Part 9

Art Thou a King, then? Come, His universe, Come, crown me Him a King! Pluck rays from all such stars as never fling Their light where fell a curse, And make a crowning for this kingly brow!-- What is my word? Each empyreal star Sits in a sphere afar In shining ambuscade: The child-brow, crowned by none, Keeps its unchildlike shade. Sleep, sleep, my crownless One!

IX.

Unchildlike shade! No other babe doth wear An aspect very sorrowful, as Thou. No small babe-smiles my watching heart has seen To float like speech the speechless lips between, No dovelike cooing in the golden air, No quick short joys of leaping babyhood. Alas, our earthly good In heaven thought evil, seems too good for Thee; Yet, sleep, my weary One!

X.

And then the drear sharp tongue of prophecy, With the dread sense of things which shall be done, Doth smite me inly, like a sword: a sword? _That_ "smites the Shepherd." Then, I think aloud The words "despised,"--"rejected,"--every word Recoiling into darkness as I view The DARLING on my knee. Bright angels,--move not--lest ye stir the cloud Betwixt my soul and His futurity! I must not die, with mother's work to do, And could not live-and see.

XI.

It is enough to bear This image still and fair, This holier in sleep Than a saint at prayer, This aspect of a child Who never sinned or smiled; This Presence in an infant's face; This sadness most like love, This love than love more deep, This weakness like omnipotence It is so strong to move. Awful is this watching place, Awful what I see from hence-- A king, without regalia, A God, without the thunder, A child, without the heart for play; Ay, a Creator, rent asunder From His first glory and cast away On His own world, for me alone To hold in hands created, crying--SON!

XII.

That tear fell not on Thee, Beloved, yet thou stirrest in thy slumber! THOU, stirring not for glad sounds out of number Which through the vibratory palm-trees run From summer-wind and bird, So quickly hast thou heard A tear fall silently? Wak'st thou, O loving One?--

FOOTNOTES:

[7] It is a Jewish tradition that Moses died of the kisses of God's lips.

_AN ISLAND._

All goeth but Goddis will.--OLD POET.

I.

My dream is of an island-place Which distant seas keep lonely, A little island on whose face The stars are watchers only: Those bright still stars! they need not seem Brighter or stiller in my dream.

II.

An island full of hills and dells, All rumpled and uneven With green recesses, sudden swells, And odorous valleys driven So deep and straight that always there The wind is cradled to soft air.

III.

Hills running up to heaven for light Through woods that half-way ran, As if the wild earth mimicked right The wilder heart of man: Only it shall be greener far And gladder than hearts ever are.

IV.

More like, perhaps, that mountain piece Of Dante's paradise, Disrupt to an hundred hills like these, In falling from the skies; Bringing within it, all the roots Of heavenly trees and flowers and fruits:

V.

For--saving where the grey rocks strike Their javelins up the azure, Or where deep fissures miser-like Hoard up some fountain treasure, (And e'en in them, stoop down and hear, Leaf sounds with water in your ear,--)

VI.

The place is all awave with trees, Limes, myrtles purple-beaded, Acacias having drunk the lees Of the night-dew, faint-headed, And wan grey olive-woods which seem The fittest foliage for a dream.

VII.

Trees, trees on all sides! they combine Their plumy shades to throw, Through whose clear fruit and blossom fine Whene'er the sun may go, The ground beneath he deeply stains, As passing through cathedral panes.

VIII.

But little needs this earth of ours That shining from above her, When many Pleiades of flowers (Not one lost) star her over, The rays of their unnumbered hues Being all refracted by the dews.

IX.

Wide-petalled plants that boldly drink The Amreeta of the sky, Shut bells that dull with rapture sink, And lolling buds, half shy; I cannot count them, but between Is room for grass and mosses green,

X.

And brooks, that glass in different strengths All colours in disorder, Or, gathering up their silver lengths Beside their winding border, Sleep, haunted through the slumber hidden, By lilies white as dreams in Eden.

XI.

Nor think each arched tree with each Too closely interlaces To admit of vistas out of reach, And broad moon-lighted places Upon whose sward the antlered deer May view their double image clear.

XII.

For all this island's creature-full, (Kept happy not by halves) Mild cows, that at the vine-wreaths pull, Then low back at their calves With tender lowings, to approve The warm mouths milking them for love.

XIII.

Free gamesome horses, antelopes, And harmless leaping leopards, And buffaloes upon the slopes, And sheep unruled by shepherds: Hares, lizards, hedgehogs, badgers, mice, Snakes, squirrels, frogs, and butterflies.

XIV.

And birds that live there in a crowd, Horned owls, rapt nightingales, Larks bold with heaven, and peacocks proud, Self-sphered in those grand tails; All creatures glad and safe, I deem No guns nor springes in my dream!

