'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition

Ah, the havoc he worked with deportment,
At the balls, in the street, on the stairs;
For he had such a dainty assortment,
Of postures and paces and airs.

529

But the worst of the mischief is coming,
The misfortune that led to his fall;
In spite of his harping and humming,
He could not be married to all.

Though he handed their chairs to the table,
And did just the service he should;
Like the excellent youth in the fable,
Who was always so steady and good.

Though he humoured the ladies with scandal,
And bowed them so brightly to bed,
That they scarcely had need of a candle,
Such a radiance around him he shed!

Though he said the right thing in a moment,
And did the right thing as he ought;
Though he knew what a feminine No meant,
And when his affections were sought.

Though he bore no repute as a sinner,
And his manners were polished and gay;
Though he always came sober to dinner,
And never went tipsy away.

Yet in spite of his charming addresses,
His elegant airs and his drawl;
In spite of ten thousand successes,
He could not be married to all.

So at length, all the ladies of fashion,
The ladies of blood and of birth,
Agreed to debate on their passion—
On Robin, his ways and his worth.

At the house of a thorough-bred lady,
That seemed made of sunshine and air;
Though her fame, as they whispered, was shady;
They met in a tournament fair.

There was many a beauty of title,
Who joined in the tilting of love;
Who felt that the question was vital,
For her happiness here and above.

And in short it was settled discreetly,
With tears and with amorous strife;
That she should be Robin's completely,
Who was taken by lot for his wife.

Then Robin was told their proceeding.
And he bowed with the lowest of bows;
And he smiled with such perfect good breeding,
That they saw not the cloud on his brows.

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Then he handed them all to the table,
And helped them to ice and champagne;
His step was so buoyant and stable,
That none had the thought to complain.

But now they had come to the Drawing,
Which was held in decorum and state;
And with wonderful hemming and hawing,
They drew for poor Robin his mate.

Her name I can tell you was Jenny,
She was sprightly and tiny and trim;
But she had not the worth of a penny
And she vented her temper on him.

For, alas, she was artful and jealous,
She followed wherever he went;
Though his homage was constant and zealous,
Yet he never could make her content.

He tried a cocked hat like a beadle's,
He tried her with all that he knew;
But she pinched him and pricked him with needles,
And twisted his necktie askew.

He tried her with singing and dances,
He tried her with stories and scents;
But she cared not a fig for romances,
And tore all his wristbands in rents.

He tried her with billing and cooing,
He tried her with ice and champagne;
He tried her with sugar and wooing,
But all his devotion was vain.

And she plagued him so much with her odd kin,
While she never gave Robin a rest;
Then he stabbed her to death with her bodkin,
And she fell as a corpse on his breast.

But she spoke—and her voice had a sob in—
Before she surrendered her breath;
“My life-blood for ever, O Robin,
Shall accuse you of causing my death.”

By a process well-known to the sages,
He was slowly transformed to a bird;
Grew a bill in a couple of ages,
And some practical claws in a third.

His coat was turned drab, from the murther,
And where his poor Jenny had bled;
There Nature to punish him further,
Developed a waistcoat of red.

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For this is the sages' solution,—
Could a better one too be desired?—
He was changed, by a calm evolution,
Though ages of course were required.

The grandest result of our Science,
Has taught us that nothing is strange;
That time, with a tender compliance,
Will account for all possible change.

So we'll hope that in right of probation,
And in spite of his terrible ban;
Through a course of judicious migration,
The bird may return to a man.

But now in the winter poor Robin,
When the gardens are frozen and hoar,
Must pipe—and his voice has a sob in—
His plaintive despair at our door.

He will sometimes peep in at the window,
When fretted with flowers of frost;
And we say to him, “Robin, come in, do!”
But he looks quite bewildered and lost.

With his jacket of drab like a Quaker,
And his criminal waistcoat of red,
He follows the track of the baker,
And gathers the crumbs that are shed.

Poor Robin! we feel he is human,
In spite of his feathers and look;
For he shows such a wondrous acumen,
In courting the love of the cook.

He is fond of the clergyman's daughters,
Who cater so well for his good;
He is fond of the babble of waters,
That steal through the leaves of a wood.

His voice is as sweet as a brooklet's,
That sings in the sunshine of June;
And he'll gossip all day, if the cook lets
Him freshen his throat for a tune.

The gardener himself, with a dead breast
To feelings of pity for birds,
Would not think of destroying a Redbreast,
Or of giving him scurrilous words.

The horse does not mind his advances,
And will let him alight as he jogs;
He has nothing to fear from the fancies,
Of any respectable dogs.

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In the lapses of time he gets bolder,
If tempted with tid-bits of bread;
And he'll perch for a while on your shoulder,
Or settle perhaps on the head.

He is known to fly in at the window,
And to lead all the household a dance;
But he forfeits his caste like a Hindoo,
If he falls down the chimney by chance.

His notes that we love are not many,
Though a pretty performer is Rob;
But you hear them begin with a Jenny,
And end with a tremulous sob.

For the murther his quiet embitters,
And he broods on it early and late;
While he cocks up his tail as he twitters,
Bewailing his wife and his fate.

THE STORY OF A ST---K (Tellurium) .

I had once a friend, I deemed,
Whom I tenderly esteemd,
Of old;
For he really did inherit
A large amount of merit
And—gold.

There is nothing like a friend,
Who has money you can spend
At your will;
Who does not in conclusion.
Overwhelm you with confusion
And—a bill.

And his gentle name was Jones,
I can't speak it without groans
Like a knell;
For he sank below my level,
When he sold him to the Devil,
For—a smell.

Now there is an awful drug,
Which is worse than any b-g
That sneaks;
Take enough, though it's expensive,
It will make you most offensive,
For weeks.

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And it has a ghastly name,
As befits a thing of shame
And worse;
I will tell it unto nó men,
For to think it (absit omen)
Is a curse.

But one day there came by post,
A strange letter like a ghost,
With the news;—
“I am happy beyond measure,
For I always eats at pleasure
What I chews.”

Then soon after up in Town,
We met at the “Sword and Gown,”
To make fun;
And I noticed an effluvium,
Like the vilest of alluvium
In the sun.

He responded with a shrug,
“I have eaten of the drug,
You malign'd;
And though it breeds an odour,
It leaves brandy even and soda
Far behind.”

But he was so far from sweet,
And besotted with conceit
In his choice;
That I begged for some assistance.
And the mellowing touch of distance,
To find voice.

So we parted still as friends,
While we had our different ends
In view;
I, before a month's expiry,
To make a grand enquiry,
He—to chew.

I read all the books I found,
That could anyone confound
With shame;
I grew sadder still and seedier,
As every cyclopœdia
Said the same.

And then in the open air,
It was Trafalgar Square,
Once again;

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We met, hé with exultation,
And I in indignation
To complain.

For a pestilential breath
Hung over him like death
Or its blast;
And I marked even men like Moses,
Held handkerchiefs to noses,
As they passed.

And I said unto him, “Jones!”
In sad and solemn tones,
“Is it well?”—
(The truth is, what I stated,
Can hardly be related)—
“You smell!”

But I drew it rather mild,
And he looked at me and smiled,
As possesst:—
“I don't care if I am chidden,
The fruit that is forbidden,
Is the best.”

He even cracked a joke,
Because I sadly spoke,
With a wink;
So I talked a little longer,
And then put it rather stronger,
“You stink!”

But I could not make him grave,
He continued to behave,
Liko a wench;
So I shot a bitter arrow,
Though I knew its point would harrow,
“You're a stench!”

But he ventured still to stay,
And to boldly give me nay,
Till l said:—
“Though you wear the finest clothing,
You're a horror and a loathing,
Like the dead.

Then he turned upon his heel,
Like a ghoul that's made its meal
In the tomb;
He had sold his soul for ages,
And was drifting by dark stages
To his doom.

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And unto this very day,
When people go that way,
Through the Square;
I mark even men like Moses,
Put handkerchiefs to noses,
And—swear.

For a fetid odour still,
Unremoved by human skill
And lime,
Yet haunts the spot, past mending;
And will haunt it till the ending
Of time.

And I saw, as in a dream,
Adown the mighty stream
Of life,
A chemical solution
Of every evolution
At strife.

For I saw how men and things,
And our high imaginings,
All fell,
Before the dread artillery,
Far worse than any pillory,
Of—a smell.

I saw constitution, throne,
And ministry, undone
In a wink;
Not by grape shot and old courses,
But by the direr forces
Of—a stink.

And I saw the grandest powers,
That we fondly think are ours,
Nor will blench;
Yet in a moment shattered,
And with all their engines scattered,
By—a stench,

And I said, “The future lies
With the cunning chemistries
That illume;
And with weeping and with laughter,
Men will pave the great hereafter
With—perfume.

With good odours landlords will
Their barren acres till,
And get rents;

536

And the world with little trouble,
Will be governed (be it double)
By—scents.

For the restless nations can,
As every prudent man
May suppose,
When their hearts are most divided,
Be only safely guided
By—the nose!

A LOVER'S JOURNAL,

OR THE D---Y OF A D---G---N.

A pain lay heavy on my heart,
And sorely racked my breast;
All day I felt the bitter smart,
All night I got no rest.

On Sunday at the solemn church,
I saw her golden hair;
But ah! she left me in the lurch,
And yet the pain was there.

Then Monday dawned, and with the sun
I prematurely rose;
Her presence still I could not shun,
And it increased my woes.

The Tuesday followed all too slow,
To soothe my fretful frame;
And every wind, that chanced to blow,
But breathed my darling's name.

By Wednesday ere the crisis dire,
Came to a ghastly point;
My very flesh seemed full of fire,
My bones were out of joint.

The Thursday brought my lawyer round,
With all his legal skill;
I chose a piece of sacred ground,
And calmly made my will.

On Friday had she seen me pine,
It surely would have shocked her;
At first I summoned a divine,
And then I called a doctor.

537

On Saturday a wondrous change
Upon my spirit fell;
The draught had sped, and (what was strange)
I felt completely well.

Perchance it may some pity move,
Though sad is the suggestion;
This was no diary of love,
But only of digestion.

THE STORY OF A STOMACH.

I suffered sore for many years,
With every kind of pangs;
And pains, that brought the bitter tears,
Struck deep their cruel fangs.

I sought physicians without end,
And emptied out my purse;
I wandered both to foe and friend,
But only made things worse.

My stomach, said they, was not sound,
And needed tone no doubt;
While on it, as a battle ground,
They fought their crotchets out.

With draughts my system all was soaked,
The pills I could not name;
But the more doctors I invoked,
The more diseases came.

I gorged myself, and then grew thin,
To please the different schools;
And when I had new helpers in,
They called the others fools.

They labelled me with learned terms,
And libelled me as well;
They talked of “symptoms” and of “germs,”
And things I could not spell.

One said I wanted measures rough,
And should be freely bled;
One vowed I had not sleep enough,
And bade me keep my bed.

Another cried, my blood was thick,
And treated it with gin;
Another urged, it made me sick,
Because it was too thin.

538

One told me never to take meat,
And live on fruits and air;
One swore, that flesh was the receipt
To turn me fat and fair.

This man said, acids were the cure
By which I might be saved;
That man knew sugar would be sure
To work the end I craved.

One thought, I wanted stirring up,
Another, stroking down;
One praised the country's honeyed cup,
Another puffed the town.

Another sang the use of change,
And ordered me to Rome;
Another deemed my case was strange,
And let me stay at home.

But though they differed in their way
Of driving out the pest;
They all agreed to make me pay,
And contradict the rest.

At length I felt that draughts and pills,
Were quite as vain as sad;
That drugs and doctors were the ills,
Which rendered me so bad.

I bade them and the medicines fly,
With all their specious pleas;
I told them, that the remedy
Was worse than the disease.

Now health and happiness are mine,
I eat and drink and revel;
And, in my freedom, I consign
The doctors to the devil.

THE “BRITISH ASS.” 1888.

There was a great nation so free,
That they could but in one thing agree;
For the worshipped an Ass,
In a Palace of Brass,
And they played to it fiddle-de-dee.

539

For they made it their guardian and god,
And burnt incense wherever it trod;
And whate'er it might bid,
Still they cheerfully did,
All the better because it was odd.

And they danced in its honour all night,
And belauded its beauty and might;
When they told it to bray,
It never said nay,
With lungs stethoscopically right.

And they treasured each saying so well,
Which from its omniscience fell,
That they spread it abroad
At the point of the sword,
To the sound of the funeral bell.

For this was their jubilant creed,
They imposed on the nations in need,
(Though they flattered with flowers
All the prosperous Powers),
“Believe in the Ass, or be d---d.”

It had prophets and priests not a few,
The Gentile and even the Jew;
And the Celt on it sat,
With his reasoning pat,
And expounded at length all it knew.

The people who listened were pleased,
They blessed it whenever it sneezed,
Though away with soft soap
It washed every hope,
And swore that their burdens were eased.

And they sang to it all the day long,
Though their language was certainly strong,
“O ye people who pass,
“Bow down to the Ass,
“That preserves us from ruin and wrong.”

In seasons of danger or drouth,
The Ass would then open its mouth,
And would lighten their fears
With its sapient ears,
Which it stretched from the north to the south.

Though learnèd in Art, yet in science
It inspired them with greater reliance;
For it humoured their pride,
And each prejudice plied,
And set common sense at defiance.

540

It said, with a dignified mien,
That man once a monkey had been,
Who lacked freedom of will,
And could only fulfil,
The part of a clumsy machine.

If its arguments ever were lame,
It would coin some new ponderous name,
And bid them all grovel
Before what was novel,
And glory the most in their shame.

And the prophets and priests, as was meet,
Sat in solemn array at its feet,
And applauded the Ass
In its Palace of Brass,
That made wisdom so simple and sweet.

And it had such an crudite store,
To varnish its ignorance o'er,
That even when it blundered
The people still wondered,
And believed it and honoured it more.

Now once in the course of the year,
It tickled the popular ear,
By propounding some riddle,
Whatever could diddle
The fools who delighted to hear.

And its votaries eagerly prest,
From the bounds of the east and the west,
To receive its last bray,
And some new-fangled way
Where with they were wont to be blest.

And at last when the Jubilee fell,
It had something especial to tell;
And all its chief men,
At the platform and pen,
Blew their trumpets uncommonly well

But the greatest, as any could see,
Was the mighty Sir W.T.,
The high-priest of the Ass
In its Palace of Brass,
Who discoursed on the wonders to be.

He predicted the glorious stage,
Of a new and electrical age,
When things would be done,
Without help of the sun,
From cooking to printing a page.

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So he merrily beat on his drum,
And unfolded the glory to come,
When the others would plough
And go milking the cow,
By the light of the science of Some.

And at last he became so prophetic,
When he spoke of our stores energetic,
That he ventured to guess he
Could make posse be esse,
And our life all electro-magnetic.

His tale was of mystical forces,
That came from more marvellous sources,
And flew thousands of miles
Over oceans and isles,
And made useless our engines and horses.

He said at that jubilant hour,
There was nought like transmission of power,
And that even Niagara,
Which was thought such a staggerer.
Could be tamed for the parlour and bower.

Still he sang in his happier vein,
Of the triumphs of what he called brain,
As did Hoaxley and Spindle,
Who delighted to swindle
Poor starvelings with chaff they thought grain.

Though, alack! the few fools who would foster
Yet doubts, and yet said “Pater Noster,”
Swore the Palace of Brass
Was a plaything of Glass,
And the Beast was but an Impostor.

Not so many a prophet and priest,
Who all sounded the praise of the Beast,
And enlarged without fears
On the length of its ears,
And the reason it spread for a feast.

And before the decline of the day,
So supreme was the asinine sway,
That the folks of all classes
Were transformed into asses,
And themselves began also to bray.

“Bray! bray! bray!
While the enemy comes to the door;
Bray! bray! bray!
While our science is starving the poor.

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It's oh! such a victory too,
To brag of philosoph's sway,
And if all we are going to do;
There is nothing like learning to bray.”

A VALENTINE.

Unprized, when all must be thy lovers,
Who know thy beautous woman's part,
I do not wear a mask that covers
The falsehood of a flattering heart.

My love is true, it may be little,
Compared with thine that is so vast,
And yet its bond is not as brittle
As louder loves, that do not last.

For thee no common gifts, that other
And lesser natures well may win—
I give thee all, myself, as brother,
Who reads a sister soul within.

I ask, in earthly moil and muddle,
To help thee to some holy end,
Between the thorn or miry puddle
And thee, to stand a steadfast friend,

I ask, when thou art sad and lonely,
To take the burden and make bright
The rough and shadowy road, and only
To bear thy buffets as thy knight.

I ask, though other vows be fervent,
And younger suitors seek thy trust,
To be at least thy faithful servant,
And brush from thee the fouling dust.

I ask, to share but in thy sorrow,
And not the gladness of the strife,
To raise thee still, and build thy morrow
More sweet from my own lavished life.

I ask, if angry beat the billow,
For thee the stormy strand to tread,
For thee to suffer, as a pillow
That rests a while thy aching head.

I ask for thee to live, and cherish
Whatever may be part of thine,
For thee some day with joy to perish,
And be in death thy Valentine.

543

A MODEL NURSERY.

