Love-Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

105

TO SHELLEY.

I

Thy spirit which trod,
Gold-sandalled, a god,
The grass, that blossomed beneath its tread,
At Oxford and saw,
Unsmitten of awe,
The centuries gathered behind it in red
Vast sunset-waves,
Doth it live yet, and saves
Immortal its glory among the dead?

II

The surf of the sea
Of thought was to thee
But calm clear ripples of inland lakes
Wherein to delight
With free-swimming might
'Mid the blue dear surges and white foam-flakes:
In the old grey town
Thou plaitedst thy crown,
Oxford, and threadedst its harsh thought-brakes.

107

III

God was to thee
As the voice of the sea,
As the wings of the surges, the plumes of the blast:
Little indeed
Of the tame pale creed
That broods blood-stricken above the past
Thy soul did reck;
Without rein, without check,
It followed its own God-yearning vast.

IV

Marsh-marigolds
Each dense dyke holds
By Oxford, and long grass-fields at night
Gleam weird and strange,
And the low hill-range
Is purple at sunset against the bright
Sky orange or red;
And the moonrays wed
O'er the silvery river the last faint light.

V

These thou didst see,
And seen too of me
Were the weird grey hollows, the wild long hills,
The gleaming expanse
Of the ripples that dance
On Isis, and all that the swift gaze fills
From Iffley to where
The white waves tear
At Sandford the foam that the fierce stream spills.

108

VI

Then thou didst fly
The dim mist-sky
Of England and sangest in Italy's vales,
More sweet than the sound
Heard there without bound
As it throbs and rises, ascends and fails,
Of the nightingale-song
When its ecstasy strong
Now triumphs and leaps, now weeps and wails.

VII

What didst thou know
Of love? Was it woe,
Or gladness passing the frail mute dream
Of men who aspire
But find not a lyre
Like thine, so watch but thy gold harp-gleam
As it glittereth swept
By the fingers that slept,
That rested, never from song's bright theme?

VIII

Oh, love to thee
Was as soft as the sea
At softest even: it was not the sound
Of the fierce-tongued surges
The fierce breeze scourges—
It was as the blossoms that star the ground,
Filled with perfume
And glory of bloom,
A mantle of beauty to plain and mound.

109

IX

Were the women who wove
For thee raiment of love
As stars of passion within thine hair?
Bright stars merely,
Or loved more nearly—
Who was thy bride, most sweet of the fair
Women who gave
Lips gracious to save,
And filled thy summer with rose-sweet air?

X

What laughter of bright
Lips, beauty of white
Limbs ever sufficed for, satisfied thee?
What rose was as red
As thy dreams on it shed?
Yea, thy thoughts were more white than the waves of the sea,
And the heavens unclear
By thy song-sky dear,
Wherethrough thou wast wont to exult and flee.

XI

What rich buds even
In Italy's heaven
Were rich as the buds in the dreams of thy song?
What marvellous flow
Of ripples aglow
Danced gold in the sunlight, white in the throng
Of the white moonbeams,
Through the winged soft dreams
Of thy spirit alert, divine and strong?

110

XII

Oh, blossoms indeed,
A princely meed,
Thou hast given us, Shelley: and skies and seas,
And the voice of a rhyme
Unending, sublime,
And the laughter of fays in the leafage of trees,
And the tidal motion
Of song's sweet ocean,
The glitter of insects, the humming of bees.

XIII

The universe
In thy pure verse
Gloweth and floweth, speaketh and sings:
From rose to lily,
From vale to hilly
Far rock-bound region on far-spread wings
Thou floatest and seizest
What bloom thou pleasest;
Yea, what thou willest, thy quick harp brings.

XIV

And so in the sphere
Of high thought, clear
And brave thy voice is, fearless, unchained:
Thou wast not afraid
Of Calvary's shade;
Free on the hill-top thy foot remained:
Thou wast not bound
By the calm sweet sound
Of Christ's voice, nor by the Church-crimes stained.

111

XV

Pure of the flood
Of innocent blood
Spilt by the Church thou wast: for a friend
Christ thou knewest
And in skies bluest
Of great thought soughtest him, didst not bend;
Thy bright head never
Need bend, nor ever
Can Christ in the sheer song-land contend.

XVI

He hath his crown,
And thou thine own,
Shelley,—thy song-crown perfect indeed:
His wreath of pain
He hath, and his fane,
And the thorns that yet on the white brow bleed;
But thou, an immortal,
By thine own portal
Mayest enter the gates of the God we need.

XVII

For England in song
Untrammelled and strong
Yearn we to hear now, not to be told
Of deeds outworn,
In a far land born;
We need but love, to our hearts to hold,
And the lips of the rose
That in England blows,
Woman, sweeter than women of old.

112

XVIII

Not Palestine,
Nor the fig and the vine,
But the corn and the clover, the clear-eyed maid
On the cliff-top standing
With glance commanding
Searching our broad seas,—the oak-trees' shade,
The purple heather,
The grey wild weather
In England, the furze-crowned fern-lined glade.

XIX

This we need:
Thou gavest a creed,
Shelley, which brings us high help now;
God in the soul
Of each, and the whole
Of the leafy wide world, not one bough
Of a palm-tree faded,
And grasped in jaded
Priest's hands—broken and tangled how!

XX

Thou wast the first
Through whose song burst
The chant of England, freeing her soul
From the dry harsh letter,
The ruinous fetter
Of creeds that around her white limbs stole
As ravening snakes
In the dead-branch brakes:
She gives thee her rose-heart, gives thee the whole!