Part 2

Since, long ago, in other gentler weather Ere wrath and exile were, you lay beneath it, (Your symbol then, your innocent wild brother, Glad with your gladness,)

What has befallen in the world of wonder, That still it puts forth bubbles of sweet color, And you, and you that burst our eyes with beauty, Are sapped and rotten?

Alas! When my young guests have done with singing, I break it, leaf and fruit, my garden’s glory, And hold it high among them, and say after: “O my poor Ovid,

“Years pass, and loves pass too; and yet remember For the clear time when we were boys together, These tears at home are shed; and with you also Your bough is dying.”

_Two Irish Peasant Songs_

I

I KNEAD and I spin, but my life is low the while, Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile, Yet if I walk alone, and think of naught at all, Why from me that ’s young should the wild tears fall?

The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams, They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams, And yonder ivy fondling the broke castle-wall, It pulls upon my heart till the wild tears fall.

The cabin-door looks down a furze-lighted hill, And far as Leighlin Cross the fields are green and still; But once I hear the blackbird in Leighlin hedges call, The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall!

II

’Tis the time o’ the year, if the quicken-bough be staunch, The green, like a breaker, rolls steady up the branch, And surges in the spaces, and floods the trunk, and heaves In little angry spray that is the under-white of leaves; And from the thorn in companies the foamy petals fall, And waves of jolly ivy wink along a windy wall.

’Tis the time o’ the year the marsh is full of sound, And good and glorious it is to smell the living ground. The crimson-headed catkin shakes above the pasture-bars, The daisy takes the middle field and spangles it with stars, And down the bank into the lane the primroses do crowd, All colored like the twilight moon, and spreading like a cloud!

’Tis the time o’ the year, in early light and glad, The lark has a music to drive a lover mad; The downs are dripping nightly, the breathèd damps arise, Deliciously the freshets cool the grayling’s golden eyes, And lying in a row against the chilly north, the sheep Inclose a place without a wind for tender lambs to sleep.

’Tis the time o’ the year I turn upon the height To watch from my harrow the dance of going light; And if before the sun be hid, come slowly up the vale Honora with her dimpled throat, Honora with her pail, Hey, but there ’s many a March for me, and many and many a lass! I fall to work and song again, and let Honora pass.

_The Japanese Anemone_

ALL summer the breath of the roses around Exhales with a delicate, passionate sound; And when from a trellis, in holiday places, They croon and cajole, with their slumberous faces, A lad in the lane must slacken his paces.

Fragrance of these is a voice in a bower: But low by the wall is my odorless flower, So pure, so controlled, not a fume is above her, That poet or bee should delay there and hover; For she is a silence, and therefore I love her.

And never a mortal by morn or midnight Is called to her hid little house of delight; And she keeps from the wind, on his pillages olden, Upon a true stalk in rough weather upholden, Her winter-white gourd with the hollow moon-golden.

While ardors of roses contend and increase, Methinks she has found how noble is peace, Like a spirit besought from the world to dissever, Not absent to men, tho’ resumed by the Giver, And dead long ago, being lovely for ever.

_Tryste Noel_

THE Ox he openeth wide the Doore And from the Snowe he calls her inne, And he hath seen her Smile therefore, Our Ladye without Sinne. Now soone from Sleepe A Starre shall leap, And soone arrive both King and Hinde; _Amen, Amen_: But O, the place co’d I but finde!

The Ox hath husht his voyce and bent Trewe eyes of Pitty ore the Mow, And on his lovelie Neck, forspent, The Blessed lays her Browe. Around her feet Full Warme and Sweete His bowerie Breath doth meeklie dwell; _Amen, Amen_: But sore am I with Vaine Travèl!

The Ox is host in Juda’s stall, And Host of more than onelie one, For close she gathereth withal Our Lorde her littel Sonne. Glad Hinde and King Their Gyfte may bring But wo’d to-night my Teares were there, _Amen, Amen_: Between her Bosom and His hayre!

_A Talisman_

TAKE Temperance to thy breast, While yet is the hour of choosing, As arbitress exquisite Of all that shall thee betide; For better than fortune’s best Is mastery in the using, And sweeter than anything sweet The art to lay it aside!

