Part 1

POEMS IN MANY LANDS

Ballantyne Press BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH CHANDOS STREET, LONDON

POEMS IN MANY LANDS

BY

RENNELL RODD

LONDON DAVID BOGUE, 3, ST. MARTIN’S PLACE TRAFALGAR SQUARE, W.C. 1883.

PREFACE.

The kind reception my first small volume of “Songs in the South” met with, has induced me to include a few of those poems in this more complete volume of early lyrics.

I have to acknowledge the permission to reprint one or two poems which have been previously published in magazines, or as songs.

R. R.

_December, 1882._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

A STAR-DREAM 1

THE DAISY 3

“THOSE DAYS ARE LONG DEPARTED” 4

IN APRIL 6

IN THE WOODS 7

A SUMMER SONG 8

THE BURDEN OF AUTUMN 10

“TO WONDER AND BE STILL” 11

AN ANSWER 13

THE POET 14

VICTORY 15

“AH! WILD SWANS” 16

DAY’S END 19

FROM THE ROADSIDE 20

A DIRGE FOR LOVE 22

NOS COLLINES D’AUTREFOIS 24

THE TWO GATES 25

GETTATI AL VENTO 26

THE SEA-KING’S GRAVE 29

DISILLUSION 33

ON THE BORDER HILLS 35

WHEN HE HAD FINISHED 36

THE LONELY BAY 37

MUSIC 40

WHAT HOLDS THEE BACK 41

WORDS FOR MUSIC 42

BELLA DONNA 47

JOSEPH BARA 46

IN CHARTRES CATHEDRAL 53

BY THE ANNIO 55

BY THE CRUCIFIX 58

“UNE HEURE VIENDRA QUI TOUT PAIERA” 60

IN THE ALPS 61

IN NÔTRE DAME DE 62

TWO SONNETS 67

AT LANUVIUM 69

A ROMAN MIRROR 71

THE SONG OF THE DEAD CHILD 73

NIGHT AT AVIGNON 78

WHERE THE RHONE GOES DOWN TO THE SEA 80

AT TIBER MOUTH 82

GARIBALDI IN ROME 88

ἙΡΑΝ ΤΩΝ ἉΔΥΝΑΤΩΝ 89

TRANSLATIONS 92

AVE ATQUE VALE 96

“IF ANY ONE RETURN” 99

HIC JACET 101

“WHEN I AM DEAD” 103

ST. CATHARINE OF EGYPT 105

ATALANTA 109

THEORETIKOS 111

ROME--I. FROM THE HILL OF GARDENS 114

II. IN THE COLISEUM 116

III. IN A CHURCH 117

SEA-PICTURES--FRANCE.

I. SUNSET 120

II. TWILIGHT 121

III. STORM 122

A LAST WORD 124

A STAR-DREAM.

There was a night when you and I Looked up from where we lay, When we were children, and the sky Was not so far away.

We looked towards the deep dark blue Beyond our window bars, And into all our dreaming drew The spirit of the stars.

We did not see the world asleep-- We were already there! We did not find the way so steep To climb that starry stair.

And faint at first and fitfully, Then sweet and shrill and near, We heard the eternal harmony That only angels hear;

And many a hue of many a gem We found for you to wear, And many a shining diadem To bind about your hair.

We saw beneath us faint and far The little cloudlets strewn, And I became a wandering star, And you became my moon.

Ah! have you found our starry skies? Where are you all the years? Oh, moon of many memories! Oh, star of many tears!

THE DAISY.

With little white leaves in the grasses, Spread wide for the smile of the sun, It waits till the daylight passes, And closes them one by one.

I have asked why it closed at even, And I know what it wished to say: There are stars all night in the heaven, And I am the star of day.

“THOSE DAYS ARE LONG DEPARTED.”

Those days are long departed, Gone where the dead dreams are, Since we two children started To look for the morning star.

We asked our way of the swallow In his language that we knew, We were sad we could not follow So swift the dark bird flew.

We set our wherry drifting Between the poplar trees, And the banks of meadows shifting Were the shores of unknown seas.

We talked of the white snow prairies That lie by the Northern lights, And of woodlands where the fairies Are seen in the moonlit nights.

Till one long day was over And we grew too tired to roam, And through the corn and clover We slowly wandered home.

Ah child! with love and laughter We had journeyed out so far; We who went in the big years after To look for another star;

But I go unbefriended Through wind and rain and foam,-- One day was hardly ended When the angel took you home.

IN APRIL.

