CANTO IV.

XXXVI.

’Twas thus--and thus, when thrice a year had sped King Fergus of his blemish happed to know:-- “I go to mine ablutions (so he said Unto his bond-maid), girl, the task you know Of preparation. Haste you, for I go On mighty mission!” P’r’aps ’twas Fate’s decree The maiden’s arm in service seemed full slow, And Fergus, strained of nerve, was swift to see In microscopic faults, some slight of majesty.

XXXVII.

Howbeit,--the fire to firelike will give blaze, And progeny of one small word or deed Count thousand-thousand. Half in wide amaze, And half in wild vexation that slow heed The maiden gave to that his will decreed, He strode into her presence: then on high He raised the stinging lash his stout-skinned steed Oft felt, and flinched, and, drawing swiftly nigh, Its serpent hiss was drowned in the smit’ maiden’s cry.

XXXVIII.

“A curse upon your laggard form!” he hissed. The smitten girl swift raised her flashing eyes In scarlet indignation, nor was missed The blemish on the Monarch’s face. She cries: “King Fergus, heartless coward! I loathe, despise Your craven hand, nor e’en a word would deign, But that I deem your spirit’s shape and size Must match your brute-like visage.” Purpling plain With rage, he drew his sword and cut the maid in twain.

XXXIX.

A maddened moment’s deed! And when the storm Was past, the King in calm the wreck surveyed Of his own making. Towering o’er the form Prostrate and purple, holding still the blade Wet with her life, he stood as sore dismayed, Muttering: “Visage! Visage!” still the word Beat inward on his ’wildered brain, nor stayed Till that grim truth, long hid, to sight restored, Burst on his mind. He turned, still clasping tight the sword.

XL.

Three steps beyond the portal of the room Where lay the maid, he stopped and cast a look Backward,--a look portentous of dark doom To all beneath its ban. Aloft he shook The bleeding blade; then cried, till every nook, E’en to the farthest of the farthest halls, Trembled; and, as he called, his way he took Down corridors that held his foot’s swift falls Till cry and footfall blent without the castle walls.

XLI.

The cry was: “Visage! Visage! Death and blood To what has wrought the ruin of yon maid,-- That hideous habitant of Rory’s flood Who plies--mayhap not long--his secret trade; And mine ambition that such depths essayed As strained the strength of me. Yet, not for nought The fiend was found, tho’ fled I sore dismayed: Some lesson yet is there, tho’ anguish-taught; Some profit yet remains, tho’ it in blood be bought.

XLII.

One falleth--that foul spirit: then is past Temptation of ambition; but, perchance Mine arm may fail: sobeit, then is cast Away the secret.” On did he advance. And one who saw his eyeballs’ lightning glance, And marked his mood and manner, thro’ the crowd Spread rumouring words, keen, swift as strong-threwn lance, That drew them forth, a multitude, all browed With wonderment that grew with each swift stride, till, loud

XLIII.

And deep before them, Rory swells and swings. Behold! the King nor pauses, nor aside Turns in his track.--Not mine to tell of things Run riot in those minds that edged the tide, Where late the billows did King Fergus hide, Nor gave of him a token, save the swell Of giant strivings in the waters wide, And one wild wave that, as from heart of Hell, Leaped for the shore and ’mong the wondering warriors fell.

XLIV.

And thereupon arose confusion, such As ne’er was seen before, and ne’er again Shall e’er be seen. With tops that seemed to touch The heights of Heaven arose the strenuous main In wild tumultuous strivings, till the brain Of those beholders whirled, and they that spake In terror seemed all voiceless, for in vain Speech called at its own ears. All heaven did make Sound at whose dreadful voice all earth did seem to shake.

XLV.

And far across the world a tempest bore Sounds of a conflict such as never yet Man’s eyes beheld,--e’en to the cloudy shore Of distant Britain: there did they beget Vague words of wonder. Ere the sun had set Within a stormy west nor man nor maid Of all Ultonia but with spray was wet As, lo! from each far hill, each distant glade Long thousands shoreward drew with wide-eyed wonder swayed.

