 | Songs of Consolation |  |
Vulneraria amena,
Leniente de la pena,
Del' enmendadura lena
Linda encarnacion;
Con su caridosa calma,
Con su benbendita balma,
Consuelo de mi alma,
Venga resignacion.
OLD SPANISH HYMN.
Leniente de la pena,
Del' enmendadura lena
Linda encarnacion;
Con su caridosa calma,
Con su benbendita balma,
Consuelo de mi alma,
Venga resignacion.
OLD SPANISH HYMN.
1
MATUTINAL.
1
We have said farewell to Sorrow;We have buried him to lie
Where the day is as the morrow
And the sea is as the sky,
Where the shadows, mounting high,
From the silence silence borrow,
In the truce of How and Why.
2
We have closed him in a copingOf the glad and sorry years;
On his hands, for memories groping,
We have laid the links of tears;
On his eyes and lips and ears
We have heaped the dust of hoping,
We have cast the clods of fears.
3
He will never waken, never;He is buried, buried deep,
Where old memories sleep for ever
In the unawakening sleep,
Where men sow not neither reap,
Where the witless and the clever
Swell Time's ever-waxing heap.
2
4
'Tis his younger, milder brotherOf the care-constraining breath,
Twin with Sorrow and yet other,
Now with us that harboureth,
He that born, old story saith,
Was of Love, the mighty mother,
At a birth with Sleep and Death.
5
If repine with us still station,Who but he can cause it flee?
If our hearts for consolation
Pine in prison, who but he
Hath the looks that heal and free,
He, whose name is Resignation
And whose eyes are as the sea?
Alp-grüm, Aug. 17, 1903.
3
HEY FOR ARCADY!
1.
FROM the mast the sail unbind!
What were feater, soul, for thee
Than a trip to Arcady?
Come; whilst yet the Fates are kind,
Sky serene and favouring wind,
Launch upon the laughing sea,
Heart at ease and fancy free,
Hope before and fear behind!
What were feater, soul, for thee
Than a trip to Arcady?
Come; whilst yet the Fates are kind,
Sky serene and favouring wind,
Launch upon the laughing sea,
Heart at ease and fancy free,
Hope before and fear behind!
Yonder, in the golden West,
Where the ocean joins the sky,
Yonder, in the seas of rest,
Lo! the Golden Islands lie.
To those sojourns of the blest
Let us journey, you and I.
Where the ocean joins the sky,
Yonder, in the seas of rest,
Lo! the Golden Islands lie.
To those sojourns of the blest
Let us journey, you and I.
2.
Farewell, all we loved on land!
Sight of sun and sound of bell,
Sister, sweetheart, friend, farewell!
Never more with you to stand,
Never more to hold your hand,
Never more return, to tell
What beyond the sun befell,
Shall we from the unknown strand.
Sight of sun and sound of bell,
Sister, sweetheart, friend, farewell!
Never more with you to stand,
Never more to hold your hand,
Never more return, to tell
What beyond the sun befell,
Shall we from the unknown strand.
4
4.
Leave the shore to sink unseen!
Overboard with dole and teen!
Overboard with dull concern!
In the Future's hand, I ween,
In the Fates' revolving urn,
Is as good as what hath been.
Overboard with dole and teen!
Overboard with dull concern!
In the Future's hand, I ween,
In the Fates' revolving urn,
Is as good as what hath been.
3.
Bend the sail and ply the oar!
On the surges blue and bright
Past the foam flees, wide and white;
Far to leeward sinks the shore.
Doubt, repining, heave them o'er!
Overboard with dull despite,
Vain regret, and leave us light
For the cruise that is before.
On the surges blue and bright
Past the foam flees, wide and white;
Far to leeward sinks the shore.
Doubt, repining, heave them o'er!
Overboard with dull despite,
Vain regret, and leave us light
For the cruise that is before.
Nail Hope's streamers to the mast!
Yonder, in the unknown sea,
Is a home for you and me.
Now is now and past is past:
Never more return will we,
Never more from Arcady.
Yonder, in the unknown sea,
Is a home for you and me.
Now is now and past is past:
Never more return will we,
Never more from Arcady.
5
PARCE PRECOR.
1
ON the upland breezes flowing, comes the flouting old refrain,With its mocking cadence calling from the Infinite Inane;
“Hearts that sever
“Time may never,
“Never set at one again!”
And old passion overfloods me, as the torrent floods the plain.
Why remind me of the suff'rance that the years would else assain?
Why the smouldering embers quicken of remembrance on the wane?
Why for ever
My endeavour
Thwart to heal me of my pain?
Will ye never, never loose me from the Past's unholy chain?
2
If your thought, o mocking memories, is to fan the ancient fireOr to stir the lusts of boyhood in the world-awearied sire,
All in vain is;
For my pain is
Other now, if yet as dire;
Fain my spirit's feet deliver would I from the wish's mire.
All the Past-time have I offered up on Passion's funeral pyre;
In the furnaces of sorrow have I purged me of desire.
6
Pure my brain is
And my heart a living lyre:
To the snow-clad heights of duty all my thoughts and hopes aspire.
3
Yet but mortal is my mettle and my wit but that of manAnd my feet must needs, unparleying, follow on the fated plan:
Heavens under,
None may sunder
From the common earthly clan;
All of woman born must bow them to the immemorial ban.
Ever since, with light and darkness, cold and heat, the world began,
In the hand of Fate the Former is the world-all's winnowing fan;
Hail and thunder,
Woe and wonder,
Sift the corn out from the bran;
None the storm of sin and sorrow but must weather, how he can.
4
Nay, have pity, mocking memories! Stir no more the ancient dole;Leave me yet in peace the remnant rescued from the ship-wrecked whole.
With your chiding,
Still abiding,
Long ye poisoned have Life's bowl.
Threescore years and more, unheeding lightning-flash and thunder-roll,
7
With mine eyes, for steering, constant ever to the constant pole.
From its guiding,
Hopes deriding,
Prithee, startle not my soul;
Lure me not to stray and perish in the sight of land and goal!
5
Pine and pain, your task is ended; rest you silent nor fulfilAll the windwafts of Life's evening with your voices wild and shrill.
All prevailing
Your assailing
For the breaking of the will
Was, the seeds of life and lusting in the chastened soul to kill.
Now that fought and won the fight is, call a truce with strife and ill:
If the day of life was stormy, let the evening hours be still.
Leave your railing!
Light is failing
And night nigheth dark and chill;
Yet a streak of gold there lingers yonder on the Westward hill;
With the glories of the setting hallowed be Life's postern-sill!
8
SPRING'S ADVENT.
MARCH fleeth to windward, his waxing less fierce than his wane;
A breath as of balsam there bloweth on land and on sea;
A portent there neareth of blessing and pleasance to be.
