Sursum Corda :: :: University of Virginia Library

Oh, once to soar, a lark, or sail, a cloud,
In the eternal azure overspread!
Could ever the world's voices, vain and loud,
Allure again the soul that once had fed
On the tremendous silence; where the tread
Is heard, by ears with finer sense endowed,
Of angels, who the crystal pathways crowd
In unseen myriads, all on mercies sped?

Could ever the transfigured face again
Lose all its rapture? or the soul forget
To cherish, as a charmèd amulet,
The words, too worn with using to retain
Their visual virtue: These same feet have trod
The sapphire pavement round the throne of God!

“WOULD THY WARM HEART WERE HUMAN TOO!”

Would thy warm heart were human too,
O Spirit of the Spring!
So should thy softest breezes woo
The souls most suffering.

So shouldst thou bid some frolic air
No longer play so light,
But to foul courts and alleys fare,
Full-charged with Spring's delight;

To whisper what a glory fills
The woodslope to the stream,
Where in the dusk the daffodils
Like flakes of sunlight gleam;

Some air that in the sick man's breast
Like a new life should lie;
Or fan the fevered brow to rest,
And with the dying die.

IN ÆTERNUM, DOMINE.

The rain returns to heaven,
From river and sea roaming,
Like a spirit forgiven
After life's falls and foaming.

And the flowers come back in Maytime,
Where late were frozen streams;
As children wake at daytime
From half-remembered dreams.

The ships return to haven,
Though storms were stark and many;
And the falcon and the raven
To their old nesting-cranny.

And the stars, whose years are ages,
Return in the vast heaven,
As the hireling for his wages
Returneth at the even.

And Love, divine and deathless,
When one brief day is o'er,
Love faithful as Love faithless,
Shall he return no more?

ST. WILFRID.

St. Wilfrid once, aware of love grown cold,
And faith but lukewarm in his northern fold,
While ev'n the few who failed not to be shriven
Sought less for peace than feared to forfeit Heaven,
Announced for an approaching festival
Tidings of infinite import to all.
And when the close-packed church expectant stood,
Down from its place he threw the holy rood,
Crying: “My brethren, know that Armageddon
Is fought and lost! The saints of God, though led on
By Michael and his angels, were o'erthrown,
And Satan occupies the heavenly throne.
All is reversed: 'tis sinners who will dwell
Henceforth in Heaven, while saints must burn in Hell.

For me, alack! all hope of Heaven is past.
This Saint (unlucky title!) sticks too fast.
But you, dear brethren, halting long in doubt,
May now reach Heaven with no great right-about.
Yet waste no moment; for I have sure word
That Judgment-day will be no more deferred.
The fiends are forth already, in hot search
To seize and punish all they find in church.
Doff this last rag of righteousness, and show
Conspicuously the colours of the foe!”

All stared astonished; and on many a face
Smug, smooth, and sanctimonious, a grimace
Grew slowly; while the open sinner's laughter
Rang loudly from the rood-loft to the rafter.
Then, swift as ants swarm from their threatened heap,
Or from the opened pin-fold rush the sheep,
Forth streamed the congregation, thick and fast,
Each only fearing to be found the last.

The church was empty, and St. Wilfrid stood,

Most grimly smiling, by the fallen rood;
When in a darkened corner he was 'ware
Of some one kneeling, and a sobbing prayer:
“O dear Lord Jesu! I have followed Thee
So long, and Thou hast loved me. Let me be
Where Thou art, Jesu! Rather will I dwell
Than with Thy foes in Heaven, with Thee in Hell!”

Then cried St. Wilfrid: “Blessed be thy name,
Woman, that puttest my weak faith to shame!
I spake but to convict the specious herd
Of vain religion this ironic word.
But now of thine example will I make
A lesson that all sinners' souls shall wake,
All saints' rekindle; and that word of thine
Shall to the world in golden letters shine.”

He stepped towards the woman: the white head
Lay on the withered hands: she knelt there—dead.

HELEN.

I am Helen, and my name
Is a glory and a shame;
For my beauty was earth's crown,
And my sin shook cities down.

Oh! the days, and oh! the dances,
When I was queen,
By the glamour of my glances
And the splendour of my spleen.
My life was all romances,
And no dull days between.

From the golden dais
Where I reigned alone,
As a woman's way is,
I descended to a throne.

And my life, that lately
Leapt as a mountain stream,
Now crept still and stately
As a river in a dream.

He came!
In his eyes was flame;
And a new desire,
Unknown by name,
The godhead dire
No god can tame,
Took all my frame
With fire.

The years, the ten swift years are fled:
Troy is fall'n, and on my head
Fall'n the guilt. Her princes dead
In the darkness throng me round,
Showing each his bleeding wound.

No word speaking,
No wrath wreaking,
They pass in silence one by one;
And when I think the dream is done,
Lo, the white-haired king appears,
Kneeling as he bathes in tears
The hands that slew his son.

EURYDICE.

