Part 2
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 isle-king's head; 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 lightnings and clung to the painted prow. And the shaft of 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.
A ROMAN MIRROR
They found it in her hollow marble bed, There where the numberless dead cities sleep, They found it lying where the spade struck deep, A broken mirror by a maiden dead.
These things--the beads she wore about her throat Alternate blue and amber all untied, A lamp to light her way, and on one side The toll men pay to that strange ferry-boat.
No trace to-day of what in her was fair! Only the record of long years grown green Upon the mirror's lustreless dead sheen, Grown dim at last, when all else withered there.
Dead, broken, lustreless! It keeps for me One picture of that immemorial land, For oft as I have held thee in my hand The dull bronze brightens, and I dream to see
A fair face gazing in thee wondering wise, And o'er one marble shoulder all the while Strange lips that whisper till her own lips smile, And all the mirror laughs about her eyes.
It was well thought to set thee there, so she Might smooth the windy ripples of her hair And knot their tangled waywardness, or ere She stood before the queen Persephone.
And still it may be where the dead folk rest She holds a shadowy mirror to her eyes, And looks upon the changelessness, and sighs And sets the dead land lilies in her breast.
1879.
BY THE SOUTH SEA
So here we have sat by the sea so late, And you with your dreaming eyes Have argued well what I know you hate, Till even my own dream dies.
Yet why will you smile at my old white years When love was a gift divine, When songs were laughter and hope and tears, And art was a people's shrine?
Must I change the burdens I loved to sing, The words of my worn-out song? The old fair thoughts have a hollow ring, My faiths have been dead so long.
And yet,--to have known that one did not know! To have dreamed with the poet priest! To have hope to feel that it might be so! And theirs was a faith at least.
When the priest was poet, and hearts were fain Of marvellous things to dream, To see God's tears in a cloud of rain, And his hair on a gold sunbeam;
To know that the sons of the old Sea King Roamed under their waves at will, To have heard a song that the wood gods sing On the other side of the hill!
And so I had held it,--for all things blend In the world's great harmony,-- That they served an end to an after-end, And were of the things that be.
But now ye are bidding _your_ God god-speed With his lore upon dusty shelves; So wise ye are grown, ye have found no need For any god but yourselves.
Ye have learnt the riddle of seas and sand, Of leaves in the spring uncurled; There is no room left for my wonderland In the whole of the great wide world.
And what have ye left for a song to say? What now is a singer's fame? He may startle the ear with a word one day, And die,--and live in a name.
But the world has heed unto no fair thing, Men pass on their soulless ways, They give no faith unto those who sing, --Give hardly a heartless praise.
But you say, Let us go unto all wide lands, Let us speak to the people's heart! Let us make good use of our lips and hands, There is hope for the world in art!
Will the dull ears hear, will the dead souls see? Will they know what we hardly know? The chords of the wonderful harmony Of the earth and the skies?--if so--
We have talked too long till it all seems vain, The desire and the hopes that fired, The triumphs won and the needless pain, And the heart that has hoped is tired.
Do you see down there where the high cliffs shrink, And the ripples break on the bay, Our old sea boat at the white foam brink With the sail slackened down half-way?
Shall we get hence? O fair heart's brother! You are weary at heart with me, We two alone in the world, no other: Shall we go to our wide kind sea?
Shall we glide away in this white moon's track? Does it not seem fair in your eyes! --To drift and drift with our white sail black In the dreamful light of the skies,
Till the pale stars die, and some far fair shore Comes up through the morning haze, And wandering hearts shall not wander more Far off from the mad world's ways.
Or still more fair--when the dim scared night Grows pale from the east to the west-- If the waters gather us home, and the light Break through on the waves' unrest,
And there in the gleam of the gold-washed sea, Which the smile of the morning brings, Our souls shall fathom the mystery, And the riddle of all these things.
1879.
IN A CHURCH
This was the first shrine lit for Queen Marie; And I will sit a little at her feet, For winds without howl down the narrow street And storm-clouds gather from the westward sea.
Sweet here to watch the peasant people pray, While through the crimson-shrouded window falls Low light of even, and the golden walls Grow dim and dreamful at the end of day,
Till from these columns fades their marble sheen, And lines grow soft and mystical,--these wraiths That watch the service of the changing faiths, To Mary mother from the Cyprian queen.
But aye for me this old-word colonnade Seems open to blue summer skies once more, These altars pass, and on the polished floor I see the lines of chequered light and shade;
I seem to see the dark-browed Lybian lean To cool the tortured burning of the lash, I see the fountains as they leap and flash, The rustling sway of cypress set between.
And now yon friar with the bare feet there, Is grown the haunting spirit of the place; Ah! brown-robed friar with the shaven face, The saints are weary of thy mumbled prayer.
From matins' bell to the slow day's decline He sits and thumbs his endless round of beads, Drawls out the dreary cadence of his creeds And nods assent to each familiar line.
