Chapter 3

I. SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY.

Well dost thou, Love, thy solemn Feast to hold In vestal February; Not rather choosing out some rosy day From the rich coronet of the coming May, When all things meet to marry! O, quick, praevernal Power That signall'st punctual through the sleepy mould The Snowdrop's time to flower, Fair as the rash oath of virginity Which is first-love's first cry; O, Baby Spring, That flutter'st sudden 'neath the breast of Earth A month before the birth; Whence is the peaceful poignancy, The joy contrite, Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight, That burthens now the breath of everything, Though each one sighs as if to each alone The cherish'd pang were known? At dusk of dawn, on his dark spray apart, With it the Blackbird breaks the young Day's heart; In evening's hush About it talks the heavenly-minded Thrush; The hill with like remorse Smiles to the Sun's smile in his westering course; The fisher's drooping skiff In yonder sheltering bay; The choughs that call about the shining cliff; The children, noisy in the setting ray; Own the sweet season, each thing as it may; Thoughts of strange kindness and forgotten peace In me increase; And tears arise Within my happy, happy Mistress' eyes, And, lo, her lips, averted from my kiss, Ask from Love's bounty, ah, much more than bliss! Is't the sequester'd and exceeding sweet Of dear Desire electing his defeat? Is't the waked Earth now to yon purpling cope Uttering first-love's first cry, Vainly renouncing, with a Seraph's sigh, Love's natural hope? Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom'd to perjury! Behold, all-amorous May, With roses heap'd upon her laughing brows, Avoids thee of thy vows! Were it for thee, with her warm bosom near, To abide the sharpness of the Seraph's sphere? Forget thy foolish words; Go to her summons gay, Thy heart with dead, wing'd Innocencies fill'd, Ev'n as a nest with birds After the old ones by the hawk are kill'd. Well dost thou, Love, to celebrate The noon of thy soft ecstasy, Or e'er it be too late, Or e'er the Snowdrop die!

II. WIND AND WAVE.

The wedded light and heat, Winnowing the witless space, Without a let, What are they till they beat Against the sleepy sod, and there beget Perchance the violet! Is the One found, Amongst a wilderness of as happy grace, To make Heaven's bound; So that in Her All which it hath of sensitively good Is sought and understood After the narrow mode the mighty Heavens prefer? She, as a little breeze Following still Night, Ripples the spirit's cold, deep seas Into delight; But, in a while, The immeasurable smile Is broke by fresher airs to flashes blent With darkling discontent; And all the subtle zephyr hurries gay, And all the heaving ocean heaves one way, 'Tward the void sky-line and an unguess'd weal; Until the vanward billows feel The agitating shallows, and divine the goal, And to foam roll, And spread and stray And traverse wildly, like delighted hands, The fair and feckless sands; And so the whole Unfathomable and immense Triumphing tide comes at the last to reach And burst in wind-kiss'd splendours on the deaf'ning beach, Where forms of children in first innocence Laugh and fling pebbles on the rainbow'd crest Of its untired unrest.

III. WINTER.

I, singularly moved To love the lovely that are not beloved, Of all the Seasons, most Love Winter, and to trace The sense of the Trophonian pallor on her face. It is not death, but plenitude of peace; And the dim cloud that does the world enfold Hath less the characters of dark and cold Than warmth and light asleep, And correspondent breathing seems to keep With the infant harvest, breathing soft below Its eider coverlet of snow. Nor is in field or garden anything But, duly look'd into, contains serene The substance of things hoped for, in the Spring, And evidence of Summer not yet seen. On every chance-mild day That visits the moist shaw, The honeysuckle, 'sdaining to be crost In urgence of sweet life by sleet or frost, 'Voids the time's law With still increase Of leaflet new, and little, wandering spray; Often, in sheltering brakes, As one from rest disturb'd in the first hour, Primrose or violet bewilder'd wakes, And deems 'tis time to flower; Though not a whisper of her voice he hear, The buried bulb does know The signals of the year, And hails far Summer with his lifted spear. The gorse-field dark, by sudden, gold caprice, Turns, here and there, into a Jason's fleece; Lilies, that soon in Autumn slipp'd their gowns of green, And vanish'd into earth, And came again, ere Autumn died, to birth, Stand full-array'd, amidst the wavering shower, And perfect for the Summer, less the flower; In nook of pale or crevice of crude bark, Thou canst not miss, If close thou spy, to mark The ghostly chrysalis, That, if thou touch it, stirs in its dream dark; And the flush'd Robin, in the evenings hoar, Does of Love's Day, as if he saw it, sing; But sweeter yet than dream or song of Summer or Spring Are Winter's sometime smiles, that seem to well From infancy ineffable; Her wandering, languorous gaze, So unfamiliar, so without amaze, On the elemental, chill adversity, The uncomprehended rudeness; and her sigh And solemn, gathering tear, And look of exile from some great repose, the sphere Of ether, moved by ether only, or By something still more tranquil.

