The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Not for a single moment must we hold
That England's force is spent. Not till the sun
Pales in the heavens will England's work be done.
Nay the pure Sun-God, armoured all in gold,
Still guides and guards us as in days of old
And still the Sea's wild love-kiss may be won:
The kiss She gives with passionate mouth to none
Save those of knightly mark and kingly mould.

Through deep-sown dangers, countless round thy road,
Strive onward, England. Lift thy giant load.
Whom heaven exalts no foeman can abase.
God gave thee a sword omnipotent when he
Left in thine hand the white hand of the Sea,
And set thy soul and Freedom face to face.

1904.

TWO SONNETS

I
THE UNIVERSE-CENTRE

“The supreme end and purpose of this vast Universe was the production and development of the living soul in the perishable body of man.” —Alfred Russel Wallace, in the Fortnightly Review for March, 1903.

Strange, if in truth this world of ours, so small,
So grief-devoured, should the grand centre be
Of that huge starry Universe we see,—
The end, the chief result, the crown of all!
Here is the battle fought. Here stand or fall
Armies whose swords flash through eternity.
We are the combatants, aye even we
Whose pigmy frames the sunlit voids appal.

O thought tremendous! thought that must perturb,
If it be true, the tremulous soul of man!
To know that fragrance of an earthly rose
Through the vast flowerless scentless spaces goes
Lonely, divine,—to know that Love can curb
The winds, and aid or mar the cosmic plan.

II
“POWERS SUPREMER”

Most strange, if woman's wondrous form we know
So sweet on earth should be alone indeed
In its pure beauty,—shaped, designed, decreed,
O'er all the marvelling heavens her spell to throw.
Perchance on not one other globe could grow
The flowers whose fragrant force the star-hosts need.
Here, here alone, can fail or can succeed
Love's dream. Here passion's foam-white torrents flow.

Most strange, most grand! when earthly lips are one
They find within the walls of their embrace
Life that will last when planets' lives are done.
Two lovers standing silent, face to face,
When strength divine worships diviner grace
Wield powers supremer than of star or sun.

“EVER MINE”

SONNET

As flowers the sunlit air of heaven, as night
The rays that from the starland float through space,
So ever doth the poet seek the face
Of Beauty, his by the eternal right
Of endless and unspeakable delight
That makes his heart her shrine in every place;
His in her fragrance, in her girlish grace,
Her passionate charm, her marvel and her might.

The poet follows where pure Beauty leads
For she to him is as the force divine
That fills with life the flowers of all the meads.
O Beauty, summer's flower-sweet breath is thine!
I ask no frowning help of flowerless creeds
If thou art ever with me, ever mine.

THE CELTIC MOVEMENT

SONNET

O conquered Ireland, conquered by the sword,
By force, by sullen strength, by soulless deeds,
Strange if at last thine own soul intercedes
Even for thy conquerors! Pure and sweet reward,
Divine great vengeance, if thine heart is poured
Forth in wild singing o'er thine hills and meads,
If England hearkens, then the whole world heeds!
The Celtic harp may thrill the Saxon horde.

O magic beauty in the old legend-land,
O charm residing in the mystic rose,
O power of passionate love that overflows,
O fairies white of soul and brow and hand,
Ye may reveal lost marvels, and the grand
Vast silent secret of the stars disclose.

“The Secret Rose,” by W. B. Yeats.

“THE STERNEST HOUR”

SONNET

O frivolous hearts that waste your days in dreams
Most weak, most futile, if the truth were known
Might it not startle on her wave-washed throne
England, and streak her heaven with blood-red gleams?
Though all so calm, so safe, so tranquil seems,
What if on us man's race, on us alone,
The fate of all the Universe, sun-sown,
Depends? What if we shape the stellar schemes?

It may be that the sternest hour has come
In all the life of all the globes we see
Thronging the dark plains of eternity.
Of all past ages ours may be the sum.
One planet speaks amid the millions dumb,
Urging huge hosts towards unknown victory.

“WHEN LIFE WAS YOUNG”

When life was young and love was gracious
And splendid leaping waves shone spacious,
How did my lyre laugh forth in glee!
The pleasant world was all before me
And blue June skies stooped gently o'er me,
And thou wast waiting by the sea.

But now the days no more in splendour
Are robed, nor crimson flush is tender
'Mid branches of the spring-bright tree,
And thou art gone, O woman peerless,
No more youth's queen, so pure, so fearless,
No more the lady of the sea.

Springs shine again: but these lack wonder.
The waves upon the same shores thunder
And suns and stars solicit me.
But all is changed. No more I enter
Love's golden temple's flame-crowned centre:
No more I worship by the sea.

I sing,—but not the old song. Rather
Red autumn leaves and fruit I gather
From russet hill-side, sunburnt lea.
No more in all the morning's lightness
I mix my soul with shuddering whiteness
Of the soft-laughing green-haired sea.

Nor are sweet sounds the same for ever.
The music-rush transfigures never
Though once God's hand it used to be.
And though the waves are blue they glow not
As once they flamed divine, and show not
Thy figure, shapely by the sea.

If this it is to grow yet older,
That all the heart may freeze and colder
May frown the thickening days that flee,
I'd give all knowledge and late pleasure
For one sweet August evening's treasure
Of moonlight o'er the old love-tinged sea.

“THOU DOST ENDURE”

When we are tost amid life's whirling waters
Foam-crested, wild and deep,
And none can charm us of earth's sweetest daughters,
What refuge save in sleep?

When not one rose is left, nor violet nestling
In the sweet hollow way;
When the far skies with black-plumed clouds are wrestling
And all the seas are grey:

When death is at the door and, faint and lonely,
Our spirit stands apart
From man and woman, seeking comfort only;
When passion fails, and Art:

When the bright golden glittering love-land fadeth,
When woman's eyes grow dim,
Is there yet One who healeth nor upbraideth
And can we turn to him?

Is there a Force beyond the surging waters,
A Power beyond the skies,
Stronger than earth's sons, gentler than her daughters,
With more than woman's eyes?

With tenderer than her lips, and perfect pleasure
Of endless high embrace,
And selfless rescuing love that knows no measure
In his most awful face?

