Song-spray :: :: University of Virginia Library

TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.

AN EPISODE.

So by the ever-rolling Cornish waves
That eat the granite into countless caves
They sat and pondered o'er their troublous past
From that bright morn when first their vessel's mast
Bent to the breeze that swept the Irish shore;
The day when Tristram young and happy bore
Iseult as young and happy to be bride
To Marc who ruled the Cornish foam beside:

The purple heather and the golden furze
Stretched far before them, and the sun shone high
In heaven; one spake, the silver voice was hers,—
She broke the silence, nestling yet more nigh.

“O Tristram, soul of mine, what have we gained?
What flower of beauty have our hands retained?
The sun in heaven is sweet and high to-day,
The furze is golden 'mid these boulders grey
Of monstrous scattered granite; lo! the heather,
One sheet of purple in the glad clear weather,
Stretches towards the palace of King Marc,
Above whose towers the sky's one cloud hangs dark;
But we,—what have we gained for all our sin?
Where are the roses that we thought to win?
Where are the lilies of untamed delight
That thou didst promise for a circlet bright
Which Iseult's buoyant throbbing brow should wear:—
My soul is burthened by this summer air.

My soul is wearied by these labouring seas;
My spirit is sickened by this perfumed breeze;
My heart is straitened 'mid this boundless sky;
Would God that we were dead: yea, thou and I.
What, what will be the end? I long for flowers
That fade not at the touch of earth's cold showers;
Thy kisses are not sweet, as once each kiss
Seemed the chief rose of heaven's most utter bliss.
I am aweary: almost I could pity
King Marc: would that in some unknown fair city
I might pass days of labour till my death:—”

But Tristram answered, catching eager breath:
“Speak not so, lady: think of all delights
We two have known together; summer nights
When here in Cornwall every rose seemed part
Of one wide-beating joyous amorous heart
And that heart ours: rememberest thou how first
After love's draught awoke our endless thirst

Our close lips clung, and how we swore to be
Twin fair linked spirits of love eternally,
Living not far apart—nay living near,
Each spirit to each in purest union dear,
Too great for sinning,—an example high
Of how true love once wakened, cannot die,
Nor yet will suffer lovers to obscure
White hearts, white hands, by passionate act impure.
Oh mindest thou the great old vows we swore
Ere, all too swift, our vessel touched the shore
Of Cornwall: how we twain would help the king
My uncle, yet with joy of passion sing,—
With joy of secret passion nursed between
Thy bosom white and this strong breast, O Queen!
Rememberest thou, Iseult? Rememberest thou
How Marc my uncle when the glittering prow
Of our love's vessel touched his Cornish strand
Came forth and took thee trembling by the hand,
And how across the skies before so blue
A sudden wintriest gust, fast-darkening, blew?

Rememberest thou how for a time endured
Our vows, and passion lingered unobscured,
High, spotless, dauntless,—white as the white flag
Of our fair ship, or yonder gleaming crag:
Sweet, sweet it seemed to stand while others fell;
Sweet all high thoughts and high desires to tell
Each to the other; dreams of knighthood high,
Of splendid prowess, fame that should not die.
Yea, ever as I think King Marc bestowed
With open eyes and evil heart that glowed
Like hell's own fire within—ah, Satan's glance
Of his!—upon our passion every chance.
He hated thee, mine Iseult; and his hate
Flung for our fall wide open every gate,
Hurled for our sin from the hinges every door:
The gentler, softer thou,—he lusted more.
And lo! his lust took on this evil form,
Thee, sweet, to hurl adown black sorrow's storm
Like a white bird that struggles 'gainst the blast;
This he would do! into such action passed

His hate: he put temptation, honey-lipped,
Upon thy path,—then smote the mouth that sipped.
Then smote the mouth! ah Iseult, one fell day,
Dost thou remember? when the sky was grey
With clouds and storm, and when the hard-pressed foam
Curling flew landwards, whirling o'er thine home,—
Dost thou remember meeting me in tears,
Fresh from Marc's savage temper, fresh from sneers
And gibes of cutting tongue:—thy neck of snow
Red from thine husband's hand,—hot from a blow?

“Dost thou remember? That blow sealed our fate:
His hand flung open then the one last gate.

“Then came a time of dreams: of sweet desire,
Far sweeter than of old: of nights of fire,
Days of fierce sun, evenings when heaven seemed close;
For then, the first time, blossomed our full rose.
Then the first time we knew what passion meant;

The maiden veil that hid desire was rent,
The sweet robe sundered,—and thy body of flame
Was as white fire indeed, no more a name,
A lovely whispered mystery unseen,
But mine, not Marc's,—and mine for aye, my Queen.
The night, the night: summer it was, and Marc
Away: our passion lighted all the dark
As with gold countless stars, and the sweet smell
Of all thine hair caressed me,—as it fell
In one dark amorous encircling flood
About me, loosed from golden-bordered hood,
And first our hands clutched eagerly, and then
Swift-beating breast met tremulous bosom; when,
Lastly, with rapture crowning every sense,
Lips thrilled to lips in the divine intense
Inevitable inseparable kiss.
Iseult! Iseult! hast thou forgotten this?
The same Iseult—ever the same—thou art,
And I, I bear the same, same-bounding heart,
That beats for ever with swift equal tides

For thee: the fairest, sweetest of all brides
That knights have won,—yea fairer unto me,
Fairer and softer, lovelier, than is she
Who crowneth Lancelot with her bosom's rose:—
But these are thoughts of sorrow, sweet, of woes,
Of troubles,—sad thou art; let me once more
Wake with my harp the old echoes of the shore.”

So Tristram took his gold-strung harp, and sang,
And all the rocks and the far uplands rang
To his sweet singing,—and Iseult the Queen
Yearned to his voice and watched, the while serene
Slow waves before them brake the sea's dull green.

“The old joys were not sweet as joy that finds us
Now truly, sweetheart, thou and I are one:
The moon of soft love sank; now passion blinds us

With burning rays from its far fiercer sun,
Crowning the miscalled evil we have done.

“Joy is a gift that shall endure for ever;
The sorrows are the swift-winged wraiths that fade:
Death, all too weak, our spirits may not sever:
Iseult, sweet Iseult, be not thou afraid;
Love lends his strength and splendid wrath to aid.

“Yea Love is on our side: who reads our story
In future years shall listen to the roll
Of passion's white pure waves that drave their hoary
Crests far beyond the force of feebler soul
To follow,—touching an immortal goal.”

But Iseult's face darkened the while he sang,
And upward to her feet at length she sprang

And stretched out snowy hand; “Give me the harp,”
She said, and bitter was her tone and sharp,
Though tremulous too: “I likewise have a song
That trembles through my soul in wave-beats strong;
Lonely the other morn within my bower
I made the song; thou know'st not Iseult's power!”

And then she sang; with swift grey eyes that sought
In his to mark the reflex of her thought,
And swift white fingers; while her bosom heaved,
As through the melody her spirit grieved.

“Sweet were the old joys,—sweet is passion, lover!
Yet Iseult craves for pleasure deeper yet,
Fain would she some undying joy discover;
Upon some stormless rock her soft foot set,
Beyond repentance, change, remorse, regret.

“The flowers that once were sweet are spent and bloomless;
The songs that once we sang are silent now;
The world were glad,—if but the world were tombless!
This morning one grey hair above my brow
Gleamed through the black loose locks,—behold it, thou!

“That grey thread spake of silence and sun-setting;
It spake of glory that shall be no more;
I need a love past anguish, past regretting,—
A love that breaks upon no deathly shore
Wave-like, when love's first loveliness is o'er.”

