The Poetical Works of (Richard Monckton Milnes) Lord Houghton ::

A shadow, a light cloud, an April rain,
And twenty other vain similitudes,
Betoken that fast-springing Youth eludes
The full impression of continuous pain.
Strange fallacy! when all that then we feel
Strikes home,—the veriest trifles how profound!
When there is something in each precious wound
That searing Manhood almost fails to heal.
But let the harshnesses of daily life
And all the blunt world's businesses have set
A seal upon the fountain of the heart,
Then tangled in the party-coloured strife,
We throb with Love or Hate, we meet or part,
Sigh, tremble, weep, pass onward and forget.

209

HAPPINESS.

Because the Few with signal virtue crowned,
The heights and pinnacles of human mind,
Sadder and wearier than the rest are found,
Wish not thy Soul less wise or less refined.
True that the small delights which every day
Cheer and distract the pilgrim are not theirs;
True that, though free from Passion's lawless sway,
A loftier being brings severer cares.
Yet have they special pleasures, even mirth,
By those undreamt of who have only trod
Life's valley smooth; and if the rolling earth
To their nice ear have many a painful tone,
They know, Man does not live by Joy alone,
But by the presence of the power of God.

210

THE SAME.

A splendour amid glooms,—a sunny thread
Woven into a tapestry of cloud,—
A merry child a-playing with the shroud
That lies upon a breathless mother's bed,—
A garland on the front of one new wed,
Trembling and weeping while her troth is vowed,—
A school-boy's laugh that rises light and loud
In licensed freedom from ungentle dread;
These are ensamples of the Happiness,
For which our nature fits us; more and less
Are parts of all things to the mortal given,
Of Love, Joy, Truth, and Beauty. Perfect Light
Would dazzle, not illuminate, our sight,—
From earth it is enough to glimpse at Heaven.

211

THE SPRING AND THE BROOK.

It may be that the Poet is as a Spring,
That, from the deep of being, pulsing forth,
Proffers the hot and thirsty sons of earth
Refreshment unbestowed by sage or king.
Still is he but an utterance,—a lone thing,—
Sad-hearted in his very voice of mirth,—
Too often shivering in the thankless dearth
Of those affections he the best can sing.
But Thou, O lively Brook! whose fruitful way
Brings with it mirror'd smiles, and green, and flowers,—
Child of all scenes, companion of all hours,
Taking the simple cheer of every day,—
How little is to thee, thou happy Mind,
The solitary parent Spring behind!

212

GOOD INTENTIONS.

Fair thoughts of good, and fantasies as fair!
Why is it your content to dwell confined
In the dark cave of meditative mind,
Nor show your forms and colours otherwhere?
Why taste ye not the beautiful free air
Of life and action? If the wintry wind
Rages sometimes, must noble growth be pined,
And fresh extravagant boughs lopped off by care?
Behold the budding and the flowering flowers,
That die, and in their seed have life anew;
Oh! if the promptings of our better hours
With vegetative virtue sprung and grew,
They would fill up the room of living Time,
And leave the world small space to nourish weeds of crime.

213

GRAVE TEMPERAMENTS.

To live for present life, and feel no crime,—
To see in life a merry-morrice craft,
Where he has done the best who most has laughed,
Is Youth's fit heaven, nor thus the less sublime:
But not to all men, in their best of prime,
Is given by Nature this miraculous draught
Of inward happiness, which, hourly quaffed,
Seems to the reveller deep beyond all time.
Therefore encumber not the sad young heart
With exhortations to impossible joy,
And charges of morose and thankless mood;
For there is working in that girl or boy
A power which will and must remain apart—
Only by love approached and understood.

214

ACTION AND THOUGHT.

There is a world where struggle and stern toil
Are all the nurture of the soul of man—
Ordain'd to raise from life's ungrateful soil,
Pain as he must, and Pleasure as he can.
Then to that other world of thought from this
Turns the sad soul, all hopeful of repose,
But round in weirdest metamorphosis,
False shapes and true, divine and devilish, close.
Above these two, and resting upon each
A meditative and compassionate eye,
Broodeth the Spirit of God: thence evermore,
On those poor wanderers cast from shore to shore,
Falleth a voice, omnipotent to teach
Them that will hear,—“Despair not! it is I.”

215

PRAYER.

In reverence will we speak of those that woo
The ear Divine with clear and ready prayer;
And, while their voices cleave the Sabbath air,
Know their bright thoughts are winging heavenward too.
Yet many a one,—“the latchet of whose shoe”
These might not loose,—will often only dare
Lay some poor words between him and despair—
“Father forgive! we know not what we do.”
For, as Christ pray'd, so echoes our weak heart,
Yearning the ways of God to vindicate,
But worn and wilder'd by the shows of fate,
Of good oppressed and beautiful defiled,
Dim alien force, that draws or holds apart
From its dear home that wandering spirit-child.

216

LESSON TO POETS.

Try not, or murmur not if tried in vain,
In fair rememberable words to set
Each scene or presence of especial gain,
As hoarded gems in precious cabinet.
Simply enjoy the present loveliness;—
Let it become a portion of your being;
Close your glad gaze, but see it none the less,
No clearer with your eye, than spirit, seeing.
And, when you part at last, turn once again,
Swearing that beauty shall be unforgot:
So in far sorrows it shall ease your pain,
In distant struggles it shall calm your strife,
And in your further and serener life,
Who says that it shall be remember'd not?

217

INDIRECT BEAUTY.

