Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

They tell me faith is powerless now, and ancient love grown cold,
That we may not trust the sainted dust of those dark days of old;
They say traditions are worn out, and the consecrated lore,
The long result of ages, may enthrall the mind no more:
No confessor is prisoned now, no fond enthusiast bleeds
For the great truths that are heralded in antiquated Creeds.
The age of faith is past away with its glory and its gloom,
And unfettered Reason springs to life, the darkness to illume.
We had our Saints and miracles and the martyrs' blazoned scroll,
And through the circling centuries rung the church-bell's thundering toll;
It was an age of glorious dreams, and it was well, they say,
That men should sleep the whole night through till the dawning of the day.
But the age of Faith is past and gone, 'tis the age of Reason now,
And who would change the noonday sun for the embers' dying glow?

Now Science lights her beacon fires, and Faith must be resigned
To the mastery of Intellect, and the haughty force of Mind;
New truths each day discovered which the Universe enshrines,
New revelations dug from out Geology's deep mines,
New philosophies to idolize in Opinion's boundless range,
New theories drifted ceaselessly down the torrent stream of Change.

So thought the proud Kaïres as he trod that soulless shore,
Where Oblivion hangs her cypress wreath o'er Science' buried lore,
Where the flowery Ceramicus hides the unemulated brave,
And the Salaminian waters flash 'neath the oar-stroke of the slave.
So thought he, all unmindful how the wrecks of human pride,
In its greatness and its littleness, were strewn his path beside;
The pride of blood, the pride of power, of science and of art,
They were the heirloom of the Greek, the pulses of his heart.
And where are they? and what is Greece? She only lives to tell,
That land of shadows and of graves, how erst the mighty fell.

The Fathers of the Conclave are met in solemn state,
Before them stands Kaïres, all eager for debate;

What recks he of a few old men, ungifted and unknown,
Whom the crozier and the oil invest with a greatness not their own?
He threads the mazy labyrinth of ideal speculation,
Sounds the depths of theologic lore, and the theory of salvation,
And much he speaks of spirit-life, of purpose deep and high,
Of comprehensive intellect, and broad philosophy,
Of the meanness and the bigotry of hard dogmatic rules,
Of the trammels of the Fathers, and the subtlety of the schools;
And yet he is a Christian true, his faith may none gainsay;
So spake he, and the prelates gazed, perplexed with sore dismay.
They gazed on the apostate;—there was triumph in his eye,
The contempt of baffled disputants, the pride of victory;—
They gazed on one another, and their meeting glances fell,
They had sought to probe his meaning, but he parried them full well.
Then one rose up of reverend mien, of bearing grave and sage,
His voice was low and tremulous, his beard was blanched with age,
But something in his look a more than earthly grace did show,
Like Saints in ancient pictures with a glory round their brow;
His voice was low and tremulous, and yet that voice had power
To rouse the grovelling earthworm, to make the haughty cower.

But now he spoke right briefly, and his keen regards were bent
Full on Kaires where he stood with calm yet fixed intent,
“Thou sayest thy faith is true, brother, but thy words that “faith belie,
“Simple and sure the test ordained of old such claim to try;
“We seek no subtle argument thy secret soul to read,
“We do but ask thee to repeat the Church's ancient Creed.”
Sullen and mute he listened, he who had flung erewhile
Defiance from his curling lip and proud disdainful smile;
The colour faded from his cheek, the lustre from his eye,
Those accents smote upon his ear, like a warning from on high.
Learning, and wealth, and power of mind, and eloquent display,—
The weakest weapons of the Saints are stronger far than they.
The wit of Greece, the lordly state of old imperial Rome,
The Nazarenes subdued them by the blood of martyrdom.
They died not for themselves alone, for Christendom they fought
Who weighed the world against a Creed, and counted it for nought.

II. THE FATE OF COLUMBUS.

O for some spell-word of transcendent power,
Some magic wand for one, but one brief hour,
That land of dream-like mystery to unveil,
Half seen half hidden through the twilight pale,
Where, tranced in spectral slumbers still and deep,
Earth's wisest, holiest, mightiest, softly sleep,
Perchance of earth forgotten,—partial fame
Caught not the whispered echo of their name;
Blame might not touch, nor Praise with faltering tone
Mar the bright meed their glorious feats had won.
Hid 'neath the vast cathedral's cloistered shade
Rest they unhonoured 'mid the nameless dead,
Where the dark cypress marks their lowly grave,
Or where above them rolls the Ocean wave;—
Sank they what time the fierce Sirocco's blast
Swept o'er the burning desert's trackless waste,
Or sleeps 'mid Alpine winter's changeless sway,
Gulphed in eternal snows their mouldering clay;
What reck they? O how heavenly calm doth seem
The weird repose of their unbodied dream!

But some there are who live from age to age,
Whose blazoned glories throng the historic page,
Whose form the untiring pencil loves to trace,
Whose lofty deeds the minstrel legend grace.
And such wert thou, lord of the Atlantic main,
Fair Genoa's nursling, pride of fallen Spain,
To whose once happy realms thy presence bore
A parting gleam of splendour now no more!
Thou who didst urge the yet untraversed way
Through isles unknown, through Ocean's pathless spray,
Dauntless, unwearied, till thy sails were furled
Before the confines of another world!

How bright the scene! From Hayti's distant shore
Faintly resounds the breakers' lessening roar,
Soft breezes curl with incense-freighted breath
The dark green waves in many a snowy wreath.
The refluent music of the laughing foam
Sounds it to thee a strain of welcome home?
Seems not a type the sun's meridian ray
Of joy that fades not with the fading day?
Seems only;—Hope her sweet delusion flings
Full oft round Childhood's glad imaginings,
Weaving before our fondly credulous sight
A mystic halo of unearthly light,

A glittering maze of visions bright and high—
O how unlike the stern reality!
If sunniest skies can mar their stainless blue,
Why should our waking dreams prove less untrue?
O better far some wild uncertain gleam
From April skies should gild the troubled stream,
E'en if those skies their softest radiance pour
Where loudest booms the torrent's muffled roar.
The kindling brow, the sunbright smile of gladness,
What are they but the harbingers of sadness?

And doubt'st thou still? and seems that sparkling sea,
Whose dancing foam-bells splash so merrily,
Seems it indeed of joy a token true?
Still canst thou trust yon heaven's unsullied hue?
Pause yet a moment, seek yon lowly door,
Gaze through the darkness on that cabin floor;
Say who is he the unfriended, bound in chains?
Scarce thrills the life-blood through his shrivelled veins,
The white hair clustering round his reverend head,
O'er his wan face a death-like paleness spread,
Fast round his limbs the unyielding fetters prest,
Scarce throbs the pulse, scarce heaves the quivering breast.

What though at times a faint half-stifled moan
Declares those chains have torments not their own,
And lightning-like is fired with sudden glow
The quenchless lustre of that lofty brow?
'Tis but a moment—to the sunken eye
Returns its look of fixed despondency,
Whose withering gaze lights up with sickly glare
Strange and unreal those features once so fair.

Alas, Columbus! and can this be he
Whose ardent spirit, panting to be free,
Launched on the Ocean of infinity?
Those fettered hands besprent with clotted gore
Steered they the helm to worlds unknown before?
That brow—is it the same whose very frown
Adoring crowds would kneel to gaze upon?
That wasted form the same whose stately mien
Once moved the reverence of a Spanish queen?
A prisoner thou, who didst exult erewhile
In the full sunshine of a nation's smile?
Alas, too surely hast thou learnt to grieve
O'er blighted hopes that bloom but to deceive,
Like the charmed nurslings of the Dead Sea waste,
Fruit to the sight, but ashes to the taste.

Is there a curse with deadlier power endued,
A bitterer wound than man's ingratitude?

Our warmest words are lifeless to express
That sense of unimagined loneliness,
That icy numbness o'er the spirit flung,
Even Hope a wreck and Reason's self unstrung!
The trustful heart's affection turned to scorn,
The trusted promise of a life forsworn,
Struck by the hand our own so oft caressed,
Doomed by their lips whom ours so fondly blessed,—
It is so keen a thrill of agony,
That some would deem to feel it were to die.

And he has felt it;—he has learned to bow
Beneath the weight of that o'ermastering woe,
A cloud of sorrow ever dark and dim,
But O how doubly terrible to him,
Child of our fallen race, yet treasuring still
God's first, best blessing—ignorance of ill!
A heart so guileless it could ne'er deceive,
A mind so pure it could not disbelieve,
A burning zeal that scorned the worlding's art,
A faith more strong than Reason can impart,
Nature had given; and his the high emprize
To disentrance her hidden sympathies.
Yes, e'en in boyhood's lightest, merriest hour
He felt a restless consciousness of power,

While to his soul most real truth did seem
Imagination's wildest, loftiest dream,
The meteor light which sheds on common things
Its own bright tints and fairy colourings.

Land of the brightest suns, the purest skies,
Mother of nature's heavenliest mysteries,
The poplar grove, the rich luxuriant vine,
The fragrant olive and the stately pine,
These are thy produce;—O what land may vie
With thee in beauty, glorious Italy!
Thy classic shades fair Learning's ancient home,
The spendour thine of old imperial Rome,
The breath of song, the flower of knightly deed,
The amarant wreath to martyr-brows decreed,
Thine the pure ray of Raphael's seraph-fire,
Thine Ariosto's soul-entrancing lyre!
And thou didst nurse in thy most calm recess,
'Mid varying scenes of exquisite loveliness,
'Mid each delicious fatal luxury
That chains the heart or lures the spell-bound eye,
Each witching charm whose “mute omnipotence”
Steals o'er the soul, beguiling every sense,—
'Mid terraced gardens rich with tropic flowers,
Where the soft music floats through orange bowers,

While sparkling eyes to sunbright heavens above
Unconscious tell the secret of their love,—
Thou nursedst one those witcheries failed to please,
Who spurned the thraldom of inglorious ease,
Strong in the faith, whose strange unworldly gleams
Shed brighter radiance on his boyish dreams.
Cipango's gold, the riches of Cathay
In the far realms of boundless Asia,
Some mighty sea o'er which no bark hath sailed,
Some world in mists impenetrably veiled,
Throng on his glowing sight, and he would fain
Waft back their treasures o'er the western main,
And tune the Babel clang of Pagan tongues
To swell the chorus of angelic songs;
Fain would he seek on Syrian shore to quell
The rule unblest of Moslem infidel,
For His dear sake whose agonizing Sweat
Baptized the groves of sainted Olivet,
And mindful of the glory-stains that shone
At dawn around the vainly-guarded stone.
Once more should pilgrims seek the “Mournful Road,”
And Salem's shrine by Christian priest be trod,
Once more the convent-bell's long silent tones
Blend with Ardeni's voiceful orisons.

Visions like these had sealed his longing eyes
To life's absorbing unrealities,
Had bid him seek on earth some nobler aim
Than Pleasure's gilded toys or War's fast-fading fame.
Yes, he must give that young and lovely form
To the wild rushing of the Ocean storm,
That gentle voice must learn to still the war
Of human passions, wilder, stormier far.
Yet wherefore shrink? he owns a secret power
To nerve his spirit for the darkest hour;
(Doubt they who will) at the still midnight given,
Whispered monitions spake the will of Heaven;
He hears it in the fitful blasts that sweep
Nightly across the far Atlantic deep,
In the low prisoned waves' clear undersong,
'Plaining incessantly their sunless caves among
And was it all for this—the stern command
That tore him from that bright voluptuous land,
Which not in vain bade nature's self forswear
All nature holds most sacred and most dear;—
Accents that erst, unbreathed by earthly voice,
Sealed the devotion of his erring choice,—
For this—to see his fondest hopes belied,
His name reviled, his every prayer denied,
Himself an outcast from his new-found home,
His glory's meed a traitor's shameful doom?

