Chapter 4

The stainless soul that smiled through glorious eyes; The bright grave brow whereon dark fortune's blast Might blow, but might not bend it, nor o'ercast, Save for one fierce fleet hour of shame, the skies Thrilled with warm dreams of worthier days to rise And end the whole world's winter; here at last, If death be death, have passed into the past; If death be life, live, though their semblance dies. Hope and high faith inviolate of distrust Shone strong as life inviolate of the grave Through each bright word and lineament serene. Most loving righteousness and love most just Crowned, as day crowns the dawn-enkindled wave, With visible aureole thine unfaltering mien.

II.

Strong time and fire-swift change, with lightnings clad And shod with thunders of reverberate years, Have filled with light and sound of hopes and fears The space of many a season, since I had Grace of good hap to make my spirit glad, Once communing with thine: and memory hears The bright voice yet that then rejoiced mine ears, Sees yet the light of eyes that spake, and bade Fear not, but hope, though then time's heart were weak And heaven by hell shade-stricken, and the range Of high-born hope made questionable and strange As twilight trembling till the sunlight speak. Thou sawest the sunrise and the storm in one Break: seest thou now the storm-compelling sun?

III.

Surely thou seest, O spirit of light and fire, Surely thou canst not choose, O soul, but see The days whose dayspring was beheld of thee Ere eyes less pure might have their hope's desire, Beholding life in heaven again respire Where men saw nought that was or was to be, Save only death imperial. Thou and he Who has the heart of all men's hearts for lyre, Ye twain, being great of spirit as time is great, And sure of sight as truth's own heavenward eye, Beheld the forms of forces passing by And certitude of equal-balanced fate, Whose breath forefelt makes darkness palpitate, And knew that light should live and darkness die.

_VOS DEOS LAUDAMUS:_

THE CONSERVATIVE JOURNALIST'S ANTHEM.

'As a matter of fact, no man living, or who ever lived--not CÆSAR or PERICLES, not SHAKESPEARE or MICHAEL ANGELO--could confer honour more than he took on entering the House of Lords.'--_Saturday Review_, December 15, 1883.

'Clumsy and shallow snobbery--can do no hurt.'--_Ibid._

I.

O Lords our Gods, beneficent, sublime, In the evening, and before the morning flames, We praise, we bless, we magnify your names. The slave is he that serves not; his the crime And shame, who hails not as the crown of Time That House wherein the all-envious world acclaims Such glory that the reflex of it shames All crowns bestowed of men for prose or rhyme. The serf, the cur, the sycophant is he Who feels no cringing motion twitch his knee When from a height too high for Shakespeare nods The wearer of a higher than Milton's crown. Stoop, Chaucer, stoop: Keats, Shelley, Burns, bow down: These have no part with you, O Lords our Gods.

II.

O Lords our Gods, it is not that ye sit Serene above the thunder, and exempt From strife of tongues and casualties that tempt Men merely found by proof of manhood fit For service of their fellows: this is it Which sets you past the reach of Time's attempt, Which gives us right of justified contempt For commonwealths built up by mere men's wit: That gold unlocks not, nor may flatteries ope, The portals of your heaven; that none may hope With you to watch how life beneath you plods, Save for high service given, high duty done; That never was your rank ignobly won: For this we give you praise, O Lords our Gods.

III.

O Lords our Gods, the times are evil: you Redeem the time, because of evil days. While abject souls in servitude of praise Bow down to heads untitled, and the crew Whose honour dwells but in the deeds they do, From loftier hearts your nobler servants raise More manful salutation: yours are bays That not the dawn's plebeian pearls bedew; Yours, laurels plucked not of such hands as wove Old age its chaplet in Colonos' grove. Our time, with heaven and with itself at odds, Makes all lands else as seas that seethe and boil; But yours are yet the corn and wine and oil, And yours our worship yet, O Lords our Gods.

_December 15._

_ON THE BICENTENARY OF CORNEILLE_,

CELEBRATED UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF VICTOR HUGO.