When we are weary, and nought but death can find us,
And dead are mortal dreams,
And suns are hidden, or blaze forth but to blind us,
And hushed are all the old streams:

When all the flowers are withered, and the glory
Of earth departs indeed,
And hearts grow sere, and aging heads grow hoary,
And world-pierced spirits bleed:

When never again the dew falls in the meadows
Quite as it fell of old,
And sweet enchantment quits the evening shadows,
Forsakes the sunset's gold:

When friends betray, and all the world is hollow,
And all the stars are pale,
Whom shall we seek, and whom for Leader follow,
And whom for Champion hail?

What refuge save in thee, thou God most tender
And infinite and high?
Fold us around with more than starlike splendour,
With more than sunset sky!

Fill us with all thy strength, and with thy passion
That, being strong, is pure.
Men change. Thou changest not in mortal fashion.
Hearts fail. Thou dost endure.

LOVE

Though all the blossoms perish, and the seas
Turn grey at anger of the evening breeze:
Though souls grow weary, and faint hearts turn pale:
Love hath avail, love hath avail!

Though men be mad with yearning unexpressed
And not the farthest hill-top yields us rest:
Though over endless heartless seas we sail:
Love hath avail, love hath avail!

Though dreams of youth with weary hearts and eyes
Melt beyond mists of morn and sunset skies:
Though every hope we cherished seems to fail:
Love hath avail, love hath avail!

Though all the deepening glory of vernal green
Shall soon be but a garment that has been,
Yet trees and blossoms cry, while wild winds wail,
“Love hath avail, love hath avail!”

The love that mixes with the heart divine
As the stars seek the waves wherein they shine:
Whose wings control the loud ship-shattering gale:
This hath avail, this hath avail!

The love that nought can dim nor turn aside,
High as the sun and as the sweet sea wide:
The love that deepens when time's swords assail:
This hath avail, this hath avail!

The love beyond all words, beyond all creeds,
Pierced till it faints and wounded till it bleeds:
With thorns on brow, through either hand a nail:
This hath avail, this hath avail!

O men that struggle towards the far dim light,
Love hath the seas' pent force, the mountains' might:
Feet shod with love the blue heavens' summits scale:
Love hath avail, love hath avail!

BEYOND

Beyond the travail of earth and all its sorrow
We twain may meet
And watch the roses gleam on God's to-morrow
Soft, fair, and sweet.

By some far sea where sunlit waves are breaking
One day we'll stand
And all our souls shall thrill with rapture waking,
Hand cleave to hand.

And all the skies shall be love's pure dominion
And pain shall flee
With weary down-bent vanquished coal-black pinion
Across the sea.

And we shall heave one sigh of sweetest wonder
And one of peace,
While far upon the horizon grief's last thunder
Rolls, soon to cease.

And we shall know that all the strife is over:
Ah! rest,—how sweet.
How tender-soft the supple yielding clover
To tired-out feet!

And we shall meet each other's eyes with yearning
While soft seas break
Before us, the melodious shingle spurning,
And lost dreams wake.

Nor shall we know till the strange morning finds us
That we are dead:
That love's hand is as death's hand when it binds us,
When grief is fled!

Then, crowned with our thorn-wreath, one soul immortal,
Two souls shall rise
Entering eternal life's majestic portal
Whose bars are skies.

And heaven shall seem like one love-night whose glory
Will ne'er grow cold
But flame for ever o'er time's summits hoary
With wings of gold.

The night when first thy whiteness with me blended,
Me bruised and worn:
When pain was slain, and sorrow's rule was ended,
And hope was born.

TWO SONNETS

“OUR LEADER”

I

“Oh, for one half-hour of Gladstone!”
—The Bishop of Worcester at St. James's Hall, Sept. 29, 1903.

Darkness no star can pierce, no sunny ray
Of hope or life, no light of loftier dreams:
Blood-torrents tinging Macedonian streams,
Shed by the ravening wild hordes who obey
Him who should shrink to meet the face of day.
No answering flash of sudden sword that gleams:
A nation puzzling over fiscal schemes
And led by blindest guides for leagues astray.
“Oh, for one half-hour” of the heart that spake
And Tyranny with form abashed down-cowered,
And lands dishonoured and white souls deflowered
Saw through dense clouds a glimmer of sunshine break,
Seeing England's wrath in Gladstone's gaze awake,
Hearing the passionate voice divinely dowered.

“OUR LEADER”

II

Yet is it so? May not the spirit grand
Who fought a battle no soul yet has fought
For England's nobler soul, who, set at nought,
Contemned, rejected, lifted yet the land
Towards heights we dimly now can understand,—
Who in man's heart a work unheard-of wrought,
Heedless of thrones, exalting Love and Thought,
Discrowning Evil with his strong right hand—
May not to-day that spirit superb look down
From some great realm the greater for his crown
Of deathless pity, and his human might?
May not that spirit with England's soul to-day
Commune, our Leader in the heroic way,
Our Guide through grief to joy, through gloom to light?

A LONDON NIGHT

SONNET

To-night above our City's roofs and towers
The clear moon hangs within a summer sky
Almost. What souls to-night with kiss and sigh
Will mix wild hearts and gather passion's flowers!
How through the night's dim moonlit lamplit hours
Bright angels and dark angels fleeting by
Will blend the joys that live, the joys that die!
At Woman's touch will gleam what magic bowers?

To-night, to-night, some pure soft virgin heart
With all its own for love's sweet sake will part,
Trusting some human spirit with love supreme.
To-night...in thirty years what will night's air
Behold? A face immeasurably fair?
Or features fouler than hell's foulest dream?

Sept. 30, 1903.

