University of Virginia Library

MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS

I
TO CERTAIN KIND CRITICS

O stalwart friends, O strong-souled flatterers,
Who bid me shape my verse in ampler mode,
And trumpet forth a ballad, epic, ode,—
How shall I answer you? When impulse stirs
The genuine Bard, he soars unasked: but, sirs,
What power can lift the meaner sort? Why goad
My ambling Muse along an upland road
Which leadeth not to any haunt of hers?
She hath no mind for “freaks upon the fells,”
No wish to hear the storm-wind rattling by;
She loves her cowslips more than immortelles,
Her garden-closes than the abysmal sky:
In a green dale her chosen sweetheart dwells:
The mountain-height she must not, dare not, try.

II
A WOODLAND STREAM, I

Drawn by the noise of water, and its gleam
Flashed through the foxgloves nodding o'er the brink,
I lead my wayward fancy down to drink
From the still depths of this embow'rèd stream.
Arch over arch the sun-gilt branches link
Their shadowy leaves, escaped by many a beam
Cleaving the limpid wave, as sleepers sink
Through endless æther in a June-night dream.
Deep down in tranquil gloom, where happy breeds
A world of elfin shapes to light denied,
Amid lush tangle of the swaling weeds
The creatures of the streamlet leap and glide,—
Glad in the shelter of its tufted reeds,
Lulled by the ceaseless ripple of its tide.

III
A WOODLAND STREAM, II

How in this nook the ancient creed comes near,
And seems to keep its right untarnished still!
If there be guardian sprites of wood and rill,
I think a simple faith would see them here;
A faith that watched the darkly rolling year
Through days of death and sleeping-times, until
The constant months their slow sad round fulfil
To wake the spring-god from his wintry bier.
Adonis! Ah, it is not all profane—
This modern earth. Come forth, ye choral band!
Your Lady bends to kiss the lips again,
The opening lips. 'Tis meet ye were at hand.
So ran the song through April wind and rain;
And, lo, the glad fruition where I stand!

IV
A WOODLAND STREAM, III

I cannot tell what spirit-forms are free
To suck the secret of this green delight:
I only feel it was not made for me—
Not mine to use it with a spirit's right.
I am as other men—poor aliens we
From Nature's paradise in Heaven's despite,
Who only glimpse its charm with blinded sight,
And may not enter, having lost the key.
Yet surely I were more than man, or less,
Could I allure my hungry soul away
From such a spot, with such a power to bless,
And win not e'en what birds and fishes may:
At least I have the right of brutishness,
Who am in part an animal as they.

V
A WOODLAND STREAM, IV

Forgive me, gentle creatures of the stream,
And ye that in my fancy guard their bliss;
Account me not a murderer, nor deem
My heart's offending darker than it is;
The trespass in my thought is only this—
To ask a boon it doth not misbeseem
Your purity to grant, though well I wis
I am not worthy of a gift supreme.
Sinful I come from worlds where sin is rife,
But not with foul intent your peace to ban;
I would but use the privilege of life,
And joy with Nature's joy while body can,
Yea, feel, in spite of all that breedeth strife,
Her spirit still has fellowship with man.

VI
IN THE MEADOW

The Cuckoo called me, but I answered “Nay;”
The Thrush said “Come,” and I grew ill-content;
Last spake the Blackbird; then my heart forewent
Her studious purpose, and I broke the day.
Now in the meadow-grass, a world away
From aught of human life, that heart is blent
With leaf, stem, flower, in sweet entanglement,
Meshed by the young luxuriance of May,
The ox-eyed daisies glimpse me as I lie;
Strange creeping things their devious steps have stayed,
And glut their wonderment from bloom and blade;
While feathery balls are bending cubit-high
Between my quivering eyelids and the sky,
To mock me with a phantasy of shade.

VII
A RUSTIC BRIDGE, I

Blest be the kindly heart of him who spanned
This sylvan streamlet with a bridge,—to me
Most grateful, and to all burnt souls who flee
For shelter from the torrid pasture-land.
Upon the slender plank I pause and stand,
Leaning hot arms upon the slender rail.
The foxglove-bloom I lately plucked looks frail
And like to wither in my feverish hand.
But here is sweet salvation,—rest and shade,
Awning of branches, every branch a bower,
And water for the sun-struck body's wound.
See! ferns and hemlock, and a shingle frayed
From pebbly banks, where the spread stream has power
To lave wood-flowers that droop with imminent swound.

VIII
A RUSTIC BRIDGE, II

Into the stream I drop my foxglove-bell,
The rapid stream, the laughing leaping stream:
Through watery shades it throws a purple beam;
And each cool beast that drags a twisted shell
Beholds far off the palpitating swell,
And hears the runlet, brawling over stones,
Give murmurous thanks, like some old monk at Nones,
When the red sun makes drowsy-warm his cell.
So runs my fancy. But mine eyes have play
No deeper than the shining-shadowy floor;
The rest is secret as a moonless night.
Down floats my bell, away and still away,
Past the tall hemlock, round the fern-clad shore,
Beyond the reedy shallows, out of sight.

IX
POPPIES

O poppies in the meadow red and red,
And red and red through all the ripening corn,
I like the courage of that flaunting head
Which fronts the world so ragged, bold, and torn.
Why have our singers left your name unsaid,
Who might at least have flung you scorn for scorn,
Not passed you by to grieve unanswerèd,
And for pure lack of foemen grow forlorn?
See where I lift my hand to dash you dead—
What! is the joy of battle more than pain?
Nay, let us fight with angry words instead:
O cursèd flowers and vile, O stain and bane,
Go, turn your shameless faces to the bed!
Content ye yet,—or shall I strike again?

X
ON THE BEACH

When you lie there in such supreme content,
I feel a slight, a momentary pain,
Lest the strong heart so utterly unbent
Should take no more its ancient force again;
But, having fed on lotos-leaves, be fain
To feed so always, as on food god-sent,
And thus in Nature's paradise remain
A willing thrall to Nature's blandishment.
Dream on to-day, and fancy life a psalm
Best set to quiet melody of seas,
That meet on summer sands the summer breeze
To kiss the rising ripples into calm;
But when the morrow dawns, arise, appease
The natural craving of a strong right arm.

XI
FROM A QUIET PLACE

As when a maiden, looking through the leaves
That fence her garden from the common way,
Observes each passer-by, and softly weaves
A web of fiction, while her fancies play
Round each new figure; till she half believes
The tale so fashioned—tale which haply may
Be true, or if it pleasantly deceives,
No after-truth can dawn to counter-say:
So watch I from this world-sequestered nook
Time's heroes on the stage they tread so well,
Matching their motives with their outward look,
And run a single thread through all they do;
Nor would be told, what none is here to tell,
How much or little of my thought is true.

XII
SUBURBAN MEADOWS

How calmly drops the dew on tree and plant,
While round each pendulous leaf the cool airs blow!
The neighbour city has no sign to show
Of all its grim machines that toil and pant,
Except a sky that coal makes confidant:
But there the human rivers ebb and flow,
And thither was I wonted once to go
With heart not ill at ease or recusant.
Here now I love to wander morn and eve,
Till oaks and elms have grown oracular;
Yet conscious that my soberest thoughts receive
A tinge of tumult from the smoke afar;
And scarcely know to which I most belong—
These simple fields or that unsimple throng.

XIII
AN AUTUMN THOUGHT

It was a clear October morn. The dell
After a frosty night lay thick with brown
Dead leaves. And still they stirred and fluttered down,
Leaving a fringe against the sky to tell
Where once that sky had been invisible,
Cloaked by their green luxuriance. And indeed
Mine eyes could notice how the vault, thus freed,
Grew bright and brighter for each leaf that fell.
So cuts the frost which kills our summer vows.
When shades of bliss we hoped eterne decay,
And all our pleasant leaves are stripped away,
We find what ampler view the frost allows.
Through earthly damps we catch the heavenly day,
And God's truth clearest under cold bare boughs.

