Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

THE WORLD'S WINTER.

Saidst thou, The night is ending, day is near?
Nay now, my soul, not so;
We are sunk back into the darkness drear,
And scarcely soon shall know
Even remembrance of the sweet dead day;
Ay, and shall lose full soon
The memory of the moon,
The moon of early night, that cheered our sunless way.

Once, from the brows of Might,
Leapt with a cry to light
Pallas the Forefighter;
Then straight to strive with her
She called the Lord of Sea
In royal rivalry

For Athens, the Supreme of things,
The company of crownless kings.
A splendid strife the Queen began,
In that her kingdom making man
Not less than equal her own line
Inhabiting the hill divine.

Ah Fate, how short a span
Gavest thou then to God and godlike man!
The impious fury of the stormblasts now
Sweeps unrebuked across Olympus' brow;
The fair Forefighter in the strife
For light and grace and glorious life
They sought and found not; she and hers
Had yielded to the troublous years;
No more they walked with men, heaven's high interpreters.

Yet, o'er the gulf of wreck and pain,
How softly strange there rose again,

Against the darkness dimly seen,
Another face, another queen,
The Maiden Mother, in whose eyes
The smile of God reflected lies;
Who saw around her gracious feet
The maddening waves of warfare meet,
And stretching forth her fingers fair
Upon the hushed and wondering air
Shed round her for man's yearning sight
A space of splendour in the night.

Are her sweet feet not stayed?
Nay, she is also gone, the Mother-maid:
And with her all the gracious company
That made it hope to live, and joy to die.
The Lord is from the altar gone,
His golden lamp in dust o'erthrown,
The pealing organ's ancient voice
Hath wandered to an empty noise,
And all the angel heads and purple wings are flown.

Wherefore in this twice-baffled barrenness,
This unconsoled twice-desolate distress,
For our bare world and bleak
We only dare to seek
A little respite for a little while,
Knowing all fair things brief,
And ours most brief, seeing our very smile,
Mid these our fates forlorn,
Is only child of grief,
And unto grief returneth, hardly born.

We will not have desire for the sweet spring,
Nor mellowing midsummer—
We have no right to her:
The autumn primrose and late-flowering
Pale-leaved inodorous
Violet and rose shall be enough for us:
Enough for our last boon,
That haply where no bird belated grieves,

We watch, through some November afternoon,
The dying sunlight on the dying leaves.

Ah, heard I then through the sad silence falling
Notes of a new Orphean melody,
Not up to earth but down to darkness calling,
Down to the fair Elysian company,
Ah then how willing an Eurydice
The kindly ghosts should draw with noiseless hand
My shadowy soul into the shadowy land;
For on the earth is endless winter come,
And all sweet sounds and echoes sweet are dumb.

‘COULD YE NOT WATCH ONE HOUR?’

Arise, put on thy strength,
O soul released at length
From thy blind bondage in the cave obscure:
Let night call unto night;
Thou to the comely light
Lift thy confronting brow, serene and sure.

Why turn thy glances back?
Here glows thy glorious track,
Bright with the dawn and light of forward feet:
A daughter of the morn
New-risen and new-born,
Why tarriest thou to take thy birthright sweet?

Poor soul, thou art perplext,
Thou hast so long been vext
By shadowy hopes that baffling beckoned thee:
What wonder thou wert fain
To list whatever strain
Amid the dimness spake consolingly?

Of that enchanted shade
Thou hast renouncement made,
Yet weepest for the flowers that round thee grew:
Bleak seems the field and bare,
Shorn of its harvest fair;
Not yet is death of old things birth of new.

But other seed more blest
Is in the kind earth's breast:
Watch yet one hour; thy recompense is nigh:
Yea, and thy Gods that were
Are here again more fair,
All human, all divine, that cannot die.

How long, how long, forlorn Humanity,
Must thou gaze forth from Naxos' shore in vain
For vanished sails that ne'er come back to thee,
For Theseus' arms that clasp thee ne'er again?
Let thy sad eyes look round;
The young God ivy-crowned,
Splendidly coming up out of the sea,
Is stretching forth his hand to marry thee
With marriage-ring of the new bridal-vow.
Be glad, for thy best life begins but now;
For he shall breathe a new love in thy veins,
And shall drown utterly all regretful pains,
Pouring thee draughts of his celestial wine,
And blessing thee with kisses o'er and o'er,
Until he set thee for a heavenly sign,
To be a starry splendour evermore.

