The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas

BOOK V

Chapter 1035,722 wordsPublic domain

DEDICATED TO M. G. K.

THE WINNOWERS

Betwixt two billows of the downs The little hamlet lies, And nothing sees but the bald crowns Of the hills, and the blue skies.

Clustering beneath the long descent And grey slopes of the wold, The red roofs nestle, oversprent With lichen yellow as gold.

We found it in the mid-day sun Basking, what time of year The thrush his singing has begun, Ere the first leaves appear.

High from his load a woodman pitched His faggots on the stack: Knee-deep in straw the cattle twitched Sweet hay from crib and rack:

And from the barn hard by was borne A steady muffled din, By which we knew that threshèd corn Was winnowing, and went in.

The sunbeams on the motey air Streamed through the open door, And on the brown arms moving bare, And the grain upon the floor.

One turns the crank, one stoops to feed The hopper, lest it lack, One in the bushel scoops the seed, One stands to hold the sack.

We watched the good grain rattle down, And the awns fly in the draught; To see us both so pensive grown The honest labourers laughed:

Merry they were, because the wheat Was clean and plump and good, Pleasant to hand and eye, and meet For market and for food.

It chanced we from the city were, And had not gat us free In spirit from the store and stir Of its immensity:

But here we found ourselves again. Where humble harvests bring After much toil but little grain, 'Tis merry winnowing.

THE AFFLICTION OF RICHARD

Love not too much. But how, When thou hast made me such, And dost thy gifts bestow, How can I love too much? Though I must fear to lose, And drown my joy in care, With all its thorns I choose The path of love and prayer.

Though thou, I know not why, Didst kill my childish trust, That breach with toil did I Repair, because I must: And spite of frighting schemes, With which the fiends of Hell Blaspheme thee in my dreams, So far I have hoped well.

But what the heavenly key, What marvel in me wrought Shall quite exculpate thee, I have no shadow of thought. What am I that complain? The love, from which began My question sad and vain, Justifies thee to man.

Since to be loved endures, To love is wise: Earth hath no good but yours, Brave, joyful eyes:

Earth hath no sin but thine, Dull eye of scorn: O'er thee the sun doth pine And angels mourn.

THE GARDEN IN SEPTEMBER

Now thin mists temper the slow-ripening beams Of the September sun: his golden gleams On gaudy flowers shine, that prank the rows Of high-grown hollyhocks, and all tall shows That Autumn flaunteth in his bushy bowers; Where tomtits, hanging from the drooping heads Of giant sunflowers, peck the nutty seeds; And in the feathery aster bees on wing Seize and set free the honied flowers, Till thousand stars leap with their visiting: While ever across the path mazily flit, Unpiloted in the sun, The dreamy butterflies With dazzling colours powdered and soft glooms, White, black and crimson stripes, and peacock eyes, Or on chance flowers sit, With idle effort plundering one by one The nectaries of deepest-throated blooms.

With gentle flaws the western breeze Into the garden saileth, Scarce here and there stirring the single trees, For his sharpness he vaileth: So long a comrade of the bearded corn, Now from the stubbles whence the shocks are borne, O'er dewy lawns he turns to stray, As mindful of the kisses and soft play Wherewith he enamoured the light-hearted May, Ere he deserted her; Lover of fragrance, and too late repents; Nor more of heavy hyacinth now may drink, Nor spicy pink, Nor summer's rose, nor garnered lavender, But the few lingering scents Of streakèd pea, and gillyflower, and stocks Of courtly purple, and aromatic phlox.

And at all times to hear are drowsy tones Of dizzy flies, and humming drones, With sudden flap of pigeon wings in the sky, Or the wild cry Of thirsty rooks, that scour ascare The distant blue, to watering as they fare With creaking pinions, or--on business bent, If aught their ancient polity displease,-- Come gathering to their colony, and there Settling in ragged parliament, Some stormy council hold in the high trees.

So sweet love seemed that April morn, When first we kissed beside the thorn, So strangely sweet, it was not strange We thought that love could never change.

But I can tell--let truth be told-- That love will change in growing old; Though day by day is nought to see, So delicate his motions be.

And in the end 'twill come to pass Quite to forget what once he was, Nor even in fancy to recall The pleasure that was all in all.

His little spring, that sweet we found, So deep in summer floods is drowned, I wonder, bathed in joy complete, How love so young could be so sweet.

LARKS

What voice of gladness, hark! In heaven is ringing? From the sad fields the lark Is upward winging.

High through the mournful mist that blots our day Their songs betray them soaring in the grey. See them! Nay, they In sunlight swim; above the furthest stain Of cloud attain; their hearts in music rain Upon the plain.

Sweet birds, far out of sight Your songs of pleasure Dome us with joy as bright As heaven's best azure.

THE PALM WILLOW

See, whirling snow sprinkles the starvèd fields, The birds have stayed to sing; No covert yet their fairy harbour yields. When cometh Spring? Ah! in their tiny throats what songs unborn Are quenched each morn.

The lenten lilies, through the frost that push, Their yellow heads withhold: The woodland willow stands a lonely bush Of nebulous gold; There the Spring-goddess cowers in faint attire Of frightened fire.

ASIAN BIRDS

In this May-month, by grace of heaven, things shoot apace. The waiting multitude of fair boughs in the wood, How few days have arrayed their beauty in green shade.

What have I seen or heard? it was the yellow bird Sang in the tree: he flew a flame against the blue; Upward he flashed. Again, hark! 'tis his heavenly strain.

Another! Hush! Behold, many, like boats of gold, From waving branch to branch their airy bodies launch. What music is like this, where each note is a kiss?

The golden willows lift their boughs the sun to sift: Their sprays they droop to screen the sky with veils of green, A floating cage of song, where feathered lovers throng.

How the delicious notes come bubbling from their throats! Full and sweet how they are shed like round pearls from a thread! The motions of their flight are wishes of delight.

Hearing their song I trace the secret of their grace. Ah, could I this fair time so fashion into rhyme, The poem that I sing would be the voice of spring.

JANUARY

Cold is the winter day, misty and dark: The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent: And patches of thin snow outlying, mark The landscape with a drear disfigurement.

The trees their mournful branches lift aloft: The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust, With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft; The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust.

No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill And chatters mockingly; the newborn lambs Within their strawbuilt fold beneath the hill Answer with plaintive cry their bleating dams.

Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring, Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies: My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing, Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise.

And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold To praise for wintry works not understood, Who all the worlds and ages doth behold, Evil and good as one, and all as good.

A ROBIN

Flame-throated robin on the topmost bough Of the leafless oak, what singest thou? Hark! he telleth how-- 'Spring is coming now; Spring is coming now.

Now ruddy are the elm-tops against the blue sky, The pale larch donneth her jewelry; Red fir and black fir sigh, And I am lamenting the year gone by.

The bushes where I nested are all cut down, They are felling the tall trees one by one, And my mate is dead and gone, In the winter she died and left me lone.

She lay in the thicket where I fear to go; For when the March-winds after the snow The leaves away did blow, She was not there, and my heart is woe:

And sad is my song, when I begin to sing, As I sit in the sunshine this merry spring: Like a withered leaf I cling To the white oak-bough, while the wood doth ring.

Spring is coming now, the sun again is gay; Each day like a last spring's happy day.'-- Thus sang he; then from his spray He saw me listening and flew away.

I never shall love the snow again Since Maurice died: With corniced drift it blocked the lane And sheeted in a desolate plain The country side.

The trees with silvery rime bedight Their branches bare. By day no sun appeared; by night The hidden moon shed thievish light In the misty air.

We fed the birds that flew around In flocks to be fed: No shelter in holly or brake they found. The speckled thrush on the frozen ground Lay frozen and dead.

We skated on stream and pond; we cut The crinching snow To Doric temple or Arctic hut; We laughed and sang at nightfall, shut By the fireside glow.

Yet grudged we our keen delights before Maurice should come. We said, In-door or out-of-door We shall love life for a month or more, When he is home.

They brought him home; 'twas two days late For Christmas day: Wrapped in white, in solemn state, A flower in his hand, all still and straight Our Maurice lay.

And two days ere the year outgave We laid him low. The best of us truly were not brave, When we laid Maurice down in his grave Under the snow.

NIGHTINGALES

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long!

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams, A throe of the heart, Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound, For all our art.

Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then, As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, Dream, while the innumerable choir of day Welcome the dawn.

A song of my heart, as the sun peered o'er the sea, Was born at morning to me: And out of my treasure-house it chose A melody, that arose

Of all fair sounds that I love, remembered together In one; and I knew not whether From waves of rustling wheat it was, Recoveringly that pass:

Or a hum of bees in the queenly robes of the lime: Or a descant in pairing time Of warbling birds: or watery bells Of rivulets in the hills:

Or whether on blazing downs a high lark's hymn Alone in the azure dim: Or a sough of pines, when the midnight wold Is solitary and cold:

Or a lapping river-ripple all day chiding The bow of my wherry gliding Down Thames, between his flowery shores Re-echoing to the oars:

Or anthem notes, wherever in archèd quires The unheeded music twires, And, centuries by, to the stony shade Flies following and to fade:

Or a homely prattle of children's voices gay 'Mong garden joys at play: Or a sundown chaunting of solemn rooks: Or memory of my books,

Which hold the words that poets in many a tongue To the irksome world have sung: Or the voice, my happy lover, of thee Now separated from me.

A ruby of fire in the burning sleep of my brain Long hid my thought had lain, Forgotten dreams of a thousand days Ingathering to its rays,

The light of life in darkness tempering long; Till now a perfect song, A jewel of jewels it leapt above To the coronal of my love.

FOUNDER'S DAY. A SECULAR ODE ON THE NINTH JUBILEE OF ETON COLLEGE

Christ and his Mother, heavenly maid, Mary, in whose fair name was laid Eton's corner, bless our youth With truth, and purity, mother of truth!

O ye, 'neath breezy skies of June, By silver Thames's lulling tune, In shade of willow or oak, who try The golden gates of poesy;

Or on the tabled sward all day Match your strength in England's play, Scholars of Henry, giving grace To toil and force in game or race;

Exceed the prayer and keep the fame Of him, the sorrowful king, who came Here in his realm a realm to found, Where he might stand for ever crowned.

Or whether with naked bodies flashing Ye plunge in the lashing weir; or dashing The oars of cedar skiffs, ye strain Round the rushes and home again;--

Or what pursuit soe'er it be That makes your mingled presence free, When by the schoolgate 'neath the limes Ye muster waiting the lazy chimes; May Peace, that conquereth sin and death, Temper for you her sword of faith; Crown with honour the loving eyes, And touch with mirth the mouth of the wise.

Here is eternal spring: for you The very stars of heaven are new; And aged Fame again is born, Fresh as a peeping flower of morn.

For you shall Shakespeare's scene unroll, Mozart shall steal your ravished soul, Homer his bardic hymn rehearse, Virgil recite his maiden verse.

Now learn, love, have, do, be the best; Each in one thing excel the rest: Strive; and hold fast this truth of heaven-- To him that hath shall more be given.

Slow on your dial the shadows creep, So many hours for food and sleep, So many hours till study tire, So many hours for heart's desire.

These suns and moons shall memory save, Mirrors bright for her magic cave; Wherein may steadfast eyes behold A self that groweth never old.

O in such prime enjoy your lot, And when ye leave regret it not; With wishing gifts in festal state Pass ye the angel-sworded gate.

Then to the world let shine your light, Children in play be lions in fight, And match with red immortal deeds The victory that made ring the meads:

Or by firm wisdom save your land From giddy head and grasping hand: IMPROVE THE BEST; so shall your sons Better what ye have bettered once.

Send them here to the court of grace Bearing your name to fill your place: Ye in their time shall live again The happy dream of Henry's reign:

And on his day your steps be bent Where, saint and king, crowned with content, He biddeth a prayer to bless his youth With truth, and purity, mother of truth.

The north wind came up yesternight With the new year's full moon, And rising as she gained her height, Grew to a tempest soon. Yet found he not on heaven's face A task of cloud to clear; There was no speck that he might chase Off the blue hemisphere, Nor vapour from the land to drive: The frost-bound country held Nought motionable or alive, That 'gainst his wrath rebelled. There scarce was hanging in the wood A shrivelled leaf to reave; No bud had burst its swathing hood That he could rend or grieve: Only the tall tree-skeletons, Where they were shadowed all, Wavered a little on the stones, And on the white church-wall.

--Like as an artist in his mood, Who reckons all as nought, So he may quickly paint his nude, Unutterable thought: So Nature in a frenzied hour By day or night will show Dim indications of the power That doometh man to woe. Ah, many have my visions been, And some I know full well: I would that all that I have seen Were fit for speech to tell.--

And by the churchyard as I came, It seemed my spirit passed Into a land that hath no name, Grey, melancholy and vast; Where nothing comes: but Memory, The widowed queen of Death, Reigns, and with fixed, sepulchral eye All slumber banisheth. Each grain of writhen dust, that drapes That sickly, staring shore, Its old chaotic change of shapes Remembers evermore. And ghosts of cities long decayed And ruined shrines of Fate Gather the paths, that Time hath made Foolish and desolate.

Nor winter there hath hope of spring, Nor the pale night of day, Since the old king with scorpion sting Hath done himself away.

* * *

The morn was calm; the wind's last breath Had fal'n: in solemn hush The golden moon went down beneath The dawning's crimson flush.

NORTH WIND IN OCTOBER

In the golden glade the chestnuts are fallen all; From the sered boughs of the oak the acorns fall: The beech scatters her ruddy fire; The lime hath stripped to the cold, And standeth naked above her yellow attire: The larch thinneth her spire To lay the ways of the wood with cloth of gold.

Out of the golden-green and white Of the brake the fir-trees stand upright In the forest of flame, and wave aloft To the blue of heaven their blue-green tuftings soft.

But swiftly in shuddering gloom the splendours fail, As the harrying North-wind beareth A cloud of skirmishing hail The grievèd woodland to smite: In a hurricane through the trees he teareth, Raking the boughs and the leaves rending, And whistleth to the descending Blows of his icy flail. Gold and snow he mixeth in spite, And whirleth afar; as away on his winnowing flight He passeth, and all again for awhile is bright.

FIRST SPRING MORNING

A CHILD'S POEM.

Look! Look! the spring is come: O feel the gentle air, That wanders thro' the boughs to burst The thick buds everywhere! The birds are glad to see The high unclouded sun: Winter is fled away, they sing, The gay time is begun.

Adown the meadows green Let us go dance and play, And look for violets in the lane, And ramble far away To gather primroses, That in the woodland grow, And hunt for oxlips, or if yet The blades of bluebells show:

There the old woodman gruff Hath half the coppice cut, And weaves the hurdles all day long Beside his willow hut. We'll steal on him, and then Startle him, all with glee Singing our song of winter fled And summer soon to be.

A VILLAGER

There was no lad handsomer than Willie was The day that he came to father's house: There was none had an eye as soft an' blue As Willie's was, when he came to woo.

To a labouring life though bound thee be, An' I on my father's ground live free, I'll take thee, I said, for thy manly grace, Thy gentle voice an' thy loving face.

'Tis forty years now since we were wed: We are ailing an' grey needs not to be said: But Willie's eye is as blue an' soft As the day when he wooed me in father's croft.

Yet changed am I in body an' mind, For Willie to me has ne'er been kind: Merrily drinking an' singing with the men He 'ud come home late six nights o' the se'n.

An' since the children be grown an' gone He 'as shunned the house an' left me lone: An' less an' less he brings me in Of the little he now has strength to win.

The roof lets through the wind an' the wet, An' master won't mend it with us in 's debt: An' all looks every day more worn, An' the best of my gowns be shabby an' torn.

No wonder if words hav' a-grown to blows; That matters not while nobody knows: For love him I shall to the end of life, An' be, as I swore, his own true wife.

An' when I am gone, he'll turn, an' see His folly an' wrong, an' be sorry for me: An' come to me there in the land o' bliss To give me the love I looked for in this.

Weep not to-day: why should this sadness be? Learn in present fears To o'ermaster those tears That unhindered conquer thee.

Think on thy past valour, thy future praise: Up, sad heart, nor faint In ungracious complaint, Or a prayer for better days.

Daily thy life shortens, the grave's dark peace Draweth surely nigh, When good-night is good-bye; For the sleeping shall not cease.

Fight, to be found fighting: nor far away Deem, nor strange thy doom. Like this sorrow 'twill come, And the day will be to-day.

NEW POEMS

_PREVIOUS EDITION_

_Collected for the first time in 1899. Smith, Elder & Co. Vol. II. See notes at end of that volume._

NEW POEMS

ECLOGUE I

THE MONTHS

_BASIL AND EDWARD_

Man hath with man on earth no holier bond Than that the Muse weaves with her dreamy thread: Nor e'er was such transcendent love more fond Than that which Edward unto Basil led, Wandering alone across the woody shires To hear the living voice of that wide heart, To see the eyes that read the world's desires, And touch the hand that wrote the roving rhyme. Diverse their lots as distant were their homes, And since that early meeting, jealous Time Knitting their loves had held their lives apart.

But now again were these fine lovers met And sat together on a rocky hill Looking upon the vales of Somerset, Where the far sea gleam'd o'er the bosky combes, Satisfying their spirits the livelong day With various mirth and revelation due And delicate intimacy of delight, As there in happy indolence they lay And drank the sun, while round the breezy height Beneath their feet rabbit and listless ewe Nibbled the scented herb and grass at will.

Much talked they at their ease; and at the last Spoke Edward thus, ''Twas on this very hill This time of the year,--but now twelve years are past,-- That you provoked in verse my younger skill To praise the months against your rival song; And ere the sun had westered ten degrees Our rhyme had brought him thro' the Zodiac. Have you remembered?'--Basil answer'd back, 'Guest of my solace, how could I forget? Years fly as months that seem'd in youth so long. The precious life that, like indifferent gold, Is disregarded in its worth to hold Some jewel of love that God therein would set, It passeth and is gone.'--'And yet not all,' Edward replied: 'The passion as I please Of that past day I can to-day recall; And if but you, as I, remember yet Your part thereof, and will again rehearse, For half an hour we may old Time outwit.' And Basil said, 'Alas for my poor verse! What happy memory of it still endures Will thank your love: I have forgotten it. Speak you my stanzas, I will ransom yours. Begin you then as I that day began, And I will follow as your answers ran.'

JANUARY

ED. The moon that mounts the sun's deserted way, Turns the long winter night to a silver day; But setteth golden in face of the solemn sight Of her lord arising upon a world of white.

FEBRUARY

BA. I have in my heart a vision of spring begun In a sheltering wood, that feels the kiss of the sun: And a thrush adoreth the melting day that dies In clouds of purple afloat upon saffron skies.

MARCH

ED. Now carol the birds at dawn, and some new lay Announceth a homecome voyager every day. Beneath the tufted sallows the streamlet thrills With the leaping trout and the gleam of the daffodils.

APRIL

BA. Then laugheth the year; with flowers the meads are bright; The bursting branches are tipped with flames of light: The landscape is light; the dark clouds flee above, And the shades of the land are a blue that is deep as love.

MAY

ED. But if you have seen a village all red and old In cherry-orchards a-sprinkle with white and gold, By a hawthorn seated, or a witch-elm flowering high, A gay breeze making riot in the waving rye!

JUNE

BA. Then night retires from heaven; the high winds go A-sailing in cloud-pavilions of cavern'd snow. O June, sweet Philomel sang thy cradle-lay; In rosy revel thy spirit shall pass away.

JULY

ED. Heavy is the green of the fields, heavy the trees With foliage hang, drowsy the hum of bees In the thund'rous air: the crowded scents lie low: Thro' tangle of weeds the river runneth slow.

AUGUST

BA. A reaper with dusty shoon and hat of straw On the yellow field, his scythe in his armës braw: Beneath the tall grey trees resting at noon From sweat and swink with scythe and dusty shoon.

SEPTEMBER

ED. Earth's flaunting flower of passion fadeth fair To ripening fruit in sunlit veils of the air, As the art of man makes wisdom to glorify The beauty and love of life born else to die.

OCTOBER

BA. On frosty morns with the woods aflame, down, down The golden spoils fall thick from the chestnut crown. May Autumn in tranquil glory her riches spend, With mellow apples her orchard-branches bend.

NOVEMBER

ED. Sad mists have hid the sun, the land is forlorn: The plough is afield, the hunter windeth his horn. Dame Prudence looketh well to her winter stores, And many a wise man finds his pleasure indoors.

DECEMBER

BA. I pray thee don thy jerkin of olden time, Bring us good ice, and silver the trees with rime; And I will good cheer, good music and wine bestow, When the Christmas guest comes galloping over the snow.

Thus they in verse alternate sang the year For rabbit shy and listless ewe to hear, Among the grey rocks on the mountain green Beneath the sky in fair and pastoral scene, Like those Sicilian swains, whose doric tongue After two thousand years is ever young,-- _Sweet the pine's murmur, and, shepherd, sweet thy pipe,--_ Or that which gentle Virgil, yet unripe, Of Tityrus sang under the spreading beech And gave to rustic clowns immortal speech, By rocky fountain or on flowery mead Bidding their idle flocks at will to feed, While they, retreated to some bosky glade, Together told their loves, and as they played Sang what sweet thing soe'er the poet feigned: But these were men when good Victoria reigned, Poets themselves, who without shepherd gear Each of his native fancy sang the year.

ECLOGUE II

GIOVANNI DUPRÈ

_LAWRENCE AND RICHARD_

LAWRENCE

Look down the river--against the western sky-- The Ponte Santa Trinità--what throng Slowly trails o'er with waving banners high, With foot and horse! Surely they bear along The spoil of one whom Florence honoureth: And hark! the drum, the trumpeting dismay, The wail of the triumphal march of death.

RICHARD

'Twill be the funeral of Giovánn Duprè Wending to Santa Croce. Let us go And see what relic of old splendour cheers The dying ritual.

LAWRENCE

They esteem him well To lay his bones with Michael Angelo. Who might he be?

RICHARD

He too a sculptor, one Who left a work long to resist the years.

LAWRENCE

You make me question further.

RICHARD

I can tell All as we walk. A poor woodcarver's son, Prenticed to cut his father's rude designs (We have it from himself), maker of shrines, In his mean workshop in Siena dreamed; And saw as gods the artists of the earth, And long'd to stand on their immortal shore, And be as they, who in his vision gleam'd, Dowering the world with grace for evermore. So, taxing rest and leisure to one aim, The boy of single will and inbred skill Rose step by step to academic fame.

LAWRENCE

Do I not know him then? His figures fill The tympana o'er Santa Croce's gate; In the museum too, his Cain, that stands A left-handed discobolos....

RICHARD

So great His vogue, that elder art of classic worth Went to the wall to give his statues room; And last--his country's praise could do no more-- He cut the stone that honoured good Cavour.

LAWRENCE

I have seen the things.

RICHARD

He, finding in his hands His life-desire possest, fell not in gloom, Nor froth'd in vanity: his Sabbath earn'd He look'd to spend in meditative rest: So laying chisel by, he took a pen To tell his story to his countrymen, And prove (he did it) that the flower of all, Rarest to attain, is in the power of all.

LAWRENCE

Yet nought he ever made, that I have learn'd, In wood or stone deserved, nay not his best, The Greek or Tuscan name for beautiful. 'Twas level with its praise, had force to pull Favour from fashion.

