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

The woods are no less rich for all the flowers within them,
But richer, richer far:
The pine-leaves stoop above the daisies and would win them;
They kiss each white small star.

II

The world is no less rich for all the songs within it,
But far more heavenly-sweet.
No nightingale can hush the happy homely linnet;
God hears its soft “tweet, tweet.”

III

The skies are no less blue because the gold stars fill them;
Nor are the hills less bright
When wings on wings of breeze on breeze caress and thrill them
With lavish love and light.

IV

The shores are no less glad when breaker after breaker
With soft light laugh of glee
Charges along the sand and fills gold acre on acre
With foam-pearls from the sea.

V

And so the heart of man is nobler for caresses
That fashion life anew.
What lightens with young joy the solemn pine's dark tresses?
The clear sky glistening through.

VI

The more the spirit loves, the richer is the spirit,—
So self-love crawls not in.
When we win one sweet love, that moment our souls merit
Another love to win!

VII

Star elboweth star throughout the blue fields without number
Wherethrough their cohorts wheel:
And eyes on eyes pervade our hearts and thrill our slumber,
And lips on lips appeal!

VIII

Roses on roses redden leagues on leagues sweet-smelling;
Foam-bells on foam-bells shine:
And in God's world are women sweet beyond all telling;
Lips countless and divine.

IX

More than the stars are they in number, and far sweeter
Than fields the May-winds tread:
Beyond the praise of bard's most passionate honeyed metre
And all words Love has said.

X

Like hosts on hosts of angels wait they at the portal
Of life: we never know
What glance sent straight from heaven, impassioned and immortal,
A new day's light will show.

XI

Beyond all dreams are they in beauty and in number:
The tired heart sinks to sleep,—
But through the golden aisles and marble courts of slumber
Flash glances new and deep.

XII

If thou dost gather a rose, there will be still carnations
By next day's garden-beds!
Thou hast won a love? Yet new loves bring thee sweet oblations.
New stars exalt bright heads.

XIII

New, new, and ever new. Oh God, I faint for pleasure,
And worship and adore.
Love beyond love, and lips on lips, and treasure on treasure,
For ever and evermore!

Sept. 23, 1882.

A GIFT OF SPRING

I

For all thy youth given up to me so worn and weary,
For thy soft days of Spring given up to Winter dreary,
What shall I, love, return?
What do the black pines give to the roses in the thicket?
What doth the searcher say as swift he stoops to pick it
To the first budding fern?

II

Thou art so young and sweet,—and all is still before thee:
The whole long summer day's unbroken blue beams o'er thee;
But as for me, for me,
My summer days are far behind yon range of mountains;
For thee the light of morn still lingers in fresh fountains;
My face is set towards nightfall and the sea.

III

Thou mightst have had so much,—and I can give so little!
Just a stray song or two to spread soft wings and settle
Within thy braided hair:
Young was I never, and now I am the dark grave's suitor;
Least fitted of all bards to be sweet Beauty's tutor;
And thou,—thou art so fair.

IV

And dost thou care for me,—and wilt thou swiftly follow
My steps from dreary mount to drearier murky hollow
Just out of love for me?
Why thou mightst, with that face, have all the world in bondage!
Wilt thou, the daughter of Spring, bind thy bright brow with frondage
Autumnal, such as I can give to thee!

V

The laughter of the Spring is in thine eyes, and round thee!
The crocus-spirit I found, O true love, when I found thee,—
And all the daffodils

Flash forth for thee along the meadows, and the thrushes
Sing out for thee among the newly blossomed bushes
And newly robed green hills.

VI

And I will never take thy flower-help without saying
How in mine elder years I went one morn a-Maying
(To gather thorns, I thought!)
And found thee,—sweeter than the bloom of all the May-trees
And whiter than flower-clouds upon the gayest of gay trees;
Found thee, so far beyond the gifts I sought.

VII

If I can give thee little, yet what I have I bring thee.
Thou hast given me honey of love,—and I, I can but sing thee;
Yet sing I must and may.
Thou hast made the face of Spring in late and dark September
Smile: thou hast made a flame leap up from a grey ember:
Thou hast gilded a dark day.

VIII

The azure of thy youth,—this thou hast taken and brought me;
With thine own bloom within thy sweet hands thou hast sought me;
My youth again returns:
Again I stand knee-high in clover and wild grasses
And drink deep in my lungs the sea-wind as it passes,
While round my head the golden midday burns.

Sept. 27, 1882.

AUTUMN MESSAGES

I

The flowers that as they fade fling parting kisses tender
From valley and hill and lea
Towards Autumn, know that Spring will mark fresh blossoms' splendour;
But when Spring comes, love, I shall not have thee.

II

The blue waves now along September gold shores gleaming
Will change to an angry sea;
But when the next Spring's ocean smiles, with eyes love-dreaming,
It will not smile on thee.

III

Thou art gone! thou art gone! thou art gone!—And I, I may not follow!
When with swift wings and glee
Returns to England's shores the now-departing swallow,
God will not let my heart return to thee.

IV

Of all the autumn words methinks this is the saddest:
To know that love must flee;
That one more love of mine, most sweet though it be the maddest,
Hath no more part in me.

V

The blossoms die. But then the new Spring brings their beauty
Again for our eyes to see:
But when love falls stricken down by Time, his helpless booty,
What blooms again? Oh, love, no flower of thee!

VI

The swift years pass. But then new years bring tidings sweeter,
Delights undreamed,—and we
Sing to the Spring's soft lips and hasten fast to meet her;
But ah!—not to meet thee.

VII

To-day I feel as if my years of labour and singing
Were fruitless as the sea.
No song is worth its pang, no gift is worth the bringing;
For all my songs will never bring back thee.

VIII

Not all the songs of Spring, nor Spring's own song, the fairest
Of all the songs that be,
Shall ever ring the same,—since thou no longer carest
That I should care for thee!

