriage-sceptre—I a sword,
Made sharp with distance and the pungent fire
Of girlhood's young intemperate desire.

Do I desire him—do I long to sit
At his dear feet, and watch the wild birds flit
Over the tempting hollows of the sea,
Knowing my love doth overshadow me?
My longing is not of this world at all,
I long to be released from earth's dull thrall,
And, piercing the grey vapours of the night,
To join my love beneath the golden light
Of heaven, and God's grand pure ivory throne;
There I may freely clasp him as my own,
And with love's violence delicately intense,
Still the delirious leaping of each sense.

139

A MEETING: AFTER FIVE YEARS.

After long years, long sighing and tears,
By the sound of the sea we met:
And the dear hand leapt to the heart that had slept,
And the passionate eyes were wet.

The sweet mouth thrilled, the pure eyes filled,
And the swift hand sought the side:
Oh, triumph for me, thus shaken to see
My lady, my spirit-bride!

Friends were near, and a husband and fear—
Not a word, not a whisper was said:
But I laughed in my heart as she rose to depart,
And her last long love-look sped.

I laughed—for I knew that my lady was true,
That the years between were nought;
Now the passionate face of my queen in her grace,
Had again to my gaze been brought.

Sad was the look, and the sweet lips shook,
And the splendour of youth was gone:
But clearly could I the spirit descry—
Pale, suffering, sweet, it shone.

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Clearly the spirit, mine own to inherit,
Flamed forth from the face once more:
And behind, as of old, the white waves rolled,
And the sea-mist swept the shore.

Again by the sea she smiled on me,
And again I held her fast,
And the uttermost bliss of a soft soul-kiss
Was ours: it clung and it past.

But utterly sweet in her swift retreat
Was my lady—she must be so;—
For sweetness is hers, and its gift she confers,
And God's heart in her heart I know.

141

TO GERTRUDE IN THE SPIRIT WORLD.

WHAT ART THOU LIKE?

What art thou like, sweet lady mine, I wonder?
Kind friends have spoken—but of no avail
I find their earthly and much hindered tale
Which this world's mortal weakness breaks in sunder.
Oh, art thou rose-flushed, love,—or art thou pale?
Oh, dwellest thou beyond all seas, all thunder,
Or rose-built bowers of endless brilliance under,
Soft haunts that no fierce storm-winged blasts assail?

Lift up thy light of eyes upon me, sweet!
Oh, are they hazel orbs, or are they brown?
Or blue or grey—and flow thy tresses down
In one rich auburn torrent to thy feet?
Or are thine eyes of some unearthly hue,
And locks diviner than e'en Raphael drew?

THOU ART THE SUMMER.

Oh, love! thou art the summer; thy sweet breast
Is summer in its softest, tenderest glow:—
Oh! what are lilies to thy neck of snow?
The bosom wherein all my pain I rest,
Soothed past all speaking, infinitely blest!
Delivered now from every dart of woe
And tribulation:—yea, sweet, kiss me so—
Now blush again, shaming the blushing west!

Thou art the summer; mine eternal rose
Thou art of heavenly summers yet unseen—
Bear thou thy love-soft sceptre, O my queen!
Thy more than regal beauty now disclose;
Sway all my pulses with imperial sway,
A white moon moving my heart's tidal way.

THE HAY-FIELDS ON THE CLIFF TOP.

Just as the hay-fields on the cliff-top draw
Seafarers—yea, two miles away from land!
Bringing sweet thoughts of many a leafy strand,
Making more hateful the fierce wind and raw
That smites those barren furrows which they plough—
Just as the scent of hay-fields makes the hand
Tremble upon the oar, the heart crave now
For fields where flowers and grass-blades do expand:—

So, Gertrude, far away thou drawest me
From life and labour, and their scentless sea—

154

Sweeter than hay-fields is thy spirit-breath,
Which, loved one, lures me through the gulfs of death,
More wonderful the magic of thine eyes,
Convulsed at sight of which life swoons and dies.

SWEET PASSIONATE SPIRIT.

Spirit thou art—yet not beyond the reach
Of passion—yea, more passionate because
Not bound nor subject to dull earthly laws,
Nor limited by earthly feeble speech.
Sweet passionate spirit! in my song I teach
The great grand truth that spirit-high desire
To earthly longing is as potent fire
To smouldering flame—that death transfigures each.

Oh, Gertrude, just because thou art a saint,
A disembodied spirit, a queen indeed,
With love of thy dear soul I yearn, I faint,
My feet upon the flints, pursuing, bleed—
Sweet loving spirit! from heaven I bring thee down,
To aid my labour, and bestow its crown!

155

THY LAUGHTER.

Oh, love, there is a laughter on thy tongue,
Sweeter than music, tenderer than sighs,
Softer than love's low questions and replies,
Purer than when a nightingale hath sung!
Lo! yesternight how soft the cadence rung!

158

Oh, love, there is a laughter in thine eyes,
Tho' thou art angel, when thy swift glance flies
Towards me; thy lips laugh, honeysuckle-hung.

Thy laughter hath a magic silver-sweet,
A ripple of soft unearthly luring sound—
And oh how rings thy foot upon the ground,
And oh how tender is thine own heart-beat
When next to mine the tides in unison
Rush first together, then, more softly, on.

WHAT MATTERS IT?

What matters it if I throughout the day
Be plagued by common faces, dreary things—
At nightfall lo! the folding of thy wings—
At eventide thy footstep on the wings—
At eventide thy footstep on the way.
The holy dusk thine holier advent brings,
Gertrude, my spirit-queen whom I obey—
Then of itself my harp awakes and sings,
And forth the golden sweet dream-fancies stray.

Oh, sacred lady, past all passion mine,
Yea, past all earthly yearning, all desire,
Hear thou the aspiration of my lyre—
Disdain not this rose-wreath that I would twine
Softly for thee—oh twist it in thine hair,
Making rich clustered blossoms yet more fair.

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A MAIDEN SPIRIT.

In spite of all thy lives, maiden thou art—
For him who hath the soul to understand.
Ringless thy finger is: unkissed thine hand:
Spotless the untouched beauty of thine heart.
Now we have met, sweet love, we shall not part.
Make me the lord of immemorial land
Wherein thou hast had thy treasures: flowers expand
With thee that shine not now in vale or mart.

They are the blossoms of a former world,
By thy sweet power made manifest to me:
Oh, the great wondrous calm white petals curled
So softly and so smoothly that I see!
Unfold them, lady,—and thyself unfold,
That I may reach thy blossom-heart of gold!

163

MAN'S DEVOTION AND WOMAN'S POTION:

A STUDY OF PASSION.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Giuseppa.
Giacomo, her Lover.