Two tiny girls and two too naughty boys
Among a heap of shattered hopes and toys
And broken legs and arms, and dreams of dolls
That never lived nor will, and pretty Polls
And ugly apes, a Noah's ark, a pail
Without a bottom, and without a tail
A donkey, picture books all thumbed and torn,
With pages tattered scattered soiled and worn,
And manners queer (all wanting mending), carts
That draw their horses and defy the arts,
Four little voices and one big white lie,
Eight hands (just washed but dirty) in one pie
Of the worst mischief, and Dadda's best hat,
In peace a cradle for the Persian cat,
In war a drum and thunder-box of coals,
A tortoise and a bird, and shadowy shoals
For the unconscious nursemaid, scraps of buns
And soap and bread and butter and spring-guns,
White mice and marbles and Mamma's new dress,
Old boots and shoes and caps and every mess
Known and unknown, cups, brushes, combs, and knives
That threaten murder to unwary lives,
A three-legged chair, a topsy-turvy table,
The sights of Bedlam and the sounds of Babel.

THE POOR OLD VICAR.

I am only a poor old Vicar,
And my head is growing gray;
And the ladies pass me quicker,
Or they turn the other way.
For they say, we like them younger,
With their faces fresh and glad;
And our hearts they fondly hunger
For the compliments we had—
For the sugar plums and speeches,
And the fingers warm and white,
Not the hands that feel like leeches,
And the lips that don't invite.

I am only a poor old Vicar,
And the ladies think me slow;
And they say, Why not go quicker?
But, alas! I am no go.
Oh, they like them trim and tender,
When they have a verdant charm;

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And they sigh, “What's our defender,
If not the Vicar's arm?”
If you give us but a Curate,
We will try to be content;
You can pay him with a pew-rate,
Encumbering incumbent.”

ON THE PORTRAIT OF A DONKEY.

Sweet Artist, long I burdens bore,
For many a tyrant lass;
But never had I wished before
To be a lady's ass.

Until I saw a donkey, wrought
By thy transforming hand;
Ennobled by the kindly thought
That gilds the coarsest band.

And now I gladly would be thine,
If painted I might be,
And feel the touch that must refine,
Transfigured all by thee.

Yea, I would bear the heaviest loads,
To gather, at thy gates,
The look that lifts to higher roads,
The love that educates.

What though the world should call me ass,
My fame be still decried?
Yet the lone hours would lovelier pass,
And life be glorified.

“IN A QUIET SORT OF WAY.”

I am very shy and modest,
And most careful what I say;
And I shrink from what is oddest,
In a quiet sort of way.

And when I go to dinners,
Or have leisure for the play,
I but glance at pretty sinners,
In a quiet sort of way.

545

To the poor I give a copper,
But I'll help not, if I may,
The nouns that are improper,
In a quiet sort of way.

I to verbs for conjugation,
When irregular, cry nay;
And use Cocker's calculation,
In a quiet sort of way.

I know Maud is “sweet and twenty,”
And frail man is only clay;
And a kiss or two are plenty,
In a quiet sort of way.

I am rather fond of honey,
And for what I purchase pay—
At least, if I have money,
In a quiet sort of way,

I am not averse to dances,
That turn darkness into day,
And to little ball romances,
In a quiet sort of way.

My heart is tuned to hopping,
Though my feet are somewhat splay,
And to tender questions popping,
In a quiet sort of way.

I live in good Society,
And you must observe I pray,
That I worship all Propriety,
In a quiet sort of way.

I keep a careful distance
From the darlings that are gay,
If they ask for my assistance,
In a quiet sort of way.

I am really most particular,
At visits not to stay,
When confessions grow aurioular,
In a quiet sort of way.

The correctness of my noddle,
Ought to carry off the bay
From the dearest saint and coddle,
In a quiet sort of way.

My coat is ever dusted,
And defies the broadest ray,
And my aims are well adjusted,
In a quiet sort of way.

546

My motions are as balanced,
As a blossom is in May;
My affaires de cœur are valanced,
In a quiet sort of way.

I like summer rambles nightly,
And making love and hay,
When the moon is shining brightly,
In a quiet sort of way.

There are lambs with golden fleeces,
For a tender hand to flay,
Among my country nieces,
In a quiet sort of way.

I like rural deans and scenery,
And a steady one-horse shay,
And the girls that peep from greenery,
In a quiet sort of way.

It is sweet to hear the birdies,
And that ass the Rector bray;
They recall the hurdy-gurdies,
In a quiet sort of way.

I am shepherd to the lonely,
That alas! has learnt to stray;
But I show attentions only,
In a quiet sort of way.

I like Annie but not hèr Aunt,
And the dragon I would slay,
For I am George night-errant,
In a quiet sort of way.

I was taught a little Latin,
By a dictionary fay;
But my books are bound in satin,
In a quiet sort of way.

Yes, in dainty silks they prattle,
And they laugh like silver spray;
Their contents are tea and tattle,
In a quiet sort of way.

For my library is woman,
From the Thames unto the Tay;
And my heart is very human,
In a quiet sort of way.

And at five I flutter often,
To the social tiff and tray;
Where the bright eyes beam and soften,
In a quiet sort of way.

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For fair lances I've a liking,
And am eager for the fray,
When the attitudes are striking,
In a quiet sort of way.

I am not a crude abstainer
And I love the brewer's dray;
For this child's an old campaigner,
In a quiet sort of way.

When I go to Ascot races,
A small wager I can lay,
On the horse with winning paces,
In a quiet sort of way.

I have studied ornithology,
And distinguished duck from jay;
And am great at Anne-thropology,
In a quiet sort of way.

My locks are growing fewer,
And my head is turning gray;
But I use the “Hair Renewer,”
In a quiet sort of way.

A CLERICAL CAUCUS.

Forth they flocked from mews and mansion,
Horsey men with strange expansion,
Sheepish forms from shady pen;
Slaves of awful early rising,
Timid souls apologising—
Wondering if they were men.

Punctual man with virtuous visage,
Doubtful man (whatever's his age?),
Yellow leaf and foliage green;
Lovers from their love and cottage,
Not so provident in pottage,
As perhaps they might have been.

Bachelors, divided fractions,
Seeking better halves and actions,
Figures that enchant them most;
Winter pear just turning mellow,
And the jealous Moor, Othello,
With the late incumbent's ghost.

548

Stretching like a band elastic,
Came the pied ecclesiastic,
Black in nature, white in face;
Striving with some private leaven,
To commingle earth and heaven,
And in neither finding place.

Came the cockney from his villa,
Aquila without Priscilla,
And the poet in his pride;
Fanatics disposed to further
Force, and meditating murther,
But committing suicide.

Mean men on the via media,
Growing seedier and seedier,
Safe and sapient in vain:
Men indifferent to quarter,
Moderates of milk and water,
Chiefly water on the brain.

Maiden speakers, soft as crumpets,
Like small children blowing trumpets,
Little flourishes and shoots;
Evangelicals past mending,
Deeper, deeper, still descending,
Down into their native boots.

Men with just the right solution,
Radicals with revolution,
Voting things established null;
Men of peace with pious fables,
Fixed in views like vegetables,
Dear, delightful, good, and dull.

Prayer-book men, the smart and dowdy,
And alas! the reverend rowdy,
Souls of pleasure, souls of grief;
Men for party and for faction,
And short-tempered men of action
Ready to be “curst and brief.”

Pretty parsons coyly blushing,
Sentimental subjects gushing,
Greedy men who clutched at gain;
Heavy whale and sportive minnow,
Chaffy men like fans that winnow,
Sometimes too against the grain.

Idle fellows sat with active,
Ugly faces by attractive,
Though they inferences drew;

549

Unattached men stuck to fixtures,
Simple-minded men to mixtures
Of all matters old and new.

Came though redolent of sherry,
Bibulous Augustus Perry,
Panting for the pious fray;
Blending levity ethereal,
With the graver mode imperial
Of the lofty Roman way.

And from Dullford hied the Doctor,
Like a Convocation Proctor,
With amendments on the brain—
With interminable fussing,
The same question still concussing,
O'er and o'er and o'er again.

Leering over learned glasses
Came like Saul in search of asses,
Peeping up and peeping down,
The tremendous Oxford scholar,
Stiff emerging from his collar,
Only not to find a crown.

Wade, who loveth the “Girls' Friendly”
Came in eager haste from Wendly,
And brought with him his new broom;
Torn from parish teas and pleasures,
Ripe for the most sweeping measures,
In his young Induction bloom.

He who thinks the East position
Is the sure way to perdition,
Came with murder in his mouth;
Prompt to question or to quibble
Standing the North end of Kibble,
Strenuously facing south.

Spoke that ancient one, the Dodo,
With his suaviter in modo,
And his fortiter in re;
Proving like a pair of snuffers,
All who doubted him were duffers,
And the only sage was he.

He from Combe, the scourge of varmint,
Left, as Joseph left his garment
And fled, hounds and hunting lore;
But it must be owned, that Snarker
Only made the subject darker,
Which was not too clear before.

550

Came the saintly from his cloister,
Like a consecrated oyster,
Fresh from ceremonial tricks;
Swearing no State laws could bind him,
Looking like Lot's wife—behind him,
On his cross and candlesticks.

Pussy curates, to keep thè line
Taken, scratched in ways quite feline,
Sticking to it like a burr;
Caterwauling in surprising
Tones not feeling, catechising,
Though accustomed more to purr.

Quibblers with the dew of college,
Flaunting their degrees and knowledge,
Quick at thrusting and at fence,
Forced the pace and made the running,
Drawing their distinctions cunning
Without any difference.

Whigs with ample upper storeys,
And with cellars only Tories,
But good wine in them at least;
Latitudinarian peoples,
Longitudinarian steeples,
Stretched and soared at Reason's feast.

Pale dyspeptics, slow and sleepy,
Blinking bookworms, crabbed and creepy,
Dimly crawled into the light;
Owls and bats from country corners,
Huddled like a mob of mourners,
Sighing for their native night.

Literary stars, and fogeys,
Grammarless and scared by bogeys
Sprung from prejudice or beer;
Men who borrowed each conviction,
Martyrs to the last affliction,
From the Street whose name is Queer.

Prigs with nothing, prigs with sóme bent
Came, encumbrance and incumbent,
For the glory to be won;
Old and young each with opinions,
Squarsons proud of their dominions,
And unhappy men with none.

Lo the silent ate the chatty
And the lean devoured the fatty,
And the tall oppressed the short;

551

Poor men had their fling at rich men,
And proved facts and faces which men
Stuck to claret, which to port.

Came the widower in trouble,
Which his cat had rendered double,
By departing from this life;
Clothed in garments grave and shabby,
Mourning for his favourite tabby,
More than for his prudent wife.

Good companions, fond of lasses,
Breathed benevolence and Bass's,
And to hidden music moved;
Satisfied the Church was meetest,
And its present state the sweetest,
That could never be improved.

Imitators of old Sparta,
Free men fond of Magna Charta,
Slaves exulting in their chains;
Prophets like the trump of doom's tones,
Resurrectionists on tombstones,
Picking one another's brains.

Stern and lengthy was the struggle,
As they strove in vain to juggle
Simple words, and make them dark;
Crafty Greek was matched with Trojan,
And divine met theologian,
Like the creatures in the Ark.

Vicars tilted against Rectors,
And Diocesan Inspectors
Laid about them with a will;
Curate combated with curate,
And soft hearts grew quite obdùrate,
As they mauled each other still.

Never was there such a shining,
Such reflecting and refining,
Such displays of Logic's arm;
Inferences and inductions,
Stern conclusions and destructions,
That did nobody a harm.

And, pray, what was all this action,
Objurgation and retraction,
Agonies of learned lore?—
Why, they somehow were not able,
To agree about the Table—
If before it meant “before.”

552

Only one bold man was certain,
Who had drawn aside the curtain,
Which obscures the Rubric's frame;
With a private revelation,
From the Church Association—
Looking east is sin and shame.

After endless combinations,
Of their wits' exercitations,
It was passed without a No;
To let be the solemn question,
Which produced but indigestion,
Quietly in statu quo.

But what was the status ante,
None could tell—not even Dante,
Who knew earth and heaven and hell;
Yet, though he might so enchant age
And youth, he lacked the advantage
Of the Rubrics we know well.

It was passed without objections,
Save the doctor's grim reflections,
Who would croak till “crack of doom;”
And they left him at the ending,
Still protesting, still amending,
To the silent empty room.

The Rural Dean was “North” Kibble.

THE OMITTED INITIAL.

I had a friend of whom I speak
in pensive tones,
Whose honoured name was
A.B.C.D.E.F.Jones;
He was an upright man, I
never knew a better,
But fell a victim to
a miserable letter.

He did not pride himself
upon the gold he spent,
Or legendary glories of
a long descent;
Nor did he think it much
to rule among officials,
But on his private alphabet
of pet initials.

553

But even he was human, he
with all his pride,
And longed at last to place
a partner by his side;
A lady who would do some
credit to his story,
And be a kind of reflex
brightness of his glory.

She was young of course and fair,
and had no Irish rents,
But prattled of the sweetness
of the three per cents;
She had good teeth and hair
and all her own complexion,
But was a little short of
what is called affection.

Though rather bothered by his
ardent looks and loves,
She owned a lady's weakness
for perfumes and gloves;
And he wooed her patiently
in high official fashion,
In hopes that she would yield
at last from mere compassion.

He could not give her crowns,
(there were no vacant thrones),
But could make her Mrs. A.B.
C.D.E.F.Jones;
And what woman, who had any
pity in her bowels,
Could resist that long array
of consonants and vowels?

So he sent her many notes, which
had more sound than sense,
With every prefix set in all
its eloquence;
But though her maiden nose
liked well his scented paper,
She only tore it up to light
her evening taper.

But he could not work himself
up to the proper pitch,
And whenever he essayed
there always was some hitch;
For he had not yet the pluck
to make a formal offer,
Though he dwelt upon her virtues
and her golden coffer.

554

So as he courage lacked to
do the needful thing,
He gave his humour play and
bought a wedding-ring;
He made upholsterers all
his cottage sweep and garnish,
And on his manners put
an extra coat of varnish.

He bought a poodle dog, a
pug, and Persian cat,
And got the latest fashion
in a beaver hat;
He even went so far, in
prospect of his marriage,
To order horses two and
the appropriate carriage.

He wrote his groomsmen's names
upon a virgin sheet,
And set a score of shoemakers
to deck his feet;
He thought of every item down
to Nubian blacking,
And all was of the best and
only one thing lacking.

He had not yet proposed, to know
the lady's will,
For whom he thus ran up
so elegant a bill;
And though no mortal's fancy
could have been more supple,
There never was a marriage yet
without a couple.

In vain he purchased gloves
and novelties in scents,
And practised attitudes
and sighs and blandishments;
They only gave her nose a more
celestial turning,
And added fuel to the fire
within him burning.

And vainly in his home he
studied every style
Of courtship, that a woman's
bosom might beguile;
He knelt and made the lover's
prayer his daily portion,
And wreathed his face in every
amorous contortion.

555

But though he writhed and put
his body out of joint,
He could not bring his courage
to the sticking point;
He only grew more limp,
invertebrate and flabby,
While his behaviour people
said was really shabby.

At length in sheer despair
he called a helper in,
And asked how he the awful
question should begin.
His friend replied, “Would you
escape the vulgar scoffer,
Sit down at once and write a
plain and formal offer.”

So down he sat and wrote,
with many sighs and groans,
And signed himself, “Your A.
B.C.D.E.F.Jones.”
Of course he talked of love
and all that sort of twaddle,
And swore, were he her husband,
he would be a model.

Then it was sealed and sent, the
matter to illume,
And wafted to her shrine
with incense of perfume;
And every person cried, whose
judgment was of value,
“You think that you shall conquer
now, my boy, but—shall you?”

He argued to himself, that, if
his ardent love
The lady's frosty heart availed
not still to move,
She must bow humbly down,
as did his sub-officials,
To the majesty of those
invincible initials.

But his logic, as he found, was
not extremely good,
And the heroine of the three
per cents. his suit withstood,
Though the ring and pug and cat,
the horses two and carriage,
And poodle, would, he hoped,
insure a happy marriage.

556

And though his beaver hat was
burnished more and more,
And though such boots and shoes were
never seen before,
And though upholsterers' hands
were always at his cottage,
And always on the hob boiled
the lovers' mess of pottage.

The lady would not listen
to his tender vows,
But begged to be excused and
took a trip to Cowes;
She returned his locks of hair
and notes as never dreamt he,
And the bottles of perfume, but
somehow they were empty.

But he did not quite despair,
nor was his ardour less,
For he had read in novels
a lady's no meant yes;
He ordered two new coats, and
made Poole take the measures,
And wrote again at length upon
connubial pleasures.

But the lady still was firm, and
stuck to three per cent,
And fled for refuge to the
bearded Continent;
She said that she preferred
the sweet condition single,
And knew their spirits twain,
were never meant to mingle.

Then as he yet pursued her
maiden path with notes,
And ordered yet from Poole
A weekly brace of coats,
And spent one day of seven
in visiting his hatter,
She saw she must be stern
and punctuate the matter.

For she was wise and knew
wherein his weakness lay,
And what would quench his love,
as could no other way;
She wrote once more and hoped
that he would soon be better
But carefully left out his
last initial letter.

557

Her brief epistle reached him
by the early post,
He looked at it and stared as if
he saw a ghost,
And never ate the egg that he
was calmly cracking,
For on the envelope, lo!
there was something lacking.

For she had written in her most
decisive tones,
And addressed him only as
“A.B.C.D.E. Jones;”
He could have borne a “no,” if it
were soft and tender,
Not what would rob his name of
any of its splendour.

