Part 3

Since man, with a child's pride proud, and abashed as a child and afraid, Made God in his likeness, and bowed him to worship the Maker he made, No faith more dire hath enticed man's trust than the saint's whose creed Made Caiaphas one with Christ, that worms on the cross might feed. Priests gazed upon God in the eyes of a babe new-born, and therein Beheld not heaven, and the wise glad secret of love, but sin. Accursed of heaven, and baptized with the baptism of hatred and hell, They spat on the name they despised and adored as a sign and a spell. "Lord Christ, thou art God, and a liar: they were children of wrath, not of grace, Unbaptized, unredeemed from the fire they were born for, who smiled in thy face." Of such is the kingdom--he said it--of heaven: and the heavenly word Shall live when religion is dead, and when falsehood is dumb shall be heard. And the message of James and of John was as Christ's and as love's own call: But wrath passed sentence thereon when Annas replied in Paul. The dark old God who had slain him grew one with the Christ he slew, And poison was rank in the grain that with growth of his gospel grew. And the blackness of darkness brightened: and red in the heart of the flame Shone down, as a blessing that lightened, the curse of a new God's name. Through centuries of burning and trembling belief as a signal it shone, Till man, soul-sick of dissembling, bade fear and her frauds begone. God Cerberus yelps from his throats triune: but his day, which was night, Is quenched, with its stars and the notes of its night-birds, in silence and light. The flames of its fires and the psalms of their psalmists are darkened and dumb: Strong winter has withered the palms of his angels, and stricken them numb. God, father of lies, God, son of perdition, God, spirit of ill, Thy will that for ages was done is undone as a dead God's will. Not Mahomet's sword could slay thee, nor Borgia's or Calvin's praise: But the scales of the spirit that weigh thee are weighted with truth, and it slays. The song of the day of thy fury, when nature and death shall quail, Rings now as the thunders of Jewry, the ghost of a dead world's tale. That day and its doom foreseen and foreshadowed on earth, when thou, Lord God, wast lord of the keen dark season, are sport for us now. Thy claws were clipped and thy fangs plucked out by the hands that slew Men, lovers of man, whose pangs bore witness if truth were true. Man crucified rose again from the sepulchre builded to be No grave for the souls of the men who denied thee, but, Lord, for thee.

When Bruno's spirit aspired from the flames that thy servants fed, The spirit of faith was fired to consume thee and leave thee dead. When the light of the sunlike eyes whence laughter lightened and flamed Bade France and the world be wise, faith saw thee naked and shamed. When wisdom deeper and sweeter than Rabelais veiled and revealed Found utterance diviner and meeter for truth whence anguish is healed, Whence fear and hate and belief in thee, fed by thy grace from above, Fall stricken, and utmost grief takes light from the lustre of love, When Shakespeare shone into birth, and the world he beheld grew bright, Thy kingdom was ended on earth, and the darkness it shed was light. In him all truth and the glory thereof and the power and the pride, The song of the soul and her story, bore witness that fear had lied. All hope, all wonder, all trust, all doubt that knows not of fear, The love of the body, the lust of the spirit to see and to hear, All womanhood, fairer than love could conceive or desire or adore, All manhood, radiant above all heights that it held of yore, Lived by the life of his breath, with the speech of his soul's will spake, And the light lit darkness to death whence never the dead shall wake. For the light that lived in the sound of the song of his speech was one With the light of the wisdom that found earth's tune in the song of the sun; His word with the word of the lord most high of us all on earth, Whose soul was a lyre and a sword, whose death was a deathless birth. Him too we praise as we praise our own who as he stand strong; Him, Æschylus, ancient of days, whose word is the perfect song. When Caucasus showed to the sun and the sea what a God could endure, When wisdom and light were one, and the hands of the matricide pure, A song too subtle for psalmist or prophet of Jewry to know, Elate and profound as the calmest or stormiest of waters that flow, A word whose echoes were wonder and music of fears overcome, Bade Sinai bow, and the thunder of godhead on Horeb be dumb. The childless children of night, strong daughters of doom and dread, The thoughts and the fears that smite the soul, and its life lies dead, Stood still and were quelled by the sound of his word and the light of his thought, And the God that in man lay bound was unbound from the bonds he had wrought. Dark fear of a lord more dark than the dreams of his worshippers knew Fell dead, and the corpse lay stark in the sunlight of truth shown true.

