Chapter 2

But if, perchance, the shadows break, If dreams depart, and men awake, If face to face at length we see, Be thine the voice to welcome me.

HESPEROTHEN

By the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely returned from the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands and gods, seeking they know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phæacian island, nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably in a desert country by the sea, is set forth the _Vanity of Melancholy_. And by the land of Phæacia is to be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and by Circe’s Isle, the place of bodily delights, whereof men, falling aweary, attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. Which thing Master Françoys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the Isle of the Macræones.

THE SEEKERS FOR PHÆACIA.

THERE is a land in the remotest day, Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies; The eastern shore sees faint tides fade away, That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs Make life,—the lands below the blue of common skies.

But in the west is a mysterious sea, (What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?) With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be, With islands where a Goddess walks alone, And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan.

Eastward the human cares of house and home, Cities, and ships, and unknown gods, and loves; Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam, And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves, Wherein a god may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.

The gods are careless of the days and death Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas; The gods are heedless of their painful breath, And love them not, for they are not as these; But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.

Yet the Phæacians well they love, who live At the light’s limit, passing careless hours, Most like the gods; and they have gifts to give, Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers, And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.

It is a quiet midland; in the cool Of the twilight comes the god, though no man prayed, To watch the maids and young men beautiful Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid, For they are neat of kin to gods, and undismayed.

Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep! But with a mist they hide them wondrously, And far the path and dim to where they sleep,— The loved, the shadowy lands, along the shadowy deep.

A SONG OF PHÆACIA.

THE languid sunset, mother of roses, Lingers, a light on the magic seas, The wide fire flames, as a flower uncloses, Heavy with odour, and loose to the breeze.

The red rose clouds, without law or leader, Gather and float in the airy plain; The nightingale sings to the dewy cedar, The cedar scatters his scent to the main.

The strange flowers’ perfume turns to singing, Heard afar over moonlit seas: The Siren’s song, grown faint in winging, Falls in scent on the cedar trees.

As waifs blown out of the sunset, flying, Purple, and rosy, and grey, the birds Brighten the air with their wings; their crying Wakens a moment the weary herds.

Butterflies flit from the fairy garden, Living blossoms of flying flowers; Never the nights with winter harden, Nor moons wax keen in this land of ours.

Great fruits, fragrant, green and golden, Gleam in the green, and droop and fall; Blossom, and bud, and flower unfolden, Swing, and cling to the garden wall.

Deep in the woods as twilight darkens, Glades are red with the scented fire; Far in the dells the white maid hearkens, Song and sigh of the heart’s desire.

Ah, and as moonlight fades in morning, Maiden’s song in the matin grey, Faints as the first bird’s note, a warning, Wakes and wails to the new-born day.

The waking song and the dying measure Meet, and the waxing and waning light Meet, and faint with the hours of pleasure, The rose of the sea and the sky is white.

THE DEPARTURE FROM PHÆACIA.

THE PHÆACIANS.

WHY from the dreamy meadows, More fair than any dream, Why seek ye for the shadows Beyond the ocean stream?

Through straits of storm and peril, Through firths unsailed before, Why make you for the sterile, The dark Kimmerian shore?

There no bright streams are flowing, There day and night are one, No harvest time, no sowing, No sight of any sun;

No sound of song or tabor, No dance shall greet you there; No noise of mortal labour Breaks on the blind chill air.

Are ours not happy places, Where gods with mortals trod? Saw not our sires the faces Of many a present god?

THE SEEKERS.

Nay, now no god comes hither, In shape that men may see; They fare we know not whither, We know not what they be.

Yea, though the sunset lingers Far in your fairy glades, Though yours the sweetest singers, Though yours the kindest maids,

Yet here be the true shadows, Here in the doubtful light; Amid the dreamy meadows No shadow haunts the night.

We seek a city splendid, With light beyond the sun; Or lands where dreams are ended, And works and days are done.

