Laurella and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ye bashful nymphs, coy-footed, that in woods
Do hide your sunny faces,
Sleeping long summer days in shady places,
Or laving your white limbs in secret floods!
Ye Dryads, which do nightly leave your bowers,
To foster the wild flowers,
And swell the myriad buds of pleasant June
Beneath the moon:
Suffer us that we sully once again,
With mortal steps profane,
Your verdurous wildernesses;
We come to twine once more our festal wreaths,

236

Here where dim jasmine breathes,
Shaking the dew-drops from her starry tresses.

II.

O dainty-handed Dryads, be not chary
Of any flowery treasure; grudge us not
Briar-roses pink, or freckled fritillary;
Or pale wood-lilies, filling many a plot
With innocence and light; shy violets,
Peeping about grey roots of agéd trees;
Or meshed in leafy nets,
The purple glory of great passion-flowers;
Ope the intricacies
Of tangled clematis and woodbine bowers:
Deny us no frail branch of eglantine;
No myrtle-rods, odorous with silver blooms;
No cassia-buds, nurturing in their white wombs
Unravished spice; no clump of columbine,
To grace the wreaths we twine!

Euphorion.—
Cease, gentle friends, your several industry,
Hot-handed day drives out the meek-eyed morn,
Whose dewy fingers touched the sleeping lawns
With freshness, and awoke each herb and flower,
In wold or lea, by lake or woodland stream,
To tell its dream of fragrance. Now all winds
Roused by the dawn, their wanton gambols done,

237

Fly forth to bear into the haunts of men
The greeting of the woods; blithe-noted birds
Have sung their earliest anthem, and begin
Their foraging; through all their leaves the trees
Stir with the new life of the coming day.
Phœbus rides high, and sheds from sunny skies
Our noon of festival; the hour draws on
When, with deft rhythm of foot and cunning of voice,
We celebrate the beauteous majesty
Of fairest Psyche—many-altared Psyche—
That mortal goddess for whose maiden shrine
These garlands chaste we wreathe. Away, sweet friends,
And as we hasten on our path, bid stir
The mirth and melancholy of the strings,
And let our wedded voices tunefully
Vie with sky-searching pipe and amorous flute
In free lark-hearted music. Come, sweet friends!

CHORAL HYMN.

I.

For her! For her!
The song, the dance, the pomp, the flower-decked shrine,
The Orphic and the Bacchic din, the stir
Of wind in sacred shells—our half-divine
Psyche—for her, to worship whom the stars
Pause in their golden cars!

238

II.

Tell us, ye Muses, was there ever any
Of mortal strain before,
So proudly throned above the beauteous many
Whom Gods and men adore?
Stooping from out the silence where ye dwell,
Tell us, ye Muses, tell!

III.

None, none: not she, even she
Who glowed her life out in the Thunderer's arms,—
Great-hearted Semele;
Not she, to drain the ocean of whose charms
Three nights he held the sun at dreadful pause;
Not Delian Leto, rescued from the jaws
Of the pursuing Python; nor not any
Of all that beauteous many
Who stirred Apollo to celestial heat;
Nor she whom fear made fleet—
That coy Arcadian nymph beloved of Pan,
Transfigured as she ran:
None is her compeer, none,
Rivalling with her, durst face the eye of the sun!

[Exeunt.]

239

[An enchanted Palace full of all manner of deliciousness. Psyche asleep. Voices of invisible spirits.]
CHORUS OF SPIRITS.
(Rising and falling like gnats on the wing.)
Spirits of air!
Spirits of earth!
Spirits of water!
Spirits of fire!
Hither, hither,
We flock together,
Gathering, hovering everywhere.
Spirits of beauty, of death and birth,
Strengthening our adopted daughter
For the shock of her heart's desire.
Fondly above her
We gather and hover;
Sad thoughts that cling to her
Fly as we sing to her,
Murmuring cooingly,
Tenderly, wooingly—
Wake from thy dreaming!
Psyche, sweet Psyche, awake to reality,
Snatched from the mansions of yearning mortality,
Shows of false-seeming!

Pysche
(awaking)
—Wake I, or sleep? Or have the wings of Death

240

Ravished me hither? O, methought but now,
My mother's tears undried upon my cheek,
My father's kiss warm on my lips, I stood
In victim splendour on the dreadful mount,
Alone with terror! Yet were Death my bridegroom,
These roses would have paled at his cold kiss,
These limbs chilled at his touch. This is the robe,
These are the very jewels I put on
To face the worshipping crowd who lackeyed me
To heaven-ordained abandonment. The pulse
Of comfortable life throbs in this frame,
Not unsubstantial like a meagre ghost's,
But warm with flesh and blood. O Love, Love, Love,
Why leaps thy name to my tongue? Delight and dread
Take each a hand, and lift me to my feet.
Trembling I breathe Elysian atmosphere,
Instinct with mystic odours, and alive
With tenderest-whispered sounds. What sings in my ear?