VII

Time, and truth his child, though terror set earth and heaven at odds, See the light of manhood rise on the twilight of the Gods. Light is here for souls to see, though the stars of faith be dead: All the sea that yearned and trembled receives the sun instead. All the shadows on the spirit when fears and dreams were strong, All perdition, all redemption, blind rain-stars watched so long, Love whose root was fear, thanksgiving that cowered beneath the rod, Feel the light that heals and withers: night weeps upon her God. All the names wherein the incarnate Lord lived his day and died Fade from suns to stars, from stars into darkness undescried.

Christ the man lives yet, remembered of man as dreams that leave Light on eyes that wake and know not if memory bid them grieve. Fire sublime as lightning shines, and exults in thunder yet, Where the battle wields the name and the sword of Mahomet. Far above all wars and gospels, all ebb and flow of time, Lives the soul that speaks in silence, and makes mute earth sublime. Still for her, though years and ages be blinded and bedinned, Mazed with lightnings, crazed with thunders, life rides and guides the wind. Death may live or death may die, and the truth be light or night: Not for gain of heaven may man put away the rule of right.

A NEW YEAR'S EVE

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI DIED DECEMBER 29, 1894

The stars are strong in the deeps of the lustrous night, Cold and splendid as death if his dawn be bright; Cold as the cast-off garb that is cold as clay, Splendid and strong as a spirit intense as light.

A soul more sweet than the morning of new-born May Has passed with the year that has passed from the world away. A song more sweet than the morning's first-born song Again will hymn not among us a new year's day.

Not here, not here shall the carol of joy grown strong Ring rapture now, and uplift us, a spell-struck throng, From dream to vision of life that the soul may see By death's grace only, if death do its trust no wrong.

Scarce yet the days and the starry nights are three Since here among us a spirit abode as we, Girt round with life that is fettered in bonds of time, And clasped with darkness about as is earth with sea.

And now, more high than the vision of souls may climb, The soul whose song was as music of stars that chime, Clothed round with life as of dawn and the mounting sun, Sings, and we know not here of the song sublime.

No word is ours of it now that the songs are done Whence here we drank of delight as in freedom won, In deep deliverance given from the bonds we bore. There is none to sing as she sang upon earth, not one.

We heard awhile: and for us who shall hear no more The sound as of waves of light on a starry shore Awhile bade brighten and yearn as a father's face The face of death, divine as in days of yore.

The grey gloom quickened and quivered: the sunless place Thrilled, and the silence deeper than time or space Seemed now not all everlasting. Hope grew strong, And love took comfort, given of the sweet song's grace.

Love that finds not on earth, where it finds but wrong, Love that bears not the bondage of years in throng Shone to show for her, higher than the years that mar, The life she looked and longed for as love must long.

Who knows? We know not. Afar, if the dead be far, Alive, if the dead be alive as the soul's works are, The soul whose breath was among us a heavenward song Sings, loves, and shines as it shines for us here a star.

IN A ROSARY

Through the low grey archway children's feet that pass Quicken, glad to find the sweetest haunt of all. Brightest wildflowers gleaming deep in lustiest grass, Glorious weeds that glisten through the green sea's glass, Match not now this marvel, born to fade and fall.

Roses like a rainbow wrought of roses rise Right and left and forward, shining toward the sun. Nay, the rainbow lit of sunshine droops and dies Ere we dream it hallows earth and seas and skies; Ere delight may dream it lives, its life is done.

Round the border hemmed with high deep hedges round Go the children, peering over or between Where the dense bright oval wall of box inwound, Reared about the roses fast within it bound, Gives them grace to glance at glories else unseen.

Flower outlightening flower and tree outflowering tree Feed and fill the sense and spirit full with joy. Nought awhile they know of outer earth and sea: Here enough of joy it is to breathe and be: Here the sense of life is one for girl and boy.

Heaven above them, bright as children's eyes or dreams, Earth about them, sweet as glad soft sleep can show Earth and sky and sea, a world that scarcely seems Even in children's eyes less fair than life that gleams Through the sleep that none but sinless eyes may know.

Near beneath, and near above, the terraced ways Wind or stretch and bask or blink against the sun. Hidden here from sight on soft or stormy days Lies and laughs with love toward heaven, at silent gaze, All the radiant rosary--all its flowers made one.

All the multitude of roses towering round Dawn and noon and night behold as one full flower, Fain of heaven and loved of heaven, curbed and crowned, Raised and reared to make this plot of earthly ground Heavenly, could but heaven endure on earth an hour.