XV.

The island's edges are a-wing With trees that overbranch The sea with song-birds welcoming The curlews to green change; And doves from half-closed lids espy The red and purple fish go by.

XVI.

One dove is answering in trust The water every minute, Thinking so soft a murmur must Have her mate's cooing in it: So softly doth earth's beauty round Infuse itself in ocean's sound.

XVII.

My sanguine soul bounds forwarder To meet the bounding waves; Beside them straightway I repair, To live within the caves: And near me two or three may dwell Whom dreams fantastic please as well.

XVIII.

Long winding caverns, glittering far Into a crystal distance! Through clefts of which shall many a star Shine clear without resistance, And carry down its rays the smell Of flowers above invisible.

XIX.

I said that two or three might choose Their dwelling near mine own: Those who would change man's voice and use, For Nature's way and tone-- Man's veering heart and careless eyes, For Nature's steadfast sympathies.

XX.

Ourselves, to meet her faithfulness, Shall play a faithful part; Her beautiful shall ne'er address The monstrous at our heart: Her musical shall ever touch Something within us also such.

XXI.

Yet shall she not our mistress live, As doth the moon of ocean, Though gently as the moon she give Our thoughts a light and motion: More like a harp of many lays, Moving its master while he plays.

XXII.

No sod in all that island doth Yawn open for the dead; No wind hath borne a traitor's oath; No earth, a mourner's tread; We cannot say by stream or shade, "I suffered _here_,--was _here_ betrayed."

XXIII.

Our only "farewell" we shall laugh To shifting cloud or hour, And use our only epitaph To some bud turned a flower: Our only tears shall serve to prove Excess in pleasure or in love.

XXIV.

Our fancies shall their plumage catch From fairest island-birds, Whose eggs let young ones out at hatch, Born singing! then our words Unconsciously shall take the dyes Of those prodigious fantasies.

XXV.

Yea, soon, no consonant unsmooth Our smile-tuned lips shall reach; Sounds sweet as Hellas spake in youth Shall glide into our speech: (What music, certes, can you find As soft as voices which are kind?)

XXVI.

And often, by the joy without And in us, overcome, We, through our musing, shall let float Such poems,--sitting dumb,-- As Pindar might have writ if he Had tended sheep in Arcady;

XXVII.

Or AEschylus--the pleasant fields He died in, longer knowing; Or Homer, had men's sins and shields Been lost in Meles flowing; Or Poet Plato, had the undim Unsetting Godlight broke on him.

XXVIII.

Choose me the cave most worthy choice, To make a place for prayer, And I will choose a praying voice To pour our spirits there: How silverly the echoes run! _Thy will be done,--thy will be done._

XXIX.

Gently yet strangely uttered words! They lift me from my dream; The island fadeth with its swards That did no more than seem: The streams are dry, no sun could find-- The fruits are fallen, without wind.

XXX.

So oft the doing of God's will Our foolish wills undoeth! And yet what idle dream breaks ill, Which morning-light subdueth? And who would murmur and misdoubt, When God's great sunrise finds him out?

_THE SOUL'S TRAVELLING._

~Ede noerous Petasai tarsous.~

SYNESIUS.

I.

I dwell amid the city ever. The great humanity which beats Its life along the stony streets, Like a strong and unsunned river In a self-made course, I sit and hearken while it rolls. Very sad and very hoarse Certes is the flow of souls; Infinitest tendencies By the finite prest and pent, In the finite, turbulent: How we tremble in surprise When sometimes, with an awful sound, God's great plummet strikes the ground!

II.

The champ of the steeds on the silver bit, As they whirl the rich man's carriage by; The beggar's whine as he looks at it,-- But it goes too fast for charity; The trail on the street of the poor man's broom, That the lady who walks to her palace-home, On her silken skirt may catch no dust; The tread of the business-men who must Count their per-cents by the paces they take; The cry of the babe unheard of its mother Though it lie on her breast, while she thinks of the other Laid yesterday where it will not wake; The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinks Held out in the smoke, like stars by day; The gin-door's oath that hollowly chinks Guilt upon grief and wrong upon hate; The cabman's cry to get out of the way; The dustman's call down the area-grate; The young maid's jest, and the old wife's scold, The haggling talk of the boys at a stall, The fight in the street which is backed for gold, The plea of the lawyers in Westminster Hall; The drop on the stones of the blind man's staff As he trades in his own grief's sacredness, The brothel shriek, and the Newgate laugh, The hum upon 'Change, and the organ's grinding, (The grinder's face being nevertheless Dry and vacant of even woe While the children's hearts are leaping so At the merry music's winding;) The black-plumed funeral's creeping train, Long and slow (and yet they will go As fast as Life though it hurry and strain!) Creeping the populous houses through And nodding their plumes at either side,-- At many a house, where an infant, new To the sunshiny world, has just struggled and cried,-- At many a house where sitteth a bride Trying to-morrow's coronals With a scarlet blush to-day: Slowly creep the funerals, As none should hear the noise and say "The living, the living must go away To multiply the dead." Hark! an upward shout is sent, In grave strong joy from tower to steeple The bells ring out, The trumpets sound, the people shout, The young queen goes to her Parliament. She turneth round her large blue eyes More bright with childish memories Than royal hopes, upon the people; On either side she bows her head Lowly, with a queenly grace And smile most trusting-innocent, As if she smiled upon her mother; The thousands press before each other To bless her to her face; And booms the deep majestic voice Through trump and drum,--"May the queen rejoice In the people's liberties!"