A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE. {39}

FAIR white bird, what song art thou singing In wintry weather of lands o’er sea? Dear white bird, what way art thou winging, Where no grass grows, and no green tree?

I looked at the far-off fields and grey, There grew no tree but the cypress tree, That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May, And whoso looks on it, woe is he.

And whoso eats of the fruit thereof Has no more sorrow, and no more love; And who sets the same in his garden stead, In a little space he is waste and dead.

THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND TIME.

THE weary sails a moment slept, The oars were silent for a space, As past Hesperian shores we swept, That were as a remembered face Seen after lapse of hopeless years, In Hades, when the shadows meet, Dim through the mist of many tears, And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.

So seemed the half-remembered shore, That slumbered, mirrored in the blue, With havens where we touched of yore, And ports that over well we knew. Then broke the calm before a breeze That sought the secret of the west; And listless all we swept the seas Towards the Islands of the Blest.

Beside a golden sanded bay We saw the Sirens, very fair The flowery hill whereon they lay, The flowers set upon their hair. Their old sweet song came down the wind, Remembered music waxing strong,— Ah now no need of cords to bind, No need had we of Orphic song.

It once had seemed a little thing To lay our lives down at their feet, That dying we might hear them sing, And dying see their faces sweet; But now, we glanced, and passing by, No care had we to tarry long; Faint hope, and rest, and memory Were more than any Siren’s song.

CIRCE’S ISLE REVISITED.

Ah, Circe, Circe! in the wood we cried; Ah, Circe, Circe! but no voice replied; No voice from bowers o’ergrown and ruinous As fallen rocks upon the mountain side.

There was no sound of singing in the air; Faded or fled the maidens that were fair, No more for sorrow or joy were seen of us, No light of laughing eyes, or floating hair.

The perfume, and the music, and the flame Had passed away; the memory of shame Alone abode, and stings of faint desire, And pulses of vague quiet went and came.

Ah, Circe! in thy sad changed fairy place, Our dead youth came and looked on us a space, With drooping wings, and eyes of faded fire. And wasted hair about a weary face.

Why had we ever sought the magic isle That seemed so happy in the days erewhile? Why did we ever leave it, where we met A world of happy wonders in one smile?

Back to the westward and the waning light We turned, we fled; the solitude of night Was better than the infinite regret, In fallen places of our dead delight.

THE LIMIT OF LANDS.

BETWEEN the circling ocean sea And the poplars of Persephone There lies a strip of barren sand, Flecked with the sea’s last spray, and strown With waste leaves of the poplars, blown From gardens of the shadow land.

With altars of old sacrifice The shore is set, in mournful wise The mists upon the ocean brood; Between the water and the air The clouds are born that float and fare Between the water and the wood.

Upon the grey sea never sail Of mortals passed within our hail, Where the last weak waves faint and flow; We heard within the poplar pale The murmur of a doubtful wail Of voices loved so long ago.

We scarce had care to die or live, We had no honey cake to give, No wine of sacrifice to shed; There lies no new path over sea, And now we know how faint they be, The feasts and voices of the dead.

Ah, flowers and dance! ah, sun and snow! Glad life, sad life we did forego To dream of quietness and rest; Ah, would the fleet sweet roses here Poured light and perfume through the drear Pale year, and wan land of the west.

Sad youth, that let the spring go by Because the spring is swift to fly, Sad youth, that feared to mourn or love, Behold how sadder far is this, To know that rest is nowise bliss, And darkness is the end thereof.

VERSES

MARTIAL IN TOWN.

LAST night, within the stifling train, Lit by the foggy lamp o’erhead, Sick of the sad Last News, I read Verse of that joyous child of Spain,

Who dwelt when Rome was waxing cold, Within the Roman din and smoke. And like my heart to me they spoke, These accents of his heart of old:—

“_Brother_, _had we but time to live_, _And fleet the careless hours together_, _With all that leisure has to give_ _Of perfect life and peaceful weather_,

“_The Rich Man’s halls_, _the anxious faces_, _The weary Forum_, _courts_, _and cases_ _Should know us not_; _but quiet nooks_, _But summer shade by field and well_, _But county rides_, _and talk of books_, _At home_, _with these_, _we fain would dwell_!

