Sacred and profane love and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

OTHER POEMS

A SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL

Why should we lodge in marble or in bronze
Spirits more vast than earth, or sea, or sky?
Wiser the silent worshipper that cons
Their words for wisdom that will never die.
Unto the favourite of the passing hour
Erect the statue and parade the bust;
Whereon decisive Time will slowly shower
Oblivion's refuse and disdainful dust.
The Monarchs of the Mind, self-sceptred Kings,
Need no memento to transmit their name:
Throned on their thoughts and high imaginings,
They are the Lords, not sycophants of Fame.
Raise pedestals to perishable stuff:
Gods for themselves are monuments enough.

THE WIND SPEAKS

I

“In the depth of Night, on the heights of Day,
Would you know where I rest or roam?
In vain will you search, for I nowhere stay,
And the Universe is my home.

II

“When you think to descry on the craggy steep
My skirts as I mount and flee
From the wrecks I have wrought, I am sound asleep
In the cradles rocked by the sea.

III

“There is never an eye that hath seen my helm,
Though I traverse the ocean's face;
There is never a foot that hath trod my Realm,
Or can guide to my dwelling-place.

IV

“Then how will you challenge my Will and me,
Or, how what I do, arraign?
Bewail as you may, I alone am free,
You can neither imprison nor chain.

V

“Your dungeons clang on the blood-red hand,
And fetter the monster's claw.
If I merge 'neath the wave, if I level on land,
It is that my will is law.

VI

“You have cleared the main of the corsair's keel,
And the forest of outlaws' tread;
Your hounds follow swift on the felon's heel,
And the trail of the ravisher fled.

VII

“But when I harry the woods, or scour
The furrows of foam for prey,
The blushing bloom of the Spring deflower,
Or outrage the buds of May,

VIII

“Where, where are they that can hunt me down,
Or catch up my tacking sail,
Can bridle my lust with scourge or frown,
As I speed me away on the gale?

IX

“I heed no menace, I hark no prayer
And, if I desire, I sate:
'Tis but when I want not that I spare,
But neither from love nor hate.

X

“Let the feeble falter in their intent,
Or, slaking it, feel remorse.
Though I never refrain, I never repent
I am nothing but Will and Force.

XI

“The flocks of the wandering waves I hold
In the hollow of my hand,
And I let them loose, like a huddled fold,
And with them I flood the land;

XII

“Till they swirl round villages, hamlets, thorpes,
As the cottagers flee for life:
Then I fling the fisherman's flaccid corpse
At the feet of the fisherman's wife.

XIII

“I blow from the shore as the surges swell,
And the drenched barque strains for port,
But heareth in vain the lighthouse bell
And the guns of the hailing fort.

XIV

“Where speedeth the horseman o'er sand or veldt
That boasteth a seat like mine?
I ride without stirrup, or bit, or belt,
On the back of the bounding brine.

XV

“And it rears and plunges, it chafes and foams,
But I am its master still,
And its mettle I tame till it halts or roams
At whatever pace I will.

XVI

“I shatter the stubborn oak, and blanch
The leaves of the poplar tree,
And sweep all the chords of bough and branch,
Till I make them sound like the sea.

XVII

“O, where is there music like to mine,
When I muster my breath and roll
Through the organ pipes of the mountain pine,
Till they fill and affright the soul?

XVIII

“Then smoothly and softly, 'twixt shore and shore,
I float on the dreaming mere;
And motionless then you suspend your oar,
And listen, but cannot hear.

XIX

“For I have crept to the water's edge,
And deep under reed-mace crest
Am faintly fanning the seeded sedge,
Or rocking the cygnet's nest.

XX

“If I strip the maidenly birches bare
Of their dainty transparent dress,
It is that their limbs may look more fair
In their innocent nakedness.

XXI

“I weave from the leaves of the beech-capped steep
A coverlet gold and red,
And under its quiet warmth I creep,
And sleep till the snows are fled.

XXII

“Then I wake, and around the maiden's feet
I flutter each fringe and fold,
And playfully ripple the vestal pleat
That hints of her perfect mould.

XXIII

“I linger round dimpled throat and mouth,
Till her warm lips fall apart,
And with the breath of the scented south
Keep thawing her chaste cold heart.