The starlings are shrilling, are piping their presage of rain;
The swallows to fieldward are winging and nestward again.
What is it that stirreth, that swelleth in lowland and lea?
What springeth in moorland and meadow, in boscage and tree?
What cometh? Spring cometh, with healing and hope in her train.
A breath as of balsam there bloweth on land and on sea;
A portent there neareth of blessing and pleasance to be.
The starlings are shrilling, are piping their presage of rain;
The swallows to fieldward are winging and nestward again.
What is it that stirreth, that swelleth in lowland and lea?
What springeth in moorland and meadow, in boscage and tree?
What cometh? Spring cometh, with healing and hope in her train.
The throstles are trilling the olden, the golden refrain;
Spring cometh, hope 'neweth, life springeth in woodland and wold:
The grasses are growing, buds blowing in garden and plain;
The meadows are gleaming, are streaming with silver and gold:
No heart but rejoiceth; no soul but to solace is fain;
The Winter is over and young is our world that was old.
Spring cometh, hope 'neweth, life springeth in woodland and wold:
The grasses are growing, buds blowing in garden and plain;
The meadows are gleaming, are streaming with silver and gold:
No heart but rejoiceth; no soul but to solace is fain;
The Winter is over and young is our world that was old.
9
MUSA SPRETA
1.
I HEAR the unwise assever that poetry is dead,
That song is out of season and singers out of date
And both alike unportioned in this our new estate,
Where nothing worth is reckoned, except it baketh bread,
That, in our age rant-ridden, our day delusion-fed,
Song is a flower of dreamland, that lingers overlate,
A rose, of love that breatheth unto a world of hate,
A bird, that pipes its heart out to ears grown deaf for dread.
That song is out of season and singers out of date
And both alike unportioned in this our new estate,
Where nothing worth is reckoned, except it baketh bread,
That, in our age rant-ridden, our day delusion-fed,
Song is a flower of dreamland, that lingers overlate,
A rose, of love that breatheth unto a world of hate,
A bird, that pipes its heart out to ears grown deaf for dread.
They say that it was welcome, whilst yet the world was new
And men from rhymes, like children, must learn the good and true;
But, now that old our earth is and we its dwellers old,
Plain prose and sober reason suffice to us for guide,
Nor from Life's battle leisure for poetry aside
Have we to turn and hearken its tinkling bells of gold.
And men from rhymes, like children, must learn the good and true;
But, now that old our earth is and we its dwellers old,
Plain prose and sober reason suffice to us for guide,
Nor from Life's battle leisure for poetry aside
Have we to turn and hearken its tinkling bells of gold.
2.
I hear and smile for pity and scorn of what they say:
No child but better knoweth than this their idle word,
No lark to scorn but laugheth their saying for absurd;
For poetry as flowers is, the air of every day
That sweeten and as birdsongs that drive ill thought away.
What were a land unblossomed, a sky without a bird,
Wherein no roses flowered, no thrush was ever heard,
To lift the heart to heaven and hold it pure and gay?
No child but better knoweth than this their idle word,
No lark to scorn but laugheth their saying for absurd;
For poetry as flowers is, the air of every day
10
What were a land unblossomed, a sky without a bird,
Wherein no roses flowered, no thrush was ever heard,
To lift the heart to heaven and hold it pure and gay?
Without the poet's magic, the blights of sordid care
To banish, life would languish and wither at the root.
A world, without a singer to keep it clean and fair,
As Springtide without blossom, as autumn without fruit,
As earth were, without heaven to give it light and air.
God save a songless people, a world whose music's mute!
To banish, life would languish and wither at the root.
A world, without a singer to keep it clean and fair,
As Springtide without blossom, as autumn without fruit,
As earth were, without heaven to give it light and air.
God save a songless people, a world whose music's mute!
11
COMPLEMENTALS.
1.
YOUTH, if I loved thee well,
If in thy frolic hours,
Broidered with birds and flowers,
Dearly I loved to dwell,
Oft of thy skittish spell,
I, by the heavenly powers,
Tired, of thy sweets and sours,
Shifting from heaven to hell.
If in thy frolic hours,
Broidered with birds and flowers,
Dearly I loved to dwell,
Oft of thy skittish spell,
I, by the heavenly powers,
Tired, of thy sweets and sours,
Shifting from heaven to hell.
Now is thy nesh tale told;
Turned is thy pictured page;
Changed are its blue and gold
Into the blank of age.
Solace in growing old
Yet is there for the sage.
Turned is thy pictured page;
Changed are its blue and gold
Into the blank of age.
Solace in growing old
Yet is there for the sage.
Youth is a sunny sea;
Age is an inland lake.
Often the tempests wake,
Often the wild waves flee,
Often the surge we see
Shallop and ship o'ertake,
Drive them to beach and break
Up on the land a-lee.
Age is an inland lake.
Often the tempests wake,
Often the wild waves flee,
Often the surge we see
Shallop and ship o'ertake,
Drive them to beach and break
Up on the land a-lee.
12
Over the lake the sky
Hangs with a saddened hue;
Seldom a sail flits by,
White on the sparkling blue:
Yet, if it sunless lie,
Stormless it lieth too.
Hangs with a saddened hue;
Seldom a sail flits by,
White on the sparkling blue:
Yet, if it sunless lie,
Stormless it lieth too.
2.
Love, if I held thee dear,
If in thy sun-filled air
Fain was I still to fare,
Glad in thy golden year,
Yet of thy changeful cheer
Weary I waxed, of fair
Shifting to foul fore'er,
Smile growing frown, hope fear.
If in thy sun-filled air
Fain was I still to fare,
Glad in thy golden year,
Yet of thy changeful cheer
Weary I waxed, of fair
Shifting to foul fore'er,
Smile growing frown, hope fear.
Now is thy time fordone;
Evening upon thy day
Come is, for storm and sun
Peace, with her skies of gray.
Tag ohne Trost is none,
Autumn as well as May.
Evening upon thy day
Come is, for storm and sun
Peace, with her skies of gray.
Tag ohne Trost is none,
Autumn as well as May.
Love is a mid-Spring day;
Peace an October night.
Oft, in its mid-delight,
Cometh a storm in May,
Wasteth its fair array:
Canker and rust and blight
Feed on its lovely might,
Sweeping its sweets away.
Peace an October night.
Oft, in its mid-delight,
Cometh a storm in May,
Wasteth its fair array:
Canker and rust and blight
Feed on its lovely might,
Sweeping its sweets away.
13
Over October's skies
Scant is the sun of power;
Yet is it fair and wise;
Stirless of storm and shower,
Lightning and blast, it lies,
Calm and content its dower.
Scant is the sun of power;
Yet is it fair and wise;
Stirless of storm and shower,
Lightning and blast, it lies,
Calm and content its dower.
