Part 3

City about whose brow the north winds blow, Girdled with woods and shod with river foam, Called by a name as old as Troy or Rome, Be great as they, but pure as thine own snow; Rather flash up amid the auroral glow, The Lamia city of the northern star, Than be so hard with craft or wild with war, Peopled with deeds remembered for their woe.

Thou art too bright for guile, too young for tears, And thou wilt live to be too strong for Time; For he may mock thee with his furrowed frowns, But thou wilt grow in calm throughout the years, Cinctured with peace and crowned with power sublime, The maiden queen of all the towered towns.

SONG

Here’s the last rose, And the end of June, With the tulips gone And the lilacs strewn; A light wind blows From the golden west, The bird is charmed To her secret nest: Here’s the last rose-- In the violet sky A great star shines, The gnats are drawn To the purple pines; On the magic lawn A shadow flows From the summer moon: Here’s the last rose, And the end of the tune.

NIGHT AND THE PINES

Here in the pine shade is the nest of night, Lined deep with shadows, odorous and dim, And here he stays his sweeping flight, Here where the strongest wind is lulled for him, He lingers brooding until dawn, While all the trembling stars move on and on.

Under the cliff there drops a lonely fall, Deep and half heard its thunder lifts and booms; Afar the loons with eerie call Haunt all the bays, and breaking through the glooms Upfloats that cry of light despair, As if a demon laughed upon the air.

A raven croaks from out his ebon sleep, When a brown cone falls near him through the dark; And when the radiant meteors sweep Afar within the larches wakes the lark; The wind moves on the cedar hill, Tossing the weird cry of the whip-poor-will.

Sometimes a titan wind, slumbrous and hushed, Takes the dark grove within his swinging power; And like a cradle softly pushed, The shade sways slowly for a lulling hour; While through the cavern sweeps a cry, A Sibyl with her secret prophecy.

When morning lifts its fragile silver dome, And the first eagle takes the lonely air, Up from his dense and sombre home The night sweeps out, a tireless wayfarer, Leaving within the shadows deep, The haunting mood and magic of his sleep.

And so we cannot come within this grove, But all the quiet dusk remembrance brings Of ancient sorrow and of hapless love, Fate, and the dream of power, and piercing things Traces of mystery and might, The passion-sadness of the soul of night.

A NIGHT IN MARCH

At eve the fiery sun went forth Flooding the clouds with ruby blood, Up roared a war-wind from the north And crashed at midnight through the wood.

The demons danced about the trees, The snow slipped singing over the wold, And ever when the wind would cease A lynx cried out within the cold.

A spirit walked the ringing rooms, Passing the locked and secret door, Heavy with divers ancient dooms, With dreams dead laden to the core.

‘Spirit, thou art too deep with woe, I have no harbour place for thee, Leave me to lesser griefs, and go, Go with the great wind to the sea.’

I faltered like a frightened child, That fears its nurse’s fairy brood, And as I spoke, I heard the wild Wind plunging through the shattered wood.

‘Hast thou betrayed the rest of kings, With tragic fears and spectres wan, My dreams are lit with purer things, With humbler ghosts, begone, begone.’

The noisy dark was deaf and blind, Still the strange spirit strayed or stood, And I could only hear the wind Go roaring through the riven wood.

‘Art thou the fate for some wild heart, That scorned his cavern’s curve and bars, That leaped the bounds of time and art, And lost thee lingering near the stars?’

It was so still I heard my thought, Even the wind was very still, The desolate deeper silence brought The lynx-moan from the lonely hill.

‘Art thou the thing I might have been, If all the dead had known control, Risen through the ages’ trembling sheen, A mirage of my desert soul?’

The wind rushed down the roof in wrath, Then shrieked and held its breath and stood, Like one who finds beside his path, A dead girl in the marish wood.

‘Or have I ceased, as those who die And leave the broken word unsaid, Art thou the spirit ministry That hovers round the newly dead?’

The auroras rose in solitude, And wanly paled within the room, The window showed an ebon rood, Upon the blanched and ashen gloom.

