Chapter 2
As when one wakes out of a waning dream And sees with instant eyes the naked thought Whereof the vision as a web was wrought, I saw beneath a heaven of cloud and gleam, Ere yet the heart of the young sun waxed brave, One like a prophet standing by a grave.
In the hoar heaven was hardly beam or breath, And all the coloured hills and fields were grey, And the wind wandered seeking for the day, And wailed as though he had found her done to death And this grey hour had built to bury her The hollow twilight for a sepulchre.
But in my soul I saw as in a glass A pale and living body full of grace There lying, and over it the prophet’s face Fixed; and the face was not of Tiresias, For such a starry fire was in his eyes As though their light it was that made the skies.
Such eyes should God’s have been when very love Looked forth of them and set the sun aflame, And such his lips that called the light by name And bade the morning forth at sound thereof; His face was sad and masterful as fate, And like a star’s his look compassionate.
Like a star’s gazed on of sad eyes so long It seems to yearn with pity, and all its fire As a man’s heart to tremble with desire And heave as though the light would bring forth song; Yet from his face flashed lightning on the land, And like the thunder-bearer’s was his hand.
The steepness of strange stairs had tired his feet, And his lips yet seemed sick of that salt bread Wherewith the lips of banishment are fed; But nothing was there in the world so sweet As the most bitter love, like God’s own grace, Wherewith he gazed on that fair buried face.
Grief and glad pride and passion and sharp shame, Wrath and remembrance, faith and hope and hate And pitiless pity of days degenerate, Were in his eyes as an incorporate flame That burned about her, and the heart thereof And central flower was very fire of love.
But all about her grave wherein she slept Were noises of the wild wind-footed years Whose footprints flying were full of blood and tears, Shrieks as of Mænads on their hills that leapt And yelled as beasts of ravin, and their meat Was the rent flesh of their own sons to eat:
And fiery shadows passing with strange cries, And Sphinx-like shapes about the ruined lands, And the red reek of parricidal hands And intermixture of incestuous eyes, And light as of that self-divided flame Which made an end of the Cadmean name.
And I beheld again, and lo the grave, And the bright body laid therein as dead, And the same shadow across another head That bowed down silent on that sleeping slave Who was the lady of empire from her birth And light of all the kingdoms of the earth.
Within the compass of the watcher’s hand All strengths of other men and divers powers Were held at ease and gathered up as flowers; His heart was as the heart of his whole land, And at his feet as natural servants lay Twilight and dawn and night and labouring day.
He was most awful of the sons of God. Even now men seeing seemed at his lips to see The trumpet of the judgment that should be, And in his right hand terror for a rod, And in the breath that made the mountains bow The horned fire of Moses on his brow.
The strong wind of the coming of the Lord Had blown as flame upon him, and brought down On his bare head from heaven fire for a crown, And fire was girt upon him as a sword To smite and lighten, and on what ways he trod There fell from him the shadow of a God.
Pale, with the whole world’s judgment in his eyes, He stood and saw the grief and shame endure That he, though highest of angels might not cure, And the same sins done under the same skies, And the same slaves to the same tyrants thrown, And fain he would have slept, and fain been stone.
But with unslumbering eyes he watched the sleep That sealed her sense whose eyes were suns of old; And the night shut and opened, and behold, The same grave where those prophets came to weep, But she that lay therein had moved and stirred, And where those twain had watched her stood a third.
The tripled rhyme that closed in Paradise With Love’s name sealing up its starry speech— The tripled might of hand that found in reach All crowns beheld far off of all men’s eyes, Song, colour, carven wonders of live stone— These were not, but the very soul alone.
The living spirit, the good gift of grace, The faith which takes of its own blood to give That the dead veins of buried hope may live, Came on her sleeping, face to naked face, And from a soul more sweet than all the south Breathed love upon her sealed and breathless mouth.
Between her lips the breath was blown as fire, And through her flushed veins leapt the liquid life, And with sore passion and ambiguous strife The new birth rent her and the new desire, The will to live, the competence to be, The sense to hearken and the soul to see.
And the third prophet standing by her grave Stretched forth his hand and touched her, and her eyes Opened as sudden suns in heaven might rise, And her soul caught from his the faith to save; Faith above creeds, faith beyond records, born Of the pure, naked, fruitful, awful morn.
For in the daybreak now that night was dead The light, the shadow, the delight, the pain, The purpose and the passion of those twain, Seemed gathered on that third prophetic head, And all their crowns were as one crown, and one His face with her face in the living sun.
For even with that communion of their eyes His whole soul passed into her and made her strong; And all the sounds and shows of shame and wrong, The hand that slays, the lip that mocks and lies, Temples and thrones that yet men seem to see— Are these dead or art thou dead, Italy?
THE SONG OF THE STANDARD
MAIDEN most beautiful, mother most bountiful, lady of lands, Queen and republican, crowned of the centuries whose years are thy sands, See for thy sake what we bring to thee, Italy, here in our hands.
This is the banner thy gonfalon, fair in the front of thy fight, Red from the hearts that were pierced for thee, white as thy mountains are white, Green as the spring of thy soul everlasting, whose life-blood is light.
Take to thy bosom thy banner, a fair bird fit for the nest, Feathered for flight into sunrise or sunset, for eastward or west, Fledged for the flight everlasting, but held yet warm to thy breast.
Gather it close to thee, song-bird or storm-bearer, eagle or dove, Lift it to sunward, a beacon beneath to the beacon above, Green as our hope in it, white as our faith in it, red as our love.
Thunder and splendour of lightning are hid in the folds of it furled; Who shall unroll it but thou, as thy bolt to be handled and hurled, Out of whose lips is the honey, whose bosom the milk of the world?
Out of thine hands hast thou fed us with pasture of colour and song; Glory and beauty by birthright to thee as thy garments belong; Out of thine hands thou shalt give us as surely deliverance from wrong.
