Part 4

I could have watched them till the daylight fled, Their pretty bower made such a light of day. A small one tumbling sang, ‘Oh! head!’ The rest to comfort her straightway Seized on a branch and thumped down apples red.

The tiny creature flashing through green grass, And laughing with her feet and eyes among Fresh apples, while a little lass Over as o’er breeze-ripples hung: That sight I saw, and passed as aliens pass.

My footpath left the pleasant farms and lanes, Soft cottage-smoke, straight cocks a-crow, gay flowers; Beyond the wheel-ruts of the wains, Across a heath I walked for hours, And met its rival tenants, rays and rains.

Still in my view mile-distant firs appeared, When, under a patched channel-bank enriched With foxglove whose late bells drooped seared, Behold, a family had pitched Their camp, and labouring the low tent upreared.

Here, too, were many children, quick to scan A new thing coming; swarthy cheeks, white teeth: In many-coloured rags they ran, Like iron runlets of the heath. Dispersed lay broth-pot, sticks, and drinking-can.

Three girls, with shoulders like a boat at sea Tipped sideways by the wave (their clothing slid From either ridge unequally), Lean, swift, and voluble, bestrid A starting-point, unfrocked to the bent knee.

They raced; their brothers yelled them on, and broke In act to follow, but as one they snuffed Wood-fumes, and by the fire that spoke Of provender, its pale flame puffed, And rolled athwart dwarf furzes gray-blue smoke.

Soon on the dark edge of a ruddier gleam, The mother-pot perusing, all, stretched flat, Paused for its bubbling-up supreme: A dog upright in circle sat, And oft his nose went with the flying steam.

I turned and looked on heaven awhile, where now The moor-faced sunset broaden’d with red light; Threw high aloft a golden bough, And seemed the desert of the night Far down with mellow orchards to endow.

MARTIN’S PUZZLE.

I.

There she goes up the street with her book in her hand, And her Good morning, Martin! Ay, lass, how d’ye do? Very well, thank you, Martin!--I can’t understand! I might just as well never have cobbled a shoe! I can’t understand it. She talks like a song; Her voice takes your ear like the ring of a glass; She seems to give gladness while limping along, Yet sinner ne’er suffer’d like that little lass.

II.

First, a fool of a boy ran her down with a cart. Then, her fool of a father--a blacksmith by trade-- Why the deuce does he tell us it half broke his heart! His heart!--where’s the leg of the poor little maid! Well, that’s not enough; they must push her downstairs, To make her go crooked: but why count the list? If it’s right to suppose that our human affairs Are all ordered by heaven--there, bang goes my fist!

III.

For if angels can look on such sights--never mind! When you’re next to blaspheming, it’s best to be mum. The parson declares that her woes weren’t designed; But, then, with the parson it’s all kingdom-come. Lose a leg, save a soul--a convenient text; I call it Tea doctrine, not savouring of God. When poor little Molly wants ‘chastening,’ why, next The Archangel Michael might taste of the rod.

IV.

But, to see the poor darling go limping for miles To read books to sick people!--and just of an age When girls learn the meaning of ribands and smiles! Makes me feel like a squirrel that turns in a cage. The more I push thinking the more I revolve: I never get farther:--and as to her face, It starts up when near on my puzzle I solve, And says, ‘This crush’d body seems such a sad case.’

V.

Not that she’s for complaining: she reads to earn pence; And from those who can’t pay, simple thanks are enough. Does she leave lamentation for chaps without sense? Howsoever, she’s made up of wonderful stuff. Ay, the soul in her body must be a stout cord; She sings little hymns at the close of the day, Though she has but three fingers to lift to the Lord, And only one leg to kneel down with to pray.

VI.

What I ask is, Why persecute such a poor dear, If there’s Law above all? Answer that if you can! Irreligious I’m not; but I look on this sphere As a place where a man should just think like a man. It isn’t fair dealing! But, contrariwise, Do bullets in battle the wicked select? Why, then it’s all chance-work! And yet, in her eyes, She holds a fixed something by which I am checked.

VII.

