Chapter 3
In a false dream I saw the Foe prevail. The war was ended; the last smoke had rolled Away: and we, erewhile the strong and bold, Stood broken, humbled, withered, weak and pale, And moan'd, "Our greatness is become a tale To tell our children's babes when we are old. They shall put by their playthings to be told How England once, before the years of bale, Throned above trembling, puissant, grandiose, calm, Held Asia's richest jewel in her palm; And with unnumbered isles barbaric, she The broad hem of her glistering robe impearl'd; Then, when she wound her arms about the world, And had for vassal the obsequious sea."
XIV
LAST WORD: TO THE COLONIES
Brothers beyond the Atlantic's loud expanse; And you that rear the innumerable fleece Far southward 'mid the ocean named of peace; Britons that past the Indian wave advance Our name and spirit and world-predominance; And you our kin that reap the earth's increase Where crawls that long-backed mountain till it cease Crown'd with the headland of bright esperance:-- Remote compatriots wheresoe'er ye dwell, By your prompt voices ringing clear and true We know that with our England all is well: Young is she yet, her world-task but begun! By you we know her safe, and know by you Her veins are million but her heart is one.
EPIGRAMS
'Tis human fortune's happiest height to be A spirit melodious, lucid, poised, and whole; Second in order of felicity I hold it, to have walk'd with such a soul.
* * * * *
The statue--Buonarroti said--doth wait, Thrall'd in the block, for me to emancipate. The poem--saith the poet--wanders free Till I betray it to captivity.
* * * * *
To keep in sight Perfection, and adore The vision, is the artist's best delight; His bitterest pang, that he can ne'er do more Than keep her long'd-for loveliness in sight.
* * * * *
If Nature be a phantasm, as thou say'st, A splendid fiction and prodigious dream, To reach the real and true I'll make no haste, More than content with worlds that only seem.
* * * * *
The Poet gathers fruit from every tree, Yea, grapes from thorns and figs from thistles he. Pluck'd by his hand, the basest weed that grows Towers to a lily, reddens to a rose.
* * * * *
Brook, from whose bridge the wandering idler peers To watch thy small fish dart or cool floor shine, I would that bridge whose arches all are years Spann'd not a less transparent wave than thine!
* * * * *
To Art we go as to a well, athirst, And see our shadow 'gainst its mimic skies, But in its depth must plunge and be immersed To clasp the naiad Truth where low she lies.
* * * * *
In youth the artist voweth lover's vows To Art, in manhood maketh her his spouse. Well if her charms yet hold for him such joy As when he craved some boon and she was coy!
* * * * *
Immured in sense, with fivefold bonds confined, Rest we content if whispers from the stars In waftings of the incalculable wind Come blown at midnight through our prison-bars.
* * * * *
Love, like a bird, hath perch'd upon a spray For thee and me to hearken what he sings. Contented, he forgets to fly away; But hush!... remind not Eros of his wings.
* * * * *
Think not thy wisdom can illume away The ancient tanglement of night and day. Enough, to acknowledge both, and both revere: They see not clearliest who see all things clear.
* * * * *
In mid whirl of the dance of Time ye start, Start at the cold touch of Eternity, And cast your cloaks about you, and depart: The minstrels pause not in their minstrelsy.
* * * * *
The beasts in field are glad, and have not wit To know why leapt their hearts when springtime shone. Man looks at his own bliss, considers it, Weighs it with curious fingers; and 'tis gone.
* * * * *
Momentous to himself as I to me Hath each man been that ever woman bore; Once, in a lightning-flash of sympathy, I _felt_ this truth, an instant, and no more.
* * * * *
The gods man makes he breaks; proclaims them each Immortal, and himself outlives them all: But whom he set not up he cannot reach To shake His cloud-dark sun-bright pedestal.
* * * * *
The children romp within the graveyard's pale; The lark sings o'er a madhouse, or a gaol;-- Such nice antitheses of perfect poise Chance in her curious rhetoric employs.
* * * * *
Our lithe thoughts gambol close to God's abyss, Children whose home is by the precipice. Fear not thy little ones shall o'er it fall: Solid, though viewless, is the girdling wall.
* * * * *
Lives there whom pain hath evermore pass'd by And Sorrow shunn'd with an averted eye? Him do thou pity, him above the rest, Him of all hapless mortals most unbless'd.