Out of thine eyes thou hast shed on us love as a lamp in our night, Wisdom a lodestar to ships, and remembrance a flame-coloured light; Out of thine eyes thou shalt shew us as surely the sun-dawn of right.
Turn to us, speak to us, Italy, mother, but once and a word, None shall not follow thee, none shall not serve thee, not one that has heard; Twice hast thou spoken a message, and time is athirst for the third.
Kingdom and empire of peoples thou hadst, and thy lordship made one North sea and south sea and east men and west men that look on the sun; Spirit was in thee and counsel, when soul in the nations was none.
Banner and beacon thou wast to the centuries of storm-wind and foam, Ages that clashed in the dark with each other, and years without home; Empress and prophetess wast thou, and what wilt thou now be, O Rome?
Ah, by the faith and the hope and the love that have need of thee now, Shines not thy face with the forethought of freedom, and burns not thy brow? Who is against her but all men? and who is beside her but thou?
Art thou not better than all men? and where shall she turn but to thee? Lo, not a breath, not a beam, not a beacon from midland to sea; Freedom cries out for a sign among nations, and none will be free.
England in doubt of her, France in despair of her, all without heart— Stand on her side in the vanward of ages, and strike on her part! Strike but one stroke for the love of her love of thee, sweet that thou art!
Take in thy right hand thy banner, a strong staff fit for thine hand; Forth at the light of it lifted shall foul things flock from the land; Faster than stars from the sun shall they fly, being lighter than sand.
Green thing to green in the summer makes answer, and rose-tree to rose; Lily by lily the year becomes perfect; and none of us knows What thing is fairest of all things on earth as it brightens and blows.
This thing is fairest in all time of all things, in all time is best— Freedom, that made thee, our mother, and suckled her sons at thy breast; Take to thy bosom the nations, and there shall the world come to rest.
ON THE DOWNS
A FAINT sea without wind or sun; A sky like flameless vapour dun; A valley like an unsealed grave That no man cares to weep upon, Bare, without boon to crave, Or flower to save.
And on the lip’s edge of the down, Here where the bent-grass burns to brown In the dry sea-wind, and the heath Crawls to the cliff-side and looks down, I watch, and hear beneath The low tide breathe.
Along the long lines of the cliff, Down the flat sea-line without skiff Or sail or back-blown fume for mark, Through wind-worn heads of heath and stiff Stems blossomless and stark With dry sprays dark,
I send mine eyes out as for news Of comfort that all these refuse, Tidings of light or living air From windward where the low clouds muse And the sea blind and bare Seems full of care.
So is it now as it was then, And as men have been such are men. There as I stood I seem to stand, Here sitting chambered, and again Feel spread on either hand Sky, sea, and land.
As a queen taken and stripped and bound Sat earth, discoloured and discrowned; As a king’s palace empty and dead The sky was, without light or sound; And on the summer’s head Were ashes shed.
Scarce wind enough was on the sea, Scarce hope enough there moved in me, To sow with live blown flowers of white The green plain’s sad serenity, Or with stray thoughts of light Touch my soul’s sight.
By footless ways and sterile went My thought unsatisfied, and bent With blank unspeculative eyes On the untracked sands of discontent Where, watched of helpless skies, Life hopeless lies.
East and west went my soul to find Light, and the world was bare and blind And the soil herbless where she trod And saw men laughing scourge mankind, Unsmitten by the rod Of any God.
Out of time’s blind old eyes were shed Tears that were mortal, and left dead The heart and spirit of the years, And on mans fallen and helmless head Time’s disanointing tears Fell cold as fears.
Hope flowering had but strength to bear The fruitless fruitage of despair; Grief trod the grapes of joy for wine, Whereof love drinking unaware Died as one undivine And made no sign.
And soul and body dwelt apart; And weary wisdom without heart Stared on the dead round heaven and sighed, “Is death too hollow as thou art, Or as man’s living pride?” And saying so died.
And my soul heard the songs and groans That are about and under thrones, And felt through all time’s murmur thrill Fate’s old imperious semitones That made of good and ill One same tune still.
Then “Where is God? and where is aid? Or what good end of these?” she said; “Is there no God or end at all, Nor reason with unreason weighed, Nor force to disenthral Weak feet that fall?
“No light to lighten and no rod To chasten men? Is there no God?” So girt with anguish, iron-zoned, Went my soul weeping as she trod Between the men enthroned And men that groaned.
O fool, that for brute cries of wrong Heard not the grey glad mother’s song Ring response from the hills and waves, But heard harsh noises all day long Of spirits that were slaves And dwelt in graves.
The wise word of the secret earth Who knows what life and death are worth, And how no help and no control Can speed or stay things come to birth, Nor all worlds’ wheels that roll Crush one born soul.
With all her tongues of life and death, With all her bloom and blood and breath, From all years dead and all things done, In the ear of man the mother saith, “There is no God, O son, If thou be none.”
So my soul sick with watching heard That day the wonder of that word, And as one springs out of a dream Sprang, and the stagnant wells were stirred Whence flows through gloom and gleam Thought’s soundless stream.
Out of pale cliff and sunburnt health, Out of the low sea curled beneath In the land’s bending arm embayed, Out of all lives that thought hears breathe Life within life inlaid, Was answer made.
A multitudinous monotone Of dust and flower and seed and stone, In the deep sea-rock’s mid-sea sloth, In the live water’s trembling zone, In all men love and loathe, One God at growth.
One forceful nature uncreate That feeds itself with death and fate, Evil and good, and change and time, That within all men lies at wait Till the hour shall bid them climb And live sublime.
For all things come by fate to flower At their unconquerable hour, And time brings truth, and truth makes free, And freedom fills time’s veins with power, As, brooding on that sea, My thought filled me.
And the sun smote the clouds and slew, And from the sun the sea’s breath blew, And white waves laughed and turned and fled The long green heaving sea-field through, And on them overhead The sky burnt red
Like a furled flag that wind sets free, On the swift summer-coloured sea Shook out the red lines of the light, The live sun’s standard, blown to lee Across the live sea’s white And green delight.
