Chapter 3

For her the sunrise kindled and scattered The red rose-leaflets of countless cloud: For her the blasts of the springtide shattered The strengths reluctant of waves back-bowed. For her would winds in the mid sky levy Bright wars that hardly the night bade cease At noon, when sleep on the sea lies heavy, For her would the sun make peace.

Peace rose crowned with the dawn on golden Lit leagues of triumph that flamed and smiled: Peace lay lulled in the moon-beholden Warm darkness making the world's heart mild For all the wide waves' troubles and treasons, One word only her soul's ear heard Speak from stormless and storm-rent seasons, And nought save peace was the word.

All her life waxed large with the light of it, All her heart fed full on the sound: Spirit and sense were exalted in sight of it, Compassed and girdled and clothed with it round. Sense was none but a strong still rapture, Spirit was none but a joy sublime, Of strength to curb and of craft to capture The craft and the strength of Time.

Time lay bound as in painless prison There, closed in with a strait small space. Never thereon as a strange light risen Change had unveiled for her grief's far face Three white walls flung out from the basement Girt the width of the world whereon Gazing at night from her flame-lit casement She saw where the dark sea shone.

Hardly the breadth of a few brief paces, Hardly the length of a strong man's stride, The small court flower lit with children's faces Scarce held scope for a bud to hide. Yet here was a man's brood reared and hidden Between the rocks and the towers and the foam, Where peril and pity and peace were bidden As guests to the same sure home.

Here would pity keep watch for peril, And surety comfort his heart with peace. No flower save one, where the reefs lie sterile, Gave of the seed of its heart's increase. Pity and surety and peace most lowly Were the root and the stem and the bloom of the flower: And the light and the breath of the buds kept holy That maid's else blossomless bower.

With never a leaf but the seaweed's tangle, Never a bird's but the seamew's note, It heard all round it the strong storms wrangle, Watched far past it the waste wrecks float. But her soul was stilled by the sky's endurance, And her heart made glad with the sea's content; And her faith waxed more in the sun's assurance For the winds that came and went.

Sweetness was brought for her forth of the bitter Sea's strength, and light of the deep sea's dark, From where green lawns on Alderney glitter To the bastioned crags of the steeps of Sark. These she knew from afar beholden, And marvelled haply what life would be On moors that sunset and dawn leave golden, In dells that smile on the sea.

And forth she fared as a stout-souled rover, For a brief blithe raid on the bounding brine: And light winds ferried her light bark over To the lone soft island of fair-limbed kine. But the league-long length of its wild green border, And the small bright streets of serene St. Anne, Perplexed her sense with a strange disorder At sight of the works of man.

The world was here, and the world's confusion, And the dust of the wheels of revolving life, Pain, labour, change, and the fierce illusion Of strife more vain than the sea's old strife. And her heart within her was vexed, and dizzy The sense of her soul as a wheel that whirled: She might not endure for a space that busy Loud coil of the troublous world.

Too full, she said, was the world of trouble, Too dense with noise of contentious things, And shews less bright than the blithe foam's bubble As home she fared on the smooth wind's wings. For joy grows loftier in air more lonely, Where only the sea's brood fain would be; Where only the heart may receive in it only The love of the heart of the sea.

_A BALLAD OF SARK._

High beyond the granite portal arched across Like the gateway of some godlike giant's hold Sweep and swell the billowy breasts of moor and moss East and westward, and the dell their slopes enfold Basks in purple, glows in green, exults in gold Glens that know the dove and fells that hear the lark Fill with joy the rapturous island, as an ark Full of spicery wrought from herb and flower and tree. None would dream that grief even here may disembark On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.

Rocks emblazoned like the mid shield's royal boss Take the sun with all their blossom broad and bold. None would dream that all this moorland's glow and gloss Could be dark as tombs that strike the spirit acold Even in eyes that opened here, and here behold Now no sun relume from hope's belated spark Any comfort, nor may ears of mourners hark Though the ripe woods ring with golden-throated glee, While the soul lies shattered, like a stranded bark On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.

