University of Virginia Library

SONNETS AND OTHER SHORT POEMS.

TWO EPIGRAMS.

I. ON A PORTRAIT PRESENTED TO J. Y. SIMPSON, M.D. (AFTERWARDS SIR JAMES SIMPSON).

Unto myself my better self you gave.
I give yourself yourself: but ah, my friend,
In how inverse a ratio! To amend
The unjust return these thanks are all I have,
Except a sigh, when that poor ‘all’ is o'er,
To feel, alas, no less your debtor than before.

II. ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES.

Nature, a jealous mistress, laid him low.
He woo'd and won her; and, by love made bold,
She showed him more than mortal man should know,
Then slew him lest her secret should be told.

ON A RECENTLY FINISHED STATUE.

Said Sculptor to immaculate marble—‘Show
Thine essence; into necessary space
Most pure describe thine unshaped Purity!’
And lo this Image! As a bubble blown,
Swiftly her charms, dilating, went through all
The zones of sphered Perfection, till the stone
Smiled as to speak. Some coming thought half-shown
Forms on her parting lips, so that her face
Is as a white flow'r whence a drop of dew,
White with the fragrant flow'r, inclines to fall.
‘Oh Everlasting Silence keep her so!
Immortalise this moment, lest she grow
To such a living substance as can die!’
He cried. Consent Eternal heard his cry.

THE CONVALESCENT TO HER PHYSICIAN.

Friend, by whose cancelling hand did Fate forgive
Her debtor, and rescribe her stern award,
Oh with that happier light wherein I live
May all thine after, years be sunned and starred!
May God, to Whom my daily bliss I give
In tribute, add it to thy day's reward,
And mine uncurrent joy may'st thou receive
Celestial sterling! Aye and thou shalt thrive
Even by my vanished woes: for as the sea
Renders its griefs to Heaven, which fall in rains
Of sweeter plenty on the happy plains,
So have my tears exhaled; and may it be
That from the favouring skies my lifted pains
Descend, oh friend, in blessings upon thee!

SAMUEL BROWN.

He came with us to thy great gates, oh Thou
Unopened Age. Our noise was like the wind
Chafing the wordy Deep; but broad and blind
They stood unmoved. Then He,—we knew not how,—
Laid forth his hand upon them. Lo, they grind
Revolving thunders! Lo, on his dark brow
The unknown light! Lo
Azrael came behind
And touched him. They clanged back, and all was Now.
We wondered and forgot; but He, unbent,
With eye still strained to the forbidden day,
Towered in the likeness of his great intent
As if his act should be his monument,
Till Azrael pitied such sublime dismay,
And led him onward by another way.

TO PROFESSOR AND MRS. J. S. BLACKIE.

If Time that feeds love dies to die no more,
Immortal hours, dear friends, were yours and mine;
For Morn that on the hills oped eyes divine,
And Eve that walked like Mary by the shore
Where that old Dreamer, as he built, of yore,
Saw her, and told his dream in such a shrine
As was a kind of Mary, and the shine
Of Noon, and starry censers swinging o'er
With Night, all made ye dearer: thou whose soul,
Palimpsest of a dead and living world,
Taketh no dust from that nor stain from this,
And thou who with thyself hast so empearled
The writing—knowing well how rare it is—
That the scrolled jewels and the jewelled scroll
In total more than both complete a married whole.

TO THE AUTHORESS OF ‘AURORA LEIGH.’

Were Shakspeare born a twin, his lunar twin
(Not of the golden but the silver bow)
Should be like thee: so, with such eyes and brow,
Sweeten his looks, so, with her dear sex in
His voice, (a king's words writ out by the queen,)
Unman his bearded English, and, with flow
Of breastfull robes about her female snow,
Present the lordly brother. Oh Last-of-kin,
There be ambitious women here on earth
Who will not thank thee to have sung so well!
Apollo and Diana are one birth,
Pollux and Helen break a single shell.
Who now may hope? While Adam was alone
Eve was to come. She came; God's work was done.

TO MRS. J. S. BLACKIE.

