Full text of "Poems"
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POEMS.
POEMS
ALFRED TENNYSON.
FIFTH EDITION.
LONDON :
EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET.
MDCCCXLVni.
5551
lOKDOK:
BRADBURY A.\D EVANS, rBiMER?, '.VHITEPRI ABS
CONTENTS.
PACK
CLARIBEL 3
LILIAN 5
ISABEL 7
MARIANA 9
TO 13
MADELINE 15
SONG. THE OWL 17
SECOND SONG. TO THE SAME 18
BECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS . . .19
ODE TO MEMORY 26
SONG 31
ADELINE .... 33
A CHARACTER 36
THE POET 38
THE poet's MIND 41
THE DESERTED HOUSE 43
THE DYING SWAN 45
VI CONTENTS.
PAGE
A DIRGE 47
LOVE AND DEATH 50
THE BALLAD OF ORIANA . 51
CIRCUMSTANCE 55
THE MERMAN . . . . . . . . . 66
THE MERMAID ......... 58
SONNET TO J. M. K. . 60
THE LADY OF SHALOTT 63
MARIANA IN THE SOUTH 71
ELEANORE 76
THE miller's DAUGHTER 82
PATIMA .......... 93
(ENONE 96
THE SISTERS 107
TO 109
THE PALACE OF ART ....... 110
LADY CLARA VERB DE VERB 123
THE MAY QUEEN 127
NEW year's eve 131
CONCLUSION . . . ■ . . . .135
THE LOTOS-EATERS . . . . . . . . 140
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN . . . . . .148
MARGARET 163
THE BLACKBIRD ........ 166
THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR 168
CONTENTS. VU
PAOE
TO J. s 171
" YOU ASK ME, WHY, THOUGH ILL AT EASE," . . . 175
"of OLD SAT FREEDOM ON THE HEIGHTS," . . .177
"love thou thy land, WITH LOVE PAR-BROUGHT " . .179
THE GOOSE 183
THE EPIC 189
MORTE d' ARTHUR . . . . . . . .191
THE gardener's DAUGHTER J OR, THE PICTURES . . . 203
DORA 214
AUDLEY COURT 221
WALKING TO THE MAIL 225
ST. SIMEON STYLITES 280
THE TALKING OAK 239
LOVE AND DUTY 255
THE GOLDEN YEAR 259
ULYSSES 262
LOCKSLEY HALL 265
GODIVA 282
THE TWO VOICES 286
THE DAY DREAM : —
PROLOGUE 309
THE SLEEPING PALACE 310
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY . . . . . . 312
THE ARRIVAL 314
THE REVIVAL 315
vni CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE DAY DREAM : —
THE DEPARTURE 317
MORAL . . . 318
l'envoi 319
EPILOGUE 321
AMPHION 323
ST. AGNES 328
SIB GALAHAD 330
EDWARD GRAY 334
WILL waterproof's LYRICAL MONOLOGUE . . . 336
LADY CLARE 347
THE LORD OP BURLEIGH 351
SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE . . . . 355
A FAREWELL 357
THE BEGGAR MAID 358
THE VISION OF SIN 359
THE SKIPPING-ROPE 369
"MOVE EAST^VARD, HAPPY EARTH, AND LEAVE" . . 370
" BREAK, BREAK, BREAK," 371
THE poet's SONG 372
POEMS
(PUBLISHKD 1830.)
POEMS.
C L A R I B E L.
A MELODY.
Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall ;
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial.
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.
At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone :
At noon the wild bee hummeth
About the moss'd headstone :
At midnight the moon eometh,
And looketh down alone.
B 2
CLARIBEL,
Her soug the lintwhite swelleth,
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,
The fledghng throstle lispeth,
The slumbrous wave outwelleth,
The babbling runnel crispeth,
Tlie hollow grot replieth
Where Claribel low-lieth.
LILIAN.
— « —
AiRT, fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love rae.
Claps her tiny hands above me.
Laughing all she can ;
She '11 not tell me if she love me,
Cruel little Lilian.
When my passion seeks
Pleasance in love-sighs
She, looking thro' and thro' me
Thoroughly to undo me.
Smiling, never speaks:
So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple,
From beneath her gather 'd wimple
Glancing with black-beaded eyes,
Till the lightning laughters dimple
The baby-roses in her cheeks ;
Then away she flies.
LILIAN.
Prytliee weep, May Lilian !
Gaiety without eclipse
Wearietli me, May Lilian :
Thro' my very heart it thrilleth
When from crimson-threaded lips
Silver-treble laughter trilleth :
Prythee weep, May Lilian.
Praying all I can,
If prayers will not hush thee,
Airy Lilian,
Like a rose-leaf I will crush thfee,
Fairy Lilian.
ISABEL.
— » — -
Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by
Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane
Of her still spirit ; locks not wide dispi-ead.
Madonna-wise on either side her head ;
Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign
The summer calm of golden charity,
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood.
Revered Isabel, the crown and head,
The stately flower of female fortitude,
Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead.
The intuitive decision of a bright
And thorough-edged intellect to part
Error from crime ; a prudence to withhold ;
The laws of marriage character 'd in gold
Upon the blanched tablets of her heart ;
A love still burning upward, giving light
8 ISABEL.
To read those laws ; an accent very low
In blandishment, but a most silver flow
Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,
Right to the heart and brain, though undescried,
Winning its way with extreme gentleness
Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride ;
A courage to endure and to obey ;
A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,
Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.
The mellow 'd reflex of a winter moon ; '
A clear stream flowing with a muddy one.
Till in its onward current it absorbs
With swifter movement and in purer light
The vexed eddies of its wayward brother :
A leaning and upbearing parasite.
Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite,
With cluster 'd flower-bells and ambrosial orbs
Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other —
Shadow forth thee : — the world hath not another
(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee.
And thou of God in thy great charity)
Of such a finish'd chasten'd purity.
MARIANA.
■ Mariana in the moated grange." — Measure for Measure.
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all :
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach to the garden-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange :
XJnlifted was the clinking latch ;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, " My life is dreary,
He Cometh not," she said ;
She said, " I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead !
Her tears fell with the dews at even ;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried ;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
10 MARIANA.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, " The night is dreary.
He Cometh not," she said ;
She said, " I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead I "
Upon the middle of the night,
Wakino- she heard the night-fowl crow :
The cock sung out an hour ere light :
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her : without hope of change.
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn.
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, " The day is dreary.
He Cometh not," she said ;
She said, " I am aweary, awearj',
I would that I were dead ! "
About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept.
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster 'd marish-mosses crept.
MARIANA. 11
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled hark :
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, " My life is dreary.
He Cometh not," she said ;
She said, " I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead !
And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away.
In the white curtain, to and fro.
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,
And wild winds bound within their cell.
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, " The night is dreary.
He Cometh not," she said ;
She said, *' I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead !
All day within the dreamy house.
The doors upon their hinges creak 'd ;
The blue fly sung i' the pane ; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd.
12 MARIANA.
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces gliramer'd thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, " My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said ;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead ! ' '
The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense ; but most she loath'd the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then, said she, " I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said ;
She wept, " I am aweary, aweary.
Oh God, that I were dead !
TO -
Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn,
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain
The knots that tangle human creeds.
The wounding cords that bind and strain
The heart until it bleeds,
Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine :
If aught of prophecy be mine.
Thou wilt not live in vain.
Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit ;
Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow :
Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords
Can do away that ancient lie ;
A gentler death shall Falsehood die.
Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words.
14
Weak Truth a-leanlng on her crutch,
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,
Thy kingly intellect shall feed,
Until she be an athlete bold,
And weary with a finger's touch
Those writhed limbs of lightning speed
Like that strange angel which of old,
Until the breaking of the light,
Wrestled with wandering Israel,
Past Yabbok brook the livelong night.
And heaven's mazed signs stood still
In the dim tract of Penuel.
MADELINE.
Thou art not steep'd in golden languors,
No tranced summer calm is thine,
Ever varying. Madeline.
TLro' light and shadow thou dost range,
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites, and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change.
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore,
Revealings deep and. clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles : but who may know
Whether smile or frown he fleeter ?
Whether smile or frown he sweeter.
Who may know ?
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine.
Ever varying Madeline.
Thy smile and frown are not aloof
From one another.
Each to each is dearest brother ;
16 MADELINE,
Hues of tlie silken sheeny woof
Momently shot into each other.
All the mystery is thine ;
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Ever varying Madeline.
A subtle, sudden flame,
By veering passion fann'd.
About thee breaks and dances ;
When I would kiss thy hand,
The flush of anger 'd shame
O'erflows thy calmer glances,
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown :
But when I turn away.
Thou, willing me to stay,
"Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest ;
But, looking fixedly the while,
All my bounding heart entanglest
In a golden-netted smile ;
Then in madness and in bliss.
If my hps should dare to kiss
Thy taper fingers amorously,
Again thou blushest angerly ;
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown.
SONG.— THE OWL.
Whex cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-ofF stream is dumb.
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round ;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
When merry milkmaids click the latch.
And rarely smells the new-mown hay.
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay.
Twice or thrice his roundelay :
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
SECOND SONG.
TO THE SAME.
Thy tuwliits are luU'd I wot,
Thy tuwhoos of yesternight,
Which upon the dark afloat.
So took echo with delight,
So took echo with deh'ght.
That her voice untuneful grown,
Wears all day a fainter tone.
I would mock thy chaunt anew ;
But I cannot mimick it ;
Not a whit of thy tuwhoo.
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit.
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
With a lengthen 'd loud halloo,
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o.
RECOLLECTIONS
OF
THE ARABIAN XIGIITS.
When the breeze of a joj-ful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow'd back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time ;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
Hi2;h-walled gardens oreen and old ;
True Mussulman was I and sworn.
For it was in the golden prime
Of eood Ilaroun Alraschid.
Anight my shallop, rustling thro'
The low and bloomed foliage, drove
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove
The citron-shadows in the blue :
c. -2
RECOLLECTIONS OF
By garden porches on the brim,
The costly doors flung open wide,
Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim,
And broider'd sofas on each side :
In sooth it ^yas a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of c'ood Haroun Alraschid.
Often, where clear-stemm'd platans guard
The outlet, did I turn away
The boat-head down a broad canal
From the main river sluiced, where all
The sloping of the moon-lit sward
Was damaslv-woi'k, and deep inlay
Of braided blooms unmown, which crept
Adown to whore the waters slept.
A goodly place, a goodly time.
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
A motion from the river won
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on
ily shallop through the star-strown calm,
Until another night in night
I enter 'd, from the clearer light,
Imbower'd vaidts of pillar 'd palm.
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 21
Imprisoning sweets, whicli, as tliey clomb
Heavenward, were stay'cl beneath tlic dome
Of hollow boughs. — A goodly tune,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Ilaroun Ah-aschid.
Still onward ; and the clear canal
Is rounded to as clear a lake.
From the green rivage many a fall
Of diamond rillets musical.
Thro' little crystal arches low
Down from the central fountain's flow
Fall'n silver-chiming, seem'd to shake
The sparkling flints beneath the prow.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Above thro' many a bowery turn
A walk with vary-colour'd shells
Wander 'd engraiu'd. On either side
All round about the frao;rant maro-e
From fluted vase, and brazen urn
In order, eastern flowers large,
Some dropping low their crimson bells
Half-closed, and others studded wide
22 RECOLLECTIONS OF
With disks and tiars, fed the time
With odour in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
VII.
Far off, and where the lemon-grove
In closest coverture upsprung.
The living airs of middle night
Died round the bulbul as he sung ;
Not he : but something which possess'd
The darkness of the world, delight.
Life, anguish, death, immortal love.
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd,
Apart from place, withholding time,
But flattering the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
VIII.
Black the garden-bowers and grots
Slumber 'd : the solemn palms Avere ranged
Above, unwoo'd of summer wind :
A sudden splendour from behind
Flush'd all the leaves with rich gold-green,
And, flowing rapidly between
Their interspaces, counterchanged
The level lake with diamond-plots
Of dark and bright. A lovely time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of C'ood Haroun Alraschid.
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 23
Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead,
Distinct with vivid stars inhiid,
Grew darker from that undcr-flame :
So, leaping lightly from the boat.
With silver anchor left afloat,
In marvel whence that glory came
Upon me, as in sleep I sank
In cool soft turf upon the bank,
Entranced with that place and time,
So worthy of the golden prime
Of ffood Haroun Alraschid.
Thence thro' the garden I was drawn —
A realm of pleasance, many a mound.
And many a shadow-chequer 'd lawn
Full of the city's stilly sound,
And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round
The stately cedar, tamarisks,
Thick rosaries of scented thorn.
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks
Graven with emblems of the time,
In honour of the golden prime
Of 2:ood Haroun Alraschid.
24 RECOLLECTIONS OF
With dazed vision unawares
From the long alley's latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat.
llight to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad-based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,
After the fashion of the time,
And humour of the golden printe
Of good Ilaroun Ah\ischid.
XII.
The fourscore windows all alight
As with the quintessence of flame,
A million tapers flaring bright
From twisted silvers look'd to shame
The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd
Upon the mooned domes aloof
111 inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd
Hundreds of crescents on the roof
Of night new-risen, that marvellous time.
To celebrate the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
THE ARABIAN KIGHTS.
XIII.
Then stole I up, and trancedly
Gazed on the Persian girl alone,
Serene with argent-lidded eyes
Amoi'ous, and lashes like to I'ays
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl
Tressed with redolent ebony.
In many a dark delicious curl,
Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone ;
The sweetest lady of the time,
Well worthy of the golden prime
Of ffood Ilaroun Alraschid.
XIV,
Six columns, three on either side,
Pure silver, underpropt a rich
Throne of the massive ore, from which
Down-droop 'd, in many a floating fold,
Eugarlanded and diaper 'd
With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold.
Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd
With merriment of kingly pride,
Sole star of all that place and time,
I saw him — in his golden prime.
The Good IIaroun Aluaschid !
ODE TO MEMORY.
Tnou wlio stealest fire,
From the fountains of the past,
To glorify the present ; oh, haste,
Visit my low desire !
Strengthen me, enlighten me !
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
Come not as thou earnest of late,
Flinging the gloom of yesternight
On the white day ; hut robed in soften 'd light
Of orient state.
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist.
Even as a maid, whose stately brow
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd,
When she, as thou,
ODE TO MEMORY.
Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight
Of overflowing hlooms, and earliest shoots
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall star
The hlack earth with hrilliance rare.
Whilome thou earnest with the morning mist,
And Avith the evening cloud,
Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open hreast,
(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind
Never grow sere,
When rooted in the garden of the mind,
Because they are the earliest of the year).
Nor was the night thy shroud.
In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest
Thou leddest by the hand tliine infant Hope.
The eddying of her garments caught from thee
The light of thy great presence ; and the cope
Of the half-attain'd futurity.
Though deep not fathomless.
Was cloven with the million stars which tremble
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
Small thought was there of life's distress ;
For sure she deera'd no mist of earth could dull
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful :
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,
ODE TO MEMORY.
Listening the lordly music flov.-ing from
The illimitable years.
Oh strengthen me, enlighten me !
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
Come forth I charge thee, arise.
Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes !
Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines
Unto mine inner eye,
Divinest memory !
Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall
Which ever sounds and shines
A pillar of white light upon the wall
Of purple cliffs, aloof descried :
Come from the woods that belt the gray hill-side.
The seven elms, the poplars four
That stand beside my father's door,
And chiefly from the brook that loves
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,
The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland.
0 ! hither lead thy feet !
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat
ODE TO MEMORY. 29
Of the tliick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,
Upon the ridged wolds,
When the first matin-song hath waken 'd loud
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,
What time the amher morn
Forth a;ushes from beneath a low-huno; cloud.
Large dowries doth the raptured eye
To tlie young spirit present
When first she is wed ;
And like a bride of old
In triumph led,
With music and sweet showers
Of festal flowers,
Unto the dwelling she must sway.
Well hast thou done, great artist Memory,
In setting round thy first experiment
With royal frame-work of wrouglit gold ;
Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,
And foremost in thy various gallery
Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls
Upon the storied walls ;
For the discovery
And newness of thine art so pleased thee,
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest
Or boldest since, but lightly weighs
With thee unto the love thou bearest
30 ODE TO MEMORY.
The first-born of thy genius. Artist-hke,
Ever retiring thou dost gaze
On the prime labour of thine early clays :
No matter what the sketch might be ;
Whether the high field on the bushless Pike,
Or even a sand-built ridge
Of heaped hills that mound the sea.
Overblown with murmurs harsh,
Or even a lowly cottage whence we see
Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,
Where from the frequent bridge.
Like emblems of infinity,
The trenched waters run from sky to sky ;
Or a garden bower 'd close
With plaited alleys of the trailing rose,
Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,
Or opening upon level plots
Of crowned lilies, standing near
Purple-spiked lavender :
Whither in after life retired
From brawling storms,
From weary wind,
With youthful fancy reinspired,
We may hold converse with all forms
Of the many-sided mind,
And those whom passion hath not blinded,
Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded .
My friend, with you to live alone,
SOXG. 31
Methiuks were better than to own
A crown, a sceptre, and a throne.
0 strengthen me, enlighten me !
1 faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
SONG.
A SPIRIT haunts the year's hist hours
DwelUng amid these yellowing bowers :
To himself he talks ;
For at eventide, listening earnestly.
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
In the walks ;
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers :
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly ;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock.
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.
32 SONG.
II.
The air is damp, and hush'd, and close,
As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death ;
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year's last rose.
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly ;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-tily.
ADELINE.
Mystery of mysteries,
Faintly smiling Adeline,
Scarce of earth nor all divine.
Nor unhappy, nor at rest,
But beyond expression fair
With thy floating flaxen hair ;
Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes
Take the heart from out my breast.
Wherefore those dim looks of thine,
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline ?
Whence that aery bloom of thiue.
Like a lily which the sun
Looks thro' in his sad decline.
And a rose-bush leans upon.
Thou that faintly smilest still,
As a Naiad in a well.
Looking at the set of day.
Or a phantom two hours old
34 ADELINE.
Of a maiden past away,
Ere the placid lips be cold ?
Wherefore those faint smiles of thine,
Spiritual Adeline ?
What hope or fear or joy is thine ?
Who talketh with thee, Adeline ?
For sure thou art not all alone :
Do beating hearts of salient springs
Keep measure with thine own ?
Hast thou heard the butterflies
Wliat they say betwixt theii; wings ?
Or in stiUest evenings
With what voice the violet woos
To his heart the silver dews ?
Or when little airs arise,
How the merry bluebell rings
To the mosses underneath ?
Hast thou look'd upon the breath
Of the lilies at sunrise ?
Wherefore that faint smile of thine,
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline ?
Some honey-converse feeds thy mind,
Some spirit of a crimson rose
In love with thee forgets to close
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs
AU nio^ht Ions: on darkness blind.
.^5
What aileth thee ? whom waitest thou
With thy soften 'd, shadow'd brow,
Aud those dew-Ht eyes of thine,
Thou faint smiler, AdeUne ?
Lovest thou the doleful wind
When thou gazest at the skies ?
Doth the low-tongued Orient
Wander from the side o' the morn,
Dripping with S xbsean spice
On thy pillow, lowly bent
With melodious airs lovelorn.
Breathing Light against thy face.
While his locks a-dropping twined
Round thy neck in subtle ring
Make a carcanet of rays.
And ye talk together still,
In the language wherewith Spring
Letters cowslips on the hill ?
Hence that look and smile of thine,
Spiritual Adeline.
D 2
A CHARACTER.
With a half-glance upon the sky
At night he said, " The wanderings
Of this most intricate Universe
Teach me the nothingness of things."
Yet could not all creation pierce
Beyond the bottom of his eye.
He spake of beauty : that the dull
Saw no divinity in grass,
Life in dead stones, or spirit in air ;
Then looking as 'twere in a glass,
He smooth 'd his chin and sleek'd his hair,
And said the earth was beautiful.
He spake of virtue : not the gods
More purely, when they wish to charm
A CHARACTER.
Pallas and Juno sitting by :
And with a sweeping of the arm,
And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye,
Devolved his rounded periods.
Most delicately hour by hour
He canvass'd human mysteries,
And trod on silk, as if the winds
Blew his own praises in his eyes,
xVnd stood aloof from other minds
In impotence of fancied power.
With lips depress 'd as he were meek.
Himself unto himself he sold :
Upon himself himself did feed :
Quiet, dispassionate, and cold,
And other than his form of creed,
With chisell'd features clear and sleek.
THE POET.
The poet in a golden clime was born.
With golden stars above ;
Dower 'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn.
The love of love.
He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,
He saw thro' his own sovd.
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open scroll,
Before him lay : with echoing feet he threaded
The secret'st walks of fame :
The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed
And wing'd with flame,
Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue,
And of so fierce a flight.
From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung.
Filling with light
THE POET. 39
And vagrant melodies the winds which bore
Them earthward till they lit ;
Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower,
The fruitful wit
Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew
Where'er they fell, behold,
Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew
A flower all gold,
And bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling
The winged shafts of truth.
To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring
Of Hope and Youth.
So many minds did gird their orbs with beams.
Though one did fling the fire.
Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams
Of high desire.
Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world
Like one great garden show'd,
And thro' the wreaths of floating dark upcurl'd,
Rare sunrise flow'd.
And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise
Her beautiful bold brow.
When rites and forms before his burning eyes
Melted like snow.
40 THE POET.
There was no blood upon her maiden robes
Simn'd by those oi-ient skies ;
But round about the circles of the globes
Of her keen eyes
And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame
Wisdom, a name to shake
All e\i\ dreams of power — a sacred name.
And when she spake,
Her words did gather thunder as they ran.
And as the lightning to the thunder
Which follows it, riving the spii'it of man.
Making earth wonder,
So was their meaning to her words. No sword
Of wrath her right arm whirl'd, .^
But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word
She shook the world.
THE POET'S MIND.
Vex not thou the poet's mind
With thy shallow wit :
Vex not thou the poet's mind ;
For thou cans't not fathom it.
Clear and bright it should be ever.
Flowing like a crystal river ;
Bright as light, and clear as wind.
Dark-brow'd sophist, come not anear ;
All the place is holy ground ;
Hollow smile and frozen sneer
Come not here.
Holy water will I pour
Into every spicy flower
Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.
In your eye there is death,
There is frost in your breath
42 THE POET S MIND.
Which would blight the plants.
Where you stand you cannot hear
From the groves within
The wild-bird's din.
In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants.
It woidd fall to the ground if you came in.
In the middle leaps a fountain
Like sheet lightning,
Ever brightening
With a low melodious thunder ;
All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands iu the distance yonder :
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from Heaven above.
And it sings a song of undying love ;
And yet, though its voice be so clear and fidl,
You never would hear it — your ears are so dull ;
So keep where you are : you are foul with sin ;
It would shrink to the earth if you came in.
THE DESERTED HOUSE.
Life and Thought have gone away
Side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide :
Careless tenants they !
All within is dark as night :
In the windows is no light ;
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.
Close the door, the shutters close.
Or through the windows we shall see
The nakedness and vacancy
Of the dark deserted house.
Come away : no more of mirth
Is here or merry-making sound.
The house was builded of the earth,
And shall fall again to ground.
44 THE DESERTED HOUSE.
Come away : for Life and Thought
Here no longer dwell :
But in a city glorious —
A great and distant city — have bought
A mansion incorruptible.
Would they could have stayed with us !
THE DYING SWAN.
The plain was grassy, wild and bare,
Wide, wild, and open to the air.
Which had built up everywhere
An under-roof of doleful gray.
With an inner voice the river ran,
Adown it floated a dying swan,
Which loudly did lament.
It was the middle of the day.
Ever the weary wind Avent on,
And took the reed-tops as it went.
Some blue peaks in the distance rose,
And white against the cold-white sky,
Shone out their crowning snows.
One Avillow over the river wept.
And shook the wave as the wind did sigh
Above in the wind was the swallow,
Chasing itself at its own Avild wiU,
And far thi"o' the marish o-reen and still
46 THE DYING SWAN.
The tangled water-courses slept,
Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.
The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow : at first to the ear
The warble was low, and full and clear ;
And floating about the under-sky,
Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole
Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear ;
But anon her awful jubilant voice.
With a music strange and manifold,
Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold :
As when a mighty people rejoice
With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold.
And the tumult of their acclaim is roll'd
Through the open gates of the city afar,
To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star.
And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds.
And the willow-branches hoar and dank,
And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,
And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank.
And the silvery marish-flowers that throng
The desolate creeks and pools among.
Were flooded over with eddying song.
A DIRGE.
Now is done thy long day's ^york ;
Fold tliy palms across thy breast,
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest.
Let them rave.
Shadows of the silver birk
Sweep the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.
Thee nor carketh care nor slander ;
Nothing hut the small cold worm
Fretteth thine enshrouded form.
Let them rave.
Light and shadow ever wander
O'er the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.
48 A DIRGE.
III.
Thou wilt not turn upon thy bed ;
Chaunteth not the brooding bee
Sweeter tones than calumny ?
Let them rave.
Thou wilt never raise thine head
From the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.
IV.
Crocodiles wept tears for thee ;
The woodbine and eglatere
Drip sweeter dews than traitor's tear.
Let them rave.
Rain makes music in the tree
O'er the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.
Round thee blow, self-pleached deep.
Bramble-roses, faint and pale,
And long purples of the dale.
Let them rave.
These in every shower creep
Through the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.
A DIRGE. 49
vr.
The gold-eyed kingcups fine ;
The frail bluebell peereth over
Rare broidrj of the purple clover.
Let them rave.
Kings have no such couch as thine,
As the green that folds tlij grave.
Let them rave.
VII.
Wild words wander here and there ;
God's great gift of speech abused
Makes thy memory confused —
But let them rave.
The balm-cricket carols clear
In the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.
LOVE AND DEATH.
What time the mighty moon was gathering light
Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise,
And all about him roU'd his lustrous eyes ;
When, turning round a cassia, full in iriew
Death, walking all alone beneath a yew,
And talking to himself, first met his sight :
"You must begone," said Death, "these walks are mine.
Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight ;
Yet ere he parted said, " This hour is thine :
Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath.
So in the light of great eternity
Life eminent creates the shade of death ;
The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall,
But I shall reio'n for ever over all."
THE BALLAD OF ORIANA.
