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

If thou and I indeed must part,
If even the sweetest days must close,
If time that severs rose from rose
Must also sever heart from heart,—
Oh, then let not our parting be
In Spring, that were too hard to bear!
For then the copses ring with glee,
A thousand blossoms scent the air.

When Spring's glad myriad voices
Sing love-songs of the heart,
When every bird rejoices,
It were too sad to part!

If thou and I must face the night,
The darkness where hopes earthly end,—
If, having called me “sweetest friend,”
Thou yet must vanish from my sight,—

Oh, then let not our parting be
In Summer, that were worse to bear!
Such glory rests upon the sea;
This world is then so wondrous fair.

When every hour discloses
More fully Summer's heart
To Summer's countless roses,
'Twere sadder still to part!

If thou and I must face the fate
So many souls have faced before,
And, having met, must meet no more,
And, having loved, have loved too late,—
Oh, let our maddening parting be
In Autumn. If we part at last,
Let it be when the winds at sea
Thunder “Despair” in every blast!

When wild red leaves are flying,
Each bleeding at the heart,
Then is the time for sighing,
Then is the time to part!

II “THE BRIGHT YOUNG DAYS”

Long life brings many a blessing;
With the years man's wisdom grows:
There are world-wide wrongs for redressing,
There are noble truths to disclose.
Yet ever man's heart keeps turning,
With a strange and a fathomless yearning,
To the beautiful bright young days
When the blue sea laughed in the bays,—
When the sunlight gilded the meadows,
In the beautiful bright young days!

There is love for the old in their season
(Bright gold is the autumn grain)—
But the love that knew nothing of reason,
Will it ever be with us again?
No: ever man's heart keeps turning
With a wild gaze tearful and burning

To the love of the sweet young days,
For the tenderest laughter is May's,—
The rich forest-gold is October's
But the rose and its splendour are May's!

So the songs that will perish never,
Be the world's age what it may,
That will haunt men's hearts for ever
Till the ashes of life turn grey,
Are the beautiful songs of yearning
Where the soul is swift and burning,
The songs of the bright young days
Ere flowers forsook the ways,—
The songs of the days that are vanished,
The beautiful bright young days!

III. THE LAND EVERLASTING

The fairest things, alas! are ever fleetest;
How glad, and yet how short, is sunny May:
For just one hour the rose is at its sweetest;
The violet's perfume lasts but for a day.
For some short weeks the waves are at their brightest;
The stars grow pale within the morning air:
One day the chestnut-bloom is at its whitest—
The next day sees it wither and despair.

And so with love.—It has its perfect splendour,
Its summer glory, when the twain hearts meet:
Its perfect hour of June, its moment tender,
Its sudden rapture, and its perfume sweet.
But ah! it follows the departing roses!
It trembles when the thunder smites the sky:
At autumn airs its fragrant blossom closes;
At touch of wintry wind its petals die.

And yet beyond the days of pain and sadness,
Beyond time's seasons full of clouds and grief,
There must be somewhere everlasting gladness,—
A heaven that sees no red-stained autumn leaf.—
The loved souls who have left us travel thither;
Within the gateways of that heaven they stand:
Ah, there the roses never pale nor wither!
There is no loveless winter in that land!

IV. AUTUMN WAILINGS

When youth is gone, and love is gone,
What lights the woodland way?
October's sunset, chill and wan;
The light of Autumn grey.
When youth is gone, and love is fled,
For us the world might well be dead!

When youth is gone,—as dead leaves go
Along the autumnal blast,—
Then first ourselves we seem to know
What all shall know at last;
The autumn weariness of life,
Past love and labour, zeal and strife.

When love is gone,—as blossoms fade,
Fade swiftly one by one,—
Our tired hearts tremble, as cold shade
Replaces summer sun.
When youth and love alike are fled,
The brain lives on, the heart is dead.