Sept. 27, 1882.

THE RIVER AND THE SEA

I

Yes; sweet it was. Most sweet to watch your Spanish glances
Rove o'er the Stage, and through the gauzy mazy dances:
And yet how little part
Can I have ever in thee! Thou art the Morning's daughter!
Thy laugh is as the sound of silver running water!
How little art thou akin to my worn heart!

II

I love thee. Yes. But as the night might love the morrow;
Or as the spirit of joy might be beloved of sorrow,
So art thou loved of me!
Or as an inland stream that glances 'neath the bushes,
All fenced about with flowers and grass and scented rushes,
Might win the homage of the weary sea.

III

We have met and we shall part. Deep through my soul I know it.—
And half I would retard, and half would not forego it,
The moment sure to come
When thou wilt pass away, and leave the sun's rays duller
And the blue sea less blue,—the sunset dimmed of colour,—
And every flower (for me) less full of bloom.

IV

We have met and we shall part. And thou wilt sorrow a little:
But ah! how the thin stalk of love is frail and brittle
In a young girl's white hands!
A poet's doom it is that even his lightest giving
Hath something in it of soul that ends not with his living
But follows him beyond the sunlit lands.

V

I go towards that strange night that knows not dawn nor waking:
But as for thee thine eyes are on the morning breaking
O'er vale and wood and hill.

Mine eyes are on the dark; my feet are seaward beckoned:
Thy days and hours by days and hours of joy are reckoned,
And of God's future thou wilt drink thy fill.

VI

And yet from all my heart I thank God that I met thee!
My very soul must change before I can forget thee,
Or thy deep Spanish eyes.
Oh, never doth the sea forget the rills which slaking
Its infinite wide thirst allay its endless aching
And bring it news of far-off flowers and skies.

VII

If I can help thee, well. I would not pain nor hurt thee:
Win thy soft river-love, to wound thee and desert thee.
Nay, never let it be
That one soft silver stream, one white-foot mountain's daughter,
Trusted with simple trust the limitless grey water,
Yet found no answering stern faith in the sea!

VIII

I am the sea,—to thee. Thou art the bright-foot river
Darting amid the reeds with tender pulse and shiver
Of guardian aspen-stems.
Thou hast had one glimpse,—just one,—of life beyond thy dreaming:
Of the far treeless waste illimitably gleaming,
Crowned with the cold stars' scentless diadems.

IX

Thou hast given me life quite new. I, in the world no stranger,
Long versed in love and song, and passion's charm and danger,
To thee am unknown quite:
Therein for me doth lurk the subtle joy and gladness;
I bid farewell to grief, I laugh at mist-wreathed sadness,
And simply bask in thine eyes' sunny light.

X

I might have been re-born the other night when sitting
Close by thy side I watched the fairy figures flitting
Across the magic stage.

I was no more myself, but twenty summers younger.
And all that night the stars seemed lightened of their hunger,
And my heart lightened of the hunger of age.

XI

Ah! when I seek alone the shadowy water glooming
On my last night of all, and all life's deeds are looming
Large in the unearthly light
That then gleams over and round about me, may I, meeting
The sea's full glance of strong inquiring love and greeting,
Feel that I left thee, as I found thee, white.

XII

I perhaps have made an hour or two for thee pass quicker,
And made thy lamp of life more brightly flame and flicker
Just for a little space:
I have not given thee pain. And thou hast given a poet
Joy for a month or two, and pain that will outgrow it,
And the eternal memory of thy face.

Oct. 2, 1882.

SONGS OF NIGHT TO MORNING

I. AT THE THEATRE

Thine eyes are set upon the dancing-girls before thee:
I only gaze at thee. Then far beyond and o'er thee
My soul-gaze travels far.
I see the moment when thou wilt be crowned with roses
And violets of young love, just when my journey closes
Where flowerless sea-waves watch each flowerless star.

This is the charm and yet the pang,—the gulf betwixt us.
The sorceress, I trow, whose cunning cold hand mixed us
The magic draught we drink
Mixed in it honey and gall. For thee the flowing honey,
So sweet and clear and fresh and bright and golden-sunny;
For me the dark gall when the thick dregs sink.

Thou gazest at the Stage. My fixed looks travel theeward.
Just as a swimmer who makes strong gallant headway seaward
Plunges within the breast
Of some white warm soft wave, my whole soul in thy beauty
Revels and plunges deep,—and clasps the peerless booty,
And in its loveliness finds perfect rest.

Thou art glad at the lights and music. I am gladder
At thee than at all lights and music, and a madder
And wilder tide doth dart
Throughout my veins and nerves, through watching thee, than floweth
Throughout the brain to which the strong red fierce wine goeth;
Thou dost intoxicate both head and heart.

II. AND YET

And yet it seems to me that something of paternal
Desire within my soul is guardian to thy vernal
Sweet soft days full of leaf:—
And that, if thou didst pass beyond my sight, and, sinning,
Didst mar the fairy life that thou art now beginning,
A sword would pierce me of eternal grief.

There is a love that hath within it nought but passion.
But there are souls who love in nobler sunnier fashion,
With far more starlike will.
There is a love that bends, with something of a mother
Within its yearning deep, and somewhat of a brother,
Above the heart wild love might wound or kill.

Oh, if my doom is this,—that I must see thee turning
From the true road, and know that even God's own yearning
Could hardly stay thy feet;—
If I am doomed to watch the girlish soft eyes harden,
Just as a man who sees a rosebud in his garden
Rusted and withered by the wind and sleet;—

If I am doomed to watch the fairy brown bright glances
That I have loved, God knows!—fling conscious cunning lances
Against the shields of men;—
If as thou growest in years thou hast to lose that tender
And nameless charm that now with more than mortal splendour
Doth clothe thy spirit often and again;—

If I must see all this and feel the cold sword sinking
Within my heart, yet bear in silence, without shrinking,
The utmost keen deep pang;
Yet may I know that I, according to my measure,
Lifted and never sank thy white soul's priceless treasure,
And loved thee purely, as I purely sang.