My heart is wasted with my woe,
Oriana.
There is no rest for me below,
Oriana.
When the long dun wolds are rihb'd with snow.
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow,
Oriana,
Alone I wander to and fro,
Oriana.
Ere the light on dark was growing,
Oriana,
At midnie-ht the cock was crowing,
Oriana :
Winds were blowing, waters flowing.
We heard the steeds to battle going,
Oriana ;
Aloud the hollow bugle blowing,
Oi'iana.
E 2
52 THE BALLAD OF ORIANA.
In the yew-wood black as night,
Oriana,
Ere I rode into the fight,
Oriana,
While blissful tears blinded my sight
By star-shine and by moonlight,
Oriana,
I to thee my troth did plight,
Oriana.
She stood upon the castle wall,
Oriana :
She watch 'd my crest among them all,
Oriana :
She saw me fight, she heard me call,
When forth there stept a foeman tall,
Oriana,
Atween me and the castle wall,
Oriana.
The bitter arrow went aside,
Oriana :
The false, false arrow Avent aside,
Oriana :
The damned arrow glanced aside.
And pierced thy heart, my love, my bride,
Oriana I
Thy heart, my life, my love, my bride,
Oriana !
THE BALLAD OF ORIANA. 53
Oil I narrow, narrow was the space,
Oriana.
Loud, loud rung out the bugle's brays,
Oriana.
Oh ! deathful stabs were dealt apace.
The battle deepen'd in its place,
Oriana ;
But I was down upon my face,
Oriana.
They should have stabb'd me where I lay,
Oriana !
How could I rise and come away,
Oriana ?
How could I look upon the day ?
They should have stabb'd me where I lay,
Oriana —
They should have trod me into clay,
Oriana.
Oh ! breaking heart that will not break,
Oriana ;
Oh ! pale, pale face so sweet and meek,
Oriana.
Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak,
And then the tears run down my cheek,
Oriana :
What wantest thou ? whom dost thou seek,
Oriana ?
54 THE BALLAD OF ORIANA.
I cry aloud : none hear my cries,
Oriana.
Thou comest atween me and the skies,
Oriana.
I feel the tears of hlood arise
Up from my heart unto my eyes,
Oriana.
Within thy heart my arrow lies,
Oriana.
Oh cursed hand ! oh cursed blow !
Oriana !
Oh happy thou that liest low,
Oriana I
All night the silence seems to flow
Beside me in my utter woe,
Oriana.
A weary, weary way I go,
Oriana.
When Norland winds pipe down the sea,
Oriana,
I walk, I dare not think of thee,
Oriana.
Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree,
I dare not die and come to thee,
Oriana.
I hear the roaring of the sea,
Oriana.
CIRCUMSTANCE.
Two children in two neighbour villages
Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas ;
Two sti'angers meeting at a festival ;
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall ;
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease ;
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower,
Wash'd with still rains and dais3^-blossomed ;
Two children in one hamlet born and bred ;
So runs the round of life from hour to hour.
THE MERMAN.
Who would be
A merman bold
Sitting alone,
Singing alone
Under the sea,
With a crown of gold,
On a throne ?
I would be a merman bold ;
I would sit and siug the whole of the day ;
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power ;
But at night I would roam abroad and play
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks.
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower ;
And holding them back by their flowing locks
I would kiss them often under the sea.
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
Laughingly, laughingly ;
And then we would wander away, away
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,
Chasing each other merrily.
THE MERMAN.
There would be neither moon nor star ;
But the wave would make music above us afar —
Low thunder and light in the magic night —
Neither moon nor star.
We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,
Call to each other and whoop and cry
All night, merrily, merrily ;
They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells.
Laughing and clapping their hands between,
All night, merrily, merrily :
But I would throw to them back in mine
Turkis and agate and almoudine :
Then leaping out upon them unseen
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me
Laughingly, laughingly.
Oh ! what a happy life were mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green !
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea ;
We would live merrily, merrily.
THE MERMAID.
Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl.
On a throne ?
I would be a mermaid fair ;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day ;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair ;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
" Who is it loves me ? who loves not me ? "
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall,
Low adown, low adown.
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound.
THE MERMAID. 59
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall ;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
V/ould slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.
But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
With the mermen in and out of the rocks ;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
On the broad sea-wolds i' the crimson shells.
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call, and shriek.
And adown the steep like a Avave I would leap
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells :
For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list,
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea ;
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea ;
But the king of them aU would carry me.
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea ;
60 SONNET TO J. M. K.
Tlicii all the dry pied things that he
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking; down for the love of me.
SONNET TO J. M. K.
My hope and heart is with thee — thou wilt he
A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest
To scare church-harpies from the master's feast :
Our dusted velvets have much need of thee :
Thou art no sahhath-drawler of old saws,
Pistill'd from some worm-canker 'd homily ;
But spurr'd at heart with fieriest energy
To emhattail and to wall ahout thy cause
With iron-worded proof, hating to hark
The humming of the drowsy pidpit-drone
Half God's good sahbath, while the worn-out clerk
Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne
Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark
Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark.
POEMS.
(published 1832.)
THE LADY OF SHALOTT.
PART I.
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower 'd Camelot :
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below.
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver.
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers.
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
64 THE LADY OF SHALOTT.
By the margin, willow-veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses ; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail 'd
Skimming down to Camelot
But who hath seen her wave her hand ?
Or at the casement seen her stand ?
Or is she known in all the land,
The lady of Shalott ?
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower'd Camelot :
And by the moon the reaper weary,
PiUng sheaves in uplands airy.
Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."
PART II.
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 65
To look down to Camclot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot :
There the river eddy whirls.
And there the surly village-churls.
And the red cloaks of market-girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad.
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad.
Or long-hair 'd page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower'd Camelot ;
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two :
She hath no loyal knight and true.
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
66 THE LADY OF SHALOTT.
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights,
And music, went to Camelot
Or when the moon was overhead.
Came two young lovers lately wed ;
" I am half-sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
PART III.
A BOW-SHOT from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A redcross knight for ever kneel 'd
To a lady in his shield.
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glitter'd free.
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy,
The bridle beUs rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot :
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
THE LADY OF SIIALOTT. 67
A mighty silver bugle liung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-Jewell 'd shone the saddle-leather.
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night.
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd ;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode ;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode.
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash'd into the crystal mirror,
" Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
F 2
68 THE LADY OF SHALOTT.
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide ;
The mirror crack'd from side to side ;
" The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
PART IV.
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot ;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat.
And round about the prow she wrote
Tlie Lady of Shalott.
And down the river's dim expanse —
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance —
With a glassy countenance
•Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay ;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
THE LADY OF SIIALOTT. 6.1
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left cand right—
The leaves upon her falling light —
Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot :
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy.
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly.
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot ;
For ere she reach' d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony.
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
A corse between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came.
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
THE LADY OF SHALOTT.
Who is this ? and what is here ?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer ;
And they cross'd themselves for fear.
All the knights at Camelot
But Lancelot mused a little space ;
He said, " She has a lovely face ;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."
MARIANA IN THE SOUTH.
With one black shadow at its feet.
The house thro' all the level shines,
Close-latticed to the brooding heat.
And silent in its dusty vines :
A faint-blue ridge upon the right,
An empty river-bed before,
And shallows on a distant shore,
In glaring sand and inlets bright.
But *' Ave Mary," made she moan,
And " Ave Mary," night and morn.
And " Ah," she sang, " to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn."
She, as her carol sadder grew.
From brow and bosom slowly down
Thro' rosy taper fingers drew
Her streaming curls of deepest brown
72 MARIANA IN THE SOUTH.
To left and riglit, and made appear,
Still-lighted in a secret shrine,
Her melancholy eyes divine.
The home of woe without a tear.
And " Ave Mary," was her moan,
" Madonna, sad is night and morn ; "
And " Ah," she sang, *' to he all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn."
Till all the crimson changed, and past
Into deep orange o'er the sea,
Low on her knees herself she cast,
Before Our Lady murmur'd she ;
Complaining, " Mother, give me grace
To help me of my weary load."
And on the liquid mirror glow'd
The clear perfection of her face.
" Is this the form," she made her moan,
" That won his praises night and morn ?
And " Ah," she said, " but I wake alone,
I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn."
IV.
Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,
Nor any cloud would cross the vault,
But day increased from heat to heat,
On stony drought and steaming salt ;
MARIANA IN THE SOUTH. 73
Till now at noon she slept again,
And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass,
And heard her native breezes pass.
And runlets babbling down the glen.
She breathed in sleep a lower moan,
And murmuring, as at night and morn,
She thought, " My spirit is here alone,
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn."
Dreaming, she knew it was a dream :
She felt he was and was not there.
She woke : the babble of the stream
Fell, and without the steady glare
Shrank the sick olive sere and small.
The river-bed was dusty white ;
And all the furnace of the light
Struck up against the blinding wall.
She whisper 'd, with a stifled moan
More inward than at night or morn,
" Sweet Mother, let me not here alone
Live forgotten and die forlorn."
VI.
And, rising, from her bosom drew
Old letters, breathing of her worth,
For " Love," they said, " must needs be true,
To what is loveliest upon earth."
74 MARIANA IN THE SOUTH.
An image seem'd to pass the door,
To look at her with slight, and say,
" But now thy beauty flows away,
So be alone for evermore."
'* 0 cruel heart," she changed her tone,
" And cruel love, whose end is scorn,
Is this the end to be left alone.
To live forgotten, and die forlorn !
But sometimes in the falling day
An image seem'd to pass the door.
To look into her eyes and say,
" But thou shalt be alone no more."
And flaming downward over all
From heat to heat the day decreased.
And slowly rounded to the east
The one black shadow from the wall.
" The day to night," she made her moan,
" The day to night, the night to morn,
And day and night I am left alone
To live forgotten, and love forlorn."
VIII.
At eve a dry cicala sung.
There came a sound as of the sea ;
Backward the lattice-blind she flung.
And lean'd upon the balcony.
MARIANA IN THE SOUTH. ;
There all in spaces rosy-bright
Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears,
And deepening thro' the silent spheres,
Heaven over Heaven rose the night.
And weeping then she made her moan,
" The night comes on that knows not morn,
When I shall cease to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn."
ELEANORS.
Thy dark eyes open VI not,
Nor first reveal'd themselves to English air,
For there is nothing here,
Which, from the outward to the inward brought.
Moulded thy baby thought.
Far off from human neighbourhood,
Thou wert born, on a summer morn,
A mile beneath the cedar-wood.
Thy bounteous forehead was not faun'd
Vrith breezes from our oaken glades,
But thou wert nursed in some delicious land
Of lavish lights, and floating shades :
And flattering thy childish thought
The oriental fairy brought.
At the moment of thy birth.
From old well-heads of haunted rills,
And the hearts of purple hills.
And shadow'd coves on a sunny shore,
The choicest wealth of all the earth.
Jewel or shell, or starry ore,
To deck thy cradle, Eleanore.
ELEANORE. 77
Or the yellow-banded bees,
Thro' half-open lattices
Coming in the scented breeze,
Fed thee, a child, lying alone.
With whitest honey in fairy gardens cuU'd —
A glorious child, dreaming alone.
In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down,
With the hum of swarming bees
Into dreamful slumber lull'd.
Who may minister to thee ?
Summer herself should minister
To thee, with fruitao;e golden-rinded
On golden salvers, or it may be,
Youngest Autumn, in a bower
Grape-thicken'd from the light, and blinded
With many a deep-hued bell-like flower
Of fragrant trailers, when the air
Sleepeth over all the heaven.
And the crag that fronts the Even,
All along the shadowing shore.
Crimsons over an inland mere,
Eleanore !
How may full-sail'd verse express.
How may measured words adore
The full-flowing harmony
Of thy swan-like stateliness.
78 ELEANORE.
Eleanore ?
The luxuriant symmetry
Of thy floating gracefulness,
Eleanore ?
Every turn and glance of thine.
Every lineament divine,
Eleanore,
And the steady sunset glow,
That stays upon thee ? For in thee
Is nothing sudden, nothing single ;
Like two streams of incense free
From one censer, in one shripe.
Thought and motion mingle,
Mingle ever. Motions flow
To one another, even as tho'
They were modulated so
To an unheard melody,
Which lives ahout thee, and a sweep
Of richest pauses, evermore
Drawn from each other mellow-deep ;
Who may express thee, Eleanore ?
I stand before thee, Eleanore ;
I see thy beauty gradually unfold,
Daily and hourly, more and more.
I muse, as in a trance, the while
Slowly, as from a cloud of gold,
Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile.
ELEANORE. 79
I muse, as in a trance, whene'er
The languors of thy love-deep eyes
Float on to me. I would I were
So tranced, so rapt in ecstacies,
To stand apart, and to adore,
Gazing on thee for evermore.
Serene, imperial Eleanore !
Sometimes, with most intensity
Gazing, I seem to see
Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep.
Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep
In thy large eyes, that, overpower 'd quite,
I cannot veil, or droop my sight,
But am as nothing in its light :
As though a star, in inmost heaven set,
Ev'n while we gaze on it.
Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow
To a full face, there like a sun remain
Fix'd — then as slowly fade again.
And draw itself to what it was before ;
So full, so deep, so slow.
Thought seems to come and go
In thy large eyes, imperial Eleanore.
As thunder-clouds that, hung on high,
Roof'd the world with doubt and fear,
Floating thro' an evening atmosphere,
Grow golden all about the sky ;
80 ELEANORE.
In thee all passion becomes passionless,
Touch 'd bj thy spirit's mellowness,
Losing his fire and active might
In a silent meditation,
Falling into a still delight.
And luxury of contemplation :
As waves that up a quiet cove
Rolling slide, and lying still
Shadow forth the banks at will ;
Or sometimes they swell and move,
Pressing up against the land,
With motions of the outer sea : ,
And the self-same influence
ControUeth all the so'ol and sense
Of Passion gazing upon thee.
His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love,
Leaning his cheek upon his hand,
Droops both his wings, regarding thee.
And so would languish evermore.
Serene, imperial Eleiinore.
But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined,
While the amorous, odorous wind
Breathes low between the sunset and the moon ;
Or, in a shadowy saloon.
On silken cushions half reclined ;
I watch thy grace ; and in its place
My heart a charmed slumber keeps.
ELEANORE. 81
While I muse upon thy face ;
And a languid fire creeps
Thro' my veins to all my frame,
Dissolvingly and slowly : soon
From thy rose-red lips my name
Floweth ; and then, as in a swoon,
With dinning sound my ears are rife,
My tremulous tongue faltereth,
I lose my colour, I lose my breath,
I drink the cup of a costly death,
Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warmest life.
I die with my delight, before
I hear what I would hear from thee ;
Yet tell my name again to me,
I would be dying evermore,
So dying ever, Eleanore.
THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER.
I SEE the wealthy miller yet,
His double chin, his portly size,
And who that knew him could forget
The busy wrinkles round his eyes ?
The slow wise smile that, round about
His dusty forehead drily curl'd,
Seem'd half-within and half-without,
And full of dealings with the world ?
In yonder chair I see him sit,
Three fingers round the old silver cup-
I see his gray eyes twinkle yet
At his own jest — gray eyes lit up
With summer lightnings of a soul
So full of summer warmth, so glad,
So healthy,, sound, and clear and whole.
His memory scarce can make me sad.
THE MILLER S DAUGHTER.
Yet fill my glass : give me one kiss :
My own sweet Alice, we must die.
There 's somewhat in this world amiss
Shall be unriddled by and by.
There 's somewhat flows to us in life,
But more is taken quite away.
Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife,
That we may die the self-same day.
Have I not found a happy earth ?
I least should breathe a thought of pain.
Would God renew me from my birth
I 'd almost live my life again.
So sweet it seems with thee to walk,
And once again to woo thee mine —
It seems in after-dinner talk
Across the walnuts and the wine —
To be the long and listless boy
Late-left an orphan of the squire.
Where this old mansion mounted high
Looks down upon the village spire :
For even here, where I and you
Have lived and loved alone so long.
Each morn my sleep was broken thro'
By some wild skylark's matin song.
84 THE MILLER S DAUGHTER.
And oft I heard the tender dove
In firry woodlands making moan ;
But ere I saw your eyes, my love,
I had no motion of my own.
For scarce my life with fancy play'd
Before I dream'd that pleasant dream-
Still hither thither idly sway'd
Like those long mosses in the stream.
Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear
The milldam rushing down with noise,
And see the minnows everywhere
In crystal eddies glance and poise,
The tall flag-flowers, where they sprung
Below the range of stepping-stones,
And those three chestnuts near, that hung
In masses thick with milky cones.
But, Alice, what an hour was that.
When after roving in the woods
('Twas April then), I came and sat
Below the chestnuts, when their buds
Were glistening to the bi'eezy blue ;
And on the slope, an absent fool,
I cast me down, nor thought of you,
But angled in the higher pool.
THE MILLER S DAUGHTER, 85
A love-song I had somewhere read,
An echo from a measured strain,
Beat time to nothing in my head
From some odd corner of the hrain.
It haunted me, the morning long,
Witli weary sameness in the rhymes,
The phantom of a silent song.
That went and came a thousand times.
Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood
I watch 'd the little circles die ;
They past into the level flood.
And there a vision caught my eye ;
The reflex of a beauteous form,
A glowing arm, a gleaming neck.
As when a sunbeam wavers warm
Within the dark and dimpled beck.
For you remember, you had set.
That morning, on the casement's edge
A long green box of mignonette,
And you were leaning from the ledge :
And when I raised my eyes, above
They met with two so full and bright —
Such eyes ! I swear to you, my love.
That these have never lost their liaht.
86 THE MILLER S DAUGHTER.
I loved, and love dispell'd the fear
That I should die an early death :
For love possess'd the atmosphere,
And fill'd the breast with purer breath.
My mother thought, What ails the boy ?
For I was alter'd, and began
To move about the house with joy,
And with the certain step of man.
I loved the brimming wave that swam
Thro' quiet meadows round the mill,
The sleepy pool above the dam,
The pool beneath it never still.
The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor.
The dark round of the dripping wheel.
The very air about the door
Made misty with the floating meal.
And oft in ramblings on the wold,
When April nights began to blow,
And April's crescent glimmer'd cold,
I saw the villae^e lio;hts below ;
I kn&w your taper far away.
And full at heart of trembling hope,
From ofi^ the wold I came, and lay
Upon the freshly -flower'd slope.
THE MILLER S DAUGHTER. 8/
The deep brook gi'oan'd beneath the mill ;
And " by that lamp," I thought, " she sits ! "
The white chalk-quarry from the hill
Gleam 'd to the flying moon by fits.
" 0 that I were beside her now !
0 will she answer if I call ?
0 would she give me vow for vow,
Sweet Alice, if I told her all ? "
Sometimes I saw you sit and spin ;
And, in the pauses of the wind.
Sometimes I heard you sing within ;
Sometimes yom* shadow cross'd the blind ;
At last you rose and moved the light,
And the long shadow of the chair
Flitted across into the night,
And all the casement darken'd there.
But when at last I dared to speak,
The lanes, you know, were white with may,
Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek
Flush'd like the coming of the day ;
And so it was — half-sly, half-shy,
You would, and would not, little one !
Although I pleaded tenderly,
And you and I were all alone.
THE MILLER S DAUGHTER.
And slowly was my mother brought
To yield consent to my desire ;
She wish'd me happy, but she thought
I might have look'd a little higher ;
And I was young — too young to wed :
" Yet must I love her for your sake
Go fetch your Alice here," she said :
Her eyelid quiver'd as she spake.
And down I went to fetch my bride :
But, Alice, you were ill at ease ;
This dress and that by turns you tried,
Too fearful that you should not please.
I loved you better for yovu- fears,
I knew you could not look but well ;
And dews, that would have fall'n in tears,
I kiss'd away before they fell.
I watch'd the little flutterings.
The doubt my mother would not see ;
She spoke at large of many things,
And at the last she spoke of me ;
And turning look'd upon your face.
As near this door you sat apart.
And rose, and, with a silent grace
Approaching, press 'd you heart to heart.
THE MILLER S DAUGHTER. 89
Ah, well — but sing the foolish song
I gave you, Alice, on the day
When, arm in arm, we went along,
A pensive pair, and you were gay
With bridal flowers — that I may seem.
As in the nights of old, to lie
Beside the mill-wheel in the stream,
While those full chestnuts whisper by.
It is the miller's daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the jewel
That trembles at her ear :
For hid in ringlets day and night,
I 'd touch her neck so warm and white.
And I would be the girdle
About her dainty dainty waist.
And her heart would beat against me.
In sorrow and in rest :
And I should know if it beat right,
I 'd clasp it round so close and tight.
And I would be the necklace,
And all day long to fall and rise
Upon her balmy bosom.
With her laughter or her sighs,
And I would lie so light, so light,
I scarce should be unclasp'd at night.
90 THE MILLER S DAUGHTER.
A trifle, sweet ! which true love spells —
True love interprets — right alone.
His light upon the letter dwells,
For all the spirit is his own.
So, if I waste words now, in truth
You must blame Love. His early rage
Had force to make me rhyme in youth.
And makes me talk too much in age.
And now those vivid hours are gone.
Like mine own life to me thou art„
Where Past and Present, wound in one.
Do make a garland for the heart :
So sing that other song I made.
Half-anger 'd with my happy lot,
The day, when in the chestnut shade
I found the blue Forget-me-not.
Love that hath us in the net.
Can he pass, and we forget ?
Many suns arise and set.
Many a chance the years heget.
Love the gift is Love the debt.
Even so.
Love is hurt with jar and fret.
Love is made a vague regret.
THE miller's daughter. 91
Eyes with idle tears are wet.
Idle habit liniis us yet.
What is love ? for we forget :
Ah, no ! no !
Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife,
Round my true heart thine arms entwine ;
My other dearer hfe in life,
Look thro' my very soul with thine !
Untouch 'd with any shade of years.
May those kind eyes for ever dwell !
They have not shed a many tears,
Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.
Yet tears they shed : they had their part
Of sorrow : for when time was ripe,
Tlie still aff'ection of the heart
Became an outward breathing type,
That into stillness past again,
And left a Avant unknown before ;
Although the loss that brought us pain.
That loss but made us love the more,
With farther lookings on. The kiss.
The woven arms, seem but to be
Weak symbols of the settled bliss,
The comfort, I have found in thee :
.92 THE MILLER S DAUGHTER.
But that God bless thee, dear — who MTought
Two spirits to one equal mind —
With blessings beyond hope or thought,
With blessings which no words can find.
Arise, and let us wander forth,
To yon old mill across the wolds ;
For look, the sunset, south and north,
Winds all the vale in rosy folds.
And fires your narrow casement glass,
Touching the sullen pool below :
On the chalk-hill the bearded grass '
Is dry and dewless. Let us o-o.
F A T I M A.
0 Love, Love, Love ! 0 withering might I
0 sun, that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parch'd and wither 'd, deaf and blisid,
I whirl like leaves in roaring; wind.
Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city's eastern towers :
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers :
I rolled among the tender flowers :
I crush 'd them on my breast, my mouth :
I look'd athwart the burning drouth
Of that lonjr desert to the south.
94
Last night, when some one spoke his name,
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame
Were shiver 'd in my narrow frame.
0 Love, 0 fire ! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul thro'
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
Before he mounts the hill, I know '
He Cometh quickly : from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon.
Faints like a dazzled mornino- moon.
The wind sounds like a silver wire.
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire ;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight
Bursts into blossom in his sight.
95
My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye :
I toill possess him or will die.
I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasp 'd in his embrace.
(EN ONE.
There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far helow them roars
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus
Stands up and takes the morning : but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel,
The crown of Troas.
Hither came at noon
Mournful ffinone, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
(ENONE. .97
Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest.
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
Sang to tlie stillness, till the mountain-shade
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.
" 0 mother Ida, many -fountain 'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill :
The grasshopper is silent in the grass :
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone.
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.
The purple flowers droop : the golden bee
Is lily-cradled : I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
Aly heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim.
And I am all aweary of my life.
" 0 mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Hear me 0 Earth, hear me 0 Hills, 0 Caves
That house the cold crown' d snake ! 0 mountain brooks,
I am the daughter of a River-God,
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gather 'd shape : for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.
98 (ENONE.
" 0 mother Ida, many-fouutaiu'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harkcn ere I die.
I waited underneath the dawning hills,
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,
And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine :
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,
Leading a jet-black goat white-horn 'd, white-hooved.
Came up from reedy Simois all alone.
" 0 mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft :
Far up the solitary morning smote i
The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes
I sat alone : white-hreasted like a star
Fronting the dawn he moved ; a leopard skin
Droop 'd. from his shoulder, but his sunny hair
Cluster'd about his temples like a Grod's ;
And his cheek brighten 'd as the foam-bow brightens
When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart
Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came.
" Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm
Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,
That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd
And listen 'd, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.
CENONE. 99
" ' My own (Enone,
Beautiful-brow 'd (Enone, my own soul,
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav'n
" For the most fair," would seem to award it thine,
As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt
The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace
Of movement, and the charm of married brows. '
" Dear mother Ida, barken ere I die.
He prest the blossom of his lijis to mine.
And added ' This was cast upon the board,
When all the full-faced presence of the Gods
Ranged in the halls of Peleus ; whereupon
Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere due :
But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve.
Delivering that to me, by common voice
Elected umpire. Here comes to-day
Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each
This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave
Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.
" Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
It was the deep midnoon : one silvery cloud
Had lost his way between the piney sides
Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came.
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower.
100 (ENONE.
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire,
Violet, amaracus, and asphodel,
Lotos and lilies : and a wind arose,
And overhead the wandering ivy and vine,
This way and that, in many a wild festoon
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs
With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro'.
" 0 mother Ida, harken ere I die.
On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit,
And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd
Upon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew.
Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom
Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows
Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods
Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made
Proffer of royal power, ample rule
Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue
Wherewith to embellish state, ' from many a vale
And river-sunder 'd champaign cloth 'd with corn,
Or labour'd mines undrainable of ore.
Honour,' she said, ' and homage, tax and toll,
From many an inland town and haven large,
Mast-throug'd beneath her shadowing citadel
In glassy bays among her tallest towers.'
" 0 mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Still she spake on and still she spake of power.
