Flotsam and Jetsam :: :: University of Virginia Library

Flotsam and Jetsam

Rhymes Old and New. By Alfred Domett

Domett, Alfred (1811-1887)

[dedication]

PART THE SECOND

THE SERVIAN LEADER'S LAST ADDRESS.

ON A RECENT CRY ABOUT SENTIMENT.

THE ARRIVAL OF THE ARCHDUCHESS.

THE WATERMAN.

[This is the Sea-beach—here was the victory!]

THE BRIDE OF THE AVON.

SAINT PAUL'S.

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2. PART THE SECOND

INVISIBLE SIGHTS.

‘So far away so long—and now
Returned to England?—Come with me!
Some of our great “celebrities”
You will be glad to see!’

Carlyle—the Laureate—Browning—these!
These walking bipeds—Nay, you joke!—
Each wondrous power for thirty years
O'er us head-downward folk

Wrapt skylike, at the Antipodes,—
Those common limbs—that common trunk!
'Tis the Arab-Jinn who reached the clouds,
Into his bottle shrunk.

The flashing Mind—the boundless Soul
We felt ubiquitous, that mash
Medullary or cortical—
That six inch brain-cube!—Trash!

1873.

CHILDISH FACTS.

I

‘At Kylve there was no weathercock—’
You recollect the conscious shock
Of self-reproof that stifles
His curious mood, the Bard's, who knew so well
To sing the depth of trifles,
When his persistent questionings compel
The tiny Boy-romancer
To feign that fibbing answer.

II

Two childish facts may I record,
With food for thought as richly stored?—
‘What!’ with wide eyes unmoving,
I heard a small boy ask his mother mild,
‘Did God, the good, the loving,
Really bid Abram kill his darling child?’—
The long-fringed lids asunder
With horror, grief and wonder.

III

Pat reasons then and orthodox!—
Yet, smoothing her pet-Hamlet's locks,
(Black velvet dress enhancing
Of course, their gold floss soft as ever gleamed
Spun from cocoons fast-dancing
And jerking on warm water) she, it seemed,
Felt fact and gloss as cruel
Almost as did her jewel.

IV

Again. Broad walks and lawns so soft,
And ‘noble pines’ whose shoots aloft,
Long, spine-furred, sleek, like leeches
With mere luxuriance sinuously upwrithe;
And thick-leaved oaks and beeches,
And violet skies where summer suns make blithe
And blaze through hot Decembers,
Smouldering up here like embers:

V

'Tis there I see a Boy bright-eyed
Come skipping from a damsel's side,
Brimful of childish glory:

‘O such a tale she read, our nurse Aglaia,
O such a pretty story!—
There was a great great Giant named Golia'h,
As tall as any steeple,
Who frightened all the people,

VI

‘And killed them with a spear he had,
Like that big flagmast. Then a lad
(So brave, he killed a lion!)
Left his white sheep to nibble the green grass,
And came, and wouldn't try on
The iron coat and helmet all of brass;
And took five pebbles only
Picked from the streamlet lonely,

VII

‘And one small cord the stones to throw,
And came to fight the Giant so!
And when the great fierce fellow
Saw such a red-cheeked boy, “What dog am I”
(So he began to bellow)
“To fright with sticks!”—And as the lad drew nigh,
He growled, with big tusks gnashing
Great eye-balls rolling, flashing,

VIII

‘Lips smacking—“Fee! faw! fum! I smell
The blood of” . . . No!’ the boy's face fell—
‘“I'll grind his bones, I'll eat him—
‘I'll give his flesh to fowls”’ . . . A puzzled look,
False memory so did cheat him,
The place of mimic bounce and swagger took;
And so the story ended,
In Norse and Jewish blended.

IX

O commentators! neat-wigged men
Of lore! from strained conclusions when
Your hard-pressed noddles need ease,
From Moab-stones and wedge-scored fragments turn
To these cherubic D.D.s;
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings learn!
What's all your erudition
To infant intuition!

1873.

TWO PICTURES.

[From East to West his dark wings spread]

I

From East to West his dark wings spread
Across the lurid clouds full-fed
With thunder rolling dun and red!
His puissant arm raised zenith high;
His falchion flashing to the sky;
The streaming of his golden hair
Mocking the fiery sunset's glare:—
With eyes that fixed straightforward, burn
With doom,—relentless, ruthless, stern—
And seem to warn: ‘Through endless Time,
Think, think of all the effects of crime!’—
Such the form, high Justice pleads,
The power to conquer Evil needs!

II

In saintly robes that simply flow,
As white as soft unsullied snow
Or blue as skies that cloudless glow:
While cherubs round her swarm and shine
Through golden atmosphere divine;
Her fair arms crossing, lightly prest
Upon her young maternal breast;
With eyes that upward turned adore
The goodness they for all implore;
Or downward bent in pity, say:
‘Think, think of all that tempts astray!’—
Such the form fond Mercy pleads,
The power to conquer Evil needs!

[What matter—what matter—O friend, though the Sea]

I

What matter—what matter—O friend, though the Sea
In lines of silvery fire may slide
O'er the sands so tawny and tender and wide,
Murmuring soft as a bee?—

‘No matter, no matter, in sooth,’ said he:
‘But the sunlit sands and the silvery play,
Are a trustful smile long past away:
—No more to me!’

II

What matter—what matter—dear friend, can it be,
If a long blue stripe, dim-swelling and dark
Beneath the lighter blue headland, may mark
All of the town we can see?—

‘No matter, no matter, in truth,’ said he:
‘But the streak that fades and fades as we part,
Is a broken voice and a breaking heart:
—No more to me!’

1875.

LIVINGSTONE.

I

Once more, ye millions, in this roar
And rush of life—O pause once more!
Pause for a moment's pulse of grief, and pay the senseless ashes
A great dead Spirit wore, the debt you cannot pay the Spirit!
For the poor clay's poor glory borrow
The sable pageantry of sorrow;
To that proud Fane convey it, where in vain Oblivion dashes
Its surge against the rocklike fame our most renowned inherit;
The death-demolished Shape restore in deathless stone;
In marble mimicry revive the flitting phantom gone!
Fix it in breathing bronze to grace your finest square—
Noble amid the noblest there!
Give honours all—the best how small—
Pomp, anthems, plumes, processions slow,
All gloomy gauds of garish woe—

To rites his rough black followers paid!
The nine-months' funeral march they made,
And toiled and bore those relics dear
A thousand miles in hope and fear
Through tribes at peace and tribes at war
From Afric's heart to Zanzibar!—
Alas, all honours bright or dim,
But soothe ourselves, not solace him!
Solace!—at mute Ilala's melancholy goal
Death on his last of conscious life, such lonely anguish, stole;
No face of kith or kindred nigh to comfort, cheer, console!
‘Build me a hut to die in;
Heap grass upon the roof,’ he said, ‘Cold—cold!’—
O piteous, piteous words to breathe his latest sigh in,
A hero so high-souled!—
But comfort ye, O comfort ye!—tomb, tablets, statues, plan;
And load with honour, reverence, love, the dust that was the Man!

II

How famed amid Aonian flights,
Ideal heroic height of heights,
That billowy battle echoing yet in grandly-rolling waters
Of old Homeric song by races immemorial cherished!
But here, in combat mightier, grander,
Than when Pelides braved Scamander,

Battling his coil of River-Systems gloriously perished
No visionary vulgar hero of a thousand slaughters!
But one great heart—Humanity's most human child;
Her loving Champion calmly keen; indomitably mild;
Inexorably firm in merciful emprise;
Relentless in self-sacrifice!
To save that life in such a strife,
No striding God with eyes aflame,
No day-outdazzling Goddess came!
Only across far Ocean's blue,
Once to his aid a Stranger flew:
Did fabled rage to root out wrong
E'er dream a rescue worthier song?
Those rough jack-boots and leathern belt,
That white-veiled hat of homely felt
To screen the bold benignant brow,
Hid real romance of ruddier glow
Than laurelled Genius lends gold casque or jewelled mail
Of errant knights for glory athirst or holiest Holy Grail!—
Alas, that all the generous help should be of no avail!
‘Build me a hut to die in;
‘Heap on more grass!’ he murmured, ‘Cold—so cold!’—
Piteous—such piteous words to breathe his latest sigh in,
Discoverer dauntless-souled!—
But comfort ye, O comfort ye! to think through life's short span,
How hero kindles hero in the kindly cause of Man!