XXIV

“Then she harks to the note of the nightingale
And the coo of the mated dove,
And murmurs the words of the poet's tale,
Till the whole of her life is Love.

XXV

“I unlimber the thunder, I aim the bolt,
Till the forest ranks waver and quail,
Then hurl down the hill and over the holt
My squadrons of glittering hail.

XXVI

“I soar where no skylark mounts and sings,
But the heavenly anthems swell,
And fan with the force of my demon wings
The furnace of nethermost Hell.

XXVII

“Like the Soul of Man, like God's Word and Will,
Whence I come and whither I go,
And where I abide when my voice is still,
You know not, and never shall know.”

SISYPHUS

Midway his upward unavailing course
Sate Sisyphus, his back against his load,
Halting a moment from that task of doom.
Adown his swollen cheeks ran streams of sweat
Dripping from thick-drenched locks; and watery beads
Gathered and stood on his stupendous limbs.
The sinews of his arm, like gnarled knots
On hollow bark of legendary oak,
Credentials of incalculable years,
Bulged up, and in his horny hands outspread
Upon his wrinkled knees, the arching veins

Glittered like tempered steel. His stertorous breath
Moaned like to bellows in cyclopean forge,
Wherewith in smithy subterranean
Against the Gods rebellious demigods
Fashion their molten ineffectual bolts.

But when, asudden, swift on angry flash,
Rumbled imperious thunder overhead,
At the commanding mandate, Sisyphus,
Bulkily rising, straightened limbs relaxed,
And turned him yet again unto his task,
Mumbling the while habitual lament.

“Why was I chosen for this hateful task,
Fantastically futile, which the Gods
Lay on their victim, for their own disport?
Rather a thousand times upon the wheel
Would I, Ixion-like, be racked, or lift

The tantalising gourd-cup to my lips.
I was no wickeder than they, and I
Founded Ephyra in a stony land,
Raised monolithic temples to the Gods,
And made the name of Corinth glorious from
Peloponnesus unto Attica.
Was it a crime to be Ulysses' sire
By sportive Anticlea ere she wed
Laertes, bringing him a Royal heir?
Yearning for whom, when Circe and her lures
From Ithaca withheld his bark, she died.
If such to me imputed be a crime,
Then all the Gods are bestial criminals,
Lustful, adulterous, meretricious Gods.
What more was my offence? Was it because
I from the clustered sister-Pleiades
Lured Merope to earth to share my love,

Not an ephemeral, but strong-nuptialled love?
Whereat the Gods, envying a mortal's joy,
Darkened her light in Heaven, and vengefully
In me infused her immortality,
That I might strain for ever at the task
Of aiding upward downward-destined world.

“If mortals were but once by doom allowed
To limit their ambition, and abide
On some material or majestic height!
But onward, upward, ever are they urged
By the half-God within their blood to pass
Beyond the flaming barriers of the world,
Where the inexorable sentries stand
To drive them back, and me, unwilling drudge,
Forced downward by the weight I upward rolled.
When to the very pinnacle of Art,

Majestically lovely, for restrained,
Hellenic minds from barbarous gropings towered,
The beast in mortals sensuously craved
For craft more carnal, Goddesses undraped
In marble, to such use recalcitrant,
Satyrs and fauns, licentious comedy,
Provocative of laughter or of lust,
Dethroning the Ideal for the Real.
When the stern Roman on the world imposed
By forceful dominance the Reign of Law,
Then did the East with tribute undermine
The male-won Empire, and barbarian hordes
Rent the Imperial marble from its limbs,
And revelled in the wreck of its decline.

“O, but now! now! now!
Heavier the load, weightier than ever yet,

For men, infatuated, now conceive,
Eliminating Spirit, they will find
In matter immaterialised the germ,
Fountain, and origin of all that moves.
But behind Fate there is another Fate,
And yet another, undiscoverable.
Yet Man, again illusioned, presses on,
Fondling the fancy he will shortly pierce
Unto the generating source of things,
The Atom atomless: whereat the Gods
Shake with ironic laughter, since themselves
Know it not, neither do they seek to know,
Aware, above them there are other Gods,
May-be one sole impenetrable God,
Never created, never dying, One
With the unbounded Universe, Himself
The soul and substance of Eternity.

That is my one last hope, that He will free
My body from this pagan servitude,
And with omnipotent mercifulness merge
My Being into His!”

