The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

WAST thou not with us, when the night departed,
O strong sweet singer that art ours no more!
Was not the harping thine that first gave o'er
The song of wailing, when the daybreak parted
And the glad heavens broke open, shore from shore,
Sun-crowned and iris-hearted?

Didst thou not smite the strings to jubilation,
Hymning the grand sweet scope of the To-be?
Did not our midnight dole and doubting flee
From thy glad strength and all our lamentation
Swell with thy song into an ecstasy
Of aspiration?

244

No more we wept and wailed for Life's undoing,
Following the golden notes that brake from thee,
Riding star-crowned upon that sudden sea
Which from thy soul poured forth for our renewing
Oceans of hope and jubilance, that we
Drank of, ensuing.

Didst thou not rend for us the gloom descending,
Scatter the veils of doubting from our sight,
Bring to our lives again the flower-delight,
Bird-songs and field-scents in thy verses blending?
Didst thou not save our spirits from the night
Stern and impending?

Lo! and the night has bound thee, O our master!
Lo! and the shadows gather round thy place!
Shall we then no more look upon thy face?
Surely the shades will fold to night the faster.
Surely Death's torches quicklier replace
Life's lamp of alabaster.

Shall we then no more see thee, O our singer,
Passing the love of women to our souls?
Shall then our lives be darkened and our goals
Deep in the gray dim distance fade and linger,
Since that no more thy voice our steps controls,
No more thy finger

Points and is clear along the hills that darken,
Clear with the distant glimmer of the day?
Will then the cliff-walls never roll away,
That thy song's sweetness hide from us that hearken,
Us that are weary in Life's mazèd way,
Weary of mists that starken?

245

Have we then heard thy singing for the last time
Shape us the glories of the olden days?
Have we a last time listened to the lays,
Wherein thou scaledst the ancient heavens for pastime
And in the future's iridescent haze
Buildedst the past-time?

Can we forget thee, high sweet soul and faithful,
Homer and Pindar of our modern time,
Lord of our thought and leader of our rhyme,
Thou that didst clear the air that was so deathful,
Filled it anew with scents of rose and thyme,
Made it bird-breathful?

Thou that for us wast some sublime Silenus,
Full to the lips of wise and lovely words,
Shaping to song the speech of flowers and birds,
Wast as a god on whose strength we might lean us,
And, our Apollo, piped to us thy herds
Songs of Camœnus!

What doth it irk us if we never saw thee,
Knew but thy presence as a god's afar,
Heard but thy song as music of a star?
Were we not with thee, part in thee and of thee?
Were not our souls akin to thine and are?
Did we not love thee?

With thee we lived in some enchanted Arden,
Glad with the echo of the wood-nymphs' feet,
Bright with old memories, very strange and sweet,
That in the shade of that Armida's garden
Did from our cold pale daylight hide and fleet,
Where all things harden.

246

Thou wast no wailer, no sweet-voiced unmanner,
That for weak men within an idle clime
Builded vain dreams to sweet and idle rhyme:
Thou hast built souls after the antique manner,
Souls that shall march through many a lapse of time,
Bearing thy banner,

Thy standard with its burden high and golden,
Daring to love and loving, know no shame,
Wit to reject the let of age-old blame,
Faith to rekindle altar-ashes olden,
Fan the old love of Nature to full flame,
Long unbeholden.

Friend, we have mourned and longed for thee with mourning;
Poet, our ears are sad with listening,
Straining for songs no breeze shall ever bring;
Master, thy lapse has dulled with dusk Life's morning,
Dimmed with black death each bright and lovely thing,
That in the adorning

Of thy high verse had erst been wont to sparkle,
Glitter and glow with glories of the past;
Spirit of song and flame of faith, the blast
Of thine eclipse has reft from us, anarchal,
Robbed us with thee of all the things thou wast,
Bard patriarchal!

Master, in vain we listen for thy singing,
Listen and long and languish for desire!
Unto our ears no echoes of thy lyre
Pulse from the darkness, no glad breeze comes bringing
Voices, no sparkles of the ancient fire
Reach us, wide-winging.

247

Will then thy song no more translate our yearning,
Mould our harsh cries to music of the spheres?
Will thy verse glitter no more with our tears?
Has then the sun of thy bright soul, whose burning
Lightened so oft the midnight of our fears,
Set, unreturning?

Or hast thou found thy dream in plains supernal,
Shapes of fair women, forms of noble men,
That, at the magic summons of thy pen,
Did, from the snows and solitudes hybernal,
Where they so long had slept, seek out again
The meadows vernal?

Do the long lapses of the ghost-land, lying
Stretched out beyond the portals of the grave,
Teem with fresh fruits and flowers for thee and wave
With the clear shapes of thine old dreams undying?
Has the dark flood been powerful to lave
From thy soul sighing,

Grief and the very memory of grieving,
Hope and the very thought of wearying
After the glow and glory thou didst sing?
Hast in the air such unimagined giving,
Splendour and flush of every godlike thing,
Wherefor thy living

Struggled and wearied in the bitter days?
Dost thou live out thy phantasies of gold
Under Greek skies and Attic woods of old,
Walk, crowned with myrtle, in the Dorian ways,
Peopled with all the dreams that did unfold
In thy high lays?

248

Surely, this thing alone could hold thee speechless,
Surely, in this alone couldst thou forget
Us that are left to struggle in the net
Of the sad world, to feel the days grow each less
Sweet to our souls, to weary with the fret,
Dumb and beseechless.

Surely, thy soul would yearn to us with longing:
Surely, no grave could keep thy voice from us,
Were not this so. The silence dolorous
Surely is voiceful of the years prolonging
Long bliss for thee and us to come, that thus
Unto the thronging,

Unto the cry and clamour of our yearning,
Still is the air and stirless is the light,
That from the grey grim bosom of the night
Comes back no sign or voice of thy returning,
Echoes no memory of the old delight,
Weariness spurning!

Well, be it so; mayhap, some day, unknowing,
We too shall rest and come to where thou art,
Press thee again full-raptured to our heart,
Gaze in thine eyes with eyes no less fire-glowing
And in like bliss forget the olden smart,
The weary going

Friendless and dumb about the ways of being,
Cast off the memory of the years we sighed
After thy song and presence sunny-eyed,
In the new splendour of thy lays, the seeing
All the old hopes fulfilled and sanctified,
No longer fleeing

249

Mirage-like from us through the earthly hazes;
Haply we too shall leave our olden pains
Off with our life and all its weary stains,
Put on like joy amid the light that blazes
There, the glad day that floods those golden plains,
Those songful mazes!

Till then, farewell! The joy shall be the greater
When we clasp hands and hearts to part no more:
For that the long lone life has been so sore,
For that no sign of thee to death played traitor,
Sharper shall be the bliss for us in store,
Sweeter if later.