The diamond dew lies cool In the violet cups athirst, The buds are ready to burst, The heart of the spring is full; Great clouds dream over the sky, The drops on the grass-blades glisten, The daffodil droops to listen As the wind from the South goes by, For it came through the sea cliffs hollow, With the dawning over the bay, And the swallow, it said, the swallow, The swallow comes home to-day.

IN THE WOODS.

This is a simple song That the world sings every day, Hark! as ye pass along Ye that go by the way! For the nightingale up in the oak-bough sings, “_Be loyal, be true, true, true_,” And the wood-dove sits with its folded wings, And answers “_to you, to you_.” And the thrush in the hedge, “_I am glad, be glad_,” And the linnet, “_let love, let live_,” And the wind in the rushes says, “_why so sad!_” And the wind in the trees “_forgive!_” While ever so high in the skies above The heart of the lark o’erflows, And “_I love, I love, and I love_,” Is the only song he knows. Hark! as ye pass along Ye that go by the way! This is the simple song That the world sings every day.

A SUMMER SONG.

Summer in the world and morning, the far hills were in the mist, And we watched the river borders, how the rush and ripple kist, While the bird sang “Whither, whither,” and the wind said, “Where I list.”

And we saw the yellow kingcup, and the arrowhead look through, From the silent, shallow waters, where the mirrored skies were blue, And the flags about the swan’s nest kept the secret that we knew.

In the hedge a thrush was singing, where the wild hopclusters are, And the lowly ragged-robin, with its frailly fretted star, While a soft wind brought the fragrance of the meadow-sweet from far.

All its blushing bells a’ ringing, on a bank the foxglove grows, Where the honeysuckle tangles in the thorns of the wild rose, And a sudden sea of blue-bells from the wood-side overflows.

And we watched the silver crescent of the wings of the wild dove Circle swiftly in the sunlight through the aspen tops above, And we felt the great world’s heart beat, in the gladness of our love.

THE BURDEN OF AUTUMN.

We are dying, said the flowers, All the days are out of tune, Spent are all the sungold hours, And the glory that was June, Dying, dying said the flowers. The snow will hide the garden bed While they sleep underground, Wild winds will drift it overhead, But they will slumber sound.

We are going, said the swallows, All the singing days are done, Summer’s over, winter follows, And we seek a warmer sun, Going southward, said the swallows. And I must watch them all depart And find no song to sing, Oh take the autumn from my heart And give me back the spring!

“TO WONDER AND BE STILL.”

Oft in the starry middle night I vex my heart in vain, To set its mystic music right, And find the hidden strain.

To-night the summer moon is strong, The little clouds drift past,-- The wonder is too deep for song-- The silence speaks at last.

“Thou canst not match those harmonies On moon-enamoured lute, Serenely silent arch the skies, And the great stars are mute;

“Thou canst not tune to thine unrest Their solemn calm above; In silence thou shalt worship best, And reverently love.

“Beyond this night in which thou art, There is a voice of spheres, Which the eternal in thine heart Remembers and reveres.

“But how they sing in unison Earth’s ear hath never heard, So only in thine heart rings on The song that has no word.”

AN ANSWER.

Take again thy shallow hearted reason Groping dimly through the night in which thou art! Very harmless fall the arrows of thy treason On the worship and the wonder in my heart.

I have drunk the everlasting fountains Flowing downward from the infinite to me, Seen the wonder of the moonrise in the mountains And the glory of the sunset on the sea.

THE POET.

HE will come again as oft of old among you, With his burden to fulfil;-- Did ye hearken ever to the songs they sung you Till the song was still?

HE will bear again the scorn, the idle wonder, And heart-hunger and love’s need; You will drown the sound of music in your thunder, And he will not heed.

Singing unperplexed above the mocking laughter Till his day be overpast; Till the music dies, and silence follows after And ye turn at last,--

Then when all the echoes breathe it and ye know it, Ye will seek him to revere; Cry aloud, and call him, master, lover, poet! And he will not hear.

VICTORY.

This then--to live and have no joy thereof, To thirst and hunger and be very tired, To walk unloved, or know if one should love It were a bitter thing that he desired, To have no home in all the earth, to be Mocked and derided and outcast of men, To squander love and labour, and to see No fruit of it, and yet to love, and then Bearing all slander silently alway, Serenely when the last reproach is hurled To look Death in the face alone, and say “Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.”

“AH! WILD SWANS!”

“Ah! wild swans winging southward, I would fly with you to-night; Southward, ever swiftly southward, through the autumn grey twilight.

