Chapter 5

Chapter 518,846 wordsPublic domain

THE END OF THE QUEST

Like the dawn upon a dream Slowly through the scented gloom Crept once more the ruddy gleam O'er the friendly nursery room. There, before our waking eyes, Large and ghostly, white and dim, Dreamed the Flower that never dies, Opening wide its rosy rim.

Spreading like a ghostly fan, Petals white as porcelain, There the Flower of Old Japan Told us we were home again; For a soft and curious light Suddenly was o'er it shed. And we saw it was a white English daisy, ringed with red.

Slowly, as a wavering mist Waned the wonder out of sight, To a sigh of amethyst, To a wraith of scented light. Flower and magic glass had gone; Near the clutching fire we sat Dreaming, dreaming, all alone, Each upon a furry mat.

While the firelight, red and clear, Fluttered in the black wet pane, It was very good to hear Howling winds and trotting rain. For we found at last we knew More than all our fancy planned, All the fairy tales were true, And home the heart of fairyland.

EPILOGUE

Carol, every violet has Heaven for a looking-glass!

Every little valley lies Under many-clouded skies; Every little cottage stands Girt about with boundless lands. Every little glimmering pond Claims the mighty shores beyond-- Shores no seamen ever hailed, Seas no ship has ever sailed.

All the shores when day is done Fade into the setting sun, So the story tries to teach More than can be told in speech.

Beauty is a fading flower, Truth is but a wizard's tower, Where a solemn death-bell tolls, And a forest round it rolls.

We have come by curious ways To the Light that holds the days; We have sought in haunts of fear For that all-enfolding sphere: And lo! it was not far, but near.

We have found, O foolish-fond, The shore that has no shore beyond.

Deep in every heart it lies With its untranscended skies; For what heaven should bend above Hearts that own the heaven of love?

Carol, Carol, we have come Back to heaven, back to home.

APES AND IVORY

Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong, Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song, Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East, O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast.

Or is it an elephant, white as milk and bearing a severed head That tatters his broad soft wrinkled flank in tawdry patches of red, With a negro giant to walk beside and a temple dome above, Where ruby and emerald shatter the sun,--is it these that should please my love?

Or is it a palace of pomegranates, where ivory-limbed young slaves Lure a luxury out of the noon in the swooning fountain's waves; Or couch like cats and sun themselves on the warm white marble brink? O, Love has little to ask of these, this day in May, I think.

Is it Lebanon cedars or purple fruits of the honeyed southron air, Spikenard, saffron, roses of Sharon, cinnamon, calamus, myrrh, A bed of spices, a fountain of waters, or the wild white wings of a dove, Now, when the winter is over and gone, is it these that should please my love?

The leaves outburst on the hazel-bough and the hawthorn's heaped wi' flower, And God has bidden the crisp clouds build my love a lordlier tower, Taller than Lebanon, whiter than snow, in the fresh blue skies above; And the wild rose wakes in the winding lanes of the radiant land I love.

_Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong, Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song, Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East, O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast._

A SONG OF SHERWOOD

Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake? Grey and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake, Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn, Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.

Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thieves Hear a ghostly bugle-note shivering through the leaves, Calling as he used to call, faint and far away, In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Merry, merry England has kissed the lips of June: All the wings of fairyland were here beneath the moon, Like a flight of rose-leaves fluttering in a mist Of opal and ruby and pearl and amethyst.

Merry, merry England is waking as of old, With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold: For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting spray In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Love is in the greenwood building him a house Of wild rose and hawthorn and honeysuckle boughs: Love is in the greenwood, dawn is in the skies, And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.

Hark! The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep! Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep? Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay, In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold, Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mould, Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red, And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.

Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down together With quarter-staff and drinking-can and grey goose-feather. The dead are coming back again, the years are rolled away In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Softly over Sherwood the south wind blows. All the heart of England hid in every rose Hears across the greenwood the sunny whisper leap, Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Hark, the voice of England wakes him as of old And, shattering the silence with a cry of brighter gold Bugles in the greenwood echo from the steep, _Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?_

Where the deer are gliding down the shadowy glen All across the glades of fern he calls his merry men-- Doublets of the Lincoln green glancing through the May In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day--

Calls them and they answer: from aisles of oak and ash Rings the _Follow! Follow!_ and the boughs begin to crash, The ferns begin to flutter and the flowers begin to fly, And through the crimson dawning the robber band goes by.

_Robin! Robin! Robin!_ All his merry thieves Answer as the bugle-note shivers through the leaves, Calling as he used to call, faint and far away, In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

THE WORLD'S MAY-QUEEN

Whither away is the Spring to-day? To England, to England! In France they heard the South wind say, "She's off on a quest for a Queen o' the May, So she's over the hills far away, To England!"

And why did she fly with her golden feet To England, to England? In Italy, too, they heard the sweet Roses whisper and flutter and beat-- "She's an old and a true, true love to greet In England!"

A moon ago there came a cry From England, from England, Faintly, fondly it faltered nigh The throne of the Spring in the Southern sky, And it whispered "Come," and the world went by, And with one long loving blissful sigh The Spring was away to England!

When Spring comes back to England And crowns her brows with May, Round the merry moonlit world She goes the greenwood way: She throws a rose to Italy, A fleur-de-lys to France; But round her regal morris-ring The seas of England dance.

When Spring comes back to England And dons her robe of green, There's many a nation garlanded But England is the Queen; She's Queen, she's Queen of all the world Beneath the laughing sky, For the nations go a-Maying When they hear the New Year cry--

"Come over the water to England, My old love, my new love, Come over the water to England, In showers of flowery rain; Come over the water to England, April, my true love; And tell the heart of England The Spring is here again!"

III

So it's here, she is here with her eyes of blue In England, In England! She has brought us the rainbows with her, too, And a glory of shimmering glimmering dew And a heaven of quivering scent and hue And a lily for me and a rose for you In England.

There's many a wanderer far away From England, from England, Will toss upon his couch and say-- Though Spain is proud and France is gay, And there's many a foot on the primrose way, The world has never a Queen o' the May But England.

When Drake went out to seek for gold Across the uncharted sea, And saw the Western skies unfold Their veils of mystery; To lure him through the fevered hours As nigh to death he lay, There floated o'er the foreign flowers A breath of English May:

And back to Devon shores again His dreaming spirit flew Over the splendid Spanish Main To haunts his childhood knew, Whispering "God forgive the blind Desire that bade me roam, I've sailed around the world to find The sweetest way to home."

And it's whither away is the Spring to-day? To England, to England! In France you'll hear the South wind say, "She off on a quest for a Queen o' the May, So she's over the hills and far away, To England!"

She's flown with the swallows across the sea To England, to England! For there's many a land of the brave and free But never a home o' the hawthorn-tree, And never a Queen o' the May for me But England!

And round the fairy revels whirl In England, in England! And the buds outbreak and the leaves unfurl, And where the crisp white cloudlets curl The Dawn comes up like a primrose girl With a crowd of flowers in a basket of pearl For England!

PIRATES

Come to me, you with the laughing face, in the night as I lie Dreaming of days that are dead and of joys gone by; Come to me, comrade, come through the slow-dropping rain, Come from your grave in the darkness and let us be pirates again.

Let us be boys together to-night, and pretend as of old We are pirates at rest in a cave among huge heaps of gold, Red Spanish doubloons and great pieces of eight, and muskets and swords, And a smoky red camp-fire to glint, you know how, on our ill-gotten hoards.

The old cave in the fir-wood that slopes down the hills to the sea Still is haunted, perhaps, by young pirates as wicked as we: Though the fir with the magpie's big mud-plastered nest used to hide it so well, And the boys in the gang had to swear that they never would tell.

Ah, that tree; I have sat in its boughs and looked seaward for hours. I remember the creak of its branches, the scent of the flowers That climbed round the mouth of the cave. It is odd I recall Those little things best, that I scarcely took heed of at all.

I remember how brightly the brass on the butt of my spy-glass gleamed As I climbed through the purple heather and thyme to our eyrie and dreamed; I remember the smooth glossy sun-burn that darkened our faces and hands As we gazed at the merchantmen sailing away to those wonderful lands.

I remember the long, slow sigh of the sea as we raced in the sun, To dry ourselves after our swimming; and how we would run With a cry and a crash through the foam as it creamed on the shore, Then back to bask in the warm dry gold of the sand once more.

Come to me, you with the laughing face, in the gloom as I lie Dreaming of days that are dead and of joys gone by; Let us be boys together to-night and pretend as of old We are pirates at rest in a cave among great heaps of gold.

Come; you shall be chief. We'll not quarrel, the time flies so fast. There are ships to be grappled, there's blood to be shed, ere our playtime be past. No; perhaps we _will_ quarrel, just once, or it scarcely will seem So like the old days that have flown from us both like a dream.

Still; you shall be chief in the end; and then we'll go home To the hearth and the tea and the books that we loved: ah, but come, Come to me, come through the night and the slow-dropping rain; Come, old friend, come thro' the darkness and let us be playmates again.

A SONG OF ENGLAND

There is a song of England that none shall ever sing; So sweet it is and fleet it is That none whose words are not as fleet as birds upon the wing, And regal as her mountains, And radiant as the fountains Of rainbow-coloured sea-spray that every wave can fling Against the cliffs of England, the sturdy cliffs of England, Could more than seem to dream of it, Or catch one flying gleam of it, Above the seas of England that never cease to sing.

There is a song of England that only lovers know; So rare it is and fair it is, O, like a fairy rose it is upon a drift of snow, So cold and sweet and sunny, So full of hidden honey, So like a flight of butterflies where rose and lily blow Along the lanes of England, the leafy lanes of England; When flowers are at their vespers And full of little whispers, The boys and girls of England shall sing it as they go.

There is a song of England that only love may sing, So sure it is and pure it is; And seaward with the sea-mew it spreads a whiter wing, And with the sky-lark hovers Above the tryst of lovers, Above the kiss and whisper that led the lovely Spring Through all the glades of England, the ferny glades of England, Until the way enwound her With sprays of May, and crowned her With stars of frosty blossom in a merry morris-ring.

There is a song of England that haunts her hours of rest: The calm of it and balm of it Are breathed from every hedgerow that blushes to the West From the cottage doors that nightly Cast their welcome out so brightly On the lanes where laughing children are lifted and caressed By the tenderest hands in England, hard and blistered hands of England: And from the restful sighing Of the sleepers that are lying With the arms of God around them on the night's contented breast.

