Part 3

I HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses, All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.

Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle Weather-worn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion, With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.

The trail is through dolour and dread, over crags and morasses; There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us: What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.

Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb, And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam: Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.

A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle, A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty: We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.

(I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses, All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.)

We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind; We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil. Thou leadest, O God! All's well with Thy troopers that follow.

_Bedesfolk_

WHO is good enough to be Near the never-stainèd sea? Ah, not I, Who thereby Only sigh: _Pray for me._

Standing underneath some free Innocent magnanimous tree, To be true, There anew Must I sue: _Pray for me._

Ere I pass on hilly lea Fellow-lives of glad degree, Without shame, Name by name These I claim: _Pray for me._

Fail not, then, thou kingly sea! Aid the needy, sister tree! March herds, Ye have words! April birds, _Pray for me_!

_In a City Street_

THOUGH sea and mount have beauty and this but what it can, Thrice fairer than their life the life here battling in the van, The tragic gleam, the mist and grime, The dread endearing stain of time, The sullied heart of man.

Mine is the clotted sunshine, a bubble in the sky, That where it dare not enter steals in shrouded passion by; And mine the saffron river-sails, And every plane-tree that avails To rest an urban eye;

The bells, the dripping gable, the tavern's corner glare; The cab in firefly darting; the barrel-organ air, While one by one, or two by two The hatless babes are waltzing through The gutters of the Square.

Not on Thessalian headlands of song and old desire My spirit chose her pleasure-house, but in the London mire: Long, long alone she loves to pace, And find a music in this place As in a minster choir.

O names of awe and rapture! O deeds of legendry! Still is it most of joy within your altered pale to be, Whose very ills I fain would slake Mine angels are, and help to make In Hell a Heaven for me.

_Florentin_

_A.D. MDCCCXC_

HEART all full of heavenward haste, too like the bubble bright On wild little waters floating half of an April night, Fled from the ear in music, fled from the eye in light,

Dear and stainless heart of a boy! No sweeter thing can be Drawn to the quiet centre of God who is our sea: Whither, through troubled valleys, we also follow thee.

_A Song of the Lilac_

ABOVE the wall that's broken, And from the coppice thinned, So sacred and so sweet The lilac in the wind! For when by night the May wind blows The lilac-blooms apart, The memory of his first love Is shaken on his heart.

In tears it long was buried, And trances wrapt it round; Oh, how they wake it now, The fragrance and the sound! For when by night the May wind blows The lilac-blooms apart, The memory of his first love Is shaken on his heart.

_Monochrome_

SHUT fast again in Beauty's sheath Where ancient forms renew, The round world seems above, beneath, One wash of faintest blue,

And air and tide so stilly sweet In nameless union lie, The little far-off fishing fleet Goes drifting up the sky.

Secure of neither misted coast Nor ocean undefined, Our flagging sail is like the ghost Of one that served mankind,

Who in the void, as we upon This melancholy sea, Finds labour and allegiance done, And Self begin to be.

_Saint Francis Endeth his Sermon_

"AND now, my clerks who go in fur or feather Or brighter scales, I bless you all. Be true To your true Lover and Avenger, whether By land or sea ye die the death undue. Then proffer man your pardon; and together Track him to Heaven, and see his heart made new.

"From long ago one hope hath in me thriven, Your hope, mysterious as the scented May: Not to Himself your titles God hath given In vain, nor only for our mortal day. O doves! how from The Dove shall ye be driven? O darling lambs! ye with The Lamb shall play."

_An Estray_

WELL we know, not ever here is a footing for thy dream: Thou art sick for horse and spear beside an Asian stream,

For the hearth-smoke in the wild, for the goatherd's stave, For a beauty far exiled, a belief within its grave.

While another sky and ground orb thy strange remembering, And no world of mortal bound is the master of thy wing,

Canst thou yet thy fate forgive, that the godhead in thy breast Has this life at least to live as a force in rhythmic rest,

As a seed that bides the hour of obscureness and decay, Being troth of flower to flower down the long dynastic day?