Yonder riband of sunshine aslope on the wall, If you eye it a minute’ll have the same look: So kind! and so merciful! God of us all! It’s the very same lesson we get from the Book. Then, is Life but a trial? Is that what is meant? Some must toil, and some perish, for others below; The injustice to each spreads a common content; Ay! I’ve lost it again, for it can’t be quite so.

VIII.

She’s the victim of fools: that seems nearer the mark. On earth there are engines and numerous fools. Why the Lord can permit them, we’re still in the dark; He does, and in some sort of way they’re his tools. It’s a roundabout way, with respect let me add, If Molly goes crippled that we may be taught: But, perhaps, it’s the only way, though it’s so bad; In that case we’ll bow down our heads,--as we ought.

IX.

But the worst of me is, that when I bow my head, I perceive a thought wriggling away in the dust, And I follow its tracks, quite forgetful, instead Of humble acceptance: for, question I must! Here’s a creature made carefully--carefully made! Put together with craft, and then stamped on, and why? The answer seems nowhere: it’s discord that’s played. The sky’s a blue dish!--an implacable sky!

X.

Stop a moment. I seize an idea from the pit. They tell us that discord, though discord, alone, Can be harmony when the notes properly fit: Am I judging all things from a single false tone? Is the Universe one immense Organ, that rolls From devils to angels? I’m blind with the sight. It pours such a splendour on heaps of poor souls! I might try at kneeling with Molly to-night.

EARTH AND MAN.

I.

On her great venture, Man, Earth gazes while her fingers dint the breast Which is his well of strength, his home of rest, And fair to scan.

II.

More aid than that embrace, That nourishment, she cannot give: his heart Involves his fate; and she who urged the start Abides the race.

III.

For he is in the lists Contentious with the elements, whose dower First sprang him; for swift vultures to devour If he desists.

IV.

His breath of instant thirst Is warning of a creature matched with strife, To meet it as a bride, or let fall life On life’s accursed.

V.

No longer forth he bounds The lusty animal, afield to roam, But peering in Earth’s entrails, where the gnome Strange themes propounds.

VI.

By hunger sharply sped To grasp at weapons ere he learns their use, In each new ring he bears a giant’s thews, An infant’s head.

VII.

And ever that old task Of reading what he is and whence he came, Whither to go, finds wilder letters flame Across her mask.

VIII.

She hears his wailful prayer, When now to the Invisible he raves To rend him from her, now his mother craves Her calm, her care.

IX.

The thing that shudders most Within him is the burden of his cry. Seen of his dread, she is to his blank eye The eyeless Ghost.

X.

Or sometimes she will seem Heavenly, but her blush, soon wearing white, Veils like a gorsebush in a web of blight, With gold-buds dim.

XI.

Once worshipped Prime of Powers, She still was the Implacable: as a beast, She struck him down and dragged him from the feast She crowned with flowers.

XII.

Her pomp of glorious hues, Her revelries of ripeness, her kind smile Her songs, her peeping faces, lure awhile With symbol-clues.

XIII.

The mystery she holds For him, inveterately he strains to see, And sight of his obtuseness is the key Among those folds.

XIV.

He may entreat, aspire, He may despair, and she has never heed. She drinking his warm sweat will soothe his need, Not his desire.

XV.

She prompts him to rejoice, Yet scares him on the threshold with the shroud. He deems her cherishing of her best-endowed A wanton’s choice.

XVI.

Albeit thereof he has found Firm roadway between lustfulness and pain; Has half transferred the battle to his brain, From bloody ground;

XVII.

He will not read her good, Or wise, but with the passion Self obscures; Through that old devil of the thousand lures, Through that dense hood:

XVIII.

Through terror, through distrust; The greed to touch, to view, to have, to live Through all that makes of him a sensitive Abhorring dust.

XIX.

Behold his wormy home! And he the wind-whipped, anywhither wave Crazily tumbled on a shingle-grave To waste in foam.

XX.

Therefore the wretch inclines Afresh to the Invisible, who, he saith, Can raise him high: with vows of living faith For little signs.

XXI.

Some signs he must demand, Some proofs of slaughtered nature; some prized few, To satisfy the senses it is true, And in his hand,

XXII.