XIV
TOWARDS EVENING

At morn we cried, “O pregnant hours of light,
What crystal thoughts declared in golden speech
Your lucid-lipped activities shall teach,
Ere sunset gives the glutted world to night!
All day we strove to learn, if learn we might;
We groped for truth, but truth was hard to reach;
A babble of tongues contended each with each,
'Mid blows that iron-fisted engines smite.
The day is gone. Its voices garrulous
Have given us naught. The void is yet to fill.
Shall not the silence prove more generous?
The still eve comes: ah, let us too be still!
Our better thoughts are ever borne to us
On wings unfanned by any breeze of will.

XV
A CHANGE

You bid me sing! Alas, the fount is dry
From which were drawn the songs you loved of old.
Long since I wandered from the field and fold,
And sought the tedious town, poor foolish I!
Even a true-born bard forgets the sky
When in the babbling street his days are told.
Free flows his verse to preach and teach and scold,
But fast his thoughts of beauty fade and die.
Sometimes a face may rouse him, or a child's
Soft prattle stir the genius at his heart.
Sometime his own brain's solitary wilds
Enclose him; for a space he dwells apart.
But once enthralled to men and man's gross fashion,
He cnokes the spring-flood of his purest passion.

XVI
ON THE SUMMIT

Above the tarn, above the mantling wood,
My feet have gained at length the summit's pride,
Where cloud to peak, and peak to cloud, hath cried
Through countless years, “God is, and God is good.”
O would that where I stand a thousand stood!
Such view to vision scarce pre-sanctified
Would more of God reveal than aught beside,
Yea, more than convent-cell or monkish hood.
For cloistered meditation needeth art
Beyond the narrow scope of common skill;
But here the rudest, set the world apart,
Nearer to heaven by this fair height of hill,
Might trust the promptings of his natural heart
To worship, and consider, and be still.

XVII
ON THE BEACH IN NOVEMBER

My heart's Ideal, that somewhere out of sight
Art beautiful and gracious and alone,—
Haply where blue Saronic waves are blown
On shores that keep some touch of old delight,—
How welcome is thy memory, and how bright,
To one who watches over leagues of stone
These chilly northern waters creep and moan
From weary morning unto weary night.
O Shade-form, lovelier than the living crowd,
So kind to votaries, yet thyself unvowed,
So free to human fancies, fancy-free,
My vagrant thought goes out to thee, to thee,
As wandering lonelier than the Poet's cloud,
I listen to the wash of this dull sea.

XVIII
SOMETHING LOST

How changed is Nature from the Time antique!
The world we see to-day is dumb and cold:
It has no word for us. Not thus of old
It won heart-worship from the enamoured Greek.
Through all fair forms he heard the Beauty speak;
To him glad tidings of the unknown were told
By babbling runlets, or sublimely rolled
In thunder from the cloud-enveloped peak.
He caught a message at the oak's great girth,
While prisoned Hamadryads weirdly sang:
He stood where Delphi's Voice had chasm-birth,
And o'er strange vapour watched the Sibyl hang;
Or where, mid throbbings of the tremulous earth,
The caldrons of Dodona pulsed and rang.

XIX
THE CHILDREN'S PRIVILEGE

I love to mark a childish band at play
Through flowerful meadows or a woodland scene:
The linnets in the copse are not so gay,
The squirrels in the forest not so keen:
They bear themselves with such ecstatic mien
As only masters of a Mystery may.
It moves my heart to think I too have been
In younger years initiate as they.
This Nature that we marvel at, and find
Impenetrable, is not so to them,
But opens half her secrets to their gaze,
And leads their footsteps in romantic ways;
And none shall touch her garment's utmost hem,
Unless with childhood's unreflective mind.

XX
A VIEW

Here is the hill-top. Look! Not moor or fen,
Not wood or pasture, circles round the steep;
But houses upon houses, thousand-deep,
The merchant's palace and the pauper's den.
We are alone,—beyond all mortal ken;
Only the birds are with us and the sheep.
We are alone; and yet one giant's-leap
Would land us in the flood of hurrying men.
If e'er I step from out that turbid stream
To spend an hour in thought, I pass it here:
For good it is across our idlest dream
To see the light of manhood shining clear;
And solitude is sweetest, as I deem,
When half-a-million hearts are beating near.

XXI
SARK

O happy Fate, which in the golden prime
Of this glad summer hast embarked my soul,
Despite her craven fears of rock and shoal,
And steered her safe to this delicious clime,
Where, careless of the World, and Life, and Time,
Beneath the sun-lit canopy of sky
She joys to watch the hours go floating by,
And find her fancies crisping into rhyme.
All day upon the cliff-top like a bird
I keep my nest, and lie in dreamful ease,
'Mid tall o'erarching grasses gently stirred
By the soft burden of the slumb'rous breeze—
The rhythmic plash of oarage faintly heard,
And long low murmur of the shoreward seas.

XXII
IN FEBRUARY

At last! Through murk that seemed too thick for rending,
The sun has burst with full unclouded ray;
And hark, how soon the little birds are sending
Glad canticles from naked bush and spray.
Yet timidly; from time to time suspending
Their song, as if they feared to be so gay,
When every hour may bring the sunlight's ending
And all the gold relapse again to grey.
Pipe on, small songsters! You and I together
Will catch the passing glory while we may.
No Fate forbids to preen a drooping feather,
Give voice to hope, and try a broken lay.
What if the morrow break in wintry weather—
Is it not something that we sing to-day?

XXIII
IN THE CITY, I

A stranger, from the country's calm retreat
And heavenly boon of sweet tranquillity,
I tread with faltering steps the dusty street,
And seek in vain the God I long to see.
These traffickers who hold the world in fee—
They hurry past with such determined feet!
I seem to read in every face I meet,
“Am I not strong? What is thy God to me?”
He was so sweet to all the fields, so great
Among the hills, so fair in every glen,
So good to countless hungering eyes that wait
Upon His hand; I felt the Presence then—
Too distant now to cheer me desolate
In this grim weary wilderness of men.

XXIV
IN THE CITY, II

Nay, but thy God is near thee where thou wilt,
Not less nor more in solitude or crowd.
Take heart of grace, and go not heavy-browed,
Unless it be for consciousness of guilt.
God made the country; yea, but God hath built
All dwellings of his creatures, and endowed
Their lives with courage—else like water spilt
Upon the earth or as a melting cloud.
Haply they know it not, who never raise
A heavenward eye; they do the Giver wrong,
And yet He blesses. Thou with purer gaze
Shalt surely see the Arm that makes thee strong;
And if at times amid these murky ways
The vision pales, it will not be for long.

XXV
A COLLEGE FOR DECAYED MERCHANTS, I

He well deserved of Age and Broken Means,
Who planned in Mercy's cause this fair retreat.
His heart is dust; but still his pity leans
To succour those who faint with long-borne heat,—
Pale traffickers grown old in clamorous scenes,
Who sought the gold it was not theirs to meet;
Content at last to embrace such kindly screens
As shut the wearied from the vigorous feet.
The sober reds of tile and brick, the door
High-arched and crowned with shielded blazonries,
The little pillared court with stony floor,
Are eloquent of sweet tranquillities,—
And garden-ground expanding more and more,
With paths that wind amid perpetual trees.