Child whom elder airs enfold, who hast greatness to maintain Where heroic hap of old may return and shine again,

As too oft across thy heart flits the too familiar light, How alarms of love upstart at the token quick and slight!

Lest captivity be o'er, lest thou glide away, and so From our tents of Nevermore strike the trail of Long Ago.

_Friendship Broken_

I

WE chose the faint chill morning, friend and friend, Pacing the twilight out beneath an oak, Soul calling soul to judgment; and we spoke Strange things and deep as any poet penned, Such truth as never truth again can mend, Whatever art we use, what gods invoke; It was not wrath, it made nor strife nor smoke: Be what it may, it had a solemn end.

Farewell, in peace. We of the selfsame throne Are foeman vassals; pale astrologers, Each a wise skeptic of the other's star. Silently, as we went our ways alone, The steadfast sun, whom no poor prayer deters, Drew high between us his majestic bar.

II

MINE was the mood that shows the dearest face Through a long avenue, and voices kind Idle, and indeterminate, and blind As rumours from a very distant place; Yet, even so, it gathered the first chase Of the first swallows where the lane's inclined, An ebb of wavy wings to serve my mind For round Spring's vision. Ah, some equal grace (The calm sense of seen beauty without sight) Befell thee, honourable heart! no less In patient stupor walking from the dawn; Albeit thou too wert loser of life's light, Like fallen Adam in the wilderness, Aware of naught but of the thing withdrawn.

_A Talisman_

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

_Heathenesse_

NO round boy-satyr, racing from the mere, Shakes on the mountain lawn his dripping head This many a May, your sister being dead, Ye Christian folk! your sister great and dear. To breathe her name, to think how sad-sincere Was all her searching, straying, dreaming, dread, How of her natural night was Plato bred (A star to keep the ways of honour clear),

Who will not sigh for her? who can forget Not only unto campèd Israel, Nor martyr-maids that as a bridegroom met The Roman lion's roar, salvation fell? To Him be most of praise that He is yet Your God through gods not inaccessible.

_For Izaak Walton_

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

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

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

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

_Fifteen Epitaphs_

I

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

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

II

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

III

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

IV

ME, deep-tressèd meadows, take to your loyal keeping, Hard by the swish of sickles ever in Aulon sleeping, Philophron, old and tired, and glad to be done with reaping!

V

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

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

VI

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

VII

HERE lies one in the earth who scarce of the earth was moulded, Wise Æthalides' son, himself no lover of study, Cnopus, asleep, indoors: the young invincible runner. They from the cliff footpath that see on the grave we made him, Tameless, slant in the wind, the bare and beautiful iris, Stop short, full of delight, and cry out: "See, it is Cnopus Runs, with white throat forward, over the sands to Chalcis!"

VIII

ERE the Ferryman from the coast of spirits Turn the diligent oar that brought thee thither, Soul, remember: and leave a kiss upon it For thy desolate father, for thy sister, Whichsoever be first to cross hereafter.

IX

JAFFA ended, Cos begun Thee, Aristeus. Thou wert one Fit to trample out the sun: Who shall think thine ardours are But a cinder in a jar?

X

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

XI

AS wind that wasteth the unmarried rose, And mars the golden breakers in the bay, Hurtful and sweet from heaven for ever blows Sad thought that roughens all our quiet day;

And elder poets envy, while they weep, Ion, whom first the gods to covert brought, Here under inland olives laid asleep, Most wise, most happy, having done with thought.

XII

COWS in the narrowing August marshes, Cows in a stretch of water Motionless, Neck on neck overlapped and drooping;

These in their troubled and dumb communion, Thou on the steep bank yonder, Pastora! No more ever to lead and love them,

No more ever. Thine innocent mourners Pass thy tree in the evening Heavily, Hearing another herd-girl calling.

