University of Virginia Library

THE QUEEN

AT A CITY FEAST

(SADDLERS' COMPANY. January 20, 1896)

As camping hosts at trump of battle blown,
All to their feet by common impulse rise;
“The Queen!” the ruler of the banquet cries,
And all with thundering cheer acclaim the Throne.
But one far guest, whose hand had harvest sown
Maturing then 'neath blaze of Austral skies,
The high health hails; then, soft 'twixt words and sighs,
“God bless her,” breathes, so low, I hear alone.
Than all the plaudits that with plaudits vied,
As shout on shout beneath the rafter rung,
Be rather, Queen, that whispering prayer thy choice.
Worth, Honour, Wisdom trained and Valour tried
Spoke in that clamour, but the heart and tongue
Of all thy Empire in the still small voice.

VENI, VIDI, VICI

ON THE KAISER'S VISIT

The message by its brevity so great,
Summing in three thrice-memorable words
The lightning of the sudden Latin swords,
And ruin of base son of Mithridate;
This History now, with Fame confederate,
Rescribes, old phrase with modern deed accords,
Nor lesser than the Roman's praise awards
To helmsman of the ship of German State.
Compeers in action swift, in vision sure:
But widening world and vaster issues bring
To Kaiser than to Cæsar nobler part.
Old glory by the recent beams obscure:
Cæsar came, saw, and smote a Pontic king;
Kaiser in triumph leads a people's heart.

FIFTY SONNETS

I
SPARTA AND RHODES

Sonnet, as diamond of mine or dew
Perfect in form and purity and light,
Wherefore, though more aspiring Muse incite,
Walk I content among thy retinue?
Veiled in the vast and visionary blue
This song should soar, companion of their flight
Whose pinions effortless unchallenged smite
Aerial void where eagle never flew.
Epic or tragic laurel would I share,
Or his, whose soul streams forth in lyric odes;
But yoke of public and of private care
With daily lassitude the spirit loads,
And to the earth remands her from the air,
“Behold thy Sparta,” saying, “and thy Rhodes.”

II
TO DANTE

“Poet, whose unscarred feet have trodden Hell,
By what grim path and red environing
Of fire couldst thou that dauntless footstep bring
And plant it firm amid the dolorous cell
Of darkness where perpetually dwell
The spirits cursed beyond imagining?
Or else is thine a visionary wing,
And all thy terror but a tale to tell?”
“Neither and both, thou seeker! I have been
No wilder path than thou thyself dost go,
Close masked in an impenetrable screen,
Which having rent I gaze around, and know
What tragic wastes of gloom, before unseen,
Curtain the soul that strives and sins below.”

VII
TIME AND CHANGE

Affrighted at his own eternity,
Time Change begot, to soothe with curious show
Disquiet of uneasy soul below,
Bewildered with its being's mystery.
Hail, world-renewing Mutability,
By whom the unimprisoned waters flow,
And the great vault doth darkle or doth glow,
And light and shadow course upon the sea!
Though worlds arise and pass, like drift of spray
Or flake of billow flung upon the shore,
And dying suns like dying brands decay:
Yet of all change not any change so sore
As this the daunted spirit should affray;
If Time were ever still, and Change no more.

XI
PRESIDENT KRUGER

My wont it ever was the head to bow
When foot of fallen Greatness wended near;
Oft sprang into the eye the sudden tear,
And the wrung heart bled sympathy—but now?
Craft, weaving grimy webs in hoary brow,
Pride's vaunting tongue, Presumption's stubborn ear,
And Guile and Greed in sanctities austere
Profanely draped, sweet Pity disallow.
Unchivalrous! thy penury of worth
Rivets the hand reluctant to thy throat,
And Victory cheats of exquisite reward;
To raise, encircled by the arm that smote,
The enemy low laid on gory earth,
With balmy salve for gashes of the sword.

XII
“FAS EST ET AB HOSTE DOCERI”

If doubtful of thy country thou hast been,
And shunned at her commandment to inscribe
Her patriot roll, regard the hostile tribe,
And read her quarrel's justice in their mien.
If such her foes, well may she smile serene!
Jew-baiter, anarch, cleric, hireling scribe,
The Fenian vitriol and the Brussels bribe:
—An ark for every beast, except the clean.
Yet, from the seething venom canst thou strain
Some wholesome drop, be, Briton, not too nice,
Dreading with slime thy finger to distain:
Romans to tripes resorted for advice;
And well for Egypt had her Pharaoh ta'en
Hints from the frogs and lessons from the lice.