Dear Friend, once, in a dream, I, looking o'er
The Past, saw the Four Seasons slow advance
Dancing, and, dancing, each her cognizance
So gave and took that neither dancer bore
Her sign, but in another's symbol wore
An amulet to lessen or enhance
Herself: till as they fast and faster dance
I see a dance and lose the dancing four.
Thus thy dear Poet, at his sportive will,
Commingling every seasonable mood
Of old and young, and the peculiar ill
Of each still healing with the other's good,
Bends to a circle life's proverbial span
Where childhood, youth, and age are unity in man.

DEDICATORY.

Beauty is One. But that so equal gold,
Run in the apt and kindly difference
Of each receptive and significant sense,
Configures to our many-minded mould.
Therefore, oh Love, though I no more behold
That sometime world where summer eloquence
I saw and spake, (adding nor time nor tense,
But singing forth the silent music old),
Yet walled in winter cities still sing I;
For conscious of thy beauty mere and whole,
The perfect unit of thy face and soul
(Thy face thy soul confest to mortal eye,
Thy soul thy face by new perceptions known),
Thy One becomes my Many. Take thine own.

SISTER TO SISTER,

‘When I received that love which is a face,
When I perceived that face which is a love,
Two voices, like those two old nations, strove
Within my heart, and the first-born gave place
And served the younger. “Ah this golden space
Doth cage the airy pinions of my dove!
And ah this value, which might prove and more
Another love, seems simony to the grace
Of ours!” Thus while one passion doth protest,
The other cries: “I care not how it be!
For, givest thou much or little, worst or best,
Nor am I richer nor thou dispossest;
My fond subtraction is still thine in me,
And all thy dear remainder mine in thee!”’

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. BROWNING.

Which of the Angels sang so well in Heaven
That the approving Archon of the quire
Cried, ‘Come up hither!’ and he, going higher,
Carried a note out of the choral seven;
Whereat that cherub to whom choice is given
Among the singers that on earth aspire
Beckoned thee from us, and thou, and thy lyre
Sudden ascended out of sight? Yet even
In Heaven thou weepest! Well, true wife, to weep!
Thy voice doth so betray that sweet offence
That no new call should more exalt thee hence
But for thy harp. Ah lend it, and such grace
Shall still advance thy neighbour that thou keep
Thy seat, and at thy side a vacant place.

TWO SONNETS ON THE DEATH OF PRINCE ALBERT.

I.

[In a great house by the wide Sea I sat]

In a great house by the wide Sea I sat,
And down slow fleets and waves that never cease
Looked back to the first keels of War and Peace;
I saw the Ark, what time the shoreless flat
Began to rock to rising Ararat;
Or Argo, surging home, with templed Greece
To leeward, while, mast-high, the lurching fleece
Swung morn from deep to deep. Then in a plat
Of tamarisk a bird called me. When again
My soul looked forth I ponder'd not the main
Of waters but of time; and from our fast
Sure Now, with Pagan joy, beheld the pain
Of tossing heroes on the triremed Past
Obtest the festive Gods and silent stars in vain.

II.

[And as I mused on all we call our own]

And as I mused on all we call our own,
And (in the words their passionate hope had taught
Expressing this late world for which they fought
And prayed) said, lifting up my head to the sun,
‘Ne quibus diis immortalibus,’—one
Ran with fear's feet, and lo! a voice distraught
‘The Prince’ and ‘Dead.’ And at the sound methought
The bulwark of my great house thunder'd down.
And, for an instant,—as some spell were sapping
All place—the hilly billows and billowy hills
Heaved through my breast the lapping wave that kills
The heart; around me the floor rises and falls
And jabbling stones of the unsteady walls
Ebb and flow together, lapping, lapping.

TO 1862.

(IN PROSPECT OF WAR WITH AMERICA.)

TO TÖCHTERCHEN, ON HER BIRTHDAY.

As one doth touch a flower wherein the dew
Trembles to fall, as one unplaits the ply
Of morning gossamer, so tenderly
My spirit touches thine. Yet, daughter true
And fair, great Launcelot's mighty nerve and thew
Best clove a king or caught a butterfly,
(Since each extreme is perfect mastery
—Accurate cause repaid in the fine due
Of just effect—) and, child, it should be so
With Love. The same that nicely plundereth
The honeyed zephyrs for thy cates and wine
Should train thee with the tasks of toil and woe,
Or hold thee against adverse life and death,
Or give thee from my breast to dearer arms than mine.

