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

Now that I pass towards the pure Ideal,
All earthly things are sanctified and white;
Now that I live as in my Lady's sight,
Superb imaginations crown the real.
I am happy now: before me shines the right,—
Sweet to pursue, a gracious flag to follow:
All lesser lamps are glow-worms in a hollow,
By Purity's unutterable light.

I seek my Lady now with tender pleasure,
With hands made bold and spirit undefiled;
Happy I am as in the golden leisure
Of early love,—no more perverse and wild;
I love beyond all words, beyond all measure,
With laughter like the laughter of a child.

LXXXII. IN ALL STARS AND FLOWERS

In stars and flowers I see my Lady now;—
Now in the violets blue her glances shine,
Her mouth is hidden amid the eglantine,—
The lilies are the whiteness of her brow.
The simplest bud is beautiful to me,
O never-ending love of mine, O lady,
Because of thine own beauty!—Yea, for thee
Red roses blush in garden-alleys shady.

The world of flowers is thine: all gathered posies
Are symbols of the rich eternal roses
That bloom around the richness of thine heart.
All snowdrops and all buds of lily-brightness
Are but as signs of thine imperial whiteness,—
Yea, whiter than God's whitest rose thou art.

LXXXIII. AN OLD OLD SPIRIT

Thou art an old spirit,—thou dost belong
To some far different place and other days;
Thou heardest perhaps in Paradise the praise
I give thee, smiling at my love-taught song.
Upon the ancient winds thou hast been strong;
Thou hast sailed wide upon the ocean-ways;
In far forgotten epochs just such lays
Of passion at my eager lips did throng.

Upon this earth again thou hast been born,
But of thine earthly parents thou art not:
Destined for some diviner grander lot
Thou art; from some soul-sphere thou hast been torn;
Thy spirit, incarnate in thy baby-cot,
Left sister-angels for thy loss to mourn.

LXXXIV. THE MARRIAGE IN MUSIC

O Beatrice, my lady,—yea, my queen,—
When I hear music I am one with thee,
And one with some high heavenly life serene.
The marvellous piercing sound transfigures me;
All sorrows vanish,—all the woes between;
Thy whiteness leads me like a white fair star
Rising with solemn purport from afar,
Silver above broad endless billows green.

The star of thy pure whiteness glittereth so,
Lighting life's tideway with sweet silver glow
Till all the trembling waves are mute and bright:
Thy glory around me gleameth:—as of old
Life's waters all were tinged with magic gold
When first the sun of first love rose in might.

LXXXV. JOINED, NOT BLENDED

Joined, yet not hopelessly confused or blended,
Shall spirit-lovers in their union be.
If one fair shape were lost, desire were ended,—
Then would ensue unglad satiety.
High individual power shall be extended;
Though two are one, yet separate thoughts shall mingle,
As through the spirit-lips the rich throbs tingle,—
The thoughts that here on separate forms depended.

Not mixed, not swallowed up, but grand as ever
Shall be the spirit-body of my bride.
Not brought too near to kiss, the sweet eyes never
Obscured, but brightened rather,—deified;
The sweet lips still a separate perfect flower;
The pure mind still an independent power.

LXXXVI. WITH BEATRICE IN GOD

My life is hid with Beatrice in God,—
And hidden with her in all things sweet as well;
In every flower whereon her footstep fell,
Each rose rich-blushing on the sunny sod.
She, being sweet, can clothe my soul with sweetness
And subtle mystic power too fair to tell,
And all poetic passionate completeness;
She, being glad, can lift from sorrow's hell.

My life is hid with Beatrice in pleasure,—
My life is hid with her beyond the sky:
My fair delight, my love, my sweet-winged treasure,
The utter gift of God, she is; and I
With tender worship passing tenderest measure
In music thus to Music's self reply.

LXXXVII. NOW, HAVING SEEN THEE

Now, having seen thee, all my song is ended,—
I care no more for words, now once again
Thy sweet face, sadder, but as fair as when
First with love's vision it so softly blended,
Has met and crowned me; when we breathe quite close,
We do not sing the beauty of the rose,—
There's hardly room now, left between our lips,
E'en for this song, as forth the flutterer slips!