“You will leave these downs and gullies, and the white cliffs far behind, Sailing on above the waters in the music of the wind.

“And the seamen on their highway looking up will see you fly, Like a misty shadow moving o’er the moon-illumined sky.

“Day and night and all things changing,--sunny skies and overcast,-- Till the cloud-engirdled mountains and the snowy peaks are passed.

“We should near the lands of laughter and the vines and olive trees, Watch the little sails at sundown sparkle out on summer seas;

“Day and night and ever flying till we reached the wonderland, And the seaward branching river, and the desert ways of sand;

“Saw beneath us standing lonely that grave bird that never sings, Like a solemn sentry guarding by the giant tombs of kings.

“And I think it would be sunset when our journeying was done, And the silver of your plumage would be crimsoned in the sun;

“In a pleasant land of palm-trees, where the lotus lilies grow, And the fruits of many flood-tides by the river borders blow;

“There forgetting and forgotten, and not any one to hear, I would sing to you, that sing not, all the winter of the year.”

Brighter burn the stars and colder, twilight deepens into night, Moans the wind among the willows, and the swans fade out of sight.

DAY’S END.

We watched how robed in royal red The slow sun sailed to rest, Through crimson cloud streaks islandèd In seas of glory o’er the west, I held your hand, and I heard you say, “What have we done for the world to-day?”

While still the mountain-heather glowed All songs were hushed, and through The twilight east the young moon showed Her frail white crescent in the blue; The silence sank profound and deep, The ways of earth were full of sleep; And the spirit of silence seemed to say, “What have ye done for the world to-day?”

FROM THE ROADSIDE.

Peace be with the little red-roofed church out yonder, With its quiet English village gathered round; With shade of great beech-trees on the grave-mounds under, And leaves of the Autumn over all the ground!

There go the rooks at even homeward flying! The sweet sense of home lies over all that land; The glow is on the tower of the daylight dying, And lovers in the shadow are walking hand-in-hand.

Here comes no voice from the middle world to move them, All the year round no memorable thing; Yet the great skies arch as beautiful above them, All the year through there are birds with them that sing.

Ah! well with you who calm and little knowing, Here in submission to your uneventful days, Leave the mad world to its coming and its going, Safe with God’s shadow on your evening ways!

A DIRGE FOR LOVE.

“What is this pitiful song ye sing, Shades of the passing hours? What is this beautiful young dead thing, Borne on a bier of flowers?”

“This is dead Love who, all night through, Beat at the fast-closed door; Wept his heart out waiting for you, Now he will beat no more!

“Here he dwelt for a night and day, Longer he might not wait; Never again will he pass this way, Therefore we sing ‘too late!’”

“Ah, but the door of my heart within, Was it not alway wide? Had he not wings to have entered in, Why did he beat outside?”

“Once he came, though his eyes were blind, Up to the outer door; The way within was too hard to find, Peace! For he wakes no more.”

“Yet ye knew I had waited long, Was I not always true? How could I will sweet Love this wrong-- Where do ye bear him to?”

“Back to the land where he lives again, Over the westward strand; Over the waves and the cloud domain, Into the rainbow land!”

“Then, sweet spirits, do this for grace, Set my heart on his bier; So, when he comes to his resting-place, Love may awake and hear!”

NOS COLLINES D’AUTREFOIS.

Can you remember when we dwelt together, In the golden land of childhood long ago; Up on our mountain heights in the clear weather, How we longed to see the valleys down below?

Lands so lovely never found we after,-- Oh, our winters with the wonder of their snows; Oh, the swallows of our spring-time, and the laughter, Oh, the starnight of our summers and the rose!

Well-belovèd in that land were all the faces, None are like them of these dwellers in the plain; Oh, why did we come down from our high places! We can never climb the bitter hills again!

THE TWO GATES.

Two gates--and one was morning’s, gold with gleams Of sudden sunlight, and clear skies above Ways where the air is musical with love, And summer singing in a land of streams:

One sad with twilight and low sound that seems Like the marred song-voice of a broken heart, Where life and love sit evermore apart, And look back longing to the gate of dreams.

Time was, I wandered in those sunlit lands, And felt the glamour in my wakening eyes; But now with sword aflame the angel stands, Pointing the threshold of the gate of gloom; While through the monotone of human cries, Upsoars this pitiless, “fulfil thy doom!”

GETTATI AL VENTO.

I.