IV. BEATA.

Of infinite Heaven the rays, Piercing some eyelet in our cavern black, Ended their viewless track On thee to smite Solely, as on a diamond stalactite, And in mid-darkness lit a rainbow's blaze, Wherein the absolute Reason, Power, and Love, That erst could move Mainly in me but toil and weariness, Renounced their deadening might, Renounced their undistinguishable stress Of withering white, And did with gladdest hues my spirit caress, Nothing of Heaven in thee showing infinite, Save the delight.

V. THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW.

Perchance she droops within the hollow gulf Which the great wave of coming pleasure draws, Not guessing the glad cause! Ye Clouds that on your endless journey go, Ye Winds that westward flow, Thou heaving Sea That heav'st 'twixt her and me, Tell her I come; Then only sigh your pleasure, and be dumb; For the sweet secret of our either self We know. Tell her I come, And let her heart be still'd. One day's controlled hope, and then one more, And on the third our lives shall be fulfill'd! Yet all has been before: Palm placed in palm, twin smiles, and words astray. What other should we say? But shall I not, with ne'er a sign, perceive, Whilst her sweet hands I hold, The myriad threads and meshes manifold Which Love shall round her weave: The pulse in that vein making alien pause And varying beats from this; Down each long finger felt, a differing strand Of silvery welcome bland; And in her breezy palm And silken wrist, Beneath the touch of my like numerous bliss Complexly kiss'd, A diverse and distinguishable calm? What should we say! It all has been before; And yet our lives shall now be first fulfill'd, And into their summ'd sweetness fall distill'd One sweet drop more; One sweet drop more, in absolute increase Of unrelapsing peace. O, heaving Sea, That heav'st as if for bliss of her and me, And separatest not dear heart from heart, Though each 'gainst other beats too far apart, For yet awhile Let it not seem that I behold her smile. O, weary Love, O, folded to her breast, Love in each moment years and years of rest, Be calm, as being not. Ye oceans of intolerable delight, The blazing photosphere of central Night, Be ye forgot. Terror, thou swarthy Groom of Bride-bliss coy, Let me not see thee toy. O, Death, too tardy with thy hope intense Of kisses close beyond conceit of sense; O, Life, too liberal, while to take her hand Is more of hope than heart can understand; Perturb my golden patience not with joy, Nor, through a wish, profane The peace that should pertain To him who does by her attraction move. Has all not been before? One day's controlled hope, and one again, And then the third, and ye shall have the rein, O Life, Death, Terror, Love! But soon let your unrestful rapture cease, Ye flaming Ethers thin, Condensing till the abiding sweetness win One sweet drop more; One sweet drop more in the measureless increase Of honied peace.

VI. TRISTITIA.

Darling, with hearts conjoin'd in such a peace That Hope, so not to cease, Must still gaze back, And count, along our love's most happy track, The landmarks of like inconceiv'd increase, Promise me this: If thou alone should'st win God's perfect bliss, And I, beguiled by gracious-seeming sin, Say, loving too much thee, Love's last goal miss, And any vows may then have memory, Never, by grief for what I bear or lack, To mar thy joyance of heav'n's jubilee. Promise me this; For else I should be hurl'd, Beyond just doom And by thy deed, to Death's interior gloom, From the mild borders of the banish'd world Wherein they dwell Who builded not unalterable fate On pride, fraud, envy, cruel lust, or hate; Yet loved too laxly sweetness and heart's ease, And strove the creature more than God to please. For such as these Loss without measure, sadness without end! Yet not for this do thou disheaven'd be With thinking upon me. Though black, when scann'd from heaven's surpassing bright, This might mean light, Foil'd with the dim days of mortality. For God is everywhere. Go down to deepest Hell, and He is there, And, as a true but quite estranged Friend, He works, 'gainst gnashing teeth of devilish ire, With love deep hidden lest it be blasphemed, If possible, to blend Ease with the pangs of its inveterate fire; Yea, in the worst And from His Face most wilfully accurst Of souls in vain redeem'd, He does with potions of oblivion kill Remorse of the lost Love that helps them still. Apart from these, Near the sky-borders of that banish'd world, Wander pale spirits among willow'd leas, Lost beyond measure, sadden'd without end, But since, while erring most, retaining yet Some ineffectual fervour of regret, Retaining still such weal As spurned Lovers feel, Preferring far to all the world's delight Their loss so infinite, Or Poets, when they mark In the clouds dun A loitering flush of the long sunken sun, And turn away with tears into the dark. Know, Dear, these are not mine But Wisdom's words, confirmed by divine Doctors and Saints, though fitly seldom heard Save in their own prepense-occulted word, Lest fools be fool'd the further by false hope, And wrest sweet knowledge to their own decline; And (to approve I speak within my scope) The Mistress of that dateless exile gray Is named in surpliced Schools Tristitia. But, O, my Darling, look in thy heart and see How unto me, Secured of my prime care, thy happy state, In the most unclean cell Of sordid Hell, And worried by the most ingenious hate, It never could be anything but well, Nor from my soul, full of thy sanctity, Such pleasure die As the poor harlot's, in whose body stirs The innocent life that is and is not hers: Unless, alas, this fount of my relief By thy unheavenly grief Were closed. So, with a consecrating kiss And hearts made one in past all previous peace, And on one hope reposed, Promise me this!