O longing listener on the stormy shore,
Are they so harsh, the sounds that round thee roar?

A little while, thy disentangling ear
Amid the tuneless din shall hear
An under-streaming subtle symphony,
A mystic maze of ordered melody
Drawn out in long importunate agony,
With tender piteous straining
Of lute to lute complaining
Pleadingly ever, and with keen replying
Living intensely in pain, and almost dying,
Until the trumpet's pealing voice
Bids the wondering world rejoice,
And all-compelling sweeps along
The faltering feet of stringëd song.

Yet are there moments sweeter far than all,
And holier far, that on the spirit fall
Of him who, midst the eager strife
Of Hate and Death with Love and Life,
A little quiet space may win
From war without and war within,

And suddenly from the dim earth borne on high
Upon the wings of his great ecstasy
To some still mountain-top of magic spell,
Shall gaze into the things invisible,
And know with purged and understanding eye
The wondrous forms of fair futurity.
Then let the marvel of the whole
Strike on the wishing, wondering soul,
That her serene delight shall seem
Most like the pious painter's dream,
Presenting how in solemn wise
They come with ancient mysteries
To dedicate the Child Divine
Within his Father's golden shrine:
And fair boy-angels bravely clad
On either side are softly glad;
Not yet their lips will touch the flute,
Not yet their fingers wake the lute,
Nor may the dreaming gazer know
How sweet the spell-bound flood shall flow,

But dreams in wonder more and more
Of some consummate act in store,
Wherein shall fit fulfilment be
Of such divine expectancy.

Rêveries de Voyage

III. ROME.

To the Statue of Love called ‘The Genius of the Vatican.’

Fair Love, by spoiling strangers torn
From thine Hellenic home,
For ever wingless left to mourn
In this high place of Rome;

O Love, to me who love thee well,
Who fain would hear and mark,
The secret of thy sorrow tell,
And why thy brows are dark.

It is not for thy vanished wings,
Thou madest no more mirth
Amid thine Hellas' lovely things,
In the sweet spring of earth.

And still sweet airs of Athens flow
From marble tresses shed;
The old Ionian glories glow,
O Love, around thy head.

The little Love who smiles below,
Thy loveliest brother boy,
Knows no such spell to loose his bow,
No care to cloud his joy.

He bends to string his bending bow
In playful haste to harm;
Two thousand years that come and go
Have spared his childish charm.

But thou hast caught a deeper care;
His smile is not for thee;
Thou canst not all so lightly wear
Thine immortality.

O is it that thy spirit knew
Its solitary fate,
That, whatsoe'er of beauty grew,
Thou might'st not find thy mate?

Or is it that thy thoughts had range
O'er the sad years to come,
Of beauty suffering envious change,
Of music marred and dumb,

Of other gods and other lords
Than thine and thee aware,
Of struggling shapes and fiery swords
Vexing thy quiet air?

Ah, not to men who round thee rove
Thy secret wilt thou tell:
Thus then, O fairest, noblest Love,
O saddest Love, farewell.

Yet if some pang of stifled pain
Move thee from mystery,
In a dim dream returned again
Murmur a word to me.

So I might rise and speak it then
In understanding ears,
That word might stir in hearts of men
The inmost springs of tears.

IV. ROME.

Guido's ‘Aurora.’

We too see the clouds that surround her,
We too see the track of the car;
But none sees her herself, none hath found her,
There is none she hath honoured so far.

But this painter, scarce meriting, knew her
When he painted that picture of light;
O fortunate Reni! you drew her,
For she made herself plain to your sight,

As she comes, the bright goddess of morning,
With the dawn in her eyes and her hair,
Making glad with a jubilant warning
The depths of the amorous air;

And the car of the god follows after,
Led forth by the Hours on his way;
Led forth to the sound of their laughter,
And leading the light of the day.

VIII. LEAVING ATHENS.

ΟΛΙΓΟΝ ΤΕ ΦΙΛΟΝ ΤΕ.

No relic rare, O Attic soil, from thy fair shores returning,
No clay or marble disinterred I bear beyond the sea;
Too many such lament their home in stranger halls sojourning—
The remnants of thine ancient art, let these abide with thee.