Swept away, made nothing now for ever, dead, Still the rosary lives and shines on memory, free Now from fear of death or change as childhood, fled Years on years before its last live leaves were shed: None may mar it now, as none may stain the sea.

THE HIGH OAKS

BARKING HALL, JULY 19TH, 1896

Fourscore years and seven Light and dew from heaven Have fallen with dawn on these glad woods each day Since here was born, even here, A birth more bright and dear Than ever a younger year Hath seen or shall till all these pass away, Even all the imperious pride of these, The woodland ways majestic now with towers of trees.

Love itself hath nought Touched of tenderest thought With holiest hallowing of memorial grace For memory, blind with bliss, To love, to clasp, to kiss, So sweetly strange as this, The sense that here the sun first hailed her face, A babe at Her glad mother's breast, And here again beholds it more beloved and blest.

Love's own heart, a living Spring of strong thanksgiving, Can bid no strength of welling song find way When all the soul would seek One word for joy to speak, And even its strength makes weak The too strong yearning of the soul to say What may not be conceived or said While darkness makes division of the quick and dead.

Haply, where the sun Wanes, and death is none, The word known here of silence only, held Too dear for speech to wrong, May leap in living song Forth, and the speech be strong As here the silence whence it yearned and welled From hearts whose utterance love sealed fast Till death perchance might give it grace to live at last.

Here we have our earth Yet, with all the mirth Of all the summers since the world began, All strengths of rest and strife And love-lit love of life Where death has birth to wife, And where the sun speaks, and is heard of man: Yea, half the sun's bright speech is heard, And like the sea the soul of man gives back his word.

Earth's enkindled heart Bears benignant part In the ardent heaven's auroral pride of prime: If ever home on earth Were found of heaven's grace worth So God-beloved a birth As here makes bright the fostering face of time, Here, heaven bears witness, might such grace Fall fragrant as the dewfall on that brightening face.

Here, for mine and me, All that eyes may see Hath more than all the wide world else of good, All nature else of fair: Here as none otherwhere Heaven is the circling air, Heaven is the homestead, heaven the wold, the wood: The fragrance with the shadow spread From broadening wings of cedars breathes of dawn's bright bed.

Once a dawn rose here More divine and dear, Rose on a birth-bed brighter far than dawn's, Whence all the summer grew Sweet as when earth was new And pure as Eden's dew: And yet its light lives on these lustrous lawns, Clings round these wildwood ways, and cleaves To the aisles of shadow and sun that wind unweaves and weaves.

Thoughts that smile and weep, Dreams that hallow sleep, Brood in the branching shadows of the trees, Tall trees at agelong rest Wherein the centuries nest, Whence, blest as these are blest, We part, and part not from delight in these; Whose comfort, sleeping as awake, We bear about within us as when first it spake.

Comfort as of song Grown with time more strong, Made perfect and prophetic as the sea, Whose message, when it lies Far off our hungering eyes, Within us prophesies Of life not ours, yet ours as theirs may be Whose souls far off us shine and sing As ere they sprang back sunward, swift as fire might spring.

All this oldworld pleasance Hails a hallowing presence, And thrills with sense of more than summer near, And lifts toward heaven more high The song-surpassing cry Of rapture that July Lives, for her love who makes it loveliest here; For joy that she who here first drew The breath of life she gave me breathes it here anew.

Never birthday born Highest in height of morn Whereout the star looks forth that leads the sun Shone higher in love's account, Still seeing the mid noon mount From the eager dayspring's fount Each year more lustrous, each like all in one; Whose light around us and above We could not see so lovely save by grace of love.

BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER

Still the sovereign trees Make the sundawn's breeze More bright, more sweet, more heavenly than it rose, As wind and sun fulfil Their living rapture: still Noon, dawn, and evening thrill With radiant change the immeasurable repose Wherewith the woodland wilds lie blest And feel how storms and centuries rock them still to rest.

Still the love-lit place Given of God such grace That here was born on earth a birth divine Gives thanks with all its flowers Through all their lustrous hours, From all its birds and bowers Gives thanks that here they felt her sunset shine Where once her sunrise laughed, and bade The life of all the living things it lit be glad.

Soft as light and strong Rises yet their song And thrills with pride the cedar-crested lawn And every brooding dove. But she, beloved above All utterance known of love, Abides no more the change of night and dawn, Beholds no more with earth-born eye These woods that watched her waking here where all things die.