There is a certain point in all
mundane affairs,
At which the stoutest heart
at last perforce despairs;
For man must somewhere draw
the line, if (with Mercator)
He draws it large and only
stops at the Equator.

He wasted then away, in spite
of every hat,
His boots and shoes and coats
the wedding-ring and cat,
The savoury pottage and
the horses two and carriage,
And the polished manners
meant to make a brilliant marriage.

In spite of the pet pug, and the
upholsterers' sticks,
And even the poodle dog which
knew a hundred tricks,
And all the attitudes which
made him like a statue,
And the distracted eyes which
languidly looked at you.

In short he quickly died,
lamented much by all—
His creditors, who found that
his assets were small;
For since that fatal day he
never left his portal,
And why? Because the wound
he had received was mortal.

558

There was an inquest held upon
his blighted frame,
And the doctors all agreed
his illness had no name;
Some said that he succumbed
to dire routine official,
But most from the omission
of his sixth initial.

But his heirs redressed his wrongs
on monumental stones,
And blazoned proudly “A.B.
C.D.E.F.Jones”;
And the lady paled and pined,
as folks oppressed with sin do,
Though she set up in the Church
a chaste memorial window.

KILLED BY CONSCIENCE.

He hardly dared to ope his mouth,
Or act in things the least;
For if he said the wind was south,
It might be south-south-east.
Did any ask what was the time,
On answer none they reckoned;
For he esteemed it quite a crime,
To err by even a second.

And once he flew two weary miles,
To set a traveller right,
While over hedges, streams, and stiles,
He held his headlong flight;
Because he had, as people do,
Whose ways are not so thrifty,
Told him of minutes fifty-two,
When they were only fifty.

When friendly folks outstretched a hand,
And said, as they were wont,
“How do you do, good neighbour Bland?”
He cried, “How do you—don't!”
No person's hand he cared to hold,
In all the Queen's dominions;
Because he deemed, that thus he sold
Himself to their opinions.

559

And if a lady passing by,
A letter haply dropt,
He hastened with averted eye,
And not a moment stopt
To pick it up; because, he said,
(And he was not a thick-head),
He women knew and was afraid
The burden would be wicked.

And when you asked him his advice,
He hesitated long,
And scanned you with a look precise,
As if you meant some wrong;
And when at length he gave his views,
He qualified, and acted
As though he laboured to confuse,
And then the whole retracted.

Because he feared, by chance, to make
A slip in what he spoke,
Considering even the least mistake
As sinful as a joke.
And not a mortal knew his mind,
While as to earthly measure,
The wisest tailor could not find
Whatever was his pleasure.

And thus at length, by dire degrees,
He reached that ghastly pass,
He scarcely dared to walk or sneeze.
Or look at any lass;
Lest his chaste thoughts and modest glance
Should basely be reported,
And those pure paces as a dance
By slander be distorted.

He feared to eat, lest carnal men
Should him a glutton think;
He feared to quench his thirst lest then
He might be thought to drink.
So he proceeded to expire,
Some said from fever bilious;
But really from a deeper fire,
Consumed by pangs punctilious.

Phrenologists were all agreed,
About his secret ills;
Though doctors only doctors d---d,
And cursed each others pills.
They built him up a blessèd tomb,
Set off with golden staunchions;
Whereon the muse bewailed his doom,
And called him “Killed by Conscience.”

560

THE DEVIL.

He was a man no worse than most,
And as for that no better;
And held an ornamental post,
Within the Lane called Fetter.

But somehow he fell out of sorts,
Though sitting under Spurgeon,
And tried in vain the choicest ports,
The latest soup and surgeon.

He deemed himself supremely ill,
Nor knew what was the matter;
And as his head grew foggier still,
At first he blamed his hatter.

But when the ache went lower down,
And set at feud his bowels,
Upon his tailor's luckless crown
He heaped unholy vowels.

And then, as he grew rather worse,
He laid it to the weather;
Till pinching feet called forth a curse,
Upon the man of leather.

Yet still abode the sleepless pangs,
Uneased by “wet damnation;”
And set at work with all its fangs,
Most awful “Cerebration.”

It vexed his heart and reached his head,
From breakfast unto supper;
And over lunch a gloom it shed,
Like—reading Martin Tupper.

It was a pain he could not brook,
And yet a mental fidget;
In vain he told it to his cook,
Whose Christian name was Bridget.

He sighed in confidential tones,
Books failed from Punch to Plato;
She murmured, “Try a grill of bones,
And eke a roast potato.”

But still the anguish was not stayed,
Though he went on to pheasant;
And then (to term a spade a spade)
She styled it “d---d unpleasant.”

561

It turned him sad and often sick,
And made him drink like fishes;
He told it to his man called Dick,
Who offered his—good wishes.

While recommending change of scene,
And even a change of diet;
He thought his master had the spleen,
And only wanted quiet.

But though he moved from room to room,
From iron bed to oaken,
He could not thus escape his doom;
The spell remained unbroken.

And though he taxed the utmost powers,
Of all his pot and pan dom-
inion, throughout the weary hours,
His efforts were at random.

The cook was stumped, and that's a fact,
Although she slaved from morning
To midnight, till the dishes cracked;
And so she gave him warning.

Her culinary skill was great,
Fair trials could not dim it;
But who could stand this? cook or plate?
And then—there is a limit.

She went, bequeathing debts unpaid,
Accounts that would not tally;
And left him to the kitchen maid,
Whose Christian name was Sally.

But still his hunger would not stay,
And still he drank like fishes;
And wrought the dreadfullest dismay,
In stoutest hearts and dishes.

He thought it indigestion first,
Until he found it chronic;
The doctor, to assuage his thirst,
Prescribed a gentle tonic.

Still stuck his sickness like a leech,
Of the worst kind “Dissentery,”
It even impaired his powers of speech,
Which grew unparliamentary.

The man of many plots and pills,
Who knew what every dose is,
And throve upon his neighbours' ills,
Then made a diagnosis.

562

With sapient air and searching hand,
He all the organs sounded;
With “viscus,” “ganglion,” eyeglass, “gland,”
The patient was confounded.

The doctor slapped him on the back,
And poked him in the bowels;
He made his joints and muscles crack,
And used alarming vowels.

He punched his head and tapped his breast,
And, not without a stutter,
Said, “Put your troubled mind at rest.
The ailment is not utter.”

Adding with bright elated brow,
“Though you seem going òn drear,
Three cheers for glorious Science now,
It's hyp—hyp—hyp—ochondria!

And yet and yet, in spite of each
Big phrase and awful letter,
The wretch dared Science to impeach.
Nor was one whit the better.

Long words and learned jargon may
Suit quacks, whose aim to please is,
But though tremendous fees we pay,
They will not cure diseases.

The lord of many a pill and plan,
In which he was no miser,
Withdrew at least a richer man,
If not perhaps a wiser.

His victim still no comfort gat,
At breakfast, luncheon, òr tea.
And kept as foolish and as fat,
As any fool of forty.

He then invoked a holy seer,
Whose praise was great in Zion;
Who, after solemn draughts of beer,
Said, “You may me rely on.”

“For yours is quite a common case,
Indeed I call it simple;
I have marked it in a prelate's face,
And in a maiden's dimple.

“You are bitten by the “Devil's Dog,”
But I will leave you merrier;
For you shall shortly make good progress,
spite of even his terrier.

563

“It lurks within the manly spine,
But flies from Turkish towels,
Beer and cold water, though it mine
Right in the bow—wow—owels.

“Give up, my friend, all lesser loves,
Drink Bass, spar, rise at seven;
The Bible and the boxing gloves,
Will carry you to Heaven.

“Fear God, and walk a thousand miles,
In hours the same in number;
Go straight o'er, hedges, streams and stiles,
And trust to time and slumber.”

But then he leapt across two chairs,
And bowing like a Hindoo,
Despising doors and stuff like stairs,
Went flying through the window.

Thus back, and then his pious mouth,
He moistened with a bumper,
“This,” said he, “slakes the direst drouth,
And makes the finest jumper.”

And then, to still the pleasant strife
Of thirst, he drank another;
“Bread,” cried he, is the staff of life,
“But this is life, my brother.”

He grimly smiled, and truth to tell,
His very smile was muscular;
And rose six feet to bid farewell,
For it was now crepuscular.

Away he went, and at a run,
Cleared gates not to be reckoned;
Leaving a coat-tail upon one,
His hat upon a second.

And then the sufferer tried a course
Of beer and early rising,
Long walks, big jumps, and brutal force,
With patience quite surprising.

Renouncing all his lesser loves,
He never said, “Come in, do!’
But met his friends with boxing gloves,
And made them scale the window.

But still the demon would not budge,
But poisoned his hilarity;
Though he a thousand miles might trudge,
Evolving muscularity.

564

And though most bravely all along,
He tubbed and scrubbed and drank he;
And shouted every sacred song,
Within the book of Sankey.

In fine, each human hope seemed vain,
And sceptics clamoured “O 'tis
Mere fancy,” and to crown his pain,
The kitchen maid gave notice.

And still his symptoms nowise fell,
In spite of tubs and hymns' tone;
And there was a suspicious smell,
Which savoured much of brimstone.

And what was all the fuss about,
The roof of all this evil?
Though doctors and divines might doubt,
He said it was the—devil.

JENNY WREN AND ROBIN.

ANOTHER VERSION.

Saucy looked Miss Jenny Wren,
Coming through the wood;
Tripping down the mossy glen,
Nimbly as she could.

Happy shone her hazel eye,
Scarlet gleamed her cloak;
All that passed Miss Jenny by,
Kindly to her spoke.

Blossoms hung in both her hands,
Blossoms fair and sweet;
Never even in fairy lands,
Glanced such hands and feet.

Lightly up and lightly down,
Dainty shoes she put;
From beneath her russet gown,
Pretty peeped her foot.

Rang her voice a merry chime,
Rang in falls and swells;
Moved her hands to tune and time,
Like a peal of bells.

565

Browner than the nut her hair,
Softer than the silk;
Pink and white her colour rare,
Apple bloom and milk.

Swung a basket at her side,
Full of fancy things;
Fluttered out her mantle wide,
Like a pair of wings.

Oft she tossed her little head,
Oft she blushed and smiled;
While in concert to her tread,
Laughed the flowerets wild.

Leaves would blow against her face,
Petals too would fall;
Nature's magic gave her grace,
Sunset more than all.

Eve it grew, and Jenny sped,
Quickly through the shade;
Though the light was scantly shed,
Felt she not afraid.

Once indeed her scarlet cloak,
Waving as she went,
Caught the branches of an oak,
But it was not rent.

Robin met her by the way,
Robin bade good-night;
Robin seemed so glad and gay,
Jenny laughed outright.

Strange it is when fruitage sweet,
Tumbles in the lap;
Stranger far, when lovers meet,
Just by merest hap.

Robm took her by the arm,
Led her through the wood;
Jenny had no thought of harm,
Robin was so good.

Then they sat beside a stream,
Watched the lilies bob;
“Life is but a fleeting dream,”
Jenny sang to Rob.

Stole his arm around her waist,
Came a kind of mist;
“Cherries none so sweetly taste,”
Robin sighed and kissed.

566

Why should Jenny's lips be coy?
She had known him long:
Knew that from a very boy,
Robin did no wrong.

“Roses are not half so fair,
Though they please the eye,”
Robin said with tender air;
Jenny told him, “Fie!”

“Day has got its gladsome boon,
Night was meant for love,”
Robin murmured to the moon,
As it rose above.

Rose the moon above the twain,
Made the shadows less;
Robin wooed nor wooed in vain,
Jenny whispered, “Yes.”

Then they saw the starry gleam,
Heard the night-wind sob;
“Life may not be all a dream,”
Jenny lisped to Rob.

Robin answered by a squeeze,
Pressed her closer still.
Rustled round the nodding trees,
Rippled on the rill.

Broke a moonbeam on her brow,
Lightened on her face;
Happy was Miss Jenny now,
Sacred seemed the place.

Flew an owl with staring eyes,
Like a falling cloud;
Floated down the solemn skies,
Through an insect crowd.

Whirred the moths in circling flight,
Far the beetle boomed;
Faint were noises of the night,
Long the shadows loomed.

Wheeled the bats about the pair,
Brushed them with their wings;
Robin blest them unaware,
Blest the beauteous things.

567

“Were we but as free as birds,”
Jenny chanced to say;
Idle were her passing words,
Idle was her way.

Slumber on the lovers fell,
Silent slept the glen;
Came a Spirit with a spell,
Changed them there and then.

Shaped them like the wingéd throng,
Covered both with down;
Him he gave a silver song,
Her a golden crown.

When they woke they knew no change,
Joy their bosoms filled;
But they found the power to range,
Ever where they willed.

So they flit through woods and fields,
While the summers last;
Seize the peace the present yields,
Dream not of the past.

Loving names and hearty cheer,
Deal them maids and men;
Other birds God reckons dear,
These His cock and hen.

Coleridge's “Ancient Mariner.”

Golden-crested wren.

“The Robin Redbreast and the wren,
Are God Almighty's cock and hen.”

Old Rhyme.

MEN MUST WORK.

“Women must Weep?” . . . Pretty darlings,
When they never should have needs,
Free and happy as the starlings
Picking out your garden seeds;
Well, perhaps, they must; a Poet,
If he is a little blind
To their follies, ought to know it—
And if he's a little kind;
But though mistress is a dragon,
Though the master is a Turk,
Though no beer is in the flagon—
Men must work.

568

“Women must weep?” . . .. Dainty creatures
They of raptures and romance,
Feel the beauty of their features
Tears do only more enhance;
Languid on the couch they mutter
Broken words of hopes and fears,
Nibbling thinnest bread and butter,
With no other gift than tears;
But though in the lamp the benzoline
is low, and Tom would shirk,
Jim is mad with influenza,—
Men must work.

“Women must weep?” . . . In the poses
Best becoming graceful forms,
Curtained off with wraps and roses
From the breath of vulgar storms?
With the finest cambric folded
Softly, as a lily lies,
To the face discreetly moulded,
Just to show the lovely eyes?
But, though tired in silk or satin,
They go driving to the kirk,
Where's the pew to take poor Pat in?—
Men must work.

“Women must weep?” . . . Ah, no pleasure
Is there like a genial cry,
Which so thoughtfully they treasure
Till the favoured man is by;
Their one logic without reason,
Their one weapon to the close,
Fashion never out of scason,
Which no male thing can oppose;
But though they may sigh of marriage
By the fireside, peck and perk,
Sip sweet tea, or loll in carriage,—
Men must work.

HOW TO BE AN ANGEL.

“He needed only the handsome young lady model ------ some long white drapery, and a pair of goose's wings, and he would manufacture your popular modern angel with the greatest ease.”—G. D. Leslie, R.A.

If you have the usual charms—
Never mind affection—
Radiant eyes and rounded arms,
Pink and white complexion;
Though not strictly all your own,
Soft and sunny tresses,

569

Rippling as by breezes blown,
Meant for kind caresses;
Lips, that while they murmur nay—
This I should not mention—
As they sweetly pout and play,
Yet invite attention.
If your costume, comme il faut,
Just sets off your graces,
With the appendage of a beau
Broken to your paces;
Yet in this your dainty store,
Fashion is a fetter,
Need you find of beauty more,
Sigh for something better;
Fancy with the pink and white,
Which of Heaven is relic,
You have feelings fitted quite
For a course angelic;
Seek not doctor nor divine
For the one fair finish,
That your spirit will refine
Earthliness diminish;
Trouble not your favourite church,
Try not chosen chapel,
Push not far a doubtful search
For forbidden apple;
Help is at your very door,
Never dreamed by Wesley,
Freely offered the most poor—
Witness G. D. Leslie!
Yes, if you would angel be,
If no more capricious,
Worldly vanities you flee,
Piously ambitious;
If you do indeed aspire
For celestial sailing,—
Ever walk in white attire,
Snowy garments trailing;
And, whatever fortune bring,
Ere the day is older,
Clap—its cheap—a goose's wing,
On each pretty shoulder!
Then, above these earthly rocks,
Plumed by Art's prescription,
You can fly from stumbling “stocks,”
Plagues and “Bonds Egyptian”;
Ah, you then may yet attain
To a loftier stature,
If (what art cannot ordain)
Goose you are by nature.

570

MARRIED OR MARRED.

PART I.—THE SACRAMENT OF SORROW.

I am told, O my love, thou hast married,
And I guessed thou wast marred;
Could'st thou not for a season have tarried,
Ere thy freedom was barred?

I was poor, I was thwarted by distance—
Out of sight, out of mind;
There was no one to offer assistance
To the deaf and the blind.

For I heard not, I saw not misfortune,
I was voiceless and far;
Did I know, should I care to importune
So fallen a star?

Yet perchance had I dreamed of disaster,
I had spared not to speak;
I had flown to thy rescuing faster,
To print shame on thy cheek.

Dost forget all the vows that we plighted,
And the ring that we broke;
That thou among women hast blighted
The sweet life love awoke?

Dost remember the hours that we wandered
With hand clasped in hand,
And the fears for our future we pondered,
In the dusk of the land?

O the kisses, the sighs, the embraces,
With the tears that would start!
Have they left not a touch of their traces
In the hush of thy heart?

Hast thou gone into gloom of forgetting,
In the lapse of thy course?
Hast thou past beyond pangs of regretting,
Beyond reach of remorse?