In a small chamber.—Giacomo lying on a couch. Giuseppa sitting near him.
Giacomo.—

Is this the end of all—the end of love?
The end of rose-tined moments—honied hours
In which the glad heart hardly knew itself,
So swiftly sped its pulses on their way?
Is this the end of all? Ah, love, Giuseppa,
What part hast thou in any future world?
Can those white shoulders gather golden wings?
Can those white breasts—the fairest breasts in Italy—

169

Bear the close pressure of angelic mail—
Breasts fit alone for scented garb of flowers?
Can that strange fickle rosebud of a mouth—
Sweeter, to-day, to me than heretofore—
Can that be changed into some lily pale,
Meet for the sanctifying kiss of God?
And can thy voice, that rings upon my ear
With such a silver cadence that at farthest
Ends of the earth I could not but respond,
Can this be trained and trammelled for the lutes
Of innocent high choruses in heaven?
Nay, surely thou art mine for ever now—
Mine, my Giuseppa, by thine own mad deed,
Which, having put thee beyond pale of mercy—
Beyond the utmost pardon of pure heaven—
Makes me thy master and eternal lord.
I have conquered thee at last, oh strong Giuseppa!—
Most white Giuseppa!—tender, soft Giuseppa!—
Playful Giuseppa!—innocent Giuseppa!—
Mere kitten-like, immaculate Giuseppa!—
Rose-crowned, rose-flushed, and lily-sweet Giuseppa!—
Pure, girl-like, flower-like, virginal Giuseppa!—

170

Thee I have conquered utterly at last!
Thou art in chains to me, oh, pale Giuseppa!—
Nay, look not o'er thy shoulder, fierce and strangely—
Thou art in chains to me, and not to him
Who met thee in the gondola last night—
In bonds to me, I say, and not to him!

Now you are flushed—have I been over cruel?
Nay, sweet, I saw you both; I was the rose
You took from out your bosom sweet and gave him—
Yea, I was in the rose; I watched you glide
Under the moonlight past San Marco's steps,
And, in the rose still, I beheld you kiss him!

What! he was your own husband, do you say?
Ah, true, true, true—you have been doubly false—
First to your husband, then your lover-husband!
How many, many times have you protested,
With those red lips of yours set fast on mine,
You loved me—loved me truly, loved me only!
And now, fair woman-like, you do not find

171

Your lover's love variety enough—
You must return a little to your husband,
Make assignations where they are not needed,
Impart romance to the prosaic story
Of common wedded love by pranks suspicious.
I see!—you tired of me, and so you turned
Me to the husband, and your actual husband
Into the image of a prowling lover.
It was well done, my lady—cleverly!
The one thing that a woman cannot brook,
The only thing, is any lack of passion;
And to form passion there must be romance,
Fair freshness, strangeness—call it what you will—
The something subtle, flower-like, that provides
A force to bar and mar satiety.
A woman must have passion's roses fresh—
Yea, just new gathered, with the sweet bright dew
Of earliest morn upon the tender leaves;
And so, e'en here in Italy, where a lover
Can safeliest rest upon a woman's oath
'Tis thought, a woman amorous for adventure,
Forsakes her lover, and, for fresh delight,
Laughing, commits adultery with her husband!

172

I see—see, see it all! Ah, Giuseppa!
One small thing you forgot—one tiny thing:
To leave your lover living when you spurned him.
Then, then you might have easily forgotten;
But now, since you have mixed that poisoned phial—
Nay, start not, lady; oh! I would not harm you;
I would not harm those tender hands of yours,
And that white, tender, perfect neck, for kingdoms!
I know—I love you all the better for it!
I saw you when you—stealthy and divine,
E'en then, in your most wicked marvellous beauty—
Crept to the room where I was lying sick
And slowly poured the shining reddish drops—
Seven was it? Ah, how tenderly you counted!—
Into the glass by my bedside, believing
That I was well asleep; I saw your eyes
Flash when the last drop slowly tinkled down,
And then I knew your heart was eased and glad.
I see you now—the long neck slightly strained,
The body forward bowed to reach the table;

173

The glance quick, ready, eager, apprehensive,
The hands not trembling—every nerve obedient—
One white rose struggling (where the dress, displaced
By stretching forward, showed a flower-soft bosom)
To slip beneath your bodice-work the while.

Ah, sweet, you see I know the whole! I saw you!
Why did I not cry out or speak? Why should I?
What am I that you should not have your way
And do your will, as ever you have done
Since the first childish days when, glad together,
We played in Venice here—yea, sometimes played
At rendering old fierce histories into fact,
Old tales of Doges poisoned, or of lovers
Stabbed suddenly i' the midst of burning kisses.
We played at these things—mere past fairy tales;
But now we play at truth. You poison me,
And, on my word, it seems to me quite natural.
Do it again. Come, put that tall glass nearer;

174

Now take the medicine—let us make believe.
Fling out that orange-lily; pour the water
Into the medicine; we will fancy it
Is the same water that you used last night.
Now give it me to drink. You are afraid?
You fear the water? did not fear the poison?
Ah, women do brave things, but they are cowards,
Cowards at heart, the bravest and the fairest.
This is the play, the other was rehearsal.
But you—you did it much the best last night:
You killed your lover then—now you restore him.
Oh! bad, bad, bad! You'll never make an actress.

What! you can cry! Oh, mere pale, feeble murderess!
Attempt a murder, and then weep about it!
But I am sorry—I would make you weep,
And yet I would not, lest I spoil your beauty,
For when I'm dead, oh sweet, fair queen of Venice,
I want you to be queen of Venice still,
And queen of your own husband; you, remember,

175

Are doomed to his embraces now, poor child!
You've broken all your lover-shield to pieces.
But oh, those tears! I, dying here, Giuseppa,
Declare with solemn and unshaken speech
That they are sweet to me—so utter sweet—
So beyond every earthly figure sweet;
That I, for this one pleasure at your hands,
Would gladly perish through eternity.
Yea, now I feel the hand of death more near,
I grow more earnest. You shall listen to me.
I say that now I see those tender tears
In your great yearning eyes, and now I know
By the sure intuition of the dying,
And by the sense of love that pierces through
All veils and all deceptions at the last,
That you love me—me best—and not another,
I would not for ten thousand years upon
The golden floors of God's most gracious heaven
Have missed that draught of poison, which to me
Is as the red delicious wine of love.
Take, darling, darling—now my speech grows harder—
Take, darling, when you die, when you would meet me,

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Just such another cunning, hidden phial,
And bring it with you; I would have you hurt me,
Still, still, yea never cease to wound and hurt me,
For still, the more you wound the more I love you.

I am content; I envy not your husband.
You have not killed him; that superb, sweet honour
Has been reserved for me, the humble lover.
You never cared enough for him to kill him?
Just so; a woman must feel passion when
She takes such splendid trouble with a man,
And puts her soul in peril for his sake.
As for your soul, I'll get the penance ended
Before you start for heaven; you shall be clear
Of punishment, and ready to enjoy—
I bear the pain; and, when we get to heaven,
You shall kill me again if so it please you,
With better, more malignant heavenly poison.
Oh! I am glad!—I cannot say how glad—
For now I've won you—won you past denial;
Your husband now has not a single claim.
By this swift poison coursing through my veins

177

I swear I win you; you are mine for ever—
Mine are your lips, your cheeks, your whole sweet body,
Sweeter than roses, which a man may die
Because of, and thrice softly laugh to know it.