(ENOXE. 101
' Which in all action is the end of all ;
Power fitted to the season ; wisdom-bred
And throned of wisdom — from all neighbour crowns
Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand
Fail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from me,
From me, Heaven's Queen, Paris, to thee king-born,
A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born.
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power
Only, are likest gods, who have attain'd
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy. '
" Dear mother Ida, barken ere I die.
She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit
Out at arm's-length, so much the thought of power
Flatter 'd his spirit ; but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs
O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold.
The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.
" ' Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power, (power of herself
Would come uncaU'd for) but to live by law.
102 (ENONE.
Acting the law we live by without fear ;
And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.'
" Dear mother Ida, hark en ere I die.
Again she said : ' I woo thee not with gifts.
Sequel of guerdon could not alter me
To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am,
So shalt thou find me fairest.
Yet, indeed,
If gazing on divinity disrobed
Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair,
Unbiass'd by self-profit, oh ! rest thee sure
That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee.
So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood.
Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God's,
To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks,
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow
Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will,
Circled thro' all experiences, pure law,
Commeasure perfect freedom.'
" Here she ceased,
And Paris ponder 'd, and I cried, ' 0 Paris,
Give it to Pallas ! ' but he heard me not.
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me !
CENONE. 10:'
" 0 mother Ida, many-fountaiu'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Idalian Aphrodite beautiful,
Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells,
With rosy slender fingers backward drew
From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat
And shoulder : from the violets her light foot
Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.
*' Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whisper'd in his ear, ' I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece.'
She spoke and laugh 'd : I shut my sight for fear :
But when I look'd, Paris had raised his arm.
And I beheld great Here's angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud.
And I was left alone within the bower ;
And from that time to this I am alone,
And I shall be alone until I die.
" Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Fairest — why fairest wife ? am I not fair ?
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
104 (ENONE.
Metliinks I must be fair, for yesterday,
When I past by, a wild and wanton pard.
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail
Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she ?
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest
Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.
" 0 mother, hear me yet before I die.
They came, they cut away my tallest pines.
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge, and all between
The snowy peak and snow-white cataract
Foster'd the callow eaglet — from beneath
Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn
The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat
Low in the valley. Never, never more
Shall lone (Enone see the morning mist
Sweep thro' them ; never see them overlaid
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.
" 0 mother, hear me yet before I die.
I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds.
Among the fragments timibled from the glens.
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,
(ENOXE. 10-T
The Abominable, that uninvited came
Into the fair Pele'ian banquet-hall,
And cast the golden fruit upon the board,
And bred this change ; that I might speak my mind,
And tell her to her face how much I hate
Her presence, hated both of Gods and men.
" 0 mother, hear me yet before I die.
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green vaUey, under this green hill,
Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone ?
Seal'd it with kisses ? water 'd it with tears ?
0 happy tears, and how unlike to these !
0 happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face ?
0 happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight ?
0 death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud.
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live :
1 pray thee, pass before my light of life.
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids : let me die.
" 0 mother, hear me yet before I die.
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hiUs,
106 (EXONE.
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
Conjectures of the features of her child
Ere it is born : her child ! — a shudder comes
Across me : never child be born of me,
Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes !
" 0 mother, hear me yet before I die.
Hear me, 0 earth. I will not die alone.
Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me
Walking the cold and starless road of Death
Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love ,
With the Greek woman. I will rise and go
Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth
Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says
A fire dances before her, and a sound
Rings ever in her ears of anned men.
What this may be I know not, but I know
That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day.
All earth and air seem onlv burninc: fire."
THE SISTERS.
We were two daughters of one race :
She was the fairest in the face :
The wind is blowing in turret and tree.
They were together, and she fell ;
Therefore revenge became me well.
0 the Earl was fair to see !
She died : she went to burning flame :
She mix'd her ancient blood with shame.
The wind is howling in turret and tree.
Whole weeks and months, and early and late,
To win his love I lay in wait :
0 the Earl was fair to see !
I made a feast ; I bad him come :
I won his love, I brought him home.
The wind is roarino- in turret and tree.
108 THE SISTERS.
And after supper, on a bed,
Upon my lap he laid his head :
0 the Earl was fair to see !
I kiss'd his eyelids into rest :
His ruddy cheek upon my breast.
The wind is raging in turret and tree.
I hated him with the hate of hell,
But I loved his beauty passing well.
0 the Earl was fair to see !
I rose up in the silent night :
I made my dagger sharp and bright.
The ■wind is raving in turret and tree.
As half-asleep his breath he drew,
Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro'
0 the Earl was fair to see I
I curl'd and comb'd his comely head.
He look'd so grand when he was dead.
The wind is blowing in turret and tree.
I wrapt his body in the sheet,
And laid him at his mother's feet.
0 the Earl was fair to see I
TO
WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM.
I SEXD you here a sort of allegory,
(For you will understand it) of a soul,
A sinful soul possess 'd of many gifts,
A spacious garden full of flowering weeds,
A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain.
That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen
In all varieties of mould and mind)
And Knowledge for its beauty ; or if Good,
Good only for its beauty, seeing not
That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters
That doat upon each other, friends to man,
Living together under the same roof.
And never can be sunder'd without tears.
And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this
Was common clay ta'en from the common earth,
Moulded by God, and temper 'd with the tears
Of angels to the perfect shape of man.
THE PALACE OF ART.
I BUILT my soul a lordlj' pleasui'e-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, " 0 Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well."
A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish 'd brass,
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass
Suddenly scaled the light.
Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.
And " whUe the world runs round and round," I said,
" Reign thou apart, a quiet king.
Still as, while Saturn whirlsj his stedfast shade
Sleeps on his luminous ring."
THE PALACE OF ART. HI
To which my soul made answer readily :
" Trust me, in bliss I shall abide
In this great mansion, that is built for me,
So royal-rich and wide."
Four courts I made. East, West and South and North,
In each a squared lawn, wherefrom
The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth
A flood of fountain-foam.
And round the cool green courts there ran a row
Of cloisters, branch 'd like mighty woods,
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow
Of spouted fountain-floods.
And round the roofs a gilded gallery
That lent broad verge to distant lands,
Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky
Dipt down to sea and sands.
From those four jets four cun-ents in one swell
Across the mountain stream 'd below
In misty folds, that floating as they fell
Lit up a torrent-bow.
And high on every peak a statue seem'd
To hang on tiptoe, tossing up
112 THE PALACE OF ART.
A cloud of incense of all odour steam' d
From out a golden cup.
So that she thought, " And who shall gaze upon
My palace with imblinded eyes,
While this great bow will waver in the sun,
And that sweet incense rise ? "
For that sweet incense rose and never fail'd,
And, while day sank or mounted higher,
The light aerial gallery, golden-rail'd,
Burnt like a fringe of fire.
Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and traced,
Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires
From shadow'd grots of arches interlaced,
And tipt with frost-like spires.
Full of long-sounding corridors it was,
That over-vaulted grateful gloom,
Thro' which the livelong day my soid did pass.
Well-pleased, from room to room.
Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,
All various, each a perfect whole
From living Nature, fit for every mood
And change of my stiU soul.
THE PALACE OF ART. 113
For some were hung with arras green and blue,
Showing a gaudy summer-morn,
Where with pufF'd cheek the belted hunter blew
His wreathed bugle-horn.
One seem'd all dark and red — a tract of sand,
And some one pacing therff alone,
Who paced for ever in a gUmmering land.
Lit with a low large moon.
One show'd an iron coast and angry waves.
You seem'd to hear them climb and fall
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves.
Beneath the windy wall.
And one, a full-fed river winding slow
By herds upon an endless plain.
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow-streaks of rain.
And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.
In front they bound the sheaves. Behind
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil.
And hoary to the wind.
And one, a foreground black with stones and slags,
Beyond a line of heights, and higher
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags,
And highest, snow and fire.
114 THE PALACE OF ART.
And one, an English home — gray twilight pour'd
On dewj pastures, dewy trees.
Softer than sleep — all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace.
Nor these alone, but every landscape fair.
As fit for every mo*od of mind.
Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there,
Not less than truth design'd.
* * * *
Or the maid-mother by a crucifix, '
In tracts of pasture sunny-warm,
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx
Sat smiling, babe in arm.
Or in a clear-wall 'd city on the sea,
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily ;
An angel look'd at her.
Or thronging all one porch of Paradise,
A group of Houris bow'd to see
The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes
That said. We wait for thee.
Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son
In some fair space of sloping greens
THE PALACE OF ART. 115
Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon,
And watch'd by weeping queens.
Or hollowing one hand against his ear,
To list a footfall, ere he saw
The wood-nymph, stay'd the Tuscan king to hear
Of wisdom and of law. ■
Or over hills with peaky tops engrail 'd.
And many a tract of palm and rice.
The throne of Indian Cama slowly sail'd
A summer fann'd with spice.
Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasp 'd
From off her shoulder backward borne :
From one hand droop 'd a crocus : one hand grasp 'd
The mild bull's golden horn.
Or else flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh
Half-buried in the Eagle's down,
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky
Above the pillar'd town.
Nor these alone : but every legend fair
Which the supreme Caucasian mind
Carved out of Nature for itself, was there,
Not less than life, design 'd.
* * * *
■5^ 'T ^ "^
116 THE PALACE OF ART.
Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung,
Moved of themselves, with silver sound ;
And with choice paintings of wise men I hung
The royal dais round.
For there was Milton like a seraph strong.
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild ;
And there the world-worn Dante grasp 'd his song,
And somewhat grimly smiled.
And there the Ionian father of the rest ;
A million wrinkles carved his skin ;
A himdred winters snow'd upon his breast,
From cheek and throat and chin.
Above, the fair hall-eeihng stately -set
Many an arch high up did lift,
And angels rising and descending met
With interchange of gift.
Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd
With cycles of the human tale
Of this wide world, the times of evei'y land
So wrought, they will not fail.
The people here, a beast of burden slow,
Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings ;
Here play'd, a tiger, rolling to and fro
The heads and crowns of kings ;
THE PALACE OF AUT.
Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind
All force in bonds that might endure,
And here once more like some sick man declined,
And trusted any cure.
But over these she trod : and those great bells
Began to chime. She took her throne :
She sat betwixt the shining Oriels,
To sing her sono-s alone.
And thro' the topmost Oriels' colour 'd flame
Two godlike faces gazed below ;
Plato the wise, and large-brow 'd Verulam,
The first of those who know.
And all those names, that in their motion were
Full-welling fountain-heads of change,
Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon 'd fair
In diverse raiment strange :
Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue,
Flush 'd in her temples and her eyes.
And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew
Rivers of melodies.
No nightingale delighteth to prolong
Her low preamble all alone.
More than my soul to hear her echo'd song
Throb thro' the ribbed stone ;
118 THE PALACE OF ART.
Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,
Joying to feel herself alive,
Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth,
Lord of the senses five ;
Communing with herself : " All these are mine,
And let the world have peace or wars,
'Tis one to me." She — when young night divine
Crown'd dying day with stars,
Making sweet close of his delicious toils —
Lit light in wreaths and anadems,
And pure quintessences of precious oils
In hoUow'd moons of gems.
To mimic heaven ; and clapt her hands and cried,
" I marvel if my still delight
In this great house so royal-rich, and wide,
Be flatter'd to the height.
" From shape to shape at first within the womb
The brain is modell'd," she began,
" And thro' all phases of all thought I come
Into the perfect man.
" All Nature widens upward. Evermore
The simpler essence lower lies :
More complex is more perfect, owning more
Discourse, more widely wise."
THE PALACE OF ART. 119
Then of the moral instinct would she prate,
And of the rising from the dead,
As hers by right of full-accomplish 'd Fate ;
And at the last she said :
" I take possession of men's minds and deeds.
I live in all things great and small.
I sit apart holding no forms of creeds.
But contemplating all."
* * * * .
^ ^ ^ "^
Full oft the riddle of the painful earth
Flash 'd thro' her as she sat alone.
Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth,
And intellectual throne
Of full-sphered contemplation. So three years
She throve, but on the fourth she fell,
Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears,
Struck thro' with pangs of hell.
Lest she should fail and perish utterly,
God, before whom ever lie bare
The abysmal deeps of Personality,
Plagued her with sore despair.
When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight,
The airy hand confusion wrought,
120 THE PALACE OF ART.
Wrote " Mene, mene," and divided quite
The kingdom of her thought.
Deep dread and loathing of her solitude
Fell on her, from which mood was horn
Scorn of herself ; again, from out that mood
Laughter at her self-scorn.
"What ! is not this my place of strength," she said,
" My spacious mansion huilt for me,
Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid
Since my first memory ? "
But in dark corners of her palace stood
Uncertain shapes ; and unawares
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,
And horrible nightmares,
And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame.
And, with dim fretted foreheads all,
On corpses three-months-old at noon she came.
That stood against the wall.
A spot of dull stagnation, without light
Or power of movement, seem'd my soul,
'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite
Making for one sure goal.
A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand ;
Left on the shore ; that hears all night
THE PALACE OF ART. 121
The plunging seas draw backward from the land
Their moon-led waters white.
A star that with the choral starry dance
Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw
The hollow orb of moving Circumstance
RoU'd roimd by one fix'd law.
Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd.
"No voice," she shriek'd in that lone hall,
" No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world :
One deep, deep silence all ! "
She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod,
Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame.
Lay there exiled from eternal God,
Lost to her place and name ;
And death and life she hated equally.
And nothing saw, for her despair,
But dreadful time, dreadful eternity,
No comfort anywhere ;
Remaining utterly confused with fears.
And ever worse with growing time,
And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,
And all alone in crime :
Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round
With blackness as a solid wall,
122 THE PALACE OF ART.
Far off she seem'cl to hear the dully sound
Of human footsteps fall.
As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,
In doubt and great perplexity,
A Uttle before moon-rise hears the low
Moan of an unknown sea ;
And knows not if it be thunder or a sound
Of stones thrown down, or one deep cry
Of great wild beasts ; then thinketh, " I have found
A new land, but I die."
She howl'd aloud, " I am on fire within.
There comes no murmur of reply.
What is it that will take away my sin,
And save me lest I die ? "
So when four years were wholly finished,
She threw her royal robes away.
" Make me a cottage in the vale," she said,
" ^^^lere I may mourn and pray.
" Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are
So hghtly, beautifully built :
Perchance I may return with others there
When I have purged my guilt."
LADY CLARA VERE DE VERB.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
Of me you shall not win renown :
You thought to break a country heart
For pastime, ere you went to town.
At me you smiled, but unbeguiled
I saw the snare, and I retired :
The daughter of a hundred Earls,
You are not one to be desired.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
I know you proud to bear your name.
Your pride is yet no mate for mine,
Too proud to care from whence I came.
Nor would I break for your sweet sake
A heart that doats on truer charms.
A simple maiden in her flower
Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.
124 LADY CLARA VERB DE VERB.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
Some meeker pupil you must find.
For were you queen of all that is,
I could not stoop to such a mind.
You sought to prove how I could love,
And my disdain is my reply.
The lion on your old stone gates
Is not more cold to vou than I.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
You put strange memories in my head.
Not thrice your branching limes have blown
Since I beheld young Laitrence dead.
Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies :
A great enchantress you may be ;
But there was that across his throat
Which you had hardly cared to see.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
When thus he met his mother's view,
She had the passions of her kind,
She spake some certain truths of you.
Indeed I heard one bitter word
That scarce is fit for you to hear ;
Her manners had not that repose
Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
LADY CLARA VERB DE VERE. 125
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
There stands a spectre in your hall :
The guilt of blood is at your door :
You changed a wholesome heart to gall.
You held your course without remorse,
To make him trust his modest worth,
And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare,
And slew him with your noble birth.
Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,
From yon blue heavens above us bent
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets.
And simple faith than Norman blood.
1 know you, Clara Vere de Vere :
You pine among your halls and towers :
The languid light of your proud eyes
Is wearied of the rolling hours.
In glowing health, with boundless wealth.
But sickening of a vague disease.
You know so ill to deal with time.
You needs must play such pranks as these.
126 LADY CLARA VERB DE VERE.
Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,
If Time be heavy on your hands,
Are there no beggars at your gate.
Nor any poor about your lands ?
Oh ! teach the orphan-boy to read,
Or teach the orphan-girl to sew,
Pray Heaven for a human heart.
And let the foolish yeoman go.
THE MAY QUEEN.
You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother
dear ;
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-
year ;
Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest
day;
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I m to be
Queen o' the May.
There 's many a black black eye, they say, but none so
bright as mine ;
There s Margaret and Mary, there 's Kate and Caroline :
Biit none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,
So I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May,
III.
I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break :
128 THE ilAT QUEEN.
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands
gay,
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May.
As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see,
But Robin leaninoj on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree ?
He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him
yesterday, —
But I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May.
He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white,
And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say.
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May.
They say he 's dying all for love, but that can never
be:
They say his heart is breaking, mother — what is that
to me ?
There 's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any siunmer day,
And I 'm to be Queen o' the ilay, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May.
THE MAY QUEEN. 129
VII.
Little Effie shall go witli me to-morrow to the green,
And you '11 he there, too, mother, to see me made the
Queen ;
For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far
away,
And I 'm to he Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May.
The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n its wavy
bowers,
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet
cuckoo-flowers ;
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps
and hollows gray.
And I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May.
IX.
The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-
grass,
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as
they pass ;
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong
day.
And I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May.
130 THE MAY QUEEX.
X.
All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still,
And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,
And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance
and play.
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May.
XI.
So you must wake and call me early, call me early,
mother dear.
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of, all the glad
New-year :
To-morrow 'iU be of all the year the maddest merriest day.
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be
Queen o' the May.
NEW-YEAR'S EVE.
If you 're waking call me early, call me early, mother dear,
For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year.
It is the last New-year that I shall ever see,
Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more
of me.
To-night I saw the sun set : he set and left behind
The good old year, the dear old time, and all mj^ peace
of mind ;
And the New-year 's coming up, mother, but I shall
never see
The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.
Last May we made a crown of flowers : we had a merry daj' ;
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen
of May ;
K 2
132 NEW- YEAR S EVE.
And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel
copse,
Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white
chimney-tops.
IV.
There 's not a flower on all the hills : the frost is on the
pane :
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again :
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on
high :
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.
The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er
the wave.
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.
Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine.
In the early early morning the summer sun 'ill shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,
When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is
still.
NEW-YEAR S EVE. 133
VII.
When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the
waning light
You '11 never see me more in the long gray fields at night ;
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush
in the pool.
VIII.
You'll bury me, my mothei-, just beneath the hawthorn
shade.
And you '11 come sometimes and see me where I am
lowly laid.
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you
pass,
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant
grass.
IX.
I have been wild and wayward, but you '11 forgive me now ;
You '11 kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow ;
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild,
You should not fret for me, mother, you have another
child.
X.
If I can I '11 come again, mother, from out my resting-
place ;
Though you '11 not see me, mother, I shall look upon your
face ;
134 NEW-YEAR S EVE.
Though I cannot speak a word, I shall harken what you
say,
And be often, often with you when you think I 'm far away.
Goodnight, goodnight, when I have said goodnight for
evermore.
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door ;
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing
green :
She '11 be a better child to you than ever I have been.
XII.
She '11 find my garden-tools upon the granary floor :
Let her take 'em : they are hers : I shall never garden
more :
But tell her, when I 'm gone, to train the rose-bush that
I set
About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.
Good- night, sweet mother : call me before the day is born.
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn ;
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year,
So, if you 're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.
CONCLUSION.
I THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am ;
And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb.
How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year !
To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet 's
here.
0 sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies,
And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot
rise,
And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that
blow,
And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.
III.
It seemed so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun.
And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be
done !
136 CONCLUSION.
But still I think it can't be long before I find release ;
And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words
of peace.
0 blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair !
And blessings on his Avhole Hfe long, until he meet me
there !
0 blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head !
A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.
He show'd me all the mercy, for he taught me all the sin.
Now, though my lamp was lighted late, there 's One will
let me in :
Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be,
For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me.
I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch
beat,
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning
meet :
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.
CONCLUSION. 137
VII.
All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call ;
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was
over all ;
The ti'ees hegan to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my
soul.
For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear ;
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here ;
With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt
re sign 'd.
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.
IX.
I thought that it was fancy, and I listen 'd in my bed.
And then did something speak to me — I know not what
was said ;
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my
mind,
And up the valley came again the music on the wind.
But you were sleeping ; and I said, " It 's not for them :
it 's mine."
And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.
138 CONCLUSION.
And once again it came, and close beside the window-
bars,
Then seem'd to go right up to Heaven and die among
the stars.
So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know
The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go.
And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day.
But, Effie, 3'ou must comfort Tier when I am past away.
And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret ;
There 's many worthier than I, would make him happy yet.
If I had lived — I cannot tell — I might have been his wife ;
But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of
life.
XIII.
0 look ! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow ;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.
And there I move no louQ-er now, and there his light
may shine —
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.
XIV.
0 sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is
done
The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun —
CONCLUSION. 139
Foi" ever and for ever with those just souls and true —
And what is life, that we should moan ? why make we
such ado ?
For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home —
And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come —
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your
breast —
And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are
at rest.
THE LOTOS-EATERS.
" Courage ! " he said, and pointed toward the land,
" This mounting wave will roll us sho'-eward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land,
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced ahove the vaUey stood the moon ;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to faU and pause and faU did seem.
A land of streams ! some, like a downward smoke.
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go ;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
RoUing a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
THE LOTOS-EATERS. 141
From the inner land : far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow.
Stood sunset-flush'd : and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset linger 'd low adown
In the red West : thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border 'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale ;
A land where all things always seem'd the same !
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame.
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem.
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them.
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave.
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores ; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave ;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake.
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
142 THE LOTOS-EATERS.
T.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore ;
And sweet it was to dream of Father-land,
Of child, and wife, and slave ; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weaiy the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, " We will return no more ;
And all at once they sang, " Our island home
Is far beyond the wave ; we will no longer roam.
CHORIC SONG.
1.
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass.
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass ;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyehds upon tir'd eyes ;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
THE LOTOS-EATERS. 143
Why are we weigli'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While aU things else have rest from weariness ?
All things have rest : why should Ave toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown :
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm ;
Nor barken what the inner spirit sings,
" There is no joy but calm !
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things ?
3.
Lo ! in the middle of the wood.
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed ; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo ! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
144 THE LOTOS-EATERS.
All its allotted length of days,
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
4.
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life ; ah ! why
Should life all labour be ?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last ?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil ? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the cHmbing wave ?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence, ripen, fall and cease :
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease !
5.
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream !
To dream and dream, like yonder amber liglit.
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height ;
To hear each other's whisper 'd speech ;
THE LOTOS-EATERS. 145
Eating the Lotos, day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray :
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mUd-minded melancholy ;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy
Heap'd over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass !
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives.
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears : but all hath suff'er'd change
For surely now our household hearths are cold :
Our sons inherit us : our looks are strange :
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten-years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle ?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile :
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain.
Long labour unto aged breath,
146 THE LOTOS-EATERS.
Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly,)
With half-dropt eyelids still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill —
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine —
To hear the emerald-col om-'d water falling
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine !
Only to hear and see the far-oif sparkling brine.
Only to hear were sweet, stretch 'd out beneath the pine.
8.
The Lotos blooms below the flowery peak :
The Lotos blows by every winding creek :
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone :
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust
is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge
was seething free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains
in the sea.
THE LOTOS-EATERS. 147
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are
hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly
curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming
world :
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps
and fiery sands.
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and
praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song-
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning though the words are strong ;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil.
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil ;
Till they perish and they suffer — some, 'tis whisper 'd —
down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell.
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
L 2
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.
I READ, before my eyelids dropt their shade,
" The Legend of Good Women,'' long ago
Sung by the morning star of song, who made
His music heard below ;
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.
III.
And, for a while, the knowledge of his art
Held me above the subject, as strong gales
Hold swollen clouds from raining, though my heart,
Brimful of those wild tales,
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 149
Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land
I saw, wherever light illumineth,
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death.
Those far-renowned brides of ancient song
Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars.
And 1 heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong.
And trumpets blown for wars ;
And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs
And I saw crowds in column 'd sanctuaries ;
And forms that pass'd at Avindows and on roofs
Of marble palaces ;
Corpses across the threshold ; heroes tall
Dislodging pinnacle and parapet
Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall ;
Lances in ambush set ;
And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts
That run before the fluttering tongues of fire ;
White surf wind-scattered over sails and masts,
And ever climbing higher ;
150 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMKN.
IX.
Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates,
Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes,
Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates,
And hush'd seraghos.
So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land
Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way.
Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand,
Torn from the fringe of spray.
I started once, or seem'd to start in pain,
Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak.
As when a great thought strikes along the brain,
And flushes all the cheek.
XII.
And once my arm was lifted to hew down
A cavalier from off his saddle-bow.
That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town ;
And then, I know not how.
All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought
Stream 'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep
Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth 'd, and brought
Into the gulfs of sleep.
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 151
XIV,
At last methought that I had wander'd far
In an old wood : fresh-wash'd in coolest dew,
The maiden splendours of the morning star
Shook in the stedfast hlue.
Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean
Upon the dusky brushwood underneath
Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green,
New from its silken sheath.
XVI.
The dim red morn had died, her journey done.
And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain,
Half-fall'n across the threshold of the sun.
Never to rise again.
XTII.
There was no motion in the dumb dead air,
Not any song of bird or sound of rill ;
Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre
Is not so deadly still
As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn'd
Their humid arms festooning tree to tree,
And at the root thro' lush green grasses burn'd
The red anemone.
152 A DEEAM OF FAIR WOMEN.
XIX.
I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, 1 knew
The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn
On those long, rank, dark wood-walks drench'd in dew,
Leading from lawn to lawn.
The smell of violets, hidden in the green,
Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame
The times when I remember to have been
Joyfiil and free from blame.
And from within me a clear under-tone
Thrill 'd thro' mine ears in that unblissful clime
" Pass freely thro' ! the wood is all thine own.
Until the end of time."
At length I saw a lady within call.
Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there ;
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall.
And most divinely fair.
Her lovehness with shame and with surprise
Froze my swift speech ; she turning on my face
The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,
Spoke slowly in her place.
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 153
XXIV.
" I had great beauty : ask thou not my name :
No one can be more wise than destiny.
Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came
I brought calamity."
XXV.