XIV
TO A REACTIONARY

Unblest, whom tartness of unmellowed eld
Doth from thy day's accumulating dower
Of thought and lore estrange, which, hadst thou power,
Thou wouldst efface, unheard and unbeheld.
Warped from her wont, hath Nature then withheld
From thee the quickening sun, the tempering shower;
Fragrance denied to full expanded flower;
Nor with the flagoned vine the vat excelled?
Old poet-preacher, deemest thou that Truth,
Triumphal treading on her trophied way,
Will turn her round to dance unto thy pipe?
Not Gods but stones attend Amphion's lay.
Intolerance is comedy in youth;
But 'tis most tragic to be sour and ripe.

XV
HELEN'S TOWER

(ERECTED BY THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN IN MEMORY OF HIS MOTHER, AND CELEBRATED BY TENNYSON AND BROWNING)

Love low in earth thy sure foundation laid;
Song thy aspiring head with honour crowned;
And the green wood rejoicing came around;
And the broad sea was thy bright mirror made.
Yet not yon restless blue or slumbering shade,
Or Scotland's coast in distant purple drowned,
Or various Erin's many-tinctured ground,—
Thousandfold beauty to one glance displayed—
Not these, or laurelled lyres, that, as of old
The stars of morning, pealed thy natal lay,
Exalt thee most, but choicest praise is thine;
That we who this fair Paradise behold
Would yield for thy rude granite, scarred with spray,
Prospect of earth and sky, and sea divine.

XVI
TO A FAVOURED POET

Minstrel, if I like thee found place and time
In field and grove to meditate my lays,
Where spinning leaf with whirling eddy plays
Feeding the thirsty ear with fluent chime;
Or, where thick bees besiege the towering lime,
Or the long wood in one green billow sways,
With harp attuned might court Apollo's praise,
Sight, scent, and sound embalming in sweet rhyme:
Not, haply, then should I to thee consign
This lonely note like plunging pebble flung
Where thy full river widens to the sea.
As works her web the spider, I have wrung
An arduous music from my bosom; thine
Besets thy daily path, as flowers the bee.

XVIII
THE VIOL TO THE MUSICIAN

(PLAYING ON AN INSTRUMENT MADE IN 1525)

What time the Friar of Wittenberg was bold
To wed his vestal, shaped was I and strung,
And wail of vanquished France around me rung
For captive King and ranks in ruin rolled.
Skill subtler grown, Device of daintier mould,
Thrust me aside, in halls of stillness hung,
Till touch of Genius came, and I had tongue
To tell of love and ruth and triumphs old.
O give me life as I shall give thee praise,
And mates be we through memorable years
By Destiny assigned thee, as I trust.
But when the hand the soul no more obeys,
And from the stage the artist disappears,
Lay me by too, and let me fall to dust.

XXI
CÆSAR BORGIA'S SWORD

AUT CÆSAR AUT NIHIL

Well has the graver traced thee, sword of mine!
Here Cæsar by the Rubicon's slow deeps
Ponders, here resolute to empire leaps,
And far and near the smitten waters shine.
The vanquished train's interminable line
Wends with his wheels up Capitolian steeps;
And round the interlacing legend creeps,
Cæsar or nothing, saith Duke Valentine.
And did I bare thee to the sun, my Blade,
Fired at the flash all Italy should thrill,
And many a city quake and province bow.
Yet is a drop within this phial stayed,
That should the might of marching armies still,
And stainless sheathe ten thousand such as thou.

XXII
LAND AND SEA

(AFTER MRS C. MURA'S “IDYLL” IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY)

A bight of Grecian waters sapphirine,
Where woody slopes shelve gently to the seas,
And Satyrs ambushed by Oreades
Peep forth astonied from the screening pine.
For foaming furrows blanch the azure brine
Where Tritons plunge and Nereids wheel at ease;
And fain the admiring Fauns would be as these,
Who would for earth the watery realm resign.
Sometimes a Satyr, to the margin crept,
Pelts a near-gliding nymph with shell or sand,
Or trump of Triton peals an Oread's praise.
But Law is Deity, and will be kept;
Foot travels not the sea, or fin the land;
And scaly folk and sylvan pause at gaze.

XXIV
THE VESSEL OF THE STATE

I am the Vessel of the State, and hence,
When sudden from the helm the steersman fails,
'Twere meet some sighs were given to the gales,
Which, as in duty bound, I here dispense.
Yet other sentiment have I, immense
Relief from prow to poop through spars and sails,
Which whirlwinds, haply, yet may wreck, or whales,
But not the pilot's gross incompetence.
Hath he gone down to nether regions dim?
No matter, so not longer here he be;
But, monarch of the fallen Seraphim,
Vast ruth and mighty dole have I of thee;
For thou must needs be intimate with him,
Whence ruin of thy empire I foresee.