And as for you, you need not fear; here is
My dying deposition, signed, complete,
Stating that I, in weariness of life,
Took poison—I the doer, I the culprit.
And so I am—why should I give you trouble;
I would have taken poison had I known
You wished it—saved you trouble, saved you danger.
You should have told me; it was needless trouble
To mix the potion with your own white hands,
And with your own white hands to place it here.
I ask your pardon that you had to do it.

And now I feel the sword of death within me—
Come close—come close—come closer, oh Giuseppa.
And—ah, I did not ask you so to kiss me,
And so to wet my face and eyes and hair
With tears. Ah, this is joy!
Giuseppa.—I loved you always.

178

THE WRESTLE FOR A SOUL.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Bianca: A coquettish girl.
Enrico: A poet.
Ursula: Enrico's friend.

Scene 1.—Morning.

Enrico and Ursula conversing.
Enrico.—
Bid me not stir—I have this woman's soul
To struggle for, and win perchance, ere night.

Ursula.—
She is a selfish woman—not worth much.
I hate all such, not having strength to love.

Enr.—
Not having strength? A powerless phrase to use!
Must weakness then develop into hate?

Ursula.—
Not so, for God has strength to bring such back,
And fold them safe within His loving arms.

Enr.—
What! God has strength, and woman is too weak!

179

Oh, shame! that woman should be thus traduced,
Thus slandered—by a sister-woman too!

Ursula.—
God has the strength: but woman is not God,
Nor yet a goddess—though the poets talk
Of goddesshood in many a sounding phrase.

Enr.—
And as for you, your part it is to make
What poets say, true to the living fact.
If woman will not follow, who can lead?

Ursula.—
Woman will follow: but Bianca—she
Is sinful—shallow—selfish—commonplace;
A vicious, loveless woman of the world.

Enr.—
Oh, that is all a woman sees in this
Frail, sad, mad woman—vicious, selfish, bad—
Past hope, and irredeemable, no doubt.

Ursula.—
Yes, irredeemable by power of man.
I hate such—and I leave them unto God.
Not without hope, I leave them unto Him.

Enr.—
It grieves me, lady, thus to hear you talk—
I thought your wings were whiter, and your hands
Whiter—and all your heart a lordlier thing.

Ursula.—
And, perhaps, Bianca's hands and wings are white,

180

You'll tell me that next! Perhaps her heart is large—
Larger than mine—more equal with your own.

Enr.—
Nay, white it is not; white it shall be soon,
For I, by power of love will make it white.
A woman cannot reach her! I will try.

Ursula.—
May God forbid that you should ever sell
Your birthright for this mess of porridge—when
You talk so, those who love you can't but grieve.

Enr.—
That I am sorry for: but yet I feel
The great sweet fire upon me, that shall reach
Bianca even, and shall burn her pure.

Ursula.—
You are too proud, you ought to leave to God
His crown of terrible atoning fire.
It will destroy you, if you snatch it down.

Enr.—
Let it destroy me! It is better thus
To perish, burnt in pieces by pure love,
Than slow to tread the placid earthly ways.

Ursula.—
But yet the quiet earthly ways are sweet;
Be gentle, patient, humble: and believe
That God will bring all gracious things to pass.

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Enr.—
You cannot understand: why I have moved
In one great yearning dream through every spot
Where fair Bianca's piteous sins were done.
Yea, seen her with her lover, heard them kiss;
I know the whole of it; I know her heart.

Ursula.—
Mere male mad folly—mere subjective dreams.
That woman is too strong for you, I say—
Too wickedly perverse at any rate.
I understand a woman: you do not.
But pray go on: of course I do not care.

Enr.—
I never thought you did care: don't protest.

Ursula.—
There are who care. I am not one of those.

Enr.—
I know it; wait, however, give me time.
A little time I ask for—but one night.
At present leave me, and to-morrow go
And see Bianca—there may be a change.

Ursula.—
Good-bye.

182

Scene 2.—At Night.

—Enrico alone in his chamber. A lamp burning dimly. A volume of poems open on the table, and a large red rose in a jar near it.
[Enrico]
He speaks.

I have not reached her yet—the task is harder,
Her lover false has more force to retard her
Sweet trembling lingering growth, than I had thought.

[He pauses between the stanzas, and wrestles inwardly in spirit.

But I shall reach her: though the end be other
Than that of earthly triumph; if I smother
My very life, the battle shall be fought.

Yea—I will keep my promise made this morning,
Though truth there may be in my fair friend's warning,
A deep truth in the prophecy she brought.
The fire of God upon me burns me throughly,
And, as it burns, Bianca's soul leaps newly
Into glad life, in flaming network caught.

I feel the force go out from me, and reach her:

183

Wind round her form, fast-trembling, and beseech her:
I feel that some new marvel now is wrought.

I feel the fiery spirit of God that trembles
Along my soul—Bianca's soul dissembles
No more before it; she can cover nought.

Yet as the strength is on me, I grow weaker:
And she—she grows more tender fast and meeker,
As if by some true lover's heart besought.

I see her spirit—I see its former sorrow—
Yet as a girl laughs, she shall laugh to-morrow;
Of black years she shall not remember aught.

Oh, sacred spirit of woman—this I give thee—
I win thy soul—if I may not outlive thee—
I bring thee silver streams for desert drought.

Ha! the rose does it wither,
The rose I brought hither
This morning?
Are its petals now paler,
And drooping, and frailer,
For a warning?

184

The red rose is mine,
And my spirit I twine
In its leaves—
Its swift loss of bloom
Means that somewhere in gloom,
Death weaves
A dark shroud for my tomb.

[He pauses for a time, and appears to enter into a sort of trance state. While he is in this condition the colour rapidly and perceptibly ebbs from The petals of the red rose on the table. It grows paler and paler. A sweet strain of music, played not far off, enters the room. This appears to wake him.

Ah! now I can speak; she is won:
The fierce hot battle is done.
She is crowned with the light of the sun
On her brows: her life is begun.

Bianca now she is not
But Flora—a flower without spot.
A blossom superb and clean—
Tender in maidenly sheen.

A spirit superb and pure—
Whose love and life shall endure.
A sweet soul, spotless and fair,
Garbed in a maidenhood rare.

185

This I have won by my fight
With the spirits of sorrow and night—
To be followed, ever hereafter,
By a girl's glad sinless laughter.

Through my dream I heard
Her maidenly new-born word—
Her virginal fresh-wrought speech.
It had power my heart to reach.

And I shall never forget
That her eyes were tender and wet
When she woke this morning—though
The reason she may not know.

And now I am well content
That the veil of life be rent.
For though I pass to the grave
This wonderful soul I save.

Though I, dead, pass to the night,
This blossom henceforth is white.
Though I am forgotten, I give
To her leave to laugh and to live.

[The rose now perfectly white, shakes, and falls from the jar to the ground.
Now the eternal music poureth through me,
Its great ecstatic yearning fills my brain—
It streameth round me like some wondrous rain.

186

Ah, lady, didst not thou quite misconstrue me
Yesterday? was I “proud,” “defiant,” “wrong?”
In one thing thou wast right—I was not strong
To bear that terrible fire of God for long—
It crowned me and saved Bianca—then it slew me.

Scene 3.—Early Morning.

—Bianca singing as she dresses.

