Part 2

Unseen by thee to mingle with the skies The alp shall rear his everlasting snow; Unhallowed by the wonder in thine eyes Through the clear heaven the harvest moon shall go;

Unblest by gaze of thine, perennial rills Breathe answering peace among the little hills.

XXIV.

Nor, thus untimely dying, shall the throes Of mightier births touch thee, afar, asleep, As back to youth divine the old world grows, And forward into light the lost truths leap.

Not thine, upborne upon the gathering wave Of spirit-forces, perfecting the man, Thy joy to seek, thy crown of joy to have In newly leading him to Canaan.

The toiler, human-free, and strong in might And meekness, shall not come within thy ken; Nor woman rising to her pristine height Sublime of patriot and of citizen;

Nor that slow loosening of the secular chain That binds the brutes in dumb, vicarious pain.

XXV.

Shall Love not bless thee? Shalt thou ever miss His mysteries of healing and content, His balm of Gilead garnered in a kiss, The bounteousness of his good government?

Lo, where he walks in pureness beauty springs, And flowers of gladness where his feet have trod, And all the way from off his rainbow wings Drop to the earth benignant dews of God.

Who come within his gentle seigniory, Whom his hand touches and his lips caress Are straightway set from thrall of evil free, And proudly tread the ways of righteousness.

Alas! shall Love, the saviour, not draw nigh At all to thee? Shall he too pass thee by?

XXVI.

Again my dear was with me yesternight, But now his brow was vexed, his eye was dim, And he distressed and tired, and worn and white, As when the pains of death gat hold on him.

On the bare deck of some tall phantom ship, Tossed by rude waves, unnursed and lone he lay, No tender hand to cool his fevered lip, No voice love’s little language soft to say.

Amazed with grief to succour him I flew, And made his hard bed smooth and warm and fair, And one faint flickering smile of comfort drew, Which pierced my heart, and still inhabits there.

Yet, waking, grieve I less, dear love! I see How far more softly Death hath pillowed thee.

XXVII.

Fondly the wise man said that foolishness In a child’s heart was bound, and said the rod Could perfect that which surelier one caress Lays, love-baptized, before the feet of God.

And fondly he, the passionate saint who steeped His virgin soul in Carthaginian mire, Found in the weanling babe that laughed and leaped, Glad from its mother’s arm, hate, spite and ire.

They erred. The child is, was, and still shall be The world’s deliverer; in his heart the springs Of our salvation ever rise, and we Mount on his innocency as on wings.

I, at the least, who knew and ever grieve One little lovely soul, must so believe.

XXVIII.

More grateful to the human heart, and more Wise with the wisdom human mothers earn By pangs of birth and pains of loss, his lore Who bade mankind of little children learn.

Pure, he could feel their splendid guilelessness; Kingly, he recognised their royalty; Longsuffering, he was one with them, nor less Grandly magnanimous than they was he.

He dared to judge mankind best fed by truth, Best led by love, desiring most of all— Not lures of sin—but grace to walk like Ruth Where natural ties and home affections call.

And so he “took a child,” with father’s touch, And therefore said God’s kingdom was of such.

XXIX.

A quiet southern bay; a quiet sea That scarcely breaks along the level sands; An ecstasy of little children’s glee; A weight of grief that no one understands.

Slow-moving sails, with curves of grace complete As ever beauty-loving pencil drew; A ceaseless play of pretty hands and feet; A want for ever deep, for ever new.

Peace on the teeming earth, goodwill and peace In the clear blue and floating cloudlets white; Crownèd the land with joy of her increase; Quenched my desire and vanished my delight.

A sea-bird said: I know, I know the pain; He will not see the summer-tide again.

XXX.

Kind little lad, with dark, disordered hair, Who, friendly-wise, forsake your half-built fort To make me in the sand a high-backed chair, So kind, so keen to join the livelier sport—

Haste to your trenches! Fly! To arms! to arms! The foe prepares to storm your citadel; Your comrades sound excursions and alarms, And those stout hands must fight that build so well.

Laugh, happy soul!—nor dream you brought me tears. His beauty had you not—for that the earth Holds not his equal—but you had his years, Almost his eyes, and something of his mirth;

And one stray lock on your bare neck that curled Made sudden twilight of the summer world.

XXXI.

What draws us childwards? Cherub charm and grace, The frolic kitten and the tricksy elf, Or heaven reflected in the serious face, And the divine unconscious of itself?

What art makes magnets of the helpless hands That fitfully caress and feebly touch, What sorcery entwines the flowery bands That chafe so sweetly and compel so much?