And with divine triumphant awe My spirit moved within me saw, With burning passion of stretched eyes, Clear as the light’s own firstborn law, In windless wastes of skies Time’s deep dawn rise.
MESSIDOR
PUT in the sickles and reap; For the morning of harvest is red, And the long large ranks of the corn Coloured and clothed as the morn Stand thick in the fields and deep For them that faint to be fed. Let all that hunger and weep Come hither, and who would have bread Put in the sickles and reap.
Coloured and clothed as the morn, The grain grows ruddier than gold, And the good strong sun is alight In the mists of the day-dawn white, And the crescent, a faint sharp horn, In the fear of his face turns cold As the snakes of the night-time that creep From the flag of our faith unrolled. Put in the sickles and reap.
In the mists of the day-dawn white That roll round the morning star, The large flame lightens and grows Till the red-gold harvest-rows, Full-grown, are full of the light As the spirits of strong men are, Crying, Who shall slumber or sleep? Who put back morning or mar? Put in the sickles and reap.
Till the red-gold harvest-rows For miles through shudder and shine In the wind’s breath, fed with the sun, A thousand spear-heads as one Bowed as for battle to close Line in rank against line With place and station to keep Till all men’s hands at a sign Put in the sickles and reap.
A thousand spear-heads as one Wave as with swing of the sea When the mid tide sways at its height; For the hour is for harvest or fight In face of the just calm sun, As the signal in season may be And the lot in the helm may leap When chance shall shake it; but ye, Put in the sickles and reap.
For the hour is for harvest or fight To clothe with raiment of red; O men sore stricken of hours, Lo, this one, is not it ours To glean, to gather, to smite? Let none make risk of his head Within reach of the clean scythe-sweep, When the people that lay as the dead Put in the sickles and reap.
Lo, this one, is not it ours, Now the ruins of dead things rattle As dead men’s bones in the pit, Now the kings wax lean as they sit Girt round with memories of powers, With musters counted as cattle And armies folded as sheep Till the red blind husbandman battle Put in the sickles and reap?
Now the kings wax lean as they sit, The people grow strong to stand; The men they trod on and spat, The dumb dread people that sat As corpses cast in a pit, Rise up with God at their hand, And thrones are hurled on a heap, And strong men, sons of the land, Put in the sickles and reap.
The dumb dread people that sat All night without screen for the night, All day without food for the day, They shall give not their harvest away, They shall eat of its fruit and wax fat: They shall see the desire of their sight, Though the ways of the seasons be steep, They shall climb with face to the light, Put in the sickles and reap.
ODE ON THE INSURRECTION IN CANDIA
STR. 1
I LAID my laurel-leaf At the white feet of grief, Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings, With unreverted head Veiled, as who mourns his dead, Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings, A wearied lion without lair, And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.
STR. 2
Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth, Who lulled with craft or chant thy vigilant eyes, O light of all men, lamp to north and south, Eastward and westward, under all men’s skies? For if thou sleep, we perish, and thy name Dies with the dying of our ephemeral breath; And if the dust of death o’ergrows thy flame, Heaven also is darkened with the dust of death. If thou be mortal, if thou change or cease, If thine hand fail, or thine eyes turn from Greece, Thy firstborn, and the firstfruits of thy fame, God is no God, and man is moulded out of shame.
STR. 3
Is there change in the secret skies, In the sacred places that see The divine beginning of things, The weft of the web of the world? Is Freedom a worm that dies, And God no God of the free? Is heaven like as earth with her kings And time as a serpent curled Round life as a tree?
From the steel-bound snows of the north, From the mystic mother, the east, From the sands of the fiery south, From the low-lit clouds of the west, A sound of a cry is gone forth; Arise, stand up from the feast, Let wine be far from the mouth, Let no man sleep or take rest, Till the plague hath ceased.
Let none rejoice or make mirth Till the evil thing be stayed, Nor grief be lulled in the lute, Nor hope be loud on the lyre; Let none be glad upon earth. O music of young man and maid, O songs of the bride, be mute. For the light of her eyes, her desire, Is the soul dismayed.
It is not a land new-born That is scourged of a stranger’s hand, That is rent and consumed with flame. We have known it of old, this face, With the cheeks and the tresses torn, With shame on the brow as a brand. We have named it of old by name, The land of the royallest race, The most holy land.
STR. 4
Had I words of fire, Whose words are weak as snow; Were my heart a lyre Whence all its love might flow In the mighty modulations of desire, In the notes wherewith man’s passion worships woe;
Could my song release The thought weak words confine, And my grief, O Greece, Prove how it worships thine; It would move with pulse of war the limbs of peace, Till she flushed and trembled and became divine.
(Once she held for true This truth of sacred strain; Though blood drip like dew And life run down like rain, It is better that war spare but one or two Than that many live, and liberty be slain.)
Then with fierce increase And bitter mother’s mirth, From the womb of peace, A womb that yearns for birth, As a man-child should deliverance come to Greece, As a saviour should the child be born on earth.
STR. 5
O that these my days had been Ere white peace and shame were wed Without torch or dancers’ din Round the unsacred marriage-bed! For of old the sweet-tongued law, Freedom, clothed with all men’s love, Girt about with all men’s awe, With the wild war-eagle mated The white breast of peace the dove, And his ravenous heart abated And his windy wings were furled In an eyrie consecrated Where the snakes of strife uncurled, And her soul was soothed and sated With the welfare of the world.
ANT. 1
But now, close-clad with peace, While war lays hand on Greece, The kingdoms and their kings stand by to see; “Aha, we are strong,” they say, “We are sure, we are well,” even they; “And if we serve, what ails ye to be free? We are warm, clothed round with peace and shame; But ye lie dead and naked, dying for a name.”
ANT. 2
O kings and queens and nations miserable, O fools and blind, and full of sins and fears, With these it is, with you it is not well; Ye have one hour, but these the immortal years. These for a pang, a breath, a pulse of pain, Have honour, while that honour on earth shall be: Ye for a little sleep and sloth shall gain Scorn, while one man of all men born is free. Even as the depth more deep than night or day, The sovereign heaven that keeps its eldest way, So without chance or change, so without stain, The heaven of their high memories shall nor wax nor wane.
