Chapter 3

Her captains for the Baltic bound In silent homage stood around; Silent, whilst holy dew Dimmed her kind eyes. She stood in tears, For she had felt a mother's fears, And wifely cares she knew.

She wept; she could not bear to say, "Sail forth, my mariners, and slay The liegemen of my foe." Meanwhile on Russian steppe and lake Are women weeping for the sake Of them that seaward go.

Oh warriors, when you stain with gore, If this indeed must be, the floor Whereon that lady stept, When the fierce joy of battle won Hardens the heart of sire and son, Remember that she wept

THE CAIRN AND THE CHURCH

A Prince went down the banks of Dee That widen out from bleak Braemar, To drive the deer that wander free Amidst the pines of Lochnagar.

And stepping on beneath the birks On the road-side he found a spot, Which told of pibrochs, kilts, and dirks, And wars the courtiers had forgot;

Where with the streams, as each alone Down to the gathering river runs, Each on one heap to cast a stone, Came twice three hundred Farquharsons.

They raised that pile to keep for ever The memory of the loyal clan; Then, grudging not their vain endeavour, Fell at Culloden to a man.

And she, whose grandsire's uncle slew Those dwellers on the banks of Dee, Sighed for those tender hearts and true, And whispered: "Who would die for me?"

Oh, lady, turn thee southward. Show Thy standard on thine own Thames-side; Let us be called to meet thy foe, Our Kith be pledged, our honour tried.

Now, on the stone by Albert laid, We'll build a pile as high as theirs, So sworn to bring our Sovereign aid, If not with war-cries, yet with prayers.

A QUEEN'S VISIT

June 4, 1851

From vale to vale, from shore to shore, The lady Gloriana passed, To view her realms: the south wind bore Her shallop to Belleisle at last.

A quiet mead, where willows bend Above the curving wave, which rolls On slowly crumbling banks, to send Its hard-won spoils to lazy shoals.

Beneath an oak weird eddies play, Where fate was writ for Saxon seer; And yonder park is white with may, Where shadowy hunters chased the deer.

In rows half up the chestnut, perch Stiff-silvered fairies; busy rooks Caw front the elm; and, rung to church, Mute anglers drop their caddised hooks.

They troop between the dark-red walls, When the twin towers give four-fold chimes; And lo! the breaking groups, where falls 'Tim chequered shade of quivering limes.

'They come from field and wharf and street With dewy hair and veined throat, One fluor to tread with reverent feet,-- One hour of rest for ball and boat:

Like swallows gathering for their flight, When autumn whispers, play no more, They check the laugh, with fancies bright Still hovering round the sacred door.

Lo! childhood swelling into seed, Lo! manhood bursting from the bud: Two growths, unlike; yet all agreed To trust the movement of the blood.

They toil at games, and play with books: They love the winner of the race, If only he that prospers looks On prizes with a simple grace.

The many leave the few to choose; They scorn not him who turns aside To woo alone a milder Muse, If shielded by a tranquil pride.

When thought is claimed, when pain is borne, Whate'er is done in this sweet isle, There's none that may not lift his horn, If only lifted with a smile.

So here dwells freedom; nor could she, Who ruled in every clime on earth, Find any spring more fit to be The fountain of her festal mirth.

Elsewhere she sought for lore and art, But hither came for vernal joy: Nor was this all: she smote the heart And woke the hero in the boy.

MOON-SET

Sweet moon, twice rounded in a blithe July, Once down a wandering English stream thou leddest My lonely boat; swans gleamed around; the sky Throbbed overhead with meteors. Now thou sheddest Faint radiance on a cold Arvernian plain, Where I, far severed from that youthful crew, Far from the gay disguise thy witcheries threw On wave and dripping oar, still own thy reign, Travelling with thee through many a sleepless hour. Now shrink, like my weak will: a sterner power Empurpleth yonder hills beneath thee piled, Hills, where Caesarian sovereignty was won On high basaltic levels blood-defiled, The Druid moonlight quenched beneath the Roman sun.

