My Lyrical Life :: :: University of Virginia Library

This little spring of life, that feeds the root
Of England's greatness, giveth, underground,
Bloom to the Flower, and freshness to the Fruit;
Then wells and spreads, with golden ripples round,
In circling glory to a sea of might,
Embracing Home and Country of our love:
Half-mirroring the beauty beyond sight,
To take some likeness of the abode above.

THE WEDDING.

All Women love a Wedding! old
Or youthful; Mother, Widow, or Wife:
It lights with precious gleam of gold
The river of poorest life:

For one, the gold is far and dim;
For one, a glimpse of things to be;
But here it sparkles, at the brim
Of full felicity!

And they will cluster by the way;
Crowd at this Eden-gate, with eyes
That run, and pray that this Pair may
Keep their new Paradise.

Green is the garden, as at first;
As smiling-blue the happy skies,
Where float the bubble-worlds that burst,
And leave us smarting eyes.

They seem to think that these must clasp
The jewel turned to dew or mist:
The glamour they could never grasp,
Though wedded lips have kissed;

That this gold Apple of promise, crowned
With redness on the sunny side,
Will gradually grow ripe all round;
That this new Lover and Bride

Must reach the breathing Magic Rose
Such cunning spirits hold in air,
On which our fingers could not close,
Even when we knew 'twas there!

This nest of hopes will bring forth young
Unto the brooding heart's low call—
Not merely pretty birds'-eggs, strung
To hide a naked wall!

So many start thus, hand-in-hand—
Few only reach the blessed goal;
But these shall surely see the land
Hid somewhere in the soul.

And delicate airs creep sweetly through
Old bridal-chambers dusty and dim:
Down from a far heaven warm and blue,
The mellow splendours swim.

The Woman's eyes grow loving wet;
They dazzle with the morning ray:
The Woman's longing will beget
Her own dear wedding-day!

In his network of wrinkles, Age
May veil their virgin beauties now;
Faces be furrowed—a strange page
Of writing on the brow:

The smiling soul cannot erase
The sad life-lines it shines above;
Yet, imaged in the dear old face,
You see their own young love!

The sleeping Beauty wakes anew
Beneath the drops of tender tears;
The Flower unfolds, to drink the dew,
That seemèd dead for years.

All hearts are as a grove of birds
Spring-touched and chirruping every one;
And each will set the Wedding-Words
To a music of her own.

Some withered remnant of old bliss
Flushing on faded cheeks they bring,
Telling of times when Love's young kiss
Was a fire-offering;

And spirits walk in white, as starts
This bridal-tint that blooms anew;
And so, with all their Woman-hearts,
They fling Good Luck's old shoe!

SERENADE.

“ Awake , sweet Love, for Heaven is awake,
And waiting to be gracious for thy sake!
All night I saw thy fairness gleam afar
With fresh, pure sparkle of the Morning-Star:
Awake, my Love, and be the veil withdrawn
From Beauty bathèd at the springs of Dawn.

“Awake, sweet Love, for Heaven is awake
And waiting to be gracious for thy sake.

A touch upon some silver-sounding string,
As all the harps of heaven were vibrating
Within me, woke me, bade me rise and say,
‘Awake, my Love, this is our Wedding-day.’

“Awake, sweet Love, for Heaven is awake,
And waiting to be gracious for thy sake.
It is the tender time when turtle-doves
Begin to murmur of their vernal loves:
Spirits that all night nestled in the flowers
Shake perfume from their wings this hour of hours.

“Awake, sweet Love, for Heaven is awake,
And waiting to be gracious for thy sake.
Thy presence sets my cloudland round about
Glowing as heaven were turning inside out:
And all the mists that darkened me erewhile
Are smitten into splendours at thy smile.

‘Awake, sweet Love, for Heaven is awake
And waiting to be gracious for thy sake.
To feel thee mine my faith is large enough,
And yet the miracle needs continual proof!
One minute satisfied, the next I pine
For just one more assurance thou art mine.

“Awake, sweet Love, for Heaven is awake,
And waiting to be gracious for thy sake.
Our great sunrise of life begins to glow,
And all the buds of love are ripe to blow;
And all the Birds of Bliss are gaily singing,
And all the Bells of Heaven for bridal ringing.”