So the rapt maiden gazed in visioned trance
On that loved statue's lifeless countenance,
Scanning the form to her divinely bright,
Till in the effort glazed her aching sight.
What though she deemed Apollo's eagle eye
Smiled on her beautiful idolatry,
And heard through lips that only seemed to move
The harp-like breathings of intensest love?
In vain, alas! in vain, and she must die
The martyr of her own wild extasy!

Such are the thoughts, (might skill of mine presume
To read aright that sullen brow of gloom,)
The musings such of anguish and unrest
That vex the captive hero's fevered breast;
Pressed though the lips, though pride enchain the tongue,
Words burn within to speak the spirit's wrong.
“Darkly, oh darkly lowers the coming night,
“From leaden skies fast fades the quivering light,
“Whose faithless dawn but now allured me on
“To glorious deeds which cannot be undone.
“Woe worth my country, since the sons of Spain
“Guerdon Columbus with the felon's chain!

“Woe worth the unequal law that matched in strife
“The rival forces that divide our life,
“Where love and hate alternate, good and ill,
“Control the drift of man's ignoble will!
“And what is man? Vile creature of a day,
“Degenerate mass of animated clay,
“Cursed with a soul that shall not, cannot die,
“Heir of a hopeless immortality?
“Avaunt thee, fiend! Wild pangs my bosom tear,
“Reels my sick brain all maddening with despair,
“No kindly spell the agony to charm,
“In heaven no ray, on earth no soothing balm.
“To thee, blest Maid, I turn! When dark and drear
“Fortune frowned on me, thou wast ever near,
“With smile undimmed, with soft unclouded brow,
“Mother of God! thou wilt not leave me now?
“And one there is , one mild angelic form,
“Seen through the mist-wreaths of the gathering “storm,
“A child of earth, of more than earthly grace,
“More than a queen, though sprung of queenly race;
“Her thought shall woo my angry tongue to bless
“When it would curse men for their heartlessness.”

Dwells there a mystic spell, a power unseen
Shrined in the memory of that saintly queen?

Or deigns the Virgin list her suppliant's prayer,
And lull to sleep the ravings of despair?
Lost in the dream of earlier, happier hours,
He roams once more through Genoa's myrtle bowers;
Again he sports beneath the cypress shade,
Threads the dark grove or high-arched colonnade,
Or rifles Nature's store for each bright gem
That helps to wreathe his flowery diadem,
Or, prescient of the future, loves to guide
His mimic pinnace o'er the flashing tide,
Scanning even then with boyhood's eager glance
The rolling Ocean's infinite expanse,
No minstrel lay, no music, half so dear
As the loud breakers to his listening ear.

Changed is the dream;—across the Atlantic deep
Silent and swift three bounding galleys sweep.
On the red wave, ere eve's dark shadow closes,
Softly the sunset's lingering light reposes!
And yet more lovely, sinking slow to rest,
With dying splendours crown the unpurpled West.
Far o'er the waters, as the heavens grow dim,
Rings the last “Ave” of the Vesper hymn
By manly voices chanted, clear and strong,
Sadness and hope contending in their song;

But other far on notes of triumph borne
The loud “Te Deum” greets the advancing morn,
Hope for assurance changed and toil for rest,
A life's long work with full completion blest.
Bright as the unfolding gates of Paradise
The vision spreads before their longing eyes,
Big with the promise of the years to be—
Tides rolling shorewards from a shoreless sea!

Farewell Columbus! Dream that dream at will,
The historic muse preserves its memory still.
Silent the whispers of the envious tongue,
Cold in the grave the hand that did thee wrong,
Thy glory dies not; long as time shall last,
While live the old traditions of the Past,
Echo shall breathe the music of thy name,
And grateful Europe chronicle thy fame.
Brighter and brighter, as the Orient ray
Grows to the splendour of the full-orbed day;
Purer and purer, as beneath the breeze
The foam-wreaths whiten on the crested seas;
So round thy path the increasing radiance glowed
Brighter each day, through sorrow's gathering cloud.
Never, O never, so divinely great,
As when the victim of unpitying fate,

Spurned by the fickle world's once flattering breath,
Doomed by thy dearest to a traitor's death,
Thy spirit rose mid that unquiet scene,
By fear unquelled, in agony serene,
True to thyself, though all were false to thee,
In grief unconquered, and in bondage free!

Isabella of Castille.

III. STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

(To R. H. B.)

Gentle mourner, fondly dreaming
O'er the grave of buried years,
Where the cold pale stars are gleaming
Far along this vale of tears;—

Fond enthusiast wildly gazing
From the towers of childhood's home
On the visioned beacons blazing
Bright o'er ocean's sun-flushed foam;—

Hope's false mirage hides the morrow,
Memory gilds the days gone by;
Give not thy young life to sorrow,
Trust not joys that bloom to die.

Fiercest throbs the pulse of gladness
Heralding a darker day,
Sweetest spring from thoughts of sadness
Eden flowers that ne'er decay.

Here of mirth and anguish blended
Joys are born that cannot cloy,
Ending—not till life is ended—
In the painless endless joy.

IV.

“Wir müssen nach der Heimath gehn
Um diese heilige Zeit zu sehn.”

This earth with its bright and glorious things,
With its blue, and green, and gold;
The unseen depth of the Ocean springs
With its treasure of gems untold;

The sunset sky with its ruby glow,
The snow-clad mountains hoary,
The moons that on summer midnights throw
O'er the wave their golden glory;

The wonders of art that man has piled
In the cities where myriads dwell;
The secrets of science that gleam unveiled,
In the student's hidden cell;

The burning dream of the poet's soul,
The trance of the painter's eye;
The musical sounds, whose vibrations roll
In their cycles of mystery;

The sweetness the smiles of home can impart,
And affection's dearest kiss,—
They have power to subdue the believing heart,
But they are not our own true bliss.

The souls of the holy their vigil keep
Through the dawn of eternity,
In a stiller abode than the Ocean deep,
Where the beds of coral lie.

The ruddy gold of the sunset heaven,
The green of the twilight grove,
Are a light to the eye of the wayfarer given,
To point to his home above.

The inspired voice in the poet's dreams
Breathes a message half unspoken;
The heaven-sent ray on the artist gleams
With its earthly reflection broken.

The secrets of science genius may buy
Through a life toil of many years,
They have power to light up the speaking eye
But they cannot draw our tears.

The dearest gift that is given on earth
Is the smile of those we love,
But the spirit of man feels a conscious dearth
Which that smile cannot remove.

The soul cannot rest till it gains that shore,
Where, blent in one heavenly vision,
The dreams of affection and knowledge and power
Are lost in their endless fruition.

V. THE POET AND THE SAINT.

(ON READING BYRON.)

I blamed thy calm and measured speech,
I rashly deemed thy heart was cold;
No uttered word its depths could reach,
No inbreathed voice its powers unfold.

I spoke of him, the son of song,
Chief of the laurel-cinctured train,
Who taught our own sweet island tongue
To sound the deeps of joy and pain;

Of him whose soul seemed all on fire,
With passioned love and purpose high,
While patriot pride and soft desire
Alternate ruled his kindling eye;

Whose star-tuned lyre through Hellas gave
The watchword of awakening might;
Who mourned by far Euphrates' wave
God's chosen sons in captive plight;

Who touched the springs which guide our youth,
Great master of the unerring dart;
Who bared, with O what conscious truth,
The writhings of a wounded heart.

I spoke:—no fire lit up thine eye,
No rapturous praise unchained thy tongue,
Methought a calm, reproachful sigh
On thy meek lips unuttered hung.

Not thine, with sympathetic burst
To hail, like me, the Poet's soul;
Not thine, like me, with maddening thirst
To drain that deep delirious bowl.

Thou couldst not feel as I had felt,
No heart-beat owned the impassioned song,
No plaint thy tearless eye could melt,—
I deemed thy silence did him wrong.

Forgive me! that I thought to lure
Thy rapt gaze by such a spell as this,
Thy spirit was too heavenly pure
To know such fierce unhallowed bliss.

Forgive me! well, methinks, might he
Whose laurelled brows so brightly shine,
Give all the dreams of poesy,
For one brief hour of peace like thine.

VI. THE LIFE-DIRGE OF EGYPT'S DEAD.

“His relations sit around the child that is being born, and bewail him, for all the evils he must suffer when he is born, reckoning up all the ills of humanity; but the dead they bury amid sport and exultation, enumerating the miseries from which he is now freed, being in the enjoyment of the greatest happiness.”—Herod. v. 4 .

O weep for the Living, and not for the Dead,
For the dead no more can sorrow;
The brief joyless day of existence has fled,
And their night shall know no morrow;—
O weep not for them, for they peacefully sleep,
With the mighty who fell before them;
Nile's time-honoured floods by their resting-place sweep,
And the Pyramids shadow o'er them.
Weep not for the Dead, for the feverish pulsation
Of life-blood is chilled in their veins,
The unsatisfied hope, the unsolaced vexation,
The dreary succession of pains,
Are at rest, and for ever;—the false fleeting smile
Of the flowers that bloom on life's waste

No more can seduce, nor the fruit-trees beguile
Which are wormwood and gall to the taste.
O rejoice for the Dead; for they quietly sleep,
Where no grief evermore shall assail them,
In the stone-cradled cells of the Pyramids deep,
With loud exultation we hail them!
Alas for the Living! O pray that on those
Who yet in the dark womb linger,
Ere they wake from their ante-natal repose,
Death may lay his icy finger.
But weep ye, O weep for the innocent child,
Just fresh from the fierce birth-throes,
For him let the death-wail rise shrilly and wild,
Who is born into this world's woes.
As a tempest-tost voyage on a shoreless sea,
Is the life that lies before him;
Like the spring-tides of Nile o'er the sandy lea
Shall the floods of sorrow roll o'er him.
We may praise the free life of the bodiless spirit,
Ere the trammels of flesh have confined it,
But the burden of suffering earth's children inherit
What hand may avail to unbind it?
We may hymn the repose of the passionless Dead,
For they sleep, and their sleep is unbroken;
But alas! o'er the fruit of the nuptial bed
May no blessing of ours be spoken.

The last song dies down at the merriest feast,
When the cold morn is cheerlessly breaking;
Nor the crown of the king, nor the robe of the priest,
Can quiet the heart that is aching.
For ever the corpse at the merriest revel
Its joyless monition is giving,
For ever a dim pre-announcement of evil
Is blent with the life of the living.
Then weep for the Living and not for the Dead,
For the Dead everlastingly slumber,
But O let your tears o'er the new-born be shed,
For their woes no prediction can number.

I have ventured to apply to the Egyptians what Herodotus says of the Trausi. Such an idea seems countenanced by their manifest care for the dead displayed in the embalmings and pyramids, and they are known to have held the metempsychosis; Herod. ii. 123.

Herod. ii. 78.

VII. FRIENDSHIP.

(TO G. M.)

They tell me friendship is a name,
A flickering wildfire o'er life's troublous Ocean;
They say it lights no keen abiding flame,
It stirs in our cold hearts no deep emotion.

They say that love alone was given,
The appointed solace of our earthly lot,
That love which finds no counterpart in heaven,
Which hath no place where passion's fire is not.

Highest they prize that wedded love,
Which He, the Love beyond all loves, forswore,
Albeit the virgin-seer had power to move
The heart of Jesus in His darkest hour.

Deem we their verdict true indeed?
Is there no love from earthly passion free,
No gift to human sympathy decreed
But mars the grace of heavenly purity?

Mother of mercy, thou canst tell!
“Purer than foam on central Ocean tost,”
Thou, who for three long hours didst prove full well
The sinless pangs which sin's redemption cost.

And he, the angel-faced Saint John,
Whose virgin lips to our dear Lord's were prest,
Was that no love, which o'er his spirit shone
Bright through the vision of a world's unrest?

Deep, deep, unfathomably deep,
Glitters the corals pure and stainless red,
The while above the unsleeping waters keep
Their stern espial o'er its Ocean bed.

