Collected Poems: With Autobiographical and Critical Fragments ::

Reflections in the Campo Santo at Pisa. The fresco, ascribed to Orcagna, which represents Death at the Festival, suggests the thought that it may be better to die in the flush of youth than to live on into a state of decadence and disgust with life (1—30). He who thus feels the freshness of youth escaping him cannot renew it by the mere contact with the fresh emotion of others (31—58). His habitual melancholy contrasts painfully with the accesses of grief which alternated with keen joy in his earlier years (59—92). If he now occasionally fancies that the old power of feeling remains to him, the illusion does not last long, and he is fain to acquiesce in the exhaustion of his emotional power (93—114). Yet he can scarcely avoid bitterness at the thought of how small his share of emotional delight has been in comparison with all that the future holds in reserve for mankind (115—146). Sometimes he will shape a vision of some ideal love which might have been his, though well knowing that even should some one be born into the world who realises his dream he will have no part in her affections or memories (147—176). Instinctively revolting at the prospect of an approaching extinction he reviews with alternations of hope and despair the possibility of a future existence (177—222). Light on this subject often seems as unattainable now as in the days when Virgil pondered the same problems (223—240). But certain moments seem to carry with them something of inspired insight or of lofty emotion which is at any rate the best basis for practice (241—290). At any rate a man by the sheer effort of the Will may maintain himself in that state of inflexible fearlessness which Virgil admires in Lucretius

237

(291-296). The languor and melancholy which the aspect of Pisa symbolises may be overcome by this resolute courage, this “living force of the mind” which Lucretius found strong enough to afford to mankind at least the triumph of intellectual insight and philosophic calm (297-312).

ERGO VIVIDA VIS ANIMI PERVICIT—

At Pisa, where the cypress-spires alway
Stand in the languor of the Pisan day,
And airs are motionless, and Arno fills
With brimming hush the hollow of the hills;—
There once alone, from noon till evening's shade,
I paced the echoing cloistral colonnade;
Heard like a dream the grey rain-river fall
On hallowed turf that hath the end of all;
Saw like a ghost the flying form that saith,
“Orcagna knew me; know me; I am Death.”

Come then, I said, kind Death, come ever thus,
Swift with a sword on young men amorous!
And thou, youth, thank her that her wiry wings
Snatch thee full-blooded from the feast of kings;
Nor live to outlive thyself, to sigh and know
With waxing restlessness a waning glow;
Even from those hateful ashes of desire
To feel reborn the cold and fruitless fire;

238

To look, and long a little, and turn aside,
Half over-satiate, half unsatisfied.
Then is no help but that thine eyes must see
Thine inner self stand forth and mock at thee;
Must watch to death in shadowy convoy roll
Thy strength, thy song, thy beauty and thy soul.
No help! and with what anger shalt thou then
Look on the glad lives of up-springing men,
With hearts still high, and still before them fair
All oceans navigable and ambient air;—
How shalt thou love, and envy, and despise
Their hope unreasonable and ardent eyes!

Then if some stainless maid desires no more
Than her fresh soul into thy soul to pour,—
All her pure glory at thy feet will fling,
And give thee youth and ask not anything;—
Take not the boon illusive;—yet I know
That thou wilt take and she will have it so;
Nor once alone; but thou in vain shalt see
On many a cheek the rose of amity,
And for no lasting profit shalt essay
On many a heart thy mastering wistful way,
And speak thus gently, and regard her thus
With loving eyes a little tyrannous,—
As though her passion passion's power could give,
Or heart could melt in heart, or death could live.

239

Alas, in vain shall that love-light illume
Her cheek transparent and her rosy bloom,
And hopes that flush and happy thoughts that rise
Make living lucid sapphire of her eyes;—
Since all is nothing, and aloof, alone,
With swirl and severance as of Arve and Rhone,
Must heart from heart dissunder; way from way
Part, and to-morrow know not of to-day.
So weighs the Past upon us; such a thing
It is to have grown too wise for comforting;
In a few notes to have sung all thy song,
And in a few years to have lived too long;
Till thy mere voice and soulless shadow now
Recall that this was thine, and this was thou.

O sweet young hours, when one divine love yet
Seemed a new birth thou never couldst for-get!
When day on day for the impassioned boy
Came flooding like a silver sea of joy,—
So keen that often o'er his eyes would sweep
The gracious wings of momentary sleep,
To leave their light re-risen, and the brain
Re-kindled for the rapture that was pain!
Then griefs wherein no thought of self had part,
The just and manful angers of the heart,—

240

When hands would clench, and clear cheek light and glow,
To be so powerless for another's woe,
And young disdain, and love, and generous fears
Burst in a proud simplicity of tears!

