Thought and word :: :: University of Virginia Library

ON A PORTRAIT.

When a Poet knew himself, once on a time,
And his joy of life overflow'd into rhyme,
He had supple joints and curly dark hair;
Folk see him now with a pate half bare,
Some grizzled locks hanging lichen-wise
Over wrinkled forehead and sunken eyes:
But why not show him (guarding truth)
As he used to be in his days of youth?
Look and believe! he once was young;
When he sung of Love, he felt what he sung;
A Poet then, if a Poet now,
Why with sad cheer and wither'd brow
Greet the good Friend who may wish to learn
How he look'd?—He looked thus, on the Banks of Erne,
(Nay, younger still, and merrier far,—
Already long set is the morning star)
Erne water dancing from dawn to dark:
Over the green hills caroll'd the lark,
Seagull screech'd over ocean-strand,
Plover wail'd on the brown moorland;
Woman was loveliness; life was wide,
Fill'd with wonders on every side;
Heaven clear open as far as God,
Maker and Guardian of sun and clod;
Truth, unselfishness, merely were right
Poets walk'd in celestial light.
Gloom and fear and longing and pain—
He forgets them now,—is almost fain
(But no!) to wish himself young again.

HEAVEN'S GATE.

“THE LETTER KILLETH, BUT THE SPIRIT GIVETH LIFE.”

I.

Respect thine office; fear no man;
Thou, Poet, art a sacristan,
(For higher creatures than poor we,
I think, are priests invisibly)
'Tis thine to tread on holy ground,
Where meaner foot is wrongly found;
'Tis thine to guard the mysteries,—
Which are not shown to mortal eyes
The purest, clearest,—from disgrace
Of idols in the sacred place.

II.

By names of Venus and of Mars
The Tuscan Exile fill'd the stars
With lover and with warrior souls:
Aloof each mighty planet rolls,
By sagest Poet unconceived.
Fancy on fancy, half-believed,
Forget how they have sprung from nought.
I often pictured in my thought
A Gate, whereof we speak and write;
And found the same at dead of night,
Neither by moon nor lantern-light.

III.

It was, in dreaming truth, a Gate
Vaster than kings go through in state,
And pierced a black gigantic wall
Immeasurably built. To all,
Wide, without bar or valve, it stood.
And round it throng'd a Multitude,
From every nation that has birth
Between the snowy poles of Earth.

IV.

As bursts the sunshine from a cave
Of high cloud, over field and wave,
One, like a man, but more than mortal,
Radiantly issues from the Portal,—
Realm within it softly bright,
Purple shadow and golden light
On mystic mountains, happy vales,
Where circle beyond circle fails.

V.

“Come in!”—'twas music trumpet-clear,
“The Gate of Heaven is open here.”
Whereat, a wind of joy and fear
Swept all that mighty Multitude
Like some great cornfield where they stood;
But only woke a whispering stress
Born from the hush of earnestness.

VI.

Then jangling tones broke up the charm,
As bells a sleeping town alarm;
“Beloved Sheep, beware, beware!
“This is no true thing, but a snare;
“We see no mark or sign or token
“Whereof the oracles have spoken.

“This like our promised Heav'n!—to mix
“With heathens and with heretics!
“Apollyon seemeth Son of Light.
“But soon the Bridegroom shall invite,
“We're saved, the others flung to Hell,
“And hallelujah! all is well.
“Close eye and ear, my brethren,—say
“Phantom! Delusion! Fiend! away!”

VII.

Suddenly a little Child
Ran up to where that Angel smiled,
And caught his skirt; who, stooping low,
Lifted him; and I saw them go,
And sigh'd,—and sighing, waken'd so;
Amidst, methought, a boundless flow
Of people, many voices blent,
Sea-like; I knew not what it meant.

VIII.

Saint Wilbrod, where a Pagan King
Knelt at the font, had bow'd to fling
Miraculous water on his head;
But the grave King rose up, and said,
“This was not thought of; can'st thou tell
“If my forefathers be in Hell,
“Or Heaven?” “In Hell,” the Saint's reply:
To whom the King with loftier eye,
“Enough! I will not quit my race.”
—To answer, Heaven is not a place,
Were bringing passports to disgrace.

IX.

Such doctrines Mather fear'd at Salem,
And, lest his own belief should fail him,
(So godly, that he turn'd inhuman)
Hang'd twice a week some poor old woman;

Nay, Brother Burroughs' self, who doubted,—
That Scripture's letter be not scouted;
Which, with all marvels big and little,
Not held and hugg'd in every tittle,
Faith were slain dead (that's now so strong),
And Truth, and Sense of Right and Wrong;
Yes, the Almighty then, no doubt,
From soul of man were blotted out.

X.

Predominancy, a great tree
Of Upas kind, drips constantly
The violent poison, Persecution;
Greater the marvel, tho', if you shun
Harm from a small infesting weed
Which doth the self-same venom breed,
Verbality, whose mesh is found
In every field and garden-ground.
Spirit to spirit, we are wise
To meditate of mysteries,
To see a little, dark and dim
For mortals are not Seraphim.

XI.

A Dream should as a Dream be told,
Nor do I this of mine uphold
Above the dreams of other men,
Where all is out of waking ken.
Let's to our daylight tasks and trust
The future, as we ought and must.
Go, noisy tongues, howe'er you will!
One hath His plan, who keepeth still.
What is, He sees,—we cannot see;
He knows, we know not, what shall be.

XII.

Tho' High-Priest, Medicine-man, nor Lama,
Zerdusht, Mohammed, Buddha, Brahma,

Nor any Teacher, mild or blatant,
For true Religion hold a patent,
Can mathematicise the line
Connecting Human and Divine,
The line, say rather, that doth reach
From God to every soul and each,—
Tho' every parable and vision
Of scenes infernal and elysian,
By prophet-poet's genius told,
Re-echo'd thousand-million-fold,
Whether of Greek, or Jew, or Swede,
Be rich poetic truth indeed,
No legal document to read,—
Tho' man's best wisdom on the earth,
Man's learning, be as little worth
For this, as to be six feet one
Helps you to pry into the sun,—
Still, when the Soul is walking right,
Heaven is sure to come in sight,
Near or distant, faint or bright.

LEVAVI OCULOS.

In trouble for my sin, I cried to God;
To the Great God who dwelleth in the deeps.
The deeps return not any voice or sign.

But with my soul I know thee, O Great God;
The soul thou gavest knoweth thee, Great God;
And with my soul I sorrow for my sin.

Full sure I am there is no joy in sin,
Joy-scented Peace is trampled under foot,
Like a white growing blossom into mud.

Sin is establish'd subtly in the heart
As a disease; like a magician foul
Ruleth the better thoughts against their will.

Only the rays of God can cure the heart,
Purge it of evil: there's no other way
Except to turn with the whole heart to God.

In heavenly sunlight live no shades of fear;
The soul there, busy or at rest, hath peace;
And music floweth from the various world.

The Power is great and good, and is our God.
There needeth not a word but only these;
Our God is good, our God is great. 'Tis well.

All things are ever God's; men's thoughts of things
Are warp'd with evil will and stain'd with sin;
God, and the things of God, immutable.

Great Master, how I fain would lift myself
Above men's network foolishness, and move
In thy unfenced, unmeasured warmth and light!

Lo, when I rise a very little way,
The fences, nets, and pitfalls change to lines
Drawn on a map; anon they disappear;

All shows of things are seen as parts of truth;
My soul, if busy or at rest, hath peace,
Hath visions of the House of Perfect Peace!

PHANTOM DUTY.

Slow-burning in the cavern's depth appears
The Talismanic Lamp which rules the spheres
Of men and spirits. Safely he hath pass'd
Swords, flames, ghouls, dragons, demons; but at last
A Phantom, like his Mother, sadly stands
Full in the destined way, with warning hands.
He pauses, he forgets, he sinks, he sleeps:
And in Elysium his true Mother weeps.

SUNDAY BELLS.

Sweet Sunday Bells! your measured sound
Enhances that repose profound
Of all the golden fields around,
And range of mountain, sunshine-drown'd.

Amid the cluster'd roofs outswells,
And wanders up the winding dells,
And near and far its message tells,
Your holy song, sweet Sunday Bells!

Sweet Sunday Bells! ye summon round
The youthful and the hoary-crown'd,
To one observance gravely bound;
Where comfort, strength, and joy are found.

The while, your cadenced voice excels
To waken memory's tender spells;
Revives old joy-bells, funeral-knells,
And childhood's far-off Sunday Bells.

O Sunday Bells! your pleading sound
The shady spring of tears hath found,
In one whom neither pew nor mound
May harbour in the hallow'd ground:

Whose heart to your old music swells;
Whose soul a deeper thought compels;
Who like an alien sadly dwells
Within your chime, sweet Sunday Bells!

[See what lives of mortals are]

See what lives of mortals are
On our foolish little star!
Toil unceasing, pleasure flying,
Aspiration fall'n to sighing,
Old deceits in garbs newfangled,
Angel-wings with cobwebs tangled,
Selfish comfort, drugg'd with sense,
Ambition's poverty immense,
Tender memory, sad in vain,
Flickering hope and haunting pain,
Cries of suffering, sweat of strife,—
But where the strong victorious life?

Perchance its deeds make little noise;
No record of its pains and joys,
Save in mystic forms enscroll'd,
Spiritual eyes behold,
Seeing what lives of mortals are
On our foolish little star.

AN EVIL MAY-DAY.

In the Soul's sky may dawn an Evil Day,
First of a Time of Horror and Dismay,
Which only God's own sun can chase away.

I. Part I.

Suddenly, softly, I awoke from sleep;
My lattice open to the morning sun,
Call of a distant cuckoo, lyric notes
Of many a voice, leaf-whispers.