* * * * *
Say what thou wilt, the young are happy never. Give me bless'd Age, beyond the fire and fever,-- Past the delight that shatters, hope that stings, And eager flutt'ring of life's ignorant wings.
* * * * *
Onward the chariot of the Untarrying moves; Nor day divulges him nor night conceals; Thou hear'st the echo of unreturning hooves And thunder of irrevocable wheels.
* * * * *
A deft musician does the breeze become Whenever an Æolian harp it finds: Hornpipe and hurdygurdy both are dumb Unto the most musicianly of winds.
* * * * *
I follow Beauty; of her train am I: Beauty whose voice is earth and sea and air; Who serveth, and her hands for all things ply; Who reigneth, and her throne is everywhere.
* * * * *
Toiling and yearning, 'tis man's doom to see No perfect creature fashion'd of his hands. Insulted by a flower's immaculacy, And mock'd at by the flawless stars he stands.
* * * * *
For metaphors of man we search the skies, And find our allegory in all the air. We gaze on Nature with Narcissus-eyes, Enamour'd of our shadow everywhere.
* * * * *
One music maketh its occult abode In all things scatter'd from great Beauty's hand; And evermore the deepest words of God Are yet the easiest to understand.
* * * * *
Enough of mournful melodies, my lute! Be henceforth joyous, or be henceforth mute. Song's breath is wasted when it does but fan The smouldering infelicity of man.
* * * * *
I pluck'd this flower, O brighter flower, for thee, There where the river dies into the sea. To kiss it the wild west wind hath made free: Kiss it thyself and give it back to me.
* * * * *
To be as this old elm full loth were I, That shakes in the autumn storm its palsied head. Hewn by the weird last woodman let me lie Ere the path rustle with my foliage shed.
* * * * *
Ah, vain, thrice vain in the end, thy hate and rage, And the shrill tempest of thy clamorous page. True poets but transcendent lovers be, And one great love-confession poesy.
* * * * *
His rhymes the poet flings at all men's feet, And whoso will may trample on his rhymes. Should Time let die a song that's true and sweet, The singer's loss were more than match'd by Time's.
* * * * *
ON LONGFELLOW'S DEATH
No puissant singer he, whose silence grieves To-day the great West's tender heart and strong; No singer vast of voice: yet one who leaves His native air the sweeter for his song.
* * * * *
BYRON THE VOLUPTUARY
Too avid of earth's bliss, he was of those Whom Delight flies because they give her chase. Only the odour of her wild hair blows Back in their faces hungering for her face.
* * * * *
ANTONY AT ACTIUM
He holds a dubious balance:--yet _that_ scale, Whose freight the world is, surely shall prevail? No; Cleopatra droppeth into _this_ One counterpoising orient sultry kiss.
* * * * *
ART
The thousand painful steps at last are trod, At last the temple's difficult door we win; But perfect on his pedestal, the god Freezes us hopeless when we enter in.
* * * * *
KEATS
He dwelt with the bright gods of elder time, On earth and in their cloudy haunts above. He loved them: and in recompense sublime, The gods, alas! gave him their fatal love.
* * * * *
AFTER READING "TAMBURLAINE THE GREAT"
Your Marlowe's page I close, my Shakspere's ope. How welcome--after gong and cymbal's din-- The continuity, the long slow slope And vast curves of the gradual violin!
* * * * *
SHELLEY AND HARRIET WESTBROOK
A star look'd down from heaven and loved a flower Grown in earth's garden--loved it for an hour:
Let eyes that trace his orbit in the spheres Refuse not, to a ruin'd rosebud, tears.
* * * * *
THE PLAY OF "KING LEAR"
Here Love the slain with Love the slayer lies; Deep drown'd are both in the same sunless pool. Up from its depths that mirror thundering skies Bubbles the wan mirth of the mirthless Fool.
* * * *
TO A POET
Time, the extortioner, from richest beauty Takes heavy toll and wrings rapacious duty. Austere of feature if thou carve thy rhyme, Perchance 'twill pay the lesser tax to Time.
* * * * *
THE YEAR'S MINSTRELSY
Spring, the low prelude of a lordlier song: Summer, a music without hint of death: Autumn, a cadence lingeringly long: Winter, a pause;--the Minstrel-Year takes breath.
