The Works of Tennyson :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Works of Tennyson

The Eversley Edition: Annotated by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Edited by Hallam, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

POEMS

II.

POEMS

III.

ENOCH ARDEN AND IN MEMORIAM

VII.

THE PRINCESS AND MAUD

IDYLLS OF THE KING

III.

BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS

IV.

DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS

THE DEATH OF ŒNONE, AKBAR'S DREAM, AND OTHER POEMS

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APPENDIX.

Additional lines and fragments of verse extracted from the notes.

VIII.

QUEEN MARY AND HAROLD

IX.

BECKET AND OTHER PLAYS

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IV. DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS

DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS

TO THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA.

I

At times our Britain cannot rest,
At times her steps are swift and rash;
She moving, at her girdle clash
The golden keys of East and West.

II

Not swift or rash, when late she lent
The sceptres of her West, her East,
To one, that ruling has increased
Her greatness and her self-content.

III

Your rule has made the people love
Their ruler. Your viceregal days
Have added fulness to the phrase
Of ‘Gauntlet in the velvet glove.’

IV

But since your name will grow with Time,
Not all, as honouring your fair fame
Of Statesman, have I made the name
A golden portal to my rhyme:

V

But more, that you and yours may know
From me and mine, how dear a debt
We owed you, and are owing yet
To you and yours, and still would owe.

VI

For he—your India was his Fate,
And drew him over sea to you—
He fain had ranged her thro' and thro',
To serve her myriads and the State,—

VII

A soul that, watch'd from earliest youth,
And on thro' many a brightening year,
Had never swerved for craft or fear,
By one side-path, from simple truth;

VIII

Who might have chased and claspt Renown
And caught her chaplet here—and there
In haunts of jungle-poison'd air
The flame of life went wavering down;

IX

But ere he left your fatal shore,
And lay on that funereal boat,
Dying, ‘Unspeakable’ he wrote
‘Their kindness,’ and he wrote no more;

X

And sacred is the latest word;
And now the Was, the Might-have-been,
And those lone rites I have not seen,
And one drear sound I have not heard,

XI

Are dreams that scarce will let me be,
Not there to bid my boy farewell,
When That within the coffin fell,
Fell—and flash'd into the Red Sea,

XII

Beneath a hard Arabian moon
And alien stars. To question, why
The sons before the fathers die,
Not mine! and I may meet him soon;

XIII

But while my life's late eve endures,
Nor settles into hueless gray,
My memories of his briefer day
Will mix with love for you and yours.

ON THE JUBILEE OF QUEEN VICTORIA

I.

Fifty times the rose has flower'd and faded,
Fifty times the golden harvest fallen,
Since our Queen assumed the globe, the sceptre.

II.

She beloved for a kindliness
Rare in Fable or History,
Queen, and Empress of India,
Crown'd so long with a diadem
Never worn by a worthier,
Now with prosperous auguries
Comes at last to the bounteous
Crowning year of her Jubilee.

III.

Nothing of the lawless, of the Despot,
Nothing of the vulgar, or vainglorious,
All is gracious, gentle, great and Queenly.

IV.

You then joyfully, all of you,
Set the mountain aflame to-night,
Shoot your stars to the firmament,
Deck your houses, illuminate
All your towns for a festival,
And in each let a multitude
Loyal, each, to the heart of it,
One full voice of allegiance,
Hail the fair Ceremonial
Of this year of her Jubilee.

V.

Queen, as true to womanhood as Queenhood,
Glorying in the glories of her people,
Sorrowing with the sorrows of the lowest!

VI.

You, that wanton in affluence,
Spare not now to be bountiful,

Call your poor to regale with you,
All the lowly, the destitute,
Make their neighbourhood healthfuller,
Give your gold to the Hospital,
Let the weary be comforted,
Let the needy be banqueted,
Let the maim'd in his heart rejoice
At this glad Ceremonial,
And this year of her Jubilee.

VII.

Henry's fifty years are all in shadow,
Gray with distance Edward's fifty summers,
Ev'n her Grandsire's fifty half forgotten.

VIII.

You, the Patriot Architect,
You that shape for Eternity,
Raise a stately memorial,
Make it regally gorgeous,
Some Imperial Institute,
Rich in symbol, in ornament,
Which may speak to the centuries,
All the centuries after us,
Of this great Ceremonial,
And this year of her Jubilee.

IX.

Fifty years of ever-broadening Commerce!
Fifty years of ever-brightening Science!
Fifty years of ever-widening Empire!

X.

You, the Mighty, the Fortunate,
You, the Lord-territorial,
You, the Lord-manufacturer,
You, the hardy, laborious,
Patient children of Albion,
You, Canadian, Indian,
Australasian, African,
All your hearts be in harmony,
All your voices in unison,
Singing ‘Hail to the glorious
Golden year of her Jubilee!’

XI.

Are there thunders moaning in the distance?
Are there spectres moving in the darkness?
Trust the Hand of Light will lead her people,
Till the thunders pass, the spectres vanish,
And the Light is Victor, and the darkness
Dawns into the Jubilee of the Ages.

TO PROFESSOR JEBB,

With the Following Poem.

Fair things are slow to fade away,
Bear witness you, that yesterday
From out the Ghost of Pindar in you
Roll'd an Olympian; and they say

That here the torpid mummy wheat
Of Egypt bore a grain as sweet
As that which gilds the glebe of England,
Sunn'd with a summer of milder heat.

So may this legend for awhile,
If greeted by your classic smile,
Tho' dead in its Trinacrian Enna,
Blossom again on a colder isle.

In Bologna.

They say, for the fact is doubtful.

DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE.

(In Enna.)

Faint as a climate-changing bird that flies
All night across the darkness, and at dawn
Falls on the threshold of her native land,
And can no more, thou camest, O my child,
Led upward by the God of ghosts and dreams,
Who laid thee at Eleusis, dazed and dumb
With passing thro' at once from state to state,
Until I brought thee hither, that the day,
When here thy hands let fall the gather'd flower,
Might break thro' clouded memories once again
On thy lost self. A sudden nightingale
Saw thee, and flash'd into a frolic of song
And welcome; and a gleam as of the moon,
When first she peers along the tremulous deep,
Fled wavering o'er thy face, and chased away
That shadow of a likeness to the king
Of shadows, thy dark mate. Persephone!

Queen of the dead no more—my child! Thine eyes
Again were human-godlike, and the Sun
Burst from a swimming fleece of winter gray,
And robed thee in his day from head to feet—
‘Mother!’ and I was folded in thine arms.

Child, those imperial, disimpassion'd eyes
Awed even me at first, thy mother—eyes
That oft had seen the serpent-wanded power
Draw downward into Hades with his drift
Of flickering spectres, lighted from below
By the red race of fiery Phlegethon;
But when before have Gods or men beheld
The Life that had descended re-arise,
And lighted from above him by the Sun?
So mighty was the mother's childless cry,
A cry that rang thro' Hades, Earth, and Heaven!

So in this pleasant vale we stand again,
The field of Enna, now once more ablaze
With flowers that brighten as thy footstep falls,
All flowers—but for one black blur of earth
Left by that closing chasm, thro' which the car
Of dark Aïdoneus rising rapt thee hence.
And here, my child, tho' folded in thine arms,
I feel the deathless heart of motherhood
Within me shudder, lest the naked glebe

Should yawn once more into the gulf, and thence
The shrilly whinnyings of the team of Hell,
Ascending, pierce the glad and songful air,
And all at once their arch'd necks, midnight-maned,
Jet upward thro' the mid-day blossom. No!
For, see, thy foot has touch'd it; all the space
Of blank earth-baldness clothes itself afresh,
And breaks into the crocus-purple hour
That saw thee vanish.

Child, when thou wert gone,
I envied human wives, and nested birds,
Yea, the cubb'd lioness; went in search of thee
Thro' many a palace, many a cot, and gave
Thy breast

the breast which had suckled thee.

to ailing infants in the night,
And set the mother waking in amaze
To find her sick one whole; and forth again
Among the wail of midnight winds, and cried,
‘Where is my loved one? Wherefore do ye wail?’
And out from all the night an answer shrill'd,
‘We know not, and we know not why we wail.’
I climb'd on all the cliffs of all the seas,
And ask'd the waves that moan about the world
‘Where? do ye make your moaning for my child?’
And round from all the world the voices came
‘We know not, and we know not why we moan.’
‘Where’? and I stared from every eagle-peak,

I thridded the black heart of all the woods,
I peer'd thro' tomb and cave, and in the storms
Of Autumn swept across the city, and heard
The murmur of their temples chanting me,
Me, me, the desolate Mother! ‘Where’?—and turn'd,
And fled by many a waste, forlorn of man,
And grieved for man thro' all my grief for thee,—
The jungle rooted in his shatter'd hearth,
The serpent coil'd about his broken shaft,
The scorpion crawling over naked skulls;—
I saw the tiger in the ruin'd fane
Spring from his fallen God, but trace of thee
I saw not; and far on, and, following out
A league of labyrinthine darkness, came
On three gray heads beneath a gleaming rift.
‘Where’? and I heard one voice from all the three
‘We know not, for we spin the lives of men,
And not of Gods, and know not why we spin!
There is a Fate beyond us.’

Cf.

‘Talia saecla,’ suis dixerunt, ‘currite,’ fusis
Concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae.

Virgil, Ecl. iv. 46.

Nothing knew.

Last as the likeness of a dying man,
Without his knowledge, from him flits to warn
A far-off friendship that he comes no more,
So he, the God of dreams, who heard my cry,
Drew from thyself the likeness of thyself
Without thy knowledge, and thy shadow past
Before me, crying ‘The Bright one in the highest

Is brother of the Dark one in the lowest,
And Bright and Dark have sworn that I, the child
Of thee, the great Earth-Mother, thee, the Power
That lifts her buried life from gloom to bloom,
Should be for ever and for evermore
The Bride of Darkness.’

So the Shadow wail'd.
Then I, Earth-Goddess, cursed the Gods of Heaven.
I would not mingle with their feasts; to me
Their nectar smack'd of hemlock on the lips,
Their rich ambrosia tasted aconite.
The man, that only lives and loves an hour,
Seem'd nobler than their hard Eternities.
My quick tears kill'd the flower, my ravings hush'd
The bird, and lost in utter grief I fail'd
To send my life thro' olive-yard and vine
And golden grain, my gift to helpless man.
Rain-rotten died the wheat, the barley-spears
Were hollow-husk'd, the leaf fell, and the sun,
Pale at my grief, drew down before his time
Sickening, and Ætna kept her winter snow.
Then He, the brother of this Darkness, He
Who still is highest, glancing from his height
On earth a fruitless fallow, when he miss'd
The wonted steam of sacrifice, the praise
And prayer of men, decreed that thou should'st dwell

For nine white moons of each whole year with me,
Three dark ones in the shadow with thy King.

Once more the reaper in the gleam of dawn
Will see me by the landmark far away,
Blessing his field, or seated in the dusk
Of even, by the lonely threshing-floor,
Rejoicing in the harvest and the grange.
Yet I, Earth-Goddess, am but ill-content
With them, who still are highest. Those gray heads,
What meant they by their ‘Fate beyond the Fates’
But younger kindlier Gods to bear us down,
As we bore down the Gods before us? Gods,
To quench, not hurl the thunderbolt, to stay,
Not spread the plague, the famine; Gods indeed,
To send the noon into the night and break
The sunless halls of Hades into Heaven?
Till thy dark lord accept and love the Sun,
And all the Shadow die into the Light,
When thou shalt dwell the whole bright year with me,
And souls of men, who grew beyond their race,
And made themselves as Gods against the fear
Of Death and Hell; and thou that hast from men,
As Queen of Death, that worship which is Fear,
Henceforth, as having risen from out the dead,
Shalt ever send thy life along with mine
From buried grain thro' springing blade, and bless

Their garner'd Autumn also, reap with me,
Earth-mother, in the harvest hymns of Earth
The worship which is Love, and see no more
The Stone, the Wheel, the dimly-glimmering lawns
Of that Elysium, all the hateful fires
Of torment, and the shadowy warrior glide
Along the silent field of Asphodel.

OWD ROÄ.

I read in one of the daily papers of a child saved by a black retriever from a burning house. The details in this story are, of course, mine. When the Spectator, reviewing The Northern Farmer, etc., remarked that I must have found these poems difficult to accomplish, as being out of my way, I wrote to a friend that they were easy enough, for I knew the men—by which I meant the kind of men and their manner of speaking, not any particular individual.

Naäy, noä mander o' use to be callin' 'im Roä, Roä, Roä,
Fur the dog's stoän-deäf, an' 'e's blind, 'e can naither stan' nor goä.

But I meäns fur to maäke 'is owd aäge as 'appy as iver I can,
Fur I owäs owd Roäver moor nor I iver owäd mottal man.

Thou's rode of 'is back when a babby, afoor thou was gotten too owd,
Fur 'e'd fetch an' carry like owt, 'e was allus as good as gowd.

Eh, but 'e'd fight wi' a will when 'e fowt; 'e could howd 'is oan,
An' Roä was the dog as knaw'd when an' wheere to bury his boane.

An' 'e kep his heäd hoop like a king, an' 'e'd niver not down wi' 'is taäil,
Fur 'e'd niver done nowt to be shaämed on, when we was i' Howlaby Daäle.

An' 'e sarved me sa well when 'e lived, that, Dick, when 'e cooms to be deäd,
I thinks as I'd like fur to hev soom soort of a sarvice reäd.

Fur 'e's moor good sense na the Parliament man 'at stans fur us 'ere,
An' I'd voät fur 'im, my oän sen, if'e could but stan fur the Shere.

‘Faäithful an' True'—them words be i' Scriptur—an' Faäithful an' True
Ull be fun' upo' four short legs ten times fur one upo' two.

An' maäybe they'll walk upo' two but I knaws they runs upo' four, —
Bedtime, Dicky! but waäit till tha 'eärs it be strikin' the hour.

Fur I wants to tell tha o' Roä when we lived i' Howlaby Daäle,

Ten year sin—Naäy—naäy! tha mun nobbut hev one glass of aäle.

Straänge an' owd-farran'd the 'ouse, an' belt long afoor my daäy
Wi' haäfe o' the chimleys a-twizzen'd an' twined like a band o' haäy.

The fellers as maäkes them picturs, 'ud coom at the fall o' the year,
An' sattle their ends upo' stools to pictur the doorpoorch theere,

An' the Heagle 'as hed two heäds stannin' theere o' the brokken stick;
An' they niver 'ed seed sich ivin' as graw'd hall ower the brick;

An' theere i' the 'ouse one night—but it's down, an' all on it now
Goan into mangles an' tonups, an' raäved slick thruf by the plow—

Theere, when the 'ouse wur a house, one night I wur sittin' aloän,
Wi' Roäver athurt my feeät, an' sleeäpin still as a stoän,

Of a Christmas Eäve, an' as cowd as this, an' the midders as white,
An' the fences all on 'em bolster'd oop wi' the windle that night;

An' the cat wur a-sleeäpin alongside Roäver, but I wur awaäke,
An' smoäkin' an' thinkin' o' things—Doänt maäke thysen sick wi' the caäke.

Fur the men ater supper 'ed sung their songs an' 'ed 'ed their beer,
An' 'ed goän their waäys; ther was nobbut three, an' noän on 'em theere.

They was all on 'em fear'd o' the Ghoäst an' dussn't not sleeäp i' the 'ouse,
But Dicky, the Ghoäst moästlins was nobbut a rat or a mouse.

An' I looökt out wonst at the night, an' the daäle was all of a thaw,
Fur I seed the beck coomin' down like a long black snaäke i' the snaw,

An' I heärd greät heäps o' the snaw slushin' down fro' the bank to the beck,
An' then as I stood i' the doorwaäy, I feeäld it drip o' my neck.

Saw I turn'd in ageän, an' I thowt o' the good owd times 'at was goan,
An' the munney they maäde by the war, an' the times 'at was coomin' on;

Fur I thowt if the Staäte was a gawin' to let in furriners' wheät,
Howiver was British farmers to stan' ageän o' their feeät.

Howiver was I fur to find my rent an' to paäy my men?
An' all along o' the feller as turn'd 'is back of hissen.

Thou slep i' the chaumber above us, we couldn't ha 'eärd tha call,
Sa Moother 'ed tell'd ma to bring tha down, an' thy craädle an' all

Fur the gell o' the farm 'at slep wi' tha then 'ed gotten wer leäve,

Fur to goä that night to 'er foälk by cause o' the Christmas Eäve;

But I cleän forgot tha, my lad, when Moother 'ed gotten to bed,
An' I slep i' my chair hup-on-end, an' the Freeä Traäde runn'd i' my 'ead,

Till I dreäm'd 'at Squire walkt in, an' I says to him ‘Squire, ya're laäte,’
Then I seed at 'is faäce wur as red as the Yule-block theer i' the graäte.

An' 'e says ‘can ya paäy me the rent to-night?’ an' I says to 'im ‘Noä,’
An' 'e cotch'd howd hard o' my hairm, ‘Then hout to-night tha shall goä.’

‘Tha'll niver,’ says I, ‘be a-turnin ma hout upo' Christmas Eäve’?
Then I waäked an' I fun it was Roäver a-tuggin' an' teärin' my slieäve.

An' I thowt as 'e'd goän cleän-wud, ful I noäwaäys knaw'd 'is intent;
An' I says ‘Git awaäy, ya beäst,’ an' I fetcht 'im a kick an' 'e went.

Then 'e tummled up stairs, fur I 'eärd 'im, as if 'e'd 'a brokken 'is neck,
An' I'd cleär forgot, little Dicky, thy chaumber door wouldn't sneck;

An' I slep' i' my chair ageän wi' my hairm hingin' down to the floor,
An' I thowt it was Roäver a-tuggin' an' teärin' me wuss nor afoor,

An' I thowt 'at I kick'd 'im ageän, but I kick'd thy Moother istead.
‘What arta snorin' theere fur? the house is afire,’ she said.

Thy Moother 'ed beän a-naggin' about the gell o' the farm,
She offens 'ud spy summut wrong when there warn't not a mossel o' harm;

An' she didn't not solidly meän I wur gawin' that waäy to the bad,
Fur the gell was as howry a trollope as iver traäpes'd i' the squad.

But Moother was free of 'er tongue, as I offens 'ev tell'd 'er mysen,
Sa I kep i' my chair, fur I thowt she was nobbut arilin' ma then.

An' I says ‘I'd be good to tha, Bess, if tha'd onywaäys let ma be good,’
But she skelpt ma haäfe ower i' the chair, an' screeäd like a Howl gone wud —

‘Ya mun run fur the lether. Git oop, if ya're onywaäys good for owt.’
And I says ‘If I beänt noäwaäys—not nowadaäys good fur nowt—

Yit I beänt sich a Nowt of all Nowts as 'ull hallus do as 'e's bid.’
‘But the stairs is afire,' she said; then I seed 'er a-cryin’, I did.

An' she beäld ‘Ya mun saäve little Dick, an' be sharp about it an' all,’
Sa I runs to the yard fur a lether, an' sets 'im ageän the wall,

An' I claums an' I mashes the winder hin, when I gits to the top,
But the heät druv hout i' my heyes till I feäld mysen ready to drop.

Thy Moother was howdin' the lether, an' tellin' me not to be skeärd,
An' I wasn't afeärd, or I thinks leästwaäys as I wasn't afeärd;

But I couldn't see fur the smoäke wheere thou was a-liggin, my lad,
An' Roäver was theere i' the chaumber a-yowlin' an' yaupin' like mad;

An' thou was a-beälin' likewise, an' a-squeälin', as if tha was bit,
An' it wasn't a bite but a burn, fur the merk's o' thy shou'der yit;

Then I call'd out Roä, Roä, Roä, thaw I didn't haäfe think as 'e'd 'ear,
But 'e coom'd thruf the fire wi' my bairn i' 'is mouth to the winder theere!

He coom'd like a Hangel o' marcy as soon as 'e 'eard 'is naäme,

Or like tother Hangel i' Scriptur 'at summun seed i' the flaäme,

See Judges xiii. 20.

When summun 'ed hax'd fur a son, an' 'e promised a son to she,
An' Roä was as good as the Hangel i' saävin' a son fur me.

Sa I browt tha down, an' I says ‘I mun gaw up ageän fur Roä.’
‘Gaw up ageän fur the varmint?’ I tell'd 'er ‘Yeäs I mun goä.’

An' I claumb'd up ageän to the winder, an' clemm'd owd Roä by the 'eäd,
An' 'is 'air coom'd off i' my 'ands an' I taäked 'im at fust fur deäd;

Fur 'e smell'd like a herse a-singein', an' seeäm'd as blind as a poop,
An' haäfe on 'im bare as a bublin'. I couldn't wakken 'im oop,

But I browt 'im down, an' we got to the barn, fur the barn wouldn't burn
Wi' the wind blawin' hard tother waäy, an' the wind wasn't like to turn.

An' I kep a-callin' o' Roä till 'e waggled 'is taäil fur a bit,
But the cocks kep a-crawin' an' crawin' all night, an' I 'ears 'em yit;

An' the dogs was a-yowlin' all round, and thou was asqueälin' thysen,
An' Moother was naggin' an' groänin' an' moänin' an' naggin' ageän;

An' I 'eärd the bricks an' the baulks rummle down when the roof gev waäy,
Fur the fire was a-raägin' an' raävin' an' roarin' like judgment daäy.

Warm enew theere sewer-ly, but the barn was as cowd as owt,
An' we cuddled and huddled togither, an' happt wersens oop as we mowt.

An' I browt Roä round, but Moother 'ed beän sa soäk'd wi' the thaw
'At she cotch'd 'er death o' cowd that night, poor soul, i' the straw.

Haäfe o' the parish runn'd oop when the rigtree was tummlin' in—

Too laäte—but it's all ower now—hall hower—an' ten year sin;

Too laäte, tha mun git tha to bed, but I'll coom an' I'll squench the light,
Fur we moänt 'ev naw moor fires—and soa little Dick, good-night.

Old Rover.

Manner.

Hold.

Found.

‘Ou’ as in `house.

‘Owd-farran'd,’ old-fashioned.

Built.

‘Twizzen'd,’ twisted.

On a staff raguld.

Ivy.

Mangolds and turnips.

Meadows.

Drifted snow.

‘Moästlins,’ for the most part, generally.

Once.

Peel.

Arm.

Mad.

Latch.

The girl was as dirty a slut as ever trudged in the mud, but there is a sense of slatternliness in ‘traäpes'd’ which is not expressed in ‘trudged.’

She half overturned me and shrieked like an owl gone mad.

Ladder.

A thoroughly insignificant or worthless person.

Mark.

Clutched.

‘Bubbling,’ a young unfledged bird.

Beams.

Wrapt ourselves.

The beam that runs along the roof of the house just beneath the ridge.

VASTNESS.

I

Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanish'd face,
Many a planet by many a sun may roll with the dust of a vanish'd race.

II

Raving politics, never at rest—as this poor earth's pale history runs,—
What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?

III

Lies upon this side, lies upon that side, truthless violence mourn'd by the Wise,
Thousands of voices drowning his own in a popular torrent of lies upon lies;

IV

Stately purposes, valour in battle, glorious annals of army and fleet,
Death for the right cause, death for the wrong cause, trumpets of victory, groans of defeat;

V

Innocence seethed in her mother's milk, and Charity setting the martyr aflame;
Thraldom who walks with the banner of Freedom, and recks not to ruin a realm in her name.

VI

Faith at her zenith, or all but lost in the gloom of doubts that darken the schools;
Craft with a bunch of all-heal in her hand, follow'd up by her vassal legion of fools;

VII

Trade flying over a thousand seas with her spice and her vintage, her silk and her corn;
Desolate offing, sailorless harbours, famishing populace, wharves forlorn;

VIII

Star of the morning, Hope in the sunrise; gloom of the evening, Life at a close;
Pleasure who flaunts on her wide down-way with her flying robe and her poison'd rose;

IX

Pain, that has crawl'd from the corpse of Pleasure, a worm which writhes all day, and at night
Stirs up again in the heart of the sleeper, and stings him back to the curse of the light;

X

Wealth with his wines and his wedded harlots; honest Poverty, bare to the bone;
Opulent Avarice, lean as Poverty; Flattery gilding the rift in a throne;

XI

Fame blowing out from her golden trumpet a jubilant challenge to Time and to Fate;
Slander, her shadow, sowing the nettle on all the laurel'd graves of the Great;

XII

Love for the maiden, crown'd with marriage, no regrets for aught that has been,
Household happiness, gracious children, debtless competence, golden mean;

XIII

National hatreds of whole generations, and pigmy spites of the village spire;
Vows that will last to the last death-ruckle, and vows that are snapt in a moment of fire;

XIV

He that has lived for the lust of the minute, and died in the doing it, flesh without mind;
He that has nail'd all flesh to the Cross, till Self died out in the love of his kind;

XV

Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, and all these old revolutions of earth;
All new-old revolutions of Empire—change of the tide—what is all of it worth?

XVI

What the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, varying voices of prayer?
All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with all that is fair?

XVII

What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse-coffins at last,
Swallow'd in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown'd in the deeps of a meaningless Past?

XVIII

What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, or a moment's anger of bees in their hive?—
Peace, let it be! for I loved him, and love him for ever: the dead are not dead but alive.

THE RING.

Dedicated to the Hon. J. Russell Lowell.

Miriam and her Father.
Miriam
(singing).

Mellow moon of heaven,
Bright in blue,
Moon of married hearts,
Hear me, you!

Twelve times in the year
Bring me bliss,
Globing Honey Moons
Bright as this.

Moon, you fade at times
From the night.
Young again you grow
Out of sight.

Silver crescent-curve,
Coming soon,
Globe again, and make
Honey Moon.

Shall not my love last,
Moon, with you,
For ten thousand years
Old and new?

Father.
And who was he with such love-drunken eyes
They made a thousand honey moons of one?

Miriam.
The prophet of his own, my Hubert—his
The words, and mine the setting. ‘Air and Words,’
Said Hubert, when I sang the song, ‘are bride
And bridegroom.’ Does it please you?

Father.
Mainly, child,
Because I hear your Mother's voice in yours.
She—, why, you shiver tho' the wind is west
With all the warmth of summer.

Miriam.
Well, I felt
On a sudden I know not what, a breath that past
With all the cold of winter.

Father
(muttering to himself).
Even so.
The Ghost in Man, the Ghost that once was Man,
But cannot wholly free itself from Man,
Are calling to each other thro' a dawn
Stranger than earth has ever seen; the veil
Is rending, and the Voices of the day
Are heard across the Voices of the dark.
No sudden heaven, nor sudden hell, for man,
But thro' the Will of One who knows and rules—
And utter knowledge is but utter love—
Æonian Evolution, swift or slow,
Thro' all the Spheres—an ever opening height,
An ever lessening earth—and she perhaps,
My Miriam, breaks her latest earthly link
With me to-day.

Miriam.
You speak so low, what is it?
Your ‘Miriam breaks’—is making a new link
Breaking an old one?

Father.
No, for we, my child,
Have been till now each other's all-in-all.

Miriam.
And you the lifelong guardian of the child.

Father.
I, and one other whom you have not known.

Miriam.
And who? what other?

Father.
Whither are you bound?
For Naples which we only left in May?

Miriam.
No! father, Spain, but Hubert brings me home
With April and the swallow. Wish me joy!

Father.
What need to wish when Hubert weds in you
The heart of Love, and you the soul of Truth
In Hubert?

Miriam.
Tho' you used to call me once
The lonely maiden-Princess of the wood,

See The Day-Dream, vol. ii. P. 55.

Who meant to sleep her hundred summers out
Before a kiss should wake her.

Father.
Ay, but now
Your fairy Prince has found you, take this ring.

Miriam.
‘Io t'amo’—and these diamonds—beautiful!
‘From Walter,’ and for me from you then?

Father.
Well,
One way for Miriam.

Miriam.
Miriam am I not?

Father.
This ring bequeath'd you by your mother, child,
Was to be given you—such her dying wish—
Given on the morning when you came of age
Or on the day you married. Both the days

Now close in one. The ring is doubly yours.
Why do you look so gravely at the tower?

Miriam.
I never saw it yet so all ablaze
With creepers crimsoning to the pinnacles,
As if perpetual sunset linger'd there,
And all ablaze too in the lake below!
And how the birds that circle round the tower
Are cheeping to each other of their flight
To summer lands!

Father.
And that has made you grave?
Fly—care not. Birds and brides must leave the nest.
Child, I am happier in your happiness
Than in mine own.

Miriam.
It is not that!

Father.
What else?

Miriam.
That chamber in the tower.

Father.
What chamber, child?
Your nurse is here?

Miriam.
My Mother's nurse and mine.
She comes to dress me in my bridal veil.

Father.
What did she say?

Miriam.
She said, that you and I
Had been abroad for my poor health so long
She fear'd I had forgotten her, and I ask'd
About my Mother, and she said, ‘Thy hair
Is golden like thy Mother, not so fine.’

Father.
What then? what more?

Miriam.
She said—perhaps indeed
She wander'd, having wander'd now so far
Beyond the common date of death—that you,

When I was smaller than the statuette
Of my dear Mother on your bracket here—
You took me to that chamber in the tower,
The topmost—a chest there, by which you knelt—
And there were books and dresses—left to me,
A ring too which you kiss'd, and I, she said,
I babbled, Mother, Mother—as I used
To prattle to her picture—stretch'd my hands
As if I saw her; then a woman came
And caught me from my nurse. I hear her yet—
A sound of anger like a distant storm.

Father.
Garrulous old crone.

Miriam.
Poor nurse!

Father.
I bad her keep
Like a seal'd book, all mention of the ring,
For I myself would tell you all to-day.

Miriam.
‘She too might speak to-day,’ she mumbled. Still,
I scarce have learnt the title of your book,
But you will turn the pages.

Father.
Ay, to-day!
I brought you to that chamber on your third
September birthday with your nurse, and felt
An icy breath play on me, while I stoopt
To take and kiss the ring.

Miriam.
This very ring
Io t'amo?

Father.
Yes, for some wild hope was mine
That, in the misery of my married life,
Miriam your Mother might appear to me.
She came to you, not me. The storm, you hear
Far-off, is Muriel—your step-mother's voice.

Miriam.
Vext, that you thought my Mother came to me?
Or at my crying ‘Mother’? or to find
My Mother's diamonds hidden from her there,
Like worldly beauties in the Cell, not shown
To dazzle all that see them?

Father.
Wait a while.
Your Mother and step-mother—Miriam Erne
And Muriel Erne—the two were cousins—lived
With Muriel's mother on the down, that sees
A thousand squares of corn and meadow, far
As the gray deep, a landscape which your eyes
Have many a time ranged over when a babe.

Miriam.
I climb'd the hill with Hubert yesterday,
And from the thousand squares, one silent voice
Came on the wind, and seem'd to say ‘Again.’
We saw far off an old forsaken house,
Then home, and past the ruin'd mill.