The sea swallows wheel and fly To their homes in the grey cliff-side; And the silent ships drift by, The world and its ways are wide!

Oh, which of you wandering sails Will carry a word from me? Spread all your wings in the gales, Fly fast to her northern sea!

Go say to my heart’s desired, Too long from her side I roam, And say I am tired, tired, And I would she would call me home!

II.

I thought that I wandered, wandered, All night till the dawn of day, And I came to the house she dwells in, A hundred miles away:

So I watched the hills grow golden, I heard the birds begin, And she came to open her window, And let the morning in.

But when she would not greet me, And I called to her all in vain, I awoke, and knew I was dreaming, But I could not sleep again.

* * * * *

I.

What shadow is this of dead delight, That thou art dreaming of? Oh, heart, what ails thee in the evenlight, And is it thine old burden love, That wistful-eyed, like one who roams, I stand and watch from far, The peace of sunset over quiet homes, And the belovéd evening star?

II.

Are not the heavens wide? And yet, Until all journeyings be done, No star shall change the orbit set, That marks its journey round the sun.

And, sweet, we travel down our days, As the stars wander in their sky; We cannot change our fated ways, But meet and greet and hasten by.

III.

I breathed a name once and again, I said a bitter thing in my pain, “I gave you all my love, and I spent it all in vain!”

Then I saw a form across the night Glide down the stars in a veil of light, And I said, “Who are you, dweller of the Infinite?”

And I heard a voice on the stilly air, “You chide amiss in your own despair; Lo, I am the soul of her love, and I follow you everywhere!”

THE SEA-KING’S GRAVE.

High over the wild sea-border, on the furthest downs to the west, Is the green grave-mound of the Norseman, with the yew-tree grove on its crest. And I heard in the winds his story, as they leapt up salt from the wave, And tore at the creaking branches that grow from the sea-king’s grave. Some son of the old-world Vikings, the wild sea-wandering lords, Who sailed in a snake-prowed galley, with a terror of twenty swords. From the fiords of the sunless winter, they came on an icy blast, Till over the whole world’s sea-board the shadow of Odin passed, Till they sped to the inland waters and under the South-land skies, And stared on the puny princes, with their blue victorious eyes. And they said he was old and royal, and a warrior all his days, But the king who had slain his brother lived yet in the island ways; And he came from a hundred battles, and died in his last wild quest, For he said, “I will have my vengeance, and then I will take my rest.”

He had passed on his homeward journey, and the king of the isles was dead; He had drunken the draught of triumph, and his cup was the And he spoke of the song and feasting, and the gladness of things to be, And three days over the waters they rowed on a waveless sea; Till a small cloud rose to the shoreward, and a gust broke out of the cloud, And the spray beat over the rowers, and the murmur of winds was loud With the voice of the far-off thunders, till the shuddering air grew warm, And the day was as dark as at even, and the wild god rode on the storm. But the old man laughed in the thunder as he set his casque on his brow, And he waved his sword in the lightning and clung to the painted prow. And a shaft from the storm-god’s quiver flashed out from the flame-flushed skies, Rang down on his war-worn harness and gleamed in his fiery eyes, And his mail and his crested helmet, and his hair, and his beard burned red; And they said, “It is Odin calls;” and he fell, and they found him dead.

So here, in his war-guise armoured, they laid him down to his rest, In his casque with the rein-deer antlers, and the long grey beard on his breast; His bier was the spoil of the islands, with a sail for a shroud beneath, And an oar of his blood-red galley, and his battle-brand in the sheath; And they buried his bow beside him, and planted the grove of yew, For the grave of a mighty archer, one tree for each of his crew; Where the flowerless cliffs are sheerest, where the sea-birds circle and swarm, And the rocks are at war with the waters, with their jagged grey teeth in the storm; And the huge Atlantic billows sweep in, and the mists enclose The hill with the grass-grown mound where the Norseman’s yew-tree grows.

DISILLUSION.

Ah! what would youth be doing To hoist his crimson sails, To leave the wood-doves cooing, The song of nightingales; To leave this woodland quiet For murmuring winds at strife, For waves that foam and riot About the seas of life?

From still bays, silver sanded, Wild currents hasten down To rocks where ships are stranded And eddies where men drown. Far out, by hills surrounded, Is the golden haven gate, And all beyond unbounded Are shoreless seas of fate.

They steer for those far highlands Across the summer tide And dream of fairy islands Upon the further side. They only see the sunlight, The flashing of gold bars; But the other side is moonlight And glimmer of pale stars.