XLVI.

And when it seemed as if the heavens swam In wild bewilderment,--each starry sphere Would topple earthward, straightway fell a calm That laid a hush upon the heart of fear, And soothed both sea and sky, till softest tear Would drop with sound of cataracts in the glen. And thus they waited what should next appear, Uncounted thousands of full-armëd men, Bards, chieftans, clansmen, women, maids, youths, children:--then

XLVII.

As if the sea had stolen half the glow Of the sunk sun, the quiet Loch flushed red, And lengthened day, e’en tho’ the day did go To other lands. “Some portent this,” they said, “Of the fight’s finish: one hath joined the dead-- Which, shall appear full soon.”--Lo! on the sea What form is yon that waves a hideous head Within its hand? They gaze, they shout: “’Tis he, Fergus, Ultonia’s King. Fergus hath victory!”

XLVIII.

Then that red glory brightened, and they scanned The King’s marred visage--marred?--nay, pure and bright As erst in youth! He called: “With this right hand Nerved with the fury of revengeful might, I fought--and won! I’ve lived my day; now night Doth wrap its blackness round me: I but pay The price of mine own deed.” And from their sight He sank beneath the waters of the bay Which rolled in waves of blood for many a devious day!

The Legend of St. Mahee

of Endrim.

The Legend of Saint Mahee of Endrim.

TO J. A. GREGG.

[NOTE.--Saint Mahee ([Illustration: Gaelic]) was born about 420 A.D., founded the Abbey of Endrim ([Illustration: Gaelic]--the single ridge), on the beautiful island bearing that name, about 450, and died in the year 496 or 497. For several centuries the Abbey, in which education and religion were combined, occupied a prominent position, and turned out a number of subsequent founders of similar institutions. Between 974 and 1178 history is silent in regard to it, but it is certain that, from its position on Cuan ([Illustration: Gaelic]--a lough, now Strangford), which was infested by Danish marauders, it came in for a large share of their devastating attentions. From the date of its affiliation with an English educational establishment, 1178, it seems to have fallen on evil days, and in 1450 it is simply noted as a Parish Church in the charge of the Bishop of Down.

The Island of Endrim--or, as it is now called, in memory of its Patron Saint, Mahee--is situated most picturesquely on Strangford Lough, about seven miles from Comber, Co. Down, and is approachable on foot or car by a modern causeway-road, which crosses an intervening island. On the shoreward end of the island may be seen many remnants of the stone buildings which superseded the original wooden structures. These remnants include the stump of a round tower; traces of extensive foundations once laid bare by the late Bishop Reeves, but now almost entirely hidden from view; the site of the harbour where anchored “ships from Britain;” evidences of a hallowed God’s-acre, and a fairly complete castle of a later period. The circuit of the island can be made on foot leisurely in a couple of hours, and the walk affords a view of the extensive waters of the once Dane-infested lough, the distant hoary walls of Greyabbey, the haunts of Saint Patrick, the reputed scene of the death of Ollav Fola ([Illustration: Gaelic], the lawgiver of Erin), and the martial deeds of De Courcey.

Ballydrain, about half-way between Comber and Mahee Island, is so-called from [Illustration: Gaelic], a townland, and [Illustration: Gaelic], a blackthorn tree; and the reader will observe the connection between this place and the Island of Mahee. No trace of a church has yet been discovered at Ballydrain.

The idea contained in the Legend has been variously rendered by several eminent authors. The incident in which it is here embodied may, however, be fairly claimed as the oldest version--the original, in fact.--THE AUTHOR.]

Lo! right and left, in calm repose, Are spread unnumbered isles, Between whose shores the bluff breeze blows, And sungilt Strangford smiles. The shoreward way our feet have left Below, still winds along Where strenuous waves, in eddy and cleft, Croon low their iterant song.

II.

Bright in the passionate, tremulous rays From cloudy towers of day, Yon crumbling castle seems to gaze At castles far away, Like parted friends of other years Who meet, nor waste a word, But wondering stand, and smile thro’ tears From depths unfathomed stirred.

