Chapter 4

What needs his laurel our ephemeral tears, To save from visitation of decay? Not in this temporal sunlight, now, that bay Blooms, nor to perishable mundane ears Sings he with lips of transitory clay; For he hath joined the chorus of his peers In habitations of the perfect day: His earthly notes a heavenly audience hears, And more melodious are henceforth the spheres, Enriched with music stol'n from earth away.

He hath returned to regions whence he came. Him doth the spirit divine Of universal loveliness reclaim. All nature is his shrine. Seek him henceforward in the wind and sea, In earth's and air's emotion or repose, In every star's august serenity, And in the rapture of the flaming rose. There seek him if ye would not seek in vain, There, in the rhythm and music of the Whole; Yea, and for ever in the human soul Made stronger and more beauteous by his strain.

For lo! creation's self is one great choir, And what is nature's order but the rhyme Whereto the worlds keep time, And all things move with all things from their prime? Who shall expound the mystery of the lyre? In far retreats of elemental mind Obscurely comes and goes The imperative breath of song, that as the wind Is trackless, and oblivious whence it blows. Demand of lilies wherefore they are white, Extort her crimson secret from the rose, But ask not of the Muse that she disclose The meaning of the riddle of her might: Somewhat of all things sealed and recondite, Save the enigma of herself, she knows. The master could not tell, with all his lore, Wherefore he sang, or whence the mandate sped; Ev'n as the linnet sings, so I, he said;-- Ah, rather as the imperial nightingale, That held in trance the ancient Attic shore, And charms the ages with the notes that o'er All woodland chants immortally prevail! And now, from our vain plaudits greatly fled, He with diviner silence dwells instead, And on no earthly sea with transient roar, Unto no earthly airs, he trims his sail, But far beyond our vision and our hail Is heard for ever and is seen no more.

No more, O never now, Lord of the lofty and the tranquil brow Whereon nor snows of time Have fall'n, nor wintry rime, Shall men behold thee, sage and mage sublime. Once, in his youth obscure, The maker of this verse, which shall endure By splendour of its theme that cannot die, Beheld thee eye to eye, And touched through thee the hand Of every hero of thy race divine, Ev'n to the sire of all the laurelled line, The sightless wanderer on the Ionian strand, With soul as healthful as the poignant brine, Wide as his skies and radiant as his seas, Starry from haunts of his Familiars nine, Glorious Mæonides. Yea, I beheld thee, and behold thee yet: Thou hast forgotten, but can I forget? The accents of thy pure and sovereign tongue, Are they not ever goldenly impressed On memory's palimpsest? I see the wizard locks like night that hung, I tread the floor thy hallowing feet have trod; I see the hands a nation's lyre that strung, The eyes that looked through life and gazed on God.

The seasons change, the winds they shift and veer; The grass of yesteryear Is dead; the birds depart, the groves decay: Empires dissolve and peoples disappear: Song passes not away. Captains and conquerors leave a little dust, And kings a dubious legend of their reign; The swords of Cæsars, they are less than rust: The poet doth remain. Dead is Augustus, Maro is alive; And thou, the Mantuan of our age and clime, Like Virgil shalt thy race and tongue survive, Bequeathing no less honeyed words to time, Embalmed in amber of eternal rhyme, And rich with sweets from every Muse's hive; While to the measure of the cosmic rune For purer ears thou shalt thy lyre attune, And heed no more the hum of idle praise In that great calm our tumults cannot reach, Master who crown'st our immelodious days With flower of perfect speech.

DEDICATION OF "THE DREAM OF MAN"

TO LONDON, MY HOSTESS

City that waitest to be sung,-- For whom no hand To mighty strains the lyre hath strung In all this land, Though mightier theme the mightiest ones Sang not of old, The thrice three sisters' godlike sons With lips of gold,-- Till greater voice thy greatness sing In loftier times, Suffer an alien muse to bring Her votive rhymes.

Yes, alien in thy midst am I, Not of thy brood; The nursling of a norland sky Of rougher mood: To me, thy tarrying guest, to me, 'Mid thy loud hum, Strayed visions of the moor or sea Tormenting come. Above the thunder of the wheels That hurry by, From lapping of lone waves there steals A far-sent sigh;

And many a dream-reared mountain crest My feet have trod, There where thy Minster in the West Gropes toward God. Yet, from thy presence if I go, By woodlands deep Or ocean-fringes, thou, I know, Wilt haunt my sleep; Thy restless tides of life will foam, Still, in my sight; Thy imperturbable dark dome Will crown my night.

