St. Augustine's Holiday and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thou whom we miss and mourn,
Though not yet graveward borne,
Who by this act of faith
Hast antedated death,—
Thee our love speaks about,
As if thy presence out
Had stately to the vast
Darkness and silence pass'd;
As if all light that lies
Deep in those thoughtful eyes,
Splendour and shadowy grace
Of that pathetic face,
All the strange music known
Unto thy voice alone,
Of prayer and sorrow born,
Mix'd with majestic scorn
Of baseness and of ill,—
As if all these were still;

164

As if the light and sound
Were changed for the profound
Quiet and darken'd spot
Where all things are forgot.
Thou, in all working such
As thy true hand did touch,
Thou, with an aim sublime,
Master, didst write for time.
Thou scornedst to imprint
One evanescent tint
Upon the measured page
Thou mad'st so grave and sage.
Wherefore the years shall look
With thanks upon thy book.

Thou, when an angry spell
On clamorous hundreds fell;
Or sometimes when men press'd
Thorns to that patient breast,
Or their suspicion laid
Upon that stately head,
Slowly didst turn away
Heart-wounded from the fray,
And unto God alone
Madest majestic moan.

God! by whose will created
The time and man are mated,
Give us such chiefs again,
Give us such kings of men
Who shout no narrow creed,
And do no little deed,
But to their work impart
A grace-touch'd human heart.

165

DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

[_]

Richard Whately, D.D., born 1787, died 1863.

Fast falls the October rain, and dull and leaden
Stretch the low skies, without one line of blue;
And up the desolate streets, with sobs that deaden
The rolling wheels, the winds come rolling too.

Faster than rain fall teardrops, bells are tolling;
The dark sky suits the melancholy heart;
From the church organs awfully is rolling
Down the draped fanes, the requiem of Mozart.

O tears beyond control of half a nation,
O sorrowful music, what have ye to say?
Why take men up so deep a lamentation?
What prince or great man hath there fall'n to-day?

Only an old Archbishop, growing whiter
Year after year, his stature proud and tall,
Palsied and bow'd, as by his heavy mitre;
Only an old Archbishop—that is all!

Only the hands that held with feeble shiver
The marvellous pen—by others outstretch'd o'er
The children's heads—are folded now for ever
In an eternal quiet—nothing more!

166

No martyr he, o'er fire and sword victorious;
No saint in silent rapture kneeling on;
No mighty orator with voice so glorious
That thousands sigh when that sweet voice is gone.

Yet in Heaven's great cathedral, peradventure,
There are crowns rich above the rest, with green
Places of joy peculiar where they enter
Whose fires and swords no eye hath ever seen.

They who have known the truth, the truth have spoken
With few to understand and few to praise,
Casting their bread on waters, half heart-broken,
For men to find it after many days.

And better far than eloquence—that golden
And spangled juggler dear to thoughtless youth—
The luminous style through which there is beholden
The honest beauty of the face of Truth.

And better than his loftiness of station,
His power of logic, or his pen of gold,
The half unwilling homage of a nation
Of fierce extremes to one who seem'd so cold;

The purity by private ends unblotted,
The love that slowly came with time and tears,
The honourable age, the life unspotted,
That is not measured merely by its years.

And better far than flowers that blow and perish
Some sunny week the roots deep laid in mould
Of quickening thoughts, which long blue summers cherish,
Long after he who planted them is cold.

167

Yea, there be saints who are not like the painted
And haloed figures fix'd upon the pane,
Not outwardly, and visibly ensainted,
But hiding deep the light which they contain.

The rugged gentleness, the wit whose glory
Flash'd like a sword because its edge was keen,
The fine antithesis, the flowing story,
Beneath such things the sainthood is not seen,

Till in the hours when the wan hand is lifted
To take the bread and wine, through all the mist
Of mortal weariness our eyes are gifted
To see a quiet radiance caught from Christ;

Till from the pillow of the thinker, lyingted
In weakness, comes the teaching then best taught;
That the true crown for any soul in dying
Is Christ not genius, and is faith not thought.

