Part 4

_THE painted Briton built his mound_, _And left his celts and clay_, _On yon fair slope of sunlit ground_ _That fronts your garden gay_; _The Roman came_, _he bore the sway_, _He bullied_, _bought_, _and sold_, _Your fountain sweeps his works away_ _Beside your manor old_!

_But still his crumbling urns are found_ _Within the window-bay_, _Where once he listened to the sound_ _That lulls you day by day_;— _The sound of summer winds at play_, _The noise of waters cold_ _To Yarty wandering on their way_, _Beside your manor old_!

_The Roman fell_: _his firm-set bound_ _Became the Saxon’s stay_; _The bells made music all around_ _For monks in cloisters grey_, _Till fled the monks in disarray_ _From their warm chantry’s fold_, _Old Abbots slumber as they may_, _Beside your manor old_!

_ENVOY_.

_Creeds_, _empires_, _peoples_, _all decay_, _Down into darkness_, _rolled_; _May life that’s fleet be sweet_, _I pray_, _Beside your manor old_.

THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS.

THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS.

A DREAM IN JUNE.

IN twilight of the longest day I lingered over Lucian, Till ere the dawn a dreamy way My spirit found, untrod of man, Between the green sky and the grey.

Amid the soft dusk suddenly More light than air I seemed to sail, Afloat upon the ocean sky, While through the faint blue, clear and pale, I saw the mountain clouds go by: My barque had thought for helm and sail, And one mist wreath for canopy.

Like torches on a marble floor Reflected, so the wild stars shone, Within the abysmal hyaline, Till the day widened more and more, And sank to sunset, and was gone, And then, as burning beacons shine On summits of a mountain isle, A light to folk on sea that fare, So the sky’s beacons for a while Burned in these islands of the air.

Then from a starry island set Where one swift tide of wind there flows, Came scent of lily and violet, Narcissus, hyacinth, and rose, Laurel, and myrtle buds, and vine, So delicate is the air and fine: And forests of all fragrant trees Sloped seaward from the central hill, And ever clamorous were these With singing of glad birds; and still Such music came as in the woods Most lonely, consecrate to Pan, The Wind makes, in his many moods, Upon the pipes some shepherd Man, Hangs up, in thanks for victory! On these shall mortals play no more, But the Wind doth touch them, over and o’er, And the Wind’s breath in the reeds will sigh.

Between the daylight and the dark That island lies in silver air, And suddenly my magic barque Wheeled, and ran in, and grounded there; And by me stood the sentinel Of them who in the island dwell; All smiling did he bind my hands, With rushes green and rosy bands, They have no harsher bonds than these The people of the pleasant lands Within the wash of the airy seas!

Then was I to their city led: Now all of ivory and gold The great walls were that garlanded The temples in their shining fold, (Each fane of beryl built, and each Girt with its grove of shadowy beech,) And all about the town, and through, There flowed a River fed with dew, As sweet as roses, and as clear As mountain crystals pure and cold, And with his waves that water kissed The gleaming altars of amethyst That smoke with victims all the year, And sacred are to the Gods of old.

There sat three Judges by the Gate, And I was led before the Three, And they but looked on me, and straight The rosy bonds fell down from me Who, being innocent, was free; And I might wander at my will About that City on the hill, Among the happy people clad In purple weeds of woven air Hued like the webs that Twilight weaves At shut of languid summer eves So light their raiment seemed; and glad Was every face I looked on there!

There was no heavy heat, no cold, The dwellers there wax never old, Nor wither with the waning time, But each man keeps that age he had When first he won the fairy clime. The Night falls never from on high, Nor ever burns the heat of noon. But such soft light eternally Shines, as in silver dawns of June Before the Sun hath climbed the sky!

Within these pleasant streets and wide, The souls of Heroes go and come, Even they that fell on either side Beneath the walls of Ilium; And sunlike in that shadowy isle The face of Helen and her smile Makes glad the souls of them that knew Grief for her sake a little while! And all true Greeks and wise are there; And with his hand upon the hair Of Phaedo, saw I Socrates, About him many youths and fair, Hylas, Narcissus, and with these Him whom the quoit of Phoebus slew By fleet Eurotas, unaware!