MOZART'S GRAVE

I

Where lies Mozart? Tradition shows
A likely spot: so much, no more:
No words of his own time disclose
When crossed He to the Further Shore,
Though later ages, roused to shame,
On tardy tomb have carved his name.

II

The sexton asked, “What may this be?”
“A Kapellmeister.” “Pass it in:
This common grave to all is free,
And for one more is room within.
It fills the fosse. Now tread it down,
With pauper, lunatic, and clown.”

III

Yet had he wizarded with sound
Electors, Cardinals, and Kings,
While there welled forth from source profound
The flow of silvery-sounding springs,
Music of tenderness and mirth,
One with his very soul at birth.

IV

And they? Where are they now? The bust,
The elaborately carven tomb,
Whose scrolls, begrimed by age and dust,
None care to stoop and scan for whom,
Are all remaining to express
Their monumental nothingness.

V

Mitre, and coronet, and Crown,
Gaze into space that heeds them not,
Unmeaning pomp of dead renown,
Medley of Monarchs long forgot,
Who from the nations' ghastly strife
Won immortality—for life.

VI

Once, on Nile's bank an artist raised
A temple at the King's command,
And on it name august emblazed.
But when a flood submerged the land,
His name was washed away, and lo!
The artist's own stood out below.

VII

Thus vanish ostentatious lives,
But, through all time, belov'd Mozart,
Your magic memory survives,
Part of the universal heart:
In joy a sympathetic strain,
In sorrow, soother of our pain.

VIII

The Potentates on whom men gaze,
When once their Rule hath reached its goal,
Die into darkness with their days;
But Monarchs of the mind and soul
With light unfailing and unspent
Illuminate Fame's firmament.

December 1907.

“Was haben sie da?” was the inquiry when the hearse drew up with Mozart's body at the gate of the cemetery. “Ein Kapellmeister,” was the answer. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

LINES WRITTEN ON VISITING THE CHÂTEAUX ON THE LOIRE

I

“River rolling past the grey
Battlements of yesterday,
Palace strongholds reared by hands
Summoned from transalpine lands,
Skilled in wedding strength with grace,
Fort with stately dwelling-place,
Vizored brow with siren tress,
Majesty with loveliness,—

River, that beheld their sway
Dawn and dwindle, then decay,
Linger, loiter, while I sit,
As the sunshine-shadows flit,
Pondering pictures of the vast
Panorama of the Past,
And, with retrospective gaze,
Tell me of the vanished days.”

II

Still the river rolled and rolled
'Twixt its banks of green and gold,
Winding, wandering, slowly through
Starwort white and speedwell blue,
Flowing onward, heedless where,
Irresponsive to my prayer.

III

But, as motionless I dreamed
Of dim yesterdays, there seemed
From the plain to reach mine ears
Murmurings of the bygone years,
Till the river's undertone
Blent its musings with my own.

IV

“Seaward I meander on,
All unchanged to gaze upon,
As when sceptre, pomp, and power,
Threatening parapet and tower,
Warrior grim and maiden gay
Fought and laughed the hours away:

Captains, Cardinals, and Kings,
Sepulchred with meaner things,
Nothing to distinguish now
Mitred head from minion brow,
Fleshless skull from fleshless skull,
Arrogant from beautiful;
Nameless relics of a name:—
I alone abide the same.”

V

Lingering still, I sate and mused,
Thought and feeling interfused
With the Châteaux and the stream
In an intermittent dream,
Till the Future wore at last
Likeness to the shadowy Past,

And I wondered if to-day,
Loftily as yesterday,
Will, departing, leave behind
Monuments of heart and mind,
Love and reverence will restore,
When men dwell in them no more.

A FAREWELL

Good-bye, old year, good-bye!
Gentle you were to many as to me,
And so we, meditating, sigh,
Since what hath been will be,
That you must die.
Hark! In the crumbling grey church tower,
Tolls the recording bell
The deeply-sounding solemnising knell
For your last hour.

How quietly you die!
No canonisëd Saint

E'er put life by
With less of struggle or complaint.
You seem to feel nor grief nor pain,
No retrospection vain,
As if, departing, you would have us know
It is not hard to go,
Since pang is none, but only peace, in Death,
And Life it is that suffereth.