CHORUS OF INVISIBLE SPIRITS.
(Preceding Psyche as she moves.)
To the palace of our king
We welcome sing;
In these realms of light serene,
Hail Psyche! Thou art Queen!

241

Hungerest thou for mortal bread?
Thou shalt have thy hunger fed
With store of fruits of honied juices,
Riped for the immortals' uses;
They shall make thy languid flesh
Like Hera's fair, like Hebe's fresh.
Eat and fear not; only so
Thou shalt see, and thou shalt know!
(She plucks and eats of the enchanted fruit.)
Dost thou thirst as mortals thirst?
Lo! this fountain's vintage nursed
Infant Bacchus royally,
Skin-couched beneath a sunny sky,
Whoso drinketh straightway glows
With the rich life of the rose.
Drink, and thou shalt feel to-night,
As the immortals feel, delight!
(She drinks from a fountain.)
Wilt thou bathe thy wearied limbs?
See no speck of soilure dims
This laver's brink of amethyst.
Water not so pure hath kissed
The breasts of Dian timorously.
Fear not lest aught impure may spy
Thy maiden bosom's snowy charms,
When soft-dropping from thy arms
Falls thy vesture to thy feet,

242

And revealed thou standest, sweet
As a lily-bud new blown,
Shrinkingly on the glowing stone.
Bathe, and feel through every pore,
Love's radiance tingling more and more!

(She bathes, and is, after bathing, by invisible hands apparclled in white and glistering raiment. Then the heavy curtains of a sumptuous pavilion are drawn aside, disclosing the marriage-chamber; the mighty columns of the aisles exhaling a solemn music, sonorous and sweet.)
FIRST SEMI-CHORUS OF SPIRITS.
Now the vast of night grows warm
With the purposes of Fate!

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS.
Of the Essence and the Form
The marriage shall be consummate!

(Psyche enters the marriage-chamber.)
FULL CHORUS.
Hush! dare not to breathe his name,
Written first in tongues of flame
On the black Chaotic deep,
At which Earth's great heart did leap.
By the yearning that upsprings,

243

By the fear this yearning brings,
By the bliss that swallows fear,
We own his presence! He is here!

(The whole place becomes suddenly darkened as Eros enters; a tempest of triumphal music shaking the adamantine walls at his approach. He embraces Psyche, who shrieks with mingled joy and terror at his touch.)

2. PART SECOND.

[Paphos—the Bower of Aphrodeite.]
Aphrodeite
(entering)
—Deceived! betrayed! O vengeance, vengeance, vengeance!
Who is this mortal whose accurséd charms
Have robbed my altars of their worshippers,
Me of my son's allegiance? ‘Let but Psyche
Be true to me, and, by the waves of Styx,
She may defy the thunderbolts of Zeus!’
He takes the style of a primæval God,
So bold he grows! I tremble at his frown.
Speaks he the truth, as partly I conceive
That truth it is, this wayward son of mine
Is of the mighty race who lorded it
Before the birth of Chronos. Be it so!
‘Let her be true!’ But how if she be false?—

244

As false she shall be, if my tongue can teach
Her siren sisters aptly how to sing:
Already she begins to pine for them,
To awe them with the splendour of her state.
They are my votaries—they shall snare me yet
Her unweaned soul, half-trustful of her lord,
Unseen of her in those sweet hours of love
Stolen in the secret midnight. They shall-move
To dark suspicion her still mortal heart,
Till, fearful of some monster in her bed,
She seek to gaze upon the naked limbs
Of Eros as he sleeps, and, prying fool,
Perish in fact of sacrilege. Away!
Swift to my brooded vengeance, ere her womb,
Quickening with fruit celestial, may atone
The trespass of her eyes. Thus sealed her fate,
Eros shines self-revealed—I strike too late!

[Exit.]
[The enchanted Palace of Eros, before the closed curtains of the Pavilion. Midnight. Enter Psyche with a torch. She pauses before the curtain.]
Psyche.—

One moment let me check my venturous hand,
Trembling upon the deed, to still this heart
Which makes a coward of me. Dost thou beat
Thus audibly to warn me of some ill,

245

In whose black train the Stygian multitude
Of vampyre woes throng to lay waste the world?
Is this the burden of thy fluttering song?

(She draws a dagger.)

Let me be firm. Thou deathful instrument,
Gift of my sister's counsel—ah!