ARGUING IN A CIRCLE.

“ When first my true Love crowned me with her smile,
Methought that heaven encircled me the while!
When first my true Love to mine arms was given,
Ah, then methought that I encircled Heaven.”

AN APRIL WEDDING.

O April Wedding,
Sad-smiling, shadowy-bright;
The Grave at foot, and overhead
The merry Bird of Light!

O April Wedding,
The conscious ear at times
Detects the Bell that tolled the knell
Among the Marriage-Chimes!

O April Wedding,
Thy hues together run,—
Through wet eyes seen,—as Red and Green
Will dazzle and grow one!

O April Wedding,
Where Love is crowned in tears,
And on a ground of deepest gloom,
Hope's brightest Bow appears!

O April Wedding,
Thy clouds go all in white;
Those that darkliest wept are now
Most glorified in light!

O April Wedding,
Glittering in sun and showers
The very grave looks glad To-day,
And dead hands offer flowers!

LEAVE-TAKING.

When the wings are feathered,
The birds forsake their nest;
So the Bride will leave her Home
Leaning to her Lover's breast.
The tear was in her eye,
But the soul was smiling through,
Brimful of sunshine
As a drop of summer dew.

AS THEY PASSED.

Within Love's chariot, side by side,
Sweetness and Strength did never ride
More perfectly personified:
One of the dearest Angels out
Of Heaven, the Bride was, beyond doubt;
And his a Manhood fit to be
The mortal Mansion of some deity.

All eyes, like jewels, on them hung
Glowing with precious life,
As at her Husband's side she clung,
The nestled, new-made Wife!
Glad were they in the happiness they gave,
But in their own proud pleasure they were grave.

EVOË.

In the presence of Spring, our beautiful Spring,
Blithe bird of the bosom! the heart will sing.
A Spirit of Joy in the oldest breast
Is stirring, and making it young as the rest:
Quickens new life to leap in each limb,
And laugh out of eyes that were wintry and dim;
So the old Wine stirs in his winter gloom,
And wants to waken, and climb, and bloom,
As he used to do in the world outside,
When the grapes grew big in their purple of pride.
He would laugh in the light, he would flush in the foam;
In a care-drowning wave he would rosily roam;
For his blood is so mellow, so merry, so warm,
Into spirit of joy it would fain transform,
Rioting ruddily, ripple and play,
And in human life keep holiday—
Break on the brain in a luminous spray,
Tinting with heaven our earthiest clay;
In a fiery chariot mount on his way,
With spirit-company, lordly and gay,
And pass like a soul that is lost in day.

So the Spirit of Joy in the oldest breast
Is stirring, and making it young as the rest;
Wakes a new life to leap in each limb,
And laugh out of eyes that were wintry and dim.
Blithe bird of the bosom! the heart will sing
In the presence of Spring, our beautiful Spring.

[English John Talbot, Shakspeare's terribly brave]

English John Talbot, Shakspeare's terribly brave,
Great Fighter, lay in his forgotten grave.
It was but yesterday they found his dust,
The sheath of that old Sword long gone to rust
In English earth; his burial-place recover
In lands owned by a certain Lordly Lover.
And, lo! a Rose had sprung from out his tomb,
And climbed about the Lover's life to bloom:
A peerless flower of the old Hero's stock—
The tenderest gush from that heroic rock.
Not oft doth Fate vouchsafe so plain a sign,
Prefiguring the lives that are to twine.
All sweetness to this wedded life be given;
Its root so deep in earth, its perfect flower in heaven.

A WAYSIDE WHISPER.

“ Seven years I served for you,
To Love, our lord of life,
Ere he made me a Master
And I won you for my wife,—

So faithfully, so fondly,
Through a world of doubts and fears,
Seven long years, Belovèd!
Seven long years.

“Seven years you beaconed me—
My leading, crowning star,
To climb the Mount of Manhood,
As you drew me from afar:
You made my gray hours golden,
You glistened through my tears,
Seven long years, Belovèd!
Seven long years.

“Sometimes you shined so near me—
Wide as we dwelt apart—
I hardly sought you with my arms,
You were so safe at heart!
Sometimes you dwined so distant,
I bowed with solemn fears;
Seven long years, Belovèd!
Seven long years.