TO THE SAME.

Töchterchenlein, by whom the least became
The greatest title of dear Daughterhood,
Who hast not laid down life, nor spilled thy blood
For me, but throbbed them thro' the living frame
Of duteous days less different than the same,
Yet not too much the same to be construed
In number, that still multiplied thy good,
And, by the figure of a changing name
For changeless love, helped my weak utterance
Of thy desert; as step by step we climb
A height, or by a thousand measure one:
I verse this Poetry which thou hast done,
As he who gazing on a rhythmic dance
Finds even his common speech a little keep the time.

TO A FRIEND IN BEREAVEMENT.

No comfort, nay, no comfort. Yet would I
In Sorrow's cause with Sorrow intercede.
Burst not the great heart,—this is all I plead—
Ah sentence it to suffer, not to die.
‘Comfort?’ If Jesus wept at Bethany,
—That doze and nap of Death—how may we bleed
Who watch the long sleep that is sleep indeed!
Pointing to Heaven I but remind you why
On earth you still must mourn. He who, being bold
For life-to-come, is false to the past sweet
Of Mortal life, hath killed the world above.
For why to live again if not to meet?
And why to meet if not to meet in love?
And why in love if not in that dear love of old?

AT THE GRAVE OF A SPANISH FRIEND.

Here lies who of two mighty realms was free;
The English-Spaniard, who lived England's good
With such a Spain of splendour in the blood
As, flaming through our cold utility,
Fired the north oak to the Hesperian tree,
And flower'd and fruited the unyielding wood
That stems the storms and seas. Equal he stood
Between us, and so fell. Twice happy he
On earth: and surely in new Paradise,
Ere we have learn'd the phrase of those abodes,
Twice happy he whom earthly use has given,
Of all the tongues our long confusion tries,
That noblest twain wherein the listening gods
Patient discern the primal speech of Heaven.

TO AN AMERICAN EMBASSY.

Since Sovereign Nature, at the happy best,
Is rightful and sole paragon of Art,
Who, tho' she but in part, and part by part,
Paints, carves, or sings the whole, is still possest
By thee, all thee, oh somewhere unconfest
Apollo! in the worlds of men who art
A man, and, with a human body and heart,
Lookest her visible truths, and livest the rest;
Surely that strategy was well design'd
Which, laying siege to Art's proud Capital,
Armed not, against her matchless pow'rs-that-be,
Music, Painting, Sculpture, Poetry,
But sent a living womanhood of all
To queen, by their own laws, the masters of mankind.

JOHN BOHUN MARTIN.

Keeping his word, the promised Roman kept
Enough of worded breath to live till now.
Our Regulus was free of plighted vow
Or tacit debt: skies fell, seas leapt, storms swept;
Death yawned: with a mere step he might have stept
To life. But the House-master would know how
To do the master's honours; and did know,
And did them to the hour of rest, and slept
The last of all his house. Oh, thou heart's-core
Of Truth, how will the nations sentence thee?
Hark! as loud Europe cries ‘Could man do more?’
Great England lifts her head from her distress,
And answers ‘But could Englishman do less?’
Ah England! goddess of the years to be!

DEPRECATING A GIFT.

(OF SOMETHING MADE BY THE GIVER.)

Child, your effectual hands create too much.
The things they fashion having, thenceforth, less
The type of matter than the preciousness
Of you, how can I serve myself of such?
The kindred in my being doth avouch
Your essence; in the very press and stress
Of action I am foiled to a caress.
Ah! give me something you but meant to touch!
Something your love has ripen'd till I'm 'ware
Of thoughts that came in light and stay'd in sweet,
Or th' apostolic shadow of your care,
Passing by, hath healed of malady,
Or wholed in use and grace: gifts rare and meet,
But not too rarely yours to be for me
Still meet, nor meetly mine to be still yours and rare.

PERHAPS.