14
PERFECTIBILITY.
1
BURIED cities in the far forgotten lands;Aztec citadels, in tropic leafage drowned;
Ancient kingdom upon kingdom underground,
Ninefold silted in the arid Afric sands;
By the lonely Alleghany river-strands
Mute memorials of past peoples, mound on mound;
Giant bones of bygone races, silence-bound,
From the Scythian deserts lifting lifeless hands;
In the Orient and the Occidental climes,
Where the alligator basks to day and gapes,
Where the blood-snakes in the cactus-tangle twine,
Where the banyans are alive with babbling apes,
Once Republics brawled and prated, of old times,
Once kings banqueted, queens quaffed the funeral wine.
2
One by one they fared and flourished, waxed and waned,To earth's bosom till at last they must return;
Of their ashes in Thought's tutelary urn
Not a trace to hold them memoried remained.
On their bones new kingdoms rose, new cultures reigned,
Arts, philosophies, religions mild and stern,
Lived their lives and to the Silence in their turn
Passed and perished at the term Fate-foreordained.
Passed and perished into nothing are they all;
Yea, their very names are faded from Time's page.
Like the leaves, that to the earth in Autumn fall
And to earth returned, new leafage foster must,
15
Others building of their dumb and breathless dust.
3
Were the Fates not speech-and sense-less, eyes and ears,Thought and apprehension lacking, tongue and brain,
In the voices of the thunder and the rain
We should hear them at our idle smiles and tears
Mock, our baseless hopes and no less baseless fears;
They would scoff to scorn our sorry strife in vain
And our nights and days were rounded for refrain
With the loud sardonic laughter of the spheres.
But of all the things that stir the stars to scorn,
Had they ears to mark and note our insect-hum,
Sure our talk of foul made fair in days to come,
Of perfection drawing nearer day by day,
Ours, a breath of life who live and pass away,
Most must move to mirth the powers of Night and Morn.
4
When of those who have foregone us to the Goal,Of the million million peoples, that have been
And have passed, their names forgot, to the Unseen,
We bethink us, we a pin-point in Life's whole,
Who to-morrow, with our every joy and dole,
Pass for ever, two eternities between,
Yet of Progress and To-be to prate o'erween,
In our spirit's ear we hark from pole to pole
How the Soul, that dureth dateless in each star,
From the shifts of Life and Death alternate free,
Part for ever of the things which live and are,
Ever present, quit of Past and of To-be,
Laughs to scorn our idle talk of worlds afar
And our prate of man's perfectibility.
16
SUMMER-VOICES.
“I LOVE you! Oh, I love you!” What other shall I say?
What is there else in Nature or in the world of men?
Without into the garden I look and see the wren
Perched high upon the swinging, the springing apple-spray,
His heart and soul out-singing unto the Summer day,
Just as he sang in golden, far olden times erewhen;
And nothing else he singeth, yea, nothing now as then,
But, “O my sweet, I love you, I love you now in May!”
What is there else in Nature or in the world of men?
Without into the garden I look and see the wren
Perched high upon the swinging, the springing apple-spray,
His heart and soul out-singing unto the Summer day,
Just as he sang in golden, far olden times erewhen;
And nothing else he singeth, yea, nothing now as then,
But, “O my sweet, I love you, I love you now in May!”
Far out I hear to westward the cuckoo's chiming note;
I hear the finches fluting among the tree-tops tall;
The bees are coming, humming, about the tulip-beds;
The butterflies are flitting around the blue-bell heads:
From all the same song cometh; they have it still by rote;
“I love you, love you, love you!” They murmur, one and all.
I hear the finches fluting among the tree-tops tall;
The bees are coming, humming, about the tulip-beds;
The butterflies are flitting around the blue-bell heads:
From all the same song cometh; they have it still by rote;
“I love you, love you, love you!” They murmur, one and all.
17
TO THE WINDS.
(Suggested by Sir Edward Burne Jones's picture, “Sponsa de Libano.”)
1
WIND of the West, arise!Speak to my wintry soul!
Lighten with balm Life's bowl,
Empty of cheer that lies!
Over Life's leaden skies
Sweeping from pole to pole,
Clear from the clouds of dole
Wash thou the weary eyes!
Why are thy voices dumb?
See where the crocus mute
Calleth on thee to come;
Hark, how the finches flute,
Syllabling still thy name,
Bidding thee blow for shame!
2
Wind of the North, depart!Back to thy banks of snow!
Wine hast thou poured of woe
Into my thirsting heart.
Better the hermit's part,
Friendless and lone to go,
Life an eternal No,
Solace without and smart!
18
Be to my soul denied,
Grant me at least surcease,
Let me at least abide
Stirless of hope and pride,
Leave me at least in peace.
3
Wind of the South, appear!Summon the Summer day!
Gladsome the world and gay
Make with the meadows' cheer!
Winter o'erlong and fear
Have with us had their stay.
Bid them away, away!
Back to their dungeons drear.
Where hast thou lain so long?
Oft, when the world was white,
Oft, in the winter's night,
Oft have I called for thee,
Bidding thee blow for me,
Quicken my soul with song.
4
Wind of the East, away!Stir not the Springtide calm!
Back, with thy wailing psalm,
Flinch from the fields of May!
Back to thy graves of gray!
See, with its breath of balm,
Stirring in herb and halm,
Cometh the Summer day.
Hence with thy blast of bale!
Hence with thy poisoned thorn!
19
Blown on the April gale,
Telleth the vernal tale,
Hope in the heart new-born!
5
Winds of the world, all hail!Fountains of dearth and death,
Angels of storm and scaith,
Eastland and Northland gale,
Hence with your Winter's tale!
Ye of the balmy breath,
Come, as the Preacher saith,
Blow on my garden-pale!
Come, o ye South and West,
Quicken the waste for me,
Hearten with herb and tree
Meadow and moorland's breast,
Willing the woodbirds nest,
Willing the new world be!
20
AFTER MAJUBA.
1
SINCE thou art fallen, England, on these daysWhen the vast shadow of thy mighty name,
Being cast no longer from the effulgent flame
Of that high faith, which, for the folk's amaze,
Once from thy soul filled all the worldly ways,
Is dwindled out before the shock of shame
And thy high heritage become a blame
To us, who reckon more the intriguer's praise,
The churl's reproach, than the white memory
Of all thy sons of old who died for thee;—
Since we, dull heirs unto a deathless fame,
Base love of ease, born of the trader-game
O'erpractised, suffer from our purblind gaze,
Feared of the light, blot out thy glory's noontide-blaze;—
2
If the old England thou no longer art,That, in the days bygone, by land and flood,
Waded for honour's sake through fire and blood,
That, by her heroes' hands, to India's heart
Her standards bore, that rent the bonds apart
Which bound the world; if in thy veins but mud
For ichor curdle, if content trade's cud
Thou be to chew and rest a mere world's mart;
If with thy dead upon Majuba-steep
Thine ancient soul lie buried, if in them
21
Loose from thy brows the lying diadem;
Cower on the earth; cast dust upon thy head;
Muffle thy griefful face and mourn thy glories dead.