O wondrous lights of death, the great unveiler,
Lights that come out above the shadowy place,
Just as the night, that makes our small world paler,
Shows us the star-sown amplitudes of space!

Rest then, O martyr, pass'd from anguish mortal;
Rest then, O saint, sublimely free from doubt;
Rest then, O patient thinker, o'er the portal,
Where there is peace for brave hearts wearied out.

O long unrecognized, thy love too loving,
Too wise thy wisdom, and thy truth too free!
As on the searchers after truth are moving,
They may look backward with deep thanks to thee.

168

By his dear Master's holiness made holy
All lights of hope upon that forehead broad,
Ye mourning thousands quit the Minster slowly,
And leave the great Archbishop with his God.

169

DEATH OF LORD J. G. BERESFORD, PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND.

To his rest among the saints of old
That our stately Primate must be laid,
In an ever hallow'd mould,
That the good Archbishop sleepeth well,
Tongue and pen unto the people tell;
Drape the great cathedral where he pray'd,
Let the bell be toll'd.

Not for marvellous speech or musings grand,
Not for martyr's pains! Those noble eyes
Open'd on a golden land;
With him beauty, honour, wealth, and power
Grew like hue and fragrance with the flower;
Stormless, all in sunshine did he rise
And in sunshine stand.

Taylor, round the altar twining roses,
Colour'd by the summer of his touch;
Ken, his music who discloses,
Half by angels, half by thrushes taught;
Butler's regal majesty of thought,—
Ireland's princely Primate had not such:
Weep where he reposes.

170

Ay, whilst now the white sail of his soul
Watch we glimmering round death's misty cape,
Slowly let the organ roll!
From our clouded hearts let raindrops fall
To the soft breath of the ritual;
Solemnly the old cathedral drape,
Let the church bells toll!

Strong is eloquence, and lore is deep—
But for kingly quiet so sustain'd
That it seem'd a saintly sleep,
For the lore that was so simply wise,
For the lordly presence and calm eyes,
For the love and purity unfeign'd,
Let the people weep.

Not by fourteen thousand bits of gold
Measured, but by books at Resurrection
Of the perfect just unroll'd,
Ah! it must have been a weary weight,
Fifty years of such a high estate—
Well! he need not fear the recollection,—
Let the bell be toll'd.

Ah! the great bell tolleth—there blow never
Twice the self-same flowers, but other ones;
Flows not twice the self-same river.
All that majesty of prayers and alms,
All that sweetness as of chanted psalms
Round the brow half princely, half St. John's,
It is gone for ever.

Ah! the great bell tolls, but through the cloud,
If we see aright, and through the mist,

171

Larger eyed and broader brow'd,
With his stainless lawn divinely brighter,
With a crown and not a heavy mitre,
In the full cathedral fane of Christ
Is the Archbishop bow'd.

Leave him with the Bishop of our souls,
Leave the princely old man with the bless'd;
Need is none of Fame's false scrolls:
Calm is on his brow from God's own climate,
Softly draw the curtain round our Primate,
Let the angels sing him to his rest,—
Ah! the great bell tolls!

July 26, 1862.

175

ON READING SOME LINES BY WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER.

As when at night we tread the lonely deck,
In the first hour of moonlight on the wave,
Far, far away, the watcher marks some streak
Which dying day hath pencill'd o'er his grave:

So more than living lights, beyond all fair,
In living genius, is departed worth—
Man's spirit makes love-tokens of whate'er
Hath come from genius now no more on earth.

As in a gold-clasp'd volume closely hid,
The pale, pale leaves of some remember'd rose,
Dating the heart's deep chronicles unbid,
Suggest more thought than all which greenly grows;

As in the winter, from some marble jar,
Whose sides are honey'd with a rosy breath,
You catch faint footfalls of the spring afar,
And find a memory in the scent of death:

So these, the characters of Butler's pen,
Are more to us than all that, day by day,
Are traced by mightiest hands of living men,—
T'is death that makes them more esteem'd than they.