ANT. 3
As the soul on the lips of the dead Stands poising her wings for flight, A bird scarce quit of her prison, But fair without form or flesh, So stands over each man’s head A splendour of imminent light, A glory of fame rearisen, Of day rearisen afresh From the hells of night.
In the hundred cities of Crete Such glory was not of old, Though her name was great upon earth And her face was fair on the sea. The words of her lips were sweet, Her days were woven with gold, Her fruits came timely to birth; So fair she was, being free, Who is bought and sold.
So fair, who is fairer now With her children dead at her side, Unsceptred, unconsecrated, Unapparelled, unhelped, unpitied, With blood for gold on her brow, Where the towery tresses divide; The goodly, the golden-gated, Many-crowned, many-named, many-citied, Made like as a bride.
And these are the bridegroom’s gifts; Anguish that straitens the breath, Shame, and the weeping of mothers, And the suckling dead at the breast, White breast that a long sob lifts; And the dumb dead mouth, which saith, “How long, and how long, my brothers?” And wrath which endures not rest, And the pains of death.
ANT. 4
Ah, but would that men, With eyelids purged by tears, Saw, and heard again With consecrated ears, All the clamour, all the splendour, all the slain, All the lights and sounds of war, the fates and fears;
Saw far off aspire, With crash of mine and gate, From a single pyre The myriad flames of fate, Soul by soul transfigured in funereal fire, Hate made weak by love, and love made strong by hate.
Children without speech, And many a nursing breast; Old men in the breach, Where death sat down a guest; With triumphant lamentation made for each, Let the world salute their ruin and their rest.
In one iron hour The crescent flared and waned, As from tower to tower, Fire-scathed and sanguine-stained, Death, with flame in hand, an open bloodred flower, Passed, and where it bloomed no bloom of life remained.
ANT. 5
Hear, thou earth, the heavy-hearted Weary nurse of waning races; From the dust of years departed, From obscure funereal places, Raise again thy sacred head, Lift the light up of thine eyes Where are they of all thy dead That did more than these men dying In their godlike Grecian wise? Not with garments rent and sighing, Neither gifts of myrrh and gold, Shall their sons lament them lying, Lest the fame of them wax cold; But with lives to lives replying, And a worship from of old.
EPODE
O sombre heart of earth and swoln with grief, That in thy time wast as a bird for mirth, Dim womb of life and many a seed and sheaf, And full of changes, ancient heart of earth, From grain and flower, from grass and every leaf, Thy mysteries and thy multitudes of birth, From hollow and hill, from vales and all thy springs, From all shapes born and breath of all lips made, From thunders, and the sound of winds and wings, From light, and from the solemn sleep of shade, From the full fountains of all living things, Speak, that this plague be stayed. Bear witness all the ways of death and life If thou be with us in the world’s old strife, If thou be mother indeed, And from these wounds that bleed Gather in thy great breast the dews that fall, And on thy sacred knees Lull with mute melodies, Mother, thy sleeping sons in death’s dim hall. For these thy sons, behold, Sons of thy sons of old, Bear witness if these be not as they were; If that high name of Greece Depart, dissolve, decease From mouths of men and memories like as air. By the last milk that drips Dead on the child’s dead lips, By old men’s white unviolated hair, By sweet unburied faces That fill those red high places Where death and freedom found one lion’s lair, By all the bloodred tears That fill the chaliced years, The vessels of the sacrament of time, Wherewith, O thou most holy, O Freedom, sure and slowly Thy ministrant white hands cleanse earth of crime; Though we stand off afar Where slaves and slaveries are, Among the chains and crowns of poisonous peace; Though not the beams that shone From rent Arcadion Can melt her mists and bid her snows decrease; Do thou with sudden wings Darken the face of kings, But turn again the beauty of thy brows on Greece; Thy white and woundless brows, Whereto her great heart bows; Give her the glories of thine eyes to see; Turn thee, O holiest head, Toward all thy quick and dead, For love’s sake of the souls that cry for thee; O love, O light, O flame, By thine own Grecian name, We call thee and we charge thee that all these be free.
_Jan._ 1867.
“NON DOLET”
IT does not hurt. She looked along the knife Smiling, and watched the thick drops mix and run Down the sheer blade; not that which had been done Could hurt the sweet sense of the Roman wife, But that which was to do yet ere the strife Could end for each for ever, and the sun: Nor was the palm yet nor was peace yet won While pain had power upon her husband’s life.
It does not hurt, Italia. Thou art more Than bride to bridegroom; how shalt thou not take The gift love’s blood has reddened for thy sake? Was not thy lifeblood given for us before? And if love’s heartblood can avail thy need, And thou not die, how should it hurt indeed?
EURYDICE
TO VICTOR HUGO
ORPHEUS, the night is full of tears and cries, And hardly for the storm and ruin shed Can even thine eyes be certain of her head Who never passed out of thy spirit’s eyes, But stood and shone before them in such wise As when with love her lips and hands were fed, And with mute mouth out of the dusty dead Strove to make answer when thou bad’st her rise.
Yet viper-stricken must her lifeblood feel The fang that stung her sleeping, the foul germ Even when she wakes of hell’s most poisonous worm, Though now it writhe beneath her wounded heel. Turn yet, she will not fade nor fly from thee; Wait, and see hell yield up Eurydice.
AN APPEAL
I
ART thou indeed among these, Thou of the tyrannous crew, The kingdoms fed upon blood, O queen from of old of the seas, England, art thou of them too That drink of the poisonous flood, That hide under poisonous trees?
II
Nay, thy name from of old, Mother, was pure, or we dreamed Purer we held thee than this, Purer fain would we hold; So goodly a glory it seemed, A fame so bounteous of bliss, So more precious than gold.