I had a dream last night,
And all my heart is light,
Glad, as this dawn is bright.

I dreamed that round me strong
Arms passed—and I could not wrestle
To pull and smite them away.
Mad years of sorrow and wrong
Fled, and I tried to nestle
In the arms, and laughed as I lay.

I laughed as I lay, soft-smiling
To think I was found at last—
Conquered, and soothed, and at peace;
Freed from spirits defiling;
Let loose from the sins that are passed,
And granted a sweet release.

187

So the strong arms wound right round me,
And I could not struggle or stir,
They were far too strong to evade.
In blossomy bands they bound me,
And I felt that to me they were
Like a soothing shield and a shade.

I felt the old fierce power
Of the former passions die
And vanish adown the wind:
I was glad as a glad glad flower,
And very content to lie
With those arms about me twined.

And now to-day I am changed,
Though I hardly know the reason—
Hardly can tell at all:
Fresh hopes round me are ranged,
And a fresh more summer-like season
Seems to be within call.

I feel like a girl—my pillow
Is damp with a rain of tears;
(I had not cried for so long!)
Spent is the stormy billow
Of suffering: happier years
Smile round me, a rose-crowned throng.

188

[She looks in her glass suddenly.

Why, my eyes were blue—
They are changed—changed—changed to grey,
To a greyer tinge than before.
And a look of one I knew
Is in them—Enrico whose lay
Of love once lisped at my door.

Softer I feel to the singer—
I know not—softer I feel:
More tender and grave than of old. [She hears passers-by speaking below the window. They say—

Enrico is dead—his finger
O'er the harp no more will steal:
The poet is crowned and is cold.

189

TO HELEN.

THE FRAGRANT NIGHT.

Some “perfumed night” of summer shall be ours
If not on earth, then in the spirit-land;
Lo! I shall take thee, smiling, by the hand,
And draw thee towards love's soft eternal bowers.
Before us great white heavenly buds expand,
Not dashed and splashed by earthly thunder-showers—
A meeting waits us which no parting sours—
A haven, far beyond life's desert-sand.

Oh, grand the calm pure heavenly blossoms there,
And glad their fragrance, and divine the air,
And tender the mute yearning in our eyes:
O queen of all my deep and passionate heart,
In that soft bower we meet no more to part,
Joined utterly beneath the starry skies.

190

HAVING OUTLIVED, OUTSUFFERED.

Having outlived, outsuffered, all the rest,
We two shall mark the small loves fade away,
Hidden in the sunlight of our perfect day;
Yea, we shall mount upon the last wave-crest
Of life into some region wholly blest,
And meet with gaze unflinching Love's full ray;
Oh, tarry for me, love—believe, obey—
Joy waits us such as dreamer hath not guessed!

Tarry for me beside life's weary sea,
Beside the breakers, by the craving foam—
This earth is not our rest, it is no home.
Lo! in the end, sweet, I will come to thee,
And thou no more from my true arms shalt roam:
Then dawns the eternal spirit-ecstasy.

OH, SEA!

“Oh, sea” that flowed anear our passionate love
Once, when that passionate love did blossom sweetly—
Yea, when the passion-rosebud bloomed completely—
“Sea,” whose dear waves our very hearts did move,

191

We bid thee, when our passion blooms above,
Welcome to our triumphant bridal feast—
Sea, thou shalt be our white-robed splendid priest,
Our spirit of blessing,—thee we are certain of!

Oh faithful and attendant groomsman, Sea—
Groomsman and priest and bridesmaid all in one,
Be thou a guest at our glad marriage—Sun,
The wedding feast doth also wait for thee;
And, moon and stars, no meet robe can be spun
Without your help—respond ye speedily!

STIR NOT.

Stir not—nay lie thou still within my arms;
Set thou thy lips on mine—now never more
Let the great rising sun-flame gild the shore.
Dear, let us die—cold life it is that harms
And hinders love—oh, would that life were o'er!
Lie still now, sweet one—let the long night last
For ever! let us dream that life is past,
Stoop lips, and kiss death's breakers as they roar!

192

Oh, let us dream it is eternal night,
Yea, “never the cold daylight any more!”
Never the sad reproachful mocking light—
Cling now to mine, sweet lips, cling as before;
Let love enrobe us with his golden might,
And tender darkness round our bodies pour.

AFTER THE DAY.

Pain through the long day lords it o'er our souls,
But when the sweet night comes, my voice brings back
The passion that all day about thy track
So gently hovered—in the love-wave rolls.
Through all our daily toil the thought of love
Is underneath, around us and above—
But in the night it is a present flower,
Great, burning, awful—glowing with new power

Oh wander, if thou pleasest, in the day
Far as thou canst—unfettered, flit away
Like some bright butterfly above the foam!
At night, when thou dost mark the land afar,
And heaven one sheet of blackness with no star,
My love shall be thy ship of rest, thy home!

193

CALM.

I'll give thee calm, sweet, not swift passion only.
Oh, we have sailed through passion-storms together,
And faced intrepid, the black boisterous weather,
And, sometimes, one has left the other lonely,
Sad, silent, for a season—but these things
Shall pass—I'll lift thee towards a clearer air,
I'll bring thee summer on love's fervid wings,
The tree of love its red-ripe fruit shall bear.

All storms of wayward perilous passion o'er,
Thou shalt inhale the tender summer breeze
Of love, and rest, secure, upon the shore
We seek, wherover bend heaven's restful trees—
Love shall excel, in quiet, evermore,
The calm of midnight on Pacific seas.

ALONE TOGETHER.

Though friends surround us, or a noisy crowd,
Unsympathising faces, alien minds,
Enemies perhaps, or voices harsh and loud,
Souls wherein no response our spirit finds,

194

Yet in a moment we can draw the shroud
Of golden love about us and, alone,
Mount to our tranquil solitary throne—
Pass in a moment into passion's cloud.

There are we sweetly hidden and encased—
As if we stood beside some southern sea
Alone, while at our feet blue wavelets chased
Each other, laughing in their untamed glee—
Thine eyes on mine, my arm about thy waist,
With one bird singing from the nearest tree.

STILL THERE.

The holy day will come when thou no more
Shalt wander from me—when our sweet love-sun
Shines upon labour finished, duty done—
When, joined at last, our souls shall upward soar.
Upon eternal lite's untrodden shore
We two shall stand—not two indeed, but one
Pure white-winged spirit—lovely, seen of none
Save God and love; crowned conquerors after war.

Thou shalt not leave me then—thine eyes shall meet
Mine fully, freely, gladly—thou shalt be
My wife-rose in the utmost heavens, sweet,
The sacred and completing half of me;
As I glance up then, thou shalt not retreat,
Still there, and there—and there eternally.

195

THE GENIUS OF SOLOMON.

King Solomon at night discourses to a dark-eyed captive maiden concerning his dreams of new culture and strange gods.