" No marvel, sovereign lady ! in fair field,
Myself for such a face had boldly died,"
I answer 'd free, and turning I appeal'd
To one that stood beside.
But slie, with sick and scornful looks averse,
To her full height her stately stature draws ;
" My youth," she said, " was blasted with a curse :
This woman was the cause.
" I was cut ofi"from hope in that sad place,
Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears
My father held his hand upon his face ;
I, blinded with my tears,
" Still strove to speak : my voice was thick with sighs
As in a dream. Dimly I could descry
The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes,
Waitino- to see me die.
154 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.
XXIX.
" The tall masts quiver'd as tliey lay afloat,
The temples and the people and the shore ;
One drew a sharp knife thro' my tender throat
Slowly, — and nothing more."
XXX.
Whereto the other with a downward brow :
" I would the white cold heavy-plunging foam,
Whirl'd by the wind, had roU'd me deep below,
Then when I left my home."
XXSI.
Her slow full words sank thro' the silence drear,
As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea :
Sudden I heard a voice that cried, " Come here.
That I may look on thee."
XXXIl.
1 turning saw, throned on a flowery rise.
One sitting on a crimson scai'f unroll'd ;
A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes.
Brow-bound with burning gold.
XXXIII.
She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began :
" I govern'd men by change, and so I sway'd
All moods. 'Tis long since 1 have seen a man.
Once, like the moon, I made
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 155
XXXIV.
" The ever-shifting currents of the blood
According to my humour ebb find flow.
I have no men to govern in this wood :
That makes my only woe.
" Nay — yet it chafes me that I could not bend
One will ; nor tame and tutor with mine eye
That dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend,
Where is Mark Antony ?
XXXVI.
" The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime
On Fortune's neck : we sat as God by God :
The Nilus would have risen before his time
And flooded at our nod.
" We drank the Lybian Sun to sleep, and lit
Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. 0 my life
In Egypt ! 0 the dalliance and the wit,
The flattery and the strife,
XXXVIIl.
" And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms,
My Hercules, my Roman Antony,
My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms.
Contented there to die !
156 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.
XXXIX.
" And there he died : and when I heard my name
Sigh'd forth with life I would not brook my fear
Of the other : with a worm I balk'd his fame.
What else was left ? look here ! "
(With that she tore her robe apart, and half
The polish'd argent of her breast to sight
Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,
Showing the aspiek's bite.)
XLI.
" I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,
A name for ever ! — lying robed and crown'd,
Worthy a Roman spouse."
Her warbHng voice, a lyre of widest range
Struck by all passion, did fall down and glance
From tone to tone, and glided thro' all change
Of liveliest utterance.
When she made pause 1 knew not for delight ;
Because with sudden motion from the ground
She raised her piercing orbs, and fiU'd with light
The interval of sound.
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 157
Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts ;
As once they drew into two burning rings
All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts
Of captains and of kings.
Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard
A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn,
And singing clearer than the crested bird,
That claps his wings at dawn.
XLVI.
" The torrent brooks of hallow 'd Israel
From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,
Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell,
Far-heard beneath the moon.
" The balmy moon of blessed Israel
Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine
All night the splinter' d crags that wall the dell
With spires of silver shine."
XLVIII.
As one that museth where broad sunshine laves
The lawn by some cathedral, thro' the door
Hearing the holy organ rolling waves
Of sound on roof and floor
158 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.
XLIX.
Within, and anthem sung, is charm 'd and tied
To where he stands, — so stood I, when that flow
Of music left the lips of her that died
To save her father's vow ;
The daughter of the warrior Gileadite,
A maiden pure ; as when she went along
From Mizpeh's tower 'd gate with welcome light,
With timbrel and with song.
My words leapt forth : " Heaven heads the count of crimes
With that wild oath." She render'd answer high :
" Not so, nor once alone ; a thousand times
I would be born and die.
" Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root
Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath.
Feeding the flower ; but ere my flower to fruit
Changed, I was ripe for death.
" My God, my land, my father — these did move
Me from my bhss of life, that Nature gave,
Lower 'd softly with a threefold chord of love
Down to a silent grave.
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 159
" And I went mourning, ' No fair Hebrew boy
Shall smile away my maiden blame among
The Hebrew mothers ' — emptied of all joy,
Leaving the dance and song,
LV.
" Leaving the olive-gardens far below,
Leaving the promise of my bridal bower.
The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow
Beneath the battled tower.
LVI.
" The light white cloud swam over us. Anon
We heard the lion roaring in his den ;
We saw the large white stars rise one by one,
Or, from the darken 'd glen.
" Saw God divide the night with flying flame,
And thunder on the everlasting hills.
I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of ills.
" When the next moon was roll'd into the sky,
Strength came to me that equall'd my desire.
How beautiful a thing it was to die
For God and for my sire 1
160 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.
LIX.
" It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father's will ;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell.
Sweetens the spirit still.
LX.
" Moreover it is written that my race
Hew'd Ammon, hip and thigh, from Ai'oer
On Arnon unto ^linneth." Here her face
Glow'd, as I look'd at her.
She lock'd her lips : she left me where I stood :
" Glory to God," she sang, and past afar,
Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood.
Toward the morning-star.
LXII.
Losing her carol I stood pensively.
As one that from a casement leans his head,
When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,
And the old year is dead.
LXIII.
" Alas ! alas ! " a low voice, full of care,
Murmur'd beside me : " Turn and look on me
I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair.
If what I was I be.
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 161
" Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor !
0 me ! that I should ever see the light !
Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor
Do -hunt me, day and night."
She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust :
To whom the Egy]3tian : " 0, you tamely died !
You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust
The dagger thro' her side."
With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams,
Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery
Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams
Ruled in the eastern sky.
Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark,
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance
Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc,
A light of ancient France ;
Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death,
Who kneeling, with one arm about her king.
Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath.
Sweet as new buds in Spring.
162 A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.
LXIX.
No memory labours longer from the deep
Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore
That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep
To gather and tell o'er
Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain
Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to strike
Into that wondrous track of dreams again !
But no two di'eams are like.
LXXI.
As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years.
In yearnings that can never be exprest
By signs or groans or tears ;
Because aU words, though cull'd with choicest art,
Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,
Wither beneath the palate, and the heart
Faints, faded by its heat.
MARGARET.
0 SWEET pale Margaret,
0 rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower ?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower ?
From the westward- wmding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,
From all things outward you have won
A tearful grace, as though you stood
Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak.
That dimples yom- transparent cheek.
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight
M 2
164 MARGARET.
Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Whicli the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro' a fleecy night.
You love, remaining peacefully,
To hear* the murmm- of the strife,
But enter not the toil of life.
Your spirit is the calmed sea,
Laid by the tumult of the fight.
You are the evening star, alway
Remaining betwixt dark and bright :
LuU'd echoes of laborious day
Come to you, gleams of mellow light
Float by you on the verge of night.
What can it matter, Margaret,
What songs below the waning stars
The lion-heart, Plantagenet,
Sang looking thro' his prison bars ?
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell
The last wild thought of Chatelet,
Just ere the falling axe did part
The burning brain from the true heart.
Even in her sight he loved so well ?
A fairy shield your Genius made
And gave you on your natal day.
MARGARET. 165
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade,
Keeps real sorrow far away.
You move not in such solitudes,
You are not less divine,
But more human in your moods.
Than your twin-sister, Adeline.
Your hair is darker, and your eyes
Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue.
And less aerially blue.
But ever trembling thro' the dew
Of dainty-woeful sympathies.
0 sweet pale Margaret,
0 rare pale Margaret,
Come down, come down, and hear me speak :
Tie up the ringlets on your cheek :
The sun is just about to set.
The arching limes are tall and shady,
And faint, rainy lights are seen.
Moving in the leavy beech.
Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady.
Where all day long you sit between
Joy and woe, and whisper each.
Or only look across the lawn,
Look out below your bower-eaves.
Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn
Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves.
THE BLACKBIRD.
0 Blackbird ! sing me sometliing well :
While all the ueighbours shoot thee round,
I keep smooth plats of fruitful groutid.
Where thou may'st -warble, eat and dwell.
The espaliers and the standards all
Are thine ; the range of lawn and park :
The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark,
All thine, against the garden wall.
Yet, though I spared thee kith and kin,
Thy sole delight is, sitting still.
With that gold dagger of thy bill
To fret the summer jennetin.
A golden bill ! the silver tongue.
Cold February loved, is dry :
Plenty corrupts the melody
That made thee famous once, when young :
THE BLACKBIRD. 16?
And in the sultry garden-squares,
Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,
I hear thee not at all, or hoarse
As when a hawker hawks his wares.
Take warning ! he that will not sing-
While yon sun prospers in the blue,
Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new,
Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.
THE
DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearilj sighing
Toll ye the church-hell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die ;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.
He lieth still : he doth not move :
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend, and a true true-love.
And the New-year wiU take 'em away.
THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. 169
Old year, you must not go ;
So long as you have been with us.
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.
He froth'd his bumpers to the brim ;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But though his eyes are waxing dim.
And though his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.
Old year, you shall not die ;
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I 've half a mind to die with you.
Old year, if you must die.
He was full of joke and jest,
But all his merry quips are o'er.
To see him die, across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post-haste.
But he '11 be dead before.
Every one for his own.
The night is starry and cold, my friend.
And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend.
Comes up to take his own.
170 THE DEATH OF THE OLD TEAR.
V.
How hard lie breathes ! over the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and fro :
The cricket chirps : the light burns low
'Tis nearly twelve o'clock.
Shake hands, before you die.
Old year, we '11 dearly rue for you :
What is it we can do for you ?
Speak out before you die.
His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack I our friend is gone.
Close up his eyes : tie up his chin :
Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone,
And waiteth at the door.
There 's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.
To J. S.
The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.
II.
And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dared to flow
In these words toward you, and invade
Even with a verse your holy woe.
III.
'Tis strange that those we lean on most,
Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed,
Fall into shadow, soonest lost :
Those we love first are taken first.
God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us ; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls ofi", and love is left alone.
172 TO J. S.
V.
This is the curse of time. Alas !
In grief I am not all unlearn 'd ;
Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass ;
One went, who never hath return 'd.
VI.
He will not smile — not speak to me
Once more. Two years his chair is seen
Empty before us. That was he
Without whose life I had not been.
VII.
Your loss is rarer ; for this star
Rose with you thro' a little arc
Of heaven, nor having wander 'd far
Shot on the sudden into dark.
VIII.
I knew your brother : his mute dust
I honour and his Hving worth :
A man more pure and bold and just
Was never born into the earth.
I have not look'd upon you nigh.
Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep.
Great Nature is more wise than I :
I will not tell you not to weep.
TO J. S. 173
X.
And though mine own eyes fill with dew,
Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain,
I will not even preach to you,
" Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain."
XI.
Let Grief be her own mistress stiU.
She loveth her own anguish deep
More than much pleasure. Let her will
Be done — to weep or not to weep.
XII.
I will not say " God's ordinance
Of Death is blown in every wind ; "
For that is not a common chance
That takes away a noble mind.
His memory long will live alone
In all our hearts, as mournful light
That broods above the fallen sun,
And dwells in heaven half the night.
XIT.
Vain solace ! Memory standing near
Cast down her eyes, and in her throat
Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear
Dropt on the letters as I wrote.
174 TO J. S.
XV.
I wrote I know not what. In truth,
How should I sootlie you anyway,
Wlio miss the brother of your youth ?
Yet somethhig I did wish to say :
XVI.
For he too was a friend to me :
Both are my friends, and my true breast
Bleedeth for both ; yet it may be
That only silence suiteth best.
Words weaker than yom* grief would make
Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease
Although myself could almost take
The place of him that sleeps in peace.
Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace :
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,
While the stars bum, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet.
Nothing comes to thee new or strange.
Sleep full of rest from head to feet ;
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.
You ask me, why, though ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas ?
It is the land that freemen till.
That sober-suited Freedom chose.
The land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will ;
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom broadens slowly down
From precedent to precedent :
Where faction seldom gathers head.
But by degrees to fulness wrought.
The strength of some diffusive thought
Hath time and space to work and spread.
176
Should banded unions persecute
Opinion, and induce a time
^Vlien single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute ;
Though Power should make from land to land
The name of Britain trebly great — -
Though every channel of the State
Should almost choke with golden sand —
Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,
Wild wind ! I seek a warmei; sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet :
Above her shook the starry lights :
She heard the torrents meet.
Within her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather 'd in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.
Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fullness of her face —
Grave mother of majestic works,
From her isle-altar gazing down,
Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks.
And, King-like, wears the crown :
178
Her open eyes desire the truth.
The wisdom of a thousand years
Is in them. May perpetual youth
Keep dry their Hght from tears ;
That her fair form may stand and shine,
Make bright our days and Ught our dreams,
Turning to scorn with Ups divine
The falsehood of extremes !
Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present, but transfused
Thro' future time by power of thought.
True love turn'd round on fixed poles,
Love, that endures not sordid ends,
For English natures, freemen, friends.
Thy brothers and immortal souls.
But pamper not a hasty time,
Nor feed with crude imaginings
The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings.
That every sophister can lime.
Deliver not the tasks of might
To weakness, neither hide the ray
From those, not blind, who wait for day,
Though sitting girt with doubtful light.
N 2
180
Make knowledge circle witli the winds ;
But let her herald, Reverence, fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds.
Watch what main-currents draw the years :
Cut Prejudice against the grain :
But gentle words are always gain :
Regard the weakness of thy peers :
Nor toil for title, place, or touch
Of pension, neither count on praise :
It grows to guerdon after-days :
Nor deal in watchwords overmuch ;
Not clinging to some ancient saw ;
Not master 'd hy some modern term ;
Not swift nor slow to change, but firm :
And in its season bring the law ;
That from Discussion's lip may fall
With Life, that, working strongly, binds-
Set in all lights by many minds,
To close the interests of all.
For Nature also, cold and warm.
And moist and dry, devising long,
Thro' many agents making strong,
Matures the individual form.
181
Meet is it changes should control
Our being, lest we rust in ease.
We all are changed by still degrees,
All but the basis of the soul.
So let the change which comes be free
To ingroove itself with that, which flies,
And work, a joint of state, that plies
Its office, moved with sympathy.
A saying, hard to shape in act ;
For all the past of Time reveals
A bridal dawn of thunder-peals,
Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact.
Ev'n now we hear with inward strife
A motion toiling in the gloom —
The Spirit of the years to come
Yearning to mix himself with Life.
A slow-develop'd strength awaits
Completion in a painful school ;
Phantoms of other forms of rule.
New Majesties of mighty States —
The warders of the growing hour.
But vague in vapour, hard to mark ;
And round them sea and air are dark
With o-reat contrivances of Power.
182
Of many changes, aptly join'd,
Is bodied forth the second whole.
Regard gradation, lest the soul
Of Discord race the rising wind ;
A wind to puiT your idol-fires,
And heap their ashes on the head ;
To shame the boast so often made,
That we are wiser than our sires.
Oh yet, if Nature's evil star
Drive men in manhood, as in youth.
To follow flying steps of Truth
Across the brazen bridge of war —
If New and Old, disastrous feud.
Must ever shock, like armed foes,
And this be true, till Time shall close,
That Principles are rain'd in blood ;
Not yet the wise of heart would cease
To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt.
But with his hand against the hilt,
Woidd pace the troubled land, like Peace ;
Not less, though dogs of Faction bay.
Would serve his kind in deed and word,
Certain, if knowledge bring the sword,
That knowledge takes the sword away —
THE GOOSE. 183
Would love the gleams of good that broke
From either side, nor veil his eyes :
And if some dreadful need should rise
Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke :
To-morrow yet would reap to-d^y.
As we bear blossom of the dead ;
Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed
Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay.
THE GOOSE.
I KNEW an old wife lean and poor,
Her rags scarce held together ;
There strode a stranger to the door,
And it was windy weather.
He held a goose upon his arm,
He utter 'd rhyme and reason,
" Here, take the goose, and keep you warm.
It is a stormy season."
'184 THE GOOSE,
III.
She caught the white goose hy the leg,
A ffoose — 'twas no o-reat matter.
The goose let fall a golden egg
With cackle and with clatter.
She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf,
And ran to tell her neighbours ;
And bless'd herself, and cursed herself,
And rested from her labours.
And feeding high, and living soft,
Grew plump and able-bodied ;
Until the grave churchwarden doff 'd,
The parson smirk'd and nodded.
So sitting, served by man and maid.
She felt her heart grow prouder :
But ah ! the more the white goose laid
It clack 'd and cackled louder.
It elutter'd here, it chuckled there
It stirr'd the old wife's mettle :
She shifted in her elbow-chair,
And hurl'd the pan and kettle.
THE GOOSE. 185
VIII.
" A quinsy choke thy cursed note !
Then wax'd her anger stronger.
" Go, take the goose, and wring her throat,
I will not hear it lone:er. "
Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the cat ;
Ran Gaffer, stumhled Gammer.
The goose flew this way and flew that,
And fiU'd the house with clamour.
As head and heels upon the floor
They flounder 'd all together.
There strode a stranger to the door.
And it was windy weather :
XI.
He took the goose upon his arm,
He utter 'd words of scorning ;
" So keep you cold, or keep you warm,
It is a stormy morning."
The wild wind rang from park and plain,
And round the attics rumbled.
Till all the tables danced again.
And half the chimneys tumbled.
186 THE GOOSE.
XIII.
The glass blew in, the fire blew out,
The blast was hard and harder.
Her cap blew off, her gown blew up.
And a whirlwind clear'd the larder ;
XIV.
And while on all sides breaking loose
Her household fled the danger,
Quoth she, " The Devil take the goose.
And God forget the stranger ! "
POEMS
(published 1842.)
THE EPIC.
— * —
At Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve, —
The game of forfeits clone — the girls all kiss'd
Beneath the sacred bush and past away —
The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,
The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl,
Then half-way ebb'd : and there we held a talk.
How all the old honour had from Christmas gone,
Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games
In some odd nooks like this ; till I, tired out
With cutting eights that day upon the pond.
Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,
I bump'd the ice into three several stars.
Fell in a doze ; and half-awake I heard
The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,
Now harping on the church-commissioners,
Now hawking at Geology and schism ;
Until I woke, and found him settled down
Upon the general decay of faith
190 THE EPIC.
Right thro' the world, " at home was little left,
And none ahroad : there was no anchor, none,
To hold by." Francis, laughing, clapt his hand
On Everard's shoulder, with " I hold by him."
" And I," quoth Everard, " by the wassail-bowl."
" Why yes," I said, " we knew your gift that way
At college : but another which you had,
I mean of verse (for so we held it then,)
Wliat came of that?" "You know," said Frank, "he flung
His epic of King Arthur in the fire ! "
And then to me demanding why ? " Oh, sir.
He thought that nothing new was said,' or else
Something so said 'twas nothing — that a truth
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day :
God knows : he has a mint of reasons : ask.
It pleased me well enough." " ^ay, nay," said Hall,
" Why take the style of those heroic times ?
For nature brings not back the Mastodon,
Nor we those times ; and why should any man
Remodel models ? these twelve books of mine
Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing worth,
Mere chafi" and draff, much better burnt." " But I,"
Said Francis, " pick'd the eleventh from this hearth,
And have it : keep a thing, its use will come.
I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes."
He laugh'd, and I, though sleepy, like a horse
That hears the corn-bin open, prick 'd my ears ;
For I remember 'd Everard's college fame
MORTE D ARTHUR. ]<)]
When we were Freshmen : then at my request
He brought it ; and the poet little urged,
But with some prelude of disparagement,
Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes,
Deep-chested music, and to this result.
MORTE D'ARTHUR.
So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea ;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man.
Had fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord,
King Arthm- : then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights.
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere :
" The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we
192 MORTE D ARTHUR.
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds.
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made, —
Though ^lerlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more — but let what will be, be,
I am so deeply smitten through the helm
That without help I cannot last till mom.
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how
In those old days, one smnmer noon, an arm
Rose up from out the bosom of the lake.
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
Holding the sword — and how I row'd across
And took it, and have worn it, like a king :
And, wheresoever I am sung or told
In aftertime, this also shall be known :
But now delay not : take Excalibur,
And fling him far into the middle meer :
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word.
To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere :
" It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus.
Aidless, alone, and smitten through the helm.
A little thing may harm a wounded man.
Yet I thy best will all perform at full.
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word."
So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept
MORTE D ARTHUR. 19i
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down
By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake.
There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon,
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt :
For all the haft twinkled with diamond studs.
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood.
This way and that dividing the swift mind,
In act to throw : but at the last it seem'd
Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd
There in the many-knotted waterflags.
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.
So strode he back slow to the wounded king-
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere :
" Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave ?
What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ? "
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere :
" I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag."
To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale :
" Thou hast betray'd thy nature and tliy name,
1 ()4 MORTE D ARTHUR.
Not rendering true answer, as beseem 'd
Thy fiialty, nor like a noble kniglit :
For surer sign had foUow'd, either hand,
Or voice, or else a motion of the meer.
This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
I bad thee, watch, and lightly bring me word."
Then went Sir Bedivere the second time,
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought ;
But Avhen he saw the wonder of the hilt,
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote
His palms together, and he cried aloud.
" And if indeed I cast the brand away,
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note.
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth,
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.
What good should follow this, if this were done ?
What harm, undone ? deep harm to disobey.
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand
An act unprofitable, against himself ?
The King is sick, and knows not what he does.
What record, or what relic of my lord
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath
And rumours of a doubt ? but were this kept.
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,
Some one. might show it at a joust of arms.
MORTE D ARTHUR. 195
Saying, ' King Arthur's sword, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonel}"^ maiden of the Lake.
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.'
So might some old man speak in the aftertime
To all the people, winning reverence.
But now much honour and much fame were lost."
So spake he, clouded with his own conceit.
And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded King.
Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily :
" What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ? "
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere :
" I heard the water lapping on the crag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds."
To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath :
" Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
Unknightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me !
Authority forgets a dying king.
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye
That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art.
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,
In whom should meet the offices of all,
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt ;
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice.
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence :
o 2
196 MORTE D ARTHUR.
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,
I will arise and slay thee with my hands."
Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword.
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon.
And flashing round and round, and whu-l'd in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn.
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the northern sea.
So flash 'd and fell the brand Excalibur : .
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hUt, and brandish 'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the meer.
And lightly went the other to the King.
Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath :
" Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
Speak out : what is it thou hast heard, or seen ? "
And ansAver made the bold Sir Bedivere :
" Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
Not though I live three lives of mortal men,
So great a miracle as yonder hilt.
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him ;
But when I look'd again, behold an arm.
MORTE D ARTHUR. ]f)7
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful.
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him
Three times, and drew him under in the meer."
And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard :
" My end draws nigh ; 'tis time that I were gone.
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight.
And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die."
So saying, from the pavement he half rose,
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears,
And would have spoken, but he found not words,
Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands.
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs.
But, as he walk'd. King Arthur panted hard.
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King,
Muttering and murmuring at his ear " Quick, quick !
I fear it is too late, and I shall die."
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd,
Larger than human on the frozen hills.
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad.
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves
198 MORTE D ARTHUR.
And barren chasms, and all to left and right
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels —
And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon.
Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
Beneath them ; and descending they were ware
That all the decks were dense with stately forms
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — by these
Three Queens with crowns of gold — and from them rose
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars.
And, as it were one voice, an agony
Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes.
Or hath come, since the making of the world.
Then murmur 'd Arthur, " Place me in the barge,"
And to the barge they came. There those three Queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
But she, that rose the tallest of them all
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands,
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud.
And dropping bitter tears against his brow
Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white
And colourless, and like the wither'd moon
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ;
MORTE D ARTHUR. 199
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops
Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls —
That made his forehead like a rising sun
High from the diiis-throne — were parch'd with dust ;
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
So like a shatter 'd column lay the King ;
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.
Then loudly cried the hold Sir Bedivere,
" Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ?
For now I see the true old times are dead.
When every morning brought a nohle chance.
And every chance brought out a noble knight.
Such times have been not since the light that led
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.
But now the whole round table is dissolved
Which was an ioiage of the mighty world ;
And I, the last, go forth companionless.
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."
And slowly answer'd Arthm- from the barge :
" The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways.
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
200 MORTE D ARTHUR.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me ?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure ! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend ?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou setist — if indeed I go —
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion ;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow.
Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies
Deep-m^adow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some fidl-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death.
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
MORTE D ARTHUR. 201
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the meer the waiUng died away.
Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long
Had wink'd and thi'eaten'd darkness, flared and fell :
At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound,
And waked with silence, grunted " Good ! " hut we
Sat rapt : it was the tone with which he read —
Perhaps some modern touches here and there
Redeem 'd it from the charge of nothingness —
Or else we loved the man, and prized his work ;
I know not : hut we sitting, as I said,
The cock crew loud ; as at that time of year
The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn :
Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used,
" There now — that 's nothing ! " drew a little hack.
And drove his heel into the smoulder 'd log,
That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue :
And so to bed ; where yet in sleep I seem'd
To sail with Arthur under looming shores,
Point after point, till on to dawn, when dreams
Begin to feel the truth and stir of day,
To me, methought, who waited with a crowd.
There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore
King Arthur, like a modern gentleman
Of stateliest port ; and all the people cried.
202 MORTE D ARTHUR.
" Arthur is come again : he cannot die."
Then those that stood upon the hills hehind
Repeated — *' Come again, and thrice as fair ; "
And, further inland, voices echoed — " Come
With all good things, and war shall be no more."
At this a hundred bells began to peal.
That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed
The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas morn.
THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER;
OK,
THE PICTURES.
This morning is the morning of the day,
When I and Eustace from the city went
To see the Gardener's Daughter ; I and he.
Brothers in Art ; a friendship so complete
Portion 'd in halves between us, that we gi'ew
The fable of the city where we dwelt.
My Eustace might have sat for Hercules ;
So muscular he spread, so broad of breast.
He, by some law that holds in love, and draws
The greater to the lesser, long desired
A certain miracle of symmetry,
A miniature of loveliness, all grace
Summ'd up and closed in little ; — Juliet, she
So light of foot, so light of spirit — oh, she
To me myself, for some three careless moons,
204 THE GARDENER .S DAUGHTER ;
The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of nothing ! Know you not
Such touches are hut embassies of love,
To tamper with the feelings, ere he found
Empire for life ? but Eustace painted her.