Ah! even those pains were noble! strange and pure
As thunders of the breaking calenture,
When storm-refreshed the bounding rivers run,
And the oak shakes his diamonds in the sun,
Nor cares how brightly on the forest flew
That wildering levin-bolt alive anew.
But these succeeding sorrows I compare
To the chill ruin of October air,
When all earth's life is spent, nor can regain
Strength in the hopeless pauses of the rain,
But scarce the dumb woods shiver, and at a breath
Falls the wan leaf, and then they whisper, “Death.”

For faiths will die and ancient landmarks fail,
And promised Eden grow a lovely tale;
And even, by length of years, by sheer decay,
The fiery flower of Love consumes away;
No help to seek, and none to blame, but gone
Like all things else that men set life upon;

241

Like all that seemed immortal, all that smiled
Mixt with the morn and glory of the child.

Then one at last in cities far away
Hears late in night lamenting hautboys play,
Sees glittering all in swan-soft order sit
That kingdom's fairest and the pride of it;
Till, when one face amid all faces seems
Lit with the witchery of a thousand dreams,
He wonders,—could he change his race and tongue,
And once be joyous, and again be young,—
If, leaning o'er that braided golden head,
New words and sweeter he should find unsaid,
And a last secret and pervading stir
In the soft look and woman-ways of her.
Nay, the fond dream he would so fain prolong
Breaks with a shock of intermitting song,
And truth returns, and in a single sigh
Must that faint love be born at once and die.
“For soon,” he saith, “will feverous dreams be spent;
Exhaustion surely shall beget content;
I have lost my battle; doubtless it is best
To have no longing left me but for rest;
In this worn heart, with some last love's decease,
To make a solitude and call it peace.”

Yet when a wave of happy laughter low
Stirs in his soul the deep of long ago;—

242

When his world-wearied ears have overheard
From sweet new lips a sweet accustomed word;—
Then all awakes again, and worse than nought
Seem the best passions which his youth has brought,—
Being such a drop in so profound a sea,
Having given one glimpse of Love's supremacy,
Shown at a glance what great delight shall come
When his eyes see not and his lips are dumb.
How many a glorious joy for ever missed!
How many words unspoken, lips unkissed!
Eyes that shall yet renew with softer play
Thro' many a century the world-old way;—
Hearts from whose glow shall glory of love be shed
Round hearts still living, and o'er his tomb long dead!

Man, while thou mayst, love on! with sound and flowers
Make maddening moments into maddening hours,
Let hours aflame enkindle as they fly
Those loves of yore that in thy darkness die:—
Blest, in that glamour could all life be spent
Before the dawn and disillusionment!
Love on! thy far-off children shall possess

243

That flying gleam of rainbow happiness:—
Each wish unfilled, impracticable plan,
Goes to the forging of the force of Man;
Thro' thy blind craving novel powers they gain,
And the slow Race develops in its pain:—
See their new joy begotten of thy woe,
When what thy soul desired their soul shall know;—
Thy heights unclimbed shall be their wonted way,
Thy hope their memory, and thy dream their day.

Ah, but I had a vision once, nor dare
Recall it often, lest it melt in air!
Whose was the face that thro' the shadows came
And shook the dew from hair that waved like flame?
What made her look aërial? ay, or shed
Divineness on that visionary head?
And whence the words that on her silence hung,
Looked thro' her eyes and died upon her tongue?—
“Love, who had dreamt it, who had dared to say
Our bliss could come so close, and flee away?”
Not even the Night shall know her; it may be

244

Some falling star would speak it to the sea;
Then the sea's voice would to the shore declare
The hidden sweetness of the First and Fair,
And fisher-maidens into morn prolong
For love the amorous echoes of the song.

Yet if indeed that dear face fugitive,
The dream-begotten, in the day shall live,
And through night's spaces floats the lovely shade
Before the birth and body of the maid,—
How sweet it were to die and still be strong,
To clasp her close with grave and mastering song,—
That she with no interpreter might see
The sincere man and hidden heart of thee,
And down her soft cheek happy tears might roll,
Hearing the dead voice of the sister-soul!
How slight and how impossible a boon
I ask, and love too late, or live too soon!
Only the brief regret, the grace of sighs,
I ask; can Fate deny it? Fate denies.

Crushed, as by following wave the wave before!
To have lived and loved so little, and live no more!
Call this not sleep; through sweet sleep's longest scope

245

Runsin a golden dream unconscious Hope;
Hope parts the lips and stirs the happy breath,
And sleep is sleep, but endless Death is Death.

