In Veronica's Garden :: :: University of Virginia Library

Omnia suppeditat porro Natura; neque ulla
Res animi pacem delibat tempore in ullo.
Titi Lucretii Cari De Rerum Natura, Lib. III. v. 23–24

Valori.
Is that your garden that I smell? How sweet!

Savonarola: a Tragedy, Act IV. scene 6

[_]

The verse has been extracted from prose text.

[Give me a roof where Wisdom dwells]

Give me a roof where Wisdom dwells,
Where honeysuckle smiles and smells,
A bleating flock, some lowing kine,
An honest welcome always mine,
A homely draught, a humble meal,

Leisure to live, to think, to feel,
A narrow plot, a prospect wide,
A patch upon the mountain side!
From these my heart you will not wean
For Fashion's tinsel, Splendour's sheen,
The Sceptre's favour, Senate's prize,
No, nor the Empire of your eyes.
Farewell! The Valley be your own!
And I will scale the heights,—alone.

[Here have I learnt the little that I know]

Here have I learnt the little that I know,
Here where in these untutored woodland ways
The primrose, all unconscious of our praise,
Dimpled the dainty coverlet of the snow,
March's first-born, and, still averse to go,
Though drowsy-lidded, dallies and delays
When, dawning through the bluebell's heavenly haze,
June into full mid-summer broadeneth slow.
Forgive me, friend, if these mean more to me,
Imbue my being with a deeper lore,
Come nearer to my heart, instruct me more
In what I am and what I fain would be,
Even than Sabine summit, Oscan shore,
Or Tiber curving tawnily to the sea.’

[My northern blood exults to face]

My northern blood exults to face
The rapture of this rough embrace,
Glowing in every vein to feel
The cordial caress of steel
From spear-blue air and sword-blue sea,
Armour of England's liberty.

[For where, beneath one's parent sky]

For where, beneath one's parent sky,
Our dear ones live, our dead ones lie.

THE PASSING OF SPRING

I

Spring came out of the woodland chase,
With her violet eyes and her primrose face,
With an iris scarf for her sole apparel,
And a voice as blithe as a blackbird's carol.

II

As she flitted by garth and slipped through glade,
Her light limbs winnowed the wind, and made
The gold of the pollened palm to float
On her budding bosom and dimpled throat.

III

Then, brushing the nut-sweet gorse, she sped
Where the runnel lisps in its reedy bed,
O'er shepherded pasture and crested fallow,
And buskined her thigh with strips of sallow.

IV

By the marigold marsh she paused to twist
The gold-green coils round her blue-veined wrist,
And out of the water-bed scooped the cresses,
And frolicked them round her braidless tresses.

V

She passed by the hazel dell, and lifted
The coverlet fern where the snow had drifted,
To see if it there still lingered on,
Then shook the catkins, and laughed, ‘'Tis gone!’

VI

Through the crimson tips of the wintry brake
She peeped, and shouted, ‘Awake! Awake!’
And over the hill and down the hollow
She called, ‘I have come. So follow, follow!’

VII

Then the windflower looked through the crumbling mould,
And the celandine opened its eyes of gold,
And the primrose sallied from chestnut shade,
And carried the common and stormed the glade.

VIII

In sheltered orchard and windy heath
The dauntless daffodils slipped their sheath,
And, glittering close in clump and cluster,
Dared norland tempests to blow and bluster.

IX

Round crouching cottage and soaring castle
The larch unravelled its bright-green tassel;
In scrub and hedgerow the blackthorn flowered,
And laughed at the May for a lagging coward.

X

Then, tenderly ringing old Winter's knell,
The hyacinth swung its soundless bell,
And over and under and through and through
The copses there shimmered a sea of blue.

XI

Like a sunny shadow of cloudlet fleeting,
Spring skimmed the pastures where lambs were bleating;
Along with them gambolled by bole and mound,
And raced and chased with them round and round.

XII

To the cuckoo she called, ‘Why lag you now?
The woodpecker nests in the rotten bough;
The song-thrush pipes to his brooding mate,
And the thistlefinch pairs: you alone are late.’

XIII

Then over the seasonless sea he came,
And jocundly answered her, name for name,
And, falsely flitting from copse to cover,
Made musical mock of the jilted lover.

XIV

But with him there came the faithful bird
That lives with the stars, and is nightly heard
When the husht babe dimples the mother's breast,
And Spring said, sighing, ‘I love you best.

