Teresa and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

In all sweet Surrey, to my mind,
No sweeter hamlet you will find,
For pensive grace or sylvan cheer,
Than bowery, hill-encircled Shere,
Crowned with each charm the lowlands yield—
Bright orchard, sunny breadth of field,
Grey holt and homestead; twilight spaces
By huge elms shadowed, from whose bases
Uptowers a precipice of leaves;
A river, whose still bend receives
The wayside cattle's shortening limbs,
While close the venturous swallow skims,
Then fieldward flows with sudden stir,
Haunt of the flashing kingfisher;
And yon dark mill, that now doth seem
Tormented with some fearful dream
(Whose spell it cannot break, I trow)
By power of old enchantment, now
In utter silence slumbereth
So deep, you tremble lest the breath
Of its own wheel should waken it.

Ay, fair the region, nor unfit
To live in some sweet poet's lay
With loveliest Auburn, or where Gray
Was left, the dews of evening shed,
Alone with darkness and the dead.

Here, as beneath an August sky,
With kindred souls for company,
I mused or talked, with heart half-gay,
Half-saddened by the summer day—
For how should ruffled souls express
The heavens' reflected loveliness?—
We chanced adown the village street
A wandering minstrel there to meet,
Of mien once noble, now through waste
Of thriftless penury debased—
The light within burnt low, the lamp
Itself sore tarnished, blurred with damp
But, feed the flame, you wakened yet
A glow not easy to forget,
In sooth a spirit-kindled glance,
And sunny with the smiles of France.

Around him peasant lass and lad
Thronged close, and many a jest they had
At his quaint ways and torn attire:
A rustic Orpheus! and for lyre,
This fiddle, broken in a brawl,
And one string wanting! Therewithal
He led them tripping to the time
Of such rank tune and boisterous rime
As with dull clods of English earth
Passes for music and for mirth.

We paused, and to our side came he,
With antic gesture, not of glee,
Still fingering, singing still the same
Dull nothings, with no sense of shame;
A tipsy stare in that dead eye,
Once kindled from his native sky
With the pure light of chivalry;
Now, starving, in a foreign sty

With swine he wallowed, ill at ease,
And fain with such coarse husks as these
To fill their bellies and his own.

At length, impatient, with a frown,
‘Come, sing us something French,’ I said;
When lo! as starting from the dead,
A quick thrill o'er his features ran;
He stood translated to a man,
With face grown eager and aware
As erst his sire's, some brave Trouvère,
What time amid the spearmen's clang
The war-light filled it, and he sang
To knight and squire in Norman hall
Of Roland's death at Roncesvalles.
‘Mourir, mourir, pour la patrie’
Now rose his altered strain, and we
Stood awed and listening, as he cast
His looks to heaven and lived the past,
And knew the drink-fiend fierce and strong
Exorcised by that noble song,
That brought with every burning line
Fire to his eyes and tears to mine.

Then silence followed for a space,
Until with grave and tender grace,
As gentle minstrel doth behove,
His theme he changed from war to love,
And, preluding so soft an air
As might entrance some lady fair,
Upwafted in the moonlight hour
Through pleachèd bows to latticed bower,
He sang, as if on bended knee,
‘Les beaux yeux de Castalie.’

A few brief moments, clear and strong,
Borne heavenward like a lark, the song

Too soon fell quivering to its close;
But with the silence there arose
A rapture in his heart, in ours
A freshness as of sudden flowers
Sweet-springing from the desert dust,
Undreamed of: and if ask you must
The purpose of my simple tale,
A simple answer must avail—
To catch, before it fade away
And melt into the common grey
Of memory's distance, that sweet scene
And him, the living link between
Our souls and nature: for the tie
Knit there of human sympathy
So binds us, we shall ne'er forget
The hills, the village where we met,
The creeping cloud, the burnished vane,
The cool and elm-o'ershadowed lane,
The very birds upon the wing,
Where first we stopped and heard him sing
‘Mourir, mourir, pour la patrie,’
And ‘Les beaux yeux de Castalie.’

ROSES

Roses red and white
On the wild-rose tree;
Once 'twas heaven in your sweet light
Here to breathe and be.

Larks were loud, skies blue,
Earth ablaze with June;
What had lovers' hearts to do
But to beat in tune?

Ah! when next I stood
In the trysting-glade,
On each bough were drops like blood
Where the flower had swayed:

Winds were loud, leaves few,
Birds no song could make;
What have lonely hearts to do
But to bear, or break?

Ye that pipe on bough
Ditties of love-lore,
Mute be all your music now,
For she hears no more.

On the wild-rose tree,
Roses white and red,
Old and out of date are ye,
For my love is dead.

AN OLD MILL

An old mill stands at the gloomy head
Of a narrow gorge profound:
But many a generation's fled
Since millers there made flour for bread,
Or the water-wheel went round—

So long, that a sapling ash, you see,
Found leisure a march to steal,
And grew right through to a sturdy tree,
As Nature's self had, in scorn or glee,
Put a spoke in the mighty wheel.

What need? There are rents in the oaken ring,
And the worm there bores its bed;
The loud, lithe water, with splash and spring,
May leap the rock like a living thing,
But the wheel—it is hushed and dead.

And down the gully with splendid force
The rain-fed cataracts pour,
Mining the rocks without remorse,
And scooping the crags in their idle course:
For the wheel goes round no more.

The truth is as old as when earth first woke,
And as young as yesterday:
The nave may be rotten, the axle broke,
The spider may spin from spoke to spoke,
But the stream will hold its way.

Hast never read what is written here
In the lives of men? Heigh-ho!
The life-stream flows, but with empty cheer,
For the heart is broken, or out of gear:
Would God that it were not so!

WAGES

It is weary to be waking
In the grey before the dawn,
When birds about the lawn
Are silence breaking.
‘Can maiden-vows be mended?
Or a soul with slaying ended?
No; nor of death be won
The undoing of deeds done.’
So ring the bird-notes blended
In the grey before the dawn.

He came to my white pillow
In the dusk before the dawn,
When winds from off the lawn
Were in the willow.
With kiss of fire he cleft me,
And of God's face bereft me:
But I cried, ‘No lie shall screen us;
Is it love or death between us?’
Without one word he left me
In the dusk before the dawn.

I stole where he was sleeping
In the dark before the dawn,
When mists along the lawn
Were slowly creeping.

He woke, and horror filled him,
And he shrieked; but kisses stilled him.
At my heart hell-fire was licking,
In my hand a death-blade pricking:
Oh, I kissed to sleep and killed him
In the dark before the dawn.

FOUR FAIR THINGS

There are three things fair upon earth—may a fourth be found?—
The seed of song in the heart, of a flower in the ground;
The third is the seed of love. Shall there yet be shown
A fourth thing fair upon earth, when these are flown?

Sweet was the new-found gift of a voice to cry
When the pent soul sprang to the lips to sing, or die;
Well, but O aching heart! what is left of it now?—
The shame of a quenched desire, and a burning brow.

A poppy shot up to the sun: 'twas of regal red;
Floating on air seemed the disc of its delicate head.
When the corn fell, what remained of its glory to cull?—
Naught but a scant green stalk, and a naked skull.

As we filled the loud air with our laughter, the silent with love,
The hour was as swift, was as sweet, as the wings of a dove.
Say now, what is left of a joy that was earth's despair?—
A thought, and a sigh, and a glance at the empty chair.

There are three things fair upon earth—may a fourth be found?—
The seed of song in the heart, of a flower in the ground;
The third is the seed of love, and a fourth shall be shown—
The soul of a man, that endures when these are flown.