_Heathenesse_

NO round boy-satyr, racing from the mere, Shakes on the mountain-lawn his dripping head This many a May, your sister being dead, Ye Christian folk! your sister great and dear. To breathe her name, to think how sad-sincere Was all her searching, straying, dreaming, dread, How of her natural night was Plato bred, A star to keep the ways of honor clear, Who will not sigh for her? who can forget Not only unto campèd Israel, Nor martyr-maids that as a bridegroom met The Roman lion’s roar, salvation fell? To Him be most of praise that He is yet Your God thro’ gods not inaccessible.

_For Izaak Walton_

WHAT trout shall coax the rod of yore In Itchen stream to dip? What lover of her banks restore That sweet Socratic lip? Old fishing and wishing Are over many a year. O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.

Again the foamy shallows fill, The quiet clouds amass, And soft as bees by Catherine Hill At dawn the anglers pass, And follow the hollow, In boughs to disappear. O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.

Nay, rise not now, nor with them take One silver-freckled fool! Thy sons to-day bring each an ache For ancient arts to cool. But, father, lie rather Unhurt and idle near; O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.

While thought of thee to men is yet A sylvan playfellow, Ne’er by thy marble they forget In pious cheer to go. As air falls, the prayer falls O’er kingly Winchester: O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.

_Sherman: “An Horatian Ode”_

THIS was the truest man of men, The early-armored citizen, Who had, with most of sight, Most passion for the right;

Who first forecasting treason’s scope Able to sap the Founders’ hope, First to the laic arm Cried ultimate alarm;

Who bent upon his guns the while A misconceived and aching smile, And felt, thro’ havoc’s part, A torment of the heart,

Sure, when he cut the moated South From Shiloh to Savannah’s mouth, Braved grandly to the end, To conquer like a friend;

In whom the Commonwealth withstood Again the Carolinian blood, The beautiful proud line Beneath an evil sign,

And taught his foes and doubters still How fatal is a good man’s will, That like a sun or sod Thinks not itself, but God!

Many the captains of our wrath Sought thus the pious civic path, Knowing in what a land Their destiny was planned,

And after, with a forward sense, A simple Roman excellence, Pledge in their spirit bore That war should be no more.

Thrice Roman he, who saw the shock (Calm as a weather-wrinkled rock,) Roll in the Georgian fen; And steadfast aye as then

In plenitude of old control That asked, secure of his own soul, No pardon and no aid, If clear his way were made,

Would have nor seat nor bays, nor bring The Cæsar in him to be king, But with abstracted ear Rode pleased without a cheer.

Now he declines from peace and age, And home, his triple heritage, The last and dearest head Of all our perfect dead,

O what if sorrow cannot reach Far in the shallow fords of speech, But leads us silent round The sad Missouri ground,

Where on her hero Freedom lays The scroll and blazon of her praise, And bids to him belong Arms trailing, and a song,

And broken flags with ruined dyes (Bright once in young and dying eyes), Against the morn to shake For love’s familiar sake?

The blessèd broken flags unfurled Above a healed and happier world! There let them droop, and be His tent of victory;

There, in each year’s auguster light, Lean in, and loose their red and white, Like apple-blossoms strewn Upon his burial-stone.

For nothing more, the ages thro’, Can nature or the nation do For him who helped retrieve Our life, as we believe,

Save that we also, trooping by In sound yet of his battle-cry, Safeguard with general mind Our pact as brothers kind,

And, ever nearer to our star, Adore indeed not what we are, But wise reprovings hold Thankworthier than gold;

And bear in faith and rapture such As can eternal issues touch, Whole from the final field, Our father Sherman’s shield.

_When on the Marge of Evening_

WHEN on the marge of evening the last blue light is broken, And winds of dreamy odor are loosened from afar, Or when my lattice opens, before the lark has spoken, On dim laburnum-blossoms, and morning’s dying star,

I think of thee, (O mine the more if other eyes be sleeping!) Whose great and noonday splendor the many share and see, While sacred and forever, some perfect law is keeping The late and early twilight alone and sweet for me.