He came to call me back from death
To the bright world above.
I hear him yet with trembling breath
Low calling, “O sweet love!
Come back! The earth is just as fair;
The flowers, the open skies are there;
Come back to life and love!”

Oh! all my heart went out to him,
And the sweet air above.
With happy tears my eyes were dim;
I called him, “O sweet love!
I come, for thou art all to me.
Go forth, and I will follow thee,
Right back to life and love!”

I followed through the cavern black;
I saw the blue above.
Some terror turned me to look back:
I heard him wail, “O love!
What hast thou done! What hast thou done!”
And then I saw no more the sun,
And lost were life and love.

FRITZ.

(June 15th, 1888.)

Release at last—
The pain all overpast,
The weight of weary hours behind him cast
The calm, cold brow
No cares of empire bow;
No case so weighty he must wake for now.
The sentinel
May yield to this sleep's spell,
Nor yet betray the watch he kept so well.

Life upon the world is lain
Like an endless iron chain,
Borne of bondslaves in a row,
Which every man must undergo.

But the noble and the great
Lighten for the rest the weight;
While the selfish soul who shrinks
Leaves the massy galling links
Heavier for the rest to bear.
Terrible for him the share
On whose single strength the weight
Falleth of an empire's fate.
Yet more terrible for him
Who so long had faced the grim
Foeman Death; and in the stress
Of this struggle, none the less—
In the slowly deepening gloom
Of inevitable doom—
To added weight of empire bows
Calmly his dew-beaded brows.

At last release!
The battle now may cease.

No truce is this, but a triumphant peace.
Not his the spoils
For which in human broils
With bloody hands the mercenary toils.
Not his the prize
For which with tearless eyes,
Glorying in pain, the gladiator dies.

Crowns of which we dream not lie
Hid for all who nobly die.
Perish then the thought abhorred:
In bearing pain is pain's reward!
Think ye that the martyrs died
Just for death's sake, crucified,
Stoned, tormented, sawn in twain,
Who dared the ministers of pain
Do what worst they could devise?
Or think ye that your feasted eyes,
Fed on earth's good things, discern

Truth more clear than they who learn
By fiery trial; who have viewed
Heaven opened as they stood
At the stoning or the stake
Joyfully for Jesus' sake?

Emperor and friend,
Who didst thy post defend,
Watched by the world, yet blameless to the end!
Thy name, thy praise,
Shall live from these dark days,
A light to all who stumble in life's ways.

AUCASSIN AND NICOLETTE.

(AN INTRODUCTION.)

What magic halo rings thy head,
Dream-maiden of a minstrel dead?
What charm of faerie round thee hovers,
That all who listen are thy lovers?

What power yet makes our pulses thrill
To see thee at thy window-sill,
And by that dangerous cord down-sliding,
And through the moonlit garden gliding?

True maiden art thou in thy dread;
True maiden in thy hardihead;
True maiden when, thy fears half over,
Thou lingerest to try thy lover.

And ah! what heart of stone or steel
But doth some stir unwonted feel,
When, to the day new brightness bringing,
Thou standest at the stair-foot singing!

Thy slender limbs in boyish dress,
Thy tones half glee, half tenderness,
Thou singest, 'neath the light tale's cover,
Of thy true love to thy true lover.

O happy lover, happy maid,
Together in sweet story laid;
Forgive the hand that here is baring
Your old loves for new lovers' staring!

Yet, Nicolette, why fear'st thou fame?
No slander now can touch thy name,
Nor Scandal's self a fault discovers
Though each new year thou hast new lovers.

Nor, Aucassin, need'st thou to fear
These lovers of too late a year,
Nor dread one jealous pang's revival;
No lover now can be thy rival.

What flower considers if its blooms
Light haunts of men or forest glooms?
What care ye though the world discovers
Your flowers of love, O flower of lovers!

A VIOLINIST.

The lark above our heads doth know
A heaven we see not here below;
She sees it, and for joy she sings;
Then falls with ineffectual wings.

Ah, soaring soul! faint not nor tire!
Each heaven attained reveals a higher.
Thy thought is of thy failure: we
List raptured, and thank God for thee.

ANOTHER VIOLINIST.

What! Life is all so softly glad,
So sweetly sad?
What! Toil means little (thou art taught)
And tears mean naught?

Fool-music! Filmiest bubble-dome
Of glittering foam;
That dances vacuous on the deep
Where dead men sleep!

TO MATTHEW ARNOLD IN AMERICA.

O poet, who hast left awhile
For larger land and sea
The narrow limits of our isle,
What gain is come to thee?

What higher dreams? what holier mood?
What hopes for unborn years?
What noble deeds have warmed thy blood?
What sorrows waked thy tears?

What hast thou seen in sea or sky?
What in the wider earth?
What new light flashing on the eye?
What loveliness or worth?

What ecstacy in dancing foam?
What wrath in roaring sea?
We are thy brethren—here thy home:
We look to share with thee.

Too long thy lyre untouched has lien,
And thy melodious voice
Has tones that seem not truly thine:—
Is this, is this thy choice?

