University of Virginia Library

SONGS.

OLD FRIENDS.

SYLVIA MAY.

IN A DREAM.

THAT MERRY, MERRY MAY.

A LOVER'S FANCY.

NO JEWELLED BEAUTY IS MY LOVE.

THE TWO ROSES.

SWEET-AND-TWENTY.

THE WEDDING-RING.

LOVE'S WESTWARD HO!

MY LOVE.

LULLABY.

AUTUMN SONG.

SYRINX.

O LAY THY HAND IN MINE, DEAR!

LONG, LONG AGO.

A SOLDIER'S WIFE.

ROBIN'S SONG.

THE ONLY ONE.

A MAIDEN'S SONG.

LOVE.

NOW AND THEN.

EMIGRANT SONG.

THE SAILOR'S ORPHAN CHILD.

ON DECK TOGETHER.

A PEARL DIVER.

PARTING.

“FOR EVER.”

SHAKSPEARE.

“ALL READY AND ALL ONE.”

ENGLAND.

THE OLD LAND.

SEA-SONG.

OUR NATIVE LAND.

A NATIONAL ANTHEM.

HAVELOCK'S MARCH.

ONLY A DREAM.

AN ORPHAN FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

The Letter signed and sealed, their prayers are said,
And Martha lights the younger Bairns to bed.
With all a Mother's heart she bends above
Their rest, her eyes filled with a Mother's love.
For soon their voices cease; life fades away
Into its quiet nest, till morrow-day:
As the lake-lilies shut their leaves of light
When down the gloom descends the hush of night,
In fear of what is passing, bow the head
Beneath the water, they shrink down in bed.
But soon the Angel Sleep doth smile all fear
Away with wooing whispers at the ear;
And they will ope at morn eyes bathed in bliss;
Their faces fresh from their good Angel's kiss.
But Martha sleeps not yet; now they are gone,
Brave little woman, she must still work on,
And watch, to-night, for Grandfather is worse,
She thinks, with no one near, save her for nurse.

XIV.

And now he muses by some weird sea-side.
“The tide is a-making its bonny Death-bed;
The white sea-maidens rise ready to wed;
Nearer and nearer, unveiling their charms,
They toss for their lovers, long, shadowy arms!
Dancing with other-world music and motion;
Brides of dead Sailors; the Beauties of Ocean.
“Wave after wave my worn, old Bark has tossed;
One moment saved, another it seemed lost
For ever, still it righted from each blow;
But the great wave is coming on me now!
I see it towering high above the rest;
A world of eyes in its white glittering crest;
See how it climbs, calm in its might, and curls
Ready to clasp me in the wildering whirls,
And when it bursts, in darkness, for last breath,
I shall be fighting, grappled fast with Death.”
He sees an image of Martha now, with dim
Wet eyes; it moves in brightness far from him.
The suffering passes into weariness;
The weariness fades into kind content:
Faintly the tired heart flutters into stillness,
And he has done with Age, and Want, and Illness.
Gently he passed; the little Maiden wept;
Sank down, o'erwearied, by the dead, and slept,
With such a heavenly lustre on her face,
You might have fancied Angels in the place:
Companions through the day of our delight,
That watch as wingèd Sentries all the night.

XV.

Next day a group of serious silent men
Found a Dead Letter with strange life in it;
It was addressed to Jesus Christ in Heaven.
It called up their old hearts into their eyes,
For lofty meeting in a touch of tears.
At length it reached the Lady Marian,
And the Boy's letter had not missed its mark.

XVI.

XVII.

From out the darkness that took shape in Her,
The Lady Marian came on Christmas day,
Quick with maternal tenderness of soul,
Her starry smile so radiant through their night,
Her hands brimful of help, as was her heart
With yearnings to arise and go when first
She read the letter little Fabyan sent
In his confiding simpleness of faith,—
One of those representatives of God
Who help to make the Poor believe in Him
Because He hath some living like on Earth.
And Martha knows that their worst days are done;
In Dora's rich sad eyes a merry light
Soon dances! Lady Marian will prove
A Mother, sent of God, to all the three.
A trembling prayer had shook the Tree of Life,
And, golden, out of heaven the fruitage falls
Into their midst they think direct from God.

THE BRIDEGROOM OF BEAUTY.