XXVI
A LETTER FROM AFAR

My thought of thee was sadness, as beseems
Remembrance of old amity descried
Through veils of Time and Space, as through the tide
Of sea's abyss a sunken jewel gleams.
'Tis I, not it, behold! have dwelt with dreams.
Anew, fond soul, in friend and fate confide;
And favourable deep be glorified,
And work of Love wrought from the world's extremes.
So lamp of Love in Sestian turret lit,
Beamed, though Love's planet sank beneath the main,
Boldness on young Leander cleaving it.
The wizard so, last birth of Shakespeare's brain,
The ship “three glasses since we gave out split,”
Winged with brave sails to breast the seas again.

XXIX
DANTE

(PREFIXED TO A TRANSLATION OF HIS SONNETS)

Thou who like Dian hast in Heaven domain
And hell, and worlds that intermediate roll,
This slender tribute summed in tiny scroll
Seemeth it not thy grandeur to profane?
Not so, such offering thou wouldst ne'er disdain,
Aware that not from deeper springs of soul
Burst the great song the centuries extol
Than these clear notes heard once and yet again:
Which, if among the spirits unforgiven
Thou wentest, or where smites the healing rod,
Or didst the path of Paradise essay,
Borne in the heart where'er the feet took way,
Gave witness that thou hadst already trod
Love's land, that comprehendeth Hell and Heaven.

XXX
PETRARCH

(PREFIXED TO A TRANSLATION OF HIS SONNETS)

Laurel in right of Laura thou didst claim,
Which wreath Apollo with his bay enwound;
Nature with flower and Wit with diamond crowned;
Thine were the wind, the dawn, the star, the flame.
First ever thou, no second comes or came.
Worship not fellowship with them is found
Whose lyres by rills of Castaly resound,
Enkindled and disheartened by thy fame.
What first? what last? such lauds unnumbered throng
Upon the thought intent to honour thee,
That silent panegyric fears to wrong.
Yet first, the clear and golden suavity
Wherethrough the soul inhabiting the song
Is seen, as sitting in her sanctuary.

XXXI
CAMOENS

(PREFIXED TO A TRANSLATION OF HIS SONNETS)

What singles my Camoens from the rest?
Not gliding flood of silver eloquence;
Or phrase of nicest choice; or affluence
Of thought severe to one strong line comprest:
Not music aye attending at his hest
On lute or trump as suits the various sense:
All these he hath; but laurel gathered hence
Crowns every bard inscribed among the best.
But that with lyric vehemence was fraught,
Sonnet, by him thy fair amenity,
The perfect form perturbing not in aught,
But teaching how the flight might fierier be.
Tagus yet pealeth with the passion caught
From the wild cry he flung across the sea.

XXXIII
SHELLEY

Eagle of Song, whence came such strength to thee,
On spacious air launched forth with strenuous wing
Thus effortless to glide on voyaging
O'er earth's domain and the unfooted sea?
Or from Light's portal inaccessibly
The lyric torrent of thy soul to fling,
With music of the skies discomfiting
Earth's little choristers of lawn and lea?
Phœbus unfold, for surely not without
Some gracious aid it pleased thee to extend,
To altitude so vast did Shelley rise.
I hope so, says Apollo, but I doubt.
Myself in rivalry a lay have penned,
But have not published, and therein was wise.

XXXIV
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Wondrous as though a star with twofold light
Should fill her lamp for either hemisphere,
Piercing cold skies with scintillation clear,
And glowing on the sultry Southern night;
Was miracle of him who could unite
Pine and the purple harbour of the deer
With palm-plumed islets that sequestered hear
The far-off wave their zoning coral smite.
Still roars the surf, still bounds the herd, but where
Is one to see and hear and tell again?
As dancers pause on an arrested air
Fail the fast-thronging figures of the brain;
And shapes unshapely huddle in dim lair,
Awaiting ripe vitality in vain.

XXXV
SYMONDS, PATER, HAMERTON, STEVENSON

Child of the great Rebirth, who most of men
Didst steep in Italy the English soul:
Thou, Phidias of discourse, who couldst control
Speech to Form's purity by shaping pen:
Thou who all Art didst learn to teach again:
And thou whose Art was Nature:—from the scroll
Of Life how swiftly blotted:—golden toll
Cast to the oarsman of the Stygian fen!
Of you who had not said, “Behold in these
The strenuous growth Time mellows to endure,
More rich, more fair, for annual season found?”
O dupes and scoffs of hollow auguries!
Still flourishes the weed, the tree mature
With stem and bough and fruitage loads the ground.