III
A praise so sweet in our ears, That thou in the tempest of things As a rock for a refuge shouldst stand, In the bloodred river of tears Poured forth for the triumph of kings; A safeguard, a sheltering land, In the thunder and torrent of years.
IV
Strangers came gladly to thee, Exiles, chosen of men, Safe for thy sake in thy shade, Sat down at thy feet and were free. So men spake of thee then; Now shall their speaking be stayed? Ah, so let it not be!
V
Not for revenge or affright, Pride, or a tyrannous lust, Cast from thee the crown of thy praise. Mercy was thine in thy might; Strong when thou wert, thou wert just; Now, in the wrong-doing days, Cleave thou, thou at least, to the right.
VI
How should one charge thee, how sway, Save by the memories that were? Not thy gold nor the strength of thy ships, Nor the might of thine armies at bay, Made thee, mother, most fair; But a word from republican lips Said in thy name in thy day.
VII
Hast thou said it, and hast thou forgot? Is thy praise in thine ears as a scoff? Blood of men guiltless was shed, Children, and souls without spot, Shed, but in places far off; _Let slaughter no more be_, said Milton; and slaughter was not.
VIII
Was it not said of thee too, Now, but now, by thy foes, By the slaves that had slain their France, And thee would slay as they slew— “Down with her walls that enclose Freemen that eye us askance, Fugitives, men that are true!”
IX
This was thy praise or thy blame From bondsman or freeman—to be Pure from pollution of slaves, Clean of their sins, and thy name Bloodless, innocent, free; Now if thou be not, thy waves Wash not from off thee thy shame.
X
Freeman he is not, but slave, Whoso in fear for the State Cries for surety of blood, Help of gibbet and grave; Neither is any land great Whom, in her fear-stricken mood, These things only can save.
XI
Lo, how fair from afar, Taintless of tyranny, stands Thy mighty daughter, for years Who trod the winepress of war; Shines with immaculate hands; Slays not a foe, neither fears; Stains not peace with a scar.
XII
Be not as tyrant or slave, England; be not as these, Thou that wert other than they. Stretch out thine hand, but to save; Put forth thy strength, and release; Lest there arise, if thou slay, Thy shame as a ghost from the grave.
_November_ 20, 1867.
PERINDE AC CADAVER
IN a vision Liberty stood By the childless charm-stricken bed Where, barren of glory and good, Knowing nought if she would not or would, England slept with her dead.
Her face that the foam had whitened, Her hands that were strong to strive, Her eyes whence battle had lightened, Over all was a drawn shroud tightened To bind her asleep and alive.
She turned and laughed in her dream With grey lips arid and cold; She saw not the face as a beam Burn on her, but only a gleam Through her sleep as of new-stamped gold.
But the goddess, with terrible tears In the light of her down-drawn eyes, Spake fire in the dull sealed ears; “Thou, sick with slumbers and fears, Wilt thou sleep now indeed or arise?
“With dreams and with words and with light Memories and empty desires Thou hast wrapped thyself round all night; Thou hast shut up thine heart from the right, And warmed thee at burnt-out fires.
“Yet once if I smote at thy gate, Thy sons would sleep not, but heard; O thou that wast found so great, Art thou smitten with folly or fate That thy sons have forgotten my word?
“O Cromwell’s mother, O breast That suckled Milton! thy name That was beautiful then, that was blest, Is it wholly discrowned and deprest, Trodden under by sloth into shame?
“Why wilt thou hate me and die? For none can hate me and live. What ill have I done to thee? why Wilt thou turn from me fighting, and fly, Who would follow thy feet and forgive?
“Thou hast seen me stricken, and said, What is it to me? I am strong: Thou hast seen me bowed down on my dead And laughed and lifted thine head, And washed thine hands of my wrong.
“Thou hast put out the soul of thy sight; Thou hast sought to my foemen as friend, To my traitors that kiss me and smite, To the kingdoms and empires of night That begin with the darkness, and end.
“Turn thee, awaken, arise, With the light that is risen on the lands, With the change of the fresh-coloured skies; Set thine eyes on mine eyes, Lay thy hands in my hands.”
She moved and mourned as she heard, Sighed and shifted her place, As the wells of her slumber were stirred By the music and wind of the word, Then turned and covered her face.
“Ah,” she said in her sleep, “Is my work not done with and done? Is there corn for my sickle to reap? And strange is the pathway, and steep, And sharp overhead is the sun.
“I have done thee service enough, Loved thee enough in my day; Now nor hatred nor love Nor hardly remembrance thereof Lives in me to lighten my way.
“And is it not well with us here? Is change as good as is rest? What hope should move me, or fear, That eye should open or ear, Who have long since won what is best?
“Where among us are such things As turn men’s hearts into hell? Have we not queens without stings, Scotched princes, and fangless kings? Yea,” she said, “we are well.
“We have filed the teeth of the snake Monarchy, how should it bite? Should the slippery slow thing wake, It will not sting for my sake; Yea,” she said, “I do right.”
So spake she, drunken with dreams, Mad; but again in her ears A voice as of storm-swelled streams Spake; “No brave shame then redeems Thy lusts of sloth and thy fears?
“Thy poor lie slain of thine hands, Their starved limbs rot in thy sight; As a shadow the ghost of thee stands Among men living and lands, And stirs not leftward or right.
“Freeman he is not, but slave, Who stands not out on my side; His own hand hollows his grave, Nor strength is in me to save Where strength is none to abide.
“Time shall tread on his name That was written for honour of old, Who hath taken in change for fame Dust, and silver, and shame, Ashes, and iron, and gold.”