Many are called, Aurelia replied,
But few are crowned. I knew a Poet once;
One of the world's most marvellous Might-have-beens;
A strange wild harper upon human heart-strings.
Life's morning-splendour round him prophesied
That he should win his garland in the game.
But he was lost for lack of that sweet thing,
A Wife, to live his love's dear dream of beauty,
And wandered darkling in his dazzling dream.
Life's waters—troubled till that Angel comes—
Never grew calm above the jewel he sought,
Till in Death's harbour all their surges slept.
He was betrothed to Beauty ere his birth—
That silent Spirit of the universe,
Which seeks interpreters of her dumb shows,
'Mong human lovers whom she may not wed.
This Spirit arose from many things, as soars
The soul of Harmony from many sounds.
Out of the by-way of his lonely life,
She beckoned him for her Evangelist,
And straightway he arose and followed her,
And in the shadow of her loveliness,
Or in her wake of glory, walked our world.
That shining Shape, in her sweet mystery, seemed
Some beauteous miracle of eternal love.
Through smiles, and tears, he saw his visioned Bride,
With gorgeous grace, and twinkling limbs of light,
Aye dancing on in her delightsomeness.
His love-dream glided silent through his life,
Like rosy-handed Day 'twixt Earth and Night,
And came betwixt his mind and all its glooms;
Her sandals wet and fragrant with Heaven's dew.
She set the barren thorns in jewelled glow,
And sowed the furrows of his life with flowers.
He followed with wild looks and heart a-fire,
And that rich mist of feeling in the eyes,
Whose alchemy half-creates the thing we see.
She rose at dawn in sparkling clouds of dew,
And kept the Morning's ruddy-golden gates;
Stood high in sunrise on the mountain-top;
Or in her bower of the ambient air
Sat, shedding her rich beauty on the sea,
Which of her likeness took some trembly tints;
Voyaged like Venus in her car of cloud
About the sapphire heaven's lake of love,
Or danced on sunset streams to harp of gold:
Then twilight mists would robe more dainty-rare
Her dim, delicious, dreamy loveliness.
The buds that startle at the voice of May
And open merry eyes, had been with her;
Their subtle smile said what they could reveal.
She nestled glancing at him from the flower
He plucked, and only caught her passing breath;
Even as he grasped her vesture she was gone.
Among the boughs that burgeon into bloom;
The coloured clouds that kindle and richly rise
From out the bosom of Earth's emerald sea;
Hedge-roses set in dewy radiance green;
The lush Laburnums, all a rain of gold;
She seemed to have fled and left her robe afloat.
An Ariel now, she murmured in the Pines;
He heard, but had no magic word or wand.
A wavy Naiad, she rippled the cool brooks
That round her dallied, babbling in their dreams.
The fragrant feeling of the languorous air
Was as the soft endearment of her arms,
That wound him in a tremulous caress.
Not by appointment do we meet Delight
And Joy; they heed not our expectancy;
But round some corner in the streets of life,
They, on a sudden, clasp us with a smile.
So on him rose his visitant divine,
From many a magic mirror of the mind;
With elfin evanescence came and went.
When, thronged with life, the Year in beauty burst,
Lifted her lids, and blossomed from the trees,
She glanced from all the gateways of the spring.
In burnished bark swam down the summer-tide
That floods the valleys, breaks o'er all the hills,
In sparkling spray of flowers, and leafy life.
She roofed the Autumn forests with the wealth
Of melted rainbows, caught from summer heaven.
And winter trees stretched fingers weird to win
The perfect pearl of her white purity.
Where'er she went Earth looked up and was glad.
Through Music's maze she glode at hide-and-seek;
Played with the Storm, then in her Iris-shape
Laughed from the purple skirts of Heaven, as laughs
Some radiant Child from Mother's hiding robe.
Adown dim forest-windings he would peer;
Surprise his Beautiful at her woodland bath,
And in a solemn hush of heart stand still
Like fixèd flame! for lo, how softly glowed
Her dainty limbs in depths of dissolved pearl!
