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

O strong pure spirit to whom
The leaves, the hills, the bright and bounding seas,
The laughing whisper of the English breeze,
Fair summer smiling through our forest trees,
Or spring's soft bloom,
Were gifts of present God,—what death, what tomb
Can hold thee, or what frost-bound gloom?

II

Surely thou livest yet:
Surely thy well-loved Lord hath found for thee
By the grey waves of some celestial sea

A home where, winged with rapture, thou mayest be;
The ferns are sweet
Still as of old in Hampshire, but thy feet
No more the pliant fern-fronds meet.

III

Still burst the heavy seas
Along the shores of Devon, and the sands
Gleam yellow underneath the moon's white hands,
And glad girls' laughter fills the summer lands;
The sweet spring-breeze
Wafts countless subtle scents across the leas;
The June-green deepens in the trees.

IV

But, singer, where art thou?
Singer; for poet ever at heart thou wast.
Never, in age, the sweet gift wholly passed
Away from thee,—thou sangest till the last;
Thou singest now
Mayhap in heaven; new high dreams flush thy brow;
Thy soul anew the gods endow.

V

The strange wild Western shores
That thou didst love,—wherein thy youthful dreams
Took shape,—still bask beneath their fierce sun's beams;
Upon them still the tropic rain-storm streams;
They throb to oars
Still,—still the unaltered wondrous white moon pours
Light through green depths no foot explores.

VI

No bright ship cleaves the foam
Of the far weird Pacific misty seas,
Wafted by pleasure of the lazy breeze,
Making for dim dark line of level trees,
But thou dost roam
In spirit along with it, and seek'st thy home
Beneath that fierce sky's burning dome.

VII

No Amyas fronts the seas
With godlike figure at the vessel's prow
Tall,—yet a godlike form we worship—thou

Broodest angelic where the tree-tops bow
To languid breeze;
Yea, crowned thou standest 'neath the strait palm-trees
Whose fronds o'er-droop the emerald leas.

VIII

That far land is thine home
Beyond all lands,—save only this that found
Delight unspoken in thy harp-string's sound
As thou didst find delight in green wild ground
And wild grey foam
Of England; if for a space thy foot did roam,
Again ere long our hills it clomb.

IX

And in that Western land
The tender Rose of Torridge bloomed anew,
And on her track the fiery good ship flew
Manned by the old stalwart strong Devonian crew:
At love's command
The English lover, grim, forlorn, and grand,
Followed the dark-browed Spanish band.

X

Then Ayacanora came,
And all her passion fell at Amyas' feet,
Ardent with Southern blood and savage-sweet,
And than her own swift forest fawns more fleet
And hot as flame:
A woman worth a strong man's toil to tame
And bend to perfect wifely aim.

XI

What gifts we owe to thee!
Never hath soul been sadder for thy song
Or sinfuller; but like thine East wind strong
Thou blewest a blast that swept away all wrong;
Yea, like the sea
Thou wast in thy clear splendid purity,
And like the sun in golden glee.

XII

The women of England came
One-souled, one-hearted, laying upon thy tomb
Tender rose-blossoms of their hearts' best bloom,

And o'er the land swift swept a sudden gloom,
And then a flame
Of love and tender worship when thy name
Was joined to those whom death's shores claim.

XIII

Better we are that thou
Hast trodden our shores and with thy radiant face
Left springlike memories bright in every place;
And, if the future full God's utmost grace
Of heart and brow
Christ for a moment hid from thee, God now
Shines splendider, and all hearts bow:

XIV

Shines splendider for thee;
For through thy words God's sudden grandeur leapt
And God's bright foot was with us while we slept
And thrills of wondrous hope through heart-strings crept
And filled the sea
With marvel of sweet light and every tree
With dawn's gold spotless purity.

XV

Thou knewest not of the time
When all strong men with Christlike face should seek
The eternal Father's face,—so thou didst speak
Old truths with new-born flush upon thy cheek
And in thy rhyme
Didst struggle upward towards the old heights sublime
That Christ's brave footsteps dared to climb.

XVI

The future shall transcend
Thine utmost dreams: the soul of Man shall flower
With undiscernible unhoped-for power
And England shall be foremost in that hour;
Yet thou, O friend,
Thy passion of heart and fervent brain didst lend
Unknowing towards this self-same end.

XVII

Greater there are than thou:
Spirits in whom the Sun of spirit shines
Direct,—whose souls amid the mountain-pines

Are nursed, and by the long waves' foam-capped lines;
Who, rugged of brow,
The future's green untouched divine meads plough
And only at God's own mandate bow.

XVIII

The Church to thee was king,
King for a time,—when the old bright dreams less fair
Shone and less urgent in maturer air
And bloom of passion flamed not, and thy rare
Pure lyre did ring
Less oft, and seldomer thy soul did sing;
When weary at last down-drooped thy wing.

XIX

But for thy brave sweet days
We bless thee, Kingsley; for thy young glad voice
Bidding each English valiant soul rejoice
And all true spirits make heroic choice;
Yea, green fresh bays
Thou wear'st for ever for those early lays
Sung in the English bright sun's blaze.

XX

We bless thee most of all
For keen-edged fiery words that cursed and slew
The foul hell-nightmare, smiting through and through
The Church's armour as with sword-stroke true;
Ere thou didst fall,
Tender as Christ, imperative as Paul,
Flame down from heaven thou once didst call:

XXI

Flame to consume and smite
For ever the evil hell-dream and the band
Of priests who fashion it with curséd hand:
Yea forth against their myriads thou didst stand
With face made bright
By open vision of God, and God's own light,—
Clothed in a man's unmeasured might.

XXII

For this we bless thee most:
But also for the souls thou broughtest here,
Making them more than living spirits dear,—

For Amyas, Hereward, and for the clear
Soul whom the host
Of Pagans slew and sent a sinless ghost,
Hypatia, towards heaven's eager coast.

XXIII

And for thy pity too
We love thee: fair Pelagia crowneth thee
With her own final deep sweet purity;
And for thy love of our own grey wild sea
And streamlets blue
And for all noble work thine hand did do
We love thee, English spirit true.

XXIV

Not one red gay sea-weed
Upon our shores but oweth to thine hand
Somewhat: strange treasures of the deep to land
Thou brought'st and gav'st us heart to understand
And head to heed
All deep-ribbed flowers and shells of sandy mead,
Teacher divine in every deed.

XXV

And thou didst take delight
In children too and through their fairy-land
Didst wander, laughing with them, hand in hand:
In heaven around thee children-spirits band
By day, by night,
Now surely, and thou with face for sheer love bright
New golden fairy-lore dost write.

XXVI

For ever the fair feet
Of loftiest poets linger yearningly
Beside the early ripples of life's sea
Where sounds the laugh of children and their glee
In music sweet:
There Shakespeare, Shelley, Hugo, one may meet,
Resting awhile from mid-song's heat.

XXVII

Yet in first days how fierce
And urgent was the Apollonian glow
Of passion in thee,—how thy sword did go

Flickering athwart the steel ranks to and fro,
As thou didst pierce
Ignoble souls with sword-thrust of thy verse,
Winged as a god's swift lightning-curse!

XXVIII

And how divinely thee
The beauty of woman dawned on like a spell:
How tenderly her girlish footstep fell;
How sweeter than all may-bloom in the dell
Argemone
Burst like a sudden blossom from the lea,
White with all first love's purity!

XXIX

We love and value thee
For that creation of thine early power
Beyond all,—that Shakespearian woman-flower,
The whitest and the sweetest on thy bower
Where many be—
Valentia, Lucia, Grace: thy love we see
Alone in sweet Argemone.

XXX

Art thou with her to-day?
Was she not real? Did never her sweet hand
Open for thee the golden genius-land
And was it not her real rose-breath that fanned,
Upon its way,
Thy flame of valiant force,—no time can slay
What love's own pencil doth portray.

XXXI

Nor can the arrow of time
Slay thee the lover. Thou hast reached a goal
Worthy, we doubt not, of thy kingly soul:
Past mortal winds that rage and waves that roll
In some calm clime
Beyond the jarring shocks of sin and crime
Thou leadest now a life sublime.

XXXII

Our hearts need not despair:
Somewhere thou livest,—as thy flowers return
Each year with petals that with new life burn

And in thy Devon valleys the bright fern
Again is fair;
So thou art risen again to summer air
And sight of summer seas elsewhere.

“Glaucus.”

“The Water Babies.”

“Yeast.”

THE RESURRECTION OF VENUS

From the new white waves every year she rises
And brings new bloom
To earth and tender soft undreamed surprises
And fresh perfume.

Splendid, a new-born rose, a flower begotten
Each year anew,
She quits the old plains and lanes whose boughs hang rotten
Where rosebuds grew.

To each, as each awakes to Venus' splendour,
His time brought nigh,
She seems a maiden white, a girl most tender,
Whose soul doth sigh!

The rose, the violet, and the lily gracious
In soft sweet arms
She holds,—and thrills the hills and forests spacious
With unseen charms.

Never was woman half so proud and peerless,—
So each one dreams;
Each bounds to meet her, trusting her and fearless,
With glance that gleams.

Ah! English youths; the Grecian waves beheld her
Long ere ye came!
Greek arms and Roman straining oars impelled her
O'er seas of flame.

In old-world forests she more white than lily
Has, flowerlike, gleamed;
Her eyes have flashed o'er trackless regions hilly
Till the hills dreamed!

And now late in the arduous day ye find her,
And ye are strong
And think to fetter her white neck and bind her
And lead along.

But ye know not that she has fettered races
With white soft hand:
That round her crowd dark bearded haughty faces
From every land!

Think ye that English hearts and hands can bind her
Whom not these bound
Or that the old hands and proud hearts have resigned her
Whom ye have found?

Is she an English rose? Was she not sweeter
Than English bloom
Long ere the first love laughed in English metre
Through English gloom.

The strange old lands and wild fierce cities held her
Whom ye adore:
In Athens, Rome, and Carthage she the elder
Made peace and war.

So, English lovers, when ye have possessed her,
Remember ye
Whose lips and former passionate hands caressed her,
By what bright sea.

And think not that her eyes, like virgin fountains,
Are soft and deep
For you alone: by the old forgotten mountains
Where dead gods sleep

They smiled as virginal and pure and simple
And calm and clear;
Her soft cheek showed the changeless maddening dimple
That maddens here.

For, ever, couched in meadow-sweet and roses
She changeless lies,
The changeless spirit of spring,—and love reposes
Within her eyes,

And laughter rests upon her lips for ever
And never tires;
Nor can the spirit of joy from her hands sever
His harps and lyres.

Beautiful, deathless, sweet-limbed, wondrous, holy,
Divine, supreme,
Immaculate, a maiden pure and lowly,
A gold-haired dream,

A woman passionate and wild and fearful,
A mouth most sweet,
Eyes exquisite and soft with love and tearful,
Breasts where flowers meet,

Such is she, such she hath,—and all the ages
But swell her song
And turn for her fresh perfumed passion-pages,
A ceaseless throng.

And she the very spirit of pure dominion
To whom God gives
Insatiable and fierce fatigueless pinion
That all that lives

May worship and obey and may revere her,—
She springs afresh
From each new summer's seas with white and clearer
Foam-radiant flesh,

And fills the flowers with all her beauty deathless
And fills the air
Till the deep skies yearn o'er her pale and breathless,
Swept by her hair.

1881.

APOLLO AND VENUS

Hast thou for ages heartless and regardless
Held on thine even way,
Now sung by passionate yearning hearts, now bardless
Save for thy wild waves' lay?

Has thou pierced saddened souls beyond all number
And made worlds wail and weep,
Yet changed not thy soft unimpassioned slumber
Nor moved thy lashes deep?

Hast thou reclined on beds of sweet-lipped flowers
Only less sweet than thou,
And watched the slow wings of the amorous hours,
Calm and unmoved of brow?

Hast thou been than the trembling sea-shine whiter,
More pure than wave-born foam,
Tenderer than woodland meadow-sweet and brighter
Than flowers that fill thine home?

Have men fallen bleeding at thy feet and round thee,
Souls great and sweet and strong,
And with their passion of ardent being crowned thee,—
An endless ruined throng?

And hast thou mocked love,—till thy lord Apollo
With swift foot after thee
Sprang,—and the wave's arch and its lustrous hollow
Of green smooth curling sea

Failed then to shield thee: for the great god knew thee
Though clothed in human form
And his gold swift unerring dart smote through thee,
Yea, through thy bosom warm;

And he now robed in flesh again o'ercame thee
And held thee in embrace,
Gifted with power alone to seize and tame thee
And kiss thy glowing face.

Thou yieldest unto him: for godlike passion
Must ever conquer thee;
Mortals thou conquerest,—not in thy strong fashion
And not with force of sea

And not with valour of clouds and might of waters
Can these poor mortals seek;
They have their brides among the earth's fair daughters,
Fair, temporal, sweet, and weak.

But thou not temporal nor of passing rapture
But crowned with stars and skies
Needest in him who would thy beauty capture
Fire and the eternal eyes,

And no ephemeral and obscure devotion
Or silent sorrowing heart,
But all the song of thy loud-singing ocean
Of which thou art a part

Upon his lips, and in his hands to bring thee
Pleasures that know no end,
And endless amorous valorous voice to sing thee,
And golden bow to bend.

All these thou findest in thy lord Apollo
Who bringeth starry eyes
And flowers from every deep green-cinctured hollow
And the pure light of skies

And the great voice of seas and breath of mountains
And whisper of the air
Made sweet at brink of fresh fern-laden fountains
And his own face most fair

And his own strength to conquer and to hold thee
Made his, O queen, indeed,—
And his fierce arms to gather thee and fold thee
And magic harp to plead

And his red mouth to cling to thine, a flower
As sweet and far more strong,
And for eternal years the conquering power
Of his sole deathless song.

1881.

ART'S MARTYRS

O queen of all Art's martyrs, who bestowest
Their more than mortal crown
And ever in their inmost spirits glowest,
Be gracious and look down;

Look down upon thy toiling sons and daughters
And lend thy holy aid,
For lo! we struggle, tossed by wild white waters,
And perish in cold shade.

Yea, for a season thou our queen art gracious
And then the vision grows
Dimmer and more dim, and thy woodlands spacious
Made sweet with breath of rose

Fade slowly, and thy sacred golden portal
Is closed and all dreams sleep,
And we who in thy presence were immortal
Are chained in darkness deep.

Grant us thine help unfailing and redeeming;
Support us through the night;
Shine thou upon us with thy soft eyes dreaming,
And with thy bosom bright.

Not crowns we ask in heaven or jewels precious,
Not palaces of pearl;
Not golden robes, rewards divine and specious,—
But where thy wild waves curl

Along wild shores we seek thee and would win thee,
O queen of all things sweet;
Having sure part and share eternal in thee,—
Thy bosom for retreat,—

Thy mighty hands for saviours and for healers,
Thy lips for crown and light,
Thy voice to soothe us, strong unwearied kneelers
Before thine altar white.

The heavenly crowns might fade,—but thou eternal
O Beauty, bride and queen,
Not crowned with roses fading and diurnal
In the highest skies art seen.

Thou art the God of all the yearning ages,
Thou gatherest them to rest,—
Yea every soul that weeps and each that rages,
Within thy perfect breast.

Thou only art God,—And all the years adore thee
Crying, “Holy, O our sweet!”
The undying angel-hosts fall low before thee
And kiss thy queenly feet.

To every rose thou art the sweet white sister,
To every flower the bloom,—
No lily is white but thou more white hast kissed her
And lent her heart-perfume.

And we who are ofttimes weary and heart-broken
Lift up our souls to thee!
Though all men scorn us, yet we have for token
Thy smile and thy blue sea.

Thy waves we have and all thy winds and seasons
Of snow and rain and sun:
Clothed round about with these we face man's treasons,
Till all our race is run.

Thou touchest us,—and all the tumult ceases
And we are rocked to rest;
Our foemen's swords are snapped in helpless pieces,
Shorn is their every crest.

Yea, though the day be long and full of labour,
At even give us light;
Though pain to weariness be closest neighbour,
And friends and lovers smite,

Yet grant us silent hope and endless patience;
Be with us in the gloom:
More than reward for speechless tribulations
Is one breath of thy bloom—

One sound upon the waves of thy soft laughter,
One vision of thy feet
Upon the enraptured shore,—though death leapt after
That deathless vision sweet.

Ours be the thorns and thine the flowers,—but love us,—
Forsake us not, O queen;
Bend in thine holy midnight sky above us
And in thy white clouds' sheen;

And in the murmur and rush of many waters
When the autumn breezes smite
The seas, speak thou to thy sad sons and daughters
Who struggle towards thy light.

And strengthen us that nought may move or turn us
From Art's one holy way;
Though cold nights chill and blazing noontides burn us
And dark foes seek to sway:

Yea, though we stand forlorn of mortal aiding,
Yet are we not forlorn
Nor wholly left to man's malign upbraiding
And senseless ceaseless scorn,

For though alone we are not alone when splendid
Thou shatterest with thy might
The darkness round us like tomb-sides extended,
And lo! the dark is light:

And lo! the music of thy coming lingers
Like dawn upon the seas,
And at the touching of thy tremulous fingers
Thy harp sounds through the breeze;

And we are saved, and all our hearts are gladdened
Through which the world's spears sprang,—
We who were mocked and disbelieved and maddened,
Though still we fought and sang.

But now more heavenlike than the heaven of heaven
Wherein God sits with thee
Thou springest forth, with breath more sweet than even
In summer o'er the sea,

And power as God's, O Beauty, and dominion
Within thy sacred hands;
And sleep and rest at touching of thy pinion
Fall soft o'er seas and lands;

And o'er us too falls in the old sweet fashion
A measureless soft dream
Wherethrough, intense as God's, divine with passion,
Thine eyes, most fiery, gleam.

