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

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.