Now, while they sang, across the fair blue sky
Clouds many and boding storm began to fly
And the sweet sun was darkened, and the seas
Were touched to white by the fast-wakening breeze;

And so, a wind of sorrow o'er their souls
Swept,—bright furze-blossoms over windy knolls
Flew, eddied round them by the chillier blast,
And with the change of scene their spirits fast
Darkened and saddened likewise, till he spake:
“Iseult, thy strange sad song hath power to wake
Within me memories buried; it derives
Its strength from marvels of our mutual lives.
But what now, sweet? Art thou so tired of love?
Is this the first thing to grow weary of?
Truly I love thee: yet if thou art tired,
If change of love is by thine heart desired,
Here am I, ready far away to roam,
Beyond that utmost stretch of glittering foam,—
Ready to seek new lands and newer loves,
Where white arms shine 'mid perfumed orange-groves,
And where the roses of the amorous South
Match, vainly, tints with many a maiden's mouth.
Yea, we are old in love, too old in joy;
Pleasure began for us when I a boy,

When thou a girl, beneath thy castle high
In Ireland, watched the changes of the sky,
Marking till eve from radiant dawn of day
The blue sky severed by those turrets grey,
As o'er the lawns or under shadier trees
We wandered, threading trim-kept pleasances:
Now we are old; thy mouth is far less red;
The blast of winter wanders round thine head;
A grey hair, saidest thou? I see them shine
Upon that forehead where Love loved to twine
The endless flawless rose! and now thine hands
Are no more lilies, loveliest of all lands,
Thy voice is harsh; Iseult, I will away
Beyond the foam, beyond the breakers grey;
Passion shall touch me with her touch of gold,
And love as warm, as soft, as love of old,
Shall circle me; God's pleasant world is wide:—
Man's spirit is straitened by one arduous bride.
The time hath come for change: yea, thou art tired!
Nor more by me is thine embrace desired.

Arms wait me far more gentle, and as white,
And eyes fulfilled with even as tender light
As thine eyes once—before they changed to dark,
Loving, I hold, at length thy noble Marc,—
His value seen at last,—his face, his voice,
Longed for: Iseult, thou hast made a worthy choice
With all the wisdom of a woman: Go—
Kiss Marc: uncover, love, thy breast of snow
Before him: touch him tenderly: it may be
His spirit shall yearn with late true love of thee,
And thou shalt find late rapture at his side;
At length a loved and ever-loving bride!
Nay! weep not, sweetheart; tears are but pretence;
Thy time for weeping is when far from hence
I pass the faithless kisses from thy mouth
To some red lips, far redder, in the South.
Marc is sufficient; Tristram is a dream!
A dream of girlish love! a fitting theme
Is our love after all for maidens wan:—
Now seek I passion worthy of a man.

Women there are, women there are: thy song
Has made my spirit rejoice; now am I strong,
Knowing my strength of manhood,—weak art thou,—
Go home to Marc, child-Iseult: bend and bow
Low at his feet: it may be that to-night
In soft arms he shall reap untold delight,
If, haply, he comes home not wearied out
By strange hot kisses, nor with drunken shout,
As often with his followers came he home
When their boats' lights, red-glimmering o'er white foam,
Gave in the bygone days the signal fit
To us i' the tower that love's lamp but just lit
By us perhaps, must fall a broken torch:
Then as we heard the splay feet in the porch
Pollute the marble, the last clinging kiss,
Our one—the best—for Marc that night to miss.

“'Tis over: over: kisses are but poor;
Thy song has said as much: they but endure

For one short summer; then Love's birds forsake
Their tree of the season and with laughter shake
Wild plumes adown the breeze”:—but Iseult said,
“Peace: hath not yet thine arrow quivering sped,
Flown, reached its Marc? The seemly deed is done:
Lo! o'er the Atlantic sets our once bright sun
Befouled by clouds; I am not now a girl
By whom thy harsh words like blown leaflets whirl,
Unharming and untouching”:—Then she rose,
Pointed to where the sea surged; “Tristram goes,”
She said, “to seek white arms across the foam;
I go to seek mine husband in his home;
I was mistaken; Tristram I had thought
A perfect noble knight: his love I sought,
His endless knightly aid: but he hath spurned
Away the lonely spirit that craved and yearned;
Go, seek thy soft caresses, and forget
Me, Irish Iseult: we have never met.”
But Tristram in his lover's anger turned;
Nor once looked back at the wet eyes that yearned

Towards him departing and the trembling hands:
He strode across the far-stretched dimpling sands
That yielded deep at each pain-stricken tread:
Iseult stood upright; in white hand one red
Small flower she crushed and soft the petals fell
Like drops of blood: but when a darkling dell
Had hidden Tristram as he turned inland
She let the whole crushed flower fall from her hand
Unheeding, and with hard grey eyes that burned
Dry now and hot and fevered, unconcerned
In outward show, passed murmuring a low tune
Homeward. The sun had set, wan rose the moon.

1877.

TO C. C.

Nay! not a “poppy,” but a wild white rose,
Pure, sweet, and tender,—clinging to the stem
Like a soft-hued and gracious diadem,—
Fresh with the wind that o'er the North Sea blows.
Rose-like the gentle spirit within thee grows
And, though surrounding folk thy life contemn,
Thou need'st not waver nor take heed of them,
If thine own heart its clear vocation knows.

Therefore, white Northern Rose, be not afraid:
Thy mission is to gladden and to heal,

And, if thy life's true task be long delayed
And tangled boughs the rosebud's shape conceal,
It is that more than that one Northern glade
May in the end thy power and bounty feel.

THE INCARNATION OF VENUS.

O subtle form by the grey cliff-top standing,
What art thou, sweet?
Whence came that glance so swift and so commanding,
That swift heart-beat?

Art thou a woman, or diviner, prouder,
More fierce, more fair,
Made to be hymned by passionate harp-strings louder
And lyres more rare?

If women are most white, then art thou whiter?
More fair indeed?
Thine hair more wonderful, thy bosom brighter?
Is there more speed

In thy swift foot than in the feet of flying
Dear soft-foot maids?
Dost thou, love, triumph when the others sighing
Wind wind-blown braids?

Hast thou within thine eyes a flame that brightens
The land and sea
And all the moonlit far-spread prospect lightens,
Far vale and lea?

Doth the corn-land for thee glow yet more golden,
The fields more bright,—
Are the far purple hills to thee beholden
For strange sweet light?

Hast thou the hand of goddess on the shallows
Of waste grey sea?
Dost thou make green the soft low-lying fallows
That yearn for thee?

Dost thou bestow upon the woods their splendour
When autumn fires
The leaves with touch most passionately tender
And flame inspires?

Do the white Northern waves their well-loved daughter
Behold in thee?
Art thou the queen of all these leagues of water,
This strange fierce sea?

Is there in thee the mystic full completeness
That Venus brings?
Within thy breast the scents of sudden sweetness
That fill her wings?

Are there upon thy mouth the goddess' roses
And in thine arms
The subtle force that round a lover closes
Resistless charms?

Hast thou within thy lips her power attractive
That lifts and slays?
Hast thou been through the viewless ages active,
In far wild days?

And now thou standest girl-like yet most splendid
On this gold shore
And all the winds and waves in one song blended
Thy beauty adore:

And all the flowers in million hidden places
At thy feet kneel
And love with fiery wings thy footstep chases
And fierce appeal:

And I gaze at thee, loving, yet not loving,
But marvelling more,
Feeling as though my trembling foot were moving
O'er some strange shore;

And ever, when I see thee, through the splendour
Of thy strange eyes
Grey-green and cruel and swift and great and tender
Sweet magic flies,

And thou art Venus, and I bend before thee,
And thou art white,
And in the sea's song I thy bard adore thee,
And in its light,

And in the ripples that o'er ten thousand rivers
Leap high and fail;
And in the haze that o'er the mountain quivers;
The wind's wild wail;

And in the chant of thunder-clouds sonorous,
And in the waves'
Moonlit ineffable approachless chorus
That rings round graves,

And in the laughter of the wide creation
I laugh with thee
O thou, love's marvellous mystic incarnation,
Born of the sea!

All poets have loved thee; thou the same for ever
Shinest o'er their dreams:
They shudder, faint, but they escape thee never,
Nor thine eyes' gleams.

They shudder for joy and faint for very wonder
When thou dost come
Crowned with the lightning, robed about with thunder,
Making earth dumb.

They faint for joy and weep for exultation
When thou dost shine
Through their soft songs upon each listening nation
Through thee divine.

They all have loved thee, and they all have maddened
At thine embrace,
Crowned, killed, and risen again, and slain and saddened,
At thy same face!

They all have loved thee,—but not one has found thee,
Nor held nor chained,
Nor in the embrace irrevocable bound thee,
Nor thee retained.