(She lets it fall.)

My bosom
Is not so barren-grown of tenderness
As to achieve my sad deliverance
From this too sweet enchantment murderously.
Can happiness, with evil mated, live
In such unhallowed bridal? Do they know
That I am thus most monstrously abused,
Clasping some loathéd nightmare to my breast
In foulest love embraces nightly? Nay—
They mock me in their envy—they have lied!
Yet, O just Gods, how can I face their tongues,
And say: Ye lie! What proven mail of truth
Have I to fence me from their poisonous words?
Doubt, like a hag, in her accurséd stream
Has dipt my love and made it vulnerable.
Then knowledge be my aid—for thus I solve,
Daring the worst, all grim uncertainties,
With eyes, not hands.

(She draws the curtain, and discovers Eros asleep.)

O Zeus! I faint for bliss!

246

(She bends over him in a rapture. A spark falls on his limbs. He starts up and rises into the air, casting Psyche from him as he rises. She screams and extends her arms towards him imploringly. He pauses for a moment in his flight, and speaks.)
Eros.—
Traitress! but one sweet night of trial more,
And I was thine for ever—thou hadst soared,
Twinned with me in one fiery cloud of love,
Straight to the empyrean. O farewell!
Eros has lost his bride. Ah! Psyche, Psyche!
Farewell, farewell!

(He disappears. Psyche falls senseless. The whole palace dissolves into black clouds, which overwhelm her.)
[Sunset. An open country. Enter Psyche with an ebon box containing the Beauty of Persephone.]
Psyche.—
Once more the gladness of the open heaven,
And the soft fragrance of the evening breeze!
How beautiful is this world! There Hesperus
Looks from his lucid eyes tranquillity,
Charming the plains to silence. All is peace—
I breathe but peace; and yet how keenly all things
Invade each delicate sense with a delight
I never felt before. So breathed, so felt,
Upon the bounds of day, Eurydice,
And cried too soon: ‘I live again!’ Ye gods,

247

Who have bid gape the adamantine doors
Of Dis's realm to my weak siege, and led me—
A new Eurydice—with trembling feet,
From the sad Stygian coast; making my wreck
My triumph, take, in this deep ecstasy,
My thanks for all! Here, here, I have the casket,
Fetched through the groaning labyrinths of hell,
Through the Cimmerian darkness. I have stood
By hell's all-dreaded Queen, even as a child
Beside its mother; I have dared to gaze
Into her awful eyes; and here I bring
Her beauty for my dower, bestowed as freely
As mothers give the jewels of their prime
To a dear daughter! Cruel Aphrodeite!
Thy hate drove me to seek a precious pearl
In a most dangerous sea. From such a plunge
Few divers have come back. I rise at last;
But, tyrant Queen, thou shalt not have my pearl:
Mine was the toil—be mine the gain. O Eros!
Wilt thou not love me now, made beautiful
With such tremendous charms?

(She opens the casket; a vapour rises from it. She swoons. Enter Aphrodeite.)
Aphrodeite.—
Lie there for ever,
Alive in loveless, hopeless death for ever!
Is this the goddess that insulted me?
This the great bride of Eros? Here, thou clod,

248

Be this thy dower—thus, thus, I trample thee!

(Spurns her with her foot. Enter Eros.)
Eros.—
Away, tempt not my wrath! Off instantly,
Killer of love, joy-hating Aphrodeite!
Away, I scorn thee to the depths of hell!

Aph.—
Eros!

(She has vanished.)
Eros.—
Awake! arise! Now dawns our Spring of love,
The crocus flowers of joy break out like fire
O'er the fresh fields of life. My love, my bride;
Much-suffering Psyche, wake! I breathe on thee.

(She rises.)
Psyche.—
Eros!—'Tis thou?

Eros.—
'Tis I—thine, thine forever—
Forever I am thine, and thou art mine!
O, we will fly through all the realms of space,
Blessing and blest; each moment of our flight
Fraught with its new eternity of love!

Psyche.—
O make me strong to bear this transport!

Eros.—

Come,
Enter the seven-fold citadel of my love,
In which I close thee—thus!

(She throws herself into his arms.)

My long-tried Pysche!
Not all the treacheries of old Night again
Shall tear thee from me!

Psyche.—
Utter rest of bliss!

Eros.—
All is accomplished.

(They ascend.)

249

MAY SUNSHINE.

O pure delight, to wander forth to-day!
It is the very depth of the mid-May,
When, call it the late spring or early summer,
The season is sweet. Of birds the latest comer
Has ended the glad trouble of its nest:
Blue eggs are warm beneath the thrush's breast,
And in the hedges you may hear the cheep
Of new fledged wrens—prey for the stealthy creep
Of prowling puss.