176

'Tis not because the affluent fancy flung
Such pearls of price ungrudging at thy feet,
'Tis not because that blessèd poet sung
His Heavenly Master's truth in words so sweet:

No; 'tis because the heavy churchyard mould
Lies on the dear one in that lonely dell—
Lies on the hand that held the pen of gold,
The brain that thought so wisely, and so well.

Nay, say not so;—write epitaphs like these
For sons of song who fling light words abroad,
Whose art is canker'd with a sore disease,
Who feed a flame that tends not up to God.

But he, the empurpled cross with healing shadow
Was the great measure of the much he knew;
'Twas this he saw on mountain, and on meadow,
The only beautiful, the sternly true.

Not vague to him the great Laudate still
Stirring the strong ones of the waterflood,
And the deep heart of many an ancient hill,
And light-hung chords of every vocal wood;—

Not dark the language written on the wide
Marmoreal ocean—written on the sky,
On the scarr'd volume of the mountain side,
On many-pagèd flowers that lowly lie;—

Nor dark, nor vague; not Nature, but her God;
Nor only Nature's God, but Three in One,
Father, Redeemer, Comforter—bestow'd
On hearts made temples by the Incarnate Son.

177

All sweetest strains rang hollow to his ear,
Wanting this key-note; earthy, of the earth,
Seeming like beauty to the eye of fear,
Like the wild anguish of a harlot's mirth.

True Poet, true Philosopher—to whom
Beauty was one with truth, and truth with beauty;
True Priest, no flowers so sweet upon thy tomb
As those pure blossoms won from rugged duty.

He might have sung as precious songs as e'er
Made our tongue golden since its earliest burst,
But those poetic wreaths him seem'd less fair
Than moral truth o'er science wide dispersed.

He might have read man's nature deeper far
Than any since his broad-brow'd namesake died,
But like those Eastern Sages, so the star
He follow'd—till he found the cradle side.

And now, ye mountains and ye voiceful streams!
For your interpreter ye need not weep;
On the eternal hills fall brighter gleams,
Through Eden more delightful rivers sweep.

Friends, kinsmen, fellow-chruchmen, fellow-men,
Yes, ye may weep, but be it not for him.
Life might have brought him larger lore—what then?
It would have kept him from the seraphim.

Dear hand, dear lines, in them still undeparted
Tokens I see of one before the Throne,—
Butler the child-like, and the tender-hearted,
Taken so young by Him who takes His own.

178

DEATH OF THE EARL OF DERBY.

“Ille ego qui quondam.”

As looks a hero after fields of battle
On those whose skill hath been the charge to shun,
On craven cohorts with unbloody armour,
Chattering of the achievements they have done—
A tragic look and solemn,
Sorrow, contempt, and pity all in one:

So when those fatal nights of great debating
And pettiest sequel paled to their last dawn,
So look'd our Derby ere he left for ever
The red-bench'd chamber with its rows long drawn—
Look'd on his broken party,
Look'd ominous on the triple lines of lawn,

And then pass'd out; but ere he left he turn'd him
And on his gather'd Peers he gazed again—
So in the olden days some strong pathetic
Face of a wounded prophet gazed, and then
Sank in God's darkness grandly
From out the infinite littleness of men,—

179

Pass'd from the petty policies around him
To ampler spheres, where all is large and deep,—
Pass'd to the summer morning in its calmness,
Colouring the space divine and skiey sweep
O'er Westminster and London
That starts and talks and tosses in its sleep;—

Pass'd onward for a little, peradventure,
To realms enchanted, loved in days gone by,
To hear the music intricate yet familiar
That Horace meditates, or with kindling eye
To listen to the ancient
Majestic roll of Homer's poetry;

Pass'd for a while to think of manly triumphs
Won in the full assembly of the State,
Long since, when principles were powers in England,
When parties and their orators were great,
The golden days when Stanley
Was still the star and marvel of debate;