May never a bud of thine through me be wind-tossed roughly!
Thou art not made of harsh coarse clay, nor fashioned toughly
As some thy sisters are:
Thou wast not made to hear rude merriment and laughter;
Surely thou hast before thee some divine hereafter;
Grow starlike, having soft eyes like a star.

No man can grow a woman as he groweth roses.
Nay, God himself at times from the long task reposes,
And weary he turns, and sighs.
Thine own path thou must take.—And I thy swift-winged swallow
May be forbidden for years thy summer laugh to follow
And the dear summer sunshine in thine eyes.

God's hand is over both.—Because I love thee dearly
A pitiless sword may pierce my soul,—I see it clearly,—
I know my risk full well.
Yet were there a thousand swords in front, or blazing trenches,
Mine would not be the eye or hand or heart that blenches,—
If I could save thee just one shadow of hell.

Oct. 5, 1882.

III. “PERHAPS A DREAM IT IS”

Perhaps a dream it is,—but far too sweet for breaking.
Give me another month to dream on without waking,
Or even another day!
What are the sweetest things but dreams? What is the summer
But just a gorgeous dream to every blossom-comer
That laughs encircled in the clasp of May!

The real nights are the nights when, golden, beyond number,
Star-thoughts and starlike eyes pervade and haunt our slumber:
The real days are the days
When over and round about us sunny Love is gleaming:—
False days and nights are those that have no heart for dreaming,—
When no thoughts thrill our stormy souls to lays.

IV. “THINK WHAT IT IS TO ME”

Think what it is to me with life's black tempest blowing
Still through my hair, and still the weary rain-drops flowing
Adown my face and hands,
To meet thee full of summer,—and full of morning sweetness!
Think how it rounds my life to passionate completeness,
And brings me visions of green laughing lands!

And thou art linked to me,—for thou dost love the rivers,
And the deep woods wherein the chequered sunlight quivers
Through maze of leaf on leaf:
And thy feet have not feared the pathways of the mountains,
And thou hast caught the laugh of far-off silvery fountains;
Thou hast kissed pleasure,—as I have kissed grief.

Think what it is to me, after long years of bondage,
Again with thee to see the light wind kiss the frondage
And the free sunlight dance!

Think what it is to be in the green woods embowered,
And for a season short of risen life empowered
To watch thy sweet face smile, thy dark eyes glance.

My song,—I know it well,—hath death's wild wail within it;
It is not all a chant of lark or thrush or linnet;
Strange sounds along it leap:
It is not fit for thee: it is not bright or cheery;
But full of moorland sound, and sound of storm, and eerie,
And haunted by the moaning of the deep.

Yet have I loved thee so that if I sang hereafter
Never again, meseems one ripple of thy laughter
Through this my song would ring:
So I have poured my soul along the singing measure
That something in it of thee the singer's deathless treasure
May to the mortal notes, death-conquering, cling.

Just as a man imprisoned for years in dungeon gloomy
Plunges his every sense in rapture at the roomy
First large sight of the sea,
So I for years in chains and far from joy and daylight
Hail,—as he hails the sea's divine expanse of grey light,—
The chainless sight and touch and sound of thee.

V. “AND SHALL I THEN COMPLAIN?”

And shall I then complain if thou, the sea-wind meeting,
Dost sigh for flowers and woods and the soft warm wind fleeting
Along the forest-glades?
I sitting close by thee am like the midnight olden
Watching the young sun, full of gorgeous mirth and golden,
Gild one by one the green groves' colonnades!

Behind me stretch long leagues of weary desert marches:
Before thee open out gay miles of forest-arches:
Life is to thee quite new.
I lived before the flood, and saw the ancient cities,
And sang amid the white weird walls old strange love-ditties,
And watched with young wide eyes the old cloudless blue.

While thou dost yearn for life, and softly sighest after
The thyme on river-banks, I yearn for the great laughter
That through the lips of death
Sallies. While thou dost pluck wherever bright green hill is
The stems of hare-bells blue and sisterly white lilies,
I pant to meet the far sea's flowerless breath.

And yet thou art mine! thou art mine! Because my whole soul sorrows
To think how little part in thy bright golden morrows
Of sunny life have I:
Because I have loved thee not with selfish soulless yearning,
But with the sea's deep love, and with the sinless burning
Passion of stars and hills, and of the sky:

Because I have loved thee thus,—where'er thy pathway leadeth,
As through the vales of flowers thy happy young foot speedeth,
I follow; I follow amain:
And when the darkness comes and other loves are failing,
And, watching death's grim sea, thou feelest doubt assailing,
Call thou for me. Thou shalt not call in vain.

Then looking in my face it may be thou shalt, growing
At last to larger life, behold the strong love glowing
Within me, and shalt rise,
And meet the sea's wide glance, triumphal, strong, and tearless,
And my glance, and love's glance, soul-virginal and fearless,
With equal kindred deep impassioned eyes.

A PRAYER

May the strong arms of God be ever round about thee!
Yea, mayest thou feel the sense of summer sun throughout thee
Pass, even on the gaslit boards!
I can do nothing more. Lo! I can only love thee.
But the great love of God around thee and above thee
Can flow, and guard thee more than shields or swords.

“To-night and every night”—so doth my deep strong yearning
Float upward towards God's throne—“do thou, Lord God, with burning
Impassioned fence of angels' wings
Guard her and hold her safe: or guard her with my passion,
Changed to a fiery sword of unexampled fashion!
Change to an iron shield this heart that sings!

“Make thou my soul so pure that prayer may find and reach her
And with strong fervent mouth and might divine beseech her,
If e'er her footsteps turn aside.
Oh, let me be the voice of rivers and of mountains:
Give thou my song the ring of old flower-bordered fountains:
Let somewhat of me in her heart abide.