XXVI
A COLLEGE FOR DECAYED MERCHANTS, II

Not seldom in these walks the Poet strolls,
And most when summer spreads her leaves; for then
Across the lawn his chair the cripple rolls,—
No bower but hath its agèd denizen:
And if from chapel-roof the slow bell tolls,
Saith Four-score-years to Three-score-years-and-ten,—
“We rest a college of immortal souls,
Albeit a company of dying men.”
What time desire for calm has waxen deep,
And life's hot energies are all decayed,
I think it would be grateful here to sleep,—
I think it would be pleasant so to fade,—
With scarce a clock to tell how minutes creep,
And curtained by this venerable shade.

XXVII
A FOOTBALL PLAYER

If I could paint you, friend, as you stand there,
Guard of the goal, defensive, open-eyed,
Watching the tortured bladder slide and glide
Under the twinkling feet; arms bare, head bare,
The breeze a-tremble through crow-tufts of hair;
Red-brown in face, and ruddier having spied
A wily foeman breaking from the side;
Aware of him,—of all else unaware:
If I could limn you, as you leap and fling
Your weight against his passage, like a wall;
Clutch him, and collar him, and rudely cling
For one brief moment till he falls—you fall:
My sketch would have what Art can never give—
Sinew and breath and body; it would live.

XXVIII
A CRICKET BOWLER

Two minutes' rest till the next man goes in!
The tired arms lie with every sinew slack
On the mown grass. Unbent the supple back,
And elbows apt to make the leather spin
Up the slow bat and round the unwary shin,—
In knavish hands a most unkindly knack;
But no guile shelters under this boy's black
Crisp hair, frank eyes, and honest English skin.
Two minutes only. Conscious of a name,
The new man plants his weapon with profound
Long-practised skill that no mere trick may scare.
Not loth, the rested lad resumes the game:
The flung ball takes one madding tortuous bound,
And the mid-stump three somersaults in air.

XXIX
BEFORE THE RACE

The impatient starter waxeth saturnine.
“Is the bell cracked?” he cries. They make it sound:
And six tall lads break through the standers-round.
I watch with Mary while they form in line;
White-jersey'd all, but each with some small sign,
A broidered badge or shield with painted ground,
And one with crimson kerchief sash-wise bound;
I think we know that token, neighbour mine.
Willie, they call you best of nimble wights;
Yet brutal Fate shall whelm in slippery ways
Two soles at least. Will it be you she spites?
Ah well! 'Tis not so much to win the bays.
Uncrowned or crowned, the struggle still delights;
It is the effort, not the palm, we praise.

XXX
THE NEW CRICKET-GROUND

The loveliness of Earth is still unspent:
Her beauties, singly known, combined are strange:
And with what fondness she doth freshly range
Her ancient gems for man's new ravishment!
On this soft dew-fed tree-girt sward of Kent
The cricket-god to-day is first enthroned,
The dun herd banished, and its pasture owned
By white-clad players and their snowy tent.
The field I knew before, the lads I knew,
And oft elsewhere have watched their pleasant game;
But now an added lustre comes to view,
Familiar features look no more the same;
The new-set picture gains another hue,
And sheds another glory on its frame.

XXXI
A PALÆSTRAL STUDY

The curves of beauty are not softly wrought:
These quivering limbs by strong hid muscles held
In attitudes of wonder, and compelled
Through shapes more sinuous than a sculptor's thought,
Tell of dull matter splendidly distraught,
Whisper of mutinies divinely quelled,—
Weak indolence of flesh, that long rebelled,
The spirit's domination bravely taught.
And all man's loveliest works are cut with pain.
Beneath the perfect art we know the strain,
Intense, defined, how deep soe'er it lies.
From each high master-piece our souls refrain,
Not tired of gazing, but with stretchèd eyes
Made hot by radiant flames of sacrifice.

XXXII
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

A CONTRAST

I love to watch a rout of merry boys
Released from school for play, and nothing loth
To make amends for late incurious sloth
By wild activity and strident noise;
But more to mark the lads of larger growth
Move fieldward with such perfect equipoise,
As if constricted by an inward oath
To scorn the younger age and clamorous joys;
Prepared no less for pastime all their own,
A silent strenuous game of hand and knee,
Where no man speaks, but a round ball is thrown
And kicked and run upon with solemn glee,
And every struggle takes an earnest tone,
And rudest sport a sober dignity.

XXXIII
A REBUKE

Dear friend, why takes your brow so dark a hue
Because these babes prefer a noisy bliss?
They laugh too loud perhaps; but surely 't is
A venial fault where merry sounds are few.
When you were young, the world was young with you;
Now you are old, and must you grieve for this—
That still the world is young, or take amiss
The sport of those to whom delight is due?
We press and strive and toil from morn till eve;
From eve to morn our waking thoughts are grim.
Were children silent, we should half believe
That joy was dead—its lamp would burn so dim.
But in one boy's halloo it finds reprieve,
And lives for us because it lives for him.

XXXIV
THE POWER OF CHILDHOOD

O children, if the paradise our dream
Is found at all upon this earth we fret,
To you the glory and to us the debt
Must aye belong! Forgive us if we seem
To hold our corded bales in more esteem.
The cares of market crowd our souls; and yet
In busiest hours we never quite forget
With what mild innocence your round eyes beam.
Give kisses, lest we grow too covetous
Of pilèd treasure on our dusty shelves:
Be near to guard when wealth is perilous,
For ye are strong and heaven-defended elves:
Lift up your lithe brown hands and pray for us,
Who dare not ask the cheapest boon ourselves.

XXXV
FLORA

Some faces scarce are born of earth, they say;
Thine is not one of them, and yet 'tis fair;
Showing the buds of hope in soft array,
Which presently will burst and blossom there;
Now small as bells that Alpine meadows bear,—
Too low for any boisterous wind to sway.
Why should we think it shame for youth to wear
A beauty portioned from the natural day?
'T is thine to teach us what dull hearts forget,
How near of kin we are to springing flowers.
The sap from Nature's stem is in us yet;
Young life is conscious of uncancelled powers.
And happy they who, ere youth's sun has set,
Enjoy the golden unreturning hours.

XXXVI
BILL: A PORTRAIT

I know a lad with sun-illumined eyes,
Whose constant heaven is fleckless of a cloud;
He treads the earth with heavy steps and proud,
As if the gods had given him for a prize
Its beauty and its strength. What money buys
Is his; and his the reverence unavowed
Of toiling men for men who never bowed
Their backs to any burden anywise.
And if you talk of pain, of doubt, of ill,
He smiles and shakes his head, as who should say,
“The thing is black, or white, or what you will:
Let Folly rule, or Wisdom: any way
I am the dog for whom this merry day
Was made, and I enjoy it.” That is Bill.

XXXVII
FROM ANY POET

O fair and Young, we singers only lift
A mirror to your beauty dimly true,
And what you gave us, that we give to you.
And in returning minimise the gift.
We trifle like an artist brought to view
The nuggets gleaming in a golden drift,
Who, while the busy miners sift and sift,
Will take his idle brush and paint a few.
O Young and Glad, O Shapely, Fair, and Strong,
Yours is the soul of verse to make, not mar!
In you is loveliness: to you belong
Glory and grace: we sing but what you are.
Pleasant the song perchance; but O how far
The beauty sung of doth excel the song!

XXXVIII
A STORY OF AURELIUS

With foliage gathered from the sacred bough
Young Marcus worshipped where the Salii dwell
Before the warrior-god he served so well,
What time they flung their garlands, striving how
They best might crown the statue's head. And now
A strange thing happened (so the chroniques tell)—
The other chaplets missed their aim, and fell:
Only the boy's wreath lighted on the brow.
And was the god or passive or displeased?
I think Parnassus joins Olympus here:
O hearts of youth, so brightly frankly true,
To gods and bards alike your praise is dear;
Though wreaths from adult hands be all unseized,
Our crowns are crowns indeed if thrown by you!