Father.
And there
I found these cousins often by the brook,
For Miriam sketch'd and Muriel threw the fly;
The girls of equal age, but one was fair,
And one was dark, and both were beautiful.
No voice for either spoke within my heart
Then, for the surface eye, that only doats
On outward beauty, glancing from the one
To the other, knew not that which pleased it most,

The raven ringlet or the gold; but both
Were dowerless, and myself, I used to walk
This Terrace—morbid, melancholy; mine
And yet not mine the hall, the farm, the field;
For all that ample woodland whisper'd ‘debt,’
The brook that feeds this lakelet murmur'd ‘debt,’
And in yon arching avenue of old elms,
Tho' mine, not mine, I heard the sober rook
And carrion crow cry ‘Mortgage.’

Miriam.
Father's fault
Visited on the children!

Father.
Ay, but then
A kinsman, dying, summon'd me to Rome—
He left me wealth—and while I journey'd hence,
And saw the world fly by me like a dream,
And while I communed with my truest self,
I woke to all of truest in myself,
Till, in the gleam of those mid-summer dawns,
The form of Muriel faded, and the face
Of Miriam grew upon me, till I knew;
And past and future mix'd in Heaven and made
The rosy twilight of a perfect day.

Miriam.
So glad? no tear for him, who left you wealth,
Your kinsman?

Father.

I had seen the man but once;
He loved my name not me; and then I pass'd
Home, and thro' Venice, where a jeweller,
So far gone down, or so far up in life,
That he was nearing his own hundred, sold
This ring to me, then laugh'd ‘the ring is weird.’
And weird and worn and wizard-like was he.
‘Why weird?’ I ask'd him; and he said ‘The souls
Of two repentant Lovers guard the ring;’
Then with a ribald twinkle in his bleak eyes—
‘And if you give the ring to any maid,
They still remember what it cost them here,
And bind the maid to love you by the ring;
And if the ring were stolen from the maid,
The theft were death or madness to the thief,
So sacred those Ghost Lovers hold the gift.’
And then he told their legend:

‘Long ago
Two lovers parted by a scurrilous tale
Had quarrell'd, till the man repenting sent

This ring “Io t'amo” to his best beloved,
And sent it on her birthday. She in wrath
Return'd it on her birthday, and that day
His death-day, when, half-frenzied by the ring,
He wildly fought a rival suitor, him
The causer of that scandal, fought and fell;
And she that came to part them all too late,
And found a corpse and silence, drew the ring
From his dead finger, wore it till her death,
Shrined him within the temple of her heart,
Made every moment of her after life
A virgin victim to his memory,
And dying rose, and rear'd her arms, and cried
“I see him, Io t'amo, Io t'amo.”’

Miriam.
Legend or true? so tender should be true!
Did he believe it? did you adk him?

Father.
Ay!
But that half skeleton, like a barren ghost
From out the fleshless world of spirits, laugh'd:
A hollow laughter!

Miriam.
Vile, so near the ghost
Himself, to laugh at love in death! But you?

Father.

Well, as the bygone lover thro' this ring
Had sent his cry for her forgiveness, I
Would call thro' this ‘Io t'amo’ to the heart
Of Miriam; then I bad the man engrave
‘From Walter’ on the ring, and send it—wrote
Name, surname, all as clear as noon, but he—
Some younger hand must have engraven the ring—
His fingers were so stiffen'd by the frost
Of seven and ninety winters, that he scrawl'd
A ‘Miriam’ that might seem a ‘Muriel’;
And Muriel claim'd and open'd what I meant
For Miriam, took the ring, and flaunted it
Before that other whom I loved and love.

A mountain stay'd me here, a minster there,
A galleried palace, or a battlefield,
Where stood the sheaf of Peace: but—coming home—
And on your Mother's birthday—all but yours—
A week betwixt—and when the tower as now
Was all ablaze with crimson to the roof,
And all ablaze too plunging in the lake
Head-foremost—who were those that stood between
The tower and that rich phantom of the tower?
Muriel and Miriam, each in white, and like
May-blossoms in mid autumn—was it they?
A light shot upward on them from the lake.

What sparkled there? whose hand was that? they stood
So close together. I am not keen of sight,
But coming nearer—Muriel had the ring—
‘O Miriam! have you given your ring to her?
O Miriam!’ Miriam redden'd, Muriel clench'd
The hand that wore it, till I cried again:
‘O Miriam, if you love me take the ring!’
She glanced at me, at Muriel, and was mute.
‘Nay, if you cannot love me, let it be.’
Then—Muriel standing ever statue-like—
She turn'd, and in her soft imperial way
And saying gently: ‘Muriel, by your leave,’
Unclosed the hand, and from it drew the ring,
And gave it me, who pass'd it down her own,
‘Io t'amo, all is well then.’ Muriel fled.

Miriam.
Poor Muriel!

Father.

Ay, poor Muriel when you hear
What follows! Miriam loved me from the first,
Not thro' the ring; but on her marriage-morn
This birthday, death-day, and betrothal ring,
Laid on her table overnight, was gone;
And after hours of search and doubt and threats,

And hubbub, Muriel enter'd with it, ‘See!—
Found in a chink of that old moulder'd floor!’
My Miriam nodded with a pitying smile,
As who should say ‘that those who lose can find.’

Then I and she were married for a year,
One year without a storm, or even a cloud;
And you my Miriam born within the year;
And she my Miriam dead within the year.

I sat beside her dying, and she gaspt:
‘The books, the miniature, the lace are hers,
My ring too when she comes of age, or when
She marries; you—you loved me, kept your word.
You love me still “Io t'amo.”—Muriel—no—
She cannot love; she loves her own hard self,
Her firm will, her fix'd purpose. Promise me,
Miriam not Muriel—she shall have the ring.’
And there the light of other life, which lives
Beyond our burial and our buried eyes,
Gleam'd for a moment in her own on earth.
I swore the vow, then with my latest kiss
Upon them, closed her eyes, which would not close,
But kept their watch upon the ring and you.
Your birthday was her death-day.

Miriam.
O poor Mother!
And you, poor desolate Father, and poor me,

The little senseless, worthless, wordless babe,
Saved when your life was wreck'd!

Father.

Desolate? yes
Desolate as that sailor, whom the storm
Had parted from his comrade in the boat,
And dash'd half dead on barren sands, was I.
Nay, you were my one solace; only—you
Were always ailing. Muriel's mother sent,
And sure am I, by Muriel, one day came
And saw you, shook her head, and patted yours,
And smiled, and making with a kindly pinch
Each poor pale cheek a momentary rose—
‘That should be fix'd,’ she said; ‘your pretty bud,
So blighted here, would flower into full health
Among our heath and bracken. Let her come!
And we will feed her with our mountain air,
And send her home to you rejoicing.’ No—
We could not part. And once, when you my girl
Rode on my shoulder home—the tiny fist
Had graspt a daisy from your Mother's grave—
By the lych-gate was Muriel. ‘Ay,’ she said,
‘Among the tombs in this damp vale of yours!
You scorn my Mother's warning, but the child
Is paler than before. We often walk
In open sun, and see beneath our feet

The mist of autumn gather from your lake,
And shroud the tower; and once we only saw
Your gilded vane, a light above the mist'—
(Our old bright bird that still is veering there
Above his four gold letters) ‘and the light,’
She said, ‘was like that light’—and there she paused,
And long; till I believing that the girl's
Lean fancy, groping for it, could not find
One likeness, laugh'd a little and found her two—
‘A warrior's crest above the cloud of war’—
‘A fiery phœnix rising from the smoke,
The pyre he burnt in.’—‘Nay,’ she said, ‘the light
That glimmers on the marsh and on the grave.’
And spoke no more, but turn'd and pass'd away.

Miriam, I am not surely one of those
Caught by the flower that closes on the fly,
But after ten slow weeks her fix'd intent,
In aiming at an all but hopeless mark
To strike it, struck; I took, I left you there;
I came, I went, was happier day by day;
For Muriel nursed you with a mother's care;
Till on that clear and heather-scented height
The rounder cheek had brighten'd into bloom.
She always came to meet me carrying you,
And all her talk was of the babe she loved;
So, following her old pastime of the brook,

She threw the fly for me; but oftener left
That angling to the mother. ‘Muriel's health
Had weaken'd, nursing little Miriam. Strange!
She used to shun the wailing babe, and doats
On this of yours.’ But when the matron saw
That hinted love was only wasted bait,
Not risen to, she was bolder. ‘Ever since
You sent the fatal ring’—I told her ‘sent
To Miriam,’ ‘Doubtless—ay, but ever since
In all the world my dear one sees but you—
In your sweet babe she finds but you—she makes
Her heart a mirror that reflects but you.’
And then the tear fell, the voice broke. Her heart!
I gazed into the mirror, as a man
Who sees his face in water, and a stone,
That glances from the bottom of the pool,
Strike upward thro' the shadow; yet at last,
Gratitude—loneliness—desire to keep
So skilled a nurse about you always—nay!
Some half remorseful kind of pity too—
Well! well, you know I married Muriel Erne.

‘I take thee Muriel for my wedded wife’—
I had forgotten it was your birthday, child—
When all at once with some electric thrill
A cold air pass'd between us, and the hands
Fell from each other, and were join'd again

No second cloudless honeymoon was mine.
For by and by she sicken'd of the farce,
She dropt the gracious mask of motherhood,
She came no more to meet me, carrying you,
Nor ever cared to set you on her knee,
Nor ever let you gambol in her sight,
Nor ever cheer'd you with a kindly smile,
Nor ever ceased to clamour for the ring;
Why had I sent the ring at first to her?
Why had I made her love me thro' the ring,
And then had changed? so fickle are men—the best!
Not she—but now my love was hers again,
The ring by right, she said, was hers again.
At times too shrilling in her angrier moods,
‘That weak and watery nature love you? No!
“Io t'amo, Io t'amo”!’ flung herself
Against my heart, but often while her lips
Were warm upon my cheek, an icy breath,
As from the grating of a sepulchre,
Past over both. I told her of my vow,
No pliable idiot I to break my vow;
But still she made her outcry for the ring;
For one monotonous fancy madden'd her,
Till I myself was madden'd with her cry,
And even that ‘Io t'amo,’ those three sweet
Italian words, became a weariness.

My people too were scared with eerie sounds,
A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls,
A noise of falling weights that never fell,
Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand,
Door-handless turn'd when none was at the door,
And bolted doors that open'd of themselves:
And one betwixt the dark and light had seen
Her, bending by the cradle of her babe.

Miriam.
And I remember once that being waked
By noises in the house—and no one near—
I cried for nurse, and felt a gentle hand
Fall on my forehead, and a sudden face
Look'd in upon me like a gleam and pass'd,
And I was quieted, and slept again.
Or is it some half memory of a dream?

Father.
Your fifth September birthday.

Miriam.
And the face,
The hand,—my Mother.

Father.
Miriam, on that day
Two lovers parted by no scurrilous tale—
Mere want of gold—and still for twenty years
Bound by the golden cord of their first love—
Had ask'd us to their marriage, and to share
Their marriage-banquet. Muriel, paler then
Than ever you were in your cradle, moan'd,
‘I am fitter for my bed, or for my grave,
I cannot go, go you.’ And then she rose,
She clung to me with such a hard embrace,
So lingeringly long, that half-amazed
I parted from her, and I went alone.
And when the bridegroom murmur'd, ‘With this ring,’
I felt for what I could not find, the key,
The guardian of her relics, of her ring.
I kept it as a sacred amulet
About me,—gone! and gone in that embrace!
Then, hurrying home, I found her not in house
Or garden—up the tower—an icy air
Fled by me.—There, the chest was open—all
The sacred relics tost about the floor—
Among them Muriel lying on her face—
I raised her, call'd her ‘Muriel, Muriel wake!
The fatal ring lay near her; the glazed eye

Glared at me as in horror. Dead! I took
And chafed the freezing hand. A red mark ran
All round one finger

Mr. Lowell told me this legend, or something like it, of a house near where he had once lived.

pointed straight, the rest
Were crumpled inwards. Dead!—and maybe stung
With some remorse, had stolen, worn the ring—
Then torn it from her finger, or as if—
For never had I seen her show remorse—
As if—

Miriam.
—those two Ghost lovers—

Father.
Lovers yet—

Miriam.
Yes, yes!

Father.
—but dead so long, gone up so far,
That now their ever-rising life has dwarf'd
Or lost the moment of their past on earth,
As we forget our wail at being born.
As if—

Miriam.
a dearer ghost had—

Father.
—wrench'd it away.

Miriam.
Had floated in with sad reproachful eyes,
Till from her own hand she had torn the ring
In fright, and fallen dead. And I myself
Am half afraid to wear it.

Father.

Well, no more!
No bridal music this! but fear not you!
You have the ring she guarded; that poor link
With earth is broken, and has left her free,
Except that, still drawn downward for an hour,
Her spirit hovering by the church, where she
Was married too, may linger, till she sees
Her maiden coming like a Queen, who leaves
Some colder province in the North to gain
Her capital city, where the loyal bells
Clash welcome—linger, till her own, the babe
She lean'd to from her Spiritual sphere,
Her lonely maiden-Princess, crown'd with flowers,
Has enter'd on the larger woman-world
Of wives and mothers.

But the bridal veil—
Your nurse is waiting. Kiss me child and go.

FORLORN.

I

‘He is fled—I wish him dead—
He that wrought my ruin—
O the flattery and the craft
Which were my undoing ...
In the night, in the night,
When the storms are blowing

II

‘Who was witness of the crime?
Who shall now reveal it?
He is fled, or he is dead,
Marriage will conceal it ...
In the night, in the night,
While the gloom is growing.’

III

Catherine, Catherine, in the night
What is this you're dreaming?

There is laughter down in Hell
At your simple scheming ...
In the night, in the night,
When the ghosts are fleeting.

IV

You to place a hand in his
Like an honest woman's,
You that lie with wasted lungs
Waiting for your summons ...
In the night, O the night!
O the deathwatch beating!

V

There will come a witness soon
Hard to be confuted,
All the world will hear a voice
Scream you are polluted ...
In the night! O the night,
When the owls are wailing!

VI

Shame and marriage, Shame and marriage,
Fright and foul dissembling,
Bantering bridesman, reddening priest,
Tower and altar trembling ...

In the night, O the night,
When the mind is failing!

VII

Mother, dare you kill your child?
How your hand is shaking!
Daughter of the seed of Cain,
What is this you're taking? ...
In the night, O the night,
While the house is sleeping.

VIII

Dreadful! has it come to this,
O unhappy creature?
You that would not tread on a worm
For your gentle nature ...
In the night, O the night,
O the night of weeping!

IX

Murder would not veil your sin,
Marriage will not hide it,
Earth and Hell will brand your name
Wretch you must abide it ...
In the night, O the night,
Long before the dawning.

X

Up, get up, and tell him all,
Tell him you were lying!
Do not die with a lie in your mouth,
You that know you're dying ...
In the night, O the night,
While the grave is yawning.

XI

No—you will not die before,
Tho' you'll ne'er be stronger;
You will live till that is born,
Then a little longer ...
In the night, O the night,
While the Fiend is prowling.

XII

Death and marriage, Death and marriage!
Funeral hearses rolling!
Black with bridal favours mixt!
Bridal bells with tolling! ...
In the night, O the night,
When the wolves are howling.

XIII

Up, get up, the time is short
Tell him now or never!
Tell him all before you die,
Lest you die for ever ...
In the night, O the night,
Where there's no forgetting.

XIV

Up she got, and wrote him all,
All her tale of sadness,
Blister'd every word with tears,
And eased her heart of madness ...
In the night, and nigh the dawn,
And while the moon was setting.

HAPPY.

THE LEPER'S BRIDE.

I

Why wail you, pretty plover? and what is it that you fear?
Is he sick your mate like mine? have you lost him, is he fled?
And there—the heron rises from his watch beside the mere,
And flies above the leper's hut, where lives the living-dead.

II

Come back, nor let me know it! would he live and die alone?
And has he not forgiven me yet, his over-jealous bride,
Who am, and was, and will be his, his own and only own,
To share his living death with him, die with him side by side?

III

Is that the leper's hut on the solitary moor,
Where noble Ulric dwells forlorn, and wears the leper's weed?
The door is open. He! is he standing at the door,
My soldier of the Cross? it is he and he indeed!

IV

My roses—will he take them now—mine, his—from off the tree
We planted both together, happy in our marriage morn?
O God, I could blaspheme, for he fought Thy fight for Thee,
And Thou hast made him leper to compass him with scorn—

V

Hast spared the flesh of thousands, the coward and the base,
And set a crueller mark than Cain's on him, the good and brave!
He sees me, waves me from him. I will front him face to face.
You need not wave me from you. I would leap into your grave.

VI

My warrior of the Holy Cross and of the conquering sword,
The roses that you cast aside—once more I bring you these.
No nearer? do you scorn me when you tell me, O my lord,
You would not mar the beauty of your bride with your disease.

VII

You say your body is so foul—then here I stand apart,
Who yearn to lay my loving head upon your leprous breast.
The leper plague may scale my skin but never taint my heart;
Your body is not foul to me, and body is foul at best.

VIII

I loved you first when young and fair, but now I love you most;
The fairest flesh at last is filth on which the worm will feast;

This poor rib-grated dungeon of the holy human ghost,
This house with all its hateful needs no cleaner than the beast,

IX

This coarse diseaseful creature which in Eden was divine,
This Satan-haunted ruin, this little city of sewers,
This wall of solid flesh that comes between your soul and mine,
Will vanish and give place to the beauty that endures,

X

The beauty that endures on the Spiritual height,
When we shall stand transfigured, like Christ on Hermon hill,
And moving each to music, soul in soul and light in light,
Shall flash thro' one another in a moment as we will.

XI

Foul! foul! the word was yours not mine, I worship that right hand

Which fell'd the foes before you as the woodman fells the wood,
And sway'd the sword that lighten'd back the sun of Holy land,
And clove the Moslem crescent moon, and changed it into blood.

XII

And once I worshipt all too well this creature of decay,
For Age will chink the face, and Death will freeze the supplest limbs—
Yet you in your mid manhood—O the grief when yesterday
They bore the Cross before you to the chant of funeral hymns.

XIII

‘Libera me, Domine!’ you sang the Psalm, and when
The Priest pronounced you dead, and flung the mould upon your feet,
A beauty came upon your face, not that of living men,
But seen upon the silent brow when life has ceased to beat.

XIV

‘Libera nos, Domine’—you knew not one was there
Who saw you kneel beside your bier, and weeping scarce could see;
May I come a little nearer, I that heard, and changed the prayer
And sang the married ‘nos’ for the solitary ‘me.’

XV

My beauty marred by you? by you! so be it. All is well
If I lose it and myself in the higher beauty, yours.
My beauty lured that falcon from his eyry on the fell,
Who never caught one gleam of the beauty which endures—

XVI

The Count who sought to snap the bond that link'd us life to life,
Who whisper'd me ‘your Ulric loves’—a little nearer still—
He hiss'd, ‘Let us revenge ourselves, your Ulric woos my wife’—
A lie by which he thought he could subdue me to his will.

XVII

I knew that you were near me when I let him kiss my brow;
Did he touch me on the lips? I was jealous, anger'd, vain,
And I meant to make you jealous. Are you jealous of me now?
Your pardon, O my love, if I ever gave you pain.

XVIII

You never once accused me, but I wept alone, and sigh'd
In the winter of the Present for the summer of the Past;
That icy winter silence—how it froze you from your bride,
Tho' I made one barren effort to break it at the last.

XIX

I brought you, you remember, these roses, when I knew
You were parting for the war, and you took them tho' you frown'd;

You frown'd and yet you kiss'd them. All at once the trumpet blew,
And you spurr'd your fiery horse, and you hurl'd them to the ground.

XX

You parted for the Holy War without a word to me,
And clear myself unask'd—not I. My nature was too proud.
And him I saw but once again, and far away was he,
When I was praying in a storm—the crash was long and loud—

XXI

That God would ever slant His bolt from falling on your head—
Then I lifted up my eyes, he was coming down the fell—
I clapt my hands. The sudden fire from Heaven had dash'd him dead,
And sent him charr'd and blasted to the deathless fire of Hell.

XXII

See, I sinn'd but for a moment. I repented and repent,

And trust myself forgiven by the God to whom I kneel.
A little nearer? Yes. I shall hardly be content
Till I be leper like yourself, my love, from head to heel.

XXIII

O foolish dreams, that you, that I, would slight our marriage oath:
I held you at that moment even dearer than before;
Now God has made you leper in His loving care for both,
That we might cling together, never doubt each other more.

XXIV

The Priest, who join'd you to the dead, has join'd our hands of old;
If man and wife be but one flesh, let mine be leprous too,
As dead from all the human race as if beneath the mould;
If you be dead, then I am dead, who only live for you.

XXV

Would Earth tho' hid in cloud not be follow'd by the Moon?
The leech forsake the dying bed for terror of his life?
The shadow leave the Substance in the brooding light of noon?
Or if I had been the leper would you have left the wife?

XXVI

Not take them? Still you wave me off—poor roses—must I go—
I have worn them year by year—from the bush we both had set—
What? fling them to you?—well—that were hardly gracious. No!
Your plague but passes by the touch. A little nearer yet!

XXVII

There, there! he buried you, the Priest; the Priest is not to blame,
He joins us once again, to his either office true:

I thank him. I am happy, happy. Kiss me. In the name
Of the everlasting God, I will live and die with you.

TO W. C. MACREADY.

1851.

Farewell, Macready, since to-night we part;
Full-handed thunders often have confessed
Thy power, well-used to move the public breast.
We thank thee with our voice, and from the heart.
Farewell, Macready, since this night we part,
Go, take thine honours home; rank with the best,
Garrick and statelier Kemble, and the rest
Who made a nation purer through their art.
Thine is it that our drama did not die,
Nor flicker down to brainless pantomime,
And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see.
Farewell, Macready; moral, grave, sublime;
Our Shakespeare's bland and universal eye
Dwells pleased, through twice a hundred years, on thee.

TO ULYSSES.

Ulysses was the title of a volume of Palgrave's essays. He died at Monte Video before seeing my poem.

I

Ulysses, much-experienced man,
Whose eyes have known this globe of ours,
Her tribes of men, and trees, and flowers,
From Corrientes to Japan,

II

To you that bask below the Line,
I soaking here in winter wet—
The century's three strong eights have met
To drag me down to seventy-nine

III

In summer if I reach my day—
To you, yet young, who breathe the balm
Of summer-winters by the palm
And orange grove of Paraguay,

IV

I tolerant of the colder time,
Who love the winter woods, to trace
On paler heavens the branching grace
Of leafless elm, or naked lime,

V

And see my cedar green, and there
My giant ilex keeping leaf
When frost is keen and days are brief—
Or marvel how in English air

VI

My yucca, which no winter quells,
Altho' the months have scarce begun,
Has push'd toward our faintest sun
A spike of half-accomplish'd bells—

VII

Or watch the waving pine which here
The warrior of Caprera set,

A Wellingtonia which Garibaldi planted when at Farringford in April 1864. Garibaldi said to me, alluding to his barren island (Caprera), “I wish I had your trees.”

A name that earth will not forget
Till earth has roll'd her latest year—

VIII

I, once half-crazed for larger light
On broader zones beyond the foam,
But chaining fancy now at home
Among the quarried downs of Wight,

IX

Not less would yield full thanks to you
For your rich gift, your tale of lands
I know not,

The tale of Nejd.

your Arabian sands;
Your cane, your palm, tree-fern, bamboo,

X

The wealth of tropic bower and brake;
Your Oriental Eden-isles,

The Philippines.

Where man, nor only Nature smiles;
Your wonder of the boiling lake;

In Dominica.

XI

Phra-Chai, the Shadow of the Best,

The Shadow of the Lord. Certain obscure markings on a rock in Siam, which express the image of Buddha to the Buddhist more or less distinctly according to his faith and his moral worth.

Phra-bat the step;

The footstep of the Lord on another rock.

your Pontic coast;
Crag-cloister;

The monastery of Sumelas.

Anatolian Ghost;

Anatolian Spectre stories.

Hong-Kong,

The Three Cities.

Karnac,

Travels in Egypt.

and all the rest.

XII

Thro' which I follow'd line by line
Your leading hand, and came, my friend,
To prize your various book, and send
A gift of slenderer value, mine.

TO MARY BOYLE.

With the Following Poem.

I

‘Spring-flowers’! While you still delay to take
Your leave of Town,
Our elmtree's ruddy-hearted blossom-flake
Is fluttering down.

II

Be truer to your promise. There! I heard
Our cuckoo call.
Be needle to the magnet of your word,
Nor wait, till all

III

Our vernal bloom from every vale and plain
And garden pass,
And all the gold from each laburnum chain
Drop to the grass.

IV

Is memory with your Marian

Lady Marian Alford.

gone to rest,
Dead with the dead?
For ere she left us, when we met, you prest
My hand, and said

V

‘I come with your spring-flowers.’ You came not, friend;
My birds would sing,
You heard not. Take then this spring-flower I send,
This song of spring,

VI

Found yesterday—forgotten mine own rhyme
By mine old self,
As I shall be forgotten by old Time,
Laid on the shelf—

VII

A rhyme that flower'd betwixt the whitening sloe
And kingcup blaze,
And more than half a hundred years ago,
In rick-fire days,

VIII

When Dives loathed the times, and paced his land
In fear of worse,
And sanguine Lazarus felt a vacant hand
Fill with his purse.

IX

For lowly minds were madden'd to the height
By tonguester tricks,
And once—I well remember that red night
When thirty ricks,

X

All flaming, made an English homestead Hell—

Near Cambridge, 1830.

These hands of mine
Have helpt to pass a bucket from the well
Along the line,

XI

When this bare dome had not begun to gleam
Thro' youthful curls,
And you were then a lover's fairy dream,
His girl of girls;

XII

And you, that now are lonely, and with Grief
Sit face to face,
Might find a flickering glimmer of relief
In change of place.

XIII

What use to brood? this life of mingled pains
And joys to me,
Despite of every Faith and Creed, remains
The Mystery.

XIV

Let golden youth bewail the friend, the wife,
For ever gone.
He dreams of that long walk thro' desert life
Without the one.

XV

The silver year should cease to mourn and sigh—
Not long to wait—
So close are we, dear Mary, you and I
To that dim gate.

XVI

Take, read! and be the faults your Poet makes
Or many or few,
He rests content, if his young music wakes
A wish in you

XVII

To change our dark Queen-city, all her realm
Of sound and smoke,
For his clear heaven, and these few lanes of elm
And whispering oak.

THE PROGRESS OF SPRING.

I

The groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould,
Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea,
Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold
That trembles not to kisses of the bee:
Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves
The spear of ice has wept itself away,
And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves
O'er his uncertain shadow droops the day.
She comes! The loosen'd rivulets run;
The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair;
Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun,
Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bare
To breaths of balmier air;

II

Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welcome her,
About her glance the tits, and shriek the jays,

Before her skims the jubilant woodpecker,
The linnet's bosom blushes at her gaze,
While round her brows a woodland culver flits,
Watching her large light eyes and gracious looks,
And in her open palm a halcyon sits
Patient—the secret splendour of the brooks.
Come Spring! She comes on waste and wood,
On farm and field: but enter also here,
Diffuse thyself at will thro' all my blood,
And, tho' thy violet sicken into sere,
Lodge with me all the year!

III

Once more a downy drift against the brakes,
Self-darken'd in the sky, descending slow!
But gladly see I thro' the wavering flakes
Yon blanching apricot like snow in snow.
These will thine eyes not brook in forest-paths,
On their perpetual pine, nor round the beech;
They fuse themselves to little spicy baths,
Solved in the tender blushes of the peach;
They lose themselves and die
On that new life that gems the hawthorn line;
Thy gay lent-lilies wave and put them by,
And out once more in varnish'd glory shine
Thy stars of celandine.

IV

She floats across the hamlet. Heaven lours,
But in the tearful splendour of her smiles
I see the slowly-thickening chestnut towers
Fill out the spaces by the barren tiles.
Now past her feet the swallow circling flies,
A clamorous cuckoo stoops to meet her hand;
Her light makes rainbows in my closing eyes,
I hear a charm of song thro' all the land.
Come, Spring! She comes, and Earth is glad
To roll her North below thy deepening dome,
But ere thy maiden birk be wholly clad,
And these low bushes dip their twigs in foam,
Make all true hearths thy home.

V

Across my garden! and the thicket stirs,
The fountain pulses high in sunnier jets,
The blackcap warbles, and the turtle purrs,
The starling claps his tiny castanets.
Still round her forehead wheels the woodland dove,
And scatters on her throat the sparks of dew,
The kingcup fills her footprint, and above
Broaden the glowing isles of vernal blue.

Hail ample presence of a Queen,
Bountiful, beautiful, apparell'd gay,
Whose mantle, every shade of glancing green,
Flies back in fragrant breezes to display
A tunic white as May!

VI

She whispers, ‘From the South I bring you balm,
For on a tropic mountain was I born,
While some dark dweller by the coco-palm
Watch'd my far meadow zoned with airy morn;
From under rose a muffled moan of floods;
I sat beneath a solitude of snow;
There no one came, the turf was fresh, the woods
Plunged gulf on gulf thro' all their vales below.
I saw beyond their silent tops
The steaming marshes of the scarlet cranes,
The slant seas leaning on the mangrove copse,
And summer basking in the sultry plains
About a land of canes;

VII

‘Then from my vapour-girdle soaring forth
I scaled the buoyant highway of the birds,
And drank the dews and drizzle of the North,
That I might mix with men, and hear their words

On pathway'd plains; for—while my hand exults
Within the bloodless heart of lowly flowers
To work old laws of Love to fresh results,
Thro' manifold effect of simple powers—
I too would teach the man
Beyond the darker hour to see the bright,
That his fresh life may close as it began,
The still-fulfilling promise of a light
Narrowing the bounds of night.’

VIII

So wed thee with my soul, that I may mark
The coming year's great good and varied ills,
And new developments, whatever spark
Be struck from out the clash of warring wills;
Or whether, since our nature cannot rest,
The smoke of war's volcano burst again
From hoary deeps that belt the changeful West,
Old Empires, dwellings of the kings of men;
Or should those fail, that hold the helm,
While the long day of knowledge grows and warms,
And in the heart of this most ancient realm
A hateful voice be utter'd, and alarms
Sounding ‘To arms! to arms!’

IX

A simpler, saner lesson might he learn
Who reads thy gradual process, Holy Spring
Thy leaves possess the season in their turn,
And in their time thy warblers rise on wing.
How surely glidest thou from March to May,
And changest, breathing it, the sullen wind,
Thy scope of operation, day by day,
Larger and fuller, like the human mind!
Thy warmths from bud to bud
Accomplish that blind model in the seed,
And men have hopes, which race the restless blood,
That after many changes may succeed
Life, which is Life indeed.

MERLIN AND THE GLEAM.

In the story of Merlin and Nimuë I have read that Nimuë means the “Gleam,” which signifies in my poem the higher poetic imagination. Verse iv. is the early imagination; Verse v. alludes to the Pastorals.