MONOTONES
BECAUSE there is but one truth; Because there is but one banner; Because there is but one light; Because we have with us our youth Once, and one chance and one manner Of service, and then the night;
Because we have found not yet Any way for the world to follow Save only that ancient way; Whosoever forsake or forget, Whose faith soever be hollow, Whose hope soever grow grey;
Because of the watchwords of kings That are many and strange and unwritten, Diverse, and our watchword is one; Therefore, though seven be the strings, One string, if the harp be smitten, Sole sounds, till the tune be done;
Sounds without cadence or change In a weary monotonous burden, Be the keynote of mourning or mirth; Free, but free not to range; Taking for crown and for guerdon No man’s praise upon earth;
Saying one sole word evermore, In the ears of the charmed world saying, Charmed by spells to its death; One that chanted of yore To a tune of the sword-sweep’s playing In the lips of the dead blew breath;
Therefore I set not mine hand To the shifting of changed modulations, To the smiting of manifold strings; While the thrones of the throned men stand, One song for the morning of nations, One for the twilight of kings.
One chord, one word, and one way, One hope as our law, one heaven, Till slain be the great one wrong; Till the people it could not slay, Risen up, have for one star seven, For a single, a sevenfold song.
THE OBLATION
ASK nothing more of me, sweet; All I can give you I give. Heart of my heart, were it more, More would be laid at your feet: Love that should help you to live, Song that should spur you to soar.
All things were nothing to give Once to have sense of you more, Touch you and taste of you sweet, Think you and breathe you and live, Swept of your wings as they soar, Trodden by chance of your feet.
I that have love and no more Give you but love of you, sweet: He that hath more, let him give; He that hath wings, let him soar; Mine is the heart at your feet Here, that must love you to live.
A YEAR’S BURDEN
1870
FIRE and wild light of hope and doubt and fear, Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year; Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes, Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies, But fear brought hand to hand with danger dies, Dies and is burnt up in the fire of fight.
Hearts bruised with loss and eaten through with shame Turn at the time’s touch to devouring flame; Grief stands as one that knows not her own name, Nor if the star she sees bring day or night.
No song breaks with it on the violent air, But shrieks of shame, defeat, and brute despair; Yet something at the star’s heart far up there Burns as a beacon in our shipwrecked sight.
O strange fierce light of presage, unknown star, Whose tongue shall tell us what thy secrets are, What message trembles in thee from so far? Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
From shores laid waste across an iron sea Where the waifs drift of hopes that were to be, Across the red rolled foam we look for thee, Across the fire we look up for the light.
From days laid waste across disastrous years, From hopes cut down across a world of fears, We gaze with eyes too passionate for tears, Where faith abides though hope be put to flight.
Old hope is dead, the grey-haired hope grown blind That talked with us of old things out of mind, Dreams, deeds and men the world has left behind; Yet, though hope die, faith lives in hope’s despite.
Ay, with hearts fixed on death and hopeless hands We stand about our banner while it stands Above but one field of the ruined lands; Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
Though France were given for prey to bird and beast, Though Rome were rent in twain of king and priest, The soul of man, the soul is safe at least That gives death life and dead men hands to smite.
Are ye so strong, O kings, O strong men? Nay, Waste all ye will and gather all ye may, Yet one thing is there that ye shall not slay, Even thought, that fire nor iron can affright.
The woundless and invisible thought that goes Free throughout time as north or south wind blows, Far throughout space as east or west sea flows, And all dark things before it are made bright.
Thy thought, thy word, O soul republican, O spirit of life, O God whose name is man: What sea of sorrows but thy sight shall span? Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
With all its coils crushed, all its rings uncurled, The one most poisonous worm that soiled the world Is wrenched from off the throat of man, and hurled Into deep hell from empire’s helpless height.
Time takes no more infection of it now; Like a dead snake divided of the plough, The rotten thing lies cut in twain; but thou, Thy fires shall heal us of the serpent’s bite.
Ay, with red cautery and a burning brand Purge thou the leprous leaven of the land; Take to thee fire, and iron in thine hand, Till blood and tears have washed the soiled limbs white.
We have sinned against thee in dreams and wicked sleep; Smite, we will shrink not; strike, we will not weep; Let the heart feel thee; let thy wound go deep; Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
Wound us with love, pierce us with longing, make Our souls thy sacrifices; turn and take Our hearts for our sin-offerings lest they break, And mould them with thine hands and give them might.
Then, when the cup of ills is drained indeed, Will we come to thee with our wounds that bleed, With famished mouths and hearts that thou shalt feed, And see thee worshipped as the world’s delight.
There shall be no more wars nor kingdoms won, But in thy sight whose eyes are as the sun All names shall be one name, all nations one, All souls of men in man’s one soul unite.
O sea whereon men labour, O great sea That heaven seems one with, shall these things not be? O earth, our earth, shall time not make us free? Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
EPILOGUE
BETWEEN the wave-ridge and the strand I let you forth in sight of land, Songs that with storm-crossed wings and eyes Strain eastward till the darkness dies; Let signs and beacons fall or stand, And stars and balefires set and rise; Ye, till some lordlier lyric hand Weave the beloved brows their crown, At the beloved feet lie down.
O, whatsoever of life or light Love hath to give you, what of might Or heart or hope is yours to live, I charge you take in trust to give For very love’s sake, in whose sight, Through poise of hours alternative And seasons plumed with light or night, Ye live and move and have your breath To sing with on the ridge of death.
I charge you faint not all night through For love’s sake that was breathed on you To be to you as wings and feet For travel, and as blood to heat And sense of spirit to renew And bloom of fragrance to keep sweet And fire of purpose to keep true The life, if life in such things be, That I would give you forth of me.
Out where the breath of war may bear, Out in the rank moist reddened air That sounds and smells of death, and hath No light but death’s upon its path Seen through the black wind’s tangled hair, I send you past the wild time’s wrath To find his face who bade you bear Fruit of his seed to faith and love, That he may take the heart thereof.
By day or night, by sea or street, Fly till ye find and clasp his feet And kiss as worshippers who bring Too much love on their lips to sing, But with hushed heads accept and greet The presence of some heavenlier thing In the near air; so may ye meet His eyes, and droop not utterly For shame’s sake at the light you see.