AFTER READING "MAUD"

September, 1855

Twelve years ago, if he had died, His critic friends had surely cried: "Death does us wrong, the fates are cross; Nor will this age repair the loss. Fine was the promise of his youth; Time would have brought him deeper truth. Some earnest of his wealth he gave, Then hid his treasures in the grave." And proud that they alone on earth Perceived what might have been his worth, They would have kept their leader's name Linked with a fragmentary fame. Forsooth the beech's knotless stem, If early felled, were dear to them.

But the fair tree lives on, and spreads Its scatheless boughs above their heads, And they are pollarded by cares, And give themselves religious airs, And grow not, whilst the forest-king Strikes high and deep from spring to spring. So they would have his branches rise In theoretic symmetries; They see a twist in yonder limb, The foliage not precisely trim; Some gnarled roughness they lament, Take credit for their discontent, And count his flaws, serenely wise With motes of pity in their eyes; As if they could, the prudent fools, Adjust such live-long growth to rules, As if so strong a soul could thrive Fixed in one shape at thirty-five. Leave him to us, ye good and sage, Who stiffen in your middle age.

Ye loved him once, but now forbear; Yield him to those who hope and dare, And have not yet to forms consigned A rigid, ossifying mind.

One's feelings lose poetic flow Soon after twenty-seven or so; Professionizing moral men Thenceforth admire what pleased them then; The poems bought in youth they read, And say them over like their creed. All autumn crops of rhyme seem strange; Their intellect resents the change.

They cannot follow to the end Their more susceptive college-friend: He runs from field to field, and they Stroll in their paddocks making hay: He's ever young, and they get old; Poor things, they deem him over-bold: What wonder, if they stare and scold?

A SONG

i.

Oh, earlier shall the rosebuds blow, In after years, those happier years, And children weep, when we lie low, Far fewer tears, far softer tears.

ii.

Oh, true shall boyish laughter ring, Like tinkling chimes in kinder times! And merrier shall the maiden sing: And I not there, and I not there.

iii.

Like lightning in the summer night Their mirth shall be, so quick and free; And oh! the flash of their delight I shall not see, I may not see.

iv.

In deeper dream, with wider range, Those eyes shall shine, but not on mine: Unmoved, unblest, by worldly change, The dead must rest, the dead shall rest.

A STUDY OF BOYHOOD

So young, and yet so worn with pain! No sign of youth upon that stooping head, Save weak half-curls, like beechen boughs that spread With up-turned edge to catch the hurrying rain;

Such little lint-white locks, as wound About a mother's finger long ago, When he was blither, not more dear, for woe Was then far off, and other sons stood round.

And she has wept since then with him Watching together, where the ocean gave To her child's counted breathings wave for wave, Whilst the heart fluttered, and the eye grew dim.

And when the sun and day-breeze fell, She kept with him the vigil of despair; Knit hands for comfort, blended sounds of prayer, Saw him at dawn face death, and take farewell;

Saw him grow holier through his grief, The early grief that lined his withering brow, As one by one her stars were quenched. And now He that so mourned can play, though life is brief;

Not gay, but gracious; plain of speech, And freely kindling under beauty's ray, He dares to speak of what he loves; to-day He talked of art, and led me on to teach,

And glanced, as poets glance, at pages Full of bright Florence and warm Umbrian skies; Not slighting modern greatness, for the wise Can sort the treasures of the circling ages;

Not echoing the sickly praise, Which boys repeat, who hear a father's guest Prate of the London show-rooms; what is best He firmly lights upon, as birds on sprays;

All honest, and all delicate: No room for flattery, no smiles that ask For tender pleasantries, no looks that mask The genial impulses of love and hate.

Oh bards that call to bank and glen, Ye bid me go to nature to be healed! And lo! a purer fount is here revealed: My lady-nature dwells in heart of men.