“I have the love, but not the power to guard and shield her.
Thou hast the power, O God. To thee then, God, I yield her:—
To thee: but not to mortal man.
Yet, this I ask,—this much: if thou must ever save her
By gift of death, Lord God,—take this, the heart I gave her;
Die not thou for her,—never,—for I can.”

Oct. 15, 1882.

“THE RIGHT TO DIE”

To have the right to die!—Yes: it will come,—the pleasure
Of drawing one long breath, sweet, deep, beyond all measure,
Then at the head of the awful ranks
With swords that spurn the sheath and light still left to charge in
Triumphant right along great red death's river-margin
Leaping, and by death's blood-besprinkled banks.

Yes: weary are the delays. I know it. Pale with yearning
All day the steady ranks held in their wild souls burning
With fiery might at Waterloo:
At last the sunset came. With one fierce leap gigantic
The long red line advanced and broke like foam the frantic
Defeated eddying lines of surging blue!

And so it is with us. One day along our serried
Calm lines where faces grim with life-long deep hopes buried
Gleam pale and stern and set and still,
Will ring from the lips of God the joyful awful order—
“The time has come. Advance.” Death is the great rewarder
To many a heart no gift of life could fill.

Ah! God, through the June day of battle keep us steady,
Though round about us foes innumerable eddy
And wheel and charge and break and fly:
Keep our stern souls yet waiting for the order ringing
Along the ranks, the eternal gift of freedom bringing,
And thy one deathless gift,—the right to die.

Oct. 15, 1882.

SUNRISE AND SUNSET

I. SUNRISE.

Ages and ages since my boyhood woke from slumber
And all the hills grew bright
And flowers no man can name, nor mortal heart can number,
Gleamed in the gorgeous morning light.

The sunrise shone around. And thou the spirit of morning,
O sweet first love, wast there:
And thou and I alone watched the green hills adorning
Their fresh robes and their sun-kissed hair.

The first sweet light of dawn fell o'er the ocean hollows
And gilded the waves' way:
And o'er the water danced and glanced the white sea-swallows,
And our hearts were as winged as they.

All things were then in front. Life's golden gateway glittered
In the dawn's golden rays.
Ah! one could never have dreamed that woodland paths were littered
Ever with damp autumnal strays!

I thought that I would sing thy beauty and thy glory,
O far first love of mine!
I knew not what snowfields, waste, trackless, sunless, hoary,
Lay on the wild horizon-line!

And now that I have sung, and thirteen years have fluttered
Their weary wings away,
Is there one soft look gained through all that I have uttered,—
Hast thou one word of love to say?

Have thirteen years of song no voices and no pinions
To reach and cry to thee?
Hast thou no yearning still for our old royal dominions
Of deep-blue sky and bluer sea?

Is love of nothing worth now that the love is longer
And of more passionate might?
Now that the mounting sun of riper age flames stronger,
Are the old sun-kissed hills less bright?

If I have crowned thy brow with leaves time may not wither
For all his wayward will,
Wilt thou not, once at least, for old love's sake turn hither,
Thy singer's heart once more to thrill?

Wilt thou not look this way, that once again the splendour
Of morning over me
May flash?—as ever it flashed when thou, first love, wast tender
By the old ever-tender sea.

Oct. 23, 1882.

II. SUNSET

Ah!—Here I stand and dream, and sunset's red dominions
Burn, high before my sight.
Who am I that my thought should stretch young eager pinions
Towards the far golden morning-light?

Between me and the past lie fields on fields of sorrow:
Yet, brown-eyed maiden, thee
I have to-day—and perhaps to-morrow,—and to-morrow,—
And then the dark night, and the sea.

Once more before my death, old dreams and thoughts romantic
Have leaped up high again:
And passion's wind with laugh half silver-sweet, half frantic,
Has swept around the shores of pain.

I weary with sad days and sick at heart with climbing
Far past youth's sunlit dells
Have sought anew for thee the old streams silver-chiming
And sought for thee the haunted fells.

Yes: I have found a love,—and yet a fair white sister
In her, too, I have found.
I felt my soul awake when my glad lips had kissed her,
With more than common passion crowned.

For ever it is the soul that gives all joy to passion:—
The slightest gift is sweet
If given in soulful holy virginal pure fashion;
The red lips need not even meet.

Beyond all love, the love that loves just for the pleasure
Of giving love away:
And this,—the love of God,—can never lose its treasure
Nor see joy's rose wings turn to grey.

Beyond all love the love that, full of deepest yearning,
Can still that yearning deep,
And wait,—though far within the great soul-fires are burning
And through the soul wild longings leap.

This is the love that wins. And though to mortal seeming
It win not here at all;
Though half its triumph seem to careless eyes mere dreaming,
Mere dallying while life's blossoms fall;

Yet still I say that this, the love of soul, prevaileth,
And no love else at last:
Is all afire with joy when every faint love paleth,—
Wins, when all lesser loves are past.

Oct. 23, 1882.

A VINDICATION

I

I claim the eternal right to love,—without conditions.
To crown thee with my love, and crown thee with love's visions,
Though all men stand i' the way.
Oh, is not Love enough? If in a golden carriage,
Sweet, thou wast drawn along, towards a golden marriage,
Could Love have more triumphant words to say?

II

I love thee with my soul. Heaven knows I love thee truly.
Each time I see thy face, the tide of love flows newly
Round laughing happier shores.
Each time I see thine eyes, my soul bursts into gladness
And every swift pulse throbs with passion's mirth and madness,
And all the poethood within me adores.

III

What do I give? Why, love. And, if a prince besought thee
And to his gilded house of regal pleasure brought thee,
Could he do more than I?
Is there in this wild world one great exceeding treasure
That hath, like passionate love, nor bound nor mate nor measure,
Spreading wide wings co-equal with the sky?