Surely the roses in this woman's hair
Bring thoughts of gods as holy and more fair
Than the austere Jehovah of our race,
Who shone on Sinai with terrific face—
Surely the strange white goddess of the moon
Worshipped by night with many a wandering tune,
Whose tresses gleam adown the wanton hills,
And whose soft altars shine beside the rills,
Hath somewhat in her that our cold high God
Lacks—he can smite with red impetuous rod,
But this soft goddess of the smooth fair night
Brings only endless, amorous delight:—
O gentle daughter of a foreign tribe,
What think'st thou—surely, but for curse and gibe
Of priests and sour-faced prophets, long ago
I had raised many an altar, white as snow,
To the delicious gods whose black locks gleam
By many a pure and pale Assyrian stream.
Our high God loathes the names of Ashtaroth
And Moloch—at their rites his soul is wroth;

196

Yea, at the sight of their smooth heathen breasts
He lifts the thunderous lance that near him rests;
Yet do I fancy—soft girl is it so?
That thy soft goddess' bosom is of snow,
And all her golden locks are passing fair,
And subtle fragrances her shoulders bear,
And marvellous delights unknown to Jews
Thy nation wins—why, why should we refuse
To mingle delicate reverence for strange gods
With our own joys, for fear of those fierce rods
Wherewith Jehovah's anger scourges those
Who love not only lilies, but the rose
As well?—my maiden of the long black hair,
Brought to me from some distant city fair
By the rough hands of strenuous men of war,
Some city underneath an occult star,
Now lift thy laughing lips and tell to me
What strange gods rule beside that foreign sea.
What temples golden, glorious as the sun,
Smile towards the skies no Hebrew glance has won.
What sister-women fairer than our race,
Pass laughing towards these temples with bright face
When evening calls the people unto prayer;
O, more than David I love liberal air,

197

And I would stretch my soul beyond these bounds,
Seeking far skies no mountain-tower surrounds—
Loving the lovely gods of all the earth,
Joining the innocent unshackled mirth
Of many a white-limbed cluster of fair girls,
Twining an amorous hand through alien curls.
O lady of love, brought to King Solomon,
On whom a ray of his great glory has shone,
What think'st thou? Kiss me, teach me with thine hands
To lift up prayers towards gods of many lands.
Yea—turn my face this night as thine hath turned
Full many a time towards deities scorned and spurned
By the rude votaries of the lonely One
Who rules severely above the gold glad sun,
Above the lingering circlet of the moon,
Above the clamorous rivers' far-spread tune,
Above the billows and breezes of the sea,
Above thy beauty—yes, sweet, above me—
Above the lordly king of this rich town,
At whose straight knees the wandering tribes bend down;
And who has in his royal seraglio
Flowers plucked where'er the foot of love can go.

198

Help me; forget thy sorrow for this night,
Turn towards the King those orbs of gentlest light,
Help me to teach the people in spite of priest
And prophet, that a splendour in the least
Slight plant or insect shows that One alone
Frowns not from one vast immemorial throne,
Not mixed with Nature—standing high aloof
Beyond our daring thoughts, our wisest proof—
Beyond our words—beyond adoring looks,
Silent as endless deserts empty of brooks;
Naked as if the ornate world were nought,
Clothed only in his own pale boundless Thought,
Apart from us—apart from all these flowers;
Lifted above the bloom of rose-hung bowers;
Lifted above the glare of sacred torches,
And voices tender of maidens in the porches;
Raised terribly above these earthly things,
Supported by insufferable wings
Of brilliance no man can gaze upon—
Rather that every blossom of the field
Some living breath of deity doth yield,
And that strong gods pervade the flowing air,
And shine beneath the dark-green billows fair;
And that the lordly forests, dim and tall,
Are but the wood-nymphs' interwoven hall,

199

And that the mountain-sides are trodden indeed
By sacred steps of gods who intercede
For even the most remote uncultured race—
Nay—blush not, sweet one, look me in the face,
For, though I am a king, I long to be
One with the fervent Nature that I see.
Lo! one red rose has fallen from out thy hair,
What goddess, love, I wonder white and fair
Resides within the bush whence this was plucked?
Whose fragrant mouth full many a bee hath sucked
As the soft lips have glimmered from each flower.
Would that I might in her sequestered bower
Bring gifts of holy meaning, love, with thee,
And that her quiet face might smile on me,
For I am weary:—Weary of the days
Not given to song, not crowned with flowers and bays,
Not wreathed with wisdom's blossoms nor with lore
Unsearched—but dull and bloomless as before.
Once in the night the Spirit of the Lord
Came unto me, and pierced me as with sword
Tender, and asked me to desire a gift
Of God—then tremulous voice I did uplift,

200

Craving that wisdom from on high might shine
Upon the anointed prince of Abraham's line.
And God has given me wisdom—I am wise
Beyond these Hebrews, who, with downcast eyes
And querulous and introspective gaze,
Pass through Jerusalem on holy days,
Seeking the steaming altars of their God:—
Weary I am of his superb abode;
Weary of smoking spices and of myrrh,
And fine-wrought ceilings woven of foreign fir,
And delicate hangings coloured blue and red,
With golden intermingled rivulets shed
Between, and sheen of ivory, and brass
Immeasurable, and white foam of glass,
And pointed windows and rich-carven panes,
Blended in crimson evanescent stains;
And endless wealth of radiant sapphire stones,
Ruby and onyx, emerald—and the tones
Of subtle music wandering through the roof
And round the walls of velvet warp and woof.
I long for gods who plunge in running rivers;
I long for women-gods—my strained heart shivers
With weariness—I feel a lone fatigue,
I long to flee this city many a league,

201

And in some quiet warm flower-haunted wood
Find a new goddess, tender and wise and good.
The very thought contamination brings—
That Judah's prince should muse upon these things,
Is sure pollution—yet I deem that worth
Is found in every corner of God's earth.
In thee I can discover many a grace
Wanting to our fierce narrow-minded race;
And why should the great Ruler of the wind
And sea be fashioned after one male mind,
And womanhood excluded from his heart
And bosom?—the dark clouds asunder part,
And in prophetic vision I can see
Throned far above Jehovah a form like thee.
I am before my people! they will keep
For ever their monotheistic sleep,
And dream for ever Sinaitic dreams—
It is their fate—their mission—but fair gleams
Of wider faiths have shone upon the king—
They understand me not—and so I bring
My stores of hope and yearning to the feet
Of this poor captive damsel, mute and sweet.
Dost understand me, maiden, when I say
That I can pierce beyond this present day

202

Of bigoted slow worship, to a time
When faith shall be more fervid, more sublime?
These women in my harem all bring tales
Half-muttered coyly underneath their veils,
Of worships tenderer than the worship here;
And though our smug-faced prophets frown or sneer,
I see that every tender thing is true,
Whether it be an ancient tale or new.
Speak to thy sisters, bright one, tell them I
Would gather wisdom from beneath each sky,
Even as I gather roses from each land,
For kingly love to grasp with passionate hand;
Sparing no timid blossom of any race
If she be fair, with pure blood in her face.
Nothing can stay the flame-flushed plumes of thought,
Before their fire tradition is of nought
Avail—I cannot—though I would, conceal
The limitless strange yearnings that I feel.
The brides that I have brought from many lands,
Have taught me secrets no man understands
Of all these men whose brains are fat with lore
Unshapely, gathered in the days of yore.
O dark eyed maiden with the long dark hair,
Open the casement—let the fragrant air

203

Of night delight our brows. See, every star
Flames like a god or goddess from afar!
I wonder wherein doth Jehovah sit?
By which star are his golden candles lit?
Which sun doth God choose for his lonely throne?
By what night-breezes is his forehead shown,
As their embraces part the rigid hair?—
Rather I would be touched by fingers fair
Of star-like goddesses whose golden beauty
Forms of itself the only law of duty,
Seeing that all fair things are as good as fair.
Draw back now, maiden, from the darkling air,
And when thou thinkest of King Solomon,
Remember how this night his love hath shown
To thee the voiceless dream that round him clings
With hurtle of incessant airy wings,
Driving and goading all his spirit on
Beyond the paths where David's banner shone;
Beyond the safe soft roads of common life,
Towards limitless deserts of uncertain strife;
Beyond the narrow barriers of his race,
Towards some new God of boundless fearless face.
Alas! thy roses all have fallen—even so
These thoughts they gave me flutter and fall, and go.