V. THE TEARLESS DAYS

Was it sweet to have lived, I wonder,
In the days when the world was young?
When, parting the boughs in sunder,
In the forest the wood-nymph sung?
Was it sweet, in the woods' recesses,
To mark 'neath a moonlit sky
The glitter of Venus' tresses
As the queen and her train swept by?

She must have been grand and peerless,
Queen Venus, with Love in her train.
Then the eyes of the world were tearless:
Will they ever be tearless again?
Our woods and our groves are chilly,
The goddess is no more there:
'Mid our rocks and regions hilly
We mark not the light of her hair.

But still on the hedge there are roses,
There is light in our true love's eyes;
In the woods there are wild-flower posies,
And the sun still smiles in the skies.
Not a dark cloud threatens with thunder,
Not a white storm-wave gives tongue:
Shall we ever grow old, I wonder,
While the love in our hearts is young?

VI. CHANGELESS LOVE

The bloom is fair upon the hawthorn hedges;
The throstles sing from many a budding spray;
Blue ripples laugh along the river-edges;
The blue sky seems to whisper, “It is May!”
And yet the thought of tawny-leaved September
Dismays the fancy with a touch of gloom:
Aye, and a mem'ry of old wild November,
Whose storm-winds trumpet forth pale Autumn's doom.

When love is at its sweetest, in its season,
When it is full of summer joy and mirth,
There sometimes comes the thought, “In love is treason.
Not always Summer sways the green-robed earth.”
The bloom is bright upon the garden roses;
Their red lips whisper, “Love is king to-day:”
Man's heart upon love's word in faith reposes,
Yet even love, so trusted, can betray.

Oh! is there not some heart which never changes,
Some sympathy eternal and divine,
Some love that time nor weakens nor estranges?
O sweetheart, let such changeless love be thine!
Then, whether storm-winds wail through wild November,
Or whether August splendour floods the sky,
Glad past all words it will be to remember
That, come what will, sweet love can never die.

VII. PAIN'S CONSTANCY

When the thought of our joys forsakes us
The thought of our sadness clings.
Its lovers and friends grief makes us,
But joy is a spirit with wings.
The place where we met is forgotten
Though the marvellous rose grew there;
But the meadow-sweet where we parted
Wins its sweetness from despair.

The stars of the past have a lustre
Outshining the light of the sun:
The dreams of our youth will haunt us
Till our life's whole race is run.
Aye, ever in pale December,
When the fires of Christmas glow,
The dream that our hearts remember
Is the dream of long ago.

There is friendship in countless faces;
There is true sweet love in a few;
There are blossoms in endless places;
Each summer brings skies of blue:
But the flowers our young hands gathered
Are the sweetest flowers that be,
And the faces we love for ever
Are the faces we never shall see!

VIII. “IF ONLY THOU ART TRUE!”

If only a single Rose is left,
Why should the Summer pine?
A blade of grass in a rocky cleft;
A single star to shine.
—Why should I sorrow if all be lost,
If only thou art mine?

If only a single Blue-bell gleams
Bright on the barren heath,
Still of that flower the Summer dreams,
Not of his August wreath.
—Why should I sorrow, if thou art mine,
Love, beyond change and death?

If only once on a wintry day
The sun shines forth in the blue,
He gladdens the groves till they laugh as in May
And dream of the touch of the dew.
—Why should I sorrow if all be false,
If only thou art true?

IX. A DREAM OF A FLOWER

I dreamed a wonderful dream of a flower.
On the hill-side green it grew:
But the tongue would fail, nor has brush the power
To paint that flower for you.
It scented the hill-side far and wide,
And scented the fields of corn:
Its odour was sweet through the tall gold wheat,
And sweet on the airs of morn.
And when I woke, I marvelled:
My soul seemed breathing still
A fragrance never lavished
On mortal grove or hill.

And never, till love came down from above
With its rapture and despair,
Did I know what it meant,—nor God's intent
When he sent that dream so fair.