And said to me, she sitting with us then,
" When will you paint like this ? " and I replied,
(My words were half in earnest, half in jest,)
" 'Tis not your work, hut Love's. Love, unperceived,
A more ideal Artist he than all,
Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes
Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair
More black than ashbuds in the front of ^larch."
And Juliet answer'd laughing, " Go and see
The Gardener's daughter : trust me, after that,
You scajfce can fail to match his masterpiece."
And up we rose, and on the spur we went.
Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.
News from the humming city comes to it
In sound of funeral or of marriage hells ;
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear
The windy clanging of the minster clock ;
Although between it and the garden lies
A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream,
That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar,
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge
OR, THE PICTURES. 205
Crown 'd with the minster-towers.
The fields between
Are dewy-fresh, brows'd by deep-uddor'd kine,
And all about the large lime feathers low,
The lime a summer home of murmurous wings.
In that still place she, hoarded in herself,
' Grew, seldom seen ; not less among us lived
Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard
Of Rose, the Gardener's daughter ? Where was he,
So blunt in memory, so old at heart.
At such a distance from his youth in grief.
That, having seen, forgot ? The common mouth,
So gross to express delight, in praise of her
Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love,
And Beauty such a mistress of the world.
And if I said that Fancy, led by Love,
Would play with flying forms and images.
Yet this is also true, that, long before
I look'd upon her, when I heard her name
My heart was like a prophet to my heart.
And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes.
That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds.
Born out of everything I heard and saw.
Flutter 'd about my senses and my soul ;
And vague desires, like fitful blasts of bahii
To one that travels quickly, made the air
Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought.
That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream
206 THE GARDENER S DAUGHTER ;
Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East,
Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn.
And sure this orbit of the memory folds
For ever in itself the day we went
To see her. All the land in flowery squares,
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind.
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud
Drew downward : but all else of Heaven was pure
Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge,
And May with me from head to heel. And now,
As though 'twere yesterday, as though it were
The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound,
(For those old Mays had thrice the life of these,)
Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze,
And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood,
Leaning his horns into the neighbour field,
And lowing to bis fellows. From the woods
Came voices of the well-contented doves.
The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy.
But shook his song together as he near'd
His happy home, the ground. To left and right.
The cuckoo told his name to all the hiUs ;
The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm ;
The redcap whistled ; and the nightingale
Sang loud, as though he were the bird of day.
And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me,
" Hear how the bushes echo ! by my life.
These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing
OR, THE PICTURES. 207
Like poets, from the vanity of song ?
Or have they any sense of why they sing ?
And would ihey praise the heavens for what they have? "
And I made answer, " Were there nothing else
For which to praise the heavens but only love,
That only love were cause enough for praise."
Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought,
And on we went ; but ere an hour had pass'd,
We reach 'd a meadow slanting to the North ;
Down which a well-worn pathway courted us
To one green Avicket in a privet hedge ;
This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk
Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned ;
And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew
Beyond us, as we enter 'd in the cool.
The garden stretches southward. In the midst
A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.
The garden-glasses shone, and momently
The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver lights.
" Eustace," I said, " this wonder keeps the house."
He nodded, but a moment afterwards
He cried, " Look I look ! " Before he ceased I turn'd.
And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there.
For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose,
That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught,
And blown across the walk. One arm aloft —
Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape —
Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood.
208 THE GARDENER S DAUGHTER ;
A single stream of all her soft brown hair
Pour'd on one side : the shadow of the flowers
Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering
Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist —
Ah, happy shade — and still went wavering down.
But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced
The greensward into greener circles, dipt,
And mix'd with shadows of the common ground !
But the fuU day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd
Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom,
And doubled his own warmth against her lips,
And on the bounteous wave of such a brjeast
As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade,
She stood, a sight to make an old man young.
So rapt, we near'd the house ; but she, a Rose
In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil.
Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn'd
Into the world without ; till close at hand.
And almost ere I knew mine own intent.
This murmm* broke the stillness of that air
Which brooded round about her :
" Ah, one rose,
One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull'd,
Were worth a hundi'ed kisses press' d on lips
Less exquisite than thine."
She look'd : but all
Sufi"used with blushes — neither self-possess 'd
Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that,
OR, THE PICTURES. 209
Divided in a graceful quiet — paused,
And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound
Her looser hair in braid, and stirr'd her lips
For some sweet answer, though no answer came,
Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it,
And moved away, and left me, statue-like.
In act to render thanks.
I, that whole day,
Saw her no more, although I linger'd there
Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star
Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk.
So home Ave went, and all the livelong way
With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me.
" Now," said he, " will you climb the top of Art.
You cannot fail but work in hues to dim
The Titianic Flora. Will you match
My Juliet ? you, not you, — the IMaster, Love,
A more ideal Artist he than all."
So home I went, but could not sleep for joy.
Reading her perfect features in the gloom,
Kissing the rose she gave me o'er and o'er,
And shaping faithful record of the glance
That graced the giving — such a noise of life
Swarm'd in the golden present, such a voice
Call'd to me from the years to come, and such
A length of bright horizon rimm'd the dark.
And all that night I heard the watchmen peal
The sliding season : all that night I heard
p
210 THE GARDENER S DAUGHTER ;
The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours.
The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good,
O'er the mute city stole with folded wings,
DistiUing odours on me as they weut
To greet their fairer sisters of the East.
Love at first sight, first-born, and heu- to all,
Made this night thus. Henceforward squall nor storm
Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt.
Light pretexts drew me : sometimes a Dutch love
For tulips ; then for roses, moss or musk,
To grace my city-rooms ; or fruits and cream
Served in the weeping elm ; and more and more
A word could bring the colour to my cheek ;
A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew ;
Love trebled life within me, and with each
The year increased.
The daughters of the year,
One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd :
Each garlanded with her peculiar flower
Danced into light, and died into the shade ;
And each in passing touch 'd with some new grace
Or seem'd to touch her, so that day by day,
Like one that never can be wholly known.
Her beauty grew ; tiU Autumn bi'ought an hour
For Eustace, Avhen I heard his deep " I will,"
Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold
From thence thro' all the worlds : but I rose up
Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes
OR, THE PICTURES. 211
Felt earth as air beneath me, till I reach 'tl
The wicket-gate, and found her standing there.
There sat we down upon a garden mound,
Two mutually enfolded ; Love, the third,
Between us, in the circle of his arms
Enwound us both ; and over many a range
Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers,
Across a hazy glimmer of the west,
Reveal 'd their shining windows : from them clash 'd
The hells ; we listen 'd ; with the time we play'd ;
We spoke of other things ; we coursed about
The subject most at heart, more near and near,
Like doves about a dovecote, wheeling round
The central Avish, until we settled there.
Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her.
Requiring, though I knew it was mine own.
Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear.
Requiring at her hand the greatest gift,
A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved ;
And in that time and place she answer'd me.
And in the compass of three little words.
More musical than ever came in one.
The silver fragments of a broken voice,
Made mo most happy, lisping " I am thine."
Shall I cease here ? Is this enough to say
That my desire, like all strongest hopes.
By its own energy fulfill' d itself.
Merged in completion ? Would you learn at full
p 2
212 THE GARDENER S DAUGHTER ;
How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades
Beyond all grades develop 'd ? and indeed
I had not staid so long to tell you all.
But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes,
Holdmg the folded annals of my youth ;
And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by,
And with a flying finger swept my lips,
And spake, " Be wise : not easily forgiven
Are those, who setting wide the doors, that bar
The secret bridal chambers of the heart.
Let in the day." Here, then, my words have end.
Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells —
Of that which came between, more sweet than each,
In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves
That tremble round a nightingale — in sighs
Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance,
Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might I not tell
Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given.
And vows, where there was never need of vows,
And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap
Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above
The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale
Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars ;
Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit.
Spread the light haze along the river-shores.
And in the hollows ; or as once we met
Unheedful, though beneath a whispering rain
Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind,
And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep.
OR, THE PICTURES, 21;
But this whole hour your eyes have been intent
On that veil'd picture — veil'd, for what it holds
May not be dwelt on by the common day.
This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul ;
Make thine heart ready with thine eyes : the time
Is come to raise the veil.
Behold her there,
As I beheld her ere she knew my heart,
My first, last love ; the idol of my youth.
The darling of my manhood, and, alas !
Now the most blessed memory of mine age.
DORA.
With farmer Allan at the farm abode ,
William and Dora, William was his son,
And she his niece. He often look'd at them,
And often thought " I '11 make them man and wife."
Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all,
And yearn 'd towards William ; but the youth, because
He had been always with her in the house.
Thought not of Dora.
Then there came a day
When Allan call'd his son, and said, " My son :
I married late, but I would wish to see
My grandchild on my knees before I die :
And I have set my heart upon a match.
Now therefore look to Dora ; she is well
To look to ; thrifty too beyond her age.
She is my brother's daughter : he and I
Had once hard words, and 2:>arted, and he died
DORA. 21;
In foreign lands ; but for his sake I bred
His daughter Dora : take her for your wife ;
For I have wish'd this marriage, night and day,
For many years." But Wilham answer'd short ;
" I cannot marry Dora ; by my hfe,
I will not marry Dora." Then the old man
Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said :
" You will not, boy ! you dare to answer thus !
But in my time a father's word was law,
And so it shall be now for me. Look to 't ;
Consider, William : take a month to think,
And let me have an answer to my wish ;
Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack.
And never more darken my doors again.'
But William answer'd madly ; bit his lips.
And broke away. The more he look'd at her
The less he liked her ; and his ways were harsh ;
But Dora bore them meekly. Then before
The month was out he left his father's house.
And hired himself to work within the fields ;
And half in love, half spite, he woo'd and wed
A labourer's daughter, Mary Morrison.
Then, when the bells were ringing, Allan call'd
His niece and said : " My girl, I love you well ;
But if you speak with him that was my son,
Or change a word with her he calls his wife,
My home is none of yours. My will is law."
And Dora promised, being meek. She thought.
216 DORA.
" It cannot be : my uncle's mind will change ! "
And days went on, and there was born a boy
To WiUiam ; then distresses came on him ;
And day by day he pass'd his father's gate.
Heart-broken, and his father help'd him not.
But Dora stored what little she could save,
And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know
Who sent it ; till at last a fever seized
On William, and in harvest time he died.
Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat
And look'd with tears upon her boy, and thought
Hard things of Dora. Dora came and said :
" I have obeyed my uncle until now,
And I have sinn'd, for it was all thro' me
This evil came on William at the first.
But, Mary, for the sake of him that 's gone.
And for your sake, the woman that he chose,
And for this orphan, I am come to you :
You know there has not been for these five years
So full a harvest : let me take the boy,
And I will set him in my uncle's eye
Among the wheat ; that when his heart is glad
Of the fuU harvest, he may see the boy.
And bless him for the sake of him that's gone."
And Dora took the child, and went her way
Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound
That was unsown, where many poppies grew.
Far off the farmer came into the field
DORA. 217
And spied her not ; for none of all his men
Dare tell him Dora waited with the child ;
And Dora would have risen and gone to him,
But her heart fail'd her ; and the reapers reap'd,
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark.
But when the morrow came, she rose and took
The child once more, and sat upon the mound ;
And made a little wreath of all the flowers
That grew ahout, and tied it round his hat
To make him pleasing in her uncle's eye.
Then when the farmer pass'd into the field
He spied her, and he left his men at work,
And came and said ; " Where were you yesterday ?
Whose child is that ! What are you doing here ? "
So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground.
And answer 'd softly, " This is William's child ! "
" And did I not," said Allan, "did I not
Forbid you, Dora ? " Dora said again ;
" Do with me as you will, hut take the child
And bless him for the sake of him that 's gone ! "
And Allan said, " I see it is a trick
Got up betwixt you and the woman there.
I must be taught my duty, and by you I
You knew my word was law, and yet you dared
To slight it. Well— for I will take the boy ;
But go you hence, and never see me more."
So saying, he took the boy, that cried aloud
And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers feU
218 DORA.
At Dora's feet. She bow'cl upon lier bands,
And the boy's cry came to her from the field,
More and more distant. She bow'd down her head,
Remembering the day when first she came,
And all the things that had been. She bow'd down
And wept in secret ; and the reapers reap'd.
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark.
Then Dora went to Mary's house, and stood
Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy
Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise
To God, that help'd her in her widowhood.
And Dora said, " My uncle took the boy ;
But, Mary, let me live and work with you :
He says that he will never see me more."
Then answer'd Mary, " This shall never be,
That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself:
And, now I think, he shall not have the boy,
For he will teach him hardness, and to slight
His mother ; therefore thou and I will go.
And I will have my boy, and bring him home ;
And I will beg of him to take thee back :
But if he ■will not take thee back again.
Then thou and I will live within one house,
And work for William's child, until he grows
Of age to help us."
So the women kiss'd
Each other, and set out, and reach'd the farm.
The door was off the latch : they peep'd, and saw
DORA. 219
The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees,
Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm,
And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks.
Like one that loved him ; and the lad stretch 'd out
And babbled for the golden seal, that hung
From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire.
Then they came in : but when the boy beheld
His mother, he cried out to come to her :
And Allan set him down, and Mary said :
" 0 Father ! — if you let me call you so —
I never came a-begging for myself,
Or William, or this child ; but now I come
For Dora : take her back ; she loves you well.
0 Sir, when William died, he died at peace
With all men ; for I ask'd him, and he said,
He could not ever rue his marrying me. —
1 had been a patient wife : but, Sir, he said
That he was wrong to cross his father thus :
' God bless him ! ' he said, ' and may he never know
The troubles I have gone thro' ! ' Then he turn'd
His face and pass'd — unhappy that I am !
But now. Sir, let me have my boy, for you
Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight
His father's memory ; and take Dora back,
And let all this be as it was before."
So Mary said, and Dora hid her face
By Mary. There was silence in the room ;
And all at once the old man burst in sobs : —
220 DORA.
" I have been to blame — to blame. I have kill'd my son.
I have kill'd him- — but I loved him — my dear son.
May God forgive me ! — I have been to blame.
Kiss me, my children."
Then they clung about
The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times.
And all the man was broken with remorse ;
And all his love came back a hundredfold ;
And for three hours he sobb'd o'er WilUam's child.
Thinking of William.
So those four abode
Within one house together ; and as years
Went forward, Mary took another mate ;
But Dora lived unmarried till her death.
AUDLEY COURT.
" The Bull, the Fleece are cramm'd, and not a room
For love or money. Let us picnic there
At Audley Court."
I spoke, while Audley feast
Humm'd like a hive all round the narrow quay,
To Francis, with a basket on his arm,
To Francis just alighted from the boat.
And breathing of the sea. " With all my heart,"
Said Francis. Then we shoulder 'd through the swarm,
And roimded by the stillness of the beach
To where the bay runs up its latest horn.
We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp'd
The flat red granite ; so by many a sweep
Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach 'd
The griffin-guarded gates, and pass'd thro' all
The pillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores,
And cross'd the garden to the gardener's lodge.
222 AUDLEY COURT.
With all its casements bedded, and its -walls
And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine.
There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid
A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound,
Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home.
And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly-made,
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay,
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
Imbedded and injellied ; last, with these,
A flask of cider from his father's vats.
Prime, which I knew ; and so we sat and eat
And talk'd old matters over : who was. dead.
Who married, who Avas like to be, and how
The races went, and who would rent the hall :
Then touch'd upon the game, how scarce it was
This season ; glancing thence, discuss'd the farm,
The fourfield system, and the price of grain ;
And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split,
And came again together on the king
With heated faces ; till he laugh' d aloud ;
And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung
To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang —
" Oh ! who would fight and march and countermarch.
Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field,
And shovell'd up into a bloody trench
Where no one knows ? but let me live my life.
" Oh ! who would cast and balance at a desk,
Perch'd like a crow upon a three-Iegg'd stool,
AUDLEY COURT. 223
Till all his juice is dried, aud all his joints
Are full of chalk ? but let me live my life.
" Who 'd serve the state ? for if I carv'd my name
Upon the cliffs that guard my native land,
I might as well have traced it in the sands ;
The sea wastes all : but let me live my life.
" Oh ! who would love ? I woo'd a woman once,
But she was sharper than an eastern wind,
And all my heart turn'd from her, as a thorn
Turns from the sea : but let me live my life."
He sang his song, and I replied with mine :
I found it in a volume, all of songs,
Knock'd down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride.
His books — the more the pity, so I said —
Came to the hammer here in March — and this —
I set the words, and added names I knew.
" Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep, and dream of me :
Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm,
Aud sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine.
" Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm ;
Emilia, fairer than all else but thou.
For thou art fairer than all else that is.
" Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast :
Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip :
I go to-night : I come to-morrow morn.
" I go, but I return : I would I were
The pilot of the darkness and the dream.
Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me."
224 AUDLEY COURT.
So sang we each to either, Francis Hale,
The farmer's son who Hved across the hay,
My friend ; and I, that having wherewithal,
And in the fallow leisure of my life,
Did what I would ; hut ere the night we rose
And saunter 'd home beneath a moon, that, just
In crescent, dimly rain'd about the leaf
Twilights of airy silver, till we reach'd
The limit of the hills ; and as we sank
From rock to rock upon the glooming quay.
The town was hush'd beneath us : lower down
The bay was oily-calm ; the harbour-buoy
With one green sparkle ever and anon
Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.
WALKING TO THE MAIL.
John. I 'm glad I walk'd. How fresh the meadows look
Above the river, and, but a month ago,
The whole hill-side was redder than a fox.
Is yon plantation where this byway joins
The turnpike ?
James. Yes.
John. And when does this come by ?
James. The mail ? At one o'clock.
John. What is it now ?
James. A quarter to.
John. Whose house is that I see
Beyond the watermills ?
James. Sir Edward Head's :
But he 's abroad : the place is to be sold.
John. Oh, his. He was not broken.
James. No, sir, he,
Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood
That veil'd the world with jaxmdice, hid his face
From all men, and commercing with himself,
Q
226 WALKING TO THE MAIL.
He lost the sense that handles daily life — •
That keeps us all in order more or less —
And sick of home went overseas for change.
John. And whither ?
James. Nay, who knows ? he 's here and there.
But let him go ; his devil goes with him,
As well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes.
John. What 's that ?
James. You saw the man but yesterday :
He pick'd the pebble from your horse's foot.
His house was haunted by a jolly ghost
That rummaged like a rat. No servant, staid :
The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs,
And all his household stuff ; and with his boy
Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt.
Sets forth, and meets a friend who hails him, *' What !
You're flitting ! " " Yes, we're flitting," says the ghost,
(For they had pack'd the thing among the beds,)
" Oh well," says he, " you flitting with us too —
Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again."
John. He left his wife behind ; for so I heard.
James. He left her, yes. I met my lady once :
A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs.
John. Oh yet but I remember, ten years back —
'Tis now at least ten years — and then she was —
You could not light upon a sweeter thing :
A body slight and round, and like a pear
In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot
WALKING TO THE MAIL. 227
Lessening In perfect cadence, and a skin
As clean and white as privet when it flowers.
James. Aj, ay, the blossom fades, and they that loved
At first like dove and dove were cat and dog.
She was the daughter of a cottager,
Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride,
New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd
To what she is : a nature never kind !
Like men, like manners : like breeds like, they say.
Kind nature is the best : those manners next
That fit us like a nature second-hand ;
Which are indeed the manners of the great.
John. But I had heard it was this bill that past,
And fear of change at home, that drove him hence.
James. That was the last drop in the cup of gall.
I once was near him, when his bailiff brought
A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince
As from a venomous thing : he thought himself
A mark for all, and shudder 'd, lest a cry
Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes
Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs
Sweat on his blazon'd chairs ; but, sir, you know
That these two parties still divide the world —
Of those that want, and those that have : and still
The same old sore breaks out from age to age
With much the same result. Now I myself,
A Tory to the quick, was as a boy
Destructive, when I had not what I would.
<i 2
228 WALKING TO THE MAIL.
I was at school — a college in the South :
There lived a flayflint near ; we stole his fruit,
His hens, his eggs ; but there was law for us ;
We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She,
With meditative grunts of much content,
Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and mud.
By night we dragg'd her to the college tower
From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew stair
With hand and rope we haled the groaning sow,
And on the leads we kept her till she pigg'd.
Large range of prospect had the mother sow.
And but for daily loss of one she loved, •
As one by one we took them — but for this —
As never sow was higher in this world —
Might have been happy : but what lot is pure ?
We took them all, till she was left alone
Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine,
And so return'd unfarrow'd to her sty.
John. They found you out ?
James. Not they.
John. Well — after all —
What know we of the secret of a man ?
His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound,
That we should mimic this raw fool the world,
Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites,
As ruthless as a baby with a worm.
As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows
To Pity — more from ignorance than will.
WALKING TO THE MAIL. 229
But put your best foot forward, or I fear
That we shall miss the mail : and here it comes
With five at top : as quaint a four-in-hand
As you shall see — three pyebalds and a roan.
ST. SIMEON STYLITES.
Altho' I be the basest of mankind,
From scalp to sole one slough and cru§t of sin,
Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet
For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy,
I wiU not cease to grasp the hope I hold
Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob.
Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer,
Have mercy. Lord, and take away my sin.
Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God,
This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years,
Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs.
In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold.
In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps,
A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud.
Patient on this tall pillar I have borne
Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow ;
And I had hoped that ere this period closed
Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest,
ST. SIMEON STYLITES. 231
Denying not these weather-beaten limbs
The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm.
0 take the meaning, Lord : I do not breathe,
Not whisper, any murmur of complaint.
Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold to this, were still
Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear,
Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush'd
My spirit flat before thee.
0 Lord, Lord,
Thou knowest I bore this better at the first.
For I was strong and hale of body then ;
And though my teeth, which now are dropt away.
Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard
Was tagg'd with icy fringes in the moon,
I drown 'd the whoopings of the owl with sound
Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw
An angel stand and Avatch me, as I sang.
Now am I feeble grown : my end draws nigh —
I hope my end draws nigh : half deaf I am.
So that I scarce can hear the people hum
About the column's base, and almost blind,
And scarce can recognise the fields J. know.
And both my thighs are rotted with the dew.
Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry,
While my stiff spine can hold my weary head,
Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone.
Have mercy, mercy : take away my sin.
0 Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul.
•232 ST. SIMEON STTLITES.
Who may be saved ? who is it may be saved ?
Who may be made a saint, if I fail here ?
Show me the man hath suffer 'd more than I.
For did not all thy martyrs die one death ?
For either they were stoned, or crucified,
Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn
In twain beneath the ribs ; but I die here
To-day, and whole yearo long, a life of death.
Bear witness, if I could have found a way
(And heedfully I sifted all my thought)
More slowly-painfid to subdue this home
Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and .hate,
I had not stinted practice, 0 my God.
For not alone this pillar-punishment,
Not this alone I bore : but while I lived
In the white convent down the valley there.
For many weeks about my loins I wore
The rope that haled the buckets from the well,
Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose ;
And spake not of it to a single soul,
Until the ulcer, eating through my skin,
Betray 'd my secret penance, so that all
My brethren marveU'd greatly. More than this
I bore, whereof, 0 God, thou knowest all.
Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee,
I lived up there on yonder mountain side.
My right leg chain 'd into the crag, I lay
Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones ;
ST. SIMEON STYLITES. 233
Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice
Black 'd with thy branding thunder, and sometimes
Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not.
Except the spare chance-gift of those that came
To touch my body and be heal'd, and hve :
And they say then that I work'd miracles,
Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind.
Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, 0 God,
Knowest alone whether this was or no.
Have mercy, mercy ; cover all my sin.
Then, that I might be more alone with thee.
Three years I lived upon a pillar, high
Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve ;
And twice three years I crouch 'd on one that rose
Twenty by measure ; last of all, I grew
Twice ten long weary weary years to this.
That numbers forty cubits from the soil.
I think that I have borne as much as this —
Or else I dream — and for so long a time.
If I may measm-e time by yon slow light.
And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns —
So much — even so.
And yet I know not well,
For that the evil ones come here, and say,
" Fall down, 0 Simeon : thou hast suffer 'd long
For ages and for ages ! " then they prate
Of penances I cannot have gone thro'.
Perplexing me with lies ; and oft I fall,
234 ST. SIMEON STYLITES.
Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies,
That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked.
But yet
Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints
Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth
House in the shade of comfortable roofs.
Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food,
And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls,
I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light.
Bow down one thousand and two hundred times.
To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints ;
Or in the night, after a little sleep,
I wake : the chill stars sparkle ; I am wet
With di'enching dews, or stiff with crackling frost.
I wear an undress 'd goatskin on my back ;
A grazing iron collar grinds my neck ;
And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross.
And strive and wrestle with thee till I die :
0 mercy, mercy ! wash away my sin.
0 Lord, thou knowest what a man I am ;
A sinful man, conceived and born in sin :
'Tis their own doing ; this is none of mine ;
Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this.
That here come those that worship me ? Ha ! ha !
They think that I am somewhat. What am I ?
The silly people take me for a saint.
And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers :
And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here)
ST. SIMEON STTLITES. 235
Have all in all endured as much, and more
Than many just and holy men, whose names
Are register'd and calendar 'd for saints.
Good people, you do ill to kneel to me.
What is it I can have done to merit this ?
I am a sinner viler than you all.
It may be I have wrought some miracles,
And cured some halt and maim'd ; hut what of that ?
It may be, no one, even among the saints,
May match his pains with mine ; hut what of that ?
Yet do not rise : for you may look on me.
And in your looking you may kneel to God.
Speak ! is there any of you halt or maim'd ?
I think you know I have some power with Heaven
From my long penance : let him speak his wish.
Yes, I can heal him. Power goes forth from me.
They say that they are heal'd. Ah, hark ! they shout
" St. Simeon Stylites." Why, if so,
God reaps a harvest in me. 0 my soul,
God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be.
Can I Avork miracles and not be saved ?
This is not told of any. They were saints.
It cannot be but that I shall be saved ;
Yea, crown'd a saint. They shout, " Behold a saint !
And lower voices saint me from above.
Courage, St. Simeon ! This dull chrysalis
Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death
Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now
236 ST. SIMEON STTLITES.
Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all
My mortal archives.