I.

O young Mariner,
You from the haven
Under the sea-cliff,
You that are watching
The gray Magician
With eyes of wonder,
I am Merlin,
And I am dying,
I am Merlin
Who follow The Gleam.

II.

Mighty the Wizard
Who found me at sunrise
Sleeping, and woke me
And learn'd me Magic!
Great the Master,

And sweet the Magic,
When over the valley,
In early summers,
Over the mountain,
On human faces,
And all around me,
Moving to melody,
Floated The Gleam.

III.

Once at the croak of a Raven who crost it,
A barbarous people,
Blind to the magic,
And deaf to the melody,
Snarl'd at and cursed me.
A demon vext me,
The light retreated,
The landskip darken'd,
The melody deaden'd,
The Master whisper'd
‘Follow The Gleam.’

IV.

Then to the melody,
Over a wilderness

Gliding, and glancing at
Elf of the woodland,
Gnome of the cavern,
Griffin and Giant,
And dancing of Fairies
In desolate hollows,
And wraiths of the mountain,
And rolling of dragons
By warble of water,
Or cataract music
Of falling torrents,
Flitted The Gleam.

V.

Down from the mountain
And over the level,
And streaming and shining on
Silent river,
Silvery willow,
Pasture and plowland,
Innocent maidens,
Garrulous children,
Homestead and harvest,
Reaper and gleaner,
And rough-ruddy faces
Of lowly labour,
Slided The Gleam—

VI.

Then, with a melody
Stronger and statelier,
Led me at length
To the city and palace
Of Arthur the king;
Touch'd at the golden
Cross of the churches,
Flash'd on the Tournament,
Flicker'd and bicker'd
From helmet to helmet,
And last on the forehead
Of Arthur the blameless
Rested The Gleam.

VII.

Clouds and darkness
Closed upon Camelot;
Arthur had vanish'd
I knew not whither,
The king who loved me,
And cannot die;
For out of the darkness
Silent and slowly
The Gleam, that had waned to a wintry glimmer

On icy fallow
And faded forest,
Drew to the valley
Named of the shadow,
And slowly brightening
Out of the glimmer,
And slowly moving again to a melody
Yearningly tender,
Fell on the shadow,
No longer a shadow,
But clothed with The Gleam.

VIII.

And broader and brighter
The Gleam flying onward,
Wed to the melody,
Sang thro' the world;
And slower and fainter,
Old and weary,
But eager to follow,
I saw, whenever
In passing it glanced upon
Hamlet or city,
That under the Crosses
The dead man's garden,
The mortal hillock,

Would break into blossom;
And so to the land's
Last limit I came—
And can no longer,
But die rejoicing,
For thro' the Magic
Of Him the Mighty,
Who taught me in childhood,
There on the border
Of boundless Ocean,
And all but in Heaven
Hovers The Gleam.

IX.

Not of the sunlight,
Not of the moonlight,
Not of the starlight!
O young Mariner,
Down to the haven,
Call your companions,
Launch your vessel,
And crowd your canvas,
And, ere it vanishes
Over the margin,
After it, follow it,
Follow The Gleam.

ROMNEY'S REMORSE.

[_]

‘I read Hayley's Life of Romney the other day—Romney wanted but education and reading to make him a very fine painter; but his ideal was not high nor fixed. How touching is the close of his life! He married at nineteen, and because Sir Joshua and others had said that “marriage spoilt an artist” almost immediately left his wife in the North and scarce saw her till the end of his life; when old, nearly mad and quite desolate, he went back to her and she received him and nursed him till he died. This quiet act of hers is worth all Romney's pictures! even as a matter of Art, I am sure.’ (Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald, vol. i.)

‘Beat, little heart—I give you this and this’
Who are you? What! the Lady Hamilton?
Good, I am never weary painting you.
To sit once more? Cassandra, Hebe, Joan,
Or spinning at your wheel beside the vine—
Bacchante, what you will; and if I fail
To conjure and concentrate into form
And colour all you are, the fault is less
In me than Art. What Artist ever yet

Could make pure light live on the canvas? Art!
Why should I so disrelish that short word?
Where am I? snow on all the hills! so hot,
So fever'd! never colt would more delight
To roll himself in meadow grass than I
To wallow in that winter of the hills.
Nurse, were you hired? or came of your own will
To wait on one so broken, so forlorn?
Have I not met you somewhere long ago?
I am all but sure I have—in Kendal church—
O yes! I hired you for a season there,
And then we parted; but you look so kind
That you will not deny my sultry throat
One draught of icy water. There—you spill
The drops upon my forehead. Your hand shakes.
I am ashamed. I am a trouble to you,
Could kneel for your forgiveness. Are they tears?
For me—they do me too much grace—for me?
O Mary, Mary!

Vexing you with words!
Words only, born of fever, or the fumes
Of that dark opiate dose you gave me,—words,
Wild babble. I have stumbled back again
Into the common day, the sounder self.
God stay me there, if only for your sake,
The truest, kindliest, noblest-hearted wife

100

That ever wore a Christian marriage-ring.
My curse upon the Master's apothegm,
That wife and children drag an Artist down!
This seem'd my lodestar in the Heaven of Art,
And lured me from the household fire on earth.
To you my days have been a life-long lie,
Grafted on half a truth; and tho' you say
‘Take comfort you have won the Painter's fame,’
The best in me that sees the worst in me,
And groans to see it, finds no comfort there.
What fame? I am not Raphaël, Titian—no
Nor even a Sir Joshua, some will cry.
Wrong there! The painter's fame? but mine, that grew
Blown into glittering by the popular breath,
May float awhile beneath the sun, may roll
The rainbow hues of heaven about it—

There!
The colour'd bubble bursts above the abyss
Of Darkness, utter Lethe.

Is it so?
Her sad eyes plead for my own fame with me
To make it dearer.

Look, the sun has risen
To flame along another dreary day.

101

Your hand. How bright you keep your marriage ring!
Raise me. I thank you.

Has your opiate then
Bred this black mood? or am I conscious, more
Than other Masters, of the chasm between
Work and Ideal? Or does the gloom of Age
And suffering cloud the height I stand upon
Even from myself? stand? stood . . . no more.

And yet
The world would lose, if such a wife as you
Should vanish unrecorded. Might I crave
One favour? I am bankrupt of all claim
On your obedience, and my strongest wish
Falls flat before your least unwillingness.
Still would you—if it please you—sit to me?
I dream'd last night of that clear summer noon,
When seated on a rock, and foot to foot
With your own shadow in the placid lake,
You claspt our infant daughter, heart to heart.
I had been among the hills, and brought you down
A length of staghorn-moss, and this you twined
About her cap. I see the picture yet,
Mother and child. A sound from far away,
No louder than a bee among the flowers,
A fall of water lull'd the noon asleep.

102

You still'd it for the moment with a song
Which often echo'd in me, while I stood
Before the great Madonna-masterpieces
Of ancient Art in Paris, or in Rome.
Mary, my crayons! if I can, I will.
You should have been—I might have made you once,
Had I but known you as I know you now—
The true Alcestis of the time. Your song—
Sit, listen! I remember it, a proof
That I—even I—at times remember'd you.

‘Beat upon mine, little heart! beat, beat!
Beat upon mine! you are mine, my sweet!
All mine from your pretty blue eyes to your feet,
My sweet.’

Less profile! turn to me—three-quarter face.

‘Sleep, little blossom, my honey, my bliss!
For I give you this, and I give you this!
And I blind your pretty blue eyes with a kiss!
Sleep!’

Too early blinded by the kiss of death—
‘Father and Mother will watch you grow’—
You watch'd not I, she did not grow, she died.

‘Father and Mother will watch you grow,
And gather the roses whenever they blow,

103

And find the white heather wherever you go,
My sweet.’

Ah, my white heather only blooms in heaven
With Milton's amaranth.

“Lowly reverent
Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground
With solemn adoration down they cast
Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold,
Immortal amarant, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life,
Began to bloom; but, soon for Man's offence
To Heaven removed where first it grew, there grows
And flowers aloft, shading the Fount of Life,”

etc.

Par. Lost, iii. 349-357.

There, there, there! a child
Had shamed me at it—Down, you idle tools,
Stampt into dust—tremulous, all awry,
Blurr'd like a landskip in a ruffled pool,—
Not one stroke firm. This Art, that harlot-like
Seduced me from you, leaves me harlot-like,
Who love her still, and whimper, impotent
To win her back before I die—and then—
Then, in the loud world's bastard judgment-day,
One truth will damn me with the mindless mob,
Who feel no touch of my temptation, more
Than all the myriad lies, that blacken round
The corpse of every man that gains a name;
‘This model husband, this fine Artist’! Fool,
What matters? Six foot deep of burial mould
Will dull their comments! Ay, but when the shout
Of His descending peals from Heaven, and throbs
Thro' earth, and all her graves, if He should ask
‘Why left you wife and children? for my sake,
According to my word?’ and I replied
‘Nay, Lord, for Art,’ why, that would sound so mean

104

That all the dead, who wait the doom of Hell
For bolder sins than mine, adulteries,
Wife-murders,—nay, the ruthless Mussulman
Who flings his bowstrung Harem in the sea,
Would turn, and glare at me, and point and jeer,
And gibber at the worm, who, living, made
The wife of wives a widow-bride, and lost
Salvation for a sketch.

I am wild again!
The coals of fire you heap upon my head
Have crazed me. Someone knocking there without?
No! Will my Indian brother

When his brother arrived from India, Romney did not know him.

come? to find
Me or my coffin? Should I know the man?
This worn-out Reason dying in her house
May leave the windows blinded, and if so,
Bid him farewell for me, and tell him—

Hope!
I hear a death-bed Angel whisper ‘Hope.’
“The miserable have no medicine
But only Hope!” He said it . . . in the play.

Cf. Measure for Measure, iii. i. 2:

“The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope.”

His crime was of the senses; of the mind
Mine; worse, cold, calculated.

Tell my son—
O let me lean my head upon your breast.
‘Beat little heart’ on this fool brain of mine.

105

I once had friends—and many—none like you.
I love you more than when we married. Hope!
O yes, I hope, or fancy that, perhaps,
Human forgiveness touches heaven, and thence—
For you forgive me, you are sure of that—
Reflected, sends a light on the forgiven.

106

PARNASSUS.

Exegi monumentum . . .
Quod non . . .
Possit diruere . . .
. . . innumerabilis
Annorum series et fuga temporum.
—Horace.

I.

What be those crown'd forms high over the sacred fountain?
Bards, that the mighty Muses have raised to the heights of the mountain,
And over the flight of the Ages! O Goddesses, help me up thither!
Lightning may shrivel the laurel of Cæsar, but mine would not wither.
Steep is the mountain, but you, you will help me to overcome it,
And stand with my head in the zenith, and roll my voice from the summit,

107

Sounding for ever and ever thro' Earth and her listening nations,
And mixt with the great Sphere-music of stars and of constellations.

II.

What be those two shapes high over the sacred fountain,
Taller than all the Muses, and huger than all the mountain?
On those two known peaks they stand ever spreading and heightening;
Poet, that evergreen laurel is blasted by more than lightning!
Look, in their deep double shadow the crown'd ones all disappearing!
Sing like a bird and be happy, nor hope for a deathless hearing!
‘Sounding for ever and ever?’ pass on! the sight confuses—
These are Astronomy and Geology, terrible Muses!

III.

If the lips were touch'd with fire from off a pure Pierian altar,

108

Tho' their music here be mortal need the singer greatly care?
Other songs for other worlds! the fire within him would not falter;
Let the golden Iliad vanish, Homer here is Homer there.

109

BY AN EVOLUTIONIST.

The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man,
And the man said ‘Am I your debtor?’
And the Lord—‘Not yet: but make it as clean as you can,
And then I will let you a better.’

I.

If my body come from brutes, my soul uncertain, or a fable,
Why not bask amid the senses while the sun of morning shines,
I, the finer brute rejoicing in my hounds, and in my stable,
Youth and Health, and birth and wealth, and choice of women and of wines?

110

II.

What hast thou done for me, grim Old Age, save breaking my bones on the rack?
Would I had past in the morning that looks so bright from afar!

Old Age.

Done for thee? starved the wild beast that was linkt with thee eighty years back.
Less weight now for the ladder-of-heaven that hangs on a star.

I.

If my body come from brutes, tho' somewhat finer than their own,
I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice be mute?
No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the throne,
Hold the sceptre, Human Soul, and rule thy Province of the brute.

II.

I have climb'd to the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field in the Past,

111

Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs of a low desire,
But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last
As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher.

112

FAR—FAR—AWAY.
[_]

(FOR MUSIC.)

Before I could read I was in the habit on a stormy day of spreading my arms to the wind and crying out, “I hear a voice that's speaking in the wind,” and the words “far, far away” had always a strange charm for me.

What sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew
As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue,
Far—far—away?

What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells
Far—far—away.

What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thro' those three words would haunt him when a boy,
Far—far-away?

A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death
Far—far—away?

113

Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of Birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,
Far—far—away?

What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live
Far-far-away?

114

POLITICS.

We move, the wheel must always move,
Nor always on the plain,
And if we move to such a goal
As Wisdom hopes to gain,
Then you that drive, and know your Craft,
Will firmly hold the rein,
Nor lend an ear to random cries,
Or you may drive in vain,
For some cry ‘Quick’ and some cry ‘Slow,’
But, while the hills remain,
Up hill ‘Too-slow’ will need the whip,
Down hill ‘Too-quick’ the chain.

115

BEAUTIFUL CITY.

Paris.

Beautiful city, the centre and crater of European confusion,
O you with your passionate shriek for the rights of an equal humanity,
How often your Re-volution has proven but E-volution
Roll'd again back on itself in the tides of a civic insanity!

116

THE ROSES ON THE TERRACE.

At Aldworth.

Rose, on this terrace fifty years ago,
When I was in my June, you in your May,
Two words, ‘My Rose’ set all your face aglow,
And now that I am white, and you are gray,
That blush of fifty years ago, my dear,
Blooms in the Past, but close to me to-day
As this red rose, which on our terrace here
Glows in the blue of fifty miles away.

117

THE PLAY.

Act first, this Earth, a stage so gloom'd with woe
You all but sicken at the shifting scenes.
And yet be patient. Our Playwright may show
In some fifth Act what this wild Drama means.

118

ON ONE WHO AFFECTED AN EFFEMINATE MANNER.

While man and woman still are incomplete,
I prize that soul where man and woman meet,
Which types all Nature's male and female plan,
But, friend, man-woman is not woman-man.

119

TO ONE WHO RAN DOWN THE ENGLISH.

You make our faults too gross, and thence maintain
Our darker future. May your fears be vain!
At times the small black fly upon the pane
May seem the black ox of the distant plain.

120

THE SNOWDROP.

Many, many welcomes
February fair-maid,
Ever as of old time,
Solitary firstling,
Coming in the cold time,
Prophet of the gay time,
Prophet of the May time,
Prophet of the roses,
Many, many welcomes
February fair-maid!

121

THE THROSTLE

‘Summer is coming, summer is coming.
I know it, I know it, I know it.
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again,’
Yes, my wild little Poet.

Sing the new year in under the blue.
Last year you sang it as gladly.
‘New, new, new, new’! Is it then so new
That you should carol so madly?

‘Love again, song again, nest again, young again,’
Never a prophet so crazy!
And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,
See, there is hardly a daisy.

‘Here again, here, here, here, happy year’!
O warble unchidden, unbidden!
Summer is coming, is coming, my dear,
And all the winters are hidden.

122

THE OAK.

Live thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;

Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed
Soberer-hued
Gold again.

All his leaves
Fall'n at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough,
Naked strength.

123

IN MEMORIAM.

W. G. Ward.

Farewell, whose living like I shall not find,
Whose Faith and Work were bells of full accord,
My friend, the most unworldly of mankind,
Most generous of all Ultramontanes, Ward,
How subtle at tierce and quart of mind with mind,
How loyal in the following of thy Lord!

125

THE DEATH OF ŒNONE, AKBAR'S DREAM, AND OTHER POEMS

127

JUNE BRACKEN AND HEATHER.

To—.

There on the top of the down,

Blackdown, on which Aldworth stands.

The wild heather round me and over me June's high blue,
When I look'd at the bracken so bright and the heather so brown,
I thought to myself I would offer this book to you,
This, and my love together,
To you that are seventy-seven,
With a faith as clear as the heights of the June-blue heaven,
And a fancy as summer-new
As the green of the bracken amid the gloom of the heather.

128

TO THE MASTER OF BALLIOL.

I

Dear Master in our classic town,
You, loved by all the younger gown
There at Balliol,
Lay your Plato for one minute down,

II

And read a Grecian tale re-told,
Which, cast in later Grecian mould,
Quintus Calaber
Somewhat lazily handled of old;

III

And on this white midwinter day—
For have the far-off hymns of May,
All her melodies,
All her harmonies echo'd away?—

129

IV

To-day, before you turn again
To thoughts that lift the soul of men,
Hear my cataract's
Downward thunder in hollow and glen,

V

Till, led by dream and vague desire,
The woman, gliding toward the pyre,
Find her warrior
Stark and dark in his funeral fire.

130

THE DEATH OF ŒNONE.

Œnone sat within the cave from out
Whose ivy-matted mouth she used to gaze
Down at the Troad; but the goodly view
Was now one blank, and all the serpent vines
Which on the touch of heavenly feet had risen,
And gliding thro' the branches overbower'd
The naked Three, were wither'd long ago,
And thro' the sunless winter morning-mist
In silence wept upon the flowerless earth.

And while she stared at those dead cords that ran
Dark thro' the mist, and linking tree to tree,
But once were gayer than a dawning sky
With many a pendent bell and fragrant star,
Her Past became her Present, and she saw
Him, climbing toward her with the golden fruit,
Him, happy to be chosen Judge of Gods,
Her husband in the flush of youth and dawn,
Paris, himself as beauteous as a God.

Anon from out the long ravine below,

131

She heard a wailing cry, that seem'd at first
Thin as the batlike shrillings of the Dead
When driven to Hades, but, in coming near,
Across the downward thunder of the brook
Sounded ‘Œnone’; and on a sudden he,
Paris, no longer beauteous as a God,
Struck by a poison'd arrow in the fight,
Lame, crooked, reeling, livid, thro' the mist
Rose, like the wraith of his dead self, and moan'd

‘Œnone, my Œnone, while we dwelt
Together in this valley—happy then—
Too happy had I died within thine arms,
Before the feud of Gods had marr'd our peace,
And sunder'd each from each. I am dying now
Pierced by a poison'd dart. Save me. Thou knowest,
Taught by some God, whatever herb or balm
May clear the blood from poison, and thy fame
Is blown thro' all the Troad, and to thee
The shepherd brings his adder-bitten lamb,
The wounded warrior climbs from Troy to thee.
My life and death are in thy hand. The Gods
Avenge on stony hearts a fruitless prayer
For pity. Let me owe my life to thee.
I wrought thee bitter wrong, but thou forgive,
Forget it. Man is but the slave of Fate.
Œnone, by thy love which once was mine,

132

Help, heal me. I am poison'd to the heart.’
‘And I to mine’ she said ‘Adulterer,
Go back to thine adulteress and die!’

He groan'd, he turn'd, and in the mist at once
Became a shadow, sank and disappear'd,
But, ere the mountain rolls into the plain,
Fell headlong dead; and of the shepherds one
Their oldest, and the same who first had found
Paris, a naked babe, among the woods
Of Ida, following lighted on him there,
And shouted, and the shepherds heard and came.

One raised the Prince, one sleek'd the squalid hair,
One kiss'd his hand, another closed his eyes,
And then, remembering the gay playmate rear'd
Among them, and forgetful of the man,
Whose crime had half unpeopled Ilion, these
All that day long labour'd, hewing the pines,
And built their shepherd-prince a funeral pile;
And, while the star of eve was drawing light
From the dead sun, kindled the pyre, and all
Stood round it, hush'd, or calling on his name.

But when the white fog vanish'd like a ghost
Before the day, and every topmost pine
Spired into bluest heaven, still in her cave,
Amazed, and ever seeming stared upon
By ghastlier than the Gorgon head, a face,—

133

His face deform'd by lurid blotch and blain—
There, like a creature frozen to the heart
Beyond all hope of warmth, Œnone sat
Not moving, till in front of that ravine
Which drowsed in gloom, self-darken'd from the west,
The sunset blazed along the wall of Troy.

Then her head sank, she slept, and thro' her dream
A ghostly murmur floated, ‘Come to me,
Œnone! I can wrong thee now no more,
Œnone, my Œnone,’ and the dream
Wail'd in her, when she woke beneath the stars.

What star could burn so low? not Ilion yet.
What light was there? She rose and slowly down,
By the long torrent's ever-deepen'd roar,
Paced, following, as in trance, the silent cry.
She waked a bird of prey that scream'd and past;
She roused a snake that hissing writhed away;
A panther sprang across her path, she heard
The shriek of some lost life among the pines,
But when she gain'd the broader vale, and saw
The ring of faces redden'd by the flames
Enfolding that dark body which had lain
Of old in her embrace, paused—and then ask'd
Falteringly, ‘Who lies on yonder pyre?’
But every man was mute for reverence.
Then moving quickly forward till the heat

134

Smote on her brow, she lifted up a voice
Of shrill command, ‘Who burns upon the pyre?’
Whereon their oldest and their boldest said,
‘He, whom thou wouldst not heal!’ and all at once
The morning light of happy marriage broke
Thro' all the clouded years of widowhood,
And muffling up her comely head, and crying
‘Husband!’ she leapt upon the funeral pile,
And mixt herself with him and past in fire.

135

ST. TELEMACHUS.

Had the fierce ashes of some fiery peak

These lines were suggested by the memory of the eruption of Krakatoa, between Java and Sumatra, when the volcanic dust was whirled round the earth and made the sunsets extraordinarily brilliant.

Been hurl'd so high they ranged about the globe?
For day by day, thro' many a blood-red eve,
In that four-hundredth summer after Christ,
The wrathful sunset glared against a cross
Rear'd on the tumbled ruins of an old fane
No longer sacred to the Sun, and flamed
On one huge slope beyond, where in his cave
The man, whose pious hand had built the cross,
A man who never changed a word with men,
Fasted and pray'd, Telemachus the Saint.

Eve after eve that haggard anchorite
Would haunt the desolated fane, and there
Gaze at the ruin, often mutter low
‘Vicisti Galilæe’; louder again,
Spurning a shatter'd fragment of the God,
‘Vicisti Galilæe!’ but—when now
Bathed in that lurid crimson—ask'd ‘Is earth
On fire to the West? or is the Demon-god

136

Wroth at his fall?’ and heard an answer ‘Wake
Thou deedless dreamer, lazying out a life
Of self-suppression, not of selfless love.’
And once a flight of shadowy fighters crost
The disk, and once, he thought, a shape with wings
Came sweeping by him, and pointed to the West,
And at his ear he heard a whisper ‘Rome’
And in his heart he cried ‘The call of God!’
And call'd arose, and, slowly plunging down
Thro' that disastrous glory, set his face
By waste and field and town of alien tongue,
Following a hundred sunsets, and the sphere
Of westward-wheeling stars; and every dawn
Struck from him his own shadow on to Rome.

Foot-sore, way-worn, at length he touch'd his goal,
The Christian city. All her splendour fail'd
To lure those eyes that only yearn'd to see,
Fleeting betwixt her column'd palace-walls,
The shape with wings. Anon there past a crowd
With shameless laughter, Pagan oath, and jest,
Hard Romans brawling of their monstrous games;
He, all but deaf thro' age and weariness,
And muttering to himself ‘The call of God’
And borne along by that full stream of men,
Like some old wreck on some indrawing sea,
Gain'd their huge Colosseum. The caged beast
Yell'd, as he yell'd of yore for Christian blood.

137

Three slaves were trailing a dead lion away,
One, a dead man. He stumbled in, and sat
Blinded; but when the momentary gloom,
Made by the noonday blaze without, had left
His aged eyes, he raised them, and beheld
A blood-red awning waver overhead,
The dust send up a steam of human blood,
The gladiators moving toward their fight,
And eighty thousand Christian faces watch
Man murder man. A sudden strength from heaven,
As some great shock may wake a palsied limb,
Turn'd him again to boy, for up he sprang,
And glided lightly down the stairs, and o'er
The barrier that divided beast from man
Slipt, and ran on, and flung himself between
The gladiatorial swords, and call'd ‘Forbear
In the great name of Him who died for men,
Christ Jesus!’ For one moment afterward
A silence follow'd as of death, and then
A hiss as from a wilderness of snakes,
Then one deep roar as of a breaking sea,
And then a shower of stones that stoned him dead,
And then once more a silence as of death.

His dream became a deed that woke the world,
For while the frantic rabble in half-amaze
Stared at him dead, thro' all the nobler hearts
In that vast Oval ran a shudder of shame.

138

The Baths, the Forum gabbled of his death,
And preachers linger'd o'er his dying words,
Which would not die, but echo'd on to reach
Honorius, till he heard them, and decreed
That Rome no more should wallow in this old lust
Of Paganism, and make her festal hour
Dark with the blood of man who murder'd man.

(For Honorius, who succeeded to the sovereignty over Europe, supprest the gladiatorial combats practised of old in Rome, on occasion of the following event. There was one Telemachus, embracing the ascetic mode of life, who setting out from the East and arriving at Rome for this very purpose, while that accursed spectacle was being performed, entered himself the circus, and descending into the arena, attempted to hold back those who wielded deadly weapons against each other. The spectators of the murderous fray, possest with the drunken glee of the demon who delights in such bloodshed, stoned to death the preacher of peace. The admirable Emperor learning this put a stop to that evil exhibition.—Theodoret's Ecclesiastical History.)

139

AKBAR'S DREAM.

The great Mogul Emperor Akbar was born October 14, 1542, and died 1605. At 13 he succeeded his father Humayun; at 18 he himself assumed the sole charge of government. He subdued and ruled over fifteen large provinces; his empire included all India north of the Vindhya Mountains—in the south of India he was not so successful. His tolerance of religions and his abhorrence of religious persecution put our Tudors to shame. He invented a new eclectic religion by which he hoped to unite all creeds, castes, and peoples: and his legislation was remarkable for vigour, justice, and humanity.

An Inscription by Abul Fazl for a Temple in Kashmir (Blochmann xxxii.)

O God in every temple I see people that see thee, and in every language I hear spoken, people praise thee.

Polytheism and Islám feel after thee.

Each religion says, ‘Thou art one, without equal.’

If it be a mosque people murmur the holy prayer, and if it be a Christian Church, people ring the bell from love to Thee.

Sometimes I frequent the Christian cloister, and sometimes the mosque.

But it is thou whom I search from temple to temple.

Thy elect have no dealings with either heresy or orthodoxy; for neither of them stands behind the screen of thy truth.

Heresy to the heretic, and religion to the orthodox, But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the perfume seller.

Akbar and Abul Fazl before the palace at Futehpur-Sikri at night.

‘Light of the nation’ ask'd his Chronicler
Of Akbar ‘what has darken'd thee to-night?’

140

Then, after one quick glance upon the stars,
And turning slowly toward him, Akbar said
‘The shadow of a dream—an idle one
It may be. Still I raised my heart to heaven,
I pray'd against the dream. To pray, to do—
To pray, to do according to the prayer,
Are, both, to worship Alla, but the prayers,
That have no successor in deed, are faint
And pale in Alla's eyes, fair mothers they
Dying in childbirth of dead sons. I vow'd
Whate'er my dreams, I still would do the right
Thro' all the vast dominion which a sword,
That only conquers men to conquer peace,
Has won me. Alla be my guide!

But come,
My noble friend, my faithful counsellor,
Sit by my side. While thou art one with me,
I seem no longer like a lonely man
In the king's garden, gathering here and there
From each fair plant the blossom choicest-grown
To wreathe a crown not only for the king
But in due time for every Mussulmân,
Brahmin, and Buddhist, Christian, and Parsee,
Thro' all the warring world of Hindustan.

Akbar's rapid conquests and the good government of his fifteen provinces with their complete military, civil, and political systems make him conspicuous among the great kings of history.

Well spake thy brother in his hymn to heaven
“Thy glory baffles wisdom.

The Emperor quotes from a hymn to the Deity by Faizi, brother of Abul Fazl, Akbar's chief friend and minister, who wrote the Ain i Akbari (Annals of Akbar). Abul Fazl's influence on his age was immense. It may be that he and his brother Faizi led Akbar's mind away from Islám and the Prophet—this charge is brought against him by every Mohammedan writer; but Abul Fazl also led his sovereign to a true appreciation of his duties, and from the moment that he entered Court, the problem of successfully ruling over mixed races, which Islám in few other countries had to solve, was carefully considered, and the policy of toleration was the result (Blochmann xxix.).

Abul Fazl thus gives an account of himself: “The advice of my Father with difficulty kept me back from acts of folly; my mind had no rest and my heart felt itself drawn to the sages of Mongolia or to the hermits on Lebanon. I longed for interviews with the Llamás of Tibet or with the padres of Portugal, and I would gladly sit with the priests of the Parsis and the learned of the Zendavesta. I was sick of the learned of my own land.” Concerning. Akbar himself, Professor Blochmann writes: “Impressed with a favourable idea of the value of his Hindu subjects, he (Akbar) had resolved when pensively sitting in the evenings on the solitary stone at Futehpur-Sikri to rule with an even hand all men in his dominions; but as the extreme views of the learned and the lawyers continually urged him to persecute instead of to heal, he instituted discussions, because, believing himself to be in error, he thought it his duty as ruler to inquire.” “These discussions took place every Thursday night in the Ibadat-khana, a building at Futehpur-Sikri, erected for the purpose” (Malleson).

In these discussions Abul Fazl became a great power, and he induced the chief of the disputants to draw up a document defining the “divine Faith” as it was called, and assigning to Akbar the rank of a Mujahid, or supreme khalifah, the vicegerent of the one true God.

Abul Fazl was finally murdered at the instigation of Akbar's son Salim, who in his Memoirs declares that it was Abul Fazl who had perverted his father's mind so that he denied the divine mission of Mohammed, and turned away his love from his son.

Faizi. When Akbar conquered the North-West Provinces of India, Faizi, then 20, began his life as a poet, and earned his living as a physician. He is reported to have been very generous and to have treated the poor for nothing. His fame reached Akbar's ears, who commanded him to come to the camp at Chitor. Akbar was delighted with his varied knowledge and scholarship and made the poet teacher to his sons. Faizi at 33 was appointed Chief Poet (1588). He collected a fine library of 4300 MSS. and died at the age of 40 (1595), when Akbar incorporated his collection of rare books in the Imperial Library.

All the tracks
Of science making toward Thy Perfectness

141

Are blinding desert sand; we scarce can spell
The Alif of Thine alphabet of Love.”

He knows Himself, men nor themselves nor Him,
For every splinter'd fraction of a sect
Will clamour “I am on the Perfect Way,
All else is to perdition.”