Scarce two hundred years are gone, and the world is past away As a noise of brawling wind, as a flash of breaking foam, That beheld the singer born who raised up the dead of Rome; And a mightier now than he bids him too rise up to-day, All the dim great age is dust, and its king is tombless clay, But its loftier laurel green as in living eyes it clomb, And his memory whom it crowned hath his people's heart for home, And the shade across it falls of a lordlier-flowering bay.

Stately shapes about the tomb of their mighty maker pace, Heads of high-plumed Spaniards shine, souls revive of Roman race, Sound of arms and words of wail through the glowing darkness rise, Speech of hearts heroic rings forth of lips that know not breath, And the light of thoughts august fills the pride of kindling eyes Whence of yore the spell of song drove the shadow of darkling death.

_IN SEPULCRETIS._

'Vidistis ipso rapere de rogo coenam.'--CATULLUS, LIX. 3.

'To publish even one line of an author which he himself has not intended for the public at large--especially letters which are addressed to private persons--is to commit a despicable act of felony.'--HEINE.

I.

It is not then enough that men who give The best gifts given of man to man should feel, Alive, a snake's head ever at their heel: Small hurt the worms may do them while they live-- Such hurt as scorn for scorn's sake may forgive. But now, when death and fame have set one seal On tombs whereat Love, Grief, and Glory kneel, Men sift all secrets, in their critic sieve, Of graves wherein the dust of death might shrink To know what tongues defile the dead man's name With loathsome love, and praise that stings like shame. Rest once was theirs, who had crossed the mortal brink: No rest, no reverence now: dull fools undress Death's holiest shrine, life's veriest nakedness.

II.

A man was born, sang, suffered, loved, and died. Men scorned him living: let us praise him dead. His life was brief and bitter, gently led And proudly, but with pure and blameless pride. He wrought no wrong toward any; satisfied With love and labour, whence our souls are fed With largesse yet of living wine and bread. Come, let us praise him: here is nought to hide. Make bare the poor dead secrets of his heart, Strip the stark-naked soul, that all may peer, Spy, smirk, sniff, snap, snort, snivel, snarl, and sneer: Let none so sad, let none so sacred part Lie still for pity, rest unstirred for shame, But all be scanned of all men. This is fame.

III.

'Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!'[1] If one, that strutted up the brawling streets As foreman of the flock whose concourse greets Men's ears with bray more dissonant than brass, Would change from blame to praise as coarse and crass His natural note, and learn the fawning feats Of lapdogs, who but knows what luck he meets? But all in vain old fable holds her glass.

Mocked and reviled by men of poisonous breath, A great man dies: but one thing worst was spared, Not all his heart by their base hands lay bared. One comes to crown with praise the dust of death; And lo, through him this worst is brought to pass. Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!

[Footnote 1: _Titus Andronicus_, Act iv., Scene 2.]

IV.

Shame, such as never yet dealt heavier stroke On heads more shameful, fall on theirs through whom Dead men may keep inviolate not their tomb, But all its depths these ravenous grave-worms choke And yet what waste of wrath were this, to invoke Shame on the shameless? Even their twin-born doom, Their native air of life, a carrion fume, Their natural breath of love, a noisome smoke, The bread they break, the cup whereof they drink, The record whose remembrance damns their name, Smells, tastes, and sounds of nothing but of shame. If thankfulness nor pity bids them think What work is this of theirs, and pause betimes, Not Shakespeare's grave would scare them off with rhymes.

_LOVE AND SCORN._

I.

Love, loyallest and lordliest born of things, Immortal that shouldst be, though all else end, In plighted hearts of fearless friend with friend, Whose hand may curb or clip thy plume-plucked wings? Not grief's nor time's: though these be lords and kings Crowned, and their yoke bid vassal passions bend, They may not pierce the spirit of sense, or blend Quick poison with the soul's live watersprings. The true clear heart whose core is manful trust Fears not that very death may turn to dust Love lit therein as toward a brother born, If one touch make not all its fine gold rust, If one breath blight not all its glad ripe corn, And all its fire be turned to fire of scorn.

II.