0 my sons, my sons,
I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname
Stylites, among men ; I, Simeon,
The watcher on the column till the end ;
I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes ;
I, whose bald brows in silent hours become
Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now
From my high nest of penance here proclaim
That Pontius and Iscariot by my side
Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay,
A vessel full of sin : all hell beneath
Made me boil over. Devils pluck' d my sleeve ;
Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me.
I smote them with the cross ; they swarm'd again.
In bed like monstrous apes they crush 'd my chest.
They flapp'd my light out as I read : I saw
Their faces grow between me and my book :
With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine
They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left
And by this way I 'scaped them. Mortify
Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns ;
Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast
Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps-
With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain —
Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still
Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise :
ST. SIMEON STYLITES. 237
God only thro' his bounty hath thought fit
Among the powers and princes of this world,
To make me an example to mankind,
Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say
But that a time may come — yea, even now,
Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs
Of life — I say, that time is at the doors
When you may worship me without reproach ;
For I will leave my relics in your land.
And you may carve a shrine about my dust,
And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones,
When I am gather 'd to the glorious saints.
While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain
Ran shrivelling thro' me, and a cloudlike change,
In passing, with a grosser film made thick
These heavy, horny eyes. The end ! the end !
Surely the end ! What 's here ? a shape, a shade,
A flash of light. Is that the angel there
That holds a crown ? Come, blessed brother, come.
I know thy glittering face. I waited long ;
My brows are ready. What ! deny it now ?
Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ !
'Tis gone : 'tis here again ; the crown ! the crown !
So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me,
And from it melt the dews of Paradise,
Sweet ! sweet ! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense.
Ah ! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints : I trust
That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven.
238 ST. SIMEON STTLITES.
Speak, if tliei'e be a priest, a man of God,
Among you there, and let him presently
Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft,
And climbing up into my airy home,
Deliver me the blessed sacrament ;
For by the "warning of the Holy Ghost,
I prophesy that I shall die to-night,
A quarter before twelve.
But thou, 0 Lord,
Aid all this foolish people ; let them take
Example, pattern : lead them to thy light.
THE TALKING OAK.
Once more the gate behind me falls ;
Once more before my face
I see the moulder 'd Abbey-walls,
That stand within the chace.
Beyond the lodge the city lies,
Beneath its drift of smoke ;
And ah ! with what delighted eyes
I tm"n to yonder oak.
For when my passion first began.
Ere that, which in me burn'd,
The love, that makes me thrice a man,
Could hope itself return'd ;
240 THE TALKING OAK.
To yonder oak within the field
I spoke without restraint,
And with a larger faith appeal 'd
Than Papist unto Saint.
For oft I talk'd with him apart,
And told him of my choice.
Until he plagiarised a heart.
And answer' d with a voice.
Tho' what he whisper 'd, under Heaven
None else could understand ;
I found him garrulously given,
A babbler in the land.
But since I heard him make reply
Is many a weary hour ;
'Twere well to question him, and try
If yet he keeps the power.
Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,
Broad Oak of Sumner-chace,
Whose topmost branches can discern
The roofs of Sumner-place !
THE TALKING OAK. 241
IX.
Say thou, whereon I carved her name,
If ever maid or spouse,
As fan* as my Olivia, came
To rest beneath thy boughs.^ —
" 0 Walter, I have shelter 'd here
Whatever maiden grace
The good old Summers, year by year,
Made ripe in Sumner-chace :
" Old Summers, when the monk was fat,
And, issuing shorn and sleek,
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat
The girls upon the cheek.
" Ere yet, in scorn of Peter 's-pence.
And number 'd bead, and shrift,
Bluff Harry broke into the spence,
And turn'd the cowls adrift :
XIII.
" And I have seen some score of those
Fresh faces, that would thrive
When his man-minded offset rose
To chase the deer at five ;
•242 THE TALKING OAK.
XIV.
" And all that from the town would stroll,
Till that wild wind made work
In which the gloomy brewer's soul
Went by me, like a stork :
" The slight she-slips of loyal blood,
And others, passing praise,
Strait-laced, but aU-too-full in bud
For puritanic stays :
" And I have shadow^'d many a group
Of beauties, that were born
In teacup-times of hood and hoop,
Or while the patch was worn ;
XVII.
" And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,
About me leap'd and laugh'd
The modish Cupid of the day.
And shrill'd his tinsel shaft.
" I swear (and else may insects prick
Each leaf into a gall)
This girl, for whom your heart is sick.
Is three times worth them all ;
THE TALKING OAK. 243
XIX.
" For those and theirs, by Nature's law,
Have faded long ago ;
But in these latter springs I saw
Your own Ohvia blow,
" From when she gamboll'd on the greens,
A babj-germ, to when
The maiden blossoms of her teens
Could number five from ten.
" I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain,
(And hear me with thine ears,)
That, tho' I circle in the grain
Five hundred rings of years —
XXII.
" Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
Did never creature pass
So slightly, musically made.
So light upon the grass :
XXIII.
" For as to fairies, that will flit
To make the greensward fresh,
I hold them exquisitely knit,
But far too spare of flesh."
244 THE TALKING OAK.
XXIV.
Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
And overlook the chace ;
And from thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place.
XXV.
But thou, whereon I carved her name,
That oft hast heard my vows.
Declare when last Olivia came
To sport beneath thy boughs.
" 0 yesterday, you know, the fair
Was holden at the town ;
Her father left his good arm-chair,
And rode his hunter down.
XXVII.
" And with him Albert came on his.
I look'd at him with joy :
As cowslip unto oxlip is.
So seems she to the boy.
An hour had past — and, sitting straight
Within the low-wheel'd chaise,
Her mother trundled to the gate
Behind the dappled grays.
THE TALKING OAK. 24.5
" But, as for her, she staid at home,
And on the roof she went.
And down the way you use to come
She look'd with discontent.
XXX.
" She left the novel half-uncut
Upon the rosewood shelf ;
She left the new piano shut :
She could not please herself.
" Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,
And livelier than a lark
She sent her voice through all the holt
Before her, and the pai-k.
XXXIl.
" A light wind chased her on the wina:,
And in the chase grew wild.
As close as might be would he clins:
About the darling child :
XXXIII.
" But light as any wind that blows
So fleetly did she stir.
The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose,
And turn'd to look at her.
246 THE TALKING OAK.
XXXIV.
" Aud here she came, and round me play'd,
And sang to me the whole
Of those three stanzas that you made
About my ' giant bole ; '
XXXV.
" And in a fit of frolic mirth
She strove to span ni}^ waist :
Alas, I was so broad of girth,
I could not be embraced.
" I wish'd myself the fair young beech
That here beside me stands.
That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have lock'd her hands.
" Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet
As woodbine's fragile hold.
Or when I feel about my feet
The berried briony fold."
0 muffle round thy knees with fern.
And shadow Sunmer-chace !
Long may thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place !
THE TALKING OAK. 247
XXXIX.
But tell me, did she read the name
I carved with many vows
When last with throbbing heart I came
To rest beneath thy boughs ?
0 yes, she wander 'd round and round
These knotted knees of mine,
And found, and kiss'd the name she found,
And sweetly murmur'd thine.
" A teardrop trembled from its source,
And down my surface crept.
My sense of touch is something coarse,
But I believe she wept.
" Then flush 'd her cheek with rosy light,
She glanced across the plain ;
But not a creature was in sight :
She kiss'd me once again.
XLIIl.
" Her kisses were so close and kind,
That, trust me on my word,
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,
But yet my sap was stirr'd ;
248 THE TALKING OAK.
XLIV.
*' And even into my inmost ring
A pleasm-e I discern'd,
Like those blind motions of the Spring,
That show the year is turn'd.
XLV.
" Thrice-happy he that may caress
The ringlet's waving balm —
The cushions of whose touch may press
The maiden's tender palm.
" I, rooted here among the groves,
But languidly adjust
My vapid vegetable loves
With anthers and with dust :
" For ah ! the Dryad-days were brief
Whereof the poets talk.
When that, which breathes within the leaf.
Could slip its bark and walk.
XLVIII.
" But could I, as in times foregone,
From spray, and branch, and stem.
Have suck'd and gather'd into one
The life that sjweads in them,
TEE TALKING OAK. 249
XLIX.
She had not found me so remiss ;
But lightly issuing thro',
I would have paid her kiss for kiss
With usury thereto."
0 flourish high, with leafy towers,
And overlook the lea,
Pursue thy loves among the bowers.
But leave thou mine to me.
0 flourish, hidden deep in fern,
Old oak, 1 love thee well ;
A thousand thanks for what I learn
And what remains to tell.
LII.
" 'Tis little more : the day was warm ;
At last, tired out with play.
She sank her head upon her arm,
And at my feet she lay.
LIII.
" Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves.
I breathed upon her eyes
Thro' all the summer of my leaves
A welcome mix'd with sisihs.
250 THE TALKING OAK.
LIV.
" I took the swarming sound of life —
The music from the town —
The whispers of the drum and fife,
And hiU'd them in my own.
" Sometimes I let a sunheam slip,
To light her shaded eye ;
A second flutterd round her lip
Like a golden butterfly ;
LVI. '
" A third would glimmer on her neck
To make the necklace shine ;
Another slid, a sunny fleck.
From head to ancle fine.
LVII.
" Then close and dark my arms I spread,
And shadow 'd all her rest —
Dropt dews upon her golden head.
An acorn in her breast.
But in a pet she started up.
And pluck'd it out, and drew
My little oakling from the cup.
And fluno; him in the dew.
THE TALKING OAK. 251
LIX.
" And yet it was a graceful gift —
I felt a pang within
As when I see the woodman lift
His axe to slay my kin.
LX.
" I shook him down because he was
The finest on the tree.
He lies beside thee on the grass.
0 kiss him once for me.
Lxr.
" 0 kiss him twice and thrice for me.
That have no lips to kiss,
For never yet was oak on lea
Shall grow so fair as this."
Step deeper yet in herb and fern.
Look further thro' the chace,
Spread upward till thy boughs discern
The front of Sumner-place.
This fruit of thine by Love is blest.
That but a moment lay
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest
Some happy future day.
252 THE TALKING OAK.
LXIV.
I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,
The warmth it thence shall win
To riper life may magnetise
The baby-oak within.
LXV.
But thou, while kingdoms overset,
Or lapse from hand to hand,
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
Thine acorn in the land.
May never saw dismember thee,
Nor wielded axe disjoint.
That art the fairest spoken tree
From here to Lizard-point.
0 rock upon thy towery top
All throats that gurgle sweet !
All starry culmination drop
Balm-dews to bathe thy feet I
I.XVIII.
All grass of silky feather grow —
And while he sinks or swells
The full south-breeze around thee blow
The sound of minster bells.
THE TALKING OAK. 253
LXIX.
The fat earth feed thy branchy root,
That under deeply strikes !
The northern morning o'er thee shoot,
High up, in silver spikes !
LXX.
Nor ever lightning char thy grain,
But, rolling as in sleep.
Low thunders bring the mellow rain.
That makes thee broad and deep !
LXXI.
And hear me swear a solemn oath,
That only by thy side
Will I to Olive plight my troth,
And gain her for my bride.
LXXII.
And when my marriage-morn may fall.
She, Dryad-like, shall wear
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball
In wreath about her hair.
And I will work in prose and rhyme,
And praise thee more in both
Than bard has honour'd beech or lime,
Or that Thessalian 2;rowth,
•254 THE TALKING OAK.
LXXIV.
In which the swarthy ringdove sat,
And mystic sentence spoke ;
And more than England honours that,
Thy famous brother-oak,
LXXV.
Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,
And far below the Roundhead rode,
And humm'd a surly hymn.
LOVE AND DUTY.
Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel ? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts ?
Or all the same as if he had not been ?
Not so. Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth ? 0 shall the braggart shout
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire ? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun ?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust ? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself ?
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
256 LOVE AND DUTY.
But am I not the nobler thro' thy love ?
0 three times less unworthy ! likewise thou
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.
The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon
Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring
The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit
Of wisdom. Wait : my faith is large in Time,
And that which shapes it to some perfect end.
Will some one say, then why not ill for good ?
Why took ye not your pastime ? To that man
My work shall answer, since I knew the right
And did it ; for a man is not as God,
But then most Godlike being most a man.
— So let me think 'tis well for thee and me —
Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine
Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow
To feel it ! For how hard it seem'd to me.
When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, would dwell
One earnest, earnest moment upon mine,
Then not to dare to see ! when thy low voice.
Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep
My own full-tuned, — hold passion in a leash.
And not leap forth and fall about thy neck,
And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!)
Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh 'd
Upon my brain, my senses and my soul !
For Love himself took part against himself
To warn us ofi", and Duty loved of Love —
LOVE AND DUTY. 257
0 this world's curse, — beloved but hated — came
Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,
And crying, " Who is this ? behold thy bride,"
She pusli'd me from thee.
If the sense is hard
To alien ears, I did not speak to these —
No, not to thee, but to thyself in me :
Hard is my doom and thine : thou knowest it all.
Could Love part thus ? was it not well to speak.
To have spoken once ? It could not but be well.
The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good,
The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill.
And all good things from evil, brought the night
In which we sat together and alone,
And to the want, that hollow 'd all the heart.
Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye,
That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears
As flow but once a life.
The trance gave way
To those caresses, when a hundred times
In that last kiss, which never was the last,
Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.
Then foUow'd counsel, comfort, and the words
That make a man feel strong in speaking truth ;
Till now the dark was worn, and overhead
The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd
In that brief night ; the summer night, that paused
Among her stars to hear us ; stars that hung
s
258 LOVE AND DUTY.
Love-charm'd to listen : all the wheels of Time
Spun round in station, but the end had come.
0 then like those, who clench their nerves to rush
Upon their dissolution, we two rose,
There — closing like an individual life —
In one blind cry of passion and of pain.
Like bitter accusation ev'n to death,
Caught up the whole of love and utter 'd it,
And bade adieu for ever.
Live — yet live —
Shall sharpest pathos bhght us, knowing all
Life needs for life is possible to will — ,
Live happy ! tend thy flowers : be tended by
My blessing ! should my shadow cross thy thoughts
Too sadly for their peace, so put it back
For calmer hours in memory's darkest hold,
If unforgotten ! should it cross thy dreams,
So might it come like one that looks content,
With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth,
And point thee forward to a distant light.
Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart
And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh 'd,
Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown
Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of pearl
Far furrowing into light the mounded rack,
Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.
THE GOLDEN YEAR.
Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote
It was last summer on a tour in Wales :
Old James was with me : we that day had been
Up Snowdon ; and I wish'd for Leonard there,
And found him in Llanberis ; and that same song
He told me ; for I banter 'd him, and swore
They said he lived shut up within himself,
A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days.
That, setting the how much before the how.
Cry like the daughters of the horseleech, " give.
Cram us with all," but count not me the herd !
To which " They call me what they will," he said
But I was born too late : the fair-new forms.
That float about the threshold of an age,
Like truths of Science waiting to be caught —
Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd —
Are taken by the forelock. Let it be.
But if you care indeed to listen, hear
These measured words, my work of yestermorn.
260 THE GOLDEN TEAR.
" We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move ;
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun ;
The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse ;
And human things returning on themselves
Move onward, leading up the golden year.
"Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud,
Are but as poets' seasons when they flower,
Yet seas that daily gain upon the shore
Have ebb and flow conditioning their march.
And slow and sure comes up the golden year.
" When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt^
In many streams to fatten lower lands,
And light shall spread, and man be liker man
Thro' all the season of the golden year.
' ' Shall eagles not be eagles ? wrens be wrens ?
If aU the world were falcons, what of that ?
The wonder of the eagle were the less,
But he not less the eagle. Happy days
Roll onward, leading up the golden year.
" Fly happy happy sails and bear the Press ;
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross ;
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward
With .silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toU,
Enrich the markets of the golden year.
" But we grow old. Ah ! when shall aU men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
THE GOLDEN YEAR. 261
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the chcle of the golden year ? "
Thus far he flow'd, and ended ; whereupon
" Ah, folly ! " in mimic cadence answer'd James —
" Ah, folly ! for it lies so far away.
Not in our time, nor in our children's time,
'Tis like the second world to us that live,
'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven
As on this vision of the golden year."
With that he struck his staff against the rocks
And broke it, — 'James, — you know him, — old, but full
Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet,
And like an oaken stock in winter woods,
O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis :
Then added, all in heat :
"What stuff is this!
Old writers push'd the happy season back, —
The more fools they, — we forward : dreamers both :
You most, that in an age, when every hour
Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death.
Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt
Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip
His hand into the bag : but well I know
That unto him who works, and feels he works,
This same grand year is ever at the doors."
He spoke ; and, high above us, I heard them blast
The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap
And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff.
ULYSSES.
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags.
Match 'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws imto a savage race.
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel : I will drink
Life to the lees : all times I have enjoy 'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone ; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea : I am become a name ;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known ; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments.
Myself not least, but honour 'd of them all ;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met ;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
ULYSSES. 263
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use !
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains : but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things ; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself.
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemaehus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle —
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port : the vessel pub's her sail :
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners.
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
264 ULYSSES.
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old ;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ;
Death closes all : hut something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks :
The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs : the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down :
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides ; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are ;
One equal temper of heroic hearts.
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
LOCKSLEY HALL.
Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis earlj'
morn :
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the
bugle horn.
'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews
call
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley
Hall;
Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy
tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.
Many a night from yonder Ivied casement, ere I went to
rest.
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.
266 LOCKSLET HALL.
Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow-
shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver
braid.
Here about the beach I wander 'd, nourishing a youth
sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of
Time;
When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land
reposed ;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it
closed :
^Vhen I dipt into the future far as human eye could see ;
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that
would be.
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the Robin's
breast :
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another
crest ;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd
dove ;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts
of love.
LOCKSLEY HALL. 267
Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for
one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance
hung.
And I said, " My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth
to me,
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to
thee."
On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a
light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern
night.
And she turn'd — her bosom shaken with a sudden storm
of sighs —
All the spii-it deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes —
Saying, " I have hid my feelings, fearing they should
do me wrong ; "
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I
have loved thee long."
Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his
glowing hands ;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden
sands.
268 LOCKSLET HALL.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the
chords ■with might ;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music
out of sight.
Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses
ring,
And her whisper throng'J my pidses with the fulness of
the Spring.
Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately
ships.
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.
0 my cousin, shallow-hearted ! 0 my Amy, mine no
more !
0 the dreary, dreary moorland ! 0 the barren, barren
shore !
Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have
sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish
tongue !
Is it well to wish thee happy ? — having known me — to
decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than
mine !
LOCKSLEY HALL. 269
Yet it shall be : thou shalt lower to his level day by
day,
What is fiue within thee growing coarse to sympathise
with clay.
As the husband is, the wife is : thou art mated with a
clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag
thee down.
He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its
novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his
horse.
What is this ? his eyes are heavy : think not they are
glazed with wine.
Go to him : it is thy duty : kiss him : take his hand in
thine.
It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought :
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy
lighter thought.
He will answer to the purpose, easy things to under-
stand—
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with
my hand !
270 LOCKSLET HALL.
Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's
disgrace,
RoU'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.
Cursed he the social wants that sin against the strength
of youth !
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living
truth !
Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's
rule !
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of
the fool !
Well— 'tis well that I should bluster! — Hadst thou less
unworthy proved —
Would to God — for I had loved thee more than ever
wife was loved.
Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but
bitter fruit ?
I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the
root.
Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years
should come
As the many-winter 'd crow that leads the clanging rookery
home.
LOCKSLEY HALL. 271
Where is comfort ? in division of the records of the
mind ?
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her,
kind?
I remember one that perish 'd : sweetly did she speak and
move :
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to
love.
Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she
bore ?
No — she never loved me truly : love is love for evermore.
Comfort ? comfort scorn'd of devils ! this is truth the poet
sings.
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier
things.
Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be
put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the
roof.
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at
the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows
rise and fall.
•272 LOCKSLEY HALL.
Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken
sleep,
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou
wilt weep.
Thou shalt hear the " Never, never," whisper'd by the
phantom years.
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine
ears ;
And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on
thy pain.
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow : get thee to thy rest
again.
Nay, but Nature brings thee solace ; for a tender voice
will cry.
'Tis a purer life than thine ; a lip to di-ain thy trouble dry.
Baby lips wiU laugh me down : my latest rival brings
thee rest.
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's
breast.
0, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not
his due.
Half is thine and half is his : it will be worthy of the
two.
LOCKSLEY HALL. 273
0, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a
daughter's heart.
" They were dangerous guides the feelings — she herself
< was not exempt —
Truly, she herself had suffer 'd" — Perish in thy self-
contempt I
Overlive it — ^lower yet — be happy ! wherefore should
I care ?
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.
What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days
like these?
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden
keys.
Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets over-
flow.
I have but an angry fancy : what is that which I should
do?
I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's
ground.
When the ranks are roU'd in vapour, and the winds are
laid with sound.
274 LOCKSLEY HALL.
But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour
feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's
heels.
Can I but relive in sadness ? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, 0 thou wondrous
Mother- Age !
Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the
strife.
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my
life;
Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years
would yield.
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's
field,
And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer
drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary
dawn ;
And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him
then.
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs
of men ;
LOCKSLEY HALL. 075
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping some-
thing new :
That wliich they have done but earnest of the things that
they shall do :
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could
see.
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that
would be ;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic
sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly
bales ;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a
ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central
blue ;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind
rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the
thunder-storm ;
Till the wai'-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags
were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
T 2
276 LOCKSLEY HALL.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful
realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
So I triumph'd, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left
me dry.
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the
jaundiced eye ;
Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of
joint,
Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point
to point :
Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping
nigher.
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying
fire.
Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose
runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen 'd with the process of
the suns.
What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youth-
ful joys,
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a
boy's ?
LOCKSLEY HALL. 277
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on
the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and
more.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a
laden breast,
FuU of sad experience moving toward the stillness of his
rest.
Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the
bugle-horn.
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their
scorn :
Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd
string ?
I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight
a thing.
Weakness to be wroth with weakness ! woman's pleasure,
woman's pain —
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shal-
lower brain :
Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd
with mine.
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine —
278 LOCKSLEY HALL.
Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for
some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my hfe began to
beat ;
Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starred ;
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.
Or to burst aU links of habit — there to wander far away.
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.
Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy
skies.
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of
Paradise.
Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
SHdes the bird o'er lustrous woodland, droops the trailer
from the crag ;
Droops the heavy-blossom 'd bower, hangs the heavy-
fruited tree —
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.
There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this
march of mind,
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that
shake mankind.
LOCKSLEY HALL. 279
Tliere the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope
and breathing-space ;
I will take some savage woman, she shall I'ear my dusky
race.
Iron-jointed, supple-sinew 'd, they shall dive, and they
shall run,
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in
the sun ;
Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of
the brooks,
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books —
Fool, again the dream, the fancy ! but I know my words
are wild,
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian
child.
/, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious
gains.
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower
pains !
Mated Avith a squalid savage — what to me were sun or
clime ?
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of
time —
280 LOCKSLEY HALL.
I that rather held it better men should perish one by
one,
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua s moon
in Ajalon !
Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let
us range.
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves
of change.
Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger
day ;
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
Mother-age (for mine I knew not) help me as when
life begun :
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings,
weigh the Sun —
0, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not
set.
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy
yet.
Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley
Hall!
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-
tree fall.
LOCKSLEY HALL. 281
Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath
and holt,
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunder-
bolt.
Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or
snow ;
For the mighty wind ai'ises, roaring seaward, and I go.
GO DIVA.
1 waited for the train at Coventry ;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To watch the three tall spires ; and tJ^ere I shaped
The city's ancient legend into this : —
Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in the flying of a -wheel
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well.
And loathed to see them overtax 'd ; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry : for when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamouring, " If we pay, we starve I "
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
About the hall, among his dogs, alone.
His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears.
283
And pray'd liim, " If they pay this tax, they starve."
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
" You would not let your little finger ache
For such as these ?" — " But I would die," said she.
He laugh 'd, and swore hy Peter and by Paul :
Then fiUip'd at the diamond in her ear ;
" 0 ay, ay, ay, you talk ! " — " Alas ! " she said,
" But prove me what it is I would not do."
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand.
He answer'd, " Ride you naked thro' the town.
And I repeal it ;" and nodding, as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind.
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth.
And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition ; but that she would loose
The people : therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing ; but that all
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift ; but ever at a breath
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud : anon she shook her head,
And showcr'd the rippled ringlets to her knee ;
284 60DITA.
Unclad herself in haste ; adown the stair
Stole on ; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach 'd
The gateway ; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.
Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity :
The deep air listen 'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-moulh'd heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see : the barking cm-
Made her cheek flame : her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors thro' her pulses : the bhnd walls
Were full of chinks and holes ; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared : but she
Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways in the wall.
Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity :
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth.
The fatal byword of all years to come.
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peep'd — but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head.
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused ;
And she, that knew not, pass'd : and all at once.
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
Was clash'd and hammer 'd from a hundred towers.
60DIVA. 285
One after one : but even then she gain'd
Her bower ; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.
THE TWO VOICES.
A STILL small voice spake unto me,
" Thou art so full of misery.
Were it not better not to be ? "
Then to the still small voice I said ;
" Let me not cast in endless shade
What is so wonderfully made."
To which the voice did urge reply ;
" To-day I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
" An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk : from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
" He dried his wings : like gauze they grew
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew."
THE TWO VOICES. 287
I said, " When first the world began,
Youug Nature thro' five cycles ran,
And in the sixth she moulded man.
" She gave him mind, the lordliest
Proportion, and, above the rest,
Dominion in the head and breast."
Thereto the silent voice rephed ;
" Self-blinded are you by your pride :
Look up thro' night : the world is wide.
' ' This truth within thy mind rehearse,
That in a boundless universe
Is boundless better, boundless worse.
" Think you this mould of hopes and fears
Could find no statelier than his peers
In yonder hundred million spheres ? "
It spake, moreover, in my mind :
" Tho' thou wert scatter 'd to the wind.
Yet is there plenty of the kind."
Then did my response clearer fall :
" No compound of this earthly ball
Is like another, all in all."
288 THE TWO VOICES.
To which he answer 'd scoffingly ;
" Good soul ! suppose I grant it thee,
Who '11 weep for thy deficiency ?
" Or will one beam be less intense,
When thy peculiar difference
Is cancell'd in the world of sense ? "
I would have said, " Thou canst not know,"
But my full heart, that work'd below,
Rain'd thro' my sight its ovei-flow.