XV

‘For sweet is the sorrow that sobs in song
When Love is stronger than Death is strong,
And the vanished Past a more living thing
Than the fleeting voice and the fickle wing.’

XVI

Then the meadows grew golden, the lawns grew white,
And the poet-lark sang himself out of sight;
And English maidens and English lanes
Were serenaded by endless strains.

XVII

The hawthorn put on her bridal veil,
And milk splashed foaming in pan and pail;
The swain and his sweeting met and kissed,
And the air and the sky were amethyst.

XVIII

‘Now scythes are whetted and roses blow,’
Spring, carolling, said; ‘It is time to go.’
And though we called to her, ‘Stay! O stay!’
She smiled through a rainbow, and passed away.

THE FALLEN ELM

I

The popinjay screamed from tree to tree,
Then was lost in the burnished leaves;
The sky was as blue as a southern sea,
And the swallow came back to the eaves.

II

So I followed the sound of pipe and bleat
To the glade where my dear old Elm,
With head majestic and massive feet,
Rules over a grassy realm.

III

When lo! where it once rose, robed and crowned,
Was naught but the leafless air:
Its limbs were low on the dinted ground,
And its body lay stripped and bare.

IV

Then I sate on the prostrate trunk, and thought
Of the times that I there had strayed
From the clamour and strife of tongues, and sought
The peace of its silent shade;

V

And, with none anear save the browsing beeves,
Had lain and refreshed my soul
With the maiden grace of its waving leaves,
And the strength of its manly bole.

VI

And I said, ‘Never more will the truant wind
Sit and swing in your lissom boughs;
Never more in your branches the ringdove find
A nook for its nuptial vows.

VII

‘Ne'er again will the thrifty squirrel store
In your hollows its wintry food,
And, unseen, in your rotted gnarls no more
Will the woodpecker hatch its brood.

VIII

‘When the cuckoo and nightingale voice in parts
May's madrigal loud and clear,
And the kingfisher dives and the dragonfly darts,
You will neither feel nor hear.

IX

‘Nor will swain and his sweet, when the wain's in the shed,
And the shadows stretch long and dark,
Make tender tryst at your foot, and wed
Their names on your fluted bark.

X

‘The seasons laugh at the seasons dead,
But never, when new Springs bleat,
Will you feel the sunshine around your head,
Or the moisture about your feet.

XI

‘And when Autumn's flail on the granary floor
Falls muffled by mellow sheaves,
Old elm, you will mirror yourself no more
In the lake of your littered leaves.’

XII

Then in silence sadder than speech I sat,
When a tremor began to shake
The ribs of the elm as it lay there flat,
And a voice in the branches spake:

XIII

‘Nay, pity me not, I am living still,
Though prone on the ploughed-up earth,
Though the woodreeve will lop me with hook and bill,
And the shroudmaker take my girth.

XIV

‘'Twas pleasant, when sap began to stir,
And branch, spray, and bud to shoot,
To hearken the newly-paired partridge whirr,
And the croak of the pairing coot;

XV

‘When the broodmare suckled her long-limbed foal,
To watch lovers meet and part,
And to feel, as they nestled against my bole,
The beat of each trusting heart.

XVI

‘But full as oft as on loving kiss
I gazed upon lonely tear;
And when drenched kine huddle and slant winds hiss,
Then living seemed long and drear.

XVII

‘Now, when jackdaws starve and the blizzard bites,
And the furrows are flecked with sleet,
And the owl keeps snug in the thatch o'nights,
And the waggoner chafes his feet;

XVIII

‘When the empty nest in the leafless hedge
Sits sad where the sweet birds sang,
And the mallard croaks in the frozen sedge,
And the wings of the wildgeese twang;

XIX

‘When the lean hare nibbles the birch-tree bark,
And the stoat grows lank and thin,
And the cubs of the vixen prowl the dark,
And the gossips sit and spin;

XX

‘They will carry me in from the well-walled garth,
Where the logs are split and stored,
And lay me down where the blazing hearth
Glints warm on the beakered board.

XXI

‘I shall roar my stave through the chimney's throat,
When the husky hindmen troll,
And flicker low when to children's note
The graybeard nods his poll:

XXII

‘Watch the ploughboy duck for the crab and miss,
While the bedesmen munch their dole,
And the buxom wench leaves a lickerish kiss
On the rim of the rounding bowl:

XXIII

‘See the children troop, ere they dint their beds,
And, hushing their pagan glee,
Raise dimpled hands, bow flaxen heads,
And pray at their mother's knee.

