Part 4

Lord of days and nights that hear thy word of wintry warning, Wind, whose feet are set on ways that none may tread, Change the nest wherein thy wings are fledged for flight by morning, Change the harbour whence at dawn thy sails are spread. Not the dawn, ere yet the imprisoning night has half released her, More desires the sun's full face of cheer, than we, Well as yet we love the strength of the iron-tongued north-easter, Yearn for wind to meet us as we front the sea. All thy ways are good, O wind, and all the world should fester, Were thy fourfold godhead quenched, or stilled thy strife: Yet the waves and we desire too long the deep south-wester, Whence the waters quicken shoreward, clothed with life. Yet the field not made for ploughing save of keels nor harrowing Save of storm-winds lies unbrightened by thy breath: Banded broad with ruddy samphire glow the sea-banks narrowing Westward, while the sea gleams chill and still as death. Sharp and strange from inland sounds thy bitter note of battle, Blown between grim skies and waters sullen-souled, Till the baffled seas bear back, rocks roar and shingles rattle, Vexed and angered and anhungered and acold. Change thy note, and give the waves their will, and all the measure, Full and perfect, of the music of their might, Let it fill the bays with thunderous notes and throbs of pleasure, Shake the shores with passion, sound at once and smite. Sweet are even the mild low notes of wind and sea, but sweeter Sounds the song whose choral wrath of raging rhyme Bids the shelving shoals keep tune with storm's imperious metre, Bids the rocks and reefs respond in rapturous chime. Sweet the lisp and lulling whisper and luxurious laughter, Soft as love or sleep, of waves whereon the sun Dreams, and dreams not of the darkling hours before nor after, Winged with cloud whose wrath shall bid love's day be done. Yet shall darkness bring the awakening sea a lordlier lover, Clothed with strength more amorous and more strenuous will, Whence her heart of hearts shall kindle and her soul recover Sense of love too keen to lie for love's sake still. Let thy strong south-western music sound, and bid the billows Brighten, proud and glad to feel thy scourge and kiss Sting and soothe and sway them, bowed as aspens bend or willows, Yet resurgent still in breathless rage of bliss. All to-day the slow sleek ripples hardly bear up shoreward, Charged with sighs more light than laughter, faint and fair, Like a woodland lake's weak wavelets lightly lingering forward, Soft and listless as the slumber-stricken air. Be the sunshine bared or veiled, the sky superb or shrouded, Still the waters, lax and languid, chafed and foiled, Keen and thwarted, pale and patient, clothed with fire or clouded, Vex their heart in vain, or sleep like serpents coiled. Thee they look for, blind and baffled, wan with wrath and weary, Blown for ever back by winds that rock the bird: Winds that seamews breast subdue the sea, and bid the dreary Waves be weak as hearts made sick with hope deferred. Let thy clarion sound from westward, let the south bear token How the glories of thy godhead sound and shine: Bid the land rejoice to see the land-wind's broad wings broken, Bid the sea take comfort, bid the world be thine. Half the world abhors thee beating back the sea, and blackening Heaven with fierce and woful change of fluctuant form: All the world acclaims thee shifting sail again, and slackening Cloud by cloud the close-reefed cordage of the storm. Sweeter fields and brighter woods and lordlier hills than waken Here at sunrise never hailed the sun and thee: Turn thee then, and give them comfort, shed like rain and shaken Far as foam that laughs and leaps along the sea.

NEAP-TIDE

Far off is the sea, and the land is afar: The low banks reach at the sky, Seen hence, and are heavenward high; Though light for the leap of a boy they are, And the far sea late was nigh.

The fair wild fields and the circling downs, The bright sweet marshes and meads All glorious with flowerlike weeds, The great grey churches, the sea-washed towns, Recede as a dream recedes.

The world draws back, and the world's light wanes, As a dream dies down and is dead; And the clouds and the gleams overhead Change, and change; and the sea remains, A shadow of dreamlike dread.

Wild, and woful, and pale, and grey, A shadow of sleepless fear, A corpse with the night for bier, The fairest thing that beholds the day Lies haggard and hopeless here.

And the wind's wings, broken and spent, subside; And the dumb waste world is hoar, And strange as the sea the shore; And shadows of shapeless dreams abide Where life may abide no more.

A sail to seaward, a sound from shoreward, And the spell were broken that seems To reign in a world of dreams Where vainly the dreamer's feet make forward And vainly the low sky gleams.

The sea-forsaken forlorn deep-wrinkled Salt slanting stretches of sand That slope to the seaward hand, Were they fain of the ripples that flashed and twinkled And laughed as they struck the strand?

As bells on the reins of the fairies ring The ripples that kissed them rang, The light from the sundawn sprang, And the sweetest of songs that the world may sing Was theirs when the full sea sang.