In the past, or the future, or present,
Is thy haven of light?
Is the harvest about thee so pleasant,
That thou reapest delight?

And the churl that thy beauty has brightened,
In his parish and school—
Though the load on thy soul is not lightened—
Is he knave or a fool?

571

I am told he is rich and a rector,
Fond of pigs and of port;
And there's use in a saintly protector,
Up in heaven or at court.

After dinner, they say, he gets fuddled,
And he needs to be fanned;
While his tithings and wenches are muddled,
With the sermon on hand.

Then he dreams in his crapulous slumber,
What the beast in him must;
Prates of sins without name, without number,
Mixes learning and lust.

Then he wakes with the clatter of glasses,
And a sound like a curse;
Chucks his maid on the chin as she passes,
And jingles his purse.

But he seems, in the pulpit, so sober,
So devoted and sound;
And as mellow as pears in October,
When just frosted and browned.

Never mind, if he's ugly and narrow,
Or as old as thy sire;
Let him sport with his hoe and his barrow,
With his pigs in their mire.

O my love, I am jealous and bitter,
For the fate thou hast met;
For I hoped, like a fool, I was fitter—
O my playmate, my pet!

Thou hast left me so soon without warning,
That it's all like a dream—
Like a nightmare that comes before morning,
In the gloom and the gleam.

Yesterday we were friends, we were lovers,
And our faces were bright;
Yet to-day but the dawning discovers
The delusions of night.

And the morrow—I muse on the morrow
With an awe and a grief;
Will it heap on us sufferings and sorrow,
Will it bring us relief?

O the visions that rise and confound me,
When for solace I burn!
O the troubles that chafe and surround me,
Wheresoever I turn!

572

And thou—is there peace in thy bosom,
Is there light in those eyes?
Has thy life not gone out in its blossom,
And the sun in thy skies?

Will a child ever call thee its mother,
And climb to thy knee?
Will its fondlings and foolishness smother
All the yearnings to be?

Ah, the firelight will flicker and show thee
Fair tresses that shine;
Dim features will waver and throw thee
Their endearments divine.

In thy chamber no blessing to nestle
To the warmth of thy breast;
On thy pillow no darling to wrestle,
And to sweeten thy rest.

In the day a mute hunger and raving
For the lips and the hands;
In the night but a pitiless craving
For the childish demands.

Thou wilt hear but thy husband's dull tattle,
As he chokes with his bile;
But no mfantine lisping or prattle,
To provoke thee to smile.

When the babe of thy friend chides its mother,
Will it sting thee at last?
Wilt thou wish that thy fortune were other
Than the fortune thou hast?

Yet thou lackest no purchase of money,
At the beck of thy hand;
Thou hast stores of the milk and the honey,
Of the fat of the land.

For his animal eye in thy satins
Finds a luxury cold;
And he swells to survey thee at Matins,
In his purple and gold.

Is the title of wife such a treasure,
If the truth is not there?
Wilt thou find in his thoughts any pleasure,
That thou ever canst share?

Is it home where the household is saddened
By the plaint of thy dove?
Where the hall and the stairs are not gladdened,
With the laughter of love?

573

In the darkness and silence I wonder,
When thy dreams are at strife,
Wilt thou deem it a sin, or a blunder,
To have blasted thy life?

And in vain any hopes dost thou cherish,
Where the promise is not;
They will dazzle thy sight but to perish,
They will ripen to rot.

O I know how the shadows will thicken,
And thy bosom will quake;
Thou wilt cry for a rapture to quicken,
For a presence to wake.

Though thy sobs and entreaties were double,
Yet the storm would be still;
Shall God and His thunders have trouble,
To come down at thy will?

At each step thou wilt tremble and hearken
For the foot that has fled;
And the eyes in their anguish will darken,
As the eyes of the dead.

And for me—but I cannot uncover
Half the wounds of my heart;
It were idle to plead as a lover,
When a stranger's thou art.

If I dared for a moment to sever
From my passion its mask,
Should I find what I follow for ever,
Should I have what I ask?

Would my fire be availing to heat thee,
And to draw thee more near?
Wouldst thou mock at my weeping to meet thee,
Were I borne on my bier?

Thy hands would be surely averted,
In the maddening of pain;
And the tears would not leave thee deserted,
By their tempest of rain.

But, alas! as a fool I am dreaming,
As a knave I conspire;
To defraud thee of sanctity's seeming,
Is an impious desire.

Stick fast to thy holy supporter,
While he is still thy own;
Till the querulous days growing shorter,
Leave thee childless and lone.

574

Though its gossip wax flat in its flavour,
And his stories be stale,
And his breath have too often the savour
Of his snuff and his ale;

Though he stint thee and cease to be civil,
And be free with his oath;
Though in waking and dreaming he drivel,
Nor to lying is loath;

If, at last, when his senses are duller,
And his life in his paunch,
He should beat in thy paleness a colour,
Thou must bear and be staunch.

Is he not all thy husband and patron,
With his burden of fat;
And thou but the jest of a matron,
Who art wedded to that?

Do not fret at his vices and weakness,
His debauches of wine;
But put up with the scandal in meekness—
For, remember, he's thine.

But my lips, O they long so to bless thee,
And they thirst so to kiss;
And my arms, how they crave to caress thee,
The dear maiden they miss.

In the daytime thy image yet lingers,
And I grope in the night—
Ah, I feel for the touch of thy fingers,
That are wondrous and white.

I am hungry, and nought can appease me
But the words of thy mouth;
I am parched, and what medicine can ease me
But thy balm for my drouth?

I am faint, and the morning is dreary,
And the noon has a cloud;
Yea, at evening I mourn and am weary,
For the love that was vowed.

I am stricken, and no one is near me
To take count of my sighs;
I am dying, and nothing can cheer me,
Save the light of thy eyes.

Is it day? is it night? for I know not,
And my eyesight is dark;
Do they call me and chide? but I go not,
For my ears cannot hark.

575

O my darling, my sweet, I am thinking
Through the seasons of thee;
And thy voice I am ever enlinking
With the sound of the sea.

When I toy with the shell of the shingle,
That I lift to my ear;
My God! the soft murmurs that tingle,
And the name that I hear!

In the wail of the west wind it quivers,
With low pulses of grief;
In the chill of the east wind it shivers,
Like a storm-beaten leaf.

In the crowd I go foolishly chasing
Thy phantom or thought,
And alone I am always embracing
A form that is nought.

Shall I give of my hatred or laughter,
For the wrong thou hast done?
Shall we meet in the world or hereafter,
And apart or as one?

There is death with its sting and its scourges,
And the grave has its curse;
Yea, the sea has its funeral surges;
But thy love—it is worse.

PART II.—KINGDOM OF SORROW.

It is come, as I dreamed in a vision
Of the night that is past;
Brief with sunshine of dazzling derision,
Long with shadows to last.

Thou hast sent me a sign of thy hearing,
As a moan from the main;
I have read it with hope that is fearing,
With a pleasure like pain.

Thou hast written in sorrow not anger,
O my Beauty, my Queen;
I have broken the lull of thy languor,
With a tempest unseen.

It is, ah, such a thing for caressing,
This sweet flower of thy heart;
And perchance by my passionate pressing,
I my own shall impart.

576

I have covered the pages with kisses,
I have bathed them in tears;
With the sobs that unsealed the abysses,
That were buried for years.

Then I counted the words—aye, the letters,
Though the counting was vain;
Till I fashioned them all into fetters.
And their charm was my chain.

And the leaves had a musical rustle,
Like the leaves of a tree;
When they chime through the turmoil and bustle,
Of our life's troubled sea.

And the sheets that no ruler had levelled,
Ran in wrinkle and wave;
And I pictured the tresses dishevelled,
Of a pitiful slave.

Not a dot, not a line has escaped me,
And each dash has its doom;
In each crease I have cruelly shaped me,
Some imagining's tomb.

And I saw—could I miss them?—the traces
Of the tears that were thine;
But I folded their stains in embraces,
And effaced them with mine.

O the charms of the tremulous writing,
By that wonderful hand;
Hieroglyphics for one man's delighting,
With their darling demand!

They are symbols of sadness and travail,
That are bruising my breast;
And, ah, what but my love could unravel
All the utter unrest?

Yet the blots are the bloom of their beauties,
Are the crown of the whole;
And the slips and the slurs are but duties,
Scarce expressed by the soul.

Lo, in this is a voice above Fashion,
Is a cry beyond speech;
With the rush of a mighty compassion,
That no writing could reach.

And in that is a querulous paining,
For some delicate turn;
Or the stir of an infinite straining,
After words that will burn.

577

And just here is a mystical meaning,
A sweet trouble of mist;
Where the head was laid low in its leaning,
On its miseries' list.

And O there is a cross in the crying,
In the passion a pause;
When the sound of a sorrowful sighing,
Gave a clinch to the clause.

And the next is a shadowing shorter,
But more keen in its ken;
Where a joy was thy suffering's sorter,
And the point of thy pen.

And there now came a terrible struggle,
Where the strokes are so black;
While the heart had not courage to juggle,
With its ruin and wrack.

Then a blank with its sinister omen,
In the whirl of thy woes;
Like the parting of desperate foemen,
When they part but to close.

Till the waves of calamity's ocean,
That had spared for a space,
Sallied forth with a wilder commotion,
With a fiercer embrace.

Till the steeds of thy outraged convictions,
For a moment reined back,
Bursting out with yet deeper afflictions,
Swept them on in their track.

And forsooth in this beggarly nation,
In which some of us live,
There's a freshness in frantic sensation,
That no grinding can give.

All our pleasures we grudgingly levy,
Just as felons reprieved;
They not only are sombre and heavy,
But in coarseness conceived.

And the Venus we worship is stupid,
But a dowdy and drab;
While the wings and the arrows of Cupid
We discard for a—cab.

And we see but a dangerous faction,
In the play of our hearts;
For our love is a business transaction,
And a matter for marts.

578

So our feelings are labelled with prices,
And are loaded with lids;
And our wives and luxurious vices,
All are open to bids.

Though our maids be of milk and of honey,
And look lovely and sweet;
They are sold for a handful of money,
Like the scum on the street.

We so cling to the counter and grubbing,
And so smell of the shop;
That we ought to be grateful for rubbing,
That makes some of it drop.

There's a genius in perfect disaster,
Turns the wilderness green;
Moulds the clown a great tragedy master,
Paints the peasant a queen.

Every pain has an element scenic,
And gets rid of a crutch;
Going back to the glories Hellenic,
And a natural touch.

When we wallow in festering triteness,
And vulgarities' reek;
What a boon were the naked politeness,
Of the elegant Greek!

Go and study in sorrow your notions,
Learn from solitude thought;
You may purchase some bastard emotions,
But the true are unbought.

Then be thankful, my darling, for crosses,
That are crowns in disguise;
There are gains in the gloomiest losses,
If old fountains arise.

To have felt, at whatever the peril,
That our hearts are our own,
In a period so stony and sterile,
Is a joy to have known.

To return, if but once for a second,
To the Orient springs;
Is for ever a space to be reckoned,
Among holier things.

And to thee has been given the treasure,
From its sources above;
The sweet pain that is higher than pleasure,
That is deeper than love.

579

Thou art blessed of women who languish,
And anointed a chief;
Though thy sceptre is suffering and anguish,
Though thy kingdom is grief.

Thou canst say that thy crown was no trinket,
Nor thy empire a sham;
“I had bitterness' cup and could drink it,
And therefore I am.”

To thy feet all the sorrows come bending,
And thy subjects are sins;
Where the conquests of others are ending,
There thy triumph beings.

Then rejoice in the riches of mourning,
And in misery's hold;
For thy sackcloth is noblest adorning,
And thy ashes are gold.

Thou art robed in regalia lowly,
In remorse of the years;
While thy chaplet has charms that are holy,
And thy jewels are tears.

Thou hast seen the fair secrets of weeping,
And that fears have their flowers;
Thou hast wakened the truth that was sleeping,
With thy penitent showers.

I could guess how thy portion was meted,
I could picture thy pangs;
All the thoughts that were never completed,
Every sentence that hangs.

All the moans that are mute, I could finish,
All the shadows could show;
Not a spray would my wearing diminish,
In thy garland of woe.

I could fancy I looked o'er thy shoulder,
At each striving and start;
Saw thy face growing darker and colder,
Felt the beats of thy heart.

I could shape every wincing and shudder,
Every heave of thy form;
As a ship without compass and rudder.
Running wild through the storm.

I could trace how each letter was fashioned,
How it laboured or flowed;
In a stroke read a story impassioned,
In a line see a load.

580

I could follow the curves as they trembled,
In some petulant touch;
Mark when this a mere trifle dissembled,
And when that made too much.

Ah, the breaks with their eloquent hollows,
That were crowded with pain!
The erasure that uselessly follows,
A confession insane!

O defects, that, in spite of the railing,
Are yet dearer than law!
O ye faults, that are fairer in failing,
Than a face without flaw!

Give me life that at least has election,
With a blemish or two;
Give me love with its sweet imperfection,
In its tripping so true.

Give me frailties of natural cravings,
With a dash of the clay;
And some spots in the splendid behavings,
Or a star that can stray.

Give me lapses all human in meekness,
From the formalist fence;
And some segments of rich incompleteness,
In the circle of sense.

Give me taints in the temple's own portal,
And a faith that may fall;
I am earth-born and terribly mortal,
And have room for them all.

I have foibles for generous errors,
As I feel them within;
Nor am squeamish and troubled by terrors,
At magnanimous sin.

But away with your whitewash complexion,
And your prurient breath;
There is life in a tender deflexion,
While in dogmas is death.

From conventions of cant comes no issue,
Save a purulent sore;
Under dresses decorous of tissue,
Throbs the heart of a whore.

Who has patience with whining and snuffling,
Or with prudery's plea?
Have your fill of the shadows and shuffling,
But the substance for me.

581

I am weary of ways ceremonious,
And the mincing of feet;
I am sick of the looks sanctimonious,
Of the canonised cheat.

Take the forms, if you like them, to plague you,
With a frost-bitten creed;
But to some they give fits of the ague,
Or to lechery lead.

They that wash the outside of the platter,
While they wash not within;
When their washing should purge only flatter,
Where they end should begin.

He who plays the uncleanly ascetic,
Without shifting his shirt,
Recommends not by robe or cosmetic,
Either doctrine or dirt.

And a discipline nature avows not,
Rather hinders than aids;
And the torture, that Freedom allows not,
The whole being degrades.

All the racks and the scourges invented,
For the flaying of flesh,
Never made one poor doubter contented,
If they yet might enmesh.

I have tried with an infinite yearning,
All your perfecting pain;
But the penance had such a returning,
No perfections again.

Let the saints have their delicate dinners,
With a perfume of lust;
Shall I shrink from the dirt of the sinners,
Since I sprang from the dust?

There's a spark in the dingiest hovel,
That the palace may lack;
And the highest have natures that grovel,
In a bestial track.

Give me modesty, mewed in its cottage,
Not a rose-coloured shame;
Give me frankness, though starved upon pottage,
Calling things by their name.

Find me woman, with kindness untainted,
Of whose heart is no doubt;
Not a creature bepatched and bepainted,
And with loving left out.

582

And the glory of woman is weakness,
When the weakness is pure;
Though the blossom of maidenly meekness,
In the kennel endure.

Theologians may wrangle and bellow,
At our friendships with clay;
Give me rather the worm for my fellow,
Than the ass with his bray.

Call me heretic—guiltily lenient,
To the blight in the blood;
Though your codes may be cool and convenient,
There is warmth in the mud.

Turn away from the claims of the gutter,
The unfortunates bar;
Yet the stuff that you mumble and mutter,
It is fouler by far.

There's a filth of the surface, my brother,
That is often but shammed;
In the sanctuary's seat is another,
That is deadly and damned.

On the pavement is loftier cleanness,
And the mire has more truth;
There are touches of godlike sereneness,
In the mean and uncouth.

There are specks in the groundlings you spurn at,
But your spots are not known;
There are motes in the vision you turn at,
But a beam in your own.

And O all ye sweet sinnings and blottings,
Ye are welcome to me;
Behind piety's mask there are rottings,
That are viler than ye.

Ye are precious, O innocent blurrings,
Ye are holy at heart;
Your mistakes are the liberal stirrings
Of some Catholic part.

But enough of protesting at purists,
And at dogma's dead bones;
What's the use to attack sinecurists,
Or in striking the stones?

It is idle and pestilent treason,
To return to first acts;
And no right has so solid a reason,
As the logic of facts.

583

Things accomplished admit no solutions,
Though the rust to them sticks;
And to kick against institutions,
Only hurts him who kicks.

For, alas, in the shrines of society,
There's no god like the fool;
And whatever the minor variety,
It's the corpses that rule.

But untruths have an end—though it tarry,
And to that cannot lie;
And the systems that haunt us and harry,
They shall moulder and die.

Noble vices and splendid distortions,
With the fanatic's dream,
Shall be rounded with radiant proportions
Into virtues supreme.

Then the discords that flow from our greatness,
From our heaven-given speech,
Flowing back in a fuller sedateness,
To their sources will reach.

For the jarrings and jibbing and jolting,
Only rise from our haste;
There is nothing in tumbles revolting,
Nothing wrong but bad taste.

Is there dirt like the demon of coarseness,
Of a scatter-brained skull?
The sole sin of the sinner is hoarseness,
Of the wit to be dull.

Be the singer a Whig or a Tory,
That is not what we scan;
Be his errors the sting of a story,
Yet his voice is the man.