'Twas as if God said, “The flower so sweet
That upon the hill did gleam
Was love; for love is my tenderest flower,
And only blooms in a dream!”
And still I see the blossom,
And still the scent is there;
And sometimes it brings gladness,
But oftener despair.

X CONSUMMATION

Life was full of sweet emotion
When the spring of life was fair:
Bright blue shone the summer ocean;
Songs of throstles charmed the air.
Passing through the fields one day,
Every hedge was rich with may,
Sweetening, silvering, every spray.

Followed fast the summer's glory,
Sheen of lily, flame of rose:
Flower by flower took up the story,
Till the tired eye claimed repose.
Though the summer's touch could thrill
Flower and leaf and wave and hill,
Something sweet was missing still.

Ah, my queen, my sovereign sweetness,
When thy fairy glance I knew,
Life attained its full completeness
And the rose its tenderest hue!
All things waited, pale, undone—
As the stars his heart has won
Watch the sea-line for the sun.

XI. BLACKBERRY PICKING

How happy we were in the deep green wood,
Picking blackberries, you and I!
Round us the heather and tall ferns stood:
Over us shone the sky.
Rich and ripe in the bramble-copse
The tempting blackberries gleamed:
In the dark-green feathery fir-tree tops
The wood-doves cooed and dreamed.

Far away is the deep green wood
And the silent ferny glen
Where happy and hand-in-hand we stood,
Craving for nothing then.
Far away that happy day
Seems in the sunlit past:
Why will never a pleasure stay?
Do only the sad things last?

Yet in your album safely dried
A heather sprig I see:
The delicate purple tints have died,
But it blossoms still for me.
For the joyous past is never dead,—
No, still the blackberries gleam,
And still in the fir-trees overhead
The wood-doves coo and dream!

XII. RED LEAVES AND GREEN LEAVES

What is the whisper of the leaves
Round ruined turrets reddening fast,
Or nestling under cottage-eaves
While autumn winds go sighing past?
“Life is sorrow,” they whisper,
“Life is only a dream:
The sky seemed blue, but it was not true;
The sky is as grey as the stream!”

What is the whisper of the heart
When love and life have ceased to please,
When passion's fairy dreams depart
And cold winds rustle through the trees?
“Life is trouble,” it whispers,
“Trouble and wild despair:
Once love seemed bright, but at morning light
Love's face was no more fair!”

Yet autumn leaves and troubled soul
May hardly read life's tale aright:
Green leaves shall crown the elm-tree bole
And love's joy shall outlive the night.
“Green leaves,” the red leaves whisper,
Fast falling one by one:
When night's stars die, behold the sky
Laughs out to see the sun!

XIII. SISTER ROSES

“O sister,” the white rose said to the red,
“Could only my face be as bright as thine!
I am pale. Could I only be pink instead,
I would lift to the sunlight my beautiful head,
And never be weary, or weep, or pine!”

“O sister,” the red rose said to the white,
“Could only my face be as pale as thine!
I am doomed to be gathered to-night, to-night,—
I shall faint at a ball in the hot gas-light,
While you will be glad in the cool moonshine.”

“Ah! sister,” the white rose sighed to the red,
“You are wrong, you are wrong, and the truth is mine.
Far better than life in the dull flower-bed
It is to be worshipped, and then to fall dead
Where live hearts flutter, and gay lights shine.”

XIV. SPRING AND AUTUMN

“The rose-tree longs for its beautiful rose,
And sighs till its bloom is there:
So life will never attain repose
Till love its exquisite blossom blows
In the beautiful scented air.”
These dream-sweet words from a poet's page
A girl to her mother read;
And the young girl smiled, while the eyes of age
Watched softly the fair gold head.

But the mother's eyes were dim with tears,
While the daughter's eyes were gay;
For the mother thought of the long-past years,
And of dead sweet hopes, and of sighs and fears,
But the young heart dreamed of to-day.