For thee I know not, but for me I know; I know the charm that everywhere, abroad, At home, and wheresoever I may go, Enthrones the child my sovereign and my lord.

Not beauty, no, nor grace, nor gleams of heaven; The passport to my heart is—being seven.

XXXII.

I dreamed I did but dream my love was dead, And all for nought had been my long complaint; He had come back and stood beside my bed, Grown tall and straight and fair as Andrea’s saint.

He has come back! Again the tidings rang; Again my pulses leaped with wild delight; Again the choric stars together sang, And joyous pæans sounded through the night.

But with the calm of heaven on me he smiled, There where in feverish ecstasy I lay, As on a mother her home-coming child, When childish things have long been put away.

“’Tis thou art now my care,” looks such an one, “And I thy stay, thy comforter, thy son.”

XXXIII.

Where loving Francis shed on Umbrian ways And fruitful slopes of sun-kissed Apennine The benediction of his cheerful praise, The oil and spikenard of his speech benign,

I wandered, musing how so dark an age Had borne a heart so pitying and so sweet, To whom all bruisèd things made pilgrimage— All hunted things—to shelter at his feet.

And fancy, wistful-fond, began to paint A greeting yonder in the far-off land, And how the merciful Assisian saint Had taken mine, rejoicing, by the hand;

Not so much glad that he was safe and whole, As proud to welcome a companion soul.

XXXIV.

The lowliest timid creature that had life, Had from the prophet tenderest look and word; He saved the lambs from torture and the knife, And bare them in his bosom like his Lord.

While furious men through blood to greatness won, And women’s eyes with weeping still were wet, He taught his “sister birds” their antiphon, Or fondled “little brother leveret.”

Now in his native heaven serene he moves, With comrades wise, benignant, courteous, kind, With whatsoever succours, yearns and loves, With men of godlike and of childlike mind;

And near him walks, familiar and at ease, My angel-love, for he too was of these.

XXXV.

With him too gracious Pity made her home, And furled her sad soiled wings in sweet content, Forgetful that it is her lot to roam From age to age in woeful banishment.

His small heart seemed to her no narrow space, But, like God’s many mansions, wide and fair; And so she chose it for a resting-place, And hospitably she was harboured there.

And grateful for the boon, she taught him lore Of heaven, and how the tender angels know The merciful are blest for evermore, Although the wise and prudent say not so;

And how God holds him least among the least Who is not pitiful to bird and beast.

XXXVI.

Superbly still they vaunt their ancient pride, Those lofty eyries of old Italy That ruled the land when Francis lived and died, Glorious in might, erect, and fair to see.

Perugia’s portals and Siena’s towers, And dear Assisi’s walls that shine afar, What seem they to this distant age of ours?— Lairs of fierce men that took delight in war.

Yet, while we deprecate, our Europe groans Beneath her armaments the livelong day; Her peoples cry for bread—we give them stones, And crush and curse with mailèd peace alway;

And still to Moloch babes are sacrificed By men that call upon the name of Christ.

XXXVII.

Yea, lonely still and evermore without, Shamed and forgotten by the weed-grown door, Standeth the Christ, while rings the battle-shout, While statesmen wrangle and while madmen roar.

Spurned is the lord of peace, his message spurned As when his people thorns for solace gave; As when Servetus or when Cranmer burned, Or England dared to side against the slave.

Hark! from the savage wilds they go to tame Hark, what discordant sounds affront the ear! His very priests, contending in his name, Make it a thing of hate and scorn and fear.

Only the child his loving liegeman is, And lays a timid hand, consoled, in his.

XXXVIII.

Blest are the trusting eyes that close in sleep Or e’er the soilure of the world they see; And blest art thou—I feel it while I weep— Yea, well is thee and happy shalt thou be.

Blest is the guileless heart that never guessed How faith is tainted and how love defiled, But only knew them fresh from God and dressed In whiteness in the fancy of a child.

Blest is the voice that never strove nor cried, Nor swerved from truth, nor raged in vain desire; Blest is the hour in which our darling died, Saved from the evil, rescued from the fire.

Bow we the head; cease we the piteous knell; God is the judge, and doeth all things well.

XXXIX.

I do thee wrong to mourn thee; I blaspheme The Power that gave thee joy, that gives thee rest, And while I chafe and fret, and sigh and dream, Lulls thee in slumber on its sheltering breast.

This earth was not for thee, oh, not for thee The turmoil and the wearying storm and stress, The hungering hope deferred for good to be, The mocking shows, the maddening lovelessness.