III

O mute reserve of things sublime!
O day that lifts a torch to Time!
When lost for years in lawless lands and Rapine's rude dominions
The grand old graybeard stood revealed—calm, simple, unimposing!
Only the cap's gold band long faded,
Dim aureole round the brow care-jaded,
True envoy of the Essential Good as truthfully disclosing,
As lightning-liveried Angels' palms, or Seraphs' sunbeam-pinions!
Lo! there—as when in some pale cluster faint and far
Unguessed, the keen Sky-searcher finds his famous flying star—
The Man half Myth comes forth! of wan and weary mien,
Yet buoyant, resolute, serene.
But more renown that Day shall crown,
When, his bold way through regions won,
Unknown since first uprose the Sun,
He left one daring track of light
From Vasco's storm-beleaguered height
To where on azure hyaline
Red-roofed Loanda's white walls shine;
Then scorned in high-rapt heedlessness
The Siren voices of success;
Turned unbeguiled from beckoning Fame
And forced his fever-stricken frame

Back to the East once more; the accomplished marvel spurned
As little worth, so much might still by still more toil be learned!
But mark what meed that lion-crippled Lion-heart has earned:
‘Build me a hut to die in:
Heap on the roof more grass: O cold—so cold!’—
Most piteous, piteous words to breathe his latest sigh in,
King-traveller truest-souled!—
But comfort ye, O comfort ye! so great a course he ran;
Such wondrous deeds are done by resolute enduring Man!

IV

How blest who give their lives to bless
Mankind with more of happiness!
So given was his: to open lands where one day shall luxuriate
His country's Commerce giant-limbed: and Peace in union glorious
With Freedom, Light and Order revel,
Where now ramps every fiend of Evil;
To witch a hundred wives stark nude in patterned paint uproarious,
Brute-kings on infants fed, leap high in maniac dance infuriate;
Or murderous thrice as men, wild women-regiments slay
For Sots who lop off human heads like thistletops in play;
Skulls hang on trees like fruit:—O were the day at hand
When fast and far Steamship or car,
Shall bear Skill's rich results by banks
Where reeds slide up in tufted ranks,

So stilly downward creeps the while
The loglike studded crocodile;—
Or furrow-foam some vast expanse
Of silver, where Morn's level glance
Gilds rings far-circling from their source—
The pink-white rolling river-horse!
Yes! happier Life shall haunt her bowers,
Full parks and woods aflame with flowers!
But he, the oppressed one's friend and father, East and West,
The blameless, brave and gentle Giaour e'en Moslem bigots blest,
Must nothing learn or know of this, lapped in unconscious rest!
‘Build me a hut to die in;
Heap grass upon the roof; so cold—so cold!’—
Piteous, ah piteous words, to breathe his latest sigh in,
Great pioneer pure-souled!—
But comfort ye, O comfort ye! such blessings he began;
The Morning-star of such a noon was this much-suffering Man!

V

Do not these dead great Spirits breathe
In hearts that feel what they bequeath?
Still cries not his: ‘Thou crusher of the snake-armed Monster hideous
That stained with clouds of shame and crime the incarnadined Atlantic,

England! with riches never-ending,
And empire like the skies extending
Which victories thick as stars have won—O use thy power gigantic
For Afric, vexed by vampire-chiefs and robber-gangs perfidious!
Loose her long rows of wretches strung beadlike for sale—
Hell's rosaries where fiends count no prayer, but curse and groan and wail:
Let Knowledge blazing through the jungle Ignorance, scare
Witchcraft and all worse reptiles there!
What nobler task should nation ask?
The Roman made a proud decree
That taxed the whole wide World should be;
A loftier hest Heaven leaves for thee—
Let all a wider World be free!
Spain's vaunted victor-days of old
Loom glimmering red with blood and gold:
But Thou! let Freedom's flute-notes low
By Ophir's coast, once golden, flow;
And Time shall waft the holy tune
Up to the Mountains of the Moon!
Then shall a lovelier Law of boundless Love infuse
Some reverence for the meanest clay a human Soul indues!’—
Lives not his own in thoughts like these?—But on that scene we muse:

‘Build me a hut to die in;
I am going home,’ he murmured, ‘Cold—so cold!’—
Ah! not all piteous words, to breathe his latest sigh in,
That hero heavenly-souled!—
Then comfort ye, O comfort ye! for only one thing can,
The high immortal Hope that soothed the lonely-dying Man!

1874.

FIREWORKS.

I dreamt. There was a great crowd gazing
At fireworks set before them blazing.

The crowd were ‘Missing Links’; Cambodia's
Great Temple shows no shapes more odious;

Flat skulls, flat brows, yet convex noses,
Such as her ruined Fane discloses,

Men's heads in conflict fierce off-twisting,
Spite of tame elephants assisting;—

Such gibbering folk as grinned in ages
Long ere men lived o'er Lakes on stages;

Left shells on midden—flints in barrow,
Or split hyena-bones for marrow.

The Pyrotechnist was a creature
Of noblest presence—Greek in feature.

He sent a single cracker bouncing—
The Links' delight there's no pronouncing:

A single squib he showed them fizzing—
Their rapture drowned the small tube's whizzing:

One Roman candle fireball-shotted—
Down on their hams from fear they squatted:

One Catherine-wheel's flame-petals playing—
Their gibbering hushed seemed almost praying:

A rocket skyward rushed up solely—
They shrieked him God—a Fetish wholly;

So wondrous fine his working—scheming;
He, too, so like themselves in seeming!

Then the good Pyrotechnist lastly
Brought one great work to please them vastly;

So grand, he felt in its ignition
The climax of his Exhibition.

He fixed it—lighted—set it whirling;
Squibs fizzed in streams from its unfurling:

It whirled away; in its progression,
Up flew fireballs in bright succession!

Still on it whirled; such gems emitting,
Such gold-thorns branching, fire-flowers flitting,

Such rings of flame, concentric, linking,
Such panting discs, expanding, shrinking;

The very Saint from whom they named it,
If such her wheel, could scarce have blamed it!

Still on it whirled—such rockets dashed up,
As if to heaven's keystone they flashed up;

Then split in melting stars and fine tails,
Long-stealing jewelled cats-o'-nine-tails;

You would have thought the Man-Ape nation
Must have gone mad with admiration!

But who can hit Men-Monkeys' notions?
Who guess a Missing-Link's emotions?

For up jumped one—lank, sly and shifty—
(His ‘facial angle’ well-nigh fifty)

Cries out, ‘Pray stop your mopping, mowing;
He no more made the things he's showing—

‘The toys by Time and Chance provided—
Made them no more than you or I did!

‘Here is no skill—no trick needs solving;
'Tis all produced by that revolving!

‘And powder's force—pasteboard's compression,
Cause that revolving, that progression;

‘Until a squib that one could pocket,
Grows of itself into a rocket!’

This sudden light, first notions scattering,
Makes that swart tribe one sea of chattering;

Their flow of veneration staunches—
They can but blink and scratch their haunches:

Still more so when up danced a second,
(His brow some forty-five was reckoned)

Who mouthed at, mocked the placid showman:
‘That Thing's a Phantom, friends, and no man!

‘O Monkey-Men, 'tis clear; for seeing
The firework-making proved his Being,

‘That myth of firework-making banished—
Argal, his Being too has vanished:

‘Your senses cheat you, in conclusion:—
Anthropo-Simian brain-illusion!’

His lofty scorn, his eyebrows twitching
High-raised, his logic so bewitching,

His lips protruded, red eyes leering,
Set all the mob the Showman jeering:

‘Off with you, spectre! bogle flimsy,
Dissolving ghost, exploded whimsy!

You once packed off, that explanation
Leaves “LINK” the Lord of all Creation!’—

The Showman seemed at this reviling
To fade into the background, smiling:

Bedimmed by dust-clouds light-defying
Their antics kept about them flying:

Some Ape-Men who (quite mad reputed)
Still thought they saw him, were so hooted,

I woke—with admiration glowing
To find the Missing-Links so knowing.

March 1874.

THE SERVIAN LEADER'S LAST ADDRESS.