Death and doom are they whose crested triumphs toss On the proud plumed waves whence mourning notes are tolled. Wail of perfect woe and moan for utter loss Raise the bride-song through the graveyard on the wold Where the bride-bed keeps the bridegroom fast in mould, Where the bride, with death for priest and doom for clerk, Hears for choir the throats of waves like wolves that bark, Sore anhungered, off the drear Eperquerie, Fain to spoil the strongholds of the strength of Sark On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.

Prince of storm and tempest, lord whose ways are dark, Wind whose wings are spread for flight that none may mark, Lightly dies the joy that lives by grace of thee. Love through thee lies bleeding, hope lies cold and stark, On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.

_NINE YEARS OLD._

FEBRUARY 4, 1883.

I.

Lord of light, whose shine no hands destroy, God of song, whose hymn no tongue refuses, Now, though spring far hence be cold and coy, Bid the golden mouths of all the Muses Ring forth gold of strains without alloy, Till the ninefold rapture that suffuses Heaven with song bid earth exult for joy, Since the child whose head this dawn bedews is Sweet as once thy violet-cradled boy.

II.

Even as he lay lapped about with flowers, Lies the life now nine years old before us Lapped about with love in all its hours; Hailed of many loves that chant in chorus Loud or low from lush or leafless bowers, Some from hearts exultant born sonorous, Some scarce louder-voiced than soft-tongued showers Two months hence, when spring's light wings poised o'er us High shall hover, and her heart be ours.

III.

Even as he, though man-forsaken, smiled On the soft kind snakes divinely bidden There to feed him in the green mid wild Full with hurtless honey, till the hidden Birth should prosper, finding fate more mild, So full-fed with pleasures unforbidden, So by love's lines blamelessly beguiled, Laughs the nursling of our hearts unchidden Yet by change that mars not yet the child.

IV.

Ah, not yet! Thou, lord of night and day, Time, sweet father of such blameless pleasure, Time, false friend who tak'st thy gifts away, Spare us yet some scantlings of the treasure, Leave us yet some rapture of delay, Yet some bliss of blind and fearless leisure Unprophetic of delight's decay, Yet some nights and days wherein to measure All the joys that bless us while they may.

V.

Not the waste Arcadian woodland, wet Still with dawn and vocal with Alpheus, Reared a nursling worthier love's regret, Lord, than this, whose eyes beholden free us Straight from bonds the soul would fain forget, Fain cast off, that night and day might see us Clear once more of life's vain fume and fret: Leave us, then, whate'er thy doom decree us, Yet some days wherein to love him yet.

VI.

Yet some days wherein the child is ours, Ours, not thine, O lord whose hand is o'er us Always, as the sky with suns and showers Dense and radiant, soundless or sonorous; Yet some days for love's sake, ere the bowers Fade wherein his fair first years kept chorus Night and day with Graces robed like hours, Ere this worshipped childhood wane before us, Change, and bring forth fruit--but no more flowers.

VII.

Love we may the thing that is to be, Love we must; but how forego this olden Joy, this flower of childish love, that we Held more dear than aught of Time is holden-- Time, whose laugh is like as Death's to see-- Time, who heeds not aught of all beholden, Heard, or touched in passing--flower or tree, Tares or grain of leaden days or golden-- More than wind has heed of ships at sea?

VIII.

First the babe, a very rose of joy, Sweet as hope's first note of jubilation, Passes: then must growth and change destroy Next the child, and mar the consecration Hallowing yet, ere thought or sense annoy, Childhood's yet half heavenlike habitation, Bright as truth and frailer than a toy; Whence its guest with eager gratulation Springs, and life grows larger round the boy.

IX.

Yet, ere sunrise wholly cease to shine, Ere change come to chide our hearts, and scatter Memories marked for love's sake with a sign, Let the light of dawn beholden flatter Yet some while our eyes that feed on thine, Child, with love that change nor time can shatter, Love, whose silent song says more than mine Now, though charged with elder loves and latter Here it hails a lord whose years are nine.