All these their mirth and pleasure made Within the plain Elysian, The fairest meadow that may be, With all green fragrant trees for shade And every scented wind to fan, And sweetest flowers to strew the lea; The soft Winds are their servants fleet To fetch them every fruit at will And water from the river chill; And every bird that singeth sweet Throstle, and merle, and nightingale Brings blossoms from the dewy vale,— Lily, and rose, and asphodel— With these doth each guest twine his crown And wreathe his cup, and lay him down Beside some friend he loveth well.

There with the shining Souls I lay When, lo, a Voice that seemed to say, In far-off haunts of Memory, _Whoso doth taste the Dead Men’s bread_, _Shall dwell for ever with these Dead_, _Nor ever shall his body lie_ _Beside his friends_, _on the grey hill_ _Where rains weep_, _and the curlews shrill_ _And the brown water wanders by_!

Then did a new soul in me wake, The dead men’s bread I feared to break, Their fruit I would not taste indeed Were it but a pomegranate seed. Nay, not with these I made my choice To dwell for ever and rejoice, For otherwhere the River rolls That girds the home of Christian souls, And these my whole heart seeks are found On otherwise enchanted ground.

Even so I put the cup away, The vision wavered, dimmed, and broke, And, nowise sorrowing, I woke While, grey among the ruins grey Chill through the dwellings of the dead, The Dawn crept o’er the Northern sea, Then, in a moment, flushed to red, Flushed all the broken minster old, And turned the shattered stones to gold, And wakened half the world with me!

L’ENVOI.

To E. W. G.

(Who also had rhymed on the _Fortunate Islands_ of Lucian).

_Each in the self-same field we glean_ _The field of the Samosatene_, _Each something takes and something leaves_ _And this must choose_, _and that forego_ _In Lucian’s visionary sheaves_, _To twine a modern posy so_; _But all my gleanings_, _truth to tell_, _Are mixed with mournful asphodel_, _While yours are wreathed with poppies red_, _With flowers that Helen’s feet have kissed_, _With leaves of vine that garlanded_ _The Syrian Pantagruelist_, _The sage who laughed the world away_, _Who mocked at Gods_, _and men_, _and care_, _More sweet of voice than Rabelais_, _And lighter-hearted than Voltaire_.

ALMAE MATRES.

ALMAE MATRES.

(ST. ANDREWS, 1862. OXFORD, 1865.)

_ST. Andrews by the Northern sea_, _A haunted town it is to me_! A little city, worn and grey, The grey North Ocean girds it round. And o’er the rocks, and up the bay, The long sea-rollers surge and sound. And still the thin and biting spray Drives down the melancholy street, And still endure, and still decay, Towers that the salt winds vainly beat. Ghost-like and shadowy they stand Dim mirrored in the wet sea-sand.

St. Leonard’s chapel, long ago We loitered idly where the tall Fresh budded mountain ashes blow Within thy desecrated wall: The tough roots rent the tomb below, The April birds sang clamorous, We did not dream, we could not know How hardly Fate would deal with us!

O, broken minster, looking forth Beyond the bay, above the town, O, winter of the kindly North, O, college of the scarlet gown, And shining sands beside the sea, And stretch of links beyond the sand, Once more I watch you, and to me It is as if I touched his hand!

And therefore art thou yet more dear, O, little city, grey and sere, Though shrunken from thine ancient pride And lonely by thy lonely sea, Than these fair halls on Isis’ side, Where Youth an hour came back to me!

A land of waters green and clear, Of willows and of poplars tall, And, in the spring time of the year, The white may breaking over all, And Pleasure quick to come at call. And summer rides by marsh and wold, And Autumn with her crimson pall About the towers of Magdalen rolled; And strange enchantments from the past, And memories of the friends of old, And strong Tradition, binding fast The “flying terms” with bands of gold,—

All these hath Oxford: all are dear, But dearer far the little town, The drifting surf, the wintry year, The college of the scarlet gown, _St. Andrews by the Northern sea_, _That is a haunted town to me_!