Thou spirit-child, for soothing formed, not strife! Thou gracious tender joy an instant given! Thou didst but beautify and bless our life A little while to perfect us for heaven;

And see, for us hath life become a prayer That we may merit grace to meet thee there.

XL.

Rest, little love! rest well, my heart’s desire! Sleep while the storm-winds blow, the furious rage; Sleep till the foes of God and goodness tire; Sleep till the earth fulfils her pilgrimage.

Sleep where the slender snowdrop bells in peace Kiss the small crystals off the hoary grass; Sleep where all angry things and hurtful cease, Where calms brood ever and where tempests pass.

Hushed by the gracious hand of pitying death, I hush thee too with my low song of praise; Thou gentlest thing that ever yet drew breath, My thanks for this thy rest to heaven I raise!

Content I leave with God what once I missed, And keep upon thy grave my Eucharist.

Flowers of Parnassus

_A Series of Famous Poems Illustrated_

Size 5½ × 4½ inches, gilt top Price 1/- net Bound in Cloth Price 50 cents net Price 1/6 net Bound in Leather Price 75 cents net

LIST OF VOLUMES

Vol. I. GRAY’S ELEGY AND ODE ON DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE. With Twelve Illustrations by J. T. FRIEDENSON.

Vol. II. THE STATUE AND THE BUST. By ROBERT BROWNING. With Nine Illustrations by PHILIP CONNARD.

Vol III. MARPESSA. By STEPHEN PHILLIPS. With Seven Illustrations by PHILIP CONNARD.

Vol. IV. THE BLESSED DAMOZEL. By D. G. ROSSETTI. With Eight Illustrations by PERCY BULCOCK.

Vol. V. THE NUT-BROWN MAID. A New Version by F. B. MONEY-COUTTS. With Nine Illustrations by HERBERT COLE.

Vol. VI. A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. By ALFRED TENNYSON. With Nine Illustrations by PERCY BULCOCK.

Vol. VII. A DAY DREAM. By ALFRED TENNYSON. With Eight Illustrations by AMELIA BAUERLE.

Vol. VIII. A BALLAD ON A WEDDING. By SIR JOHN SUCKLING. With Nine Illustrations by HERBERT COLE.

Vol. IX. RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM. Rendered into English Verse by EDWARD FITZGERALD. With Nine Illustrations by HERBERT COLE.

Vol. X. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK. By ALEXANDER POPE. With Nine Illustrations by AUBREY BEARDSLEY.

Vol. XI. CHRISTMAS AT THE MERMAID. By THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON. With Nine Illustrations by HERBERT COLE.

Vol. XII. SONGS OF INNOCENCE. By WILLIAM BLAKE. With Nine Illustrations by GERALDINE MORRIS.

Vol. XIII. THE SENSITIVE PLANT. By PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. With Eight Illustrations by F. L. GRIGGS.

Vol. XIV. ISABELLA; or, THE POT OF BASIL. By JOHN KEATS. With Illustrations.

Vol. XV. WORDSWORTH’S GRAVE. By WILLIAM WATSON. With Illustrations by DONALD MAXWELL.

Vol. XVII. LYCIDAS. By JOHN MILTON. With Eight Illustrations by GERTRUDE BRODIE.

Vol. XVIII. LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY. By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. With Eight Illustrations by DONALD MAXWELL.

Vol. XIX. THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. By HENRY LONGFELLOW. With Eight Illustrations by DONALD MAXWELL.

Vol. XX. THE TOMB OF BURNS. By WILLIAM WATSON. With Nine Illustrations by D. Y. CAMERON.

Vol. XXI. A LITTLE CHILD’S WREATH. By ELIZABETH RACHEL CHAPMAN. With an Introduction by Mrs. MEYNELL, and Illustrations by W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON.

Vol. XXII. THE DEFENCE OF GUENEVERE. By WILLIAM MORRIS. With Eight Illustrations by JESSIE M. KING.

Vol. XXIII. KILMENY. By JAMES HOGG. With Eight Illustrations by MARY CORBETT.

Vol. XXIV. ODE ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY. By JOHN MILTON. With Eight Illustrations by J. COLLIER JAMES.

Vol. XXV. THE BALLAD OF A NUN. By JOHN DAVIDSON. With Eight Illustrations by PAUL HENRY.

Vol. XXVI. RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. With Eight Illustrations by DONALD MAXWELL.

JOHN LANE, London & New York

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Used numbers for footnotes. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● HTML alt text was added for images that didn’t have captions.