“Ah, yet consider it again!”
Thy Thyrsis sang of yore;
We borrow thy lost friend's refrain,
And bid thee sing once more!

SEPTEMBER.

O golden child of the year
That is sere,
Gauze-clad in gossamer twining!
O month that walkest a maid,
Unafraid,
O'er meadows with dew-pearls shining!

Thy rippling laugh is the breeze
In the trees,
Thy voice is the starling calling;
Thy golden dower are the sheaves,
And the leaves
From wall and from woodland falling.

The hills lie purple in haze
All thy days,
The cloud sleeps over its shadow;
As a ghost in raiment of white,
All the night
The mist keeps watch o'er the meadow.

The splendour thou hast, yet the spleen
Of a queen;
For oft, when the woods are fairest,
Thou darkenest heaven with a frown,
And thy crown
With a tempest of passion tearest.

Yet hast thou a kindly hest,
Wayward guest,
And gently breakest the message,
That days more niggard of light
And the flight
Of gathering swallows presage.

O child of the summer past,
Though the last,
Yet dearest of all we find thee!
O stay with us, and by thy stay
Keep away
The hungering winter behind thee!

GRASS OF PARNASSUS.

O happy singers, and happy song,
That had never a pang of birth,
When first in the human heart grew strong
Earth, and the wonder of Earth!

Had I too lived when the Earth was young—
Earth that is now so old—
When Faith and Fancy were of one tongue,
That are aliens now, and cold:

Then half of fancy and half of faith
I had woven, fair flower, for thee
A dream-like legend of love and death
To match thy purity.

For not the drooping flower by the stream,
Nor the flower that is written with woe,
To the earth has lent a lovelier gleam,
To the heart a holier glow.

But now I should mock thy loveliness,
Or do thee despite, fair flower,
By a fable fashioned in antique dress,
Like an actor tricked for an hour.

Rather I gather thee reverently
From thy place in the rush-grown sod,
And think: Frail flower, were it only for thee,
I should know that God is God!

For if haply a power that was not divine,
Or the forces of earth or air,
Could have moulded matter to life like mine,
Or made thee a form so fair;

Yet only the God whom we love as Love
Could so have made me and thee,
That thou by thy simple beauty canst move
Such a world of love in me.

A BEECHWOOD NEAR THE SEA.

Fair beeches, though your fellow trees
In forests stand so proud,
Yet here the fierce winds from the seas
So oft your heads have bowed,
That still when softer airs prevail
Your tops seem bending from the gale.

With salt dews from the sea-foam wet,
By many a tempest torn,
Scarred trunks and twisted limbs show yet
What terrors ye have borne;
Nor any years can now undo
What the past years have done to you.

Yet when the spring is in the land,
And blue the heaven o'erhead,
In sullen gloom ye will not stand,
Though life's best hopes be dead;
New leaves break forth from buds unseen,
Till all the wood is clothed in green.

Fair souls, that from your high intent
By bitter fate are barred,
Though past all hope your lives be bent,
And past all healing scarred,
Yet learn of these—to do, as they,
Not what ye would, but what ye may!

WHITBY.

Where the grey Northern sea gnaws cliffs of shale, and the white waves
Wrestle in hissing wrath with a brown, irrepressible river,
Hilda, the Saint, the Princess, founded a fair stone cloister.

What of her work remains—of the carven stone and the wood—work?
Haply a fragment here of a pillar with pattern enlacing;
Naught in the desolate walls of the roofless ruin, that after
Rose where her building had been, and now itself is abandoned,
Crowning with unintentional beauty the red-roofed houses,

Which from the river climb, and cling like flow'rs to the cliff-face.

What of her work remains—who knows?—in the lives of the people?
Something, we doubt it not, from every noble endeavour
Down the ages descends, though none but God can distinguish.
Aye, for He sendeth the springs from a hundred valleys to mingle
Here, where the Northern sea still gnaws the cliffs, and the white waves
Wrestle in hissing wrath with the brown, irrepressible river.

CLIFF-ROSES.

Pale little sister of rich red roses,
Wild little sister of garden queens,
Art thou content that thy flower uncloses
Here where the land to the ocean leans?

They, where the lawns are soft and shaded,
Hold their court amid eyes that gaze;
Thou by the lone sea liv'st, and faded
Fall thy leaves on the salt sea sprays.

Smitten of every storm that blusters,
Crushed by the mimic avalanche,
Bravely still thy delicate clusters
Laugh from thicket and thorny branch.

Naught may we know of all thou knowest,
All that the soft wind brings to thee?
Under the cliff-top where thou growest
Sail the ships to the open sea;

Art not thou and thy flowers clinging
Ghosts of many a sad farewell,
Fluttering home from the ships, and bringing
Tidings that loving hearts would tell?

Or art thou rather a blithe fore-comer
Blown by winds from the homeward ships,
A kiss turned flower in the breath of summer,
A word that has quickened from eager lips?