O sea of living waves that roll On golden sands, Or break on tragic reef and shoal 'Mid fatal lands; O forest wrought of living leaves, Some filled with Spring, Where joy life's festal raiment weaves And all birds sing,-- Some trampled in the miry ways, Or whirled along By fury of tempestuous days,-- Take thou my song!

For thou hast scorned not heretofore The gifts of rhyme I dropped, half faltering, at thy door, City sublime; And though 'tis true I am but guest Within thy gate, Unto thy hands I owe the best Awards of fate. Imperial hostess! thanks from me To thee belong: O living forest, living sea, Take thou my song!

THE DREAM OF MAN

To the eye and the ear of the Dreamer This Dream out of darkness flew, Through the horn or the ivory portal, But he wist not which of the two.

It was the Human Spirit, Of all men's souls the Soul, Man the unwearied climber, That climbed to the unknown goal. And up the steps of the ages, The difficult steep ascent, Man the unwearied climber Pauseless and dauntless went. Æons rolled behind him With thunder of far retreat, And still as he strove he conquered And laid his foes at his feet. Inimical powers of nature, Tempest and flood and fire, The spleen of fickle seasons That loved to baulk his desire, The breath of hostile climates, The ravage of blight and dearth, The old unrest that vexes The heart of the moody earth, The genii swift and radiant Sabreing heaven with flame, He, with a keener weapon, The sword of his wit, overcame. Disease and her ravening offspring, Pain with the thousand teeth, He drave into night primeval, The nethermost worlds beneath, Till the Lord of Death, the undying, Ev'n Asraël the King, No more with Furies for heralds Came armed with scourge and sting, But gentle of voice and of visage, By calm Age ushered and led, A guest, serenely featured, Entering, woke no dread. And, as the rolling æons Retreated with pomp of sound, Man's spirit, grown too lordly For this mean orb to bound, By arts in his youth undreamed of His terrene fetters broke, With enterprise ethereal Spurning the natal yoke, And, stung with divine ambition, And fired with a glorious greed, He annexed the stars and the planets And peopled them with his seed.

Then said he, "The infinite Scripture I have read and interpreted clear, And searching all worlds I have found not My sovereign or my peer. In what room of the palace of nature Resides the invisible God? For all her doors I have opened, And all her floors I have trod. If greater than I be her tenant, Let him answer my challenging call: Till then I admit no rival, But crown myself master of all." And forth as that word went bruited, By Man unto Man were raised Fanes of devout self-homage, Where he who praised was the praised; And from vast unto vast of creation The new evangel ran, And an odour of world-wide incense Went up from Man unto Man; Until, on a solemn feast-day, When the world's usurping lord At a million impious altars His own proud image adored, God spake as He stept from His ambush: "O great in thine own conceit, I will show thee thy source, how humble, Thy goal, for a god how unmeet."

Thereat, by the word of the Maker The Spirit of Man was led To a mighty peak of vision, Where God to His creature said: "Look eastward toward time's sunrise." And, age upon age untold, The Spirit of Man saw clearly The Past as a chart out-rolled,-- Beheld his base beginnings In the depths of time, and his strife, With beasts and crawling horrors For leave to live, when life Meant but to slay and to procreate, To feed and to sleep, among Mere mouths, voracities boundless, Blind lusts, desires without tongue, And ferocities vast, fulfilling Their being's malignant law, While nature was one hunger, And one hate, all fangs and maw.

With that, for a single moment, Abashed at his own descent, In humbleness Man's Spirit At the feet of the Maker bent; But, swifter than light, he recovered The stature and pose of his pride, And, "Think not thus to shame me With my mean birth," he cried. "This is my loftiest greatness, To have been born so low; Greater than Thou the ungrowing Am I that for ever grow." And God forbore to rebuke him, But answered brief and stern, Bidding him toward time's sunset His vision westward turn; And the Spirit of Man obeying Beheld as a chart out-rolled The likeness and form of the Future, Age upon age untold; Beheld his own meridian, And beheld his dark decline, His secular fall to nadir From summits of light divine, Till at last, amid worlds exhausted, And bankrupt of force and fire, 'Twas his, in a torrent of darkness, Like a sputtering lamp to expire.