VII. THE AZALEA.

There, where the sun shines first Against our room, She train'd the gold Azalea, whose perfume She, Spring-like, from her breathing grace dispersed. Last night the delicate crests of saffron bloom, For this their dainty likeness watch'd and nurst, Were just at point to burst. At dawn I dream'd, O God, that she was dead, And groan'd aloud upon my wretched bed, And waked, ah, God, and did not waken her, But lay, with eyes still closed, Perfectly bless'd in the delicious sphere By which I knew so well that she was near, My heart to speechless thankfulness composed. Till 'gan to stir A dizzy somewhat in my troubled head-- It was the azalea's breath, and she was dead! The warm night had the lingering buds disclosed, And I had fall'n asleep with to my breast A chance-found letter press'd In which she said, 'So, till to-morrow eve, my Own, adieu! Parting's well-paid with soon again to meet, Soon in your arms to feel so small and sweet, Sweet to myself that am so sweet to you!'

VIII. DEPARTURE.

It was not like your great and gracious ways! Do you, that have nought other to lament, Never, my Love, repent Of how, that July afternoon, You went, With sudden, unintelligible phrase, And frighten'd eye, Upon your journey of so many days, Without a single kiss, or a good-bye? I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon; And so we sate, within the low sun's rays, You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, Your harrowing praise. Well, it was well, To hear you such things speak, And I could tell What made your eyes a growing gloom of love, As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove. And it was like your great and gracious ways To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash To let the laughter flash, Whilst I drew near, Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. But all at once to leave me at the last, More at the wonder than the loss aghast, With huddled, unintelligible phrase, And frighten'd eye, And go your journey of all days With not one kiss, or a good-bye, And the only loveless look the look with which you pass'd: 'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.

IX. EURYDICE.

Is this the portent of the day nigh past, And of a restless grave O'er which the eternal sadness gathers fast; Or but the heaped wave Of some chance, wandering tide, Such as that world of awe Whose circuit, listening to a foreign law, Conjunctures ours at unguess'd dates and wide, Does in the Spirit's tremulous ocean draw, To pass unfateful on, and so subside? Thee, whom ev'n more than Heaven loved I have, And yet have not been true Even to thee, I, dreaming, night by night, seek now to see, And, in a mortal sorrow, still pursue Thro' sordid streets and lanes And houses brown and bare And many a haggard stair Ochrous with ancient stains, And infamous doors, opening on hapless rooms, In whose unhaunted glooms Dead pauper generations, witless of the sun, Their course have run; And ofttimes my pursuit Is check'd of its dear fruit By things brimful of hate, my kith and kin, Furious that I should keep Their forfeit power to weep, And mock, with living fear, their mournful malice thin. But ever, at the last, my way I win To where, with perfectly sad patience, nurst By sorry comfort of assured worst, Ingrain'd in fretted cheek and lips that pine, On pallet poor Thou lyest, stricken sick, Beyond love's cure, By all the world's neglect, but chiefly mine. Then sweetness, sweeter than my tongue can tell, Does in my bosom well, And tears come free and quick And more and more abound For piteous passion keen at having found, After exceeding ill, a little good; A little good Which, for the while, Fleets with the current sorrow of the blood, Though no good here has heart enough to smile.

X. THE TOYS.

My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, I struck him, and dismiss'd With hard words and unkiss'd, His Mother, who was patient, being dead. Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, I visited his bed, But found him slumbering deep, With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet. And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said: Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood, Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say, 'I will be sorry for their childishness.'