Poet and Artist think and care not whether
Things hold in truth the glory that they show;
Beauty and beauteous thoughts will go together,
While to one scene a thousand memories flow;
Long spirit-strains from one wild note shall grow,
Magnificent tempests from one cloudy feather,
From one bright ray the sunset's perfect glow,
Hymettian thyme-beds from one plant of heather.
Into one scene a thousand memories flow!
Held we but this reflection at our hearts,
And beauty never past without regard,
No place would lack illuminated parts,
And inward grace with outer mingle so,
That Nature should be never dark or hard.

218

TO CHARLES LAMB.

Thee I would think one of the many Wise,
Who in Eliza's time sat eminent,
To our now world, his Purgatory, sent
To teach us what true English Poets prize.
Pasquilant froth and foreign galliardize
Are none of thine; but, when of gay intent,
Thou usest staid old English merriment,
Mannerly mirth, which no one dare despise.
The scoffs and girds of our poor critic rout
Must move thy pity, as amidst their mime,
Monk of Truth's Order, from thy memories
Thou dost updraw sublime simplicities,
Grand Thoughts that never can be wearied out,
Showing the unreality of Time.

219

TO A CERTAIN POET.

At Beauty's altar fervent acolyte,
And favored candidate for priestly name,
In object as in force adore aright
Nor waste one breath of thy rare gift of flame;
Nature, Artistic Form, Music,—all these
Are shapes where partial Beauty deigns to lie,
And mediate, as with types and images,
Between frail hearts and perfect Deity.
From Thee a purer faith is due,—to find
The Beauty of Life,— the Melody of Mind,—
Which the true Poet's quest never eludes:
Speed Thou Philosophy's straight-onward flight,
Aiming thy wings at that serenest height,
Where Wordsworth stands, feeding the multitudes.

220

LOVE WITHOUT SYMPATHY.

Yes, I will blame thy very height of heart,
I will conjure thee to remember still
That things above us are not less apart,
And mountains nearest to the sun most chill!
Well hadst thou held sublime and separate rank,
Martyr or heroine of romantic times,
When Woman's life was one poor cloudy blank,
Lit by rare-gleaming virtues, loves, and crimes.
But now that every day for thee and me
Has its own being of delight and woe,
Come down, bright star! from thy perennial vault,
My earthly path's companion-light to be;
And I will love thee more for every fault
Than for perfections that the angels show.

221

ON ALFRED OF ENGLAND.

Alfred judged, and we have his own words before us grounded on such judgment, that it is better to permit the continuance of a defective law, than to destroy the foundation upon which all laws depend,—respect for established authority,—which sudden changes, even for the better, are apt to undermine. Palgrave.

There rose, from out a most discordant age,
A mind attuned to that slow harmony,
With which the Former of Humanity
Unfolds his book of will, from page to page.
War, with that generous passion, he did wage,
Which was the soul of Christian chivalry,—
But governing, his wise humility
Against high Heaven threw down no venturous gage.
He knew, how staidly moves the Spirit of Law,
Even as the dial-shade,—that men with awe
May recognise the one law-giving hand;
And thus the Ruler, whom his own proud will
Urges unbridled, be it for good or ill,
Brings on himself like shame and misery on the land.

222

INSERTED IN M. RIO'S WORK, “LA PETITE CHOUANNERIE.”

For honest men, of every blood and creed,
Let green La Vendée rest a sacred spot;
Be all the guilt of Quiberon forgot
In the bright memory of its martyr-deed!
And let this little book be one more seed,
Whence sympathies may spring, encumbered not
By circumstance of birth or mortal lot,
But claiming virtue's universal meed!
And as those two great languages, whose sound
Has echoed through the realms of modern time,
Feeding with thoughts and sentiments sublime
Each other and the listening world around,
Meet in these pages as on neutral ground,—
So may their nations' hearts in sweet accord be found!

O France and England! on whose lofty crests
The day-spring of the Future flows so free,
Save where the cloud of your hostility
Settles between, and holy light arrests,
Shall Ye, first instruments of God's behests,

223

But blunt each other? Shall Barbarians see
The two fair sisters of civility
Turn a fierce wrath against each other's breasts?
No!—by our common hope and being—no!
By the expanding might and bliss of peace,
By the revealed fatuity of war,
England and France shall not be foe to foe:
For how can earth her store of good increase,
If what God loves to make man's passions still will mar?

224

ON TURNER'S PICTURE

[_]

OF THE TÉMÉRAIRE MAN-OF-WAR, TOWED INTO PORT BY A STEAMER, FOR THE PURPOSE OF BEING BROKEN UP.

See how that small concentrate fiery force
Is grappling with the glory of the main,
That follows, like some grave heroic corse,
Dragged by a suttler from the heap of slain.
Thy solemn presence brings us more than pain—
Something which Fancy moulds into remorse,
That We, who of thine honour hold the gain,
Should from its dignity thy form divorce.
Yet will we read in thy high-vaunting Name,
How Britain did what France could only dare,
And, while the sunset gilds the darkening air,
We will fill up thy shadowy lines with fame,
And, tomb or temple, hail thee still the same,
Home of great thoughts, memorial Téméraire!

225

TO QUEEN VICTORIA.

ON A PUBLIC CELEBRATION.

How art Thou calm amid the storm, young Queen!
Amid this wide and joy-distracted throng?
Where has the range of life-experience been
To keep thy heart thus equable and strong?
Can the secluded cold which may belong
To such high state compose thy noble mien,
Without the duteous purpose not to wrong
The truth of some Ideal spirit-seen?

Perchance the depth of what I boldly asked
None know—nor I, nor Thou.

Yet let us pray
That Thou, in this exceeding glory masked,
Be not to loss of thy true self beguiled;
Still able at thy Maker's feet to lay
The living, loving, nature of a child!

University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

THE PAINS OF YOUTH.