“I built my Arch of Triumph
For you to ride through;
I kept my lamps all lighted
That the warring winds outblew:
I worked and I waited,
And I fought down my fears,
Seven long years, Belovèd!
Seven long years.

“Now the perils are all over,
And the pains all past,

My fortune's wheel full-circle comes
In your dear eyes at last!
For such a prize the winning
Most brief and poor appears,
Yet, 'twas seven long years, Belovèd!
Seven long years.”

THE WELCOME HOME.

Warm is the Welcome! 'tis our way to grasp
The hand in love or greeting till it ache;
But to a tender heart our love doth take
The happy pair it doth so proudly clasp.

And very tender in its love To-day
Is every heart touched with a thought of Him
Low-lying in the Cypress-shadow dim,
From which we came to waft you on your way,

And the still face, that looks from Ashridge towers
With smile more regnant in its touching ruth,
And sad hoar-frost upon the dews of youth,
And Widow's weeds to mix with bridal-flowers.

Through Him we lost, we have more love to give.
As some fond Mother yearningly hath breathed
Her life out in the new life she bequeathed,
Our dearest died that this great love might live.

These darling Violets eloquently mute,
Are rich in sadder bloom and sweeter breath,
And that pathetic sanctity of death,
Because our buried joy was at their root.

These Roses blush with a more vital glow
Of crimson—like pale buds, whose tips are red,
As though the flower's heart, in breaking, bled—
Because of looks so lately wan with woe.

These are our Jewels! tears that purged our sight
Like Euphrasy; they lay above the Dead
All drear and dim; but the sad drops we shed
Now live with twinkling lustres in Your light!

The love that darkly wept at heart hath risen
Transfigured. See its sunburst in each face!
As Earth, with all her flowers, smiles embrace
To Spring, rejoicing from her wintry prison.

These Voices, mounting merry as Larks up-spring,
But now were praying on the low, cold sod:
The night is past—they soar in praise to God;
They make the old English greeting rarely ring.

We lean and look to You, thinking of Him.
Warm welcome for the sake of One that's gone;
Warm welcome for your own! Pass on, pass on;
We wave our hands, and shout till sight grows dim:

And, ere the shouts cease ringing in your ears,
We drink a health—all standing—drink to you,
While in our eyes the tears are standing too:
Old tears, that wanted to be wept for years:

But keep a holy hush 'mid all the noise,
To match the silent music your hearts make:
Pass on into your faëry heaven, and take
Our gentlest blessing on your wedding joys.

The dawn will rise, though golden days be set;
The birds sing merrily, in spite of Death;
Young hearts will love while lasts this human breath;
Rainbows bridge Earth and Heaven for eyes tear-wet.

Pass gaily on in glory through the gate
Of your new life, beneath this Bridal-Dawn;
And when from future days the veil is drawn
All happy fortunes for you lie in wait!

And, looking on your bliss, with proudest flush
May the dear Mother's face be glorified.
We, now the sound hath ceased, will stand outside
Your Portals—all hearts praying 'mid the hush.

THE BONNY BRIDELAND FLOWER.

In the Brideland sleeping,
Nestled Beauty's Flower;
Came the Lover peeping
Into her green bower;
On her face hung tender
As a drop of dew;
With her virgin splendour
Thrilling through and through.

Now, the shy, sweet maiden
Softly droops her head:
All her heart is laden
With his coming tread!

Now the new dawn breaketh
In a blush of bliss;
The Belovèd waketh
At her Troth-love's kiss.

In our dull gray weather
We have seen her bloom;
Fain as Exiles gather
Round some flower from Home;
Seen the face that never
Fades away, but gleams,
With its still smile, ever
Through the land of Dreams.

Fair befall the bonny,
Bonny Brideland flower!
All things dear and sunny
Bless her bridal bower!
Truest love e'er given
Feed her new life-root;
And thou God in heaven,
Crown the flower with fruit.

A LOVER'S SONG.

“ One so fair—none so fair.
In her eyes so true
Love's most inner Heaven bare
To the balmiest blue!

“One so fair—none so fair.
In the skies no Star
Like my Star of Earth so near—
They but shine afar.

“One so fair—none so fair.
All too sweet it seems:
Wake me not, O world of care,
If I walk in dreams.