Ten heads and twenty hearts! so that this me,
Having more room and verge, and striking less
The cage that galls us into consciousness,
Might drown the rings and ripples of to be
In the smooth deep of being: plenary
Round hours; great days, as if two days should press
Together, and their wine-press'd night accresce
The next night to so dead a parody
Of death as cures such living: of these ordain
My years; of those large years grant me not seven,
Nor seventy, no, nor only seventy sevens!
And then, perhaps, I might stand well in even
This rain of things; down-rain, up-rain, side-rain;
This rain from Earth and Ocean, air and heaven,
And from the Heaven within the Heaven of Heavens.

TO JAMES H.

Without Life's toil to win Life's earthly prize
What was thy mystery, oh, early Dead?
The careless world but counted thy young head
Among the multifarious heads that rise
And sink, forgot. For thee, no watching eyes
Starred darkness; no torch led thee to the bed
Of clay. Yet (if the Apostle justly said
Of all oblation) who or lives or dies
So well as to achieve a fairer fame
Than henceforth should be thine, oh, unknown youth,
Since on your votive marble, for once, Truth
Indites an Epitaph, and, 'neath thy name,
Transcends all laudatory verse in one,
‘To him John Hunter raised this tributary stone.’

ON READING A DICTATED LETTER.

Dear Friend, methinks when thus thy plenary soul
Speaks from yon pale default that lies so low,
The hale and stalwart by thy couch must know
Such fond intoleration to be whole
As he, who, where the storms of battle roll,
Himself unthrown beholds the cannon throw
His father at his feet, and, while a woe
Of splendid shame dements him to that sole
Passion, above the fallen field looks round
The red conversion of the baptized ground
For aught whereon to spend his sanguine wealth
And, seeking not the value but the cost,
Rushes to win whatever, won or lost,
May end this gross unwounded infamy of health.

UNDER ESPECIAL BLESSINGS.

Lord Christ, Lord Christ, ah for a little space
Turn hence. Some day, when I again am low
In the new dust of whatsoever blow
Time hath in license, from Thy perfect place
Oh let the awful solace of thy face
Sun me, but not now! Lord, Thou seest me! How
Can I, o'erborne by what Thy hands bestow,
Bear what Thine eyes? Now, therefore, of Thy grace
I ask but that if ever, as of yore,
Thou lookest up and sigh'st, my kneeling thought
May kiss Thy skirt, and Thou, who know'st if aught
Touch Thee, mayst know, and through Thee, what no more
Is I, but, ne'ertheless, began in me,
May rise to Him Whom no man hath seen, nor can see.

ON RECEIVING A BOOK FROM ‘X. H.’

Oh, great-eyed contemplation whom I saw
Walk by the blue shores of the Northern Sea
Leaning upon a giant, who for thee
Seemed gentle, while black Night far west did gnaw
The jagged Eve, and, near, the flapping caw
Round Beatoun's shadowy Tower croaked down on me
More than the gloom of Night: ere thou couldst see
Beyond the inhuman ruin, or withdraw
Thy soul from eyes, which, as one tune can fill
Two voices, made the pathos of that soul
A double passion, standing dim and still
I saw and wondered. Is this book thy scroll,
Ah Sybil? Hast thou writ the unheard cry
I saw thee look that eve to Eartn and Sea and Sky?

TO JAMES Y. SIMPSON.

Oh teeming heart, that, for this once, in vain
Big with our good, didst undeliver'd die,
Had some god got thee with a progeny
O'er-great, that, born, might even dispute the reign
Of Death, as Death had seen the realms of Pain
Won by thine elder brood? We marvell'd why,
So seeming-careless of his sovereignty,
He spared and spared thee: doth this day explain
The Fabian greed that grudged a needless blow?
Knowing too well what deity possest
Thee, did the dead-eyed strategist foreknow
How the huge god must choke the mortal breast?
The mortal breast, deep under clod and sod,
Out of the half-saved world drag down the abortive god?

ON RECEIVING A BOOK FROM DANTE ROSSETTI.