AN INVOCATION

I

Have the roses died completely,—are the voices silent quite
That led Keats along the highway towards the heaven's far starry light?
Are there glimpses left no longer 'mid the waves of bosoms white?

II

May a poet sing no longer as that Grecian singer sung,
Keats,—whose brow was ever laurelled as his soul was ever young;
To whose hand Queen Venus rising from the waters might have clung.

III

Am I cursed and held a Pagan when I tread the self-same road
Where that singer's genial fancy flamed and thrilled and throbbed and flowed,
Burned and leaped up heavenward ever, sighed in music soft and glowed?

IV

Is there room for me too, singing in this weary latter day
Of the flowers that Greece saw budding on so many a vernal spray,—
Singing of the morning rose-flush though the skies around be grey?

V

Hath she vanished,—she who held him to her bosom sweet and warm;
Shielded Keats in bower sequestered from the harsh world's hail-winged storm;
Stood before him, white and awful, an inviolate goddess-form?

VI

Are not fields as green as ever and the morning airs as sweet
And our waves as blue as waters that laughed round her shell-white feet
When she sprang from foam untrodden and a world made haste to greet?

VII

Is not love as tender ever,—are the star-lands not the same?
Is the sunrise less resplendent, is the sunset robbed of flame?
Were the hills more radiant, think you, when their queen and goddess came?

VIII

Hath the heart of woman altered,—is her impulse less divine
Than when once with love she worshipped only thee, for love was thine?
Hath her foot forgot the pathway through the roses to thy shrine?

IX

Sweet as cowslips are our maidens: were the Grecian girls more fair?
Were their soft cheeks touched to beauty by the bright sea's loving air?
Had they scent of wave and mountain folded deep in breast and hair?

X

Surely there are handmaids for thee! singers too, if unafraid
We may sing thee and may love thee, not by cares of life down-weighed,
Seeking towards thine altar gleaming through the sacred leafy shade.

XI

Pour thine help and love upon us; as to Keats thou didst disclose
All thine hidden beauty blushing like a sudden-opened rose
When against the fierce-eyed sunlight it responsive laughs and glows:—

XII

As to him thou wast for ever new-born, freaked with dainty foam,
So for us be maiden-comely, and thy maiden tresses comb
On our shores, and make our forests thy tree-pillared endless home.

1881.

LOVE-BLOOM:

TWENTY-TWO SONNETS (1881)

I.
A SAINT-FLOWER

Because thou art a saint, and clothed in white,
Thou art to me the sweetest of all flowers,
And far more fragrant are thy beauty's bowers
Than those that flaunt their bloom to daily sight.
Love is a small thing, when the love is light,—
But the great love that mocketh mortal hours
And sings the clearer when the storm-cloud lowers,
Endures beyond earth's day, beyond death's night.

Because thou art a saint, thou art a flower,
And thou art woman in that thou art saint,
And angel in thy womanhood's pure power,
Lily and rose, rich yet most free from taint;
Because thou art so pure, lo! love's mouth saith,
“Thou art more dainty than a rose's breath!”

II.
THY YOUNG BEAUTY

Didst thou, sweet, wait for me when thou wast young?
Yea, have we yearned across the bitter seas,
Heart wailing out to heart,—and hath the breeze
Of summer round two souls expectant sung?
Have the pale past years with one weary tongue
Cried out for soul-companionship? the trees
Waved with forlorn grey frondage o'er waste leas,
And through the stars one hopeless music rung?

And, now we find each other, we are barred,—
Barred from each other, though the sad souls cry
“At length, at length, a recompence is nigh,
At length we rest victorious;” weird and hard
Seems to our souls the iron hand of Fate,
Denying love's bliss at love's very gate.

III.
THE EARLY WOODS

Oh, sweetheart, had I known thee in those days!
How sweet thine eyes were in the early air
Of life when all fair things are yet more fair;
How softly thou didst thread the forest-ways.
The breeze of morning wantoned with thy hair
As thou didst wander through the wooded hollow:
Oh, had mine eager heart been there to follow,
What fruit of joy life might have had to bear!

'Tis late to meet when the chill woods are grey,
No longer rose-flushed with the dawn of day
And beautiful with bloom of early dreams;
The rose is not so red, the lily shines
Less white, less fragrant are the forest-pines,
And hushed is half the laughter of the streams.

IV.
“I WAITED FOR THEE”

I waited for thee: ever did I wait.
No music sounded through the shades of night
Or when the moon upon the waves was bright
Or when the sun swept through the morning's gate
Or when the innumerable breakers white
Flung at the scowling clouds their angry hate,—
But, maddened by the loneliness of fate,
I yearned towards thee as towards my soul's own light.

I knew thee not,—but music spake of thee
And of the sacred beauty of thy breast,
And all the voices of the mournful sea
Said, “Here is peace for ever, here is rest;
Thou shalt outstrip the foot of pain when She
Crowneth and endeth thy life's fevered quest.”

V.
THE MOUNTAINS AND THE SEA

We strive together the far heights to reach.
The longing for the mountains and the sea
Doth ever, sweetheart, overshadow thee;
Ever their music ringeth through my speech.
Ours is the rapture of the lonely beach
When the white breakers surge tumultuously,
And ours the glory of the pine-clad lea;
The mountains and the ocean chant to each.

Thou art the mountain-air: I am the sea:
Thou bringest me the breath of all thy pines
And all thy blossoms' beauty and their glee
And all the glory of fern-draped inclines
And all thy white-plumed streams:—I give to thee
My sea-song, born where the grey water shines.

VI.
OUR SELF-EXISTENCE

Through pain we reach a lonely region fair
With the immortal mountain-winds of God,
Whereunto winds a weird untravelled road,
Thrilled by the high song of the mountain-air.
The altar of our faithful love is there
On the sheer hill-side trackless and untrod;
By power of earnest endless passion shod
Our feet have climbed the rocks and glaciers bare.

And now we stand together on the height
And sweeter than the singing of the vale
Is this my harp-string that the keen airs smite,
And sweeter art thou, rose, though thou art pale
Than all the blossoms spread for love's delight
Where through green meads the dull-winged zephyrs sail.

VII.
“IS IT NOT WONDERFUL?”

Is it not wonderful that when we meet
The whole surrounding world-scene fades away!
We are sufficient each to each: we say,
“Now do the weary rest,—and rest is sweet.”
Thou hast the tenderness of Christlike feet
That flush with rose the worldly waters grey;
And I? God gives me manhood to convey
To thy time-frozen heart new vital heat.

So like two gods we blend our souls in one,
Lords of all seasons, kings of the wide land,
A queen and king with wedded hand in hand,—
Gazing triumphant at our long work done,
And fearless at the leagues that yet expand
Between us and the setting of the sun.

VIII.
“THOU ART SO GREAT”

Thou art so great in spirit and yet so sweet
In spirit that whoso lists to sing of thee
Must mix his song with the sweet singing sea
That surges ever adoring round thy feet,
And with the passion of the winds that beat
Upon the rocky echoing mountain-sides:
Oh, thou art not possessed like common brides
Whose hearts at love's tumultuous tides retreat!

Nay! thou art as the spirit of the storm,
Sublime yet fragrant, wonderful yet warm,
Gentle yet terrible, most sweet yet great,
Dainty and white as half unfolded flower
Yet full of fire and force and life and power,
A flame-fledged eagle, and an eagle's mate.

IX.
THE UNION IN NATURE AND IN MUSIC

Thine own soul is of Nature's realm a part,
And so we meet within that wide domain:
Our lips touch in the ripples of the rain,
Ocean's is our own ever-beating heart.
Thou crownest me with love,—I with mine Art
Crown thee, and with the music of my strain,
And with my inmost soul's thorn-crown of pain,
And with the dreams that through my spirit dart.

Beneath the sacred stars our spirits meet
In union wonderful and calm and sweet;
But most of all when music floods the place
With its strange amorous rapture passing fair,
I feel the touch upon me of thine hair,
And sink into thy soul's superb embrace.

X.
“RAPTURE IS HOLINESS”

Rapture is holiness: God's lips are near,
O tender woman, when thy lips are close
And when thy sweet voice ringeth in mine ear,—
And when I touch thy bosom's soft white rose
Mine heart the eternal Mother-Spirit knows,
And when thy beauty bathes my soul in bliss
It seems to me that through my spirit goes
The thrill of God's ineffable pure kiss:
Yea, having thee most surely I have this,—
And, holding thee, the heavenly land I hold
And hear the heavenly harps and cadences
Of sweet immortal song, and joy untold
Burns through me like a fiery river deep
When in thine arms, like Love's own arms, I sleep.

XI.
AN ENGLISH FLOWER

An English flower thou art and English scenes
Hath given thee half thy beauty, and thy face
From the wind's mouth that o'er our mountains leans
Hath gathered half its bright and wholesome grace;
Our rose and lily in lips and cheeks I trace;
And all the splendour of untrammelled seas
Hath passed into thy spirit,—and thine embrace
Is like the English sweet-limbed June-breathed breeze
That clings around the clover-scented leas,
Copious and gracious,—and thy heart is high
And pure and wide and fearless, and thy knees
Have never bent save under God's own sky:
Nor priest can tame nor frail creed fetter thee,
For thou art daughter of the untamed sea.

XII.
BREEZE, MOON, AND SUN

Thou art equal with me,—lo! thou art the breeze
That passes sighing o'er the water-way,
And I am the wild song within the seas
Driving up toward thee the sonorous spray
And glimmering sheet on sheet of sea-shine grey;
Thou art the moon above the tides at night
Glittering above them with most tender ray,
And I laugh underneath thy magic light
And clothe myself with limitless loud might
Of song: thou art the sun,—my free waves follow
Thine all-alluring splendour calm and bright,
Rising and falling fast in height and hollow;
Thou art breeze, moon, and sun,—and I the sea,
Swayed by the rapture, chainless soul, of thee!

XIII.
ALONE

On lovers loving in the silent night
The holy spirit of spotless God descends
And with their souls magnificently blends,
Till as their lips touch lo! their souls are white,
And as their eyes meet lo! those eyes are bright
With the eternal power God's spirit sends:
Far-off from home, apart from fame or friends,
They rest in God's unutterable light.

O love, we were unspeakably alone
With Love and God: thou wast alone with me,
And I with God who claimed us for his own,
And thou with God, and I alone with thee,—
While both were summoned to some mystic throne
By the great wind of greeting from the sea.

XIV.
JOINED SPIRITS

No more as separate souls we move along,—
The work of blending is divinely done;
From now till setting of our earthly sun
Joined are our voices in one wedding-song.
Thou art to me my whiteness,—I thy strong
Singer through whom thy laurel-wreath is won;
By thee my robe of victory is spun,
And mine are the swift thoughts that round thee throng.

Never, though all the ages stormed foam-white
Upon our path, should they the souls divide:
Through all eternity thou art my Bride
And I thy stronghold,—thou my soft delight,—
I am thine armour and thou art my shield;
Even so we traverse the hard-foughten field.

XV.
IF THOU WERT DEAD!

If thou wert dead, O love,—if thou wert dead,—
How could one summer sunset dare to gleam
Above the ripples of the rosied stream?
How could one rose blush into mocking red?
If death's wreath whitened round thy dear dark head
No leaf of bay would lure my glance again:
For thou art as the fountain of my strain,
Whence buoyant waters towards the plains are led.

If thou wert gone, O love,—if thou wert gone,—
How could the thoughtless heartless sun shine on!
How could the same chant fill the sea's dull soul
And thy same crested waves without thee roll!
Would not life's last and sweetest hope have fled,
If thou wert dead,—O love, if thou wert dead!

XVI.
OUR SHIELD

We give to others,—give them day by day
Of our hearts' best: we strengthen and make whole:
We soothe the sorrows of the weary soul;
We pour our spirits in eager help away.
But for the strength our stronger souls convey
To theirs, what gift is ours? what glad return
Of strength is given us when our own hearts burn,
When we lie sleepless till the morning grey?

If we shield others, God behind us stands,
A strength perpetual, a surpassing power,
And guards us with invincible great hands:
He seeks us out in sorrow's loneliest hour
And gives us, for our fellows' sympathy,
The sun's kiss and the friendship of the sea.

XVII.
THE PROMISE OF SPRING

When spring's hand wakes the meadows and the plains,
And the bright cowslips in the wet low fields
Flash through the grass their shining yellow shields,
And the gay daffodils repay the rains,
And fern-fronds cluster in the high-banked lanes,
And, trembling at the sword the sun's hand wields,
Each morn the iron-footed North Wind yields,
While inch by inch the fragrant West Wind gains:—
Then, love, we too the promise of the air
Partake: we know that for our souls as well
Breathes forth in heaven the spring-tide, and the smell
Of violets, and that one day, calm and fair
Will burst upon us God's immortal sky
Beneath whose rays no soul-flowers ever die.

XVIII.
THE GLORY OF SUMMER

The glory of summer with its banks of rose
And fields of blossoms, and its moonlit night
Flooded with marvellous entrancing light,
And dewy plains whereover love's foot goes,
Is as our sacred love—wherethrough there glows
Passion, divine, and limitlessly bright:
Passion which deepens as the hours take flight;
Passion which scorns the pale thought of repose.

In all the life of summer we are one:
One in its splendour and triumphant power;
One with its every star and leaf and flower
And moon and wave and cloudless heaven and sun;
One with it in its most luxuriant hour,
And in its sorrow,—when its life is done.

XIX.
THE CALM OF AUTUMN

Then autumn comes,—and the wild woods retain,
Sighing, their golden splendour for awhile,
Maddened at heart for lack of summer's smile
And all the reckless glory of her reign.
Calm settles down o'er valley, hill, and plain,
And quiet meadow and red-leafed defile,—
And fair blue glimpses in the skies beguile,
Nor yet the first frost stiffens in the lane.

The calm of autumn round our brows we bind,
Love, for a circlet: not the summer day
Brought more of peace than this sky cold and grey
And this soft-whispering faint unfiery wind,
And, in the West, the sunset's tender rose,
Wherethrough the soul of all past passion glows.

XX.
THE REST OF WINTER

And then comes perfect peace: the leaves are dead
And not one trace of summer lingers now
Within the woods; yet summer round our brow
Its own eternal coronet hath shed,
And we are summer-souled, and crowned with red
Blossoms that never for the winter bow
Fear-darkened petals or subservient head,
Or even the stress of autumn mists allow.

Spring we have had, and summer, and the gay
Death-gilded foliage of the autumn day,
And winter now with snows about us stands;
But, dying into life, we heed him not,
For in our spirits great gold June-suns hot
Exult with great exuberant deathless hands.

XXI.
THE SEA-SANDS' GOLD

How can I cease to sing? thou art not soon
Exhausted, fathomed, done with—like a girl
Who claims one sonnet on a golden curl,
And that's the scope and end of passion's tune!
Thou art as endless as the endless moon
That broods above the waters as they swirl,
Not twice the same,—now white, now silver-pearl,
Now golden-red: thou art my boundless June.

Thou art my love, my summer, my delight;
If to the end of time my spirit sang,
Yea, chanted upward to the August night,
And if round listening stars my harp-string rang,
One half of all my love would not be told,—
For it is countless as the sea-sands' gold.

XXII.
MEASURELESS

For thou art measureless as are the seas:
Thy soul is as the solemn waters grey
When ships traverse their spaces day by day
And mark their colour deepen with the breeze.
Blue now they are, afar from rocks and trees;
So thou art boundless, and thy spirit partakes
The silent force of silent mountain-lakes,
And all the passionate unrest of these.

When the storm strikes thee lo! thou art divine.
Thy waves climb upward, seeking the dark sky,
And I stoop downward, yearning to be thine,
And rustle with my soul through mountain-pine,
Or in the depth of thy blue shadows lie
Cloudlike, till all thy moans are one with mine.

ANOTHER ALICE

I

Crowned not with sea-shine fair,
But with dim London air,
Another laughing Alice holds my hand:
Her eyes are gentle brown
And velvet-black locks crown
Her brow, waved gently band above black band.

II

Not by the old sweet sea
Her bright glance pierces me,
But in the midst of grey and wintry gloom:
In London fog and smoke,
Not 'mid green birch and oak
And all the uncounted miles of heather-bloom.

III

Not 'mid the golden corn
Where first love's bliss was born;
Not by the green deep cliff-side or the sea;
Not on the purple moors
Where the high air allures;
Not by the berried mountain-ash are we,

IV

O Alice of the town,
With deep-black locks for crown,
And eyes whose lustre not the sea could make
Sweeter,—and breast as white
As foam that through the old night
Upon the old glimmering marvellous beach did break.

V

For life has on its way
Surged twelve years since the day
When all the springlike passionate fields were green
Around the treading light
Of her who shone with bright
Swift beauty amid those meads a very queen.

VI

And now, i' the later day,
I gather from life's spray
Thy tender beauty, and thy kiss is sweet
And soft and warm and close
Though town-wind round us blows
And not the breeze that stirs the impulsive wheat.

VII

Oh! take me by the hand
And lead me to love's land
Though love seem far-off in the weary town;
Show me that love is fair
Not only in mountain-air,
Not only amid the breeze from thymy down;

VIII

Show me that thou art white
As Alice lost to sight,
O Alice unveiled where no flowers adore
Thy beauty,—but I alone
Mark magic in thy tone,
While past the window London's wild wheels roar.

IX

Inspire me with thy face,
For never in any place
Where woman's beauty shines are flowers forlorn,
Or grasses destitute,
Or the stars' music mute,
Or barred the impassioned gateways of the morn.