RICHARD

Yet he made one thing Worthy of the lily city in her spring; For while in vain the forms of beauty he aped, A perfect spirit in himself he shaped; And all his lifetime doing less than well Where he profess'd nor doubted to excel, Now, where he had no scholarship, but drew His art from love, 'twas better than he knew: And when he sat to write, lo! by him stood The heavenly Muse, who smiles on all things good; And for his truth's sake, for his stainless mind, His homely love and faith, she now grew kind, And changed the crown, that from the folk he got, For her green laurel, and he knew it not.

LAWRENCE

Ah! Love of Beauty! This man then mistook Ambition for her?

RICHARD

In simplicity Erring he kept his truth; and in his book The statue of his grace is fair to see.

LAWRENCE

Then buried with their great he well may be.

RICHARD

And number'd with the saints, not among them Who painted saints. Join we his requiem.

ECLOGUE III

FOURTH OF JUNE AT ETON

_RICHARD AND GODFREY_

RICHARD

Beneath the wattled bank the eddies swarm In wandering dimples o'er the shady pool: The same their chase as when I was at school; The same the music, where in shallows warm The current, sunder'd by the bushy isles, Returns to join the main, and struggles free Above the willows, gurgling thro' the piles: Nothing is changed, and yet how changed are we! --What can bring Godfrey to the Muses' bower?

GODFREY

What but brings you? The festal day of the year; To live in boyish memories for an hour; See and be seen: tho' you come seldom here.

RICHARD

Dread of the pang it was, fear to behold What once was all myself, that kept me away.

GODFREY

You miss new pleasures coveting the old.

RICHARD

They need have prudence, who in courage lack; 'Twas that I might go on I looked not back.

GODFREY

Of all our company he, who, we say, Fruited the laughing flower of liberty!

RICHARD

Ah! had I my desire, so should it be.

GODFREY

Nay, but I know this melancholy mood; 'Twas your poetic fancy when a boy.

RICHARD

For Fancy cannot live on real food: In youth she will despise familiar joy To dwell in mournful shades; as they grow real, Then buildeth she of joy her far ideal.

GODFREY

And so perverteth all. This stream to me Sings, and in sunny ripples lingeringly The water saith 'Ah me! where have I lept? Into what garden of life? what banks are these, What secret lawns, what ancient towers and trees? Where the young sons of heav'n, with shouts of play Or low delighted speech, welcome the day, As if the poetry of the earth had slept To wake in ecstasy. O stay me! alas! Stay me, ye happy isles, ere that I pass Without a memory on my sullen course By the black city to the tossing seas!'

RICHARD

So might this old oak say 'My heart is sere; With greater effort every year I force My stubborn leafage: soon my branch will crack, And I shall fall or perish in the wrack: And here another tree its crown will rear, And see for centuries the boys at play: And 'neath its boughs, on some fine holiday, Old men shall prate as these.' Come see the game.

GODFREY

Yes, if you will. 'Tis all one picture fair.

RICHARD

Made in a mirror, and who looketh there Must see himself. Is not a dream the same?

GODFREY

_Life is a dream._

RICHARD

And you, who say it, seem Dreaming to speak to a phantom in a dream.

ELEGY

THE SUMMER-HOUSE ON THE MOUND

How well my eyes remember the dim path! My homing heart no happier playground hath. I need not close my lids but it appears Through the bewilderment of forty years To tempt my feet, my childish feet, between Its leafy walls, beneath its arching green; Fairer than dream of sleep, than Hope more fair Leading to dreamless sleep her sister Care.

There grew two fellow limes, two rising trees, Shadowing the lawn, the summer haunt of bees, Whose stems, engraved with many a russet scar From the spear-hurlings of our mimic war, Pillar'd the portico to that wide walk, A mossy terrace of the native chalk Fashion'd, that led thro' the dark shades around Straight to the wooden temple on the mound. There live the memories of my early days, There still with childish heart my spirit plays; Yea, terror-stricken by the fiend despair When she hath fled me, I have found her there; And there 'tis ever noon, and glad suns bring Alternate days of summer and of spring, With childish thought, and childish faces bright, And all unknown save but the hour's delight.

High on the mound the ivied arbour stood, A dome of straw upheld on rustic wood: Hidden in fern the steps of the ascent, Whereby unto the southern front we went, And from the dark plantation climbing free, Over a valley look'd out on the sea. That sea is ever bright and blue, the sky Serene and blue, and ever white ships lie High on the horizon steadfast in full sail, Or nearer in the roads pass within hail, Of naked brigs and barques that windbound ride At their taut cables heading to the tide.

There many an hour I have sat to watch; nay, now The brazen disk is cold against my brow, And in my sight a circle of the sea Enlarged to swiftness, where the salt waves flee, And ships in stately motion pass so near That what I see is speaking to my ear: I hear the waves dash and the tackle strain, The canvas flap, the rattle of the chain That runs out thro' the hawse, the clank of the winch Winding the rusty cable inch by inch, Till half I wonder if they have no care, Those sailors, that my glass is brought to bear On all their doings, if I vex them not On every petty task of their rough lot Prying and spying, searching every craft From painted truck to gunnel, fore and aft,-- Thro' idle Sundays as I have watch'd them lean Long hours upon the rail, or neath its screen Prone on the deck to lie outstretch'd at length, Sunk in renewal of their wearied strength.

But what a feast of joy to me, if some Fast-sailing frigate to the Channel come Back'd here her topsail, or brought gently up Let from her bow the splashing anchor drop, By faint contrary wind stay'd in her cruise, The _Phaethon_ or dancing _Arethuse_, Or some immense three-decker of the line, Romantic as the tale of Troy divine; Ere yet our iron age had doom'd to fall The towering freeboard of the wooden wall, And for the engines of a mightier Mars Clipp'd their wide wings, and dock'd their soaring spars. The gale that in their tackle sang, the wave That neath their gilded galleries dasht so brave Lost then their merriment, nor look to play With the heavy-hearted monsters of to-day.

One noon in March upon that anchoring ground Came Napier's fleet unto the Baltic bound: Cloudless the sky and calm and blue the sea, As round Saint Margaret's cliff mysteriously, Those murderous queens walking in Sabbath sleep Glided in line upon the windless deep: For in those days was first seen low and black Beside the full-rigg'd mast the strange smoke-stack, And neath their stern revolv'd the twisted fan. Many I knew as soon as I might scan, The heavy _Royal George_, the _Acre_ bright, The _Hogue_ and _Ajax_, and could name aright Others that I remember now no more; But chief, her blue flag flying at the fore, With fighting guns a hundred thirty and one, The Admiral ship _The Duke of Wellington_, Whereon sail'd George, who in her gig had flown The silken ensign by our sisters sewn. The iron Duke himself,--whose soldier fame To England's proudest ship had given her name, And whose white hairs in this my earliest scene Had scarce more honour'd than accustom'd been,-- Was two years since to his last haven past: I had seen his castle-flag to fall half-mast One morn as I sat looking on the sea, When thus all England's grief came first to me, Who hold my childhood favour'd that I knew So well the face that won at Waterloo.

But now 'tis other wars, and other men;-- The year that Napier sail'd, my years were ten-- Yea, and new homes and loves my heart hath found: A priest has there usurped the ivied mound, The bell that call'd to horse calls now to prayers, And silent nuns tread the familiar stairs. Within the peach-clad walls that old outlaw, The Roman wolf, scratches with privy paw.

O Love, I complain, Complain of thee often, Because thou dost soften My being to pain:

Thou makest me fear The mind that createth, That loves not nor hateth In justice austere; Who, ere he make one, With millions toyeth, And lightly destroyeth Whate'er is begun.

An' wer't not for thee, My glorious passion, My heart I could fashion To sternness, as he.

But thee, Love, he made Lest man should defy him, Connive and outvie him, And not be afraid:

Nay, thee, Love, he gave His terrors to cover, And turn to a lover His insolent slave.

THE SOUTH WIND

The south wind rose at dusk of the winter day, The warm breath of the western sea Circling wrapp'd the isle with his cloke of cloud, And it now reach'd even to me, at dusk of the day, And moan'd in the branches aloud: While here and there, in patches of dark space, A star shone forth from its heavenly place, As a spark that is borne in the smoky chase; And, looking up, there fell on my face-- Could it be drops of rain Soft as the wind, that fell on my face? Gossamers light as threads of the summer dawn, Suck'd by the sun from midmost calms of the main, From groves of coral islands secretly drawn, O'er half the round of earth to be driven, Now to fall on my face In silky skeins spun from the mists of heaven.

Who art thou, in wind and darkness and soft rain Thyself that robest, that bendest in sighing pines To whisper thy truth? that usest for signs A hurried glimpse of the moon, the glance of a star In the rifted sky? Who art thou, that with thee I Woo and am wooed? That robing thyself in darkness and soft rain Choosest my chosen solitude, Coming so far To tell thy secret again, As a mother her child, in her folding arm Of a winter night by a flickering fire, Telleth the same tale o'er and o'er With gentle voice, and I never tire, So imperceptibly changeth the charm, As Love on buried ecstasy buildeth his tower, --Like as the stem that beareth the flower By trembling is knit to power;-- Ah! long ago In thy first rapture I renounced my lot, The vanity, the despondency and the woe, And seeking thee to know Well was 't for me, and evermore I am thine, I know not what.

For me thou seekest ever, me wondering a day In the eternal alternations, me Free for a stolen moment of chance To dream a beautiful dream In the everlasting dance Of speechless worlds, the unsearchable scheme, To me thou findest the way, Me and whomsoe'er I have found my dream to share Still with thy charm encircling; even to-night To me and my love in darkness and soft rain Under the sighing pines thou comest again, And staying our speech with mystery of delight, Of the kiss that I give a wonder thou makest, And the kiss that I take thou takest.

I climb the mossy bank of the glade: My love awaiteth me in the shade.

She holdeth a book that she never heedeth: In Goddës work her spirit readeth.

She is all to me, and I to her: When we embrace, the stars confer.

O my love, from beyond the sky I am calling thy heart, and who but I?

* * *

Fresh as love is the breeze of June, In the dappled shade of the summer noon.

Catullus, throwing his heart away, Gave fewer kisses every day.

Heracleitus, spending his youth In search of wisdom, had less of truth.

Flame of fire was the poet's desire: The thinker found that life was fire.

O my love! my song is done: My kiss hath both their fires in one.

To my love I whisper, and say Knowest thou why I love thee?--Nay: Nay, she saith; O tell me again.--

When in her ear the secret I tell, She smileth with joy incredible--

Ha! she is vain--O nay-- Then tell us!--Nay, O nay.

But this is in my heart, That Love is Nature's perfect art, And man hath got his fancy hence, To clothe his thought in forms of sense.

Fair are thy works, O man, and fair Thy dreams of soul in garments rare, Beautiful past compare, Yea, godlike when thou hast the skill To steal a stir of the heavenly thrill:

But O, have care, have care! 'Tis envious even to dare: And many a fiend is watching well To flush thy reed with the fire of hell.

My delight and thy delight Walking, like two angels white, In the gardens of the night:

My desire and thy desire Twining to a tongue of fire, Leaping live, and laughing higher; Thro' the everlasting strife In the mystery of life.

* * *

Love, from whom the world begun, Hath the secret of the sun.

Love can tell, and love alone, Whence the million stars were strewn, Why each atom knows its own, How, in spite of woe and death, Gay is life, and sweet is breath:

This he taught us, this we knew, Happy in his science true, Hand in hand as we stood Neath the shadows of the wood, Heart to heart as we lay In the dawning of the day.

SEPTUAGESIMA

Now all the windows with frost are blinded, As punctual day with greedy smile Lifts like a Cyclops evil-minded His ruddy eyeball over the isle.

In an hour 'tis paled, in an hour ascended A dazzling light in the cloudless grey. Steel is the ice; the snow unblended Is trod to dust on the white highway.

The lambkins frisk; the shepherd is melting Drink for the ewes with a fire of straw: The red flames leap at the wild air pelting Bitterly thro' the leafless shaw.

Around, from many a village steeple The sabbath-bells hum over the snow: I give a blessing to parson and people Across the fields as away I go.

Over the hills and over the meadows Gay is my way till day be done: Blue as the heaven are all the shadows, And every light is gold in the sun.

The sea keeps not the Sabbath day, His waves come rolling evermore; His noisy toil grindeth the shore, And all the cliff is drencht with spray.

Here as we sit, my love and I, Under the pine upon the hill, The sadness of the clouded sky, The bitter wind, the gloomy roar, The seamew's melancholy cry With loving fancy suit but ill.

We talk of moons and cooling suns, Of geologic time and tide, The eternal sluggards that abide While our fair love so swiftly runs,

Of nature that doth half consent That man should guess her dreary scheme Lest he should live too well content In his fair house of mirth and dream:

Whose labour irks his ageing heart, His heart that wearies of desire, Being so fugitive a part Of what so slowly must expire.

She in her agelong toil and care Persistent, wearies not nor stays, Mocking alike hope and despair.

--Ah, but she too can mock our praise, Enchanted on her brighter days,

Days, that the thought of grief refuse, Days that are one with human art, Worthy of the Virgilian muse, Fit for the gaiety of Mozart.

Riding adown the country lanes One day in spring, Heavy at heart with all the pains Of man's imagining:--

The mist was not yet melted quite Into the sky: The small round sun was dazzling white, The merry larks sang high:

The grassy northern slopes were laid In sparkling dew, Out of the slow-retreating shade Turning from sleep anew:

Deep in the sunny vale a burn Ran with the lane, O'erhung with ivy, moss and fern It laughed in joyful strain:

And primroses shot long and lush Their cluster'd cream; Robin and wren and amorous thrush Carol'd above the stream:

The stillness of the lenten air Call'd into sound The motions of all life that were In field and farm around:

So fair it was, so sweet and bright, The jocund Spring Awoke in me the old delight Of man's imagining,

Riding adown the country lanes: The larks sang high.-- O heart! for all thy griefs and pains Thou shalt be loth to die.

PATER FILIO

Sense with keenest edge unusèd, Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire; Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd On the ways of dark desire; Sweetest hope that lookest smiling O'er the wilderness defiling!

Why such beauty, to be blighted By the swarm of foul destruction? Why such innocence delighted, When sin stalks to thy seduction? All the litanies e'er chaunted Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.

I have pray'd the sainted Morning To unclasp her hands to hold thee; From resignful Eve's adorning Stol'n a robe of peace to enfold thee; With all charms of man's contriving Arm'd thee for thy lonely striving.

Me too once unthinking Nature, --Whence Love's timeless mockery took me,-- Fashion'd so divine a creature, Yea, and like a beast forsook me. I forgave, but tell the measure Of her crime in thee, my treasure.

NOVEMBER

The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled Are half the birds, and mists lie low, and the sun Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed; The short days pass unwelcomed one by one.

Out by the ricks the mantled engine stands Crestfallen, deserted,--for now all hands Are told to the plough,--and ere it is dawn appear The teams following and crossing far and near, As hour by hour they broaden the brown bands Of the striped fields; and behind them firk and prance The heavy rooks, and daws grey-pated dance: As awhile, surmounting a crest, in sharp outline (A miniature of toil, a gem's design,) They are pictured, horses and men, or now near by Above the lane they shout lifting the share, By the trim hedgerow bloom'd with purple air; Where, under the thorns, dead leaves in huddle lie Packed by the gales of Autumn, and in and out The small wrens glide With a happy note of cheer, And yellow amorets flutter above and about, Gay, familiar in fear.

And now, if the night shall be cold, across the sky Linnets and twites, in small flocks helter-skelter, All the afternoon to the gardens fly, From thistle-pastures hurrying to gain the shelter Of American rhododendron or cherry-laurel: And here and there, near chilly setting of sun, In an isolated tree a congregation Of starlings chatter and chide, Thickset as summer leaves, in garrulous quarrel: Suddenly they hush as one,-- The tree top springs,-- And off, with a whirr of wings, They fly by the score To the holly-thicket, and there with myriads more Dispute for the roosts; and from the unseen nation A babel of tongues, like running water unceasing, Makes live the wood, the flocking cries increasing, Wrangling discordantly, incessantly, While falls the night on them self-occupied; The long dark night, that lengthens slow, Deepening with Winter to starve grass and tree, And soon to bury in snow The Earth, that, sleeping 'neath her frozen stole, Shall dream a dream crept from the sunless pole Of how her end shall be.

WINTER NIGHTFALL

The day begins to droop,-- Its course is done: But nothing tells the place Of the setting sun.

The hazy darkness deepens, And up the lane You may hear, but cannot see, The homing wain.

An engine pants and hums In the farm hard by: Its lowering smoke is lost In the lowering sky.

The soaking branches drip, And all night through The dropping will not cease In the avenue.

A tall man there in the house Must keep his chair: He knows he will never again Breathe the spring air:

His heart is worn with work; He is giddy and sick If he rise to go as far As the nearest rick:

He thinks of his morn of life, His hale, strong years; And braves as he may the night Of darkness and tears.

Since we loved,--(the earth that shook As we kissed, fresh beauty took)-- Love hath been as poets paint, Life as heaven is to a saint;

All my joys my hope excel, All my work hath prosper'd well, All my songs have happy been, O my love, my life, my queen.

When Death to either shall come,-- I pray it be first to me,-- Be happy as ever at home, If so, as I wish, it be.

Possess thy heart, my own; And sing to the child on thy knee, Or read to thyself alone The songs that I made for thee.

WISHES

I wish'd to sing thy grace, but nought Found upon earth that could compare: Some day, maybe, in heaven, I thought,-- If I should win the welcome there,--

There might I make thee many a song: But now it is enough to say I ne'er have done our life the wrong Of wishing for a happier day.

A LOVE LYRIC

Why art thou sad, my dearest? What terror is it thou fearest, Braver who art than I The fiend to defy?

Why art thou sad, my dearest? And why in tears appearest, Closer than I that wert At hiding thy hurt?

Why art thou sad, my dearest, Since now my voice thou hearest? Who with a kiss restore Thy valour of yore.

ΕΡΩΣ

Why hast thou nothing in thy face? Thou idol of the human race, Thou tyrant of the human heart, The flower of lovely youth that art; Yea, and that standest in thy youth An image of eternal Truth, With thy exuberant flesh so fair, That only Pheidias might compare, Ere from his chaste marmoreal form Time had decayed the colours warm; Like to his gods in thy proud dress, Thy starry sheen of nakedness.

Surely thy body is thy mind, For in thy face is nought to find, Only thy soft unchristen'd smile, That shadows neither love nor guile, But shameless will and power immense, In secret sensuous innocence.

O king of joy, what is thy thought? I dream thou knowest it is nought, And wouldst in darkness come, but thou Makest the light where'er thou go. Ah yet no victim of thy grace, None who e'er long'd for thy embrace, Hath cared to look upon thy face.

THE FAIR BRASS

An effigy of brass Trodden by careless feet Of worshippers that pass, Beautiful and complete,

Lieth in the sombre aisle Of this old church unwreckt, And still from modern style Shielded by kind neglect.

It shows a warrior arm'd: Across his iron breast His hands by death are charm'd To leave his sword at rest,

Wherewith he led his men O'ersea, and smote to hell The astonisht Saracen, Nor doubted he did well.

Would wé could teach our sons His trust in face of doom, Or give our bravest ones A comparable tomb:

Such as to look on shrives The heart of half its care; So in each line survives The spirit that made it fair;

So fair the characters, With which the dusty scroll, That tells his title, stirs A requiem for his soul.

Yet dearer far to me, And brave as he are they, Who fight by land and sea For England at this day;

Whose vile memorials, In mournful marbles gilt, Deface the beauteous walls By growing glory built:

Heirs of our antique shrines, Sires of our future fame, Whose starry honour shines In many a noble name

Across the deathful days, Link'd in the brotherhood That loves our country's praise, And lives for heavenly good.

THE DUTEOUS HEART

Spirit of grace and beauty, Whom men so much miscall: Maidenly, modest duty, I cry thee fair befall!

Pity for them that shun thee, Sorrow for them that hate, Glory, hath any won thee To dwell in high estate!

But rather thou delightest To walk in humble ways, Keeping thy favour brightest Uncrown'd by foolish praise; In such retirement dwelling, Where, hath the worldling been, He straight returneth telling Of sights that he hath seen,

Of simple men and truest Faces of girl and boy; The souls whom thou enduest With gentle peace and joy.

Fair from my song befall thee, Spirit of beauty and grace! Men that so much miscall thee Have never seen thy face.

THE IDLE FLOWERS

I have sown upon the fields Eyebright and Pimpernel, And Pansy and Poppy-seed Ripen'd and scatter'd well,

And silver Lady-smock The meads with light to fill, Cowslip and Buttercup, Daisy and Daffodil;

King-cup and Fleur-de-lys Upon the marsh to meet With Comfrey, Watermint, Loose-strife and Meadowsweet;

And all along the stream My care hath not forgot Crowfoot's white galaxy And love's Forget-me-not:

And where high grasses wave Shall great Moon-daisies blink, With Rattle and Sorrel sharp And Robin's ragged pink.

Thick on the woodland floor Gay company shall be, Primrose and Hyacinth And frail Anemone,

Perennial Strawberry-bloom, Woodsorrel's pencilled veil, Dishevel'd Willow-weed And Orchis purple and pale,

Bugle, that blushes blue, And Woodruff's snowy gem, Proud Foxglove's finger-bells And Spurge with milky stem.

High on the downs so bare, Where thou dost love to climb, Pink Thrift and Milkwort are, Lotus and scented Thyme;

And in the shady lanes Bold Arum's hood of green, Herb Robert, Violet, Starwort and Celandine;

And by the dusty road Bedstraw and Mullein tall, With red Valerian And Toadflax on the wall,

Yarrow and Chicory, That hath for hue no like, Silene and Mallow mild And Agrimony's spike, Blue-eyed Veronicas And grey-faced Scabious And downy Silverweed And striped Convolvulus:

Harebell shall haunt the banks, And thro' the hedgerow peer Withwind and Snapdragon And Nightshade's flower of fear.

And where men never sow, Have I my Thistles set, Ragwort and stiff Wormwood And straggling Mignonette,

Bugloss and Burdock rank And prickly Teasel high, With Umbels yellow and white, That come to kexes dry.

Pale Chlora shalt thou find, Sun-loving Centaury, Cranesbill and Sinjunwort, Cinquefoil and Betony:

Shock-headed Dandelion, That drank the fire of the sun: Hawkweed and Marigold, Cornflower and Campion.

Let Oak and Ash grow strong, Let Beech her branches spread; Let Grass and Barley throng And waving Wheat for bread;

Be share and sickle bright To labour at all hours; For thee and thy delight I have made the idle flowers.

But now 'tis Winter, child, And bitter northwinds blow, The ways are wet and wild, The land is laid in snow.

DUNSTONE HILL

A cottage built of native stone Stands on the mountain-moor alone, High from man's dwelling on the wide And solitary mountain-side,

The purple mountain-side, where all The dewy night the meteors fall, And the pale stars musically set To the watery bells of the rivulet,

And all day long, purple and dun, The vast moors stretch beneath the sun, The wide wind passeth fresh and hale, And whirring grouse and blackcock sail.

Ah, heavenly Peace, where dost thou dwell? Surely 'twas here thou hadst a cell, Till flaming Love, wandering astray With fury and blood, drove thee away.--

Far down across the valley deep The town is hid in smoky sleep, At moonless nightfall wakening slow Upon the dark with lurid glow:

Beyond, afar the widening view Merges into the soften'd blue, Cornfield and forest, hill and stream, Fair England in her pastoral dream.

To one who looketh from this hill Life seems asleep, all is so still: Nought passeth save the travelling shade Of clouds on high that float and fade:

Nor since this landscape saw the sun Might other motion o'er it run, Till to man's scheming heart it came To make a steed of steel and flame.