_AFTER A READING._

For the seven times seventh time love would renew the delight without end or alloy That it takes in the praise as it takes in the presence of eyes that fulfil it with joy; But how shall it praise them and rest unrebuked by the presence and pride of the boy?

Praise meet for a child is unmeet for an elder whose winters and springs are nine What song may have strength in its wings to expand them, or light in its eyes to shine, That shall seem not as weakness and darkness if matched with the theme I would fain make mine?

The round little flower of a face that exults in the sunshine of shadowless days Defies the delight it enkindles to sing of it aught not unfit for the praise Of the sweetest of all things that eyes may rejoice in and tremble with love as they gaze.

Such tricks and such meanings abound on the lips and the brows that are brighter than light, The demure little chin, the sedate little nose, and the forehead of sun-stained white, That love overflows into laughter and laughter subsides into love at the sight.

Each limb and each feature has action in tune with the meaning that smiles as it speaks From the fervour of eyes and the fluttering of hands in a foretaste of fancies and freaks, When the thought of them deepens the dimples that laugh in the corners and curves of his cheeks.

As a bird when the music within her is yet too intense to be spoken in song, That pauses a little for pleasure to feel how the notes from withinwards throng, So pauses the laugh at his lips for a little, and waxes within more strong.

As the music elate and triumphal that bids all things of the dawn bear part With the tune that prevails when her passion has risen into rapture of passionate art, So lightens the laughter made perfect that leaps from its nest in the heaven of his heart.

Deep, grave and sedate is the gaze of expectant intensity bent for awhile And absorbed on its aim as the tale that enthralls him uncovers the weft of its wile, Till the goal of attention is touched, and expectancy kisses delight in a smile.

And it seems to us here that in Paradise hardly the spirit of Lamb or of Blake May hear or behold aught sweeter than lightens and rings when his bright thoughts break In laughter that well might lure them to look, and to smile as of old for his sake.

O singers that best loved children, and best for their sakes are beloved of us here, In the world of your life everlasting, where love has no thorn and desire has no fear, All else may be sweeter than aught is on earth, nought dearer than these are dear.

_MAYTIME IN MIDWINTER._

A new year gleams on us, tearful And troubled and smiling dim As the smile on a lip still fearful, As glances of eyes that swim: But the bird of my heart makes cheerful The days that are bright for him.

Child, how may a man's love merit The grace you shed as you stand, The gift that is yours to inherit? Through you are the bleak days bland; Your voice is a light to my spirit; You bring the sun in your hand.

The year's wing shows not a feather As yet of the plumes to be; Yet here in the shrill grey weather The spring's self stands at my knee, And laughs as we commune together, And lightens the world we see.

The rains are as dews for the christening Of dawns that the nights benumb: The spring's voice answers me listening For speech of a child to come, While promise of music is glistening On lips that delight keeps dumb.

The mists and the storms receding At sight of you smile and die: Your eyes held wide on me reading Shed summer across the sky: Your heart shines clear for me, heeding No more of the world than I.

The world, what is it to you, dear, And me, if its face be grey, And the new-born year be a shrewd year For flowers that the fierce winds fray? You smile, and the sky seems blue, dear; You laugh, and the month turns May.

Love cares not for care, he has daffed her Aside as a mate for guile: The sight that my soul yearns after Feeds full my sense for awhile; Your sweet little sun-faced laughter, Your good little glad grave smile.

Your hands through the bookshelves flutter; Scott, Shakespeare, Dickens, are caught; Blake's visions, that lighten and mutter; Molière--and his smile has nought Left on it of sorrow, to utter The secret things of his thought.

No grim thing written or graven But grows, if you gaze on it, bright; A lark's note rings from the raven, And tragedy's robe turns white; And shipwrecks drift into haven; And darkness laughs, and is light.

Grief seems but a vision of madness; Life's key-note peals from above With nought in it more of sadness Than broods on the heart of a dove: At sight of you, thought grows gladness, And life, through love of you, love.

_A DOUBLE BALLAD OF AUGUST._

(1884.)