There is a song of England that wanders on the wind; So sad it is and glad it is That men who hear it madden and their eyes are wet and blind, For the lowlands and the highlands Of the unforgotten islands, For the Islands of the Blesséd and the rest they cannot find As they grope in dreams to England and the love they left in England; Little feet that danced to meet them And the lips that used to greet them, And the watcher at the window in the home they left behind.

There is a song of England that thrills the beating blood With burning cries and yearning Tides of hidden aspiration hardly known or understood; Aspirations of the creature Tow'rds the unity of Nature; Sudden chivalries revealing whence the longing is renewed In the men that live for England, live and love and die for England: By the light of their desire They shall blindly blunder higher, To a wider, grander Kingdom and a deeper, nobler Good.

There is a song of England that only heaven can hear; So gloriously victorious, It soars above the choral stars that sing the Golden Year; Till even the cloudy shadows That wander o'er her meadows In silent purple harmonies declare His glory there, Along the hills of England, the billowy hills of England; While heaven rolls and ranges Through all the myriad changes That mirror God in music to the mortal eye and ear.

_There is a song of England that none shall ever sing; So sweet it is and fleet it is That none whose words are not as fleet as birds upon the wing, And regal as her mountains, And radiant as her fountains Of rainbow-coloured sea-spray that every wave can fling Against the cliffs of England, the sturdy cliffs of England, Could more than seem to dream of it, Or catch one flying gleam of it, Above the seas of England that never cease to sing._

THE OLD SCEPTIC

I am weary of disbelieving: why should I wound my love To pleasure a sophist's pride in a graven image of truth? I will go back to my home, with the clouds and the stars above, And the heaven I used to know, and the God of my buried youth.

I will go back to the home where of old in my boyish pride I pierced my father's heart with a murmur of unbelief. He only looked in my face as I spoke, but his mute eyes cried Night after night in my dreams; and he died in grief, in grief.

Books? I have read the books, the books that we write ourselves, Extolling our love of an abstract truth and our pride of debate: I will go back to the love of the cotter who sings as he delves, To that childish infinite love and the God above fact and date.

To that ignorant infinite God who colours the meaningless flowers, To that lawless infinite Poet who crowns the law with the crime; To the Weaver who covers the world with a garment of wonderful hours, And holds in His hand like threads the tales and the truths of time.

Is the faith of the cotter so simple and narrow as this? Ah, well, It is hardly so narrow as yours who daub and plaster with dyes The shining mirrors of heaven, the shadowy mirrors of hell, And blot out the dark deep vision, if it seem to be framed with lies.

No faith I hurl against you, no fact to freeze your sneers. Only the doubt you taught me to weld in the fires of youth Leaps to my hand like the flaming sword of nineteen hundred years, The sword of the high God's answer, _O Pilate, what is truth?_

Your laughter has killed more hearts than ever were pierced with swords, Ever you daub new mirrors and turn the old to the wall; And more than blood is lost in the weary battle of words; For creeds are many; but God is One, and contains them all.

Ah, why should we strive or cry? Surely the end is close! Hold by your little truths: deem your triumph complete! But nothing is true or false in the infinite heart of the rose; And the earth is a little dust that clings to our travelling feet.

I will go back to my home and look at the wayside flowers, And hear from the wayside cabins the kind old hymns again, Where Christ holds out His arms in the quiet evening hours, And the light of the chapel porches broods on the peaceful lane.

And there I shall hear men praying the deep old foolish prayers, And there I shall see, once more, the fond old faith confessed, And the strange old light on their faces who hear as a blind man hears,-- _Come unto Me, ye weary, and I will give you rest._

I will go back and believe in the deep old foolish tales, And pray the simple prayers that I learned at my mother's knee, Where the Sabbath tolls its peace thro' the breathless mountain-vales, And the sunset's evening hymn hallows the listening sea.

THE DEATH OF CHOPIN

Sing to me! Ah, remember how Poor Heine here in Paris leant Watching me play at the fall of day And following where the music went, Till that old cloud upon his brow Was almost smoothed away.

"Do roses in the moonlight flame Like this and this?" he said and smiled; Then bent his head as o'er his dead Brother might breathe some little child The accustomed old half-jesting name, With all its mockery fled,

Like summer lightnings, far away, In heaven. O, what Bohemian nights We passed down there for that brief year When art revealed her last delights; And then, that night, that night in May When Hugo came to hear!

"Do roses in the moonlight glow Like this and this?" I could not see His eyes, and yet--they were quite wet, Blinded, I think! What should I be If in that hour I did not know My own diviner debt?

For God has made this world of ours Out of His own exceeding pain, As here in art man's bleeding heart Slow drop by drop completes the strain; And dreams of death make sweet the flowers Where lovers meet to part.

Recall, recall my little room Where all the masters came that night, Came just to hear me, Meyerbeer, Lamartine, Balzac; and no light But my two candles in the gloom; Though she, she too was there,

George Sand. This music once unlocked My heart, she took the gold she prized: Her novel gleams no richer: dreams Like mine are best unanalysed: And she forgets her poor bemocked Prince Karol, now, it seems.

I was Prince Karol; yes, and Liszt Count Salvator Albani: she My Floriani--all so far Away!--My dreams are like the sea That round Majorca sighed and kissed Each softly mirrored star.

O, what a golden round of hours Our island villa knew: we two Alone with sky and sea, the sigh Of waves, the warm unfathomed blue; With what a chain of nights like flowers We bound Love, she and I.

What music, what harmonious Glad triumphs of the world's desire Where passion yearns to God and burns Earth's dross out with its own pure fire, Or tolls like some deep angelus Through Death's divine nocturnes.

"Do roses in the moonlight glow Like this and this?" What did she think Of him whose hands at Love's command Made Life as honey o'er the brink Of Death drip slow, darkling and slow? Ah, did she understand?

She studied every sob she heard, She watched each dying hope she found; And yet she understood not one Poor sorrow there that like a wound Gaped, bleeding, pleading--for one word-- No? And the dream was done.

For her--I am "wrapped in incense gloom, In drifting clouds and golden light;" Once I was shod with fire and trod Beethoven's path through storm and night: It is too late now to resume My monologue with God.

Well, my lost love, you were so kind In those old days: ah, yes; you came When I was ill! In dreams you still Will come? (Do roses always flame By moonlight, thus?) I, too, grow blind With wondering if she will.

Yet, Floriani, what am I To you, though love was life to me? My life consumed like some perfumed Pale altar-flame beside the sea: You stood and smiled and watched it die! You, you whom it illumed, Could you not feed it with your love? Am I not starving here and now? Sing, sing! I'd miss no smile or kiss-- No roses in Majorca glow Like this and this--so death may prove Best--ah, how sweet life is!

SONG

(AFTER THE FRENCH OF ROSTAND)

O, many a lover sighs Beneath the summer skies For black or hazel eyes All day. No light of hope can mar My whiter brighter star; I love a Princess far Away.

Now you that haste to meet Your love's returning feet Must plead for every sweet Caress; But, day and night and day, Without a prayer to pray, I love my far away Princess.

BUTTERFLIES

Sun-child, as you watched the rain Beat the pane, Saw the garden of your dreams Where the clove carnation grows And the rose Veiled with shimmering shades and gleams, Mirrored colours, mystic gleams, Fairy dreams, Drifting in your radiant eyes Half in earnest asked, that day, Half in play, Where were all the butterflies?

Where were all the butterflies When the skies Clouded and their bowers of clover Bowed beneath the golden shower? Every flower Shook and the rose was brimming over.

Ah, the dog-rose trembling over Thyme and clover, How it glitters in the sun, Now the hare-bells lift again Bright with rain After all the showers are done!

See, when all the showers are done, How the sun Softly smiling o'er the scene Bids the white wings come and go To and fro Through the maze of gold and green.

Magic webs of gold and green Rainbow sheen Mesh the maze of flower and fern, Cuckoo-grass and meadow-sweet, And the wheat Where the crimson poppies burn.

Ay; and where the poppies burn, They return All across the dreamy downs, Little wings that flutter and beat O'er the sweet Bluffs the purple clover crowns.

Where the fairy clover crowns Dreamy downs, And amidst the golden grass Buttercups and daisies blow To and fro When the shadowy billows pass;

Time has watched them pause and pass Where Love was; Ah, what fairy butterflies, Little wild incarnate blisses, Coloured kisses, Floating under azure skies!

Under those eternal skies See, they rise: Mottled wings of moony sheen, Wings in whitest star-shine dipped, Orange tipped, Eyed with black and veined with green.

They were fairies plumed with green Rainbow-sheen Ere Time bade their host begone From that palace built of roses Which still dozes In the greenwood all alone.

In the greenwood all alone And unknown: Now they roam these mortal dells Wondering where that happy glade is, Painted Ladies, Admirals, and Tortoise-shells,

O, Fritillaries, Admirals, Tortoise-shells; You, like fragments of the skies Fringed with Autumn's richest hues, Dainty blues Patterned with mosaic dyes; Oh, and you whose peacock dyes Gleam with eyes; You, whose wings of burnished copper Burn upon the sunburnt brae Where all day Whirrs the hot and grey grasshopper;

While the grey grasshopper whirrs In the furze, You that with your sulphur wings Melt into the gold perfume Of the broom Where the linnet sits and sings;

You that, as a poet sings, On your wings Image forth the dreams of earth, Quickening them in form and hue To the new Glory of a brighter birth;

You that bring to a brighter birth Dust and earth, Rapt to glory on your wings, All transfigured in the white Living light Shed from out the soul of things;

Heralds of the soul of things, You whose wings Carry heaven through every glade; Thus transfigured from the petals Death unsettles, Little souls of leaf and blade;

You that mimic bud and blade, Light and shade; Tinted souls of leaf and stone, Flower and sunny bank of sand, Fairyland Calls her children to their own; Calls them back into their own Great unknown; Where the harmonies they cull On their wings are made complete As they beat Through the Gate called Beautiful.

SONG OF THE WOODEN-LEGGED FIDDLER

(PORTSMOUTH 1805)

I lived in a cottage adown in the West When I was a boy, a boy; But I knew no peace and I took no rest Though the roses nigh smothered my snug little nest; For the smell of the sea Was much rarer to me, And the life of a sailor was all my joy.

CHORUS.--_The life of a sailor was all my joy!_

My mother she wept, and she begged me to stay Anchored for life to her apron-string, And soon she would want me to help with the hay; So I bided her time, then I flitted away On a night of delight in the following spring, With a pair of stout shoon And a seafaring tune And a bundle and stick in the light of the moon, Down the long road To Portsmouth I strode, To fight like a sailor for country and king.