3
But if a spark there smoulder yet in theeOf that high mettle, by the Picard fords
Or on Najara's slope the Gallic hordes
That smote, that forced Napoleon turn and flee,
That chased the haughty Spaniard from the sea,
That from the harp of danger's clangorous chords,
Midmost the dissonant battle-clash of swords,
Harmonious, drew the hymn of victory,
Awake, arise! Be mindful of thy troth!
Shake off the shame that these on thee have laid,
Mother of nations, who have caused thee cower
Beneath defeat, and show the world dismayed
That England liveth yet! Lay by thy sloth
And cast these faint-heart churls forth of thy place of power!
1881.
25
THE DESCENT OF THE DOVE.
I. Praeludium.
Voces in aere.
GENII TERRESTRES loq.
THE world is white in the mild moon's light;The lilies bloom in her silver sight;
Meseems some wonder is waking under
The star-flowered quiet of middle night.
From pole to pole, like a singing scroll,
The spheral sounds of the star-songs roll:
The air is gleaming with shapes of dreaming;
A mystic music is on my soul.
The spheral sounds of the star-songs roll:
The air is gleaming with shapes of dreaming;
A mystic music is on my soul.
The wonder grows, like an opening rose;
The face of heaven with a halo glows;
For joy or fearing, some charm is nearing;
I feel its wings o'er the world unclose.
The face of heaven with a halo glows;
For joy or fearing, some charm is nearing;
I feel its wings o'er the world unclose.
It fills me: there, in the middle air,
A splendour as of a meteor's hair!
The gates of heaven are open; the seven
Great angels glitter upon the stair.
A splendour as of a meteor's hair!
The gates of heaven are open; the seven
Great angels glitter upon the stair.
The flower-flame flies through the utmost skies;
The glory of heaven is in mine eyes;
I see, descending, a stair unending;
From pole to zenith its pillars rise.
The glory of heaven is in mine eyes;
I see, descending, a stair unending;
From pole to zenith its pillars rise.
And lo! in the core of the lights, that soar
And banner heaven from shore to shore,
Far fiercelier glowing, a glory's growing,
Is beaming and brightening evermore.
And banner heaven from shore to shore,
Far fiercelier glowing, a glory's growing,
Is beaming and brightening evermore.
26
The lights unfold, as a bud leaf-scrolled,
And forth of them flowers a dove of gold:
My weak sight's failing, such glory's hailing
On earth and ocean, on wood and wold.
And forth of them flowers a dove of gold:
My weak sight's failing, such glory's hailing
On earth and ocean, on wood and wold.
It spreads its wings; to a thousand strings
And pipes, the height of the heavens rings:
The world rejoices with myriad voices,
The night is a living lute that sings.
And pipes, the height of the heavens rings:
The world rejoices with myriad voices,
The night is a living lute that sings.
The angels fly through the welking high;
The dove sinks down through the spangled sky;
Its wings are bright'ning; like awful lightning,
Its sight is nearing, is rushing nigh.
The dove sinks down through the spangled sky;
Its wings are bright'ning; like awful lightning,
Its sight is nearing, is rushing nigh.
The air burns bright with its streaming light;
New noontides flower in the middest night;
Its wings wax nearer, more dread and clearer,
A meteor hailing from heaven's height.
New noontides flower in the middest night;
Its wings wax nearer, more dread and clearer,
A meteor hailing from heaven's height.
I faint for fear, as the sign draws near;
The glory is all too great to bear:
Is there no hiding from the abiding
Of that divineness so fierce and fair?
The glory is all too great to bear:
Is there no hiding from the abiding
Of that divineness so fierce and fair?
The world is wide, yet I cannot hide;
The splendours flood me on every side;
The ocean's riven with gold of heaven,
Its deeps and caverns are glorified.
The splendours flood me on every side;
The ocean's riven with gold of heaven,
Its deeps and caverns are glorified.
Fast, fast it nighs through the streaming skies;
The great earth quakes as a God that dies:
My face is paling, my sight is failing,
The lids fall down on my blinded eyes.
The great earth quakes as a God that dies:
My face is paling, my sight is failing,
The lids fall down on my blinded eyes.
27
II. In Domo Joachimi.
MARIA VIRGO loq.
THE diamond shimmer of the dawnIs faded out from hill and lawn;
And in the vanward of the day,
The bridal hours have cast away
Their virgin veils of gold and pearl.
Yonder the cuckoo pipes; the merle
Flutes on the blossomed figs, aglow
With bees, where, but an hour ago,
The nightingale did sit and sing,
That all the woods made echoing
Unto her soft complaining note;
There, in the dawn, with quivering throat,
She sat and sang of love and pain,
Till up the sun leapt and the plain
Surged of a sudden into red;
Then knew she that the night was dead
And flitted after with shy wing.
I know not what foreshadowing
Is on my sense; a haze of dreams
Hovers about my head: meseems,
The glamour of some grace to be,
Some strange fair fate encircleth me;
For, all about me, far and wide,
The workday world is glorified:
The common things of daily use,
Well-rope and bucket, cup and cruse,
Platter and trencher, wheel and loom,
Are lit with some unearthly bloom,
Some light of loveliness arcane,
That purges them of breach and stain
And as with a celestial birth
Blazons the creatures of the earth.
Some mystery haloes me, some sweet
Strange homage follows on my feet,
Whereof, meseems, all creatures wot
And I alone, I know it not.
Nay, in the wood-ways to and fro
Or in the meadows as I go,
The herbs, the lilies in the grass,
The leaves gaze at me, as I pass;
The meek sheep raise their eyes to mine;
The kidlings and the couchant kine
Lift up their heads to look on me:
The woodlands whisper, “This is she!”
The very birds break off their song,
As I go by, the meads along,
And follow me with wondering eyes.
The skylarks flutter from the skies,
To settle on my head and neck;
And in the ripples of the beck,
That prattles o'er the pebbles white,
Athwart the mosses, in the light
Lythe waftings of the upland breeze,
The winds that tremble through the trees,
The dove-notes in the olive-close,
I hear a murmur; “There she goes,
The maid of mystery, the rose
Of reverence without compare,
The happy heaven-affected fair!”