One simple spoil thou wilt not grudge of all thy treasure-troven,
One gracious gift, beloved land, I take with conscience clear—

A handful of thy wild-flowers, by fairest fingers woven,
And a wreath of Attic olive-leaves, “a little thing but dear.”

Hymettus' golden honey-bees that haunt his thymy covers
Of all their joyous pasturage have no such joy as mine,
For o'er these petals dried and dead a subtler fragrance hovers,
And Memory can mix from these a honey more divine.

ETSI OMNES, EGO NON.

Here where under earth his head
Finds a last and lonely bed,
Let him speak upon the stone:
Etsi omnes, ego non.

Here he shall not know the eyes
Bent upon their sordid prize
Earthward ever, nor the beat
Of the hurrying faithless feet.

None to make him perfect cheer
Joined him on his journey drear;
Some too soon, who fell away;
Some too late, who mourn to-day.

Yet while comrades one by one
Made denial and were gone,
Not the less he laboured on:
Etsi omnes, ego non.

Surely his were heart and mind
Meet for converse with his kind,
Light of genial fancy free,
Grace of sweetest sympathy.

But his soul had other scope,
Holden of a larger hope,
Larger hope and larger love,
Meat to eat men knew not of:

Knew not, know not—yet shall sound
From this place of holy ground
Even this legend thereupon,
Etsi omnes, ego non.

“IF BUT THY HEART WERE STONE.”

If but thy heart were stone—
Strong stone or steel—
It never had made this moan,
It never had learnt to feel.

The storm should never have swept
Over the place of its rest,
It never had listened and leapt
At the cry of a life opprest.

It had never been shaken and torn
At the sight of a loved one's pain,
It had never stood still, forlorn,
At the thought “Is there meeting again?”

It had stood by itself secure,
Bound round and beneath and above,
Fenced from the plaint of the poor
And free from the fires of love.

Thou hadst smiled in godlike mirth,
Thou hadst lived serene, alone,
Thou hadst lived a lord of earth,
If but thy heart were stone.

TO A DWELLER IN A GREAT CITY.

Stand still in this thy city,
And listen through the throng
To the terror and the pity
Of an awful undersong;

Grim sounds unnumbered blending
To load the blackened air,
Unresting and unending,
A chorus of despair:

“About, above, and under,
There holds us night and day
A chain we cannot sunder,
A debt we cannot pay.

“No act of ours had bound us;
From our first hour of earth
The net was knit around us,
We are bondmen from our birth.

“So hath it been, so is it,
So shall it still be done,
Till one with vengeance visit
The things that shame the sun.

“No charm to soothe or quicken
Dead weight of weary strife,
No shade for souls that sicken
In the furnace-fire of life;

“No hope of more or better
This side the hungry grave,
Till death release the debtor,
Eternal sleep the slave.”

YOUTH AND TRUTH.

Now in life's breezy morning,
Here on life's sunny shore,
To all the powers of falsehood
We vow eternal war:

Eternal hate to falsehood;
And then, as needs must be,
O Truth, O Lady peerless,
Eternal love to thee.

All fair things that seem true things
Our hearts shall aye receive,
Not over-quick to seize them,
Nor over-loth to leave;

Not over-loth or hasty
To leave them or to seize,
Not eager still to wander,
Nor clinging still to ease.

A band of many tempers,
Of many moods, are we;
Some kindly god hath yoked us
With a yoke of liberty;

Of various brain and temper,
Of many strains and stocks,
Some sworn to godlike Milton,
And some to genial Fox.

Some cherish far-sought knowledge,
Some laughter keen and rare,
Some drink to Galileo
And some to bright Voltaire.

But one vow links us ever,
That whatsoe'er shall be,
Nor Life nor Death shall sever
Our souls, O Truth, from thee.

PEREUNT ET IMPUTANTUR.

He came with me home to my dwelling,
He abode with me all that night,
But ah me for my tale and its telling,
He was gone with the dawn of the light.

He was gone without whisper of warning,
He was gone, and he comes not again;
He heeds not the voice of my mourning,
He leaves me alone to my pain.”

Thou also, O Earth, art forsaken,
And the song of the maiden is thine;
For ever thine eyes as they waken
Look wistful for lovers divine.