I

Friends—comrades—freemen to the last!
Our sun of life is setting fast;
One struggle more; the die is cast;
Behold your tyrants nigh!

II

Their power is crushing. Ruthless heaven
Into their hands our race has given:
In stern despair we still have striven,
Spurning our destiny!

III

No choice is left us. Brutes may be
Content to live in slavery;
The beasts with despots may agree;
Men cannot choose but die!

IV

No statesmen grope your Cause to find;
That Cause is sun-clear to the blind;
They fight to rank with humankind
Who fight for liberty!

V

What battles you have fought with me
You know full well. Your fate you see.
With no vain talk of victory,
I lead you on to die!

VI

'Twere insult to you to rehearse
Your wrongs. All bitter words were worse.
He who has coldness but to curse,
Our deathmate shall not be!

VII

No sighs—no weak regrets. Away
With thoughts of wife or child to-day!
All—but some tyrant there to slay,
Then free in death to lie!

100

VIII

Die like your sires. Their loud blood cries
To God and Time. One patriot dies,
And from his dust a thousand rise;
Your sons' sons shall be free!

IX

Yes, we will die! But ere we go
To realms which no oppressors know,
Now for one deathstroke at the foe;
Revenge yourselves—and die!

ON A RECENT CRY ABOUT SENTIMENT.

December 1876.

This—‘sentiment,’ foul Turks! that fires each drop
Of blood, at women—babes—by thousands slain?
How sentimental, then, the curse on Cain!
How morbid, to these ethics of the Shop,
The whirl of leaping flames that knew no stop
Till whitely glared the calcined Dead-Sea plain!
Nay, God himself, how superfine a strain
He rolled in thunders from black Sinai's top,
Launching at murderous Lust such lightning brands!
The cynical base taunt do Thou not heed,
Majestic England!—would'st thou sit alone
In one wide waste of selfish power and greed,
Deaf as a Statue 'mid Egyptian sands,
Gigantic—human-featured, yet—a stone?

102

THE ARRIVAL OF THE ARCHDUCHESS.

I

Welcome—and welcome thrice over,
Marie from Muscovy's shore!
Merry bell-chimings to Thee and thy Lover
Peal out the welcome our thunder-ships roar!
Well may Spring's best sunshine mellow
Myriad banners, black and yellow,
Bright with blue and crimson blended!
O well may troops of girls sea-girt in hues like azure ocean,
Or white as ocean-foam, desire for thee a life all roses;
Upon thy pathway flower-festooned fling down fresh showers of posies,
And breathe to Love, thy Prince and Thee, their innocent devotion!
But 'mid loud joy-bursts, lavish, unsuspended—
Come silent thoughts of things of yore,
Old links with thy great land and race of friendliest emotion!

103

II

Stories we think of we loved so—
Joined in our juvenile days;
Two of two heroes whose manliness moved so
Purest of sympathy, paramount praise!
One thy Consort-Duke's name-giver,
Dear to English hearts for ever,
He who made us first a nation,
Alfred, all perfect patriot-king! in hallowed light abiding,
How shines he through the thousand years, to give us mild assurance
Of the majesty of steadfast Will, the might of calm Endurance,
Swamp-isled in thicks of Athelney from swarms of Dane-foes hiding,
Shaping arrows, in firm sad meditation
How best his hapless land to raise,
While oaten-cakes were scorching and the swineherd's shrew was chiding!

III

Yes, and the other as brave is,
Bravely defiant of Time;
Tale of a King too, and founder of Navies,
More too by manhood than kingship sublime!

104

'Twas thy Russia's mighty moulder,
'Twas her grandeur's grand unfolder,
He, thine own throne nested Eagle,
High towards that Sun, his Country's weal, his fierce flight ever winging;
Thy wild ancestral Wonder, whose impetuous self-reliance
Took Civilisation by the throat to force her to compliance!
Lives not his stalwart image still, to young remembrance clinging,
In squalor of a splendour more than regal,
In Deptford's dockyard-pitch and grime,
Lord of the lives of millions he, the shipwright's hammer swinging?

IV

Memories—glorious, greater,
Speak in majestical tone:
How, as we foiled the proud World-desolater,
England and Russia stood fearless alone!
How, in high self-desecration
Moscow's holiest conflagration,
Vengeful as the skies it reddened,
Blazed back to icy death aghast Gaul's brigand hosts from plunder;
While Spain's green orange-groves beheld—stern Duty's ægis o'er him—
That iron Fate advancing still, driving her foes before him!

105

What! can one hapless hurricane of wild heroic blunder
All sense of such deep sympathy have deadened?
No ancient feuds inveterate grown,—
Respect for mutual valour left, shall this our friendship sunder?

V

No! but if rancour to banish—
Any resentment remain,
Princess, to-day at thy sight it should vanish,
Cast o'er thy coming no shadow of pain!
O the force of finest graces!
Blest that fortunate fair face is—
Doubly blest thy blushes, beauties!
Their happy privilege, far more than protocols, despatches,
To help two haughty Empires their last bitterness to smother,
And make a hundred million hearts beat kindlier towards each other!
Thy sweetest presence seems to whisper how to both attaches
One mission,—softly smiles their common duties;
Nay, to large souls of loftier strain,
Hints how some Power Divine from both for work harmonious watches!

VI

Well! may not each be a Warder,
Both in true unison be?
They for Authority conquer, and Order—
Order for ever and Liberty we!

106

If our Queen of Freedom peerless,
Thy great Czar, and warriors fearless
Spread the Eagle or the Lion;
If Cossacks scoured the Khivan plains black shadowed 'mid their glaring
By Timour's bleached skull-pyramids, and clove those turban-spangles;
Or if our kilted Highland pride, through fevering forest-tangles,
To fire Kumasi's shambles red, its fiery path went tearing;
Did they not both in kindred spirit ply on
Towards one great end where both agree—
To give the World more peace for work, no turbulent tyrant sparing?—

VII

Aye! and what heights unascended,
Wonders kind Fate might decree,
Rise at the dream of alliance so splendid—
Lords of the Land with the Kings of the Sea!
Room for both—their ships and legions:
See revived the lovely regions
Now by loathly mildew blighted;
Byzance beneath the Eagle's wing and Lion's might upgrowing;
Glad Palestine;—and Haroun's towns, gay as in fairy story!
Sparkling through Asian marts re-thronged, see traffic's tranquil glory;

107

Through Afric's gleaming gateway too—white Cairo—mark it flowing!—
Drilled myriads, steel-clad monsters, see, united!
Amphibious Giant, setting free
And on two Continents at last, peace, light and life bestowing!

VIII

Once through fair Indies our fiat
Shivered foul Slavery's sway;
Once spoke thy Sire—and no Serfdom to sigh at
Lingered from Lapland to sunny Cathay!
Briton, Russ! that godlike mission
Work—in mutual recognition;
Rivals be where chains are broken!—
But let this air with pealing bells and cannon-thunders riven,
Flags, flowers and motto-stars to make the night one blaze of blessing,
This Princess fair through London Town triumphantly progressing—
As Dove and Rainbow showed of old Earth reconciled with Heaven—
How bright the skies between us now betoken;
And o'er the sunshine of to-day
How strong our hope no hostile clouds may evermore be driven.

108

THE WATERMAN.

I

Pale March, a silenced brawler, smiles:
Along the river-bank for miles
One stunted copsewood burnt and black—
Sight-seers, thick as they can pack
Or London can outpour them!
As thick and black as mussels glued,
A bristling crust o'er sea-reefs rude—
Green-spiralled mussels violet-dyed
That gape fresh-glossed as morning's tide
Comes hissing, sparkling o'er them.

II

What draws the countless crowds?—Two crews;
Contagious rage for rival ‘Blues’—
Calm modern phase of ancient scenes
When charioteering ‘Blues’ and ‘Greens’
Set Emperors, Bishops, crazing;

109

Swept nobles, beggars, Church and State,
Down two fierce floods of foaming hate,
Till half the East in blood was drenched,
And thirty thousand slaughters quenched
Byzantine flames far-blazing.

III

Hark! o'er the bank so copselike spread
A roar comes rolling overhead!
A still renewed re-plunging crash
As when with launching whirl and lash
Sea-surges swiftly creaming
Through shingles drive and scour; thus high
And hoarse it seems birdlike to fly
In air, no way allied or mixed
With that dense press beneath it fixed,
Still, dark and silent-seeming.