Is on my sense; a haze of dreams
Hovers about my head: meseems,
The glamour of some grace to be,
Some strange fair fate encircleth me;
For, all about me, far and wide,
The workday world is glorified:
The common things of daily use,
28
Platter and trencher, wheel and loom,
Are lit with some unearthly bloom,
Some light of loveliness arcane,
That purges them of breach and stain
And as with a celestial birth
Blazons the creatures of the earth.
Some mystery haloes me, some sweet
Strange homage follows on my feet,
Whereof, meseems, all creatures wot
And I alone, I know it not.
Nay, in the wood-ways to and fro
Or in the meadows as I go,
The herbs, the lilies in the grass,
The leaves gaze at me, as I pass;
The meek sheep raise their eyes to mine;
The kidlings and the couchant kine
Lift up their heads to look on me:
The woodlands whisper, “This is she!”
The very birds break off their song,
As I go by, the meads along,
And follow me with wondering eyes.
The skylarks flutter from the skies,
To settle on my head and neck;
And in the ripples of the beck,
That prattles o'er the pebbles white,
Athwart the mosses, in the light
Lythe waftings of the upland breeze,
The winds that tremble through the trees,
The dove-notes in the olive-close,
I hear a murmur; “There she goes,
The maid of mystery, the rose
Of reverence without compare,
The happy heaven-affected fair!”
29
There breathe around me everywhere
Celestial savours in the air
And viewless hands about me are
Busied to fend and keep afar
Whatever is not wholly good.
I have no use of earthly food;
No mortal meats my needs suffice;
The herbs and fruits of Paradise
By messengers invisible
Are broughten to my virgin cell
And the clear streams of heaven, to still
My thirst, do well for me at will.
A breath of bliss, a light of love
Celestial, hovers me above;
The airs of heaven about me stray,
Encompassing me night and day.
Celestial savours in the air
And viewless hands about me are
Busied to fend and keep afar
Whatever is not wholly good.
I have no use of earthly food;
No mortal meats my needs suffice;
The herbs and fruits of Paradise
By messengers invisible
Are broughten to my virgin cell
And the clear streams of heaven, to still
My thirst, do well for me at will.
A breath of bliss, a light of love
Celestial, hovers me above;
The airs of heaven about me stray,
Encompassing me night and day.
I am fulfilled of heavenly things:
The shadow of angelic wings
Is to my couch a canopy;
And as awake anights I lie,
I see the birds of heaven fleet
Across the skies and hear the beat
Of plume and pinion on the air.
So filled I am with visions fair
And votive fantasies that nought
Of otherwhat is in my thought.
I have no care to mark the flight
Of this our world of day and night.
The seasons' lapse uneath I note,
The ripening plums, the blossomed lote,
The flush of dawn, the shadows' fall:
My dreams to me are all in all.
Yet more and more on me they press,
Till with their thronging rapturousness
My every thought and sense is thrilled,
My days and nights with visions filled
So sweet, so real, I can keep
Scant reckoning 'twixt wake and sleep
Nor know if I have lived or dreamed.
Nay, yestermorn at day, meseemed,
Whilst yet I slumbered in my bed,
When in the dawn the first faint red
Began upon the East to be,
The scent of lilies startled me
And opening my sleep-sealed eyes,
— Where, through the casement's space, the skies
Poured the pale opal light that brings
The chill and early day, — with wings,
Star-sprinkled, fleecy, snowy-white,
Half-folded, as a bird's from flight
New lit, and shape as 'twere one sweet
Soft flame of fire from head to feet, —
I saw the angel of the Lord:
Not that stern servant of His sword,
Michael, nor Raphaël, His rod,
But Gabriel, the Breath of God,
The holy bird, that on the height
Of heaven nesteth day and night,
The Faithful Spirit, that He chose
His messenger to be to those
Whom He on earth would fain rejoice,
His will incarnate, bodied voice.
Seven lilies in his hand he had,
So wonder-sweet of scent and glad
That whoso smelt thereof might not
Except rejoice: no garden-plot
On earth lent life unto the seven;
But in the garths they grew of heaven.
The shadow of angelic wings
Is to my couch a canopy;
And as awake anights I lie,
I see the birds of heaven fleet
Across the skies and hear the beat
Of plume and pinion on the air.
So filled I am with visions fair
And votive fantasies that nought
Of otherwhat is in my thought.
I have no care to mark the flight
Of this our world of day and night.
The seasons' lapse uneath I note,
The ripening plums, the blossomed lote,
The flush of dawn, the shadows' fall:
My dreams to me are all in all.
Yet more and more on me they press,
30
My every thought and sense is thrilled,
My days and nights with visions filled
So sweet, so real, I can keep
Scant reckoning 'twixt wake and sleep
Nor know if I have lived or dreamed.
Nay, yestermorn at day, meseemed,
Whilst yet I slumbered in my bed,
When in the dawn the first faint red
Began upon the East to be,
The scent of lilies startled me
And opening my sleep-sealed eyes,
— Where, through the casement's space, the skies
Poured the pale opal light that brings
The chill and early day, — with wings,
Star-sprinkled, fleecy, snowy-white,
Half-folded, as a bird's from flight
New lit, and shape as 'twere one sweet
Soft flame of fire from head to feet, —
I saw the angel of the Lord:
Not that stern servant of His sword,
Michael, nor Raphaël, His rod,
But Gabriel, the Breath of God,
The holy bird, that on the height
Of heaven nesteth day and night,
The Faithful Spirit, that He chose
His messenger to be to those
Whom He on earth would fain rejoice,
His will incarnate, bodied voice.
Seven lilies in his hand he had,
So wonder-sweet of scent and glad
That whoso smelt thereof might not
Except rejoice: no garden-plot
On earth lent life unto the seven;
31
Then, looking on me with mild face,
“Hail, Mary,” said he, “great of grace!
The Lord Almighty is with thee.
Blesséd to all eternity,
Above all womankind, art thou,
O'er all that have been and are now,
O happy, heaven-accepted maid!”
“Hail, Mary,” said he, “great of grace!
The Lord Almighty is with thee.
Blesséd to all eternity,
Above all womankind, art thou,
O'er all that have been and are now,
O happy, heaven-accepted maid!”
Withal meseemed that not afraid
I was nor at the angel's sight
Or at the greatness of the light
Astonied, that about his face
And presence played and filled the place,
But troubled was in very deed
Anent the manner of his rede
Alone and filled with wonderment
Of what so strange a greeting meant
And what in fine should come of it.
But he, as if indeed forewit
He had of what was in my thought,
Straight, “Mary,” answered, “fear thou nought
Nor in my greeting deem of thee
Is aught against thy chastity.
Thou hast found favour with the Lord,
For that thou hast, of thine accord,
Of clean virginity made choice;
Wherefore I say to thee, Rejoice!
The Lord about thee and within
Is verily; and without sin,
Thou shalt conceive and bear a son,
Whose name shall be for benison
To all upon the earth that be.”