_Rooks in New College Gardens_

THRO’ rosy cloud, and over thorny towers, Their wings with all the autumn distance filled, From Isis’ valley border hundred-hilled, The rooks are crowding home as evening lowers: Not for men only and their musing hours, By battled walls did gracious Wykeham build These dewy spaces early sown and stilled, These dearest inland melancholy bowers.

Blest birds! A book held open on the knee Below, is all they know of Adam’s blight: With surer art the while, and simpler rite, They follow Truth in some monastic tree, Where breathe against their innocent breasts by night The scholar’s star, the star of sanctity.

_Open, Time_

OPEN, Time, and let him pass Shortly where his feet would be! Like a leaf at Michaelmas Swooning from the tree,

Ere its hour the manly mind Trembles in a sure decrease, Nor the body now can find Any hold on peace.

Take him, weak and overworn; Fold about his dying dream Boyhood, and the April morn, And the rolling stream:

Weather on a sunny ridge, Showery weather, far from here; Under some deep-ivied bridge, Water rushing clear:

Water quick to cross and part, (Golden light on silver sound), Weather that was next his heart All the world around!

Soon upon his vision break These, in their remembered blue; He shall toil no more, but wake Young, in air he knew.

He has done with roofs and men. Open, Time, and let him pass, Vague and innocent again, Into country grass.

_The Knight Errant (Donatello’s Saint George)_

SPIRITS of old that bore me, And set me, meek of mind, Between great dreams before me, And deeds as great behind, Knowing humanity my star As first abroad I ride, Shall help me wear, with every scar, Honor at eventide.

Let claws of lightning clutch me From summer’s groaning cloud, Or ever malice touch me, And glory make me proud. O give my youth, my faith, my sword, Choice of the heart’s desire: A short life in the saddle, Lord! Not long life by the fire.

Forethought and recollection Rivet mine armor gay! The passion for perfection Redeem my failing way! The arrows of the tragic time From sudden ambush cast, With calm angelic touches ope My Paradise at last!

I fear no breathing bowman, But only, east and west, The awful other foeman Impowered in my breast. The outer fray in the sun shall be, The inner beneath the moon; And may Our Lady lend to me Sight of the Dragon soon!

_To a Dog’s Memory_

THE gusty morns are here, When all the reeds ride low with level spear; And on such nights as lured us far of yore, Down rocky alleys yet, and thro’ the pine, The Hound-star and the pagan Hunter shine: But I and thou, ah, field-fellow of mine, Together roam no more.

Soft showers go laden now With odors of the sappy orchard-bough, And brooks begin to brawl along the march; The late frost steams from hollow sedges high; The finch is come, the flame-blue dragon-fly, The cowslip’s common gold that children spy, The plume upon the larch.

There is a music fills The oaks of Belmont and the Wayland hills Southward to Dewing’s little bubbly stream, The heavenly weather’s call! Oh, who alive Hastes not to start, delays not to arrive, Having free feet that never felt a gyve Weigh, even in a dream?

But thou, instead, hast found The sunless April uplands underground, And still, wherever thou art, I must be. My beautiful! arise in might and mirth, For we were tameless travellers from our birth; Arise against thy narrow door of earth, And keep the watch for me.

_A Seventeenth-Century Song_

SHE alone of Shepherdesses With her blue disdayning eyes, Wo’d not hark a Kyng that dresses All his lute in sighes: Yet to winne Katheryn, I elect for mine Emprise.

None is like her, none above her, Who so lifts my youth in me, That a littel more to love her Were to leave her free! But to winne Katheryn, Is mine utmost love’s degree.

Distaunce, cold, delay, and danger, Build the four walles of her bower; She ’s noe Sweete for any stranger, She ’s noe valley flower: And to winne Katheryn, To her height my heart can Tower!

Uppe to Beautie’s promontory I will climb, nor loudlie call Perfect and escaping glory Folly, if I fall: Well to winne Katheryn! To be worth her is my all.

_On the Pre-Reformation Churches about Oxford_

I

IMPERIAL Iffley, Cumnor bowered in green, And Templar Sandford in the boatman’s call, And sweet-belled Appleton, and Wytham wall That doth upon adoring ivies lean; Meek Binsey; Dorchester where streams convene Bidding on graves her solemn shadow fall; Clear Cassington that soars perpetual; Holton and Hampton, and ye towers between: If one of all in your sad courts that come, Belovèd and disparted! be your own, Kin to the souls ye had, while time endures, Known to each exiled, each estrangèd stone Home in the quarries of old Christendom,-- Ah, mark him: he will lay his cheek to yours.