Not the light that shone When she looked thereon Shines on them or shall shine for ever here. We know not, save when sleep Slays death, who fain would keep His mystery dense and deep, Where shines the smile we held and hold so dear. Dreams only, thrilled and filled with love, Bring back its light ere dawn leave nought alive above.

Nought alive awake Sees the strong dawn break On all the dreams that dying night bade live. Yet scarce the intolerant sense Of day's harsh evidence How came their word and whence Strikes dumb the song of thanks it bids them give, The joy that answers as it heard And lightens as it saw the light that spake the word.

Night and sleep and dawn Pass with dreams withdrawn: But higher above them far than noon may climb Love lives and turns to light The deadly noon of night. His fiery spirit of sight Endures no curb of change or darkling time. Even earth and transient things of earth Even here to him bear witness not of death but birth.

MUSIC: AN ODE

I

Was it light that spake from the darkness, or music that shone from the word, When the night was enkindled with sound of the sun or the first-born bird? Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage of seasons that fall and rise, Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, and blinded with light that dies, Lived not surely till music spake, and the spirit of life was heard.

II

Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be, Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man, and the thrall was free. Slave of nature and serf of time, the bondman of life and death, Dumb with passionless patience that breathed but forlorn and reluctant breath, Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer, and communed aloud with the sea.

III

Morning spake, and he heard: and the passionate silent noon Kept for him not silence: and soft from the mounting moon Fell the sound of her splendour, heard as dawn's in the breathless night, Not of men but of birds whose note bade man's soul quicken and leap to light: And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness of earth were as chords in tune.

THE CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE NILE

AUGUST 1898

'_Horatio Nelson_--_Honor est a Nilo_'

A hundred years have lightened and have waned Since ancient Nile by grace of Nelson gained A glory higher in story now than time Saw when his kings were gods that raged and reigned.

The day that left even England more sublime And higher on heights that none but she may climb Abides above all shock of change-born chance Where hope and memory hear the stars keep chime.

The strong and sunbright lie whose name was France Arose against the sun of truth, whose glance Laughed large from the eyes of England, fierce as fire Whence eyes wax blind that gaze on truth askance.

A name above all names of heroes, higher Than song may sound or heart of man aspire, Rings as the very voice that speaks the sea To-day from all the sea's enkindling lyre.

The sound that bids the soul of silence be Fire, and a rapturous music, speaks, and we Hear what the sea's heart utters, wide and far: "This was his day, and this day's light was he."

O sea, our sea that hadst him for thy star, A hundred years that fall upon thee are Even as a hundred flakes of rain or snow: No storm of battle signs thee with a scar.

But never more may ship that sails thee show, But never may the sun that loves thee know, But never may thine England give thee more, A man whose life and death shall praise thee so.

The Nile, the sea, the battle, and the shore, Heard as we hear one word arise and soar, Beheld one name above them tower and glow-- Nelson: a light that time bows down before.

TRAFALGAR DAY

Sea, that art ours as we are thine, whose name Is one with England's even as light with flame, Dost thou as we, thy chosen of all men, know This day of days when death gave life to fame?

Dost thou not kindle above and thrill below With rapturous record, with memorial glow, Remembering this thy festal day of fight, And all the joy it gave, and all the woe?

Never since day broke flowerlike forth of night Broke such a dawn of battle. Death in sight Made of the man whose life was like the sun A man more godlike than the lord of light.

There is none like him, and there shall be none. When England bears again as great a son, He can but follow fame where Nelson led. There is not and there cannot be but one.

As earth has but one England, crown and head Of all her glories till the sun be dead, Supreme in peace and war, supreme in song, Supreme in freedom, since her rede was read,

Since first the soul that gave her speech grew strong To help the right and heal the wild world's wrong, So she hath but one royal Nelson, born To reign on time above the years that throng.

The music of his name puts fear to scorn, And thrills our twilight through with sense of morn: As England was, how should not England be? No tempest yet has left her banner torn.

No year has yet put out the day when he Who lived and died to keep our kingship free Wherever seas by warring winds are worn Died, and was one with England and the sea.

_October 21, 1895._

CROMWELL'S STATUE[1]

What needs our Cromwell stone or bronze to say His was the light that lit on England's way The sundawn of her time-compelling power, The noontide of her most imperial day?