Thou crownest them with the old unearthly splendour
Of mouth and limb,
Sweet, imperturbable, past passion tender,
Till hearts grow dim:

But though they follow alert and full of daring
They fail to keep
Thy living glory, though all alike are sharing
Thy sombre sleep:

The sleep that follows after passion truly
They all may share;
But while they share it, thou art twining newly
Thy brown bright hair;

And ever anew thou art incarnate, lady,
In new sweet form,
Now manifest 'mid valleys calm and shady
And screened from storm;

Now by the old white waves where thy birth once gladdened
The wandering foam;
There I beheld thee, gazed at thee and maddened,—
In thy first home.

And ever the same madness charms and seizes
Both heart and hand
When brows are swept by sacred summer breezes
From thy far land;

And ever through the din of daily labour
If music speaks,
With wings more keen than keen blue-bladed sabre
My winged soul seeks

The far white seas where I, sweet, first beheld thee
And in wild dream
Knew that the very might of Love impelled thee,
And marked the gleam

Of Venus' eyes in thine, superb, entrancing,
Beyond all speech
Divine, with the old immortal laughter dancing
That the old gods teach.

For that swift laughter fills thine eyes and flowing
From these to mine
Fills all my urgent heart with fiery glowing
Hot quick fierce wine,

And lifts me far beyond the daily portal
Of daily deeds
Towards the clear fathomless far skies immortal
Whereto love speeds.

Art thou then woman, or art thou the burning
Sweet Venus-form
Ever to earth in newer shape returning,
More soft, more warm,

Maddening us more with blossom-like sweet bosom
And new girl-speech,
Ever an untouched unimagined blossom
For love to reach?

Art thou upon the old grey cliff reposing
A woman, sweet,—
Or are the gods again through thee disclosing
Their hearts' wild heat

And art thou sent, with the eyes that lured all singers,
On one soul still
With perfect touch of pure imprisoning fingers
To work thy will?

WHAT SHALL BE: A SONG OF WEARINESS.

I.

Ah me! what strange relief when never more
By hill or lake or shore
The tender summer airs for us are sweet,—
When no flowers front our feet.
When the last sun has risen, the last moon set,
Then shall we not forget?
When the last laughing red mouth has been kissed,
We'll fly, and not be missed!
When the last gracious love-word has been said,
We'll seek the loveless dead
And bring them songs that found on graceless earth
Just soil enough for birth

But neither suns nor moons nor stars to shield
Their growth in fallow field
Nor love of hearers nor desire of souls
Who cluster round earth's goals.

II.

Ah! when the weary weary weary way
Is traversed and the grey
Dim breakers desolate of death's grim sea
Surge and advance and flee,
So near at last we hear their salt mouths sing,
What peace their song shall bring!
For then at last we know that no more flowers
Shall flame for us in bowers
And that love's message shall no more mislead
Nor passion's bright heart bleed
Nor feet that struggle on the temporal way
Be duped, and led astray.

The golden valleys will be full of corn
And great suns greet the morn;
The purple hills will flame with far-spread heather
In the blue solemn weather;
The woods will all be scented from the crowd
Of meadow-sweet wind-bowed;
The seas will laugh and all the breezes sing;
The black-berry copse will ring
Just as of old to merry maidens' mirth
And all the same old earth
Be veiled in May-bloom and in jocund green
And rathe flowers peep between
The enravelled foliage and close-clustered stems
With nodding diadems
And all the innumerous founts and rills and brooks
That permeate dusky nooks
Shall babble onward, and the hedge shall shine
With August eglantine
And lovers' lips shall meet,—but we shall know
No more that this is so.

III.

The weary flowers shall find us then no more
Nor the waves sound on shore;
Nor fierce desires of wayward temporal things
Then agitate our wings;
Nor mad capricious passion sweeter than
Furze-scent when it began
And far more arid than the arid sea
When once its first wild glee
Lessened,—shall reach us in that silent land
Where soon our feet shall stand.
Never shall sweet scent rouse us any more
Nor beauty round us pour
Ineffable desire and splendid grace
Of her tumultuous face
And all the urgent rapture of her wings
Whereto grey sorrow clings.
Not gold nor black nor auburn hair, nor brown,
Not one most sweet rose-crown,

Not sweetest smiling of a woman's face
Nor her most tender grace
Nor whitest bosom filled with forest-balm
Shall lift us from our calm,—
The sacred calm unending and supreme
That follows every dream,—
The terrible pure calm that holy death
Seals with her signet-breath,—
The calm whereto all we, swift spirits, go
As the years onward flow,—
The final calm that never trump shall break
Nor love's own whisper wake.

IV.

Not all the lures that lured us once shall then
Speak and be heard again:
Not summer laughter in the leafiest trees
Nor June-sweet breath of breeze

Nor June-soft flutter of foliage in the air
Nor gorse-bloom deep and rare
With subtle scent that steeps us in a dream
Wherethrough strange phantoms stream.
Nought of these things shall rouse us from our sleep;
Nor groan of thunder deep
Nor splendid red attire of autumn leaves
Whereat the love-wind grieves
Nor golden August smiling 'mid the corn
Nor crimson jocund morn
Nor village rebeck sounding o'er the plain
Nor tanned autumnal grain
Nor monstrous murmur of Decembral waves
That triumph o'er men's graves
Nor moonlit lisp of ripples as they march
'Neath the moon's silver arch
Nor splendour of the innumerable stars
And all their glowing cars
Nor blue-black inlets of the mountain-lake
Where russet rushes shake

Nor briony-berries with their flaming red
Nor campion's milk-white head
Nor gentianella pure and skiey-blue,
Heaven-exquisite in hue,—
Nor pink geraniums, nor the star-wort green
That in the trench is seen
Nor speedwell tender as the heaven's own eye
Nor tufts of grass that sigh
In the June-wind with blossom-laden crests
Nor the white lilies' breasts,—
Not one thing of these things so passing fair
Shall make us as we were
Or lift from slumber our desirous eyes
That yearn not for new skies
But only for the immitigable sleep
Endless, unbroken, deep.

V.

And shall God's heaven or gold harps rouse us then,
We wearied-out dead men,

When all these fragrant fair things cannot rouse
Or flood our narrow house
With new desire and sweet, and bring new joy
Wherewith to sport and toy?
What hope for lyres and harps in heaven, or sweet
Sound as of angels' feet,—
What can their utmost efforts pale and spent
Bring dead souls of content?
Can they rouse dead hearts when a sweet live rose
Wherein the summer glows
Had nought of power to rouse,—when woman's breath
Failed to undo our death?
Whom woman cannot wake is dead indeed
Past hope of heaven or creed,—
Him shall the utmost thunders fail to wake
Who lives not for her sake,
And all God's tremors of judgment pass him by
Who in spite of her would die.
If the red luscious mouth of woman-rose
Can lift us not, who knows

What joy can lift us or what hope can bloom
Yet, on our hopeless tomb?
Yea, she lifts not,—we are in peace at last
And all our life is passed,
Joys, sorrows, passions, splendours, all are gone,
Not one frail bud lives on,
And men forget us though they hear our song
Still, for its voice is strong,—
Hear it in sighing of the insatiate waves
And wintry wind that raves
And in the summer whisper of the leaves
Trembling round cottage-eaves
And in the heart of women too it sounds
And its live breath abounds.

VI.

But we return not: never never more
Shall all our hearts be sore

With the sheer travail and laborious care
Life gave for robe to wear;
Passion and love have done for us their best
And white hands have caressed
And rabid mouths have cursed and many have railed
And red swords have assailed
And roses have been sweet and violets blue
Bathed in translucid dew
And gardens wonderful have held us deep
Hidden in magic sleep
And tender arms have with their gracious care
Made many seasons fair
And mouths ephemeral have seduced our own
With their ephemeral tone
And lips eternal sacred and divine
Have kissed us for a sign
And on the lonely footpath we have bled
Till purple flowers and red
Sprang in our traces,—many moons have shone
And gay suns waved us on

And fields innumerable of swaying green
Upon our path been seen
And waves have tempted us with glittering blue
Seductive transient hue
And mountainous tides have foamed across our path
Terrible in white wrath
And sometimes pain hath cradled us to rest
Half with a mother's breast
And agony our very souls hath wrung,—
And through it all we've sung,—
And through it all we've struggled towards the high
Sheer unattempted sky,—
And now the strife is over and we sleep,—
And what we've planted, reap.