Him may you mark in every vale Moving beneath his fleecy trail, And tell whene'er the motions die Where every town and hamlet lie.

He gives the distance life to-day, Rushing upon his level'd way From man's abode to man's abode, And mocks the Roman's vaunted road,

Which o'er the moor purple and dun Still wanders white beneath the sun, Deserted now of men and lone Save for this cot of native stone.

There ever by the whiten'd wall Standeth a maiden fair and tall, And all day long in vacant dream Watcheth afar the flying steam.

SCREAMING TARN

The saddest place that e'er I saw Is the deep tarn above the inn That crowns the mountain-road, whereby One southward bound his way must win.

Sunk on the table of the ridge From its deep shores is nought to see: The unresting wind lashes and chills Its shivering ripples ceaselessly.

Three sides 'tis banked with stones aslant, And down the fourth the rushes grow, And yellow sedge fringing the edge With lengthen'd image all arow.

'Tis square and black, and on its face When noon is still, the mirror'd sky Looks dark and further from the earth Than when you gaze at it on high.

At mid of night, if one be there, --So say the people of the hill-- A fearful shriek of death is heard, One sudden scream both loud and shrill.

And some have seen on stilly nights, And when the moon was clear and round, Bubbles which to the surface swam And burst as if they held the sound.--

'Twas in the days ere hapless Charles Losing his crown had lost his head, This tale is told of him who kept The inn upon the watershed:

He was a lowbred ruin'd man Whom lawless times set free from fear: One evening to his house there rode A young and gentle cavalier.

With curling hair and linen fair And jewel-hilted sword he went; The horse he rode he had ridden far, And he was with his journey spent.

He asked a lodging for the night, His valise from his steed unbound, He let none bear it but himself And set it by him on the ground.

'Here's gold or jewels,' thought the host, 'That's carrying south to find the king.' He chattered many a loyal word, And scraps of royal airs gan sing.

His guest thereat grew more at ease And o'er his wine he gave a toast, But little ate, and to his room Carried his sack behind the host.

'Now rest you well,' the host he said, But of his wish the word fell wide; Nor did he now forget his son Who fell in fight by Cromwell's side.

Revenge and poverty have brought Full gentler heart than his to crime; And he was one by nature rude, Born to foul deeds at any time.

With unshod feet at dead of night In stealth he to the guest-room crept, Lantern and dagger in his hand, And stabbed his victim while he slept.

But as he struck a scream there came, A fearful scream so loud and shrill: He whelm'd the face with pillows o'er, And lean'd till all had long been still.

Then to the face the flame he held To see there should no life remain:-- When lo! his brutal heart was quell'd: 'Twas a fair woman he had slain.

The tan upon her face was paint, The manly hair was torn away, Soft was the breast that he had pierced; Beautiful in her death she lay.

His was no heart to faint at crime, Tho' half he wished the deed undone. He pulled the valise from the bed To find what booty he had won.

He cut the straps, and pushed within His murderous fingers to their theft. A deathly sweat came o'er his brow, He had no sense nor meaning left.

He touched not gold, it was not cold, It was not hard, it felt like flesh. He drew out by the curling hair A young man's head, and murder'd fresh;

A young man's head, cut by the neck. But what was dreader still to see, Her whom he had slain he saw again, The twain were like as like can be.

Brother and sister if they were, Both in one shroud they now were wound,-- Across his back and down the stair, Out of the house without a sound.

He made his way unto the tarn, The night was dark and still and dank; The ripple chuckling neath the boat Laughed as he drew it to the bank.

Upon the bottom of the boat He laid his burden flat and low, And on them laid the square sandstones That round about the margin go.

Stone upon stone he weighed them down, Until the boat would hold no more; The freeboard now was scarce an inch: He stripp'd his clothes and push'd from shore.

All naked to the middle pool He swam behind in the dark night; And there he let the water in And sank his terror out of sight.

He swam ashore, and donn'd his dress, And scraped his bloody fingers clean; Ran home and on his victim's steed Mounted, and never more was seen.

But to a comrade ere he died He told his story guess'd of none: So from his lips the crime returned To haunt the spot where it was done.

THE ISLE OF ACHILLES

(FROM THE GREEK)

Τὁν φἱλτατὁν σοι παἱδ' ἑμοἱ τ', Ἁχιλλἑα ὑψει δὑμους ναἱοντα νησιωτικοὑς Δευκἡν κατ' ἁκτἡν ἑντὁς Εὑξεἱνου πὁρου.

Eur. And. 1250.

Voyaging northwards by the western strand Of the Euxine sea we came to where the land Sinks low in salt morass and wooded plain: Here mighty Ister pushes to the main, Forking his turbid flood in channels three To plough the sands wherewith he chokes the sea.

Against his middle arm, not many a mile In the offing of black water is the isle Named of Achilles, or as Leukê known, Which tender Thetis, counselling alone With her wise sire beneath the ocean-wave Unto her child's departed spirit gave, Where he might still his love and fame enjoy, Through the vain Danaan cause fordone at Troy. Thither Achilles passed, and long fulfill'd His earthly lot, as the high gods had will'd, Far from the rivalries of men, from strife, From arms, from woman's love and toil of life. Now of his lone abode I will unfold What there I saw, or was by others told.

There is in truth a temple on the isle; Therein a wooden statue of rude style And workmanship antique with helm of lead: Else all is desert, uninhabited; Only a few goats browse the wind-swept rocks, And oft the stragglers of their starving flocks Are caught and sacrificed by whomsoe'er, Whoever of chance or purpose hither fare: About the fence lie strewn their bleaching bones.

But in the temple jewels and precious stones, Upheapt with golden rings and vials lie, Thankofferings to Achilles, and thereby, Written or scratch'd upon the walls in view, Inscriptions, with the givers' names thereto, Some in Romaic character, some Greek, As each man in the tongue that he might speak Wrote verse of praise, or prayer for good to come, To Achilles most, but to Patroclus some; For those who strongly would Achilles move Approach him by the pathway of his love.

Thousands of birds frequent the sheltering shrine, The dippers and the swimmers of the brine, Sea-mew and gull and diving cormorant, Fishers that on the high cliff make their haunt Sheer inaccessible, and sun themselves Huddled arow upon the narrow shelves:-- And surely no like wonder e'er hath been As that such birds should keep the temple clean; But thus they do: at earliest dawn of day They flock to sea and in the waters play, And when they well have wet their plumage light, Back to the sanctuary they take flight Splashing the walls and columns with fresh brine, Till all the stone doth fairly drip and shine, When off again they skim asea for more And soon returning sprinkle steps and floor, And sweep all cleanly with their wide-spread wings.

* * *

From other men I have learnt further things. If any of free purpose, thus they tell, Sail'd hither to consult the oracle,-- For oracle there was,--they sacrificed Such victims as they brought, if such sufficed, And some they slew, some to the god set free: But they who driven from their course at sea Chanced on the isle, took of the goats thereon And pray'd Achilles to accept his own. Then made they a gift, and when they had offer'd once, If to their question there was no response, They added to the gift and asked again; Yea twice and more, until the god should deign Answer to give, their offering they renew'd; Whereby great riches to the shrine ensued. And when both sacrifice and gifts were made They worship'd at the shrine, and as they pray'd Sailors aver that often hath been seen A man like to a god, of warrior mien, A beauteous form of figure swift and strong; Down on his shoulders his light hair hung long And his full armour was enchast with gold: While some, who with their eyes might nought behold, Say that with music strange the air was stir'd; And some there are, who have both seen and heard: And if a man wish to be favour'd more, He need but spend one night upon the shore; To him in sleep Achilles will appear And lead him to his tent, and with good cheer Show him all friendliness that men desire; Patroclus pours the wine, and he his lyre Takes from the pole and plays the strains thereon Which Cheiron taught him first on Pelion.

* * *

These things I tell as they were told to me, Nor do I question but it well may be: For sure I am that, if man ever was, Achilles was a hero, both because Of his high birth and beauty, his country's call, His valour of soul, his early death withal, For Homer's praise, the crown of human art; And that above all praise he had at heart A gentler passion in her sovran sway, And when his love died threw his life away.

AN ANNIVERSARY

Bright, my belovèd, be thy day, This eve of Summer's fall: And Autumn mass his flowers gay To crown thy festival!

SHE

I care not if the morn be bright, Living in thy love-rays: No flower I need for my delight, Being crownèd with thy praise.

O many years and joyfully This sun to thee return; Ever all men speak well of thee, Nor any angel mourn!

SHE

For length of life I would not pray, If thy life were to seek; Nor ask what men and angels say But when of thee they speak.

Arise! The sky hath heard my song, The flowers o'erhear thy praise; And little loves are waking long To wish thee happy days.

REGINA CARA

JUBILEE-SONG, FOR MUSIC, 1897

Hark! The world is full of thy praise, England's Queen of many days; Who, knowing how to rule the free, Hast given a crown to monarchy.

Honour, Truth and growing Peace Follow Britannia's wide increase, And Nature yield her strength unknown To the wisdom born beneath thy throne!

In wisdom and love firm is thy fame: Enemies bow to revere thy name: The world shall never tire to tell Praise of the queen that reignèd well.

O FELIX ANIMA, DOMINA PRAECLARA, AMORE SEMPER CORONABERE REGINA CARA.

LATER POEMS

OCCASIONAL ODES &C.]

_PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS_

_1. Monthly Review. February, 1903._

_2. Country Life. 1906._

_3. 'Volunteer Haversack.' 1902._

_4. Daniel Press. Poems by A. Buckton. 1901._

_5, 6. Saturday Review._

_7. 'The Sheaf.' June, 1902._

_8. English Review. March, 1911._

_9. Academy. April 1, 1905._

_10, 11. Monthly Review. June, 1904._

_13. Speaker._

_14. Monthly Review. March, 1902._

_15. 'Wayfarer's Love.' 1904._

_16. Saturday Review. April 13, 1907. Book of the Oxford Pageant. July 1907._

_17, 18, 19. Published with the Music by Novello, Ewer & Co._

LATER POEMS

RECOLLECTIONS OF SOLITUDE

AN ELEGY

Ended are many days, and now but few Remain; since therefore it is happy and true That memoried joys keep ever their delight, Like steadfast stars in the blue vault of night, While hours of pain (among those heavenly spheres Like falling meteors, the martyr's tears) Dart their long trails at random, and anon, Ere we exclaim, pass, and for aye are gone; Therefore my heedy thought will oft restore The long light-hearted days that are no more, Save where in her memorial crypt they shine Spangling the silent past with joy divine.

But why in dream of this enchanted mood Should all my boyhood seem a solitude? Good reason know I, when I wander there, In that transmuted scene, why all is fair; The woods as when in holiday of spring Million buds burst, and flowers are blossoming; The meadows deep in grass, the fields unshorn In beauty of the multitudinous corn, Where the strait alleys hide me, wall'd between High bloomy stalks and rustling banners green; The gardens, too, in dazzling hues full-blown, With wafted scent and blazing petals strewn; The orchards reddening thro' the patient hours, While idle autumn in his mossy bowers Inviteth meditation to endear The sanctuaries of the mellowing year; And every spot wherein I loved to stray Hath borrowed radiance of eternal day; But why am I ever alone, alone? Here in the corner of a field my throne, Now in the branching chair of some tall tree Drinking the gale in bird-like liberty; Or to the seashore wandered in the sun To watch the fateful waves break one by one; Or if on basking downs supine I lie Bathing my spirit in blue calms of the sky; Or to the river bank am stolen by night Hearkening unto the moonlit ripple bright That warbles o'er the shallows of smooth stone; Why should my memory find me all alone, When I had such companions every day Jocund and dear? 'Twixt glimpses of their play 'Tis a vast solitude, wherein I see Only myself and what I came to be.

Yet never think, dear spirits, if now ye may Remember aught of that brief earthly day, Ere ye the mournful Stygian river crost, From our familiar home too early lost,-- O never think that I your tears forget, Or that I loved not well, or love not yet. Nor ye who held my heart in passion's chain,-- As kings and queens succeed in glorious reign-- When, as a man, I made you to outvie God's work, and, as a god, then set you by Among the sainted throng in holiest shrine Of mythic creed and poetry divine; True was my faith, and still your loves endure, The jewels of my fancy, bright and pure.

Nor only in fair places do I see The picture fair now it has ceased to be: For fate once led me, and myself some days Did I devote, to dull laborious ways, By soaring thought detained to tread full low,-- Yea might I say unbeauteous paths of woe And dreary abodes, had not my youthful sprite Hallow'd each nook with legends of delight. Ah! o'er that smoky town who looketh now By winter sunset from the dark hill-brow, Under the dying trees exultantly Nursing the sting of human tragedy? Or in that little room upstair'd so high, Where London's roofs in thickest huddle lie, Who now returns at evening to entice To his fireside the joys of Paradise? Once sacred was that hearth, and bright the air; The flame of man's redemption flickered there, In worship of those spirits, whose deathless fames Have thrilled the stars of heaven to hear their names; They that excell'd in wisdom to create Beauty, with mortal passion conquering fate; And, mid the sovran powers of elder time, The loveliness of music and new rhyme, The masters young that first enthrallèd me; Of whom if I should name, whom then but thee, Sweet Shelley, or the boy whose book was found Thrust in thy bosom on thy body drowned?

O mighty Muse, wooer of virgin thought, Beside thy charm all else counteth as nought; The revelation of thy smile doth make Him whom thou lovest reckless for thy sake; Earthborn of suffering, that knowest well To call thine own, and with enamouring spell Feedest the stolen powers of godlike youth On dear imagination's only truth, Building with song a temple of desire; And with the yearning music of thy quire, In nuptial sacrament of thought and sense Hallowest for toil the hours of indolence: Thou in thy melancholic beauty drest, Subduest ill to serve thy fair behest, With tragic tears, and sevenfold purified Silver of mirth; and with extremest pride, With secret doctrine and unfathomed lore Remainest yet a child for evermore, The only enchantress of the earth that art To cheer his day and staunch man's bleeding heart.

O heavenly Muse, for heavenly thee we call Who in the fire of love refinest all, Accurst is he who heark'neth not thy voice; But happy he who, numbered of thy choice, Walketh aloof from nature's clouded plan: For all God's world is but the thought of man; Wherein hast thou re-formed a world apart, The mutual mirror of his better heart. There is no foulness, misery, nor sin, But he who loves finds his desire therein, And there with thee in lonely commerce lives: Nay, all that nature gave or fortune gives, Joys that his spirit is most jealous of, His only-embraced and best-deserving love, Who walketh in the noon of heavenly praise, The troubled godhead of his children's gaze, Wear thine eternity, and are loved best By thee transfigured and in thee possest; Who madest beauty, and from thy boundless store Of beauty shalt create for evermore.

1900.

Gay Marigold is frolic, She laughs till summer is done; She hears the Grillie chirping All day i' the blazing sun.

But when the pale moon rises, She fain her face would hide; For the high Queen of sorrows Disdains her empty pride.

* * *

Fair Primrose haunts the shadow With children of the Spring, Till in the bloomy woodland The nightingale will sing.

And when he lauds the May-night And spirits throng the grove, The moon shines thro' the branches And floods her heart with love.

MATRES DOLOROSAE

Ye Spartan mothers, gentle ones, Of lion-hearted, loving sons, Fal'n, the flower of English youth, To a barbarous foe in a land uncouth:--

O what a delicate sacrifice! Unequal the stake and costly the price As when the queen of Love deplor'd Her darling by the wild-beast gor'd.

They rode to war as if to the hunt, But ye at home, ye bore the brunt, Bore the siege of torturing fears, Fed your hope on the bread of tears.

Proud and spotless warriors they With love or sword to lead the way; For ye had cradled heart and hand, The commander hearken'd to your command.

Ah, weeping mothers, now all is o'er, Ye know your honour and mourn no more: Nor ask ye a name in England's story, Who gave your dearest for her glory.

_May 20, 1902._

A VIGNETTE

Among the meadows lightly going, With worship and joy my heart o'erflowing,

Far from town and toil of living, To a holy day my spirit giving,...

* * *

Thou tender flower, I kneel beside thee Wondering why God so beautified thee.--

An answering thought within me springeth, A bloom of the mind her vision bringeth.

Between the dim hill's distant azure And flowery foreground of sparkling pleasure

I see the company of figures sainted, For whom the picture of earth was painted.

Those robèd seers who made man's story The crown of Nature, Her cause his glory.

They walk in the city which they have builded, The city of God from evil shielded:

To them for canopy the vault of heaven, The flowery earth for carpet is given;

Whereon I wander not unknowing, With worship and joy my heart o'erflowing.

1901.

MILLICENT

Thou dimpled Millicent, of merry guesses, Strong-limb'd and tall, tossing thy wayward tresses, What mystery of the heart can so surprise The mirth and music of thy brimming eyes?

Pale-brow, thou knowest not and diest to learn The mortal secret that doth in thee burn; With look imploring 'If you love me, tell, What is it in me that you love so well?'

And suddenly thou stakest all thy charms, And leapest on me; and in thy circling arms When almost stifled with their wild embrace, I feel thy hot tears sheltering on my face.

1901.

VIVAMUS

When thou didst give thy love to me, Asking no more of gods or men I vow'd I would contented be, If Fate should grant us summers ten.

But now that twice the term is sped, And ever young my heart and gay, I fear the words that then I said, And turn my face from Fate away.

To bid thee happily good-bye I have no hope that I can see, No way that I shall bravely die, Unless I give my life for thee.

1901.

One grief of thine if truth be confest Was joy to me; for it drave to my breast Thee, to my heart to find thy rest.

How long it was I never shall know: I watcht the earth so stately and slow, And the ancient things that waste and grow.

But now for me what speed devours Our heavenly life, our brilliant hours! How fast they fly, the stars and flowers!

In still midsummer night When the moon is late And the stars all watery and white For her coming wait,

A spirit, whose eyes are possest By wonder new, Passeth--her arms upon her breast Enwrapt from the dew In a raiment of azure fold With diaper Of flower'd embroidery of gold Bestarr'd with silver.

* * *

The daisy folk are awake Their carpet to spread, And the thron'd stars gazing on her make Fresh crowns for her head,

Netted in her floating hair As she drifteth free Between the starriness of the air And the starry lea,

From the silent-shadow'd vale By the west wind drawn Aloft to melt into the pale Moonrise of dawn.

1910.

MELANCHOLIA

The sickness of desire, that in dark days Looks on the imagination of despair, Forgetteth man, and stinteth God his praise; Nor but in sleep findeth a cure for care. Incertainty that once gave scope to dream Of laughing enterprise and glory untold, Is now a blackness that no stars redeem, A wall of terror in a night of cold.

Fool! thou that hast impossibly desired And now impatiently despairest, see How nought is changed: Joy's wisdom is attired Splendid for others' eyes if not for thee: Not love or beauty or youth from earth is fled: If they delite thee not, 'tis thou art dead.

1904.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD

Since now from woodland mist and flooded clay I am fled beside the steep Devonian shore, Nor stand for welcome at your gothic door, 'Neath the fair tower of Magdalen and May, Such tribute, Warren, as fond poets pay For generous esteem, I write, not more Enhearten'd than my need is, reckoning o'er My life-long wanderings on the heavenly way:

But well-befriended we become good friends, Well-honour'd honourable; and all attain Somewhat by fathering what fortune sends. I bid your presidency a long reign, True friend; and may your praise to greater ends Aid better men than I, nor me in vain.

TO JOSEPH JOACHIM

Belov'd of all to whom that Muse is dear Who hid her spirit of rapture from the Greek, Whereby our art excelleth the antique, Perfecting formal beauty to the ear; Thou that hast been in England many a year The interpreter who left us nought to seek, Making Beethoven's inmost passion speak, Bringing the soul of great Sebastian near:

Their music liveth ever, and 'tis just That thou, good Joachim, so high thy skill, Rank (as thou shalt upon the heavenly hill) Laurel'd with them, for thy ennobling trust Remember'd when thy loving hand is still And every ear that heard thee stopt with dust.

TO THOS. FLOYD

How fares it, friend, since I by Fate annoy'd Left the old home in need of livelier play For body and mind? How fare, this many a day, The stubborn thews and ageless heart of Floyd? If not too well with country sport employ'd, Visit my flock, the breezy hill that they Choose for their fold; and see, for thence you may, From rising walls all roofless yet and void,

The lovely city, thronging tower and spire, The mind of the wide landscape, dreaming deep, Grey-silvery in the vale; a shrine where keep Memorial hopes their pale celestial fire: Like man's immortal conscience of desire, The spirit that watcheth in me ev'n in my sleep.

1906.

LA GLOIRE DE VOLTAIRE

A DIALOGUE IN VERSE.

_Je donnerais pour revivre à vingt ans L'or de Rothschild, la gloire de Voltaire._ I like that: Béranger in his printems, Voltaire and Rothschild: what three graces there Foot it together! But of old Voltaire, I'd ask what Béranger found so sublime In that man's glory to adorn his rhyme. Was it mere fame?

Nay: for as wide a fame Was won by the gold-garnering millionaire, Who in the poet's verse might read his name And what is that? when so much froth and scum Float down the stream of Time (as Bacon saith), What is that for deliverance from the death? Could any sober man be proud to hold A lease of common talk, or die consoled For thinking that on lips of fools to come He'll live with Pontius Pilate and Tom Thumb? That were more like eternal punishment, The true fool's Paradise by all consent. Béranger thought to set a crown on merit.

Man's merit! and to crown it in Voltaire? The modest eye, the gentle, fearless heart, The mouth of peace and truth, the angelic spirit! Why Arouet was _soufflé_ with the leaven, Of which the little flock was bid beware: His very ambition was to play a part; Indifferent whether he did wrong or right, So he won credit; eager to deny A lie that failed, by adding lie to lie; Repaying evil unto seven-times-seven; A fount of slander, flattery and spite; Vain, irritable; true but to his face Of mockery and mischievous grimace, A monkey of the schools, the saints' despair!

Yet for his voice half Europe stood at pause To hear, and when he spoke rang with applause.

Granted he was a wonder of his kind. There is a devilish mockery in things Which only a born devil can enjoy. True banter is of melancholy mind, Akin to madness; thus must Shakespeare toy With Hamlet's reason, ere his fine art dare Push his relentless humour to the quick; And so his mortal thrusts pierce not the skin. But for the superficial bickerings That poison life and never seem to prick, The reasonable educated grin, Truly no wag is equal to Voltaire; His never-dying ripple, wide and light, Has nigh the force of Nature: to compare, 'Tis like the ocean when the sky is bright, And the cold north-wind tickles with surprise The briny levels of the infinite sea. --Shall we conclude his merit was his wit, His magic art and versatility?

And think of those foredoom'd in Dante's pit, Who, sunk at bottom of the loathly slough, Made the black mud up-bubble with their sighs; And all because they were unkind to Mirth, And went with smoky heart and gloomy brow The while they lived upon the pleasant earth In the sweet air that rallies to the sun, And ne'er so much as smiled or gave God thanks: Surely a sparkle of the Frenchman's fun Had rescued all their souls.

I think I see The Deity who in this Heaven abides, _Le bon Dieu_, holding both his aching sides, With radiant face of Pan, ruddy and hairy: Give him his famous whistles and goat-shanks, And then present him to Alighieri.

Nay, 'twixt the Frenchman and the Florentine I ask no truce, grave Dante weaving well His dark-eyed thought into a song divine, Drawing high poetry from heaven and hell-- And him who lightly mockt at all in turn.