I was nor at the angel's sight
Or at the greatness of the light
Astonied, that about his face
And presence played and filled the place,
But troubled was in very deed
Anent the manner of his rede
Alone and filled with wonderment
Of what so strange a greeting meant
And what in fine should come of it.
But he, as if indeed forewit
He had of what was in my thought,
Straight, “Mary,” answered, “fear thou nought
Nor in my greeting deem of thee
Is aught against thy chastity.
Thou hast found favour with the Lord,
For that thou hast, of thine accord,
Of clean virginity made choice;
Wherefore I say to thee, Rejoice!
The Lord about thee and within
Is verily; and without sin,
Thou shalt conceive and bear a son,
Whose name shall be for benison
To all upon the earth that be.”
32
Withal great wonderment on me
There fell to hear him speak so mild
And strange; and “How shall I with child
Be gotten, sir,” to him I said,
“And bear, that am a clean poor maid
Nor ever had with man to do?”
Whereat he looked on me anew
With shining face and said, “Fear not;
A child on thee shall be begot,
Withouten breach of maidenhead,
Of God, the Lord of quick and dead.”
And I, yet wondered more and more
At what he said, — for passing sore
And grievous to me to believe
It seemed, — “Sir, shall I then conceive
And by the Living God, indeed,
Without the addition of man's seed,
With child, as other women, go
And bear as they?” But he, “Not so,
O Mary! It with thee shall not
Be as of other women's lot:
Thou shalt with child, as I have said,
Be and bring forth, whilst yet a maid;
Yea, shalt give suck and yet remain
A maid with whom no man hath lain
Nor handled. For the Holy Spright
Shall come upon thee and alight;
The power of God Most High shall be
About and overshadow thee.
Since unto God, thou wottest well,
There nothing is impossible.
So, yet a maid, a son shalt thou
Bear, unto whom all knees shall bow.
Great, great and holy shall he be,
For he shall reign from sea to sea;
Yea, unto him the Lord shall give
His father David's throne; and live
And over Jacob's house hold sway
Shall he; nor of his kingdom aye
Shall be an ending. Wherewithal
The child's name Jesus shalt thou call,
For that his people, all as one,
He from their sins shall save; and Son
Shall he be hight of the Most High,
The One, the Living God.” And I,
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord!
Be it according to thy word.”
There fell to hear him speak so mild
And strange; and “How shall I with child
Be gotten, sir,” to him I said,
“And bear, that am a clean poor maid
Nor ever had with man to do?”
Whereat he looked on me anew
With shining face and said, “Fear not;
A child on thee shall be begot,
Withouten breach of maidenhead,
Of God, the Lord of quick and dead.”
And I, yet wondered more and more
At what he said, — for passing sore
And grievous to me to believe
It seemed, — “Sir, shall I then conceive
And by the Living God, indeed,
Without the addition of man's seed,
With child, as other women, go
And bear as they?” But he, “Not so,
O Mary! It with thee shall not
Be as of other women's lot:
Thou shalt with child, as I have said,
Be and bring forth, whilst yet a maid;
Yea, shalt give suck and yet remain
A maid with whom no man hath lain
Nor handled. For the Holy Spright
Shall come upon thee and alight;
The power of God Most High shall be
About and overshadow thee.
Since unto God, thou wottest well,
There nothing is impossible.
So, yet a maid, a son shalt thou
Bear, unto whom all knees shall bow.
Great, great and holy shall he be,
33
Yea, unto him the Lord shall give
His father David's throne; and live
And over Jacob's house hold sway
Shall he; nor of his kingdom aye
Shall be an ending. Wherewithal
The child's name Jesus shalt thou call,
For that his people, all as one,
He from their sins shall save; and Son
Shall he be hight of the Most High,
The One, the Living God.” And I,
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord!
Be it according to thy word.”
Therewith he stinted: then, with voice,
As 'twere a trumpet's sound, “Rejoice,
O thrice, o four times blesséd maid,
O happy child of Eve,” he said,
“In this thy favour without price!
For that the gates of paradise,
Erst for thy mother's sin shut to,
Through thee shall opened be anew
And barred by thee the gates of Hell,
That art the joy of Israël,
The glory of Jerusalem!”
As 'twere a trumpet's sound, “Rejoice,
O thrice, o four times blesséd maid,
O happy child of Eve,” he said,
“In this thy favour without price!
For that the gates of paradise,
Erst for thy mother's sin shut to,
Through thee shall opened be anew
And barred by thee the gates of Hell,
That art the joy of Israël,
The glory of Jerusalem!”
Withal he kissed my kirtle's hem
And presently was gone from sight:
And I awoke and saw no wight;
But on the faldstool by my side
A pot of graven gold I spied,
Wherein seven golden lilies stood,
Whose savour was so glad and good
That all the chamber reeked of it,
And on the leaves did shine and sit
The sparkles yet of heaven's dew,
As stars they were; whereby I knew
That this which I had seen no dream
Had been indeed, as I did deem,
But Gabriel had stood me by
And brought me speech of God Most High.
And presently was gone from sight:
And I awoke and saw no wight;
But on the faldstool by my side
A pot of graven gold I spied,
Wherein seven golden lilies stood,
Whose savour was so glad and good
That all the chamber reeked of it,
34
The sparkles yet of heaven's dew,
As stars they were; whereby I knew
That this which I had seen no dream
Had been indeed, as I did deem,
But Gabriel had stood me by
And brought me speech of God Most High.
But, see, the day draws on apace
And yonder, from the winnowing-place,
Methinks I hear the nearing sound
Of labourers' voices, homeward bound.
The time draws near the forenoon-meal,
And in the nook the spinning-wheel
Stands idle, idle yet the rock,
Whereon the purple, lock on lock,
Tarries the spinning, being meant,
When spun and weft, to ornament
The ark upon the festal day,
And fringed and knotted with orfray,
To deck the Mercy-Seat for Him
Who sits between the Cherubim.
And yonder, from the winnowing-place,
Methinks I hear the nearing sound
Of labourers' voices, homeward bound.
The time draws near the forenoon-meal,
And in the nook the spinning-wheel
Stands idle, idle yet the rock,
Whereon the purple, lock on lock,
Tarries the spinning, being meant,
When spun and weft, to ornament
The ark upon the festal day,
And fringed and knotted with orfray,
To deck the Mercy-Seat for Him
Who sits between the Cherubim.
Quick! In its place the spinning-wheel
I set and order pirn and reel;
Then, seated on the spinning-stool,
The treadle press and ply the spool.
The spindle swirls, the wheel runs round,
The place hums with the pleasant sound,
The trill and chirp of cheerful toil,
That solves the thought of stain and soil
And holds both soul and body sweet.