XIII

GO you by with gentle tread. This was Paula, who is dead: Dear grey eyes that had a look Like some rock-o'ershadowed brook, Voice upon the ear to cling Sweeter than the cithern string. With that spirit shy and fair Quietly and unaware Climbing past the starry van Went, for triple talisman, They to whom the heavens must ope: Candour, Chastity, and Hope.

XIV

TAKE from an urn my vow and salutation Unto the land I never now shall see: Laid here exiled, my heart in desolation Frets like a child against her breast to be.

Far from the sky, a rose that opes at even (One liquid star for dewdrop on the rose), Far from the shower that nesting low in heaven Thrice in an hour light-wingèd comes and goes,

Far from my lost and blessèd and belovèd Nightfall of June beside the Rhodian wave, Mine is the pain another isle to covet, Though all in vain, for gardener of my grave.

XV

PRAISE thou the Mighty Mother for what is wrought, not me, A nameless nothing-caring head asleep against her knee.

_Deo Optimo Maximo_

ALL else for use, One only for desire; Thanksgiving for the good, but thirst for Thee: Up from the best, whereof no man need tire, Impel Thou me.

Delight is menace if Thou brood not by, Power a quicksand, Fame a gathering jeer. Oft as the morn (though none of earth deny These three are dear),

Wash me of them, that I may be renewed, And wander free amid my freeborn joys: Oh, close my hand upon Beatitude! Not on her toys.

_Charista Musing_

MOVELESS, on the marge of a sunny cornfield, Rapt in sudden revery while thou standest, Like the sheaves, in beautiful Doric yellow Clad to the ankle,

Oft to thee with delicate hasty footstep So I steal, and suffer because I find thee Inly flown, and only a fallen feather Left of my darling.

Give me back thy wakening breath, thy ringlets Fragrant as the vine of the bean in blossom, And those eyes of violet dusk and daylight Under sea-water,

Eyes too far away, and too full of longing! Yes: and go not heavenward where I lose thee, Go not, go not whither I cannot follow, Being but earthly.

Willing swallow poisèd upon my finger, Little wild-wing ever from me escaping, For the care thou art to me, I thy lover Love thee, and fear thee.

_The Still of the Year_

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

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

_A Footnote to a Famous Lyric_

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

Chief miracle of theme and touch That all must envy and adore: _I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not Honour more._

No critic born since Charles was King But sighed in smiling, as he read: "Here's theft supreme of everything A poet might have said!"

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

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

Which leaves an artist poor, and Art An earldom richer all her years); To you, dead on your shield apart, Be "_Ave!_" passed in tears.

'Twas virtue's breath inflamed your lyre: Heroic from the heart it ran; Nor for the shedding of such fire Lived, since, a manlier man.

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

_T.W.P._

_A.D. MDCCCXIX-MDCCCXCII_

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

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

_Summum Bonum_

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

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

_When on the Marge of Evening_

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

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

_Hylas_

(THERE'S a thrush on the under bough Fluting evermore and now: "_Keep--young!_" but who knows how?)

Jar in arm, they bade him rove Through the alder's long alcove, Where the hid spring musically Gushes to the ample valley.

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

Ah, the slippery sylvan dark! Never after shall he mark (On his drownèd cheek down-sinking), Noisy ploughman drinking, drinking.

Quit of serving is that wild Absent and bewitchèd child, Unto action, age, and danger Thrice a thousand years a stranger.

Fathoms low, the naiads sing, In a birthday welcoming; Water-white their breasts, and o'er him, Water-grey, their eyes adore him.

(There's a thrush on the under bough Fluting evermore and now: "_Keep--young!_" but who knows how?)

_Nocturne_

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

Oh, sing! the water-golds are deepening now, Almost a hush is on the aspen bough; Her light caresseth thine, as saint to saint Sweet interchanged adorings may allow: Sing, Eunoë, that lily throat uplifting: They are so like, the holy Moon and thou!