I cannot speak of mine own soul; and thou
Art mine, my lady:—when the souls are one,
The long, long task of separate praise is done;
Thy glance has brought completion to my vow,—
The gaze that bade me sing, now bids me cease;
The look that worked me woe, now grants me peace.

LXXXVIII. SWEETER, LESS AWFUL

Something of the awe has vanished from my strain,
It may be; now that thou art wholly near
It is a softer task to sing thee, dear;
There is not the old yearning, nor the pain.
We cannot crave the rose that we retain
In our own hands, made fragrant from the touch:
We cannot long for present joys so much
As for the gifts no passionate prayer could gain.

O white rose, perfect lady of my song,
Desired and sought and struggled for so long,
Now that thy petals sweet within my clasp
Abide, the passionate agony is over,
Thank God!—the happy calm soul of thy lover
Pants not for that which rests within his grasp.

LXXXIX. THROUGH TROPIC WOODS

I am as one who, threading tropic woods
The first time, wondered at the marvels fair
That met his yearning vision everywhere
Through the green splendid tangled solitudes,—
Who worshipped in that dense and torrid air
Some wonderful white blossom by the way,
Ready to kiss with tender lips each spray
That laughed beneath the blue heavens' burning glare.

Just as he worshipped wildly,—yet at last,
When the sweet days of distant awe were past,
Plucked tenderly the blossom for his own,—
So hold I now my snow-white bud too near
For the old tremulous glance, the old sweet fear,
Since worship into living love has grown.

XC. YET DEEPER

Yet deeper is my passionate tenderness.
The nearer that thou art, the more thine eyes
Are ever to me, love, a sweet surprise;
Purer than fancy's is thy warm caress.
If at a distance I had cause to bless,
What shall I say now that God's bluest skies
Of cordial summer, deep with ecstasies,
Beam round me, freed for e'er from each distress?

Oh whiter than the soul of which I dreamed
Is this thine own soul, now its wealth has gleamed
Upon me, brought by God for ever close;
Sweeter the body of wonder I adored,
Now that sweet love, our guardian and our lord,
Has given to me that wonderful white rose.

XCI. THE SUMMER

The spring has passed,—the spring-time of my strain,
The spring of thy fair life. Now summer round us
Beams, and the laughing-eyed swift loves have found us
Who gaily tread in his impassioned train.
Thine hair is fragrant with the smell of flowers
Still,—but no flowers of simpler spring remain;
Still art thou beauteous as in those first hours
Of love,—but no lost hours again we gain.

We pass towards perfect summer. Our delight
Is hidden for us among the full-leaved trees,
And 'mid the passion of the August night,
And by the moonlit wonderful still seas
Of August. Thine imperial face is bright
With summer thoughts and ripest ecstasies.

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XCII. I AM CONTENT

I am content; I twine thy deep dark hair
With August flowers: the meadow-sweet I bring
That long ago in sorrow I did sing,
Ere love renewed for me his music fair.
Thou passest through me like some viewless air
Of summer, touching with thy fragrant wing
My lips and eyes: white blossoms round thee cling,
Whiter than e'en our snowiest May can bear.

The marvellous perfume of the old lost dream
Again pervades me; once again some flower
Ne'er known on earth, but whose white petals gleam
Perhaps in some redolent angelic bower,
Wraps me in speechless scent,—and, as of old,
Thy white arms, shuddering softly, round me fold.

101

XCIII. MY OWN FOR EVER

“ My lady of the rosebands and the bays,
My dimple, and my soft caressing” speech;
My pure eternal unforgotten “ways,”
My smiles, with sonnet-plumage hid in each:
“My sweet hair still divinely downward streaming,”
My hands so soft and wonderful and white;
My mind with delicate love-fancies teeming,
My glance of heavenly and most sacred light:
My lips so pure and red, so sweet and tender,
My heart so glad and great, so deep and warm;
My silver voice, to which love did surrender,
My breast, white as a sea-bird's thro' a storm:—
For ever and for ever, though they fled,
All these are mine,—now selfish love lies dead.

102

XCIV. THE LIFE OF MUSIC

The boundless life of music now at times
Descends upon us:—lo! we form a part
Of music's wide unutterable heart,
And mix, in rapture, with the eternal rhymes.
We traverse, in a dream, strange spirit-climes;
We hear strange oceans beating on white shores;
We thread strange rivers to the plash of oars
Unearthly, ringing round us silvery chimes.