Since he is Poet of whom gods ordain
Some most anthropic and perhuman act
Whereby his manhood shall so man his fact
That but his man of man is born again,
And since humanity is most humane,
Not at our pyramid's base, where we have tact
Of dust and supersurge the common tract
Of being, but up there, where form doth reign
To apex, let a Poet ask no fame
But that which, high o'er floods of Life and Death
From singing arks Ararat echoeth
To Ararat, and let him rather be,
Oh Poet, writ on yonder page by thee
Than hear what vulgar breath should make his world-wide name.

THREE SONNETS ON LOVE AND BEAUTY.

I. TO A PROMESSA SPOSA.

Look on this flower, which, from its little tree
Of bodily stem and branches and leaves green,
Leans lovelier, being toucht, and smelt, and seen
A Rose, a Rose, a Rose! and, though thy three
Senses praise it triply unto thee,
And all their parlous difference intervene,
Yet unto thee, who knowest what they mean,
Thee who art one, and hast been, and shalt be,
Is one as thou; one Rose, one beauteous Rose,
One rosy Beauty. Who shall reason why
The slow stem, on a sudden season, shows
It can be worm unto this butterfly?
We know but this, that when yon ecstasy
Transfigures the green tree, its time of fruit is nigh.

II. TO THE SAME.

Oh Soul! that this fair flower dost so mirrour,
Ask of thyself, saying—‘Soul beautiful,
Oh Soul-in-love, oh happy, happy Soul,
That wert so dull and poor, and this sweet hour
Art so more floral even than a flower,
That in thee it is better'd to a full,
Whereto each former rose is poor and dull,
Ah, what doth thus enlarge thee and empower,
That thou who, at thy most, wert a priesthood,
A vassal strength, a bliss feudàtory,
Hast grown a final joy, an absolute good,
A god that, for being god, believest in God
The more?’ Thou canst not clear this mystery,
Ah happy, happy soul, whose fruit of life is nigh.

III. TO A FAIR WOMAN, UNSATISFIED WITH WOMAN'S WORK.

If Beauty is a name for visible Love,
And Love for Beauty in the conscious soul,
Which when commoving to its highest whole,
Or making that whole part of wholes above
Itself, feels, like an eye, that it doth move,
But cannot see the motion visible
To others and in others; if the sole
Difference is ours who see the spirit a dove,
Or feel the dove a spirit; and if in
All worlds Love, Love, as song and text allege,
Sums the full good of life, who shall not bow
To Beauty? Thou, born in her shrine, if thou
Shouldst dare profane her, what would be thy sin?
The sacrilegious priest does more than sacrilege.

TO THE TIBER.

On its late (in 1871) Inundation of Rome.

Well done, old Flood, that, hiding a clear eye
Beneath thy yellow veil, dost wend among
Those epic hills and dales of seven-topp'd song,
To keep watch on the stone eternity
Whereof the mortal tenants die and die;
One more is gone, the deadliest of the long
Line, the foul vast of whose unmeasured wrong
Twined to its summit in the triple Lie
Of that thrice-cursèd Crown. And thou, brave flood,
Enterest a thousand years of carrion
To swill away the deeps of dung and blood,
And drown the garbaged tribes that stank thereon,
That so, at least, the new investiture
Be on clean threshold and a hearth-stone pure.

[Where are you, Poets, that a Hero dies]

Where are you, Poets, that a Hero dies
Unsung? He who, when Duty brought too soon
His billet of rest toiled on till he had won
The countersign of Glory? There he lies,
And in the silence of your poesies
He looks a Poem; yea, so made and done
As if the Bardic Heavens had thrown him down
In model to your making. Close his eyes,
That yours may learn him. To fulfil the Law
In Gospel, force the seeds of use to flower
In Beauty, to enman invisible Truth
And then transfigure—this is Poetry.
And this the World and his dear Country saw
Hymned unawares in that unconquer'd youth
Who, scorning to give less than all his power,
Having bled for us, then aspired to die;
And, dying thus, left one more pledge behind
That England may again deserve to lead Mankind.

ENGLAND'S DAY:

A WAR-SAGA.