CHORUS.--_To fight like a sailor for country and king._

And now that my feet are turned homeward again My heart is still crying Ahoy! Ahoy! And my thoughts are still out on the Spanish main A-chasing the frigates of France and Spain, For at heart an old sailor is always a boy; And his nose will still itch For the powder and pitch Till the days when he can't tell t'other from which, Nor a grin o' the guns from a glint o' the sea, Nor a skipper like Nelson from lubbers like me.

CHORUS.--_Nor a skipper like Nelson from lubbers like me._

Ay! Now that I'm old I'm as bold as the best, And the life of a sailor is all my joy; Though I've swapped my leg For a wooden peg And my head is as bald as a new-laid egg, The smell of the sea Is like victuals to me, And I think in the grave I'll be crying Ahoy! For, though my old carcass is ready to rest, At heart an old sailor is always a boy.

CHORUS.--_At heart an old sailor is always a boy._

THE FISHER-GIRL

Where the old grey churchyard slopes to the sea, On the sunny side of a mossed headstone; Watching the wild white butterflies pass Through the fairy forests of grass, Two little children with brown legs bare Were merrily, merrily Weaving a wonderful daisy-chain, And chanting the rhyme that was graven there Over and over and over again; While the warm wind came and played with their hair And laughed and was gone Out, far out to the foam-flowered lea Like an ocean-wandering memory.

_Eighteen hundred and forty-three, Dan Trevennick was lost at sea; And, buried here at her husband's side Lies the body of Joan, his bride, Who, a little while after she lost him, died._

This was the rhyme that was graven there, And the children chanted it quietly; As the warm wind came and played with their hair, And rustled the golden grasses against the stone, And laughed and was gone To waken the wild white flowers of the sea, And sing a song of the days that were, A song of memory, gay and blind As the sun on the graves that it left behind; For this, ah this, was the song of the wind.

She sat on the tarred old jetty, with a sailor's careless ease, And the clear waves danced around her feet and kissed her tawny knees; Her head was bare, and her thick black hair was coiled behind a throat Chiselled as hard and bright and bold as the bow of a sailing boat.

Her eyes were blue, and her jersey was blue as the lapping, slapping seas, And the rose in her cheek was painted red by the brisk Atlantic breeze; And she sat and waited her father's craft, while Dan Trevennick's eyes Were sheepishly watching her sunlit smiles and her soft contented sighs.

III

For he thought he would give up his good black pipe and his evening glasses of beer, And blunder to chapel on Sundays again for a holy Christian year, To hold that foot in his hard rough hand and kiss the least of its toes: Then he swore at himself for a great damned fool; which he probably was, God knows.

Often in summer twilights, too, he would sit on a coil of rope, As the stars came out in their twinkling crowds to play with wonder and hope, While he watched the side of her clear-cut face as she sat on the jetty and fished, And even to help her coil her line was more than he hoped or wished.

But once or twice o'er the dark green tide he saw with a solemn delight, Hooked and splashing after her line, a flash and a streak of white; As hand over hand she hauled it up, a great black conger eel, For Dan Trevennick to kill as it squirmed with its head beneath his heel.

And at last, with a crash and a sunset cry from the low soft evening star, A shadowy schooner suddenly loomed o'er the dark green oily bar; With fairy-like spars and misty masts in the golden dusk of gloaming, Where the last white seamew's wide-spread wings were wistfully westward roaming;

VII

Then the song of the foreign seamen rose in the magical evening air, Faint and far away, as it seemed, but they knew it was, ah, so near; Far away as her heart from Dan's as he sheepishly drew to her side, And near as her heart when he kissed the lips of his newly promised bride.

VIII

And when they were riding away in the train on the night of their honeymoon, What a whisper tingled against her cheek as it blushed like a rose in June; For she said, "I am tired and ready for bed," and Dan said, "So am I;" And she murmured, "Are you tired, too, poor Dan?" and he answered her, "No, dear, why?"

It was never a problem-play, at least, and the end of it all is this; They were drowned in the bliss of their ignorance and buried the rest in a kiss; And they loved one another their whole life long, as lovers will often do; For it never was only the fairy-tales that rang so royally true.

_The rose in her cheek was painted red by the brisk Atlantic breeze; Her eyes were blue, and her jersey was blue as the lapping, slapping seas; Her head was bare, and her thick black hair was coiled behind a throat Chiselled as hard and bright and bold as the bow of a sailing boat._

_Eighteen hundred and forty-three, Dan Trevennick was lost at sea; And, buried here at her husband's side Lies the body of Joan, his bride, Who, a little while after she lost him, died._

A SONG OF TWO BURDENS

The round brown sails were reefed and struggling home Over the glitter and gloom of the angry deep: Dark in the cottage she sang, "Soon, soon, he will come, Dreamikin, Drowsy-head, sleep, my little one, sleep."

Over the glitter and gloom of the angry deep Was it only a dream or a shadow that vanished away? "Lullaby, little one, sleep, my little one, sleep." She sang in a dream as the shadows covered the day.

Was it only a sail or a shadow that vanished away? The boats come home: there is one that will never return; But she sang in a dream as the shadows buried the day; And she set the supper and begged the fire to burn.

The boats come home; but one will never return; And a strangled cry went up from the struggling sea. She sank on her knees and begged the fire to burn, "Burn, oh burn, for my love is coming to me!"

A strangled cry went up from the struggling sea, A cry where the ghastly surf to the moon-dawn rolled; "Burn, oh burn; for my love is coming to me, His hands will be scarred with the ropes and starved with the cold."

A strangled cry where the foam in the moonlight rolled, A bitter cry from the heart of the ghastly sea; "His hands will be frozen, the night is dark and cold, Burn, oh burn, for my love is coming to me."

One cry to God from the soul of the shuddering sea, One moment of stifling lips and struggling hands; "Burn, oh burn; for my love is coming to me; And oh, I think the little one understands."

One moment of stifling lips and struggling hands, Then only the glitter and gloom of the angry deep; "And oh, I think the little one understands; Dreamikin, Drowsy-head, sleep, my little one, sleep."

EARTH-BOUND

Ghosts? Love would fain believe, Earth being so fair, the dead might wish to return! Is it so strange if, even in heaven, they yearn For the May-time and the dreams it used to give?

Through dark abysms of Space, From strange new spheres where Death has called them now May they not, with a crown on every brow, Still cry to the loved earth's lost familiar face?

We two, love, we should come Seeking a little refuge from the light Of the blinding terrible star-sown Infinite, Seeking some sheltering roof, some four-walled home,

From that too high, too wide Communion with the universe and God, How glad to creep back to some lane we trod Hemmed in with a hawthorn hedge on either side.

Fresh from death's boundless birth, How fond the circled vision of the sea Would seem to souls tired of Infinity, How kind the soft blue boundaries of earth,

How rich the nodding spray Of pale green leaves that made the sapphire deep A background to the dreams of that brief sleep We called our life when heaven was far away.

How strange would be the sight Of the little towns and twisted streets again, Where all the hurrying works and ways of men Would seem a children's game for our delight.

What boundless heaven could give This joy in the strait austere restraints of earth, Whereof the dead have felt the immortal dearth Who look upon God's face and cannot live?

Our ghosts would clutch at flowers As drowning men at straws, for fear the sea Should sweep them back to God's Eternity, Still clinging to the day that once was ours.

No more with fevered brain Plunging across the gulfs of Space and Time Would we revisit this our earthly clime We two, if we could ever come again;

Not as we came of old, But reverencing the flesh we now despise And gazing out with consecrated eyes, Each of us glad of the other's hand to hold.

So we should wander nigh Our mortal home, and see its little roof Keeping the deep eternal night aloof And yielding us a refuge from the sky.

We should steal in, once more, Under the cloudy lilac at the gate, Up the walled garden, then with hearts elate Forget the stars and close our cottage door.

Oh then, as children use To make themselves a little hiding-place, We would rejoice in narrowness of space, And God should give us nothing more to lose.

How good it all would seem To souls that from the æonian ebb and flow Came down to hear once more the to and fro Swing o' the clock dictate its hourly theme.

How dear the strange recall From vast antiphonies of joy and pain Beyond the grave, to these old books again, That cosy lamp, those pictures on the wall.

Home! Home! The old desire! We would shut out the innumerable skies, Draw close the curtains, then with patient eyes Bend o'er the hearth; laugh at our memories, Or watch them crumbling in the crimson fire.

ART, THE HERALD

"The voice of one crying in the wilderness"

Beyond; beyond; and yet again beyond! What went ye out to seek, oh foolish-fond? Is not the heart of all things here and now? Is not the circle infinite, and the centre Everywhere, if ye would but hear and enter? Come; the porch bends and the great pillars bow.

Come; come and see the secret of the sun; The sorrow that holds the warring worlds in one; The pain that holds Eternity in an hour; One God in every seed self-sacrificed, One star-eyed, star-crowned universal Christ, Re-crucified in every wayside flower.

THE OPTIMIST

Teach me to live and to forgive The death that all must die Who pass in slumber through this heaven Of earth and sea and sky; Who live by grace of Time and Space At which their peace is priced; And cast their lots upon the robe That wraps the cosmic Christ;

Who cannot see the world-wide Tree Where Love lies bleeding still; This universal cross of God Our star-crowned Igdrasil.

Teach me to live; I do not ask For length of earthly days, Or that my heaven-appointed task Should fall in pleasant ways;

If in this hour of warmth and light The last great knell were knolled; If Death should close mine eyes to-night And all the tale be told;

While I have lips to speak or sing And power to draw this breath, Shall I not praise my Lord and King Above all else, for death?

When on a golden eve he drove His keenest sorrow deep Deep in my heart, and called it love; I did not wince or weep.

A wild Hosanna shook the world And wakened all the sky, As through a white and burning light Her passionate face went by.

When on a golden dawn he called My best beloved away, I did not shrink or stand appalled Before the hopeless day.

The joy of that triumphant dearth And anguish cannot die; The joy that casts aside this earth For immortality.

I would not change one word of doom Upon the dreadful scroll, That gave her body to the tomb And freed her fettered soul.

For now each idle breeze can bring The kiss I never seek; The nightingale has heard her sing, The rose caressed her cheek.

And every pang of every grief That ruled my soul an hour, Has given new splendours to the leaf, New glories to the flower;

And melting earth into the heaven Whose inmost heart is pain, Has drawn the veils apart and given Her soul to mine again.

