 | Flotsam and Jetsam |  |
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
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 livingA 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
The cause of Freedom—all mankind!
Then with loftiest bards before
Fiery-winged to soar!—
V
Aye! but a little nearerRegard 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 themTest 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
Hemlock and halter answer best;
Need to curb God-given powers,
In a world like ours!
VII
Better with dilettantiOf 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 ascendantThat 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
Dear England must have cakes and ale;
So a grinning slave will be;
Not so grimly free!
IX
Now see the world neglectingThis 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
Into his Tuscan cell to groan,
Just because the wild Earth slid
Not as Monkery bid!
XI
There, with emotion palerWe 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 himAt 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
His deadlier dagger-pen requite!
Well! assail the blind who may
God shall be his stay!
XIII
Perhaps a skull-capped neighbourCalls, 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
Last slumber-time of his long night!—
Then to fix some flash how brief
Of sublimest grief!
XV
Hark! while the grey eyes gleamingYearn 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
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 dutyHas 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
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
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 ProtectorWas 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
Eve—Eden—Adam—how she hates!
And the Devil—just the same—
Loathes their very name!
XXIII
Her heart for pleasure thirstingSinks 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
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 cherishIn 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
Through Space for ever! then would power
So divine no more deceive—
Millions cease to grieve!
XXVII
But Reason hints—still betterIf 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.
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