_To Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey_

YOUNG father-poet! much in you I praise Adventure high, romantic, vehement, All with inviolate honour sealed and blent To the axe-edge that cleft your soldier bays; Your friendships too, your follies, whims, and frays; And most, that verse of strict imperious bent Heard sweetly as from some old harper's tent, And clanging in the listener's brain for days.

At Framlingham to-night if there should be No guest beyond a sea-born wind that sighs, No guard save moonlight's crossed and trailing spears, And I, your pilgrim, call you, Oh, let me In at the gate! and smile into the eyes That sought you, Surrey, down three hundred years.

_Planting the Poplar_

BECAUSE thou'rt not an oak To breast the thunder-stroke, Or flamy-fruited yew Darker than Time, how few Of birds or men or kine Will love this throne of thine, Scant Poplar, without shade Inhospitably made! Yet, branches never parted From their straight secret bole, Yet, sap too single-hearted! Prosper as my soul.

In loneliness, in quaint Perpetual constraint, In gallant poverty, A girt and hooded tree, See if against the gale Our leafage can avail: Lithe, equal, naked, true, Rise up as spirits do, And be a spirit crying Before the folk that dream! My slender early-dying Poplar, by the stream.

_To One who would not Spare Himself_

A CENSER playing from a heart all fire, A flushing, racing, singing mountain stream Thou art; and dear to us of dull desire In thy far-going dream.

Full to the grave be thy too fleeting way, And full thereafter: few that know thee best Will grudge it so, for neither thou nor they Can mate thy soul with rest.

God put thee from the laws of Time adrift. Lo, He who moves without delay or haste, Far less may love the sheaves of ghostly thrift, Than some diviner waste.

Be mine to ride in joy, ere thou art gone, The flame, the torrent, which is one with thee! Saint, from this pool of dying sweep us on Where Life must long to be.

_Winter Peace_

APRIL seemed a restless pain, June a phantom in the rain; Weary Autumn without grain Turned her home, full of tears. O my year, the most in vain Of the years!

While the furrowed field was red, While the roses rioted, While a leaf was left to shed, There was storm in the air. Now that troubled heart is dead, All is fair.

'Neath a glow of copper-grey Spreads the stubble far away, And the hilltop cedars play Interludes in accord, And the sun adorns the day Like a sword.

Even, usual, and slow, Blue enchanted breakers go Over carmine reefs in snow, With a sail in the lee: There's the godhead that we know On the sea.

Ah, let be a promise vast So mysteriously downcast! I will love this year that passed To her grave in the wild, And is clear of stain at last As a child.

_Sleep_

O GLORIOUS tide, O hospitable tide On whose mysterious breast my head hath lain, Lest I, all eased of wounds and washed of stain Through holy hours, be yet unsatisfied, Loose me betimes: for in my soul abide Urgings of memory, and exile's pain Weighs on me, as the spirit of one slain May throb for the old strife wherein he died.

Often and evermore, across the sea Of dark and dreams, to fatherlands of Day, Oh, speed me: as that outworn King erewhile By kind Phæacians borne ashore, so me, Thy loving healèd ward, fail not to lay Beneath the olive boughs of mine own isle.

_Writ in my Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion_

HOW life hath cheapen'd, and how blank The Worlde is! like a fen Where long ago unstainèd sank The starrie gentlemen: Since Marston Moor and Newbury drank King Charles his gentlemen.

If Fate in any air accords What Fate deny'd, Oh, then I ask to be among your Swordes, My joyous gentlemen; Towards Honour's heaven to goe, and towards King Charles his gentlemen!

_In a February Garden_

ONE rose till after snowtime O'erlooked the sodden grass; Now crocuses are twenty With spear and torch a plenty, To keep our Candlemas.

So thin that winter greyness, So light that sleep forlorn, No seventh week uncloses Between the martyr roses And crocus newly born.