XI. TIRED MEMORY.

The stony rock of death's insensibility Well'd yet awhile with honey of thy love And then was dry; Nor could thy picture, nor thine empty glove, Nor all thy kind, long letters, nor the band Which really spann'd Thy body chaste and warm, Thenceforward move Upon the stony rock their wearied charm. At last, then, thou wast dead. Yet would I not despair, But wrought my daily task, and daily said Many and many a fond, unfeeling prayer, To keep my vows of faith to thee from harm. In vain. 'For 'tis,' I said, 'all one, The wilful faith, which has no joy or pain, As if 'twere none.' Then look'd I miserably round If aught of duteous love were left undone, And nothing found. But, kneeling in a Church, one Easter-Day, It came to me to say: 'Though there is no intelligible rest, In Earth or Heaven, For me, but on her breast, I yield her up, again to have her given, Or not, as, Lord, Thou wilt, and that for aye.' And the same night, in slumber lying, I, who had dream'd of thee as sad and sick and dying, And only so, nightly for all one year, Did thee, my own most Dear, Possess, In gay, celestial beauty nothing coy, And felt thy soft caress With heretofore unknown reality of joy. But, in our mortal air, None thrives for long upon the happiest dream, And fresh despair Bade me seek round afresh for some extreme Of unconceiv'd, interior sacrifice Whereof the smoke might rise To God, and 'mind him that one pray'd below. And so, In agony, I cried: 'My Lord, if thy strange will be this, That I should crucify my heart, Because my love has also been my pride, I do submit, if I saw how, to bliss Wherein She has no part.' And I was heard, And taken at my own remorseless word. O, my most Dear, Was't treason, as I fear? 'Twere that, and worse, to plead thy veiled mind, Kissing thy babes, and murmuring in mine ear, 'Thou canst not be Faithful to God, and faithless unto me!' Ah, prophet kind! I heard, all dumb and blind With tears of protest; and I cannot see But faith was broken. Yet, as I have said, My heart was dead, Dead of devotion and tired memory, When a strange grace of thee In a fair stranger, as I take it, bred To her some tender heed, Most innocent Of purpose therewith blent, And pure of faith, I think, to thee; yet such That the pale reflex of an alien love, So vaguely, sadly shown, Did her heart touch Above All that, till then, had woo'd her for its own. And so the fear, which is love's chilly dawn, Flush'd faintly upon lids that droop'd like thine, And made me weak, By thy delusive likeness doubly drawn, And Nature's long suspended breath of flame Persuading soft, and whispering Duty's name, Awhile to smile and speak With this thy Sister sweet, and therefore mine; Thy Sister sweet, Who bade the wheels to stir Of sensitive delight in the poor brain, Dead of devotion and tired memory, So that I lived again, And, strange to aver, With no relapse into the void inane, For thee; But (treason was't?) for thee and also her.

XII. MAGNA EST VERITAS.

Here, in this little Bay, Full of tumultuous life and great repose, Where, twice a day, The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes, Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town, I sit me down. For want of me the world's course will not fail: When all its work is done, the lie shall rot; The truth is great, and shall prevail, When none cares whether it prevail or not.