XXXIX
A THOUGHT FROM PINDAR

NEM. V

Twin immortalities man's art doth give
To man; both fair; both noble; one supreme.
The sculptor beating out his portrait scheme
Can make the marble statue breathe and live;
Yet with a life cold, silent, locative;
It cannot break its stone-eternal dream,
Or step to join the busy human stream,
But dwells in some high fane a hieroglyph.
Not so the poet. Hero, if thy name
Lives in his verse, it lives indeed. For then
In every ship thou sailest passenger
To every town where aught of soul doth stir,
Through street and market borne, at camp and game,
And on the lips and in the hearts of men!

XL
VIRGIL

Not for the glittering splendour of thy verse,
O Seer-singer, do we count thee dear;
Not for the prowess of the Ænean spear,
The long brave battling with the Dardan curse;
But for thy human heart's sake we rehearse
Thy deep lines eloquent with hope and fear;
Thou too wert human; yea, to thee were near
The Fates that are about us and coerce.
Surely no softer subtler foot ere trod
Regions unlit save by the spirit's flame;
And through all shadows this high faith was thine:
Powerless is death to quench the spark divine;
Man's soul unfettered turneth whence it came;
God its fruition, for its seed was God.

XLI
IN THE CLOISTERS

WINCHESTER COLLEGE, I

I walked to-day where Past and Present meet,
In that grey cloister eloquent of years,
Which ever groweth old, yet ever hears
The same glad echo of unaging feet.
Only from brass and stone some quaint conceit,
The monument of long-forgotten tears,
Whispers of vanished lives, of spent careers,
And hearts that, beating once, have ceased to beat.
And as I walked, I heard the boys who played
Beyond the quiet precinct, and I said—
“How broad the gulf which deliving Time has made
Between those happy living and these dead.”
And, lo, I spied a grave new-garlanded,
And on the wall a boyish face that prayed.

XLII
IN THE CLOISTERS

WINCHESTER COLLEGE, II

Two things are ever with us, youth and death—
The Faun that pipes, and Pluto unbeguiled;
From age to age still plays the eternal child,
Nor heeds the eternal doom that followeth.
Ah, precious days of unreflecting breath!
There lay (so might we fancy) one who smiled
Through all life's paradox unreconciled,
Enjoying years the grown man squandereth.
And if his latest hour was touched with pain,
And some dim trouble crossed his childish brain,
He knew no fear,—in death more blest than we.
And now from God's clear light he smiles again,
Not ill-content his mortal part to see
In such a spot, amid such company.

XLIII
TWO THOUGHTS

When I reflect how small a space I fill
In this great teeming world of labourers,
How little I can do with strongest will,
How marred that little by most hateful blurs,—
The fancy overwhelms me, and deters
My soul from putting forth so poor a skill:
Let me be counted with those worshippers
Who lie before God's altar, and are still.
But then I think (for healthier moments come),
This power of will, this natural force of hand,—
What do they mean, if working be not wise?
Forbear to weigh thy work, O soul! Arise,
And join thee to that nobler sturdier band
Whose worship is not idle, fruitless, dumb.

XLIV
A BENEDICTION

Now may God bless thee for thy face, at least,
Seeing there is such comfort in the mere
Mute watching of it,—yea, a constant feast
Of golden glamour when the days are drear,
And summer harmonies have sunk and ceased.
This is the very death-day of the year;
Yet Beauty is not dead; thou art her priest,
Thy face her temple 'mid the shed leaves here.
And if for me no Spring should ever prank
My fields again with daisies anywhere,
And though all other faces dull and blank
Look through the darkness till they seem to bear
The guise of death, I cannot choose but thank
My God for having fashioned one so fair.

XLV
THE EXCUSE

If there were anything that I could do,
Which done would make your comfort more complete,
Think not I should continue this low seat,
And drink your bountihead as hitherto;
Indeed I would most gladly toil for you:
And yet, believe me, it might happen, sweet,
That I should come in time to work my feat
For the feat's sake, forgetting whence it grew,
And so displacing love, should lose love so.
But since your life is full of things that bless,—
Dowered with such bounty that I may not guess
One smallest gift which man might still bestow,—
My Love hath leave to bloom in idleness,
And know herself with nothing else to know.

XLVI
A PLEA FOR DELAY

Not yet! Not yet! I dare not let thee go,
Till, line for line, thy face indelible
Lies printed on my heart as on a shell
That gravers cut for pearl-intaglio.
For one brief hour you will not grudge, I know,
To let my spirit, painter-fashion, dwell
Amid thy fronting lineaments, and tell
All that she learns in moving to and fro.
Remember, it may never chance again,
In this dim world of fates lethiferal,
That I alive should meet thee living too,
With power to mark thy traits as now I do;
And lacking these, how would my soul retain
Thine image in the ways ethereal?

XLVII
THE DYING PRINCE

He was a monarch's son, and yet he lay
Racked by the latest pangs of long disease;
And vainly through the lattice stole the breeze
To cool his fevered forehead, where Decay
Made broad her cruel image day by day;
And vainly fell the shadow-gloom from trees,
At whose far feet the peasant droned at ease,
Rich in the sturdy health of common clay.
He saw the clouds. He saw the smoke that curled
From lowly cots, the leaves that flecked his floor;
The peacock screamed, cocks crew, the fountain purled,
And horses trampled at the castle-door;
These were his tokens from the living world—
The world he might not visit any more.

XLVIII
A DREAM OF PICTURES

BY D. G. ROSSETTI

One soul through many windows looking out;
One face transformed in vari-coloured moods,
But chiefly pale and sad, and framed about
With pansies plucked where Melancholy broods;
A drooping spirit strengthened but to flout
Love's life-elixir; faint, which yet eludes
All hands that succour; and half-dead with drought
Remains enamoured of her solitudes.
Alas! we may not help her. She would turn
From our poor comfort, still disconsolate;
Happy to be unhappy, glad to burn
With torturing flame which no tear-showers abate;
Yea, rapt to heaven, unblest or blest too late,
In God's own presence still would yearn and yearn.

XLIX
AFTER TEN YEARS

A league a-field with no intent of turning,
(One league or twain—God knows the world is wide,)
And fifty thoughts in fifty channels churning,
Ten years agone my fancy loved to ride;
The boy's young heart within me ever yearning
For stranger-truths to homely hearts denied;
There is so much that tempts us to the learning,
When Health's the horse and Youth is firm astride!
But Time is fleet for those who play the rover,
And lengthy jaunts corrupt to weary whiles;
'Tis strange to find, now riding days are over,
How great a space a little thought beguiles;
Enough at noon to amble through the clover,
And take the poppy-heads to mark the miles.

L
TO A WORKER RESIGNED

The cry went forth for labourers in the field,
And thou, dear child, obedient to the cry,
Didst leave thy quiet home, with purpose high,
To lift strange implements thou couldst not wield.
Now, in the shadow of thy roof concealed,
Thou sittest lonely, thinking with a sigh,
Of blessèd deeds which stronger hands may try,
Of sad folk comforted, of sick folk healed.
Yet serve they not as well the common Lord
Who from one tiny circle never roam?
Doth not the glowworm on earth's humblest sward
Vie with the seraph in the starry dome?
Let others spread their soothing balms abroad;
Thou art the angel of the church at home.