So, being stablished in my seat,
I ply my task with hands and feet
Nor from my labour slacken may
Until the darkening of the day.
I set and order pirn and reel;
Then, seated on the spinning-stool,
The treadle press and ply the spool.
The spindle swirls, the wheel runs round,
The place hums with the pleasant sound,
The trill and chirp of cheerful toil,
That solves the thought of stain and soil
And holds both soul and body sweet.
So, being stablished in my seat,
I ply my task with hands and feet
35
Until the darkening of the day.
But lo! what light is this that grows
And greatens round me, as there rose
The sun from out my window-sill?
What savours sweet are these that fill
My every sense with Heaven's airs?
What voices vie me round allwheres,
What smitten lutes that wane and swell,
Fulfilling all my virgin cell
With sights, scents, sounds past earth's device,
Airs, flames and flowers of Paradise?
And yet more lustrous than the light,
Rarer and greater of delight
Than all the sights and sounds and scents
That overflood my ravished sense,
And yet more glorious to behold,
A wonder-dove, with wings of gold
And feathers each a flowering flame,
With eyes as heaven from whence it came
Coerulean, and in its bill
An almond-spray, upon the sill
Is lighted down and with its gaze
Holds all my senses in amaze.
Then, as, with eyes that fear to lose
Some sight of splendour, if they close,
With ears attent and thought and brain,
Upon the miracle I strain,
Of wonder such fulfilled as fear
Forthcasteth all, a voice I hear,
(Though none but that bright bird is near),
Gracious and grave, — no mortal breath,
In this our world of life and death,
The lips e'er drew from which it came,
— That calleth on me by my name,
“Hail, Mary,” saying, “maiden bright!
Thou hast found favour in My sight.
Fear not, to all eternity
For God the Lord shall be with thee.”
And therewithal the wonder-dove
Wings up and hovering above
My head, sinks down upon my breast,
With folded plumes, as in a nest,
Fulfilling me with such a flood
Of rapture that, for ill and good,
My every thought, my every sense
Is bound and fettered with suspense:
Enforced I am to sit and wait,
Nor can I stir, the coming fate
To fend from me: I cannot say,
“Take, Lord, this cup from me away!”
Nay, all my sense strains rather out,
In ecstasy excluding doubt,
Toward that flowerage of fire,
That fount celestial of desire;
And with wide arms outstretched and eye
Brimmed with desireful tears, I cry,
“Thy handmaid, Lord, behold and see!
I give, I grant myself to Thee.”
And greatens round me, as there rose
The sun from out my window-sill?
What savours sweet are these that fill
My every sense with Heaven's airs?
What voices vie me round allwheres,
What smitten lutes that wane and swell,
Fulfilling all my virgin cell
With sights, scents, sounds past earth's device,
Airs, flames and flowers of Paradise?
And yet more lustrous than the light,
Rarer and greater of delight
Than all the sights and sounds and scents
That overflood my ravished sense,
And yet more glorious to behold,
A wonder-dove, with wings of gold
And feathers each a flowering flame,
With eyes as heaven from whence it came
Coerulean, and in its bill
An almond-spray, upon the sill
Is lighted down and with its gaze
Holds all my senses in amaze.
Then, as, with eyes that fear to lose
Some sight of splendour, if they close,
With ears attent and thought and brain,
Upon the miracle I strain,
Of wonder such fulfilled as fear
Forthcasteth all, a voice I hear,
(Though none but that bright bird is near),
Gracious and grave, — no mortal breath,
In this our world of life and death,
36
— That calleth on me by my name,
“Hail, Mary,” saying, “maiden bright!
Thou hast found favour in My sight.
Fear not, to all eternity
For God the Lord shall be with thee.”
And therewithal the wonder-dove
Wings up and hovering above
My head, sinks down upon my breast,
With folded plumes, as in a nest,
Fulfilling me with such a flood
Of rapture that, for ill and good,
My every thought, my every sense
Is bound and fettered with suspense:
Enforced I am to sit and wait,
Nor can I stir, the coming fate
To fend from me: I cannot say,
“Take, Lord, this cup from me away!”
Nay, all my sense strains rather out,
In ecstasy excluding doubt,
Toward that flowerage of fire,
That fount celestial of desire;
And with wide arms outstretched and eye
Brimmed with desireful tears, I cry,
“Thy handmaid, Lord, behold and see!
I give, I grant myself to Thee.”
37
III. Postludium.
Voces in coelo.
GENII UNIVERSALES loq.
THE air is ablaze With the sunsetting haze, With the westering rays of the sun;A faint little breeze From the slumbering seas In the tops of the trees there doth run;
The world is a-dream With the glamour and gleam Of the day that is nigh to be done.
Far out in the West, O'er an ocean at rest, Float the Isles of the Blest in the air;
The lands of the light, In the heavenly height, To the rapturous sight are laid bare;
The sunsetting glory Builds, story on story, From earth unto heaven its stair.
The lands of the light, In the heavenly height, To the rapturous sight are laid bare;
The sunsetting glory Builds, story on story, From earth unto heaven its stair.
The meadows are mute; Not a nightingale's flute, Not a pipe, not a lute, not a chord;
The birds are asleep In the bowery deep, The kine and the sheep on the sward;
The moon in the gate Of the night is await To take up her watch and her ward.
The birds are asleep In the bowery deep, The kine and the sheep on the sward;
The moon in the gate Of the night is await To take up her watch and her ward.
No sound in the air, Save a sigh here and there From the windwafts that fare through the trees;
The forests are dumb; Not an answering hum To the voices that come on the breeze;
A silence of gloom, In the presence of doom, Is over the lands and the seas.
The forests are dumb; Not an answering hum To the voices that come on the breeze;
A silence of gloom, In the presence of doom, Is over the lands and the seas.
38
What aileth the day That it passeth away, With a blight of affray on its bloom?
What is it that stirr'th The air and the earth With a boding of birth and of doom?
The world is await With a feeling of fate, Of a wonder that wakes in its womb.
What is it that stirr'th The air and the earth With a boding of birth and of doom?
The world is await With a feeling of fate, Of a wonder that wakes in its womb.
Ah, there the last ray Of the darkening day There fadeth away from afar!
Down falleth the dew; Out by darkness the blue And the gold of heaven's hue blotted are;
The night flashes out With a rutilant rout, A flowerage of star upon star.
Down falleth the dew; Out by darkness the blue And the gold of heaven's hue blotted are;
The night flashes out With a rutilant rout, A flowerage of star upon star.
And lo! with night's fall, As it were at a call, The high-columned hall of the sky
Is riven in sunder With shapes of wonder, That lighten and thunder on high:
The word is spoken, The silence broken With trumpetings far and nigh.