Closer and clearer comes the last slow knell,
And on my lip for you awaits
That final formula of Fate's,
The low, lamenting, lingering word, Farewell!
For you the curved-backed sexton need not stir
The mould, for there is nothing to inter,
No worn integument to doff,
No bodily corruption to put off;

Begotten of the earth and sun,
And ending spirit-wise as you begun,
You pass, a mere memento of the mind,
Leaving no lees behind.

Hark! What is that we hear?
A quick-jerked, jocund peal,
Making the fretted church tower reel,
Telling the wakeful of a young New Year,
Young, but of lusty birth,
To face the masked vicissitudes of earth.

Let us, then, look not back,
Though smooth and partial was the track
Of the receding Past,
But through the vista vast

Of unknown Future wend intrepid way,
Framed to contend and cope
With perils new by vanished yesterday,
Whose last bequests to Man are Love, and
Faith, and Hope.

WARDENS OF THE WAVE

I

Not to exult in braggart vein
Over a gallant foe,
Or boast of triumphs on the main,
The Gods alone bestow;
Vainglorious clarion, clamorous drum,
For which the vulgar crave,
Not these, not any such, become
The Wardens of the Wave.

II

No, but when slumbering war-dogs wake,
To the last gasp of breath
Face combat for one's Country's sake,
With male disdain of death;
For this did Nelson live and die,
Far from his Land and home,
Making his roof-tree of the sky,
His pillow on the foam.

III

And if our race to-day recall
His last triumphant doom,
Place wreaths on his unfading pall,
And flowers upon his tomb,

'Tis to remind us still to keep
Aggression's lust in awe,
And with dominion of the deep
Guard Freedom, Peace, and Law.

IV

And not alone upon the waves
That sentinel our shore,
Service that disciplines, not enslaves,
Should rule us, as of yore;
So that our Island Citadel
May tranquilly respond
With the calm signal, “All is well,”
To every Sea Beyond.

PRIMACY OF MIND

Mens agitat molem.
—Aeneidos Lib. vi.

I

Above the glow of molten steel,
The roar of furnace, forge, and shed,
Protectress of the City's weal,
Now, Learning rears her loftier head;

II

That Progress may at length descry
It lacks the clue to guide aright,
And, conscious of its blindness, cry
Unto the Muse, “More light! More light!”

III

That Wealth may fitly yield the throne
To Letters, Science, artist-skill,
And Matter, willing subject, own
Mind must be lord and master still.

The University of Leeds, 6th October 1904.

A QUESTION ANSWERED

I

I saw the lark at break of day
Rise from its dewy bed,
And, winged with melody, away
Circle to Heaven o'erhead.

II

I watched it higher and higher soar,
Still ceasing not to trill,
When, though I could descry no more
Its flight, I heard it still.

III

But shortly quavered back its note,
And, hovering into sight,
I saw it, homeward sinking, float
Over its nest of night.

IV

“Tell me,” I cried, “glad songster, why
You, privileged to wend
Up to the blue and boundless sky,
Where only wings ascend,

V

“Full into Heaven, to look and gaze
Whither our thoughts aspire,
And, unrebuked, terrestrial lays
Blend with celestial choir,

VI

“Why you, thus welcomed to the height
Of minstrelsy and mirth,
Pavilioned high from mortal sight,
Come back again to Earth.”

VII

Then shook the lark again its wings,
And, fluttering o'er its bed
Deep-bosomed in the grassy floor,
In rippling answer said:—

VIII

“'Tis joy to mount, alone, aloft,
Into the ether clear,
And thence look down on garth and croft
Of red-roofed hamlets here.

IX

“To sing my song through endless space,
Towering above, above,
While mortals watch with upturned face
Of longing and of love;

X

“Then, for a while, unseen to pass
Through unsubstantial dome,
But treble back to tangled grass—
Not Heaven, withal my home.

XI

“And tell me, when I skyward sing,
Am I unlike to you,
That on Imagination's wing
Strain sometimes out of view

XII

“Into the radiant Realms untrod
Song can alone descry,
And whilom join, by grace of God,
Angelic company

XIII

“Yet sink down from the firmament
Back to life's dearth and dole,
Knowing full well that song was sent
To comfort and console.”

AWAKE! AWAKE!