Sweet violets all are past;
A month ago we plucked the very last
That hid themselves among their long-drawn leaves:
But while the haunter of the garden grieves
For them and all those other tender things
Which blossomed lavishly in earliest Spring's
Yet virgin coronal, there comes a puff
Of sun-begotten fragrance—just enough
To speak a bed of wall-flowers, where great bees
Revel, and butterflies by twos and threes

250

Giddily whirl and sun their damp white wings.
And here chaste lily-of-the-valley rings
Faint perfume from her delicate bells. Queen roses
Begin to ope. One languidly discloses
The crimson richness of her bosom's bloom.
What summer odours sleep within the womb
Of these unopened buds clustering near!
What splendid promise for the coming year
In yonder snow of blossomed apple-trees,
Where finches peck and twitter at their ease.
Balanced on swaying boughs. One whets his beak
Against the bark, then with a sudden tweak,
Plucks at the very bosom of a flower,
Scattering the petals in a rosy shower;
But lo! a fat green grub is in his bill,
So the wise gardener lets him peck his fill
Unmurdered.

I to-day keep holiday,
In honour of this ‘merrie month of May,’
And mean to grasp all natural delights,
And store them up in verse for winter nights;
As bees store honey. Not a thing too mean
For these my rhymes—too ‘common or unclean;’
For all things ope their hearts to him who loves
The fresh leaf-language of the fields and groves,
The mere delight of breathing the soft air
Of meadowy lawns; who can find 'scape from care

251

In a wood's innocent haunts of healthful ease,
Respite from heart-ache in a mountain breeze,
And then return refreshed, strung to his best,
And nobler for his little space of rest.

A meadow with its wealth of deepening grass,
Which the cloud-shadows lazily overpass,
Receives me from the garden—every blade
Drinking the sunshine. Taller heads are swayed
Noddingly o'er the sprouted green below,
By little puffs of gusty wind, which blow
The ruffling surface into silvery flaws.
Above my head a rook pompously caws
To two black friends, who pompously reply,
As home to yonder noisy elms they fly,
Where swings their stick-built city.

All around
Among the dandelions, golden-crowned
Or silken-plumed, and in the daisied grass,
Small birds, with impudent eyes like beads of glass,
Flutter, bob up, and flutter down again,
With busy chirpings—hunting, not in vain,
For moths and insects which most harbour there;
And one for wantonness chases through the air
A butterfly, which scarcely seems to shun
The rapid pounces of his foe; and one
Is angered at the buzzing of a bee,
And snaps at her right viciously; but she

252

Booms off unhurt upon her task. In glee
The swifts are shrieking, high in air, and wheeling
On arrowy wings. My heart swells with a feeling
Of most exuberant life—life, far and wide
Diffused, and throbbing deep.

The sunny side
Of all this ancient, unshorn hawthorn hedge
Whereby I skirt along the meadow's edge,
Is bursting into flower. A wasp, in quest
Of rotten wood to temper for her nest,
Explores each cranny of the gnarled hedge-foot,
Where faded violets clasp each knotted root,
And ashen trunks shoot up with leaves unborn
And clustered blossoms.

In the sprouted corn
Patrician rooks strut and talk politics
To chattering daws and magpies, proud to mix
In such august society.

Yon slope
Of pasture, where the daisies have full scope
With buttercups and cowslips to prepare
A path for June, is shadowed here and there
With grand horse-chestnuts, holding high their thyrses
Of pale magnificent blooms. The sunlight pierces
Quite through those queenlike limes, charming their green
Fresh foliage into depths of emerald sheen;

253

And golden gleams fall slanting on the cows,
Study for Cuyp or Cooper, as they browse
The juicy verdure. In the illumined sky,
Where the white-piléd clouds float softly by,
A lark is somewhere singing, as if huge gladness
Had filled his heart with an ethereal madness.

Here in the cool of this sequestered lane
The early spring seems half revived again,
For violets linger late by the path-side,
And tufted primroses, serenely-eyed,
Peep up from mossy banks, where sunshine plays
Fitfully with tree-shadows—slanting rays
Strike through the beech-tops, tempered as they pass
To a tenderer leafy light. This craggy mass
Of upthrust rock is wreathed with delicate bells
Of meek wood-sorrel, which in secret dells
Spring fairies hang with dew. O it is sweet,
This quiet spot where I have bent my feet!
Sweet with faint vernal smells—sweet with May-light,
Sweet with a sound of water out of sight,
Filtering through roots of fern, with fairy fronds
Quaintly uncurling—into little ponds
Hidden in moss; or somewhere underground,
Lullingly murmuring to the flowers around.