The burnished coral's ruddy hue,
What speaks it but affection's ardent glow?
Why gleams it thus deep hidden from our view,
Why but affection's purity to show?

Then deem not friendship all untrue,
Nor love which is not sexual love a name;
No earth-born cloud but mars the heavens' clear blue,
The purest, sure, burns aye the brightest flame.

The brightest flame, nor all unsweet
That soothing balm to pilgrim spirits given;
When hearts with hearts in perfect friendship meet,
Is there a holier bond on this side heaven?

Say I indeed on this side heaven?
Nay, friendship fleets not with the fleeting breath;
What though the chains of time and sense be riven,
Love springs triumphant from the grasp of death.

Dearest! be ours such blessed lot,
For His sweet sake on Mary's lap who lay,
So may our kindred sprights unprisoned float
Through changeless orbs of never-setting day!

VIII. THE PILGRIM BOAT ON THE RHINE.

Mother, our bark floats lightly
Across the glimmering deep;
The silvery moon-beams brightly
On the placid waters sleep.

Still on the mountains hoary
Is fixed our dreaming eye,
Though the sunset's latest glory
Hath faded from on high.

A sound of waters rushing,
Where from many a rocky height
Wild mountain streams are gushing,
Breaks on the stilly night.

No other sound is near us
To mar the deep repose;
Dear mother, thou wilt hear us,
Thine eyelids never close.

For the earth-wearied spirit
Methinks such quiet even
Some music might inherit
Caught from the harps of heaven.

The moon it glanceth brightly
O'er the untroubled deep,
Thy smile is o'er us nightly
Our dreams from sin to keep.

Star of the sea, we hail thee,
Bending beneath thy care,
Blest Mother, we assail thee
With the sweet force of prayer.

Thine the deep tender feeling
Which Jesus gave to thee,
The Godhead's Self concealing
In thy meek purity.

Thou art Eden's fairest flower,
For a soul unstained by sin
Was the unearthly dower,
Which thou alone couldst win.

Sweet are the admonitions
Of such a night as this,
For it gives us heavenly visions
Of thine unequalled bliss.

Star-beams, that brightly quiver
In the blue depth above,
Tell how thou art with us ever
In the fulness of thy love.

The gentle moon shall mind us
Of heaven's eternal rest,
O may our last hour find us
With thee among the blest!

Hail Jesus, Son of Mary,
To the pilgrim's prayer incline,
For the ways of life are weary,
O make us ever Thine;

Thine in life's early morning,
Thine in death's hour of gloom,
Thine, when the archangel's warning
Shall call our spirits home!

IX. MAYENCE AT SUNSET.

Thy throne is on the waters, and thy power
Was o'er them once; in solemn majesty
Queenlike thou sitt'st, as conscious of the dower
Wherewith of old the Church engifted thee.
Men gave thee power;—they broke it at their will;
Thy beauty was thine own;—thou hast it still.
One farewell look,—another moment yet;
One last and lingering gaze; how bright they glow,
Each mosque-like dome and fairy minaret,
Swathed in the dying sunset's mellow glow,
Where summer sunsets sweetest, softest shine
Glassed on the bosom of the imperial Rhine.
Fair Mayence! still thy memory lives with me,
A visioned city on an inland sea.

X. MECHLIN.

A tall church tower reared o'er the busy din
Of some vast city, an illumined page
From ancient missal torn, and placed within
Some noisy pamphlet of this boisterous age;—
Such hath thy thought, dear Mechlin, been to me,
A blessed isle in memory's boundless sea.
Methought a voiceless benediction fell
Upon me, as I paced thy quiet square;
Within the choir a faint unearthly smell
Of incense brooded o'er the cloistral air,
The presence-token of One who sojourned there,
Perchance unheeded; a mysterious spell
Unsphered my rapt soul, and the veil was furled
That hides our contact with the spirit-world.

XI. ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE DOG.

Thou wast my one unclouded joy,
Thy trustful love was all for me,
Soothing long hours of sad annoy;
Oh, I could weep for thee!

Days seemed less dark and friends more true
With thy warm burden on my knee,
And blither hope within me grew;
Oh, I could weep for thee!

Thy fond caress, thine eager gaze,
Thy bounding welcome, full and free,
Thy thousand little winning ways;
Oh, I could weep for thee!

When seated in my lonely room,
When pacing o'er the sandy lea,
Each day, each hour recalls thy doom;
Oh, I could weep for thee!

XII. STRIFE AND PEACE.

I lay on Loch Katrine's pearly breast,
My boat was floating at will;
And I felt a delirious vision of rest
Steal o'er me with passionless thrill.
Not a sound was heard on the green hill side,
Not a sound from the copsewood brake,
Not a breeze to ruffle the mirror-like tide,
Not a stir on the motionless lake.
The heaven's dark blue and its silvery haze
On the face of the waters are sleeping,
The shadow-stains trancing my rapturous gaze
Down the mountains are stealthily creeping.
There is peace in the depth of the blue changeless heaven,
There is peace in the mist-shrouded hill;
There is peace in the soul when her fetters are riven,
And the life-dream of passion is still.
And methought as I lay on that motionless lake,
With no murmur the dreamy delusion to break
But the refluent waters around the boat's wake,
That I saw a sweet vision of peace;

Where the jarring discordance of Reason is still,
And the truth, which she sought, is the guide of the will,
Disenthralled with a gentle release;
Where the faëry hopes and the day-dreams of thought
Which Fancy's sweet spell hath insensibly wrought
In the sunny exuberance of youth,
And the plaint that bursts forth from her passionate lyre,
When her dearest and last-cherished visions expire
At the touch of what manhood calls truth;—
Where all these and the dim troublous lustre that gleams,
For a moment, it may be, in exquisite dreams,
Doomed with morn's garish radiance to fade,
Are hushed in the transport of perfected joy,
Where unsatisfied cravings no longer annoy,
And the dark stream of sorrow is staid.
Though reft be the garlands aërially hung
By Fancy round youth's burning brow,
And mute the sweet strains she so rapturously sung,
Oh I would not return to them now!
For there is a stillness more solemn and deep
Than the deadlies swoon or the heaviest sleep;
A slumber transfigured with heavenlier gleams,
Than flash o'er the young in their unbodied dreams;

When Affection's untold aspirations are blest,
And the agonized throbbing of hope are at rest.
'Tis the peace of the spirit when life hath passed o'er her,
With her warfare accomplished, her guerdon before her;
'Tis the peace to self-crucified anchorites granted,
With their souls from the trammels of sense disenchanted;
'Tis the bliss of the holy, the rest of the dead,
The peace on meek sufferers unmurmuring shed:
But O 'tis a peace we may never enjoy
While our hearts are enthralled to earth's petty annoy!
'Tis a joy the fond heart in her visions may see,
O my God that such peace may be granted to me!

But hark to that sound, like the roar of the ocean
When its wild waters rave in tempestuous commotion,
And the agonized seaman's despairing devotion
Is blent with the elements' din,
Till the last dying wail
Is upbore on the gale
And the waters rush hurriedly in.
From the green slopes where Summer's soft shadows were blending,
Behold even now the white cataracts descending,
Through self-cloven alleys of rock,
While the erst silent groves are tumultuously bending,
Beneath the fierce hurricane's shock.

O solemn it is in such presence to stand,
Where mountains on mountains confusedly grand
In stern isolation are piled,
While the gathering storm-blast with ominous sigh
Moves through the ravines, and each moment more nigh
Loud thunder-claps boom from the sulphurous sky
Where moon so deceitfully smiled,
And the answering echoes of far Benvenue
Ring faint through the mist-wreaths that darken the view
And Benlomond is shrouded in night;
While passionate tears from its summit of snow
Rained down to the valleys are lost in the flow
Of the billowy waters that murmur below,
Foam-crested with white.

Perchance thou lovest such sight to scan;
Hast thou ever read in the heart of man
A darker vision of strife?
The tears that are wept on the bleak hill-side,
The fierce unrest of the darkling tide,
And clouds which the mountain-summit hide,
Are the mystery of life.
Thou need'st not list for the fitful sweep
Of angry winds o'er the valleys deep;
Thou need'st not pause for the thunder's roar,
Or the booming wave on the rocky shore;

There is a tempest of wilder din
That rages the human soul within.
It needs no wizard's potent spell
To call the fiends from their native hell;
It needs no charm-word of shadowy might
To rouse the soul to that awful fight;
The life we live is a ceaseless war,
While Reason and Will and Feeling jar.
There is rest in the grave the wise man saith;
There is peace in the weird isolation of death;
But here, poor soul, is no peace for thee
Till all thy dissonant chords agree
To beat in perfect harmony.
There is rest in the grave in the stillness of death,
There is rest upon earth in the fulness of faith.

XIII. SOLITUDE.

(TO G. J. G.)

There is a sea, upon whose troublous tide
Ten thousand thousand storm-tost galleys ride,
Diverse their course, albeit the promised bourne
Whereto the unvarying compass points, be one;
Diverse their course,—and some there are who mourn
Those mateless wanderings 'neath the inclement sun,
Or where the stars their wintry vigils keep
O'er the dark waters of the uncheery deep.
What if two barks that drifted lonelily
By some strange influence meet on that far sea?
Such the sweet spell o'er kindred spirits thrown,
The spell, whose wiles too deep for language lie,
Striking responsive chords in hearts that own
The throbbing pulse of mutual sympathy.

XIV. THE LEGEND OF ST. CATHARINE.

[PART I.]

When the Leader of Israel,
From Pisgah's lone height,
Turned his far-seeing glance
On the land of delight,
Where the palm-trees stand stately
In Jericho's vale,
The vineyards are fadeless,
The flocks never fail;

Where the corn-fields are reeling
With ungathered grain,
From the gnarled oak the honey
Drops down to the plain,
Where Jordan cleaves swiftly
His rock-cradled bed,
Round whose green marge the toil
Of the heathen is spread;—

A moment he gazed
And sank down on the sod,
But his ecstatic spirit
Passed upwards to God.
For him the archangel
Dread sepulture made,
Nor Prophet nor Priest
Knew where Moses was laid.

A portent more wondrous
The Church may record
When Catharine fell pierced
By the tyrant's sharp sword;—
'Twas mid-day—the sunlight
Looked down on the Nile,
Alexandria's city
Was glad in its smile.

The lordly usurper
Was feasting in pride,
His hands with the life-blood
Of martyrs were dyed,

Of the tender and young,—
Persecution's stern blast
Swept o'er them unshaken,
The fiercest and last.

At noonday the sun
From the blue heaven looked down,
The murmur of myriads
Uprose from the town.
Lo! the sunlight at mid-day
Hath paled in the sky;
Lo! a sound hath out-murmured
The multitude's cry.

O'er their rapt gaze a splendour
Unearthly was flung,
A chant through the air,
As of angel-harps, rung;
On the wings of the breezes
Those missioners sped,
Till the glory-cloud rested
Where Catharine lay dead.

The viewless procession
In triumph passed by,
The track of its glory
Grew faint in the sky.

There is rage and unrest
In the City's broad square,
But the body of Catharine
No longer is there.

PART II.

On the mist-shrouded summit
The daylight was dim,
Where the monks of Mount Sinai
Were chanting their hymn;—
Through the chapel a radiance
Shot sudden and clear,
And their vespers were hushed
As the angels grew near.

The Eternal of old
Spake from Sinai's hoar brow—
What strange visitation
Re-hallows it now?
There the archangel's trumpet
Waxed shrilly and loud,
And the Voice of the Father
Pierced through the dark cloud.

There the thunder-clap pealed
And the forked lightning shone,
The arrow-winged message
Sent forth from the throne
The stern pre-announcement
Of duty to man,
Ere grace had completed
What justice began.

God's angels are wending
To Sinai once more,
But other in semblance
They come than of yore;
Not shrouded in darkness
And dreadful in state,
The trumpet their herald,
The tablets their freight;

Not bearing to sinners
The sentence of wrath,
But to Him who redeemed them
The fruits of His death;
Their hands have uplifted
A virginal form,
In whose pale cheeks the life-blood
No longer is warm.