* * * * *
THE RUINED ABBEY
Flower fondled, clasp'd in ivy's close caress, It seems allied with Nature, yet apart:-- Of wood's and wave's insensate loveliness The glad, sad, tranquil, passionate, human heart.
* * * * *
MICHELANGELO'S "MOSES"
The captain's might, and mystery of the seer-- Remoteness of Jehovah's colloquist, Nearness of man's heaven-advocate--are here: Alone Mount Nebo's harsh foreshadow is miss'd.
* * * * *
THE ALPS
Adieu, white brows of Europe! sovereign brows, That wear the sunset for a golden tiar. With me in memory shall your phantoms house For ever, whiter than yourselves, and higher.
* * * * *
THE CATHEDRAL SPIRE
It soars like hearts of hapless men who dare To sue for gifts the gods refuse to allot; Who climb for ever toward they know not where, Baffled for ever by they know not what.
* * * * *
AN EPITAPH
His friends he loved. His fellest earthly foes-- Cats--I believe he did but feign to hate. My hand will miss the insinuated nose, Mine eyes the tail that wagg'd contempt at Fate.
* * * * *
THE METROPOLITAN UNDERGROUND RAILWAY
Here were a goodly place wherein to die;-- Grown latterly to sudden change averse, All violent contrasts fain avoid would I On passing from this world into a worse.
* * * * *
TO A SEABIRD
Fain would I have thee barter fates with me,-- Lone loiterer where the shells like jewels be, Hung on the fringe and frayed hem of the sea. But no,--'twere cruel, wild-wing'd Bliss! to thee.
* * * * *
ON DÜRER'S _MELENCOLIA_
What holds her fixed far eyes nor lets them range? Not the strange sea, strange earth, or heav'n more strange; But her own phantom dwarfing these great three, More strange than all, more old than heav'n, earth, sea.
* * * * *
TANTALUS
He wooes for ever, with foil'd lips of drouth, The wave that wearies not to mock his mouth. 'Tis Lethe's; they alone that tide have quaff'd Who never thirsted for the oblivious draught.
* * * * *
A MAIDEN'S EPITAPH
She dwelt among us till the flowers, 'tis said, Grew jealous of her: with precipitate feet, As loth to wrong them unawares, she fled. Earth is less fragrant now, and heaven more sweet.
WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE
TO JAMES BROMLEY
WITH "WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE"
Ere vandal lords with lust of gold accurst Deface each hallowed hillside we revere-- Ere cities in their million-throated thirst Menace each sacred mere-- Let us give thanks because one nook hath been Unflooded yet by desecration's wave, The little churchyard in the valley green That holds our Wordsworth's grave.
'Twas there I plucked these elegiac blooms, There where he rests 'mid comrades fit and few, And thence I bring this growth of classic tombs, An offering, friend, to you-- You who have loved like me his simple themes, Loved his sincere large accent nobly plain, And loved the land whose mountains and whose streams Are lovelier for his strain.
It may be that his manly chant, beside More dainty numbers, seems a rustic tune; It may be, thought has broadened since he died Upon the century's noon; It may be that we can no longer share The faith which from his fathers he received; It may be that our doom is to despair Where he with joy believed;--
Enough that there is none since risen who sings A song so gotten of the immediate soul, So instant from the vital fount of things Which is our source and goal; And though at touch of later hands there float More artful tones than from his lyre he drew, Ages may pass ere trills another note So sweet, so great, so true.
WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE
I
The old rude church, with bare, bald tower, is here; Beneath its shadow high-born Rotha flows; Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near, And with cool murmur lulling his repose
Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near. His hills, his lakes, his streams are with him yet. Surely the heart that read her own heart clear Nature forgets not soon: 'tis we forget.
We that with vagrant soul his fixity Have slighted; faithless, done his deep faith wrong; Left him for poorer loves, and bowed the knee To misbegotten strange new gods of song.
Yet, led by hollow ghost or beckoning elf Far from her homestead to the desert bourn, The vagrant soul returning to herself Wearily wise, must needs to him return.
To him and to the powers that with him dwell:-- Inflowings that divulged not whence they came; And that secluded spirit unknowable, The mystery we make darker with a name;
The Somewhat which we name but cannot know, Ev'n as we name a star and only see His quenchless flashings forth, which ever show And ever hide him, and which are not he.