III.

Here may we rest, and make our seat On this high rock-strewn mound, “Put off our shoes from off our feet”-- We tread on holy ground The haunts where many a sandalled sole Trod out life’s lust and woe, And, stedfast set to one high goal, Went down in dust below.

IV.

No stone is theirs engraven large With record born of strife, No gilded scroll, no carven marge, No legend loud with life. Far other deeds than men applaud Their holy hands essayed, In life viceregent here of God, In death still undismayed.

V.

No fluctuant favours--servile spouse Of princes’ transient smile-- Did e’er bedeck their sacred brows, Their saintly souls defile: No life-warm lips their own had kissed (Earth’s hope-inspiring dove)-- Their life was one long Eucharist Eternalised in love.

VI.

The workers went; the works remain. Time here small kingship owns. Thro’ ’whelming winds, thro’ sun and rain, Have lived these lichened stones, And that brief tower upreared by those Whose dread was from the deep,-- In strife their strength, in peace repose, Their guardian now in sleep.

VII.

Thine eyes, old tower, have scanned the scroll And palimpsest of Earth, And fain would we thy thoughts unroll Thro’ years of bliss or dearth, For thou from thy calm height dost look With sage, dispassionate eye, To where the star of day-dawn shook Within a youthful sky.

VIII.

We deem thee old; but age is not A toll of hours and days,-- Mean measure of our little lot And arbitrary ways. We run our little round of change Thro’ years of less or more, But Time to thee holds nought of strange, Unheard, unseen before.

IX.

Down paths of night no starrier balls No new Milanion throws; Thro’ no transfigured day’s high halls Th’ itinerant breeze still blows; Belligerent ever, baffled still, Th’ importunate surges swing; Still dear as dawn th’ ecstatic thrill And prophet power of Spring.

X.

Wrapt in a dream of ancient days Thou stand’st aloof from ours, Yet nought hast thou of battle’s blaze Or blighting iron showers; For well-beloved art thou of moon, And sun, and winds, and stars, Forever in thy heart attune To every statelier bars

XI.

Than aught my highest hope could know In this inspiring breath Where wilding blossoms bloom and blow, As life blooms out of death; Yet fain, withal, my lips would wed To song, for modern ears, This chord from lyric days long dead, This dream from epic years:

THE LEGEND.

Quoth good Saint Mahee of Endrim, “I shall build for Christ my master Here a church, and here defend him And His cause from all disaster.” Seven score youths cut beam and wattle, Seven score hands unseared in battle Their unstinted aid did lend him, Fast and ever faster.

But tho’ arm, and voice loud-ringing, To a test of toil defied him, Right and left the wattles flinging, Not a tongue could dare deride him For, before them all, he stood Finished, waiting. Not a rood From the spot a bird was singing In a thorn beside him.

Sang no bird in ancient story Half so sweet or loud a strain: Seaward to the Lough of Rory, Landward then, and back again, Swelled the song, and trilled and trembled O’er the toiling youths assembled, Rang around ’mid Summer glory There at Ballydrain.

Far more beautiful the bird was Than the bright-plumed Bird of Bliss And the Abbot’s feeling stirred was To its deepest depths, I wis; ’Till, as from the fiery splendour Moses saw, in accents tender Spake the bird, and lo, the word was: “Goodly work is this!”

“True,” quoth Saint Mahee of Endrim, “’Tis required by Christ my master Here to build, and here defend Him And His cause from all disaster; But my blood mounts high with weening Of this goodly word the meaning?” Nearer then the bird did tend him, Fast and even faster.

“I shall answer. I descended From mine angel-soul’s compeers, From my home serene and splendid To this haunt of toil and tears; Came to cheer thee with a note From an angel’s silvern throat.” Then he sang three songs: each, ended, Made a hundred years.

There, thro’ days that dawned and darkened, With his wattles by his side, Stood the island Saint and hearkened To that silvery-flowing tide Stood entranced, and ever wondr’éd, Till had circled thrice a hundred Years o’er fields, life-lade or stark, and Strangford’s waters wide.