Scorn only, scorn begot of bitter proof By keen experience of a trustless heart, Bears burning in her new-born hand the dart Wherewith love dies heart-stricken, and the roof Falls of his palace, and the storied woof Long woven of many a year with life's whole art Is rent like any rotten weed apart, And hardly with reluctant eyes aloof Cold memory guards one relic scarce exempt Yet from the fierce corrosion of contempt, And hardly saved by pity. Woe are we That once we loved, and love not; but we know The ghost of love, surviving yet in show, Where scorn has passed, is vain as grief must be.

III.

O sacred, just, inevitable scorn, Strong child of righteous judgment, whom with grief The rent heart bears, and wins not yet relief, Seeing of its pain so dire a portent born, Must thou not spare one sheaf of all the corn, One doit of all the treasure? not one sheaf, Not one poor doit of all? not one dead leaf Of all that fell and left behind a thorn? Is man so strong that one should scorn another? Is any as God, not made of mortal mother, That love should turn in him to gall and flame? Nay: but the true is not the false heart's brother: Love cannot love disloyalty: the name That else it wears is love no more, but shame.

_ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD DOYLE._

A light of blameless laughter, fancy-bred, Soft-souled and glad and kind as love or sleep, Fades, and sweet mirth's own eyes are fain to weep Because her blithe and gentlest bird is dead. Weep, elves and fairies all, that never shed Tear yet for mortal mourning: you that keep The doors of dreams whence nought of ill may creep, Mourn once for one whose lips your honey fed. Let waters of the Golden River steep The rose-roots whence his grave blooms rosy-red And murmuring of Hyblæan hives be deep About the summer silence of its bed, And nought less gracious than a violet peep Between the grass grown greener round his head.

_IN MEMORY OF HENRY A. BRIGHT._

Yet again another, ere his crowning year, Gone from friends that here may look for him no more. Never now for him shall hope set wide the door, Hope that hailed him hither, fain to greet him here. All the gracious garden-flowers he held so dear, Oldworld English blossoms, all his homestead store, Oldworld grief had strewn them round his bier of yore, Bidding each drop leaf by leaf as tear by tear; Rarer lutes than mine had borne more tuneful token, Touched by subtler hands than echoing time can wrong, Sweet as flowers had strewn his graveward path along. Now may no such old sweet dirges more be spoken, Now the flowers whose breath was very song are broken, Nor may sorrow find again so sweet a song.

_A SOLITUDE._

Sea beyond sea, sand after sweep of sand, Here ivory smooth, here cloven and ridged with flow Of channelled waters soft as rain or snow, Stretch their lone length at ease beneath the bland Grey gleam of skies whose smile on wave and strand Shines weary like a man's who smiles to know That now no dream can mock his faith with show, Nor cloud for him seem living sea or land.

Is there an end at all of all this waste, These crumbling cliffs defeatured and defaced, These ruinous heights of sea-sapped walls that slide Seaward with all their banks of bleak blown flowers Glad yet of life, ere yet their hope subside Beneath the coil of dull dense waves and hours?

_VICTOR HUGO: L'ARCHIPEL DE LA MANCHE._

Sea and land are fairer now, nor aught is all the same, Since a mightier hand than Time's hath woven their votive wreath. Rocks as swords half drawn from out the smooth wave's jewelled sheath, Fields whose flowers a tongue divine hath numbered name by name, Shores whereby the midnight or the noon clothed round with flame Hears the clamour jar and grind which utters from beneath Cries of hungering waves like beasts fast bound that gnash their teeth, All of these the sun that lights them lights not like his fame; None of these is but the thing it was before he came Where the darkling overfalls like dens of torment seethe, High on tameless moorlands, down in meadows bland and tame, Where the garden hides, and where the wind uproots the heath, Glory now henceforth for ever, while the world shall be, Shines, a star that keeps not time with change on earth and sea.

_THE TWILIGHT OF THE LORDS._

I.