The spirit of music lifts us,—and our love
Becomes a passion every change above:
The spirit of music aids us, and its fire
Is one with us in one intense desire:
The spirit of music bears us towards that sea
Whose blue waves murmur—“Immortality.”

103

XCV. THOU, AND THE FLOWERS

Thou art eternal, and thy flowers as well.—
The gold-brown ripples curling by the banks
Of Esk,—the meadow-sweet in tufted ranks,—
The vast eternal ocean's moonlit swell,—
The purple heather broidering moor and fell,—
The green rich grass,—the blossoms by the way,—
All that Love saw in Love's one perfect day,—
The yellow laughing corn,—the fern-lined dell:—

All these for ever, though we pass, abide:
The grey or green cliffs sloping to the tide;
The great black ships that clove the yielding deep;
The stars that over us pure watch did keep;
All these are in my song:—and thou art there,
Tender to me alone,—to all hearts fair.

104

XCVI. BY ALL THE STRENGTH OF SONG

By all the strength of holy song I swear
Thou shalt not be forgotten—thy sweet eyes
Shall shine for ever on the world; more fair
And everlasting with each new sunrise
Thou shalt be; at the wonder of thine hair
Women shall wonder,—and thy snow-white hands
Like Helen's, shall bring gifts to many lands,—
Nor shall thy name forsake the English air.

O English lady, fair white English rose
Breathed upon gently by the northern wind,
Thee from thine empire time shall not depose.
Thou shalt in every noble English mind
Blossom for ever: through my music glows
Thy flower-face, there indelibly designed.

105

XCVII. THE OLD RAPTURE

Now, every time that music sends its dream,
Winged like an angel, o'er the listening skies,
I meet, eternal love, thy full clear eyes,
And pass into the old ecstatic stream
Of thoughts that God's sweet vivid hand supplies.
The old flower-rapture, fragrant, is around
My spirit, snatching it from earthly ground,—
Towards heavenly hills on flower-soft wings I rise.

The great immortal yearning soul within
Yearns like a wrestling giant, and it shakes
The body terribly,—and it forsakes
The earth, and all earth's joys and soulless din,
And seeks the regions where the eternal streams,
Like lilies on their ripples, lift love's dreams.

106

XCVIII. FAR, FAR AWAY

Far, far away I bear thee—towards new fields
Of wondrous thought; oh, bid the gentle flowers
Of earth farewell—bid farewell to the bowers
Of youth, and all that common pleasure yields:
Prepare to traverse the immortal plains
With me,—with me to watch the swift-winged hours,—
With me to enter into what remains
Of perfect rest: thy past keen time devours.

Behold, the skies are wonderful in hue,
The dawn is on the mountains, deepening blue,—
Great spirits with thee on God's hill-tops tread:
Come: enter into heaven, O fairest flower
Therein,—I give thee that angelic power,—
The immortal wreath I twine around thy head.

107

XCIX. TO GREAT SPIRITS

I bring thee to the spirits of all the past:
To Dante and to Shelley, and to each
Whose gift of high imperishable speech
Has made on earth their sacred memories last.
Before thee, lo! their glittering crowns they cast—
Higher than theirs the throne that thou shalt reach:
Sweeter the wonders that thou hast to teach:
Grander thy victory, and thy realm more vast.

Thou art the fairest flower of all the flowers
Poets have sung of with bright burning lips:
Their beauty my white blossom doth eclipse:
They are as leaves, as branches, on thy bowers,—
Thou art the one eternal rose that shines
Beyond all wreaths the spirit of passion twines.

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C. FAR FROM ALL SMALLNESS

Far from all smallness towards the eternal hills
Of highest Art I lift thee:—thou hast been
As one who, childlike, 'mid the meadows green
Plays, bathing white feet in earth's murmuring rills.
But now her mission holy Art fulfils,—
She calls thee forth to be an endless queen.
Forsake all lower thoughts; with happy mien
List to the song whose passion through thee thrills!

Thy days of earth are over: come with me,
And watch the stars, and hearken to the sea,
Whose every solemn wave doth whisper “Thee.”
The moon above the waters rises slow—
Sweeter than dreams around us is the flow
Of silver streamlets:—Love waits; let us go!

Christmas Day, 1876.