Then when came the final number, Ceased the angel-bird its strain, And, unheld by ills that cumber Mortals, sought the heavenly plain. Then the Saint, in mute amaze, Round him turned an anxious gaze, And from that far land of slumber Came to Earth again.

Low his load, mid weed and flower, Lay beside him all unbroken, Till, with thrice augmented power, From his holy dream awoken, Up he bore it to his shoulder-- Broad and not a hand’s breath older. Scarce, thought he, had passed an hour Since the bird had spoken.

Toward his island church he bore it. Lo, an oratory gleaming, And “To Saint Mahee,” writ o’er it! “Now,” quoth he, “in faith I’m dreaming! Say, good monk, at whose consistory Shall I solve this mighty mystery, And to form of fact restore it From this shadowy seeming?”

Thus he spake to one who faced him With a look of mild surprise, One who swiftly brought and placed him ’Neath the Abbot’s searching eyes.-- Leave him there: not mine to rhyme of Deeds that filled the latter time of Him who, fain tho’ years would waste him, Ages not, nor dies.

. . . . . .

Such the wondrous old-time story Of the bird’s long, lethal strain Sung thro’ Summers hot and hoary, Winters white on mount and main And the monks, to mark the mission Of the bird,--so tells tradition,-- Built a church to God’s great glory There at Ballydrain.

XII.

The song has ceased, the dream is done, Lo, nought but shattered shrine And weed-clad walls greet now the sun That sparkles in the brine; Yet these no remnant are of dead Insalutary days, Vicarious blood of morning, shed For more than Memphian haze.

XIII.

The fires of worship, and of war, De Courcey’s marshalled hosts, The rude sea-rovers from afar Have vanished from our coasts; And out of these an ampler field Found Freedom, mind and hand, Toward unattempted ends to wield A world-enchanting wand.

XIV.

What tho’ in oft ignoble cause The wave of war still rolls, The hate of sects, the clutching claws, The strife of armoured souls; What tho’ the thousands, born to fail, In darkness come and go, Be ours no pessimistic wail Of fear for larger woe;

XV.

For even now the dawn doth give Some promissory gleams, Tho’ most ’tis ours in night to live, Participant in dreams Of some broad-beamed and brighter morn, Some elemental balm, Some purer peace, of battle born, Some tempest-cradled calm!

Miscellaneous Poems.

Song of Decadence.

I wonder if there still remain Some echoes from the songs of old; Or what the measure of the strain The future shall unfold?

The voice that breathed across the years, And came, and went, and passed the bar, And sang the battle song of tears, Sounds small, and faint, and far;

And men have found another chord, An offspring, not of heart, but head; And gold is God, and lust is Lord, And Love lies stricken dead!

Ah, me! the race goes blindly on And leaves the old familiar ways; And still, earth-weighted, flowers the dawn To still ignoble days;

And men, as sheep within their folds, Grope round their world with great sad eyes; And hate the hand that still withholds The secret of the skies; Or, deeming God an idle tale Withdrawn from lore of ancient shelves, Themselves would reckon by the scale And measure of themselves!

How mean the stature of the song Of our inglorious--glorious time, Attenuating, as along It moves from that great prime

When Milton, in the midnight hours, Lay waiting for the mystic breath Of God to touch his soul to flowers Of song that smile at Death.

O singers of the years to come! Be yours the large and liberal scope: Sing sweetly--or for aye be dumb-- Of God, and Love, and Hope,

Encircled by no little line Of gain or loss, of time or sense, Nor, bent at Mammon’s soulless shrine, Your birth-right part for pence;

But bend an arm across the past, And finger all the vibrant years, Till sunlight, on our shadows cast, Makes rainbows of our tears.

The Railway Arch.

There it stands, as it has stood-- Theme for bards, and theme for seers-- Mute to sun and tempests rude, To the swift express of years;

Stretched across from bank to bank Where the rabbits flash and go, Where the fir-trees, rank by rank, Gaze upon the track below

As the train, at man’s behest, In the calm or tempest’s teeth, Speeds with lightning in its breast, And the thunder underneath.