SPES VICTRIX

If thou upon the heavenly way
Should'st meet, dear Angel of the Spring,
A maiden-spirit eyed like May,
And sweet beyond imagining;

If robed in meekness she appear,
Though circled with immortal breath,
And round about her brows she wear
The sign of ‘faithful unto death’;

And if the flowers, that know thy hand,
And tarry thy returning feet,
Beholding her, without command
Come forth to blossom and be sweet:

If thou should'st light on such an one,
So pure and peerless, brave and free,
With eyes that blench not at the sun,
Yet earthward turned for mine and me,

Oh, speak not of the days of pain—
The days of pain, the nights of tears,
Of sighs that rend the heart in twain,
Of rude remorse or faithless fears;

Oh, say that hope shines calm above
The eddying storms of wild regret;
Oh, tell her grief is lost in love,
And I no hopeless lover yet.

LOVE'S GLASS

Love's is a glass of magic power, that charms
All futures into focus,
Since erst, half-veiled, within our mother's arms,
Life's glimmering dawn awoke us;

Till lo! one glance, and forth the lover fares,
Nor long the journey reckons,
Though still, through manhood, on to hoary hairs,
The same blue distance beckons.

If 'wildering darkness on his feet should fall,
The sun in heaven denied him,
He lacks no light who sees the end of all—
Love's magic glass to guide him;

And where life's fading lines the boundary kissed,
As if in faith's derision,
Death melts before him like a wall of mist,
Nor intercepts the vision.

AT LYME REGIS

When the storm-spirit rides on the waters, O friend! it is glorious to be
Where the great ocean ridges roll shoreward, upheaved from the plain of the sea;
Deaf and blind with the smoke and the thunder, to watch from the old sea-wall
Where the breakers upshoot into foam-trees, that burst into blossom, and fall,
And recoil on the wave-ranks to rearward, and meet in explosions of spray,
Till they rally, and rush on the rampart that holds them for ever at bay.
But their crests leap like hoarse-hissing serpents, that writhe, intertwined and grotesque,
Plashing down on the pavement beneath them in fretwork of milk Arabesque;
And the remnant, sucked back by the shingle, goes, seething and curdled and churned
Into froth-balls, a toy for the tempest, from ocean's lip spattered and spurned.
Still, rank after rank, come the rollers, white-edged where the water-break falls;
Alp on alp, see! the avalanche flashes, o'ertoppling their emerald walls;
With roar as of ruin and earthquake, whose crash strikes the thundercloud dumb,
With the breath of their fury before them, quick-panting they come, and they come,

As if all the pent fiends of mid-ocean, broke loose, from the bottom were hurled,
Their frantic arms reared in defiance to clutch at the bounds of the world.
Oh, rapture to spirits long stagnant, or caught in the eddies of change,
Thus to feel the strong tide of a passion that knows not to rest or to range,
Free to swell 'neath the breeze of emotion, borne on as the billows are driven,
And e'en in the heart's wildest tumult at one with the purpose of Heaven!

A BALLAD OF ST. VALENTINE'S

'Twas of St. Valentine the day
He found her sighing, ‘Wellaway’;
By chance they met, 'twas plain to see,
Beneath the leafless trysting-tree.

‘Now, wherefore sad at heart, sweet maid,
And yet so beautiful?’ he said.
‘Alack! fair sir, for grief I pine
That I have no true Valentine.’

So kind he was, his bow dropped he,
And tossed his arrows 'neath the tree;
Though close was heard a rabbit stir,
He stayed his sport to comfort her;

So good, though merry mates were nigh,
He laid all thought of frolic by;
But more he soothed, the more wept she
Beneath the leafless trysting-tree;

Till in his arms he caught her fast,
And through those blinding tears at last
The blue of heaven began to shine,
For she had found her Valentine.

MY LADY

My lady is so fair and dear
That all my heart to her is given;
One word she whispered in mine ear,
And earth for me was changed to heaven.

Of her perfections I lack skill
Or form or semblance to portray;
By inward sweetness, when she will,
Over men's hearts she holdeth sway.

Her hair's dark hue may not be said,
But when she lifts her brow to mine
Earth in so deep a dusk is laid
That all the stars of love do shine.

Like waters in a summer grove,
Her speech is musical and low;
Her eyes are fountains of pure love,
From whence the streams of honour flow.

They praise her voice, they praise her songs;
Such gift to all men doth she dole:
They know not that to me belongs
The secret music of her soul.

Her mien so pure, her glance so bright,
The thoughts that in her bosom be,
Her hopes, her fears, from dawn to night
Are angel-choirs that sing to me.

‘HIGHER AND HARDER’

The blood that warms each English heart
Sprang from heroic veins;
The birthright of a glorious past
Our heritage remains:
And still we kindle at the thought
Of souls to honour true,
And duty done beneath the sun—
But what is ours to do?

The fiery moment bids not all
For country or for faith,
From war's red sleep, transfigured, leap,
Immortalised by death.
The fame of Garfield's dying hours,
Or Coghill's matchless end—
To ride through conquering hosts, then turn,
To perish with his friend—

Such deed to dare, such fate to bear,
May not be yours or mine;
But stars whose spark on earth shows dark,
As fair to heaven may shine:
Live pure, without reproach, we can,
As valiant sons and true,
The race not shame from whence we came—
And that is ours to do.

What else avails to con the tales
Of mythic hero-lore—
Alcmena's son, the fights he won,
The sufferings that he bore?
To none that live doth Heaven now give
The powers of hell to tame?
No fiends or foes as fierce as those,
And breathing deadlier flame?

Have we no stern Tirynthian king
In conscience to obey?
In hearts uncleansed as Lerna's fens
Have we no worm to slay?
O comrades, hark! 'tis honour calls:
‘Who is on my side?—who?’
Whate'er the deed, if honour lead,
This, this is ours to do.

THE PRIMROSE AND THE ROCK

Primrose, to this bare rock
So closely clinging,
Fear'st thou the North's keen shock
And stormy singing?

Or is it love, not fear,
(Sweet flower, I knew it)
Holds thee heart-rooted here?—
Thou dost not rue it.

Cold though his flinty arms,
Boon warmth they yield thee:
E'en his uncouthness charms,
Serving to shield thee.

Far will the fancy range,
Love's balm to borrow;
As if a rock could change,
Or thou know sorrow!

Ah! should our fates agree,
Though widely parted—
Thy love all stone to be,
Mine, stony-hearted!

TO FOUR SISTERS

In this degenerate age of brass,
When childhood apes the world at ten,
And maidens at their looking-glass
Affect the modish airs of men;
While yet in scattered homes abound
The artless-gay, the simple-sweet,
More richly prized, as rarer found,
The poet worships at their feet.

O bright dispellers of our gloom!
O breathing flowers of happiness!
Four such I know, that shyly bloom,
Unconscious of their power to bless.
Forgive the praise, and take from one,
Who fain in your white book would be,
This portrait, painted by the sun,
The likeness of your devotee.

MOSS

Where dips the wood floor to a cup,
My lady in her hand held up
A tuft of moss—each tiny frond
Fraught with a molten diamond
Of dew, set ready for the sip
Of pixy's or of fairy's lip.
Awhile she gazed in pensive case;
Then, as she pressed it to her face,
‘O fairer in thy forest-bed,
And sweeter than all flowers,’ she said.

Howe'er it be, one thing I wot,
Thou hast a virtue these have not;
Ay, modest weed, for matched with thee
The snowdrop flaunts her purity,
Pride lifts the cowslip, the wild rose
As conscious of her beauty glows,
The violet so demurely bent,
Of her own heart is redolent;
Each lovely sister, as is meet,
Breathes sweetness in itself complete,
Ere tasted, past imagining;
But thou, a tear-born, holy thing,
In whose dim fragrance we recall
Earth's odour, the dear source of all,
Whose forms a myriad tints unfold,
Coral and amber, green and gold,
Deem'st not thyself too fair or sweet
To spread a carpet for man's feet;

And more, belike, in thee is found
Of heaven, as nearer to the ground.