Again the voice spake unto me :
" Thou art so steep 'd in misery,
Surely 'twere better not to be.
" Thine anguish will not let thee sleep,
Nor any train of reason keep :
Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep."
I said, " The years with change advance :
If I make dark my countenance,
I shut my life from happier chance.
" Some turn this sickness yet might take,
Ev'n yet." But he : " What drug can make
A wither'd palsy cease to shake ? "
THE TWO VOICES. 289
I wept, " Tho' I should die, I know
That all about the thorn will blow
In tufts of rosy-tinted snow ;
" And men, thro' novel spheres of thought
Still moving after truth long sought.
Will learn new things when I am not."
" Yet," said the secret voice, " some time.
Sooner or later, will gray prime ^
Make thy grass hoar with early rime.
" Not less swift souls that yearn for light,
Rapt after heaven's starry flight.
Would sweep the tracts of day and night.
" Not less the bee would range her cells,
The furzy prickle fire the dells.
The foxglove cluster dappled bells."
I said that " all the years invent ;
Each month is various to present
The world with some development.
" Were this not well, to bide mine hour,
Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower
How grows the day of human power ? ' '
290 THE TWO VOICES.
" The highest-mounted mind," he said,
" Still sees the sacred morning spread
The silent summit overhead.
" Will thirty seasons render plain
Those lonely lights that still remain.
Just breaking over land and main ?
" Or make that morn, from his cold crown
And crystal silence creeping down,
Flood with full daylight glebe and town ?
" Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let
Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set
In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet.
" Thou hast not gain'd a real height,
Nor art thou nearer to the hght,
Because the scale is infinite.
" 'Twere better not to breathe or speak,
Than cry for strength, remaining weak.
And seem to find, but still to seek.
" Moreover, but to seem to find
Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd,
A healthy frame, a quiet mind."
THE TWO VOICES. 291
I said, " When I am gone away,
' He dared not tarry,' men will say,
Doing dishonour to my clay."
" This is more vile," he made reply,
" To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh.
Than once from dread of pain to die.
" Sick art thou — a divided will
Still heaping on the fear of ill
The fear of men, a coward still.
" Do men love thee ? Art thou so bound
To men, that how thy name may sound
Will vex thee lying underground ?
" The memory of the wither 'd leaf
In endless time is scarce more brief
Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf.
" Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust ;
The right ear, that is fill'd with dust,
Hears little of the false or just."
" Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried,
" From emptiness and the waste wide
Of that abyss, or scornful pride !
V 2
292 THE TWO VOICES.
" Nay — rather yet that I could raise
One hope that warm'd me in the days
"Wliile still I yearn'd for human praise.
" When, wide in soul and bold of tongue,
Among the tents I paused and sung,
The distant battle flash 'd and rung.
" I sung the joyful Paean clear,
And, sitting, burnish 'd without fear
The brand, the buckler, and the spear —
" Waiting to strive a happy strife,
To war with falsehood to the knife,
And not to lose the good of life —
" Some hidden principle to move.
To put together, part and prove,
And mete the bounds of hate and love —
" As far as might be, to carve out
Free space for every human doubt.
That the whole mind might orb about —
" To search thro' all I felt or saw,
The springs of life, the depths of awe.
And reach the law within the law :
THE TWO VOICES. 293
" At least, not rotting like a weed,
But, having sown some generous seed,
Fruitful of further thought and deed,
" To pass, when Life her light withdraws,
Not void of righteous self-applause.
Nor in a merely selfish cause —
" In some good cause^ not in mine own,
To perish, wept for, honour 'd, known,
And Uke a warrior overthrown ;
" Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears,
When, soil'd with nohle dust, he hears
His country's war-song thrill his ears :
" Then dying of a mortal stroke.
What time the foeman's line is broke,
And all the war is roU'd in smoke."
" Yea ! " said the voice, " thy dream was good,
While thou ahodest in the bud.
It was the stirring of the blood.
" If Nature put not forth her power
About the opening of the flower,
Who is it that could live an hour ?
294 THE TWO VOICES.
" Theu comes the check, the change, the fall.
Pain rises up, old pleasures pall.
There is one remedy for all.
" Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain,
Link'd month to month with such a chain
Of knitted purport, all were vain.
" Thou hadst not between death and birth
Dissolved the riddle of the earth.
So were thy labour little-worth.
" That men with knowledge merely play'd,
I told thee — hardly nigher made,
Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade ;
" Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind.
Named man, may hope some truth to find.
That bears relation to the mind.
" For every worm beneath the moon
Draws different threads, and late and soon
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.
" Cry, faint not : either Truth is born
Beyond the polar gleam forlorn,
Or in the gateways of the morn.
THE TWO VOICES. 29.i
" Cry, faint not, climb : the summits slope
Beyond the furthest flights of hope.
Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.
" Sometimes a little corner shines,
As over rainy mist inclines
A gleaming crag with belts of pines.
" I will go forward, sayest thou,
I shall not fail to find her now.
Look up, the fold is on her brow.
" If straight thy track, or if oblique,
Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike,
Embracing cloud, Ixion-like ;
" And owning but a little more
Than beasts, abidest lame and poor.
Calling thyself a little lower
" Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl !
Why inch by inch to darkness crawl ?
There is one remedy for all."
" 0 dull, one-sided voice," said I,
" Wilt thou make everything a lie.
To flatter me that I may die ?
296 THE TWO VOICES.
" I know that age to age succeeds,
Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds,
A dust of systems and of creeds.
'' I cannot hide that some have striven,
Achieving calm, to whom was given
The joy that mixes man with Heaven :
" Who, rowing hard against the stream.
Saw distant gates of Eden gleam,
And did not dream it was a dream ;
" But heard, by secret transport led,
Ev'n in the charnels of the dead,
The murmur of the fountain-head —
" Which did accomplish their desire.
Bore and forbore, and did not tire.
Like Stephen, an unquenched fire.
" He heeded not reviling tones.
Nor sold his heart to idle moans,
Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones
" But looking upward, full of grace.
He pray'd, and from a happy place
God's glory smote him on the face."
THE TWO VOICES. 297
The sullen answer slid betwixt :
" Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd,
The elements were kindlier mix'd."
I said, " I toil beneath the curse,
But, knowing not the universe,
I fear to slide from bad to worse.
" And that, in seeking to undo
One riddle, and to find the true
I knit a hundred others new :
" Or that this anguish fleeting hence,
Unmanacled from bonds of sense.
Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence :
" For I go, weak from sufi^ering here ;
Naked I go, and void of cheer :
What is it that I may not fear ? "
" Consider well," the voice replied,
" His face, that two hours since hath died ;
Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride ?
" Will he obey when one commands ?
Or answer should one press his hands ?
He answers not, nor understands.
298 THE TWO VOICES.
" His palms are folded on his breast :
There is no other thing express 'd
But long disquiet merged in rest.
" His lips are very mUd and meek :
Though one should smite him on the cheek,
And on the mouth, he will not speak.
" His little daughter, whose sweet face
He kiss'd, taking his last embrace,
Becomes dishonour to her race —
" His sons grow up that bear his name,
Some grow to honour, some to shame, —
But he is chiU to praise or blame.
" He will not hear the north- wind rave.
Nor, moaning, household shelter crave
From winter rains that beat his grave.
" High up the vapours fold and swim :
About him broods the twilight dim :
The place he knew forgetteth him."
" If all be dark, vague voice," I said,
" These things are wrapt in doubt and dread.
Nor canst thou show the dead are dead.
THE TWO VOICES. 299
" The sap dries up : the plant declines.
A deeper tale my heart divines.
Know I not Death ? the outward signs ?
" I found him when my years were few ;
A shadow on the graves I knew,
And darkness in the village yew.
" From grave to grave the shadow crept:
In her still place the morning wept :
Touch d by his feet the daisy slept.
" The simple senses crown 'd his head :
* Omega ! thou art Lord,' they said,
' We find no motion in the dead.'
" Why, if man rot in dreamless ease,
Should that plain fact, as taught by these,
Not make him sure that he shall cease?
" Who forged that other influence,
That heat of inward evidence.
By which he doubts against the sense ?
" He owns the fatal gift of eyes,
That read his spirit blindly wise,
Not simple as a thing that dies.
300 TEE TWO VOICES.
" Here sits he shaping wings to fly :
His heart forebodes a mystery ;
He names the name Eternity.
" That type of Perfect in his mind
In Nature can he nowhere find.
He sows himself on every wind.
" He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,
And thro' thick veils to apprehend
A labour working to an end.
" The end and the beginning vex
His reason : many things perplex,
With motions, checks, and counterchecks.
" He knows a baseness in his blood
At such strange war with something good,
He may not do the thing he would.
" Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn.
Vast images in glimmering dawn,
Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.
" Ah I sure within him and without,
Could his dark wisdom find it out,
There must be answer to his doubt.
TIIE TWO VOICES. 301
" But thou canst answer not again.
With thine own weapon art thou slain,
Or thou wilt answer but in vain.
•* The doubt would rest, I dare not solve.
In the same circle we revolve.
Assurance only breeds resolve."
As when a billow, blown against.
Falls back, the voice with which I fenced
A little ceased, but recommenced.
" Where wert thou when thy father play d
In his free field, and pastime made,
A merry boy in sun and shade ?
" A merry boy they called him then.
He sat upon the knees of men
In days that never come again.
" Before the little ducts began
To feed thy bones with lime, and ran
Their course, till thou wert also man :
" Who took a wife, who rear'd his race,
Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face.
Whose troubles number with his days :
302 THE TWO VOICES.
' ' A life of nothings, nothing-worth,
From that first nothing ere his birth
To that last nothing under earth ! "
" These words," I said, " are like the rest,
No certain clearness, but at best
A vague suspicion of the breast :
" But if I grant, thou might' st defend
The thesis which thy words intend —
That to begin implies to end ;
" Yet how should I for certain hold,
Because my memory is so cold,
That I first was in human mould ?
" I cannot make this matter plain,
But I would shoot, howe'er in vain,
A random arrow from the brain.
" It may be that no life is found.
Which only to one engine bound
Falls off, but cycles always round.
" As old mythologies relate.
Some draught of Lethe might await
The slipping thro' from state to state.
THE TWO VOICES. 303
" As here we find in trances, men
Forget the dream that happens then,
Until they fall in trance again.
" So might we, if our state were such
As one before, remember much,
For those two likes might meet and touch.
" But, if I lapsed from nobler place,
Some legend of a fallen race
Alone might hint of my disgrace ;
" Some vague emotion of delight
In gazing up an Alpine height.
Some yearning toward the lamps of night.
" Or if thro' lower lives I came —
Tho' all experience past became
Consolidate in mind and frame —
" I might forget my weaker lot ;
For is not our first year forgot ?
The haunts of memory echo not.
" And men, whose reason long was blind.
From cells of madness unconfined.
Oft lose whole years of darker mind.
304 THE TWO VOICES.
" Much more, if first I floated free,
As naked essence, must I be
Incompetent of memory :
" For memory dealing but with time,
And he with matter, could she climb
Beyond her own material prime ?
" Moreover, something is or seems,
That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams —
" Of something felt, like something here ;
Of something done, I know not where ;
Such as no language may declare."
The still voice laugh 'd. " I talk," said he,
" Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee
Thy pain is a reality."
"But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark,
Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark.
By making all the horizon dark.
" Why not set forth, if I should do
This rashness, that which might ensue
With this old soul in or^aus new ?
THE TWO VOICES. 305
" Whatever crazy sorrow saitli,
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly long'd for death.
' • 'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant.
Oh life, not death, for which we pant ;
More life, and fuller, that I want."
I ceas'd, and sat as one forlorn.
Then said the voice, in quiet scorn,
" Behold, it is the Sabbath morn."
And I arose, and I released
The casement, and the light increased
With fi'eshness in the dawning east.
Like soften'd airs that blowing steal,
When meres begin to uncongeal,
The sweet church bells began to peal.
On to God's house the people prest :
Passing the place where each must rest,
Each enter 'd like a welcome guest.
One walk'd between his wife and child,
With measur'd footfall firm and mild.
And now and then he gravely smiled.
306 THE TWO VOICES.
The prudent partner of his blood
Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good,
Wearing the rose of womanhood.
And in their double love secure,
The little maiden walk'd demure.
Pacing with downward eyelids pure.
These three made unity so sweet.
My frozen heart began to beat,
Remembering its ancient heat.
I blest them, and they wander'd on :
I spoke, but answer came there none :
The dull and bitter voice was gone.
A second voice was at mine ear,
A little whisper silver-clear,
A murmur, "Be of better cheer."
As from some blissful neighbourhood,
A notice faintly understood,
" I see the end, and know the good."
A little hint to solace woe,
A hint, a whisper breathing low,
" I may not speak of what I know."
THE TWO VOICES. 307
Like an J^olian harp that wakes
No certain air, but overtakes
Far thought with music that it makes :
Such seem'd the whisper at my side :
" What is it thou kuowest, sweet voice ? " I cried.
" A hidden hope," the voice replied :
So heavenly-toned, that in that hour
From out my sullen heart a power
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,
To feel, altho' no tongue can prove,
That every cloud, that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love.
And forth into the fields I went,
And Nature's living motion lent
The pulse of hope to discontent.
I wonder'd at the bounteous hours,
The slow result of winter showers :
You scarce could see the grass for flowers.
I wonder'd, while I paced along :
The woods were fiU'd so full with song,
There seem'd no room for sense of wrong.
X 2
308 THE TWO VOICES.
So variously seem d all things wrought,
I marvell'd how the mind was brought
To anchor by one gloomy thought ;
And wherefore rather I made choice
To commune with that barren voice,
Than him that said, " Rejoice ! rejoice !
THE DAY-DREAM.
PROLOGUE,
0, Lady Flora, let me speak :
A pleasant hour has past away
While, dreaming on your damask cheek.
The dewy sister-eyelids lay.
As by the lattice you reclined,
I went thro' many wayward moods
To see you dreaming — and, behind,
A summer crisp with shining woods.
And I too dream'd, until at last
Across ray fancy, brooding warm.
The reflex of a legend past.
And loosely settled into form.
And would you have the thought I had,
And see the vision that I saw,
So take the broidery-frame, and add
A crimson to the quaint Macaw,
310 THE DAY-DREAM.
And I will tell it. Turn your face,
Nor look with that too-earnest eye —
The rhymes are dazzled from their place,
And order'd words asunder fly.
THE SLEEPING PALACE.
The varying year with blade and sheaf
Clothes and reclothes the happy plains ;
Here rests the sap within the leaf,
Here stays the blood along the veins.
Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd,
Faint murmurs from the meadows come,
Like hints and echoes of the world
To spirits folded in the womb.
Soft lustre bathes the range of urns
On every slanting terrace-lawn.
The fountain to his place returns
Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.
Here droops the banner on the tower,
On the hall-hearths the festal fires,
The peacock in his laurel bower.
The parrot in his gilded wires.
THE DAY-DREAM. 311
Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs :
In these, in those the life is stay'd.
The mantles from the golden pegs
Droop sleepily : no sound is made,
Not even of a gnat that sings.
More like a picture seemeth all
Than those old portraits of old kings.
That watch the sleepers from the wall.
Here sits the Butler with a flask
Between his knees, half-drain 'd ; and there
The wrinkled steward at his task,
The maid-of-honour hlooming fair :
The page has caught her hand in his :
Her lips are sever 'd as to speak :
His own are pouted to a kiss :
The blush is fix'd upon her cheek.
Till all the hundred summers pass,
The beams, that thro' the Oriel shine,
Make prisms in every carven glass.
And beaker brimm'd with noble wine.
Each baron at the banquet sleeps,
Grave faces gather'd in a ring.
His state the king reposing keeps.
He must have been a jolly king.
312 THE DAY-DREAM.
All round a hedge upshoots, and shows
At distance Hke a little wood ;
Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes,
And grapes with bunches red as blood ;
All creeping plants, a wall of green
Close-matted, bur and brake and briar,
And glimpsing over these, just seen.
High up, the topmost palace-spire.
\\lien will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
Bring truth that sways the soul of men ?
Here all things in their place remain.
As all were order 'd, ages since.
Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain,
And bring the fated fairy Prince.
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.
Year after year unto her feet.
She lying on her couch alone,
Across the purpled coverlet.
The maiden's jet-black hair has grown.
THE DAY-DREAM. 313
On either side her tranced form
Forth streaming from a braid of pearl :
The slumbrous light is rich and warm,
And moves not on the rounded curl.
The silk star-broider'd coverlid
Unto her limbs itself doth mould
Languidly ever ; and, amid
Her full black ringlets downward roll d,
Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm
With bracelets of the diamond bright :
Her constant beauty doth inform
Stillness with love, and day with light.
She sleeps : her breathings are not heard
In palace chambers far apart.
The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd
That lie upon her charmed heart.
She sleeps : on either hand upswells
The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest :
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
A perfect form in perfect rest.
314 THE DAT-DREAM.
THE ARRIVAL.
All precious things, discover 'd late,
To those that seek them issue forth ;
For love in sequel works with fate.
And draws the veil from hidden worth.
He travels far from other skies —
His mantle glitters on the rocks —
A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes, .
And lighter-footed than the fox.
The bodies and the bones of those
That strove in other days to pass,
Are wither'd in the thorny close,
Or scatter 'd blanching in the grass.
He gazes on the silent dead :
" They perish'd in their daring deeds."
This proverb flashes thro' his head,
" The many fail : the one succeeds."
He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks :
He breaks the hedge : he enters there :
The colour flies into his cheeks :
He trusts to light on something fair ;
THE DAT-DREAM. 316
For all his life the charm did talk
About his path, and hover near
With words of promise in his walk,
And whisper'd voices in his ear.
More close and close his footsteps wind ;
The magic music in his heart
Beats quick and quicker, till he find
The quiet chamber far apart.
His spirit flutters like a lark,
He stoops — to kiss her — on his knee.
" Love, if thy tresses be so dark,
How dark those hidden eyes must be ! "
THE REVIVAL.
A TOUCH, a kiss ! the charm was snapt.
There rose a noise of striking clocks.
And feet that ran, and doors tliat clapt.
And bai'king dogs, and crowing cocks ;
A fuller light illumined all,
A breeze thro' all the garden swept,
A sudden hubbub shook the hall,
And sixty feet the fountain leapt.
316 THE DAY-DREAM.
The hedge broke in, the banner blew.
The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd.
The fire shot up, the martin flew,
The parrot screamed, the peacock squalid.
The maid and page renew'd their strife,
The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and clackt,
And all the long-pent stream of life
Dash'd downward in a cataract.
And last of all the king awoke.
And in his chair himself uprear'd,
And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face/ and spoke,
" By holy rood, a royal beard !
How say you ? we have slept, my lords.
My beard has grown into my lap."
The barons swore, with many words,
'Twas but an after-dinner's nap.
" Pardy," return'd the king, " but still
My joints are something stifi" or so.
My lord, and shall we pass the bill
I mention'd half an hour ago ? "
The chancellor, sedate and vain,
In courteous words return'd reply :
But dallied with his golden chain.
And, smiling, put the question by.
THE DAY-DREAM. 317
THE DEPARTURE.
And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old :
i^cross the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost pm-ple rim.
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess foUow'd him.
" I 'd sleep another hundred years,
0 love, for such another kiss ; "
'• 0 wake for ever, love," she hears,
" 0 love, 'twas such as this and this."
And o'er them many a sliding star,
And many a merry wind was borne.
And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar.
The twilight melted into morn.
" 0 eyes long laid in happy sleep ! "
" 0 happy sleep, that lightly fled ! "
" 0 happy kiss, that woke thy sleep ! "
" 0 love, thy kiss would wake the dead
318 THE DAT-DREAM.
And o'er them many a flowing range
Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark,
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change.
The twihffht died into the dark.
" A hundred summers ! can it be ?
And whither goest thou, tell me where
" 0 seek my father's court with me,
For there are greater wonders there.
And o'er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day.
Thro' all the world she follow'd him.
MORAL.
So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair.
Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed-flower that simply blows ?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose ?
THE DAY-DREAM, 319
But any man that walks the mead,
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,
According as his humours lead,
A meaning suited to his mind.
And liberal applications lie
In Art like Nature, dearest friend ;
So 'twere to cramp its use, if I
Should hook it to some useful end.
L'ENVOI.
You shake your head. A random string
Your finer female sense off'ends.
Well — were it not a pleasant thing
To fall asleep with all one's friends ;
To pass with all our social ties
To silence from the paths of men ;
And every hundred years to rise
And learn the world, and sleep again ;
To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars,
And wake on science grown to more,
On secrets of the brain, the stars.
As wild as aught of fairy lore ;
And all that else the years will show.
The Poet-forms of stronger hours,
320 THE DAY-DREAM.
The vast Republics that may grow,
The Federations and the Powers :
Titanic forces taking birth
In divers seasons, divers climes ;
For we are Ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.
So sleeping, so aroused from sleep
Thro' sunny decads new and strange,
Or gay quinquenniads would we reap
The flower and quintessence of change.
Ah, yet would I — and would I might I
So much yom- eyes my fancy take —
Be still the first to leap to light
That I might kiss those eyes awake !
For, am I right or am I wrong,
To choose your own you did not care :
You d have my moral from the song,
And I will take my pleasure there :
And, am I right or am I wrong.
My fancy, ranging thro' and thro ,
To search a meaning for the song.
Perforce will still revert to you ;
Nor finds a closer truth than this
All-graceful head, so richly curl'd,
And evermore a costly kiss
The prelude to some brighter world.
THE DAY-DREAM. 321
For since the time when Adam first
Embraced his Eve in happy hour,
And every bird of Eden bm-st
In carol, every bud to flower,
What eyes, Hke thine, have waken'd hopes ?
What hps, Hke thine, so sweetly join'd ?
Where on the double rosebud droops
The fullness of the pensive mind ;
Which all too dearly self-involved,
Yet sleeps a di'eamless sleep to me ;
A sleep by kisses undissolved.
That lets thee neither hear nor see :
But break it. In the name of Avife,
And in the rights that name may give.
Are clasp 'd the moral of thy life,
And that for which I care to live.
EPILOGUE.
So, Lady Flora, take my lay.
And, if you find a meaning there,
0 whisper to your glass, and say,
" What wonder, if he thinks me fair ? "
What wonder I was all unwise,
To shape the song for your delight
Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise,
That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light ?
3-22 THE DAY-DREAM.
Or old-world trains, upheld at court
By Cupid-boys of blooming hue —
But take it — earnest wed with sport.
And either sacred unto you.
AMPHION.
w
My father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree
And waster than a warren :
Yet say the neighbours when they call,
It is not bad but good land,
And in it is the germ of all
That grows within the woodland.
0 had I lived when song was great
In days of old Amphion,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
Nor cared for seed or scion !
And had I lived when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber.
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber !
324 AMPHION.
'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,
Such happy intonation,
Wherever he sat down and sung
He left a small plantation ;
Wherever in a lonely grove
He set up his forlorn pipes.
The gouty oak began to move,
And flounder into hornpipes.
The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown,
And, as tradition teaches.
Young ashes pirouetted down
Coquetting with young beeches ;
And briony-vine and ivy-wreath
Ran forward to his rhyming,
And from the valleys underneath
Came little copses climbing.
The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair.
The bramble cast her berry,
The gin within the juniper
Began to make him merry.
The poplars, in long order due,
With cypress promenaded,
The shock-head willows two and two
By rivers gallopaded.
AMPniON. 325
Came wet-shot alder from the wave,
Came yews, a dismal coterie ;
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,
Poussetting with a sloe-tree :
Old elms came hreaking from the vine.
The vine stream'd out to follow,
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine
From many a cloudy hollow.
And wasn't it a sight to see.
When, ere his song was ended.
Like some great landslip, tree by tree.
The country-side descended ;
And shepherds from the mountain-eaves
Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frighten'd,
As dash'd about the drunken leaves
The random sunshine lighten'd !
Oh, nature first was fresh to men.
And wanton without measure ;
So youthful and so flexile then,
You moved her at your pleasure.
Twang out, my fiddle ! shake the twigs !
And make her dance attendance ;
Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs.
And scirrhous roots and tendons.
326 AMPHION.
'Tis vain ! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle ;
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle ;
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
With strumming and with scraping,
A jackass heehaws from the rick.
The passive oxen gaping.
But what is that I hear ? a sound
Like sleepy counsel pleading :
0 Lord ! — 'tis in my neighbour's' ground,
The modern Muses reading.
They read Botanic Treatises,
And Works on Gardening thro' there.
And Methods of transplanting trees,
To look as if they grew there.
The wither 'd Misses ! how they prose
O'er books of travell'd seamen.
And show you slips of all that grows
From England to Van Diemen.
They read in arbours dipt and cut.
And alleys, faded places.
By squares of tropic summer shut
And warm'd in crystal cases.
AMPHION. 327
But these, though fed with careful cliit,
Are neither green uor sappy ;
Half-conscious of the gai'den-squirt,
The poor things look unhappy.
Better to me the meanest weed
That blows upon its mountain,
The vilest herb that runs to seed
Beside its native fountain.
And I must work thro' months of toil.
And years of cultivation,
Upon my proper patch of soil •
To grow my own plantation.
I '11 take the showers as they fall,
I will not vex my bosom :
Enough if at the end of all
A little garden blossom.
ST. AGNES.
Deep on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon :
My bi'eath to heaven like vapour goes :
May my soul follow soon I
The shadows of the convent-towers
Slant down the snowy sward,
Still creeping with the creeping hours
That lead me to my Lord :
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear
As are the frosty skies,
Or this first snowdrop of the year
That in my bosom lies.
II.
As these white robes are soiled and dark,
To yonder shining ground ;
As this pale taper's earthly spark,
To yonder argent round ;
ST. AGNES. 329
So shows my soul before the Lamb,
My spirit before Thee ;
So in mine earthly house I am,
To that I hope to be.
Break up the heavens, 0 Lord ! and far,
Thro' all yon starlight keen,
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,
In raiment wliite and clean.
III.
He lifts me to the golden doors ;
The flashes come and go ;
All heaven bursts her starry floors.
And strows her lights below,
And deepens on and up ! the gates
Roll back, and far within
For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,
To make me pure of sin.
The sabbaths of Eternity,
One sabbath deep and wide —
A light upon the shining sea —
The Bridegroom with his bride !