A POST-IMPRESSION

He sat with his foolish mouth agape at the golden glare of the sea, And his wizened and wintry flaxen locks fluttered around his ears, And his foolish infinite eyes were full of the sky's own glitter and glee, As he dandled an old Dutch Doll on his knee and sang the song of the spheres.

_Blue and red and yellow and green they are melting away in the white; Hey! but the wise old world was wrong and my idiot heart was right; Yes; and the merry-go-round of the stars rolls to my cracked old tune, Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon._

III

Then he cradled his doll on his crooning heart and cried as a sea-bird cries; And the hot sun reeled like a drunken god through the violent violet vault: And the hillside cottage that danced to the deep debauch of the perfumed skies Grew palsied and white in the purple heath as a pillar of Dead Sea salt.

There were three gaunt sun-flowers nigh his chair: they were yellow as death and tall; And they threw their sharp blue shadowy stars on the blind white wizard wall; And they nodded their heads to the weird old hymn that daunted the light of the noon, _Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon._

The little dog laughed and leered with the white of his eye as he sidled away To stare at the dwarfish hunchback waves that crawled to the foot of the hill, For his master's infinite mind was wide to the wealth of the night and the day; The walls were down: it was one with the Deep that only a God can fill.

Then a tiny maiden of ten sweet summers arrived with a song and a smile, And she swung on the elfin garden-gate and sung to the sea for a while, And a phantom face went weeping by and a ghost began to croon _Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon._

VII

And she followed a butterfly up to his chair; and the moon-calf caught at her hand And stared at her wide blue startled eyes and muttered, "My dear, I have been, In fact, I am there at this moment, I think, in a wonderful fairy-land:" And he bent and he whispered it low in her ear--"_I know why the grass is green._

VIII

"I know why the daisy is white, my dear, I know why the seas are blue; I know that the world is a dream, my dear, and I know that the dream is true; I know why the rose and the toad-stool grow, as a curse and a crimson boon, _Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon._

"If I gaze at a rose, do you know, it grows till it overshadows the earth, Like a wonderful Tree of Knowledge, my dear, the Tree of our evil and good; But I dare not tell you the terrible vision that gave the toad-stool birth, The dream of a heart that breaks, my dear, and a Tree that is bitter with blood.

"Oh, Love may wander wide as the wind that blows from sea to sea, But a wooden dream, for me, my dear, and a painted memory; For the God that has bidden the toad-stool grow has writ in his cosmic rune, _Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon._"

Then he stared at the child and he laughed aloud, and she suddenly screamed and fled, As he dreamed of enticing her out thro' the ferns to a quarry that gapped the hill, To hurtle her down and grin as her gold hair scattered around her head Far, far below, like a sunflower disk, so crimson-spattered and still.

XII

"Ah, hush!" he cried; and his dark old eyes were wet with a sacred love As he kissed the wooden face of his doll and winked at the skies above, "I know, I know why the toad-stools grow, and the rest of the world will, soon; _Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon._"

XIII

"_Blue and red and yellow and green they are all mixed up in the white; Hey! but the wise old world was wrong and my idiot heart was right; Yes; and the merry-go-round of the stars rolls to my cracked old tune, Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon._"

THE BARREL-ORGAN

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street In the City as the sun sinks low; And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet And fulfilled it with the sunset glow; And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light; And they've given it a glory and a part to play again In the Symphony that rules the day and night.

And now it's marching onward through the realms of old romance, And trolling out a fond familiar tune, And now it's roaring cannon down to fight the King of France, And now it's prattling softly to the moon, And all around the organ there's a sea without a shore Of human joys and wonders and regrets; To remember and to recompense the music evermore For what the cold machinery forgets....

Yes; as the music changes, Like a prismatic glass, It takes the light and ranges Through all the moods that pass; Dissects the common carnival Of passions and regrets, And gives the world a glimpse of all The colours it forgets.

And there _La Traviata_ sighs Another sadder song; And there _Il Trovatore_ cries A tale of deeper wrong; And bolder knights to battle go With sword and shield and lance, Than ever here on earth below Have whirled into--_a dance_!--

Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland; Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume, The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!) And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of sky The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.

The Dorian nightingale is rare and yet they say you'll hear him there At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!) The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo And golden-eyed _tu-whit, tu-whoo_ of owls that ogle London.

For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heard At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!) And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorussing for London:--

_Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)_

And then the troubadour begins to thrill the golden street, In the City as the sun sinks low; And in all the gaudy busses there are scores of weary feet Marking time, sweet time, with a dull mechanic beat, And a thousand hearts are plunging to a love they'll never meet, Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat, In the land where the dead dreams go.

Verdi, Verdi, when you wrote _Il Trovatore_ did you dream Of the City when the sun sinks low, Of the organ and the monkey and the many-coloured stream On the Piccadilly pavement, of the myriad eyes that seem To be litten for a moment with a wild Italian gleam As _A che la morte_ parodies the world's eternal theme And pulses with the sunset-glow.

There's a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen stone In the City as the sun sinks low; There's a portly man of business with a balance of his own, There's a clerk and there's a butcher of a soft reposeful tone. And they're all of them returning to the heavens they have known: They are crammed and jammed in busses and--they're each of them alone In the land where the dead dreams go.

There's a very modish woman and her smile is very bland In the City as the sun sinks low; And her hansom jingles onward, but her little jewelled hand Is clenched a little tighter and she cannot understand What she wants or why she wanders to that undiscovered land, For the parties there are not at all the sort of thing she planned, In the land where the dead dreams go.

There's a rowing man that listens and his heart is crying out In the City as the sun sinks low; For the barge, the eight, the Isis, and the coach's whoop and shout, For the minute-gun, the counting and the long dishevelled rout, For the howl along the tow-path and a fate that's still in doubt, For a roughened oar to handle and a race to think about In the land where the dead dreams go.

There's a labourer that listens to the voices of the dead In the City as the sun sinks low; And his hand begins to tremble and his face to smoulder red As he sees a loafer watching him and--there he turns his head And stares into the sunset where his April love is fled, For he hears her softly singing and his lonely soul is led Through the land where the dead dreams go.

There's an old and haggard demi-rep, it's ringing in her ears, In the City as the sun sinks low; With the wild and empty sorrow of the love that blights and sears, Oh, and if she hurries onward, then be sure, be sure she hears, Hears and bears the bitter burden of the unforgotten years, And her laugh's a little harsher and her eyes are brimmed with tears For the land where the dead dreams go.

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street In the City as the sun sinks low; Though the music's only Verdi there's a world to make it sweet Just as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meet Mellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feet Are marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheat In the land where the dead dreams go.

So it's Jeremiah, Jeremiah, What have you to say When you meet the garland girls Tripping on their way?

All around my gala hat I wear a wreath of roses (A long and lonely year it is I've waited for the May!) If any one should ask you, The reason why I wear it is-- My own love, my true love Is coming home to-day.

And it's buy a bunch of violets for the lady (_It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!_) Buy a bunch of violets for the lady While the sky burns blue above:

On the other side the street you'll find it shady (_It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!_) But buy a bunch of violets for the lady, And tell her she's your own true love.

There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street In the City as the sun sinks glittering and slow; And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet And enriched it with the harmonies that make a song complete In the deeper heavens of music where the night and morning meet, As it dies into the sunset-glow; And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light, And they've given it a glory and a part to play again In the Symphony that rules the day and night.

And there, as the music changes, The song runs round again. Once more it turns and ranges Through all its joy and pain, Dissects the common carnival Of passions and regrets; And the wheeling world remembers all The wheeling song forgets.

Once more _La Traviata_ sighs Another sadder song: Once more _Il Trovatore_ cries A tale of deeper wrong; Once more the knights to battle go With sword and shield and lance Till once, once more, the shattered foe Has whirled into--_a dance_!

THE LITANY OF WAR

Sandalphon, whose white wings to heaven upbear The weight of human prayer, Stood silent in the still eternal Light Of God, one dreadful night. His wings were clogged with blood and foul with mire, His body seared with fire. "Hast thou no word for Me?" the Master said. The angel sank his head:

"Word from the nations of the East and West," He moaned, "that blood is best. The patriot prayers of either half of earth, Hear Thou, and judge their worth. Out of the obscene seas of slaughter, hear, First, the first nation's prayer: '_O God, deliver Thy people. Let Thy sword Destroy our enemies, Lord!_'

"Pure as the first, as passionate in trust That their own cause is just; Puppets as fond in those dark hands of greed; As fervent in their creed; As blindly moved, as utterly betrayed, As urgent for Thine aid; Out of the obscene seas of slaughter, hear The second nation's prayer: '_O God, deliver Thy people. Let Thy sword Destroy our enemies, Lord._'

"Over their slaughtered children, one great cry From either enemy! From either host, thigh-deep in filth and shame, One prayer, one and the same; Out of the obscene seas of slaughter, hear, From East and West, one prayer: '_O God, deliver Thy people. Let Thy sword Destroy our enemies, Lord._'"

Then, on the Cross of His creative pain, God bowed His head again. Then, East and West, over all seas and lands, Out-stretched His piercèd hands. "And yet," Sandalphon whispered, "men deny The Eternal Calvary."

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

[_Written in answer to certain scientific pronouncements_]

_In the beginning?_--Slowly grope we back Along the narrowing track, Back to the deserts of the world's pale prime, The mire, the clay, the slime; And then ... what then? Surely to something less; Back, back, to Nothingness!

You dare not halt upon that dwindling way! There is no gulf to stay Your footsteps to the last. Go back you must! Far, far below the dust, Descend, descend! Grade by dissolving grade, We follow, unafraid! Dissolve, dissolve this moving world of men Into thin air--and then?

III

O pioneers, O warriors of the Light, In that abysmal night, Will you have courage, then, to rise and tell Earth of this miracle? Will you have courage, then, to bow the head, And say, when all is said--

"Out of this Nothingness arose our thought! This blank abysmal Nought Woke, and brought forth that lighted City street, Those towers, that armoured fleet?" ...

When you have seen those vacant primal skies Beyond the centuries. Watched the pale mists across their darkness flow, As in a lantern-show, Weaving, by merest "chance," out of thin air, Pageants of praise and prayer; Watched the great hills like clouds arise and set, And one--named Olivet; When you have seen, as a shadow passing away, One child clasp hands and pray; When you have seen emerge from that dark mire One martyr, ringed with fire; Or, from that Nothingness, by special grace, One woman's love-lit face, ...