So, in God's sight, methinks, 'tis true,
That of all deeds we mortals do,
All thoughts that harbour in the breast
The sweetest are the lowliest.

THE MUMMY-PEA

Here blooms in England, and to-day,
Unmarked, a miracle of flowers,
Whose seed far centuries away
Was orbed in other climes than ours:

Strange thought! the very parent-stem
That rocked its pendent cradle-pod
Once haply met the gaze of them
That spake with him who spake with God;

Or in some garden of great kings,
Which erst the Sire of nations knew,
Unfurled the selfsame snowy wings
That next were spread for me and you.

When last the parent pea-flower's scent
Did o'er the fields of summer flit,
Pharaoh's dark daughter may have bent
Her stately head to feast on it.

Then sudden darkness fell: the seed
Lay coffined with the mighty dead,
While centuries of human deed,
Unheard, were passing overhead.

When next it woke, the earth was old:
Four thousand years had ceased to be,
As from this plot of English mould
It looked and breathed on you and me.

Hail! fair white flower and fragrant breath,
That, symbols of a hope sublime,
Sprang quickened from the dust of death,
And foiled the flashing scythe of Time!

LOST?

Lost kisses from remembered lips,
Lost arms that once enwound us,
Lost tears that memory sadly keeps,
Lost hopes that never found us;

Lost eyes that blessed, lost words that cheered
Our fruitless, fond endeavour;
Lost sorrows, by their loss endeared—
Are these, then, lost for ever?

Oh, hers and mine! believe it not,
But in your childish blisses
Still, still survive, by you forgot,
Her looks, her words, her kisses:

The tireless heart and tearless home
We leave, as lost, behind us;
But these, though o'er the world we roam,
Will follow till they find us.

SONG I

[In days of the orchard-blossom]

In days of the orchard-blossom,
In nights of the brown bird's song,
When the wan earth bares her bosom
To the sun that has tarried long;
By streams where of old we wandered,
In woods where the violet blew,
Where the wealth of the spring I squandered
To weave in a garland for you;
Oh, day will seem long to my sorrow,
And night all too brief for my tears,
To-morrow, and yet to-morrow,
And years on years.

When the glances of fell December
Are death to the dancing brook,
And hope is sweet to remember
In the warmth of the ingle-nook;
When the song goes up to the rafter,
And frolic and feast befall,
And the thought of change hereafter
Is hid from the heart of all;
Oh, night will seem long to my sorrow,
And day all too brief for my tears,
To-morrow, and yet to-morrow,
And years on years.

SONG II

[Love, before I loved you]

Love, before I loved you,
And was loved again,
What had life to live for,
Or what balm had pain?
Half the world's hid wonder
Dark to you and me,
Locked from our heart's reading
Till love lent the key!

In the soul's lone garden
Flowers were few to cull,
And hard toil was hateful,
And dark days were dull:
Now—old hopes behind us,
From old cares estranged,
Is the change in us, Love,
Or are all things changed?

The new earth beneath us!
The new heaven o'erhead!
Why should winter boughs be
Greenly garlanded,
Winter-skies, why stretch them
Blue without a stain,
But because I love you,
And am loved again?

SONG III

['Tis an old, old tale, I trow]

'Tis an old, old tale, I trow:
Be not fooled with outward show;
Deep within love's treasures lie:
Trust the heart, and not the eye.

Though your faith in man be gone,
Or in woman, still love on;
Still believe against belief:
Love is lasting, falsehood brief.

SONG IV

[In the green forest-spaces]

In the green forest-spaces,
Brimful of bright flower-faces,
The sum of all their graces,
She stood before me,
And on my spirit such a shower
Of radiance shed, that hour by hour
I know no respite from the power
Love wieldeth o'er me.

As with presumptuous motion
Streams vex the vast of ocean,
What can my poor devotion
But shame and flout her?
So weak my worth, so low my lot,
Life's very self sufficeth not
To cast upon Love's heap: for what
Were life without her?

Yet, be the thought forgiven,
That I with sins unshriven
Dare lift so nigh to heaven
A heart so earthy;
Though not its highest, holiest sighs
To thy pure atmosphere may rise,
One look of love from those dear eyes
Would make me worthy.

CONTENT

High hopes we build like towers; they fall like toys;
The foolish heart beneath lies crushed and bleeding:
We scan the past and future for our joys,
When on joy's very wing the hour is speeding.

The future comes not, as all lives attest;
A vanished hour, nor tears nor prayers will send thee:
Do present duties, leave to Heaven the rest,
And every dawn shall with fresh hope attend thee.

Οιος απ' αλλων

Sometimes amid the festal throng
One pallid face I see;
The dancers start, but stay not long
To question, Who is he?
He heeds not them, but passes by,
As dead to blame or praise;
His life is with the things that lie
Beneath the buried days.

On lonely crag by mountain lake
I've watched him swiftly stride,
With that far look, as he would take
The distance for his bride:
Grey cloud and wintry summit seemed
His kith and kin to be;
But that whereof his spirit dreamed
Was not in earth or sea.

A soldier, beneath alien suns
The weary march he's plied,
Has stormed the breach, and charged the guns,
Sought death, but never died.
The fevered lips and fainting knees,
The bowed and burdened head—
He knows a heavier weight than these,
A heart to pleasure dead.

And once, amid the shouting ranks,
With songs of loud acclaim,
I saw him when a people's thanks
Rang to his honoured name:
He recked not of their minstrelsy,
Nor saw the flower-hung street;
His heart was where the pine-trees sigh
Above his buried Sweet.

[Men say that Thou hast plumbed the deep]

Men say that Thou hast plumbed the deep,
And drained the cup, of woe,
Wept every tear that mortals weep.—
It was, and was not so.

That Thou didst taste each outward sting,
Breathe every inward sigh
That guilt from innocence can wring,
Who doubts, or dares deny?

But ah! remorse, that sinks the soul
Lower than hell below—
Life's one irreparable dole—
Thou didst not, couldst not know.

AUF WIEDERSEHN

When they have writ above me
That I am dust, my dear,
Believe you not,
Nor grieve you not,
And waste no tender tear.
Think this, Love, if you love me—
That every hour you hear
Brings meeting-time
And greeting-time
The nearer and more near.

A QUATRAIN

In life's hill-journey, howso' strait
And stern the rock-hewn pass may be,
Time's blackest boulder-chinks are lit
With foam-white threads of memory.

A VOICE FROM THE FOREST

We are oak-trees old, that have long endured,
Under sun and moon, in the wind and rain;
Not above ground may our like be found—
So many ages of pride and pain.

We cannot remember what stars waxed wan,
What flowers flushed red, as the dawn rose up,
Or if any bird sang when first we sprang
From the rent ripe egg of the acorn-cup.

But silently over us gloomed and grew
The sense of an unseen canopy;
And hot hushed days in the woodland ways
Were startled at times by a stormy cry;

For centuries since, as in some far dream,
We heard the hounds bay, and the bugle blow;
The hart fell dead on the leaves we shed
Hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

From Spring to Fall, and from year to year,
Lonely we stand, and alone have stood;
Never a tree so lone as we
In the heart of the woodland solitude;

For the air above and the earth beneath,
The grass, the wonderful insects' wings,
Even we ourselves, seem strange to ourselves—
Strange the forms of all living and lifeless things.

The birds and the flowers, that caress our feet,
Or carol about us, and so pass by,
Back to the earth that gave them birth,
Mute, and quenched of their fire and their minstrelsy;

And the vain generations of toiling man,
Whose days are so few and so clamorous—
All, all are changed that round us ranged,
But the same sad moon looking down on us.

Nay, deeper yet, through the dry, dead hours,
Deeper and deeper we search, and see!—
Whose locks are these wave white on the breeze,
'Mid the pomp of an high solemnity?