THE SOUL OF ENGLAND

If the strong soul from England goes,
The soul that loves the weak,—
The soul that in the past arose
Vengeance divine to wreak;

The soul that drew the loving gaze
Of those who strove and fought
On blood-red fields, in slippery ways,
For Freedom, Peace and Thought;

The soul that wept for Poland's fall,
That clasped Mazzini's hand,
That aye responded to a call
For help by sea or land;

The soul that through the voice superb
Of Swinburne hailed the young
Republic bursting chain and curb,
The strife that Hugo sung;

The soul that when the Southern slave
At last was saved and free
Sent o'er the blue Atlantic's wave
The greeting of the sea;

The soul that never, through wild years
Of struggle, quite forgot
The toils of others and their tears,
But shared the human lot;

The soul that through our women spake
In tenderness supreme,—
That where a heart could throb or break
Found Song's divinest theme;

School towering grandly on the green-leafed Hill
And Chapel whence so many prayers have flown
Heavenward, your calm, your hopes were once my own:
Once I was with you, safe from pain and ill,
Young, ardent, happy, pure in soul and will.
Now I steer onward, evermore alone,
See sweetest memories vanish with a moan
But feel your power, a holiest influence, still.

O Harrow, if my heart in those bright days
Had known life's meaning better than I knew,
What heights half-climbed a conqueror's steps had trod!
Still would the everlasting skies be blue,
The sinless nights divine with starry rays,
And all the living world aflame with God.

FOUR SONNETS ON MACEDONIA

I
ENGLAND'S MOMENT

Europe awaits a mandate! Strong and clear
If but the voice of nobler England sounds,
The wild beast, Death, will pause upon his rounds:
Mankind will hearken, starriest heaven will hear.
It is no hour for weak-lipped doubts or fear
For lo! the Sultan hunts with hell's black hounds.
While Emperors smile, blood drips from children's wounds
And horror heightens with the freshening year.

Stern hearts allied can stem the crimson stream.
Deep pity thrills the chivalry of France:
Mazzini's land is stirring and awake.
Others are moving. Shall we only dream?
Can no great passion lift us from our trance?
Immense the moment, and immense the stake.

II
A TRIPLE ALLIANCE

How grand a stroke for angels to record,—
That Milton's, Dante's, Hugo's warrior-lands
Joined ardent hearts and crime-subversive hands
And won for once Love's victory by the sword!
Beyond all dreams might be those Powers' reward.
From flower to flower a righteous deed expands:
Fresh fruits it bears, as year by year commands
And heavenlier sunlight round its path is poured.

France, England, Italy,—might not these attain
At last the ending of the blood-stained quest?
Might not the fleets that war with wave and breeze
Threaten the Turk, and in a twinkling gain
Through the near East a triumph for the West
Outtopping all old dull diplomacies?

III
TO THE POPE

Vicar of Christ, who holdest in thine hand
A sword far-reaching, keen to save or smite,
Rise up, be strong, shed forth thy Church's light.
The hosts of hell at thy supreme command
May scatter, and that blood-drenched Eastern land
May change its robes of red to robes of white.
Plead with divine authority. Invite
Kings to confer, make nations understand.

Thou art the leader of an army vast,
Vast on the earth, yet vaster in the skies.
On saints, not only upon the living, call.
Trumpet to trumpet echoing through the past
Will answer. Angel-legions will arise,
And Jericho's towers will totter, wall by wall.

IV
TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND

Queens of fair England, England of the rose,
The sunlit vale, the ocean-girdled shore,
The flower-sweet fields where no gaunt cannons roar,—
Queens of a land where love's heart may repose
Heedless of aught save the deep peace it knows,
The joys it brings, the heaven it can restore,—
Think of grim agony regnant, nor ignore
Measureless grief, most unexampled woes.

Vast is your power and vast your influence high.
Not yet your hearts have spoken as of old
When pity and love and your own souls were one.
Your prayers can summon, white-winged from the sky,
Spirits of force undreamed-of. Speak, be bold.
Banish this darkness, and relight the sun.

March, 1904.

“IF BUT THE DEAD WERE LIFTED QUITE”

If but the dead were lifted quite
To some glad land of heavenly air;
If they could vanish—all that once they were
At one swift stroke be riven from mortal sight;

Then...then we might revere
The hand that fashioned, and the hand that slew:
Then might we say, “The loving soul we knew
Lives on, loves on,—no trace of it is here.”

Alas! a trace remains.
Death doing so much, left still his task undone.
Death paused,—and left a mandate to the rains,
The frosts, the snows of years—the storms, the sun!

May 16, 1892.

“UNMOVED’

So many thoughts through my own brain have passed
Since these two died, so many a silent dream!
The crocus twice has dared the blast
And twice the sky grown blue within the stream.

Though rose may rival sister rose
And year by year the splendent dahlia vie
With the bright sunset-sky,
And lovelier lilies on the stream repose;

Though in our same old land
Yet fairer women year by year may rise
With unchanged charm in younger eyes,
Love's sceptre still in white imperial hand;

Though singers one by one
May chant, when chainless thought, supreme,
Prevails at last, no Church's dream,
But sovereign morning's tribute to the sun;

Though great deeds may abound
And still through many a maddening fight
Flame England's helm alight,—
Though clashing swords in our green lanes may sound;

Though this be so, these silent graves
Will hearken not, the dead within will lie
Unmoved by sunlight, clamour of the waves,
Beauty of woman, thunders of the sky.

JEAN RICHEPIN

Darkness, darkness everlasting, so it seemed that it must be,
Darkness over lake and mountain, over gulf and sunless sea,
Darkness when the Master left us—when no more at Hugo's glance
Morning lit with loveliest roseflush all the wakening fields of France.

Fields of France and meads of England, for the singer reigned supreme,
Filling all the world with sunlight, holding all hearts with his dream:
When the dream at last was over, when the giant's eyes grew dim,
Came the reign of death and silence; Song, it seemed, had died with him.

Nature, history, love and passion, all superbly had been sung;
Rude must seem all other accents, after his the sovereign tongue;

Loveless all the hearts of poets, harsh their hands upon the strings,
Dwarfish all the choirs of singers, pale their crowns beside the king's.

So we felt for one dark moment. Then with crowns of varied gleams
Flashed new stars upon the watchers, carrying on love's broken dreams.
Though the Master's harp was silent, yet the lyre of Richepin spoke,
And the waves and mountains listened, and the wood-nymphs smiled and woke.