Is riven in sunder With shapes of wonder, That lighten and thunder on high:
The word is spoken, The silence broken With trumpetings far and nigh.
The gates of heaven In twain are riven, Its portals seven unbound;
With trumps and lyres, With harps and choirs, Its towers and spires resound;
With acclamation Of jubilation Its walls are compassed round.
With trumps and lyres, With harps and choirs, Its towers and spires resound;
With acclamation Of jubilation Its walls are compassed round.
The sound of the bells Of heaven's citadels Yet loudlier swells and higher;
The lift grows lighter, The flower-flames brighter, They waxen whiter, nigher:
And lo! in the strait Of the heavenly gate I see, as I wait, aspire
A dove of wonder, With wings of thunder And form as a flame of fire.
The lift grows lighter, The flower-flames brighter, They waxen whiter, nigher:
And lo! in the strait Of the heavenly gate I see, as I wait, aspire
A dove of wonder, With wings of thunder And form as a flame of fire.
39
Straight, straight is its flight To the Throne of White; 'Tis lost in the light, 'tis gone:
The great gates close: But athwart them glows The light, like a rose of dawn.
As the sphere is whirled, 'Tis cast and hurled And scattered the world upon;
Its glory streams, Like a sun in dreams, On meadow and hill and lawn.
The great gates close: But athwart them glows The light, like a rose of dawn.
As the sphere is whirled, 'Tis cast and hurled And scattered the world upon;
Its glory streams, Like a sun in dreams, On meadow and hill and lawn.
I know not what choice is In earth and her voices, That thus she rejoices, with glee
And rapture receiving The chains that are weaving For gladness or grieving to be.
The world is all gladness; I sit in sadness; For Midsummer madness to me
The mirth without meaning, The wild overweening Of heaven, Of earth and of sea.
And rapture receiving The chains that are weaving For gladness or grieving to be.
The world is all gladness; I sit in sadness; For Midsummer madness to me
The mirth without meaning, The wild overweening Of heaven, Of earth and of sea.
Whilst all things sing To the coming King Of Summer and Spring to be,
Whilst heaven in mirth For the new time's birth Consents with earth and sea,
Apart from them, Our requiem For that which must die chant we.
Whilst heaven in mirth For the new time's birth Consents with earth and sea,
Apart from them, Our requiem For that which must die chant we.
An epoch endeth, A new descendeth, Which all-to rendeth the old;
Our age so hale, With its weal and its bale, Is past as a tale that is told;
A new comes after, Of lack of laughter, Of care and slaughter and cold;
An age of sowing For no man's mowing, Of grieving and greed of gold.
Our age so hale, With its weal and its bale, Is past as a tale that is told;
A new comes after, Of lack of laughter, Of care and slaughter and cold;
An age of sowing For no man's mowing, Of grieving and greed of gold.
From land and from sea Must the old Gods flee: I weep as I see and sigh
How each sweet sprite From the air and the light, The day and the night, must fly,
The nymph from the wood, The hoof-footed brood, The ill and the good, pass by.
Ah woe's me for Pan, The lover of man! The end of his span is nigh.
When bloweth the flower Of the newborn power, The God in that hour must die
And we, fair brothers, Must yield to others The keys of the earth and sky.
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The nymph from the wood, The hoof-footed brood, The ill and the good, pass by.
Ah woe's me for Pan, The lover of man! The end of his span is nigh.
When bloweth the flower Of the newborn power, The God in that hour must die
And we, fair brothers, Must yield to others The keys of the earth and sky.
I grieve as I go, Forsooth for I know The travail and woe untold,
The wrack and the war, The stressfulness sore, That the future in store doth hold,
The horror of hate 'Twixt the small and the great, In the scriptures of Fate enscrolled,
The dearth and the death, The sorrow and scaith, That the forthcoming faith enfold,
The frost that shall fall On the hut and the hall, On great and on small, young and old,
The bale that shall brood On the ill and the good, On weald and on wood and on wold,
When the breeze shall be bare Of the sylphs of the air Nor the elves shall set share in the mould,
When the Dryad the brake And the Naiad the lake And the Faun shall forsake the fold,
When the smile from the sea And the laugh from the lea And the green from the tree shall be polled,
When, for sorrowful thought, Men rejoice not in aught And all shall be bought and sold.
And well I know, well, That the spirits, in hell And in heaven that dwell, shall behold
The dawn of the day When the folk, for dismay Of their summerless way, heavy-souled,
Shall, dumb in their doom, In their lives without bloom, Look back from their gloom and their cold,
From the blood-boltered maze Of their faiths and their frays, And sigh for the days of old,
When the Gods debonair, The frank and the fair, Yet governed the age of gold.
The wrack and the war, The stressfulness sore, That the future in store doth hold,
The horror of hate 'Twixt the small and the great, In the scriptures of Fate enscrolled,
The dearth and the death, The sorrow and scaith, That the forthcoming faith enfold,
The frost that shall fall On the hut and the hall, On great and on small, young and old,
The bale that shall brood On the ill and the good, On weald and on wood and on wold,
When the breeze shall be bare Of the sylphs of the air Nor the elves shall set share in the mould,
When the Dryad the brake And the Naiad the lake And the Faun shall forsake the fold,
When the smile from the sea And the laugh from the lea And the green from the tree shall be polled,
When, for sorrowful thought, Men rejoice not in aught And all shall be bought and sold.
And well I know, well, That the spirits, in hell And in heaven that dwell, shall behold
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Shall, dumb in their doom, In their lives without bloom, Look back from their gloom and their cold,
From the blood-boltered maze Of their faiths and their frays, And sigh for the days of old,
When the Gods debonair, The frank and the fair, Yet governed the age of gold.
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LIFE'S RECHEAT.
ON every hand we stumble, at threescore,
On graves, memorials of a bygone day,
The milestones of Life's over-travelled way.
Here lieth that which time may not restore:
The loves, the lusts, the hates of heretofore,
Youth's hopes and yearnings, visions grave and gay,
Here in Time's treasure are they laid away,
In their own shape to see the sun no more.
On graves, memorials of a bygone day,
The milestones of Life's over-travelled way.
Here lieth that which time may not restore:
The loves, the lusts, the hates of heretofore,
Youth's hopes and yearnings, visions grave and gay,
Here in Time's treasure are they laid away,
In their own shape to see the sun no more.
Though, as in youth, my soul is full of Spring,
Though, with an equal fire, the good, the true,
The awakening year, the flowering earth's increase,
All that is fair and feat, I love and sing,
Yet, at threescore, God wot, I should not rue
To lie with those I love and be at peace.
Though, with an equal fire, the good, the true,
The awakening year, the flowering earth's increase,
All that is fair and feat, I love and sing,
Yet, at threescore, God wot, I should not rue
To lie with those I love and be at peace.
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