I heard a voice within the dark, That answered not my idle word, I could not choose but pause and hark, It was so magically stirred.

It grew within the quiet hour, With the rose shadows on the wall, It had a touch of ancient power, A wild and elemental fall;

Its rapture had a dreaming close: The dawn grew slowly on the wold, Spreading in fragile veils of rose, In tender lines of lemon-gold.

The world was turning into light, Was sweeping into life and peace, And folded in the fading night, I felt the dawning sink and cease.

SEPTEMBER

The morns are grey with haze and faintly cold, The early sunsets arc the west with red; The stars are misty silver overhead, Above the dawn Orion lies outrolled. Now all the slopes are slowly growing gold, And in the dales a deeper silence dwells; The crickets mourn with funeral flutes and bells, For days before the summer had grown old.

Now the night-gloom with hurrying wings is stirred, Strangely the comrade pipings rise and sink, The birds are following in the pathless dark The footsteps of the pilgrim summer. Hark! Was that the redstart or the bobolink? That lonely cry the summer-hearted bird?

BY THE WILLOW SPRING

TO E. W.

Come hither, Care, and look on this fair place, But leave your gossip and your puckered face Beyond that flowering carrot in the glow, Where the red poppies in the orchard blow, And come with gentle feet; the last thing there Was a white butterfly upon the air, And even now a thrush was in the grass, To feel the sovereign water slowly pass. This pool is quiet as oblivion, Hidden securely from the flooding sun; Its crystal placid surface here receives The wan grey under light of the willow leaves; And shy things brood about the grass unheard; Only in sunny distance sings the bird. O Time long dead, O days reclaimed and done, Thou broughtest joy and tears to every one, And here by this deep pool thou wast not slow, To deal a maiden all her tender woe; Be kindlier to her now that she is dead, Let her charmed spirit visit this well-head More often, for at eve in honey-time, Drifting in silence from her ghostly clime, She haunts the pool about the willows pale: Be gentle, for my feeling art may fail, I’ll freshen sorrow and retell her tale.

She was a fragile daughter of the earth, And touched with faery from her fatal birth; For many summers she was hardly shy, Not clouded with her hovering destiny, But only wild as any woodland thing, That comes at even to a trodden spring; And scarce she seemed of any settled mood, That lights the peaceful hills of maidenhood, But shifted strangely on the whimsy air, Not quiet nor contented anywhere. She gathered sunshine in an earthen cruse, And thought to keep it for her own sweet use; Or fluttered flowers from her window high, And wept upon them when they would not fly; And when she found the brownish mignonette Had blossomed where a little seed was set, She planted her rag playmate in the sun, Because she wanted yet another one; And when she heard the enraptured sparrow sing, She clamoured for a song from everything. For many years she was as strange and free, As a pine linnet in a cedar tree. Her folk thought: She is very wild and odd, But she is good, we’ll wait and trust in God. O love, that watched the weird and charméd child, Change from her airy fancies sweet and mild, Like a blue brook that clears a meadow spring, And threads the barley where the bobolinks sing, Then wimples by the roots of dusky firs, And gathers darkness in those deeps of hers, Then makes an arrowy movement through a pass, Where rocks are crannied with the clinging grass, Then falls, almost dissolved in silver rain, She gathers deeply to a pool again; But something wild in her new spirit lies, She never can regain her limpid eyes: O love, alas! ’twas ever so to be, When streams set out to reach the bitter sea. It was a time within the early spring, Before the orchards had done blossoming, Before the kinglet on his northern search, Had ceased his timorous piping in the birch, When streams were bright before the coming leaves And gurgled like the swallows in the eaves, She wandered led by fancy to this place, And looked upon the water’s crystal face; She saw--what thing of beauty or of awe I know not, no one knoweth what she saw. But ever after she was constant here, As silent as her shadow in the mere, Sitting upon a stone which many feet Had grooved and trodden for the water sweet, And leaning gravely on her slanted arm, Her fingers buried in the gravel warm, She gazed and gazed and did not speak or sigh, As if this gazing was her destiny. They led her nightly from the magic pool, Before the shadows grew too deep and cool; They thought to win her from the liquid spell, And tried to tease the elfin maid to tell, What was the charm that led her to the spring; But all their words availed not anything. Then gazed they on the surface of the pool To read the reason of such subtle rule; Their eyes were overclouded, they could see (Who had drawn water there perpetually) Nothing but water in a depth serene, With a few moony stones of palish green. They thought perchance it was her face she saw And answered, beauty unto beauty’s law, But when they showed her image in a glass, She was not cured and nothing came to pass; So then they left her to her own strange will, And here she stayed when the fair pool was still. But when the wind would hurl the heavy rain, She peered out sadly from her window-pane; And when the night set wildly close and deep, She took her trouble down the dale of sleep: But when the night was warm and no dew fell, She waked and dreamed beside the starlit well.