Singer strong and true we hail him, yet he sings not of the light;
Round his brow broods stubborn darkness, and his keen gaze probes the night.
Through his music rings the music, through his eyes there flames the glance,
Not of Hugo but Lucretius, new to flower-bright sanguine France.

Yet at this our century's ending well it is that one should rise
Bold of heart to face the blackness, even the gloom of star-proof skies;
Quick of ear to catch and render in his anguish-maddened strain,
Not creation's hymn of triumph, but the gaunt world's groan of pain.

After hosts of soft-tongued singers chanting idly “All is well!”
Right it is that one should question “May not life be living hell?”
Are not all things base, deceptive? what of altar and of shrine?
Can a world so racked and tortured in its dark depths be divine?

After Hugo wreathed with roses, crowned with sorrow Richepin came,
In his heart the love that fails not, on his lips the words of flame:
After summer-cradled waters, after Hugo's sunlit form,
Comes the wild wail of the breakers, comes the thunder-crested storm.

1894.

THIS LIFE

This life is sad. The blossoms every spring,
The stars, the laughing waves upon the sea,
Cry, “Death is throned as your perpetual king,
But life is ours, to all eternity.

“Ye pass, we pass not. Every flower ye love
Is endless, for its race will never die.
Deathless are all the stars that smile above:
Immortal are the clouds that fleck the sky.

“Man only is mortal. Every soul we greet
Half with pure welcome, half with mocking scorn.
Man finds the beauteous earth so very sweet;
So fair he finds the pink cheek of the morn.

“And yet for but one moment he abides;
For but one night for him the stars are grand:
For but one little hour the purple tides
Watch lovers strolling on the golden sand.

“Yea, then the lovers pass, the tides flow on;
The stars steer on across an unchanged sky.
The sun to-day is that same sun which shone
Ere man began to live and love,—and die.

“Each flower ye love, each green fern of the dell,
Each star ye worship, greets you, but each cries
With the same voice that greets, ‘Farewell! Farewell’
‘Farewell!’ the great sun calls to you, from the skies.

“‘Farewell! To-morrow I shall sail in state
Through viewless leagues of soft subservient air,
While ye will struggle on, and war with Fate,
And love and weep, and triumph and despair.

“‘The next day, ye will die.’ So saith the sun,
And all created things feel sad at heart
To think Creation's lord, and kingliest one,
Must soonest of all living powers depart.

“Remember therefore, not one rose ye greet
But sighs a ‘Farewell!’ from its golden core.
While vanquished races from the earth retreat
Stars, oceans, flowers, abide for evermore.”

II

Rose by rose shines out for ever, their gay groups will vanish never
Filling garden after garden, scenting all the summer breeze:
From the fern-lined quiet valleys still the silver streamlet sallies
And the white foam flings its stainless wedding-garment o'er the seas.

III

Or by orb the stellar legions fill the far sky's viewless regions
And the pale moon sails resplendent through the purple seas of space.
Darkness still is full of fancies for the hearts that weave romances,
Finding all the heavens' pure starlight in one human worshipped face.

IV

Still within the forest covers mix the hearts and hands of lovers,
Still the lover seeks the eternal in the moment's endless bliss:
Still the silences are broken by the mystic old words spoken
And the rose becomes self-conscious and divine in woman's kiss.

V

But the souls that pass and leave us, as the swift fierce years bereave us
Of our pleasures, of our gladness, of our health and hopes and ease,

Where are they? What darkness holds them? What of awful light enfolds them?
What of Shelley when above him closed the mantle of the seas?

VI

He who sang the bright world's wonder, when he heard alone the thunder
And beheld alone the curving loveless white breasts of the waves,
Did he then, no more a dreamer, pass to life and love supremer
Than our noblest living passion in this earth of flowers and graves?

VII

Or did speechless terror grasp him, as the waves' hands sought to clasp him,
As the flower-sweet glad earth vanished from his thoughts and from his ken,—
As he turned towards one who waited, one for evermore unmated,
Or yearned back in that dread moment towards a lost love once again?

VIII

That is what to-day we wonder, striving madly now to sunder
Death's serene and sombre curtain, full of starlight or of gloom.
What of sins and wild offences when the human nerves and senses
Fail, or change their form and message at the gateway of the tomb?

IX

What of pain and expiation, what of undreamed tribulation,
What of horror, what of anguish, what of darkness closing round,
When the soul, a conscience only, pays for life's sins, joyless, lonely,
Naked, helpless, homeless, loveless, in a realm without a sound?

X

What of souls for ever dying? Though we hear no groans nor crying
Yet there may be round about us in the starshine, in the air,

Fieriest torment past our speaking, mad revenge that fiends are wreaking
On the souls we counted victors, on the faces we found fair.

XI

Passion changeless, love eternal! Yes: but this by hate infernal
May be dogged and dogged for ever. Life's dim secrets who shall tell?
Through unmeasured tribulations, on through endless incarnations
Still may toil the human spirit, changing fairest heaven for hell.

XII

What of noblest love that perished, unredeemed, uncrowned, uncherished,
In the far-off silent eras that no legend may restore?
If in one life pain is boundless, what of pain's grim footsteps soundless
Over years that know no limit, or on seas that know no shore?

XIII

Love eternal may for ever bring sweet joy that lessens never,
Growing upward, upward alway, gathering flowers in heavenly meads:
Love unchanging, stern and deathless, crowned with starless agony, breathless,
May for ever pant pursuing a pale ghost that still recedes.

XIV

Oh, we apprehend so little, we who deem love's bonds are brittle,
What of mystery, strange, unfathomed, lurks within the gentlest eyes!
With her soul the woman holds us, when her soft embrace enfolds us,
And the soul releases never, and the last kiss never dies.

XV

Are not lovers still abiding in some union death-deriding?
Are not all stars linked together? Is not changeless law supreme?

Love eternal, hate unfailing, endless struggle, hopeless wailing,
Now and then one mighty vision of God's face, one marvellous gleam!

XVI

Is it triumph, is it terror? Is it victory over error
That the human race is winning, or a larger power of pain?
Is the crown of love most tender, after all, a blood-stained splendour?
Is it joy or is it anguish? Is it loss or is it gain?