But she the goddess whose white star is set, Whose fane was pillaged for this sombre shrine, Could she look down upon those lips of thine, And hear thee mutter, would she still regret?
There came a sound of singing on my ear, And slowly glided through the far-off door A glimmer of grey forms like ghosts, they bore A dead man lying on his purple bier.
Some poor man's soul, so little candle smoke Went curling upwards by the uncased shroud, And then a sudden thunder-clap broke loud, And drowned the droning of the priest who spoke.
So all the shuffling feet passed out again To lightnings flashing through the wet and wind, And while I lingered in the gate behind The dead man travelled through the storm and rain.
ROME, 1881.
AT LANUVIUM
"_Festo quid potius die Neptuni faciam._"
HORACE, _Odes_, iii. 28.
Spring grew to perfect summer in one day, And we lay there among the vines, to gaze Where Circe's isle floats purple, far away Above the golden haze:
And on our ears there seemed to rise and fall The burden of an old world song we knew, That sang, "To-day is Neptune's festival, And we, what shall we do?"
Go down brown-armed Campagna maid of mine, And bring again the earthen jar that lies With three years' dust above the mellow wine; And while the swift day dies,
You first shall sing a song of waters blue, Paphos and Cnidos in the summer seas, And one who guides her swan-drawn chariot through The white-shored Cyclades;
And I will take the second turn of song, Of floating tresses in the foam and surge Where Nereid maids about the sea-god throng; And night shall have her dirge.
1881.
"IF ANY ONE RETURN"
I would we had carried him far away To the light of this south sun land. Where the hills lean down to some red-rocked bay And the sea's blue breaks into snow-white spray As the wave dies out on the sand.
Not there, not there, where the winds deface! Where the storm and the cloud race by! But far away in this flowerful place Where endless summers retouch, retrace, What flowers find heart to die.
And if ever the souls of the loved, set free, Come back to the souls that stay, I could dream he would sit for a while with me Where I sit by this wonderful tideless sea And look to the red-rocked bay,
By the high cliff's edge where the wild weeds twine, And he would not speak or move, But his eyes would gaze from his soul at mine, My eyes that would answer without one sign, And that were enough for love.
And I think I should feel as the sun went round That he was not there any more, But dews were wet on the grass-grown mound On the bed of my love lying underground, And evening pale on the shore.
1879.
* * * * *
SONNETS
"UNE HEURE VIENDRA QUI TOUT PAIERA"
It was a tomb in Flanders, old and grey, A knight in armour, lying dead, unknown Among the long-forgotten, yet the stone Cried out for vengeance where the dead man lay;
No name was chiselled at his side to say What wrongs his spirit thirsted to atone, Only the armour with green moss o'ergrown, And those grim words no years had worn away.
It may be haply in the songs of old His deeds were wonders to sweet music set, His name the thunder of a battle call, Among the things forgotten and untold; His only record is the dead man's threat,-- "An hour will come that shall atone for all!"
1879.
ACTEA
When the last bitterness was past, she bore Her singing Cæsar to the Garden Hill, Her fallen pitiful dead emperor. She lifted up the beggar's cloak he wore --The one thing living he would not kill-- And on those lips of his that sang no more, That world-loathed head which she found lovely still, Her cold lips closed, in death she had her will.
Oh wreck of the lost human soul left free To gorge the beast thy mask of manhood screened! Because one living thing, albeit a slave, Shed those hot tears on thy dishonoured grave, Although thy curse be as the shoreless sea, Because she loved, thou art not wholly fiend.
1881.
IMPERATOR AUGUSTUS
Is this the man by whose decree abide The lives of countless nations, with the trace Of fresh tears wet upon the hard cold face? --He wept, because a little child had died.
They set a marble image by his side, A sculptured Eros, ready for the chase; It wore the dead boy's features, and the grace Of pretty ways that were the old man's pride.
And so he smiled, grown softer now, and tired Of too much empire, and it seemed a joy Fondly to stroke and pet the curly head, The smooth round limbs so strangely like the dead, To kiss the white lips of his marble boy And call by name his little heart's-desired.
1879.
"ATQUE IN PERPETUUM FRATER AVE ATQUE VALE"
This was the end love made,--the hard-drawn breath, The last long sigh that ever man sighs here; And then for us, the great unanswered fear, Will love live on,--the other side of death?
Only a year, and I had hoped to spend A life of pleasant communing, to be A kindred spirit holding fast to thee, We never thought that love had such an end.
This was the end love made, for our delight, For one sweet year he cannot take away;-- Those tapers burning in the dim half-light, Those kneeling women with a cross that pray, And there, beneath green leaves and lilies white, Beyond the reach of love, our loved one lay.
1879.
ON THE BORDER HILLS
So the dark shadows deepen in the trees That crown the border mountains, all the air Is filled with mist-begotten phantasies, Shaped and transfigured in the sunset glare. What wildly spurring warrior-wraiths are these? What tossing headgear, and what red-gold hair? What lances flashing, what far trumpet's blare That dies along the desultory breeze?