Russian, Yankee, and Prussian,
Wherever you be,
That stand by the shores of our sea
And shake your fists over,
This is the Castle of Dover,
You knaves!
And yon's the flag unfurl'd,
That shall flog you over the waves
Of the world.
Ay, by the shores of our sea,
You knaves!
For wherever the breeze blows free,
And the hurling, swirling, up and down deeps go thundering under and over,
There the sea is our sea,
And there's a Castle of Dover,
Which carries a flag unfurl'd
That shall flog you off the waves
Of the world.
What are you trying to say,
You knaves?
Whatever it be, it so maddens the waves
That not a word comes this way.
Speak up! you've no need to be shy,
This is the land of charity,
Where we never regret the labours
We spend for the sake of our neighbours:
So no more thrimming and thrumming,
But mention whatever you want;
And if you can show us 'tis good for you,
We're just the People to grant.
Should you like, for instance, a drubbing or two?
We'll take neither fees nor thanks,
But do you the very best we can do:
Ay! and do it aboard your own planks,
And ask you nothing for coming!
Louder, my boy, ahoy!
Why what the fiends can you say
That makes such mountainous weather?
You look to be talking loud,
But I hear you no more than I see a feather
That a cyclone spouts to a cloud.
If you've got any breath, don't save it.
Well done! once more! I have it—
‘England’—that's good for one's ears—
‘England’—all right! and three cheers—
But unless that voice of your own
Can hoist up higher, I'm blest
If I'll catch a word of the rest!
For you no sooner open your jaws
Than there roars such a vast sea-shout
That I hear you no more than I'd hear the daws
If Dover cliffs tumbled down.
Now then, there's a lull, sing out!
Yo hoy! that's better. Soho!
I've got it! ‘England’—Yes—No—
‘Has had her day.’ Oh, that's your say—
‘England has had her day!’
O ye who bear, on every sea,
That flag of flags, so often sung,
Whose name, in every human tongue,
Is t'other word for Victory,
That banner of eternal youth
Your sires and grandsires, great and good,
Have colour'd with their mortal blood
And cross'd with their immortal truth,
A cheer, a cheer, and you shall hear
News that's worth a British cheer.
Do you see yon braggarts three,
Like three swash-bucklers in a play?
They've found it out for you and me,
So 'twon't be civil to say Nay.
And verse one of chapter A
In this great discovery
Is ‘England’—what? ay, wait for that
And while you wait, my hearts, haul down
Your wind-blown pageant of renown,—
Yon glorious weed whose bayonets
The grasping tyrant ne'er forgets,—
Yon harp whose throbbing chords can beat
All sounds of battle but retreat,—
And let the keeper's hand lay low
The lions that ne'er fell to foe;—
Reef, reef the flapping toy away,
England, my hearts,—has had her day!
Now, true-blues, you've heard the news,
Hip hip hip, hurrah?
Not hip hip hip, hurrah, my boys,
But hip hip hip, aha!
From decks to shrouds, from shrouds to clouds,
Hip hip hip, aha!
The stays are taut, the sails are caught,
With ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Like woods at play, the big masts sway,
With ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
The big ships ride from side to side,
With ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
The north waves roll from pole to pole,
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
From pole to pole the south winds troll,
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
From air to sea, from sea to air,
The cross-clang clamours everywhere,
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
From Baffin Bay, by Matapan,
Round Hindostan, and far Japan,
Back, back, to where it first began,
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, my boys,
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
The very globe shakes like a man,
With ha, ha, ha, ha!
Russians, Yankees, Prussians, all you
Who stand there scowling at Dover,
‘England has had her day’—is that your cry?
Flood and earthquake! it's our cry too!
Had it, had it, a thousand times over!
Yea, and as sure as sky is sky,
And sea is sea, and shore is shore,
You shall see England have one day more!
And such a day shall England have,
That a thousand cities over the wave
Shall wring their bitter hands and say,
‘England, England, has had her day!’
Some of us, when that day is done,
You knaves!
Shall go down with the battle sun
In the battle waves.
But as day by day
The sun goes round
Where'er yon flag's unfurled,
And still through dews of morn
Comes back to find Britannia crown'd,
And tell her of her world,
So sure with morrow
At sweet sunrise,
Like mourn of horn,
Like roll of drum,
Like boom of gun,
Like swell of bells,
Our name and our fame
Thro' England's tears shall come
Up the skies!
And, putting by the shades
From early window-pane
Of castled palace or white-cottaged lane,
Pass without rebuke,
And look
On what the sun sees:
Little children on their knees,
And pale dishevelled maids,
And ancient sires whose sorrow is not sorrow,
And mother sitting by the bed,
Where, years ago, was born
The face she shall not see again,
Who bows the passionate winter of the head
And sobs Amen.
And some of us shall come
In triumph home
Beneath yon flag unfurl'd!
Over the foam, over the foam,
Conquerors, conquerors, conquerors home.
Joyously sailing the lightsomest foam
That the gayest of gales ever curl'd.
On, on, over ocean and ocean,
To the goal of the patriot's devotion,
Once more, with heaving heart, to see
The Native-land of all the free,
The Mother-earth of Liberty,
The sacred soil that bears the tree
That sowed the world.
On, on, over ocean and ocean,
On, on, by shores that gaze and wonder,
Shores where friendly cities shout,
Shores where frantic foes blaze out
Their paffing wrath in vain.
On, on, like gods on living thrones of thunder,
Heclas and Ætnas smoking thro' the main:
On, on, like kings and kings,
In wingèd towns and tow'rs with wings;
On, on, town after town,
And, in their train,
Up ocean hill and down hollow,
Horn'd Leviathans that mount and wallow,
And all
The jubilant Elephant-herd of the sea,
That roar and roll and follow
Where the sea-shepherds call.
But some of those who come
In glory home
That day,
Shall envy us who sleep
In the Deep,
Far away!
When they see the eyes that weep,
When they hear the lips that pray,
Because we sleep
Far away!
Millions and millions of eyes that weep,
Millions of lips that cry
To God that day,
Because we sleep
Far away!—
Thousands and thousands of eyes that are dry
As they never were dry till that day,
Because we sleep
Far away!—
Thousands of lips that shall keep
Silence to God and Man that day,—
Silence, silence, deep,—
Deep, deep as the Deep
Where we sleep
Far away!