Lo! the murmured rites of the mystic ones,
With slow procession and chanted prayers;
Young were we then by the hoary men,
The priests of the grove, the star-gazers.

Lo! these upon earth that have left no peer,
With mute pale lip, and with trembling limb—
Even these stood in awe as they heard and saw
The sights and sounds of the forest dim.

Lowly they bowed them when summer burned
O'er the dark of our pillared aisles divine;
Deep was their grief at the falling leaf,
For the rent green roof of their ruined shrine.

And still are we sacred, and round us clings
The mistletoe, mighty to ban or bless;
Its spell is not dead, nor its virtue fled,
Though steeped in a blank forgetfulness.

And still are we kings, though man disdain,
Though winter discrown us in wild revolt,
Though the arrows of the air make flame our hair,
And our zones be scorched with the thunderbolt.

Wherefore go forth, make known to men,
O wind! thou voice of the silent wood,
The hearts of oak, and the words they spoke
From the depth of the old-world solitude:

We smile at your pity, your pride we scorn,
That were, and that are, and are yet to be;
And we bid you revere, and leave us here,
Alone with our immortality.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Eighteen hundred years and moe!
The earth grows old, and the time is long;
But make ye the doors upon wind and snow,
And sing, sweet choir, with the angel-throng!
The Babe in the oxen's stall, I trow,
He savèd of old, and He saveth now:
Ding-ding, ding-dong, with a merry sound,
Let the bells, let the Christmas bells go round!

‘No hymns in our hearing the angels sing;
No sages of eastland come from far;
Yet joy have we of the gifts we bring
Who follow the flight of His guiding-star.’
Oh, let your songs to Him soar like fire,
Sweet Mary's babe, and the world's desire;
Ding-ding, ding-dong, with a merry sound,
As the bells, as the Christmas bells go round!

‘Say, how shall we find Him, so far to seek?
To yon dear manger we may not win.’—
‘He houseth Him still with the poor and meek,
And maketh the mourner His lowly inn:
Who empties his heart as the oxen's stall,
He findeth it filled with the Lord of all:
Ding-ding, ding-dong, let the bells go round,
And sing, sweet choir, for the Christ is found!’

I rede ye worship Him, maids and men;
So bring us all to His bliss. Amen.

AN EASTER CAROL

(First semi-chorus)
Wherefore make ye this ado,
With high pomp and revelry,
Wreathing daffodils for rue?
Who is it ye worship?—who?

(Second semi-chorus)
Let the flowers of earth reply.

(Flowers)
'Tis to greet the immortal Vine
Our fresh coronals we twine.

(Chorus)
Every bud bid April bring,
Let the field her incense wave;
All the lilies of the spring,
Let them cry aloud and sing,
‘Risen, risen
With the Lord of life from winter and the grave.’

(First semi-chorus)
Wherefore lift ye, clear and strong,
Your triumphant melody,
As the lark into a song
Melts amid the starry throng?

(Second semi-chorus)
Let the birds of heaven reply.

(Birds)
To the eternal Dayspring we
Mount on wings of ecstasy.

(Chorus)
In the blue air bid them float,
All their plumes in sunshine lave,
Pipe and tune each feathered throat
To the sweet and solemn note,
‘Risen, risen
With the Lord of all from silence and the grave.’

(First semi-chorus)
What is this your carol saith?
Shall they rise in dust who lie?
Are not all things that have breath
Serfs and vassals to King Death?

(Second semi-chorus)
Let the sons of men reply.

(Sons of Men)
Raised by Him who rose again,
The dead live, and Death is slain.

(Chorus)
Fruit in us shall all men see,
Pure to taste and quick to save,
Of bright immortality
If indeed with Christ we be
Risen, risen,
If our heart with Him be risen from the grave.

In Memoriam

FREDERICK III., GERMAN EMPEROR

1888

Dead Emperor, loved where'er thy name is heard,
Tried captain, foremost when great fields were won,
And—meeker, loftier title, self-conferred—
Servant of God, sleep well; thy task is done.

Brief task! But what is time to such as thou,
Though years of promise yield but fruit of days?
No length of empire gilds a tyrant's brow;
Three months have crowned thee with thy people's praise.

O dauntless heart, which yet for suffering bled,
And in the hour of conquest sought to save!
Peace held her breath above thy dying-bed,
And the world trembles lest she share thy grave.

The lust of power, ambition's lurid stream,
That would a world in conflagration roll,
More insignificant than weakness seem,
Matched with the gentle greatness of thy soul.

O high example of heroic will,
That, doomed to battle with a dumb disease,
Could to the last of ebbing life fulfil
The burden of a nation's destinies!

Heroic patience, that in those dark hours,
Without a murmur of mistrust, resigned,
Ev'n at the height of manhood's noblest powers,
Their glorious use, the service of mankind!

All Europe, gazing, seemed to understand
That mute pathetic eloquence of eye,
Which helped thee, passing to the silent land,
Though silent, not without farewell, to die.

All Europe mourns thee; England more than all,
Sad for her daughter, mourns thee as a son:—
Now close the curtain: let the silence fall:
Thy task is o'er; servant of God, well done!

C. G. GORDON

Not here he sleeps: the gentlest of the brave,
A name world-famous, fills a nameless grave;
Nor here be writ his triumphs or his doom,
Fighting for China, dying for Khartoum.
Of life he recked not, but for God to spend;
God's sword he was, and servant to the end,
In all his deeds heroic found, as few,
Nor faithful least in what he failed to do;
Yet to such meekness did his soul attain
Men's praise he feared, as others their disdain,
And hid his greatness, like a pearl of price,
In the rough casket of self-sacrifice.
So living, dying, passed he from our ken,
Apostle, hero, martyr, king of men;
And yet unspeak it, for he leaves a name
Too high for title and too pure for fame;
And this poor pillar mourns not Gordon's death:
‘Praise God for Gordon's noble life,’ it saith.

G. D. W. D.

Or e'er a blossom blanched the thorn,
When scarce from winter's wing
Were shed the last cold plumes that scorn
Earth's promise of the spring,

By eighty summers overweighed
With patriarchal bloom,
One silver head we gently laid
Within the marble gloom.

No hollow form or flattering show
In yon dark pomp appears,
No selfish mourners force the flow
Of ceremonious tears;

For never kindlier heart, more just,
And free from sordid stain,
Was gathered to the glorious dust
Of Ina's ancient fane.

O comrades! guard his memory well
In Honour's golden urn;
Such spirits cease, but who may tell
If ever such return;

If noble manners shall engage,
And reverence rule as yore,
Or from this mammon-minded age
Pass, and be seen no more?

By simple dignity sublime,
By tenderness untold,
By man's best triumph over time—
The heart that grows not old,—

By chivalry of days long past,
We hailed within our ken
A star late-risen—Oh, not the last!—
Of England's gentle men;

Who loved life's bounteous cup to drain,
Filled from no earthy bowl,
Nor grew by glut of worldly gain
A bankrupt of the soul,

Nor soared on folly's waxen wing,
Nor sank in vile repose,
Nor plucked at pride, the meanest thing
That in God's garden grows.

For him, so courteous to his peers,
But kindest to the poor,
Grief's choicest flowers are fed with tears
By many a cottage-door.

Ay, though the ripe shock falleth well,
And riper fall but few,
Not oft hath boomed yon funeral-bell
So dear a loss to rue;

Nor shall our inmost hearts reprove
A nobler tribute yet,
That none e'er knew him, but to love,
Nor loved him, to forget.

E. H.

Dead noble face beneath this coffin-lid,
Too beautiful, we deem, for death's decay;
Needs must we close thee in, and sadly say,
‘Farewell, dear face; henceforth shalt thou be hid
From earth and day;

From the grey villages and heathy downs,
The silent pool, and never-silent rills;
From the wide landscape with its windy mills,
And the dark wood, and tender light that crowns
These Surrey hills.’

