University of Virginia Library

SONNETS AND QUATORZAINS.

ON CERTAIN CRITICS.

There are who bid us chant this modern age,
With all its shifting hopes and crowded cares,
School-boards and land-laws, votes and state-affairs,
And, one by one, the puny wars we wage;
They charge us with our lyric flutes assuage
The hunger that the lean-ribbed peasant bears,
Or wreathe our laurel round the last grey hairs
Of the old pauper in his workhouse-cage,—
Not wisely; for the round world spins so fast,
Leaps in the air, staggers, and shoots, and halts,—
We know not what is false or what is true;
But in the firm perspectives of the past
We see the picture duly, and its faults
Are softly moulded by a filmy blue.

AUGUST.

The soul is like a song-bird, and must hold
Its silent August, or its heart would break;
From the hot rushes of the unruffled lake
No warbler pipes, and where the elms enfold
Blackbird and thrush, no music is outrolled;
They wait in solitude and voiceless ache,
Till, with serenest winds, September wake
The enchanted pipes and winged age of gold.
So with the heart; and therefore blame thou not,
Brisk lover, that thy pensive maid is mute,
Wandering beside thee with a downcast air;
She is not heedless, nor thy love forgot,
But passion dons her dreamy autumn suit
To wake renewed in beauty, freshly fair.

A WOMAN'S AMBITION.

Beauty and Strength and Genius, all are thine,
And I have nothing but the love of these,
Born with no charming parts, no power to please,
No sovereign skill to make the future mine;
Yet could I, but for thee, such gifts resign,
Without a sigh, and from a heart at ease,
But, dreaming, with my hands upon your knees,
For all these treasures, like a child, I pine.
I would be praised for beauty, that thine eyes
Might sparkle, knowing this face to be thine own,
And then accept its complete sacrifice;
I would be strong, thy shield-bearer to be,
And famous, that the world's loud trumpet blown
Might prove me worthy to be loved by thee.

WRESTLING WITH THE ANGEL.

It was not when my enemy had made
Large progress, and his youth sustained him well,
But on the solemn morning that he fell
My soul withdrew apart and was afraid;
And at the door of my bright hopes I stayed,
And wondered at the sudden miracle,
And shuddered inwardly, since who could tell
Why my foe's sinew and not mine decayed;
So, in the peace around, and when men came
To press my hands and murmur words of praise,
I shrank abashed, and hid me from their gaze,
Longing to be like Jacob, tired and lame,
But wrestling still with One whose gracious name
When all the night was past should break in blaze.

TO TERESA.

Dear child of mine, the wealth of whose warm hair
Hangs like ripe clusters of the apricot,
Thy blue eyes, gazing, comprehend me not,
But love me, and for love alone I care;
Thou listenest with a shy and serious air,
Like some Sabrina from her weedy grot
Outpeeping coyly when the noon is hot
To watch some shepherd piping unaware.
'Twas not for thee I sang, dear child;—and yet
Would that my song could reach such ears as thine,
Pierce to young hearts unsullied by the fret
Of years in their white innocence divine;
Crowned with a wreath of buds still dewy-wet,
O what a fragrant coronal were mine!

UNHEARD MUSIC.

Men say that, far above our octaves, pierce
Clear sounds that soar and clamour at heaven's high gate,
Heard only of bards in vision, and saints that wait
In instant prayer with godly-purgèd ears:
This is that fabled music of the spheres,
Undreamed of by the crowd that, early and late,
Lift up their voice in joy, grief, hope, or hate,
The diapason of their smiles and tears.
The heart's voice, too, may be so keen and high
That Love's own ears may watch for it in vain,
Nor part the harmonies of bliss and pain,
Nor hear the soul beneath a long kiss sigh,
Nor feel the caught breath's throbbing anthem die
When closely-twinèd arms relax again.

PÉRIGUEUX.

The little southern city, full of light,
Full of warm light, and coloured like a peach;
The river winnowing either chalky beach
With eddying streams from some vine-haunted height;
Those pillar'd windows hung with kerchiefs bright,
That rosy bell-tower with its mellow speech
In liquid bells that murmured each to each,
Those fleecy, full acacias, robed in white!
Ah! most those warm acacias! like a tune
Their odour fell and rose and died away
All through that noiseless dreamy afternoon;
Beside the quay you sat and sketched; I lay
To watch the trembling breezes lift and sway
The boughs through which there climbed a shadowy moon.

THE VOICE OF D. G. R.

From this carved chair wherein I sit to-night,
The dead man read in accents deep and strong,
Through lips that were like Chaucer's, his great song
About the Beryl and its virgin light;
And still that music lives in death's despite,
And though my pilgrimage on earth be long,
Time cannot do my memory so much wrong
As e'er to make that gracious voice take flight.
I sit here with closed eyes; the sound comes back,
With youth, and hope, and glory on its track,
A solemn organ-music of the mind;
So, when the oracular moon brings back the tide,
After long drought, the sandy channel wide
Murmurs with waves, and sings beneath the wind.

THE TWOFOLD CORD.

Singly we fight against enormous odds,—
Dulness, and Cowardice, and Fate, and Chance,
And the wild bowman, purblind Ignorance,
And Heaven with all its lazy brood of gods;
How, then, above the congregated clods,
Can one man rise, and out of clay advance,
Alone, against the sleepless countenance
Of that huge Argus-host that never nods?
So must we fall upon the fields of life,
And bleed, and die? Nay, rather let us twain,
Marching abreast, against that army move,
Each harnessing the other for the strife,—
You with my will for helmet, and my brain
For sword, while I for buckler bear your love.