May, once more,
Her dewy fragrant kiss, and all the love
It wakes us to,—a joyous, beauteous world!
Long shadows lying on the luminous grass;
The lilac's purple honeycombs enswathed
In freshest foliage; snowy pear-tree bloom;
Birds on our daisied lawn, or flitting swift
Through floating under boughs to elmtops fledged
Against the tenderly translucent sky;
And, through the leafage, glimpses of a realm
Of woodland slopes and vales, and distant hills
Of bright horizon. O the sweet old rapture!
May in my inmost soul awaking too.
This might be Earth's first morning, or the rise
Of that New Heav'n and Earth—

Ah pain! ah grief!
As happy wingèd thing afloat on air
Smit with a cruel pang, down-fluttering, drops,
My heart so fell—

They say “There is No God!”

Evil May-day, by my account. Long since,
Whispers of bale were rife; dark prophecies
And dim forebodings brought a passing qualm,
A momentary shiver; that was all;

As peradventure may a man have heard
Rumour of pestilence in Eastern lands,
Of little import: “creeping westward” next:
“Within our country's border” (this is grave):
And then a pause, time slides, the man has turn'd
To his affairs and pleasures; when one day
What's this the mirror shows him?—Heaven and Hell!
The plague-spot on his tongue! His lot is drawn.

Yes, look upon thy hands and touch thy head;
'Tis thou—that wakedst oft in other Mays,
Didst kneeling say thy pray'r, and look aloft
As into thy dear Father's face, and see
His handiwork all round thee, all done right:
The lilies of the field and the seven stars,
Beast, bird, and insect, and immortal Man.
“These are Thy glorious works, Parent of good!”—
“In wisdom hast Thou made them all.”

Poor fool!
Gaze round upon the flow'rs and grass and sunshine,
Bathe in their brightness, hear the senseless birds
Chatter and chirp, and be thou merry too.
All's but a dream; and why torment thyself?
—Because the plague is come. The bird is hit.
The dream is fled; and now I wake aghast.
I see this world a body without soul;
I see the flow'rs and greenery of May
A garland on a corpse. “There is No God.”

Nay, courage! let the fearful mood pass by.
Here is no plague. Behind those branching elms
Our shady lane winds to the village green,
Its ancient cottages, its ivied tower,
With graves of twenty generations. Hark!
The dial: sturdy Labour forth has trudged
With tools in hand; Age on his doorstep greets

The friendly radiance; Childhood swarms to school
And hums like bees in clover, till the song
Heartily rises; and our week moves round,
As weeks and years and centuries have moved,
Over this English village in its vale,
Secluded from the world,—not separate.
There goes the flutter of a distant train
Speeding to the great city full of men
And men's accumulated thought and work,
With ships from every sea along her wharves.
Art thou delirious? or wilt thou count
All this, insanity—the varied life
In fields and cities, work and worship and love,
Whate'er binds men together, linking past,
Present, and future—

O let be! let be!
No form of speech can do me any good,
My own or other men's devisal, fresh
As primrose, venerable as churchyard yew.
Having heard sentence pass'd, no other words
Can carry meaning; one brief dismal phrase
Knolls on the air—“No God!” and still—“No God!”

Pretence of continuity! talk, preach,
Write books; build cities, churches, monuments;
Patch up and varnish histories, pedigrees;
Take childish titles, worship toyshop crowns;
Sustain (save when alone or with a friend)
The masquerade of dignity; pass on
Old phrases, teach them to the children; make
Your little mark, or big, as one who scribes
Two letters, or full name, or date therewith,
Upon a tree, and dies, and in a while
The tree perishes also. Vain conceit!
Swim with me, fellow-bubbles, catch fine hues
And picture-like reflections, and then burst!
The swift stream flows, the shoreless sea of forms

Melting, reshaping, seeming (since our life
Is like a flash of lightning) permanent;
But rolling ever from darkness into darkness.
God was behind that darkness once;—that sea
His effluent power. But now, there is No God.

After the first sharp pain I wrote this down
To ease awhile my heart-ache. Count not these
But idle words; for since I wotted first
Of my own being, never grief like that.
“Able to soothe all sadness but despair”
The poet sang: no finest solaces
Had any comfort. Through the dismal time
I dragg'd from sleep to sleep, groaning the while,
As one sore-wounded drags from pause to pause;
And sleep was like a swoon, or else perturb'd
With shapeless terror.

But sleep grew more calm
(I know not when or how began the change)—
And all things with it; wind and wave went down,
And life took on its ordinary look
By slow gradations. All was as before?
Not so. I was not in perpetual pain;
Only half-paralysed. Month after month,
And after that sad year, another year,
And after this, another year: I went
And came and talk'd and laugh'd, like those around me:
Only I recollected now and then,
And shiver'd, whispering to myself “No God.”

No God, No Soul; they are the self-same thought.
And I, that think it, turning into mire
To-morrow or next year, I care not much
What may befall a race of things like me,
A little better luck, a little worse,
As each flits by and vanishes for ever.

To-morrow will be Nothing; and To-day
That leads to it, is Next to Nothing. Go!
Laugh, weep, do what you will, eat, drink, and die—
The sad old phrase found true.

Is't selfishness
Thus craves for God, that God may give us life
After this life? New life be as it may.
That irks me nothing. It is this my life
I would not lose, the life within this life.
And I have lost it, if there be No God.

II. Part II.

Of all pathetic things the most is this—
A happy bright-eyed Child, some four years old,
Making acquaintance with man's common world.
Joy, wonder, eager questionings; anon
An anxious look, a swift and wide-eyed stare
At his dear Oracle; and merry laughs
And low contented songs made by himself
Are his; and youthful strange imaginings!
And sometimes you may see those innocent eyes
Fix'd in a meditative trance, the while
He strives to see some vaguest vapoury form
Of thought within him.

O this world of ours!

I am your Prophet, Priest, and Oracle,
My little Son; whatever I respond
Is fate. One only answer vexes you—
“I do not know.” You try and try again
For something better, and are ill-content.
But often must you hear those baffling words;

And often must you say them to yourself
When manhood, which you deem omniscient,
Is yours in turn,—is like what we have found.
O guard thee, Prophet, well, not to mislead
Thy neophyte! The dream, the phantasy
Thou puttest in his mind, is truth for him,
Until he finds it untrue. This young soul
Tremulous with wonder, curiosity,
Imagination, (look but in his face)
Drinks in the world through every joyful sense;
Sensation turns to thought and thought revives
Sensation in the memory; thus is built
The body of the mind by slow degrees,
With order'd imagery, with habitudes
Of movement; and the little world it lives in
Is its own making chiefly. All the while,
The great world lives around it, and includes
It with the rest of things. A word of mine,
Be it the emptiest breath, can take firm shape
In my son's world; the herald's animals,
Insert them in his natural-history book,
Were just as credible as any there;
Angel is no whit harder to conceive
Than eagle, and a Heaven above the clouds
(Reach'd by balloon perhaps) much easier
Than suns and planets and space without a bound.
Thou shalt not build a false world, little Son,
If skill of mine can sift the follies out
Men have mix'd up with everything. My care
Is less to teach than save thee from being taught
Half-truths and falsehoods in thy tender time.

Beware, my Son, of words! The Human Race
Hath stored its wisdom there, its errors there,
Mistakes and follies and duplicities.
Of words false gods are made, each doom'd at last
A worn-out idol to the lumber-loft

Or trim museum,—concourse wonderful,
Superb, grotesque, pathetic, and obscene!

Childhood will ask, “Who made all these things?” “God.”
“Where does God live?”—suppose I point and say,
“On that high mountain top”; my child regards
The peak with joyful awe; but one day climbs
And finds a barren frosty crag,—nor heeds
The wide spread glory of things encircling it.
He hears of Heaven above the clouds; his book
At school confutes it: starry heaven goes blank.
Words said to children can be only true,
Or not, in their direct and simple sense.
“At such and such a place, God walked with men;
They saw and heard Him; what he said and did
Is warrant for your duties and your hopes.”
The warm young spirit trustfully accepts,
Lies down, uprises, in a full belief,
From day to day, for many days and years,
Till one day comes the question, “Is this true?”
Nay, teach the plans, ways, character of God,
With Man's relations to Him thence deduced,
In any form of words you will: how fence
The fatal question out—“But is this true?”
The answer “No!” smites all truth to the ground,
The vine and prop together; Truth itself,
Immortal Truth, lies murder'd!

Foolishness,
Dishonesty and cowardice of men,
What bitter pain, what cruel wrongs ye breed!
As if our case were not perplex'd enough,
And troublesome enough, and sad enough,
But we must writhe in self-inflicted pangs!

But in the reign of Science you are born.
Theology, with pomp and riches yet,

Sits mumbling, droning, in his padded chair,
Gouty, asthmatic, ailing every way.
A young audacious voice rings through the land—
“Ask questions, men, where ye may hope reply
By gauge of human faculties, may test
Reply when found. First cause and final cause
In every case being out of reach, henceforth
Fix eye and thought upon the scrutable;
Travel, examine, and subdue throughout
The great domain of Science; step by step,
Link after link, trace, test, confirm and fix
The sequences of natural law; reduce
The complex to the simple; thus control,
So far as man may do so, human life,
The race itself; attain, whate'er it be,
No twilight Land of Dreams, Fool's Paradise,
Hid in a theologic labyrinth
Or metaphysic jungle. How sublime
In its simplicity, one single fact
In pure mechanic formula express'd,
(Shall it be call'd Vibration?—possibly)
And all phenomena its aspects merely!
This we shall find at last.”

And then? what then?
Are we at home henceforward in the world?
All comfortably settled in our minds,
Knowing the immortal truth—Vibration?
Shall we spoonfeed our babes on science-pap,
Till teeth find tougher work? train them to scan
The mechanism of all phenomena,
To measure and set it down in proper form,—
The ne plus ultra this, which cannot baulk?
Again I say, Beware of words, my Son.
Exact and systematic knowledge—good!
But now, of what? Of the true nature of things?
That is abjured. No step found possible
In that direction. Of phenomena?