Not utterly struck spiritless For shame’s sake and unworthiness Of these poor forceless hands that come Empty, these lips that should be dumb, This love whose seal can but impress These weak word-offerings wearisome Whose blessings have not strength to bless Nor lightnings fire to burn up aught Nor smite with thunders of their thought.
One thought they have, even love; one light, Truth, that keeps clear the sun by night; One chord, of faith as of a lyre; One heat, of hope as of a fire; One heart, one music, and one might, One flame, one altar, and one choir; And one man’s living head in sight Who said, when all time’s sea was foam, “Let there be Rome”—and there was Rome.
As a star set in space for token Like a live word of God’s mouth spoken, Visible sound, light audible, In the great darkness thick as hell A stanchless flame of love unsloken, A sign to conquer and compel, A law to stand in heaven unbroken Whereby the sun shines, and wherethrough Time’s eldest empires are made new;
So rose up on our generations That light of the most ancient nations, Law, life, and light, on the world’s way, The very God of very day, The sun-god; from their star-like stations Far down the night in disarray Fled, crowned with fires of tribulations, The suns of sunless years, whose light And life and law were of the night.
The naked kingdoms quenched and stark Drave with their dead things down the dark, Helmless; their whole world, throne by throne, Fell, and its whole heart turned to stone, Hopeless; their hands that touched our ark Withered; and lo, aloft, alone, On time’s white waters man’s one bark, Where the red sundawn’s open eye Lit the soft gulf of low green sky.
So for a season piloted It sailed the sunlight, and struck red With fire of dawn reverberate The wan face of incumbent fate That paused half pitying overhead And almost had foregone the freight Of those dark hours the next day bred For shame, and almost had forsworn Service of night for love of morn.
Then broke the whole night in one blow, Thundering; then all hell with one throe Heaved, and brought forth beneath the stroke Death; and all dead things moved and woke That the dawn’s arrows had brought low, At the great sound of night that broke Thundering, and all the old world-wide woe; And under night’s loud-sounding dome Men sought her, and she was not Rome.
Still with blind hands and robes blood-wet Night hangs on heaven, reluctant yet, With black blood dripping from her eyes On the soiled lintels of the skies, With brows and lips that thirst and threat, Heart-sick with fear lest the sun rise, And aching with her fires that set, And shuddering ere dawn bursts her bars, Burns out with all her beaten stars.
In this black wind of war they fly Now, ere that hour be in the sky That brings back hope, and memory back, And light and law to lands that lack; That spiritual sweet hour whereby The bloody-handed night and black Shall be cast out of heaven to die; Kingdom by kingdom, crown by crown, The fires of darkness are blown down.
Yet heavy, grievous yet the weight Sits on us of imperfect fate. From wounds of other days and deeds Still this day’s breathing body bleeds; Still kings for fear and slaves for hate Sow lives of men on earth like seeds In the red soil they saturate; And we, with faces eastward set, Stand sightless of the morning yet.
And many for pure sorrow’s sake Look back and stretch back hands to take Gifts of night’s giving, ease and sleep, Flowers of night’s grafting, strong to steep The soul in dreams it will not break, Songs of soft hours that sigh and sweep Its lifted eyelids nigh to wake With subtle plumes and lulling breath That soothe its weariness to death.
And many, called of hope and pride, Fall ere the sunrise from our side. Fresh lights and rumours of fresh fames That shift and veer by night like flames, Shouts and blown trumpets, ghosts that glide Calling, and hail them by dead names, Fears, angers, memories, dreams divide Spirit from spirit, and wear out Strong hearts of men with hope and doubt.
Till time beget and sorrow bear The soul-sick eyeless child despair, That comes among us, mad and blind, With counsels of a broken mind, Tales of times dead and woes that were, And, prophesying against mankind, Shakes out the horror of her hair To take the sunlight with its coils And hold the living soul in toils.
By many ways of death and moods Souls pass into their servitudes. Their young wings weaken, plume by plume Drops, and their eyelids gather gloom And close against man’s frauds and feuds, And their tongues call they know not whom To help in their vicissitudes; For many slaveries are, but one Liberty, single as the sun.
One light, one law, that burns up strife, And one sufficiency of life. Self-stablished, the sufficing soul Hears the loud wheels of changes roll, Sees against man man bare the knife, Sees the world severed, and is whole; Sees force take dowerless fraud to wife, And fear from fraud’s incestuous bed Crawl forth and smite his father dead:
Sees death made drunk with war, sees time Weave many-coloured crime with crime, State overthrown on ruining state, And dares not be disconsolate. Only the soul hath feet to climb, Only the soul hath room to wait, Hath brows and eyes to hold sublime Above all evil and all good, All strength and all decrepitude.
She only, she since earth began, The many-minded soul of man, From one incognizable root That bears such divers-coloured fruit, Hath ruled for blessing or for ban The flight of seasons and pursuit; She regent, she republican, With wide and equal eyes and wings Broods on things born and dying things.
Even now for love or doubt of us The hour intense and hazardous Hangs high with pinions vibrating Whereto the light and darkness cling, Dividing the dim season thus, And shakes from one ambiguous wing Shadow, and one is luminous, And day falls from it; so the past Torments the future to the last.
And we that cannot hear or see The sounds and lights of liberty, The witness of the naked God That treads on burning hours unshod With instant feet unwounded; we That can trace only where he trod By fire in heaven or storm at sea, Not know the very present whole And naked nature of the soul;
We that see wars and woes and kings, And portents of enormous things, Empires, and agonies, and slaves, And whole flame of town-swallowing graves; That hear the harsh hours clap sharp wings Above the roar of ranks like waves, From wreck to wreck as the world swings; Know but that men there are who see And hear things other far than we.
By the light sitting on their brows, The fire wherewith their presence glows, The music falling with their feet, The sweet sense of a spirit sweet That with their speech or motion grows And breathes and burns men’s hearts with heat; By these signs there is none but knows Men who have life and grace to give, Men who have seen the soul and live.