LI
THE END OF IT

Give me your hand. The glimmering star we sought
Has vanished wholly. Truth is hard to find
In these fierce tournaments of mind and mind,
When thought leaps out to tilt with armèd thought,
And words are pierced and flung in angry sport.
We have forgotten why, forgotten how
We came to such rude cudgellings; and now
The brawl is everything, the end is naught.
Here sits no arbiter that Reason knows;
And Wisdom cries, “Surrender and be mute!”
I have no better friend than you,—suppose
Your love should cool, as logic grows acute!
Give me your hand. We will no more dispute.
What boon hath strife that it should make us foes?

LII
IN A CHURCHYARD

With Thyrsis late I walked on holy ground,
And after silence at one tomb I spake:
“Here lies a man whose love no scorn could shake,
No toil could weary. Though dull neighbours round
Observed him little as they mark this mound,
His goods, time, thought, were lavished for their sake,
His whole life spent in long attempt to make
The world he lived in nobler than he found.
And, Thyrsis, we at most can do no more:
That world outweighs us with the old blind stress.
Yet could we see him on the glittering shore,
The sheaves he carried might exceed our guess.
We keep the same great cause to labour for:
Look to it, Thyrsis, that we do no less.”

LIII
TO ANY PAINTER

Be patient; take thy coloured threads, and weave
The robe of Beauty, flawless, without spot.
Be humble; what the world may grant, receive,
And yet for praise or guerdon lay no plot.
Be sober; though thy skill should win thee leave
To drain the bowl of Circé, use it not.
Be thankful; knowing there are those who grieve,
Because their genius has not gained thy lot.
The day thou servest may not be thy day:
It may not mark thee, bless thee, give thee gold
Or owning all thine art's imperial sway,
Refuse the lesson on thy canvas scrolled.
At least, when life is over, labour done,
One shall be nobler for the work of one.

LIV
TO AN INVALID

You ask me for a charm against disease—
Not of the body (you can bow to that),
But of the spirit, which you tremble at,
Lest it should dull your fine-wrought sympathies
With vigorous human life, and slowly freeze
The sinews of your mind, till they grow numb
As the dead limbs they live with, and become
Useless for all high purposes, like these.
What is my counsel? Choose a hero. Then
Make him your study,—temper, brain, and nerve,
Till he has grown your stronger self. And when
Weak morbid impulse comes on you to swerve
From the sane path, his grafted strength shall serve
To keep you true to God, your soul, and men.

LV
A PENITENT

Enough! I choose to tell you. Priest or no,
Your pity is grateful to me. Yet be sure
For comfort's sake I tell you, not for cure.
Sin's pang is long in lessening,—not one throe,
Passed in a moment and forgotten so.
Nor do I dream (for that is Hell's own lure)
That we may fall, and afterwards grow pure
By much repenting. Righteous we may grow,
Calm, steadfast, patient, peaceful if God bless,
Not pure,—not till the Last Day's trumpet-call,
When the round world shall learn our guiltiness,
And the maimed soul be stripped to all, that all,
Seeing the scar, may guess the fall, and guess
How great the Mercy which forgave the fall.

LVI
A PILGRIM

'Tis only perfect faith that never tires,
An angel trust that murmurs, “Come what may,
No fond regret shall tempt my feet to stray
From the strict path of mortified desires.”
Though hearts are weak, lips need not so be liars.
Had there been any choice, I do not say
I should have chosen this dull rugged way,
This way of stones and flints, and wayside briars.
What then? I grieve not, faint not. God is kind.
He gives me strange sweet flowers that push between
The flints,—such as no garden ever bore:
And gathering these, how can I choose but mind
What thankful hearts have gleaned where now I glean,
What patient feet have passed this way before?

LVII QUEM DI DILIGUNT

O kiss the almond-blossom on the rod!
A thing has gone from us that could not stay.
At least our sad eyes shall not see one day
All baseness treading where all beauty trod.
O kiss the almond-blossom on the rod!
For this our budding Hope is caught away
From growth that is not other than decay
To bloom eternal in the halls of God.
And though of subtler grace we saw no sign,
No glimmer from the yet unrisen star,—
Full-orbed he broke upon the choir divine,
Saint among saints beyond the golden bar,
Round whose pale brows new lights of glory shine—
The aureoles that were not and that are.

LVIII
BY A GRAVE-SIDE

Here once again I stand, and once again
Recall thy béauty, O belovèd face,
And, O belovèd soul, thy gentle grace,
Thy flower of courtesy that knew not stain.
Thou art not here: yet is it sweetest pain
To think of thee in this the nearest place
Of earthly places to that spirit-space,
Which no man sees at all except he feign.
Forgive me that I may not often come
To mourn thee here, who mourn where'er I go,
Toiling to swell the Age's Beauty-sum,
Till in the lapse of Time's eternal flow,
Mine arm as thine is dead, my lips are dumb,
My head beside thy head is laid a-low.

LIX
ON READING A POET'S “LIFE”

Because he sang of pleasant paths and roses,
You thought that summer joys were all his care.
“The only wisdom,” so you cried, “he knows is
How much delight one crowded day can bear:
The reason why his verse uniquely flows is
That he alone has wealth of bliss to spare:
In Tempé's vale for life he gathereth posies,
And flings the few he doth not keep to wear.”
The veil is lifted now. Behold your singer,—
A sick poor man, despised, and barely sane,
Who strove awhile to shape with palsied finger
The hard-wrung produce of a sleepless brain,
Rich but in throes,—till Death, the great balm-bringer,
Stooped down to kiss him through the deeps of pain.

LX
TO A MOTHER

Weep not, O fond one, for thy wayward boy!
This foolish world is more to blame than he,
That takes the youngster on her nursing knee,
And makes him 'ware of whatso gawds destroy:
Then later, when he cries for some coarse toy,
Loosens her doting arms and lets him free,
And murmurs, “Fool! And yet I will not see.
Did ever youth resist a glittering joy?”
Take heart. Though there be those who never learn,
Or learn too late, which is the better friend,—
Thy lad, of nobler mettle, shall not spurn
The love that saves while life is all to spend,
But wise betimes, awake, repent, return,
And bless thy patient pleading in the end.

LXI
TO A STRANGE TEACHER

Trouble me no more. The world is very wide
And full of souls whose primal faith has fled.
Go first to them; and leave one simple head,
Wherein the earlier teachings still abide.
Why seek to fill a mouth that has not cried,
To clog satiety of bread with bread?
Can any hunger having richly fed?
Can one be full, and yet dissatisfied?
If I were wretched, you should perhaps prevail;
At least I might give ear to you. But now,
Because I am so happy, and because
Content with life, I would be as I was,
Your message moves me not. Who questions how
To dig new cisterns, till the elder fail?

LXII
WINDOWS OF THE CHURCH

I. ST. MATTHEW

This form is Matthew; sometime Publican,
But now God's Saint. Who having sat long while
Receiving custom with no thought of guile,
Honest in stewardship, albeit by man
Despised, by God of place in His great plan
The nations and Himself to reconcile
Was held most worthy, yea of work and style
Desired by angels ere the world began.
For as on that bright day beside his board
He counted tribute, from the city-gate
Came One with strangest summons: “Follow Me.”
'Twas Jesus, named of Nazareth. And he,
Knowing his life new-called and consecrate,
Rose up,—the elect Historian of the Lord.

LXIII
WINDOWS OF THE CHURCH

II. ST. MARK

To Mark the second place; that Mark who erst
Was kin to Barnabas and friend of Paul,
And reckoned it an easy thing and small
To be their yoke-fellow through lands accurst,
Preaching deliverance to the tribes dispersed;
Yea, and was helpful ere his faith had fall;
Then taking fearfulness for Heaven's recall,
Went back and walked not with them as at first;
And so was lost to Paul, but not to God;
Who bore him gently as a tender child,
Strengthened and blest him; till with feet new-shod
Again he ventured on the pagan wild,
Carried the Light of lights from shade to shade,
Travailed, and suffered, and was not afraid.