Then swift as runs a wind-wave over grass,
He saw her garments gleam in leafy light.
Were those love-whisperings among the leaves,
Or elvish laughters twitting through the trees?
Sometimes the boughs let in her haunting face;
But the old Forest kept the secret still,
And hushed it round with grave unconscious look.
In vernal nights so tender, calm, and cool,
When eerie Darkness lays its shadowy hands
On Earth, and reads her sins with searching eyes,
Like a Confessor o'er a kneeling Nun;
He stood in God's wide whispering-gallery,
And breathed his worship: down from visible heaven
Her influence fell, and thrilled in music through
The silences of space, and soothed his soul,
Till life was folded up brimful of beauty,
As the flower clasps its pearl and droops to dream.
At times, from out the curtains of the dark,
Her face would meet him through the glowing gloom.
Sometimes she passed; her rippling raiment touched
His sense, and sphered him with diviner air,
Like honeysuckles brushed at dewy dusk.
The fragrance of her breath made old earth young.
From mystery to mystery, like a Bride,
The dainty-waisted darling led him on,
And dropped love-tokens in his pilgrim path.
The red Rose peering from its cool green leaves
Like warm Love lifting half its hiding veil,
Symbolled her soft red mouth held up to him.
A virgin whiteness in a dream of bloom,
Gave to her tender cheeks their taking tint.
Her eyes were orbs of thought that on him burned
Fervent as Hesper in the brow of night.
He walked as in a clime of golden eves.
The vineyard of his life reeled lusty-ripe;
He ached to press the wine upon her lips,
But aye she melted from his love's embrace,
To float him far away in faëry lands.
The wooing wind would murmur of her fairness,
And round him breathe in many whispers sweet;
Bring dews of healing as from Hermon hill;
Creep to his burning heart with drink of life,
And cool him with her kisses. Oft he hushed,
As one who pauses on a midnight heath,
To catch the footfall felt by Fancy's ear.
When he awoke in Dreamland, 'twas to find
He had been floated through some starry dark
Far from earth's shore, on an enchanted sea:
And he lay pillowed 'twixt her white warm breasts,
In glowing arms of glorifying love:
A light of love-dreams on her features shone,
And she had laid her daylight mask aside;
All the sweet soul of things bare to him, as lies
The mirrored moon in silver sleeping seas.
A shimmering splendour from the By-gone broke,
As the Ship leaves a luminous wake behind;
And, looking back, his Childhood's world she ringed
With rich auroral hues of summer dawns.
When weird, dark shapes of sorrow hunted nigh
With their slow solemn eyes, and silent aim,
She dropped the gold cloud of her tresses round him.
When o'er him hung the night of adverse fate,
She was a light along his perilous path,
And through the darkness of his soul there broke
A heaven of worlds all tenderness and peace.
At times he walked with glad and dauntless step,
As inner wings to heroic music moved;
And men who read his lighted look might deem
His life a summer story told in flowers.
But often he would falter weeping-weak,
With claspèd hands, and very lowly heart.
Then she rose radiant in a finer light,
Seen through the altar-smoke and mist of tears.
So his life grew to beauty silently,
And shaped his soul into an orb of song.
He sang of Her his beautiful Unknown!
And to his music she would coyly come;
He ceased—to look on her—and she was gone.
He sang of Her his beautiful Unknown,
Heart-wild, as some glad bird that tells of spring,
He would have made the world her worshipper,
And all Earth's voices ring a rich refrain.
One day our passionate pilgrim sat him down
By the wayside of life, and thus he prayed—
O'er all his face a light of glory smiled,
His soul had rent the veil 'twixt life and life.
Slowly the shining vapours orb a Star,
By fine degrees before his fixèd eyes.
The Spirit he had sought through all the world,—
Had sought without but only found within,—
Turned full upon him face to face at last.
She laid her hand upon his throbbing harp;
She pressed her lips upon his passionate life;
And both stood still. In death he had found his Bride.

