Chapter 5

She shines before me, hope and dream, So fair, so still, so wise, That, winning her, I seem to win Out of the dust and drive and din A nook of Paradise.

1877

XXXII _To_ D. H.

O, FALMOUTH is a fine town with ships in the bay, And I wish from my heart it’s there I was to-day; I wish from my heart I was far away from here, Sitting in my parlour and talking to my dear. For it’s home, dearie, home—it’s home I want to be. Our topsails are hoisted, and we’ll away to sea. O, the oak and the ash and the bonnie birken tree They’re all growing green in the old countrie.

In Baltimore a-walking a lady I did meet With her babe on her arm, as she came down the street; And I thought how I sailed, and the cradle standing ready For the pretty little babe that has never seen its daddie. And it’s home, dearie, home . . .

O, if it be a lass, she shall wear a golden ring; And if it be a lad, he shall fight for his king: With his dirk and his hat and his little jacket blue He shall walk the quarter-deck as his daddie used to do. And it’s home, dearie, home . . .

O, there’s a wind a-blowing, a-blowing from the west, And that of all the winds is the one I like the best, For it blows at our backs, and it shakes our pennon free, And it soon will blow us home to the old countrie. For it’s home, dearie, home—it’s home I want to be. Our topsails are hoisted, and we’ll away to sea. O, the oak and the ash and the bonnie birken tree They’re all growing green in the old countrie.

1878

NOTE.—The burthen and the third stanza are old.

XXXIII

THE ways are green with the gladdening sheen Of the young year’s fairest daughter. O, the shadows that fleet o’er the springing wheat! O, the magic of running water! The spirit of spring is in every thing, The banners of spring are streaming, We march to a tune from the fifes of June, And life’s a dream worth dreaming.

It’s all very well to sit and spell At the lesson there’s no gainsaying; But what the deuce are wont and use When the whole mad world’s a-maying? When the meadow glows, and the orchard snows, And the air’s with love-motes teeming, When fancies break, and the senses wake, O, life’s a dream worth dreaming!

What Nature has writ with her lusty wit Is worded so wisely and kindly That whoever has dipped in her manuscript Must up and follow her blindly. Now the summer prime is her blithest rhyme In the being and the seeming, And they that have heard the overword Know life’s a dream worth dreaming.

1878

XXXIV _To_ K. de M.

_Love blows as the wind blows_, _Love blows into the heart_.—NILE BOAT-SONG.

LIFE in her creaking shoes Goes, and more formal grows, A round of calls and cues: Love blows as the wind blows. Blows! . . . in the quiet close As in the roaring mart, By ways no mortal knows Love blows into the heart.

The stars some cadence use, Forthright the river flows, In order fall the dews, Love blows as the wind blows: Blows! . . . and what reckoning shows The courses of his chart? A spirit that comes and goes, Love blows into the heart.

1878

XXXV I. M. MARGARITÆ SORORI (1886)

A LATE lark twitters from the quiet skies; And from the west, Where the sun, his day’s work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, grey city An influence luminous and serene, A shining peace.

The smoke ascends In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires Shine, and are changed. In the valley Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun, Closing his benediction, Sinks, and the darkening air Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night— Night with her train of stars And her great gift of sleep.

So be my passing! My task accomplished and the long day done, My wages taken, and in my heart Some late lark singing, Let me be gathered to the quiet west, The sundown splendid and serene, Death.

1876

XXXVI

I GAVE my heart to a woman— I gave it her, branch and root. She bruised, she wrung, she tortured, She cast it under foot.

Under her feet she cast it, She trampled it where it fell, She broke it all to pieces, And each was a clot of hell.

There in the rain and the sunshine They lay and smouldered long; And each, when again she viewed them, Had turned to a living song.

XXXVII _To_ W. A.

OR ever the knightly years were gone With the old world to the grave, I was a King in Babylon And you were a Christian Slave.

I saw, I took, I cast you by, I bent and broke your pride. You loved me well, or I heard them lie, But your longing was denied. Surely I knew that by and by You cursed your gods and died.

And a myriad suns have set and shone Since then upon the grave Decreed by the King in Babylon To her that had been his Slave.

The pride I trampled is now my scathe, For it tramples me again. The old resentment lasts like death, For you love, yet you refrain. I break my heart on your hard unfaith, And I break my heart in vain.

Yet not for an hour do I wish undone The deed beyond the grave, When I was a King in Babylon And you were a Virgin Slave.

XXXVIII

ON the way to Kew, By the river old and gray, Where in the Long Ago We laughed and loitered so, I met a ghost to-day, A ghost that told of you— A ghost of low replies And sweet, inscrutable eyes Coming up from Richmond As you used to do.