THE TWOFOLD VOICE.

A double voice cries in the spirit of Man,
As though upon a mortal stage he saw
Apollo's murmuring daughter, crazed with awe,
Change parts, and shout as Clytemnestra can;
For in the blaze of life he turns to scan
The dim ghost-haunted face of outraged law,
And feels the flames rise, and the serpents gnaw
Through the gilt tissue of his hope's bright plan;
And thus the heavy animal part of him,—
Never at rest to ponder or rejoice,—
Sways, blindly shaken by that twofold voice;
Beneath the axe of Pleasure, void and dim
The dull brain reels, and the vext senses swim,
Or Conscience thrills him with her piercing noise.

BONDSERVICE OF THE HEART.

When by the fire we sit with hand in hand,
My spirit seems to watch beside your knee,
Alert and eager at your least command
To do your bidding over earth and sea;
You sigh—and of that dubious message fain,
I scour the world to bring you what you lack,
Till, from some island of the spicy main,
The pressure of your fingers calls me back:
You smile,—and I, who love to be your slave,
Post round the orb at your fantastic will,
Though, while my fancy skims the laughing wave,
My hand lies happy in your hand, and still;
Nor more from fortune or from life would crave
Than that dear silent service to fulfil.

THE FEAR OF DEATH.

Last night I woke and found between us drawn,—
Between us, where no mortal fear may creep,—
The vision of Death dividing us in sleep;
And suddenly I thought, Ere light shall dawn
Some day,—the substance, not the shadow, of Death
Shall cleave us like a sword. The vision passed,
But all its new-born horror held me fast,
And till day broke I listened for your breath.
Some day to wake, and find that coloured skies,
And pipings in the woods, and petals wet,
Are things for aching memory to forget;
And that your living hands and mouth and eyes
Are part of all the world's old histories!—
Dear God! a little longer, ah not yet!

[Dearest and most inseparable Friend]

Dearest and most inseparable Friend,
Why is it that the thought of thee is bound
With one small plot of honey-scented ground,
Through which a murmuring river without end
Flows, while its eddies with the grasses blend?
Have I been there with thee? Has that low sound
In thy wise voice a tenderer echo found?
What valley is this towards which my dreams descend?
Is it that corner of your leaguered brain,
Shut in by high ambitions, and the stress
Of battling hopes and godlike imagery,
Where you grow hushed and like a child again,
Shifting your armour for an easier dress,
To sit an hour and hold me company?

SLEEP.

FROM THÉOPHILE DE VIAU.

The original appears thus in the squat little duodecimo of Les Oeuvres de Théophile published at Rouen, in 1632, soon after the death of the unfortunate poet:—

Au moins ay-ie sougé que ie vous ay baisée,
Et bien que tout l'amour ne s'en soit pas allé,
Ce feu qui dans mes sens a doucement coulé,
Rend en quelque facon ma flâme r'apaisée.
Apres ce doux effort mon ame reposée,
Peut rire du plaisir qu'elle vous a volé,
Et de tant de refus à deny consolé,
le troune desormais ma guerison aisée.
Mes sens desia remis commencent à dormir,
Le sommeil qui deux nuicts m'auoit laissé gemir,
En fin dedans mes yeux vous fait quitter la place:
Et quoy qu'il soit si froid au iugement de tous,
Il a rompu pour moy son naturel de glace,
Et s'est monstré plus chaud et plus humain que vous.

I've kissed thee, Sweetheart, in a dream at least,
And though the core of love is in me still,
This joy, that in my sense did softly thrill,
The ardour of my longing hath appeased,
And by this tender strife my spirit, eased,
Can laugh at that sweet theft against thy will,
And, half consoled, I soothe myself until
I find my heart from all its pain released.
My senses, hushed, begin to fall on sleep;
Slumber, for which two weary nights I weep,
Takes thy dear place at last within mine eyes;
And though so cold he is, as all men vow,
For me he breaks his natural icy guise
And shows himself more warm and fond than thou.

A PORTRAIT.

She hath lived so silently and loved so much,
That she is deeply stirred by little things,
While pain's long ache and sorrow's sharper stings
Scarce move her spirit that eludes their clutch;
But one half-tone of music, or the touch
Of some tame bird's eager vibrating wings,
Breaks up the sealëd fountain's murmurings
To storm, or what in others might seem such;
So, when she lifts her serious lids to turn
On ours her soft and magical dark eyes,
All womanhood seems on her, in disguise;
As on the pale white peacock we discern
The pencilled shadows of the radiant dyes
And coloured moons that on her sisters burn.

A PLEA.

The Preacher who hath fought a goodly fight
And toiled for his great Master all day long,
Grows faint and harassed after evensong,
And harshly chides the eager proselyte;
The Sage who strode along the even height
Of narrow Justice severing wrong from wrong,
Stumbles, and sinks below the common throng,
In pits of prejudice forlorn of light.
But thou, within whose veins a cooler blood
Runs reasonably quiet, brand not thou
With name of hypocrite each sunken brow;
To every son of man on earth who would
The Graces have not given it to be good,
And virtuous fruit may break the laden bough.