VII.

But who shall wake us? Shall we slumber long,
Silent, devoid of song,
Or shall we bring to lower lands a voice
Bidding dead hearts rejoice,—

A breath of England and the English seas,
A whisper of the breeze,
A message to the English harps that sleep
In deathland-valleys deep,
Bidding them know that we on earth retain
The memory of their reign
And that from earliest singer to the last
Their melodies have passed
Into the heart of England, making fair
The fountains of her air
And making strong the splendour of her seas
And vocal her great breeze
And filling all her deep proud heart with might,
Her regal eyes with light,
Her hands with valour and her face with pure
Rich joy that doth endure:
Raising her by their song above all lands
And giving with wide hands
Their great and deathless spirits for her to take,
Made deathless for her sake,—

Rendering her rose-like in the midst of free
Girdle of circling sea
And ever sweet and gracious with perfume
From their own souls' white bloom
And glorious with the mastery of their might
And with their beauty bright
And lifted by their force to lands afar
Untrodden of sun or star
Whose sacred fields alone have yet been trod
By imminent live God
Where they in lordly triumph and high state
For new dead singers wait
When these too pass and leave their country higher
For all their love and fire,
Mingling with many a mighty poet dead
And lordly vanished head
Till all the mighty choir one day complete
In deathless chorus sweet
Makes song more wave-like, England, then for thee
Even than thy choir-like sea.

LOVE-BLOOM: THIRTY SONNETS.

IV. IF.

If we could give each other what we saw—
The spirit of gladness of the early hours,
The spirit of sweetness in the long-lost flowers,
And all the deep divine sea's sense of awe,
And young divine hearts free from stain or flaw,
And all youth's sacred and unsullied powers,—
If we could see once more the green sweet bowers,
Freed from all pangs of later life that gnaw,—
If once for us again the waves could gleam
As blue and tender as in love's first dream,
And once again the sunset flame as grand
As o'er the mountains of the long-lost land,
How would our souls that grow forlorn and old
Take from the rapture a diviner mould!

X. LIGHT LOVE.

[_]

“The author of these Sonnets, styling himself Proteus, acknowledges thereby a natural mood of change. He here lays bare what was once his heart, to the public, but what for good or evil is his heart no longer. He stands upon the threshold of middle life, and already his dreams are changed. The gods of his youth have ceased to be his gods.” —Preface to “The Love Sonnets of Proteus”.

There are whose loves are new with every morn:
Who wear love like a robe,—then cast away,
Deeming eternal love a thing to scorn
And passion a bright bird who will not stay
With mortals ever, or his wings delay:—
The sorrow of such upon the breeze is borne
A sobbing tuneless note, a wail forlorn,
That mixes with the wild wind's plumage grey.

But we, great spirit, are we such as these?
Nay, round us breathes the promise of soft spring;
Ripples an endless laughter through the trees;
The blue streams as with God's own joyance sing;
Life is the bird that dwells with us nor flees,
And death's the dark-hued fast-receding wing.

105

XII. THY SOUL.

Thou hast no weakness of the common soul
Within thee: thou hast breathed the mountain-air
Of God, and found the angels' singing fair,
And heard the eternal tides that surge and roll
Upon the heavenly shores:—thou dost control
With will indomitable thine own rare
Most fiery spirit, and dost the yearning share
Of those who pant but for the proudest goal.

Thou art a woman-flame: thou would'st consume
With thine own fervour smaller souls if these
Beheld thee as thou art; but swathed in ease
And wrapped in fragrant mists of valley-bloom
Such apprehend not ever what thou art,
Nor fathom the hill-grandeur of thine heart.

107

XIII. AND YET.

And yet thou art a woman very sweet:
A woman-spirit with a woman's face,
Beautiful, tender, gentle, full of grace,
With heart that doth for woman's rapture beat.
Thou hast climbed the mountains with no sluggish feet,—
Yet art thou happy in a green still place
By quiet pools o'er which the swallows race,
Resting awhile from aspiration's heat.

Because thou art so great, thou art most fair,
And highest spirit because softest rose,
And softest rose because the mountain-air
Bracing and gracing round about thee blows,
And gentlest woman because clear and rare
And swift and splendid God's thought through thee flows.

108

XIV. “DOST THOU CONTEMN ME?”

Dost thou contemn me in that I am red?
The stains of battle are upon my limbs
And with the strenuous war-cry my brain swims;
I am not fit for bower or lady's bed.
The sword-blades seem to circle round my head
E'en now in thought, and dust mine eyesight dims;
Am I a man for love or marriage-hymns,—
To whom a rose as thou art should be wed?

Thou art red too, but red as is a rose
Of perfect petals: I am flawed and marred
And weary and grim and battle-streaked and scarred,—
My head-piece has the dints of ceaseless blows,
And I have ridden for years with visor barred;
Are mine arms where a woman should repose?

109

XV. CAN I BE SILENT?

Nay! can my voice be silent when my heart
Is never silent? Can my lyre be dead
When every morn the fresh sun's tuneful head
Glitters anew across wide fields of Art?
Words cannot tell the whole,—but they tell part;
Not in a sonnet, love, thy lips are red,
And not in verse our spirit-hands are wed,
But yet through verse soft thoughts and gracious dart.

Sing, love, I must: I cannot hush my lyre
Or still the music-yearning that thy face,
Thy soul, thy wit, thy beauty, do inspire;
Along the song-course still my feet must race,
For easier could the sun forsake the sea
Than I could fail, sweetheart, to sing of thee!

110

XXII. DEATH AND FREEDOM.

But ought I so to sorrow? How thy chains
At the death-angel's touch would fall away!
How for thee flame would flush life's waters grey!
How death, though life's hand lingers and refrains,
Would crash along thy fetters! how new plains
Of life in the first light of heaven's clear day
Would open out before thee; the long fray
Would then be over,—washed away its stains!

Death's hand to thee will be the hand of love
Destroying every bolt and every chain;
Bursting the prison of thy life-long pain;
Descending wave-resistless from above:
Love's hand, God's voice saying, “Lo, thou art free!
Thou hast conquered self;—rejoice: thou art the sea!”

117

XXIV. LOVE'S LAND.

How old and weary are we till we meet!
Then love with laughter and with joyous speech
Gathers the boyish pebbles on the beach
And every primrose is past praising sweet.
What soft airs gladden us,—what swift thoughts beat
Along our hearts that were so faint and sore;
And now we hear the old waves' mellow roar
And tread beside them with fresh vigorous feet.

So sweet it was! the night fell round our eyes
With tenderest touching, as of woman's hand,
And folded us in depths of dark-blue skies,
And the dear waves plashed softly on the strand,
And dreamy words passed into dreamier sighs,
And only sweetest love possessed the land.

119

A REPUBLICAN PRINCESS; OR, THE DEATH OF MESENTZOFF.

“Oh, am I not as white and soft and sweet
As any blood-royal princess of them all?
Yea, whiter, softer, sweeter!—in that I
Hold, fragrant now within my woman's flesh,
The flowers of all the years that are to be:
In that the fair Republic's future bliss
Shines now within me,—in that every rose,
Each lily, of the future, in my lips
Or on my hands is snow-white or is red;

126

This very measureless and soft desire
Wherewith I cleave to thee, O love, to-night
Is but the immeasurable and vital flame
That burns deep in the deep Republic's heart.
I am the white Republic: and I give
In woman's burning yielding snow-white flesh
The splendour of its future unto thee.
It is incarnate in my body and soul,
The body and fervent soul wherewith I clasp
Thy body and thy lustrous spirit to-night.
Oh kiss me the Republic: cling to me
The tender pure Republic lying here
Naked and limitless beneath thy gaze.
Because in me the agony and the tears
Of all who yet have suffered for the sake
Of Freedom and of Love are gathered up:
Because in my one spirit I can include
The sorrow of the past and every pang
Of patriot stricken upon the battle-field
Or patriot-woman stricken as deep at home,

127

God grants me as reward the power to give
To thee the sweet Republic's soul to-night.
O lover, take it,—take me: taking me,
Take the Republic warm within thy arms.
“Lo! there is yet a blood-spot on thine arm!
See now I kiss it; damp it is e'en now,
So hasty and so rapid was thy flight!
I tinge my lips with this the recreant blood
Of executed Mesentzoff, and then
I kiss the disc of crimson back to thee
My lover, so—and so; art thou content?
Art thou content that Freedom's spotless God,
Having rescued thee the executioner,
The carrier-out on traitor Mesentzoff
Of holy Freedom's passionate decree,—
Having delivered by his arm of might
Thy soul from the pursuers, now hath given
One woman's blossom of unmeasured praise

128

To thee the blood-stained doer of the deed?
Art thou content? Oh how I love thee, sweet,
Now that thou art not white but stained and red!
Yea, be thou red,—for ever red: and I
Will be thy whiteness, thine unstained pure flesh,
Thy spotless body, when before the throne
Of God we answer for to-day's high deed.
And Mesentzoff; where is his spirit now?
Dead with the dead souls; crowned amid the kings
Whose burning restless treacherous strange eyes
Are the eternal torches that illume
Their own eternal torments in the hell
Whereto betrayers of their country plunge
When at the dagger's mandate (as to-day
The sacred dagger spoke!) the wide earth gapes,
Laughing, to let them through; and down they speed
With groans of women tortured and of men
Downtrodden, for their clamorous charioteers.