IV

Ah! marriage hath its gifts. It hath its pleasures waiting:
Rich jewels and priceless robes,—and life behind a grating:—
Rubies,—and prison-bars:—
Bright emeralds, diamonds, pearls,—yet never love's free laughter:—
Rank, wealth, and friends,—and deep heart-sickness following after:—
Gay frescoed walls and ceilings,—not the stars.

V

Have others prayed to be so pure that prayer might aid thee?
Have others at thy gate lest hostile spears invade thee
Watched, night on night indeed?

Who yearns as I have yearned? Who follows as I follow?—
Has love no awful rights when all rights else ring hollow?—
Is love not just the crown of Christ's own creed?—

VI

Who has seen thy soul but I? Who of the men who watch thee,
O flower of mine, and from thy dainty stem would snatch thee,
Wear,—tire,—then cast away—
Which of them all has loved, or will love, as I love thee?
Would bend for sacred hours, O fairy flower, above thee,—
Yet leave thee smiling on thy parent spray?

VII

Nay, the soul knows the soul. Of all things sad and deadly
To yield a woman back into life's loveless medley
When once the souls have met
Is just the deadliest and saddest and most grievous:
The very stars cry out “For God's sake do not leave us!”
When once Love's soul-kiss on their lips is set.

VIII

The deep soul sees the soul. A man knows when a woman,
Beyond all laws and rules and tests and quibbles human,
Belongs, through the great might
Of his own fiery love all laws, save Love's, transcending,
To him. He knows light love: and love which hath no ending.
Love boundless gives infinity of right.

IX

Why should I give thee up? Why should I, the possessor
Of thy sweet spirit and heart, yield up to any lesser
And weaker lover than I
These spotless priceless gifts,—in that I have no power
To give thee more than love's imperishable flower
And for thy sake to yearn and battle,—and die?

X

“No greater love is there than this,”—that love be willing
To spend its very life, its sacred life-blood spilling
Just for another's sake.
No greater love hath woman than that a man be ready
To stand before her door till death, a sentry steady;
Lest any foe therein an entrance make.

XI

I stand before thy door. Never shall foeman enter
Till fifty spears have made my guardian heart their centre
Or targeted my brain.
As long as thou dost need thy sentry, thou wilt find me:
Were there an army in front, thou wouldst be safe behind me:
Safe,—till they slew me:—and then God would remain.

XII

God then would take my shield, and on thy threshold standing
Would carry on the strife. My own death notwithstanding,
Thou wouldst be safe: for he
With all the holy and loyal great manhood of a brother
Unto the very death would wrestle with every other
Till he restored thee, smiling, unto me.

Nov. 2, 1882.

ONE PRAYER

I

And now must I lose thee, O dark-eyed love, O darling?
Will the bright eyes of Spring greet thrush and lark and starling,
But shall I not greet thee?
I will not sing again. What is the worth of singing
When thus thy farewell voice around my path is ringing?
Let the great silence deepen around me.

II

I will not sing again. For years and years I, early,
When all the morning clouds were washed in gold and pearly,
Have sung to the morning light,—
And through the midday heat I still have sung, and followed
The song-god till in gloom the purple meads were swallowed:
And then the stars have heard me, through the night.

III

Summer has heard my song, and Winter too has listened,
And the soft eyes of Spring have wept at times and glistened
At some sad passionate strain:
And flowers I've twined in the hair of Autumn round her flowing,
And with red leaves of song have carpeted her going;
But now,—love, love,—I shall not sing again!

IV

Pang follows upon pang, and spear on spear hath sought me.
Never one day hath dawned but that day's hands have brought me
New sorrow, untried grief:
And now if I lose thee—ah God! if I must follow
The old wild griefward track once more,—why let Apollo
Henceforward flaunt his uncontested leaf!

V

In the far early Spring of life my lady faltered,
And sweet youth's passionate hopes and ardent dreams were altered,
But life was then so young!

My work was yet to do. My lady must be lifted
Towards a high throne of fame, and with my laurel gifted.
Love had been cruel: still love must be sung.

VI

But now that years on years to songs on songs have hearkened:
Now that the solemn path has narrowed in and darkened:
Now that the flowers are gone:
Now that my sunset through the forest black trees flashes
And lights the grim fir-trunks already with red splashes,—
How can the old light song-stream ripple on?

VII

O God! God! spare me this. I who not oft beseech thee
Come now with this one prayer. Oh, let its passion reach thee!
Not often do I ask.
But now that, this once more, I have the silence broken,
And from my very soul of souls have once more spoken,
Is thy response, God, all too hard a task?

VIII

By all the pangs of years: by bright days turned to weeping:
By the sad eyes of old far-off pale lost dreams sleeping:
By all my love and pain:
God, spare me this one pang. I, once too proud to implore thee,
Do from my soul entreat that this cloud fall not o'er me!
For, if it fall, I cannot sing again.

IX

The young have all their life in front. The days may darken;
But still to May's glad birds their sorrowing hearts may hearken;
Yea, still the May-flower blows
For these. Bright loves in front wave hands and beckon onward.
Through lanes festooned with green their pathway stretches sunward.
They faint not at the death of the first rose.

X

But, when long years have done their dreary work and vanished,—

When hopes that filled the soul have long been dead and banished,—
When age hath set its mark
Upon the spirit, and when all things have changed their fashion,—
Then to love once again with manhood's stormy passion
And lose,—this is to see the sun grow dark.

XI

God! spare me this. I have borne thy darts without a murmur:
I mortal have endured immortal torture, firmer
Than stern rock set at sea:
Yet,—here I tremble. I own I dread the keen sword hanging,
God, at thy side. I dread to hear thy scabbard clanging.
God with the sword, deal graciously with me.

XII

Spare me this final pang.—I am no croaking raven
Flying around thy towers with prayers perpetual,—craven
And coward of heart and weak.
So hear me when I come,—and let thy great heart soften
In that I clamour not and ask not audience often.
This once I look thee in the eyes and speak.