II

Is this the end? is this the pilgrim’s day For dread, for dereliction, and for tears? Rather, from grass and air and many spheres In prophecy his spirit sinks away; And under English eaves, more still than they, Far-off, incoming, wonderful, he hears The long-arrested and believing years Carry the sea-wall! Shall he, sighing, say, “Farewell to Faith, for she is dead at best Who had such beauty”? or with kisses lain For witness on her darkened doors, go by With a new psalm: “O banished light so nigh! Of them was I who bore thee and who blest; Even here remember me when thou shalt reign.”

_The Still of the Year_

UP from the willow-root Subduing agonies leap; The squirrel and the purple moth Turn over amid their sleep; The icicled rocks aloft Burn saffron and blue alway, And trickling and tinkling The snows of the drift decay. O mine is the head must hang And share the immortal pang! Winter or spring is fair; Thaw ’s hard to bear. Heigho! my heart ’s sick.

Sweet is cherry-time, sweet A shower, a bobolink, And the little trillium-blossom Tucked under her leaf to think; But here in the vast unborn Is the bitterest place to be, Till striving and longing Shall quicken the earth and me. What change inscrutable Is nigh us, we know not well; Gone is the strength to sigh Either to live or die. Heigho! my heart ’s sick.

_A Foot-note to a Famous Lyric_

TRUE love’s own talisman, which here Shakespeare and Sidney failed to teach, A steel-and-velvet Cavalier Gave to our Saxon speech:

Chief miracle of theme and touch That upstart enviers adore: _I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not Honour more_.

No critic born since Charles was king But sighed in smiling, as he read: “Here ’s theft of the supremest thing A poet might have said!”

Young knight and wit and beau, who won Mid war’s adventure, ladies’ praise, Was’t well of you, ere you had done, To blight our modern bays?

O yet to you, whose random hand Struck from the dark whole gems like these, Archaic beauty, never planned Nor reared by wan degrees,

Which leaves an artist poor, and art An earldom richer all her years; To you, dead on your shield apart, Be “Ave!” passed in tears.

How shall this singing era spurn Her master, and in lauds be loath? Your worth, your work, bid us discern Light exquisite in both.

’T was virtue’s breath inflamed your lyre, Heroic from the heart it ran; Nor for the shedding of such fire Lives since a manlier man.

And till your strophe sweet and bold So lovely aye, so lonely long, Love’s self outdo, dear Lovelace! hold The pinnacles of song.

_T. W. P. 1819-1892_

FRIEND who hast gone, and dost enrich to-day New England brightly building far away, And crown her liberal walk With company more choice, and sweeter talk,

Look not on Fame, but Peace; and in a bower Receive at last her fulness and her power: Nor wholly, pure of heart! Forget thy few, who would be where thou art.

_Summum Bonum_

WAITING on Him who knows us and our need, Most need have we to dare not, nor desire, But as He giveth, softly to suspire Against His gift, with no inglorious greed, For this is joy, tho’ still our joys recede; And, as in octaves of a noble lyre, To move our minds with His, and clearer, higher, Sound forth our fate; for this is strength indeed.

Thanks to His love let earth and man dispense In smoke of worship when the heart is stillest, A praying more than prayer: “Great good have I, Till it be greater good to lay it by; Nor can I lose peace, power, permanence, For these smile on me from the thing Thou willest!”

_Saint Florent-le-Vieil_

THE spacious open vale, the vale of doom, Is full of autumn sunset; blue and strong The semicirque of water sweeps among Her lofty acres, each a martyr’s tomb; And slowly, slowly, melt into the gloom Two little idling clouds, that look for long Like roseleaf bodies of two babes in song Correggio left to flush a convent room.

Dear hill deflowered in the frantic war! In my day, rather, have I seen thee blest With pastoral roofs to break the darker crest Of apple-woods by many-islèd Loire, And fires that still suffuse the lower west, Blanching the beauty of thine evening star.