Now no light is in heaven; and now Not a note of the sea-wind's tune Rings hither: the bleak sky's boon Grants hardly sight of a grey sun's brow-- A sun more sad than the moon.

More sad than a moon that clouds beleaguer And storm is a scourge to smite, The sick sun's shadowlike light Grows faint as the clouds and the waves wax eager, And withers away from sight.

The day's heart cowers, and the night's heart quickens: Full fain would the day be dead And the stark night reign in his stead: The sea falls dumb as the sea-fog thickens And the sunset dies for dread.

Outside of the range of time, whose breath Is keen as the manslayer's knife And his peace but a truce for strife, Who knows if haply the shadow of death May be not the light of life?

For the storm and the rain and the darkness borrow But an hour from the suns to be, But a strange swift passage, that we May rejoice, who have mourned not to-day, to-morrow, In the sun and the wind and the sea.

BY THE WAYSIDE

Summer's face was rosiest, skies and woods were mellow, Earth had heaven to friend, and heaven had earth to fellow, When we met where wooded hills and meadows meet. Autumn's face is pale, and all her late leaves yellow, Now that here again we greet.

Wan with years whereof this eightieth nears December, Fair and bright with love, the kind old face I know Shines above the sweet small twain whose eyes remember Heaven, and fill with April's light this pale November, Though the dark year's glass run low.

Like a rose whose joy of life her silence utters When the birds are loud, and low the lulled wind mutters, Grave and silent shines the boy nigh three years old. Wise and sweet his smile, that falters not nor flutters, Glows, and turns the gloom to gold.

Like the new-born sun's that strikes the dark and slays it, So that even for love of light it smiles and dies, Laughs the boy's blithe face whose fair fourth year arrays it All with light of life and mirth that stirs and sways it And fulfils the deep wide eyes.

Wide and warm with glowing laughter's exultation, Full of welcome, full of sunbright jubilation, Flash my taller friend's quick eyebeams, charged with glee; But with softer still and sweeter salutation Shine my smaller friend's on me.

Little arms flung round my bending neck, that yoke it Fast in tender bondage, draw my face down too Toward the flower-soft face whose dumb deep smiles invoke it; Dumb, but love can read the radiant eyes that woke it, Blue as June's mid heaven is blue.

How may men find refuge, how should hearts be shielded, From the weapons thus by little children wielded, When they lift such eyes as light this lustrous face-- Eyes that woke love sleeping unawares, and yielded Love for love, a gift of grace,

Grace beyond man's merit, love that laughs, forgiving Even the sin of being no more a child, nor worth Trust and love that lavish gifts above man's giving, Touch or glance of eyes and lips the sweetest living, Fair as heaven and kind as earth?

NIGHT

I

FROM THE ITALIAN OF GIOVANNI STROZZI

Night, whom in shape so sweet thou here may'st see Sleeping, was by an Angel sculptured thus In marble, and since she sleeps hath life like us: Thou doubt'st? Awake her: she will speak to thee.

II

FROM THE ITALIAN OF MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI

Sleep likes me well, and better yet to know I am but stone. While shame and grief must be, Good hap is mine, to feel not, nor to see: Take heed, then, lest thou wake me: ah, speak low.

IN TIME OF MOURNING

"Return," we dare not as we fain Would cry from hearts that yearn: Love dares not bid our dead again Return.

O hearts that strain and burn As fires fast fettered burn and strain! Bow down, lie still, and learn.

The heart that healed all hearts of pain No funeral rites inurn: Its echoes, while the stars remain, Return.

_May 1885._

THE INTERPRETERS

I

Days dawn on us that make amends for many Sometimes, When heaven and earth seem sweeter even than any Man's rhymes.

Light had not all been quenched in France, or quelled In Greece, Had Homer sung not, or had Hugo held His peace.

Had Sappho's self not left her word thus long For token, The sea round Lesbos yet in waves of song Had spoken.

II

And yet these days of subtler air and finer Delight, When lovelier looks the darkness, and diviner The light--

The gift they give of all these golden hours, Whose urn Pours forth reverberate rays or shadowing showers In turn--

Clouds, beams, and winds that make the live day's track Seem living-- What were they did no spirit give them back Thanksgiving?

III

Dead air, dead fire, dead shapes and shadows, telling Time nought; Man gives them sense and soul by song, and dwelling In thought.

In human thought their being endures, their power Abides: Else were their life a thing that each light hour Derides.

The years live, work, sigh, smile, and die, with all They cherish; The soul endures, though dreams that fed it fall And perish.

IV

In human thought have all things habitation; Our days Laugh, lower, and lighten past, and find no station That stays.

But thought and faith are mightier things than time Can wrong, Made splendid once with speech, or made sublime By song.