It follow'd from his mundane thought of art That he contemn'd religion: his concern Was comfort, taste, and wit: he had no heart For man's attempt to build and beautify His home in Nature; so he set all by That wisdom had evolved with purpose kind; Stamped it as folly, or as fraud attacked; Never discerning how his callow zest Was impiously defiling his own nest; Whereas the least philosophy may find The truths are the ideas; the sole fact Is the long story of man's growing mind.

Upon your thistle now I see my fig-- Béranger thought of Voltaire as a seer, A latter-day John Baptist in a wig; A herald of that furious gospel-storm Of words and blood, that made the nations fear; When sickening France adulterously sinn'd With Virtue, and went mad conceiving wind. He ranks him with those captains of reform, Luther and Calvin; who, whate'er they taught, Led folk from superstition to free thought.

They did. But whence or whither led Voltaire? The steward with fifty talents given in charge, Who spent them on himself, and liv'd at large; His only virtue that he did not hide The pounds, but squander'd them to serve his pride; His praise that, cunning in his generation, He of the heavenly treasure did not spare To win himself an earthly habitation.

Deny him not this laurel, nor to France The apostolate of modern tolerance: Their Theseus he, who slew the Minotaur, The Dragon Persecution, in which war He tipp'd the shafts that made the devil bleed; And won a victory that hath overcome Many misdoings in a well-done deed; And more, I think, the mind of Christ revealing, Yea, more of common-sense and human feeling Than all the Creeds and Bulls of Christendom.

Yet was he only one of them that slew: The fiend had taken a deadly wound from Bayle; And did he 'roar to see his kingdom fail' 'Neath Robespierre, or raise his head anew? Nay, Voltaire's teaching never cured the heart: The lack of human feeling blots his art. When most his phrase with indignation burns, Still to the gallery his face he turns.

You bear him hard. Men are of common stuff, Each hath some fault, and he had faults enough: But of all slanderers that ever were A virtuous critic is the most unfair. In greatness ever is some good to see; And what is character, unless it be The colour of persistent qualities, That, like a ground in painting, balances All hues and forms, combining with one tone Whatever lights or shades are on it thrown? Now Voltaire had of Nature a rich ground, Two virtues rarely in conjunction found: Industry, which no pedant could excel, He matched with gaiety inexhaustible; And with heroic courage held these fast, As sailors nail their colours to the mast, With ruling excellence atoning all. Though, for the rest, he still for praise may call; Prudent to gain, as generous to share _Le superflu, chose si nécessaire_; To most a rare companion above scorn, To not a few a kind, devoted friend Through his long battling life, which in the end He strove with good works richly to adorn. I have admired, and why should I abuse A man who can so long and well amuse?

To some Parisian art there's this objection, 'Tis mediocrity pushed to perfection.

'Judge not,' say I, 'and ye shall not be judged!'

Let me say, 'praise men, if ye would be praised:' Let your unwholesome flattery flow ungrudged, And with ungrudging measure shall men pour Their stifling homage back till ye be crazed, And sane men humour you as fools past cure. But these wise maxims deal not with the dead, 'Tis by example that the young are led, And judgement owes its kindness but to them; Nor will I praise, call you me hard or nice, One that degraded art, and varnished vice. They that praise ill thereby themselves condemn.

Béranger could not praise.

Few are who can; Not he: if ever he assay'd to impart A title loftier than his own renown, Native irreverence defied his art, His fingers soil'd the lustre of his crown. Here he adored what he was envious of, The vogue and dazzling fashion of the man. But man's true praise, the poet's praise, is love.

And that, perhaps, was hardly his affair.... Pray, now, what set you talking of Voltaire?

This only, that in weeding out my shelves, In fatherly regard for babes upgrown, Until they learn to garden for themselves, Much as I like to keep my sets entire, When I came out to you I had just thrown Three of his precious works behind the fire.

TO ROBERT BURNS

AN EPISTLE ON INSTINCT

Thou art a poet, Robbie Burns, Master of words and witty turns, Of lilting songs and merry yarns, Drinking and kissing: There's much in all thy small concerns, But more that's missing.

The wisdom of thy common sense, Thy honest hate of vain pretence, Thy love and wide benevolence Full often lead thee Where feeling is its own defence; Yet while I read thee,

It seems but chance that all our race Trod not the path of thy disgrace, And, living freely to embrace The moment's pleasure, Snatch'd not a kiss of Nature's face For all her treasure.

The feelings soft, the spirits gay Entice on such a flowery way, And sovran youth in high heyday Hath such a fashion To glorify the bragging sway Of sensual passion.

But rakel Chance and Fortune blind Had not the power:--Eternal Mind Led man upon a way design'd, By strait selection Of pleasurable ways, to find Severe perfection.

For Nature did not idly spend Pleasure: she ruled it should attend On every act that doth amend Our life's condition: 'Tis therefore not well-being's end, But its fruition.

Beasts that inherited delight In what promoted health or might, Survived their cousins in the fight: If some--like Adam-- Prefer'd the wrong tree to the right, The devil had 'em.

So when man's Reason took the reins, She found that she was saved her pains; She had but to approve the gains Of agelong inscience, And spin it fresh into her brains As moral conscience.

But Instinct in the beasts that live Is of three kinds; (Nature did give To man three shakings in her sieve)-- The first is Racial, The second Self-preservative, The third is Social.

Without the first no race could be, So 'tis the strongest of the three; Nay, of such forceful tyranny 'Tis hard to attune it, Because 'twas never made to agree To serve the unit:

Art will not picture it, its name In common talk is utter shame: And yet hath Reason learn'd to tame Its conflagration Into a sacramental flame Of consecration.

Those hundred thousand years, ah me! Of budding soul! What slow degree, With aim so dim, so true! We see, Now that we know them, Our humble cave-folk ancestry, How much we owe them:

While with the savage beasts around They fought at odds, yet underground Their miserable life was sound; Their loves and quarrels Did well th' ideal bases found Of art and morals:

One prime distinction, Good and Ill, Was all their notion, all their skill;-- But Unity stands next to Nil;-- Want of analysis Saved them from doubts that wreck the Will With pale paralysis.

In vain philosophers dispute 'Is Good or Pleasure our pursuit?'-- The fruit likes man, not man the fruit; The good that likes him, The good man's pleasure 'tis to do 't; That's how it strikes him.

Tho' Science hide beneath her feet The point where moral reasonings meet, The vicious circle is complete; There is no lodgement Save Aristotle's own retreat, The just man's judgement.

And if thou wert not that just man, Wild Robin, born to crown his plan, We shall not for that matter ban Thy petty treason, Nor closely thy defection scan From highest Reason.

Thou might'st have lived like Robin Hood Waylaying Abbots in the wood, Doing whate'er thee-seemèd good, The law defying, And 'mong the people's heroes stood Living and dying:

Yet better bow than his thou bendest, And well the poor man thou befriendest, And oftentime an ill amendest; When, if truth touch thee, Sharply the arrow home thou sendest; There's none can match thee.

So pity it is thou knew'st the teen Of sad remorse: the Might-have-been Shall not o'ercloud thy merry scene With vain repentance, Nor forfeit from thy spirit keen My friendly sentence.

THE PORTRAIT OF A GRANDFATHER

With mild eyes agaze, and lips ready to speak, Whereon the yearning of love, the warning of wisdom plays, One portrait ever charms me and teaches me when I seek: It is of him whom I, remembering my young days, Imagine fathering my father; when he, in sonship afore, Liv'd honouring and obeying the eyes now pictur'd agaze, The lips ready to speak, that promise but speak no more.

O high parental claim, that were not but for the knowing, O fateful bond of duty, O more than body that bore, The smile that guides me to right, the gaze that follows my going, How had I stray'd without thee! and yet how few will seek The spirit-hands, that heaven, in tender-free bestowing, Holds to her children, to guide the wandering and aid the weak.

And Thee! ah what of thee, thou lover of men? if truly A painter had stell'd thee there, with thy lips ready to speak, In all-fathering passion to souls enchanted newly, --Tenderer call than of sire to son, or of lover to maiden,-- Ever ready to speak to us, if we will hearken duly, 'Come, O come unto me, ye weary and heavy-laden!'

[1880.]

AN INVITATION TO THE OXFORD PAGEANT, JULY 1907

Fair lady of learning, playfellow of spring, Who to thy towery hospice in the vale Invitest all, with queenly claim to bring Scholars from every land within thy pale; If aught our pageantry may now avail To paint thine antique story to the eye, Inspire the scene, and bid thy herald cry Welcome to all, and to all comers hail!

Come hither, then he crieth, and hail to all. Bow each his heart a pilgrim at her shrine, Whatever chance hath led you to my call, Ye that love pomp, and ye that seek a sign, Or on the low earth look for things divine; Nor ye, whom reverend Camus near-allied, Writes in the roll of his ennobled pride, Refrain your praise and love to mix with mine.

Praise her, the mother of celestial moods, Who o'er the saints' inviolate array Hath starr'd her robe of fair beatitudes With jewels worn by Hellas, on the day She grew from girlhood into wisdom gay; And hath laid by her crozier, evermore With both hands gathering to enrich her store, And make her courts with music ring alway.

Love her, for that the world is in her heart, Man's rude antiquity and doubtful goal, The heaven-enthralling luxury of art, The burden'd pleading of his clay-bound soul, The mutual office of delight and dole, The merry laugh of youth, the joy of life Older than thought, and the unamending strife 'Twixt liberty and politic control.

There is none holier, not the lilied town By Arno, whither the spirit of Athens fled, Escap't from Hades to a less renown, Yet joyful to be risen from the dead; Nor she whose wide imperious arms were spread To spoil mankind, until the avenger came In darkening storm, and left a ruin'd name, A triple crown, upon a vanquish't head.

What love in myriad hearts in every clime The vision of her beauty calls to pray'r: Where at his feet Himâlaya sublime Holds up aslope the Arabian floods, or where Patriarchal Nile rears at his watery stair; In the broad islands of the Antipodes, By Esperanza, or in the coral seas Where Buddha's vain pagodas throng the air;

Or where the chivalry of Nipon smote The wily Muscovite, intent to creep Around the world with half his pride afloat, And sent his battle to the soundless deep; Or with our pilgrim-kin, and them that reap The prairie-corn beyond cold Labrador To California and the Alaskan shore, Her exiled sons their pious memory keep:

Bright memories of young poetic pleasure In free companionship, the loving stress Of all life-beauty lull'd in studious leisure, When every Muse was jocund with excess Of fine delight and tremulous happiness; The breath of an indolent unbridled June, When delicate thought fell from the dreamy moon: But now strange care, sorrow, and grief oppress.

'_Ah! fewer tears shall be_,--'tis thus they dream,-- _Ah, fewer, softer tears, when we lie low: On younger brows shall brighter laurel gleam: Lovelier and earlier shall the rosebuds blow_.' For in this hope she nurs'd them, and to know That Truth, while men regard a tetter'd page, Leaps on the mountains, and from age to age Reveals the dayspring's inexhausted glow.

Yet all their joy is mingled with regret: As the lone scholar on a neighbouring height, Brooding disconsolate with eyelids wet Ere o'er the unkind world he took his flight, Look'd down upon her festal lamps at night, And while the far call of her warning bell Reach't to his heart, sang us his fond farewell, Beneath the stars thinking of lost delight;

'Farewell! for whether we be young or old, Thou dost remain, but we shall pass away: Time shall against himself thy house uphold, And build thy sanctuary from decay; Children unborn shall be thy pride and stay. May Earth protect thee, and thy sons be true; And God with heavenly food thy life renew, Thy pleasure and thy grace from day to day.'

IN MEMORY OF THE OLD-ETONIANS

WHOSE LIVES WERE LOST IN THE S. AFRICAN WAR

_An ode set to music by Sir Hubert Parry and performed when K. Edward VII inaugurated the Memorial Hall at Eton College_

Resound! Resound! To jubilant music ring! Your birthday trumpets sound the alarm of strenuous days. Ye new-built walls, awake! and welcome England's King With a high GLORY-TO-GOD, and holy cheer of praise. Awake to fairest hope of fames unknown, unseen, When ye-too silver and solemn with age shall be: For all that is fair upon earth is reared with tend'rest teen, As the burden'd years to memory flee.

Lament, O Muse of the Thames, in pride lament again, With low melodious grief remember them in this hour!-- Beyond your dauntless joy, my brother, was our pain. Above all gold, my country, the lavish price of thy power-- The ancient groves have mourn'd our sons, for whom no more The sisterly kisses of life, the loved embraces. Remember the love of them who came not home from the war, The fatherly tears and the veil'd faces.

III

Now henceforth their shrine is builded, high and vast, Alway drawing noble hearts to noble deeds; In the toil of glory to be, and the tale of glory past: While ever the laughing waves of youth pass over the meads, And the tongue of Hellas is heard, and old Time slumbereth light In the cradle of Peace. O let thy dancing feet Roam in our land and abide, dear Peace, thou child of Right, Giver of happiness, gentle and sweet.

ODE TO MUSIC

WRITTEN FOR THE BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION OF

HENRY PURCELL

_Music composed by Sir Hubert Parry, and performed at the Leeds Festival and Commemoration Festival in London, 1895_

Myriad-voiced Queen, Enchantress of the air, Bride of the life of man! With tuneful reed, With string and horn and high-adoring quire Thy welcome we prepare. In silver-speaking mirrors of desire, In joyous ravishment of mystery draw thou near, With heavenly echo of thoughts, that dreaming lie Chain'd in unborn oblivion drear, Thy many-hearted grace restore Unto our isle our own to be, And make again our Graces three.

Turn, O return! In merry England Foster'd thou wert with infant Liberty. Her gloried oaks, that stand With trembling leaves and giant heart Drinking in beauty from the summer moon, Her wild-wood once was dear to thee.

There the birds with tiny art Earth's immemorial cradle-tune Warble at dawn to fern and fawn, In the budding thickets making merry; And for their love the primrose faint Floods the green shade with youthful scent.

Come, thy jocund spring renew By hyacinthine lakes of blue: Thy beauty shall enchant the buxom May; And all the summer months shall strew thy way, And rose and honeysuckle rear Their flowery screens, till under fruit and berry The tall brake groweth golden with the year.

III

Thee fair Poetry oft hath sought, Wandering lone in wayward thought, On level meads by gliding streams, When summer noon is full of dreams: And thy loved airs her soul invade, Haunting retired the willow shade.

Or in some walled orchard nook She communes with her ancient book, Beneath the branches laden low; While the high sun o'er bosom'd snow Smiteth all day the long hill-side With ripening cornfields waving wide.

There if thou linger all the year, No jar of man can reach thine ear, Or sweetly comes, as when the sound From hidden villages around, Threading the woody knolls, is borne Of bells that dong the Sabbath morn.

The sea with melancholy war Moateth about our castled shore; His world-wide elemental moan Girdeth our lives with tragic zone.

He, ere men dared his watery path, Fenced them aloof in wrath; Their jealous brotherhoods Sund'ring with bitter floods: Till science grew and skill, And their adventurous will Challenged his boundaries, and went free To know the round world, and the sea From midday night to midnight sun Binding all nations into one.

Yet shall his storm and mastering wave Assure the empire to the brave; And to his billowy bass belongs The music of our patriot songs, When to the wind his ridges go In furious following, careering a-row, Lasht with hail and withering snow: And ever undaunted hearts outride His rushing waters wide.

But when the winds fatigued or fled Have left the drooping barks unsped, And nothing stirs his idle plain Save fire-breathed ships with silvery train, While lovingly his waves he layeth, And his slow heart in passion swells To the pale moon in heav'n that strayeth, And all his mighty music deep Whispers among the heapèd shells, Or in dark caverns lies asleep;-- Then dreams of Peace invite, Haunting our shore with kisses light: Nay--even Love's Paphian Queen hath come Out of her long retirèd home To show again her beauty bright; And twice or thrice in sight hath play'd Of a young lover unaffray'd, And all his verse immortal made.

Love to Love calleth, Love unto Love replieth: From the ends of the earth, drawn by invisible bands, Over the dawning and darkening lands Love cometh to Love. To the pangs of desire; To the heart by courage and might Escaped from hell, From the torment of raging fire, From the sighs of the drowning main, From shipwreck of fear and pain, From the terror of night.

All mankind by Love shall be banded To combat Evil, the many-handed: For the spirit of man on beauty feedeth, The airy fancy he heedeth, He regardeth Truth in the heavenly height, In changeful pavilions of loveliness dight, The sovran sun that knows not the night; He loveth the beauty of earth, And the sweet birds' mirth; And out of his heart there falleth A melody-making river Of passion, that runneth ever To the ends of the earth and crieth, That yearneth and calleth; And Love from the heart of man To the heart of man replieth: On the wings of desire Love cometh to Love.

To me, to me, fair hearted Goddess, come, To Sorrow come, Where by the grave I linger dumb; With sorrow bow thine head, For all my beauty is dead, Leave Freedom's vaunt and playful thought awhile, Come with thine unimpassioned smile Of heavenly peace, and with thy fourfold choir Of fair uncloying harmony Unveil the palaces where man's desire Keepeth celestial solemnity.

Lament, fair hearted queen, lament with me: For when thy seer died no song was sung, Nor for our heroes fal'n by land or sea Hath honour found a tongue: Nor aught of beauty for their tomb can frame Worthy their noble name. Let Mirth go bare: make mute thy dancing string: With thy majestic consolation Sweeten our suffering. Speak thou my woe; that from her pain My spirit arise to see again The Truth unknown that keeps our faith, The Beauty unseen that bates our breath, The heaven that doth our joy renew, And drinketh up our tears as dew.

VII

DIRGE

Man born of desire Cometh out of the night, A wandering spark of fire, A lonely word of eternal thought Echoing in chance and forgot.

He seeth the sun, He calleth the stars by name, He saluteth the flowers.-- Wonders of land and sea, The mountain towers Of ice and air He seeth, and calleth them fair: Then he hideth his face;-- Whence he came to pass away Where all is forgot, Unmade--lost for aye With the things that are not.

He striveth to know, To unravel the Mind That veileth in horror: He wills to adore. In wisdom he walketh And loveth his kind; His labouring breath Would keep evermore: Then he hideth his face;-- Whence he came to pass away Where all is forgot, Unmade--lost for aye With the things that are not.

He dreameth of beauty, He seeks to create Fairer and fairer To vanquish his Fate; No hindrance he-- No curse will brook, He maketh a law No ill shall be: Then he hideth his face;-- Whence he came to pass away Where all is forgot, Unmade--lost for aye With the things that are not.

VIII

Rejoice, ye dead, where'er your spirits dwell, Rejoice that yet on earth your fame is bright, And that your names, remember'd day and night, Live on the lips of those who love you well. 'Tis ye that conquer'd have the powers of Hell Each with the special grace of your delight; Ye are the world's creators, and by might Alone of Heavenly love ye did excel.

Now ye are starry names Behind the sun ye climb To light the glooms of Time With deathless flames.

Open for me the gates of delight, The gates of the garden of man's desire; Where spirits touch'd by heavenly fire Have planted the trees of life.-- Their branches in beauty are spread, Their fruit divine To the nations is given for bread, And crush'd into wine.

To thee, O man, the sun his truth hath given, The moon hath whisper'd in love her silvery dreams; Night hath unlockt the starry heaven, The sea the trust of his streams: And the rapture of woodland spring Is stay'd in its flying; And Death cannot sting Its beauty undying.

Fear and Pity disentwine Their aching beams in colours fine; Pain and woe forgo their might. After darkness thy leaping sight, After dumbness thy dancing sound, After fainting thy heavenly flight, After sorrow thy pleasure crown'd: O enter the garden of thy delight, Thy solace is found.

To us, O Queen of sinless grace, Now at our prayer unveil thy face: Awake again thy beauty free; Return and make our Graces three. And with our thronging strength to the ends of the earth Thy myriad-voicèd loveliness go forth, To lead o'er all the world's wide ways God's everlasting praise, And every heart inspire With the joy of man in the beauty of Love's desire.

A HYMN OF NATURE

AN ODE WRITTEN FOR MUSIC

_The music composed by Sir Hubert Parry, performed at the Gloucester Festival, 1898_

Power eternal, power unknown, uncreate: Force of force, fate of fate.

Beauty and light are thy seeing, Wisdom and right thy decreeing, Life of life is thy being. In the smile of thine infinite starry gleam, Without beginning or end, Measure or number, Beyond time and space, Without foe or friend, In the void of thy formless embrace, All things pass as a dream Of thine unbroken slumber.

Gloom and the night are thine: On the face of thy mirror darkness and terror, The smoke of thy blood, the frost of thy breath.

In silence and woful awe Thy harrying angels of death Destroy whate'er thou makest-- Makest, destroyest, destroyest and makest. Thy gems of life thou dost squander, Their virginal beauty givest to plunder, Doomest to uttermost regions of age-long ice To starve and expire: Consumest with glance of fire, Or back to confusion shakest With earthquake, elemental storm and thunder.

III

In ways of beauty and peace Fair desire, companion of man, Leadeth the children of earth.

As when the storm doth cease, The loving sun the clouds dispelleth, And woodland walks are sweet in spring; The birds they merrily sing And every flower-bud swelleth. Or where the heav'ns o'erspan The lonely downs When summer is high: Below their breezy crowns And grassy steep Spreadeth the infinite smile of the sunlit sea; Whereon the white ships swim, And steal to havens far Across the horizon dim, Or lie becalm'd upon the windless deep, Like thoughts of beauty and peace, When the storm doth cease, And fair desire, companion of man, Leadeth the children of earth.

Man, born to toil, in his labour rejoiceth; His voice is heard in the morn: He armeth his hand and sallieth forth To engage with the generous teeming earth, And drinks from the rocky rills The laughter of life.

Or else, in crowded cities gathering close, He traffics morn and eve In thronging market-halls; Or within echoing walls Of busy arsenals Weldeth the stubborn iron to engines vast; Or tends the thousand looms Where, with black smoke o'ercast, The land mourns in deep glooms.

Life is toil, and life is good: There in loving brotherhood Beateth the nation's heart of fire. Strife! Strife! The strife is strong! There battle thought and voice, and spirits conspire In joyous dance around the tree of life, And from the ringing choir Riseth the praise of God from hearts in tuneful song.

Hark! What spirit doth entreat The love-obedient air? All the pomp of his delight Revels on the ravisht night, Wandering wilful, soaring fair: There! 'Tis there, 'tis there. Like a flower of primal fire Late redeem'd by man's desire.

Away, on wings away My spirit far hath flown, To a land of love and peace, Of beauty unknown. The world that earth-born man, By evil undismay'd, Out of the breath of God Hath for his heaven made.

Where all his dreams soe'er Of holy things and fair In splendour are upgrown, Which thro' the toilsome years Martyrs and faithful seers And poets with holy tears Of hope have sown.

There, beyond power of ill, In joy and blessing crown'd, Christ with His lamp of truth Sitteth upon the hill Of everlasting youth, And calls His saints around.

Sweet compassionate tears Have dimm'd my earthly sight, Tears of love, the showers wherewith The eternal morn is bright: Dews of the heav'nly spheres. With tears my eyes are wet, Tears not of vain regret, Tears of no lost delight, Dews of the heav'nly spheres Have dimm'd my earthly sight, Sweet compassionate tears.

VII

Gird on thy sword, O man, thy strength endue, In fair desire thine earth-born joy renew. Live thou thy life beneath the making sun Till Beauty, Truth, and Love in thee are one.

Thro' thousand ages hath thy childhood run: On timeless ruin hath thy glory been: From the forgotten night of loves fordone Thou risest in the dawn of hopes unseen.