Shall the rose
Cry to the lotus “No flower thou”? the palm
Call to the cypress “I alone am fair”?
The mango spurn the melon at his foot?
“Mine is the one fruit Alla made for man.”

Look how the living pulse of Alla beats
Thro' all His world. If every single star
Should shriek its claim “I only am in heaven”
Why that were such sphere-music as the Greek
Had hardly dream'd of. There is light in all,
And light, with more or less of shade, in all
Man-modes of worship; but our Ulama,
Who “sitting on green sofas contemplate
The torment of the damn'd” already, these
Are like wild brutes new-caged—the narrower
The cage, the more their fury. Me they front
With sullen brows. What wonder! I decreed
That even the dog was clean, that men may taste
Swine-flesh, drink wine; they know too that whene'er
In our free Hall, where each philosophy
And mood of faith may hold its own, they blurt

142

Their furious formalisms, I but hear
The clash of tides that meet in narrow seas,—
Not the Great Voice not the true Deep.

To drive
A people from their ancient fold of Faith,

Malleson says: “This must have happened because Akbar states it, but of the forced conversions I have found no record. This must have taken place whilst he was still a minor, and whilst the chief authority was wielded by Bairam.”

And wall them up perforce in mine—unwise,
Unkinglike;—and the morning of my reign
Was redden'd by that cloud of shame when I . . .

I hate the rancour of their castes and creeds,
I let men worship as they will, I reap
No revenue from the field of unbelief.

The Hindus are fond of pilgrimages, and Akbar removed a remunerative tax raised by his predecessors on pilgrimages. He also abolished the fezza or capitation tax on those who differed from the Mohammedan faith. He discouraged all excessive prayers, fasts, and pilgrimages.

I cull from every faith and race the best
And bravest soul for counsellor and friend.
I loathe the very name of infidel.
I stagger at the Korân and the sword.
I shudder at the Christian and the stake;
Yet “Alla,” says their sacred book, “is Love,”
And when the Goan Padre

Abul Fazl relates that “one night the Ibadat-khana was brightened by the presence of Padre Rodolpho, who for intelligence and wisdom was unrivalled among Christian doctors. Several carping and bigoted men attacked him, and this afforded an opportunity for the display of the calm judgment and justice of the assembly. These men brought forward the old received assertions, and did not attempt to arrive at truth by reasoning. Their statements were torn to pieces, and they were nearly put to shame when they began to attack the contradictions of the Gospel, but they could not prove their assertions. With perfect calmness and earnest conviction of the truth he replied to their arguments.”

quoting Him,
Issa Ben Mariam, his own prophet, cried
“Love one another little ones” and “bless”
Whom? even “your persecutors”! there methought
The cloud was rifted by a purer gleam
Than glances from the sun of our Islâm.

And thou rememberest what a fury shook
Those pillars of a moulder'd faith, when he,
That other, prophet of their fall, proclaimed
His Master as “the Sun of Righteousness,”

143

Yea, Alla here on earth, who caught and held
His people by the bridle-rein of Truth.

What art thou saying? “And was not Alla call'd
In old Irân the Sun of Love? and Love
The net of truth?”

A voice from old Irân!
Nay, but I know it—his, the hoary Sheik,
On whom the women shrieking “Atheist” flung
Filth from the roof, the mystic melodist
Who all but lost himself in Alla, him
Abû Saîd—

“Love is the net of Truth, Love is the noose of God,” is a quotation from the great Sufee poet Abû Sa`îd—born A.D. 968, died at the age of 83. He is a mystical poet, and some of his expressions have been compared to our George Herbert. Of Shaikh Abû Sa`îd it is recorded that he said: “When my affairs had reacht a certain pitch I buried under the dust my books and opened a shop on my own account (i.e. began to teach with authority), and verily men represented me as that which I was not, until it came to this, that they went to the Qâdhî and testified against me of unbelieverhood; and women got upon the roofs and cast unclean things upon me.” (Vide reprint from article in National Review, March 1891, by C. J. Pickering.)

—a sun but dimly seen
Here, till the mortal morning mists of earth
Fade in the noon of heaven, when creed and race
Shall bear false witness, each of each, no more,
But find their limits by that larger light,
And overstep them, moving easily
Thro' after-ages in the love of Truth,
The truth of Love.

The sun, the sun! they rail
At me the Zoroastrian. Let the Sun,
Who heats our earth to yield us grain and fruit,
And laughs upon thy field as well as mine,
And warms the blood of Shiah and Sunnee,
Symbol the Eternal! Yea and may not kings
Express Him also by their warmth of love
For all they rule—by equal law for all?

144

By deeds a light to men?

But no such light
Glanced from our Presence on the face of one,
Who breaking in upon us yestermorn,

I am not aware that there is any record of such intrusion of Aziz upon the king's privacy, but the expressions in the text occur in a letter sent by Akbar's foster-brother Aziz, who refused to come to court when summoned and threw up his government, and “after writing an insolent and reproachful letter to Akbar in which he asked him if he had received a book from heaven, or if he could work miracles like Mahomet that he presumed to introduce a new religion, warned him that he was on the way to eternal perdition, and concluded with a prayer to God to bring him back into the path of salvation” (Elphinstone).

“The Korân, the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David are called books by way of excellence, and their followers ‘People of the Book’” (Elphinstone).

Akbar, according to Abdel Kadir, had his son Murad instructed in the Gospel, and used to make him begin his lessons “In the name of Christ” instead of in the usual way, “In the name of God.”

With all the Hells a-glare in either eye,
Yell'd “hast thou brought us down a new Korân
From heaven? art thou the Prophet? canst thou work
Miracles?” and the wild horse, anger, plunged
To fling me, and fail'd. Miracles! no, not I
Nor he, nor any. I can but lift the torch
Of Reason in the dusky cave of Life,
And gaze on this great miracle, the World,
Adoring That who made, and makes, and is,
And is not, what I gaze on—all else Form,
Ritual, varying with the tribes of men.

Ay but, my friend, thou knowest I hold that forms
Are needful: only let the hand that rules,
With politic care, with utter gentleness,
Mould them for all his people.

And what are forms?
Fair garments, plain or rich, and fitting close
Or flying looselier, warm'd but by the heart
Within them, moved but by the living limb,
And cast aside, when old, for newer,—Forms!
The Spiritual in Nature's market-place—
The silent Alphabet-of-heaven-in-man
Made vocal—banners blazoning a Power

145

That is not seen and rules from far away—
A silken cord let down from Paradise,
When fine Philosophies would fail, to draw
The crowd from wallowing in the mire of earth,
And all the more, when these behold their Lord,
Who shaped the forms, obey them, and himself
Here on this bank in some way live the life
Beyond the bridge, and serve that Infinite
Within us, as without, that All-in-all,
And over all, the never-changing One
And ever-changing Many, in praise of Whom
The Christian bell, the cry from off the mosque,
And vaguer voices of Polytheism
Make but one music, harmonising “Pray.”

There westward—under yon slow-falling star,
The Christians own a Spiritual Head;
And following thy true counsel, by thine aid,
Myself am such in our Islâm, for no
Mirage of glory, but for power to fuse
My myriads into union under one;
To hunt the tiger of oppression out
From office; and to spread the Divine Faith

The Divine Faith slowly passed away under the immediate successors of Akbar. An idea of what the Divine Faith was may be gathered from the inscription at the head of the poem. The document referred to, Abul Fazl says, “brought about excellent results—(1) the Court became a gathering-place of the sages and learned of all creeds; the good doctrines of all religious systems were recognized, and their defects were not allowed to obscure their good features; (2) perfect toleration or peace with all was established; and (3) the perverse and evil-minded were covered with shame on seeing the disinterested motives of His Majesty, and these stood in the pillory of disgrace.” Dated September 1579 — Ragab 987. (Blochmann xiv.)

Like calming oil on all their stormy creeds,
And fill the hollows between wave and wave;
To nurse my children on the milk of Truth,
And alchemise old hates into the gold
Of Love, and make it current; and beat back

146

The menacing poison of intolerant priests,
Those cobras ever setting up their hoods—
One Alla! one Kalifa!

Still—at times
A doubt, a fear,—and yester afternoon
I dream'd,—thou knowest how deep a well of love
My heart is for my son, Saleem, mine heir,—
And yet so wild and wayward that my dream—
He glares askance at thee as one of those
Who mix the wines of heresy in the cup
Of counsel—so—I pray thee—

Well, I dream'd
That stone by stone I rear'd a sacred fane,
A temple, neither Pagod, Mosque, nor Church,
But loftier, simpler, always open-door'd
To every breath from heaven, and Truth and Peace
And Love and Justice came and dwelt therein;
But while we stood rejoicing, I and thou,
I heard a mocking laugh “the new Korân!”
And on the sudden, and with a cry “Saleem”
Thou, thou—I saw thee fall before me, and then
Me too the black-wing'd Azrael overcame,
But Death had ears and eyes; I watch'd my son,
And those that follow'd, loosen, stone from stone,
All my fair work; and from the ruin arose
The shriek and curse of trampled millions, even
As in the time before; but while I groan'd,

147

From out the sunset pour'd an alien race,
Who fitted stone to stone again, and Truth,
Peace, Love and Justice came and dwelt therein,
Nor in the field without were seen or heard
Fires of Súttee,

Akbar decreed that every widow who showed the least desire not to be burnt on her husband's funeral pyre should be let go free and unharmed.

nor wail of baby-wife,

He forbad marriage before the age of puberty.

Or Indian widow;

Akbar ordained that remarriage was lawful.

and in sleep I said
“All praise to Alla by whatever hands
My mission be accomplish'd!” but we hear
Music:

“About a watch before daybreak,” says Abul Fazl in the Annals of Akbar, the musicians played to the king in the palace. “His Majesty had such a knowledge of the science of music as trained musicians do not possess.”

our palace is awake, and morn
Has lifted the dark eyelash of the Night
From off the rosy cheek of waking Day.
Our hymn to the sun. They sing it. Let us go.

Hymn.

I

Once again thou flamest heavenward, once again we see thee rise.
Every morning is thy birthday gladdening human hearts and eyes.
Every morning here we greet it, bowing lowly down before thee,
Thee the Godlike, thee the changeless in thine ever-changing skies.

148

II

Shadow-maker, shadow-slayer, arrowing light from clime to clime,
Hear thy myriad laureates hail thee monarch in their woodland rhyme.
Warble bird, and open flower, and, men, below the dome of azure
Kneel adoring Him the Timeless in the flame that measures Time!

154

TO SIR WALTER SCOTT.

O great and gallant Scott,
True gentleman, heart, blood and bone,
I would it had been my lot
To have seen thee, and heard thee, and known.

155

THE BANDIT'S DEATH.

[_]

I have adopted Sir Walter Scott's version of the following story as given in his last journal (Death of Il Bizarro)—but I have taken the liberty of making some slight alterations.

Sir, do you see this dagger? nay, why do you start aside?
I was not going to stab you, tho' I am the Bandit's bride.

You have set a price on his head: I may claim it without a lie.
What have I here in the cloth? I will show it you by-and-by.

Sir, I was once a wife. I had one brief summer of bliss.
But the Bandit had woo'd me in vain, and he stabb'd my Piero with this.

And he dragg'd me up there to his cave in the mountain, and there one day
He had left his dagger behind him. I found it. I hid it away.

156

For he reek'd with the blood of Piero; his kisses were red with his crime,
And I cried to the Saints to avenge me. They heard, they bided their time.

In a while I bore him a son, and he loved to dandle the child,
And that was a link between us; but I—to be reconciled?—

No, by the Mother of God, tho' I think I hated him less,
And—well, if I sinn'd last night, I will find the Priest and confess.

Listen! we three were alone in the dell at the close of the day.
I was lilting a song to the babe, and it laugh'd like a dawn in May.

Then on a sudden we saw your soldiers crossing the ridge,
And he caught my little one from me; we dipt down under the bridge

157

By the great dead pine—you know it—and heard as we crouch'd below,
The clatter of arms, and voices, and men passing to and fro.

Black was the night when we crept away—not a star in the sky—
Hush'd as the heart of the grave, till the little one utter'd a cry.

I whisper'd ‘give it to me,’ but he would not answer me—then
He gript it so hard by the throat that the boy never cried again.

We return'd to his cave—the link was broken—he sobb'd and he wept,
And cursed himself; then he yawn'd, for the wretch could sleep, and he slept

Ay, till dawn stole into the cave, and a ray red as blood
Glanced on the strangled face—I could make Sleep Death, if I would—

158

Glared on at the murder'd son, and the murderous father at rest, . . .
I drove the blade that had slain my husband thrice thro' his breast.

He was loved at least by his dog: it was chain'd, but its horrible yell
‘She has kill'd him, has kill'd him, has kill'd him’ rang out all down thro' the dell,

Till I felt I could end myself too with the dagger—so deafen'd and dazed—
Take it, and save me from it! I fled. I was all but crazed

With the grief that gnaw'd at my heart, and the weight that dragg'd at my hand;
But thanks to the Blessed Saints that I came on none of his band;

And the band will be scatter'd now their gallant captain is dead,
For I with this dagger of his—do you doubt me? Here is his head!

159

THE CHURCH-WARDEN AND THE CURATE.

[_]

This is written in the dialect which was current in my youth at Spilsby and in the country about it.

I.

Eh? good daäy! good daäy! thaw it bean't not mooch of a daäy,
Nasty, casselty

casualty, chance weather.

weather! an' mea haäfe down wi' my haäy!

while my grass is only half-mown.

II.

How be the farm gittin on? noäways. Gittin on i'deeäd!
Why, tonups was haäfe on 'em fingers an' toäs

a disease in turnips.

, an' the mare brokken-kneeäd,
An' pigs didn't sell at fall

autumn.

, an' wa lost wer Haldeny cow,
An' it beäts ma to knaw wot she died on, but wool's looking oop ony how.

160

III.

An' soä they've maäde tha a parson, an' thou'll git along, niver fear,
Fur I beän chuch-warden mysen i' the parish fur fifteen year.
Well—sin ther beä chuch-wardens, ther mun be parsons an' all,
An' if t'ōne stick alongside t'uther

if the one hold by the other. “Ōne” is pronounced like “own.”

the chuch weänt happen a fall.

IV.

Fur I wur a Baptis wonst, an' ageän the toithe an' the raäte,
Till I fun

found.

that it warn't not the gaäinist

nearest.

waäy to the narra Gaäte.
An' I can't abeär 'em, I can't, fur a lot on 'em coom'd ta-year—

this year.

I wur down wi' the rheumatis then—to my pond to wesh thessens theere—
Sa I sticks like the ivin

ivy.

as long as I lives to the owd chuch now,
Fur they wesh'd their sins i' my pond, an' I doubts they poison'd the cow.

V.

Ay, an' ya seed the Bishop. They says 'at he coom'd fra nowt—

161

Burn i' traäde. Sa I warrants 'e niver said haafe wot 'e thowt,
But 'e creeäpt an' 'e crawl'd along, till 'e feeäld 'e could howd 'is oän,
Then 'e married a greät Yerl's darter, an' sits o' the Bishop's throän.

VI.

Now I'll gie tha a bit o' my mind an' tha weant be taakin' offence,
Fur thou be a big scholard now wi' a hoonderd haäcre o' sense—
But sich an obstropulous

obstreperous—here the Curate makes a sign of deprecation.

lad—naay, naay—fur I minds tha sa well,
Tha'd niver not hopple

or “hobble,” to tie the legs of a skittish cow when she is being milked.

thy tongue, an' the tongue's sit afire o' Hell,
As I says to my missis to-daay, when she hurl'd a plaäte at the cat
An' anoother ageän my noäse. Ya was niver sa bad as that.

VII.

But I minds when i' Howlaby beck won daäy ya was ticklin' o' trout,
An' keeäper 'e seed ya an roon'd, an' 'e beal'd

bellowed.

to ya ‘Lad coom hout’

162

An' ya stood oop naäkt i' the beck, an' ya tell'd 'im to knaw his awn plaäce
An' ya call'd 'im a clown, ya did, an' ya thraw'd the fish i' 'is faäce,
An' 'e torn'd

In such words as torned (turned), hurled, the r is hardly audible.

as red as a stag-tuckey's

turkey-cock.

wattles, but theer an' then
I coämb'd 'im down, fur I promised ya'd niver not do it ageän.

VIII.

An' I cotch'd tha wonst i' my garden, when thou was a height-year-howd

eight-year-old.

,
An' I fun thy pockets as full o' my pippins as iver they'd 'owd

hold.

,
An' thou was as peärky

pert.

as owt, an' tha maäde me as mad as mad,
But I says to tha ‘keeap 'em, an' welcome’ fur thou was the Parson's lad.

IX.

An' Parson 'e 'ears on it all, an' then taäkes kindly to me,
An' then I wur chose chuch-warden an' coom'd to the top o' the tree,
Fur Quoloty's hall my friends, an' they maäkes ma a help to the poor,

163

When I gits the plaäte fuller o' Soondays nor ony chuch-warden afoor,
Fur if iver thy feyther 'ed riled me I kep' mysen meeäk as a lamb,
An' saw by the Graäce o' the Lord, Mr. Harry, I ham wot I ham.

X.

But Parson 'e will speäk out, saw, now 'e be sixty-seven,
He'll niver swap Owlby an' Scratby fur owt but the Kingdom o' Heaven;
An' thou'll be 'is Curate 'ere, but, if iver tha meäns to git 'igher,
Tha mun tackle the sins o' the Wo'ld

the world. Short o.

, an' not the faults o' the Squire.
An' I reckons tha'll light of a livin' somewheers i' the Wowd

wold.

or the Fen,
If tha cottons down to thy betters, an' keeäps thysen to thysen.
But niver not speäk plaain out, if tha wants to git forrards a bit,
But creeäp along the hedge-bottoms, an' thou'll be a Bishop yit.

XI.

Naäy, but tha mun speäk hout to the Baptises here i' the town,

164

Fur moäst on 'em talks ageän tithe, an' I'd like tha to preäch 'em down,
Fur they've bin a-preächin' mea down, they heve, an' I haätes 'em now,
Fur they leäved their nasty sins i' my pond, an' it poison'd the cow.

165

CHARITY.

I

What am I doing, you say to me, ‘wasting the sweet summer hours’?
Haven't you eyes? I am dressing the grave of a woman with flowers.

II

For a woman ruin'd the world, as God's own scriptures tell,
And a man ruin'd mine, but a woman, God bless her, kept me from Hell.

III

Love me? O yes, no doubt—how long—till you threw me aside!
Dresses and laces and jewels and never a ring for the bride.

166

IV

All very well just now to be calling me darling and sweet,
And after a while would it matter so much if I came on the street?

V

You when I met you first—when he brought you!—I turn'd away
And the hard blue eyes have it still, that stare of a beast of prey.

VI

You were his friend—you—you—when he promised to make me his bride,
And you knew that he meant to betray me—you knew—you knew that he lied.

VII

He married an heiress, an orphan with half a shire of estate,—
I sent him a desolate wail and a curse, when I learn'd my fate.

167

VIII

For I used to play with the knife, creep down to the river-shore,
Moan to myself ‘one plunge—then quiet for evermore.’

IX

Would the man have a touch of remorse when he heard what an end was mine?
Or brag to his fellow rakes of his conquest over their wine?

X

Money—my hire—his money—I sent him back what he gave,—
Will you move a little that way? your shadow falls on the grave.

XI

Two trains clash'd: then and there he was crush'd in a moment and died,
But the new-wedded wife was unharm'd, tho' sitting close at his side.

168

XII

She found my letter upon him, my wail of reproach and scorn;
I had cursed the woman he married, and him, and the day I was born.

XIII

They put him aside for ever, and after a week—no more—
A stranger as welcome as Satan—a widow came to my door:

XIV

So I turn'd my face to the wall, I was mad, I was raving-wild,
I was close on that hour of dishonour, the birth of a baseborn child.

XV

O you that can flatter your victims, and juggle, and lie and cajole,
Man, can you even guess at the love of a soul for a soul?

169

XVI

I had cursed her as woman and wife, and in wife and woman I found
The tenderest Christ-like creature that ever stept on the ground.

XVII

She watch'd me, she nursed me, she fed me, she sat day and night by my bed,
Till the joyless birthday came of a boy born happily dead.

XVIII

And her name? what was it? I ask'd her. She said with a sudden glow
On her patient face ‘My dear, I will tell you before I go.’

XIX

And I when I learnt it at last, I shriek'd, I sprang from my seat,
I wept, and I kiss'd her hands, I flung myself down at her feet,

170

XX

And we pray'd together for him, for him who had given her the name.
She has left me enough to live on. I need no wages of shame.

XXI

She died of a fever caught when a nurse in a hospital ward.
She is high in the Heaven of Heavens, she is face to face with her Lord,

XXII

And He sees not her like anywhere in this pitiless world of ours!
I have told you my tale. Get you gone. I am dressing her grave with flowers.

171

KAPIOLANI.

[_]

Kapiolani was a great chieftainess who lived in the Sandwich Islands at the beginning of this century. She won the cause of Christianity by openly defying the priests of the terrible goddess Peelè. In spite of their threats of vengeance she ascended the volcano Mauna-Loa, then clambered down over a bank of cinders 400 feet high to the great lake of fire (nine miles round) —Kilauēä—the home and haunt of the goddess, and flung into the boiling lava the consecrated berries which it was sacrilege for a woman to handle.

I.

When from the terrors of Nature a people have fashion'd and worship a Spirit of Evil,
Blest be the Voice of the Teacher who calls to them
‘Set yourselves free!’

II.

Noble the Saxon who hurl'd at his Idol a valorous weapon in olden England!
Great and greater, and greatest of women, island heroine, Kapiolani

172

Clomb the mountain, and flung the berries, and dared the Goddess, and freed the people
Of Hawa-i-ee!

III.

A people believing that Peelè the Goddess would wallow in fiery riot and revel
On Kilauēä,
Dance in a fountain of flame with her devils, or shake with her thunders and shatter her island,
Rolling her anger
Thro' blasted valley and flaring forest in blood-red cataracts down to the sea!

IV.

Long as the lava-light
Glares from the lava-lake
Dazing the starlight,
Long as the silvery vapour in daylight
Over the mountain
Floats, will the glory of Kapiolani be mingled with either on Hawa-i-ee.

V.

What said her Priesthood?
‘Woe to this island if ever a woman should handle or gather the berries of Peelè!

173

Accurséd were she!
And woe to this island if ever a woman should climb to the dwelling of Peelè the Goddess!
Accurséd were she!’

VI.

One from the Sunrise
Dawn'd on His people, and slowly before him
Vanish'd shadow-like
Gods and Goddesses,
None but the terrible Peelè remaining as Kapiolani ascended her mountain,
Baffled her priesthood,
Broke the Taboo,
Dipt to the crater,
Call'd on the Power adored by the Christian, and crying ‘I dare her, let Peelè avenge herself’!
Into the flame-billow dash'd the berries, and drove the demon from Hawa-i-ee.

174

THE DAWN.

“You are but children.” Egyptian Priest to Solon.

I

Red of the Dawn!
Screams of a babe in the red-hot palms of a Moloch of Tyre,
Man with his brotherless dinner on man in the tropical wood,
Priests in the name of the Lord passing souls thro' fire to the fire,
Head-hunters and boats of Dahomey that float upon human blood!

II

Red of the Dawn!
Godless fury of peoples, and Christless frolic of kings,
And the bolt of war dashing down upon cities and blazing farms,

175

For Babylon was a child new-born, and Rome was a babe in arms,
And London and Paris and all the rest are as yet but in leading-strings.

III

Dawn not Day,
While scandal is mouthing a bloodless name at her cannibal feast,
And rake-ruin'd bodies and souls go down in a common wreck,
And the press of a thousand cities is prized for it smells of the beast,
Or easily violates virgin Truth for a coin or a cheque.

IV

Dawn not Day!
Is it Shame, so few should have climb'd from the dens in the level below,
Men, with a heart and a soul, no slaves of a fourfooted will?
But if twenty million of summers are stored in the sunlight still,
We are far from the noon of man, there is time for the race to grow.

176

V

Red of the Dawn!
Is it turning a fainter red? so be it, but when shall we lay
The Ghost of the Brute that is walking and haunting us yet, and be free?
In a hundred, a thousand winters? Ah, what will our children be,
The men of a hundred thousand, a million summers away?

177

THE MAKING OF MAN.

Where is one that, born of woman, altogether can escape
From the lower world within him, moods of tiger, or of ape?
Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning Age of ages,
Shall not æon after æon pass and touch him into shape?

All about him shadow still, but, while the races flower and fade,
Prophet-eyes may catch a glory slowly gaining on the shade,
Till the peoples all are one, and all their voices blend in choric
Hallelujah to the Maker ‘It is finish'd. Man is made.’

178

THE DREAMER.

On a midnight in midwinter when all but the winds were dead,
‘The meek shall inherit the earth’ was a Scripture that rang thro' his head,
Till he dream'd that a Voice of the Earth went wailingly past him and said:

‘I am losing the light of my Youth
And the Vision that led me of old,
And I clash with an iron Truth,
When I make for an Age of gold,
And I would that my race were run,
For teeming with liars, and madmen, and knaves,
And wearied of Autocrats, Anarchs, and Slaves,
And darken'd with doubts of a Faith that saves,
And crimson with battles, and hollow with graves,
To the wail of my winds, and the moan of my waves
I whirl, and I follow the Sun.’

179

Was it only the wind of the Night shrilling out Desolation and wrong
Thro' a dream of the dark? Yet he thought that he answer'd her wail with a song—

Moaning your losses, O Earth,
Heart-weary and overdone!
But all's well that ends well,
Whirl, and follow the Sun!

He is racing from heaven to heaven
And less will be lost than won,
For all's well that ends well,
Whirl, and follow the Sun!

The Reign of the Meek upon earth,
O weary one, has it begun?
But all's well that ends well,
Whirl, and follow the Sun!

For moans will have grown sphere-music
Or ever your race be run!
And all's well that ends well,
Whirl, and follow the Sun!

180

MECHANOPHILUS.

[_]

(In the time of the first railways.)

Now first we stand and understand,
And sunder false from true,
And handle boldly with the hand,
And see and shape and do.

Dash back that ocean with a pier,
Strow yonder mountain flat,
A railway there, a tunnel here,
Mix me this Zone with that!

Bring me my horse—my horse? my wings
That I may soar the sky,
For Thought into the outward springs,
I find her with the eye.

O will she, moonlike, sway the main,
And bring or chase the storm,
Who was a shadow in the brain,
And is a living form?

181

Far as the Future vaults her skies,
From this my vantage ground
To those still-working energies
I spy nor term nor bound.

As we surpass our fathers' skill,
Our sons will shame our own;
A thousand things are hidden still
And not a hundred known.

And had some prophet spoken true
Of all we shall achieve,
The wonders were so wildly new
That no man would believe.

Meanwhile, my brothers, work, and wield
The forces of to-day,
And plow the Present like a field,
And garner all you may!

You, what the cultured surface grows,
Dispense with careful hands:
Deep under deep for ever goes,
Heaven over heaven expands.

182

RIFLEMEN FORM!

There is a sound of thunder afar,
Storm in the South that darkens the day!
Storm of battle and thunder of war!
Well if it do not roll our way.
Storm, Storm, Riflemen form!
Ready, be ready against the storm!
Riflemen, Riflemen, Riflemen form!

Be not deaf to the sound that warns,
Be not gull'd by a despot's plea!
Are figs of thistles? or grapes of thorns?
How can a despot feel with the Free?
Form, Form, Riflemen Form!
Ready, be ready to meet the storm!
Riflemen, Riflemen, Riflemen form!

Let your reforms for a moment go!
Look to your butts, and take good aims!
Better a rotten borough or so
Than a rotten fleet and a city in flames!

183

Storm, Storm, Riflemen form!
Ready, be ready against the storm!
Riflemen, Riflemen, Riflemen form!

Form, be ready to do or die!
Form in Freedom's name and the Queen's!
True we have got—such a faithful ally
That only the Devil can tell what he means.
Form, Form, Riflemen Form!
Ready, be ready to meet the storm!
Riflemen, Riflemen, Riflemen form!

I have been asked to republish this old poem, which was first published in ‘The Times,’ May 9, 1859, before the Volunteer movement began.

184

THE TOURNEY.

Ralph would fight in Edith's sight,
For Ralph was Edith's lover,
Ralph went down like a fire to the fight,
Struck to the left and struck to the right,
Roll'd them over and over.
‘Gallant Sir Ralph,’ said the king.

Casques were crack'd and hauberks hack'd,
Lances snapt in sunder,
Rang the stroke, and sprang the blood,
Knights were thwack'd and riven, and hew'd
Like broad oaks with thunder.
‘O what an arm,’ said the king.

Edith bow'd her stately head,
Saw them lie confounded,
Edith Montfort bow'd her head,
Crown'd her knight's, and flush'd as red
As poppies when she crown'd it,
‘Take her Sir Ralph,’ said the king.

185

THE WANDERER.

The gleam of household sunshine ends,
And here no longer can I rest;
Farewell!—You will not speak, my friends,
Unfriendly of your parted guest.

O well for him that finds a friend,
Or makes a friend where'er he come,
And loves the world from end to end,
And wanders on from home to home!

O happy he, and fit to live,
On whom a happy home has power
To make him trust his life, and give
His fealty to the halcyon hour!

I count you kind, I hold you true;
But what may follow who can tell?
Give me a hand—and you—and you—
And deem me grateful, and farewell!

186

POETS AND CRITICS.

This thing, that thing is the rage,
Helter-skelter runs the age;
Minds on this round earth of ours
Vary like the leaves and flowers,
Fashion'd after certain laws;
Sing thou low or loud or sweet,
All at all points thou canst not meet,
Some will pass and some will pause.

What is true at last will tell:
Few at first will place thee well;
Some too low would have thee shine,
Some too high—no fault of thine—
Hold thine own, and work thy will!
Year will graze the heel of year,
But seldom comes the poet here,
And the Critic's rarer still.

187

A VOICE SPAKE OUT OF THE SKIES.

A Voice spake out of the skies
To a just man and a wise—
‘The world and all within it
Will only last a minute!’
And a beggar began to cry
‘Food, food or I die’!
Is it worth his while to eat,
Or mine to give him meat,
If the world and all within it
Were nothing the next minute?

188

DOUBT AND PRAYER.

Tho' Sin too oft, when smitten by Thy rod,
Rail at ‘Blind Fate’ with many a vain ‘Alas!’
From sin thro' sorrow into Thee we pass
By that same path our true forefathers trod;
And let not Reason fail me, nor the sod
Draw from my death Thy living flower and grass
Before I learn that Love, which is, and was
My Father, and my Brother, and my God!
Steel me with patience! soften me with grief!
Let blow the trumpet strongly while I pray,
Till this embattled wall of unbelief
My prison, not my fortress, fall away!
Then, if thou willest, let my day be brief,
So Thou wilt strike Thy glory thro' the day.

189

FAITH.