“One so fair—none so fair.
O my bosom-guest,
Love ne'er smiled a happier pair
To the bridal-nest.

“One so fair—none so fair.
Lean to me, sweet Wife:
Light will be the load we bear:
Two hearts in one life.”

THE MARRIED LIFE.

O happy love of weans and Wife,
Ye make a man's heart dance;
Kindle the desert face of life
With colours of romance:

A Land of Promise sparkles where
Your rosier light hath shone;
Too distant to attain, but near
Enough to tempt us on.

'Tis here that Heaven striketh root
To give the Immortal birth,
Man tastes the unforbidden fruit
That deifies on earth.

All ye that such a Garden own,
Of wingèd thieves beware,
And trifles, light as thistle-down,
That sow the seeds of care.

Only in singleness of heart,
Ye keep the heaven ye win!
When Wife and Husband pull apart
The Serpent glideth in.

VIA CRUCIS VIA LUCIS.

Spite of the Mask Eternal Love doth wear
At times, that makes us shrink from it in fear,
Because the Father's face we cannot find,
Nor feel the presence of His love behind,
Nature at heart is very pitiful.

How gentle is the hand doth kindly pull
The coverlet of flowers o'er the face
Of Death, and light up his dark dwelling-place!
With fingers and with foot-fall soft and low
She comes to make the quiet mosses grow:
Safe-smiling, draws the Snowdrop through the snow.
Busy in sun and rain, she strives to heal,
Doing her best to comfort or conceal:
With tenderest grass makes green the saddest grave,
And over death her flags of life will wave.
She is the Angel, waiting by the prison,
That saith, “He is not here, he is arisen,”

When lorn in soul we seek the face we knew,
And dream of buried sweetness coming through
The earth in spring-time, every flower a smile
Of that dear Presence we have lost awhile.

Thus, on our old Crimean battle-ground,
A poor, unknown, dead Soldier's bones were found—
(Known with those noble Englishmen of ours!)
When the next May came with her sweet Wild Flowers,
Nestled they lay above-ground in a grave
Of tall, plumed grass, funereally a-wave
In the West wind that breathed of Home: and tender
There rose from earth a dawn of such spring-splendour,
As if the heavens were breaking through the tomb:
The Wild Flowers had so buried them in bloom.

And, if we lift our eyes up from the ground,
We see how surely life is compassed round
With the Divine, that doth so kindly bound
The pitiless blaze of fires that soon would scorch
To ashes and put out our tiny torch
Of being; veil the vastness of the Whole,
As with drooped eyelids for the naked soul.
The silent Ministers of Healing crowd
About the broken heart and spirit bowed,
To stay the bleeding with immortal balm,
And still the cries with lips of blessèd calm;
Out of the old death make the new life spring,
Our earthly-buried hopes take heavenward wing;
And to each blinding tear that dimmed our sight,
They give a starrier self; a Spirit of Light.

No matter in what separate lives we range,
We feel a rootage deeper than all change.
We know the roses flower to fade: We know
The roses also fade again to blow.
Death is Life's Shadow!

Mute the music looks,
And dark and dead when shadowed forth in books:
Do but interpret it, all heaven will roll
The Life of Music through the echoing soul.

So we grow friends, familiar friends, with Death;
Can look up in his face with firmer faith,
To see the frowning brows shade tender eyes,
Like sunny openings into Paradise.

Through all the gloom and stillness of distress,
With life all muffled up in silentness,
We voyage on—ice-locked, snow-blind, frost-bound—
Like Sailors with the Arctic winter round,
Who thought they stranded in the dark, and found
The solid water all one floating ground;
And drifted through the night, divinely drawn,
Out to the open sea, where daylight shone.

The Shadow of Death is changed into the Dawn,
That radiant Angel of Eternity!
The mourners look up from the grave to see
The dark, that bowed them by its awfulness,
Fell from the Father's hands, spread out to bless.
So, in His own good season, God hath given
This beautiful Joy-Bringer from His Heaven,
To bear His benediction from above,
And be the smiling Presence of His love!

Though heaviness endureth for a night,
Joy cometh with the morning. Lo! the Light.
Gone is the winter from our spirit-clime;
This is the herald of our golden time.
In all the beauty of promise, Spring is here—
Our Spring—that will be with us all the year.