Will you have courage, then, to front that law (From which your sophists draw Their only right to flout one human creed) That nothing can proceed-- Not even thought, not even love--from less Than its own nothingness? The law is yours! But dare you waive your pride, And kneel where you denied? The law is yours! Dare you re-kindle, then, One faith for faithless men, And say you found, on that dark road you trod, _In the beginning--GOD_?

THE LAST BATTLE

Kings of the earth, Kings of the earth, the trumpet rings for warning, And like the golden swords that ray from out the setting sun The shout goes out of the trumpet mouth across the hills of morning, Wake; for the last great battle dawns and all the wars are done.

Now all the plains of Europe smoke with marching hooves of thunder, And through each ragged mountain-gorge the guns begin to gleam; And round a hundred cities where the women watch and wonder, The tramp of passing armies aches and faints into a dream.

The King of Ind is drawing nigh: a hundred leagues are clouded Along his loud earth-shaking march from east to western sea: The King o' the Setting Sun is here and all the seas are shrouded With sails that carry half the world to front Eternity.

Soon shall the darkness roll around the grappling of the nations, A darkness lit with deadly gleams of blood and steel and fire; Soon shall the last great pæan of earth's war-worn generations Roar through the thunder-clouded air round War's red funeral pyre.

But here defeat and victory are both allied with heaven, The enfolding sky makes every foe the centre of her dome, Each fights for God and his own right, and unto each is given The right to find the heart of heaven where'er he finds his home.

O, who shall win, and who shall lose, and who shall take the glory Here at the meeting of the roads, where every cause is right? O, who shall live, and who shall die, and who shall tell the story? Each strikes for faith and fatherland in that immortal fight.

High on the grey old hills of Time the last immortal rally, Under the storm of the last great tattered flag, shall laugh to see The blood of Armageddon roll from every smoking valley, Shall laugh aloud, then rush on death for God and chivalry.

Kings of the earth, Kings of the earth, O, which of you then shall inherit The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory? for the world's old light grows dim And the cry of you all goes up all night to the dark enfolding Spirit, Each of you fights for God and home; but God, ah, what of Him?

THE PARADOX

"I Am that I Am"

All that is broken shall be mended; All that is lost shall be found; I will bind up every wound When that which is begun shall be ended. Not peace I brought among you but a sword To divide the night from the day, When I sent My worlds forth in their battle-array To die and to live, To give and to receive, Saith the Lord.

Of old time they said none is good save our God; But ye that have seen how the ages have shrunk from my rod, And how red is the wine-press wherein at my bidding they trod, Have answered and said that with Eden I fashioned the snake, That I mould you of clay for a moment, then mar you and break, And there is none evil but I, the supreme Evil, God. Lo, I say unto both, I am neither; But greater than either; For meeting and mingling in Me they become neither evil nor good; Their cycle is rounded, they know neither hunger nor food, They need neither sickle nor seed-time, nor root nor fruit, They are ultimate, infinite, absolute. Therefore I say unto all that have sinned, East and West and South and North The wings of my measureless love go forth To cover you all: they are free as the wings of the wind.

III

Consider the troubled waters of the sea Which never rest; As the wandering waves are ye; Yet assuaged and appeased and forgiven, As the seas are gathered together under the infinite glory of heaven, I gather you all to my breast. But the sins and the creeds and the sorrows that trouble the sea Relapse and subside, Chiming like chords in a world-wide symphony As they cease to chide; For they break and they are broken of sound and hue, And they meet and they murmur and they mingle anew, Interweaving, intervolving, like waves: they have no stay: They are all made as one with the deep, when they sink and are vanished away; Yea, all is toned at a turn of the tide To a calm and golden harmony; But I--shall I wonder or greatly care, For their depth or their height? Shall it be more than a song in my sight How many wandering waves there were, Or how many colours and changes of light? It is your eyes that see And take heed of these things: they were fashioned for you, not for Me.

With the stars and the clouds I have clothed Myself here for your eyes To behold That which Is. I have set forth the strength of the skies As one draweth a picture before you to make your hearts wise; That the infinite souls I have fashioned may know as I know, Visibly revealed In the flowers of the field, Yea, declared by the stars in their courses, the tides in their flow, And the clash of the world's wide battle as it sways to and fro, Flashing forth as a flame The unnameable Name, The ineffable Word, _I am the Lord._

I am the End to which the whole world strives: Therefore are ye girdled with a wild desire and shod With sorrow; for among you all no soul Shall ever cease or sleep or reach its goal Of union and communion with the Whole, Or rest content with less than being God. Still, as unending asymptotes, your lives In all their myriad wandering ways Approach Me with the progress of the golden days; Approach Me; for my love contrives That ye should have the glory of this For ever; yea, that life should blend With life and only vanish away From day to wider wealthier day, Like still increasing spheres of light that melt and merge in wider spheres Even as the infinite years of the past melt in the infinite future years. Each new delight of sense, Each hope, each love, each fear, Widens, relumes and recreates each sphere, From a new ring and nimbus of pre-eminence. I am the Sphere without circumference: I only and for ever comprehend All others that within me meet and blend. Death is but the blinding kiss Of two finite infinities; Two finite infinite orbs The splendour of the greater of which absorbs The less, though both like Love have no beginning and no end.

Therefore is Love's own breath Like Knowledge, a continual death; And all his laughter and kisses and tears, And woven wiles of peace and strife, That ever widen thus your temporal spheres, Are making of the memory of your former years A very death in life.

VII

I am that I am; Ye are evil and good; With colour and glory and story and song ye are fed as with food: The cold and the heat, The bitter and the sweet, The calm and the tempest fulfil my Word; Yet will ye complain of my two-edged sword That has fashioned the finite and mortal and given you the sweetness of strife, The blackness and whiteness, The darkness and brightness, Which sever your souls from the formless and void and hold you fast-fettered to life?

VIII

Behold now, is Life not good? Yea, is it not also much more than the food, More than the raiment, more than the breath? Yet Strife is its name! Say, which will ye cast out first from the furnace, the fuel or the flame? Would ye all be as I am; and know neither evil nor good; neither life; neither death; Or mix with the void and the formless till all were as one and the same?

I am that I am; the Container of all things: kneel, lift up your hands To the high Consummation of good and of evil which none understands; The divine Paradox, the ineffable Word, in whose light the poor souls that ye trod Underfoot as too vile for their fellows are at terrible union with God! Am I not over both evil and good, The righteous man and the shedder of blood? Shall I save or slay? I am neither the night nor the day, Saith the Lord. Judge not, oh ye that are round my footstool, judge not, ere the hour be born That shall laugh you also to scorn.

Ah, yet I say unto all that have sinned, East and West and South and North The wings of my measureless love go forth To cover you all: they are free as the wings of the wind.

But one thing is needful; and ye shall be true To yourselves and the goal and the God that ye seek; Yea, the day and the night shall requite it to you If ye love one another, if your love be not weak.

XII

Since I sent out my worlds in their battle-array To die and to live, To give and to receive, Not peace, not peace, I have brought among you but a sword, To divide the night from the day, Saith the Lord; Yet all that is broken shall be mended, And all that is lost shall be found, I will bind up every wound, When that which is begun shall be ended.

THE PROGRESS OF LOVE

(A LYRICAL SYMPHONY)

In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end. The woodbine whispers, low and sweet and low, In other worlds I loved you, long ago; The firwoods murmur and the sea-waves know The message that the setting sun shall send. In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end.

And God sighed in the sunset; and the sea Chanted the soft recessional of Time Against the golden shores of mystery;

And ever as that long low change and chime With one slow sob of molten music yearned Westward, it seemed as if the Love sublime

Almost uttered itself, where the waves burned In little flower-soft flames of rose and green That woke to seaward, while the tides returned

Rising and falling, ruffled and serene, With all the mirrored tints of heaven above Shimmering through their mystic myriad sheen.

As a dove's burnished breast throbbing with love Swells and subsides to call her soft-eyed mate Home through the rosy gloom of glen or grove,

So when the greenwood noon was growing late The sea called softly through the waste of years, Called to the star that still can consecrate

The holy golden haze of human tears Which tinges every sunset with our grief Until the perfect Paraclete appears.

Ah, the long sigh that yields the world relief Rose and relapsed across Eternity, Making a joy of sorrows that are brief,

As, o'er the bright enchantment of the sea, Facing the towers of that old City of Pain Which stands upon the shores of mystery

And frowns across the immeasurable main, Venus among her cloudy sunset flowers Woke; and earth melted into heaven again.

For even the City's immemorial towers Were tinted into secret tone and time, Like old forgotten tombs that age embowers

With muffling roses and with mossy rime Until they seem no monument of ours, But one more note in earth's accordant chime.

O Love, Love, Love, all dreams, desires and powers, Were but as chords of that ineffable psalm; And all the long blue lapse of summer hours,

And all the breathing sunset's golden balm By that æonian sorrow were resolved As dew into the music's infinite calm,

Through which the suns and moons and stars revolved According to the song's divine decree, Till Time was but a tide of intervolved

And interweaving worlds of melody; _In other worlds I loved you, long ago_,-- The angelic citoles fainted o'er the sea;

And seraph citerns answered, sweet and low, From where the sunset and the moonrise blend,-- _In other worlds I loved you, long ago_;

_Love that hath no beginning hath no end_; O Love, Love, Love, the bitter City of Pain Bidding the golden echoes westward wend,

Chimed in accordant undertone again: Though every grey old tower rose like a tomb To mock the glory of the shoreless main

They could but strike such discords as illume The music with strange gleams of utter light And hallow all the valley's rosy gloom.

And there, though greyly sinking out of sight Before the wonders of the sky and sea, Back through the valley, back into the night,

While mystery melted into mystery, The City still rebuffed the far sweet West That dimmed her sorrows with infinity;

Yet sometimes yearning o'er the sea's bright breast To that remote Avilion would she gaze Where all lost loves and weary warriors rest.

Then she remembered, through that golden haze, (Oh faint as flowers the rose-white waves resound) Her Arthur whom she loved in the dead days,

And how he sailed to heal him of his wound, And how he lives and reigns eternally Where now that unknown love is throned and crowned

Who laid his bleeding head against her knee And loosed the bitter breast-plate and unbound His casque and brought him strangely o'er the sea,

And how she reigns beside him on that shore For ever (Yrma, queen, bend down to me) And they twain have no sorrow any more.