By the strength sleeping in their eyes, The lips whereon their sorrow lies Smiling, the lines of tears unshed, The large divine look of one dead That speaks out of the breathless skies In silence, when the light is shed Upon man’s soul of memories; The supreme look that sets love free, The look of stars and of the sea;
By the strong patient godhead seen Implicit in their mortal mien, The conscience of a God held still And thunders ruled by their own will And fast-bound fires that might burn clean This worldly air that foul things fill, And the afterglow of what has been, That, passing, shows us without word What they have seen, what they have heard,
By all these keen and burning signs The spirit knows them and divines. In bonds, in banishment, in grief, Scoffed at and scourged with unbelief, Foiled with false trusts and thwart designs, Stripped of green days and hopes in leaf, Their mere bare body of glory shines Higher, and man gazing surelier sees What light, what comfort is of these.
So I now gazing; till the sense Being set on fire of confidence Strains itself sunward, feels out far Beyond the bright and morning star, Beyond the extreme wave’s refluence, To where the fierce first sunbeams are Whose fire intolerant and intense As birthpangs whence day burns to be Parts breathless heaven from breathing sea.
I see not, know not, and am blest, Master, who know that thou knowest, Dear lord and leader, at whose hand The first days and the last days stand, With scars and crowns on head and breast, That fought for love of the sweet land Or shall fight in her latter quest; All the days armed and girt and crowned Whose glories ring thy glory round.
Thou sawest, when all the world was blind, The light that should be of mankind, The very day that was to be; And how shalt thou not sometime see Thy city perfect to thy mind Stand face to living face with thee, And no miscrowned man’s head behind; The hearth of man, the human home, The central flame that shall be Rome?
As one that ere a June day rise Makes seaward for the dawn, and tries The water with delighted limbs That taste the sweet dark sea, and swims Right eastward under strengthening skies, And sees the gradual rippling rims Of waves whence day breaks blossom-wise Take fire ere light peer well above, And laughs from all his heart with love;
And softlier swimming with raised head Feels the full flower of morning shed And fluent sunrise round him rolled That laps and laves his body bold With fluctuant heaven in water’s stead, And urgent through the growing gold Strikes, and sees all the spray flash red, And his soul takes the sun, and yearns For joy wherewith the sea’s heart burns;
So the soul seeking through the dark Heavenward, a dove without an ark, Transcends the unnavigable sea Of years that wear out memory; So calls, a sunward-singing lark, In the ear of souls that should be free; So points them toward the sun for mark Who steer not for the stress of waves, And seek strange helmsmen, and are slaves.
For if the swimmer’s eastward eye Must see no sunrise—must put by The hope that lifted him and led Once, to have light about his head, To see beneath the clear low sky The green foam-whitened wave wax red And all the morning’s banner fly— Then, as earth’s helpless hopes go down, Let earth’s self in the dark tides drown.
Yea, if no morning must behold Man, other than were they now cold, And other deeds than past deeds done, Nor any near or far-off sun Salute him risen and sunlike-souled, Free, boundless, fearless, perfect, one, Let man’s world die like worlds of old, And here in heaven’s sight only be The sole sun on the worldless sea.
NOTES
P. 7
_That called on Cotys by her name_.
Æsch. Fr. 54 (Ἠδωνοὶ).
P. 94
_Was it Love brake forth flower-fashion_, _a bird with gold on his wings_?
Ar. Av. 696.
P. 161
_That saw Saint Catherine bodily_.
Her pilgrimage to Avignon to recall the Pope into Italy as its redeemer from the distractions of the time is of course the central act of St. Catherine’s life, the great abiding sign of the greatness of spirit and genius of heroism which distinguished this daughter of the people, and should yet keep her name fresh above the holy horde of saints, in other records than the calendar; but there is no less significance in the story which tells how she succeeded in humanizing a criminal under sentence of death, and given over by the priests as a soul doomed and desperate; how the man thus raised and melted out of his fierce and brutal despair besought her to sustain him to the last by her presence; how, having accompanied him with comfort and support to the very scaffold, and seen his head fall, she took it up, and turning to the spectators who stood doubtful whether the poor wretch could be “saved,” kissed it in sign of her faith that his sins were forgiven him. The high and fixed passion of her heroic temperament gives her a right to remembrance and honour of which the miracle-mongers have done their best to deprive her. Cleared of all the refuse rubbish of thaumaturgy, her life would deserve a chronicler who should do justice at once to the ardour of her religious imagination and to a thing far rarer and more precious—the strength and breadth of patriotic thought and devotion which sent this girl across the Alps to seek the living symbol of Italian hope and unity, and bring it back by force of simple appeal in the name of God and of the country. By the light of those solid and actual qualities which ensure to her no ignoble place on the noble roll of Italian women who have deserved well of Italy, the record of her visions and ecstasies may be read without contemptuous intolerance of hysterical disease. The rapturous visionary and passionate ascetic was in plain matters of this earth as pure and practical a heroine as Joan of Arc.
P. 164
_There on the dim side-chapel wall_.
In the church of San Domenico.
P. 165
_But blood nor tears ye love not_, _you_.
In the Sienese Academy the two things notable to me were the detached wall-painting by Sodoma of the tortures of Christ bound to the pillar, and the divine though mutilated group of the Graces in the centre of the main hall. The glory and beauty of ancient sculpture refresh and satisfy beyond expression a sense wholly wearied and well-nigh nauseated with contemplation of endless sanctities and agonies attempted by mediæval art, while yet as handless as accident or barbarism has left the sculptured goddesses.
P. 168
_Saw all Italian things save one_.
O patria mia, vedo le mura e gli archi, E le colonne e i simulacri e l’erme Torri degli avi nostri; Ma la gloria non vedo, Non vedo il lauro a il ferro ond’ eran carchi I nostri padri antichi.
LEOPARDI.
P. 179
_Mother_, _that by that Pegasean spring_.
Call. Lav. Pall. 105–112.
P. 229
_With black blood dripping from her eyes_.
κὰξ ὸμμάτων στάςουσιν αἷμα δυσφιλές.
Æsch. Cho. 1058.