By the river old and gray, The enchanted Long Ago Murmured and smiled anew. On the way to Kew, March had the laugh of May, The bare boughs looked aglow, And old, immortal words Sang in my breast like birds, Coming up from Richmond As I used with you.

With the life of Long Ago Lived my thought of you. By the river old and gray Flowing his appointed way As I watched I knew What is so good to know— Not in vain, not in vain, Shall I look for you again Coming up from Richmond On the way to Kew.

XXXIX

THE Past was goodly once, and yet, when all is said, The best of it we know is that it’s done and dead.

Dwindled and faded quite, perished beyond recall, Nothing is left at last of what one time was all.

Coming back like a ghost, staring and lingering on, Never a word it speaks but proves it dead and gone.

Duty and work and joy—these things it cannot give; And the Present is life, and life is good to live.

Let it lie where it fell, far from the living sun, The Past that, goodly once, is gone and dead and done.

XL

THE spring, my dear, Is no longer spring. Does the blackbird sing What he sang last year? Are the skies the old Immemorial blue? Or am I, or are you, Grown cold?

Though life be change, It is hard to bear When the old sweet air Sounds forced and strange. To be out of tune, Plain You and I . . . It were better to die, And soon!

XLVI _To_ R. A. M. S.

_The Spirit of Wine_ _Sang in my glass_, _and I listened_ _With love to his odorous music_, _His flushed and magnificent song_.

—‘I am health, I am heart, I am life! For I give for the asking The fire of my father, the Sun, And the strength of my mother, the Earth. Inspiration in essence, I am wisdom and wit to the wise, His visible muse to the poet, The soul of desire to the lover, The genius of laughter to all.

‘Come, lean on me, ye that are weary! Rise, ye faint-hearted and doubting! Haste, ye that lag by the way! I am Pride, the consoler; Valour and Hope are my henchmen; I am the Angel of Rest.

‘I am life, I am wealth, I am fame: For I captain an army Of shining and generous dreams; And mine, too, all mine, are the keys Of that secret spiritual shrine, Where, his work-a-day soul put by, Shut in with his saint of saints— With his radiant and conquering self— Man worships, and talks, and is glad.

‘Come, sit with me, ye that are lovely, Ye that are paid with disdain, Ye that are chained and would soar! I am beauty and love; I am friendship, the comforter; I am that which forgives and forgets.’—

_The Spirit of Wine_ _Sang in my heart_, _and I triumphed_ _In the savour and scent of his music_, _His magnetic and mastering song_.

XLII

A WINK from Hesper, falling Fast in the wintry sky, Comes through the even blue, Dear, like a word from you . . . Is it good-bye?

Across the miles between us I send you sigh for sigh. Good-night, sweet friend, good-night: Till life and all take flight, Never good-bye.

XLII

FRIENDS . . . old friends . . . One sees how it ends. A woman looks Or a man tells lies, And the pleasant brooks And the quiet skies, Ruined with brawling And caterwauling, Enchant no more As they did before. And so it ends With friends.

Friends . . . old friends . . . And what if it ends? Shall we dare to shirk What we live to learn? It has done its work, It has served its turn; And, forgive and forget Or hanker and fret, We can be no more As we were before. When it ends, it ends With friends.

Friends . . . old friends . . . So it breaks, so it ends. There let it rest! It has fought and won, And is still the best That either has done. Each as he stands The work of its hands, Which shall be more As he was before? . . . What is it ends With friends?

XLIV

IF it should come to be, This proof of you and me, This type and sign Of hours that smiled and shone, And yet seemed dead and gone As old-world wine:

Of Them Within the Gate Ask we no richer fate, No boon above, For girl child or for boy, My gift of life and joy, Your gift of love.

XLV _To_ W. B.

FROM the brake the Nightingale Sings exulting to the Rose; Though he sees her waxing pale In her passionate repose, While she triumphs waxing frail, Fading even while she glows; Though he knows How it goes— Knows of last year’s Nightingale Dead with last year’s Rose.

Wise the enamoured Nightingale, Wise the well-belovèd Rose! Love and life shall still prevail, Nor the silence at the close Break the magic of the tale In the telling, though it shows— Who but knows How it goes!— Life a last year’s Nightingale, Love a last year’s Rose.

XLVI MATRI DILECTISSIMÆ I. M.

IN the waste hour Between to-day and yesterday We watched, while on my arm— Living flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone— Dabbled in sweat the sacred head Lay uncomplaining, still, contemptuous, strange: Till the dear face turned dead, And to a sound of lamentation The good, heroic soul with all its wealth— Its sixty years of love and sacrifice, Suffering and passionate faith—was reabsorbed In the inexorable Peace, And life was changed to us for evermore.

Was nothing left of her but tears Like blood-drops from the heart? Nought save remorse For duty unfulfilled, justice undone, And charity ignored? Nothing but love, Forgiveness, reconcilement, where in truth, But for this passing Into the unimaginable abyss These things had never been?