Bright visions and presences splendid,
They have loved thee a night and a day;
From the void of the ether descended
To the void they are vanished away.

O Earth be at peace from thy sighing,
For the sound of thy sorrow is vain:
There be others to come at thy crying,
To come, and to leave thee again.

“THEY SAY THY ART IS FAILING.”

They say thy art is failing,
They warn thee of decay,
Thy poesy is paling
Before their prose to-day.

The song-birds hear the warning,
They yield—can Time be wrong?—
Yet in the twilight morning
Shall steal an hour for song.

The nightingale shall steal it,
In the deep wood o'er the hill:
Deem not, she doth not feel it,
Yet know, she sings there still.

REST.

Well hast thou done, and with benignity,
Who didst behold and beckon me to thee;
For all the old cares unkind, while here I lie,
Are wholly vanishëd that seemed so sore,
And this sweet hour at least I must deny
That I shall see or know them any more.

For I, in this fair rest abiding here,
Nor forward look nor back for joy or fear,
But am, and am at peace, as one who swims
Drifting half-sunk in a deep spring-water,
Cool, cool and soft around his soothëd limbs,
And murmuring music in his dreamful ear.

Acta Magnanimorum.

III. THE WRECK OF THE ‘BIRKENHEAD.’

On the 26th of February, 1852, about 2 o'clock in the morning, the troop-ship ‘Birkenhead’ struck on a rock off the Cape of Good Hope, and it immediately became manifest that the ship must very shortly sink. The crew numbered 130, the troops on board 480, with 20 women and children. Three boats were lost in launching, and the remainder could carry few beside the women and children. These were embarked, under the care of as many of the crew as could accompany them without overloading the boats. The rest of the crew, and the troops, drawn up on the deck, remained and sank with the ship.

To England's flag a challenge
Came from the rebel sea:
“Yield us your babes and women,
Yield us your pride, and flee!”

O Sea, thy wrath hath fooled thee!
Sea, thou art over-bold!
Know'st thou not then that banner?
Thou knew'st it surely of old.

Across the waste of waters,
Of help and hope forlorn,
Their level eyes untroubled
Looked with a quiet scorn.

For honour and for pity
They made their choice to die,
And the great name of England
Held up their hearts on high.

Still on the deck unswerving
The bayonet-line gleamed bright,
Then, with the plunging vessel,
Plunged to eternal night.

So made they sure their triumph
Over the rebel sea;
For Death stood near to serve them,
And sealed their victory.

ON THE SAME.

Their unblanched lips drank up
Death from the sea;
They quaffed this loving-cup,
England, to thee.

IV. THE DEATH OF JOHN CHIDDY.

On the 31st of March, 1876, near Bristol, a large stone had fallen from a quarry in front of a railway-train running at full speed. A quarryman named John Chiddy, who was working near the place caught the stone from the rail and saved the train, but was himself struck dead by the engine.

With roar of whirlwind wheels
The flashing train flies by;
No shock the traveller feels,
He hears no cry,

Nor starts, nor holds his breath,
Nor wonders, nor looks back;
He saw not what dire Death
Couched in his track.

But one man saw, and stayed not;
One man sprang forth to save;
And for their lives who prayed not
His own life gave.

The train bore on in thunder
The travellers on their way:
Beneath them, cloven asunder,
Their saviour lay.

No more his life-blood wets
The iron pathway's side:
The iron folk forgets,
For whom he died.

ON REVISITING THE CUMBRIAN HILLS.

O native land of hills and limpid lakes!
O dearer far to me than fertile plains!
After how long exile in southern towns
Once more do I revisit thy grey rocks,
And thy large air, and sound of falling streams.
Whereof when I remind me oftentimes,
Waking, or in delusion of sweet dreams,
I count my lot thrice blest that I was born
In such a land, among so brave a race,
Where not in vain hath Nature ministered
Majestic service to the mind of man.

MONTIGENA.