“_Now neither lives_, _but day by day_ _Sees the suns wasting in the west_, _And feels their flight_, _and doth delay_ _To lead the life he loveth best_.”

So from thy city prison broke, Martial, thy wail for life misspent, And so, through London’s noise and smoke My heart replies to the lament.

For dear as Tagus with his gold, And swifter Salo, were to thee, So dear to me the woods that fold The streams that circle Fernielea!

APRIL ON TWEED.

AS birds are fain to build their nest The first soft sunny day, So longing wakens in my breast A month before the May, When now the wind is from the West, And Winter melts away.

The snow lies yet on Eildon Hill, But soft the breezes blow. If melting snows the waters fill, We nothing heed the snow, But we must up and take our will,— A fishing will we go!

Below the branches brown and bare, Beneath the primrose lea, The trout lies waiting for his fare, A hungry trout is he; He’s hooked, and springs and splashes there Like salmon from the sea!

Oh, April tide’s a pleasant tide, However times may fall, And sweet to welcome Spring, the Bride, You hear the mavis call; But all adown the water-side The Spring’s most fair of all.

TIRED OF TOWNS.

‘When we spoke to her of the New Jerusalem, she said she would rather go to a country place in Heaven.’

_Letters from the Black Country_.

I’M weary of towns, it seems a’most a pity We didn’t stop down i’ the country and clem, And you say that I’m bound for another city, For the streets o’ the New Jerusalem.

And the streets are never like Sheffield, here, Nor the smoke don’t cling like a smut to _them_; But the water o’ life flows cool and clear Through the streets o’ the New Jerusalem.

And the houses, you say, are of jasper cut, And the gates are gaudy wi’ gold and gem; But there’s times I could wish as the gates was shut— The gates o’ the New Jerusalem.

For I come from a country that’s over-built Wi’ streets that stifle, and walls that hem, And the gorse on a common’s worth all the gilt And the gold of your New Jerusalem.

And I hope that they’ll bring me, in Paradise, To green lanes leafy wi’ bough and stem— To a country place in the land o’ the skies, And not to the New Jerusalem.

SCYTHE SONG.

MOWERS, weary and brown, and blithe, What is the word methinks ye know, Endless over-word that the Scythe Sings to the blades of the grass below? Scythes that swing in the grass and clover, Something, still, they say as they pass; What is the word that, over and over, Sings the Scythe to the flowers and grass?

_Hush_, _ah hush_, the Scythes are saying, _Hush_, _and heed not_, _and fall asleep_; _Hush_, they say to the grasses swaying, _Hush_, they sing to the clover deep! _Hush_—’tis the lullaby Time is singing— _Hush_, _and heed not_, _for all things pass_, _Hush_, _ah hush_! and the Scythes are swinging Over the clover, over the grass!

PEN AND INK.

YE wanderers that were my sires, Who read men’s fortunes in the hand, Who voyaged with your smithy fires From waste to waste across the land, Why did you leave for garth and town Your life by heath and river’s brink, Why lay your gipsy freedom down And doom your child to Pen and Ink?

You wearied of the wild-wood meal That crowned, or failed to crown, the day; Too honest or too tame to steal You broke into the beaten way; Plied loom or awl like other men, And learned to love the guineas’ chink— Oh, recreant sires, who doomed me then To earn so few—with Pen and Ink!

Where it hath fallen the tree must lie. ’Tis over late for _me_ to roam, Yet the caged bird who hears the cry Of his wild fellows fleeting home, May feel no sharper pang than mine, Who seem to hear, whene’er I think, Spate in the stream, and wind in pine, Call me to quit dull Pen and Ink.