When, not with swollen limb and pallid forehead
And faltering memory, but with faultless word
And rolling fire of eloquence and sarcasm
He spoke the speeches that a nation heard,
And all the stormy pulses
Of the Commons House of Parliament were stirr'd;—

Pass'd to the things of more abiding import,
The silent agonies of frame and brain,
That sometimes bring the sick man from Christ's Presence
The light that makes so many mysteries plain,
The solemn wine of gladness
That cometh with the sacrament of pain;—

180

Pass'd to the chamber in his lordly mansion,
Where still his mother Church with music mild
From her old book of promise and of pardon
The weary hours of lassitude beguiled,
And, like a soldier's mother,
Breath'd of her sweetest to her bravest child.

Now that last look we saw upon his features
Is surely changed into a tender bliss.
No more of scorn, or pain, or pity—something
Gentler than arrow-touch of Artemis,
Repose and adoration,
And whatsoever else immortal is.

Ah! ye do well to bear him out from Knowsley,
Quietly, as he charged you, to the aisle.
No harm that muffled bells be heard from steeples,
Or that flags half-mast high be hung awhile;
But let not any herald
Break the wand o'er him, and proclaim his style.

Only what time the vault is dimly lighted
Among the proud old Earls the bier be set;
And of retainer rough, and sturdy tenant,
And noble kindred, every cheek be wet;
And on the blazon'd coffin
Be duly seen the cap and coronet.

Sufficient is all England's proclamation
Of him whose chaplet many a leaf entwines—
The noblest giver of the noblest largesse;
Whose name for ever on her record shines;
Who, for a while turned poet,
Pour'd his large rhetoric into Homer's lines.

181

Sufficient for his witness to his country
The work that only patriot spirits can
Work in the plenitude of truth and genius,
The loftiest life-work of directest plan—
Rest, Edward, Earl of Derby,
A very perfect knight and gentleman.

Il., xxiv. 759.

182

THE DERRY STATUE TO THE MEMORY OF SIR R. A. FERGUSON, M.P.

Ah, raise it up—
Raise up the statue in the storied town;
Make it a sign of sorrow and renown,
Like flags that tell us where a ship went down.

Ah, raise it up—
Raise up the statue in the quiet square;
Crowning the street that rises, like a stair,
Up from the river in the gloom or glare.

And let it front
At eve or dawn, or with a nameless charm
Of mystic darkness on its folded arm,
The Foyle that brims and brightens by the Farm.

Why raise it up?
Where are the great lines there that we may seek,
As of the statesman with pale brow and cheek,
As of the senator in act to speak?

Not such are here,
If life-drawn truth have moulded it; not such,
If inspiration, by some happy touch,
Have stamp'd in bronze the presence loved so much.

183

Yet raise it up.
Methinks the shaggy brow speaks honest scorn,
And sharp and kindly as a frosty morn
Is the man's wholesome influence reborn.

Ah, raise it up—
Show us the rugged gentleness, the true eyes
Of him who never wrought for place or prize,
Who lack'd the golden eloquence—that lies!

Ah, raise it up—
And let it tell, as far as sculpture can,
For those who have congenial hearts to scan,
The noble quietness of an honest man.

Yet scarcely tell
The lines that gather on that kindly brow,
The cares that wither and the pains that bow—
He has forgotten them, and we will now.

And often here,
Come from the heather'd hill, where ever higher,
Summer by summer, creeps the yellow fire
Of the ripe corn right up the mountain's spire—

And often here,
When in the busy square the parted meet,
Peasant and stately gentleman shall greet
A face they know, a presence sadly sweet.

Ah me! ah me!
The souls in white, who with a single aim
Have wrought or thought for us, they may not claim
Or care to hear the echoes of their name.

184

They may not heed
If men remember them or not below—
Earth's bells are muffled for them as with snow,
Perchance unheard o'er the dark river's flow.

Yet raise it up—
Raise up the statue, in this land and time,
When to tell truth heads all the lists of crime,
And lives are low, and only words sublime.