X

Thy satin-black pure hair
Upon thy neck is fair
Though mountain-wind caresses not its folds,
And all the summer sea
Shines in the eyes of thee,
And flowers thine hand, though empty of blossoms, holds;

XI

For never yet the hand
Of woman, passion-planned,
Lacked blossomy balm of touch, and tender grace
Of flowers from all the South
Is fervid on her mouth,
And flush of more than rose is on her face.

XII

So cover thou, sweet, me
With rapture of the sea
And glory of the summer and with grand
Immeasurable delight
As of the August night
By starlike air-soft touching of thine hand!

XIII

Thy name hath music's might
And all the old delight
Leaps burning, thrilling, through me at the sound:
Again I seem to be
By the old silver sea,
With summer's fragrant darkness closing round.

XIV

Again the clear waves shine
In far fierce foam-edged line;
Their old impetuous music shakes the shore;
The earlier Alice stands
Light-footed on the sands,—
Her golden laughter charms me as of yore.

XV

The clover fields are sweet
With passage of her feet,
And all my soul is gladdened at her touch:
O Alice of to-day
Who dost this gift convey,
If but for this, I have to thank thee much!

XVI

Because thou hast the name
That once was God's own flame
To lead me up the mountain-land, and be
My talisman of might;
Because thy breast is white,—
Yea, white as foam that lined our foam-sweet sea:

XVII

Because thou hast to-day
Helped love upon love's way
And turned love's solemn gaze past years that flee
Towards meadow-sweet as white
As thou art, love, to-night,
And towards the old changeless grandeur of the sea:

XVIII

Because thou hast indeed
When flowers had run to seed
And dreary drooped the branches of life's tree
Become a blossom new,
Draped tenderly with dew,
As once a flower was dew-kissed by the sea:

XIX

Because thou art divine,
This wreath for thee I twine,
Yea, lay this song at unexpectant feet;
For surely for thy name
At least, thou well mayest claim
Some service of my lyre, some homage meet.

XX

Thou hast made the London day
Bright with the sea-shine grey,
And splendid with a memory of a face
More beautiful than thou;
Yet for this gift I vow
Thou hast for ever in my song a place!

XXI

While lovers read my song,
O brown-eyed maid, so long
Shalt thou within their hearts and my heart be;
The girl whose beauty made
Dim London like a glade
Voluptuous with the rapture of the sea:

XXII

Whose beauty made the air
Of even grim London fair
And brought the sense of summer back to me
And made the dark street shine
With line on sudden line
Of moon-led breakers thundering in from sea:

XXIII

Whose beauty made the street
Smell all of meadow-sweet
And all the pavement blossom like the lea
Where the sea-grasses grow
In grey-green stalwart row,
Most amorous for the wind's kiss and the sea:

XXIV

Whose beauty made my heart
With sudden bound and start
Lay hold upon the old unforgotten glee,
The joy youth's ardour planned
Where, in thought's changeless land,
My love for ever watches the grey sea:

XXV

Whose softness made the air
With sudden joy aware
Of subtle scents from many a summer tree;
Whose whiteness made may-bloom
Flash white across the gloom,
White as the flashing whiteness of the sea:

XXVI

Whose softness thrilled my soul
And round about it stole
Till all my being stormed forth rapturously
To seek and find and claim
The woman with thy name,
The other Alice,—Alice of the sea:

XXVII

Whose softness was a sense
Unearthly, an intense
New gift of living love, a golden key
To unlock passion's land
And place in mine the hand
That once evaded love's hand by the sea:

XXVIII

Whose splendour was as new
As a spring morning's dew
Or as the June sun's morning breath when he
Pours life upon the hills
And all the tossing rills
Laugh upward towards his face, as laughs the sea:

XXIX

Whose splendour flung a veil
Of passion, sweet and pale,
Around,—a tender robe of purity;
And made swift thoughts divine
Along the spirit shine,
As shine the glimmering surges of the sea:—

XXX

So, Alice, till the waves
Roll only over graves
Mix thy name with the name that still must be
Higher than all names,—and blend
Till time itself doth end
With the endless boundless passion of the sea.

1881.

ALICE OF THE SEA

I

The wild sweet stainless sea
Was as the soul of thee,
O Alice of the sea, and of the bower
Where Love in tender light
With face and body bright
Shone through youth's one divine impassioned hour.

II

Not any dreary town
Thou hadst, O love, for crown,—
But all the untrodden deep impetuous waters
Urgent in gathered wrath
Were strenuous round thy path,
O fairest-eyed of all earth's fair-eyed daughters!

III

The endless hopes of youth
Were thine, and fervent truth
Waved round thy form exultant her white wings,
And glittering fancies past
Before thee on the blast
And many sacred dreams of many things,

IV

Not in the August air
Alone, love, thou wast fair,
But in the days of dreams that followed thee;
By hills of other lands
The magic of thine hands
Was felt, and thy foot fell by many a sea.

V

Never a summer came
But in the robe of flame
And flowers that wrapped each summer's soft shape round
Thou wast,—and the urgent seas
Still washed as toward thy knees
And still thy beauty winter's chains unbound.

VI

Into the strange dim land
Of Poesy thine hand
Imperious and girl-queenly beckoned me:
And there I found again
With throbs of joy and pain
The clear divine unaltered spirit of thee.

VII

Though round about my head,
Now the old dream hath fled,
Loves many and of other shores have bound
Red flowers, and white and pale,
Are such wreaths of avail
If on life's lintel once thy foot doth sound?

VIII

If once the sense of seas
Comes, and of gracious breeze
That o'er the wide luxurious tideway hovers,
How vanishes the town,
And all its gateways frown,
While smile the sandy cliffs and short oak-covers!

IX

Again the ripples dance
Before our eager glance,
O Alice of the giant-memoried sea:
And suns long-hidden shine,
And pliant gold woodbine
I weave into a circlet meet for thee.

X

Thy beauty made the air
Of summer yet more fair
And every rose of summer softer still:
Thy sweetness made the days
Diviner and my lays
Flash forth like light-beams sparkling down a rill:

XI

Thy splendour made the white
Waves but a lesser sight
And all the moonbeams but inferior rays:
Thy glory made my dreams
Resplendent with wild gleams,—
Made marvellous the far-lit water-ways:

XII

Thy softness made each morn
A joy-god newly born:
Thy tender love was as the hand of thee
Moulding all things anew
Beneath emergent blue
That flamed no more storm-shadowed o'er the sea:

XIII

Thy laughter made the land
No more a waste of sand
Whereover hopeless roamed youth's shuddering tread,
But one wide land of flowers
Wherethrough the honied hours
On wings of quivering rainbow-rapture sped.

XIV

No more when thee I saw
I felt the old strong awe
Of poets, singers elder and divine;
I knew that I might meet,
Because thy mouth was sweet,
Fearless their long and laurel-crownéd line.

XV

I knew that through thy strength
My power would come at length
And that my grey-eyed Alice of the sea
Among their loves would stand,
A queen amid the band
Of English queens through the wild harp of me.

XVI

I stood forth,—and I sang;
Sometimes with sorrow-pang
Smitten, and sometimes pierced with dart of glee;
But ever in my sight
Keeping thy grey eyes' light
And the old light that glistened o'er our sea.

XVII

That this one thing be done
Ere solemn set of sun
I've vowed,—and struggle towards it as I may;
That thy name may be high
'Mid names that cannot die,
When comes for me the closing of my day:

XVIII

That, when no sound again
Is heard, no new love-strain,
No further voice or lyre or harp of me,
Still may thy memory cling,
A pure immortal thing,
To the world's heart as deathless as the sea:

XIX

That, when the new harps come
And men seek back for some
Fairest of those who filled to-day with glee,
They may with rapture find
This singing-wreath I've twined
About thy brows, O lady of the sea:

XX

With rapture not for sake
Of this the song I make,
But for the sake of thee the song's white flower;
Oh, may the future know
Thy beauty, when I go,
Silenced at mine inevitable hour!

XXI

New queens of love will shine,
New waves, as white a line,
Sweep upward, thundering o'er the yellow sands
In autumns crisp and fair,—
But will the new years bear
As sweet a woman as thou for new glad lands?

XXII

Will others of thy name
Come, not the very same,
But even as fair, with singers at their feet?
Will even our old woods thrill
To voices and the hill
For these be whitened with fresh meadow-sweet?

XXIII

Yes:—many a rose most red
Though thou and I be dead
Shall cast imperious perfume through the land,
And many women fair
Wind wonderful dark hair
Or golden ringlets, shining band on band.

XXIV

The new glad streams shall sound
And new delight abound
And new loves' silvery laughter fill with glee
The woods where we with slow
Step wandered long ago;
Again young hearts shall dream beside our sea.

XXV

But ever through my song
The same waves sound their strong
Triumphant pæan,—and the streams pervade
The woods with silver speech
And moons illume the beach
And white flowers fill the tangled forest-shade.

XXVI

In song they speak again;
My singing is the fane
Wherein thou art enshrined with all thy flowers;
There is not one which fails,
From all those summer vales,
To adorn thine own perennial singing-bowers:

XXVII

Not one bud pale and dim
But blossoms in my hymn;
Not one moon-silvered wavelet but doth sound
Within the singing walls
Wherethrough my spirit calls
To thee; wherein thine answering soul is found:

XXVIII

Not one rose but is grand
Within the singing-land,
And oh, thou sea-sweet woman, thou art there
Never diviner yet,
Nor tenderer eyelids wet;
Never more queenly,—never yet more fair:

XXIX

Unchanged and as of old
Thine hand in mine I hold
Within the singing-temple I have made,
And through its arches clear
Thy ringing laugh I hear
And robelike round me falls love long-delayed:

XXX

And with our words the tides
Mix, on the same shore-sides,
And voices of the woods,—thy soul and me
Blending in love as fair
As August morning's air
When first we met, O Alice of the Sea!

1881.

THE DEAD POET

I

“Leave him to me, ye roses which he sought,
And all ye hills and vales,—
And all ye green-robed dales
Made lovelier now for ever by his thought.

II

“Leave this dead poet unto me,” God said:
“And all ye women fair
Whose sweet breath and whose hair
Round him for passion's aureole was shed.

III

“Ye understood him not: the waves he sang
Were deaf and mute and blind
And soulless, and mankind
Was soulless too,—while yet his harp-string rang.

IV

“Though women loved him, yet they held him not
As I, his God, can hold
And round about him fold
Arms sweeter than rose-sprays in sunniest spot.

V

“He has become a very part of me;
And ye who pierced and slew
And ran your keen swords through
His bleeding yearning spirit,—where are ye?

VI

“Ye pass away like morning from the deep:—
But I with great glad hands
Wind soft pure white grave-bands
Around the man and rock the soul to sleep;

VII

“That when the resurrection great stars rise
He may arise and meet
With conquering smile and sweet
The woman's soul in mine, his true God's, eyes.

VIII

“I am his love,—I, God; I bear away
The heart that not one heart
Loved and brought not a dart
As well as love,—yours is the form ye slay!

IX

“But mine is the strong soul that, loving each,
Would not forsake, but held
Till all his power was quelled
By death,—the soul that strove my love to teach.

X

“And now ye have him not: he finds in me
More than ye gave of rest;
More than most tender breast
Of woman gave of closest sympathy.

XI

“I the great God-bride hold him, and I close
Above his toil-worn head
The eternal arms that shed
Fragrance about him holier than the rose;

XII

“And with mine awful spirit-thrilling kiss
I make mine own what ye
Had, and ye would not see,—
And mix my deathless woman-soul with his.”

HYMN

[Lift me far beyond the region]

Lift me far beyond the region
Where frail earthly loves abound:
Rose-sweet lips on earth are legion,—
Myriad flowers star earthly ground,—
Lift me, God, to thine own dwelling
Where thy ceaseless love is welling
Forth, and thy great peace is found.

Lo! I weary of all the passion
That the old pale earth provides:
Women's lips and love's same fashion,
Flowers and laughter, songs and brides:
Take me where some love is deathless;
Plant me 'mid thy snow-peaks breathless;
'Mid the plunge of thy great tides.

I am weary; but I follow,
God, the blood-marked track of thee:
Sweetest songs of earth sound hollow
By the music of thy sea:
Take me where eternal truth is;
Where thy love shines, where thy ruth is;
Mould thy likeness into me.

Far beyond the earth's green places,
Haunts of flowers and women fair,
Rose-flushed cheeks and wondrous faces,
Set me 'mid thine icy air:
Give me thine own love immortal;
Open thou the sky's blue portal;
Let me pass, and find thee there!

MY LOVE

By the old strange seas loud-breaking
Lo! my love for ever stands,
And the waves the shingle shaking
Are not whiter than her hands;
And her breath is sweet as roses
That the dewy morn discloses
When June holds the laughing lands.

Never, though the swift years perish,
Shall she quit that ancient shore,
And the flowers her sweet hands cherish
Shall be sweet for evermore:
And the seas' eternal metre
For her sake shall echo sweeter
As their endless chant they pour.

Ever, young and pure and tender,
Doth she wait by those far streams,
And the summer shares her splendour
And the waves her girlish dreams,
And the stars and clouds adore her,
And the gentle night folds o'er her
Darkness, and soft moon-spun gleams.

Alice! not in later regions
Is the true sweet form of thee,
But where our winged dreams in legions
Foam-light, mixed with foam-white sea:
There art thou, and I, for ever,
And the flying years part never
That eternal dream from me!

THE CHILD'S HEART

SONNET

The child's gold hair is full of summer sun;
The child's soft laugh is like the rippling sea,
Silver, and full of thoughtless harmless glee;
She gives thee all her treasures seen of none.
But thou who hast the child's white spirit won,
Be heedful with it,—fling it not away;
Remember there may come a day—a day—
When no swift childish feet by thine may run.

Be heedful of her; if she weary thee,
Be patient: bear with folly, for love's sake:
Fruit of thy travail thou shalt one day see;
Small things make weaker hearts and childlike ache;
Great is the worth of spotless purity;
Be gentle with her, lest the child's heart break.

July 2, 1881.

A JULY SONG

I

The year is flying, dying,—
Soon its flowers will flee;
Its tender soft red roses,
Its leafy verdant closes,—
Soon autumn will be crying,
“What is left for me?”

II

The old loves are flying, dying,—
With all their soft-voiced glee;
Their ripples of sweet laughter
And kisses that came after,—
The fruits of love are lying
Low now beneath love's tree!

III

The days are flying, dying,—
Soon bloom no more will be;
The great green leaves so splendid
With brown tints will be blended,
The desolate wind go sighing
Across waste marsh and lea!

IV

Our passions flying, dying,
Breathe glory once, then flee;
Their summer hues forsake them,—
The cold winds spurn and break them,—
Their petals low are lying
Beneath love's wind-tossed tree!

V

No word of hope comes flying
Across wan leagues of sea:
Our weariness increases
Now that June-laughter ceases,—
Our hopes are sighing, dying,
That blossomed fair and free!

VI

The golden corn is lying
Bright-gold upon the lea:
But all its rich deep splendour
Outblossoms not the tender
Spring-leaves that June saw dying,—
That now dead-brown we see.

VII

Late loves come flying, sighing,—
White wings across time's sea;
They are not winged with gladness
That mocks pale autumn's sadness,—
They are late and faint and dying,—
Their lips are nought to me.

VIII

A sound of song comes flying
Across far straits of sea:
The sound of early singing
When love's white hand was clinging,
Ere yet the flowers learnt dying,
With tender clasp to me.

IX

My heart goes flying, sighing,
O'er vale and mount and lea;
Seeking for one whose glances
Were once love's flame-tipped lances,—
A form in dreams descrying
Which I shall never see!

THE MOUNTAIN-YOUTHS AND THE VALLEY-MAIDENS

Mountain-youths.
The high hills beckon us,—we must be climbing,
Not lingering in this valley-land, love-rhyming;
Our path is steep:

Valley-maidens.
Nay; rest awhile amid the valley-roses;
Soft to the weary eyelid are green closes,
And soft is sleep.

Youths.
Lo! the high sun upon the mountains yonder
Beckons; if foot be frail or heart would ponder,
What hope abides?

Maidens.
Within our arms are dreams that man may treasure,
And rest divine, and sweetness beyond measure;
Choose us for brides!

Youths.
Our brides are mountain-peaks and snow-fields colder
If not more white than white seductive shoulder;
Ye do not well:

Maiden.
Yet take this rose soft-scented from my bosom;
Amid the high peaks it may smile and blossom,—
Sweet is the smell!

Youths.
The flowers of noble labour 'mid the mountains
Are sweeter than your limpid bubbling fountains
And valley-dew:

Another Maiden.
My hair is black; will one of you not take me?
Are ye all cowards and heartless to forsake me,
Ye climbing crew!

Youths.
The sun's gold robe on the high peaks extended
With silver-tissued flying clouds is blended;
Our wings must soar!

Another Maiden.
My hair is gold; wilt thou not just once kiss it?
One kiss!—thou 'ilt never amid the high peaks miss it!
Just once; no more!

Youths.
Nay, far beyond these things our mission takes us;
Desire of lowly common joys forsakes us;
We seek a star:

Maidens.
Ah! there are women 'mid those high peaks surely;
Maidens who wait you,—and their eyes demurely
Watch from afar.

Youths.
No maidens; only the high blue sky's glances
And the swift light that round the hill-top dances
And the arms of death:

Maidens.
And here ye have the arms that never weary;
Forget the snow-clad wastes, the passes dreary,
The ice-fields' breath!

Youths.
And if we quit the mountains and their splendour
Can ye be true and pure of heart and tender
As were our dreams?

Maiden.
Kiss me, and cease the old mad perverse endeavour;
The highest hill-tops man shall traverse never;
Rest by these streams!