If the wit has no income for owning,
That is not to the point;
He can vex us alone by his droning,
By a joke out of joint.

Yet I blame not the rudeness and roughness,
Of the clods or the clouts;
Not that human and healthier toughness,
That our daintiness flouts.

Not the coarseness of primitive sprawling,
Or an animal roll;
But a withering mildew's enthralling,
That is sapping the soul.

584

Not the coarseness of channel and border,
When the rivulet swells;
But corruption of deeper disorder,
That which poisons the wells.

For the worst of a Bacchanal sousing,
Is defiling the skin;
There's no danger in common carousing,
With no plague-spot within.

And bad taste is an adequate measure,
Of the evil at core;
Which slips out when he lies at his leisure,
From the charlatan's store.

Who would care for the actress's history,
If she perfects her part?
If her birth was a blot or a mystery,
That is nothing to Art.

Antecedents and private excesses,
Her repute may have spoiled;
But our nature is large and transgresses,
While the soul is not soiled.

On the stage we may smile on the artist,
Though at home we must scowl;
If the man is a tippler or Chartist,
Or his linen is foul.

When he's true to his part, does it matter
If he limps in his life?
If he hails in his father a hatter,
Beats his carpet or wife?

What has nature to do with the scandals,
That a character smirch?
Why, the game is not worth half the candles,
That are spent in the search.

To be wicked no doubt is a blunder,
To be stupid is worse;
To be blind in the world and its wonder,
Is the deadliest curse.

To have with you the beauty and sorrow,
And to feel they are flat;
To see none of the mist of the morrow;
There's no pathos like that.

There are minds that are coarser than matter,
That in frost have their roots;
Who give birth to but imbecile clatter;
It is they that are brutes.

585

While above them and richly around them,
Yea, and under their feet,
Are the angels that fain would have wound them,
In investiture sweet.

But they will not, their ears are so darkened,
And in Heaven there are tears;
For the spirits that once might have hearkened,
To the yearning of years.

And the angels go grieving and mourning,
For the souls of their care;
If they would but have heard without scorning,
When the music was there.

God Himself is sore troubled in glory,
For the work of His hands;
As he lists to the pitiful story,
Through the night of the lands.

But they hear not the voices above them,
Or the mercies that pull;
And they heed not who hate or who love them,
If their bellies be full.

And they will not, they will not look higher,
To the palms that are waved;
They are deaf to the strains that draw nigher,
They refused to be saved.

And the rapture of suffering and losing,
Is no rapture to these;
And the dignity lent us in choosing,
Has no pathos to please.

They know nought of the glorified trouble,
That's the crown of the throne;
And their darkness is deadly and double,
Since it's all so unknown.

There are cloud-lands too gloomy to picture,
That encircle our souls;
But thy own gives a beauty to stricture,
That the censor consoles.

And the blots are thy majesty's blossoms,
That were blasted by fate;
Though when littleness lives in our bosoms,
It's a crime to be great.

Yet if blots have an eloquent pleading,
There is more between lines;
There are riches of passionate meaning,
In all absence of signs.

586

For the soul of the silence is laden,
With a burden of woe;
Like the wail of a death-stricken maiden,
At the ravisher's blow.

As he gloats on her infinite graces,
With libidinous breath;
And she flies from his brutal embraces,
To more merciful death.

And thy muteness is vocal with panting,
For a loftier air;
Which comes home with the ancient enchanting,
Of the ages so fair.

Ah, the times that to Nature were docile,
And with principles dwelt;
When they feared not a formula fossil,
When they spoke as they felt.

When the silence itself was a sermon,
That no pulpit could preach;
And the dews of Parnassus and Hermon,
Had a spell more than speech.

When the seer had his seat on the mountain,
And his sight on the star;
And the music that flowed from the fountain,
Sang of things as they are.

When each man heard the pulse of Creation,
In its throbbings through space;
And each maiden from eve's ministration,
Stole the flush of her face.

When the world had a wonderful colour,
With a stir and a glow;
Ere the shadow waxed darker and duller,
And the melodies slow.

When they worked to the rhythm of dances,
And the earth was in tune;
While the flame of their prodigal fancies,
Made of January June.

When they fought as they frolicked for pleasure,
And no pleasure was sad;
Yea, the clash of their swords beat a measure,
And their sorrow was glad.

Do I see not a sign that thou burnest,
With the searchings of light?
Not a glimpse of a grappling in earnest,
With the phantoms of light?

587

And between all the lines of thy letter,
In the spaces that yawn,
I imagine the crack of a fetter,
And the glimmer of dawn.

I can trace in the blankness a yearning,
For the altars of eld;
And there gleams a religious returning,
To the fire that they held.

When the altar was life at its highest,
And a faith was the fire;
And its offering the prayers that thou criest,
When they rend and aspire.

Shall I breathe in the barren hiatus,
All the passion to come?
When the blast of a mighty afflatus,
Gives a voice to the dumb?

Lo, the chains shall be broken in sunder,
The ice-barrier part;
And thine eye shall awaken in wonder,
To the wealth of the heart.

But I cannot, I will not unseal it,
What the future withholds;
Let the rapture of being reveal it,
When the spirit unfolds.

Yet I know thou art true and art tender,
And hast wings of remorse;
That thy nature will rise in its splendour,
To the height of its source.

It will rise? Nay, the struggle is ended,
And thy spirit is free;
From the deep of despair has ascended,
To the “mighty may-be.”

But O here is the thing thou has fingered,
With the warmth of thy hands;
And the light of thy glances has lingered,
Like the starlight on lands.

Here thy kisses as summer's have rested,
And I touch it with mine;
Touch the treasure thy lips have invested,
With a fragrance divine.

Here thy sanctified sighings have pondered,
And thy tresses have trailed;
Meditations like moonrise have pondered,
On the seas thou hast sailed.

588

Here has throbbed for a suffering season,
The sweet bloom of thy breast;
When desire had its struggle with reason,
And in bowing was blest.

Here the blush has come back to thy beauty,
As the dove to its home;
After moments of flitting from duty,
On the passionate foam.

Here thy tears, as the dewdrops when falling
On a desolate plain,
Have gone up to the Heaven of thy calling,
With the incense of pain.

Here the demons of darkness have pressed thee,
With importunate stings;
And the angels of day have caressed thee,
With the waft of their wings.

Here have fought for thy spirit's embroiling,
All the powers of despair;
And have fled at their baffled despoiling,
From the armies of prayer.

Here the night-wind has loitered and listened,
And the night-bird has peeped;
And the rays from the glooming that glistened,
In thy sorrow were steeped.

Here I have what thou had'st in thy folding,
While thy sobbings have swelled;
And mine eyes are not filled with beholding,
What thy own have beheld.

Here I hold in so hungry a hoarding,
Since the travail was such,
The sweet wealth of thy woeful recording,
And in mine is thy touch.

Here I feel all the grandeur of meekness,
When a sin has been slain;
And lay mine in a moment of weakness,
Where thy cheek may have lain.

Here I stand face to face with the nature,
That is better than bliss;
And from summits of goodlier stature,
I look down the abyss.

Here I bind the first fruits of our winnings,
In a shadowy sheaf;
And I measure the ends and beginnings,
With the measure of grief.

589

Here I know that my thirsting is slakèd,
For a season at least;
And the spring of my knowledge lie naked,
Before misery's feast.

Here I live and I move and have being,
And divine what I scan;
I rejoice in the richès of being,
In the fulness of man.

Here beliefs are no longer the creatures,
Of prescription or strife;
But stand forth with magnificent features,
On the canvas of life.

Here inspires not the motive of terrors,
And results do not cloy;
There abound no abuses or errors,
Save excesses of joy.

Here the modes of perception all mingle,
False distinctions all flee;
And the touching and tasting are single,
And to hear is to see.

Here the body no more is a clogging,
But extension of mind;
And the faculties never need flogging,
And to seek is to find.

Here the hand reaches out from within you,
Nor is reaching in vain;
And the feet are but powers that continue,
And that supplement brain.

Here there riot no chances or changes,
And the night is as day;
Never kiss of betrayal estranges,
And to work is to pray.

Here in regions made perfect by sorrow,
Every bane is a boon;
And the moon draws its light from the morrow,
And the sun from the moon.

Here each man is endowed with regalia,
And each maiden has rule;
And there breathes not the blighting of failure,
But the fall of the fool.

Here each one is the lord of his brother,
And each lord is a slave;
For they serve and they sway but each other,
And their crown is a grave.

590

Here no shadow is cast by contention,
But a shadow to shield;
Comes no strife but the strife of invention,
How the wounds may be healed.

Here is uttered no accent of wailing,
Save the weeping for sin;
Here to enter no fear is availing,
But that evil may win.

Here no vice has its ominous token,
And no passion has place;
And the chains of the tyrant are broken,
Into chaplets of grace.

Here has hatred perpetual prison,
Except hatred of wrong,
And the feet that were fallen are risen,
And the weakest are strong.

Here the thought is no beggarly factor,
In an advocate's case;
But shines out where the Truth is an actor,
And the theatre Space.

Here I seem not the world's nor another,
Nor the plaything of pelf;
If I doubt on the fate of my brother,
I am sure of myself.

Here I mark all the meanings of matter,
What no fumbling can find;
And I trace in the jewels they scatter,
All the mysteries of mind.

Here I see the divineness of bearing,
And the price of a pang;
On the fleetings so far from our caring,
What immensities hang.

Here I glean at the gateways of glory,
All the secrets they store;
While I read an unspeakable story,
And I pause and adore.

Here I dream on the threshold of Motion,
Why its swellings are sweet;
And the shells from its murmuring ocean,
Are thrown up at my feet.

Here I commune with Silence, that travails,
In the trouble of years;
And I catch at the clue that unravels,
All our beautiful fears.

591

Here I find that but visions are real,
And the darkness is light;
That the truth is the highest ideal,
And the faith is the sight.

Here the fancy is one with the feeling,
And the feeling is pure;
While the doubt is the dawning's revealing,
Whose revealing is sure.

Here the soul is at one with the senses,
And they chime in their plea;
Yea, the circle of seeing condenses,
And to think is to be.

Here the hope is the same as fruition,
And to guess to be right;
Its degrees are removed from transition,
And desire is delight.

Here the wish by the thought is incited,
Yet is later than act;
And the thought and the thing are united,
In a loftier fact.

Here is none that may dare to be jealous,
But for crowns of the cross;
And the seeker that fain would be zealous,
Must be zealous for loss.

Here the head that goes bowing and hoary,
For the slanders of fame,
Has a diadem dazzling in glory,
Be the diadem shame.

Here the flower that is fairest in blooming,
Is the blossom of pain;
And no prize can compare, with entombing
The gold baubles of gain.

Here the heaven that is forged by a fetter,
In the Beautiful Land;
And its world is enshrined in the letter,
That I hold in my hand.

Here a man can live only by dying,
And no cravings encroach;
All the songs are the music of sighing,
All the honours reproach.

Here the body is bruised by the scourges,
That invisibly hail;
And the cradles are passionate surges,
And the blushes are pale.

592

Here the evenings are gray, and the morning
Wears the red rose of storm;
And the day has that sombre adorning,
Which the cerements form.

Here the eyes are from sadness so tender,
And a blight is the bloom;
And the skies are supreme in their splendour,
But the splendour is doom.

Here is stillness more perfect than any,
Not annoyed by a breath;
And the multitudes in it are many,
Though the stillness is death.

Here is pity completed by knowledge,
By the wisdom of woe;
And the lore not of court nor of college,
Not a sham nor a show.

Here the child has the elder's discerning,
From the schooling of grief;
And a change in the place of the burning,
Is alone the relief.

Here all seasons with sorrow are wedding,
And all ages are one;
And the light of the sepulchres' shedding,
Is the firmament's sun.

Here is loving consummate in losing,
Rendered sacred by scars;
A renouncement the spirit's own choosing,
That upraises its bars.

Here the prizes of earth are as ashes,
And the buffets are balm;
For the thrones and the garlands are lashes,
And the pain is the palm.

Here has vanished all vestige of merit,
And denial is power;
Not a soul has a shred to inherit,
Save disaster as dower.

Here his tears are the sufferer's treasures,
And the darkness his bride;
Yea, the shadows of mourning the measures,
And its measures are wide.

No despair in this kingdom can enter,
Though the hope be not glad:
Yet is faith its immoveable centre,
If the circle is sad.

593

But distress is the bread of the nations,
And affliction their cup;
In long sacrifice grand education,
And abasement lifts up.

In the bosom of sorrow they nestle,
By its billows are tost;
They are blest who with misery wrestle,
He has lived who has lost.

Here they trample the wine-press of anguish,
In the heat of the noon;
Under infinite burdens they languish,
But the load is their boon.

Still they look from the dust of the valleys,
To the summits beyond;
Though they drudge in the dreariest alleys,
Yet they never despond.

They rejoice in no respite from labour,
For to work is to win;
No one needs to ask who is his neighbour,
Since the world is his kin.

They demand not the wages of toiling,
But the thorns for the breast;
Their reward is the enemy's spoiling,
And rebuking their rest.

They desire not a term to their trouble,
Save the limit of life;
Pray but torture its blows to redouble,
And make sharper its knife.

For their triumph is keen tribulation,
In their sicknesses gain;
And they covet no meed of mutation
But more winnowing pain.

They find peace in the searchings and siftings,
Of hostility's gales;
They aspire not to heights and upliftings,
Save the cross that impales.

In the print of the nails is their study,
On the stigmata looks;
Though the letters are livid and bloody,
Yet their wounds are their books.

On the point of the spear is their pillow,
In the mouth of the sword;
They are calm in the crash of the billow,
And of hurts is their hoard.

594

Their most precious possession is spending,
While the strokes are their hire;
And the joy of their substance is lending,
Be the borrower fire.

Of their righteousness rich is the raiment,
And to clothe us they bend;
When they take they give ten-fold repayment,
And they take but to mend.

If their service be sorrow and weeping,
Yet the sorrow is sweet;
If no kisses of lips be the reaping,
There is kissing the feet.

They have fruits that they gather and harvest,
But of stubble and stocks;
And when thou, O sad shepherdess, starvest,
They resign thee their flocks,

Ah, the worm is their friend and their neighbour,
And their fellow the grave;
Their repose is the rapture of labour,
Their refreshment to slave.

And their children are outcasts and strangers,
That no father will own;
While their waking is darkness and danger,
And their pillows a stone.

Still their life is the gift that they offer,
At calamity's call;
And their home is the hate of the scoffer,
And in nothing their all.

And the part of the doomed is their portion,
While their garment is grief;
And their greeting is slander's distortion,
When it comes as a thief.

In the beggar they welcome a brother,
And their kinsman is care;
And to misery looking as mother,
With its minions they share.

For esteem they have fagots and halter,
For reward they have rods;
And no glory is seen in their altar,
And no grace in their gods.

All their pride is the stooping of meekness,
All their profit is loss;
And their strength is the strength of their weakness,
And their crown is a cross.

595

They have thrones—but of thorns and despising,
They have drink—but of tears,
They have names—but not names of our prizing,
They have bread—but of fears.

Theirs is honour—that holds not of glory,
Theirs is wealth—made of woe,
Theirs is fame—that is infamy's story,
Theirs are stars—fall'n below.

O the right of this people is wronging,
And their privilege ills;
In their pangs are their dearest belongings,
And their cure is what kills.

They are here in the bounds of these pages,
And their voice is thy cry;
Yet they stretch through the measureless ages,
Beyond earth and the sky.

For in grief is the perfectest measures,
Of the land and the main;
Lo, it holds up its mirror to pleasure,
And the picture is pain.

Though the feet of the picture be shrouded,
To its sceptre they rise;
And eternity's cycles are crowded,
In a second of sighs.

And the multitude only of mourners,
By thy eloquence stirred,
In their farthest withdrawings and corners,
They have seen—they have heard.

For the silence has echoed thy troubles,
And the darkness has told;
And the stream breathed them out in its bubbles,
That the air might enfold.

Thou hast wept—and the shadowy races,
They have wept with thee still;
Thou hast throbbed—and in passionless places,
They have moved at thy thrill.

Thou hast called—and they muster their legions,
From horizons of shade;
And they rally from sorrowful regions,
Where the flowers ever fade.

And, behold, they are here in their numbers,
A mysterious mob;
Thou hast broken their visionless slumbers;
With the sound of a sob.

596

They have come—and no pleading can bring them,
That is fathered by fear;
They have flown with the mercies that wing them,
In the space of a tear.

In these leaves with their pitiful lisping,
Is the rustling of robes;
As if grave-clothes were creeping and crisping,
Round the presence that probes.

Yea, I fancy the trailing of fetters,
And the clinking of chains;
And the lines that are only thy letter's,
Look like blood-written stains.

Such a spell has the spirit of sadness,
To awaken the dead;
It gives form to the phantoms of madness,
And to horror a head.

It adds body to mists of the morning,
To despairing is light;
While the touch of its tender adorning,
Will transfigure the night.

It sheds softness on shackles of iron,
And on granite-bound shores;
It makes shapely the shades that environ,
And has beauty for sores.

It has substance for dreams and delusions,
That bewilder the hope;
And it guides, from the slough of confusions,
To the beaconing slope.

Lo, it lends of its balm to the panting,
When they fall in their vows;
And it wreathes a diviner enchanting,
Round the conquering brows.