This miracle which saves Himself, himself doth from extinction clutch, By virtue of his worth, contrasting much With brutes and knaves.

XXIII.

From dust, of him abhorred, He would be snatched by Grace discovering worth. ‘Sever me from the hollowness of Earth! Me take, dear Lord!’

XXIV.

She hears him. Him she owes For half her loveliness a love well won By work that lights the shapeless and the dun, Their common foes.

XXV.

He builds the soaring spires, That sing his soul in stone: of her he draws, Though blind to her, by spelling at her laws, Her purest fires.

XXVI.

Through him hath she exchanged, For the gold harvest-robes, the mural crown, Her haggard quarry-features and thick frown Where monsters ranged.

XXVII.

And order, high discourse, And decency, than which is life less dear, She has of him: the lyre of language clear, Love’s tongue and source.

XXVIII.

She hears him, and can hear With glory in his gains by work achieved: With grief for grief that is the unperceived In her so near.

XXIX.

If he aloft for aid Imploring storms, her essence is the spur. His cry to heaven is a cry to her He would evade.

XXX.

Not elsewhere can he tend. Those are her rules which bid him wash foul sins; Those her revulsions from the skull that grins To ape his end.

XXXI.

And her desires are those For happiness, for lastingness, for light. ’Tis she who kindles in his haunting night The hoped dawn-rose.

XXXII.

Fair fountains of the dark Daily she waves him, that his inner dream May clasp amid the glooms a springing beam, A quivering lark:

XXXIII.

This life and her to know For Spirit: with awakenedness of glee To feel stern joy her origin: not he The child of woe.

XXXIV.

But that the senses still Usurp the station of their issue mind, He would have burst the chrysalis of the blind: As yet he will;

XXXV.

As yet he will, she prays, Yet will when his distempered devil of Self;-- The glutton for her fruits, the wily elf In shifting rays;--

XXXVI.

That captain of the scorned; The coveter of life in soul and shell, The fratricide, the thief, the infidel, The hoofed and horned;--

XXXVII.

He singularly doomed To what he execrates and writhes to shun;-- When fire has passed him vapour to the sun, And sun relumed,

XXXVIII.

Then shall the horrid pall Be lifted, and a spirit nigh divine, ‘Live in thy offspring as I live in mine,’ Will hear her call.

XXXIX.

Whence looks he on a land Whereon his labour is a carven page; And forth from heritage to heritage Nought writ on sand.

XL.

His fables of the Above, And his gapped readings of the crown and sword, The hell detested and the heaven adored, The hate, the love,

XLI.

The bright wing, the black hoof, He shall peruse, from Reason not disjoined, And never unfaith clamouring to be coined To faith by proof.

XLII.

She her just Lord may view, Not he, her creature, till his soul has yearned With all her gifts to reach the light discerned Her spirit through.

XLIII.

Then in him time shall run As in the hour that to young sunlight crows; And--‘If thou hast good faith it can repose,’ She tells her son.

XLIV.

Meanwhile on him, her chief Expression, her great word of life, looks she; Twi-minded of him, as the waxing tree, Or dated leaf.

A BALLAD OF FAIR LADIES IN REVOLT.

I.

See the sweet women, friend, that lean beneath The ever-falling fountain of green leaves Round the white bending stem, and like a wreath Of our most blushful flower shine trembling through, To teach philosophers the thirst of thieves: Is one for me? is one for you?

II.

--Fair sirs, we give you welcome, yield you place, And you shall choose among us which you will, Without the idle pastime of the chase, If to this treaty you can well agree: To wed our cause, and its high task fulfil. He who’s for us, for him are we!

III.

--Most gracious ladies, nigh when light has birth, A troop of maids, brown as burnt heather-bells, And rich with life as moss-roots breathe of earth In the first plucking of them, past us flew To labour, singing rustic ritornells: Had they a cause? are they of you?

IV.

--Sirs, they are as unthinking armies are To thoughtful leaders, and our cause is theirs. When they know men they know the state of war: But now they dream like sunlight on a sea, And deem you hold the half of happy pairs. He who’s for us, for him are we!

V.