Youth.
Ah! ye are real, and all the dreams were meagre;
And ye are young and tender-lipped and eager;
How hard to choose!

Maiden.
See now I bare for thee my naked bosom,—
A white unkissed unblemished maiden blossom,—
Canst thou refuse?

Youths.
Ah! all the old dreams adown the wind are sailing
And ardour's plumes, alert before, are failing;
The mountains fade:

100

Maidens.
And our rose-lips advance to hail and greet ye;
Our wondrous singing subtle mouths entreat ye;
Here is deep shade!

Youths.
Ah! spirits fair within your soft embraces
Fold us, and soothe the sad storm-beaten faces
In tight arms pressed:

Maidens.
Yea we will hold you, till the dream ye cherish
Seems but as last year's flowers that fade and perish,
Till tired hearts rest:

Mournful voices of the mountain-maidens heard dimly from afar.
We would have given you all ye sought of pleasure,—
Yea, even immortal passion's priceless treasure,
Nor wronged your quest!

101

TO ------

Lo! the poet sings to roses
And the hours of summer days:
In the woods his heart reposes
Where the white-armed nymph delays:
He may watch the chaste adorning
Of the golden-haired sweet morning,
Unrebuked for ardent gaze.

Through his heart storm strife and anguish;
All his soul is racked with pain;
Often through long hours that languish
Must he garner song's red grain:
Thou,—thou hast no heart to suffer;
When the surges' heads grow rougher
Thou in harbour dost remain!

102

When the great seas' hoary splendour
Shines beneath the grey low sky,
Thou art vanquished: when the tender
Flakes of rainbow-froth soar high,
Thou art safe in inland region;
Though the forms of gods were legion,
Storm-tossed, thou wouldst not be nigh.

What knowest thou of woman's passion,
Pedant with the mincing tread?
Woman loves not in thy fashion;
Not for thee the rose is red:
Not for thee divine emotion
Yearns forth, rippling like the ocean,—
Thou, alive, art worse than dead.

Thou to teach us, thou to reach us
With thy simpering silly ways!
Thou to impugn us and impeach us!
Thou to chisel and chip our lays!
Thou to teach us love's true beauty
And to point towards path of duty,—
What damnation were thy praise!

103

DEATH

The mantle of a vast exceeding peace
Over the lonely wandering poet fell:
The noises of the worldly war did cease,
And all was well.

Some understood him better, now that death
Had folded round him its embrace secure
And breathed upon him with its awful breath
Most sweet, most pure.

The women who had followed through wild ways
With love and longing in most tender hands
Brought him his roses and his wreath of bays
Plucked in lone lands.

104

But over him fell sweet unbroken sleep
And rest divine that nought could change or mar;
One woman watched his grave with great grand deep
Gaze like a star.

Nought moved her from his grave: his other queens
Sought other pleasures,—bought and sold and slept;
But still, where over him the grey stone leans,
This woman wept.

They found her there one summer morning dead
Beneath the solemn marriage-sealing sun,
To his live endless deathless spirit wed,—
So these were one.

105

ONE WOMAN

They knew him not: do blossoms understand
The hand that plucks them and that finds them fair?
Do the waves apprehend the stedfast land,—
The birds the air?

They knew him not: although their tender eyes
Seemed sometimes with soft passionate haze to swim;
Although with gracious words and gentle guise
They followed him.

What can the blossoms understand of fire?
The gentle doves of swift devouring flame?
But one great heart was great as his desire:
One woman came.

106

One fiery spirit smote his own with light
And stood before him and was not afraid;
Most passionate, yet most pure; most strong, yet white;
Divinely made.

They mingled each with each in awful sleep
And knew each other's very inmost soul:
Then parted like great sundering waves that leap
Lone to the goal.

But still they bore away the flame and fire
Of each; through each the other's force was poured.
The one was strengthened with sublime desire,
Renewed, restored:

The other's heart was softened as he lay
Within the woman's arms so grand and pure,
And one white rose of love he bore away
That shall endure.

And ever in sorrow this great woman's heart
Was with him when the others fled and failed:
Hard at him lunged grim pain's remorseless dart,—
She never quailed.

107

And when his hair with all the night's harsh dew
Was wet, she stood beside him in the field;
Stood, till once more heaven's midday cloudless blue
Burned on his shield.

And she would wind about him tender hands,
And bring him blossoms fairer than a dream,
And lift his spirit towards immortal lands
Where great suns beam.

Her heart was not as common hearts that glow,
Then in one day the ephemeral rapture fades:
But she was one with him through joy and woe,—
Through sunlit glades

And through the dark defiles of sin and death
She helped her singer on his perilous way,
Making the lone vales blossom with her breath,—
Making night day:

For she immortal and of ceaseless charm
Knew how to wake to might or lull to sleep;
Ever within the circle of her arm
Was rapture deep:

108

Red bloom of sin and terror drove her not
From the sad singer's weary side in fear;
She cleansed his life from fleck and stain and spot,
With many a tear:

Nought severed: but the eternal souls were one
And shall be,—while the ages speed or creep,—
Through flight of moon and race of fiery sun,—
Till all stars sleep.

109

THE SINGER

Born under skies of blue,
While summer yet was new
The singer learnt his strain

From flowers of summer days,
From scented woodland sprays
Sweet with the tender rain—

From maidens' lips most fair,
From joy of golden hair
And souls without a stain.

He hath no part with death:
But only with the breath
Of life and living things;

110

Only with skies and seas
And the June amorous breeze
That through the forest sings;

Only with dawn and night,
The pale stars' mystic light,
The sea-bird's ghostlike wings.

He hath not met despair,
But only the strange fair
Face that filled all his dream

When yet the world was young
And only love-chants rung
Beside the ocean-stream:

What hath December grey
And red-leafed autumn day
To do with green June-gleam?

Right glad is he that June,
Yea, the full summer's noon,
Beheld him born to earth;

111

For then her days most fair
Are filled with sweetest air
And greenest is her girth

And all the heart of things
With silverest laughter rings
And with most fluent mirth.

When the June-flowers were thick
And shafts of June-suns quick
The poet-child was born

And ever round him grows
Thought's patient thornless rose
In love with the June-morn

And little part hath he
With the grey wintry sea
And wintry winds forlorn.

Born of the English race,
Yet all his fervent face
Sought Greece, and Greece he knew,

112

And Grecian love of Art
Was innate in his heart
And love of Southern blue;

Yea, 'mid the asphodel
Cream-white, his footstep fell,
And not 'mid English dew.

The power to seize and bind
In music for mankind
The Beauty that pervades

The solemn wind-swept hills
And swift white-foaming rills
And sacred woodland shades

Was his,—and power to meet
In wild embrace and sweet
The nymphs and forest maids.

So, being not of them,
No crown nor diadem
Did English hands supply:

113

England gave streams and flowers
And green-draped fragrant bowers
And wealth of deep-blue sky

And, at the last, a grave
By her sad singing wave
And room enough to die.

114

COMPENSATION

The poet hath to sing though no man hears,
And though the dreary years
Bring nought of sympathy:
He hath the sun and sea.

The poet hath to love though hope be dead
And garlandless his head:
Though no man take his part,
He hath the rose's heart.

The poet hath to sing though all his words
Be as the notes of birds
Flung to the bitter breeze:
Yet hath he the blue seas.

The poet hath to love though all his brain
Be torn with lonely pain:
Devoid of love's delight,
He hath the sweet wild night.

115

The poet hath to sing though fools surround
With mocking weary sound:
While the coarse hearer raves
He watches the sea-waves.

The poet hath to sing though all be dark,
Yea not one golden spark:
He hath his golden lyre
And his own godhead's fire.

The poet hath to love though all be lost,
Love, reckless of the cost:
Travelling the earth flame-shod,
With the great stars and God.

116

DEAD!

The thick gold hair
That was so fair
Falls like a mantle round
Her body in it wound.

The clear grey eyes
That shone like skies
Are closed: they will not wake
Or soften for my sake.

The lips so red
Are mute and dead:
I have waited nigh a week,
And yet they will not speak!

117

Never again!
There is the pain.
And I may seek for tears
Through forty years!

118

A JOURNEY

The same green hills, the same blue sea,—
Yet, love, thou art no more with me!

The same long reach of yellow sand,—
Where is the touch of thy soft hand?

The same wide open arch of sky,—
But, sweetheart, thou no more art nigh.

God love thee and God keep thee strong!
I breathe that pure prayer through my song.

I send my soul across the waste
To seek and find thy soul in haste.

Across the inland woods and glades
And through the leaf-laced chequered shades

119

My spirit passes seeking thee:
No more I tarry by the sea.

For where thou art, am I for ever:
Mere space and time divide us never.

120

ON THE DOWNS

The sweet air from the downs
My fevered forehead crowns:
The tossing white-maned sea
Lays joyous hold of me.

But thou art far away
From downs and whirling spray;
Skies, winds, and waves once glad,
Miss thee,—and all are sad.

Not all the shining air
That crowns these cornfields fair
Is worth one glance of thine
That makes all airs divine.

121

Not all the curling seas
That kiss the fresh strong breeze
Are worth thy soul's white wings
And all the peace it brings.

122

VENUS

The great sea's infinite repose
Is even as when white Venus rose
Love-glancing;
Ah! is not this her shape that glows
Advancing?

'Tis we have changed: the pure sweet sea,
Venus, alone is worthy thee;
Its splendour
Expects thy coming with soft glee
Most tender!

The seas of Greece were not more fair
Than this which shines in August air
Before me:
The deep sky stretches blue and rare
High o'er me.

123

'Tis we have changed: the sea to-day
Is thine as ever in this bay
Sun-gladdened;
And still thy white limbs mock the spray,
Unsaddened!

Aug. 21, 1881.

124

OUR LOVE-CROWN

Not through the rose-hung honeyed ways
Of kisses soft and songs and lays
Thou followest me,—
But by far lonely foam-filled bays
Of sorrow's sea.

Through self-denial and the extreme
Repression of love's fiery dream
Thou followest on:
Far heights before us rise and gleam,—
We climb alone.

Not ours the daily chequered life,
Chequered but sweet, of man and wife,
But ours the strange
Wild ways of lonely constant strife
That knows no change.

125

Not ours to meet save in the bliss
Of sacrifice, the pale-lipped kiss
From cross to cross:
This is our life's one love-crown, this,—
All else is loss.

126

AT THE LAST

When I receive thee bleeding
From all the thorn-crowns of the weary years,
God having heard our pleading
At last with merciful and tender ears,

Shall I not find thee fairer
For all the horror of the lonely way,—
Thee, doomed to be a sharer
In my life's skies so bitter, gaunt, and grey?

Will not thy lips be sweeter
Than rosebud trifling lips of untrained child,
And thine embrace completer
For all the past nights when pain's winds were wild?

127

And shall not I be nearer
And far more meet, O sorrow's queen, for thee,
More husbandlike and dearer,
For blows of many a surge of pain's grim sea?

128

A POET'S LOYALTY

Not to a queen or king
Is the deep inmost spirit in me loyal,
But to the waves that sing
Round English shores, and fling
Against our fortressed rocks their mantles royal.

A crowned head in my sight
Hath little import: flower-crowned hills have more;
Our cliffs and surges white,
Or blue waves soft and bright
That ripple gently on a sunlit shore.

No prince or ruler holds
The free land of my heart: it dwells amid
The heather-purpled wolds
And in the green woods' folds,—
Yea, 'mid the mountain-steeps my heart is hid.

129

England herself I own
For queen, sweet with the laughter of her sea
And grand on mountain-throne,—
She royal, she alone,
Is sovereign of my heart eternally.

1881.

130

BALCOMBE

Quiet woods bend o'er me,
Tender ferns and sweet
Cluster low before me,
Kiss my feet.

Autumn berries glisten
In the hedges dry:
Brown birds as I listen
Rustle by.

Brown eyes shine beside me;
Twenty years ago
Love vouchsafed to guide me
By their glow.

131

Cousin! how we wandered
Through these autumn ways,
Smiled and laughed and pondered
In old days:

Threaded all these alleys,
Gathered berries red
In the green still valleys
Where we tread.

How swift recollection
Brings again the past,—
Friendship to affection
Changing fast;

Twenty years, or nearly,
Fold their wings between:
Yet for me how clearly
Shines each scene!

Blackberry-copse and meadow,
Heather-purple dell,
Pine-trees' fragrant shadow,
Azure bell,—

132

Sandy rocky hollow,
Trout-stream brown and deep,
Wood-side where Apollo,
Glad, might sleep,—

Boyish thoughts and simple
And your laughing eyes
And your laughing dimple
And grey skies

All return as plainly
To my gaze to-day,
As if thought ungainly
Time could slay!

All return as clearly
As if twenty years
Were one winter merely,—
One night's tears!

Balcombe ferns and heather
And your brown same eyes
And the autumn weather
And calm skies

133

Bring it all before me
As if but one night
Threw her mantle o'er me
Soft and light;

Or as if between us
But one summer lay:—
Twenty Junes have seen us
Growing grey.

Aug. 29, 1881.

134

BEYOND!

Beyond all ferns and flowers:
Beyond the sunlit bowers:
Beyond the shadow of tree:
Beyond the grass-bright lea:

Beyond dull hearts and hands,
The one who understands!
Beyond dull soul and brain,
The soul that soothes all pain!

Beyond these meadows green,
The sea's grey glimmering sheen!
Beyond these stifling vales,
Sea-breath that never fails!

Beyond those far dim downs,
The soul that loves and crowns!
Beyond flower, field and tree,
You and the sea!

135

FAREWELL TO BALCOMBE

Farewell, ferns and heather!
Cousin with dark eyes!
Farewell, golden weather,
Cloudless skies:

Farewell, Church and river;
Farewell, park and mead
Where the larches quiver,—
Sedge and reed:

Farewell, forest gleaming
Now with autumn gold
Where I wandered dreaming
Dreams of old:

136

Farewell, friends whose tender
Love and help and care
Doubled all the splendour
Of soft air;

Friends who made the alleys
Sweeter from their tread,
And the fir-lined valleys
Bracken-red:

Farewell;—I may never
See the heather glow
Here again, but ever
(That I know)

Will my heart remember
These glad autumn days;
This red-leaved September
With me stays:

And the friendly faces
And the brown trout-brooks
And the mossy places,—
Silent nooks.

137

All the swift short drama,
Trust me, entered deep,
Bright as panorama,
My soul's sleep,—

Waking memories olden
That will now abide,
Silver-plumed and golden,
At my side.

Far from forest-glory
Must my footstep fly:
Far from lichens hoary
And clear sky;

Far from heather-dingle,
Far from ferny dell,
Far from pines that mingle
Their rich smell;

Far from hazel-coppice,
Far from blackberry-brake,
Corn and grass and poppies,
Stream and lake.

138

To the great smoke-city
Must I wend my way:
Take this farewell ditty,
Friends, I pray;

Ere I, saddened, leave you,
For your kindness long
What I can I give you—
Just this song!

Sept. 21, 1881.

139

FAREWELL!

The early days
Of lays
Were glad with help of friends:
Alas! how soon
The June
Of love and friendship ends.

The sky's clear blue
How few
Will follow in heart and seek.
Nay! one by one
They shun
The glimmering mountain-peak.

140

How long ago
The glow
Of early passion flamed!
How hearts we met
Forget
The goal at which we aimed!

Alone we tread
The dead
And flowerless mountain-side:
We have been true
To you—
But your high purpose died.

O friends so fair
Who were—
Who started on the quest
With us,—hath deep
Pale sleep
Your wearied souls possessed?

141

Are ye so weak?
The peak
Still glitters up above.
The morning air
Is fair
With sounds and sights of love.

But in the vale
Ye wail
“The mountains are so high!
Why should we dare
That air
So arid, fierce, and dry?

“Why should we quit
Sunlit
Soft pleasant verdant nooks,
Where flowers adorn
At morn
The green-leaved banks of brooks?

142

“Why should we seek
The peak
Where white rolled vapours brood?
The mountain's head
We dread,—
That vast weird solitude.”

Yea,—so they groan
And moan,
Knowing not the high hills' charm;
Content with their
Despair
And nerveless slope of arm.

“Brothers, good-bye!”
We cry—
“And sisters weak, farewell!
Your heaven of rest,
Unblest
By toil, to us is hell.

143

“If ye are tired,
Nor fired
By sweet hope any more,
Yet we are strong,
And song
Is stedfast as of yore.

“Ah! while ye slept
We kept
Our sacred vow to song:
And while ye dreamed
Love gleamed
Our serried ranks among.

“We followed through
The blue
Strange mists song's flying form,—
Through thunder-showers
And bowers
Lurid with light of storm.

144

“And now we near
The clear
Sweet regions high and far
Where love awaits,—
The gates
Of the gold morning star.

“But ye stretch limb
In dim
Moist valleys soft and green:
What part have ye
With sea
Or sky or mountains' sheen?

“Ye loved, and then
Again
Ye wearied and forsook:
Your hearts grew old
And cold,
And bribes from men ye took.

145

“Yea, ye once swore
To soar
And all high things to seek;
Not valley-flowers,
Nor bowers,
But the august mountain-peak:

“And, having fled,
Ye are dead
To all high valour now;
No dawn of gold
For cold
Hearts weary of their vow!

“Farewell! Farewell!
Ye fell—
Your wandering steps were weak;
Not for your throng
The strong
High dawn-flushed summits speak.”

146

THROUGH THE NIGHT

I

Weary we are indeed, for stars are none above us,
Nor friends we have to help, nor lovers' lips to love us,
But only our own souls to aid us—you and me;
Therefore with urgent voice I bid you rise, and mar not
The passing fleet-winged days with dreams of things that are not,—
Rise and be great and mix with the great-hearted sea!