Nov. 5, 1882.

TWO SONNETS

DEATH

I.

Death!—Shalt not thou reveal all things unseen,
And teach me why the roses faded quite,
And why a dawn that brake in golden light
Over blue Isis and far meadows green
Became so thunder-dark at noon, I ween!—
Death!—Thou shalt teach me why my lady bright
Fled with fleet steps till she was lost to sight,—
And sweet things were as if they had not been.

Death! Surely thou hast life within thy hands.
Thou canst reveal the secret: thou canst pour
(It may be) the old light along the shore:
Thou canst disclose the numberless star-lands
When daylight fadeth. Lo! beside thee stands
My lost love, found,—and found for evermore.

DEATH

II.

Yes: this is the great crown of life,— to know
That death is nearer:—twelve years nearer me
Than when the sunlight filled that Northern sea
With glory infinite, and passion's glow
Fell over the blue waters. Even so,
Death, calm-browed God and Lord, I wait for thee:
With those I love, Lord, I would also be;
For one by one my loved ones, smiling, go.

And I shall follow. I am nearer those
Who have died and left me,—nearer every day.
Soon I shall join the unspeakable repose
Of mighty souls and true who have passed away.
Straight from death's sea to-night the sea-wind blows:
What touched my forehead?—Ah, the spray, the spray!

April 9, 1882.

A DEDICATION TO JOHN ALEXANDER BLENCOWE, MY OLDEST FRIEND

Friend, when at Harrow twenty years ago,
Long ere my passion coveted the bays,
We wandered o'er the green hill's winding ways,
Our young hearts full of boyhood's eager glow,
We knew not what should be, nor sought to know:—
Now, somewhat of life's lengthening shadow strays
Across our path, and in the summer days
The perfume-laden winds more sadly blow.

But still the world is fair, though Harrow days
Are gone from us for ever; though no more
Will Isis break to silver at our oar
Or Cornish moorland purple meet our gaze.
Friend, let me give thee these my latest lays,
Full of old dreams of many a far-off shore.

UPON THE PIER AT NIGHT

I.

I watch the silent night fall o'er the sea.—
Is this strange sombre mantle, Death, like thee?
Doth this dim starless void
Whence the faint breath of summer air floats meward
Hold all the souls whose wings have travelled seaward
By the awful deep decoyed?

Where are the myriad souls who went before?
Who watched the same seas break on the same shore,—
Then trusted Death, and went?
Sometimes an army on the golden beach
Encamps, with hum of multitudinous speech;
The next day, not one tent!

The next day not one white-topped tent is seen:
Only the white-topped billows, dark and green,
And the dark threatening skies.
The foot-prints of the host are on the shore,
But the bright-armoured warriors mix no more;—
No shouts, and no replies.

Can there be room in the celestial fields
For such a concourse of gay swords and shields?
Would all the stars provide
Home for the increasing countless hosts of these,
Or all the untravelled dark-blue billowy seas
Of heaven from side to side?

Nor only human souls have gone. The flowers
Have sent their delegates from woods and bowers
To try the land of death:
To bring back tidings whether sister-stems
Within that land wave petalled diadems
And mingle fragrant breath.

Armies of blossoms past all mortal thought
Since Eve amid their primal host was brought
Have dared the fatal track:
And of these blossoms not one single rose
Breathes answer to our doubt. No hare-bell throws
One faint blue petal back.

The winds of night come scented from afar
As though from worlds where deathless blossoms are:
Sisters perhaps of these.
But never flower from that far land returns:—
No violet-messengers: no risen ferns:
No flushed anemones.

And yet the land where these dead blossoms meet
Must surely be beyond all gardens sweet,
Beyond all woodlands fair.
The land whereto our loved ones, smiling, passed
Cannot be lonely. Though the land be vast
We shall be welcomed there.

II.

O over-crowded fields of starry death
What message lingers in the sea's faint breath
Of you to me to-night?
Just like a blind man passing through a camp
I guess an army round me by the tramp,
Yet no forms loom in sight.

The pulsing of the innumerable feet
Of all the dead seems now mine ear to meet:
This sombre sea and air
Seem full of viewless hints and whispers strange,
And cloud-girt hosts the watch-word interchange;
Great shadowy plumes they bear.

Ah! we shall join you. Ready or the reverse,
With lips that bless or foaming mouths that curse,
We shall be summoned,—each.
Some from laborious days and some from rest:
But all the unfailing and fatigueless quest
Of equal Death shall reach.

The woman waiting in the summer night
With hair unfastened and a glimpse of white
Bosom that pants for breath
Sees a strange face against her window shining,
Where those green helpful ivy-stalks are twining:—
“No, not thy lover. Death!”

What fingers steal around this girl's slim waist
In the ball-room, and cannot be displaced,—
Strong fingers, stiff and cold?
Death's, the eternal partner's.—And he twists
Around his fingers and remorseless wrists
Reluctant locks of gold.

III.

Yes: all will pass.—The cities where we trod
When youth was with us like a laughing god,
Guarding our joyous track,—
These all will pass, and leave no trace behind.
The days when round our brows bright flowers were twined
Pass,—and not one comes back.

The old loves pass. With soft eyes full of tears
They fill the autumnal gardens of the years
Where the grey daisies grow;
And their breath makes the gardens sweet as those
Wherein their cheeks were once red like the rose,
That now are like the snow.

We see them pass. They stretch out pallid hands
Towards ours from lanes and fields of many lands
And far-off streets and ways.
But when we kiss their lips, their touch is cold,
And damp and clammy are the hands we hold,
And dull the eyes they raise.

They all are dead. Cold Death lays hand on each.—
The bride within her chamber he can reach,
And smite the glad bridegroom.
He lusts for lips that man has never kissed:
His fingers grip the dainty blue-veined wrist:
He storms the bridal room.