Might I but die knowing some sure advance
In the long travail of humanity
Toward truth and freedom and high-hearted love,
And seeing this England (which to call mine own
Shall ever thrill my heart as her free flag
Thrills with the sea-wind in it) pure and strong,
Not cankered quite with gold and gold-ward lust;
Then might I leave in mine appointed time
Life, and the things for which this life is dear,—
This goodly fellowship of faithful friends,
True-eyed congenial spirits, youth's best prize,
And the sweet smiles of women, and the gifts
Of Nature, glories of the even and morn,
The voice of seas and streams and murmuring woods,

Flowers, and the joy of birds;—these should I leave,
Not unregretful truly or unamazed
At the quick doom which mocks the hopes of men,
Yet not perturbed, or over-loth to fare
Forth from this April morning we call life.
Yet, might so much to craving fancies fall,
Fain were I, might I choose, that I should die
Among my native mountains, where these eyes
First woke to love of beauty, where I roamed
An eager child, clasping my father's hand.
Ah, great and gentle spirit, early found,
And all too early lost, so might I dream
That in the ancient voices of the hills,
The moorland wind, the lonely cataract,
Or in the hovering cloud-wreaths, thou wert near
So might my life be rounded with one joy,
The peace of Nature's presence and of thine.

FROM HORACE.

To the Fountain of Bandusia.

O crystal-clear Bandusian spring,
Well worthy the sweet offering
Of wine, with flowers engarlanding,

A kid to-morrow morn I vow,
Whose budding horns upon his brow
Foretell his lustihood,
His fights and loves; but all in vain,
So soon his sacrifice must stain
The rills of thy cold flood.

The fiery dogstar's angry heat
Touches not thee; thy cool retreat
The tired plough-oxen know and love,
And all the flocks that round thee rove
Have found thy waters sweet.

Thou too with famous streams shalt be
Enrolled in new nobility,
For sake of this my song that sings
The oak-crowned rocks whereout thy springs
Come leaping laughingly.

FROM LOUIS BOUILHET.

An Eclogue.

Traveller.
The moonless dark has covered all the plain;
O silent shepherd, whither art thou fain?

Shepherd.
My path, O traveller, is a path of care;
While others sleep I alway onward fare.

Traveller.
And that dark flock that lengthens from thy feet,
Hath it no bell nor any pastoral bleat?

Shepherd.
O traveller, see thou tell it unto none,
Of all my flock no voice hath any one.

Traveller.
Ah me, that flock! it frights me in the gloom;
It seems of spectres gathering from the tomb.

Shepherd.
O traveller, see thou tell it unto none,
It is the flock of my desires foredone.

Traveller.
Ah God! the throng comes thickening through the night,
And on, and on, beyond my failing sight.

Shepherd.
Count thou no more, for, as the minutes flee,
For each one monster more is following me.

Traveller.
What God enchains thee to these spectral sheep?
Come shepherd, come unto our flowery vale;
There o'er my thatch the honeysuckles creep,
And at my window sings the nightingale.

Shepherd.
Not there, O traveller, in thy happy land,
Not there in peace this pallid brow may dwell;
My flock and I must drink on Lethe's strand,
And pasture in the plains of asphodel.

SONG.

[Stay me no more; the flowers have ceased to blow]

Stay me no more; the flowers have ceased to blow,
The frost begun:
Stay me no more; I will arise and go,
My dream is done.

My feet are set upon a sterner way,
And I must on;
Love, thou hast dwelt with me a summer day,
Now, Love, begone.

Three Sonnets.

II. THE LOST SHEPHERD.

Ay me, the kindly shepherd comes not now
Whose feet were once so fair within the fold,
In whose high presence were our fathers bold.
They said, his tender heart would not allow
His sheep to perish; his side and his bright brow
And hands and feet were bleeding; so they told.
But of the face of him might none behold
Even a little, save he be somehow
Seven times refined in love's refining fire.
This man should haply something see aright.
Alas, and must he know as he draws nigher
The longed-for image from the straining sight
Of his sad eyes and pain of his desire
Receding, rapt into the lonely night?

Love's Adversaries.

LOVE AND FATE.

I.

It hath gone forth, the all-o'erwhelming word;
Through the void silence of my heart it pealed:
It hath gone forth, even though thou hast not heard,
The exiles' doom to everlasting sealed.

For other eyes the sun shall bend his course,
The sweet surprise of his fair seasons bringing,
In other veins the blood shall gather force,
With voice of birds and happy flowers upspringing:

While we, thrust forth from regions warm and clear
And sunny seas that far between us roll,
Inhabit each our several mansions drear,
The Arctic thou, and I the Antarctic pole.

100

II.