All Afric, winged with death and fire, Pants in our pleasant English air. Each blade of grass is tense as wire, And all the wood's loose trembling hair Stark in the broad and breathless glare Of hours whose touch wastes herb and tree. This bright sharp death shines everywhere; Life yearns for solace toward the sea.

Earth seems a corpse upon the pyre; The sun, a scourge for slaves to bear. All power to fear, all keen desire, Lies dead as dreams of days that were Before the new-born world lay bare In heaven's wide eye, whereunder we Lie breathless till the season spare: Life yearns for solace toward the sea.

Fierce hours, with ravening fangs that tire On spirit and sense, divide and share The throbs of thoughts that scarce respire, The throes of dreams that scarce forbear One mute immitigable prayer For cold perpetual sleep to be Shed snowlike on the sense of care. Life yearns for solace toward the sea.

The dust of ways where men suspire Seems even the dust of death's dim lair. But though the feverish days be dire The sea-wind rears and cheers its fair Blithe broods of babes that here and there Make the sands laugh and glow for glee With gladder flowers than gardens wear. Life yearns for solace toward the sea.

The music dies not off the lyre That lets no soul alive despair. Sleep strikes not dumb the breathless choir Of waves whose note bids sorrow spare. As glad they sound, as fast they fare, As when fate's word first set them free And gave them light and night to wear. Life yearns for solace toward the sea.

For there, though night and day conspire To compass round with toil and snare And changeless whirl of change, whose gyre Draws all things deathwards unaware, The spirit of life they scourge and scare, Wild waves that follow on waves that flee Laugh, knowing that yet, though earth despair, Life yearns for solace toward the sea.

_HEARTSEASE COUNTRY._

TO ISABEL SWINBURNE.

The far green westward heavens are bland, The far green Wiltshire downs are clear As these deep meadows hard at hand: The sight knows hardly far from near, Nor morning joy from evening cheer. In cottage garden-plots their bees Find many a fervent flower to seize And strain and drain the heart away From ripe sweet-williams and sweet-peas At every turn on every way.

But gladliest seems one flower to expand Its whole sweet heart all round us here; 'Tis Heartsease Country, Pansy Land. Nor sounds nor savours harsh and drear Where engines yell and halt and veer Can vex the sense of him who sees One flower-plot midway, that for trees Has poles, and sheds all grimed or grey For bowers like those that take the breeze At every turn on every way.

Content even there they smile and stand, Sweet thought's heart-easing flowers, nor fear, With reek and roaring steam though fanned, Nor shrink nor perish as they peer. The heart's eye holds not those more dear That glow between the lanes and leas Where'er the homeliest hand may please To bid them blossom as they may Where light approves and wind agrees At every turn on every way.

Sister, the word of winds and seas Endures not as the word of these Your wayside flowers whose breath would say How hearts that love may find heart's ease At every turn on every way.

_A BALLAD OF APPEAL._

TO CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

Song wakes with every wakening year From hearts of birds that only feel Brief spring's deciduous flower-time near: And song more strong to help or heal Shall silence worse than winter seal? From love-lit thought's remurmuring cave The notes that rippled, wave on wave, Were clear as love, as faith were strong; And all souls blessed the soul that gave Sweet water from the well of song.

All hearts bore fruit of joy to hear, All eyes felt mist upon them steal For joy's sake, trembling toward a tear, When, loud as marriage-bells that peal, Or flutelike soft, or keen like steel, Sprang the sheer music; sharp or grave, We heard the drift of winds that drave, And saw, swept round by ghosts in throng, Dark rocks, that yielded, where they clave, Sweet water from the well of song.

Blithe verse made all the dim sense clear That smiles of babbling babes conceal: Prayer's perfect heart spake here: and here Rose notes of blameless woe and weal, More soft than this poor song's appeal. Where orchards bask, where cornfields wave, They dropped like rains that cleanse and lave, And scattered all the year along, Like dewfall on an April grave, Sweet water from the well of song.