O, beautiful Joy-Bringer! everywhere
Happiness smiles around you, like an air
Of glory, which you dwell in—Starrily-fair!
The lives that have in mourning darkling lain
Now gather colour; sun them once again.
The tender shine that cometh after rain
Illumes the eyes of old heart-ache: the pain
Of loss transmuted to all-golden gain.

Just now we are in the shadow of great change,
And faces darken, and old things grow strange;
And from the new Unknown a many shrink.
Our world is getting tilted, Sages think.
“The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees”
All that is left us. Shame on fears like these!
Whate'er Eclipse may come, storm-signals threat,
We are English yet, my friends, true English yet.
We are standing in the shadow of some sublime
Wide-wingèd Angel of the coming time.
No need to wring our own hands. Let us clasp
Each other's strongly with a manlier grasp.
No fear the pillars of the house will fall
Because we brush our cobwebs from the wall.
Exultingly, O storm-winds, rise and roll
All misty blight from off the stagnant soul,
And lift its trailing wing to winnow through
The cloudy heaven, and bare it to the blue.

As in the very heart of Hope we'll ride,
Borne on the ninth wave of our triumph's tide,
That with its new life heaves Old England's breast,
To lift the lowly, succour the oppressed;
Only be loyal to the Loftiest.
Arise and crown old sanctities anew,
By nobler conquest make your lordship true;
Awake the spirit in our English blood,
That slowly brightens to the fervid flood,
And does not flash till the leap comes that shows
Power all the lustier for its long repose.
And if the proudest Nobles have to bow,
Then let it be as Rowers bend to row
A sturdier stroke; and faint not, though ye know
Not under what dark arch we have to go:
But win the nod of an approving soul,
Even though ye never reach your chosen goal.

O! young hearts, dancing to the rise and fall
Of life's most winsome tune at festival,
Looking on your new world wherein ye move
With all the large, sweet wonder of young love,
The moments thronging with the life of years;
Crowded with happiness and quick to tears;
New smiles of greeting in each minute's face;
New worlds of pleasure brimming every space;
This is no winter-withered earth to you.
Love comes, and life is deified anew!
And hearts grow larger than their fortunes are.
The horizon lifts around, sublime and far,
With god-like breathing-space—an ample scope
For loftier life, and glorious ground for hope.

Turn, happy Lovers, turn on those below
A little of the light in which ye glow;
A little of your sunshine round you shed,
And make our old world blossom where ye tread.
Bring back a little seed from Eden-bowers
To sow our fallows with immortal flowers.
Ah! Nobles, what a chance is yours to be
The founders of a lordlier Chivalry!
And, with the proud old fire this people lead.
When they were weak, I threatened; now I plead,
Give eyes to their blind strength, for great the need.

The Word of Life is well-nigh preached to death;
The Flower of all sweetness withereth,
Crushed in the grip of many that handle it,
As though they thought Life would but yield its sweet
In giving up the breath; shut the live flower
In a dead Book, and kill it every hour
By reason of their clasp:

We want the Book
Translated into life, not the mere look
Of Life embalmed and shrouded in the Book.
We want the life indeed, quick in the lives
Of Fathers, Mothers, Children, Husbands, Wives.
We need the life itself—lived in the Home
On Week-days, ere, the Sabbath-rest will come
To many a homeless hungerer for home.

We pray “Thy Kingdom Come.” But not by prayer
Can it be ever built of breath in air.
In life through labour, must be brought to birth
The Kingdom; as it is in heaven, on Earth.

The light that left Heaven centuries ago
Hath not yet reached dark myriads here below:
Your lives should be the lamp that bears this light,
Still burning, as the stars through all the night.
Because ye are looked up to, they would mark
Your shining!

O, the spirits lying dark
To-day, as jewels waiting but the spark
Of splendour that to Love's dear smile is given,
To brighten with the best that brighten Heaven!
Look down, you Shining Ones, look kindly down,
And save them, set as jewels in your crown.