XIII. 1867. {29}

In the year of the great crime, When the false English Nobles and their Jew, By God demented, slew The Trust they stood twice pledged to keep from wrong, One said, Take up thy Song, That breathes the mild and almost mythic time Of England's prime! But I, Ah, me, The freedom of the few That, in our free Land, were indeed the free, Can song renew? Ill singing 'tis with blotting prison-bars, How high soe'er, betwixt us and the stars; Ill singing 'tis when there are none to hear; And days are near When England shall forget The fading glow which, for a little while, Illumes her yet, The lovely smile That grows so faint and wan, Her people shouting in her dying ear, Are not two daws worth two of any swan! Ye outlaw'd Best, who yet are bright With the sunken light, Whose common style Is Virtue at her gracious ease, The flower of olden sanctities, Ye haply trust, by love's benignant guile, To lure the dark and selfish brood To their own hated good; Ye haply dream Your lives shall still their charmful sway sustain, Unstifled by the fever'd steam That rises from the plain. Know, 'twas the force of function high, In corporate exercise, and public awe Of Nature's, Heaven's, and England's Law That Best, though mix'd with Bad, should reign, Which kept you in your sky! But, when the sordid Trader caught The loose-held sceptre from your hands distraught, And soon, to the Mechanic vain, Sold the proud toy for nought, Your charm was broke, your task was sped, Your beauty, with your honour, dead, And though you still are dreaming sweet Of being even now not less Than Gods and Goddesses, ye shall not long so cheat Your hearts of their due heaviness. Go, get you for your evil watching shriven! Leave to your lawful Master's itching hands Your unking'd lands, But keep, at least, the dignity Of deigning not, for his smooth use, to be, Voteless, the voted delegates Of his strange interests, loves and hates. In sackcloth, or in private strife With private ill, ye may please Heaven, And soothe the coming pangs of sinking life; And prayer perchance may win A term to God's indignant mood And the orgies of the multitude, Which now begin; But do not hope to wave the silken rag Of your unsanction'd flag, And so to guide The great ship, helmless on the swelling tide Of that presumptuous Sea, Unlit by sun or moon, yet inly bright With lights innumerable that give no light, Flames of corrupted will and scorn of right, Rejoicing to be free. And, now, because the dark comes on apace When none can work for fear, And Liberty in every Land lies slain, And the two Tyrannies unchallenged reign, And heavy prophecies, suspended long At supplication of the righteous few, And so discredited, to fulfilment throng, Restrain'd no more by faithful prayer or tear, And the dread baptism of blood seems near That brings to the humbled Earth the Time of Grace, Breathless be song, And let Christ's own look through The darkness, suddenly increased, To the gray secret lingering in the East.

XIV. 'IF I WERE DEAD.'

'If I were dead, you'd sometimes say, Poor Child!' The dear lips quiver'd as they spake, And the tears brake From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. Poor Child, poor Child! I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. It is not true that Love will do no wrong. Poor Child! And did you think, when you so cried and smiled, How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake, And of those words your full avengers make? Poor Child, poor Child! And now, unless it be That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee, O God, have Thou no mercy upon me! Poor Child!

XV. PEACE.

O England, how hast thou forgot, In dullard care for undisturb'd increase Of gold, which profits not, The gain which once thou knew'st was for thy peace! Honour is peace, the peace which does accord Alone with God's glad word: 'My peace I send you, and I send a sword.' O England, how hast thou forgot, How fear'st the things which make for joy, not fear, Confronted near. Hard days? 'Tis what the pamper'd seek to buy With their most willing gold in weary lands. Loss and pain risk'd? What sport but understands These for incitements! Suddenly to die, With conscience a blurr'd scroll? The sunshine dreaming upon Salmon's height Is not so sweet and white As the most heretofore sin-spotted soul That darts to its delight Straight from the absolution of a faithful fight. Myriads of homes unloosen'd of home's bond, And fill'd with helpless babes and harmless women fond? Let those whose pleasant chance Took them, like me, among the German towns, After the war that pluck'd the fangs from France, With me pronounce Whether the frequent black, which then array'd Child, wife, and maid, Did most to magnify the sombreness of grief, Or add the beauty of a staid relief And freshening foil To cheerful-hearted Honour's ready smile! Beneath the heroic sun Is there then none Whose sinewy wings by choice do fly In the fine mountain-air of public obloquy, To tell the sleepy mongers of false ease That war's the ordained way of all alive, And therein with goodwill to dare and thrive Is profit and heart's peace? But in his heart the fool now saith: 'The thoughts of Heaven were past all finding out, Indeed, if it should rain Intolerable woes upon our Land again, After so long a drought!' 'Will a kind Providence our vessel whelm, With such a pious Pilot at the helm?' 'Or let the throats be cut of pretty sheep That care for nought but pasture rich and deep?' 'Were 't Evangelical of God to deal so foul a blow At people who hate Turks and Papists so?' 'What, make or keep A tax for ship and gun, When 'tis full three to one Yon bully but intends To beat our friends?' 'Let's put aside Our costly pride. Our appetite's not gone Because we've learn'd to doff Our caps, where we were used to keep them on.' 'If times get worse, We've money in our purse, And Patriots that know how, let who will scoff, To buy our perils off. Yea, blessed in our midst Art thou who lately didst, So cheap, The old bargain of the Saxon with the Dane.' {35} Thus in his heart the fool now saith; And, lo, our trusted leaders trust fool's luck, Which, like the whale's 'mazed chine, When they thereon were mulling of their wine, Will some day duck. Remnant of Honour, brooding in the dark Over your bitter cark, Staring, as Rispah stared, astonied seven days, Upon the corpses of so many sons, Who loved her once, Dead in the dim and lion-haunted ways, Who could have dreamt That times should come like these! Prophets, indeed, taught lies when we were young, And people loved to have it so; For they teach well who teach their scholars' tongue! But that the foolish both should gaze, With feeble, fascinated face, Upon the wan crest of the coming woe, The billow of earthquake underneath the seas, And sit at ease, Or stand agape, Without so much as stepping back to 'scape, Mumbling, 'Perchance we perish if we stay: 'Tis certain wear of shoes to stir away!' Who could have dreamt That times should come like these! Remnant of Honour, tongue-tied with contempt, Consider; you are strong yet, if you please. A hundred just men up, and arm'd but with a frown, May hoot a hundred thousand false loons down, Or drive them any way like geese. But to sit silent now is to suborn The common villainy you scorn. In the dark hour When phrases are in power, And nought's to choose between The thing which is not and which is not seen, One fool, with lusty lungs, Does what a hundred wise, who hate and hold their tongues, Shall ne'er undo. In such an hour, When eager hands are fetter'd and too few, And hearts alone have leave to bleed, Speak; for a good word then is a good deed.