Higher and higher shall thy thoughts aspire, Unto the stars of heaven, and pass away, And earth renew the buds of thy desire In fleeting blooms of everlasting day.

Thy work with beauty crown, thy life with love; Thy mind with truth uplift to God above: For whom all is, from whom was all begun, In whom all Beauty, Truth, and Love are one.

POEMS IN CLASSICAL PROSODY

_PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS_

_Fp. I._ Daniel Press. 1903.

_" II._ _Monthly Review. July, 1903, with an abstract of Stone's Prosody, as there used._

_No. 3._ _Printed by C. H. Daniel. 1903._

_" 8._ _In 'Pelican,' C.C.C., Oxford._

_" 9._ _English Review. March, 1912._

_" 21._ _New Quarterly. Jan. 1909, with an essay on the Virgilian Hexameter, &c._ /# These experiments in quantitive verse were made in fulfilment of a promise to William Johnson Stone that I would some day test his theory. His premature death converted my consent into a serious obligation. This personal explanation is due to myself for two reasons: because I might otherwise appear firstly as an advocate of the system, secondly as responsible for Stone's determination of the lengths of English syllables. Before writing quantitive verse it is necessary to learn to _think_ in quantities. This is no light task, and a beginner requires fixed rules. Except for a few minor details, which I had disputed with Mr. Stone, I was bound to take his rules as he had elaborated them; and it was not until I had made some progress and could think fairly well in his prosody that I seriously criticized it. The two chief errors that I find in it are that he relied too much on the quality of a vowel in determining its syllabic length, and that he regarded the _h_ as _always_ consonantal in quality. His valuation of the _er_ sound is doubtful, but defensible and convenient, and I have never discarded it. My earlier experiments contain therefore a good many 'false quantities', and these, where they could not be very easily (though _inconsistently_) amended, I have left, and marked most of them in the text: a few false quantities do not make a poem less readable. Thus a long mark over a syllable means that Stone reckoned it as long, and that the verse requires it to be so pronounced, but that I regard it as short, or at least as _doubtful_. For example on p. 414 _Rūin_ is thus written. Of all accented long vowels in 'open' position the long _u_ seems perhaps to retain its quantity best, but there is evidence that Tennyson held it to be shortened, and I do not know whether it might be an exception or go with thĕory, pĭety, pŏetry, &c. Again, where a final syllable should be lengthened or not shortened by position, but lacks its consonantal support, I have put a [v] in the gap: these weak places are chiefly due to my accepting Stone's unchanging valuation of _h_. My emancipation from Stone's rules was gradual, so that I have not been able to distinguish definitely my earlier experiments from the later, in which the quantities are such as I have now come to approve of: but my line-for-line paraphrase of Virgil is such a later experiment. It was accompanied in the _New Quarterly_ by a long examination of the Virgilian hexameter, to which I would refer any one who is interested in the subject. In these English hexameters I have used and advocate the use of Miltonic elision. The mark ' in the text shows where I have purposely allowed a short syllable to sustain a long place. Though the difficulty of adapting our English syllables to the Greek rules is very great, and even deterrent--for I cannot pretend to have attained to an absolutely consistent scheme--yet the experiments that I have made reveal a vast unexplored field of delicate and expressive rhythms hitherto unknown in our poetry: and this amply rewarded me for my friendly undertaking. #/

EPISTLE I

TO L. M.

WINTRY DELIGHTS

Now in wintry delights, and long fireside meditation, 'Twixt studies and routine paying due court to the Muses, My solace in solitude, when broken roads barricade me Mudbound, unvisited for months with my merry children, Grateful t'ward Providence, and heeding a slander against me Less than a rheum, think of me to-day, dear Līonel, and take This letter as some account of Will Stone's versification.

We, whose first memories reach half of a century backward, May praise our fortune to have outliv'd so many dangers,-- Faultiness of Nature's unruly machinery or man's--; 10 For, once born, whatever 'tis worth, LIFE is to be held to, Its mere persistence esteem'd as rēal attainment, Its crown of silver reverenc'd as one promise of youth Fruiting, of existence one needful purpose accomplish'd: And 'twere worth the living, howe'er unkindly bereft of Those joys and comforts, throu' which we chiefly regard it: Nay,--set aside the pleasant unhinder'd order of our life, Our happy enchantments of Fortune, easy surroundings, Courteous acquaintance, dwelling in fair homes, the delight of Long-plann'd excursions, the romance of journeying in lands Historic, of sēeing their glory, the famous adornments 21 Giv'n to memorial Earth by man, decorator of all-time, (--As wē saw with virginal eyes travelling to behold them,--) Her gorgeous palaces, [v]her tow'rs and stately cathedrals; Where the turrets and domes of pictured Tuscany slumber, Or the havoc'd splendours of Rome imperial, or where Glare the fretted minarets and mosks of trespassing Islam, And old Nilus, amid the mummied suzerainty of Egypt, Glideth, a godly presence, consciously regardless of all things, Save his unending toil and ēternal recollections:-- 30

Set these out of account, and with them too put away ART, Those ravishings of mind, those sensuous intelligences, By whose grace the elect enjoy their sacred aloofness From Life's meagre affairs, in beauty's rēgenerate youth Reading immortality's sublime revelation, adoring Their own heav'nly desire; nor alone in worship assist they, But take, call'd of God, part and pleasure in crēation Of that beauty, the first of His first purposes extoll'd:--

Yea, set aside with these all NATURE'S beauty, the wildwood's Flow'ry domain, the flushing, softcrowding loveliness of Spring, 40 Lazy Summer's burning dīal, the serenely solemn spells Of Sibylline Autumn, with gay-wing'd Plenty departing; All fair change, whether of seasons or bright recurrent day, Morning or eve; the divine night's wonderous empyrean; High noon's melting azure, his thin cloud-country, the landscape Mountainous or maritime, blue calms of midsummer Ocean, Broad corn-grown champaign goldwaving in invisible wind, Wide-water'd pasture, with shade of whispering aspen; All whereby Nature winneth our love, fondly appearing As to caress her children, or all that in exaltation 50 Lifteth aloft our hearts to an unseen glory beyond her:--

Put these out of account; yea, more I say, banish also From the credit sŭm of enjoyment those simple AFFECTIONS, Whose common exercise informs our natural instinct; That, set in our animal flesh-fabric, of our very lifeblood Draw their subsistence, and even in ungenerous hearts Root, like plants in stony deserts and 'neath pitiless snows. Yea, put away all LOVE, the blessings and pīeties[v]of home, All delicate heart-bonds, vital tendernesses untold, Joys that fear to be named, feelings too holy to gaze on; 60 And with his inviolate peace-trīumph his passionate war Be forgone, his mighty desire, thrilling ecstasies, ardours Of mystic reverence, his fierce flame-eager emotions, Idolatrous service, blind faith and ritual of fire.

If from us all these things were taken away, (that is all art And all beauty whate'er, and all love's varied affection,) Yet would enough subsist in other concerns to suffice us, And feed intelligence, and make life's justification. What this is, if you should ask me, beyond or above the rejoicing In vegetant or brute existence, answer is easy; 70 'Tis the reflective effort of mind that, conscious of itself, Fares forth exploring nature for principle and cause, Keenly with all the cunning pleasure and instinct of a hunter, Who, in craft fashioning weapon and sly snare, tracketh after His prey fl[=y]ing afield, and that which his arm killeth eateth.

History and SCĪENCE our playthings are: what an untold Wealth of inexhaustive treasure is stored up for amusement! Shall the amass'd Earth-structure appeal to me less than in early Childhood an old fives-ball, whose wraps I wondering unwound, Untwining the ravel'd worsted, that mere rubbish and waste Of leather and shavings had bound and moulded elastic 81 Into a perfect sphere? Shall not the celestial earth-ball Equally entertain a mature enquiry, reward our Examination of its contexture, conglomerated Of layer'd débris, the erosion of infinite ages? Tho' I lack the wizard Darwin's scīentific insight On the barren sea-beaches of East Patagonia gazing, I must wond'ring attend, nay learn myself to decipher Time's rich hīeroglyph, with vast elemental pencil Scor'd upon Earth's rocky crust,--minute shells slowly collecting 90 Press'd to a stone, uprais'd to a mountain, again to a fine sand Worn, burying the remains of an alien organic epoch, In the flat accretions of new sedimentary strata; All to be crush'd, crumpled, confused, contorted, abandon'd, Broke, as a child's puzzle is, to be recompos'd with attention; Nature's history-book, which shē hath torn as asham'd of; And lest those pictures on[v]her fragmentary pages Should too lightly reveal frustrate Antiquity, hath laid Rūin upon rūin, revolution upon revolution: Yet no single atom, no least insignificant grain 100 But, having order alike of fate, and faulty disorder, Holds a record of Time, very vestiges of the Creation; Which who will not attend scorns blindly the only commandments By God's finger of old inscribed on table of earth-stone.

This for me wer' enough: yet confin'd Gēology's field Counts not in all Scīence more than the planet to the Cosmos; Where our central Sun, almighty material author, And sustainer, appears as a half-consumed vanishing spark, Bearing along with it, entangled in immensity's onward Spiral eddies, the blacken'd dust-motes whirl'd off from around it. 110 But tho' man's microscopical functions measure all things By his small footprints, finger-spans and ticking of clocks, And thereby conceive the immense--such multiple extent As to defy Idēas of imperative cerebration,-- None the less observing, measuring, patiently recording, Hē mappeth out the utter wilderness of unlimited space; Carefully weigheth a weight to the sun, reckoneth for it its path Of trackless travelling, the precise momentary places Of the planets and their satellites, their annual orbits, Times, perturbations of times, and orbit of orbit. 120 What was Alexander's subduing of Asia, or that Sheep-worry of Europe, when pigmy Napoleon enter'd Her sovereign chambers, and her kings with terror eclips'd? His footsore soldiers inciting across the ravag'd plains, Thro' bloody fields of death tramping to an ugly disaster? Shows any crown, set above the promise (so rudely accomplisht) Of their fair godlike young faces, a glory to compare With the immortal olive that circles bold Galileo's Brows, the laurel'd halo[v]of Newton's unwithering fame? 129 Or what a child's surmise, how trifling a journey Columbus Adventur'd, to a land like that which he sail'd from arriving, If compar'd to Bessel's magic divination, awarding Magnificent Sirius[v]his dark and invisible bride; Or when Adams by Cam, (more nearly Leverrier in France,) From the minutely measur'd vacillation of Uranus, augur'd Where his mighty brother Neptune went wandering unnamed, And thro' those thousand-million league-darknesses of space Drew him slowly whene'er he pass'd, and slowly released him! _Nil admirari!_ 'Tis surely a most shabby thinker 139 Who, looking on Nature, finds not the reflection appalling

And if these wonders we must with wonder abandon, Astronomy's Cosmos, the Immense, and those physical laws That link mind to matter, laws mutual in revelation, Which measure and analyse Nature's primordial orgasm, Lifegiving omnipotential LIGHT, its speed to determine, Untwist its rainbow of various earthcoloring rays, Counting strictly to each its own millionth-millimetred Wave-length, and mapping out on fray'd diffraction of ether All the adust elements and furnaced alchemy of[v]heav'n; Laws which atone the disorder of infinit observation 150 With tyrannous numbers and abstract theory, closing Protean Nature with nets of principle exact; Her metamorphoses transmuting by correlation, All heat, all chemical concourse or electrical action, All force and all motion of all matter, or subtle or gross:-- If we these wonders, I say, with wonder abandon, Nor can for mental heaviness their high study pursue, Yet no story of adventures or fabulous exploit Of famous'd heroes hath so rōmantic a discourse, As these growing annals of long heav'n-scaling achievement And far discoveries, which he who[v]idly neglecteth 161 Is but a boor as truly ridiculous as the village clown, In whose thought the pleasant sun-ball performeth a circuit Daily above mother earth, and resteth nightly beneath her.

Nor will a man, whose mind respects its own operations, Lightly resign himself to remain in darkness uninform'd, While any true scīence of fact lies easy within reach Concerning Nature's ēternal essential object, Self-matter, embodying substratum of ev'ry relation Both of Time and Space, at once the machinery and stuff Of those Idēas; carrier, giver, only receiver 171 Of such perceptions as arise in sensible organs. Now whether each element is a cōherency of equal Strictly symmetric atoms, or among themselves the atoms are Like animals in a herd, having each an identity distinct, --So that atoms of gold compar'd with sulphur or iron Are but as ancient Greeks compar'd with Chinamen and Turks;-- Nor whether all elements are untransmutable offspring From one kind or more thro' endless eternity changing, Or whether invisibles claim rightly the name of immortals, I make no[v]enquiry; matter minutely divided 181 Showing a like paradox, with ever-continuous extent, And, as Adam, the atom will pose as a naked assumption:-- But since all the knowledge which man was born to attain to Hath these only channels, (which must limit and qualify[v]it,) We shall con the grammar, the material alphabet of life, Yea, ev'n more from error to preserve our inquisitive mind, Than to secure well-bēing against adversity and ill. Surely if all is a flux, 'tis well to look into the flūid, Inspect and question the apparent, shifty behaviour, 190 Wherein lurketh alone our witness of all physical law, As we read the habits unchanging of invisible things, Their timeless chronicles, the unintelligent ethic of dust: In which dense labyrinth he who was guiding avised me, With caution saying 'Were this globe's area of land Wholly cover'd from sight, pack'd close to the watery margins With mere empty vessels, I could myself put in each one Some different substance, and write its formula thereon.'

Thus would speak the chemist; and Nature's superabundance, Her vast infinitude of waste vāriety untold, 200 As[v]her immense extent and inconceivable object, Squandering activities throughout ēternity, dwarfeth Man's little aim and hour, his doubtful fancy: what are we? Our petty selfseekings, our speedily passing affections? Life having existed so extravagantly before us; Earth bearing so slight a regard or care for us; and all After us unconcern'd to remain, strange, beautiful as now. May not an idle echo[v]of an antique pōetry haunt me, 'Friendship is all feigning, yea[v]all loving is folly only'? --Yet doth not very mention of antique pōetry and love 210 Quickly recall to better motions my dispirited faith? And I see man's discontent as witness asserting His moral idēal, that, born of Nature, is heir to Her children's titles, which nought may cancel or impugn; Not wer' of all her works man least, but ranking among them Highly or ev'n as best, he wrongs himself to imagine His soul foe to her aim, or from[v]her sanction an outlaw. Nay, but just as man should appear more fully accordant With things not himself, would they rank with[v]him as equals: Judging other creatures he sets them wholly beneath him; His disquīet among manifold and alien objects 221 Bēing sure evidence, the effect of an understanding, And perception allow'd by Nature solely to himself.

Highly then is to be prais'd the resourceful wisdom of our time, That spunged out the written science and thēories of life, And, laying foundation of its knowledge in physical law, Gave it prēeminence o'er all enquiry, erecting Superstructive of all, bringing ev'ry research to the object, Boldly a new scīence of MAN, from dreamy scholastic Imprisoning set free, and inveterate divination, 230 Into the light of truth, to the touch of history and fact. Since 'the proper study of mankind is man',--nor aforetime Was the proverb esteem'd as a truism less than it is now,-- 'Tis strange that the method lay out of sight unaccomplisht, And that we, so late to arrive, should first set a value On the delusive efforts of human babyhood; and so Witnessing impatiently the rear of their disappearance, Upgathering the relics and vestiges of primitive man, Should ratify[v]instinct for scīence, look to the darkness For light, find a knowledge where 'twas most groping or unknown: 240 While civilization's advances mutely regarding Talk we of old scapegoats, discuss bloodrites, immolations, Worship of ancestors; explain complexities involved Of tribal marriages, derivation of early religions, Priestly taboos, totems, archaic mysteries of trees, All the devils and dreams abhorr'd of barbarous ages.

And 'tis a far escape from wires, wheels and penny papers And the worried congestion of our Victorian era, Whose many inventions of world-wide luxury have changed Life's very face:--but enough wē hear of progress, enough have 250 Our conscious scīence and comforts trumpeted; altho' Hardly can I, who so many years eagerly frequented Bartholomew's fountain, not speak of things to awaken Kind old HIPPOCRATES, howe'er hē; slumbereth, entomb'd 'Neath the shatter'd winejars and rūined factories of Cos, Or where hē wander'd in Thessalian Larissa: For when his doctrine, which Rome had wisely adopted, Sank lost with the treasures of[v]her deep-foundering empire, No[v]art or scīence grew so contemptible, order'd 259 So by mere folly, windy caprice, superstition and chance, As boastful MEDICINE, with humours fit for a madhouse, Save when some Sydenham, like Samson among the Philistines, Strode bond-bursting along with a smile of genial instinct. Nor when here and there some ray, in darkness arising, Hopefully seem'd to herald the coming dawn, (as when a Laennec Or Jenner invented his meed of worthy remembrance,) Did one mind foresee, one seer foretell the appearance Of that unexpected daylight that arose upon our time. Who dream'd that living air poison'd our SURGERY, coating All our sheeny weapons with germs of an invisible death, 270 Till he saw the sterile steel work with immunity, and save Quickly as its warring scimitars of victory had slain? Saw what school-tradition for nature's kind method admir'd, --In those lifedraining slow cures and bedridden agues,-- Forgotten, or condemn'd as want of care in a surgeon? Tho' MEDICINE makes not so plain an appeal to the vulgar, Yet she lags not a whit: her pregnant thēory touches Deeper discoveries,[v]her more complete revolution Gives promise of wider benefits in larger abundance. Where she nam'd the disease she now separates the bacillus; 280 Sets the atoms of offence, those blind and sickly bloodeaters, 'Neath lens and daylight, forcing their foul propagations, Which had ever prosper'd in dark impunity unguest, Now to behave in sight, deliver their poisonous extract And their strange self-brew'd, self-slaying juice to be handled, Experimented upon, set aside and stor'd to oppose them. So novel and obscure a research, such hard revelations Of Nature's cabinet,--tho' with fact amply accordant, And by hypothesis much dark difficulty resolving, Are not quickly receiv'd nor approv'd, and sensitive idlers, Venturing in the profound terrible penetralia of life, 291 Are shock'd by[v]a method that shuns not contamination With crūel Nature's most secret processes unmaskt. And yet in all mankind's disappointed history, now first Have[v]his scouts push'd surely within[v]his foul enemies' lines, And his sharpshooters descried their insidious foe, Those swarming parasites, that barely within the detection Of manifold search-light, have bred, swimming unsuspected Thro' man's brain and limbs, slaying with loathly pollution His beauty's children,[v]his sweet scīons of affection, 300 In fev'rous torment and tears, his home desolating Of their fair innocence, breaking[v]his proud passionate heart, And his kindly belief in GOD'S good justice arraigning. With what wildly directed attack, what an armory illjudged, Has he, (alas, poor man,) with what cumbrous machination Sought to defend himself from their Lilliputian onslaught; Aye discharging around him, in obscure night, at a venture, Ev'ry missile which[v]his despair confus'dly imagin'd; His simples, compounds, specifics, chemical therapeutics, Juice of plants, whatever was nam'd in lordly Salerno's 310 Herbaries and gardens, vipers, snails, all animal filth, Incredible quackeries, the pretentious jugglery of knaves, Green electricities, saints' bones and priestly anointings. Fools! that oppose his one scīentific intelligent hope! Grant us an hundred years, and man shall hold in abeyance These foul distempers, and with this world's benefactors Shall PASTEUR obtain the reward of saintly devotion, His crown hēroic, who fought not destiny in vain.

'Tis success that attracts: 'twas therefore so many workers Ran pellmell to the schools of Nature in our generation, 320 While other employments have lack'd their genius and pined. Our fathers' likings wē thought semibarbarous, our art Self-consciously sickens in qualms of an æsthetic aura, Noisily in the shallows splashing and disporting uninspir'd. Our famed vulgarities whether in speech, taste or amusement, Are not amended: Is it foolish, hoping for a rescue, First to appeal to the strong, for health to the healthy amongst us? --For the Sophists' doctrine that GRACE is dying of old age I hold in derision, their inkpot thēories of man, Of his cradle of art, his deathbed of algebra;--and see 330 How Scīence has wrought, since we went idling at Eton, One thing above surmise:--An' if I may dare to remind you How Vergil praises your lov'd Lucretius, (of whom My matter and metre[v]have set you thinking, as I fear,) In that glory which ends 'et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari': Sounded not most empty to us such boast of a pagan, Strangely to us tutor'd to believe, with faith mediæval, Torture everlasting to be justly the portion of all souls, Nor but by the elects' secret prēdestiny escaped? 340 If you think to reply,--making this question in answer,-- 'Did the belief disturb for a moment our pleasure in life?' No.--And men gather in harvest on slopes of an active Volcano: natheless the terror's ēnormity was there; Now 'tis away: Scīence has pierced man's cloudy common-sense, Dow'rd his homely vision with more expansive an embrace, And the rotten foundation of old superstition exposed. That trouble of Pascal, those vain paradoxes of Austin, Those Semitic parables of Paul, those tomes of Aquinas, All are thrown to the limbo of antediluvian idols, 350 Only because we learn mankind's true history, and know That not at all from a high perfection sinfully man fell, But from baseness arose: We have with sympathy enter'd Those dark caves, his joyless abodes, where with ravening brutes, Bear or filthy hyena, he once disputed a shelter:-- That was his Paradise, his garden of Eden,--abandon'd Ages since to the drift and drip, the cementing accretions Whence we now separate his bones buried in the stalagma, His household makeshifts, his hunting tools, his adornments, From the scatter'd skeletons of a lost prehistoric order, 360 Its mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, the machairodos, and beasts Whose unnamed pastures the immense Atlantic inundates. In what corner of earth lie not dispersed the familiar Flinty relics of his old primitive stone-cutlery? what child Kens not now the design, the adapted structure of each one Of those hand-labor'd chert-flakes, whether axe, chisel, or knife, Spearhead, barb of arrow, rough plane or rudely serrate saw? Stones that in our grandsires' time told no sermon, (awaiting Indestructible, unnumber'd, on chary attention,) From their prēadamite pulpits now cry Revelation. 370 Not to a Greek his chanted epic had mortal allurement, Conjuring old-world fancies of Ilium and of Olympus, As this story to me, this tale primæval of unsung, Unwritten, ancestral fate and adversity, this siege Of courage and happiness protracted so many thousand Thousand years in a slow persistent victory of brain And right hand o'er all the venom'd stings, sharpnesses of fang And dread fury whate'er Nature, tirelessly devising, Could develop with tooth, claw, tusk, or horn to oppose them. See now Herakles, who strangled snakes when an infant 380 In[v]his cradle alone; and nought but those petty stonechips For the battle: 'twas wonder above wonders his achievement: Yea, and since he thought as a child 'twas natural in[v]him, Meeting in existence with purposes antagonistic, Circumstances oppos'd to desire, vast activities, which Thwarted effort, to assume All-might as spiteful against him. Nay, as an artist born, impell'd to devise a religion,-- So to relate himself idēally with the immortal,-- This quarrel of reason with what displeas'd his affections Was not amiss. The desire and love of beauty possess man: Art is of all that beauty the best outwardly presented; 391 Truth to the soul is merely the best that mind can imagine. No lover ēternal will hold to an older opinion If but lovelier ideas, with Nature agrēeing, Are to his understanding offer'd.... But enough: 'tis an unsolv'd Mystery.--Yet man dreams to flatter[v]his dēity saying 'Beautiful is Nature!' rather 'tis various, endless, And her efforts fertile in error tho' grand in attainment. If wé, while praising[v]her scheme and infinite order, Are compell'd to select, our choice condemns the remainder; Nor can wisdom honour those loathly polluting offences, 401 Whose very names to the Muse are either accursèd or unknown. Nay, if such foul things thou deemest worthy, the fault was Making us, O Nature, thy judge and tearful accuser. Turn our thought for awhile to the symphonies of Beethoven, Or the rever'd preludes of mighty Sebastian; Is there One work of Nature's contrivance beautiful as these? Judg'd by beauty alone man wins, as sensuous artist; And for other qualities, the spirit's differentia, Nature Scarce observes them at all: that keen unfaltering insight, 410 Whereby[v]earthly desire's roaming wildernesses are changed Into a garden a-bloom; its wandering impossible ways Into pillar'd avenues, alleys and fair-flow'ry terrac'd walks, (Where GOD talks with man, as once 'twas fancied of Eden;) That transcendental supreme interpreting of sense, Rendering intelligence passionate with mystery, linking Sympathy with grandeur, the reserve of dignity with play; Those soul-formalities, the balance held 'twixt the denīal And the betrayal of intention, whose masteries invite, Entice, welcome ever, meet, and with kindliness embrace; 420 Those guarded floodgates of boundless, lovely resources, Whence nothing ill issues, no distraction nor abortion Hindering enjoyment, but in easy security flow forth Ecstasies of fitness, raptures and harmonies of heav'n. Surely before such work of man, so kindly attemper'd, Nature must be asham'd, had shē not this ready answer, 'Fool, and who made thee?'-- I shall not seem a deserter, Where in an idle essay my verse to a fancy abandon'd Praiseth others: rather while art and beauty delight us, While hope, faith and love are warm and lively in our hearts, Sweet our earthly desire and dear our human affection, 431 We may, joyfully despising the pedantries of old age, Hold to the time, nor lose the delight of mortal attainment; Keenly rejoicing in all that wisdom approves, nor allowing Ourselves at the challenge of younger craft to be outsailed; But trimming our old canvas in all change of weather and wind, Freely without fear urge o'erseas our good vessel onward, Piloting into the far, unmapp'd futurity.--Farewell.