How beautiful upon the mountain height,
The feet of them that bring the Lowly light—
O'ershadowing, on wings of gentle Love,
The faults and failings that they soar above!
How beautiful the face of those whose smile
Doth make rare sunshine in the heart of Toil;
In low, sick rooms a presence as of Health;
The true Rich folk, in whom the Poor have wealth!
A beautiful life begets itself anew
In other lives, as perfume stealing through
The sense creates the flower to live again;
Its spirit re-embodied in the brain.

Heartfull of shining love and singing hopes,
Come down where life, blind-folded, gnome-like gropes.
We house the Poor to lie and die. But give
Them room to stand in; house the Poor to live;
A little touch of clasping hands might prove
Mightiest of all the languages of Love.

Give them a glimpse of kindlier, sweeter grace,
And be the model of a nobler race—
The living Poem that we may not write;
The Picture that we cannot paint to sight;
The Music that we dream but do not get;
The Statue marble never mirrored yet.

Now while the Thrush upon the barest bough
Stands piping high in azure, telling how
The Spring-wind wanders where the Children go
A-violeting by the warm hedge-row;
Daily more rich the Sallow-palms unfold
And change their silver-gray for sunny gold;
“Good-bye, Old Winter,” the blue heavens laugh;
“The flowers shall write you a kindly epitaph,”
Far on a sea of Light the twinkling Lark
Is launched, and floating like a heaven-bound bark,
In which some happy spirit sails and sings,
And stirs us in a dream of waking wings,
With homeward yearnings, heavenward flutterings,
As all about the inner life there plays
A breath of bliss from out old innocent days,—
Now, while the Spring mounts somewhere up the blue,
We bring our firstling flowers to offer you!
Violets, dim and tender; glad Primroses,
That promise, ere the happy prospect closes,
Ye, hand in hand, through rosier days shall tread
Green earth, with richer glories garlanded;
Where the wild Hyacinths, all a-dreaming, lean,
In peeps of deep sea-azure through the green;
And Summer sets that Golden Age of hers
A-bloom, in mellow miles of yellow Furze;

While, smiling down the distance, Autumn stands,
The ripened fruitage glowing in his hands.

And, if among the flowers some few appear
Sacred to woe, and leaning with the tear
Still in the eyes, I did but seek the leaf
Of Healing—gather Heartsease for the grief:
Nor are they tears, but rather drops of dew
From heaven, that hidden Love is looking through.

As, after death, our Lost Ones grow our Dearest,
So, after death, our Lost Ones come the nearest:
They are not lost in distant worlds above;
They are our nearest link in God's own love—
The human hand-clasps of the Infinite,
That life to life, spirit to spirit knit!
They fill the rift they made, like veins of gold
In fire-rent fissures torture-torn of old;
With sweetness store the empty place they left,
As of wild honey in the rock's bare cleft.
In hidden ways they aid this life of ours,
As Sunshine lends a finger to the flowers,
Shadowed and shrouded in the Wood's dim heart,
To climb by while they push their grave apart.

They think of us at Sea, who are safe on Shore;
Light up the cloudy coast we struggle for!
The ancient terror of Eternity—
The dark destroyer, crouching in Life's sea
To wreck us—is thus Beaconed, and doth stand
As our Deliverer, with a lamp in hand.
We would not put them from us when we are sad;
We will not shut them from us when we are glad;

Nor thrust our Angel from the Marriage Feast,
Although he comes, not clothèd like the rest
In visible garment of a Wedding-Guest.

Now pray we.

Lord of Life, look smiling down
Upon this Pair; with choicest blessings crown
Their love; the beauty of the Flower bring
Back to the bud again in some new spring!
Long may they walk the blessèd life together
With wedded hearts that still make golden weather,
And keep the chill of winter far aloof
With inward warmth when snow is on the roof;
Wed in that sweet for-ever of Love's kiss,
Like two rich notes made one in bridal bliss.

We would not pray that sorrow ne'er may shed
Her dews along the pathway they must tread:
The sweetest flowers would never bloom at all
If no least rain of tears did ever fall.
In joy the soul is bearing human fruit;
In grief it may be taking divine root.

Come joy or grief, nestle them near to Thee
In happy love twin for eternity!
They take our Darling's place; long may they be
As glad and beautiful a hope as he
Hath left a bright and blessèd memory:
Their day fulfil the promise of his dawn—
That, as with Thee, he may with us live on.