There in many a rift and rent, Many a bird finds friendly cover; And the toiler, homeward bent, Whistles as he passes over;

And the children from the town Climb its parapets and strain Half a hundred throats to drown With a cheer the passing train.

Yet how many children, toilers, List’ to what that arch would say To the thousands of earth’s moilers?-- Dull of ear and listless they!

Ah! adown the track of time, In the world’s great sidings lying, Many a theme for many a rhyme Is unmarked by thousands, flying

After all the fen-fires, darting In the damps and swamps of life; Fires of meeting and of parting, Hate and love, and strain and strife!

There it stands--O! how I love it; For it speaks of weal, and woe, For the thousands pass above it; For the thousands rush below;

And, attune to whirr and clatter, Wide and wider does it span, High o’er time and sense and matter, High o’er life and death and man,

Stretched from age to age unborn; And above it in a stream Pass, unceasing, night and morn, Shapes like those in Jacob’s dream

All the souls of all the ages, All the ghosts of all the years, Priests and prophets, saints and sages, Sweet-breathed bards and broad-browed seers,

Who from many a cloudy station List’ the whirring of the wheels Bounding on without cessation, Dragging progress at their heels;

Who, as children from the town, Throng the parapets, and strain Form and voice in flashing down Warning signals to the train

Speeding on, at man’s behest, In the calm, or tempest’s teeth, With the lightning in its breast, And the thunder underneath!

Schakhe.

(A Ballad of Armenia.)

They had fought, they had failed, those women and now, in a wild-eyed throng, They fled from the red destroyer, and they cried: “O Lord, how long?-- How long, O Lord, till the ending of the ghastly sounds and sights, Till the dripping days be finished, and the thrice red-running nights,-- Till the last cold corpse falls, severed from the last Armenian head, Till the last maid be dishonoured, and the last hot tear be shed?”

They had fled from the red destroyer, but he hastens around their track, Till the fate they had flown is before them, and they turn in their pathway back. But, Northward and Southward and Eastward and Westward, and round and round, Come the gleam of the steely lightning, and the wild, soul-harrowing sound, As mother and sister and daughter, and the child at its mother’s breast Go down in the surge of slaughter and the wreck of the great Opprest. And now they are huddled together, as the death-cries rise and swell, Where the rock runs up to Heaven, and the gulf goes down to Hell,-- On the edge of a beetling hillock; when, lo! from the ’wildered crowd, On a peak of the rock steps Schakhe, and calls to her sisters, loud:--

“O sisters in nameless sorrow, baptised in a life of tears; Before you two paths lie open: behind you a thousand years Fade far in the dusky distance, one long, broad stream of blood, That flows by the wreck and ruin of sword and fire and flood! Before you two paths lie open: one leads where dangers lurk, And the pain and the dumb dishonour from the merciless hand of the Turk.

Choose ye! Will ye thread that pathway, prove false to the men ye love; Prove false to the children ye bore them; prove false to the God above? Will ye sell yourselves to the spoilers of father and mother and child, Who butchered and then, like devils, at their cries for mercy smiled? Do ye think of the thousands rotting, flung down in a ghastly heap Unblessed; whose dust commingles in their last unhallowed sleep? Do ye think of the blood, the sorrow, the wild, sky-rending cries, As the scarce-born babe was mangled to feast their fiendish eyes? Do you think of the brute defilement when, full in the flare of day, Ye were robbed of your dear-prized honour, and made the Moslem’s prey? Will ye choose that path, O sisters? ’Tis a path ye have often trod; Or throw yourselves on the mercy of the great, all-powerful God?

What though He is veiled in silence, and behind our clouds grown dim; If He come not down to help us, then we will go to Him. See! there is the other pathway, down, down to the home of Night. Jump! long ere the body be broken, the soul will have taken flight. He will give His charge to His angels: in their hands they will bear thee up, As ye tread the Saviour’s pathway, and drink the Saviour’s cup. There,--lean on my breast, sweet infant, and good-bye to Earth and woe. Now, sisters, the way lies open: I am weary and long to go!”

