Chapter 3

THE little white clouds are racing over the sky, And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March, The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze, The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth, The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth, Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring, And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar, And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green, And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.

See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there, Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew, And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue! The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.

THEOCRITUS A VILLANELLE

O SINGER of Persephone! In the dim meadows desolate Dost thou remember Sicily?

Still through the ivy flits the bee Where Amaryllis lies in state; O Singer of Persephone!

Simætha calls on Hecate And hears the wild dogs at the gate; Dost thou remember Sicily?

Still by the light and laughing sea Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate; O Singer of Persephone!

And still in boyish rivalry Young Daphnis challenges his mate; Dost thou remember Sicily?

Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee, For thee the jocund shepherds wait; O Singer of Persephone! Dost thou remember Sicily?

GREECE

THE sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky Burned like a heated opal through the air; We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak, And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. The flapping of the sail against the mast, The ripple of the water on the side, The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern, The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn, And a red sun upon the seas to ride, I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!

KATAKOLO.

PORTIA TO ELLEN TERRY

(_Written at the Lyceum Theatre_)

I MARVEL not Bassanio was so bold To peril all he had upon the lead, Or that proud Aragon bent low his head Or that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold: For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold Which is more golden than the golden sun No woman Veronesé looked upon Was half so fair as thou whom I behold. Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield The sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned, And would not let the laws of Venice yield Antonio’s heart to that accursèd Jew— O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due: I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.

FABIEN DEI FRANCHI TO MY FRIEND HENRY IRVING

THE silent room, the heavy creeping shade, The dead that travel fast, the opening door, The murdered brother rising through the floor, The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid, And then the lonely duel in the glade, The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore, Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,— These things are well enough,—but thou wert made For more august creation! frenzied Lear Should at thy bidding wander on the heath With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear Pluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath— Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow!

PHÈDRE TO SARAH BERNHARDT

HOW vain and dull this common world must seem To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked At Florence with Mirandola, or walked Through the cool olives of the Academe: Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played With the white girls in that Phæacian glade Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.

Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again Back to this common world so dull and vain, For thou wert weary of the sunless day, The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.

SONNET

ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL

NAY, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love Than terrors of red flame and thundering. The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring: A bird at evening flying to its nest Tells me of One who had no place of rest: I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing. Come rather on some autumn afternoon, When red and brown are burnished on the leaves, And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song, Come when the splendid fulness of the moon Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves, And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.

AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA

WAS this His coming! I had hoped to see A scene of wondrous glory, as was told Of some great God who in a rain of gold Broke open bars and fell on Danae: Or a dread vision as when Semele Sickening for love and unappeased desire Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly: With such glad dreams I sought this holy place, And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand Before this supreme mystery of Love: Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face, An angel with a lily in his hand, And over both the white wings of a Dove.

FLORENCE.

LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES

ALBEIT nurtured in democracy, And liking best that state republican Where every man is Kinglike and no man Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, Better the rule of One, whom all obey, Than to let clamorous demagogues betray Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, Or Murder with his silent bloody feet.

ROSES AND RUE

(To L. L.)

COULD we dig up this long-buried treasure, Were it worth the pleasure, We never could learn love’s song, We are parted too long.

Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead, Could we live it all over again, Were it worth the pain!

I remember we used to meet By an ivied seat, And you warbled each pretty word With the air of a bird;

And your voice had a quaver in it, Just like a linnet, And shook, as the blackbird’s throat With its last big note;

And your eyes, they were green and grey Like an April day, But lit into amethyst When I stooped and kissed;

And your mouth, it would never smile For a long, long while, Then it rippled all over with laughter Five minutes after.

You were always afraid of a shower, Just like a flower: I remember you started and ran When the rain began.

I remember I never could catch you, For no one could match you, You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, Little wings to your feet.

I remember your hair—did I tie it? For it always ran riot— Like a tangled sunbeam of gold: These things are old.