Fresh is the beauty of this woodland glade,
Where mid-leg deep among the whorts I wade,
Startling wood-butterflies and new-born moths

254

From every bush; or where the streamlet froths
O'er an abrupt cascade, and gurgles down
With bells of foam upon its waters—brown
And clear as mighty ale by Odin quaffed
In Walhalla, sunshine in every draught.
The air is full of the loud song of thrushes
And blackbirds. Unawares my footstep crushes
Clumps of moist-rooted blue-bells, as I listen.
The varnished leaves of the dark hollies glisten
Among the light green of the underwood,
Tangled round veteran oaks, whose trunks have stood
Since Shakspeare's May-time. Hark! the cuckoos' note
Swells afar through the grove, and seems to float
To me from out the dreamland of the past.
Ay me! the present fleets away too fast
For one who all day long would love to lie
Gazing in the sweet glimpses of the sky,
Caught through the tree-tops—soothed by the soft cooing
Of wood-quests, and the velvet bees pursuing
Their flowery task. But soon the air grows chill,
And I have yet to climb a stretch of hill
Ere I can strike for home across the plain
With easy conscience.

In this old churchyard,

255

Where the unsparing hand of Time has marred
The rude inscription on each fall'n headstone,
Yet gently touched the spot—that it has grown
The solemner for it, I could grow one with rest.
The sun has crowned the silence of the west
With a pale glory—like the aureole
Round a saint's forehead, when the parting soul
Stands tiptoe for its flight. The wan light falls
Upon the grey church porch, and ivied walls,
And time-worn tower—transfiguring the place
To something mystic in its dreamlike grace.
The very nettles give a sense of peace;
The simple weeds that feel the day's increase
Through all their blood, upsprouting lush and rank
Under the hedge—or crown yon brambly bank
With branching umbels; the meek celandine;
Ivy, whose leaves and clustered berries shine
In the grave light; this speedwell at my feet,
Seem all parts of a vision strange and sweet:
Seen once and since forgotten—ages past,
Now dimly understood.
It could not last,
That dreamy mood: the gleam has died away,
The air grows cooler as the broadening grey
Swallows the sunset; and the noisy caw

256

Of homeward-flying rooks breaks through the awe
That held my spirit—and now the earth appears
Nought but the work-day world of smiles and tears.
My day is ended!

257

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

Titania.—
Late, as his wont, to tryst comes Oberon,
Tarrying till one sweet moonéd hour is gone,
And lazy-rising stars are mounted high
To gaze on our belated revelry.

Oberon.—
Reason the greater now being blithely met,
We waste no moment more in vain regret.
Place, my Titania, for thy tardy lord,
And peace between us happily be restored.
Sing, fairies, warblingly and soft; beguile
From my love's lips one welcome-beaming smile.

FAIRY SONG.

I.

Queen of all our elfin powers,
Starlight mistress of the sprites
Who tend the leaves and feed the flowers,
And close day-wearied lids o' nights!
Sovran lady of sweet sound,
Born amid the crystal spheres,

258

And hidden long deep underground,
To rise and ravish mortal ears!
Smile; our harps wake but for thee!
Smile upon our melody!

II.

Speak, and at the word shall rise
On the smooth sward fresh and green,
In pomp of moonbright fantasies,
The palace of our Fairy Queen.
Opal lamps shall light thy throne,
Rich with treasures of the sea,
Great moths' gorgeous wings each zone
Shall send to make thy canopy;
And our native woods shall yield
Their most luscious hoards, concealed
From unhallowed mortal eyne.
Wilt thou that we bring thee wine
From spring-born cowslips thrice-distilled?
Or heath-bells to the brim up-filled
With sweetness guarded from the bee
Through long summer days for thee?
Or the honey-dew that lies
Deep in the woodbine's nectaries?
Or the blush of musk rose buds
Opening secretly in woods?
Or the wild-thyme's spiced perfume,

259

Robbed from sun-loved flowers, whose bloom
Carpets for fairies many a sod,
Where foot of man hath never trod?
Smile upon us as we sing
Merrily in our gambolling
Tripping featly in a ring.

Oberon.—
Enough! we build no bower for ourselves.
To-night we fly to meet the merry elves
Who dance upon the ripples of the stream,
And in great water-lilies sway and dream,
Lulled by the song of spirits in the moon;
For on this night the festival of June
Is holden where old Nilus swells the seas,
And gracious shapes of gone mythologies
Mingle in mystic measures on the strand,
And all the kindly powers of the land
Meet Ocean's huge, foam-nurtured progeny;
And now at last the time is come, and we,
The greenwood troops of Western Faerie,
Neglected long, are summoned—

Titania.—
Not a foot
Stir I on such summons! I sit mute
Before these Ancient Ones, who claim as due
Reverence from all whom they style parvenue!