204

SONNET.

ONE ROSE.

A vision in the beauty of the night!
I saw a woman perfectly displayed,
Grand in her awful nakedness—afraid
I wept for terror at the lovely sight,
I wept for pleasure at the lovely might
Of snowy limbs before me in the shade;
My love, with every snowy limb portrayed,
Leaned on the dusk, angelically bright.

Naked she stood; her awful beauty thrilled
Each fibre of my bent, uncovered soul,
The room with that strange loveliness was filled,
And over my sick sense a faintness stole;
Her beauty was, this time, intensely bare,
Save for one fiery, full rose in her hair.

205

THE KITTEN.

It does not matter much, love,
You did not mean to slay,
You did not think a touch, love,
Would throb throughout the day;
You did not mean it much, love,
I know you were in play.

A kitten's claws can scratch, love—
You think it is not so?—
I think they can despatch, love,
Although you answer “No”—
I feel that they can scratch, love,
And make the red blood flow.

It does not matter, sweet love,
That half triumphant tear,
'Tis something of a feat, love,
For me to have brought near;—
Although to see it, sweet love,
Has cost me very dear.

206

FOUR SONNETS.

I.—THE ROSE OF GOD'S BLOOD.

“Even now we know, that when we shall see Christ as He is, we shall be like Him that His heart is infinitely more tender than ours—that we have never loved as Jesus has loved, and yet it is He who will pronounce the awful sentence, ‘Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.’”

[_]

The italics, in this miserable ascription of priestly smallness and cruelty to Christ, are my own.—G. B.

“High Truth,” by the Rev. R. Aitken, p. 139.

At times I feel like Cromwell, or like those
Who laughed to mark the bitter guillotine
Make many a sudden breach abrupt and clean
In the fair slender necks of Freedom's foes.
I feel that till the Supreme Tyrant goes
Life's air will not be perfect and serene—
God's throat must first incarnadine the green
Planet, like some imperial flattened rose.

Just as a great rose trodden in the mire
Must God's fair beauty and his splendour be;
Already is it fashioned in the fire,
The sword that, like some towering wave at sea,
Shall fall upon him, setting the desire
Of all the renovated nations free.

207

II.—THE CROWN OF FLOWERS.

Suggested by a picture, at the French Gallery, of Christ's head after death.

“Never a true crown, but Thy crown of thorn.”
—Macdonald.

It is a cursed lie! that pallid head
Is not the wearer of the only crown
That the white hands of kingly God lay down;
All garlands are not streaked with bitter red.
Bring flowers for other limbs than those which bled
On Calvary near the narrow-minded town—
Bring roses meet for snowy not for brown
And toil-worn breasts—this man is amply dead!

As for the speech that heads this sonnet, I
Declare that 'tis a cursed barren lie!
The only true crown is the crown of flowers!
As for the faith that there is only one
Triumphant victor underneath the sun,
That may be England's faith—it is not ours.

III.—IN ENGLAND'S NAME.

In England's name, in God's name, in the name
Of wide Humanity—and by the heart
Of womanhood transfixed by Christ's keen dart;
By mine own indignation like a flame

208

That leaps and scorches heaven—and by the shame
Branded on English love and English art
And English flowers and seas, when souls impart
To Christ dear secrets that our land should claim—
By all these bitter things, Lord Christ, I swear
That, as thy cross became a golden crown
And all thy blood-drops roses in thine hair,
So now thy garlands time shall scatter down:
England thou hast usurped! on rough oak block
Of England lay thy King's neck—wait the shock!

IV.—FACE TO FACE.

Since thus the spirit of love for mine own land
Pervades me, and I let it have its will,
I recognise the brave Christ-saviour still,
And touch with reverence his ringless hand.
Lonely, and face to face with him I stand,
Watching the cross upon the rocky hill—
The heart his priestly followers strive to fill
With their own thought, beyond them doth expand!

209

High as the azure dome above them glows
The utter soul of Christ which now I see
For the first time, because one English rose
With sweet red bloom uplifts me more than he—
I reach him, leaving him—the God-King dies,
And lo! the Peasant, with great genius-eyes!

210

THE RELIGION OF ART:

EIGHTEEN SONNETS.

I.—VENUS.

Back, back to Venus, perfect as a rose,
My soul went: worshipped in her inmost bower
The world's one comfort—yea, the world's one flower,
Whence ever love's ethereal perfume flows.
Ah! how the white breast, kissed and fondled, glows—
How deep delight fast waxes hour by hour—
How the soft outspread limbs of Venus shower
Rapture, and peace no saint of heaven knows.

Here I abide; the scent is on my hands
And on my tongue, and all my soul partakes
The souls of blossoms plucked in strange dim lands—
Now over me some spell Queen Venus shakes,
And I am mute awaiting her commands,
Watching her eyes of laughter as she wakes.

211

II.—THE IMMEASURABLE ROSE.

The hair of Venus woven with soft sprays
Allured me, wondering as it downward slid
Slowly and half her fragrant body hid,
So that the tender white shone through an haze.
Here was a red rose twined in subtle ways—
There a white rose of flesh that gleamed unbid—
No rose as those impassioned roses did,
Enamoured—fondly they besought the gaze.

Ever before me shines this vision high:
The endless hope it leads to no man knows,
Its splendour has not perished, though I die—
Still in the deep heart of each poet glows
Venus—and still her tresses wander by,
Circled with the immeasurable rose.

III.—UPON THE BREEZES.

Upon the breezes tenderly displayed
The hair shines; in all blossoms I behold
The soft locks woven, threads of living gold—
Across the sunset floats a loosened braid.
Death fails now more to make the world afraid,
For the utter tale of love has now been told—
In passion and through passion we are bold,
Nor can a further word of hope be said.

212

Because sweet Venus in the living air
Shines, and upon the gilded sunset seas,
Therefore the human life, love-crowned, is fair—
Impassioned thereby the warm noontide breeze,
And softened thereby all the calm we share
When silver lamps of night illume the leas.

IV.—CONTEMPLATION.

Calm contemplation is the end of Art—
Not to perturb her bosom at the sighs
Of each poor sufferer as the sufferer dies,
But to preserve a white unblemished heart.
The generations weary and depart,
But she, with equal and majestic eyes,
Her being to the omnipotent allies,
And wearieth not, as forth the young buds start.