Nay! though sweet as the longed-for hour,
Bright as the face we yearn to see,
Nothing thou art but a fair wild flower,
Growing where God has planted thee.

AT SUNSET.

Oh, there are golden moments in men's lives,
Sudden, unlooked for, as the little clouds,
All gold, which suddenly illume the path
Of the lost sun.

Oh, pray for them! They bring
No increase like the gain of sun and showers,
Only a moment's brightness to the earth,
Only a moment's gleam in common life,
Yet who would change them for the wealth of worlds!

ON THE SOUTH DOWNS.

Light falls the rain
On link and laine,
After the burning day;
And the bright scene,
Blue, gold, and green,
Is blotted out in gray.

Not so will part
The glowing heart
With sunny hours gone by;
On cliff and hill
There lingers still
A light that cannot die.

Like a gold crown
Gorse decks the Down,
All sapphire lies the sea;
And incense sweet
Springs as our feet
Tread light the thymy lea.

Fade, vision bright!
Fall rain, fall night!
Forget, gray world, thy green!
For us, nor thee,
Can all days be
As though this had not been!

IN EAST DEAN WOODS.

'Twas April—rain was over,
I sought for solitude,
Which thought I to discover
In a vast and vacant wood.

But all at once astounded
I stood, in strange delight,
For I found my feet surrounded
With a million faces bright.

Far as the eye could follow,
Amid the new-thinned trees,
The hill-slope and the hollow
Were clothed with primroses.

The radiance of their faces
Enlightened all the air,
And the lone forest spaces
Were populous as a fair.

Then felt I as that mortal
Who in deep sleep has passed
Unwitting through death's portal,
And stands in heaven shamefast.

Earth-stained, with thoughts bewildering,
He stands, while round him smile
The angels of sweet children
Who never knew of guile.

KNIGHTEN'S WELL.

No drought e'er drained thee,
No storm e'er stained thee,
Mirror of heaven!
In thy clear depths holden
Lie the planets golden,
And the Pleiads seven.

But all the daytime
Come the birds in playtime
To sing how they love thee;
And the squirrel scrambling
Through brake and brambling
Will rest above thee.

The pines down-peering
Through glade and clearing
Whisper their wonder
At thy waters glancing,
And the white sands dancing
In thy rock-bed under.

Like an angel's troubling
Is the fount up-bubbling
That thy bosom heaveth;
And man or maiden
Who comes care-laden
With light heart leaveth.

To the blue plains yonder
Thy streams out-wander,
Mother of waters!
Beyond thy knowing
Is the far-off flowing
Of thy bright daughters.

In rivers splendid
They glide attended
By light and glory;
Through towns their march is,
'Neath ancient arches
And castles hoary.

To thee no splendour,
But love most tender
And peace are given;
And in thy clearness
To show the nearness
Of earth to Heaven.

IN FIRLE PARK.

I found a fairy-land to-day,
A wonder-world, not far away.
I crossed no seas, I climbed no heights,
I spent no tedious days nor nights;
I came not to it in my dreams,
Nor fancies born of morning beams;
I trod the earth, I breathed the air,
The known fields were my neighbours there;
Yet such a hallowed place I found,
Islanded from the world around.

The trees o'erarch from either side
A moss-grown path, not overwide,
Its windings seen a little space,
Then lost in boughs that interlace.

Soon as I saw I owned the spell,
My feet in quiet reverence fell.
For there were mosses and long grass
Catching at sunbeams as they pass,
And many leaves new woke to earth,
Green from their fresh and dewy birth.

But oh, that I could tell the sight
That flooded all my soul with light,
Where, 'mid green leaves luxuriant, grew
Violets, a hundred eyes of blue!
Each cluster seemed a fairy band,
Each nest of leaves a fairy land;
And all the air was odorous
With joy no words can tell to us,
With every unimagined thing
We dream of in the days of spring.

Alas! how small a boon are words
By the wild raptures of the birds!

Had I a blackbird's song, perchance
Ev'n I might make your spirits dance,
Your souls be thrilled a little space
With my sweet memories of that place.
Now with weak words I strive in vain;
Into my breast they turn again.
And, all unwillingly, my heart
Feeds on her heavenly joy apart.

ON LING HOLME, WINDERMERE.

The rivers feed thee from the valleys round,
And rills from clustering mountains, Windermere;
And in thy wind-stirred waters moves the sound
Of life from all thy sources far or near.
Thy deep low murmurs to the listening ear
Rise in harmonic echoes, and resound
The pattering becks that from the far cliff bound,
The roaring fall, the wind in grasses sere.

Full-memoried lake! I would that this my soul,
Or whatsoe'er in me is truest Me,
Could treasure ev'n as thou the echoes past!
Learning a fuller utterance as years roll,
Tender from tears, yet glad with innocent glee,
And Love, the first tone, lingering to the last!

THE RAINBOW IN THE VICTORIA FALLS.

(SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE.)