“Awake, awake, for the Springtime's sake,
March daffodils too long dreaming;
The lark is high in the spacious sky
And the celandine's stars are gleaming.
The gorse is ablaze, and the woodland sprays
Are as purple as August heather,
The buds unfurl, and mavis and merle
Are singing duets together.

“The rivulets run, first one by one,
Then meet in the swirling river,
And on out-peeping roots the sun-god shoots
The shafts of his golden quiver.

In the hazel copse the thrush never stops
Till with music the world seems ringing,
And the milkmaid hale, as she carries her pail,
Goes home to the dairy, singing:

“And the swain and his sweet in the love-lanes meet,
And welcome and face each other,
Till he folds her charms in his world-wide arms,
With kisses that blind and smother.”

Then the daffodils came, aflame, aflame,
In orchard, and garth, and cover,
And out April leapt, first smiled, then wept,
And longed for her May-day lover.

DECEMBER MATINS

I

“Why, on this drear December morn,
Dost thou, lone Misselthrush, rehearse thy chanting?
The corals have been rifled from the thorn,
The pastures lie undenizened and lorn,
And everywhere around there seems a something wanting.”
Whereat, as tho' awondering at my wonder,
And brooded somewhere nigh a love-mate nesting,

He more loud and longer still
'Gan to tremble and to trill,
Height after height of sound robustly breasting;
As if o'erhead were Heaven of blue, and under,
Fresh green leafage, and he would
Cleave with shafts of hardihood
The mists asunder.

II

Only the singer it is foresees,
Only the Poet has the voice foretelling.
When the ways harden and the sedge-pools freeze,
He hears light-hearted Spring upon the breeze,
And feels the hawthorn buds mysteriously swelling.
Though to the eaves the icicles are clinging,
Or from the sunward gables dripping, dripping,

He with inward gaze beholds
Liberated flocks and folds,
The runnels leaping, and the young lambs skipping,
And dauntless daffodils anew upspringing,
So throughout the wintry days
Meditates prophetic lays,
And keeps on singing.

III

Not the full-volumed Springtime song,
Not April's note with rapture overflowing,
Melodious cadence, early, late, and long,
Now low and suing, now serenely strong,
But the heart's intimations musically showing
That Love and Verse are never out of season.

Though the winds bluster, and the branches splinter,
He, through cold and dire distress,
Companioned by cheerfulness,
Descries young Mayday through the mask of Winter.
Doubt and despair to him were veilëd treason,
Fashioned never to despond,
By Foreseeing far beyond
The range of Reason.

IV

Therefore, brave bird, sing on, for some to hear
If faintly, fitfully, and though to-morrow
Will be the shortest day of all the year,
Though fields be flowerless and fallows drear,
And earth seems cherishing some secret sorrow,

The dawn will come when it anew will glisten
With tears of gladness, glen and dingle waken,
Winter's tents be furled and routed,
April notes be sung and shouted,
Over the fleeing host and camp forsaken;
The nightingale ne'er cease, the cuckoo christen
Hedgerow posies with its call,
And unto glee and madrigal
The whole world listen.

THE WHITE PALL OF PEACE

“There have been heavy falls of snow in various parts of the country. . . . The average depth of the snow is six inches.” —Telegrams from Pretoria and Capetown, June 14th.

I

Over the peaceful veldt,
Silently, snowflakes fall!
Silently, slow, unfelt,
Cover the Past with a pall!

II

Brave brother Boers, let us hie
To your and our brothers dead;
Over the spot where they lie
Tears, yours and ours, be shed!

III

Underneath turf, cross, and stone
Combat and discord be husht!
Blest be the heroes unknown,
Blest be their deeds and dust.

IV

Now that the war-clamours cease,
And silently snowflakes fall,
Give we the kiss of Peace,
And one Flag be the Flag of us all!

THE DANCE AT DARMSTADT

In the city of Darmstadt, the Sabbath morn
Shone over the broad Cathedral Square,
And to nobly, richly, and lowly born,
The belfry carilloned call to prayer.