1904.

Absit omen!

SONNET

(“Slain by judgment thou shalt die.” Mr. Swinburne's Sonnet, called “Czar Louis XVI. Adsit omen!”)

Who shall the supreme Judge's task assume?
Not wholly mean the ill-starred Louis rose
Erect amid not wholly heroic foes:
Dethroned, not all unmanned, he strove with doom.
Wrath's lightnings bring not dawn from midnight's gloom.
Slowly man's sense of larger justice grows:
Hugo abides, when blood-grimed Marat goes:
Heaven's true Republic builds not on the tomb.

Most storm-tossed saddest spirit of all the race
Has been the darkling soul men call the Czar.
No flower-strewn path his wavering feet have trod.
Behold within the judgment-angel's face,
Than the sun's utmost flame more dreadful far,
The immense unswerving awful pity of God.

January 27, 1905.

A DEAD PROPHET

(“Je crois en Dieu.” Victor Hugo on his death-bed.)

I

Since the passing of the Master, death and sorrow and disaster,
Grief and battle and grim horror, all before our eyes have gleamed.
Since the impassioned marvellous singing through the listening world went ringing,
What has time accomplished? Little—of the deeds the poet dreamed.

II

Still the world he loved, predicting that our strifes and aims conflicting
Would be merged in peace made perfect in a nobler epoch born,
Struggles on, with anguish shaken. One by one life's hopes awaken:
One by one life's fair hopes perish, while the wild hours laugh in scorn.

III

Revolution's blood-bright glory still for Hugo closed the story
Of the people's timeless sorrow, brought unmeasured hopes to birth.
Then at last the strong sun's splendour forced all darkness to surrender,
So he deemed, proclaiming freedom to a saved exultant earth.

IV

Giant faith, supreme and splendid, ever widening, vast, extended
From our earth to farthest heaven,—reaching, fearless, down to hell!
How we miss the word that told us that Love's arms for ever hold us,
That with even the worst and saddest in the end it must be well.

V

To each woman, pale, heart-broken, some sweet word of new hope spoken
Should bring solace everlasting, joy that deepens evermore.
“Yes, at Judas' wild repentance, I would change, reverse, the sentence:
I would say to Judas, ‘Enter.’ I would open wide the door.”

VI

Since the poet's great soul left us, since at last Time's hand bereft us
Of the heart that sought grief's twilight, of the eyes that sought the sun,
Since that hour the world has darkened, men in vain have yearned and hearkened
For some voice of noble mandate, for some large song-victory won.

VII

Wars and pangs and desolation! For our sorrowing troubled nation
Ceased 'mid battle's peals of thunder the Victorian vast repose.
Through the forced down-beaten gateway surged in clamorous myriads straightway
All the spirits that foster discord, all love's strenuous dark-browed foes.

VIII

Strife in Africa raged chainless,—War's steeds, foaming, frantic, reinless,
Dragged their chariots over thousands and the children wailed and fell.
Who shall tell us, who shall measure, what was lost of love's pure treasure,
What was wasted of soul-brightness, what of heaven's heart entered hell?

IX

If, divine from heights above us, longing yet to serve, to love us,
On our earth the soul of Hugo, angel-great, majestic, gleamed,
How that pure soul must have shuddered as it watched the world unruddered
Drifting towards the white-mouthed breakers, knowing Love in vain had dreamed!

X

Then came Macedonia's terror—doubt, betrayal, darkness, error;
All the summer flowers as ever towards God's heaven their fragrance poured:
But amid the flowers were wailing sobs that sought heaven unavailing,
Forms that wrestled as with demons, forms that writhed upon the sword.

XI

Then in Eastern far-off regions mixed Japan's and Russia's legions;
Human blood-drops mingled ever with the white foam on the deep:
The bright moonbeams shone and sported on dead faces, weird, distorted,
Thousands hurled by man's inventions into sudden blood-stained sleep.

XII

Once the grand voice spake in thunder, and a world in silent wonder
Watched as Empire shook and tottered, as Napoleon reeled and fell.
Would not Hugo's great heart darken, if to-day he had to hearken
To the deepening wail of anguish of the world he loved so well?

XIII

Hugo's stern Republic fighting still with Rome, old feuds exciting
Ever newer hate and anger in the world he thought reborn!
Darkness still around us brooding, from the darkness still protruding
Clustered swords we never dreamed of, not a token as yet of morn!

XIV

Can he bend, divinely grieving, o'er us, he who died believing
That the God of love was near us? Can he reach us with a word?
If a deed was done inhuman, deadly wrong to man or woman,
Still his spirit, so he told us, in the thunder would be heard.

XV

Yes, we linger, hoping, praying that the stars their light conveying
To our earth may also bring us light of hope from souls afar:
That for man's redemption striving still works grandly, still surviving,
One whose heart with Christ's heart mingled, one whose soul is as a star.

1904.

THE BATTLE OF THE SEA OF JAPAN

May 27 and 28, 1905

SONNET

Great past all strength of watchers to appraise,
The deed by faith and patient valour done
When on Tsushima's waters sank the sun
And night's grim victory followed on the day's!
Before the Western nations' wondering gaze
The East stood forth, and fought for life, and won.
Ship by ship foundered, gun by giant gun,
And a new Empire met the morning's rays.

What that fierce anguish meant what tongue can tell?
Fate's full desire what mortal power can name
Or read the secret of the word that came
Fire-winged from heaven through battle's monstrous hell?
But this we know, that some vast idol fell
And Nelson's land is glad at Togo's fame.

TWO SONNETS

AN ACTOR'S BURIAL

I

[_]

Sir Henry Irving died at Bradford on October 13, 1905, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on October 20.

Crowned by a world whose heart his genius swayed,
Through dim October light a great man goes
From ceaseless labour to supreme repose:
The arduous part has been superbly played.
Death summoned,—and no dallying foot delayed:
The curtain falls that for the long toil rose.
To that strange stage no human eyesight knows
He passes, trusting, hopeful, undismayed.