Then came a change, each day some offering She laid beside the clear soft flowing spring; And there she found them at the break of morn, And everything would take away forlorn; Until beside the unconscious spring was laid Each treasure held most precious by a maid. After, she offered flowers and often set A bowlful of the pleasant mignonette, And starred the stones with the narcissus white, And pansies left athinking all the night, Then ruffled dewy dahlias, and at last, When sundown told the summer-time had passed, The stainéd asters; but from day to day, Sadly she took the untouched flowers away. With autumn and the sounding harvest flute, She brought her timid god the heavy fruit; But found it still and cool at early dawn, Beaded with dew upon the crispy lawn. At last one eve she placed an apple here, Smooth as a topaz and as golden clear, Scented like almonds, with a flesh like dew And luscious-sweet as honey through and through. She left it sadly on the sleepy lawn, But when she came again her apple gold was gone.

Day after day for days she mutely strove, Not to be separate from her placid love; Perchance she thought that, breaking through the spell, Her shadow-god, deep in the tranquil well, Had taken her last gift;--no man may know; Her fancies merged with all mute things that go The poppied path, dreams and desires foredone, The unplucked roses of oblivion. But now she searched for words that would express Something of all her spirit’s loneliness; And formed a liquid jargon, full of falls As weird and wild as ariel madrigals; Our human tongue was far too harsh for this, Or her slight spirit bore too great a bliss; But always grew she very faint and pale, Day after day her beauty grew more frail, More mute, more eerie, more ethereal; Her soul burned whitely in its waning shell.

Then came the winter with his frosty breath And made the world an image of white death, And like to death he found the charméd child; Yet could not kill her with his bluster wild. Only in his first days she went about, And sadly hearkened to his hearty shout; From windows where the wizard frost had traced Moth-wings of rime with silver ferns inlaced, She saw her pool set coldly in the drift, Where in the autumn she had left her gift, Capped with a cloud of silver steam or smoke, That hovered there whether she dreamed or woke; And often stealing from her early sleep, She watched the light cloud in the midnight deep, Waver and blow beneath the moon’s white globe, Shivering and whispering in her chilly robe. At last she would not look or speak at all, And turned her large eyes to the shaded wall. Now she is dead, they thought; but never so, She died not when the winter winds did blow; She was a spirit of the summer air, She would not vanish at the year’s despair.

At length the merry sun grew warm and high, And changed the wildwood with his alchemy; The violet reared her bell of drooping gold, And over her the robin chimed and trolled. When the first slender moon of May had come, That finds the blithe bird busy at his home, They missed the spirit maiden from the room, That now was sweet with light and spring perfume, And called her all the echoing afternoon; She answered not, but when the growing moon Went down the west with the last bird awing, They found her dead beside her darling spring.

This is her tale, her murmurous monument Flows softly where her fragile life was spent, Not grooved in brass nor trenched in pallid stone, But told by water to the reeds alone.

She cometh here sometimes on summer eves, Her quiet spirit lingers in the leaves, And while this spring flows on, and while the wands Sway in the moonlight, while in drifting bands, The thistledown blows gleaming in the air, And dappled thrushes haunt the precinct fair; She will return, she will return and lean Above the crystal in the covert green, And dream of beauty on the shadow flung Of irised distance when the world was young.