“And why are you sad?” the young voice said,
“For reading of love is sweet:
O bright-eyed Love, with the lips so red—
I would fall at his darling feet!”

Then the mother said: “Dream on, my child,
For love is a beautiful dream;
And truly the earth were a desert wild,
Had never the eyes of sweet love smiled
With their wonderful magic gleam.
Smile on: but leave their thoughts to the old,
For the poet's words that bring
Delight to the young, and a hope untold,
Full oft on the older heart fall cold.
Mine are the grey locks: yours are the gold!
I am autumn: you are the spring!”

XV. SHOREHAM CHURCH

Storm and sunshine, summer glory,
August thunder, wintry snow,
Many a human sweet love-story,
Many a tale of wrath and woe,—
Hours of dark funereal anguish,
Hours when 'neath the summer sun
Even the flowers he loves must languish,
Hours when autumn's peace is won—
All of these the church has known,
Gazing from its tower of stone;
Watching gladness change to grief,
Golden to the faded leaf.

Witness here to something holier
Than our cares and strife, it stands.

Round its turrets time creeps slowlier
Than across the changing lands.
Fields of corn in blood may welter,
Human cities reek with crime,—
Here is blessing, here is shelter
From the sins and shocks of time.
Human race succeeds to race,
Still the tower stands in its place.
“Tremble,” cries the wild wind's tongue;
But it answers, “I am young!”

Many a lightning-flash, half-grazing,
Threatens,—still the tower, upright,
At the morning sun is gazing,
Scatheless, at the stars by night.
Though the soul of man may darken,
Still that grey old tower of stone
To the sunrise-hymn will hearken,
Stand erect, alert, alone,
Facing seasons soft or grim,
Watcher when man's eyes grow dim,
Guardian of man's hopes and fears
Through another thousand years.

XVI. A BALLAD OF WINTER

Said Winter to the Rose:
“When first my cold breath blows,
Your gentle reign is done.”
But said the Rose quite fearless:
“New splendid buds and peerless
Are waiting for the sun.”

Said Winter to my love:
“With fur and muff and glove
Guard thou thyself, or die.”
But said my love: “What folly!
Though flowers be dead, the holly
Is bright against the sky.”

Said Winter unto me:
“Take heed, arise and flee;
Thy strength is spent. Beware!”
Said I: “My love is near me;
Her bright eyes soothe and cheer me;
Lo! June is in the air.”

XVII. THE GOLDEN ISLES

Wonderful golden islands
Of old, so the fable ran,
Lay in the Western Ocean,
Closed from the vision of man
Wonderful cloudless islets,
Set in a stormless sea;
Splendid with banks of coral,
Blossom and fruit and tree.

Wonderful magic islands
Ever before us gleam.
Ever we strive to reach them:
Ever they melt in a dream.
Ever we struggle onward
Over the lonely seas:
Never the islands glitter,
Never their fringe of trees!

So it goes on for ever.
What will the issue be?
Oh, will our vessel never
Traverse this endless sea?—
If we can reach our dreamland,
What will be waiting there?
Rapture of noble passion?
Pallor of white despair?

XVIII. THE GOLDEN CARP

Fishing! fishing! fishing!
The old man sits in a dream;
Wishing! wishing! wishing!
Watching his float on the stream.
Minnows and roach and gudgeon
Lie in heaps by his side;
But he scowls like an old curmudgeon,
He never seems satisfied.

So I passed through the open gateway,
By a copse of larch and fir,
And I asked the old man straightway,
“What are you fishing for, sir?”
And he said, with his features working
And a keen look strange and sharp,
“Do you see in the rushes lurking
That monstrous golden carp?”

And I looked, and I saw the willows,
And I saw the rushing stream—
I marked the blue swift billows,
But I saw no golden gleam.
Ah me! he has fished for ever
(And we all of us do the same)
For a prize that glittered never,
For a carp that never came.