Encinctured with glory
Her lily-white brow,
Her raiment of triumph
Is purer than snow,
Her smile is unclouded,
The palm-branch alone
Tells the death-strife accomplished,
The victory won.

Where the mountain rears highest
Its stone-sprinkled sward
The angels have left her
To wait for her Lord;
From the Church's loud anthems
Her name shall ne'er cease,
Her body on Sinai
Is buried in peace.

The Emperor Maximin.

XV. THE VIRGIN MOTHER.

Ave Maria! Oh what vision blest
Thy name unveils before the adoring eye,
Thou, whom alone of Eve's fallen progeny
Sin might not harm, nor Satan's power molest;
Whose peerless glory Gabriel's lips confessed,
The Spirit's bride, the Incarnate Son's abode,
Daughter of earth, and Mother of thy God,
Since in thy womb the Eternal deigned to rest.
Mother and Maiden! with intenser ray
Thy path still kindled towards the perfect day,
Till He arose, the Dayspring from on high,
To crown the gifts of unresisted grace,
The love divine, the virgin purity,
That made thy bosom His chosen resting-place.

XVI. THE VESPER-BELL.

Hall, Mary, hail! the western sky is glowing,
The sun sinks down 'neath yon empurpled hill,
From distant shores the fresh sea-breeze is blowing,
Sweet falls the music of the plashing rill.

Hail, Mary, hail! that solemn stillness breaking,
Sure on the ear a sweeter music fell,
The distant echoes of the valley waking;
Hark! 'tis the summons of the vesper-bell.

Hail, Mary, hail! like words from the departed
Speaks the monition of that saint-bell's toll,—
Of blessings slighted to the thankless-hearted,
Of peace and gladness to the earth-wearied soul.

Hail, Mary, hail! the heavens are faintly lighted,
The sun is down, the flickering star-beams shine
Pale through the mist-wreaths, while on eyes benighted
Streams a mild radiance from the tapered shrine.

Hail, Mary, hail! the bell hath ceased its ringing,
The wearied labourer sinks to early rest,
But hark! within the choir is sweetly singing
Of Him, who lay, dear Mother, on thy breast.

Hail, Jesus, hail! to Thee our nightly greetings
Wakeful we raise, though men around us sleep;
Thou wilt not chide Thy Church's oft repeatings;
Do Thou our souls from works of darkness keep!

XVII. THE FUNERAL OF THE LAST OF THE STUARTS.

Bright the funeral lamps are burning through St. Peter's stately dome,
Loud ascends the chant of mourning, heard in midnight's stilly gloom.
See the long procession winding slowly through the central nave,
O'er the alb the sable vestments of the dark-stoled clergy wave.
Down before the illumined altar fix the bier and spread the pall,
Where the crucifix' deep shadow on the slumberer's face may fall;
Raise the sacred host, oh, raise it; let the thundering saint's-bell toll,
And intone the “De profundis” for the Stuart's parted soul.
Scion of a kingly lineage, heir of thrones and sceptres he,
Dispossessed, discrowned, and exiled, last of that long ancestry;—
Dispossessed of earthly kingdom, exiled from an earthly home,
With the Church's princes numbered found he rest in holy Rome.
Blessèd end of bootless struggle, peaceful son of hapless race,
Worldly diadems resigning for the better crowns of grace.
Yet will dreams of worldly honour with the solemn pageant blend,
While the spirits of thy fathers o'er the coffin seem to bend,—
They who ruled in fair Dunedin, masters of the knightly sword,
Whose high deeds in field and foray thousand minstrel-tongues record;

She is there, the queenly victim of a rival's jealous hate,
Who for throne received a scaffold, prison walls for royal state,
Clinging erst through years of anguish to the faith which thou didst love,
Crowned with more than earthly beauty in the better land above;
Likest her the ‘martyr’ monarch, with his calm reproachful eye,
Dreaming over bygone ages, for his dreams content to die;
They who strove with vain persistence forfeit sceptres to regain,
By the Boyne's historic waters, on Culloden's bloody plain,—
Each and all are gazing on thee from a greener, happier shore,
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the mourner weeps no more.
Yea, the spirits of thy fathers o'er the silent bier are bending,
But no voice of pride or anger with the funeral chant is blending.
Hence, avaunt thee, wild ambition, vain regret for honours fled,
'Neath the crucifix' deep shadow earth and all her pomps lie dead.
Toll the bell, and chant the requiem, bright the holy tapers shine,
'Tis the knell of buried princedoms, requiem of a royal line;
Lift the Cross, and peal the anthem; slowly through the deepening gloom,
See the coffin-lid descending to the Stuarts' vaulted tomb.
Wave the golden censer, wave it, let the incense' wafted breath,
Last and best of this world's odours, fall upon the face of death;
Sprinkle now the holy water, once again the saint's-bell toll,
And intone the “De profundis” for the Stuart's parted soul!

XVIII.

“Da semper dolere, et de dolere gaudere.”

There is no joy in all the earth
So dear as holy sorrow;
None, but from canonized Regret
Its sweetest charm doth borrow.

When the suffering and the sainted ones
From our embrace are riven,
There is a glory less on earth,
A glory more in heaven.

And pleasant is the memory
Of happy periods gone,
When all the joys of many a year
Are gathered into one.

The concentrated retrospect
Of love in all her gladness
Which now is in the lowly tomb,
O say not it is sadness.

For strong affection deepeneth,
Like a broad and kingly river;
The last smile is the loveliest,
When about to part for ever.

The merriest song, the loudest laugh,
Oh what are they to this?
The joy on earth the likest heaven
Is the last remembered kiss.

Are we not purest, when we dwell
On thoughts of the departed?
And are not brightest transports pledged
By God to the pure-hearted?

O teach us, Lord, to bear our Cross
In meekness unrepining:
Where deepest go the nail-prints, there
The sweetest flowers are shining.

When deepest in our sinful souls
The five dear wounds are planted,
We have a joy all joys beyond
Through suffering disenchanted.

XIX. TO MY BROTHER ON HIS FIFTH BIRTHDAY.

Five years have sped!
Of thy brief life five circling years,
Their mirth and grief, their hopes and fears,
For ever and for ever!
Thou saw'st not, knew'st not, as they passed,
Faint shadows on the surface glassed,
Of Time's deep river.

To live and die!
This is the work before thee set,
Waste on the past no vain regret,
The future lives to thee;
Yet think when Time's long years have run,
Is meted to the deeds then done,
Eternity!

The time is short!
As yet, dear boy, few sins of thine
With the soft opening tendrils twine
Of thy young being!
Approving on thy brow may light,
Still with baptismal dewdrops bright,
The Eye all-seeing.

The time is short!
Five years e'en now have o'er thee past;
Each left thee different from the last,
Each with fresh powers endued thee!
Stronger each year with fresh essay
To draw thee from the narrow way
Ill sprite pursued thee!

Yet fear thou not!
Through senses five though hell assail thee,
Through senses five shall grace avail thee,
In weakness perfect found!
Do thou but to thyself be true,
Nor spell nor fiend aught ill shall do
If grace abound.

Token most true!
Scarce on the angelic feast hath set
The sun which gilds thy birthday treat;
St. Michael's arm defend thee!
Gabriel's soft charm, and Raphael's might,
Cherubic hosts through life's long fight,
For aye attend thee!

Nay, doubt it not;
I see thee now a fair-haired child,
With glance so free and step so wild;
Thy laugh rings loud and clear.
O mayest thou tread thine onward way
Unconscious as thou art this day
Of gloom or fear!

Blest be thy lot!
Soft be thy slumbers, sweet thy dreams,
Glad thoughts to blend with morn's first beams.
Bright be thy boyhood's prime!
And as the lightsome hours glide by,
Be thine to mark without a sigh
The course of time!

It moveth ever!
Boyhood in youth finds early grave,
Manhood and age their turn will have,
Here changes never cease.
Be thine on each swift hour to trace
Lines that nor time nor death efface,—
Then cometh peace!

XX.

“Immortalis est enim memoria illius.”

I ne'er beheld thy winning grace,
Thy calm angelic smile,
Nor watched how heavenly thoughts would trace
Bright gleams and shadows on thy face
Beneath its gentle wile.

And yet, methinks, I read e'en now
The glance of those bright eyes,
I seem to gaze upon thy brow,
To hear those accents sweet and low
Like music from the skies.

That glance, it speaks of glorious things
No language may express,
Unearthly fair imaginings
Are pictured in the sunny springs
Of its blue silentness.

For such thou wast on earth,—'tis mine
To love thee as thou art,
Where thy bright virgin form doth shine
In paradise, thy spirit shall twine
Its tendrils round my heart.

Then let thy memory be to me
A charm of mystic power,
To stay the glance too bold and free,
When sinful thoughts press heavily
To soothe the darksome hour.

Far, far away thy lowly tomb
Sleeps in the churchyard shade,
Where oft in childhood I have come,
To watch the tiny flowerets bloom
Above where thou art laid.

But yet I feel thee ever near,
For holy Church is one;
The funeral hymn, the gloomy bier,
Are but the dawn of one bright year,
Eternity begun.

Yes!—thou art near, thou knowest full well
Our prayers are breathed for thee,
And in the Church invisible,
The middle home where thou dost dwell,
Bright spirit, pray for me!

XXI. TO MY SISTER.

“Das Wunder ist des Glaubens liebstes Kind.”

Rememberest thou our days of childish mirth,
And how we sported on the nursery floor,
And read wild fairy tales of knightly worth,
Or shuddered at the giant's fabled roar?
Infants we were, and orphaned of our mother,
And all our thoughts were centred in each other.

And one there was, O thou rememberest well,
Who watched the promise of the opening hours,
With love surpassing all that words may tell,
And gentle force of concentrated power;
She loved us, toiled for us, for us she prayed,
Her sweet affection was our childhood's aid.

And O rememberest thou the fern-clad hills,
The pleasant rambles 'neath the setting sun,
The clear-voiced music of the crystal rills,
And sweet home-greetings when the day was done
At that dear Vicarage where our time was spent
In joy unmixed and blameless merriment?

Said I unmixed? and what is given to man
Of painless joy, what rose without a thorn?
“Whoso hath sinned” (so runs the unchanging ban
On Adam laid) “by him must grief be borne;”
Earth's dearest joys with sorrows are combined,
The saints' white robe with blood incarnadined.

And we have felt it all;—that mountain home,
Our childhood's glory, now is ours no more,
Through those dear haunts the stranger's footsteps roam,
The spell is broken, and the dream is o'er;
There, where of old we came to worship God,
Are laid our loved ones 'neath the flowery sod.

The dream is o'er; we are not children now,
The dawn of Reason, and the burst of Life,
Opinion's force, Imagination's glow,
The gift of choice, the fearfulness of Strife,
All are upon us, and the dizzied mind
Gropes darkly for the truth it cannot find.

Pray we of Christ a nobler dream to send,
A second spring of renovated youth,
Strong as the eagle's; till our flight ascend
The stormy spheres and touch the living Truth.
To whom on earth a childlike heart is given
The children's home is there, once more in heaven.

XXII. BEREAVEMENT.

Why seemeth all around me sad,
When Nature's self is bright and gay,
The earth in summer verdure clad,
The cloudless heavens in blue array?

Why seems to me a dying sigh
Borne on the mountain wind to swell?
The gushing brook's soft minstrelsy,
Why sounds it like a dying knell?

Droop not the stately forest trees,
When autumn leaves fall thick and sere?
Nought list they in the whispering breeze
The promise of a bright new-year.

Close not the waters with sullen moan
O'er the lost seaman's sinking head?
Nought reck they how the trumpet-tone
Shall bid the sea give up her dead.

And what if Nature's face be glad,
If summer tints be fresh and gay,
May not our riven hearts be sad,
When those we love have passed away?