--Ladies, I listened to a ring of dames; Judicial in the robe and wig; secure As venerated portraits in their frames; And they denounced some insurrection new Against sound laws which keep you good and pure. Are you of them? are they of you?

VI.

--Sirs, they are of us, as their dress denotes, And by as much: let them together chime: It is an ancient bell within their throats, Pulled by an aged ringer; with what glee Befits the yellow yesterdays of time. He who’s for us, for him are we.

VII.

--Sweet ladies, you with beauty, you with wit; Dowered of all favours and all blessed things Whereat the ruddy torch of Love is lit; Wherefore this vain and outworn strife renew, Which stays the tide no more than eddy-rings? Who is for love must be for you.

VIII.

--The manners of the market, honest sirs, ’Tis hard to quit when you behold the wares. You flatter us, or perchance our milliners You flatter; so this vain and outworn She May still be the charmed snake to your soft airs! A higher lord than Love claim we.

IX.

--One day, dear lady, missing the broad track, I came on a wood’s border, by a mead, Where golden May ran up to moted black: And there I saw Queen Beauty hold review, With Love before her throne in act to plead. Take him for me, take her for you.

X.

--Ingenious gentleman, the tale is known. Love pleaded sweetly: Beauty would not melt: She would not melt: he turned in wrath: her throne The shadow of his back froze witheringly, And sobbing at his feet Queen Beauty knelt. O not such slaves of Love are we!

XI.

--Love, lady, like the star above that lance Of radiance flung by sunset on ridged cloud, Sad as the last line of a brave romance!-- Young Love hung dim, yet quivering round him threw Beams of fresh fire while Beauty waned and bowed. Scorn Love, and dread the doom for you.

XII.

--Called she not for her mirror, sir? Forth ran Her women: I am lost, she cried, when lo, Love in the form of an admiring man Once more in adoration bent the knee And brought the faded Pagan to full blow: For which her throne she gave: not we!

XIII.

--My version, madam, runs not to that end. A certain madness of an hour half past, Caught her like fever: her just lord no friend She fancied; aimed beyond beauty, and thence grew The prim acerbity, sweet Love’s outcast. Great heaven ward off that stroke from you!

XIV.

--Your prayer to heaven, good sir, is generous: How generous likewise that you do not name Offended nature! She from all of us Couched idle underneath our showering tree, May quite withhold her most destructive flame; And then what woeful women we!

XV.

--Quite, could not be, fair lady; yet your youth May run to drought in visionary schemes: And a late waking to perceive the truth, When day falls shrouding her supreme adieu, Shows darker wastes than unaccomplished dreams: And that may be in store for you.

XVI.

--O sir, the truth, the truth! is’t in the skies, Or in the grass, or in this heart of ours? But O the truth, the truth! the many eyes That look on it! the diverse things they see, According to their thirst for fruit or flowers! Pass on: it is the truth seek we.

XVII.

--Lady, there is a truth of settled laws That down the past burns like a great watch-fire. Let youth hail changeful mornings; but your cause, Whetting its edge to cut the race in two, Is felony: you forfeit the bright lyre, Much honour and much glory you!

XVIII.

--Sir, was it glory, was it honour, pride, And not as cat and serpent and poor slave, Wherewith we walked in union by your side? Spare to false womanliness her delicacy, Or bid true manliness give ear, we crave: In our defence thus chained are we.

XIX.

--Yours, madam, were the privileges of life Proper to man’s ideal; you were the mark Of action, and the banner in the strife: Yea, of your very weakness once you drew The strength that sounds the wells, outflies the lark: Wrapped in a robe of flame were you!

XX.

--Your friend looks thoughtful. Sir, when we were chill, You clothed us warmly; all in honour! when We starved you fed us; all in honour still: Oh, all in honour, ultra-honourably! Deep is the gratitude we owe to men, For privileged indeed were we!

XXI.

--You cite exceptions, madam, that are sad, But come in the red struggle of our growth Alas, that I should have to say it! bad Is two-sexed upon earth: this which you do Shows animal impatience, mental sloth: Man monstrous, pining seraphs you!

XXII.