_Hylas_

JAR in arm, they bade him rove Thro’ the alder’s long alcove, Where the hid spring musically Gushes to the ample valley. (There ’s a bird on the under bough Fluting evermore and now: “Keep--young!” but who knows how?)

Down the woodland corridor, Odors deepened more and more; Blossomed dogwood, in the briers, Struck her faint delicious fires; Miles of April passed between Crevices of closing green, And the moth, the violet-lover, By the wellside saw him hover.

Ah, the slippery sylvan dark! Never after shall he mark Noisy ploughmen drinking, drinking, On his drownèd cheek down-sinking; Quit of serving is that wild, Absent, and bewitchèd child, Unto action, age, and danger, Thrice a thousand years a stranger.

Fathoms low, the naiads sing In a birthday welcoming; Water-white their breasts, and o’er him, Water-gray, their eyes adore him. (There ’s a bird on the under bough Fluting evermore and now: “Keep--young!” but who knows how?)

_Nocturne_

THE sun that hurt his lovers from on high Is fallen; she more merciful is nigh, The blessèd one whose beauty’s even glow Gave never wound to any shepherd’s eye. Above our pausing boat in shallows drifted, Alone her plaintive form ascends the sky.

O sing! the water-golds are deepening now, A hush is come upon the beechen bough; She shines the while on thee, as saint to saint Sweet interchanged adorings may allow: Sing, dearest, with that lily throat uplifted; They are so like, the holy Moon and thou!

_The Kings_

A MAN said unto his angel: “My spirits are fallen thro’, And I cannot carry this battle, O brother! what shall I do?

“The terrible Kings are on me, With spears that are deadly bright, Against me so from the cradle Do fate and my fathers fight.”

Then said to the man his angel: “Thou wavering, foolish soul, Back to the ranks! What matter To win or to lose the whole,

“As judged by the little judges Who hearken not well, nor see? Not thus, by the outer issue, The Wise shall interpret thee.

“Thy will is the very, the only, The solemn event of things; The weakest of hearts defying Is stronger than all these Kings.

“Tho’ out of the past they gather, Mind’s Doubt and Bodily Pain, And pallid Thirst of the Spirit That is kin to the other twain,

“And Grief, in a cloud of banners, And ringletted Vain Desires, And Vice, with the spoils upon him Of thee and thy beaten sires,

“While Kings of eternal evil Yet darken the hills about, Thy part is with broken sabre To rise on the last redoubt;

“To fear not sensible failure, Nor covet the game at all, But fighting, fighting, fighting, Die, driven against the wall!”

ALEXANDRIANA

_Alexandriana_

I

I LAID the strewings, sweetest, on thine urn; I lowered the torch, I poured the cup to Dis. Now hushaby, my little child, and learn Long sleep how good it is.

In vain thy mother prays, wayfaring hence, Peace to her heart, where only heartaches dwell; But thou more blest, O wild intelligence! Forget her, and Farewell.

II

Gentle Grecian passing by, Father of thy peace am I: Wouldst thou now, in memory, Give a soldier’s flower to me, Choose the flag I named of yore Beautiful Worth-dying-for, That shall wither not, but wave All the year above my grave.

III

Light thou hast of the moon, Shade of the dammar-pine, Here on thy hillside bed; Fair befall thee, O fair Lily of womanhood, Patient long, and at last Here on thy hillside bed, Happier: ah, Blæsilla!

IV

Two white heads the grasses cover: Dorcas, and her lifelong lover. While they graced their country closes Simply as the brooks and roses, Where was lot so poor, so trodden, But they cheered it of a sudden? Fifty years at home together, Hand in hand, they went elsewhither, Then first leaving hearts behind Comfortless. Be thou as kind.

V

Upon thy level tomb, till windy winter dawn, The fallen leaves delay; But plain and pure their trace is, when themselves are torn From delicate frost away.

As here to transient frost the absent leaf is, such Thou wert and art to me: So on my passing life is thy long-passèd touch, O dear Alcithoë!

VI

Hail, and be of comfort, thou pious Xeno, Late the urn of many a kinsman wreathing; On thine own shall even the stranger offer Plentiful myrtle.

VII