IV

So our aquatic athletes keen—
Each high-trained eight one smooth machine
All fire and sinew balanced on
A flying wedge scarce seen ere gone—
Their silver pathway splendid

110

With neatly desperate skill have skimmed;
Like some crustacean spindle-limbed
Sea-darters—sped with that long roar!—
The myriad-tempting glimpse is o'er,
The emulous spasm ended!

V

And now the moving masses break,
As slow as mists when sunbeams wake;
In bright deray, barge, steamer, boat
Weave crossing tracks: but one thing note!
Look how the tide has risen
Around a flat where loitering throngs
Better good cheer with cheery songs,
Jest much at winners, losers more,
Till crystal-barred from either shore,
Pent in an emerald prison.

VI

Crowd great, need urgent, wherries few!
Their glorious chance the boatmen knew;
A silver mine that soaking strand,
A small Potosi close at hand,
Ring-fenced by silver waters!

111

But there, in sweet reserved distress
Two dainty damsels, see! whose dress,
(Piquant simplicity's extreme)
Cool grace, and calm dark glances seem
To mark them France's daughters;

VII

No English coin, no change have they,
Yet must the trebled fare prepay;
One gold Napoleon all they boast;
The crowd too busy, self-engrossed,
Push by, their plaint neglecting:
At last, a rough-spun waterman
Makes out ‘what's up,’ as best he can;
Stops, lifts his low-crowned hat, as fain
To rub his brow and rouse his brain;
A moment stands reflecting,

VIII

Reflects, resolves, preluding low:
‘Well, dash my buttons! here's a go!
I'm blest if 'taint a chance to lose;—
But come! the pretty parley-vooz
(I beg the ladies' pardon,

112

—Mean no offence) shall never say
John Bull can't do, once in a way
The proper thing—leastways 'll try;
I'll pull the ladies over, I,
And charge 'em, not a farden!’

IX

So said—so done. A trifling act!
Of fine blunt gallantry compact
No less—heart-polish pure and bright!
And patriot-promptings there unite,
Clear even to cynic blindness,
With philanthropic feeling true;
Aye, there's the touch of Nature too,
Which spite of race, rank, speech or skin,
Can make the whole wide World akin
In world-acknowledged kindness!’

113

[This is the Sea-beach—here was the victory!]

This is the Sea-beach—here was the victory!
Here fought the heroes—struggled the brave.—
Plaintively murmurs the wind in the loneliness;
Plaintively breaks the desolate wave!

Here there was shouting; here shrieking and groaning;
Here shed the heroes their glorious gore!—
Plaintively breaks the billow unlistened to,
Mournfully lapping the solitary shore!

114

AN INVITATION

(Unpublished Proem to ‘Ranolf and Amohia.’)

I

Well! the Truth shall be welcomed with hardy reliance;
All the lovely unfoldings of luminous Science,
All that Logic can prove or disprove, be allowed;
There is room for belief, though such Evil intrude,
In the dominance still of a Spirit of Good;
There is room for a hope, such a handbreadth we scan,
In the permanence yet of the Spirit of Man!—
Aye, and bless the far seeker, nor blame the fine dreamer;
Leave Reason her radiance—Doubt her due cloud;
Yet may this be avowed!

115

II

From our Life, from Reality, too shallow-hearted,
Has Romance—has all glory idyllic departed—
From the workaday World all the wonderment flown?
Well, but what if there gleamed in an Age cold as this,
The divinest of poets' ideal of bliss?
Yea, an Eden could lurk, in this Empire of ours,
With the loneliest love in the loveliest bowers?
In an era so rapid with railway and steamer,
And with Pan and the Dryads like Raphäel gone—
What if this could be shown?

III

Come, my friends! if the pride of negation has chafed you,
From the comfortless comforting coldly vouchsafed you,
Discontented content with a chilling despair;
Let us try, as we float down a rhyme unrestrained,
If a glimmer, though faint, of these truths may be gained;
Through the gloom of eclipse as we wistfully steal,
If no faintest auréolar rays may reveal
That the Future is haply not utterly cheerless:
While the Present has joy and adventure as rare
As the Past when most fair.

116

IV

And if, in this faith, you will roam undisdaining
To a land where the fanciful fountains are raining
Swift brilliants of boiling and beautiful spray
In the violet splendour of skies that illume
Such a wealth of wild ferns and such crimson tree-bloom
Where a people primeval is vanishing fast
With its faiths and its fables and ways of the past;
O with Reason and Fancy unfettered and fearless,
Come plunge with us deep into regions of Day—
Come away—and away!

117

NIVELLA.

I

How Nature's Soul and Man's respond
Love-blended!—Years ago
I had, dear Love, a love so fond,
A love all snow!
Scarce whiter from Carrara mine
Could marble e'er make Flaxman pine
Into some pure ideal divine
His strict Greek soul to throw;
Some sweet austerity in stone,
Like Beatrice, near that light-lost Throne,
With eyes in radiant reverie calm;
Star-crowned; and in her hand a palm.

II

One summer eve ere daylight died,
This young snow-love and I,
We met, the hushed lone Lake beside,
—Ah, throbbingly!

118

In robe of that rich blue she came,
Called from the Cardinal, the same
Such tremors thrilled at Cromwell's name.
White on the azure sky
Hung pointed snow-streaks far away,
Like prints of moor-hens' feet in clay;
Hung loosely. Sky and mountains, one
In hue, seemed azure sky alone.

III

Sighs then—such broken utterance then.
But I remember well,
Do you? . . . one blissful moment, when
Like some swift spell
The silent sacred streaks of snow
Flushed with a sudden roseate glow,
Daintier than down-held daisies show;
And then, as it befell,
That snow-cheek o'er the dress of blue
Flushed with as rare a rose-light too;
For shyly then with moth-wing press,
The snow-hand touched a timid ‘Yes.’

119

IV

But since that eve, no peak of snow,
If ever seen by me,
Aloft in pure blue sky, although
Alone I be,
But seems its loveliness to dower
With human love—wear all the power
And sweet oppression of that hour;
Nor ever do I see
My snow-love drest in blue ev'n now,
But on the mild maternal brow
A rapt ethereal stillness lies,
The sanctity of sunset skies.

1873.

120

CHILDREN.

I

Children! from the darkling
Spirit-region, sparkling
With its fresh night-dew!
Lovely laughing Sphinxes,
Pretty mystic minxes,
Everyone who thinks is
Puzzled oft by you!

II

Here's a tiny creature,
Mirth in every feature—
Veins that run delight!
Such a pet and plaything—
Midsummer and May-thing!—
Cheeks whose gipsy white

121

Damask rose-hue tinges;
Eyes—with wondrous fringes
Curling—long—blue-black,
Which, above, beneath are
Thick, close-set as teeth are
For fine hair refining,
In a sable-shining
Comb of polished lining
Of the turtle's back;

III

Well, this plaything playing,
Pet—her pets arraying,
This quicksilver Blanche,
Though a romp so wild too,
Though a thorough child too,
Still to toys so staunch:
Four years old or nearly,
Loved and loving dearly,—
Yes, this midge, this fly,
Pauses 'mid her raptures—
Coming life's pre-captures—
Those long lashes gravely
Lifts, and tells you bravely,
Calmly too and suavely,
She would like to die!

122

IV

Not that she has notions
Caught from babe-devotions,
Angel, harp or throne!—
Vainly you remind her
What she'd leave behind her;
Chocolate cream-nuts gone!
‘Turk's Delight,’ she craves for;
Dolls she dotes on—slaves for;
From her surplus life
Six at once supplying
With mock laughter—crying;
Whims for ranks and stations,
Dress—a hundred fashions,
Prattle, pets and passions,
Mimic love and strife!

V

What! leave sister Marion—
Those dark eyes Hilarion—
Any devotee
Might have prayed with surely;
They look up so purely
Innocent and free!

123

Traits you'd lavish on a
Miniature Madonna;
Brow serene and clear,
Open, and alluring
With the frank assuring
Goodness it expresses;
Everything one blesses!—
Then such golden tresses!—
Could she leave her here?