Then a war of shame and anger Did the realm of his soul divide; "'Tis false, 'tis a lying vision," In the face of his God he cried. "Thou thinkest to daunt me with shadows; Not such as Thou feign'st is my doom: From glory to rise unto glory Is mine, who have risen from gloom. I doubt if Thou knew'st at my making How near to thy throne I should climb, O'er the mountainous slopes of the ages And the conquered peaks of time. Nor shall I look backward nor rest me Till the uttermost heights I have trod, And am equalled with Thee or above Thee, The mate or the master of God."

Ev'n thus Man turned from the Maker, With thundered defiance wild, And God with a terrible silence Reproved the speech of His child. And man returned to his labours, And stiffened the neck of his will; And the æons still went rolling, And his power was crescent still. But yet there remained to conquer One foe, and the greatest--although Despoiled of his ancient terrors, At heart, as of old, a foe-- Unmaker of all, and renewer, Who winnows the world with his wing, The Lord of Death, the undying, Ev'n Asraël the King.

And lo, Man mustered his forces The war of wars to wage, And with storm and thunder of onset Did the foe of foes engage, And the Lord of Death, the undying, Was beset and harried sore, In his immemorial fastness At night's aboriginal core. And during years a thousand Man leaguered his enemy's hold, While nature was one deep tremor, And the heart of the world waxed cold, Till the phantom battlements wavered, And the ghostly fortress fell, And Man with shadowy fetters Bound fast great Asraël.

So, to each star in the heavens, The exultant word was blown, The annunciation tremendous, _Death is overthrown!_ And Space in her ultimate borders Prolonging the jubilant tone, With hollow ingeminations, Sighed, _Death is overthrown!_ And God in His house of silence, Where He dwelleth aloof, alone, Paused in His tasks to hearken: _Death is overthrown!_

Then a solemn and high thanksgiving By Man unto Man was sung, In his temples of self-adoration, With his own multitudinous tongue; And he said to his Soul: "Rejoice thou For thy last great foe lies bound, Ev'n Asraël the Unmaker, Unmade, disarmed, discrowned."

And behold, his Soul rejoiced not, The breath of whose being was strife, For life with nothing to vanquish Seemed but the shadow of life. No goal invited and promised And divinely provocative shone; And Fear having fled, her sister, Blest Hope, in her train was gone; And the coping and crown of achievement Was hell than defeat more dire-- The torment of all-things-compassed, The plague of nought-to-desire; And Man the invincible queller, Man with his foot on his foes, In boundless satiety hungred, Restless from utter repose, Victor of nature, victor Of the prince of the powers of the air, By mighty weariness vanquished, And crowned with august despair.

Then, at his dreadful zenith, He cried unto God: "O Thou Whom of old in my days of striving Methought I needed not,--now, In this my abject glory, My hopeless and helpless might, Hearken and cheer and succour!" And God from His lonely height, From eternity's passionless summits, On suppliant Man looked down, And His brow waxed human with pity, Belying its awful crown. "Thy richest possession," He answered, "Blest Hope, will I restore, And the infinite wealth of weakness Which was thy strength of yore; And I will arouse from slumber, In his hold where bound he lies, Thine enemy most benefic;-- O Asraël, hear and rise!"

And a sound like the heart of nature Riven and cloven and torn, Announced, to the ear universal, Undying Death new-born. Sublime he rose in his fetters, And shook the chains aside Ev'n as some mortal sleeper 'Mid forests in autumntide Rises and shakes off lightly The leaves that lightly fell On his limbs and his hair unheeded While as yet he slumbered well.

And Deity paused and hearkened, Then turned to the undivine, Saying, "O Man, My creature, Thy lot was more blest than Mine. I taste not delight of seeking, Nor the boon of longing know. There is but one joy transcendent, And I hoard it not but bestow. I hoard it not nor have tasted, But freely I gave it to thee-- The joy of most glorious striving, Which dieth in victory." Thus, to the Soul of the Dreamer, This Dream out of darkness flew, Through the horn or the ivory portal, But he wist not which of the two.