At utter peace she sits; and all the years
Bring to her joys and sorrows for a crown—
Thorn-wreaths and roses, lilies and hot tears—
She marks them all; she watches with no frown,
Not smiling either, man's rage, woman's fears,
Blood, torture, terror, flames of many a town.

213

V.—THE ARTIST.

So Art sits—and the artist is at peace;
He hopes not, dreads not, toils not, nor despairs,
Healing for him upon the summer airs
And strength descend, as rose-crowned years increase.
Death is not terrible, but calm release—
Life is not over-glad: its gifts life bears
And then the grave, its final gift, prepares—
The hour when even rose-delight shall cease!

Gathering from Art her high triumphal calm,
The artist, each day's wreath within his hands,
Strengthened at morning, soothed by evening's balm,
Victor above the impulsive people stands:—
Not his the heavenly coronet nor palm,
But his earth's sunsets, his her seas and sands.

VI.—LOVE.

And love because it looks not for too much
As heretofore, is sweeter than of old—
The poet, singing with his mouth of gold,
Shall not find love evade his golden touch.
The imperious red rose is most surely such,
Because it fades and withers when we hold
The stem, by strong desire made over-bold;
And so love hitherto escapes man's clutch.

214

But when we see that just because love fades
And withers, is sweet love to be desired,
Love no more vanishes—no more evades—
The red love-rose magnificently fired
With heaven's best tints, casts brilliance down the glades;
Death is the life towards which its bloom aspired.

VII.—DEATH.

O death most wonderful, O death most good,
O death most holy—bringing rapt release,
Bringing the senses universal peace,
Placing us in a godlike solitude!
When once the lonely awestruck soul hath stood
Upon thy mountain-tops, what vast increase
Of passion shall enthral and thrill—nor cease
To work out raptures meet for every mood!

O perfect spirit of death stay not thy hand,
But make us one with all the women fair
Who flower-like sought to scent the flowerless land,
And with their breath make all the icy air
Quiver with lovely summer, and thy sand
Now eddy stream-like as with rippling hair.

215

VIII.—THE DEATH OF THE FIRST FAIR WOMAN.

For when the first fair trembling woman died
Death was abolished—all his heart did melt
E'en at that utter beauty which he felt
Gathered like some strange blossom at his side.
He could not bear the beauty of his bride—
He could not bear the stroke her beauty dealt
Soft and white-handed; as he grasped her belt,
Kissing, life-loosening, death was deified.

He could not bear the ecstasy of this
The first embrace of her the first red rose;
Fainting, death vanished in a stream of bliss,
Made one with life and love in thrills and throes
Delicious—at the beauty of her kiss
Death shudders; all his threatening purpose goes.

IX.—THE EMBRACE.

Oh marvellous embrace of death and life,
What will the final wondrous issue be?
Red rose what is thine own futurity,
Now thou art unto death a flower-lipped wife?
What shall be, now, the ending of this strife?
Now thou hast kissed the mouth of death shall he
Forsake his old malign ascendancy—
Will all his valleys now with buds be rife?

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Oh woman, woman, surely this strange tale
Has utter meaning—Love upon life's air
Pours immortality, and thou art pale
With over-love, a lily in thine hair,
A rose upon thy breast: cast off thy veil,
Kill death with body over-sweet to bear.

X.—THE RAPTURE BEYOND.

And all the rapture beckoning beyond!
The tender grasses soft beside the way,
And all the fervour of the first long day
In heaven, and all love's kisses pure and fond!
Death is the enchanter who with magic wand
Shall turn earth's skies Novembral, cold and grey,
Into sweet sunsets sweet as the display
Of August, when the red cloud-mail is donned.

All flowers in heaven are women—all are white
Therefore; they dazzle gleaming from the sod,
Soft from the valley, silver from the height,
Moon-tinted round each grass-bedecked abode,
Fragrant and fresh as from the burning bright
Profound unutterable embrace of God.

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XI.—WITHIN THE NIGHT.

Surely, within the sacred folding night
All lovers meet beneath the smiling stars,
All chains are loosened, broken are all bars—
Love is the conqueror—his the iron might.
Mute with a rapture passing speech in height
The lovers wander forth in golden cars
Of love now, no more, glaring day-flame mars—
No more the inquisitive intrusive light.

Beside dim forests or beside the sea
All lovers meet, in dream-land, and their lips
Cling close together soft and tenderly;
The hot sun's glory is love's moon-eclipse—
The tides of night doth Venus traverse; she
The wide intoxicating moonbeams sips.

XII.—NO DESPAIR.

Therefore let no one lover e'er despairl
For though his lady distant be by day,
At night she wanders with him in the way,
And lights his path with floods of golden hair:
Makes all the road a blossoming garden rare
By wandering scents that from her bosom stray,
Or round her forehead like a spring-breeze play—
Touching to holier life the enamoured air.

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Let but the lover wait—then suddenly
Before him, glorious with pure body white,
His one fair moon of women he shall see
Rising to rule the empire of the night;
Her sudden eyes, now deep, now swift with glee,
Shall flame across his path, and lead aright.

XIII.—THE FIRST ROSE.

The first sweet rose-bud was a woman's hand:—
God saw the hand, he saw that it was fair,
And, eager, longed the prize away to bear
To his own Paradise, his chosen land.
For miles of Paradise in hopeless sand
Were sunk, and perfumed not the dry faint air—
So, with his keen sword severed he the rare
And white delight; far-gleaming, subtle, grand.

The red drops quivered slowly from the wrist—
But ever as a rosebud the sweet toy
Blossomed in heaven, and ever God's mouth kissed
The token, laughing with a jealous joy:
“For,” said he, “now let man do what he list—
Having her hand, her heart I can destroy.”

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XIV.—THE FIRST RED ROSE.

But the pale bleeding wrist took life anew
For man's sweet sake, and blossomed on the earth,
And at this blossom's splendid trembling birth
Heaven helped by soft showers of strength-quickening dew.
Soon the red wrist a red rose 'neath the blue
Of heaven flamed—and man with quiet mirth
Appraised the flower and knew what it was worth,
Left God the white rose, and content, withdrew.

This splendid blossom tinged with woman's blood
Man holdeth ever; nor can God dispose
Its petals in his heavenly solitude:—
Fair woman best her heart of passion knows,
And though one slay her in a jealous mood,
Each drop of blood turns to her lover's rose.

XV.—FROM LOVE.

From Love the high celestial story sprang!
Sweet Love the gates of heaven deep-set in gold
Alone hath power and magic to unfold—
At Love's voice all the heavenly valleys rang!
Love's foot it was that smote with martial clang
The floors of hell, and, spirit ever bold,
The captives from that pitiable hold
Released—at Love's step all the dumb mouths sang.

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The thought of harps and heaven is only love
Made visible and audible on high:—
God reigneth truly, yea, he reigns above,
But all his empire in a woman's eye
Is holden—and the Spirit we call God's Dove
In woman's dove-like bosom fluttereth nigh.

XVI.—NO GREATER JOY.