POEMS FOR CHRISTIE.

A WINTER'S TALE FOR THE LITTLE ONES.

FOR CHRISTIE'S SAKE.

CHRISTIE'S PORTRAIT.

THE TWO HEAVENS.

SLEEP-WALKING.

CHRISTIE'S POOR OLD GRAN.

NEWS OF CHRISTIE.

LITTLE WILLIE.

WHEN CHRISTIE COMES AGAIN.

CHILDREN AT PLAY.

LITTLE LILYBELL.

OUR WHITE DOVE.

POOR ELLEN.

THE NABOB'S DOUBLE.

THE DIAKKA.

“THEY SANG A NEW SONG.”

FLOWER AND FRUIT.

PEGASUS IN HARNESS.

LOVE AND DEATH.

This butterfly of human breath,
Is followed far and fast by Death;
Some flower of life it settled on
He clasps and crushes, but—'tis gone.

ORPHANS.

Who would not wish the Dead were near,
If we can dry the mourners' tear?
Who would not pray the Dead may sleep,
When starving Orphans wake to weep?

ONE OF SHAKSPEARE'S WOMEN.

I sometimes think that Shakspeare has revealed
To me that very self so long concealed:
But if his soul my soul has lightened through,
I sometimes think it was to gaze on you,
To find, with loving wonder in his looks,
One of his Women living out of his Books!

IMPERFECTION.

Ah, never is the Almighty Artist's plan
Crowned and completed in the life of man.
At best a broken fragment we up-rear
Above the tomb, that like a visible prayer
Pleads on and ever with the Infinite,
For other lives to come and finish it,
And for the eternal temple make it fit.

SO IT GOES.

The tender green that laughs out in the light,
And drinks the freshness of the dew and rain,
Must take the cloud of dust that turns it white
And burnish every tiny blade again!
The river into which heaven cometh down,
It is so exquisitely pure and still,
Must also soil itself to cleanse the town,
And with hard labour tread and turn the mill.

GROWING OLD.

The stream of Life that brimmed its banks of old,
We drain to gather Wisdom's grains of gold;
And often as we count the riches o'er,
Half wish our wealth were drowned in it once more!

A GREEK REPLY.

“So many are your foes, their arrows shroud
The very Sun with an eclipsing cloud.”
“We'll fight them in the dark then! and the horde
Illumine with the lightning of the Sword.”

MAN AND HIS TWO MASTERS.

“ You cannot serve two Masters,” saith the Word.
But Satan nudges us and whispers, “Gammon!
You lend your Womenkind to love the Lord,
And give Yourselves to serve and worship Mammon.”

WOMANKIND.

Dear things! we would not have you learn too much—
Your Ignorance is so charming! We've a notion
That greater knowledge might not lend you such
Sure aid to blind obedience and devotion.

A VERY EARLY RISER.

At the Last Day while all the rest
Are soundly sleeping underground,
He will be up clean-shaved and dressed
An hour before the Trumpets sound.

A PECULIAR PERSON.

You perfect, pure, original,
Writ in a tongue unknown to all;
Translated, in some other sphere,
You may be read; but will not here.

DELIA BACON.

The Delian diver wrecked her life to grasp
A pearl she saw by Visionary gleams,
And died with empty hand that could not clasp
The treasure only Real in her dreams.

A PAINTED SPRAY OF APPLE-BLOSSOM.

Throughout the year and year by year will bloom
This blush of Spring arrested in my room,
Whilst Nature's self to rival it must bring
Her breathing buds renewed each passing Spring.

AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE.

You have your Angel in the House! but look
On this, her likeness, mirrored in a book,
If but to learn how shadowy the Ideal
In presence of the living, loving Real.

SOULS OF ANIMALS.

Such look of an immortal likeness springs,
At times into the eyes of dear dumb things,
As if Hereafter we must recognize
The Unknown Life that knew us in their eyes.

TRUE POETS.

THE HAUNTED HURST,

A TALE OF ETERNITY.

As One who, in a strange and far Country,
In presence of his future Bride may be,
That keeps the secret of her face concealed,
Until, as Wife, the Maiden stands revealed:
And who doth make blind guesses at the face;
Its wealth of nature and its gifts of grace:
Much marvelling if the form beneath the folds
Be like the picture that at heart he holds!
And who, as chance befall, may furtively
Feel the hid features that he cannot see—
Trying to gather, with a Lover's touch,
The least of all he longs to know so much:
Even thus, before the Next World's face I stand,
And o'er its clouded features pass my hand;
Groping to get, where mortal sight doth fail,
Some likeness of the face behind the Veil!
It is the voice of Vision in the night;
I learned in darkness what I speak in light:
Perchance such ne'er attains the perfect True,
And yet may utter meaning for the few,
As sandiest Desert wastes reflect afar
Light from our Sun to some benighted Star!

I. PART I.

II. PART II.

III. PART III.

IV. PART IV.

V. PART V.

VI. PART VI.

VII. PART VII.