They had fought: they had failed; and they followed brave Schakhe, a martyr throng;-- And soft o’er the corpse-strewn valley the winds sigh: “Lord, how long?”

In the Giant’s Ring, Belfast.

No Shakespeare girdle this, whose girth Would compass with its arms The sounding seas and snows of earth, The fruitful fields and farms.[A] Here priestly power has thrown around A circuit wide and high, A bar where waves of human sound Beat vainly, drop, and die.

“Who dreams of war in such a scene Of undisturbed repose? Who babbles here of spite and spleen? Who rhymes of human woes? Nought here is heard of mingling cries, Of life’s unlovely jars Nought here is seen but yonder skies, And circling suns and stars!”

O wise in wisdom of the fool! O warped in sight and soul! O Arctic spirit, icy cool As passions of the Pole!

Is ’t but a dream of babe or bard That conjures grief and groans? Or is thy shrunken heart more hard Than those three standing stones?

I dreamed a dream when last I stood Within their sombre shade: Time took my hand full many a rood Beyond the tides of trade, Beyond the sacerdotal rite, And soul-absorbing creeds, Beyond the narrow skirts of sight And despicable deeds.

I soared above the brimming Earth; I peered beneath its breast; I saw the founts of joy and mirth, And seats of life’s unrest. But in the ocean of its thought One current swelled and grew And on to seas with blessing fraught A thousand others drew.

’Twas Love: and Time stood by, and said: “Behold! a thousand spires Speak gilded words from hearts as dead As those old Druid fires.

But love lives on and leavens all In Earth’s expanding range, The height and depth, the rise and fall, The first and last of Change.

“Kings pale and perish, dogmas die, The world goes slowly on To greet an all-unclouded sky, To kiss a purer dawn. Stript of the garb of mimic worth, Freed from his brothers’ ban And circumscribing creeds, steps forth A newer, nobler man.

“’Twas thus God’s chosen race was bent Beneath a tyrant yoke: ’Twas thus the hated chains were rent, The conqueror’s sceptre broke. Thus Babylon to Persia bowed, Thus Persia bent to Greece, Thus Greece gave place to Rome the proud, The Goth broke Roman peace.”

These mighty stones, this giant ring Give token of a day That died, as dies a dreamt-of thing, And passed in dust away, Save these, for you--dear heart--and me To gaze on, muse, and rhyme: “Time conquers all, both bond and free, But Love shall conquer Time!”

The Blind Father.

I.

So, my son, you came this morning at the blinking of the day, “King, and heir for Uther,” riding swiftly shoreward on the spray That, within my face, comes blowing from a stranger sea and sky,-- Felt, not seen--upon whose margin here, a sightless Merlin, I Stand, and turn my head and harken to the whisper of the wind Borne from seaward on to leeward,--dark before and dark behind.

II.

And they say you’re like your father?--How can I know, for I look With a dead eye into darkness; yet I’ve felt upon a book Something tell me: “In His form and with His likeness made He man:” So you’re like your father, and he looks like God--but, ah! the ban, A Damocles-blade, keeps hanging, as o’er ancient Adam’s head, O’er last moment’s latest Adam, just arisen from the dead.

III.

Ban! Who banned you? Is it God, or is it man suspends the knife? God decreed you’d toil for bread, but man decrees you’ll die for life!

IV.

“From the dead.”--You like the phrase not, wife; yet not from death he’s come, But from life, of all the ages past the product and the sum. Thine and mine,--yet neither mine nor thine, but heir of every hour, Drawing through thee from the world’s breast,--we the stem and he the flower. Ours, and yet not ours; the acorn from its parent will be broke, Drop to earth, from earth to heaven stretch the fingers of the oak. Acorn--oak, and back to acorn, hedging all the hills of time, On and on forever, housing birds of every wing and clime. Thus we die,--and thus we die not; mortal, yet immortal we; Closely clasping crumbling fingers round the hand of the To Be; Flingling out along the ages tendrils that will grip, and twine In a slow attenuation down the long posterior line.