VI

What! leave sister Saintie—
Elfin!—like a dainty
Fairy-hunter's horn,
Little nose upturning;
Eyes so shrewd—discerning—
Whence sly sparks are born,
Gleams of speaking muteness—
Comical acuteness;
Locks across the brow
Short-clipt like a valance,
Down each cheek to balance.
Silky curtains, flowing;
Tongue satiric showing
Thoughts so odd and knowing!—
Would she lose her now?

124

VII

Blanche! so full of fun too!
Who the chair will run to,
‘No—no kiss for you!’
Wheedling looks entreating,
Eyes that coax repeating,
‘Come and take one—do!’
Thread-ball-chasing kitten—
Hearts, when some day smitten,
Will they smart for this?
Baby yet—beginning
Tiny wiles of winning;
Traps of nature's setting;
Artless spirit-netting;
Infantine coquetting
For a mother's kiss!

VIII

Well, your talk—she knows it;
So repeats, to close it,
Yes! she would be dead!
Then away she dances,
Tosses—tumbles—prances—
Scarce knows heels from head!

125

Wild as she were aping,
Say, Kate Vaughan escaping
Earth, the air to tread;
When, with many an antic
Fancifully frantic,
Thistledown kept twirling
Madly in a hurling
Hurricane—her whirling
Leaves but lumps of lead!

IX

What can be her reason?
Summer her one season—
Eden every breath!
Does the mite discover,
Brimful life runs over
Into love of death?
Does to heaven her nearness
Give unconscious clearness
To her faith in bliss?
Seems it to such joyance—
Spirit-fount's upbuoyance,
Nothing new is frightful?
Change, or wrong or rightful,
Can but be delightful—
Cannot come amiss?—

126

X

O the more one ponders,
Children—mystic wonders—
Less one looks you through!
Lovely little Sphinxes,
Pretty puzzling minxes,
Wisest wight that thinks is
Staggered oft by you!

1877.

127

CRIPPLEGATE

I

‘And Milton's grave, which is it?
Pew-opener say!—
'Twas to Cripplegate Church a visit
We paid one day.
But ‘Indeed I scarce can tell,’ she said; ‘somewhere I know
Beneath that row of pews; quite hidden, though;
Five paces from the pillar there
It might be found, no doubt, with care;
But the place you cannot see.’
—Strange that this should be!

II

O cold neglect how hateful!
We murmured then;
Is posterity thus grateful
To greatest men!

128

And is this the fine exchange Earth's mightiest are to share
For that old-fashioned dream of Life elsewhere!—
Nay! Milton fills, supreme, alone,
The Poet-patriot's shrine and throne,
With renown each year increased;
—Something this at least!

III

Think how—O glorious notion!
Our English tongue
Is an earthquake wave of ocean,
A tide yet young
That will girdle the round world with richest human speech;
And hundreds of her noblest millions teach
This Milton's name to love and bless!—
Aye truly! and great happiness
Will a fame so full and fair
Give the bones down there!—

IV

But had he not while living
A grand career
We may call without misgiving
Full guerdon here?
What! with Cromwell's mighty sword to match his mighty pen!
To lift aloft in ringing Europe's ken,

129

To lightning-rampired heights of Mind
The cause of Freedom—all mankind!
Then with loftiest bards before
Fiery-winged to soar!—

V

Aye! but a little nearer
Regard that life:
See, for soul-communion dearer,
Poor child—his wife!
This the love-lit clear Urania throned on youthful dreams!
Phlegmatic earthen image all she seems.—
But then his free enlightened friends
Will soothe, support him, make amends!—
No—they eye him now askance;
Sour—with frigid glance.

VI

For why? he dares to bid them
Test Wedlock's link;
Like Athenians old, would rid them
Of fear to think!
They are scared, king-quellers all! with cobwebs round and round
Of Custom and Judæa so blindly bound;

130

‘Those who on Reason all things rest
Hemlock and halter answer best;
Need to curb God-given powers,
In a world like ours!

VII

Better with dilettanti
Of Florence play;
Praise—at proper distance—Dante;
Or pondering say,
(With the Cause half-lost abroad—such half-hearts everywhere—
At home the bitterness of mere despair!)
Where stands amor in that love-whine
Of sweet Tibullus, so divine,
And the critics read amer—
Which do you prefer?’

VIII

Short while then shone ascendant
That Cause, a star
Though with gloomy light resplendent,
Too narrow far!—
But the Hero-Ruler dead—down with the Hero-Bard!
Down with their Cause, for flesh and blood too hard!

131

Who wills may thrive, who wills may fail,
Dear England must have cakes and ale;
So a grinning slave will be;
Not so grimly free!

IX

Now see the world neglecting
This King serene:
Where o'er ‘Jewin-Street’ projecting
Old houses lean,
Do but fancy the old room! how London sunlight scant
On its green-fading tapestry aslant
The latticed window's image throws—
Dim gold that slowly comes and goes
As in silence—little known—
There he sits alone!

X

Day springing—day declining,
Night ever lies
On those sightless but clear-shining
Majestic eyes;—
And in bodily torture too—‘gout in his hands and feet;’—
Is this the stately youth that went to greet

132

The starry Galileo thrown
Into his Tuscan cell to groan,
Just because the wild Earth slid
Not as Monkery bid!

XI

There, with emotion paler
We see him pause
At the door-sill while the gaoler
Aside withdraws;
On the gloom his amber hair to flowing glory turns
Sun-caught! what pitying indignation burns
In that archangel mien and brow!—
Yet mark the mighty Sufferer now
Still in silent protest proud,
Conquering ills—unbowed!—

XII

Some friend steals in to pray him
At home to keep;
There's a bravo may waylay him
If out he creep!
Such a desperado prowls the street at dusk of late;
Some royalist's long rancour hired to sate—

133

With stealthy dagger-steel by night
His deadlier dagger-pen requite!
Well! assail the blind who may
God shall be his stay!

XIII

Perhaps a skull-capped neighbour
Calls, while his soul
At its dear divinest labour
Lists some last roll—
Of his broad Atlantic sea of song—that grandly grows
And grandly sinks to its melodious close;—
So now this friend the pen shall hold,
Reel off the fresh-spun thread of gold;
Though of puritanic taste—
Over-straitly laced!

XIV

O joy, to hive such treasures!
Be first to track
In such world-entrancing measures
The flying rack
Of tumultuous splendours and the thousand-streaming roar
Of multitudinous harmonies that o'er

134

His couch came thronging through the bright
Last slumber-time of his long night!—
Then to fix some flash how brief
Of sublimest grief!

XV

Hark! while the grey eyes gleaming
Yearn to and fro,
With immortal sadness teeming
Those accents low
Soar aloft. . . . ‘Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell!’. . . The solemn theme
While those deep organ-tones pursue
How feels the sour stiff penman?—‘True;
But with pagan fancies fraught—
Ah! such heathen thought!’

XVI

Blind—sick—in danger—lonely—
Can worse remain!—
At the dim green chamber only
Glance once again.
In the silence, whose the voice? His daughter's—o'er a book;
Those square old Hebrew characters that look

135

Like creeping files of muffled men
In some Dantesque infernal den,
Who—a flat rock on each head—
Steal with shuffling tread.

XVII

Or crinkled print Hellenic
(Fine gold-wire twist!)
Is to her no glory scenic,
Mere gibberish—mist;
But to him! the Shape before those bright rapt mournful orbs
All their pink inner vacancy absorbs!
The Titan writhing unsubdued—
Type of terrific fortitude!
By a gloomier grander one
Soon to be outdone.

XVIII

And she for this dull duty
Has lost a treat
With her friend, that faded beauty
This June-day sweet,
In the peak-roofed coach low-hung where ostrich-fanned she sate;
Plumes lilac-soft in honey-hued tall hat;

136

Full farthingale whose folds eclipse
The briony-bell's silk-purple lips,
As the stomacher its spike—
Sharper than a pike.

XIX

Style, truly, not the newest—
That were too free!
But the bliss, when skies are bluest
The Mall to see
All a-glitter with gallants all feathers, lace and bows!
Such wit! and to revive this drooping Rose,
O such a rain of compliments,
More luscious than the luscious scents
They diffuse as they parade,
Musk and orangeade!