Oberon.—
Titania, cease! The river sprites await
Our coming, robed and ready in their state,

260

To speed us on our airy way; for know
That one more cycle dread, ages ago
Appointed, is fulfilled; and now at last
Our golden Summer, whose hope hath filled the past
With Spring, flies hither with the morning star!
To-night the spirits gather from afar,
Where sits the Mother-Sphynx, whose awful eyes
Look through the past to dim futurities,
To hail his orbéd rising. When his beams'
First silver trembles o'er the ocean streams,
The winds of dawn shall breathe some wondrous change,
And we no more, slaves of the moon, shall range.
Up and away, Titania! Quit your rings,
Ye jocund loiterers! Fairies, to your wings!

261

A MOONLIGHT SONATA.

I. ADAGIO.

Calm deeps of beauty all this night of June
Speak to the soul in music—mystic bars
Of peace float downward from the clear-voiced stars,
Among whom proudly walks the vestal moon:
A spheric chorus crystalline—in tune
With the fervid symphony,
Half delight, half agony,
That ever riseth up to heaven from earth and sea.

Hark! to the cadenced murmur of the waves,
Where kissed by loveliest light they ebb and flow
Upon this pebbly strand, old Ocean laves,
With music weird and low;
Or rolled around their echoing caves,
Send far into the night their deep adagio.

Thus Ocean, in his passionate loneliness,
Utters to wandering winds mysterious things,

262

Unheeded as the poet when he sings
Of dreams beyond his cunning to express.
Prometheus-like, to him the fire from heaven
Brings vulture yearnings: till he feels at length
His wrestlings with despair, to whom is given
A god's ambition with a mortal's strength.

II. ALLEGRETTO.

But where the moonbeams fall
O'er the far-silvered sea,
With a motion musical
Dance the ripples restlessly,
Like such a tremulous theme for chiming strings,
As a mighty master flings
Over the rolling chords that chase
Each other through the tempest of his bass;
A theme swept onward with divinest sleight,
Weaving a tissue of delight,
Quaint as the weft of some wild dream
Where transient splendours blend in fitful gleam,
Yet tender as the last faint light that lies
Upon a western cloud, before it dies
Into the mellow calm of Autumn's evening skies.

263

III. MINORE.

Now the gale is in the trees
And stirs amid their boughs wild gusty melodies,
Rising in passion by abrupt degrees—
Dying, as of despair, in ghostly cadences;
In cadences of sorrowing tenderness,
(Like sighs from tearless hearts—to break at last)
Seeming to mourn dead love with fond distress;
Low requiems for the past,
Suggesting thoughts, too sweet to be denied,
And inward longings—never satisfied—
Deep-cherished dreams divine, by friendship undescried;
Opening to memory
Still palaces, in whose dim-vista'd halls,
Phantoms of childhood's joys float lingeringly,
And childhood's laughter faintly echoing falls
Softly, how softly, on the dreamer's ears,
Till the full heart expands ineffably,
Thrilled with strange hopes and vague foreboding fears,
In a solemn ecstasy.

264

IV. SCHERZO.

Anon the freaksome wind hath gentler grown,
And seeks the dale, his roughness all o'erblown:
Lithe stems of earing wheat he whispers through,
Or sports o'er moonlit meads begemmed with dew,
Kissing the wild-flower on her trembling stalk;
Then, stealing sly along a trellised walk,
With blowing roses arched, he fans the beds
Where summer lilies hang their dainty heads,
And many a blossomed vase the lawn bestuds,
There woos their odours from the chaliced buds,
Filling with dim perfumes the garden's bounds,
Perfumes that float like tender-breathéd sounds—
Sweet as the pleading tones of love-lorn lutes,
Soft as the mellow harmony of flutes:
Now through the woven clematis he climbs,
Or hides himself among the leafiest limes;
Now with a pink he pauses to coquette,
Or hovers o'er a plot of mignonette;
Now wantons with a fountain's dancing spray
Ere to fresh fields of joy he hastes away,
To chase the clouds with many an airy prank,
Or sigh himself to sleep upon a thymy bank.

265

V. ANDANTE TRANQUILLO.

Here in this peaceful glade,
Sweet tryst for lovers 'scaped from envious walls,
Where chastened light gleams through the trembling shade,
There comes a soothing sound of waterfalls;
And half you hope—so lovely looks the spot—
To come on Oberon and his chivalry,
Holding their revels in some quiet plot
With bannered pomp of elfin pageantry;
Or fair Titania laid in smiling sleep
On mossy couch beneath her loved woodbine,
Whose honied blossoms bend in fragrant twine
Over their Queen; while quaint-clad courtiers keep
Armed watch around her rest, and countless elves,
In bells of foxglove merrily swing themselves,
Or serenade some rose-rocked beauty near,
With silvery harps and voices icy-clear.