XXIV

‘Or, perched perchance at the windmill top,
I shall gaze upon gray-roofed farms,
When the clouds are still and the hurricanes drop;
Or up in my brawny arms

XXV

‘Catch the idle winds as they lag at play,
That in toil they may take their share,
And round and round dip my foamless way
Through the sea of the shoreless air.

XXVI

‘I shall listen, hushed, to the stars at night,
Shall abide betwixt earth and sky:
While one lives and works at a lofty height,
One may change, but one does not die.

XXVII

‘In the stream you love, I may find a home,
Where the quince by the miller's door
Floats flowers as white as his unsluiced foam,
Or the meal on his powdered floor.

XXVIII

‘And there I shall live in the mill-wheel's chase,
And sweat in the mid-day heat;
But the spray of my making will cool my face,
And the water-drip bathe my feet.

XXIX

‘I shall whirl till the wheat be ground and fanned
To meal for the cottager's pan:
O, 'tis merry and wise to go hand-in-hand
With Nature, to profit Man.

XXX

‘Or my boughs may be curved to the river-boat's keel,
And I, as the currents swing
And ripple about my ribs, shall feel
As if stirred with the sap of Spring.

XXXI

‘My crew will be only Youth and Grace,
She lissom, he steel, of limb;
His bronzed brow bent on her wildrose face,
And her wildrose face on him.

XXXII

‘His voice will repeat some poet's song
To the stroke of the rhythmic oar,
Till her maiden pulses quicken and long
For the gleam of the syren shore.

XXXIII

‘And when banks grow shady and oars at rest,
And we rudderless float and glide,
I shall feel their love-throbs within my breast,
And the grayling against my side.

XXXIV

‘O, I am not dead, though my head droops low,
That used in the Spring to soar
To the sky half-way, and the friendless crow
Will nest in my fork no more.

XXXV

‘'Twas a cheery and wild-wood life I led,
But as pagan as bird or beast;
For I never was christened, or churched, or wed,
Or tithed by the village priest.

XXXVI

‘Now I should not wonder if they who fell
My timber and lop my bark,
Were to want a beam for the sexton's bell,
Or a desk for the limping clerk.

XXXVII

‘I shall hear the chorister voices soar,
And the organ rise and roll;
And I, who had only sense before,
Shall awaken and find my soul.

XXXVIII

‘And when limbs, that oft through the driving sleet
Have staggered to stye and shed,
Are seen no more on the rustic seat,
But are stark on the hempen bed,

XXXIX

‘My planks will make them both wall and roof,
As snug as the ling-thatched fold,
Where they never will hear a harsh reproof,
Nor ever feel cramp or cold.

XL

‘So sorrow you not if I cease to soar,
And am sundered by saw and bill:
Rather hope that, like me, when you're green no more,
You may comfort your kindred still.’

XLI

Then the woodcutters came from their mid-day meal,
And I wandered, and felt no pang,
Though riving beetle and splintering steel
All day through the copses rang.

118

A TWILIGHT SONG

I

Why, rapturous bird, though shades of night
Muffle the leaves and swathe the lawn,
Singest thou still with all thy might,
As though 'twere noon, as though 'twere dawn?

119

Silence darkens on vale and hill,
But thou, unseen, art singing still.

II

'Tis because, though in dusky bower,
With love delighted still thou art;
Nor hath the deepening twilight power
To lay a curfew on thy heart.
Thou lovest; and, loving, dost prolong
The sense of sunlight with thy song.

III

Thus may love's rapture haunt me still
When life's full radiance fadeth slow
Along the faltering west, and fill
With melody my afterglow,
And something of Song's morning might
Linger, to make you doubt 'tis night.

121

[‘If you were mine, if you were mine]

‘If you were mine, if you were mine,
The day would dawn, the stars would shine,
The sun would set, the moon arise,
In holier and yet heavenlier skies.
Then unto me the Year would bring
A younger April, fresher Spring.
I should not then seek sylvan ways
For primrose clusters, woodbine sprays,
To hear the mavis' matin tale,
Or nocturn of the nightingale.
For at your coming there would pass
A glow, a glory, o'er the grass,
The flowers would in your gaze rejoice,
The wildwood carol in your voice,
Returning gleam chase lingering gloom,
And life be never out of bloom,
If you were mine!