SIR GALAHAD.
My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel.
The splinter 'd spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel :
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the tide of combat stands,
Pei'fume and flowers fall in showers,
That lightly rain from ladies' hands.
How sweet are looks that ladies bend
On whom their favours fall !
For them I battle till the end,
To save from shame and thrall :
SIR GALAHAD. 331
But all my heart is drawn above,
My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine :
I never felt the kiss of love,
Nor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,
Me mightier transports move and thrill ;
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.
III.
When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims,
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns :
Then by some secret shrine I ride ;
I hear a voice, but none are there ;
The stalls are void, the doors are wide,
The tapers burning fair.
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth.
The silver vessels sparkle clean.
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,
And solemn chaunts resound between.
Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres
I find a magic bark ;
I leap on board : no helmsman steers
I float till all is dark.
;532 SIR GALAHAD.
A gentle sound, an avrful light !
Three angels bear the holy Grail :
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God !
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides.
And star-like mingles with the stars.
When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go.
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,
And, ringing, spins from brand and mail
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height ;
No branchy thicket shelter yields ;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.
A maiden knight — to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear ;
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.
SIR GALAHAD. 333
I muse ou joy that will not cease,
Pure spaces clothed in living beams,
Pure lilies of eternal peace,
Whose odours haunt my dreams ;
And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armour that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
Are touch 'd, are turn'd to finest air.
The clouds are broken in the sky,
And thro' the mountain-walls
A rolling organ-harmony
Swells up, and shakes and falls.
Then move the trees, the copses nod.
Wings flutter, voices hover clear :
" 0 just and faithful knight of God !
Ride on I the prize is near."
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange ;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-arm 'd I ride, whate'er betide.
Until I find the holy Grail.
EDWARD GRAY.
Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town
Met me walking on yonder way,
" And have you lost your heart ? " she said ;
" And are you married yet, Edward Gray ? "
Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me :
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away :
" Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.
" Ellen Adair she loved me well,
Against her father's and mother's will:
To-day I sat for an hour and wept.
By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill.
" Shy she was, and I thought her cold ;
Thought her proud, and fled over the sea ;
Fill'd I was with folly and spite.
When Ellen Adair was dying for me.
EDWARD GRAY. 335
" Cruel, cruel the words I said !
Cruelly came they hack to-day :
' You're too slight and fickle,' I said,
' To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.'
" There I put my face in the grass —
Whisper 'd, ' Listen to my despair :
I repent me of all I did :
Speak a little, Ellen Adair ! '
" Then I took a pencil, and wrote
On the mossy stone, as I lay,
' Here lies the body of Ellen Adair ;
And here the heart of Edward Gray ! '
" Love may come, and love may go.
And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree :
But I will love no more, no more,
Till Ellen Adair come back to me.
" Bitterly wept I over the stone :
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away :
There lies the body of Ellen Adair !
And there the heart of Edward Gray ! "
WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.
MADE AT THE COCK.
0 PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock,
To which I most resort,
How goes the time ? 'Tis five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port :
But let it not be such as that
You set before chance-comers.
But such whose father-grape grew fat
On Lusitanian summers.
No vain Hbation to the Muse,
But may she still be kind,
And whisper lovely words, and use
Her influence on the mind.
To make me write my random rhymes,
Ere they be half-forgotten ;
Nor add and alter, many times,
Till all be ripe and rotten.
WILL WATERPROOF S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. 337
I pledge her, Jind she comes and dips
Her laurel in the wine,
And lays it thrice upon my lips,
These favour'd lips of mine ;
Until the charm have power to make
New lifebiood warm the bosom.
And barren commonplaces break
To full and kindly blossom.
I pledge her silent at the board ;
Her gradual fingers steal
And touch upon the master-chord
Of all I felt and feel.
Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,
And phantom hopes assemble ;
And that child's heart within the man's
Begins to move and tremble.
Thro' many an hour of summer suns
By many pleasant ways.
Like Hezekiah's, backward runs
The shadow of my days :
I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd ;
The gas-light wavers dimmer ;
And softly, thro' a vinous mist.
My college friendships glimmer.
338 WILL WATERPROOF S
I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,
Unboding critic-pen,
Or that eternal want of pence,
Which vexes public men.
Who hold their hands to all, and cry
For that which all deny them —
Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry,
And all the world go by them.
Ah yet, though all the world forsake,
Though fortune clip my wings,
I will not cramp my heart, nor take
Half-views of men and things.
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood ;
There must be stormy weather ;
But for some true result of good
All parties work together.
Let there be thistles, there are grapes ;
If old things, there are new ;
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes.
Yet glimpses of the true.
Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme,
We lack not rhymes and reasons.
As on this whirligig of Time
We circle with the seasons.
LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. aS.O
This earth is rich in man and maid ;
With fair horizons bound :
This whole wide earth of light and shade
Comes out, a perfect round.
High ever roaring Temple-bar,
And, set in Heaven's third story,
I look at all things as they are.
But thro' a kind of glory.
Head-waiter, honour 'd by the guest
Half-mused, or reeling-ripe.
The pint, you brought me, was the best
That ever came from pipe.
But though the port surpasses praise.
My nerves have dealt with stiffer.
Is there some magic in the place ?
Or do my peptics differ ?
For since I came to live and learn,
No pint of white or red
Had ever half the power to turn
This wheel within my head.
Which bears a season'd brain about,
Unsubject to confusion.
Though soak'd and saturate, out and out,
Thro' every convolution.
340 ■^ILL WATERPROOF S
For I am of a numerous house,
With many kinsmen gay,
Where long and largely we carouse
As who shall say me nay :
Each month, a birth-day coming on,
We drink defying trouble.
Or sometimes two would meet in one,
And then we drank it double ;
Whether the vintage, yet unkept.
Had relish fiery-new,
Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept,'
As old as Waterloo ;
Or stow'd (when classic Canning died)
In musty bins and chambers,
Had cast upon its crusty side
The gloom of ten Decembers.
The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is !
She answer'd to my call,
She changes with that mood or this,
Is aU-in-all to aU :
She lit the spark within my throat.
To make my blood run quicker,
Used all her fiery will, and smote
Her life into the liquor.
LYRICAL MONOLOGUE, 341
And hence this halo lives about
The waiter's hands, that reach
To each his perfect pint of stout,
His proper chop to each.
He looks not like the common breed
That with the napkin dally ;
I think he came, like Ganymede,
From some delightful valley.
The Cock was of a larger egg
Than modern poultry drop,
Stept forward on a firmer leg.
And cramm'd a plumper crop ;
Upon an ampler dunghill trod,
Crow'd lustier late and early,
Sipt wine from silver, praising God,
And raked in golden barley.
A private life was all his joy,
Till in a court he saw
A something-pottle-bodied boy,
That knuckled at the taw :
He stoop'd and clutch 'd him, fair and good,
Flew over roof and casement :
His brothers of the weather stood
Stock-still for sheer amazement.
342 WILL WATERPROOF S
But he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire,
And follow 'd with acclaims,
A sign to many a staring shire.
Came crowing over Thames.
Right down by smoky Paul's they bore,
Till, where the street grows straiter.
One fix'd for ever at the door,
And one became head-waiter.
But whither would my fancy go ?
How out of place she makes
The violet of a legend blow
Among the chops and steaks !
'Tis but a steward of the can,
One shade more plump than common ;
As just and mere a serving-man
As any, boi'n of woman.
I ranged too high : what draws me down
Into the common day ?
Is it the weight of that half-crown,
Which I shall have to pay ?
For, something duller than at first,
Nor wholly comfortable,
I sit (my empty glass reversed),
And thrummino- on the table :
LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. 343
Half fearful that, Avith self at strife
I take myself to task ;
Lest of the fullness of my life
I leave an empty flask :
For I had hope, by something rare,
To prove myself a poet ;
But, while I plan and plan, my hair
Is gray before 1 know it.
So fares it since the years began.
Till they be gather 'd up ;
The truth, that flies the flowing can,
Will haunt the vacant cup :
And others' follies teach us not,
Nor much their wisdom teaches ;
And most, of sterling worth, is what
Our own experience preaches.
Ah ! let the rusty theme alone !
We know not what we know.
But for my pleasant hour, 'tis gone,
'Tis gone, and let it go.
'Tis gone : a thousand such have slipt
Away from my embraces.
And fall'n into the dusty crypt
Of darken'd forms and faces.
344 WILL WATERPROOF S
Go, therefore, thou ! thy betters went
Long since, and came no more ;
With peals of genial clamour sent
From many a tavern-door.
With twisted quirks and happy hits,
From misty men of letters ;
The tavern-hours of mighty wits —
Thine elders and thy betters.
Hours, when the Poet's words and looks
Had yet their native glow :
Not yet the fear of little books
Had made him talk for show ;
But, all his vast heart sherris-warm'd.
He flash 'd his random speeches ;
Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm 'd
His literary leeches.
So mix for ever with the past,
Like all good things on earth !
For should I prize thee, could 'st thou last,
At half thy real worth ?
I hold it good, good things should pass :
With time I will not quarrel :
It is but yonder empty glass
That makes me maudlin-moral.
LYRICAL MOXOLOGUE. 345
Head-waiter of the cliop-house here,
To which I most resort,
I too must part : I hold thee dear
For this good pint of port.
For this, thou shalt from all things suck
Marrow of mirth and laughter ;
And, wheresoe'er thou move, good luck
Shall fling her old shoe after.
But thou wilt never move from hence,
The sphere thy fate allots :
Thy latter days increased with pence
Go down among the pots :
Thou battenest by the greasy gleam
In haunts of hungry sinners,
Old boxes, larded with the steam
Of thirty thousand dinners.
We fret, we fume, would shift our skins.
Would quarrel with our lot ;
Thy care is, under polish'd tins.
To serve the hot-and-hot ;
To come and go, and come again.
Returning like the pewit.
And watch 'd by silent gentlemen,
That trifle with the cruet.
346 WILL WATERPROOF S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE.
Live long, ere from thy topmost head
The thick-set hazel dies ;
Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread
The corners of thine eyes :
Live long, nor feel in head or chest
Om* changeful equinoxes,
Till mellow Death, like some late guest,
Shall call thee from the boxes.
But when he calls, and thou shalt cease
To pace the gritted floor,
And, laying down an unctuous lease
Of life, shalt earn no more ;
No carved cross-bones, the types of Death,
Shall show thee past to Heaven :
But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,
A pint-pot, neatly graven.
LADY CLARE.
Loud Ronald courted Lady Clare,
I trow they did not part in scorn ;
Lord Ronald, her cousin, courted her,
And they will wed the morrow morn.
" He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair ;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well," said Lady Clare.
In there came old Alice the nurse.
Said, " Who was this that went from thee ?
" It was my cousin," said Lady Clare,
" To-morrow he weds with me."
" 0 God be thank'd ! " said Alice the nurse,
" That all comes round so just and fair :
Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,
And you are not the Lady Clare."
348 LADY CLARE.
" Are ye out of your mlad, my nurse, my nurse ?
Said Lady Clare, " that ye speak so wild ? "
" As God's above,"' said Alice the nurse,
" I speak the truth : you are my child.
" The old Earl's daughter died at my breast ;
I speak the truth, as I live by bread !
I buried her like my own sweet child,
And put my child in her stead."
" Falsely, falsely have ye done,
0 mother," she said, " if this be true^
To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due."
" Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
" But keep the secret for your life.
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's,
When you are man and wife. "
" If I 'm a beggar born," she said,
" I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold,
And fling the diamond necklace by."
" Nay now, my cliild," said Alice the nurse,
" But keep the secret all ye can."
She said " Not so : but I will know
If there be any faith in man."
LADY CLARE. 34!)
" Nay now, what faith ? " said Alice the nurse,
" The man will cleave unto his right."
" And he shall have it," the lady replied,
" Though I should die to-night."
" Yet give one kiss to your mother dear !
Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee."
" 0 mother, mother, mother," she said,
" So strange it seems to me.
" Yet hei-e 's a kiss for my mother dear.
My mother dear, if this be so,
And lay your hand upon my head,
And bless me, mother, ere I go."
She clad herself in a russet gown,
She was no longer Lady Clare :
She went by dale, and she went by down.
With a single rose in her hair.
A lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought
Leapt up from where she lay,
Dropt her head in the maiden's hand.
And follow 'd her all the way.
Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower :
" 0 Lady Clare, you shame your worth !
Why come you drest like a village maid,
That are the flower of the earth ? "
350 LADY CLARE.
" If I come drest like a village maid,
I am but as my fortunes are :
I am a beggar born," she said,
" And not the Lady Clare."
" Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
*' For I am yours in word and in deed.
" Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
" Your riddle is hard to read."
0 and proudly stood she up !
Her heart within her did not fail :
She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes.
And told him all her nurse's tale.
He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn :
He turn'd, and kiss'd her where she stood
" If you are not the heiress born,
And I," said he, " the next in blood —
" If you are not the heiress born,
And I," said he, "the lawful heir,
We two will wed to-morrow morn,
And you shall still be Lady Clare/'
THE LORD OF BURLEIGH.
In her ear h^ whispers gaily,
" If my heart by signs can tell,
Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily,
And I think thou lov'st me •well."
She replies, in accents fainter,
" There is none I love like thee."
He is but a landscape-painter,
And a village maiden she.
He to lips, that fondly falter.
Presses his without reproof ;
Leads her to the village altar,
And they leave her father's roof.
" I can make no marriage present ;
Little can I give my wife.
Love will make our cottage pleasant.
And I love thee more than life."
They by parks and lodges going
See the lordly castles stand :
352 THE LORD OF BURLEIGH.
Summer woods, about them blowing,
Made a murmur in the land.
From deep thought himself he rouses,
Says to her that loves him well,
" Let us see these handsome houses
Where the wealthy nobles dwell."
So she goes by him attended.
Hears him lovingly converse.
Sees whatever fair and splendid
Lay betwixt his home and hers ;
Parks with oak and chestnut shady,
Parks and order'd gardens great,
Ancient homes of lord and lady,
Built for pleasure and for state-
All he shows her makes him dearer :
Evermore she seems to gaze
On that cottage growing nearer,
Where they twain will spend their days.
0 but she will love him truly !
He shall have a cheerful home ;
She will order all things duly.
When beneath his roof they come.
Thus her heart rejoices greatly,
Till a gateway she discerns
With armorial bearings stately.
And beneath the gate she turns ;
Sees a mansion more majestic
Than all those she saw before :
THE LOUD OF BURLEIGH. 353
Many a gallant gay domestic
Bows before him at the door.
And they speak in gentle murmur,
When they answer to his call,
While he treads with footstep firmer,
Leading on from hall to hall.
And, while now she wonders blindly,
Nor the meaning can divine,
Proudly turns he round and kindly,
" All of this is mine and thine."
Here he lives in state and bounty.
Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,
Not a lord in all the county
Is so great a lord as he.
All at once the colour flushes
Her sweet face from brow to chin :
As it were with shame she blushes,
And her spirit changed within.
Then her countenance all over
Pale again as death did prove :
But he clasp 'd her like a lover.
And he cheer 'd her soul with love.
So she strove against her weakness.
Though at times her spirits sank :
Shaped her heart with woman's meekness
To all duties of her rank :
And a gentle consort made he.
And her gentle mind was such
354 THE LORD OF BURLEIGH.
That she grew a nohle lady,
And the people loved her much.
But a trouble weigh'd upon her,
And perplex'd her, night and morn,
With the burthen of an honour
Unto which she was not born.
Faint she grew, and ever fainter.
As she murmur'd, " Oh, that he
Were once more that landscape-painter,
Which did win my heart from me ! "
So she droop 'd and droop' d before him.
Fading slowly from his side :
Three fair children first she bore him.
Then before her time she died.
Weeping, weeping late and early.
Walking up and pacing down,
Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh,
Burleigh-house by Stamford-town.
And he came to look upon her.
And he look'd at her and said,
" Bring the dress, and put it on her.
That she wore when she was wed."
Then her people, softly treading.
Bore to earth her body, drest
In the dress that she was wed in.
That her spirit might have rest.
SIR LAUNCELOT <k QUEEN GUINEVERE.
A FRAGMENT.
Like souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again
The maiden Spring upon the plain
Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.
In crystal vapour everywhere
Blue isles of heaven laugh 'd between,
And, far in forest-deeps unseen,
The topmost linden gather 'd green
From draughts of balmy air.
Sometimes the linnet piped his song :
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong :
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,
Hush'd all the groves from fear of Avrong :
By grassy capes with fuller sound
In curves the yellowing river ran,
And drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan,
Above the teeming ground.
A A "2
356 SIB LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.
Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.
She seem'd a part of joyous Spring :
A gown of grass-green silk she wore.
Buckled with golden clasps before ;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.
Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
On mosses thick with violet.
Her cream-white mule his pastern set :
And now more fleet she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings.
When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.
As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd.
Blowing the ringlet from the braid :
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd
The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man bad given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
A FAREWELL.
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea.
Thy tribute wave deliver :
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river :
No where by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree.
And here thine aspen shiver ;
And here by thee will hum the bee.
For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver ;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
THE BEGGAR MAID.
Her arms across her breast she laid ;
She was more fair than words can say :
Bare-footed came the beggar maid
Before the king Cophetua.
In robe and crown the king stept down,
To meet and greet her on her way ;
"It is no wonder," said the lords,
" She is more beautiful than day."
As shines the moon in clouded skies,
She in her poor attire was seen :
One praised her ancles, one her eyes,
One her dark hair and lovesome mien.
So sweet a face, such angel grace.
In all that land had never been :
Cophetua sware a royal oath :
" This beggar maid shall be my queen !
THE VISION OF SIN.
I HAD a vision when the night was late :
A youth came riding toward a palace-gate.
He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,
But that his heavy rider kept him down.
And from the palace came a child of sin.
And took him by the curls, and led him in.
Where sat a company with heated eyes,
Expecting when a fountain should arise :
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips —
As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse,
Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes —
Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,
By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes.
Then methought I heard a mellow sound.
Gathering up from all the lower ground ;
Narrowing in to where they sat assembled
Low voluptuous music winding trembled,
Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sigh'd,
360 THE VISION OF SIN.
Panted hand in hand with faces pale,
Swung themselves, and in low tones replied ;
Till the fountain spouted, showering wide
Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail ;
Then the music touch 'd the gates and died ;
Rose again from where it seem'd to fail,
Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale ;
Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,
As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale,
The strong tempestuous treble thi'obb'd and palpitated
Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,
Caught the sparkles, and in circles.
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,
Flung the torrent rainbow round :
Then they started from their places.
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,
Wheeling with precipitate paces
To the melody, till they flew,
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces.
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Puries, like to Graces,
Dash'd together in blinding dew :
Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony,
The nerve-dissolving melody
Flutter' d headlong from the sky.
THE VISION OF SIN. 361
And then I look'd up toward a mountain-tract,
That girt the region with high cliff and lawn :
I saw that every morning, far withdrawn
Beyond the darkness and the cataract,
God made himself an awful rose of dawn^
Unheeded : and detaching, fold by fold,
From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near,
A vapour heavy, hueless, formless, cold.
Came floating on for many a month and year,
Unheeded : and I thought I would have spoken.
And warn'd that madman ere it grew too late :
But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken.
When that cold vapour touch 'd the palace gate.
And link'd again. I saw within my head
A gray and gap-tooth 'd man as lean as death,
Who slowly rode across a wither 'd heath,
And lighted at a ruin'd inn, and said :
" Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin I
Here is custom come your way ;
Take my brute, and lead him in,
Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay.
" Bitter barmaid, waning fast !
See that sheets are on my bed ;
What ! the flower of life is past :
It is long before you wed.
362 THE VISION OF SIN.
" Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour,
At The Dragon on the heath !
Let us have a quiet hour,
Let us hob-and-noh with Death.
" I am old, but let me drink ;
Bring me spices, bring me wine ;
I remember, when I think,
That my youth was half divine.
" Wine is good for shrivell'd lips,
When a blanket wraps the day,
When the rotten woodland drips,
And the leaf is stamp 'd in clay.
" Sit thee down, and have no shame,
Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee :
What care I for any name ?
What for order or degree ?
" Let me screw thee up a peg :
Let me loose thy tongue with wine :
Callest thou that thing a leg ?
Which is thinnest ? thine or mine ?
" Thou shalt not be saved by works :
Thou hast been a sinner too :
Ruin'd trunks on wither 'd forks.
Empty scarecrows, I and you !
THE VISION OF SIN. 36?,
" Fill the cup, and fill the can :
Have a rouse before the morn :
Every minute dies a man,
Every minute one is born.
" We are men of ruin'd blood ;
Therefore comes it we are wise.
Fish are we that love the mud.
Rising to no fancy-flies.
" Name and fame ! to fly sublime
Thro' the courts, the camps, the schools,
Is to be the ball of Time,
Bandied in the hands of fools.
" Friendship ! — to be two in one —
Let the canting liar pack !
Well 1 know, when I am gone.
How she mouths behind my back.
" Virtue ! — to be good and just —
Every heart, when sifted well.
Is a clot of warmer dust,
Mix'd with cunning sparks of heU.
" 0 ! we two as well can look
Whited thought and cleanly life
As the priest, above his book
Leering at his neighbour's wife.
364 THE VISION OF SIN.
" Fill the cup, and fill the can :
Have a rouse before the morn :
Every minute dies a man,
Every minute one is born.
" Drink, and let the parties rave :
They are fiU'd with idle spleen ;
Rising, falling, like a wave.
For they know not what they mean.
" He that roars for liberty
Faster binds a tyrant's power ;
And the tyi'ant's cruel glee
Forces on the freer hour.
" Fill the can, and fill the cup :
All the windy ways of men
Are but dust that rises up.
And is lightly laid again.
" Greet her with applausive breath,
Freedom, gaily doth she tread ;
In her right a civic wreath,
In her left a human head.
" No, I love not what is new ;
She is of an ancient house :
And I think we know the hue
Of that cap upon her brows.
THE VISION OF SIN. 365
' ' Let her go ! her thirst she slakes
Where the bloody conduit runs :
Then her sweetest meal she makes
On the first-born of her sons.
" Drink to lofty hopes that cool —
Visions of a perfect State :
Drink we, last, the public fool,
Frantic love and frantic hate.
" Chant me now some wicked stave,
Till thy drooping courage rise,
And the glow-worm of the grave
Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes.
" Fear not thou to loose thy tongue ;
Set thy hoary fancies free ;
What is loathsome to the young
Savours well to thee and me.
" Change, reverting to the years.
When thy nerves could understand
What there is in loving tears.
And the warmth of hand in hand.
" Tell me tales of thy first love —
April hopes, the fools of chance ;
Till the graves begin to move,
And the dead begin to dance.
366 THE VISION OF SIN.
" Fill the can, aud fill tlie cup :
All the windy ways of men
Are but dust that rises up,
And is lightly laid again.
" Trooping from their mouldy dens
The chap-faUen circle spreads :
Welcome, fellow-citizens.
Hollow hearts and empty heads !
" You are bones, and what of that ?
Every face, however full.
Padded round with flesh and 'fat.
Is but modeU'd on a skull.
" Death is king, and Vivat Rex !
Tread a measure on the stones,
Madam — if I know your sex,
From the fashion of your bones.
" No, I cannot praise the fire
In your eye — nor yet your lip :
All the more do I admire
Joints of cunning workmanship.
" Lo ! God's likeness — the ground-plan-
Neither modell'd, glazed, or framed
Buss me, thou rough sketch of man.
Far too naked to be shamed !
THE VISION OF SIN. 367
" Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance,
While we keep a little breath !
Drink to heavy Ignorance I
Hob-and-nob with brother Death !
" Thou art mazed, the night is long,
And the longer night is near :
What ! I am not all as wrong
As a bitter jest is dear.
" Youthful hopes, by scores, to all,
When the locks are crisp and curl'd ;
Unto me my maudlin gall
And my mockeries of the world.
" Fill the cup, and fill the can !
Mingle madness, mingle scorn !
Dregs of life, and lees of man :
Yet we will not die forlorn."
The voice grew faint : there came a further change ;
Again arose the mystic mountain-range :
Below were men and horses pierced with worms.
And slowly quickening into lower forms ;
By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross,
Old plash of rains, and refuse patch'd with moss.
Then some one spake : *' Behold ! it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time,"
368 THE VISION OF SIK.
Another said : " The crime of sense became
The crime of malice, and is equal blame."
And one : "He had not wholly quench 'd his power
A little grain of conscience made him sour,"
At last I heard a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope ? "
To which an answer peal'd from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand ;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.
THE SKIPPING-ROPE.
Sure never yet was Antelope
Could skip so lightly by.
Stand off, or else my skipping-rope
Will hit you in the eye.
How lightly whirls the skipping-rope !
How fairy-like you fly !
Go, get you gone, you muse and mope-
I hate that silly sigh.
Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope,
Or tell me how to die.
There, take it, take my skipping-rope,
And hang yourself thereby.
Move eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset waning slow :
From fringes of the faded eve,
0, happy planet, eastward go ;
Till over thy dark shoulder glow
Thy silver sister-world, and rise
To glass herself in dewy eyes
That watch me from the glen below.
Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne,
Dip forward under stany light.
And move me to my marriage-morn.
And round again to happy night.
Break, break, break.
On thy cold gray stones, 0 Sea !
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
0 well for the fisherman's boj'.
That he shouts with his sister at play !
0 well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay !
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill ;
But 0 for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still I
Break, break, break.
At the foot of thy crags, 0 Sea !
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
,: THE POET'S SONG.
The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
He pass'd hy the town, and out of the street ;
A lighi wind blew from the gates of the sun,
And waves of shadow went over the wheat,
And he sat him down in a lonely place'.
And chanted a melody loud and sweet.
That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud,
And the lark drop down at his feet.
The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee,
The snake shpt under a spray,
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
And stared, v>'ith his foot on the prey.
And the nightingale thought, " I have sung many songs.
But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be
When the years have died away."
[The second division of this volume was published in the winter of 1832.
Some of the poems have been considerably altered. Others have been
added, which, vnth one exception, were written in 183.3.]
LONDON :
BRADBtBT AND EVANS, PRINTERS, nHITEFRIARS.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE PRINCESS;
A MEDLEY.
Second Edition. Price 5*., cloth.
EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET.
PR Tennyson, \lfred Tennyson
5551 ■"'ems
18.^8
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