Slow night comes creeping with her misty wings Up to the hill's crest, where the yew trees grow; About their shadow-haunted circle clings The rumour of an unrecorded woe, Old as the battle of those border kings Slain in the darkling hollow-lands below.
1881.
* * * * *
SONGS
LONG AFTER
I see your white arras gliding, In music o'er the keys, Long drooping lashes hiding A blue like summer seas: The sweet lips wide asunder, That tremble as you sing, I could not choose but wonder, You seemed so fair a thing.
For all these long years after The dream has never died, I still can hear your laughter, Still see you at my side; One lily hiding under The waves of golden hair; I could not choose but wonder, You were so strangely fair.
I keep the flower you braided Among those waves of gold, The leaves are sere and faded, And like our love grown old. Our lives have lain asunder, The years are long, and yet, I could not choose but wonder. I cannot quite forget.
1880.
"WHERE THE RHONE GOES DOWN TO THE SEA"
A sweet still night of the vintage time, Where the Rhone goes down to the sea; The distant sound of a midnight chime Comes over the wave to me. Only the hills and the stars o'erhead Bring back dreams of the days long dead, While the Rhone goes down to the sea.
The years are long, and the world is wide, And we all went down to the sea; The ripples splash as we onward glide, And I dream they are here with me-- All lost friends whom we all loved so, In the old mad life of long ago, Who all went down to the sea.
So we passed in the golden days With the summer down to the sea. They wander still over weary ways, And come not again to me. I am here alone with the night wind's sigh, The fading stars, and a dream gone by, And the Rhone going down to the sea.
1880.
A SONG OF AUTUMN
All through the golden weather Until the autumn fell, Our lives went by together So wildly and so well.--
But autumn's wind uncloses The heart of all your flowers, I think as with the roses, So hath it been with ours.
Like some divided river Your ways and mine will be, --To drift apart for ever, For ever till the sea.
And yet for one word spoken, One whisper of regret, The dream had not been broken And love were with us yet.
1880.
"Ερωτοϛ" Ανδοϛ
The autumn wind goes sighing Through the quivering aspen tree, The swallows will be flying Toward their summer sea; The grapes begin to sweeten On the trellised vine above, And on my brows have beaten The little wings of love. Oh wind if you should meet her You will whisper all I sing! Oh swallow fly to greet her, And bring me word in spring!
1881.
* * * * *
ATALANTA
Wait not along the shore, they will not come; The suns go down beyond the windy seas, Those weary sails shall never wing them home O'er this white foam; No voice from these On any landward wind that dies among the trees.
Gone south, it may be, rudderless, astray, Gone where the winds and ocean currents bore, Out of all tracks along the sea's highway This many a day, To some far shore Where never wild seas break, or any fierce winds roar.
For there are lands ye never recked of yet Between the blue of stormless sea and sky, Beyond where any suns of yours have set, Or these waves fret; And loud winds die In cloudless summertide, where those far islands lie.
They will not come! for on the coral shore The good ship lies, by little waves caressed, All stormy ways and wanderings are o'er, No more, no more! But long sweet rest, In cool green meadow-lands, that lie along the West.
Or if beneath far fathom depths of waves She lies heeled over by the slow tide's sweep, Deep down where never any swift sea raves, Through ocean caves, A dreaming deep Of softly gliding forms, a glimmering world of sleep.
Then have they passed beyond the outer gate Through death to knowledge of all things, and so From out the silence of their unknown fate They bid us wait, Who only know That twixt their loves and ours the great seas ebb and flow.
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.
1881.
"WHEN I AM DEAD"
When I am dead, my spirit Shall wander far and free, Through realms the dead inherit Of earth and sky and sea; Through morning dawn and gloaming, By midnight moons at will, By shores where the waves are foaming, By seas where the waves are still. I, following late behind you, In wingless sleepless flight, Will wander till I find you, In sunshine or twilight; With silent kiss for greeting On lips and eyes and head, In that strange after-meeting Shall love be perfected. We shall lie in summer breezes And pass where whirlwinds go, And the Northern blast that freezes Shall bear us with the snow. We shall stand above the thunder, And watch the lightnings hurled At the misty mountains under, Of the dim forsaken world. We shall find our footsteps' traces, And passing hand in hand By old familiar places, We shall laugh, and understand.
1881.
AFTER HEINE
The leaves are falling, falling, The yellow treetops wave, Ah, all delight and beauty Is drawing to the grave.
About the wood's crest flicker The wan sun's laggard rays, They are the parting kisses Of fleeting summer days.
Meseems I should be shedding The heart's-tears from my eyes, The day will keep recalling The time of our good-byes:
I knew that you were dying And I must pass away, Oh I was the waning summer, And you were the wood's decay.
1881.
"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 blue 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.
1881.
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 toward 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;