‘If you were mine, I should not know
In what fair month the roses blow,

122

When the pure lily bares her brow,
Or ringdoves coo their nuptial vow.
For, with your hand soft-clasped in mine,
I still should smell the eglantine,
And, wheresoe'er our steps should stray,
The incense of the new-mown hay.
By restless wave or restful mere,
In wanderings far or wanderings near,
On cheerful down, in pensive glen,
It would be always Summer then,
If you were mine.

‘If you were mine, I should not fear
The warnings of the waning year,
The garnering sickle, girdled sheaf,
The falling acorn, floating leaf,
Moisture of eve and haze of morn,
Pearls turned to rubies on the thorn,
The silvering tress on fading brow,
The dimples that are furrows now.
For, leaving summits once I clomb,
With you, would seem but wending home.
Leaning on love in life's decline,
More sweet the shadow than the shine,
The cushat's perch than swallow's wing,
And Autumn peace than pomp of Spring,
If you were mine.

‘If you were mine, how then should I
Heed frozen fallow, churlish sky,
Bleak, songless branches, sapless rind,

123

The wailing of the homeless wind,
The dwindling days, the deepening snow,
The dull, dead weight of wintry woe?
For, harkening to the Christmas peal
Without, our hearts within would feel,
In glowing rafter, flickering blaze,
The sunshine of departed days,
And round the hearth dear memories swarm
To keep life young, to keep love warm,
If you were mine.’

‘Yet you are mine, yes, you are mine.
No length of land, no breadth of brine,
Can keep whom spirit links, apart,
Or make an exile of the heart.
And when from soul, no more the thrall
Of sense, the fleshly fetters fall,
And, purified by combats past,
Long-martyred love is crowned at last,
You then before the Heavenly Throne
Will take my hand, nor blush to own,
That you were mine!’

124

[When June is wreathed with wilding rose]

When June is wreathed with wilding rose,
And all the buds are blown,
And O, 'tis joy to dream and doze
In meadows newly mown,
Go take her where the graylings leap,
And where the dabchick dives,
Or where the bees from clover reap
The harvest for their hives;
For Summer is the season when,
If you but know the way,
A maid that's kissed will kiss again,
And pelt you with the hay,
The hay,

125

And pelt you with the hay.

126

['Tis because, though in dusky bower]

134

[‘Were I a Poet, I would dwell]

‘Were I a Poet, I would dwell,
Not upon lonely height,
Nor cloistered in disdainful cell
From human sound and sight.
I would live nestled near my kind,
Deep in a garden garth,
That they who loved my verse might find
A pathway to my hearth.

‘I would not sing of sceptred Kings,
The Tyrant and his thrall,

135

But everyday pathetic things,
That happen to us all:
The love that lasts through joy, through grief,
The faith that never wanes,
And every wilding bird and leaf
That gladdens English lanes.

‘Nor would I shape for Fame my lay,
But only for the sake
Of singing, and to charm away
My own or other's ache;
To close the wound, to soothe the smart,
To heal the feud of years,
And move the misbelieving heart
To tenderness and tears.

‘And when to me should come the night,
And I could sing no more,
And faithful lips could but recite
What I had sung before,
I would not have a pompous strain
Resound about my shroud,
Nor sepulchre in sumptuous fane,
Near to the great and proud.

‘But only they who loved me best
Should bear me and my lyre,
And lay us, with my kin, at rest
Under the hamlet spire,
Where everything around still breathes
Of prayer that soothes and saves,

136

And widowed hands bear cottage wreaths
To unforgotten graves.

‘And they might raise another cross
Within that hallowed ground,
And tend the flowers and trim the moss
About my grassy mound;
But, honouring me, would carve above
No impious boast of Fame,
And, not for Glory, but for Love,
Would keep alive my name.’

141

[When the reaper lays the sickle by]

When the reaper lays the sickle by,
And taketh down the flail:
When all we prized, and all we planned,
Is ripe and stored at last,
And Autumn looks across the land,
And ponders on the Past.

142

[Beyond the pasture's withered bents]

Beyond the pasture's withered bents,
Upstanding hop, recumbent fleece,
And sheaves of wheat, like weathered tents,
A twilight bivouac of peace.