Missing the actor changed into a friend,
His London for a moment feels alone.
Once more the Abbey's solemn arms extend
Welcome. No sound of ringing trumpets blown
Marshals this valiant spirit to his end,
But Memory's hands will rear his silent throne.

AN ACTOR'S BURIAL

II

He saw with genius' glance the future hour
When England's nobler drama, nobly done,
Shall on some grand ideal stage be one
With English acting, a most mighty power:
Heir of the age when, bursting into flower
At Marlowe's touch, its passionate life begun,
Beneath those heavens where Shakespeare was the sun
Our drama gave to time that priceless dower.

Shakespeare his debtor, Tennyson his friend,
While Becket's last great words became his own,
Immortal, here he met his mortal end,
Treading the lampless ghostly boards alone;
Destined through all the undying years to be
On England's stage a deathless memory.

THE ANGEL OF ENGLAND

I

While our puny tasks engross us, while the hearts of thousands dream,
While we dally with our pleasures or our grief,
Gladly, sadly, the world marches towards some destiny supreme
And it may be that the fatal hours are brief.

II

What of England? What of glory in the future shall there be
Left for England, if she loses in her turn
Lordship over many peoples with the lordship of the sea,—
If the fates that beckoned ever, change and spurn?

III

So a man may win a woman,—for an hour he guards and holds,
For an hour, one fleeting moment. What avails?
There are watchful foemen waiting. What his conqueror's arm enfolds
May elude him, if his strength or wisdom fails.

IV

Lo! he wakes and she has vanished, and the world is left in dim
Utter darkness, cold and starless evermore.
The queen-woman once made over, wholly trusted unto him,
Passes out, but pauses ghostlike at the door.

V

So a pause has come, a moment in our history, strange and stern,
For we have to choose the pathway we will take,
And we have not long to loiter, for the tide is on the turn,
And a Bride's heart is our own, to win or break.

VI

Yea, the Spirit superb and stainless whose soft breath was on the sea
And her sweetness in the roses of our land
Pauses yet with love and longing. Would we have her footstep flee?
Would we lose the passionate pressure of her hand?

VII

Not in fancy do we dream of watchful spirits who surround,
Some with love, but some with hatred in their gaze.
One has led us, one has loved us, one has guarded us and crowned,
One has guided us through dark and devious ways.

VIII

But the seers whose souls can travel through the shadows and the gloom
Tremble now—they see behind the figure white
Darker forms that wait and threaten, evil hosts that tower and loom,
And they see the sun's orb menaced by the night.

IX

All the world is moved to turmoil. In the northland Russia stirs:
The far Eastern peoples wake to life unknown.
India watches, dimly wondering what of changed doom may be hers:
Europe watches, from her still unshaken throne.

X

Revolution's undercurrent, soundless, ever tinged with red,
Flows beneath the lordly palaces of kings.
Peace the Czar desired. The moonlight on white faces of his dead
Glitters now, the answering vultures wave their wings.

XI

Poland, Finland, lightward struggle, and the Russian with the Jew
Wrestles, till at last the bomb does ruthless work.
O'er Armenia God looks down from ceaseless skies of sunlit blue,
But he sees the dripping weapons of the Turk.

XII

Such the world is in this vaunted twentieth century after Christ,
With the Churches chanting hymn and solemn psalm:
Satan ever with the crimson-handed Sultan keeping tryst;
Europe gazing, half amused and wholly calm.

XIII

Mighty poets dead, forgotten, mighty statesmen passed away,
While we dream of gold and luxury and gain!
No stern Leader whom the people with stern passion may obey:
Titans vanish,—but the clamorous dwarfs remain.

XIV

Women changing, not to angels, English women downward drawn,
English streets at night a wonder and a crime,
While above our city still as ever breaks the sinless dawn
Crimson, golden, not in Christ's day more sublime.

XV

Still the Angel's gaze upon our wanton sinful city set,
Still the love supreme in lingering heart and eye
Full of tender pity and yearning, one immense divine regret,
One immense divine redemptive agony!

XVI

Yet a moment have we, yet an hour to lift to heaven our gaze:
At the doorway pauses ever the white Form
Who would save us, who would guide us through the future's darkling ways,
Ever shining, a star-beacon, through the storm.

August 14, 1904.

VAE VICTIS!

I

Progress ever! Pure and holy shines the light of morning, slowly
Brightening all that seemed so evil, changing sad things into sweet!
Man the victor, man the giant, lord of all things, self-reliant,
Shall be crowned with golden sunshine, darkness trembling at his feet.

II

But the vanquished? What of roses that the summer morn discloses
Lying pale and bruised and sodden in the miry heedless way?
What of violets in the hollows that no sunshine guards and follows,
Lying loveless, doomed and helpless, trodden slowly into clay?

III

One succeeds—a thousand falter. One to marriage's white altar
Brings in triumph sweet and solemn the pure footstep of his bride.
With her wedding-robe around her, lo! what angel-hands have crowned her:
All the summer brings its lilies, all is joy and peace and pride.

IV

But another, even fairer, with a wealth of passion rarer,
Lovelier far, it may be, hidden in the soul's depths dark and lone,
Through the horror of the passion that the lewd streets mould and fashion
Will pass downward towards the blackness circling Satan's lurid throne.

V

Oh, the misery to perceive it, the compulsion to believe it,
That for every deed of virtue wrought beneath the approving sun

There is balance in some terror, some mad sin, some piteous error,
Some huge triumph of the darkness, some vast evil wildly done!

VI

Lo! in every generation the bright daughters of the nation
Bring to sweet life here in England all their purity, their power.
When the blossoms flame in splendour, then girl-blossoms far more tender
Bring their wealth of pure soul-fragrance, many a white or rose-flushed flower.

VII

Yet at that same moment, sinking deep and surely hellward, drinking
With their pale wan lips for ever of a shame no tongue can tell,
There are women man would die for, some that angels' souls must sigh for,
Plunging downward, ever downward, while strange laughter rings from hell.

VIII

To the vanquished woe eternal! Yes, the sentence base, infernal,
Seems in blood-red letters written on the universe's walls.
For the victor gratulation, joy and songs and acclamation!
Scorn and anguish never-dying for the soul that fails and falls!