I

Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the best,
Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope or break thy rest,
Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or the rolling
Thunder, or the rending earthquake, or the famine, or the pest!

II

Neither mourn if human creeds be lower than the heart's desire!
Thro' the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher.
Wait till Death has flung them open, when the man will make the Maker
Dark no more with human hatreds in the glare of deathless fire!

190

THE SILENT VOICES.

When the dumb Hour, clothed in black,
Brings the Dreams about my bed,
Call me not so often back,
Silent Voices of the dead,
Toward the lowland ways behind me,
And the sunlight that is gone!
Call me rather, silent voices,
Forward to the starry track
Glimmering up the heights beyond me
On, and always on!

191

GOD AND THE UNIVERSE.

I

Will my tiny spark of being wholly vanish in your deeps and heights?
Must my day be dark by reason, O ye Heavens, of your boundless nights,
Rush of Suns, and roll of systems, and your fiery clash of meteorites?

II

‘Spirit, nearing yon dark portal at the limit of thy human state,
Fear not thou the hidden purpose of that Power which alone is great,
Nor the myriad world, His shadow, nor the silent Opener of the Gate.’

192

THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF CLARENCE AND AVONDALE.

To the Mourners.

The bridal garland falls upon the bier,
The shadow of a crown, that o'er him hung,
Has vanish'd in the shadow cast by Death.

So princely, tender, truthful, reverent, pure—
Mourn! That a world-wide Empire mourns with you
That all the Thrones are clouded by your loss,
Were slender solace. Yet be comforted;
For if this earth be ruled by Perfect Love,
Then, after his brief range of blameless days,
The toll of funeral in an Angel ear
Sounds happier than the merriest marriage-bell.

The face of Death is toward the Sun of Life,
His shadow darkens earth: his truer name
Is ‘Onward,’ no discordance in the roll
And march of that Eternal Harmony
Whereto the worlds beat time, tho' faintly heard
Until the great Hereafter. Mourn in hope!

193

CROSSING THE BAR.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face

The pilot has been on board all the while, but in the dark I have not seen him.

When I have crost the bar.

195

THE CUP

A TRAGEDY

196

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

GALATIANS.

Synorix, an ex-Tetrarch.
Sinnatus, a Tetrarch.
Attendant.
Boy.
Maid.
Phœbe.
Camma, wife of Sinnatus, afterwards Priestess in the Temple of Artemis.

ROMANS.

Antonius, a Roman General.
Publius.
Nobleman.
Messenger.

197

ACT I.

Scene I.

—Distant View of a City of Galatia.
As the curtain rises, Priestesses are heard singing in the Temple. Boy discovered on a pathway among Rocks, picking grapes. A party of Roman Soldiers, guarding a prisoner in chains, come down the pathway and exeunt.
Enter Synorix (looking round). Singing ceases.
Synorix.

Pine, beech and plane, oak, walnut, apricot,
Vine, cypress, poplar, myrtle, bowering-in
The city where she dwells. She past me here
Three years ago when I was flying from
My Tetrarchy to Rome. I almost touch'd her—
A maiden slowly moving on to music
Among her maidens to this Temple—O Gods!
She is my fate—else wherefore has my fate
Brought me again to her own city?—married
Since—married Sinnatus, the Tetrarch here—
But if he be conspirator, Rome will chain,

198

Or slay him. I may trust to gain her then
When I shall have my tetrarchy restored
By Rome, our mistress, grateful that I show'd her
The weakness and the dissonance of our clans,
And how to crush them easily. Wretched race!
And once I wish'd to scourge them to the bones.
But in this narrow breathing-time of life
Is vengeance for its own sake worth the while,
If once our ends are gain'd? and now this cup—
I never felt such passion for a woman.

[Brings out a cup and scroll from under his cloak.
What have I written to her?
[Reading the scroll.

‘To the admired Camma, wife of Sinnatus, the Tetrarch, one who years ago, himself an adorer of our great goddess, Artemis, beheld you afar off worshipping in her Temple, and loved you for it, sends you this cup rescued from the burning of one of her shrines in a city thro' which he past with the Roman army: it is the cup we use in our marriages. Receive it from one who cannot at present write himself other than ‘A Galatian serving by force in the Roman Legion.’

[Turns and looks up to Boy.

Boy, dost thou know the house of Sinnatus?

Boy.
These grapes are for the house of Sinnatus—
Close to the Temple.

199

Synorix.
Yonder?

Boy.
Yes.

Synorix
(aside).
That I
With all my range of women should yet shun
To meet her face to face at once! My boy, [Boy comes down rocks to him.

Take thou this letter and this cup to Camma,
The wife of Sinnatus.

Boy.
Going or gone to-day
To hunt with Sinnatus.

Synorix.
That matters not.
Take thou this cup and leave it at her doors.

[Gives the cup and scroll to the Boy.
Boy.
I will, my lord.

[Takes his basket of grapes and exit.

200

Enter Antonius.
Antonius
(meeting the Boy as he goes out).
Why, whither runs the boy?
Is that the cup you rescued from the fire?

Synorix.
I send it to the wife of Sinnatus,
One half besotted in religious rites.
You come here with your soldiers to enforce
The long-withholden tribute: you suspect
This Sinnatus of playing patriotism,
Which in your sense is treason. You have yet
No proof against him: now this pious cup
Is passport to their house, and open arms
To him who gave it; and once there I warrant
I worm thro' all their windings.

Antonius.
If you prosper,
Our Senate, wearied of their tetrarchies,
Their quarrels with themselves, their spites at Rome,
Is like enough to cancel them, and throne
One king above them all, who shall be true
To the Roman: and from what I heard in Rome,
This tributary crown may fall to you.

Synorix.
The king, the crown! their talk in Rome? is it so?

201

[Antonius nods.
Well—I shall serve Galatia taking it,
And save her from herself, and be to Rome
More faithful than a Roman.
[Turns and sees Camma coming.

Stand aside,
Stand aside; here she comes!

[Watching Camma as she enters with her Maid.

Camma
(to Maid).
Where is he, girl?

Maid.
You know the waterfall
That in the summer keeps the mountain side,
But after rain o'erleaps a jutting rock
And shoots three hundred feet.

Camma.
The stag is there?

Maid.
Seen in the thicket at the bottom there
But yester-even.

Camma.
Good then, we will climb
The mountain opposite and watch the chase.

[They descend the rocks and exeunt.

202

Synorix
(watching her).
(Aside.)
The bust of Juno and the brows and eyes
Of Venus; face and form unmatchable!

Antonius.
Why do you look at her so lingeringly?

Synorix.
To see if years have changed her.

Antonius
(sarcastically).
Love her, do you?

Synorix.
I envied Sinnatus when he married her.

Antonius.
She knows it? Ha!

Synorix.
She—no, nor ev'n my face.

Antonius.
Nor Sinnatus either?

Synorix.
No, nor Sinnatus.

203

Antonius.
Hot-blooded! I have heard them say in Rome,
That your own people cast you from their bounds,
For some unprincely violence to a woman,
As Rome did Tarquin.

Synorix.
Well, if this were so,
I here return like Tarquin—for a crown.

Antonius.
And may be foil'd like Tarquin, if you follow
Not the dry light of Rome's straight-going policy,
But the fool-fire of love or lust, which well
May make you lose yourself, may even drown you
In the good regard of Rome.

Synorix.
Tut—fear me not;
I ever had my victories among women.
I am most true to Rome.

Antonius
(aside).
I hate the man!
What filthy tools our Senate works with! Still
I must obey them. (Aloud.)
Fare you well.

[Going.

204

Synorix.
Farewell!

Antonius
(stopping).
A moment! If you track this Sinnatus
In any treason, I give you here an order
[Produces a paper.
To seize upon him. Let me sign it. (Signs it.)
There
‘Antonius leader of the Roman Legion.’

[Hands the paper to Synorix. Goes up pathway and exit.
Synorix.

Woman again!—but I am wiser now.
No rushing on the game—the net,—the net. [Shouts of ‘Sinnatus! Sinnatus!’ Then horn.
Looking off stage.]
He comes, a rough, bluff, simple-looking fellow.
If we may judge the kernel by the husk,
Not one to keep a woman's fealty when
Assailed by Craft and Love. I'll join with him:
I may reap something from him—come upon her
Again, perhaps, to-day—her. Who are with him?
I see no face that knows me. Shall I risk it?
I am a Roman now, they dare not touch me.
I will.

Enter Sinnatus, Huntsmen and hounds.

205

Fair Sir, a happy day to you!
You reck but little of the Roman here,
While you can take your pastime in the woods.

Sinnatus.
Ay, ay, why not? What would you with me, man?

Synorix.
I am a life-long lover of the chase,
And tho' a stranger fain would be allow'd
To join the hunt.

Sinnatus.
Your name?

Synorix.
Strato, my name.

Sinnatus.
No Roman name?

Synorix.
A Greek, my lord; you know
That we Galatians are both Greek and Gaul.

[Shouts and horns in the distance.

206

Sinnatus.
Hillo, the stag! (To Synorix.)
What, you are all unfurnish'd?
Give him a bow and arrows—follow—follow.

[Exit, followed by Huntsmen.
Synorix.
Slowly but surely—till I see my way.
It is the one step in the dark beyond
Our expectation, that amazes us.
[Distant shouts and horns.
Hillo! Hillo!

[Exit Synorix. Shouts and horns.

Scene II.

—A Room in the Tetrarch's House.
Frescoed figures on the walls. Evening. Moonlight outside. A couch with cushions on it. A small table with flagon of wine, cups, plate of grapes, etc., also the cup of Scene I. A chair with drapery on it.
Camma enters, and opens curtains of window.
Camma.

No Sinnatus yet—and there the rising moon.

207

[Takes up a cithern and sits on couch. Plays and sings.

‘Moon on the field and the foam,
Moon on the waste and the wold,
Moon bring him home, bring him home
Safe from the dark and the cold,
Home, sweet moon, bring him home,
Home with the flock to the fold—
Safe from the wolf’—

(Listening.)
Is he coming? I thought I heard
A footstep. No not yet. They say that Rome
Sprang from a wolf. I fear my dear lord mixt
With some conspiracy against the wolf.
This mountain shepherd never dream'd of Rome.
(Sings.)
‘Safe from the wolf to the fold’—
And that great break of precipice that runs
Thro' all the wood, where twenty years ago
Huntsman, and hound, and deer were all neck-broken!
Nay, here he comes.

Enter Sinnatus followed by Synorix.
Sinnatus
(angrily).
I tell thee, my good fellow,
My arrow struck the stag.

Synorix.
But was it so?

208

Nay, you were further off: besides the wind
Went with my arrow.

Sinnatus.
I am sure I struck him.

Synorix.
And I am just as sure, my lord, I struck him.
(Aside.)
And I may strike your game when you are gone.

Camma.
Come, come, we will not quarrel about the stag.
I have had a weary day in watching you.
Yours must have been a wearier. Sit and eat,
And take a hunter's vengeance on the meats.

Sinnatus.
No, no—we have eaten—we are heated. Wine!

Camma.
Who is our guest?

Sinnatus.
Strato he calls himself.

[Camma offers wine to Synorix, while Sinnatus helps himself.

209

Sinnatus.
I pledge you, Strato.

[Drinks.
Synorix.
And I you, my lord.

[Drinks.
Sinnatus
(seeing the cup sent to Camma).
What's here?

Camma.
A strange gift sent to me to-day.
A sacred cup saved from a blazing shrine
Of our great Goddess, in some city where
Antonius past. I had believed that Rome
Made war upon the peoples not the Gods.

Synorix.
Most like the city rose against Antonius,
Whereon he fired it, and the sacred shrine
By chance was burnt along with it.

Sinnatus.
Had you then
No message with the cup?

Camma.
Why, yes, see here.

[Gives him the scroll.

210

Sinnatus
(reads).
‘To the admired Camma,—beheld you afar off—
loved you—sends you this cup—the cup we use in our
marriages—cannot at present write himself other than
‘A Galatian serving by force in the Roman Legion.’
Serving by force! Were there no boughs to hang on,
Rivers to drown in? Serve by force? No force
Could make me serve by force.

Synorix.
How then, my lord?
The Roman is encampt without your city—
The force of Rome a thousand-fold our own.
Must all Galatia hang or drown herself?
And you a Prince and Tetrarch in this province—

Sinnatus.
Province!

Synorix.
Well, well, they call it so in Rome.

Sinnatus
(angrily).
Province!

Synorix.
A noble anger! but Antonius

211

To-morrow will demand your tribute—you,
Can you make war? Have you alliances?
Bithynia, Pontus, Paphlagonia?
We have had our leagues of old with Eastern kings.
There is my hand—if such a league there be.
What will you do?

Sinnatus.
Not set myself abroach
And run my mind out to a random guest
Who join'd me in the hunt. You saw my hounds
True to the scent; and we have two-legg'd dogs
Among us who can smell a true occasion,
And when to bark and how.

Synorix.

My good Lord Sinnatus,
I once was at the hunting of a lion.
Roused by the clamour of the chase he woke,
Came to the front of the wood—his monarch mane
Bristled about his quick ears—he stood there
Staring upon the hunter. A score of dogs
Gnaw'd at his ankles: at the last he felt
The trouble of his feet, put forth one paw,
Slew four, and knew it not, and so remain'd
Staring upon the hunter: and this Rome
Will crush you if you wrestle with her; then
Save for some slight report in her own Senate
Scarce know what she has done.

212

(Aside.)
Would I could move him,
Provoke him any way! (Aloud.)
The Lady Camma,
Wise I am sure as she is beautiful,
Will close with me that to submit at once
Is better than a wholly-hopeless war,
Our gallant citizens murder'd all in vain,
Son, husband, brother gash'd to death in vain,
And the small state more cruelly trampled on
Than had she never moved.

Camma.
Sir, I had once
A boy who died a babe; but were he living
And grown to man and Sinnatus will'd it, I
Would set him in the front rank of the fight
With scarce a pang. (Rises.)
Sir, if a state submit
At once, she may be blotted out at once
And swallow'd in the conqueror's chronicle.
Whereas in wars of freedom and defence
The glory and grief of battle won or lost
Solders a race together—yea—tho' they fail,
The names of those who fought and fell are like
A bank'd-up fire that flashes out again
From century to century, and at last
May lead them on to victory—I hope so—
Like phantoms of the Gods.

Sinnatus.
Well spoken, wife.

213

Synorix
(bowing).
Madam, so well I yield.

Sinnatus.
I should not wonder
If Synorix, who has dwelt three years in Rome
And wrought his worst against his native land,
Returns with this Antonius.

Synorix.
What is Synorix?

Sinnatus.
Galatian, and not know? This Synorix
Was Tetrarch here, and tyrant also—did
Dishonour to our wives.

Synorix.
Perhaps you judge him
With feeble charity: being as you tell me
Tetrarch, there might be willing wives enough
To feel dishonour, honour.

Camma.
Do not say so.
I know of no such wives in all Galatia.
There may be courtesans for aught I know
Whose life is one dishonour.

214

Enter Attendant.
Attendant
(aside).
My lord, the men!

Sinnatus
(aside).
Our anti-Roman faction?

Attendant
(aside).
Ay, my lord.

Synorix
(overhearing).
(Aside.)
I have enough—their anti-Roman faction.

Sinnatus
(aloud).
Some friends of mine would speak with me without.
You, Strato, make good cheer till I return.

[Exit.
Synorix.
I have much to say, no time to say it in.
First, lady, know myself am that Galatian
Who sent the cup.

Camma.
I thank you from my heart.

Synorix.

Then that I serve with Rome to serve Galatia.

215

That is my secret: keep it, or you sell me
To torment and to death.

[Coming closer.

For your ear only—
I love you—for your love to the great Goddess.
The Romans sent me here a spy upon you,
To draw you and your husband to your doom.
I'd sooner die than do it.

[Takes out paper given him by Antonius.

This paper sign'd
Antonius—will you take it, read it? there!

Camma.
(Reads.)
‘You are to seize on Sinnatus,—if—’

Synorix.
(Snatches paper.)
No more.
What follows is for no wife's eyes. O Camma,
Rome has a glimpse of this conspiracy;
Rome never yet hath spar'd conspirator.
Horrible! flaying, scourging, crucifying—

Camma.
I am tender enough. Why do you practise on me?

Synorix.
Why should I practise on you? How you wrong me!
I am sure of being every way malign'd.
And if you should betray me to your husband—

216

Camma.
Will you betray him by this order?

Synorix.
See,
I tear it all to pieces, never dream'd
Of acting on it.

[Tears the paper.
Camma.
I owe you thanks for ever.

Synorix.
Hath Sinnatus never told you of this plot?

Camma.
What plot?

Synorix.
A child's sand-castle on the beach
For the next wave—all seen,—all calculated,
All known by Rome. No chance for Sinnatus.

Camma.
Why said you not as much to my brave Sinnatus?

Synorix.

Brave—ay—too brave, too over-confident,

217

Too like to ruin himself, and you, and me!
Who else, with this black thunderbolt of Rome
Above him, would have chased the stag to-day
In the full face of all the Roman camp?
A miracle that they let him home again,
Not caught, maim'd, blinded him.

[Camma shudders.
(Aside.)
I have made her tremble.
(Aloud.)
I know they mean to torture him to death.
I dare not tell him how I came to know it;
I durst not trust him with—my serving Rome
To serve Galatia: you heard him on the letter.
Not say as much? I all but said as much.
I am sure I told him that his plot was folly.
I say it to you—you are wiser—Rome knows all,
But you know not the savagery of Rome.

Camma.
O—have you power with Rome? use it for him!

Synorix.

Alas! I have no such power with Rome. All that
Lies with Antonius.

[As if struck by a sudden thought. Comes over to her.

He will pass to-morrow
In the gray dawn before the Temple doors.
You have beauty,—O great beauty,—and Antonius,
So gracious toward women, never yet

218

Flung back a woman's prayer. Plead to him,
I am sure you will prevail.

Camma.
Still—I should tell
My husband.

Synorix.
Will he let you plead for him
To a Roman?

Camma.
I fear not.

Synorix.
Then do not tell him.
Or tell him, if you will, when you return,
When you have charm'd our general into mercy,
And all is safe again. O dearest lady,
[Murmurs of
‘Synorix! Synorix!’
heard outside.
Think,—torture,—death,—and come.

Camma.
I will, I will.
And I will not betray you.

Synorix
(aside).
(As Sinnatus enters.)
Stand apart.

Enter Sinnatus and Attendant.

219

Sinnatus.
Thou art that Synorix! One whom thou hast wrong'd
Without there, knew thee with Antonius.
They howl for thee, to rend thee head from limb.

Synorix.
I am much malign'd. I thought to serve Galatia.

Sinnatus.
Serve thyself first, villain! They shall not harm
My guest within my house. There! (points to door)
there! this door
Opens upon the forest! Out, begone!
Henceforth I am thy mortal enemy.

Synorix.
However I thank thee (draws his sword);
thou hast saved my life.

[Exit.
Sinnatus.
(To Attendant.)
Return and tell them Synorix is not here.
[Exit Attendant.
What did that villain Synorix say to you?

Camma.
Is he—that—Synorix?

220

Sinnatus.
Wherefore should you doubt it?
One of the men there knew him.

Camma.
Only one,
And he perhaps mistaken in the face.

Sinnatus.
Come, come, could he deny it? What did he say?

Camma.
What should he say?

Sinnatus.
What should he say, my wife!
He should say this, that being Tetrarch once
His own true people cast him from their doors
Like a base coin.

Camma.
Not kindly to them?

Sinnatus.
Kindly?
O the most kindly Prince in all the world!
Would clap his honest citizens on the back,
Bandy their own rude jests with them, be curious

221

About the welfare of their babes, their wives,
O ay—their wives—their wives. What should he say?
He should say nothing to my wife if I
Were by to throttle him! He steep'd himself
In all the lust of Rome. How should you guess
What manner of beast it is?

Camma.
Yet he seem'd kindly,
And said he loathed the cruelties that Rome
Wrought on her vassals.

Sinnatus.
Did he, honest man?

Camma.
And you, that seldom brook the stranger here,
Have let him hunt the stag with you to-day.

Sinnatus.
I warrant you now, he said he struck the stag.

Camma.
Why no, he never touch'd upon the stag.

Sinnatus.
Why so I said, my arrow. Well, to sleep.

[Goes to close door.

222

Camma.
Nay, close not yet the door upon a night
That looks half day.

Sinnatus.
True; and my friends may spy him
And slay him as he runs.

Camma.
He is gone already.
Oh look,—yon grove upon the mountain,—white
In the sweet moon as with a lovelier snow!
But what a blotch of blackness underneath!
Sinnatus, you remember—yea, you must,
That there three years ago—the vast vine-bowers
Ran to the summit of the trees, and dropt
Their streamers earthward, which a breeze of May
Took ever and anon, and open'd out
The purple zone of hill and heaven; there
You told your love; and like the swaying vines—
Yea,—with our eyes,—our hearts, our prophet hopes
Let in the happy distance, and that all
But cloudless heaven which we have found together
In our three married years! You kiss'd me there
For the first time. Sinnatus, kiss me now.

Sinnatus.
First kiss. (Kisses her.)
There then. You talk almost as if it
Might be the last.

223

Camma.
Will you not eat a little?

Sinnatus.
No, no, we found a goat-herd's hut and shared
His fruits and milk. Liar! You will believe
Now that he never struck the stag—a brave one
Which you shall see to-morrow.

Camma.
I rise to-morrow
In the gray dawn, and take this holy cup
To lodge it in the shrine of Artemis.

Sinnatus.
Good!

Camma.
If I be not back in half an hour,
Come after me.

Sinnatus.
What! is there danger?

Camma.
Nay,
None that I know: 'tis but a step from here
To the Temple.

224

Sinnatus.
All my brain is full of sleep.
Wake me before you go, I'll after you—
After me now!

[Closes door and exit.
Camma
(drawing curtains).
Your shadow. Synorix—
His face was not malignant, and he said
That men malign'd him. Shall I go? Shall I go?
Death, torture—
‘He never yet flung back a woman's prayer’—
I go, but I will have my dagger with me.

[Exit.

Scene III.

—Same as Scene I. Dawn.
Music and Singing in the Temple.
Enter Synorix watchfully, after him Publius and Soldiers.
Synorix.
Publius!

Publius.
Here!

Synorix.
Do you remember what
I told you?

225

Publius.
When you cry ‘Rome, Rome,’ to seize
On whomsoever may be talking with you,
Or man, or woman, as traitors unto Rome.

Synorix.
Right. Back again. How many of you are there?

Publius.
Some half a score.

[Exeunt Soldiers and Publius
Synorix.
I have my guard about me.
I need not fear the crowd that hunted me
Across the woods, last night. I hardly gain'd
The camp at midnight. Will she come to me
Now that she knows me Synorix? Not if Sinnatus
Has told her all the truth about me. Well,
I cannot help the mould that I was cast in.
I fling all that upon my fate, my star.
I know that I am genial, I would be
Happy, and make all others happy so
They did not thwart me. Nay, she will not come.
Yet if she be a true and loving wife
She may, perchance, to save this husband. Ay!
See, see, my white bird stepping toward the snare.
Why now I count it all but miracle,
That this brave heart of mine should shake me so,

226

As helplessly as some unbearded boy's
When first he meets his maiden in a bower.

Enter Camma (with cup).
Synorix.
The lark first takes the sunlight on his wing,
But you, twin sister of the morning star,
Forelead the sun.

Camma.
Where is Antonius?

Synorix.
Not here as yet. You are too early for him.

[She crosses towards Temple.
Synorix.
Nay, whither go you now?

Camma.
To lodge this cup
Within the holy shrine of Artemis,
And so return.

Synorix.
To find Antonius here.
[She goes into the Temple, he looks after her.
The loveliest life that ever drew the light
From heaven to brood upon her, and enrich

227

Earth with her shadow! I trust she will return.
These Romans dare not violate the Temple.
No, I must lure my game into the camp.
A woman I could live and die for. What!
Die for a woman, what new faith is this?
I am not mad, not sick, not old enough
To doat on one alone. Yes, mad for her,
Camma the stately, Camma the great-hearted,
So mad, I fear some strange and evil chance
Coming upon me, for by the Gods I seem
Strange to myself.

Re-enter Camma.
Camma.
Where is Antonius?

Synorix.
Where? As I said before, you are still too early.

Camma.
Too early to be here alone with thee;
For whether men malign thy name, or no,
It bears an evil savour among women.
Where is Antonius?

(Loud.)
Synorix.
Madam, as you know
The camp is half a league without the city;

228

If you will walk with me we needs must meet
Antonius coming, or at least shall find him
There in the camp.

Camma.
No, not one step with thee.
Where is Antonius?

(Louder.)
Synorix
(advancing towards her).
Then for your own sake,
Lady, I say it with all gentleness,
And for the sake of Sinnatus your husband,
I must compel you.

Camma
(drawing her dagger).
Stay!—too near is death.

Synorix
(disarming her).
Is it not easy to disarm a woman?

Enter Sinnatus (seizes him from behind by the throat).
Synorix
(throttled and scarce audible).
Rome! Rome!

Sinnatus.

Adulterous dog!

229

Synorix (stabbing him with Camma's dagger).

What! will you have it?

[Camma utters a cry and runs to Sinnatus.

Sinnatus
(falls backward).
I have it in my heart—to the Temple—fly—
For my sake—or they seize on thee. Remember!
Away—farewell!

[Dies.
Camma
(runs up the steps into the Temple, looking back).
Farewell!

Synorix
(seeing her escape).

The women of the Temple drag her in.
Publius! Publius! No,
Antonius would not suffer me to break
Into the sanctuary. She hath escaped.

[Looking down at Sinnatus.

‘Adulterous dog!’ that red-faced rage at me!
Then with one quick short stab—eternal peace.
So end all passions. Then what use in passions?
To warm the cold bounds of our dying life
And, lest we freeze in mortal apathy,
Employ us, heat us, quicken us, help us, keep us
From seeing all too near that urn, those ashes
Which all must be. Well used, they serve us well.

230

I heard a saying in Egypt, that ambition
Is like the sea wave, which the more you drink,
The more you thirst—yea—drink too much, as men
Have done on rafts of wreck—it drives you mad.
I will be no such wreck, am no such gamester
As, having won the stake, would dare the chance
Of double, or losing all. The Roman Senate,
For I have always play'd into their hands,
Means me the crown. And Camma for my bride—
The people love her—if I win her love,
They too will cleave to me, as one with her.
There then I rest, Rome's tributary king.

[Looking down on Sinnatus.

Why did I strike him?—having proof enough
Against the man, I surely should have left
That stroke to Rome. He saved my life too. Did he?
It seem'd so. I have play'd the sudden fool.
And that sets her against me—for the moment.
Camma—well, well, I never found the woman
I could not force or wheedle to my will.
She will be glad at last to wear my crown.
And I will make Galatia prosperous too,
And we will chirp among our vines, and smile
At bygone things till that (pointing to Sinnatus)
eternal peace.
Rome! Rome!

Enter Publius and Soldiers.

Twice I cried Rome. Why came ye not before?

231

Publius.
Why come we now? Whom shall we seize upon?

Synorix
(pointing to the body of Sinnatus).
The body of that dead traitor Sinnatus.
Bear him away.

Music and Singing in Temple.

232

ACT II.

Scene.—Interior of the Temple of Artemis.
Small gold gates on platform in front of the veil before the colossal statue of the Goddess, and in the centre of the Temple a tripod altar, on which is a lighted lamp. Lamps (lighted) suspended between each pillar. Tripods, vases, garlands of flowers, etc., about stage. Altar at back close to Goddess, with two cups. Solemn music. Priestesses decorating the Temple.
(The Chorus of Priestesses sing as they enter.)

Artemis, Artemis, hear us, O Mother, hear us, and bless us!
Artemis, thou that art life to the wind, to the wave, to the glebe, to the fire!
Hear thy people who praise thee! O help us from all that oppress us!
Hear thy priestesses hymn thy glory! O yield them all their desire!

Priestess.
Phœbe, that man from Synorix, who has been
So oft to see the Priestess, waits once more
Before the Temple.

Phœbe.
We will let her know.
[Signs to one of the Priestesses, who goes out.

233

Since Camma fled from Synorix to our Temple,
And for her beauty, stateliness, and power,
Was chosen Priestess here, have you not mark'd
Her eyes were ever on the marble floor?
To-day they are fixt and bright—they look straight out.
Hath she made up her mind to marry him?

Priestess.
To marry him who stabb'd her Sinnatus.
You will not easily make me credit that.

Phœbe.
Ask her.

Enter Camma as Priestess (in front of the curtains).
Priestess.
You will not marry Synorix?

Camma.
My girl, I am the bride of Death, and only
Marry the dead.

Priestess.
Not Synorix then?

Camma.
My girl,
At times this oracle of great Artemis
Has no more power than other oracles
To speak directly.

Phœbe.
Will you speak to him,

234

The messenger from Synorix who waits
Before the Temple?

Camma.
Why not? Let him enter.

[Comes forward on to step by tripod.
Enter a Messenger.
Messenger
(kneels).
Greeting and health from Synorix! More than once
You have refused his hand. When last I saw you,
You all but yielded. He entreats you now
For your last answer. When he struck at Sinnatus—
As I have many a time declared to you—
He knew not at the moment who had fasten'd
About his throat—he begs you to forget it.
As scarce his act:—a random stroke: all else
Was love for you: he prays you to believe him.

Camma.
I pray him to believe—that I believe him.

Messenger.
Why that is well. You mean to marry him?

Camma.
I mean to marry him—if that be well.

235

Messenger.
This very day the Romans crown him king
For all his faithful services to Rome.
He wills you then this day to marry him,
And so be throned together in the sight
Of all the people, that the world may know
You twain are reconciled, and no more feuds
Disturb our peaceful vassalage to Rome.

Camma.
To-day? Too sudden. I will brood upon it.
When do they crown him?

Messenger.
Even now.

Camma.
And where?

Messenger.
Here by your temple.

Camma.
Come once more to me
Before the crowning,—I will answer you.

[Exit Messenger.
Phœbe.
Great Artemis! O Camma, can it be well,

236

Or good, or wise, that you should clasp a hand
Red with the sacred blood of Sinnatus?

Camma.
Good! mine own dagger driven by Synorix found
All good in the true heart of Sinnatus,
And quench'd it there for ever. Wise!
Life yields to death and wisdom bows to Fate,
Is wisest, doing so. Did not this man
Speak well? We cannot fight imperial Rome,
But he and I are both Galatian-born,
And tributary sovereigns, he and I
Might teach this Rome—from knowledge of our people—
Where to lay on her tribute—heavily here
And lightly there. Might I not live for that,
And drown all poor self-passion in the sense
Of public good?

Phœbe.
I am sure you will not marry him.

Camma.
Are you so sure? I pray you wait and see.

[Shouts (from the distance),
‘Synorix! Synorix!’
Camma.
Synorix, Synorix! So they cried Sinnatus
Not so long since—they sicken me. The One

237

Who shifts his policy suffers something, must
Accuse himself, excuse himself; the Many
Will feel no shame to give themselves the lie.