MERCURIALIA

Sweet eyes, that aim a level shaft At pleasure flying from afar, Sweet lips, just parted for a draught Of Hebe's nectar, shall I mar By stress of disciplinary craft The joys that in your freedom are?

Shall the bright Queen who rules the tide Now forward thrown, now bridled back, Smile o'er each answering smile, then hide Her grandeur in the transient rack, And yield her power, and veil her pride, And move along a ruffled track:

And shall not I give jest for jest, Though king of fancy all the while, Catch up your wishes half expressed, Endure your whimsies void of guile, Albeit with risk of such unrest As may disturb, but not defile?

Oh, twine me myrtle round the sword, Soft wit round wisdom over-keen: Let me but lead my peers, no lord With brows high arched; and lofty mien, Set comrades round my council board For bold debates, with jousts between.

There quiver lips, there glisten eyes, There throb young hearts with generous hope; Thence, playmates, rise for high emprize; For, though he fail, yet shall ye cope With worldling wrapped in silken lies, With pedant, hypocrite, and pope.

REPARABO

The world will rob me of my friends, For time with her conspires; But they shall both to make amends Relight my slumbering fires.

For while my comrades pass away To bow and smirk and gloze, Come others, for as short a stay; And dear are these as those.

And who was this? they ask; and then The loved and lost I praise: "Like you they frolicked; they are men: "Bless ye my later days."

Why fret? the hawks I trained are flown: 'Twas nature bade them range; I could not keep their wings half-grown, I could not bar the change.

With lattice opened wide I stand To watch their eager flight; With broken jesses in my hand I muse on their delight.

And, oh! if one with sullied plume Should droop in mid career, My love makes signals:--"There is room, Oh bleeding wanderer, here."

A BIRTHDAY

The graces marked the hour, when thou Didst leave thine ante-natal rest, Without a cry to heave a breast Which never ached from then till now.

That vivid soul then first unsealed Would be, they knew, a torch to wave Within a chill and dusky cave Whose crystals else were unrevealed.

That fine small mouth they wreathed so well In rosy curves, would rouse to arms A troop then bound in slumber-charms; Such notes they gave the magic shell.

Those straying fingerlets, that clutched At good and bad, they so did glove, That they might pick the flowers of love, Unscathed, from every briar they touched.

The bounteous sisters did ordain, That thou one day with jest and whim Should'st rain thy merriment on him Whose life, when thou wert born, was pain.

For haply on that night they spied A sickly student at his books, Who having basked in loving looks Was freezing into barren pride.

His squalid discontent they saw, And, for that he had worshipped them With incense and with anadem, They willed his wintry world should thaw;

And at thy cradle did decree That fifteen years should pass, and thou Should'st breathe upon that pallid brow Favonian airs of mirth and glee.

A NEW YEAR'S DAY

Our planet runs through liquid space, And sweeps us with her in the race; And wrinkles gather on my face, And Hebe bloom on thine: Our sun with his encircling spheres Around the central sun careers; And unto thee with mustering years Come hopes which I resign.

'Twere sweet for me to keep thee still Reclining halfway up the hill; But time will not obey the will, And onward thou must climb: 'Twere sweet to pause on this descent, To wait for thee and pitch my tent, But march I must with shoulders bent, Yet farther from my prime.

I shall not tread thy battle-field, Nor see the blazon on thy shield; Take thou the sword I could not wield, And leave me, and forget Be fairer, braver, more admired; So win what feeble hearts desired; Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired, To some one nobler yet.

A CRUISE

Your princely progress is begun; And pillowed on the bounding deck You break with dark brown hair a sun That falls transfigured on your neck. Sail on, and charm sun, wind, and sea. Oh! might that love-light rest on me!

Vacantly lingering with the hours, The sacred hours that still remain From that rich month of fruits and flowers Which brought you near me once again, By thoughts of you, though roses die, I strive to make it still July.

Soft waves are strown beneath your prow, Like carpets for a victor's feet; You call slow zephyrs to your brow, In listless luxury complete: Love, the true Halcyon, guides your ship; Oh, might his pinion touch my lip!