IX

To the poet bring his laurel. Then for years dispute and quarrel
Over all he loved and fought for. Take his sins, his errant deeds:
Let the sun's full light embellish these, enlarge with instinct hellish;
Cast them down amid the garbage where the prowling critic feeds.

X

Let his brave deeds be forgotten,—let them perish, rankling, rotten,
Lost amid wild waves of rancour! Pour your uttermost disdain

On a sin that was a sorrow, wrought, repented of to-morrow:
Overlook, ignore for ever, all the love and all the pain.

XI

To the weak ones woe for ever! Let them rise to gladness never!
Christ discerned his Father's likeness in the pure face of a child.
Yet the children, how they perish! Some would succour, some would cherish:
Yet the children grow life-weary, long before they even have smiled.

XII

Oh, our valour scientific, what avails it when terrific,
Vast, unceasing, stern, tremendous, still the fight for life prevails?
Yea, the gentlest sooner falling, all in vain for help are calling,
All in vain, in vain for ever, for some blind god holds the scales.

XIII

Is the struggle of life extending to the stars,—do they too, blending
Life with starry life, it may be, ever fill the fields of space,
Where the thunders roar and rattle, with the din of deadliest battle,
Shifting ever rank and order, changing post and task and place?

XIV

Might we some day wake and murmur, “Heaven, we thought secure and firmer
Than the solid earth we tread on, with its ceaseless starry rays,
Heaven itself is safe no longer, Change and Time have proved the stronger:
Lo! uncounted starry wreckage chokes the dark sky's gulfs and bays.”

XV

To the weaker woe unbending! Dream of life, life never-ending:
Dream again, and shudder dreaming of what endless life may be!

Life with every hour a sorrow for the conquered, grief tomorrow,
Deeper grief on the day after, so throughout eternity.

XVI

Nation after nation bleeding in the huge strife, still succeeding
To another nation's riches, keeps the contest still alive.
Here again the weakest perish. Not the lands the pure gods cherish,
But the strongest, still the strongest, nations iron-wrought, survive.

XVII

Woe for ever to the weak ones, to the tenderest souls, the meek ones,
To the loving, to the gentle, to the hearts that sympathize!
Not on them the victory hinges, on the war-flag's blood-stained fringes
Rather, on the smoke of battle and the fire-gleam in the skies.

XVIII

Yet...a Figure rises slowly, laurelled not, no conqueror, lowly,
One too tender for the struggle, whom the world-gods slew with scorn.
Has he still, that vast heart broken, one more word of love unspoken?
Is his hand upon the rudder? Can his eyes foresee the morn?

1904.

“A ROSE OF GOD”

SONNET

As life's wild battle wavers, as we wait
Till over hill and valley falls the gleam
Of angel armour flashing through a dream,
And angel hosts through morning's golden gate
Pour forth, more masterful than death or fate,
Or fools found godlike in their own esteem,
Or tongues with Self for their eternal theme,
We cry: “Will Love's heart triumph over hate?”
Yet, though tracked hard by shadows born of hell,
Woman's divineness deepens. She shall be
Fairer than word of living man may tell.
Bright shall be fields and air, serene the sea,
When forth she stands at last, grief's dim paths trod,
Man's rose on earth, in heaven a rose of God.

October 19, 1906.

TWO SONNETS

THE NOBLER WOMAN

I

Through age on age the eyes of woman weep,
The heart of woman, infinite in power,
Sorrows with summer, with the dying flower,
With all bright things that fail, and fade, and sleep.
From her soul's height her aspirations leap
Into the void, dashed down as from a tower.
Her cry of pain from wind-swept bower to bower
Is as the sea's wail blown from deep to deep.
Once, once, she sinned, and this tempestuous orb
Whose wild lips hang upon her wondrous kiss
Even at her fall was hurled to the abyss
Wherein the balefires and the storms absorb
Pale Eden's light that gleams, as gleam afar
The amazing turrets of the morning star.

THE NOBLER WOMAN

II

Yet when she rises, sovereign, stedfast, sure,
Worshipped by angels, who seemed once alone,
Swaying the epochs from her boundless throne,
Supreme at last upon a planet pure,—
Strong, who could so unspeakably endure,—
Immortal, she whose task is to atone
For death through her made human, and the moan
Of multitudinous ages since the lure
Of Satan drew her from her seat sublime
Within the Paradise wherein man dreamed,
While in his eyes the light of godship gleamed
And all was love, and nought was shame or crime:
Then, shall she rule superb, her high task done,
And night and hell shall perish in the sun.

October 21, 1906.

FOUR SONNETS

TO THE MEMORY OF A GREAT QUEEN

I

When time sinks fainting, when pain's race is run,
When freedom's trumpet rings from pole to pole
And crime's stupendous storm-clouds cease to roll
In blood-red ridges, blotting out the sun:
When spirit at last with passionate sense is one
And through stern matter gleams the conquering soul:
When close upon us towers the ages' goal
And earth seems now a heavenly sphere begun:
Then shall we know why God, who gave to France
The matchless music of one song supreme,
And gave to Italy grim Dante's dream,
And bade the world bow down to Goethe's glance,
Made Shakespeare's England stronger, fairer far
Her face a warrior's, and her soul a star.

TO THE MEMORY OF A GREAT QUEEN

II

For, here, where Marlowe saw the morning break
As all the heaven of song grew golden-bright,
Not since has been, nor ever will be, night.
O'er England answering and for England's sake
New splendour flashes, as the wild years take
Their solemn farewell, or triumphal flight.
Not more the beacons when, proud-sailed, in sight,
The Armada watched the fiery hills awake.
But stronger are we, in that surelier here
The soul of Woman passes to a throne.
For God led terribly through paths unknown
England, that on the world superbly clear
Might shine the Vision given to her alone
Of Love that, knowing no ending, knows no fear.