FRAGMENTS.

THE OLIVE.

SONG OF A MAD GIRL, WHOSE LOVER HAS DIED AT SEA.

Under the green white blue of this and that and the other,
That and the other, and that and the other, for ever and ever,
Under the up and down and the swaying ships swingswonging,
There they flung him to sleep who will never come back to my longing.
The Father comes back to his child and the son comes back to his Mother,
But neither by land or sea
Will he ever come back to me,
Never, never, never
Will he come back to me.
All day I run by the Cliff, all night I stand in the sand,
All day I furrow and burrow the holmes and the heights.
But whether by night or day
There's never a trace or a track,
Never a word or a breath,
In the swill and the swoop and the flash and the foam and the wind,
Never a fleck or a speck
Coming, coming my way.
The mew comes back to the strand and the ship comes back to the land,
But he will never come back
To all the prayers that I pray thro' the scorching black of the day
And the freezing black of the nights,
Never, never come back
To the ear that harks itself deaf and the eye that strains itself blind,
And the heart that is starving to death.
He was chill and they threw him to cold,
He was dead and they threw him to drown,
He was weary and wanted rest—
They should have laid him on my breast,
He would have slept on my breast,
But they threw him into the boiling boil and bubble,
The wheel and the whirl, the driff and the draff
Of the everlasting trouble.
I swear to you he was mine! I swear to you he was my own.
Madam, if I may make so bold,
Do you know what the dead men do
In the black and blue, in the green and brown?
Deep, deep, you think they sleep
Where the mermen moan and the mermaids weep?
Ah, ah, you make me laugh!
I'm not yet twenty years old,
But lean your ear
And you shall hear
A little thing that I know.
Up and up they come to the top,
Down and down they go down.
To and fro the finny fish go,
But slow and slow, and so and so,
Low over high, high under low,
Up and up they come to the top,
Down and down they go down:
When the sun comes up they come to the top,
When the sun sinks they go down.

FRAGMENT OF A SLEEP-SONG.

BALLAD.

LORD ROBERT.

FRAGMENT OF BALLAD.

FRAGMENTS OF POEMS FOUND SINCE THE WRITER'S DEATH.

BAYONET SONG.

MENTANA.

SNOWDROPS.

NEW-YEAR'S EVE.