Let us be gone; this is no place for tears, Let us go slowly with the guardian years; Let us be brave, the day is almost done, Another setting of the pleasant sun.

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, at the Edinburgh University Press.

* * * * *

LIST OF BOOKS

MAY 1893.

MESSRS. METHUEN’S

ANNOUNCEMENTS

=Gladstone.= THE SPEECHES AND PUBLIC ADDRESSES OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. With Notes. Edited by A. W. HUTTON, M.A. (Librarian of the Gladstone Library), and H. J. COHEN, M.A. With Portraits. _8vo. Vol. IX. 12s. 6d._

Messrs. METHUEN beg to announce that they are about to issue, in ten volumes 8vo, an authorised collection of Mr. Gladstone’s Speeches, the work being undertaken with his sanction and under his superintendence. Notes and Introductions will be added.

_In view of the interest in the Home Rule Question, it is proposed to issue Vols. IX. and X., which will include the speeches of the last seven or eight years, immediately, and then to proceed with the earlier volumes. Volume X. is already published._

=Henley & Whibley.= A BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE. Collected by W. E. HENLEY and CHARLES WHIBLEY. _Crown 8vo._

[_October._

Also small limited editions on Dutch and Japanese paper. 21_s._ and 42_s._ _net_.

A companion book to Mr. Henley’s well-known _Lyra Heroica_. It is believed that no such collection of splendid prose has ever been brought within the compass of one volume. Each piece, whether containing a character-sketch or incident, is complete in itself. The book will be finely printed and bound.

=Henley.= ENGLISH LYRICS. Selected and Edited by W. E. HENLEY. In Two Editions:

A limited issue on hand-made paper. _Large crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. net._

A small issue on finest large Japanese paper. _Demy 8vo. 42s. net._

The announcement of this important collection of English Lyrics will excite wide interest. It will be finely printed by Messrs. Constable & Co., and issued in limited editions.

=Cheyne.= FOUNDERS OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM: Biographical, Descriptive, and Critical Studies. By T. K. CHEYNE, D.D., Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford. _Large crown 8vo. 7s. 6d._

[_Ready._

This important book is a historical sketch of O.T. Criticism in the form of biographical studies from the days of Eichhorn to those of Driver and Robertson Smith. It is the only book of its kind in English.

=Prior.= CAMBRIDGE SERMONS. Edited by C. H. PRIOR, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College. _Crown 8vo. 6s._

[_October._

A volume of sermons preached before the University of Cambridge by various preachers, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Westcott.

=Collingwood.= JOHN RUSKIN: His Life and Work. By W. G. COLLINGWOOD, M.A., late Scholar of University College, Oxford, Author of the ‘Art Teaching of John Ruskin,’ Editor of Mr. Ruskin’s Poems. _2 vols. 8vo. 32s._

[_Ready._

Also a limited edition on hand-made paper, with the Illustrations on India paper. £3, 3_s._ _net_.

[_All sold._

Also a small edition on Japanese paper. £5, 5_s._ _net_.

[_All sold._

This important work is written by Mr. Collingwood, who has been for some years Mr. Ruskin’s private secretary, and who has had unique advantages in obtaining materials for this book from Mr. Ruskin himself and from his friends. It contains a large amount of new matter, and of letters which have never been published, and is, in fact, as near as is possible at present, a full and authoritative biography of Mr. Ruskin. The book contains numerous portraits of Mr. Ruskin, including a coloured one from a water-colour portrait by himself, and also 13 sketches, never before published, by Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Arthur Severn. A bibliography is added.