II
Poet who sleepest by this wandering wave! When thou wast born, what birth-gift hadst thou then? To thee what wealth was that the Immortals gave, The wealth thou gavest in thy turn to men?
Not Milton's keen, translunar music thine; Not Shakespeare's cloudless, boundless human view; Not Shelley's flush of rose on peaks divine; Nor yet the wizard twilight Coleridge knew.
What hadst thou that could make so large amends For all thou hadst not and thy peers possessed, Motion and fire, swift means to radiant ends?-- Thou hadst, for weary feet, the gift of rest.
From Shelley's dazzling glow or thunderous haze, From Byron's tempest-anger, tempest-mirth, Men turned to thee and found--not blast and blaze, Tumult of tottering heavens, but peace on earth,
Nor peace that grows by Lethe, scentless flower, There in white languors to decline and cease; But peace whose names are also rapture, power, Clear sight, and love: for these are parts of peace.
III
I hear it vouched the Muse is with us still;-- If less divinely frenzied than of yore, In lieu of feelings she has wondrous skill To simulate emotion felt no more.
Not such the authentic Presence pure, that made This valley vocal in the great days gone!-- In _his_ great days, while yet the spring-time played About him, and the mighty morning shone.
No word-mosaic artificer, he sang A lofty song of lowly weal and dole. Right from the heart, right to the heart it sprang, Or from the soul leapt instant to the soul.
He felt the charm of childhood, grace of youth, Grandeur of age, insisting to be sung. The impassioned argument was simple truth Half-wondering at its own melodious tongue.
Impassioned? ay, to the song's ecstatic core! But far removed were clangour, storm and feud; For plenteous health was his, exceeding store Of joy, and an impassioned quietude.
IV
A hundred years ere he to manhood came, Song from celestial heights had wandered down, Put off her robe of sunlight, dew and flame, And donned a modish dress to charm the Town.
Thenceforth she but festooned the porch of things; Apt at life's lore, incurious what life meant. Dextrous of hand, she struck her lute's few strings; Ignobly perfect, barrenly content.
Unflushed with ardour and unblanched with awe, Her lips in profitless derision curled, She saw with dull emotion--if she saw-- The vision of the glory of the world.
The human masque she watched, with dreamless eyes In whose clear shallows lurked no trembling shade: The stars, unkenned by her, might set and rise, Unmarked by her, the daisies bloom and fade.
The age grew sated with her sterile wit. Herself waxed weary on her loveless throne. Men felt life's tide, the sweep and surge of it, And craved a living voice, a natural tone.
For none the less, though song was but half true, The world lay common, one abounding theme. Man joyed and wept, and fate was ever new, And love was sweet, life real, death no dream.
In sad stern verse the rugged scholar-sage Bemoaned his toil unvalued, youth uncheered. His numbers wore the vesture of the age, But, 'neath it beating, the great heart was heard.
From dewy pastures, uplands sweet with thyme, A virgin breeze freshened the jaded day. It wafted Collins' lonely vesper-chime, It breathed abroad the frugal note of Gray.
It fluttered here and there, nor swept in vain The dusty haunts where futile echoes dwell,-- Then, in a cadence soft as summer rain, And sad from Auburn voiceless, drooped and fell.
It drooped and fell, and one 'neath northern skies, With southern heart, who tilled his father's field, Found Poesy a-dying, bade her rise And touch quick nature's hem and go forth healed.
On life's broad plain the ploughman's conquering share Upturned the fallow lands of truth anew, And o'er the formal garden's trim parterre The peasant's team a ruthless furrow drew.
Bright was his going forth, but clouds ere long Whelmed him; in gloom his radiance set, and those Twin morning stars of the new century's song, Those morning stars that sang together, rose.
In elvish speech the _Dreamer_ told his tale Of marvellous oceans swept by fateful wings.-- The _Seër_ strayed not from earth's human pale, But the mysterious face of common things
He mirrored as the moon in Rydal Mere Is mirrored, when the breathless night hangs blue: Strangely remote she seems and wondrous near, And by some nameless difference born anew.
V
Peace--peace--and rest! Ah, how the lyre is loth, Or powerless now, to give what all men seek! Either it deadens with ignoble sloth Or deafens with shrill tumult, loudly weak.