For then the spirit wandering, That slept within the blood, awakes; For then the summer and the spring I fain would meet by streams and lakes; But ah, my Birthright long is sold, But custom chains me, link on link, And I must get me, as of old, Back to my tools, to Pen and Ink.

A DREAM.

WHY will you haunt my sleep? You know it may not be, The grave is wide and deep, That sunders you and me; In bitter dreams we reap The sorrow we have sown, And I would I were asleep, Forgotten and alone!

We knew and did not know, We saw and did not see, The nets that long ago Fate wove for you and me; The cruel nets that keep The birds that sob and moan, And I would we were asleep, Forgotten and alone!

THE SINGING ROSE.

‘_La Rose qui chante et l’herbe qui égare_.’

_WHITE Rose on the grey garden wall_, _Where now no night-wind whispereth_, _Call to the far-off flowers_, _and call_ _With murmured breath and musical_ _Till all the Roses hear_, _and all_ _Sing to my Love what the White Rose saith_.

White Rose on the grey garden wall That long ago we sung! Again you come at Summer’s call,— Again beneath my windows all With trellised flowers is hung, With clusters of the roses white Like fragrant stars in a green night.

Once more I hear the sister towers Each unto each reply, The bloom is on those limes of ours, The weak wind shakes the bloom in showers, Snow from a cloudless sky; There is no change this happy day Within the College Gardens grey!

St. Mary’s, Merton, Magdalen—still Their sweet bells chime and swing, The old years answer them, and thrill A wintry heart against its will With memories of the Spring— That Spring we sought the gardens through For flowers which ne’er in gardens grew!

For we, beside our nurse’s knee, In fairy tales had heard Of that strange Rose which blossoms free On boughs of an enchanted tree, And sings like any bird! And of the weed beside the way That leadeth lovers’ steps astray!

In vain we sought the Singing Rose Whereof old legends tell, Alas, we found it not mid those Within the grey old College close, That budded, flowered, and fell,— We found that herb called ‘Wandering’ And meet no more, no more in Spring!

Yes, unawares the unhappy grass That leadeth steps astray, We trod, and so it came to pass That never more we twain, alas, Shall walk the self-same way. And each must deem, though neither knows, That _neither_ found the Singing Rose!

A REVIEW IN RHYME.

A LITTLE of Horace, a little of Prior, A sketch of a Milkmaid, a lay of the Squire— These, these are ‘on draught’ ‘At the Sign of the Lyre!’

A child in Blue Ribbons that sings to herself, A talk of the Books on the Sheraton shelf, A sword of the Stuarts, a wig of the Guelph,

A _lai_, a _pantoum_, a _ballade_, a _rondeau_, A pastel by Greuze, and a sketch by Moreau, And the chimes of the rhymes that sing sweet as they go,

A fan, and a folio, a ringlet, a glove, ’Neath a dance by Laguerre on the ceiling above, And a dream of the days when the bard was in love,

A scent of dead roses, a glance at a pun, A toss of old powder, a glint of the sun, They meet in the volume that Dobson has done!

If there’s more that the heart of a man can desire, He may search, in his Swinburne, for fury and fire; If he’s wise—he’ll alight ‘At the Sign of the Lyre!’

COLINETTE.

FOR A SKETCH BY MR. G. LESLIE, R.A.

FRANCE your country, as we know; Room enough for guessing yet, What lips now or long ago, Kissed and named you—Colinette. In what fields from sea to sea, By what stream your home was set, Loire or Seine was glad of thee, Marne or Rhone, O Colinette?

Did you stand with maidens ten, Fairer maids were never seen, When the young king and his men Passed among the orchards green? Nay, old ballads have a note Mournful, we would fain forget; No such sad old air should float Round your young brows, Colinette.

Say, did Ronsard sing to you, Shepherdess, to lull his pain, When the court went wandering through Rose pleasances of Touraine? Ronsard and his famous Rose Long are dust the breezes fret; You, within the garden close, You are blooming, Colinette.