--I fain would ask your friend ... but I will ask You, sir, how if in place of numbers vague, Your sad exceptions were to break that mask They wear for your cool mind historically, And blaze like black lists of a _present_ plague? But in that light behold them we.

XXIII.

--Your spirit breathes a mist upon our world, Lady, and like a rain to pierce the roof And drench the bed where toil-tossed man lies curled In his hard-earned oblivion! You are few, Scattered, ill-counselled, blinded: for a proof, I have lived, and have known none like you.

XXIV.

--We may be blind to men, sir: we embrace A future now beyond the fowler’s nets. Though few, we hold a promise for the race That was not at our rising: you are free To win brave mates; you lose but marionnettes. He who’s for us, for him are we.

XXV.

--Ah! madam, were they puppets who withstood Youth’s cravings for adventure to preserve The dedicated ways of womanhood? The light which leads us from the paths of rue, That light above us, never seen to swerve, Should be the home-lamp trimmed by you.

XXVI.

--Ah! sir, our worshipped posture we perchance Shall not abandon, though we see not how, Being to that lamp-post fixed, we may advance Beside our lords in any real degree, Unless we move: and to advance is now A sovereign need, think more than we.

XXVII.

--So push you out of harbour in small craft, With little seamanship; and comes a gale, The world will laugh, the world has often laughed, Lady, to see how bold when skies are blue, When black winds churn the deeps how panic-pale, How swift to the old nest fly you!

XXVIII.

--What thinks your friend, kind sir? We have escaped But partly that old half-tamed wild beast’s paw Whereunder woman, the weak thing, was shaped: Men too have known the cramping enemy In grim brute force, whom force of brain shall awe: Him our deliverer, await we!

XXIX.

--Delusions are with eloquence endowed, And yours might pluck an angel from the spheres To play in this revolt whereto you are vowed, Deliverer, lady! but like summer dew O’er fields that crack for rain your friends drop tears, Who see the awakening for you.

XXX.

--Is he our friend, there silent? he weeps not. O sir, delusion mounting like a sun On a mind blank as the white wife of Lot, Giving it warmth and movement! if this be Delusion, think of what thereby was won For men, and dream of what win we.

XXXI.

--Lady, the destiny of minor powers, Who would recast us, is but to convulse: You enter on a strife that frets and sours; You can but win sick disappointment’s hue; And simply an accelerated pulse, Some tonic you have drunk moves you.

XXXII.

--Thinks your friend so? Good sir, your wit is bright But wit that strives to speak the popular voice, Puts on its nightcap and puts out its light; Curfew, would seem your conqueror’s decree To women likewise: and we have no choice Save darkness or rebellion, we!

XXXIII.

--A plain safe intermediate way is cleft By reason foiling passion: you that rave Of mad alternatives to right and left Echo the tempter, madam: and ’tis due Unto your sex to shun it as the grave, This later apple offered you.

XXXIV.

--This apple is not ripe, it is not sweet; Nor rosy, sir, nor golden: eye and mouth Are little wooed by it; yet we would eat: We are somewhat tired of Eden, is our plea: We have thirsted long: this apple suits our drouth: ’Tis good for men to halve, think we.

XXXV.

--But say, what seek you, madam? ’Tis enough That you should have dominion o’er the springs Domestic and man’s heart: those ways, how rough, How vile, outside the stately avenue Where you walk sheltered by your angel’s wings, Are happily unknown to you.

XXXVI.

--We hear women’s shrieks on them. We like your phrase, Dominion domestic! And that roar, ‘What seek you?’ is of tyrants in all days. Sir, get you something of our purity, And we will of your strength: we ask no more. That is the sum of what seek we.

XXXVII.

--O for an image, madam, in one word, To show you, as the lightning night reveals, Your error and your perils: you have erred In mind only, and the perils that ensue Swift heels may soften; wherefore to swift heels Address your hopes of safety you!

XXXVIII.

--To err in mind, sir ... your friend smiles: he may! To err in mind, if err in mind we can, Is grievous error you do well to stay. But O how different from reality Men’s fiction is! how like you in the plan, Is woman, knew you her as we!

XXXIX.