He climbs upon the fragrant bridal bed
And lo! the bright lips hardly kissed are dead
And death the ravisher
Hath carried off the blossom as it lay
To regions where the very sun is grey
And chill the summer air.

The cities that we loved shall perish too:
The skies of Paris shall no more be blue;
They shall be dark and dread;—
Venice shall die: and all the seas that filled
Her streets and at the touch of love-oars thrilled
Shall wash around the dead.

IV.

Where is thy father? In the grave he lies,—
And the keen worms are busy with his eyes,
And his pale mistress, death,
With scentless bloodless breast above him hangs,
And lo! her lips are as a vampire's fangs
And poisonous is her breath.

He had his day and passed. And then the sun
Was bright for thee, and thy day was begun
And all the air was sweet:
Soft loves flocked round thee, and the summer flamed,
And thou wast young and strong and unashamed;
Winged were thy passionate feet.

Yet dost thou not remember, when thy breath
(On some June night when all is still as death,—
No murmur in the trees)
Passes, caressing, through a woman's hair,
That some day God will plant the black mould there,
Or stray shells from the seas?

That tossed about from wandering wave to wave
The body thou wouldst give thy life to save
May on the next night be?
Hurled in its naked whiteness by white tides
Against the unkissing grim cliff's iron sides,—
Sport to the wanton sea.

So it has been and shall be.—For the dead
Now round and over us are poured and shed:—
They fill the vital air.
The rose is redder in this hedge to-day
For Cleopatra's blood: the waves less grey
That Shelley's soul is there.

Thy little day shall pass,—and then the great
New centuries shall roll in regal state
Along their destined road.
Art thou renowned? Yet see how small a mark
Thy light hath made upon the eternal dark,
The eternal fates' abode!

Just like one foot-print on the desert sand
Is one frail human life. Grey leagues expand
In front, behind, around.
There is the foot-print,—and the endless waste,
And the cold stars interminably chaste
Far up, and never a sound.

V.

No lover ever kissed the eternal blue
Broad sky. No eyes of stars have e'er shone through
A golden star-wife's eyes.—
In lonely loveless silence through the waste
Trackless abysses must their footsteps haste.
Forlorn are all the skies.

If we set forth from this our planet's rim
And sailed the sky-sea to the farthest brim
We should not find one fair
Oasis-island thronged by human faces:—
Vacant and eyeless are the abysmal spaces:
No laugh thrills the blue air.

No woman's silvery laughter rings along
The far heights,—only the dull wind's bleak song:
No children's shouts are heard.
The gold stars have not found one single harp:—
They swim the purple seas like golden carp,
One dense and brainless herd.

Death reigns through all the heights and all the deep,
One lone interminable dreary sleep.
The stars have golden wings—
Yet oh how far more sweet one dear green glade
On earth, wherein beneath tall pine-trees' shade
A grey-eyed glad girl sings.

Just earth we know, and love,—and nothing more.
The far star-spaces are an unknown shore
Whereon the unknown tides beat.
Oh, let us love, and kiss, and hand in hand
Upon our poor small homely planet stand:—
A cottage-home is sweet.

Our planet, though it be not first nor third
Nor tenth in order, none the less hath heard
Divine love-laughter sound.
In its green vales the amorous myrtle grows,
And red carnations, and the sovereign rose:
Its nights are passion-crowned.

Here live we, here we die. The gods have bent
Above our planet's forests well content:
Here they have dwelt of old.
What gods dwell in the air? We know not these
We know the nymphs of our own woodland trees
And elves o' the purple wold.

O earth, thou art our own! The stars shine far
Above our heads: we know not what they are:
Great gold grand dreary things.
We love our earth because she is a bride
For ever near us, seated at our side;
She hath no hurtling wings!

She hath a sunburnt bosom good to kiss:
Sweet with the smell of corn and with the bliss
Of countless summer flowers.
We covet not a bride with breast more white;
We know her beauty waits us every night
In her deep-scented bowers.

VI.

The great dark sunders, and its curtains dread
Are as the curtains of a bridal bed.
What new love waits therein?
What lips the flower-god's very hand has fashioned?
What eyes like blue seas, fervid and impassioned?
What strange delights to win?

Ah! is the dark not lonely after all,
But full of voices like a festive hall
Where laughter rings around?
Full of glad feet that thread gay marriage-dances
And sweet with love's inexorable glances—
Crowded, and full of sound?

Are the great spirits we have dreamed of there?
Is the next world's sun brighter for the hair
Of Helen, and the grace
Of countless women whom our souls have missed,—
Who wander through the shades with lips unkissed
And light the lonely place?

Are women there from white strange Eastern halls
Wherethrough the night-wind's sombre footstep falls
But finds no sweethearts now?
Are all Death's sweethearts in that far-off land?
Myriads:—sweet eyes on eyes, soft hand on hand,
Angelic brow on brow?

September, 1882.

A SPIRIT

A spirit wandered through the earth, and found
No rest from pain:—
He longed to widen outward without bound
Or check or chain!

He longed to be as God,—with Godlike soul
To dare and do;
To touch some passionate and Godlike goal
Untouched and new.

He longed to bind around his brow the flowers
Of all sweet songs
And all the pleasures of soft moonlit hours,
And sunlit throngs

Of ardent dreams. One life was not enough:
More he must know.
Calm seas are sweet; but sweeter are the rough
Great tides that grow!

Blue waves are lovely; but the iron-grey
Tumultuous tides
That lash the granite of the deadly bay
And smite its sides,

These have a kinglier charm for kingly souls:
The plunging seas
When over them the North wind's chariot rolls
Delight all these.

And so all uncontent with sunlit lands
This spirit must seek
Rapture where tossing waves with grey salt hands
Search many a creek.

The laurel-crown that God upon white brow
For ever wears,
This he had envy of; and of the bow
Apollo bears.

Him nought but being God, or being part
Of God, would e'er
Content: for limitless was his wide heart,
Like chainless air.