There is no greater joy than simple joys:—
The man who once has kissed a living rose
The utmost circle of God's bounty knows,—
All heavenly raptures are our fancy's toys.
With plumes spread in divinest equipoise
Love forth throughout the swaying planet goes—
His bosom is God's bosom, and it glows
Ardent against the wind that upward buoys.

Truly, we dream of heavenly roses red,
And lilies fairer than our lilies white,
And crowns more pure than bay-leaves for the head:—
But when we win that glory's utmost sight,
And laugh to wear our victory, being dead,
Mere grass shall be than God's best throne more bright.

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XVII.—AN ANGEL.

Slowly and white the first sweet angel came
Towards me in heaven, and held within her hands
A garland woven of white violet-bands,
With one rose in the centre like a flame.
It seemed a fit return of love and fame—
Meet recompence for wanderings o'er the sands
Of lonely earth, and toil in desert lands—
Ready I was the blossom-wreath to claim.

But, when I touched it, all the wondrous smell
Of those white violets brought the earth again
Before me, and it was as if there fell
Upon the ground soft showers of spring-like rain—
And the angel was the rose too sweet to tell
I' the centre: just a woman, white thro' pain.

XVIII.—THE TEMPEST.

The tempest of the sovereignty of God
Down-smote me,—like a flower I fell before
His thunder's perilous terrific roar,
Crushed flat on the convulsed and trembling sod.

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The lightning flashed forth like his flaming rod,
And the utmost tingling heaven strange portents bore—
And life seemed just a bubble, nothing more—
And the universe like one red furnace glowed.

But soon the storm was over, and I heard
Loud in the tree-tops glistening from the rain,
The voice of Love sonorous as a bird
Who knows the speckled partner marks his strain:
And all God's sovereignty seemed now conferred
On Man and Woman—the lone god-like twain.

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THE MELODY OF LIFE.

SIX SONNETS.

I.—LIFE.

Life onward flows—and now as I look back,
I see, perhaps, the sweetest loves behind:
The fairest wreaths of blossoms perhaps were twined
When youthful feet were eager on the track.
Oh, for one breath of the dear balmy wind
That played across the meadows where I trod
When gold-harped king Apollo was my god,—
When first for the august green bays I pined!

Oh, for one breath now of the former air
That kissed my brows, delicious from the sea,
Soft from the meadows, from the mountains fair,
Fragrant from the divine flower-sprinkled lea,—
Oh, for one perfect kiss from lips that were
Tender, in the old tender days, for me!

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II.—HAS IT ALL PASSED?

Has it all passed? Is there no more divine
Nectar of love made ready in the years
To come,—no further draughts of passion's wine?
No further circlets,—though these drop with tears?
Better it is a dewy wreath to twine
Than no wreath,—better is a cloud-swept day
Than utter darkness crushing with dismay
The sun-desiring rose, the sweet woodbine.

The wreaths of passion were full often wet
With tears, I know it,—yet how sad the dry
Long passionless cold days that must be met,—
The path that must be traversed by-and-bye,—
The glancing back,—the wondering,—the regret,—
The seeking for lost pleasure;—till we die.

III.—THE LONE DAYS.

And oh, the lone interminable days
Unkissed, uncrowned, ungarlanded with song,
Unglorified with flowers, unwreathed with bays,—
Hours when the phantom memory is strong,

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And thoughts of past delights in myriads throng
The vestibules of mind, and scoff, and raise
Banners that once were golden as with blaze
Of love,—sound trumpets whose love-notes were long.

Oh, bitter, bitter, bitter,—when we see
The glad young roses by the window pane,
Soft-budding, reddening, with the purity
Of perfect bloom their yearly clusters gain:—
Knowing that bloom is passed, for you, for me,—
That nought save autumn seasons now remain.

IV.—PAST KISSES.

The thought of former kisses still is sweet.
Tender at night the trembling stars gaze down,
And we remember how those stars did crown
Wonderful nights of love—how hearts did beat,
And how we yearned towards eyes of blue or brown
And how the thrilling tingling palms did meet—
Oh, the divine nights after August heat!
The strolls through green lanes far from street or town!

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Wonderful early days, and loves of those
Soft early days, and gladness of the same,
And beauty that then rested on the rose,
A gentle spiritual caressing flame—
Ah! never comes a love-day but it goes!
The rose-fire endeth in autumnal shame!

V.—THE JOY OF LOOKING BACK.

And yet there is a joy in looking back,
A holy rapture in the very loss
Of love that almost like a sacred cross
We carry, all along the blood-dyed track.
Our feet were swift once, if our steps are slack
Now,—and fresh feet will follow in the way,
Walking like us towards night-time through glad day—
Never will Love his crowd of followers lack!

Sweeter embraces than the embraces sweet
That gladdened our past youth shall gladden these:
Diviner summer,—yea, more rapturous heat
Of June, and tenderer murmurs in the trees,
And yet more soft a cadence in the feet
Of woman,—nobler music in the seas.

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VI.—IT MAY BE.

It may be that the lovers of the days
To come, shall far excel our feeble speech,
Our feeble thought,—that they with ease shall reach
Summits we dream not of, or see to praise
Not to possess:—it may be that the lays
Of future years shall be to ours divine
Indeed: that lovers' happy eyes shall shine
Godlike: that love shall traverse novel ways.

But yet we know that all our love was true,
And that for us once shone fair passion's day;
That once love's awful holy dream was new,
And that at least one tender red-rose spray
Fell to our lot; that once high heaven was blue
For us, and once at least life's music gay.

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A SOUL-WREATH.

Shall the wreath be woven of roses, or gold, or of bounteous bays,
Or lilies white as thy heart, or violets pure as thy dreams,
Or pansies purple as those far fathomless oceanstreams
By which we wandered both, in love's fair earliest days?

Shall the wreath be redder than blood, or whiter than new-fallen snow,
Or green as the grass in April, or rich as the August corn,
Or grey as the autumn skies through which the wild winds blow,
When love's first vision is over, and passion sobs forlorn?

Not like any of these, but rather a wreath of the soul:
A wreath from the utter heavens, a garland plucked on the hills,
Shall be thine, sweet-smelling of mountains, and soft from the flowing of rills
In wonderful lofty places where mystic cloud-wreaths roll.

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Surely our souls are one: and the garland of death most sweet
Shall some sweet day be ours: we shall lay hands on his neck
And hamper his swift-foot flight, and put new chains on his feet,
And his speed for us shall be lessened, and he shall bend at our beck.

Then we shall stand sublime, a new fair crown on our heads,
Fairer than crowns of roses—the crown of a high work done
That shall shine with perfect glory, more bright and pure than the sun:
This the divine reward is, for every spirit that bleeds

In the van, on the crest of the battle, beholding glad from afar
The glory that comes so slowly, yet swift and sure as the wind
Is its course in the end—it shall blend like a sacred and spotless star
With the night of our lives now brightened,—the agony left behind.

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Therefore I crown thee not: since Death us two shall crown;
And bring us the best of garlands, and place us, beyond all graves,
In some soft fragrant forest, or by the sound of the waves:—
On the rose of our Love not a leaf shall tremble, no bud wax brown.

THE END.