Ay, but hid also from the thousand aches
Of maid and wife and mother; from the wear
Of slow disease, from ever-haunting fear,
And hope that comes not—the long fret that makes
Life hard to bear;

From clamorous tongues and rancours without end,
False lights that lure, blind perils that beset;
From low desires that spread their gilded net,
And all the gaudy nothings that we spend
Our souls to get.

Ah! the glad wonder of that deathless change,
From lapse of time, from age and weakness free,
That, wearied with thy seventy years and three,
In some still region, beautiful and strange,
Begins for thee!

Bitter it is for us who cannot steel
Our hearts to lose thee; not for thee to go.
Yet by thine empty shrine, for all our woe,
Thyself not far nor unaware we feel,
Not lost we know.

Thy smile, thy voice, thy form—to these we bid
Indeed farewell, beneath the closing sod
Thus much of thee to Death's relentless nod
Yielding perforce; but thy true life is hid
With Christ in God.

B. S. D.

Not dead; transplanted to a soil more light
By tenderer hands than ours,
Where never nipping frost or cankering blight
Profanes the flowers,
Your little darling blows, your mignonette,
In God's sequestered garden set.

Oh, sweeter such a loss than sad or strange!
Up-gathered from our gloom,
Earth's fading petals she doth there exchange
For deathless bloom,
And the salt rain from clouds of sorrow driven
For dew-drops on the lawn of heaven.

SONNETS

I
TO THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY

1885

Grey Knight of God, new-gathered to thy rest,
Old hero-chief of many a bloodless fight,
Who with no party-strokes didst cleave the night
Of social darkness by no dawn-streak blest;
Of women, babes, and all sad souls confessed
The lifelong champion, who, in birth's despite,
Amid proud peers a toil-worn eremite,
To this aspired—the friendship of the oppressed!
Thee the grim mine and whirring factory-loom
Felt when, like eucalyptus of the fen,
Thou cam'st to purge the poisonous haunts of men.
Long shall thy country mourn thee; long shall bloom
Wealth's one immortal flower thy dust above—
The tear-dewed garland of the poor man's love.

II
TO A GREAT THINKER

O lifelong pilgrim to a nobler shrine
Than e'er was knee'd by trembling worshipper!
No thrall to visionary hope and fear,
But in the light of sovereign thought divine,
Thou madest Truth thy temple: she did shine
O'er the waste leagues that led thy feet to her,
And now thou art entered in; but we stand here,
Halting, not helpless, for these tracks are thine.
O mighty champion! who didst dare to clutch
Earth-strangling Error, at whose every touch
Loose fell some link of Superstition's chain,
The patience of thy soul forbad disdain
Even those who flung the theologic crutch,
Wherewith their souls limped after thee in vain.

III
W. F. D.

He had known sorrow, and not sought, as some,
To strike with fate a bargain of new bliss,
But betwixt two worlds, as one tired of this,
Hung on the skirts of Heaven, and made his home
Adventurous heights, where Science whispered, ‘Come,
And thou shalt commune with what was, and is,
And shall be, wring her secret from the abyss,
And mount in spirit to the eternal dome.’
So, purged of sense, as in prophetic eld,
He through the veil saw, ere Death lifted it,
Light within darkness, and heard gush the springs
That murmur in the mystic heart of things,
Till on the bounds of being he beheld
Man's finite melt into God's infinite.

IV
DRESDEN

Who lives at Dresden without ears and eyes
Lives a lost soul in heaven. What best may be
She lacks not—music in a golden sea,
Majestic dramas, art that deifies,
And treasures that adorn her walls; her skies
Smile on a landscape rife with history:
You wake to live, and live to hear and see
What fires the heart and helps the mind to rise.
Float down the river till her towers appear:
No fog, no smoke, a city virgin-bright!
Then that great marvel of the atmosphere,
The arch of heaven so high, the air so light!
While faithful to their seasons, day or night,
Summer is summer, winter winter here.

V
PRESENCE IN ABSENCE

If this be true within my heart which saith
That thou, sweet soul, art nearer than before
To my lone spirit, wreck'd amid the roar
Of thy life's waters on the shoals of death;
If I, whose earthlier token was thy breath
Upon my brow, thy footstep at my side,
Now feel thy presence like a circling tide
Within me, and around, above, beneath,—
Why, then, let perishable dust repine!
I am not, sure, the wretchedest of men,
Who hold thee still indissolubly mine:
Though hand with hand no longer intertwine,
Though thou art made to mortal ear and ken
Invisible, unvoiced—what then? what then?

VI

[I may not hope through life to comprehend]

I may not hope through life to comprehend,
As earth does sea, this ocean of my loss,
Nor bind its foamy waters to emboss
Thus far the sea-mark, and no farther tend,
Nor sail beyond its barrier, nor descend
To that still region where no storm can toss—
Too deep to fathom, and too vast to cross,
Whatever help a coming hour shall send.
I can but skirt its borders, and explore
The devious creeks, with islets interlaced,
And probe each gloom-filled cavern to the core;
Or wade amid the short'ning shoals, and taste
The bitter of its waves, that rage and waste
With moan immortal round this mortal shore.

VII

[When I reflect how poor a part of all]

When I reflect how poor a part of all
Our soul's fulfilment lies within the brief
And brittle zone that binds one human sheaf
Of months and years; how doubts did ne'er appal,
Nor change afflict thy spirit; when I recall
Our love's eternal promise, and that grief
Which is love's self in absence—as the leaf
Is spring's leaf still, though saddened ere it fall
By winter's widowing finger—and no less
Muse on the power that from deep suffering springs
To elevate and awe, to cleanse and bless—
Then, from the heaven within the heart, glad rays
Of hope illume with dawn-like glimmerings
The sad and watery sunset of my days.

VIII
LONELY GREATNESS

Unto the sea said God, ‘I thee create
Naked of all the kind air nourisheth;
Be thou tempestuous, terrible as death,
And bitter, and of man's life insatiate:
The melancholy wind be thy sole mate;
The lone moon vex thee, as she wandereth;
Yet shalt thou chide not for these things,’ God saith,
‘Seeing that for greatness’ sake I have made thee great.’
O man! if thou, too, from sweet helpful art
Be driven, and all the harvest of thine hand,
Fair hopes of fruitful promise, fall from thee,
Remember to be great; accept thy part;
Bethink thee of the waste time-sifted sand
And sovereign desolation of the sea.

IX
AT SEATOWN

As love breaks in upon the simple dreams
Of some shy maid, whose spirit, lowly-wise,
Ne'er ranged beyond the sober sanctities
Of home affection—sudden the air teems
With unknown rapture; earth's strait valley seems
To widen, and her life's low dome to rise
High as the wing-flown region, whilst her eyes
Yearn toward some light that in the distance gleams;
So may the wanderer in these vales descry
A change come o'er the landscape, as the fells
Heave bolder, and a sense of liberty
And ampler distance to the heart foretells
What yon bare brow shall consummate—the free
Expanse and breathing brightness of the sea.

X
THE SCHILLER-HOUSE AT LOSCHWITZ

Two shrivelled oak-leaves of a vanished year
Blown by the breeze into that garden-bower
Where Schiller once sang mightily! His power
Haunts the dim chamber yet, and you may hear,
Outside, a shuddering fountain, no less dear
To the Nine Sisters than Peirene's shower,
Or where the twin Parnassian peaks uptower,
Castalia's murmur, as the god drew near.
Still stands the oak, though its frail honours fell;
Low lies the bard, but from his boughs were shed
Imperishable garlands; it is well:
And, earthward stooping, in my hand I take
The withered emblems, for sweet fancy's sake,
And to leaves living dedicate leaves dead.