129

“There's Mesentzoff!—and, sweetheart, where are we?
In imminent danger of our lives—but yet
In heaven: in the thick of Paradise,
Right in its very central sweetest bower:
Husband and wife beneath the smile of God.
That blood-spot is our ruby wedding-ring,
And the pursuers are the priests who clinch
The august and swift, impetuous ceremony.
A murderer they'll call thee; even now
I seem in thought (or is it in very deed?)
To hear their hoarse and sanguine-throated shouts:
Murderer, I kiss thee; kiss me, murderer,—
And mingle souls thus through the fierce close lips!
“Make much of me: the morning over-soon
Will come,—the grey and lurid morn of doom
Perhaps; Oh make the most of me to-night!
I give thee all I promised,—do I not?
Am I not true? Am I not faithful wife?

130

Am I not pure and faithful helpmate, dear,
Giving thee all the chaste fit fruit of love?
Oh I am but a woman after all,
And I would live,—yea I would live with thee
In some sweet island in the sunny West
Or in the sunnier East; I would not die.
I would bear children unto thee, my love,
Would know the rapture of a quiet home,
The tender pure divine domestic joys
That other women know, and then despise,
Heed not, contemn, think little of; oh ne'er
Before this, did I dream how sweet a thing
Might love in all its simple issues be!
Love I despised; or held it as a crown
That only in the life beyond the grave
Should be upon my patient forehead worn.
But now I love love: thou hast taught me this;
Love on for ever! let our joy prevail
Through sunrise and throughout another day
And night, and through the sweet eternity.

131

O love, man, hero,—would that in the world,
Yea, in the starry universe of God,
There were no other blossom than thy mouth,
And that for ever I might gather that,
And fill my soul for ever with the bloom
And passionate fragrance of that endless flower.
“Ah, I am tender with thee now, and with
Myself: I would not die, I would escape,
Fly with thee somewhere; be thy happy bride.
Can we not shun pursuit, and ere the morn
Be far upon some sweet untrodden way,
Some road to France or England, happier lands
Where Freedom needs not, as in this our home,
To sit with armèd hands and watchful head?
Yet—I would stay with thee for ever here,
Live here, die here; pass from our glory here
To Paradise; I know not what I wish,—
I only know that perfect love is sweet,

132

And that thou art my perfect flower of joy,
My king, my gold-haired lover,—my delight.
“Play with my hair: it is a girl's for thee,
Untouched, unhandled,—as my body was
For thee a maiden's two short hours ago;
Is now a woman's and a wife's indeed.
Cling close,—I'll be thy mother now, and hold
Thee the boy-murderer in my safe strong arms,
Empty too long of any gift to hold.
Hector-Andromache I'll be to thee!
Sweet mother, sister, father, all in one,
And wife as well,—and even more than wife;
I'll be to thee the sweet Republic-Bride,
The chainless advent of the kiss of God.
Ah! weary hath my life been; never yet
Have I beheld a flower of love to press
Close to my bosom thus; now thee I press
Close, close, and kiss thee with the fervour poured

133

Into my lips by lonely life-long pain.
Thou hast done thy deed; and I, I do my deed,
Fulfil my promise: virgin, holy, white,
I give myself, a flower of fire, to thee.
Our strong Republic's gathered ardour now
Burns through my veins: I am no more a girl,
Woman no more, a human being no more,
But one wild measureless surpassing flame,
A princess of the royal blood of God.
And as that princess I reward thee, sweet,
Falling from heaven like some superb white star
To crown thy crime, thy murder: thy divine
Dagger that smote the tyrant to the dust.
Bring near that dagger—we may need it yet—
Yes, place it underneath the pillow,—so,—
Nay, let me kiss it first: now place it there.
Who knows? we too may need it ere the morn!
Now turn so,—turn half-round; a mother must
Make her child comfortable in his sleep.

134

“Sleep shall we? or shall we watch out the night?
Or wilt thou sleep, and shall I, star-like, watch?
Or wilt thou be the star, with that gold hair,
And shall I be the night with deep black locks
Shrouding the star in soft sweet blackness poured
About it? or shall we like children sleep
One short glad sleep,—then face what fate may bring?
Ah! let us both sleep: let me, wife for once,
Sleep on God's earth one simple wedded sleep,
And in thine husbandly protecting arms
Forget e'en the Republic for awhile.
“How long have we slept? See the light begins
To glimmer at the dawning window-pane!
Now once again we are Republicans;
The crimson morning is our blood-red sash;
Love, let us twine the dawn across our breasts,
And fearless face the morrow: Oh, I am proud,
Proud, eager, dauntless, shameless, womanly,

135

More sweetly virginal than ever yet
In all my maiden-lifetime I have been.
Shall women cry ‘Shame on me’?—I will cry
‘Foul shame on them who in their ignorance
Have known not love or freedom’; yea, I'll face
The angels seeking flowers wherewith to adorn
God's heavenly dwelling-house, and I will fling
Towards them my ringless and unwedded hand,
Crying ‘Here is a lily,—take it: you
Will find no lily in the fields of God
Sweeter, no blossom purer: bear it up
And let God smiling wear it next his heart’.
“Now ere the dawn is on us kiss once more:
One last embrace,—oh am I not a queen,
The queen of Russia and the queen of heaven
And queen of the Republic—and of love?
Cannot a queen kiss? Are my lips not royal?
Oh fear me not, shrink not, but let me pass

136

Like some swift fire across thy lips and face,
Burning them into death, and into life
Beyond all death, and all that death can do.
Oh, but a few short wondrous hours ago
Thou wast in flight, pursued by vengeful men,
The natural avengers of thy deed,
Whom we can pity, whom we do not blame,—
They know not what they do,—but now thou art
Warm, safe, impalaced in a woman's arms.
Like all God's contrasts, sudden and divine
The breathless marvellous change is; swift as if
Upon some bitter bleak December day,
With white snow beating at the frozen roofs,
Sweet summer and the scent of roses came
In at the window suddenly,—and the sun
Flamed suddenly as in August,—and the sky
Gleamed suddenly as in June, one sheet of blue.
I am thy sun, thy summer, thy blue sky,
Thy fragrant tender rose: God gives in me
The first divine most excellent soft glimpse

137

Of heavenly summer, and of heavenly flowers.
Love, taste my lips,—is that a royal kiss,
And that, and that, and that; am I not sweet?
Am I not sweet for thee? pleasant to thee?
Am I not sweet to sight and touch and taste,
Soft to thine handling, tender to thy grasp,—
Am I not sweet all over—just one bed
Of summer-sown intoxicating flowers?
See how I humble and abase myself
Just out of very royal utter love,
Because thou art so noble, and a king,
A murderer and a republican,
Making myself a captive unto thee,
A slave, whom thou may'st do with as thou wilt,
Use as thou wilt,—and yet a royal queen,
Royal and republican, and all divine,
Free even in the midst of thine embrace.