Phœbe.
Most like it was the Roman soldier shouted.

Camma.
Their shield-borne patriot of the morning star
Hang'd at mid-day, their traitor of the dawn
The clamour'd darling of their afternoon!
And that same head they would have play'd at ball with
And kick'd it featureless—they now would crown.

[Flourish of trumpets.
Enter a Galatian Nobleman with crown on a cushion.
Noble
(kneels).
Greeting and health from Synorix. He sends you
This diadem of the first Galatian Queen,
That you may feed your fancy on the glory of it,
And join your life this day with his, and wear it
Beside him on his throne. He waits your answer.

Camma.
Tell him there is one shadow among the shadows,
One ghost of all the ghosts—as yet so new,
So strange among them—such an alien there,

238

So much of husband in it still—that if
The shout of Synorix and Camma sitting
Upon one throne, should reach it, it would rise
He! . . . He, with that red star between the ribs,
And my knife there—and blast the king and me,
And blanch the crowd with horror. I dare not, sir!
Throne him—and then the marriage—ay and tell him
That I accept the diadem of Galatia—
[All are amazed.
Yea, that ye saw me crown myself withal.
[Puts on the crown.
I wait him his crown'd queen.

Noble.
So will I tell him.

[Exit.
Music. Two Priestesses go up the steps before the shrine, draw the curtains on either side (discovering the Goddess), then open the gates and remain on steps, one on either side, and kneel. A priestess goes off and returns with a veil of marriage, then assists Phœbe to veil Camma. At the same time Priestesses enter and stand on either side of the Temple. Camma and all the Priestesses kneel, raise their hands to the Goddess, and bow down.
[Shouts,
‘Synorix! Synorix!’
All rise.
Camma.
Fling wide the doors, and let the new-made children
Of our imperial mother see the show.

239

[Sunlight pours through the doors.
I have no heart to do it. (To Phœbe).
Look for me!

[Crouches. Phœbe looks out.
[Shouts,
‘Synorix! Synorix!’
Phœbe.
He climbs the throne. Hot blood, ambition, pride
So bloat and redden his face—O would it were
His third last apoplexy! O bestial!
O how unlike our goodly Sinnatus.

Camma
(on the ground).
You wrong him surely; far as the face goes
A goodlier-looking man than Sinnatus.

Phœbe
(aside).
How dare she say it? I could hate her for it
But that she is distracted.

[A flourish of trumpets.
Camma.
Is he crown'd?

Phœbe.
Ay, there they crown him.

[Crowd without shout,
‘Synorix! Synorix!’

240

Camma.
[A Priestess brings a box of spices to Camma, who throws them on the altar-flame.
Rouse the dead altar-flame, fling in the spices,
Nard, Cinnamon, amomum, benzoin.
Let all the air reel into a mist of odour,
As in the midmost heart of Paradise.
Lay down the Lydian carpets for the king.
The king should pace on purple to his bride,
And music there to greet my lord the king. [Music.
(To Phœbe).

Dost thou remember when I wedded Sinnatus?
Ay, thou wast there—whether from maiden fears
Or reverential love for him I loved,
Or some strange second-sight, the marriage cup
Wherefrom we make libation to the Goddess
So shook within my hand, that the red wine
Ran down the marble and lookt like blood, like blood.

Phœbe.
I do remember your first-marriage fears.

Camma.
I have no fears at this my second marriage.
See here—I stretch my hand out—hold it there.
How steady it is!

Phœbe.
Steady enough to stab him!

241

Camma.
O hush! O peace! This violence ill becomes
The silence of our Temple. Gentleness,
Low words best chime with this solemnity. Enter a procession of Priestesses and Children bearing garlands and golden goblets, and strewing flowers.

Enter Synorix (as King, with gold laurel-wreath crown and purple robes), followed by Antonius, Publius, Noblemen, Guards, and the Populace.
Camma.
Hail, King!

Synorix.
Hail, Queen!
The wheel of Fate has roll'd me to the top.
I would that happiness were gold, that I
Might cast my largess of it to the crowd!
I would that every man made feast to-day
Beneath the shadow of our pines and planes!
For all my truer life begins to-day.
The past is like a travell'd land now sunk
Below the horizon—like a barren shore
That grew salt weeds, but now all drown'd in love
And glittering at full tide—the bounteous bays
And havens filling with a blissful sea.
Nor speak I now too mightily, being King

242

And happy! happiest, Lady, in my power
To make you happy.

Camma.
Yes, sir.

Synorix.
Our Antonius,
Our faithful friend of Rome, tho' Rome may set
A free foot where she will, yet of his courtesy
Entreats he may be present at our marriage.

Camma.
Let him come—a legion with him, if he will.
(To Antonius.)
Welcome, my lord Antonius, to our Temple.
(To Synorix.)
You on this side the altar. (To Antonius.)
You on that.
Call first upon the Goddess, Synorix.

[All face the Goddess. Priestesses, Children, Populace, and Guards kneel—the others remain standing.
Synorix.
O Thou, that dost inspire the germ with life,
The child, a thread within the house of birth,
And give him limbs, then air, and send him forth
The glory of his father—Thou whose breath
Is balmy wind to robe our hills with grass,

243

And kindle all our vales with myrtle-blossom,
And roll the golden oceans of our grain,
And sway the long grape-bunches of our vines,
And fill all hearts with fatness and the lust
Of plenty—make me happy in my marriage!

Chorus
(chanting).
Artemis, Artemis, hear him, Ionian Artemis!

Camma.
O Thou that slayest the babe within the womb
Or in the being born, or after slayest him
As boy or man, great Goddess, whose storm-voice
Unsockets the strong oak, and rears his root
Beyond his head, and strows our fruits, and lays
Our golden grain, and runs to sea and makes it
Foam over all the fleeted wealth of kings
And peoples, hear.
Whose arrow is the plague—whose quick flash splits
The mid-sea mast, and rifts the tower to the rock,
And hurls the victor's column down with him
That crowns it, hear.
Who causest the safe earth to shudder and gape,
And gulf and flatten in her closing chasm
Domed cities, hear.
Whose lava-torrents blast and blacken a province
To a cinder, hear.
Whose winter-cataracts find a realm and leave it

244

A waste of rock and ruin, hear. I call thee
To make my marriage prosper to my wish!

Chorus.
Artemis, Artemis, hear her, Ephesian Artemis!

Camma.
Artemis, Artemis, hear me, Galatian Artemis!
I call on our own Goddess in our own Temple.

Chorus.
Artemis, Artemis, hear her, Galatian Artemis!

[Thunder. All rise.
Synorix
(aside).
Thunder! Ay, ay, the storm was drawing hither
Across the hills when I was being crown'd.
I wonder if I look as pale as she?

Camma.
Art thou—still bent—on marrying?

Synorix.
Surely—yet
These are strange words to speak to Artemis.

Camma.
Words are not always what they seem, my King.
I will be faithful to thee till thou die.

245

Synorix.
I thank thee, Camma,—I thank thee.

Camma
(turning to Antonius).
Antonius,
Much graced are we that our Queen Rome in you
Deigns to look in upon our barbarisms.
[Turns, goes up steps to altar before the Goddess. Takes a cup from off the altar. Holds it towards Antonius. Antonius goes up to the foot of the steps, opposite to Synorix.
You see this cup, my lord.

[Gives it to him.
Antonius.
Most curious!
The many-breasted mother Artemis
Emboss'd upon it.

Camma.
It is old, I know not
How many hundred years. Give it me again.
It is the cup belonging our own Temple.
[Puts it back on altar, and takes up the cup of Act I. Showing it to Antonius.
Here is another sacred to the Goddess,
The gift of Synorix; and the Goddess, being
For this most grateful, wills, thro' me her Priestess,
In honour of his gift and of our marriage,
That Synorix should drink from his own cup.

246

Synorix.
I thank thee, Camma,—I thank thee.

Camma.
For—my lord—
It is our ancient custom in Galatia
That ere two souls be knit for life and death,
They two should drink together from one cup,
In symbol of their married unity,
Making libation to the Goddess. Bring me
The costly wines we use in marriages. [They bring in a large jar of wine. Camma pours wine into cup.
(To Synorix.)

See here, I fill it.
(To Antonius.)
Will you drink, my lord?

Antonius.
I? Why should I? I am not to be married.

Camma.
But that might bring a Roman blessing on us.

Antonius
(refusing cup).
Thy pardon, Priestess!

Camma.
Thou art in the right.
This blessing is for Synorix and for me.

247

See first I make libation to the Goddess,
[Makes libation.
And now I drink.
[Drinks and fills the cup again.

Thy turn, Galatian King.
Drink and drink deep—our marriage will be fruitful.
Drink and drink deep, and thou wilt make me happy.

[Synorix goes up to her. She hands him the cup. He drinks.

Synorix.
There, Camma! I have almost drain'd the cup—
A few drops left.

Camma.
Libation to the Goddess.

[He throws the remaining drops on the altar and gives Camma the cup.
Camma
(placing the cup on the altar).

Why then the Goddess hears.

[Comes down and forward to tripod. Antonius follows.

Antonius,
Where wast thou on that morning when I came
To plead to thee for Sinnatus's life,
Beside this temple half a year ago?

Antonius.
I never heard of this request of thine.

248

Synorix
(coming forward hastily to foot of tripod steps).
I sought him and I could not find him. Pray you,
Go on with the marriage rites.

Camma.
Antonius—
‘Camma!’ who spake?

Antonius.
Not I.

Phœbe.
Nor any here.

Camma.
I am all but sure that some one spake. Antonius,
If you had found him plotting against Rome,
Would you have tortured Sinnatus to death?

Antonius.
No thought was mine of torture or of death,
But had I found him plotting, I had counsell'd him
To rest from vain resistance. Rome is fated
To rule the world. Then, if he had not listen'd,
I might have sent him prisoner to Rome.

Synorix.
Why do you palter with the ceremony?
Go on with the marriage rites.

249

Camma.
They are finish'd.

Synorix.
How!

Camma.
Thou hast drunk deep enough to make me happy.
Dost thou not feel the love I bear to thee
Glow thro' thy veins?

Synorix.

The love I bear to thee
Glows thro' my veins since first I look'd on thee.
But wherefore slur the perfect ceremony?
The sovereign of Galatia weds his Queen.
Let all be done to the fullest in the sight
Of all the Gods.

Nay, rather than so clip
The flowery robe of Hymen, we would add
Some golden fringe of gorgeousness beyond
Old use, to make the day memorial, when
Synorix, first King, Camma, first Queen o' the Realm,
Drew here the richest lot from Fate, to live
And die together.

This pain—what is it?—again?
I had a touch of this last year—in—Rome.
Yes, yes. (To Antonius.)
Your arm—a moment—It will pass.
I reel beneath the weight of utter joy—

250

This all too happy day, crown—queen at once.
[Staggers.
O all ye Gods—Jupiter!—Jupiter!
[Falls backward.

Camma.
Dost thou cry out upon the Gods of Rome?
Thou art Galatian-born. Our Artemis
Has vanquish'd their Diana.

Synorix
(on the ground).
I am poison'd.
She—close the Temple door. Let her not fly.

Camma
(leaning on tripod).
Have I not drunk of the same cup with thee?

Synorix.
Ay, by the Gods of Rome and all the world,
She too—she too—the bride! the Queen! and I—
Monstrous! I that loved her.

Camma.
I loved him.

Synorix.

O murderous mad-woman! I pray you lift me
And make me walk awhile. I have heard these poisons
May be walk'd down.

251

[Antonius and Publius raise him up.

My feet are tons of lead,
They will break in the earth—I am sinking—hold me—
Let me alone.

[They leave him; he sinks down on ground.

Too late—thought myself wise—
A woman's dupe. Antonius, tell the Senate
I have been most true to Rome—would have been true
To her—if—if—

[Falls as if dead.

Camma
(coming and leaning over him).
So falls the throne of an hour.

Synorix
(half rising).
Throne? is it thou? the Fates are throned, not we—
Not guilty of ourselves—thy doom and mine—
Thou—coming my way too—Camma—good-night.

[Dies.
Camma
(upheld by weeping Priestesses).
Thy way? poor worm, crawl down thine own black hole
To the lowest Hell. Antonius, is he there?
I meant thee to have follow'd—better thus.
Nay, if my people must be thralls of Rome,
He is gentle, tho' a Roman.

[Sinks back into the arms of the Priestesses.

252

Antonius.
Thou art one
With thine own people, and tho' a Roman I
Forgive thee, Camma.

Camma
(raising herself).

‘Camma!’—why there again
I am most sure that some one call'd. O women,
Ye will have Roman masters. I am glad
I shall not see it. Did not some old Greek
Say death was the chief good? He had my fate for it,
Poison'd. (Sinks back again.)
Have I the crown on? I will go
To meet him, crown'd! crown'd victor of my will—
On my last voyage—but the wind has fail'd—
Growing dark too—but light enough to row.
Row to the blessed Isles! the blessed Isles!—
Sinnatus!
Why comes he not to meet me? It is the crown
Offends him—and my hands are too sleepy
To lift it off.

[Phœbe takes the crown off.
Who touch'd me then? I thank you.
[Rises, with outspread arms.
There—league on league of ever-shining shore
Beneath an ever-rising sun—I see him—
‘Camma, Camma!’ Sinnatus, Sinnatus!
[Dies.

253

THE PROMISE OF MAY

254

‘A surface man of theories, true to none.’

255

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Farmer Dobson.
Mr. Philip Edgar (afterwards Mr. Harold).
Farmer Steer (Dora and Eva's Father).
Mr. Wilson (a Schoolmaster).
Higgins
James
Dan Smith Farm Labourer
Jackson
Allen
Dora Steer.
Eva Steer.
Sally Allen Farm Servant
Milly Farm Servant
Farm Servants, Labourers, etc.

257

ACT I.

Scene.—Before Farmhouse.
Farming Men and Women. Farming Men carrying forms, &c., Women carrying baskets of knives and forks, &c.
1st Farming Man.

Be thou a-gawin' to the long barn?

2nd Farming Man.

Ay, to be sewer! Be thou?

1st Farming Man.

Why, o' coorse, fur it be the owd man's birthdaäy. He be heighty this very daäy, and 'e telled all on us to be i' the long barn by one o'clock, fur he'll gie us a big dinner, and haäfe th' parish 'll be theer, an' Miss Dora, an' Miss Eva, an' all!

2nd Farming Man.

Miss Dora be coomed back, then?

258

1st Farming Man.

Ay, haäfe an hour ago. She be in theer now. (Pointing to house.)
Owd Steer wur afeärd she wouldn't be back i' time to keep his birthdaäy, and he wur in a tew about it all the murnin'; and he sent me wi' the gig to Littlechester to fetch 'er; and 'er an' the owd man they fell a kissin' o' one another like two sweet'arts i' the poorch as soon as he clapt eyes of 'er.

2nd Farming Man.

Foälks says he likes Miss Eva the best.

1st Farming Man.

Naäy, I knaws nowt o' what foälks says, an' I caäres nowt neither. Foälks doesn't hallus knaw thessens; but sewer I be, they be two o' the purtiest gels ye can see of a summer murnin'.

2nd Farming Man.

Beänt Miss Eva gone off a bit of 'er good looks o' laäte?

1st Farming Man.

Noä, not a bit.

2nd Farming Man.

Why coöm awaäy, then, to the long barn.

[Exeunt.

259

Dora looks out of window. Enter Dobson.
Dora
(singing).

The town lay still in the low sun-light,
The hen cluckt late by the white farm gate,
The maid to her dairy came in from the cow,
The stock-dove coo'd at the fall of night,
The blossom had open'd on every bough;
O joy for the promise of May, of May,
O joy for the promise of May.

(Nodding at Dobson.)
I'm coming down, Mr. Dobson. I haven't seen Eva yet. Is she anywhere in the garden?

Dobson.

Noä, Miss. I ha'n't seed 'er neither.

Dora
(enters singing).

But a red fire woke in the heart of the town,
And a fox from the glen ran away with the hen,
And a cat to the cream, and a rat to the cheese;
And the stock-dove coo'd, till a kite dropt down,
And a salt wind burnt the blossoming trees;
O grief for the promise of May, of May,
O grief for the promise of May.

I don't know why I sing that song; I don't love it.

Dobson.

Blessings on your pretty voice, Miss Dora. Wheer did they larn ye that?

260

Dora.

In Cumberland, Mr. Dobson.

Dobson.

An' how did ye leäve the owd uncle i' Coomberland?

Dora.

Getting better, Mr. Dobson. But he'll never be the same man again.

Dobson.

An' how d'ye find the owd man 'ere?

Dora.

As well as ever. I came back to keep his birthday.

Dobson.

Well, I be coomed to keep his birthdaäy an' all. The owd man be heighty to-daäy, beänt he?

Dora.

Yes, Mr. Dobson. And the day's bright like a friend, but the wind east like an enemy. Help me to move this bench for him into the sun. (They move bench.)
No, not that way—here, under the apple tree. Thank you. Look how full of rosy blossom it is. [Pointing to apple tree.

261

Dobson.

Theer be redder blossoms nor them, Miss Dora.

Dora.

Where do they blow, Mr. Dobson?

Dobson.

Under your eyes, Miss Dora.

Dora.

Do they?

Dobson.

And your eyes be as blue as—

Dora.

What, Mr. Dobson? A butcher's frock?

Dobson.

Noä, Miss Dora; as blue as—

Dora.

Bluebell, harebell, speedwell, bluebottle, succory, forget-me-not?

Dobson.

Noä, Miss Dora; as blue as—

262

Dora.

The sky? or the sea on a blue day?

Dobson.

Naäy then. I meän'd they be as blue as violets.

Dora.

Are they?

Dobson.

Theer ye goäs ageän, Miss, niver believing owt I says to ye—hallus a-fobbing ma off, tho' ye knaws I love ye. I warrants ye'll think moor o' this young Squire Edgar as ha' coomed among us—the Lord knaws how—ye'll think more on 'is little finger than hall my hand at the haltar.

Dora.

Perhaps, Master Dobson. I can't tell, for I have never seen him. But my sister wrote that he was mighty pleasant, and had no pride in him.

Dobson.

He'll be arter you now, Miss Dora.

Dora.

Will he? How can I tell?

Dobson.

He's been arter Miss Eva, haän't he?

263

Dora.

Not that I know.

Dobson.

Didn't I spy 'em a-sitting i' the woodbine harbour togither?

Dora.

What of that? Eva told me that he was taking her likeness. He's an artist.

Dobson.

What's a hartist? I doänt believe he's iver a 'eart under his waistcoat. And I tells ye what, Miss Dora: he's no respect for the Queen, or the parson, or the justice o' peace, or owt. I ha' heärd 'im a-gawin' on 'ud make your 'air—God bless it!—stan' on end. And wuss nor that. When theer wur a meeting o' farmers at Littlechester t'other daäy, and they was all a-crying out at the bad times, he cooms up, and he calls out among our oän men, ‘The land belongs to the people!’

Dora.

And what did you say to that?

Dobson.

Well, I says, s'pose my pig's the land, and you says it belongs to the parish, and theer be a thousand i' the parish, taäkin' in the women and childer; and s'pose I kills my pig, and gi'es it among 'em, why there

264

wudn't be a dinner for nawbody, and I should ha' lost the pig.

Dora.

And what did he say to that?

Dobson.

Nowt—what could he saäy? But I taäkes 'im fur a bad lot and a burn fool, and I haätes the very sight on him.

Dora.

(Looking at Dobson.)
Master Dobson, you are a comely man to look at.

Dobson.

I thank you for that, Miss Dora, onyhow.

Dora.

Ay, but you turn right ugly when you're in an ill temper; and I promise you that if you forget yourself in your behaviour to this gentleman, my father's friend, I will never change word with you again.

Enter Farming Man from barn.
Farming Man.

Miss, the farming men 'ull hev their dinner i' the long barn, and the master 'ud be straänge an' pleased

265

if you'd step in fust, and see that all be right and reg'lar fur 'em afoor he coöm. [Exit.

Dora.

I go. Master Dobson, did you hear what I said?

Dobson.

Yeas, yeas! I'll not meddle wi' 'im if he doänt meddle wi' meä. (Exit Dora.)
Coomly, says she. I niver thowt o' mysen i' that waäy; but if she'd taäke to ma i' that waäy, or ony waäy, I'd slaäve out my life fur 'er. ‘Coomly to look at,’ says she—but she said it spiteful-like. To look at—yeas, ‘coomly’; and she mayn't be so fur out theer. But if that be nowt to she, then it be nowt to me. (Looking off stage.)
Schoolmaster! Why if Steer han't haxed schoolmaster to dinner, thaw 'e knaws I was hallus ageän heving schoolmaster i' the parish! fur him as be handy wi' a book bean't but haäfe a hand at a pitchfork.

Enter Wilson.

Well, Wilson. I seed that one cow o' thine i' the pinfold ageän as I wur a-coomin' 'ere.

Wilson.

Very likely, Mr. Dobson. She will break fence. I can't keep her in order.

266

Dobson.

An' if tha can't keep thy one cow i' horder, how can tha keep all thy scholards i' horder? But let that goä by. What dost a knaw o' this Mr. Hedgar as be a-lodgin' wi' ye? I coom'd upon 'im t'other daäy lookin' at the coontry, then a-scrattin upon a bit o' paäper, then a-lookin' agean; and I taäked 'im fur soom sort of a land-surveyor—but a beänt.

Wilson.

He's a Somersetshire man, and a very civil-spoken gentleman.

Dobson.

Gentleman! What be he a-doing here ten mile an' moor fro' a raäil? We laäys out o' the waäy fur gentlefoälk altogither—leästwaäys they niver cooms 'ere but fur the trout i' our beck, fur they be knaw'd as far as Littlechester. But 'e doänt fish neither.

Wilson.

Well, it's no sin in a gentleman not to fish.

Dobson.

Noä, but I haätes 'im.

Wilson.

Better step out of his road, then, for he's walking to us, and with a book in his hand.

267

Dobson.

An' I haätes booöks an' all, fur they puts foälk off the owd waäys.

Enter Edgar, reading—not seeing Dobson and Wilson.
Edgar.
This author, with his charm of simple style
And close dialectic, all but proving man
An automatic series of sensations,
Has often numb'd me into apathy
Against the unpleasant jolts of this rough road
That breaks off short into the abysses—made me
A Quietist taking all things easily.

Dobson.

(Aside.)
There mun be summut wrong theer, Wilson, fur I doänt understan' it.

Wilson.

(Aside.)
Nor I either, Mr. Dobson.

Dobson.

(Scornfully.)
An' thou doänt understan' it neither —and thou schoolmaster an' all.

Edgar.
What can a man, then, live for but sensations,

268

Pleasant ones? men of old would undergo
Unpleasant for the sake of pleasant ones
Hereafter, like the Moslem beauties waiting
To clasp their lovers by the golden gates.
For me, whose cheerless Houris after death
Are Night and Silence, pleasant ones—the while—
If possible, here! to crop the flower and pass.

Dobson.

Well, I never 'eärd the likes o' that afoor.

Wilson.

(Aside.)
But I have, Mr. Dobson. It's the old Scripture text, ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.’ I'm sorry for it, for, tho' he never comes to church, I thought better of him.

Edgar.

‘What are we, says the blind old man in Lear?
‘As flies to the Gods; they kill us for their sport.’

Dobson.

(Aside.)
Then the owd man i' Lear should be shaämed of hissen, but noän o' the parishes goäs by that naäme 'ereabouts.

Edgar.
The Gods! but they, the shadows of ourselves,
Have past for ever. It is Nature kills,

269

And not for her sport either. She knows nothing.
Man only knows, the worse for him! for why
Cannot he take his pastime like the flies?
And if my pleasure breed another's pain,
Well—is not that the course of Nature too,
From the dim dawn of Being—her main law
Whereby she grows in beauty—that her flies
Must massacre each other? this poor Nature!

Dobson.

Natur! Natur! Well, it be i' my natur to knock 'im o' the 'eäd now; but I weänt.

Edgar.
A Quietist taking all things easily—why—
Have I been dipping into this again
To steel myself against the leaving her?
(Closes book, seeing Wilson.)
Good day!

Wilson.

Good day, sir.

(Dobson looks hard at Edgar.)
Edgar.
(To Dobson.)
Have I the pleasure, friend, of knowing you?

Dobson.

Dobson.

270

Edgar.

Good day, then, Dobson. [Exit.

Dobson.

‘Good daäy then, Dobson!’ Civil-spoken i'deed! Why, Wilson, tha 'eärd 'im thysen—the feller couldn't find a Mister in his mouth fur me, as farms five hoonderd haäcre.

Wilson.

You never find one for me, Mr. Dobson.

Dobson.

Noä, fur thou be nobbut schoolmaster; but I taäkes 'im fur a Lunnun swindler, and a burn fool.

Wilson.

He can hardly be both, and he pays me regular every Saturday.

Dobson.

Yeas; but I haätes 'im.

Enter Steer, Farm Men and Women.
Steer.

(Goes and sits under apple tree.)
Hev' ony o' ye seen Eva?

Dobson.

Noä, Mr. Steer.

271

Steer.

Well, I reckons they'll hev' a fine cider-crop to-year if the blossom 'owds. Good murnin', neighbours, and the saäme to you, my men. I taäkes it kindly of all o' you that you be coomed—what's the newspaäper word, Wilson?—celebrate—to celebrate my birthdaäy i' this fashion. Niver man 'ed better friends, and I will saäy niver master 'ed better men: fur thaw I may ha' fallen out wi' ye sometimes, the fault, mebbe, wur as much mine as yours; and, thaw I says it mysen, niver men 'ed a better master—and I knaws what men be, and what masters be, fur I wur nobbut a laäbourer, and now I be a landlord—burn a plowman, and now, as far as money goäs, I be a gentleman, thaw I beänt naw scholard, fur I 'ednt naw time to maäke mysen a scholard while I wur maäkin' mysen a gentleman, but I ha taäen good care to turn out boäth my darters right down fine laädies.

Dobson.

An' soä they be.

1st Farming Man.

Soä they be! soä they be!

2nd Farming Man.

The Lord bless boath on 'em!

3rd Farming Man.

An' the saäme to you, Master.

272

4th Farming Man.

And long life to boath on 'em. An' the saäme to you, Master Steer, likewise.

Steer.
Thank ye!
Enter Eva.
Wheer 'asta been?

Eva.

(Timidly.)
Many happy returns of the day, father.

Steer.

They can't be many, my dear, but I 'oäpes they'll be 'appy.

Dobson.

Why, tha looks haäle anew to last to a hoonderd.

Steer.

An' why shouldn't I last to a hoonderd? Haäle! why shouldn't I be haäle? fur thaw I be heighty this very daäy, I niver 'es sa much as one pin's prick of paäin; an' I can taäke my glass along wi' the youngest, fur I niver touched a drop of owt till my oän wedding-daäy, an' then I wur turned huppads o' sixty. Why shouldn't I be haäle? I ha' plowed the ten-aäcre —it be mine now—afoor ony o' ye wur burn—ye all knaws the ten-aäcre—I mun ha' plowed it moor nor a hoonderd times; hallus hup at sunrise, and I'd drive

273

the plow straäit as a line right i' the faäce o' the sun, then back ageän, a-follering my oän shadder—then hup ageän i' the faäce o' the sun. Eh! how the sun 'ud shine, and the larks 'ud sing i' them daäys, and the smell o' the mou'd an' all. Eh! if I could ha' gone on wi' the plowin' nobbut the smell o' the mou'd 'ud ha' maäde ma live as long as Jerusalem.

Eva.

Methuselah, father.

Steer.

Ay, lass, but when thou be as owd as me thou'll put one word fur another as I does.

Dobson.

But, Steer, thaw thou be haäle anew I seed tha a-limpin' up just now wi' the roomatics i' the knee.

Steer.

Roomatics! Noä; I laäme't my knee last night running arter a thief. Beänt there house-breäkers down i' Littlechester, Dobson—doänt ye hear of ony?

Dobson.

Ay, that there be. Immanuel Goldsmiths was broke into o' Monday night, and ower a hoonderd pounds worth o' rings stolen.

274

Steer.

So I thowt, and I heärd the winder—that's the winder at the end o' the passage, that goäs by thy chaumber. (Turning to Eva.)
Why, lass, what maäkes tha sa red? Did 'e git into thy chaumber?

Eva.

Father!

Steer.

Well, I runned arter thief i' the dark, and fell ageän coalscuttle and my kneeä gev waäy or I'd ha' cotched 'im, but afoor I coomed up he got thruff the winder ageän.

Eva.

Got thro' the window again?

Steer.

Ay, but he left the mark of 'is foot i' the flowerbed; now theer be noän o' my men, thinks I to mysen, 'ud ha' done it 'cep' it were Dan Smith, fur I cotched 'im once a-steälin' coäls an' I sent fur 'im, an' I measured his foot wi' the mark i' the bed, but it wouldn't fit— seeäms to me the mark wur maäde by a Lunnun boot. (Looks at Eva.)
Why, now, what maäkes tha sa white?

Eva.

Fright, father!

275

Steer.

Maäke thysen eäsy. I'll hev the winder naäiled up, and put Towser under it.

Eva.

(Clasping her hands.)
No, no, father! Towser'll tear him all to pieces.

Steer.

Let him keep awaäy, then; but coom, coom! let's be gawin. They ha' broached a barrel of aäle i' the long barn, and the fiddler be theer, and the lads and lasses 'ull hev a dance.

Eva.

(Aside.)
Dance! small heart have I to dance. I should seem to be dancing upon a grave.

Steer.

Wheer be Mr. Edgar? about the premises?

Dobson.

Hallus about the premises!

Steer.

So much the better, so much the better. I likes 'im, and Eva likes 'im. Eva can do owt wi' 'im; look for 'im, Eva, and bring 'im to the barn. He 'ant naw pride in 'im, and we'll git 'im to speechify for us arter dinner.

276

Eva.

Yes, father! [Exit.

Steer.

Coom along then, all the rest o' ye! Churchwarden be a coomin, thaw me and 'im we niver 'grees about the tithe; and Parson mebbe, thaw he niver mended that gap i' the glebe fence as I telled 'im; and Blacksmith, thaw he niver shoes a herse to my likings; and Baäker, thaw I sticks to hoäm-maäde—but all on 'em welcome, all on 'em welcome; and I've hed the long barn cleared out of all the machines, and the sacks, and the taäters, and the mangles, and theer'll be room anew for all o' ye. Foller me.

All.

Yeas, yeas! Three cheers for Mr. Steer!

[All exeunt except Dobson into barn.
Enter Edgar.
Dobson

(who is going, turns).
Squire!—if so be you be a squire.

Edgar.

Dobbins, I think.

Dobson.

Dobbins, you thinks; and I thinks ye weärs a Lunnun boot.

277

Edgar.

Well?

Dobson.

And I thinks I'd like to taäke the measure o' your foot.

Edgar.

Ay, if you'd like to measure your own length upon the grass.