“Surely.” But I deny it: very close
We peer, and make our atoms very small,
Yet after all 'tis but the coarser part
Of any one phenomenon of nature
Which we can measure and make record of.
Science is measurement, no more, no less,
Whatever sauce we add. Minds wholly fill'd
With Physical Science (and a fond conceit
That they alone know Nature) miss and lose
The natural appearances of things
Beyond all common ignorance. Day and night,
Earth, ocean, sky, the seasons, peopled full
With countless forms of life; a world imbued
With mystic beauty, wonder, awfulness,
Powers inexpressible and infinite,
Whereto man's spirit exquisitely thrills,
Raised, rapt, and soaring on celestial wings,—
Which ecstasy begetteth Art in some,
In every sane soul Worship in some wise,
Voiceful or silent,—shall we see instead
The tall ghost of a pair of compasses
Stalking about a world of diagrams,
And algebraic regiments that march
And countermarch, and wheel?

O learn all this—
If so thou fail not to come back at last,
My son, to nature's own rich symbolism!
Value appearances, and study these
To see them well,—your first relationship,
Your last and truest too, with circumstance;
More excellent by far to apprehend
Than all disclosures of analysis.
Upon the surface earthly Beauty blooms,
Yielding itself to every loving eye,
Known heavenly in its correspondences
When Seer or Poet comes; immortal flow'r,
Belovèd of Man's soul, no trivial thing,

No fleeting thing as flimsy proverbs wail!
Inferior truths are good in their degree,
But the first-met is first, nor ever can
Be weigh'd or measured. That the world is fair
Concerns us more than that the world is round,
(Though this, like every truth, be well to fix);
The rose, the primrose, and the hawthorn-flow'r,
The colours of the dawn or evening air,
Clouds, mountains, rivers, woodlands, grassy meads,
The varying ocean and the starry night,
The countless shapes of animals, and most
The human form, and miracle of face,
Have in their beauty more significance
Than tabulated light-waves which impinge
On optic nerves and yield the brain a sense
Of red, blue, yellow—Science knows not how.
Science can but afford a pitying smile
If you forget that just where warmth begins
Of human interest in a question, there
Science stops short. And let her have the praise
Of keeping in her limit, if she keep,
And lack not limitation's humbleness.

Beware, I say, of words, warm, wide, and loose;
Beware of cold and rigid formulæ
No less; both full of power—they are not things,
Nor even thoughts, but shadowings-forth of thoughts,
Wearing a phantom dignity themselves.
True, that we think by these: most men by words,
The grave mathematician by his signs,
Expressing a mechanic universe,
Yet giving irrepressible Fancy room
To sport in magical curves and deem herself
Almost creative in mechanic wise,
Leaving out life and beauty merely. Words
Have melody and colour, and therewith
The Poet's art can build a lovelier world,

Nay, truer than the common, for the gold
Is smelted from the dross that made it dull.
Be ever thankful of poetic truth,
And hold it fast. Value Appearances,
And let Imagination teach their worth,
Counting this practical. A sane clear mind
To see, and to imagine, is a mind
Of noblest rank: learning will nourish it,
But not to any show of learning: such
Are Seers and Poets. Through appearances
Beheld with keen and sympathetic eyes
Imaginative insight pierces deep
To something secret,—not mechanical
But spiritual, and wholly beyond reach
Of Science, which too often is so vain
As therefore to deny it scornfully;
Spiritual, and not contain'd or circumscribed
In any science ever formulated,
Or any creed that is or will be made,
Or aught that eye can see, or ear can hear;
For subtler, dearer, more delicious beauty
Lives in the soul than in the outer world,
And therefore fact is poor to dreams and hopes,
Child-fancies beggar all the famous things.

Ah, might we trust the Poets all in all!
Too often they divert themselves and us
With gambols in the air. Amorous of words,
Temptable by a rhyme or phrase, they make
Language their end not means; or sometimes stoop
To stroke the public ear and give those jaws
The food they gape for.

Men, in short, my Son,
Speak truth by most imperfect signs at best,
And with it many follies, many lies,
Deceiving or deceived, being only men,
Weak, wavering, limited. Yet men alone
See, note, explore, make record of, would fain,

But cannot ever, comprehend the world,
Life being a mystery, not a mechanism;
Orderly Miracle, where some men see
The Order, some the Wonder, most, and shape
Their diagrams, their phantasies; the Wise,
Wedding experience and imagination—
Both; and lift up their eyes and hands to God.

As to the Future, that is God's affair.
I am not Ruler of the Universe,
Nor in His secrets; but I hold Him good,
His riches boundless, and His will to give.
Also that Man has share, whatever share,
In working out the Universal Plans,
And man's own fate is partly in his power
For each of us; how far we cannot know.
This I do know, immortal thoughts alone,
Eternal things, have interest for my soul—
That which is truly me, my inmost self.

Man can help men, and also hinder them.
Men's evil and folly are to guard against,
Assuming many shapes; not dangerous least
In Books, pretended utterances of thought.
I say it who have loved books all my life.
The tongue may lie, or, self-deceiving, show
Folly as wisdom, may omit or add,
Transpose, misrepresent: more easily
The pen; and lo, by typographic art
What inky robes of grave authority
Do words put on, and in the library
The volume takes its seat among its peers,
Or quasi-peers. Nowhere such solemn shams
As pen and printer's ink can make! Man's tongue
Is flexible, but eye, face, voice, and gesture,
Body and whole demeanour help you well
To check or to corroborate his speech
(Put faith in physiognomy!); a Book

Wears deep disguise; may be a puppet-thing,
And not a man at all. The World of Books
Is full of glamour; evil, good, false, true,
Living and dead; enchanted wilderness
Where many wander, few can find a path,
Or gather what is good for them. My Boy,
I vow, shall not begin to read too soon!
Learning can nourish Wisdom, when good food
Is quietly digested; but, too oft,
Unfit, ill-cook'd, or overloaded meals
Lie crude and swell the belly with wind, or breed
Dull fat, mistook for portliness and strength.
And surely never since the world began
So many Learned Fools as now-a-days,
Or Learned Folly with so loud a voice.
Even the Wiser slip from sanity
At times, and swell the roaring storm of words.

I am your Oracle and Prophet now,
Young Mortal, weak and ignorant as I am
And fain to question rather than reply.
Yet have I journey'd on the road of life
Full many a mile, and bought experiences,
Have seen, done, joy'd and suffer'd, with a soul
Not timid, neither hard, sincere in grain,
Open to every influence, not engross'd
Of any, wishing well to all I met.
On foot, but not a beggar, have I fared,
Rested in huts and inns and palace halls,
Conversed on equal terms with many men,
Crept through dark valleys, climbed the mountain tops,
And known all kinds of weather. Here I sit
By fireside, with a baby on my knee.
A Boy with golden curls and grave blue eyes.
Asking me questions. Shall I tell him truth?
Yes, Dearest, now and ever! But to know
The needful questions is to be mature.

A child but asks as prompted—mostly, too,
Prompted by Ignorance in Wisdom's mask;
She uses words unmeaningly, and crowds
Life's pathways with memorials of man's folly.
Prompt him I must, and honestly give answer.
“Who made the world?”—Great God: we use that name.
How do we know Him?—In the heart and soul.
What is He?—No man hath the power to know.”
This is enough to tell him at the time.

Man hath no thoughts to think what God is like,
And much less words to say; but he can feel
At times the Presence great and wonderful
Beyond all words and thoughts and dreams, and yet
Wherein we live and move and have our being.
All great truths are incomprehensible;
Much more the Living Centre of them all.
The clearest moments of the noblest men
Give insight thitherward, and what they see
Belongs to man, though some regard it not.
Soon the clouds roll together, the ground-fogs
Grow thick, and all the vision disappears;
But what the best eyes at their best behold
Is Truth Divine; the test whereof is this—
A lofty sanity of thought and life
In whoso doth receive it, harmony
Felt in his inmost being, nor wholly hid
From other men. But how impossible
To put the vision into words, nor weave
Therewith a snare! O folly, to suppose
That speech, however wonderful it be,
Is more than makeshift! Could I stop thine ears
Till thou art somewhat ripened in thy mind,
My Son, from all more free discourse of God,
Dogmatic, controversial, personal,
I would; and I will do it, all I can.

It may be thou art born to a troublous time,
Retributive on nations for their sins.
At least, thou shalt escape one evil thing—
My Evil May-day, doleful to endure,
Sad to remember. Yet it pass'd; I live;
And God lives.

III. Part III.

And God lives. Yes, begin and end with that,
For, whichsoever way you turn your face
And journey through th' illimitable vast,
You come to Nothing or you come to God.
“We come to Matter,” you reply, “more Matter,
Matter in many forms, ourselves being of them,
Man too is made of world-stuff.”

Which contains
No mind, affection, moral principle,
Or ruling will; yet breeds them in its dance
Of purposeless gyration, turns (O strange!)
At last to speculation on itself,
And finds at choice, dust or divinity.
—I say, we come to Nothing, or to God.
‘Confront us then with Him. Who sees his face
Or hears his voice? They told us in our youth
He paced a garden, spoke from a certain hill,
And wore a man's true body for a time.
They painted Him, an Old Man propt on clouds,
A Young Man, flowing-hair'd, with aureole,
Walking on water, flying through the air;
Much wondrous, much familiar circumstance.
But all this fading into fairy-tales,
What have we?’

Truth. And know this well, once more,
Every high truth is inexpressible,
And God, the highest, absolutely. Men
Strive after some conception, symbol-wise,
But make, too often, symbol into idol;
And all these idols forged by human brain,
Better or worse, and aiding more or less,
Misleading less or more, long-lived or short,
Are perishable things. The idol falls;
And then it seems the pillars of the world
That break, the roof of heav'n that crashes in.
A little cloud of dust was in our eyes;
Look up: God sits enthroned, thy lord and king;
Look round, His earth is wide and beautiful.
If once thou hast that vision, treasure it,
Speak little of it, let it nourish thy life
In fair thoughts, just deeds, and self-harmony,
While the unceasing noise of human talk
Hums round unheeded, and the multitude
Concerns itself with whatsoe'er it will.
Jove's thunderbolt, Apollo's fiery car,
Being phrases put aside, seems solar force
Less wonderful, or th' all pervasive thrill
Of electricity? The human mind
And moral laws, do these depend on names?
The world is wider, deeper than our thought;
We walk as if in twilight: but, at times,
How, whence, we know not, all is lighted up,
Transfigured. What is shown to us? A glimpse
Of inmost truth.