EPISTLE II

TO A SOCIALIST IN LONDON

No[v]ethical system, no contemplation or action, No reason'd attitude of mind nor principle of faith, Neither Sōcratical wisdom nor saintly devotion, Buildeth a fortress against heart-ache & compassionate grief, Nor responds to desire, nor with true mastery yieldeth Easy repose to the mind; And since all our study endeth Emptily in full doubt,--fathoming the divine intention In this one thing alone, that, howsōe'er it affect us, 'Twas never intended for mortal fancy to compass,-- I[v]have concluded that from first purposes unknown 10 None should seek to deduce idēal laws to be liv'd by; And, loving art, am true to the Muse, & pōetry extol: Therefore 'twas that afore I prais'd & heartily enjoy'd Your human verses, FRASER, when nobody bought them, More than again I praise those serious exhortations, Wherewith you wu'd amend the degraded people about you. Nay tho' like a prophet with heav'n-sent dignity inspir'd, With ready convincement and stern example assuring, Mightily you proclaim your love-messag' in the assembly, Exhibiting panacēas of ancient ill, propagating 20 Out of a Scotch cerebrum the reforming zeal of a TOLSTOI, I listen all unmov'd, as a sceptic among the believers. Yet what a charm has an earnest soul, whom sympathy uncheckt For human suffering has strengthen'd and dedicated Bravely to serve his kind, to renounce his natural instinct, And liv' apart, indulging in acts of mercy, delighted In wisdom's rock-hewn citadel[v]her law to illustrate, Embodying the pattern of self-integrity complete. Yea, what a charm pervades discourse, that loftily reason'd Points the narrow pathway throu' this world's ugly disorder; How very fair will appear any gate of cleanliness, open 30 From the city's tumult, its rank impurity, its dread Vulgarity's triumph: Nay sure & bounteous as Truth, Beautiful in confusion appeareth Simplicity's way. --'Simple it is, (yóu say) God is good,--Nature is ample,-- 'Earth yields plenty for all,--and all might share in abundance, 'Were profit and labour but fairly divided among them. 'Scarce any laws are needed in our Utopia but these,-- 'No fruitless labour to provide mere useless adornment, 'No money encouraging man's sloth & slavery, no rents 40 'Of titeld landlords, no pamper'd luxury breeding 'Fleshly disease, worst fiend & foe of mind body and soul; 'All should work, and only produce life's only requirements: 'So with days all halfholidays, toil healthfully enjoy'd, 'Each might, throu' leisure hours of amusement pīety and peace, 'In the domestic joys & holy community partake.--' --This wer' a downleveling, my friend; yoū need, to assure me, Fix a limit to the folk; else, as their number is increas't, Their happiness may dwindle away, & what was at outset Goal & prize, the provoker of all your wise revolution, 50 Will by subdivision disappear in course of atainment. When goods are[v]increas'd, mouths are[v]increas'd to devour them: If the famine be reliev'd this season in India, next dearth Will be a worse. Yoū know how one day Herschel acosted Súch a philanthropical Save-all, who claimed to acomplish Some greatest happiness for a greatest number; 'Attend, man; (Saíd-he) Resólve me anon one query: Suppose Adam and Eve First crēated on Earth but twice ten centuries ere Christ, That they gat four children in all, who liv'd, getting also Four to the pair: Had thus mankind ever equaly increast 60 By moderate families but doubling in each generation, How many souls would now be alive to revise the conundrum Of greatest happiness? No[v]answer? Well, 'tis a long sum. Say if on earth such a crowd could stand. No? Pray then imágine All earth's land as a plain, & all this company thereon, Piled together like peas in a pintpot: How many layers? No guess? Then how high the column? How far wu'd it extend Into the sky?--To the moon?--Further--To the sun?--To the sun! Pshaw! That column of happy men would reach up, as I fathom its height, Million dīameters of Neptune's infinit' orbit.' 70 My[v]objection annoys your kindly philanthropy?--'It proves 'Too much.'--Yes nature shows in that scrutiny bankrupt; Mere matter in deposit gives out. Yóu wish to determine No limit of future polities: your actual object Is to relieve suffering, to repeal injustice acruing From monied inheritance, which makes a nonentity potent For public mischief, who might, if usefully harness'd In common employment, have assisted social order. Why should Law give fifty talents where Nature alloys one? For money is the talent of supreme empery: Gold, Gold 80 Envieth all, getteth all, absorbeth, mastereth all things: It pusheth out & thrusteth away pitilessly the weak ones, Those ill-fated, opprest, unfortun'd needy: Beneath them Yawns the abyss. Down down they fall, as a stream on a mountain, With ceaseless cataract. None hearkeneth; only the silent Grave, that darkly devours their cry of desperate anguish. Spáre me the story; believe more feel this grief than avow it: 'Tis put aside from thought with death's incurable evil; Left for them, that assume mankind as cause, to lament it. And what if all Nature ratify this merciless outrage? 90 If her wonder of arch-wonders, her fair animal life, Her generate creatures, her motion'd warmblooded offspring, Haunters of the forest & royal country, her antler'd Mild-gazers, that keep silvan sabbath idly without end; Her herded galopers, sleeksided stately careerers Of trembling nostril; her coy unapproachable estrays, Stealthy treaders, climbers; her leapers furry, lissom-limb'd; Her timorous burrowers, and grangers thrifty, the sandy Playmates of the warren; her clumsy-footed, shaggy roamers; Her soarers, the feather'd fast-fliers, loftily floating 100 Sky-sailers, exiles of high solitudinous eyries; Her perching carolers, twitterers, & sweetly singing birds; All ocean's finny clans, mute-mouthers, watery breathers, Furtive arrow-darters, and fan-tail'd easy balancers, Silvery-scale, gilt-head, thorn-back, frill'd harlequinading Globe and slimy ribbon: Shell-builders of many-chamber'd Pearly dwellings, soft shapes mosslike or starry, adorning With rich floral fancy the gay rock-garden of ebb-tide: All life, from the massive-bulkt, ivory-tusht, elephantine Centēnarian, acknowledging with crouching obeisance 110 Man's will, ev'n to the least petty whiffling ephemeral insect, Which in a hot sunbeam engend'ring, when summer is high, Vaunteth an hour his speck of tinsely gaudiness and dies: Ah! what if all & each of Nature's favorite offspring, 'Mong many distinctions, have this portentous agreement, MOUTH, STOMACH, INTESTINE? Question that brute apparatus, So manifoldly devis'd, set alert with furious instinct: What doth it interpret but this, that LIFE LIVETH ON LIFE? That the select creatures, who[v]inherit earth's domination, Whose happy existence is Nature's intelligent smile, 120 Are bloody survivors of a mortal combat, a-tweenwhiles Chanting a brief pæan for victory on the battlefield? Since that of all their kinds most owe their prosperous estate Unto the art, whereby they more successfully destroy'd Their weaker brethren, more insatiably devour'd them; And all fine qualities, their forms pictorial, admired, Their symmetries, their grace, & beauty, the loveliness of them, Were by Murder evolv'd, to 'scape from it or to effect it. 'Surely again (yoū say) too much is proven, it argues 'Mere horror & despair; unless persuasion avail us 130 'That the moral virtues are man's idēa, awaken'd 'By the spirit's motions; & therefore not to be conceiv'd 'In Nature's outward & mainly material aspect, 'As that is understood. You, since you hold that opinion, 'Run your own ship aground invoking Nature against me.'-- Then withdraw the appeal, my friend, to her active alīance; Bē pessimist Nature with a pitchfork manfully expell'd, Not to return. Yet _soul in hand_, with brutal alegiance, Hunters & warriors _do not forget the comandment_. See how lively the old animal continueth in them: 140 Of what trifling account they hold life, yet what a practis'd Art pursue to preserve it: if I should rightly define sport SLAUGHTER WITH DANGER, what were more serious and brave? Their love of air, of strength, of wildness, afford us an inkling Of the delight of beasts, with whom they might innocently Boast a fellow-feeling, summoning them forth to the combat. Nay dream not so quickly to see her ladyship expell'd. Those prowling Līons of stony Kabylia, whose roar Frights from sleep the huddled herdsmen, soon as the sudden night Falls on Mount Atlas, those grave uxorious outlaws 150 Wandering in the Somali desert or waste Kalahari, Sound a challenge that amid summer-idling London is answer'd Haply in Old Bond Street, where some fashionably attired youth Daintily stands poising the weapon foredoom'd to appay them: Or[v]he mentally sighteth a tiger of India, that low Crouches among the river jungles, or hunts desolating Grassy Tarâi, 'neath lofty Himálya, or far southward Outacamund, Mysore's residency, the Nilgherry mountains By Malabar; yea, and ere-long shall sight him in earnest, Stalked as a deer, surprised where hē lay slumbering at noon Under a rock full-gorged, or deep in reedy covert hid 160 By the trackers disturbed: Two grand eyes shall for a moment Glare upon either side the muzzle. Woe then to the hunter, If hē blench! That fury beclouded in invisible speed What marksman could arrest? what mortal abide his arrachement? Standing above the immense carcase hē gratefully praiseth God for a man-eater so fine, so worthy the slaying. See him again; 'tis war: one hill-rock strongly defended Checks advance, to be stormed at cost of half the assailants. Gaily away they go, Highlanders, English, or Irish, 170 Or swart Ghoorkas against the leaden hail, climbing, ascending, Lost in a smoke, scattering, creeping, here there, ever upwards: Till some change cometh o'er confusion. Who winneth? ah! see! Ours have arrived, and he who led their bravery is there. None that heard will ever forget that far-echoing cheer: Such heard Nelson, above the crashings & thundering of guns: At Marathon 'twas heard and all time's story remembers. See him again, when at home visiting[v]his episcopal uncle: That good priest contrast with this good captain, assay them: Find a common-measure equating their rival emotions; 180 Ēvaporate the rubbish, the degrading pestiferous fuss Of stuck-up importance, the palatial coterie, weigh out Then the solids: whose life would claim the award of an umpire For greatest happiness? High-priest or soldier? Adjudge it By their books: Let a child give sentence. Ev'n as a magnet Turns and points to the north, so children's obstinate insight Flies to the tale of war, hairbreadth scapes, daring achievements, Discoveries, conquests, the romance of history: these things Win them away from play to devour with greedy attention Till they long to be men; while all that clerkly palaver 190 Tastes like wormwood.--'Avast! (I hear yoū calling) Avast there! I forbid the appeal.'--Well, style my humour atrocious; Granted a child cannot understand; yet see what a huge growth Stands to be extermin'd, ere you can set dibble in ground. Nay, more yet; that mighty forest, whose wildness offends you, And silences appal, where earth-life self-suffocating Seethes, lavish as sun-life in a red star's fi'ry corona; That waste magnificence, and vain fecundity, breeding Gīants & parasites embrac'd in flowery tangle, Interwoven alive and dead, where one tyrannous tree 200 Blights desolating around it a swamp of rank vegetation; Where Reason yet dreams unawakt, & throu' the solemn day Only the monkey chatters, & discordant the parrot screams: All this is in man's heart with dateless sympathy worshipt, With filial reverence, & awful pīeties involv'd; While that other picture, your formal fancy, the garden Of your stingy promise, must that not quench his imágin'd Idēals of beauty, his angel hope of attainment? What to him are the level'd borders, the symmetric allotments, Where nothing exceedeth, nothing encroacheth, nor assaileth; Where Reason now drudgeth a sad monomaniac, all day 211 Watering & weeding, digging & diligently manuring Her label'd families, starch-makers, nitrogen-extract- Purveyors, classified potherbs & empty pretenders Of medical virtues; nay ev'n and _their_ little impulse T'ward liberal fruiting disallow'd by stern regulation; So many beans to a pod, with so many pods to a beanstalk; Prun'd, pincht, economiz'd miserly til' all is abortion, Save in such specimens as, but for an extravagant care, Had miserably perish'd. What madness works to delude you, 220 Bēing a man, that yoū see not mankind's predilection Is for Magnificence, Force, Freedom, Bounty; his inborn Love for Beauty, his aim to possess, his pride to devise it: And from everlasting his heart is fixt with affections Prēengag'd to a few sovranly determinate objects, Toys of an ēternal distraction. Beautiful is GOLD, Clear as a trumpet-call, stirring where'er it appeareth All high pow'rs to battle; with mágisterial ardour Glowing among the metals, elemental drops of a fire-god's Life-blood of old outpour'd in Chāos: Mágical also 230 EV'RY recondite j[=ew]el of Earth, with their seraphim-names, RUBY, JACYNTH, EMERALD, AMETHYST, SAPPHIRE; amaranthine Starry essences, elect emblems of purity, heirlooms Of deathless glories, most like to divine imanences. Then that heart-gladdening highpriz'd ambrosia, blending Their dissolute purples & golds with sparkling aroma, That ruddy juice exprest from favour'd vintages, infus'd With cosmic laughter, when upon some sécular epact Blandly the sun's old heart is stirr'd to a septennial smile, Causing strangefortun'd comfort to melancholy mortals: 240 Friend to the flésh, if mind be fatigued; rallying to the sound mind, When succour is needed 'gainst fainting weariness of flesh; Shall Wine not be belov'd? Or now let Aristotle answer What goods are,--Time leaves the scholar's inventory unchang'd;-- All Virtues & Pow'rs, Honour & Pleasure, all that in our life Makes us self-sufficient, Friends, Riches, Comeliness, and Strength; They that[v]have these things in plenty desire to retain them, And win more; while they that lack are pleas'd to desire them. Nay and since possession will leave the desire unappeasèd, Save in mere appetites that vary with our physical state, 250 Surely delight in goods is an ecstasy rather attendant On their mental image, than on experienc'd operation. So the shepherd envies the monarch, the monarch the shepherd's lot,-- 'O what a life were this, How sweet, how lovely!' the king cries. Whence, I say, as a man feels brave who reads of ACHILLES; One looking on riches may learn some kindred elation, And whatever notions of fortune, luxury, comfort, Genius or virtue, are shown to him, only as aspects Of possible bēing, 'tis so much gain to desire them; Learning Magnificence in mean obscurity, tasting 260 Something of all those goods which Fate outwardly denies him. But say none shall again be king or prosperous or great,-- Arguing 'all eminence is unequal, unequal is unjust',-- Should that once come about, then alas for this merry England, Sunk in a grey monotone of drudgery, dreamily poring O'er her illumin'd page of history, faln to regretful Worship of ancestors, with nought now left to delight her, Nought to attain, save one nurst hope, one ambition only Red Revolution, a wild Reawakening, & a Renaissance. Impatiently enough yoū hear me, longing to refute me, 270 While I[v]in privileg'd pulpit my period expand. Who could allow such a list of strange miscellaneous items, So-call'd goods, Strength, Ríches, Honour, Gold, Genius, and Wine? Is not Wisdom above Rubies? more than Coral or Pearl? Yours is a scheme deep-laid on true distinctive asortment, Parting use or good from useless or evil asunder; Dismissing accessories, while half my heathenish invoice Are Vanity's vanities. Well; truly, as old SOLOMON said, So they _be_: What is excepted? What scapes his araignment? Is't Pleasure or Wisdom? Nay ask THEOLOGIA: Good-works, 280 Saith-she, offend her nostril. If I distinguish, asserting, Say, that if I[v]enjoyed my neighbour's excessive income I would hire me a string-quartett not an automaton car, You blame equally both our tastes for luxury, indeed His shows more of a use. If man's propensity is vain, Vulgar, inane, unworthy; 'tis also vain to bewail it: Think you to change his skin? 'Twere scale by scale to regraft it With purer traditions; and who shall amend the amenders? Nay let bé the bubbles, till man grow more solid in mind, Condemn not the follies: My neighbour's foolery were worse, Sat he agape listening to Mozart, intently desiring 291 All that time to be rattling alóng on a furious engine In caoutchouc carapace, with a trail of damnable oilstench. Yea, blame not the pleasures; they are not enough; pleasure only Makes this life liveable: nor scout that doctrine as unsound: Consider if mankind from puling birth to bitter death Knew nought but the sorrows, endured unrespited always Those agonizing assaults which no flesh wholly can escape; Were his hunger a pang like his starvation, alievement Thereof a worse torture, like that which full many die with; Did love burn his soul as fire his skin; did affections 300 Rend his will, as Turks rend men with horses asunder; Were his labour a breathless effort; his slumber occasion For visiting Furies to repair his temple of anguish; Were thoughts all mockeries; slow intelligence a deception; His mind's far ventures, her voyages into the unseen But horror & terrified nightmare; None then had ever heard Praise of a Crēator, nor seen any Dēity worshipped. 'Twas for heav'nly Pleasure that God did first fashion all thing, Nor with other benefit would holy Religion attract us 310 Picturing of Paradise. Consult our Lady's Evangel, Where Saint Luke,--colouring (was it unconsciously, suppose you?) Fact and fable alike,--contrasts a beggar with a rich man, And from holding a fool's happiness too greatly in esteem Makes pleasure ēternal the balance of temporal evil, And the reverse; nor shrinks, ascribing thus to the next world Vaster inequalities, harsher perversity than this. _You_ have a soul's paradise, its entry the loop of a needle, Come hither & prithy tell me what I must do to be savèd I, that feeding on Idēals in temperat' estate 320 Seem so wealthy to poor Lazarus, so needy to Dives: What from my heav'n-bound schooner's dispensable outfit Has to be cast o'erboard? What see yoū here that offends you? These myriad volumes, these tons of music:--allow them Or disallow? Fiddle and trichord?--Must all be relinquished? Such toys have not a place in your socīety; you say Nobody shall make them, nor made may justly acquire them. Yet, should a plea be alleged for life's most gracious adornment, For contemplative art's last transcendental achievement, Grief's almighty solace, frolicking Mirth's Purification, 330 For Man's unparagon'd High-pōetess, inseparate Muse Companion, the belov'd most dearly among her sisters, Revivifīer of age, fairest instructor of all grace, His peacemaker alert with varied sympathy, whose speech Not to arede and love is wholly to miss the celestial Consolatries, the divine interpreting of physical life,-- Yoū wince? make exception? allow things musical? admit So many faked viols, penny trumpets, and amateurish Performers? Nay, nay! stand firm, for concession is vain. Music is outmeasurably a barefaced luxury, her plea 340 Will cover art, (--almost to atone art's vile imitations--); My Japanese paintings, my fair blue Cheney, Hellenic Statues and Caroline silver, my beautiful Aldines, Prized more highly because so few, so fondly familiar, Need no tongue to defend them against rude hands, that assail them Only because their name is RARITY; hands insensate, Rending away pitilessly the fair embroideries of life, That close-clust'ring man, his comfort pared to the outskirts Of[v]his discomfort, may share in meanness unenvied But what if I[v]unveil the figure that closely beside you 350 Half hides his Hell-charred skeleton with mysteries obscene, That foul one, that Moloch of all Utopias, ancient Poisoner & destroyer-elect of innumerous unborn? Know you the story of our hive-bees, the yellow honey-makers, Whose images from of old have haunted Pōetry, settling On the blossoms of man's dream-garden, as on the summer-flow'rs, Pictures of happy toil, sunny glances, gendering always Such sweet thoughts, as be by slumbrous music awaken'd? How all their outward happiness,--that fairy demeanour Of busy contentment, singing at their work,--is an inborn 360 Empty habit, the relics of a time when considerate joy Truly possest their tiny bodies; when golden abundance Was not a State-kept hoard; when feasts were plentiful indulg'd With wine well-fermented, or old-stored spicy metheglin: For they died not then miserably within the second moon Forgotten, unrespected of all; but slept many winters, Saw many springs, liv'd, lov'd like men, consciously rejoicing In Nature's promises, with like hopes and recollections. Intelligence had brought them Scīence, Genius enter'd; Seers and sages arose, great Bees, perfecting among them 370 Copious inventions, with man's art worthily compared. Then was a time when that, which haps not in ages of ages, Strangely befel: they stole from Nature's secresy one key, Found the hidden motive which works to varīety of kind; And thus came wondrously possest of pow'r to determine Their children's qualities, habitudes, yea their specialized form Masculine or feminine to produce, or asexual offspring Redow'rd and differenced with such alternative organs As they chose, to whate'er preferential function adapted, Wax-pocket or honey-bag, with an instinct rightly acordant. We know well the result, but not what causes effected 381 Their decision to prefer so blindly the race to the unit, As to renounce happiness for a problem, a vain abstraction; Making home and kingdom a vast egg-factory, wherein Food and life are stor'd up alike, and strictly proportion'd In loveless labour with mean anxīety. Wondrous Their reason'd motive, their altrūistic obedience Unto a self-impos'd life-sentence of prison or toil. Wonder wisely! then ask if these ingenious insects, (Who made Natur' against her will their activ' acomplice, And, methodizing anew her heartless system, averted 391 From their house the torrent of whelming natural increase,) Are blood-guiltless among their own-born prógeny: What skill Keeps their peace, or what price buys it? Alack! 'tis murder, Murder again. No worst Oriental despot, assuring 'Gainst birthright or faction or envy his ill-gotten empire, So decimates his kin, as do these rown-bodied egg-queens Surprise competitors, and stab their slumbering infants, Into the wax-cradles replunging their double-edged stings. Or what a deed of blood some high-day, when the summer[v]hath 400 Their clammy cells o'erbrim'd, and already ripening orchards And late flow'rs proclaim that starving winter approacheth, Nor will again any queen lead forth her swarm, dispeopling Their strawbuilt citadel; then watch how these busy workers Cease for awhile from toil; how crowding upon the devoted Drones they fall; those easy fellows gave some provocation; Yet 'tis a foul massacre, cold murder of unsuspecting Life-long companions; and done bloodthirstily:--is not Exercise of pow'r a delight? have yóu not a doctrine That calls duty pleasure? What an if they make merry, saying 'Lazy-livers, runagates, evil beasts, greedy devourers, 411 'Too happy and too long ye've liv'd, unashamed to have outliv'd 'Your breeders, feeders, warmers and toiling attendants; 'Had-ye ever been worthy a public good to accomplish, 'Each had nobly perish'd long-ago. Unneeded, obese ones, 'Impious encumbrance, whose hope of service is over, 'Who did not, now can not, assist the community, YE DIE!' My parable may serve. What wisdom man hath attain'd to Came to him of Nature's goodwill throu' tardy selection: Should her teaching accuse herself and her method impugn, I may share with her the reproach of approving as artist 421 Far other idēals than what seem needful in action. This difficulty besets our time. If you have an answer, Write me it, as you keep your salt in savour; or if toil Grant you an indulgence, here lies fair country, direct then Your Sabbath excursion westward, and spend a summer-day Preaching among the lilies what you[v]have preached to the chimneys.