III.

I dwell amid the city, And hear the flow of souls in act and speech, For pomp or trade, for merrymake or folly: I hear the confluence and sum of each, And that is melancholy! Thy voice is a complaint, O crowned city, The blue sky covering thee like God's great pity.

IV.

O blue sky! it mindeth me Of places where I used to see Its vast unbroken circle thrown From the far pale-peaked hill Out to the last verge of ocean, As by God's arm it were done Then for the first time, with the emotion Of that first impulse on it still. Oh, we spirits fly at will Faster than the winged steed Whereof in old book we read, With the sunlight foaming back From his flanks to a misty wrack, And his nostril reddening proud As he breasteth the steep thundercloud,-- Smoother than Sabrina's chair Gliding up from wave to air, While she smileth debonair Yet holy, coldly and yet brightly, Like her own mooned waters nightly, Through her dripping hair.

V.

Very fast and smooth we fly, Spirits, though the flesh be by; All looks feed not from the eye Nor all hearings from the ear: We can hearken and espy Without either, we can journey Bold and gay as knight to tourney, And, though we wear no visor down To dark our countenance, the foe Shall never chafe us as we go.

VI.

I am gone from peopled town! It passeth its street-thunder round My body which yet hears no sound, For now another sound, another Vision, my soul's senses have-- O'er a hundred valleys deep Where the hills' green shadows sleep Scarce known because the valley-trees Cross those upland images, O'er a hundred hills each other Watching to the western wave, I have travelled,--I have found The silent, lone, remembered ground.

VII.

I have found a grassy niche Hollowed in a seaside hill, As if the ocean-grandeur which Is aspectable from the place, Had struck the hill as with a mace Sudden and cleaving. You might fill That little nook with the little cloud Which sometimes lieth by the moon To beautify a night of June; A cavelike nook which, opening all To the wide sea, is disallowed From its own earth's sweet pastoral: Cavelike, but roofless overhead And made of verdant banks instead Of any rocks, with flowerets spread Instead of spar and stalactite, Cowslips and daisies gold and white: Such pretty flowers on such green sward, You think the sea they look toward Doth serve them for another sky As warm and blue as that on high.

VIII.

And in this hollow is a seat, And when you shall have crept to it, Slipping down the banks too steep To be o'erbrowzed by the sheep, Do not think--though at your feet The cliffs disrupt--you shall behold The line where earth and ocean meet; You sit too much above to view The solemn confluence of the two: You can hear them as they greet, You can hear that evermore Distance-softened noise more old Than Nereid's singing, the tide spent Joining soft issues with the shore In harmony of discontent, And when you hearken to the grave Lamenting of the underwave, You must believe in earth's communion Albeit you witness not the union.

IX.

Except that sound, the place is full Of silences, which when you cull By any word, it thrills you so That presently you let them grow To meditation's fullest length Across your soul with a soul's strength: And as they touch your soul, they borrow Both of its grandeur and its sorrow, That deathly odour which the clay Leaves on its deathlessness alway.

X.

Alway! alway? must this be? Rapid Soul from city gone, Dost thou carry inwardly What doth make the city's moan? Must this deep sigh of thine own Haunt thee with humanity? Green visioned banks that are too steep To be o'erbrowzed by the sheep, May all sad thoughts adown you creep Without a shepherd? Mighty sea, Can we dwarf thy magnitude And fit it to our straitest mood? O fair, fair Nature, are we thus Impotent and querulous Among thy workings glorious, Wealth and sanctities, that still Leave us vacant and defiled And wailing like a soft-kissed child, Kissed soft against his will?

XI.

God, God! With a child's voice I cry, Weak, sad, confidingly-- God, God! Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up Unto Thy love, (as none of ours are) droop As ours, o'er many a tear; Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad, Two little tears suffice to cover all: Thou knowest, Thou who art so prodigal Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer Expiring in the woods, that care for none Of those delightsome flowers they die upon.

XII.