So and not otherwise
Poetic and religious thoughts are born,
Nor else interpretable. This great Light,
More glorious than the sun's, this Divine Stream
This emanation from the Life of Life,
Named or not named, and fitliest received
With silent joy, these cloudless blissful hours

Or moments, who shall hope to represent?
The finest mesh of words being all too coarse,
The loftiest tones of poem or of creed
But distant echoes of the vibrant Soul
Throbbing and pulsing in its bath of Light,
Fill'd with the presence of the Living God,
One Power evolving multiformity,
Pervading and transcending every form.

Such vision you may keep, or you may lose.
And what destroys it, or prevents it? This—
The setting-up False Vision in its place,
By obsolete pretended evidence,
Untrue in fact, impossible in kind,
Still palm'd on innocent souls when full of trust
And love and wonder. Once these holy names
And emblems meant what now they cannot mean,
As well thou knowest; yet thou teachest them
For absolute truth to tender longing souls,
Fastening their faith, their highest faculty,
To forms decay'd, worm-eaten through and through.
Vile coward! murderer of thy children's peace,
Preparing for them sick and crooked lives,
The end perhaps despair. But God's light shines,
Though men shut out, discolour, distort the ray.

Man, in a sense, makes God. In the same sense
Man makes the world: his world is what he makes it.
Each man his world, his God. But tell me now:
The natural, true, and most miraculous World,
Which no man ever saw, can ever see,
The Living Absolute Eternal God,
Whom no man ever saw, can ever see,—
Do these depend on how a man shall think
Or picture them, or any set of men?
The God a man hath made he may pull down
The World a man makes alters with himself
The true, the everlasting Life remains,
Surest of all things,—personal, universal,

Ineffable, incomprehensible,
Perceived, received, as with the flower of the soul.
God rules us whether we take heed or no.
'Tis duty less than privilege and joy
To recognise Him; nor such boon to all
In equal measure. Judge its potency
In the few most receptive, not the crowd.
To live, one needs not know that earth is round,
Much less the laws of planets and of suns,
But, all men ignorant, each man were lower'd,
And crippled even in his daily needs.
Were all born blind, then who would guess the light?
All deaf, then who imagine any sound?
And many see the light who nothing know
Of the Sun's greatness, only dimly see
The beauty it gives birth to; many have ears
And yet by music's magic no more touch'd
Than carven figures by the organ-storm
Shaking their substance atoms. Must thou gain
These other men's impossible consent
Before thou tremblest to the mystic joy
That frees thy spirit with a gift of wings
In Music's atmosphere? or give account
To them of how and why thou thus art moved
By Beauty, natural or interpreted?
Doubt, or distrust, or disbelieve, since some
With ears that hear not, eyes that cannot see,
Bring scales to measure and weigh your consciousness?
Nay, know'st thou Love?—a Love sublime and pure,
The world's transfiguration, through thy soul's.
If thou hast ever been assured of this,
Shall icy hearts or sneering tongues convict
High Love, and not themselves, of foolishness?
Consider then: if that most glorious Power
Far beyond audible and visual sense,
Felt at the inmost of thy soul of souls
In moments clear and rare, at other times

Be thickly veil'd from thee or quite obscured,
Wilt thou accept the bright hour or the dark
To teach thee truth? If cerpain other men
Deny the vision wholly, wilt thou choose
Negation for thy having? and because
Of the great glory and wonder of the light
That shone upon thee, say it was a dream,
No truth at all? Forget Him if thou wilt.
Deny Him. Thou art free. Nor will He strike
With angry flash; not so the world is made.
No penalties are set for unbelief,
Except the natural and inevitable
Contain'd in not believing. Count these nothing,—
Who shall refute, gainsay thee? go thy ways;
The loss is in thyself; and if unfelt,
The greater. Even as the man devoid
Of music misses nothing, loveless man
Pines not for lack of love, so he to whom
This world is empty of Divinity
From earth's dark centre to the Milky Way,
Sees this world full as other men's, and seems
To live in the same world. O marvellous!
Here walk two human creatures side by side:
But seest thou in what kind of world each moves?
Not with the bodily eye. Each makes his world,
And counts his own the only. To but few
Is given the Poet's, Prophet's ecstasy:
Yet theirs the witness we accept at last.

Many are dull and scarcely heed at all.
But some turn all to question:—“What is Life,
This marvel of all marvels? Show to us
Without delay, Whence, How, and What it is,
Or must we not affirm it meaningless?
At most, a puzzle fit to stretch our wits,
The whilst we eat, drink, fight, laugh, propagate,
And play at reason, virtue, and so forth?

Guess it a dustheap, somehow grown alive,
Or else a sort of mental phantasy?
Surely, if we can't sift things, we have right
To rate them as we choose.” There wisdom spoke!
Not peevish folly, or forward babyhood.
But this at least is true beyond a doubt,—
Man's Life has meaning, else the World has none,
This Universe is but a puff of smoke
Floating in whirls about the gulf of space,
We atoms in the midst, and all our thoughts
Are less than nothing.

What Life is, I know not,
Nor claim the right to know; but gladly accept
The highest hints and intimations given,
As likest truth. I know not what God is,
Nor count it reasonable to suppose
A man could know; but that God lives and rules,
My soul in times of pure and tranquil vision
Sees without effort; which great central truth
Sways into order all the world of thought,
That else were chaos. And, since I am I,
To me, a person, He, a person, lives;
A Living God, of power immeasurable,
Nature incomprehensible, and plans
Inscrutable; of whom I know by faith,—
A reasonable and necessary faith,
Correlative to ignorance, and yet
No way self-contradictory, a clue
In a prodigious labyrinth, a lamp
In a great darkness.

Why no more is known?
Enough it is the nature of things; and how
In sooth could I conceive it otherwise,
Create a different world? What use this faith?—
What use wide-sweeping universal thoughts?
Nay what use is the Universe itself? ...

At least we'll take for granted it exists,
Though questions may lack answers! “Matter,” “Spirit,”
What may these be? one thing, or separate?—
I care not which; for how should that concern?
All is, of need, connected, up and down,
And grossest link'd with subtlest. We must live
In a material world, must therein work,
Thereby be wrought upon. I am conjoin'd—
This personal I, (invisible as God)—
To my own bodily organs first of all;
Related strictly to the beast, the bird,
The blade of grass, the clod of earth, the cloud,
The faintest haze of suns within the sky.
That nearest fiery orb makes flow my blood;
Electric ether vivifies my brain;
And I, made up of these, who am not these,
Exist in personal being, think, enquire,
Reason, imagine, feel, and nothing know:
But in my dearest moments I think—God.
Ask you, What use is Faith? Faith is like Health;
Which, if you have in full serene possession,
You feel it every moment of the day,
In every fibre of your frame, each mood
And movement of your mind, yet for most part
Unconsciously. Inherit health and lose it,
Then shall you know its worth. But some poor men
Have never had it, and their seeming life
Is three parts death; some fling away their share
To buy diseases, or, when sense is dull'd,
Count dulness armour, take defect for strength;
Few have full measure: O to be like them!
For health is life, tho' sickness in a sort
Lives on, and nearly all the world is sick.
Faith is a higher wider subtler health,
What ether is to air, what harmony
Is to a throng of disconnected sounds;

A pure truth inexpressible in words,
All the great truths being measureless, and God
The truth of truths.

Spend not thy life in questions:
Go on thy journey, find there what thou may'st.
The past is past and had its own beliefs,
To day lies round, pours in, miraculous,
And in man's soul the springs of prophecy
Well up from their unfathomable source
Unceasingly, while he has faith in God.
Belief in God—here is the fountain-head
Of all religion, and, could that run dry
To all the human race, then human life
Were but a sandy desert full of asps.
No God—No Man. Blind matter all without;
Within delusive shadows. Hold God fast.

May-Day was evil when I miss'd my God:
Earth, sea and sky fall'n empty of a sudden.
All the wide universe a dismal waste
Peopled with phantoms of my flitting self,
And mocking gleams chance-kindled and chance quench'd,
All meaning nothing. Natural May-Day
Revived to me when I found God again;
World full of beauty and significance
Wisely and justly govern'd, and I too
Part and partaker of the wondrous whole;
Made capable to feel, enjoy, adore,
To think and reason, not to comprehend.

Manhood is Freedom: O to use it well,
Acting upon the element where I move
According to its nature and my own,
(Obscurely folded in the germ at first,
Form'd by successive subtle acts of will)

Acting to greater purpose than appears;
Nor too much sorrowing over seeming loss
Nor anxious for security of gain,
Mild, equal-minded, fearless! To such level
Rise I in happy hour, spring-tide of soul,
Aware, without words, and beyond all words,
That God was, is, and evermore remains;
The Living Centre of this Universe,
Which is itself imagined and not seen;
Always the Centre, reach'd by various roads
From many points by many different minds.
Who move tow'rds Him, converge. Who move from Him
Diverge, and wander out to lonely Space,
Where they see nothing and hear nothing, save
A hollow echo of their own voice return'd
As from the Cavern of Eternal Death.
But from the Centre, Everlasting Life
Expands and pulses in perpetual waves.