Where is the singer whose large notes and clear Can heal and arm and plenish and sustain? Lo, one with empty music floods the ear, And one, the heart refreshing, tires the brain.
And idly tuneful, the loquacious throng Flutter and twitter, prodigal of time, And little masters make a toy of song Till grave men weary of the sound of rhyme.
And some go prankt in faded antique dress, Abhorring to be hale and glad and free; And some parade a conscious naturalness, The scholar's not the child's simplicity.
Enough;--and wisest who from words forbear. The kindly river rails not as it glides; And suave and charitable, the winning air Chides not at all, or only him who chides.
VI
Nature! we storm thine ear with choric notes. Thou answerest through the calm great nights and days, "Laud me who will: not tuneless are your throats; Yet if ye paused I should not miss the praise."
We falter, half-rebuked, and sing again. We chant thy desertness and haggard gloom, Or with thy splendid wrath inflate the strain, Or touch it with thy colour and perfume.
One, his melodious blood aflame for thee, Wooed with fierce lust, his hot heart world-defiled. One, with the upward eye of infancy, Looked in thy face, and felt himself thy child.
Thee he approached without distrust or dread-- Beheld thee throned, an awful queen, above-- Climbed to thy lap and merely laid his head Against thy warm wild heart of mother-love.
He heard that vast heart beating--thou didst press Thy child so close, and lov'dst him unaware. Thy beauty gladdened him; yet he scarce less Had loved thee, had he never found thee fair!
For thou wast not as legendary lands To which with curious eyes and ears we roam. Nor wast thou as a fane mid solemn sands, Where palmers halt at evening. Thou wast home.
And here, at home, still bides he; but he sleeps; Not to be wakened even at thy word; Though we, vague dreamers, dream he somewhere keeps An ear still open to thy voice still heard,--
Thy voice, as heretofore, about him blown, For ever blown about his silence now; Thy voice, though deeper, yet so like his own That almost, when he sang, we deemed 'twas thou!
VII
Behind Helm Crag and Silver Howe the sheen Of the retreating day is less and less. Soon will the lordlier summits, here unseen, Gather the night about their nakedness.
The half-heard bleat of sheep comes from the hill, Faint sounds of childish play are in the air. The river murmurs past. All else is still. The very graves seem stiller than they were.
Afar though nation be on nation hurled, And life with toil and ancient pain depressed, Here one may scarce believe the whole wide world Is not at peace, and all man's heart at rest.
Rest! 'twas the gift _he_ gave; and peace! the shade _He_ spread, for spirits fevered with the sun. To him his bounties are come back--here laid In rest, in peace, his labour nobly done.
LACHRYMÆ MUSARUM AND OTHER POEMS
TO RICHARD HOLT HUTTON AND MEREDITH TOWNSEND
WITH GRATITUDE
LACHRYMÆ MUSARUM
(6TH OCTOBER 1892)
Low, like another's, lies the laurelled head: The life that seemed a perfect song is o'er: Carry the last great bard to his last bed. Land that he loved, thy noblest voice is mute. Land that he loved, that loved him! nevermore Meadow of thine, smooth lawn or wild sea-shore, Gardens of odorous bloom and tremulous fruit, Or woodlands old, like Druid couches spread, The master's feet shall tread. Death's little rift hath rent the faultless lute: The singer of undying songs is dead.
Lo, in this season pensive-hued and grave, While fades and falls the doomed, reluctant leaf From withered Earth's fantastic coronal, With wandering sighs of forest and of wave Mingles the murmur of a people's grief For him whose leaf shall fade not, neither fall. He hath fared forth, beyond these suns and showers. For us, the autumn glow, the autumn flame, And soon the winter silence shall be ours: Him the eternal spring of fadeless fame Crowns with no mortal flowers.
Rapt though he be from us, Virgil salutes him, and Theocritus; Catullus, mightiest-brained Lucretius, each Greets him, their brother, on the Stygian beach; Proudly a gaunt right hand doth Dante reach; Milton and Wordsworth bid him welcome home; Bright Keats to touch his raiment doth beseech; Coleridge, his locks aspersed with fairy foam, Calm Spenser, Chaucer suave, His equal friendship crave: And godlike spirits hail him guest, in speech Of Athens, Florence, Weimar, Stratford, Rome.