LXIV
WINDOWS OF THE CHURCH

III. ST. LUKE

Here standeth Luke, Physician once, and still;
Healer of souls whom God delights to save;
Wise-eyed in helpfulness; in pity brave;
For all diseases using blessèd skill;
To halt, maimed, blind, beneficent; until
From town obscure by Galilean wave
Flashed forth the Day-Star, born of God, and gave
New life to suppliants with a sweet “I will.”
At whose appearing Luke was straightly dumb,
Lost in the greater Light; nor found it hard;
But knelt and worshippèd; and afterward
For thy monition, O Theophilus,
Wrote large his gospel, and for help of us,
On whom the last days of the world are come.

LXV
WINDOWS OF THE CHURCH

IV. ST. JOHN

Behold the face that Jesus loved of yore,
The face of John. Long time with Zebedee
He dragged his rough nets through the darkling sea;
Till Jesus marked the power unmarked before,
And called him from his black boat on the shore
To fish for men. With zeal and lovingly
He did that fisher-work, while hands were free;
Then lived God's prisoner, and was blest yet more;
Who on a day in Patmos knew the whirl
Of spirit-wings around him, (it is writ
To them that held him as Evangelist,)
And saw God's City, and the walls of it—
All gems, from jasper up to amethyst,
With streets gold-glass, and every gate a pearl.

LXVI
THE TORCH-BEARER

In splendour robed for some court-revelry
A monarch moves when eve is on the wane.
His faithful lieges flock their prince to see,
And strive to pierce the gathering shade—in vain.
But lo, a torch! And now the brilliant train
Is manifest. Who may the bearer be?
Not great himself, he maketh greatness plain.
To him this praise at least. What more to me?
Mine is a lowly Muse. She cannot sing
A pageant or a passion; cannot cry
With clamorous voice against an evil thing,
And break its power; but seeks with single eye
To follow in the steps of Love her King,
And hold a light for men to see Him by.

LXVII
THE POET

What is a Poet? is he one who keeps
His heart remote from cares of human-kind,
Tasting the rich feast of a perfect mind,
Watching the shadowed Form that broods and sleeps
On Fancy's breast, and drawing from her deeps
New thoughts of Beauty, splendid, unconfined;
Contemptuous of the common lot, and blind
To the great silent crowd that toils and weeps?
Ah, no! All woes that all men ever knew
Lie in his soul, their labours in his hand;
Yea, tear for tear, and haply tear for smile,
Sin's smile, he renders them; and if some while
He doth withdraw himself, 'tis but to stand
Such space apart as gives the larger view.

LXVIII
THE ART THAT ENDURES

Marble of Paros, bronze that will not rust,
Onyx or agate,—Sculptor, choose thy block!
Not clay nor wax nor perishable stock
Of earthy stones can yield a virile bust
Keen-edged against the centuries. Strive thou must
In molten brass or adamantine rock
To carve the strenuous shape which shall not mock
Thy faith by crumbling dust upon thy dust.
Poet, the warning comes not less to thee!
Match well thy metres with a strong design.
Let noble themes find nervous utterance. Flee
The frail conceit, the weak mellifluous line.
High thoughts, hard forms, toil, rigour,—these be thine,
And steadfast hopes of immortality.

LXIX
WORDS AND THOUGHTS

O words are weak! We need a stronger tongue
To utter forth the heart's imaginings.
Our deepest deep is full of subtle things,
Things mystic, marvellous,—unsaid, unsung,
Because they may not anywise be wrung
Into a verbal mode. So no man brings
To upper light his soul's hid travailings,
Or tells what stars his spirit moves among.
And yet, God knoweth, it might well be worse,
(Since life is gone if all its fruits are gone,)
Could we not keep, when formal thoughts disperse,
Some half-revealèd shape to search and con,
Some child of Fancy's children still at nurse,
Some brede of Love for Love to brood upon.

LXX
AN APOLOGY

I hold not lightly by this world of sense,
So full it is of things that make me cheer.
I deem that mortal blind of soul and dense,
To whom created joys are less than dear.
The heaven we hope for is not brought more near
By spurning drops of love that filter thence:
In Nature's prism some purple beams appear,
Of unrevealèd light the effluence.
Then count me not, O yearning hearts, to blame
Because at Beauty's call mine eyes respond,
Nor soon convict me of ignoble aim,
Who in the schools of Life am frankly fond;
For out of earth's delightful things we frame
Our only visions of the world beyond.

LXXI
LIFE

White sails that on the horizon flash and flee,
A moment glinting where the sun has shone;
White billows for a moment riding free,
Then gulfed in other waves that follow on;
White birds that hurry past so rapidly,
Albeit no sight more bright to look upon;
Like you our little life; we are as ye—
A moment sighted, in a moment gone.
Yet not in vain, oh, not in vain, we live,
If we too catch the sunlight in the air,
And signal back the beauty ere we sink
In that dark hollow men call death, and give
To saddened souls that watch us on the brink
A gleam of glory, transient but fair.

LXXII
TO A STUDENT

It is enough, O straining Heart and strong,
Enough that in thy safely-garnered store
Thou hast heaped high the rich and varied lore
Of dead decades. Thou dost thy scholars wrong
To keep them waiting for the light so long.
And nature swoons. Oh, what if nevermore
The face of man looks human as of yore,
And mute for thee grows melody of song?
These things are more than learning; these are life.
The Past is grand; but is he wise who deems
All else ignoble? Spite of sound and strife,
To-day is not so barren as it seems.
Thou mightest know an angel in thy wife,
And fair child-faces looking through thy dreams.

LXXIII
AT THE ISTHMIAN GAMES

We crown thee, Hero, not for strength alone;
That were a meed unworthy thy desert.
Strength in the base is objectless, inert,
Or strained to keep some passion on its throne.
We crown thee rather, for that thou hast shown
How fair thy prowess, and how fitly girt
With laurel is the strength which does no hurt
To the heart's image of ideal tone.
Rough men our eyes have wondered at ere now,
Who ran with wingèd feet as thou hast run;
Others we know—tall youths with graceful brow
Inviting wreaths of bay, yet wearing none
Because their feet move sluggishly. But thou
Hast given us strength and beauty joined in one.

LXXIV
IN THE SOPHIST'S AKADEMÊ: AN IDLER

The old man babbles on. Ye gods, I swear
My soul is sick of these philosophers!
In sooth I marvel that young blood should care
To hear such vapid stuff: yet no one stirs.
Who's for a breath of unpolluted air?
See yonder brown-eyed nursling of the Muse,—
I'll pluck his robe and ask him; if he choose,
We two can steal away and none be ware.
What joy to find a woodland rill, and wade
Knee-deep through pebbly shallows; then to lie
With glistening limbs along the open glade,
And let the soft-lipped sunbeams kiss them dry:
Or wandering in the grove's remoter shade
To sport and jest and talk—philosophy!

LXXV
THE SAME CONTINUED

He will not come. Poor fool! no thought of fun
Lights his dark soul—content in this drear place
To spend the golden hours in fruitless chase
Of witless words. How softly one by one
The breezes fold their wings till day be done;
The laurels droop; from out the pillar's base
A grass-green lizard peeps with wrinkly face,
And turns his beaded eyes toward the sun.
Look east. I think god Phœbus never shone
More brightly on the Mount. A molten bar
Leaps from Athenê's helm as from a star,
Wakes the white spirit of the Parthenon,
Then dies upon the purple hills afar
In flame. And still the old man babbles on.