XX

There too, in laughing leanness,
That swarthy king
Of salacious mirth and—meanness,
Stalks with his ring
Of gazelle-eyed four-legged pets and lynx-eyed pets on two—
More spiteful, spoilt—less sensitive and true,

137

The Castlemaines and Querouailles,
Whom that sublime Prince-prig Versailles
So adores, enslaves with pay,
Like their royal prey!

XXI

Perhaps—attraction sweeter!
Perhaps . . . some one
Had contrived, by chance, to meet her . . .
The merchant's son
With the secret glance she feels at Church from off his prayer
Oft magnetised by hers and her bright hair,
Coif-stifled though its chestnut light!
And something might have chanced that might
Have released her from this doom—
Cripplegate and gloom!

XXII

That awful Lord Protector
Was blunt, yet kind;
Had he lived all would respect her,
Rough and refined;
At his Court she might have shone ere now; though grave enough,
Glad change from all this Greek and Hebrew stuff!

138

That tale her father too dictates;
Eve—Eden—Adam—how she hates!
And the Devil—just the same—
Loathes their very name!

XXIII

Her heart for pleasure thirsting
Sinks as she reads,
With the pent vexation bursting
Her fancy feeds:
How they choke her, the forced words! Her mother's light rash mood,
Her father's haughty will, both fire her blood;
'Twill be her death—this life so drear;
And see! a new stepmother here!
Then she wishes he were dead—
Blind—this father—dead!

XXIV

Ah life—ah home how bitter!
Fame full of pain!
What a guerdon from its glitter
Must great work gain!—
But of guerdon wherefore prate! must all be selfish then?
Good ne'er self-paid or paid by good to men!

139

Will none, to reach their nature's height,
In proud self-sacrifice delight?
To advance the human race,
None all self efface?

XXV

Height! yes a flea's leap merely,
Were this the whole!
And if nothingness be clearly
The race's goal,
Why this rage to lift and light its purposeless career!
Say nought is proved—disproved—all doubtful here,
Hope lives, and men will still aspire!
But make extinction sure, the fire
Will to reckless chaos flare,
Smoulder to despair!

XXVI

What! Life and all we cherish
In life is all!
Then the race, 'twere better perish!
This blind Earth-ball,
Better, better it were dashed at once into the Sun,
Its feverish, futile, aimless fluttering done;

140

Or whirled a ghastly cinder-shower
Through Space for ever! then would power
So divine no more deceive—
Millions cease to grieve!

XXVII

But Reason hints—still better
If nothing sure
Can be won from life or letter,
Bid Hope endure!
Let her paint—with Socrates and Shakespeare and the rest,
Through space-girt astral Islands of the Blest,
How Milton's soaring soul and will,
Unsated and expanding still,
Still inherit, sphere by sphere
Light—more full and clear!

May 1875.

141

PRAYER.

Well, pray!—though in good sooth, to pray
Is to doubt God, who's injured?—Nay,
To some strong souls opprest with clay,
Staggering along their clouded way,
It seems a stimulant and stay:
And where's the wit can surely say
What bounds the must-be—what the may?

142

A CHRISTMAS HYMN.

(New Style, 1875.)

I

Again the dumb delight,
The winding-sheet of Winter white!
The great World's feverish moan sinks mute and muffled,
As Nature lays cool hands divine
Upon its weary heart, awhile unruffled:
The splendour-fibred trees pure coral shine;
All still!—and if small birds, so black and large, perchance
In sudden startled quest
On the dazzling tracery rest
And shake snow-powder off, they but enhance
The sacred silence of the bright white universal trance.

143

II

Then bells burst out along
The pale dim-burnished sky they throng;
Their floating tones in yellow light dissolving,
Like joys that die in rapture soft;
Or peal on peal in headlong haste revolving,
Full many a merry somersault aloft
The airy tumblers turn in their ethereal play;
Or down, down, down they come
From the full resounding dome,
In frank, confiding, open-armed array,
Like blissful Angels charged to bring their old good news today!

III

But why so glad, you bells?
'Tis shame and wrong your rapture tells!
Cold Morn! why halo round with cheery kindness
Your chill return, which but recalls
That deed of rabid hate and ruinous blindness,
Most piteous scene in History's pictured halls,
The one World-murder done in ghostly Palestine!
Is it a cause for mirth
That the dull ferocious Earth
In mirk and mystery left so long to pine,
So welcomes Spirits when they come surcharged with light divine!

144

IV

Swords flash and sceptres wave—
Could none that gentlest grandeur save!
O widest woe! that this, Time's boon most royal,
A rabble spurned with ribald scorn—
No worldly might to worth so wondrous loyal!—
See! 'tis the golden solitary Morn;
See! splendid mists, still palms and glistening kine; the Sun
Undiamonds the blades
Of the shortening fig-tree shades;
Soft clouds ascending gently one by one
The hollow cave of liquid light, emerge o'er mountains dun;

V

If, by the poppied corn,
There sits in Syrian garb wayworn,
Upon a rock the level beams are firing,
One who, of ample brow sublime,
And ardent look serene yet so aspiring,
Speaks such great-hearted music, for a time
The brazen-kilted Knight his Emperor's work delays,
Must draw the studded rein;
And the boor his creaking wain
Let stand—spellbound by thoughts that so amaze—
So boundless, kindling, fresh, they match that rising Day-Star's rays:

145

VI

If still, as Sunset fills
With awe the hushed vermilion hills,
Blue dusk the listening fishers' lake obscuring—
Those easy and immortal words
Drop quietly as footprints less enduring
Red petrified sea-beaches' keep of birds
A million years ago alit from vanished skies:—
Can none, O churlish Fate!
Of the brave and wise and great—
None look into those deep mysterious eyes,
And read how vast a human Soul informs that clay disguise!

VII

To murder one so young!
To still that wonder-teeming tongue
Ere half the fulness of its mellowed glory
Had flashed in mild sheet-lightnings forth!
Who knows, had that majestic Life grown hoary,
Long versed in all man's weakness, woes and worth,
What beams had pierced the clouds that veil this voyage of care!
Not Zeus, nor Baal's throne
Nor Osiris quelled alone,
But Doubt, or worse assurance of Despair,
Or Superstition's brood that blends the tiger with the hare!

146

VIII

Who knows but we had caught
Some hint from pure impassioned Thought,
How Matter's links and Spirit's that still fly us,
Can break and still leave Spirit free;
How Will can act o'ermastered by no bias;
Why Good omnipotent lets Evil be;
What balm heals beauteous Nature's universal flaw;
And how, below, above,
It is Love, and only Love
Bids keen Sensation glut Destruction's maw—
Love rolls this groaning Sea of Life on pitiless rocks of Law!

IX

This day, then, must we ask
Befits it not its radiant mask,
Where Spring's green pulses sleep, so soon to waken,
Beneath bright innocence of snow?
But rather, like the human heart forsaken,
Some grand still Polar waste, where sad rays throw
Long violet solemn shades, and luridly illume
Each iceberg's sullen frown,
As the blood-red Sun goes down
At ghastly noon, and to their dismal doom
Leaves moaning crags and grinding floes in loneliest lifeless gloom?

147

X

Nay—is it then so slight
A thing that this Day sprung to light
Of moral beauty Man's supreme ideal;
A soul of sympathy so vast
'Twas scarce conceived till first he made it real!
That of all Facts left for the heart at last—
Looming beyond the light by Logic's pharos thrown,
Its faintest circled rim,
In the supersensuous dim,
The most majestic—loveliest—made its own
The purest, widest, truest Soul, and loftiest ever known!

XI

At least—at lowest, say,
A quickening breeze of Life this day
Came, when into dead calm had feebly drifted
Man's Hope of Hopes—an Albatross
Flapping vain wings to rise—and freshly lifted
The worn Seafarer for a flight across
Some thousands of new years o'er the Material Deep
Where Man must founder not,
Or his very race would rot!
Fell swamp from which kind Fate his course must keep
Or down 'mid crawlers of the slime 'twill be his doom to creep!

148

XII

What! this One, Nature's—all!
(Though why not God's, that Mystery call?)
O none the less Mankind's upsoaring splendid
Through brightening gyres of Circumstance
Is with his great heart-truths and hopes so blended,
To keep that height they give its only chance!—
So firmly through the woof—to crown the array so dense
Of Shapes of light and love—
Amaranthine flowers he wove,
The imperial purple of pre-eminence
Man wears, were tattered, would you tear those wreaths immortal thence!