II

Lo! evening now descends,—it breathes on thee my blessing;
God send the soft flowers' scents and summer dreams caressing!
God send thee gracious sleep, though I am not with thee!
Sweetest, be glad of heart: the morning light shall find us
And, when we least expect, shall burst upon and blind us,—
Sweeter than moon that beams to-night upon thy sea.

147

III

I would that I were there!—that I with thee were sleeping
By those calm moonlit tides, for very passion weeping,
Feeling the sweet night close around us tenderly:
But since I cannot share the glory, I would follow
Thy flight through meadows green and many a blossomed hollow
On song's swift wings till I alight beside the sea.

IV

O love, we are alone: we will not mar the splendour
Of our immortal love by word or thought untender?
Lo! I am very close to-night,—yea, one with thee.
Thou dost not understand: thou art pained; and yet with yearning
Beyond all speech to-night I follow thy foot turning
Ever with instinct sure towards our untrammelled sea.

148

ONE PERFECT WIFE

Not all the flowers and bowers wherein love shines
With soft seductive feet
Can still the yearning burning heart that pines
For one, and but one, woman sweet.

Not all the songs and throngs of maidens fair
With eyes of many hues
Can banish pain and strain and carking care,—
One love, but one, we still would choose:

That she, immortal, endless, still the same,
Might soothe our soul to rest;
To shoot love's arrow once, with but one aim,
Is wisest after all, and best.

149

Nought else can heal us, save us, bring us peace,
Conclude the long wild strife;
Light loves but fever us,—all fevers cease
When we have found one perfect wife.

150

“BUT WHERE SHALL MAN'S EYES FIND HER?

But where shall man's eyes find her?—
By shores of dim grey sea?
Or under summer tree?
Or do the rose-bowers bind her?

Long may he seek, and, seeking,
Be sick of heart and sere,—
Ere falls upon his ear
The sound of her soft speaking.

Yea, old and sad and weary
He shall be ere the dawn
Gild forest and wet lawn
With light so sweet and eerie.

151

Ere in that light she stands,
A Bride for evermore,
With heart whence love-floods pour
And great immortal hands.

152

HYMN

[Along the blood-stained road that Christ's foot trod]

Along the blood-stained road that Christ's foot trod
We follow hard,—
Watching the sweet eyes of the Son of God
And his brow scarred.

Along the weary lonely devious way
We follow him,
Through midnight blackness till the morning grey,—
Till stars wax dim.

Not on his head love's star-crown shone alone;
Nay! all may share
His glory who will share his sorrow's throne
On Calvary bare.

If any man will watch throughout the night,
Though wild winds roam
And on the savage beach the only light
Is light of foam,

153

He shall partake the deathless crown that he,
The Christ-king wore:
An honoured guest at his high table be
For evermore.

But first must all his hair be wet with dew,
And he must stand
Lonely beneath the roof of midnight blue
In his own land.

And each upon his special cross must hang,
True till the end;
Each pierced by his own individual pang,—
Without one friend.

Then shall the morning that beheld Christ free
See us too rise,—
Pure as the white air, strenuous as the sea,
With deathless eyes.

154

O SEA!

I

Here in the teeming city lo! I cry
Towards the wide waste of waters:—give to me
Harbour of wind and light whereto to fly,
O Sea!

II

Let all men know that though the world's harps choose
Full many flower-crowned loves, and bow the knee,
I am thy singer,—whom thy breath renews,
O Sea!

III

Here in our England I am far apart
From minds of men who know not aught of thee;
I am repaid if but I win thy heart,
O Sea!

155

IV

Oh, what are flowers or ferns or blue-waved rills
Or ornate valleys haunted by the bee
Beside thy flowerless gulfs and foam-flecked hills,
O Sea!

V

Thou art eternal as the human race;—
Ere fair earth heard one lover's passionate plea
Thou and the lonely sun stood face to face,
O Sea!

VI

Thou sawest pale Cleopatra's galleys ride
Upon the blood-splashed deep;—beheld'st when we,
Conquerors, saw Nelson kiss death's lips for bride,
O Sea!

VII

At Marathon thou watched'st the fierce hosts
Collide in battle:—far from rose or tree,
Thou communest with the pale stars' glimmering ghosts,
O Sea!

156

VIII

Hear us! Oh pour upon us thy great might,
And clothe us round with thine eternity,
And set upon our brows thy deathless light,
O Sea!

157

A DEDICATION TO MY FRIEND DR. N. D. GADDY, OF LOVETT, INDIANA

Friend in the younger England far away,—
The great free land beneath whose boundless skies
Singers as large of spirit shall arise
When its dawn broadens to a golden day;—
Friend who didst travel o'er the sea-wastes grey
That guard us,—eager with recipient eyes
Once to behold the land whose heart supplies
The hearts that rule the peoples who obey:—
Friend, whom once seeing I shall not forget,
Take, if thou wilt, these songs of English seas,—
Full of the flower-breath of the English breeze
And with salt English clustering spray-drops wet;—
Take them: in memory that we once have met,—
Once, here, at home,—beneath thy ancestral trees.

159

SONNETS

(1881)

161

SONNET I
THE FLOWER ASLEEP

I stood within the old wood,—and all the past
Swept through my spirit on wild storm-tossed wings:—
The past with all its pain and all its stings
And small sour fruit and endless yearning vast.
Upon white tides of woe my thought was cast,
'Mid shoals round which the hoarse sea-whisper rings:
I was immersed in floods of former things,
And my brow ached at strokes of passion's blast.

And then I looked, and lo! a flower asleep,—
The plant whose plumes I gathered long ago
To mix them in a girl's locks soft and deep.
Through seasons of fierce sun and months of snow,
While I full many a maddening watch did keep,
It had done nought but bloom, and fade and blow.

162

SONNET II
BEAUTY UNLOOKED FOR

Not sweeter was the breast of Venus white,
Or bloom of Helen, soft in Grecian air,
Or outpoured glory of the coal-black hair
That maddened Antony with fierce delight,
Than beauty bursting forth to sudden sight
Within our streets, and making fog-banks fair.
Not all our London dreariest mists impair
The glory of mist-piercing glances bright.

One may meet Daphne or a Grecian maid
By Thames, within some oak or beechen glade;
One may find Psyche 'mid the wild streets' roar:
Or, seeking not so pure and sweet a form,
Clasp suddenly the breast of Venus warm
Where silver ripples chime on English shore.

163

SONNET III
THE OLD VALLEY

Ah! still the old waves upon the gold sand breaking
And still the old windy cliff-side and the sky
Unchanged from the old lost days when you and I
Clasped in sweet dreams too sweet and soft for waking
Wandered,—and watched the salt free sea-wind shaking
The tufted heads of clover and of grass.
Now what is left us, as towards death we pass?
Sorrow, and flowerless days, and lone heart-aching!

Ah! still the old valley,—and the fern leaves yonder
And all the clustered grace of meadow-sweet.
Doth never lightning traverse with red feet
These green fair glades? Are the black wings of thunder
Forbidden with hoarse rush the fronds to sunder,
That all is changeless still though we shall ne'er,
Unchanged, be there!

164

SONNET IV
“LOVE'S DESPAIR”

Oh infinite delight when never more
The white seas shine before us on the sand,—
When at the touching of Death's calm sweet hand
Colour forsakes the hills, and light the shore!
Yes: then shall all life's wild fierce pain be o'er.
Nought shall arouse us from our perfect sleep:
At woman's touch no lingering pulse shall leap
Nor at bright Summer's footstep at the door.

Whom woman cannot rouse is more than dead.
Death's infinite peace shall fall upon each soon:
Then in the timeless land where star nor moon
Glitters,—nor rose of white nor rose of red,—
And where no woman's figure thrills the air,
We shall find rest from love,—and love's despair.

165

SONNET V
THEE

When I grow grey and men shall say to me,
“What was the worth of living, truly told?—
Lo! thou hast lived thy life out; thou art old;
Thou hast gathered fruit from many a green-leafed tree,
And kissed love's lips by many a summer sea,
And twined soft hands in locks of shining gold:—
But all thy days are dead days now, behold!
Life passes onward,—what is life to thee?”

Then will I answer,—as thy gracious eyes,
Love, gleam upon me from dim far-off skies,—
“Life had its endless deathless charm,—and still
That charm weaves rapture round me at my will.
Life has its glory:—for I have seen Thee;
And roses,—and June sunsets,—and the sea.”

166

SONNET VI
“WHEN?”

When shall they crown a poet?—they have twined
Around the lordly brows of poets dead
White lilies, dark-green bay-leaves, roses red,—
And golden crowns and silver have designed
For singers clustered in the years behind.
But ah! the living lonely thorn-pierced head:
Raindrops and dewdrops in the roses' stead
Crown the tired forehead,—and the weary wind.

When shall they crown a poet?—When his ears
Are deaf for ever to the sound of praise.
Then will the world's heart open to his lays
And his sweet singing move men's souls to tears.
Life brought him torment. Nobler death shall give
The force to conquer, and the right to live.

167

SONNET VII
SILENT GIFTS

Alone!—And yet some silent gifts are won.
Even for the loneliest gaze the stars are fair,
And sweet the voiceless heights of moonlit air
Unfound of day, forgotten of the sun.
But ah! the sadness,—to be known of none
Save of the cold-lipped gruesome bride, Despair!
Alone to battle and alone to bear;
Ever alone,—till life and death be done.

The poet hath the roses and the sky,
But not the sympathy his spirit seeks.
Is it a soul-delivering thing to lie
Amid sea-poppies by grey winding creeks
Or on the hills whereo'er the white mists fly,—
Waiting the gold-winged word no woman speaks?

168

SONNET VIII
THE GREEK POET IN ENGLAND

In England's air the poet-heart was born,
And his young fancies 'mid the city's roar
Ripened,—strange fruit of thought the dark streets bore.
Yet light upon him of the world's first morn
Was shed, and woods that heard Diana's horn
And Grecian waves that flashed at Jason's oar
Knew him. He steeped his soul in old-world lore,
And met the modern gods with speechless scorn.

England gave little love. She gave him flowers,—
Such as her Northern meadows can supply:
And just one moment's rest in first love's bowers;
And glory of hill and sea and lake and sky:
And lonely agonised heart-broken hours;
Death's bitterness—then the mandate not to die.

169

SONNET IX
“THOU COULDST NOT WATCH WITH ME!”

Thou couldst not watch with me!—The flowers are thine
Soft in the valleys,—where the blue stream speeds
By banks of osier and the bending reeds,
And where the sunlit golden ripples shine.
The foaming white salt sea-waves' crested line,
And the blue-gentianed austere mountain-meads,
And snow-fields whence thy traitor foot recedes,
And the far dim laborious peaks,—are mine.

O thou whose hazel eyes so pure and deep
Should towards far splendid heights have led the way,
Hadst thou no holy watch with me to keep?
The dark is lessening, and the pale morn's grey
Glimmers. O girl-heart, art thou still asleep?
And girl-lips, have ye no sweet word to say?

170

SONNET X
“I LOVE THEE”

I twine the silent mists within my hair
And mark the morning from the mountain-peak,
While round me the sonorous thunders speak
And strange light quivers through the thin pure air.
For thee, sweetheart, this valley-rose is fair,—
Fair as thine own soft slothful recreant cheek;
Thee the gay valley-sunshine loves to seek:
Thou wouldst not the steep flowerless high paths dare.

And yet I love thee! though thou art so far
Away from me, I love thee, sweetheart mine!
Far down the valley thy bright soul doth shine,
Like a small radiant guiding helpful star
Seen through these tangled black grim growths of pine
To show where love and simple pleasures are.

171

SONNET XI
ONE NIGHT WITH THEE

Oh for one night with thee! Shall not the hours
Bring round revenge at last, and angry Fate
Be slain by white hands nigh Love's golden gate?
Shall we not plunge amid the night's dim bowers?
Wilt thou not crown me with unheard-of flowers?—
Lo! the night waxes onward: it grows late:
Rise thou; then falter not, nor turn nor wait:—
The freedom of the trackless dark is ours.

Oh for one night with thee!—one awful night
Amid the stillness of eternity:
Once, if but once, to know supreme delight,
Whatever else beyond the dawn may be:
As starlit heaven grows barer and less bright
To win all heaven's lost jewels, winning thee!

172

SONNET XII
VENUS INCARNATE

Upon the old cliff thou stood'st with wondrous eyes
Wherethrough the timeless soul of Venus shone;
And I,—I knew myself thy bard alone
Till very death turns faint of heart and dies.
Thy soul was mingled with the pale-blue skies,
And the far dark-blue waters were thy throne,
And in thy tongue spake Venus' silver tone,—
Robed wast thou, mortal, in immortal wise.

So thou dost hold my soul for evermore,
O Venus-lady, in thy tender hands
Which held innumerable souls of yore
And swayed the unsearchable and ancient lands,—
Now clasping my soul where grey breakers roar
And charge along the vapour-shrouded sands.

173

SONNET XIII
A PORTRAIT

Full of child-thoughts, and glad at simple things,—
Not versed in deep things;—well content to be
In green woods or green meadows, or to see
The painted butterfly spread sportive wings:
Happy in all the joy the blue sky brings,
And full of an unfathomed purity:
Not clever, great, or learned,—but to me
Fairer than jewelled queens to mighty kings:—

Such is the child: a very simple flower,—
Flaunting no petals flushed with garish red;
Full ne'ertheless of her own quiet power,
Serenely blossoming on her own calm bower,
And flinging from her sunlit golden head
Light that transfigures many a mortal hour.

174

SONNET XIV
THE SOUTHERN PASSION

On England once flamed forth the deathless sun,
For, once, a woman kissed me—not as ours,
But with the sweetness of a thousand flowers
Whose passionate souls caressed me, one by one.
I seemed no longer where our dim streams run
And where the leaves with ceaseless storms are wet:—
The woman's long loose hair was black as jet;
Its scent stayed with me when the kiss was done.

The glory of Southern passion filled my mind,
And pale seemed even Venus' locks of gold
And poor and worthless by those black locks twined
Over the brow some god had bent to mould.
In England even not every mouth is cold:
In England even the heart that seeks shall find.

175

SONNET XV
“SONG IS NOT DEAD”

Shelley is dead, and Keats is dead,—and who
Will take to-day the poet's harp and sing?
Whose voice shall make the mountain-summits ring
Or sound at night beneath the moonlit blue?—
Great souls are dead. Must English song die too,
Die out and perish,—while our sea-waves bring
Still their same ceaseless chant, and ceaseless spring
Robes the sweet English flower-filled vales anew?

Ah! while one English rose blooms red at morn
Still shall fresh English deathless song be born,
Pure and untrammelled as the English skies:
And while one English woman still is fair,
Music shall sound upon the English air:—
Song is not dead, till the last woman dies.

176

SONNET XVI
THE WORLD'S MARRIAGE MORN

The world is young.—Her eyes are girlish still,
And girlish calm on her white brows is set:—
Her marriage midday rapture tarrieth yet
Beyond that farthest faintly-outlined hill.
Not for our keen desire or urgent will
The world will wear her jewelled coronet;
To plan that crown a thousand hearts have met;
It mocks each single craftsman's noblest skill.

We shall not see it. 'Mid the morning mist
And 'mid the dewy morning grass we stand:
The world's soft girlish mouth our mouths have kissed,
And we have held her white unwedded hand:—
But ah! the rich mature lips tarry long
For other seasons, and another song.

177

SONNET XVII
“WHEN PASSION FAILS US”

When passion fails us, and when Woman fails,—
When we are weary of the roses' scent
And not one song can bring our souls content,
Yea, when the very flush on Love's cheek pales,—
What help is left us then,—what hope avails?
What pleasure tarrieth when Love's robes are rent
Asunder, and his golden hours are spent,
And the wind whistles round his house and wails?

When even Woman's lips are no more red,
And the sun ceases, and the silver moon
Is tarnished, and the pleasant stars are dead,
And sorrow murmurs through the bowers of June,
Is there a Power to lift the weary head
And turn life's darkness into golden noon?

178

SONNET XVIII
“IS THERE A HAND?”

Is there a hand more tender than the hand
Of Woman? Are there bountiful deep eyes
Whence the eternal pity never flies?
Is there a God within some deathless land?
And can he bend and hear and understand
From heights of awful unapproached clear skies?
Is there a heart of love that never dies,—
Sweet beyond wish, beyond our yearning grand?—

O God of human hearts,—if God there be,—
Blend thou thy great immortal soul with ours.
We seek thee, as a river seeks the sea,
Weary of all the old inland sun-smit bowers.—
Absorb us, cleanse us, save us,—give us rest.
Gather our stream-hearts to thine ocean-breast.

179

SONNET XIX
BALCOMBE FOREST

O strange sequestered sunny silent land
Where fairies exiled from man's haunts, might dwell!
Land of the great fern and the heather-bell
And larch and pine and beech-bole gnarled and grand
And trout-streams brown and lanes of rufous sand
And many a deep-green shrouded mystic dell
And silver-gleaming lake and mossy fell,—
Shall I again within thy borders stand?—

Thou hast an inland splendour all thine own.
And yet thy tenderest delight to me
Was,—not thy soft and deep streams' silver tone,
Nor yet the glory of heather-purpled lea,—
But that one summit whence far hills were shown,
Behind whose green walls lay the grey wild sea.

180

SONNET XX
BEYOND

Beyond,—beyond the stifling inland nooks
Well loved of flowers and birds and butterflies,
And dim caerulean depths of summer skies,
And pebbly plashing meadowsweet-lined brooks,
Out to the far-off sea my spirit looks;
And seeks with fiery passionate surmise
The shore where the eternal sea-waves' eyes
Watch their sea-birds,—as these trees watch their rooks.