LXXVI
A PHILISTINE

Yestre'en while strolling through a marish dale
I marked a thistle-feeding ass, and said:
“Poor patient drudge, how will thy worth avail
To lift thy name, while thou art thistle-fed?
See, here are cytisus and galingale—
Blooms of Theocritus; crop these instead:
So haply may some Genius in thy head
Throb gloriously and tingle through thy tail.
Then would men credit thee with breadth of brain
Beyond thy race, and thou 'mong all that dwell
In British donkeydom shouldst bear the bell.”
He paused; I showed the sacred food; in vain!
His lumpish nose turned thistlewards again.
“Thou wast fore-doomed,” I murmured; “fare thee well!”

LXXVII
A PHILOSOPHER

The fire burns bright; the kettle in the grate
Sends gentle music floating through the air,
While Rumpelstilzchen from the easy chair
Makes soft refrain. O friend, serene, sedate,
Thou hast a strange capacity to bear
The good and evil of a changing state;
Thrice-happy thus voluptuously to fare,
Yet not remorseful if unkindly Fate
Appoints cold vigils in a leafless tree.
Brave Stoic-epicure! Would I might win
Some part of thy combined philosophy;
Enjoy beatitude without a sin,
Yet take my crosses kindly; live like thee,
All fur without, and triple brass within.

LXXVIII
DEDICATION TO “THE WINDOWS OF THE CHURCH”

This is a tiny Book: yet here is writ
An honoured name, as those who know it know.
Hath blind conceit inscribed it then? Not so.
Yon vane that on the steeple-top doth sit,—
How small it is, how slender, weak, unfit
For noble ends! But while its hand can show
With faithful point which way the breezes blow,
Men are content, and ask no more of it.
And this my little Book is such a vane;
Void in itself of strength or dignity;
But set where all who choose may see it plain;
And mark, O gentle Head, how constantly,
In summer sunshine or through winter rain,
The love-winds of my reverence tend to Thee.

LXXIX
A DISCIPLE SECRETLY, I

One glance upon the dead face,—only one.
You think it strange; but he can never know;
Or with a spirit's knowledge would he shun
Last look from any friend who loved him so
As I have loved: in happy mood and low,
In hours of grave content, in hours of fun,
In mind's debate, in full heart's overflow,
Through all his course, till all his course was done.
What if I spake but little,—did not tell
The wealth of reverence ever waxing more
As he grew worthier worship? Is it well
To pluck a secret from the heart's hid core,—
Play thief where Self-respect as sentinel
Keeps watch upon a still unopened door?

LXXX
A DISCIPLE SECRETLY, II

Nay, surely; Love must know her times, and whom
She will, confesses. Can the budding flower,
When hasty fingers break it unto bloom,
Match the bright offspring of a natural hour,
That warmed by sun, and woke by sudden shower,
Expands full-orbed? Albeit, if subtle doom
Eclipse its beauty unfulfilled, no power
Shall curl its petals skyward from the tomb.
I did not speak. Is that a reasoned grief,
Now chance of speech is gone, for ever gone?
What could I give? A flower in broken leaf,
A thing his eye would scarcely gaze upon,
And Head had cried to Heart, “O foolish Thief
To steal what should be fairly thine anon!”

LXXXI
DREAM-TRAVEL

At night on Fancy's moon-lit main
I launch my shallop, like a thief
From doom of Justice fugitive,
If haply I may glide and gain
The land whereof sad hearts are fain,
Where lotos hangs a heavy leaf,
And amaranth is grown for grief,
For grief that is no longer pain;
And human tongues are like a tune
Heard faintly through the dusk of June,
As though in some unearthly grot,
Where Fate and Force and Fear are not,
A silver-throated choir did sing
To softest note of pshawm-playing.

LXXXII
ISABEL: A PORTRAIT

Who loves a deep face, let him look with me
On this of Isabel's,—to common sight
Perfect in paleness, wonderful and white,
But to the studious gaze a mystery:
For never calm so utter save there be
A home of turbid feelings recondite,
Though none shall find it in the soul's despite,—
Few guess it under such tranquillity.
She is a passion-flower hung overhead,
That will not stoop its disc for eyes to see;
A scriptured lily, ere its petals spread,
Shut close until the sunshine,—so is she;
Fair riddle not by all men to be read;
Bright casket opening to one special key.

LXXXIII
THE HONEY-MOON

Till dusk crept o'er the June-grass round my seat,
She lay and listened, drinking word by word
All the old tales of Arcady that spurred
The Doric heart, and made Greek pulses beat.
I could have talked for aye: it was so sweet
To mark her up-turned face, while night's one bird
Woke in the beech, and eve's last zephyr stirred
And sighed a little, ere it sank effete.
At length she rose with forehead sagely knit:
“It never was,” she cried—“that age divine!”
And I: “But how then could we dream of it?
As well deny yon far-off tapers shine.”
And so we passed to household lamps new-lit,
My hand upon her shoulder, hers on mine.

LXXXIV
A POETASTER

Of common things I treat in scanty rhymes,
My verse is wrung from life's familiar prose,
I hardly guess if Hippocrene still flows,
'Tis not my wit that Helicon sublimes.
Like that rude peasant-lad of mythic times,
I press my beanstalk with illiterate toes,
Not envious of the learnèd wight who knows
A lordlier stair perchance,—and never climbs.
Or change the trope; my lines are coined of stuff
That lay where no Scamander richly rolled.
From native soil, obscure, unvalued, rough,
I dig the metal for my sonnet-mould.
It melts, it runs, it sparkles—'tis enough!
Men call it copper: well, I dream it gold.

LXXXV
AN EVENING WALK

At fall of night we wandered forth to muse,
And arm in arm pursued the shadowy lane,
Careless where Fate might lead, or Fancy choose
To draw our footsteps in her silver chain.
Enough to know the grandeur overhead,
And feel the voiceless music of the hour,
That symphony which wakes responsive power
In every heart of man not wholly dead:
Or even dead, what heart but lives again,
Recalled to being by so sweet a strain?
At times like this, the outer air is fraught
With some soft spell, which moves to harmony
The human soul within, till all our thought
Is touched with pathos—and we know not why

LXXXVI
SHELLEY

Some men are nature wise—yet cannot pray;
Scan leaf and stone, and know not that they drink
God's air at every breathing; souls that sink
Whelmed in the billow while they mark the spray,
Blind to the death. This man did more than they;
Got faith, and travelled to the very brink
Of the great world's great secret, as I think;
Then losing faith, fell back, and missed his way.
Happier the child who knows that God is good:
He only knew that God's great work is fair.
Yet he loved much, and in sublimer mood
Might live and worship in that tranquil air
Where all is seen, all told, all understood;
Haply our mazèd souls shall meet him there.

LXXXVII
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

“Behold I stand!” Who standeth? Can it be
The Son of God, the Christ, the crucified,
Whom thou hast all thy life contemned, denied,
And thrust asunder? Yea, 'tis even He.
“Behold, I stand and knock!” Where knocking? See
The closèd door thick-set with thorns of pride,
And choked with idle weeds from side to side;
It is the door of thine impiety.
“Behold, I stand and knock. If any hear
My voice and open” (Foolish soul, to thee
He speaketh all night long. Dost thou not fear
To keep Him waiting there so wearily?),
“I will come in,” (O God, my God, how near!)
“Yea, and will sup with him, and he with Me.”