Remembrance, though the tide of change that rolls Wax hoary, Gives earth and heaven, for song's sake and the soul's, Their glory.

_July 16, 1885._

THE RECALL

Return, they cry, ere yet your day Set, and the sky grow stern: Return, strayed souls, while yet ye may Return.

But heavens beyond us yearn; Yea, heights of heaven above the sway Of stars that eyes discern.

The soul whose wings from shoreward stray Makes toward her viewless bourne Though trustless faith and unfaith say, Return.

BY TWILIGHT

If we dream that desire of the distance above us Should be fettered by fear of the shadows that seem, If we wake, to be nought, but to hate or to love us If we dream,

Night sinks on the soul, and the stars as they gleam Speak menace or mourning, with tongues to reprove us That we deemed of them better than terror may deem.

But if hope may not lure us, if fear may not move us, Thought lightens the darkness wherein the supreme Pure presence of death shall assure us, and prove us If we dream.

A BABY'S EPITAPH

April made me: winter laid me here away asleep. Bright as Maytime was my daytime; night is soft and deep: Though the morrow bring forth sorrow, well are ye that weep.

Ye that held me dear beheld me not a twelvemonth long: All the while ye saw me smile, ye knew not whence the song Came that made me smile, and laid me here, and wrought you wrong.

Angels, calling from your brawling world one undefiled, Homeward bade me, and forbade me here to rest beguiled: Here I sleep not: pass, and weep not here upon your child.

ON THE DEATH OF SIR HENRY TAYLOR

Fourscore and five times has the gradual year Risen and fulfilled its days of youth and eld Since first the child's eyes opening first beheld Light, who now leaves behind to help us here Light shed from song as starlight from a sphere Serene as summer; song whose charm compelled The sovereign soul made flesh in Artevelde To stand august before us and austere, Half sad with mortal knowledge, all sublime With trust that takes no taint from change or time, Trust in man's might of manhood. Strong and sage, Clothed round with reverence of remembering hearts, He, twin-born with our nigh departing age, Into the light of peace and fame departs.

IN MEMORY OF JOHN WILLIAM INCHBOLD

Farewell: how should not such as thou fare well, Though we fare ill that love thee, and that live, And know, whate'er the days wherein we dwell May give us, thee again they will not give?

Peace, rest, and sleep are all we know of death, And all we dream of comfort: yet for thee, Whose breath of life was bright and strenuous breath, We think the change is other than we see.

The seal of sleep set on thine eyes to-day Surely can seal not up the keen swift light That lit them once for ever. Night can slay None save the children of the womb of night.

The fire that burns up dawn to bring forth noon Was father of thy spirit: how shouldst thou Die as they die for whom the sun and moon Are silent? Thee the darkness holds not now:

Them, while they looked upon the light, and deemed That life was theirs for living in the sun, The darkness held in bondage: and they dreamed, Who knew not that such life as theirs was none.

To thee the sun spake, and the morning sang Notes deep and clear as life or heaven: the sea That sounds for them but wild waste music rang Notes that were lost not when they rang for thee.

The mountains clothed with light and night and change, The lakes alive with wind and cloud and sun, Made answer, by constraint sublime and strange, To the ardent hand that bade thy will be done.

We may not bid the mountains mourn, the sea That lived and lightened from thine hand again Moan, as of old would men that mourned as we A man beloved, a man elect of men,

A man that loved them. Vain, divine and vain, The dream that touched with thoughts or tears of ours The spirit of sense that lives in sun and rain, Sings out in birds, and breathes and fades in flowers.

Not for our joy they live, and for our grief They die not. Though thine eye be closed, thine hand Powerless as mine to paint them, not a leaf In English woods or glades of Switzerland

Falls earlier now, fades faster. All our love Moves not our mother's changeless heart, who gives A little light to eyes and stars above, A little life to each man's heart that lives.

A little life to heaven and earth and sea, To stars and souls revealed of night and day, And change, the one thing changeless: yet shall she Cease too, perchance, and perish. Who shall say?

Our mother Nature, dark and sweet as sleep, And strange as life and strong as death, holds fast, Even as she holds our hearts alive, the deep Dumb secret of her first-born births and last.

But this, we know, shall cease not till the strife Of nights and days and fears and hopes find end; This, through the brief eternities of life, Endures, and calls from death a living friend;

The love made strong with knowledge, whence confirmed The whole soul takes assurance, and the past (So by time's measure, not by memory's, termed) Lives present life, and mingles first with last.

I, now long since thy guest of many days, Who found thy hearth a brother's, and with thee Tracked in and out the lines of rolling bays And banks and gulfs and reaches of the sea--

Deep dens wherein the wrestling water sobs And pants with restless pain of refluent breath Till all the sunless hollow sounds and throbs With ebb and flow of eddies dark as death--

I know not what more glorious world, what waves More bright with life,--if brighter aught may live Than those that filled and fled their tidal caves-- May now give back the love thou hast to give.