XI
DAWN

At every tick of time—when eve is grey,
When skies are scorched with noon, or blurred with night,
Somewhere, on opening wings of early light,
The young Dawn breaketh; without haste or stay
Moves the bright Wizard on his lustral way,
To wind-blown seas, or cities glimmering white,
Hamlet and homestead, or bleak mountain-height,
Or misty vale, each moment bringing day.
O midnight watcher, woe-distraught, and sick
Of the blind heaven, whose very hopes do lour
Like clouds upon thee palpable and thick—
Thyself thy sole horizon!—in that hour
Be such sweet thought thy pillow: 'twill have power
To cleanse and calm, and make thee catholic.

XII
FROM MOFFAT DALE

Come, friend, with me, if simple thoughts console,
To our glad session bring no wiser brain;
Come where, betwixt the mountain and the plain,
The billowy uplands of the Border roll.
Better than yon bleak alps to travail'd soul
This half-way heaven, and happier far to gain,
Than heights of ecstasy o'er gulfs of pain,
The grey-green hills of sober self-control.
Be wisely passive; strive not here to find,
But ope thy heart, and, when the hills have sway,
Let the great Minstrel of the Border-lay
About thy spirit all his witchery wind,
Or travel to the height of Wordsworth's mind,
And with some glorious sonnet crown the day.

XIII
NORMAN NÉRUDA

She stood with lifted bow in act to sweep
The strings: sound flashed; the silent air caught fire;
And, wave on wave upsurging high and higher,
The waters of our soul—one stormy heap—
Hung menacing. Anon she bade them sleep,
She woke the winds of Memory: dead desire
Revived; hope grappled with the eternal liar;
Love saw the end, and deemed the forfeit cheap.
She pierced the bounds of Being; with one breath
Of that prevailing strain she fell on fate
And slew it; back swung the adamantine gate,
Self-opening; there was no more time or death.
And then she ceased. And oh, how steep the fall
From heaven to that dark, disenchanted hall!

XIV
HIDDEN GRIEF

When Grief had lost his ancient mastery,
One morn I wandered in a forest-dell
Whose floor was tricked with many a trembling bell
And starry blossom far as eye could see.
There grew white violet, pale anemone,
Sweet orchis—all the flowers she loved so well;
But fast-immured in some more secret cell
Sorrow lay bound, and these had not the key.
Anon I turned me where the woodman's axe
Had cleft an opening; there, by trunks laid whole,
Stood piled-up faggots for the burning kept.
One waft of fragrance from the withered stacks
Reached me; a gust of anguish caught my soul;
I bowed my forehead to the earth, and wept.

XV
AFTER THE FUNERAL

When all the funeral-train were passed away,
Stood one beside the gaping earth who said,
‘Into this grave, leaf after leaf, I shred
The garland of my life, there to decay
Till she rise with it at the Judgment Day.’
First, the fair dreams whereon his childhood fed,
Then youth's high promise, half-accomplishèd,
Dropped into Death's irrevocable Nay;
Pleasure, and all sweet sense of lovely things,
Fell fluttering next, and that fond parasite,
Hope, that to life's frail stem so closely clings;
Last, trailing Memory, hung with dead delight.
When all these blossoms in the dust were strown,
He, with his empty heart, returned alone.

XVI
THE SILENT POOL

Was ever lake so calm, so clear, so deep?
Distinct as birds in a blue heaven might show
The fish lie poised, or, flashing to and fro,
Shiver the crystal surface as they leap.
Yet, Silent Pool, funereal boughs o'erweep
Thy margin, and about thy bason cold
Black horror broods. Nor is the tale untold—
Making the blood freeze and the flesh to creep—
How, centuries since, as her pure limbs she laves
Here, 'twixt thy banks, a maid who might not win
From that vile prince to save her maidenhead,
Sought deeper refuge, till she took the waves
For garments of her shame, and, robed herein,
Sank to thy silver floor—her virgin bed.

XVII
AT THE ENGLISH LAKES

This is a land where earth to heaven aspires
In multitudinous pinnacles of prayer,
And doth a thousand altar-heights lay bare
Unto the rising and the setting fires.
The enraptured eye, the foot that never tires,
Ill here bestead, if custom or if care
Have doomed the soul with Tantalus to fare,
Starving in sight of unfulfilled desires.
Spirit of beauty! that on each lone lake
And hoary summit hast thy breathing shrine,
What ban forbids our spirits to partake
The dumb world's worship? Do thou blend with thine
My being, conform me to thy likeness, make
Each day with beatific thought divine.

XVIII
‘THE INTEGRITY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE’

1878

There was a time when he had feared to sit
At England's helm who had not feared to own
'Twas England's aim to prop the tyrant's throne,
The oppressor's chain not rive, but rivet it.
Once Freedom's cause was England's; she would pit
Her voice against the world's in thunder-tone
When captive's shriek or patriot's dying moan
Made discord of her music. Now we fit
Those heaven-tuned numbers to a harsher key,
Where loud self-interest dominates the scale,
And apes the tone of honour. Best be mute
When, sick with guilty fear lest good prevail,
We arm the sovereign instinct of the brute,
And bid rebellious manhood bow the knee.

XIX
AT AYR

Heaven rent his cloud-hung curtain of despair,
And lo! the sea glowed golden, sunset-kissed,
While, like some stranded monster, through the mist
Loomed Ailsa Crag beyond the Heads of Ayr.
But who shall paint how delicately fair
Arran's clear outline, cut in amethyst,
From level ocean like a wraith uprist,
Till Goatfell soared in empyrean air?
Or who with such high commerce hath been blest
As yon lone peak, for all its buffetings,
Now holds with heaven in ecstasy of rest?
Such peace alone the enfranchised spirit knows—
The deep unutterable calm that springs
Of aspiration blended with repose.

100

XX
GARPEL GLEN

Dear friends, forget not—I shall ne'er forget—
That summer-tide at eve when Garpel's Glen
Lay like an inkblot flung from Nature's pen
Between the sun-bleached uplands; whilst afret
To overleap his mountain parapet
The stream, here curdling like a wisp of wool,
Flung out his gold fleece pendent o'er the pool,
Where, far below, beech, oak, and ilex met.
A spirit-haunted spot! As there we stood,
Behold the form of ancient Solitude!
That, chin on hand, slow-dropping tear on tear,
Sat, Sphinx-like, crouched upon a ledge of stone,
One moment seen; the next his very throne
Had vanished, and the cliff rose stark and sheer.

101

XXI
MORS MORTE PEREMPTA

From the far Soudan desert comes a voice,
‘Slain, on my breast heroic Gordon sleeps:
Mourn all true hearts!’—and England, Europe weeps.
Yet mourn not him, nor mar with funeral noise
His birth in heaven: and, Wordsworth's soul, rejoice!
For he of all men in these latter days
Hath earned the meed of that melodious praise—
‘The happy warrior,’ hero of thy choice.
Mourn for who fill life's cistern to the brim
With lust of having, and desire to slay,
Wrath, pride, and vengeance: mourn for these who may;
But with your thriftless pity mock not him
Who died to life with every passing breath,
And, breath resigning, died at last to death.

102

XXII
THE POWER OF THE SPOT

Well, if my heart beat quicker at the sight,
Let it be heard in music. But was he
Indeed a hero that here fell—Dundee,
In Killiecrankie's woful-glorious fight,
Or, sworn to a bad cause, darkness for light,
A monster steeped in blood and bigotry,
His country's evil genius, and we
Slaves but to fancy's witchery and time's flight?
I know not, and if, gazing thus to-day,
Beclouds our eye one sympathetic tear,
If not unmoved we conjure to our ear
The silver summons that no charm could stay,
In Urrard Garden 'tis enough to say
He perished bravely, and he perished here.