V.

Thus the generations, marching to an universal strain, Start, and stop; and in the starting from Da Capo sing again.

VI.

Ah! not ours: yet ours the moulding of a future near or far; Ours to set a sun in heaven,--hurl in space a red-eyed star.-- For I’m told, beyond my curtain there revolveth day and night, And among the stars there standeth one that winketh red with fight; And you say the glow that lights upon my cheek is from the sun Guiding lightning-footed planets as they in their orbits run; And I’ve heard that all have sprung from atoms crowding God’s abyss,-- Mars, the evil-eyed and warlike; Sol, the pivot-point of bliss.

VII.

Yes, a weakness, sprung from weakness, weaker waxes, and a strength On from strength to strength goes marching, grasping God’s right hand at length; For the mickle at the shoulder means the muckle at the hand, And the hair’s breadth on the compass means the ship upon the land.

VIII.

Aye, wife; now I know the reason why you sighed so since we wed: You have seen the world hang on you. Don’t you mind, dear, what you read Out of Cowper?--where he speaks of how the arrow on the wing Falls at last far out of line though small the error at the string.

IX.

There he’s: take him! You can rhyme of chubby cheeks, and laughy eyes That have housed far down within them little patches of the skies; You can paint your glowing pictures, that a tear may wash away When a future Vandal stumbles through your dream some after day. Mine are coloured from th’ eternal, set by Love in Fancy’s mould, Knowing nought of life’s mutations, Summer’s heat or Winter’s cold.

X.

So you’ve only come this morning, courier dove with pinions white? What’s the news from God, what message from the hidden heart of Night?

Sundry Songs and Sonnets.

The Southern Cross.

Afar from his wife and his sons and his daughters, The fisherman grapples for gain or loss; Beneath him the silent midnight waters; Above him the blaze of the Southern Cross: And ever his thoughts on the breeze hie homeward, As he calls to the watcher again and again,-- “O what of the night: is it dark or bright?” And ever there cometh the old refrain,-- “The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing, The midnight shadows fly. The Cross is bending, the night is ending, The day is drawing nigh.”

Again, on the storm-swept winter waters, He battles the billows that tumble and toss; And he thinks of the weeping of wives and daughters, As the clouds fly over the Southern Cross. Ah, then in the hour of his heart’s despairing, When sheets are rending and cables strain, How sweet to his ear come the words of cheer, And the sound of the watcher’s old refrain,-- “The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing, The midnight shadows fly. The Cross is bending, the night is ending, The day is drawing nigh.”

. . . . . .

Far out, far out on Life’s wild waters, Where storms are howling, where breakers toss, How many of earth’s fair sons and daughters Are drifting and dragging to gain or loss! But ever the Stars of Hope are shining, Through calm and tempest, through wind and rain; And soft through the night, be it dark or bright, The heart still echoes the old refrain,-- “The skies are clearing, the dawn is nearing, The midnight shadows fly. The Cross is bending, the night is ending. The day is drawing nigh.”

On the Death of William Morris.

I.

Mine eyes beheld thee--but not nigh: mine ear, Close to thy page, could feel the beat, beat, beat, That told thy great, good heart: now strangers’ feet Have borne thee out. Thee? Nay, I have thee here Forever young; nor less that eye, so clear, Beams brotherhood, nor can the years that fleet Leave me more lonely. No hot tear--full meet From widowed Friendship--drop I on thy bier. Some earth-stained page mars oft fair Friendships’s book; And happier I, who saw thro’ Fancy’s light Kin only of the sacred singing race, Blameless of all that mars familiar sight!-- Then wherefore should I weep, who skyward look, And mark a god move Godward to his place?

II.