146

[Give me October's meditative haze]

Give me October's meditative haze,
Its gossamer mornings, dewy-wimpled eves,
Dewy and fragrant, fragrant and secure,
The long slow sound of farmward-wending wains,
When homely Love sups quiet 'mid his sheaves,
Sups 'mid his sheaves, his sickle at his side,
And all is peace, peace and plump fruitfulness.

147

TO THE AUTUMN WIND

O envious Autumn wind, to blow
From covert vale and woodland crest
The mellow leaves, just as they glow
Brightest and loveliest;
To strip the maples black and bare,
To rob the beeches' russet gold,
And make what was of late so fair
But rustling drift and dripping mould.

Yet if, as you have done with them,
With me you will but timely do,
I will no more your rage condemn,
But, rather, make my peace with you.
Let me not linger on, to know
The mournfulness of feelings lost,
But waft me, while as yet they glow,
Wise Autumn wind, from winter frost!

154

[Why should I, from this long and losing strife]

Why should I, from this long and losing strife
When summoned to depart, halt half-afraid?
Death is full quittance for the debts of life,
Discharging the account, though still unpaid.

155

Who is it that can say he still hath met
Friendship's just claim and Duty's punctual call?
How little do we give for what we get,
And but for Death we should be bankrupts all!
For loan of life the richest but compound,
Love's priceless gift we but repay in part;
Beggared and bare our balance would be found,
If all we owe were honoured by the heart.
Die, and the lenders our default forget,
Nay, though defrauded, then deem theirs the debt.

162

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

I

Hark! In the air, around, above,
The Angelic Music soars and swells,
And, in the Garden that I love,
I hear the sound of Christmas Bells.

II

From hamlet hollow, village height,
The silvery Message seems to start,
And, far away, its notes to-night
Are surging through the city's heart.

III

Assurance clear to those who fret
O'er vanished Faith and feelings fled,
That not in English homes is yet
Tradition dumb, or Reverence dead:

IV

Nor, when anew from town-girt tower
Or fen-swept spire the Yule-bells peal,
Are those who watch o'er England's power
Too wise to pray, too proud to kneel.

V

Now onward floats the sacred tale,
Past leafless woodlands, freezing rills;
It wakes from sleep the silent vale,
It skims the mere, it scales the hills;

163

VI

And, rippling on up rings of space,
Sounds faint and fainter as more high,
Till mortal ear no more may trace
The music homeward to the sky.

VII

To courtly roof and rustic cot
Old comrades wend from far and wide:
Now is the ancient feud forgot,
The growing grudge is laid aside.

VIII

Bright on the board the gifts are spread,
The flagons gleam, the trenchers smoke;
The boar's is now the laurelled head,
Now is the Feast of simple folk.

IX

The agëd tell of ancient cheer,
And boast 'twas merrier then than now;
The children shout ‘A glad New Year!’
And kiss beneath the berried bough.

X

But, in the pauses of their mirth,
The Heavenly Hymn is carolled still:
‘Glory to God on high, on Earth
Peace, and to all mankind good-will.’

164

XI

Peace and good-will 'twixt rich and poor!
Good-will and peace 'twixt class and class!
Let old with new, let Prince with boor,
Send round the bowl, and drain the glass!

XII

That still behind the steely sea,
That guards our greatness like a sword,
The free-born children of the free
May own one law, one land, one lord;

XIII

And never in our midst may sound
Discordant voice or threat morose,
But every Year that circles round
May find and bind us yet more close.

XIV

But not alone for those who still
Within the Mother-Land abide,
We deck the porch, we dress the sill,
And fling the portals open wide.

XV

But unto all of British blood,—
Whether they cling to Egbert's Throne,
Or, far beyond the Western flood,
Have reared a Sceptre of their own,

165

XVI

And, half-regretful, yearn to win
Their way back home, and fondly claim
The rightful share of kith and kin
In Alfred's glory, Shakespeare's fame,—

XVII

We pile the logs, we troll the stave,
We waft the tidings wide and far,
And speed the wish, on wind and wave,
To Southern Cross and Northern Star.

XVIII

Yes! Peace on earth, Atlantic strand!
Peace and good-will, Pacific shore!
Across the waters stretch your hand,
And be our brothers more and more!

XIX

Blood of our blood, in every clime!
Race of our race, by every sea!
To you we sing the Christmas rhyme,
For you we light the Christmas-tree.