When standing on the grassy sod,
That hides the dear and lifeless clay,
Albeit faith points up to God,
Sounds it not bitter, “gone for aye?”

Dear mother, more than mother thou,
When orphaned of a mother's love,
Thou taught'st my trembling knees to bow,
My infant lips in prayer to move.

Thou bad'st me in the Church's Creed
All high and heavenly lore to learn,
By gentle word, by loving deed,
Thou bad'st me Jesu's love to earn.

And sure, a more than mother's love
Shone in thy mild and saintlike brow,
What words as thine had power to move,
What guide so true, so dear as thou?

Ah me, how ill have I repaid
That love which cannot be exprest!
Thou in the silent tomb art laid;—
What can we do?—thou art at rest.

Dear mother, we will pray for thee,
Will pray as only love knows how;
May endless rest thy portion be,
Perpetual light around thee glow!

And in that last, that awful hour,
When the trump sounds, the graves are riven,
Thy children then, so Christ give power,
Shall bless thee in the face of heaven.

They shall rise up, and call thee blest,
And Mary's Son that seal shall own;
The Child who lay on Mary's breast,
Will bless thee from His royal throne.

XXIII. TRIAL.

TO H. P. L.

The loyal heart is lightest
When just disenthralled from fears,
The smile of love is brightest
When it is dimmed by tears:

The snow-drop glitters purest
When bathed in early dew,
Friendship is ever surest
When fears have proved it true.

Then, dearest, let no sorrow
On bitter memories dwell,
The promise of the morrow
Hath a gladder, holier spell.

And love's keen eye-glance readeth
That talisman aright,
For little skill there needeth,
When hearts with hearts unite.

XXIV. SEPARATION.

Thou art going, thou art going, o'er the far Atlantic deep,
To the land across whose arid plains the hot siroccos sweep,
Where the sun glares down the livelong day with fierce unclouded light,
And the tiger's yell breaks fitfully on the brief unrestful night.

Thou art going, thou art going, 'mid a stranger race to dwell,
Far from the altars of thy home, and the friends thou hast loved so well;
Far from the dear remembrances of thy cloister-nurtured youth,
From the shrines of ancient glory and the citadels of truth.

Yes, Brother, thou art going, and we may not wish thy stay,
But oft the heart shall follow thee, when thou art far away,
Shall track thine uncompanioned way through Afric's pathless woods,
And commune with thy spirit 'mid her voiceless solitudes.

Tis thine to tread the path the Church's missioners have trod,
In the Name and love of Jesus, and with the Saints of God;
Ignatius' hero zeal shall be thy fainting spirit's stay,
Meek Xavier's dauntless charity shall cheer thy toilsome way.

Good is the cloistral stillness, and the monk's ascetic rule,
Good the penance and the twisted scourge of the Trappist's hardy school;
Loud rolls the noble liturgy through the high cathedral dome,
Sweet is the quiet saintliness of a pure and Christian home.

But better than the chanted rite, and the cloister's lonesome vow,
Better than home's meek sanctities is the path thou hast chosen now;
Press on, press on, right hopefully, in the living strength of faith
Through the mission's daily martyrdom to a more than martyr's death.

By one fierce pang the martyrs gained the palm-branch and the crown,
Henceforth by daily dying thy triumphs shall be won;
But through that life in death will shine a radiance from above,
A radiance that is not of earth, the deathless light of love.

And oh! thy toils will be o'erpaid at that last and awful Day,
When before His face the sunlight fades, and the mountains flee away;
When those to whom thy lips have made the eternal Gospel known,
Shall arise and call thee blessed before the great white throne.

Farewell, farewell, dear Brother, perchance it may be given
To hold sweet converse here once more, ere the bands of flesh be riven;
Perchance we ne'er may meet again till the dread Judgment Day,
Thou art going, thou art going, and we may not wish thy stay.

Farewell, a sad farewell, yet we need ne'er be lonely-hearted,
Though the deep sea roll between us, our spirits are not parted;
In one Faith and to one Father shall our intercessions rise,
Before the many altars of the one true Sacrifice.

XXV. DINAS EMLYN.

Not for the snowy whiteness
Of the river's foaming leap,
Nor for the moon's clear brightness
Poured on thy mouldering keep;
Not for the bridgeway quaintly
Spanning the waters near,
Nor the rushing sounds that faintly
Ring from the distant weir.

'Tis not for these I love thee,
Though I love them passing well;
The power thou hast to move me
Owns a dearer, holier spell;
'Tis not because on beauty's crown
Thy jewels brightest shine,—
There are river banks full many a one
Fairer, perchance, than thine.

But none, like thee, hath spoken
Of all that met my gaze,
The memory still unbroken
Of happy by-gone days;
A sweet, strong incantation
Comes wafted on that strain,
And the old association
Of childhood wakes again.

As thy waters glide before me
Through their rock-enchannelled bed,
Dreams of other days come o'er me,
Other lights are round me shed;
Through the old familiar places
I seem to roam once more,
While loved and long-lost faces
Smile on me from the shore.

There is a southern streamlet,
Child of the mountain floods,
By many a well-known hamlet,
Through the dear oft-trodden woods
That streamlet wanders ever
With sweet melodious noise,
Till the stream becomes a river,
And uplifts a river's voice.

In my ears that voice is ringing
As along thy marge I stray,
To my gaze thy flow is bringing
That river far away;
And 'tis for this I love thee;
All lovely as thou art,
Thy beauty could not move me,
But thou speakest to my heart!

XXVI. THE THREE PEALS OF THE ANGELUS.

Toll at the hour of dawn!
When the busy day hath begun,
That Christians may kneel in life's early morn
To Mary's incarnate Son;
For at midnight hour St. Gabriel spoke,
And Christ was conceived ere morning broke.
Hail Mary, full of grace!

Toll at the mid-day hour!
Let the bell toll loud and long,
For the Sun hath risen with a burning power,
And the world and the flesh are waxing strong.
Through the long hours of the sultry day,
Stay with Thy children, Jesus, stay.
Hail Mary, full of grace!

Toll at the fall of eve!
When the busy day is done,
Lest Jesus thy soul in corruption leave,
Call yet again on Mary's Son;
For at fall of eve, 'mid the gathering gloom,
His body was laid in S. Joseph's tomb.
Hail Mary, full of grace!

Toll for each hour of prayer!
Toll at morning, noon, and night;
Let the loud church-bells, like the angel, declare
The dawn of the world's true Light;
Till the chimes that inspired our childhood's faith
Are the requiem rung o'er the couch of death.
Hail Mary, full of grace!

XXVII. TO A FRIEND LEAVING OXFORD.

Say, wouldst thou dwell where Piety
Hath reared her choicest shrines,
Where yet on Magdalen's time-stained tower
The moon-beam softest shines?

Where o'er the meadow and the flood
Christ Church and Merton frown,
Where St. Mary's spire true guardian stands
Above the quiet town?

Where the music of unnumbered bells
Calls to the oft-said prayer,
And the strength and life-blood of our land
Is daily gathered there;

Where the ancient wisdom lingers
In consecrated tomes,
And memories of the ancient faith
In Oxford's cloistered homes?

Or wouldst thou meet the coming foe,
And breast the unequal strife,
By England's hearths and homesteads
In the battle-field of life?

Where in streets and fetid alleys
The death-doomed masses pine,
Where the sickly torch-light scarce illumes
The darkness of the mine;

Where Filth and Crime, and fell Disease,
Have plied their busiest art,
Where the Cross is borne in toilworn hands,
And curses in the heart?

O fair are Oxford's cloistered homes,
Her tuneful bells are sweet,
And solemn is the long ascent
Of that collegiate street.

But thou must forth to other scenes
By the world's crowded ways,
If thou wouldst work a work for God
In these unchristened days.

Not in the Student's hidden cell
That battle must be fought,
Where scarce a ruder sound disturbs
The luxury of thought.

No!—in the city's crowded street,
The lowly village school,
Where mind conflicts with mind, is taught
The Christian's daily rule.

The Church's task this day is set
In men and angels' sight,
Nor sacrament nor prayer shall fail
To those who work aright.

Her sacraments, our secret strength,
Our war with this world's sin,
'Tis ours to dare the new crusade,
Ours in her name to win!

XXVIII. THE HEAVENLY STRANGER .

A stranger in the pale moonlight
Before the door He stood,
His locks are drenched with dews of night,
His raiment stained with blood.

A torch in nail-pierced hand He bore
No earthly sun so bright;
A stranger at the unopened door
He knocked the livelong night.

The cruel cincture o'er His brow,
Woven of thorns, is bound,
Tears from His eyes incessant flow,
Like rain, upon the ground.

Not for the chill night-dews He wept,
Nor for the thorny crown;
But that His own, His loved ones slept,
And left Him all alone.

The sheep will hear the shepherd's cry,
The hen can call her brood,
Yet to His voice came no reply,
Shepherd, whose name is Good.

The flowers unfold them to the sun,
Some radiant grace to win;
The livelong night that torch burnt on,
Yet all was dark within.

A Stranger in the morning light,
Still at the door He stood,
His locks are drenched with dews of night,
His raiment stained with blood.

Suggested by Hunt's picture, The Light of the World.

XXIX. THE HOLY ANGELS.

Spirits blest in orders nine,
Choirs before the awful shrine
In ceaseless homage bending,
Angel guards in love divine
Man's fallen race befriending;

Burning seraphs who have place
Nighest to the Throne of Grace;
Virtues, Thrones, Dominions;
All who throng heaven's boundless space
Upborne on golden pinions;

Ye, O most mysterious seven,
Rulers of the hosts of heaven;
Dread Michael, prince of might;
Thou, to whom men's souls are given,
Sweet Raphael, guardian sprite!

Gabriel, hail! Redemption's angel
Who didst erst the blest evangel
To Mary's ear unfold;
Ye whose glittering robes bespangle
Heaven's pavement-floor of gold!

Spirit ever bright and fair,
Thou by whose peculiar care
My sinful soul is tended,
Stretch thy shield hell powers to scare
From me, till life be ended!

XXX. IN TEMPORE VESPERI ERIT LUX.

Of old, O Lord, Thy word was plight,
“At evening time there shall be light;”
Now darkly lowers the coming night,—
“Jesu, mercy.”

Chill wintry gusts are sweeping by,
All faintly gleams the shrouded sky,
The stars are fading from on high,—
“Exaudi me.”

We see each woe Thy seers reveal,
Each vial of Thy wrath we feel,
Almost we hear the trumpet peal
“Cum angelis.”

The rolling ages onward flow,
The world is hurrying to and fro,
Knowledge from more to more doth grow.

But not of Thee; opprest with fear,
Misdoubting all that once seemed clear,
Men deem the Anti-Christ is near.

The glories of Thine ancient home
Serve but to shew the gathering gloom,
The Sabbath of the world is come.

Cold is the Saint's unshrinking faith,
The hope that cheered the Martyr's death,—
Love freezes at the worldling's breath.

Yet most Thy promised light display,
Lest wandering from the ancient way,
Self-trusting still, we fondly stray.

Scarce with faint earth-dimmed glimmerings shine
The tapers set to guard the shrine,
No prophet speaks, we see no sign.

Thou only Good, Thou only True,
When faith is weak and friends are few,
Do Thou that promised light renew.

Give Thou us grace to understand,
'Mid prayers untrue and rites profaned,
The tokens of Thy guiding hand.

O be one gleam in mercy sent,
Ere by the judgment cry is rent
A flame-encompassed firmament,—
“Cum angelis.”

Ere yet that last, that dreadful light
Breaks but to éternize the night,
The dawning of the infinite,—
“Exaudi me.”

So, when the dead, earth's countless race,
Are ranged before Thine awful Face,
May we among the sheep have place,—
“Jesu, mercy.”

XXXI. A CHANCE MEETING.

Forgive me, if I dared to raise
An eager glance thou ill could'st brook;
Yet there was something in thy look
Which did not interdict my gaze.