PEACE ODE

ON CONCLUSION OF THE BOER WAR, JUNE 1902

Now joy in all hearts with happy auguries, And praise on all lips: for sunny June cometh Chasing the thick warcloud, that outspread Sulfurous and sullen over England.

Full thirty moons since unwilling enmity, Since daily suspense for hideous peril Of brethren unrescued, beleaguer'd Plague-stricken in cities unprovided,

Had quencht accustom'd gaiety, from the day When first the Dutchman's implacable folly, The country of Shakspeare def[=y]ing, Thought with a curse to appal the nation:

Whose threat to quell their kinsmen in Africa Anger'd awhile our easy democracy; That, reckless and patient of insult, Will not abide arrogant defīance:

They called to arms; and war began evilly. From slily forestor'd, well-hidden armouries, And early advantage, the despot Stood for a time prevalent against us:

Till from the coil of slow-gathering battle He rancorous, with full moneybags hurried, Peddling to European envy His traffic of pennyworthy slander.

For since the first keel launch'd upon Ocean Ne'er had before so mighty an armament O'errun the realm of dark Poseidon, So resolutely measur'd the waters,

As soon from our ports in diligent passage O'er half the round world plow'd hither & thither The pathless Atlantic, revengeful Soldiery pouring on Esperanza:

Nor shows the Argive story of Ilium, With tale of ancient auxiliar cities, So vast a roll of wide alliance As, rallying to the aid of England,

Came from the swarming counties accoutering, And misty highlands of Caledonia, With Cambria's half-Celtic offspring, And the ever-merry fighting Irish:

Came too the new world's hardy Canadians, And from remote Australia champions Like huntsmen, and from those twin islands Lying off antipodal beyond her,

Under the old flag sailing across the sea: For mighty is blood's empery, where honour And freedom ancestral have upbuilt Inheritance to a lovely glory.

Thee, France, love I, fair lawgiver and scholar: Thy lively grace, thy temper illustrious; And thee, in all wisdom Diviner, Germany, deep melodist immortal;

Nor less have envied soft Italy's spirit, In marble unveil'd and eloquent colour: But best love I England, wer' I not Born to her aery should envy also.

Wherefore to-day one gift above every gift Let us beseech, that God will accord to her Always a right judgement in all things; Ev'n to celestial excellencies;

And grant us in long peace to accumulate Joy, and to stablish friendliness and commerce, And barter in markets for unpriced Beauty, the pearl of unending empire.

_May, 1902._

EVENING

FROM WM. BLAKE[A]

Come, rosy angel, thy coronet donning Of starry j[=ew]els, smile upon ev'ry bed, And grant what each day-weary mortal, Labourer or lover, asketh of thee.

Smile thou on our loves, enveloping the land With dusky curtain: consider each blossom That timely upcloseth, that opens Her treasure of heavy-laden odours.

Now, while the west-wind slumbereth on the lake, Silently dost thou with delicate shimmer O'erbloom the frowning front of awful Night to a glance of unearthly silver.

No hungry wild beast rangeth in our forest, No tiger or wolf prowleth around the fold: Keep thou from our sheepcotes the tainting Invisible peril of the darkness.

POVRE AME AMOUREUSE

FROM LOUISE LABE, 1555

(_Sapphics_)

When to my lone soft bed at eve returning Sweet desir'd sleep already stealeth o'er me, My spirit flīeth to the fairy-land of her tyrannous love.

Him then I think fondly to kiss, to hold him Frankly then to my bosom; I that all day Have lookèd for[v]him suffering, repining, yea many long days.

O blessèd sleep, with flatteries beguile me; So,[v]if I ne'er may[v]of a surety have[v]him, Grant to my poor soul amorous the dark gift of this illusion.

THE FOURTH DIMENSION

(_Hendecasyllables_)

Truest-hearted of early friends, that Eton Long since gáve to me,--Ah! 'tis all a life-time,-- With my faithfully festive auspication Of Christmas merriment, this idle item.

Plato truly believ'd his archetypal Idēas to possess the fourth dimension: For since our solid is triple, but always Its shade only double, solids as _umbrae_ Must lack equally one dimension also. Could Plato[v]have avoided or denied it?

So Saint Paul, when in argument opposing To our earthly bodies bodies celestial, Meant just those pretty Greek aforesaid abstracts Of four Plātonical divine dimensions.

If this be not a holy consolation More than plumpudding and a turkey roasted, Whereto you but address a third dimension, Try it, pray, as a pill to aid digestion: I can't find anything better to send you.

JOHANNES MILTON, Senex

_Scazons_

Since I believe in God the Father Almighty, Man's Maker and Judge, Overruler of Fortune, 'Twere strange should I praise anything and refuse Him praise, Should love the creature forgetting the Crēator, Nor unto Him[v]in suff'ring and sorrow turn me: Nay how coud I withdraw me from[v]His embracing?

But since that I have seen not, and cannot know Him, Nor in my earthly temple apprehend rightly His wisdom and the heav'nly purpose ēternal; Therefore will I be bound to no studied system Nor argument, nor with delusion enslave me, Nor seek to pléase Him in any foolish invention, Which my spirit within me, that loveth beauty And hateth evil, hath reprov'd as unworthy:

But I cherish my freedom in loving service, Gratefully adoring for delight beyond asking Or thinking, and in hours of anguish and darkness Confiding always on[v]His excellent greatness.

PYTHAGORAS

_Seasons_

Thou vainly, O Man, self-deceiver, exaltest Thyself the king and only thinker of this world, Where life aboundeth infinite to destroy thee.

Well-guided are thy forces and govern'd bravely, But like a tyrant crūel or savage monster Thou disregardest ignorantly all bēing Save only thine own insubordinate ruling:

As if the flowër held not a happy pact with Spring; As if the brutes lack'd reason and sorrow's torment; Or ev'n divine love from the small atoms grew not, Their grave affection unto thy passion mingling.

* * *

An truly were it nobler and better wisdom To fear the blind thing blindly, lest it espy thee; And scrupulously do[v]honour to dumb creatures,

No one offending impiously, nor forcing To service of vile uses; ordering rather Thy slave to beauty, compelling lovingkindness.

So should desire, the only priestess of Nature Divinely inspir'd, like a good monarch rule thee, And lead thee onward in the consummate motion Of life eternal unto heav'nly perfection.

_Elegiacs_

AMIEL

Why, O Maker of all, madest thou man with affections Tender above thyself, scrupulous and passionate? Nay, if compassionate thou art, why, thou lover of men, Hidest thou thy face so pitilessly from us? If thou in priesthoods and altar-glory delitest, In torment and tears of trouble and suffering, Then wert thou displeas'd looking on soft human emotion, Thou must scorn the devout love of a sire to a son. 'Twas but vainly of old, Man, making Faith to approach thee, Held an imagin'd scheme of providence in honour; And, to redeem thy praise, judg'd himself cause, took upon him Humbly the impossible burden of all misery. Now casteth he away his books and logical idols Leaveth again his cell of terrified penitence; And that stony goddess, his first-born fancy, dethroning, Hath made after his own homelier art another; Made sweet Hope, the modest unportion'd daughter of anguish, Whose brimming eye sees but dimly what it looketh on; Dreaming a day when fully, without curse or horrible cross, Thou wilt deign to reveal her vision of happiness.

Ah, what a change! Thou, who didst emptily thy happiness seek In pleasure, art finding thy pleasure in happiness. Slave to the soul, whom thou heldest in slavery, art thou? Thou, that wert but a vain idol, adored a goddess?

WALKING HOME

FROM THE CHINESE

Thousand threads of rain and fine white wreathing of air-mist Hide from us earth's greenness, hide the enarching azure. Yet will a breath of Spring homeward convoying attend us, And the mellow flutings of passionate Philomel.

THE RUIN

FROM THE CHINESE

These grey stones have rung with mirth and lordly carousel; Here proud kings mingled pōetry and ruddy wine. All hath pass'd long ago; nought but this rūin abideth, Sadly in eyeless trance gazing upon the river. Wouldst thou know who here visiteth, dwelleth and singeth also, Ask the swallows fl[=y]ing from sunny-wall'd Italy.

REVENANTS

FROM THE FRENCH

At dead of unseen night ghosts of the departed assembling Flit to the graves, where each in body had burial. Ah, then rēvisiting my sad heart their desolate tomb Troop the desires and loves vainly buried long ago.

FROM THE GREEK

Mortal though I bé, yea ephemeral, if but a moment I gaze up to the night's starry domain of heaven, Then no longer on earth I stand; I touch the Creator, And my lively spirit drinketh immortality.

ANNIVERSARY

See, Love, a year is pass'd: in harvest our summer endeth: Praising thee the solemn festival I celebrate. Unto us all our days are love's anniversaries, each one In turn hath ripen'd something of our happiness. So, lest heart-contented adown life easily floating, We note not the passage while living in the delight, I have honour'd always the attentive vigil of Autumn, And thy day set apart holy to fair Memory.

COMMUNION OF SAINTS

FROM ANDRE CHENIER

What happy bonds together unite you, ye living and dead, Your fadeless love-bloom, your manifold memories.

EPITAPHS

Fight well, my comrades, and prove your bravery. Me too God call'd out, but crown'd early before the battle.

I died in very flow'r: yet call me not unhappy therefore, Ye that against sweet life once a lament have utter'd.

When thou, my belovèd, diedst, I saw heaven open, And all earthly delight inhabiting Paradise.

Where thou art better I too were, dearest, anywhere, than Wanting thy well-lov'd lovely presence anywhere.