Man's property is Will; and he thereby
Can turn his face to God, change his own world;
For some things must be fix'd, and some left free.
See we not Good and Bad? upgoing lines
And down, to Best and Worst, to Heaven and Hell?
Man, as I deem, hath foretaste of them both.
But these, too, people image as they may
In gross fantastic verbal crudities,
Dark prisons, devils, tortures, pits of fire,
Unfading gardens, milk-white robes, gold harps,
A Heaven of vague “eternal happiness.”
Not so it beckons me: pure health, fit work,
For Human Creatures chasten'd, purified,
Each to his best; each, clear in aim and course,
Doing his proper part with strenuous joy:
Humility and self-forgetfulness,
Low work or high, in boundless universe;

Not dull—a joyous, free, and busy Heaven,
Hope never baulk'd there, knowledge climbing on,
Wisdom expanding, love without a pain,
Sweet helpful interchange of thought and mirth;
Beauty to fill each spirit to its content;
Limitless growth: the Mystery Divine
Peacefully clear, yet still a Mystery,
The Spiritual Sun of all the Heavens;
Infinitely remote, but fully felt;
Whence radiate, and whereto in turn are drawn
All powers, all spirits,—the lowest in their turn.

LOSS.

Grieve not much for loss of wealth,
Loss of friends, or loss of fame,
Loss of years, or loss of health;
Answer, hast thou lost the shame
Whose early tremor once could flush
Thy cheek, and make thine eyes to gush,
And send thy spirit, sad and sore,
To kneel with face upon the floor,
Burden'd with consciousness of sin?
Art thou cold and hard within,—
Sometimes looking back surprised
On thy old mood, scarce recognized,
As on a picture of thy face
In blooming childhood's transient grace?
Then hast thou cause for grief; and most
In seldom missing what is lost.
With the loss of Yesterday,
Thou hast lost To-day, To-morrow,—
All thou might'st have been. O pray,
(If pray thou canst) for poignant sorrow!

DOGMATISM.

“Thus it is written.”—Where? Oh, where?
In the blue chart of the air?
In the sunlight? in the dark?
In the distant starry spark?
In the white scroll of the cloud?
In the waved line of the flood?
In the forms of peak or cliff,
In the rock's deep hieroglyph?
In the scribbled veins of metal?
In the tracings on the petal?
In the fire's fantastic loom?
In the fur, or scale, or plume?
In the greeting brother's glance?
In the corpse's countenance?
In men's real thoughts and ways?
Time's long track, or passing days?
In the cipher of the whole?
In the core of my own soul?
Nay!—I have sincerely sought,
But no glimpse of this thing caught.

NEWS FROM PANNONIA.

A mighty Monarch, and a modest Man;
Sweetest of Stoics since the world began.

[_]

The speakers' names in this poem are abbreviated as follows:

For Dru. read Drusillus
For Pro. read Probus

A.D. 180.
DRUSILLUS. PROBUS.
Dru.
Hail, Probus!

Pro.
Hail, Drusillus!—thou in Rome!
Pale too, by Hercules! Art sick, or wounded?

Dru.
Neither, my Probus. From Pannonia, I;
A twelve days' journey. Now the Senate cons
My message, and I hurry to the bath.
Farewell, my friend; I'll visit you to-morrow.

Pro.
Nay, at this hour the public bath is throng'd,
And lo, my house at hand, and yours away
Beside the Vipsan Columns. Come, Drusillus,
Welcome awaits you, bath and robe and supper,
Not laid for guests, but large enough for two;
And then, for March wind scours the dusty streets,
Home in my litter. Bravely said, old friend!
I will not ask your camp news, well content
To hear with Rome: we'll talk philosophy,
As many a night before—dispute, agree,
And taste again the likeness in unlikeness
Friendship is mix'd of.

Dru.
Thou may'st ask my news.
All Rome, indeed, will shortly ring with it.

Pro.
Another victory and triumph? Nay,
Not a defeat? Why look you at me thus?

Dru.
Cæsar—

Pro.
Is dead?

Dru.
He is.

Pro.
Aurelius dead!

O friend, a weighty message in two words!
So heavy hath not fall'n into mine ear
Since when, a youth, I heard men whispering
“Good Antoninus is no more!”—How long
Is that ago?—He was thy father's friend
I think, Drusillus, as Aurelius thine.

Dru.
He was.—Exactly nineteen years this month
My father was that captain of the guard
Who came to Antoninus, lying sick,
For the night's watchword, and the Emperor,
Fixing his mild majestic eyes on him,
Said, “Equanimity.” At dawn of day
My father saw th' imperial face again
Pale, silent, and with eyes for ever closed.
And now his great adopted Son hath join'd
The shadowy multitude. No Quadic spear
Dethroned him; it was fever's poison'd arrow
Flying invisible through the camp. He shared
The legionaries' food and long fatigues,
And every chance of war.

Pro.
Thou too, Drusillus,
Or I mistake thee. Therefore do not scorn
This amber liquor from my own hill-slope;
Thou hast sat beneath the vines there. As thou wilt.
Himself was not more temperate. Was his age
Twelve lustra?

Dru.
Save a year.

Pro.
Too short a life!

Dru.
Aurelius thought not so. He ask'd my age
One day, and when I told him, “At two-score”—
He said—“a wise man knows what life is like,
And, though he lived a thousand years, would see
Old things in new masks merely. Why not die?
I soon shall notch a third score on the stick,
Nor wish the game spun wearisomely out.
The Roman death,” he said, “a free man's choice
Is rational, bold; great men have chosen it;

But I for my part rather will await
Th' appointed hour of natural release,
Patient of life, not fearing death at all;
A sentry at his post.”

Pro.
Go on, Drusillus!

Dru.
“Why,” said the Emperor, “should death be dreadful?
Since it is nothing but a natural change,
One other needful movement in a world
Where all things always move, and nothing stays,
Yet nothing is destroy'd. Why shrink from change
That Power which governs all things, changes all,
And makes from out their substance, other things,
From these things other yet, continually;
And by the flow of this perpetual change
Keeps universal nature always young.”

Pro.
Thy memory's good.

Dru.
I noted down his words.
“The world, could'st thou but see it, would be seen
Shifting incessantly, but nothing lost,
And the great Whole continuing: the Gods
Also continuing, as I well believe.”

Pro.
Would that we might have clearer news of them!
In Rome, as well thou knowest, many men
Scoff at the Gods and count them fables merely.
What would they say to this? “Assuredly
Cæsar must keep the temples up!”—or else,
“Old-fashioned! Out of date!”

Dru.
But here indeed
No Pontiff spoke: for one thing stay'd with him
Since Verus was his name, and Hadrian
Who loved the boy call'd him Verissimus;
From youth to age, truth was his very nature,
Nor custom nor tradition master'd him,
All was digested in his mind, which took
Its proper nutriment; nor he the fool

To think, like many, truths wear out with time—
Being more substantial than the sea and land.

Pro.
I trust his moderate and measured phrase
Beyond all flourishes.

Dru.
He hated those.
“The Gods,” he said, “we name them as we will:
They stand above my knowledge: but I feel
A Power Divine within me and without
Whereby all things are govern'd, changed, preserved.”
And on another day these words were his:
“All from the Gods is full of Providence,
Nor Fortune separate from Nature; all
Being interwoven in one mighty web.
Why therefore should I fear to quit the earth,
If this be so? And if it be not so,
Why should I care to live in such a world,
Empty of Gods and void of Providence?”

Pro.
Wise words!—and here no trivial theorist,
But Roman Cæsar, mightiest of men.
What will his son be like?

Dru.
As the Gods please.
High man or low man, wise man is the man.
Marcus himself would many a time declare,
“Great Alexander, Julius, and Pompeius,
Count I but small, if match'd with Socrates,
Or Heraclitus, or Diogenes,
Or that Greek Slave.”

Pro.
Ay, noble Epictetus.
Aurelius would have made that slave his friend.
But let us talk of Commodus awhile.
Where is he?

Dru.
In the camp. Aurelius turn'd
By nature to Philosophy. He said
“The senate gave me empire, not desired,
Much better loving shady silent paths
Of peaceful meditation, than to roll
On dusty highway in triumphal car.

But all things moved together to that end,
Adoption, training, much experience gain'd
In public functions, most of all the wish
Of him my more than father; and with these—
The driving-wheel of all—sense of man's place
And work, as social and for general use.”

Pro.
A noble nature!

Dru.
Well brought-up withal.
He loved to praise his tutors—“Thanks to them
For what I am.” But he was ever humble.
“I know,” he said, “being prince, and train'd thereto,
I've miss'd much man-lore simple men have gain'd
Simply, as husbandmen grow weatherwise
And fishers wary.”

Pro.
There is truth in that.
Alp sees not close but wide. Nor can the great
Well know the teasing troubles of poor men.
Was he a bookish man?

Dru.
His books were few.
I've heard him say, “Much reading is but vain.
In contemplation and experience
The wise man will discover what he needs,
Unmesh'd in subtleties and speculations
Thin-spun by curious busy-idle wits.
The sense of things is plain to healthy minds,
The nature of them deep beyond all ken;
Of qualities we learn; of essence nothing;
Nor do I deem, in myriad years to come,
Though many little truths they pick or delve
And put in storehouse, men are like to know
One atom more of Life, Death, or the Gods
Than we do now; nor shall they profit much
In happiness, perchance, by all they learn.
To view the daily earth and nightly heavens,
Feeling their beauty and magnificence;
To know there's good and evil, choose the good;

Let reason govern thee, not appetite;
Learn to be true, just, diligent, and brave;
Count all men brothers, work for general use;
Obey God, help men, and be not perturb'd,
Taking thy lot with equanimity;
These are the main things, and must always be;
What more we add, not much, though we should set
The sun and moon in scales, see the grass grow,
And fly with better than Icarian wings
From Rome to Thule.”

Pro.
Had he any guess
Of how the world was made?

Dru.
“Too deep for thought,”
He said, “much more for language.” Yet he mused
And question'd thus, “The nature of the Whole
Moved, and began the order'd Universe;
And everything must be continuous
From that prime impulse. Shall we deem this force,
Ev'n in the highest things whereto it tendeth,
Void of a rational principle?—or all
From one divine inscrutable First Cause,
Whence too our rational being must derive
Its powers? The order that subsists in thee
Is under rule of reason. Can this rule
Be absent in the Universe? Not so.
One Living Mind rules all.”