And it breathes in the tempest a quiet,
Or in sepulchres life;
While the force of its terrible fiat,
Turns the stillness to strife.

It is here in this pinch of a paper,
All the empire of grief;
It has come and will go as a vapour,
But itself is relief.

It has come with a salve for thy scorning,
And with healing at core;
It will go in the fulness of mourning,
When the night is no more.

597

To the majesty beaming from sorrows,
No corruption can cling
And a hundredfold more than it borrows,
It will lavishly bring.

Here the bourne and the bases of being,
Are expressed in a prayer;
And the sight is as one with the seeing,
And to be is to bear.

Here the ground is so wondrous and holy,
That the foot may not tread;
Save with weeping and worshipping lowly,
And a heart that has bled.

Here the air is so silent and solemn,
That we catch at our breath;
As in ruins who read on a column,
That the reading is death.

And yet here—at the truth though I tremble,
At the truth to be told—
One has gazed that I fain would dissemble,
Like the blighting of cold.

Did I say that thy shelter was shaken,
“By a tempest unseen”?
That thy fate was a portion forsaken,
With a surface serene?

Here has lighted the look of a stranger,
Though thy nearest in law;
When thou hadst not a dream of the danger,
Of the spying that saw.

Here has gloated the hatred that scorches,
When the love has dropped off;
And has held its unholy debauches,
Of defiance and scoff.

When the sleep that is sleep of prostration,
Was disarming thy frame;
With a choking of choice execration,
The catastrophe came.

With the text for next Sunday just pointed,
By an exquisite oath;
The beloved of thy breast, thy anointed,
Came to murder his troth.

This assassin of hearts and of slumber—
Call him husband, not man—
Came thy tears and thy troubles to number,
All his malice could scan.

598

Lo, he crept to thy bosom's dissection,
With the scalpel of lust;
With the shuffling and shambling detection,
Of obesity's crust.

Then he warmed to his work of defilement,
Though his movements were slow;
And his limbs felt a novel beguilement,
In the foretaste of woe.

With a sliding and sinister winding,
Like the slot of a slug;
On he crawled to the grave of his finding,
What his hatred might hug.

There was mumbling and mincing of Latin,
With a rounding of Greek;
When he found there was faith under satin,
And a woman could speak.

There was shrugging of shoulders, though flavoured
With a favourite curse;
When he saw that thou simply hadst wavered;
He had hoped it was worse.

And his lips gave a blasphemous blessing,
But no blessing of thee;
And his fingers moved fondly caressing,
Not his wife but his knee.

On his tongue was the name of his Maker,
Not in prayer nor in praise;
And his mien while demure as a Quaker,
Hid the anger that slays.

And his teeth shut a trifle yet closer,
Lest some frailty should feel;
While he borrowed false weights from his grocer,
From the butcher his steel.

The short measures and shorter endurings,
That adulterate all;
He took up for his slander's securing,
And to soften his fall.

Then as grinding of heels on the gravel,
Or the rasp of a file,
Low he muttered some manglings of cavil,
With a terrible smile.

And his features relaxed for a season,
Not from changing of aim;
His lips watered with savour of treason,
At the banquet of shame.

599

Ere he soused in the rioting revels,
Of his venomous feast;
The carousal that manliness levels,
To the slough of the beast.

O the warping that was not a weakening,
Of calumnious eyes;
As they fell with a funeral beaconing,
On their innocent prize.

Yet they dallied awhile in derision,
With a prurient scowl;
And delay that was no indecision,
Stayed their scrutiny foul.

There was swaying of form and of fashion,
But no swerving of mind;
As the gusts of disfiguring passion,
Made him bitter and blind.

As in clouds they went chasing each other,
With their shadowy shoots;
The vile purpose no smiling could smother,
They confirmed at its roots.

All the shifting of face did not falter,
Nor with mercy might mix;
All the shaking of wrath could not alter,
And they shook but to fix.

Not a shade on his brow's resolution,
But the shade of dislike;
Not a pause in his grim execution,
But the pause how to strike.

So he stayed but to toy and to trifle,
And his appetite bait;
While his lusts rallied fiercely to rifle,
All the sweetness of hate.

As a serpent its victim involving,
With invincible rings;
Has a doubt for a moment's dissolving,
Where to fasten its stings.

Then the keener from lingering's unction,
Like a shaft from a bow;
Like a shaft that's not winged with compunction,
He delivered his blow.

And his mark was the soul of a mourner,
And her sleep would he slay;
As the hand of the perjured suborner,
Makes the helpless its prey.

600

But the angels that poise on their pinions,
Round the innocents' throne,
Drew her soul in their tender dominions,
And he harmed but his own.

For the stroke that he aimed at the dreamer,
Who divided his bed;
That recoiled with revenging supremer,
With its doom on his head.

And the sin that thy honour was seeking,
With the blackness of pelf;
It fell short of its infamous wreaking,
And he murdered himself.

What if treachery ransacked thy riches,
All thy dignity's boast?
Though defencelessness offered no hitches,
His he ransacked the most.

He despoiled his own soul of its beauty,
Of respect and of pride;
And when formless desire shaped his duty,
Then his manliness died.

He defrauded his life of its treasure,
The fair treasure of trust;
When he plucked from debasement his measure,
And his learning from lust.

He has dared with the devils to palter,
For betrayal of truth;
He has sacrificed faith on his altar,
To an idol uncouth.

What if then he has read the recesses,
Of thy glorious heart?
Not a gleam to his pestilent guesses,
Could thy glory impart.

He has seen but the symbols so blotted,
By the wrestling of grace;
With a sight too unpurged and besotted,
Such a breadth to embrace.

At his highest he halts in the letter,
On the surface and sign;
Yea, his freedom thy spirit would fetter,
And his candour malign.

He has searched but the visible striving,
Of invisible might;
But the shadows and outward derivings,
Not the intimate light.

601

Thou art silent and sealed to his vision,
As a volume unwrit;
For the fields and the fountains Elysian,
No corruption admit.

He has staggered and fall'n at the portal,
Without glimpse of the clue;
Of the key that unlocks the immortal,
Of the tender and true.

Let him dream in his impotent malice,
What he never may win;
Though he brood on the brim of the chalice,
He shall drink not within.

Let him dote with the longing of lovers,
On the plunder of hate;
Not thy doom is the doom he discovers,
But his own is the fate.

He has heard not the anthem of sorrows,
From the crosses made thrones;
And no catch from the pothouse he borrows,
Can interpret its tones.

On his feelings however he fiddle,
They are dumb to the air;
He is deaf to the ravishing riddle,
To the visitings fair.

With the strings he may finger and fumble,
They attune not his mind;
He may strike but he only will stumble,
On delusions of wind.

Let him heap up thy furnace with fuel,
And be glutted with ire;
Be his hatred as cunning as oruel,
Yet for him is the fire.

He is blind to thy beautiful cravings,
Revelations of woe;
To the wondrous celestial wavings,
And the summits that glow.

The fumes of debauchery fuddle,
His poor vapouring brain;
While he meddles with all but to muddle,
And thy bliss is his bane.

He is far from the sources of sweetness,
Where thy heart has its home;
Where the pain is but pleasure's completeness,
And no clown every clomb.

602

With the swine of his animal fashions,
Let him fatten on husks;
Till he fall as the food of his passions,
And is torn with their tusks.

They shall strip him with terrible spoilings,
With their hoofs they shall spurn;
They shall rest from their rendings and soilings,
With more wrath to return.

He has trod on the uttermost border,
Of the kingdom of grief;
He has come as a midnight marauder,
And has gone as a thief.

For by purity's sword is he thwarted,
And by modesty's shield;
And the arms that his darkness distorted,
Were not arms he could wield.

By the merciless storm is he shaken,
Which he called to his aid;
In the treacherous traps is he taken,
Which his villainy laid.

He is baulked, he is blinded for ever,
By excess of the light;
And the blight of his barren endeavour,
Has but blasted his sight.

He has groped in captivity carnal,
With his step on the stair;
He has fled as a ghoul to the charnel,
As a worm to its lair.

He is baffled, O Lady of Mourning,
By the depth of thy blots;
And the flash of his insolent scorning,
Turns to splendour the spots.

Does he think with his evil invention,
To make light of thy loss?
Lo, the fire of his burning contention,
Is but purging thy dross.

As in blackness of ruin and storming,
Without moon, without stars;
Comes the lightning with lurid transforming,
And ennobles the scars.

And the flower of a fairer creation,
From his earthliness grows;
And the crown of a great consecration,
His unholiness throws.

603

By the side of his heartlessness hoary,
In the dirt where he lies;
Thou art touched and transfigured with glory,
And raised up to the skies.

And O now with that halo surrounded,
Thou art drifting apart;
All the width of the world so unbounded,
Of the infinite heart.

Though your hands may be clasped in convention,
In the bonds that have been;
Ye are burdened with endless dissension,
As by ages between.

Ye may close in conjugal embraces,
And be friends in the street;
While estranged by unmerciful spaces,
If your souls never meet.

And hypocrisy widens the distance,
With its counterfeit coin;
And society's rigid resistance,
Can attach but not join.

Not a judgment whatever its meetness,
Not a formula's force,
Ever wrought with such fatal completeness,
So supreme a divorce.

No revulsion of scorn or of rancour,
And no jealousy's breath,
Could divide as your sacrament's anchor,
With its sentence of death.

And no hate has so cruel a carriage,
And no hold such a tie,
As the prison whose title is marriage,
And whose chains are a lie.

No divisions can utterly sever,
As the bondage of shams;
And no partings can banish for ever,
As the union that damns.

Thou art separate, clouded and cloven,
By the welding that warps;
Yet art bound by the web thou hast woven,
As a bride to a corpse.

Consolation may come for bereaving,
And a light to the lost;
Not to usage's solemn deceiving,
With its fetters of frost.

604

There are forms that will blossom and flourish,
Without sunshine or seed;
Ceremonial ashes will nourish,
And corruption will feed.

Are there idols so grim in adherence,
Or such blood-sucking ghouls,
As that monster whose name is Appearance,
And whose sacrifice souls?

There are despots too many and mighty,
Who devour us with strife;
They have bounds to their tyranny flighty,
They are sated with life.

But the empire of Custom is vaster,
And more bitter its breath;
It both kills with a hopeless disaster,
And destroys after death.

And Decorum its darling and minion,
Is as strong as its lord;
In our hearts is its hungry dominion,
And our joys are its sword.

It pursues us, on wings it has stolen,
From the breast of our doves;
And the ruin it deals us is swollen,
With the sweets of our loves.

And in this is what deepliest harrows,
Is the crown of your curse;
It is bad, when your own are the arrows,
But to speed them is worse.

Ye conspire with the plottings of Fashion,
To make faster your chains;
While the rivets are lent by compassion,
And by pleasure the pains.

But if calumny breaks with its slanders,
All the linkings of love;
A true hope to no ritual panders,
And has linkings above.

O my Beauty, I wander in ravings,
At the earth-cloud that clings;
I am clogged with the potsherds and pavings,
The unfitness of things.

Dost thou ask how I know of the treason,
Of the lord of thy life?
That he found thy extremity's season,
With occasions so rife?

605

How I know? I have written assurance,
What thy slumbers betrayed;
He has sent it, to test my endurance,
With his reasons arrayed.

Yea, he brags of his base prostitution,
At his dastardly skill;
I have tried to wash off the pollution,
But it sticks to me still.

For this hand has been soiled by the token,
Of his triumphing mean;
It is marred with its purity broken,
And can never be clean.

He has dared from my quiver to borrow,
His most excellent dart;
It is feathered with plumes of my sorrow,
It is here at my heart.

And what weapons were finer and fitter,
Than the gibes he has thrown?
And what wounds were more deadly and bitter,
Since unseen and unknown?

I am sorely distainèd and stricken,
And my soul is the seal;
And the bruises that sadden and sicken,
There is nothing to heal.

He is filthy with foulest obsceneness,
Both at heart and on hand;
And his brow, with its pitiful leanness,
Has no breadth for my brand.

O thou thing, beyond reaching of title,
Beneath hate and contempt;
Thou art surely from blows of requital,
By thy vileness exempt.

I have erred in my angry defacement,
From the goading of cares;
Thou art saved by thy very abasement,
And thy littleness spares.

Keep that peace, in the sloth thou dost cherish,
That ignobleness gives;
While the great in all wickedness perish,
Insignificance lives.

Ah, thy forehead is hopelessly narrow,
For the “fool” I would grave;
And thou hast not enough of the marrow,
For the making of “knave.”

606

And thy breast is too stony and stunted,
For the curse I would root;
And the beasts were with justice affronted,
If I dubbed thee a brute.

And thy life, were it creeping for ever,
Through its windings and mire;
Would not reach in its longest endeavour,
To the length of my ire.

And thy hatred though deep as the ocean,
When the storm is its mate;
Would not sound in its angriest motion,
Half the depth of my hate.

Should thy wrath be more fierce in its burning,
Than the raging of flame;
It would gauge not a tithe of my spurning,
At the shadow of shame.

Now go down to the latest December,
In thy self-woven net;
As a creature too base to remember,
And too black to forget.

Dost thou think that by gowns and by cassocks,
By thy bands and thy beard,
Or the tea that is tempered with hassocks,
Thy repute will be cleared?

Thou art big in the pulpit, no wonder,
Since the pulpit is small;
But no art can atone for the blunder,
Of thy being at all.

'Tis a sight, how he sputters and spatters,
If the subject is deep;
How the dust and the doctrine he scatters,
Would make jackasses weep.

For the cushion he shows no compunction,
When with sin he would cope;
While he washes his hands in his unction,
With invisible soap.

Then with “thirdly and lastly” he wrestles,
And belabours his book;
And concludes you are weaklier vessels,
Meant to breed or to cook.

He rates men as a nobler creation,
That you hamper or vex;
And reserves his more hearty damnation,
For the guiltier sex.

607

“Look at Eve” he will say, with a rolling,
Of his sensual lip;
“It was she in her scorn of controlling,
Made that terrible slip.”

Then he chuckles with sinister sleekness,
And looks round with a scowl:—
“To be woman is still to be weakness,
To be fair to be foul.”

While he swallows his words with a relish,
That their virulence lends;
With a purpose inhuman and hellish,
Though defeating its ends.

Here he snorts, and then crowning the libel,
That he likes not to leave:—
“As of old,” (and he bangs at the Bible),
She delights to deceive.”

“She was first in the fatal transgression,
And she is to this hour;
And the last she will be, without pressing;
It's her birthright and dower.”

Then inflicting with infinite ardour,
On his sermon a hug,
He expands with some utterance harder,
Which he caps with a shrug.

Then he turns to the feminine faces,
And makes play with his eyes;
He convicts them of pestilent graces,
Buries learning in lies.

If he hits on some heterodox bonnet,
He pronounces its doom;
Pours his vials of slander upon it,
Like a crapulous groom.

Then assuming the air of a mourner,
Who some wickedness stems;
He looks straight at thy innocent corner,
With a glance that condemns.

“I have suffered my friends,” he confesses,
“From these antics and airs;
Sad experience points my addresses,
And would warn you of snares.”

“There are women and women, my brothers,
And with numberless arts;
But one end every difference smothers,
And illumines their parts.”

608

“And the end, though by history chidden,
And rebuked in their sight,
Is a passion for courses forbidden,
And for stolen delights.”

So he recklessly bellows and blusters,
With a devilish aim;
And the raggedest reason he musters,
For the clothing of shame.

Now he chokes with his surfeit of malice,
And grows purple of mien;
As he drinks from the poisonous chalice,
Of his murderous spleen.

Now he flogs at some difficult turning,
Some recalcitrant noun;
With a hubbub of spitting and spurning,
And the voice of a clown.

Or he halts on the obstinate angles,
To recover his wind;
While his spite with his memory wrangles,
A new falsehood to find.

Then away he is off at a canter,
From the highway of sense;
Till he jibs in his boisterous banter,
At Theology's fence.

Still he covers his fiction with fable,
And avers them on oath;
Draws his facts from the pigstye or stable
And his feeling from both.

Yet he stammers at times in invective,
Not from pity or doubt;
But when choosing some arm more effective,
His poor victim to flout.

And he blushes, but not with the reddening
Of remorse or of fears;
For his souls has a desperate deadening;
And it's only his ears.

And he offers a laboured apology,
Which is not a pretence;
For some tragical trip in chronology;
Not, alas, for offence.

And he bows with a sweep consequential,
As if saddened and sick;
Yet his bending is not penitential,
But rhetorical trick.

609

And he ceases by fits from his fuming,
To consider a debt—
What he owes to a hatred consuming—
And not that of regret.

And he swerves from his murderous measures,
Not from vulgar concern;
But to seek in his calumny's treasures,
Some more terrible turn.

Should he drawl like a simpering waiter,
Or mock thunderbolts hurl,
He has still but the hand of a traitor,
And the heart of a churl.

Though his face so austerely be shaven,
And the tears come at call;
He is ever a pitiful craven,
He is abject in all.

If he glosses the evil he fuses,
With a varnish of good;
Yet the credit you grant he abuses,
And his hypocrite's hood.

When his sentiments savour the sweetest,
And his piety boast—
When his language is modest and meetest—
Then avoid him the most.

While he harps on the horror of meanness,
And is heavy on pelf—
Though his own gives the satire its keenness—
He is always himself.

Let him rave of the riches of trials,
And the lusting that kills;
Never mind all his praise of denials,
But what coffers he fills.