Nay, there were we, Her five strong sons! To her Death came—the great Deliverer came!— As equal comes to equal, throne to throne. She was a mother of men.

The stars shine as of old. The unchanging River, Bent on his errand of immortal law, Works his appointed way To the immemorial sea. And the brave truth comes overwhelmingly home:— That she in us yet works and shines, Lives and fulfils herself, Unending as the river and the stars.

Dearest, live on In such an immortality As we thy sons, Born of thy body and nursed At those wild, faithful breasts, Can give—of generous thoughts, And honourable words, and deeds That make men half in love with fate! Live on, O brave and true, In us thy children, in ours whose life is thine— Our best and theirs! What is that best but thee— Thee, and thy gift to us, to pass Like light along the infinite of space To the immitigable end?

Between the river and the stars, O royal and radiant soul, Thou dost return, thine influences return Upon thy children as in life, and death Turns stingless! What is Death But Life in act? How should the Unteeming Grave Be victor over thee, Mother, a mother of men?

XLVII

CROSSES and troubles a-many have proved me. One or two women (God bless them!) have loved me. I have worked and dreamed, and I’ve talked at will. Of art and drink I have had my fill. I’ve comforted here, and I’ve succoured there. I’ve faced my foes, and I’ve backed my friends. I’ve blundered, and sometimes made amends. I have prayed for light, and I’ve known despair. Now I look before, as I look behind, Come storm, come shine, whatever befall, With a grateful heart and a constant mind, For the end I know is the best of all.

1888–1889

LONDON VOLUNTARIES

(_To_ Charles Whibley)

1890–1892

I _Grave_

ST. MARGARET’S bells, Quiring their innocent, old-world canticles, Sing in the storied air, All rosy-and-golden, as with memories Of woods at evensong, and sands and seas Disconsolate for that the night is nigh. O, the low, lingering lights! The large last gleam (Hark! how those brazen choristers cry and call!) Touching these solemn ancientries, and there, The silent River ranging tide-mark high And the callow, grey-faced Hospital, With the strange glimmer and glamour of a dream! The Sabbath peace is in the slumbrous trees, And from the wistful, the fast-widowing sky (Hark! how those plangent comforters call and cry!) Falls as in August plots late roseleaves fall. The sober Sabbath stir— Leisurely voices, desultory feet!— Comes from the dry, dust-coloured street, Where in their summer frocks the girls go by, And sweethearts lean and loiter and confer, Just as they did an hundred years ago, Just as an hundred years to come they will:— When you and I, Dear Love, lie lost and low, And sweet-throats none our welkin shall fulfil, Nor any sunset fade serene and slow; But, being dead, we shall not grieve to die.

II _Andante con moto_

FORTH from the dust and din, The crush, the heat, the many-spotted glare, The odour and sense of life and lust aflare, The wrangle and jangle of unrests, Let us take horse, Dear Heart, take horse and win— As from swart August to the green lap of May— To quietness and the fresh and fragrant breasts Of the still, delicious night, not yet aware In any of her innumerable nests Of that first sudden plash of dawn, Clear, sapphirine, luminous, large, Which tells that soon the flowing springs of day In deep and ever deeper eddies drawn Forward and up, in wider and wider way, Shall float the sands, and brim the shores, On this our lith of the World, as round it roars And spins into the outlook of the Sun (The Lord’s first gift, the Lord’s especial charge), With light, with living light, from marge to marge Until the course He set and staked be run.

Through street and square, through square and street, Each with his home-grown quality of dark And violated silence, loud and fleet, Waylaid by a merry ghost at every lamp, The hansom wheels and plunges. Hark, O, hark, Sweet, how the old mare’s bit and chain Ring back a rough refrain Upon the marked and cheerful tramp Of her four shoes! Here is the Park, And O, the languid midsummer wafts adust, The tired midsummer blooms! O, the mysterious distances, the glooms Romantic, the august And solemn shapes! At night this City of Trees Turns to a tryst of vague and strange And monstrous Majesties, Let loose from some dim underworld to range These terrene vistas till their twilight sets: When, dispossessed of wonderfulness, they stand Beggared and common, plain to all the land For stooks of leaves! And lo! the Wizard Hour, His silent, shining sorcery winged with power! Still, still the streets, between their carcanets Of linking gold, are avenues of sleep. But see how gable ends and parapets In gradual beauty and significance Emerge! And did you hear That little twitter-and-cheep, Breaking inordinately loud and clear On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere? ’Tis a first nest at matins! And behold A rakehell cat—how furtive and acold! A spent witch homing from some infamous dance— Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade! And now! a little wind and shy, The smell of ships (that earnest of romance), A sense of space and water, and thereby A lamplit bridge ouching the troubled sky, And look, O, look! a tangle of silver gleams And dusky lights, our River and all his dreams, His dreams that never save in our deaths can die.