DESIDERIUM.

IN MEMORIAM S. F. A.

THE call of homing rooks, the shrill Song of some bird that watches late, The cries of children break the still Sad twilight by the churchyard gate.

And o’er your far-off tomb the grey Sad twilight broods, and from the trees The rooks call on their homeward way, And are you heedless quite of these?

The clustered rowan berries red And Autumn’s may, the clematis, They droop above your dreaming head, And these, and all things must you miss?

Ah, you that loved the twilight air, The dim lit hour of quiet best, At last, at last you have your share Of what life gave so seldom, rest!

Yes, rest beyond all dreaming deep, Or labour, nearer the Divine, And pure from fret, and smooth as sleep, And gentle as thy soul, is thine!

So let it be! But could I know That thou in this soft autumn eve, This hush of earth that pleased thee so, Hadst pleasure still, I might not grieve.

RHYMES À LA MODE.

BALLADE OF MIDDLE AGE.

OUR youth began with tears and sighs, With seeking what we could not find; Our verses all were threnodies, In elegiacs still we whined; Our ears were deaf, our eyes were blind, We sought and knew not what we sought. We marvel, now we look behind: Life’s more amusing than we thought!

Oh, foolish youth, untimely wise! Oh, phantoms of the sickly mind! What? not content with seas and skies, With rainy clouds and southern wind, With common cares and faces kind, With pains and joys each morning brought? Ah, old, and worn, and tired we find Life’s more amusing than we thought!

Though youth “turns spectre-thin and dies,” To mourn for youth we’re not inclined; We set our souls on salmon flies, We whistle where we once repined. Confound the woes of human-kind! By Heaven we’re “well deceived,” I wot; Who hum, contented or resigned, “Life’s more amusing than we thought”!

ENVOY.

_O nate mecum_, worn and lined Our faces show, but that is naught; Our hearts are young ’neath wrinkled rind: Life’s more amusing than we thought!

THE LAST CAST.

THE ANGLER’S APOLOGY.

JUST one cast more! how many a year Beside how many a pool and stream, Beneath the falling leaves and sere, I’ve sighed, reeled up, and dreamed my dream!

Dreamed of the sport since April first Her hands fulfilled of flowers and snow, Adown the pastoral valleys burst Where Ettrick and where Teviot flow.

Dreamed of the singing showers that break, And sting the lochs, or near or far, And rouse the trout, and stir “the take” From Urigil to Lochinvar.

Dreamed of the kind propitious sky O’er Ari Innes brooding grey; The sea trout, rushing at the fly, Breaks the black wave with sudden spray!

* * * * *

Brief are man’s days at best; perchance I waste my own, who have not seen The castled palaces of France Shine on the Loire in summer green.

And clear and fleet Eurotas still, You tell me, laves his reedy shore, And flows beneath his fabled hill Where Dian drave the chase of yore.

And “like a horse unbroken” yet The yellow stream with rush and foam, ’Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet, Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome!

I may not see them, but I doubt If seen I’d find them half so fair As ripples of the rising trout That feed beneath the elms of Yair.

Nay, Spring I’d meet by Tweed or Ail, And Summer by Loch Assynt’s deep, And Autumn in that lonely vale Where wedded Avons westward sweep,

Or where, amid the empty fields, Among the bracken of the glen, Her yellow wreath October yields, To crown the crystal brows of Ken.

Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal, Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide, You never heard the ringing reel, The music of the water side!

Though Gods have walked your woods among, Though nymphs have fled your banks along; You speak not that familiar tongue Tweed murmurs like my cradle song.

My cradle song,—nor other hymn I’d choose, nor gentler requiem dear Than Tweed’s, that through death’s twilight dim, Mourned in the latest Minstrel’s ear!

TWILIGHT.

SONNET.

(AFTER RICHEPIN.)

LIGHT has flown! Through the grey The wind’s way The sea’s moan Sound alone! For the day These repay And atone!