I remember so well the room, And the lilac bloom That beat at the dripping pane In the warm June rain;

And the colour of your gown, It was amber-brown, And two yellow satin bows From your shoulders rose.

And the handkerchief of French lace Which you held to your face— Had a small tear left a stain? Or was it the rain?

On your hand as it waved adieu There were veins of blue; In your voice as it said good-bye Was a petulant cry,

‘You have only wasted your life.’ (Ah, that was the knife!) When I rushed through the garden gate It was all too late.

Could we live it over again, Were it worth the pain, Could the passionate past that is fled Call back its dead!

Well, if my heart must break, Dear love, for your sake, It will break in music, I know, Poets’ hearts break so.

But strange that I was not told That the brain can hold In a tiny ivory cell God’s heaven and hell.

FROM ‘THE GARDEN OF EROS’

[_In this poem the author laments the growth of materialism in the nineteenth century_. _He hails Keats and Shelley and some of the poets and artists who were his contemporaries_, _although his seniors_, _as the torch-bearers of the intellectual life_. _Among these are Swinburne_, _William Morris_, _Rossetti_, _and Brune-Jones_.]

NAY, when Keats died the Muses still had left One silver voice to sing his threnody, {128} But ah! too soon of it we were bereft When on that riven night and stormy sea Panthea claimed her singer as her own, And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk alone,

Save for that fiery heart, that morning star {129} Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,

And he hath been with thee at Thessaly, And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot In passionless and fierce virginity Hunting the tuskèd boar, his honied lute Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill, And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.

And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine, And sung the Galilæan’s requiem, That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him Have found their last, most ardent worshipper, And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.

Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still, It is not quenched the torch of poesy, The star that shook above the Eastern hill Holds unassailed its argent armoury From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight— O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child, Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed, With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled The weary soul of man in troublous need, And from the far and flowerless fields of ice Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.

We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride, Aslaug and Olafson we know them all, How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died, And what enchantment held the king in thrall When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,

Long listless summer hours when the noon Being enamoured of a damask rose Forgets to journey westward, till the moon The pale usurper of its tribute grows From a thin sickle to a silver shield And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy field

Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight, At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come Almost before the blackbird finds a mate And overstay the swallow, and the hum Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves, Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,

And through their unreal woes and mimic pain Wept for myself, and so was purified, And in their simple mirth grew glad again; For as I sailed upon that pictured tide The strength and splendour of the storm was mine Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;

The little laugh of water falling down Is not so musical, the clammy gold Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town Has less of sweetness in it, and the old Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.

Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile! Although the cheating merchants of the mart With iron roads profane our lovely isle, And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art, Ay! though the crowded factories beget The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!

For One at least there is,—He bears his name From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,—{136} Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame To light thine altar; He {137} too loves thee well, Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare, And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,

Loves thee so well, that all the World for him A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear, And Sorrow take a purple diadem, Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery

Which Painters hold, and such the heritage This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess, Being a better mirror of his age In all his pity, love, and weariness, Than those who can but copy common things, And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

But they are few, and all romance has flown, And men can prophesy about the sun, And lecture on his arrows—how, alone, Through a waste void the soulless atoms run, How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled, And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.

THE HARLOT’S HOUSE

WE caught the tread of dancing feet, We loitered down the moonlit street, And stopped beneath the harlot’s house.

Inside, above the din and fray, We heard the loud musicians play The ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques, Making fantastic arabesques, The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin To sound of horn and violin, Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons, Slim silhouetted skeletons Went sidling through the slow quadrille,

Then took each other by the hand, And danced a stately saraband; Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed A phantom lover to her breast, Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette Came out, and smoked its cigarette Upon the steps like a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said, ‘The dead are dancing with the dead, The dust is whirling with the dust.’

But she—she heard the violin, And left my side, and entered in: Love passed into the house of lust.

Then suddenly the tune went false, The dancers wearied of the waltz, The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

And down the long and silent street, The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, Crept like a frightened girl.