XIII

True, this Soul-Conqueror—this—
World-melting Marvel from the Abyss—
Cared not, in subtly faint Hellenic fashion
To syllogise of life to-be,
But kindled to insatiate thirst and passion
That old ambition of Eternity
Which fires Man's heart for noblest deeds it dreams of here!
Breath mightiest and alone
To evoke its grandest tone;
Of each harmonious rise in his career,
Each diapason of ascent, the stirring key-note clear!

149

XIV

But this One bade him strain,
Say you, to heights he seeks in vain—
Ideal perfections that bemock his station?
Nay, but the endless strain and strife
Secure his nature's endless elevation!—
The germ, deep-hid in life, of higher life,
Conscience, this Sunburst woke; Truth, Justice, Love, his ray
So quickened to outflower
With predominance and power,
The palmy growth still claims imperious way
Through this World's cramping crystal walls to some diviner Day!

XV

And if, in fine excess
And secret happy consciousness,
The fervid aim at fitness for instalment
In some rare clime Truth, Love and Right
Flush with full bloom unreached in this enthralment,
Be forced to leap into a faith like sight
In such rare clime extant, its actual glorious goal,—
Against assurance sure
It must endlessly endure!
Shall not the first these heart-depths to unroll
Be hailed Discoverer and dear King among the Lords of Soul!

150

XVI

Spurn from his Faith—of Will
Love-fired to selfless war with Ill,
And deathless life to soothe the undying fever—
Hell's blight, the shamble's stains and steams;
It were a Sun to flood and flush for ever
The boundless blue—no cloud-hole's shower of beams
Silvering the sea-gloom—glory girt with hate and shame!
A lily pure, that creed
Would be loved—what crimson weed
Of Greece so loved! sweet faiths of graceful fame
Olympian poppies of no charm beside its fragrant flame!

XVII

What though wan Logic deems
Illusions these immortal dreams;
Hesperian garden-growth of golden apples
Which she can prove not—see nor touch;
Their realm at least is real; for all she grapples
Of actual fruit or blossom hangs o'er such
A shadowy garden's wall, and springs from roots within;
Aye! all she sees and knows
But in Mystery springs and grows:
Her simplest queries can no answer win:
‘What can Attraction be? or Force? or Motion how begin?’

151

XVIII

To sing that golden fruit
Hope, Justice, Love, are never mute;
White Maidens warbling through the Dusk its splendour;
And Science, our Alcides true
Shall make the Dragon—Matter—yet surrender
The Spirit-realm it guards and glides into!
Meanwhile the men of mightiest heart our course must light;
All honour be to them,
And to Him the diadem
Who rose, the Atlas from whose heaven-bathed height
In clearest prospect glowed the unimaginable sight!

XIX

Fear you 'twill die away,
Flit, wholly fade in fancied Day?
Is the World's long advance a masque so hollow!
But Heart is pioneer of Mind—
The pillared fire her patient march must follow!
He, to transfigure, glorify his kind,
Made all the Universe a breathing human breast;
Man's race, one rose of snow
Through Eternity to blow,
His great Idea! shall Hope or Reason rest
Below, while, though mist-veiled, on high, towers so sublime a crest!

152

XX

Look where gigantic flowers
Most gorgeous deck Peruvian bowers;
Milk-white lake-lilies purple-hearted shining
Shield-broad, each leaf an islet wide,
A leathery floor with crinkled wine-dark lining
Deep-cabled, firm, where ghostlike stalk and glide
Plover and Ibis shy, by no vibration checked:
—'Tis on black lakes obscure
Which the forest-glooms immure;
Ink-waters strange that no light-rays reflect:—
So in sad days of darkest doubt Truth's brightest blooms expect!

XXI

Think you the mighty Sea
Of Nature can exhausted be?
Press on, O Man! no upward impulse scorning!
High instincts pant their race to run!
Fresh Souls will come auroral—sons of Morning,
To rouse and rein these coursers of the Sun
Along the empyreal path He was the first to trace!—
—Then still recall, O Earth,
With a festal smile, his birth!
For this, o'er Earth's benumbed and beauteous face,
Still, Winter, breathe your chilly charms of kindliest innocent grace!

153

XXII

You hollies scarlet-bossed,
Purfle with dainty rims of frost
Your puckered leaves for this—or gleam snow-spangled!
Prank every fringe with crystals gay,
You cedars! Ring sweet bells, by fears unjangled;
Peal forth melodious promise of a day
When in more luminous love—more loving knowledge great—
In the serene sunshine
Of intelligence divine,
The whole majestic World shall walk elate
With her sublimest hero's faith in Man's exalted fate!

154

THE BRIDE OF THE AVON.

(A True Incident.)

I

Soft and subdued is the breath of the flageolets,
Sweet are the violins, plaintively gay!
Happy though pensive, see, Maidens how beautiful,
Pansies and violets strew by the way!
Snowy their robes are, their ribbons all roseate;—
Silvery flashes the Avon hard by;
Dimly far-sparkles the Severn cerulean,
Sails on its blue like the flecks on the sky!
Sunnily streams the procession, and closes,
Look! where the Bride, in a lace-curtained litter
Borne by gay servitors, screened from the glitter,
Cushioned on satin reposes.

155

II

Over the ramparts of Bristol, hoar battlements
Long ago levelled, they carry her now:
Open the curtains—that vision, Ah scorn it not!
Eighty still winters have hallowed that brow!
Silkiest silver o'er features angelical,
Clear in the crystalline beauty of Age;
Calmness seraphic, a marble serenity,
Surely no gauds of this life can engage;
Triumph is there, but how faint are its traces;
Firmness how gentle! yet sweet satisfaction
Sealed in repose, is the simple attraction
Nothing you read there effaces.

III

Dead!—and the noon-glow is gladdened with melody;
Dead! and rich blossoms enamel the way!—
Sixty slow summers have faded like phantasies
Since she first shone in that bridal array,
Hazelike and gem-lit as dreams of the happiness
She and her lover then looked for in vain!
Fairfax was fighting for Parliament sturdily,
Sieging this town—and her lover was slain—

156

Killed when new-wedded, these ramparts assailing;
There was he laid, by the love-tended hollies:—
Muffled the drums were and knell-like the volleys:
Honours how sad—unavailing!

IV

Did she not hide it—her anguish unspeakable?
O never doubt her—and mastered its throes
As in the awe of her calm Will's intensity,
And a resolve like a Fate, she arose,—
Pale, yet too blest at its life-doom—and silently
Vowed to that vanished victorious Soul,
Consort her own should be ever and consecrate!
Aye, and let years o'er her loneliness roll,
Still should the husk of poor beauty he cherished
Join his cold dust in the dress she was wearing
When he last kissed her and blest her repairing
To the fierce fight where he perished!

V

Sixty long years, then, she lived in this constancy,
Breathing affection with every breath;
He was her husband, but far away travelling—
Travelling safe from disaster or death!

157

Something eternal, alive in her consciousness,
Blooming a wild-flower natural there
Linked her in light with the region ineffable,
Sunshine he roamed in—she waits but to share;
Something within her that brooked no misgiving
Mirrored his Soul with such fervid emotion,
Oft at the call of her yearning devotion,
Present it stood by her, living!

VI

Sixty years thus—neither sighing nor sorrowful,
Lived she—attaining where others aspire:
Quietly rapturous—blissfully reticent—
Strangely assured of her utmost desire.
Freely she mingled in mournings—festivities—
Cheerful and tranquil, whate'er might betide;
Always at will, could she not in her solitude
Sit with her bridegroom unseen by her side?
O the delight of that secret communing!
Voice at her heart's core, to solace or stir it,
Heard in her rapt exaltation, her spirit
Ever to gladness attuning!

158

VII

Mighty events, all their country's vicissitudes
Passing, still coupled his soul with her own;—
Holy great days when our forefathers glorious
Struck for the Truth—set the Mind on its throne—
Shivered the shackles off Conscience; she knew it then,
Proud was her hero, thrice happy his glance!
Grovelling days, when a hireling and reveller
Lavished on lusts what he crouched for to France:
Days when a choke-damp was numbing a nation—
Bigot and tyrant—mole-eyed, marble-hearted:
Ah, what a bliss from all this to be parted,
Spared all the shame and vexation!