I by the shrunken river stroll; And changed, since I was left alone, With tangled weed and rising shoal, The loss I mourn he seems to own: This is, how base soe'er his sloth, This is the stream that bore us both.

For you shall granite peaks uprise As old and scornful as your race, And fringed with firths of lucent dyes The jewelled beach your limbs embrace. Oh bather, may those Western gems Remind you of my lilied Thames.

I too have seen the castled West, Her Cornish creeks, her Breton ports, Her caves by knees of hermits pressed, Her fairy islets bright with quartz: And dearer now each well-known scene, For what shall be than what hath been.

Obeisance of kind strangers' eyes, Triumphant cannons' measured roar, Doffed plumes, and martial courtesies, Shall greet you on the Norman shore. Oh, that I were a stranger too, To win that first sweet glance from you.

I was a stranger once: and soon Beyond desire, above belief, Thy soul was as a crescent moon, A bud expanding leaf by leaf. I'd pray thee now to close, to wane, So that 'twere all to do again.

A SEPARATION

I may not touch the hand I saw So nimbly weave the violet chain; I may not see my artist draw That southward-sloping lawn again. But joy brimmed over when we met, Nor can I mourn our parting yet.

Though he lies sick and far away, I play with those that still are here, Not honouring him the less, for they To me by loving him are dear: They share, they soothe my fond regret, Since neither they nor I forget.

His sweet strong heart so nobly beat With scorn and pity, mirth and zeal, That vibrant hearts of ours repeat What they with him were wont to feel; Still quiring in that higher key, Till he take up the melody.

If there be any music here, I trust it will not fail, like notes Of May-birds, when the warning year Abates their summer-wearied throats. Shame on us, if we drudge once more As dull and tuneless as before.

Without him I was weak and coarse, My soul went droning through the hours, His goodness stirred a latent force That drew from others kindred powers. Nor they nor I could think me base, When with their prince I had found grace.

His influence crowns me, like a cloud Steeped in the light of a lost sun: I reign, for willing knees are bowed And light behests are gladly done: So Rome obeyed the lover-king, Who drank at pure Egeria's spring.

Such honour doth my mind perplex: For, who is this, I ask, that dares With manhood's wounds, and virtue's wrecks, And tangled creeds, and subtle cares, Affront the look, or speak the name Of one who from Elysium came.

And yet, though withered and forlorn, I had renounced what man desires, I'd thought some poet might be born To string my lute with silver wires; At least in brighter days to come Such men as I would not lie dumb.

I saw the Sibyl's finger rest On fate's unturned imagined page, Believed her promise, and was blest With dreams of that heroic age. She sent me, ere my hope was cold, One of the race that she foretold.

His fellows time will bring, and they, In manifold affections free, Shall scatter pleasures day by day Like blossoms rained from windy tree. So let that garden bloom; and I, Content with one such flower, will die.

A NEW MICHONNET

The foster-child forgets his nurse: She doth but know what he hath been, Took him for better or for worse, Would pet him, though he be sixteen.

He helps to weave the soft quadrille; Ah! leave the parlour door ajar; Those thirsting eyes shall take their fill, And watch her darling from afar.

It is her pride to see the hand, Which wont so wantonly to tear Her unblanched curls, control the band, And change the tune, with such an air.

And who so good? she thinks, or who So fit for partners rich and tall? Indeed she's looked the ball-room through, And he's the loveliest lad of all.

So to her lonesome bed: and there, If any wandering notes she hear, She'll say in pauses of her prayer, "He dancing still, my child! my dear!"

His gladness doth on her redound, Though hair be grey, and eyes be dim: At every waif of broken sound She'll wake, and smile, and think of him.

So, noblest of the noble, go Through regions echoing thy name; And even on me, thy friend, shall flow Some streamlet from thy river of fame.