Is the sound a trumpet blown, or a bell for burial tolled, Whence the whole air vibrates now to the clash of words like swords-- 'Let us break their bonds in sunder, and cast away their cords; Long enough the world has mocked us, and marvelled to behold How the grown man bears the curb whence his boyhood was controlled'? Nay, but hearken: surer counsel more sober speech affords: 'Is the past not all inscribed with the praises of our Lords? Is the memory dead of deeds done of yore, the love grown cold That should bind our hearts to trust in their counsels wise and bold? These that stand against you now, senseless crowds and heartless hordes, Are not these the sons of men that withstood your kings of old? Theirs it is to bind and loose; theirs the key that knows the wards, Theirs the staff to lead or smite; yours, the spades and ploughs and hods: Theirs to hear and yours to cry, Power is yours, O Lords our Gods.'

II.

Hear, O England: these are they that would counsel thee aright. Wouldst thou fain have all thy sons sons of thine indeed, and free? Nay, but then no more at all as thou hast been shalt thou be: Needs must many dwell in darkness, that some may look on light; Needs must poor men brook the wrong that ensures the rich man's right. How shall kings and lords be worshipped, if no man bow the knee? How, if no man worship these, may thy praise endure with thee? How, except thou trust in these, shall thy name not lose its might? These have had their will of thee since the Norman came to smite: Sires on grandsires, even as wave after wave along the sea, Sons on sires have followed, steadfast as clouds or hours in flight. Time alone hath power to say, time alone hath eyes to see, If your walls of rule be built but of clay-compacted sods, If your place of old shall know you no more, O Lords our Gods.

III.

Through the stalls wherein ye sit sounds a sentence while we wait, Set your house in order: is it not builded on the sand? Set your house in order, seeing the night is hard at hand. As the twilight of the Gods in the northern dream of fate Is this hour that comes against you, albeit this hour come late. Ye whom Time and Truth bade heed, and ye would not understand, Now an axe draws nigh the tree overshadowing all the land, And its edge of doom is set to the root of all your state. Light is more than darkness now, faith than fear and hope than hate, And what morning wills, behold, all the night shall not withstand. Rods of office, helms of rule, staffs of wise men, crowns of great, While the people willed, ye bare; now their hopes and hearts expand, Time with silent foot makes dust of your broken crowns and rods, And the lordship of your godhead is gone, O Lords our Gods.

_CLEAR THE WAY!_

Clear the way, my lords and lackeys! you have had your day. Here you have your answer--England's yea against your nay: Long enough your house has held you: up, and clear the way!

Lust and falsehood, craft and traffic, precedent and gold, Tongue of courtier, kiss of harlot, promise bought and sold, Gave you heritage of empire over thralls of old.

Now that all these things are rotten, all their gold is rust, Quenched the pride they lived by, dead the faith and cold the lust, Shall their heritage not also turn again to dust?

By the grace of these they reigned, who left their sons their sway: By the grace of these, what England says her lords unsay: Till at last her cry go forth against them--Clear the way!

By the grace of trust in treason knaves have lived and lied: By the force of fear and folly fools have fed their pride: By the strength of sloth and custom reason stands defied.

Lest perchance your reckoning on some latter day be worse, Halt and hearken, lords of land and princes of the purse, Ere the tide be full that comes with blessing and with curse.

Where we stand; as where you sit, scarce falls a sprinkling spray; But the wind that swells, the wave that follows, none shall stay: Spread no more of sail for shipwreck: out, and clear the way!

_A WORD FOR THE COUNTRY._

Men, born of the land that for ages Has been honoured where freedom was dear, Till your labour wax fat on its wages You shall never be peers of a peer. Where might is, the right is: Long purses make strong swords. Let weakness learn meekness: God save the House of Lords!

You are free to consume in stagnation: You are equal in right to obey: You are brothers in bonds, and the nation Is your mother--whose sons are her prey. Those others your brothers, Who toil not, weave, nor till, Refuse you and use you As waiters on their will.

But your fathers bowed down to their masters And obeyed them and served and adored. Shall the sheep not give thanks to their pastors? Shall the serf not give praise to his lord? Time, waning and gaining, Grown other now than then, Needs pastors and masters For sheep, and not for men.

If his grandsire did service in battle, If his grandam was kissed by a king, Must men to my lord be as cattle Or as apes that he leads in a string? To deem so, to dream so, Would bid the world proclaim The dastards for bastards, Not heirs of England's fame.