XVI. A FAREWELL.

With all my will, but much against my heart, We two now part. My Very Dear, Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear. It needs no art, With faint, averted feet And many a tear, In our opposed paths to persevere. Go thou to East, I West. We will not say There's any hope, it is so far away. But, O, my Best, When the one darling of our widowhead, The nursling Grief, Is dead, And no dews blur our eyes To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies, Perchance we may, Where now this night is day, And even through faith of still averted feet, Making full circle of our banishment, Amazed meet; The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet Seasoning the termless feast of our content With tears of recognition never dry.

XVII. 1880-85.

Stand by, Ye Wise, by whom Heav'n rules! Your kingly hands suit not the hangman's tools. When God has doom'd a glorious Past to die, Are there no knaves and fools? For ages yet to come your kind shall count for nought. Smoke of the strife of other Powers Than ours, And tongues inscrutable with fury fraught 'Wilder the sky, Till the far good which none can guess be wrought. Stand by! Since tears are vain, here let us rest and laugh, But not too loudly; for the brave time's come, When Best may not blaspheme the Bigger Half, And freedom for our sort means freedom to be dumb. Lo, how the dross and draff Jeer up at us, and shout, 'The Day is ours, the Night is theirs!' And urge their rout Where the wild dawn of rising Tartarus flares. Yon strives their Leader, lusting to be seen. His leprosy's so perfect that men call him clean! Listen the long, sincere, and liberal bray Of the earnest Puller at another's hay 'Gainst aught that dares to tug the other way, Quite void of fears With all that noise of ruin round his ears! Yonder the people cast their caps o'erhead, And swear the threaten'd doom is ne'er to dread That's come, though not yet past. All front the horror and are none aghast; Brag of their full-blown rights and liberties, Nor once surmise When each man gets his due the Nation dies; Nay, still shout 'Progress!' as if seven plagues Should take the laggard who would stretch his legs. Forward! glad rush of Gergesenian swine; You've gain'd the hill-top, but there's yet the brine. Forward! to meet the welcome of the waves That mount to 'whelm the freedom which enslaves. Forward! bad corpses turn into good dung, To feed strange futures beautiful and young. Forward! God speed ye down the damn'd decline, And grant ye the Fool's true good, in abject ruin's gulf As the Wise see him so to see himself! Ah, Land once mine, That seem'd to me too sweetly wise, Too sternly fair for aught that dies, Past is thy proud and pleasant state, That recent date When, strong and single, in thy sovereign heart, The thrones of thinking, hearing, sight, The cunning hand, the knotted thew Of lesser powers that heave and hew, And each the smallest beneficial part, And merest pore of breathing, beat, Full and complete, The great pulse of thy generous might, Equal in inequality, That soul of joy in low and high; When not a churl but felt the Giant's heat, Albeit he simply call'd it his, Flush in his common labour with delight, And not a village-Maiden's kiss But was for this More sweet, And not a sorrow but did lightlier sigh, And for its private self less greet, The whilst that other so majestic self stood by! Integrity so vast could well afford To wear in working many a stain, To pillory the cobbler vain And license madness in a lord. On that were all men well agreed; And, if they did a thing, Their strength was with them in their deed, And from amongst them came the shout of a king! But, once let traitor coward meet, Not Heaven itself can keep its feet. Come knave who said to dastard, 'Lo, The Deluge!' which but needed 'No!' For all the Atlantic's threatening roar, If men would bravely understand, Is softly check'd for evermore By a firm bar of sand. But, dastard listening knave, who said, ''Twere juster were the Giant dead, That so yon bawlers may not miss To vote their own pot-belly'd bliss,' All that is past! We saw the slaying, and were not aghast. But ne'er a sun, on village Groom and Bride, Albeit they guess not how it is, At Easter or at Whitsuntide, But shines less gay for this!