Perfume of eld, more sweet than all the scent Of late-blown roses squandered on the air, Sweetens the tawny forest of thy hair, And there shall dwell till all the years be spent. To thee war’s call with hint of song is blent, And time sits easy on the brows of care; Love lifts a white affirming hand to swear Thee hero of thy heroes,--thou, who went To the frore Past. Lo! in its eyes did dance Reflection of a day within the wake Of some unrisen, kindlier star; and thou Didst cry: “Behold, with goodlier days the Now Is great, as forests wave in seeds to break, And countless thousands pulse in Love’s first glance!”

Copernicus.

They deemed, self-centred souls! that those great eyes Which star the night, in amorous orbit turned And, ever boldly bashful, sighed and burned For one earth kiss, and stood within the skies Eternally expectant. O most wise In your great selves! that rude iconoclast His stones of Truth among your dreamings cast, And robbed your wisdom of its dear disguise. He stood, a Sampson of Titanic force, ’Twixt men and God, and swiftly grasped and hurled His bolts at callow thoughts of centuries, And pivoted th’ unreckoned universe, And marked the rhythmic orbit of a world, And changed chaotic chords to harmonies!

To Algernon Charles Swinburne.

(To remind him that the Genius of Ireland, nigh twenty centuries ago, taught the dull ears of the world the subtleties and charms of the rhyme of which he is now acknowledged master.)

Moulder of mighty measures and sublime; Whose flower of song--how dead soe’er the ground-- Blossoms: whose feet, from no great depth profound, By cloudy slopes to cloudier summits climb! What though thou art, in this thy world-broad prime, Great King of Song, sceptred and robed and crowned; Be it not thine to scorn the narrow round Whence broadened out the bounds of later time. Not all the message of that far-off chime The strident strains of this our day have drowned: “Forget not, Singer, whence hath sprung thy rhyme, Or whence thy tongue its lofty power hath found; Nor squander all thy store in mocking mime, Niggard of sense and prodigal of sound.”

Heaven and Earth.

_In the beginning the Heaven and the Earth were wedded together, and then was the golden age of joy and beauty. But something occurred which destroyed the union, and the Heaven and the Earth were parted amid the tears of Nature, which men call the dew._--LEGEND OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS.

Truth in untruth; wisdom on Folly’s tongue, And substance in a shadow!--Hear ye this: Erewhile, ’mid transports of primeval bliss, In starry ears a bridal song was sung, And Heav’n and Earth, in mutual rapture, strung Ethereal harps, and took one reeling kiss, ’Till, seated with much joy, Earth grew remiss: But, love was rife, and, ah! the Earth was young.

O trembling tears of dawn in Nature’s eyes! Forget your sadness. Lo! methinks the hour When recreant Love turns loveward, thrills the dome; Earth lifts mute praying hands in tree and flower, And Heav’n, in all the windows of the skies, Hangs nightly lamps to light the wand’rer home!

On Some Twentieth Century forecasts.

O imperturable and silent years, That reck not all the riot of our time Whose fevered feet, with inharmonious rhyme, Royster around thy high phantasmal tiers! How mean our mockings of the silent seers To read the riddle of th’ Eternal Soul! We list’ the thundering life within thy bole, And count the hidden harvest that anears, And dream our dreams, and smile to see them wrecked! Oh, vain insurgence on the unrevealed: Enough to map the paths our fathers tracked Not, mother-like, kiss yet the face concealed. Age ages not the elemental law, And we are thou in hope, thou we anew, And still beneath are depths whence Shakspere drew, And still above are stars that Milton saw!

Ireland.

Somewhat of Autumn’s splendour round her lies; Yet deem not thou ’tis preface of her death, For there is that within her heart which saith This word that buds and blossoms in her eyes:-- “Reck not the portent of the season’s skies, Nor deem yon darkling clouds aught but a breath Sundrawn from half a world that offereth Its votive incense to the year that flies.” The hand that bevels down the shortening day Is one with that which quickens leaf and wing, So prophecy of pregnance in decay Thou hast, and in thine Autumn germs of Spring; To vindicate these lips, that late have said: “They dreamed a lie who deemed thee wholly dead!”

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A:

...Put a Girdle round the earth In forty minutes. ]