XIX. AUTUMN LEAVES

What do the red leaves whisper?
What do the wild winds say,
When they wail and roar o'er hill and shore
On a stormy autumn day?
“The past was sweet with flowers,
And beautiful was June;
But now on leafless bowers
Looks down the lonely moon.”

What do our sad hearts utter?
What do our spirits cry,
When autumn hues at length suffuse
Vale, hill, and wood, and sky?
“Love's summer heart was tender,
But summer glory goes,
And Love forgets the splendour
He once loved in the rose.”

XX. HARROW HILL

O green old slopes of Harrow Hill
That countless hearts remember,
Those hearts are often near you still;
Bright May can touch December.
O Harrow Hill, green Harrow Hill,
What thousands April-hearted
Have paced your slopes! They love you still,
Though young dreams have departed.

O green old slopes of Harrow Hill,
Which English elms environ,
One deathless shadow haunts you still—
The mighty shade of Byron.
The soul in him to greatness grew
Upon your greensward dreaming;
Though Harrow skies then little knew
The star within them gleaming.

O green old slopes of Harrow Hill
All change and storm outliving,
In hearts of those who love you still
What memories are surviving!
O fair green slopes, so bright with hopes
By countless young hearts cherished,
Old hearts will still love Harrow Hill,
Though countless hopes have perished!

XXI. CHURCH-BELLS

The church-bells rang, and the skylark sang,
On a beautiful morn in May;
And a mother and son walked side by side,
And the boy's gold head was the joy and the pride
Of the mother's heart that day.
They opened the worn old churchyard gate,
And a sunbeam shot from the sky,
And its glory was shed on the boy's gold head
And it tinted the daisies tipped with red
And the buttercup-fields hard by.

Long years passed by, and the boy became
A soldier of fortune bold:
Through the East his fame flashed on like a flame,—
He feathered his nest, and he played his game,
And won renown and gold.

But his hands were stained with sin and crime,
Aye, red with blood some say:
'Neath the Indian sun wild deeds were done,
And a dark and an evil name was won
As the gold hair grew to grey.

The church-bells rang, and a skylark sang,
On a beautiful morn in May;
By a tomb-stone white in the morning light
Stood a lonely man, and the sun was bright
Not on gold hair now but on grey.
His swift thoughts flew o'er the fifty years,
And a sunbeam shot from the air
As he stood by his mother's grave in tears;
And the church-bells whispered in his ears,
“It is never too late for prayer!”

XXII. THE VOICE OF THE RIVER

The river was ever a siren:
It sings to the reed-fringed shore;
It sings to the floating lilies,
And they love it more and more.
When the autumn leaves are golden
It gathers them all to its wave:
It takes, but it never tells them
That its waters are deep as the grave.

And it sings with a siren sweetness
As it eddies to and fro
To fairer things than blossoms,
With its tempting cold dark flow.
And some there are who listen,
And they plunge in the cold deep wave:
One moment the gold locks glisten—
But the moonlight cannot save!

But oh, there are voices sweeter
Than the river's siren tone!
Not even the saddest outcast
In the moonlight stands alone.
For the face of Christ in the moonlight
Shines out over the wave,
And he saith to the saddest of mortals,
“It was you that I came to save.”

XXIII. LIFE'S LAST GIFT

A thousand gifts life brings us,
And some are passing fair:
What perfect flowers it flings us
When June's breath scents the air!
Yes, Life begins with pleasure:
The year begins with glee;
With golden blossom-treasure
And stormless azure sea.

Then how the prospect darkens:—
Hearts fail us, and betray;
Death glides amid our loved ones,—
Steals one by one away:
Life, which began in glory,
Grows sombre towards its close,
For old age chills our pleasures
As autumn chills the rose.

But one thing life will bring us
In autumn days and cold:
October's lips can tell us
What August never told.
Life's latest gift is fairer
In that all past gifts cease;
Life's last gift is supremest,
For life's last gift is peace.