Then banker, and burgher, and learn'd in law,
With clean-cut forehead and firm-set jaw,
Master, and prentice, and tradesman trim,
Pikemen stalwart of port and limb,

Pledged to die for their native town,
Scholars stately in cap and gown,
Splendid and simple, halt and hale,
Rosy tapster and student pale,
Stepped from their thresholds, and gravely trod
The streets that lead to the House of God.
And, hurrying after them, maid and dame,
Wives, and daughters, and sweethearts, came,
All in their Sabbath best arrayed,
Delicate ribbon and dainty braid,
Creaseless corset and kirtle clean,
Of sombre homespun or silken sheen,
Rustling by with looks demure,
As bright as posies, and just as pure.
And tight to their kirtles their children clung,
With ambling footstep and nimble tongue,
Prattled and questioned them all the way,

Forgetting quite 'twas the Sabbath Day,
Till they came to the great Cathedral Square,
Where the organ pealed through the House of Prayer.

“Now why do you waste the summer day?”
Cried a velveted stripling with locks of gold,
And eyes like forget-me-nots in May,
When the milch-cows stream from the wintry fold.
“Week after week you troop in there,
To mutter and mumble the self-same prayer,
Through the self-same psalmody drowse and nod;
And that's what you, sooth, call praising God!
Look! the sun is shining on roof and spire,
And the wings of the swallow never tire,
The stork hovers over her callow nest,
And Spring is folded to Summer's breast.

There's a flutter of love in the lime-tree leaves,
And the starlings flute on the Rathhaus eaves.
Come away, come away where the sycamore swings
Its tassels of gold, and the blackbird sings,
Where the river swirls past a tangled ledge
Of willow-weed, meadow-sweet, thyme, and sedge,
Where the veins of the vine are flushed with juice,
And the trout in the stream past the miller's sluice
Cast wavering shadows on stone and sand;
And, when we have rambled through all the land,
We will halt at the Inn with the Jocund Sign,
And freshen our throats with the Mosel wine.
But, ere ever we go, let us, hand in hand,
Be comrades sworn of a joyous band,
And, while they jabber and wail in there,
Have a dance in the sunny Cathedral Square.”

Then tabor and viol began to sound,
And ribald and losel to beat the ground,
Boys who mocked at the Sacred Name,
And wantons brazening out their shame.
With languishing eyes and streaming hair,
They footed it all about the Square,
Footed, and frolicked, and revelled round,
To the viol's twang and the tabor's sound;
Shouted, and clapped their hands for glee;
Was never such madcap company:
Forward, backward, forward once more,
Like ebb and flow on a tidal shore,
Trooped together more near and near,
Like a troop of colts at a sound they fear,
Then scampered away and scattered wide,
Again to draw to each other's side;
Hand within hand, and face to face,

Twirled and circled in lewd embrace,
Hurried, slackened, then swept along,
Trilling and trolling a shameful song,
Hurtful and hateful to godly ears.
Never, I ween, in all the years
Since the Autumn woods waxed sere and brown,
Was danced such a dance in Darmstadt town.

Now the sermon was over, the service done,
And the grave-faced worshippers, one by one,
Poured into the bright Cathedral Square,
And beheld the ungodly dancing there.
Then they cried, “Now, shame on you! Stay! O stay!
Surely ye know 'tis the Sabbath Day,
The day of the merciful mighty Lord:
If ye flaunt His mercy, yet dread His sword!”

Yet never an instant the dancing stayed,
But ribald stripling, and wanton maid,
Gasped out, “Don't you see we are nigh to drop
With panting and pain, but we cannot stop.
The demons have entered our limbs, and we
No longer have power to pause or flee.
They force us to hammer the hard hot ground,
And make us pirouette round and round.
Will never some Christian soul advance,
And break the spell of this demon dance!”

Then the sober and godly would fain have heard
Piteous cry and panting word.
But a something stronger than human will
Fettered their feet, and kept them still
Helplessly watching the ghastly crew;
So swiftly they whirled, and so fast they flew,

It made one giddy to see them there.
So, out of the broad Cathedral Square,
Banker and burgher, and learn'd in law,
With clean-cut forehead and firm-set jaw,
Master and prentice, and tradesman trim,
Pikemen stalwart of port and limb,
Sister, and sweetheart, and wife demure,
As fresh as posies, and just as pure,
With children clutching their mother's gown,
Homeward walked through the awestruck town.

But still, when the godly crowd had gone,
The derelict band went dancing on.
The sunlight glittered on roof and spire,
And the wings of the swallow did never tire,
The stork hovered over her callow nest,
And Spring was folded to Summer's breast.