XVIII. THE TWO DESERTS.

Not greatly moved with awe am I To learn that we may spy Five thousand firmaments beyond our own. The best that's known Of the heavenly bodies does them credit small. View'd close, the Moon's fair ball Is of ill objects worst, A corpse in Night's highway, naked, fire-scarr'd, accurst; And now they tell That the Sun is plainly seen to boil and burst Too horribly for hell. So, judging from these two, As we must do, The Universe, outside our living Earth, Was all conceiv'd in the Creator's mirth, Forecasting at the time Man's spirit deep, To make dirt cheap. Put by the Telescope! Better without it man may see, Stretch'd awful in the hush'd midnight, The ghost of his eternity. Give me the nobler glass that swells to the eye The things which near us lie, Till Science rapturously hails, In the minutest water-drop, A torment of innumerable tails. These at the least do live. But rather give A mind not much to pry Beyond our royal-fair estate Betwixt these deserts blank of small and great. Wonder and beauty our own courtiers are, Pressing to catch our gaze, And out of obvious ways Ne'er wandering far.

XIX. CREST AND GULF.

Much woe that man befalls Who does not run when sent, nor come when Heaven calls; But whether he serve God, or his own whim, Not matters, in the end, to any one but him; And he as soon Shall map the other side of the Moon, As trace what his own deed, In the next chop of the chance gale, shall breed. This he may know: His good or evil seed Is like to grow, For its first harvest, quite to contraries: The father wise Has still the hare-brain'd brood; 'Gainst evil, ill example better works than good; The poet, fanning his mild flight At a most keen and arduous height, Unveils the tender heavens to horny human eyes Amidst ingenious blasphemies. Wouldst raise the poor, in Capuan luxury sunk? The Nation lives but whilst its Lords are drunk! Or spread Heav'n's partial gifts o'er all, like dew? The Many's weedy growth withers the gracious Few! Strange opposites, from those, again, shall rise. Join, then, if thee it please, the bitter jest Of mankind's progress; all its spectral race Mere impotence of rest, The heaving vain of life which cannot cease from self, Crest altering still to gulf And gulf to crest In endless chace, That leaves the tossing water anchor'd in its place! Ah, well does he who does but stand aside, Sans hope or fear, And marks the crest and gulf in station sink and rear, And prophesies 'gainst trust in such a tide: For he sometimes is prophet, heavenly taught, Whose message is that he sees only nought. Nathless, discern'd may be, By listeners at the doors of destiny, The fly-wheel swift and still Of God's incessant will, Mighty to keep in bound, tho' powerless to quell, The amorous and vehement drift of man's herd to hell.

XX. 'LET BE!'

Ah, yes; we tell the good and evil trees By fruits: But how tell these? Who does not know That good and ill Are done in secret still, And that which shews is verily but show! How high of heart is one, and one how sweet of mood: But not all height is holiness, Nor every sweetness good; And grace will sometimes lurk where who could guess? The Critic of his kind, Dealing to each his share, With easy humour, hard to bear, May not impossibly have in him shrined, As in a gossamer globe or thickly padded pod, Some small seed dear to God. Haply yon wretch, so famous for his falls, Got them beneath the Devil-defended walls Of some high Virtue he had vow'd to win; And that which you and I Call his besetting sin Is but the fume of his peculiar fire Of inmost contrary desire, And means wild willingness for her to die, Dash'd with despondence of her favour sweet; He fiercer fighting, in his worst defeat, Than I or you, That only courteous greet Where he does hotly woo, Did ever fight, in our best victory. Another is mistook Through his deceitful likeness to his look! Let be, let be: Why should I clear myself, why answer thou for me? That shaft of slander shot Miss'd only the right blot. I see the shame They cannot see: 'Tis very just they blame The thing that's not.