_The First Edition having been at once exhausted, a Second is now ready._

‘No more magnificent volumes have been published for a long time than “The Life and Work of John Ruskin.” In binding, paper, printing, and illustrations they will satisfy the most fastidious. They will be prized not only by the band of devotees who look up to Mr. Ruskin as the teacher of the age, but by the many whom no eccentricities can blind to his genius....’--_Times._

‘It is just because there are so many books about Mr. Ruskin that these extra ones are needed. They survey all the others, and supersede most of them, and they give us the great writer as a whole.... He has given us everything needful--a biography, a systematic account of his writings, and a bibliography.... This most lovingly written and most profoundly interesting book.’--_Daily News._

‘The record is one which is well worth telling; the more so as Mr. Collingwood knows more about his subject than the rest of the world.... His two volumes are fitted with elaborate indices and tables, which will one day be of immense use to the students of Ruskin’s work.... It is a book which will be very widely and deservedly read.’--_St. James’s Gazette._

‘To a large number of people these volumes will be more pre-eminently the book of the year than any other that has been, or is likely to be, published.... It is long since we have had a biography with such varied delights of substance and of form. Such a book is a pleasure for the day, and a joy for ever.’--_Daily Chronicle._

‘It is not likely that much will require to be added to this record of his career which has come from the pen of Mr. W. G. Collingwood. Mr. Ruskin could not well have been more fortunate in his biographer.’--_Globe._

‘A noble monument of a noble subject. One of the most beautiful books about one of the noblest lives of our century. The volumes are exceedingly handsome, and the illustrations very beautiful.’--_Glasgow Herald._

‘It is indeed an excellent biography of Ruskin.’--_Scotsman._

=John Beever.= PRACTICAL FLY-FISHING, Founded on Nature, by JOHN BEEVER, late of the Thwaite House, Coniston. A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author by W. G. COLLINGWOOD, M.A., Author of ‘The Life and Work of John Ruskin,’ etc. Also additional Notes and a chapter on Char-Fishing, by A. and A. R. SEVERN. With a specially designed title-page. _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d._

[_Ready._

Also a small edition on large paper. 10_s._ 6_d._ _net_.

A little book on Fly-Fishing by an old friend of Mr. Ruskin. It has been out of print for some time, and being still much in request, is now issued with a Memoir of the Author by W. G. Collingwood.

=Hosken.= VERSES BY THE WAY. BY J. D. HOSKEN.

Printed on laid paper, and bound in buckram, gilt top. 5_s._

Also a small edition on large Dutch hand-made paper. _Price 12s. 6d. net._

[_October._

A Volume of Lyrics and Sonnets by J. D. Hosken, the Postman Poet, of Helston, Cornwall, whose interesting career is now more or less well known to the literary public. Q, the Author of ‘The Splendid Spur,’ etc., will write a critical and biographical introduction.

=Oscar Browning.= GUELPHS AND GHIBELLINES: A Short History of Mediæval Italy, A.D. 1250-1409. By OSCAR BROWNING, Fellow and Tutor of King’s College, Cambridge. _Crown 8vo. 5s._

=Oliphant.= THOMAS CHALMERS: A Biography. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. With Portrait. _Crown 8vo. Buckram, 5s._

[_Ready._

A Life of the celebrated Scottish divine from the capable and sympathetic pen of Mrs. Oliphant, which will be welcome to a large circle of readers. It is issued uniform with Mr. Lock’s ‘Life of John Keble.’

=Anthony Hope.= A CHANGE OF AIR: A Novel. By ANTHONY HOPE, Author of ‘Mr. Witt’s Widow,’ etc. _1 vol. Crown 8vo. 6s._

[_Ready._

A bright story by Mr. Hope, who has, the Athenum says, ‘a decided outlook and individuality of his own.’

=Baring Gould.= MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN. By S. BARING GOULD, Author of ‘Mehalah,’ ‘Old Country Life,’ etc. _Crown 8vo. 3 vols. 31s. 6d._

[_Ready._

A powerful and characteristic story of Devon life by the author of ‘Mehalah.’

=Benson.= DODO: A DETAIL OF THE DAY. By E. F. BENSON. _Crown 8vo. 2 vols. 21s._

[_Ready._

A story of society by a new writer, full of interest and power, which will attract considerable notice.