IBANT OBSCURI

_A line for line paraphrase of a part of Virgil's Æneid, Bk. VI._

They wer' amid the shadows by night in loneliness obscure Walking forth i' the void and vasty dominyon of Ades; As by an uncertain moonray secretly illumin'd 270 One goeth in the forest, when heav'n is gloomily clouded, And black night hath robb'd the colours and beauty from all things. Here in Hell's very jaws, the threshold of darkening Orcus, Have the avenging Cares laid their sleepless habitation, Wailing Grief, pallid Infections, & heart-stricken Old-age, Dismal Fear, unholy Famine, with low-groveling Want, Forms of spectral horror, gaunt Toil and Death the devourer, And Death's drowsy brother, Torpor; with whom, an inane rout, 278 All the Pleasures of Sin; there also the Furies in ambusht Chamber of iron, afore whose bars wild War bloodyhanded Raged, and mad Discord high brandisht her venomous locks. Midway of all this tract, with secular arms an immense elm Reareth a crowd of branches, aneath whose leafy protection Vain dreams thickly nestle, clinging unto the foliage on high: And many strange creatures of monstrous form and features Stable about th' entrance, Centaur and Scylla's abortion, And hundred-handed Briareus, and Lerna the wildbeast Roaring amain, and clothed in frightful flame the Chimæra, Gorgons and Harpies, ['] and Pluto's three-bodied ogre. In terror Æneas upheld his sword to defend him, 290 With ready naked point confronting their dreaded onset: And had not the Sibyl warn'd how these lively spirits were All incorporeal, flitting in thin maskery of form, He had assail'd their host, and wounded vainly the void air. Hence is a road that led them a-down to the Tartarean streams, Where Acheron's whirlpool impetuous, into the reeky Deep of Cokytos disgorgeth, with muddy burden. These floods one ferryman serveth, most awful of aspect, Of squalor infernal, Chāron: all filthily unkempt That woolly white cheek-fleece, and fiery the blood-shotten eyeballs: 300 On one shoulder a cloak knotted-up his nudity vaunteth. He himself plieth oar or pole, manageth tiller and sheet, And the relics of mén in his ash-grey barge ferries over; Already old, but green to a god and hearty will age be. Now hitherward to the bank much folk were crowding, a medley Of men and matrons; nor did death's injury conceal Bravespirited heroes, young maidens beauteous unwed, And boys borne to the grave in sight of their sorrowing sires. Countless as in the forest, at a first white frosting of autumn Sere leaves fall to the ground; or like whenas over the ocean Myr[^ia]d birds come thickly flocking, when wintry December 311 Drives them afar southward for shelter upon sunnier shores, So throng'd they; and each his watery journey demanded, All to the further bank stretching-oút their arms impatient: But the sullen boatman took now one now other at will, While some from the river forbade he', an' drave to a distance. Æneas in wonder alike and deep pity then spake. 'Tell-me,' said he, 'my guide, why flock these crowds to the water? Or what seek the spirits? or by what prejudice are these Rudely denied, while those may upon the solemn river embark?' 320 T'whom[B] then briefly again the Avern[^ia]n priestess in answer. 'O Son of Anchises, heavn's true-born glorious offspring, Deep Cokytos it is thou s[^ee]st & Hell's Styg[^ia]n flood, Whose dread sanct[^io]n alone Jove's oath from falsehood assureth. These whom thou pitiedst, th' outcast and unburied are they; That ferryman Chāron; those whom his bark carries over Are the buried; nor ever may mortal across the livid lake Journey, or e'er upon Earth his bones lie peacefully entomb'd: Haunting a hundred years this mournful plain they wander Doom'd for a term, which term expired they win to deliv'rance.' 330 Then he that harken'd stood agaze, his journey arrested, Grieving at heart and much pitying their unmerited lot. There miserably fellow'd in death's indignity saw he Leucaspis with his old Lycian seachieften Orontes, Whom together from Troy in home-coming over the waters Wild weather o'ermaster'd, engulphing both shipping and men. And lo! his helmsman, Palinurus, in eager emotion, Who on th' Afric course, in bright star-light, with a fair wind, Fell by slumber opprest unheedfully into the wide sea: Whom i' the gloom when hardly he knew, now changed in affliction, 340 First he addrest. 'What God, tell-me O Palinurus, of all gods Plúckt you away and drown'd i' the swift wake-water abandon'd? For never erst nor in else hath kind responsive Apollo Led-me astray, but alone in this thing wholly deluded, When he aver'd that you, to remote Ausōnia steering, Safe would arrive. Where now his truth? Is this the promis'd faith?' But he, 'Neither again did Phœbus wrongly bespeak thee, My general, nor yet did a god in his enmity drown me: For the tiller, wherewith I led thy fleet's navigation, And still clung to, was in my struggling hold of it unshipt, 350 And came with-me' o'erboard. Ah! then, by ev'ry accurst sea, Tho' in utter despair, far less mine own peril awed me Than my thought o' the ship, what harm might háp to her, yawing In the billows helmless, with a high wind and threatening gale. Two nights and one day buffeted held I to the good spar Windborne, with the current far-drifting, an' on the second morn Saw, when a great wave raised me aloft, the Italyan highlands; And swimming-on with effort got ashore, nay already was saved, Had not there the wrecking savages, who spied-me defenceless, Scarce clinging outwearied to a rock, half-drowned & speechless, 360 Beát me to death for hope of an unfound booty upon me. Now to the wind and tidewash a sport my poor body rolleth. Wherefore thee, by heav'n's sweet light & airness, I pray, By thy Sire's memories, thy hope of youthful Iulus, Rescue-me from these ills, brave master; Go to Velija, O'er my mortality's spoil cast thou th' all-hallowing dust; Or better, if so be the goddess, heav'n's lady-Creatress, Show-thee the way,--nor surely without high favoring impulse Mak'st thou ventur' across these floods & black Ereban lake,-- Give thy hand-to-me', an' o'er their watery boundary bring me 370 Unto the haven of all, death's home of quiet abiding.' Thus-he lamented, anon spake sternly the maid of Avernus. 'Whence can such unruly desire, Palinurus, assail thee? Wilt thou th' Eumenidan waters visit unburied? o'erpass Hell's Stygian barrier? Chāron's boat unbidden enter? Cease to believe that fate can bé by prayër averted. Let my sooth a litel thy cruel destiny comfort Surely the people of all thy new-found country, determin'd By heav'n-sent omens will achieve thy purification, 379 Build thee a tomb of honour with yearly solemnity ordain'd, And dedicate for ever thy storied name to the headland.' These words lighten awhile his fear, his sadness allaying, Nor vain was the promise his name should eternally survive. They forthwith their journey renew, tending to the water: Whom when th' old boatman descried silently emerging Out o' the leafy shadows, advancing t'ward the river-shore, Angrily gave-he challenge, imperious in salutation. 'Whosoever thou be, that approachest my river all-arm'd, Stand to announce thyself, nor further make footing onward. Here 'tis a place of ghosts, of night & drowsy delusion: 390 Forbidden unto living mortals is my Stygian keel: Truly not Alkides embarkt I cheerfully, nor took Of Theseus or Pirithous glad custody, nay though God-sprung were they both, warriors invincible in might: Hé 'twas would sportively the guard of Tartarus enchain, Yea and from the palace with gay contumely dragged him: Théy to ravish Hell's Queen from Pluto's chamber attempted.' Then thus th' Amphrysian prophetess spake briefly in answer. 'No such doughty designs are ours, Cease thou to be movèd! Nor these sheeny weapons intend force. Cerberus unvext Surely for us may affray the spirits with 'howling eternal, 401 And chaste Persephone enjoy her queenly seclusion. Troian Æneas, bravest and gentlest-hearted, Hath left earth to behold his father in out-lying Ades. If the image ' of a so great virtue doth not affect thee, Yet this bough'--glittering she reveal'd its golden avouchment-- 'Thou mayst know.' Forthwith his bluster of heart was appeasèd: Nor word gave-he, but admiring the celestial omen, That bright sprigg of weird for so long period unseen, Quickly he-túrneth about his boat, to the margin approaching, 410 And the spirits, that along the gun'al benchways sat in order, Drave he ashore, offering readyroom: but when the vessel took Ponderous Æneas, her timbers crankily straining Creak'd, an' a brown water came trickling through the upper seams. Natheless both Sibyl ánd Hero, slow wafted across stream, Safe on th' ooze & slime's hideous desolation alighted. Hence the triple-throated bellowings of Cerberus invade All Hell, where opposite the arrival he lies in a vast den. But the Sibyl, who mark'd his necklaces of stiffening snakes, Cast him a cake, poppy-drench'd with drowsiness and honey-sweeten'd. 420 He, rabid and distending a-hungry' his triply-cavern'd jaws, Gulp'd the proffer'd morsel; when slow he-relaxt his immense bulk, And helplessly diffused fell out-sprawl'd over the whole cave. Æneas fled by, and left full boldly the streamway, That biddeth all men across but alloweth ne'er a returning. Already now i' the air were voices heard, lamentation, And shrilly crying of infant souls by th' entry of Ades. Babes, whom unportion'd of sweet life, unblossoming buds, One black day carried off and chokt in dusty corruption.-- Next are they who falsely accused were wrongfully condemn'd Unto the death: but here their lot by justice is order'd. 431 Inquisitor Minos, with his urn, summoning to assembly His silent council, their deed or slander arraigneth.-- Next the sullen-hearted, who rashly with else-innocent hand Their own life did-away, for hate or weariness of light, Imperiling their souls. How gladly, if only in Earth's air, Would-they again their toil, discomfort, and pities endure! Fate obstructs: deep sadness now, unloveliness awful Rings them about, & Styx with ninefold circle enarmeth.-- Not far hence they come to a land extensive on all sides; 440 Weeping Plain 'tis call'd:--such name such country deserveth. Here the lovers, whom fiery passion hath cruelly consumed, Hide in leafy alleys ' and pathways bow'ry, sequester'd By woodland myrtle, nor hath Death their sorrow ended. Here was Phædra to see, Procris ' and sad Eriphyle, She of her unfilial deathdoing wound not ashamèd, Evadne, ' and Pasiphae ' and Laodamia, And epicene Keneus, a woman to a man metamorphos'd, Now by Fate converted again to her old feminine form. 'Mong these shades, her wound yet smarting ruefully, Dido Wander'd throu' the forest-obscurity; and Æneas 451 Standing anigh knew surely the dim form, though i' the darkness Veil'd,--as when one seëth a young moon on the horizon, Or thinketh to' have seen i' the gloaming her delicate horn; Tearfully in oncelov'd accents he-lovingly addrest her. 'Unhappy! ah! too true 'twas told me' O unhappy Dido, Dead thou wert; to the fell extreme didst thy passion ensue. And was it I that slew-thee? Alas! Smile falsity, ye heav'ns! And Hell-fury attest-me', if here any sanctity reigneth, Unwilling, O my Queen, my step thy kingdom abandon'd. 460 Me the command of a god, who here my journey determines Through Ereban darkness, through fields sown with desolation, Drave-me to wrong my heart. Nay tho' deep-pain'd to desert thee I ne'er thought to provoke thy pain of mourning eternal. Stay yet awhile, ev'n here unlook'd-for again look upon me: Fly-me not ere the supreme words that Fate granteth us are said.' Thus he: but the spirit was raging, fiercely defiant, Whom he approach'd with words to appease, with tears for atonement. She to the ground downcast her ' eyes in fixity averted; Nor were her features more by his pleading affected, 470 Than wer' a face of flint, or of ensculptur'd alabaster. At length she started disdainful, an' angrily withdrew Into a shady thicket: where her grief kindly Sychæus Sooth'd with other memories, first love and virginal embrace. And ever Æneas, to remorse by deep pity soften'd, With brimming eyes pursued her queenly figure disappearing. Thence the Sibyl to the plain's extremest boundary led him, Where world-fam'd warriors, a lionlike company, haunted. Here great Tydeus saw he eclips'd, & here the benighted Phantom of Adrastus, ' of stalwart Parthenopæus. 480 Here long mourn'd upon earth went all that prowess of Ilium Fallen in arms; whom, when he-beheld them, so many and great, Much he-bewail'd. By Thersilochus his mighty brothers stood, Children of Antenor; here Demetr[^ia]n Polyphates, And Idæus, in old chariot-pose dreamily stalking. Right and left the spirits flocking on stood crowding around him; Nor their eyes have enough; they touch, find joy unwonted Marching in equal stép, and eager of his coming enquire. But th' Argive leaders, and they that obey'd Agamemnon When they saw that Trojan in arms come striding among them, 490 Old terror invaded their ranks: some fled stricken, as once They to the ships had fled for shelter; others the alarm raise, But their thin utterance mock'd vainly the lips wide parted. Here too Deiphobus he espied, his fair body mangled, Cruelly dismember'd, disfeatur'd cruelly his face, Face and hands; and lo! shorn closely from either temple, Gone wer' his ears, and maim'd each nostril in impious outrage. Barely he-knew him again cow'ring shamefastly' an' hiding His dire plight, & thus he 'his old companyon accosted. 'Noblest Deiphobus, great Teucer's intrepid offspring, 500 Who was it, inhuman, coveted so cruel a vengeance? Who can hav' adventur'd on thée? That last terrible night Thou wert said to hav' exceeded thy bravery, an' only On thy faln enemies wert faln by weariness o'ercome. Wherefor' upon the belov'd sea-shore thine empty sepulchral Mound I erected, aloud on thy ghost tearfully calling. Name and shield keep for-thee the place; but thy body, dear friend, Found I not, to commit to the land ere sadly' I left it.' Then the son of Priam ['] 'I thought not, friend, to reproach thee: Thou didst all to the full, ev'n my shade's service, accomplish. 510 'Twas that uninterdicted adultress from Lacedæmon Drave-me to doom, & planted in hell, her trophy triumphant. On that night,--how vain a security and merrymaking Then sullied us thou know'st, yea must too keenly remember,-- When the ill-omened horse o'erleapt Troy's lofty defences, Dragg'd in amidst our town pregnant with a burden of arm'd men. She then, her Phrygian women in feign'd phrenzy collecting, All with torches aflame, in wild Bacchic orgy paraded, Flaring a signal aloft to her ambusht confederate Greeks. I from a world of care had fled with weariful eyelids 520 Unto my unhappy chamber', an' lay fast lockt in oblivyon, Sunk to the depth of rest as a child that nought will awaken. Meanwhile that paragon helpmate had robb'd me of all arms, E'en from aneath the pillow my blade of trust purloining;-- Then to the gate; wide flíngs she it op'n an' calls Menelaus. Would not a so great service attach her faithful adorer? Might not it extinguish the repute of her earlier illdeeds? Brief-be the tale. Menelaus arrives: in company there came His crime-counsellor Æolides. So, and more also Déal-ye', O Gods, to the Greeks! an' if I call justly upon you.-- 530 But thou; what fortune hitherward, in turn prithy tell me, Sent-thee alive, whether erring upon the bewildering Ocean, Or high-prompted of heav'n, or by Fate wearily hunted, That to the sunless abodes and dusky demesnes thou approachest?' Ev'n as awhile they thus converse it is already mid-day Unperceiv'd, but aloft earth's star had turn'd to declining. And haply' Æneas his time in parley had outgone, Had not then the Sibyl with word of warning avized him. 'Night hieth, Æneas; in tears our journey delayeth. See our road, that it here in twain disparteth asunder; 540 This to the right, skirting by th' high city-fortresses of Dis, Endeth in Elysium, our path; but that to the leftward Only receives their feet who wend to eternal affliction.' Deiphobus then again, 'Speak not, great priestess, in anger; I will away to refill my number among th' unfortun'd. Thou, my champyon, adieu! Go where thy glory awaits thee!' When these words he 'had spok'n, he-turn'd and hastily was fled. Æneas then look'd where leftward, under a mountain, Outspread a wide city lay, threefold with fortresses engirt, Lickt by a Tartarean river of live fire, the torrent[^ia]l 550 Red Phlegethon, and huge boulders his roundy bubbles be: Right i' the front stareth the columnar gate adamantine, Such that no battering warfare of mén or immortals E'er might shake; blank-faced to the cloud its bastion upstands. Tisiphone thereby in a bloodspotty robe sitteth alway Night and day guarding sleeplessly the desperat entrance, Wherefrom an awestirring groan-cry and fierce clamour outburst, Sharp lashes, insane yells, dragg'd chains and clanking of iron. Æneas drew back, his heart by' his hearing affrighted: 'What manner of criminals, my guide, now tell-me,' he-question'd, 560 'Or what their penalties? what this great wail that ariseth?' Answering him the divine priestess, 'Brave hero of Il[îû]m, O'er that guilty threshold no breath of purity may come: But Hecate, who gave-me to rule i' the groves of Avernus, Herself led me around, & taught heav'n's high retribution. Here Cretan Rhadamanthus in unblest empery reigneth, Secret crime to punish,--full surely he-wringeth avowal Even of all that on earth, by vain impunity harden'd, Men sinning have put away from thought till[v]impenitent death. On those convicted tremblers then leapeth avenging 570 Tisiphone with keen flesh-whips and vipery scourges, And of her implacable sisters inviteth attendance.' --Now sudden on screeching hinges that portal accursèd Flung wide its barriers.--'In what dire custody, mark thou, Is the threshold! guarded by how grim sentry the doorway! More terrible than they the ravin'd insatiable Hydra That sitteth angry within. Know too that Tartarus itself Dives sheer gaping aneath in gloomy profundity downward Twice that height that a man looketh-up t'ward airy Olympus. Lowest there those children of Earth, Titanian elders, 580 In the abyss, where once they fell hurl'd, yet wallowing lie. There the Alöīdæ saw I, th' ungainly rebel twins Primæval, that assay'd to devastate th' Empyræan With huge hands, and rob from Jove his kingdom immortal. And there Salmoneus I saw, rend'ring heavy payment, For that he idly' had mockt heav'n's fire and thunder electric; With chariot many-yoked and torches brandishing on high Driving among 'his Graian folk in Olympian Elis; Exultant as a God he rode in blasphemy worshipt. 589 Fool, who th' unreckoning tempest and deadly dreaded bolt Thought to mimic with brass and confus'd trample of horses! But 'him th' Omnipotent, from amidst his cloudy pavilyon, Blasted, an' eke his rattling car and smoky pretences Extinguish'd at a stroke, scattering ' his dust to the whirlwind. There too huge Tityos, whom Earth that gendereth all things Once foster'd, spreadeth-out o'er nine full roods his immense limbs. On him a wild vulture with hook-beak greedily gorgeth His liver upsprouting quick as that Hell-chicken eateth. Shé diggeth and dwelleth under the vast ribs, her bloody bare neck Lifting anon: ne'er loathes-she the food, ne'er fails the renewal. 600 Where wer' an end their names to relate, their crimes and torments? Some o'er whom a hanging black rock, slipping at very point of Falling, ever threateneth: Couches luxurious invite Softly-cushion'd to repose: Tables for banqueting outlaid Tempt them ever-famishing: hard by them a Fury regardeth, And should théy but a hand uplift, trembling to the dainties, She with live firebrand and direful yell springeth on them. Their crimes,--not to' hav lov'd a brother while love was allow'd them; Or to' hav struck their father, or inveigled a dependant; 609 Or who chancing alone on wealth prey'd lustfully thereon, Nor made share with others, no greater company than they: Some for adultery slain; some their bright swords had offended Drawn i' the wrong: or a master's trust with perfidy had met: Dungeon'd their penalties they await. Look not to be answer'd What that doom, nor th' end of these men think to determine. Sóme aye roll heavy rocks, some whirl dizzy on the revolving Spokes of a pendant wheel: sitteth and to eternity shall sit Unfortun'd Theseus; while sad Phlegias saddeneth hell With vain oyez to' all loud crying a tardy repentance, "Walk, O man, i' the fear of Gód, and learn to be righteous!" Here another, who sold for gold his country, promoting 621 Her tyrant; or annull'd for a base bribe th' inviolate law. This one had unfather'd his blood with bestial incest: All some fearful crime had dared & vaunted achievement. What mind could harbour the offence of such recollection, Or lend welcoming ear to the tale of iniquity and shame, And to the pains wherewith such deeds are justly requited? Ev'n when thus she' had spok'n, the priestess dear to Apollo, 'But, ready, come let us ón, perform-we the order appointed! Hast'n-we (saith-she), the wall forged on Cyclopian anvils Now I see, an' th' archway in Ætna's furnace attemper'd, 631 Where my lore biddeth us to depose our high-privileg'd gift.' Then together they trace i' the drooping dimness a footpath, Whereby, faring across, they arrive at th' arches of iron. Æneas stept into the porch, and duly besprinkling His body with clear water affixt his bough to the lintel; And, having all perform'd at length with ritual exact, They came out on a lovely pleasance, that dream'd-of oasis, Fortunate isle, the abode o' the blest, their fair Happy Woodland. Here is an ampler sky, those meads ar' azur'd by a gentler Sun than th' Earth, an' a new starworld their darkness adorneth. 641 Some were matching afoot their speed on a grassy arena, In playful combat some wrestling upon the yellow sand, Part in a dance-rhythm or poetry's fine phantasy engage; While full-toga'd anear their high-priest musical Orpheus Bade his prime sev'n tones in varied harmony discourse, Now with finger, anon sounding with an ivory plectrum. And here Æneas met Teucer's fortunate offspring, High-spirited heroes, fair-favor'd sons o' the morning, Assarac and Ilos ' and Dardan founder of Il[^iu]m: 650 Their radiant chariots he' espied rank't empty afar off, Their spears planted afield, their horses wandering at large, Grazing around:--as on earth their joy had been, whether armour Or chariot had charmed them, or if 'twer' good manage and care Of the gallant warhorse, the delight liv'd here unabated; Lo! then others, that about the meadow sat feasting in idless, And chanting for joy a familyar pæan of old earth, By fragrant laurel o'ercanopied, where 'twixt enamel'd banks Bountiful Eridanus glides throu' their bosky retirement. Here were men who bled for honour, their country defending; 660 Priests, whose lives wer' a flame of chastity on God's altar; Holy poets, content to await their crown of Apollo; Discoverers, whose labour had aided life or ennobled; Or who fair memories had left though kindly deserving. On their brow a fillet pearl-white distinguisheth all these: Whom the Sibyl, for they drew round, in question accosted, And most Musæus, who tower'd noble among them, Center of all that sea of bright faces looking upward. 'Tell, happy souls, and thou poet and high mystic illustrious, Where dwelleth Anchises? what home hath he? for 'tis in his quest 670 We hither have made journey across Hell's watery marches.' Thertó with brief parley rejoin'd that mystic of old-time. 'In no certain abode we-remain: by turn the forest glade Haunt-we, lilied stream-bank, sunny mead; and o'er valley and rock At will rove-we: but if ye aright your purpose arede me, Mount-ye the hill: myself will prove how easy the pathway.' Speaking he léd: and come to the upland, sheweth a fair plain Gleaming aneath; and they, with grateful adieu, the descent made. Now Lord Anchises was down i' the green valley musing, Where the spirits confin'd that await mortal resurrection 680 While diligently he-mark'd, his thought had turn'd to his own kin, Whose numbers he-reckon'd, an' of all their progeny foretold Their fate and fortune, their ripen'd temper an' action. He then, when he' espied Æneas t'ward him approaching O'er the meadow, both hands uprais'd and ran to receive him, Tears in his eyes, while thus his voice in high passion outbrake. 'Ah, thou'rt come, thou'rt come! at length thy dearly belov'd grace Conquering all hath won-thee the way. 'Tis allow'd to behold thee, O my son,--yea again the familyar raptur' of our speech. Nay, I look't for 't thus, counting patiently the moments, 690 And ever expected; nor did fond fancy betray me. From what lands, my son, from what life-dangering ocean Art-thou arrived? full mighty perils thy path hav' opposèd: And how nearly the dark Libyan thy destiny o'erthrew!' Then 'he, 'Thy spirit, O my sire, 'twas thy spirit often Sadly appearing aroused-me to seek thy fair habitation. My fleet moors i' the blue Tyrrhene: all with-me goeth well. Grant-me to touch thy hand as of old, and thy body embrace.' Speaking, awhile in tears his feeling mutinied, and when For the longing contact of mortal affection, he out-held 700 His strong arms, the figure sustain'd them not: 'twas as empty E'en as a windworn cloud, or a phantom of irrelevant sleep. On the level bosom of this vale more thickly the tall trees Grow, an' aneath quivering poplars and whispering alders Lethe's dreamy river throu' peaceful scenery windeth. Whereby now flitted in vast swarms many people of all lands, As when in early summer 'honey-bees on a flowery pasture Pill the blossoms, hurrying to' an' fro,--innumerous are they, Revisiting the ravish'd lily cups, while all the meadow hums. Æneas was turn'd to the sight, and marvelling inquired, 710 'Say, sir, what the river that there i' the vale-bottom I see? And who they that thickly along its bank have assembled?' Then Lord Anchises, 'The spirits for whom a second life And body are destined ar' arriving thirsty to Lethe, And here drink th' unmindful draught from wells of oblivyon. My heart greatly desired of this very thing to acquaint thee, Yea, and show-thee the men to-be-born, our glory her'after, So to gladden thine heart where now thy voyaging endeth.' 'Must it then be-believ'd, my sire, that a soul which attaineth Elysium will again submit to her old body-burden? 720 Is this well? what hap can awake such dire longing in them?' 'I will tell thee', O son, nor keep thy wonder awaiting,' Answereth Anchises, and all expoundeth in order. Know first that the heavens, and th' Earth, and space fluid or void, Night's pallid orb, day's Sun, and all his starry coævals, Are by one spirit inly quickened, and, mingling in each part, Mind informs the matter, nature's complexity ruling. Thence the living creatures, man, brute, and ev'ry feather'd fowl, And what breedeth in Ocean aneath her surface of argent: Their seed knoweth a fiery vigour, 'tis of airy divine birth, 730 In so far as unimpeded by an alien evil, Nor dull'd by the body's framework condemn'd to corruption. Hence the desires and vain tremblings that assail them, unable Darkly prison'd to arise to celestial exaltation; Nor when death summoneth them anon earth-life to relinquish, Can they in all discard their stain, nor wholly away with Mortality's plaguespots. It must-be that, O, many wild graffs Deeply at 'heart engrain'd have rooted strangely upon them: Wherefore must suffering purge them, yea, Justice atone them With penalties heavy as their guilt: some purify exposed 740 Hung to the viewless winds, or others long watery searchings Low i' the deep wash clean, some bathe in f[^ie]ry renewal: Each cometh unto his own retribution,--if after in ample Elysium we attain, but a few, to the fair Happy Woodland, Yet slow time still worketh on us to remove the defilement, Till it hath eaten away the acquir'd dross, leaving again free That first f[^ie]ry vigour, the celest[^ia]l virtue of our life. All whom here thou s[^ee]st, hav' accomplished purification: Unto the stream of Lethe a god their company calleth, That forgetful of old failure, pain & disappointment, 750 They may again into' earthly bodies with glad courage enter.'

* * *

Twín be the gates o' the house of sleep: as fable opineth 893 One is of horn, and thence for a true dream outlet is easy: Fair the other, shining perfected of ivory carven; But false are the visions that thereby find passage upward. Soon then as Anchises had spok'n, he-led the Sibyl forth And his son, and both dismisst from th' ivory portal.

FINIS

INDEX

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

PAGE

A cottage built of native stone, 354

A coy inquisitive spirit, 27

After long sleep when Psyche first awoke, 105

Again with pleasant green, 252

Ah heavenly joy, 219

Ah, what a change, 445

All earthly beauty hath one cause, 204

All women born, 241

A man that sees by chance, 206

Among the meadows, 372

And truly need there was, 113

An effigy of brass, 349

Angel spirits of sleep, 291

An idle June day, 206

A poppy grows upon the shore, 234

Ariel, O,--my angel, my own, 299

A single lamp there stood, 161

A song of my heart, 311

Assemble, all ye maidens, 238

At dead of unseen night, 446

A thousand times hath in my heart's behoof, 201

At times with hurried hoofs, 205

Awake, my heart, to be loved, 277

Away now, lovely Muse, 221

A winter's night with the snow about, 272

Beautiful must be the mountains, 311

Beauty sat with me, 215

Because thou canst not see, 268

Behold! the radiant Spring, 255

Belov'd of all to whom that Muse is dear, 377

Beneath the wattled bank, 330

Betwixt two billows of the downs, 301

Bright day succeedeth unto day, 61

Bright, my beloved, be thy day, 363

But Aphrodite to the house of Zeus, 153

But Eros now recover'd from his hurt, 169

But fairest Psyche still in favour rose, 97

Christ and his Mother, 313

Clear and gentle stream, 225

Close up, bright flow'rs, 71

Cold is the winter day, 308

Come gentle sleep, I woo thee, 211

Come, rosy angel, thy coronet donning, 441

Crown Winter with green, 297

Dear lady, when thou frownest, 232

Dreary was winter, 220

Ended are many days, 367

Eternal Father, who didst all create, 221

Fair lady of learning, 390

Fight well, my comrades, 447

Fire of heaven, whose starry arrow, 290

Flame-throated robin, 309

For beauty being the best of all we know, 191

For thou art mine, 188

Gay and lovely is earth, 53

Gay Marigold is frolic, 371

Gay Robin is seen no more, 285

Gird on thy sword, O man, 407

Gloom and the night are thine, 403

Hark! the world is full of thy praise, 364

Hark to the merry birds, 283

Hark! what spirit doth entreat, 405

Haste on, my joys, 269

Heavy meanwhile at heart, 145

His poisoned shafts, 240

How coud I quarrel or blame you, 193

How fares it, friend, since I, 378

How well my eyes remember, 332

I care not if I live, 203

I climb the mossy bank, 338

I died in very flow'r, 448

If I coud but forget and not recall, 207

I found to-day out walking, 233

I have loved flowers that fade, 263

I have sown upon the fields, 351

I heard a linnet courting, 231

I heard great Hector, 213

I know not how I came, 246

I live on hope, 218

I love all beauteous things, 281

I love my lady's eyes, 278

I made another song, 237

In all things beautiful, 202

In autumn moonlight, 215

I never shall love the snow again, 309

In midmost length of hundred-citied Crete, 89

In still midsummer night, 375

In the golden glade, 317

In thee my spring of life, 190

In this May-month, 307

In this neglected, ruin'd edifice, 209

In ways of beauty and peace, 404

I praise the tender flower, 272

I saw the Virgin-mother, 245

I stand on the cliff, 266

I travel to thee with the sun's first rays, 201

I will be what God made me, 218

I will not let thee go, 232

I wish'd to sing thy grace, 347

I would be a bird, 198

_Je donnerais pour revivre à vingt ans_, 379

Joy, sweetest lifeborn joy, 275

Let praise devote thy work, 300

Let us, as by this verdant bank, 250

Long are the hours the sun is above, 235

Look down the river, 327

Look! Look! the spring is come, 318

Love not too much, 302

Love on my heart from heaven fell, 287

Love that I know, 217

Love to Love calleth, 397

Lo where the virgin veiled in airy beams, 71

Man, born of desire, 399

Man, born to toil, 404

Man hath with man, 323

Mortal though I be, yea ephemeral, 447

My bed and pillow are cold, 273

My delight and thy delight, 339

My eyes for beauty pine, 286

My lady pleases me and I please her, 202

Myriad-voiced Queen, 394

My soul is drunk with joy, 46

My spirit kisseth thine, 298

My spirit sang all day, 281

My wearied heart, 220

No ethical system, no contemplation, 425

Nothing is joy without thee, 199

Now all the windows, 340

Now in wintry delights, 411

Now joy in all hearts, 439

Now since to me altho' by thee refused, 193

Now thin mists temper, 304

O bold majestic downs, 251

O flesh and blood, comrade to tragic pain, 197

O golden Sun, whose ray, 261

O heavenly fire, life's life, 40

O Love, I complain, 335

O Love, my muse, 286

O miserable man, 37

_O my goddess divine_, 204

O my life's mischief, 205

O my uncared-for songs, 212

O my vague desires, 46, 264

Once I would say, 210

One grief of thine, 375

On the Hellenic board of Crete's fair isle, 137

Open for me the gates of delight, 401

O that the earth, or only this fair isle, 72

O thou unfaithful, 273

O weary pilgrims, 198

O youth whose hope is high, 280

Perfect little body, 267

Poor withered rose, 228

Power eternal, power unknown, 403

Rejoice, ye dead, 196, 401

Resound! Resound! To jubilant music ring, 393

Riding adown the country lanes, 342

Sad, sombre place, 258

Say who be these, 195

Say who is this with silvered hair, 296

See, Love, a year is pass'd, 447

See, whirling snow, 306

Sense with keenest edge unused, 343

Since I believe in God, 443

Since not the enamour'd sun, 214

Since now from woodland mist, 377

Since then 'tis only pity looking back, 210

Since thou, O fondest and truest, 279

Since to be loved endures, 303

Since we loved, 346

Sometimes when my lady sits by me, 234

So sweet love seemed, 305

Spirit of grace and beauty, 350

Spring goeth all in white, 286

Spring hath her own bright days, 199

Sweet compassionate tears, 406

Tears of love, tears of joy, 207

The birds that sing on autumn eves, 293

The cliff-top has a carpet, 229

The clouds have left the sky, 283

The dark and serious angel, 217

The day begins to droop, 345

Thee fair Poetry oft hath sought, 395

The evening darkens over, 279

The fabled sea-snake, old Leviathan, 200

The full moon from her cloudless skies, 277

The green corn waving in the dale, 288

The hill pines were sighing, 288

The idle life I lead, 290

The image of thy love, 209

The lonely season in lonely lands, 314

The north wind came up, 315

The pinks along my garden walks, 289

The poets were good teachers, 189

There is a hill, 248

There's many a would-be poet, 192

There was no lad handsomer, 319

The saddest place, 355

The sea keeps not the Sabbath day, 341

The sea with melancholy war, 396

These grey stones have rung with mirth, 446

These meagre rhymes, 214

The sickness of desire, 376

The snow lies sprinkled on the beach, 298

The south wind rose at dusk, 336

The spirit's eager sense, 211

The storm is over, 294

The summer trees are tempest-torn, 292

The upper skies are palest blue, 282

The very names of things belov'd, 189

The whole world now is but the minister, 188

The wood is bare, 227

The work is done, 200

The world comes not to an end, 212

The world still goeth about to shew and hide, 197

They that in play can do the thing they would, 187

They wer' amid the shadows, 448

This world is unto God a work of art, 195

Thou art a poet, Robbie Burns, 385

Thou didst delight my eyes, 274

Thou dimpled Millicent, 374

Thousand threads of rain, 446

Thou vainly, O Man, self-deceiver, 444

Thus to be humbled, 203

Thus to thy beauty, 191

To me, to me, fair hearted Goddess, come, 398

To my love I whisper, 339

To us, O Queen of sinless grace, 402

Truest-hearted of early friends, 442

Turn, O return, 395

'Twas on the very day winter took leave, 216

Voyaging northwards, 359

Wanton with long delay, 284

Weep not to-day, 320

We left the city when the summer day, 270

What happy bonds together unite you, 447

What is sweeter than new-mown hay, 292

'What think you, sister', 121

What voice of gladness, 306

When Death to either shall come, 347

When first I saw thee, dearest, 216

When first we met, 241

When from the lowest ebbing, 129

When I see childhood, 208

When June is come, 289

When men were all asleep, 265

When my love was away, 294

When parch'd with thirst, 208

When sometimes in an ancient house, 194

When thou didst give thy love to me, 374

When thou, my beloved, diedst, 448

When to my lone soft bed, 442

Wherefore to-night so full of care, 260

Where San Miniato's convent, 196

Where thou art better I too were, 448

While Eros in his chamber hid his tears, 177

While yet we wait for spring, 190

Whither, O splendid ship, 244

Who builds a ship, 194

Who has not walked upon the shore, 236

Who takes the census of the living dead, 213

Why art thou sad, 347

Why hast thou nothing, 348

Why, O Maker of all, 445

Will Love again awake, 242

Winter was not unkind, 192

With mild eyes agaze, 389

Ye blessed saints, 219

Ye Spartan mothers, 371

Ye thrilled me once, 296

FOOTNOTES:

[A] There is another alcaic translation from Blake on p. 71 in 'Demeter'. The Ode on p. 72 is iambic, and the Chorus on pp. 53, 54 is in choriambics.

[B] Line 321. 'T'whom' is from Milton, in imitation of Virgil's admired Olli. It is not admitted in the ordinary prosody.