138

“And now the last kiss: dost thou love me, love?
Am not I splendid? Am I not pure white,
Unflecked, unflawed,—marble from head to foot?
I am, thou sayest; and since thou art so red,
Red with that bright deed, thou art pure white too,
Equal with me, my partner and my crown.
Oh, one white splendid yearning trembling dear
Delicious delicate untouched divine
Most amorous fervid pure impassioned flower,
I cast myself with all my fiery hair,
Soft, terrible, upon thee,—and I show
In these my lips that burn thy pale lips through
The power of the Republic, who deputes
Me, me, its sacred woman-messenger
To kiss the approval of to-day's bold deed
Into thy very spirit, and to show
How after death comes life, and after life”— [Voices are heard outside.

“The murderer of Mesentzoff is here.” [She gives him the dagger, first kissing it gently.

139

“Kill me and kill thyself: 'tis better so.” [The police break into the apartment.

“Both dead! Both gone with Mesentzoff to-day
Along the same cold road!

See how she clings
E'en in her death, bride-like, about his neck
And how her black hair covers all his face.
Leave them and send for women: little enough
These murderer-lover mad Republicans
Have left for us, the avenging hands, to do.”

Dec. 16, 1878.

140

THE PRIEST AND HIS WIFE.

A DRAMATIC LYRIC.

The priest is dull; his thought is lame:
But is the priest's wife quite the same?
Hath her warm heart no thoughts of flame?

The priest hath barren lips and thin:
But are there not full lips to win?
And is the touching them a sin?

141

The priest hath sleek black shiny vest:
Who hath the yearning uncaressed
White fragrant splendid fluttering breast?

The priest speaks weary words by day:
But are there not soft words to say
To some one in the twilight grey?

How long his sermon is and cold!
How sweet her glance half-shy, half-bold!
And ah! the sun on locks of gold!

His room is full of parchments dry!
But is there not a chamber nigh
Where laughing Love heard lovers sigh?

O fool,—and wilt thou quit the place
Because the preacher's soul lacks grace!
Behind him shines another face!

142

No preacher ever slew the stars!
They beam behind his prison-bars!
Gold Venus! Laughing bright-locked Mars!

The priest is dull; his thought is slow:
But is the priest's wife even so?
The stars and flowers of last night know!

143

ALICE OF THE SEA.

I

The windy surgy sea
Was as the soul of thee,
O Alice of the sea, and of the bower
Where Love in tender light
With face and body bright
Shone through youth's one divine impassioned hour.

II

Not any dreary town
Thou hadst, O love, for crown,—
But all the untrodden deep impetuous waters

163

Urgent in gathered wrath
Were strenuous round thy path,
O fairest-eyed of all earth's fair-eyed daughters!

III

The miles of golden corn
At thy glad breath were born
And all the blue sun-nurtured summer weather
Smiled tenderly round thee,
And all the sun-kissed sea
Laughed,—as we trode the clamorous beach together.

IV

The endless hopes of youth
Were thine, and fervent truth
Waved round thy form exultant her white wings,

164

And glittering fancies past
Before thee on the blast
And many sacred dreams of many things.

V

Not in the August air
Alone, love, thou wast fair,
But in the days of dreams that followed thee;
By hills of other lands
The magic of thine hands
Was felt, and thy foot fell by many a sea.

VI

Never a summer came
But in the robe of flame
And flowers that wrapped each summer's soft shape round

165

Thou wast,—and the urgent seas
Still washed as toward thy knees
And still thy beauty winter's chains unbound.

VII

Into the strange dim land
Of Poesy thine hand
Imperious and girl-queenly beckoned me:
And there I found again
With throbs of joy and pain
The clear divine unaltered spirit of thee.

VIII

Though round about my head,
Now the old dream hath fled,
Loves many and of other shores have bound

166

Red flowers, and white and pale,
Are such wreaths of avail
If on life's lintel once thy foot doth sound?

IX

If once the sense of seas
Comes, and of gracious breeze
That o'er the wide luxurious tideway hovers,
How vanishes the town,
And all its gateways frown,
While smile the sandy cliffs and short oak-covers!

X

Again the ripples dance
Before our eager glance,
O Alice of the giant-memoried sea:

167

And suns long-hidden shine,
And pliant gold woodbine
I weave into a circlet meet for thee.

XI

Thy beauty made the air
Of summer yet more fair
And every rose of summer softer still:
Thy sweetness made the days
Diviner and my lays
Flash forth like light-beams sparkling down a rill:

XII

Thy splendour made the white
Waves but a lesser sight
And all the moon-beams but inferior rays:

168

Thy glory made my dreams
Resplendent with wild gleams,—
Made marvellous the far-lit water-ways:

XIII

Thy softness made each morn
A joy-god newly born:
Thy tender love was as the hand of thee
Moulding all things anew
Beneath emergent blue
That flamed no more storm-shadowed o'er the sea:

XIV

Thy laughter made the land
No more a waste of sand
Whereover hopeless roamed youth's shuddering tread,

169

But one wide land of flowers
Wherethrough the honied hours
On wings of quivering rainbow-rapture sped.

XV

No more when thee I saw
I felt the old strong awe
Of poets, singers elder and divine;
I knew that I might meet,
Because thy mouth was sweet,
Fearless their long and laurel-crownèd line.

XVI

I knew that through thy strength
My power would come at length
And that my grey-eyed Alice of the sea

170

Among their loves would stand,
A queen amid the band
Of English queens through the wild harp of me.

XVII

I stood forth,—and I sang;
Sometimes with sorrow-pang
Smitten, and sometimes pierced with dart of glee;
But ever in my sight
Keeping thy grey eyes' light
And the old light that glistened o'er our sea.

XVIII

That this one thing be done
Ere solemn set of sun
I've vowed,—and struggle towards it as I may;

171

That thy name may be high
'Mid names that cannot die,
When comes for me the closing of my day:

XIX

That, when no sound again
Is heard, no new love-strain,
No further voice or lyre or harp of me,
Still may thy memory cling,
A white immortal thing,
To the world's heart as deathless as the sea:

XX

That, when the new harps come
And men seek back for some
Fairest of those who filled to-day with glee,

172

They may with rapture find
This singing-wreath I've twined
About thy brows, O lady of the sea:

XXI

With rapture not for sake
Of this the song I make,
But for the sake of thee the song's white flower;
Oh, may the future know
Thy beauty, when I go,
Silenced at mine inevitable hour!

XXII

New queens of love will shine,
New waves, as white a line,
Sweep upward, thundering o'er the yellow sands

173

In autumns crisp and fair,—
But will the new years bear
As sweet a woman as thou for new glad lands?

XXIII

Will others of thy name
Come, not the very same,
But even as fair, with singers at their feet?
Will even our old woods thrill
To voices and the hill
For these be whitened with fresh meadow-sweet?

XXIV

Yes:—many a rose most red
Though thou and I be dead
Shall cast imperious perfume through the land,

174

And many women fair
Wind wonderful dark hair
Or golden ringlets, shining band on band.

XXV

New passions shall awake,
New hearts with rapture shake,
And the same silver moonbeam thrill the sea,
When thou and I are gone
To loveless lands and wan,—
Sweetheart, what shall abide of thee and me?

XXVI

My singing shall abide:
This vision of my Bride:
And all our songful glory of meadow-sweet

175

That fadeless and in flower
We gift with living power
To blossom even around our vanished feet.

XXVII

The new glad streams shall sound
And new delight abound
And new loves' silvery laughter fill with glee
The woods where we with slow
Step wandered long ago;
Again young hearts shall dream beside our sea.

XXVIII

But as for us we pass
Beyond earth's flowers and grass;
No mortal foot may pause, but onward each

176

Hurries to things unseen,
Through pale springs and the sheen
Of golden summers, and wild autumns' speech.

XXIX

Never again we tread
The old land: it is dead:
Never the green cliffs quite the same shall stand
For us,—or the blue seas
Answer the self-same breeze,
Or hand thrill quite as softly tingling hand.

XXX

Never a rose escapes
The winter and new-drapes
Its beauty: never, Alice of the sea,

177

Shall quite the same eyes meet
Mine own, or same voice greet
My coming,—or the same love gladden thee.

XXXI

But ever through my song
The same waves sound their strong
Triumphant paean,—and the streams pervade
The woods with silver speech
And moons illume the beach
And white flowers fill the tangled forest-shade.