Scarce I know, Listening so To the streams Of the sea, If old dreams Sing to me!

BALLADE OF SUMMER.

TO C. H. ARKCOLL.

WHEN strawberry pottles are common and cheap, Ere elms be black, or limes be sere, When midnight dances are murdering sleep, Then comes in the sweet o’ the year! And far from Fleet Street, far from here, The Summer is Queen in the length of the land, And moonlit nights they are soft and clear, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

When clamour that doves in the lindens keep Mingles with musical plash of the weir, Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep, Then comes in the sweet o’ the year! And better a crust and a beaker of beer, With rose-hung hedges on either hand, Than a palace in town and a prince’s cheer, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

When big trout late in the twilight leap, When cuckoo clamoureth far and near, When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap, Then comes in the sweet o’ the year! And it’s oh to sail, with the wind to steer, Where kine knee deep in the water stand, On a Highland loch, on a Lowland mere, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

ENVOY.

Friend, with the fops while we dawdle here, Then comes in the sweet o’ the year! And the Summer runs out, like grains of sand, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

BALLADE OF CHRISTMAS GHOSTS.

BETWEEN the moonlight and the fire In winter twilights long ago, What ghosts we raised for your desire To make your merry blood run slow! How old, how grave, how wise we grow! No Christmas ghost can make us chill, Save _those_ that troop in mournful row, The ghosts we all can raise at will!

The beasts can talk in barn and byre On Christmas Eve, old legends know, As year by year the years retire, We men fall silent then I trow, Such sights hath Memory to show, Such voices from the silence thrill, Such shapes return with Christmas snow,— The ghosts we all can raise at will.

Oh, children of the village choir, Your carols on the midnight throw, Oh bright across the mist and mire Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas glow! Beat back the dread, beat down the woe, Let’s cheerily descend the hill; Be welcome all, to come or go, The ghosts we all can raise at will!

ENVOY.

Friend, _sursum corda_, soon or slow We part, like guests who’ve joyed their fill; Forget them not, nor mourn them so, The ghosts we all can raise at will!

LOVE’S EASTER.

SONNET.

LOVE died here Long ago; O’er his bier, Lying low, Poppies throw; Shed no tear; Year by year, Roses blow!

Year by year, Adon—dear To Love’s Queen— Does not die! Wakes when green May is nigh!

BALLADE OF THE GIRTON GIRL.

SHE has just “put her gown on” at Girton, She is learned in Latin and Greek, But lawn tennis she plays with a skirt on That the prudish remark with a shriek. In her accents, perhaps, she is weak (Ladies _are_, one observes with a sigh), But in Algebra—_there_ she’s unique, But her forte’s to evaluate π.

She can talk about putting a “spirt on” (I admit, an unmaidenly freak), And she dearly delighteth to flirt on A punt in some shadowy creek; Should her bark, by mischance, spring a leak, She can swim as a swallow can fly; She can fence, she can put with a cleek, But her forte’s to evaluate π.

She has lectured on Scopas and Myrton, Coins, vases, mosaics, the antique, Old tiles with the secular dirt on, Old marbles with noses to seek. And her Cobet she quotes by the week, And she’s written on _κεν_ and on _καὶ_, And her service is swift and oblique, But her forte’s to evaluate π.

ENVOY.

Princess, like a rose is her cheek, And her eyes are as blue as the sky, And I’d speak, had I courage to speak, But—her forte’s to evaluate π.

RONSARD’S GRAVE.

YE wells, ye founts that fall From the steep mountain wall, That fall, and flash, and fleet With silver feet,

Ye woods, ye streams that lave The meadows with your wave, Ye hills, and valley fair, Attend my prayer!

When Heaven and Fate decree My latest hour for me, When I must pass away From pleasant day,

I ask that none may break The marble for my sake, Wishful to make more fair My sepulchre.

Only a laurel tree Shall shade the grave of me, Only Apollo’s bough Shall guard me now!

Now shall I be at rest Among the spirits blest, The happy dead that dwell— Where,—who may tell?

The snow and wind and hail May never there prevail, Nor ever thunder fall Nor storm at all.