Let him bless the believer that anchors
Far from covetous gales;
But yet see for what harbour he hankers,
On what voyage he sails.

He may prate of the prize of salvation,
And the covenant pacts;
Look at home on his splendid negation,
And observe how he acts.

He may talk of the merits of manna,
Nor to flesh-pots be blind;
He may shout with the loudest Hosanna,
And be Judas in mind.

610

O ye fools, that delight to be taken,
With his clap-trap and cries,
With his mincing and mummery shaken,
When he lives in your eyes!

He is flowing with milk and with honey,
And celestial balms;
While he feathers his nest with the money,
That he wrings from your alms.

Though he screws from the pauper his pittance,
From the widow her mite;
Yet he deals them no righteous acquittance,
When they waken his spite.

If his balance is good with his banker,
He is thirsting for more;
And he nurses the deadliest rancour,
At a wealthier store.

Too unworthy to live with the meanest,
And too dirty to die;
Is there anywhere space the uncleanest,
Where in peace he may lie?

If Oblivion will have him and hold him,
Let him pack and be quick;
For the worm is no fellow to fold him,
And a coffin would kick.

Yea, the grave is too pure for his shelter;
And the vermin, that sup
On the refuse and rot where they welter,
They would vomit him up.

In the tombs of the homicides' city,
He shall never abide;
Nor his name will Contempt, in its pity,
With its excrements hide.

And the ghouls that go preying and prowling,
Where the vilest are lain;
They shall fly him lest theirs be the fouling,
And lest they be the slain.

He shall find not the filthiest portion,
With the hangman and whore;
He shall live as a putrid abortion,
Until Time be no more.

611

PART III.—THE CROWN OF SORROW.

Is it death or a vision of dying,
With a knell in the air?
Is the fate that in silence was lying,
Bodied forth from its lair?

Can it be that I peddle or palter,
With the rubbish of life;
Now my neck is so fast in a halter,
At my heart is a knife?

Do I pander to parts that are grosser,
Give my appetites scope;
When the point is still pressing me closer,
And more tightly the rope?

Is the doomsman of sorrow my brother,
Who has come as a thief?
Am I he who I was, or another
With a kinglier grief?

Is it day-time or night-time, I wonder,
That so hard on me lies?
For a dream of destruction and thunder
Is abroad in the skies.

Have I died and awakened, to harken
To a soul-stirring strain?
Are these tears or delusions, that darken
With their shadowy rain?

Is it rather a middle fruition,
Of a phantasy slow;
Between bliss and an utter perdition,
Neither pleasure nor woe?

Lo, I ask, but I know not the answer,
And I hear not a breath;
I am struck as a petrified dancer,
When his partner is death?

But around me the festival raises,
Its excess to its height;
While I move through the passionless mazes,
In a banquet of night.

I am wrapped in the silence as raiment
I am clad with the gloom;
I am bound by a bitter repayment,
In the fetter of doom.

612

There has come on my silence a vision,
On my waking a trance;
And before me are shut in derision,
The sweet gates of romance.

I was playing my part, in the juggle
Of deception and strife;
When there fell on my fatuous struggle,
The unmasking of life.

As of old, there was toiling and spinning,
And the world was a top;
The repentance was ousted by sinning,
And the grave had the crop.

And the weak, not the wicked, were falling,
In the scourging of Fate;
And the passions grew grim and enthralling,
And the criminals great.

There was lifting of hands in the churches,
But no lifting of hearts;
And a blighting made barren researches,
In the embers of arts.

And the State with its riches was cloying,
Waxing foolish and fat;
Like a garrulous dowager, toying
With her curate or cat.

They were married and giving in marriage,
And they bought and they sold;
While the fool had his hand on his carriage,
And the knave on his gold.

And the bride was as bright as a blossom,
In the sunnier South;
And, more fair than the rose on her bosom,
Was the rose of her mouth.

And the priest was pronouncing a blessing,
On the new-wedded pair;
And the lover had breathed his caressing,
To the bird of the air.

And the kiss was, though severed by distance,
On its way to the lip;
And the lily was feigning resistance,
To the butterfly's sip.

There were sounds of rejoicings and laughter,
Upon mountain and lawn;
There were beams of a better hereafter,
In the dews of the dawn.

613

And the lad had his step on the stirrup,
That would bear him to hope;
And the lass heard the nightingale chirrup,
On the whispering slope.

And the moon paid her silver transmuted,
From the gold of the sun;
And the stars with their magic reputed.
Had their missions to run.

And the bard at humanity's portal,
Seized the fancy that flies;
While he fixed it in colours immortal,
From the earth and the skies.

There was screwing and hoarding in hovel,
As in elegant room;
And the author so wise in his novel,
Was the gull of his groom.

And a horror of mourning and hunger,
Fashioned maidenhood gray;
And his joy made the patriarch younger,
Than the boy at his play.

And the trencher acquaintance was sidling,
Within scent of the pot;
And the king (like the corpse) in his idling,
Was beginning to rot.

There was scraping of fiddles and dishes,
And a pinching of shoes;
And the sum of the loftiest wishes,
Was how little to lose.

Just to steer beyond hail of the halter,
Was the pride of the waif;
And the miser with knee at the altar,
Kept his soul in his safe.

There was cackle of geese, at the wedding,
Of the title and till;
And the peer gave the packman his bedding,
With his eye on the will.

And the nobleman's bastard was puzzling,
How his belly to line;
While his three-bottle father was guzzling,
His debauches of wine.

And the truth had its throne, in the pillory,
Of a beef-witted race;
And the soldier to beauty's artillery,
Was abasing his face.

614

There was spreading of doctrines and dinners,
For old women to meet;
And the pulpit at war with the sinners,
Was their friend in the street.

And the drawing room's delicate hero,
And the idol of “drums,”
Found his level was lower than Zero,
Without scandalous crumbs.

And the pavement was ripe for a revel,
Be it feasting or wrack;
And would march to the dogs or the devil,
With a flea on its back.

And the world was a tragical medley,
Of starvation and gold;
While its tender embracing was deadly,
And its kisses were cold.

To the strong was no prize, in the battle,
Nor the race to the swift;
And the waves of a driveller's tattle,
Set an empire adrift.

And the waste that no weights could examine,
Had its seat on the throne;
While the heart of the people was famine,
And their bread was a stone.

And the gospel whose home is the gutter,
In the palace was preached;
And the vices that mumble and mutter,
To the sanctuary reached.

One was taken by justice desúltory,
And the other was left;
While the woman was caught in adultery,
And the man in his theft.

And the maid still her mistress was robbing,
Of repute and of gowns;
And the world was a pendulum, bobbing
Between crosses and crowns.

And the smock held a court in the cottage,
That was nobler than kings';
And the dupe bought a handful of pottage,
When his birthright took wings.

And the prince was a fool to his peasant,
And his love was his lord;
And the queen to his pillow so pleasant,
Was no queen of his board.

615

There was penury raised to the gallows,
And the bribe to the bench;
While the statesman was wrecked by the shallows,
And the wise by a wench.

As of old there were laughter and weeping,
Between liquor and lips;
Under roses the serpent was creeping,
Before kisses came slips.

And the lout who by day swept the crossing,
Was a lion at night;
And the mud of his beggarly crossing,
Turned to jewels and light.

And the dirt that was splashed on the chariot,
On the coronet's pride,
Was more clean than the gorgeous Iscariot,
Who was lounging inside.

And the dungeons of dogmas were battered,
By a famishing flood;
And the safeguards that tyranny shatters,
Were cemented by blood.

And the maiden so eager for marriage,
Was impaled on its horns;
While her life was a lie or miscarriage,
Her caresses were thorns.

And the past was the bliss of the matron,
But the present her bane;
And her future the nod of a patron,
When his revenues wane.

And the child of the saintliest mother,
To whom prayer was as breath,
Grew a stranger and infamy's brother,
And the darling of death.

And the widow had still to impòrtune,
For the justice that slept;
And the villain, whose smile was his fortune,
Still was hanged when he wept.

And the leech with his eye on the pocket,
And the pulse in his hand,
Every symptom was careful to docket,
Every luxury scann'd.

To be virtuous still seemed an error,
Unless virtue was paid;
To be chaste still the deadliest terror,
Both to man and to maid.

616

And the merchant whose credit was hollow,
Made the goodliest heap;
And the singer her sisters would follow,
Who was charming was cheap.

And the lawyer nonsuited by coma,
Yet eluded its grip;
And expired in the sweetest aroma,
With a lie on his lip.

And the churches with portals expanding,
Were a solitude still;
And the prisons though barred and withstanding,
Yet had more than their fill.

To be natural would have been duty,
Were cosmetics not known;
And the face of the actress been beauty,
If it had been her own.

The diplomatist finding his level,
All the length of a knave,
Still confessed and defrauded the devil,
And deflowered the grave.

Still the maw of the monk was a cavern,
And his pleasure in plot;
While the temple gave way to the tavern,
And the pyx to the pot.

And the actor whose part was deluding,
Though he died made no sign;
And the ass, with his ears so protruding,
Yet when dead was divine.

Still the tongue of the saint was an arrow,
And denial meant more;
And to put off the world and its marrow,
Was to put on the whore.

And the love for the soul in the cloister,
Still was leavened by lust;
And the nunnery still was an oyster,
That when opened was dust.

More than prudery nought was transgression,
And there well might be less;
And the fathers who came for confession,
Still remained to caress.

Still sweet vespers were sung by the willows,
And strange matins at morns;
While the penance was paid on the pillows,
But no pillows of thorns.

617

And to crucify joy and its fellows,
Was to darken the soul;
Was to banish the mingling that mellows,
And illumines the whole.

And to shut out the world and its angles,
Was to shut in the flesh;
And to trap the desire in the tangles,
Of a self-woven mesh.

And to pen up the feelings in panels,
Was to coffin the heart;
And to turn them in gloomier channels,
A more prurient plant.

And to torture delight at its sources,
Was to poison the fount;
And to crowd all its exquisite courses,
In one deadly account.

To make mountains of possible evil,
Was to render it sure;
And to open to worm and to weevil,
Every granary pure.

And to barter the sense for salvation,
Was to gain what is worse,
(Not a future but present damnation),
Both to kill and to curse.

To be poor was the worst of offences,
To be just was a sin;
And the nature with fairest pretences,
Was the foulest within.

To be good was a ludicrous blunder,
That the failure would mend;
To be honest was simply to sunder,
The success from the end.

To be sick, in the world of the strongest,
Was to go to the wall;
And for sorrow, though life were the longest,
There was room but to fall.

Where the mass was a chaos polluted,
To be clean was a crime;
For religion (save merely reputed),
There could never be time.

It was folly for man to be moral,
When reward was a wraith;
And a creed was the bells and the coral,
For the infants of faith.

618

A regret was as weak as compassion,
And remorse was to dote;
It was frenzy, when beams were in fashion,
To repent of a mote.

So was wagging the world in its madness,
As it rollicked of yore;
Still a premium was put on its badness,
Like the premium before.

Still the monkey was blowing his trumpet,
And the cat was his paw;
And the hand that could cosset a strumpet,
Yet would shrink from a straw.

Still the nun was a delicate morsel,
For an amorous mouth;
And while pity sat on the doorsill,
All inside there was drouth.

Still if satire would hope to exhibit,
Now a vice, now a curse;
There were virtues too vile for the gibbet,
And some blessings were worse.

Then the flood in its fury came rifling,
And the storm from its tomb;
And within and without was the stifling,
Of a horror of gloom.

Then the thunderbolt fell out of pity,
With a balm in its blows;
And a moaning went up from the city,
And a weeping arose.

And the brow of the bridegroom was darkened,
As the eyes of the bride;
And the ears of the roysterers harkened,
And the wailing replied.

And the song was despoiled of its glamour,
In the pride of its breath;
While a silence descended on clamour,
And the silence was death.

And the stream of the revels was frozen,
At the palace's gate;
By the shadow no juggler could cozen,
And the shadow was fate.

Though the flower in its glory was double,
It was stript of its bloom;
And there fell on the gardens a trouble,
And the trouble was doom.

619

Lo, the tempest was black in the byeway,
And in luxury's lair;
While its voice was a curse on the highway,
And its step on the stair.

And its knock was a knell to the portal,
As the call of the dead;
And the monarch, in majesty mortal,
Felt its hand on its head.

Then they rose up because of the lashes,
And they sat down to grieve;
And they grovelled in dust and in ashes,
But they did not relieve.

And the cry of the orphans was bitter,
But the answer was dumb;
Though they longed for the end that was fitter,
Yet the end did not come.

Yea, the widow put sack-cloth around her,
And a veil on her face;
But the breath of destruction enwound her,
With a darker embrace.

Then the infant was torn from its mother,
And the husband from wife;
In their sorrow they knew not each other,
And the friends were at strife.

In the night-time they prayed for the morning,
Then for morning to go;
And the scoffer whose hire was for scorning,
Had the wages of woe.

Then above them the heavens were confusion,
And the fountains were dry;
In their blindness they worshipped delusion,
And their god was a lie.

They believed that the mire was their father,
And their faith was in sin;
In the cleansing of surfaces, rather
Than the purging within.

And they bent to the phantoms of error,
Till their spirits were bowed;
And they made from the mockings of error,
Their own funeral shroud.

From the creeds they had buried beneath them,
Their consumings were lit;
And like serpents of shade to enwreathe them,
Rushed the knots they had knit.

620

Then the brother was nought to the sister,
And the son to his sire;
While the dripping of dew was a blister,
And the grave their desire.

For they heard not the accents of pleasure,
And they saw not its mien;
When the meting of pain was their measure,
And the night was their queen.

And they craved for the light that bedizens,
The disasters of shame;
But in hopes were undreamed of horizons,
And they knew not their name.

There was pining for buds that were blighted,
And dishevelling of hair;
And a gathering of tears they had slighted,
As of rain in the air.

Then the food of the seeker was sorrow,
And a pall was his dress;
While despair was the name of the morrow,
And to-day was distress.

Then the end of the maiden was madness,
And her dower was her doom;
And her bridal a bridal of sadness,
With the worm of the tomb.

Then the bed of the wealthy was bareness,
And his pillow a void;
While his gems were all shorn of their fairness,
And his daintiness cloyed.

For the pets that would never be playing,
There was wringing of hands;
And the light that is bred by decaying,
Was the light of the lands.

Then the sage could no grievance discover,
And the fool was as wise;
And the darling once sweet to the lover,
Was not sweet in his eyes.

And, alas, for the beautiful faces,
When their beauty was gone;
When the glow was put off from their graces,
And the gloom was put on!

There was beating of breasts, and a wailing
As the wailing of seas;
And the jester fell down in his railing,
And the knave on his knees.

621

Then their sleeping was suffering and anguish,
And their waking was woe;
And the mourner, whose life was to languish,
Found abysses below.

Then the loser was one with the winner,
And the mighty waxed faint;
While the saint was esteemed as the sinner,
And the sinner a saint.

And a wonder was seen in the tresses,
Growing gray of a night;
That had laughed to the wooer's caresses,
With but yesterday's light.

Then the usurer's gold was yet cheaper,
Than the market-place mire;
And the reveller shared with the weeper,
And their share was the fire.

Then the meek was as high as the highest,
And the haughty lay low;
And the farthest was near as the nighest,
To the ravager's blow.

And the masters their menials then followed,
And with ruin were girt;
Yea, the twain in their misery wallowed,
And they wallowed in dirt.

And the blossom was plucked in its splendour
From the delicate cheek;
And the lips that were dewy and tender,
They turned pallid and bleak.

And the peoples that strengthened their stations,
Under heaven and the stars;
They were struck in the night of the nations,
Behind bulwarks and bars.

And the swift met calamity faster,
Though more swift than the sword;
They were shaken with utter disaster,
At the blast of the Lord.

And the strong with the shield held before him,
And his hand on the spear;
He was shattered when shadows came o'er him,
With the shattering of fear.

And the feet that were fleet on the mountain,
Lo, they fell on the plain;
And the damsels that drew from the fountain
Were encompassed with pain.

622

Then the lord was to lowliness servant,
And the service was grief;
And the priest, in his ministry fervent,
Was no priest of relief.

For the day of avenging had spoken,
And the day was as night;
Yea, the pride of the spoiler was broken,
And the king in his might.

It was thus in my petulant sorrow,
When I dreamed not a close;
That the morning, (for ever the morrow),
Of my agony rose.

On the waters of weariness drifting,
I was wafted through air;
Until dashed by the tempest's uplifting
On the rocks of despair.

Ah, in truth I had played but with weeping,
And had grazed but its track;
I had painted its fanciful heaping,
With a border of black.

I was clipping the cypress of mourning,
To an elegant shape;
And was giving a tender adorning,
To my grievances' crape.

I was showing the willows I water,
A more tragical fall;
And the sables a daintier quarter,
On the pose of the pall.

I was teaching the dirge that I nourish,
A more delicate turn;
And was carving an exquisite flourish,
On my sentiment's urn.

I was toying awhile with the tassels,
On the fringes of care;
And was building most masterly castles,
In the funeral air.

I was trifling with misery's trappings,
With the pageant of pain;
And was fingering the edges and wrappings,
In imaginings vain.

I was feigning the sepulchre's scenery,
And the glamour it gave;
While I marshalled the graces and greenery,
With the flowers of the grave.

623

And I caught all the cheerier glances,
Of the tressels and biers;
And I sported with sorrow's romances,
And made music of tears.