XXXVI
SMALL POETS AND GREAT PESSIMISTS

“Oysters and whelks avaunt! and all sea-fry
Of ignominious brood unapt to smell
The sulphur of a lobster-spirit's hell,
Viewing the kitchen with prophetic eye!
There what avail my sable panoply?
Or giant claw whose grinding gripe might well
Enforce the Lord of Myrmidons to yell,
Till silver Thetis to his succour fly?”
“If, brother, thou dost rightly diagnose
Thy rank in Nature's scheme, so must it be:
Even now the light flame leaps, the furnace glows,
The cauldron hisses on the hob for thee:
But can the Power like tragedy propose,
That made thee not a lobster, but a Flea?”

XXXVII
JUSTICE

When Deities from earth departure made,
Justice I found in attitude to soar:
No bandage veiled her eyes, no blade she bore,
Nor in her hand her wonted balance swayed.
Goddess, I cried with tongue and look dismayed,
Bereft of thee and thine, how any more
Shall Hope allure, or Gratitude adore,
Or Faith on Wisdom's prophecy be stayed?
Fear not, she said, though far I seem to wend,
Who omnipresent am, and whose award
Hath course by automatic Law sublime.
My bandage blinds the vulgar; on my sword
The malefactor falls: my scales depend
In nicest balance from the hand of Time.

XXXVIII
AN EMBLEM OF TRANSLATION

Not of one growth the solemn forests are;
Not solely is the stately alley made
Of towers of foliage and tents of shade,
Sturdy, deep-rooted, massy, secular.
But briar astray, and bines that ramble far,
And cup and crown of Bacchus blend and braid,
With all that creeps disabled or afraid
To mount by its own might toward sun and star.
A lowly birth! yet lovely even so,
Through brake and bush it serpenting doth wend,
Vagrant with baffled rovings to and fro,
Till soaring stem or stooping bough befriend;
Then high the vine shall as the cedar grow,
And from his summit shall her fruit depend.

XL
PASSION

This flame of Passion that so high in air,
By spice and balsam of the spirit fed,
With fire and fume vast heaven hath overspread,
And blots the stars with smoke, or dims with glare:
Soon shall it droop, and radiance pure and fair
Again from azure altitudes be shed;
And we the murky grime and embers red
Shall sift, if haply dust of Love be there.
Gather his ashes from the torrid mould,
And, quenched with cups of Bacchic revelry,
Yield to the Stygian powers to have and hold;
And urn Etrurian let his coffin be,
For this was made to store the dead and cold,
And is a thing of much fragility.

XLI
VIDEO MELIORA

'Tis not that witchery of Sin hath sway,
But that the rock of Will is crumbling sand:
The dungeons of the soul so open stand,
Well might she issue by her entering way.
Heart, thou art not so trodden into clay
That ever must thou cower, where once trepanned;
Torpor not palsy numbs the inactive hand,
And shrouded eye sleeps dreaming of the day.
Enough of wooing of estranged delight,
Enough of crouching fear and wistful care,
And banquet with all sauce but appetite:
Leave, Spirit, leave these reptiles to their lair,
And rise rejoicing to the golden light
Thou canst not miss, for it is everywhere.

XLIV
OF ONE IN RUSSIA

Dove that of old, fraught with the olive-spray,
Toldest of Earth arisen from the flood,
And how the grove in ancient station stood,
And badest man take courage and be gay:
Vain for green leaf this January day
To search the savage waste of Scythian wood,
Yet thither wend, of Clara's ill or good
Bringing back tidings on thy westering way.
Tell her the flame the brand should blithely fling
Dies on the hearth in ashes chill and drear,
And season vainly lengthens unto Spring
Since she forsook the love that held her here,
Sorrow and dread and many a joyless thing
Leaving in place of her that was so dear.

XLVIII
THE LAGGARD KNIGHT

Too late! The mighty Dragon's crest of gold
Lies cloven on the cavern's sparry floor;
And flameless now the throat whence never more
Shall blighting fume on blast of fire be rolled.
But he, my Friend, lies lifeless—in his hold
The venomed tongue his dying valour tore
For triumph's token—with the monster's gore
Sanguine, and stifled in its scaly fold.
And diamond and emerald lie blent
The ruby and the amethyst amid;
And treasury is mine more opulent
Than catacomb e'er stored, or pyramid;
But ah! the deed illustrious I meant
Rebukes the deed inglorious I did.