Beyond these valleys,—beautiful indeed,—
Beyond these haunts of heron, hawk, and jay,—
Beyond flower-sprinkled scented dappled mead,—
Thou art; and thy dark hair is wet with spray,
O my sea-bird: and all my soul would speed,
Repressless, towards our waves and thee to-day!

181

SONNET XXI
ENGLAND

England of Shakespeare, Shelley, Milton, Keats,
Burns, Byron, Wordsworth,—hath thine head grown grey,
And are the former glories passed away?
Is the heart tired that 'neath thine armour beats?
As year by year with speedy wing retreats,
Doth thy strength dwindle slowly and decay?
While yet the world basks in the golden day
Is it mist of night that round about thee fleets?—

Rise thou, O England! Let thy great limbs sleep
No longer. Burn upon us with those eyes
That blenched not at Trafalgar's blood-red skies,—
Nor Waterloo,—nor Alma's thundering steep:—
Let not this crowd of mockers round thee leap,
While passionless thy giant sword-arm lies.

182

SONNET XXII
WATERLOO

A stormy evening on a far-stretched plain
Of meadow-land and corn-land,—and a host
Of stubborn red-coats holding every post
Against the interminable cannon-rain.
Oh, to live through that deathless day again!
The day when the Old Guard he trusted most,
Napoleon,—found their world-wide fierce-lipped boast,
Valid a thousand times, this one time vain.

The blue long lines in motion, and the red
Long line as steady as a wall of stone!—
The Old Guard, plunging through that long day's dead,
Swept like the mad sea-surges shoreward blown
Against the red calm ranks;—then with a groan
Wavered,—and turned,—and the whole world's conquerors fled!

183

SONNET XXIII
FAIRY LAND

I fell asleep, and dreamed of Fairy Land:
Of cruel monsters with red savage eyes,
And yellow snowdrops, and strange twilight skies.
A blue-haired fairy took me by the hand
And led me towards a Palace where a band
Of fays, with locks like the pink fronds that rise
Within the sea-waves, danced in gleesome wise:
Then came the Fairy Queen with golden wand.

She moved to meet me. When my eyes met hers,
I felt along my veins a sudden thrill,
As when the passionate young blood leaps and stirs.
I woke: I lay upon a low sand-hill
'Mid gold sea-poppies and the gaunt grey furze.
But that Queen's hazel glances haunt me still.

184

SONNET XXIV
STRONG, LIKE THE SEA

If God be dead, and Man be left alone,
And no immortal golden towers be fair,
And nothing sweeter than earth's summer air
Can ever by our yearning hearts be known;—
If every altar now be overthrown,
And the last mistiest hill-tops searched and bare
Of Deity,—if Man's most urgent prayer
Is just a seed-tuft tossed about and blown:—

If this be so, yet let the lonely deep
Of awful blue interminable sky
Thrill to Man's kingly unbefriended cry:
Let Man the secret of his own heart keep
Sacred as ever;—let his lone soul be
Strong like the lone winds and the lonelier sea.

185

SONNET XXV
NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA

No more the plains of Europe blushing red
Beneath his foot;—nor Paris full of flame
Of triumph,—ringing with the Conqueror's name,—
And the Cæsarian laurel round his head.
No more for him his countless armies led
The countless armies of the world to tame,
And necks of kings to bend to lowliest shame;
No more wide moonlit acres of his dead.

No more the black plumes of his Cuirassiers,—
The Old Guard's white facings, and the breathless glee
Of mingled battle, and the glittering tiers
Of bayonets, and sword-sheen. Alone for thee,
World-conqueror, shine this island's rocky spears,
And that grey weaponless unconquered sea.

186

SONNET XXVI
THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW

At last against the conquerors of the world
Nature took arms and fought. The circling storm
Was deadlier than the mêlée fierce and warm,
And snow-shafts than fire-bolts against them hurled.
Some sank beneath the drift and some slept curled
In hollows, till the white cloud hid each form;
Some staggered wildly onward arm in arm,
With the tricoloured standards dank and furled.

Napoleon gazed around,—and where were they,
The helmets and great epaulettes of red,
Whose sheen and flame through many a bloody day
Had been his rapture? At his feet one dead
Drummer lay stark. Then nought above, below,
Save black heaven,—and the interminable snow.

187

SONNET XXVII
TO THE “UNKNOWABLE” GOD

O God within the awful voiceless void,—
God of the terrible and viewless night,
God also of the burning midday light,—
God, by whose hand the countless stars are buoyed,
And all the golden sunrise-clouds deployed,
And all the ridges of the sea made bright,
And the far snow-fields limitlessly white,—
God whom the green woods worship, overjoyed:—

We cannot reach thee: yet can prayer make head
Against the glittering tide of stars and suns
And reach thy gracious central throne at once?
Can our lone cry surmount the hill-tops red
With fiery sunset? Can we find thee, Lord,—
Or are our groans towards earless heights outpoured?

188

SONNET XXVIII
ISEULT

Of all sweet forms within the enchanted air
Of ancient legend, and of all sweet eyes,
Thy form and glances ever the sweetest rise.
To me thou art e'en than Guinevere more fair,
And more bewitching thy deep blue-black hair
Than gold wherein the heart of Lancelot lies:
Thy gaze, full of the light of Irish skies,
That woke love's rapture once, now wakes despair.—

From Tristram's knightly harp until to-day
All singers own thee. When the great seas broke
Beside Tintagel, thy strong spirit spoke
And thy shape mingled with the sea-mists grey
That floated round me. Centuries pass away:
Thou art fair as when beside thee Tristram woke.

189

SONNET XXIX
“A LITTLE WHILE”

A little while, a little while,—and then,
Ye roses and ye lilies all, farewell!
Farewell, each valley and fragrant fern-soft dell:
I shall not meet your tender gaze again.
I pass for ever from the sight of men
To lands wherein the souls of poets dwell:
My foot may traverse many a moonlit fell;
My soul may slumber in some star-proof glen.

Farewell, ye English mountains! For the dead
New mountains lift full many a lordly head.
Farewell, sweet summer and wind-tossed wintry snow!
Farewell, ye seas that on the old shores break!
Keats' eyes may dawn upon me when I wake,
And Shelley's risen soul my soul may know.

190

SONNET XXX
“WILT THOU COME?”

Wilt thou come, love with the old grey-green eyes?
Wilt thou pass with me to the land of death,
And fill the vales with thy dear rose-soft breath,
And fill the eternal heavens with sweet surprise
As all thy beauty doth upon them rise?—
Not since the death of Beatrice, so fair
A woman, poet-crowned, upon that air
Dawned,—adding splendour to the deathless skies.

Wilt thou come with me, bursting every chain,
And join within the land where death no more
Sets evil footstep on the sunny shore
The spirit whom through endless speechless pain
Dante made his? Wilt thou be mine again,
And let thy lips smile tenderly, as of yore?

191

SONNET XXXI
“IS IT WORTH WHILE?”

Is it worth while to have breathed the earthly air?—
Yes: even if the final end be near,
And if pain's storms have clouded many a year,
Yet there were early summers soft and fair.
Passion hath twined for me full many a rare
Chaplet,—and Harrow boyish skies were clear,
And Oxford marigolds in marshy mere
Shone radiant,—and the Cornish maiden-hair.

And the great Northern waves did welcome me,—
And, Alice, thou their Venus then wast born,
Born from the eddies of the frothing sea,
White-bodied as in the young world's sweet morn.
It is worth while to have lived for thee,—for thee,—
Though years on weary years have wailed forlorn.

192

SONNET XXXII
“THOUGH HALF MY HEART BE GREEK”

Though half my heart be Greek, and Venus fill
My soul with rapture of her face and wings,
Yet this grey misty land my spirit sings
Not less,—yea, every English green-browed hill
And white-plumed golden-watered dancing rill:—
Each daffodilly yellowing our springs
Round me a robe of blossom-witchery flings;
Each English rose of my soul hath her will.

Our blossoms crown me, and our rain-dark skies
Are dear,—and London, wherein I was born,
Is more than Athens fervent with the morn:—
Our turrets strike the clouds in statelier wise
Than those that towards the cloudless blue air rise,
Based on the blue seas of the Golden Horn.

193

SONNET XXXIII
THE ENGLISH RACE

The English spirits round me are mine own.—.
The Vikings' yearning is within my blood;
The grey dim splendid endless ocean-flood
Whose seething spray against my lips is thrown,
Upward and shoreward by the salt winds blown,
Is that whereon their white-sailed fierce ships stood:—
And every tide hath laved our walls of wood,
And every shore hath heard our cannons' tone.

Though Greece be dear, yet am I of the race
That held the blood-stained plain of Waterloo,
Hour after hour, each soldier in his place,
Till sunset slipped their tight-strained leash,—and who
(One small ship's obstinate and dauntless crew)
Looked the whole Spanish navy in the face.

The Revenge.

194

SONNET XXXIV
MY LOVE

But most of all my love is English-eyed
And English-souled and English-hearted,—she
Is one in spirit with our grey-eyed sea
And unto its eternity allied,
Song's ever-present ever-gracious Bride:—
So will I till the end, O sweetheart, be
English along with Ocean and with Thee,—
Thine and the sea's in passion deep and wide.

Gaze through me, Thou:—and thou, all-loving sea,
Who hast borne our ships to victory East and West,—
Who foldedst Shelley in thy blue soft breast,
And who wilt from these white cliffs never flee,
Give thou to her thy sweetness,—and to me
Thy soul of music;—and to both thy rest.

195

LILIES:

THIRTY SONNETS

197

I.
THE GREAT WAVE

For thy sake, sweet, I keep the great clear wave
Silent and moveless,—still, within my heart.
I help thee, love, to play thy daily part
In patience, and through love the world to save.
Our bright star glistens, bright beyond the grave,
And here we have the silver voice of Art
To cheer and gladden; and, to soothe each smart,
Love,—stalwart, pure, indomitable, brave.

I keep the great wave still: although 'tis there
Ready, if even on earth a greater need
Arise,—some wrong e'en Love were weak to bear.
Till then I hold, for so hath Love decreed,
The wave that might devour with fiercest spray,
Still as the blue sea on a summer day.

198

II.
MY SWORD

God says that I may send thee, sweet, my sword.—
Its use is nearly over,—let the hilt
Be held once in thy white hand if thou wilt;—
That touch will be its owner's high reward.
Black-stained it is with blood of foemen spilt,
Dinted and jagged, and snapped anigh the point,
And all the tassel is of rusted gilt;
The scabbard gapes with wear at every joint.

I shall not need it more. The highest gift
That I can give, it is; the tenderest too.
No more in battle shall it glitter swift,
And, after, streak its sheath with crimson dew.
The sword is dead and victor,—as am I:
Take thou the weary steel, and put it by.

199

III.
“I AM TRISTRAM”

I am Tristram watching how the young souls tilt.—
I lean with thee, my dark-haired tourney-bride,
Against this pillar,—press thee to my side,
And sheathe my strong sword bloodied to the hilt.
The stains of blood are dry thereon. Unspilt
Shall be the red flood in this battle-tide:—
No more my plume goes, swaying in its pride,
Athwart the mêlée: hushed my battle-lilt.

Sweet, watch with me the combatants,—nor ask
Thy knightly Tristram to unsheathe his sword.
To unhorse these youths were all too easy task:
Their maidens' kisses are not my reward.
Lo! I am Tristram. Iseult, share with me
The swordless bloodless calm of victory.

200

IV.
BLOSSOMS ABOVE A TOMB

For Beatrice a red rose, and a white
For thee,—and for my wife a violet fair.
Let petals of such flowers caress the air
Above my grave, when summer suns shine bright.—
Red for the day,—the snowy for the night,—
The purple for the eve or early morn:
By tender hands let such three plants be borne
Towards the green hillock where in still delight
The poet sleeps, life's mantle off him torn,
Waiting the resurrection and its might.
—Earth had for him not much besides its scorn:
Love found his soul, then left that soul forlorn:
But death hath rapture! Where in grievous plight
He sowed, behold the interminable corn!

201

V.
ETERNAL MURMURINGS

I hear the murmurs of the eternal sea
That washes round the trembling shores of time;
I mark faint whispers from another clime;
Death's form at seasons overshadows me.
But through it all I part not, sweet, from thee;—
Rather our passion waxes more sublime
As earthly sounds become like some spent rhyme;
Our sacred love-flower blooms eternally.

Oh, if thou diest the first, be ever near
To lead me upward with love's whisper clear,—
To draw me forth with passion's accent fond.
When the last loving kiss on earth is given
Just as I die, be thine the first in heaven:
Before death others kiss; kiss thou beyond!

202

VI.
MY BELOVED

Pain's fiery lesson was to teach us this:
To teach the perfect truth to either soul,—
That now, beside us as the swift months roll,
Nought may disturb, no frailty mar, our bliss.
Beneath the stars again our spirits kiss:
Again the smarting puzzled hearts are whole:
Again with gladdened lips Love's crystal bowl
We touch;—and know how great a thing Love is.

Heart of my heart, soul of my soul indeed,
Wast thou in sorrow, and did I not bleed?
Mind of my mind, were issues vast at stake,
Bewildering thee,—and did not my mind ache?
Spirit that crownest mine beyond all loss,
Out of one tree God hewed for each a cross.

203

VII.
BEHIND

Behind it all—the anger and the flame
That leapt upon thee—there is, couldst thou see,
The loving inner changeless soul of me,
Unshaken,—clear for ever in its aim.
I love thee,—and so I hate eternally
Each smallness foreign to thy nature true:
Just as I welcome every blossom new
Of thought or heart; each growth of being's tree.

Behind it all,—O thou whom I adore
Enough to “crucify”—as thou didst say,—
There is the love that changes never more;
The soul of yearning thou canst never slay:—
Strength that would help thee; prayer that intercedes;
Sweet love that tarries patient: love that bleeds.

204

VIII.
“IT IS NOT ANGER”

It is not anger; couldst thou see it so.—
It is not anger,—but the intense desire
That burns for ever in me like white fire
At last thy soul—a spotless soul—to know.
The inward awful inarticulate glow
Of passion that, in measure, through my lyre
Sounds,—that would lift thee high and ever higher
Towards summits robed in majesty of snow.

This, this it is that sometimes sternly speaks
When thou art weak, and lingerest by the way.
God's mountains are before us, and the spray
Of ocean; tarry not by river-creeks:—
It is not anger, couldst thou this thing prove,—
But burning vast intolerable love.

205

IX.
BENEATH LOFTIER STARS

Yes! now indeed we meet 'neath loftier stars.
The high airs soothe us, and the silence deep
Seems part of that eternal watch we keep:
Now, nought our reunited passion mars.
Like marvellous and fragrant summer sleep
A sense of life steals over us, and brings
New wondrous visions cradled on its wings:
We stand, victorious, on a nobler steep!

Before us spreads the wonderful wide view,
With ocean in the distance, dim and blue,—
And love, with white and soft plumes, everywhere:
We breathe, with ecstasy beyond all speech,
In this diviner mutual height we reach,
The unknown immortal soul-caressing air.

206

X.
SOUL-PAIN

To-day my heart is broken,—and I feel
No rest in love, no recompence in song:
The slow sick weary moments crawl along;
Not one can answer my forlorn appeal.
And thou art far away whose spirit strong
Brings hope and light and comfort:—now these steal
Away from me, a shivering ghostlike throng,
And no sweet God would answer,—did I kneel.

O heart, heart, heart,—that triest to understand,—
Keep thou for ever from the genius-land,
And mingle not with agony like mine!
“A bay-wreathed poet” means a brow that drips
With blood for ever. Kiss not thou my lips,
Lest the eternal poet's-doom be thine.

207

XI.
“I NEED THEE”

Again I say it! Do we need the air,
The wind, the stars, the many-voicéd sea,
And may I not avow my need of thee
Who art to me the chiefest of things fair?—
If some sad brooch is robbed of jewel rare
That shone i' the centre, must it not complain?
Not strive its gleaming emerald to regain?—
When I am robbed, must I that robbery bear?—

O diamond, emerald, star, sea, blossom, sun,
Things sweet and things familiar all in one,
I need thee,—and I choose to say my need,
As to the sea might speak some floating weed:
Or as a wanderer might desire a star,
And sink,—if clouds the vision sweet should mar.

208

XII.
“YET I ENDURE”

Yet independent, fearless, I endure.—
I stand beneath God's night with lonely head
And watch the stars like one already dead,
Or one whom only death's white touch can cure.
My footstep through the dark supremely sure
Sounds. Lo! above the hills my dawn is red,
And soon my fair last love-word will be said,
And no more will soft lips of earth allure.

Because I face the terror of the night
Alone,—and let God's dark sing through my hair
Unflinching, smiling as his arrows smite;
Because in silence sorrow I can bear;
Therefore it is that with divine delight
I kiss thee coming all that woe to share.

209

XIII.
“LET US NEVER COMFORT EACH OTHER INTO SLEEP”

Yet let us comfort. Comfort is a part
Of that strong help which either spirit needs:
It lifts, it soothes, it purifies each heart;
God's touch is gentle, when the pierced soul bleeds.
When anger fails, a softer speech succeeds
Full often; the great victories are won
By patience, and the everlasting deeds
By everlasting tenderness are done,
And out of love the angels' robes are spun,
And sweetest pity in God's loom is woven,
And he is crowned with mercy like a sun:—
By bitter lightning trees in twain are cloven,
But not the human heart: it bends alone
To Love's voice; yieldeth to no other tone.