Have I seen you proud and gay, With a patched and perfumed beau, Dancing through the summer day, Misty summer of Watteau? Nay, so sweet a maid as you Never walked a minuet With the splendid courtly crew; Nay, forgive me, Colinette.

Not from Greuze’s canvases Do you cast a glance, a smile; You are not as one of these, Yours is beauty without guile. Round your maiden brows and hair Maidenhood and Childhood met Crown and kiss you, sweet and fair, New art’s blossom, Colinette.

A SUNSET OF WATTEAU.

LUI.

The silk sail fills, the soft winds wake, Arise and tempt the seas; Our ocean is the Palace lake, Our waves the ripples that we make Among the mirrored trees.

ELLE.

Nay, sweet the shore, and sweet the song, And dear the languid dream; The music mingled all day long With paces of the dancing throng, And murmur of the stream.

An hour ago, an hour ago, We rested in the shade; And now, why should we seek to know What way the wilful waters flow? There is no fairer glade.

LUI.

Nay, pleasure flits, and we must sail, And seek him everywhere; Perchance in sunset’s golden pale He listens to the nightingale, Amid the perfumed air.

Come, he has fled; you are not you, And I no more am I; Delight is changeful as the hue Of heaven, that is no longer blue In yonder sunset sky.

ELLE.

Nay, if we seek we shall not find, If we knock none openeth; Nay, see, the sunset fades behind The mountains, and the cold night wind Blows from the house of Death.

NIGHTINGALE WEATHER.

‘Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non? Semi-je nonnette? je crois que non. Derrière chez mon père Il est un bois taillis, Le rossignol y chante Et le jour et la nuit. Il chante pour les filles Qui n’ont pas d’ami; Il ne chant pas pour moi, J’en ai un, Dieu merci.’—_Old French_.

* * * * *

I’LL never be a nun, I trow, While apple bloom is white as snow, But far more fair to see; I’ll never wear nun’s black and white While nightingales make sweet the night Within the apple tree.

Ah, listen! ’tis the nightingale, And in the wood he makes his wail, Within the apple tree; He singeth of the sore distress Of many ladies loverless; Thank God, no song for me.

For when the broad May moon is low, A gold fruit seen where blossoms blow In the boughs of the apple tree, A step I know is at the gate; Ah love, but it is long to wait Until night’s noon bring thee!

Between lark’s song and nightingale’s A silent space, while dawning pales, The birds leave still and free For words and kisses musical, For silence and for sighs that fall In the dawn, ’twixt him and me.

LOVE AND WISDOM.

‘When last we gathered roses in the garden I found my wits, but truly you lost yours.’

_The Broken Heart_.

JULY and June brought flowers and love To you, but I would none thereof, Whose heart kept all through summer time A flower of frost and winter rime. Yours was true wisdom—was it not? Even love; but I had clean forgot, Till seasons of the falling leaf, All loves, but one that turned to grief. At length at touch of autumn tide When roses fell, and summer died, All in a dawning deep with dew, Love flew to me, Love fled from you. The roses drooped their weary heads, I spoke among the garden beds; You would not hear, you could not know, Summer and love seemed long ago, As far, as faint, as dim a dream, As to the dead this world may seem. Ah sweet, in winter’s miseries, Perchance you may remember this, How Wisdom was not justified In summer time or autumn tide, Though for this once below the sun, Wisdom and Love were made at one; But Love was bitter-bought enough, And Wisdom light of wing as Love.

GOOD-BYE.

KISS me, and say good-bye; Good-bye, there is no word to say but this, Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss, Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry; Kiss me, and say, good-bye.

Farewell, be glad, forget; There is no need to say ‘forget,’ I know, For youth is youth, and time will have it so, And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet, Farewell, you must forget.

You shall bring home your sheaves, Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined Of memories that go not out of mind; Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves When you bring home your sheaves.