LXXXVIII
AUTUMN LEAVES

How soft they fall! No fevered clutch,
No frenzied prayer, no fruitless vow!
They wait the doom with fearless brow:
Death is not terrible to such.
Thus let me die—not striving much
To keep my hand upon the bough,
When Fate comes near with friendly touch,
And whispers, “Life is over now”;
Still less receive, as loth to go,
The summons with a fret or frown;
But learn from this calm end to know
How patient faith may fitly crown
A life uncrownèd else; and so,
In shade or sun, drop gently down.

LXXXIX
A LATE SPRING

The wintry blast that chills, the frost that nips,
Match well this most un-spring-like vault of grey,
The sun has suffered long a cloud eclipse,
And all the merriment gone out of May.
Where are the blue-bells, where the cowslips, where
The song of nightingales, the cuckoo's note?
No voice is heard from any feathered throat,
No beds of early blossom scent the air.
So spake I yesterday: and, lo, this morn
Unveiled a sun now blazing on to noon!
The looked-for babe of vernal hope is born,
And means to leap from out his cradle soon.
O patient Earth, put on thy robe and sing!
The skies are clear; at length, at length 'tis Spring.

XC
TO E. C. P.

You do me wrong, my friend. I never said
That fault of heart is screened by charm of face,
Or bade you look for love, then take instead
A thin veneer of superficial grace.
I did but amplify a common thought,
That light without is born of flame within,
That pure and noble lines of feature ought
To image forth a soul unmarred by sin.
There is a formal beauty all of earth,
A poor deceptive thing of little worth;
Of that I spake not. To the Poet's eye
One God illumes all good since Time began;
The rest he looks on but in passing by
To realise the perfect type of man.

XCI
ADVICE

If I were you, with health and youth in touch—
Great gifts at hand, and greater gifts in store,
I would not, for the much, forget the more,
I would not, for the more, neglect the much.
Be rich to-day; but while to-day you clutch
The fruit which yesterday your hands forbore,
Bethink you of the days that stretch before,
And spare the seed which shall be fruit for such.
Not all to spend, nor all to save, is best;
To have, to hope; to enjoy, and still pursue;
To climb awhile, and then awhile to rest;
To love the old, and yet acclaim the new;
And “Good the goal” should be my creed confest,
If I were you, dear lad,—if I were you!

XCII
SIBYL'S HAND

There are five fingers in a hand, I think;
And Sibyl's hand hath neither less nor more:
To wit, a thumb, a common thumb, and four
Well ordered digits fleshed in white and pink,
As other digits are. Yet when I link
My hand in hers, as daily in a score
Of hands I link it, steals through every pore
A strange sweet feeling not with pen and ink
Definable,—so strange indeed and sweet
That I can scarce quit hold. Now tell me pray,
Good friends discreet of soul,—when next we meet
And Sibyl smiles, which is the better way—
Shall I refuse the hand stretched out to greet,
Or clasp and keep it ever and a day?

XCIII
SAINTS

O Saints, dear Saints, so present, yet so far!
I cannot touch you with my hand, or trace
The aspect of your strength, your faith, your grace;
Between us lie the years,—the gulf, the bar.
But as one tracks the starlight to the star,
And finds no dark nor flame-forsaken space
To fret the beauty of its burning face,
Because the splendour swallows blot and scar;
So Time has framed you with an aureole
More circle-rounded than your age foreknew;
No frailty now can quench that fire of soul!
The things ye willed, and did not, those ye do;
The gifts ye strove for, in my sight are true;
Your perfect parts have made perfection whole.

XCIV
ON A DULL DOG

This dog was dull. He had so little wit
That other dogs would flout him, nose in air.
But was he therefore wretched? Did he care
How dogdom snarled, or even think of it?
He thought of nothing, but all day would sit
Warm in the sun, with placid vacant stare,
Content, at ease, oblivious, unaware;
And all because—he had so little wit!
O happy dulness which is dull indeed,
And cannot hear the critic-world's “Go hang!”
Small bliss we get from our too-conscious breed,
We semi-dullards of the middle gang!
To mark the rose, and know one's-self a weed,
And know that others know,—there lies the pang!

XCV
THE CARPET-WEAVER

Lived once a carpet-weaver, poor in purse
But rich in love for all things fair, and all
That lift the soul. Hard fortune! Did he curse
The sordid Fates that bound him to the stall?
He reared his booth against the temple wall,
Marked every day the wreathèd crowds disperse,
Heard flute and tabor and the doves' low call
And wove meanwhile his carpets—think you, worse?
We may not all be temple-slaves of Art;
The world has ruder work for you, for me.
Yet so God lets us toil that, pure in heart,
We dimly guess what happier eyes can see;
What happier lips can sing is ours in part,
If we keep time with their sweet minstrelsy.

XCVI
FAITH AND LOVE

The darkened chamber held the maiden dead.
Her name was Faith. Of long neglect she died.
And now men rose and shook themselves and cried,
“O Faith, come back,—come back ere Hope be fled!”
But she lay silent on her solemn bed,
And men grew piteous at their prayer denied;
They said “No more is man to man allied;
We fall asunder—and the world,” they said.
And while they talked, behold a gracious form,
And Love beside the pillow bending low:
“We live and die together, she and I.”
So then he kissed her, and her flesh grew warm;
She woke and faced them with a ruddy glow.
If Love be living, Faith can never die.

XCVII
REVERENCE

Behold, and touch not; worship, and refrain.
Kneel in the outer court, nor hotly bring
Too near the Radiance thy frail offering,
Which is thyself. Fond heart, what couldst thou gain
By creeping closer? Nay; let be; remain;
Between thy love and the Belovèd thing
Keep still a space for rapt imagining,
Lest languor seize thee, and a subtle pain.
Thou art a man. Be human and content.
Not thine to breathe a supersensual air
Or snatch the heart of bliss. Thy joys are lent
To teach thee how to greet them and to spare:
As some grey prophet with his head low bent
Will give to Beauty blessing—all he dare.

XCVIII
THE BEST ANSWER

Say on. You know how dead-alive I am.
Some men would wince to see their idols flung
From dim-lit darkness where so late they hung,
And turned adrift for jeers, and labelled “sham.”
But I (you know me), mild as any lamb,
Give up my heroes to your slashing tongue,
Give up my martyrs to be burned and hung,
And keep my lips, and bless not, if you damn.
And when at length the wordy storm has waned,
Still bright the sky! The rifted clouds reveal
The same unchanging sun. Two things are gained.
My heart is tempered to a firmer steel,
And your true self comes out to soothe and heal.
But since you stirred me not, I am not pained.

XCIX
RATAPLAN

“O Rataplan! It is a merry note,
And, mother, I'm for 'listing in the morn;”
“And would ye, son, to wear a scarlet coat,
Go leave your mother's latter age forlorn?”
“O mother, I am sick of sheep and goat,
Fat cattle, and the reaping of the corn;
I long to see the British colours float;
For glory, glory, glory, was I born!”
She saw him march. It was a gallant sight.
She blest herself, and praised him for a man.
And straight he hurried to the bitter fight,
And found a bullet in the drear Soudan.
They dug a shallow grave—'twas all they might;
And that's the end of glory. Rataplan!

C
THE INQUISITOR

Yes, pain is grievous; argumentum stat.
But not so frightful as the flames of—well,
You know. And by compare, as schoolmen tell,
These pangs are scarce the stinging of a gnat.
Besides, we have the Church's mandate—flat!
“Compel them to come in,”—I say—“compel!”
Now if through naughtiness the flesh rebel,
And need sharp goading, dare we shrink from that?
No, no; last week a heretic we tried
Who much annoyed us, being obstinate
Beyond the measure of his kind. We plied
All engines; [OMITTED] for his sin was great.
Then I took unction just before he died
And sent him pardoned through St. Peter's gate.