What miracle is happening in the air, Charging the very texture of the gray With something luminous and rare? The night goes out like an ill-parcelled fire, And, as one lights a candle, it is day. The extinguisher, that perks it like a spire On the little formal church, is not yet green Across the water: but the house-tops nigher, The corner-lines, the chimneys—look how clean, How new, how naked! See the batch of boats, Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam! And those are barges that were goblin floats, Black, hag-steered, fraught with devilry and dream! And in the piles the water frolics clear, The ripples into loose rings wander and flee, And we—we can behold that could but hear The ancient River singing as he goes, New-mailed in morning, to the ancient Sea. The gas burns lank and jaded in its glass: The old Ruffian soon shall yawn himself awake, And light his pipe, and shoulder his tools, and take His hobnailed way to work!

Let us too pass— Pass ere the sun leaps and your shadow shows— Through these long, blindfold rows Of casements staring blind to right and left, Each with his gaze turned inward on some piece Of life in death’s own likeness—Life bereft Of living looks as by the Great Release— Pass to an exquisite night’s more exquisite close!

Reach upon reach of burial—so they feel, These colonies of dreams! And as we steal Homeward together, but for the buxom breeze, Fitfully frolicking to heel With news of dawn-drenched woods and tumbling seas, We might—thus awed, thus lonely that we are— Be wandering some dispeopled star, Some world of memories and unbroken graves, So broods the abounding Silence near and far: Till even your footfall craves Forgiveness of the majesty it braves.

III _Scherzando_

DOWN through the ancient Strand The spirit of October, mild and boon And sauntering, takes his way This golden end of afternoon, As though the corn stood yellow in all the land, And the ripe apples dropped to the harvest-moon.

Lo! the round sun, half-down the western slope— Seen as along an unglazed telescope— Lingers and lolls, loth to be done with day: Gifting the long, lean, lanky street And its abounding confluences of being With aspects generous and bland; Making a thousand harnesses to shine As with new ore from some enchanted mine, And every horse’s coat so full of sheen He looks new-tailored, and every ’bus feels clean, And never a hansom but is worth the feeing; And every jeweller within the pale Offers a real Arabian Night for sale; And even the roar Of the strong streams of toil, that pause and pour Eastward and westward, sounds suffused— Seems as it were bemused And blurred, and like the speech Of lazy seas on a lotus-haunted beach— With this enchanted lustrousness, This mellow magic, that (as a man’s caress Brings back to some faded face, beloved before, A heavenly shadow of the grace it wore Ere the poor eyes were minded to beseech) Old things transfigures, and you hail and bless Their looks of long-lapsed loveliness once more: Till Clement’s, angular and cold and staid, Gleams forth in glamour’s very stuffs arrayed; And Bride’s, her aëry, unsubstantial charm Through flight on flight of springing, soaring stone Grown flushed and warm, Laughs into life full-mooded and fresh-blown; And the high majesty of Paul’s Uplifts a voice of living light, and calls— Calls to his millions to behold and see How goodly this his London Town can be!

For earth and sky and air Are golden everywhere, And golden with a gold so suave and fine The looking on it lifts the heart like wine. Trafalgar Square (The fountains volleying golden glaze) Shines like an angel-market. High aloft Over his couchant Lions, in a haze Shimmering and bland and soft, A dust of chrysoprase, Our Sailor takes the golden gaze Of the saluting sun, and flames superb, As once he flamed it on his ocean round. The dingy dreariness of the picture-place, Turned very nearly bright, Takes on a luminous transiency of grace, And shows no more a scandal to the ground. The very blind man pottering on the kerb, Among the posies and the ostrich feathers And the rude voices touched with all the weathers Of the long, varying year, Shares in the universal alms of light. The windows, with their fleeting, flickering fires, The height and spread of frontage shining sheer, The quiring signs, the rejoicing roofs and spires— ’Tis El Dorado—El Dorado plain, The Golden City! And when a girl goes by, Look! as she turns her glancing head, A call of gold is floated from her ear! Golden, all golden! In a golden glory, Long-lapsing down a golden coasted sky, The day, not dies but, seems Dispersed in wafts and drifts of gold, and shed Upon a past of golden song and story And memories of gold and golden dreams.

IV _Largo e mesto_

OUT of the poisonous East, Over a continent of blight, Like a maleficent Influence released From the most squalid cellarage of hell, The Wind-Fiend, the abominable— The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light— Comes slouching, sullen and obscene, Hard on the skirts of the embittered night; And in a cloud unclean Of excremental humours, roused to strife By the operation of some ruinous change, Wherever his evil mandate run and range, Into a dire intensity of life, A craftsman at his bench, he settles down To the grim job of throttling London Town.