XXXII

In song they speak again;
My singing is the fane
Wherein thou art enshrined with all thy flowers;

178

There is not one which fails,
From all those summer vales,
To adorn thine own perennial singing-bowers:

XXXIII

Not one bud pale and dim
But blossoms in my hymn;
Not one moon-silvered wavelet but doth sound
Within the singing walls
Wherethrough my spirit calls
To thee; wherein thine answering soul is found:

XXXIV

Not one rose but is grand
Within the singing-land,
And oh, thou sea-sweet woman, thou art there

179

Never diviner yet,
Nor tenderer eyelids wet;
Never more queenly,—never yet more fair:

XXXV

Unchanged and as of old
Thine hand in mine I hold
Within the singing-temple I have made,
And through its arches clear
Thy ringing laugh I hear
And robelike round me falls love long-delayed:

XXXVI

And with our words the tides
Mix, on the same shore-sides,
And voices of the woods,—thy soul and me

180

Blending in love as fair
As August morning's air
When first we met, O Alice of the Sea!

181

IN HER ROOM.

And canst thou find no way, O wise male lover,—
No road by which the craving hearts may meet
And joined lips drink of passion's cup so sweet?
Doth day provide no bower, nor darkness cover?
Is there no rose-hung path for yearning feet?

Art thou so puzzled, lover tall and solemn,
With locks thick-sprinkled with the thoughtful grey?
Doth passion torture thee from day to day?
Can ye not kiss for foes in serried column?
Oh, trust the woman: she will find a way!

197

Thou art so wise and yet so foolish surely!
Thou art seeking for some far spear-guarded hill
Where the soft trembling mouths may have their will:
But lo! the woman beckons thee demurely
Towards her own red-geraniumed window-sill.

Right in the midst of friends and guardians, blind one,
Love ever love's reward most safely reaps:
Lo! the fool-husband in the next room sleeps,
And he shall watch so that no foe shall find one;
Yea, he shall guard,—while breast on bosom weeps!

There is no safer than her own sweet chamber,
Whereto the passion-mad pale roses creep
Hovering with tender scent above her sleep:
Whereto, if thou so willest, thou mayest clamber,
And drink her beauty through the darkness deep.

198

There is no sweeter than her own bed whitely
Seen through the soft still darkness of the room;
White,—but less white than her own white rose-bloom;
Here thou mayest rest with noble freedom nightly
While her arms struggle towards thee through the gloom.

And he shall watch: for is he not so simple
And blind and honourless and all impure
As to believe that bolts and bars secure!
Because he cares not for her Venus-dimple,
He thinks that passionate cheek cannot allure!

So he shall watch and God-condemned be guard
At his own ignominy; damnèd fool:
Who thinks a woman can be trained by rule
And all her boundless soul pent-up and barred
And all her measureless passions put to school!

199

Hark! in that kiss the thunder of God descends,
Thou fool, upon thee! Thou hast no flower now.
Behold, the ring wherewith she once did vow
Upon another's finger shines; so ends
The miserable farce: be happy, thou!

Turn in thy sleep and sigh with calm content;
Thou hadst a wife; thou hast a wife no more:
The morning sun now gildeth hill and shore,
And love's wild streams that through long years were pent
Adown the eddying echoing valleys roar.

200

“HE WILL NOT SEE!”

I

Are the eyes fairer than the dawn of day,
More tender-hued than tenderest sea-shine's grey,
Divine to me?
Are the lips redder than a budding rose
And hands more white than lily when it blows—
He will not see!

II

Are the swift glances swift as Helen's were
When for her sake the old-world amorous air
Trembled with glee?

203

Hath he a peerless woman at his side,
Fit for a great-browed god's soft-bosomed bride,
Yet doth not see?

III

Hath he beside him her flower-body bright
Through the long hours of many a summer night,
With love's land free?
Yet will he enter not, hand locked in hand,
The fragrant alleys of that mystic land—
Will he not see?

IV

Are the red lips left lone, and unembraced
The neck, and winter-bound the glowing waist,—
Must this sin be?
He will not see her though his head may rest
Close by her curved magnificent still breast,—
But love shall see!

204

HARROW V. ETON AT LORD'S.

1881.

I.

1

Just twenty years ago I heard the same shouts sounding,
Myself a Harrow boy, not knowing what should come:
To-day I watch the ball o'er the live hedges bounding,
And as I look back all my heart is sick and dumb.

2

If any knew his fate, would any live I wonder!
Upon the same hill-side where my young fancies grew
The wave of Byron's life that burst in flame and thunder
First gathered force,—then paused, ere its full power it knew.

210

3

Would he have lived? Would any, knowing all the sorrow
And all the pain that love in the near future brings,
The boyish life once spent, endure the chill to-morrow
And live when living means to crawl with broken wings!

4

O far green Harrow fields that Byron loved, and splendour
Of blue clear Harrow skies, I think of you to-day,
While clear above the ground the pale-blue sky hangs tender,
Breaking in streaks through clouds and London's chronic grey.

5

To-day I hear the shouts and all my spirit glances
Straight back o'er twenty years, and I can hear the sound
As then I heard,—again my heart with pleasure dances
When a grand Harrow hit curls far beyond the bound!

211

6

But then the twenty years with speechless desolation
Weigh on me like a mount of awful granite stone:
Years of desire and failure, love and tribulation,
And starless hopeless nights and happiness o'erthrown!

7

And through them all there gleam the eyes that first impelled me
Along new passion's road and changed me to a man:
Chained and encircled fast, and charmed and bound and held me,
When the soft rose of love to blossom first began.

8

How passing strange to think that these boy-hearts awaking
To eager life to-day are ignorant indeed:
Yet that on each ere long love's pitiless morning breaking
Will change the hearts that sing to weary hearts that bleed!

212

9

No spirit shall escape the love-doom waiting ready;
Ready to seize and bind and shape to newer things:
All shall be caught and whirled around the frothing eddy;
Few shall emerge with whole unbruised unbattered wings!

10

Ye cannot pause: pass onward; meet your fate quite fearless;
And after twenty years if ye be here again,
Watching as I now watch with stony heart and tearless,
Ye will have learnt that life is love, and love is pain.

II.

11

Ye know so little now of what shall surely follow;
Your vision reaches not beyond the cricket-field;
You Venus touches not, nor gold-harped great Apollo;
The sun gleams bright upon each undimmed boyish shield.

213

12

Yet there shall come a day when sweeter than the laughter
Of cricket-comrade brave and many a trusty friend
A girl's soft laugh shall sound: a wonderful hereafter
Towards which your thoughtless eager swift-foot ways ye wend.

13

Deeper and sweeter things there are than ye are dreaming
In this strange world of ours where love is linked to pain:
Eyes fairer than the eyes with cricket-rapture beaming;
Praise far more thrilling than the praise to-day ye gain.

14

The flowers ye pluck to-day are daisies pure and tender;
But ah! there are strange flowers far richer on the way:
The awful tameless rose with untouched fiery splendour
Flames through the mists that robe the coming years in grey.

214

15

Wonderful dreams await you! Blossoms soft and burning
And the great sun-kissed skies of summers yet unseen:
But wait in peace and still to-day's unfevered yearning
By mellow ring of bat upon the cricket-green.

16

The future hath its wings and they will overtake you;
Rapture may dwell in front,—but so may fieriest pain:
Gather strength that ye may, when passion's wild throbs shake you,
Mix with the victor-few, not with the countless slain!

July 7, 1881.

215

TO A CRITIC.

Thou to parley with a poet,
Vapid critic-creature—thou—
Thou art blind and dost not know it;
Dank locks flutter round thy brow;
Who art thou to preach and bluster
To the fools that round thee cluster,—
Hearts that at thy mandate bow?

Lo! the poet sings to roses
And the hours of summer days:
In the woods his heart reposes,
'Mid the rathe green bowery sprays:

223

Lo! the poet hath the foaming
Wide seas round his footstep roaming,—
Round his brow the awful bays.

Through his heart storm strife and anguish;
All his soul is white with pain;
Often through long hours that languish
Must he garner song's red grain:
Thou,—thou hast no heart to suffer;
When the surges' heads grow rougher
Thou in harbour dost remain!

When the great seas' hoary splendour
Shines beneath the grey low sky,
Thou art vanquished: when the tender
Flakes of rainbow-froth soar high,
Thou art safe in inland region;
Though the forms of gods were legion,
Storm-tossed, thou would'st not be nigh!