O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath We name our souls, self-spoilt!--by that strong passion Which paled Thee once with sighs, by that strong death Which made Thee once unbreathing--from the wrack Themselves have called around them, call them back, Back to Thee in continuous aspiration! For here, O Lord, For here they travel vainly, vainly pass From city-pavement to untrodden sward Where the lark finds her deep nest in the grass Cold with the earth's last dew. Yea, very vain The greatest speed of all these souls of men Unless they travel upward to the throne Where sittest THOU the satisfying ONE, With help for sins and holy perfectings For all requirements: while the archangel, raising Unto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing, Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings.

_TO BETTINE,_

THE CHILD-FRIEND OF GOETHE.

"I have the second sight, Goethe!"--_Letters of a Child._

I.

Bettine, friend of Goethe, _Hadst_ thou the second sight-- Upturning worship and delight With such a loving duty To his grand face, as women will, The childhood 'neath thine eyelids still?

II.

--Before his shrine to doom thee, Using the same child's smile That heaven and earth, beheld erewhile For the first time, won from thee Ere star and flower grew dim and dead Save at his feet and o'er his head?

III.

--Digging thine heart and throwing Away its childhood's gold, That so its woman-depth might hold His spirit's overflowing? (For surging souls, no worlds can bound, Their channel in the heart have found.)

IV.

O child, to change appointed, Thou hadst not second sight! What eyes the future view aright Unless by tears anointed? Yea, only tears themselves can show The burning ones that have to flow.

V.

O woman, deeply loving, Thou hadst not second sight! The star is very high and bright, And none can see it moving. Love looks around, below, above, Yet all his prophecy is--love.

VI.

The bird thy childhood's playing Sent onward o'er the sea, Thy dove of hope came back to thee Without a leaf: art laying Its wet cold wing no sun can dry, Still in thy bosom secretly?

VII.

Our Goethe's friend, Bettine, I have the second sight! The stone upon his grave is white, The funeral stone between ye; And in thy mirror thou hast viewed Some change as hardly understood.

VIII.

Where's childhood? where is Goethe? The tears are in thine eyes. Nay, thou shalt yet reorganize Thy maidenhood of beauty In his own glory, which is smooth Of wrinkles and sublime in youth.

IX.

The poet's arms have wound thee, He breathes upon thy brow, He lifts thee upward in the glow Of his great genius round thee,-- The childlike poet undefiled Preserving evermore THE CHILD.

_MAN AND NATURE._

A sad man on a summer day Did look upon the earth and say--

"Purple cloud the hill-top binding; Folded hills the valleys wind in; Valleys with fresh streams among you; Streams with bosky trees along you; Trees with many birds and blossoms; Birds with music-trembling bosoms; Blossoms dropping dews that wreathe you To your fellow flowers beneath you; Flowers that constellate on earth; Earth that shakest to the mirth Of the merry Titan Ocean, All his shining hair in motion! Why am I thus the only one Who can be dark beneath the sun?"

But when the summer day was past, He looked to heaven and smiled at last, Self-answered so-- "Because, O cloud, Pressing with thy crumpled shroud Heavily on mountain top,-- Hills that almost seem to drop Stricken with a misty death To the valleys underneath,-- Valleys sighing with the torrent,-- Waters streaked with branches horrent,-- Branchless trees that shake your head Wildly o'er your blossoms spread Where the common flowers are found,-- Flowers with foreheads to the ground,-- Ground that shriekest while the sea With his iron smiteth thee-- I am, besides, the only one Who can be bright _without_ the sun."

_A SEA-SIDE WALK._

I.

We walked beside the sea After a day which perished silently Of its own glory--like the princess weird Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared, Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! victory!" And sank adown, a heap of ashes pale: So runs the Arab tale.

II.

The sky above us showed A universal and unmoving cloud On which the cliffs permitted us to see Only the outline of their majesty, As master-minds when gazed at by the crowd: And shining with a gloom, the water grey Swang in its moon-taught way.

III.

Nor moon, nor stars were out; They did not dare to tread so soon about, Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun: The light was neither night's nor day's, but one Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt, And silence's impassioned breathings round Seemed wandering into sound.

IV.

O solemn-beating heart Of nature! I have knowledge that thou art Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever; And, what time they are slackened by him ever, So to attest his own supernal part, Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong The slackened cord along:

V.

For though we never spoke Of the grey water and the shaded rock, Dark wave and stone unconsciously were fused Into the plaintive speaking that we used Of absent friends and memories unforsook; And, had we seen each other's face, we had Seen haply each was sad.

_THE SEA-MEW._

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO M. E. H.

I.

How joyously the young sea-mew Lay dreaming on the waters blue Whereon our little bark had thrown A little shade, the only one, But shadows ever man pursue.

II.

Familiar with the waves and free As if their own white foam were he, His heart upon the heart of ocean Lay learning all its mystic motion, And throbbing to the throbbing sea.

III.