III

They have forgotten all that vanished away When life's dark night died into death's bright day They have forgotten all except the gleam Of light when once he kissed her in a dream Once on the lips and once upon the brow In the white orb of God's transcendent Now; And even then he knew that, long before, Their eyes had met upon some distant shore; Yea; that most lonely and immortal face Which dwells beyond the dreams of time and space Bowed down to him from out the happy place And whispered to him, low and sweet and low _In other worlds I loved you, long ago_; And then he knew his love could never die Because his queen was throned beyond the sky And called him to his own immortal sphere Forgetting Launcelot and Guinevere.

So Yrma reigns with Arthur, and they know They loved on earth a million years ago; And watched the sea-waves wistfully westward wend; And heard a voice whispering in their flow, And calling through the silent sunset-glow, _Love that hath no beginning hath no end._

It was about the dawn of day I heard Etain and Anwyl say The waving ferns are a fairy forest, It is time, it is time to wander away;

For the dew is bright on the heather bells, And the breeze in the clover sways and swells, As the waves on the blue sea wake and wander, Over and under the braes and dells.

She was eight years old that day, Full of laughter and play; Eight years old and Anwyl nine,-- Two young lovers were they.

Two young lovers were they, Born in the City of Pain; There was never a song in the world so gay As the song of the child, Etain;

There was never a laugh so sweet With the ripple of fairy bells, And never a fairy foot so fleet Dancing down the woodland dells!

She was eight years old that day, Two young lovers were they.

There was never a sea of mystical gleams Glooming under enchanted skies Deep as the dark miraculous dreams In Anwyl's haunted eyes.

There was never a glory of light Around the carolling lark As Etain's eyes were brave and bright To daunt the coming dark.

Two young lovers were they Born in the City of Pain; There was never a song in the world so gay As the song of the child, Etain;

Blithe as the wind in the trees, Blithe as the bird on the bough, Blithe as the bees in the sweet Heart's-ease Where Love lies bleeding now.

And God sighed in the sunset; and the sea Forgot her sorrow, and all the breathless West Grew quiet as the blue tranquillity

That clad the broken mountain's brilliant breast, Over the City, with deep heather-bloom Heaving from crag to crag in sweet unrest,

A sea of dim rich colour and warm perfume Whose billows rocked the drowsy honey-bee Among the golden isles of gorse and broom

Like some enchanted ancient argosy Drunkenly blundering over seas of dream Past unimagined isles of mystery, Over whose yellow sands the soft waves cream, And sunbeams float and toss across the bare Rose-white arms and perilous breasts that gleam

Where sirens wind their glossy golden hair; Oh, miles on miles, the honeyed heather-bloom Heaving its purple through the high bright air

Rolled a silent glory of gleam and gloom From mossy crag to crag and crest to crest Untroubled by the valley's depth of doom.

The hawk dropped down into the pine-forest And, far below, the lavrock ruffled her wings Blossomwise over her winsome secret nest.

Then suddenly, softly, as when a fairy sings Out of the heart of a rose in the heart of the fern, Or in the floating starlight faintly rings

The frail blue hare-bells--turn again, and turn, Under and over, the silvery crescents cry To where the crimson fox-glove belfries burn

And with a deeper softer peal reply, There came a ripple of music through the roses That rustled on the dimmest rim of sky

Where many a frame of fretted leaves encloses For lovers wandering in the fern-wet wood An arch of summer sea that softly dozes

As if all mysteries were understood: Yrma, my queen, what love could understand That faint sweet music, _God saith all is good_,

As those two children, hand in sunburnt hand, Over the blithe blue hills and far away Wandered into their own green fairyland?

For the song is lost that shook the dew Where the wild musk-roses glisten, When the sunset dreamed that a dream was true And the birds were hushed to listen.

The song is lost that shook the night With wings of richer fire, Where the years had touched their eyes with light And their souls with a new desire;

And the new delight of the strange old story Burned in the flower-soft skies, And nine more years with a darker glory Had deepened the light of her eyes;

But lost, oh more than lost the song That shook the rose to tears, As hand in hand they danced along Through childhood's everlasting years.

"Oh, Love has wings," the linnet sings; But the dead return no more, no more; And the sea is breaking its old grey heart Against the golden shore.

She was eight years old that day, Two young lovers were they.

If every song as they danced along Paused on the springing spray; Is there never a bird in the wide greenwood Will hush its heart to-day?

There's never a leaf with dew impearled To make their pathway sweet, And never a blossom in all the world That knows the kiss of their feet.

No light to-night declares the word That thrilled the blossomed bough, And stilled the happy singing bird That none can silence now.

The weary nightingale may sob With her bleeding breast against a thorn, And the wild white rose with every throb Grow red as the laugh of morn;

With wings outspread she sinks her head But Love returns no more, no more; And the sea is breaking its old grey heart Against the golden shore.

Born in the City of Pain; Ah, who knows, who knows When Death shall turn to delight again Or a wound to a red, red rose?

Eight years old that day, Full of laughter and play; Eight years old and Anwyl nine,-- Two young lovers were they.

VII

And down the scented heather-drowsy hills The barefoot children wandered, hand in hand, And paddled through the laughing silver rills In quest of fairyland; And in each little sunburnt hand a spray, A purple fox-glove bell-branch lightly swung, And Anwyl told Etain how, far away, One day he wandered through the dreamland dells And watched the moonlit fairies as they sung And tolled the fox-glove bells; And oh, how sweetly, sweetly to and fro The fragrance of the music reeled and rung Under the loaded boughs of starry May.

And God sighed in the sunset, and the sea Grew quieter than the hills: the mystery Of ocean, earth and sky was like a word Uttered, but all unheard, Uttered by every wave and cloud and leaf With all the immortal glory of mortal grief; And every wave that broke its heart of gold In music on the rainbow-dazzled shore Seemed telling, strangely telling, evermore A story that must still remain untold.

Oh, _Once upon a time_, and o'er and o'er As aye the _Happy ever after_ came The enchanted waves lavished their faery lore

And tossed a foam-bow and a rosy flame Around the whispers of the creaming foam, Till the old rapture with the new sweet name

Through all the old romance began to roam, And Anwyl, gazing out across the sea, Dreamed that he heard the distance whisper "Come."

"Etain," he murmured softly and wistfully, With the soul's wakening wonder in his eyes, "Is it not strange to think that there can be

"No end for ever and ever to those skies, No shore beyond, or if there be a shore Still without end the world beyond it lies;

"Think; think, Etain;" and all his faery lore Mixed with the faith that brought all gods to birth And sees new heavens transcend for evermore

The poor impossibilities of earth; But Etain only laughed: the world to her Was one sweet smile of very present mirth;

Its flowers were only flowers, common or rare; Her soul was like a little garden closed By rose-clad walls, a place of southern air Islanded from the Mystery that reposed Its vast and brooding wings on that abyss Through which like little clouds that dreamed and dozed

The thoughts of Anwyl wandered toward some bliss Unknown, unfathomed, far, how far away, Where God has gathered all the eternities Into strange heavens, beyond the night and day.

VIII

And over the rolling golden bay, In the funeral pomp of the dying day, The bell of Time was wistfully tolling A million million years away;

And over the heather-drowsy hill Where the burdened bees were buzzing still, The two little sun-bright barefoot children Wandered down at the flowers' own will;

For still as the bell in the sunset tolled, The meadow-sweet and the mary-gold And the purple orchis kissed their ankles And lured them over the listening wold.

And the feathery billows of blue-gold grass Bowed and murmured and bade them pass, Where a sigh of the sea-wind softly told them _There is no Time--Time never was_.

And what if a sorrow were tolled to rest Where the rich light mellowed away in the West, As a glory of fruit in an autumn orchard Heaped and asleep o'er the sea's ripe breast?

Why should they heed it, what should they know Of the years that come or the years that go, With the warm blue sky around and above them And the wild thyme whispering to and fro?

For they heard in the dreamy dawn of day A fairy harper faintly play, Follow me, follow me, little children, Over the hills and far away;

Where the dew is bright on the heather-bells, And the breeze in the clover sways and swells, As the waves on the blue sea wake and wander, Over and under the braes and dells.

And the hare-bells tinkled and rang Ding dong Bell in the dell as they danced along, And their feet were stained on the hills with honey, And crushing the clover till evensong.

And, oh the ripples that rolled in rhyme Under the wild blue banks of thyme, To the answering rhyme of the rolling ocean's Golden glory of change and chime!

For they came to a stream and her fairy lover Caught at her hand and swung her over, And the broad wet buttercups laughed and gilded Their golden knees in the deep sweet clover.

There was never a lavrock up in the skies Blithe as the laugh of their lips and eyes, As they glanced and glittered across the meadows To waken the sleepy butterflies.

There was never a wave on the sea so gay As the light that danced on their homeward way Where the waving ferns were a fairy forest And a thousand years as yesterday.

_She was eight years old that day, Full of laughter and play; Eight years old and Anwyl nine,-- Two young lovers were they._

And when the clouds like folded sheep Were drowsing over the drowsy deep, And like a rose in a golden cradle Anwyl breathed on the breast of sleep,

Or ever the petals and leaves were furled At the vesper-song of the sunset-world, The sleepy young rose of nine sweet summers Dreamed in his rose-bed cosily curled.

And what if the light of his nine bright years Glistened with laughter or glimmered with tears, Or gleamed like a mystic globe around him White as the light of the sphere of spheres?

And what if a glory of angels there, Starring an orb of ineffable air, Came floating down from the Gates of jasper That melt into flowers at a maiden's prayer?

And what if he dreamed of a fairy face Wondering out of some happy place, Quietly as a star at sunset Shines in the rosy dreams of space?

For only as far as the west wind blows The sweets of a swinging full-blown rose, Eight years old and queen of the lilies Little Etain slept--ah, how close!

At a flower-cry over the moonlit lane In a cottage of roses dreamed Etain, And their purple shadows kissed at her lattice And dappled her sigh-soft counterpane;

And or ever Etain with her golden head Had nestled to sleep in her lily-white bed, She breathed a dream to her fairy lover, _Please, God, bless Anwyl and me_, she said.

And a song arose in the rose-white West, And a whisper of wings o'er the sea's bright breast, And a cry where the moon's old miracle wakened A glory of pearl o'er the pine-forest.

Why should they heed it? What should they know Of the years to come or the years to go? With the starry skies around and above them And the roses whispering to and fro.

Ah, was it a song of the mystic morn When into their beating hearts the thorn Should pierce through the red wet crumpled roses And all the sorrow of love be born?

Ah, was it a cry of the wild wayside Whereby one day they must surely ride, Out of the purple garden of passion To Calvary, to be crucified?