103

GHOSTS

When from Rugby's time-worn tower
Peals the magic midnight hour,
When the latest light is out,
And no footstep stirs about,
But deep slumber for the nonce
Makes the wisest as the dunce,
In the dark, which is their day,
Spirit-shapes come forth to play;
Through barred gate and bolted door,
Moon-washed court and corridor,
In they stream, and on they flow,
The grey ghosts of long ago.

By the lips of men long dead
Names are called and answerèd;
Then the phantom-game begins,
With hard hacks on shadowy shins,
And bruised limb, and broken crown,
And thin shrieks of ‘touch’ and ‘down’;
Soothly all the bitter-sweet
Of their boyhood they repeat,
Con hard books in study pent,
Or home-letters, tear-besprent,
Acting o'er in empty show
The lost days of long ago.

Foolish fable, if you will,
Launched on idle ears; but still

104

Teems not all our life to-day
With their labour and their play,
Wrought through thrice a hundred years,
Half of laughter, half of tears?
For men's thoughts and deeds are what
But the Spirit of the Spot?
And grey court and grassy lea
By our deeds must haunted be,
When above our dust shall flow
The dark waves of long ago.

105

LAY OF THE OUBLIETTE

[_]

(SEE “THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE'S NEST”)

The lady-Baroness lay in her bed,
With twin-born sons upon either side—
Widow and mother, whom none knew wed
Till three months since, when her lord had died,
The bold young Baron of Adlerstein,
Slain in a raid by ruthless foes—
He and his sire the last of their line!
And never a mass for soul's repose!

For the Baron of old was a bloody man,
Had hacked and harried and burned and spoiled,
And recked no whit of the Church's ban:
But this sweet lady had half-assoiled
The guilt of a race that was not hers,
Had tamed the heart of her wolfish mate,
And, dowered with the mother-she-wolf's curse,
Gave pity for scorn and love for hate.

On a jut of the mountain crags it stood—
The castle where that fair creature lay,
And built, 'twould seem, for the eagle's brood,
Or men as fearless and fierce as they:
For over a chasm of yawning air
'Twixt lip and lip of the rock 'twas set;
And high o'erhead as the eagle's stair,
So deep below lay the oubliette.

106

The mouth of the oubliette, unseen,
Was wrought in the huge hall's oaken floor;
And close were the grim teeth clenched, I ween,
Till traitor or foeman crossed the door:
Then—one brief stride through the vaulted room,
And a fierce wild cry from his lips would go,
As into the void earth's gaping gloom
He plunged to the dreadful depth below.

Now hark! from the castle wall they cry,
‘Who dares mount hither, of death so fain?’
‘Sir Kasimir of Wildschloss I,
And next of kin to the slaughtered twain.’
‘Ay, marry, but yesternight were born
Twin sons to our fallen lord—’ ‘Yea, yea,
Who died unwedded’ he laughs in scorn:
‘Come in, come in’ quoth the she-wolf grey.

He stands in the chamber; his doubts fall dead
At a glance from the mother's guileless eyne;
There needeth no word between them said;
She points to the heir of Adlerstein.
To hail him chief of his lordly race
The knight stoops low upon bended knee;
‘So Heaven, sweet lady, lend me grace,
As I deal nobly with thine and thee.’

She lifted her eyes with tears a-brim,
Though well I wot 'twas a joyful day;
And but for the she-wolf scowling grim,
Her lips would have blessed him where she lay.
What sound is it makes her bosom swell?
What blanches the pale cheek paler yet?
Mother of God! now shield him well,
For they loosen the bolts of the oubliette.

107

Then a thought of splendour, a deed of grace,
By the gentle lady was dared and done,
Though the heart stopped beating, the sweet young face
Grew old with the anguish ere speech was won:
‘Farewell, sir kinsman, but, ere you go,
Come, pledge we our faith by a simple sign;
Take these two babes to your serfs below;
Proclaim them the heirs of Adlerstein.

He laughed, as he lingered, 'twixt mirth and fear,
Or ever he clasped his infant freight:
But the she-wolf vanished, and one might hear
The bolts made fast on the mouth of fate.
The mother lay calm, with smile on lip,
Till strength died out with the closing door;
Then the beat of her heart was a tiger's grip,
And the pulse at her brain the Maëlstrom's roar.

But hark! a shout from the serfs below,
And step by step a returning tread!
Till Ursel, ascending, old and slow,
Stood safe with her burden beside the bed.
So women have dared since time began;
So women will dare till suns have set;
But match, who can, from the deeds of man
This tale of the babes and the oubliette!

108

THE GENTLE HEART

I've wandered high, and I've wandered low,
A pilgrim wight on a weary quest,
And many a hostel fair I know,
But in one, one only, have found my rest.
Who were its builders might no man tell;
'Twas ruinous old in every part;
But the name thereof I remember well:
They called it ‘The Sign of the Gentle Heart.’

It stood at the bend of a mountain-road;
Far under, a smoke-veiled city lay;
And many a back with many a load
Paused at the portal, but few would stay.
They saw beneath them a lurid glare,
Or heard the hum of the distant mart,
And they loathed the calm of the mountain-air,
And turned from the Sign of the Gentle Heart.

But I, fore-wearied, and come from far,
The wayside shelter to seek was fain,
And with me a youth outworn in war,
And an old man bowed with age and pain;
When lo! at the threshold my limbs grew light,
The soldier forgot both toil and smart,
And the old man's eyes gleamed strangely bright,
As we passed 'neath the Sign of the Gentle Heart.

109

Oh, thence how fair was the prospect spread!
We pored on the summer's open page,
Where river and city, copse and mead,
Seemed touched with the glow of the Golden Age.
The course of our life grew clear and plain;
So long we had toiled without star or chart!
And the haven of death not hard to gain
As we gazed from the door of the Gentle Heart.

Mine host was of angel mien and brow;
Methought, as he stood there, grave and high,
What was, what shall be, and what is now,
Lay glassed in the calm of his brooding eye;
Like one that pines for a purer air,
He seemed in spirit to dwell apart;
But he found us a chamber cool and fair,
And bade us rest in the Gentle Heart.

He showed us a well of virtue rare,
That whoso' gazeth therein shall see
No image of self reflected there,
But the semblance of One more sad than he:
It flows from a fount unknown to men;
Its bason of pearl mocks human art;
And seldom, he said, they thirst again
Who drink of the springs of the Gentle Heart.

O lost self-seeker, whom lust of gold,
Or pride, or pleasure, hath left forlorn!
O wrath-tormented, who pay tenfold
Hate to the hater, and scorn for scorn!
Poor fevered spirits agape for rest,
By passion lured from the better part,
I bid you forth on a saner quest:
Go seek the Sign of the Gentle Heart.

110

A LEGEND OF ST. PETER

Saint Peter stood by the golden gate,
In his hand the golden key;
And he spake early and spake late
Unto the Angel who brought in
The souls of the dead shrived clean of sin;
And, ‘Angel of Death,’ said he,
‘Of all the throngs that have hither pressed,
Whom day by day to the shining door,
Morn, noon, and night, thou marshallest,
None cometh of mine own kith and kin;
Yet one there was who, from earthly din
Long cloister-pent, should have grace to win
Where the few-found rich and the many poor
Among the white-robed rest.’

To him, thus oft importunèd,
When many a year of time had sped,
At last did the Angel Death reply:
‘Thy sister's hour to-night draws nigh;
To-morrow, my Lord, shall she behold
The shining portal, the gates of gold.’

‘I praise Thee, O God,’ Saint Peter said,
‘Who hast wrought full graciously;
For long to the world hath she been dead;
Its loves forgotten, its joys foregone,
In convent-cell she hath waited lone,
The bride of Heaven to be.