Hereat the soul will evermore recur
To that great chance which makes herself for her;
If but the least light glimmer and least hope glow
From that unseen place which no soul can know,—
Whereof so many a sage hath spun in vain
Thoughts fancy-fashioned in a dreaming brain;—
Whereof the priests, for all they say and sing,
Know none the more, nor help in anything;—
Nor more herein can man to man avail
Than to his sorrowing mate the nightingale,—
Nor more can brother unto brother tell
Than blind who leads the blind, though loving well:—
If by some gleam unearthly indeed be lit
That land, and God the sun and moon of it,—
How easy then, how possible to bear
The thoughts that come at night, and are despair,—
Youth wasted, hopes decaying, friends untrue,
Life with no faith to follow or deed to do;

246

Loves lost, and waning joys, and waked again
The old unquenchable relapse of pain;—
And through these all the ceaseless fruitless fire,
The upward heavenward flickering fierce desire,
The thrilling pang, the tremor of unrest,
The quickening God unborn within the breast,
Which none believe but who have felt, and they
Feel evermore by night and in the day;
For tho' in early youth such longing rose
This single passion gathers as it goes;
And this at dawn wakes with thee, this at even
Hangs in the kindling canopies of heaven;
This, like a hidden water's running tune
Revives the wistful pause of afternoon;—
For strength is this and weakness, hope and fear
By turns, as far sometimes, sometimes anear,
Glows the great Hope, which all too oft will seem
A false inherited delightful dream,
Dreamt of our fathers for blind ease, which we
Knowing that they knew not, seeing they could not see,
Must wake from and have done with, and be brave
Without a heaven to hope or God to save.

247

O sighs that strongly from my bosom flew!
O heart's oblation sacrificed anew!
O groans and tears of all men and of mine!
O many midnights prostrate and supine,
Unbearable and profitless, and spent
For the empty furtherance of a vain intent,—
From God or Nothingness, from Heaven or Hell,
To wrest the secret that they would not tell,—
To grasp a life beyond life's shrinking span
And learn at last the chief concerns of man!

O last last hope when all the rest are flown!
O one thing worth the knowing, and still unknown!
O sought so passionately and found no more
To-day than when the sad voice sang of yore,
How “God the innumerous souls in great array
To Lethe summons by a wondrous way,
Till these therein their ancient pain forgive,
Forget their life, and will again to live.”

Yet in some hours when earth and heaven are fair,
In some sabbatical repose of air,
When all has passed that dizzied or defiled,
And thy clear soul comes to thee as a child,
Then incorruptible, unending, free,

248

Like the moon's golden road upon the sea,
The light of life on unbewildered eyes
A moment dawns, and in a moment dies.

So dimly glad may some lone heart recall
Perchance a magic end of evenfall,
When far on misty fells the moon has made
An argent fleece, and neither shine nor shade;
Hills beyond hills she silvers as she sails,
Hills beyond hills, and valleys in the vales;
Till they that float and watch her scarcely feel
The liquid darkness tremble at the keel,
Beholding scarce behold her, hardly dare
To look one look through that enchanted air,
Lest some unknown God should no longer hide
His glory from his creatures glorified,
Should shine too manifest, too soon display
To eyes that dream the immeasurable day.

Remember; I remember; hast not thou
Hours in the past more living than all life now?
One hour, perchance, that thro' the hush of fate
In shadowy veil came to thee consecrate,
Known without knowledge, felt without a name,—
And life brings other hours, but not the same?

249

This, then, was revelation; this shall be
Thy crown of youth and star of memory;
Strong in this strength the ennobled years shall run,
And life grow single and thy will be one;—
Ay, like great passages in order played
Shall changeful life grow one and unafraid;—
For these are one in many, and tho' some-times
The bell-like melodising rings and rhymes,
And warbles such a whisper now and then,
Too sweet, and scarce endurable to men,
Yet on thro' all the tune returns the same,
Embattled resonance, a flooding flame,
And dies to live again, and wins, and still
Rules the great notes and sways them as it will:—
Thus let thy life thro' all adventure go,
And keep it masterful, and save it so;—
Not reared too separate nor lulled too long
By the incommunicable trance of song,
Nor over-amorous, nay, nor overset
Too sweetly by the fain and fond regret,
The after-thought of kisses, and the tear
For loves whom day disparts and dreams bring near.
Since what man is man knows not, but he knows
That his one will is like a trump that blows;—
While breath is in him it can clarion well,

250

Heaven-sweet, and heard above the roar of hell;
Ay, “Fate and Fear beneath his feet are thrown,
All Fears and Fates, and Hell's insatiate moan.”

Then, Pisa, let thy sullen airs o'erhead
Lull that unaltering city of the dead;
Let swimming Arno, hushed at last like thee,
Draw to his doom and gather to the sea;
Fold upon fold let rainy evening roll,
And thy deep bells strike death upon the soul;—
There is a courage that from need began,
And grows with will, and is at last the man;
Which on thro' storm, thro' darkness, thro' despair,
Hopes, and will hope, and dares, and still can dare;
And this is Virtue; and thou canst not bind,
O Death, this “living spirit of the mind,”
Which “far aloof,” the Roman verses say,
“Holds an unseen illimitable way;
Far, far aloof can sail with wings unfurled
Beyond the flaming rampire of the world.”

1871-72.

University of Virginia Library

THE PASSING OF YOUTH

ARGUMENT