Pro.
Remember'd well!
I see this as I never saw before.
His words are precious gems. Doth Commodus
Set forth at once to Rome? What think'st thou of him?
The slaves are out of hearing.

Dru.
Grant me this,
Dear friend, no word of politics to-night!

Pro.
So be it. Tell me more then of our Prince
Who now is with the Gods.

Dru.
Oft in his tent

Or by a watchfire on the battle-field,
I saw him take a little parchment-scroll
Out of his bosom; and on a certain night
He let me look therein, close-writ in Greek;
Saying, “I put these thoughts upon my tablets
As they came to me, wrote them fairly out,
And turn to them again from time to time;
Since what is written, even by oneself,
Becomes a force, takes place in the world of things,
And may be found again and scann'd again;
Thus wise mood and clear insight come in aid
Of weak dark moments, and hold judgment firm.
The most,” he said, “were written long ago;
I read in them my brighter healthier self;
Now, things grow wearisome, and seldom seem
Worth the style's labour—yet are they no worse,
No better than of old.” With leave, I conn'd
The sentences, and copied many down
In our own tongue from memory. Words are seeds.
Here is my scroll, if thou art not yet tired.
But much he spoke was to the same effect.

Pro.
Nay, read, Drusillus.

Dru.
Thus Aurelius:
“Whate'er it be, this Universe,—myself
Am part thereof, related intimately
To other parts like me, my fellow-men.
Let me be thankful and content, and seek
The common good; for happy he alone
Who, wise in contemplation, just in action,
Resigns himself to universal nature,
Expecting, fearing, and disliking nothing,
And puts his ruling faculty to use.
Ask this—how doth the ruling faculty
Employ itself? All else is but as smoke.”—
“What is this hubbub that goes on around?
Vain pomp and stage-play, weapon-brandishings,
Sheep following sheep (poor men!), herds driv'n along,

Dogs rushing to a bone, fish to a crumb,
Labours of ants, hurry of fright'n'd mice,
The posturing of puppets pull'd by strings!
View it all quietly, good-naturedly,
And not with scorn; but clearly understand
A man is worth so much as that is worth
He busies himself in. Yet, all are brethren:
Turn not away from any man or thing.”—
“Wrong-doers must be, therefore marvel not
To meet one; he's in error; on thy part
Seek to amend him kindly: if thou'rt anger'd
Give thyself blame, not him. Be not perturb'd.
If a man hate thee, that is his affair,
Thine, that he have no cause. Upon thyself
Depends thy happiness; thy will is free;
Obey the voice of God.”—Mark this, my friend:
“If God had plann'd it all — enough: art thou
Wiser than God? But certain men surmise
Chance ruleth all, or Fate: be thou at least
Not rulèd so, and having cared for this,
Be tranquil.” Note that, Probus—“Thou at least
Be not so rulèd.” Often would he say,
“What is the dearest, most essential thing,
Whereof can no man rob us? Our Free-Will!”

Pro.
A grand word! But, how choose therewith?

Dru.
He held,
That, as our lungs inhale the atmosphere,
A subtler spiritual force pervades the world,
Which he who wills may draw into his mind.

Pro.
Strange!—yet my soul breathes freer at his words.
Read on.

Dru.
In this the perfect Stoic speaks:
“Rule thy opinion, and thou rulest all
Comes from without; esteem that as it is,
Nothing—the Ruling Faculty untouch'd.”

Pro.
I am too weak for that!

Dru.
Again he writes:
“Value not life at any costly rate,
Reflect: the Past a dream, the Future nothing,
The Present is the only thing thou hast,
Therefore the only thing which thou can'st lose,
And what is that?—a point.”

Pro.
The sophist here
Methinks, Drusillus—subtlety for wisdom!
The Past is in the Present, and the point
Is moving, therefore measureless.

Dru.
Well said!
No man is always right.

Pro.
And then, “Opinion?”
Suppose at some bad inn I drink sour wine,
How shall opinion make me taste and feel
Falernian? Or should angry Neptune toss
My wretched body, hath opinion power
To comfort me?

Dru.
Some men are tougher made
No doubt, than others; for the perfect Stoic
Too nice a palate is unapt, too weak
A stomach; yet the main point lies not here.
Make by our Ruling Faculty the least
And not the most of adverse accident,
The best and not the worst of all our gifts,
We're followers, though with feeble step it be,
Of Zeno, Epictetus, and Aurelius.
Live but to gratify our lower selves:
And study these, we're on the hateful road
With Nero and his parasites.

Pro
A gloss
On Stoicism!—a good one I allow.
I fear I'm of the sons of Epicurus—
The later sons, degenerate from his doctrine!

Dru.
Nay, thou malign'st thyself—in vain to me.
No two men are alike, nor no two Stoics.
But here are maxims fit for every man:

“Act as thy nature leads, observing justice.
Rate everything according to its value.
Bear what the common nature brings to thee.”
“Study not what thy neighbour says, does, thinks,
But live thine own life rightly. Talk no more
Of how a man should live, but so live thou.”—
“The Soul's a sphere, and keeps her proper shape
If not stretch'd forth to outward things too far,
Nor, else, contracted inward, shrunk together.
“Seek imperturbably to live a life
Of wisdom, justice, temperance, fortitude;
Be ever friendly, mild, benevolent;
And follow thy eudæmon—God within thee.”

Pro.
Gold words! The sweetest of the Stoics, he.
Unless it were his Father.

Dru.
Nay, for him
Good life sufficed, without philosophy.

Pro.
Little have I of either! But note this;
Marcus's nature, that was rational,
Mild, kind and sociable; the voice within
Counsell'd him good not evil things. We all
Are not so made. Some men are idly given,
Care but for feasts and flowers and fluteplayers;
Why should they baulk their fancies? Others thirst
For glory, praise, and power; and why not seek them,
Such being their nature? How fit every man
To Marcus?

Dru.
Ay, or any other pattern?
I said, no two alike, each his own life;
And yet must none live solely for himself.
The idle and the grasping miss true life
Through error; help them; for, as Plato wrote,
Willingly is no soul deprived of truth;
Count all amendable.

Pro.
Nay, some I know

In whom a cacodæmon surely whispers!
How deal with these?

Dru.
Shun, guard against, repress;
At utmost need, expel them solemnly,
As curs'd by fate or their perverted wills,
And give them over to the larger Power.
Aurelius could be stern—but ever sadly.
Yet, tho' in his self judgment strict, and all
That touch'd the State, to other men at times
(Perhaps because he did not rate them high)
And women, he was far too mild, too easy;
His only fault. Witness his former colleague.
Witness his— But enough. His life was pure,
His death was tranquil. May our souls tread firm
To follow his!

Pro.
Alas, I would the Gods,
Spoke out with clearer voice to us poor men
On life and death! How should our souls be firm
When oracles are doubtful?—Will new Cæsar
Follow the fierce Bellona's flashing helm?

Dru.

Not if he hold his father's counsel dear.
“Jove grant my son,” Aurelius used to say,
“Have little need and no desire of war.
War I detest. Yet I have lived in war,
To keep Augustus Cæsar's legacy,
Our empire's bounds, unbroken—on the west
The Atlantic Ocean, on the north the Rhine
And Danube, with Euphrates to the east,
Africa's burning deserts to the south;
The savage isle of Britain join'd to these
By later outpulse of imperial force,
And Hadrian's Dacia afterwards. War—war—”
Would he exclaim, “I hate war—could not shun it!
O happy Antoninus, fitly named
The Pious, three-and-twenty peaceful years
The lifting of thy sceptre sway'd the world,

No further journeying than Lanuvium!”

Two months ago, as many times before,
He spake in this wise; and, on that same evening,
Came I for orders to the Emperor.
And found him pacing lonely on the bank
Of the broad Danube in a wintry dusk.
My business done, he lifted up his eyes,
And seeing great stars rising in the east,
“Think of the courses of the heavens,” he said,
“The boundless gulf of past and future time,
And what our little lives are. This whole Earth
We move upon is but a point.” He stept
Silent some way, then stopping short exclaimed—
“Who can believe that good and noble souls,
The highest things we wot of, when they leave us
Perish and are extinguished, or that God
Will not preserve them, if the general scheme
Allow thereof? This body is not me;
'Tis but the vessel and the instrument
Of an imperishable essence; yea,
Myself and God are under one same law.”
He ceased, then added in a lower voice—
“Shall man dispute with God? O reverence Him
Confide in Him who governs everything!
The perfect living Being, good and just
And beautiful, who generates, who holds
Together all things, who contains them all,
Continually dissolved and reproduced,
Himself not changed; from whom the soul of man
Is drawn, an efflux of the Deity.”
When next I saw Marcus Aurelius,
He lay in fever.

Pro.
Did it long endure?

Dru.
I'll tell thee, Probus. On the fifteenth day
I watch'd him, kneeling by the couch. His mind
Had wander'd, but he now lay motionless,
As in a trance, from noon till the fifth hour.

All unexpectedly, he looked upon me.
Forth came his hand. I kiss'd it. My heart leapt
With a pang of fleeting joy. He merely said—
“Farewell, Drusillus. Bear the news to Rome.”
Then his eyes closed again; and no more words.

Pro.
Young Commodus, I think—

Dru.
I think, my friend,
He had a virtuous and most noble Father.

Pro.
Truly. And I for my part recollect
Caligula's father was Germanicus
Domitian's Titus. But—Hail, Commodus!
Cæsar and Emperor, seventeenth in count
From shrewd Augustus—some amongst them great
And many vile. Fortune hath strangely throned
Pernicious human monsters, gorging blood
Until it choked them.