SHELLEY'S CENTENARY

(4TH AUGUST 1892)

Within a narrow span of time, Three princes of the realm of rhyme, At height of youth or manhood's prime, From earth took wing, To join the fellowship sublime Who, dead, yet sing.

He, first, his earliest wreath who wove Of laurel grown in Latmian grove, Conquered by pain and hapless love Found calmer home, Roofed by the heaven that glows above Eternal Rome.

A fierier soul, its own fierce prey, And cumbered with more mortal clay, At Missolonghi flamed away, And left the air Reverberating to this day Its loud despair.

Alike remote from Byron's scorn, And Keats's magic as of morn Bursting for ever newly-born On forests old, Waking a hoary world forlorn With touch of gold,

Shelley, the cloud-begot, who grew Nourished on air and sun and dew, Into that Essence whence he drew His life and lyre Was fittingly resolved anew Through wave and fire.

'Twas like his rapid soul! 'Twas meet That he, who brooked not Time's slow feet, With passage thus abrupt and fleet Should hurry hence, Eager the Great Perhaps to greet With Why? and Whence?

Impatient of the world's fixed way, He ne'er could suffer God's delay, But all the future in a day Would build divine, And the whole past in ruins lay, An emptied shrine.

Vain vision! but the glow, the fire, The passion of benign desire, The glorious yearning, lift him higher Than many a soul That mounts a million paces nigher Its meaner goal.

And power is his, if naught besides, In that thin ether where he rides, Above the roar of human tides To ascend afar, Lost in a storm of light that hides His dizzy car.

Below, the unhastening world toils on, And here and there are victories won, Some dragon slain, some justice done, While, through the skies, A meteor rushing on the sun, He flares and dies.

But, as he cleaves yon ether clear Notes from the unattempted Sphere He scatters to the enchanted ear Of earth's dim throng, Whose dissonance doth more endear The showering song.

In other shapes than he forecast The world is moulded: his fierce blast,-- His wild assault upon the Past,-- These things are vain; Revolt is transient: what _must_ last Is that pure strain,

Which seems the wandering voices blent Of every virgin element,-- A sound from ocean caverns sent,-- An airy call From the pavilioned firmament O'erdoming all.

And in this world of worldlings, where Souls rust in apathy, and ne'er A great emotion shakes the air, And life flags tame, And rare is noble impulse, rare The impassioned aim,

'Tis no mean fortune to have heard A singer who, if errors blurred His sight, had yet a spirit stirred By vast desire, And ardour fledging the swift word With plumes of fire.

A creature of impetuous breath, Our torpor deadlier than death He knew not; whatsoe'er he saith Flashes with life: He spurreth men, he quickeneth To splendid strife.

And in his gusts of song he brings Wild odours shaken from strange wings, And unfamiliar whisperings From far lips blown, While all the rapturous heart of things Throbs through his own,--

His own that from the burning pyre One who had loved his wind-swept lyre Out of the sharp teeth of the fire Unmolten drew, Beside the sea that in her ire Smote him and slew.

A GOLDEN HOUR

A beckoning spirit of gladness seemed afloat, That lightly danced in laughing air before us: The earth was all in tune, and you a note Of Nature's happy chorus.

'Twas like a vernal morn, yet overhead The leafless boughs across the lane were knitting: The ghost of some forgotten Spring, we said, O'er Winter's world comes flitting.

Or was it Spring herself, that, gone astray, Beyond the alien frontier chose to tarry? Or but some bold outrider of the May, Some April-emissary?

The apparition faded on the air, Capricious and incalculable comer.-- Wilt thou too pass, and leave my chill days bare, And fall'n my phantom Summer?

AT THE GRAVE OF CHARLES LAMB, IN EDMONTON

Not here, O teeming City, was it meet Thy lover, thy most faithful, should repose, But where the multitudinous life-tide flows Whose ocean-murmur was to him more sweet Than melody of birds at morn, or bleat Of flocks in Spring-time, _there_ should Earth enclose His earth, amid thy thronging joys and woes, There, 'neath the music of thy million feet. In love of thee this lover knew no peer. Thine eastern or thy western fane had made Fit habitation for his noble shade. Mother of mightier, nurse of none more dear, Not here, in rustic exile, O not here, Thy Elia like an alien should be laid!