111

Her younger sister, more soft and fair,
Alack! for bliss that avails not yearned,
Nor the yoke of her Lord endured to bear,
That brings high guerdon beyond the grave;
To mortal lover her heart she gave,
Hoarded the treasure she could not save,
With the fire of an earthly passion burned,
Too gross for heavenly air.’

Then thus the Angel Death replied:
‘Such soul, by sorrow crucified,
E'en at the late eleventh hour
The Blood of Christ to save hath power:
So by that dear one's loss may she
Plucked brand-wise from the burning be.’

Saint Peter stood by the golden gate
As Dawn spread wide her wing;
And he watched early and watched late,
Till dusk eve hung the heaven with stars;
Then one peered through the portal-bars,
Wan-faced with suffering.
‘Ah! what is this, dear Lord?’ he cried,
‘Or dream, or miracle, I ween!’
For a babe borne dead in her arms he spied,
And she was clad in heaven's own blue,
And white wings from her shoulders flew.
He looked, and bowed the head, and knew
Once more nor common nor unclean
What God had purified.

112

RONDELS

AT HOLNE

At Holne in the Church-House who sojourns, marry!
Blesses the name of Easterbrook, and vows
No inn from it the palm of praise can carry;
Nor care he lacks, nor comforts culinary,
At Holne in the Church-House.
Beneath the frown of Dartmoor's rugged brows
With far-thrown fly he strikes the dappled quarry,
Wading, or where the safer bank allows.
He hath not learned the thrusts of fate to parry,
Nor plucked the brightest blossom from life's boughs,
Who, April-led, hath ne'er been taught to tarry
At Holne in the Church-House.

113

THOU HAST SAID

Thou hast said it, though no word was spoken:
By the face that on my coming fed,
By the tell-tale eyes that gave the token,
Thou hast said.
Fie upon the flush that came and fled
For a secret clue to let the foe ken
Of the fort abandoned, guards abed!
Fast as iron bolts on portals oaken
Lips may lock them, but the tale is sped:
That which cannot but by death be broken
Thou hast said.

114

DOROTHY

Dorothy, my daughter, said,
As her merry heart had taught her,
‘Of your poems that ne'er paid
Publishing—so poor the trade
Upon either side the water—
Give me one’: so laughed and prayed
Dorothy, my daughter.
Wherefore, saucy as I thought her
For so asking, I obeyed;
One of my own books I bought her.
And wrote in it, with the aid
Of a kiss, when I had caught her,
‘To the winsome little maid,
Dorothy, my daughter.’

115

WORTHY OF THEE?

Worthy of thee? So many cares oppress,
Passions assail, and doubts dishearten me,
That, day by day, not more I grow, but less
Worthy of thee.
Moon of my soul, if this reluctant sea
Falter at ebb, and thy bright loveliness
Lift it no more against the sandy lea,
Then may some cloud obscure thy power to bless,
That, if love draw not, my life's tide may be,
At least in its fierce hour of wild distress,
Worthy of thee.

116

ACROSS THE YEARS

Across the years upon me shine
Eyes full of heaven, but veiled in tears;
A face love-lifted yearns to mine
Across the years.
In happier moments it appears
The harbinger of peace divine;
But, in dark hours of doubts and fears,
Each glittering grief in those dear eyne
With unavailing anguish sears
A heart that knows no anodyne
Across the years.

117

TIME

Time, the rich soil wherefrom we reap
In age the sowing of our prime;
Time, the sad grave wherein we weep
Our loves and laughters buried deep,
Our loftiest deed, our sweetest rime,
Why do we waste thee, hold thee cheap,
Why lose thee, waking or asleep—

Time?
Oh, swift to fly! Oh, slow to creep!—
Set to the measured march sublime
And music of the eternal chime,
What wonder if our souls o'erleap,
Or, lagging after, cannot keep

Time?

118

SUN AND AIR

Sun and air, when storm-clouds lower
O'er November's dripping lair,
How the thought of you has power,
When each breath is a despair,
To dispel the stifling hour,
And bring back the vernal shower—
Sun and air!
Yet more winsome, yet more fair
Than the beam on summer bower,
Than the breeze that stirs the flower
Yet more blithe and debonair
Is the baby-breath, I swear,
And the laughing eyes of our
Son and heir.

119

MOTHER SPOKE

Mother spoke, ‘Come, write me, sir, a sonnet’;
Idle 'twas to treat it as a joke;
As she speaks her thought, when bent upon it,
Mother spoke.
‘And the subject, Mother?’ But she broke
Silence with ‘the subject, sir? my bonnet,’
That with laughter I came nigh to choke.
Opening then a book, I tried to con it,
But in vain for thinking ‘Who could yoke
To such measure, having seen her don it,
Mother's poke?’

120

AFTER EURIPIDES

Farewell, my sometime Master! Oh, to think
On what a journey, from how loved a home,
He went, who now returns not! Till to-day,
Lord of the lives of myriads—yours and mine—
Now beggared of his own, and lowlier laid
To-night than yon poor drudge who day-long toiled
For a mere pittance, pleased with menial fare.
Lo! such an one scarce lives, and Death to such
Comes in the nick of time, come when he will;
Nor finds him at the feast, but plying sore
This or that other service, nowise great,
His customary burden. Therefore, too,
Death loves to spare him, and goes forth in quest
Of prosperous folk and princes, lords of earth.
These suddenly beneath the nadir world—
How better prove his preference?—these he takes
Untimely, not as recompense for sin,
But reaping for himself the worthier wage;
For who so rich can purchase not to die?
But hush! to her who sits and weeps within
I will proclaim your coming, though with grief
Her soul be nigh reft from her, and both cheeks
Drenched with the tears' eye-moistening overflow.

132

THE PUBLIC AND THE POET

Buy your books, sir, and read them? Nay, not if we know it.
Rather starve the whole brood—poetaster and poet!
If you and your fellows must splash us with verse
From a stagnant Peirene, to drink it were worse.
Ay, not though we squander our shillings to swill
At the rubble-fed bookstall's perennial rill,
And trample each other to pounce on the prize,
When the flesh-prophet caters for prurient eyes.
Time was when a poet was deemed rara avis;
Now they babble on bough like the merle or the mavis.
One or two in a lifetime was all very well;
But who's to keep pace when some sixty break shell?
True, the painters outswarm you as twenty to one,
Year by year, till their canvas would curtain the sun.
But that craves no thinking, yields something to show,
Has an air so æsthetic; so, gaily we go
To the great colour-crushes, and stare through our part,
Winning cheap reputation as lovers of art.
Then, too, there is music: that tickles our ears
With a tender shampooing, that moves us to tears;
The meaning lies hidden, but somehow it's sweet,
So we crowd into concerts, ten shillings a seat.
Yes, our pleasure we purr, our approval we clap
When some brave singer turns on the tremolo-tap,
And those simply wade ankle-deep in our money
Who can write, sing, or play what is clever and funny.

133

But you, who would have us look inward, give ear
Unto vague spirit-voices the flesh cannot hear,
Purge sense of its grossness, strip wealth of its lure,
In the soul and in Nature seek charms that endure;
To the old mythic virtues look backward, and scan
How woman's love wakens the God in a man;
Through the roar of life's labour find silence and ease
In the thought of high mountains, and heaven over these;
Catch anon the far music of stars in their spheres,
Dive to life's hidden meaning through laughter and tears—
Oh, it's all very splendid, and high, and sublime,
But, to put the thing plainly, we can't spare the time;
Our palate affects not Pierian lore;
Till the Muses amuse us we count them a bore.
So be warned, Minor Poet, nor frown and look cross,
But take note, if you scribble 'twill be to your loss.

M. P.

Well, well, there are losses and losses. Suppose
That your loss were the greater, my Public. Who knows?

University of Virginia Library

POEMS

A FRENCH FIDDLER