But always fadeless there The woods are green and fair, And faithful ever more Spring to that shore!

There shall I ever hear Alcaeus’ music clear, And sweetest of all things There SAPPHO sings.

SAN TERENZO.

(The village in the bay of Spezia, near which Shelley was living before the wreck of the _Don Juan_.)

MID April seemed like some November day, When through the glassy waters, dull as lead Our boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead, Slipped down the long shores of the Spezian bay, Rounded a point,—and San Terenzo lay Before us, that gay village, yellow and red, The roof that covered Shelley’s homeless head,— His house, a place deserted, bleak and grey.

The waves broke on the door-step; fishermen Cast their long nets, and drew, and cast again. Deep in the ilex woods we wandered free, When suddenly the forest glades were stirred With waving pinions, and a great sea bird Flew forth, like Shelley’s spirit, to the sea!

1880.

ROMANCE.

MY Love dwelt in a Northern land. A grey tower in a forest green Was hers, and far on either hand The long wash of the waves was seen, And leagues on leagues of yellow sand, The woven forest boughs between!

And through the silver Northern night The sunset slowly died away, And herds of strange deer, lily-white, Stole forth among the branches grey; About the coming of the light, They fled like ghosts before the day!

I know not if the forest green Still girdles round that castle grey; I know not if the boughs between The white deer vanish ere the day; Above my Love the grass is green, My heart is colder than the clay!

BALLADE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY.

I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves Among the shining salmon-flies; A song for summer-time that grieves I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves. Between grey sea and golden sheaves, Beneath the soft wet Morvern skies, I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves Among the shining salmon-flies.

TO C. H. ARKCOLL.

LET them boast of Arabia, oppressed By the odour of myrrh on the breeze; In the isles of the East and the West That are sweet with the cinnamon trees Let the sandal-wood perfume the seas Give the roses to Rhodes and to Crete, We are more than content, if you please, With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

Though Dan Virgil enjoyed himself best With the scent of the limes, when the bees Hummed low ’round the doves in their nest, While the vintagers lay at their ease, Had he sung in our northern degrees, He’d have sought a securer retreat, He’d have dwelt, where the heart of us flees, With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

Oh, the broom has a chivalrous crest And the daffodil’s fair on the leas, And the soul of the Southron might rest, And be perfectly happy with these; But _we_, that were nursed on the knees Of the hills of the North, we would fleet Where our hearts might their longing appease With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

ENVOY.

Ah Constance, the land of our quest It is far from the sounds of the street, Where the Kingdom of Galloway’s blest With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

VILLANELLE.

(TO M. JOSEPH BOULMIER, AUTHOR OF “LES VILLANELLES.”)

VILLANELLE, why art thou mute? Hath the singer ceased to sing? Hath the Master lost his lute?

Many a pipe and scrannel flute On the breeze their discords fling; Villanelle, why art _thou_ mute?

Sound of tumult and dispute, Noise of war the echoes bring; Hath the Master lost his lute?

Once he sang of bud and shoot In the season of the Spring; Villanelle, why art thou mute?

Fading leaf and falling fruit Say, “The year is on the wing, Hath the Master lost his lute?”

Ere the axe lie at the root, Ere the winter come as king, Villanelle, why art thou mute? Hath the Master lost his lute?

TRIOLETS AFTER MOSCHUS.

Αιαῖ ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾶπον ὄλωντα ὕστερον αὖ ζώοντι καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φύοντι ἄμμες δ’ ὁι μεγάλοι καὶ καρτεροί, οἱ σοφοὶ ἄνδες ὁππότε πρᾶτα θάνωμες, ἀνάκοοι ἐν χθονὶ κοίλᾳ, εὕδομες εὖ μάλα μακρὸν ἀτέρμονα νήγρετον ὕπνον.

ALAS, for us no second spring, Like mallows in the garden-bed, For these the grave has lost his sting, Alas, for _us_ no second spring, Who sleep without awakening, And, dead, for ever more are dead, Alas, for us no second spring, Like mallows in the garden-bed!