Did you see? did you tremble, and stand astonished, and fear
To move, or murmur a word, or draw too near?
Did you feel an instinct, in awful longing and dread,
To take the shoes from your feet, or the covering from your head?

Did life, and its little pleasures, and empty days,
Sink out of sight, as with rapt forgetful gaze,
In the falling river's earth-shaking thunder-roar,
You drank that vision of heaven, a dream for evermore?

In the misty spray that jewelled cirque has hung
All sunny hours, since our old earth was young.
Why is it made so wonderful? why should it be?
Who has cared for it? who has fared for it desert and sea?

Has it no myth memorial, no renown
Of some proud banished god, who flung his crown
Beneath the waters, or hung it there, a prize
For who could reach it, a goal for dreaming enterprise?

Has it no altar built to it? Has no race,
Just risen out of the dust, seen there the face
Of its first-known god, and crept to a higher light
By motions of reverence, born of that soul-waking sight?

We who are wiser, is it our loss or gain,
That we cannot worship it, cannot soothe the pain
Of a wistful wonder by bowing before its face,
Or hallowing for it there a human dwelling-place?

Alas! we can reason about it—explain its cause,
Till its individual beauty is lost in “laws,”
Till we lose the sense of a Being, and see an “effect,”
Think how an artist would paint it, and all that is higher neglect.

And yet, touch fact with fancy, and think that there
A million million of jewels are hung in the air
One infinitesimal moment; and each of them
Is but a drop of water, but burns as a dazzling gem,

Ruby and emerald, sapphire, chrysoprase,
Set by a master of jewel-craft in its place;
Each tithe of a second's space that loveliness
Is made and unmade, yet it seems to hang there motionless!

May thought not outrun knowledge? May we not dream,
What if the souls of men catch thus the gleam
Of the glory of God, just for life's space, and earth
Wear such a rainbow ring as that wondrous water-birth?

THE “LION'S HEAD.”

Darkens the mighty Atlantic;
Darken the crags gigantic.
The stars their beacons light
On every frowning height.

See the grey pinnacle yonder,
Where lightly I loved to wander
And gathered flowers and ferns,
Now to an altar turns.

Like an unearthly pyre,
The white and waving fire
Men call the Milky Way
Doth on the summit play.

And little would be the wonder
To see, where the white flames sunder,
There, in a cavernous gloom,
A glorious angel loom;

Majestic, and more than mortal,
Passing from that dark portal,
Lighting with folded wing
On the pinnacle pulsating.

Nay; He maketh His angels spirits!
Only mankind inherits
The wonderful world of sight.—
Why seek ye all delight

(While flowers and the rainbow's glory,
Red sunset and hill-top hoary,
Tell you your earth is fair)
In a Heaven far otherwhere?

The Kingdom of God is within you,
Christ said. He came to win you,
By the mystical new birth,
Not from this visible earth,

But from sins foul and selfish,
Which cast their shadows elfish
On the wonderful world which He
Gave man his senses to see.

ECCE NOVA FACIO OMNIA.

Is this the world of world-sick souls
That vainly ask a sign?
See, emeralds deck all boughs and boles,
And stars in woodlands shine.

In every bush there sings a bird.
Oh, listen what they sing!
For human language cannot word
The Apocalypse of Spring.

SYMPATHY.

Oh, beyond reach or speech more far
Lies an unfathomable woe,
Than is the utter topmost star
That earth's star-gazers know.

Yet all the height of Heaven lies
Reflected in the least of streams;
And human souls in human eyes
Oft see again their dreams.

AN OLD BOAT.

I passed a boat to-day on the shore
That will be rowed on the sea no more.

Worn and battered, the straight keel bent,
The side, like a ruined rampart, rent.

Left alone, with no covering,
For who would steal such a useless thing?

It was shapely once, when the shipwright's hand
Had laid each plank as the master planned.

And it danced for joy on the curling wave,
When first the sea's broad breast it clave.

And it leapt to the pulse of the well-timed stroke,
That rang on the thole-pin of tuneful oak.

Oft it has carried home the spoil
Of fishers, tired with night-long toil.

And often on summer days it knew
The laugh of a pleasure-seeking crew.

Or, launched by night on the blinding waves,
It has rescued a life from the sea's dark graves.

It is useless now as it lies on the beach,
Drawn high beyond the billows' reach.

And none of all it has served in stress
Remember it now in its loneliness.

A DAY OF STORM.

'Twas a day of storm, for the giant Atlantic, rolling in pride,
Drawn by the full moon, driven by the fierce wind, tide upon tide,
Huddled the heaving Channel. A hundred anxious eyes
Were watching a breach new broken, when suddenly some one cries,
“A boat coming in!”—and rounding the pier-head that hid her before,
There, sure enough, was a stranger smack, head straight for the shore.

How will she land where each wave is a mountain? Too late for how!
Run up a flag there to show her the right place! She must land now.