XXI. 'FAINT YET PURSUING.'

Heroic Good, target for which the young Dream in their dreams that every bow is strung, And, missing, sigh Unfruitful, or as disbelievers die, Thee having miss'd, I will not so revolt, But lowlier shoot my bolt, And lowlier still, if still I may not reach, And my proud stomach teach That less than highest is good, and may be high. An even walk in life's uneven way, Though to have dreamt of flight and not to fly Be strange and sad, Is not a boon that's given to all who pray. If this I had I'd envy none! Nay, trod I straight for one Year, month or week, Should Heaven withdraw, and Satan me amerce Of power and joy, still would I seek Another victory with a like reverse; Because the good of victory does not die, As dies the failure's curse, And what we have to gain Is, not one battle, but a weary life's campaign. Yet meaner lot being sent Should more than me content; Yea, if I lie Among vile shards, though born for silver wings, In the strong flight and feathers gold Of whatsoever heavenward mounts and sings I must by admiration so comply That there I should my own delight behold. Yea, though I sin each day times seven, And dare not lift the fearfullest eyes to Heaven, Thanks must I give Because that seven times are not eight or nine, And that my darkness is all mine, And that I live Within this oak-shade one more minute even, Hearing the winds their Maker magnify.

XXII. VICTORY IN DEFEAT.

Ah, God, alas, How soon it came to pass The sweetness melted from thy barbed hook Which I so simply took; And I lay bleeding on the bitter land, Afraid to stir against thy least command, But losing all my pleasant life-blood, whence Force should have been heart's frailty to withstand. Life is not life at all without delight, Nor has it any might; And better than the insentient heart and brain Is sharpest pain; And better for the moment seems it to rebel, If the great Master, from his lifted seat, Ne'er whispers to the wearied servant 'Well!' Yet what returns of love did I endure, When to be pardon'd seem'd almost more sweet Than aye to have been pure! But day still faded to disastrous night, And thicker darkness changed to feebler light, Until forgiveness, without stint renew'd, Was now no more with loving tears imbued, Vowing no more offence. Not less to thine Unfaithful didst thou cry, 'Come back, poor Child; be all as 'twas before.' But I, 'No, no; I will not promise any more! Yet, when I feel my hour is come to die, And so I am secured of continence, Then may I say, though haply then in vain, "My only, only Love, O, take me back again!"' Thereafter didst thou smite So hard that, for a space, Uplifted seem'd Heav'n's everlasting door, And I indeed the darling of thy grace. But, in some dozen changes of the moon, A bitter mockery seem'd thy bitter boon. The broken pinion was no longer sore. Again, indeed, I woke Under so dread a stroke That all the strength it left within my heart Was just to ache and turn, and then to turn and ache, And some weak sign of war unceasingly to make. And here I lie, With no one near to mark, Thrusting Hell's phantoms feebly in the dark, And still at point more utterly to die. O God, how long! Put forth indeed thy powerful right hand, While time is yet, Or never shall I see the blissful land! Thus I: then God, in pleasant speech and strong, (Which soon I shall forget): 'The man who, though his fights be all defeats, Still fights, Enters at last The heavenly Jerusalem's rejoicing streets With glory more, and more triumphant rites Than always-conquering Joshua's, when his blast The frighted walls of Jericho down cast; And, lo, the glad surprise Of peace beyond surmise, More than in common Saints, for ever in his eyes.'

XXIII. REMEMBERED GRACE.

Since succour to the feeblest of the wise Is charge of nobler weight Than the security Of many and many a foolish soul's estate, This I affirm, Though fools will fools more confidently be: Whom God does once with heart to heart befriend, He does so till the end: And having planted life's miraculous germ, One sweet pulsation of responsive love, He sets him sheer above, Not sin and bitter shame And wreck of fame, But Hell's insidious and more black attempt, The envy, malice, and pride, Which men who share so easily condone That few ev'n list such ills as these to hide. From these unalterably exempt, Through the remember'd grace Of that divine embrace, Of his sad errors none, Though gross to blame, Shall cast him lower than the cleansing flame, Nor make him quite depart From the small flock named 'after God's own heart,' And to themselves unknown. Nor can he quail In faith, nor flush nor pale When all the other idiot people spell How this or that new Prophet's word belies Their last high oracle; But constantly his soul Points to its pole Ev'n as the needle points, and knows not why; And, under the ever-changing clouds of doubt, When others cry, 'The stars, if stars there were, Are quench'd and out!' To him, uplooking t'ward the hills for aid, Appear, at need display'd, Gaps in the low-hung gloom, and, bright in air, Orion or the Bear.

XXIV. VESICA PISCIS.

In strenuous hope I wrought, And hope seem'd still betray'd; Lastly I said, 'I have labour'd through the Night, nor yet Have taken aught; But at Thy word I will again cast forth the net!' And, lo, I caught (Oh, quite unlike and quite beyond my thought,) Not the quick, shining harvest of the Sea, For food, my wish, But Thee! Then, hiding even in me, As hid was Simon's coin within the fish, Thou sigh'd'st, with joy, 'Be dumb, Or speak but of forgotten things to far-off times to come.'