Far away in the woodland the sycamore swung
Its tassels of gold, and the blackbird sung.
The river went swirling past tangled ledge
Of willow-weed, meadow-sweet, thyme, and sedge.
The veins of the vine were flushed with juice,
And the trout poised still by the miller's sluice.
But, though longer and longer the shadows grew,
Still gambolled and anticked the ribald crew,
Wavered and wantoned in broken line,
As though mad-drunk with the Mosel wine,
Reeled and rolled till the sun went down,
And the stars shone over the darkened town,
Golden stars in a dome of blue;
Careered and capered the whole night through,
Till their loose flesh flapped on their creaking bones,

And they staggered and dropped on the hard dry stones.
And when at last in a heap they lay,
Like refuse the scavenger carts away,
They throbbed up still, as at farmyard pyre
The flickering flames of an unfed fire;
Nor yet from their ghastly gambols ceased,
Till the sun ensanguined the pallid East,
And the starlings piped on the Rathhaus eaves.

Never, never since wintry woods waxed brown,
Was danced such a dance in Darmstadt town.

LOVE'S WISDOM

Amor che nella mente mi ragiona. Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, 11. v. 110.

Love, that in my mind seeks Reason's aid. Paraphrase.

I crave not love, for it would only bring
Tears to your eyes, and anguish to your heart;
I am in Autumn, you are still in Spring,
And you must linger after I depart.
Then to you Summer would scarce Summer be,
Vainly for you the roses bloom and climb,
Vainly Life's harvest ripen on the tree,
Withered by Winter long before its time.
Therefore, let loving, dear, be mine alone,
You yielding only tenderness and trust,
So that to you be widowhood unknown,
And you with tears not deify my dust.
Enough for me if in your voice, your eyes,
I dream of bliss, but strain not for the prize.

IF THEY DARE!

[_]

The following lyric was written at a memorable moment, a few years back, when the defensive spirit of the nation was suddenly roused to the highest pitch. It was not published, because it was thought it might aggravate mischievously the popular emotion. If it is now printed here, it is only as a contributory reminder to the English People that they live in the presence, not of a passing, but of a permanent menace, against which it is their bounden duty, since they cherish Peace and detest War, to guard by every resource at their command, alike on sea and on land.

I

Realm of ocean-guarded Peace,
Humming loom and grazing steer,
Farm, and forge, and woven fleece,
Happier, homelier, year by year,
Hark! athwart the wintry air,
Menace mutters, foemen glare:
Leave the shuttle, leave the share,
For the spear!

II

Envious of her world-wide race,
Goaded by the greed and hate
Of the hungry and the base
For the opulent and great,
“See,” they whisper, “did we band
All against Her, hand-in-hand,
We might bring that haughty Land
Face with Fate.”

III

Plotters insolent and vain,
Muster then your servile swarms.
Moated by the unbridged main,
We but laugh at such alarms.

Blinded braggarts, to forget
England old is England yet,
And can meet, as once She met,
World in arms.

IV

Come athwart the ocean's crest,
Mob and Monarch, crowd and Crown!
Slavish East, or shrilling West,
Come, and strike at her renown.
Madmen! by your threats inane
What is it ye hope to gain?
Think of France, think of Spain,
Smitten down!

V

Derelict on wind and wave,
Tossing with the tossing tide,
Crushed by ice-floe, tombed in cave,
See the Armada's pomp and pride:
Prince and Pontiff, Rome and Spain,
Leagued against Her, leagued in vain;
England and her mother-main
Side by side.

VI

Think of that self-sceptered King,
Cæsar not by birth but brain,
Who with arbitrary wing
Hovered over hill and plain:

Headlong from that haughty height
Forced to sue to England's might,
And accept, for eagle's flight,
Cage and chain!

VII

Still they cry, “She is alone,
And must truckle to our nod.”
What! with half the world her own!
What! still wielding Neptune's rod!
She is lonely as the breeze,
Lonely as the stars or seas,
Lone, unreachable as these,
Lone as God!

VIII

Let the bandits then deride
Loneliness they shall not share.
We are lonely, unallied,
As the lion in his lair.
Doubters, dastards, now be dumb:
Sound the clarion! Roll the drum!
Let them menace, let them come,
If they dare!