TO THE MEMORY OF A GREAT QUEEN

III

Here, where the spirit of Kingsley loved the air
Of keen wild wintry England, where the rose
In soft delight of sun and shadow grows,
Veiled to the base, to loftiest angels bare,
A golden passion or a white-winged prayer,
The perfect love of woman proudly goes
Serene along the starry road she knows,
Past night's dim empires, kingdoms of despair.
We, we of all men, of all lands, have seen
What hope the high Victorian epoch gave,
What of strange greeting from beyond the grave,
What living mandate from a vanished Queen
Who, while our island paths she gently trod,
Looked on the face and held the hand of God.

TO THE MEMORY OF A GREAT QUEEN

IV

We, we who watched, and felt our hearts turn cold
When England mourned Victoria, seeing the skies
Darken, as when a solemn sunset dies:
We, who now list to selfishness grown bold
And hear a new world's clamorous shout for gold,
Triumphs material, gauds that trick the eyes,
While barriers thicken and sensual mists arise
Denser and denser, covering fold on fold
The lessening heavens wherein the great souls shine:
We, who have met the blood-stained thrusts of hell
And felt the healing of a hand divine,
Know that, though nation after nation fell,
If but she follow where her sure stars sign
With England and her sons it shall be well.

February 12, 1907.

ON THE MURDER OF THE KING AND CROWN PRINCE OF PORTUGAL

Saturday, February 1, 1908

SONNET

Before the first fair crocus veiled in white
Or proud with stainless tints of starry gold
Lifted its crest above the quickening mould,
Anarchy's blossom gleamed and flamed, blood-bright.
Crowned was the morning, kingless was the night.
From land to land the thunder-tidings rolled
Of large defiance flung with hate untold
At God, and Man, and Liberty, and Light.
Through the shocked world wherein alas! was done
An act by murderous devils of hell decreed,—
In Freedom's name, whose eyes are as the sun,
From hearts that follow and from hearts that lead,
From Kingdoms and Republics all at one,
One voice of condemnation doth proceed.

THE HIGHER ENGLAND

But behold! the dark is broken with a solemn sweet word spoken:
Through the night the shining ripple of a golden starlight flows.
If the struggle be tremendous, yet God's power is more stupendous
Than the force of even the mightiest of all unseen fiends and foes.

Though the blood-stained vivisecting priests of Science, love-rejecting,
Rave and rage, and fill our cities with the stench of hideous deeds;
Though they bluster, God-displacing, Satan's code and creed embracing,
More ignoble, more repellent than the snake amid the reeds;

Though they hurl at God defiance, proud, supreme in self-reliance,
Basest, foulest, falsest, filthiest, of the devil-spawned sons of time;
Though they prosper for a season, rotten-ripe with lies and treason,
Changing science into murder, making even research a crime;

Though Rome send from hellish regions her dark-browed evasive legions
With the unctuous old palaver to entice us and persuade;
Though they triumph with their gilding, and their prompt cathedral-building,
Striving to seduce the country they lack courage to invade;

Though the world-imperial Kaiser, black Morocco's white adviser,
Now his friend the Sultan shivers at the notion of extremes,
Watch our fleet with eyes most jealous, ever anxious, ever zealous,
Ever full of aspirations, he who lured the Boers with dreams;

Though the night of Russia darken, as her serfs and peasants hearken
To the teachings made emphatic by the deadly bomb they fling;
Though the grim Anarchic madness, with a burst of devilish gladness,
Slay for sport a prince or noble, or a statesman, or a king;

Though in every Christian city, without heed or help or pity
Girls whose beauty might be peerless, and whose soul might grow divine,
Sink and fade and perish yearly,—not the fate God marked out clearly
For his daughters, on whose foreheads he designed love's stars should shine;

Though our women seek in marriage diamonds, pearls, a park, a carriage,
Rank and wealth and high position,—though the lower lusts persuade;
Though we seem to be declining, though huge forces are combining
To cast God discrowned and swordless from the world that God's hand made;

Though a poet's words appealing seem but ghostly faint cries stealing
Over mist-clad fields at sunset, lost in darkening wastes of air;
Though the people vaguely wonder, when they hear Song's sudden thunder,
“What can ail him, what can move him, seeing that gold is always fair?”

Yet immense, divine, magnific, full of glory, beatific,
Shall Love's crimson awful sunrise on the planet flash and flame.
Was our small star counted friendless? Nay, the constellations endless
Are but sister-orbs attendant. To our planet Jesus came.

Here have martyrs died unending, their pure blood with His blood blending:
Round earth's shores the wild grey ocean in its chainless splendour flows.
Here have iron-willed statesmen taught us. Here have prophets' souls besought us.
Here hath woman won her kingdom from the kingdom of the rose.

Here hath England, led and lighted by her faith for ever plighted
To the fearless form of Freedom, lent to stars their crowns to wear.
Here hath wood and wave and fountain, forest deep and sunlit mountain,
Given our race the eternal mandate to look Godward and to dare.

When each soul in full completeness wins a woman's perfect sweetness
For his marriage-crown and glory, finds God's tenderness in hers,
Then the haunting dreams of error that now hold us with their terror
Shall melt into air and vanish o'er the distant mountain-spurs.

Woman love a vivisector! Not unless we quite reject her,
Wholly choose to part for ever from our helper and our bride,
Can we touch the red hand dripping from the knife whose edge went ripping,
Just to show its skill, the offspring from some living dog's torn side.

Woman love a priest whose passion is to recreate in fashion
Old and sad and dim and deadly all that England once found vile!
Nay: our women's truer mandate is “Win Liberty and hand it
To the waiting subject-races, widening worldward from our isle.”

God the Father—so the Churches, till faith's vessel rocks and lurches,
Have been preaching through the centuries, till at last there comes the close
Of a sexless creed unsuited to man's yearning deeplier rooted,
Grandlier soaring,—so encountering nobler friends and subtler foes.

God the Mother everlasting, God the spirit of bridehood casting
Round the world in tenderest passion arms that lift us from despair:
God whose womanhood revealing ever deeper joys is stealing
Through the stars its touch makes radiant, through the flowers its kiss makes fair:

Such the God the future preaches,—God whose love victorious reaches
To the depths of human anguish: not the God of hell and guile
But the God who shows his creatures woman's love through woman's features,
Not the Father's sword of judgment, but the Mother's sovereign smile.

1908.