She is close:—with a rush on the galloping wave-top, a stand
As the wave goes back from beneath her, her nose just touches the land;
And then (as rude hands, sacking a city, greedy of prey,
Toss in some littered chamber a child's toy lightly away),
A great wave rose from behind, and, lifting her, towered and broke,
And flung her headlong down on the hard beach, close to the folk.
Crash! . . . but 'tis only her bowsprit snapped, she is saved somehow;
And a cheer broke out, for a hundred hands have hold of her now.

And they say 'twas her bowsprit saved her, or she must have gone over then;
Her bowsprit it was that saved her; and little they think, those men,
Of one weak woman that prayed, as she watched them tempest-driven.
They say 'twas her bowsprit saved her—one says 'twas that prayer, and Heaven.

A THOUGHT IN THE ACADEMY.

Foiled again, thou bright enthusiast?
Fallen again from that fair height
Where thy radiant fancy rapt thee,
Robed in empyrean light?

Foiled and fallen, past help or healing?
What, in old time hast thou ne'er
Flung from thy vain hands the brushes,
Clasped to thy sick heart despair?

What, no hope left? Is all failure?
Though that sunlit sweep of land,
Seen so perfect in thy vision,
Like a mirage mocks thy hand;

Is there not in yon blue distance
Some new light not caught before,
Some faint reflex of the glory
That thy dreamed-of woodlands wore?

Nay, so high wast thou uplifted
On the wave of thy desire,
Seems it nothing if in breaking
It has left thee one step higher?

Thou hast failed, the rest succeeded?
Aye, it may be. None the less,
To have failed may not be failure,
Nor succeeding be success.

Hear the parable of the climber!
Often from his path below
Far above he sees his fellows
Reach some sunlit roof of snow.

Yet he turns not, though his pathway
Darkly wind beneath their peak,
Knowing this low path shall lead him
Higher than they hope to seek.

So is Man among God's creatures;
So among mankind the best
Ever press to the height:—the others,
They have their reward, and rest.

“WHAT MOVETH IN THE SEED TO MAKE THE FLOWER?”

What moveth in the seed to make the flower,
And in the flower to make of its own kind
The seed? No will it has, nor conscious power,
But impulse all too blest or all too blind
To choose or waver, as by hour and hour
It lives and dies and leaves its like behind.

How few we are grow likewise! Ne'er may I,
Following a type not mine, reach at the last
A stunted growth or gnarled deformity!
Ev'n as some flowers from true flower-semblance bend
To ape an insect, losing shape and dye
Of rightful flowers, and gaining no amend.

OLD AND YOUNG.

Long ago, on a bright spring day,
I passed a little child at play;
And as I passed, in childish glee
She called to me, “Come and play with me!”

But my eyes were fixed on a far-off height
I was fain to climb before the night;
So, half-impatient, I answered, “Nay!
I am too old, too old to play.”

Long, long after, in Autumn time—
My limbs were grown too old to climb—
I passed a child on a pleasant lea,
And I called to her, “Come and play with me!”

But her eyes were fixed on a fairy-book;
And scarce she lifted a wondering look,
As with childish scorn she answered, “Nay!
I am too old, too old to play!”

A FAVOURITE OF NATURE.

Know'st thou the soul-reaching tongue
That shapes no words?
Heard'st thou what the blackbird sung,
And all the birds?

What the wind says canst thou hear?
And the low
Music of the tumbling weir
Dost thou know?

If into thy soul thou take
What these things say,
On river and on field doth break
Immortal day.

Nor ask no poet, thou, to be
Interpreter;
For Nature's self doth talk with thee,
And thou with her!

THE LOVERS' WALK.

A long green pathway in a tangled wood,—
The trees meet overhead.
Here, where I stand with you, how oft have stood
How many lovers dead!

The gentleness of all past lovers here
Abides in grass and tree,
An unseen flower that springs anew each year
Sure as the flowers we see.

For human influence dies not; everywhere,
In woods, fields, valleys, hills,
Houses, and churches, some more hallowed air
The older places fills.

Therefore do stories of the noble dead,
Treasured in any land,
More sanctify than priestly office said,
Or touch of saintly hand.

UNDER A PINE-TREE.

Beneath the swaying pine-tree,
That the fitful wind goes through,
I gaze on the widening landscape,
That fades in far-off blue.

And like low music playing
Above in the organ-loft,
The wind in the pine-tree moving
Makes music strange and soft.

Soft is the voice, but solemn;
And with a dream-like power
It sways all thoughts and fancies,
And hallows the brief hour.

For the trees have all their voices
Of light or earnest tone;
The aspen—elfin laughter,
The oak—a Titan's moan.

But the pines have caught the message
Which the wind bears from the sea;
And its voice is the voice of ocean,
And its talk of Eternity.

OLD DREAMS.

Where are thy footsteps I was wont to hear,
O Spring, in pauses of the blackbird's song?
I hear them not: the world has held mine ear
With its insistent sounds too long, too long!

The footfall and the sweeping robes of Spring,
How once I hailed them as life's full delight!
Now little moved I hear the blackbird sing,
As blind men wake not at the sudden light.