VIII

But the pale King they rejoiced at, who wearily
Toiled to the height of his noble design;
Showed how the people's proud statue of Liberty
Might in true Royalty's diadem shine.
Wonders still flashed as her life's light grew shadowy,
Brought her still nearer that life-treasured sod;
England ablaze with incredible victories—
Marlborough marching through Europe a God!
Ah, had her hero like this one succeeded!

159

Nay—but he died in a holier quarrel:
Better so trained for some loftier laurel—
Work in that sphere to be needed!

IX

Then she directed the will long determined on;
How her true wedding-day still they should see;
How that dear grave with its osier-bound coverlet
Emerald-green should her bridal-couch be!
Coffinless he was, and she would be coffinless;
Sables and plumes and all sorrow forsworn;
She in the dress she had long ago fruitlessly
Blushing in blossoming loveliness worn;
Just as himself in the uniform lay there
Crimsoned, alas! as the sash she had fastened
When to do battle for Freedom he hastened—
Died too for Freedom that day there!

X

Thus was her death-day her day of reunion,
Day of revival, rejoicing and pride!
Had she not loftily held to her fealty,
Worthy of him who so loftily died!

160

Thus is her burial-bridal symbolical;
Thus as their relics their spirits shall meet;
Rites hymeneal these rites, not funereal,
Flowers and maidens and music complete!—
—Sparkles on Severn's blue dimness are dancing;
White o'er the sky flow the flecks evanescent—
Gleams of the future and dreams of the present—
Mysteries bright and entrancing!

XI

Sound then, you violins, triumphing tenderly;
Softly and joyously, flageolets, play!
Truly this Spirit has earned a high destiny—
Bravely asserted its claim over clay!
Say there is nothing, then, earthly or heavenly,
Science ne'er dreamt of; say Atoms exist,
Frame without intellect things intellectual,
Marvels of Mind with no Mind to assist;
Hearts there will still be too high to dissever
Hope from their instincts, as strong as assurance,
Telling the soul of its deathless endurance,
Living and loving for ever!

January 1875.

161

SAINT PAUL'S.

I

O not here the faint illuming, not the mystery sombre-dooming
That o'ershadows old Cathedrals of a dimly-dreaming time;
Grand as Forests with their tangles, interlacing high arch-angles,
And long alleys pillar-crowded; type of Faith that stifles, strangles
All discursive Speculation and free Reason as a crime!
Not their faery-frowning fretwork, not their glamour-lights and glooming—
'Tis another kind of grandeur makes this Temple so sublime!

II

What a thrill of exultation—sense of freedom, elevation,
As its luminous expansion seems to welcome you and cheer!
Now aspiringly ascending, and now lovingly o'erbending,
Such a whirl of golden circles so harmoniously blending!

162

How the lovely lines of lustre link, dispart and reappear!
With a majesty how graceful, what a grand serene elation,
And a flowery sunny gladness, like the World's in Spring-career!

III

Tis as Nature had the moulding of this Temple—its upholding—
And had deigned to proud Invention her diviner might to prove;
So had fashioned it in keeping with the Planets in their leaping,
With the Suns and starry Systems in resplendent circles sweeping;
And that ample dome of heaven circumambient above,
In its tender blue infinitude of beauty all-enfolding,
Sweetly swathing all Creation with immensity of Love!

IV

Is not this the very Shrine for the consummate Faith men pine for,
Bright and boundless as the Future of the enfranchised human mind?
Which shall gather all the races in real Catholic embraces,
Lend idealised World-worship every Muse's gifts and graces;
When the nation to its marvel of magnificence less blind,
Shall fulfil the dream of glory 'twas imagined so divine for,
And invest it with the splendours its conceiver first designed.

163

V

Then those massy piers upstanding so symmetrical, commanding,
Flute and fillet shall be tinted with striation flowery-warm;
And the rainbow arcs diverging from them everyway, and merging
In the maze of circled beauty, as o'er cataract-clouds upsurging,
Shall be robed in radiant colours iridescent as their form;
While a thousand golden gleamings, to the Dome's superb expanding,
Flash around as happy Earth's do, when Hope's symbol crowns the storm.

VI

Then those windows peristylar, free from mullion, mask, or viler
Leaden lattice, shall seem gateways clear to heaven's empyreal glow;
Where, with plumes—on viewless crystal—ruby, emerald, amethystal,
Shall great typical Archangels, ardour-fired or rapture-whist all,
Hush the dome—like sacred sunrise—as they stand in burning row,
On its sill each new-alighted, or down-looking with grave smile, or
Beckoning upward, ere it soar off, the aspiring hearts below.

VII

There the Lords of Light and Science—there the Heroes whose defiance
Of the bigotries and tyrannies bade grovelling Man arise;

164

There to kindle high emotion, martyr-deeds of deep devotion,
On the scaffold, in the dungeon, on the battle-field or ocean—
All the world-ennobling wonders of sublime self-sacrifice
Shall appeal with dumb persuasion, shall relive for rich appliance,
In white permanence of marble, in mosaic's deathless dyes.

VIII

There shall soft choir-voices stealing through tumultuous thunder-pealing
Float like blossoms snowy-blissful on the Music-storm around,
Rock in soaring undulation or descend each sweet gradation
In the silvery-falling torrent of ecstatic adoration:
All the grand apocalypses of soul-elevating Sound
Shall each ocean-cave uncover of unfathomed human Feeling,
And awaken far-off echoes in its mountain-glens profound!

IX

For that Ritual shall be laden with Arts richnesses—arrayed in
All the lightnings of the outer and the inner world in turn;
Take the Reason, take the Senses—take whatever most intense is
To upwaft the wayward Spirit to ethereal influences;
As a Naiad by both handles would uplift her sparry urn
To a diamond-spattering fountain; as you raise a drowning Maiden
By her hand, her hair, her raiment—any hold you first discern.

165

X

Then shall Genius seek and sort all the experience of this mortal
And so multiform Existence, individual and whole;
Skim the cream off all the Ages—sound the hearts of Saints and Sages,
Fan to flame the inspiration of a hundred Poets' pages;
Keenly peering at two Miracles to pierce their mystic stole—
The sweet miracle of Nature through the Sense's sunny portal—
Through the portal of dusk Consciousness, the miracle of Soul.

XI

Then the Splendour-shroud unskeining of the Sensuous round us reigning,
Then shall Science show 'tis Spirit weaves cocoon-like that rich veil;
On the gossamer webs of Guidance as they float without subsidence
Through the ages, flash her sunlight; mark their mystical abidance
In each single life to lure it to its blessing here or bale;
And as History sluices, sifts them, keep felicitously straining
From auriferous Time-deposits, Hope's precipitate gold grail.

XII

Then 'twill be our bliss securer, not to blench at Reason purer,
But to launch the joyous Spirit with a large abandonment

166

On the Infinite over—under us; with no cramped conceits to sunder us,
In the frank assimilation and right welcome of the wonderous,
Let the Soul expand and revel to the topmost of its bent;
Well persuaded that the wider Feeling's reach is, all the surer
With Reality and Truth will be its harmonised concent;

XIII

Never doubting, each pursuer—every mighty-hearted wooer
Of those measureless high majesties, the Universe and Man,
That the deeper we explore them, and the freelier we adore them,
And the more erect and boldlier we bear ourselves before them,
The clearlier shall we gather their significance and plan;
Be more certain that our logic is more luminous and truer
The more generous its deductions from the Infinite we scan!

XIV

Then no creed that scantly blesses, scares and curses and represses,
Shall restrain the grander instincts—chain the Sun-aspiring brood;
But a full enchanting river of conceptions of the Giver
Of Existence, ever broadening, ever brightening, shall for ever
Waft us welcomer convictions that its end is wholly good;
Ever lead to loftier darings and sublimer tendernesses,
And still wider love and warmer for the human brotherhood!

167

XV

But for such a faith of soaring Sense and Reason far exploring,
All of Love and Light commingled—universal—disenthralled,
Were not this the happy station, this imperial illustration
And epitome, the loveliest, the lordliest, of Creation
With its many-circling splendours, starry-wheeling, golden-balled—
Which when England crowns, completes it, all poor pedantries ignoring,
Not one gate but the whole Temple shall The Beautiful be called?

1873.