Say, were it rudeness to impart
The smile-winged message of those eyes,
In whose bright depth unuttered lies
The voiceless converse of the heart?

That night we met—and not alone—
One short hour; yet, when some strange spell
Thrills all our being, who may tell
How many hours are lived in one?

I know but this—at thy warm touch
New life, new hopes within me woke,
New music in thine accents broke
Upon me, though he spoke not much,—

Music not hard to understand,
Whose echoes linger uneffaced;
Still lives in fond remembrance traced
The parting pressure of thy hand.

XXXII. THE MIDNIGHT MASS OF THE NATIVITY.

Alleluia! Lord most holy,
In Thy manger-throne we hail Thee:
Alleluia! meek and lowly,
Never shall our worship fail Thee.

Alleluia! choirs of angels
Sing at midnight-hour Thy glory,
To the watchful shepherds telling
From the skies thy natal story.

Alleluia! Child of Mary
Low the shepherds bend before Thee:
Alleluia! Eastern monarchs
With their costliest gifts adore Thee.

Alleluia! still unending
Rings the angel-note above;
From our shrines in praise ascending
Echoes earth's response of love.

Alleluia! shine the tapers,
Gleams the holly's burnished spray;
Alleluia! chant the Credo,
Christ, we welcome Thee to-day!

Alleluia! Lord most mighty,
Come upon our shrines to dwell!
Alleluia! Word incarnate!
Hark, it sounds—the sanctus-bell!

Down in adoration falling,
Hail, sweet Sacrament divine!
Hail, to Thee our souls are calling,
Thou art ours and we are Thine!

XXXIII. THE MANGER OF THE HOLY NIGHT.

O mystery of mysteries,
The Mighty God an Infant lies,
All cradled in a manger cold,
Coarse swaddling bands His limbs enfold!
Can this be He, of whom the seers have spoken,
This Jacob's star, of David's lineage sprung?
Sceptre of Israel, and is this Thy token?
Yea, thus the angel to the shepherds sung,
“Swathed in rude bands, and in a manger laid,
Behold your Saviour; be ye not afraid.”

Baby Jesus, who dost lie
All helplessly, all silently,
Throned on Mary's feeble arms,
Veiled in childhood's simple charms;
Hail Jesus, hail! athwart the manger glowing
Scarce the faint light reveals Thy humble bed,
The while around chill midnight gusts are blowing,
And oxen stalled where angels fear to tread.
St. Joseph o'er that sight half wondering grieves,
But Mary ponders, worships, and believes.

Baby Jesus, God most High,
Angel choirs adoringly,
In thousand, thousand circles wheeling,
Before Thy manger-throne are kneeling!
Though ox and ass in stupid awe be gazing,
Rude though the night-breeze, and the torch-light dim,
A light above all earthly light is blazing,
The loud “Excelsis” of the cherubim
Is sounding round Thee, soon shall Eastern kings
Pour at thy feet their costliest offerings.

Haste ye, twine the holly spray,
Be your offerings fresh and gay,
Be the altar-candles bright
For the mass this holy night;
Hail! Jesus, hail! Ten thousand shrines are gleaming,
Their odorous breath ten thousand censers fling;
Ten thousand, thousand choirs, as is beseeming,
Sound their glad homage to the Christ, the King.
Hail! Jesus, hail! great God, Thy power we own,
Prostrate we fall before Thy sacramental throne!

XXXIV. THE CHILDREN'S HYMN.

Hear Thy children, gentle Jesus,
Hear Thy children cry to Thee;
Self and sin no more shall please us,
Hear our solemn litany!

Thou didst suffer, gentle Jesus,
Bitter shame and agony;
From sin's bondage to release us
Thou didst hang upon the tree.

Thou didst bear the nails and spitting,
Cruel scourge and thorny crown,
And the soldiers' mockery sitting
Meekly on Thy mimic throne.

Thou didst bear the Jews' deriding,
Judas' guilt, and Herod's pride,
And Thy Mother's grief abiding
Mute and tearful by Thy side.

But my sins it was that stung Thee,
Not the scourge, and nails, and spear;
'Twas my sins alone that hung Thee
On the Cross, my Saviour dear!

By Thy childhood, gentle Jesus;
By the pains Thou didst endure,
Let not sin and Satan please us,
Make us gentle, good, and pure!

Thou wast pierced, O gentle Jesus,
Pierced that sinners might not die;
O let sin no longer please us,
Make us Thine eternally!

Gentle Jesus! Thou hast won us
By Thy Passion and Thy love:
Gentle Jesus! deign to own us
In the land of rest above!

XXXV. AN EASTER GREETING.

At the still matin hour
The guard of Pilate slept,
Sleepless with anguish in her lonely bower
The blessèd Mary wept.

At the still matin hour
A light from heaven hath shone;
The slumberers woke what time the seraph's power
Rolled back the sealèd stone.

Ere yet those slumberers woke,
Ere yet the angel came,
A vision blest on Mary's stillness broke,
A sweet voice breathed her name.

The forty hours are o'er,
The grave yields up its dead,
The Soul in Limbus tarries now no more,
Jesus hath risen and death is vanquishèd.
Sing, for the woman's Seed hath crushed the serpent's head.

XXXVI. THE END OF MAN.

I loved the beauty of the earth,
The brightness of the skies;
Life wooed me with its careless mirth!
My birthright and my prize.

I loved in smooth self-chosen ways
My truant steps to guide,
The Syren voice of partial praise
Was music to my pride.

The lights of heaven shone pale and dim
On eyes that would not see,
The wisdom of the Seraphim
Was foolishness to me.

My life and treasure they were here,
My throbbing pulse beat high,
My step was free, my glance was clear
With youth's gay buoyancy.

But youth was short, and life was frail,
And human praise untrue,
Created beauty but a veil
To hide Thee from my view.

'Twas not for these Thou madest me,
But for Thyself, O Lord;
Thou bad'st me rest alone in Thee,
My Prize and my Reward.

All earthly joy shall fail at last,
All earthly love grow cold,
Save loves by that one Love made fast
To Jesus and His fold.

This earth is but a trial place
To train the souls of men,
Till Nature is transformed to grace,
We know not how nor when.

All earthly aims shall have an end,
All earthly hopes expire;
All faiths that are not Faith, but tend
To the eternal fire.

One aim there is of endless worth,
One sole sufficient Love,
To do Thy will, my God, on earth,
And reign with Thee above.

Who have in life that one true aim,
That only hope in death,
Shall pass unscathed the trial-flame
And earn the amarant wreath.

From joys that failed my soul to fill,
From hopes that all beguiled,
To changeless rest in Thy dear will,
O Jesus, call Thy child.

XXXVII. TO L. H. D.

Thou ne'er hast learnt in this world's specious school
To sneer at friendship, and relinquish truth;
Thy heart, untaught to love and hate by rule,
Beats with the freshness and the fire of youth,
While thy gay spirit's artless constancy
Glows in the blue depths of thy speaking eye.
Would my affection could impart to thee,
Dearest, one half so much as I have caught
In the unconscious interchange of thought
From gazing on thy soul's nobility!
Through the wide world I sought, and found not one
Whose love could do for me what thine hath done.
O blest in life, O doubly blest in death,
To whom is given thy keen unwavering faith!

XXXVIII. A CHARACTER.

(TO ------)

A sound of voices that have long been still—
The sunshine of their smile who smile no more—
The murmurous music of a mountain rill,
Speaking to memory's ear the cherished lore
Of days that were and are not, and a home
Lost in the cloudland of ideal dreams
Whose retrospect is childhood, but their gleams
Light up dim glories in the ethereal dome
Arched o'er the vast hereafter;—such the spell
Wrought on me, as I gaze upon thy face,
And deeper far, beyond what words may tell,
Revealing in thy soul the blended grace
Of trustful calm with purpose pure and high,
Of manly strength with tenderest sympathy.

XXXIX. WAR PIECES, 1855.

I. Intercession.

O save the land that owns Thy sway,
Accept a nation's prayer;
O Father, in the multitude
Of Thy compassions spare!

Our boastful tongues were all too loud,
Our bounding hopes too high;
Too little of thanksgiving marked
Our song of victory.

Our faith we laid in England's might,
And not in England's God;
Thine arm was bared, but not in wrath—
We scorned to kiss the rod.

Death's Angel hovered o'er the fleet,
And trod the hospice ward;
The plague smote down, the waters 'whelmed,
More than the Russian sword.

Now our crushed hearts to Thee we lift,
To Thee our chastened song;
For the race it is not to the swift,
Nor the battle to the strong.

Yet let the past suffice for blame,
O God of mercy, spare!
O God of hosts, for Thy great name,
Fulfil thy people's prayer!

Stretch forth Thine hand to guard the right,
To avenge thine outraged laws;
Arise to fight for those who fight
For truth and freedom's cause.

Behold, O God, a people's tears,
Accept a people's prayer,
And, Father, in the multitude
Of thy compassions, spare!

100

II. Triumph.

Our English hearts beat high with joy,
As it passed from town to town,
The tale that was borne on the swift-winged wires
Of the battle fought and won.

Loud praised we them—the victor host,
Forearmed by Heaven's decree
To quell the proud oppressor's boast,
To bid the slave go free.

Through many a lordly palace-hall
Rung out the tale of mirth,
And toil-stained hands were clasped in prayer
By many a cottage hearth.

And old men wept for very joy
To hear of England's fame,
And infants' stammering lips were taught
To murmur Alma's name.

101

But soon a sadder tale was told,
And for fear men held their breath,
As each day's catalogue unrolled
Its messages of death;

Of the warrior-boy who had stood unmoved
Where the strife swept deadliest by,
Who, without a murmur, laid him down
In his triumph-hour to die;

Of the ranks like fresh ripe corn cut down,
When the raging batteries pealed;
Of the heroes who fighting hand to hand
Were slain on that blood-red field.

Through many an English home was hushed
The voice of Christmas mirth;
And orphan tears of anguish gushed
By many a widowed hearth.

Bright though the fame of victory wrought
In the unequal fight,
How dread in memory is the thought
Of that Crimean night!

102

The stars shine coldly from on high,
The flood rolls far beneath
Ruddy with slaughter, breaks no sound
The silentness of death.

Nought save the vulture's carrion cry
To mock the dying brave,
And the voice, borne on the night-wind's sigh,
Of Alma's rushing wave;

And, faintly breathed from dying lips
To dying comrades round,
The murmurous wail of thirst unslaked
Save from the gushing wound.

O still, while deep in English hearts
Are treasured England's dead,
For the brave on the battle-field laid low
Shall her grateful tears be shed.

While yet the old historic names
Of Cressy and Poictiers,
Of Trafalgar and Waterloo
Ring music in our ears;

103

As their renown from sire to son,
A long tradition, ran,
Mid England's household names shall live
Alma and Inkermann!

Of Alma, and the brother might
Of France and England's host,
Of Balaclava's dear-bought fame,
Of Eupatoria's coast,

Shall our sons' sons exulting tell,
Praising the well-fought fight;
Praising the noble dead who fell
For Freedom, Truth, and Right.

III. Our Fallen Heroes.

Not here do we sound the requiem note
For the brave who nobly fell;—
Borne far o'er the Black-Sea waters float
The echoes of their knell,

104

Far, far from the haunts of other days,
'Neath the cold Crimean sod,
Their bodies were laid with a nation's praise,
And their spirits returned to God:
But like churchyard flowers their memory blooms
Unexhausted still round their ancient homes.

Scarce seems it one short hour hath flown
Since ye dwelt beside us here,
Scarce yet had we missed the familiar tone
That swelled our school-boy cheer;
We seemed to feel you by our side
On the forms where we sit now,
Unmindful of the manlier pride
That flushed each warrior brow,
Till the news came borne on the Eastwind's breath
That the voice we had loved was stilled in death.