Not in spite but in right of dishonour, There are actors who trample your boards Till the earth that endures you upon her Grows weary to bear you, my lords. Your token is broken, It will not pass for gold: Your glory looks hoary, Your sun in heaven turns cold.

They are worthy to reign on their brothers, To contemn them as clods and as carles, Who are Graces by grace of such mothers As brightened the bed of King Charles. What manner of banner, What fame is this they flaunt, That Britain, soul-smitten, Should shrink before their vaunt?

Bright sons of sublime prostitution, You are made of the mire of the street Where your grandmothers walked in pollution Till a coronet shone at their feet. Your Graces, whose faces Bear high the bastard's brand, Seem stronger no longer Than all this honest land.

But the sons of her soldiers and seamen, They are worthy forsooth of their hire. If the father won praise from all free men, Shall the sons not exult in their sire? Let money make sunny And power make proud their lives, And feed them and breed them Like drones in drowsiest hives.

But if haply the name be a burden And the souls be no kindred of theirs, Should wise men rejoice in such guerdon Or brave men exult in such heirs? Or rather the father Frown, shamefaced, on the son, And no men but foemen, Deriding, cry 'Well done'?

Let the gold and the land they inherit Pass ever from hand into hand: In right of the forefather's merit Let the gold be the son's, and the land. Soft raiment, rich payment, High place, the state affords; Full measure of pleasure, But now no more, my lords.

Is the future beleaguered with dangers If the poor be far other than slaves? Shall the sons of the land be as strangers In the land of their forefathers' graves? Shame were it to bear it, And shame it were to see: If free men you be, men, Let proof proclaim you free.

'But democracy means dissolution: See, laden with clamour and crime, How the darkness of dim revolution Comes deepening the twilight of time! Ah, better the fetter That holds the poor man's hand Than peril of sterile Blind change that wastes the land.

'Gaze forward through clouds that environ; It shall be as it was in the past. Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron, Shall a nation be moulded to last.' So teach they, so preach they, Who dream themselves the dream That hallows the gallows And bids the scaffold stream.

'With a hero at head, and a nation Well gagged and well drilled and well cowed, And a gospel of war and damnation, Has not empire a right to be proud? Fools prattle and tattle Of freedom, reason, right, The beauty of duty, The loveliness of light.

'But we know, we believe it, we see it, Force only has power upon earth.' So be it! and ever so be it For souls that are bestial by birth! Let Prussian with Russian Exchange the kiss of slaves: But sea-folk are free folk By grace of winds and waves.

Has the past from the sepulchres beckoned? Let answer from Englishmen be-- No man shall be lord of us reckoned Who is baser, not better, than we. No coward, empowered To soil a brave man's name; For shame's sake and fame's sake, Enough of fame and shame.

Fame needs not the golden addition; Shame bears it abroad as a brand. Let the deed, and no more the tradition, Speak out and be heard through the land. Pride, rootless and fruitless, No longer takes and gives: But surer and purer The soul of England lives.

He is master and lord of his brothers Who is worthier and wiser than they. Him only, him surely, shall others, Else equal, observe and obey. Truth, flawless and awless, Do falsehood what it can, Makes royal the loyal And simple heart of man.

Who are these, then, that England should hearken, Who rage and wax wroth and grow pale If she turn from the sunsets that darken And her ship for the morning set sail? Let strangers fear dangers: All know, that hold her dear, Dishonour upon her Can only fall through fear.

Men, born of the landsmen and seamen Who served her with souls and with swords, She bids you be brothers, and free men, And lordless, and fearless of lords. She cares not, she dares not Care now for gold or steel: Light lead her, truth speed her, God save the Commonweal!

_A WORD FOR THE NATION._

I.

A word across the water Against our ears is borne, Of threatenings and of slaughter, Of rage and spite and scorn: We have not, alack, an ally to befriend us, And the season is ripe to extirpate and end us: Let the German touch hands with the Gaul, And the fortress of England must fall; And the sea shall be swept of her seamen, And the waters they ruled be their graves, And Dutchmen and Frenchmen be free men, And Englishmen slaves.

II.