210

XIV.
THE AWAKING

And if one falls asleep, through labour long,
Why, what shall the divine awaking be?
Surely no angry word; but some soft song
Sung 'neath the casement,—as from summer tree
The nightingales chant, loud and strenuously:
Or as the thrushes, some wild day in spring,
Hurl from dank copse to copse their stormy glee
And make the wet surrounding meadows ring.
If thou dost need awakening, I will bring
My harp, and 'neath thy window sweep the chords,
Or flutter o'er thy brow my vocal wing
And gently lift thy tresses:—let the swords
Of violent speech be snapped; and if I miss
The morn and sleep on,—wake me by a kiss!

211

XV.
“SHALL I KNOW THEE?”

Shall I know thee when thou art changed and glad?
Or wilt thou, if thou diest, wander far
From me thy poet towards some alien star,
That I, in heaven, may even there be sad?—
Will welcoming angels golden gates unbar
And wilt thou traverse dreamlands in the sky?
If that be so, 'tis then that I shall die,
Finding how weak death's other arrows are.

Or wilt thou be so changed that I shall gaze
And know thee not, and seek in vain to mark
Some far-off semblance of earth's tender ways?
'Twill hardly be so, though Fate's paths are dark
But, if I know thee not, say, “Love, rejoice!”
And I shall know the tremble in thy voice.

212

XVI.
MY GIFT

I give thee sorrow, and I give thee pain:
'Tis all the troubled singer has to give!
This, this is all my guerdon while I live,—
And, now and then, the pleasure of a strain.
Not more can I bestow while I remain
On earth an outcast and a wayfarer,
With all the night's harsh dewdrops in my hair;—
This scant reward and piteous thou shalt gain.

But after death there comes my time of pleasure
When I may crown thee in more ample measure,—
Fill up thy coronet with golden bars:—
First friendship through the agony of earth;
Then heaven and close-bound hearts that sing for mirth!
First sorrow; then a crown of many stars!

213

XVII.
“BE GENTLE”

Be gentle with me: for thou knowest not yet
The utter need there is in me of love.
Oh! though the poets' brows, bay-crowned above,
Shine famously,—look close, their eyes are wet.
The sorrow of all the earth God's hand has set
Upon them for a wreath,—and in strange fashion
To understand in soul earth's every passion:
For this it is that earth is in their debt.

What the slow heartless lover cannot feel,
The poet feels for him; and tear-drops steal
Adown his cheeks when others cannot sorrow.
What wonder then if sometimes in his heart
There is a yearning he cannot impart,
And sweet would seem a night without a morrow!

214

XVIII.
A PICTURE

I saw a picture of a soldier low
Upon some grisly battle-field. Tall firs
Above him smote the sky with rigid spurs;
Death reigned: and silent blood was on the snow.
A woman's form stood by him, and she held
A wreath, and loth to give it, loth to go,
She seemed,—and it might be the pure tears welled
From her heart's depths. The picture did not show.

O sweet one, be thou unto me as she!
When I am lying dead upon life's snow,
Black trees above, and spots of blood below,
Come thou with the sweet song-wreath tenderly.
If but thy loving face o'er me be bent
At that still moment,—I shall be content.

215

XIX.
“WHEN YOU THOUGHT I WAS ‘FAR AWAY,’ I WAS DREAMING, ETC.”

But is it any crime to love you so
That I would have you sitting ever near,
Ready to help my patient labour, dear,
And all depression's fiends to overthrow?
Is it a wrong that I would have you here
To aid the lagging moments as they go
And speed the silent hours with glances clear?
Is love condemned, when love doth overflow?

A little distance seems quite “far away,”
Because my heart would have you close indeed.
After clear sunshine e'en the moon looks grey
And wretched,—and so urgent is my need
That, since I cannot cry “For ever stay!”
The smallest absence makes my spirit bleed.

216

XX.
“SOME DAY I WILL TELL YOU”

Yes; tell me all. For every thought of thine
Is unto me a flower I long to hold,
And thy past life is as a cup of gold
Brimming for me with sparkling joyous wine.
Yes; tell me what thy sorrows were of old!
Press deep thy thorn-crown! Make its red points mine!
Wear thou my bays and buds of eglantine;
Rob me, despoil me thou—sweet thief, be bold!

For then it shall be well with us. I wear
This wreath whose lingering blood-drops soil thine hair,
Whose raven-black, unsoiled, I love to see:
Thou takest flowers that thou dost need the more
Because their gracious bloom came not before.
Take thou my roses. Give thy thorns to me.

217

XXI.
ART NEEDS THEE

Art needs thee, gentle lady. Where dost thou
Yet tarry? Art is weeping through the night,
And though above his head the stars are bright
He needs thy hand to wreathe them round his brow.
The sonnets wave white wings and to thee call:
Imagination's hand is on the plough:
Fancies arise like wreaths of mist and fall:
Blossoms of thought before the soft breeze bow.

But where dost thou abide, O soul of Art?
What songs are soothing now thy world-worn heart?
Pale Art is dying, lady, for thy kiss:
Oh, wilt not thou arise and save by this?
Sad Art is perishing for lack of thee;
Oh, heal sad Art,—and doing so, save me!

218

XXII.
THE VEIL OF BLISS

The veil of bliss that each casts over each
Makes each alone, although within a crowd;
Love spreads above us both his golden cloud,
And lo! at once we are out of human reach,
Listening to the eternal spirits' speech,
With God's dear tender eyes above us bowed.
Others we help; yet are we, sweet, allowed
To wander sometimes on a lonely beach.

The veil descends,—and lo! we are alone,
Utterly lonely, utterly at peace.
The sounds of common voices round us cease,
For round us both God's veiling arms are thrown.
Then, when the veil is lifted, we return
To help the sad, and strengthen those that yearn.

219

XXIII.
FINALLY ALONE

Yet must there come a final triumph-time
When all the lower service is achieved;
When all love passes into joy sublime,—
Joy higher than our highest hopes conceived.
Then shall we be alone. The utmost air
Of heaven shall crown us, and our hearts shall sing
With strange joy,—subtle, spirit-thrilling, fair:
Above us both shall brood God's lonely wing.

Then shall I, seeking blossoms, find but thee;
Hear in thy voice the murmur of the sea:
Find all sweet gifts and tender of the air
Within thine heart,—for purest heaven is there:—
And, yearning towards God's summer in deep skies,
Verily find it!—deeper in thine eyes.

220

XXIV.
“THY MANY WEARY YEARS”

Thy many weary years were not too long
As preparation for the coming dower
Of love,—God's own unsearchable white flower
Which now thou hast; thou hast it in this song.
The weary waiting years of tedious wrong
Wrought in thee thine intenser passion-power,
And now I loving sing beside thy bower,—
Myself through equal suffering purged and strong.

And so we meet. Thou art ready now to bear
The burning love-god's passionate embrace:—
Love, long from thee withheld, is doubly fair;
Sweeter is love, and sweeter is thy face
To love for thy lone hill-top's icy air
And all thy patient running of life's race.

221

XXV.
THY LOVE-SERVICE

Thou art like some sweet queen who gives her heart
To zealous Psyche-service for a time,
Till she shall gather wings and growth sublime
And upwards towards the ancestral high heaven start.
Mine endlessly, unceasingly, thou art,
For I have kissed thee in some ancient clime
And circled thee with immemorial rhyme;
In truth our spirits never were apart.

But now to this love-service thou art doomed,
Though mine thou art in the inmost depth of things.
Though round thee endless starless nights have gloomed,
Lo! now at last the morning's golden wings.
Behold, the trembling bud hath grandly bloomed:—
Thou hast served servants. Thou shalt gladden kings!

222

XXVI.
THE PSYCHE-SERVICE

This tender Psyche-service of thee, sweet,
Brings thee the nearer. Whiter is thy heart,
Purer thy being in its every part:
Towards me thou comest now with bird-swift feet.
Thou hast endured the labour and the heat;
Rest now beneath the shadow of my Art!
No longer, rose, thy straggling tendrils dart
On all sides, searching for some soft retreat.

My Art is unto thee thy God-sent bower
And thou within it art the gracious rose,
Its one presiding ever-present flower.
Lo! Art above thee her green mantle throws:
Wait,—tarry patient for one mortal hour;
Then, ever safe within my arms repose.

223

XXVII.
THE WAVE-TOSSED VESSEL

Sweet art thou, lady, rising from the deep
Like Venus,—white star of the open sea,
Heart of the spaces where the blue waves leap
And toss tumultuous heads ecstatically:
Rising as if from some enchanted sleep
Like a pure sudden daybreak, love, on me,
With hair in those sea-breezes floating free
And eyes through which the sea-birds' glances peep.

“Harbour of refuge” am I? O fair ship,
Fair woman-vessel with love-moulded lip,
Lo! through the ocean ploughing thy pure way,
Thy black hair pearly with the reckless spray,
Sweet with the breezes, splendid from the sea,
As to thine harbour hurriest thou to me?

224

XXVIII.
NOW

Because thou hast been “in the open,” now
Shalt thou find all thine “harbour” safe and sweet.
Enter therein, O love, with fearless feet:
Lay up therein thy vessel's foam-swept prow!
Peace and reward the approving gods allow;
Soft shall thy rest be after burning heat
Of summer,—glad the flowers in thy retreat.
See! this fair rose I bind about thy brow.

O lady,—“vessel” of mine now coming “home,”
Bringing me richest treasures from the East,
Thy thin stem cutting the receding foam,—
Love waits, and spreads us a thrice-glorious feast.
Thou art bright with sunsets over loneliest sea,
And with those sighing sunsets crownest me.

225

XXIX.
“I AM NOT WORTHY”

I am not worthy of thy worship, love!—
There are within me hosts of passions yet
Whose angry serried spear-ranks must be met:
Fierce warriors whose keen swords against me move.
Oh, we have talked in many a blossomy grove
Of happiness,—but am I worthy thee?
O love, love, love of mine,—if thou couldst see
My whole grim life, wouldst thou that life approve?

Oh, thou art white, and thou wouldst shrink away!
The whitest thing about me is the red:
Thy wings are golden,—mine are gaunt and grey;
Sins black and endless beat about my head
With flapping plumes and urgent lips that say,
“Dark would thy soul be, had that soul not bled.”

226

XXX.
THE WHOLE

Wouldst thou be with me, if thou knewest the whole?
I cannot tell: my sins are black indeed,—
And yet for every sin I've had to bleed,
Till pale and bloodless is the exhausted soul.
Would still thy woman's pity intercede,
And still thy white hand linger in my own?
Or should I find myself adrift, alone,—
Like one shell in the Atlantic, or one weed?

One thing there is, if sins of mine are large,
Large is the ocean of my suffering too,
And terribly wave-beaten all its marge:
Round youth's proud helm wild darts of anguish flew;
And thou mayest mark besides a broken targe,
Which once a girl's slight arrow struck right through.

227

TO A CHILD

I

O bright-eyed child whose laughter
Rings down the lanes of May,
Thou hast the whole hereafter
Spread out for toil and play:
The hours and flowers and bowers of the long summer day.

II

All life is yet before thee:
The dawn is in the sky:
The earliest gold hangs o'er thee
And the first breezes fly;
Not yet regret with jet strange threatening locks is nigh.

228

III

What blossoms wilt thou gather?
For all are here to choose:
Pale lilies, blue-bells, heather,—
All kinds and varied hues,—
For thee we see the lea its banks with bloom suffuse!

IV

Wilt thou be prince or poet?
All paths are open now.
Fate, though thou dost not know it,
Will crown thy white broad brow
With bays for lays, or sprays of love from myrtle bough:—

V

Just as thou wilt: the morning
Gives thee the choice of each.
Swift yet sufficient warning
Thou hast:—thine arms may reach
Delight of white and bright soft blossoms beyond speech.

229

VI

About thee still the beauty
Of fresh-robed April clings.
All May's and June's glad booty
May added be to spring's,
O child enisled in wild strange dreams of many things.

VII

The greatest of all glories
Thou hast within thine hand.
Thou knowest not where Love's store is,
Nor yet dost understand
How beams and gleams through dreams passion's enchanted land.

VIII

As thou advancest slowly
Along the brightening way,
Fair love, white-winged and holy,
Will meet thee, on a day,
And thou shalt bow and vow thine utmost heart away!

230

IX

The very flowers adore thee:
They know so well indeed
What flowery paths before thee
To fragrant paths succeed,
By hill and rill and mill and yellow-spotted mead.

X

When manhood comes, and passion
Comes with it, all will be
Spread out in splendid fashion,
Untouched, in front of thee:
Bright blue of hue and new will gleam the boundless sea.

XI

As if God just now, solely
For thee, had made the world,
Its grandeur will be wholly
In front of thee unfurled.
For thee each tree will be with Eden's dews impearled.

231

XII

The road thou art beginning
This radiant dawn of May
Hath treasures worth the winning,
Though Death with quiver grey
Hath power o'er flower and bower, when closes the long day.

XIII

Yet, ere the long day closes,
What rapture may be won!
What fragrance of soft roses
Gathered as yet by none!
What light of bright and white imperishable sun!

XIV

Ere the moon rises slowly
Above the purple hill
What pure delights and holy
May all thy strong heart fill,
If thou from now wilt vow to Love thine utmost will!

232

XV

Ere the night's gold stars greet thee
And the deep-blue dim night,
What joys may throng and meet thee
With hands and bosoms white,—
Thee found and bound and crowned of infinite delight!

XVI

What deeds of priceless daring
Thy young heart may achieve!
Forth on the long road faring
From crimson morn till eve,
High fame, no tame poor name, behind thee thou mayest leave!

XVII

By far-off lakes and rivers,—
Through burning wastes of sand
Where the hot mirage quivers,—
In many a wild weird land,—
At head of red outspread fierce warriors thou mayest stand!

233

XVIII

The furthest East may know thee
And watch thy gleaming sword:
The gladdened West may owe thee
High thanks and proud reward:
As leader thee the sea may honour, and as lord.

XIX

Or else the god Apollo
May crown thine head with bays.
Him thou mayest alway follow
Through sweet and rosehung ways,
And fill and thrill and still the world with sovereign lays.

XX

While others in their fashion
Are seeking lesser things,
With great imperious passion
And strong unhindered wings
The sun alone and throne of earth's high bay-crowned kings

234

XXI

Thou shalt seek. This it may be
Lies, child, in front of thee.
Eternal may thy day be;
Thy voice as is the sea,
Or tone and moan of blown green-grey wind-smitten tree.

XXII

The winds that round our meadows
And iron cliff-sides beat;
The evening's lengthening shadows;
The hush of noon-tide heat;
The song of throng of strong bright gold-haired ears of wheat;

XXIII

The glory of the morning;
The mystic calm of night;
The tides the loud shore scorning;
The tender snowdrop white;
The speech of beech, and each glad summer's blossoms bright;

235

XXIV

The beauty of all women;
The beauty of soft skies;
The blue-backed swallow skimming
The pond; the dragon-flies;
The green dim sheen half-seen that on the far hill lies;

XXV

The pulse of blood that quickens
At the dense driving spray
Of battle when it thickens
And the blue sword-blades play
And flash and crash and dash the hot shells every way;

XXVI

The pulse of love that trembles
At a young girl's soft tone;
Passion that ne'er dissembles
But claims her for its own;
The height and might and light of Love's imperial throne;

236

XXVII

The glory of life advancing
With strength that knows no bound,
From height to far height glancing,
From green to rocky mound,
Till where the air is fair and free God's rest is found;—

XXVIII

All this thou mayest succeed to,
And fairer things than these,
If thou wilt but give heed to
Fate's whispers in the trees
And be as free as the far fetterless grey seas.

XXIX

Thou hast thy country's glory
Behind thee and before:
Past ages grand and hoary;
A new untraversed shore;
Thou mayest the waste untraced inherit and explore.

237

XXX

Shall it be bright with flowers
And fervent with the sun
And full of love-sweet bowers
Whereo'er green creepers run?
Shall it be lit by fit high starry proud deeds done?

XXXI

The whole on thee dependeth:
The future in thine hand
Lies: ere the long road endeth
Thine heart will understand
Each place, and trace all ways and windings of the land.

XXXII

And at the far end waiteth
For thee, child,—yes, for thee,—
When strenuous toil abateth,
The Bride thou canst not see:
Her breast gives rest from quest and joy and agony.

238

XXXIII

Her hands are soft and tender;
Her eyes are calm and deep;
If thou wilt quite surrender,
She'll soothe thee into sleep:
No voice of joys, nor noise of men who wail and weep

XXXIV

Shall pierce thy perfect slumber:—
As now thine eyelids close
While visions without number
Flit o'er thee, living rose,
Most pure, secure, and sure shall be thy then repose.

XXXV

See that thy life be fairer
Than most poor frail lives be:
So shall that kiss be rarer
That in the end for thee
Waits,—when all men pass then,—and Death stays; only she.

239

THE POET AND THE PESSIMIST

Pessimist.

The world grows dark.—The poet's heart is dreaming;
But when he wakes from sleep,
Will he not see proud War's red harvest gleaming
Beneath white moons that weep?

Will he not understand the bitter anguish
Of all things here below?
Will he not mark the flowers and green leaves languish,
The sweet loves fade and go?

Will he not learn that God dwells at a distance,
Far past the reach of prayer?
Will he not teach, and teach with stern insistence,
That love is light as air?

240

Poet.

Nay, still, in spite of all, my faith grows stronger
The more I live and see.
I cannot reach God? God can take the longer
Star-road and search out me.

If woman's sometimes frail, she's oftener faithful.
Although the dark air rings
With many a threat and trembles at the wrathful
Red lightning's jagged wings,

I have the unchanged high faith that at the portal
No man's foot yet hath trod
Wait,—deathless, grand-eyed, loving and immortal,—
Woman and God.