LINES IN A FLYLEAF OF "CHRISTABEL"

Inhospitably hast thou entertained, O Poet, us the bidden to thy board, Whom in mid-feast, and while our thousand mouths Are one laudation of the festal cheer, Thou from thy table dost dismiss, unfilled. Yet loudlier thee than many a lavish host We praise, and oftener thy repast half-served Than many a stintless banquet, prodigally Through satiate hours prolonged; nor praise less well Because with tongues thou hast not cloyed, and lips That mourn the parsimony of affluent souls, And mix the lamentation with the laud.

LINES TO OUR NEW CENSOR

[Mr. Oscar Wilde, having discovered that England is unworthy of him, has announced his resolve to become a naturalised Frenchman.]

And wilt thou, Oscar, from us flee, And must we, henceforth, wholly sever? Shall thy laborious _jeux-d'esprit_ Sadden our lives no more for ever?

And all thy future wilt thou link With that brave land to which thou goest? Unhappy France! we _used_ to think She touched, at Sedan, fortune's lowest.

And you're made French as easily As you might change the clothes you're wearing? Fancy!--and 'tis so hard to be A man of sense and modest bearing.

May fortitude beneath this blow Fail not the gallant Gallic nation! By past experience, well we know Her genius for recuperation.

And as for us--to our disgrace, Your stricture's truth must be conceded: Would any but a stupid race Have made the fuss about you _we_ did?

RELUCTANT SUMMER

Reluctant Summer! once, a maid Full easy of access, In many a bee-frequented shade Thou didst thy lover bless. Divinely unreproved I played, Then, with each liberal tress-- And art thou grown at last afraid Of some too close caress?

Or deem'st that if thou shouldst abide My passion might decay? Thou leav'st me pining and denied, Coyly thou say'st me nay. Ev'n as I woo thee to my side, Thou, importuned to stay, Like Orpheus' half-recovered bride Ebb'st from my arms away.

THE GREAT MISGIVING

"Not ours," say some, "the thought of death to dread; Asking no heaven, we fear no fabled hell: Life is a feast, and we have banqueted-- Shall not the worms as well?

"The after-silence, when the feast is o'er, And void the places where the minstrels stood, Differs in nought from what hath been before, And is nor ill nor good."

Ah, but the Apparition--the dumb sign-- The beckoning finger bidding me forego The fellowship, the converse, and the wine, The songs, the festal glow!

And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit, And while the purple joy is passed about, Whether 'tis ampler day divinelier lit Or homeless night without;

And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see New prospects, or fall sheer--a blinded thing! _There_ is, O grave, thy hourly victory, And there, O death, thy sting.

"THE THINGS THAT ARE MORE EXCELLENT"

As we wax older on this earth, Till many a toy that charmed us seems Emptied of beauty, stripped of worth, And mean as dust and dead as dreams,-- For gauds that perished, shows that passed, Some recompense the Fates have sent: Thrice lovelier shine the things that last, The things that are more excellent.

Tired of the Senate's barren brawl, An hour with silence we prefer, Where statelier rise the woods than all Yon towers of talk at Westminster. Let this man prate and that man plot, On fame or place or title bent: The votes of veering crowds are not The things that are more excellent.

Shall we perturb and vex our soul For "wrongs" which no true freedom mar, Which no man's upright walk control, And from no guiltless deed debar? What odds though tonguesters heal, or leave Unhealed, the grievance they invent? To things, not phantoms, let us cleave-- The things that are more excellent.

Nought nobler is, than to be free: The stars of heaven are free because In amplitude of liberty Their joy is to obey the laws. From servitude to freedom's _name_ Free thou thy mind in bondage pent; Depose the fetich, and proclaim The things that are more excellent.

And in appropriate dust be hurled That dull, punctilious god, whom they That call their tiny clan the world, Serve and obsequiously obey: Who con their ritual of Routine, With minds to one dead likeness blent, And never ev'n in dreams have seen The things that are more excellent.

To dress, to call, to dine, to break No canon of the social code, The little laws that lacqueys make, The futile decalogue of Mode,-- How many a soul for these things lives, With pious passion, grave intent! While Nature careless-handed gives The things that are more excellent.

To hug the wealth ye cannot use, And lack the riches all may gain,-- O blind and wanting wit to choose, Who house the chaff and burn the grain! And still doth life with starry towers Lure to the bright, divine ascent!-- Be yours the things ye would: be ours The things that are more excellent.