And I marked every point that was telling,
And the poetry stole,
From the passions of pangs, that were swelling
My theatrical whole.

I was feeding a furnace ideal,
That I fanned with my breath;
And I lent it a fuel unreal,
While I flirted with death.

And I added the form of a finish,
From the costumes in store;
Did my vapouring ever diminish,
I could clothe it with more.

And I looked as an artist may ponder,
On a fantasy fair;
And I suffered my pencil to wander,
With a touch here and there.

And I tricked out the shade of the picture,
With the blue of the skies;
And I toned it with hints from the stricture,
Of hostility's eyes.

And I lavished the airs and the attitudes,
That might serve for a heart;
And I polished the usual platitudes,
On an object of art.

And I studied the dues of the statue,
As a sculptor may do;
And took care that its charms should look àt you,
With a figleaf or too.

And I ordered the tags and the trimmings,
And the drapery spread;
And I flitted with butterfly skimmings,
On the skirts of the dead.

And I tired not in all my inventing,
Where I filched not from bards;
And made capital out of lamenting,
O'er a coffin of cards.

It was but a delusion and medley,
Though delusion has weight;
And the semblance is often more deadly,
Than the substance of fate.

624

So I dreamed a mere fatuous vision,
And I clove to a cloud;
Until doom with an iron decision,
Wrapped me round in its shroud.

As I dallied in delicate fooling,
With the phantoms and forms,
Came the grimness of grief with its schooling,
And its strokes were the storm's.

Then the pliable fancies and feelings,
I had conjured in play;
Lo, they turned into stubborn revealings,
And of me made their prey.

And the thought I had thralled was my master,
As it grew into shape;
With a body of bane and disaster,
Which I could not escape.

And the forces I called to protect me,
With themselves were at strife;
And my dead foes arose to reject me,
With the friends I gave life.

And the mourning that once was luxurious,
And a joy to my soul;
Now an interest asked so usurious,
That it mocked at control.

And the figures I shaped as my creatures
That had gladdened my sight,
Now returned with implacable features,
Like a comfortless night.

And the willows of elegant weeping,
Became rods for my back;
And the hills of despair I was heaping,
Were the stones of my track.

And the roses I grew in my garden,
To make misery sweet,
Now accorded no place for my pardon,
And were thorns to my feet.

And the pity I squandered in fumings,
For the bastards of care,
Shed no dew on my cruel consumings,
Nor had solace to spare.

Thus it was and is now and for ever,
Since my darling is dead;
And the bloom of my lifetime's endeavour,
With its fragrance has fled.

625

Here I stand face to face with my duty,
And the seasons flow on;
Though the gleam and the glow and the beauty,
From their presence have gone.

I have passed beyond glosses of Fashion,
To the granite of grief;
I am tossed on the billows of Passion,
Like a storm-stricken leaf.

Now I grapple with issues of iron,
And my strife is with stone;
And though mercies my bosom environ,
Yet my heart is alone.

And the sky that was dull has waxed duller,
While the earth has grown gray;
And the throb and the thrill and the colour,
All have fleeted away.

I have sounded the hollow moralities,
Of the creeds and the cults;
And I close with the naked realities,
Of the final results.

What is man but a vanishing vapour,
With a dream for his dower;
What is life but the light of a taper,
When it burns but an hour?

I have measured the bounds of the mortal,
Where the yew-branches wave—
As I sat at the sanctuary's portal—
And its bounds were the grave.

I have heard the decree of the sentence,
On the pampered and poor;
When I knocked with the knock of repentance,
At the sepulchre's door.

I have seen that the end is inanity,
The beginning is pain;
That the upshot of life is its vanity,
It is empty and vain.

I have severed the fact from the fable,
With the winning of woe;
While I proved that no promise was stable,
If its roots were below.

I have handled the pulses of pleasures,
And I felt they were false;
I have drunk of the fountain of treasures,
And their savour was salse.

626

I am sure that the surface is hollow,
The adorning of lust;
There is nothing but famine to follow,
And the kernel is dust.

And I know that the casket is bitter,
Though it be not to taste;
Though it circles but leavings and litter,
And the jewels are paste.

I have learned the delusion is double,
For the thing and the thought;
That the tribute of seeking is trouble,
And the finding is nought.

O my voice with its weeping is weary,
And vexation its gain;
And my dreams are the echoings dreary,
Of the burden of pain.

While my waking is ghastlier vision,
And my sleeping not rest;
And a battle-ground torn by collision,
Is my sorrowful breast.

And my ears without music are lonely,
Without accents that cling;
And the tendrils entwining me only,
Have a funeral ring.

Yea, I hear but the sob of the surges,
And I drink but the brine—
Of the doom of disconsolate dirges—
And the dirges are mine.

Now the sun is despoiled of his splendour,
And the moon gives no light;
The caresses no longer are tender,
And the red cheek is white.

Disillusioned is time of its glory,
Disenchanted is space;
And the head of creation is hoary,
And her growth without grace.

We are dust and a handful of ashes,
Just a shadow and show;
And our truths are but transient flashes,
From horizons below.

She has fallen—has fallen—my Beauty,
When no storm-cloud was nigh;
Like a queen in the height of her duty,
Like a star from the sky.

627

Lo, the tempest has come without warning,
As it swoops in the South;
And the night that has never a morning,
It has opened its mouth.

Yesterday she was mistress of many,
And their worship was one;
But to-day, if her mourners are any,
She is mistress of none.

But the tomb has rejoiced to bereave her,
And the clods are her bed;
While the earth had made room to receive her,
With its dust on her head.

Now the silence alone is her sister,
And the darkness her spouse;
Ah, the worm that is clammy has kist her,
And embraces her brows.

Where the lips of a lover once rested,
A new wooer has hied;
And her blossoming breasts are molested,
By caresses untried.

Over features no calumny altered,
There has stolen a change;
And the heart that for others but faltered,
Now has stirrings more strange.

She had suitors their service to mingle,
And who hung on her breath;
But the service now offered is single,
And the suitor is death.

She is fondled by festering vermin,
And the queen is a slave;
While the grave-clothes her kingdom determine,
And her court is the grave.

Now the bosom with modest arraying,
Without fear, without spot,
Has the life that is only decaying,
Has the rest that is rot.

Now the mien that was growing in graces,
Like a flower in the light,
Has the growth that corruption defaces,
And the bloom that is blight.

And the brood of the clay are her lieges,
Who are more than their lord;
And their sapping her stronghold besieges,
With rebellious accord.

628

And the tribute no king is desiring,
Now her treasury fills;
And the homage whose name is bemiring,
Through her avenues thrills.

Now the grub dissolution has gendered,
In her palaces plays;
And to eyes that are darkened, is tendered
The allegiance that slays.

O her subjects may press her with sighing,
And her servants may come;
Yet she cannot concede them replying,
And her answer is dumb.

They may strike and she will not withstand them,
Nor give heed to their scorn;
They may pay but she does not command them,
Nor take tithes of their corn.

They may harass her hearing with praying,
Yet she knows not their vows;
Yea, their slanders and all their gainsaying,
No revenging will rouse.

They may fall at her feet with their wailing,
And with wringing of hands;
But she deems not, as once without failing,
Her delight their demands.

Now no more shall their suits from a distance,
Find their pleasure her part;
Ere they gathered a shape and consistence,
In the mould of the heart.

They shall ask, but in folly and blindness,
The petition they hoped;
They shall knock at the door of her kindness,
But it will not be oped.

They may bring of their splendour and spices,
All the brightest and best;
But no incense her nostril entices,
From its infinite rest.

Let them call and she gives no responding,
Let them weep if they will;
She can hearken not now to desponding,
To their tragedies' thrill.

When they weary her gates with oblations,
When they trip by her walls;
She shall reck not of false adulations,
Or how foul are their falls.

629

Do the courtiers troop to her porches,
With their gifts in their hands?
Do they trouble the darkness with torches,
Round her cerements' bands?

Yet she craves not for jewels to cherish,
Nor for silver and gold;
And the torches and darkness may perish,
Ere she break from her hold.

Shall they beg for the pitiful glances,
That were salves to their sores?
Shall they sue her with cymbals and dances,
And with melody's stores?

Yet she cares not for trumpet and tabor,
Nor for viol and flute;
And she tells not the tread of her neighbour,
And the music is mute.

They may throng in their masses, and thunder
At the door of her tomb;
Yet it shall not be riven asunder,
Nor disburden its womb.

And the mark of humanity mortal,
Shall still lie as it lay;
And the stone from her sepulchre's portal,
None shall roll it away.

They shall loose not the load of her fetter,
Nor the fangs of her chain;
Though their love with its labour beset her,
They shall labour in vain.

She is wounded, and where is the healing?
She is bruisèd of breast;
And her brow has the terrible sealing,
Strange embraces have prest.

She is weary of toiling and troubling,
With the weight and the heat;
But the balm of no rivulet's bubbling,
To her hearing is sweet.

With the shafts that are sure is she stricken,
With the arrows of fate;
In the swoon beyond help does she sicken,
In her passionless state.

She is sleeping and when will she waken?
Though we shout in her ears;
By the earthquake itself were she shaken,
It would fret not her fears.

630

Though the bolts of the lightning should volley,
Would they dazzle her eyes?
And the wisdom is one with the folly,
In the land where she lies.

The eclipse with its withering curtain,
And the shadows of doom,
Are to her as a message uncertain,
And she knows not from whom.

Ah, her windows are covered with mourning,
And with heaviness hung;
For the ashes are now her adorning,
And the silence her tongue.

And the wayfarers pass by her mansion,
But its glory is veiled;
And the dearth with its dreary expansion,
O'er its pride has prevailed.

Lo, her lovers go bowing in sorrow,
And her lovers are all;
While their wail from the waters they borrow,
From the breezes their call.

Since the elements chime in our chorus,
With an elegy sad;
For the fruit that is gathered before us,
And the harvest we had.

And the face of Creation is smitten,
With a trouble and blight;
And her features are wrinkled and bitten,
With the frosts of the night.

We go weeping and bending and lowly,
For the light of the skies;
Now the darkness has drawn from us wholly,
The desire of our eyes.

O the aspens are quaking and sighing,
And the flowerets are faint;
Yea, the harlots of Fashion are crying,
And grow pale through their paint.

And the sons of the house and the hovel,
Both have dust on their brow;
While her enemies groan as they grovel,
Nor are enemies now.

All the leaflets are troubled and tremble,
As they warp in the wind;
And the dews do not shrink to dissemble,
What a dimness they find.

631

And the blades of the grasses may shiver,
But they bring her no more;
And the sedges will quaver and quiver.
On a desolate shore

And unheeded the destitute shudders,
If the snowflakes should fall;
And the kine, with their pendulous udders,
Shall not come to her call.

And the dog that would leap to her whistle,
Shall be whining in vain;
And the spear of the thorn and the thistle,
Shall infest her demesne.

And the naked she clothed with her mercy,
Shall not mark in her tone,
All the chivalrous pride of a Percy,
With a love quite her own.

And the dove that would light on her shoulder,
Or would feed from her lips,
Now unsuccoured shall pine to behold her,
For the delicate sips.

It shall fly to the perch as it flitted,
But no perch will be there;
And its murmurs shall wander unpitied,
Over passage and stair.

And the pets that in plenitude flourished,
Within sheltering walls;
Shall go moaning unheard and unnourished,
Through the motherless halls.

And the pensioners dear to the bounty,
May her welcoming wait;
But the voice that was law to the county,
Shall not open their gate.

Let the death-bell be tolled in the steeple,
And the revelries bann'd;
For a mother has passed from the people,
And a queen from the land.

She was parent of joy to the saddest,
Though the daughter of grief;
And with heartsease her glances were gladdest,
When she most lacked relief.

She was empress by right the divinest,
Though the servant of all;
And no slander went out the malignest,
But came back as her thrall.

632

By a title of sanctions unwritten,
She was lord of our hearts;
Were our portions the smoothest or smitten,
Still she governed their parts.

O my Queen, dost thou reign in the regions,
Where thy beauty has flown?
Art thou chief among sorrowful legions,
With thy sorrow thy throne.

Thou hast followed the fasces and lictors,
That attend upon death;
And dost thou with the vanquished and victors,
Draw thy liberal breath?

Be the cottage thy innocent schooler,
Or the court of a Guelf;
Yet I know thou art ever a ruler,
Thou art queen of thyself.

But the masters of earth are thy minions,
Wheresoever thy lot;
And the praises of men thy dominions,
And thy spoils without spot.

For thy sway is the spell of thy sweetness,
And thy sceptre is love;
And thine unction has holy completeness,
From anointings above.

Thou art far from our passionate panting,
Yet with thee it is well;
Where thou art is a heaven of enchanting,
Where thou art not is hell.

Thou art first, from the fairest of reasons,
If the empire is grace;
And there blows not a flower of the seasons,
Like the flower of thy face.

Thou art foremost in every contending,
When they strive not with arms;
And the prizes, are only a blending
Of the bloom of thy charms.

Yet perchance thou art never so distant,
But art nearer than thought;
When it thrills as a healing assistant,
With the balm it has brought.

From the waving of woods hast thou beckoned,
In the hushing of airs?
Or as angels from sources unreckoned,
When they call unawares?

633

Thou art to me as dew in the dawning,
When it silvers the trees;
Thou art with me as eventide's fawning,
While it sets on the seas.

Thou art o'er me as skies with their arches,
Of imperial blue;
Thou art in me as spring, in the larches,
With their emerald hue.

Thou art on me as moons in the Maytime,
When they mellow the grass;
Thou art by me as brooks in the playtime,
When they pipe as they pass.

Thou art for me as one for his brother,
When to death is the strife;
Thou art sister and wife and a mother,
And the loadstar of life.

I am dead and it's thou that art living,
Whilst I sleep thou hast waked;
And my dreams of delight are thy giving,
And my thirst thou hast slaked.

Am I hungry with infinite yearning,
For the secrets of Time?
Thou dost feed me with fuller returning,
Of volition sublime.

Am I naked and lost on the ocean,
By its billowings rent?
Thou dost clothe me with tender emotion,
In the calm of content.

Am I cold and despairing and fearful,
In the winter of woe?
Thou dost warm me with memories cheerful,
How the summer will grow.

Am I sick with a sorrowful craving,
At the misery wrought?
Thou dost medicine my heart with the saving
Of a holier thought.

Do I reel in the faintness of anguish,
When the wickedness wins?
Thou dost sigh, it is better to languish,
Than to riot in sins.

Were I slain with the choice I have cherished,
Ere I sullied its seal;
Thou wouldst rather I many times perished,
Than imperiled my weal.

634

But O why hast thou entered before me,
In the kingdoms of shade?
When the moon of the morning was o'er me,
And the ear in the blade.

When my creed was as yet in its crescent,
Thine has grown to the full;
While for me there are doubtings incessant,
That to darkness would pull.

I am heavy of heart, and am burdened
With a pain-stricken breast;
And art thou in the shadow-land guerdoned,
With the garland of rest?

There are crowns for the victors in battle,
For the butchers of earth;
And the mother with children to prattle,
Has a crown of more worth.

There are crowns of a glory serener,
For the givers of ease;
And the crowns of the Martyr's arena,
Are yet brighter than these.

There are crowns of ineffable splendour,
For the orator's sway;
But the crown of a charity tender,
Has more radiance than they.

There are crowns for perverters of Science,
For the spoilers of man;
But the crown of a saintly reliance,
Is of mightier span.

There are crowns for reformers of morals,
That are woven by foes;
But in loving humility laurels,
Are diviner than those.

There are crowns with a grace never tarnished,
For discoverers' brows;
But a crown still more graciously garnished,
Comes from sanctity's vows.

There are crowns that for poets are shaded,
By the breadth of the bays;
But a crown that more broadly is braided,
Lies in poverty's praise.

There are crowns for the sculptor and painter,
Who adorn what they touch;
But if crowns of denial are fainter,
They are fairer than such.

635

There are crowns for the preacher of duty,
When the world heeds not right;
But the crown of a comelier beauty,
Lives in purity's light.

There are crowns that our treasuries muster,
For the ravisher's head;
But a crown of the loveliest lustre,
Follows chastity's tread.

There are crowns, without name, without number,
For the dreamers of night;
But the crowns for the watchmen of slumber,
Have a richer delight.

There are crowns for the merciless tyrant,
That are dazzling and cold;
But the crown won by mercy's aspirant,
Is of goodlier gold.

There are crowns that the victors may merit,
With the world at their will;
But the crowns that the vanquished inherit,
May be loftier still.

There are crowns for the day and the morrow,
But that last not for long;
But the crown of a conquering sorrow,
Is immortal as song.

This is thine, O my Lady of Mourning,
This is wholly thy own;
For thy kingdom was villainy's scorning,
And its scoffs were thy throne.

The defeat of desires that were idle,
Was a victory yet;
And on spells that thy spirit could bridle,
Not a sun ever set.

But O yet thou art more than a master,
And enfranchised from pelf;
And in death thou hast conquered disaster,
Who hadst conquered thyself.

Thou hast drudged with the servants and toilers,
For the wages of woe;
Thou hast given thy back to the spoilers,
And thy face to the foe.

And at length in the ripeness, that borrows,
All the fulness of years;
Thou art fall'n in the fruit of thy sorrows,
In the triumph of tears.

University of Virginia Library

HUMOROUS POEMS AND POEMS FOR CHILDREN.

ROBIN REDBREAST,

OR THE DOLEFUL LEGEND OF THE BLOODY BREAST.