And, oh, when we met on our festal day
And the chant rose full and high,
We thought of our comrades far away
Who had laid them down to die;

105

We thought how the blazoned scroll should record
The letters of each name,
And the light from the storied window poured
Should mind us of your fame,
We knew that your presence would still be felt,
As we knelt at the shrine where our lost ones knelt;

And we solemnly pledged us ne'er to forget,
As the circling years rolled by,
How alone we can hope to redeem the debt
That is owed to your memory;
Not by twining crowns for your patriot brows
Of the laurel's fading wreath,
But by living a life whose example shows
What your lives and deaths bequeath;
By the strong resolve, and the purpose high
To do and suffer, to dare or die.

106

XL. THE MARTYR BOY .

CONSUMMATUS IN BREVI EXPLEVIT TEMPORA MULTA.

Dearest to me of all the martyr host,
Whose name, like some strange spell of memory,
Shifted the rudder of my being, tost
Darkly erewhile on doubt's tempestuous sea!

Champion of truth! in truth's predestined home,
Beneath the unchristened tyrant's ruthless sway,
Was gained thy crown of glorious martyrdom:
O guide our feet along the ancient way!

Glory of Boyhood! in the deepening gloom
Of Pagan night our eyes are fixed on thee,
Joying to consecrate the first fresh bloom
Of thy young heart's unsullied purity

To Him who loved thee. Flower of innocence,
Dear follower of the Child of Nazareth,
Taming for His dear sake each rebel sense
To stern obedience in the grasp of death!

107

Favourite of Jesus! in thy trial hour
He still was by thee, making darkness light;
The wild beasts of the Coliseum cower
Owning thy triumph in the unequal fight.

And fiercer far than they, the expectant crowd,
Drunk with the blood of Saints, are speechless now,
Tranced as in ecstacy; so brightly glowed
The unearthly lustre on thy virgin brow.

Mirror of chastity! as years roll by,
Fresh votaries press to kneel around thy grave,
Fresh laurels grace thy deathless victory,
So strong, so pure, so beautiful, so brave!

Saint of our Saxon sires! thy cherished name
Was once a household word on English tongues;
Forgive the long neglect, the bitter shame,
Forgive three centuries of cruel wrongs.

Return once more to this dear land, return,
Bring back the ancient zeal, the ancient joy,
Bid the old love in our cold bosoms burn,
Bring back the faith that armed our Martyr Boy!

Pancrasius, martyred at Rome under Diocletian, aged fourteen.

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XLI. THE CHILD-CHRIST ON THE CROSS.

DOLOR MEUS IN CONSPECTU MEO SEMPER.

His face is flushed with Boyhood's glow,
His earnest eyes are raised to heaven;
No thorn has scarred that bloodless brow,
Nor hands nor feet by nails are riven.

They have not bared His limbs in scorn,
Nor robbed Him of His seamless vest;
No scourge His virgin flesh has torn,
No soldier's spear has gashed His breast.

No crowds press round with ribald cry
To mock the helpless Saviour's woes;—
Why bides He there so patiently?
Why hangs the Child-Christ on the Cross?

109

Not yet are poured those bitter tears,
The Blood to save a world undone;
And of those three and thirty years
Scarce the first twelve their course have run.

O why that self-made Cross embrace?
Why antedate the coming strife?
Why blend with Boyhood's dawning grace
Dread shadows of a tortured life?

The chalice steeped in this world's sin,
The sweat of dark Gethsemane,
The burning thirst our souls to win,
The baptism of the bleeding Tree,

The traitor in the midnight gloom,
The guilty Herod's murderous fears,
The shout that hails the unrighteous doom—
Creep onward with the creeping years.

They come, they come, my Saviour Lord,
The snares around Thy path are set,
The foeman's darts against Thee stored—
They come, but oh, they come not yet.

110

Not yet in pride, or hate, or scorn,
A tyrant world hath risen to slay;
Oh wherefore dim life's early morn
With storms that wrap the closing day?

Victim of love, in manhood's prime
Thou wilt ascend the Cross to die;
Why hangs the Child before His time
Stretched on that bed of agony?

“No thorn-wreath crowns My boyish brow,
No scourge has dealt its cruel smart,
In hands and feet no nail-prints show,
No spear is planted in My heart.

“They have not set Me for a sign,
Hung bare beneath the sunless sky;
Nor mixed the draught of gall and wine
To mock My dying agony.

“The livelong night, the livelong day,
My child, I travail for thy good,
And for thy sake I hang alway
Self-crucified upon the Rood.

111

“To witness to the living Truth,
To keep thee pure from sin's alloy,
I cloud the sunshine of My youth;
The Man must suffer in the Boy.

“Visions of unrepented sin,
The forfeit crown, the eternal loss,
Lie deep my sorrowing soul within,
And nail My Body to the Cross.

“The livelong night, the livelong day,
A Child upon that Cross I rest;
All night I for My children pray,
All day I woo them to My breast.

“Long years of toil and pain are Mine,
Ere I be lifted up to die,
Where cold the Paschal moonbeams shine
At noon on darkened Calvary.

“Then will the thorn-wreath pierce My brow
The nails will fix Me to the tree;
But I shall hang as I do now,
Self-crucified for love of thee!”

112

XLII. SNOWDONIA.

Farewell! 'tis a stranger his blessing bequeaths,
Refuse not the offering he tremblingly brings,
For the harp of the North no fond patriot wreathes,
And chill is the hand that swept o'er its wild strings.

Thy minstrels no more sing of saintly Gwydellyn,
Or of Arthur who routed the infidel Dane,
Yet fancy shall dwell on the feats of Llewellyn,
And dirge-like re-echo their once potent strain.

Farewell to the tints of thy shadow-stained mountains,
Farewell to the mist-wreaths that hang on their brow,
Farewell to the voice of thy clear sparkling fountains,
That merrily gush to the valleys below!

Full often in day-dreams of youthful emotion
The heart shall revisit thy wood-skirted lakes,
Though bright be the smile of the summer-lit ocean,
A brighter on them the soft mountain-breeze wakes.

How fair are the sunbeams aërially blending
On Snowdon in veins of green varying light,
And, if from the mountain-top clouds are descending
Are not earth's brightest joys ever shrouded in night?

113

XLIII. EUCHARISTICA.

Jesus, in Thy dear Sacrament
Thy Cross I cannot see,
But the Crucified is offered there,
And He was slain for me.

Jesus, in Thy dear Sacrament
Thy Flesh I cannot see,
But that Flesh is given to be our food,
And it was scourged for me.

Jesus, in Thy dear Sacrament
Thy Blood I cannot see,
But the Chalice glows with those red drops
On Calvary shed for me.

Jesus, in Thy dear Sacrament
Thy Face I cannot see,
But angels there behold the brow
Thorn-crowned for love of me.

114

Jesus, in thy dear Sacrament
Thy Heart I cannot see,
But that fiery Heart is prisoned there,
And it was pierced for me.

Jesus, my Maker and my God,
Thy Godhead none may see,
But Thou art present, God and Man,
In Thy Sacrament with me.

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XLIV. MATER DOLOROSA.

I. Salus Infirmorum.

Mother of mercy, thou,
When the worn frame is racked with agony,
When Reason's self scarce lights the glazing eye,
And Memory darkens Hope, art ever nigh
To soothe the fevered brow!

Thou who didst bend in love
O'er Joseph's tranquil deathbed, who didst fall
Prostrate to worship in the judgment hall
The blood of Jesus, still the sufferer's call
Thy mother's heart can move.

When the chill frost-wind's breath
Shook the rough death bed of the bleeding tree,
Tearing the nail-prints open, thou didst see
Each throb of anguish: therefore near us be
In sickness and in death!

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II. Refugium Peccatorum.

Mother of purity,
Immaculate in thy conception, ne'er
Did Saint hate sin, as thou didst hate it; where
Was sinner's plaint outpoured to pitying ear
So welcome as to thee?

Thou by the darkened Cross
For three long hours didst echo back the cry,
‘Father forgive,’ till Dimas' mockery
Was turned to prayer, and Jesus' pardoning eye
Cancelled his endless loss.

Thou through the lengthening years
Dost travail with the children of thy woes,
Jesus' bequest in death; oh, let those throes
Of mother's anguish win to sure repose
The sinner's guilty fears!

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III. Consolatrix Afflictorum.

Mother in sorrows proved!
Gentlest of sympathizers! Who hath felt
Such grief as thine was? Who like thee hath knelt
Helpless, unpitied, while the blow was dealt
To slay thy Best-beloved?

To thee we lift our eyes,
Exiles and pilgrims in this vale of tears
Wandering forlorn, while Salem's mount uprears
Its burning brow, and for the eternal years
The homesick spirit sighs.

O Mary, Mother blest,
Sweetest of earth's consolers, at thy name
The captive's chains fall off, the voice of blame
Is still, the moan of grief, the cry of shame
Are hushed upon thy breast!

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XLV. MATER CORONATA.

Mother, on this thy festal morn
From thousand, thousand choirs are borne
Thy praises to the sky,
While, myriad-voiced, the angel throng
Give back the echoes of our song,
Mother of God Most High!

Sphered deep within the rainbow zone
Of emerald light that girds the throne,
Thy majesty we greet;
Thy vesture of the Orient beam,
The twelve-starred crown thy diadem,
The moon beneath thy feet.

God's glory is thy matchless dower,
Ark of the Covenant, ivory Tower
With myrrh and cassia stored,
Within whose undefiled womb
The true Shekinah made His home,
Shrine of the Living Word!

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When friends abound, and health is strong,
And days are bright with mirth and song,
Virgin most pure, uphold us!
When threatening lower those skies so mild
That erst with faithless lustre smiled,
O let thine arms enfold us!

When the hot restlessness of life
Hath marred the spirit's holier strife,
And on our darkling sight
The far-off land of beauty fades,
Like summer tints from mountain glades,
Look down, oh Virgin bright!

Stretched on the bed of agony,
When nought is left us but to die,
And voices from the tomb
Each moment nearer and more near
Ring mocking music in the ear,
Telling of wrath to come,

When time, and change, and death are o'er,
And cast upon the eternal shore
Our souls unbodied lie,
Call us, absolved from earthly stains,
To that dear home, whe e Jesus reigns,
Beyond the starry sky.

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XLVI. BEATUS SIS, CARISSIME!

I love to gaze on thy face so fair,
And the sunny locks of thy flowing hair,
And to read the joyous spell that lies
In the flashing glance of those dark bright eyes.

But thou art wayward, wild, and young;
Thy will is weak, and the world is strong;
O ne'er may her fond wiles have power
To lure thee in temptation's hour!

Let no earth-stain of sin defile
The freshness of that radiant smile;
Still on thy brow the cross be bright,
Unmarred thy chrisom's spotless white.

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Blithe be thy boyhood, blest thy youth,
Nursed in the ways of holiest truth,
Thine be the draught of innocent joy,
The purer, sure, the last to cloy,

A generous heart, a happy home,
A life that lightens others' gloom,
High gifts to highest uses given,
An honoured grave, an early heaven!

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XLVII. THE MARTYRDOM AT CANTERBURY.

Through Canterbury's long-drawn aisles
The vesper-hymn was pealing,
And the censer's breath fell in snowy wreath
On crowds upon the marble pavement kneeling.

Of Him who came, the world's true Light,
All in the winter dreary,
At midnight cold in the days of old,
The Son of God, the Son of blessed Mary:

Of Him, as o'er the sunset sky
Dark shades of eve were thronging,
The brethren sung, and the arched roof rung,
Each fretted bend the far-off notes prolonging.

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But hark! that loud unholy din
The cloistral echoes waking,
And the heavy tread that affrights the dead,
And clash of arms the tomb's weird stillness breaking!

Far up the nave the sound is borne,
Nigher it comes and nigher,
And for very fear they pause to hear,
In quivering thrills the hymn's last notes expire.