And not one soul of woman could content
Nor prison him.
They held!—Then suddenly the walls were rent
And, free of limb,

He darted forth,—and o'er all history's bowers
Would linger long:
He touched fair Rosamond with lips like flowers
And flowerlike song.

And deep within the Scotch queen's ardent eyes
He gazed, and deep
Within the eyes of Helen; and his sighs
Smote Venus' sleep.

Yet he was not content:—is God content?
Can ever he
By whom all suns and clouds and storms are sent
And all blue sea

And all grey storm-struck waters, and all sweet
Triumphant air
Of summer when the breaths of roses meet
And laughter rare

Of tall white shining lilies rings around
The garden's hem;—
Can God who moulds and sends these things be bound
By bonds of them?

Is God who sways all far-off starry bowers
With one content?
Is his soul satiate with one planet's flowers
And tired and spent?

Nay! rather through wild maze of star on star
God wanders long:—
And so this spirit, fatigueless, wandered far,
Crowned with his song.

God twines his hand in the strange fiery hair
Of stars unseen
And robes him with unknown and virgin air:—
This spirit hath been

Along the unknown and awful road with God
Where planets wait,—
And he the sun's gold morning-path hath trod,
And through the gate

Of sunset hath he passed. Some singers long
To be inspired
By dead great poets, and to catch their song:
But he desired

To widen day by day and night by night
His own soul far
Beyond the reach of rays of previous light,
Be it sun or star.

Had others nobly sung? Then he would sing,
But not as they:
Not with another's,—with its own bright wing
Athwart the spray

The glimmering sea-bird glides: the English seas
Are still the same
As when, soft-tongued as the soft English breeze,
Our Shelley came,

And never hath the red rose dropped one tint
Of perfect bloom
For sorrow at death of Keats, or given one hint
Of added gloom.

No. New for singer new the morning shines
Down hill and vale,
And the red sunrise through the pillared pines
Flames an All-hail!

What was the past? Like God he would begin
Creation now,
And wind all leaves of love his heart might win
Round untouched brow;

And sweep into his stores all blossoms pale
And blossoms bright;
And sing as though he first of all cried “Hail,
Thou first morn's light!”

And sing as though the flowers of Eden shone
Before his gaze,
And Eve's white figure wandered through the wan
Soft twilight ways—

And sing as though four red lips never yet
Had fastened fast:—
For him the grass with dewy dawn was wet;
There was no past.

The golden future gleamed before his sight,
And woman there,
With pure eyes like the matchless morning light,
But far more fair,

Stood waiting,—and his being's task was still
To follow through
All lives her form, and mould her to his will
With passion true.

For he who knoweth woman knoweth God:
Who knoweth a rose
The inmost Holy of holies' floors hath trod
And found repose.

God in his heaven of heavens was restless till
He fashioned her,
And on her form put forth his utmost skill
And tenderest care.

But when he saw her stand alive and white,
His great heart leapt
With sudden joy: he marvelled at the sight,—
And then he wept.

For she was fairer than God's utmost dreams,
Though these be fair:
And still with the eternal magic gleams
Her soft thick hair:

And still her eyes have more than mortal power
All hearts to draw,
And still her lips are like a living flower,
Full of sweet awe.

In each new city of earth this spirit found
A life new-born:
With fillets of fresh flowers his head was crowned
At every morn.

Death he knew not of,—nor the thought of death:
For soft lips made
His heart eternal with their tender breath
And loving aid.

Each morning through the waves of being he
Could plunge anew
And bathe wide soul-limbs in the tameless sea,—
And round him grew

A host of recollections starry-eyed,
Like living things
Through leafage on a summer night descried
With mothlike wings.

So his life deepened, and became no more
A thing of earth,
But a tide rippling on some heavenly shore
With silvery mirth.

And he could widen into life divine
With strange delight:—
As when one leaves green larch and beech and pine
And lilies white

And flowers of all the valleys and the hills
And maiden-hair
And silvery tossing laughing reckless rills
And mountain air

And forests where the fairies dance in rings
And smooth soft dales
And trunks whereto the golden lichen clings
And daisied vales:

As when one leaves all these, and with divine
Deep joy past speech
Sees the long white unsearchable foam-line
Fringe the far beach,—

And, after, steering outward, hears the song
Of the sea-breeze
And thanks God for the absence of the throng
Of stifling trees!

Those close-branched choking trees and woods ashore:
Yes, all their flowers
Were never half so sweet as these dim hoar
Waste foam-bell showers!

The houseless plain receives us, and we sail
For ever on,
Till night at the first trembling kiss grows pale
Of morning wan.

Flower-scents to him were rapture, bringing dreams
No word could tell:—
Where for wild miles the gold furze-blossom gleams
And its rich smell

Fills all the air, he wandered, with delight
Supreme: a rose
By its mere scent could charm the summer night
To strange repose;

And the red honeysuckle 'mid its peers,
That wafted him
A scented lovely kiss, made sacred tears
Rise and o'erbrim.

And all the gods of every land shone real
Before his gaze;
Each nation's fairest dream and highest ideal
He crowned with lays.

White Venus lightly stepped our reeds between,
And Pan was there,
And all old goddesses, bright queen on queen,
Living and fair.

And for each soul,—yea, every living thing,—
Justice he sought.
Prometheus-like he stood before heaven's king
And feared not aught.

For every petal of each flower he claimed
Justice entire,
And for each pale heart stricken and ashamed,
Each bud, each briar.

He saw and said that till all souls are white
And all at peace
God's robes and hands are red and marred of might,—
Till all sighs cease.

For with creation God its king is one;
And the king weeps
At death of butterfly, and lapse of sun,
And war's rank heaps:

For this is greatness—not to miss the small,
Beholding great
Events and creatures,—but to hold them all,
One equal Fate.

So nothing can escape God's endless hand;
No red sea-flower,
Nor heart of man or woman, nor rent land,
Nor ravished bower.

August, 1882.