But now no fairy pomp is seen,
No fairy music heard—
Nought breaks upon the balmy night serene,
Save that the glimmering leaves are gently stirred,
Save that the brooklet murmurs through the dale:
When on a sudden, hark! the nightingale

266

Begins his song with soft melodious trill,
Tender as moonlight, passionate as love—
As though some spirit hidden in the grove
Poured forth his soul with more than mortal skill.
How plaintively it gushes from his throat,
Blent with the water's dreamy undertone,
Till with one liquid, long, delicious note
It ceases—he has flown!

VI. ANDANTE CON MOTO.

A stonecast farther on
The shadowy path winds slowly to a hill,
And lo! a lake—the starbeams shimmer wan
O'er all its bosom still;
And through the throbbings of the dewy night
A sound of city bells comes fitfully
From yonder haze of labyrinthine light
Seen dim against the sky.
O there are mingled in fantastic strife
All hopes, all passions—shaped by circumstance;
This grim farce-tragedy of human life,
Strange as a masquer's dance!

267

VII. ADAGIO MISTERIOSO.

These are the mystic voices of the earth
Heard faintly in the night's sweet silence—these
Her solemn utterance, rising since her birth
In wild crescendos swept through minor keys;
The music of her forests and her seas,
As of a mighty organ loud and deep,
Rolls up in full majestic harmonies,
Blent with the tones of men who toil and weep:
An awful strain, big with the agonies
Of a sin-wasted world: but through it peal
Strong chords of aspiration, which reveal
Undaunted wrestlings—quenchless energies.
Thus earth's grave song, unmarked by mortal ears,
Swells the grand chorus of the sister spheres.

268

POESY; RHAPSODIA.

I.

Spirit of beauty, hail!
Thou that dost haunt still glen or sunny lea,
Or in the forest, Dryad-like, dost dwell,
That comest in the whisperings of the gale
Or 'mid the thunder-music of the sea,
Or with the fragrance of the thymy dell:
O Spirit, which art one with Nature all,
On thee I call!
By the unfathomed mysteries
Hid in thine ethereal eyes;
By their serene, heart-healing spell,
Dowered with virtue to make well
The wounds of life, to banish sadness,
And fill the breast with tremulous gladness;
By thy sceptre that can raise
Solemn pageants of old days;

269

And scare the ghosts of our dull night
With glimpses of to-morrow's light,
I do conjure thee, stoop to me,
Daughter of heaven and earth, flute-voicéd Poesy!

II.

Come, waft me with thee in thy dreamy car,
Far from this mental treadmill of the desk,
And from the babbling, bustling world afar,
To where the oak flings wide his boughs grotesque
Over some lonely stream:
Some quiet stream, some lilied woodland stream,
Warbling strange wood-songs o'er its pebbly bed,
Its waters, glad with many an amber gleam,
By sunshine mellowing through the boughs o'er-head
To nectar turned. Here let me lie 'mid fern
And balmy grass, breathing the fresh wood-smells,
And over-waved by woodbine, while I learn
The fairy lore rung out from foxglove bells.
Here let me drink the silent utterings
Of the beautiful wild things
That round me peer and climb, buzzed o'er by bees
Which singing labour; ere I pass from these,
Over all space and time to fly with thee,
Joy-giving Poesy!
Ere from out the golden chalice,

270

At the pearl gates of thy palace,
I quaff the rich, fire-hearted wine,
That makes mortals half-divine,
And inherit uncontrolled
All the godlike bards of old
Ever sung or ever told.

III.

First let me range that mythic world
Of phantasy, when smoke upcurled
From many an altar reared to Jove,
And haunted was each stream and grove
With shapes of beauty of immortal mould:
In that unfabled age of gold
When the poet's heart was young,
And all men poets, and there clung
Round visible things a mystery
Of unperturbed infinity.

IV.