Nay, not unmoved! But yestereve I stood
Beneath thee, throned, queen songstress, in the beech;
And for one moment Heaven was that green wood,
And the old dreams went by, too deep for speech.

One moment: it was passed: the gusty breeze
Brought laughter and rough voices from the lane;
Night like a mist clothed round the darkening trees,
And I was with the world that mocks again.

So near is Eden, yet so far! It lies
No angel-guarded gate beyond our sight;
We breathe, we touch it; yet our blinded eyes
Still seek it every way except the right.

A PUBLIC-SCHOOL REGISTER.

As birds of passage on some mid-sea isle,
From diverse lands and bound on diverse ways,
In company assembled for a while,
Then lose each other in the ocean haze:
So are we parted when are done the days
Of our brief brotherhood within this pile;
The world grows wider then; new hopes beguile;
And from new lips we look for blame or praise.

No lifeless page is this that bears enrolled
Names once familiar, and bids reappear
Forgotten faces. One has climbed to fame
In law or letters; one proved greatly bold
In battle; one—it may be the most dear—
Just does his life's work well and is the same.

AT SEA.

Worn voyagers, who watch for land
Across the endless wastes of sea,
Who gaze before and on each hand,
Why look ye not to what ye flee?

The stars by which the sailors steer
Not always rise before the prow;
Though forward nought but clouds appear,
Behind they may be breaking now.

What though we may not turn again
To shores of childhood that we leave,
Are those old signs we followed vain?
Can guides, so oft found true, deceive?

Oh, sail we to the South or North,
Oh, sail we to the East or West,
The port from which we first put forth
Is our heart's home, is our life's best.

A DEAD TREE.

The field with buttercups is cloth-of-gold
Beneath the burning blue;
The tender tree-tops their last leaves unfold,
And find their dreams are true.

Yes, it is summer in the land, and all
The flowers and birds rejoice.
Ah, that my heart could hearken to the call—
Put forth a leaf or voice!

Still like a bare dead tree my thought that grew
Stands changeless and the same;
No more can quickening fancies clothe anew
As with fresh leaves the frame.

“Love lost, joy vanished—what is thy distress?”
Nay, ask not! God alone
Knows, and the heart knows its own bitterness,
And each must bear its own.

ON LOW LEVELS.

When deeds of heroes were the theme,
My heart in youth leaped high;
When poets sang of Love's young dream,
What dreams of Love had I!

'Tis over now, the fever-heat;
'Tis past, the passion's hour;
My feet have followed all the feet
Far 'neath the peaks that tower.

O snowy peaks, that flame with day!
Contentedly I see
Specks on you that are men, and say,
Not those the paths for me!

This only striving, to confess
The peaks are just as bright,
Nor those who reach are heroes less,
Though I must walk in night.

AUTUMN VOICES.

When I was in the wood to-day
The golden leaves were falling round me,
And I thought I heard soft voices say
Words that with sad enchantment bound me.

O dying year! O flying year!
O days of dimness, nights of sorrow!
O lessening light! O lengthening night!
O morn forlorn, and hopeless morrow!

No bodies visible had these
Whose voice I heard so sadly calling;
They were the spirits of the trees
Lamenting for the bright leaves falling.

The light leaves rustled on the ground,
Wind-stirred; and when again I hearkened,
Hushed were those voices. Wide around
Night fell, and all the ways were darkened.

TWILIGHT THOUGHTS.

O winter twilight, while the moon
Grows whiter on the deepening blue,
I find some brief-lived thoughts in you,
That rise not in the night or noon.

Of faded loves that once were sweet,
But now are neither sweet nor sad;
Of hopes that distant looked so glad,
Yet lie unnoticed at our feet;

Of these I think, until the red
Has wasted from the western sky,
And royal reigns the moon on high.—
What profits to lament the dead?

Small profit; yet in dreams that hold
One hand to forward, one to past,
We stay the years that fly so fast,
And link our new lives to the old.

ONE PAGE.

I closed and clasped the book,
And said, I will not look
(So bitter is the pain)
Within its leaves again!

My life is written there,
Much blotted, little fair;
One page alone of it
Fresh as the day 'twas writ.

Why should the one clear leaf
Hold my life's bitterest grief?
While so much joy and pain
Fade, why must this remain?

Love wrote at first the script,
With pen in rainbows dipped.
Ere it could fade, o'er all
Death traced with ink of gall.

CHRISTMAS ROSES.

Pale Winter roses, the white ghosts
Of our June roses,
Last beauty that the Old Year boasts
Ere his reign closes!

I gather you as farewell gift
From parting lover,
For ere you fade his moments swift
Will all be over.

Kind ghosts ye are, that trouble not,
Nor fright nor sadden,
But wake fond memories, half-forgot,
And thoughts that gladden.

100

O changeless Past! I would the year
Left of lost hours
No ghost that brought more shame or fear
Than these white flowers!

101

TRAVELLERS.