Now glancing in the northern aisle
Those mail-clad forms they see;
Hear the taunts so rude of those men of blood,
“Where is the traitor Prelate, where is he?”

Then raising high his pastoral cross,
The Archbishop came alone;
Unruffled his brow, and his speech was slow,
As he stood beside St. Bennett's altar-stone.

“He whom ye seek, God's chosen priest,
No traitor false am I;
But your tyrant lord, he hath given the word,
Work forth your will: I yield not, though I die.”

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He turned him to the altar then,
His hands in prayer upraising:
“To Him whose sovereign will both ye and all fulfil,
To God most high, above all mortal praising;

“Blest Mary, and the patrons all
Of this polluted shrine,
Denys, the martyr-saint, who hears the dying plaint;
To them I leave the Church's cause and mine.”

Meekly is bent that lofty brow,
The murderer's knife hath sped;
They may cleanse the blood-stains, but the guilt remains;
It clings to them, the soul to heaven hath fled.

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XLVIII. FAREWELL TO HARROW.

I.

Can the sorrow-laden heart be touched with free poetic fire?
Can the hand be true that trembles as it sweeps across the lyre?
Sweet floats the linnet's evensong on the scented breeze of May,
The winter thrush pours cheerily his matin roundelay;
But alas! we are too sin-defiled such artless note to learn,
And the mists of earth too rudely quench high thoughts that in us burn;
Ne'er wept those wingèd choristers, no care hath vexed their breast,
They never knew our memories of trouble and unrest.

Yet, Harrow, I should do thee wrong, if no fond lay of mine,
All tuneless though its accents be, were offered on thy shrine.
'Tis sad to part from cherished scenes, and sadder still to mourn
O'er wasted gifts and hours misspent that never can return,
And faintly blending with the strain falls on the listening ear
A dirge-like under-song that tells the end of all things near,

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For each change in this our outward life to the still eye of faith
Is another barrier broken between our souls and death.

Ah, wherefore thankless do we slight the blessings of to-day?
Why prize no happiness till it has almost passed away?
Is it, that, still unsatisfied, our ardent longings crave
For something which cannot be found on this side of the grave?
The rainbow tints are loveliest when just melting from the view,
When friends are parting from our side, 'tis then we feel them true;
Our holiest sympathies are fed by heart-ennobling fears,
And softest falls the glance of love when it is dimmed by tears.

As Chivalry's sworn votaries watched of old the livelong night,
With their banners waving over them and the Holy Cross in sight,
Till the third sunrise streaked with gold the ruddy Eastern sky,
And they with prayer and vow might don their knightly panoply;—

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So should the Christian soldier prelusive vigil keep,
And in dews of kindliest influence his youthful senses steep,
Watching his arms, ere he essay the battle-field of life,
To anneal his heart in purity, and nerve him for the strife.

Bright visions thronged their warrior souls, and lit their kindling eyes,
Who knelt at midnight hour to muse on knighthood's high emprise.
They dreamt, perchance, of ladye-love, and the tournay's glittering ring,
How the pen their deeds should chronicle, and the minstrel o'er them sing,
Or vowed a pilgrim vow to wrest from miscreant hands and rude
The sepulchre where Christ was laid, the soil that drank His blood;—
Solemn and glorious dreams, too oft doomed with the morn to fade,
When Time and Chance on yearning hopes their icy touch have laid!

Even thus in boyhood's eager glance, while all around is bright,
Young Fancy revels aureole-crowned with rays of summer light,

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While yet the heart beats fresh and true, and love is not a name,
But a living power to disentrance the affections' hidden flame;
Ere the smooth cheek has lost its bloom, and thought its early glow,
Or the witness mark of shame hath scarred the yet unfurrowed brow,
Ere manhood's frown has withered the fragrance of our youth,
And manhood's wisdom turned to doubt the blessed hope of truth.

How bright the promise of that hour, how sweet in memory still,
Its careless mirth, its keen desire, its ignorance of ill!
Dear as the grasp of brother hands, when friends are doomed to part,
Whose words shall wake through after years, deep echoes in the heart,—
And pleasant as to longing eyes the mellowed sunset ray
That cheers the unrelenting gloom of a November day,—
So sweet the memory yet so sad, so pleasant the regret,
That 'minds one of those schoolboy days we never can forget.

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Farewell, farewell,—'tis meet once more to wake the dying strain,
A gentle cadence, ere it sink never to rise again,
As on the incense-breathing air low-chaunted requiems swell,
As sounds the lingering music of the far-off midnight bell.
Youth's dreams are like spring flowerets, that blossom but to die,
When the scorching heat of summer suns glares fiercely from on high;
Memory and Hope within my soul future and past are blending,
The dream is o'er, the morning breaks, but who may tell the ending?

II. ANOTHER FAREWELL.

Sweet is the memory of the days gone by
The well-known voice, the loved familiar spot
We trod so oft, ere Youth's gay buoyancy
Was lost for aye, in Manhood's sterner lot.

'Tis sweet to muse on Childhood's opening prime,
On school-boy's days of careless merriment,
When life rolled o'er us like a Sunday chime
Of church-bells, breathing gladness and content.

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How bright the dreams of Boyhood's marvelling hour,
The first warm blush of young affection's glow,
The dawning sense of half-unconscious power,
The ready tear which age forbids to flow:—

These once were ours; and, as we linger near
This churchyard-stone, their memory wakes again
At thought of him, who loved to murmur here
The prelude music of that thrilling strain,

Whose full-voiced echoes sounded round our youth,
Striking the key-note of our inner lives,
Blending strange shapes in guise of seeming truth,
With spell, whose witchery still, disowned, survives .

Here passed his boyhood, 'mid the smiles and tears
That chequer life's sweet April; here were nursed
The powers for good or ill, in after years
Doomed, like the thunder's deafening crash, to burst

On souls that felt his mastery, while the keen,
Swift lightning-flash their every thought revealed,
Playing o'er mountain-sides of fadeless green,
Gilding deep founts, erewhile in darkness sealed.

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Dread power was thine for good or ill, alas!
Full oft misused for evil! But this scene
Suits not with sinful memories,—let them pass,—
Here we but muse of thee as thou hast been

In youth's first spring-time. Here no word of blame,
No bitter curse shall over thee be said:
Speak here your blessing on the Poet's name,
Breathe your kind requiem for the noble dead!

“Byron's Tombstone,” in Harrow Churchyard.

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XLIX. REQUIEM ÆTERNAM.

To die, and be at rest
Beneath the churchyard sod,
The corpse in cere-cloths drest,
The spirit with its God.

To die, and be at rest,
Lapped in ethereal fires,
Nor sight nor thought unblest
To kindle base desires.

To die, and be at rest
Beyond the world's annoy,
No cares to vex the breast,
No tears to trouble joy.

To die, and be at rest
Where slander's tongue is still,
Where praise nor mars our best
Nor consecrates our ill.

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To die, and be at rest
Where earthly tumults cease,
Where storms may ne'er infest
The haven of our peace.

To die, and be at rest
With them that part no more,
Rocked gently on the breast
Of loved ones gone before.

To die, and be at rest
Beyond the power of sin,
Love an abiding Guest
The ransomed soul within.

To die, and be at rest,
For this our natures crave,
The last home of the blest,
The world beyond the grave.

To die, and be at rest,
'Tis childhood's earliest dream,
In terror unexprest
Shrinking from life's dark stream.

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To die, and be at rest,
'Tis manhood's bitter cry,
With thankless toils opprest
Of wasted energy.

To die, and be at rest,
Old age with feeble moan
Echoes the long request
To lay its burden down.

To die, and be at rest,
It is a Christian prayer,
For death is God's behest,
Christ and His Saints are there.

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L. MEDIÆVAL INFLUENCES.

(A Fragment.)

It was upon a chill autumnal night,
Such as, full oft, our changeful climate sends,
While summer lingering, as in act to go,
Sojourns awhile amid September winds;—
On such a night, by ocean's moon-lit marge
I wandered, where upon the shelving sand
Billows in silvery succession broke
Incessantly, with their clear orisons
Mingling my last farewells. And in their sound,
Whose soft vibration hung upon the ear
Of midnight, memories of another world,
Dim echoes of the past, mysteriously
Blent with the vision of these latter days.
Methought upon a mist-enshrouded plain,
In wavy outline partially revealed,
Earth's mail-clad armies battled valiantly;
Ah me! in what unholy, godless strife,
What dissonance of feudal anarchy!

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For knighthood, holiest ordinance of man,
The guardian sworn of Faith and Constancy,
Raged in tumultuous forgetfulness
Of virgin honour, and the name of Christ.
The Church (methought) of glory dispossessed,
Herself a very battle-field of strife,
Audibly mourned her failing unity,
A worldly priesthood, and the din unblest
Of jarring systems, the ambitious wrath
Of grasping princes, apostolic zeal
An empty name, by self-indulgent monks
And warrior priests indignantly forsworn.

O was it then a wild, unreal spell,
The phantasy of a disordered brain,
That dream of mediæval sanctity?
Sorrowing I gazed with half-averted eye,
When sudden on the gathering storm was laid
A potent incantation, and thy name,
O Rome, a gentle yet majestic voice,
Breathed o'er the unquiet nations, “Peace, be still!”
Earth heard and trembled; from her monarchs' grasp,
By merciful compulsion overawed,
Low fell the sceptre, impiously raised
To strike the crozier; Chivalry uprose,
A beautiful creation, new-baptized,

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And cleansed from taint of earthliness impure
By reverence for our Lady; and the Church
Was felt once more, the sinner's healing balm,
The mourner's refuge, and the wanderer's home,
The worldling's dread, a quiet anchorage
Of troubled spirits, a reality
Magnificently present on the earth,
Signing her tinsel glories with the cross.
'Twas as the voiceless benediction laid
On the few kneelers at the lamp-lit shrine
Of some monastic chancel, watching there
All night before the blessed Sacrament,
The vouchsafed presence of the Holy One.

O Rome, most hallowed, most benignant power,
Do they not err, who deem thy gentle sway
A godless usurpation; who would fain
Blot thy remembrance from the blazoned scroll
Of the recorded past; who will not see
The vanquished perils, and the thwarted aims,
The sweet corrections and the heedful love
Owed to thy delegated Sovereignty,
A voice not uncommissioned to proclaim
The else unheeded mandates of the Church?

Nor therefore deem our common Lord dethroned,
Our Lord and hers, because at Mary's shrine,

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In high ecstatic self-devotion wrapt,
The feudal warrior learnt to prize aright
The unselfish ardour of chivalric love.
To such, methought, a Saint of that dark age,
Dark to our earth-dimmed eyes, made clam reply;
“Who kneel to Mary, kneel to Mary's Son,
“And therefore to the Mother-Maid we cry,
“Because her Son is God; no rite profane,
“No goddess-worshipping idolatry
“Is ours; to Him due honour we accord
“Unlimited, unquestioning, entire,
“The perfect service of obedient love;
“To her such limited and mediate power
“As may befit a creature glorified,
“Brightest and purest of the white-robed band
“Who stand for aye before the throne of God,
“One who perchance may pour, and not in vain,
“An intercession for the little flock
“Purchased by Jesu's all-redeeming Blood.”

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LI. IN MEMORIAM C. H. C.

Accept, dear friend, the tribute-note
Of this my last farewell,
While yet the echoes round me float
Of thy deep dying knell.
What though the heart be all on fire
With thoughts of other years,
Cold is the hand that sweeps the lyre,
The eye is dim with tears.

How many a word was left unsaid,
How much was unconfest!—
Can earthly memories vex the dead
In that far land of rest?
Nay, clearer than yon evening star,
With perfect radiance decked,
Blame cannot fret nor passion mar
The peace of God's elect.

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But we are left to breast the wave,
When thou hast gained the shore;
To pass through sorrow to the grave,
When thou canst weep no more.
God grant our meeting, brother dear,
In that sweet home above,
Where they that chose His service here
Are guerdoned with His love!