Tintagel, and the long Trebarwith sand, Lone Camelford, and Boscastle divine With dower of southern blossom, bright and bland Above the roar of granite-baffled brine,

Shall hear no more by joyous night or day From downs or causeways good to rove and ride Or feet of ours or horse-hoofs urge their way That sped us here and there by tower and tide.

The headlands and the hollows and the waves, For all our love, forget us: where I am Thou art not: deeper sleeps the shadow on graves Than in the sunless gulf that once we swam.

Thou hast swum too soon the sea of death: for us Too soon, but if truth bless love's blind belief Faith, born of hope and memory, says not thus: And joy for thee for me should mean not grief.

And joy for thee, if ever soul of man Found joy in change and life of ampler birth Than here pens in the spirit for a span, Must be the life that doubt calls death on earth.

For if, beyond the shadow and the sleep, A place there be for souls without a stain, Where peace is perfect, and delight more deep Than seas or skies that change and shine again,

There none of all unsullied souls that live May hold a surer station: none may lend More light to hope's or memory's lamp, nor give More joy than thine to those that called thee friend.

Yea, joy from sorrow's barren womb is born When faith begets on grief the godlike child: As midnight yearns with starry sense of morn In Arctic summers, though the sea wax wild,

So love, whose name is memory, thrills at heart, Remembering and rejoicing in thee, now Alive where love may dream not what thou art But knows that higher than hope or love art thou.

"Whatever heaven, if heaven at all may be, Await the sacred souls of good men dead, There, now we mourn who loved him here, is he," So, sweet and stern of speech, the Roman said,

Erect in grief, in trust erect, and gave His deathless dead a deathless life even here Where day bears down on day as wave on wave And not man's smile fades faster than his tear.

Albeit this gift be given not me to give, Nor power be mine to break time's silent spell, Not less shall love that dies not while I live Bid thee, beloved in life and death, farewell.

NEW YEAR'S DAY

New Year, be good to England. Bid her name Shine sunlike as of old on all the sea: Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free: Bind fast her homeborn foes with links of shame More strong than iron and more keen than flame: Seal up their lips for shame's sake: so shall she Who was the light that lightened freedom be, For all false tongues, in all men's eyes the same.

O last-born child of Time, earth's eldest lord, God undiscrowned of godhead, who for man Begets all good and evil things that live, Do thou, his new-begotten son, implored Of hearts that hope and fear not, make thy span Bright with such light as history bids thee give.

_Jan. 1, 1889._

TO SIR RICHARD F. BURTON

(ON HIS TRANSLATION OF "THE ARABIAN NIGHTS")

Westward the sun sinks, grave and glad; but far Eastward, with laughter and tempestuous tears, Cloud, rain, and splendour as of orient spears, Keen as the sea's thrill toward a kindling star, The sundawn breaks the barren twilight's bar And fires the mist and slays it. Years on years Vanish, but he that hearkens eastward hears Bright music from the world where shadows are.

Where shadows are not shadows. Hand in hand A man's word bids them rise and smile and stand And triumph. All that glorious orient glows Defiant of the dusk. Our twilight land Trembles; but all the heaven is all one rose, Whence laughing love dissolves her frosts and snows.

NELL GWYN

Sweet heart, that no taint of the throne or the stage Could touch with unclean transformation, or alter To the likeness of courtiers whose consciences falter At the smile or the frown, at the mirth or the rage, Of a master whom chance could inflame or assuage, Our Lady of Laughter, invoked in no psalter, Adored of no faithful that cringe and that palter, Praise be with thee yet from a hag-ridden age.

Our Lady of Pity thou wast: and to thee All England, whose sons are the sons of the sea, Gives thanks, and will hear not if history snarls When the name of the friend of her sailors is spoken; And thy lover she cannot but love--by the token That thy name was the last on the lips of King Charles.

CALIBAN ON ARIEL

"_His backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract_"

The tongue is loosed of that most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness. Listen: "Lo, The real god of song, Lord Stephano, That's a brave god, if ever god were brave, And bears celestial liquor: but," the knave (A most ridiculous monster) howls, "we know From Ariel's lips what springs of poison flow, The chicken-heart blasphemer! Hear him rave!"

Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, the witch whose name Is darkness, and the sun her eyes' offence, Though hell's hot sewerage breed no loathlier elf, Men cry not shame upon thee, seeing thy shame So perfect: they but bid thee--"Hag-seed, hence!"

THE WEARY WEDDING

O daughter, why do ye laugh and weep, One with another? For woe to wake and for will to sleep, Mother, my mother.

But weep ye winna the day ye wed, One with another. For tears are dry when the springs are dead, Mother, my mother.