224

What knowest thou of woman's passion,
Critic with the mincing tread:
Woman loves not in thy fashion;
Not for thee the rose is red;
Not for thee divine emotion
Yearns forth, rippling like the ocean,—
Thou, alive, art worse than dead!

Thou to teach us, thou to reach us
With thy simpering silly ways!
Thou to impugn us and impeach us!
Thou to chisel and chip our lays!
Thou to teach us love's true beauty
And to point towards path of duty,—
What damnation were thy praise!

225

LONELY.

Lonely,—devoid of help from God or man
The poet ploughs his way
Through seas of sorrow grey
And wan.

If neither God will aid nor man's frail heart
Nor heart of woman fair,
Yet must the poet dare
His part.

251

Though he stand inconceivably alone,
Anguished unspeakably,
Yet hath he sky and sea
For throne.

Though God be weak and not one rose's breath
Gladden,—he must not sink
But sorrow's full cup drink
Till death.

Nor must he hope for honour or reward:
No hope of glory here,
Only pain's bleak white sheer
Sharp sword.

And, perhaps, a leaf or two of scanty bays,—
Just one green leaf or two,
Yet never summer's blue
Sweet days.

252

Never the heyday of the flawless rose:
No soul-companionship
Though craving lip touch lip
That glows.

But lonely lingering struggling baffled years
And nights when no moon shines
And thorn-crowns man's hand twines
And tears.

253

JEZEBEL.

Who felt the touch of her swift hands,—
What lord of sunstruck Eastern lands?
Who felt the soft white bosom swell
Of Jezebel, of Jezebel?

Who, lying on the firm cool breast,
Found therein sweeter fairer rest
Than ever on priest or prophet fell,—
O Jezebel, O Jezebel!

280

We have lost the fashion of thy face;
Gone art thou: scattered is thy race:
No English breeze in vale or dell
Lifts now the locks of Jezebel!

Slender wast thou,—or matron-wise
Shaped, with black subtle serpent-eyes?
Where are the strong men who could tell
To us the glory of Jezebel?

They all are gone along with thee,
And we who pace by grey-blue sea
What know we of the souls in hell
For thy sake, deep-haired Jezebel!

Could one but tell us of thy form!
One mouth that kissed thy red lips warm!
We too might madden 'neath thy spell
O poison-lipped sweet Jezebel!

281

But now we know not, nor shall know
While the green English seasons blow,
What amorous strange hot hours befell
The hearts that loved thee, Jezebel!

Long-historied wondrous deathless queen
Clasping all time in white arms' sheen,
The prophet-dogs have died pell-mell,—
Thy lips outlive them, Jezebel!

282

UNCOMPANIONED.

At war with all the human race,
Where shall I turn my tired-out face?

The meadow-sweet hath sun and air;
What hath the poet? Grim despair.

The sea hath wind and storm and light;
What hath the poet? Starless night.

Woman hath love and roses' breath;
What hath her poet? Pain and death.

283

KEBLE.

Is this the voice I'm bidden to hear,
When in mine ear
Rings sound of solemn midnight seas
And voice of trees
And spirits who interpret these?

Am I to bend my head to thee
When all the sea
With strenuous chorus sweet and near
Sings at mine ear
And through its chant God's voice is clear!

289

“Greatest of poets!” some one says!
Alas! the bays
Have little further weight or worth,
They are food for mirth,
If such man's song survive on earth!

O Church-pent prisoned feeble soul
Who ne'er didst stroll
Beyond the “lich-gate” and the porch,
Thy spirit's torch
How the great sun of song would scorch!

The sun that flames around the head
Alive or dead
Of singer who is made divine
By breath of pine
Or by the blue far mountain-line.

290

What hath true song to do with thee?
Thou with the sea?
What hath the summer's fervent blue
Sweet depth to do
With thy pale fancies' churchyard crew?

O God of hills and lakes and seas
And swaying trees,
Give me no trivial bread and wine
But make me thine
In the soul-life for which I pine!

So shall no church-chant come from me
But song of sea
And mystic tender blossom-song
And many a throng
Of passionate thoughts alive and strong.

291

No tender churchless love-thought yet
Hath reader met
In thy sick arid morbid verse
Plumed like a hearse
And heavy with thy Church's curse.

No simple love of English rose
That gleams and blows
By quiet English hedge in June
Is in thy tune;
All blossoms are thy Church's boon!

Therefore, O bard, thou art not exempt
From our contempt,
For we who love the English sea
And all things free
Hate and despise thy Church and thee.

See Keble's poem called “Disuse of Excommunication,” in the “Lyra Innocentium”.

292

THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD.

The dew upon the leaves is wet;
We have not travelled far as yet;
The blossom
Of youth on the world's brows is set.

Some think the world is worn and old:
Nay! all the world's hair gleams with gold,—
Her bosom
Soft-white doth soft-white flowers enfold.

312

Full many a long untrodden way
She'll traverse ere her locks be grey,
Now gilded
With splendour at the dawn of day.

We have but seen her girlish hours
Armful and lapful of wild flowers;
Unbuilded
Are the great future's towns and towers!

New might of love we dream not yet
Upon her forehead shall be set,
And glory
Our longing eyes have never met.

The world is like a girl with zone
Slender, slim neck, and timid tone,—
The story
Of love is all a tale unknown.

313

Or, if she loves, she knows not how
With all her might of being to bow;
Most lightly
She binds love's fillet round her brow.

Yet there shall come the close sweet kiss,
And depth and height of certain bliss,
And, nightly,
Love's rose, and greed to gather this.

Not yet the immeasurable embrace
Makes fervent heaven of all her face
And splendour
Is added to her girlish grace;—

Not yet she laughs with near dear eyes
Into her lover's,—nor replies
With tender
Low words wherethrough love's shudder flies.

314

And so the glad world's bridal day
Yet tarries,—far upon the way,—
She dallies
With love, while love's fierce wheels delay:

But when from heaven her bridegroom leaps,
Plunging adown the gold-splashed steeps,
Or sallies
From the sea's loud storm-sundered deeps,

She shall, mature of heart and strong,
Chant gravely her grand marriage-song
That waiteth
Silent the far blue hills among.

We shall not see:—we watch afar
Like lovers whom sad fate doth mar
And hateth,—
For whom doth rise not passion's star.

315

As some lorn lover hath to yield
His maiden, unto whom he kneeled,
And know her
White prize of other sword and shield—

As on the marriage-night he dreams
Dreams terrible, when the moon gleams,
Full-flower,
And through the open window streams—

So we with sorrow yield our world
In far embraces to be furled,
As slowly
We one by one to doom are hurled.

Her majesty of lip and limb
Is not for us: it waits for him,
The holy
Bard hidden within the ages dim.

316

One kiss we've had,—a maiden kiss;
But ah! the strong-armed bridegroom's bliss,
When eager
She holds him,—what was ours to this!

Our rapture in the youth of things,
Though round us many a young throat sings,
Is meagre
To the great joy the future brings:

Meagre as faint embrace of girl,
Whose thin lips hardly clasp or curl,
To maddening
Dim deep soft passionate rapture-whirl

When fierce love, sure, mature, and strong,
Changes all being to wild song,
Swift-gladdening
The flooded veins it leaps along.

317

The world's great soul waits virgin yet:
The globes of dew are round and wet
And pearly
On daisy, pink, and mignonette;

With virgin girlish eyes cast down
She stands, in white unfigured gown,—
'Tis early,—
We shall not see her wear her crown.

321

L'ENVOI. “SONG-SPRAY.”

Not of flowers in the heart of the mountains
Nor of silvery voice of the fountains
Nor of leaves of the summer or spring
Nor of moss nor of ferns do I sing
In this, the new song that I bring.

Though the blossom of passion be there
And the passionless bloom of despair,
Yet, chief of all blossoms for me,
And fairer than blossom of tree,
Is the bloom of the foam of the sea.

335

“Song-Bloom” was of love and of hours
That dreamed 'mid the bosoms of flowers:
But the spray of the sea is in this
And the voice of the wind, and its kiss,
And the storm's ineffaceable bliss.

And the colours of waves and of skies
And of clouds as they darken and rise;
And, mighty as ever for me,
The mingling in measureless glee
Of moon and of stars and of sea.