241

TEN SONNETS

(1881)

243

I.
THY SWEETNESS

A sweetness not of flowers or suns or seas
Broods o'er thee. Thou art mingled with the air
Of summer: yet than summer sky more fair
Thou art, and tenderer than June-soft breeze.
Thy sweetness, love, is in the almond-trees
And in the lilacs,—and the breath of spring
Doth round about thee like a garment cling;
Yet art thou sweeter, sweetest soul, than these.

Thy sweetness meets me in the morning-tide,
And as the breath of flowers it fills the noon
And all the forest vistas far and wide
And trackless spaces haunted of the moon.
By day thou art my joy, and, when the night
Folds wings around us, mine untold delight.

244

II.
“BECAUSE THOU HAST NOT FEARED”

Because thou hast not feared the darts of men
Flung forth against me in their feeble hate,
But hast believed in me in spite of fate,—
Yea, in thine heart, sweet, often and again
Hast borne their poison-pointed arrows when
Their anger-maddened ranks around the gate
Of song surged foaming, fierce-tongued and elate,—
Beholding in me love beyond their ken:—
Because thou hast not shivered when the seas
Brake hard against me, and the pettish spray
Of hostile words leaped round from day to day,
And evil arrows quivered in the breeze,—
Therefore shalt thou for ever with me stand
When love, not hate, crowns me in mine own land.

245

III.
THE VALLEY ROSES

And have we left the roses far behind?
Are never any flowers and soft green leaves
Waiting to gladden us,—no golden sheaves
Bright underneath the sun-warmed August wind?
What shall we in the fierce strange journey find
Of rapture, as our struggling step achieves
Height after height, while every height deceives,
Each seeming that dim mount for which we pined?

Oh, far and fair the deep green valleys glow!
The valleys that we left so long ago,
Climbing we knew not whither with joined hands.
But one white flower I carry with me thence,—
Thine heart: more sweet than rosebud, more intense
Than all the wild scents of the hot low lands.

246

IV.
LONELY SEASONS

But there are lonely times when all the seas
Seem stricken into mournful dreary grey,
And no sunlight streams o'er the darkened day,
And not one sign of music charms the breeze
Or breaks the silence of the leaden trees,
Nor are the clouds made glad by one moonray:
We are not yet completely one; delay
Wearies,—and lonely long weeks blight and freeze.

Then life seems purposeless. My lyre rings hollow:
I cease to track the footprints of Apollo,
And every sunset's wings, once draped in gold,
Hang damp and heavy o'er the lifeless woods,
And windless are the waste drear solitudes
Wherethrough once Love's embroidered sandal strolled.

247

V.
GLAD SEASONS

But lo! thou comest like the sweet moonlight
That turns the flashing waters into gold:
Thou comest,—and the world is no more old,
But young and glad, and robed in wedding white.
The swift waves laugh with ever tuneful might;
Amid the trees the enamoured breeze is bold;
And all this just because thine hand I hold
And watch with quiet eyes thine eyes most bright.

The whole world changes, love, when thou art here!
The thunderous dark oppressive huge clouds break:
Fallen are the broken wings of vanquished fear:
Blue now for grey ripples the sun-kissed lake:
Deep shines the sky unflecked with mist and clear:
The very birds sing louder for thy sake.

248

VI.
“NOT IN THESE SONGS OF THEE”

Not in these songs of thee do I caress
My lyre, and utter amorous melodies,—
Singing love-songs beneath blue facile skies
Unstricken of storm, unversed in passion's stress.
Nay, rather would I thunder through my lyre
And mix my song with the tumultuous storm,
If so I might the sons of men inspire
And with my soul their listening souls inform!

For thou art great: no queen of amorous ditty,
But sweet, divine, a woman full of pity
That crowneth woman, and of woman's might:—
Queen of the proud untouched impassioned soul:
Therefore for thee shall songs in thunders roll
And peals reverberant the far ether smite.

249

VII.
PERFECT UNION

For nothing can true lovers' souls divide:
Not distance, pain, nor solitude, nor strife,
Nor all the fretting cares of daily life,
Nor thundering seas, nor sunstruck deserts wide.
Breathe but a wish for me: I'm at thy side!
If I desire thee, lo! thou art “quite close”
In spirit, shielding me from myriad foes;
My guardian, and mine holy spirit-bride.

So is it ever. We are never far
One from the other: never say “Good-bye.”
One blue arch reaches us of kindred sky;
We both behold at night the self-same star;—
Both struggle upward bravely towards the high
Clear sphere where the eternal spirits are.

250

VIII.
WEARINESS

Through seas of pain and surging storms of grief,
O sweetheart, we pursue our weary way,
Waiting till on life's hill-tops the new day
Shines, gilding every blossom, every leaf.
O comforter of mine, of helpers chief,
More patient at love's mournful long delay
Than I,—less angered at the cloud-wreaths grey,—
Speak words of hope: the sails of dawn unreef!

Lo! I am weary; weary unto death.
Long is the struggle, and the night is long:
Not yet upon the hills the morning's song
Broods, nor the sweetness of the morning's breath.
Still am I battling 'mid the tides of night:
O sweet star-lady, grant me thy starlight!

251

IX.
FIRST, BATTLE; THEN, WOMAN

And yet chief strength gives chiefest tenderness.—
After the battle comes the calm of sleep
Upon a woman's breast, and eyes that weep,
And the superb and sorrowless caress.
Oh, did not Christ, after the bitter stress
Of unknown agony in the garden deep,
Fruits of unknown, unearthly triumph reap,—
When, death being over, love leant down to bless?

First, battle; after, woman. First the swords
That mingle in the sweltering close mêlée,
And then the embrace yet closer that rewards
Of one who watched from far the fierce fast fray.
First, pitiless strife. Then woman who accords
Gifts that blot out the blood-freaked dust-streaked day.

252

X.
AFTER BATTLE

And, after battle, tenderer is the breeze,
More bountiful the beauty of the night,—
New stars within the abysmal blue shine bright,
And balmier odours fill the forest-trees,
And yet more silvery moonlight floods the seas,
And woman's breast is more exceeding white:
More heavenly is the touch of finger light,
And more divine the most strange sense of ease.

Oh, wind the wreath of battle round thy brow,
Thou lover-warrior! Then shalt thou learn how
The kiss of woman may be God's own calm
Descending with a softness past all speech
Thy blood-stained hopeless lifeless lips to reach;
Sweeter than crown of gold, or wand of palm.

253

AUGUST BLOSSOMS:

SEVEN SONNETS (1882)

255

SONNET I
AUGUST BLOSSOMS

These are late August blossoms. Spring's glad days
Lie far behind us; early dreams have fled.
Not for us flames the golden crocus-bed:
No tender snowdrops lift their gentle gaze.
Roses are round us still,—and lily-sprays
Their fierce white fragrance on the warm airs shed;
Not all the flowers of sunburnt fields are dead,
Though dead is all the bloom that once was May's.

Across the years, across the weary years,
Alice, sweet early love, I look to thee,
And, gazing through a gathering mist of tears,
I watch the flower-crowned cliff, the sun-crowned sea:
Robed in strange light, thy girlish form appears,
And thine eyes draw and thine hand beckons me.

256

SONNET II
FIRST LOVE

Hath anything been ever quite so fair
As first love, though the lengthening years have brought
Result of labour, red-ripe fruit of thought,
And new glad summers full of fragrant air?
The swift years pass us. Doth each swift year bear
Our spirits nearer to the goals we sought?
Though we have wrestled, suffered, toiled and fought,
Doth any aureole rest upon our hair?

The sweetest crown of all the crowns life brings
Is just to feel love very close indeed:
Love, the true God who lives within each creed
And folds around the whole world guardian wings.
As towards new hills and blossomless we speed
It is not hope, 'tis memory that sings!

257

SONNET III
VENUS

What do they tell thee of me,—that I sing
Of white-armed Venus? that in English air
I find alone the old Greek visions fair?
That love-gifts towards the old dead gods I bring?
Oh, thou art Venus! Linger ever there,
Where the wind touches with light-kissing wing
Thy beautiful brown unforgotten hair:
Be thou the goddess of the world's first spring!

Venus was goddess in the old sweet days,
And through the sunlit foam of Grecian bays
Shone radiant and divine her tender limbs.
So thou art goddess of the days when I,
Greek-souled and ardent, laughed to see the sky
So blue, and sang to it with marriage-hymns.

258

SONNET IV
GOD'S MESSAGE

And have they told thee that I've ceased to hold
The faith in God,—that deadliest war I wage
With creeds and Churches in this struggling age,
And sing the future's song with lips made bold?
Oh, by the sea, and by the sunset's gold,
And by the summer fields of far-spread flowers,
And by grey wintry rocks and soft green bowers
By Nature's wealth unmeasured and untold,
By all these things, I charge thee, have no fear!—
Is God the less a strong God unto me
Because my soul would have him very near,
And would be crowned with wild air of the sea—
Would in no stifling church his message hear,
But where his stars shine and his winds are free?

259

SONNET V
OMNIPRESENT LOVE

Though thou art bound, and canst not love me now
Save only in spirit, can they stay my song?
Can it not find thee when night-hours are long
And print a far-off soft kiss on thy brow?
Can it not lurk within the hazel bough?
Can it not shine amid the starry throng?
Fulfil thy life's task: be thou glad and strong:
But this true homage further and allow!

Art thou asleep, love? Then my soul is there,
Watching. Dost thou the wakeful moments count?
Then am I with thee. At this crystal fount
My song speaks to thee from the maiden-hair.
I am in this blue gentian on the mount:
I am around, and over,—and everywhere.

260

SONNET VI
NATURE'S MESSENGERS

Birds, flowers, and foliage of the summer days
And skies above us lordly and serene
And forests measureless and deep and green
And blue glad billows bounding through the bays
And hyacinths and honeysuckle-sprays
And roses that against the window lean
Take ye my song, and bear it to my queen:
Teach her to understand my love and lays!

As the past lengthens, far intenser grow
All noble love and passion. Love that fades
Was never love. Now the tall tree-tops throw
A longer shadow down the silent glades
But sunset soon will gild their colonnades:
Long love and passion must grow golden so.

261

SONNET VII
ALONE

The world is waxing old and grey for me.
When I see roses now, I wonder why
They are as red as ever,—why the sky
Is still as blue as ever, and the sea.
Some friends forsake us,—other loved ones die;
Like dreams a thousand golden fancies flee:
Love of the young years, is it so with thee?
Yes? Then our lonely hearts are drawn more nigh.

We are alive yet, and have work to do;
Through stormy skies still climbs the unconquered sun.
Brave hearts are faithful and strong souls are true
To life, till death the nobler bride be won.
Still every morning brings us labour new
Nor at the sunset is our task quite done.

262

THE CALM OF ART

SONNET

Nought breaks the high majestic calm of Art:
Not storm, nor shipwreck, nor the angry sea,
Nor clouds wherethrough the thunders charge and flee,
Nor sounds whereat the stricken nations start.—
Art sits within her temple, sorrow-free,
Unmoved and silent. When mad armies march,
Her soft eyes watch the far-stretched rainbow arch
Or tuft of furze coquetting with the bee.

All these things move her not.—Yet can she wake,
Alive and breathless, all her heart on fire,
Her swift hand seeking her forgotten lyre:
Alice! one word of thine hath power to make
Art's sweet lips tremble,—as the unruffled lake
Breaks into ripples at the wind's desire.

1882.

263

“FAIR-EYED FRANCE”

SONNET

As Victor Hugo gazed upon the sea
And knew that o'er those leaping waves there lay
The land his spirit worshipped day by day,
Dreaming of hopes and joys that might not be,
So, lady sweet, I lift my gaze to thee
Across the tides of life whose white-waved line
Surges. Far-off thy laughing same eyes shine:
The same, but far-off,—and I am not free.

I am an exile. Thou art fair-eyed France
Gleaming and beckoning across the foam.
To thy bright shore what ship shall take me home?
When shall I touch the lips who love the glance?—
I ask: in vain. No answer sounds along
The waves,—save the faint echo of my song.

1882.

265

FOUR SONNETS

(1883)

267

SONNET I
THE WRESTLE

I sometimes think that whoso loveth thee
Must wrestle with the stormy Infinite
As Jacob wrestled with the awful might
Of God, until his flesh failed visibly.
For lo! before me stretches such a sea
Of pain and labour where the billows white
Float on a background of terrific night
That my heart shudders often, woe is me!—

Dread are the barriers looming on the road.
Strange wastes before me trackless and untrod
Where never star hath shone nor blossom glowed
Stretch. These my feet must traverse, sorrow-shod.—
Red is the harvest whose white seed Love sowed.
Who would love thee must measure strength with God.

268

SONNET II
“MAN IS NOT MOCKED”

“God is not mocked!”—Nor is the fiery heart
Of man mocked either. Man can love as well.
Man too can face the iron winds of hell
And face the fires of hell, and do his part.
Along the soul of man vast love-throbs dart,
And through man's soul the great love-surges swell;
And man can climb barefoot the lonely fell
And reach the summits whence the thunders start.

I stood where billows upon billows rocked
And where the fountains of strong love began
And where the arrows of red lightnings flocked
Innumerable. Strange lips blood-flecked and wan
Thundered above that storm, “God is not mocked,—
Nor is the stormy faithful heart of man.”

269

SONNET III
GOD, MAN, WOMAN

Yes, God is faithful. Man is faithful too.
And is not woman faithful?—Shall she be
The one thing faithless in this Trinity?
Can she who gathers beauty as the blue
Gathers the clouds, be the one thing untrue?
If God with might of all the faithful sea
Be stedfast, and if man be true as he,
Can woman fail the Leaders to pursue?

If man will follow God, will she not deign
To follow man, though all the bitter way
By their abiding blood-drops be made plain?
If man and God will guide, will she obey?
If God and man be faithful to their pain,
Will she be true to love,—aye, even as they?

270

SONNET IV
THE VICTORY

A spirit wrestled through the lonely night
With God,—until the cold grey dawn shone clear.—
But neither won. They closed again in sheer
Ecstatic struggle when the sun took flight.
Through the long hours with alternating might
They wrestled, till the pale stars shook with fear,
And even the morning's clarion in man's ear
Doubted to ring,—so mastering was the sight.

But when the sun was up, the strife was o'er.
For once the human spirit had prevailed
And Jacob was avenged for evermore.—
Strong human love the Godhead had assailed
And conquered. Man and God met eye to eye,
And man's was the stupendous victory.

271

THE LONELY GOD-KING

SONNET

The strange relief to God when he at last
Touches the walls of empery supreme!
When no stars glitter through a golden dream
But God thanks God that he has made the past.
The giant rest to God when through the vast
No more white clouds with wings unearthly gleam:
When no more moons or suns or comets stream
Before his gaze half loving, half aghast.

To touch the walls of his own empire:—Rest
Eternal to the heart that moulded all.
To sleep at last within his golden hall,
Pillowed on some divinely loving breast:
To cease for ever from his dateless quest,
With heaven's effulgence round him like a wall.

1883.

272

THORNS AND THE ROSE

They celebrate the birth of grief's pale King to-morrow
And crown him with their crown of immemorial sorrow,
Their brown keen points of thorn.
They sing, “To us to-day within the city of David
A holy soul is given whereby the world is savéd:
To us a child is born!”

I look back, and I think of summer upon the ocean
And long cream-crested lines of gentle waves in motion
And limbs of white repose
Rising therefrom: of Love the very world's creator
Born at the dawn of things, crowned even by souls who hate her,—
Crowned not with thorn-points,—with the illimitable rose.

Christmas Eve, 1882

University of Virginia Library

III. Vol. III

CHARLES KINGSLEY

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

XXVII

XXVIII

XXIX

XXX

XXXI

XXXII

THE RESURRECTION OF VENUS

APOLLO AND VENUS

ART'S MARTYRS

AN INVOCATION

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

LOVE-BLOOM:

TWENTY-TWO SONNETS (1881)

I. A SAINT-FLOWER

II. THY YOUNG BEAUTY

III. THE EARLY WOODS

IV. “I WAITED FOR THEE”

V. THE MOUNTAINS AND THE SEA

VI. OUR SELF-EXISTENCE

VII. “IS IT NOT WONDERFUL?”

VIII. “THOU ART SO GREAT”

IX. THE UNION IN NATURE AND IN MUSIC

X. “RAPTURE IS HOLINESS”

XI. AN ENGLISH FLOWER

XII. BREEZE, MOON, AND SUN

XIII. ALONE

XIV. JOINED SPIRITS

XV. IF THOU WERT DEAD!

XVI. OUR SHIELD

XVII. THE PROMISE OF SPRING

XVIII. THE GLORY OF SUMMER

XIX. THE CALM OF AUTUMN

XX. THE REST OF WINTER

XXI. THE SEA-SANDS' GOLD

XXII. MEASURELESS

ANOTHER ALICE

I

II

III

IV

I.
A SAINT-FLOWER

II.
THY YOUNG BEAUTY

III.
THE EARLY WOODS

IV.
“I WAITED FOR THEE”

V.
THE MOUNTAINS AND THE SEA

VI.
OUR SELF-EXISTENCE

VII.
“IS IT NOT WONDERFUL?”

VIII.
“THOU ART SO GREAT”

IX.
THE UNION IN NATURE AND IN MUSIC

X.
“RAPTURE IS HOLINESS”

XI.
AN ENGLISH FLOWER

XII.
BREEZE, MOON, AND SUN

XIII.
ALONE

XIV.
JOINED SPIRITS

XV.
IF THOU WERT DEAD!

XVI.
OUR SHIELD

XVII.
THE PROMISE OF SPRING

XVIII.
THE GLORY OF SUMMER

XIX.
THE CALM OF AUTUMN

XX.
THE REST OF WINTER

XXI.
THE SEA-SANDS' GOLD

XXII.
MEASURELESS