FROM ‘THE BURDEN OF ITYS’

THIS English Thames is holier far than Rome, Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea Breaking across the woodland, with the foam Of meadow-sweet and white anemone To fleck their blue waves,—God is likelier there Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!

Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take Yon creamy lily for their pavilion Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake A lazy pike lies basking in the sun, His eyes half shut,—he is some mitred old Bishop in _partibus_! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.

The wind the restless prisoner of the trees Does well for Palæstrina, one would say The mighty master’s hands were on the keys Of the Maria organ, which they play When early on some sapphire Easter morn In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne

From his dark House out to the Balcony Above the bronze gates and the crowded square, Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy To toss their silver lances in the air, And stretching out weak hands to East and West In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.

Is not yon lingering orange after-glow That stays to vex the moon more fair than all Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago I knelt before some crimson Cardinal Who bare the Host across the Esquiline, And now—those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.

The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring Through this cool evening than the odorous Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing, When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine, And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine.

Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the Mass Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass I see that throbbing throat which once I heard On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady, Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.

Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe, And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate.

And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas, And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay, And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees That round and round the linden blossoms play; And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall, And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall,

And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring While the last violet loiters by the well, And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing The song of Linus through a sunny dell Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.

* * * * *

It was a dream, the glade is tenantless, No soft Ionian laughter moves the air, The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness, And from the copse left desolate and bare Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry, Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody

So sad, that one might think a human heart Brake in each separate note, a quality Which music sometimes has, being the Art Which is most nigh to tears and memory; Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear? Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,

Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade, No woven web of bloody heraldries, But mossy dells for roving comrades made, Warm valleys where the tired student lies With half-shut book, and many a winding walk Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.

The harmless rabbit gambols with its young Across the trampled towing-path, where late A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight; The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads, Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds

Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock, And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill, And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill.

The heron passes homeward to the mere, The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, Gold world by world the silent stars appear, And like a blossom blown before the breeze A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky, Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.

She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed, She knows Endymion is not far away; ’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reed Which has no message of its own to play, So pipes another’s bidding, it is I, Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.

Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill About the sombre woodland seems to cling Dying in music, else the air is still, So still that one might hear the bat’s small wing Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming cell.

And far away across the lengthening wold, Across the willowy flats and thickets brown, Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous gold Marks the long High Street of the little town, And warns me to return; I must not wait, Hark! ’t is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.

FLOWER OF LOVE

SWEET, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song, Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some Hydra-headed wrong.

Had my lips been smitten into music by the kisses that but made them bleed, You had walked with Bice and the angels on that verdant and enamelled mead.

I had trod the road which Dante treading saw the suns of seven circles shine, Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening, as they opened to the Florentine.

And the mighty nations would have crowned me, who am crownless now and without name, And some orient dawn had found me kneeling on the threshold of the House of Fame.

I had sat within that marble circle where the oldest bard is as the young, And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the lyre’s strings are ever strung.

Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out the poppy-seeded wine, With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, clasped the hand of noble love in mine.

And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms brush the burnished bosom of the dove, Two young lovers lying in an orchard would have read the story of our love;

Would have read the legend of my passion, known the bitter secret of my heart, Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as we two are fated now to part.

For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the cankerworm of truth, And no hand can gather up the fallen withered petals of the rose of youth.

Yet I am not sorry that I loved you—ah! what else had I a boy to do,— For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the silent-footed years pursue.

Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and when once the storm of youth is past, Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death the silent pilot comes at last.

And within the grave there is no pleasure, for the blindworm battens on the root, And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree of Passion bears no fruit.

Ah! what else had I to do but love you? God’s own mother was less dear to me, And less dear the Cytheræan rising like an argent lily from the sea.

I have made my choice, have lived my poems, and, though youth is gone in wasted days, I have found the lover’s crown of myrtle better than the poet’s crown of bays.

FOOTNOTES

{128} Shelley.

{129} Swinburne.

{136} Rossetti.

{137} Burne-Jones.