Only the sound of the distant sea Broke on the shores of Mystery, And tolled as a bell might toll for sorrow Till Time be tombed in Eternity;

And in their dreams they only heard Far away, one secret bird Sing, till the passionate purple twilight Throbbed with the wonder of one sweet word:

One sweet word and the wonder awoke, And the leaves and the flowers and the starlight spoke In silent rapture the strange old secret That none e'er knew till the death-dawn broke;

One sweet whisper, and hand in hand They wandered in dreams through fairyland, Rapt in the star-bright mystical music Which only a child can understand.

But never a child in the world can tell The wonderful tale he knows so well, Though ever as old Time dies in the sunset It tolls and tolls like a distant bell.

_Love, love, love_; and they hardly knew The sense of the glory that round them grew; But the world was a wide enchanted garden; And the song, the song, the song rang true.

And they danced with the fairies in emerald rings Arched by the light of their rainbow wings, And they heard the wild green Harper striking A starlight over the golden strings.

_Love, oh love_; and they roamed once more Through a forest of flowers on a fairy shore, And the sky was a wild bright laugh of wonder And the West was a dream of the years of yore.

In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end: The heather whispers low and sweet and low, In other worlds I loved you, long ago; The meadows murmur and the firwoods know The message that the kindling East shall send; In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end.

Out of the deep, my dream, out of the deep, Yrma, thy voice came to me in my sleep, And through a rainbow woven of human tears I saw two lovers wandering down the years; Two children, first, that roamed a sunset land, And then two lovers wandering hand in hand, Forgetful of their childhood's Paradise, For nine more years had darkened in their eyes, And heaven itself could hardly find again Anwyl, the star-child, or the flower, Etain.

For on a day in May, as through the wood With earth's new passion beating in his blood He went alone, an empty-hearted youth, Seeking he knew not what white flower of truth Or beauty, on all sides he seemed to see Swift subtle hints of some new harmony, Yet all unheard, ideal, and incomplete, A silent song compact of hopes and fears, A music such as lights the wandering feet Of Yrma when on earth she reappears. And he forgot that sad grey City of Pain, For all earth's old romance returned again, And as he went, his dreaming soul grew glad To think that he might meet with Galahad Or Parsifal in some green glade of fern, Or see between the boughs a helmet burn And hear a joyous laugh kindle the sky As through the wood Sir Launcelot rode by With face upturned to take the sun like wine. Ah, was it love that made the whole world shine Like some great angel's face, blinded with bliss, While Anwyl dreamed of bold Sir Amadis And Guinevere's white arms and Iseult's kiss, And that glad island in a golden sea Where Arthur lives and reigns eternally? Surely the heavens were one wide rose-white flame As down the path to meet him Yrma came; Ah, was it Yrma, with those radiant eyes, That came to greet and lead him through the skies, The skies that gloomed and gleamed so far above The little wandering prayers of human love?... He had forgotten all except the gleam Of light when once he kissed her in a dream, ... For surely then he knew that long before Their eyes had met upon some distant shore.... Ah, was it Yrma whose red lips he met Between the branches, where the leaves were wet? Etain or Yrma, for it seemed her face Bent down upon him from some happy place And whispered to him, low and sweet and low, _In other worlds I loved you, long ago!_ And he, too, knew his love could never die, Because his queen was throned beyond the sky.

Yet In sweet mortal eyes he met her now And kissed Etain beneath the hawthorn bough, And dared to dream his infinite dream was true On earth and reign with Etain, dream he knew Why leaves were green and sides were fresh and blue; Yea, dream he knew, as children dream they know They knew all this a million years ago, And watched the sea-waves wistfully westward wend And heard a voice whispering in their flow And calling through the silent sunset-glow _Love that hath no beginning hath no end._

Ah, could they see in the Valley of Gloom That clove the cliffs behind the City; Ah, could they hear in the forest of Doom The peril that neared without pause or pity? Behind the veils of ivy and vine, Wild musk-roses and white woodbine, In glens that were wan as with moonlit tears And rosy with ghosts of eglantine And pale as with lilies of long-past years, Ah, could they see, could they hear, could they know Behind that beautiful outward show, Behind the pomp and glory of life That seething old anarchic strife? For there in many a dim blue glade Where the rank red poppies burned, And if perchance some dreamer strayed He nevermore returned, Cold incarnate memories Of earth's retributory throes, Deadly desires and agonies Dark as the worm that never dies, In the outer night arose, And waited under those wonderful skies With Hydra heads and mocking eyes That winked upon the waning West From out the gloom of the oak-forest, Till all the wild profound of wood That o'er the haunted valley slept Glowed with eyes like pools of blood As, lusting after a hideous food, Through the haggard vistas crept Without a cry, without a hiss, The serpent broods of the abyss. Ancestral folds in darkness furled Since the beginnings of the world. Ring upon awful ring uprose That obscure heritage of foes, The exceeding bitter heritage Which still a jealous God bestows From inappellable age to age, The ghostly worms that softly move Through every grey old corse of love And creep across the coffined years To batten on our blood and tears; And there were hooded shapes of death Gaunt and grey, cruel and blind, Stealing softly as a breath Through the woods that loured behind The City; hooded shapes of fear Slowly, slowly stealing near; While all the gloom that round them rolled With intertwisting coils grew cold. And there with leer and gap-toothed grin Many a gaunt ancestral Sin With clutching fingers, white and thin, Strove to put the boughs aside; And still before them all would glide Down the wavering moon-white track One lissom figure, clad in black; Who wept at mirth and mocked at pain And murmured a song of the wind and the rain; His laugh was wild with a secret grief; His eyes were deep like woodland pools; And, once and again, as his face drew near In a rosy gloaming of eglantere, All the ghosts that gathered there Bowed together, naming his name: Lead us, ah thou _Shadow of a Leaf_, Child and master of all our shame, Fool of Doubt and King of Fools.

Now the linnet had ended his evensong, And the lark dropt down from his last wild ditty And ruffled his wings and his speckled breast Blossomwise over his June-sweet nest; While winging wistfully into the West As a fallen petal is wafted along The last white sea-mew sought for rest; And, over the gleaming heave and swell Of the swinging seas, Drowsily breathed the dreaming breeze. Then, suddenly, out of the Valley of Gloom That clove the cliffs behind the City, Out of the silent forest of Doom That clothed the valley with clouds of fear Swelled the boom of a distant bell Once, and the towers of the City of Pain Echoed it, without hope or pity. The tale of that tolling who can tell? That dark old music who shall declare? Who shall interpret the song of the bell?

_Is it nothing to you, all ye that hear_, Sorrowed the bell, _Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you?_ the shore-wind cried, _Is it nothing to you?_ the cliffs replied. But the low light laughed and the skies were blue, And this was only the song of the bell.

ANWYL

A darkened easement in a darker room Was all his home, whence weary and bowed and white He watched across the slowly gathering gloom The slowly westering light.

Bitterness in his heavy-clouded eyes, Bitterness as of heaven's intestine wars Brooded; he looked upon the unfathomed skies And whispered--to the stars--

Some day, he said, she will forget all this That she calls life, and looking far above See throned among the great eternities This dream of mine, this love;

Love that has given my soul these wings of fire To beat in glory above the sapphire sea, Until the wings of the infinite desire Close in infinity;

Love that has taken the glory of hawthorn boughs, And all the dreaming beauty of hazel skies, As ministers to the radiance of her brows And haunted April eyes;

Love that is hidden so deep beneath the dust Of little daily duties and delights, Till that reproachful face of hers grows just And God at last requites

A soul whose dream was deeper than the skies, A heart whose hope was wider than the sea, Yet could not enter through his true love's eyes Their grey infinity.

And so I know I wound her all day long Because my heart must seem so far away; And even my love completes the silent wrong For all that it can say

Seems vast and meaningless to mortal sense; Its vague desire can never reach its goal Till knowledge vanishes in omniscience And God surrounds her soul, Breaking its barriers down and flooding in Through all her wounds in one almighty tide, Mingling her soul with that great Love wherein My soul waits, glorified.

ETAIN

My love is dying, dying in my heart; There is no song in heaven for such as I Who watch the days and years of youth depart, The bloom decay and die;

The rose that withers in the hollow cheek, The leaden rings that mark us old and wise; And Time that writes what Pity dares not speak Around the fading eyes.

He dreams he loves; but only loves his dream; And in his dream he never can forget Abana seems a so much mightier stream And Pharpar wider yet;

The little deeds of love that light the shrine Of common daily duties with such gleams Of heaven, to me are scarcely less divine Than those poor wandering dreams

Of deeds that never happen! I give him this, This heart he cannot find in heaven above; This heart, this heart of all the eternities, This life of mine, this love;

Love that is lord of all the world at once And never bade the encircled spirit roam To the circle's bound, beyond the moons and suns, But makes each heart its home, And every home the heart of Space and Time, And each and all a heaven if love could reign; One infinite untranscended heaven sublime With God's own joy and pain.

Why, that was what God meant, to set us here In Eden, when he saw that all was good; And we have made the sun black with despair, And turned the moon to blood.

So has Love taught me that too learnèd tongue, And in his poorer wisdom made me wise; I grew so proud of the red drops we wrung From all philosophies.

My heart is narrow, foolish, what you will; But this I know God meant who set us here, And gave each soul the Infinities to fulfil From its own widening sphere.

To annex new regions to the soul's domain, To expand the circle of the golden hours, Till it enfolds again and yet again New heavens, new fields, new flowers,

Oh, this is well; but still the central heart Is here at home, not wandering like the wind That gathers nothing, but must still depart Leaving a waste behind.

Where is the song I sang that April morn, When all the poet in his eyes awoke My sleeping heart to heaven; and love was born? For while the glad day broke

We met; and as the softly kindling skies Thrilled through the scented vistas of the wood I felt the sudden love-light in his eyes Kindle my beating blood.

_Happy day, happy day, Chasing the clouds of the night away And bidding the dreams of the dawn depart Over the freshening April blue, Till the blossoms awake to welcome the May, And the world is made anew; And the blackbird sings on the dancing spray With eyes of glistening dew; "Happy, happy, happy day;" For he knows that his love is true; He knows that his love is true, my heart, He knows that his love is true!_

I cannot sing it: these tears blind me: love, O love, come back before it is too late, Why, even Christ came down to us from above: I think His love was great;

Yet he stood knocking, knocking at the door Until his piteous hands were worn with scars; He did not hide that crown of love he wore Among the lonely stars.