Dru.
Yea, but Rome endures;
Jove's oak, whereon some carrion vultures perch'd;
Empire that was, and is, and will be great;
Never before so powerful, and so happy
As under Trajan, Hadrian, Antonine,
And our beloved Aurelius.

Pro.
And yet,
All things, Drusillus, have their term. Jove's oak,
Rock-rooted, wide-arm'd, after many years
Grows hollow, one day crumbles. Shall men see
Great Rome a ruin?

Dru.
Choose more lucky words,
Dear Probus!—or indeed wilt thou forebode
This Christian superstition, the crush'd worm,
Lord of our seven hills, with superber shrine
Than Jove's own temple now? or dost thou fear
The Britons may outrival us in arms,
Wealth, power, and policy, and one day build
A greater city than on Tiber's banks
By some cold fenny river of the north?

Pro.
Nay, I love Rome. Live Rome!

Dru.
She'll outlast us,
Be who will Cæsar. May the Gods protect her!
Thanks and farewell, my friend!

Pro.
The slaves await you.
Health and sound sleep, Drusillus! Fare thee well!

A NURSERY RHYME FOR THE ELDERS.

The Masters of the World when we are gone
Play round our knees, look up to us with awe,
From our lips take their earliest deepest law;
In jest we mould the clay that turns to stone,
Give little care what sort of seed is sown,
What weeds therewith, or venoms. If we saw
The Future, with our part distinctly shown,
Vulture Remorse might tear us, beak and claw.

Dolt! Coward! Rogue! must Ages yet to be
Inherit, with Life's necessary griefs,
What thou thyself perceivest base in thee?—
Factitious crimes and duties, sham beliefs,
Pride like a murderer's, pleasure like a thief's,
Man's very best besteep'd in falsity!

GRAVES AND URNS

IN SHADOW.

Who with set eyelids venturing into years
That are not come, like years of long ago,
Can warm those shadows? Dusk, with steps as slow
As mine, crept through the Graveyard, dropping tears
Like one that mourn'd. I mused and mused: methought
Some months, some years were gone, and evening brought
To linger by these graves a pensive Boy.
Amid the twilight stillness deep and lone
He stoops to read an old half buried stone,
And weeds the mosses that almost destroy
The letters of the name, which is—my own.
The wind about the old gray tower makes moan.
He rises from the grave with sadden'd brow,
Leaving it to the night, and sighs, as I do now.

HIS TOWN.

His Town is one of memory's haunts,—
Shut in by fields of corn and flax,
Like housings gay on elephants
Heaved on the huge hill-backs.

How pleasantly that image came!
As down the zigzag road I press'd,
Blithe, but unable yet to claim
His roof from all the rest.

And I should see my Friend at home,
Be in the little town at last
Those welcome letters dated from,
Gladdening the two years past.

I recollect the summer-light,
The bridge with poplars at its end,
The slow brook turning left and right,
The greeting of my Friend.

I found him; he was mine,—his books,
His home, his day, his favourite walk,
The joy of swift-conceiving looks,
The glow of living talk.

July, no doubt, comes brightly still
On blue-eyed flax and yellowing wheat;
But sorrow shadows vale and hill
Since one heart ceased to beat.

Is not the climate colder there,
Since that Youth died?—it must be so;
A dumb regret is in the air;
The brook repines to flow.

Wing'd thither, fancy only sees
An old church on its rising ground,
And underneath two sycamore trees
A little grassy mound.

THE CRUCIBLE.

I.

Is he shrunk to Name and Date,
Painted on a coffin plate?

II.

With golden talismans bedeck'd,
Deep this single man was sheathed
In atmosphere of soft respect,
Which everyone around him breathed.
Well he was served, well attended,
Well becourted, well befriended;
Many labours stopt or sped
By the turning of his head;
Many lives toil'd like bees
To make the honey of his ease.

III.

And leave you him all alone
Beneath a stone,
Now when comes the twilight cold
Down the bare wold,
And winds are crying to the darken'd foam;
When thoughts of glowing rooms and faces
And the dear domestic graces
Draw all men home?
On this stone the ragged rooks will meet,
The gusty rain-storm rave and beat,

The little grass-mouse will scamper over it
To and from her nest in the bield,
The wide-falling winter snow will cover it,
With other stones of the field.
Black Rook, white Snow, how can they know
This stone has a costly vault below?
Brown Mouse, wild Rain, 'tis too, too plain,
Won't spare this grave from the common disdain.

IV.

Oh, you say it is not he
You are laying by the sea;
Leaving in the graveyard lonely;
'Tis not he—his body only.
Darkness is its dwelling fit,
And a stone to cover it.
He Himself, His Soul, you say,
God has call'd him far away.

V.

Would that men would well discern
What a lesson they might learn
From this natural separation,
Chemist Death's elimination
Of the drossy and the fleeting,
Past all further trick or cheating;
And in the actual be so wise
As to justly analyse
The elements of life, while blended,
Which they rank, when all is ended,
Thus concluded, proved, and past,
In a truer rate at last.
Long his Life: and in the whole
How much worship earn'd his Soul?

THE COLD WEDDING.

But few days gone
Her hand was won
By suitor finely skill'd to woo;
And now come we
In pomp to see
The Church's ceremonials due.

The Bride in white
Is clad aright,
Within her carriage closely hid;
No blush to veil—
For too, too pale
The cheek beneath each downcast lid.

White favours rest
On every breast;
And yet methinks we seem not gay.
The church is cold,
The priest is old,—
But who will give the bride away?

Now delver, stand,
With spade in hand,
All mutely to discharge thy trust:
Priest's words sound forth;
They're—“Earth to earth,
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

The groom is Death;
He has no breath;
(The wedding peals, how slow they swing!)
With icy grip
He soon will clip
Her finger with a wormy ring.

A match most fair,
This silent pair,
Now to each other given for ever,
Were lovers long,
Were plighted strong
In oaths and bonds that could not sever.

Ere she was born
That vow was sworn;
And we must lose into the ground
Her face we knew:
As thither you
And I, and all, are swiftly bound.

This Law of Laws
That still withdraws
Each mortal from all mortal ken—
If 'twere not here;
Or we saw clear
Instead of dim as now; what then?
This were not Earth, and we not Men.

PHANTAST.

“The monument woos me.”
Second Maiden's Tragedy.

Everything that seeks to do thee harm
Hearkens to the song that I am singing.
Sly and winding worm is in his hole,
Ruddy shrewmice listen in their burrow;
Wasps are nested by thee, but the charm
Keeps that yellow robber-band from stinging;
In thy bed of clay the howking mole
Bores no tunnel thorough.
Now that day from heaven is gone,
Thou art smoothly dreaming on,—
Not to waken with the dawn.

Only now the moaning of the breeze
Answers to the song that I am singing.
In the moonlit dyke the crouching hare
Raises up her watchful ears to listen;
From the blackness of the ghostly trees
Swift and silent bats like Dreams are winging;
Round the grassy hummocks here and there
Elfin tapers glisten.
Whilst the wind's sad tale is told,
Thou art lapt up from the cold
In a blanket made of mould.

Many nights and many days have heard
Songs of mine like this that I am singing;
By the sun, or by this paler round;
In the dark, when shrouded stars are weeping;
When the old tower shakes his ivy-beard,
When the skiey thunder-bells are ringing;
Hurtful things that live below the ground
From thy pillow keeping.
And when I have leave to die,
Then an Angel from the sky
Comes to watch us where we lie.

IN HIGHGATE CEMETERY.

Far-spread below doth London wear
Its cloud by day, its fire by night;
But scarce with heavenly presence there,
Enshrined in smoke or pallid light.

Incessant troops from that vast throng
Withdraw to silent colonies;
Where houses, lo, are fair and strong,
Though ruins all that dwell in these.

Yet here, too, under boundless sky,
Do children sport, and wild birds sing;
Calm foliage waxes green and high,
And grave-side roses smell of Spring.

THE FUNERAL

Say not we “bury him;” nor talk
Of “sleeping in the tomb.”
With foolish words the soul we baulk,
And shut it round with gloom.

The mystic form whereby we knew
Our parent once, or friend,
Let this, indeed, have reverence due
For life's sake, tho' at end.

But this no more is man at all,
Mere water now and clay,
Fit to be purged by fire, or fall
Apart in slow decay.

Life—Death—are hieroglyphics writ,
By one mysterious hand,
Their meaning passes all our wit,
We may not understand.

Forget men's timid vain pretence,
Forget their babbling speech;
Trust to thy Spirit's highest sense
The truest faith to reach.

URN BURIAL.

Earth is too full of graves,
So is Man's Mind:
Must we be always slaves,
Self-shackled, blind?

Like fierce Mezentius, tie
Living to Dead?
No!—let flame purify
The foul instead,—

Purge quickly soil and air,
Body and soul,
Of base obstruction there,
In man's control,—

Give thus, for horror and pest,
Some ashes, white
As snow or sea-wave's crest
Or still moonlight,
Or thoughts of the loved and blest
Withdrawn from sight.

FORWARD.

I.

Ever streams the living gale
To some forward goal,
Forward, forward bends our sail,
Forward strains our soul.

II.

Grandly of the ways of men,
Guesses childhood. But since then
Master Time has made me free,
Step by step in swift advance,
Of manhood's full freemasonry;
And its mysteries prove to be
Blanker far than ignorance.

III.

Men have a narrow range of sight,
A little peristyle of light,
A world of thought confused and crude,
Where chaos still is unsubdued.
Soothed in daily pain and sorrow,
With nursery promise for to-morrow,
They dream of corners unexplored
Where the wealth of life is stored,
Something to be shown at last,
Something to be known at last,
Beyond these poor toys of the Present;
Moon of hope, for ever crescent,
Seems to grow, is never grown.

IV.

Yet for the weakest one of these,
All the Arabian mysteries
Within the world's most credulous scope,
Afford not space enough for Hope
To build the Future's temple in:
At last they end where those begin,
Who searching with a mountain-view
The old earth-world all round and round,
And nowhere finding open ground,
At once send Hope on strong wings forth
Into a world almost as new as birth,—
Hope saith, almost as new.