Dobson.

Coom, coom, that's a good un. Why, I could throw four o' ye; but I promised one of the Misses I wouldn't meddle wi' ye, and I weänt. [Exit into barn.

Edgar.

Jealous of me with Eva! Is it so?
Well, tho' I grudge the pretty jewel, that I
Have worn, to such a clod, yet that might be
The best way out of it, if the child could keep
Her counsel. I am sure I wish her happy.
But I must free myself from this entanglement.
I have all my life before me—so has she—
Give her a month or two, and her affections
Will flower toward the light in some new face.
Still I am half-afraid to meet her now.
She will urge marriage on me. I hate tears.
Marriage is but an old tradition. I hate
Traditions, ever since my narrow father,
After my frolic with his tenant's girl,

278

Made younger elder son, violated the whole
Tradition of our land, and left his heir,
Born, happily, with some sense of art, to live
By brush and pencil. By and by, when Thought
Comes down among the crowd, and man perceives that
The lost gleam of an after-life but leaves him
A beast of prey in the dark, why then the crowd
May wreak my wrongs upon my wrongers. Marriage!
That fine, fat, hook-nosed uncle of mine, old Harold,
Who leaves me all his land at Littlechester,
He, too, would oust me from his will, if I
Made such a marriage. And marriage in itself—
The storm is hard at hand will sweep away
Thrones, churches, ranks, traditions, customs, marriage
One of the feeblest! Then the man, the woman,
Following their best affinities, will each
Bid their old bond farewell with smiles, not tears;
Good wishes, not reproaches; with no fear
Of the world's gossiping clamour, and no need
Of veiling their desires.

Conventionalism,
Who shrieks by day at what she does by night,
Would call this vice; but one time's vice may be
The virtue of another; and Vice and Virtue
Are but two masks of self; and what hereafter
Shall mark out Vice from Virtue in the gulf
Of never-dawning darkness?

279

Enter Eva.

My sweet Eva,
Where have you lain in ambush all the morning?
They say your sister, Dora, has return'd,
And that should make you happy, if you love her!
But you look troubled.

Eva.
Oh, I love her so,
I was afraid of her, and I hid myself.
We never kept a secret from each other;
She would have seen at once into my trouble,
And ask'd me what I could not answer. Oh, Philip,
Father heard you last night. Our savage mastiff,
That all but kill'd the beggar, will be placed
Beneath the window, Philip.

Edgar.
Savage, is he?
What matters? Come, give me your hand and kiss me
This beautiful May-morning.

Eva.
The most beautiful
May we have had for many years!

Edgar.
And here
Is the most beautiful morning of this May.

280

Nay, you must smile upon me! There—you make
The May and morning still more beautiful,
You, the most beautiful blossom of the May.

Eva.
Dear Philip, all the world is beautiful
If we were happy, and could chime in with it.

Edgar.
True; for the senses, love, are for the world;
That for the senses.

Eva.
Yes.

Edgar.
And when the man,
The child of evolution, flings aside
His swaddling-bands, the morals of the tribe,
He, following his own instincts as his God,
Will enter on the larger golden age;
No pleasure then taboo'd: for when the tide
Of full democracy has overwhelm'd
This Old world, from that flood will rise the New,
Like the Love-goddess, with no bridal veil,
Ring, trinket of the Church, but naked Nature
In all her loveliness.

Eva.
What are you saying?

281

Edgar.
That, if we did not strain to make ourselves
Better and higher than Nature, we might be
As happy as the bees there at their honey
In these sweet blossoms.

Eva.
Yes; how sweet they smell!

Edgar.
There! let me break some off for you.

[Breaking branch off.
Eva.
My thanks.
But, look, how wasteful of the blossom you are!
One, two, three, four, five, six—you have robb'd poor father
Of ten good apples. Oh, I forgot to tell you
He wishes you to dine along with us,
And speak for him after—you that are so clever!

Edgar.
I grieve I cannot; but, indeed—

Eva.
What is it?

Edgar.
Well, business. I must leave you, love, to-day.

282

Eva.
Leave me, to-day! And when will you return?

Edgar.
I cannot tell precisely; but—

Eva.
But what?

Edgar.
I trust, my dear, we shall be always friends.

Eva.
After all that has gone between us—friends!
What, only friends?

[Drops branch.
Edgar.
All that has gone between us
Should surely make us friends.

Eva.
But keep us lovers.

Edgar.
Child, do you love me now?

Eva.
Yes, now and ever.

Edgar.
Then you should wish us both to love for ever.

283

But, if you will bind love to one for ever,
Altho' at first he take his bonds for flowers,
As years go on, he feels them press upon him,
Begins to flutter in them, and at last
Breaks thro' them, and so flies away for ever;
While, had you left him free use of his wings,
Who knows that he had ever dream'd of flying?

Eva.
But all that sounds so wicked and so strange;
‘Till death us part’—those are the only words,
The true ones—nay, and those not true enough,
For they that love do not believe that death
Will part them. Why do you jest with me, and try
To fright me? Tho' you are a gentleman,
I but a farmer's daughter—

Edgar.
Tut! you talk
Old feudalism. When the great Democracy
Makes a new world—

Eva.
And if you be not jesting,
Neither the old world, nor the new, nor father,
Sister, nor you, shall ever see me more.

Edgar
(moved).
Then— (aside)
Shall I say it?— (aloud)
fly with me to-day.

284

Eva.
No! Philip, Philip, if you do not marry me,
I shall go mad for utter shame and die.

Edgar.
Then, if we needs must be conventional,
When shall your parish-parson bawl our banns
Before your gaping clowns?

Eva.
Not in our church—
I think I scarce could hold my head up there.
Is there no other way?

Edgar.
Yes, if you cared
To fee an over-opulent superstition,
Then they would grant you what they call a licence
To marry. Do you wish it?

Eva.
Do I wish it?

Edgar.
In London.

Eva.
You will write to me?

Edgar.
I will.

285

Eva.
And I will fly to you thro' the night, the storm—
Yes, tho' the fire should run along the ground,
As once it did in Egypt. Oh, you see,
I was just out of school, I had no mother—
My sister far away—and you, a gentleman,
Told me to trust you: yes, in everything—
That was the only true love; and I trusted—
Oh, yes, indeed, I would have died for you.
How could you—Oh, how could you?—nay, how could I?
But now you will set all right again, and I
Shall not be made the laughter of the village,
And poor old father not die miserable.

Dora
(singing in the distance).
‘O joy for the promise of May, of May,
O joy for the promise of May.’

Edgar.
Speak not so loudly; that must be your sister.
You never told her, then, of what has past
Between us.

Eva.
Never!

Edgar.
Do not till I bid you.

286

Eva.
No, Philip, no.

[Turns away.
Edgar
(moved).

How gracefully there she stands
Weeping—the little Niobe! What! we prize
The statue or the picture all the more
When we have made them ours! Is she less loveable,
Less lovely, being wholly mine? To stay—
Follow my art among these quiet fields,
Live with these honest folk—

And play the fool!
No! she that gave herself to me so easily
Will yield herself as easily to another.

Eva.
Did you speak, Philip?

Edgar.
Nothing more, farewell.

[They embrace.
Dora
(coming nearer).
‘O grief for the promise of May, of May,
O grief for the promise of May.’

Edgar
(still embracing her).
Keep up your heart until we meet again.

287

Eva.
If that should break before we meet again?

Edgar.
Break! nay, but call for Philip when you will,
And he returns.

Eva.
Heaven hears you, Philip Edgar!

Edgar
(moved).
And he would hear you even from the grave.
Heaven curse him if he come not at your call!

[Exit.
Enter Dora.
Dora.
Well, Eva!

Eva.

Oh, Dora, Dora, how long you have been away from home! Oh, how often I have wished for you! It seemed to me that we were parted for ever.

Dora.

For ever, you foolish child! What's come over you? We parted like the brook yonder about the alder island, to come together again in a moment and to go on together again, till one of us be married. But where is this Mr. Edgar whom you praised so in

288

your first letters? You haven't even mentioned him in your last?

Eva.

He has gone to London.

Dora.

Ay, child; and you look thin and pale. Is it for his absence? Have you fancied yourself in love with him? That's all nonsense, you know, such a baby as you are. But you shall tell me all about it.

Eva.

Not now—presently. Yes, I have been in trouble, but I am happy—I think, quite happy now.

Dora

(taking Eva's hand).
Come, then, and make them happy in the long barn, for father is in his glory, and there is a piece of beef like a house-side, and a plum-pudding as big as the round haystack. But see they are coming out for the dance already. Well, my child, let us join them.

Enter all from barn laughing. Eva sits reluctantly under apple tree. Steer enters smoking, sits by Eva.
Dance.

289

ACT II.

[_]

Five years have elapsed between Acts I. and II.

Scene.—A meadow. On one side a pathway going over a rustic bridge. At back the farmhouse among trees. In the distance a church spire
Dobson and Dora.
Dobson.

So the owd uncle i' Coomberland be deäd, Miss Dora, beänt he?

Dora.

Yes, Mr. Dobson, I've been attending on his deathbed and his burial.

Dobson.

It be five year sin' ye went afoor to him, and it seems to me nobbut t'other day. Hesn't he left ye nowt?

Dora.

No, Mr. Dobson.

290

Dobson.

But he were mighty fond o' ye, warn't he?

Dora.

Fonder of poor Eva—like everybody else.

Dobson

(handing Dora basket of roses).
Not like me, Miss Dora; and I ha' browt these roses to ye—I forgits what they calls 'em, but I hallus gi'ed soom on 'em to Miss Eva at this time o' year. Will ya taäke 'em? fur Miss Eva, she set the bush by my dairy winder afoor she went to school at Littlechester—so I allus browt soom on 'em to her; and now she be gone, will ye taäke 'em, Miss Dora?

Dora.

I thank you. They tell me that yesterday you mentioned her name too suddenly before my father. See that you do not do so again!

Dobson.

Noä; I knaws a deäl better now. I seed how the owd man wur vext.

Dora.

I take them, then, for Eva's sake.

[Takes basket, places some in her dress.

291

Dobson.

Eva's saäke. Yeas. Poor gel, poor gel! I can't abeär to think on 'er now, fur I'd ha' done owt fur 'er mysen; an' ony o' Steer's men, an' ony o' my men 'ud ha' done owt fur 'er, an' all the parish 'ud ha' done owt fur 'er, fur we was all on us proud on 'er, an' them theer be soom of her oän roses, an' she wur as sweet as ony on 'em—the Lord bless 'er—'er oän sen; an' weänt ye taäke 'em now, Miss Dora, fur 'er saäke an' fur my saäke an' all?

Dora.

Do you want them back again?

Dobson.

Noä, noä! Keep 'em. But I hed a word to saäy to ye.

Dora.

Why, Farmer, you should be in the hayfield looking after your men; you couldn't have more splendid weather.

Dobson.

I be a going theer; but I thowt I'd bring tha them roses fust. The weather's well anew, but the glass be a bit shaäky. S'iver we've led moäst on it.

Dora.

Ay! but you must not be too sudden with it either,

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as you were last year, when you put it in green, and your stack caught fire.

Dobson.

I were insured, Miss, an' I lost nowt by it. But I weänt be too sudden wi' it; and I feel sewer, Miss Dora, that I ha' been noän too sudden wi' you, fur I ha' sarved for ye well nigh as long as the man sarved for 'is sweet'art i' Scriptur'. Weänt ye gi'e me a kind answer at last?

Dora.

I have no thought of marriage, my friend. We have been in such grief these five years, not only on my sister's account, but the ill success of the farm, and the debts, and my father's breaking down, and his blindness. How could I think of leaving him?

Dobson.

Eh, but I be well to do; and if ye would nobbut hev me, I would taäke the owd blind man to my oän fireside. You should hev him allus wi' ye.

Dora.

You are generous, but it cannot be. I cannot love you; nay, I think I never can be brought to love any man. It seems to me that I hate men, ever since my sister left us. Oh, see here. (Pulls out a letter.)
I wear it next my heart. Poor sister, I had it five years ago. ‘Dearest Dora,—I have lost myself, and am lost

293

for ever to you and my poor father. I thought Mr. Edgar the best of men, and he has proved himself the worst. Seek not for me, or you may find me at the bottom of the river.—Eva.’

Dobson.

Be that my fault?

Dora.

No; but how should I, with this grief still at my heart, take to the milking of your cows, the fatting of your calves, the making of your butter, and the managing of your poultry?

Dobson.

Naäy, but I hev an owd woman as 'ud see to all that; and you should sit i' your oän parlour quite like a laädy, ye should!

Dora.

It cannot be.

Dobson.

And plaäy the pianner, if ye liked, all daäy long, like a laädy, ye should an' all.

Dora.

It cannot be.

Dobson.

And I would loove tha moor nor ony gentleman 'ud loove tha.

294

Dora.

No, no; it cannot be.

Dobson.

And p'raps ye hears 'at I soomtimes taäkes a drop too much; but that be all along o' you, Miss, because ye weänt hev me; but, if ye would, I could put all that o' one side eäsy anew.

Dora.

Cannot you understand plain words, Mr. Dobson? I tell you, it cannot be.

Dobson.

Eh, lass! Thy feyther eddicated his darters to marry gentlefoälk, and see what's coomed on it.

Dora.

That is enough, Farmer Dobson. You have shown me that, though fortune had born you into the estate of a gentleman, you would still have been Farmer Dobson. You had better attend to your hayfield. Good afternoon.

[Exit.
Dobson.

‘Farmer Dobson’! Well, I be Farmer Dobson; but I thinks Farmer Dobson's dog 'ud ha' knaw'd better nor to cast her sister's misfortin inter 'er teeth arter she'd been a-reädin' me the letter wi' 'er voice a-shaäkin',

295

and the drop in 'er eye. Theer she goäs! Shall I foller 'er and ax 'er to maäke it up? Noä, not yet. Let 'er cool upon it; I likes 'er all the better fur taäkin' me down, like a laädy, as she be. Farmer Dobson! I be Farmer Dobson, sewer anew; but if iver I cooms upo' Gentleman Hedgar ageän, and doänt laäy my cartwhip athurt 'is shou'ders, why then I beänt Farmer Dobson, but summun else—blaäme't if I beänt!

Enter Haymakers with a load of hay.

The last on it, eh?

1st Haymaker.

Yeas.

Dobson.

Hoäm wi' it, then. [Exit surlily.

1st Haymaker.

Well, it be the last loäd hoäm.

2nd Haymaker.

Yeas, an' owd Dobson should be glad on it. What maäkes 'im allus sa glum?

Sally Allen.

Glum! he be wus nor glum. He coom'd up to me yisterdaäy i' the haäyfield, when meä and my sweet'art was a workin' along o' one side wi' one another, and

296

he sent 'im awaäy to t'other end o' the field; and when I axed 'im why, he telled me 'at sweet'arts niver worked well togither; and I telled 'im 'at sweet'arts allus worked best togither; and then he called me a rude naäme, and I can't abide 'im.

James.

Why, lass, doänt tha knaw he be sweet upo' Dora Steer, and she weänt sa much as look at 'im? And wheniver 'e sees two sweet'arts togither like thou and me, Sally, he be fit to bust hissen wi' spites and jalousies.

Sally.

Let 'im bust hissen, then, for owt I cares.

1st Haymaker.

Well but, as I said afoor, it be the last loäd hoäm; do thou and thy sweet'art sing us hoäm to supper— ‘The Last Loäd Hoäm.’

All.

Ay! ‘The Last Loäd Hoäm.’

Song.

What did ye do, and what did ye saäy,
Wi' the wild white rose, an' the woodbine sa gaäy,
An' the midders all mow'd, an' the sky sa blue—
What did ye saäy, and what did ye do,
When ye thowt there were nawbody watchin' o' you,
And you an' your Sally was forkin' the haäy,

297

At the end of the daäy,
For the last loäd hoäm?

What did we do, and what did we saäy,
Wi' the briar sa green, an' the willer sa graäy,
An' the midders all mow'd, an' the sky sa blue—
Do ye think I be gawin' to tell it to you,
What we mowt saäy, and what we mowt do,
When me an' my Sally was forkin' the haäy,
At the end of the daäy,
For the last loäd hoäm?

But what did ye saäy, and what did ye do,
Wi' the butterflies out, and the swallers at plaäy,
An' the midders all mow'd, an' the sky sa blue?
Why, coom then, owd feller, I'll tell it to you;
For me an' my Sally we sweär'd to be true,
To be true to each other, let 'appen what maäy,
Till the end of the daäy
And the last loäd hoäm.

All.

Well sung!

James.

Fanny be the naäme i' the song, but I swopt it fur she.

[Pointing to Sally.
Sally.

Let ma aloän afoor foälk, wilt tha?

298

1st Haymaker.

Ye shall sing that ageän to-night, fur owd Dobson 'll gi'e us a bit o' supper.

Sally.

I weänt goä to owd Dobson; he wur rude to me i' tha haäyfield, and he'll be rude to me ageän to-night. Owd Steer's gotten all his grass down and wants a hand, and I'll goä to him.

1st Haymaker.

Owd Steer gi'es nubbut cowd tea to 'is men, and owd Dobson gi'es beer.

Sally.

But I'd like owd Steer's cowd tea better nor Dobson's beer. Good-bye. [Going

James.

Gi'e us a buss fust, lass.

Sally.

I tell'd tha to let ma aloän!

James.

Why, wasn't thou and me a-bussin' o' one another t'other side o' the haäycock, when owd Dobson coom'd upo' us? I can't let tha aloän if I would, Sally.

[Offering to kiss her.

299

Sally.

Git along wi' ye, do!

[Exit.
[All laugh; exeunt singing.

‘To be true to each other, let 'appen what maäy,
Till the end o' the daäy
An' the last loäd hoäm.’

Enter Harold.
Harold.

Not Harold! ‘Philip Edgar, Philip Edgar!’
Her phantom call'd me by the name she loved.
I told her I should hear her from the grave.
Ay! yonder is her casement. I remember
Her bright face beaming starlike down upon me
Thro' that rich cloud of blossom. Since I left her
Here weeping, I have ranged the world, and sat
Thro' every sensual course of that full feast
That leaves but emptiness.

Song.

‘To be true to each other, let 'appen what maäy,
To the end o' the daäy
An' the last loäd hoäm.’

Harold.

Poor Eva! O my God, if man be only
A willy-nilly current of sensations—
Reaction needs must follow revel—yet—

300

Why feel remorse, he, knowing that he must have
Moved in the iron grooves of Destiny?
Remorse then is a part of Destiny,
Nature a liar, making us feel guilty
Of her own faults.

My grandfather—of him
They say, that women—

O this mortal house,
Which we are born into, is haunted by
The ghosts of the dead passions of dead men;
And these take flesh again with our own flesh,
And bring us to confusion.

He was only
A poor philosopher who call'd the mind
Of children a blank page, a tabula rasa.
There, there, is written in invisible inks
‘Lust, Prodigality, Covetousness, Craft,
Cowardice, Murder’—and the heat and fire
Of life will bring them out, and black enough,
So the child grow to manhood: better death
With our first wail than life—

Song (further off).

‘Till the end o' the daäy
An' the last loäd hoäm,
Loäd hoäm.’

This bridge again!

(Steps on the bridge.)

How often have I stood
With Eva here! The brook among its flowers!
Forget-me-not, meadowsweet, willow-herb.

301

I had some smattering of science then,
Taught her the learned names, anatomized
The flowers for her—and now I only wish
This pool were deep enough, that I might plunge
And lose myself for ever.

Enter
Dan Smith
(singing).

Gee oop! whoä! Gee oop! whoä!
Scizzars an' Pumpy was good uns to goä
Thruf slush an' squad
When roäds was bad,
But hallus ud stop at the Vine-an'-the-Hop,
Fur boäth on 'em knaw'd as well as mysen
That beer be as good fur 'erses as men.
Gee oop! whoä! Gee oop! whoä!
Scizzars an' Pumpy was good uns to goä.

The beer's gotten oop into my 'eäd. S'iver I mun git along back to the farm, fur she tell'd ma to taäke the cart to Littlechester.

Enter Dora.

Half an hour late! why are you loitering here? Away with you at once.

[Exit Dan Smith.
(Seeing Harold on bridge.)

Some madman, is it,
Gesticulating there upon the bridge?
I am half afraid to pass.

302

Harold.

Sometimes I wonder,
When man has surely learnt at last that all
His old-world faith, the blossom of his youth,
Has faded, falling fruitless—whether then
All of us, all at once, may not be seized
With some fierce passion, not so much for Death
As against Life! all, all, into the dark—
No more!—and science now could drug and balm us
Back into nescience with as little pain
As it is to fall asleep.

This beggarly life,
This poor, flat, hedged-in field—no distance—this
Hollow Pandora-box,
With all the pleasures flown, not even Hope
Left at the bottom!

Superstitious fool,
What brought me here? To see her grave? her ghost?
Her ghost is everyway about me here.

Dora
(coming forward).
Allow me, sir, to pass you.

Harold.
Eva!

Dora.
Eva!

303

Harold.
What are you? Where do you come from?

Dora.
From the farm
Here, close at hand.

Harold.
Are you—you are—that Dora,
The sister. I have heard of you. The likeness
Is very striking.

Dora.
You knew Eva, then?

Harold.
Yes—I was thinking of her when—O yes,
Many years back, and never since have met
Her equal for pure innocence of nature,
And loveliness of feature.

Dora.
No, nor I.

Harold.
Except, indeed, I have found it once again
In your own self.

Dora.
You flatter me. Dear Eva
Was always thought the prettier.

304

Harold.
And her charm
Of voice is also yours; and I was brooding
Upon a great unhappiness when you spoke.

Dora.
Indeed, you seem'd in trouble, sir.

Harold.
And you
Seem my good angel who may help me from it.

Dora
(aside).
How worn he looks, poor man! who is it, I wonder.
How can I help him? (Aloud.)
Might I ask your name?

Harold.
Harold.

Dora.
I never heard her mention you.

Harold.
I met her first at a farm in Cumberland—
Her uncle's.

Dora.
She was there six years ago.

Harold.
And if she never mention'd me, perhaps

305

The painful circumstances which I heard—
I will not vex you by repeating them—
Only last week at Littlechester, drove me
From out her memory. She has disappear'd,
They told me, from the farm—and darker news.

Dora.
She has disappear'd, poor darling, from the world—
Left but one dreadful line to say, that we
Should find her in the river; and we dragg'd
The Littlechester river all in vain:
Have sorrow'd for her all these years in vain.
And my poor father, utterly broken down
By losing her—she was his favourite child—
Has let his farm, all his affairs, I fear,
But for the slender help that I can give,
Fall into ruin. Ah! that villain, Edgar,
If he should ever show his face among us,
Our men and boys would hoot him, stone him, hunt him
With pitchforks off the farm, for all of them
Loved her, and she was worthy of all love.

Harold.
They say, we should forgive our enemies.

Dora.
Ay, if the wretch were dead I might forgive him;
We know not whether he be dead or living.

306

Harold.
What Edgar?

Dora.
Philip Edgar of Toft Hall
In Somerset. Perhaps you know him?

Harold.
Slightly.
(Aside.)
Ay, for how slightly have I known myself.

Dora.
This Edgar, then, is living?

Harold.
Living? well—
One Philip Edgar of Toft Hall in Somerset
Is lately dead.

Dora.
Dead!—is there more than one?

Harold.
Nay—now—not one, (aside)
for I am Philip Harold.

Dora.
That one, is he then—dead!

Harold.
(Aside.)
My father's death,

307

Let her believe it mine; this, for the moment,
Will leave me a free field.

Dora.
Dead! and this world
Is brighter for his absence as that other
Is darker for his presence.

Harold.
Is not this
To speak too pitilessly of the dead?

Dora.
My five-years' anger cannot die at once,
Not all at once with death and him. I trust
I shall forgive him—by-and-by—not now.
O sir, you seem to have a heart; if you
Had seen us that wild morning when we found
Her bed unslept in, storm and shower lashing
Her casement, her poor spaniel wailing for her,
That desolate letter, blotted with her tears,
Which told us we should never see her more—
Our old nurse crying as if for her own child,
My father stricken with his first paralysis,
And then with blindness—had you been one of us
And seen all this, then you would know it is not
So easy to forgive—even the dead.

308

Harold.
But sure am I that of your gentleness
You will forgive him. She, you mourn for, seem'd
A miracle of gentleness—would not blur
A moth's wing by the touching; would not crush
The fly that drew her blood; and, were she living,
Would not—if penitent—have denied him her
Forgiveness. And perhaps the man himself,
When hearing of that piteous death, has suffer'd
More than we know. But wherefore waste your heart
In looking on a chill and changeless Past?
Iron will fuse, and marble melt; the Past
Remains the Past. But you are young, and—pardon me—
As lovely as your sister. Who can tell
What golden hours, with what full hands, may be
Waiting you in the distance? Might I call
Upon your father—I have seen the world—
And cheer his blindness with a traveller's tales?

Dora.
Call if you will, and when you will. I cannot
Well answer for my father; but if you
Can tell me anything of our sweet Eva
When in her brighter girlhood, I at least
Will bid you welcome, and will listen to you.
Now I must go.

Harold.
But give me first your hand:

309

I do not dare, like an old friend, to shake it.
I kiss it as a prelude to that privilege
When you shall know me better.

Dora.
(Aside.)
How beautiful
His manners are, and how unlike the farmer's!
You are staying here?

Harold.
Yes, at the wayside inn
Close by that alder-island in your brook,
‘The Angler's Home.’

Dora.
Are you one?

Harold.
No, but I
Take some delight in sketching, and the country
Has many charms, altho' the inhabitants
Seem semi-barbarous.

Dora.
I am glad it pleases you;
Yet I, born here, not only love the country,
But its inhabitants too; and you, I doubt not,
Would take to them as kindly, if you cared
To live some time among them.

Harold.
If I did,

310

Then one at least of its inhabitants
Might have more charm for me than all the country.

Dora.
That one, then, should be grateful for your preference.

Harold.
I cannot tell, tho' standing in her presence.
(Aside.)
She colours!

Dora.
Sir!

Harold.
Be not afraid of me,
For these are no conventional flourishes.
I do most earnestly assure you that
Your likeness—

[Shouts and cries without.
Dora.
What was that? my poor blind father—

Enter Farming Man.
Farming Man.

Miss Dora, Dan Smith's cart hes runned ower a laädy i' the holler laäne, and they ha' ta'en the body up inter your chaumber, and they be all a-callin' for ye.

311

Dora.
The body!—Heavens! I come!

Harold.
But you are trembling.
Allow me to go with you to the farm.

[Exeunt.
Enter Dobson.
Dobson.

What feller wur it as 'a' been a-talkin' fur haäfe an hour wi' my Dora? (Looking after him.)
Seeäms I ommost knaws the back on 'im—drest like a gentleman, too. Damn all gentlemen, says I! I should ha' thowt they'd hed anew o' gentlefoälk, as I telled 'er to-daäy when she fell foul upo' me.

Minds ma o' summun. I could sweär to that; but that be all one, fur I haätes 'im afoor I knaws what 'e be. Theer! he turns round. Philip Hedgar o' Soomerset! Philip Hedgar o' Soomerset!—Noä—yeas—thaw the feller's gone and maäde such a litter of his faäce.

Eh lad, if it be thou, I'll Philip tha! a-plaäyin' the saäme gaäme wi' my Dora—I'll Soomerset tha.

I'd like to drag 'im thruff the herse-pond, and she to be a-lookin' at it. I'd like to leather 'im black and blue, and she to be a-laughin' at it. I'd like to fell 'im as deäd as a bullock!

(Clenching his fist.)

But what 'ud she saäy to that? She telled me once

312

not to meddle wi' 'im, and now she be fallen out wi' ma, and I can't coom at 'er.

It mun be him. Noä! Fur she'd niver 'a been talkin' haäfe an hour wi' the divil 'at killed her oän sister, or she beänt Dora Steer.

Yeas! Fur she niver knawed 'is faäce when 'e wur 'ere afoor; but I'll maäke 'er knaw! I'll maäke 'er knaw!

Enter Harold.

Naäy, but I mun git out on 'is waäy now, or I shall be the death on 'im.

[Exit.

Harold.

How the clown glared at me! that Dobbins, is it,
With whom I used to jar? but can he trace me
Thro' five years' absence, and my change of name,
The tan of southern summers and the beard?
I may as well avoid him.

Ladylike!
Lilylike in her stateliness and sweetness!
How came she by it?—a daughter of the fields,
This Dora!
She gave her hand, unask'd, at the farm-gate;
I almost think she half return'd the pressure
Of mine. What, I that held the orange blossom
Dark as the yew? but may not those, who march
Before their age, turn back at times, and make
Courtesy to custom? and now the stronger motive,
Misnamed free-will—the crowd would call it conscience—

313

Moves me—to what? I am dreaming; for the past
Look'd thro' the present, Eva's eyes thro' her's—
A spell upon me! Surely I loved Eva
More than I knew! or is it but the past
That brightens in retiring? Oh, last night,
Tired, pacing my new lands at Littlechester,
I dozed upon the bridge, and the black river
Flow'd thro' my dreams—if dreams they were. She rose
From the foul flood and pointed toward the farm,
And her cry rang to me across the years,
‘I call you, Philip Edgar, Philip Edgar!
Come, you will set all right again, and father
Will not die miserable.’ I could make his age
A comfort to him—so be more at peace
With mine own self. Some of my former friends
Would find my logic faulty; let them. Colour
Flows thro' my life again, and I have lighted
On a new pleasure. Anyhow we must
Move in the line of least resistance when
The stronger motive rules.

But she hates Edgar.
May not this Dobbins, or some other, spy
Edgar in Harold? Well then, I must make her
Love Harold first, and then she will forgive
Edgar for Harold's sake. She said herself
She would forgive him, by-and-by, not now—
For her own sake then, if not for mine—not now—
But by-and-by.

Enter Dobson behind.

314

Dobson.

By-and-by—eh, lad, dosta knaw this paäper? Ye dropt it upo' the road. ‘Philip Edgar, Esq.’ Ay, you be a pretty squire. I ha' fun' ye out, I hev. Eh, lad, dosta knaw what tha meäns wi' by-and-by? Fur if ye be goin' to sarve our Dora as ye sarved our Eva—then, by-and-by, if she weänt listen to me when I be a-tryin' to saäve 'er—if she weänt—look to thysen, for, by the Lord, I'd think na moor o' maäkin' an end o' tha nor a carrion craw—noä—thaw they hanged ma at 'Size fur it.

Harold.

Dobbins, I think!

Dobson.

I beänt Dobbins.

Harold.

Nor am I Edgar, my good fellow.

Dobson.

Tha lies! What hasta been saäyin' to my Dora?

Harold.

I have been telling her of the death of one Philip Edgar of Toft Hall, Somerset.

Dobson.

Tha lies!

315

Harold

(pulling out a newspaper).
Well, my man, it seems that you can read. Look there—under the deaths.

Dobson.