This round of hours, the daily flowers I cull Are more to me than all the rolling spheres, A wounded bird at hand more pitiful Than some great seraph's tears.

How should I join the great wise choir above With my starved spirit's pale inhuman dearth, Who never heard the cry of heavenly love Rise from the sweet-souled earth?

Yet it is I he needs, and I for whom His greed exceeds, his dreams fly wide of the mark! Is it all self? I wander in the gloom; The ways of God grow dark; I watch the rose that withers in the cheek, The leaden rings that mark us old and wise; And Time that writes what Pity dares not speak Around the fading eyes.

XII

And ever as Anwyl went the unknown end Faded before him, back and back and back He saw new empty heavens for ever bend Over his endless track;

And memory, burning with new hopeless fire, Showed him how every passing infinite hour Made some new Crucifix for the World's Desire Is some new wayside flower:

He saw what joy and beauty owed to death; How all the world was one great sacrifice Of Him, in whom all creatures that draw breath Share God's eternal skies;

How Love is lord of all the world at once; And never bids the encircled spirit roam To the circle's bound, beyond the moons and suns, But makes each heart its home,

And every home the heart of Space and Time, And each and all a heaven if love could reign One infinite untranscended heaven sublime With God's own joy and pain.

XIII

Out of the deep, my dream, out of the deep, A little child came to him in his sleep And led him back to what was Paradise Before the years had darkened in his eyes, And showed him what he ne'er could lose again-- The light that once enshrined the child Etain.

Ah, was it Yrma with those radiant eyes That came to greet and lead him through the skies; Ay; all the world was one wide rose-white flame, As down the path to meet him Yrma came And caught the child up in her arms and cried, This is my child that moved in Etain's side, Thy child and Etain's: I the unknown ideal And she the rich, the incarnate, breathing real Are one; for me thou never canst attain But by the love I yield thee for Etain; Even as through Christ thy soul allays its dearth, Love's heaven is only compassed upon earth; And by that love, in thine own Etain's eyes Thou shalt find all God's untranscended skies.

As of old, as of old, with Etain that day, Over the hills, and far away, He roamed thro' the fairy forests of fern: Two young lovers were they.

Oh, _Once upon a time_, and o'er and o'er As aye the _Happy ever after_ came The enchanted waves lavished their faery lore

And tossed a foam-bow and a rosy flame Around the whispers of the creaming foam, Till the old rapture with the new sweet name Through all the old romance began to roam.

XIV

And those two lovers only heard --Oh, love is a dream that knows no waking-- Far away, one secret bird, Where all the roses breathed one word, And every crispel on the beach-- Oh, love is a sea that is ever breaking!-- Lisped it in a sweeter speech; As hand in hand, by the sunset sea That breaks on the shores of mystery, They stood in the gates of the City of Pain To watch the wild waves flutter and beat In roses of white soft light at their feet, Roses of delicate music and light, Music and moonlight under their feet. Crumbling and flashing and softly crashing In rainbow colours that dazzle and wane And wither and waken and, wild with delight, Dance and dance to a mystic tune And scatter their leaves in a flower-soft rain Over the shimmering golden shore Between the West and the waking moon, Between the sunset and the night; And then they sigh for the years of yore And gather their glory together again, Petal by petal and gleam by gleam, Till, all in one rushing rose-bright stream They dazzle back to the deep once more, For the dream of the sea is an endless dream, And love is a sea that hath no shore, And the roses dance as they danced before.

In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end: Low to her heart he breathed it, sweet and low; In other worlds I loved you, long ago; This is a word that all the sea-waves know And whisper as through the shoreless West they wend, In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end.

XVI

"Yet love can die!" she murmured once again; For this was in that City by the Sea, That old grey City of Pain, Built on the shifting shores of Mystery And mocked by all the immeasurable main. "Love lives to die!" Under the deep eternal sky His deeper voice caught up that deep refrain;

"A year ago, and under yonder sun Earth had no Heaven to hold our hearts in one! For me there was no love, afar or nigh: And, O, if love were thus in time begun, Love, even our love, in time must surely die." Then memory murmured, "No"; And he remembered, a million years ago, He saw the sea-waves wistfully westward wend; And heard her voice whispering in their flow And calling through the silent sunset-glow. _Love that hath no beginning hath no end._

"Love dies to live!" How wild, how deep the joy That knows no death can e'er destroy What cannot bear destruction! By these eyes I know that, ere the fashioning of the skies, Or ever the sun and moon and stars were made I loved you. Sweet, I am no more afraid.

"Love lives to die!" Under the deep eternal sky Her wild sweet voice caught up that deep refrain: There, in that silent City by the Sea, Listening the wild-wave music of Infinity, There, in that old grey City of mortal pain, Their voices mingled in mystic unison With that immortal harmony Which holds the warring worlds in one.

Their Voice, one Voice, yet manifold, Possessed the seas, the fields, the sky, With utterance of the dream that cannot die; Possessed the West's wild rose and dappled gold, And that old secret of the setting sun Which, to the glory of Eternity, Time, tolling like a distant bell, Evermore faints to tell, And, ever telling, never yet has told. One, and yet manifold Arose their Voice, oh strangely one again With murmurs of the immeasurable main; As, far beyond earth's cloudy bars, Their Soul surpassed the sunset and the stars, And all the heights and depths of temporal pain, Till seas of seraph music round them rolled.

And in that mystic plane They felt their mortal years Break away as a dream of pain Breaks in a stream of tears.

Love, of whom life had birth, See now, is death not sweet? Love, is this heaven or earth? Both are beneath thy feet.

Nay, both within thy heart! O Love, the glory nears; The Gates of Pearl are flung apart, The Rose of Heaven appears.

Across the deeps of change, Like pangs of visible song, What angel-spirits, remote and strange, Thrill through the starry throng?

And oh, what wind that blows Over the mystic Tree, What whisper of the sacred Rose, What murmur of the sapphire Sea, What dreams that faint and fail From harps of burning gold, But tell in heaven the sweet old tale An earthly sunset told?

Hark! like a holy bell Over that spirit Sea, Time, in the world it loves so well, Tolls for Eternity.

Earth calls us once again, And, through the mystic Gleam, The grey old City of mortal pain Dawns on the heavenly dream.

Sweet as the voice of birds At dawn, the years return, With little songs and sacred words Of human hearts that yearn.

The sweet same waves resound Along our earthly shore; But now this earth we lost and found Is heaven for evermore.

Hark! how the cosmic choir, In sea and flower and sun, Recalls that triumph of desire Which made all music one:

One universal soul, Completing joy with pain, And harmonising with the Whole The temporal refrain,

Until from hill and plain, From bud and blossom and tree, From shadow and shining after rain, From cloud and clovered bee, From earth and sea and sky, From laughter and from tears, One molten golden harmony Fulfils the yearning years.

_Love, of whom death had birth, See now, is life not sweet? Love, is this heaven or earth? Both are beneath thy feet._

_In other worlds I loved you, long ago; Love that hath no beginning hath no end; The sea-waves whisper, low and sweet and low, In other worlds I loved you, long ago; The May-boughs murmur and the roses know The message that the dawning moon shall send; In other worlds I loved you, long ago; Love that hath no beginning hath no end._

THE FOREST OF WILD THYME

_DEDICATED TO HELEN, ROSIE, AND BEATRIX_

PERSONS OF THE TALE

OURSELVES FATHER MOTHER LITTLE BOY BLUE THE HIDEOUS HERMIT THE KING OF FAIRY-LAND PEASE-BLOSSOM MUSTARD-SEED Dragons, Fairies, Mammoths, Angels, etc.

APOLOGIA

One more hour to wander free With Puck on his unbridled bee Thro' heather-forests, leagues of bloom, Our childhood's maze of scent and sun! Forbear awhile your notes of doom, Dear Critics, give me still this one Swift hour to hunt the fairy gleam That flutters thro' the unfettered dream. It mocks me as it flies, I know: All too soon the gleam will go; Yet I love it and shall love My dream that brooks no narrower bars Than bind the darkening heavens above, My Jack o'Lanthorn of the stars: Then, I'll follow it no more, I'll light the lamp: I'll close the door.

PRELUDE

Hush! if you remember how we sailed to old Japan, Peterkin was with us then, our little brother Peterkin! Now we've lost him, so they say: I think the tall thin man Must have come and touched him with his curious twinkling fan And taken him away again, our merry little Peterkin; He'll be frightened all alone; we'll find him if we can; Come and look for Peterkin, poor little Peterkin.

No one would believe us if we told them what we know, Or they wouldn't grieve for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin! If they'd only watched us roaming through the streets of Miyako, And travelling in a palanquin where parents never go, And seen the golden gardens where we wandered once with Peterkin, And smelt the purple orchards where the cherry-blossoms blow, They wouldn't mourn for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin.

Put away your muskets, lay aside the drum, Hang it by the wooden sword we made for little Peterkin! He was once our trumpeter, now his bugle's dumb, Pile your arms beneath it, for the owlet light is come, We'll wander through the roses where we marched of old with Peterkin, We'll search the summer sunset where the Hybla beehives hum, And--if we meet a fairy there--we'll ask for news of Peterkin.

He was once our cabin-boy and cooked the sweets for tea; And O, we've sailed around the world with laughing little Peterkin; From nursery floor to pantry door we've roamed the mighty sea, And come to port below the stairs in distant Caribee, But wheresoe'er we sailed we took our little lubber Peterkin, Because his wide grey eyes believed much more than ours could see, And so we liked our Peterkin, our trusty little Peterkin.

Peterkin, Peterkin, I think if you came back The captain of our host to-day should be the bugler Peterkin, And he should lead our smugglers up that steep and narrow track, A band of noble brigands, bearing each a mighty pack Crammed with lace and jewels to the secret cave of Peterkin, And he should wear the biggest boots and make his pistol crack,-- The Spanish cloak, the velvet mask, we'd give them all to Peterkin.

Come, my brother pirates, I am tired of play; Come and look for Peterkin, little brother Peterkin, Our merry little comrade that the fairies took away, For people think we've lost him, and when we come to say Our good-night prayers to mother, if we pray for little Peterkin Her eyes are very sorrowful, she turns her head away. Come and look for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin.

God bless little Peterkin, wherever he may be! Come and look for Peterkin, lonely little Peterkin: I wonder if they've taken him again across the sea From the town of Wonder-Wander and the Amfalula tree To the land of many marvels where we roamed of old with Peterkin, The land of blue pagodas and the flowery fields of tea! Come and look for Peterkin, poor little Peterkin.