V.

And so at last, not much afraid,
Forward, file on file, we march
Into the gloom which takes our breath;
Nay when the Sun with glance divine
Upon that tearful cloud may shine,
Behold a new triumphal arch—
Yea, see the very Door of Death
Out of a Rainbow made!

WOULD I KNEW!

Plays a child in a garden fair
Where the demigods are walking;
Playing unsuspected there
As a bird within the air,
Listens to their wondrous talking:
“Would I knew—would I knew
What it is they say and do!”

Stands a youth at city-gate,
Sees the knights go forth together,
Parleying superb, elate,
Pair by pair in princely state,
Lance and shield and haughty feather:
“Would I knew—would I knew
What it is they say and do!”

Bends a man with trembling knees
By a gulf of cloudy border;
Deaf, he hears no voice from these
Wingèd shades he dimly sees
Passing by in solemn order:
“Would I knew—O would I knew
What it is they say and do!”

DEATH DEPOSED.

I.

Death stately came to a young man, and said
“If thou wert dead,
What matter?” The young man replied,
“See my young bride,
Whose life were all one blackness if I died.
My land requires me; and the world's self, too,
Methinks, would miss some things that I can do.”

II.

Then Death in scorn this only said,
“Be dead,”
And so he was. And soon another's hand
Made rich his land.
The sun, too, of three summers had the might
To bleach the widow's hue, light and more light,
Again to bridal white.
And nothing seem'd to miss beneath that sun
His work undone.

III.

But Death soon met another man, whose eye
Was Nature's spy;
Who said, “Forbear thy too triumphant scorn.
The weakest born
Of all the sons of men, is by his birth
Heir of the Might Eternal; and this Earth
Is subject to him in his place.
Thou leav'st no trace.

IV.

“Thou,—the mock Tyrant that men fear and hate,
Grim fleshless Fate,
Cold, dark, and wormy thing of loss and tears?
Not in the sepulchres
Thou dwellest, but in my own crimson'd heart;
Where while it beats we call thee Life. Depart!
A name, a shadow, into any gulf,
Out of this world, which is not thine,
But mine:
Or stay!—because thou art
Only Myself.”

[No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone]

No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone,
Corpse-gazings, tears, black raiment, gravey ard grimness;
Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness,
Yours still, you mine; remember all the best
Of our past moments, and forget the rest;
And so, to where I wait, come gently on.

A POET'S EPITAPH.

Body to purifying flame,
Soul to the Great Deep whence it came,
Leaving a song on earth below,
An urn of ashes white as snow.

[What is your Heaven? describe it in a breath.]

What is your Heaven? describe it in a breath.
Pure health, fit work, beyond the gate of death.

THE FIRST ENGLISH POET

Discern this Soul, his time and his abode:
In such a mould his reverent musings flow'd.

Dwelt a certain poor man in his day,
Near at hand to Hilda's holy house,
Learning's lighthouse, blessed beacon, built
High o'er sea and river, on the head,
Streaneshalch in Anglo-Saxon speech,
Whitby, after, by the Norsemen named.
Cædmon was he call'd; he came and went,
Doing humble duties for the monks,
Helping with the horses at behest;
Modest, meek, unmemorable man,
Moving slowly into middle age,
Toiling on,—twelve hundred years ago.

Still and silent, Cædmon sometimes sat
With the serfs at lower end of hall;
There he marvell'd much to hear the monks
Singing sweetly hymns unto their harp,
Handing it from each to each in turn,
Till his heart-strings trembled. Otherwhile,
When the serfs were merry with themselves,
Sung their folk-songs upon festal nights,
Handing round the harp to each in turn,
Cædmon, though he loved not lighter songs,
Long'd to sing,—but he could never sing.

Sad and silent would he creep away,
Wander forth alone, he wist not why,
Watch the sky and water, stars or clouds
Climbing from the sea; and in his soul
Shadows mounted up and mystic lights,

Echoes vague and vast return'd the voice
Of the rushing river, roaring waves,
Twilight's windy whisper from the fells,
Howl of brindled wolf, and cry of bird;
Every sight and sound of solitude
Ever mingling in a master thought,
Glorious, terrible, of the Mighty One
Who made all things. As the Book declared.
“In the Beginning He made Heaven and Earth.”

Thus lived Cædmon, quiet year by year;
Listen'd, learn'd a little, as he could;
Work'd, and mused, and pray'd, and held his peace.

Toward the end of harvest time, the hinds
Held a feast, and sung their festal songs,
Handing round the harp from each to each.
But before it came where Cædmon sat,
Sadly, silently, he stole away,
Wander'd to the stable-yard and wept,
Weeping laid him low among the straw,
Fell asleep at last. And in his sleep
Came a Stranger, calling him by name:
“Cædmon, sing to me!” “I cannot sing.
Wherefore—wo is me!—I left the house.”
“Sing, I bid thee!” “What then shall I sing?”
“Sing the Making of the World.” Whereon
Cædmon sung: and when he woke from sleep
Still the verses stay'd with him, and more
Sprang like fountain-water from a rock
Fed from never-failing secret springs.

Praising Heaven most high, but nothing proud,
Cædmon sought the Steward and told his tale,
Who to Holy Hilda led him in,
Pious Princess Hilda, pure of heart,
Ruling Mother, royal Edwin's niece.

Cædmon at her bidding boldly sang
Of the Making of the World, in words
Wondrous; whereupon they wotted well
'Twas an Angel taught him, and his gift
Came direct from God: and glad were they.

Thenceforth Holy Hilda greeted him
Brother of the brotherhood. He grew
Famedest monk of all the monastery;
Singing many high and holy songs
Folk were fain to hear, and loved him for:
Till his death-day came, that comes to all.

Cædmon bode that evening in his bed,
He at peace with men and men with him;
Wrapt in comfort of the Eucharist;
Weak and silent. “Soon our Brethren sing
Evensong?” he whisper'd. “Brother, yea.”
“Let us wait for that,” he said; and soon
Sweetly sounded up the solemn chant.
Cædmon smiled and listen'd; when it lull'd,
Sidelong turn'd to sleep his old white head,
Shut his eyes, and gave his soul to God,
Maker of the World.

Twelve hundred years
Since are past and gone, nor he forgot,
Earliest Poet of the English Race.
Rude and simple were his days and thoughts.
Wisely speaketh no man, howso learn'd,
Of the making of this wondrous World,
Save a Poet, with a reverent soul.

PRESENT-FUTURE.

“Give back my youth!” the poets cry,
“Give back my youth!”—so say not I.
Youth play'd its part with us; if we
Are losers, should we gainers be
By recommencing, with the same
Conditions, all the finish'd game?
If we see better now, we are
Already winners just so far,—
And merely ask to keep our winning,
Wipe out loss, for new beginning!
This may come, in Heaven's good way,
How, no mortal man shall say;
But not by fresh-recover'd taste
For sugarplums or valentines,
Or conjuring back the brightest day
Which gave its gift and therefore shines.
Win or lose, possess or miss,
There cannot be a weaker waste
Of memory's privilege than this—
To dwell among cast-off designs,
Stages, larvæ of yourself,
And leave the true thing on the shelf,
The Present-Future, wherewith blend
Hours that hasten to their end.

[Art thou Lórd of the Wórld? Was it all made fór thee]

I.

Art thou Lórd of the Wórld? Was it all made fór thee,
Child of Time, Child of Clay?
Thinkest thou, skies will ever bend o'er thee,
Bland and friendly as those of to-day?
Every joy its savour keep,
Night o'erflow with happy sleep,
Pain and sorrow shun thy roof,
Sad Old Age keep well aloof,
Life go smoothly on its way,
Brain control, and hand obey,
To-morrow be like yesterday?

II.

Things only wait, they only wait,
They lie in ambush for thy fate.
Days go, and nights go,
Years run away, and lo!
Now the end is coming fast
The proud foolish dream past;
See the brand, so brightly kindled,
To a fading ember dwindled,
All thy pleasures, all thy riches,
Vanish like a dance of witches!

III.

Is this indeed the revolt thou wert fearing,
Child of the Infinite, Child of Hope?
Or is it the lower world disappearing
Whilst thou art lifted to higher scope?
Thou, as needs, art drawn away.
Think,—truly,—would'st thou stay?
Nothing has been given thee yet
So good, but better thou may'st get.

EVERYDAY.

Let us not teach and preach so much,
But cherish, rather than profess;
Be careful how the thoughts we touch
Of God, and Love, and Holiness.

A charm, most spiritual, faint,
And delicate, forsakes our breast,
Bird-like, when it perceives the taint
Of prying breath upon its nest.

Using, enjoying, let us live;
Set here to grow, what should we do
But take what soil and climate give?
For thence must come our sap and hue:

Blooming as sweetly as we may,
Nor beckon comers, nor debar;
Let them take balm or gall away,
According as their natures are:

Look straight at all things from the soul,
But boast not much to understand;
Make each new action sound and whole,
Then leave it in its place unscann'd:

Be true, devoid of aim or care;
Nor posture, nor antagonise:
Know well that clouds of this our air
But seem to wrap the mighty skies:

Search starry mysteries overhead,
Where wonders gleam; yet bear in mind
That Earth's our planet, firm to tread,
Nor in the star-dance left behind:

For nothing is withheld, be sure,
Our being needed to have shown;
The far was meant to be obscure,
The near was placed so to be known.

Cast we no astrologic scheme
To map the course we must pursue;
But use the lights whene'er they beam,
And every trusty landmark too.

The Future let us not permit
To choke us in its shadow's clasp;
It cannot touch us, nor we it;
The present moment's in our grasp.

Soul sever'd from the Truth is Sin;
The dark and dizzy gulf is Doubt;
Truth never moves,—unmoved therein,
Our road is straight and firm throughout.

This Road for ever doth abide.
The universe, if fate so call,
May sink away on either side;
But This and God at once shall fall.