‘O' the 17th, Philip Edgar, o' Toft Hall, Soomerset.’ How coom thou to be sa like 'im, then?

Harold.

Naturally enough; for I am closely related to the dead man's family.

Dobson.

An 'ow coom thou by the letter to 'im?

Harold.

Naturally again; for as I used to transact all his business for him, I had to look over his letters. Now then, see these (takes out letters).
Half a score of them, all directed to me—Harold.

Dobson.

'Arold! 'Arold! 'Arold, so they be.

Harold.

My name is Harold! Good day, Dobbins!

[Exit.

316

Dobson.

'Arold! The feller's cleän daäzed, an' maäzed, an' maäted, an' muddled ma. Deäd! It mun be true, fur it wur i' print as black as owt. Naäy, but ‘Good daäy, Dobbins.’ Why, that wur the very twang on 'im. Eh, lad, but whether thou be Hedgar, or Hedgar's business man, thou hesn't naw business 'ere wi' my Dora, as I knaws on, an' whether thou calls thysen Hedgar or Harold, if thou stick to she I'll stick to thee —stick to tha like a weasel to a rabbit, I will. Ay! and I'd like to shoot tha like a rabbit an' all. ‘Good daäy, Dobbins.’ Dang tha!

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ACT III.

Scene.—a room in Steer's House. Door leading into bedroom at the back.
Dora

(ringing a handbell).
Milly!

Enter Milly.
Milly.

The little 'ymn? Yeäs, Miss; but I wur so ta'en up wi' leädin' the owd man about all the blessed murnin' 'at I ha' nobbut larned mysen haäfe on it.

‘O man, forgive thy mortal foe,
Nor ever strike him blow for blow;
For all the souls on earth that live
To be forgiven must forgive.
Forgive him seventy times and seven:
For all the blessed souls in Heaven
Are both forgivers and forgiven.’

But I'll git the book ageän, and larn mysen the rest, and saäy it to ye afoor dark; ye ringed fur that, Miss, didn't ye?

318

Dora.

No, Milly; but if the farming-men be come for their wages, to send them up to me.

Milly.

Yeäs, Miss.

[Exit.
Dora

(sitting at desk counting money).
Enough at any rate for the present. (Enter Farming Men.)
Good afternoon, my friends. I am sorry Mr. Steer still continues too unwell to attend to you, but the schoolmaster looked to the paying you your wages when I was away, didn't he?

Men.

Yeäs; and thanks to ye.

Dora.

Some of our workmen have left us, but he sent me an alphabetical list of those that remain, so, Allen, I may as well begin with you.

Allen

(with his hand to his ear).
Halfabitical! Taäke one o' the young 'uns fust, Miss, fur I be a bit deaf, and I wur hallus scaäred by a big word; leästwaäys, I should be wi' a lawyer.

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Dora.

I spoke of your names, Allen, as they are arranged here (shows book)
—according to their first letters.

Allen.

Letters! Yeas, I sees now. Them be what they larns the childer' at school, but I were burn afoor schoolin-time.

Dora.

But, Allen, tho' you can't read, you could whitewash that cottage of yours where your grandson had the fever.

Allen.

I'll hev it done o' Monday.

Dora.

Else if the fever spread, the parish will have to thank you for it.

Allen.

Meä? why, it be the Lord's doin', noän o' mine; d'ye think I'd gi'e 'em the fever? But I thanks ye all the saäme, Miss. (Takes money.)

Dora

(calling out names).
Higgins, Jackson, Luscombe, Nokes, Oldham, Skipworth! (All take money.)
Did you find that you worked at all the worse upon the cold tea than you would have done upon the beer?

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Higgins.

Noä, Miss; we worked naw wuss upo' the cowd tea; but we'd ha' worked better upo' the beer.

Dora.

Come, come, you worked well enough, and I am much obliged to all of you. There's for you, and you, and you. Count the money and see if it's all right.

Men.

All right, Miss; and thank ye kindly.

[Exeunt Luscombe, Nokes, Oldham, Skipworth.
Dora.

Dan Smith, my father and I forgave you stealing our coals. [Dan Smith advances to Dora.

Dan Smith

(bellowing).
Whoy, O lor, Miss! that wur sa long back, and the walls sa thin, and the winders brokken, and the weather sa cowd, and my missus a-gittin' ower 'er lyin'-in.

Dora.

Didn't I say that we had forgiven you? But, Dan Smith, they tell me that you—and you have six children—spent all your last Saturday's wages at the alehouse;

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that you were stupid drunk all Sunday, and so ill in consequence all Monday, that you did not come into the hayfield. Why should I pay you your full wages?

Dan Smith.

I be ready to taäke the pledge.

Dora.

And as ready to break it again. Besides it was you that were driving the cart—and I fear you were tipsy then, too—when you lamed the lady in the hollow lane.

Dan Smith

(bellowing).
O lor, Miss! noä, noä, noä! Ye sees the holler laäne be hallus sa dark i' the arternoon, and wheere the big eshtree cuts athurt it, it gi'es a turn like, and 'ow should I see to laäme the laädy, and meä coomin' along pretty sharp an' all?

Dora.

Well, there are your wages; the next time you waste them at a pothouse you get no more from me. (Exit Dan Smith.)
Sally Allen, you worked for Mr. Dobson, didn't you?

Sally

(advancing).
Yeäs, Miss; but he wur so rough wi' ma, I couldn't abide 'im.

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Dora.

Why should he be rough with you? You are as good as a man in the hayfield. What's become of your brother?

Sally.

'Listed for a soädger, Miss, i' the Queen's Real Hard Tillery.

Dora.

And your sweetheart—when are you and he to be married?

Sally.

At Michaelmas, Miss, please God.

Dora.

You are an honest pair. I will come to your wedding.

Sally.

An' I thanks ye fur that, Miss, moor nor fur the waäge.

(Going—returns.)

'A cotched ma about the waaist, Miss, when 'e wur ere afoor, an' axed ma to be 'is little sweet-art, an soä I knaw'd 'im when I seed 'im ageän an I telled feyther on 'im.

Dora.

What is all this, Allen?

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Allen.

Why, Miss Dora, meä and my maätes, us three, we wants to hev three words wi' ye.

Higgins.

That be 'im, and meä, Miss.

Jackson.

An' meä, Miss.

Allen.

An' we weänt mention naw naämes, we'd as lief talk o' the Divil afoor ye as 'im, fur they says the master goäs cleän off his 'eäd when he 'eärs the naäme on 'im; but us three, arter Sally'd telled us on 'im, we fun' 'im out a-walkin' i' West Field wi' a white 'at, nine o'clock, upo' Tuesday murnin', and all on us, wi' your leave, we wants to leather 'im.

Dora.

Who?

Allen.

Him as did the mischief here, five year' sin'.

Dora.

Mr. Edgar?

Allen.

Theer, Miss! You ha' naämed 'im—not me.

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Dora.

He's dead, man—dead; gone to his account—dead and buried.

Allen.

I beänt sa sewer o' that, fur Sally knaw'd 'im; Now then?

Dora.

Yes; it was in the Somersetshire papers.

Allen.

Then yon mun be his brother, an' we'll leather 'im.

Dora.

I never heard that he had a brother. Some foolish mistake of Sally's; but what! would you beat a man for his brother's fault? That were a wild justice indeed. Let bygones be bygones. Go home! Goodnight! (All exeunt.)
I have once more paid them all. The work of the farm will go on still, but for how long? We are almost at the bottom of the well: little more to be drawn from it—and what then? Encumbered as we are, who would lend us anything? We shall have to sell all the land, which Father, for a whole life, has been getting together, again, and that, I am sure, would be the death of him. What am I to do? Farmer Dobson, were I to marry him, has promised to keep our heads above water; and the man has doubtless a good heart, and a true and lasting love for me:

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yet—though I can be sorry for him—as the good Sally says, ‘I can't abide him’—almost brutal, and matched with my Harold is like a hedge thistle by a garden rose. But then, he, too—will he ever be of one faith with his wife? which is my dream of a true marriage. Can I fancy him kneeling with me, and uttering the same prayer; standing up side by side with me, and singing the same hymn? I fear not. Have I done wisely, then, in accepting him? But may not a girl's love-dream have too much romance in it to be realised all at once, or altogether, or anywhere but in Heaven? And yet I had once a vision of a pure and perfect marriage, where the man and the woman, only differing as the stronger and the weaker, should walk hand in hand together down this valley of tears, as they call it so truly, to the grave at the bottom, and lie down there together in the darkness which would seem but for a moment, to be wakened again together by the light of the resurrection, and no more partings for ever and for ever.

(Walks up and down. She sings.)

‘O happy lark, that warblest high
Above thy lowly nest,
O brook, that brawlest merrily by
Thro' fields that once were blest,
O tower spiring to the sky,
O graves in daisies drest,
O Love and Life, how weary am I,
And how I long for rest.’

There, there, I am a fool! Tears! I have sometimes

326

been moved to tears by a chapter of fine writing in a novel; but what have I to do with tears now? All depends on me—Father, this poor girl, the farm, everything; and they both love me—I am all in all to both; and he loves me too, I am quite sure of that. Courage, courage! and all will go well. (Goes to bedroom door; opens it.)
How dark your room is! Let me bring you in here where there is still full daylight. (Brings Eva forward.)
Why, you look better.

Eva.

And I feel so much better that I trust I may be able by-and-by to help you in the business of the farm; but I must not be known yet. Has anyone found me out, Dora?

Dora.

Oh, no; you kept your veil too close for that when they carried you in; since then, no one has seen you but myself.

Eva.

Yes—this Milly.

Dora.

Poor blind Father's little guide, Milly, who came to us three years after you were gone, how should she know you? But now that you have been brought to us as it were from the grave, dearest Eva, and have been here so long, will you not speak with Father today?

327

Eva.

Do you think that I may? No, not yet. I am not equal to it yet.

Dora.

Why? Do you still suffer from your fall in the hollow lane?

Eva.

Bruised; but no bones broken.

Dora.

I have always told Father that the huge old ashtree there would cause an accident some day; but he would never cut it down, because one of the Steers had planted it there in former times.

Eva.

If it had killed one of the Steers there the other day, it might have been better for her, for him, and for you.

Dora.

Come, come, keep a good heart! Better for me! That's good. How better for me?

Eva.

You tell me you have a lover. Will he not fly from you if he learn the story of my shame and that I am still living?

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Dora.

No; I am sure that when we are married he will be willing that you and Father should live with us; for, indeed, he tells me that he met you once in the old times, and was much taken with you, my dear.

Eva.

Taken with me; who was he? Have you told him I am here?

Dora.

No; do you wish it?

Eva.

See, Dora; you yourself are ashamed of me (weeps)
, and I do not wonder at it.

Dora.

But I should wonder at myself if it were so. Have we not been all in all to one another from the time when we first peeped into the bird's nest, waded in the brook, ran after the butterflies, and prattled to each other that we would marry fine gentlemen, and played at being fine ladies?

Eva.

That last was my Father's fault, poor man. And this lover of yours—this Mr. Harold—is a gentleman?

Dora.

That he is, from head to foot. I do believe I lost

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my heart to him the very first time we met, and I love him so much—

Eva.

Poor Dora!

Dora.

That I dare not tell him how much I love him.

Eva.

Better not. Has he offered you marriage, this gentleman?

Dora.

Could I love him else?

Eva.

And are you quite sure that after marriage this gentleman will not be shamed of his poor farmer's daughter among the ladies in his drawing-room?

Dora.

Shamed of me in a drawing-room! Wasn't Miss Vavasour, our schoolmistress at Littlechester, a lady born? Were not our fellow-pupils all ladies? Wasn't dear mother herself at least by one side a lady? Can't I speak like a lady; pen a letter like a lady; talk a little French like a lady; play a little like a lady? Can't a girl when she loves her husband, and he her, make herself anything he wishes her to be? Shamed of me in a drawing-room, indeed! See here! ‘I

330

hope your Lordship is quite recovered of your gout?’ (Curtsies.)
‘Will your Ladyship ride to cover to-day? (Curtsies.)
I can recommend our Voltigeur.’ ‘I am sorry that we could not attend your Grace's party on the 10th!’ (Curtsies.)
There, I am glad my nonsense has made you smile!

Eva.

I have heard that ‘your Lordship,’ and ‘your Ladyship,’ and ‘your Grace’ are all growing old-fashioned!

Dora.

But the love of sister for sister can never be oldfashioned. I have been unwilling to trouble you with questions, but you seem somewhat better to-day. We found a letter in your bedroom torn into bits. I couldn't make it out. What was it?

Eva.

From him! from him! He said we had been most happy together, and he trusted that some time we should meet again, for he had not forgotten his promise to come when I called him. But that was a mockery, you know, for he gave me no address, and there was no word of marriage; and, O Dora, he signed himself ‘Yours gratefully’—fancy, Dora, ‘gratefully’! ‘Yours gratefully’!

Dora.

Infamous wretch! (Aside.)
Shall I tell her he is dead? No; she is still too feeble.

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Eva.

Hark! Dora, some one is coming. I cannot and I will not see anybody.

Dora.

It is only Milly.

Enter Milly, with basket of roses.
Dora.

Well, Milly, why do you come in so roughly? The sick lady here might have been asleep.

Milly.

Pleäse, Miss, Mr. Dobson telled me to saäy he's browt some of Miss Eva's roses for the sick laädy to smell on.

Dora.

Take them, dear. Say that the sick lady thanks him! Is he here?

Milly.

Yeäs, Miss; and he wants to speak to ye partic'lar.

Dora.

Tell him I cannot leave the sick lady just yet.

Milly.

Yeäs, Miss; but he says he wants to tell ye summut very partic'lar.

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Dora.

Not to-day. What are you staying for?

Milly.

Why, Miss, I be afeard I shall set him a-sweäring like onythink.

Dora.

And what harm will that do you, so that you do not copy his bad manners? Go, child. (Exit Milly.)
But, Eva, why did you write ‘Seek me at the bottom of the river’?

Eva.

Why? because I meant it!—that dreadful night! that lonely walk to Littlechester, the rain beating in my face all the way, dead midnight when I came upon the bridge; the river, black, slimy, swirling under me in the lamplight, by the rotten wharfs—but I was so mad, that I mounted upon the parapet—

Dora.

You make me shudder!

Eva.

To fling myself over, when I heard a voice, ‘Girl, what are you doing there? It was a Sister of Mercy, come from the death-bed of a pauper, who had died in his misery blessing God, and the Sister took me to her

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house, and bit by bit—for she promised secrecy—I told her all.

Dora.

And what then?

Eva.

She would have persuaded me to come back here, but I couldn't. Then she got me a place as nursery governess, and when the children grew too old for me, and I asked her once more to help me, once more she said, ‘Go home;’ but I hadn't the heart or face to do it. And then—what would Father say? I sank so low that I went into service—the drudge of a lodging-house—and when the mistress died, and I appealed to the Sister again, her answer—I think I have it about me—yes, there it is!

Dora

(reads).
‘My dear Child,—I can do no more for you. I have done wrong in keeping your secret; your Father must be now in extreme old age. Go back to him and ask his forgiveness before he dies.—Sister Agatha.’ Sister Agatha is right. Don't you long for Father's forgiveness?

Eva.

I would almost die to have it!

Dora.

And he may die before he gives it; may drop off any day, any hour. You must see him at once.

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(Rings bell. Enter Milly.)
Milly, my dear, how did you leave Mr. Steer?

Milly.

He's been a-moänin' and a-groänin' in 'is sleep, but I thinks he be wakkenin' oop.

Dora.

Tell him that I and the lady here wish to see him. You see she is lamed, and cannot go down to him.

Milly.

Yeäs, Miss, I will.

[Exit Milly.
Dora.

I ought to prepare you. You must not expect to find our Father as he was five years ago. He is much altered; but I trust that your return—for you know, my dear, you were always his favourite—will give him, as they say, a new lease of life.

Eva

(clinging to Dora).
Oh, Dora, Dora!

Enter Steer, led by Milly.
Steer.

Hes the cow cawved?

Dora.

No, Father.

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Steer.

Be the colt deäd?

Dora.

No, Father.

Steer.

He wur sa bellows'd out wi' the wind this murnin', 'at I tell'd 'em to gallop 'im. Be he deäd?

Dora.

Not that I know.

Steer.

What hasta sent fur me, then, fur?

Dora

(taking Steer's arm).
Well, Father, I have a surprise for you.

Steer.

I ha niver been surprised but once i' my life, and I went blind upon it.

Dora.

Eva has come home.

Steer.

Hoäm? fro' the bottom o' the river?

Dora.

No, Father, that was a mistake. She's here again.

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Steer.

The Steers was all gentlefoälks i' the owd times, an' I worked early an' laäte to maäke 'em all gentlefoälks ageän. The land belonged to the Steers i' the owd times, an' it belongs to the Steers ageän: I bowt it back ageän; but I couldn't buy my darter back ageän when she lost hersen, could I? I eddicated boäth on em to marry gentlemen, an' one on 'em went an' lost hersen i' the river.

Dora.

No, father, she's here.

Steer.

Here! she moänt coom here. What would her mother saäy? If it be her ghoäst, we mun abide it. We can't keep a ghoäst out.

Eva

(falling at his feet).
O forgive me! forgive me!

Steer.

Who said that? Taäke me awaäy, little gell. It be one o' my bad daäys. [Exit Steer led by Milly.

Dora

(smoothing Eva's forehead).
Be not so cast down, my sweet Eva. You heard him say it was one of his bad days. He will be sure to know you to-morrow.

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Eva.

It is almost the last of my bad days, I think. I am very faint. I must lie down. Give me your arm. Lead me back again.

[Dora takes Eva into inner room.
Enter Milly.
Milly.

Miss Dora! Miss Dora!

Dora

(returning and leaving the bedroom door ajar).
Quiet! quiet! What is it?

Milly.

Mr. 'Arold, Miss.

Dora.

Below?

Milly.

Yeäs, Miss. He be saäyin' a word to the owd man, but he'll coom up if ye lets 'im.

Dora.

Tell him, then, that I'm waiting for him.

Milly.

Yeäs, Miss.

[Exit. Dora sits pensively and waits.

338

Enter Harold.
Harold.
You are pale, my Dora! but the ruddiest cheek
That ever charm'd the plowman of your wolds
Might wish its rose a lily, could it look
But half as lovely. I was speaking with
Your father, asking his consent—you wish'd me—
That we should marry: he would answer nothing,
I could make nothing of him; but, my flower,
You look so weary and so worn! What is it
Has put you out of heart?

Dora.
It puts me in heart
Again to see you; but indeed the state
Of my poor father puts me out of heart.
Is yours yet living?

Harold.
No—I told you.

Dora.
When?

Harold.
Confusion!—Ah well, well! the state we all
Must come to in our spring-and-winter world
If we live long enough! and poor Steer looks
The very type of Age in a picture, bow'd
To the earth he came from, to the grave he goes to,
Beneath the burthen of years.

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Dora.
More like the picture
Of Christian in my ‘Pilgrim's Progress’ here,
Bow'd to the dust beneath the burthen of sin.

Harold.
Sin! What sin?

Dora.
Not his own.

Harold.
That nursery-tale
Still read, then?

Dora.
Yes; our carters and our shepherds
Still find a comfort there.

Harold.
Carters and shepherds!

Dora.
Scorn! I hate scorn. A soul with no religion—
My mother used to say that such a one
Was without rudder, anchor, compass—might be
Blown everyway with every gust and wreck
On any rock; and tho' you are good and gentle,
Yet if thro' any want—

340

Harold.
Of this religion?
Child, read a little history, you will find
The common brotherhood of man has been
Wrong'd by the cruelties of his religions
More than could ever have happen'd thro' the want
Of any or all of them.

Dora.
—But, O dear friend,
If thro' the want of any—I mean the true one—
And pardon me for saying it—you should ever
Be tempted into doing what might seem
Not altogether worthy of you, I think
That I should break my heart, for you have taught me
To love you.

Harold.
What is this? some one been stirring
Against me? he, your rustic amourist,
The polish'd Damon of your pastoral here,
This Dobson of your idyll?

Dora.
No, Sir, no!
Did you not tell me he was crazed with jealousy,
Had threaten'd ev'n your life, and would say anything?
Did I not promise not to listen to him,
Not ev'n to see the man?

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Harold.
Good; then what is it
That makes you talk so dolefully?

Dora.
I told you—
My father. Well, indeed, a friend just now,
One that has been much wrong'd, whose griefs are mine,
Was warning me that if a gentleman
Should wed a farmer's daughter, he would be
Sooner or later shamed of her among
The ladies, born his equals.

Harold.
More fool he!
What I that have been call'd a Socialist,
A Communist, a Nihilist—what you will!—

Dora.
What are all these?

Harold.
Utopian idiotcies.
They did not last three Junes. Such rampant weeds
Strangle each other, die, and make the soil
For Cæsars, Cromwells, and Napoleons
To root their power in. I have freed myself
From all such dreams, and some will say because
I have inherited my Uncle. Let them.

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But—shamed of you, my Empress! I should prize
The pearl of Beauty, even if I found it
Dark with the soot of slums.

Dora.

But I can tell you,
We Steers are of old blood, tho' we be fallen.
See there our shield.

(Pointing to arms on mantelpiece.)

For I have heard the Steers
Had land in Saxon times; and your own name
Of Harold sounds so English and so old
I am sure you must be proud of it.

Harold.
Not I!
As yet I scarcely feel it mine. I took it
For some three thousand acres. I have land now
And wealth, and lay both at your feet.

Dora.
And what was
Your name before?

Harold.
Come, come, my girl, enough
Of this strange talk. I love you and you me.
True, I have held opinions, hold some still,
Which you would scarce approve of: for all that,
I am a man not prone to jealousies,
Caprices, humours, moods; but very ready

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To make allowances, and mighty slow
To feel offences. Nay, I do believe
I could forgive—well, almost anything—
And that more freely than your formal priest,
Because I know more fully than he can
What poor earthworms are all and each of us,
Here crawling in this boundless Nature. Dora,
If marriage ever brought a woman happiness
I doubt not I can make you happy.

Dora.
You make me
Happy already.

Harold.
And I never said
As much before to any woman living.

Dora.
No?

Harold.
No! by this true kiss, you are the first
I ever have loved truly.

[They kiss each other.
Eva
(with a wild cry).
Philip Edgar!

Harold.
The phantom cry! You—did you hear a cry?

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Dora.
She must be crying out ‘Edgar’ in her sleep.

Harold.
Who must be crying out ‘Edgar’ in her sleep?

Dora.
Your pardon for a minute. She must be waked.

Harold.
Who must be waked?

Dora.
I am not deaf: you fright me.
What ails you?

Harold.
Speak.

Dora.
You know her, Eva.

Harold.
Eva!
[Eva opens the door and stands in the entry.
She!

Eva.
Make her happy, then, and I forgive you.

[Falls dead.

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Dora.
Happy! What? Edgar? Is it so? Can it be?
They told me so. Yes, yes! I see it all now.
O she has fainted. Sister, Eva, sister!
He is yours again—he will love you again;
I give him back to you again. Look up!
One word, or do but smile! Sweet, do you hear me?
[Puts her hand on Eva's heart.
There, there—the heart, O God!—the poor young heart
Broken at last—all still—and nothing left
To live for.

[Falls on body of her sister.
Harold.

Living . . . dead . . . She said ‘all still.
Nothing to live for.’

She—she knows me—now . . .
(A pause.)
She knew me from the first, she juggled with me,
She hid this sister, told me she was dead—
I have wasted pity on her—not dead now—
No! acting, playing on me, both of them.
They drag the river for her! no, not they!
Playing on me—not dead now—a swoon—a scene—
Yet—how she made her wail as for the dead!

Enter Milly.
Milly.
Pleäse, Mister 'Arold.

346

Harold
(roughly).
Well?

Milly.
The owd man's coom'd ageän to 'issen, an' wants
To hev a word wi' ye about the marriage.

Harold.
The what?

Milly.
The marriage.

Harold.
The marriage?

Milly.
Yeäs, the marriage.
Granny says marriages be maäde i' 'eaven.

Harold.
She lies! They are made in Hell. Child, can't you see?
Tell them to fly for a doctor.

Milly.
O law—yeäs, Sir!
I'll run fur 'im mysen.

[Exit.
Harold.

All silent there,

347

Yes, deathlike! Dead? I dare not look: if dead,
Were it best to steal away, to spare myself,
And her too, pain, pain, pain?

My curse on all
This world of mud, on all its idiot gleams
Of pleasure, all the foul fatalities
That blast our natural passions into pains!

Enter Dobson.
Dobson.
You, Master Hedgar, Harold, or whativer
They calls ye, for I warrants that ye goäs
By haäfe a scoor o' naämes—out o' the chaumber.

[Dragging him past the body.
Harold.
Not that way, man! Curse on your brutal strength!
I cannot pass that way.

Dobson.
Out o' the chaumber!
I'll mash tha into nowt.

Harold.
The mere wild-beast!

Dobson.
Out o' the chaumber, dang tha!

348

Harold.
Lout, churl, clown!

[While they are shouting and struggling Dora rises and comes between them.
Dora
(to Dobson).

Peace, let him be: it is the chamber of Death!
Sir, you are tenfold more a gentleman,
A hundred times more worth a woman's love,
Than this, this—but I waste no words upon him:
His wickedness is like my wretchedness—
Beyond all language.

(To Harold.)

You—you see her there!
Only fifteen when first you came on her,
And then the sweetest flower of all the wolds,
So lovely in the promise of her May,
So winsome in her grace and gaiety,
So loved by all the village people here,
So happy in herself and in her home—

Dobson
(agitated).
Theer, theer! ha' done. I can't abeär to see her.

[Exit.
Dora.
A child, and all as trustful as a child!
Five years of shame and suffering broke the heart
That only beat for you; and he, the father,

349

Thro' that dishonour which you brought upon us,
Has lost his health, his eyesight, even his mind.

Harold
(covering his face).
Enough!

Dora.
It seem'd so; only there was left
A second daughter, and to her you came
Veiling one sin to act another.

Harold.
No!
You wrong me there! hear, hear me! I wish'd, if you—

[Pauses.
Dora.
If I—

Harold.
Could love me, could be brought to love me
As I loved you—

Dora.
What then?

Harold.
I wish'd, I hoped
To make, to make—

Dora.
What did you hope to make?

350

Harold.
'Twere best to make an end of my lost life.
O Dora, Dora!

Dora.
What did you hope to make?

Harold.
Make, make! I cannot find the word—forgive it—
Amends.

Dora.
For what? to whom?

Harold.
To him, to you!

[Falling at her feet.
Dora.

To him! to me!

No, not with all your wealth,
Your land, your life! Out in the fiercest storm
That ever made earth tremble—he, nor I—
The shelter of your roof—not for one moment—
Nothing from you!
Sunk in the deepest pit of pauperism,
Push'd from all doors as if we bore the plague,
Smitten with fever in the open field,
Laid famine-stricken at the gates of Death—
Nothing from you!

351

But she there—her last word
Forgave—and I forgive you. If you ever
Forgive yourself, you are even lower and baser
Than even I can well believe you. Go!

[He lies at her feet. Curtain falls.

353

APPENDIX.

355

RETICENCE.

Not to Silence would I build
A temple in her naked field;
Not to her would raise a shrine:
She no goddess is of mine;
But to one of finer sense,
Her half sister, Reticence.

Latest of her worshippers,
I would shrine her in my verse!
Not like Silence shall she stand,
Finger-lipt, but with right hand
Moving toward her lip, and there
Hovering, thoughtful, poised in air.
Her garment slips, the left hand holds
Her up-gather'd garment folds,
And veils a breast more fair to me
Than aught of Anadyomené!
Near the shrine, but half in sun,
I would have a river run,
Such as never overflows
With flush of rain, or molten snows.
Often shallow, pierced with light,
Often deep beyond the sight,
Here and there about the lawn
Wholly mute, but ever drawn

356

Under either grassy brink
In many a silver loop and link
Variously from its far spring,
With long tracts of murmuring,
Partly river, partly brook,
Which in one delicious nook,
Where the doubtful shadows play,
Lightly lisping, breaks away;
Thence, across the summit hurl'd,
Showers in a whisper o'er the world.

Additional lines and fragments of verse extracted from the notes.

376

THE ROSEBUD

The night with sudden odour reel'd,
The southern stars a music peal'd,
Warm beams across the meadow stole;
For love flew over grove and field,
Said, “Open, Rosebud, open, yield
Thy fragrant soul.”

378

TO THE VICAR OF SHIPLAKE

Vicar of that pleasant spot,
Where it was my chance to marry,
Happy, happy be your lot
In the Vicarage by the quarry:
You were he that knit the knot.

379

Sweetly, smoothly flow your life.
Never parish feud perplex you,
Tithe unpaid, or party strife.
All things please you, nothing vex you;
You have given me such a wife.

Have I seen in one so near
Aught but sweetness aye prevailing?
Or, thro' more than half a year,
Half the fraction of a failing?
Therefore bless you, Drummond dear.

Good she is, and pure and just.
Being conquer'd by her sweetness
I shall come thro' her, I trust,
Into fuller-orb'd completeness;
Tho' but made of erring dust.

You, meanwhile, shall day by day
Watch your standard roses blowing,
And your three young things at play
And your triple terrace growing
Green and greener every May.

Smoothly flow your life with Kate's,
Glancing off from all things evil,
Smooth as Thames below your gates,
Thames along the silent level
Streaming thro' his osier'd aits.

Mrs. Drummond Rawnsley.

384

THE BRIDAL

The lamps were bright and gay
On the merry bridal-day,
When the merry bridegroom
Bore the bride away!
A merry, merry bridal,
A merry bridal-day!
And the chapel's vaulted gloom
Was misted with perfume.
“Now, tell me, mother, pray,
Why the bride is white as clay,
Although the merry bridegroom
Bears the bride away,

385

On a merry, merry bridal,
A merry bridal-day?
And why her black eyes burn
With a light so wild and stern?”
“They revel as they may,”
That skinny witch did say,
“For—now the merry bridegroom
Hath borne the bride away—
Her thoughts have found their wings
In the dreaming of past things:
And though girt in glad array,
Yet her own deep soul says nay:
For tho' the merry bridegroom
Hath borne the bride away,
A dark form glances quick
Thro' her worn brain, hot and sick.”
And so she said her say—
This was her roundelay—
That tho' the merry bridegroom
Might lead the bride away,
Dim grief did wait upon her,
In glory and in honour.

In the hall, at close of day,
Did the people dance and play,
For now the merry bridegroom
Hath borne the bride away.
He from the dance hath gone
But the revel still goes on.
Then a scream of wild dismay
Thro' the deep hall forced its way,

386

Altho' the merry bridegroom
Hath borne the bride away;
And, staring as in a trance,
They were shaken from the dance.—
Then they found him where he lay
Whom the wedded wife did slay,
Tho' he a merry bridegroom
Had borne the bride away,
And they saw her standing by,
With a laughing crazed eye,
On the bitter, bitter bridal,
The bitter bridal-day.

421

END OF VOL. VII.