Ballad, go bear our prayer, and crave Pardon, because thy lowlier stave Can do this plea no right, but wrong. Ask nought beside thy pardon, save Sweet water from the well of song.

_CRADLE SONGS._

(TO A TUNE OF BLAKE'S)

I.

Baby, baby bright, Sleep can steal from sight Little of your light:

Soft as fire in dew, Still the life in you Lights your slumber through.

Four white eyelids keep Fast the seal of sleep Deep as love is deep:

Yet, though closed it lies, Love behind them spies Heaven in two blue eyes.

II.

Baby, baby dear, Earth and heaven are near Now, for heaven is here.

Heaven is every place Where your flower-sweet face Fills our eyes with grace.

Till your own eyes deign Earth a glance again, Earth and heaven are twain.

Now your sleep is done, Shine, and show the sun Earth and heaven are one.

III.

Baby, baby sweet, Love's own lips are meet Scarce to kiss your feet.

Hardly love's own ear, When your laugh crows clear, Quite deserves to hear.

Hardly love's own wile, Though it please awhile, Quite deserves your smile.

Baby full of grace, Bless us yet a space: Sleep will come apace.

IV.

Baby, baby true, Man, whate'er he do, May deceive not you.

Smiles whose love is guile, Worn a flattering while, Win from you no smile.

One, the smile alone Out of love's heart grown, Ever wins your own.

Man, a dunce uncouth, Errs in age and youth: Babies know the truth.

V.

Baby, baby fair, Love is fain to dare Bless your haughtiest air.

Baby blithe and bland, Reach but forth a hand None may dare withstand;

Love, though wellnigh cowed, Yet would praise aloud Pride so sweetly proud.

No! the fitting word Even from breeze or bird Never yet was heard.

VI.

Baby, baby kind, Though no word we find, Bear us yet in mind.

Half a little hour, Baby bright in bower, Keep this thought aflower--

Love it is, I see, Here with heart and knee Bows and worships me.

What can baby do, Then, for love so true?-- Let it worship you.

VII.

Baby, baby wise, Love's divine surmise Lights your constant eyes.

Day and night and day One mute word would they, As the soul saith, say.

Trouble comes and goes; Wonder ebbs and flows; Love remains and glows.

As the fledgeling dove Feels the breast above, So your heart feels love.

_PELAGIUS._

I.

The sea shall praise him and the shores bear part That reared him when the bright south world was black With fume of creeds more foul than hell's own rack, Still darkening more love's face with loveless art Since Paul, faith's fervent Antichrist, of heart Heroic, haled the world vehemently back From Christ's pure path on dire Jehovah's track, And said to dark Elisha's Lord, 'Thou art.' But one whose soul had put the raiment on Of love that Jesus left with James and John Withstood that Lord whose seals of love were lies, Seeing what we see--how, touched by Truth's bright rod, The fiend whom Jews and Africans called God Feels his own hell take hold on him, and dies.

II.

The world has no such flower in any land, And no such pearl in any gulf the sea, As any babe on any mother's knee. But all things blessed of men by saints are banned: God gives them grace to read and understand The palimpsest of evil, writ where we, Poor fools and lovers but of love, can see Nought save a blessing signed by Love's own hand. The smile that opens heaven on us for them Hath sin's transmitted birthmark hid therein: The kiss it craves calls down from heaven a rod. If innocence be sin that Gods condemn, Praise we the men who so being born in sin First dared the doom and broke the bonds of God.

III.

Man's heel is on the Almighty's neck who said, Let there be hell, and there was hell--on earth. But not for that may men forget their worth-- Nay, but much more remember them--who led The living first from dwellings of the dead, And rent the cerecloths that were wont to engirth Souls wrapped and swathed and swaddled from their birth With lies that bound them fast from heel to head. Among the tombs when wise men all their lives Dwelt, and cried out, and cut themselves with knives, These men, being foolish, and of saints abhorred, Beheld in heaven the sun by saints reviled, Love, and on earth one everlasting Lord In every likeness of a little child.

_LOUIS BLANC._

THREE SONNETS TO HIS MEMORY.

I.