I would to God, my darling, you and I
Were somewhere lying very silently
Beneath the green sod of a mountain glen,
A place untilled and far from feet of men,
Yet not with stones made rough, not harsh and bare,
But greensward slopes with scattered woodland fair:
And there should be no birds to mock at us
With their full notes of descant amorous;
No nightingales should madden the sweet air
With passion such as ours in days that were:
For that is long since over and quite gone,
And our hearts can but ache to think thereon.

101

But sometimes when a still night flooded all
That serene place with moonlight mystical,
Then might we feel the heart of the great Earth
Beating through ours in peace that knows not mirth:
For that mild light should be to her more kind
Than parching sunshine or the strenuous wind:
And is not she too weary of the weight
Of her great being and mysterious fate,
And wearier ever of the restless race
Of foolish men, that for the little space
Of their poor lives are hurrying to and fro
To vex their souls with ever-gathering woe?
And so perchance in such sweet night and still
Likewise through us might some dim memory thrill
Of days forgotten long and far away,
When in her breast first without form we lay,
And no power yet had quickened heart and brain
To this immense capacity of pain.

102

LOVE AND DEATH.

I.

Of all the songs the birds sang,
But one remains with me,
The song to which the words rang
Of an ancient elegy.

Of all the powers that moved me,
My heart remembereth
But one, even Love, that loved me,
And one that hated, Death.

Why call the voices yonder
That stirred my soul of yore?
Leave me to dream and ponder
And image o'er and o'er

103

The haloed hair that crowned her
With a crown of Paradise,
The grace that flowed around her
From the sweet and suasive eyes,

The voice as soft and tender
As the still sea on the sands,
The supple form and slender,
And the little loving hands.

106

III.

Far up a lonely mountain glen
That sleeps between the folded hills,
There lies a glade unknown to men,
Where even the brook her babbling stills.

The brook becomes a brimming pool,
And beech and oak with meeting shade
Whisper across the waters cool
The blisses of that quiet glade.

The solitary dewfalls wet
Green turf below, green leaves above;
And there, 'mid those green leaves, was set
The dwelling of a gentle dove.

107

To that sweet bird, that peaceful place,
With winged steps my feet would fly;
And there we dreamed away the days,
The happy days, my dove and I.

One eve I hasted to the grove;
My thought would fain my feet outrun;
But as I neared the place of love
A sudden cloud obscured the sun:

No murmured welcome could I hear;
The pulses of my heart were quelled:
And lo, upon the streamlet clear
A floating feather I beheld.

A thunderbolt had cleft the oak
Wherein my bird had built her nest:
No other tree had felt the stroke
But that one home, that only breast.

108

That glade shall never greet again
My feet that wander wearily,
Nor sound nor sight appease my pain,
Since my loved bird is lost to me.

113

THE NIGHT'S MESSAGE.

Last night there came a message to mine ear
Saying: Come forth, that I may speak with thee.
It was the Night herself that called to me.
And I arose and went forth without fear
And without hope; and by the mountain-mere,
In the great silence sitting silently,
Drank in amazed the large moon's purity:
Yet was my soul unsoothed of any cheer.
But when the moon had set, a great mist lay
On the earth and me, and to its wide soft breast
Drew forth the secret woe we might not say.
Then slowly, its brooding presence lightlier pressed,
It heaved, and broke, and swayed, and soared away:
And the Earth had morn, and I some space of rest.

115

SIDNEY'S FAREWELL.

O songs, my songs, that came so rarely to me,
So rarely, yet so sweetly, all my own,
How thrilled the liquid ether through and through me
On the fair sheen of your young wings upflown.

Lo now they call to me, the sterner voices,
In sterner sort bidding to serve my kind;
Ay, and within me my own soul rejoices,
Scenting the scent of battle on the wind.

Yet, O my songs, full loth were I to grieve you,
Albeit ye came so rarely to my call:
But for a little, let me deem, I leave you;
I will return and make amends for all.

116

Here, where the sunlight through the green leaves falling
Blesses your happy valley far withdrawn,
Once more my feet shall wake the echoes calling
To trembling twilight or to trembling dawn.

Here shall once more the strange familiar gladness
Throb through me, hearkening to your holy things,
And here once more the sweet mysterious madness
Shall lift me heavenward on your wondrous wings.