Thou to the gilded youth be kind; Shed all thy genius-rays on them; An ancient comrade stands behind To touch, unseen, thy mantle's hem.

A stranger to thy peers am I, And slighted, like that poor old crone, And yet some clinging memories try To rate thy conquests as mine own.

Nay, when at random drops thy praise From lips of happy lookers-on, My tearful eyes I proudly raise, And bid my conscious self be gone.

SAPPHICS

Love, like an island, held a single heart, Waiting for shoreward flutterings of the breeze, So might it waft to him that sat apart Some angel guest from out the clouded seas.

Was it mere chance that threw within his reach Fragments and symbols of the bliss unknown? Was it vague hope that murmured down the beach, Tuning the billows and the cavern's moan?

Oft through the aching void the promise thrilled: "Thou shalt be loved, and Time shall pay his debt." Silence returns upon the wish fulfilled, Joy for a year, and then a sweet regret.

Idol, mine Idol, whom this touch profanes, Pass as thou cam'st across the glimmering seas: All, all is lost but memory's sacred pains; Leave me, oh leave me, ere I forfeit these.

A FABLE

An eager girl, whose father buys Some ruined thane's forsaken hall, Explores the new domain, and tries Before the rest to view it all.

Alone she lifts the latch, and glides Through many a sadly curtained room, As daylight through the doorway slides And struggles with the muffled gloom.

With mimicries of dance she wakes The lordly gallery's silent floor, And climbing up on tiptoe, makes The old-world mirror smile once more.

With tankards dry she chills her lip, With yellowing laces veils the head, And leaps in pride of ownership Upon the faded marriage bed.

A harp in some dark nook she sees, Long left a prey to heat and frost. She smites it: can such tinklings please? Is not all worth, all beauty, lost?

Ah! who'd have thought such sweetness clung To loose neglected strings like those? They answered to whate'er was sung, And sounded as the lady chose.

Her pitying finger hurried by Each vacant space, each slackened chord; Nor would her wayward zeal let die The music-spirit she restored.

The fashion quaint, the time-worn flaws, The narrow range, the doubtful tone, All was excused awhile, because It seemed a creature of her own.

Perfection tires; the new in old, The mended wrecks that need her skill, Amuse her. If the truth be told, She loves the triumph of her will.

With this, she dares herself persuade, She'll be for many a month content, Quite sure no duchess ever played Upon a sweeter instrument.

And thus in sooth she can beguile Girlhood's romantic hours: but soon She yields to taste and mode and style, A siren of the gay saloon;

And wonders how she once could like Those drooping wires, those failing notes, And leaves her toy for bats to strike Amongst the cobwebs and the motes.

But enter in, thou freezing wind, And snap the harp-strings one by one; It was a maiden blithe and kind: They felt her touch; their task is done.

AMAVI

Ask, mournful Muse, by one alone inspired: What change? am I less fond, or thou less fair? Or is it, that thy mounting soul is tired Of duteous homage and religious care?

So many court thee that my reverent gaze Vexes that wilful and capricious eye; Such fine rare flatteries flow to thee, that praise, From one whose thoughts thou know'st, seems poor and dry.

So must it be. Thus monarchs blandly greet Strange heralds offering tribute, and forget The vassals ranked behind the golden seat, Whose annual gift is counted as a debt.

Since sure of me thy liegeman once in thrall Thou need'st not waste on me those gracious looks. Stirred by the newborn wish to conquer all, Leave thy first subject to his rhymes and books.

Ah! those impetuous claims that drew me forth From my cold shadows to thy dazzling day, Those spells that lured me to the stately North, Those pleas against my scruples, where are they?

Oh, glorious bondage in a dreamful bower! Oh, freedom thrice abhorred, unblest release! Why, why hath cruel circumstance the power To make such worship, such obedience cease?

Surely I served thee, as the wrinkled elm Yieldeth his nature to the jocund vine, Strength unto beauty: may the flood o'erwhelm Root, trunk, and branch, if they have not been thine.