Out once more! We have done with rest;
We have had our share of the song and the jest;
We are warm with the wine, and glad with the light,
We must out once more to the cold dark night.

Out once more! Tho' the wind the shrill,
Tho' the driving snow be bitter chill,
Tho' the peak must be passed ere we reach the plain,
Stay no more; we must out again!

Let others linger! Their lot lies here,
In happy shelter and plenteous cheer;
But you and I, shall we miss our aim,
Or dream God gives to all the same?

102

One moment, yes, our hearts may swell,
One moment our eyes drink love's farewell,
And lip to lip, and hand to hand,
We may pledge to meet in a far-off land.

Then out once more! The voices die:
The door is shut: the lights go by.
Comrade, give me your hand in the night!
The choice was hard, but we chose the right.

The dark hills lower, the chill snow gleams;
The sweet past hours are dimmest dreams;
Our life is hard as it used to be;
But God goes with us, and you with me.

103

WALL-FLOWERS ON THE CLIFF.

Where the wall-flowers grow
Many come and go;
Rich and poor men pass,
Lover, too, and lass;
Children at their play,
Heads careworn and grey.

Naught of all that go
Do the wall-flowers know;
Yet their perfumes reach
To the heart of each—
Win one moment's share
In each passer there.

104

Droop thy head and go,
Poet, from the show!
Man thou art, not flower;
Decade liv'st, not hour;
Reason hast, and will,
Sympathy and skill.

Yet what canst thou know
More of all that go?
Could thy verse but reach
To the heart of each,
As the wall-flowers' scent,
What were thy content!

105

DEATH.

Like the spirit-rending spasm
Waking one who dreams of falling
Down the chaos of a chasm,
Just as the adamantine walling
Of the precipice abysmal,
Dark, indefinite, and dismal,
Gapes to gulf him:—Such is Death,
Waking man from dreams of error,
On the very edge of terror.
To the heavenly morning-breath.

106

RONDEL.

Darling, what different things declared
The language of our lips and eyes,
When first we met, in love's surprise,
Amid an alien crowd that stared.

And after, while not yet we dared
Make aught but stranger-like replies,
Darling, what different things declared
The language of our lips and eyes.

But when at last our hearts despaired
Of any hope in earth or skies,
Save in each other's love that lies,
Our lips, from love no longer scared,
Darling, what different things declared!

107

ECHOES.

As one, who walks upon a windy night
Through unknown streets to reach the Minster door,
Guides not his footsteps by the gusty light,
But by the clangour that the wild bells pour;
Yet oft he pauses, when in the wind's roar
Some louder echo calls him left or right;
And much he joys when, full of angels bright,
He sees the great rose-window flame before.

So if the wanderer in life's ways attend
To catch the heavenly carillon, above
Its earthly echoes, Nature, Art, and Love:
Then in his ears, as earth's sweet voices end,
The bells sound clearer, and before his eyes
Bright windows open in the darkening skies.

108

RACHEL, AN INFANT.

Life lies before thee—is it friend or foe?
God gave us life, and God made all things well;
Yet for the sin and shame our own lives show,
What can we answer, save—We cannot tell!

Death lies before thee—is it friend or foe?
As foe men fear it; yet if death comes well
To many a sufferer in this world of woe,
What shall we answer, save—We cannot tell!

Yet, child, sleep softly! For the sweet buds swell
And sweet birds sing for thee; and on the shore
For thy delight lies many a fairy shell.

And seeing thy happiness, our hearts rebel
No more at their own griefs; nor any more
Our lips shall answer thee—We cannot tell!

109

TENNYSON.

(WESTMINSTER ABBEY, OCTOBER 12TH, 1892.)

Honour him—how?
What bays not his before
Can we bring now?
What one leaf left can more
Grace the dead brow
Than those the living wore?

Honour him—where?
All round the world his fame
Is full, where'er
Is known the English name.
Earth's robe of air
Thrills round her with acclaim.

110

Honour him—who?
Have not all nations done
What lips can do
To honour? called him one
Of the great few,
'Mid countless stars a sun?

Honour him—who?
We, this day, of his land,
'Mid whom he grew
To greatness, let us stand
The last to do,
As with a brother's hand.

Honour him—where?
Here, where the poets wait.
We feign them there
Astir, and contemplate
What greeting fair
They give to one so great.

111

Honour him—how?
HIM honouring, who espied
Man searching now
All gulfs most deep and wide,
And did allow
A Virgil for his guide.

112

BEFORE THE DAYBREAK.

Before the daybreak shines a star
That in the day's full glory fades;
Too fiercely bright is the great light
That her pale-gleaming lamp upbraids.

Before the daybreak sings a bird
That stills her song at morning's light;
Too loud for her is the day's stir,
The woodland's thousand-tongued delight.

Ah! great the honour is, to shine
A light wherein no traveller errs;
And rich the prize, to rank divine
Among the world's loud choristers.

113

But I would be that paler star,
And I would be that lonelier bird,
To shine with hope while hope's afar,
And sing of love when love's unheard.