Suddenly I am rapt from out the real,
To the crystal sphere of the ideal!
Hark! 'tis the golden lyre of young Apollo,
Whom in a mystic dance the Muses follow;
Or Artemis, her huntress Oreads
Rousing the echoes of the still wood-glades,
Under a crescent moon; or wine-flushed Bacchus,
Drawn royally by his leopards—conquering Bacchus,

271

With all his rout of followers, ivy-crowned,
And wild Bacchantes—leaping to the sound
Of clashing cymbals, tossing cups of gold
And waving thyrses. Then, deep in some old
And sacred forest, wakes a silver din
Of shalms and shrill sweet pipes, and out and in
Among the tree-boles dart a merry clan—
The train of Pan!
And white-limbed wood-nymphs shriek among the boughs,
Pursued by lusty satyrs, till the brows,
The rugged brows, of Pan himself appear;
And forth the pageant issues, and such a clear
And jubilant shout goes up of ‘Pan! Pan! Pan!’
As was ne'er heard by man.
Anon the car of foam-born Aphrodeite
Comes surging through the spume, urged by the mighty
Arms of a triton throng—a pearly car
Of opal hues, wherein glows like a star
The goddess in her new-born nakedness
Of rose-flushed beauty—to the silver stress
Of Nereid harps, and deep sea-sounding horns
By sea-gods blown—such as on summer morns
Boom landward with the tide. And round her throng,
Sporting amid the spray, and oared along
By their white-ankled feet with gleeful ease,
The Oceanides:

272

The snowy tossing of their gleaming arms,
And multitudinous, billowy bosoms, charms
The ruffled waves to rest. Green-eyed sea-snakes,
With diamond coils that leave far-flashing wakes,
Follow behind.

But hark! the whelming thunder
Crashes above. Black storm-clouds, rent asunder
By angry lightnings, swallow up the scene.
The deep moans to the tempest. Icy keen
Fierce north-winds rushing down with frost and snow
Rave through the shrieking forest. In their woe
The gentle spirits of the earth cry out;
Aloft upon the blast a demon rout
Ruffians it through the spaces of the sky,
And from the deep shudders an awful cry:
‘The throne of Zeus is fallen!’

V.

Fled are those visions. O ye woods, no more
The abode of Dryads! O ye woodland streams
No more nymph-haunted! O thou ancient shore,
No longer peopled by the poet's dreams,
Farewell! Yet hast thou larger joys for me
Star-crownéd Poesy!

VI.

The golden gates are oped—I see
Bright shapes of Gothic chivalry;

273

Hear afar weird trumpets blown,
Catch the minstrel's wizard tone,
In lofty words of glad acclaim
Resounding each heroic name,
And I breathe a dim perfume
Of old romances. Grandly loom
Sunned spaces of enchanted land,
With misty peaks on either hand,
Full of dreadful sounds and voices
When the fiend-raised storm rejoices;
Castles and palaces and towers
Of another world than ours,
Such as happy dreamers spy
At sunset in the western sky;
And stretched away, the cliffs between,
Forests dark and meadows green,
Where flowers that medicine lovers' woe,
And herbs of stellar virtue grow;
Magic meres and haunted lakes,
And rivers where a dragon slakes
His hissing thirst; and everywhere
Gallant knights and ladies fair,—
Waving plumes and pawing steeds,
Lovely words and doughty deeds.

Now slow pass before mine eyes
Long pomps and gorgeous pageantries,
With standards royally unrolled,—

274

Flash of jewels, blaze of gold,
Purple and crimson blazonry;
But o'er the silken sheen I see
Still stern faces of great kings,
And the keen steel music rings
Through the gleaming play of pearls
On the round white arms of girls—
Each, her champion's thronéd queen,
On the tourney gazing keen,
While below, 'mid shivering lances,
Lovers strive for gentle glances.

Then the sunshine waxeth dim,
And a deep sonorous hymn
Peals through a cathedral's aisles,
Where the Virgin-Mother smiles
Placidly on the blessed Babe;
And, each cross-legged on his slab,
Lie the calm cold effigies;
And on quaint-wrought traceries,
Pillared niche, and blazoned wall,
Rich melodies of colour fall
From the splendours of the pane
Where crownéd saints and martyrs reign
In sacred pomp and high romance;
And cowering devils peep askance
From carven phantasies of stone;
And long candle-flames are blown

275

Flaringly by the balm-sick air,
Which makes the banners pendant there,
Faded memories of the brave,
Warm with perfume as they wave,
While the censer smokes and swings;
And a mystic sweetness clings
To robes of prostrate worshippers,
Prince and peasant; and none stirs,
For the Host is held on high;
But round the hallowed place a sigh
Of dumb adoration steals.
Low before the altar kneels
A mailed and purpled Emperor;
All the thunderbolts of war
Vailed—a shadowy pretence,
Before the Church's dread magnificence.

VII.

Fled, they too fled, fond shapes of youth's delight,
Their glamour faded from the workday world!
What lamp of joy shall glorify the night
Wherein they sink? O yet, thy wings unfurled
For mightier flights, thy stern eyes comfort me,
Strength-bringing Poesy!